Author's note: Just a silly little thing I wrote in response to a Tumblr post. Thanks, as always, to Sareki02 for her beta read!

"I'm sorry. You're going to do what?"

B'Elanna may be the one that spoke, but, aside from Neelix, they're all looking at me the same way. I'm not sure what the big deal is. It's not like I just volunteered to get assimilated by the Borg. Ha! Like anyone would do that...

"It's a great plan!" I insist. Hmm. Got a little high-pitched there. Not my most tone. But it is a great plan. We've got Dala, the fake Janeway, in our brig, but she's useless unless we can convince her to give us some intel. Neelix and I know her type - despite our earlier, completely inexcusable naïveté. (I'm still kicking myself. Orphans, for God's sake!) No way is a grifter like her going to turn over a new leaf and give us the information we need out of the kindness of her heart. We've got to con her into it.

B'Elanna's shaking her head now and I just catch her muttered, "Idiot." The captain's brow is furrowed and her lips are pursed - I suspect she's trying to figure out the fastest way to shoot us down so she can get on with the rest of her day.

Seven speaks first, though. "Ensign Paris, do you recall your behavior when you were placed in stasis on stardate 51929.3?"

Well, no, Seven. I was in stasis. I don't remember any of it. But I suppose that's not her point. "I remember what you told me, sure. But I don't know why that's relevant."

"It is relevant because a key component of your plan involves you hiding, for an hour or more, within the recessed biobed of the Delta Flyer. This seems inadvisable given you suffer from such severe claustrophobia, you subconsciously overrode the stasis chamber's neural suppressants rather than remain confined within the device. Multiple times. The Doctor

commented he had never heard of a human being so 'annoyingly resistant' to the process."

I cross my arms, then quickly uncross them. No reason to appear more defensive than I already do. Nope, I'm as cool as the proverbial cucumber. Nothing to prove here! "I never said I was claustrophobic."

"You said you dislike enclosed spaces."

"That's not the same thing at all! That's…" the textbook definition of claustrophobia, Paris. Time to change tactics. "Look, I just don't like stasis. A lot of people don't. That doesn't mean I'm claustrophobic."

If skepticism were dilithium, I'd never have to eat leola root again. Chakotay looks like he's trying to keep himself from openly laughing, Harry and B'Elanna are exchanging knowing glances, and Seven and Tuvok have matching raised eyebrows. Even Neelix looks like he's starting to have his doubts. The captain, on the other hand, looks more concerned than annoyed. "Tom, I think we all appreciate your enthusiasm for catching the imposters. But they're cunning and already suspicious. If we want to catch them at their own game, we need a foolproof plan. We can't take a risk you'll exit the biobed too soon and blow your cover." He saw the hint of a smirk touch her lips. "Your... distaste for small spaces is one of the worst kept secrets on the ship."

"Wha-" I stop, clear my throat, and focus on dropping my voice an octave. "What are you talking about? EVA suits, Class 2 shuttles, turbolifts. I'm in small spaces all the time!"

"Except," pipes up my alleged best friend Harry Kim, "there's the list that's been going around for years with all the excuses you've used to get out of entering a Jefferies tube."

Traitor. Also - there's a list? "Oh, come on. It's not that bad! I've been in Jefferies tubes plenty of times."

"Sure," Harry agrees. Thank you! Maybe he's feeling guilty for calling me out. "I can think of at least… three?" He chews his lip for a moment. "That list, though, was up to twenty-eight last time I saw it."

"Twenty-nine," Chakotay comments, while directing the rarely seen full-dimple grin at me from his spot at the captain's left. "Which reminds me - did you ever see the Doctor about your knee pain, Tom? You don't want to let something like that go for too long."

I let out a slow breath, wondering if anyone - like my partner Neelix, for instance - is going to support me here, when our esteemed Chief of Security begins to speak. Great, I'm sure he's ready to dismiss the whole idea out of hand.

"The plan you've devised is not without merit, Mr. Neelix. Ensign," Tuvok nods at each of us in turn. Well, I'll be. We've convinced the Vulcan. We just might have a shot now. "It could work, with some modifications. For example, we could easily have another crew member without your psychological limitations take your place on the Flyer, Mr. Paris."

Psychological limitations! This has gone too far. I make eye contact with Neelix and get a firm nod of support in return. He gets it. He understands why my need to nail these SOB's overrides any alleged claustrophobia I might have. "Except name another crew member that can pilot the Flyer, knows enough about holoprogramming to adjust the Doc's appearance on the fly, and can safely administer the ambizine."

Janeway, Chakotay, and Tuvok are all exchanging looks now. That always makes Harry nervous, but I know it's a good sign. It means the captain doesn't like the options she's has, but she's hard-pressed to think of a better one. She just wants to make sure the other two don't think she's nuts before she admits it. We're in.

I'm now on the receiving end of her sternest glare. Also a good sign. Lately she seems to feel bad if she has to say no to me and looks regretful when she does it. "All right, Mr. Paris. You've spoken to the Doctor already? He's on board?"

On board the ship, Captain? "Absolutely."

Her eyes narrow a millimeter. I blink back at her, all wide-eyed innocence. "You and Neelix have my permission to move forward. But," she stresses as the two of us jump to our feet, "I want you to talk to the Doctor about getting something for whatever anxiety you may or may not have about enclosed spaces. We need to take every precaution so this goes off without a hitch."

"Yes, ma'am!" I toss her my most winning smile. Time for me and Neelix to give "Sister" Dala a taste of her own medicine.

Right after I convince the Doc to pretend to be her for a few hours.

=/\=

"You need something for your claustrophobia? Like a sedative?"

Why does everyone keep calling it that? It's completely inaccurate! I just don't like stasis! And, no, the Jefferies tubes are not my favorite place. These ships are huge! Why not add a few more meters and make the tubes tall enough to stand in?

OK, anything coffin-shaped I'm not a fan of. But who is, really? It makes a person think about death and darkness, being buried. Maybe even being buried alive - like what if you were in stasis but some incompetent medic thought you were dead, and there you are, stuck in that damn tube, and they start throwing dirt over it, and you can hear it hitting the top, over and over….

Deep breath, Paris. Focus on the job at hand.

I run the Doc through the initial part of the plan, careful not to reveal my cards too soon. "So, no - not a sedative, I need to stay sharp. Just a little something to take the edge off. Like maybe a beta-blocker."

The Doc's perpetual frown deepens. "Mr. Paris, if I were to administer a beta-blocker strong enough to counter your claustrophobia, I'd need to administer a second medication to restart your heart."

Oh, come on. "That's a little bit of an exaggeration, don't you think?"

He's already turned back to his cell cultures. "Not by much. And I don't understand why you want to hide in the biobed in the first place. Even if you manage to capture Dala's ship, you still won't have the information you need to repair the damage they've done to Voyager's reputation. I can't imagine having all three of them in our brig will make them any more likely to cooperate."

A lesser man would simply ask the Doctor for help at this point, let him in on his role in our plan. That lesser man's plan would be summarily rejected. I can hear him now: Of course! Send the hologram in when it's too dangerous for the organic crew! Everyone's more concerned about Voyager's reputation more than my safety! No, thanks.

But fortunately, the Doc and I go way back - his whole life, actually - so I know there's nothing this particular hologram responds to more than a little ego-stroking.

"Wow, Doc. Good point. I can't believe no one else thought of that." I shake my head, staring down at my boots. It makes me look tragically disappointed in myself and has the added advantage of hiding my smirk. Once I regain my composure, I look up and sigh. "If only I could get onto Dala's ship. Then I could see where they were going."

"But you'd be putting yourself at a huge risk! One against three if you were to be discovered. And how would you even get transported aboard, Mr. Paris?"

I nod in agreement. "Excellent point again. We really should have talked to you first before going to the captain. Now Neelix and I will have to tell her the plan's a bust." I frown for a bit before perking up. "Wait, I have an idea. What if you were to cosmetically alter someone to look like Dala? Take her place so her partners think they have her, but it's really one of us? B'Elanna's the right height."

His brow is furrowed as he studies my expression. Shit. That line about B'Elanna was too much. Like anyone would believe B'Elanna would, or could, pretend to be Dala. She'd probably punch one of the co-conspirators in the nose before they even went to warp. I should have said the captain. Damn it! We were so close.

"It's not a bad idea, Mr. Paris."

Hang on! I've still got him! He gives me a little pat on the shoulder. It takes all my willpower to not start rubbing my hands together in anticipation.

"But you're failing to consider the difficulties of cosmetic surgery. It's one thing to make someone look like a member of another species, quite another to make them look exactly like a specific individual. And the officer would also need to exactly mimic her voice, her mannerisms. There simply isn't enough time."

Almost there, Doc. Just take it to the next step. "Gee, Doc. I didn't think of that." I force a laugh. "Too bad we don't have a changeling on board, like that security officer on DS9. Someone that could change their appearance at will."

He starts to pace around the lab, deep in thought. Atta boy. "It would be quite the challenge."

"What would?"

He ignores me, too busy coming up with the plan Neelix and I thought of an hour ago. "The appearance is easy enough, and the voice. But her speech patterns - maybe I could review some of the communications we've had…"

"Do you have an idea, Doctor?"

"Yes, Mr. Paris!" He's positively beaming. "I can be Dala! We'll download her image into my holoemitter, you'll sedate her and hold her on the Flyer, and then we can transport me over to their ship in her place!"

Now I'm shaking my head in amazement. Amazement that he fell for this hook, line, and sinker. I should reprogram him to look like a violin I just played him so hard. "Genius, Doc. I wish I could have come up with something like that."

Back to the condescending shoulder pats. "Now don't feel bad, Mr. Paris. We can't all be master strategists. You still have lots of strengths - piloting and, and… I don't know anyone that knows more about pizza than you!"

The only downside to this plan is that I don't get to gloat to his face. But I've got my eyes on a bigger prize this time. Dala's going down.

=/\=

"You're certain you'll be able to reverse the process?"

"Yup."

"And Mr. Paris knows how to adjust my emitter? There's no chance he'll break it?"

"Not a chance."

B'Elanna is doing the final uploads of the Dala facade to the Doc's emitter and favors me with a look that is half irritated and half sympathetic behind the hologram's back. She's got a low tolerance for the Doc's more supercilious subroutines, but they don't bother me. It's not like I don't give as good as I get. I'll never admit this, not even to B'Elanna, but I've actually come to enjoy my banter with him over the last few years. Hell, I don't even dread my shifts in Sickbay anymore. Not a lot, anyway.

The Doc's holding up a hypospray now. "One beta-blocker as requested, Mr. Paris. Although I'm still concerned it won't be enough. You really should have taken me up my offer to show you some relaxation techniques before we proceeded with this."

Yeah, enjoying our banter does not translate to me wanting to do deep breathing exercises with someone that doesn't need to breathe. I take the hypospray. "No worries, Doc. I'm sure I'll be fine. This whole claustrophobia thing has really been blown out of proportion."

B'Elanna and the Doc look at each other. There's certainly been a lot of that going around today. You'd think someone had found me trapped in a closet, rocking back and forth and trying to eat my own hair, the way they've all been acting. Hell, last month I got trapped, alone, in a pitch black turbolift during a power surge, and I was totally fine! Well, I was once I got the emergency light on. And the doors pried open.

Maybe I shouldn't think about that right now.

"OK, Doc - Neelix should be heading for the brig any minute now, so you should shut down." After he nods to acknowledge me, B'Elanna makes a few final taps. "See you in an hour or so," I say as he winks out of sight.

B'Elanna steps towards me and slips his emitter into my pants' pocket. "You've still got a few minutes to change your mind," she tells me, her brown eyes studying mine.

I break off the eye contact and step away from her. "Why would I want to do that?"

I don't need to see her to picture the exasperation on her face. "It's me, Tom. You might be fooling the rest of them, but I've seen it. And Tarakis hasn't helped anything."

I shrug, staring at the dark hole the biobed (and me) will be sliding into in about five minutes. "I'm good, B'Elanna. Tarakis was almost two months ago."

She closes the space between us again. "Then why won't you look at me?"

I stare back at her and roll my eyes. "I'm looking now, see?" I'm ready to be done with this, make some crack that I know will piss her off and chase her away, except now that I've looked up - underneath the impatience and annoyance, I see that she's genuinely concerned. Once again, this woman has completely disarmed me. My tone softens. "I want to do this. A lot. That and the Doc's hypospray will be enough to keep me calm for a few hours."

She's still not convinced. "But why, Tom? Why do you want to do this so badly? What's the big deal?"

"Because I'm not OK with the fact that these people completely pulled one over on me! Six years ago, I would have spotted their con a light year away. Now it's like I've gone soft. I don't like it."

She pokes me a little in the gut. "Soft's not so bad."

I try to glare at her - she knows very well that's not what I meant - but I fail completely and chuckle instead. Her smile broadens when she realizes her little joke has worked. I take her hands in mine. "I know this doesn't make a lot of sense to you, but I need to fix this. Neelix and I got us into this mess, and I want to help get us out of it. I'm not going to let some stupid irrational fear get in my way."

"Emphasis on the irrational," she says as she squeezes my hands. "It's not something you need to be ashamed of."

I raise an eyebrow at that. "Irrational fears are nothing to be ashamed of? I thought you were trying to get more in touch with your Klingon side."

She punches me in the arm - hard - and glowers at me. "Is that Klingon enough for you?" She sighs then, in a very un-Klingon fashion. "Kidding aside, no one is going to think less of you if you don't do this, Tom. And if Harry implies otherwise, I'll box his ears."

The woman is right, as usual. Probably no one will think less of me, not really. But… "I will, B'Elanna."

She opens her mouth to retort but we're interrupted by Neelix over the comm.

"Neelix to Ensign Paris. I'm on my way to the brig."

I hit my badge. "Acknowledged, Neelix. I'll be ready." I look down at B'Elanna and shrug. "No going back now. Thanks - for giving me an out. But I'll be OK. Really."

She frowns a little but then reaches up and pulls me in a for a kiss. A good one. A really good one. One that will give me something to think about for the next hour or two. "For luck," she murmurs as our lips part.

"See you tonight," I call after her as she heads toward the hatch.

"You better!" I hear just as the doors slide shut.

OK, Paris. It's go time.

It's just a biobed, I remind myself as I climb onto it. I've been in one plenty of times; more than

my fair share, the Doc and my mom and B'Elanna would probably all tell me. This is fine. It's totally fine. I press the hypospray to my neck to slow my already pounding heart. And it helps - I feel calmer, the sense of dread fades a bit as I lie down.

Of course, I haven't closed the bed yet.

I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. I look up and tap the control panel so that the bed recedes slowly into the wall. Unlike a stasis chamber, I note, there's no way to see out. Not even a sliver of light leaks into the compartment. My fingers start tapping against my thighs. I take a few more slow breaths. In and out. That's not so hard. Who needs the Doc's breathing lessons?

Me. I do. I need them. Fuck. Fuck.

This is bad. Really bad. Shit. What was I thinking? My hands are gripping the fabric of my pants now, because if they don't do that, they're going to reach out and feel the walls. Feel how close they are to my sides, to my face. How many centimeters away is the ceiling of this thing from the tip of my nose? Five? Two? One? God, less than one? I press my head hard into the mattress, trying to get whatever space I can.

My left foot extends and hits duranium. The wall's right there. God, it's right fucking there. My breath rattles, echoing in this fucking awful chamber of death.

Out. I have to get out. I can't do this. Everyone was right. Stupid. Stupid. I have to get out right now. My hands start scrabbling around, feeling for the release. It's supposed to be right here, just left of my waist. I can't find it. God, I'm never going to find it. I choke back a sob. Stay calm, Paris. You won't find it if you don't calm the hell down. I try those deep breaths again but all I can manage is a shallow pant. Where the fuck is the release?

A sudden shift distracts me from my search. Dala. Dala's in the Flyer and she's exiting the shuttle bay. It won't be that long, I tell myself, if I can just hang in for a little while she'll join up with her buddies, we'll replace her with the Doc, and I won't have fucked everything up. Again.

No. No. No. There's no fucking air in here and I can't breathe and I can just hide in the aft section. Maybe she won't notice me. She probably won't notice me. Oh God, it doesn't matter if she notices me or not because I can't fucking do this anymore.

I re-start my search for the release button and feel something fall out of my pocket. Doc's emitter. I close my hand around it, thankful to feel something other than the fucking walls that are everywhere. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't alone in this shitty death trap, if there was someone in here with me, even just a voice, that could talk me down.

But I'm not alone, actually, I realize. The Doc's here. If I felt like it, I could activate him anytime I want to. He's a hologram, it's not like he'd actually use up any of the air. And then, as I picture the look of utter indignation that would appear on his face the millisecond he realizes I've made him materialize inside the compartment squashed next to me like a sardine, something eases inside and I let out the whisper of a laugh.

That tiny bit of relief is enough to remind me that, in order see that aggrieved holographic mien, I'd need a light. Like the small emergency palm light I slipped in my other pocket before I boarded the Flyer. A light that will make it very easy to see the release button.

I dig my right hand into my pocket and fish out the palm light. I pause for a moment before powering it on. Once there's light, I'll know for sure how close the walls are. But I'll also be able to see the release and I'll be able to get out with just the tap of a button.

I take a breath, then thumb on the light.

My eyes immediately flick to the release, reassuring myself that it's there, right where it was supposed to be, only a centimeter or two from where my hand last landed. My finger hovers over the button, ready to press it.

I take another breath.

The smooth, grey walls of the biobed chamber are visible now, of course - with its dormant regeneration fields and monitors. They're close, no question. But it's not as bad as I had pictured in my head. I've got a dozen centimeters or more on most sides, probably. I rub the fingers of my hand together, still not touching the release.

Another breath.

My eye catches on something stuck to the ceiling just above my forehead. It's a little piece of paper, folded in half. I move my hand away from the release button and pluck it from the ceiling. When I unfold it, I see only four words.

You can do this.

B'Elanna. She laughs at me, when I leave her paper notes. Asks what I'm even doing in the twenty-fourth century. I smile when I remember the kiss she planted on me for good luck, which is probably just what she intended. I close my eyes and think on that for a while, relive the feel of her lips on mine - a small part of my consciousness noticing how my heart rate slows. It's just getting to the point where I'm feeling a tightness that isn't related to my cramped confines (and I decide maybe it's time to turn my thoughts away from B'Elanna. God only knows what sort of commentary the Doc would have if he saw that.) when I feel the lurch of an unskilled hand dropping the Flyer out warp.

Have I mentioned Dala's a shitty pilot? My poor baby.

Wait. She's just dropped out of warp. That means we're here! We've caught up with her ship! It's time to get out of this stupid biobed! I did it! Ha! Fuck you, claustrophobia! I knew I could beat you!

I decide I'm not going to mention to anyone how I nearly piss myself when I hit the release and it takes a solid five seconds for the bed to respond. That can be my little secret.

I take a deep breath as the bed slides out of the compartment. A few taps lets me eavesdrop on Dala's plotting with her compatriots on the other ship. I activate the Doc.

"Ready?" I ask him.

I love it when a plan comes together.

The End