A/N: This fic was written for the Friendship Exchange in Summer 2017. I had the pleasure of writing for an actual friend, so this is for you Miss_Mil.

She didn't ask for much, just that the characters be placed in a situation that made them a teensy-bit uncomfortable and that they would discuss things that normally wouldn't come up. She also said J/C was ok.

A hundred thank-you's to my wonderful beta MiaCooper and also to Carlynoth for letting me bounce ideas. Love you girls.

Set in Mid/Late-season 5. Post- K. Beyer's 'Isabo's Shirt'. Post-Extreme Measures.

Day 1

B'Elanna

Hot.

I'm hot.

And….I'm moving. The ground, I'm looking at the ground. It's dirt red. No, it's red sand.

I'm…. slung over someone's shoulder?

Adrenaline surges through my veins.

"What the hell!" I shout, but my words are hoarse. "Put me down!"

"Easy," comes a rough, masculine voice. I feel us stop moving and my captor is doing as I asked. My feet touch the ground and I don't waste any time in swinging a right hook at whoever…

"Chakotay?" his face takes me by surprise as he adeptly ducks away from my fist.

He's got both hands in the air now, surrendering. "Easy, killer," he says. And the slight smile on his face is telling me that I am, in fact, safe.

And now, my knees are buckling.

"Woah," he says. I feel his strong arms catch me under my own.

The bright red horizon spins into view. "Where the hell are we?" I ask, gaining my bearings. My hands run instinctively over my forehead ridges then through my hair. I seem to be all in one piece. Fine, red sand kicks up at us in the hot wind.

"I'm not sure, but we can't stay here," he says. I notice that he's eyeing me pretty closely.

"We were in the shuttle, and we –"

"Took heavy damage from an ion storm in the upper stratosphere. You were knocked unconscious and I had to transport us down before the core breached."

"So, you wrecked another shuttle."

"Glad to see you're feeling fine," he says with a slight groan. "Come on, let's keep moving."

My feet are slogging through the deep sand. They feel like lead, but after a few paces I start to really regain my faculties and hit my stride. "Where are we headed exactly?"

Fishing around the zipper of the backpack on his shoulders, Chakotay hands me a tricorder. "Toward food and water, hopefully. I only had time to grab one backpack. The water won't last us long in this heat."

I work the device; it's so bright out here I can barely make out the readings. "There are life signs this way," I realize.

"Yes, reptilian," he says, confirming what I'm coming to observe on my own. "I figure there has to be something for them to drink and eat."

"Hopefully it won't be us," I retort.

"Let's make sure of that, shall we?" I see him pat the phaser hooked on his belt which hangs next to a small knife. "At the very least, we can eat them."

I close the tricorder and fall into step beside him. His strides are longer than mine, and he's obviously feeling better than I am, but I'm keeping up come hell or high water. "You know, when I woke up this morning I thought, 'Gee, it might be nice to have a lizard for dinner.'"

I hear Chakotay's laugh and with it, I feel just a little better as he smacks me on the shoulder. "That's the spirit."

Chakotay

The closer we get to the caves, the more signs of life we are beginning to see. Small tracks in the sand, which is now closer to the consistency of dirt, all have a line through the center suggestive of an animal dragging its tail. So far I haven't seen anything to indicate a life form larger than the size of a gecko or perhaps a small iguana. I can't imagine that in this desert environment anything would grow large enough to be a threat.

We started to come across small rock formations about fifteen minutes ago. In the distance I can see our destination. Large outcroppings will make for good cover from the sun, and if my readings are correct there may even be a cave or two. And not a moment too soon either; B'Elanna and I are starting to struggle with the heat. Another welcome sign is the growth of some scrub grass and small, briar-covered bushes. Plant life means water, and water means we will likely be okay.

"Look," B'Elanna hisses and she smacks me on the arm. She's pointing at a large rock up ahead. "I just saw something move."

I open the tricorder once again and confirm her visual. "It's a small lizard," I say. Then, sweeping the instrument around I take note of at least a dozen more.

"There's water up ahead too," I notice on the display. "But it's likely salt water out here."

"We can make fresh from it," B'Elanna reminds as we slog forward. Sweat is dripping down my brow now, I can feel the skin on the back of my neck beginning to burn.

"It must be high noon," I hear her say, and I agree with a nod of the head. This heat is making me feel a bit dizzy.

B'Elanna takes up the charge and walks a few paces in front of me now, she's navigating the rocks which are placed closer together. About another hundred meters and we'll start to have some cover. Another two-hundred and it looks like we will have a few caves to choose from as I'd hoped.

Three paces ahead, I see her look up at the sky. She's not watching where she's going and she trips. As she does so, my body jolts. Not as if to catch her, but as if I'm the one who is about to fall.

"Shit," she exclaims.

I shake off the odd sensation and regain my footing as she does the same.

"There are lots of lizards around here B'Elanna," I say, as I see another few dart behind the rocks at our incursion into their territory. "I hope you're hungry."

I hear her snort. 'Bite me.'

"What?"

"I didn't say anything."

We're in the thick of the outcropping now. She asked me for the phaser a while ago and she's walking ahead of me with it pointed forward. "I'm not reading anything threatening," I say.

"Better safe than sorry," she reminds, and she's right. Damned places like these always have something ready to jump out at you. And at that instant, a larger animal does dart out in front of me. With adrenaline already heightened, I'm startled a bit and weave to the side.

"What the hell!" B'Elanna barks. "Did you just push me?"

We both stop. "No, but I saw you stumble. Did you trip again?"

She shakes her head.

A sudden wave of dizziness comes over me. "I'm feeling kind of…"

"Woozy?" she finishes.

"Yes."

"Maybe it would be a good time to break open one of those waters."

I have to agree. We rest against the shady side of a large boulder which is a welcome reprieve from both the sun and the wind. I hand her a foil pouch.

She shakes her head, "You go ahead first," she says.

"B'Elanna, drink. Don't make me order you."

With that, the debate is over. She's carefully gulping down her half of the pouch and says, 'God, my throat was dry. Oooh, that's sooooo good.'

And then I realize. She can't talk and drink at the same time.

I eye her curiously. "Did you just say that your throat was dry and the water is good?"

Her eyes grow wide. "No, but I thought it."

"B'Elanna something strange is going on here."

She nods her head. "I've been thinking that too."

"Are you…."

"In my head," she finishes. "That's what you were going to say."

I nod. "Yes, but you could have predicted that."

"What am I thinking now?" she asks me. And it doesn't take me long to hear, no, to perceive her words in my own mind. As I do, I realize also, and oddly so, that she's not as hot as I am.

"You're counting up from one, slowly," I respond.

She nods.

"How about me?" I ask. Then I think hard about only one thing.

"Alphabet. You're singing the alphabet song."

"You can hear the tune?"

"Yes," she confirms. "Does it work with more than just words?"

I shrug. And then…. "OH! Stop!" I shout. "For the love of God. Dammit B'Elanna." And now I'm desperately trying to wipe a naked image of Tom Paris out of my head.

"I guess it does."

"Look, I don't know what's going on here, or what's causing this, but we need to get to some shelter before we lose each other's minds. Agreed?"

'Agreed,' she thinks. I think.

'Fuck it, I'm walking.'

"Watch your language," she chides with a sly smile.

Voyager cannot possibly find us fast enough.

B'Elanna

We've decided to settle in the second-largest cave we could find, which is about the size of my living room. It's well protected by boulders outside and isn't too far of a hike to the salt-pond we've located to the east.

As for the cave, it's not much to look at, but it will do. The ground is flat, but surprisingly soft and the walls aren't so jagged that we can't sit up against them. And the air in here is much cooler than outside.

Chakotay is rooting through the backpack, taking inventory of our supplies and trying to ignore his shoulder, which I know is aching from having carried me. I know this because I can not only see that he's massaging it, but I can feel the echo of an ache in my own shoulder, and, even more oddly, I can hear him thinking about it.

He hands me the homing beacon from the pack and I position it in a safe spot outside. Then, with the tricorder, I set about to try and determine just why we are telepathically linked and if there's anything I can do to break it.

"It's the lizards," I realize. I'd bet money on it." I slap the tricorder shut and think for a minute. Chakotay is following my line of thinking, I can feel it. He's been listening in on my deductions, but I need to hash this out-loud. Old habits die hard.

"They're creating some kind of a neurogenic field. The tricorder registers it, but can't pinpoint a single source. It's emanating from all around us and I'd bet money they're the reason. They must use it to communicate," I shake my head. "But then, why can't we hear what they're thinking?"

"Even if we could, we probably wouldn't know how to understand them."

"Good point." I lean my head back against the cool wall. "So now what?"

"Now, we wait out the mid-day sun. Then, we check out the salt-pool and hunt some dinner."

"You make it sound like a vacation." He shrugs and zips our rations back into the bag. Then he thinks something and I feel my eyes widen. "Wait, wait. You're actually happy about this, aren't you?"

"Happy about what?"

"About being stuck here."

"No! Of course not. I'd much rather be back in my quarters. Or at least in the shuttle finishing our survey," he looks down to his boots. A sure sign that he's uncomfortable, which I can already feel.

I have this sudden, overwhelming feeling of loneliness. Or is it… rejection? And then I realize….

"Oh….Chakotay…" He regards me out of the corner of his eye. "I didn't know you felt that way."

"What way?"

"Come on. I'm in your head now, remember?"

He's looking at his boots again. "It's been a while since we've spent time together B'Elanna. Of course I've missed you."

I feel terrible. "I guess I didn't realize," I say softly.

"It's okay, don't sweat it," he shrugs. "Most of your time, like mine, is spent making sure that Voyager runs smoothly. The rest of it is spent with Tom. It's not a big deal, you're in a serious relationship. You should be spending a lot of time with him. But yes," he says, looking at me again. "I've missed you. And maybe I'm just a little, tiny bit glad we're going to have this chance to be together."

I'm about to say something about how deeply I value his friendship and never intended to ignore him, but then, from the corner of my eye, I see something move. Chakotay saw it too. I motion to him and think 'give me the knife,' and he delicately retrieves it from his belt and puts it in my outstretched hand.

I wait just a moment, still my breath, and then I pounce. Coming up from behind the crevice in the wall, I have what appears to be a gecko on the end of the blade. I hold it up for him to see. I can't help but image how gamey and awful it will taste after he plucks it from the fire later.

'To spend time with you, I'll eat lizards, Chakotay. If that's not friendship, I don't know what is.'

And he laughs.

Chakotay

'I can't sleep.'

"Neither can I."

I roll myself onto my side to look at her through the firelight that dances across the cave walls. "Why not?"

"Why not? Because I'm thinking about a rock, Chakotay. That's why not."

I can't help but chuckle. "I know you're thinking about a rock. That big one, over there. You've been thinking about it for an hour now."

"Not like you're ruminating on anything more interesting. I didn't think meditation was supposed to be so much work."

I sigh. It's true. I've been meditating for decades and I've never found it this difficult before. "Probably because I'm trying to clear the thoughts of that rock you keep putting in my head," I say, half-teasing.

"Do you usually meditate to fall asleep?"

"No," I admit. "I meditate to clear my mind, then I think about other things. Do you usually pontificate about rocks?"

"I'm not usually doing much thinking before bed these days," she says with a devious smile. I brace myself for mental pictures of her and Tom doing the nasty, but she just laughs. The firelight dances across her smiling face, making her eyes sparkle. "Did you just think that I looked beautiful?" she asks softly.

"Yes, I did."

She's blushing now. I can't see it but I know it to be true.

"Don't tell Tom," I say with a wink as she rolls her eyes at me.

"What do you usually think about before bed?" she asks.

"Different things. I reflect on what's happened through the day. I try not to think too much about the work for tomorrow though. How about you? You know, if you're not otherwise occupied."

"I'm not sure. I guess I've never really paid attention before."

"What would you think about if I wasn't in your head?"

She reclines up further onto her elbows. "Probably…. How much longer until Voyager will be here to rescue us. If they'll be worried when they realize we haven't made the rendezvous tomorrow evening. What Tom is doing right now..."

"You should think about those things," I say. "Don't let me stop you."

"It's strange though, knowing you'll be kind of just eavesdropping on it all. It didn't bother me during the day as much, but now…"

"Thoughts before sleep are always more intimate," I finish.

'Yes' she thinks with a nod and a sigh.

"I'll tell you what, why don't we just agree to ignore whatever comes through the other person's mind until morning. No matter what. We won't speak of it, we won't judge. We'll just let it wash in and back out like a wave."

"I like that idea," she says. And I know she's telling the truth.

"Okay then."

"Okay."

"Good night, B'Elanna," I say.

"Good night, Chakotay."

We both recline back to our dirt beds, uniform jackets under our heads. For a while she thinks about the ceiling of the cave, and I consider the sound of shuffling reptiles outside.

Then she recalls the ceiling of her bedroom, and I, the way the stars look outside the window of my quarters.

I can tell she's still holding back, so I decide I'll make the first move.

I think about Kathryn. I wonder how she is doing, and I hope that I make it back in time to have our weekly dinner. I think about the others on Voyager too. I think about how Mike Ayala probably cleaned house at poker with Harry, Neelix, Tom and whoever else he roped into the game in my absence. I think about my sister and the letter that I received from her last week. I issue familiar prayers to the spirits to keep my father and mother close to my heart.

I'm relaxed now, it becomes more difficult to separate the things I have been focusing on and the feelings that are being projected by my friend.

Slowly, hesitantly at first, B'Elanna's thoughts drift from the safety of her simple, imagined bedroom and begin to focus on another person. She feels arms wrap around her, something simple and calming is whispered into her ear.

I hear her sigh. 'I miss you too, Tom,' she thinks.

She drifts off to sleep. And then, so do I.