They knew. They had to know.

B'Elanna Torres rode the turbolift down to Engineering, ignoring the crowd of people pressed in around her. Not one of them spoke a word, but they were all judging her, she was sure of it. Gossip traveled like wildfire on this ship, a preventative against mind-numbing boredom. They had to know what she had done. How sometime over the past four years, her intense hatred for a certain cocky helmsman had ebbed into a grudging friendship, and then into something quite different. And how last night, in her quarters, she and Tom had done something that she had sworn, in a million years, she would never do on this ship. Especially not with him. She could practically feel her former self, the one who despised Tom Paris with unusual venom, standing at her shoulder and sputtering in apoplexy. She could only imagine what Chakotay would say when he found out.


"Tom Paris?! B'Elanna, have you lost your mind?"

Well, there was the answer to that question, then.

"He's a good guy." She said defensively, hoping to avoid the question of her sanity for the time being. "We've developed a real respect for each other and from there it just….bloomed." Chakotay eyed her carefully and she knew he was wondering whether he should order her to submit to a medical exam or not.

"Look, Chakotay." She began, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot and suddenly wishing she was back in Engineering. At least the engines were remotely predictable. "I know this may seem…strange to you. I'm still getting used to it myself. But I'd prefer if, as a friend, you didn't question my judgment on this matter. I know what I'm getting myself into." Do you? Her inner voice sneered at her and she resisted the urge to whirl around and punch a bulkhead.

"Alright then." He was still staring at her with the intensity of a phaser beam. "Just be careful. I'd hate to lose you to something as petty as relationship troubles."

"Don't worry, Chakotay. I know what I'm doing." I hope, she added mentally.


Her doubts were erased later in the day, when she was working at her console in Engineering and a pair of muscular arms, tanned from laboring in a New Zealand prison, encircled her waist.

"Hey beautiful." He whispered, his breath hot in her ear. She allowed him to pull her gently from her station and back her into a corner, where he proceeded to touch her in all the right places and kiss her ever so softly; just the way she liked it.

And in that moment, as she twisted her body around him and he twined his body around hers, she knew that this was without a doubt, absolutely right. This moment was him, and this moment was hers, and this moment was absolutely, perfectly, theirs.