A/N: I wrote this when I was REALLY angry at something I can't even remember now. I can't remember what episode it attaches itself with but I was interested in what was happening inside Janeway's head when she got really mad at B'Elanna and Tom for dating 'indiscreetly'.
Disclaimer: If I owned it, they all would have had a much happier ending ^_^
They were shocked at the venom I threw at them, and in their position I would be surprised as well. Now that we know of the experiments that the aliens were performing, they believe that my anger has subsided. I am willing to let Tom and B'Elanna believe this, although it is so far from the truth it is almost laughable.
Almost.
Because the truth is that every time I see them catch each other's eye across the table, every time I hear a snatched conversation in the halls about them, every time I look at him, I want to scream and shout and throw things at the walls. I want to throw things at anyone that I can hurt because I want someone, anyone, on this damned ship to feel how I feel. But I press it down and smile because that's what the captain is supposed to do.
What the captain is supposed to do.
I can't believe that Starfleet can be so cruel as to think that this is a healthy way for its officers to live. Not even all officers, at that. Tom and B'Elanna are quite within their rights to have a personal relationship on board this ship and no one, not here or back home, would bat an eyelid. I felt like an old woman chastising naughty teenagers the first time I cautioned them and I had to remind myself that I am, at most, perhaps ten years older than the both of them. Thanks to the pips on my collar, I am not allowed to have what they have. Starfleet does not think I, who has been promoted thanks to sheer hard work and loyalty, have it within me to keep my work and personal life separate enough for one to not affect the other. It's just not fair. I thought that I had experienced jealousy before but I didn't think that such a scoffed at emotion could force me to my knees out of sheer frustration. They have no idea what they are doing to me. I hope they never find out.
Someone knows though, because he can tell what I'm thinking. He knows because he has his own little ball of pain nestling in his stomach, eating away at him. I catch him looking at me sometimes and the fixed smile on his face scares me. His eyes are almost unbearable because he doesn't understand. He sees B'Elanna and Tom and he can't understand why we can't have that too. I don't know how to tell him. I don't even know why I would tell him – all I do know is that Starfleet, and everything I have ever worked to be, is suffocating me, so slowly that I didn't even realise for a long time. Sometimes, when he watches me, he's the one that I want to hurt more than anything because a part of me thinks it would make life easier. If I could really hurt him, maybe I wouldn't ache so much. Maybe I would be free.
He'dcome back though. I know he would. He would never leave me alone for long. He just doesn't understand what he does to me.
I'm too exhausted to cry and I've run out of ways to take my mind off things. The snake in the pit of my stomach grows stronger everyday and I don't when it will bite, who it will bite, why it will bite.
God help me when it does.