Subtleties

A/N: This is set during the season 5 episode "Course: Oblivion" and focuses on Tom's last moments as his condition deteriorates.

Thanks to Uroboros75 for the beta work :)

Music: The Longships – Enya

Disclaimer: If I really owned any of this then I wouldn't be sitting here writing fanfiction, now would I?

He swallows once, trying to rid his mouth of the vile metallic taste, but it doesn't help. He figures as much; he's being reduced to a pool of goddamn bio-mimetic fluid and he can taste the shit on his tongue. It's like the taste of death is drifting over his senses, casting a morose fog onto an already grim scenario.

It makes him hate the state of things even more.

It began as a slow tear; B'Elanna, shivering and shaking on the floor of their quarters. He remembers the touch of her skin beneath his palms, cold and smooth like metal. It drove a spike of fear through his being as he threw her jacket over her trembling shoulders (which she accepted without question, her fiery Klingon passion subdued by whatever had been wreaking havoc on her body) and took her to sickbay.

For the first few days, he was nearly certain that the Doctor would be able to do something – anything – to cure B'Elanna; he always seems to pull another medical miracle out of that holographic matrix of his. But the progressing days only added another block to the already monstrous chip of dread on his shoulders, and it was with a great deal of painful resignation that he visited sickbay that one last time.

He had hoped that it wouldn't be, then, too much too soon after the step they had just taken. The tear had degraded into a gaping gash, ripped apart within himself, while B'Elanna's life signs wobbled into chaos and then settled into the still flat line on the monitors.

He still can't believe that it happened so fast, but he also can't believe that it's all an illusion of what reality may be; they may perceive themselves to be the names and the ranks of their persons, but it's really just another stage for life to play out its show, and this one will not end on a merry note.

He's always known that his life would get just a little too perfect before shit hit the fan again, and this time it really, really did. Everything has come undone in some cosmic spiral of fate that makes him want to punch the universe square in the face just to spite it; he's tired of fate tying tripwires to his ankles when he isn't looking and then yanking him into the dirt.

But he supposes that it's a little late for such wishful thinking now.

Wishful thinking was when he'd handed the chip containing the plans for their honeymoon to B'Elanna, her face marred by a few splotches of mottled grey flesh, but he would never make note of them to her because she was never anything but beautiful to him.

Was that really the point of all of this; to have it all built up and then suddenly ripped away at the end of it all? The images of such perfection that life tempted him with feel hollow and worthless now in this pale light of a fading future; what's the point in believing in any of it if it's all lost in the end?

Harry comes to visit just moments later, and Tom can't shake the haunted look that flooded his eyes when he sees Tom on the bio-bed. Tom knows that his form is deteriorating and that his facial structure is breaking down in the decay, but he feels a distinct and hollow coldness fill him when Harry's unblinking eyes meet his.

The words between them are few and far between, and the pauses draw out into stiff and bitter silences that go down Tom's throat like a shot of stale whisky.

"Hey, you might actually scare off Chaotica this time," Harry jokes, his sarcasm drowned in moroseness.

Tom smirks, remembering their adventures on the holodeck… adventures that belong to the actual Tom Paris that he has knowledge of. He feels a pang of guilt at remembering such things because they aren't truly his to possess; he feels as if he's infringing upon some sacred bonds by bearing these mementos of a life that was never his.

"I don't think so, Harry," Tom says with a shake of his head. "I think this Captain Proton has retired his rocket pack for good."

He sees the break in Harry's expression before he can make a response, because his strength is fading and he's having trouble moving his limbs now. The lack of cohesion in his body makes everything difficult, and he knows that soon doing anything at all will be next to impossible.

"Come on, Tom," Harry says, and Tom's sure that he can hear a plea in his friend's voice. "Don't think like that."

"What's there left to think about, Harry?" Tom says dryly, his tone mirroring the taste in his mouth. "Half the crew is gone, and it won't be too long until the rest of us joins them; we're returning to what we are, Harry."

"What about B'Elanna?" Harry asks, his voice full of trepidation.

Tom snaps his head around to face his friend, and he knows that he means it in the kindest of contexts, but that still doesn't ease the throb of pain encased in whatever it is that makes up his heart now.

He had loved B'Elanna in the most wondrous way possible, only to have it ripped away so fast that he couldn't even blink. What pains him most now is not that he had such a beautiful thing in his life, but that all of it was a lie.

"She was a duplicate, like every one of us," he mumbles. "She wasn't the real B'Elanna Torres." He turns away, willing the world to leave him be with this shitty melancholy.

"She was real to you," Harry says, and Tom does his best to ignore him and the painful reality that accompanies his words. "She was real to every one of us. Duplicate or not... she meant something to all of us."

Tom doesn't turn; he keeps his back to the duplicate of his best friend – no, Tom Paris' best friend – and lets the silence between them fester for a long moment.

Finally, Harry cracks the eggshell of silence gently with his voice. "I have to get back to the bridge, but I'll be back to check on you later," he says, and for a brief instant Tom wishes that he didn't mean it, but Tom knows that Harry means it with every fibre of him.

The whoosh of the sickbay doors signal Harry's departure and Tom rolls onto his back (with a great deal of effort) as silence fills the room again. He hadn't told Harry much of anything, but he wonders why he bothers at all now since they are destined for the same fate as their comrades.

He didn't mention that Janeway had visited him earlier, but he's sure that he's not the only who's noticed how she's let herself go as of late (a by-product of Chakotay's death he suspects, but will never admit). Her hair was dishevelled, skin mottled around her right eye and looking ready to slough off. Her own deterioration seems to have accelerated in the past week, and he can't get that moment out of his head when she returned to the bridge and announced Chakotay's death. Her voice was low and unwavering, but it was the most haunting thing he had ever heard in his life.

When she had come to see him in sickbay he'd quipped that she had looked better, to which she'd made her own witty retort about him seeing better days. He knew that she was going to ask him about B'Elanna, and he wonders if perhaps this is her way of dealing with the loss of Chakotay: learning how others have grieved the loss of someone who wasn't even truly real.

"In my life, however brief people deem it to be, I've learned a few things," she'd told him as she'd laid a hand on his shoulder. "One of the most important things is that we hold onto the memories – the moments that are most precious to us – because they are the ones that will get you through."

"What memories, Captain?" he'd snapped. "Those memories that you have, the memories that I have, are a lie. They mean nothing!" It had taken him a few moments to realize just how loud his voice had become, and the expression on Janeway's face seemed to encompass it perfectly.

"Regardless of what you think, Tom," she'd answered, a harsh undertone to her voice. "These memories and these people were and are still real to me, and I prefer to think of those times instead of whatever existence we had as bio-mimetic fluid."

She'd almost hissed the last few words before heading for the door.

"What would Chakotay have to say about that, Kathryn?" he'd retorted, and she'd stopped dead in the open door. The look on her face had been a mixture of disgust at his boldness and shock at using her first name. He knew that she had been losing her grip on the proverbial reins, and he could see it then that she was losing control of her world. Maybe this was his way of coping, by trying to cast his blame onto her shoulders for the shit that's happened to them.

She'd made no response, only walked out the door and left him in the thick melancholy of his thoughts. He wishes now that he'd been a little gentler and used his voice as an olive branch instead of a whip.

He honestly wouldn't mind getting back to the demon planet, restoring himself a little bit so that he could keep this consciousness a little longer. He knows that in all likelihood he won't reach that destination with the remaining crew (if they make it at all) because his ship has already set sail, and its course differs from that of Voyager.

There's a pressure inside his chest now, spreading over his limbs in waves. So this is what it comes to, he thinks as his breathing becomes a little shallow.

Between his raspy breaths and the heaviness overwhelming his body he looks up at the ceiling and for a moment he thinks that he can see a crystal chandelier dangling high above him.

He smiles briefly and relaxes against the bed.

Wherever you are, Bee, he thinks as he takes in a shallow breath, I'll see you soon. Then he exhales, and his breath is like that first gust of wind into a ship's sails, heading out into the great unknown.

Fin