A/N 1 – Thanks to starrylaa for being a wonderful beta!

A/N 2 - This set, which looks into the minds of B'Elanna, Tom and the Captain, is the last of the series that began with Philosophy of the Mind and continued in Deep Thoughts on Thirty Days. I hope you've enjoyed a trip through the minds of Voyager as much as I have had fun writing them.

Disclaimers - Paramount owns Star Trek. What, you didn't know that? I'm just a humble fan borrowing the characters for fun. While Paramount owns the characters, the ideas are mine, so please ask permission before taking them elsewhere, and always keep my name attached.

Last Drive Through The Psyche - Picture Perfect

By Riss

I've always been a big fan of puzzles. As a young child I loved the two dimensional kinds out of the box with the pictures on the front. As I grew older, I wanted things to be more complicated. I moved on to disassembling the replicator before rebuilding it to work faster and better.

By the time I was in high school, I was building my own engines. My next puzzle in life was figuring out how to do what I wanted with life. I wanted to be an engineer designing the starship, so I applied to Starfleet Academy. After all, they had the best ships.

That was one puzzle I was wrong about. Those pieces and I definitely didn't fit together. After I left, I couldn't figure out where I needed to go, until I met up with Chakotay. The Maquis seemed like another perfect fit. They always had work for me, with the crappy ships they were trying to fight the war with. They needed me and I seemed to fit in with them. The last missing piece was that I was still alone. Sure I had friends, but no one to share my life with.

Then we ended up getting pulled into the Delta Quadrant. I woke up in some prison hospital with growths on my body and a green Starfleet ensign saying his ship was there to arrest us. Without realizing it, Harry's friendship was the first piece in the picture of my new life on Voyager.

Shortly after we were rescued he introduced me to his best friend on Voyager. I had met Tom in the Maquis and pretty much hated him. I wasn't ready to change my opinion once I saw him again on Voyager. After all, wasn't he a traitor to the Maquis?

Over the next few months the pieces of my new life started to fall into place. I became chief engineer, charged with keeping this ship together and trying to make sure we made it (delete this word) the seventy thousand light years home. I made new friends on the ship and realized that others were not meant to be. And most importantly, with the constant help of Harry dragging the two of us together, I realized that Tom was quickly becoming my friend.

A few years into the journey I realized that he was rapidly becoming more than just a friend. For a long time I stayed away from him, denying that I felt for him anything more than I should have. After all, Tom was the playboy of the Delta Quadrant, or so he had everyone believe. In reality a lot of that was just talk. He had a few women he liked to hang out with, but they all knew that it was just for fun.

Of course, I wasn't the only one watching him. At the start of the journey I actually considered that they were carrying on a secret affair, with all the flirting that was going on. But the Captain was above getting involved with anyone. After the incident with the Pon Far, I found I could no longer deny my feelings toward Tom, and this was the first time I had hints that that this thing between us was more than harmless flirting or meaningless sex.

Once we finally got together I thought I had completed the puzzle of Tom Paris. I was his girl, and we loved each other. But as time went on, I realized I was wrong. I had only solved that small portion, because off to the side there was the Captain staring at us. And after his time in the brig, I realized the picture showed him with his arms around me, and his eyes on her.

I wasn't the only one he loved. For a while I worked harder to make him mine. It has not been easy. Between the public flirting when he convinced her to play Arachnia, the Queen of the Spider people and our fighting about Seven's research project or Max Burke, we haven't had it easy recently. But it's the quiet moments, interspaced with some amazing sex, that define us. He is the only one who has ever seen me with my guard truly down, and I know I'm the only one on Voyager who has seen him that way as well. As close as he and Harry are, he's still that cool older brother figure who gets him into trouble, but still can do no wrong.

But despite those moments of perfection, I've been worried that I was going to lose him forever. After all, he did create an entire holodeck program designed to appeal especially to her. I guess I can take comfort in the fact that he did design a holographic boyfriend for her as well. Even taking a trip into his mind because of that crazed ship Alice, I wasn't sure that I was enough for him. I knew that he loved me, but I could see how important getting her respect was to him and sometimes it felt like that outweighed his love for me.

Then came that stupid space race. His canceling our weekend was the last straw in our relationship. I thought I had lost him. I really thought she was winning the race for his heart as we headed toward the finish line. But then we were no longer racing. (I really like this analogy of their triangle being a race between the two women)

I thought he was crazy, after all he practically begged the Captain to be allowed to race and he was purposely making us lose. But then we finally talked about us, and about her. I told him that I realize that she is special to him, but I will not be in the middle. He said that he loved me, and I was the center of his world.

He finally admitted that he had been confused about his feelings for her. He realized he loved her, but not the same way he loved me. He was confusing his prior physical attraction to her with his close friendship into something more. He said that he had been distant lately as he worked out how to ensure he didn't overstep any boundaries and hurt the most important person in his life. He wanted me, and only me as his lover and wife.

We decided to get married immediately, as we both realized that she had been the only thing holding us both back from committing to forever. As soon as I accepted he said that he had only one thing left to do. He had to talk with her and make sure she understood exactly what his feelings were. It was his feelings for her that had strained our relationship, and his duty to fix it.

I'm sure it wasn't the easiest conversation for either of them, but I know that she had a genuine smile on her face as she married us. In the days since we returned from our honeymoon, she has been nothing but happy for us. She seems a little sadder, but not once has there been a glance of lust towards my husband.

It has taken a while, but now everything is clear. Okay , so perfect isn't the right description, but nothing in life is perfect. Who wants perfect? That's boring, and definitely not enough to hold my attention.

But this is right for me. I have finally found the straight edges of the puzzle and have filled in all the missing middle pieces. She will always be an important part of his life, but I am the center of it. I am his wife, and the only one he truly loves. He loves me, and wants to be with me, which I think is a perfect picture.