Making Up is Hard to Do

Chapter 1

B'Elanna took a deep breath. "Is that what you want, Tom? For me to leave you alone? If so, you can forget about us taking a break. As far as I am concerned…WE'RE THROUGH!"

"Glory hallelujah! You finally decided to be honest for a change!" Tom shot back. A growl left B'Elanna's throat but he did not care. He was too angry. Instead, he seared the Chief Engineer with one last glare, slammed his tray on the galley's counter, and stalked out of the mess hall.

Harry Kim watched Tom Paris enter the turbolift, his face a mask of indifference. The door closed and he was gone. Murmuring was already heard throughout the mess hall along with shocked stares.

Kim was stunned. "B'Elanna, what the hell just happened?"

Torres's suddenly dry mouth moved. She stared at the turbolift as if expecting it to open and Tom to reappear. "I'm…not sure. I just told Tom it was over. I think he agreed."

"He didn't say that, you did."

"He left, didn't he?"

Kim was trying to salvage something here. "Oh come on, B'Elanna! Who wouldn't after a scene like that? You lost it. In the mess hall of all places. He is under a great deal of stress after the Captain reactivated that memorial. We all are. You blew up on him. "

She looked at Harry unemotionally and with perhaps a bit of relief. "I rarely lose my temper anymore. I have learned to control it thanks to Tuvok. But I just couldn't stop this time. It wasn't about me. This is about him. It always is anymore. He won't let me help him. He pushed me away, for the last time."

"B'Elanna!"

"Harry, don't."

She got up and left her nearly full tray where it sat. It was time to go back to engineering.

/

At the time they separated, Starfleet Lieutenants Thomas Eugene Paris and B'Elanna Torres had been a couple for almost three years. Initially they tried to keep their relationship a secret but eventually shared B'Elanna's quarters. They spent virtually all of their free time together and those who saw them together could not help but see a more loving and caring couple.

As with any pair they had differences but they most often bickered about pushing each other away during times of stress. They were independent to a fault, the end result of so many occasions in their youth where self-reliance was their only way of dealing with emotional pain.

Their most recent argument followed that pattern. This time it ended what many aboard the Starship USS Voyager had believed to be a relationship worthy of envy.

It was difficult to understand who was to blame. Tom Paris was having difficulty coping with what turned out to be three-hundred-year-old memories of his massacring eighty-two innocent people on Nakan. B'Elanna tried to comfort him but he got angry and pushed her away. When she walked out on him he apologized and she initially took it well. But upon reflection she decided she had enough. She asked Tom for space to consider where things were with them.

Tom took what B'Elanna thought was a simple request for time as rejection. But his reaction was normal for a male and particularly a hot shot pilot with an ego. When a woman requests space in an established relationship men instinctively know what will follow: We can still be friends. She told him so. And he wanted much more than that, as did she.

/

Of course there were many factors at work that contributed to their breakup and not just Nakan. The most obvious one was Voyager and their being so far from home in the Delta Quadrant. Now in the early months of their seventh year, life in the Delta Quadrant aboard a flying air bubble was taking its toll on the ship and its crew.

Their mission of perhaps a few months had by accident become a 70,000 light-year, seventy-year journey to get home. And the Intrepid-class ship was not designed for an extended mission in space.

Initially there were 140 crewmen working three continually-rotating shifts. Adding Maquis and aliens bumped that number to about 150 or so. Still there were times that demanded double shifts or more. The work continued non-stop seven days a week and the pressure to perform was unrelenting.

Engineering was the section with the most crucial mission and arguably the most stress. The talented, creative, and driven chief engineer Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres felt it most. Her limited personnel were not only compelled to continuously replicate parts but to remodel Voyager. They designed and built a kitchen, expanded the mess hall, modified quarters, established a hydroponic garden for fresh fruit and vegetables, and added other amenities such as expanded Holodecks and more latrines per deck. Their maintenance routine also included taking care of or replacing shuttles that were damaged or destroyed. Preserving the vessel and its smaller craft without the luxury of an overhaul facility or communications with home initially compounded the problem.

Although Voyager would eventually return to the Alpha Quadrant in seven years due to the sacrifice of Admiral Kathryn Janeway and an altered time stream, no one knew that when they were thrown halfway across the galaxy into the Delta Quadrant. True, seven decades of travel time became fifty due to various engine upgrades, hull modifications, and periodic anomalies. Still, for the older crew members, their death aboard ship was a given. If the younger ones lived they would not be home until they were in their seventies or older.

Realizing that the journey home would be completed by their children, grandchildren, or aliens preyed upon the minds of everyone aboard. Family members would long be deceased. When word had reached Starfleet that Voyager had not been destroyed and was in the Delta Quadrant, many left-behind husbands, wives, fiancés, and significant others had already moved on.

Adding to the strain of daily routine was the Delta Quadrant itself. Several crewmen had already died and others were damaged emotionally if not physically. While Captain Janeway was proud of her crew and should be, she had no idea how to truly gauge the mentality of her personnel and how the constant pressure affected individuals. What she did know was that some handled it far better than others.

/

In truth the Paris/Torres mess hall scene should never have happened. The couple had promised each other that there would be no more masks. They would be open about their feelings. They would trust each other. They would depend upon one another for support.

But interdependence was something they had trouble accepting. Strongly independent they were afraid of being emotionally hurt or abandoned when they should have been long past that point in their relationship. They were together but had not yet bonded.

Also at play was that they were not married. While living together for over two years had its benefits, it also offered them an immediate out. Even they had to admit that it is less likely to fully commit to someone if you can just end things without having to go through a divorce. And Tom always suspected that it would be control-freak B'Elanna who would call it quits. Apparently, he was right.

For the first few days, the former lovers withdrew into a mental cocoon. Tom again pretended nothing mattered but he was not the joker he once was. B'Elanna tried to convince herself that she really did not need him or anyone actually. She was a rock in a sea of pain. But they lied to themselves and knew it.

/

The Paris and Torres breakup spread like wildfire and generated mixed reactions among the crew. Most could not believe it. Some had predicted it all along but were not happy as they collected their credits from the ship's betting pool. Others kept their bets riding on a whim that the two would eventually reconcile to become the first of many marriages aboard Voyager. The odds were not good but sometimes you can't play the odds.

One of the hold outs was the former Borg, Seven-of-Nine. Seven had investigated human mating practices and her primary case study was Paris and Torres. Upon analyzing her data, the curvaceous former drone concluded that their situation was very serious. But they would eventually reconcile if one of them did not die. How long it would take and under what circumstances she did not know. But she was convinced.

It was at work, however, where indications surfaced that things were irreconcilable. When the two happened to be on the bridge, they ignored each other or kept things brief and professional. Those in engineering cringed because a deliberately overworked Torres reverted back to the pre-Tom days of endless crabbiness and periodic outbursts. And then there were the opportunists looking to bed the exotic and now miserable half-Klingon. On the command deck Tom Paris remained outwardly unflappable as he flew the ship and trained the other pilots. More than one woman was already thinking about how to take him to bed.

/

If truth be told Paris and Torres were absolutely right for each other. Their relationship was built upon friendship, a deep sense of caring, mutual professional admiration, and respect. They were intellectually matched and equally strong physically. They had the same sense of humor and enjoyed innuendo-laced flirting that made them laugh. Sexual contact was frequent and ran the gamut from longing looks to the act itself. When they were together as a couple for even a brief moment only an idiot could not see the joy in their eyes and their wanting to touch each other.

But perhaps their real strength was that they worked together instinctively as a team. It was as if each could read the other's mind when solving complex engineering and flight control problems. Their almost automatic response to one another came from their having shared so much danger and saving each other's life more than once. They simply knew instinctively what to do.

Each loved the other for different reasons. B'Elanna's Klingon volatility aroused Tom and he encouraged it despite often painful injuries to himself. He also loved her human side because she had an inner strength and warmth that he respected.

Indeed, Paris loved B'Elanna Torres because she was B'Elanna Torres. His B'Elanna, as he often referred to her. Although they 'scraped shields' numerous times, Tom could take it and dish it out. She respected him for that. And, as Ensign Sean Murphy would discover and even Captain Janeway understood, Tom Paris was the only person aboard Voyager who could calm the fiery chief engineer when she had an emotional explosion.

Although B'Elanna had a tough exterior, she loved Tom Paris because of his heart and courage. Tom was the kindest person she had ever known and touched her like no other had to include her parents. He was always looking out for her, had often saved her life, and had pursued her despite her pushing him away hundreds of times. When she finally gave up and admitted she loved him it was the happiest day in her life although they almost died in space at the time. His personal courage fired up her Klingon side; she admired his bravery but his recklessness scared her.

She loved Tom more than life itself but her emotive problems mimicked his. For Torres, living as a half-Klingon with her parents on the human colony Kessik IV was difficult and left her emotionally scarred. Her human father divorced her Klingon mother and left B'Elanna at age five. She thought it was her fault. She also had tried to hide her forehead with scarves and hats as a child, for she was ashamed of her appearance. Tom was the first person to make her feel beautiful and sexy.

As an only child, she developed a phobia about being abandoned after her father left. Her relationship with her Klingon mother Miral was poor. Miral's attention mostly came by way of training her daughter to be a warrior. B'Elanna never overcame her dominant human half and disliked all things Klingon.

Tom's issues stemmed from his being denied love early in life. While Tom's mother and sisters loved him, his father Admiral Owen Paris was cool towards him at best. Tom never lived up to his father's expectations and his being groomed to be a fleet admiral someday.

Several Paris romances had failed. Alice Battisti and Susie Crabtree's spurning of his outreaches and a broken engagement with Ricky caused Tom to seek sex only to feel good. His torrid relationship with the Bajoran former Federation officer and Maquis Ro Laren had potential for a long-lasting relationship but ended when Tom went to prison. Curiously, it was Ro who told B'Elanna that Tom Paris was exactly the man the half-Klingon needed. Torres only scoffed. I will not be another notch on his bedpost.

Initially on Voyager Tom was a piggish rogue. But over time his growing fascination with the fiery engineer caused him to shun all others in pursuit of her. In B'Elanna he had finally found the love he was looking for, although their relationship had more than its share of bumps.

Torres's sexual background was thin compared to Paris's. She had been taken advantage of in high school by an older 'panty hunter.' Her first true relationship with Max Burke at Starfleet Academy seemed right but she never knew if all he wanted was rough Klingon sex.

Her best social memories at the Academy were plebe year Monday pizza nights with senior Tom Paris while she was dating Max. They enjoyed each other's company and she had no idea he had fallen in love with her. She had a few lovers since dropping out but only as one-time affairs when she initiated them for relief. When she finally found Tom, she lost herself in him completely. She had never loved anyone as much as Thomas Eugene Paris.

Along with Tom, Voyager was her life. B'Elanna had found love and purpose in the Delta Quadrant through engineering and pushing the warp engines and her crew to attain 100% capacity from 98% capability. Her personal involvement with Thomas Eugene Paris left her breathless. It was hard for her to determine what she loved more, her engines or Tom. But as she was now discovering, only one of them could love her back.

In a curious twist, Tom and B'Elanna had abandoned each other despite hating that it had been done to them before. Even if they found someone else, decades together on what would then be a battered and cobbled-together Voyager promised to be absolute hell. Of course, one of them might perish along the way and that would resolve things permanently.