Day 1: Afternoon

A/N: Sorry about the late posting time--internet problems. And for everyone confused about the change of the title of the story, I realized (somewhat belatedly) that State of Flux was already a Voyager episode, so I had to change it. Sorry.

After the staff meeting, most of the senior staff made their way to the mess hall, where they could brainstorm their newest problem in relative comfort with plenty of food and coffee. Even knowing that these were different people than she had dealt with the day before, Lt. Torres found that they thought the same, acted the same, and talked the same as her friends on her Voyager. If nothing else, at least I know I'll fit in here, she thought to herself as she took a sip of coffee before turning back to Ensign Harry Kim to discuss some of his calculations.

Throughout the session, her gaze kept falling to one Lt. Tom Paris, looking and acting the same as the Tom Paris she knew from her Voyager. She would look up to see him making jokes, or pouring over a PADD, or pacing the long room as he tried to think, or, and most disconcerting, staring at her. It was an expression she had seen before, and she wished she knew what it meant; she couldn't even begin to decipher it.

After a few hours, they had come up with a few theories about how Torres had gotten there, but nothing that they could determine for sure to be the explanation. They did, however, think they had a way to send her back, and hopefully get their own Lt. B'Elanna Torres back to them in the process. "It's risky," Janeway warned the counterpart of her chief engineer. "We have no way of testing it, and no way of knowing if it's going to work until it's done."

"I understand, Captain," Torres said. She swept her hands to indicate the PADDs scattered around them, "but I don't think we have much of a choice, do we?"

"I guess not," Janeway replied, slightly amused. "We'll reconfigure the transporters in Sickbay, so the Doctor can keep a close watch on you during the procedure. It's going to take a few hours to make the changes, so you should consider yourself on a break until then."

"I should help, Captain," Torres protested.

Janeway shook her head. "It's nothing that Ensign Kim and the Doctor can't handle on their own. You should rest; we don't know how this is going to turn out, and we need you in top condition."

Figuring that arguing with this captain would be as effective as arguing with her own, Torres only nodded her assent. She took one last sip of her coffee and made a few suggestions to Kim before she turned to leave the mess hall for her own quarters. As the captain had said, there was no way of knowing what would happen if this didn't work—for all anyone knew, she might not survive the experience. The least she could do was record a personal log and make sure her last will and testament were up to date.

"B'Elanna, wait." Tom's quietly spoken words were more of a plea than a command, and Torres was tempted to brush him off and tell him she wanted to be alone, but changed her mind at the last minute and stopped to allow him to catch up to her. After all, wanting to be alone was what had caused her to go to bed angry with her Tom Paris last night in the first place, and if there was one thing she didn't want to do as her last act, it was get in a fight with Paris. For the first time, she considered the possibility that her life was too short for that.

"The captain gave me the rest of this duty shift off," Paris said as an explanation once they continued their trek down the corridor toward the turbolift. He gave her a quick grin. "After all, I just spent most of alpha and beta shifts in the mess hall."

"I'm sorry I was an inconvenience to you," Torres snapped, then instantly wished she could take the words back. Didn't she just decide she didn't want to fight with him?

"That's not what I meant," Paris said quietly.

"I know," Torres replied as she keyed in her access code to her quarters. She sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm just not used to—"

"It's been a bit of an odd day for all of us," he quietly interrupted. He pointed her toward her couch as he headed over to her replicator. "Do you want anything? My treat."

She raised her eyebrows at that. "Your treat? Since when did you have extra replicator rations?"

He grinned in reply. "I've been winning them from Harry. I figured that with such a demanding taskmaster, I should always have a few extras in case of an emergency."

"Emergency?" Torres asked as he handed her a raktajino. With a slight frown, she realized she hadn't asked for anything; he had just known what she wanted.

"You know, some fight, a missed date, me just being inconsiderate…" he trailed off, an amused expression on his face. "Believe it or not, I'm not perfect."

"I never thought you would be," she replied, finding herself grinning and teasing along with him. She cleared her throat slightly and looked down at her drink when she realized she held his gaze too long. "Um, I was just wondering, how long have we, I mean, you and her, been, um…" She didn't quite know how to finish that question.

He apparently understood what she was asking. He took a long sip of his coffee as he sat in the armchair. "Does Sakari IV mean anything to you?" he asked quietly. Her head shot up quickly, a surprised expression on her face. Did he mean…?

"I guess it does," he replied. He looked slightly uncomfortable. "I don't know how things happened for you, but here, we were on a mission to find some gallacite, and Vorik had transferred some sort of pon farr to you—her—this is too confusing! We were down in these caves, and there was an earthquake, and the two of us were separated from the rest of the away team. She was going in and out of delirium. At one point, she all but attacked me, and I admitted that I had been interested for a pretty long time, but I couldn't take advantage of her, not in that state. She was frustrated, but then pretty quickly after that lapsed into unconsciousness. During another lucid interval, we talked—we kept our distance, as far apart as possible in that cavern, but we talked—and she said it was no accident that we were trapped there together, that she had been intrigued by me as early as the rescue from the Ocampan tunnels—annoyed by me, but intrigued nonetheless—and had grown to respect me and care for me, and even started to love me. She said that this was what she had wanted for a long time and I shouldn't fight it. She practically begged me to let it happen, to let us happen. So I did, and we did. Afterwards, her head started to clear, and she was pretty horrified at first, but we were in there for another two days, and we just talked that whole time, about anything and everything and what it all meant. After Chakotay and Tuvok found us and got us back to the ship, she was taken to Sickbay, I was given some sort of lecture from Chakotay, and when we were both released, she came to my quarters, and that was that." B'Elanna stared down at her raktajino as he finished his story. It was all so similar to her own, but at the same time, so different. "What happened to you?" he asked gently.

She finally looked up at him and sighed quietly. "It started the same," she said. "There was Vorik and the gallacite and the caves, but you—him—my Tom, I mean, the Tom on my Voyager—kept resisting. Chakotay and Tuvok found us after a few hours, not a few days, and we were about to beam back up to Voyager, but Vorik had disabled communications with the ship and taken a shuttle down the surface. Well, things had pretty much gotten to a crucial point, and Tuvok all but ordered Tom to 'assist me', but Vorik interrupted, there was a fight, and everyone made it back to the ship in one piece, more or less. Ever since then," she shrugged one shoulder, "it's been like this strange game between me and Tom, and I haven't even figured out the rules, much less the point of the game."

"What do you think the point is?" he asked gently.

She gave a frustrated sigh. "I don't know!" she exclaimed as she practically jumped out of her seat and began pacing. "I mean, he's one of my best friends, but it's so much more than that. I just don't know if I could be with him. I don't know if I can trust him."

Paris just watched her for a few moments before he spoke, his voice low. "I can't imagine a version of me that would intentionally do anything to hurt any version of you," he said softly. "I may not be perfect, B'Elanna, but I'm not stupid. I know when I have a good thing, and I know to do everything in my power to keep from losing it." He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, and Torres saw for the first time that this whole thing was just as hard, if not harder, for him as it was for her. "I don't deserve her, and I know that, but I will try every day of my life to be what she needs me to be."

"Wow," Torres said quietly. She didn't know what else to say.

"And unless your Tom Paris is a complete idiot, he feels the same way," Paris said with an intense look on his face. B'Elanna tried to meet his gaze, but dropped her eyes after a moment.

She opened her mouth to respond, but the comm line interrupted them. *Doctor to Lt. Torres. We're ready for you here.*

She turned to Paris and managed a weak smile. "Moment of truth, I guess."

"I guess," he replied, slightly uncomfortable at what he revealed. He looked like he didn't know what to do, whether he should stay in her quarters or walk with her to Sickbay. She decided to help him.

"Tom," she said. "Can you come with me? I mean, you don't have to, but," she paused, not knowing what to say. "It'll be nice to have someone there who cares."

He grinned at her, but it wasn't quite sincere. "Sure," he replied, placing his mug on her coffee table as he got up to follow her out of the quarters.

The trip from deck nine to deck five went quietly, neither knowing exactly what to say after all they had revealed to each other. Once they entered Sickbay, the Doctor immediately ambushed her, explaining the procedure in great detail, but she found she couldn't follow his words. Her gaze fixed on Tom, she found herself unable to look away.

Finally done with his explanations, the Doctor moved aside to prepare for the transport. "Tom," B'Elanna said softly, holding her hand out to him slightly.

He came forward without question, holding her tightly. "Good luck, Torres," he said quietly, his voice thick.

"Tom," she said again, looking him in the eye. "Don't be afraid of telling her what you told me. She needs to hear it—often. Don't let her forget."

He gave her a half-smile. "And don't be afraid of telling him what you told me," he said to her. They looked at each other for a moment, and then he bent down and very lightly brushed his lips against hers.

The last thing she felt before the tingle of the transport were those same shivers that went from her lips all the way to her toes.