The Missing Scenes Series

Episode 1x03 - Parallax

Disclaimer: All things Star Trek belong to Paramount and CBS. I'm just writing the bits that TPTB seemed to have missed.

Note: This is the missing scene after Voyager escapes the quantum singularity, when Captain Janeway breaks the news to Joe Carey.

The bridge was quiet once again as they slowly made their way away from the quantum singularity that had caused so much damage. Lieutenant Carey was annoyed at being called away from directing repairs, and now stood at the captain's ready room door, hands clasped behind his back and rocking on his feet as he waited for her to acknowledge him.

Inside, Captain Janeway sat at her desk, scrolling through the candidate names on her terminal. "Who do you recommend for the astrogation plotter position?"

"Ensign Lataine," Chakotay replied, consulting his padd. "It was his minor at the Academy, and he's the only one on board that has anything close to the requirements for the position."

She pulled up his file and quickly consulted it again. "I agree. What did he say when you spoke to him?"

Her first officer smiled. "He was very enthusiastic about it. As a matter of fact, he told me that he was going to volunteer for the job anyway."

Janeway nodded. "Very good." The door chime interrupted them. "That will be Carey. Will you inform Ensign Lataine of his new assignment?"

"Aye, Captain." Just before he reached the door, he stopped and turned back to her. "Captain, I'd like to thank you…for seriously considering my requests in this matter."

She looked at him for a few moments, remembering his blistering words to her before. She thought of what she could say, but nothing seemed appropriate right now. So she just gave him another nod of acknowledgement, and said, "Dismissed, Commander." The doors opened as he left, and she called out, "Come in, Mister Carey."

Carey waited for Chakotay to pass him before stepping into the ready room. "You wanted to see me, Captain?"

"I did." She indicated for him to have a seat, then laced her fingers together and set them on the desk in front of her as he settled in. A bit of nerves fluttered through her stomach, and she willed them away. "Lieutenant, I have made my decision regarding the chief engineer's position," she calmly stated. "I have decided that Lieutenant Torres will be Voyager's new chief engineer, and you will be her second in command."

A thousand thoughts went through Carey's head, but his only outward reaction was the reddening of his ears. "I see," he said slowly, his eyes flicking down to the hands that were tightly clasped together in his lap. "May I ask the reason why, Captain?"

While he'd been looking away from her, Janeway drew a small breath to steady herself. This sort of thing never got easier, and went completely against the protective instinct she had quickly developed toward this crew. "You are a fully qualified Starfleet engineer," she explained, her voice softening slightly, "one that knows the regulations and protocols inside and out. But out here, without any support, the chief engineer also has to be quick on the fly, not to mention downright inventive. Lieutenant Torres may not have the same training you have, but she is an above-board engineer, and her ability to improvise is what gave her the job."

He listened to her words, and did his best to hide his anger and disappointment. "I understand, Captain," Carey eventually said. "And I will perform my duties to the best of my ability."

"That's all I ask." Janeway gave him a slight smile, knowing exactly what was going through his head. But she didn't have time to hand-hold anybody now. "Dismissed, Lieutenant." She watched him square his shoulders before he disappeared through the door, and felt a pang of sympathy for the man. In his position, she'd have been more than just a little angry.

Joe stormed down the corridors after he left the bridge, rage growing with every step. He had been intending to go back down to Engineering, but hadn't been paying attention to where he was going and eventually found himself burning through the corridors on the lower decks. The doors to the ship's gym suddenly appeared before him, and without a thought he stepped inside. Not bothering to see if anybody was around, he strode straight over to where a heavy bag was hung and began hitting it. Without gloves it hurt his hands, but he didn't care. Single punches turned into combinations, then added kicks as the aggression and frustration grew, and eventually anguished shouts accompanied each strike. It took a while, but eventually he wore himself out, collapsing onto a nearby bench when his legs threatened to give out.

"Finished?"

He turned to see Samantha Wildman standing a short distance away, her shoulder leaning against one of the weight stacks with her arms folded across her chest as she peered at him. His ears reddened again, this time with embarrassment, knowing that his new friend had been watching him. "Yeah, I am," he muttered, resting his head back against the wall and closing his eyes as he tried to catch his breath.

Earlier in his tirade, she had picked up a towel from the small supply near the door, which she now handed to him. "What was that all about?" she asked, dropping down onto the bench next to him.

Joe gratefully took the towel, leaning forward as he used it to wipe the sweat from his face and neck. "I didn't get the chief engineer's job."

Sam sighed. In one of their last discussions, he had told her in great detail how badly he had wanted the position, hoping that the additional work would take the edge off of the misery of being torn from his family. "I'm sorry, Joe," she told him, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Who got it?"

He rested his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor until he noticed the state of his hands. The knuckles were red and starting to swell from his hits to the heavy bag, and when he opened them, there were a few semi-circular cuts on the palms from fingernails that needed to be trimmed. "Torres."

The two of them sat together in silence for a while, each thinking about his answer. They had quickly become friends in the weeks since Voyager had been pulled into the Delta Quadrant, and she found that in the short time they'd known each other, she had started to care for him quite a bit. Sam knew that he was having even more difficulty adjusting to the loss of his family than she was, and this was only going to make his mood worse. While she didn't know B'Elanna Torres, she was rather wary of the Maquis engineer after the nose-breaking incident. But Samantha was above all a reasonable person, and since they were all going to be stuck together for the foreseeable future, she fought her natural inclination to automatically side with him in that dispute. "Well, look at it this way," she eventually said. "You didn't get demoted, right? And you still get to do what you love, with none of the extra responsibility." Sam grinned a little. "Sounds like the perfect job to me."

Joe looked up to see her smiling at him, and he couldn't help but chuckle as she succeeded in breaking his mood. "Maybe you're right," he said, resting a thankful hand on her knee.

"Of course I'm right," she told him, her grin growing even brighter. "I always am." Sam started to laugh, dodging him and jumping to her feet when he flicked the towel at her. "When are you off duty?"

"Not for another four hours yet. More if…" He forced himself to say her name. "If Lieutenant Torres decides to put everybody on double shifts for repairs."

She nodded, and held her hand out to him. "Well I'm off in five. If you're not working, why don't you bring your ration pack over and join me for dinner? We could play a few hands of gin."

Joe chuckled again. "That's a hard offer to refuse." He took her hand and let her help him to his feet, then leaned in and gave her a quick, appreciative kiss on the cheek. "Thanks, Sam."

"Any time." She gave him a kind smile. "You'll make it work, Joe. I have faith in you."

He fixed her with a look. "How? You hardly know me."

"Call it a hunch. You don't seem like the type to hold a grudge." Then she gave him a funny look. "At least not without sufficient provocation."

Their laughter echoed throughout the gym as they headed out into the corridor, and back to work.