=/\=
Agitated, Ro paced back and forth in front of the chair where the Maquis cell leader was sitting. "Chakotay, I can't believe you don't want to take advantage of Tom's skills! He's a good pilot, the best there is!"
"Caldik Prime says otherwise."
"There were nine people in that shuttle, Chakotay, only three died. Even the best pilot can screw up. If anything, he's less likely to ignore a warning light after what happened."
"Wasn't he involved in another accident once, too? Three dead again?"
"At the Academy, yes, but that was not his fault at all." She topped pacing and faced Chakotay, who looked up at her grimly.
"Six people dead in two accidents. Not a good record. How can I trust him with our people? Our equipment? We have little enough now, and none to spare for an iffy pilot."
"I was flying in that formation at the Academy, too, but you trust me! Novotny's helm controls failed, and he took out Kovara and Ablimistara's ships. It was over in an instant, Chakotay. There was nothing anyone could have done! Tom and I were lucky we weren't killed, too."
Ro remembered the aftermath of that accident bleakly. The Board of Inquiry, sure that the two surviving cadets must have been in some way responsible or had been hiding something, had been brutal. Ro wondered how much influence this incident may have had on Tom at Caldik Prime. Might his not telling the entire truth be laid at the door of their ordeal after the training accident? Despite all their protestations, they had not been believed until one of their instructors discovered a mechanical cause in the shards of debris from Novotny's craft. Their innocence had been established - but not before Tom and Ro had been put through hell.
"Ro, I know he was your friend, but he isn't the same man. His first stop here was the bar, and his second was a bunk with the woman he had picked up at the bar! He's a drunk and a womanizer, Ro. I can't trust him. And he's a mercenary. No principles. The first thing he asked me when he walked in the door was how much money could I pay him. I can't believe you are sticking up for him." Chakotay shook his head. When Ro had been in his class at the Advanced Tactical Training School, before he had resigned his commission to join the Maquis, he had been impressed by her ability to make tough decisions, even ruthless ones, and live by them. She was not objective about Paris. What she saw in the wastrel pilot, he could not see.
"I obviously know him better than you do, Chakotay," she said, storming past a grinning Seska as she ran out the door.
/I hope I still know you, Tom. Drinking and picking up women as soon as you touched down! I'll kill you!/
=/\=
She found him at a bar, as advertised. Tom didn't seem to be drunk, but he was much too cozy with Alana Loring for her peace of mind. Alana was young, younger than she looked or behaved, and she was not Tom's type. Would never have been Tom's type before, she amended mentally. Alana was known as the local nymphomaniac, and the new Tom apparently was something of a sex fiend. In the four days he had been at Malagra, he had been with three women that she knew of, and maybe more that she didn't. The man had amazing recuperative powers, she would grant him that much.
Ro would never have shared the bed with Tom in Hakkarond if she had known this.
Still, when she walked in, Tom waved to her, leaned over to give Alana a quick kiss, and sauntered over to Ro, drink in hand. "So, is the Chief going to let me fly, or not?"
"I don't know. He doesn't trust a womanizer with his ships."
"What does that have to do with anything? So I like a good time. Does he think I like to fuck while I'm at the helm?" He was indignant, but his flushed face suddenly paled. "It's about Caldik Prime, isn't it? He figures I am just dying to crash one of his precious craft so that I can go out in a blaze of glory."
Ro had nothing to say. The truth was there to be seen on her face.
Tom turned away, back to the bar, back to Alana, the only bloodsucker on the base worse than Seska as far as Ro was concerned. The Bajoran stalked out of the bar, trying to ignore the sick feeling she felt in her heart.
=/\=
Chakotay and Seska sat in the corner booth of the Latinum Shrine, observing the patrons as they entered and left. "Some of the pairings tonight are interesting, aren't they, Chakotay? I heard that Paris had been very close to Alana this afternoon, but now there he is, hanging out with Sela Evaluon." Seska leaned back to give Chakotay a clear view of the table where Tom was sitting cozily next to Sela, along with Henley and Rogers.
Chakotay was disgusted. Paris hitting on Evaluon, the only one in the room who was too innocent to have any idea what he was up to!
He would not allow it to happen. As Chakotay stood up, however, the front door opened to admit Ro Laren. She stood there a moment, frozen in the doorway, absorbing the arm too intimately laid over Evaluon's shoulders, the aristocratic mouth a few centimeters away from the girl's lips.
Paris even had the gall to wave at Ro to join them! Chakotay could not stand it. He had to break it up.
He caught himself as he was about to step out of his booth, realizing that he would not have to do a thing. Ro had answered Paris' summons to the table; but when she got there, she pinched the erstwhile pilot's ear, fingernails sinking painfully into the lobe, to encourage him to arise from his seat.
"Ow! Laren! What the hell are you doing? You're tearing my ear off!"
"I need to borrow this ear for a while so that we can have a little chat, Mr. Paris. Now. In private." Ro gave his ear a painful squeeze before letting him go, pushing him out the door in front of her.
Henley and Rogers laughed. Evaluon looked confused. Chakotay strolled over to the table and bent down to Evaluon. "Sela, maybe it's time for you to go home. Alone."
She took the hint.
=/\=
"Ro, what's gotten into you? Why are you so mad?"
"If you haven't figured it out yet, Hotshot, then there's no hope for you after all."
"What, Laren, I was just having a little fun. Sela was willing. She's a great kid!"
"That's just the point, Tom. She's a kid. She may be as old as Alana, but compared to that whore, Sela is an innocent ripe for the slaughter. As far as anyone around here knows, she's still a virgin. She was really sheltered by her parents. Sela slipped aboard a transport one step ahead of being tortured and raped to death by the Cardassians, right after she found her parents' broken bodies. She's vulnerable, Tom. She isn't ready for a romantic involvement, if anyone can call what you do romance."
"I'm sorry, I didn't know. She didn't tell me, and no one else said anything."
"Henley and Rogers would love to see you screw up. They live for gossip. And they aren't very fond of me, so your fucking up after I had spoken up for you would be a bonus. As it is, I'm not sure how long it's going to be before Chakotay hauls your ass onto a freighter and ships you out of here. You may get your chance at the damned Beta Quadrant any minute now." Arriving at the door of her quarters, Ro was seething so much she could barely enter her code to unlock the door.
Once she had shoved him inside, she locked the door behind her. "You aren't going to be serving anyone else's sexual needs tonight, Tom. We are going to talk, and then I am going to decide if your damned ass is worth saving. I am not going to speak up for you anymore with Chakotay if you really are the liability he thinks you are."
"Laren, I swear, this has nothing to do with the kind of pilot I am! Pilots have always had a reputation for being good with women. It doesn't mean anything. Flying a ship is a whole different thing. I am not a liability in the helm chair. You know me!"
"I thought I did. You were a hotshot pilot in the Academy, and I know very well that your girlfriends satisfied you sexually. You'd be amazed at what they told me when they were trying to be my friend so they could get close to you! None of them really believed that we had never slept together, you know. One thing about you then, though: you had one girlfriend at a time and you were faithful to her for as long as it lasted. A new woman every day, maybe two - what the hell is that ABOUT, anyway? You can't possibly have any affection for them! What in the names of all the Prophets are you doing to yourself?"
"Trying to forget."
"What?" Ro stared at him. His face was pale, and he was breathing as hard as if he had just run several kilometers. The bar was only around the corner from Ro's quarters. She distinctly remembered that he had not been puffing from lack of breath when she had shoved him through her doorway.
Tom lowered his eyes to the floor so he would not have to look into her eyes, those dark needles probing into his soul. His empty, lost soul. What could he say to her? His only friend, and now he had managed to alienate her, too, as he had everyone he had ever loved.
She wasn't going to let him get away with silence. "What do you mean, you're trying to forget?"
He snorted an ugly chuckle, totally humorless. "My life is shit, Laren, you know that. There isn't much that gives me joy anymore, except my 'Tower of Joy' filling up some woman's 'Passage of Enlightenment.' It's the only time I feel good, Laren. The only time I can feel like somebody again. Like an actual human being, for a few minutes. And then I look for somebody else, because the woman doesn't want me a second time.
"You're right, Ro. The women worth being with want a man who cares about them, who wants to make love to them, not some bum taking their bodies for a good, hard ride and then leaving them alone again. Except for the Alanas, of course. They're just female Tom Parises, fucking to fill the emptiness in their souls."
Tom knew how miserable he sounded, but what else could he say? He knew it was the truth. "Laren, I don't have a clue who I am or what to do with myself anymore."
He circled the small room, not really seeing anything in it. Then he was standing in front of Ro again, and Tom knew he could no longer avoid her gaze. He would have to meet her eyes again, read the hate, the loss of the only friend he had.
Tom found his courage and looked at her, seeing only sympathy in her eyes. "It sounds like you know exactly what you've got to do, Tom. Stop fucking shells of women and find a whole one that can love you back. Find someone who will be your friend, as well as your lover."
Tears filled his eyes and spilled down his cheeks. He shook his head, before choking out, bitterly, "I don't exactly have a long list of friends, Laren, male or female. You're just about the only one I've got. You're my Best Friend now, by default."
"Well, then, Mr. Paris, you just think about that for a while. If that's the case, maybe you should be making love to your Best Friend, instead of doing your damnedest to fuck over your Best Friend."
Ro opened her mouth as if she had more to say, but after working her jaw from side to side for several seconds, she just shook her head and walked to the tiny kitchen area to grab a glass of water. Tom stood in the same place, dumbfounded, as he went over what she had said. Was he catching her meaning? Did she just say what he had thought she had said? He was conscious of his chest rising and falling, of his pulse pounding in his throat, as he felt Ro's eyes boring into his back.
He turned. He had been right; she had been staring at him. Glib Tom Paris could think of nothing at all to say to his Best Friend, the one with whom he had spent hours on end, whole nights until dawn, talking about anything and everything. He swallowed hard.
"Ro Laren, are you going to slug me if I ask you what you mean by that?"
Her mouth twitched up crookedly, the smile never reaching her eyes. "Right about now you deserve a slug in the gut no matter what you ask me." Dragging in a deep breath that she exhaled slowly, Ro paced back to face him. "My point, my handsome, debauched young friend, is that using sex as an anesthetic is too damaging to the other people you are doing it with for it to be healthy for any of you. Do you really feel good about what you are doing with those women?"
"No."
"Then all I am saying is that you need to find a better way to 'feel like somebody again' than the way you have been. Some things are better kept. . . between friends."
He gulped. "Laren, you are my friend. Are you saying that we. . ."
"I'm saying that you should feel for the one you sleep with at least as much as you feel for me! How radical a concept is that for you, Tom? That you at least like your lover! You never used to need a map like this."
Tom wavered a little on his feet. He had been mistaken then, she was not offering herself to him. /Paris, you are a jerk if the only thing you can think of when a good friend tries to talk some sense into your thick skull is that maybe she wants to sleep with you./ Despite his tough talk to himself, all he could think of was how beautiful Ro Laren was, whether she was smiling or glaring at him.
Those warm dark eyes were studying him, and again, he felt a wave of desire wash over him that could only disgust her. He knew she could not give him what he wanted. And yet, what did she mean by making love to her instead of fucking her over? Tom had had just enough liquor to dull his wits without having had enough to block his self-disgust. He looked sadly at her. "I guess I should be going, then."
Ro took a step forward and pounded him in the center of the chest, shouting, "Fine, go, you dumb shit! If you can't figure out what it is I'm offering you, then you deserve to go to hell!"
"Why are you getting so hostile with me? You aren't making any sense! One minute you're talking like you want me to be with you, and the next you're throwing me out! You're making my head spin, Laren!"
"Maybe Chakotay is right; you have lost too many brain cells to booze. Let me spell it out for you. If you are my friend, if you really care for me, then I am the one you should be putting that Profound Shaft of Pleasure into, not every female you meet that you don't care crap about. Clear enough?" Ro stepped back, crossing her arms, and glared at him.
Astounded, Tom involuntarily stepped back, but he did not break contact with her eyes. She was deadly serious. "Laren, I thought you didn't. . . well. . . you didn't sleep with anyone. Any men, anyway." He knew that on a few occasions, Ro had sought solace in the arms of a woman, but as far as he knew, she had never been with a man unless she had been forced.
"Tom, it's been six years since we left the Academy. I have had a chance to have a few experiences with the opposite sex since then that turned out halfway decently."
"I didn't think. . ."
"Obviously. You might have asked." She shook her head, thinking what a fool he was. What a fool she probably was, for even being interested in him after what he had been doing to every woman he could get his penis into. Foolish or not, with those stunned blue eyes fastened upon hers, she couldn't help seeing the kind, vulnerable, decent man that she was convinced still lurked inside him - if she could break down that piggy exterior he had been exhibiting so prominently to everyone at the outpost.
Ro went back to her eating area sink to get herself another drink of water. She half expected to hear her door close behind her back, but when she pivoted and walked over to her small wooden table to sit down, Tom was still there. He almost looked like he was ready to cry, in frustration or joy, she could not tell.
"Want some water? You've had too much of the other already."
He nodded to her. When she handed a glass to him and took a seat at the table, he sat down across from her, saying softly, "Ro Laren, I'm so sorry. I never thought you would be interested in me, so I blocked any feelings that I had for you away. I was afraid if I didn't, I would do something to hurt you. We were friends. We ARE friends, I hope."
His apology was accepted silently. There was a long pause before she said, "I guess we both should have filled in the gaps a bit better. Six years is a long time. And yes, of course, we still are friends. Unless you're mad at me for grabbing you by the ear."
That prompted a chuckle. "I was beginning to wonder if you were trying to pierce my ear with your fingernails for one of those fancy Bajoran earrings."
She laughed back, then took his hands in hers. "You would look good in one. Perfect for someone taking the vows of a vedek."
He flushed, then cleared his throat before saying, "Well, Laren, I think you have a pretty good idea of the way I've been spending my time since I was cashiered from Starfleet three years ago. Get a job for a while to try to pay off some bar bills. Find someone to sleep with. Get as drunk as possible on as little money as possible. Get a job again. I've been in a brutal rut." He paused, then looked at her with a puzzled expression. "So, what about you. I mean, if you can even think about me as a possible bed partner, there's been quite a change in you."
"Not so much a change as a healing. It's funny, the man that really made a difference is almost as much of a sex addict as you are."
Tom squinted so that his eyebrows dipped closer to his nose as he shook his head, saying, "I think I've just been insulted. And, uh, I don't want you to be embarrassed, or anything, but. . . well, if you want to tell me the story. . ."
"William T. Riker. Commander, First Officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise and self-appointed gift to females of almost all humanoid species. There may be some he wouldn't do, but not many. And the funniest thing is, he has the perfect woman for him living on the same starship. They were even lovers once. You ever hear the Betazoid term Imzadi? 'More than lovers, more than friends'. Soul mates, I think is the closest translation. And does he make it with her? Oh, no. Can't commit. Or maybe she can't, I could never figure it out." Ro paused to take a sip of water, then leaned her head on her hand and scratched up her crop of hair before continuing.
"Anyway, one time a few years ago, there was some alien species that wanted Enterprise to kill off their enemies. It's a long story that I am not going to bore you with right now, but the main thing is, they found a way to wipe out everybody's memories on the ship, expecting Picard to just go along with orders without thinking. They obviously did not know everything there was to know about Picard. The personnel logs were tampered with, too, so we had trouble even figuring out who we were.
"So there we all are, trying to figure out what is going on, and, I've got to admit, I got really hot for Riker. Normally we could barely stand one another. Tolerate, maybe, but become lovers? No way, or so I thought. But with no memory of what a prick he could be to me, I come in to seduce him, and - get this, because this is really funny - Riker and Deanna Troi are looking at this book, and there is an inscription in it that makes it very clear that the two of them have some kind of attachment to one another. But when I come onto him, who does he sleep with? Me!"
Ro rocked back in her chair, face glowing, laughing at the absurdity of it all. "So when we all get our memories back, Deanna is furious with him! And he deserved it, in my opinion. I think she took up with Worf just to get back at him!"
Tom looked at her in some confusion. While he was having trouble with the dramatis personae, his greater problem was comprehending how this had made any difference to Ro. "I don't get it. What does this have to do with your 'healing?' "
The smile faded a little, but she did not look sad or unhappy. "Tom, I went to bed with Will Riker, and, I have to admit, he's good. No wonder Deanna was so pissed afterwards. And all that night we were together, I had no memories of what had happened to me in the camps. None. It was just Ro Laren's very own normal, sexual appetites having a chance to express themselves with this man that she was attracted to sexually. And I loved it, Tom. I had never. . . I had just never been able to let go like that in my life, with anyone. I never realized. . . how much . . . it just FELT so good. . . "
There were tears in her eyes, now, something which Tom Paris had seen only once before. His own eyes stung him, seeing the emotion on her face. Their eyes met, and Ro smiled the sweetest, gentlest smile he had ever seen from her. "Tom, I'm not a woman who likes to be with women after all. I'm not surprised, because I could have had my chances with women lots of times, and I always held back. When it did happen, I can't say I really enjoyed it much more than I had with the guards. Since Riker, I've actually made love with men a few times, and it really is what I want. But. . . "
Reaching across the table and interlacing her fingers with his, she looked into his face. "But, I know that what I really NEED is to sleep with someone I really like, someone who really cares for me. Haven't you been listening? I've been trying to pound it into you since I dragged you in here. You are my Best Friend, Thomas Eugene Paris. If I can't make love to my Best Friend, then who?"
"Laren. . . " His reply stuck in his chest, as if his heart was swelling up inside him, blocking his ability to breathe or to talk. Tom leaned across the table, took Ro's face into his hands and softly traced her lips with his right thumb. His left hand crept around to the back of her head, and he combed his fingers through her mussed hair. Pulling her face towards his, he kissed her fully on the lips, for the first time in their lives.
Ro's lips quivered but answered his kiss tenderly before she parted them to permit Tom to slip his tongue inside her mouth. He alternated gentle explorations with a few quick thrusts that made her moan. The kiss became more intense as he trailed his hand along her jaw. Dropping her hands into the open neckline of his shirt and pulling it open, Ro stroked the downy hair that began at the base of his neck and spread all over his chest. Their breath became ragged as their lips parted. They gazed into each other's eyes. Instead of kisses, their lips shared smiles.
Getting up from his chair, Tom moved around the table and knelt down before her, holding his arms out to pull her into his arms. Leaning forward to hold him tightly and shaking a little in his embrace, Ro felt like she was standing at the edge of a precipice - to fall to oblivion if she were wrong about this - but it did not feel wrong.
Their silence was broken, finally, by Tom. "So, does this mean you don't mind if I do service someone sexually tonight?"
She felt like kicking him again, then shook her head. "You are incorrigible, you know that, don't you?" Ro smiled as she said it, then bent down to give him another kiss.
His voice was husky with emotion as he said, "Let me rephrase that question. Do I get to make love to my Best Friend tonight? Even though, God knows, I don't deserve it."
Barely nodding her head, Ro caught his hand in hers and pulled him away from her table and into her bedroom. It wasn't any bigger than the room that they had shared in Hakkarond, but it smelled of cleanliness and soap and Ro Laren. In minutes they had stripped each other of all of their clothing. He tenderly stroked her skin everywhere he could reach - back, arms, legs, stomach - without once touching her breasts or genital area. She began to pant more and more excitedly the longer that he waited to touch her intimately. Tom responded with groans as his Tower of Joy began to waver in anticipation of joining with Ro's Wellspring of the Prophets.
Dropping to his knees in front of where she sat on the edge of her bed, Tom's hands cupped her jaw, then moved slowly down her body, barely grazing her flesh as they fluttered their way down to her hips, ending at her thighs. Parting her knees so that he could press his body as close to hers as he could, Tom supported her back against his hands and kissed her on the mouth again, deeply, before moving his lips down Ro's body in much the same way his hands had moved moments before. This time, however, his lips touched her neck and chest, breastbone, and then breasts, sucking gently at first, then more roughly in response to her gasps and groans. Kissing her flesh repeatedly, nipping and sucking on her tender skin wherever his mouth could touch, Tom's head descended until he was kissing the tops, then the insides of her thighs.
"Lie back, Laren," he whispered; and, after meeting his eyes and reading the anticipation in them, she complied, shivering. She could barely keep her hips still as his lips and then his fingers touched her more insistently. She cried out again when he made her Celestial Home of Delight throb, verifying to her how very appropriate that name was. Waves of pleasure washed over her, with Ro calling out Tom's name repeatedly.
His own eyes filled with tears. She had been right. Making love to her, bringing her to fulfillment, was more exciting than having a dozen women. Tom knew he had always felt a kind of love for Ro Laren; now he knew he needed no qualifiers. This was what he had been searching for: a woman of toughness, spirit, and a hidden vulnerability that could bring him passion as well as peace. He smiled as he thought of the Bajoran nickname for that part of him that was surging to enter her. Tower of Joy, indeed. Joy for him. Joy for her. He arose from his now-aching knees to join her on the bed.
Tom was almost undone by the look of ecstasy on her face, but as he leaned towards her face to kiss her, he was able to control himself. Ro's hands stroked down his chest and body as they kissed, feeling his tight muscles and kneading his flesh with her strong fingers. They were both moaning and writhing now. Ro's fingers dragged through the soft downy mat of hair on his chest. She opened her mouth and softly grazed on the trail of hair that led to his navel. Beyond that, though, she did not go.
Tom gently cradled her face so that he could look into her eyes. He could see she would not be ready yet for some ways a man and a woman bring pleasure to each other. Some things had been done to her by scaled masters with the intention of bringing her pain instead of pleasure, for their own sick amusement. For this first time with him, she did not need to be reminded so harshly of those other experiences, which might have ruined a weaker person. He would find another way for them to join together.
The other way was easy to find. Rolling onto his back, Tom moaned to her, "Ro, this way, please." With his help, she settled herself down upon him slowly, and rhythmically they moved together, the room filling with their cries, until Ro found herself wanting to wilt into sleep. His hands encouraged her to rest her head against his shoulder, her fingers entwined in the waves of hair on his chest. Sighing contentedly, Ro felt his Profound Shaft of Pleasure where it remained within her Passage to Enlightenment. "Sweet Prophets, Tom. That was so good." A sexy growl entered her voice as she went on, "I guess I can see now why you've been so popular. Or should I say can feel why."
His laughter rocked her where she rested upon his chest, but then his voice took on a serious tone as he replied to her, "And now I can see why it's better to make love with your Best Friend."
Her eyes glowed with happiness, although the smile she bestowed upon him was a typically crooked Ro Laren smile. "I'm glad, Tom. I do, too, Best Friend."
After a while, both became tired of the way they were lying, pleasant in many ways though it was. Tom pulled her around to lie on her side as he faced her. Their hands stroked each other gently as they shared more soft kisses before falling asleep, still wrapped in each other's arms.
In the morning, they made love again. Slowly, savoring every moment, every touch. The taste of his skin, the flavor of her flesh. Afterwards they took a long hot shower together, Tom declaring that the height of bliss was Ro's strong hands scrubbing his long, lean back for him. Ro's response was to laugh in his face. "You are so full of shit, Paris. We both know what you really think the 'height of bliss' is."
"OK, so I exaggerated a little. But it's second on the list," He turned around to kiss her, but as his body moved away from the stream of rushing water, it poured over their faces. The inadvertently inhaled water made them sputter before both collapsed against the wall of the shower stall, lost in laughter.
Following breakfast, Tom dressed and went to pack up the quarters he had been occupying alone. Seska was passing by as Tom, duffel bag in hand, skipped back into Ro's rooms, enveloping her in a huge hug as he walked by her at the entrance.
Seska's startled look of shock sent a thrill through Ro. That's it, go run to Chakotay, Seska, you leech, and tell him your tale.
Everyone that Seska told about the scene was as shocked as she had been - except for those who refused to believe it at all, until they saw Ro and Paris together.
=/\=