Title: Sealaionn 4: Returned to Grace
Author: TrekPhile47
Summary: The final showdown. B'Elanna fights back.
B'Elanna has gone this far, if she doesn't finish her plan, then she is not only the murderer of Seven of Nine, but all of Voyager, including Tom Paris. Curiosity killed the cat...or the Caretaker. Once B'Elanna is out of the clutches of Kulkinara-Amet; how will her life be? Changed forever? How will she tell Tom about Kul? How will Voyager react once the dream of getting home by the Array is killed in one fell swoop?
Rated: R, if you've read the first three, then you know why.
Disclaimer: They ain't mine.
Spoilers: If you've read this far, it's too late not to be spoiled.
Keywords: B'Elanna, Voyager
Classification: Angst
Archive: E-mail for permission. TrekPhile47@hotmail.com
Notes: Excuse slashiness.
***
no man,if men are gods;but if god must
be men,the sometimes only man is this
(most common, for each anguish is his grief;
and,for his joy is more joy,most rare)
*
Two days passed incredibly quickly when before the days were longer than the trip to the Alpha Quadrant.
Captain Janeway was in orbit above the planet and Kul was poised and waiting, her talons ready to snatch her out of the air.
B'Elanna had the good manners to let Kul savor the victory by herself.
B'Elanna was pretty sure that she hadn't slept at all throughout the two days and her stomach refused to let her eat anything. She tried to contact Voyager and tell them to turn around. The effort was noble of her, but she wasn't allowed anywhere near anything remotely mechanical. Kul must have known her a hell of a lot better than she wanted.
Now that the first two stages of her plan were done, she had to work the third into action. She had finagled a map of the grounds out of one of the scientists and she had taken it and studied diligently. She knew that the only way to be beamed up by Voyager was to get out of the compound, which was enclosed by a force field. But the prospect of taking a turn in the arctic wasn't exactly pleasing to B'Elanna.
One turn left, two rights and another left again and she should be home---
Shit.
She wasn't at any door leading to the outside world, she was in front of a door labeled clearly "Science and Research" in Tamrak's hand. She silently thanked him for that.
The only thing that seemed logical to her was to go in. Thank you, Tuvok. The door had a door that required humanoid effort with a slick metal knob. She seized it and pulled it open, sliding through the crack she had allowed herself.
The lab was illuminated with halogen lights that cast a haunted-house view of the place. It was as intimidating as her first day at Starfleet Academy.
Her own steps echoed largely in the hallway at the far end of the lab. She followed it blindly, unsure of whether or not she was going to intrude on something she shouldn't. It couldn't have been, seeing as though the door had no locking mechanism on it.
B'Elanna faltered and slowed to a stop as she realized the room she was walking into. This section of the compound was immense and she had the vague feeling of what a single drone felt like in a cube.
Stasis tubes. Thousands of them, some open and waiting, some closed. Each tube that was closed held a body floating in green fluid with tubes flowing into their mouths for air.
Giant mechanical wombs.
Some held people in them like overgrown fetuses and the others were slack-jawed and empty. B'Elanna's skin was tinged green with the color coming from the tubes (as there were lights inside showing the viewers the contents like fine museum pieces), her own breath appearing a fine mist in the cold air.
Obviously, people in stasis didn't need heat and it was economizing to keep the place a meat locker.
Meat locker. Ha! What a pun.
Was Seven here? Was one of these stasis tubes her home and comfort before B'Elanna killed her?
If Seven was in stasis to be gawked at, were the others here for the same reason? Were these freaks of nature according to Kulkinara-Amet? Were they worth the trouble or gathering them had most likely been?
B'Elanna didn't know, but she was destined to find out.
She recognized some of the races, Kazon, Vaadwaur, Pensarkan, and Qomarian. But that was just the Delta Quadrant section of stasis. On the second floor were specimens that Tamrak and his people had collected from the Alpha Quadrant: Ferengi, Bajoran, Bolian, Vulcan, even Cardassians.
No Klingons, she noted sourly with pride. Probably her long lost relatives put up too much of a damn fight to be worth collecting.
Realization washed over her as slowly as hypospray medication: no one ever left Tamrak's clutches.
This wasn't Kul's collection; it was Tamrak's.
Somehow, the butterfly metaphor she had used three weeks earlier seemed chillingly appropriate.
A hallway was darkened and separate from the rest. Naturally, her curiosity got the better of her and she traveled down the dark hallway. She couldn't even see her hand in front of her face, but the sick lime-colored fluid provided light for her.
She reached her hand out and wiped away the fog from the glass.
"Sweet Kahless," she whispered an oath so sacred it could only be used in this situation.
Caretaker.
He was preserved in his human form, his frail old body floating in the green goo, doubled over so that his face was pressed to the glass. B'Elanna suppressed a shudder as she stared at him, floating in is tomb/womb.
Kul knew everything that was in stasis here; she approved of Tamrak's "hobby." Did she want something with Caretaker's body? Was necromancy on the long list of kinky things that Kul enjoyed in the privacy of her lair? Was she trying to open his brain like a file and read it like a book? More questions popped into her head, but she wouldn't recognize them even for her own sake.
She moved to the next stasis tube to see what other dirty little secret Kul was hiding in this comfortable nook. A scream caught in her throat and she had to use the tube for support.
"Oh God," she switched religions. "No, no, no, no, no..."
Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One. In suspended animation, but very alive and seemingly well.
And very naked.
B'Elanna nearly burst into tears as she leaned against the glass. "That bitch," she cursed. "She lead me on."
Big surprise.
"Hold on," she told the case. "I'm going to get you out of there."
Seven didn't answer her, she only floated serenely. Despite the fact that she was decidedly BorgGreen, she looked like an angel with her hair floating around her, wafting as she twitched slightly. Her lips were parted and fluid passed through them and into her lungs.
"I'm going to get you out of there," B'Elanna promised. She backtracked the way she came and found something that resembled an axe. Normally, she would have had no problems wielding the thing, but her muscles had disappeared and were only beginning to reform.
She swung the axe hard and the pain vibrated up the sides of her arms, but she wouldn't let go of the axe. The glass spiderwebbed in all directions and fluid began to slip out. B'Elanna swung the axe again and punched a fist-sized hole into the glass; fluid rushed out like birthing fluids out of a mother. Seven began to twitch as if she were being born again as her comfort slipped away. B'Elanna screamed with her entire voice as she brought the axe into the glass a third and final time.
The stasis glass shattered into a thousand pieces Seven of Nine spilled out into her arms. B'Elanna began to weep for joy.
Seven was slick with liquid and B'Elanna checked her for a pulse. It was strong and her lungs must have been too, because she was coughing liters of fluid out of her mouth. B'Elanna was getting a view of Seven that ensigns shipwide on Voyager would die for.
Oh God, what had Kul done to them both?
B'Elanna hulked the Aryan goddess to her bare feet and leaned her on a hip. Seven was regaining consciousness as she was preparing to leave, "State our desig..."
"Good girl, Seven, keep talking," B'Elanna ordered and supported Seven's head. Her eyes fluttered wildly, but she remained breathing and her pulse was steady.
B'Elanna paused as she looked at Caretaker.
She was going to fuck Kul the way she'd wanted B'Elanna from the beginning.
Seven slid to a heap in a very un-Seven-like manner as B'Elanna released her hold and took up the axe again. She screamed as she swung it three times into the glass. Klaxons began to go off loud enough for the deaf to hear.
Figured that Kul would have rigged the damn thing.
Caretaker spilled out onto the floor, the fluid gushing around B'Elanna's feet and soaking them. Caretaker's hand reached out and fell across her foot.
With a scream of triumph and rage, she heaved the axe downwards and embedded it deep within his head. His congealed blood spattered across her front and face, and though she turned in disgust, she didn't regret killing this one.
Finally, the alarms brought her back to earth and Seven of Nine was weeping like a child in confusion. B'Elanna stumbled across the amniotic slick and placed an arm around Seven, lifting her upright.
"You have to run," she ordered, grabbing Seven by the shoulders and forcing her to look into her face.
"State out designation," Seven commanded through the haze.
"I don't have time for this," B'Elanna screamed. "You have to run!"
"I..."
"Comply," B'Elanna growled in the most guttural of Borg voices she could. Seven's eyes cleared up long enough to understand what was being ordered of her.
She struggled to her feet with B'Elanna's help and looked down at herself. "I'm naked."
B'Elanna slid off the robe part of her tunic and wrapped it around Seven. Forcing her arms into the sleeves was like forcing plasma into an invisible bubble. As it went on, she noted it looked much better on Seven than it did on her.
As B'Elanna and she stumbled to the door at the top of the floor, energy weapons fired at them, threatening to take of a limb. About five guars had rushed through the door and were aiming and firing at the two escapees, each one poised with what looked like high-powered phaser rifles. They must have been roused in haste; their fire was slow, sluggish...missing their marks.
Even though they couldn't aim for shit at that moment, there were enough of them to do some damage with their sweeping shots. B'Elanna and Seven hadn't been through Starfleet training regimes in a long time, and even a misfire from one of the guards could have caught one of their exposed limbs. B'Elanna cursed as a shot nearly blew the left side of her face off and shoved them both through the door and into the hall. The phasers were so hot that it burned the metal and the baby hairs on B'Elanna's face melted.
The hall had guards running pell-mell in all directions, which would make their escape more difficult. The rush of adrenaline in B'Elanna's head was enough so that she could focus on her task. Her chest was heaving as she labored to breathe in her fear, and Seven just leaned heavily against her arm, trying to comprehend what was going on. B'Elanna desperately wished the Borg wasn't conked out, she desperately needed Seven's tactile mind working.
As soon as the commotion outside died down, B'Elanna poked her head around the corner. As she was satisfied that it wouldn't be blown off, she lifted Seven off her feet and they blindly ran down a hall. They paused as more guards rushed past and then continued.
B'Elanna recognized the door she was supposed to have gone through before and she and Seven ran out it.
The icy blast pulled B'Elanna apart and a cry of surprise and pain emerged from her lips. Seven of Nine began to whimper again as the liquid still on her arms began to freeze and make her skin bleed.
Though her feet ripped pain through all of her limbs, B'Elanna walked she and Seven through the snowdrifts. The snow soaked her flannel unitard and the wet cloth froze against her legs, making it nearly impossible for her to walk. Seven's whimpers became tears as the blood from her skin began to stain the snow faint pink.
They walked about a kilometer before the pain became too unbearable. Seven collapsed into a drift and refused to move.
"Come on, I promise, I'll give you enough replicator rations for six million hot baths if you just keep moving," B'Elanna shouted at Seven. Everything throbbed as the frozen blood coursed and cooled her; she wanted to crawl into the snow and die right along with Seven. "You can't stop," she urged, more encouraging herself.
Seven decided that this was the end of the line for her and she let her eyes drift close and her body clutched tighter to itself.
"Dammit," B'Elanna screamed at Seven's fetal ball. "You can't do this to me, I outrank you!" It was weakly spoken, it was weak way to get Seven moving, but Seven still refused.
With what was left of her strength, B'Elanna lifted Seven and slumped her over her left shoulder. The scene must have been quite hilarious if not so dire: Seven was good foot taller that she and her arms and legs dipped deep into the snow as B'Elanna made her frozen way through the snow.
They traveled another kilometer in the snow, but B'Elanna was so cold that mer mind had stopped working. She didn't know where she was going and she wasn't sure if she was far enough away from the compound to be able to be beamed up.
Seven had lost consciousness a long time ago, and didn't protest as B'Elanna collapsed into the snow. The soft leafy flakes puffed around her and resettled on her, hot needles sewing pain deep into her limbs.
"Torres to Voyager," she whispered as her frostbitten fingers touched the commpin, "two to...beam up."
As she drifted out of consciousness, the confetti sparkles of the transporter beam swirled in front of her eyes.
***
one pays him with a smile
another with a tear
some cannot pay at all
he never seems to care
*
B'Elanna could feel the world of Voyager float around her on the transporter pad. She felt Seven laying next to her and sighed.
Danger forced her to bolt upright and standing.
"Voyager," she croaked.
"In orbit of the planet," Harry said in his voice of ration."No!" she screamed loud enough to startle him. "Leave! Now!"
"B'Elanna, you're delirious," he said as he came towards her. He placed a supportive arm around B'Elanna's shoulders, "We should get you and Seven to Sickbay."
"Get off me," she ordered brusquely and she shook off his hand. She would explain it all to him as soon as she knew that Voyager was safe. "Take Seven, I have work to do."
His hands were persistent in restraining her.
"Get off of me," she screamed. She was grateful that fear wouldn't allow her to let pain interfere, because she knew that the way her muscles were cramping meant they still weren't ready for her brain to be pushing them around. "If you value your life and your mind, you'll listen to me."
When he still had kept a grip on her forearms, she screamed and decked him. He was too surprised to stand up again; he held his bleeding nose in his hand and looked at her with pain.
B'Elanna turned and ran, not willing to meet his accusing glare or she may have lost valuable moments.
"Captain," she screamed as she burst onto the bridge.
Janeway looked at her with surprised eyes, "You should be in Sickbay, recuperating."
"Leave this space now," she ordered. "You're in great danger every minute you stay here."
"You're sick," Janeway countered.
"Dammit; stop telling me that!" she hollered and looked at the viewscreen. Kulkinara-Amet looked at her with wrath in her eyes; B'Elanna caught Kul's gaze and nearly turned to stone. "She's evil, she's here to kill you all!"
"What?" Janeway floundered, her eyes returning to the viewscreen.
"How the hell did you get on Voyager," Kul was too surprised to remain demure.
"I escaped, and I found Seven," she spat. "Next to Caretaker."
"Caretaker," Janeway asked, her voice hushed in wonder.
"You..." Kul hissed.
"I did it, I killed him," she whispered, leaning heavily against the railing as it threatened to pass above her. "Your little 'collection' was quite interesting. How long were you going to lead me on?"
"You bitch," Kul screamed, her face turning red."On the contrary," B'Elanna countered. She wasn't sure how long she could argue; her legs were starting to wobble. "After you were done mangling Janeway, were you going to stick us all in cold storage and laugh when you saw our bodies next to his, congratulating yourself on screwing us so well?"
"B'Elanna; what the hell is going on," Janeway asked, joining her lost sheep's side.
"They kidnapped me," B'Elanna actually screamed at the viewscreen. Chakotay had to join Janeway in restraining her from charging to the weapons array. "She forced me her so she could torture you!"
"You freely told me..." Kul began, but trailed off as she realized how incriminating that statement was going to be.
"What were you keeping Caretaker in stasis for? Were you going to crack him open like an egg and read his entrails for a sign?"
"B'Elanna," Chakotay warned fiercely, his restraining grip on her arms tightened.
"I made damn sure that wouldn't happen," B'Elanna continued on, using her rage to compete her body. "As long as his brain is in multiple pieces, it will make it damned difficult for you to do anything."
"B'Elanna!" Chakotay's shouted, silencing her.
"Damn you," Kul hollered, "I'll kill you! ...I'll kill everyone on Voyager for this!"
"I don't think so," Janeway said, her face solidifying into Commando-Kate mode. "Target their weapons array and fire."
"Firing," Tuvok smoothed. "Weapon's array destroyed. There is no aerial attack; I believe Kulkinara-Amet is defense and offenseless."
Kul screamed long and loud as her end of the connection shook with tremors. "But you have nowhere to go, Janeway; I the slipstream capability has been destroyed and you'll never be able to get it back. So I have won in the end. ...I'll always hate you, Janeway! I swear to you I'll kill you and avenge my lover's death."
Janeway shook it off, having head the oath so many times. Kul had nothing to get at her with.
"And you," Kul turned to B'Elanna, "know this: you are a cheap slut, and aren't worth a nickel in anyone's eyes. I know the truth about you, and I'll make sure everyone else in the Delta Quadrant knows, too. ...Especially Tom."
Tom stared at B'Elanna with eyes that could melt concrete.
"Fuck you," B'Elanna said simply, ignoring the shock in the entire bridge's eyes.
"Let's get the hell out of here," Janeway replied, turning her back on Kul. The screen blanked as the screams tore apart the other end of the connection.
B'Elanna had enough time to savor the victory before the ground came rushing up to meet her.
***
B'Elanna floated into a world hazy with painkillers. She swallowed, but the cotton in her throat wouldn't budge, her tired eyes swept the area around her. All she wanted to do was slip back into her dreams; she couldn't take another nightmare.
She felt a hand's warmth on her forehead, and she looked up, half-expecting it to be Tamrak or Kul. Tom looked down on her with worry and care in his eyes; his hand traveled the length of her hair and then down the sides of her cheeks.
"Tom," she grogged, her voice as thick as the Valium haze.
"Thank God you're back," he said. The tears lined his eyes in the way they had when she had tried to commit suicide. "We thought for sure that we had lost you."
"Voyager," she asked for a second time, as his hand took hers persistently.
"Beating it the hell out of where we came," he replied softly and kissed her fingers, still black from frostbite. He had the good grace not to ask her about Kul's threat.
"That hurts," she said as she removed his hand gently.
"I thought I told you not to bother the patient," the Doctor said with his face the same expression of disapproval that was always plastered on his face.
"Trust me," B'Elanna said, "he's not bothering me in the least."
The Doctor harrumphed and picked up her frozen hand, "Frostbite, Lieutenant?"
"Snow," she replied. Tom still floated around like he was her oxygen.
"Well, it's not too bad, it can be fixed with a dermal regenerator," he replied and waved the instruments over her fingers. The tingle was painful as sensation came back into him. "What possessed you to run out into the snow nearly naked and soaking wet?"
"Freedom," she replied, knowing that that remark would have the Doc checking her head.
"Where's the blood from," Tom asked seeing Caretaker's congealed blood dried on her stiff smock and checking her skin for cuts.
"Caretaker," she whispered back, turning her head.
"Alive?"
"No, he's definitely dead now," she said.
Silence settled on them all like a heavy blanket.
"How's Seven?"
"She should be fine after I give her another hypospray and keep her wrapped in hot blankets. She's suffering from what in normal language can be called 'stasis withdrawal'. She'll need bed rest...er alcove rest for at least 24 hours. . ...Not as if anyone takes my medical advice anyway. It's a good thing you decided to beam up when you did. Three more minutes and she would have been dead."
"Transport.... Oh God! What about Harry?"
"He'll be fine, also," Doctor said with a tone that stung like hornets. "Only a broken nose."
"That's my B'Elanna," Tom smiled and gripped her shoulder, "hypothermic and still able to take out Starfleet's finest. ...Doesn't that make two broken noses on your list?"
B'Elanna decided not to make him next and ignored him. "Can I see them?"
"Seven is in isolation, but Harry's over there," the Doctor jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
With Tom's help, she hobbled slowly over to where Harry was sitting, "Hey Starfleet."
"Hey Maquis," he replied, rubbing the purple spot on his nose. "Remind me not to get into a fight with you when you are at normal temperatures."
B'Elanna benefited him with a small smile, "Forgive me?"
"From what I hear, you saved the ship from impending torture," Harry replied, his smile was cut off with a wince as his nose crinkled. "I suppose I have to."
"I'm sure you can get back at me somehow," she smiled, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Just as long as it's a clarinet-playing contest, I have a feeling anything 'physical' will get me into deeper trouble," he said and his eyes flicked to Tom.
"I thought I was the one getting physical punishment," Tom mock-pouted.
"I'm recovering," B'Elanna threatened.
"And Seven" Harry asked, his face drooping again. "What about her?"
"Short of hypothermia and 'stasis withdrawal' she's fine," B'Elanna assured. She could read the dormant crush all over his features: if only he knew what she looked like naked. Maybe if she were in good spirits, she'd tell him.
B'Elanna made her way to the area of sickbay that was segregated from the rest of the biobeds. Seven lay serenely unconscious on the table, her whole body enveloped in blankets. "Can I go in?"
"For a few moments, but that's about it," Doc assured her. The force field flickered and B'Elanna went in alone, Tom respected her space.
B'Elanna sought out Seven's frail hand in the blankets and held it in her own, "Aren't you glad I pushed you so hard? If I hadn't, you'd have died."
Seven said nothing, but her breathing changed.
"When you wake up, you'll have to tell me your side of the story," B'Elanna asked. "I'll be sure to tell you mine."
There was a long pause as B'Elanna tried to say something for Seven and Tom, "I'm sorry about our fight before we were kidnapped. ...I'm so glad I didn't kill you."
Tom was waiting for her as she came through the force field. He caught her as she began to fall and stroked her face as she began to cry when three weeks hit her from behind.
***
Captain Janeway finished reading the padd in her ready room and clucked her tongue involuntarily. "This is B'Elanna's entire account," she asked the Doctor as she set the padd down on her desk.
"Every sordid minute of it," he replied.
"And Seven?"
"She's already given her account."
"And?" she pressed.
"The only thing she remembers is being shot at and then waking up in Voyager."
"She was in stasis for three weeks, correct?"
"Affirmative."
"Prognosis?"
"She'll be up to medical and Starfleet snuff in another day. She's in her alcove right now, regenerating."
Now to the messy part, "And B'Elanna?"
"Much longer," he admitted. "As you have read, Tamrak the Magnificent raped her mind every day for two weeks. She's been suffering from nightmares and hallucinations as a result. It seems that her food was laced with a drug to suppress them after she had gotten off of Tamrak's 'treatment.'
"And, her ordeals with Kul are coming back to her," he continued. "She has confided in me how she fells guilty about letting herself be duped by her."
"Suicide watch," Janeway diagnosed.
"No," the Doctor countered. "She has no tendencies since the one she had in the prison."
"Dear God," Janeway rubbed the side of her face and died for a cup of coffee; the bitterness of it could battle the sickness swirling in her stomach. "Tom's in for a real treat."
"I had advised her to not tell him all at once," the Doctor replied, scratching at his bald spot in a manner unlike a hologram. This bit of medical marvelry was probably enough for him to demonstrate human habits of ire. "Also I have advised her to come and see me three times a week for the next three weeks."
"Prognosis?"
"It will take a while, but we should have the old B'Elanna we all know and love," he replied, looking very tired; if it was possible of a hologram.
Janeway nodded absently, "Put this into a spot in the computer you see fit." She handed him the padd and he nodded, not moving. "Dismissed."
The Doctor nearly ran with his tail between his legs.
***
(ponder,darling,these busted statues
of yon motheaten forum be aware
notice what hath remained
---the stone cringes
clinging to the stone,how obselete
*
B'Elanna sat in her quarters with a mug of hot coffee burning the palm of her hand. She had just ridden out the last hallucination and was so tired she couldn't sleep. But she hadn't taken a sip of coffee.
She was glad that Tom wasn't there for the last trip down hallucination lane.
She hadn't told him anything about her and Kul, but she had told him every nuance of everything else that had happened. At first, he was upset that she had been through so much, but then he was with her every step of her recovery. He seemed just glad and relieved that she was alive.
She had finished three of her nine therapy sessions. She didn't think that all the memories would go away with the next six. She didn't even want to think; she wished that her mind could be flushed out like the warp coolant tanks: efficiently, periodically, and thoroughly.
She had no idea how she was going to tell Tom about Kul.
How was she going to tell him that she had enjoyed the first kiss? She liked the sting of the illicitness of it; she enjoyed the gentleness that Kul had that Tom could never give.
Damn Kul, she was right about the whole female gentleness. But Kul also hadn't a clue when it came to being a warrior, and that was probably the only way that B'Elanna had won the battle of the sex.
She shuddered as she felt Kul's hand cupping her breast.
The only thing that washed the feeling away was the fact that B'Elanna had killed Caretaker.
Regrets? I've had a few.
She still wondered how she got to sleep every night after returning to Voyager. Even with Tom lying next to her, protecting her from herself, she still had nightmares that woke her up soaked in fearsweat. B'Elanna was grateful that Tom would hold her until she was calm.
But he refused to make love to her.
Maybe it was better that way. Maybe it would be better that he wouldn't seduce her until she had stopped floating in the muck of her brain. But the three weeks that she had rotted away made her crave human touch and she tried to get him to make love to her in a way that would have been called begging by anyone who hadn't been around Kul.
For now, all she could be satiated with was with him just being her shadow.
Her door chimed.
"Enter," she said, knowing it wasn't Tom, who had just gone on shift.
"Good afternoon, B'Elanna," Captain Janeway said, taking leave and sitting on the couch next to her.
"Afternoon? Really?"
"Time flies when you're off duty," Janeway smiled. "How was your last therapy session?"
"Grueling," she replied; she took her sip of coffee that bit back.
"Can I ask you something," Janeway cut to the chase.
B'Elanna nodded, not meeting Janeway's stormcooled eyes.
"When are you going to tell Tom about Kul?"
"You know?"
"I read your document," she replied with guilt. "I can utterly sympathize with you."
How could Janeway sympathize with her? She'd never been seduced by a woman. Besides: she wasn't out looking for sympathy, only cures. "I don't know."
"The longer you delay it, the harder it's going to get," Janeway insisted.
B'Elanna bristled involuntarily.
"Look; I can read in between the lines of what you and Kul went through, and I read that she brought me up into the conversation," Janeway cut further into B'Elanna's skin. "I understand why you said it; I know you wanted freedom."
"I was waiting for the punishment of sedition," B'Elanna sighed, putting the coffee on the table. "When do I report to the brig?"
"You don't," Janeway replied. "I was hoping we could strike something mutual."
"Extortion won't look good on a Captain's log," B'Elanna snapped. The emotion that flickered across Janeway's face made her wince and turn away.
"You tell Tom about Kul and I will overlook you giving away Voyager's secrets. How does that sound?"
"Easier than it should."
"Just tell him, B'Elanna. ...You owe him that much," Janeway said and left B'Elanna's quarters.
***
come, gaze with me upon this dome
of many coloured glass, and see
his mother's pride, his father's joy
unto whom duty whispers low
*
Chakotay sat across from Kathryn as they ate their dinner together, "How's B'Elanna doing?"
"From the Doctor's report and my seeing her the other day; prognosis is homeostasis."
"And how's that?" he flashed a charismatic grin across the cold table.
"She's had her share of setbacks, but the treatment she's receiving is remedying that," Janeway took a bit of her meal. "Ick. What is Neelix using in his cooking pot?"
"I hope that it's not the stuff that we discovered molding in Cargo Bay 1," he countered. "...Anyway, how is Tom doing with all of this?"
"I think he's just watching the vases as the fall off the shelf,' she frowned back, spearing her dinner with wrath. "He's happy as hell to get B'Elanna back, but he didn't expect her to be like this."
"No one wants to see a loved one going through mental trauma," he replied. "After all; I know firsthand as I watched my grandfather."
"Why Caretaker's Assistant?"
"What," he asked, missing Janeway's line.
"Kulkinara-Amet," Kathryn replied. "Of anyone, she's the one least likely to do this."
"You're only saying that because you wanted her to be our ticket home," he pointed out earnestly.
Well though and rationally spoken. Too bad it was true. "After five years, she is still harboring her anger...and blaming me."
"Five years and a broken heart is enough time for anyone to brew," he smiled, enjoying his coffee pun immensely.
"I just had her figured to be a caring person," Janeway replied, staring into the dimension behind Chakotay's shoulder. "...Though her intentions misplaced."
"You know what ancient saying they had for assuming, don't you?"
"No, what?"
"'Assuming makes an ass out of you and me,'" he replied. "You seem more downtrodden than you should. Don't tell me you're that disappointed about Caretaker's Assistant's nature."
"No; just that we've been looking for her for so long in hopes that we'd be going home faster," Janeway sighed, pushing away her plate. She suddenly lost her appetite.
"We've gotten this far without her," he reassured, placing a hand on hers. "As long as we have each other, I'm sure the journey won't be too tedious."
Janeway flipped her hand over and accepted the warmth of his pass through to her. "I have my crew and my health; I can't complain any further."
"You don't see me goading you, do you," he asked.
Their first kiss, though brief, was welcome and solacing to one another.
***
it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such silence as i know, or such
great writing words as, uttering overmuch
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;
*
B'Elanna woke up screaming from another nightmare. Tom was there for her.
Her kiss on his lips was gentile and feminine; "I was so frightened."
"I'm here," Tom promised, but he didn't decline the persistency of her lips. "This will get easier as time goes on. The memories will fade and life will get back to normal."
"I hope so," she kissed his worried forehead.
"I promise," he replied.
"I have something to tell you," she dropped her head.
"What," he asked, taking her chin in his hand. "Nothing you could ever say could ever make me not love you."
She smiled weakly, took a deep breath and told him.
End.
