It was over. Matev was turned over to the Ligerians, the Ligerians in gratitude to Voyager for their help had overwhelmed them with their generosity. No one recognized his species but it didn't matter. He was safely locked away in one of their prisons. It seemed Matev did have greater plans to take over the sector but Voyager had helped to overthrow him before he had a chance to get started. The abducted aliens were freed and even stolen artwork had been reclaimed. The sector had been thinking of forming some type of confederacy and Matev's city looked like a good place as any to locate their headquarters. For once Voyager left a region of space leaving a trail of goodwill behind them.

B'Elanna was still in bed, as per the Doctor's orders. When they arrived back at Voyager they had been beamed straight to sickbay. The memory of the Doctor's reaction still caused him to flinch inside. The procedure caused her irritation levels to rise but she had become calmer with each passing day. She had communicated to Tom that morning that she now felt like receiving visitors and no one need fear that she would bite their head off.

Tom stood outside the door. He opted for candy instead of flowers this time but this time, it wasn't just as an apology. He took a deep breath and touched the padd. Where to begin?"

The door chirped. "Come in!" she said. She was sitting up on the bed looking better than she had for the past few days. A sketchbook was by her side and drawing pencils were scattered around on the blanket.

"Hey," He said. "Something for the invalid. The Doctor reamed me over for doubling up on your treatment but I told him I didn't think I had a choice at the time. So this is sorry for that...and for everything else." He placed them on the table by her bed. "If it helps you should know I've put a timer on the holodeck. Harry rigged it for me so that if I have to be somewhere, it shuts down and he's the only one who can restart it."

"Thank you for clearing out my system," She said. "But as far as the holodeck is concerned, that's a bit extreme."

"Yeah, well, I tend to go to extreme so it might take extreme measures to reel me in. Everything that happened...it happened because of me. If I hadn't lost track of time….you wouldn't have had those trackers in your system, to begin with, and you wouldn't have gone through everything you did."

"No, Tom, no. This was my fault. I brought it on myself. If I hadn't gotten that stupid spur of the moment idea in my head to punish you..."

"You mean you've been blaming yourself this whole time?" Tom said as he sat down at the side of her bed." B'Elanna, it was me. All me. And it wasn't a stupid idea. Even without if Matev hadn't turned out to be such a megalomaniac it probably would have worked. It killed me to see you with someone else. Did you know...when you didn't return at first I thought you had stayed on the planet with him?"

"I was afraid you'd think that. I even imagined I'd made you so angry that you took off with what's her name."

"So that's why you were surprised that I was still on the ship. I was getting ready to fob her off on Harry."

"I barely paid any attention to Matev so I have no idea where he got the idea that we made some sort of connection but I shouldn't have played games like that. Tom, please don't blame yourself. It seemed like a good idea at the time but everything just...backfired. So in the future, I'm not going to resort to games like that again. We'll just try to talk like adults and not behave like children. Do you think we're stuck?"

"Stuck?" He had barely gotten through the apology and wasn't ready for this abrupt change of subject.

"Both of us had bad childhoods. Maybe we don't know how to act like adults when it comes to relationships because we don't know what a good relationship looks like."

"Maybe. I hadn't thought of it that way but you could be right. I don't know what to do about it, though."

"I suppose we could talk to people who know about good relationships...like Sam Wildman.'

"And Joe Carrey."

"Even Tuvok!"

"Tuvok?"

"Sure, why not? He's been married forever. Even Harry...I mean he grew up in a happy home. He would know how his parents acted toward each other." Tom noticed the sketch pad on her bed. He picked it up and examined it. She was designing something. It looked strangely familiar.

"What's this? " He asked.

"Me trying my hand at a hobby," she said.

"A hobby? You mean you found something that will tear you away from your precious engines?" He studied her draft a little more closely. It looked simple. A box, a cylinder design on top, equations scribbled along the margins...where had he seen that before?

"Maybe. I have to see if I have the patience to get through this first."

"What is it?" he asked.

"It's just a rough draft and I'm working off old information but..." she began but something clicked in Tom's head.

"It's a turntable. A stereo...a record player!"

"Yes. I really enjoyed putting that television set together for you, a lot more than I thought I would and I thought...hey why not try something else from that era. After that, I'll figure out how to make the vinyl discs they used to replicate the music."

"They're called records. This will be great! Something to go with our TV. I hope you keep it up. We can have all kinds of cool stuff...and it's good to think of you having something...that's just yours..." He laid the sketch pad back down. "So does this mean we're good? We understand each other now?"

"It is as far as I'm concerned," she said.

"Me too." "Without another word he leaned over and gave her a long deep kiss. He started to nuzzle her neck.

"Did you keep that dress?" he asked.

"Yes I did and I'll wear it for you... on one condition."

"That I wear that uniform."

"How did you guess?" She said.

He pulled back and laughed.

"When you are finally recovered from all this we create a holo-program where the handsome daring black ops soldier..."

"Need I remind you that I TOOK out the bad guy…"

"I was going to say where the handsome daring black ops soldier and the beautiful fearless Klingon warrior princess defeat the evil delusional overlord together but..."

"Now I remember why the Captain doesn't want us going on away missions together." She said. It was endearing when she giggled like that. "That was some adventure." She reached up to caress his face. He allowed her finger to gently sweep across his cheek before catching her hand and holding onto it.

"Yes. That was some adventure but somehow, I don't think it will be our last," he said. Their eyes locked and this time, they did not look away.