"My," Neelix drew in a deep breath. "What lovely bed sheets you have!"
"The better to gag you with," Harry shot back. "Neelix, go find him something to wear!"
Harry rushed to Tom's side where he lay face down with his legs curled up beneath him. He placed his hand on Tom's bare back, instantly thankful that Neelix ran off to do what he was told before he got any ideas about using Tom as a spare burner for his kitchen.
He glanced at Chakotay, who had walked about ten feet in the other direction and spoke to someone over a comm frequency. Probably the Captain. But hopefully B'Elanna or the Doctor.
"Understood." Chakotay paced back towards them and tapped his comm badge. "Chakotay out."
"Well?"
"That was the Captain. She's with B'Elanna. She told us to stand by, but we should probably at least move him out of the corridor."
"What about the Doctor?"
"He's on his way. Harry, there is something we need to…" Chakotay was cut off by a loud moan from Tom.
"Hey, take it easy," Harry said softly. "Can you stand?" He grasped Tom by his biceps and pulled him to his knees. "We need to take a walk."
Tom looked at Harry through narrow eyes. "B-"
"Yes, we're going to get you back to B'Elanna." Harry noted that Tom had a nasty fat lip. How did he ever cope with Klingon sex? Harry shuddered at the very idea. Each to his own, he reminded himself.
"He's delirious, Harry," Chakotay continued. "The Captain is still trying to get information out of B'Elanna, but the gist of it…"
"Buster..." Tom barely whispered.
"Wait." Harry blinked. "Hold on. Just a minute. What?"
"He thinks he's Captain Proton," Chakotay finished.
"Well," said Harry calmly, "tell him to stop it. This is no time to be saving the galaxy from Chaotica's Sonic Dino-Cannon of Doom."
Tom's sheet fell to the floor.
So did Harry's jaw.
"You were saying, Ensign," Chakotay prompted.
"Have no fear, the Doctor is in!" Seven of Nine pranced around the bend from behind Tom, looking like she did that time she downloaded the Doctor into her implants. "Well, I must say, you would make a fabulous nurse, Ensign. Thank you for taking the time to prepare the patient in advance."
She stuck the business end of a hypospray right into Tom's left butt cheek. Tom yelped and fell forward into Harry's arms.
Knowing Tom was in pain, Harry resisted, with all his might, the urge to jump away. He just looked over Tom's shoulder at Seven, confirming that her expression was not her's at all, but… "Doctor! What the hell are you doing this time?"
"A little slow on the uptake, Ensign, but…" the Doctor sniffed the air. "Woah. I thought you smelled bad, but what exactly…?"
"Sweat, sex, and Tom's aftershave," Chakotay provided. "Listen, I don't even want to know what you are doing with Seven, but can you just…" he motioned at Tom "...fix this?"
"Now there's something I hadn't considered," the Doctor purred. He glanced down suggestively at Seven's body.
"That's not what I meant, Doctor. Medically."
"Well, Commander, if I could cure the Pon Farr in the first place, he wouldn't be in this situation." The Doctor reached over and plucked the Borg neurogenic device off Tom's temple.
Tom winced, pulling away from Harry enough to lift his hands to his head.
At that moment, Harry noticed Tom held an identical device between his thumb and index finger on his right hand. He exchanged a knowing look with Chakotay.
"Alright, Captain," Harry reached for it. "What's this? Let's have it." Harry gently held out his hand to Tom, who rightfully trusted his sidekick. Once Harry had the device in hand, he quickly passed it to the Doctor.
The Doctor shot Seven's tubules into each device and, after a moment of deep concentration, withdrew them, smiling proudly. "There. Good as new." He stuck one of the devices back on Tom's temple and then other went right onto Seven's.
"Doctor! What the…" Chakotay stepped forward.
"Communication, my dear Watson!" The Doctor activated the device on Seven's temple then knelt Seven's lithe body next to Tom.
Harry seized the moment to grab Tom's bed sheet off the floor and reacquaint it with his waistline.
"Uh-huh." The Doctor said to Tom. "Yes," he nodded. Then Seven's eyes narrowed. "I am not your secretary," the Doctor huffed. "Do I look like a screaming idiot? I am, and will always be, the president of…" Seven's voice trailed off as the Doctor listened to whatever Tom was saying in his mind.
After another minute, the Doctor reached up and deactivated the neurogenic device. He stepped towards Chakotay, motioning for Harry to join them.
"He thinks Chaotica switched his body with someone else," the Doctor said when they all gathered. "And now he thinks his secretary and the president of the galaxy got swapped as well. Perhaps it would be best to play whatever character he thinks we are until we can figure out a better way to fix this. Tell me, Ensign, did anything like this ever happen in one of his holodeck scenarios?"
"Of course it has. It's pulp science fiction." Harry paused for a moment. "I think we need to talk with him more to figure out exactly which episode we're in."
"Big help you are," the Doctor muttered. "He said he was stuck in a room with a slave girl from planet ten who looked like she had the mark of Arachnia on her forehead. Does that mean anything to you?"
"The mark of Arachnia is what Queen Arachnia used to mark her slave-minions."
"He described being seduced by Arachnia's spider minion so Arachnia could use them to spawn spider-babies."
"Oh! Chapter hundred twelve! Captain Proton and the Atomic Messiah!"
"You know the story?"
"Yes, it's the story about how Captain Proton and Princess Electron conceive a child that turns out to be the messiah of the galaxy, while Arachnia thinks she's using them to create spider-minions."
"Princess Electron? Did you just make that up?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "No. Tom made it up. Princess Electron was a role he specifically saved for B'Elanna if he were ever to get her to play Captain Proton with him."
The Doctor nodded. "And you think you can get her to play Captain Proton with him now?"
Harry was truly at a loss. And afraid of what B'Elanna might do to him if he tried. "Let's not go there, okay."
"But you went there, Ensign. You do know he could die from this, right?"
"Look, all I know is that B'Elanna would never play the Captain Proton scenario with us. It's like she felt she was too good for it or something."
Chakotay mumbled something under his breath.
"What?" Harry began to feel defensive. "It's not as if there is anything else to do on this floating can of…"
"Ensign, stop it." Chakotay put his hands on his hips. "If you have something to say, then say it to B'Elanna when she's here to defend herself. And if it's about Voyager, then take it up with Captain Janeway. But now is not the time for your passive-aggressive jealousy because someone stole your playmate."
Harry bit his tongue and felt a pang of guilt over what he had just said. Exposed as he was, it was nothing compared to what Tom was dealing with.
"I'm sorry," he said, glancing over at Tom who had curled himself into a fetal ball. "I'm just... worried about him."
Chakotay nodded. "We all are. But unless you think you can help him more than B'Elanna, I suggest you let it go."
Chakotay released a calming breath after a pause. "I'm going to take a walk to Tom and B'Elanna's quarters to see what the hold up is." He turned toward the front of the saucer and started walking. It was the closest route. "Get him out of the corridor and stand by," he called over his shoulder, right before he disappeared around the bend.
Harry nodded to himself. Right. Get him out of the corridor and stand by. What could possibly go wrong?
He turned back around and saw the Doctor in Seven's body with an expression of extreme fascination plastered across Seven's normally restrained features. He followed his gaze to the subject at hand: Tom Paris, in a ball on the deck, with his hands under the bedsheet moving at a steady, yet urgent, pace.
xxx
B'Elanna pulled Tom's bathrobe tighter around her body while struggling to control her trembling. From where she perched on the foot of her bed, she watched the Captain and Tuvok on the other side of her quarters speak in hushed tones over the Captain's comm frequency.
She hated that they were talking about her but she couldn't hear them. She closed her tired eyes and saw only red.
"...your orders are to stand by. Janeway out."
She opened her eyes again.
The Captain walked over and sat down next to her. Tuvok stood before them but kept his distance.
He seemed awkward.
It wasn't his place to be speaking to a female who was experiencing Pon Farr, unless that female happened to be his wife. The first time it happened to her, he didn't have a choice since no one else was knowledgeable about the condition. But with the Captain there...
"This is your fault, P'taQ," B'Elanna spat.
Tuvok tensed up and looked at her. "Indeed. But getting angry is not going-"
Before he could finish his sentence, B'Elanna was on him like a Maquis on a Cardassian despot, shrieking like a banshee and pounding her fists wherever they would land. "You did this to me!" B'Elanna screamed. Tears poured from her eyes. "You idiot Vulcan P'taQ! You turned us into animals!"
She couldn't count how many steps he had taken back, and she didn't care. He wouldn't defend himself. And Janeway, the nerve, was right behind her trying to yank her away.
"B'Elanna!" Captain Janeway spun her around. "Take it easy!"
B'Elanna shoved her back and tried to break free.
"Lanna, stop it!" Janeway held her tightly by the arms and her fingernails dug into her flesh.
"Don't call me that!" B'Elanna was genuinely startled at Janeway's audacity. "You are not my mother!"
There was no calming her down. B'Elanna gasped for breath between sobs. She couldn't stop the vertigo; the ship rocked beneath her.
B'Elanna shook the Captain off her and stumbled towards the viewport. Outside she could see a red ocean. Each dim star, a lost, dead soul…
"Tuvok, contact Chakotay and have him bring Tom to sickbay," Janeway's voice cut like glass.
Tom was going to die.
"Don't you dare!" There was no way in hell she would ever let that happen. She barreled towards the door and Tuvok blocked her by tightly grabbing her forearms.
"Lieutenant, listen to me!" Tuvok shouted. His expression demanded her undivided attention. "As long as he's alive you can assist him, but you need to understand that we cannot have you running around the ship in your condition."
B'Elanna found herself chuckling through her veil of tears and red haze. "What's the matter Tuvok? Can't have all those outworlders knowing about Vulcan's dirty little secret?"
Tuvok raised a brow. "That," he said pointedly, "and your bathrobe fell open."
B'Elanna looked down and felt her whole body flush warm from embarrassment.
Tuvok released her from his grip.
She quickly pulled her bathrobe around her and stumbled away, making a pathetic effort to stop swaying. She felt sea-sick. She looked back out the viewport where she thought she saw the red ocean, but instead it was the usual black velvet studded with bright pearls of white.
"B'Elanna, if we can get the Doctor to stabilized his seratonin levels again, we could give Tom a moment of clarity," Janeway said.
B'Elanna rubbed her arms where the Captain had clawed her. She looked down, confused. There wasn't a single mark. She was certain blood had been drawn.
"He doesn't have time for this." Her voice still shook with the effort to stay on subject. She wanted to at least try to be the stable one this time. "The Doctor already did that once. It took a whole hour. He told me that the procedure only accelerates the condition in the long run."
Dead silence.
"I'm his wife. It's my call."
"You're judgement is impaired," said Janeway. "It's my call."
B'Elanna spun around. "You have. No. Right."
"Tuvok," said Janeway, never keeping her eyes off B'Elanna. "You have your orders."
Tuvok paused, as though questioning the ethics about what he was about to do.
"Go ahead, Tuvok." B'Elanna could taste her own bitterness. "Kill him some more."
Tuvok just looked at her, startled. "It was never my intent to send Tom to Gre'thor."
B'Elanna blinked. She never said…
The door chimed.
"Go Away!" B'Elanna shouted. It didn't matter anyway. She could hear the sound of the security code being keyed in. Why didn't anyone respect anyone's privacy anymore?
The door swished open and Chakotay strode in. She released her breath and thanked Kahless, knowing he would side with her. Chakotay was a blessing in disguise.
"Captain, we need to have the Doctor stabilize his serotonin levels. He's out of his mind," he said.
Or not.
"He's with Harry and the Doctor just down the corridor, but I think we need to get him to sickbay. He only responds to Harry because he thinks he's Buster Kincaid. The Doctor suggested we play whoever he thinks we are until we can get him to sickbay."
"The Doctor told you to bring him to sickbay?" B'Elanna asked.
"He implied it."
"Or you inferred it. This is ridiculous." B'Elanna threw her arms up. "Everyone suddenly knows what's best for my husband but me. If everyone would just back off and let me help him, then maybe he'd have a fighting chance."
"He's in this situation because you caused him to regress into this mindset." Janeway was done taking prisoners. She was in it for the kill.
And it killed.
"You don't know anything." B'Elanna glared at Janeway through narrowed eyes. "Instead you wait until we're both sick and then pounce like a Ha'DIbaH."
"That's enough." Janeway paused long enough to convey her anger at B'Elanna. "Tuvok, get Mr. Paris out of the corridor and take him to sickbay. Lieutenant Torres and I will join you once he's there. Understood?"
Tuvok looked almost apologetic at B'Elanna, but quickly regained his composure. "Yes, Captain."
He quickly left her quarters and Janeway turned to B'Elanna. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but closed it again as though rethinking the idea of speaking at all.
xxx
Just as B'Elanna knew the truth by instinct, Tuvok had came to the same conclusion by logic. The pon farr was a condition that had a tendency to pull ugly, grotesque ideas from the subconscious out into the open. If the Captain wanted to give Tom a moment of clarity, then who was to say he wouldn't regress back into the same mindset minutes later, only to leave him with less time to deal with it.
And what was imperative is that he deal with it, and not try to push it back into his subconscious mind. Pon Farr was not only a time of mating, it was a time of cleansing.
The journey from the Lieutenants' quarters to escape pod access was a quick one, but long enough for Tuvok to know, unmistakably, what he had to do.
He had to disobey his Captain.
When he turned the corner into the access chamber, he quickly assessed the situation.
Ensign Kim had restrained Mr. Paris by holding his arms behind his back; he lay on the deck, wearing a pink furry bathrobe.
Seven of Nine knelt next to him, taking random tricorder readings. Undoubtedly she still had the Doctor downloaded into her implants.
Then there was Neelix, who stood holding his hands in front of him. His face did nothing to hide the worry he felt for his friend. So emotional.
Tuvok cleared his throat, They all looked at him and waited. Everyone except Tom, who was too far gone from reality to even notice his presence.
"Mr. Neelix. Put him in the escape pod."
Ensign Kim opened his mouth to protest, but Tuvok held up his hand.
"That's an order, Mr. Neelix. He has no time for arguments. Put him in the pod and go to transporter room one, lock onto my comm badge, and stand by."
The Doctor stood and stepped towards him. "Are you out of your Vulcan mind? He needs help!"
"He needs to be with his mate," said Tuvok. "Surely, you will agree with me, Doctor, that there is no time to waste performing a procedure that could possibly take hours."
"Alright, Commander," the Doctor said after a pause. "Given the lack of information in our database about the condition, I trust you have a better plan...?"
"Indeed." Tuvok involuntarily raised his brow.
"Very well, then." The Doctor folded Seven's arms across her chest... and then quickly, and very awkwardly, removed them. "What did you have in mind?"
"Ensign Kim. Doctor. You're with me." Tuvok turned quickly and headed towards the turbolift without another word. The Doctor followed at his heels and Ensign Kim, reluctantly, left his friend in the hands of the ship's morale officer.
xxx
B'Elanna stared at the bloodied bat'leth on the wall to the left of her bed that wasn't really there. She looked away quickly, towards the Captain and Chakotay on the other side of the room, knowing that if she looked back, the wall would be a blank again.
She didn't know if it was the pon farr or an aftereffect of the neurogenic interface. What she did know is that she sure as hell wasn't going to tell either of them that she was seeing things. That would be a conversation she would have to have with the Doctor later.
If it didn't kill her first.
The Captain's comm badge finally went off. "Janeway here," she answered.
"Captain, Lieutenant Paris is secure. The Doctor is standing by."
"Good, Tuvok. Have the Doctor begin the process to stabilize him. We'll be there shortly. Janeway out." The Captain tapped her comm badge to close the frequency. She looked at Chakotay first. "Ready?"
Chakotay nodded and motioned for B'Elanna to lead the way. It pissed her off. The Captain wouldn't even talk to her now without having Chakotay be her go-between.
Coward, B'Elanna projected.
B'Elanna half growled and sneered. She stepped out into the corridor, tugging Tom's conspicuous bathrobe around her.
When she looked up, she could see one large, built shadow of a man disappear around the bend towards escape pod access. He was huge. He didn't belong on the ship.
Stunned, B'Elanna started quickly down the corridor in his direction.
"Wait, B'Elanna..." Chakotay called after her. She heard him running behind her.
She wanted to slow down for Chakotay to catch up, but she had become so overwhelmed with the urge to follow him. It was uncontrollable. When she reached the bend, he was nowhere in sight.
"B'Elanna, listen," Chakotay said when he caught up. "You need to stay with-"
"Did you see him?" She spun around, catching her breath. "Big, hairy Klingon. He's on the ship, he..." she trailed off when she realized what she was saying and saw the incredulous look on Chakotay's face.
"We need to have the Doctor look at you when he's done treating Tom. You're burning up." He reached for her forehead.
"Don't touch me!" B'Elanna slapped his hand away and stumbled in the direction she thought she saw the Klingon. "He went this way." She swayed down the corridor a little slower to keep herself from falling. She stopped short once she reached escape pod access. She twirled around, confused.
He was gone.
"B'Elanna, stop this," Chakotay said insistently. "Tom's in sickbay. You need to be with your husband."
Her husband. She stared blankly at the entrance to escape pod access. She felt so lost.
Chakotay was right. She tore her gaze away. Then headed towards the turbolift right after the other bend in the corridor. Behind her, she sensed the Captain had finally caught up.
"Deck five," Janeway said when they all got in the lift.
Inside, no one said a thing and B'Elanna was sure she would start climbing the walls if the lift didn't let them out fast enough. In her minds eye, she could clearly see the door to escape pod two-point-one. When she closed her eyes, it transformed into a wall of red flames.
When the lift finally came to a halt, B'Elanna didn't even give the door a chance to finish opening before she was down the corridor and in front of the sickbay entrance.
But every last bit of her screamed that it was not where she was supposed to be; Tom wasn't there...
She turned, ready to run back to the lift, but slammed into the wall that was Chakotay.
"Careful!" He grabbed her wrist.
"Let go!" B'Elanna, pulled her arm away and shoved Chakotay back, but he was too fast. He grabbed both her arms and walked her towards the door. "No!" It came out as a shriek.
The Captain just stood by, watching. "Chakotay, just bring her in, I'll have the Doctor sedate her if I have to."
"Chakotay, stop it!" B'Elanna kicked and pulled frantically as Chakotay dragged her back towards the door.
It whooshed open and, once Chakotay had B'Elanna over the threshold, her struggling all but stopped.
Tom was there.
He wore nothing but their bedsheet, restrained at both his wrists and feet, on the main bio bed with Seven of Nine standing over him. She held a neurostimulator over his head.
The whole sickbay was completely gray, decked out in Proton-esque knobs and wires. Harry stood by, dressed like Buster Kincaid.
And Tuvok was there also, in the Doctor's office, calmly telling Satan's robot to sit down and be quiet.