Disclaimer: All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. I only own my imagination.
Spoilers: Cathexis. If you haven't seen it, this won't make much sense.
Author's Note: I have the ambition to keep these coming, but I also have a real life which can mess with me, which it has the past weeks. A new cat and local festivities demanded too much time. Our favourite couple ends up in sickbay with no memories of being taken over by Chakotay, and of course they had a chat for a while the good Doctor was working.
Tom looked up as the sickbay doors opened and his eyebrows climbed several millimetres when he saw the individual walking through the doors.
"Doctor?" B'Elanna called out, ignoring the man on the biobed watching her step in to the room. She looked over at Chakotay's unconscious form at the far end of sickbay and stopped.
"I am right over here," the Doctor answered from his position next to a computer console. "Please state the nature of your emergency." He kept analysing something on the screen.
"I thought that was your greeting phrase when someone activated you," Tom mused out loud.
The Doctor turned around and walked up to B'Elanna without looking at Tom. "On the contrary Mr. Paris. It is a useful phrase in many situations. How can I help you Miss Torres?"
B'Elanna hesitated. "The captain wanted me to come here… Something happened down in engineering but I don't remember being responsible." She glanced at Tom who looked like he had been on that bed a while. It struck her as a bit odd. He was still the Doctor's stand in medic and worked in sickbay at times, but when he did, he didn't sit around like he did right now.
"Can you be more specific?" the Doctor asked and walked over to a tray where his scanner was and picked it up.
"I apparently shut down the warp core, but I have no memories of doing it," she responded and glanced in his direction.
The Doctor came up to her. "Ah," was all he said as he started scanning her. She again glanced over at Tom who had kept watching her. When the Doctor was finished he walked over to the console where he had been working when she had entered the room. "Please, take a seat on a biobed," he said as he continued to work. She turned and walked over to the bed next to where Tom was sitting.
"Why are you here?" she asked Tom as she sat on to the bed.
"I altered course without remembering it," he said flatly. "My DNA was all over the navigation control on deck 12, but I have no memory of changing course and locking out Harry."
B'Elanna's eyes widened. "I did the same thing. I also locked out the bridge when I shut down the core. Apparently."
Tom looked at B'Elanna with a frown on his face. "Doc, did you hear that?" he asked. The Doctor appeared next to him and almost startled them.
"I did." He looked at B'Elanna and then at Tom. "I'll need to look at your memory engrams and compare them to the logs. We might find something there." He turned and walked over to his small office.
B'Elanna followed him with her eyes. "I don't like this at all. You'd think I should remember shutting down a warp core," she said and turned her attention to Tom on the biobed next to her.
"No kidding," he responded sourly. "Having Tuvok staring me down for doing something I have no idea I did isn't too much fun."
B'Elanna smiled slightly. "The captain wasn't too happy with me either." An awkward silence fell and B'Elanna gazed over at Chakotay.
Tom decided to break the silence. "I haven't seen you in a while. Work keeping you occupied?" He tried to sound casual.
"We meet ever so often during staff meetings," B'Elanna retorted and kept her eyes on Chakotay.
Tom nodded and pursed his lips. He had seen this kind of evasive manoeuvres from B'Elanna before. "But not in the messhall or at Sandrine's," he said softly.
"I've been busy," B'Elanna rebuffed.
"We all are. It's a tight crew running this ship." He paused for a moment. "Neelix tells me you're taking your meals to your quarters," Tom pressed on.
B'Elanna turned her head back and glared at Tom. "Are you gossiping about me?"
Tom smiled slightly. "No, we're not. Neelix is always worried about people who start bringing their meals to their quarters. He brought it up with me and Harry yesterday."
"You. Harry. Why not Chakotay?" she asked in disbelief.
"Oh I'm sure he would have eventually. It's just that we tend to sit together quite often so he figured we knew if you needed to be cheered up." B'Elanna snorted and Tom crossed his arms and straightened his back. "Quite frankly, I share his worries," he continued.
"I don't need anyone to worry about me," she said coldly and looked away again.
"Hey," Tom said softly. "I don't want to pry. No one does. It's just that when someone changes we all notice."
"So you're saying we're all one big happy family who cares about each other?" she snapped and glared back at Tom.
"I care. Harry cares. Neelix cares. Chakotay cares. B'Elanna, there are many who cares and notice when something's wrong. It's not a bad thing." Tom tilted his head slightly and relaxed a bit. "You don't have to talk about it. Just…"
"Just what?" she interjected.
"Just accept that there are people who are there if you need them," he concluded. He almost wanted to bite his tongue. It had been two weeks since Seska left them and platitudes about trust surely wouldn't go down well with B'Elanna at the moment. Her glare told him he was right in that assessment.
"I can take care of myself," she said and looked over at Chakotay again. Tom followed her gaze and sighed.
"I know you can. That's not the issue here." He kept looking at the unconscious body. The one most suited to support the woman in front of him was brain dead according to the Doctor. It would be a terrible blow for B'Elanna if she lost him as well. As he looked back at B'Elanna he caught a glimpse of a stormy sea of emotion in her face before she willed back the defiant mask she usually wore when things were difficult.
"We'll fix this. Somehow we will. He'll be back," he said quietly.
She looked at him. "You don't know that," she said and her voice trembled slightly.
"No one ever knows. You just have to have faith and do what you can. The moment you think you can't do this, this won't work, we can't solve this, it's lost."
"I put up the medicine wheel for him…" she said slowly and looked back at Chakotay.
Tom didn't say anything, just watched her, wishing he was a person who could give her the hug she so desperately needed. He could coax many personal issues out of her, but he was not close enough to her for such things. He could be a friend she could talk to though, and a friend he would be, no matter how difficult this could become, he decided. It didn't look good.
