Disclaimer: All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. I only own my imagination.

Spoilers: Jetrel. 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. This was a giant void concerning our favourite couple, so I decided to do what the Trek writers do when they have no sci fi ideas – bring out the holodeck.

Tom stepped out of the turbolift and headed for the holodeck located on deck 14. Most of the time Sandrine's was running at the upper holodeck which meant that he took his work, private and professional, to holodeck 1 instead. Though he enjoyed his creation Sandrine's there was always room for more entertainment and he had been working on a program that he now wanted to test. He opened the program, drew a deep breath and stepped inside the room.

B'Elanna took one last turn in engineering after her shift had ended before leaving and headed for the turbolift. She was not in the best of moods. The rumours about the scientist that had showed up reminded her of home far too much. It had brought up unpleasant memories she didn't want to think about simply because she couldn't do anything about it while 70 000 light years from home. She stepped in to the turbolift as it opened its doors.

"Deck 14," she ordered. It was a short hop, almost ridiculous, she thought to herself. Even sillier was the idea to not have a deck 13. Well, the deck was there but it was named 14, not 13. Human superstition. She stepped out of the lift and headed towards holodeck 1. As she arrived she noticed that a program was running, a program she was unfamiliar with. The most productive holodeck programmer on this ship was Tom and she suspected this was his latest creation, thought the name didn't give anything away. Her curiosity was peeked and she stepped inside as the doors opened. Her eyes widened in surprise.

Tom's head snapped up as he heard someone's voice. He turned from the engine in front of him and went out on the deck to try and locate the person who had called out.

"Hey Tom!" he heard and when he looked around he spotted B'Elanna. "What's this?" she asked and looked around her.

"It's a swamp!" he answered cheerfully and headed for the gangway to join her on the landing-stage.

"Well, I can see that it's a swamp. You just don't strike me as a swamp kind of person," she said with a smile and looked at the boat in front of her. It was a small rusty bayou steamboat with the deck barely above the waterline.

"Ah, yeah," he hummed and squinted up through the tree branches stretching over their heads. "No, I'm not. Years back I dug up an old computer game where the adventure was located in a swamp environment and I kind of liked it. It looked cool anyway. I must admit though that it's a bit hot, especially in the engine room," he said and drew his hand through his wet hair. B'Elanna looked around her before stepping on to the gangway.

"What kind of an engine is it?" she asked and walked up the gangway and on to the deck looking at the opening where Tom had emerged earlier.

Tom grinned and crossed his arms over his chest. "It's a steam engine."

B'Elanna turned around and looked at him in disbelief. "A steam engine? Why?" she blurted.

Tom almost bounded up the gangway. "Usually I'm keener on the combustion engine but it's pretty fascinating with these engines too. Especially since they lasted a lot longer in environments such as these than elsewhere."

"B'Elanna took another look around. "So you built a swamp program with a steamboat."

"I did. If you steer this boat out in to the swamp all sort of interesting things can happen. I'm still working on the program though. I figured some people around here would appreciate this." He looked around and then his gaze landed on B'Elanna. "I figured you would enjoy the climate anyway." He smiled at her.

"Well, I'll give you that. It would be a perfect day on Qo'noS." She walked along the deck looking at the surroundings.

"So what brought you down here then?" Tom asked watching B'Elanna's backside. She turned her head and glanced over her shoulder.

"I just wanted to… smash something. The pool table isn't enough to take my mind off from what's been going on around here lately."

"You can run your program if you want," Tom offered and walked up to where she had stopped. "I'm just testing this anyway."

She turned to face him. "No, I don't have a program. I just ask the computer to give me any kind of battle simulation and… throw myself in to it." She looked out at the water.

"Would you like one? I could help you…" he let the sentence hang in the air between them. She looked briefly up at him and then turned to face the water.

"I can program, Tom."

He laughed. "Oh, I know you can B'Elanna. You just don't take time to program a holodeck program. Me? I can't help it. I have plenty of time to toy with ideas while sitting idly at the conn." He paused and looked down at her. "Just say the word."

She threw him a look and a slight smile. "I'll think about it." She was quiet for a moment. "Can we take her out?" she asked.

"Sure. It won't be terribly exciting because the adventures aren't finished yet. There are no dragons to slay yet," he said with an apologetic voice.

"It's okay. Just taking a turn with the boat would be fine. I lost the urge to smash things up when I saw all of this," she answered.

Tom gave her his brightest smile and she wondered for the umpteenth time if he had any idea just how great that smile was. "Your wish is my command," he said in a servile manner. "Want to check out that engine?"

She laughed. "No, I leave that to you. I prefer warp cores and impulse engines."

Backing away while still grinning widely, he pointed at B'Elanna. "You! Pull in the gangway."

"Yessir!" She couldn't help grinning herself. Moments after she had pulled in the gangway a steam whistle was heard, the paddles begun moving and the boat started floating away from the shore. B'Elanna sat down on the deck at the rear though not too close to the paddles, and watched the shore slowly passing by. The sun was now shining on her back, and she decided that she really didn't need her jacket and uniform shirt for this excursion, so she took them off. While she was at it she took off her shoes and socks and folded her pants up over the knees and hung her legs over the edge, dipping her feet in the water. This was far better than smashing something – someone – to pieces.

The game I'm letting Paris refer to is Fallout 3. Anyone who has no idea what a bayou steamboat I'm referring to looks like, and in particular a Fallout one, can google fallout steamboat. FF won't let me give a link so you have to do the dirty work yourself. ;)