Disclaimer: All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. I only own my imagination.
Spoilers: Resolutions. 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. Okay, so I'm assuming a few things here. One, that since Tuvok became captain Paris was promoted to XO and two, that B'Elanna can lose control of her Klingon self when she's under emotional pressure, and would do so with Tom at this point. I'm willing to admit T'Pol is the inspiration to this scene, what can happen when we lose much and isn't dealing with it.
B'Elanna tapped her combadge. "Torres to Kim, are you alone?" she asked.
"*Hold on.*" Moments passed by. "*There, we can talk,*" Harry said.
"Do you have any idea where Tom is?" she asked tilting her head slightly.
"*No. It's not his shift so he's not on the bridge. I saw him leave earlier. Have you tried his quarters or the XO's office?*" he said.
"Tried those already. The computer told me he was in his quarters when I couldn't find him in that little closet he calls his office. He's not in his quarters though," she said holding up a combadge with her hand looking at it.
"*How do you know he's not there? He could just be asleep or not feeling like answering,*" Harry quipped.
She rolled her eyes and sighed. "Harry, I know because I'm standing inside his quarters. He's not here. Only his combadge is."
"*How did you...*" She heard a sigh. "*You broke in to his quarters.*"
"I didn't exactly break in to it. That's besides the point anyway. He's not here and he left his combadge. Can you scan and see if you can find his life signs?"
"*Hold on,*" Harry said and concern laced his voice. B'Elanna hid the badge in her clenched fist and started pacing as she was waiting. "*He is in the shuttlebay,*" Harry suddenly said.
"The shuttlebay?" she echoed. "Thanks Harry. Torres out." She was already walking through the door when she ended the transmission, heading for the turbolift. Why had he removed his combadge? And why was he in the shuttlebay? She felt like she was in a race against time somehow, that Tom had gotten a stupid idea and she might already be too late to stop him. She refused to think about possible scenarios, but her heart had parked itself in her throat. The journey seemed to take forever and people was getting on and off on her way down through the ship. At one point she nearly growled and hurled Hogan out of the lift when he stopped holding the door while ending a conversation. He suddenly turned and gave her that look he had when he knew she was not in a good mood and stepped inside. She wondered how he had known but she didn't have time nor did she feel like finding out. When the lift stopped next time she got out of it without even nodding at him.
The shuttlebay was silent but lights were on. Other than that nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary and she moved slowly in to the large room. Suddenly she heard a faint clonk close to one of the shuttles.
"Tom?" she called out with an uncertain voice. The metallic echo her voice created suddenly sounded ominous in her ears and she quickened her step towards the sound she had just heard. Tom's head popped up next to the warp 10 shuttle looking a bit taken aback.
"Hey B'Elanna," he replied and smiled at her.
"What are you doing here?" she asked and her anger almost exploded.
"I was just going over the shuttle," he replied and frowned. It didn't escape him that she was quite upset.
She held up his combadge in front of his face. "You left this in your quarters," she continued still being able to keep the building fury under control.
He looked at it with a blank face at first and then he blew out air and let his eyebrows climb upwards. As he reached out to grab it B'Elanna snatched it away from him and this time she couldn't hold it back any more.
"You scared me half to death Tom! I have been running around chasing you over the whole damn ship! I had no idea what had happened, where you were and when I found the combadge and Harry told me you were here I thought... I thought... " She couldn't find the right words and stopped temporarily, almost shaking. "Qu'vatlh!" she cried. "You t'oohomIrah, don't you ever do this to me again!" The red haze threatened to completely overtake her and she realised a little too late that her human side had abdicated. She turned away from Tom and lifted the foldaway ladder next to him and hurled it in the bulkhead behind him with a cry coming from somewhere deep inside of her where all the bottled up frustration and grief was, now welling up like a molten lava stream.
Tom's eyes grew wide. He had sensed the vibrating anger when she had held up his combadge but he hadn't expected it to explode like this. It was clear this was her Klingon side at its worst and that he needed to think fast or he'd end up in sickbay. Don't back off, he quickly remembered, and in a split second while B'Elanna was regaining her balance after throwing the ladder, he hurled himself forward hitting her around her waist with his full weight, lifting her off the ground and sending them both to the floor. Before she could get the better of him he managed to get hold of her hands twisting them up on her back, keeping his full weight on her back hoping he wouldn't injure her.
"B'Elanna, calm down!" he said trying to sound calm himself. She spat with great effort a long incoherent sentence of invectives he didn't need a dictionary to interpret.
"B'Elanna, listen to me. I'm sorry I scared you. I didn't meant to do it. I forgot putting my combadge on this overall when I changed to go down here. I have been a bit absent-minded lately and I simply forgot. Do you hear me?" he asked and looked down at her anxiously. She was panting heavily and didn't seem to even hear him. She didn't respond. He drew a breath in frustration.
"I'm going to hold you here until you calm down," he told her as coolly as he could. Great Tom, he thought. You have an absolutely furious Klingon to deal with and you just declared war on her. This better work or you're toast. He decided talking was the only way he could continue this.
"You need to breathe and focus. We can talk, but I'm not going to let you go until I know you have landed again. All I can say is that I'm very sorry about all of this. I didn't do it intentionally. I would never do anything stupid, not that kind of stupid anyway. I just felt like working with my hands and I figured this was the best place to do that since we're not going to be using the warp 10 shuttle any time soon, at least not until we have removed the engine from it and returned it to a normal shuttle again. I've had so much to do and think about I simply wanted to do something which didn't remind me of paperwork and duty roosters... " He stopped and sighed. Listening to her breathing he could tell her breathing had changed. Whether she actually had calmed down was another matter.
"B'Elanna, are you listening?" he asked.
She only breathed for a few moments and then she managed to give him a nod.
"If I let you go now, will you be okay?" he continued.
"You mean, will you be okay," she growled through her clenched teeth.
"It's part of it, yeah. I'm not letting you go until I know you have calmed down B'Elanna." He kept his voice calm and as friendly as he could in such a hostile situation.
She opened her mouth slightly breathing almost normally. "I will not harm you," she rasped. He immediately released his grip and helped her to sit.
"Stay here," he said and hurried to the entrance where a replicator was located and ordered water in a bottle. When he came back to her she had curled up with her head buried in her arms. He touched her back and she jerked her head up and revealed that she was crying. Immediately he dropped down next to her. "B'Elanna, how are you doing?" he asked and didn't bother to hide his worried tone and face.
She took a couple of deep breaths before answering. "I'm sorry Tom," she croaked.
He shook his head. "I'm okay. No need to apologise," he replied. He picked up the bottle and handed it to her and she grabbed it and drank eagerly. She tried to clean up her face with her left hand after drinking, not succeeding particularly well.
"I lost control," she said and her voice was flat. "I shouldn't have taken it out on you. I was worried, but... it got out of hand... It wasn't just because I was angry at you, everything just... exploded." She was quiet for a moment. "I have lost... " she started whispering but her whisper was cut off by a choking sound. She was quiet for a few moments. "I have lost Chakotay, the only one even close to being family," she managed to whisper. "We have lost the only person I thought would be able to get us home."
Tom had no idea what to do. Despite having shared Voyager life with B'Elanna for almost 18 months, he had no idea how to handle this situation. He finally decided this was a moment when he would brave her aversion to any kind of comforting, reached out his hand and gently stroked her cheek with his thumb. She looked up at him but didn't pull away and for long moments they just sat there, silently looking at each other while Tom caressed her cheek.
"Thank you," she said and her voice suddenly sounded very loud. Tom looked around and B'Elanna pulled away slightly. She started looking around her and got on all four and reached out and picked something up. Once she sat down next to him again she opened her right hand and held it out to him. In it was his combadge. He picked it up and put it on.
"I promise I won't forget it again," he said.
"You'd better not," she said with a reluctant smile.
He hung his head for a moment. "I never imagined... I would never... " he started saying but she cut him off.
"My imagination got a bit carried away there for a moment. All I could think about was that I was about to lose one more... " She shook her head. "I felt like I was slowly losing everything keeping me standing. Seska, Banderas, Jonas, Chakotay, the captain... " B'Elanna looked up. "When I found your combadge I thought you were going to leave, do something stupid, and that we'd lose you as well. It got a bit too much." She looked down again.
Tom nodded and sighed. "I'm not going anywhere if I can help it, I promise," he said gently. She looked up and met his eyes without saying anything. Suddenly BElanna looked down with obvious embarrassment.
"I must look like a complete mess." Her hair fell partly over her face but Tom could tell she was blushing.
"Nothing a brush and some water can't fix," he replied calmly and got on his feet and reached out his hand. "Come, lets get over to that replicator." She looked up and reached out her hand and he helped her on her feet. Together they walked through the shuttlebay towards the replicator.
"I'd better talk to Harry," she said and tapped her combadge. "Torres to Kim. I found him. We're all good," she said.
"*Is something wrong?*" Harry asked clearly worried.
"No. No, nothing is wrong. Torres out." She ended the transmission.
Tom raised his eyebrows. "I think we've better find poor Harry once you're done here. I don't think that calmed his nerves much."
She nodded and turned to the replicator. "Hairbrush, standard size. Towel, small," she ordered. Tom held out the bottle and she took it from him and started splashing water in her face before using the towel to dry her face. With quick strokes she sorted out her hair and as quickly as she could she disposed of everything.
"Let's find Harry," she said looking up at Tom.