To The Journey

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This is an AU story.

Chapter Fifty-Three: Reintegration

By mutual agreement, all of the engineers backed away from what had until recently been Joe Carey's station as Leah Brahms ran her hands over the controls, pressing a few buttons, doing nothing in particular. Every one of them recognized her; their Assistant Chief Engineer had always enjoyed showing off pictures of his wife and firstborn son, and when he'd finally received one low-quality photo of his baby through the data stream, he'd loved waving that around as well. Everyone knew what his family looked like.

If it hadn't been heartbreaking enough to lose Joe to begin with, it hurt all of them even more to know that he had been a scant few months from safely reaching home. Seeing Leah crying over her husband's workstation only emphasized this for them.

A giggle was heard from the upper level, breaking the solemnity of the moment. As one, all the engineers looked up to see two little boys with Joe's features playing with a few harmless engineering tools under the care of a dark-skinned engineer.

"I'm helping!" the younger boy said cheerfully.

Geordi gave an abashed smile. "I told them they could help me repair this console," he explained.

"It's not -" one ensign began, only to be elbowed in the ribs by the woman standing next to him. "Not quite fixed yet," he finished hastily, completely changing his course. "Keep at it, you three."

Leah looked up then, a smile on her tear-streaked face. "It looks like you two are doing a great job. You having fun helping Geordi?"

"A lot of fun!" the older boy said, at the same time his brother chimed in "yes, mommy!"

She nodded, still smiling. "Keep up the good work."

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Tasha knew that the man looked familiar, but she couldn't place him until he was standing directly in front of her. "Charlie? Charlie Day?"

"Yeah." He looked at her again, seeming to size her up. "Damn. Tasha Yar. It's been a while."

"Yes," she said icily. "It has. What are you doing here?"

He snorted. "What do you think? I'm here to see Tom."

"Too bad. He doesn't want to see you."

"Really?" He gave a humorless laugh. "Who died and left you gatekeeper?"

"His so-called support system."

That finally brought Charlie up short. "What?"

"Do you know how many people have been trying to see Tom in the last few days?"

He shrugged. "A lot, I'd guess. Tom had a lot of friends, you know that."

"You're right, he did. But how many of them stuck around after his court-martial? Let alone after he was arrested?" She met his eyes with such intensity that he actually took a step back. "You didn't. I know you didn't."

He shook his head disbelievingly. "What is the point of this exercise?"

"That's why he doesn't want to see you. You were a fair-weather friend. You all were. When he most needed a support system, he turned around and all of you were gone. And now you all want back in? It's not going to happen."

"I'll believe it when I hear it from him. Look, I remember you, Tasha. You barely even had any friends, and Tom stuck by you for some unknown reason."

"He's my friend," she countered, punching that last word. "That's what friends do for each other."

"Friend, huh?" he said skeptically. "You know, I always suspected there was a little more than that going on. Course, he couldn't say anything, he did have a girlfriend after all, but I have to wonder, what was in it for him?"

If he'd said that at the Academy, Tasha would likely have responded in anger. But now, she only laughed. "That's your problem, isn't it? You see everything as an equation. No wonder you walked away from Tom. You didn't see his friendship as worth the trouble anymore." She shook her head. "You're right about one thing. Tom was my friend when to most everyone else I was nobody, because real friendship doesn't care how popular someone is. By the same token, I stuck by him when everyone else walked away. Because he's my friend, and like I just said, that's what real friends do."

"What's going on out here?"

Both of them turned to see Tom, who had apparently been drawn to the hallway by the sound of raised voices. Tasha spoke first. "Nothing. I've got it under control."

"Tom!" Charlie said delightedly, pushing past the blonde woman and making a beeline for his childhood friend. A moment later, his jaw dropped as the other man stepped back, arms crossed. "Tom?" The man's name sounded a lot less confident the second time. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" Tom repeated in surprise. "You really have to ask? You're denser than I thought."

Charlie's brow furrowed. "What, the whole Caldik Prime thing?"

"The whole Caldik Prime thing?" he repeated. "You say that like it doesn't matter!"

"Tom, that was eight years ago!"

"And?" he replied impatiently. "I didn't realize that finding out who your real friends are has a time limit."

"Don't you think you're overreacting a bit?"

"Actually, no."

"Come on, Tom. I thought we were friends."

"So did I. In fact, I thought you were one of the few real friends I had. But all of a sudden, from one day to the next, you stopped taking my calls or returning my messages. And now you're here, wanting me to forget all that based on the friendship that meant nothing to you eight years ago. I'm telling you now, that's not going to happen. I'm done, Charlie. Done."

Charlie stood there for a long moment, mouth gaping open. "But Tom..." he sputtered out finally.

"No."

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"I don't know." Tom sighed, staring at his hands. "You think I was a little hard on him?"

"Not for a second," Tasha replied, shaking her head. "If anything, the friendship you had only made his betrayal worse. If he'd actually apologized, that would be one thing, but for him to just expect everything to be okay - I think he's the one who's being unreasonable."

"I know, I know. It's just - it was easy with the others. But as much as I played it cool out there with Charlie, it still hurt to blow him off like that. There are still so many memories there."

"I know. I had to walk away from my own sister, remember? It's not easy to let go of a toxic but close relationship. Doesn't mean it's not necessary sometimes."

"Of course. I'd forgotten - I'm sorry."

"Don't. That was a long time ago. We were talking about you."

"Yeah, I suppose we were." He shrugged, considering his next words for a long moment. "It wasn't always like this, you know. When we were kids, it was real. I'm trying to figure it out, you know, when it was that my friend turned into a self-serving idiot, but even in hindsight I can't place it. Oh, he was always a little arrogant, and more than a little impulsive, but this...this is another level altogether. Or maybe I just never saw it," he admitted. "Maybe I was too close to see the way he treated others."

She reached out to take his hand, squeezing it gently. "You can't blame yourself, Tom."

"Can't I? I'm not so sure. I knew he didn't like you. But at the time, I just thought he'd been listening to all the wrong people."

"Maybe he had," she interjected. "I wasn't exactly popular at the Academy, especially after the Sadie Hawkins fiasco."

He shrugged again. "I thought I could change his mind. I thought all he needed was a different perspective. I never realized how set he was in his mindset."

"Which isn't your fault. Hindsight is 20/20, as the expression goes. But in the moment, it's not always so clear."

"Easy for you to say," he replied with a soft laugh. "You always seem to know when someone's not to be trusted."

"That's because I have a hard time trusting anyone," she pointed out. "Not exactly an enviable trait. I'm hypervigilant because I don't know how not to be. Even after all these years, those survival instincts don't go away."

His smile faded instantly. "Damn, I'm sorry. I keep putting my foot in it today."

"And I keep telling you not to worry about it," she countered. "You're working through a trauma of your own. I'm not fragile, and the little references I keep making are only to make a point. I don't want you censoring yourself like this. You never used to."

"You're right," he admitted. "I guess it's just taking a little while for old patterns to reemerge, huh? I didn't expect it to be this hard."

"Seven years is a long time, Tom."

"I guess I just assumed it would all come back to me."

"Your memory isn't at issue here. My point is that things change. We're not the same people we were the last time we saw each other, that day on the Bradbury. I think a certain amount of necessary adjustment is to be expected."

Tom's reply was cut off by the door chime, causing him to roll his eyes. "I've got this one. Yes, come in!"

He stood and turned to face the newcomer, visibly bracing for another confrontation, but when he saw who was there, his posture relaxed substantially and he smiled. "Deanna! This is a nice surprise."

She hugged him warmly. "Sorry I missed the party last night. Emergency call."

"It's okay," he assured her as he returned the hug. "We weren't there anyway. B'Elanna wasn't quite up to it."

"Of course, I should've realized that was a possibility, I heard your big news. Congratulations, Tom."

"Thanks." He was beaming again, the somber conversation he'd been having forgotten.

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Leah gratefully accepted Geordi's supportive arm as they stepped off the ship. Then, turning to him, she buried her face in his chest.

"I'm sorry," she gasped out between sobs. "I didn't think this would be so hard."

"It's okay, love," he soothed. "Don't apologize. It's okay."

"I thought I was past the worst of it," she whispered. "But physically seeing the ship without him on it - it just hit me all over again."

"I've got you," he assured her, running his hands over her back. "Don't worry about it. I'm here."

She sobbed for a few minutes more before she was able to regain control. "Geordi LaForge," she said with a watery smile, "you are one extraordinary man."

"How's that?" he asked, extending a hand to gently wipe the tears from her face.

"You've been nothing but supportive, even though Joe was essentially your rival. You've never once begrudged me that. You came over to play with my children - his children - even when you thought you had no chance with me."

"Oh, Leah, that was no burden," he replied. "I love the boys. It would've hurt me more not to be around them. And I also love you. It damn near kills me to see you hurting like this. How could I not do everything I can to help you?"

"Like I said. An extraordinary man."

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"I'm honestly not entirely sure what to think of you," the half-Klingon admitted. "No offense."

"None taken," the Betazoid counselor replied. "But you have no reason to be apprehensive. What happened between Tom and me was over quite a long time ago."

"It's not that. Not exactly, anyway. It's - it's more about the kind of person that you are."

Deanna raised an eyebrow slightly. B'Elanna sighed. "That...didn't come out the way I intended. I don't have a problem with you, specifically. Damn, this is really hard to explain."

"Maybe you should start at the beginning."

"Yeah. The beginning. That might be best." She drew a long breath. "Look, you and I are pretty much polar opposites. The thing is, the kinds of women Tom was into before me - if you'd asked me before we got together, I would've said his type was someone more like you. Much more like you."

"And you're concerned." She barely needed her empathy to tell her that.

"Yeah, I guess. I mean, I know that he loves me. I do. But there's a part of my mind that can't help but wonder, why did he go from - well, you, and women like you - to, you know, me? What if he decides that I'm not really what he's always wanted?"

"Oh, B'Elanna." It was clear to Deanna that the Klingon woman's fear of abandonment was rooted in a deep-seated trauma. "I can't answer that first question for you. You'd have to ask Tom that yourself. But as for the second - I don't see any chance of that happening."

She gave a humorless laugh. "Now you're psychic too?"

The black-haired woman shook her head, smiling kindly. "No. But I don't have to be. I can feel how much he loves you. He practically lights up every time he so much as says your name. In all the time I've known him, I've never witnessed that reaction towards anyone else. Including me."

"Really?"

"Really. And it's not just an empathic sense either. It's plain as day in his eyes. He's head-over-heels for you and your daughter."

B'Elanna's face relaxed into a smile now, and she cast a glance at the door to the living room where Tom lay, having fallen asleep on the couch almost mid-sentence while talking with Deanna and his wife. "Thank you, Counselor."

Oh. My. God. I cannot believe how long it's been since I last spent some quality time with this story. Unfortunately, it seems that real life had other plans for me. I'm back now, and I sincerely apologize to my faithful readers for this lapse.

Please review!