Through the ringing in her ears, B'Elanna thought she could hear voices. Slowly, second by second, the ringing retreated, being replaced by familiar sounds. A steady beep. Pressurized air systems. The swish of…. Hyposprays. B'Elanna stretched her eyelids open, feeling a slight crustiness to the lids - she must have been out for quite a while. Turning her head tentatively to the side, she could see the Doctor sitting at his desk, humming (or, at least, she assumed he was humming by his swaying shoulders). There was another sound somewhere in the room that she couldn't see yet, and she pushed herself up on her elbows, hoping to be able to rotate her body towards the sound. Before she could make it all the way up to sitting, he was already coming towards her.
"B'Elanna!" Tom's anxious voice was achingly welcome to her still slightly loopy brain.
He got to her just as her elbows were threatening to collapse under her, and pushed her shoulders and forehead into his warm, familiarly-soft uniform jacket.
"How long was I out?" she asked, noting the roughness in her throat and dryness in her mouth.
"It's been about… 36 hours" he said, with only the slightest hint of concern underlying his obvious relief at her awakening.
B'Elanna leaned further into Tom, blocking out the light from sickbay that was bringing back the ringing sound her ears. She allowed herself just the briefest moment of rest in his familiar smell and constant care for her.
"What happened with the core?" she asked suddenly, pushing herself away from Tom and searching for his eyes. He quickly looked to the Doctor and, though he was trying to hide it, grimaced ever so slightly.
"Tom? What happened?" There was mounting anxiety and frustration seeping into her voice.
The Doctor appeared from his office, flashing his best bed-side-manner smile.
"Lieutenant! So good of you to join us! I was starting to get a little concerned. If you would please lie down on the biobed, I'd like to get some current internal readings". He placed a firm hand on her shoulder and attempted to guide her into a lying position. It wasn't successful.
"Hold on, Doctor". The snarl in her voice was barely contained. "I need to know what's happening in engineering. Did we end up ejecting the core?" Even just saying the words "ejecting the core" made B'Elanna's stomach flip, and she braced herself for the worst.
The Doctor looked uncomfortably at Tom, who diverted his eyes yet again.
"What?" B'Elanna demanded. Lowering her voice two notches, she said, "What happened?"
The Doctor took a deep breath and started carefully. "Right now, you need to worry about resting and recuperating. It's not up to me to tell you about engineering".
B'Elanna sat up a little straighter, feeling caged and a little enraged by the scarcity of information she was being given.
"I don't need to rest - I need to get to engineering". She was having a hard time keeping her voice under control now. "Tell me what happened!"
Tom looked up for the first time during this conversation. "He can't, B'Elanna," he said softly. There was a pause, and she waited for the impending bad news she somehow knew was coming.
"The Captain's given everyone orders not to discuss engineering or ships systems with you. No one's allowed to talk about it".
B'Elanna paused, trying to digest that information. Dozens of scenarios scrolled through her mind, none any better than the last.
"Why would she do that?" she heard herself say aloud, mostly unconsciously. She hadn't meant to force them to tell her what she didn't yet want to know.
The Doctor and Tom both were equally unsure of their footing in this situation. The Captain had been abundantly clear, in her righteously infuriated state, that no one was to speak with B'Elanna about engineering, the incident… any of it. And though she, of course, hadn't shared her feelings about B'Elanna's insubordinate actions with anyone (perhaps save Chakotay, but he would never relay anything that was said to him in confidence) all of the senior officers - and probably some junior officers in the vicinity of the conference room - could tell by her tone of voice that she was greatly displeased by B'Elanna's behavior. Neither the Doctor, not Tom, however, wanted or knew how to convey that information.
The Doctor jumped into the fray to try to divert the conversation again.
"The important thing to worry about right now, Lieutenant, is getting back on your feet, which will require you to lie back and rest so I can run the appropriate scans." he said briskly, adopting his most pleasant and professional tone. "I'll inform Commander Chakotay that you're awake and have some questions. I think he'd be the best person to ask".
B'Elanna's nature and all her muscle memory told her to jump out of the biobed and try to force her way out of sickbay down to engineering. But her better judgement, and, if she was honest with herself, the ever-growing fear of the impending consequences of her decisions, allowed her to lay back as the Doctor had requested. She didn't want to look at Tom and see the trepidation in his face. If he didn't want to tell her how he felt, then she was pretty sure she didn't want to know what he knew.