36 hours later, B'Elanna didn't think she'd ever felt less like smiling. Sitting in her quarters at 0850 hours, B'Elanna felt the seconds slowly ticking by. 10 minutes left. 9 minutes 50 seconds. Will need less than two minutes to get the bridge. 9 minutes 40 seconds.

Fully recovered from her injuries, B'Elanna thought she likely felt worse now then she had when she woke up in sickbay. Her stomach had ached for two days now - nothing she did or thought had alleviated even the smallest bit of anxiety about her meeting with Captain. B'Elanna knew she was furious with her, and with good reason. Though her intentions had (she thought) been good and her actions came from a place of helpfulness, in the bleak light of day B'Elanna could see the egregious and public nature of the disobedience and subsequent consequences to the ship. If there was one thing Kathryn Janeway never tolerated, it was public defiance and insubordinate behavior. In every instance (at least the instances that ship's gossip heard tell about) of official discipline that occurred since they had landed in the Delta Quadrant, the connecting characteristic was the public or somehow pointed defiance of Captain Janeway's authority. Chokotay had borne the brunt of the official reprimand after he went after Seska on his own, the Equinox crew, Harry's deliberate defiance of intrapersonal encounter protocols…. And of course, Tom's prison sentence. All of it circled back to deliberate insubordinate or defiant behavior.

And if she was honest, while she certainly wasn't looking forward to spending time in the brig (because Klingons do so well with captivity…) or being busted down in rank, she was much more apprehensive about the conversation she was facing in 8 minutes and 30 seconds. She knew the Captain was furious. She was certain she was disappointed. But B'Elanna was holding out hope that she could salvage the Captain's respect for her. Not long ago - less the 6 months ago - she had experienced something confusing and profound on the Barge of the Dead, after the Captain had agreed to allow her to simulate a near-death experience to visit her mother on her way to the Klingon afterworld. It had opened B'Elanna's eyes to parts of herself she had never considered or understood, which included the profoundly important role Kathryn Janeway had, and continued to play, in B'Elanna's life. For all their disagreements and moments of friction, B'Elanna knew that she would never come closer to having a mother than she had come in the past five years in the Captain, and she valued that relationship more than she could say. And when she had expressed those most-secret feelings to the Captain, instead of the casual compassion she had expected, she had received reciprocation of feelings. There had been nothing she wanted more, and nothing she could think of that was as important to her. Now, faced with the prospect of losing the Captain's trust, and quite possibly her faith in her as an officer and…. member of her family, B'Elanna was feeling truly unable to make her way to the ready room in 5 minutes and 30 seconds. She just couldn't stand to look in the Captain's eyes and see the disappointment she knew would be there, or the cold dismissal she was sure would come after it.

Taking a ragged breath in while rolling her shoulders back, B'Elanna closed her eyes briefly as she stood up. Well, if I do nothing else right today, at least I'll be on time.

…

The turbolift doors swished open revealing the Alpha shift of the bridge crew going about their business. Although none of them looked particularly interested in her arrival, she had never felt more self-conscious of the 11 steps it took to reach the Captain's Ready Room. Hand hovering above the keypad chime, B'Elanna fought between her urge to get out of the line of sight of the bridge crew, reminding herself that what awaited her on the other side of the Ready Room doors was worse than anything on this side. Her internal clock told her that she likely had only a few moments until 0900 hours, so she took one last breath for strength and tapped the chime. The doors opened almost immediately.

The Captain was sitting stiffly behind her monitor. She didn't look up when B'Elanna came in, so B'Elanna took her place awkwardly in front of the Captain's desk. If there was one Starfleet protocol that B'Elanna thought she would just never get used to, it was standing at attention. Whether it was pride or anger or just plain disdain that made her feel so uncomfortable standing ramrod straight in front of another person, while not being allowed to make eye-contact… B'Elanna wasn't sure. Thankfully, the Captain seemed to instinctively know this, and had almost always invited her to sit when she had been called to the Ready Room, even if just in the chair in front of her desk. Now, the Captain sat like she didn't even know B'Elanna was in the room, indicating with all the severity a lack of acknowledgement could convey that this wasn't any other day, and letting B'Elanna know that there would be no lack of formality or protocol in this discussion about her actions.

The Captain finally stood up from her monitor and ran her hand along her desk as she made her way around it. She stopped briefly in front of B'Elanna, almost as if she was considering what to say, before making her way over to the railing and fixing her eyes on the startlingly stagnant stars.

"A few months after we landed in the Delta Quadrant, we encountered a race of people called the Sikkarans. Do you remember that, Lieutenant?"

B'Elanna's blood chilled. She shivered involuntarily. The encounter with the Sikkarans, her deception and ultimately, her disregard of the Captain's orders, had almost cost them their warp core very early on in their journey. But it was the Captain's ultimatum to her after the deception had been confessed, an ultimatum that had haunted her thoughts and actions for the past six years, that was now, she knew, being thrown back at her again by an equally angry Commanding Officer. The Captain's slight impatient head tilt reminded her that she hadn't yet responded to the Captain's question.

"Yes, Captain". The words were small and fearful, but B'Elanna was having a hard time breathing and they were the only words she could find.

"I gave explicit orders that the trajector technology wasn't to be acquired by back channels, and you and Tuvok took it upon yourselves to disobey that order and bring it back to Voyager". The Captains words held no anger, but they were pointed and intentional.

"Then, when Tuvok told you to wait to activate the projected matrix, you again took it upon yourself to activate the technology, which very nearly caused the destruction of our warp core and this ship".

Try as she might, B'Elanna wasn't able to keep her eyes on the wall behind the Captains desk, and she dropped her gaze to the ground, her mouth opening slightly and involuntarily, as she tried to push back the ever-rising fear and shame she was experiencing.

"And when you came to me to tell me about your little escapade" - here the Captain broke her rigidly still stance and raised her hand in a dismissive gesture - "do you remember what I told you?"

The question was posed in a genuine way, even though she was sure the Captain had no doubts that she remembered. The words had echoed in B'Elannas mind for months after the incident. Every time she walked into engineering and was handed her daily status report, every time she saw the Captain or responded to an order she issued, every time that she grabbed the uniform that at one point in her life she swore she'd never put on again. The encounter with the Captain and her rigid ultimatum had made B'Elanna realize just how much she DID want this job, this uniform, this place on Voyager's crew. Now the thought of reliving that conversation, and the possibility that the Captain intended to make good on her threat, was making B'Elanna feel as if she couldn't breathe. But keeping the Captain waiting in her current state didn't seem like the best choice either.

"You said that you were disappointed, and that if anything like that were to happen again, that you'd revoke my commission". The words felt like icicles in her throat.

The Captain now wheeled around, catching B'Elanna off-guard. She tried to regain her stiff posture and place her eyes in right spot, but she only managed a slightly straighter spine.

"I gave you an order yesterday that you deliberately disobeyed. Twice." The Captain's voice was sharper now, and filled with what B'Elanna could only assume was a barely contained rage. But B'Elanna was relieved to be faced with a statement that required a very simple response. "Yes, Captain".

"That reckless insubordinate behavior caused the warp core to come inches from a breach, and forced us to eject the core."

"Yes, Captain."

The Captain now strode quickly towards B'Elanna, making her flinch involuntarily. She tried desperately to regain her composure as the Captain continued to invade her space on her side.

"I then gave you a second order to move away from the console, which you also blatantly disregarded, which caused you to incur serious physical injuries requiring immediate and intensive medical treatment". It took all the self-control B'Elanna had not to dismiss her injuries as she normally would. But speaking casually of any part of the incident seemed ill-advised. So she responded quietly, "Yes, Captain".

The Captain paused briefly to walk behind her desk, where she remained standing. When she spoke again, her voice was low but bore the tell-tale sharpness and cutting tone that always came from challenges to her authority.

"Ms. Torres, when I give an order on this ship, I expected to be followed. You not only endangered this entire ship and her crew yesterday, you put yourself in harms way needlessly. I cannot now, nor will I ever accept that type of gross insubordination on this ship. This ship has survived for this long because we hold to our command structure and our starfleet protocols." The Captain's next words were dangerously quiet but no less commanding. "And I am not willing to allow this type of blatant disrespect for my authority to go unanswered".

She was staring at B'Elanna now, and B'Elanna wasn't sure what to do. She couldn't look at the Captain - shame and protocol mixed together to miraculously keep her eyes off of the Captain. But she also had nothing to say. The Captain was right. She was wrong. Captain Janeway tapped her monitor and seemed to be considering it's content for a brief second before she spoke again, her command mask on full display.

"As of this moment, Ensign Vorik is the Chief Engineer on this ship" - the Captain paused, letting the full weight of her words pitch B'Elanna off balance. She saw her take in an involuntary breath, and the emotion that always played so easily on B'Elanna's face was now dancing in ascending and descending waves.

"I'm re-assigning you to Ops where you'll serve under Ensign Kim. I'll allow you to keep your rank, but you'll be expected to respect Ensign Kim's authority as the senior Operations officer".

B'Elanna couldn't breathe, and she couldn't move. Her mouth opened slightly, and she tipped her head down, hoping to hide the fear and regret and shame she felt pooling behind her eyes. She felt like she was being punched in the stomach, and she knew she would have preferred that punishment to the one the Captain was currently doling out.

The Captain had paused, letting the full effect of her words sink into B'Elanna's consciousness. She knew how painful this was for her, and she was glad her reprimand seemed to be having the desired effect. She simply could not stand for this type of insubordination.

B'Elanna heard herself start to say, "Capt…" before she was cut off abruptly.

"I don't want to hear it, Ms. Torres," the Captain said definitively, holding up her hand. She moved threateningly around her desk and was speaking with a clenched jaw.

"I have given you an enormous amount of responsibility and authority on this ship over the past six years. I believed you understood what was and was not acceptable on board this ship, and that you valued your position on this crew. I was obviously mistaken".

B'Elanna aggressively blinked back the tears that were threatening to spill over with each intake of breath. Her throat was closed and her body was screaming for her to run from the room. She took a steadying, ragged breath.

The Captain sat down behind her desk, looking almost slightly defeated, but she pressed on.

"I'm going to be keeping impossibly close tabs on you, Lieutenant, for the next 30 days. I expect your service and behavior at Ops to be exemplary. IF, I find, after 30 days that you've served with distinction, I MAY consider modifying this arrangement at that time".

"However." The word was a threat and a challenge in itself. The Captain stood up and leaned forward menacingly with her hands on her desk, fixing her gaze on B'Elanna.

"If I find that you've been late to one shift. That you questioned one order. That you took one inkling of initiative or have not followed the rules and regulations of this ship to the letter -" she paused here to make sure she had B'Elanna's full attention, and saw with satisfaction that B'Elanna had raised her eyes to the Captain - "I will strip you of your commission and you can spend the rest of our voyage home cleaning dishes in the mess hall. Is. That. Clear." The last words were spoken with a force and intensity that Kathryn Janeway had rarely used in her career, but which now served as the unnecessary but effective punctuation to her ultimatum.

B'Elanna felt numb, like she couldn't feel her body, but was at the same time in pain all over. She opened her mouth to try to respond but couldn't make the words come forward, so thick and tight was her throat and mouth. Swallowing, she tried again.

"Yes, Ma'am". Two words that took all of her energy to expel, and which were almost totally obscured by the raw emotion in her voice.

"Dismissed." Without looking at her again, the Captain sat down and resumed her work on the monitor as if B'Elanna had never been there.

B'Elanna fled.