When Tom found her a few hours later, he cursed inwardly at her state. She was again curled up in a tight fetal position, her hair askew across her face, and her eyes were rimmed red. He sat down cautiously on the side of the bed and placed a tentative hand - like a hand being placed on a sleeping tiger - onto his wife's side. She rolled over at his touch and opened her eyes, and Tom was relieved to see that she looked somehow…. lighter, than she had in weeks.
He let himself lean slightly onto his arms to make a better line of sight with B'Elanna. "What's going on?" He asked softly, carefully avoiding any statements that she might deem "pressuring".
B'Elanna closed her eyes again then sat up abruptly. "I went and spoke to the Captain"
Tom paused for a few moments while he considered his next steps. He loved B'Elanna very much, but a cryptic, quiet B'Elanna was about as safe as a quiet, low-lying tiger.
Deciding that there wasn't any way of avoiding the topic now that he'd opened that particular can of worms, he jumped in. "How did that go?"
B'Elanna closed her eyes briefly and took a slow, deep breath in that seemed to fill her chest down to her toes. Letting it out with a small groan, she sat up and faced Tom. "It was…. Okay. She said….. She…" but here she trailed off. What had the Captain actually told her? Could she describe it to anyone, really? The magnitude of her feelings?
Glancing sideways again she saw her husband - patient, gentle, always mischievous, but in so many ways hurt and damaged by loss and betrayal, just as she was. If there was anyone who might understand, she mused, it just might be him. Taking a deep breath, B'Elanna started at the beginning.
….
At 0825 the next morning, Tom sat impatiently in the morning briefing, trying his best to look attentive as Tuvok explained the final phase of the sensor and weapons array alignment that had taken up the majority of their week. Tom was intensely preoccupied with what he was about to say, or if he was going to say anything at all. He heard the Captain thank Tuvok and ask if anyone had anymore business, waited a beat, and then she gave a crisp, "dismissed" to the table. Harry and Vorik stood up, shoulder to shoulder, brainstorming solutions to some unknown and minor engineering debacle. Chakotay had already exited and taken his place on the middle level of the bridge, and Tom watched the Captain follow him out. Steeling himself for courage, Tom fast-walked the few steps to the Command console and did his best to calmly ask, "Captain, could I speak to you for a moment?"
The Captain stopped mid-sentence of an obviously humorous anecdote she was sharing with Chakotay as she leaned across their center console, and turned to Tom with the slightest amount of concern. "Is everything all right, Lieutenant?"
"Everything's fine, Captain. I just…. had something I wanted to discuss with you". Tom could hear the urgency in his own voice, even as he was trying hard to put his care-free attitude on full display. He knew the Captain could hear it too.
"Of course, Mr. Paris." Standing up gracefully she gestured to her Ready Room and Tom nodded, waited deferentially for her to pass him, and then followed her quickly into the Ready Room.
The Captain went straight to her desk and sat down, but her posture was far from relaxed. She could remember only one other time that Tom had asked to speak to her privately, and it hadn't ended well. She hoped desperately that Tom wasn't about to take them down the uncomfortable rabbit-hole of questioning her decision to move B'Elanna out of engineering - she really was not in the mood to have to summarily reprimand anyone for insubordination this week.
Tom was standing in front of her desk with a rigid posture that denoted decorum, but a look of concern on his face. The Captain waited a moment to see if he would begin, and when he continued to stand silently before her, she prompted, "How can I help you, Lieutenant?"
When Tom looked up at her prompt, Kathryn Janeway felt relief rush through her. This wasn't fighter pilot, renegade Tom. This was responsible, concerned, husband Tom. Still, he obviously was struggling with something and if it wasn't B'Elanna's recent escapades, she wasn't sure what it might be. Giving him another few seconds, she prompted again - this time more softy, "Tom? What is it? Is something wrong?"
Tom looked up sharply at the last inquiry. Shaking his head side to side, slowly, he said, "No. Nothing's wrong, not at all. I just….." he trailed off again.
Giving it another moment of so, the Captain was about to move towards Tom around her desk when he blurted out just a little too loudly, "Thank you. I just…. I wanted….. Thank you. For what you did for B'Elanna last night. You didn't have to do that, and…"
The Captain waited patiently for Tom to find the words, but she could feel the warmth and relief spread through her, almost as quickly as she felt a half-smile start to dance on her lips. But knowing Tom and his propensity to think others were dismissing his thoughts or feelings, she tried mightily to regain her command mask.
After a beat, Tom continued, "it's just…. you don't know what that meant to her. Hell, I don't think I actually know what it meant to her….." he paused again, obviously unsure where to go from here. "... but I do know that this has been incredibly difficult for her…."
Not seeing but feeling the Captain pull herself up just a fraction of a centimetre straighter, Tom continued quickly, "and please don't think I'm trying to question your decision. I promise I'm not. It's just…."
Letting her feathers unruffle from the tiniest bit of fluff she had felt, the Captain waited for Tom to go on.
"Your opinion is important to her. Maybe more than anyone else's. It's…. You…. are important to her. And I just wanted you to know that I'm incredibly grateful for what you did last night. You can't know how much that meant to her, but it was…. it was more important than you know, so…. thank you".
Kathryn Janeway knew her slightly filled eyes and her crooked smile were betraying her, so she didn't try to force the emotion out of her voice when she responded, "thank you, Lieutenant. Your wife is important to me - you're all important to me, but maybe…" The Captain stopped before she said something she would want to retract, but her eyes said to Tom what her voice wouldn't say. "But maybe I love B'Elanna in a way that none of the rest of you need. Maybe she holds a special place in my heart because she needs a mother, and I know that I can be a little part of that for her, what no one else has ever been able to do".
Tom acknowledged the break in conversation as well as the unspoken message, and suddenly realized he had no good exit strategy from the room.
"Anyway…. I just wanted to tell you that". And with that he straightened and did his best impression of an officer awaiting formal instructions from a commanding officer.
The Captain helped him along by relaxing her command mask and giving the gentle and expected, "thank you, Lieutenant. Dismissed".
Turning crisply, Tom left the room, leaving Kathryn Janeway to sit and ponder her own feelings for another beat before turning to the pile of unread reports that awaited her.