"Paris to Janeway."
There was still no response. He waited a few more seconds, then, making sure no one was looking, he tapped something into the touchpad by the door. It opened with a whoosh.
He stepped inside and looked around as the doors closed behind him. On the table lay the coffee ice cream, barely touched. On a very stained patch of carpet a few feet away was a coffee cup. And, hidden behind a chair, was Kathryn Janeway.
"Kathryn?" Tom took a few steps towards her.
A small sob came from behind the chair.
"Kathryn..." he said again, reaching her and sitting down, carefully putting a hand on her arm.
There was another sob.
"What's the matter?" he asked, moving so he could hold her properly.
"Everything's the matter!" she cried, biting her lip.
"Hey, hey! It can't be that bad."
"It is! I can't even make a cup of coffee!"
"You made the coffee fine. Otherwise you wouldn't have another stain to add to your collection."
"I hate the Cidreen. I hate them! Why did they do this to me? An implant! How cruel can you get?"
"Not much more cruel than them."
"Bastards."
"Yes."
There was a long silence.
"Um, Kathryn? I don't know about you, but I'm getting a little uncomfortable hunched up like this."
"Then get up."
"Will you get up with me?"
"I can't. I can't do anything..."
"That is not true." he said, grabbing her arm. "Now come on." He pulled her up and led her towards the bed. "You can to whatever you want. It's just gonna take time, that's all."
"I can't do whatever I want. I want to see, and I can't do that!" she sat own on the bed. "And why does it have to take time? Why am I in this time and not the time where it's already taken enough time?!"
"I don't know. But you shouldn't wish your life away like that." He sat down next to her.
"Why not? It's not like I'm going to have any enjoyable experiences until then."
"You don't know that. You could enjoy any number of things between now and then. It's all up to you, really."
"Yeah, right."
"Kathryn..."
"Look Tom, just leave me alone, okay?"
"But-"
"Are you deaf? Is that what they did to you, made you deaf? Oh no wait, they didn't do anything to you!"
"That's not true!"
"Oh no, of course it isn't! I wasn't the one whose fingers were broken one joint at a time, who had drops of acid burn little holes all over her body, who had her eyes burned out! I wasn't the one who screamed for them to stop every time, even though I knew they never would. No, that was you!"
"Okay, fine, maybe they didn't treat me as badly as they did you, but it was still bad! They hurt me too, okay? But the worst part, the worst part was hearing you scream, day after day, and knowing I couldn't do anything about it!" he got up off the bed and walked to the door angrily. "Maybe I shouldn't have cared so much after all." he said before leaving.
Kathryn lay back on her bed as she heard the doors shut, trying not to start crying again. She hadn't cried this much in decades! Why can't I just get over myself and deal with it?!, she thought to herself angrily. This was nothing, a minor setback. It doesn't feel like it. Then make it feel like it! You're right. You're right! I can do this. I'll get up off the bed and get some more coffee. I will. I will...
But she didn't. And, after a while, she fell asleep.
* * *
Tom woke up in a cold sweat, shivering. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, then went over to the replicator for some hot chocolate. Sitting on the bed with the beverage in his hand, he took a sip and thought back to the dream he had been having.
It wasn't really a dream, it was a memory. He had been reliving it every night for the past few days, and he wasn't enjoying it. He woke up each time hoping that was all it was, a dream. But it wasn't. It wasn't...
Tom lay on the floor, eyes squeezed shut, desperately trying not to hear the screams coming from the room down the corridor. They had had her in there for a long time now, longer than usual. What were they doing to her? What kind of new torture were they subjecting her to this time? No, he said to himself firmly. Mustn't think about that. Think about good things, nice things... skiing... fresh air... sunshine... piloting... Voyager... Ah, Voyager. He wondered if they'd found out where they were yet. That was the only thing keeping he and Kathryn going, the hope that Voyager would find them. Rescue them. But what if they didn't? What if they had given up? What if they had been destroyed? What if he and Kathryn were stuck in this hellhole forever? Kathryn. He smiled to himself bitterly. A few months ago he would never have dreamed of calling her Kathryn. Funny how things could change in such a short space of time.
They had been on a routine trading mission when it happened. Out of nowhere, a ship belonging to a species they didn't even know existed had seized the shuttle and thrown them into this godawful prison, claiming that they were "collaborating with the enemy". They had no idea where they were, in space or on a planet, above or underground. They just knew that they didn't want to be there.
The torture had started the next day, horrible things he would've never even imagined, using all kinds of ancient and high-tech torture devices. And the worst thing was that their captors seemed to be doing it just for the sake of doing it. Kathryn and Tom had told them everything they knew after only a few days, but the torture had continued, each time something new and more horrible, more painful and degrading. If something didn't happen soon he didn't know what he'd do. Kill himself, probably. He'd heard about captives who killed themselves rather than undergo more torture, but had never really understood why someone would take their own life even if there was the tiniest of hopes of being rescued. Now he understood all too well. That small hope wasn't enough to keep him going, not in the long term. He knew that Voyager would look for them, but after so much time, who could be sure that they hadn't just given up and left? If that was the case, there was no end in sight. And he didn't know how long he'd be able to live with that knowledge.
He heard the sound of the forcefield being turned off, and Kathryn was thrown back into the cell. He waited until the guard had left, then made his way across the small confines of the room to where she lay, curled up into a ball, whimpering. Silently he took her in his arms, holding her close. She wrapped her arms around him tightly. After a few moments, she looked up at him. He had to stop himself from gasping in shock. Because, instead of her beautiful blue eyes, there were two burnt, black holes in her face.
"Tom," she said weakly. "I can't see."
"Oh, Kathryn..." he whispered, holding her even closer, tears streaming down his cheeks. Those sadistic bastards...
Sadistic bastards indeed, he thought, taking a huge gulp of hot chocolate. If they hadn't done that, everything would be back to normal right now. Well, almost back to normal. But Kathryn wouldn't be lying in her quarters feeling useless, and he wouldn't have said those things and now be sitting here feeling useless. He really regretted having stormed out on her like that. But the things she had said had hurt him. And when Tom Paris was hurt, he often did things he regretted later. But the Doctor had said she might be volatile! He should've been prepared. He shouldn't have done that.
He should, he realized, go see her later on and apologize.
* * *
For the second time in as many days, Tom Paris broke into the Captain's quarters. They looked the same as the day before, right down to the coffee cup on the floor. The only difference was that Kathryn was in bed instead of behind a chair. Tom decided she was probably asleep, so he made himself useful by cleaning up the mess and recycling the cup. Then he went to sit on the bed. After a few seconds he cleared his throat.
"Go away." came a small voice from underneath the covers.
"I'll go when I've apologized." he said gently.
"Then apologize quickly." came the response.
"Okay... I'm sorry I stormed out yesterday. I shouldn't have reacted like that."
"Okay. Goodbye then."
Tom sighed and got up, looking around the room. "If you insist..." he started towards the door, but then a thought struck him. "Kathryn," he said, turing to face her, "When was the last time you ate anything?"
"I dunno. Go away."
Ignoring her request, Tom went to stand by the replicator. "Chicken soup." he said.
"I'm not hungry."
"I think you should eat it anyway." He put the soup on the table by the bed, then put his hand on her shoulder. "Sit up."
"I'm not hungry."
"Go on, sit up. I'll stop bothering you if you eat this."
"Fine." she grumbled, sitting up.
"Good. Now take this." he held the bowl in front of her and put one of her hands on the side.
"I'll spill it."
"No you won't. Go on, take it."
Gingerly, she took the bowl in her hands.
"Okay, okay, now take a sip. Go on."
She raised the bowl to her lips carefully and took a tentative sip.
"That's good! Just drink it all up, go on."
Tom watched with a smile as Kathryn drank the soup. It looked like she was making progress.
But when she finished drinking and put the bowl down, he saw that he was mistaken.
"Now go." she said, burying herself under the covers again.
Slightly disappointed, he recycled the bowl and left.
* * *
After that, feeding Kathryn became part of Tom's daily routine. He'd go in, she'd tell him to go away, he'd replicate food, she'd tell him she wasn't hungry, he'd make her eat it, she'd tell him to go, and he went.
He was getting increasingly worried about her.
So was the Doctor, evidentially. When he had tried to feed Kathryn, she had refused to come out from under the covers. When other members of the crew stopped by she wouldn't even let them in, and of course they'd never break in like Tom did. And so Kathryn spent week upon week, then month upon month in bed, sleeping and eating and saying "go away".
Finally, both Tom and the Doctor decided that she needed a little push in the right direction.
"Goodbye." said Kathryn, after having finished the pasta dish Tom had replicated for her.
"Not so fast." he said as she turned on her side, pulling the covers up.
"What?" she asked faintly, already starting to doze off.
"Before you go back to sleep, we're having a little outing."
"I don't think so."
"Oh, but I do!" he pulled the covers off the bed.
"I'm cold." she said, now clutching at her pillow.
"That's because you haven't moved in months! Now come on, get up." he pulled the pillow away from her too.
"No."
"Right, that's it." he grabbed her ankles and pulled her off the bed.
"Ow!" Kathryn untangled herself from the heap on the floor and rubbed her head.
"That's what you get for being lazy. Now, here's some clothes. I'll be back in ten minutes and if you haven't got them on I'll put them on you myself."
Kathryn sighed as Tom left. Why couldn't he leave her alone? She wanted to go back to bed. Her bed was nice and warm and familiar. She didn't need to see to find her way around her bed. And she liked sleeping. In fact, sleeping had become her favorite pastime. Not that she had any others, of course. After all, you couldn't do anything when you couldn't see.
Still, even if she couldn't see, she had no intention of letting Tom undress her. And so she reluctantly put on the clothes he had dumped on her head, carefully feeling them so she didn't put anything on back-to-front or inside-out.
Then, since Tom wasn't back yet, she climbed back on the bed and was about to go to sleep again, when a loud voice said:
"Are we ready then?", in an annoyingly cheerful manner.
"No." she said.
"Good!" Tom went over to her and pulled her up, holding her arm. He led her out the door and into the corridor. They walked for several minutes, Tom with a huge grin and Kathryn with an exceedingly grumpy expression on her face. Finally, they reached the holodeck.
"Computer! Run program Paris beta-five." said Tom. He then pushed Kathryn through the door. She landed on her hands and feet in something very cold.
"Ow." she said.
"That," said Tom, helping her up, "did not hurt."
"Whatever you say."
Ignoring her bad mood, he put a pair of skis on the snow in front of her. "If you'd step this way." he again guided her by the arm, until she was standing on the skis. Then he grabbed hold of first one foot, then the other, and put them in the ski boots, already mounted on the skis. They adjusted themselves to fit her feet.
"Tom, what are we doing?" she asked.
"Skiing." he responded, donning his own skis.
"I can't ski."
"That's strange. I seem to remember you demonstrating your skiing skills by showing me up at least ten times last year." he put her sticks in her hands.
"Last year," she said pointedly, "I could see."
"So?"
Kathryn sighed. Couldn't he show even the slightest bit of consideration? Didn't he understand that she was handicapped, for God's sake?
"Come on now."
Obviously not.
"I told you, I can't ski."
"And I told you, yes you can. The safeties are on, , there are no trees or rocks to crash into, don't worry."
She put on her worst frown.
He ignored it.
"I'll meet you at the bottom!" he shouted.
She heard the swish of his skis get fainter. For a moment, she pondered what to do, then, sighing, she pushed off in roughly the same direction as Tom had gone.
The wind in her face was like a breath of fresh air. Well, it was a breath of fresh air. Despite herself, Kathryn found herself enjoying the sensation, tucking her arms into her sides so she could go faster, so the wind would get stronger. The old movements all came back to her quickly, and, surprisingly, she found that she did not need to see in order to ski.
Just as she was really starting to have fun, the ground evened out and she swished to a halt. She smiled slightly, sticking her stick in the snow so she could get her hair out of her face.
"Told you!" said Tom's voice from a few meters away. He came up to her. "And is that a smile I detect?"
Kathryn tried to stop smiling and put on her customary frown, but after a moment she gave up and laughed.
"Well I am impressed." said Tom. "Seeing as you can't ski."
Kathryn sighed, but this time it was a good-natured sigh.
"Computer, set location 2. Want to go again?" Kathryn could hear the grin in his voice.
"Are we standing next to a sheer drop?"
"Um... not quite..."
"If you say so." grinning, Kathryn pulled her stick out of the snow and set off without another word.
She soon found that Tom had been telling the truth when he had said it was not quite a sheer drop. It was a very, very steep hill. Her favorite! She felt a huge thrill as she zoomed down, almost falling but not quite, the wind in her face, blowing her hair back, her hands cold because she wasn't wearing gloves, but she didn't care, she didn't care because it was so bloody fun.
For the first time in months, she was happy.
* * *
"Come."
Tom almost jumped out of his skin. He had become so used to having to break in to Kathryn's quarters that he hadn't expected her to let him in voluntarily. Then again, she had been in a very good mood when he brought her back yesterday. Curiously, he entered.
Kathryn was sitting at the table, facing the door, eating a hearty meal of toast, eggs and sausages, and - he smiled to himself - there was a steaming pot of coffee in front of her.
"Morning." he said.
"Good morning!" she said. "Care for some toast?"
"Um, sure..." he sat down next to her.
"Just take some." Kathryn held out her plate. "I'm not sure where it is exactly, but I'm sure you'll find it."
"Thanks..." he took a slice of toast and Kathryn put her plate back in front of her, feeling with her fork for something she could pick up with it, then cutting with her knife in the general area of the fork. She put the rather large piece of egg in her mouth, then put the fork back on the plate and wiped the grease off her mouth with a napkin.
"So, um, how are you today?" Tom asked, biting into his toast.
Kathryn paused to consider the question. "Better." she said eventually.
"I can see that." he said, making sure his voice showed how impressed he was.
"How so?"
"Well, you're not in bed, you haven't told me to go away once, and you've made your own breakfast. Very impressive!"
"Thank you!" she smiled. "I've decided that lying in bed is not as fun as it once was. There are far better things I could be doing with my time. Such as skiing."
"Couldn't agree with you more.
"And I have discovered that making breakfast is not hard at all. It's all a question of knowing where the furniture is."
"Yes..."
"And this sensor web is actually very useful."
"Oh, good. Good!"
"I thought I might test it in a less confined space. The messhall, for instance."
"Really?"
"Yes. I was wondering if you'd come with me?"
"Um, sure, I guess." Tom stared at her. This huge transformation was hard to take in. Was it even possible? She seemed sincere enough...
"Great! Breakfast tomorrow?"
"Okay, sure."
"It's a date! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of logs to listen to." Kathryn drank the last of her coffee, put everything on a tray, and walked carefully over to the replicator, not stopping once. She recycled the dishes, then felt her way to the couch, sat down and ordered the computer to start playing the ships logs in chronological order from the time that she and Tom had been abducted.
Shaking his head in stunned disbelief, Tom exited and made his way to sickbay to tell the Doctor of the Captain's miraculous progress.
* * *
Just before they reached the messhall, she stopped.
"I can't do this." she said.
"Of course you can! It's only a few more steps."
"I can't. I can't do it."
"Come on now, that doesn't sound like the Kathryn Janeway we all know and love!"
She stayed rooted to the spot, not responding.
Tom sighed, then put his free hand on her shoulder reassuringly.
"You can do it. I'm right here with you. Come on."
There was a pause.
"Okay..." said Kathryn uncertainly.
"That's what I like to hear! This way, if you please..."
She gripped his arm tighter and he led her to the messhall.
"Captain!" Neelix was upon them the moment the doors opened. "So nice to see you up and about! What can I get you? I've just fried up some vegetables... or if you like I could replicate something - would you like some coffee? - Ensign Kim just complimented me on my new casserole, perhaps you'd like some of that?"
Kathryn found herself infected by Neelix's enthusiasm. She smiled as Tom led her to the counter. It was nice to be back in the messhall, there was always such a nice sense of camaraderie she got when eating there. She realized that she hadn't been there since before she and Tom had been captured. Oh well, time to make up for lost time!, she thought as Neelix's chatter subsided.
"I think I'll have some of that casserole." she told him. "And," she added, "a large cup of coffee."
"Casserole and coffee coming right up!" said Neelix excitedly, rattling pots and pans as Tom led Kathryn to a table.
"So, is it as bad as you thought?" asked Tom quietly when they were seated.
"No." she admitted. "Actually, I think I'm rather enjoying myself."
"Good!" said Tom, as Neelix brought them their food.
"Enjoy!" he said cheerfully before leaving again.
Tom watched in amazement as Kathryn ate with ease. She seemed to know exactly where everything was, and when she didn't, she felt for it in a calm and practiced manner. This certainly was a big change.
"Have you been practicing?" he asked eventually.
"Practice makes perfect." shrugged Kathryn. "And I didn't want to appear completely incapable in front of all these people."
"You really are back to your old self, aren't you?" he asked, grinning.
"Not yet, but I plan to be. My old self wouldn't be in the messhall at 0930. She'd be on the bridge."
"So you do want to resume command!"
"Eventually, yes. But first I have to learn to use this sensor web properly! I don't want to sit on Chakotay's lap by mistake."
Tom laughed, then turned serious. "What made you change your mind about your 'I can't do anything' attitude?"
"You did." she said, putting down her fork. "You made me realize that I was wrong about that. So if you were right about me being able to ski, who was to say you weren't right about everything else as well?" she smiled. "Let's just say I've decided to give your attitude a try. Can I have your casserole if you're not going to eat it? Retaking your life makes you hungry."
"Of course!" Tom had completely forgotten about his food. He put it in her outstretched hands, then leaned back and watched her again. She really was an amazing woman. He had always thought so, but this... well, this was proof of that fact. He hadn't been sure if she'd be able to get over the loss of her sight, but, yet again, she had proven herself a lot stronger than expected.
Captain Janeway was back, determined as ever.
* * *
Don't worry, it ain't over yet! As everyone knows, things are never that easy...
It's about to get a lot more complicated.
