Part the Five – Where in the Captain annoys the EMH, Chakotay takes a walk, the engineering staff learn to tread softly and Harry is just Harry.
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The next two days passed in a flurry of activity and confusion, time seeming to pass either too quickly or too slowly, depending on whom you asked.
Caught within the grasp of time, Voyagers' crew were carried along by the tide, no matter their own personal scale they rode out the waves, the ripple effect spreading its' concentric rings ensuring that the individual players followed the path set in motion, the proper order of things to come. At its' centre, dead calm surrounded the principle figure, body in stasis, mind not timeless but outside of time itself we find the golden light that is Thomas Eugene Paris.
As Tom 'slept' his body rested regenerated at a cellular level, restoring energy levels depleted by the massive changes enforced on his form within such a short period of time. His mind meanwhile was busy processing the sheer volume of information downloaded directly into his brain by the AI as part of the educational portion of the punishment programme.
Experienced as an intensive dream Tom's subconscious worked its' way through a syllabus originally designed to help integrate the newly transgendered back into active society. The curriculum in a drastically amended form had been tailor-made to fit his unique circumstances; completely abandoning a number of lessons, re-writing others including the practical aspects such as reproduction and theorizing on the various connotations of the family unit.
The dream lessons allowed Tom to experience life in his new form, from birth growing up through childhood, entering puberty, adolescence and adulthood; so that when he awakened, he would be comfortable in his new body, allowing him to function with no noticeable difference than if he'd remained unchanged.
The sociological aspect of the training incorporated to run seamlessly alongside Tom's rebirth. The finished product ultimately incorporating the physical and mental aspects, resulting in the genuine metamorphosis of the young pilot to true hybrid female rather than human male trapped in a alien body, male female or otherwise.
At the end of the course the built in tutor, a minor element of the AI programme, evaluated Tom's progress and despite the difficulties of fitting the course to provide best value to Tom the AI rated his progress. Please with the pupil's performance the tutor terminated its' activities, its' purpose completed it soon faded away and within time wiped clean from Tom's mind. Tom sighed in the dark, pushing the constricting covers away from his chest without waking before falling into deeper, non REM sleep, remaining oblivious to the subconscious reconditioning.
In his dreamless state, Tom was surrounded by a warm orange glow. The light cocooning him was unbelievably bright; like trying to stare into the fusion at the heart of the sun. However, despite its' intensity or maybe just in spite of it he found the light did not hurt his eyes, squinting only in reflex, not that there was anything to see at the moment.
He felt more than saw that wherever he was, was pretty much a featureless plain. The temperature neither hot nor cold was simply comfortable. Experimentally Tom shifted his weight from one foot to the other, the resulting soft noise was strangely muffled, liking it to the 'dead' sound often associated with soundproofing. Comforted by the total calm Tom settled down to rest.
o0O0o
The EMH ran a battery of test, including a few he made up on the spot, barely conscious of the passage of time if not for the frequent, and from his point of view annoying, status reports seemingly required by the Captain right in the middle of whatever test he was running.
For the Captain, stuck in 'Command mode' unable to allow herself to think about Tom, only of Lieutenant Paris, seemed more a case of hurry up and wait. Her gut instinct was that her Chief helmsman truly was now the woman currently lying comatose in Sickbay but the chain of command was forcing her to first confirm that they hadn't taken on board an impostor, to extinguish the unpalatable before facing the improbable.
Chakotay dealt with the situation in his own steady manner outwardly calm he supported his Captain within the chain of command although personally convinced of the truth as seen through his own eyes; that the transformation witnessed within the sterile walls of Sickbay was indisputable fact. A fact the internally bothered the man more so than the First Officer, the male persona than the rank he carried. No matter how he looked at it, he had watched as the handsome, brash, intelligent, and Spirits' knows frequently annoying pilot had changed sex, and Oh what a woman he had become!
The realisation that he now found the new 'Tom' attractive if, when he gave himself leave to think about it, was deeply disturbing and so he retreated into his beliefs, turning to his Spirit Guide for strength. Locked away in his quarters Chakotay took a walk within his own mind where time passing outside had little importance and negligible effect on the outcome.
For B'Elanna, aware that Tom was apparently back on board, time bragged, desperate to know what was happening her temper steadily built at the lack of information. The need to see Tom, confirm that he was alright before tearing him off a strip for scaring her always seemed uppermost in her mind.
The need to protect their fledgling relationship; only weeks old and as yet unconsummated much to B'Elanna's surprise at Tom's insistence, the source of her pain. Engineering suffered alongside the Klingon woman, suffered through her foul mood, the plasma injectors subjected to the most thorough servicing on record. The Warp drive may have benefited but the engineering staff did not.
Harry worried, incessantly, worried for his friend, feeling guilt over a situation he had, had little or no actual control over. For Harry time could not pass quickly enough. The longer Tom remained locked away with the Doctor the more the young Ensign worried and the more he worried the slower time seemed to move, each minute seemed like hours.
To the young man the longer without word on his friend's condition the longer his mind had to concoct increasingly unpleasant scenarios, his own imagination providing worse imaging than the whole Borg Collective and Tom's Warp 10 incident rolled together and then some!
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