Part the Six – Where in Tom is lost for words and B'Elanna and Harry's worlds are about to be turned upside down!
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Propped up on his elbows Tom pushed back lifting his torso further from the bio-bed, a look of intense concentration on his face. Not since he was a small child had sitting up unaided required such an effort in coordination, even rolling drunk Tom mused he had more control over his limbs, which at present had the strength of wet spaghetti noodles.
With a small grunt of effort, he finally reached a more or less vertical position. His sickbay tunic fell uncomfortably tight across his new bust line, held away from his ribs and stomach by the oddly heavy mass of new flesh, to pool against the unnaturally flat groin. Tom could hear the EMH's voice droning on but caught up analyzing the strange sensations from his new body he shut out the world beyond his own skin.
Uncomfortable within that skin his body fit like new clothes, an alien version of a favourite suit the cut and cloth both familiar but at one and the same time just a little bit off. The dream programme had taught Tom about his new body but it would still take a little while once awake to actually process the information his synapses were providing and correctly catalogue them.
In reaction, Tom unconsciously telegraphed his emotional response, pulling his long legs up, wrapping smooth skinned arms around his bent knees, resting one sculpted cheekbone against the curve of his right elbow. Body language reflecting his insecurity in the tight self-hug even as his breasts squashed uncomfortably against the newly fleshed out plains of his rounded thighs.
With his face shadowed under a mass of soft blond curls, head cushioned against his bicep, breasts hidden behind the long limbs the betraying evidence of his transformation where temporally masked from sight and the casual observer may have been forgiven for failing to realise that something if anything was out of place with the picture.
If that was it were not for the fact that the curled up figure of the young woman that was now Tom Paris, projecting an unhappy vision; knowing what had happened to him and the reasons behind it and then accepting the results were completely different and occasionally conflicting thought processes. Tom sat in silence, quietly processing. Meanwhile in the Doctor's office the EMH finished his report to the Captain and Commander Chakotay.
"I've run every test imaginable and some not so and I can only come to that conclusion that in someway I have yet to determine, caused by a process I can not even begin to theorise about."
"Doctor, please cut to the chase," the Captain cut in, used to the EMH's tendency to speak at length if you did not stop him in time.
"I can find no evidence of cloning, cosmetic enhancements, I even ruled out any possibility of Borg involvement. She, for want of a better term, is approximately sixty-four percent human and physically female in every sense and form. Captain that is Tom Paris! "
The silence that followed the EMH's announcement was broke only by the soft sounds of movement from the main medical bay, drawing the attention of the Doctor away from the stunned Command staff and back of his patient.
Silently Tom watched the Doctor approach, aware that the EMH had unusually engaged oft-unseen protocols exhibiting an empathic bedside manner he rarely bothered to employ with the accident prone Tom.
"Awake again Mr Paris."
A soft snort comprised Tom's only rely, seemingly to dispute 'Mr' while glancing out through his shaggy fringe at the Doctor, gaze sliding over the forms of his commanding officers; blue eyes flicking swiftly from the Captain to Commander, lighting briefly to the facing taking in the carefully blank expressions before flicking back to the Doctor again.
"And how are we feeling now?"
Tom raised one hunched shoulder in a casual shrug followed by a pregnant pause.
"Tom?" The query evident in Chakotay's tone of voice was enough to break the frozen tableau, triggering a flurry of movement from the blond Lieutenant.
Dropping his knees flat to the bed Tom swung long shapely legs down to his left, sitting straight his head back and eyes solidly fixed on the Captain's face, masks visibly sliding into place, poised he seemed to be waiting for something.
"I guess you really managed to get yourself into trouble this time Tom!" Janeway's face softened as she spoke, a tiny curl lifting the corners of her mouth. Now that the Captain had accepted the fact that the 'woman' before her was her chief pilot, the humour of the situation was striking the woman beneath the role.
Tom's response was another brief shrug and a heated blush spreading from the neck of his tunic to the tips of his ears, heat turning the skin a vivid pink in its' wake.
At the Captain and Commander's puzzled response to normally verbose Lieutenant's silent communications Tom turned to the Doctor, one eyebrow lifted in an obvious question, to which the EMH handed the young 'woman' a PADD which he had held ready for just such a need.
Immediately Tom typed a brief message, which he showed to the Doctor, "You haven't told them yet?"
The Doctor needlessly cleared his throat with a rough harrumph, managing to look mildly embarrassed and annoyed at the same time. "I was just getting to that 'Mr' Paris", the EMH stressing the title again, a little game the two had developed over the last few days, mostly because it seemed to keep his patient amused and his mind off brooding.
Tom unintentionally held the PADD at such an angle as to be clearly legible to the Captain as well as the Doctor. "Told us what Tom, Doctor?" She queried, although it was becoming in part fairly obvious as to what the silent young 'woman' meant.
Turning his attention back to the Captain, the Doctor explained the cryptic communication. "One of the minor injuries Tom experienced was damage to his larynx, specifically his vocal cords, although I have repaired the damage as a matter of course he seems unable to talk at present. The problem seems to be psychological rather than physical, related to the circumstances under which the original injury was obtained. In the meantime, the PADD is an acceptable substitute."
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Growling from deep within her chest B'Elanna swung her first, putting her entire body-weight behind the punch; having abandoned the slick but unsatisfied feeling of sinking the razor edge of her batletth into the holographic flesh of her opponents in favour of grasping and punching with her bare hands.
A sickening crunch of splintering bone; a pleasant melody in counterpoint to the pounding of the blood in her veins, as the heavy body hung limp from her other hand, released it fell with a dull thud to the floor, yet another photonic enemy literally biting the proverbial dust.
Stepping over the still form B'Elanna stalked off around the holodeck in search of further prey, the volatile engineer having chosen, after days terrorising her own staff with her violent mood swings, to work out her anger and frustration in the relatively privacy of holodeck two in a specially designed 'callisthenics' program.
Noticing that her fellow engineers were beginning to avoid their Chief during the course of both Alpha and Beta shift; not that she had been scheduled for a double shift but there was only so long she could stand pacing the four walls of her own quarters, had been the final incentive she needed to flee to the holodeck before triggering a mutiny within the department.
The entire situation was making her very uncomfortable, first the worry over the disappearance of a fellow officer and at the same time as Tom, her partner. Relief at his return swiftly changed to frustration at the quarantine imposed on sickbay by the Captain. Anger at the communications lockdown now that he had been released back to his own quarters, although officially the computer still maintained that his current location was sickbay B'Elanna through Harry knew that this was not the case and that Tom had left there several hours previously.
Harry had come to her after the end of Alpha shift, telling her of an inconsistency within the transporter logs. The computer log recorded a site-to-site transport from sickbay to Tom's quarters, records that later showed no such activity. So skilfully had the data been eradicated that if Harry had not been monitoring the internal sensors as a matter of routine maintenance at the exact moment of transport he would never have been aware of the event.
There were few people aboard Voyager with the skill or security clearance to exact such an alteration. Realising that it had to have been one of the senior staff Harry, after much painful consideration, had brought the information to B'Elanna's attention. His own suspicions and the odd state of affairs surrounding Tom, since his return, pushing Harry to take the significant step to circumvent usual chain of command. One he would never have taken for anyone else, but Tom was his best friend and had yet again put his own life on the line to save someone else.
Harry had long since stopped counting the number of times he personally owed Tom for some such selfless action; however the only person he had, to Harry's knowledge called on about the debt, was Commander Chakotay, the life debt incurred on the Occampan Home World, a serious matter between the two men. Tom rarely spoke of it, seemly almost embarrassed by the subject.
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