"Pull over. Let me drive for a while." (PT)

(Author's Note: This story takes place during Season 1.)

Tom Paris had a particular way of moving his mouth when he was suppressing a yawn. Not that B'Elanna was staring at his mouth, of course - that would be unprofessional, no matter how cute he looked - but when he did that at the helm of a shuttle during a dilithium-scanning mission, she had a perfectly valid reason to be concerned.

"Hey, Paris." She glanced up from the co-pilot's console. "Wanna switch? I can take the helm for a while."

"Huh?" He blinked heavy-lidded blue eyes at her and shook his head. "Nah, I'm good."

"Really?" she drawled.

"What are you insinuating, Lieutenant?" he said in a tone of mock indignation.

"Nothing. Only that you look … " What was a polite way of saying tired?

"How do I look?" He leaned back in his seat, smoothed back his sandy hair gave her an unbelievably smug grin.

Never mind being polite, he didn't deserve it. "Like death warmed over, that's how. Seriously, you shouldn't be flying. What'd you do, stay up all night at Sandrine's?"

She thought distastefully of the two female holograms at the bar who draped themselves all over him every time he set foot in the program. How narcissistic must he be to design them like that? It hadn't escaped her notice that the brunette looked and acted a little like her, but if he thought she, B'Elanna, would throw herself at him like that, he was sadly mistaken.

"I'm touched by your concern, honestly," he put one hand over his heart without taking the other off the console, "But come on, B'Elanna. You're an engineer, you know what holograms are made of. You should know better than to be jealous of Sandrine."

"Wha - " She could not prevent the yelp of outrage that escaped her, or the rush of heat to her cheeks, but what she could do was keep her head down and swallow the barrage of curses in her thoughts. She was not about to give this petaQ the satisfaction of knowing he'd gotten under her skin.

"If you think I'm jealous," she said with deliberate calm, "You're even more vain than I thought. You're not my type."

"No?" For a moment, she thought he almost looked hurt, but she must have imagined it. A split second later, that smug grin was back in place. "What is your type, Torres? Just for curiosity's sake."

B'Elanna thought of Max, snooping through her room and denying it to her face, and of her father, complaining about the woes of living with two Klingons when he thought she couldn't hear, and she had only one answer. "Honest."

Paris didn't say a word.

They continued in silence for what felt like hours, even though the console told her it was only a few minutes. She willed their scans to show some dilithium, maybe even a hostile alien patrol or two, just to break the awkwardness, but for once in their lives, their corner of the Delta Quadrant was peaceful.

"Torres?" said the pilot, so abruptly she almost jumped.

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

"Nightmares. Last night. That's why I'm … " He rubbed a hand over his eyes. "A little out of it, I guess."

"Oh." B'Elanna's blush, instead of fading, re-ignited for a totally different reason. This was more honesty than she'd asked for. A vulnerable Tom Paris was even harder to deal with than a cocky one. "Um … regular nightmares, or the kind that come from somewhere else? Either way, you might wanna see the Doc."

"Just regular nightmares, I'm pretty sure," said Tom, sounding rather amused at her choice of words. "And yeah, I did. He gave me a sedative and lectured me about getting to the root of my trauma, whatever the hell that means."

"Hmph. Yeah, he does that with me too."

The unspoken implication that she also had nightmares was one she hadn't meant to make, but so what? Everyone on board probably had them. Tom's look of solidarity - no pity, no sentiment, just a quiet nod that said yeah, me too - felt unexpedly good.

"Switch?" was all he said, half rising from his seat and offering it to her.

"Sure."

She took the helm while he took a break, relaxing into his seat and letting his eyes fall closed. A quiet Tom Paris, she thought, was one she could get used to.

So was an honest one.