July 2, 2386
Starbase 47
"Endeavor reports Lieutenant Commander Kim has been safely transported. Captain Chakotay sends his regards," Aaron reported from his station in Ops. Smiling, he looked up at Tom. "He's asking you to meet him in the cafe, Sir, when you are off duty. Which according to my records… was 45 minutes ago. Sir," he added with a smirk.
While Tom's spirits had just barely improved, maybe just enough for Aaron to feel slightly comfortable joking with him again, he always tread carefully.
"Then you must be, too, Commander. Funny how that works," he teased. "Why don't you join us?"
"Sounds like a plan. I have to go to the Infirmary first. I'll meet you there," Aaron replied.
"Understood," Tom replied, still a little flat, Aaron thought, compared to his reply. But it was getting better. Inch by inch, day by day.
}LS{
"Well, if it isn't my favorite first officer," Tom said lightly, holding out his hand for his friend.
Harry's smile was faint, and he grabbed Tom in a bear hug rather than just opting to shake his hand. Tom remained stiff at first, emotion welling up underneath his facade. He gently patted Harry's back in return, pulling down on his uniform as they parted.
"How've you been? Really?" Harry asked with genuine concern.
"Surviving." It was dull and flat, but the best assessment he could give his friend. They chose a booth, rather than a table. Being the end of beta shift, the place was busier than usual. The station complement was still low, now just 400 Starfleet personnel and only about 65 civilians, mostly family of the enlisted crew. The station still functioned as a Starbase, a way station for both Starfleet and transport vessels in the sector. Those who had been stationed here to work specifically in the Research Center had been mostly reassigned.
Tom scooted back on the bench, lifting his legs up onto the seat and leaning back against the wall. He watched as Harry keenly observed what he was drinking. "It's not alcohol," Tom said defensively.
"I wasn't implying that it was. But….I…."
"Come on, Harry. Spit it out. I'm tired of this walking on eggshells routine. It's getting really old," Tom grumbled.
"Do you remember me telling you about what happened when I got caught in the timestream, and I ended up in that alternate reality?" Harry asked.
"I remember you telling me you owed me one. Which now that you mention it, I don't think I ever collected on. What else about it?" Tom asked as he raised his glass to his mouth.
Harry had counted it paid after he had counseled both he and B'Elanna after the Day of Honor incident, as it had been perpetually referred to ever after, but he let it slide, trying to keep the mood light. "You were...different, because you never served on Voyager there. And lately, I guess, you've been reminding more of him. I'm just worried, I guess."
"He was an alcoholic, right? That's why you're hovering? No need to concern yourself with that. I promise you, that maybe could have been me, even was me, before I knew you. But it isn't now." There wasn't enough alcohol in the quadrant to make him feel better, so why just drink a little? He shook his head slightly, trying to loosen the grip of the darkness that had crept into his thoughts.
"You look even smaller than you did when I met you. How much weight have you lost?" Harry needled.
His weight had fluctuated quite a bit over the years, that was true. He had gained weight, during the awful period when he and B'Elanna had had relationship troubles, while she had secretly battled depression, caused by a multitude of things, all of which she had hid from him. He had thinned again, as the situation had worsened and he'd worked longer shifts in an attempt to avoid her, mostly for the same reasons, mostly the lack of communication and understanding. Once they had married, he gained some back.
But now, after months of eating sub-optimal amounts of food, sometimes going stretches of two or more days without eating anything, as Harry so obviously noticed, he weighed less than he had when he graduated the Academy. He now wore a uniform two sizes smaller than he had been accustomed to since taking command of the station eight years ago. Even at that, his uniform hung on him awkwardly, baggy in places where it should have fit more snuggly. His face was dangerously thin, gaunt looking, almost like he was battling an illness. He knew this, as he briefly looked at himself in the mirror each morning. He sometimes wished he cared, or that he had a reason to care, other than his friends' constant nurse maiding.
"Enough," Tom said defeatedly. Harry left it alone, not wanting to rile him up, while they finally had a chance to see each other and relax.
After a companionable silence, Tom said, "Speaking of alternate timelines, do you remember when we failed with the quantum slipstream drive?"
"You mean me," Harry interjected quickly. "You were right back then, about the vectors being wrong. I made the computational error."
"And you watched that recording you made for yourself, from the future that you and the Doctor ended up changing? Which still doesn't make sense that you could even see...but, well…" Tom shook his head, baffled.
Harry nodded, the hair on the back of his neck standing up despite all the years in between, at the thought of how eerie that was.
Tom continued, "You changed history. We know that. What really happened to all of us was that we probably crashed when we lost the slipstream. You and Chakotay were probably the only survivors. Have you ever thought about that?"
The deadly seriousness on Harry's face was unusual. "I still have nightmares about that. My calculations were wrong. If that hadn't been aborted, Voyager would have crashed."
"But we did crash. We all died together in a horrific crash, but we died. You just couldn't accept that you failed so badly. Couldn't live with yourself. So you changed history. I don't know how you evaded Temporal Investigations, either." An edge had crept into Tom's voice, something that made Harry bristle.
"You wish I'd left things alone? Let you all die in the crash all those years ago?" He tried, and failed, to not sound defensive.
God, would that have been easier, Tom thought, but didn't say. "No. I'm not. But at least you have a tiny inkling," Tom gestured, keeping his index finger and thumb just slightly apart, "of what I feel like now." The glass that came up to his lips trembled slightly, but he swallowed the rest of it down anyway. Just so he could avoid looking back at Harry's shocked face.
"None of what happened here was your fault, Tom. You have to know that," he implored.
"But I was in command. The lives of all of those people were mine to protect, and I failed," Tom grumbled bitterly.
"People die sometimes, even when you do everything in your power to keep them safe. You aren't God. That was something I had to learn the hard way, but I did learn it," Harry offered. Tom didn't answer, and Harry watched as the muscles in his jaw hardened as he clenched his teeth. "You saved the lives of over 1300 people. You did that. That was an amazing feat considering what you were up against. Don't belittle that."
"B'Elanna saved us, by doing what she did," he asserted, his eyes flashing with pain.
"She bought you time. You did the rest," Harry assured him.
"Yeah, Harry, it was great! We saved so many people. But we lost 47 people, five of whom were children. Two of whom were my children–" His voice broke, and he covered his mouth with his hand. "It cost too much," he whispered, then banged his glass on the table.
"Sorry we're late, Tom," Aaron said cautiously, having walked up to the table casually, but sensing the tension from the conversation he'd interrupted. "Are we intruding?" he asked softly.
"No, no, we asked you to come. Sit down," Tom said, moving his feet to the floor to make room.
After Aaron had introduced T'Lassa to Harry, they sat, Aaron in the booth next to Tom. T'Lassa, rather than sit next to Harry, pulled a chair from another table and sat at the end of the table, as close to Aaron as she could scoot and not touch him. "We were just reminiscing about the good ol' days on Voyager like a pair of drunken sailors."
"We were?" Harry asked innocently enough.
"Sure. Alternate timelines, stuff like that." A little too brightly, Tom continued with a sarcastic tinge to his voice. "Do you know that if you scan my friend here, Doctor, you will find Commander Kim .0002 points out of phase with this universe?"
One of T'Lassa's eyebrows lifted up in question. "Really, Commander?"
"Yes," Tom answered, even though Harry's mouth was open as if he were going to speak. "Don't ask me about the physics of it, because I didn't quite catch it. Something about a Kent State experiment. All of our matter was duplicated, but not antimatter. Two Voyagers, two of each of us. One just slightly out of phase with the other."
"I remember reading about that, when Voyager came back. How bizarre," Aaron commented.
"Me, I'm from this universe. He was from the duplicated ship," Tom added, leaning in as if he were conspiring with them.
T'Lassa continued to look back and forth between them without speaking, almost daring someone to explain. "Why don't you explain it, Tom. I remember the events differently, since I was on the other ship."
"What happened to the duplicate ship? And the crew?" she asked.
"Self-destructed, in order to protect it from being captured by the Vidiians," Harry said.
"The organ harvesters?" T'Lassa asked.
Tom nodded, taking up the story. "His Voyager almost destroyed ours with proton bursts, because they didn't know we were there."
"Why did you end up switched, then?" she asked again, looking at Harry.
Tom replied instead. "My Harry was killed. He was sucked out through a ruptured bulkhead. B'Elanna tried to hold him, but she couldn't." His tone softened as he remembered the tragedy.
"She never told me that," Harry interjected.
Tom looked away. "I treated her dislocated shoulder in Sick Bay. That's when she told me."
"Why didn't she ever tell me that was what happened?" Harry asked, even as he realized continuing to question like this in mixed company wasn't exactly appropriate.
"Probably because she didn't want to see the look that's on your face right now." Tom was still looking away, but Harry saw the sadness drop his eyelids down.
"What about you?" T'Lassa asked, obviously still very interested in the story.
"The Captain told me to go get Naomi Wildman, who had just been born, and cross over to the other ship. Since those were the only casualties she knew about. I just made it, but I did. I had forgotten Naomi has the same variance. She didn't even have a name when I did that."
"Cadet Wildman?" T'Lassa verified.
"Same girl," Tom said lightly. "I forgot that part. Ensign Wildman's delivery had complications, because of her mixed Ktarian heritage. The power failed, and her baby died right after she was born." He seemed to realize the power of his words after he said them, so similar to his own child's fate. The silence stretched around the table, everyone sitting in awkward silence.
Aaron, thinking quickly, changed the subject. "I read all of the depositions after Voyager returned. So many weird things like that. Wasn't the ship fragmented by some kind of temporal rift?"
"I think so. Chakotay said he knew what happened, but he couldn't tell us because of the Temporal Prime Directive." Harry answered for Tom, who suddenly looked a thousand miles away. "All the Maquis crew members were brainwashed by a Bajoran vedek via the data stream from Earth. We also almost got eaten by a giant space dwelling pitcher plant."
"Fascinating," T'Lassa answered.
Tom focused on T'Lassa, who was very deeply enthralled in the Voyager stories. Harry's mention of the Temporal Prime Directive stirred something, reminded him of the strange information T'Lassa had relayed after the briefing with Janeway a few days ago. She hadn't said anymore, and, truth be told, he was afraid to ask her any more.
He noticed more and more how Aaron and T'Lassa's movements mirrored each other. They picked up their drinks, put them down, even crossed their arms at exactly the same time. He focused intently on the slight glances, knowing they were communicating without words. Harry had seemed to notice it too. It made Tom wonder how much of that forbidden information Aaron knew, through that unique bond.
"Doctor, if you don't mind my saying so, you aren't like any other Vulcan I've ever met." Harry said innocently.
"I am only like myself, and I've never met you before today. So that is completely logical." She said it straight-faced, but Aaron laughed, meeting her eyes as he did so.
"I didn't mean that the way it sounded, Doctor," Harry replied quickly, embarrassed.
"No offense was taken, Commander. Please," she said.
"She was making a joke," Aaron said with a smile.
"I've never seen anything like that before, is all I meant," Harry explained.
She crossed her arms on the table, leaning toward Harry as she continued. "I have met Commander Tuvok on several occasions in the past eight years. If he is your frame of reference, I can see where you would think as such."
Harry couldn't help but smile. "So I'm not the only one who thinks Tuvok was trying to out-Vulcan the Vulcans?"
"Commander Tuvok lived through the Kolinahr, which purges all emotion. Vulcans who complete that ritual are what you might refer to as quintessential Vulcans. As with most races, there is significant variation in between. I am much less Vulcan than most, I will give you that, Commander."
"Her grandmother was Ambassador T'Mir." Aaron said it proudly, knowing they would know who she was instantly.
"Really? I'm honored," Harry said with a smile. "So you're part human?"
"Yes, my grandfather was human. My eyes are from my human heritage." Aaron's forehead creased at her words. She looked at him, meeting his eyes and staring.
"Come on you two, no telepathy in mixed company. Station rules," Tom finally spoke up, teasing.
Aaron's cheeks flushed as he looked away. "Sorry. Sometimes I get carried away."
Harry watched as she reached out and grasped Aaron's hand, and held it on the table for a moment before pulling it back into her lap. Harry was just staring at them, open mouthed. "My apologies, Commander," she said formally.
Tom smiled back, but his eyes were dark and lifeless. While it had been nice to talk to everyone, especially Harry, who he rarely got to see in person anymore, he suddenly felt isolated. Watching Aaron and T'Lassa interacting had stirred feelings in him that he had spent much effort to repress. He missed B'Elanna, the nearness of her. He thought of her smile, of the feeling of her lips against his, how comfortable he felt while she was in his arms. His insides began aching, with a heavy, endless feeling. For he knew despite all his need, she was gone from his life in any of that capacity.
"I have to get going. Harry, did you want me to show you to your quarters?" Tom jumped up, shuffling his feet as he stepped away.
"Ok," Harry said unsurely, giving his regards to the others at the table. He had a short tour of duty on the station with them, as they were rebuilding the final batch of main ODN relays, as well as investigating the cause of the disaster. Chakotay had offered his services for the time being, considering how busy Aaron had become. Harry hoped, somehow, he could offer some of the support he knew his friend needed. Tom was still, despite the years and distance between them, his best friend, the older brother he had never had. Family.
October 2, 2371
USS Voyager
The moment Tom and B'Elanna left the holodeck, leaving a confused group of Kes' party guests behind, she started. "What was that?"
They were walking, but he looked nonchalantly over his shoulder at her. "What was what?" he asked.
"Your gift. Jewelry? You really think that was appropriate?" she quizzed.
He bristled slightly. "She liked it. What was wrong with that?" he asked defensively.
"She has a serious boyfriend, Tom. Did you think about that at all? How you would make Neelix feel?" she quizzed again.
He started to reply, but stopped himself, hearing how pathetic his reply was, faced with the truth of her words. "Kes has said more than once Neelix can be…overly jealous, a little too possessive. She talks to him about it," he replied lamely.
"Well, when the ship's most notorious womanizer gives your girlfriend jewelry for her birthday, maybe, he has a little bit of a…case there. Don't you think?" she shot back, then swallowed hard as she saw the look on his face, surprised that she seemed to have affected him.
"That's what you think of me?" he accused. "Really?" Had he been foolish enough to believe she had changed some of her perceptions of him, based on their past interactions?
They paused at the doors to the turbolift. "I'm sorry. That came out wrong," she said apologetically.
He huffed out his breath, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "I may…enjoy the company of women, I'll give you that. But I would never make a move on someone who was involved with someone else. As terrible as I might be, I draw the line there."
"You're not…terrible," she defended. "I didn't mean it like that either," she was quick to add. "But, Tom," she said seriously, touching his arm briefly before she pulled her hand away, "you sort of just did that. It was awkward."
The doors hissed open, and they jumped inside. He got to work right away, unable to stop his mind from spinning around B'Elanna's words. He had never given anything a second thought. Too caught up in the thought of her face, how she would smile when she saw what he had chosen for her… Oh, god, she was right, wasn't she? he thought in dread, as he worked on the panel. How had he not ever noticed that before?
He felt her, breathing over his shoulder, anxious to get to engineering. He pushed the thoughts away, knowing when this situation was resolved, he needed to talk to Harry. Harry had less experience with women, but he was much more knowledgeable about doing the right thing in a difficult situation. Harry was the angel on his shoulder, even as he conceded B'Elanna was probably right about the fact that the devil on the other side was just him.
July 2, 2386
Starbase 47
Once they both had walked away, T'Lassa spoke out loud, "He seemed a little better, do you not think so?"
"They were arguing about something when we arrived. He was putting up a front," Aaron explained.
"He is struggling to adjust to his life, now that everything has changed. Some part of him is a front. It would have to be, considering the length and depth of the grieving process. At least some of that came out, did it not?" she countered.
"I know. It's just so hard. I think everything, to some extent, reminds him of her. She came up three times in that conversation," Aaron offered.
"She was his life, at least a huge part of it, for the past 15 years. I'm sure there is very little he sees on a given day that doesn't make him think of her. You and I both know what that is like, Aaron. He needs time. And room." She felt the pull inside her, like a needle piercing through thread, as his memories of loss fluttered through him.
He closed his eyes, reaching deeper inside him for her presence. When he focused, seriously focused, he could sense her feelings, like radiant warmth inside the cold. The invisible wire that connected them, wherever they were, reverberated like a struck guitar string. Let's go, Aaron, she said inside his head, the overtones in her voice clear to him.
He stood and began walking beside her. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Besides T'Mir's husband, who else in your family was human?"
She stopped walking. "Why do you ask?"
"You were explaining your heritage to Commander Kim. I know you have more than one human ancestor. And both your parents were Vulcan. I'm just curious where that occurred, considering," he said.
"He wasn't asking for a genealogical profile. I didn't think it was necessary." She started walking again.
He wanted to continue asking her about it, some vague idea forming that didn't quite sit right, but that he couldn't grasp. She definitely made a conscious effort to fill his mind with her thoughts of what she wanted to do to him once they were alone. He let her distract him.
November 6, 2371
USS Voyager
When Captain Janeway had ordered the ship to go back to rescue Chakotay after he had missed the rendezvous, despite her reservations, Tom had a suspicion that it had been B'Elanna who had somehow convinced Janeway to go after him. He found himself wondering what she had said, how she had presented herself in such a way that she could have changed Janeway's mind.
B'Elanna was emotional and passionate. She was closer to Chakotay than she was to anyone else. That alone wouldn't have been enough, though, he acknowledged to himself. She would have had logical, detailed points she needed to make. She had to have been frantic, desperate, and purely honest to make her point. Tom also knew how much Janeway herself cared about him, so perhaps, convincing her had been easier because of that.
Tom remembered the very first thought he had, when he had met B'Elanna, knowing of her relationship to Chakotay, his sworn enemy at the time, and now his commanding officer. He had questioned whether they were lovers. It hadn't taken long for him to conclude that they weren't, rather, their relationship was more similar to that of siblings. But every point from there, whether it had been when Chakotay was braindead, taken captive by the Kazon, or lost somewhere and potentially the victim of a deadly shuttlecraft crash–she had behaved in a way that led him to believe it was more than just that. At least when it came to how she felt.
He could feel the disquietude from her, buzzing around her like a cloud of angry bees, wherever she was now, with Chakotay not here. He thought back to her words to him about Kes, calling out his inappropriate behavior. She had been the one to make him examine his feelings, place them in context, before he made a huge mistake. But what if she had done so because she recognized what she saw in him, because she herself had those feelings for Chakotay? When they had all combined on one ship, Tom knew, from rumors, that Seska and Chakotay had been involved. He had discontinued the relationship for the sake of propriety, but, he thought, Seska and B'Elanna were best friends, until she had betrayed them all.
Tom was absolutely certain Chakotay had no idea. Harry had no idea, or Tom was sure his friend would have said something, if only because he cared so much about her. How was it that Tom seemed to know her secret? And why, as he sat here at the helm, dangerously distracted from his tasks, did that knowledge affect him so?
July 2, 2386
Starbase 47
Laying beside her in the darkness, he finally caught his breath after many minutes scrolled by. "How logical is it for you to bother with your nightgown?"
"It is normal to wear pajamas to sleep, is it not?" she asked. "You prefer the sensation of my skin against you, not my nightgown, do you not?" He felt her hand sliding down his chest, then wrapping around his waist.
"You prefer it too, don't you?" he asked, though he knew the answer already.
"You know the answer," she repeated to him. "But my daughter shares these quarters with me."
He lifted the gauzy blue material, gently rubbing it between his fingers. "You look so beautiful. It makes your eyes look like the ocean on Earth, like the Caribbean Sea in summer."
Thank you, she said in his head, indulging his human habit of complementing her for something she had no personal control over. He pulled her against him, threading his fingers into her long hair, gently massaging her head. Ever so slightly, she sighed at the pleasantness of the feeling.
"Las," he whispered. "You've never missed an injection, have you?"
She pulled herself up on her elbow quickly. "No, I haven't. Why are you asking?"
"I think I forgot a few, not recently, but maybe two or three weeks ago. I have a handful left over that I shouldn't have had left."
"When were you planning on telling me?" She sounded irritated.
"I just realized it this morning, really. I'm sorry," he replied.
"You waited until after the act to tell me. What if I had? What good is it to tell me afterward?" she queried.
She couldn't see his face in the dark, but she knew he was looking at her intently. She felt it. "Would it be so terrible, if you had?"
"If I became pregnant?" she asked incredulously.
"If we had a baby. Would that be so bad?" he asked again.
"Are you asking me? Or asking yourself out loud?" she asked pointedly. "You were hesitant to speak of the future."
"That was before."
"Before….what?"
Before everything changed, he thought to her.
He sensed her hesitation before she spoke to him internally. Explain.
"When you lost your husband. You had your daughter that you shared with him. A part of him that remained, even after he was gone." He pulled her against him again, squeezing her so tightly she was laboring to breathe. "There should exist, somewhere, something that is both of us. Part of you and part of me, that lives on after we are gone."
"You are feeling sad, after thinking about Commander Paris's children. Is it influencing your thought process?" she asked, forcing her voice to remain neutral, despite how his words had pulled on her insides with an unexpected longing.
"In a good way, Las. I was always afraid that I would be a terrible parent. Because I never really had parents. None that I remember anyway." She felt a wall come down inside him, as he continued. "I've spent my whole life detached. Afraid of getting too close to anyone, because I was sure that I would lose them. Every time I tried, I was just proven right. It sort of reinforced my decision," he told her. He could see, even in the near darkness, how she was focused on him, waiting for him to continue. "You were in love with me for over four years, and I had no idea. I chose to ignore it, I think, for the same reason." He raised his hand to her cheek, ran the back of his hand across it gently.
"You are still trepidacious, Aaron. I know you are," she stated.
"I am. But I know that I love you. I'm not afraid of that feeling. I…"
She said it slowly, as if understanding had just dawned. "You fear losing me, do you not?"
He said nothing, but she saw the images in his mind. And felt the raw pain that was almost tangible, from his loss. And something she had never realized before. The regret. He had foolishly, or so he thought, pursued his career, with little regard for his wife's desire to have a family. And then the war came, and no one's life or plans or hopes were there own any more. After the war, he had promised himself. But there had been no afterward. Instead he had emerged on the other side without her, lost and seemingly irrevocably damaged from it. He had never truly feared being a father. Instead, he had feared the loss--whether it was the child, or his eventual absence if something had happened to him.
She understood all of that in the instant he thought it, at last. "All that exists is now. The past cannot be changed and the future is beyond what we can affect. If you learn to live in this moment, now, fear has no hold on you. You cannot live all your life in every moment you exist."
The comfort he felt under her compassionate words surrounded him. "We have found one another," she continued. "For a day, for an hour, or the entire rest of my life. But always in this moment, with each breath."
He felt his eyes mist over, burning. "So you would? Have a child with me?"
She leaned over him, her mouth so close to him he felt her hot breath on his chin. "Vulcans tend to be more traditional in that sense, and there, I do concur."
She saw the confusion on his face, took his face in her hands, and turned his mouth to hers. "Marriage. Before children."
"You want to marry me?" he asked.
In every way that matters, we already are, she thought to him. She reached for her nightgown, slipped it over her head, and lay across him to sleep. Her dreams were jumbled and confused as she slept, as she realized in her proximity to him, she had been absorbing some of his dreams. Something very rare, even among Vulcans, although she was not surprised that she shared this with him.
He had been dreaming of her, she realized, feeling herself becoming aroused, even as he slept. She touched his face, felt for the correct pressure points. He came awake with a start, and instantly felt her mouth against his, fervent and demanding. He reached up, caressing the edge of the nightgown, reaching for her flesh underneath. He felt it like a wave, what he could only describe as relief when his hand touched her flesh. It was so compelling, and now familiar.
He lost all sense of time, laying back against his pillow, feeling himself ringing with pleasure even as the experience started to fade. He could still feel her breath inside his lungs, a uniquely odd but now comfortable feeling. Sleep crept up gently on him. He heard her in his head just as he lost consciousness again. I can't imagine getting pregnant will be that difficult, considering the frequency of these episodes. You cannot keep your hands off me, is that the correct phrase?
His answer was delayed only a few seconds, as he wavered between sleep and wakefulness. Really? Look who's talking.
Excuse me? she teased.
You just woke me up in the middle of the night for round two, he teased back.
You are irresistible, I will concede that, she offered with amusement.
Likewise, Doctor, he teased.
Very logical, Commander.
