Interlude
She is instantly transported.
She walks through one door, expecting the next space to be what it has always been…the corridor…the lab…engineering. The door shuts and she is somewhere else. The gentle hum of the warp engines, barely noticeable to someone not in tune with their very lifeblood, but a constant sough in her usual background, is suddenly absent. She feels deafened by the silence.
She does not know where she is. A sky, purple at the horizon but light blue above her head, provides the canopy over wherever it is she is standing. Her body feels heavy, leaded, weighed down. Greater than Earth gravity, which would be standard on Federation starships.
She is not alone.
She turns and sees him. He looks human. Brown hair, amber eyes. He wears a strange black uniform, one piece, ribbed and edged like a plastic encasement. There is insignia pinned to his chest, reminiscent of Starfleet…but different, a design she has never seen before.
"Who are you? How did you bring me here?" she asks, suddenly dizzy and disoriented.
"For consistency's sake, call me Daniels," he tells her. "I am a Temporal Agent."
"I don't understand," she tells him.
"No, you wouldn't. I'm from roughly five hundred years in your future," he tells her. "In the 24th century, you are at least aware that time travel exists."
"In theory," she drawls skeptically.
"In the 29th century, the Federation possesses technology that allows us to move ourselves, and others, back and forth through time. We are not only upholding the Prime Directive. We are also tasked with upholding the Temporal Prime Directive. We preserve timelines…repair damage done to timelines. Just as in the 24th century, other factions besides the Federation have warp capability, in the 29th other factions have time travel capability. To varying degrees, anyway," the man named Daniels tells her.
"Captain Braxton," she mutters, speaking aloud as a distant memory surfaces.
Daniels snickers and looks away. "He is a bit of a…problem…from my time. He was…or will be…taken care of. How did you know that name?"
"My father," she tells him, surprised as the pain roars in her chest as she says those simple words. "A brief encounter when he was in the Delta Quadrant…on Voyager. He told me that was the only instance of him ever traveling in time himself."
Daniels clasps his hands behind his back, nodding, as if he is internally agreeing with an assessment inside his own head. "The other instances were corrected. I did forget that one time you are describing."
"What my father explained…and this technology you used on me…it's not the same thing," she argues.
"No, it's not," Daniels tells her. "I am a Temporal Agent. He was merely an officer…in what serves as Starfleet in his century. A contemporary…but not an equal." He sighs. "I was granted special permission to contact you…and bring you here. It's very rare…that we need to intervene like this. It's only been done a handful of times in thousands of years."
"Where is here?" she asks, dumbfounded, asking only one of a thousand questions swirling in her head.
"Galada IV," he answers. "A planet in sector G35. The inhabitants of this world have all been evacuated. That purple glow on the horizon is the advancing edge of a graviton wave of trans dimensional disruption and lethal radiation."
"Then why are we here?" she asks, always needing to know the reason behind all that she does. It is the one thing she learned from her mother.
"You only asked where…not when," Daniels tells her. "We are 150 years in your future. This world is one of the first that will be absorbed in the growing incursion. Trans dimensional realm leaking…or being forced…into our galaxy."
"Graviton wake…" she mutters, with the same haziness of memory she has spoken with before. "The accident…on the station…when I was eight…"
"The one that killed your father," Daniels tells her deliberately, letting her know he knows all of it. "Caused by the same beings. We contacted you because we need your help."
August 15, 2386
Starfleet Rehabilitation Facility, Luna
He came awake sharply, slowly becoming aware of the dull ache in his hips and back where he had slept against the hard floor. Next was the throbbing of his cheek, then his bitten lip as he opened his mouth. As the night came rushing back to him, the heat flooded his insides. He realized what had woken him was B'Elanna screaming. It was pure rage, a long stream of incoherent cursing, partially in Klingon. He couldn't hear any thoughts that accumulated into anything he could understand, just raging gibberish.
He rolled painfully to his side, reaching for his disheveled heap of clothing. Hastening, fumbling as he went, knowing the ruckus would soon summon medical and security personnel, he sloppily got himself back into his clothes. One of the many things he had learned in Starfleet--how to change and/or dress in seconds flat.
He pulled himself up by holding onto the bed, calmed at least by the fact that she had managed to dress in her pajamas somewhere between falling asleep against him and this. Falling asleep in his arms. The thought flashed like a comet across his brain, pulling at his insides with the fiery remnants.
All the tools, pieces of metal, and the lamp clattered to the floor as she swept her arm across the table top. Thunderous crashing ensued as she pulled back the chair, then toppled the table with one hand. "…the truth…destroys…." They were the only words that made sense as she howled and raged.
"B'Elanna!" he called, when he found his voice. In the distance he heard the alarm from the front desk, knowing the noise had summoned a response team.
She spun quickly, her eyes wide as saucers, obviously surprised to see him. The fact that she had forgotten last night didn't surprise him, but wounded him all the same. There was no more lucidity in her eyes. She was crazed, almost delirious. "Why are you here?" she shrieked. "You have to stop them! You have to stop them!"
She charged at him, reaching for his arm, her grip tearing into the flesh underneath his clothing. She screamed in rage again as the door flung open, two medics entering followed closely by a nurse. They rushed past him, and then right afterward The Doctor was in the room.
"No!No!No!!!!" she howled desperately as they began pulling her away from Tom. "They have to listen! Tell them!"
"Thirty cc's inaprovaline!" Tom heard The Doctor shout above the din. He looked briefly at Tom, registering a brief surprise, then moved past the struggling mass.
"NO!!!!" B'Elanna screamed so loudly Tom's ear began ringing on the side closest to her. "…Expanse! In the--You have to stop them--" The hypo hissed against her neck as she struggled against the medics. "No more time! Don't you...understand…." Her voice crescendoed, then faded in intensity as the sedative started to take effect. She sagged in the arms of the medic.
The nurse came up behind them, assisting as the medic lowered her down to her bed. The nurse pulled at the blanket, unmaking the pristine bunk to lay B'Elanna underneath. As the nurse bent to lift B'Elanna's legs onto the bed, The Doctor moved in.
"Why is she so agitated? And why are you here, Mr. Paris? You weren't due for another two weeks. You know how sensitive she is to routine disruption," the Doctor scolded.
Disruption. He laughed bitterly inside. He had disrupted her routine, all right. In two hours, he had managed to completely destroy three months of therapeutic progress...all because of his own weakness and need.
"I don't know," he lied. What she was rambling about, maybe, that part was true. But not everything. His face burned with shame, as he thought The Doctor must have surmised what had transpired here.
"I--" He cleared his throat as it threatened to shake. "I came to say goodbye. To tell her about the Yeager."
The Doctor turned to him, none of the typical disdain or arrogance visible on his holographic face. His eyes shone with sympathy. "My belated congratulations are in order, Captain. The Admiral mentioned it to me the last time I saw her. Although, at the time, she was worried you wouldn't accept it."
If The Doctor suspected what had happened, he gave no outward sign. He turned back to B'Elanna, running her over with his medical tricorder. "Did anything she said make sense to you?"
"No. In the beginning she was speaking Klingon. It was too jumbled. I could only make out a few words," Tom mumbled.
"From what's been explained to me, she gets confused….but she isn't delusional or impaired like that...correct? Have you ever experienced an episode like that?" The Doctor's concern creased his brow. "Her metabolism is accelerated and her encephalographic readings are aberrant."
No, she hadn't. But she had also never been reminded so profoundly of the incongruity of this life with the one she had forgotten.
"How did she take the news?" The Doctor asked gently.
"Better than I expected. Better than I did, I think." But she didn't remember loving him, so of course, it would have been easier.
"Are you certain she wasn't upset? Worried that she wouldn't see you? You do fit into her routine here...and…" the Doctor argued.
"What do you want me to say, Doctor?" he snapped, then pressed his lips closed before he said any more.
The Doctor turned away, then back again. "I'm sorry, Mr. Paris." He lowered his voice so that only Tom could hear him. "It can't have been easy for you. Especially now."
"Yeah." He looked at the floor,shards of glass still visible under her bed from the broken lamp. He looked at B'Elanna, soundlessy sleeping, crumpled uncomfortably under the blanket. He reached down and pulled her covers up over her shoulders. When he looked back up at The Doctor, his haunted eyes silenced any more discussion.
He left the room, feeling The Doctor follow him. "She's resting. Come with me, Mr. Paris." They walked silently to an office.
Tom dropped into a chair, burying his face in his steepled hands. He rubbed his forehead, trying to massage away the headache from behind his eyes. He felt The Doctor pull his left hand down so that he could run the dermal regenerator over his cut lip. "Are there any more?" he asked flatly.
He felt cold and defeated. "No," he said. It was another lie, but whatever wounds were left on his body from B'Elanna's nails and teeth he was reluctant to cure. He deserved the pain, and relished it, as a memory of what he had once had, and had now lost.
"I don't mean to be indelicate, but--"
His whole hand shielded his face as it burned in shame. "Yes, Doctor. You're correct. We…." He swallowed the lump in his throat, unable to continue, knowing the Doctor understood. "Oh my God, this is my fault! How could I…" He cringed, as if in pain, at the memory of his slip of willpower that had now damaged her so.
"She's your wife." It was the only explanation he offered, matter of factly. "You didn't force her." Again, fact. Without having to ask.
"I would never--"
"I know," The Doctor whispered adamantly in return.
"But that's just it, Doctor! She was confused when I showed up. And she was upset, when I told her I was going away. But then the glass on the lightbulb shattered, cut me--" He reached up, touched the wound on his cheek, speaking as if he were piecing together a puzzle as he spoke out loud. "She grabbed my face, like she did in the caves on Sakari…all those years ago…when she was suffering from pon farr. And she remembered me. I know she did." He caught his breath, swallowed hard. "The entire time she was with me...like that...she was B'Elanna again. My B'Elanna. She…." He couldn't say the last few words out loud... she told me she loved me.
"How could that have been possible?" The Doctor asked incredulously. "How could she have remembered you?"
"I don't know! But I know what she said. How she reacted to me," he swore.
"Muscle memory is much more persistent than--" The Doctor started hesitantly.
"Doctor, please!" He hissed in embarrassment. "I don't need to explain it to you. It's more than muscle memory. It's...emotional. And…it was real."
"There has to be an explanation. Something that we've overlooked," The Doctor questioned.
He could hear the unspoken questions, the scientific curiosity, and the need to solve the problem. To find out how something that couldn't be…had now become.
He felt it lift underneath his deadened heart, that same irrational, foolish hope that he had clung to in the days after her accident, that she would recover her memory…before they had known the full extent of the damage. Then the anguished, double-sided sword that asked the question, what if she did remember? She would have to come to terms with the fact that both of her children were dead and gone. Followed by his perverse need to have someone else feel what he felt, to grieve what he grieved, merely to ease this wretched loneliness filled with pain.
The war inside him raged. Her memory, and the grief her amnesia spared her from. The guilt that twisted his insides, for admitting he wanted her to suffer, if only it kept him from suffering alone.
"None of what she said meant anything to you? Are you sure?" The Doctor asked, stirring him from his reverie.
"The Expanse…." he mused. "It sounds vaguely familiar, but….I don't know. The Necrid Expanse comes to mind...but….the rest of it, no."
"The Necrid Expanse is in the Delta Quadrant, and the only reference in the Starfleet database came from Voyager's logs. There are other astral phenomena with that designation, aren't there?" The Doctor asked.
Tom felt the memory move to the forefront. Too coincidental after all the classified information he knew about the sphere builders. "What about the Delphic Expanse?" He made certain to play dumb, leaving the Doctor in the dark for now.
"Computer," The Doctor called, "can you find any references to The Delphic Expanse?"
"Affirmative," the computer chimed tonally.
"Explain," The Doctor called tightly.
"An area of space in Sector G35, that existed for an unknown period of time in the past, was cleared in 2154 after being found to be the result of extra-dimensional manipulation by an unknown race of beings known colloquially as The Sphere Builders. The last remnants of the thermobaric cloud perimeter dissipated shortly after the Spheres were disabled by the crew of the NX-01 Enterprise commanded by Captain Jonathan Archer."
Tom met the Doctor's eyes. "The Delphic Expanse hasn't existed in 200 years. Why would she be babbling about it now?" Nothing Janeway had explained to him would have been known to B'Elanna.
"Most of her long term memory engrams are still intact. If she learned about it sometime in the past, it could have surfaced for some reason. The mind works mysteriously. Something you might have thought insignificant could have stirred it. Was she working on something? All that equipment that she broke…" The Doctor was thinking out loud.
"The symbols…." he muttered.
"Excuse me, Mr. Paris?"
Tom's face suddenly became animated as his thoughts raced. "When they let you back into her room, find the piece of metal she was welding. She'd scratched some symbols onto the surface. They seemed so familiar to me, but I couldn't place them. I don't know what they could have to do with the Delphic Expanse, but…"
The Doctor nodded. "You realize they won't let you back in to see her. Not for a long time."
He winced in pain. "I know."
"When does your ship leave?" The Doctor asked quietly.
"She'll be ready in two months. I have a crew to pull together between now and then," Tom explained. He realized it after he had said it aloud…that the decision had been made. The bizarre interaction he had with B'Elanna left him questioning, wondering if maybe he just stayed…but, no. She was more lost to him now than she ever had been. There was literally nothing left to hold him here anymore.
He waited on Luna the entire time his ship was in space dock at Utopia Planitia, running crew manifests and processing promotions from afar. B'Elanna remained heavily medicated and under lockdown. They never let him back in. In fact, Dr. T'Sira, a Vulcan healer who had been called in to work on her case, had told him point blank it was better if he stayed away, to keep her from having any setbacks.
The day before he was due to ship out, the Doctor met with him. To tell him after all he had done, she had still regressed farther back than when she had first begun therapy. He vowed to start over, although he had warned Tom, for whatever unknown reason, she may never progress back to the state she had achieved before the setback.
As awful as he had felt, being totally responsible for damaging her again, he kept the Admiral's words in his head. The last tether that had been keeping him here, afraid to take command of his starship, had been cut. One way or the other. And as much as he wanted to stay, to figure out what was going on, what all the strange things actually meant--he had a chance to live again, and to honor her sacrifice, he would take it. It was, in the end, literally all he had left.
October 28, 2386
Starfleet Headquarters, San Francisco, Earth
"The Admiral will see you now, Captain," Janeway's attache said as she looked up at Tom from her desk.
"Oh, yes, thank you," Tom muttered, even after three months not used to being addressed as Captain. He knew the pips were on his collar, but had to remind himself consciously to not look back over his shoulder…that she was in fact addressing him. He smiled stiffly and followed her into Janeway's office.
The moment she saw him, she smiled warmly. She stood, reaching her hand across her desk to him. "It's nice to see you, Captain," she beamed. She released his hand, her eyes misting slightly as she added, "Your father would be very proud, Tom. I know he would be."
"Thank you, Admiral. I know. I wish he was here," he added wistfully, feeling it sting inside his chest as the emotion rose to meet the words. Combined with all the other tragedy that had followed, his father's death had been incompletely grieved, and rare moments when he thought about the man could overwhelm him.
"Chakotay is still quite…disgruntled…that you stole his first officer," Janeway said with a smirk, stressing the word disgruntled with exaggerated humor.
"It was a lateral move. You can tell him I saved him from being outshined by Commander Kim one too many times," Tom jabbed back.
"Now Harry is gunning for your job? Is that it?" she teased good naturedly.
"Actually, he's gunning for yours, but…don't tell him I told you so," Tom replied.
She smirked again, her face then lighting up with a brilliant smile. "I think having Harry there with you will work wonders. You two always made a great team."
Janeway saw the pain flash in his eyes, despite the way he held his facial expression neutral. For the longest time, it had been the three of them. Tom, Harry, and B'Elanna. He knew that, remembered that. She did her best to ignore the sentiment, though it was still present with them.
"So…" Tom stated into the silence. "Are you coming to break the champagne bottle over the hull? Need a lift back with me?"
"Yes…and no, Captain," she replied. "But there is something that I wanted to discuss with you beforehand. Something very important." She gestured for him to sit. He pulled the chair closer to her desk and sat the moment before she took her chair as well. He fixed her with a curious gaze, and waited.
"Everything I told you about the Yeager was the truth. Everything. But there is something else. A secret mission within your standard orders," Janeway told him.
"Go on," he said anxiously.
"All of the specifications I mentioned…all of the schematics you reviewed that are part of the craft complement are part of the manifest and the mission of the vessel. However, there is a prototype included on the Yeager that no one has been briefed on. It requires just a limited number of crew members to even know it exists." She handed him a padd, stretching across the desk to place it into his hand.
Tom saw the name of the ship. It wasn't a shuttle or a runabout, though it was roughly the size of the Delta Flyer. U.S.S. Owen Paris. He clenched his teeth together hard, fighting to hold his emotions in check. "Admiral…" he started, but lost his train of thought and what he was going to say.
"It's an amalgamation of several of the theoretical designs that were stored in the database, which we were able to retrieve from the computer on Starbase 47. It has a coaxial drive, capable of the equivalent sustained cruising speed of warp eight. It also has enhanced shields. Actually a new design, a prototype if you will. Designed to withstand and protect against very high levels of a specific type of radiation. The radiation that was experienced by the crew of the Enterprise NX-01 when the ship traveled into the spatial anomaly in order to disable the Spheres in the Delphic Expanse," Janeway explained.
"Admiral?" he asked, confusion apparent in his tone.
"In the 22nd century, the crew of that ship was only able to survive for about 15 minutes before the dosage became lethal. With these new shields, that ship should be able to withstand travel inside that type of anomaly for up to months at a time," Janeway told him. She saw the understanding dawn on his face. "The graviton wake that caused the explosion emanated from a specific point in space that we've located. A point that has started expanding, changing the space…just like it did in the past…when it created the Delphic Expanse."
He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise…an eerie feeling made more severe by the memory of B'Elanna's crazed babbling the last time he had seen her. "We need to investigate…that's the secret mission?" he asked. Janeway knew the specifics about B'Elanna's turn for the worst, if not the act that he believed had initiated the breakdown.
"It's supposed to happen…or at least…it's going to happen. In 2567, that bubble will have expanded to fill entire parsecs of space. Your mission is, yes, to investigate. But also…find as much information as you can about it. We know the Sphere Builders aren't just sitting back and waiting to be defeated in 2567. They had a purpose for the havoc they wreaked on the station…on your life. No one knows why…but it seems focused on you somehow. Voyager being lost for 23 years…and the disaster at Starbase 47…achieved the same result. Temporal Investigations agrees sending you will be the fastest way to force their hand," Janeway finished.
He absorbed what she was saying silently, thoughts spinning inside his head. "But they don't know what it is? What about me that has anything to do with a war 200 years from now?"
Janeway shook her head solemnly. "It is very difficult for them to investigate while tampering is still occurring. The memory loss…missing time…it is definitely related. We just don't know how."
"Are there mission specifics? Clearer instructions?" he asked.
"All of the information has been downloaded to the Yeager's database, top secret for your eyes only. Two hundred years ago, the Sphere Builders were sending test subjects into the spatial anomalies. If they are doing so again, find out. Every last bit of data that was collected by the NX-01 has also been downloaded, same classification. Compare and contrast. What is the same, what is different. You're our best hope of finding out what their plans are…what they have now devised as a way to gain the upper hand in 2567," she instructed.
It was daunting, knowing what a herculean job he and his crew had been tasked with. "And we're still testing all of the other craft…making engineering adjustments…altering and creating designs…everything, right?" he asked.
"Yes," she told him. "But you can do it, Tom. I have nothing but faith in you."
He blushed at the praise, looking away briefly. "You always have, Admiral. I'm not sure what I ever did to convince you that I was worthy of that faith, but I appreciate it just the same." He smiled hesitantly.
Her face fell ever so slightly. "I promise I will visit her every chance I get, as soon as they let her have visitors again."
"Thank you, Admiral," he whispered.
"It wasn't your fault, Tom," she told him firmly. "You didn't cause that regression."
His face felt hot as he covered it with his hand, more embarrassed than he had been when talking to The Doctor about it. "Begging your pardon, Admiral, but, yes, it was," he coughed out.
She watched him struggle, feeling her heart clench inside her chest when she focused on his loss and the remorse he carried around inside himself. "She loves you," Janeway told him, in the moment no longer his commanding officer, just a caring friend, a member of his family. "She doesn't understand it anymore…but she still loves you." Her voice shook when she added, "And she knows that you love her."
He huffed out his breath, not answering her, not even sure what he could have said. He shifted awkwardly on his feet, then quietly excused himself. She wished him luck and shook his hand.
The entire walk out of Headquarters and across the street to the transporter pad was a blur. All he could focus on, all that was running back and forth through his head was one thought. How would she know that I love her, if I've never told her?
