B'Elanna never had felt quite this way before. She felt so helpless. Her arms ached to hold her beloved, to make the pain and fear she saw so clearly etched on his handsome features go away, to soothe his now occasional cries. But she could not hold him or touch him or comfort him in any way. The Doctor had been adamant with B'Elanna, Harry, and Neelix about that when they had been told of Tom's troubles and volunteered to take shifts sitting with him. No touching, the Doctor had ordered. No talking to him. No urging him to rejoin them. No interfering in any way. Just leave him be until the Doctor figured this out or Tom awoke on his own. That order frustrated everyone, especially B'Elanna.
And you thought having to sit through staff meetings without being able to do more than a bit of surreptitious hand holding under the table was bad, she told her self. This, this is Hell. Only the thought she might do him more harm than good kept her in position seated crossed legged opposite him on the floor.
"How's he doing?"
She looked up into Harry Kim's worried eyes as he entered the quarters. "No change."
The same battle she had so recently fought with herself over physically comforting Tom was evident on Harry's face. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. She reached out a hand to him and he took it, eyes never leaving their friend.
"He will come out of this."
Harry looked down at her. His doubts visible in his eyes.
"He has to, Harry."
"What if he doesn't?"
"He will." She flashed him a grin which did not reach her eyes. "We have a date tomorrow night and he knows how ticked off I get when he misses one of our dates."
Offering her a slight smile, he took a seat next to her, their hands still clasped. "You went through this - well, not this, but what Tom was trying to do, right?"
"Yes, but nothing like this ever happened."
"I know Commander Chakotay says it is personal and all, but what was it like? What happened?"
"Well, I performed the ritual he taught me, deep breathing and meditating, and suddenly I opened my eyes and I was in this strange place I'd never seen before. It was warm and sunny and I was in the middle of this giant meadow full of tall grass and wildflowers. Behind me was this big shade tree right there in the middle of the nowhere. There wasn't another tree in sight. And perched on a branch was this..." She grimaced distastefully.
"This what?"
"This bird. The ugliest thing I'd ever seen. It just sat there, staring at me with these huge eyes." She shivered again.
"And that's when you tried to kill it."
"Well, it was ugly!"
"That's a reason for killing something?"
She went on as though he had not spoken. "Besides, I didn't like the way it was looking at me."
"Looking?"
"Like... I don't know how, I just didn't like it."
Harry shook his head.
"Anyway, it was nothing like what's happened to Tom. Chakotay was with me the entire time. Well, he wasn't actually with me there, but he was with my body anyway. He says the only time I was the least bit agitated was right at the end. It must have been when I..."
"When you were trying to kill a poor defenceless bird who's only crime was to look at you funny."
"Defenceless? You should have seen the beak and talons on that thing."
A whimper from Tom reminded them of their purpose there. Both sets of eyes snapped to the man. His posture had not changed - it remained as perfectly straight as when he had begun - but both received the impression that mentally at least he was cowering.
"At this rate, his readings will enter into the dangerous range within a day," the Doctor told the Captain and Commander as the three entered the latter's quarters.
"We have to do something," B'Elanna demanded.
"I still have not been able to discover a safe course of action, Lieutenant. Until I have one, we can risk Mr. Paris." He frowned heavily at the display on the monitoring device he had set up on Chakotay's small dining table. "If only there were some way to get into his head and evaluate the situation from there."
"Perhaps Tuvok could initiate a mindmeld," the Captain suggested.
"I already discussed that option with him and decided against it. Though they have successfully melded in the past, Mr. Paris's brain activity is too erratic to do so safely this time. And, of course, given his highly emotional state it might be too much for Lieutenant Commander Tuvok's Vulcan controls. With the Vulcan telepathic abilities, his losing control could have a detrimental effect on the remainder of the crew."
Chakotay glanced at Tom and his worried friends then looked the Doctor in the eye. "I could go in."
Everyone else turned to him.
"I could use the akoonah I gave the Captain to visit her spirit guide. Perhaps my spirit guide can explain what is happening with Tom."
"Even if it would work, which I doubt, I would rather not risk it, Commander. I already have one patient I cannot treat. I do not need two."
"But I've never had any trouble like this, Doctor. Besides, we don't have any other options."
The EMH considered this. "Only if the device is fully checked out by Engineering first," he begrudged. "I don't want any more malfunctions."
"Agreed. Captain?"
Kathryn looked at Chakotay for a long moment then her eyes fell to Tom. Slowly, she nodded her assent.
Thirty minutes later, Chakotay opened his eyes to find himself in a meadow of wildflowers and tall grass. This was not too out of the ordinary. He had been here before with his spirit guide. What was extraordinary was the sinister looking woods approximately forty metres away. That was a new sight for him.
His spirit guide, seated on her haunches next to him, also was watching the forest. The wolf did not look up or acknowledge his presence though he knew she knew he was there.
"Where are we?" he asked, looking around him at the unfamiliar surroundings.
*We are here.*
That was less than helpful, thought Chakotay, but, used to her way of making him figure things out for himself, he let it pass. "I am looking for one who came here and has not returned to us."
*He is there.*
Chakotay looked around. "Where?"
The wolf gestured with her muzzle towards the dark woods. *There.*
"I've never seen that place before."
*That is because it's never been here before.*
"Never been here?"
*Yes.*
"It just appeared out of nowhere?"
*It came when he came.*
"And he is there."
*Yes.*
"I need to see him."
*You cannot.*
"He has been here too long."
*There is no time here.*
"He is needed elsewhere."
*That is where he must be for now.*
"I have to go get him. He has to leave-"
With narrowed eyes, the wolf finally looked at him. *Only he will know when it is the time to leave. You may not influence him by going there.*
At times her firm tone reminded him of the other important woman in his life. Perhaps that was the partial explanation for his attraction to Kathryn? Shoving that thought aside yet again, Chakotay sighed. "There are those who become increasingly worried with every second he does not return."
*That cannot be helped.*
"What is that place?"
*It is what it is.*
"It looks dangerous."
*It is that.*
Those three, tiny words worried Chakotay.
The wolf sensed this. *If he is strong, he shall survive. If he is not, he shall not.*
"There is nothing I can do to help him?"
*You may not interfere with things you were not meant to understand.*
"At least tell me he found his guide and it is with him."
*He did not and it is not.*
"What?!"
*His guide is there, with his mate, waiting for him to emerge or not.*
Following her gaze, Chakotay looked towards the woods, or rather slightly to the left of the part of the woods at which he had stared previously. There, not part of the woods but some metres distant from the edge of them, was a lone tree. Sitting on a branch of that tree was a magnificent golden eagle and an equally impressive, though much smaller, peregrine falcon, both intently staring into the dense vegetation. Given huge eyes of the falcon snuggled up to the eagle, he guessed the smaller bird was B'Elanna's spirit guide. Seeing it was present caused the last of Chakotay's concerns over B'Elanna's involvement with Tom to evaporate. If her guide was there so obviously comforting the eagle, her mate - no matter how much ornithologists would argue about the improbability of such a pairing in the "real" universe - it could only mean their counterparts belonged together as Kathryn maintained. He smiled at the thought B'Elanna finally had found her mate and had the chance of happiness.
'Provided Tom survived,' he reminded himself, smile fading. His eyes settled on Tom's guide animal. 'A golden eagle,' he thought. 'What else would the cocky, natural born pilot have for a guide?' "I understand why the falcon is not with him, she is not his companion, but why is the eagle out here and not in there with him?"
*He is not yet ready for him.*
Suddenly there was a scream from the woods. Human. And undeniably in pain. Chakotay leapt to his feet to rush to Tom's aid but the wolf blocked his path and he literally flew head over heels over the back of the animal.
"What did you do that for!" he shouted angrily.
*You were told you may not help him.*
"But-"
*It is for him alone to do this. No one else.*
"But-"
*No one else.*
The wolf resumed her seat. Chakotay picked himself up off of the grass and brushed off his uniform. Another scream made him tense but, with supreme effort, he stood his ground. His spirit guide nodded at his restraint. Sighing, he sat next to her to wait.
"It's been over an hour."
No one responded to Neelix's comment. In fact no one had said much of anything since long before he had arrived to confirm the rumours of the Captain and the Doctor rushing to Tom's side. He himself had only left once to collect refreshments for those who were standing vigil over the two meditating men seated on the floor. The sandwiches - leola root free though they were - remained untouched on the coffee table. Captain, sitting beside Neelix on the couch, cradled her fifth cup of Neelix's latest coffee substitute. No one else could muster much interest in eating or drinking.
Harry paced the quarters, stopping to look over the Doctor's shoulder every once in a while to check readings even the Doctor had trouble deciphering. While the young ensign had held vigils like this over his accident-prone best friend before, this one was the worst. His youthful face seemed to have aged a year for each of the past nineteen hours since he had been told of Tom's problem.
B'Elanna did not appear to be much better. Over the past hour she had edged as close to Tom as she could without touching him. Given her Klingon ridges, her brow could show no signs of furrowing as those of Harry and the other's did but her eyes showed her concern to a degree more than enough to compensate for any impossibility of biology.
"Something is happening to Commander Chakotay."
Everyone tensed at the Doctor's announcement. Was the worst case scenario coming true? Was what had happened to Tom happening to Chakotay, too?
"He's coming around," the Doctor answered their unasked question.
The Commander slowly opened his eyes. His large hands ran over his face then fell back to his lap.
"Well?" B'Elanna prompted anxiously.
"I wasn't allowed to see him."
"But he is okay. You sent word to him to come back."
Chakotay reached for her hand and squeezed it. "B'Elanna-"
"No. Give me that. I'll go get him."
His hand prevented her from touching the meditation aid. "You won't be allowed to see him either, B'Elanna. He's there until it is over."
"Until what is over?" Kathryn asked him.
"I don't know exactly. All my spirit guide would tell me is it is where he must be for the moment and when he is through he will return to us." Knowing if she heard he was in danger, B'Elanna literally would fight him to get to the akoonah and to Tom, Chakotay kept quiet about the chance he might not survive.
"Through with what?" B'Elanna demanded.
"I wasn't told."
"Chakotay-"
"His guide will help him, B'Elanna," the Captain soothed, moving around the coffee table and crouching next to her, a hand finding the distraught woman's shoulder to give it a squeeze. "He'll be okay."
Chakotay did not correct their assumption regarding Tom's guide's location. "I saw your spirit guide, too, B'Elanna," he said instead. "It was there with his."
This seemed to calm her a little. It was as though she felt better knowing Tom was being protected by something connected to her, no matter how repulsive she found that something. Her brown eyes found her beloved's face again.
Harry, looking more relieved himself, came over and gently touched her hair. The pair glanced at one another as Harry took a seat next to her. Two of their hands intertwined and said nothing, watching their friend.
The Captain on the other hand stared intently at Chakotay. She rose and gestured with a tilt of her head for the Commander and the Doctor to join her in the corridor. As they exited, Neelix assumed her spot to the other side B'Elanna, taking her free hand in his.
"You said you weren't allowed to see Tom," Kathryn stated once the doors were closed.
Chakotay nodded.
"But you saw Tom's spirit guide and B'Elanna's."
Again affirmative assent.
"They aren't with him, are they? He's all alone there. That's why you could see them but not him."
A third nod.
"What really is going on there, Chakotay?"
"I don't know," he sighed. "There is this forest that apparently appeared when he did and I got some very bad feelings from it. While I wasn't allowed to go there, I could hear him screaming every once in a while. I waited for him to come out, but after awhile... I couldn't take the screaming anymore."
"It appeared when he did," the Doctor mused.
"Yes."
"If you and Mr. Paris actually were on some other plane, it is possible this 'forest' is a physical, or in this case metaphysical, manifestation of his inner demons. You said his reasons for undertaking this-" he gestured to the closed cabin door- "was to find inner peace."
"That's more my explanation than his. He never really gave me a straight answer as to why he wanted to do this, but I think that is at least part of it."
"Then it is likely his past troubles are the root cause of his current ones."
"So your thinking is that when he comes to terms with his past he'll be able to leave there?" the Captain questioned.
"If he can," Chakotay muttered to himself. When he realised he had the attention of the other two, he explained. "If he can come to terms with it. My spirit guide was talking in terms of 'if he survives' and 'it is dangerous,' meaning the forest. I've never heard her talk like that before."
"Surely you have to remember this is Mr. Paris we are talking about here," the Doctor reminded them. "There have been some... bad patches in his life. It would only be natural for his demons to be horrific."
"But he usually does not confront them, merely pretends they don't matter to him, which we all know is not the case," the Commander reminded them.
"I still wonder how much of his remaining there because of the device," the EMH mused. "We've all seen the scans of it. There *is* something wrong with it. The energy readings from it are far outside of its acceptable perimeters and show no signs of abating."
Kathryn picked up on his train of thought. "So your thinking is the malfunction in it could cause Tom to be stuck there, indefinitely, regardless of whether he wants to confront his demons or not. Like a programme caught in an endless loop."
"But the akoonah was fine the last time I used it," Chakotay repeated the same statement he had been making since the Doctor's first examination of it and Tom.
"That was the last time, Commander," the EMH chimed in with his part of the argument. "Any number of things could have happened between then and now.
The Captain raised a hand to silence them. "Gentlemen, this speculation is getting you nowhere. Doctor, keep monitoring Tom's readings. Commander, go to Engineering and see if Mr. Carey has made any progress deciphering the readings from the akoonah and your quarters. I have to go to the Bridge and relieve Tuvok and see if the scans of the ship and surrounding space have uncovered anything. I want to know the minute anyone has any answers or-"
There was another blood curdling scream from inside Chakotay's quarters.
"Neelix to Doctor. You'd better get back here."
The trio rushed back into the quarters to find Neelix and Harry leaning over the monitoring devices and alternating glances between the displays and Tom. B'Elanna remained on the floor beside Tom almost in tears. Her fists were white knuckled in an effort not to reach out for him. The Captain immediately knelt next to B'Elanna to put an arm around her.
"Doctor?"
Ignoring Chakotay's unasked question for the moment, the EMH stared at the readouts, entered a few commands then grabbed a tricorder and walked over to begin scanning Tom. "His readings spiked well into the dangerous levels," he finally answered. "Now, however, it appears they are falling rapidly."
"Falling rapidly?"
He closed up the tricorder. "Yes. Towards acceptable levels."
"You mean he is coming around?" B'Elanna whispered, raising watery eyes to his.
He gave her a slight, reassuring smile. "Yes, Lieutenant. I think he might be," he murmured softly.
She returned the smile as best she could.
When at last all was quiet beneath her, she finally dared to breathe. Having had their revenge, the last two had ceased their attack and merely stood over him. Up in the tree, she had escaped their notice and, though she still was in the dark regarding the reason for their anger, she was grateful to have been overlooked by them. If only the poor wretch below could have said the same.
Silently, already fearing she knew the outcome, she watched as he painfully tried to haul himself away from them. The two Cardassians followed, smirking triumphantly.
Near dead, Tom dragged himself towards the sunlight he saw peeking through the thinning foliage. He did not know how long he had been trying to reach that promise of safety - he had blacked out more times than he could count while trying to get there - but it felt like it had been hours.
*Why are you bothering to do this?* Gul Camet asked him. *Just give up now. It would be so much easier.*
He took a shaky breath, considering it for a nanosecond.
Camet took advantage of that nanosecond of indecision. *You can't make it. You don't deserve to make it after everything you've done.*
That condemnation was enough to convince him.
Shakily extending his right arm, one remaining functioning appendage, he wrapped bloodied fingers around an exposed root. He flexed muscles so exhausted they had ceased screaming out for relief long ago and mutely did his bidding as best as they could. Slowly, a centimetre at a time, he pulled his broken body forwards through the thick humus which comprised the floor of the forest. Slowly towards the light. Slowly towards the promise of freedom.
"Doctor to Captain."
The Captain straightened from consulting with Harry's replacement at Ops. "How's Tom?" On her trip up to the Bridge not four hours ago, she had overheard enough of a conversation between two crewmembers to realise everyone on board knew, at least in part, what had happened to Tom Paris. 'And we thought we'd been so careful to keep it all private,' she had thought at the time. Now, knowing it was useless to try to hide any of this anymore, she openly asked for an update.
"His readings have levelled off. They now correspond more closely with those Commander Chakotay has exhibited when he was meditating this earlier."
"So no distress."
"None.""And the readings from the akoonah?"
"Normal, too," Joe Carey's voice joined the conversation. "I can't explain it. Only a few hours ago it was going crazy, but now, nothing. I've completed another scan of it, the Commander's quarters, and the surrounding sections above and below. There still are no strange energy emissions or anything which would explain what's happened. Everything is identical to the last time I took the readings, except akoonah is reading as functioning normally now. We'll have to dismantle it and do a further inspection to be positive, but frankly I don't think we'll find anything."
"Mr. Carey, it sounds like you have another explanation in mind."
"Well, Captain, the equipment doesn't seem to be at fault. There is nothing in the surrounding area of the ship that is reading as abnormal. Commander Chakotay performed the same ritual only two weeks ago without any ill side effects. Ops still hasn't found anything out of the ordinary in this area of space, has it?"
Harry's replacement shook her head.
"No," the Captain answered for her.
"So, Captain," Carey continued, "that only leavesLieutenant Paris."
"All readings were normal at his last physical," the Doctor insisted. "I am at a loss to explain how it could be him."
Sensing an impending argument, the Captain nipped it in the bud. "Doctor, keep monitoring him and contact me the moment he wakes. Mr. Carey, the moment he does wake I want the akoonah dismantled and checked out. Understood, gentlemen?"
"Aye, Captain," Carey answered.
"Of course, Captain. Doctor out."
Returning to their consultation, Kathryn mirrored the relieved smile of the young crewwoman bent over the Ops console. Life would be able to get back to normal soon, they both hoped. As normal as it got in the Delta Quadrant anyway.
