2. December
"Feels good to be warm again."
"Yeah, it sure does."
The beaming, closed-eye smile B'Elanna saw on Tom's face did far more to banish the residual chill she still felt from the frigid Argala habitat than did the artificial sunlight of the Paxau resort. Her stomachs even fluttered, and as much as she tried to convince herself it was through missing both breakfast and lunch fixing the Nyrians' tampering in engineering, it wasn't.
B'Elanna closed her own eyes, the bustling sounds of the resort reassuring in the background. She took a deep breath and turned to Tom.
"About the Day of Honour."
Tom's eyes shot open as he turned to face her, expectantly.
B'Elanna hesitated, but now she'd broached the topic, she was committed to continue. "I was thinking … the next Day of Honour falls in about three months time. I thought …" She looked away from him, carefully studying the horrid flowery pattern on the cushion beside his head as she formulated her next sentence. "If you're still interested in learning about it, we could - maybe - do some research on it. Together."
She glanced back to observe his reaction. Another smile lit up his face, this one so warm it would have melted a Ktarian glacier. The Argala habitat might never have existed.
"Sure, what did you have in mind?"
"I was thinking … we could design a holoprogram so I could observe the ceremony. Maybe. I mean, I'm not sure if I definitely want to yet. And I could do it on my own. I know enough about holoprogramming, but you did such a great job with Sandrine's – it's so atmospheric - so if you really are interested -"
He cut off her rambling. "I'd love to help."
"Right then." She swallowed, her throat dry. "Thanks."
A holographic waiter approached with a tray of glasses filled with a luminescent orange liquid. B'Elanna took one, grateful for the interruption so she could gather her thoughts.
The other crew members present seemed to be giving them a lot of space - in the physical sense - but eyeing them with curiosity, no doubt due to the manner in which they'd rematerialized in the Nyrian prison colony. It irritated the hell out of her and she wondered if it did Tom. Probably not. He had to have noticed though, that, try as they might to be discreet, numerous of their shipmates were showing an excessive interest in the Talaxian sculpture behind the heads of the pilot and chief engineer.
It wasn't the first time there'd been a surge of interest every time she found herself in the company of Tom Paris. In the immediate aftermath of the blood fever incident, it had been like living in a goldfish bowl. Some blabbermouth - Ensign Lang was under the heaviest suspicion - had obviously spread the word about the bite to Tom's face. Then, when there were no further developments for the Voyager rumour mill to seize upon, the interest had waned – at least B'Elanna thought it had.
It wasn't that she was ashamed to be seen in Tom's company; even the most unforgiving of the former Maquis had grown to respect Tom Paris over the two and a half years that Voyager had now been in the Delta Quadrant. She'd have been just as irritated if there were conjecture about her relationship with anyone on board. Her personal life was – personal – as much as anyone could have a personal life when work and home were the same place. Privacy was a basic requirement for mental well-being, and, some people would do well to remember that if they didn't want to get on her bad side. Swinn and Henley were the latest pair of gawking onlookers. They soon averted their stares when B'Elanna gave them her most Klingon glare.
"So, how soon do you want to get started?" Tom asked.
"I guess, as soon as possible. We could start by doing some basic research and take it from there."
"I'll check my shift rotation and see if we can earmark some time when we're both off duty."
"Sounds good to me."
"I'll look forward to it."
She settled back against the cushions again, let out a slow breath, and closed her eyes.
It really was good to be warm.
Tom was early. When her door mechanism chimed, B'Elanna was still changing out of her uniform into casual clothing. He would just have to wait a moment.
She let him in as soon as she was decent, inviting him to sit on the sofa whilst she gathered some things together: her jacket, shoes, and – where the hell was the report she needed to deliver to Tuvok?
"I'll just be another minute," B'Elanna said, flustered as she searched the drawers in her desk, and the floor beneath it. "I left a PADD here somewhere. Tuvok commed me. He wants to look over my shield maintenance report before tomorrow's security update. I said I'd drop it by his office."
"Is this it?" Tom called over from the other side of the room. She turned and looked to see him lift a PADD from the arm of the sofa and thumb on the display. Oh crap. "No, that's –"
"Women Warriors at the Tar Pits of mor'Dor?" Tom said with a smirk. "You didn't tell me River of Blood has a sequel."
"Give me that," she snapped, moving hastily to his position and reaching for the PADD. But Tom stood, and using his extra height to his advantage, held it out of her reach. "It's a prequel, anyway," B'Elanna corrected, debating whether to use force to recover the device.
Tom started to read aloud, holding the PADD up and craning his neck. " 'Grilka pulled Toral into the torch-lit cave. The unmistakeable heat in his eyes glowed like blazing coals as she tore off her armour and threw it at him. She …' " Tom squinted. " '… and her pulse raced as he … and …' " His eyebrows rose. "Is that even possible? And, who writes this stuff?" He pressed one of the control keys to access the title page. "Hmm. 'LurSa, daughter of Ja'roD'. Is that a pseudonym do you think?"
B'Elanna took advantage of his momentary distraction, yanking Tom's arm downwards from the elbow and peeling his fingers off the PADD. He could have put up more resistance, but wisely chose to yield, quite possibly saving himself a fractured digit or two. Did Tom Paris have some kind of built-in tractor beam for lurid fiction? Or was her subconscious mind causing her to inadvertently leave him subliminal hints? She dismissed both concepts as ridiculous. She'd had no way of predicting he would be spending any time in her quarters.
"You know what Voyager needs?" Tom said, not hiding his enjoyment of the situation.
B'Elanna stowed the incriminating PADD in a desk drawer, finding inside the one containing the report for Tuvok. If only she'd paid more attention a moment ago.
"A book club," Tom said, in answer to his own question. "A group of us get together, we each take turns to put forward our favourite novel, then we all read it and discuss our opinions with the group. We can start with Women Warriors if you like."
B'Elanna sighed. "It's not my favourite novel. It's just light entertainment. I don't want to be reading War and Peace after a hard day at the warp core." Though she was seriously considering switching her reading choice to T'hain's The Dictates of Poetics. "Here." She thrust the PADD intended for Tuvok into Tom's hand. "Hold that while I put my shoes on."
Tom was unrelenting. "Jenny Delaney's reading a similar book, you know. Though I don't think it has any warriors in it. Some old Earth novel. It has a really dull sounding title, but she swears it's a real classic of the genre."
"I didn't realise you and Jenny Delaney were all that close these days," B'Elanna remarked, feeling absurdly uneasy at the mention of the other woman's name.
"Close?" Tom's eyes narrowed. "I don't know if I'd say close, but we're still friends - in a purely platonic kind of way." He stared at B'Elanna intensely, appraisingly. Shoes on, she busied herself picking an insignificant piece of fluff off her jacket sleeve.
"Are you jealous?" he asked, eventually.
B'Elanna scoffed. "Don't flatter yourself."
A flash of hurt raced across Tom's features, immediately replaced with a casual smile. The bluntness of her tone had been unintentionally excessive. B'Elanna struggled for something to say to change the subject she had herself, inadvertently brought up, before Tom said plainly, "Jenny's only got eyes for Harry."
"Oh. Lucky Harry." B'Elanna meant it, despite her own opinion on the more annoying Delaney sister. Harry deserved some luck in his love life after the debacle with the alien posing as a hologram and then the Taresians.
"If he ever takes the hint," Tom added. "I guess some people take a while to figure out when something good's on offer."
"I guess so." B'Elanna shrugged on her jacket. "We should get going."
The holographic research lab was the ideal place to set up camp for a few hours of information retrieval. B'Elanna's office in Main Engineering was suitable in most circumstances that required her to do R & D. Tom evidently liked to use the HRL when he wanted to undertake some extra-curricular study of navigation data, or work on his conn reports. He had a tried and tested system for optimum research efficiency that he was only too eager to introduce to B'Elanna.
Tom called up a large viewscreen and a holographic sofa, from which they could sit in comfort and look at the search results that the computer displayed. Research was best done on a full stomach, Tom insisted, replicating a large, colourful pizza, pre-cut into slices and served in a cardboard tray. The packaging was seemingly crucial to the culinary experience; apparently, pizza was not meant to be eaten from plates with cutlery, an assertion that B'Elanna rolled her eyes at. The melted cheese component was laden with a variety of vegetables and chunks of processed meat. She vowed to eat it without complaint. Tom was, after all, here to help her, and offending him by criticizing his 'research methods' would not be a good way to start. Sinking back into the astonishingly comfortable cushions, and, deciding it was best to move things along before getting too relaxed, she called out her first instruction. "Computer, display a list of Klingon Day of Honour rituals."
"Please specify regional variation or sub-culture, and historical period."
B'Elanna glanced at Tom, who shrugged in a manner she took to mean that the choice was all hers. "Limit to practices still common in the post-2350 era. All regions and sub-cultures."
"There are seven hundred and ninety-seven entries. Displaying the first twenty."
"I never imagined there'd be so many different ways to observe the same holiday," B'Elanna commented, as a long list of summaries filled the screen in large, bold font.
Tom pointed towards the centre of the display. "Look at that one: number thirteen. The inhabitants of …" he hesitated as he worked out the pronunciation, "qa'rI'yuQ near the south pole, prove their honour by swimming in the icy waters of Lake bech'Iq from dawn until dusk."
"I'm not adding that to the short list. The Day of Honour falls in the summer in the southern hemisphere." Twenty hours of daylight immersed in sub-zero temperatures sounded more like a suicide attempt than a test of one's mettle. B'Elanna shuddered.
"And compare that to number twenty," Tom said. "In Ketha Province they cleanse themselves in the hot springs of … Tuj'bIQ, before drinking bloodwine from the skull of a tangqa'."
"That doesn't sound quite so bad. Computer show details for number twenty."
The display changed to a long text explanation, along with a picture of a formidable, horned bovine – the tangqa': this one alive and well.
"The cleansing is done stark-naked." Tom pointed up at the viewscreen with glee, not taking his eyes off B'Elanna's face. "Third line down. See?"
B'Elanna crossed her arms across her chest. "As I'd be in a locked holodeck, alone, that wouldn't be a problem."
Tom opened his mouth as if to speak, then appeared to reconsider his intended retort. B'Elanna asked the computer to return to the main menu.
They browsed through several pages, delving further into the details of any entry that caught their attention.
"The ritual of tuy' qo'qaD," Tom read aloud. "That sounds interesting. Let's look at -"
"No," B'Elanna called sharply. "Computer, display entry number ninety nine."
A wave of nostalgia caused her breath to catch in her throat. Photographs loaded up of a bright orange star and an artist's impression of a Klingon child with, of all things, a telescope. Eyes glued to the text and images on the screen, B'Elanna reached for the pizza perched next to her on the sofa, her arm brushing against Tom's as he simultaneously did the same from the other side. She jumped at the unexpected contact.
If he noticed her skittishness – and he most likely did - he had the good grace not to comment, merely asking her, "Is this one familiar?" He read the standard translation of the Klingon header: "The ritual of qaw'Hop. For Klingons away from the homeworld."
She nodded. "I remember this, or something similar. When I was very young, four or five, maybe, my parents took me to the observatory at Kessik's main university to look through the subspace telescope there. It was the first time I ever saw Qo'noS – the star, at least. I'd forgotten about the trip until now. I didn't realise we'd been marking the Day of Honour. I thought it was just a regular family outing." A family outing with no bickering. There hadn't been many of them, and, as such, it should have stayed nearer the forefront of her memory.
In fact, as they worked through the mountain of information, several of the listed rituals sounded familiar. Snatches of long-repressed memories came back to her - echoes of her mother's lectures, but also fonder recollections: of bedtime stories, and the Klingon equivalent of nursery rhymes.
B'Elanna narrowed the search parameters, instructing the computer not to include any practices that involved water, frozen or otherwise. Singing, meditation, and body art were likewise excluded. There were still over two hundred remaining entries on the list of results. Tom would have read the intricate details of each and every one had B'Elanna not encouraged him to skim read.
"As much as I hate to admit it," she gestured at the screen, which currently showed an image of two armour-clad Klingon warriors wrestling with a mIl'oD, "this … it is pretty interesting." The next words were out of her mouth before she could process the underlying emotions with which they were associated. "If my mother hadn't been so insistent on trying to … brainwash me, I think I might have been genuinely curious about this stuff. I might actually have enjoyed learning about the things she wanted to teach me. I -" She paused. Did she really want to want to talk about this? Now? With Tom Paris?
Tom thought for a moment. "She was probably afraid that, being surrounded by humans, you'd miss out on learning about Klingon traditions if she didn't make an extra effort to introduce you to them."
"There's a difference between giving your child the opportunity, and forcing your beliefs on them," B'Elanna vented. "She had ridiculously unrealistic expectations of me, and so I was a continual disappointment."
Tom scratched his forehead. "So maybe she was a little …"
"Fanatical?"
"I was going to say enthusiastic, but …" He shrugged.
Tom Paris likely knew a thing or two about living up to expectations. Or not living up to them. B'Elanna changed the subject, insisting that he take the sole remaining slice of pizza even though he'd already eaten more than his share, and telling him about the tweaks she'd made to the replicator system in an attempt to reduce the power drain. The conversation lingered there for a while, Tom asking her opinion as to whether Neelix could likely be persuaded to make pizza in the galley, before talk drifted back to Klingon rituals.
Three hours later, dessert long since finished, and with a bottle of (alcoholic) wine half-emptied, they were still in the fact-procuring stage. The gap between them on the sofa had shrunk somewhat from being a large pizza-width to a hand span, though B'Elanna hadn't moved an inch sideways. She turned a blind eye until, after leaning forwards to brush crumbs off her lap, she slumped back and felt a solid mass against the nape of her neck where previously there had been only spongy cushion. Reflexively, she sat bolt upright and turned to glare at the owner of the outstretched arm behind her.
"I had cramp," Tom protested feebly, not withdrawing the offending limb though he did move it higher up the back of the sofa.
She wasn't looking for an argument and besides, making a big deal of it would only give him the attention he was seeking. So, with only another, half-hearted glower in his direction, she sat back and tolerated the incursion into her personal space. On reflection, she wondered if it hadn't been for the fact she'd been startled, she would have commented at all. And with that, she resolved that her current glass of wine would be her last of the evening.
"We should call it a night," Tom said, sometime later, regret evident in his voice. "It's nearly midnight, and even if we stayed here till dawn, we'd never be able to look at everything."
"I didn't realise it was that late," B'Elanna admitted. Not that she wasn't feeling bleary-eyed, but the time had passed quickly. They hadn't even begun to discuss how to take the research and work it into a functional program.
"The next few weeks should be pretty quiet," Tom said cheerfully. "I'm sure I can while away some boring shifts on the bridge thinking about the program design."
"And I'll download some files to a PADD to look over on my breaks," she said, surprising herself. She smirked and risked adding, "I could do with a change of reading material." And, not giving him a chance to respond she continued, "I hear Neelix is working on a Christmas pudding recipe for next week."
Tom grimaced. "I've never had a taste for the stuff myself."
"I doubt Neelix's version will make you change your mind."
"No. But he can never be accused of not trying. I expect he'll want to decorate the mess hall again. I hope the Captain makes him use an artificial tree this year. Remember that Ixian spruce he put up last time?"
"How could anyone forget? The smell when the blossom opened was horrific."
"I might ask him to replicate some mistletoe." Tom grinned, and, try as she might, B'Elanna could not completely suppress a smile.
"Good idea," she quipped, enjoying how the look of surprise on his face changed when she added, "Maybe I'll try my luck with Freddy Bristow."
The lab restored to the stark condition in which they'd found it, they headed out the exit into the corridor. Confident of his answer, but feeling it was right to ask, she said, "You still want to do this, right?"
"Sure. It's fun."
"Fun" might be pushing it, but it had been one of the most enjoyable evenings she'd had in a long time despite the few awkward moments.
"So, we'll make a proper list of ceremony options next time?" she said, regretting her word choice, which made it sound like she was organising a wedding. Thankfully, the corridor was deserted, with no eavesdroppers to get the wrong impression and spread gossip.
Tom nodded eagerly. "And then we can design the holographic interface. Maybe we can get the program finished by the end of the year."
"In two weeks?" She considered, and, with a surge of enthusiasm channelled from her companion, she decided, "OK. Let's try it."
What was the worst that could happen?