Don't own the characters! Or voyager! If you like this there is a full story of mine called Dark Journey. Please review thank you for reading.
You can get addicted to a certain kind of feeling, be it adrenaline running through your veins which makes you feel alive, sex which which almost allows two people to become one, even sadness. Sadness is the most dangerous, because you can get addicted to a certain kind that grabs hold of you and then never lets go. That's the addiction that stays with you forever whether you've conquered it or not, there is always a part of you that still clings on to the feeling. When you conquer it you become yourself again, you are happy you are happy, but a part of you wants to be sad. No addiction can really be cured and even if you get close something pulls you back.
Tom could feel it. He could feel the chills going down his spine, or what was left that he could feel. The sensation he felt of his warm blood turning cold was too strange to explain. B'Elannas face was too sad to explain. The look made him think she thought he was going to die, which made him think he was going to die. Was he that close he didn't know. But the fact that he felt cold everywhere was not a good sign. He could barely hear everything going on in the sick bay. He knew that people were there but everything was low and blurred. He saw people all around him, but he could only focus on B'Elanna. He felt better but his condition was getting worse. Doctors called this sudden burst of energy the surge. He didn't think it was real.
The surge was one of those supernatural phenomenon that was unexplainable. It allowed a person to get a final few hours of strength before they died to say goodbye to loved ones and so on. It didn't last Very long and was different for each person who experienced it. Some were able to walk around clear headed with enough energy to run a mile, others just had enough to say a few words. Tom didn't believe in the phenomenon but he intended to use his sudden strength. "Am I going to be okay B'Elanna?"
She looked into the eyes of a man she had learned to love over the years. She ignored the fact that there was bubbling blood all over the floor, all over his uniform, and the agonizing screams from behind her. "Yes." She lied. She didn't think he was. "The doctor is coming soon and he will be able to fix you up no problems at all."
"And if I die... Will you scream over my body?" He joked.
"Yes. Yes I will." She smiled back to him.
"And if I live... Will you marry me?" He smiled eagerly.
"Yes. Yes I will." She smiled back to him. She only wished.
Tom licked his lips and tried to to look behind him without moving his head. He lost his smile and a sadness overcame him. "I, I don't think I'm going to be getting out of this." His lip slightly quivered, he had never given death a second thought. He always assumed he'd die quickly. B'Elanna and her Klingon exterior had nearly vanished by that time. She took him least bloody hand in her hand.
"Don't say that why would you say that?"
"Because I stopped feeling anything two minutes ago." He said quietly. "It's hard to come back from that when you're dancing on the edge of death."
"Well when you're done dancing ill see you on the barge of the dead."
"So I'm not going to stovocor?" He started laughing with her. "Well that sucks." He liked that even now she could make him feel better even if she did cause him a lot of physical pain now and again. He could never figure out why he was so drawn to her but in this moment he was pretty sure he had figured it out.
"The doctor can help you, if he's here soon he can fix you and you'll be fine. Just stop saying your dying or I swear ill kill you myself!" She said getting close to his face trying to keep her smile. Klingon didn't cry a lot, she didn't consider herself Klingon but she liked that tradition.
"I'm doing my best. But it's hard to focus, I'm so tiered. And the cars rolling by aren't helping." He started rambling about invisible objects from the 20th century. B'Elanna looked around and saw nothing. She reached for her tricorder and scanned Tom. He had a concussion obviously but he was starting to delude.
"Tom, you have to listen to me. You have to stay awake!" She talked loudly through her teeth in her serious Klingon voice. "Tom. Stay awake!"
"I can't help it. I'm so tiered."
"If you fall asleep you'll surely die. You can't die yet. You hear me? You are not allowed to die Ltd, not any time soon." She started yelling loud enough that everyone could hear her. She didn't care.
"B'Elanna." He squeezed her hand. "I can't feel my toes, I see blood coming out of me, I see my leg bone as we speak, I mean that is kinda bad isn't it. But I can't feel it. I don't think there's any coming back from something like that. And if I do and it turns out I still can't feel anything, than I don't want to be in it. That's not the kind of life I want. I don't want to see you watch me suffer and I don't want to suffer." He stopped talking to squeeze her hand. "How did I get so lucky to have you? You're the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm glad you were a part of my life."
"But You're going to fine." But Tom shook his head.
"I'm running low." He said talking about his energy. It seemed the surge wasn't too kind to him. Only twenty minutes of energy and he didn't even have half of what he had to say out. He was so tiered, he tried to keep his eyes open but he was losing focus.
"I don't know what I'm going to do without you. We still have two more years in this void. I'm gonna go crazy." She said trying to keep a straight face. But she was starting to accept the fact that she may lose Tom.
"You're gonna have to learn. You're stubborn.,but I love you anyway." He started losing his grip on reality and closed his eyes. Just listening to the sound of B'Elanna breathing and talking. He heard the rest of the things in the room, B'Elanna was just more pronounced. He could hear the scanner of a regenerator, the quiet weaping of a crew member, the sound of a tray being dropped, the doors opening, people turning over.
B'Elanna heard everything too. She turned around and the doctor was staring over her shoulder. He had been the one that had come through the door. He had a sad face when he started at Tom's condition. "You can help him right?"
"Ill do my best." He said but kept his face the way it was. He saw Tom's condition and knew that he was one of the worst in the room. He needed to treat him first even though there were two other crew member with a similar and bad condition. He chose Tom because he couldn't bare to have B'Elanna staring over Tom's shoulder as he slowly died.
Tom heard the doctors voice and opened his eyes, he smiled knowing that he at least had a chance now to make it through the tradgedy, and even if he didn't he'd die in his sleep. That was how he always wanted to die. B'Elanna looked down and kissed his forehead. "I love you too. Even if you are an emotional pain in the ass." He nodded and smiled up at her.
"Hope to see you on the other side. Whatever side that's on."
Chakotay was lying in bed with Talias head resting on his bare chest. He had a thousand things on his mind but being in the bed with Talia made everything almost seem non existent. He couldn't hide what he had to say too much longer, he feared that if he couldn't say if now he would never be able to say it at all. He sat up and rubber his face, Talia sat up in the bed with him reading his facial expressions.
"What?" She asked suddenly realizing there was something uncomfortable Chakotay wanted to say. "What?"
"What?" He looked up.
"There's something isn't there. What do you have to say?"
"Well, I've been talking to my father again, talking a lot. He is fighting with the cardassians over territory. And he asked me to go and join him." Talias face was blank. She didn't see it coming. "And I'm thinking I might do it."
Suddenly her face was very expressive. Not one he truly expected to see. "That's crazy! Chakotay you're doing well here, you are going to go straight to junior lieutenant. I got the pin. Everything a going well, why do you want it to change? You're an idiot! Fighting in that way is against federation law, how can you abandon it so easily." She threw the covers off of her and quickly changed into her uniform ranting. "You've gone all this way to just give up everything. This is the biggest piece of shit I've ever heard come out of your mouth. You're too smart to make such a stupid decision." As soon as she was dressed she walked out slamming the door behind her.
Chakotay,didn't expect her to be so angry. He stood in his pants mouth hanging wide open, he couldn't believe what he just heard. She made a lot of good points but it was only what he was sharing with her. He thought she would understand a little better but above all he knew she was right. He had worked hard to get this far again. If he joined his father he may never see Talia again, and he loved Talia. Too much to let her go. His father was doing dangerous things out there and he could lose his life fighting, he couldn't do that to Talia. He hadn't made his decision but if he did go she had to be okay with it.
Talia meanwhile had stormed out of his room in a hurry but as soon as she slammed the door behind her she couldn't move. She leaned her back against the door and allowed herself to slide down it onto the floor. She loved Chakotay more than anyone knew. He was all she had left in the world besides her father. But since her brother died he had been going downhill fast. She almost joined him when her brother died, but Chakotay made her strong again. Now she had the much coveted pin for excellence in the scientific field. No one ever expected to get that, if could set up her career, her whole life, and she wanted Chakotay in it. Not dead floating around the bad lands.
She stayed on the floor cupping her face in her hands but she didn't cry, she was too strong to cry. Chakotay could die if he went with his father, he could die here, but here he would die honorably and there was a less likely chance. She didn't want him to die.
B'Elanna had been sitting on the floor outside the sick bay doors for nearly an hour. She knew she should be working but there was no way to communicate Chakotay to beam her back. So she sat outside sinking her nails into the carpeted floor. She was angry, she didn't know why, a way to compensate for not crying? She needed more than just boredom to cry.
It felt like an eternity waiting outside the sick bay, waiting to know if Tom was still alive. She had told him that if he died she'd kill him. And it was a serious threat too, even if it was ridiculous. He better be alive, she kept thinking. Once repairs were complete she would need someone to fight with. Talk with. Love with. She would be right behind him if he didn't, she'd meet him on the barge of the dead after dying of boredom. She swore she would. She barely got through the last few months with him, she wouldn't last a week without him. He was her only true true friend... Besides Vorik. But logic in high doses made her want to kill things. She definitely never felt more Klingon in her life.
The doors opened. "B'Elanna." The doctor said coming out of the doors. "I've done everything..."
to be continued