Mr. Paris, are you all right?
That was the captain. Oh right, he was on bridge-wide. "I'm fine, Captain. I just... What's the date?"
The date?
"The stardate, what's the stardate?" He could hear the puzzlement in her tone, but Tom was having a hard time feeling sorry for her. If he was right (and for once he really hated that he was)...
Stardate 49382.3
Tuvok's calm voice did little to relax Tom's nerves. The helmsman gave a wordless shout of frustration. Janeway spoke again.
Lieutenant, is everything alright down there?
"Fine, Captain. Just... just hunky-dory. I'll be up in a minute." He closed the channel and got out of bed slowly, trying to come to grips with the fact that he was living the same day for an unbelievable third time.
"It can't be," he chanted as he pulled on his uniform. "Can't be, can't be. Stuff like this just doesn't happen." As soon as he said that, he knew it was stupid. This was the USS Voyager, trapped in the Delta Quadrant 70,000 lightyears (give or take) from home. Stuff like this happened all the time. But a time loop, that was new.
"Strange new experiences," Tom groused. "I just don't get why it has to happen to me."
Tom Paris walked onto the bridge and announced, "I'm stuck in a time loop." Everybody turned to stare at him quizzically. Tom ignored them and walked down to his post. As he walked, he went down the list of things that would happen that day as everyone listened in shock.
"Right now we're scanning a binary star. Next we'll take a look at a brown dwarf and a nebula that will fry Voyager if we get near it. After that, a red giant that's about to go nova." He looked around at everyone's stunned expressions and said apologetically, "Then I don't know what else happens because that's when I go down to sickbay so the Doctor can poke at me and tell me I'm in perfect health."
There was a long beat, then Captain Janeway stood slowly. "Ensign?" she asked Harry. The ensign nodded to her: everything Paris had just said was correct. She blinked at Tom, who blinked back at her. "A time loop?" she asked finally.
"Yeah," Tom said tiredly, falling into his chair at the helm. "That's the most likely explanation, since this is the third time we've lived this day."
"Why doesn't anybody realize it except you?" asked Chakotay. Paris smiled at him.
"Good question, Chakotay. The answer is the accident I had last week. Chroniton radiation." Janeway nodded in understanding.
"Of course! The concentration of chronitons must make you exempt from whatever's causing this." She whirled to Harry. "Ensign, run a detailed scan of this area, see if you can find anything to explain the time loop. And Mr. Paris," she added, turning to Tom again.
"I know," he said, getting up and walking toward the door. "I'd better get down to sickbay. No point though. The Doc's not going to find anything. I'm in excellent health."
"Mr. Paris is in excellent health," said the EMH, snapping the tricorder shut decisively. "There's no evidence of delusions of any kind, and physically he's fit as a fiddle." Tom nodded, mouthing along with the Doctor's words. The hologram caught him doing it and glared at him in annoyance. "Stop that!"
Tom grinned at him and Janeway closed her eyes so that no one would see her roll them. "Mr. Paris, the Temporal Prime Directive keeps you from saying anything about future events, but I have to know: Does anything happen on this day that might be a catalyst for this kind of looping?" Tom shrugged.
"Nothing weird or life-threatening happened- happens -at all. Which is strange for this ship in the first place," he commented wryly, earning a smile from the captain. Her comm badge chirped and she turned aside to answer the hail.
Kes approached Tom and he held up a hand. "You're getting a weird feeling, I know. It's throwing your telepathy for a loop, this time thing." He chuckled at his bad pun and Kes laughed along. Tom patted her shoulder. "Don't worry. We'll get out of it soon. Harry's scanning for whatever's causing it and we'll get out of range..."
Captain Janeway interrupted Tom's reassurance. "Ensign Kim has completed his scans of the area. There doesn't seem to be anything even remotely close to us that could be causing this kind of repetition." Kes looked up at Tom, who offered an apologetic smile in return.
"We'll keep looking," promised Chakotay. "There has to be something we're missing." Janeway opened her mouth, but Tom beat her to the order.
"Recalibrating and troubleshooting the sensors won't turn up anything, everything's in perfect working order."
Janeway smirked. "Do it anyway, Commander," she said to Chakotay. "Mr. Paris, you and I will go down to engineering. B'Elanna can tune the sensors there to pick up things they would normally miss."
Paris spent the rest of the day with Torres and Janeway in engineering, making every imaginable change to the sensor array. They found all kinds of interesting phenomena, but nothing that would explain this day's triple feature. Finally Janeway sat back and rubbed her eyes tiredly. "We'd better call it a day, people. Get some rest and..." She looked up at Tom in amusement. "I was going to say we'll start work again in the morning, but we'll have forgotten everything we've worked on, won't we?"
Tom nodded ruefully. "Probably." He looked over at B'Elanna, who was resolutely tapping away at yet another sensor modification. He went to her and covered her eyes with his hands.
"Get your hands off me, Paris, I've got work to do," she snapped irritably. He removed his hands, but talked to her coaxingly.
"Come on, B'Elanna. The captain said call it a day. So call it a day and come down to Sandrine's with Harry and me. We'll have a pool championship with Tuvok, what do you say?" She turned to look at him, leaning back against the console with her arms crossed.
"Did we do that on the other two loops?" Tom grinned at her.
"We sure did, and you even had fun."
"Did I win?"
Paris looked down and away uncomfortably. "Ah, well, yeah, about that. Um, Temporal Prime Directive, can't tell you anything about that..." The engineer laughed at his embarrassment and headed for the door.
"Okay, Starfleet, you've convinced me. I lose, but it's fun. I'm sold."
Tom intentionally lost to B'Elanna, just to make her feel better. She knew he'd done it, but didn't call him on it. Nonetheless, the ultimate showdown was still between the Vulcan and the helmboy. As Tuvok lined up for his last shot, Tom quoted: "The ball will start here, ricochet off this end and the left side before knocking the fifteen ball into the left side pocket and coming to rest in the corner pocket."
Tuvok gave him a look, then made his shot. Tom nodded in satisfaction as the colored balls went flying along the table in the exact pattern he'd predicted. "I believe this makes me the champion, Mister Paris," said Tuvok.
"You know, since you've technically played this tournament twice before, you have an unfair advantage," B'Elanna pointed out.
"I lost to you, didn't I?" Tom teased. "Trust me, I'm doing my best to change things up a little every time. But no matter what I do, Tuvok wins the championship. I guess it's just inevitable." Tuvok inclined his head as if to say 'I'm just that good' and everyone laughed.
But Tom Paris wasn't laughing when after a week's worth of loops a solution was still yet to be found. Every single turn left Tom right back where he started: Waking up late for his duty shift with Chakotay's voice in his ear asking where he was.
After yet another day of fruitless work, Harry and Tom sat talking at the bar in Sandrine's, watching B'Elanna clean Carey's clock at pool. "You know what I'd do if I was stuck in a time loop?" said Harry thoughtfully.
"Harry, you are stuck in a time loop."
The ops officer rolled his eyes at his friend. "Okay, I mean, if I knew. If I knew that nobody but me would remember that we were going around in circles."
Tom laughed and played along, asking eagerly, "Tell us, oh wise one. What would you do?"
"I'd do something crazy." Tom tilted his head in curiousity as Harry went on. "If everyone's going to forget everything that happened on the last loop, you could do anything you wanted..." He trailed off when he saw the gleam lighting up Paris' eyes.
"I gotta go, Harry, I'll see you tomorrow." The lieutenant hopped off the bar stool and ran out the door. B'Elanna joined Harry at the bar just in time to catch the tail end of the helmsman's retreat.
"What was that all about? Where's he going in such a hurry?" She looked to Harry, who was sitting there with a stunned and slightly guilty expression on his face.
"B'Elanna, I think I just made a really big mistake."