Day 2

B'Elanna

Something is crawling over my legs and suddenly I'm awake.

I shriek. My whole body jerks and I realize quickly that one of the little reptiles had mistaken me for a bed and was trying to bury itself under my knees. It goes flying across the room with my kick and scurries away.

I look for Chakotay, but he's nowhere to be found. The place where I had left him last night is empty, save for his uniform jacket, still folded neatly. The fire has long since died out. Then I remember, I should be able to hear his thoughts.

I wait.

Nothing.

"Chakotay?" I shout, though quite obviously he is not in the cave with me.

I rustle myself up and head for the exit. I can't see him anywhere, though most of my view is obstructed by boulders. "CHAKOTAY!" I shout again. Then, feeling a bit like a fool, I tap my combadge.

"Torres to Chakotay," I say, trying to temper the rising feeling of dread.

There is silence for a moment. My hand is poised to try again when I hear, 'Hey, I wondered if you were going to sleep all day.'

I exhale my fears.

"Where the hell are you?"

'I'm at the salt pool,' comes his reply. 'Join me before the sun gets too high to be out here. And bring the ration bags.'

"I'm on my way," I say.

I drink the last bits of water we collected, and have a few bites of horribly dry, leftover dinner. Then I head back out with the containers. About the time that I can see him, bathing in the pool, I begin to hear him in my head again.

He's thinking of a song…. I don't recognize it, but he doesn't sound half-bad. It's a shame he doesn't carry a tune that well when he sings out loud.

I'm still too far away to talk to him so I think, 'Good morning,' and he replies with the same. I can feel that he is genuinely happy I am here. It makes me feel…. Well. I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of knowing how he makes me feel.

"How's the water?" I ask, coming up to the shore. I already know full well that it is warm and quite good on his aching back.

I sit down next to where his clothes have been neatly folded, happy to see that at least he kept his underwear on.

"It's nice in here. I think the salt is helping my joints," he replies.

"Not cut out for sleeping on the ground anymore, eh old man?" I joke.

He shakes his head. "You coming in?"

"Naw," I say. "I'll just wait here."

"I guess that mind-reading thing doesn't work at long distances," he says.

"No, it's such a strange phenomenon. The xenobiologists will have a field day with it when Voyager gets here."

He dives his head under the water briefly and I can feel a tingling wave sweep over my face and through my hair. 'It's such an odd sensation,' I think.

'Very,' he agrees. And then he surfaces. "What should we do today?"

"You're the commanding officer, I follow where you go."

"We need to hunt more food and make some more fresh water. And we need more kindling."

He's walking out of the water now and I can't help but notice how the droplets reflect off of his muscled chest. He's kept himself in good shape, I'll give him that much.

I look up and see his eyes growing wide in surprise, a smirk crosses his face. 'B'Elanna!' he thinks rather loudly. Then I realize why. My mind was wandering and his went right along with it.

I clear my throat. "What?"

"You were just…." He eyes me up and down.

"No! No, no. I was just thinking that you seem like you're still in good shape, you know. For an older guy."

"Uh huh…" he says and I'm blushing now for sure. Then I realize he's going to let me off the hook. "I'm not that much older than you, you know."

I shrug. "Old enough. Besides, you're like…. my brother."

He nods, and then, he thinks something that surprises me. Because I've never, ever known him to be vain. 'She thinks I'm attractive.'

I groan. "Yes, okay, I think you're attractive, I've….always thought that."

"I had no idea."

"It's not as if I'm attracted to you, not in that way. I mean, not in a relationship kind of way." 'Oh boy this is coming out badly.'

"Look," he says. "This is difficult enough without trying to introduce subterfuge. If you want to change the subject I understand. But we're here for at least two more days, if you really think I'm sexy you're not going to be able to hide it."

"Oh lord." 'What have I started?' "Fine," I say, through semi-gritted teeth. "Am I attracted do you? No. Do I think you're a good looking man? Yes. Was there ever a time when I thought maybe you and I could have a relationship? For like, one fleeting iota of a second, maybe. Was there a time when I would have considered sleeping with you? No. I mean, yes, but not because…. I mean…." Before I can stop it, images from a dream come flooding back to me. And then I growl, very loudly, and kick a rock clear across the pool.

He laughs and puts his arm around me. "What was that flash I just saw?" he asks with a grin. 'Have you daydreamed about us together? Cause I'm pretty sure I just saw myself on top of you,' he thinks, and he's not a bit ashamed for it either. Though, I find it ironic that I've just spilled all of this out loud but he won't use his voice to ask.

I huff and begin to walk back to the cave. "Don't flatter yourself," I chide. "Do you remember when we encountered the Bothan and they made us all hallucinate? Well, that was my hallucination."

He's nodding. "Oh right, I remember you said you dreamed about one of us. Harry, Tom and I fought about who it was for a week."

"I'm flattered?" I say, not quite sure what to do with that information and wanting desperately to take the heat off of me. "So, what did you hallucinate about? I don't remember if you said."

I see him bite his lip and suddenly he's thinking about what an odd color the sky is.

"You're trying to think about something else!"

He sighs and stops walking. "I guess I'm not going to be able to hide it from you anyway," he sighs. And of course, I'm expecting that he's going to say he had an all-out X-rated encounter with the captain. But instead, he simply thinks, 'Seska.'

"Oh."

He turns and we resume our walk. "Well, I guess both of our hallucinations were a bit off the mark."

"I guess they were."

And this is the point where I should stop thinking about the subject entirely, but instead, I forget that he can hear my thoughts and like an ass I keep thinking about it. 'He did have sex with her, so I guess for him maybe it wasn't that far of a stretch.'

"I didn't dream about sleeping with her," he says quietly, not breaking stride.

And then he simply recalls images.

I see him, no, I feel him first. He's happy. So very happy. He's looking down at a bundle in his arms which is beginning to coo. It's a child, and it is his. He's pulling back the swaddle.

"Oh," I gasp, and pause my steps. I notice him stumble as well.

As quickly as I saw it, the image of the baby with a Cardassian face is gone.

My mood has been quickly sobered. 'I'm sorry.'

He moves to resume our trek. "Let's just get back, find some kindling and freshen this water, ok?" His tone is calm, his mind is steadying back out. He's not angry, he's not uncomfortable.

He is sad.

And I let it ride.

Chakotay

It has taken us the better part of the day to set up the means to distill enough drinking water to last through until tomorrow. If it weren't for the phaser we would be in trouble, the only kindling I can gather burns very quickly and is in scarce supply. But, we've been doing our best with the tiny pot that was included in our survival pack, and the empty ration bags are holding up, though I wish we had about ten more of them.

The smallest reptiles are surprisingly the easiest to catch just by virtue of there being so damn many of them, but they don't have a lot of meat on their bones. It's a good thing we're not planning on being here very long. To pass the time I've started whittling a few bush branches into small spears, I can hunt with them and save the phaser for making water.

"So you think Voyager will find us soon?" B'Elanna asks me, obviously having just followed my line of thought. She's picking at the last of her lunch and I can tell she's having trouble choking it down. We're both going to lose a lot of weight out here if we're not rescued soon.

"We are due at the rendezvous coordinates in about twenty hours, after that, it shouldn't take them long to retrace our flight plan and find us."

I see her nod, throw the carcass outside and go back to tending the water purifier. 'That's good,' she thinks. I return to making my weapons.

'Why? Don't you like being stuck here with me?'

I hear her snort. "It's not you, Chakotay. It's just not…. Well. It's just not the kind of place I imagined spending the rest of my life. If I end up stranded on a planet somewhere I'd want it to be more like that one you and the Captain were stuck on."

'New Earth.'

"I didn't know that's what you called it," she says with a smile. "Has a nice ring to it."

She disengages the phaser and then carefully pours the rest of the collected pot of water into the final ration bag and seals it shut.

"What was it like, living on New Earth?" she asks. "For having spent three months there, you didn't say much about it."

I set my rudimentary tools to the side and recline back against the rocks. "It was beautiful," I say. "Thick, lush forest. Green grass and wildflowers, a river. We had everything we needed, the house, a replicator." 'A bathtub,' I think with a smile.

Her eyes grow wide. "You had a bathtub?" she pauses. "No, you built a bathtub!"

I nod. And then, I can't help but recall Kathryn in it. Water droplets shimmering off of her shoulders wrapped in nothing but a towel and moonlight.

"Chakotay!"

My attention snaps back. "What?"

"Did you…." She doesn't finish her words, but she finishes the thought which comes through loud and clear and I won't dare repeat it back to her.

"No!" I impress.

"You didn't….?"

'No.'

"But you wanted to."

"I…." And now I'm starting to sweat. Why do I feel the need to defend what we didn't do on that planet for three months? "It was complicated. It wouldn't have been appropriate. And, she was still engaged to another man."

"Oh, come on. Chakotay, you were going to be stuck there for the rest of your lives. Don't tell me you weren't going to…." she makes an awkward motion with her hands that I try not to read into too much. "Eventually…."

I close my eyes and sigh. "We weren't there long enough for me to think about it all that much."

'You're lying.'

'I don't want to talk about it.'

There is a heavy silence while she decides what to say next.

"It's just, surprising, that's all. I think that most people assumed, when you returned, that something had happened between you. And then you show me that little image, what am I supposed to think?"

"Aside from what you just intercepted, why would people think that something happened?" I ask, a little more harshly than I intended.

"Well, you left calling her 'Captain' and came back calling her 'Kathryn', for one. And there was just this tension between you for quite a while. Felt like we could cut it with a knife."

"Readjusting was hard," I say. "Especially for the Captain. For Kathryn."

'It was hard for you too,' she realizes.

"Something did happen between us B'Elanna," I finally confess. "We became friends. Good friends. We learned what made each other tick. We grew to trust each other in a way that wouldn't have been possible on Voyager. We were equals there, and we needed each other. We only had each other."

"I see," she says, and she eyes me in a way that, despite being able to read her thoughts, still leaves me wondering whether or not she's going to drop it.

"Sometimes I wish, I could read Tom's mind like I'm reading yours right now," she says. And I issue a sigh of relief.

"Why's that?"

"It's hard to know what's going on in that head of his. He's so different than anyone I've ever been with before." She stands and begins to pace softly about.

And then I feel what she means. A deeply set, long buried pang of insecurity and rejection hits me with assailing force. He's the only person that hasn't left her.

Instinct causes me to rise from my seat and traverse the distance between us so that I'm standing in front of her now.

"You can't understand why he's staying with you?" I ask, almost shocked. Despite knowing all about how she was abandoned by her father, and then came to disown her mother, I never considered that she had this deep-seated fear…. no, expectation of abandonment.

She shakes her head. "No," she says, then shamefully she adds, "And I've tried everything to get him to leave."

"Oh, B'Elanna," I say. In her eyes I see tears beginning to glisten, though I won't think about it. She may only be half-Klingon genetically, but her pride is still one-hundred percent warrior.

I put my hand on her shoulder. "I'll admit, I wasn't the first to sign up for the Tom Paris fan club. But I think he's good for you. He's not going to leave you, and you need to stop pushing him away."

"Yeah?" she asks, looking up at me in that shy, hesitant way I've grown to love. Her thoughts are suddenly only about Tom.

'You deserve to be happy with him.'

'I love him,' she thinks. And with it comes a swell of emotion that almost knocks me off of my feet. My chest starts to ache in a horribly familiar way.

'I know.'

She takes a deep breath, swipes a dusty arm across her eyes and straightens herself.

"Well," she says. "Enough of that mushy stuff. Do you think there's an iguana out there big enough for me to fight?"

The tension dissolves and I laugh. "Why?"

"Cause the other part of being in a relationship with Tom is needing to strangle something every once in a while. Plus, I'm hungry and I could use the exercise."

I shake my head. "Wandering in the desert, looking for a fight, huh?"

She scoops up the pouches she has just filled. 'I'll bring the water.'

B'Elanna

This cave sucks. This planet sucks. I don't want to eat any more lizards and I'm hot. But, at least we're relatively safe, and we do have water, so I should really stop complaining.

'Yes, you should.'

Sigh. I'm growing so restless in here, I really feel like I need to move around but there's just not enough space.

Whittle, scrape. Whittle, scrape. 'oop, took too much there, have to spin it and work the other side now.'

"Oh. My. God."

"What?" he asks, looking up at me from his work.

"You've done nothing but think about sharpening sticks for the last hour."

"I am sharpening sticks, B'Elanna."

"But….but you didn't even let your mind wander. Like, not even a little bit."

He shrugs.

"Your thoughts are mind-numbing."

I get a blank stare. His mind is a blank fucking slate and I find it unsettling because mine is racing.

"I have to get out of here for a while," I say, releasing my clenched fists. "I'm going for a walk."

"Have fun. But be sure to be back before dark. I don't want to have to come looking for you."

'Yeah, yeah,' I wave him off and start heading for the exit.

'Now, where was I? Oh…right. Gotta take a little more off of this side….'

Groan.

The sun is quickly setting by the time I return from my walk. My head is marginally clearer now, having spent some time alone, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I missed him just a little. Growing closer to our abode, I can sense him again. Thank God he's done whittling. Actually, I think he's cooking. And, he's thinking about me. He's hoping I'll be back soon and that I'm not too hungry because he wasn't able to catch much. He's thinking that the lizards must be learning, and possibly sharing telepathically, that we're predators.

Fortunately, I was able to kill something. And it's considerably bigger, about the size of a cat, and looks to have much more meat on it than those little mouse-like things. I try not to think about it; I want my spoils to be a surprise.

"Welcome back," he says as I enter.

I hold up my prize by its spiny tail. "You were thinking something about not having enough food?"

A broad smile graces his features. "Hey!" he says, rising from where he had been tending the fire. "Where'd you catch that?"

I motion with my head, "I went in the only direction we haven't explored yet. Found a den of these big guys. I hope they taste okay."

He chuckles. "Probably not any better than the little ones, but at least we won't go to bed with our stomachs growling again."

"This should be the last night we have to spend here," I say, and then I see him bite his lip.

"We don't know when they'll be around for us B'Elanna," and I sense that he's concerned I'll get my hopes up for a quick rescue.

I shrug. "No matter. We're not doing that badly," I concede. He's beginning to skin our dinner with the pocket knife. Out of the corner of my eye I see that he's done something to the floor near the fire. "What's that?"

"It's a game," he says. "I know you were getting bored, and I thought you might like a diversion."

"I don't know, Chakotay. I've never been much for games."

"It's called Joer'sapi, it means 'Gate-break'. It's a Bajoran game of strategy. I've seen you in Engineering, I know you like a challenge. Besides, your tactical skills could use a bit of polishing. You might learn something."

Now I know I won't be able to refuse. But I won't go as far as admitting that it actually sounds like fun. "Fine. Consider it part of the job and put it on my training record when we get back," I concede, but I can't hide my smile.

"Only if you beat me," he taunts.

While our dinner cooks over a low flame, he counts out small pebbles and sticks, dealing them evenly to each of us while he lays out the rules. And then I prepare to kick his ass.

Kicking his ass has been considerably harder than I expected. Given that we can read each other's minds, I was ready for an extra layer of difficulty. I didn't realize that he'd be thinking about making moves and then do something completely different.

"You keep cheating!" I shout, when his rock troops break through my stick prison and release the imaginary prisoners.

He grins. "You can read my mind too, and I'm honestly not trying to listen in on what you're thinking."

I roll my eyes because he's telling the truth. "I know, you keep humming that horrible tune in your head instead."

I sit back against the wall and drink the last sips from my pouch. "Who taught you this ridiculous game anyway?"

"Nari Chayas," he replies. And then happily, he brings an image of our old friend into his mind.

"I never saw her play this before."

"Actually, the last time we played was the night we rescued you," he explains. "She had just kicked my ass when we received your distress call."

"Well, at least she beat you."

"She was very good at this game, was raised on it." He scratches his leg a bit through his now-dirty trousers – he's been itchy all night – then he gathers the sticks and stones and puts them neatly in a pile, as if expecting we will have a rematch tomorrow. Suddenly, his thoughts grow dark.

'God, that seems like a lifetime ago,' he thinks. 'Poor Chayas….' He shakes his head and sighs.

"Seven years now, right?"

"Something like that."

"You know, it's strange. In some ways, getting lost in the Delta Quadrant is the best thing that's ever happened to me," I muse, laying down by the side of the fire. "I got to leave all of my shitty past behind, I didn't die in a massacre, I found a great guy, I have a rewarding job…"

"But?"

I shrug. "That's just it. There is no 'but.' I feel like there should be, but there isn't."

"That's because you're happy B'Elanna. It's okay to be happy, you know."

"Are you happy?"

He sighs and lays down. "I'm doing alright."

"You have a 'but,'" I realize.

"I have the same feelings as you. I left behind a grim, hate-filled life where I was destined to die too soon. I have a good, solid purpose now."

'You're missing the 'love' part," I think. And then immediately I wish I hadn't.

'I have what I need.'

"I have to ask you something, Chakotay," I begin, rising up on my elbows to look at him. "Because this whole time here we've been nothing but honest and forthright with each other and when Voyager picks us up tomorrow –"

"You don't think I'll be honest with you if you can't read my mind?"

"I didn't say that."

"Okay then," he concedes. "What do you want to ask me?"

I take a deep breath. "What happened in the holodeck?" And though my words aren't specific, I think about seeing him and the Captain entering through the sliding doors and he hears the word 'Venice.'

'I'll kill him,' he thinks immediately, and the ferocity of his thoughts make my eyes widen.

"No, you won't," I reply, trying to send calming vibes. "Tom didn't tell me willingly. I had to press him, even then he wouldn't tell me until I threatened to check the logs myself."

"He still should have kept his mouth shut. And you shouldn't have pried." He's upset, I can hear the heat in his voice and sense the feeling of betrayal behind his thoughts. For a moment I regret having brought it up, but then, I press on.

"You can't expect that I would have given up a romantic Italian evening without asking who it went to."

"I can expect that you'd respect my privacy," he says. And I wonder, 'Is this it? Is this as far as our friendship goes? Is revealing this information the line he won't cross?'

"Look," he says, steadying his breath. "This isn't about crossing a line, B'Elanna."

"You're not hiding this because of you," I say. "You're keeping her secret. You're respecting her privacy."

'Yes, and I expect you to respect it too.'

I think about his words for a moment and then I feel a deep, un-resolving ache start to grow in my chest. Of course I respect their privacy, just as he has respected mine when it comes to Tom. But this is different. I see my friend now for who he is. A man, very deeply in love, with someone who doesn't feel the same way.

'It was a misunderstanding.'

"You really love her, don't you?"

There's no denying it now, he knows.

"I do."

'And she rejected you?'

'That's not it.' "It wouldn't be right," he says. "It's too much of a conflict of interest out here," and his words sound like they've been practiced just a few too many times.

"I didn't ask if she thought it was right."

And now, I can tell. He's flitting over answers in his head – trying to decide whether to be fully honest or order me to drop it. But then he gives in and his memories, deep and vivid and clear, assail me. All I can see is the captain in an incredible dress. Holographic moon shining over the cobblestone streets. Suddenly, he's dancing. His hands are laying gently around her waist and shoulder. Sweet perfume is in the air. She feels lithe and strong and she yields as he winds her hair around his fingers. Her lips taste like wine….

"You kissed her!" I gasp. "And…. and she kissed you back!"

He closes his eyes and nods.

"So?!" I demand. "Are you two…." 'Together?'

"No." It's as if someone has taken an eraser to the chalkboard of his mind. The vision, the elated feeling that was so overwhelming is just – gone. "I told you, it was a misunderstanding."

"Chakotay, that kiss was hard to misunderstand."

"If I ask you to drop it, will you?"

I look into his eyes, firelight dances off of them flickering illumination onto sadness. Our silence though is surprisingly comfortable, given what has just transpired. I look back to the spot where we had been playing Joer'sapi earlier. I think about how he beat me three games to zero and that I'd like to play again when we get back to Voyager, that I still want to kick his ass for that jab at my tactical skills.

'I always liked Nari Chayas,' I think. 'She was a very loyal friend.'

'They all were," he thinks with a sigh. 'And so are you.'

And then we both relax onto our uniform pillows, silently agree to the same arrangement as the night before, and drift off to sleep.