Chapter 6: Like a stone (I)
When B'Elanna waddles into the garage, Tom tries to suppress his smirk. Even if it's a sight to which the ship is now accustomed, B'Elanna Torres hugely pregnant is something that never fails to be amusing.
Most wisely choose not to voice this within earshot of the Chief Engineer. Even if she can't outrun them, none of them doubt for a second what would happen if she actually caught them.
"I thought you were supposed to be in Sickbay," he says, standing up from his position over the open hood of the convertible.
B'Elanna doesn't try to hide her put off expression. Even if Paris' over-protective urges have become predictable, it doesn't mean she's less annoyed by them. She just tries to be tolerant of them, both for the sake of their new-found friendship and because he did, only months earlier, risk his life to protect her unborn child.
"I went, I went," she says, putting up a hand to stop him. "I just came to say hello to you. . . I thought you'd be there assisting the Doctor during my physical."
He immediately smiles.
"You mean you missed my, oh, what was it? 'Idiotic over-zealousness when it comes to monitoring your pregnancy'? "
He plasters on an innocent expression, even as she glares at him.
"I think there were some Klingon curses in there, too," she says, " but I'm not going to remind you of them. For fear that Miral will hear all of the unkind things I think of her god-father."
Tom smiles at the title, even though it's a thought witch which he's had a chance to grow acquainted.
He's happy that B'Elanna's misgivings about the dominance of the baby's Klingon traits have passed, but he's also happy that he was the one who was able to talk her down from her panic. What was a dark episode for the engineer's relationship with Mike Ayala turned out to be stabilizing one for Tom's friendship with her. He isn't sure if he's ever felt as filled with pride as he did the day after she and Mike reconciled, B'Elanna coming to his quarters to tell him she wanted him to be her daughter's god-father.
"No need to hold back now," he teases, "I'm sure she'll hear all kinds of choice words about me growing up."
"True," she smiles.
"So. . ." he says, looking at her meaningfully.
"So," she echoes, deliberately ignoring the nudge.
"Are you really not going to tell me how the check up went?" he huffs, to which B'Elanna immediately rolls her eyes.
"It went fine! Just like the last hundred of them."
"Fine?"
"Fine," she repeats, putting weight behind the word. "Miral's growth is normal and she's strong as a targ. Just as her acrobatics in my stomach already indicate."
"And her mother?"
"She's alright, too. Though slightly annoyed by a certain pilot right now," she smiles sarcastically.
"How alright?" he questions again, and this time she has to fight the urge to throw a nearby tool at him.
Despite her ominous expression, however, he doesn't back down. And silently she wishes for the days when their arguments would lead to one of them fleeing the other's presence out of cowardice.
The engage in silent staring contest, the half-Klingon (to her own surprise) eventually folding.
"The Doctor wants me to get more rest," she acknowledges slowly.
She doesn't really want to admit it, but isn't as if he can't access her medical records. Even if he couldn't, she realizes she would probably still tell him anyway. For all of Tom's stubbornness and doting, they've come to confide in each other more and more.
It's something that brings them both joy, even if sometimes it invites uncomfortable reflection.
"So what are you doing here?" he prompts, looking at her with mild frustration.
"I told you, I came to see you."
"But you should be resting."
"Tom, I took the turbolift here," she hisses. "And then leisurely walked the ten meters from the lift to the holodeck. . . It isn't as though I crawled here on my hands and knees in the Jeffries tubes, doing hand-to-hand combat as I went."
He gives her a skeptical look, but otherwise lets the matter drop. He can tell by the strain in her voice that he's reached the upper limit of the freedom she grants to his worrying.
"Well, since you're here," he begins, turning around, "you could help me."
"You're putting me to work?"
She pretends to be offended, but they both know she's pleased. His earlier 'Grease Monkey' program was a minor dalliance compared to this one, but even then he didn't invite her to tinker with anything. She realizes now that it was probably because she never showed it anything beyond a dismissive expression.
"Yep," he grins. "But only on one condition."
She looks at him expectantly, and he crosses his arms.
"You sit down while we work."
She makes a small growling sound in the back of her throat, but other than that doesn't fight it. He calls for a chair of appropriate height, keeping impressively stoic when he helps her hoist herself into it. The younger Tom Paris would have been too mouthy and thoughtless to pull the straight face off during this. Admittedly, it helps now that B'Elanna is watching him like a circling hawk, looking for any sign of amusement at her condition.
"Is this water damage?" she asks, once finally situated.
"Uh huh," he sighs.
"How in the hell did you manage to submerge the entire car?"
"I didn't submerge anything," he immediately retorts.
Leaning over the engine, she smirks.
"I thought you said Seven's driving had progressed."
"It has," he replies. "But she borrowed the program to take Chakotay out the other day and-"
"-she let him drive," she choruses.
Tom frowns, and B'Elanna tries not laugh at either Tom's genuine disappointment or Chakotay's ineptitude at all things involving mechanized motion.
"They were driving around Lake Michigan," he says glumly, patting the car. "Poor baby sank like a stone."
The both silently analyze the damage; B'Elanna shaking her head and Tom looking on with renewed sadness at the sorry state of the vehicle.
"You could always reset the program," she offers, knowing already what his response will be.
"Real life doesn't have reset commands," he shoots back. "No reason why our fantasies should."
The comment is dark in tone, and a bitter shadow falls across his face before disappearing. The darkness and the shadow are two things B'Elanna's seen a lot of where Tom's concerned, these last three months. Both are companions of his from their first years in the Delta Quadrant, but ones she hasn't missed at all.
She briefly considers bringing up Kathryn, but knows that it's too early in the conversation. If she raises the topic now, he'll shut her down immediately. As compassionate and mature as Tom has become over the better part of the last decade, he's sometimes just as guarded with his own feelings as the day she first met him.
"Mike brought up marriage again today," she volunteers eventually, after they've been working in companionable silence for several minutes.
"Oh?" Tom's tone is interested, but not surprised. Mike has now asked B'Elanna to marry him three times.
She shrugs, searching for words as they Tom begins to extract part of the ancient machinery from the vehicle.
"He isn't pushing. . . exactly. But I think he's getting impatient."
"You both want to spend the rest of your lives together. You're having his child. Some. . . impatience. . . is understandable."
B'Elanna's head shoots up, examining his face. When she doesn't see any trace of judgment, she slowly goes back to her own tinkering.
"It's not that I don't want to marry him. I just don't like the idea of marriage being assumed as automatic afterthought to my pregnancy."
"It isn't an automatic afterthought to your pregnancy," he says. "He loves you. And you love him. Even if the timing is partly because of Miral, it's hardly the main reason he wants to marry you."
He straightens up from his work, staring at her intently, but she pretends not to notice, continuing on with a crude tool she finds as rewarding as she does frustrating.
"The whole idea of me trudging down the aisle like this is completely ridiculous," she says, moments later, "maybe after the baby comes. . ."
Tom doesn't buy the casual act, no matter how much she's trying to sell it.
"You don't need to waddle down any aisle."
He pauses, mentally wincing at the look she gives him at his use of 'waddle', but then decides to carry on when she goes back to working.
"She could just do an official ceremony in the Captain's room. You, Mike, and a couple witnesses."
She remains silent, continuing her work. Not even thinking to feel frustrated at his continued refusal to use Janeway's first name, even in private. Her own mind being far too occupied with the hope that he'll drop the present line of conversation.
"Hey," he says, nudging her slightly, "look at me."
When she does so, it's hesitantly and with barely masked misgivings.
"I know it's not about having a wedding or not having a wedding," he says, locking eyes on her. "Talk to me. . . Is this about your parents again?"
"No," she replies, shaking her head, but to Tom's continued doubt.
"B'Elanna, Mike isn't your father. He isn't going to leave you."
"I know that," she says, sounding frustrated, even defensive.
"Getting married isn't dooming yourself to repeating your parents' mistakes."
"Tom," she barks, wiping her hands across her maternity uniform and shaking her head. "It's not about them."
"So, what is it?"
She shakes her head, not wanting to answer him. Not wanting to even look at him.
"B'Elanna?"
"It's. . . it's about you and I."
She ventures a glance at him just in time to see his face distort with emotion. A painful cocktail of regret and apology evident across his high cheekbones, distorting the slender mouth below. It's an emotional recipe she's familiar with, though her own version requires a healthy dollop of self-loathing.
"Mike isn't your father," Tom says intently. "But he also isn't me."
She rakes her hand through her hair, not caring that she's likely trailing oil through it. She meets his eyes, the conflict apparent on her face.
She raised this topic as a quick diversion before drawing him out about his own problems, but didn't actually intend to make her own confessions. It's a type of bait and switch she's become expert at, over the years. It's just that Tom never leaves her room anymore to pull off the switch.
"It isn't about you, or whether Mike is like you. . . It isn't about Mike at all."
He looks at her with concern, waiting for her to go on, and she deflects her eyes away from the blue ones filled with affection and loyalty. Two feelings she still doesn't think she's entitled to, not from him.
"It doesn't matter what Mike is like, Tom. Because I'm still me. The person who pushes people away when they get too close. The woman who pushed you away. . . "
Tom closes his eyes briefly, casting his own gaze away when he opens them again.
For all the things they've talked about with each other, they've not talked seriously about the ending of their romantic relationship. Too nervous to use up the capital they've built up over the last six months.
Beneath that, too scared of what each of them would have to admit if they did talk about it.
"You were ready to marry me," she says softly, "and I just. . . shoved you right out an airlock."
He looks at her sadly, and she's genuinely surprised to see the absence of even a trace of bitterness in his face.
"I didn't exactly put up much of a fight though, did I?"
She bows her head, looking at the holographic engine it took Tom days to design. Ruined in a matter of moments.
"I wonder sometimes what our lives what would be like," she admits, "if I hadn't pushed you away. Or if. . ."
"I hadn't let you?"
She nods. It's the only endorsement of his confession she can allow herself at the moment. It's going to take some time to internalize that the end wasn't only her doing.
"I do, too," he volunteers. "Though not in the same way I used to."
She looks surprised by this, and he can't help but smile. Trust B'Elanna to think her most painful thoughts aren't ones that anybody else could share.
"I've wondered what my life would be like if we'd gotten married. If Miral was mine instead of Mike's."
"And?" she prompts.
He gives a shrug.
"I used to content myself with the idea that in other timelines- in universes we'll never see- we're happy together. Living that life," he says, the wistfulness in his voice brings her equal measures of joy and pain.
"Do you still think about it now?" she asks.
The smile that's been far away suddenly lights up his face, his eyes taking on a slight sheen.
"Now, I find contentment with the fact that we share our lives in this timeline. . . Even if it's not the way either of us would have hoped, a few years ago."
She feels the relief and affection well within her, cursing her altered hormones for the fact that she can't even begin to hide how overcome she is. She's uncharacteristically grateful when Tom pulls her in for a hug, burying his face in her hair.
"You can't live the rest of your life berating yourself for mistakes we both made, B'Elanna. We've spent too much time doing that already."
She clutches onto his leather jacket, her tears pooling at his chest before slowly gliding down the worn material.
It's a strange moment for her, she'll reflect later. The only Klingon trait she's ever coveted being the absence of tears ducts. But feeling Tom murmur into her hair, his arms protectively around her, she cries for the first time without giving a thought to things she used to want but doesn't possess.
Eventually, she pulls away and embarrassment finds her.
"If you're this good with emotional Klingons, you're going be an amazing god-father," she laughs awkwardly.
"Well, I kind of hope she takes after you rather than Mike. . . I'm not always sure how to take it when I crack a joke and he just stares at me."
This time she laughs genuinely, leaning against the convertible. She knows first-hand that her partner's silences can sometimes be off-putting.
"Just tell me isn't that quiet in bed."
The inappropriate quip earns him a frown and sharp smack in his stomach, but it nevertheless transitions them from their emotional conversation.
Or so B'Elanna thinks, before Tom sighs beside her.
"This is the part a few months ago when you would have made a joke about my own bed partner."
She turns to him, surprised he's bringing up the subject on his own.
"I wasn't going to mention it," she says, eyeing him cautiously.
He gives her a pointed stare, and she makes a face, realizing she's been caught.
"I wasn't going to raise it until I made you comfortable," she modifies. "But then the conversation left the safe confines I'd intended."
"Good to know I can still surprise you, Torres. After all these years."
She smiles briefly, but then a concerned look replace the amused one.
"Yesterday's briefing was . . . tenser than usual. Between the two of you."
He nods, unable to deny it.
The tension that exists between himself and Kathryn normally appears one-sided, Tom knows. Janeway plows in public as though nothing ever happened, and the more she does so, the more he freezes her out. He's always polite, respectful, but all of his promises to remain friends have been buried; sinking in the ocean of his anger and lingering resentment.
He never smiles at her. Doesn't even hold eye contact if he can help it. After the month of trying- putting her hand on his shoulder on the bridge only to feel his shoulder tense at her touch- she stopped all overt attempts.
Still, the briefing the day before is the first time she's shown any outward sign of strain or anger toward him. Cutting him off with a harsh reprimand when he and Harry derailed into their normal banter.
"I think Seven's report that we're going to be entering another starless expanse is taking a toll on everyone," he ventures. "We haven't exactly faired well with spatial voids."
The thesis that a certain commanding officer faired the worst of all them in such areas remains tacitly understood, B'Elanna giving Tom a knowing look.
"I'm not going to push, but you really need to talk to her at some point."
He gives a dismissive gestures, his face bitter and cynical in a way that makes her vaguely uncomfortable.
"Tom," she pleads softly, locking onto his gaze with hers.
"What would I say?" he demands, the frustration in his voice shifting to mocking cheer. "Thanks for the memories, Kathryn. I hope you didn't lose a nacelle in your haste to put distance between the two of us."
B'Elanna's undeterred by his glibness, even if frustrated by it.
"You could talk about her decision," she points out. "You could see if see if she's changed her mind."
"Kathryn Janeway doesn't change her mind," he retorts bitterly. "And even if she did, it wouldn't matter. I can't forgive her for the way she ended things. The fact that she - she. . . "
"Pushed you out an air lock?"
"Yes!" he spits, not reflecting on the confirmation.
She regards him softly, and he immediately he knows what's coming; studying the engine with interest, as though it's the first time he's seen it.
"Did you put up a fight when she did it?"
He presses his lips into a thin line. His self-accusation from only minutes earlier finding new purchase, even if he can't voice any affirmation of it. He's just too angry at the woman who left him. The woman he's still in love with.
"It wouldn't have mattered if I'd begged her," he says instead. "She'd already made up her mind. She wants to die alone in her command chair."
Any number of retorts of varying in harshness spring to B'Elanna's mind, but she knows Tom well enough to realize she's not going to get much farther with him. Not today, anyway.
"I'd like to think that when Miral comes, you'll be able to stand being in the same room with each other. . . I picked the two of you as god-parents, after all, because I thought you represented the parts of humanity she should strive for."
As Tom's face softens, B'Elanna registers that she's dealt him a low blow. But if pregnancy has taught her anything, it's to use the tools still available her. As unsavory as guilt tactics might be, her new ability to use them effectively sometimes makes up for her not being able to see her own feet anymore.
"You know, motherhood is going to suit you," Tom teases darkly, and after a long silence.
"I'd like to think so," she responds, smiling sweetly.
He feigns a deflated sigh at her obvious manipulation, and she can't help but laugh at his dramatics.
"So, you're going to talk to her?" she asks, maintaining a lightness in her voice this time.
"I don't know about that," he says quickly. "But I'll resolve to try in other ways."
It's a victory, if a small one. And B'Elanna inwardly smiles as she readies herself to leave the holodeck.
"I think I'm going to follow the Doctor's advice. . . Maybe take a nap."
"Have some banana pancakes before that?" Tom gently teases.
"I don't know," she murmurs, looking contemplative. "I've had the strangest craving for gagh lately."
When Tom snorts, B'Elanna glares at him. He quickly holds up his hands in surrender.
"Gagh is a great source of protein- really good for the baby."
Her angry look only dissipates slightly; he hears her grumble as she calls for the arch. Just before the doors, the heavy shuffling of her feet abruptly stop.
"Tom?" she calls.
"Uh huh?"
"How much should I publicly humiliate the old man for sinking your car in a lake?"
Standing over the dead engine, Tom smiles hugely. Their affinity for dark and inappropriate humor is something he and B'Elanna have always had in common.
"Don't stop until you see tears," he calls in response.
He doesn't have to look up from his work to know that she's smiling as she exits.
. . . . .
Though it's the the third time her ship has slid through space without stars streaking by her window, it bothers Kathryn just as much as it did five years earlier. The darkness outside of her viewport feels consuming; like she's slowly submerging in a well of black ink in the Maestro's studio.
She's deep in thought when the door to her ready room chimes. It takes several hails before she snaps out of her reflections.
"Are you alright, Captain?" Tuvok asks, approaching her desk with a raised eyebrow.
"Fine," she dismisses. "I was just thinking."
She suspects her recent silence hasn't quite escaped his attention , but she also thinks he won't call her out on it. It's just not Tuvok's way when it comes to their friendship.
"Is that the results of the recent security drills?" she asks, gesturing to the PADD in his hand.
"Yes," he affirms. "The results are. . . unremarkable."
His characterization throws off for any number of reasons, chief of which being that he has come into her ready room to deliver a report he himself thinks unimportant.
"Something on your mind, old friend?"
His face relaxes, though just barely. On any other member of her staff, it would be a soft smile.
"May I join you?" he asks, gesturing to the chair opposite her.
She nods, her expression curious as he moves to sit down.
"I am concerned about this morning's briefing," he announces.
"The senior staff's just a little undone by our current region of space," she assures. "Try not to worry about their edginess. Their attention will snap back to normal levels when we clear the region in two weeks."
He pauses, looking uncomfortable. Or at least, uncomfortable for Tuvok.
"It is not the senior officers I'm worried about, Captain. . . It is you."
She freezes, caught off guard though part of her knows she shouldn't be.
"I'm fine, Tuvok."
He pauses only momentarily this time, choosing to disregard her denial.
"You have not been yourself lately. You have been uninterested in the ship's operations. . . Inattentive at times."
She blushes furiously, realizing that he's calling her out, even if indirectly, for having tuned out for a large part of the morning briefing. She'd thought she recovered well when Harry asked her a question when she wasn't paying attention. Obviously, not well enough.
Worse, if Tuvok noticed, it's entirely possible others did. Chakotay and the Doctor. Likely Tom, too. That is, if Tom bothered to look up from his customary focus on the table even once during the meeting.
This last part tears at her with new pain. Tom has actually been meeting her gaze consistently the last few weeks, however hesitant and halted his reactions toward her. His new efforts should be a relief, but instead it's only made things more difficult on her. His thorny silence and taut looks were somehow easier.
"Captain?" she hears Tuvok prompt, and she realizes she's drifted again. She can't exactly make any denials now, no matter tempting they were a few seconds earlier.
"I'm sorry," she says weakly, fighting the urge to bury her head in her hands. "You're right. I haven't been myself lately."
"I assume this has something to do with Lieutenant Paris?"
His voices the inquiry gingerly, but still her face becomes an expressionless mask.
"I'm able to separate my personal life from my duties," she responds coolly, a note of warning in her voice.
He falls silent, studying her face as he considers his next statements. As he does so, her discomfort grows. She hates it when he does this; looks at her like she's his tactical console, gleaning data with a glance and making a few easy interpretations.
After a few beats, he averts his eyes to the starless expanse outside her window, and she unconsciously relaxes in her chair when his scrutiny shifts away from her.
"When Commander Chakotay and Seven of Nine briefly ended their relationship last year, the Commander was not himself."
The unease she feels mixes with curiosity as to where this new line of thinking is going. It occurs to her that she could stop him here, but doing so seems churlish. Tuvok rarely takes liberties like this with her.
"No," she agrees. "He wasn't. . . He was short with people, not as compassionate or considerate as he normally is."
"He was also easily distracted," Tuvok adds.
She arches an eyebrow, but doesn't say anything to prompt his continuation.
"Several times while you were not on the bridge," he continues, "I noted his attention drifting. He was often silent, appearing contemplative and consumed with worry."
"You never reported that you had concerns about Chakotay's functioning during that period.'
She doesn't mean it as a criticism, but Tuvok seems uncomfortable at her remark. It isn't like him to deliberately overlook such things, no matter his personal loyalty.
"I assumed the Commander was plagued with regrets about ending his relationship," he admits. "I did not think bringing his inattention into question would solve anything."
"But?" she prompts.
"When Seven of Nine was injured, the Commander ceased to function as an officer. He was. . . debilitated by his emotions."
The knot in her stomach coils further at his last words. In the back of her mind, she wishes she could drum her fingers or tap her foot without Tuvok noticing the nervous energy.
"It's difficult to see someone you love injured," she allows warily. "The fear can be paralyzing."
As she speaks, Kathryn remembers Tom's bloody form materializing in Sickbay, cradled by B'Elanna. The wave of nausea that spread through her body, almost knocking out her own legs. The flood of memories of older wounds finding her again, despite her attempts to lock them away, the last dozen years.
"Commander Chakotay was not involved with Seven of Nine," he observes. "He was not at risk of losing his romantic partner."
"He still loved her," she murmurs, still engrossed in memories recent and not, "the status of his relationship with her didn't diminish his feelings."
"Precisely," Tuvok concludes quickly. "In fact, I believe the sense of regret the Commander felt made his state of mind worse."
At this, her attention snaps immediately back to their conversation, her eyes narrowing. She realizes that he's baited her, and she doesn't like it.
"Careful, my friend" she warns, steel in her voice. But to her surprise, he doesn't fall back on boundaries of protocol.
"Kathryn. . . I do not know how to serve you as a friend and officer if you do not allow me to raise this concern."
Profoundly surprised, she simply looks on, unable to find either the words or will to further bar him in this.
"You ended your relationship with Mister Paris because you believed it compromised your command decisions."
"A romantic relationship isn't a luxury I can afford given its cost to my objectivity. I would expect you of all people to understand that."
"Yet it is a costly 'luxury' you grant to everyone else, the Commander included."
She lets out a low breath. This is precisely the debate she had with Chakotay before she ended things with Tom, and though it's an unpleasant one for her, she knows at least she can win it.
"It's different for me than for Chakotay," she breathes, shaking her head.
"What's good for the goose is not good for the gander?"
She isn't sure what's more absurd; Tuvok falling back on an ancient Earth colloquialism, or the fact that he's picking this particular one.
"I don't think it has anything to do with geese and ganders," she chuckles darkly, giving into the urge to bury her face in her hands. "I think it's about Captains and First Officers."
"You believe your position as Captain is uniquely compromised by a romantic relationship?"
"Yes."
"And you believe your ending that relationship compromises you less?"
"Yes."
"So, I can assume upon terminating your romantic relationship, your romantic feelings for him went away?"
She pauses, realizing he's begun to dig a new hole under her, and trying to find a way to avoid the pitfall.
"It's only been a five months," she dodges. "These things take time."
"Have your feelings for him at least lessened? Has the affection you feel for him dissipated at all in the face of ending romantic relationship- the fact that you no longer maintain even a friendship?"
She wants to tell him that they have dissipated. Feels torn between conflicting desires to shout angrily at him or turn away in embarrassment. But she can't bring herself to do any of those things, least of all to lie to him.
"No," she responds in a soft voice, closing her eyes as she does so. "They haven't dissipated."
"And so. . . you still incur the cost of a romantic relationship . . . without the benefits?"
However hesitantly Tuvok voices the fact, the reality of it hits her like a cruel joke. A cruel joke she played on herself.
Attempting to steady the breaths that suddenly feel dangerously shallow, she pushes away the memory of locking eyes with Tom in her ready room weeks earlier. His gaze soft, even longing, as she declared Mike and B'Elanna husband and wife.
The pain on his face, likely mirrored in her own eyes, when he quickly turned away from her, congratulating Mike.
"I guess that is. . . an accurate assessment," she voices weakly. Almost choking on the words.
The pause is brief but in it her admission hangs heavily in the room. For a few moments, Kathryn begins to feel like the thick darkness outside has begun to bleed into the room, slowly staining the air, the walls, and everything in between.
"Perhaps it would be more ideal if you were not human," Tuvok finally observes. "Better for your position if could detach your readily from your emotions. . . But you are human."
She chuckles. A brittle, mirthless sound that seems to crack in the air.
"And here I'd thought you'd forgiven me for not being Vulcan."
For a few beats he holds her gaze steady, forcing her to see his sincerity, his openness, before he even begins to speak.
"I'm not suggesting now, nor have I ever thought, that your strong emotional commitments are a point of weakness."
It's an absolution that only Tuvok can convincingly offer. One, only weeks earlier, she would have pushed away.
"Was I less effective then. . . as Captain?"
"During your relationship with Mister Paris?"
She gives a slight nod, her eyes swirling with both hope and fear, transfixed on his dark features.
"You were content."
"That's not what I asked," she quickly points out.
"No," he allows. "But your effectiveness as an officer is tied to your well-being, as it is for most individuals." He pauses, gathering the description in his mind before concluding, "you seemed more resilient. Less deterred by obstacles. And though you spent less time attending to ship administration, I do not believe anything on board suffered as a result."
This absolution strikes her painfully, unlike the previous one. And in the back of her mind, the faint memory of a pushed way thought (only a year previous but now so very distant) looms like a specter; its vague form dark as the space outside the ship.
Nothing seems to have fallen apart since she slept with her pilot, Voyager's warp core still functioning and the stars streaking by at their usual pace. No ship-wide emergency has been declared, the Captain having suddenly developed a sex life.
When Tuvok finally leaves her, she remains in her chair for sometime, pushing through her feelings to focus on the stack of PADDs on her desk.
Not once, however, does she look up to peer out at the space outside her window. The familiar emptiness she would see there- the familiar thought that it will be gone soon enough- courting a kind of contemplation she will not allow herself to descend into.
. . . . .
In the last seventy-two of their travel through empty space, engineering takes advantage of the downtime, tinkering with the power relays to boost efficiency. The maintenance, as anticipated, knocks out the holodecks and replicators. And for the first time in almost a year and half, Kathryn Janeway finds herself wandering the halls of her ship in state of coffee deprivation.
When she enters the mess hall and sees Tom slowly rocking Miral, she freezes. He hasn't seen her, too absorbed in their god-daughter to see anything else. She can just as easily turn around and leave the way she came; resigning herself, here, now, to this distance that stretches between them, this silence that chokes any room they occupy simulteanously.
But even in her most cowardly moments, this just isn't a thought she can bear.
"I didn't realize you still had her," she says softly.
He jerks slightly at the sound of the familiar voice before his eyes shoot to the child he's just lulled into sleep.
"B'Elanna's hand is still healing from that plasma burn. I offered to take her for the night while Mike is on duty."
She approaches the couch he sits on slowly, watching his face for signs that she should abort the attempt now. Whether he's less angry these days or simply soothed by Miral's sleeping form, she doesn't know, but either way he fails to tense at her presence.
"I'm surprised B'Elanna didn't fight you," she says, sitting down slowly on the couch. A good distance between them. "I offered to watch her for the night last week and she reacted as though I'd threatened to make Vorick Chief Engineer."
He chuckles softly, still looking at Miral rather than her.
"Must be something about Klingon mothers," he quips. "Though this time I don't think the Doctor left her with much of a choice. She can't grip anything for another twelve hours. . . Not that I don't think she contemplated ways of picking Miral up one-handed."
The soft smiles on each of their faces shift slightly when he angles his face upward, meeting her gaze.
"It's been a while," she observes eventually.
"It has," he allows, his unease now evident.
"I'm sorry that I expected your friendship . . . after. Perhaps I should have given you more space."
He lets out a ragged breath, his face rueful.
"I'm not sure how much space would have been enough," he admits. "I think there were a couple months when being in the same quadrant would have felt too close."
He doesn't voice it to her pain, though obviously it does. He studies her face carefully as she angles her chin away from him. It's one of the few times he's been able to see any obvious pain when it comes to him.
"I understand," she replies eventually. "I don't expect you. . . to forgive me. Or to forget."
"Forgetting is impossible," he concedes. "But I don't know that forgiveness is. . . I would like to think it's possible that one day we'll be friends again."
She nods, not trusting herself to respond. Trying, desperately, to find relief in the idea that a man who not long ago gave himself- all of himself- to her readily might once again find the trust to share a small sliver of his life.
They sit for sometime in silence, the two of them watching a baby that easily could have been his, had things turned out differently. A warm, breathing reminder of forked paths, as well as of hope and new beginnings.
"B'Elanna said you prayed," she says at one point, half surprised that she's voiced the thought out loud.
"What? When Miral was born?"
She flushes with embarrassment. Both because of her sudden statement and because he apparently doesn't even remember what she's talking about.
"When you were held captive," she corrects, her throat feeling dry. "After you were shot."
He racks his memory of those events, his recollections jumbled, disorganized, and vague. He remembers stepping in front of B'Elanna when the guards tried to take her away, a sudden, all-consuming pain after that. Waking up in Sickbay later to find Seven there and Kathryn gone. But what exists in between is a distorted mass of images and sounds.
"It's mostly blur," he says, looking contemplative. "Did she tell you what I prayed for?"
Her mouth opens and closes once, regret that she started this conversation clearly etched across her face. Dimly she thinks maybe the old Christian idea of purgatory is right; considering the dark thesis that she's been plunged into eternal limbo between the mortal world and hell without her knowledge.
"You prayed about me," she informs him. "You prayed that you would see me again."
Out of her peripheral vision, she sees his face soften. No ridicule or rueful expression. Just pain. And regret.
"I don't remember saying anything," he admits. "But I remember being terrified that I wouldn't get to tell you again how much I loved you."
His face twists into a slight smile, and he turns his body slightly toward her before continuing as she looks on in with interest; it's the first time since she ended things that a smile he gave her wasn't forced.
"I was strangely afraid you wouldn't find your Prixin present," he confesses.
Despite the pain of the situation, her own lips tug up at the memory of finding the leather jacket he'd hidden away in her own quarters. It was buried under all of her civilian clothes in a box; the leather the same color as his own jacket, the lines sleek and made for her silhouette.
"I found it," she tells him. "It's . . . perfect."
He smiles sadly before shifting Miral's sleeping form in his arms. It's a distraction, his only distraction presently, from the feelings of longing swirling within him.
"When you pray now. . . do you still pray for the same things you used to?" She can't meet his eyes when she asks the question, but it's something she also can't contain.
He casts his eyes around the darkened room. The empty galley he still pictures Neelix in; the officer and friend he still misses, no matter how much time elapses.
"Sometimes when I wake up I do," he admits. "Or when I'm alone in my quarters."
She remains still, waiting for an admission. Not sure if it's worse if it doesn't come or if it does.
"Sometimes," he continues, "I miss you so much that it feels like I can't breathe."
The tears have steadily filled her eyes grow in number, threatening to push through her eyelashes. Still, she finds her voice, though she'll never be sure if the question she lends it to is an act of courage or one of complete self-flagellation.
"And when you don't miss me?"
In the brief quiet that ensues, the sinking feeling that's been trailing them tirelessly for weeks abruptly locates them, encircling them and dragging them down. Tom feels his chest constrict, the arms that cradle Miral going numb.
Closing his eyes, he cannot see the open, shattered expression of the woman who sits less than a meter away. When he begins to speak, his words are slow to reach each of them, as though the sound has to first make its way through meters of water; their bodies both drifting down rapidly, the surface disappearing from view.
"There isn't any moment that I don't miss you. . . It's just that now, I pray that all the love I feel for you will go away."