It Felt Like Home

Workforce Redux

A Star Trek: Voyager fanfiction

by

CanonAntithesis

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1

Chapter 7

The next week was a whirlwind. With the help of Kathryn and Tom, Chakotay was able to lower the security grid and the crew was freed. It turned out that a small, but powerful, collection of Quarran officials were orchestrating the abductions and memory altering in order to provide a skilled workforce to a planet suffering from a severe labor shortage. The general public was unaware of this conspiracy.

Voyager's brainwashed crew members were left scared and confused. Most of them weren't pleased at having been taken from their happy lives on Quarra. Some were even violent about it, demanding they be returned instantly.

The Doctor was forced to use a skewed version of triage to recover Voyager's crew. The Captain was his top priority, followed by her senior staff. Since B'Elanna's memories were already recovered, this left Tom Paris, Tuvok, and Seven of Nine.

Chakotay was forced to place the rest of the crew into stasis chambers until it was their turn. He didn't want to resort to that method of control, but the affected crew members outnumbered the unaffected fifty to one. There was simply no other way of maintaining control over almost 150 people.

It was a blessing that the Doctor didn't require sleep. His program ran non-stop 24/7 until the task was completed. With the exception of the Captain and Tuvok, as soon as a crew member regained his memories, he was recruited to help the Doctor in the monumental undertaking of restoring the memories of their entire ship's compliment, less three.

As a result, Kathryn and Tom never seemed to find a time or place to talk. Chakotay watched them like a hawk. B'Elanna watched them like a shark.

/***\

Tom sat back on his sofa in his and B'Elanna's darkened quarters, watching cartoons on his antique television which he now remembered B'Elanna had given him for his last birthday. He laughed and chuckled at the on-screen antics of the animated characters while snacking on a large bowl of buttery popcorn. The Doctor finally released him from his extra duties in sickbay. His position was filled by Ayala. That made more sense to Tom than keeping him there anymore. Mike was much larger and stronger than Tom and could more easily control the confused crew until the memory treatments started working. Any other person would have collapsed from complete exhaustion, but Tom found television to be his preferred method of relaxation. It was nice to be able to enjoy the mindless banter from the 'boob-tube' and to not have to think about his life.

The door chime rang and Tom, assuming it was Harry, called for his guest to enter.

The door opened and he saw a small figure standing in silhouette, back-lit by the light from the corridor. He immediately recognized the slight frame as Kathryn Janeway. She cautiously entered the room only far enough to activate the proximity sensors and paused there as the door slid quietly shut behind her. She blinked several times as her eyes made the adjustment to the dim lighting. Her eyes quickly swept the room before landing on him. Kathryn's face looked drawn as if the weight of the entire ship was on her shoulders … and Tom supposed it actually was.

Kathryn smiled tightly as she shifted her grip on a small bag she held in front of her. It looked like she was using it as a shield. Her hair was styled more formally than before. The overall casualness to her whole demeanor that so completely defined her during their time on Quarra was gone. She was dressed in her complete Starfleet uniform as if she'd come straight from the bridge, even though Tom knew she had not yet returned to duty. That's when it occurred to him that she wasn't Kathryn anymore; she was Captain Janeway again. The thought left him with a heavy sadness on his heart.

Despite this revelation, Tom walked quickly across the room to meet her, but stopped awkwardly a couple of feet away.

"Hello, Tom." She tilted her chin down while looking up at him.

The gesture immediately brought to mind a story he had once read about one of the legendary film actresses of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Lauren Bacall. She was famous for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks. Tom was surprised he had never linked the two before. Bacall had a trademark gesture, "The Look." Oddly enough, it began as a defense against nerves; Bacall had to keep her chin pressed against her chest to keep from shaking until just before the cameras rolled, causing her to begin every shot bringing her gaze upward. Kathryn was doing a perfect imitation of Lauren Bacall. He hoped it wasn't for the same reason, but he kinda doubted it.

Tom hesitated before responding and she took the time to examine him more closely. The young pilot looked exactly the same. The environmental controls assured the crew that there were no cold nights like on Quarra, so he didn't need the extra layers he wore there. Other than that, Tom was dressed casually in clothes which were oddly similar to what he wore on the planet. She looked down and noted with affection that he wasn't wearing any shoes; white socks were the only thing covering his feet. He probably removed his shoes as soon as he walked through the door, just as he'd habitually done in their... She couldn't finish the thought.

"Um, hi," Tom replied while nervously raking his fingers through his hair. "B'Elanna's not here." For some reason, he felt a need to tell her this. It still wasn't clear what B'Elanna knew or didn't know about their time on Quarra and perhaps he would never know. Perhaps that was for the best.

"I know," Janeway replied in monotone.

"There's some problem with the warp coils."

"I know," she repeated.

"Oh... of course, you do. You're the captain."

"That's right. I am." Janeway took one step closer to him, but seemed to rethink and stopped. She seemed uncharacteristically nervous. "They sent some personal items up from the planet. I found this." She reached into the bag she carried and pulled out the stone-age tool he had found during their picnic. "I thought you might want it back."

Tom smiled warmly at the memory of their picnic by the river. He stepped forward to accept the rock. When his hand brushed hers, desire arced through his skin like an electric charge. Kathryn must have felt the same because she quickly closed the distance between them and he wrapped his arms around her, letting the artifact fall to the deck.

It felt so good to be back in his arms. It was like coming home. They'd been back on Voyager for over a week now and she had felt lost and alone for that entire time … until now. Her heart was telling her this was where she belonged. Kathryn lifted her head from his chest, looking up to meet his crystal blue eyes, now slightly darkened with need. Tom tipped her chin up and engulfed her lips in a heated kiss. Warm, inviting, and slightly buttery lips covered hers and she parted her mouth in response.

Tom's tongue plundered the warm, inviting depths of her mouth in a simulation of the act of sex that their bodies were quickly realizing they wanted. There was a weighty feeling of need in this kiss that had been missing in their relationship on the planet. This kiss was a desperate act initiated by two desperate people, hungry for the affection they'd been denied since returning to the ship and their, so-called, real lives.

Kathryn was frantic for more contact. She needed to touch him, to feel his skin against hers. She ran one hand up under his shirt, reveling at the feel of his smooth, muscular back. The other hand found the rapidly growing bulge in the front of his trousers.

Tom followed her lead and started to pull his shirt over his head, reluctantly breaking contact with Kathryn as he did so. When he did, Tom caught sight of something which pierced his soul. Sitting in the corner of the room was the small crib he had assembled himself only one month ago. The crib which awaited the birth of his and B'Elanna's daughter.

Tom pushed Kathryn away and started rapidly inhaling large amounts of air into his lungs, aware that he was starting to hyperventilate. He couldn't look at her. Instead, he stared down at the deck. Spotting his discarded shirt, he quickly put it back on, still refusing to look up at her.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Tom mumbled to the deck.

Kathryn quickly regained her footing and looked stunned by what just happened. She stood up straight, reflexively adjusting her uniform jacket, and tried to regain some much needed control.

She spoke in a choppy staccato voice. "No, it's my fault. I shouldn't have come here." She started pacing back and forth in front of him as Tom finally raised his head to watch her. He'd seen her do this a hundred times before when she had a problem she needed to work though. "I-I came here … well, I had this entire speech prepared actually … about how as the Captain, it wouldn't really be appropriate for me to fraternize with a member of my crew … regardless of the fact that you're..." She gestured helplessly about the cabin, "already … involved." She sighed deeply before continuing, obviously trying to control her emotions. "I would have thought that regaining my memories would have dampened my feelings, my desires, but ... to my great shame, I find that I don't actually care that you're married or that you're expecting a child. Regaining my memories hasn't altered my heart."

She had turned away from him as she paced around the room and now was standing with her back to him as she made her startling declaration. Janeway whirled around to face him now, her eyes brimming with tears. "I love you, Tom, and I don't want to give you up even though I know it's wrong."

"Oh, Kathryn..." Tom whispered.

His heart ached at her declaration. He understood exactly how she felt because he felt the same. He wanted nothing more than to return to their life on Quarra and forget that Voyager ever existed, but he couldn't. Because not only did he love Kathryn Janeway with all his heart or soul, but he also loved his wife, B'Elanna, with equal avidity. He had pledged his love and his life to B'Elanna and they were only months away from the birth of their first child. He couldn't abandon his wife. He didn't want to abandon her, but he didn't want to give up Kathryn either. He knew he couldn't have them both, so he reluctantly came to a painful decision.

"I'm so sorry ... what we had on Quarra was beautiful, but it wasn't real. This is our real life and here we can't be together. I love my wife."

He wanted so much to tell her that he still loved her too, but that would have invited disaster. Never in his life had Tom felt more lost.

He swallowed slowly before continuing, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down in response. "I think you need to leave now." The anguish in his voice was palpable.

She squeezed her eyes shut and freed those trapped tears. "You're right. I should go."

Tom noticed the artifact still on the deck where he'd dropped it earlier. He reached down and scooped it up, saying, "Wait, maybe you should keep this after all. Y'know, to remind you of..."

She cut him off. "I won't need a souvenir to remember our time together." Her words were commanding, confident, but her head and her voice shook slightly, once again reminiscent of Lauren Bacall.

Captain Janeway turned and left his quarters without another word.

He knew he wasn't speaking to Kathryn anymore. "Aye aye, Captain," he replied to an empty room.

/***\

Kathryn arrived at her quarters without incident. However, as soon as the door slid closed, she sank to the deck and gave herself over to the torrent of emotions which wracked her so completely.

Could any woman have worse luck with men?

Justin. Her first fiancee died along with her father in a shuttle crash where she was the only survivor. Her resulting depression completely devastated her for months.

Mark. Her second fiancee gave her up for dead after Voyager disappeared in the Delta Quadrant and married a woman who worked with him. She knew he would eventually move on, but that didn't make the finality of the news any easier to digest.

Tom. He was right. What they had on Quarra wasn't real, but it felt real. It feels real even now with her memories fully recovered.

She knew she wouldn't become incapacitated as she had when Justin died. She was older and, supposedly, wiser now. And thankfully, Tom hadn't died. Disturbingly, that actually made things worse. If he was dead … or they were separated by thousands of light-years, Kathryn knew she would recover from the end of their relationship simply by locking that piece of herself away. She was very good at compartmentalizing.

However, Tom was a member of her senior staff; he was the ship's chief pilot. A day didn't pass without her seeing him. It was either working the same shift on the bridge or seeing him in the mess hall or passing him in the ship's corridors. This was a very small ship. She wasn't sure how she was going to function.

But function she would because she was Kathryn Janeway, Captain of the Federation Starship Voyager, and she had a duty to this crew. She had to get her people home. The hell with her own personal feelings.

Kathryn slowly rose to her feet and swiped at her tear stained face. She had the performance of a lifetime to start tomorrow morning. This pity party had to end.

/***\

B'Elanna was beyond tired when she entered their darkened quarters later that night. For the first time in this pregnancy, the extra weight was starting to slow her down. She had just spent the last three hours re-phasing the warp coils. Who knew how long it would take for her engines to recover from three weeks of the Emergency Command Hologram? Thank Kahless, the Doctor was back to being just the Doctor. He was insufferable enough as a know-it-all physician, but a know-it-all tactician/engineer/commander was horrid.

She noticed Tom's television was on, but there was no program running on the device. Instead, the screen displayed a random dot pattern of static which Tom referred to as "snow". The television provided the only light in the room, so she left it on. B'Elanna found the knob which controlled the machine's volume and turned it counterclockwise until the irritating white noise was silenced.

Voyager's exhausted Chief Engineer sank into the sofa with a audible sigh of relief. Automatically, her hand came to rest on her rounded belly and she closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of butterfly wings brushing under her hand. B'Elanna was just starting to wonder where Tom was when she spotted a large flat stone lying on the table next to the sofa. Curiosity got the better of her and she reached over and picked it up.

"P'tak!"

She cursed her enhanced Klingon senses. Angrily, she flung the rock away from her and directly through the screen of the television, smashing the glass and causing sparks to shoot out of the device.

That rock reeked of Captain Janeway! She had been here in their quarters ... tonight.

After she recovered her memories, but before the rest of the crew was rescued, B'Elanna had spent a lot of time coming to terms with what she knew, didn't know, or assumed she knew about what happened on that damn planet. She had come to accept that Tom and the Captain had been involved in an intimate relationship while on Quarra. She also understood that they had all essentially been proselytized into the mindset of an unambitious factory worker, their real memories manipulated and altered to suit the needs of their employer. None of them were responsible for what they did.

Intellectually, she understood all of this.

Now that everyone was back on-board, they were all trying to return to their normal lives, or what constituted normal in the Delta Quadrant. B'Elanna reasoned that if Tom really loved her and wanted to stay with her, he would stay away from the Captain outside of normal duty hours.

The hell with intellectuality!

Tonight, that bitch had been in their quarters with her husband!

After taking a deep cleansing breath, B'Elanna took two steps toward the door, intent on confronting Kathryn Janeway about her activities with Tom. The opening door pulled her up short. Tom slowly walked into the room, confusion written on his face.

"B'e? What's going on? Is there something wrong with the baby?" he said with a distinctive rasp in his voice, like he had been crying. "Lights, one-quarter."

The lights revealed a grease-smeared, sweat-stained B'Elanna standing in the middle of the room. It was obvious from the scowl on her face that she was also very angry. Tom immediately noticed electric sparks emitting from his precious television set. Bypassing B'Elanna, he quickly disconnected it from its power source, allowing the sparks to quickly die away.

Tom turned to face his wife.

"What's going on?"

"Have you been with her?" Her voice was accusatory.

"What? Who?"

"You know who," she screamed at him. "Janeway." B'Elanna hissed out Kathryn's name like it was a curse. "I know she was here tonight. Did you follow her back to her quarters? Didn't get enough of her on that damn planet?"

"That's not what happened. Please let me explain." Tom came closer to his wife and attempted to put his hand on her shoulder in order to calm her.

B'Elanna shoved him away and Tom quickly found himself thrown hard against the bulkhead. Pain exploded inside his skull as he slowly sank to the deck. However, his own discomfort was quickly forgotten when he saw B'Elanna bent over, clutching her belly with both hands.

-TBC-

Author's Notes:

Thank you for reading and I apologize for the horrible delay.

There will be one more chapter and it is already written … yay.

I would appreciate any reviews you wish to leave.