SEPARATION

"I'll be in my ready room."

'How many times have we heard that in the last three weeks,' thought Tom. Glancing over his shoulder toward the ready room door, he saw the first officer bob his head as the captain walked off the bridge. For all the warmth between them, they might have been strangers who, after encountering each other's faces daily for a long time because they took the same route to their places of employment, had progressed to an occasional acknowledgment of the other's presence as they passed each other. On a starship that was literally lost in space on the other side of the galaxy from home, with every member of the crew depending upon every other one, this was Not Good.

The captain did not spend a lot of time on the bridge these days. Much of her time was spent with another project that was a byproduct of Voyager's meeting with the Borg and the virulent new species 8472, encounters which had shaken the composure of everyone on board. Harry Kim had barely survived them. He was now recovered and at his customary place on the bridge, but the relationship between Captain Kathryn Janeway and Lieutenant Commander Chakotay, the former Maquis rebel whom Janeway had named as first officer, had not recovered. Although their split over the way to deal with the crisis may have been predictable to those who knew their backgrounds, predictability, in this instance, did not translate into any feelings of comfort for the crew.

Since being thrust into the Delta Quadrant, Captain Janeway's position as the only Starfleet Captain in 70,000 or so light years had transformed her into a throwback to the captains of the early days of the Federation. When the Alpha Quadrant was largely unexplored and huge chunks of time were needed to get anywhere within the quadrant due to slower warp drives, a captain had to make decisions quickly and learned to live with them. There wasn't any other choice.

Thanks to the Caretaker's dragging Voyager out of all contact with Federation space, Janeway, like Pike, Kirk and their ilk, was on her own. She relied on her crew, but even more, upon herself, to get out of tight scrapes. Sometimes, as Tom realized had happened with the Voth, they got out of said scrapes only because of an act of benevolence by the alien species. At other times, as with the Nyrians, they did it on their own. Kathryn Janeway had learned to take chances, and so far, only a handful of the crew had had to pay the ultimate price.

As a Maquis, Commander Chakotay had been on his own far too often during one-sided battles against the Cardassians. Although he had been with the commander only briefly in the Maquis, Tom had been with him long enough to appreciate Chakotay's ability to lead his people against incredible odds. Often, his Maquis had lived to fight another day simply by knowing when to slip out of harm's way, to hide out, lick their wounds, and get ready for next time. Plowing through without regard for the consequences was risky and could end any hope for victory. Everyone might end up dead. Chakotay had learned to pick his spots and to fight only when he could do sufficient damage to the enemy to justify the risk to his people.

As she had promised to her doomed exact duplicate, Janeway would get her crew home again safely, as soon as she could. If that meant having to deal with the Devil, in the form of the Borg, so be it. Her Starfleet crew wanted and deserved to get home.

Only a few months previously, Chakotay had been manipulated by a group of former Borg into helping them so that the few in their "Cooperative" could have their way over thousands, without the thousands having anything to say about it. He had been shown that the face of the Devil could be beautiful, and fair haired, and seemingly compassionate. Trusting the Borg could mean the enslavement of the galaxy-not so far from the fate that the Maquis and Tom Paris could expect when they returned to the Alpha Quadrant. Imprisonment was their most likely welcome home.

Faced with a choice that was no choice at all, to slug it out against the Borg or be annihilated by 8472, Chakotay had said: let's look for a place to hide out a while, and then look for another way home. Janeway had said, let's negotiate with the Borg and go straight through them. The immediate situation had been resolved and Voyager had survived with a souvenir of the adventure: Seven-of-Nine, a Borg isolated from the Collective and now living on Voyager under the captain's watchful eye.

Janeway and Chakotay had gone back to being captain and first officer, but the private relationship that had been the subject of so much ship's gossip had suffered from their disagreement. Exactly what form that relationship had ever taken was a matter of rampant speculation amongst the crew, but no matter what it had been like before, it was clearly suffering from their recent disagreement. The warm touches and intimate looks that they had shared with each other on the bridge - and who knew where else - were gone.

From the vantage point of being a Starfleet brat who had served with the Maquis, Tom's view was that, depending upon which aspects of the problem were being examined, both had been right, and both had been wrong. They had all been lucky to survive. Unfortunately, neither the captain nor the commander would admit it.

Tom was glad when his shift ended. Constant vigilance was necessary; the Delta Quadrant had shown that it was not finished with throwing bullies of all sorts at Voyager, yet the tension level on the bridge had remained far beyond what was necessary for the entire day. Let Beta shift deal with it now.

Looking over to the Engineering console, Tom checked to see if B'Elanna was going to be able to leave when he did. She didn't look ready yet. Tom took a few extra minutes with his replacement during the change of shift, stalling so that he could leave with B'Elanna. Eventually he had to give over the conn to Grimes.

"Going home anytime before midnight, Lieutenant?" he asked her as he stopped by her console on his way off the bridge.

"Hopefully. I'm still trying to upgrade the long range sensors to give us more warning of anyone else who might be hostile to us. You go on ahead with Harry and meet Kes for dinner. I'll just grab something later, when I'm free."

Tom looked around to see if anyone else was paying attention to them. He did not want to incite her into a scene on the bridge if he could help it. If he kept his voice barely above a whisper and in a casual tone, perhaps he could avoid an outburst. "B'Elanna, don't you think you could take one night off, at least, and give yourself a chance to relax a little? You've been working as if you were the only one who can repair the ship or upgrade the systems. Just one night of rest - it might help you get over that fatigue you've been feeling every night."

Her glare was a good imitation of Janeway's. Whispering hadn't been quite enough after all. Fortunately, the cavalry was coming.

"Lt. Nicoletti, good evening to you," Tom turned and smiled graciously at the young engineer stepping out of the turbolift at the back of the bridge.

"I'm glad you're here, Nicoletti. I want you to run a third level diagnostic on the sensor arrays. If you need anything, I'll be down in Engineering."

"Lieutenant Torres, may I accompany you to the turbolift, at least?" Tom said, giving in to the inevitable. She shrugged her shoulders before turning back to her subordinate, who was already seated at the Engineering console. Tom walked up to the turbolift and waited for a few minutes until B'Elanna had finished briefing Nicoletti on the long list of tasks awaiting her during Beta shift.

"Hey guys, wait up," said Harry as the two lieutenants entered the turbolift. Tom gave Harry his own version of The Look, although it could not come close to matching Janeway's or B'Elanna's. With Harry along, Tom wasn't even going to be able to get more that a peck on the cheek from B'Elanna on the lift.

The dinner hour rush had long since come and gone. Kes had been called back to Sickbay to help the Doctor with some tests he was running. Tom and Harry were still sitting in the corner of the mess hall, nursing mugs of replicated coffee and waiting for the still-absent B'Elanna. Several calls had been made to Engineering, a few times by Tom and a couple of times by Harry, gingerly asking the chief engineer if she were coming to eat soon. Each time, the answer had been a variation of "Soon, but not yet."

"I don't get it, Harry. She almost seems like she's trying to avoid me sometimes. And testy - it's like approaching a mountain lioness. I'm not sure what the Klingon equivalent is, but I'm sure there is one - sleek, lethal, always ready to pounce." Tom looked dejectedly at his half-filled mug of cold ersatz coffee. "I knew it was too soon for us to become intimate when we did, but what else could I do? She wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with her. And it was so damned cold, Harry!"

"It's difficult for her, Tom. I don't think she's had a lot of people that she's been able to trust before us. She'll come around. Just be careful you don't..." Harry paused, not being sure how he could put what he knew he should say diplomatically.

"Be careful about what? Loving her too much? It's already too late for that, my friend. Much too late."

"Just don't crowd her, Tom. She's used to being completely on her own. B'Elanna's proud of her self-reliance, of being in control. She likes to be outspoken and speaks her own mind. I think she could be afraid of losing herself in you. Libby and I had some dancing around to do when we first got together about that, and I still need to remind myself to be careful around Kes. She's so much stronger than she appears that I get a little overprotective sometimes. It takes time to work out all the little things, Tom. The big things always seem to take care of themselves."

"I hope so, Harry. I'm really trying not to push her, you know that."

"I know, Tom, but you know how B'Elanna is. Sometimes she sees a push when there isn't one there." Harry was not sure Tom didn't have good cause to look as worried as he did. Harry had noticed a change in B'Elanna over the past week or so, too, a pulling back from the relationship she had been building with Tom since their return from Tantrum IV. It was not so much that she was taking her job so seriously - that had always been a given - but B'Elanna seemed to be using it to erect a barrier of work between Tom and herself. Meals were eaten on the run, in Engineering most of the time, and Harry knew that she claimed never to have time for anything other than work and sleep.

He would have been even more concerned had he known what Tom had chosen not to confide to Harry, despite their close friendship. More often than not, B'Elanna was now sleeping alone, too.

"Torres to Chakotay."

:::Yes, B'Elanna, what can I do for you?:::

"I have those reports for you on the sensor array modifications. Do you want me to bring them to you tonight?"

:::Hold them until tomorrow. I'll review them before the staff meeting.:::

B'Elanna hesitated before replying to him. She wanted to talk to someone about Tom, and the reports were merely an excuse to approach Chakotay. B'Elanna detected a weariness in his voice, however, that suggested Chakotay would not be as accepting of a visit from her tonight as she needed him to be, certainly not enough for her to bring up the subject of the pilot with him. Tom and Chakotay had had troubles of their own in the past, and B'Elanna did not know what reservations the first officer still might have about Paris. Now that Chakotay was having relationship problems with Janeway - Tom's mentor - seeking out Chakotay's advice about Tom might be asking too much of him. If bringing the reports meant handing Chakotay a padd and saying good evening, it would not be of much help to B'Elanna.

"Fine, Chakotay. I'll bring them to the bridge 15 minutes before the start of the staff meeting tomorrow morning. Torres out."

B'Elanna gathered up the report for Chakotay, as well as some padds to bring with her to her quarters. She planned another working evening, with little time for romance. As that thought occurred to her, a vision of Tom's face flashed in her mind. Not only his face, either - B'Elanna vividly remembered the look and feel of his long body, lying beside her in the dim cavern.

Standing up abruptly, she tried to shake off the image of the helmsman embracing her. Tom Paris was invading her mind more and more each day and each night, and increasingly, she could not keep him out of her thoughts. She was disturbed by the weak feeling she felt in the pit of her stomach when she was with him - sometimes even when she was not with him. Lately she was always on edge, and there were times B'Elanna even felt light headed.

This depending on another for her own feelings of well-being simply was not good for her. She had to do something about it, and soon.

Exiting her office with her armload of padds, B'Elanna heard raucous laughter coming from the area around the warp core. Three of her staff were standing by the core, apparently checking readings, but their laughter told a different story. Walking over to find out what was going on, B'Elanna noticed the laughter ceased as soon as she came into view. Several looks between her engineers were exchanged, along with a wink between Lt. Carey, who was commanding Engineering this shift, Ashmore and Henley.

"What's going on, Lieutenant?" B'Elanna asked of Carey.

"Nothing at all, Lt. Torres. Everything is under control."

Looking around at her staff, B'Elanna felt that there was much more going on than she could tell, but to yell at them for laughing at something seemed petty. There had been little enough laughter around Voyager lately; she could hardly come down upon them for getting a little of their high spirits back.

"Anyone care to let me in on the joke?" she asked.

The three exchanged nervous glances between themselves, but no one spoke.

"Apparently not," said B'Elanna, a little too sharply. "Well, carry on."

She turned to go. As she arrived at the doorway leading out of Engineering, one of the padds slipped out of her hand. Stooping down to pick it up, B'Elanna could hear a voice say something that sounded like "hot date," "Tom," and "needs it" before the three voices erupted in hoots of laughter again. Flushing deeply, B'Elanna almost turned back to confront them but stopped herself. As she stalked to the turbolift, however, she could feel her temper dragging at the leash, begging to be let loose.

The wolf did not wish to be found. As he loped after her, trying to find her trail, he felt himself slipping away from the country that he had been traveling. A feeling of abandonment swept over him. His animal guide had never slipped away from Chakotay so completely before.

Opening his eyes, the commander surveyed his quarters without recognition. The familiar shapes were obscured, hidden, as if they were shrouded in a deep mist. Several minutes passed before his eyes regained their normal sight; and he could again see his desk, chairs, sofa, bed. Chakotay could not shake off the feeling that he had lost his way, here, in the middle of what had been the most familiar of settings for most of his life.

Wrapping up the contents of his medicine bundle and putting it back on its shelf, the commander turned to the door. If one ritual, that of his ancestors, was illusive, perhaps that of his Voyager family would not be. Sandrine's was running tonight. To Sandrine's he would go, to try to forget.

When Chakotay entered the holodeck program, Tom Paris and Harry Kim were at the pool table, dueling Dalby and Bristow for replicator credits, bragging rights, and pride. All but Paris waved at the commander as he stopped at the table to watch Tom line up his shot, a difficult, but possible bank shot around the eight ball. He missed it, hitting the eight ball instead. Tom and Harry groaned as Dalby and Bristow celebrated.

"Not your night, Paris?"

"Doesn't seem to be, Commander. Can I interest you in a game? I have to win back some replicator credits for Harry, here. I don't want to get him into any trouble with Kes." The smile was weak. Tom hadn't been looking too well lately. Chakotay wondered how things were going between Torres and him. They seemed like such an unlikely couple, but Torres had stopped confiding in him, and he did not feel comfortable asking Paris about it. Their relationship was not really his business, anyway. He had enough problems of his own in that regard.

Shaking his head, Chakotay walked over to the bar to order a drink and settled upon a seat in the corner, well away from the pool table and the couples that were dancing at the other end of the room. The room was full of crew; almost none of the holodeck characters were present. Only Sandrine, holding court at the bar and serving all comers, was there tonight.

Chakotay decided, from the looks of it, that he was not the only one feeling dispirited. Despite the crowd, the noise level was relatively low. Most people were sitting around talking, some earnestly, most lethargically. Some of them glanced over at the first officer upon occasion. He could guess that they were saying something about him and, probably, about the captain. As he sipped his synthale he sighed. This may not have been such a good idea after all.

B'Elanna Torres arrived at Sandrine's a few minutes past 2200 hours. The crowd was already thinning despite the early hour. Since the captain had not shown up and the commander had left after only a few minutes, the appeal of hanging around to gossip about them had not been enough to keep the clientele happy in the replicated Marseilles tavern. No fireworks display tonight.

Almost as soon as she entered the room, B'Elanna heard Tom call out to her. "B'Elanna, finally," as he rushed up and enveloped her in his arms.

"Please, Tom. I'm not in the mood."

"O-kay." Although he had stretched out the word, the helmsman stepped back with alacrity. "Kes and Harry are still here, although I think they're getting restless. They'll be wanting to go back to their quarters soon, I think. Why don't you go over where they're sitting and I can get you something to drink."

"I'll get it myself, Tom."

She looked drawn and tired. "Are you sure? I'd be glad to help get you something to drink or to eat - have you eaten yet?"

"Tom! I'll get it myself."

The pilot raised both hands and stepped back in a gesture of surrender. "Sorry, I just wanted to give you a hand if you had a lot to carry."

"I won't."

"We're sitting over there, in the back corner." As he left her near the bar Tom shook his head. Testy, very testy. He knew she had a fear of being smothered, but since when was trying to be helpful smothering?

Tom looked back over his shoulder at her once he had taken his seat in the corner booth, across from Kes and Harry. They were so absorbed in one another that he had to clear his throat a few times to get their attention. Kes blushed as she turned towards Tom, but Harry just looked ridiculously happy. Tom was glad that someone was.

"I thought B'Elanna was here, Tom. Didn't I see her a minute ago?" inquired Kes.

"She's over by the bar." He looked back at B'Elanna again. She was leaning her entire weight on the bar. "Kes, don't you think she looks tired? She's been like that almost constantly for the last couple of weeks. I think B'Elanna's working much too hard. What do you think?"

Kes shrugged her shoulders. "There has been an awful lot to work on after all that's happened. I'm sure she's just being careful that everything is being done right." She glanced over at B'Elanna, who was carrying a tray with some kind of drink and a sandwich over to the table. "Here she comes, now."

Tom slid over to the inside of the booth to allow B'Elanna a place to sit. "Prune juice? Again?"

"What of it, Paris? I like prune juice."

Time to back off, thought Tom, noting that he had been demoted to "Paris."

"Nothing at all, Be'. Nothing's wrong at all." He did not even mention the sandwich she was tearing into hungrily, even though it was a clear indicator that once again, she had worked for at least 14 hours without having had any kind of meal. He knew for a fact that she had skipped lunch and bit back a comment linking her lack of stamina to not eating. Definitely too testy to bring up something like that tonight, even if it were true.

The friends sat and chatted, sipping their drinks while B'Elanna finished eating. B'Elanna had the least to say of any of them, but consuming her meal was not the reason. She was watching Kes and Harry. Kes was constantly worrying that Harry's stamina was still suspect after his poisoning by Species 8472 and his brush with death. The Doctor had used Borg nanites to cure him, but even B'Elanna noticed that Harry had yet to regain all of the weight he had lost while he was so ill. B'Elanna herself would loath being fussed over the way Kes was fussing over him, but Harry did not seem to mind being the object of so much attention from his loving wife.

With the example of Harry and Kes before her, beautiful to look at together, so obviously in love, and temperamentally well suited to one another, B'Elanna reconsidered her relationship with Tom for at least the hundredth time. People said that they looked good together, too, although she personally couldn't see it. He was tall, blond, and good-looking; she was short, dark, and striking looking, perhaps, but certainly not beautiful. The sex between them was good, but how long would that keep him?

Tom had a tendency to fuss over her, too. He was always trying to do things for her, pushing on her his ideas about what they should do together, how to spend their time, yet he always backed off when she refused to do something. Between this pushiness and then his caving in to what she wanted, she never knew what to expect from him. B'Elanna did not trust ambivalence, and that is what she sensed from Tom.

B'Elanna was beginning to see that she didn't act like herself around him. She was not fond of personal contact, but she found herself wanting Tom to touch her constantly. He was going to make her love him, tie her to him - she could feel it - and then what? Although she tried to shy away from it, her mother's voice haunted her mind, as much as she tried to push it away: 'He is a human, and he will tire of you. He will betray you. Leave, before you are left.'

Lost in her thoughts, B'Elanna was disoriented a minute when Kes and Harry got up from their seats. "Going already?" B'Elanna asked.

"As a matter of fact, we are. We've only been talking about it for the last ten minutes!" laughed Harry. "We have an early staff meeting tomorrow, remember? I have a few things to go over before I hit the hay."

"Have a good time, Starfleet. Kes." B'Elanna's expression did not match her words, and belatedly, Harry remembered that she was still a little touchy about being reminded of a haystack in a certain cave on the world of Tantrum IV.

"Good night, Tom, B'Elanna. You might want to make an early night of it, too," added Kes. She was smiling, but with some concern. Tom was not suffering from an overactive imagination after all, Kes realized. Something was bothering B'Elanna, but Kes could tell she did not want to speak of it, at least, not in front of Harry and her.

"See you in the morning," Tom added, as his friends departed. When he turned his attention to B'Elanna, he hesitated before saying anything else. She really did not look well, but how could he ask her what was wrong without getting his head bitten off?

"So, now that you've eaten, would you like to go back to quarters and relax a bit?" He smiled at her with as much charm as he could in his worried state. "Come down to my place, B'Elanna, and I'll put on some nice music and we can cuddle up for a while."

"That's your answer for everything, isn't it Paris? A little sex, and everything will be fine."

"B'Elanna, I said relax, nothing more than that. I'm inviting you back to my quarters for the company, that's all. No lovemaking if you're not feeling well enough for it tonight. I can see you're tired."

"What do you think I am, some weakling? I'd like you to have the kind of day I had without feeling tired!"

"That's my point, Be'. You've been working so hard, you need to take a break and rest up a little. You've been..."

"You always know what's best for me, don't you. Well, I did just fine without you before, and I can do just as fine again."

"Be' ..." Tom began to feel a little desperate at the direction this conversation was going. What did he say? Why was she getting so upset? And he knew very well that if he confronted her with those questions, she would be even angrier at him. His own anger was simmering under the surface, and that "hostility thing" that Klingons sometimes used as foreplay was not in evidence in B'Elanna's manner or expression. This was not a game. She meant it.

Confirming all of his fears, B'Elanna turned away, reluctant to face him directly, as she threw out, "Paris, this just isn't working for me. We've had some laughs, some good times, but this relationship is not what I want or need. Let's just go back to being friends and forget the rest of it."

"B'Elanna, it's late, we're both tired. Let's talk about this another time when both of us are in a better mood. This is no time to be talking about something so . . . "

"Paris, there isn't anything to talk about. Face it, we were better off when we were just friends. Let's leave it at that." By keeping her face averted from Tom's, she did not see his dismayed look transform to a stronger emotion. For weeks, for his lover's sake, Tom had been consciously suppressing that mask of nonchalance he had always worn to protect himself, since B'Elanna hated it so much. That backfired now, as he could not keep his temper in check.

"Friends. You want to be 'friends.' You've shown me Paradise and now we're back to 'Hi, how are you, see you around?' " Tom grabbed her by both arms, pleading, "B'Elanna Torres, don't do this to us. I love you!"

"Let go of me, Paris, before I deck you!" she shouted. Breaking his hold, she stood up by the booth, taking a pace back when Tom jumped up as well.

"B'Elanna . . . ."

"Get away from me, Paris!" she screamed. "Enough! We've had enough! I've kept my damned promise to you, and now it's over!"

B'Elanna swiveled away from him, ran by the pool table, and out the door.

Tom held his position for several seconds, white-faced and trembling. After taking a few deep breaths, he became aware that there were no tavern sounds. A quick flicker of a look on each side of him showed that all of the remaining patrons of Sandrine's were staring at Thomas Eugene Paris.

Taking an agonized breath, Tom followed his love out the doors of Sandrine's, leaving behind a sudden outrush of sound as various crewmen called off the status of bets they had made concerning the length of the relationship of the ship's helmsman and the chief engineer. For the patient, there had been fireworks, after all.