Look After You- Chapter Two
Chapter: 2/?
Rating : T
Pairing: P/T
Summary: Set after the episode "Faces." After their ordeal in the Vidiian mines, two very different people find they share a common ground.
Disclaimer: Paramount owns everything, apparently. The title comes from The Fray's song Look After You.
Author's note: Many thanks to Pepper9873 for the beta, and everyone who reviewed.
Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the stars refuse to shine
Out of the back you fall in time
I somehow find you and I collide
Howie Day "Collide"
She stared distractedly at the warp core, thinking about a person whose eyes were the exact shade of light emanating from it. The image of him lying dead in her dream was plaguing her thoughts. The question her mind kept asking was how close that dream was to becoming a reality?
"Lieutenant Torres?"
She jumped out of her reverie, and found herself facing Joe Carey. "Lieutenant?"
"I have that report you requested," he said, handing out the padd in his hand.
She blinked, trying to regain herself. "I see."
"Lieutenant, is everything okay?"
Joe and she weren't exactly friends, not yet anyway, but he was fast becoming someone she considered a good colleague, and his ability to pick up her moods was more than sound.
"I'm fine," she answered stiffly.
Joe hesitated. "You've just seemed a bit distracted lately. With everything that's happened lately, I'm not surprised, and if you need time off-,"
"No," she cut him off sharply. Her eyes suddenly softened. With Joe's endeavour to honour her as his superior, even though the position most probably belonged to him, he was the last person she wanted to receive her moody Klingon monster traits. Not yet anyway. "I'm fine," she reassured him. "I'm just thinking about…the warp core."
He studied her intently for a moment. "If you needed time out, to think 'about the warp core' that would be okay."
She nodded, touched by his concern. "Thank you, Lieutenant."
He nodded back.
As he departed, her eyes turned once again to the warp core. During their short time stuck on the other side of the galaxy, they'd been in peril far too many times to count. Why then was this incident so different that she was struggling to move past it?
Because someone died and you can't help but blame yourself.
Instinctively, her gaze wandered over to the station Durst usually worked at. She hadn't known him well, but he'd been a good man, and she had personally recommended him to the Captain for their away mission. She remembered how he struggled to maintain his professionalism over his excitement on being able to go on his first Voyager away mission, and how Tom had talked about how the first one always seemed to end in disaster. How she wished he had been wrong. Durst would never write up his first away mission report for Voyager, would never get the chance to go for a second, third or fourth, nor would he continue with them on their journey home, or get the chance to reunite with his family. Did he have a wife back home waiting for him? Did he have his own family? She wished she had gotten the chance to ask.
Why hadn't they taken her instead? She had been weaker. She was the logical choice. She remembered her Klingon self telling her what the Vidiian had done to Durst's face, and was so glad she hadn't been the one to see it. That face could have easily been Paris', and she couldn't help but feel guilty over her relief that it hadn't been.
Something occurred to her. If she hadn't been Klingon, all three of them would never have returned. Somehow, she wasn't sure that was something to be grateful about.
***
After her shift she wandered around the ship, her mind in a continuous state of thought. Before she knew it, she was standing outside Tom's quarters.
Maybe I need to talk to him, she thought.
She took a deep breath. "Computer: locate Lieutenant Paris."
"Lieutenant Paris is in his quarters."
She hesitated. "Is he alone?"
"Affirmative."
She pressed the call button on his door, and heard his reply for her to come in. Taking another deep breath, she stepped in.
He was sitting on his couch, dressed in his dark blue night wear. She'd never seen him dressed like this before, and even during their night encounter he had been in uniform. Her gaze became fixed on the triangle of gold-red hair exposed to her, and she found herself blushing when she realised she'd been staring a moment too long.
She hesitated in the door way. "Is this a bad time?" she asked.
Tom seemed surprised to see her. "No, of course not. I was just writing up a report." He waved the padd in his hand for demonstration. "I wasn't expecting company though," he said by way of explanation for his current state of dress.
"I'm sorry, I should have asked to come by earlier."
He shook his head. "There's nothing to be sorry about. Take a seat." He pointed to the space beside him, and rather nervously she joined him.
His blue eyes bore onto hers. "What can I do for you, B'Elanna?"
"I guess my Klingon DNA hasn't fully integrated with my human DNA yet."
He looked at her in confusion.
"I have this inexplicable need to just talk. I've never been this unreserved before."
He smiled at her confession.
"I was hoping I could talk to you about what happened down in the mines. You're the only one who can understand."
"Of course you can."
She wrung her hands together. "I can't stop thinking about everything that happened down there. It's becoming an obsession."
"B'Elanna, something like that isn't something you can forget about easily."
"I wish I could," she said softly. "Every night I have these nightmares, and they're awful in every way possible. I keep- I keep dreaming that my Klingon self finds Durst and you dead, and the two of you are mutilated beyond recognition."
He gave a slight smile. "Funny, I keep dreaming the same of you and Durst."
She studied his face, every inch of it, before her gaze landed back to his eyes. "I keep dreaming that they take your eyes," she confessed.
He laughed. "My eyes?"
She looked at him in confusion, before realising he didn't know what she obviously did. "You have the most vibrant shade of blue eyes that I've ever seen. I imagine that the Vidiians wouldn't hesitate for a moment before taking them to look more attractive."
"Lieutenant Torres! Was that a compliment?" he teased her.
She blushed again when she realised she'd revealed a little bit too much information. "I really can't wait until my DNA is normal again. I can't seem to shut up."
Tom smiled again. "I like you like this. You're open. You've never revealed this much of yourself before."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "You never gave me a reason to," she said, thinking about when she first met him in the Maquis, and he'd asked her a lot of questions she refused to answer.
He was grinning now. "Maybe you're right." His expression suddenly turned serious. "How do you feel about being reunited with your Klingon side?"
She considered this for a moment. "At the moment I feel at peace with myself. But I'm sure that won't last long. Seeing the two sides of me manifested into two different people, was a strange and equally incredible experience. It taught me a lot about myself. I just wish my Klingon self didn't have to die for me to realise what I did."
"Your two sides wouldn't have been able to coincide separately," Tom pointed out. "They need each other together to live."
"Funny, I've spent my whole life fighting with myself, thinking the opposite."
They smiled at each other.
"You know, when they carted you off from the mines, I was so scared they'd taken you to organ processing."
"But I'm fine."
He looked at her sadly. "You might not have been."
"It wouldn't have been your fault had I been."
"You don't understand. I was in charge of that mission. It was my duty to ensure that you didn't get hurt. I was to suppose to look after you. And Durst. Now he's dead."
For a moment she didn't understand why he felt so responsible. And then suddenly it hit her. She could almost hear him thinking, I have a penchant for killing those I'm in command of. And all of a sudden, his introverted and withdrawn behaviour over the last few days made sense.
When she first started working on Voyager, the rumour mill had been crazy with gossip about Tom Paris. There had been many people angry about his sudden promotion to conn officer, when they thought he clearly didn't deserve it. No man who killed his friends in a mission gone horribly wrong and then later had the nerve to lie about it and blame it on one of his friends, deserved such a position. At the time, she hadn't been surprised at the news, but she hadn't cared for it either.
Looking into his stormy eyes now, she could tell there was more to that story than what had been told. There was more to Tom than an irresponsible liar, and seeing his guilt that his past had been repeated, only affirmed this for her.
She squeezed his hand, possibly a gesture due to her still being too human, but she wasn't ashamed to do so. "Tom, you can't hold yourself responsible for this. Nothing you could have done would have made a difference."
"They could have taken me. Both Durst and I knew that they weren't taking him away to communicate with the ship. I let him go, and I didn't even offer him any reassuring words."
"Tom, you were the strongest of us three. You would have been the last to go. I was the weakest one. I should have been the one to go. I've spent days deliberating over this, and the only conclusion I can reach, is that it was all down to chance. For whatever reason, they took him."
"He didn't deserve that."
"And you think you did?"
"Well I haven't exactly led the noblest life."
"And you think everyone else has? No one, even you, deserved what the Vidiians did. What happened with Durst had nothing to do with what happened to you in the past."
He looked haunted. "How can you be sure?"
"Because everyone makes mistakes, Tom. And that doesn't mean we have to spend the rest of our lives paying for them."
He didn't say anything, instead his gaze dropped to their touching hands, misery etched on his face.
"I shouldn't have lied about it."
"About your friends?"
He nodded. "I don't even know why I did. They didn't deserve that and I can't believe I'd dishonour them like that. I just couldn't bring myself to admit fault to the accident. I think I was still too shocked at them being dead, and before I knew it, I had told the worst lie of my life."
"But you confessed."
"Yeah eventually. And it was the lie rather than the deed that was the most incriminating."
"At least you were willing to take responsibility for your actions. That took a lot of courage."
He gave a bitter laugh. "It was a lack of courage that stopped me from telling the truth in the first place."
"But you said it yourself, it wasn't as simple as that. And look how hard you're trying to repent. I saw how much it meant to you when the Captain promoted you. How determined you were to do the right thing. You rescued Harry and me from the array as easily as reciting numbers. Hell, you even rescued me back in the Maquis. Yes, my opinion of you has been colourful, shall we say, but our experience down in the mines showed me who you really are. And I think you hide that part of you deep down because you're afraid people won't believe that's who you are anymore."
His eyes were wide. "Do you really believe that?"
"What, that you secretly suffer from a hero complex? Yes." She grinned at him. "But I promise not to tell anyone."
He smiled. "Thank you, B'Elanna."
"You're welcome."
His smile suddenly dropped. "I can't believe this. You came to me to talk about your troubles, and here you are trying to counsel me over mine."
"It's fine. I actually feel a lot better now."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I mean I don't feel completely over it. But I feel a little less lost. It helps talking to someone who's gone through it too."
"I'm glad."
She looked around. "I guess I better get a move on. I have an early shift tomorrow."
He nodded. "Me too."
"Thank you, Tom," she said sincerely.
"Anytime, B'Elanna. And thank you too."
They both smiled at each other again, before she stood to make her way towards the door.
"B'Elanna," he called out to her as she started making her way out.
She turned around.
"I'm really glad you were so open with me. I hope that in a few days time, you don't feel the need to hide that part of you, lest what you say is too Klingon. Your human side. Your Klingon side. There's a brilliant balance there somewhere, but you shouldn't feel the need to compromise one for the other."
She smiled at him. "I can't make any promises for sure, Tom."