Look After You - Chapter Eight
"When you smiled at me I felt many things. Like lust and fear and dreams." Elisa, New Kiss
He was looking at her intently as she laughed. He wasn't frowning or giving her disapproving glares, instead his eyes were locked onto hers, and if she didn't know any better she would say he was marvelling her.
She stopped laughing. "What?" She furrowed her eyebrows. "Do I have something on my face?" She brought a hand up to her face, but could only feel dried blood from her previous cut.
"You should laugh like that more often, Torres," he said gently. Before she could question what he meant, the expression on his face changed. He stood up. "Come on, let's go and look around," he said, holding his good hand out to hers.
She took it, giving him a confused look. He didn't look at her directly and she decided to ignore what he said, not sure of its meaning. "Are you sure your fragile bones can take it?" she asked instead. "There are a few stones about. You might trip up and break your ankle."
He rolled his eyes, playfully. "I'm sure my extremely inferior human genes and I can handle it," he told her. They started walking, though at a slow pace that Tom's still injured form was comfortable with.
"Does this place remind you of anywhere?" she asked.
"It just seems like one of those M-class utopia-type planets," Tom answered.
B'Elanna disagreed. The extremely warm weather, the smell lingering in the air and the scenery all reminded her of something, but she couldn't remember what. It didn't really matter. She decided to enjoy being outdoors breathing real, fresh air. It might be a while before she experienced this again.
After several minutes of walking, the heat was starting to get to her. She felt more comfortable than she would have with her uniform jacket still on, but would feel even better when Voyager finally decided to come and get them.
Tom stopped suddenly stopped walking. "Hey, do you hear that?"
B'Elanna stopped too. "Hear what?" she asked, thinking he might mean the sound of someone about.
"I can hear rushing water. Or what sounds like it."
"You mean like a river?" She listened again. There. She could hear it too.
"Maybe. Come on, let's find it."
She followed Tom, and moments later came across a clear, running stream.
Tom practically collapsed at the sight of it. "I've never been so happy to see water in my life."
B'Elanna knelt down on the grass alongside the stream, and pulled out her tricorder.
"It's definitely good old dihydrogen monoxide, with no trace of any toxic chemicals so it's safe to drink."
Tom gave a cry of joy, before taking out his canteen from his belt, and placing it in the stream.
"Do you need a hand?" B'Elanna asked, as she watched him awkwardly do it with one hand.
"Nope," he answered as he managed to fill up his canteen, whilst spilling a lot of water back into the stream in the process.
She did the same; savouring the feeling of the cool water running down her throat. She placed her hands in the water, and brought them over her face. She sighed in satisfaction.
Tom watched her with a grin. "Hey, I know what this place reminds me of."
She looked at him. "What?"
"That planetoid we came across when we were in the Badlands. We came across a stream like this, and if I recall, someone drowned and had to be rescued."
"I'm surprised you remember. That was ages ago."
"B'Elanna, I always remember the incidents where I save attractive women in distress."
B'Elanna's eyebrow shot up at the word 'attractive.' But it had been no secret back then that he'd been attracted to her, if the constant leers were anything to go by. Although back then, he went after anything that claimed to be female, and she wasn't sure if he had changed in that aspect.
"Rescue women often, do you?"
"Well you know I am a regular superhero."
Superhero. She tried to think what one of those was. She seemed to recall that they were something children on Earth were really into. Men who wore silly costumes and pranced around a lot, perhaps? That sounded like Tom.
"I never told you that I was trying to play a trick on you, did I?"
"You were?"
"Yeah. I can hold my breath underwater for a lot longer than humans can, and I thought I'd try and ruffle your feathers and make you think I'd drowned. I wanted to wipe that annoying smirk off your face. But then that cascade of rocks in the stream caught me, and I ended up downing anyway."
Tom laughed. "And that is why you shouldn't play tricks on people. They end up backfiring."
"Really? Well, I hope you listen to your advice often, Tom. Because I'm not the one who hordes tricks up my sleeve, like a Ferengi with a shuttle full of gold."
Tom gave her an innocent look. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
They both smiled and looked at the stream, remembering back to the day of her accident.
Kahless, that feels like a lifetime ago, she thought.
"You couldn't stand me then, could you?" he inquired.
"That's putting it mildly. You rubbed me up completely the wrong way. You were this annoying, cocky and arrogant bastard."
"Why thank you."
She shoved him gently.
"Do you think I've changed?" he asked, his face completely serious.
She looked at him for a while. "I think you're changing and that's what matters. Like I said before, I think you've spent so much time hiding who you really are because you're afraid people won't believe that you're that person anymore. You spent so much time generating a façade of what you think people expect you to be, that somewhere along the lines you started to believe that's who you really are."
He cocked his head to the side. "How can you tell?"
She shrugged. "Just a feeling. Do you believe it?"
It was Tom's turn to shrug. "I'm so used to everyone believing the worst of me and being that person they think I am, that I can't remember a time of ever feeling different."
"I can see how hard you're trying to win the respect of everyone, Tom. And it's working."
"Am I earning yours?"
"I think the incident in the mines really made me respect you a few particles more."
"I'm glad," he said softly.
"Me too."
They lapsed into silence for a while.
"You know, I made a promise when we came back from the mines," Tom suddenly announced.
"What kind of promise?" she asked, thinking that maybe it was a silly kind of promise.
"That I'd try and keep you safe, so you never get hurt like that again."
She looked at him in surprise. "I don't need looking after, Tom," she replied softly. Any other man and she would have bitten their head off for even implying that she needed protecting, but there was something about Tom's gesture that made her heart beat a little faster. And that shocked her.
"I know. You can take on an army of Cardassians single-handedly and win. But that doesn't make me want to look out for you any less. I couldn't protect you when we were in the mines, even though I tried. And I don't know- I just need to know that I can protect you from something like that again."
"I don't hold that incident against you. It wasn't your fault, and you don't need to try and make it up to me."
"Let me, please? Call it a male macho thing, but it will make me feel better if I could."
She rolled her eyes. "Fine," she answered. "But if you expect me to play damsel-in-distress any time soon, you're going to be waiting a while."
"Oh, I know I will," he retorted with a smirk.
Their gazes locked, and she noted the way his face was lit up: big grin on his face, and his eyes shining with an intensity she hadn't seen for a while. She couldn't help but feel slightly unnerved by that gaze, but found she couldn't pull away from it. There was something riveting about his eyes, and the way he was looking at her was sending a strange sensation through every one of her nerves. His expression grew serious, and before she knew it they instinctively drew their faces closer together, so their lips were almost touching…
"Voyager to Lieutenant Torres and Paris, do you read?"
They jolted out of their daze, both surprised about what they were about to do.
Tom cleared his throat. "Paris here."
"Are you both all right?" Came the captain's worried voice.
Tom cast a glance at B'Elanna, who was trying to suppress a blush. "We're fine," he answered.
"I'm glad to hear that. Prepare to beam aboard."
Tom cast a final glance at B'Elanna, before they were both beamed back to Voyager.