Disclaimer: All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. I only own my imagination.
Spoilers: Flashback. If you haven't seen it, this won't make much sense.
Author's Note: I have the ambition to keep these coming, but I also have a real life which can mess with me. Tom is whining. Harry doesn't understand. Keep in mind that the Sailing on Lake Como suggestion isn't happening for another 1½ months, Voyager time.
"What happened down on Hanon IV anyway?" Tom asked and sat down on the couch.
Harry shrugged. "A lot – and nothing," he replied. "We struggled a lot, but it was the struggle for survival. It was very important as long as we were there, but here back on Voyager it gets pretty tedious to recapture it." He took a mouthful from the bottle and looked at it as he swallowed. "And this is supposed to be good?" he asked.
Tom sighed. "Yeah, it's supposed to taste well. It has character without any flavours being too dominant, yet it's not bland or too balanced. Think of it as a really good band," he tried to explain. Harry glanced at him with disbelief. "You know, when you have a bunch of musicians that play well together. It swings. This is swinging." He held up his bottle while wiggling it slightly.
Harry chuckled. "I don't know about that." He took another mouthful and tried to analyse the beverage before swallowing it. "It's better than wine," he concluded, a comment which brought out a groan from Tom.
"It's like comparing apples and oranges!" he exclaimed.
"Well yeah, I can taste the difference," Harry pointed out.
"You're supposed to compare wines with wines and beer with beer, not compare beer with wines. This is a typical Bavarian beer, full in taste yet it has finesse. If we were to compare it with... ," Tom paused and waved his hand in the air, "Let's make it really simple. Mexican beers. You could hardly think they're both beers when you try them side by side. The difference is that great. The colour, the flavours, the way it's served, everything is different."
Harry rolled his eyes. "It's beer. It's got alcohol in it. That's primarily why humans started making it."
"True, but that doesn't mean you can't make it taste well," Tom said pointedly. "Personally I prefer pleasant tastes." He had some of his beer before continuing. "So you had to survive, I get that, but something must have happened. Did you gossip behind my back or something?" Tom asked changing subject.
Harry turned his head and eyed his friend. "I don't know what I could have gossiped about. I mean, it's not like a lot of exciting things happen here either. As far as I know Nicoletti is still avoiding you, right?"
"Yeah, she is." Tom sighed. "And quite frankly I don't care much either. It'd be fun to get to know her, but she doesn't strike me as my kind of girl."
"I thought you told me you had a talent for impossible women?" Harry said with a smile.
Tom threw him a dismissive look. "Susan Nicoletti isn't impossible. Being uninterested in a date with me doesn't make her impossible. It just makes her uninterested in a date with me. Impossible is already taken, your direct superior, your father's assistant, that sort of thing," he explained. Harry tried not to snort but was only partially successful. "What?" Tom demanded.
"No, nothing," he replied but couldn't hide his amusement.
"I'll have to live with abducting the captain for the rest of my life," Tom complained.
"She is impossible according to your standards, yet you did whisk her away and you even had children with her. You have a funny definition of impossible, Paris," Harry said. "What makes you think I have gossipped about you anyway?" he asked.
"I didn't really think you actually had gossiped. I was just wondering because... well, the atmosphere had changed somewhat when you came back aboard," Tom said and took a sip on his beer.
"The atmosphere?" Harry raised his eyebrows. "Can you stop being cryptic, please?" Tom sighed deeply and Harry leaned his head back and almost sighed too. Now that was something he was beginning to recognise. "B'Elanna," he said straight out in to the room and turned his head back to look at his friend. "I'm going to start calling her your kind of impossible, because she's soon turning in to it. And no, I didn't gossip about you with her." Harry paused and turned to look straight ahead. "I yanked her chain though, but I didn't think it'd have any lasting effects," he explained.
"You did what?" Tom ejaculated and looked at Harry.
"She was freezing. You know how Klingons can't take cold and she was having difficulties one evening after sunset when we were heading back to camp. I started prodding her, telling her she cared a lot more about you than she wanted to admit, pushing her about it until she got quite irritated with me. It worked and she escaped hypothermia." Harry shrugged. "I mean, I figured what I said is kind of true, but I thought she'd just take it as me saying it to rile her up."
"Oh man! Harry, she's not talking to me!" Tom exclaimed.
Harry turned and gave him a raised eyebrow. "Tom, that's not true. I know you're talking."
Tom turned his head and met his eyes. "Yes, we talk about work, that speech she held on the memorial service, the command training. But we don't talk."
"Well, I guess I must have been very close to truth then," Harry said.
"What did she say?" Tom asked.
"She pretty much said I was wrong," Harry replied.
"Of course she did. So why did she take it the way she did? If it was just a case of denying it?" Tom wondered.
Harry closed his eyes and dug in his memory. The jacket. The tell tell sign. He opened his eyes. "I told her only she knew just how important you are to her but that it's there for everyone to see," he said hesitatingly.
Tom glared at him. "Well, no wonder she's keeping me at arm's length. You know how private she is," he said sourly.
"But I hit a sore spot," Harry said sounding positive.
Tom sighed. "And in what way is that doing me any good?" he asked.
"Are you being extraordinarily stupid lately?" Harry asked.
Tom again glared at his friend. "No, not that I have noticed," he replied with a clipped tone.
"Think about it. I was right. Ms. Private could just as well put up a poster in the mess hall that she fancies Mr. Flyboy," Harry explained with amusement.
Tom chuckled involuntarily at the mental image and shook his head. For a brief moment he let himself actually think about it, what he really thought about it and then he banished it from his mind. There had been plenty of moments lately when he had involuntarily been faced with his own emotions and they were distracting. 'Unsettling, making him unsure', to use the words the EMH had used when he had been coaxing the story about Denara out of him.
"You should ask her out," Harry suggested.
Tom closed his eyes and had a mouthful beer. "Nope. Not gonna happen," he said firmly.
"Why?" Harry asked and looked over at Tom with surprise.
"Because," was the only answer Tom offered.
"That's not an answer." Harry was clearly irritated.
"It was too." Tom kept his eyes shut.
Harry sighed and forced down more of the beer in his hand. He simply didn't understand Tom. "Here's this girl, this very pretty girl, who you get along with well and who obviously like you a lot, and you're just going to throw it away? After all that 'people are going to start pairing off soon and we need to start looking' and dating, you're not even going to consider her?" he asked.
Tom still didn't open his eyes. "It's not that simple, Harry. I wish I could say more about it, but can't."
"I say you're a coward. This really means something, doesn't it? That's why you're acting this way." Harry shook his head.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Tom said coolly.
"I think it's not just B'Elanna who could put up a poster in the mess hall," Harry muttered. "Okay, I give up. For now." He downed the rest of the beer.
"Good," Tom replied with emphasis and opened his eyes.
"I'll head back to my place. I have a few things to go over before it's time for bed." Harry stood and looked down at his friend. "Catch you tomorrow," he said and walked towards the door.
"See you," Tom said after him and emptied the bottle as the door closed behind Harry. He put it on his table and leaned his elbows on his knees, rubbing his face with his hands. Harry wasn't going to let this one slip, Tom knew that. "Damn," he cursed with a mild voice and sighed. He rose and picked up the bottles to dispose of them as he headed for the bathroom.
