Chapter 6: Beyond recriminations
By the time the Captain comes down to the brig, her First Officer has been in the holding cell for more than four duty rotations.
He has, for thirty-six hours, had nothing to do but turn the week's events over and over in his head. All the while enduring the pained looks of sympathy from the security personnel whom she was forced to post as guards by her own direct order, Ayala refusing on principle to be party to the XO's confinement.
When she lowers the force field and dismisses the guards, they slowly trail out of the room with subtle looks of contempt. It is no consolation to Tom that after years of worrying about the crew's opinion of him, he is now, far and away, the more popular member of the command team.
Approaching the bunk where he lays out, his eyes trained on the ceiling, her face is drawn and her eyes bleak. Her very posture- her very essence- concedes a kind of defeat.
Sitting up from his bunk, he shifts his gaze to her. His blue eyes that once were filled with understanding and loyalty now filled with unremitting rage.
He has no interest in any apology she can offer him. There is no explanation she can produce that will calm the pain that now feels as fresh as when she first called the guards to lead him down here.
"You could have relieved me of duty," she says finally, and in a hoarse voice that's just above a whisper. "I'm sure there would have been. . . support about among the senior officers."
He remains silent, not offering an acknowledgment of her statement; not confirming that her pursuit of Ransom was obsessive and her threat to torture a member of the Equinox crew beyond the pale.
Not bothering to voice the obvious fact that he didn't do so because he feared the effect her being relieved would have on the crew. That he had wanted to avoid the further, more profound danger that doing would be a betrayal the two of them would never live down; their personal and professional relationship stumbling under the weight of countless unspoken recriminations.
As her eyes shift across the cell, unable to meet his piercing glare, the accusation that she threw these same considerations out an air lock in favor or pursing the Equinox rings loudly in the small space, even though he still hasn't opened his mouth.
The irony - the hypocrisy - that she relieved him of duty for protecting the principles she's always espoused, ordering him to be dragged back to another prison, chokes any words his buzzing brain could otherwise form.
As she suddenly looks at him, her grey eyes searching, almost pleading, she desperately wishes he would just shout like he did days earlier. Their argument over her pursuit of Ransom ringing out in the public venue of a corridor.
But standing up from his bunk, Tom remains eerily calm as he smooths the creases from the uniform pants he's been forced to remain in during his confinement.
"Am I to understand that I'm returned to duty?" he asks finally, his penetrating gaze now falling away, as though disinterested in her.
"Yes."
He nods crisply, grabbing for the uniform jacket he's folded up and used as a pillow while held in the brig of his own ship. As he fingers the three pips to make sure they're still in place, the thought runs through both of them that if this happened earlier in their journey, he would undoubtedly be throwing those same pips in her face. Demanding that she promote Ayala, or anyone for that matter, to replace him as First Officer.
But now his sense of duty, this way of worrying after the welfare of the crew, has become instinctive for him. Despite his personal feelings, he won't step down, leaving their officers to further question the competence of their Captain as the XO they still trust abandons his position.
He zips his jacket, straightening out the lines as best he can, before striding toward the threshold of the cell.
"Tom."
He stops at her voice, but doesn't turn around. It isn't so much that he can't bring himself to look at her, but rather that he has no interest in doing so. Because even if he did, he wouldn't see her standing there before him. Not when the swirling images that have assailed his thoughts for the last day and a half are still so very much present in his mind's eye.
All his sacrifices over the last five years, from his personal relationships to the now stinging memory of an ocean planet he chose not to save, asserting themselves one by one to form a long, straight line of anger.
That line bending to frame memories of the last two days. Snatched mental pictures of the steel he saw in her eyes when she relieved him of duty; the muted pain on the young security officer's face as the First Officer she was asked to take into custody summoned a dignity he was once incapable of, declaring to the young woman-and to all who listened- that he knew the way.
And adding the finishing details to collage of his burning sense of betrayal are the parts of their relationship the two of them have never spoken about. All of the questions they pushed away after their experience at the hands of the Srivani. The quiet intimacy they've each come to rely on even in the darkest of hours.
The dark, shadowy image of a raven-haired Devore inspector, and of whom the very thought still immediately summons bile to the back of his throat.
"Tom," she says again. And now her voice almost breaking.
This time, there is no hesitation. He simply places one foot in front of the other, leaving her to stand alone in the place he no longer belongs in.
. . . . .
"How is he?" she asks Samantha Wildman, coming into Sickbay to find the Ensign hovering over Paris' life signs.
"A little stronger," the fair-haired officer nods. "His progress is still slow, but it's getting a little faster everyday."
The Captain nods, sighing as the one-year-old Irish Setter tugs at her pant leg with teeth and paws.
"Do you want to speak with the Doctor? He's on deck twelve right now, but I'm sure he can come back to brief you."
"No," she responds quickly. "I really just came to sit with the Mister Paris. . . I thought maybe having Amelia here might do him some good."
Wildman immediately smiles, reaching down to pet the affectionate animal's nuzzling head.
"I'm sure that would be fine. So long as she promises not to play rough with our patient."
"You're sure the Doctor won't be upset?"
The Ensign smiles at the question, the EMH fussing over Sickbay's current resident even more than his characteristic zealousness requires. All the sarcastic banter between the hologram and the XO quickly and predictably falling away in the face of a real threat to either.
"What the good Doctor doesn't know won't hurt him," Wildman replies with a wink, petting Amelia once more before moving toward the Doctor's office.
As the woman retreats, her Captain thanks the gods, likely for the tenth time, that Tom thought to recommend Samantha as a medic upon Kes' abroad departure from the ship.
This last thought brings with it a familiar wave of pain; one that has replaced her XO's easy conversation as her closest companion, these last three months.
The dull wave is then usurped by an abrupt shooting one deep within her stomach as she approaches Tom's bedside. Though this is the third time she has been to see him since dragging him back from the neurogenic interface that almost convinced him to fly himself into a particle fountain, how gaunt and thin he looks still takes her breath away.
Sitting next to his prone form wile Amelia licks at his pale fingers, Kathryn tries to quiet the worry that it is because of her that he fell prey to Alice. The sentient ship offering him a freedom he's been deprived of, and that deprivation having coming with apparently little reward.
It's something she'll never know the answer to. And the one person who might know has dutifully hidden herself away in shadows of Main Engineering, the haunted expression on her dark features the only clue to the things she might have witnessed inside Tom's mind.
Here, Kathryn's thoughts are distracted as she has to pull at Amelia's collar, the animal trying to climb further onto the bed with Tom.
Even before Alice, the poor creature has profoundly missed her favorite babysitter and daily walker. And many have been the nights that Kathryn has sat silently in her quarters, trying to plow through this report or that, as Amelia whined continuously at the door.
Kathryn forcing herself, time and again, to return to the work in front of her, even though she knows just how her dog feels.
"You're too old to still be whining like that."
His voice is weak, barely audible, but the fact that he's awake at all surprises Kathryn. He's only been conscious four hours in the last three days, and even then he didn't speak.
His moves his head slightly, Amelia trying desperately to lick at his face, and Kathryn pushes the dog firmly away.
"Do you want some water?"
He doesn't look at her, merely nodding, and when she comes back with the water his eyes are closed again. It takes her a moment to realize that's he's still conscious and only resting. She sets the water down beside him while Amelia circles impatiently near her feet.
When he opens his eyes again, his gaze remains fixed on the ceiling, even when Wildman appears to inquire about his physical discomfort. Then the Ensign disappears again, and the two of them are left in the same wordless void they have dwelled in for weeks on end.
The silence, cold and thorny, that has prevailed as he's sat ramrod straight in his chair. Or else as he quit Deck One entirely, in the name of overseeing their new cross-training program, or crew evaluations- or anything, really, that meant he didn't have to sit only centimeters from her.
This silence, painful and yet now becoming so familiar, that has spilled down from the command deck to pervade the bridge, slowly seeping through the bulkheads beneath their feet and saturating all fifteen decks of the ship.
"The Doctor believes you'll be fit for duty by the end of the week."
"Aye, Captain."
The voice is steady but pained. The shame he won't speak of laying open on his face; mixing with the anger and the hurt already there.
"Rest well, Commander."
As she leaves Sickbay, Amelia trails reluctantly behind her. The occasional low whine turning into a mournful cry as the turbolift doors swish shut.
. . . . .
She hesitates as she takes her first few steps into the bar, admiring the program she's never been in before. The workmanship of the interior is impressive, every aspect well-conceived. She runs her hand along a wooden table, the rough grain rubbing against the pads of her fingers, and stands watching him sit alone at the bar.
"B'Elanna," Tom greets eventually, when he finally notices her arrival.
She smiles slightly, cocking her head to the side.
"I imagined Fare Haven as more bustling. Where is everyone?"
"There's a festival today. Everyone's off celebrating."
She pulls out the chair next to him, slides into it and examines the assortment of bottles on display behind the counter.
"I take it you didn't feel like it?" she asks.
"Like what?"
"Celebrating."
He swirls around the amber liquid he hasn't touched, considering both the motion and the heaviness of the antique glass.
"No," he sighs eventually. "I guess I didn't."
She leans over the counter to get a closer look at the liquid offerings, picking up a bottle only to put it down again.
"Didn't you program a bartender?"
When she turns back to him, it's just in time to see a shadow pass over his face. One of many these days, but this one she doesn't understand the nature of.
"He's occupied," he replies finally, sipping the scotch he's so far neglected.
As B'Elanna thinks of ways to ease them back into conversation, she looks around the room once more, taking in the detail.
"I had no idea how good you were at this kind of thing," she compliments. "This place is even more intricate than Sandrine's."
He nods, accepting the compliment, even as his eyes catalogue every bit of holocode he now thinks inapt or simply rushed.
"I've been trying to balance my days with more off time," he explains. "I've always had a knack for this sort of stuff, and this place was the first thing that came to me. It took me two months to write. "
She's surprised by the admission, but also concerned by it. Whether or not he's been trying to relax more, he hasn't spent anymore time with people like Harry or Mike than he did when he was burying himself in work. And as he clearly hasn't been clocking any social time with the Captain, this means he's largely been alone.
"Has this helped?" she asks, genuinely curious.
"Some," he shrugs. "It was nice to have a project. Design something completely from my imagination. Even have people enjoy it, compliment me. But as nice of an outlet as it is. . . it's just that."
She doesn't need to press him, understanding, despite his vague confession, that he's lonely. Because if she concentrates, she can still feel the overwhelming ache of despair that ran through her when she was connected to his mind. His longing tangling in a tight knot with his frustration and his anger. And circling through and around all of that, the long thread of emotions he has for a woman who remains out of reach.
"We never talked about it," she announces suddenly. Surprising even herself.
"Fair Haven?"
"Alice."
His mouth shuts quickly, the expression falling from his face. He'd assumed, with no small relief, she was never going to bring it up. Not after she simply nodded when he thanked her briefly his first day back on duty. Watching her stride back to her engine room faster than usual before he ducked his head and returned to the reports on his deck.
Not understanding as she retreated that B'Elanna was trying to block out the feelings and thoughts that didn't belong to her; pushing away the memory she felt, still so surprisingly clear in his mind, of the thing that stretched between them, before it finally withered and died.
When he doesn't say anything more, she realizes that she's going to gave to be the one to plow through with this. And as much as she's delayed this, as much as she's dreaded this moment, part of her knows that they both desperately need it.
"I thought I was alone in that feeling," she confesses.
He regards her with a look of mild confusion. His skepticism and reservation giving way to an arched eyebrow.
"Us," she supplies, letting out a long breath. "I thought after the Blood Fever fiasco that my feelings were one-sided."
His expression becomes rueful, his face distorting with a mix of regret and something else.
"No," he says somberly, shifting his gaze from the bar to her face. "It definitely wasn't one-sided. . . But I'm sorry if I left you to believe that."
Hearing the past tense out loud is less unpleasant than she would have expected. But then, it isn't as though any of this now comes as a surprise; she touched it all for herself when they were linked. His feelings for her, the attraction. Him constantly pushing all of it down in order to keep pace with a job he felt ill-prepared for.
And then, eventually, a new, more profound affection arising as he was pulled toward someone else. That feeling, too, being repeatedly dismissed and buried.
B'Elanna would be deceiving herself if she said that witnessing it in his mind, from start to finish, didn't hurt her in some measure. But in a different way, it released her, too. She no longer has to wonder what happened between them, or whether she simply imagined his initial reciprocation. She can finally let go of this anger she's been carrying for two years, the one directed inward as well as out.
She taps the bar with her fingers, her face scrunching up in thought.
"So much the better really," she comments. "I would have just been disappointed in the end."
Her tone is that of subtle challenge and mockery. The same one she used to use back in the days when they could still share meals or play brutal games of hover ball.
He sits back in his chair, willing to take the bait even though he knows he'll regret it in just a moment.
"Is that so?"
"Of course," she replies, shaking her head. "I mean that year after Sakari IV, you gained all that weight. And your hairline. . . Well, it's retreating like people fleeing from the mess hall on Neelix's tofu night."
He snorts. Deciding not to even bother feigning indignation.
"Tofu can be delicious," he suggests, adopting a suggestive tone long abandoned.
"I tend to agree actually. . . But then I don't want to take tofu home with me."
His rolls his eyes, but his frustrated look is belied by the smile spread across his lips. She simply smirks as she rises from her chair.
"You're leaving now that you've destroyed my ego?'
"I have faith it will recover. It's proven the most indomitable thing on the ship, these last six years."
"You know, Torres, entire words were invented to describe women like you."
"Oh?" she says, crossing her arms in a posture that normally sends even Joe Carey fleeing. "And what words would those be?"
He smiles, happy that after all this time she still takes the bait without knowing it.
"Amazing. Beautiful. Things like that."
She flushes and closes her eyes. Torn between her embarrassment at the compliments and her annoyance that he's doing this to deliberately fluster her.
"Fine," she says, waving as she turns away from him. "But let's see if you still think I'm all of that when I wipe the court with you in hover ball."
"You're on. When are we playing?"
"Tomorrow. 19:00. Mike needs a partner to play against Harry and I, and I can't think of anyone I'd rather humiliate than you."
He shakes his head again, but allows her to have the last word. Turning around in his seat, he smiles to himself and wonders if Harry's still as bad at hover ball as he used to be.
When he hears footsteps behind him just a minute later, he assumes it's B'Elanna, back for one reason or another.
"Forget an insult you'd still like to voice?"
There's a pause, a complete cessation of footsteps.
"No. . . just stopping in."
The gravelly voice surprises him. His head shoots up to see Janeway dressed in period clothes, her pinned back with a few wisps escaping to fall over her forehead.
As she approaches him slowly, he can see that the sun has kissed her cheeks a bit. It's one feature of the program the Doctor will no doubt yell at him for, but there's no way to explain to the hologram the desire to feel the sun on one's face, the warmth residing there even after one returns home for the evening.
"Have fun at the festival?"
It's a safe enough question, but still more than he's asked her in sometime. She slides into the same chair previously occupied by B'Elanna, appearing to contemplate his question with some seriousness.
"No," she responds finally. "I guess it wasn't really for me."
"Don't care for holidays celebrating obscure Irish Saints?"
She lets out a long breath, her hand trying to tame an escaping strand of hair.
"I don't know that I'm that big on holidays at all, to be honest. . . I think sometimes people dive into them with such zeal as an escape from their everyday lives."
He remains silent. Not sure what to say to this. Not sure if she's really saying what he thinks she's saying.
"But," she continues, cocking her head to the side, "after all is said and done, real life eventually intervenes. . . And as pleasant as an escape is, I've always found reality to be much more rewarding."
As she finishes her statement, she meets his eyes in a meaningful way, an ironic smile playing at her mouth.
It isn't a full confession, he realizes, but likely more than he's entitled to these days. After a moment, he smiles softly, sliding her his drink.
"To reality then," he pronounces, and she raises the scotch, downing the beverage in one elegant movement.
After this, they fall comfortably into quiet. A feeling both of them have missed more than each could or would ever articulate.
"I lied to Ransom," she admits at some point. Her eyes fixed on a whiskey bottle behind the bar.
"You did?"
"Before. . . everything started," she elaborates. "He and I were talking. . . And he asked me if I'd broken the Prime Directive since we've been out here. "
"And you said. . . ?"
"I told him I'd only bent it a few times. But never broken it."
It isn't the truth, even if they squint their eyes. But at this point, Kathryn is past the point of thinking of the Prime Directive as an infallible diving line. Tom isn't sure why it matters to her that she's actually broken it or else why she felt compelled to lie.
"Why didn't you answer honestly?" he asks, this time cautiously.
"I don't know," she breathes, shaking her head. "I think I was worried he wouldn't understand. Afraid of being judged."
He nods slowly, tracing his finger around the rim of the empty glass between them.
"I'm not going to tell you that we haven't made mistakes," he begins. And here her breath catches, grateful that he's still saying 'we.' "But I think for the most part, we should be proud. . . Not only of what we've accomplished, but of how we've gone about it."
It isn't the same pep talk he would given her six months ago, but she thinks it's more than she's entitled to these days.
She leans forward on the bar, resting her face in her hands as she turns her head to look at him.
"I'm so sorry, Tom."
It's not the first time she's apologized, but this time her eyes fill with tears. Even if he accepts it now, the cost of this has already been too high. And though neither one has wanted to calculate it, each of them continue to do so, lying awake at night in their beds.
"I know," he says eventually. "And I'm sorry . . . that I let it get this far."
She shakes her head slowly. She doesn't think any of this is his fault. Worries, too, that he's still blaming himself for things he shouldn't, in the wake of what happened with Alice.
"You don't need to be sorry," she says, putting weight behind her words.
He sits back in his chair, considering the empty glass once more.
"I don't know," he murmurs. "I had good reason to be angry at you. But I think the truth is that I was also angry about things that had nothing to do with the Equinox. . . There have been parts of my life that have gotten trampled under the weight of my duties and I think. . . I think I was partly angry at myself for letting them slip away."
She looks at him softly, the guilt she's long entertained now flaming up before her again.
"I know you never wanted this."
It's only the third time she's said this to him, but it feels like the thousandth. Because it's a thought that's been with her since the first year of their journey, asserting itself again and again over the years, and each time with more force. The pull of it finally becoming overwhelming for her after their encounter with the telepathic pitcher plant, Tom having bounded into her ready room to announce that an old friend had offered him a test piloting job on Earth. The heavy cloud that had clung to him after breaking orbit with the water planet finally lifting, if only temporarily.
After all these years, she realized, he still wanted to be flying.
"No," he responds finally, "I didn't. And for a long time I would have given it all back if conditions had been right." He stops, collecting his thoughts. His face more open than she's seen in a long time. "But. . . I realized after the Equinox that I wouldn't give it up anymore. That I wasn't the same person I was when this all began."
She looks at him cautiously, her doubt betrayed by the lines forming on her brow.
"Duty and desire aren't the same thing," she cautions.
Her stoic statement made more somber by the knowledge, clear if unspoken between them, that she knows this distinction better than anyone else.
"True," he breathes. "But I've realized after a lot of thinking these last six months that all of this is important to me. That I now desire the duty. Even if it's had to come with some sacrifices along the way."
She doesn't respond to this. Still not sure whether the feelings he's expressing really match up with the truth. Whether what he's saying now is akin to the times when she reminds herself, repeatedly and often when standing in her sonic shower, that she wanted to command her own ship. Even if she never anticipated it would be on the other side of the galaxy, without Starfleet support, and with a burden that's often so crushing that she can physically feel it pushing down on her in the privacy of her bathroom.
Her thoughts are broken by the sound of a stifled chuckle beside her. When she looks over at Tom, his head is buried in his hands, his shoulders slightly shaking.
"What?" she asks, curious as to the abrupt shift.
"I. . ." he begins, but he can't gather himself enough to finish.
"What?" Kathryn presses, this time with a smile beginning to form on her face. Tom's laughter has always had this effect on her.
He pulls himself up slightly, looking at her through one eye as he rubs his head with his hands, his amusement continuing if more controlled.
"I've become so starved for a romantic life. . . that I was seduced by an inanimate object."
His statement is dark. A sad testament to the sacrifices they've both made. But the way he voices it, his genuine amusement at the state of things, breaks through all of that.
She smiles more, beginning to chuckle as well.
"You think that's bad. . . I just went on a date with a hologram."
At this, he loses it entirely. Pulling up so hard in his chair that the wooden legs scrape and totter. And the sight of him undone by mirth, coupled with the nature of her own confession, pulls her over the edge as well.
They both collapse on the bar, laughing so hard they can barely breathe.
"Hardly the people the Academy should ask to give a lecture to cadets thinking of switching to the Command track," he comments, eventually wiping his eyes.
"You don't think we'd have something to impart?"
"Oh, I can see it now," he says, rolling his eyes. "A special command school seminar: Surviving Celibacy. With special lecturers Captain Kathryn Janeway and Lieutenant Commander Thomas Paris."
She snorts, further amused by the image. Especially as it's one she can see all too clearly.
"I don't think your father would approve."
She hesitates after she says it, looking at him to gauge his reaction. Even in the best of times between them, his father has been a subject that's largely off-limits.
"Well," he drawls, his mood unchanged. "I don't particularly care if he doesn't. After all, this is all his fault. He's the one who got you to switch to the command track."
The joke appears to her to be just that. There's no bitterness or apparent pain.
She smirks, allowing herself to fall back into the ease of their banter.
"Remind me to write him a thank you note when we get home," she remarks darkly.
"Maybe we can glue his desk to the ceiling?" he offers, as though imparting a secret.
"Or reprogram his replicator with Neelix's recipes."
"Fill that huge fish tank in his office with pudding."
As people pour in from the recently finished festival, she sniggers at his last suggestion, taking a second to come up with even more ways to torture her former mentor.
Crewmembers beginning to stare, some more discretely than others, at the two members of the command team sitting together at the bar. Their voices low between peels of laughter, and the giddy flush spreading across their faces resembling that of children upon discovering the art of dirty jokes.