Disclaimer: I don't own them, I wish I did, but I don't. Go watch the show and thank the powers that be for a loveable series. Please don't sue me. I'm poor and have nothing better to do with my life.

Author's Notes: Slightly long chapter, incredible cursing and the logic of drunk people. I apologise if it's getting confusing but well done if you've made it this far without reaching for a drink yourself.

Six Legs Too Many

"What the fuck?"

Both Tom and I stand open mouthed in Guest Quarters Alpha.

I don't even know where to begin.

To start with the rarely used quarters were locked with one of Tom's many security codes, which took him at least 15 minutes to remember which one it was after much trial and error of various codes. I should be more surprised that the code was actually "Pancake 3-1-3" but I'm not, not after seeing a seeing a half-eaten stack of them in Tom's rubber plant this morning and knowing what a complete and utter tit he is.

Upon entering the Quarters, we were met with a devastation of furniture that hasn't been seen since Neelix ate some questionable mushrooms on a trade mission and decided to play Jenga with his cabin contents. There are upturned chairs strewn about the room, half torn uniforms on various pieces of furniture, for some startling reason there's an actual bejewelled golden crown and sceptre on the floor by the door, two plates of mostly eaten food on the couch, another empty bottle of cider and a half-melted candle in what looks like Harry's clarinet on the table.

Gotta admit, it's the best use for Harry's clarinet that I've come across so far, but it does nothing to answer questions, it just poses more. Tom starts to venture further into the room, scanning over every inch of it with his eyes for clues. I'm too scared to look, I don't know what happened in this room, I don't think I want to know by the looks of it. Regardless there's a horrible sense of déjà vu that is frightening me.

Slapping my Comm-badge, I figure paging Tom is the quickest way to find his badge in this shit pit of a room.

"Chakotay to Paris."

A warble emanates from the bed, where it looks as though a tap dancing class held its latest recital. The sheets are balled up and…. Shiny looking…

Tom gingerly grabs the sheet with a look of disgust, finding the sheets stuck together and stained with a dark substance before pulling out his Comm-badge followed by what is unquestionably a half empty glass of... honey.

"What the hell happened here?" I ask, not sure I want the answer.

"Apparently someone was shagging Winne the Pooh." Tom replies matter-of-factly, holding the honey aloft.

I point at the bed and start to ask a question with another answer I'm sure I don't want "Who do you think..."

"Well it wouldn't be you really would it, Mr Single-and-ready-to-mingle, unless you have a much kinkier side than I anticipated and an invisible girlfriend." I'm not sure whether I should be insulted or relieved at Tom's reply. "But if it wasn't you, then it was me and that leads to something I don't even want to consider…" He trails off and a new frantic worry seems to set into his face.

"Oh God, say I didn't cheat on B'Elanna, oh I'm dead man, I am absolutely a dead man…" He starts pacing again.

If he has cheated, then yes, he's a dead man, B'Elanna will skin him for a new rug.

"Now wait a second Tom, you don't know that you did, maybe this was you and B'Elanna that… did whatever unspeakable acts took place in this bed." I'm trying to calm him down but I'm frankly rather disgusted with the possibilities of what took place.

"I don't care how drunk we were, B would never be into… honey..." I'm trying not to laugh but this is getting ridiculous. "B's more of a feral sex tiger than a…"

"Yes, thank you..." I cut him off before I hear things I really don't need to. "Maybe you reached a new level in your relationship."

"Maybe you should reach a new level in your relationship Chakotay! Oh, that's right, you don't have one!" Tom spits the words out with a scared fury. I know the man's frustrated, but that stung a bit. It's not from lack of trying to be in a relationship, it's just not as easy for everyone to transition into a full-blown relationship in the situation we're in out here in the Delta quadrant.

"Oh God I must have cheated, why?! Why was I that stupid!?" He rages as he continues to pace "Drunk-Tom is a prick!"

"So is sober Tom." I mutter under my breath, unable to stop myself. If he has cheated, I will personally make sure than B'Elanna gets her revenge and also serve my own revenge for dragging me into this shit show of a day.

"This is bad, this bad, bad, bad…" Tom stops pacing and looks at me directly, full of fear "What have I done?"

"Look, we don't know for sure and jumping to conclusions isn't going to help the situation, there could be a reasonable explanation."

"Reasonable explanation!? Reasonable explanation! There's a golden crown and a pot of honey Chakotay, I'd say we're far beyond reasonable fucking explanation!" Tom flops down on the couch, narrowly avoiding one of the plates of food and buries his head deep into his hands.

Things look bleak. We've just discovered a bear's sex dungeon and we seem no closer to finding out where Kathryn or B'Elanna are, or just what happened last night. The throbbing in my brain starts to become more intense and the effects of the hypo begin to wear off, this has been a most trying of days so far and I fear it's only going to get much worse.

Why can't it be yesterday again? Sure, we were facing a photonic invasion, but it was worth it to see her, her in that dress, her smiling, her….

Damnit Kathryn if I've… If we've… If something has happened to her, I will never forgive myself.

Never.

Why didn't I pick my Comm-badge up the following day? All of this could have been avoided if I had just gone back to my quarters and stayed there. Instead I'm here, in a world of shit.

I was hoping by now I'd know where Kathryn and B'Elanna were, I wasn't expecting a bread-crumb trail to nutso land and I was hoping to avoid using the ships systems to sniff them out, that leaves an inexplicable trail of our deceit and entanglement that would trigger Tuvok's inner-investigator and take things from being a mess swept under the carpet, to a brig ride home to probable court martial. As selfish as it was, I had decided not to leave my footprints in the dust of the ships systems and logs, but I'm going to have to swallow my bitter pill because if she doesn't appear by tomorrow, I'm going to be fucked anyway.

"Computer initiate a scan for Captain Kathryn Janeway's bio-signature." If this finds Kathryn okay, I will happily accept my punishment.

"Unable to comply, Captain Kathryn Janeway is not aboard." It was not the reply I was expecting, as my stomach falls through the deck and my vision begins to blur, I begin to let the terrifying darkness of reality creep in.

In order to initiate a scan outside of Voyager, I need to be on the Bridge, where a whole big o' can of worms will be opened in front of the crew. If Kathryn is not aboard, where the hell is she? We're well out of range of any planetary bodies and when I logged into the command unit this morning, all shuttles were present and accounted for. Also, there would have been a log for a shuttle launch and I'm sure someone would have noticed either me or Tom drunkenly bundling Kathryn into a shuttle and launching her defenceless into space.

Tom interrupts my musing with a long groan of despair.

"Computer initiate a scan for Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres." He squeaks quietly.

"Authorisation required" Tom looks at me pleadingly. Some of Tom's security codes were revoked when he was demoted, not all of them have been restored as of yet and although I want to think this is why the request is being denied, I know that he does in fact have authorisation for a bio-scan, all the crew does. It's more than likely that an individual security lock was placed on her whereabouts entirely, as though someone was covering their tracks of unspeakable deeds, and that someone was one of us.

For ten minutes we both try a variety of codes, but none of them work. "Someone" didn't want her found. "Someone" is one of us.

Scenarios have been rolling around the stormy seas of mind for a while now of what just could have happened.

Scenario 1: Tom in his drunken state, cheats on Torres with someone who apparently likes honey, B'Elanna caught them at it and he disposed of B'Elanna when it all kicked off.

Scenario 2: Tom in his drunken state, cheats on Torres with someone who is a complete degenerate, B'Elanna caught them at it, she takes off in fury and wants some alone time, has cloaked her whereabouts and will be stewing for days until she finally summons the courage to end Paris' life in a display of Klingon rage.

Scenario 3: B'Elanna was cheating on Tom, Tom catches them at it, he disposes of both of them in his rage… But this would mean another crew-member would be missing and only Kathryn is… Unless he caught Torres with Kath… Nope… Can't go there, completely impossible, Scenario three is complete nonsense…. But just the thought will give me enough material to fund the wank-bank all the way home.

Scenario 4: Tom in his drunken state, cheats on Torres with… Kathryn…. B'Elanna catches them, a fight to the death ensues and both Kathryn and Torres cause a black hole in their fury and the universe sucked them in to avoid the complete destruction of the galaxy that their battle would cause. The thought that Kathryn would sleep with Tom is about as likely as finding out Captain Kirk was celibate his entire life… It just isn't happening.

That is all my imagination has conjured so far. And it fills me a depression like I've never known before. Whatever happened last night is not going to have a happy ending for any of the parties involved and I may have lost Kathryn before I ever managed to… before…

"I can't sit in this room forever, someone's going to figure out what's going on sooner or later and the evidence of us all over the logs today are going to be noticed by Tuvok at some point." Tom echoes my own fears.

"Maybe that's a good thing, maybe it will help us find them." As much as I don't want to get into trouble, I want to find Kathryn more.

"And also find the quickest route to absolute doom." Tom sighs deeply with his reply.

"Is there something the Doctor can administer to help us remember last night?" It's worth a try in my opinion to at least ask.

"Not that I'm aware of, nothing that would work for sure, the only thing I can think of is mind-melding with Tuvok and that has to be the last resort, the absolute last resort…" Tom's answer is fair enough, if all roads lead to nothing, we'll go to Tuvok and pray the consequences aren't as severe as I know they'll be. A few more hours and then we'll bite the bullet, but the longer this goes on, the more danger Kathryn or B'Elanna could be in.

"If we did all this, if we were that drunk, we would have known we wouldn't remember the next day." Tom looks at me as he speaks as though he thinks he's onto something "I'm a complete idiot." I nod in agreement and continue to listen as he grows more excited as he talks "I'm an idiot and I know I'm an idiot, I would have left myself clues to what happened because I would know I wouldn't remember." His eyes flare with optimism.

What the fuck is he talking about?

Seriously, Tom Paris logic is completely inexplicable.

"Maybe we're looking at this all wrong, what if these are clues we left ourselves to try and solve this?"

"You're trying to tell me, we left ourselves clues that are completely insane to solve a mystery we created because…?" I wait for him to explain just how any of this makes sense.

"Who knows why you do what you do when you're drunk Chakotay, but maybe these are all hints that we're supposed to follow to solve this."

"And you put mysterious security codes on everything to cover your tracks because that would help you find B'Elanna and Janeway… How exactly? You're talking nonsense Paris." I think he's lost the plot, this is completely insane.

Why would we go to all this trouble? Why would we just start the worst treasure hunt in history? My reply seems to have deflated his optimism as he noticeably shrinks back in his stance, rubs his eyes and starts to bite his fingernails.

"I don't want to admit that I might be responsible for hurting B'Elanna in some way." It's the first thing Tom has said that I fully understand. "If I've done something to her… if she's not okay because of me… How will I live with myself Chakotay, I love her..." The look in his eyes is more than genuine and is a mirror of how I'm currently feeling myself.

I've never doubted Tom's love for B'Elanna, but I've also never doubted how much of an idiot he is but I know he will torture himself for all eternity and so will I.

"It'll be okay Paris, we'll figure this out and we'll find them." It's a real attempt at consoling him, but my lack of social skills makes it difficult to fully express to people at the best of times, especially not when this madness is taking place and I regret not being able to offer him more of an assurance that this will be okay.

"Yeah right…" He scoffs "…And hell might freeze over..." He trails off and then suddenly his eyes blaze with something before a look of pure distress settles on his face.

"What, what is it?"

"I just remember something." He admits with glaring eyes.

"What!? What do you remember?"

"I think I know where B is… and if I'm right, I'm about to be as single as Neelix at a pool party." He finishes his sentence as he starts sprinting towards the door. I follow behind confused as ever and terrified as to where we're going.