Just a possible J/C scene following the events of "Friendship One."

ooo

As expected, she found Tom in the holodeck.

What she didn't expect was the program. He was sitting in twilight on a hillside overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, Actually, an ancient view of the bridge, since there was no sign of Starfleet Headquarters — none of the buildings she knew from memory, that now were just a memory.

He smiled as she sat beside him. "Thought you'd be in Sandrine's," she said quietly.

He shook his head. "Alcohol wouldn't do any good. I'm still numb." She just nodded.

"How's B'Elanna?"

He shrugged. "After the first hour, we didn't have a lot to say. She said she needed to go out, do something physical. Maybe she went back to Engineering. I heard that when she found out about Joe, she wrecked her office."

There was a touch of emotion in his voice that she couldn't decipher and didn't want to contemplate. "We're all angry right now. She was probably frightened by the idea that it could have been you — or that it could have been her and the baby."

He stayed silent for a moment, just staring out at the bridge. "I wanted to kill him. If I could have grabbed him, I would have. I keep thinking that I missed some way to stop him. That I let Joe down." He looked at her, daring a reply.

She reached out and squeezed his shoulder. "If it's any consolation, I wanted to rain hellfire on that planet. Get you and Neelix out and blow them into oblivion. Not very captainly, but there it is."

He nodded in understanding. "I keep telling myself that in the end, we did something good," he offered.

"We corrected something that went wrong long before we were born," she replied quietly. "And we owed it to them to make it right."

She shook her head. "Admiral Hendricks was crowing about all the first contacts we made. But he conveniently overlooked all the losses that came with them. I told Chakotay that our urge to explore doesn't justify the loss of lives. I think I shocked him."

He raised an eyebrow. "Do you believe that?"

She sighed. "I don't know. Ask me after we've been home a few years."

Tom chuckled. "You don't give yourself enough credit."

She snorted softly. "Funny, I say the same thing about you."

"Then we're agreed," he said as he reached for her hand and squeezed it.

"I should go," she said as she returned the squeeze.

He didn't release his grip. "Please stay."

Gray eyes met blue ones in quiet communication … And finally, she nodded and laced her fingers through his.

And they sat in the twilight, taking comfort from the silence, and each other.