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Half an hour ago, they’d been sparring. Properly. Harry going low, B’Elanna swatting him off and levelling a kick at his head that stopped just before his ear, aborting to rest on his shoulder like a foil at the tip of his throat. B’Elanna pinned with Harry straddling the small of her back and both her wrists clamped in his hands next to her hips. Where Harry gets by on form and practice absorbed from childhood jiu jitsu and collegiate mok’bara, B’Elanna matches him with supple flexibility and ferocity that leaves him fairly certain she could wipe the floor with him, if they were going for blood and the safeties would allow it.
Today, she hadn’t even needed that freedom of purpose to lay him flat on his back four times running, and, frustrated, Harry had rolled over on her and they’d begun to tussle gracelessly on like the siblings neither of them had ever had. Still, B’Elanna pins him again, laughing breathlessly. “All right, Starfleet, not that this isn’t fun, but what the hell is eating you?”
Harry squirms. “It’s nothing, B’Elanna, just a lot of time cooped up in Jeffries tubes on deck six for the last few days. The deflector array -”
“Needed maintenance,” B’Elanna interrupts, grinning, “of the kind that your skills are wasted on in this kind of lull in action. You ask me, we should be sending Paris down there with a hyperspanner in conditions like these. Give Wildman’s kid another few weeks, and she’d be able to fly us in a straight line through this part of space.”
B'Elanna's given up on keeping him down, and Harry slides out from under her and grabs his water bottle, leaning against the wall of their holographic ring. He sighs. "So I like to stay hands on. Guilty as charged. You don't expect me to believe Carey needs you breathing down his neck to lubricate plasma manifolds, do you?"
B’Elanna flops gracelessly back beside him and snatches his bottle, nearly draining it. “No,” she admits. “Carey needs me breathing down his neck now and then to keep the fear of God in him.”
“Fear of Torres, you mean,” Harry responds, managing a smile.
“Right,” B’Elanna agrees, not at all perturbed. “But your people do what they’re told because they like you and they know you’re competent. And, sure, sometimes because they know they can take marching orders from you or me, and you’re nicer than I am.”
“B’Elanna,” Harry starts with a frown, no happier with her bent for self-deprecation than he ever is with Tom’s.
She cuts him off again. “Relax, Harry – it’s not exactly like I aspire to ‘nice’ as a managerial style. And yeah, I know, you like to be thorough. I can sympathize with that. But any other time you’d be looking to improve things and leaving the ‘make things run smoothly’ to someone else. Which leaves me with two options: that you think there’s something wrong, which you don’t, because you’d have run it by the captain or I by now, or that you’re avoiding someone. Now, I know it’s not me, since...” She makes a vague indicative gesture. “And I know it’s not Janeway or Chakotay, because by now she’d have asked Tom about it and he’d have asked me. Could be Tuvok, but let’s face it, you’re too smart to expect to get away with that.”
Harry groans, knowing exactly where this line of questioning coupled with that cat that got the canary grin is going. “Can I ask you to stop there, please?”
“You can, but I’m not going to,” she says, handing him a towel. He wipes his face and stays hidden behind it longer than he needs to. “But that all leaves Paris, who’s spent the last week looking at you like you shot his dog. Or Jenny, who you’ve spent the last week looking at like you’d like her to light on fire.”
Harry can’t answer, at first. He’d known B’Elanna would have surmised that he’s been acting strangely because of Tom, but what he hadn’t expected was that she’d have noticed Jenny at all. “Jenny’s my friend,” he argues.
“Right, and that’s...” B’Elanna stops herself. “That’s what I can’t figure. I can see Tom being enough of a bastard to go after her without being worried about anyone else on this ship, but I really did think he’d give you the consideration. I didn’t think you were the type to turn into the green-eyed monster and take it out on the girl who turned you down, either. I still don’t, though frankly I really don’t think she’s your type.”
“I turned Jenny down, B’Elanna,” Harry explains, immediately, and he can almost hear Tom teasing him about how quick he’s been to defend his own pride. “She’s a great girl, really, but I can think of better ways to go than being eaten alive.”
“That does seem to be more Tom’s speed,” B’Elanna concedes, “but it doesn’t explain all of this.”
Harry clears his throat. “Well, I can’t speak for Tom, but all I can say is I didn’t know I’d been looking at Jenny any way in particular.”
B’Elanna stares him down, and while Harry does his best, he ends up ducking his head, blushing.
“You want to know what I think?” she asks, and before Harry can answer she says, “I think Jenny went after Tom to get back at you, and you’re jealous of her.”
Harry’s heart skips a beat then picks back up at double time. “Pardon?” he croaks.
“I think Tom was tone deaf as usual and didn’t realize he’d been blowing you off until he’d already hurt your feelings, and, being Tom, has no idea how to make it up to you. And I think Jenny got to you more than you’d like to admit and you resent her for it. Believe me, I’m not crazy about cleaning up Paris’ mess for him, but you’re both unhappy, and while I might let Tom flounder for awhile and try to figure it out himself,” now B’Elanna’s colour is rising and she’s looking away from him when she says in a rush, “it turns out I really don’t like seeing you upset, even if it is over grade school bullshit.”
Just like that, B’Elanna’s pierced his defenses, because she’s left him an opening he could use to hurt her, if he wanted. He doesn’t – he wouldn’t dream of it – but just like Tom, something like this has to have come at a personal cost to B’Elanna; maybe even more, because B’Elanna doesn’t long for a connection quite the same way Tom does. Tom likes people; B’Elanna’s beholden to typical humanid social needs. B’Elanna has made it possible for him to hurt her solely because she cares about him, not because she’s hoping for some sort of reciprocation, and Harry can’t lie to her in the face of that.
He manages to blink away the first hints of a prickle in his eyes, but his voice is still hoarse when he murmurs, “B’Elanna,” and turns to seize her in a quick hug that she turns fierce and bone-crushing before pulling back, her tight, teasing little smile plastered poorly over something decidedly soft in her expression.
“All right, there’s no need to go all Flotter and The True Meaning of Friendship on me,” she says brusquely. “I just wanted to know whose ears to box.”
“Uh... That’s a pretty long story,” Harry says, sheepish. “And we’ve got to be out of here in ten minutes.”
“Okay, so does that mean ‘back off,’ or does it mean, ‘let me buy you dinner and tell you about it because whatever Neelix had on the go earlier today was goldenrod with green specks?’”
B’Elanna rolls to her feet and offers him a hand, and she’s smiling like she already knows, and Harry takes it, muttering, “And you say I spend too much time with Tom. When did you get so shameless, Torres?”
B’Elanna makes a face. “Right around when dinner looked like overcooked chana dal and smelled like leola root, thanks. Entirely the wrong kind of pungent.”
Harry hasn’t been past the mess since breakfast, and between that and the work out he’s gotten enough of an appetite up that he probably would eat what Neelix had on offer, but he doesn’t want to have this conversation in public and while he enjoys curry, he suspects leola root would lend itself to that purpose even less well than casserole. Neelix’s takes on blander Terran foods are an experience; right now, he doesn’t think he’s feeling that adventurous. So he trails B’Elanna to his quarters, since, as she informs him, her replicator’s in pieces on her floor, abandoned when she came up with a far more practical project concerning the warp core’s efficiency that he suspects is the real reason she’d been bent out of shape by his time working on the secondary deflector array.
They’re still chatting about that by the time Harry’s ordered up a companionably similar meal for each of them – an overflowing cheeseburger for him, a similar pile of fried chicken for her, a beer each, and a mountain of potato salad to be shared, and B’Elanna tilts her head and says, “You know you won’t get anywhere sucking up to me with food, right?”
“You sure about that? They’re your favourites,” Harry points out, though she had to have known it wasn’t a coincidence. Okay, so maybe Tom has made him see the wisdom in being a little more openly ingratiating. “And anyway,” he says through a mouthful of burger, “if I was sucking up, I’d point out that trick you pulled with the warp plasma mix was brilliant. And that we probably can afford to have a contingent from flight control put to cleaning the plasma filters to get the most of it, since I know your guys are busy fine tuning.”
B’Elanna stares at him, then cackles. “I’m not sure who’s the worse influence on you, Harry, I’m really not.”
Harry grins and tries on his best doe eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lieutenant, please forgive me if I overstepped. It’s only that Lieutenant Paris has extrapolated our flight path as far as anyone could manage with our current readings, so with your approval and the Captain’s permission, I thought our time in Operations would be better spent –”
“Okay, enough,” B’Elanna says, chuckling. “Lay it on too thick and I’ll think you’re just trying to get back at him.” She pauses, chewing, careless of the grease smeared on her face and fingers in a way she wouldn’t be in public. “Is that what it is? That you think you need to get back at him for something?”
Harry sobers. “No, no, it’s not that at all. It’s not even his fault. I did something stupid and I need to talk to him, that’s all.”
B’Elanna snorts. “I find that a little hard to believe.”
“Well, how about I promise to fix this, and we leave it at that?” Harry wheedles.
“If that’s what you want,” B’Elanna says. “But if it was going to be that easy, I can’t help but think Voyager’s resident dynamic duo would have patched things up by now. I’ll be honest, Harry, I’m not here on a digging mission and I’ll keep your confidence, but I’m not the only one who’s noticed.”
“Who...? Okay, Neelix, I’m sure,” Harry catalogues, “and probably Chakotay, who no, B’Elanna, I wouldn’t hold asking you about it against... But it’s gossip. Nothing’s happened in weeks and nothing is going to happen for weeks more, bar shore leave on Akritiri, so people talk. And there are still people around here who’d leap at the chance to think Tom’s at fault for nearly anything. It’s just how it is.”
“Yeah, and I’d tell them to keep their mouths shut – and I have – but I can’t help but look at you and think there’s something more to it, Harry. You and Tom, really,” B’Elanna says, making too much of a show of begrudging Tom her concern. “You know how sometimes he looks like he’s trying to get away with scoffing cookies? That’s not the way he’s been looking at you. Honestly, I can’t see you hurting anyone badly enough to deserve the way he’s been looking at you, let alone Tom. You won’t let anyone else say a bad word about him around you, so what the hell could you possibly have done?”
B’Elanna lets off then, chewing pensively, and Harry wonders if it’s a deliberate tactic on her part or his own guilty conscience that makes him say, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
That was a mistake. “Try me,” B’Elanna challenges, pointing a drumstick at him.
Harry drains his half-full bottle of beer in seconds and rises to get another, wishing it weren’t synth. He’s still facing the replicator when he says, “And what if I told you I was jealous of Jenny?”
“I’d tell you to get over it,” B’Elanna replies automatically, “because Tom never stays with anyone for long other than you, and I don’t think you want him to start looking to you for the things he keeps his other playmates around for. And that still doesn’t explain –”
“B’Elanna,” Harry interjects, because if he’s going to say this he’s just going to have to say it. “He has been. Since the first week we were out here.”
“‘He has been,’ what?” B’Elanna demands. “Paris hasn’t got it in him to coerce you by rank, and you’re too smart to stand for it, but he might be that persistent. If you socked him one because he wouldn’t stop coming on to you, he deserved it. You don’t owe him anything for the baby blues, you know.”
“B’Elanna,” Harry says again, and his face is flaming, but it’s not fair to Tom to let her think this way, either. Not when something quite the opposite has been playing on his mind, lately. “If anyone took advantage of anyone else, it was me. When I said it had been a long time… I know you know him well enough now to know how lonely he was when Voyager left port, and I… I didn’t handle things as well as I could have.” Harry clears his throat. “We weren’t the only ones who blew off some steam just after the Caretaker’s Array, but as far as I know we were the only ones who kept at it.”
B’Elanna’s silence could be shock or consideration, and Harry’s willing her not to bust out laughing when she says, surprisingly evenly, “Shit. You’re serious, aren’t you?”
Harry nods.
“Well, I still want to kick his ass,” she concludes. “He can’t have expected you’d have been able to keep things as sport.”
Harry could argue at length, but instead he says, “Wrong again. I think. He’s my best friend. I’m his. It was always going to wind up meaning something. After I was lost in that timestream, he stuck his neck out about as far as he was able, and I knew it, but I was… afraid. He must have taken it as a no. I came back for him, and I couldn’t find the words to say so, not even when he gave me every chance. That was around when he took up with Jenny, because, well, that’s Tom. Can’t have people thinking something might have mattered to him if it didn’t work out the way he hoped. I should have cleared the air. Instead we kept on just like we always had, and I feel like an absolute shit about it. What must he be thinking? That I figure he’s good enough for some fun, but not anything more?” Harry takes a breath. “So look, if you’re really set on cleaning someone’s clock over this, it’s going to have to be me.”
B’Elanna lets out a low whistle, drumming her fingertips on her plate. Harry remains resolutely silent, giving her time to digest. Finally, she looks up and says, “Okay. So instead of Tom being an asshole, you’re both just idiots. You know, I think I might actually like that better, so long as you don’t lose your more practical smarts.”
Harry bites down on a hysterical giggle. He’s spilled his guts enough, and he’s going to keep doing it if he opens his mouth again.
“What I’d really like to know is why you’re telling me this and not Tom. But we’ve covered that, it’s because you’re being an idiot.” B’Elanna grins toothily enough to take any sting the words might carry. “He’s your best friend, and the sex can’t be terrible or you wouldn’t still be having it. That’s everything I was always told humans wanted.” B’Elanna reaches out and raps a knuckle against his forehead, hard enough to make a noise but not enough to hurt. “So fix it. Seems to me you know how. If I’m surprised at all, it’s by how much I’m honestly not surprised.”
Harry gapes. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say about this?”
“That,” B’Elanna says, smirking, “and that you’re absolutely right, we could benefit from getting a working party from flight control down on deck six. Paired up with crew with more engineering experience, preferably. And since I know how well you and Tom work together in a tight spot…”
“B’Elanna,” Harry moans, his face burning again.
“I’m sorry, did you think I was implying something?” she asks, all innocence. Then she laughs. “I’m glad you’re that colour, Harry, or this might be hard to swallow. But I mean it. Fix it by the time you get back from Akritiri or I’m stuffing you in a jeffries tube anyway. Now, enough touchy feely stuff,” she concludes with alacrity, “speaking of idiots, you’re not going to believe what Ashmore tried to do today.”