Work Text:
Stardate 49390.7
Tom sat on the edge of the biobed, his feet dangling almost childlike, but his mind full of adult remorse. He had to get out of sick bay. He was acutely, excruciatingly conscious of the captain’s presence. His skin seemed to burn whenever he sensed her eyes on him. ‘ How does she do it?’ he wondered. ‘How does she just take everything in her stride?’ He was familiar with her professionalism, but this seemed extreme. Captain Janeway. Restored. As if nothing had ever happened. His former lover. The mother of his children. ‘ Oh god.’
***
The moment Tom was out of the medical gown and back in uniform he fled the room without a backwards glance. He didn't dare meet her eyes again, despite what she'd said to him. Not that he wasn’t grateful for her efforts to smooth things over. But no polite exchange of words was going to make up for the horror of knowing what they’d done.
He needed an outlet. He needed to talk. He needed a friend. The anguish of knowing about his experience with the captain was eating him up inside.
“Computer, location of Harry Kim?”
“Harry Kim is on the bridge.”
‘Damn. He must be working late.’ But on second thoughts, that was probably for the best. If Tom was cringing at the situation, Harry would be ten times worse. He needed a more robust confidante.
“Computer, location of B'Elanna Torres?”
“Lieutenant Torres is in her quarters.”
Tom spun on his heel, heading for the nearest turbolift.
***
B'Elanna was in the middle of getting changed when her door chime rang. She finished pulling on her sweater, and it looked odd with her uniform pants. She surveyed herself in the mirror, shrugged and went to answer the door. Her visitor was impatient, and the chime was already sounding again as she approached the door.
“Hi B'Elanna,” mumbled a downbeat Tom as he brushed past her and found himself a seat on her couch.
“No, come in, I insist,” B'Elanna said to the empty corridor outside her door, before pointedly turning to look at Tom. “So, the Doctor released you, I assume. Or did you finally break out of sick bay?”
“He gave me and the captain a clean bill of health.”
“Well,” said B'Elanna, cautiously, “that's good. You had us worried for a while back there.”
Tom had his head in his hands. Alright, it had been a rough ride breaking the warp ten barrier, but he’d come through it and she had expected a little celebration from him, at least.
“So I guess I owe you-”
“Don't, B'Elanna. Not now.”
“Okay …” She moved to sit by him, confused by his mood.
“Tom, you just achieved the impossible. Aren't you even a little pleased about it?”
“I've got other things on my mind right now,” he murmured, looking at his own feet.
“Alright. Do you want to talk about it?” B'Elanna was at a loss. She'd never seen him like this before. It was such a contrast to his usual easy-going manner, the confidence that could border on brashness, his childlike enthusiasm for flying and engines. He turned to her, but struggled to meet her eyes.
“I did something really bad, B'Elanna.”
“During the flight?”
He nodded, dragging a stressed hand through his hair.
“Was the captain involved?”
The same gesture, even more tense.
“Do you know why you took her on the flight?” This was one of many events that had been puzzling B’Elanna. The hyperevolution from the first flight had been a completely unexpected aftereffect. And no one had been able to explain why Tom had kidnapped the captain and taken her to a far-flung planet.
“I don't know, I think … instinct, maybe,” he shrugged. “It’s hard to remember clearly.”
“But she’s fully recovered, too, right?”
“Yes. The Doctor’s happy with her recovery. And she very graciously let me off the hook for everything that happened.”
“Well that all sounds positive,” said B’Elanna, her concern building. “So what's the problem?”
“Have you read the mission report?” he asked, and she could see it wasn’t a genuine question, as if he already knew the answer.
“No,” she replied simply.
“And you won't be able to. The files have all been locked. The contents are only known to me and the captain, the Doctor, Tuvok and Chakotay who rescued us, and Wildman who did the xenobiology work. Everyone involved has been sworn to secrecy.”
“Why?” B'Elanna knew that that was not the usual protocol.
“Promise you won't tell?”
She nodded earnestly, simultaneously concerned for Tom and burning with curiosity.
“Something happened on the planet with the captain when we were hyperevolved. We-” Tom bit back the words and a blush spread across his face. “We mated. There were three babies with us when we were recovered.”
B'Elanna stared slack-jawed at him. Whatever she had been expecting, it hadn't been that.
“You can’t be serious,” she managed at last.
“Unfortunately it’s true.”
“You had children? With the captain?”
“Uh huh,” he nodded, miserably.
“Fuck,” B'Elanna exhaled. “Where are they?”
“Still on the planet, having a wonderful time. In their swamp.”
She shouldn't laugh. It wasn't funny. It was terribly serious. But she couldn't help herself, and the final straw snapped when Tom uttered the word swamp. Despite her best efforts, a snort of laughter burst forth. She clamped down on it, but her mirth wasn't damped by Tom's piercing glare.
“Let me get this straight,” B’Elanna gasped. “You slept with the captain? When you were both lizards? In a swamp of all places?”
“It’s not funny, B’Elanna! How do I ever look her in the eye again?”
“You’re right. Any man should be ashamed of choosing a swamp for a first date.” And she was lost to peals of laughter again.
“Have you quite finished?” Tom glared at her, determinedly not catching on to the joke.
“Sorry, Tom. But I mean, c’mon. Talk about bog standard.”
“You’re missing the point! Swamp or no swamp, I slept with Captain Janeway! How do I go back on shift knowing what’s happened between us?”
“Yeah. It’s a shame you didn't suffer from a reptile dysfunction. Could’ve saved you a lot of trouble.” She tried to hide her snorts of laughter behind her hands.
“B’Elanna!” But by now Tom didn’t know whether to protest her attitude, or groan at her terrible pun.
“Were you the insti- gator?”
He pretended he didn’t hear that one. “I told her I couldn’t remember the … events. And she said that sometimes it’s the female who initiates mating! Can you believe it?!”
“And was that true? That you don’t remember your first ‘date’. In the swamp?”
Tom rolled his eyes at her teasing. “It’s mostly true. I don’t remember the details. I was perceiving them with a different brain, after all. But I remember the emotions, the sensations. It’s pretty embarrassing. I almost jumped off of the biobed rather than talk to her in sick bay.”
He looked over to B’Elanna, who was biting her cheek in an effort to calm her laughter.
“Anyway, I didn’t challenge the suggestion that maybe it had been her idea. Although even the notion that my boss wanted to sleep with me is a bit awkward. But not as awkward as the thought that I might’ve initiated things. Still, I let her have the last word. I had to, really.”
“Yeah, it’s practically sala-mandatory.”
“B’Elanna, I’m begging you to stop!” But her barely-repressed giggles were starting to become contagious and a small smile, an acknowledgement of the absurdity of their experience, started to bloom on Tom’s face. “God, I hope we’re busy for the next few weeks. Can you imagine how excruciating it’ll be if I have to make small talk with her?”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. You know how much work she has. She’s usually swamped. ”
“B’Elanna!” Again, his protest fell of deaf ears. She probably couldn’t hear him over her now raucous laughter.
“Well, thanks for the sympathy,” he said, with grudging gratitude.
“Hey, what are friends for?” She said, cheeks aching and eyes shining with genuine affection. “You know, it’s probably best not to make too big a deal out of it all. It’ll be easier to get past it if you treat it as the absurd situation that it is.
“Look at everything that’s happened over the last few days, B’Elanna,” he replied. “I made history by breaking warp 10, I experienced accelerated evolution, I died, I revived, I kidnapped the captain, we both hyperevolved, we mated, we had offspring, we were rescued and restored. I can’t wrap my mind around it. Maybe it is best to consider the whole thing as if it were a bad dream.”
“More like a warped dream. Face it, Tom, the situation you’re in … it’s as if you got blind drunk at the office party and screwed your boss.”
She’d managed to coax a chuckle from Tom, despite him still looking somewhat bemused at the turn of events.
“I hate to admit it, but you’re right.”
“You know it, Tom Paris.”
“Mind you, I did expect a little more sympathy from you. Especially considering the fact that it was all your fault to begin with.”
“All my fault, Tom? I think that’s putting it too strongly …”
***
10 Weeks Earlier
B’Elanna returned to the table, having retrieved their drinks from Sandrine at the bar. She slapped them down in front of Tom, and a wave of beer crested over the top of the glasses, dowsing the table.
“Hey, be careful!” exclaimed Tom, raising his arms and trying to shake the excess liquid from his newly-soaked sleeves.
“I’m sick of your whinging, Paris.” Her words were harsh, but they were said with a good-humored smile. “If you’re so frustrated with never having a new ship to fly, then go ahead and design one.”
“Come off it, B’Elanna.” He rejected the notion out of hand, taking a sip of beer. “I fly the ships. I don’t build the engines.”
“Oh, I see. You’re not up to it, You don’t have a good enough grasp of the engineering principles.”
“I wouldn’t say that, I just …” He paused, eyeing her with suspicion. He noted the way she was looking at him, her expression goading and amused. “I see what you’re up to. You’re trying to provoke me into doing this because you want a new project.”
“Not provoke you, no. Not exactly. I tell you what, let’s make a bet.”
“A bet?”
“Yeah. I bet you can’t come up with a completely new engine design. Something that’ll get us home a little faster.”
“Like what? Break the warp barrier?” said Tom, snorting at the preposterousness of his own suggestion.
“Well, I was thinking more like a co-axial warp drive, but sure, if you’re laying down the gauntlet: I bet you can’t design, build and test a warp 10-capable engine.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Such a quitter,” shot back B’Elanna, with an exaggerated look of scorn.
On one level, Tom knew this was banter. But his ego was a little bruised at the prospect of not accepting her wager. And when he really started to think about the challenge involved, his enthusiasm took over. “Okay then. You’re on. Let’s reassess all that theory. Put it into practice. So what do I get when I win?”
“Your name in the history books. What do I get when you fail?”
“Let’s have each other’s grunt work as a forfeit. If I win, you have to do all the shuttle maintenance for a month. And if you win, I’ll take the cleaning of the engine manifolds, or whatever other torture you can dream up for me.“
“You’re on,” she says, and her face lights up with an enthusiasm matching his own.
They shake hands on it, and Tom sits back with his beer, mind already buzzing with possible approaches to the problem.
“It’ll be nice to get my teeth into a new project,” he says. “Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?”
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