Work Text:
"Stay, stay, stay -
I've been loving you for quite some time, time, time.
You think that it's funny when I'm mad, mad, mad -
I think that it's best if we both stay."
- Taylor Swift, "Stay"
/
The dinner at Sandrine's was supposed to have been Tom and B'Elanna's first public event as a couple: a nice, relaxing evening of dinner and dancing, followed by a few drinks and perhaps a stay overnight. Instead the evening had turned tense almost immediately; while the presence of their friends had kept them civil at Sandrine's itself, once they were back at Tom's quarters, the tension escalated into a full-blown argument.
"I already apologized," B'Elanna was saying, arms folded tightly, brown eyes flashing with irritation. "What's the big deal? Just because I was a little late - "
"It was half an hour!" Tom threw up his hands. "That was supposed to be a short repair. What were you doing down there, going through the Jefferies tubes with a micro-resonator?"
"Hey! In case you haven't noticed, that last Borg attack left us with some serious damage. It's delicate work trying to put everything back together, and I have to be there to supervise in case something goes wrong."
"Naturally." He nodded sagely, speaking in a light, casual tone and leaning against a bulkhead as if he were discussing the weather. "And in the meantime, I get to sit alone at a table for two, watching Harry, Lyndsay and the Delaney sisters looking at me sideways and taking bets on whether I'd been stood up."
B'Elanna could picture it all too clearly: Harry stealing glances of concern, that Engineering ensign who was always late for duty cracking jokes at her CO's expense, and Jenny and Megan looking smug as twin cats in cream, as if they would never have treated Tom this way. For a moment, she actually felt sorry for her boyfriend – which made her even angrier. Guilt-tripping was an old trick; Maxwell Burke had been an expert at it, and so had her mother. She refused to fall for it again.
"The Delaney sisters, of course." She rolled her eyes. "Kahless forbid you should look silly in front of your exes."
"That's not what I - "
"What is it you want, huh? For me to come running every time you snap your fingers? You want to put a tracking signal on my commbadge or something? Well, there!"
She yanked the badge off her dress, ignoring the delicacy of the Triaxian silk, and fired it at Tom's head with all her Klingon strength. He ducked just in time, leaving it to clatter to the floor.
Silence fell.
Remorse gripped B'Elanna like the claws of a wild targ. Not because of the commbadge, per se – it was a tiny thing and wouldn't have hurt him – but because of what it meant. She had promised herself never to become that cliché of a Klingon woman: the one who threw things at her mate, who would hurt him with words and deeds just to prove she was in control. Tom deserved better than that. B'Elanna deserved better.
She held her breath as he slowly knelt down to pick up her badge. He held it in both hands, looking down at with a peculiar expression she couldn't read. Something flickered in the depths of his clear blue eyes – amusement? Contempt? Then, without a word to her, he turned and walked out of the room.
B'Elanna's temper fizzled out like fire under a wet blanket, leaving her cold and trembling. This was it. He could see now that getting involved with her would bring him nothing but trouble, and was cutting his losses before it went too far. Their "experiment", as Tom had jokingly called it after the recent eviction of those alien scientists, had come to its inevitable end.
She smoothed her dress with unsteady hands, pushed back her hair, and began to make her slow way to the door … until a warm, bright, teasing voice made her stop in her tracks.
"Just where do you think you're going?"
She looked over her shoulder and saw Tom Paris, with his arms open wide, wearing an enormous round helmet made of warp-core-blue plastic, with a transparent visor over his entire face. He looked like a cartoon character in one of his beloved 21th-century television shows. He was smiling.
"What the – "
"It's a Parrises Squares helmet," Tom explained, tapping the side of it with his knuckles. "Harry's been teaching me to play. Fire at will, Lieutenant. I'm ready."
It was so bizarre, so unexpected, after the rage and fear and heartbreak of only a moment ago, that B'Elanna doubled over with her hands on her knees and burst out into laughter. Tom joined in, grinning behind his visor, hours of tension between them exploding with one harmless puff of smoke.
Once they had both caught their breath again, B'Elanna sat down on a nearby sofa and patted the seat next to her, deeply relieved to still have that privilege. Tom settled down next to her with one elbow on the back of the sofa, leaning toward her with that intent, listening look he often had; as if she were a song he was learning by heart.
"I … I'm sorry, Tom," she said quietly. "I shouldn't have flipped out on you like that. You were right to get mad; I mean, making you wait for a whole half hour … "
"Work is work," he replied, with a shrug. "I get that. It's not like … it's not like you were putting off our date on purpose, right?"
He laughed, but this time, there was a false note in his laughter she couldn't help but hear. He was not the only one learning how to listen. She sighed and moved a little closer, until her bare leg touched the fabric of his trousers. If admitting her own fears was the way to reassure him, so be it.
"If you must know," she said, in brusque, clipped tones to disguise her embarrassment, "I wasn't doing anything on purpose, but … subconsciously, I may have been stalling for time with those repairs because … because I was nervous, maybe."
"Nervous? You?" He raised an incredulous blond eyebrow at her, making her smile.
"Well, yes! First public date and all. I know what everyone on the ship must be thinking."
"And what are they thinking, B'Elanna?"
She cleared her throat and tossed her hair, imitating Jenny Delaney's husky drawl: "Tom Paris could get any girl he wanted. What's he doing with her?"
She blushed. In spite of the false voice, the insecurity behind that question sounded all too real. In response, Tom's smiling eyes became soft with sympathy, and he cupped her cheek in one warm hand to bring her face closer to his.
"What am I doing with you?" he repeated. "That's easy."
He took off his ridiculous helmet and set it on the coffee table, letting his hair stand up endearingly in all directions.
"Yes … ?"
"I," he whispered, his mouth only inches from hers. "Am having the time of my life."
He kissed her softly, wine and garlic on their breath from their dinner, her hands running through his already tousled hair while his hands slipped along the silk of her dress. As new as their relationship was, he already knew just how to kiss her, how to touch her until her nerves sang and her heart thundered in her ears. How did he know? What had she done to deserve someone so delightfully imperfect, and so very right for her?
All she knew, in this moment, was that he was staying – and that she had never been so thankful for anything in all her life.