by Melanie
Naomi rushed back in with a piece of paper covered with a crayon drawing. "For Tommy." She shot her mother a hostile look, clearly daring her to snatch the gift from Neelix.
With Sam too taken aback by her little girl's show of rebellion to react, Naomi's godfather did the only thing he could do and accepted the gift.
Naomi exuberantly hugged his thick middle. "Thanks, Neelix!"
Exchanging a look with the girl's mother, he nodded shortly then left.
-------
"How is she?"
The EMH looked up from his scans of B'Elanna. "She is recovering," he said in his friendliest tone, remembering what Charlene had said about Tom needing friends, not suspicions right now. "Your course of treatment was successful, *Doctor* Paris."
The joke fell flatter than his attempts at humor usually did.
Tom straightened the sheet covering the woman he loved. That was as close to touching her as he would permit himself for fear he would not be able to let her go. And he had to let her go. His head knew that, though his heart was having a tough time accepting the reality of the situation.
"Neelix, Seven, and I are leaving Voyager for a few days. Sunfire's shields are re-enforced against all types of radiation, but we still may need some hyronalin just in case. You had plenty the last time I inventoried Sickbay's supplies. If you could spare some it would save Sunfire from having to replicate it."
"Of course."
As Tom went to get two canisters of the gas from a cabinet, the EMH followed him. "Mr. Paris, I..."
Canisters in hand, the pilot looked at him.
"About what happened here earlier, about your being relieved of -"
"I don't have time to rehash old news, Doctor. I am working under the gun, or rather under threat of nova and radiation." Tom jerked his head towards the patient. "The sedative I gave her should wear off soon. When you explain what happened, be careful. She will not be pleased. I'm sorry I won't be here to take the heat for it, but feel free to tell her she can beat the Hell out of me for this when we rendezvous with Voyager in a five days. Sunfire?"
Tom shimmered out of existence not knowing the Doctor had been trying to make peace with him.
-------
"Your bunks are one deck down," Tom said a few moments later when Seven and Neelix materialized on Sunfire.
For a long moment, they did not follow the man as he entered the turbolift. Even Seven seemed to be somewhat entranced by the ship around them.
Tom had not been exaggerating when he once had said this ship would baffle Voyager's engineers. She was unlike anything either of the newcomers had ever seen before. The only thing indicating they stood on the bridge was the placement of what they assumed was the Helm in front of the main viewer that showed they were traveling through space at warp. There were no Science stations, no Tactical, no Ops, not even a Captain's chair. Only a spindly-looking console and a chair in a room of pale amber walls and darker
amber carpet.
Confused by the spartan surroundings, they finally moved into the lift. The instant they were inside it moved of its own accord.
"Remember Sunfire is sentient," he told them. "If you want something just say so and she'll make it happen or help you do it."
As the lift stopped and they stepped out, Seven cocked her head. "Is that why there are no stations other than the one we saw?"
"No, Seven," he countered, leading them down the corridor. "When this ship was designed, it was just like Voyager or most any other ship. It had a pre-programd computer who did some of his own thinking, but could not be considered sentient by any means."
"And *he* didn't mind being talked about as though *he* were not here," Sunfire good-naturedly complained.
"Of course he also was not temperamental," Tom shot back at the ceiling with a straight face.
"Humph."
"My quarters," he said nodding towards a non-descript door as they passed it. "And these will be yours, Seven, and yours are the next door down, Neelix."
The door opened automatically as Seven approached it. Inside was the Borg alcove they had beamed over so she could regenerate during their time away. The remainder of the quarters were as bare as the Bridge had been.
Tom preceded her inside and gestured to the dark amber, diamond shaped panel on the wall to the left of the doorway. A little smaller than his hand it bore no markings. "Throughout the ship you'll see these. They control drawers, counters, consoles, chairs, and so forth that are hidden until needed. If you wish to call them up manually, place you hand near it and it will light up and offer you your choices."
He demonstrated by touching the uppermost tip of the diamond and a section of one wall "dissolved" and a closet and drawers appeared. Touching the right hand tip made a bunk slide out of another wall. Fascinated, Neelix leaned closer, his eyes narrowed as he attempted to decipher the markings.
"That language is unfamiliar," he remarked.
"Sorry. Sunfire, can you switch to Earth Standard, please?"
The display metamorphosed into something the Talaxian could read.
"I was not familiar with that language either, Lieutenant," Seven announced. "What was it?"
"AlphaOmegan Standard."
"You have your own language."
Tom shifted away from the diamond and the words vanished. "Yes. If you'll excuse me, I'll get us underway. Come up to the Bridge once your gear is stowed."
At his rapid departure, the former Borg turned to the Talaxian for an explanation for their host's departure. He did not seem interested in offering her one; he was too busy looking pensive. Seeing he was not going to be helpful, Seven made the bunk retract and strode over to the closet to hang up spare outfit she had brought with her.
Without a word, Neelix wandered out and across to his temporary quarters.
-------
"Paris to Voyager. We're ready."
Listening to the audio transmission, Janeway settled back into her seat on her Bridge. "Good luck then and watch out for Gherop. We'll see you in a few days."
The conversation ended without another word. On the main viewer Sunfire broke off from her parallel flight path with Voyager and shimmered out of existence as she went to warp.
Not for the first time, the Captain wished Starfleet did not prohibit cloaking devices and the power drain not so considerable that they too could install one on Voyager. It would cut down on the number of altercations they found themselves in.
Sighing, she put those thoughts behind her. Once they had the parts they needed, they could complete the repairs, begin the alterations in earnest, and be back in the Alpha Quadrant without any further need of a cloak. A smile broke out on her face at the thought of home.
Unfortunately, some of the Bridge crew noticed the smile and misinterpreted it.
By the end of the day, practically everyone on board had heard the supposition the Captain was as happy to see the back of Paris as everyone else was.
-------
At that very moment Sunfire left, B'Elanna awoke. Before she opened her eyes, she wondered at the iron taste in her mouth.
Tom's blood.
She ran her tongue over the inside of her lips then over the lips themselves. Yes, that was what she tasted. She felt the familiar rush of heat she experienced whenever their lovemaking had shifted from the gentle, "human-style" as she secretly had named it, to the fiercer, "Klingon-style" during which breakage of furniture, body parts, and certainly skin was not uncommon. Those times almost always ended with the quarters they were in looking a shambles and she and Tom with fresh bite marks on their cheeks and
elsewhere.
Automatically reaching out for her lover, she encountered nothing but air to one side of her and more of the same to the other. Groaning, she pried her eyes open and was in for a bit of a shock.
'Sickbay?' she thought. 'What am I doing in Sickbay?'
"How do you feel, Lieutenant?"
She turned her head to see the Doctor standing a meter away
, watching her. "What happened?" she whispered in a rough voice.
He outlined what had brought her there and how she had been cured.
B'Elanna blinked at him and seemed to become slightly more lucid. "Repeat that?" she asked, with little inflection.
Slowly, he explained it all again. This time she seemed to understand.
All things taken into the consideration, she took the news of Tom's method of saving her life rather well. The explosion the hologram had expected did not materialize nor did the signs of wild desire for her mate. The elevated hormone levels were present, but not uncontrollable, and her actual response was to stare calmly at him, thinking, for a long moment then to close her eyes without comment.
"It was the only way to save your life, Lieutenant. If there had been another way to save you, I think he would have been the first to advocate it. He knew you'd be angry at his doing this, but your life was on the line and there wasn't-"
"When can I leave Sickbay?"
"Your readings are all pretty much normal now so-"
Slowly, she sat up and swung her legs off of the side of the bed.
"But you're to go to your quarters and rest some more. I don't want you back on duty until tomorrow."
"I have too much to do."
"It will have to wait, Lieutenant. You're not cleared for duty until tomorrow," he repeated for emphasis.
Refraining from the grumbling she wanted to do, she pushed herself off of the bed, had to steady herself for a moment, then started for the door.
"And if you want Lieutenant Paris..." He checked the computer. "He just left on Sunfire so you'll have to wait until he, Seven, and Mr. Neelix rendezvous with us in a five days."
B'Elanna heard only the first part of the Doctor's comment with its double entendre as she exited. Did she "want" Tom Paris? Yes, she did yet her mind was able to exert some control over her biology and deny her what she wanted until she figured out whether her head wanted him as much as the rest of her did.
'I need a clear head,' she thought, stepping into a turbolift and calling for her deck number. 'I need time to think about everything that's happened with Tom and Raven and-' B'Elanna stopped. 'Raven.' Before she had ended up in Sickbay, she had not been able to think of Raven without a surge of frustrated sexual desire. Now she felt only a frustrated *murderous* desire over what he had done to her and to Tom.
'As soon as we get to the Alpha Quadrant, Tom and I are going to make him wish he'd never messed with us,' she vowed.
-------
Harry rang the door chime twice then overrode the lock and entered the quarters. Once inside he found a clearly muddled B'Elanna standing in the middle of the sitting area.
"B'Elanna, what are you doing in here?" he asked quietly, trying not to startle her. "When I went to Sickbay, the Doctor said he'd released you only a minute earlier and you were going to your quarters, but when I check I find you here in Tom's."
"I don't know why I'm here," she confessed in a small voice, still not looking at him. "I was in the turbolift, on my way to my deck, when I started to think about getting revenge on Raven for what he did to me and Tom. The next thing I know is I'm here thinking I have to see Tom and to thank him for saving me." She turned her head and looked around the room. "He's not here, Harry."
"He and Neelix and Seven left on Sunfire a few minutes ago, B'Elanna. Seven and I found a moon with a deposit of yatelite and they've gone to get some."
"Oh."
"B'Elanna, are you okay?"
As she finally looked at him, tears welling up in her eyes, she shook her head.
Harry crossed the distance between them and took her in his arms. Gratefully, she wrapped her arms around his torso, burying her face in his jacket front. "B'Elanna, from what I overheard the Captain and Chakotay say, you were very sick. You need to get out of here and go back to your quarters and rest. Being in here, thinking about him, is the last thing you need."
"I need Tom," she whispered hoarsely. In the war between her body and her head, the body was edging out in front.
"No, you don't. You're better off without him."
She jerked away and glared at him through her tears.
"B'Elanna, you said so yourself. After everything he's done, you didn't want anything to do with him ever again."
"I know what he's done! My head knows, but my heart doesn't seem to care. To it, he's still my mate and will be till we die."
"But I thought you two hadn't taken the Blood Oath."
"We haven't, but we're still bonded. No matter what he's done, we're still mates," she cried and collapsed onto the couch, face in her hands, sobbing.
Harry knelt in front of her, hands trying to comfort her by rubbing her back. She dropped her hands and leaned into his shoulder, arms going around him again.
"Why am I like this?" she cried. "I'm never like this."
"You've been sick. Everybody, even you, can get emotional when they're sick."
They stayed like that, with his quiet reassurances interspersed with her tears, until long after Harry's knees began to protest.
-------
Neelix tapped the control to cause the bed to appear and set his large case on its surface as soon as it slid out from the wall. To his mind, he had not brought much with him. There was just a change of clothing, his pillows, the blankets his mother knitted for him, and the selected works of Jurex. Only what he felt he needed to ensure his comfort. He released the catch on the case to remove the items and was confronted with the drawing Naomi had wanted him to give Tom.
He stared at it, debating, for a long moment then he opened a drawer in the wall and laid the picture inside, out of sight.
-------
"Yes, I'Nu?"
The Gherop clerk hurried up to his superior's desk. "Voyager is about one interval's travel away, E'Arte."
The male who held all of Rachar in a tight-fisted grasp smiled. "And the preparations?"
"Will be complete by the time they arrive."
"Good." He returned to his reports. "Oh, and pick out another random dozen to execute in the main square."
"E'Arte?"
The dark grey eyes lifted once more. "As an example."
"But you ordered a dozen executed as an example just yesterday."
The eyes narrowed. "Are you getting soft on the Rachar, I'Nu?"
"No, E'Arte," the younger Gherop hastened to clarify. "I merely was thinking of the workforce. Given T'Do's last communiqué about production falling behind even further-"
"I am in control here, not T'Do."
"But-"
"If I give you an order, you carry it out. You will leave production problems to me. Once we have Voyager, the Verta will not be around to cause any more setbacks. The rebels will be crushed and we finally will be able to get back on schedule."
"Yes, E'Arte."
As I'Nu left to reluctantly carry out his superior's order, E'Arte glared at Zji who was standing quietly in a corner until needed.
"Get me some more of the Afga fish from my morning meal."
"I will have to go to the market for more," she said softly. "It only stays fresh for a short time and what was left is spoilt by now."
He would have liked to have had a good shout at her for that, even though it was something that was beyond her control. The bleep of the communications console on his desk prevented that. With a jerk of the hand, he indicated she was to go and he answered his call.
-------
A wrapped bundle of Afga fish in her basket, Zji slipped in and out of the crowd of on- and off-duty Gherop and their Rachar slaves. Seeing how her people were being used and abused caused a dull ache in her hearts, however it hurt most of all at times like this, when she walked amongst them.
Her mind flew back to the stories her mother had told when they both had been together in their hiding place with the others, safe from the Gherop soldiers who searched for them. Then, in a time seemingly like eons ago now, Zjna had told her of the time before the Gherop came
with their false offers of friendship, before they seized power and the dark times for the Rachar began.
"All of you are too young to remember when Rachar last was peaceful," her mother had told her and the other children nestled in their makeshift beds in the dimly lit cavern. "Back then ours was a mostly agrarian society. We were without a single person still alive who had firsthand memories of the last war fought on our world. All remembered the horror of war through the stories kept alive so none could forget. At least that was what we thought."
She had sighed heavily. "We Rachar had become complacent over the intervening years. We had begun to assume peace was a right, not a privilege. The stories of our past became just that -- stories. They ceased to be real to us so when the Gherop came, we were not on our guard. We believed their lies because we naively assumed they were telling the truth. The thought anyone might be anything other than what they seemed never occurred to us. By the time the Gherop revealed their true purpose, it was too late."
Straightening her already aristocratic bearing, she had given each of the children a look filled with determination and resolve. "But we no longer shall be complacent. We shall overcome the invaders and be a free people once more. Even if it means only one Rachar is left alive to see it."
Zji had loved it when her mother was like that, animated and with a voice full of strength and confidence. It had made it easier for her to "see" her mother as the beauty she had been before her body had been broken and her lovely face scarred. It also made the stories Zji's bodyguard at the time had whispered to her in private about her legendary mother seem all the more plausible.
'And I will not fail you,' she silently renewed her long ago made vow and wandered off to find her contact to pass along her data crystal of information.
-------
"Vorik?"
The young Vulcan jerked as Lieutenant Carey caught him staring into nothing. "Yes, Lieutenant?" he responded, straightening his posture.
"What is it?" Joe asked. He watched the ensign remove a newly replicated part from one of the Engineering replicators and add it to the pile the crewwoman he had just relieved had been erecting. "It's not like you to be daydreaming."