Part One
Disclaimer: Voyager and her crew belong to Paramount
what Keikimo and I choose to do with them is our own. This story is NC-17 for
sexual content.
B`Elanna Torres stormed through the holodeck
doors, quickly surveying her surroundings. She had been dreading this day for
weeks, hoping that she could somehow manage to skip taking her pilot's
qualification test. But Chakotay had ordered her to take it, and so, leaving
Lieutenant Carey in charge of her precious ship for an hour, she was going to
take it this morning, hopefully making it back to Engineering by lunch.
"Good morning B`Elanna!" Tom called
out cheerily from Ops. B`Elanna whipped her head around at the sound of his
voice, swearing silently in her head. `Chakotay never mentioned *he* was going
to be here...' She thought to herself, already planning a hundred ways of making
the rest of Chakotay's life miserable.
"Shut up Paris!" B`Elanna snarled
in his direction. "It's bad enough that I'm being forced to take this
stupid test without you being so happy about it!"
"My, aren't we just dripping with love
and happiness today?" Tom mocked sarcastically.
"Can we just get this over with before
Carey ruins my engines?" B`Elanna asked, already exasperated at Tom's all
too cheery attitude and his sarcastic nature.
"Can't!" Tom called out as he
punched a few buttons on the Ops console experimentally. "Chakotay's been
called to the real Bridge."
"Argh!" She yelled out and glanced
around to try and find something she could throw. Finding nothing handy, she
started to pace the floor at the back of the Bridge, so determined it looked
like she would wear out the carpet.
"You know, you can practice if you
want." Tom suggested as he watched her pace. She was starting to make him
nervous, walking back and forth, not getting too close to him, but still close
enough that she could vent her anger in his direction.
"Fine!" B`Elanna snapped, stalking
towards the pilot's console. Sitting down heavily in the seat she briefly
fingered the smooth console before whipping back around to look at Tom.
"Well?"
"Well what?" Tom looked up and was
surprised to see B`Elanna staring up at him expectantly.
"You're the pilot here, give me a
program to practice!" She ordered him, turning back towards the console
without a second thought.
As she turned away, Tom had an evil thought.
"Computer, run Paris Epsilon 4." He leaned back against the wall of
the Ops station, unable to hide the huge grin forming on his face.
"Program running." The friendly
computer offered. Swiftly, the viewscreen shimmered as the flight sim was
loaded up. It only took B`Elanna ten seconds to realize that the program Tom
had chosen for her was way beyond her abilities. "Paris!" She yelled
over her shoulder.
"Yes?" Tom asked, an innocent look
plastered on his face, not quite hiding all traces of the grin that had been
there five seconds before.
"Computer, freeze program."
B`Elanna ordered the computer and waited for it's acknowledgment before leaping
out of her seat, advancing towards Tom.
"Come on B`Elanna, it was just a
joke..." Tom protested as B`Elanna continued to advance on him. As he
glanced behind him and saw the two walls of Ops close in on him, he realized
that it probably wasn't a good idea to play a practical joke when you were
boxed in a corner. "B`Elanna?"
B`Elanna didn't respond except to smile slightly
at Tom's obvious discomfort at her rapidly approaching figure. She closed the
distance between them quickly and grabbed Tom's shoulders hard, slamming him up
against the console of the Ops station.
"Look, I'm sorry..." Tom managed to
strangle out an apology, even while B`Elanna still held him tightly against the
console, his back pressed against it's smooth, sloped side, not allowing him to
get any leverage to throw her off. His apology seemed to anger her even more as
she began to repeatedly slam Tom's limp body against the console again and
again. Silently wondering what God wanted to punish him now by sending him
B`Elanna Torres, Tom hoped that Chakotay would be back soon to patch him up.
His hopes were answered when Chakotay
strolled through the holodeck doors, quietly whistling to himself. He expected
to see B`Elanna hard at work, practicing for her test and was surprised when he
spotted the Conn empty. He quickly glanced around the Bridge and was even more
surprised to find B`Elanna and Tom fighting at the Ops station.
"What the hell is going on here?"
Chakotay's strong voice boomed through the holobridge, sounding almost like an
order but still B`Elanna continued to slam Tom up against the Ops console
brutally.
Chakotay glanced at Tom and saw the
Lieutenant's eyes pleading with him to help. Making a quick decision, Chakotay
rushed over towards the struggling young man and the angry Lieutenant hovering
over him.
"B`Elanna, quit it! That's an
order!" Chakotay grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her off Tom
forcefully. Dragging her struggling form to Tactical, he dropped her in the
seat. "Sit there, cool off and don't move!" He ordered, before
turning back towards Ops.
Tom was rubbing his shoulder when he caught
Chakotay's glare. "Uh, thanks Commander." He mumbled.
"What happened?" Even though
Chakotay meant it as a question, his voice, made even stronger by his anger,
sounded like an order.
"She charged at me like some kind of
crazed animal." Tom claimed, pointing towards B`Elanna.
"He's the one who provoked me with an
impossible program." B`Elanna countered, standing up angrily.
"It was just a joke B`Elanna!" Tom
protested. His serious face broke into a smirk as he caught B`Elanna's gaze
over Chakotay's shoulder. "And it isn't impossible, I flew it first thing
this morning."
B`Elanna growled suddenly and dodged around
Chakotay, leaping for Tom. Her dive sent both Lieutenant's sprawling, B`Elanna
landing on top. This time however, Tom was able to move around and he tried to
get the upper hand in their tussle.
Chakotay watched as the two rolled across the
floor. `Damn!' he thought as he stepped in, hauling them both up by their
collars. "Stop it!" He ordered furiously, unceremoniously dumping
B`Elanna in the Command Chair and Tom at Conn. "Both of you!"
"Paris, you were deliberately provoking
Lieutenant Torres." Chakotay angrily accused.
"But Commander..." Tom stammered,
trying to get in his side of the story.
"Save it Paris, I don't want to hear
it." Chakotay snapped at him and Tom promptly shut his mouth. B`Elanna
smirked slightly and Chakotay turned to face her. "And you B`Elanna were
out of line. Provoked or not, you should be in the Brig for attacking a fellow
Officer." Chakotay suddenly felt like he was a mother having to deal with
two three-year olds, both Tom and B`Elanna's behavior bordered on infantile.
After his outburst, both Tom and B`Elanna sat
motionless in their seats, staring at the ground. Taking a moment to calm
himself down, he felt more in control of his anger. "Now what in the hell
possessed you to attack Paris like that?" Chakotay asked B`Elanna, curious
as hell.
"I told you." She said sullenly,
not offering any more information.
"No, you told me what provoked you, but
that isn't good enough." Chakotay argued, on the verge of losing his
temper once again. "Now tell me why B`Elanna."
She ignored the question entirely and
remained quiet, still staring at the grey carpet of the Bridge. Glancing back
at Tom he saw the same shrug of the shoulders and nothing else.
"Fine, if you want to act like
three-year olds, we will." The Commander finally reached the limit of his
patience. "Computer, privacy lock, Authorization, Chakotay 10."
"Lock engaged." The computer
answered primly.
"Now, we are all staying here until
someone tells me the truth." Chakotay took his seat beside B`Elanna.
"Well?" He asked, glowering first towards B`Elanna, then at Tom.
"Don't look at me Commander." Tom
said, throwing up his hands dramatically. "I don't have a clue."
"Like hell you don't." B`Elanna
snarled again but stopped with a glance from Chakotay. He turned back and
stared at Tom questioningly.
"I mean it Commander, I honestly don't
know what she's talking about!" Tom said, his eyes wide.
"Liar." She said simply, her face a
mask of anger and betrayal.
"B`Elanna, believe me, I don't know what
you're talking about." Tom said, pleading for her to believe him.
"Enough! B`Elanna, just tell me why the
hell did you attack him." Chakotay wanted to get to the bottom of the
story, without having the both of them kill each other in the process. Standing
up in front of her, he hoped he could intimidate her enough to talk.
"He's competition." She practically
spat it out in Chakotay's face.
"For what?" Chakotay's mouth just
gaped open with surprise. Out of all the answers he had come up with, that
wasn't one of them.
"Commander, that is none of your
business." She said, rising from her seat to face him.
"Not if it affects your working
relationships Lieutenant." He reminded her, insisting on an answer.
Torres glowered at the both of them for
several minutes before finally opening her mouth. "You." She finally
spat out in Chakotay's face before stalking up to Ops, away from the two men.
Chakotay and Tom stared after her rapidly
retreating figure, then back at each other. "For me?" The Commander
mouthed and Tom quickly glanced down, a blush quickly covering his cheeks. Tom
knew he should never have told B`Elanna about his crush on Chakotay back in the
Maquis, now it was coming back to haunt him.
"Why do you consider him
competition?" Chakotay finally asked, breaking the silence.
"There is no way you could hate each
other the way you do unless other feelings were involved as well." She
explained in a steady voice, her expression rapidly changing from one of anger
to one of resignation.
Chakotay sank back down into his chair,
looking from Tom, to B`Elanna then back to Tom. B`Elanna had her back him, if
it was intentional, he couldn't tell. But Tom was watching him closely, his
eyes holding a look somewhere between betrayal and fear.
"Why didn't one of you say
something?" Chakotay said, still trying to deal with the shock.
"I tried." B`Elanna snarled at him,
hitting the console with her fist. Chakotay guiltily realized that she had
tried once or twice but he had deliberately misinterpreted them. He glanced
back towards Tom who was looking thoroughly confused.
"You hated me." Tom practically
wailed. "What the hell was I supposed to do?"
Chakotay dropped his head into his hands, not
sure what he was going to do. `Actually Tom, the better question would be, what
the hell am I supposed to do?' He thought to himself while Tom and B`Elanna
both stared at each other, each lost in their own private thoughts.