For Rossy

PART SIX

When the entry chime to his office sounded, Chakotay shuffled the data padds on his desk into a new intricate pattern and took several deep, calming breaths before instructing the computer to open his door. It was a question of priorities, he told himself, and although he felt that his anger and worry over the change to the duty roster was justified he couldn't allow it to spill over in this first conversation of the morning. He had to separate the two issues and deal with them in turn. Allowing his concern over Tom to affect the way he dealt with Gerron would be both unprofessional and unfair. He'd deal with this first problem and then confront the person who was the true source of his annoyance.

"You asked to see me, Sir?" 

He looked up wearily, took another deep breath, and then relaxed his face into a welcoming smile. "Come in, Tem. Sit down. This isn't official. You aren't in any trouble. I just want to have a word with you, off the record."

Gerron looked both relieved and confused, chewing his lower lip uncertainly, his eyes a wary swirl of guilt and fear. He sat down stiffly, his right leg trembling a nervous tattoo against the floor as though he was struggling with the urge to run back out of the room. 

"I received an extremely worrying report from the Doctor this morning," Chakotay continued. 

Gerron blanched slightly but his eyes hardened into defiant anger and he straightened in his chair.

"He had no right to tell you," he spat. "My visit to him was confidential and my medical records should be sealed."

"They are," Chakotay agreed. "Which is why our meeting is off the record. The Doctor didn't breach your confidence by reporting the incident to a superior officer. He spoke to me in my unofficial capacity as ship's counselor and as your friend. He didn't show me the medical records. Neither did he tell me the specific details of your injuries. What he did say, however, as one colleague to another, is that he feels you require some form of relationship counseling."

Gerron's mouth twisted into a sneer. "With respect, Sir, that's a load of self-justifying bullshit. I'm within my rights to make an official complaint about this breach of my privacy."

"You're right," Chakotay agreed, and tried not to smile at the bewildered expression that replaced Gerron's previous defiance. "Since your injuries weren't life threatening and were clearly the result of a sexual encounter, one that you insisted was consensual, you had every reason to believe the Doctor would respect your privacy. By reporting the incident to me, he overstepped his authority and betrayed your confidence."

"Then, if you know that, why am I here?" Gerron demanded.

"Because, regardless of the uniforms we're wearing, you are *my* responsibility, Tem. I didn't drag you out of a Cardassian POW camp just so some Starfleet bastard could get his jollies by knocking the shit out of you. Since you're clearly incapable of good judgment in your personal relationships, I'm warning you now that when I find out who put you in Sickbay I'm going to damned well put them in Sickbay myself."

"You don't have the right to interfere. You made me wear this uniform and accept all the shit that came with it. You can't have it both ways. I can't live by Starfleet rules *and* be subject to Maquis censures. I've checked it out. As long as they're consensual and don't affect the running of the ship, Starfleet officers have no authority to interfere in relationships between crew members."

Chakotay sighed heavily and raised his hands in a gesture of peace. "This isn't about censuring you, Tem. It's about looking out for your best interests. Even if I could believe this was a valid lifestyle choice on your part, rather than the result of the abuse you've suffered in the past, you don't have the emotional maturity to handle this kind of relationship with someone."

"I'm not a kid anymore. How many years is it going to take before you accept that I've grown up? If I fuck up on duty I'll get my ass kicked the same way as any other crewmember. If I have the responsibilities of an adult I have the right to expect to be treated like one in my personal life. I'm not going to apologize for my choices any more. I'm sick of pretending to be the person you want me to be instead of the person I am. I've tried to live by your rules, Chakotay, but I'm tired of pretending what I want is wrong and I'm not going to do it anymore. I like rough sex. Deal with it."

Chakotay rubbed a hand over his face tiredly. "Tem, I'm not arguing with any of the points you've made. You have the right to express your sexuality in any fashion you choose. I've never suggested that a desire for 'rough sex' is necessarily 'wrong'. What concerns me is that your reasons for choosing that form of relationship are rooted in your past and that leaves you open to abuse. I understand your reasons for wanting that kind of relationship with someone. My concern is for the motivations of whatever person would agree to buy into your fantasies. I don't care what Starfleet rules you want to hide behind. I won't stand by and see someone take advantage of you."

To his surprise, Gerron laughed. It was a sound tinged with as much bitterness as humor.

"You just don't get it, do you, Sir? I hate to disillusion you, but if there's any abuse in this relationship it's on my part not his. I'm not proud of myself but I'm not ashamed enough to stop."

"I don't understand," Chakotay admitted.

"I've found someone who can give me what I want and I've learned exactly what buttons to press to make him do it. *I'm* the one in control, not him. I'm the one taking advantage. If you want to feel concern about anyone, don't waste the feeling on me. Save your sympathy for him. He had no idea what he was getting into with me and now I've awakened that need in him it's too late. He didn't even know he wanted this kind of relationship until I woke that desire in him. So stop thinking of me as a victim here. If there's anyone you should want to beat up over this it's me, not him."

Chakotay studied Gerron for a long time, absorbing his words, readjusting his perceptions of the situation in view of Gerron's comments and the hot, shamed flush of his cheeks. He'd been so sure that some predator had discovered Tem's weakness and pounced upon it that it had never occurred to him that Tem might have initiated the relationship. He ran the scenario through in his mind. Tem was physically gorgeous, a lethal combination of innocence and sexuality. He could see how someone might have become ensnared by that innocence and then found themselves helpless to resist Tem's enthusiasm for 'rough sex'. He had been known to play those types of games himself on occasion. The problem was that he didn't think Tem was capable of showing good judgment in the situation and the idea that his chosen partner was an inexperienced player rather than a manipulative predator was, in its own way, even more worrying than the idea that Tem was a victim.

It meant that possibly *neither* of them knew what they were doing and that was a sure fire way of the situation escalating out of control.

The Doctor had described Tem's injuries as being evidence he was involved in a seriously dysfunctional relationship. If the injuries had been a result of punches, Chakotay wouldn't even entertain the idea of trying to understand the abuser. But teeth and fingers rather than fists had caused the damage. Savage bites and clawing nails. The kind of damage that would have led him to suspect B'Elanna if not for the fact that Tem's 'lover' was obviously male. The type of damage that suggested that someone was seriously out of control in sexual situations.

The fact that it was the first time that the Doctor had reported similar injuries forced him to contemplate the possibility that Gerron's claim to have 'awakened' that sexuality was correct. He was beginning to suspect that Gerron wasn't the only victim here and he also had a sinking feeling that he knew the identity of Gerron's 'lover'. 

He sighed heavily.

"I'm sorry, Tem. I let my eye off the ball with you. I should have forced this issue a long time ago. I should have insisted you accept counseling when I first realized you had a problem. Now it seems that I've not only let you down but that I've possibly allowed someone else to get hurt too. Who is it, Tem? Who are you involved with?"

Gerron's eyes flared with alarm and he gave an almost hysterical chuckle as he shook his head firmly. "No way."

"Look, I know I started this badly by saying I'd put him in Sickbay," Chakotay acknowledged, with a wry smile. "All I really want to do is have a quiet talk with him. You've just admitted that he didn't know what he was letting himself in for when you started this relationship. You've obviously tapped into something inside him that he hasn't faced before and I think he probably needs someone to help him come to terms with the feelings he's now experiencing as a result."

"Maybe," Gerron acknowledged grudgingly. "But even if I trusted you not to punch him in the face, I don't trust you not to try and talk him out of sleeping with me. Besides, you're the last person he'd ever confide in."

Chakotay's niggling suspicion suddenly coalesced into certainty. 

"So it *is* Tom Paris," he said and the vehemence of Gerron's immediate panicked denial was enough to confirm the accuracy of his statement.

Fuck. That opened more questions than it answered. He'd assumed Gerron had just tapped into the darker side of one of the crew but now he had to consider the possibility that Gerron really *was* the abuser in this relationship. Tom had probably been feeling lonely enough to accept a relationship on whatever terms it was offered and in trying to give Gerron what he wanted, Tom had obviously unleashed something inside himself that was so desperate and hungry that it had emerged in the form of an uncontrolled animalistic savagery.

What was even more disturbing about the image was the way his own cock stirred at the idea that Tom was transformed into a ravaging beast in the bedroom. There was something disturbingly hot and erotic in the idea of Tom discarding his cool blond perfection with his clothes and descending into a creature controlled only by his basic instincts. 

Instead of the image repelling him, it was surprisingly alluring and with that attraction came a new certainty; such a creature was far too dangerous to be let loose with someone as vulnerable as Gerron Tem. A beast like that needed to find a mate who would meet that unbridled passion with equal ferocity, not with Gerron's mute passivity.

"You can't do anything about it," Gerron announced suddenly, his eyes flashing with defiant anger. "You can't interfere. It's none of your business and if you try to stop me seeing him I'll report you to the Captain."

"Really?" Chakotay drawled, his face expressionless although he was both hurt and infuriated by Gerron's childish threat.

"He's mine and I'm keeping him," Gerron insisted, unaware that both his comment and his pout was just re-enforcing Chakotay's belief in his emotional immaturity. 

Something dark and dangerous stirred inside Chakotay, something that Gerron had sensed himself in the past, something that usually lurked quietly under Chakotay's calm exterior but that never truly slept. Something that spoke in a sibilant whisper inside his head as it presented the obvious solution to the problem of Gerron's unsuitable relationship.

"I'm not going to stop you seeing him," he said quietly, and smiled internally at Gerron's relieved sigh.

He's not yours, little boy. He never was and he never will be. I don't have to stop you seeing him, because you're not what he needs and he'll discover that himself soon enough. 

He's mine.

He just doesn't know it yet.

"Can I leave now?" Gerron asked.

"Of course," Chakotay agreed absently, too stunned by his own unexpected thoughts to say any more. How had he moved from sadly accepting that Tom would never forgive him to a bold, gut-deep certainty that Tom would be his lover? Was this the reawakening of his old desire for Tom, goaded back into life by jealousy, or was it a new interest sparked by Gerron's revelations? He wasn't sure. All he knew for certain was that the image of Tom's unbridled passion had struck a deep resonance inside him and that echoes of his spirit walk were now drowning out his surroundings.

Echoes of the dark clearing, the supine form of the dangerously beautiful black cat lying on the branch above his head, and then a different echo, one of a true memory, Tom's shaky voice on Caton as he described his dream. "I dreamt I walked to the edge of the forest and got eaten alive by a pack of vampiric wildcats. One of them ripped my throat open and then they all took turns to drink."

What did it mean? Had Tom taken his own spirit walk on Caton? Was that where this strange attraction between had truly begun? Had their few disastrous days together on that planet opened the door to this new understanding he had of Tom's nature? It was that image of the cat that resonated through him; the recognition that beauty could conceal strength as well as weakness, that what appeared soft was only a mask of sharp claws and shining fangs.

That was Tom Paris. He saw it now. Not a treacherous coward but a man who had unfairly worn that designation without ever losing his pride. Not the pretty, spoiled playboy who had sold out his Maquis colleagues but a man strong enough to face life in a maximum security prison rather than sell out the people who had abandoned him to capture.

He had imagined that it was Tom's beauty that had always entranced him and he'd angrily turned away from the attraction, cursing himself for being shallow enough to physically desire a man he couldn't like or respect. Now it was Tom's strength that lured him, the hidden depths of steel that underlay that pretty exterior. For the first time, his fantasies of acting upon his desire weren't images of 'taking' Tom but of meeting him as an equal in a clash of two titanic natures. 

Perhaps, if he was honest, he'd always before had an arrogant assumption that, if he were to 'lower' himself enough to act on his desires, he would have found Tom to be a willing and subservient participant. Now, when he finally understood the gross injustice of assuming that acting upon his desires would be an act of weakness on his own part, he was far less certain that Tom even had the capacity for subservience. 

Tom was an enigma to him now. All of his previous assumptions, based on misinformation and surface impressions, had proven to be wrong. The man he had been ashamed to desire didn't even exist. What remained in his place was a man that Chakotay didn't even know but it was also a man he now wanted without shame or pretence. Tom Paris was an intriguing package, all wrapped up in the flesh he had desired for so long, and although he was still unsure what he'd find if he unraveled the layers to reveal Tom's soul he knew, without doubt, that he wouldn't have found Tom inside his Spirit Walk if Tom weren't meant to be his.

He felt a small pang of guilt at Gerron's relieved smile, but suppressed it impatiently. The point of this conversation had been to save the young Bajoran from an obviously unhealthy relationship. It was irrelevant whether the solution he'd come up with was to his own benefit too. It was equally irrelevant that he had no idea whatsoever how he was going to seduce Tom. He had no logical reason to believe that Tom would ever let down his guard enough to even become his friend, let alone his lover. Tom hated and resented him, and with good reason. 

Deep inside he *knew* that Tom Paris was his. The real question was how he was going to prove that to this new and dangerously unpredictable Tom.

It was time now to face the person he really wanted to talk to this morning. It was time that Kathryn Janeway explained why she'd changed the duty roster without consulting him. Why was Baytart flying the ship today and why the hell was the computer insisting that Tom Paris was no longer on board?

~#~#~#~

Tom fired the aft thrusters to compensate as another red eddy collided with bone-jarring impact beneath him. Then, although his hands were flying over the console with inhuman speed to correct his flight path, he mentally settled back to enjoy the ride as the unstoppable force of whirling sand-laden tornadoes met the all too stoppable object of a Starfleet shuttle.

It was fun.

He'd almost forgotten what fun felt like. 

Fun felt like this; the pitting of himself against the universe without even a fraction of a second of time to waste on bemoaning the fact that he was facing the challenge alone. Or maybe *that* was the reason it was fun, despite the near suicidal maneuvers necessary to even attempt such a fool-hardy landing on such an inhospitable planet. No passengers meant no risks, either to them or to himself. Sadly it also meant no witnesses to the brilliance of his flying but then he wouldn't have dared show his abilities like this in front of an audience. Fun was finally getting the chance to test his limits without the fear of discovery. 

There was no time for him to second-guess his choices. He had to trust his senses and allow his body to react instinctively to the danger. He was finally able to use the bonus of his strange adaptations without the normal restraining fear of discovery that kept him wrapped tighter than a coiled spring on the Bridge of Voyager. Here he had to accept and use the changes within his body and that lack of choice was strangely liberating as he wrestled the shuttle down through the storm.

He wondered, vaguely, whether Gary Mitchell had ever had fun.

Even with his enhanced senses he knew the landing was touch and go. He was flying blind through the swirling dust clouds that obscured the surface of the inhospitable planet. His ability to see clearly in darkness was little help when the darkness was a wall of wind-swept sand rather than a simple absence of light.

Yet he had no choice except to trust his own senses. The shuttle sensors had gone off-line as soon as he'd entered the planet's atmosphere. The shuttle's internal gravity had failed seconds later and the craft had spun ass over tit all the way down, with only the harness strapped around his waist keeping him in his chair. The warning klaxons were telling him he was currently flying upside down, which he knew was possibly true, but since they were also saying that he'd had a warp-core failure and a hull-breach, both of which were patently figments of the computer's imagination, he figured it was safe for him to assume that it had suffered a nervous breakdown and was just spouting whatever gibberish it could think of to prevent him from attempting the landing.

If he'd been flying with a companion he would have aborted the attempt. The shades of Caldik Prime were lurking in the back of his consciousness, adding their own screams of protest to those of the computer. Alone, he was either too fired with adrenalin to consider the possibility of failure or he simply didn't care about whether he survived or not.

He was too busy trying to survive to dwell much on whether he subconsciously wanted to die. He tabled the internal discussion for pondering at greater leisure if and when he made a successful landing. So he tuned out the warnings and landed on instinct alone, relying on no more than a 'feeling' of where the surface lay and trusting on his inner ear to tell him that he wasn't landing the shuttle on its roof.

"A cat always lands on its feet," he muttered to himself, absently, as the shuttle's runners slammed down a little too hard on the desert floor and slid to a bumpy halt.

Instead of the satisfaction he'd expected, he felt numb. Almost as though he were disappointed. As though his decision to disregard the on-board computer's insistence that landing on this planet was impossible hadn't been inspired by bravado but a far darker instinct. 

Tom shook his head in weary negation of his own thoughts. He wasn't suicidal. He was just tired. That was it. He was exhausted. He hadn't slept properly for weeks and he'd just wrestled a shuttle to an impossible landing and the reason he was incapable of even feeling a sense of satisfaction was that he was too damned tired to even care. He was even too tired to worry about what was happening on Voyager during his absence and the fact that his mind hit a blank wall whenever he tried to imagine his return to the ship was probably just another symptom of that weariness.

He'd replicate himself something to eat. Something sweet and sickly and comforting and let the taste of the confection slide over his tongue in the hope that it would eradicate the ghostly bitter, metallic taste in his mouth that no amount of toothpaste or mouthwash seemed capable of shifting. 

Then he'd try to sleep. He'd go lie down on one of the bunks and ignore the poisonous wind wailing around the shuttle and ignore the temptation to slide the door open just a little to test whether the computer had been as inaccurate in its assessment of the planet's lethal atmosphere as it had been in its assessment that landing was impossible.

He'd sleep and, if he were lucky, maybe he wouldn't dream *the* dream. The dream that he'd dreamt for two nights running now. The dream he'd woken from sweat-drenched and exhausted, his body insisting that it hadn't slept at all despite the foggy confusion of his brain. Maybe his sleep wouldn't find him prowling through the corridors of Voyager in desperate search of whatever something he needed to satisfy a hunger he couldn't even name. A hunger that always left that strange, metallic taste in his mouth and a deep ache in his groin.

Perhaps this time he wouldn't wake with the strange, disjointed images in his brain that felt too much like impossible memories.

That he suspected *were* memories.

It was hot inside the shuttle. According to his tricorder, the planet's atmosphere was over 60% carbon dioxide creating a natural greenhouse effect. Although only a small amount of light from the system's star could penetrate the surface through the thick sand clouds, that light produced heat radiation that was absorbed into the rich atmosphere, turning the planet into an arid dessert too hot to sustain any life. Heat that was penetrating the shields of the shuttle and turning its metal walls into an oven.

Tom was beginning to feel like pot roast. Which reminded him that Chakotay was a vegetarian. 

It figured.

Too hot. Uncomfortably hot. Hotter surely inside the shuttle than it was on the surface itself.

Maybe he'd open the door seal just a crack. Just enough to take the edge off the stifling heat inside the shuttle. Just enough to help him sleep.

~#~#~#~

"What about away mission protocol?" Chakotay demanded angrily.

Kathryn sighed into her coffee and momentarily regretted the day she'd turned her back on pure science in favor of the Command-track. She was beginning to feel more like the mother of a hundred and fifty over-sized children than a Starfleet Captain.

"I didn't send Tom on a 'mission'," she explained wearily. "I just gave him an excuse to get in a shuttle and fly away from Voyager for a couple of days. This whole sector is unpopulated and, since the only interesting readings our long-range scans have detected are on a demon-class planet which he obviously can't land upon, I expect that all he's doing is flying around in circles, wasting energy resources and having one hell of a good time."

Chakotay narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"Did you tell him the reason for his unexpected 'holiday'?"

"Of course."

"I see," Chakotay said disapprovingly.

"No, I don't think you do," she snapped. "This wasn't his suggestion, it was mine. He isn't running away from the situation. He didn't want to leave. I asked him to. It's better this way."

"For him or for you?"

"For all of us. It gives everyone a couple of days to get used to the truth about Seska before they have to deal with the other implications of our discovery. With Tom off the ship there's less likelihood of a mob-mentality brewing amongst the crew. I don't want guilt over the way they misjudged Tom to become anyone's excuse to act stupidly in this situation. If he's not here to witness any grand gestures, people are less likely to perform them."

"Tom deserves everyone's apologies," Chakotay argued, his tone more weary than combative.

Kathryn gave him her own weary smile of commiseration.

"Of course he does, but he's waited long enough to hear them. A couple of days won't make any difference to him but they might make a hell of a lot of difference to this crew. By the time we meet up with the shuttle I want the Seska situation resolved."

Chakotay was silent for a while, his eyes reflecting his inner turmoil, and then he sighed deeply.

"I suppose the truth is I just don't like to think of him out there on his own," he admitted. "On the other hand, maybe a little time by himself is just what he needs at the moment. This thing with Seska has opened up a lot of old wounds for him. It's also going to change his life on Voyager in a dramatic way. Maybe it's as well if he has a couple of days to adjust to the idea before he has to face it." 

~#~#~#~

Tom looked at the display on his tricorder and gave a whoop of excitement. Dilithium, dialloscilicate and heptoferranide. 

Dilithium Crystal.

He conveniently ignored the voice in the back of his head that was reminding him that only two hours earlier he'd decided the tricorder was a fucked-up piece of junk that could neither tell the difference between oxygen and carbon dioxide nor accurately gauge temperature since he wasn't even wearing an environmental suit and he was feeling perfectly comfortable as his explorations took him several kilometers from his landing site.

He was having no difficulty breathing, he hadn't melted into a pool of slime and, except for the return of a gnawing hunger in his guts that no combination of replicated foodstuffs could settle, he was feeling fine.

Well, except for the terrible lethargy that kept creeping up on him whenever he lost concentration on his self-appointed mission and allowed his mind to drift instead. Every time he allowed himself to think about Voyager, he had a moment of panic swiftly followed by an intense feeling of exhaustion. It was as though his mind would de-clutch and slip out of gear if he didn't force himself to stay in the immediate present. The same thing happened whenever he gave too much consideration to the fact that it was supposedly over 200 degrees and yet he had only a light coating of perspiration on his body. 

Any attempt at introspection and he simply ground to a halt, swaying on his feet, eyes blank, heart thudding, until a wave of weariness rippled through his body. He'd shake his head in confusion and initially struggle to gain momentum once more. But once he'd taken one torturous step, the next would come easier and the following step easier still, and then he'd be back to a rhythm, pacing easily over the arid landscape, taking readings, looking for the site the interesting mineral deposits that had first drawn the Captain's attention to the planet. Until the next time he allowed himself to wonder how the hell he was doing it at all.

Except he suspected that he wasn't.

Maybe he was dreaming it all. Perhaps he was still lying on the bunk of the shuttle while the poisonous carbon dioxide crept through the open door and smothered him in his sleep.

So he wasn't going to think about it. He wasn't going to question the anomaly of having to believe the tricorder was faulty while accepting the current display in front of his eyes was legitimate. It was a dream.

But a pleasant one.

He'd hit pay dirt. A deep vein of crystal that ran so deep under the planet's surface that nothing less than professional mining equipment could normally have extracted it. On this hell-hole planet, however, one mother of an earthquake had ripped a deep gouge into the bedrock and the crystal vein was lying exposed half-way down a ravine reminiscent of the Grand Canyon. 

That was the good news. Theoretically, it would be possible to use no more than hand-held phasers to cut usable chunks of crystal directly out of the exposed vein. The bad news was that he couldn't see any practical way of the crew doing so. The Dilithium crystals were situated almost two hundred meters below the cliff-edge and Tom had enough experience of rock-climbing to know that the vicious sandstorms that whipped through the canyon made the idea of attempting to climb down the rock-face sheer stupidity. The idea of dangling on a rope was precarious enough without being buffeted by gale-force sand-infused winds. Even if the ropes held, the jagged rocks would rip an environmental suit open and the climber would be exposed to the lethal atmosphere.

He froze for a moment, as his mind attempted to reconcile his own ability to breathe with his absolute knowledge that no human *could* possibly breathe in this atmosphere. Froze so completely that even his lungs forgot to work and then he was wheezing and gasping for breath, convinced suddenly that he couldn't breathe the air here after all. A moment of heart-thudding panic and then the almost euphoric return of the gentle numbness that allowed him to fog his emotions and drown the strident voice in the back of his head that was screaming at him to wake up.

Tom didn't want to wake up. He wanted the Dilithium Crystals, even if they were just figments of his imagination.

Flying to the site was impossible. There were no ledges wide enough for a shuttle to land on, even if it had been possible to fly one that close without one of the slip-steams dashing it against the cliff. Transporting someone to the site was equally impossible. The transporters wouldn't work through the planet's atmosphere.

Enough power to fly them home ten times over was laid out like a banquet, half way down the cliff, practically *begging* to be mined and he knew that the Captain would arrive at the planet, take one look at the site, sigh heavily with disappointment, and order Voyager to move on.

So he had no choice. He was going to have to return to the shuttle, replicate ropes and pitons, and climb down the cliff to collect the crystal himself.

He was damned sure Gary Mitchell had never done anything like that.

Maybe the rope would snap as he climbed and he would plummet to his death on the ravine's floor. 

The idea had a feeling of inevitability about it.

Go on, admit it to yourself. You *wanted* to crash the shuttle. Why the hell else would you have even considered attempting to land in a hellhole like this? You *wanted* to get yourself killed and since you fucked that up, you've just found another stupid fucking way to get the job done.

He suspected it was his mind's way of telling him that the carbon dioxide had already crept into his system and now it was pushing him towards a way of reconciling his dream with his physical death. Perhaps the idea of his body being smashed to unrecognizable pieces was his way of accepting that not even his body would return to Voyager now. No other person would be stupid enough to attempt a landing on the planet just to retrieve his corpse.

Probably just as well. Carbon Dioxide poisoning turned a body bright pink. He didn't like the idea of Chakotay seeing him like that. 

Die young, leave a beautiful corpse. Not a florescent pink one.

Tom swayed unsteadily, his mind reeling with images of Voyager turning and flying away from the planet, leaving him alone forever, and his heart ached so hard that he almost forced himself to wake up. If he got up now and closed the door and turned on the air filters, he'd be fine. He could launch the shuttle and orbit the planet until Voyager arrived. There was still time to wake up. He didn't *have* to die here.

There was still a chance of seeing Chakotay again.

But he didn't dare try.

Because if he tried to wake up, he might have to face the fact that he wasn't dreaming after all. He might discover that he really *was* so alien now that he no more needed oxygen to breathe than he needed light to see. He might *really* be standing here, contemplating a suicidal climb down the rock-face from hell just to collect Dilithium Crystals for a crew who would probably stone him with them if they discovered what he'd become.

If *this* dream was reality then maybe the other dream, the dream where he had turned into a vicious, inhuman sexual predator, was reality too and, frankly, dying quietly in his sleep of carbon dioxide poisoning was rather attractive in comparison to that possible truth.

~#~#~#~

Harry stared nervously around Sandrine's, his eyes narrowing to peer into the darker recesses where deep shadows cast a definite air of danger around the occupants of the booths. Although the program was unusually crowded for mid-week, he had an instinctive feeling that the people who were choosing to congregate in the shadows had a more insidious agenda than the gossip that was flowing as freely as the drinks around the central bar. 

Not that the gossipers seemed particularly friendly either. With one notable exception, it seemed as though everyone who wasn't on duty was currently in the holodec and none of them were smiling. The crowd had that low angry hum of barely contained mass-violence. The same muted, stone-faced, murmuring that always seemed to prelude a riot or a lynch mob. 

Or perhaps that was just his own nerves talking. 

Nerves that almost leapt out of his skin as someone slapped his back.

"How's it hanging, Kim?" Dalby asked, with his usual charm.

"Okay," he replied, with an off-handed shrug, since he could hardly reply that he was so tightly strung that he felt like a warp-core on overload.

Just then, there was a brief lull in the overall noise so that one conversation cut through the general chatter.

"I'm just saying that nothing's cut and dried here. Hell, by that reasoning you should all be in the brig. So what if she's a Cardassian? This is a Starfleet vessel and we're all supposed to forget that you Maquis are wanted criminals. What's the difference between us accepting you and you accepting her? We're in the Delta Quadrant now. It's all past history."

"She's a fucking Cardie. How the hell are we supposed to accept that?" someone demanded.

"The same way we're supposed to accept the fact you Maquis are wearing Starfleet Uniforms you haven't earned. The way I see it, you Maquis have no more right to wear these uniforms than Seska does and if I've got to put up with you, I can sure as hell put up with her too."

"Don't you fucking compare us to a Cardie," someone called out and a low roar of agreement rippled dangerously through the crowd.

"Why don't you shut up, Rollins?" Sue Nicoletti interrupted quickly. "What the hell's wrong with you? You don't speak for us. In fact there is no 'us'. We're all one crew now and I, for one, aren't going to let some Cardassian bitch set us all at each other's throats."

"The Federation has a treaty with Cardassia," Rollins argued. "It sure as hell doesn't have one with the Maquis. Seska has more rights on this ship than the damned Maquis do."

"She's a fucking spy," Hogan replied, his face twisted in fury. "She betrayed us once, she'll do it again."

"Actually she didn't betray us," Michael Jonas interrupted. "She's a spy. She was doing her job. Just like Tuvok was doing his job. No one has ever accused *him* of betraying us despite the fact he was planning to hand us over to Voyager before the caretaker grabbed us."

"You taking the side of a fucking Cardassian, Jonas? Maybe we ought to check your damned DNA too!"

Jonas turned pale as an angry mob began to close around him. He threw up his hands in a gesture of peace. "I'm just saying Rollins has a point, that's all. We didn't like the 'fleeters any more than they liked us but we needed each other to get home and we all learned to get along. All I'm saying is that maybe we could get along with Seska too. What difference does it make whether she's Bajoran or Cardassian when we're 70 years from home? Whatever she is, she's a damned good computer engineer."

"She's a Cardassian, which makes her two steps down from an animal in my book."

To Harry's surprise, the comment was from Sue Nicoletti rather than from a Maquis. From the confused murmurs of the crowd, he wasn't the only one surprised by her comment.

"What?" Sue demanded. "Just because I follow Starfleet orders doesn't mean I always agree with them. The treaty with the Cardassians is a waste of time. They won't respect the treaty because they don't respect life. All the demilitarized zone has done is give them time and opportunity to strengthen themselves. One of these days there'll be all out war between the Cardies and the Federation and then we'll wish we'd supported the Maquis instead of undermining them." 

"You go, girl," Megan Delaney agreed, moving to stand beside Sue in a show of support. "Why don't you get lost, Rollins? You don't give a shit about Seska. You just like causing trouble. Well, we're not playing with you. No one's going to put up with having Seska on this ship know we know what she did to Tom."

"That's right," Hogan agreed. "That bitch got Tom thrown into Auckland."

"Tom? TOM?" Rollins sneered. "Seems only yesterday I heard you calling him 'that asshole traitor Paris'. "

Hogan flushed deeply. "Yeah, you're right. I did. It's not the worst I've called him and I'm not the only one who owes him one hell of an apology."

"Yeah, sure," Rollins snarled, "You want to kiss his ass, go right ahead. Way I see it, the difference between Seska and you Maquis is that she was officially working for her government while you scum were just traitors to the Federation. As far as I'm concerned, the only redeeming grace Paris had was that he sold you out. Now it turns out he's no better than the rest of you and that's what *I'm* going to tell him when I see him."

"Yeah, that'll break his heart, you sanctimonious prick," Sue drawled.

A ripple of mocking laughter spread through the crowd in response and, although Rollin's face twisted with anger, a little of the crowd's ugly tension eased as more of the 'fleeters added their own condemnations of Rollin's words. 

"This shit been going on for long?" Dalby asked Harry quietly.

"About two days," Harry admitted. "It keeps flaring up and dying down. Same arguments, different voices. I'm just glad Tom isn't listening to this crap."

"Seems to me there's just a few assholes and a lot of folk with their heads on straight. Makes a change, 'round here."

"You think?" Harry asked wryly. "You should have been here last night when a couple of dozen of them were voting on whether to storm the brig and introduce Seska to 'Maquis' justice."

"Yeah," Dalby agreed with a smirk. "I might have swayed the vote."

"None of you get it, do you? It wouldn't matter if you marched her to an airlock and threw her out. It wouldn't put anything right. It wouldn't give Tom back what she took from him. I keep hearing you Maquis say 'we should do it for Tom', like it could possibly wipe out all the shit you put him through. Well it won't. It's too late."

"Jealous, Harry?" Dalby chuckled.

"What?"

"It's not just going to be you and Tom against the world anymore, is it?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I shouldn't worry if I were you. You stuck by him before you knew about Seska. That's got to count for a lot. A hell of a lot. Problem with fair-weather friends is you never quite trust 'em. Always find yourself looking over your shoulder for the next storm. We all treated him like shit. He's not going to forget that. You think we don't understand that? Bottom line, Tom's got fuck all to do with how we feel about that Cardie bitch. We don't need an excuse for us to kick her murderous ass.

"'Sides, truth is, no-one's given Tom a hard time since he saved our asses from the pirates. We already respected the man he is now. All this thing with Seska has done is prove the fact that we should have always given Tom that respect."

"Respect," Harry repeated slowly. "Never thought I'd hear that word and Tom's name coming from your mouth at the same time, Dalby. Maybe it's a shame Tom isn't here tonight, after all."

"So where's he been?" Dalby demanded bluntly. "Heard the Captain sent him off for a couple of days and there's some huge excitement now he's back."

"I've no idea. I'm not his keeper," he muttered defensively.

"Kinda tense tonight," Dalby said, and Harry flinched slightly before he realized that Dalby was referring to the room in general rather than his comment.

Harry was tempted to say that the atmosphere was so thick a knife could cut it but he was sick of spouting clichés and, besides, he suspected it would take a photon torpedo rather than a knife to shatter the aura of the room.

Either that or Tom Paris walking through the door.

They stood in silence for a time, oppressed by the shroud of gloom and shock that pervaded the bar, and then Dalby sighed loudly.

"I gotta go. Probably best he's not here to see this anyway. Here. Take this." He thrust something into Harry's hand.

Harry stared down at the object in his hand, turning it over between his fingers and hoped the expression on his face didn't look as blank and stupid as he was currently feeling although, from Dalby's slightly bitter chuckle, he suspected that it did.

"For the next time you see him. This way I don't take the risk of him throwing it in my face."

Dalby turned and was halfway towards the door before Harry understood that the credit strip in his hands was Dalby's peculiar way of offering Tom a drink.

~#~#~#~

"I don't remember clearly," Tom insisted angrily, flinching as the Doctor ran yet another scan over his body as he sat on one of the Sickbay beds. 

"Just tell me what you do remember," Chakotay repeated patiently.

"I've already told you everything. I got us enough Dilithium to power this ship back to the Alpha twice over. I didn't expect a standing ovation but I sure as hell didn't anticipate a fucking inquisition about it. The way you're acting, anyone would think I'd stolen the damned things."

"There is no need for your defensive attitude, Mr. Paris," Tuvok interrupted, one of his eyebrows arched in typical Vulcan disdain. "No one has accused you of any wrong-doing. However it is reasonable that we require an explanation of how you achieved your fortuitous discovery."

"I thought I was dreaming," Tom answered in a small voice, his eyes shadowed with doubt. "I thought I had carbon dioxide poisoning."

"You did. You're extremely lucky to be alive," the Doctor interrupted, with an audible sniff of disgust. "I'm reading toxic levels of the gas in your blood-stream, but fortunately your exposure must have been extremely short since it hasn't caused any long-term damage. However, your inability to remember clearly is probably a side-effect of the poisoning."

Tom sighed with obvious relief. "See?" he snapped at Chakotay. "It's not my fault I can't remember."

Chakotay nodded his reluctant acceptance, though he met Tuvok's eyes briefly and saw a reflection of his own doubts. Tom's story was just too…convenient. It wasn't that he believed Tom had done anything 'wrong', it was just that he didn't trust the idea of anyone having such a run of 'lucky co-incidences'.

"So, for the record, this is what you say happened. You were scouting the system, as the Captain had requested, and registered a high level of dialloscilicate in the atmosphere of the third planet. Because our long range scans had suggested the presence of Dilithium, you decided there was enough possibility that the Dilithium might be in crystal form to warrant an unauthorized landing."

"It wasn't unauthorized," Tom interrupted angrily. "My mission didn't specify any restrictions on whether or not I could land. I made a judgment call and since I survived to have my ass chewed off over it, I can't see how you can say I made the wrong decision."

Chakotay conceded the point with a sharp nod. "You lost control of the shuttle during the descent and a slip-stream pulled you into a geographical fault line. You managed to make a reasonably unscathed landing and the depth of the fault protected you from the worst of the surface heat long enough for you to make the minor repairs necessary to relaunch the shuttle. You got the sensors back on line, realized that by pure co-incidence you'd landed on top of a broken vein of crystal, used the shuttles phasers, which just happened to be facing in exactly the right direction, to cut enough to fill your hold. Then you put on your environmental suit and despite the fact that the temperature was a hundred degrees higher than the suit was designed to withstand, you suffered only minor exposure to the atmosphere as you loaded the crystal on board. Then you simply launched the shuttle, put it in orbit and waited for us to pick you up."

"Exactly," Tom agreed expressionlessly. "That's the basic facts and, as I've said, I don't remember any more specific details."

"So why does it sound so improbable?" Chakotay asked him softly.

Tom shrugged carelessly. "I dunno, Commander. How the hell else *could* it have happened?"

"I'm willing to concede you're a great pilot, Tom, but I don't believe any human could have piloted through that atmosphere. I also don't believe any human could have survived more than a few minutes exposure on the surface whether they were wearing a suit or not."

"I concur," Tuvok interrupted. "Mr. Paris's version of events is not logical in the face of the known facts."

Chakotay frowned with concern as the color drained out of Tom's face. "With your permission, Tom, Tuvok would like to mind-meld with you and discover what really happened down there. We're concerned that…"

"Fuck you. Fuck both of you," Tom yelled, his eyes dilating almost black with obvious fear. "Don't you dare fucking touch me, either of you."

"Haven't I just said that Mr. Paris has suffered serious carbon dioxide exposure?" the Doctor interrupted angrily. "I said there would be no 'long-term' damage. Possible short-term symptoms on the other hand include nausea, dizziness, mental depression, shaking and visual disturbances including possible hallucinations. He is certainly in no state for this 'interrogation' as he so succinctly put it. I must insist that you leave my patient alone until he's feeling better."

"Doctor, Tom, all I want to do is investigate the possibility of some kind of alien threat here," Chakotay explained hurriedly. Tom just turned a whiter shade of pale as though he was getting ready to demonstrate the nauseous symptom of his poisoning. 

"I do not believe that the word 'threat' is appropriate," Tuvok interrupted. "Although it is purely supposition at this stage, the most logical explanation for Mr. Paris's fortuitous discovery is that the planet is not entirely what it appears to be. Despite our sensors failing to read life-signs on the surface, it is entirely probable that an advanced civilization exists on this planet and deliberately conceals themselves from observation by means of a shield that projects an illusion of a demon-class planet. They assume that the shield will deter passing aliens from attempting to land despite the planet's wealth of Dilithium Crystals. They presumably have not accounted for meeting a Tom Paris."

"You're saying these aliens tampered with Tom's memory and gave him a mild dose of carbon monoxide poisoning to back it up but gave him a hold full of crystals anyway?" Chakotay asked.

"Assuming they exist, it would be the most probable scenario," Tuvok agreed. "They undoubtedly registered the approach of Voyager and had to assume the best way of ensuring no further attempts to land would be made would be to simply give us what we wanted and therefore remove our reason for landing."

"There's a lot of suppositions there," Chakotay chuckled.

Tuvok gave a slightly embarrassed shrug. "Agreed. However, my theory is far more logical than Mr. Paris's own explanation."

"Yeah," Tom agreed quietly, a little color returning to his cheeks. "You're right, Tuvok. It makes sense to me. I don't see the point in a mind-meld though. It's obvious that there's no threat to the ship and I already feel like shit without you poking into my brain like I'm some kind of criminal. It's bad enough that someone's messed with my head already. I don't believe in hair of the dog. Okay?"

"Okay," Chakotay agreed. He wasn't happy with Tom's refusal. He hated the idea that someone might have messed with Tom's memories. No matter if the aliens had been non-hostile it still was a form of assault on a man he was beginning to consider *his*. Still, he could understand Tom's point of view and the last thing he wanted to do right now was alienate Tom any further.

"What is 'hair of the dog'?" the Doctor demanded.

Tom chuckled, his whole demeanor relaxing. "Doctors once believed that the best cure for a dog bite was ingesting a hair of the dog that had bitten you," he explained and grinned at the Doctor's horrified expression. "Yeah, medicine's come a long way since then."

Go to Part Seven