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jesterladyficTitle: Dare Frame Thy Fearful Symmetry
By Jesterlady
Pairing: Tom/B'Elanna, Chakotay & Janeway
Summary: Voyager receives a probe with logs from the duplicate Voyager and begins the process of understanding what happened to that other ship
Disclaimer: I don't own ST Voyager. The title is by William Blake.
Dare Frame Thy Fearful Symmetry
When they got to the source of the distress call there was nothing but debris and not even much of that.
“Scans?” Kathryn questioned, leaning forward, her hand on the back of Tom’s chair.
“There’s not much to scan,” Harry said. “I’m having trouble with…wait a second, it’s like the debris is disintegrating even after the explosion.”
“Cause?” asked Chakotay.
“Unknown,” said Tuvoc. “Captain, I am picking up what looks like a probe in the middle of the debris field.”
“Tractor it in,” she said. “Keep scanning the debris before it disappears; see if you can get a sample to engineering for analysis.”
“Aye, Captain,” said Tuvoc.
They kept working for a few hours and the debris was completely gone by then, leaving only organic residue behind.
“Captain, Commander, you probably want to get down to Engineering,” said B’Elanna’s voice over the com.
“On our way,” said Kathryn. “Mr. Tuvoc, you have the bridge.”
When they got to Engineering B’Elanna straightened up from a confinement field she’d placed around a piece of the debris.
“What have you got?” Chakotay asked.
“You’re not going to believe this,” B’Elanna said. “According to our readings, this is a piece of Voyager. Not only that but its components are completely different from Voyager. We’ve seen them before. On the demon planet. There are traces of deuterium, hydrogen sulphate, and dichromates.”
“The demon planet?” Kathryn asked. “This ship was a replica of Voyager?”
“We only replicated the crew, not the ship, when we left there,” Chakotay said.
“Nevertheless,” B’Elanna said, gesturing to the field. “It’s weakening though. If we didn’t have it under atmospheric conditioning, it would be gone.”
“What about the probe?” Kathryn asked.
“We’ve managed to recover all of the data, we think,” said B’Elanna. She tapped her com badge. “Harry, have you finished rerouting everything from the probe to the computer?”
“Just finished,” Harry said.
“Then we can find out what it is together,” said B’Elanna.
They clustered around the work station and B’Elanna activated the probe’s message beacon.
“This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager,” crackled Kathryn’s own voice over the com. It was eerie. “To any vessel. Our ship, not the original starship Voyager, originated on a Y Class Planet, and is unable to function without the atmosphere it was created within. We have set a course to return to the planet but are unsure if we will make it in time. This probe contains all of our ship’s logs and sensor readings from the past nine months. Even if we do not make it, please return the contents to the real starship Voyager.”
The transmission ended there. Everyone looked at each other and it was difficult to know what to say.
“Did we get all the logs from the probe?” Kathryn finally asked.
“Uh, yes,” said B’Elanna, tapping some more buttons. “Everything. Logs, official and personal, sensor readings, medical files.”
“I’ll make an announcement to the crew,” said Kathryn slowly. “Transfer everyone’s personal logs to the corresponding Voyager crew member. Official logs to be sent to the same. Medical files to sick bay, sensor readings to the bridge. We’ll sort through it all later.”
“Yes, Captain,” said B’Elanna, exchanging looks with Chakotay.
“Mr. Paris,” said Kathryn, tapping her com badge.
“Yes, Captain?”
“Resume course for the Alpha Quadrant.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
The familiar feeling of the ship going to warp filled the engine room.
“Coming?” Kathryn asked Chakotay.
“Yes,” he said, falling in behind her. They walked in silence to the turbolift. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“A little shaken. I want to know what the hell happened,” she said.
“I know the feeling.”
“Let’s review my official logs as soon as we get to the bridge,” she said.
“Agreed.”
They explained the position to the bridge crew when they got there and she instructed them to begin sorting through the data. Kathryn made a brief explanation to the crew and instructed everyone to review their personal logs then she and Chakotay went into her ready room and started reviewing logs.
It was a long rest of their shift. They watched the logs going backwards from the last few days and then started at the beginning.
They were nowhere near through by the time Kathryn sat back in her desk chair and turned off the logs.
“I need a break.”
“I do too,” Chakotay said, leaning back in his own chair.
“So…” Kathryn started.
“It’s really quite amazing,” said Chakotay. “Everyone we left behind is now dead, they forgot who they were, built themselves a ship, and tried to return to the Alpha Quadrant, the same as us.”
“Imagine if both of us had made it,” Kathryn said. “That would have taken some explaining.”
“That poor crew,” said Chakotay.
“I can’t even picture what it must have been like,” she agreed. “The last official log is Harry’s. You and I had both died by then.”
“Are you going to dig into the personal logs?” he asked.
“I can’t do that, not yet,” she said. “I need a good night’s sleep first.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Breakfast tomorrow?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” he said, leaving her.
Kathryn stood up and stretched before leaving herself.
***
“You ready for dinner?” asked Tom, sticking his head above the ladder.
“Almost,” B’Elanna said, looking up from her workstation. “I just want to send this report.”
“All right,” he said, finishing his climb and lounging against the wall. “But I’ve got everything all set up in my quarters.”
“Sounds promising,” she said, tapping more buttons.
She signed off and stepped toward him and he gave her a quick kiss.
“So, what are your thoughts about our latest encounter?” he asked.
“I don’t know what to think,” said B’Elanna. “The whole thing is beyond belief. I don’t even know how it happened.”
“And you don’t like not knowing how things happen,” he teased.
“You’re not fond of the unknown yourself,” she said as they got into the turbolift.
“But I have much more of a tolerance for it,” he said.
“I wouldn’t brag about it,” she said. “It just means you’re much more likely to be fooled.”
“Want me to recite for you the times you were fooled by something?” he asked.
“Your list is longer,” she said as they entered his quarters.
He’d set everything up before his shift that day and the extremely bizarre events that had happened during.
His com view screen was lit up.
“My personal logs from the other Voyager,” he said.
“I wonder how different you were,” she said.
“That is an interesting question,” he said, quickly flipping through the entries. His finger paused over something. “Um, B’Elanna, look at this.”
“What is it?” she asked, peering over his shoulder and he watched her mouth drop open.
One of the logs was titled Torres/Paris wedding ceremony. It was dated only a few days before.
“We got married,” he said, slightly in awe.
“They got married,” B’Elanna corrected him. “Well, what are you waiting for? Play it!”
“I guess I could pick up some pointers,” he said, tapping it.
They settled down and ate their dinner, though Tom mostly forgot to eat, watching B’Elanna arrive on Chakotay’s arm and Harry fumbling with the ring and the Captain performing the ceremony. The vows they said felt like they were coming directly from his heart and he was dumbfounded by the end of the video.
“Pretty good speech,” she said after a minute or so.
“Not bad yourself,” he said, turning to her, maybe a little bit more in love than when he’d walked into the room.
“Why do you think they decided to get married?” she asked.
“We’ll just have to read their personal logs and find out,” he said. “But isn’t it obvious?”
“No,” she said.
“They love each other, they want to be together. No other reason to do it.”
“Isn’t that how we feel? You don’t see us rushing for the altar.”
“Maybe something happened to trigger their rush down the aisle, I don’t know,” he said, tugging at her arm to get her to face him. “But would it be so terrible?”
“Some days, probably,” she said. “But I could be convinced.”
“I’m definitely sure so could I,” he said, moving in to kiss her.
She kissed him back and it was a much gentler kiss than he was used to. Something about what they’d watched made him want to remember each second of his time with her. He cupped her cheeks and kissed her slowly. Her mouth was open beneath his and the taste of her dinner was still on her tongue. She breathed into his mouth before pushing him backwards, still being abnormally gentle.
He enjoyed the feel of her stretched out on top of him and he kept on lazily kissing her, undoing her uniform. She drew it over her head and bent down to kiss him, dragging her teeth across his lips. He sat back up, sliding her across his lap while she took his uniform off.
He was glad for the respite to breathe until she put her hands against his chest and her nails indented in his skin, then he lowered his head to her neck, softly biting his way down her body.
Her breath caught and she arched forward into his mouth.
He chuckled against her skin.
“Shut up, Tom,” she said.
“I didn’t say anything,” he said lightly, picking her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist. “But now that you mention it, I do believe it’s time to move this into the bedroom.”
She kissed him again in response, harder this time.
***
Tom opened his eyes into the darkness. B’Elanna lay beside him, her leg flung over his, her breathing steady. He loved waking up like this on the nights they were able to spend together, which wasn’t often enough. Maybe that was the reason the other Tom and B’Elanna had decided to get married.
He couldn’t sleep, despite how much B’Elanna had tired him out. He just felt restless and sad and curious. It was still the middle of the night according to the computer so he slid out from under both the covers and B’Elanna and slid on some sleep pants. He made his way to the outer room and parked himself in front of the view screen.
“Computer, play last personal log entry of Tom Paris, from the probe.”
His own face appeared on the screen but there were lesions on his face. It almost looked as if the skin was melted, collapsing in on itself. The other Tom sagged in front of the view screen, looking utterly defeated and not a little angry.
“Personal log: Tom Paris, Stardate 52586.3. Well, I say Tom Paris, but I’m not really Tom Paris, am I? Wherever the hell he is, he’s probably back in the Alpha Quadrant, sporting all his good looks, with his B’El-”
He stopped and when he looked back up Tom almost recoiled at the empty look on his face.
“The Captain, if that’s what we still call her, is refusing to abandon the quest for home. She appears to have forgotten that home is in the other direction. I can remember it now. I remember waking up as Tom Paris. Let me tell you, finding out for the second time I’m not really Tom Paris wasn’t nearly as fun as the first. If we weren’t all going to die anyway, I might have something to say about it. As it is, I don’t care what we do.”
The screen Tom shuddered and braced his hands against the table before continuing.
“B’Elanna’s gone. She was the first of us to go. You know why, because she spent all her time down in Engineering, doing her job, or what she thought was her job. We were supposed to be on our honeymoon. I had it all planned out. Chicago in the 1920s. There were activities but what I was mostly planning on doing was making use of the honeymoon suite. We never get, got, enough time together.”
He stopped again and Tom watched, horrified, but he couldn’t stop the recording.
“I’ve been thinking about if any of this means anything. Since we’re not real does it matter that I feel like my insides have been ripped out? I guess they’re literally liquefying so who cares? I lost her, whoever she was, and I can’t deal with that. My only satisfaction is that I’m going to die too. I’m just selfish enough to wish I’d gone first sometimes.
The Captain, for lack of a better term, is ordering us all to upload our personal logs to a probe in the hopes that someone will find it. I don’t have anything else to do, so I just want to say, Tom Paris, if you’re watching this, don’t ever let her go. Whatever growth you think you want, whatever redemption, you’re going to find it in her. The Admiral can’t give it to you, the Captain can’t give it to you, not Harry, not being a pilot, not these two stupid buttons pinned to your uniform. Be your own man, but you treat her right. Otherwise, it was all for nothing. End pointless log.”
The view screen turned off and Tom slumped back, not at all surprised to find tears in his eyes. He didn’t want to see that. The wedding had been beautiful; but this was like one of those horror movies he’d watched from the nineteenth century. He didn’t know how to process what he’d just seen.
He didn’t like the bitterness and anger, but he couldn’t blame the other Tom for feeling those emotions.
“Tom?” said B’Elanna.
He jumped, she was right behind him and he wondered how much she’d seen.
“Sorry, I didn’t meant to wake you,” he said, vainly trying to hide his face.
“It’s not your fault,” she said, sitting down on his lap.
He automatically put an arm around her waist, but he didn’t look at her.
“I know, I just…”
“I wonder what my last log was,” she said.
“Probably better,” he said.
“You want to talk about it?” she asked.
“How much did you see?”
“Almost all of it. I woke up and I was thirsty.”
“Sorry.”
“Are you going to shut me out?” she asked.
He laughed a little and buried his face in her shoulder.
“Apparently I’m not allowed to.”
“Your life is your life,” she said.
“I wouldn’t want to watch you die,” he said, tightening his grip. “I’m too weak.”
“It wouldn’t exactly be a picnic for me either,” she said.
“Dying or watching me die?”
“Either,” she said, nudging his head up and kissing him. “So let’s live, okay?”
“Could we sleep first?” he asked, his exhaustion catching up to him.
“That sounds like a good idea.”
“Let’s watch our logs together,” he said, standing up, leading her by the hand back into the bedroom. “I don’t want to do that alone again.”
“Fine, but if you hear me complimenting you, remember it’s not really about you.”
“That counts when you win arguments too,” he said.
“You always want the last word.”
“Or the last kiss,” he said, pulling her on top of him as they lay back down, a tangled mess of limbs.
“There’s no such thing,” she said, kissing him deeply.
He was still shaken but he felt slightly better. She was here, here and solid and with him and that’s all that mattered for the moment. Existential crises might be the order of the day tomorrow, but tonight she was in his arms and that was something he could hold onto.
***
Kathryn woke up early; surprised she had managed to sleep at all. She quickly got ready for the day, and set out breakfast for herself and Chakotay.
She was still done with too much time on her hands so she accessed her other self’s personal logs.
“Computer, play last entry.”
Kathryn’s body appeared on the view screen, skin distorted and liquefied.
“Captain’s personal log, Stardate 52597.4. I’ve turned the ship around, heading back for the demon planet. I doubt we’ll make it in time but I see now I’ve got to try. I blame myself for B’Elanna’s death as well as the others. I was so focused on trying to be Kathryn Janeway that I lost sight of what was real. I am her and I can only act as she would have acted, but I should not jeopardize the safety of my crew.
Chakotay…is gone. If I wasn’t experiencing the loss of parts of my body I would say that it was like losing a limb. He’s become such a part of me that I don’t know what to do now that he’s gone. A bit of me is relieved to see an end in sight, but the rest of me is determined to see this crew to safety, no matter where that safety is. Still…it’s hard to focus now that he’s not here.
I wish I’d listened to him sooner. He kept telling me I was wrong, but I didn’t want to admit it. He didn’t push too hard though, not until it was desperate. That’s very like him. That…was like him. We were arguing when it happened. I got him to sickbay and the Doctor did what he could but…he opened his eyes once. I held his hand and thanked him for everything. He…” the screen Kathryn hesitated, then spoke quickly “…he told me he loved me. So I kissed him and told him I loved him back.
That’s all. There’s nothing more to this story. I’m going to save my crew if I can, but that’s all I can say in my personal log. I lost the man I loved today. I just hope that our story can prove a cautionary tale if the other Kathryn Janeway finds this. I doubt it, but I…needed to say it to someone, needed someone to know what he meant to me. End log.”
Kathryn stood up and walked over to the window. She felt a little faint. She wasn’t about to let the grieving, slightly irrational ranting of a doppelganger influence her if she could help it. None of this was new to her.
She could appreciate the other Kathryn’s attempts though. She would have done the same if it had been her. But she didn’t have the luxury of death bed confessions.
The door dinged to let her know Chakotay was there.
“Come in,” she said, forcing her voice to sound normal.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Morning. Coffee?”
“I wouldn’t expect a breakfast here to be without it,” he said.
She poured him a cup and they settled in to eat.
“Not sure why you keep risking my cooking,” she said. “Is breakfast with me worth the risk?”
“Let’s be honest, it’s got nothing to do with the cooking,” he said.
“Glad to hear it, because if you did like my cooking, there would have to be something wrong with you.”
They ate, chatting about this and that, discussing how to deal with the events of the previous day and how to keep the crew’s morale up.
“I read more of the sensor data last night,” he said. “It’s truly extraordinary. They mapped a huge part of the Delta Quadrant that we never would have seen, pointing out a lot of danger along the way, modifications to their engines.”
“It’s a tremendous last gift,” she agreed. “Did you dig into your personal logs at all?”
“Only the last few,” he said. “My counterpart and you were not in agreement about what to do, were they?”
“No, and it turns out, you were right.”
“Had to happen sometime, if not to me,” he said, finishing his coffee.
“I’m not sure that was much of a comfort to them,” she said musingly. “It was very…hard for her to watch you die.”
“I can imagine,” he said.
“Forgive me if I don’t share her logs with you,” Kathryn said, “but there were things brought to light that I can’t live out in my own life.”
“Mine are the same,” he said.
“We’re not them, Chakotay,” she said, placing her hand over his. “We can’t live their lives or their expectations of our lives. Whatever errors they think they made, we’ll have to make them in our own time.”
“I know, Kathryn,” he said and she wondered how much he could guess about what her own counterpart had said. “We were identical; the differences will come in our choices. I know there are choices you have to make and I will support you in them. We have our whole lives ahead of us.”
“Theoretically,” she said, squeezing his hand and then drawing back. “Now, shall we get to the bridge and start making sense of all of this?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he said, standing up.
They cleaned up the breakfast things and made their way to the bridge. She sat in her chair and he sat in his and even if it wasn’t the fulfillment of everything they could be, it felt right and she was content.
By Jesterlady
Pairing: Tom/B'Elanna, Chakotay & Janeway
Summary: Voyager receives a probe with logs from the duplicate Voyager and begins the process of understanding what happened to that other ship
Disclaimer: I don't own ST Voyager. The title is by William Blake.
Dare Frame Thy Fearful Symmetry
When they got to the source of the distress call there was nothing but debris and not even much of that.
“Scans?” Kathryn questioned, leaning forward, her hand on the back of Tom’s chair.
“There’s not much to scan,” Harry said. “I’m having trouble with…wait a second, it’s like the debris is disintegrating even after the explosion.”
“Cause?” asked Chakotay.
“Unknown,” said Tuvoc. “Captain, I am picking up what looks like a probe in the middle of the debris field.”
“Tractor it in,” she said. “Keep scanning the debris before it disappears; see if you can get a sample to engineering for analysis.”
“Aye, Captain,” said Tuvoc.
They kept working for a few hours and the debris was completely gone by then, leaving only organic residue behind.
“Captain, Commander, you probably want to get down to Engineering,” said B’Elanna’s voice over the com.
“On our way,” said Kathryn. “Mr. Tuvoc, you have the bridge.”
When they got to Engineering B’Elanna straightened up from a confinement field she’d placed around a piece of the debris.
“What have you got?” Chakotay asked.
“You’re not going to believe this,” B’Elanna said. “According to our readings, this is a piece of Voyager. Not only that but its components are completely different from Voyager. We’ve seen them before. On the demon planet. There are traces of deuterium, hydrogen sulphate, and dichromates.”
“The demon planet?” Kathryn asked. “This ship was a replica of Voyager?”
“We only replicated the crew, not the ship, when we left there,” Chakotay said.
“Nevertheless,” B’Elanna said, gesturing to the field. “It’s weakening though. If we didn’t have it under atmospheric conditioning, it would be gone.”
“What about the probe?” Kathryn asked.
“We’ve managed to recover all of the data, we think,” said B’Elanna. She tapped her com badge. “Harry, have you finished rerouting everything from the probe to the computer?”
“Just finished,” Harry said.
“Then we can find out what it is together,” said B’Elanna.
They clustered around the work station and B’Elanna activated the probe’s message beacon.
“This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager,” crackled Kathryn’s own voice over the com. It was eerie. “To any vessel. Our ship, not the original starship Voyager, originated on a Y Class Planet, and is unable to function without the atmosphere it was created within. We have set a course to return to the planet but are unsure if we will make it in time. This probe contains all of our ship’s logs and sensor readings from the past nine months. Even if we do not make it, please return the contents to the real starship Voyager.”
The transmission ended there. Everyone looked at each other and it was difficult to know what to say.
“Did we get all the logs from the probe?” Kathryn finally asked.
“Uh, yes,” said B’Elanna, tapping some more buttons. “Everything. Logs, official and personal, sensor readings, medical files.”
“I’ll make an announcement to the crew,” said Kathryn slowly. “Transfer everyone’s personal logs to the corresponding Voyager crew member. Official logs to be sent to the same. Medical files to sick bay, sensor readings to the bridge. We’ll sort through it all later.”
“Yes, Captain,” said B’Elanna, exchanging looks with Chakotay.
“Mr. Paris,” said Kathryn, tapping her com badge.
“Yes, Captain?”
“Resume course for the Alpha Quadrant.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
The familiar feeling of the ship going to warp filled the engine room.
“Coming?” Kathryn asked Chakotay.
“Yes,” he said, falling in behind her. They walked in silence to the turbolift. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“A little shaken. I want to know what the hell happened,” she said.
“I know the feeling.”
“Let’s review my official logs as soon as we get to the bridge,” she said.
“Agreed.”
They explained the position to the bridge crew when they got there and she instructed them to begin sorting through the data. Kathryn made a brief explanation to the crew and instructed everyone to review their personal logs then she and Chakotay went into her ready room and started reviewing logs.
It was a long rest of their shift. They watched the logs going backwards from the last few days and then started at the beginning.
They were nowhere near through by the time Kathryn sat back in her desk chair and turned off the logs.
“I need a break.”
“I do too,” Chakotay said, leaning back in his own chair.
“So…” Kathryn started.
“It’s really quite amazing,” said Chakotay. “Everyone we left behind is now dead, they forgot who they were, built themselves a ship, and tried to return to the Alpha Quadrant, the same as us.”
“Imagine if both of us had made it,” Kathryn said. “That would have taken some explaining.”
“That poor crew,” said Chakotay.
“I can’t even picture what it must have been like,” she agreed. “The last official log is Harry’s. You and I had both died by then.”
“Are you going to dig into the personal logs?” he asked.
“I can’t do that, not yet,” she said. “I need a good night’s sleep first.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Breakfast tomorrow?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” he said, leaving her.
Kathryn stood up and stretched before leaving herself.
***
“You ready for dinner?” asked Tom, sticking his head above the ladder.
“Almost,” B’Elanna said, looking up from her workstation. “I just want to send this report.”
“All right,” he said, finishing his climb and lounging against the wall. “But I’ve got everything all set up in my quarters.”
“Sounds promising,” she said, tapping more buttons.
She signed off and stepped toward him and he gave her a quick kiss.
“So, what are your thoughts about our latest encounter?” he asked.
“I don’t know what to think,” said B’Elanna. “The whole thing is beyond belief. I don’t even know how it happened.”
“And you don’t like not knowing how things happen,” he teased.
“You’re not fond of the unknown yourself,” she said as they got into the turbolift.
“But I have much more of a tolerance for it,” he said.
“I wouldn’t brag about it,” she said. “It just means you’re much more likely to be fooled.”
“Want me to recite for you the times you were fooled by something?” he asked.
“Your list is longer,” she said as they entered his quarters.
He’d set everything up before his shift that day and the extremely bizarre events that had happened during.
His com view screen was lit up.
“My personal logs from the other Voyager,” he said.
“I wonder how different you were,” she said.
“That is an interesting question,” he said, quickly flipping through the entries. His finger paused over something. “Um, B’Elanna, look at this.”
“What is it?” she asked, peering over his shoulder and he watched her mouth drop open.
One of the logs was titled Torres/Paris wedding ceremony. It was dated only a few days before.
“We got married,” he said, slightly in awe.
“They got married,” B’Elanna corrected him. “Well, what are you waiting for? Play it!”
“I guess I could pick up some pointers,” he said, tapping it.
They settled down and ate their dinner, though Tom mostly forgot to eat, watching B’Elanna arrive on Chakotay’s arm and Harry fumbling with the ring and the Captain performing the ceremony. The vows they said felt like they were coming directly from his heart and he was dumbfounded by the end of the video.
“Pretty good speech,” she said after a minute or so.
“Not bad yourself,” he said, turning to her, maybe a little bit more in love than when he’d walked into the room.
“Why do you think they decided to get married?” she asked.
“We’ll just have to read their personal logs and find out,” he said. “But isn’t it obvious?”
“No,” she said.
“They love each other, they want to be together. No other reason to do it.”
“Isn’t that how we feel? You don’t see us rushing for the altar.”
“Maybe something happened to trigger their rush down the aisle, I don’t know,” he said, tugging at her arm to get her to face him. “But would it be so terrible?”
“Some days, probably,” she said. “But I could be convinced.”
“I’m definitely sure so could I,” he said, moving in to kiss her.
She kissed him back and it was a much gentler kiss than he was used to. Something about what they’d watched made him want to remember each second of his time with her. He cupped her cheeks and kissed her slowly. Her mouth was open beneath his and the taste of her dinner was still on her tongue. She breathed into his mouth before pushing him backwards, still being abnormally gentle.
He enjoyed the feel of her stretched out on top of him and he kept on lazily kissing her, undoing her uniform. She drew it over her head and bent down to kiss him, dragging her teeth across his lips. He sat back up, sliding her across his lap while she took his uniform off.
He was glad for the respite to breathe until she put her hands against his chest and her nails indented in his skin, then he lowered his head to her neck, softly biting his way down her body.
Her breath caught and she arched forward into his mouth.
He chuckled against her skin.
“Shut up, Tom,” she said.
“I didn’t say anything,” he said lightly, picking her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist. “But now that you mention it, I do believe it’s time to move this into the bedroom.”
She kissed him again in response, harder this time.
***
Tom opened his eyes into the darkness. B’Elanna lay beside him, her leg flung over his, her breathing steady. He loved waking up like this on the nights they were able to spend together, which wasn’t often enough. Maybe that was the reason the other Tom and B’Elanna had decided to get married.
He couldn’t sleep, despite how much B’Elanna had tired him out. He just felt restless and sad and curious. It was still the middle of the night according to the computer so he slid out from under both the covers and B’Elanna and slid on some sleep pants. He made his way to the outer room and parked himself in front of the view screen.
“Computer, play last personal log entry of Tom Paris, from the probe.”
His own face appeared on the screen but there were lesions on his face. It almost looked as if the skin was melted, collapsing in on itself. The other Tom sagged in front of the view screen, looking utterly defeated and not a little angry.
“Personal log: Tom Paris, Stardate 52586.3. Well, I say Tom Paris, but I’m not really Tom Paris, am I? Wherever the hell he is, he’s probably back in the Alpha Quadrant, sporting all his good looks, with his B’El-”
He stopped and when he looked back up Tom almost recoiled at the empty look on his face.
“The Captain, if that’s what we still call her, is refusing to abandon the quest for home. She appears to have forgotten that home is in the other direction. I can remember it now. I remember waking up as Tom Paris. Let me tell you, finding out for the second time I’m not really Tom Paris wasn’t nearly as fun as the first. If we weren’t all going to die anyway, I might have something to say about it. As it is, I don’t care what we do.”
The screen Tom shuddered and braced his hands against the table before continuing.
“B’Elanna’s gone. She was the first of us to go. You know why, because she spent all her time down in Engineering, doing her job, or what she thought was her job. We were supposed to be on our honeymoon. I had it all planned out. Chicago in the 1920s. There were activities but what I was mostly planning on doing was making use of the honeymoon suite. We never get, got, enough time together.”
He stopped again and Tom watched, horrified, but he couldn’t stop the recording.
“I’ve been thinking about if any of this means anything. Since we’re not real does it matter that I feel like my insides have been ripped out? I guess they’re literally liquefying so who cares? I lost her, whoever she was, and I can’t deal with that. My only satisfaction is that I’m going to die too. I’m just selfish enough to wish I’d gone first sometimes.
The Captain, for lack of a better term, is ordering us all to upload our personal logs to a probe in the hopes that someone will find it. I don’t have anything else to do, so I just want to say, Tom Paris, if you’re watching this, don’t ever let her go. Whatever growth you think you want, whatever redemption, you’re going to find it in her. The Admiral can’t give it to you, the Captain can’t give it to you, not Harry, not being a pilot, not these two stupid buttons pinned to your uniform. Be your own man, but you treat her right. Otherwise, it was all for nothing. End pointless log.”
The view screen turned off and Tom slumped back, not at all surprised to find tears in his eyes. He didn’t want to see that. The wedding had been beautiful; but this was like one of those horror movies he’d watched from the nineteenth century. He didn’t know how to process what he’d just seen.
He didn’t like the bitterness and anger, but he couldn’t blame the other Tom for feeling those emotions.
“Tom?” said B’Elanna.
He jumped, she was right behind him and he wondered how much she’d seen.
“Sorry, I didn’t meant to wake you,” he said, vainly trying to hide his face.
“It’s not your fault,” she said, sitting down on his lap.
He automatically put an arm around her waist, but he didn’t look at her.
“I know, I just…”
“I wonder what my last log was,” she said.
“Probably better,” he said.
“You want to talk about it?” she asked.
“How much did you see?”
“Almost all of it. I woke up and I was thirsty.”
“Sorry.”
“Are you going to shut me out?” she asked.
He laughed a little and buried his face in her shoulder.
“Apparently I’m not allowed to.”
“Your life is your life,” she said.
“I wouldn’t want to watch you die,” he said, tightening his grip. “I’m too weak.”
“It wouldn’t exactly be a picnic for me either,” she said.
“Dying or watching me die?”
“Either,” she said, nudging his head up and kissing him. “So let’s live, okay?”
“Could we sleep first?” he asked, his exhaustion catching up to him.
“That sounds like a good idea.”
“Let’s watch our logs together,” he said, standing up, leading her by the hand back into the bedroom. “I don’t want to do that alone again.”
“Fine, but if you hear me complimenting you, remember it’s not really about you.”
“That counts when you win arguments too,” he said.
“You always want the last word.”
“Or the last kiss,” he said, pulling her on top of him as they lay back down, a tangled mess of limbs.
“There’s no such thing,” she said, kissing him deeply.
He was still shaken but he felt slightly better. She was here, here and solid and with him and that’s all that mattered for the moment. Existential crises might be the order of the day tomorrow, but tonight she was in his arms and that was something he could hold onto.
***
Kathryn woke up early; surprised she had managed to sleep at all. She quickly got ready for the day, and set out breakfast for herself and Chakotay.
She was still done with too much time on her hands so she accessed her other self’s personal logs.
“Computer, play last entry.”
Kathryn’s body appeared on the view screen, skin distorted and liquefied.
“Captain’s personal log, Stardate 52597.4. I’ve turned the ship around, heading back for the demon planet. I doubt we’ll make it in time but I see now I’ve got to try. I blame myself for B’Elanna’s death as well as the others. I was so focused on trying to be Kathryn Janeway that I lost sight of what was real. I am her and I can only act as she would have acted, but I should not jeopardize the safety of my crew.
Chakotay…is gone. If I wasn’t experiencing the loss of parts of my body I would say that it was like losing a limb. He’s become such a part of me that I don’t know what to do now that he’s gone. A bit of me is relieved to see an end in sight, but the rest of me is determined to see this crew to safety, no matter where that safety is. Still…it’s hard to focus now that he’s not here.
I wish I’d listened to him sooner. He kept telling me I was wrong, but I didn’t want to admit it. He didn’t push too hard though, not until it was desperate. That’s very like him. That…was like him. We were arguing when it happened. I got him to sickbay and the Doctor did what he could but…he opened his eyes once. I held his hand and thanked him for everything. He…” the screen Kathryn hesitated, then spoke quickly “…he told me he loved me. So I kissed him and told him I loved him back.
That’s all. There’s nothing more to this story. I’m going to save my crew if I can, but that’s all I can say in my personal log. I lost the man I loved today. I just hope that our story can prove a cautionary tale if the other Kathryn Janeway finds this. I doubt it, but I…needed to say it to someone, needed someone to know what he meant to me. End log.”
Kathryn stood up and walked over to the window. She felt a little faint. She wasn’t about to let the grieving, slightly irrational ranting of a doppelganger influence her if she could help it. None of this was new to her.
She could appreciate the other Kathryn’s attempts though. She would have done the same if it had been her. But she didn’t have the luxury of death bed confessions.
The door dinged to let her know Chakotay was there.
“Come in,” she said, forcing her voice to sound normal.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Morning. Coffee?”
“I wouldn’t expect a breakfast here to be without it,” he said.
She poured him a cup and they settled in to eat.
“Not sure why you keep risking my cooking,” she said. “Is breakfast with me worth the risk?”
“Let’s be honest, it’s got nothing to do with the cooking,” he said.
“Glad to hear it, because if you did like my cooking, there would have to be something wrong with you.”
They ate, chatting about this and that, discussing how to deal with the events of the previous day and how to keep the crew’s morale up.
“I read more of the sensor data last night,” he said. “It’s truly extraordinary. They mapped a huge part of the Delta Quadrant that we never would have seen, pointing out a lot of danger along the way, modifications to their engines.”
“It’s a tremendous last gift,” she agreed. “Did you dig into your personal logs at all?”
“Only the last few,” he said. “My counterpart and you were not in agreement about what to do, were they?”
“No, and it turns out, you were right.”
“Had to happen sometime, if not to me,” he said, finishing his coffee.
“I’m not sure that was much of a comfort to them,” she said musingly. “It was very…hard for her to watch you die.”
“I can imagine,” he said.
“Forgive me if I don’t share her logs with you,” Kathryn said, “but there were things brought to light that I can’t live out in my own life.”
“Mine are the same,” he said.
“We’re not them, Chakotay,” she said, placing her hand over his. “We can’t live their lives or their expectations of our lives. Whatever errors they think they made, we’ll have to make them in our own time.”
“I know, Kathryn,” he said and she wondered how much he could guess about what her own counterpart had said. “We were identical; the differences will come in our choices. I know there are choices you have to make and I will support you in them. We have our whole lives ahead of us.”
“Theoretically,” she said, squeezing his hand and then drawing back. “Now, shall we get to the bridge and start making sense of all of this?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he said, standing up.
They cleaned up the breakfast things and made their way to the bridge. She sat in her chair and he sat in his and even if it wasn’t the fulfillment of everything they could be, it felt right and she was content.
