Title:  Judgment
Author:  D'Alaire
Written May, 1999
Summary:  If the array hadn't interfered, what roads might have been taken?  This A/U begins two weeks after Voyager travels into the Badlands in search of the Maquis ship Liberty, and then 9, 18, and 30 months after that time.
  2nd Place, ASC Awards, Best Angst (?), 1999

---

 

 

  

  JUDGMENT

 

     

  His eyes opened without complaint in the middle of the night.  For no reason it seemed, though he waited several moments to feel something--a blast, commotion, the surge of a plasma field knocking the ship's inertial dampers offline for a moment.

  There was nothing. 

  His eyes remained open, and he belatedly realized his heart was beating hard, though he felt cold.  He slowly let his held breath go.  Another night uselessly spent trying to sleep.  Another night uselessly trying to escape his own spinning thoughts if but for a while. 

  Since he'd left Auckland, it had been like that.  Hell, a lot longer than that, really, since well before Auckland.  He wondered when he'd stop expecting it, when he'd just let it go and stop bothering until exhaustion simply took him.  But then, his dreams probably wouldn't be good ones, either. 

  Pulling himself up from the couch where he'd tried and failed again--and accepted that failure so easily, much to his chagrin--he went to the sink in the corner of the small room he'd been issued.  He did not take this for granted.  After months at Auckland, it was a luxury to be able to use that sink without knowing surveillance loomed over him, or that he'd be checked on by the guards in the corridor, who seemed foolish enough to think that shaving was precarious enough to require a witness.  For all the freedom in his work there, the cells were heavily guarded in spite of the mechanical means of keeping tabs on the inmates. 

  He knew what it really meant.  Being in prison alone took away their liberty, standard rations eaten with ears all around them in the mess gave them little pleasure in their meal (not that many people talked to him once they knew what he was), progress hearings were an exercise in guilt, the live guards at night denied their privacy and forced them to sit, hour after hour, with nothing but their own contemplation for company--a frightening enough prospect in itself.  Purposeful labor outside with some freedom was meant to be a relief from that. 

  He'd seen their tactic after only a month of that routine, and thought it very clever. 

  And effective. 

  He splashed the cool water over his face, threading a bit of the moisture through his hair.  With another handful, he sipped, cleansing his dry mouth.  Straightening, wiping the water away with his hands, he looked in the mirror.

  He saw nothing there--nothing that held any interest to him, anyway, except perhaps the lines that had begun to mark the corners of his eyes, and maybe the tinge of darkness beneath them, too.  He was getting used to the shadows, though. 

  Some might have called those lines now finding his boyish, chiseled features those of laughter.  In his mind, he could hear such sounds as he'd heard them before, though no images followed them.  What laughter had he had in years that didn't express some kind of sarcasm, he wondered numbly, staring at his eyes to the point where the rest of his face blurred away.  None of it was for any sort of happiness, a pure, real laugh that actually felt good... 

  He blinked.  Focused.

  He turned away from the sink, walked across the room.  He could not remember in his already clouded recollection when last he laughed.  Truly laughed. 

  His heart slowed.  He felt slightly ill.

  He came close to the wall, paced across in the other direction.  Then he stopped. 

  It was the middle of the night.

  There was nothing for him to do.

  There was nowhere for him to go. 

     

---

     

     
  She didn't know whether to lash out at those arrogant bastards or throw up.  Janeway, the oh-so-supreme captain, tried so hard to look like a scolding mother there--so patronizing, the younger woman had already thought up a hundred gruesome deaths for the bitch before the Federation's charges against them had been so smugly listed.

  At the same time, she knew they'd won--Starfleet.

  They would be convicted.  She would be tried and convicted. 

  She would go to prison.  Prison.

  She wondered suddenly how the hell she'd gotten herself to that point.  It was not what she'd dreamed, worse than what she'd ever feared.  Her quick mind screamed continuously inside her: How could she have grown up on Kessik with all her youthful, lofty dreams to become a convict someday? 

  Worse than that, a half-Klingon convict.  If not approved of before, she couldn't imagine her mother's reaction to her languishing in prison after getting herself caught...Caught trying to fight the good fight, an honorable fight, one she knew she believed in.

  She knew well that her initial involvement had been accidental.  Her remaining with the Maquis had nothing to do with honor in the beginning, but coming across a place for herself.  Well, maybe a little longer than that, and maybe for being needed, too, for the work she could do...and perhaps not wanting to go it alone, even if essentially she still was... 

  But that didn't matter anymore.  She was there, and those people were her friends.  They'd been through hell and back together.  She'd become convinced of their need to fight, to defend those innocent colonies against the Cardassian incursions.  She knew it was necessary, their purpose. 

  That didn't matter now, either.  They were out of it.  Soon to be inmates.  Locked away, forced to work under the careful eye of the Federation.  Imprisoned. 

  Her heart lurched with the thought.

  Her captain--she could kill him.  He was taking it so well.  While Chakotay was undoubtedly furious to be caught and betrayed as they had been, he warned them all not to try anything when they were shuffled into the cargo bay to hear their charges.  When Voyager first commandeered their ship, he'd tried to placate them, telling them they'd figure something else out if possible.  They quickly learned, however, that the Starfleet captain wasn't taking any chances with them, immediately rewriting the Liberty's command protocols, transporting every trace of weaponry and securing the crew.  Soon after that, their Vulcan tactical operator revealed himself, and handed over every bit of information of the Liberty, its crew and sect connections.  At that point, Chakotay ordered them not to anything.  Better they get shorter sentences by cooperating, he said, than longer by trying something foolish. 

  He was looking out for them.

  She both admired and hated him for it.

  She'd considered the possibility of incarceration--some of her friends had gotten caught.  She knew it could happen, just didn't think about it, was too busy to think about it.  Like every other time in her stupid, confused and increasingly embittered life, reality was smacking her in the face and she could do nothing but let it happen. 

  Standing solidly on the cargo room deck, all she wanted to do was run--run fast and away, try again to make it work that time.  In a moment a part of her deemed her greatest moment of cowardice, she suddenly, desperately wanted just one more chance to try again, anywhere, and would do anything to get something in her life right enough that it wouldn't turn against her again. 

  This time, the choice wasn't hers.

  There was nowhere she could run.

  If she could just clear her mind a little... 

     

---

     

     
  Deep in the Badlands, the space was not unpleasant.  It was an irony Janeway couldn't quite get over at first after they settled into the "clearing" they'd found the Maquis ship floating in, heavily damaged.  The shards of plasma radiation, not too far away but far enough, twisted up and around like irradiated trees in a wild storm.  There they stayed for the time being, in that natural void.  It was, in what way it could be, beautiful. 

  The plan was to repair the Maquis ship to enough of a capacity that it could be flown out by one of the Starfleet pilots, under the protective lead of Voyager.  The Federation needed the ship not as much as its memory banks--any information on Maquis systems and defenses.  The old ship was rigged and difficult, though.  They'd tried simply downloading the core with no success.  Besides, it would not be easy to transport over fifty people on her small ship securely.

  She would not go by her chief of security's suggestion to keep the Maquis in the cargo bay for the duration of the journey.  That seemed...cruel, even if they truly did not deserve too much mercy from her.  What earned it for them was their captain's wise calm.  He had kept his people in line and with relative graciousness accepted his defeat.  That had earned enough of her respect.

  Janeway understood the man's embarrassment as well.

  For such a proud man to be defeated in his purpose must have been hard, but that catching him was no great feat of skill for her should have been worse.  Her determination and his bad luck won that battle. 

  The Maquis ship had been disabled after it hit a plasma stream, and drifted into that clearing as if lifeless.  Voyager, having found nothing in either the Terikoff Belt nor around the other planets they found in the succeeding two weeks of searching, had finally turned around and tried another route.  Only when they had run out of options, when it seemed like they might have to turn back, they picked up the slightest remnant of an ion trail. 

  At impulse speed, they came upon the Maquis ship and ran a scan to see their engines were indeed disabled but safe, all the systems were on emergency power, and the shields, deflector and weapons were offline as well.  Drifting but alive.  So Janeway ordered Stadi to stop above it, told Kim to lock on a tractor, and then opened a channel. 

  When he answered her hail, she could see the frustration and humiliation on Captain Chakotay's face, and yet heard in his tone the resignation of a full-throated leader.  Voyager had found them madly trying to make repairs, but the captain surrendered it when he knew Starfleet's purpose, and knew there was nothing for him to do otherwise.  He held no attitude that wasn't understandable, promised to keep his people under control. 

  It was the mark of a leader who knew when to quit.  Even if it had served her purposes quite well, she honestly did admire that in him. 

  Better to lock them away on their own ship, confine them to quarters with security posted.  Get their ship on its feet again.  Go home.  Chalk up their success and move on. 

  She smiled at the knowledge that they would be home soon. 

  Their mission had taken a while as it was.

  If the Maquis captain continued to be cooperative, it wouldn't take much longer. 

     

---

     

     
  In his angry heart, he thought he was insane for capitulating as he had.  Any other captain might well have just put the ship on self-destruct....Well, that might have been possible if any of their systems had been online. 

  He had lost, by a fluke.  Bad luck.  The souls of his people were telling him it was time to follow another...

  A muscle in his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth.

  The spirits could go to hell just then for all he cared. 

  Glaring at the back of Ensign Rollins' head as he stepped from the access junction and onto Voyager's clean, carpeted deck, he couldn't give a damn about religion.  He'd tried--tried and lost.  That's all there was.  Figuring out the meaning could come some other time.  He'd have plenty of it soon enough. 

  Predictably, his resignation did nothing to calm him.  The only thing that had really kept him in line, made him cooperate as Captain Janeway's crew overtook his ship station by station, was looking at his own crew.  Their sallow, shocked and dirty faces, trying to comprehend the reality of what their captain had so proudly said they'd avoid at all costs, spun in his head.  Some of them were still very young, more were one-timers he'd not expected to keep longer than that one trip. 

  They were scared and totally unprepared, well past wanting to go home again, such as their home might have been, or just go away.  Chakotay knew this before they'd even hit that damned plasma steam that knocked his small ship to pieces.  They weren't prepared for any of it. 

  That crew, colonists mostly, hadn't known conflict like that before the Cardassians betrayed that foolish treaty with the Federation, certainly nothing about fighting a war before coming aboard, and entertained the thought of a noble death more readily than capture--and mainly because their captain had, too.  They didn't know the system as he did, either.  Though Chakotay knew they would be treated well--certainly better than had they been captured by the Cardassians--he knew their lives as they knew them had ended, twice over. 

  Their purpose gone, the fight far from them, even the most seasoned of their colonists would feel the designation of "convict" soon enough.  Their parole would keep them in a protected state for at least the same amount of time as their sentence.  By the time that was served, whatever fight the Maquis had now would probably be over...much as he hated to think about that.

  Worse, such a fate might be better for them.

  As for his "outsider" crew...they seemed to be already feeling it too hard.  Ayala had already been to Voyager's doctor after ramming his fist into a bulkhead, and hadn't unclenched his jaw since.  Seska had sneered bitterly and publicly for their not destroying the ship, or fighting the Starfleet crew with small arms.  Throughout Janeway's charges, he watched her mouth, poised on a word.  His stare kept her quiet.  Jonas grit his teeth at his captain's orders and snorted and mumbled at every other sentence Janeway mouthed.  No stare stopped that attitude.  Nearby and silent since extracted from her engineering station, Torres looked torn between murder and tears.  She was young, arrogant but hard on herself.  Considering how she acted, though, fight or flight would more likely be fight--unless he could make her feel guilty enough for considering taking any stupid risks.  She'd taken them before, and guilt worked with her then. 

  All in all, every kind of reaction might have been expectable in their situation, and it was a bad one--definitely not the worst that could have happened, but nowhere near a success in their purpose, either. 

  So to give them all a chance at the least consequence--probably about six months in one of Starfleet's penal colonies with one year of parole--the former Starfleet officer cooperated.

  It wouldn't reflect badly at his own trial, either, he had to admit. 

  At least their deaths or tortures wouldn't haunt him.

  He still wished he'd won, though.

     

---

     

     
  He'd all but settled on just keeping his meals to his quarters and not setting himself up for any more stupidity for the duration of their journey.  Every person on the ship now knew who and what he was, and all but Harry and Stadi had shunned him, contained their conversations to monosyllables, stared at him after he walked away, avoided his attention unless it was necessary. 

  Tom knew what it meant: Starfleet civil.

  Among all that, Stadi had surprised him.  Then again, Kim likely talked to her.  Tom wouldn't have been surprised to know he had.  They were bridge officers, were starting shifts together--they probably spoke on a daily basis, were getting to know each other...gossiping. 

  Still, Harry Kim was proving to be one of the good guys, communicating with him once and a while, inviting him out to breakfast or dinner, or to the holodeck.  The best time they had on Voyager was the day Harry challenged him to a flight simulation.  Kim was openly curious about the former pilot, had heard stories--some true, some interestingly glossed over--and finally needled him into a simulation, playing awkwardly with his ego until he finally gave in.  He owed Harry that much, he figured, and he couldn't deny he wanted to fly again. 

  Through the Krillian Asteroid belt, they veered and zoomed in a Starfleet prototype shuttle (after Tom made some personal adjustments).  For a moment--maybe one or two--he could feel himself swell with the adrenaline of the flight, that particular joy and rush, the true knowledge that he was in his element and acing it.

  He banked and angled, throwing Harry off his feet as he got a feel for the generated controls.  Speeding through another tight pattern of rocks, veering through with little care and a growing grin, the pilot became blind to his controls, eyes pinned to the viewscreen, flying on instinct.  Nothing else was there.  He could almost feel wind rushing past, his heart and soul unearthed as he darted through the obstacles all around him.  It was heaven. 

  For a moment, he was free--totally freed.

  He almost laughed.  Really laughed.

  But it wasn't real.  It never would be real again.  Never. 

  He slowed. 

  Never.  What was done would never be undone.  Ever. 

  He stopped. 

  An asteroid hit them.  The simulation stopped.  He stared at the collision, frozen before him.  Dead, like the others.  Done, like whatever career he might have had.  Lost like his chances to ever, ever get it back again--his family, his friends, any life worth living--to redeem himself for his own stupid selfishness and arrogance.  All of it.  Gone.

  His hands began to shake.

  Silence...Then... 

  "I've never seen anybody maneuver through the Krillian Field like that," came Stadi's smooth alto from behind him.  She'd snuck into the deck during the flight.  Her tone was sympathetic. 

  He exhaled, bent his head slightly.  His heart was still beating with the rush, soon after with panic.

  ...Never, never...

  "That was incredible," Kim breathed.  "You really do have a gift!" 

  "Not anymore, Harry," he replied, cursing himself even as he spoke.  He stood from the conn and moved to leave, only to see the understanding gaze of a fellow pilot before him. 

  She knew.  Damned Betazoids.  He could tell she knew.  He moved around her. 

  "I'm sorry," she said as he passed.

  He nodded.  "So am I.  But that doesn't make much difference now, does it?"

  He cursed those words too.  Not that it mattered.  Once Janeway gave up her search for her security officer, he'd be back on Earth and he'd never see them again.  Nothing, not even his exposing what little he knew about the Maquis--screwing them over, too--really would affect anything in the long run.  As if he'd made a difference even in his half-hearted betrayal.  He knew he hadn't anything to give Starfleet, and Janeway knew it.  He had nothing to lose by showing them some old breadcrumbs. 

  Nothing more to lose, as it were.

  That night, Kim and Stadi dropped by to invite him to dinner.  Grudgingly, he went.  In their company, he was able to avoid the stares pointed at him, even when they burned into his back, stabbing him freshly with whatever they'd chosen to think about him.  But he stopped caring about that.  He even stopped caring about Kim stumbling around topics trying to get him to talk more about himself, and Stadi's simultaneous tactful attempts to keep the conversation away from flying. 

  They decently tried to make things better for him since.  Nevertheless, he remained mostly alone, choosing to pace the corridors alone during the gamma shift, enjoy the view from the mess hall then, sip slowly at a mug of coffee and try not to think, look at the plasma fields and wonder what could have been... 

  Even so, he knew the uselessness of those thoughts.  He was there, nobody, belonging to nothing but the penal facility for a while longer.  They'd used him for what he was worth--not much if anything--and now just needed him to stay out of trouble until they could tuck him away again. 

  Then what? he'd ask himself over and over.  Get a job somewhere; roam around again until I find something, anything that wouldn't be nothing? Or just get drunk and stay that way until someone has the good sense to kill me?  What the hell am I going to do now?

  Starfleet surely wouldn't have him again.  The Maquis--he laughed at the idea--would likely be those people with the good sense and a gun.  Everywhere he went, people would somehow know about him sooner or later, and he knew already there was no redemption for both a liar and a traitor who had a penchant of repeating his mistakes, even when he didn't mean to. 

  Sooner or later, it'd go sour.  Something would go wrong and he would be in the middle of it somehow.

  So maybe it'd be best, he thought, to disappear, get away from Starfleet, who all of his life had been prevalent and powerful, which he had used to gain his end and had dumped him when he proved untidy and untrustworthy.  He was already exiled from the Maquis--if not for being captured, then for helping Starfleet, he was surely damned.  He'd gone to them in desperation in the first place, predictably made the worst of his month long sojourn, then screwed up his one moment of conscience there.  Chakotay hadn't sought him out for his sunny personality, he knew, but it sometimes bothered him, knowing he'd made himself into a decoy for them, essentially gave himself up to protect the Liberty...  No good deed goes unpunished, he reminded himself with a soft snort of resignation.

  He turned another corner.  Like Starfleet, the Maquis saw what they wanted, used it, threw it out when it wasn't what they'd expected.

  Problem is, he'd earned it all.  All of it.

  Indeed, it'd be for the best, to get away from all those people who'd already decided on him, get away, start again and try like hell to get it right that time.  He knew he might...maybe.  He knew, deep down, he really wanted to.  Or maybe he'd just make it worse by trying.

  Still, what other choice did he have? Simply dying, getting it all over with, cutting short a bad thing...no.  He couldn't go that far.  For some reason, even when things were worse than they were now, dying by his own hand just never crossed his mind.  Interesting, that. 

  So, for the time being, he walked, silently, slowly, down Voyager's wide, comfortable corridors, his best and only cure for yet another restless night's sleep.  Though it was morning, he thankfully met no one there, preventing him any further inspiration for his nagging uncertainty.  Not that anyone bothered to talk to him--even if the staring continued.  But even that had ebbed after he'd made a few adjustments in his own right. 

  He'd long given up wearing the singlet he'd been issued, but replicated a couple simple, dull-colored trousers and shirt sets so better to just blend into the walls rather than parade around with the insulting, rankless uniform that he knew he did not even deserve to wear.  People bothered him less, too.  He never went back.  That along with fewer--or, better, more carefully timed--public appearances had kept people generally out of his way.

  Harry had been great, Stadi had been kind, but there were a hundred and fifty other people on board he didn't want to deal with.  They certainly didn't want to deal with him, even if they talked behind his back and treated him like a pariah.

  He wondered if he'd ever sleep well again outside the feeling of pure exhaustion.  He forgot what that was like.  Just...sleeping. 

  Barely thinking, half numb, Tom paced through the corridor and let his mind roam to what could be when someday he'd be left to his own devices again.  He could just enjoy things around him maybe and live day to day, or maybe he'd find something to do that had some kind of purpose, something that would interest him, keep him straight.  For the first time in days, he actually relaxed as his mind wove up scenarios and possibilities, even dreams.  It didn't matter if they crashed soon after or turned ugly.  They were never real to begin with. 

  Not much was anymore, anyway.

  Then he turned, and spotted a shadow.  Looked up. 

  Blinked. 

  "What are you doing here?" he blurted.

  Captain Chakotay's eyes had already narrowed to deadly slits.  His fists clenched. 

  "You!"  he spat.  Before the guard could stop him, Chakotay's fist flew into Tom's face--and the other swung around for a backup.  "Traitor!"  he bellowed, and shook off Rollins' hand to get another blow in. 

  The Maquis' victim was caught shamefully off guard, took the punches hard and straight: It happened so quickly he barely realized Chakotay had attacked him.

  His bones cracked upon contact.  He heard them pop like sticks inside his head. 

  Already he could feel the blood collecting in his septum and behind his eyes, swelling quickly and disrupting his vision--then whiplash in his neck when another fist hit his jaw, cracking a tooth, maybe two. 

  He was strangely numb to it.  It was the most bizarre feeling... 

  The last thing he saw was the floor.

  He felt himself hit it with a thud.

  The last thing he thought was that he had it coming to him.

     

---

     

     
  "That young man came aboard my ship, under my protection, Captain Chakotay.  I expect you would show me at least the courtesy of not trying to kill a member of my crew."

  "He's not a member of your crew," Chakotay replied curtly, unaffected by other captain's icy glare.  "You said yourself, he's a convict looking for an easy out.  --And you gave him one." 

  "He never made any requests," she returned, equally unmoved, "I did, and I made the deal that bought him whatever reprieve he gets.  He told me what he knew wouldn't help us.  I took the chance--and he was right.  We didn't need him after all.  But even if he had made the deal and had led us to you, that gives you no right to attack him on my ship."

  "He still sold us out--and in the Maquis, that's a death sentence." 

  "Obviously, your own treatment of him didn't earn his loyalty." 

  "Paris doesn't know the meaning of loyalty."

  "And you're not Maquis anymore."  Janeway watched her point flicker across his tight face.  "Even if you do return to the DMZ once the Federation deems you safe again, the Maquis will never have you back.  That life is over--just like it is for Mister Paris.  The difference is, he's had enough time to realize that." 

  Soon, you will too, she added silently, seeing him blink for what seemed like the first time since he got there.

  She turned away from the Maquis Captain and returned to her desk, to her coffee, her seat.  She leaned back.  "I would lock you personally in the brig, Captain, if I didn't need your help repairing your ship so we can all get safely out of here.  We agreed that allowing your crew to maintain their quarters, where they would be more comfortable, would be easier for everyone involved.  You also told me you did not see our deaths as an option for your defeat--which as you probably know I do appreciate."

  "I don't see any victory in adding to the dead," he clarified. 

  "True.  And I thought I could trust you, your being so rational and willing in more than that respect.  But this..."  She gestured aimlessly towards the door, shook her head.  Finding the other man's small, angry eyes, she released her breath.  "I want to make this as easy for you as it can be.  I came to get my chief of security back, first and foremost..." 

  Chakotay visibly flushed at the reminder.

  Traitors and spies...  Even Janeway knew she'd be just as flustered in his position--wondering, perhaps, how many others were readying to betray them all.  Who knew, with a rag-tag bunch such as the Maquis were?  Though, to her knowledge, there'd only been Tuvok.

  "But I know how this must be for you," she finished. 

  He looked at her again.

  "I'm a captain, too, who looks after and protects my crew to the best of my ability, and works to get our mission done with the least consequence possible.  It's a dangerous life, sometimes more than others, but we do choose it, don't we?  You were an officer once, so you know that all we can hope for is to do what we feel is best, and move on.  Were I in your position, I honestly don't know if I could have been as cooperative.  I would still have done what I felt was best for my people, however difficult." 

  Chakotay let out his breath.  "I believe you." 

  She nodded.  "Then you'll believe me when I say I have no personal grudge against you, nor your crew, despite my rank and convictions?"

  Chakotay swallowed the bile in his throat.  "You have been fair," he admitted, "in all of this.  More than most captains I've known probably would have been." 

  Janeway took that point for what it was worth.  "Thank you," she said.  "Not many Maquis captains would say that, either.  However," her tone returned to its firm line of gravel as her fingers flattened upon her desktop, "under these most recent circumstances, should you so much as look at another member of my crew--temporary or otherwise--the wrong way, I'll have you buried under the coldest prison the Federation has to offer.  Am I clear in this, Captain?"

  His eyes flickered, and his jaw twitched.  Suppressing a smirk, he gave her an appreciative nod.  "You're good."

     

---

     

     
  "I mean it, Torres!"  Chakotay snapped, glaring hard down to the fiercely lit young woman.  "You'll do nothing. Starfleet's got this ship so rigged, I'm surprised we can turn on the lights!" 

  "I can get past all that!" she insisted.  "You say I'm good at getting out of tight spaces, and I am.  Just let me try!" 

  "No way.  --That's an order!"

  "What?" she sneered.  "Janeway's got you under her thumb now, too? That's one hell of a way to go down with your ship, Chakotay." 

  "You want to spend the rest of your life in a Federation prison--do it on you own time," he returned coldly.  "But don't make things worse for the rest of us because you can't deal with this!  Janeway's fair, but she won't put up with any crap.  Most of our people aren't prison material.  Some are just kids.  You know that.  So give it up and deal with it.  Issue closed." 

  "So we're just going to give in to them?" she demanded.  "Let them just shuffle us away?  Some concern you've got for them, when you'd walk them in there!  Well, I can keep us out, and Seska told me--"

  "Seska would have us all dead if I listened to her!"  He grabbed Torres' shoulders, shook her sharply, like an overwrought child.  "Listen to me! If you do anything stupid, I will not claim responsibility for you.  You will be off my crew, out of my conscience and out of the Maquis for good.  I've told you four times: No tricks, no violence, no sabotage.  If you can't follow my orders, then you're finished here--for good.  They can lock you in their brig and I won't stop them.  I mean it."

  He also knew that would do the trick, once she had a minute to think about it. 

  Predictably, she yanked herself away and glowered at him.  "Funny how loyalty works both ways," she snarled.  "You're pissed off because Paris screwed you over--and you'd do the same to me for trying to help, because you're too afraid to fight them from a corner.  This is your ship, Chakotay!" 

  "Not anymore," he pointed out.  "There's Starfleet at every post, and I will be leaving it when we're taken into custody." 

  "It doesn't have to be like that," she pressed. 

  "Don't you think I already considered everything already?" he countered.  "Don't you think I tried when they first tractored us?  Tried to prevent them coming on board?  You know damn well we didn't have the shields much less enough systems power to prevent it.  We were dead in the water--and right now, the best thing for the other people on board, who don't have as many options to think about, is to--"

  She shook her head quickly.  "No.  --Please, just hear me out.  If I just--"

  "Torres, NO!"  he yelled, feeling as if his head would explode.  It was going nowhere--she was beyond registration.  "You will do nothing.  Do you hear me?  If I have to lock you in a closet, you'll obey me!  I don't want to see you get double time because you couldn't sit tight or keep your temper in check." 

  His concern flew over her head.  Her breath was jerky, her shoulders heaving with each intake.  Her face was white with indignation, fury, frustration. 

  The last time she had been that belligerent, he'd been simple and disappointed, telling her quietly that she was wrong, like a father tired by his disobedient child.  He had been that time, too.  Unfortunately, it wasn't working as quickly as he wanted it to.  She was too nervous and full of her ideas.  On a day already gone wrong, she was already proving to him an exercise in both uselessness and humiliation.  Thus, she'd earned his darker temper.

  But she hadn't even blinked at that, either.  Instead, spinning, growling, "Bastard" behind her, she left him there in the corridor. 

  Chakotay saw her turn towards the crew quarters, and for a moment, breathed his relief.  At least she'd take some time to think about it.  She usually came around when she did. 

  A moment later, he closed his eyes.

  The best for all his crew...even that bitter, brilliant, desperately scared young woman he'd saved a year before.  Like so many others on his ship, he'd come across her by chance, and used her for what she had.

  I got her into this, the captain knew, suddenly without pride.  I used her gifts and her temper to get us out of rough spots.  I was the one who made her believe, who showed her what we were fighting for, *gave* her the cause.  She was all too ready to use her wit and nerve to take out the Cardassians, to vent her demons...

  The captain heard a shuffle and her curses beyond the turn in the corridor.  She'd pushed someone aside and ordered them out of her way, her growling reproaches reverberating down the metal deck. 

  Where would she be now if I'd simply taken her to safety and let her get on with her life...like I should have? Should have...

  The deck faded to silence.

  I got her into this, enlisted her, burned more hate into her when none of this was any of her business...  Just like Janeway got Paris into...their sickbay.  In a way, I got Paris--the useless waste--into all of it, too...  Would either of them be here if I hadn't?

  The captain still stared at the hole his engineer had disappeared into. 

  No.  But there's no way to take that back now.

  Chakotay turned and headed back into the middle of his ship--his ship, with his people, who he'd sworn to protect.  Even her.  Turning again, he returned to engineering, then to the station he needed to work on. 

  "Captain Janeway wanted me to work on the memory banks," he told the lieutenant standing there, soberly yet honestly, "and even I know they're a little difficult." 

  Planting himself at the panel, he did what he needed to do. 

  For them all. 

     

---

     

     
  Stalking inordinate paths around the bunkroom, she seethed in long, drawn breaths, feeling the tremor within her all but ignite her skin.  She had considered everything, and he wouldn't even hear her. 

  B'Elanna was sure her plan was foolproof.  She'd spent the first two nights after their capture plotting it out, making sure it would work, making sure it was something he would agree to.

  She had to get them out of this.  She couldn't let Starfleet win--and she knew he didn't want them to, either.  She was sure of that.  She knew it would work.

  He'd told her to forget it.

  She couldn't let them take her that easily.  She wouldn't! 

  He was tucking tail, after everything he'd told them, everything they'd been through, all of his promises and pride and his confidence.  Now that he was cornered by that Starfleet captain--so sure and pleased with herself when she lectured them like children.  Janeway was probably just loving her win.  Worse, now he was just letting them haul them off so nobody would be 'hurt.' For the crew's good? 

  In a way, he was right.

  "Damnit!" 

  Six months--six years--what difference did it make?  She'd still be an inmate, locked away and under Starfleet's thumb.  She'd never be able to go back to the Maquis--that was another home gone.  She certainly would never get back with her mother--even if she wanted to.  Her father--if he didn't want her when she was growing up, he sure as hell wouldn't then.  Starfleet--she spat a laugh at the very notion--as if she ever had a chance with them anyway. 

  So it made no difference what she did.  She'd been going nowhere before she got in the Maquis, and there she was again.  All over again. 

  She should have known nothing would change.

  But in a way, Chakotay was right.  If she was caught, it'd reflect badly on everyone.

  But it would work, her mind played over and over, like a feedback loop, coming with more insistence with each rotation.  A wide-beam transport wasn't a difficult thing for any of them, and she could get past the Starfleet codes, get them when they weren't expecting it.  She'd done it a hundred times.  It was always how they'd survived, with the element of surprise.  She could get those Starfleet off their ship, lock them up, grab what they needed off Voyager--and their people would all be behind her. 

  It was a chance.  They couldn't lose anything.  Even Seska said it'd work, and she was the most pessimistic person B'Elanna knew. 

  She clutched to that hope, then, that shot of a chance in that otherwise impossible situation. 

  It could be done.

  But Chakotay wouldn't even hear of it.

  What's happened to him--in only two days?  What the hell's wrong with him?  Where's the person who told me that the risk was always worth it when it came to staying free and alive?  The one who never gave up, even when his lousy ship was on its last legs, and managed to keep us one small step ahead of the game despite it all?  --Where's the person who said to hell with Starfleet?!

  She stopped in the center of the room, her chest rising and falling, more and more slowly, breathing through her mouth, swallowing.  She choked as her breath started again.

  Yet she knew he was trying to protect them all.  That was his way.  He was always looking out for "his people," no matter how hard it was on him. 

  But even that didn't matter anymore where she was concerned.  He'd absolved himself of her.

  She turned around, but went nowhere.  Not that there was anywhere to go. 

  For his crew, the captain, being a captain, would let himself suffer the downright humiliation of having Starfleet drag him, his ship and crew, to one of their prisons.  He'd be a martyr--at least to them--for looking out for them all.  He'd told her before he'd probably get a couple years, maybe three; the rest, likely six to eighteen months, depending.  Mostly six.  But they'd be alive and free again someday. 

  So, whatever she did wouldn't reflect on him, either.  He wouldn't claim responsibility....  But if she was successful, there'd be nothing for any of them to worry about.  He'd be angry--"disappointed," most likely--but they'd all be free.  If for some reason it didn't work--But it will!--she'd have some more time in prison...and totally alone, kicked off his crew, no longer Maquis for acting more like one...  He looked like he meant it that time. 

  But she knew it would work.  She could feel it in every bone, every nerve, all the instincts she'd both cursed and was thankful for.  She'd predicted every contingency, especially Starfleet.  Despite that, it was a coin flip.

  She drew a long, deep breath; her eyes closed, opened again. 

  Her fists unclenched. 

  Thinking again on the possibilities, B'Elanna felt a wave of numbness pass over and through her.

  A cold trembling like none she'd known followed it.

     

---

     

     
    "Captain," Chakotay nodded as he continued to work on the panel at his fingers. 

  Janeway moved to look down at his work, and offered him a small grin.  "Captain Chakotay." 

  He regarded her.  Businesslike, but he could tell her salutation was sincere.  So very Starfleet, what he remembered well from his own years there.  Totally professional camaraderie.  It was oddly comforting to him then.

  They might have been enemies, she might have been subjecting him and his crew to prison without any mercy there, but she had been as equitable as she could be.  Of course, she was being allowed to do her job, so she had the freedom to be generous.  He understood that from his own experience, and knew he would probably do the same in her position. 

  "I've rerouted all the engine protocols to the systems your people installed," he told her.  "You shouldn't have any more transfer blocks now." 

  "Thank you." 

  "You're welcome," he answered quietly, returning to complete his work. 

  "Captain," said Commander Cavit as he approached, handing Janeway a PADD.  "We're about ready to reinitialize the warp drive.  We've diverted all power but life support and navigation to the engines.  We think that'll do the trick."

  She smiled, nodded sharply.  "Then the antimatter containment field is cooperating this time?  Good work.  Let's go to it, then.  --Mister Nelson, bring the magnetic constrictors online..." 

  Chakotay knew in any other circumstance, that would be good news...and maybe it was then, too.  He looked at some of his crew who'd agreed to help.  They were tired, their eyes held no emotion. 

  "...and watch the plasma relays.  We were having trouble realigning them.  In fact..."

  It would be good just to start getting it all over with.  It'd be easier on everyone involved.  They could start to end it, move on... 

  "Captain..." 

  He hated it, but it was all he could do.

  "Captain?"

  Chakotay's head came up when he felt a gentle touch on his arm.  Janeway's stare, softened strangely, found his again.  "Yes?"

  "May I take your station for a moment? I'd like to watch the antimatter containment--just in case."

  He assented, moving a step to the side.  But no further.  He wanted to watch it too--just in case.

  With a few more orders from the Starfleet captain, the warp drive was brought back online.  Suddenly, the cloud of misty blue and white filled the chamber before them. 

  "Warp drive is online," came an engineer's satisfied confirmation--

  --And an alarm screamed out directly after.  The blue mist within the core flashed and another system sounded its klaxon.

  "What the hell was that?" Janeway demanded as she punched on the console.  "I'm getting a massive energy disruption in the...  Where is that coming from?!" 

  "Someone's brought the transporters online!"  Nelson shouted over the alarms.  "But those systems were realigned to stabilize the coil relays!" 

  "That's not right!"  Chakotay felt his heart jump when he looked down--saw what was happening.  The saboteur was trying to increase power to the transporters, ignorant of the reroutes--and he realized--

  "Damn her!"  he snapped and shoved Janeway aside.

  "What--"

  "Shut up!"  Chakotay ordered and started overriding as fast as he could. 

  "Antimatter containment is failing!"  called one man he didn't know. 

  His fingers flew over the keypad, locking out, shutting down--

  "The core will breach in two minutes at this rate--"

  "Take it offline!"  Janeway commanded but went to do it herself. 

  Chakotay found the source--shut it down.  Another lockout--he overrode it. 

  She's going to get us killed! his mind yelled inside the deck's sudden chaos--and he desperately wondered if she knew he was the one trying to stop her. 

  "Janeway!"  he shouted, seeing the drive plasma begin to vent damningly into the engine room.  "Tell one of your people to cut power to the coil assembly!" 

  Janeway shot a stare at one of her people, and they went to it.  "You know what's happening?"

  "Yes!"  he snapped and punched the panel.  Tapped in a few more commands.  Found her...cut off her access... 

  Then it stopped. 

  The deck whined down, systems failing.

  Plasma haze drifted over the deck, to the vents, clearing slowly from around their feet... 

  All but the emergency power remained on the deck... 

  ...And the only thing he could think to do at that very moment was to smack that bright, young engineer that he'd brought aboard his ship.  Punch her hard. 

  For a wild, furious moment, he knew she could take it.  He knew more that she deserved it for nearly getting them killed, nearly killing another ship full of innocent officers as well, for betraying them, his trust, his orders, his resolutions, his acceptance of their fate.  Everything he'd done for them.  For what?

  In her frightened, twisted mind, she was doing it for them.  Doing what he might have done if he didn't know better--if he didn't have a bone of sense in him. 

  She'd disobeyed him outright.  Not even an hour after he'd threatened her, warned her, tried to convince her.

  I should have locked her in that closet.

  She took her own risk--again.  This time, he knew he had to follow through on his own risk, too. 

  For all of them--even her--he had to do what he said he would. 

  He looked down on the panel, sighing hard in his heavy chest, then glanced to Janeway.  Several long seconds later, he unwillingly resolved himself to his decision. 

  "Tell your transporter chief to lock onto this signal and beam her in here," he told her quietly. 

  The Starfleet captain paused, her eyes on him, then tapped her comm badge. 

  Not a minute later, he was looking his former engineer in the eyes. 

  Materializing in the middle of the engine room she'd once claimed as her own, the young woman looked like an animal caught in a light beam, ready to bolt; frozen, then jerking her head when she spotted the phaser pointed at her side. 

  She almost spoke, but her words stuck to her open lips.  Tears or murder--the former seemed more likely there, if only for her shock and humiliation. 

  Chakotay didn't bother trying to speak, only stared at her.  He knew: She was desperate, she was upset, she wasn't really thinking, reacting on her instincts to free herself.  Because of that, he also knew that with her wits, she was a danger to them all.  In her frame of mind, she simply didn't see that.  Wouldn't see that.  Even if it was just starting to register, he knew, deep down, that he couldn't trust her again. 

  She was his friend, but she'd gone against him one too many times.  She had to pay for that, learn the real consequences of being rebellious.  They'd all have to, soon enough.

  He was through with her.  He had to be.  He'd done enough.  Too much. 

  She was all theirs.

  Janeway almost didn't have to be told.  What she was witnessing was as plain as it was pitiful.  She looked at the two in turns--the tersely frightened young woman, the silently furious captain. 

  She broke his orders...Why? Janeway thought.  Certainly we might have expected something to happen.  But she looks so...surprised, like a headstrong child who gets caught with their finger in the pie, knowing they shouldn't ruin it, but convincing themselves that just one taste won't...

  Again, Janeway was forced to reconsider Tuvok's suggestion, wonder if it was indeed the best thing to keep them on that ship.  Obviously there was at least one--who knew how many more?--who was desperate and foolish enough to sabotage their own safety to escape.  Their Maquis captain had assured her of his orders...

  Or maybe this girl is simply trouble he honestly thought he'd averted? He did stop her after all.  Maybe it's time I found out for myself what I'm dealing with.  We have the time, thanks to her.

  Looking around at the other Maquis, those who hadn't turned quickly away from the scene seemed to be waiting for something horrible, for one or the other to burst their tightly contained energy...

  But no such explosion occurred.

  Rather, Chakotay said, "Captain Janeway, you have my permission to take this woman to your brig--for her protection as well as ours."  His face ghosted regret, frustration, embarrassment, disappointment, all in seconds, then steeled again as he turned away.  "She's not a part of my crew anymore.  Do with her as you see fit.  I trust you'll take care of her.  She's no longer my responsibility." 

  With that, he went back to work, beginning to assess the extent of the damage.  The other Maquis crew barely met her eyes as they likewise tried to do something besides get involved in what had transpired.  Moving to them, their captain quietly told them what to do to make their repairs--again.  They obeyed without pause, if not with one last fleeting glance to their former superior, the engineer. 

  Nobody defended her.

  He had given her up.  Even that surprised the Starfleet captain. 

  Looking back again, Janeway watched the blood drain completely from the young woman's hardened face.  She had not moved.  Her small, still body stood in the midst of the world she seemed only then to be realizing was no longer hers.

  She stood alone, open for all to see, a monument to a mistake. 

  Mercifully, Janeway motioned to Tuvok.  "Please escort this young woman to the briefing room and post what security you deem appropriate," she told him.  "I would like to speak with her myself." 

  The girl shot a glare at her, her first move since materializing in the room.  It burned hatefully into the corner of Janeway's eye, accusing, demanding, insulted... 

  Finding something new to point at--aim at.  Anything. 

  Janeway did not return it. 

     

---

     

     
  "Mister Paris." 

  The words floated through the air as if they tasted of sulfur. 

  "Mister Paris." 

  He opened his eyes.  Saw the ceiling.  Saw the Vulcan nurse.  He blinked again.  He looked at Dr. Fitzgerald. 

  "What...?" For a moment, he couldn't recall exactly...then in flashes--Dr.  Fitzgerald seemed to be waiting--his head hurt like hell, and the older man seemed to know it...The flashes slowed into blinks, then images...  "Captain Chakotay?"

  Fitzgerald offered a slim smile, clinically satisfied.  "Yes, Mister Paris, you're as popular as ever," he said and turned to put his instruments away.  "I've treated your injuries, and you're well enough to return to your quarters.  I suggest you rest." 

  Paris almost snorted at that--or he might have if a lance of pain didn't shoot through his skull.  The doctor likely knew his injuries well enough to note his wince, too.  He offered nothing, though--and the former pilot was too proud to ask for a painkiller from a man who clearly could care less.

  Instead, he sat up.  "Thanks, Doctor," he muttered and moved to stand. 

  "And try to stay out of trouble this time, if you will," Fitzgerald added and he pushed his tray table back into its hold, not looking back. 

  "What was last time?" the pilot wanted to know.  "Here, I mean." 

  Fitzgerald turned, and actually had the nerve to meet his eyes. 

  Paris really felt the hurt that time.  Suddenly, stupidly, he really wanted to know what he'd done to earn the idea that he was still nothing but their inconvenience.

  He knew--in all honestly, he couldn't deny it--that he had earned their distrust, their ill regard, his own punishment.  He'd known that long ago. 

  But he had not earned any disrespect there. Rather, he'd kept out of their way, tried to disappear...  Dumb idea, really, expecting that I'd ever be anything but a sore thumb on a nice, new starship, with all these people's lives just starting here, full of possibilities...

  He was a glaring reminder of why people discarded the old and started on bright new futures.  It probably sickened the doctor to think people like him still existed in the backwash of his sparkling clean society.  It likely chilled him to think how many others lurked within Starfleet hiding their crimes like he had. 

  It didn't give some self-righteous physician the right to persecute him, though, to play the godly defender of all things good, or to assign on him blame for things he hadn't done, had tried not to do again.  Then again... 

  "You've made enough trouble for yourself to be playing catch up for a long time to come," Dr. Fitzgerald said, turning back to his instruments.  "That's what parole is for, if I remember correctly.  I'd use it wisely, if I were you." 

  "Your concern just turned my new leaf," he sneered, not bothering to reign in this tone, even if he'd expected the doctor's contempt.

  "*Cavit to sickbay.*"

  By the look on the doctor's face, the impassive glance from his nurse, too, Fitzgerald seemed to enjoy Cavit's timing.

  Asshole.

  "Fitzgerald here." 

  "*Is our...visitor doing well?*"

  "I've released him to his quarters," Fitzgerald answered without offering to include 'the visitor' in their conversation.  Instead, he motioned to his nurse to refill the hypospray canisters.  "He was just leaving." 

  Yeah, don't mind me.  I'm trying to be invisible, remember?

  "*Would he be well enough to pick up his travel orders?*"

  "Has the Maquis ship been repaired?"

  Damn, Janeway did actually get them, then.  Then he wondered why he cursed the captain's success.  Maybe because he knew, if only briefly, he'd entertained the idea of the Maquis winning in the end.  Who knew? 

  "*...The captain is considering scuttling it after today's...incident.*"

  "I see.  And the saboteur?"

  "*The Maquis prisoner has yet to be questioned by her.*"

  "I'll prepare another table," the doctor muttered, then asked, "Are you sure that's wise?"

  "*Captain Janeway knows what she's doing.*"

  Fitzgerald's lips tucked in at the corners.  "Captains usually do." 

  "*But just in case she does decide to destroy the Liberty, I thought Mister Paris would like to know where he's going.  Ask him to...Ask him to meet me in the briefing room.*"

  "I'll inform hi--"

  "On my way," Tom snapped, growling as he spun on his heel. 

  "He's on his way," he heard the doctor sardonically confirm as he turned the corner outside the door, not looking back.  "Fitzgerald ou--." 

  The doors blessedly swished shut.

  "Damn them, damn them, damn them," he hissed to himself as he made good speed to the turbolift.  Prison was a paradise in comparison to the crap he had to take on Voyager.

  I knew this'd be useless!

  Of course, being nothing and being treated like nothing were two different things--or maybe it just hurt to know that the reality of that nothingness was starting to show itself outside of the penal colony, where being nobody was actually a blessing.

  Get used to it, he told himself.  This is what you've got coming, and you had it coming since the day you got on that shuttle...

  "Deck one." 

  But damnit, I don't want it!

  A couple months, maybe six weeks if the hearing went okay and he could get himself to a place where he could just not be bothered anymore, disappear somewhere and bitterly hope that something would change.  Maybe an opportunity would arise later, or meet someone who by some miracle would get past his reputation long enough to...

  To what? Who the hell wants to get past it with me? Even if they did, I'd take care of that real quick, knowing me.

  His parole would likely be another year to eighteen months, maybe a little less with Janeway's good word if she bothered to give him one.  Maybe she would, maybe not.  For that time, he'd stay on Earth, find a place to pass the time and stay out of trouble long enough that he could... 

  Go where? Where?

  Tom felt a numb thud in his heart, chilling the rest of him. 

  He had no answers. 

  He'd be cut loose, and he would just drift away.  Not in the least the life he'd once been stupid enough to expect...Just thinking about that bold, impulsive, naive kid nearly brought tears to his harder, more cynical eyes. 

  There was nothing left for him...again.

  "Hey, Tom."  It was Kim, just off the bridge, on the other side of the turbolift. 

  Snapping his head up, Tom grinned briefly.  "Hey, Harry." 

  "Looking for Commander Cavit, I guess?"

  Tom nodded, crossing paths with the younger man, who stuck to the corridor and let the lift go.  "He's got my itinerary."

  Kim sighed, but then just nodded back.  "I hope everything goes okay for you.  --I mean that." 

  Tom grinned.  His head still hurt, but the did feel good to smile and feel it, at least a little.  "Thanks.  You've been a good person, Harry.  It's been a while since someone took the time to be a friend." 

  "There's more like me than you think," Harry told him. 

  "And maybe I'll get lucky enough to meet one sometime?"

  Kim smiled, and Tom couldn't believe how young he was, how bright and sure he looked just then.  He could barely recall the time when such an unaffected expression had lit his own face.

  "I think you will."

  "Maybe," Tom shrugged, trying to seem less dismissive than he felt.  In the sudden silence that followed, he remembered...  "Hey, what happened today?  I heard there was some kind of incident, but Fitzgerald wasn't much for conversation."

  "Oh, I guess you didn't hear," Harry realized.  "How do you feel?"

  "Good as new.  What happened?" He really was curious, and for that matter, it was a good distraction from his musing for the moment. 

  "One of Maquis prisoners staged an escape," the ensign told him, "almost destroyed both ships trying.  We're still repairing the damage." 

  Tom was surprised--and he wondered how long he was out to have missed it...Not that they would have kept him up to date.  "Really?"

  "Captain Chakotay stopped her--and dismissed her from his crew.  Captain Janeway's going to question her after she's done preparing with Lieutenant Tuvok." 

  Tom blew a breath through his pursed lips, thinking about that.  Chakotay must be in a hell of a spot that'd he'd go that far.

  "Lieutenant Tuvok's not sure about it, though," Harry continued, a little more tentatively.  "She might be dangerous.  She's, well, half-Klingon." 

  Tom's wandering stare shot back to Harry's as his brain replayed the bloodlines, connected to his memory.... "B'Elanna Torres?"

  *She* got booted off the Liberty?!

  "You know her?"

  "I wasn't in very long, but I worked a little with her." 

  Oh my god--Chakotay kicked *her* off his crew?  Now I *know* anything's possible.

  "What was she like?"

  "She was...dedicated."  Tom took a step back, strangely uncomfortable with that gossip, now that he had it.  "Look, I should pick my orders up before Cavit gets another reason to have a grudge with me.  Hope you don't mind." 

  "No.  Sorry.  I was just getting off shift, anyway.  You going to get some dinner?"

  Tom shook his head.  "Actually, I think I could use some rest.  My head still hurts a little.  Chakotay still packs a hell of a punch." 

  Harry seemed to understand.  "I guess he does--I saw him on the bridge."  He fumbled slightly, properly cued to Tom's own anxiousness to end the conversation.  The kid wasn't blind--and was growing uneasy for nothing to say to someone who wasn't much for talking about it.

  Finally, he said, "Tomorrow, then.  Well, sleep well.  Maybe later, though?  Before you go?"

  Tom grinned, nodded.  He turned away as Harry did. 

  For probably the umpteenth time since he'd seen the kid in that station bar a couple weeks before, he couldn't believe Harry Kim was just that nice a guy. 

  Tom hoped it'd stay that way for him.  Hoped nothing would come along and kill that somehow, embitter or spoil that good nature or realness that had made Tom's stay there almost bearable.  He hoped Kim would never have to deal with anything near to the hell that he had.  Tom knew that, being as good a kid as he was, he probably wouldn't. 

  It'd make one less jerk in the universe, at least.

  He'd be happy for that, if anything. 

     

---

     

     
  B'Elanna paced in circles in the clean, businesslike briefing room.  They hadn't taken her to the brig right off, but brought her straight up to the briefing room and left her there to wait for Janeway to have her talk--"minus the forcefield," she'd added in afterthought. 

  If Janeway thinks she's going to get any information from me, she's dead wrong.

  She still couldn't believe Chakotay backstabbed her.  She knew she broke his orders, but he actually kicked her off his ship.  Not one of the crew, her friends, stood up for her, either. 

  Worse, Chakotay was the one who stopped her. 

  I could've gotten around the damned warp breach, she told herself.  If he hadn't been messing around with my protocols, I could've taken care of it...and if I wasn't able to, there wouldn't have been much to lose, anyway.

  Even so, she knew she didn't want to kill anyone. 

  Sighing hard, she spun and went to the window, let her glassy eyes roam over the perimeter of plasma fields and swirling gasses, shooting up and around the Badlands.  In the eye of the storm.  For a minute, she stared at it, still as they were, watching the violence from a distance, safe in their little cache in space. 

  She turned her head from side to side, still unbelieving, wishing somehow she had the ability to just cry about all of it--all of her disappointing life of losses and useless, stupid dreams made even more futile. 

  But she was too angry to cry, even if she thought it'd do any good. 

  No matter what I do, it'll catch up with me, anyway.  There's no sense in feeling for something that's not even worth anything in the end.

  She wondered what to do with that. 

  If it's all useless, what's the point in sticking around at all?

  For a moment, she slouched a little, following her drifting stare in the panorama. 

  Because it'd be more useless to just give up...There has to be something, somewhere, that won't crash down around me, and maybe *that's* what keeps me--

  She turned at the first sound of the door, melding her face again and instantly into one of proud defiance, chin up, if only to spite her pensiveness of only moments before. 

  Defiance melted into scorn. 

  "Paris." 

  His stare was more like an internal scan, as if making sure she was who she was.  "Torres." 

  She could have laughed for want to spit on him.  He actually looked concerned to see her there, when all along she knew... 

  Her back straightened even further.  "Yeah, me--thanks to you." 

  Rolling his eyes, he crossed his arms and sighed hard, still looking at her.  Thankfully, he did not move any further into the room.  A smart choice, she thought. 

  "Has Cavit been here?" he asked. 

  "Does it look like it?"

  Tom snorted.  "So much for manners." 

  "Oh?"

  "Cavit's the one who called me up here." 

  "Well, Janeway sent me here."  She waved at one of the chairs as she turned away.  "Have a seat and take a number."  Closing her mouth, she drilled her eyes into the view again.  She didn't feel like looking at that traitor. 

  Tom did not sit. 

  She hadn't changed, he noted to himself as he regarded her.  It surprised him that he quickly found himself as intrigued by the woman, even when she was as bitter and self absorbed as she'd always been. 

  Snotty as hell is more like it, he thought, remembering his own offer, eons ago, of friendship, turned away brusquely for her own notions that he was just flirting with her.  Perhaps it was that particular intensity that made him so curious. 

  Problem was, he couldn't even remember why he'd tried to offer any friendliness her way.  He knew he hadn't been flirting...for the most part. 

  Torres also still had a problem staying still when she wasn't in control.  She moved to pass the width of the window in a ritual prowl made inept by the restricted space.  Determinedly, she was not looking at him. 

  Knowing she had really gotten herself in it.  Wondering what she could do while knowing she couldn't do anything.  Not knowing what would come next, but knowing she didn't have a choice but to go... 

  Tom knew the feeling.  He'd felt like that when he made that necessary decision and evaded the Bradbury all of that hour, lead them away from the disabled Liberty, thus ending his known career, such as it was, in the Maquis, and sacrificing his freedom, if it could be called that.  The looks on their faces when they transported him about that Starfleet ship, the tones of their voices when they committed him to their brig...Tom knew he'd forsaken all he had left.  He knew it.  He knew they knew it, too. 

  She was feeling it--or at least she would be soon, or had just started to. 

  Meanwhile, she seemed to be fighting it a lot better than he ever had.  Seemed. For all he knew, she could be just as good at the game as he was.The fact that she was there meant he was probably right.  That wouldn't have changed much, either. 

  Watching her turn again try to find something--anything--to concentrate on aside from him, he struck a more casual position, leaned against the wall, crossed his legs at the ankles.  He'd have to wait there anyway, and Cavit probably made sure that he would.  He had nothing else to do but watch her, after all, wonder when she'd just give it up and check to see if she'd lost his attention. 

  At the same time, he couldn't deny that her pacing was making him nervous, too.  He could practically feel her mind racing. 

  He didn't blame her that, either. 

  "I feel like I've been sent to the administrator's office," he said.  Some conversation at any level was better than none, he decided. 

  B'Elanna snorted, but still didn't look his way.  "I guess you know what that's all about." 

  "Not from school, actually, no.  I never got in trouble...then." 

  "Wonder what happened," she said, indicating that she didn't really care about the answer. 

  Tom's eyes turned down.  Guess I set myself up for that one...not like I haven't spent a while wondering the same thing.

  Of course, he could wonder the same for her. 

  She'd go to prison soon.  He knew exactly what she was in for... 

  He knew it'd be useless, but...  "I'm sorry you got caught." 

  "Right." 

  Her word faded as soon as it was voiced--fading in, dying out. 

  "I mean it.  I never expected Janeway to find you." 

  Then, slowly, she turned from the window; her narrowed eyes pulled up his long frame, caught his eyes for but a second.  "Right," she repeated. 

  He shrugged, more to himself.  "Never mind." 

  B'Elanna shook her head slowly in indignant awe.  "You really are a piece of work, Paris," she said.  "You really think I'm about to believe you when you're the one that jumped onboard to come after us in the first place?"

  "I didn't jump onboard.  Trust me, it wasn't my idea, and they'd have come out here with or without me." 

  "Uh huh."  She shook her head.  "You'd sell out your own mother if you thought it'd get you ahead a step, wouldn't you?"

  Tom scowled.  "Damn, Torres, where did that come from?"

  She spat a laugh.  "Where did that come from?  You really must think I'm an idiot!  --You sold us out, ran off to the Federation to tell them everything--"

  "The hell I did!" 

  "Right, I believe you." 

  Tom stopped, almost as soon as he'd started, realizing for the first time that he actually was defending himself to that woman.  Why--he had no idea... 

  Though, looking into those deadly dark eyes, aimed at him as if wanting to rip his soul into shreds, he felt the sudden compulsion to.  Do or die preservation against somebody...  Someone who likely *could* rip me apart... He tipped his head, not breaking her stare.  ...and vice versa.

  "You're not so holy yourself, B'Elanna," he said quietly, surely. 

  She blinked. 

  But just as quickly, she recovered.  No way, she thought, I'm not about to let this little bastard turn it back on me.

  "At least I know the meaning of loyalty," she replied. 

  "And that's why you're here, too, right?" he countered. 

  "I was doing what I could to save my ship!" 

  "Really?  Get them killed is more like it, from what I heard." 

  She blew a breath.  "It didn't go that far." 

  "Because Chakotay stopped you." 

  B'Elanna paused there.  She had hoped he hadn't heard of any of it, but obviously, he'd gotten it all.  Even so, he still didn't know anything about why--as if he'd understand.  "Chakotay was doing his duty--and so did I.  For the Maquis." 

  Tom snorted at that one.  "Oh come off it," he said.  "You did it for yourself." 

  "What?"

  "You did it because you couldn't handle having to face up to being caught.  Prison's a scary idea, Torres.  I know that one personally." 

  She growled, almost spoke.  He was really trying hard, and she knew it. 

  But he was right.  She knew he was. 

  "I know what it's like to think of yourself as a loser," he continued, taunting her with an indifferent shrug.  "Facing up to the fact you couldn't stay a step ahead.  Guess nobody can forever.  It's just sometimes some people lose out sooner." 

  She felt her blood rise, wondered foolishly where the reaction had come from...and yet she knew exactly where.  Thankfully, she was yet able to hold her face firm against his retaliation.  She wasn't about to give in to trash like him. 

  "Little wonder you got there before me," she replied. 

  "It's not like I was looking for Starfleet to come and pick me up," he said.  "It happens.  --And it happened to you, too." 

  Her stare narrowed again.  "What a load of shit," she snarled.  "Your turn to face some facts, Paris: You were looking for the easy way out, and you found it running home to Starfleet.  You never believed in the Maquis' purpose.  You were just looking for something to do with your useless life, to make yourself feel like more than what you knew you were and earn a dime while you were at it.  And you couldn't deal with Chakotay--"

  "Obviously neither could you." 

  As much as her stare could fry him, he hoped his would freeze her. 

  It did.  Her breath seethed, much as she tried to control it. 

  Damn!

  His eyes refused to release hers. 

  Hell with this!

  "Then why are you here?" she countered.  "Through the generosity of your heart?  What the hell kind of loyalty do you have that'd make you betray us twice?"

  He felt that...knew why. 

  "I didn't do it purposefully," he said. 

  "Oh?" she said with mock consideration.  "Then what were you trying to do, Paris?  It sure as hell doesn't look like charity." 

  "I hoped..." but his words cut off.  He drew a breath, then another.  Then he let it out. 

  What the hell.

  "I hoped that maybe I could do...something right again."  The words had nearly stuck back on his tongue, but he did manage them.  "You don't know what it's like, B'Elanna, to have...all that time to think, think about your life, all your screw ups, everything that brought you to that point.  They give you no choice but to think about it.  When you're alone like that, you want nothing but to think of ways you can get away from it..." 

  Somehow hearing him, she stilled; her head drew back slightly.  His words...honest, his facade had drained.  Worse, she felt it, knew he was...  But she couldn't dare show him, even as her stomach turned at the ideas he'd suddenly replanted in her... 

  "...and I don't know if I ever will."  Against his will, his throat thickened.  He knew, looking at her tough facade, he couldn't stop himself.  The words just kept rolling out..."You haven't been there--yet--thinking about what you could've done to avoid getting to that point, knowing you never thought you'd end up like that, wishing like hell you'd done it all differently...and knowing you can't.  When you're in that cell, and you realize it, and know you can't make it right, or turn it back again..." 

  She pressed her lips firmly together.  She couldn't--wouldn't--let him see... 

  He shook his head of the rest.  "I just wanted to try again.  I needed someone to see I wasn't the piece of crap I'd made myself out to be.  Okay?"

  She fought it.  She wouldn't go there, she couldn't go there.  She didn't want to even let him make her think about it. 

  "But since it was useless, coming here, it's doesn't matter anymore, I guess," he finished. 

  He was preying on her...She felt the corners closing around her, cutting off her blood and breath.  She wouldn't--she couldn't--let him...win. 

  She would be damned if he'd make her..."I'll cry for you some other time, Tom."

  She put his name out so venomously; he might have slapped himself--or her--for the sting of it. 

  But a few seconds later, the poison sunk through him, permeating his veins, raising his blood. 

  I'm sick of this--*sick* of this!

  "Whether or not you believe me is your prerogative," he said coldly.  "Hell, just about everyone else wants to make their own judgment, so why not you, too?  --Even if you're guilty for doing the same thing I did.  It's just that everyone knows that B'Elanna Torres was doing the good fight on the wrong damn day and she's just too ignorant to realize she's gone too far.  But I know what was really going on in there, B'Elanna, nearly blowing up your own ship.  Better dead than captured?  --Bullshit!  I remember you better than you think." 

  "To hell with you, Paris!  You don't--"

  "You make yourself out to be so heroic and selfless.  But the truth is, you were so wrapped up in your own fear, there was no way you could see that you were being as selfish and stupid as I'd been--if not more.  You got lucky, though: You didn't kill anyone--this time." 

  She had the perfect rejoinder on her tongue, yet it froze there when he saw it and approached her suddenly, surely.  Coming very close very quickly, his face tightening with a fury she'd never seen in him. 

  It actually shocked her.  He'd been so adept at not showing anything, and then he was moving to her so swiftly she didn't know if she could... 

  She stepped back, held up her arm instinctively, ready to strike--to kill him.  He'd definitely earned that.  She could kill him... 

  But he stopped just short of her reach. 

  "You want the truth?" he queried shortly, finishing his move by leaning upon the corner of the table, staring down to her.  "Because I'm a consummate screw-up, no matter what I do, nobody's going to give a shit except to think the worst of it.  Nothing I do makes any difference, so why bother doing anything at all anymore? 

  "So you're right--I don't give a damn about any of it.  I'm not loyal because nobody's earned it in me.  In return, I don't deserve their trust and I know it.  So I was going nowhere before and I'm going nowhere now.  --Now you get to have the same pleasure." 

  "You're a fool to compare yourself to me," she growled. 

  "Maybe.  But you don't know everything about me, do you?"

  "I know enough."  She truly believed that much. 

  "Do you?" he said, knowing better.  "It'd be nice if you could really say that, wouldn't it?"

  "Don't screw around with my head," she told him, squinting up at him.  "It won't work." 

  "I don't have to.  You're doing a good enough job on your own time." 

  "You know nothing about who I am!"  B'Elanna retorted.  "Or what I am!  How can you say I--"

  "Welcome to the real world, Torres," Tom cut in, a sardonic knowingness overtaking his low tone as he glared straight into her poker hot glower.  She had no idea... 

  "Have fun trying to prove yourself now," he continued, "with nobody left to fall on but your own screwed-up self--again.  You'll have plenty of time, trust me, with the busywork they'll be tossing at you--part of the time.  The rest of the time you'll have all to yourself, to think about everything you did to get yourself there.  Have fun going nuts for things to do to distract yourself.  I almost did.  Knowing you, you might just go over the edge." 

  What the hell does he know about me? she screamed behind her tight, enraged face.  The bastard actually had the nerve to...be right. 

  He was disloyal and selfish and didn't care about anything but himself...But damnit, he was right--and might be right. 

  But she wasn't about to... 

  "You're breaking my heart," she sneered. 

  "And you're desperate enough to kill a couple shiploads of people to save your ass from having to really look at yourself." 

  He grinned--a grin she wanted to smash like thin ice--and he tipped his head again to regard her. 

  "Face it: We're not so different after all."  For effect, he straightened and held his arms out to show himself to her, pale skin, circled eyes, dead, embittered expression, and all.  "Have a good look: This is what you're in for." 

  As if the wind had simply changed, he backed off.  The grin faded, replaced by a sureness that invited her to try and fight him that time. 

  But she couldn't.  She wasn't even certain if she was holding up her own mask at all anymore.  Much as she would have loved to fight him, she knew nothing she said or did would change the fact that...  Don't do it!

  "You actually expect me to believe a word you've said?" she returned slowly, cruelly, with all she had left.  "You left us for dead, Paris.  You killed your own people and lied about it.  Now you say you don't give a damn about trying to right yourself or make things better because life's just been too damned hard and daddy didn't give you everything you ever wanted.  Giving up because you got caught and nobody likes you anymore." 

  Her eyes narrowed as she pulled her chin up at his reaction to her words.  "You are nothing--the worst kind of coward.  So why should I crawl into any pit with you, regardless of what I'm up against and how I feel about it?"

  She was right.  She'd nailed him.  Not on all of it, but most of it.  Enough of it. 

  Again, he'd stepped right into it, invited her... 

  Damn.

  He felt a pain in his chest, breathed against it. 

  "I don't think I care if you believe me or not," he replied.  "You--Cavit, Janeway, Chakotay--all of you--I don't care, because you sure as hell don't give a damn enough to look past whatever you want to believe." 

  "How tragically noble of you," she offered, dripping with sarcasm as she squinted back to him.  "It must be so hard, being you." 

  He exhaled, slowly, swallowed the humiliation of another searing point on her part. 

  "Sometimes I think like that," he admitted.  "But that gives you no right to claim superiority over me, just because you managed to avoid it longer." 

  "Oh?"

  He nodded, not breaking their shared glare.  But something he saw there somehow softened him again.  Much as she had torn away at his own defenses, much as he envied her relentless self-defense, he still felt sorry for her.  She still stood defiantly, unmoved, still trying to deflect him, arms tightly crossed, feet set slightly apart, legs straight. 

  She really thought she wasn't going to give in once she got there. 

  He wished he'd even seemed that strong when he'd gotten himself to Auckland.  Instead, he'd practically crawled into his cell, his head dropped nearly to his chest for being too emotionally exhausted by then to fight anything.  He wished he could sleep--he'd do anything to sleep again...he still would.  Even in the Maquis, his defiance had only the appearance of lechery. 

  He knew only then that it was just a hard, cold fear of self-betrayal, of anxiety in his distrust, the comfort of numbness and isolation.  The ease of emotional paralysis... 

  Utter cowardice. 

  On the other hand, hers at worst seemed over-proud--if one didn't know what to look for.  There was more, he knew. 

  He could see her fingers tightly pressed upon her arms; they trembled at the knuckles, as did the muscle in her jaw.  She was too still, tense as a circuit rod and ready to short out. 

  She was getting nervous.  It was a innate fear growing in her as his own warning sunk in--touched something maybe--that he'd known himself but was too ignorant to defend himself against before it was too late.  It was the fear of animals backed into cages of their own unwitting construction. 

  That was a primal fear that he had known, though only once he was there, and felt the walls closing around him... 

  He did start to honestly feel sorry for her, if only to stop feeling sorry for himself for a moment.  Yet, he showed it only by staring at her, and speaking quietly. 

  "It's going to hit you hard, Torres, when it does," he told her. 

  At that, she blinked.  She'd heard him. 

  "You haven't gotten there yet.  But once they put you to the routine, you'll know what I'm talking about.  Even so, it's your choice what to do with it, just like it's mine.  God knows what that'll be..." 

  The doors swished behind them.  A couple words were passed there. 

  She drew a breath, glanced over, almost expectantly. 

  She was looking for the distraction.  A way out.  Deflecting. 

  He would finish his thought anyway.  She deserved it. 

  "That's all you have left, Torres, your choice to take it or leave it.  We'll see how you handle that, when the time comes." 

  For whatever despise she might have had for him, she had no reply to that. 

  Instead, she looked at Commander Cavit as he slipped in, wearing a grin arrogant enough to smash. 

  She was thankful for the disturbance.  She felt the break in Paris' sudden intensity like a breeze on a stifling day, felt her blood begin to return to her, even if it was yet threatened... 

  Hit me hard...

  The man addressed Paris.  "You'll be happy to know there'll be no delay in getting you...home." 

  Paris' eyes held no more emotion when he turned them to the commander.  "Thanks."  The word was stillborn upon his lips. 

  Cavit, not lost of his smirk, blew a breath through his nostrils for want to chuckle. 

  God, if I was in Paris' shoes, they'd have phasered me by now, she thought--and hoped sincerely she wouldn't have to talk with that slime ball.  But Paris...He's been there...it's 'hit' him...

  "Have a good parole hearing." 

  B'Elanna watched the younger man's face grow terse again, and suddenly found herself interested.  Though Paris did not move, the hard rage that he'd pointed at her before was not held back at all when he glared at the officer before him. 

  It was oddly relieving to see it pointed somewhere besides at her. 

  But it was equally disturbing to know the same had been pointed at her--that she was in the same class of people that had earned it. 

  "Look," he said, "I want off your precious ship as much as you want me to go.  So would you just give me my orders and let me go?"

  Cavit held out the PADD.  "Have a nice life." 

  Tom snatched it.  "Go to hell." 

  Without looking back--not at her, not at Cavit--Tom Paris left, going so far as to shoulder past Captain Janeway as she made her own entrance. 

  He didn't even apologize.  Just left. 

  He wasn't one of them, she suddenly realized.  It popped into her brain as quickly as the other mess there had been swirling. 

  Paris wasn't one of them.  So what did that make him? 

  B'Elanna suddenly, insanely--unwillingly, even--wanted to figure it out, what she'd just seen--everything that'd just been said to her.  His words were turning in her head... 

  What she saw with Cavit surely wasn't a show.  She could practically feel Paris' ire, smell the adrenaline that somehow hadn't been released on Cavit's petty, superior grin...or her own accusations and attacks. 

  She wondered how he'd held it in--a gift she wasn't much good at--how he lived inside such control, knowing, never saying... 

  She wondered suddenly if he hadn't lied to her after all... 

  Not so different after all...What's that going to mean for me?

  The thought of ending up where he was, just there, taking a PADD with her travel orders from pompous pig like Cavit...because she had to, for her own good.  It put a shot of panic in her for all that she didn't want to believe it...accept it... 

  She saw herself suddenly, debating herself fiercely, but hearing herself say "Yes" to a captain's offer, following them onto their ship to hunt down the people she'd once fought side by side with... 

  I would *never* do that!

  Still, she honestly didn't know if she might or not.  He was right.  She hadn't been there...yet.  But she was going... 

  All that time to think about...With nothing to do to avoid it...But I didn't do anything wrong!  I did what I could for them, and it just happened to be against somebody else's law!

  Cavit looked at the Captain.  She saw in the corner of her eye the woman nod, slowly. 

  It's not my fault that Chakotay betrayed us!  Though I disobeyed...betrayed him....Even so, I was the only one who had the guts to...to kill them all...

  The captain turned her way. 

  ...to risk getting them all killed...  All of them could have been dead because of me...like those three that died under Paris...

  B'Elanna's eyes turned straight to the table.  Her lips parted. 

  Oh God, what have I done this time?

  In her terrible stillness, she wanted to run, hard and fast--anywhere.  Anywhere that would take her away from that place.  In her mind, she could feel her bare, hot feet pounding into a dusty earth, propelling her away...far away, feeling free... 

  I betrayed them.  Oh God, I betrayed them all...

  Inside her, she could feel that sensation, racing in her heart, thrilling her blood, making her know she was... 

  "B'Elanna Torres?"

  The feeling drained away. 

  B'Elanna blinked and looked at the red-haired woman.  She had come all the way into the room, a few steps ahead of Cavit.  He was all manners now. 

  B'Elanna could spit on him.  As for the captain, she was a model of Starfleet neutrality.  Typical official posture and power in a body that looked taller than it was. 

  "That's me." 

  Janeway nodded, gestured to a seat. 

  B'Elanna did not move. 

  Shrugging slightly, Janeway moved to the head of the table, pulled the chair, sat.  Not even a hair on her deftly styled head was out of place.  Her hands were clean, her expression unreadable. 

  Totally in control. 

  Bitch.

  "Mr. Cavit, you may leave now." 

  "Captain?" He hadn't expected the order. 

  "Dismissed," she said plainly. 

  B'Elanna almost grinned when he grudgingly left the room. 

  Well, maybe she does have something going for her.

  So, as a gesture of thanks, when Cavit was gone, she took a chair, even if she chose one near the middle of the table. 

  Janeway had been eyeing her since she'd come into the room.  She examined her like particle matter, so detached yet so intrusive, as she folded her hands and waited with an oddly unnatural patience for B'Elanna to look at her. 

  All that time to think...how I got here, where I'm going--or not going...

  That silence, which had begun their conversation, indeed was not easy to wait through. 

  ...Hit me hard?  Reality?  That's already there, Paris.  Trust me, I know what reality is...even if it's too late...again.

  B'Elanna sighed shortly and finally gave the older woman her attention.  She had a feeling the Starfleet officer would wait her out--and anything was better than the vicious circle in her overactive brain, still firing hard and fast with Paris' damned distraction. 

  So she asked.  "Why do you want to talk to me?"

  "Honestly?" she said, almost casually.  "I only wanted to know why you disobeyed your captain, took the risk you did." 

  B'Elanna almost rolled her eyes at the captain's softened voice.  What is it about captains who use those damned quiet tones? Her own experience with it made her know what was coming... 

  Guilt.  Lousy guilt...and whether or not you have it coming to you, they'll make you feel it.

  Though, not if she could help it. 

  "What do you need to know?" she said, smirking purposefully.  "I tried to break us free.  Chakotay busted me.  What else matters?"

  "I'd like to know if it could happen again."  That time, she was almost casual. 

  B'Elanna snorted.  "Why do you think I'll tell you that?" she asked, knowing in fact that it wouldn't.  Nobody knew the systems as well as she did...used to know. 

  "I didn't think you would tell me outright," Janeway replied coolly.  "I wanted to assess it for myself by talking to you.  Though..."  There, she met her eyes without blinking, another appraising stare, "...I was also curious why such a bright woman such as yourself would feel the need to go to such extremes." 

  B'Elanna could have laughed at the tactic--then wondered it herself, recalled again her crushed dreams, and running away, over and over, every time, only to end up...  How could I have ended up where I am? Looking at the other woman again, her stomach tightened.  How did I get here?

  But she killed the recurring question before it played any further.  The captain's cool eyes unnerved her enough, made her feel like a bug under the glass... 

  She couldn't let it... 

  "Don't play games with me, Captain Janeway." 

  Janeway almost grinned back.  Almost.  "All right," she conceded.  "I'll tell you the truth: Whether or not you give me any answers, Ms. Torres, you will be spending the rest of your journey in the brig, under guard.  When you are tried, you will be tried separately from your comrades.  This was the request of Captain Chakotay, and for his help and dignity during this period, I have granted his request." 

  Don't let that woman know, don't you dare show her...Damn him!  Damn him!  Where the hell am I going to go?  How the hell did I get to this point?

  "So I go alone," she said, forcing her lack of care though a thick throat, leaning back into the chair and tipping her head belligerently.  "Nothing new, there."  She could feel her blood fading, her heart futilely trying to replenish it...  Damn you, Paris, damn all of you! "Anything else?"

  Janeway seemed to consider that.  "I have a feeling you acted alone, that you disobeyed an order that most of the rest of the Maquis crew was willing to follow so to preserve a shorter sentence.  What do you think?"

  I was the one who...No!  I wanted to free us all...But I was the one who did it...and he knew it...Paris knew...I betrayed them.

  "That's right," B'Elanna replied emotionlessly. 

  I betrayed them.

  "Do you think this will happen again?"

  "You've figured out the rest, figure that out, too." 

  I deserve this...

  Janeway nodded, slowly, obviously still controlling her own ire behind a firm tone and piercing stare.  Yet by then, B'Elanna couldn't imagine why she had held back.  "I don't think anybody else on board," she said evenly, "if anything, wants to end up where you have..." 

  Where I have...

  "....So, I think it's reasonable to assume I have nothing else to worry about on the Liberty.  We've taken more precautions, of course, but I believe this was a one time incident." 

  "Then why did you waste your time asking me?"

  The captain drew a long breath.  "I told you that before," she said, carefully still checking her tone.  "I was curious as to why you did what you did." 

  "It doesn't matter now.  I did it.  I did it alone, and it was my choice."  B'Elanna shrugged and looked away. 

  Why did I do it?  God, what was I--

  "And your sentence will reflect that," Janeway replied, retrieving B'Elanna's attention. 

  Don't you dare let her see...

  "How much longer?" B'Elanna asked before she could stop her tongue, and cursed herself for asking.  She didn't turn away, though, stubbornly fought the urge...to run. 

  Just get up from that table and run....  just run...nowhere. 

  Averting her eyes with an enviable casualness, Janeway pretended to ignore the change in her complexion.  Yet B'Elanna knew the captain had seen her paling, which made her feel her dread even more deeply than before.  Janeway was already winning and they both knew it. 

  "I'm not the judge advocate general, Ms. Torres," the captain told her.  "What they decide will be according to the evidence of all your actions.  It varies.  But your sentence will be longer than the others, in light of today's incident and your unwillingness to help us on your former ship." 

  Former...I betrayed them.

  B'Elanna didn't bother wondering about that again.  Obviously, the woman wasn't going to hazard a guess, though she probably could--and she wasn't going to ask.  The realization still sinking in, her mind instantly diverted to another question that had loomed in her brain since she found out... 

  "What about Paris?  How much is his help going to buy him?"

  Janeway blinked her surprise at the question, as well as the switch in the topic. 

  Damn, I just gave that away, too!  What's the *matter* with me? But B'Elanna quickly remembered that she'd seen him coming out of the room when she came in.  She could easily figure that they'd spoken.  Just keep it together, make it seem a good question...  Think, think....Don't let her see...

  With practiced patience, Janeway's tone was unaffected, even as she answered the question.  "His information was limited, but he was willing to cooperate.  I haven't ignored that.  He gets a good word at his parole hearing for it." 

  B'Elanna snorted derisively.  It wasn't a pardon as it had been believed, but the thought that he'd been that desperate and willing to sell them out did nothing to warm her, either.  "Nothing like divining from traitors to get what you want," she sneered. 

  "You're no less a traitor than he is," the older woman replied. 

  "Paris is nothing like us!"  B'Elanna snapped back.  "He betrayed both your people and mine: He might have worked for the Maquis, but he sold us out when he gave himself up to you--and then jumped at the first chance to sell us out again so he could cut himself a break.  Don't you dare compare him to me!" 

  Suddenly, Janeway seemed both confused and hardened by that reply, seeming to think on how to answer her change of mood.  Their conversation had lasted long enough for B'Elanna to gauge that much out in her. 

  Answer *that* and see how much I'll cooperate, B'Elanna grinned to herself. 

  But the Starfleet captain said, "I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're referring to.  Mr. Paris didn't give himself up." 

  B'Elanna's heart thumped.  "What?"

  "He never surrendered to Starfleet, if that's what you're talking about," she said, stating it as if it were any truth.  "He did everything he could to evade capture, leading them as far as the Narosian sector before he was finally caught and arrested." 

  Then, the captain shrugged. 

  B'Elanna felt herself still inside.  She had no reply. 

  It had to be a trick.  It had to be a lie.  It was a game--they were playing a game to manipulate her.  It had to be a trick. 

  If he isn't on their side...We'd been told... Her mind tried suddenly to replay that day, many months ago.  But she couldn't, not completely.  It'd been foggy, she'd been knocked unconscious during the fight that sent Paris on his first mission--a rescue mission she was told he'd insisted on doing, was so confident he could pull off.  Once she was finally revived, they were so busy, she never did piece together... 

  How could another Maquis ship have known to come for us if Paris hadn't done what Chakotay said he'd sent him to do?  Rodrigo wouldn't have put his crew's necks on the block if they hadn't been told we were there...

  She scowled, pounded her memory, slim as it was, for some way to disprove it. 

  But she knew the captain there didn't need to lie to her.  She had what she wanted. 

  Why would they *want* to turn me against the Maquis?  They've already got Chakotay working for them, and he's the one that knows everything...

  "Though I do wonder," the captain added, "when you obviously don't care for Mr. Paris, why you're so concerned about what will happen to him." 

  B'Elanna forced herself to shrug it off.  "After what he did, I was wondering how long I'd get in comparison." 

  Janeway's mouth closed; her brow raised slightly. 

  Well, not that convincing her mattered.  Nothing I say would.

  B'Elanna turned her stare away.  "Is that all, Captain Janeway?"

  Silence, and B'Elanna considered the line of the bulkhead before her, damned if she would let it continue.  She'd lost that one, lost badly. 

  Lost that whole day, her life as she knew it.  The Maquis--her home, her crew, her so-called family--all too willing to turn away and look busy when Chakotay banished her--was gone.  She lost her subsequent interrogation...She even lost an enemy... 

  I've lost everything...*I* lost it...

  There was too much, too much and too confusing and she knew she was already giving away too much as it was. 

  It'll hit me hard...when I realize what I've done can never be corrected?  That I can never go back?  Never...and go on to...nothing.

  At the same time, she wondered why she even cared. 

  Damnit, he can't be right about this...  He can't...

  Yet she knew, deep down, he probably was.  He has no reason to lie now, either...He's been there...already realizes...

  Her heart felt like a stone in her chest. 

  Finally, the captain said, "Yes." 

     

---

     

     
  The question was on his face when she entered the Maquis ship through the junction, though he didn't voice it. 

  Janeway's eyes were ones of experience.  Waving away the guards that had waited with him for her, she gestured for them to begin their walk back to the engine room.  "She's being escorted to the brig," she told him. 

  Chakotay nodded, not sorry to hear it, though sorry it'd had to be like that for his engineer.  "It'll be the best thing, in the end." 

  "You think so?"

  He nodded.  "As long as B'Elanna believes she's a part of the Maquis, she'll never let go of it.  As long as she thinks she belongs, she'll hold on.  She needed us as much as we needed her.  But now...  Now, she's only a danger to us all--even herself." 

  Janeway's brows rose, even while she observed, "She is young." 

  "She's had a lot of trouble," Chakotay said.  "She never said, really, about what.  But I could tell she had a lot more going against her than her trouble at the Academy." 

  He was saying a lot more than he'd meant to--she knew it by the troubled grimace that crossed him.  In spite of that, he added, "In retrospect, Captain, I should have never enlisted her.  She didn't deserve any more...darkness, in her life, when all she wanted was something better, a place to belong, a life.  I needed crew like her, though.  She was one of my best people."  He took a breath.  "But I've got the rest of my people to think about, not just what she's up to--even if it's my fault for making her think like a Maquis to the end." 

  Janeway only nodded.  She didn't want to seem too eager to agree. 

  "Maybe she didn't believe me when I told her I'd kick her off the ship if she tried anything," he added in afterthought.  "That's like her--stubborn...  In the end, this'll be better for her."  He looked at her.  "At least I want to believe that." 

  Janeway paused as he did, standing face to face in the filthy, damaged corridor, half lit by inferior emergency illumination.  There, she placed her hand on his arm, meeting his eyes.  "I think you did what you had to do," she said quietly. 

  The touch, the look, was strangely welcome. 

  But he only nodded his thanks. 

  He had spent the last hour making sure his own people were still in line.  They were.  Even Seska didn't dare cross him at that point, seeing the example he'd made of his engineer, his friend, that troubled woman he'd brought in, depended on.  Everyone on his crew knew by then he meant business. 

  Meanwhile, he knew he could go to prison knowing he'd done everything he could for them all. 

  He'd sold out his pride to ensure their lives, buried his anger to keep them alive.  He exiled their friend.  He gave up his own personal mission. 

  Though he felt no regrets, he hated a part of himself for it. 

  B'Elanna was right.  Deep down, he didn't want to lose, to give up his fight.  Tired as he was, beaten as they had been, he'd wanted to persevere.  But loss was relative, and sometimes fruitful once the injury was allowed to heal, like clipping back a plant to help it to grow. 

  Nothing would grow if they all got themselves killed, and above all other things, he did want to survive.  He had to survive, since he had the choice to and few others--to take care of his crew, accept the responsibility for his actions, move on.  In addition, he was one of the last left of his people.  Getting himself killed would do no justice to them, either. 

  Perhaps that's what the souls of his dead people were trying to tell him.  How could he know, after all, what waited at the end of that more sensible yet humbling path? 

  He really did want to know.  At that point, he needed to. 

  So, he would follow it. 

  If she could have read his mind, Janeway would have understood that feeling better than the Maquis captain might have known. 

  She thought she'd needed Tom Paris.  As much as she did not care for or pity the man, however, bringing him aboard her ship had ultimately not been a good idea.  Not for the uselessness of his information (he'd been right, the Maquis had indeed abandoned those camps and he wouldn't do them much good), but for the ritual humiliation she had unwittingly subjected him to.  At first, he didn't seem to care if he suffered. 

  Maybe he needed a bit of bringing down, she'd thought at first, watching his wise-eyed stares back at her own crew when they were too rude to be more subtle; his sardonic, pointed comments, intermittently laced with a self depreciation that just begged for attention. 

  She clearly recalled grinding her teeth every time she heard him open his mouth. 

  But then she noticed Harry Kim's honest attempts to be a friend to the man, and Stadi's growing concern.  Somehow, that was all that was needed to make a small difference to the former pilot. 

  On a couple trips to the mess hall, she saw how quiet Paris was in their presence, holed back, trying, grinning from time to time, sincerely thanking but otherwise...quiet.  Then she saw how the others glanced askance at him before whispering.  Somehow, Paris felt it, closed his eyes or averted them to whatever meal he wasn't eating. 

  She was almost relieved when Paris replicated himself some civilian clothes.  She had seen his discomfort with the Starfleet issue singlet, and only a couple days into their mission, it even bothered her. 

  Thankfully, it bothered him more.  Many things did, and more than he seemed to admit to, let people see. 

  She knew what family he came from.  It sounded right. 

  He was a criminal, but he was yet a human being, and he likely felt far more deeply than he would dare show any of them.  Despite where he got the trait, it also revealed at least a desire for dignity, a thoughtfulness and intelligence that she had but glimpsed at Auckland when she offered him her deal. 

  She had been all too ready to be judge and jury to it then.  His file said plenty, and his outward attitude confirmed it.  She didn't have the time to analyze it. 

  Two weeks later, she could see the hateful pattern and all his defenses, and she wondered honestly if she was just as guilty for giving him a reason to wear that facade. 

  He was paying for his crimes.  He deserved what he got--and on that point she hadn't changed her mind.  Yet now, even that concerned her. 

  How many in the system had felt that way and more persistently?  Who refused to look beyond that facade that he held so well?  How many had passed him off because of his lineage and their unnatural but understandable expectations?  Being a Paris was probably an incredible responsibility--one that he ultimately couldn't uphold.  Had it been fair, in truth, to expect it? 

  What would the young man have to do to redeem himself--if but for himself? 

  She couldn't imagine what Tom Paris thought about that. 

  She could certainly understand why Chakotay regretted enlisting a young, talented yet troubled engineer.  Janeway had done the same to the pilot, though she regretted it for different reasons. 

  Only then, with what they were doing now: Would they ever overcome their negative experiences and be bettered by it?  Would any of it benefit them someday? 

  Her good word to the parole board, in Paris' hand and ready for their perusal: Would it be enough for him?  Like Torres, he looked to need more than freedom to move beyond what he'd gotten himself into. 

  Unfortunately, she knew she didn't have the time to babysit his life or hold his hand.  Soon, Paris would leave her ship and get on with his life.  He would ultimately have to take those next steps on his own... 

  The captains crossed into engineering, shared another glance. 

  Without words, they knew each other well. 

     

---

     

         
  Arrogant, self-centered, coward, loser, disloyal, desperate...

  Tom felt his heart turning repeatedly when it and everything else she'd pointed out spun in his already overwrought conscience. 

  Self-pitying, self-destructive, scared...

  For some reason, he looked at his hand when he tapped for the turbolift.  The skin was smooth and fair, the other side slightly callused by his more recent work... 

  All that time at Auckland, forced to keep to himself in a place where all eyes were on him, negating his want to talk, if but uneasily--open that mouth that'd gotten him in so much trouble. 

  What the hell *do* I believe in?  What's left for me when nobody bothers to see I really want to know?  What's left for me in a life where everything I actually cared about died or was taken away?  ...Nothing.

  He knew he had a few things going for him.  He wasn't unpleasant to look at, had a body that worked well, he had intelligence, wit... 

  What do I believe in?  What can I be loyal to when I believe in nothing...not even myself?

  The lift doors opened. 

  He thought of the routine: Waking, eating, working, eating, returning to his bunk for a night of sleep disturbed more often by his restlessness.  Waking again, so to speak. 

  If only he could stop thinking so damned much. 

  Ironically, he was almost afraid to leave prison.  In a way, it had also protected him, kept him from having to face a lot of the uncertainty that came with being freed.  But he knew he would leave.  He had to.  He'd wanted to so much some days that he was willing to make any deal to get out of there.  He just knew it would just reopen a totally different can of problems. 

  He wished he could just stop thinking. 

  The lift doors closed....

  She honestly thought she could handle it, could push the rest aside at least as far as the forcefield that would soon enclose her, leaving her alone, isolated. 

  The security guard escorting her through the clean, new corridors would be her last company for a long time, if Paris' sentence was any indication. 

  I used to *want* to be alone.

  But that was when she'd believed she could ignore herself, hole herself away and be bitter, be angry, tell the world to screw off so she could do what she needed to.  She stayed busy to keep herself thinking on her work, on warp coils and isolinear units, plasma injectors and shield components... 

  She couldn't anymore. 

  In prison, she would have nothing but...herself. 

  From the moment she numbly left the briefing room, she increasingly felt her circling thoughts, her uncertainty, her shameful despair, everything she'd previously been successful in pushing aside.  It crawled over her skin like maggots eating at her strength and resolve. 

  I betrayed them...  I was the selfish one...  How many times had I convinced myself I was fighting for the Maquis?  --No, I *was* fighting for them!  I believed in it, what I knew was happening there...  I fought...when I was really fighting...

  ...But he couldn't stop thinking.  That was impossible.  Even in sleep, he couldn't stop his conscience. 

  Conscience.  That's the only thing that survived through it all, that I've ever eventually been loyal to...  Well, when it got too hard to deal with the opposite...

  He'd failed them, all of them--and mostly himself.  Over and over, he'd taken what he thought was the easier way out, and got deeper and deeper into the pit he'd belatedly realized he was in, clawing at the way out while the walls fell around him... 

  Fighting to stay ahead of it all, to stay in control...  Now I have neither.

  She couldn't kill her shivering, and couldn't blame it on the temperature of the Starfleet ship.  She couldn't calm her breath, nor blame that on anything either. 

  Alone, left to think about it, day after day...

  She couldn't feel herself running anymore, much as she willed that distraction into her mind.  Rather, she felt the dead weight of a future filled with a blank, empty cell and the purposelessness that she would have to deal with.  Waiting, inept and forgotten by a world that barely knew her in the first place; waiting for...nothing. 

  Paris' words, "It's going to hit your hard, Torres," stabbed her again and again.  She desperately wished she'd had the time and the mind to ask him what 'it' was, so at least she could be prepared for it.  Or had he said it?  That uncertainty swirled through her without answer. 

  She wished frantically that she had something--anything--to work on, to do. Anything but knowing...  She had nothing and nobody left, and she had no one to blame but herself. 

  She would be damned if she would cry.  She would be damned if she'd give away anymore... 

  ...He'd never acted from his heart, but from his fear, from desperation. 

  If only that hand, so smooth and strong, given to him by such respectable bloodlines, had pushed a different button, been quicker to react.  If only that mouth had said another thing instead of what it had.  If only he'd done a hundred different things than what he did.  If only he hadn't been so weak and stupid. 

  He'd always feared he really was the coward he thought he was.  He'd always feared he was as weak and uncommitted as he'd been accused of being. 

  I was so wrapped up in getting his approval that I...  What was I thinking?  Why did I make that so important?  What did it matter to me what the hell he thought?  What was it about him that forced me to give my soul to making him happy for me?

  He could certainly see where that had taken him.  Seeing the ease of being evasive, never deciding, never taking his own initiative, he stuck to it, fighting nothing while slipping deeper and deeper...into the pit. 

  He remembered times where he'd dreamed of screaming out, vindicating all his demons in an animal yell, taking it all out on the air.  How good it would feel to fill his lungs and just scream, feel that pressure in his lungs and his gut, slowly releasing until he needed air again.  What a release that would be--though useless in the end, to relea