The BLTS Archive - Tom, Dick and Harry
first in the Tom, Dick and Harry series
by Emma Woodhouse

---

Disclaimer: Star Trek, Star Trek Voyager, and the characters in this
story are the property of Paramount (who never lets them have any
fun). Everything herein that doesn't belong to Paramount is Copyright
1996 by "Emma Woodhouse".

Warning: This story contains explicit descriptions of men doing
extremely intimate things with one another, making this story
unsuitable for children, or others who are easily shocked. In other
words, it's a Paris/Kim and an Adult Story, so what do you think is
going to happen, hmm? If the idea bothers you, hey, don't read it; I'm
not making any money on this anyway. But if you do like the idea, pray
continue, gentle reader. . .

And thanks to L.R. Bowen, for her advice and encouragement.

(The pseudonym Emma Woodhouse was lovingly borrowed from Jane Austen's
matchmaking heroine, but she is long past copyright, so now she's
mine.)

---

"What do you mean, you won't take the bet?"

As the doors to the transporter room opened for them, Tom Paris turned
to face B'Elanna Torres, and said with a grin, "I mean I won't take
the bet. Now which part of that didn't you understand?"

Harry Kim was already on the transporter pad, surrounded by equipment.
"Hey, come on, Tom."

Tom took the bag B'Elanna had been carrying for him, and slung it over
his shoulder with his other bags. "You chose the away team
assignments, B'Elanna, so forgive me for suspecting you of stacking
the deck. No deal."

B'Elanna made a face at him. "Chicken."

But Tom would not be goaded. He said amiably, "Bawk, bawk, bawk. Look
for another sucker."

He was surprised when she grinned at him and told the transporter
chief, "Energize."

As the away team vanished, B'Elanna's communicator chirped. "Tuvok to
Lieutenant Torres. I am waiting for you in the shuttlebay."

"On my way, Lieutenant," she replied sunnily, and departed the
transporter room whistling.


The away team materialized in a clearing in a woods. Nearby, sharp
rock hills marked the beginning of a mountain range. The setting was
almost earthlike, temperate and green. Tom took a deep breath, and
then turned to Harry.

"What do you suppose B'Elanna was grinning about?"

Harry looked uncomfortable. "Well, probably because she'd already
found a sucker."

"Huh?"

"I took the bet."

"You - oh, for pity's sake, Harry, what am I going to do with you?
What were the stakes?"

"Replicator rations, one week's worth," Harry admitted sheepishly.
"But the readings looked good, Tom. I thought we stood a good
chance -"

Tom sighed. "Listen, Harry, while you were playing clarinet in the
Julliard Youth Symphony, B'Elanna Torres was out scrounging for the
Maquis. She knows damn well that useable dilithium is much more likely
to be found in an asteroid formation than on an atmosphere-bearing
planet. All the ship's sensors could tell us is that there is
dilithium here. Useable dilithium, who knows?"

Harry winced. "The bet did say useable dilithium," he admitted. He
thought for a moment. "Okay, so I'm an idiot. I'll know better next
time. Well, the ship will be back in four days, and we have four sites
to check. Maybe we'll get lucky."

The two officers took out their tricorders and checked their
coordinates.

---

Two days later, Tom snapped his tricorder shut with a sigh, and said,
"Dilithium, my ass. We might have known." He was crouched  on a rock
ledge in a cavern. The light was dim back here, opposite the entrance,
but it was not completely dark. The cave wasn't big enough for that.

Harry came up beside him and said, "But the tricorder is reading
dilithium."

"Yes, but it's powder, Harry! Nothing but freakin' powder. Not a
crystal in the lot."

Harry sat down on a rock. "And that's the last site the ship's sensors
registered. Four sets of readings, four veins of unusable dilithium.
What a wasted trip. Still, you're right - we might have known."

"Huh?" Tom joined him on the rock ledge.

"When B'Elanna said dibs on that asteroid, I should have known we were
getting poor seconds. B'Elanna and Tuvok will probably come back with
pounds and pounds of dilithium crystals, all covered with glory,
B'Elanna will walk off with a week of my rations, and we'll have, what
- four days on this rock."

"Hey, take it easy, Harry. This isn't a rock, it's a fairly nice
planet. Let's think of it as a camping trip."

Harry grinned. "Yeah, that's the spirit. And you know what?  I haven't
had any leave since I graduated from the Academy! About time  I had a
vacation."

"Sure. Let's go back to base camp and see if anyone remembered to pack
the beer." Tom stood and started to scramble down the rocks.

"Dream on." And Harry started to follow him.

But then his foot slipped, and he went shooting past Tom down the
rocks, landing on his foot on the dirt floor of the cave.

"Oh, shit! Harry!" Tom quickly scrambled down to kneel beside him.
"Are you hurt? Where does it hurt?"

Harry's face was twisted with pain. "My foot."

Tom deployed his tricorder. "Yep, you busted it, all right. Broken
bone."

He stood. "You sit right there, and I'll be back with the medical
gear."

"Okay."

As Tom left the cave in a hurry, Harry sat back against a large rock
and sulked for a few minutes. This was his vacation he'd just screwed
up. Oh well, at least Tom would know what to do.

Tom always seemed to know what to do. From the first time they met, in
a seedy bar on Deep Space Nine, when Tom extricated him from a Ferengi
trap without spending a credit or causing a scene. The guy was smooth.

A clatter at the cave entrance told him Tom was returning. Here he was
now, with the medical kit and some of their other gear. Tom sat down
beside him, panting. "I'm going to move the base camp up here once we
get you patched up. Figure it will be better than trying to get you
down there."

"Okay." Then Harry shrank back as Tom pulled his phaser and aimed it
at his foot. "Tom! What are you doing!"

"Will you relax, Harry? This beam is set at two millimeters, I'm going
to get your boot off."

"Oh. Uh, are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Sure, I'm sure! Doc showed me how to do this. Now hold still!"

Harry leaned back and shut his eyes. In a moment, he heard a
satisfied, "There, you see?" and opened his eyes again. Sure enough,
the boot was off, and the foot intact. Tom said reproachfully, "You
should have a little more faith in me, Harry."

"Sorry."

Tom rooted through the medical kit, and sighed. "Great, a level two
regenerator. Whoopty-do."

"Is that bad?"

"Well, it's better than nothing. But I'll still want to get your foot
bound up, and then you should stay off it for at least twenty-four
hours." He went to work. And soon Harry was looking at a fairly neatly
bound foot.

"Not bad," he admitted grudgingly.

"Hey, that's a work of art, my boy." Tom patted him on the ankle and
stood. "I'll start hauling the rest of the stuff. Sit back and enjoy
your vacation."

Harry snorted. "Right."

At the mouth of the cave, Tom turned back. "Oh, by the way, someone
already swiped the beer."


"It figures."

---

As Tom tied up the bed rolls and packed up the rest of their gear, he
thought what a shame it was that Harry had to mess up his foot, and
screw up his 'vacation'. Just a bad break. Oh, a bad break, fun-nee!

Tom looked around his surroundings. Very woodsy, just the spot for a
camping vacation. Relaxing, and all that. If you like that sort of
thing.

Tom wanted Harry to enjoy his vacation, because Harry was his best
friend. At one point, Harry'd been his only friend, and there was a
time before they'd met when Tom didn't seem to have a friend in the
galaxy. He didn't like that feeling.

But then he'd gotten that break from Janeway, and at Deep Space Nine,
all he'd had to do was help a newbie out of a Ferengi lair, and he
apparently had a friend for life. Even when those Star Fleet creeps
Cavit and Fitzgerald told Harry a few unpalatable truths about Tom,
even that didn't faze the kid. Loyal, that's what Harry was. It was
nice.

Tom entered the cave, and dumped all the gear, carrying one of the
bags over to Harry. "Here you go, Harry. You decide what's for dinner,
and I'll get some firewood."

Soon with the help of a phaser and a stack of fallen wood, they had a
nice fire going on the floor of the cave, and were glad to see that
the air currents pulled the smoke out of the cave instead of hanging
over their heads. The cave was just a little bigger than the bridge of
Voyager, so the fire helped light the corners, and a layer of dirt on
the ground prevented the seating from getting too hard. It was
actually rather comfortable, Tom thought.

"So, Harry, what's for dinner?"

Harry handed him a square container of Star Fleet field rations. "It
says it's beef Stroganoff."


Tom opened the container suspiciously. "Well, you know, I've had beef
Stroganoff in a restaurant, and I don't remember it being shaped like
a brick." He bit off a corner of it. "Not bad. Not good, but not bad."

"Better than some of Neelix's wilder efforts."

"True."

The two finished their ersatz stroganoff, and then talked in a
desultory fashion for a while before retiring to their bedrolls.

---

The temperature dropped sharply in the night. Tom woke, chilled to the
bone, and built up the fire. Harry was shivering. Tom touched him on
the shoulder.

"What?"

"Hey, you cold?"

"I'm freezing!"

"Tell you what, let's consolidate bedrolls." Tom brought his bedroll
over from the other side of the fire, and spread it over Harry. "Scoot
over," he said, and spooned up behind him.


With the fire on one side, and Tom on the other, Harry felt quite
cozy, and drifted back to sleep.

---

Several hours later, Tom woke again, to find himself nose to nose with
Harry, who had rolled over in his sleep. Tom looked at the sleeping
face for a few moments, thinking, God, he looks like such a baby when
he's asleep! No wonder he can't get the women to take him seriously!

Without even meaning to, Tom gently stroked Harry on the cheek. And
then froze as Harry turned his head and kissed Tom's palm. Harry
smiled and said, "Libby."

Ah, yes, Libby. The girl back home. The one Harry was always talking
about, and missing, poor guy. Tom was starting to wonder if he should
somehow try to nudge Harry back over, when Harry leaned closer and
kissed him.

Well, if he woke Harry now, the kid would die of embarrassment. Maybe
if he just pulled back a bit, he could roll over - but now Harry's arm
was around him, and Harry's hand came up to the back of his head, and
the kiss became more intense -

- and it felt so good!

So Tom accepted the kiss, and joined in the next kiss, and when he
felt Harry's tongue on his lips, he sucked gently and pulled it into
his mouth, and let his arms tighten around his best friend.

And then he sensed that Harry was drifting into wakefulness, and
thought oh, shit, and he loosened his arms and closed his eyes and
pretended to be asleep.

It had been over a year since Harry had seen his Libby, or had touched
her or kissed her, and it felt wonderful to be kissing her now. He'd
missed her so much! She must have missed him too; she sure seemed
enthusiastic. Harry sighed happily - he really liked kissing.

As he began to surface from the lower depths of dreaming, Harry
thought, Libby, you've cut your hair! And he felt something nudging
against his thigh, and Libby certainly didn't have one of those, not
the last time he'd looked!

Awake now, Harry opened his eyes -

- and he was kissing Tom!

Fortunately, Tom seemed to be asleep. Harry carefully took his arm
from around his friend, and cautiously rolled back over to face the
fire.

And thank god, Tom didn't wake up. Harry stared into the fire,
embarrassed and disturbed. And hard as a rock. He felt Tom's erection
against his back and felt terribly guilty.

He wished he didn't know now what a fabulous kisser Tom was.

---

When Harry woke the next morning, he was alone in the cave, and knew
he'd have to piss pretty soon or explode. Tom said to stay off the
broken foot, but maybe if he hopped.

He scrambled to his feet and balanced against the wall of the cave,
and started hopping carefully toward the entrance. As he hopped, he
thought about that weird occurrence in the night, waking up to find
himself kissing Tom. He must be hornier than he thought. And maybe it
was his extreme state of deprivation that made him keep thinking -
what a great kisser that guy is!

As he hopped out of the cave, Tom was just walking up the trail with a
load of firewood. Tom dropped the wood on the growing pile and said,
"Hey! I told you to stay off that foot!"

"I'm hopping," Harry said virtuously. "It was either that or piss all
over the bedroom."

"Oh. Well, let me help you to the facilities." Tom came over and put
Harry's arm around his neck. "I've been using this patch of ground
over here."

Harry let himself be helped along, thinking that when Tom rescued him
from the Ocampan underground, he hadn't even noticed the feel of Tom's
shoulder under his arm, or the feel of Tom's hand on his waist.

"Here we go," Tom said cheerfully, stopping at a small clearing. "I'll
be right over here." And Tom ostentatiously eyed the sky and began to
whistle nonchalantly.

Harry chuckled, and performed his business. Aah! That felt good. He
tucked himself in, and turned around. "Home, Jeeves."

Tom helped Harry back to the cave, and settled him on a rock at the
cave mouth. "So," Harry asked, "what are our plans for the day?"

"Oh, so now I'm the cruise director, too? As well as chauffeur and
nurse? I haven't the slightest idea."


Harry gestured to a stream, glinting in the distance. "If I could
walk, I'd go over there and see if I could find something to make a
cane pole. Go fishing."

"Oh, are there fish on this planet?"

"Who knows? The only thing the briefing said was no large predators.
But, honestly, Tom! The point of fishing is not just to catch fish!
I've had some great fishing days with nary a nibble."

Tom settled on the ground across from him. "Well, now you've lost me."

"Fishing is really just a creative excuse for doing nothing," Harry
said. "My Uncle Harry - "

" - for whom you were named?"

"Right. Uncle Harry always called it 'wetting string'. He'd say, 'Come
on, young Harry, let's go wet some string'. And we'd head down to the
branch, and more often than not we wouldn't catch anything. But we'd
sit and talk and drink  a gallon of ice tea, and Uncle Harry would
tell me about his hitch in Star Fleet - he was the only member of my
family who'd ever been in Star Fleet, you know. We'd have a great
time. He was my favorite  uncle."

Tom laughed. "That is so weird. My favorite uncle was Uncle Max.  I
think he was the only member of my family who wasn't in Star Fleet!
He had this crazy place in Maine, with goats and a cow and he worked
in his shed on a potter's wheel. I thought he was so cool."

"You're kidding. And I spent my childhood dreaming about joining Star
Fleet and getting away from the damn cows."

"Well, anyway. Fishing is out, until you can walk better. So what do
you want to do?"

"I don't know! What do you want to do?"

"Jeez!"

"Got any cards?"

"Nope."

"Checkers?"

"Nope. But hey," Tom got a stick and began drawing in the dirt. "We
could make a checker board if we can find something to use as
checkers."

"Better than nothing, I guess."

"Okay, I'll go looking for something. Take it easy."

And Tom walked off on a checker hunt.


Harry pulled out the PADD he had with him. He thought there were a
couple novels on here that he hadn't deleted when he'd checked the
PADD out from Supply. Let's see.

" 'Wuthering Heights'? I don't think so!" Harry murmured to himself.
"Well, how about this? 'Titanic and Other Ships', by Commander
Lightoller. That sounds more promising."  So he called up the text and
began to read.


Tom wandered along, looking for something that could be stacked and
easily divided into two groups. As he walked, he wondered what had
gotten into him the night before. Jesus, Paris, you were sucking on
the kid's tongue! He was alarmed to feel a warm flicker in the pit of
his stomach at the memory. It sure had felt good -

Checkers, Tom! We're looking for checkers, here. And he found what he
was looking for in the stream bed. Small stones, smoothed by the
water, some with a grey cast, and some more of a brown. He collected
the flattest, enough for a set, and headed back up to the cave.

As he walked back up the trail, he saw Harry sitting on the rock, with
his nose in a PADD, thoroughly engrossed. He liked the way Harry got
enthusiastic about stuff, it was so - cute.

Harry looked up, and grinned, "Hey Tom, listen to this -

'I know the skipper was a mighty proud man, and we boys almost
reverenced him, pacing his lonely beat up and down that poop, lord of
all he surveyed. His slightest word was law absolute and immutable. We
thought that even such as we, might with luck, some day, walk the poop
with that deep sea roll.' "

Tom sat down on the ground. "Good lord, Harry. What have you got
there?"

"It's called 'Titanic and Other Ships.' This guy was Second Officer on
the Titanic when it went down. But right now, he's just gone to sea,
and the ships still have sails, and he's fourteen!"

"Shit!" Tom shuddered. "I'd be puking my guts out."

"Well, anyway," Harry put the PADD aside. "What have  you found?"

Tom spilled out his collection of stones. "Do you think you'd have any
trouble telling the greyish ones from the brownish ones?"

"No, they're pretty distinct."

"Okay, then, let's give this a try."

So Tom drew a checkerboard in the dirt, and Harry came down from the
rock to sit on the ground, and they played checkers. It wasn't easy -
their kings kept toppling, and they had to redraw the board after
every game, it got so messy, but it gave them something to do.

Harry had always thought he was a pretty good checkers player, but Tom
kept winning, because Harry was having trouble concentrating. He was
finding himself fascinated by the golden hairs on the back of Tom's
hands. He'd always thought Tom had such good hands - watching him  fly
the ship, Harry often thought the man should have been a pianist, the
way  he played the Conn. But right now he was feeling an almost
irresistible urge  to pick up one of those hands and hold it to his
cheek - Harry blinked and sat  back.

Tom looked up. "What?"

"Isn't it about lunchtime?" Harry asked.

Tom checked the sun overhead. "Might as well be. Let's see what other
flavors of bricks we have."

As he helped Harry into the cave, Tom thought the kid felt a bit
shaky. He did a tricorder scan, but all vital signs seemed fine, so
maybe just a touch of sun. The foot was coming along nicely. Tom took
a couple more passes with the regenerator, and took the bandages off.
"I think you could start to hobble around a little this evening,
Harry."

"Good. Maybe I can go fishing tomorrow then."

"Whether or not there are fish." Tom shook his head at the notion, and
dug into the rations bag. They decided on chicken a la king bricks,
and Tom whipped up a batch of 'coffee' from some weird powder.


After lunch, Tom leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head.
"So, what's the afternoon plan?"

"I'm just going to read this book, it's really interesting. Did you
know that five hundred years ago, San Francisco was a crime-ridden
hell hole?"

"You're kidding! That stuffy old place?"

"Really. This guy makes it sound like the Cardassian frontier."

Tom snorted. "Maybe if it had stayed that way, I wouldn't have been in
such an all-fired hurry to get out. Seems like these days, it's
nothing but ambassadors' receptions. You can't even turn around
without bumping into an admiral, most of whom are related to you - "

"Well, not to me," Harry said.

"Right. I think I'll do some exploring." And Tom left the cave.


Harry read for a while, marking passages he wanted to remember to read
to Tom, and then put the PADD down and thought. Last night, he'd
dreamed he was kissing Libby, and he was really kissing Tom. Who had
Tom  been dreaming about?

Harry wondered if he should split the bed rolls back up. But it was
bound to get just as cold tonight, and anyway, how could he explain it
without making a complete fool of himself? I think we'd better sleep
on opposite sides of the fire, Tom, so I won't start kissing you
again? Not hardly!


Tom wandered around the countryside, scanning with his tricorder and
trying to admire the scenery. It reminded him a little bit of Maine.
All those friggin' rocks.

He was mentally reviewing the female roster of Voyager, wondering who
would be willing to help a fellow with an itch, without starting to
name the baby. He'd better do something pretty soon, if just touching
Harry felt like some kind of electric shock. Gotta be in a pretty bad
state of need if you start getting cravings for your best buddy.

Of course there were a few women on Voyager with an adventurous spirit
and non-monogamous soul. Tom just didn't find them very interesting.
Where was a woman with enthusiasm, with loyalty, with - he broke off,
and thought ruefully, - in fact, where is a woman just like Harry?

He wandered down to the stream and scanned the water. Well,
son-of-a-gun. Fish. Or at least, fishoids. Good, that would give them
something to do tomorrow. The sun was getting pretty low, so Tom
headed back to the cave.

As he entered the cave, Harry looked up from his PADD and said,  "Tom,
check this out -

'We had been out about a fortnight when some of the crew commenced  to
go down with some sort of sickness. The first chap we said was
loafing, until he died.'"

Tom stared at him. "You're really enjoying that book?"

"Sure, it's really exciting. We've got smallpox, and fire at sea, and
a shipwreck on a desert island - it's great."

"Whatever you say. How about some dinner?"

"Okay. And I have a test planned. I've removed the brick from its
package. Now it's up to you to tell me what it is." Harry tossed Tom a
rations brick.

Tom studied the brick fore and aft. Then he moved the coffee pot back
to the fire to heat up the leftover coffee. He sat by the fire and
studied the brick by firelight. He took a taste. Poured himself some
coffee. Took another taste. Sighed. "I give up."

"It's chop suey," Harry said with a laugh.

"Oh, you're joking."

"See for yourself." Harry tossed him the package. "And look at it
again, see those lines running through it?"

"Yeah."

"Those are bean sprouts."

"Get real."

The two settled down to dinner, as the dark deepened outside. And then
they settled back for a talk. Seems like they wound up sitting and
talking every evening.

"Okay, Harry, fess up," Tom said.

Harry looked at him with some alarm, wondering if the question was
going to be, why were you kissing me last night?

But instead, Tom asked, "Who is your top fantasy babe on Voyager?"

"Huh?"

"Top fantasy babe. Forget all about practical or possible, come on,
who would it be?"

Harry hesitated. "Well, who's yours?"

"Hey, I asked first."

Wondering if he was making a mistake, Harry confessed,  "B'Elanna
Torres."

Tom sat up in surprise. "B'Elanna? Harry, she could break you in
half!"

Harry sighed dreamily. "Yeah!"

"Oh, that trips your trigger, huh?"

"Sure does. In fact, I have this fantasy - " Harry stopped, appalled.
Surely he wasn't going to tell Tom about that!

But Tom wasn't going to let him off the hook now. "Come on, Harry, you
can't just leave it like that! Tell all!"

So Harry admitted, " - this fantasy, where B'Elanna takes me by force
- "

"Good," said Tom encouragingly.

" - on a table - "

"Getting better."

" - in the Mess Hall."


"Oh, Harry!"

"In the middle of Sunday Brunch!"

Tom lost it. He laughed until he was out of breath, and kept on
laughing until  his stomach hurt. And just when he almost had his
breathing under control  again, Harry added, "And everyone stands up
and cheers!"

When Tom finally stopped whooping, he looked at Harry with a grin, and
said, "Such decadence behind that choirboy exterior!"

Suddenly worried, Harry said, "Tom, if you ever breath a word of that
to B'Elanna - "

Tom was offended. "Are you kidding? You must think I'm a real cad!"

"Well, okay then."

There was a moment's silence. Then Harry said, "Well, come on, Tom,
who's yours?"

"Huh?"

"Your fantasy babe!" Harry said in exasperation. When he saw Tom was
hesitating, he said, "Come on, I told you mine!"

Tom sighed. "Okay."

And Harry was so sure Tom was going to say Susan Nicoletti that he was
left speechless for a moment when Tom gave a theatrical sigh and said,
"Kathryn Janeway!"

Harry wondered if he'd heard Tom right. "That's your fantasy babe?
Kathryn 'Call Me Captain' Janeway?"


"You heard me."

"Jeez, Tom, she's old enough to be your mother!"

Tom was offended. "She is not! Oh, maybe in one of those cultures
where they marry them off at puberty. And anyway, so what? That there
is one fine lady."

He settled down on the floor with his head against the bedroll.
"Harry, have you ever seen her with her hair down?" he asked dreamily.

"Yeah, but so what?"

Tom sighed, "Well, I just think she's really something with her hair
down."

Harry leaned back against a rock. "Okay, what's your fantasy?"

"Oh, God, Harry - you know how sometimes she hangs around the  Conn,
like when we're contacting aliens or getting sensor readings?  And
she's right there, Harry, leaning over me. And I'm sitting down and
she's standing up. I swear, someday, I'm just going to turn around and
grab those tits, and start sucking her nipples and I won't stop until
she's screaming for me to fuck her! And then I'll carry her  into her
ready room - "

Harry was shocked. "Tom!"

Tom came down to earth with a bump. He said irritably, "Hey,  I didn't
critique your fantasy."

"Yes, but you're talking about the Captain!"

"So? We're also talking fantasy, Harry. About all any of us have any
more. Jesus, give a guy a break!"

Harry thought about it. "It just feels weird, hearing you talk about
the Captain that way."

Tom said sincerely, "Well, believe me, it feels weird thinking about a
captain that way, too. I don't usually fantasize about my skippers."
He thought for a moment, and then added, "It just drives me crazy."

"What does?"

"I DID her, Harry - I actually fucked the Captain! And I don't
remember a thing about it. It's just not fair." Tom stared into the
fire, brooding.

"Well, it's not as if you were even human at the time," Harry pointed
out reasonably.

"Yeah, but still. I wonder what it was like? Do you suppose - "

"Tom! Knock it off! I don't want to HEAR it, okay?"

"Oh, okay." After a moment, Tom added, "spoilsport."

But Harry was being analytical now. "Hey, Tom, you know what?"

"What?"

"Remember that virtual reality environment, and Fear the Clown?"

"Sure. Weird old creep."

"Well, he said that Captain Janeway is like a mother to me. And since
the computer was plugged right into my brain, he must have gotten that
from me. It sounded odd to me at the time, but maybe he was right.
Maybe that's why it freaks me out to hear you talk about sex with the
Captain."

Tom looked at him skeptically. "You think of Janeway as your mother?"

"Sorta, yeah."

"Man, not me! All right, Harry. I won't say any more impure things
about the Captain. Just don't go all Oedipal and try to kill me, will
you?"

Harry laughed. "It's a deal."

And then Tom laughed too. "Listen to us, Harry! We're pathetic!"

"Well, you think that's pathetic? Listen to this!" Harry leaned
forward. "I have these pictures of Libby - "

Tom sat up with a gleam in his eye. "Oh, yes?"

"Nothing like that! They're all perfectly innocent. Pictures taken at
picnics and stuff. I've got them on my computer, and I've set up a
program to rotate them through the screen." He stopped.

"Okay," Tom said encouragingly.

"So sometimes before I go to bed," Harry said haltingly, "I'll turn on
that program, and - "

He couldn't finish the sentence, but Tom nodded understanding. "And
you have a date with Mister Hand, right?"

Harry nodded.

"Nothing to be embarrassed about, Harry. We'd all probably have gone
crazy by now if it weren't for good old Mister Hand."

Tom got up and built up the fire for the night. Harry sat looking into
the fire, with his arms around his knees. Tom was concerned to see
that there were tears forming in Harry's eyes.

Tom straightened out the bedrolls and sat down beside Harry, saying
nothing. Finally, Harry turned to him and said, "Do you know what  I
miss the most, Tom?" His voice cracked.

Very softly, Tom asked, "What, Harry?"

"You know, Libby is really a brilliant person, so I kind of feel
guilty because what I miss most is the physical closeness, and
touching her." He turned back to stare at the fire. "Being inside
her," he whispered, "and filling her."

The silence stretched out. Then Tom said, barely audibly, "You could
do me, Harry."

Harry jumped. "What? Do what?"

"You know, fuck. You could fuck me. If you wanted to."

Hard to say who was more astonished, Harry by what he'd just heard, or
Tom by what he'd just said. Tom thought despairingly, oh Tom, you've
blown it now! As the silence extended, he said awkwardly, "You know,
if it would make you feel better."

And he thought, well, at least Harry hasn't jumped up and run
screaming into the night.

Harry wasn't about to jump up. He had the most incredible erection
he'd ever had in his life, and he was scared to move. He gave an
uncomfortable laugh. "Thanks, Tom, but jeez - I wouldn't even know
how."

"Oh, you've never - "

"No! I've never!" Then curiously, "What about you?"


"I've never fucked a guy," Tom admitted. "I've been fucked, though, so
I sorta know the procedure."

"Oh."

After a thoughtful silence, Harry asked curiously, "Did you like it?"

And was surprised by the violence in Tom's voice when he said, "I
hated it!"

"Then why did you do it?"

Another silence, and Tom gave a small sigh. "Nobody asked me  whether
or not I wanted to."

"Oh? - Oh." Harry noticed with clinical interest that his erection was
subsiding at a record-breaking pace. He leaned over for the coffee
pot, and poured himself some twelve-hour-old sludge. "New Zealand?" he
asked Tom.

"Yeah."

Harry was thinking, that's why Tom never talks about prison. He was
embarrassed at his naivete. He'd always assumed that Tom's  tenure in
the New Zealand Penal Settlement was something like having  a
third-rate school on your resume, something you'd rather not have
come up in the conversation, but no more than that. He was angry now,
at whoever had done that to his friend.

Tom was depressed. He'd blown it big-time now. He liked having Harry
looking up to him and thinking he always knew what to do and how to
handle things. Now Harry knew that he literally couldn't even protect
his own ass. Oh well, it had been nice while it lasted.

"Tom?"

"Hmm?"

"If you hated it so much, why did you just offer to let me - you
know?"

"Just a thought I had." Tom collected his thoughts, and continued.
"They took something from me, Harry. Something  I didn't want to give
them. And I always thought that maybe if I could really give it - as a
gift - to a friend.... Well, I might feel a little less - "

"Yes?"

Tom faced away from Harry and the fire, toward the mouth of the cave,
and finally said, " - less contaminated."

Hesitantly, Harry put his hand on Tom's shoulder. "Tom? Would it make
you feel better?"

"I don't know. It might."

Now Harry had both hands on Tom's shoulders, and he pulled Tom back
against him. "You want to try it and see?"

Tom gave a laugh of false bravado. "Sure! Why not?" He turned to face
Harry, and his eyes were wild.

Harry stroked Tom's face, just once, and then they were kissing.

He'd always been reserved, Harry thought, and a little shy - hell, it
took him three weeks just to get up the nerve to ask Libby on a date!
So he was surprised at his own abandon as he kissed Tom with desperate
passion. It just felt so good, and he felt that he could never get
enough. And he hadn't imagined it; Tom was a truly fabulous kisser.

They were lying on the bedding now, with their arms around one
another, and Harry threw one leg around Tom's hips and put the other
between his legs, and pulled Tom as close as he could, while his lips
continued to meet Tom's. He could feel Tom's tongue in his mouth,  and
Tom's erection against his hip, and he was more excited than  he'd
ever been in his life.

He began to kiss Tom's throat, and gently licked his ear, and Tom was
trembling and moaned softly, then pulled away.

Tom sat up, breathing hard, and said, "My God, Harry, where have you
been hiding that?"

"I don't know. Come back here."

"Just a minute. Just a minute." Tom took a deep breath and added,
"Unless you want me to come in my pants." He stood up  and began to
undress, while Harry just lay on the bedding and watched, fascinated.

He'd never seen Tom naked before. Oh, nice! The ivory skin with the
dusting of red-gold hair. Harry said urgently, "Okay, now come back
here!" Tom sat down beside him, and Harry sat up and put his arms
around his friend and began to caress him and kiss him.

He was just thinking that he'd never run his fingers through a guy's
chest hair before, and was trailing kisses along Tom's shoulder, when
Tom complained, "How come I'm the only guy  at this party who's got
his clothes off?" Harry jumped up quickly  and shed his uniform, and
now they were both naked, and Harry thought,  I can't believe this is
happening!

Of course, being guys, they had to compare equipment. They decided
that Tom's was just a bit longer, and Harry's was just a bit thicker,
and argued the relative merits of length versus thickness, until Tom
said, "Well, my father always said it's not the size of your force so
much as your method of deployment," and added thoughtfully,  "Of
course, he was speaking in another context," and Harry  cracked up.

But he stopped laughing when he felt Tom's hand on his penis, and
heard Tom ask softly, "Do you want to fuck me, Harry?"

"Oh, yes," Harry whispered. "What am I supposed to do?"

Tom rummaged in the medical kit until he came up with a lubricant,
which he gently applied to Harry's penis. Harry was trembling all over
now, the look on Tom's face, so serious, he thought his heart would
break.

Then Tom handed Harry the lubricant, and kissed him lightly on the
lips. "Put some of that on your finger, and stick it up my ass," he
told him, and then turned away.

Harry dropped the jar, his hands were shaking so bad, but then he had
his arm around Tom and his cheek rested on Tom's shoulder, and he was
inserting a finger into Tom's anus. He was worried. "Tom, I'm never
going to fit in there!"

Tom laughed, a little shaky, and said, "Sure you will. Trust me,
Harry." Trust me, Harry. How many times since he'd known him  had Tom
said that? And he did trust him, he always did.

"Now go in and out, and in a minute add another finger," Tom said. And
Harry did. He trusted Tom.

Tom was on his hands and knees now, tilting his hips and pushing back
against Harry's hand. He gasped, "Another finger," and  Harry did.

Tom said, "This is the way they do it when they care whether or not
they hurt you." Harry wanted to cry, but kissed Tom on the back
instead.

Tom looked back, and said, "Okay, I'm ready, are you ready?" He took
Harry's erection in his hand and chuckled, "Oh, yeah, you're ready."

Harry scooted around behind Tom, on his knees, and Tom said, "I
imagine you can figure it out from here, Harry, but slowly, please!"

"How slowly?"

"Well, a scream means slow down."

So Harry began to push into Tom just as slowly as he knew how. God,
this was tight! It was like nothing Harry had ever felt before. Tom
was breathing deeply and Harry held onto his hip with one hand, while
the other hand began to caress Tom's back. And finally, finally, he
was all the way in.

He still couldn't believe it. This was his best friend Tom, the funny
know-it-all, and he was screwing him in the ass! Tom was on his hands
and knees in front of him, that golden head bowed, and he'd offered
this to Harry, as a gift, he said, to a friend.

Harry almost came right then, just thinking about it and looking at
the bowed head, but he closed his eyes for a minute and ran through
some quantum warp equations. And then he began to thrust slowly in and
out.

Tom groaned, and Harry stopped thrusting, worried. "Am I hurting you,
Tom?"

"No, Harry." Tom laughed, a strangled kind of laugh. "You're - turning
me on!" And he impatiently pushed back against Harry.

"Oh." And Harry continued. He was panting and sweating,  and Tom was
pushing against him, and he'd never felt anything like this, never in
his whole life. He started to shake and couldn't stop, and he leaned
over to put his arms around his friend Tom and kept on thrusting,
until he felt himself exploding outward, and he collapsed on top of
Tom, and Tom collapsed onto the bedding, and the explosion felt so
real that for an  instant Harry thought, "Oh, my God, I've killed
him!"

But when he put his lips to Tom's throat, he could feel the pulse, and
then Tom turned his head and said faintly, "Thank you."

Tom was thanking him! Harry gave a hysterical giggle, and said,
"You're welcome, I'm sure!"

He remained on Tom's back for a few minutes, letting his heart calm
down. Then he moved off Tom, and Tom rolled over, and Harry was
dismayed to see that Tom was still hard.

No problem. He pulled Tom up against him, kissed him on the lips, and
slid his hand down Tom's belly to his erection, whispering, "Mister
Paris, I'd like you to meet Mister Hand."

As Harry masturbated his friend, he kept his eyes fixed on Tom's face;
he had never seen a man in this state of arousal. Tom's eyes were
dilated and his hair was dark with sweat. He moved gently against
Harry, keeping rhythm with Harry's hand.

Harry wondered if Tom had ever been this open, this vulnerable; it was
so beautiful, he wanted to make it last. Tom was gasping as he
approached orgasm, and Harry slowed down his movement. But Tom pressed
up against  his hand, moaning, "Oh, Harry, please - !" and he didn't
have the heart to make him wait any longer.

And when Tom came, it flew into the fire, and sizzled.

Harry moved down alongside Tom, and pulled the covers over both of
them. Tom's eyes were closed, a slight smile on his lips. Harry kissed
him gently, and whispered, "Good night, Tom," and settled down beside
his friend, with his head nestled into Tom's neck.

He put his arms around Tom, and threw his leg over Tom's hip. As he
felt sleep drifting over him, he remembered with a smile that he had
thought about splitting the bedrolls, to prevent him from kissing Tom.

He kissed Tom on the neck, and then he fell asleep, naked in his best
friend's arms.

That night Harry dreamed that he and Tom were teenaged ship's mates
back in the days of sail. The two boys ran an adolescent rampage
through 1880s 'Frisco', emerging from the tawdry glories of the
Barbary Coast with invincible innocence, and returned to their ship
and the open sea. Curled up together in their bunk, they heard the
creaking of wood and the slapping of sails, and felt their world
swaying under them, and their arms  tightened around each other.

---

Harry woke up with a start, thinking, what a weird dream! Then he felt
the hard shoulder muscle under his hand, and an unshaven jaw against
his nose, and realized that part of it at least was true.

He was naked, and so was Tom. He was remembering now, Tom's offer, his
acceptance, and the things they did. He didn't know whether to be
thrilled or appalled.

Harry raised himself up on his elbow, and studied Tom's sleeping face.
It was a rewarding study. Sleep had erased the years of
disillusionment and cynicism and attitude, leaving behind only a pure
severity that Harry found breathtakingly beautiful. And almost
unearthly.

And - familiar?

Where had he seen that face before? Before Voyager, before Deep Space
Nine? He worked the puzzle for a few minutes, working backwards. The
Academy? Julliard?

And then he had it.

Tom only needed two large, fluffy white wings to be a dead ringer for
the stained-glass angel in the church back home. Harry chuckled at the
memory. He'd always loved that angel, it seemed so protective, so
reassuring.

He wondered if the hidden angel memory was what caused him to ignore
the advice of the 'older and wiser' Star Fleet officers on Voyager,
the ones who told him to avoid that loser Paris. Well, Harry thought,
the angel was the one who was right about Tom.

Poor Tom, he thought sadly, no wings. He ran his fingers gently along
Tom's lips and whispered, "Fallen angel," before he put his head back
on Tom's shoulder.

And then he thought, well, Tom's got Voyager, and probably prefers
that to wings anyway.

---

The sun had been up for several hours when Tom woke up. He felt the
smooth skin under his hands, and the satiny head under his chin, and
felt a sense of overpowering wellbeing, but with a underlying unease.

Harry! Wanting him to feel better, the sweet kid. But what right did
he have to recruit Harry for his home-grown therapy? He wondered very
much about the long-term consequences of his impulsive offer, the
offer he hadn't been able to resist making.

And how do we handle this now? Better make a decision quickly before
Harry wakes up. But Tom kept being distracted by the thought of how
Harry felt inside him, and how nice it was to touch him all over, and
be touched.

But now he felt the small movements that told him Harry was waking up,
and decided to fall back on his old standby, nonchalance. Just another
unusual occurrence in the Delta Quad!

Harry raised his head, and said, "Boy, Tom, you need a shave."

"So do you."

The two got up and got dressed, both determined to act as if
everything were perfectly normal.

"So," Tom asked. "Do you want to try fishing today?" He threw Harry a
brick of scrambled eggs, while running the sonic shaver over his chin.

Harry gave the matter some serious thought. "I can't think of anything
that would make a good fish-hook. Not sure I'm in a fishing mood,
anyway. I guess we could go down to the stream and just see what's
down there."

"Sure. Why not? I want to stack up some more firewood first. It's
staying pretty chilly here."

Harry was testing his foot, and said, "This feels pretty good."

"You can walk on that," Tom told him sternly, "but don't try not to
limp. Don't want to put your full weight on it yet."

"Yes, Doctor Paris."

"Hey, I know the way things work - you screw up all my fine work on
that foot, and Doc is going to blame me."

Harry sat on a rock outside the cave, watching Tom hauling dead wood
to the woodpile. Seemed like plenty to him. Voyager would be back to
pick them up in two days.

And always, at the back of his mind - oh, what we did last night!

---

For something to do, Harry and Tom walked down to the stream. Tom
insisted on taking three sitting breaks, not to put too much stress on
Harry's newly healed foot.

As they walked, they invented new legends about the mountains and
mountains of dilithium Torres and Tuvok had found, and how
insufferable B'Elanna was going to be about it.

The stream was clear, and Harry sat along the bank and watched the
boxy-looking water creatures that Tom had named 'fishoids'. He
commented, "It's just as well I didn't go to all the trouble of making
a pole, because I don't have a clue in the world about how to clean
those things."

"Assuming they're even edible," Tom agreed, sitting and leaning back
against a tree.

"But look at the shape, Tom! It's as if they're just waiting to be
made into Star Fleet field ration bricks."

"What did I say? Inedible."

Harry laughed. It was chilly out here, perhaps in the mid-forties, and
unconsciously, he leaned back against Tom. After a moment's
hesitation, Tom's arms went around him.

For a few minutes, they sat in silence, watching the fishoids in the
stream, and then Harry asked, "Tom? Do you feel better now?"

"Hmm?" Tom's mind had wandered.

"Do you feel better? Since you gave me - you know - " Harry was
uncomfortable asking, but he really did want to know.

"Oh!" Tom thought about it. "Yes, I do, as a matter of fact. Don't ask
me why, though."

Harry chuckled. "You could ask the Doctor."

"He'd have to search the data base, looking for similar cases." Tom
imitated the Emergency Medical Holographic  Program's speech patterns.
" 'Computer, analyze and draw  parallels. Lieutenant Paris allowed
Ensign Kim to insert his - Kim's -  erect penis into his - Paris' -
anus, thereby achieving orgasm. This procedure resulted in Lieutenant
Paris acquiring an increase in confidence and self-esteem, despite a
history of abuse in a Federation rehabilitative facility.'"

Harry raised his voice to imitate the computer. " ' Working. No
similar cases on file. Insufficient data to make an analysis.'"

"Then we'd better not ask the Doc," Tom said. "He'd want to write a
paper about it."

Another long silence. Then, "Tom?"

"Hmm?"

"What did it feel like? Physically, I mean."

"Well, it didn't hurt as much as I thought it would." Softly, "You
were very careful, Harry."

Harry was alarmed. "But I didn't want it to hurt at all!"

"Oh, but it felt good, too."

Another long silence. Harry had taken hold of Tom's hand and was
stroking it thoughtfully.

"Harry? What did it feel like for you?"

"What do you mean, what - oh, that's right, you've never - " Now Harry
was thinking furiously. He turned around suddenly, "Tom - ?"

But he didn't have to finish the question. It was obvious they were
both thinking the same thing. After staring at each other for a long
moment, the two stood up and raced back to the cave.

The fire had died down while they were gone, and Tom quickly built it
back up again. He was glad he had stocked up on wood, he didn't think
he'd want to bother with such mundane errands for a while.

When he turned from the fire, he saw that Harry was already undressed.
Oh, the golden boy! He pulled Harry toward him and kissed him.

Harry tugged impatiently at Tom's uniform, and Tom was quickly
undressed. He pushed Harry down onto the bedding beneath him, and lay
on top of him, kissing him and sucking on that lovely full lower lip.
Then he planted open-mouthed kisses on Harry's smooth broad chest,
whispering, "My turn, my turn."

They were both already hard, and their erections rubbed together,
forcing a groan from Harry. Tom raised himself up onto his hands to
look his friend in the eyes. He mimicked their conversation of
yesterday. " 'What do you want to do?' 'I don't know, what do you
want to do?'" He leaned down and kissed Harry on the lips.  "Well,
let's see. We could - oh, read some books, play some  more checkers.
Or - "

And Tom kissed Harry again, bringing forth every bit of passion and
skill in his possession, and was rewarded with the feel of Harry
squirming impatiently beneath him. He raised his head, and gave Harry
a triumphant look. "Or - we could just fuck like mad minks, until
Voyager comes back for us."

"Oh, the mad minks, please, let's do the mad minks!"  Harry said, and
pulled Tom's head back to him. He kissed his friend passionately, and
then breathed in his ear, "Fuck me, Tom. Please?"

"You sure? I mean, you're really, really sure?" Tom asked, and laughed
as Harry hit him. "Okay, you're sure."

Tom found the jar of lubricant, but Harry snatched it out of his hand.
"No, I get to do that," Harry insisted, and busied himself with the
task of lubricating Tom's penis. Tom watched him tenderly, and gently
stroked his face.

Harry turned away from Tom and got on his hands and knees, and Tom
knelt behind him and prepared him for penetration. He took a long time
doing it, he didn't want to hurt Harry, but he was afraid it was bound
to hurt some. And, oh, it was so hard to enter slowly!

Tom stroked Harry's silky black hair and satiny golden shoulders,
whispering his name over and over, gritting his teeth in the effort to
go slow. Remember, he told himself, the kid's a virgin, at least on
this side.

And now he was in, he was inside Harry! It seemed incredible, too good
to be true. Tom reached down and pulled Harry back up against his
chest, kissing his neck and ear.

Tom was a bit taller than Harry, so when he pulled Harry against him,
Harry's own weight drove Tom deeper, deeper into him, and for an
instant he wanted to scream, oh, it HURTS! But then he was glad that
he didn't because it was so wonderful, and he groaned aloud when Tom
said, "Harry, I'm inside you!" as if announcing something marvelous
he'd just discovered.

Harry gasped, "I noticed," and reached over his shoulder to stroke
Tom's face, and wipe away the tears.

Tom laid Harry face down on the bedding and began to stroke into him,
slowly, slowly, and Harry moved with him, and now he knew what Tom
meant because it did hurt but oh, it felt wonderful. The movement
rubbed his erection against the bedding and he was so close now, and
Tom was over him, sobbing his name, and then Tom came, crying, "Harry!
I love you!"

Tom's full weight was on his back now, and semen trickled over Harry's
balls, and drizzled along his erection, and he shivered with desire.

Tom moved off Harry and rolled him over. He smiled at Harry and kissed
him lightly on the lips. Then he moved down and gently parted Harry's
legs and took Harry's erection into his warm mouth.

Tom worked on Harry diligently, first gently sucking, then moving down
to take Harry's balls into his mouth, then licking the shaft until
Harry was almost insane. Then he again fastened onto Harry's aching
penis, taking it deep into his mouth and sucking, sucking hard and
insistent, until Harry said warningly, "Tom, I'm going to come!" and
tried to pull away.

But Tom's hands held onto Harry's hips, and he wasn't going to let him
pull out, and Harry gasped, "I mean it, Tom! I'm going to come! Right
nowwww!" And he couldn't help it, he arched his back and shot into
Tom's mouth. And he jerked and moaned, and it seemed to go on forever.

Oh, he hoped Tom wouldn't be too mad, it had been so beautiful and he
really couldn't help it. But Tom didn't seem to be mad at all. He just
swallowed, and swallowed again, and looked up at Harry with a slight
smile and eyes glowing electric blue, and then lowered his mouth
again, licking gently all around Harry's genitals. "Just a little
cleanup," he murmured, and then he moved up Harry's body and smiled at
him.

Tom leaned over Harry, and stroked back his damp hair. He whispered,
"This is what you taste like, Harry," and opened Harry's lips with his
own and eased his tongue into Harry's mouth.

Harry sucked on Tom's tongue, enjoying the sensation and marveling at
the taste. But he worried. "Tom, is it safe to swallow that stuff?"

Tom couldn't help laughing a bit. "Sure, Harry. High in protein.
Practically health food."

"I'll have to remember that."

Tom ruffled Harry's hair. "Forget it, kiddo, if she doesn't want to
swallow, nothing you can say is going to convince her."

They lay drowsily in each other's arms, and then Harry said, "Tom?
I've never sucked dick before, either."

Tom chuckled, and said, "Okay, that's next on the agenda," and they
drifted off to sleep.

---

When Harry woke up, the position of the sun and the hollowness of his
interior told him that it was somewhere between lunch and dinnertime.
Tom was asleep, his head pillowed on Harry's chest, and Harry poked
him, and said, "Tom? You hungry?"

"Starved!" Tom answered, and bit gently on Harry's neck.

Harry chuckled, and said, "I meant for food, Tom," and his stomach
growled to emphasize the point.

"Well, since you put it that way - " Tom sat up. "Yeah, I could do
with some nourishment."

Harry sat up with a groan and reached for his trousers, but Tom
stopped him with a touch. "Don't, Harry."

"Don't what?"

"Don't get dressed. I like - looking at you."

Harry was flustered, but murmured, "Okay," and got out of the bedroll
and went over to the rations bag. He grabbed some rations at random,
and turned around to see that Tom was watching him with hot, admiring
eyes. He flushed and smiled shyly.

"Come back here," Tom said, and Harry returned to his arms and they
kissed for a long time. Then Tom reluctantly let Harry go, and turned
to build up the fire. "I'll keep this built up, so my Harry won't get
a chill for letting me admire him."

And, in fact, the two men remained in a natural state for the rest of
their stay on the planet.

They wrapped one of the bedrolls around themselves like a stadium
blanket, and sat on a rock and ate another field ration - this one
said it was barbecued chicken. The meal took quite a while, since they
kept stopping to kiss and stroke one another.

Then Harry threw the empty containers on the trash pile, and returned
to Tom and knelt in front of him. He stroked Tom's penis, and looked
up at him, asking, "You want to tell me what to do, or should I just
experiment?"

Tom stroked his face, smiling into those eager brown eyes, and then
his vision was clouded with an older, darker vision.

"Tom?" Harry was worried at the pain in Tom's face.

When Tom spoke, it was in a dreamy tone, a man walking into the past.
"The first time I did that, there was a homemade knife at my throat
and a murderer's dick being pushed into my face, and I was so scared,
I thought I would wet my pants."

Then he blinked, and looked down at Harry, who had flinched back and
was staring up at him with tears in his eyes. Jesus, Paris, he
thought, why don't you just stomp puppies for a hobby?

He stroked Harry's face and ruffled his hair apologetically, and
whispered, "It's okay, Harry, why don't you just experiment?"

Harry felt so bad for Tom, and the awful things that had happened to
him while Harry was enjoying an idyllic academic career, so he kissed
Tom's thighs as gently as he could, and then sampled Tom's penis with
his tongue.

Tom seemed to like that, so Harry swirled the tip with his tongue, and
boldly took a deep suck. He was surprised at how enjoyable this was.

Soon they were back on the bedding, on their sides and curled around
one another, licking and sucking. Tom raised his head for a moment,
and said, "Uh, Harry? One rule. When you start to come, let go - just
in case you bite."

Harry giggled and said, "Oh, yes, sir!" and nibbled gently along Tom's
erection. And when Tom came, he didn't just let go of Harry's penis,
he pressed his face into Harry's legs and screamed.

Harry was so proud of himself! "Liked that, huh?"

"I'll show you!" Tom panted, and took Harry back into his mouth, and
proceeded with slow deliberation, and wouldn't let Harry come until he
begged for it. And Harry screamed, too.

Momentarily sated, they lay peacefully in each other's arms, gently
stroking shoulders and necks and hips, until Tom said, "Shit, I gotta
piss or I'm going to die."

He sat up, and reached for his trousers, but Harry said warningly,
"Uh-uh-uh! None of that stuff!"


"Give me a break, Harry! It's cold out there!"

"So go fast. I'll keep the blankets warm." Harry smiled smugly, and
Tom took the challenge.

When he returned, Harry held the blankets invitingly open, and Tom
dived gratefully into them and let Harry rub himself against him. And
it was just such a charge! Going naked into the cold, and coming back
to leap naked into your lover's arms! - Tom kissed Harry, and said,
"You have good ideas every now and then."

The light was fading when Tom asked Harry, "Fuck me again?"

Harry checked the jar of lubricant, and reported, "Yep, we got enough
for lots more mad minks."

But this time Tom seemed troubled by something, and as Harry took his
position on his knees behind Tom, Tom said in a worried voice, "Talk
to me, Harry, so I'll remember it's you back there."

Harry said, "Sure, Tom," and tried to keep up a stream of soothing
comments. Then he got an idea, and reached around Tom's hip to take
hold of his erection.

Tom gasped, "Oh, that's good, none of them ever did that."

So Harry pumped Tom's shaft in time with his thrusts, and was pleased
to see that it drove his friend wild. And when Tom came, he pushed
back against Harry, and pushed Harry far, far deeper than he'd ever
been before, pushed him right over the edge.

When the two men stopped gasping, Harry lay back and pulled Tom's head
onto his chest and smoothed back his sweat-soaked hair and asked,
"Tom? Tell me about prison."

Tom hesitated. But it was full dark now, the only light was the faint
red light of the fire, and this was his lover, his real lover, the one
he'd always been looking for - though he had kind of been expecting a
woman.

So he told Harry. . .

. . . About the five convicts who got into an argument about who was
going to get the new guy, until one of them stabbed one of the others,
so with one dead and one in solitary, the other three came up with
what they called a Civilized Arrangement and agreed to take turns. . .

. . . And the first thing Tom knew about it was that evening in the
rec room, when some guy came up to him, and said he was going first,
and being new and not knowing any better, Tom followed the guy into
the deserted kitchen, and found himself face down on the cold tile
floor, getting slammed in the ass. . .

. . . And the guard who allowed as how he supposed he could file an
incident report about the rape, but it would cost Tom a blow job, and
when Tom turned away in disgust, advised him, "I don't know what you
were before you got here, kid. But in here, that face is your fortune
- use it wisely."...

. . . The next night, Tom didn't want to go with the second guy, but
his appeals to the others in the rec room met with indifferent stares.
So on the third night, he just sighed and went with the third man, and
tried to pretend he was really somewhere else. . .

. . .  And the time he really had to make an outside call, to find out
how Mom's surgery had gone. Of course, Dad hadn't talked to him in
years, but he knew that Aunt Ellen would fill him in. But it was just
a week after that fracas in the dining hall, and the guard at the
communication center said, "Come on, Paris, you know your privileges
are suspended for the rest of the month." Then the guard ran his
finger thoughtfully over Tom's lips, and said, "But maybe we could
work something out." And after a moment's hesitation, Tom had laughed
sarcastically and dropped to his knees, saying, "I'll bet we
could."...

Harry listened to Tom in silence, stroking his face and back gently,
persistently, to let him know it was all right. Tom continued, and
these were all things he'd never told anyone, never expected to tell
anyone. . .

. . . Then there was the other new kid, when Tom had been in for over
a year, and this kid was only about eighteen, he'd been a Maquis, a
proud freedom fighter, and Tom could tell his adjustment to
incarceration wasn't going well at all. That evening in the rec room,
when one of the big guys told the Maquis kid to come with him, Tom
thought the kid was on the ragged edge of insanity. So he got in front
of the guy and asked,  "What do you want him for, he's really pitiful,
doesn't know  how to do anything," and gave the guy the look that
always worked  so well with women, and discovered it worked just as
well with men. And Tom  went off with the big guy, thinking to
himself, no, I'm the one who's  crazy. . .

. . .  But of course Tom couldn't deflect every horny bastard in the
place. Some of the other Maquis tried to shield the kid, but some of
them adapted all too well to the predator-prey environment. And
eventually the day came when the kid was raped by one of his fellow
Maquis, and his sense of betrayal was worse than the physical pain.
Tom had told him, "Just don't think about it," but the kid couldn't
stop thinking about  it. And Tom finally told him with exasperated
pity, "Look, kid, your ass is a commodity. You can let them take it,
or you can trade it. The only thing they won't let you do is keep it
to yourself. . ."

. . . And then the big commotion a week later when they discovered
that the Maquis kid had somehow managed to break into the janitor's
closet. He'd downed half a bottle of drain opener before his throat
closed up, and by the time they got him to the infirmary it was too
late. . .

. . . The following day, Tom was working on a busted engine when he
looked up and saw something he hadn't seen in almost two years - a
Star Fleet uniform. Captain Kathryn Janeway told him about her mission
to the Badlands, and when she said, "We'd like for you to come along,"
Tom wanted to fall down and kiss her feet, but figured that would
screw up the deal, so he played tough and asked, "What's  in it for
me?"

Tom's voice trailed off into silence. Those weren't all the stories he
could tell, but he figured they were pretty representative. He raised
his head and looked into Harry's eyes, hoping for acceptance, but
fearing to see disgust and revulsion. Harry just said, "Oh, Tom - "
and pulled his face down to him. And then Harry rolled over with Tom
in his arms, holding Tom beneath him, and kissing him over and over
again, and Tom was so happy he couldn't help crying.

---

All that night and through the next day, the discoveries continued.
The two friends slept when they were exhausted and ate when they
remembered  to be hungry, and the rest of the time was devoted to
exploring their bodies.

It was a revelation to Harry that having someone else masturbate you
could feel so much better than doing it yourself. And that you could
come just from kissing if you really got wrapped up with the other guy
and sort of writhed a lot!

And Tom was still having trouble believing that doing the very things
that made prison such a nightmare could be so incredibly perfect if
you only did them with your best friend.

By sundown of the second day, they had completely lost track of how
often they'd done what, but they'd used up all the lubricant. Tom was
lying on top of Harry, and they were arguing about what to try next,
while Tom licked Harry's throat.

"Voyager to away team."

"Voyager to away team."

Harry gave a horrified gasp. He was naked, and Tom was naked too and
lying on top of him licking his throat. Tom raised his head and smiled
reassuringly. "Easy, Harry."

Tom stood up and went over to his uniform, picked up the jumpsuit and
keyed his communicator. "Paris here."

Harry envied the easy assurance of his voice, and couldn't help
admiring the strong, lean body. He sat up and hugged his knees.

Captain Janeway's voice said, "We'll be in orbit in a little over an
hour, Lieutenant. Any luck?"

Tom grinned and blew Harry a silent kiss, but sounded regretful when
he replied. "No luck at all, Captain. The only dilithium we found was
useless powder. And Ensign Kim broke a bone in his foot, but I fixed
it up for him. Just a wasted trip."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that, but glad everyone is all right," the
Captain answered. "You'll be pleased to know that Lieutenants Torres
and Tuvok had better luck, so we aren't in any urgent need for
dilithium right now. We'll contact you when we attain orbit. Janeway
out."

Harry jumped to his feet and began to dress hurriedly. Voyager was
back! Suddenly he felt really weird about the events of the last few
days. Once back in uniform, it just all seemed so - nonregulation!

Tom seemed perfectly relaxed, and began to roll up the bedding. "Take
it easy, Harry!" he said. He finished tying the bedrolls, and turned
to the young ensign, pulling him to his naked chest and giving him a
skillful and passionate kiss on the lips.

Harry felt his knees turn to water, but protested, "Tom! The ship -
we're back on duty!"

"Sure, Harry." And Tom released him, to his relief and disappointment,
and got dressed.

It took only a few minutes to gather up their gear and spread sand on
the fire. Harry was still barefoot, looking at the boot Tom had cut
off. "What do you think?" he asked. "Will it cost more replicator
rations to have this fixed or to get a new one?"

"Well, I guess the best thing to do would be to ask the replicator."

"Good idea."

Now the gear was all gathered in one place awaiting transport, with
the trash neatly tied as well for recycling through the replicators,
and there was nothing left to do. The two men sat on a rock outside
the cave where they had spent a thoroughly interesting several days.
Harry was feeling very self-conscious, but Tom seemed more serene and
at ease than Harry  had ever seen him.

After a moment of sitting in silence, Tom said, "Ah, the hell with
it," and knelt gracefully at Harry's feet. Before Harry even realized
what was going on, his trousers were unfastened, and Tom was licking
his penis.

"Tom!"

"Shh! Take it easy, Harry, I want to make you feel good."

Harry had no control over the increasingly rigid erection being
skillfully pumped by Tom's warm wet mouth. Tom was taking his time,
as if they had all the time in the world, while Harry was in an agony
of suspense, wondering when Voyager would arrive.

And sure enough, he was still being sucked and licked when the
communicator chimed again, and Torres' voice said, "Transporter room
to away team, standing by to energize."

Tom let go of Harry's penis, and said, "Give us another five minutes,
B'Elanna, still have a few loose ends to tie up down here."

"Let us know when you're ready. Torres out."

Harry was outraged. "Tom! We can't hold up the whole ship while I get
- " He was trying to pull away from Tom and get himself tucked back
into his trousers.

"It's okay, Harry, I'll finish you off fast; you don't want to beam
back up with that kind of a hard-on, do you?" Tom looked up at Harry,
half apologetic, but mischievous as well, and slipped Harry's shaft
back into his mouth. As promised, he pulled Harry deep into his mouth,
sucking hard, and Harry came quickly with a shuddering sigh.

Harry got himself decently arranged as Tom stood up and dusted off his
knees. "Sorry, Harry," he said, and he did look sorry, and utterly
tender, as he kissed the ensign lightly on the lips and then keyed his
communicator.

"Voyager, two to beam up."

As the away team materialized on the transporter pads, Lieutenant
B'Elanna Torres was surprised to see that Ensign Kim was barefoot.
Then she noticed that he seemed rather flustered and red-faced.
Probably because she was staring at his feet - poor Harry was so
regulation!

Tom stepped easily from the transporter pads, lifting down their gear,
and said, "I hear you had better luck than we did, B'Elanna."

Well, of course she did - that's why she was manning the transporter,
so she could gloat. But first things first. "Harry, where are your
boots?"

Harry cleared his throat, and said, "Uh, Tom had to cut one of them
off - I broke a bone in my foot -"

"Oh, poor Harry! And no dilithium?"

"Not a smidge. I guess I owe you some rations."

B'Elanna looked guilty. "I've been thinking about that bet, and it
probably wasn't very fair of me, so maybe - "

"Hey!" Harry was indignant. "If I was dumb enough to take the bet, I
ought to settle up. Don't coddle me, B'Elanna!"

Tom took charge of the conversation. "Harry, why don't you get to a
replicator and see about new boots? Then have the Doc look at that
foot. I'll check in with the Captain, and meet you in sickbay."

Harry felt almost weak with relief. He'd never yet had to report to a
commanding officer within seconds of having an orgasm, and he was glad
he didn't have to start now.

As Harry and B'Elanna walked off, Tom heard her saying, " - enough
dilithium for two years running at warp nine, Harry! Tuvok was saying
that the energy signatures were off, but somehow I had a hunch to
check that crater - "

Tom grinned and went off to report to the Captain. He liked the way
his life was turning out lately.

When Tom entered Sickbay, the Doctor was just finishing his
examination of Harry's foot. He looked up and said, "Ah, Lieutenant
Paris. Fairly nice work, considering the equipment you had to work
with. I'm glad to see you haven't forgotten everything I taught you."

"What can I say, Doc? You're just such an inspiration to me."

"And now, if you please - " The Doctor gestured Tom to the biobed, and
Tom rolled his eyes, but submitted to the routine post-away team
scans.

It was after the lieutenant and ensign had left Sickbay that the
Doctor got around to reading the more detailed biosensor analyses.
Curious. The report indicated that there were trace amounts of dried
seminal fluids in the anuses of both officers. The Doctor thought
about it for a moment, and then placed that information under computer
lock restricted to the EMH  Program. He frequently placed such locks
on medical information of a  personal nature; he liked to think of it
as "little known facts about well-known people."

Down in the bowels of the ship, the laundry system was completely
automated. So there were no human or alien eyes to comment on the
peculiar stains on the bedrolls just turned in for processing. Of
course, the laundry equipment, being good Federation technology,
produced a soiling-content analysis report, but the crew in charge of
the system, being good Star Fleet personnel, never bothered to read
it.

---

Tom strode down the corridor with a spring in his step. Finally,
finally, the day's duties were over. Finally, he was going to see
Harry. His Harry. His lover, his best friend.

He felt like he should have sent flowers. Champagne. Diamonds! But
that was silly. That was just games and phony romance. This was real.
This was HARRY.

Tom was in love. He thought he had been before, once or twice, but
never like this. He'd always thought that the romance writers were
making things up, inventing emotions more powerful than any existing
in real life. Well, he didn't mind admitting he was wrong, because now
he knew what it felt like. And it really was overwhelming.

But he liked it.

He pressed the buzzer at Harry's quarters, heard the invitation to
enter, and entered eagerly. And there HE was, just rising from a
chair, and Tom took him by the shoulders and started to pull him into
a kiss. He hadn't kissed Harry for hours now!

But Harry put his hands on Tom's chest and pushed back, saying sadly,
"No, Tom."

"What? Oh. Okay, I'm sorry, Harry. I promise I'll never blow you while
we're waiting for a beam-out again. Kiss and make up?" And he reached
for Harry again.

Harry moved back. "No, Tom. We're not going to do that anymore."

It wasn't sinking in. "We're not going to do what?"

Exasperated, "Any of it!"

Tom was beginning to realize that something was wrong. "You mean  you
don't want. . . But, why?"

"Because it's not right." Harry looked very uncomfortable.

"What's not right about it? I like it, you like it. How can it not be
right?" Tom was breathing shallowly, trying not to panic.

Harry didn't know how to explain it, there were just so many reasons.
"This is a Star Fleet ship, Tom, and we're both Star Fleet officers.
I'm an ensign, you're a lieutenant."

"Yes, but don't you remember the captain relaxing the fraternization
rules? If we stick to after-hours, behind closed doors - hey, we can
lock the doors and pile furniture in front of them."

"That's not all, Tom, and you know it. We're both heterosexual men!
Admit it, did you ever even think about wanting a man before this?"

Tom's voice was barely audible. "Well, no. But that doesn't stop me
from wanting you."

Harry turned away. He didn't want to see the look in Tom's eyes any
more. "I promised Libby, Tom. Well, I didn't really promise her - no
one knew we would be gone long enough to need to make promises to
anyone. But I promised myself - that I would be faithful to her.
Obviously, I broke that promise, but that doesn't mean I have to keep
on breaking it."

He turned back to see how Tom was doing, and was relieved to see that
Tom's face looked perfectly neutral. "Please, Tom. Please. Let me try
to keep what's left of my promise, and don't make it harder on me."

Tom took a deep breath. When he finally spoke, it was in his usual
light tone. "Sure. No problem. Didn't mean to cause you any grief. It
was just one of those things, right, like a summer romance? Don't
worry about it, Harry, we'll just pretend it never happened, okay?
Friends?"

Harry smiled with relief. "Friends."

Tom turned back toward the door. "See you tomorrow, Harry."

"Sure. Good night, Tom."

Tom walked down the corridor, feeling a vague wonder that he could
still walk at all. He had just been eviscerated, so why didn't he fall
down dead?

Blind instinct lead him to the door of his quarters, and he entered
the compartment that had been his home for over a year now, but now
felt less like home than a chilly cave that was receding rapidly
behind them.

And then he couldn't walk anymore, and leaned against the wall,
sagging down until he was sitting, and just sat there, too devastated
even to cry.

---

"Dinner?"

Tom looked up from the PADD he was reading. "Sure, B'Elanna, I'll be
along in a minute."

"I'll check on Harry."

Two doors down, B'Elanna buzzed at Harry's door, hearing the faint
strains of clarinet music through the door. "Come in."

B'Elanna poked her head in the door, and said, "Ready for dinner?"

"Why not?" Harry put away his clarinet. "What is it this time?
Something horrible?"

"I don't think so. I heard a promising rumor that Neelix picked up
some decentish kind of meat, and Kes was working on him to keep the
spices to a minimum."

"We can but hope," Harry said. He joined her in the corridor, as Tom
left his room.

"Come on, guys," B'Elanna said, and the three headed for the mess
hall.

B'Elanna had an odd feeling, a sort of what's-wrong-with-this-picture
thing, and she was trying to pin in down. Aha, got it. Harry had been
practicing his clarinet - in his quarters. And Tom had been reading -
in his own quarters. How many times had she come across Harry
practicing, and Tom was always right there.  Come to think of it, the
two had been acting kind of funny for the past few weeks.

Like right now. Tom and Harry were talking, and the conversation was
perfectly normal, speculation about the food, and general gossip. But
it felt - forced somehow, like cocktail party chat with someone you
just met. Something going on here.

And it did seem like she was spending a lot more time with them
lately. Seemed like one or the other of them was always asking her,
had lunch yet? - or coming to Sandrine's tonight? A woman with a
bigger ego would be flattered and imagine a romantic rivalry going on,
but she knew it wasn't that.

B'Elanna knew she wasn't really adept at figuring out nuances of human
behavior, but what the hell, she didn't mind hanging out with the two
cutest guys on the ship, and maybe if she just hung in there long
enough, she'd finally figure out what was going on.

Tom was thinking that he spent a lot of time alone in his quarters
these days. It was the time he used to spend hanging around with
Harry. He still hung around with Harry, of course. At Sandrine's, at
the mess hall.

But not alone together. Tom just didn't trust himself enough. Not yet.
Maybe someday he'd be able to sit in Harry's quarters the way he used
to, joking and gossiping. But right now, no. He was afraid he'd break
down and bring up that subject, he would try again, he would beg.

Harry was obviously nervous around him, no sense in making him
downright scared of him. He couldn't stand that.

So he spent a lot of time alone in his quarters. Got a lot of reading
done. Fooled around with the computer. Once, Tom broke into the
computer's personnel subsystem to download the official photo from
Harry's service record. And that reminded him of something else, so he
hacked into Harry's personal computer files, and downloaded the Libby
pictures. For a few days, he would call up those pictures, wondering
what she had that he didn't have, hating her with a jealous rage. Then
he came partially to his senses, and deleted those pictures.

He kept the picture of Harry, though. He needed it for his dates with
Mister Hand.

---

"Hey, this really isn't bad!"

Harry jumped. He'd been lost in thought, and B'Elanna's exclamation
startled him. He tried the food, and agreed. "Actually fairly
palatable. We should compliment the chef. Try to convince him that we
humans like bland food."

"We do?" Tom asked.

"In Neelix's book, Indian and Thai are bland."

"Oh, right. Then I guess we do."

Harry turned to B'Elanna and engaged her in conversation about
dilithium. He had transferred one week's supply of replicator rations
to her account, over her objections, and wanted to hear her story of
asteroid mining.

Actually, he just wanted to be distracted. How could he have been
hanging around with Tom for over a year, without really noticing how
beautiful he was? God, those eyes!

---

Tom was flying the ship, and not thinking about anything but flying,
not letting himself think about anything else. He'd let himself get
distracted once, the first time he was in Star Fleet, and look how
that turned out.

The only problem was, he couldn't spend every waking hour flying the
ship. There were all those other hours to fill. Last night, he'd been
working on a survey report of that planet where they'd been looking
for dilithium. The Science Department wanted a report, they must not
have enough to do. So Tom had to drag out his tricorder readings, and
write a report on his observations and try to make it sound like he'd
really been paying attention.

If only he could write a report on what he had been paying attention
to, that would be easy! "A Field Survey Of The Epidermis and Observed
Sexual Reactions Of Ensign Harry Kim". Now, that was a report that
would practically write itself!

He could include a scale diagram of the cute little mole on the back
of Harry's left thigh, and Harry hadn't even known it was back there
until Tom told him about it. And pointed it out with his tongue, on
his way to nuzzling those soft warm balls.

And he would have to report that the subject of the study had
extremely sensitive nipples, so that sucking or biting would be
contraindicated. However, if one were merely to apply a gently
swirling tongue, the subject could be reduced to a quivering wreck,
begging for release.

No, getting through the evenings were no fun, and the nights were not
much better, though sometimes they were lightened by wonderful dreams.

But right now, all Tom was letting himself think about was flying the
ship.

Harry thought that whoever had designed the bridge of Voyager must
have had it in for the Ops Officer. Because the Ops station was placed
to the side of the command and conning stations. And that meant that
when the Ops Officer was caught up with his duties, he had nothing to
do but man his post and try not to stare at the Conning Officer's
perfect profile. And try not to be fascinated by the graceful movement
of those clever,  clever hands.

Harry turned to the wall monitor and decided to run a diagnostic on
the shield generators.

At the Tactical Station, Lieutenant Tuvok noted on his monitors that
the shield generators were undergoing their third diagnostic of the
watch, and thought of asking Ensign Kim why he was so concerned about
the shields. But the Vulcan had noticed emotional undercurrents among
various crew members, and suspected that the obsessive diagnostics
were actually some sort of nervous tic.

But now Tuvok's attention was drawn to another part of his displays.
"Captain. Sensors are picking up a ship behind us, closing fast."

Harry turned back to his sensor displays.

"Can you identify the ship, Mister Kim?" Janeway asked.

"Yes, ma'am." He looked up and said grimly,  "It's Vidiian."

Shit, shit, shit! Right at shift change, while committed to impulse
power, and we find some Vidiians. Ain't that just my goddam luck!

Kathryn Janeway looked around the bridge guiltily, wondering if she'd
spoken aloud. Apparently not. She nodded coolly to Ensign Kim, and
said, "Mister Paris, whatever course that ship is on, we want to be
going in the opposite direction. Full impulse. Right now."

Paris replied with a heartfelt, "Yes, ma'am!"

"Red alert," Janeway continued crisply, "Weapons systems on-line.
Bridge to Engineering."

"Torres here."

"Lieutenant, this is turning into a poor time to be doing warp core
maintenance. How soon can we have the warp drive back on line?"

"The maintenance is finished, Captain, we're just putting the warp
coil assembly back together. We should be ready to go in about an
hour."

Double shit! "I don't like that answer, B'Elanna. We've stumbled into
Vidiian territory, and I'd kind of like to leave here in a hurry."

"I hear you, Captain! We'll be as quick as we can."

Paris reported, "New heading 170.5 mark 3. Speed, full impulse."

Janeway turned to Tactical. "Have they spotted us, Mister Tuvok?"

"Apparently so, Captain. They are altering course, and are in
pursuit."

Janeway pounded the arm of her chair. Of all the times for the warp
drive to be off-line. Ordinarily, she could run away from any Vidiian
ship like it was standing still, but not at impulse power.

And Tuvok had more bad news. "Captain, I'm picking up another ship,
it's ahead of us, off our starboard bow."

"It's Vidiian, too," said Ensign Kim.

What a great day this was turning into!

Paris said, "New heading, 240.6 mark 6."

Janeway nodded. Ordinarily, captains like to maintain control of their
ship's course and speed. But Janeway always believed that if you had a
good pilot, when things got hairy you let them maneuver at will, since
the captain had plenty of other things to worry about.

And Lieutenant Paris was nothing if not a good pilot. Not just the
best on the ship, she was starting to think he was the best in the
fleet. He always announced his maneuvering pattern, and she realized
he had memorized all the maneuvers in the Star Fleet manual. He'd also
used maneuvers which he identified as Maquis Alpha and Gamma, and once
pulled  a particularly hair-raising stunt which he called Paris Five -
so he was writing his own book, and wasn't that a frightening thought!

Tuvok reported, "The pursuing ship is dead astern, closing fast."

Paris questioned that. "Excuse me, Tuvok, you do mean dead astern? Not
on a parallel course?"

"Dead astern," Tuvok repeated stonily.

"Well!" Paris turned back to the Conn. "Coming about.  New course,
160.2 mark 2."

Chakotay said, "Uh, Paris, you're headed right for the other ship."

"That's right, Commander. What's the pursuing ship doing now, Mister
Tuvok?"

"It is changing course to match."

"On a parallel course?"

"Dead astern."

Ensign Kim suddenly looked up from his station, catching on. "Whoa!
Tom, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Well, it sure looks to me like these beauties have never heard of the
Harrisburg Maneuver."

Now Chakotay realized what Paris was up to, and didn't think much of
it. "Wait a minute, Paris, you can't fly a Harrisburg with a ship this
size!"

Paris turned around to look him in the eye - was that a challenge?  He
said softly, "Wanna bet?"

Janeway was thinking furiously. "Really, Mister Paris, that is the
oldest trick in the book."

"In our book, maybe," Paris argued. "Looks to me like these guys are
singing from a different hymnal."

The captain turned to Tuvok. "Analysis, Mister Tuvok. At what point in
a Harrisburg would those ships be past the point of no return?"

Tuvok's hands danced over the console. "Factoring in the size and
weight of the vessels, and assuming full impulse speed, the point of
no return would come when the ships are within 400 kilometers of one
another."

"And is that enough?"

"Impossible to estimate, Captain. The unquantifiable variable is the
skill of the pilot."

Janeway turned back to face the viewscreen. And there was Gene Paris'
boy, staring at her intently, waiting for the go - no- go decision.
She couldn't help thinking of her dog in advanced obedience training,
waiting for the signal to leap a hurdle and retrieve a dumbbell. The
exact same look of barely leashed eagerness. Oh, what the hell.

Janeway nodded. "Do it."

"Yes, ma'am!" Paris turned back to his console,  "New heading locked
in and confirmed. Speed, full impulse, closing  with the forward ship.
Tuvok, keep an eye on the pursuing ship, let me  know if he changes
course."

They were closing fast. Janeway realized that one advantage of this
maneuver was that it prevented either of the ships from firing at
them, like the old gag about the circular firing squad.

Everyone was leaning forward now, watching the distance to the forward
ship close up. Paris slowed Voyager to three quarters impulse, didn't
want to get there too soon. For something to do, Tuvok reported,
"Pursuing ship closing fast, still dead astern."

Kim was almost holding his breath. He couldn't believe they were going
to fall for this.

Now the forward ship was rushing toward them. They were on a
letter-perfect collision course.

Paris called out, "Bridge to Engineering, emergency power to the
inertial dampers! And everybody, hang on." Janeway thought he sounded
rather manic.

And finally, finally, he maneuvered. Rather than call a new heading,
he shouted, "Dive! Dive! Dive!" and threw Voyager's bow straight down.

Everyone on the bridge flinched, as the underside of the huge
harvest-ship skimmed past the viewscreen. Everyone, that is, except
Lieutenant Paris. Hell, he knew they'd miss that ship, with yards to
spare.

Now they were past, and Janeway called "Rear view on the viewscreen,"
so the bridge crew could watch the two behemoths try to maneuver, but
they'd left it till too late, and through the vacuum of space all
hands could imagine the blare of the proximity detectors, and then the
crash as the ships collided.

Everyone cheered.

Paris said, "Open hailing frequencies."

No one but the captain ordered hailing frequencies opened. Ensign Kim
said, "Captain?"

Janeway paused and then nodded. She had to admit, the young man had
pulled off the stunt of a lifetime. And she was just dying to know
what he was going to say.

"Hailing frequencies open."

Lieutenant Paris announced, "Newton's First Law Of Motion, you dumb
fucks! 'A body at rest tends to remain at rest, and a body in motion
tends to remain in motion.' This lesson has been brought to you
courtesy of the Alpha Quadrant, and the United Federation of Planets."

And even Chakotay had to smile at that.

Now the oncoming watch, who had been trying to make themselves useful
during the crisis, took over. Harry called out, "Let me buy you a
beer, Mister Paris."

"Sure, Harry." Harry was grinning, and Tom went over to the Ops
station to bask.

"Just a second," Harry told him, and turned back to his console.
"Operations Officer's log, Stardate 49736.7. On this date, while
cruising in the Delta Quadrant, the U.S.S. Voyager, NCC-74656, being
pursued by Vidiians, performed a successful Harrisburg maneuver,
disabling both pursuers. Voyager was piloted by Conning Officer
Lieutenant Thomas Eugene Paris. Witnesses: Captain Kathryn Janeway,
Commander  Chakotay. Computer, fill in data on Voyager's dimensions
and  mass."

He turned to Tom. "That's got to beat anything on O'Malley's wall."

"Well, I should hope so!"

As they left the bridge, Harry keyed his communicator. "Kim to
Torres."

"Yeah, Harry? Just got warp up and running."

"Never mind that! Meet us at Sandrine's; we've beaten O'Malley's
wall!"

"Okay, I'll be there, if only to find out what the hell you're talking
about."

Tom felt a slight flicker of disappointment when Harry called
B'Elanna, but he wasn't surprised. He knew what Harry was doing. He
tried not to let it bother him.

---

"Okay now, whose wall have we beaten, and why is that a good thing?"
B'Elanna leaned on the table, beer in hand, and waited for
enlightenment.

"O'Malley's is a bar in San Francisco," Harry told her. "It's a Star
Fleet hangout - O'Malley himself is a retired chief petty officer. He
has this thing for the Harrisburg Maneuver - I think he  participated
in a famous instance way back when the world was young.  So he has
authenticated instances of the Harrisburg engraved on little brass
plaques on one wall of his bar. And I don't think there has ever been
a successful Harrisburg from a ship anywhere near the size of
Voyager."

"It's not just the size of Voyager," Tom said. "The Harrisburg is
something that's supposed to work in the general scrum of a big
battle, when you've got a pursuer on your tail who's so single-minded
he's not paying attention to anyone else. I've never heard of a
successful Harrisburg involving only three ships!" He reached over his
shoulder to pat himself on the back.

"I get it. It's a status thing." B'Elanna nodded wisely. It sounded
very Klingon to her.

Harry nodded. "Right. So I made sure we had an official log entry, so
when we get back, we can get our brass plaque up there."

"Very forethoughted of you. But I still can't believe those guys fell
for it!"

Tom had a theory on that. "My guess is that all their great brains get
shunted into the medical fields, so the space sciences get what's left
over."

"The lame brains," B'Elanna said.

"Well, we got the proof now!" Tom laughed.

The conversation was lively and self-congratulatory, but Tom was
gradually coming down from his Harrisburg high. He was imagining that
he could feel the heat from Harry's body from the other side of the
table. When was he going to get over this?

There were plenty of women on Voyager who would have been astonished
to learn that Tom Paris had given up a pursuit after one turndown. But
Tom didn't have a choice, Harry had tied his hands. "Don't make this
harder on me," he'd said, and that effectively chained Tom into
inaction. He couldn't make things harder for Harry, because he loved
Harry.

And sometimes love really sucked.

Tom stood up. "Look, guys, I'm really beat. But have another round on
me." And on the way out the door, he stopped to tell Sandrine to bring
their table another round.

Sandrine brought over two more beers, and Harry sat and stared into
his, lost in thought.

B'Elanna watched Harry. She was getting tired of trying to figure this
out. Finally, she said, "Boy, Harry, you're lucky I'm not like most
women."

Harry looked up. "Sorry, B'Elanna, I'm being lousy company, aren't I?
I was just - thinking about something."

"That's not what I meant," she told him. "I'm talking about the way
you keep inviting me to join you; there are plenty of women who would
be picking out china patterns now."

Harry was appalled. "What?"

"Oh, don't worry, I don't think you've been leading me on. I'm not
dumb, Harry. I've noticed that you always seem to want me along when
you're with Tom. Something's wrong between you  two, and I want to
know what it is."

"Wrong?" Harry croaked. "I don't know what you mean."

"You're a really bad liar, Harry."

"Yeah, Libby told me that once."

"This all seemed to start about the time of the dilithium exploration.
What happened? Did you guys have a fight or something?"

Harry hesitated. But confession is a powerful impulse. This was the
first time Harry had a problem he couldn't discuss with Tom, and he
was going nuts. So he eyed his beer, and mumbled, "Or something."

B'Elanna leaned forwarded. "Yes," she said encouragingly.

"But it wasn't a fight. It was a. . . it was an affair."

B'Elanna spilled her beer. "Oh, shit!" She got up to go get a rag,
telling Harry sternly, "Don't you move!"

As she headed for the bar, she was thinking, I can't believe it,  I
friggin' canNOT believe it! But then, what's not to believe? You take
two crewmembers, one a legendary sensualist and one a wide-eyed
innocent, and stick them on a planet with nothing to do for several
days, and what do you expect to happen? And why did anyone think that
particular away team composition was a good idea?

But of course, she knew the answer. Because they were best friends.
Oh, Tom, how could you?

She got the rag from Sandrine, and also ordered a pitcher of beer.
This looked like a pitcher-sized issue. Sandrine nodded over to Harry
and said to B'Elanna, "Affairs of the heart? His course of true love
doesn't run smooth?"

Sandrine always made B'Elanna nervous. She knew the woman was a
holocharacter, but she seemed so real. B'Elanna wondered how much
memory her program took up in the holo-buffer. And she seemed so
knowing and worldly wise, she made B'Elanna feel gawky and naive.

"Something like that," she told Sandrine.

"Who is she?" Sandrine demanded passionately.

"Who is who?"

"The one who breaks that sweet boy's heart! Tell me who she is, and I
will pull out her hair, yes, in big handfuls, until she promises to be
nicer to dear Harry!"

And B'Elanna was so tempted to say, it was the guy who programmed you,
but instead said weakly, "Can I get back to you on that?"

Sandrine nodded. "Yes. We will fix this, you and I."

B'Elanna went back to the table and cleaned up her mess. Harry was
still sitting, looking lost and blue.

Now B'Elanna sat down again, and refilled her beer glass. "Okay," she
said briskly. "I think you're over-reacting to this, Harry. Come on,
things happen. You wake up with someone you didn't expect to. Stop
eating yourself up over a one-night stand."

"Actually, it was more like a two-night stand," Harry said, with the
merest ghost of a smile.

"One night, two nights, big diff. It's over, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's over. But I know Tom doesn't want it to be over. And it was
- it was just so intense, B'Elanna!"

Oh, now we're getting into the good stuff! "Intense? Like, how?"

Harry looked around. It was late, no one was left in the bar but the
two of them and the holocharacters. He leaned forward. "Like we spent
two solid days completely naked. And other than a little sleeping and
eating, we spent the whole time doing nothing but - well, Tom called
it," - he dropped his voice - " 'fucking like mad minks'."

B'Elanna bit the inside of her cheek to keep from moaning. God, she
wished she could have seen that!

"And remember when you said the transporter room was ready to beam us
up, and Tom said we needed five more minutes?" She nodded. "B'Elanna,
he was giving me a blow job!"

And B'Elanna thought, I would have paid to watch that!

"I never thought I was naive, B'Elanna - " he stopped to glare at her
as she choked on her beer, " - but I didn't know any of that stuff!
Tom had to explain to me how to do him, you know, uh, in the behind?
And then he did me, and then he sucked my - you know - and  I sucked
him, and when we weren't coming we were kissing, and  oh God, it felt
so good - "

Harry broke off, and drank down his beer.

B'Elanna was listening with growing astonishment. How, she wondered,
had Harry been able to do all these things, when he couldn't even
bring himself to say what they were? She cleared her throat. "Uh,
okay. So you're saying it was intense. But why are you avoiding Tom
now?"

"Because I'm afraid of him," Harry mumbled.

This was a new twist. "Afraid? Of Tom Paris? Your best friend?"

"That's right."

"What do you think he'll do?"

"I'm afraid he'll touch me."

"Just - touch you."

"That's right. He might forget, and slap me on the back, or touch me
on the shoulder - "

"And. . . that would be bad?"

Harry sighed. "And I'm afraid that if he touched me, I'd be down on my
knees in a second, begging him to take me."

B'Elanna sat back. "Now I'm really confused. If you want him, and you
say he wants you - what's the problem?"

Nobody ever seemed to understand this, Harry thought. Was faithfulness
such a foreign concept these days? "Libby is the problem. I'm engaged
to Libby, I'm in love with her, I plan to marry her."

There was a long silence. B'Elanna drew patterns in the condensation
rings on the table. Finally, she said, "You know, Harry, a number of
people have told me they admired how well I've adjusted to life on a
Star Fleet ship in the Delta Quadrant. Well, would you like to know
how  I did that?"

"How?"

"I just decided that everyone I ever knew, with the exception of the
people onboard this ship, are dead."

Harry drew back. "Eyew!"

"No, really. That's the way I think of them. I like to pretend that
they all went off to one of those human after-lives where everything
is wonderful, so I don't have to feel bad about them. But the point
is, all those people are out of my reach. For the rest of my life. Now
it may turn out that I'm wrong, that we find that mythical Holy Grail
of Janeway's, the Wormhole Home. And that would be great, to get back
and see those folks again. But I'm not counting on it."

She leaned forward and addressed Harry seriously. "Listen to me
carefully, Star Fleet. I'm building my life around the people on this
ship, and no one else. And so should you."

Harry sighed. "I just can't do that, B'Elanna. I just have to believe
I'll see her again."

Well, now B'Elanna knew what the problem was. What she didn't know was
what to do about it. They talked a while longer, and then left
Sandrine's to go their separate ways.

And B'Elanna thought, it's too late tonight, but tomorrow, Lieutenant
Thomas Eugene Paris, you have some explaining to do!

---

It was dinnertime the next day before B'Elanna had time to track down
Tom. She found him in the mess hall, for once eating alone.

She walked up to him with determination, and said, "We need to talk."

Tom looked up, and gestured to a chair. B'Elanna ignored that. "What
do you want to talk about, B'Elanna?"

She folded her arms and said grimly, "Mad minks."

That made him flinch, she saw with satisfaction. He looked around, and
said, "Can we go somewhere private?"

"Lead on," B'Elanna said.

They wound up in Forward Navigational Control. It figured. Nav Forward
was a favorite hangout for pilots. Not much bigger than a closet, it
was traditionally placed in the forwardmost part of the ship. There
was floorspace like a short corridor with control panels on either
side, and then the ceiling slanted abruptly down to the hull. So when
you scrunched down under the low eaves and looked out the thick
window, you couldn't see another part of the ship at all - you saw
nothing but space.

Nav Forward made B'Elanna the engineer nervous for the same reason
pilots loved it. Because you couldn't see any part of the ship.

When Tom turned toward her, his face was completely blank. "Okay,
B'Elanna, it's your nickel."

B'Elanna had no idea what that meant, and didn't let herself be
sidetracked. "Tom, I'd just like to know what you were thinking,
seducing your best friend."

Tom shrugged. "Seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe I was wrong.
There wasn't much else to do."

Oh, she wanted to hit him! "Tom, this has seriously disturbed Harry!
Don't you care?"

"Of course, I care! I just don't see what I can do about it. Look,
when we got back to the ship, Harry said we weren't going to do that
anymore. Okay. I accepted that. He can't say I've been coming on to
him, because I haven't. I can't go back and change what's already
happened, now can I? So I said, let's just pretend it never happened,
and that's what I'm doing. I just wish he could do the same thing. I
miss my buddy."

He turned to the window and thought for a minute. "B'Elanna,
obviously, he'll talk to you about this, or you wouldn't know the
minks reference. Could you. . . tell him I'm sorry? That I just want
things back the way they were?"

He turned back to her. B'Elanna hesitated. He certainly seemed
sincere. She nodded. "Okay. I'll tell him that."

Tom turned back to the window, and B'Elanna turned to go. The door
swished open, and she started out the door, but thought of something
else she wanted to say, and stepped back into Nav Forward. The door
swished closed behind her.

B'Elanna could never remember what it was she intended to say to Tom,
because she was instantly consumed with murderous rage. Oh, so the
moment he thinks she's gone, he starts laughing!

He was making the strangest sound, and his shoulders were shaking, and
she was about to ask, what's so damn funny, mister? And then she was
going to take him apart.

But before she could take a step forward, he fell to his knees, and
she realized he wasn't laughing at all. Tom Paris was sobbing.

B'Elanna had no idea what to do. She had never seen a man cry in her
life, and there was Tom Paris, on his knees, sobbing like a crazy man.
Her first instinct was to flee, but then he'd hear the door. She
backed up against the wall, and pressed her fist to her mouth. Oh, she
didn't want to be hearing this! All she could think was, my God, was
he holding that in the whole time we were talking? How can he? And how
can he live like this?

And she had actually cried a few times in her life, when she was very
young, before she was thoroughly indoctrinated. Back when she was
very, very young, there had been a human father in the house, and she
remembered the time she was crying, because some older kids had been
making fun of her. And she remembered how a human parent had reacted
to that.

So when Tom moaned aloud, "What am I going to do?" she  quickly
stepped forward and knelt beside him and put her arms around him.

"Oh, Tommy, poor baby!" B'Elanna said.

He jumped, and looked up at her with damp, reddened eyes. "B'Elanna?"

She patted him on the back, saying "There, there, there," and pressed
his head into her shoulder. He tensed for a moment, and then gave in,
and sobbed to his heart's content.

When he finally seemed to be calming down a bit, she said soothingly,
"Tell B'Ela what's wrong."

And Tom wailed, "Oh, B'Elanna, I love him so much and he doesn't want
me anymore!"

Well, well, well.

After a few more minutes of back patting, B'Elanna stood up and said,
"Come on, Tom. Let's get you to your quarters."

He stood up, embarrassed, and asked, "Are my eyes all red?"

"A little," she told him. Actually, his eyes and his nose were very
red. "Tell you what, if we run into anyone on the way, you grab me and
we'll go into a clinch and pretend you're sweeping me off my feet.
How's that?"

He chuckled. "You really are a very nice person, B'Elanna."

But she was glad they didn't meet anyone. She didn't want to kiss Tom.
She'd heard in the women's locker room about his talent in that area,
and right now she thought it would just take a small push, and she'd
fall for him herself. And things were really confused enough without
that.

In Tom's quarters, B'Elanna was still in human parenting mode. She
told Tom to take a nice shower and get into his jammies and she'd
order them a snack.

At the replicator, she almost ordered chocolate milk, but shifted the
order to a more adult comfort, and got two Irish coffees.

When Tom came back, B'Elanna was in the overstuffed chair, and
gestured at the coffee. "Come talk to me, Tom," she said.

He sat down on the floor beside her, and leaned against her knees.
"What do you want to talk about?" he asked in a dull voice.

B'Elanna was outraged. "Tom, you can't just keep pushing this down,
you'll make yourself sick!"

"I just don't see what good talking will do, is all. When all is said
and done, I'll still love him, and he won't love me, and life really
sucks." He sipped moodily on the coffee.

B'Elanna stroked his hair and said nothing.

Finally, he said, "I wanted him to feel better, B'Elanna. We were
talking, and he was saying how much he missed Libby, and the physical
contact, and being inside her, so I offered. . . well, I told him he
could fuck me. And he liked it, I know he did, and it did make him
feel better. Oh, B'Ela, we had so much fun!"

He fell silent. B'Elanna still didn't say anything. He went on, "I
shouldn't have told him that stuff about prison. It didn't seem to
bother him at the time, but maybe when he thought about it later. . ."
He sighed. Then he said, almost resentfully, "I'll bet when Harry and
Libby fucked for the first time, they were both virgins. He's so hung
up on all this faithfulness stuff, so why would he settle for
convicts' leftovers? But I thought he understood that I really
couldn't help it. . ." B'Elanna froze for a moment, then resumed her
steady stroking of that bright golden hair.

B'Elanna had always said that Tom Paris could talk the most and say
the least of any man she knew. He was making up for it now. She sat
silently and listened to the dark ribbon of words, and this was
heart's blood, a chilling litany of despair, self- loathing, and
always the hopeless, passionate longing for the other, for the one he
wasn't good enough for.

Finally Tom wound down, and B'Elanna tucked him into bed, and gently
kissed his forehead. She held his hand for a few minutes until he
seemed to be asleep, and then tiptoed out.

In the corridor, she keyed her communicator and asked, "Computer,
locate Ensign Kim."

"Ensign Kim is in Holodeck Two."

Sandrine's. All right, then. She'd get to that in a few moments, and
Harry Kim would rue the day. Tom Paris had an advocate now, and
B'Elanna Torres was a tigress unleashed. But first things first.

B'Elanna entered Sickbay. "Activate Emergency Medical Holographic
Program."

And the Doctor appeared. "Please state the nature of the medical
emergency."

"Doc! Tell me something. You can monitor computer terminals in
people's quarters, can't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean opening the computer channel and listening in at the
quarters."

He seemed a little defensive. "Well, as a matter of fact, I can. It
contradicts my privacy programming, but it could be done for
sufficient reason."

"Good. That's great, Doc. I want you to monitor Lieutenant Paris'
quarters. You don't have to keep the line open constantly, just check
in every few minutes."

"But - what am I to be checking for?"

"Uh, vital signs?"

"Surely you don't suggest I could take temperature, blood pressure, or
pulse from an audio signal."

B'Elanna sighed impatiently. "No, but you can listen for anything
unusual, can't you? And increase the volume and check for respiration,
can't you?"

The Doctor paused for a moment. Then he said, "Lieutenant, pardon  me
if I'm being obtuse, but are you asking that Mister Paris be placed
on a suicide watch?"

B'Elanna answered evasively. "Only the captain can authorize a suicide
watch."

"Precisely," he said evenly. "Shall we call her?"

"Oh, come on, Doc! I don't want any of this in the records, I may be
completely overreacting. Can't you just bend a little here, and do a
little snooping for me?"

The Doctor sighed in a most human fashion. He really was a marvel of
programming. "Very well. I will snoop. And how long should I continue
to snoop?"

"I'll get back to you on that. Thanks, Doc."

And that was one less worry. Now, on to Sandrine's.

At Sandrine's she found Harry playing pool with Tuvok and Neelix.
"Harry, could I talk with you for a few minutes?"

"What about, B'Elanna?"

"About the minks thing," she said.

"Oh." Harry handed his pool cue to Neelix, and he and B'Elanna retired
to a corner.

B'Elanna wasn't quite sure how to start. "Tom asked me to tell you
that he's sorry and he just wants things to be the way they were."

"Oh. Okay." Harry was uncomfortable.

"That's not true, of course," B'Elanna said thoughtfully, "At least
not the part about wanting things to be the way they were."

Harry didn't know what to say. After a moment's silence, B'Elanna
asked, "Tell me something, Harry. Why did you accept Tom's offer in
the first place?"

"B'Elanna, I don't even know! I was lonely, I was horny,  I missed
Libby - I guess I just lost my head."

"And it stayed lost for two days."

"Yeah."

"So for two days, Tom was an adequate substitute for Libby, but then
you got back to the ship, and decided he wasn't good enough anymore?"

"B'Elanna, I came to my senses!"

"And decided that you weren't willing to accept 'convicts leftovers'?"

Harry couldn't understand what had gotten into B'Elanna. "Is that what
you think?"

"No," she said fiercely, "That's what he thinks. He thinks you don't
want him because he's not good enough for you, he's not pure enough
for the untouched-by-human-hands Mister Kim!"

"B'Elanna," Harry said desperately, "it's not like that at all. I
explained all this to you, Libby - "

B'Elanna exploded, "Fuck Libby!"

Harry shrank back, and she continued, "No, better yet, why don't you
give some thought to who is fucking Libby, because mark my words, Star
Fleet, the man who is fucking her is probably her husband by now!"

"I don't believe that."

"You don't want to believe that. Listen, Harry, this ship disappeared
in a plasma storm in the Badlands over a year ago, and you can bet
your life they've already listed every one of you Star Fleet types as
Missing, Presumed Killed. Would you even want Libby to put her life on
hold for a man who was probably dead?"

"Well, no, but - "

"Then why put your life on hold for a woman you'll probably never see
again? Especially when there's someone who loves you right here, right
now, and you're making him miserable."

B'Elanna was managing to keep her voice down to a harsh whisper, but
the effort was making her angrier and angrier, it was bringing out the
Klingon in her. Harry had made the mistake of sitting in the corner,
so there was no getting away from the fury of B'Elanna.

She leaned forward and her eyes were blazing. "That poor guy was
bawling his eyes out, telling me how much he loved you, and you didn't
love him because he wasn't good enough for you. Why did you make him
love you if you weren't going to love him back? And why did you take
him if you weren't going to keep him?"

She stood up and glared down at Harry with contempt. "Oh, you
self-righteous little Galahad, why didn't you just shoot him?"

And B'Elanna stalked out of the room. Out in the corridor, she thought
to herself, well, that was a big help.

At the pool table, Tuvok and Neelix watched Lieutenant Torres' stormy
exit, and Ensign Kim's subdued departure a few minutes later. Tuvok
had never really made of point of his Vulcan hearing to the crew,
which sometimes enabled him to overhear interesting things. He felt
satisfied that he had identified the source of the undercurrents, and
wondered if he should brief the captain.

Harry went back to his quarters and quietly put himself to bed. He had
always been rather proud of his devotion to Libby, he thought it was a
virtue. And he never expected that it would actually hurt anyone.

B'Elanna said to act as if everyone you ever knew was dead. Harry
couldn't do that, he was too much of an optimist. He preferred to
believe that miracles could happen, they could be home tomorrow, or
the next week.

Finally, exhausted by all the emotional turmoil, Harry fell asleep.
And dreamed. It was a familiar dream, he must have had this dream
about a dozen times in the last year. He even had a title for it, he
called it "Homecoming. . ."


. . . The cake was already half-eaten in the mess hall, when Harry
entered with Libby on his arm. Captain Janeway was standing looking
out the window, admiring Earth's profile, and Mark was standing behind
her with his arms around her, and the captain didn't seem to mind,
even though that was an obvious Public Display of Affection.

The news crew was set up in the corner, and an earnest young reporter
was telling the camera, " - in this year's most stunning Flying
Dutchman tale, the long-lost Voyager returned home today, with
stirring stories of three years of adventure in the Delta Quadrant - "

Harry introduced Libby to Neelix, who was downright gushing over
meeting the famous Libby he'd heard so much about, when Tom Paris came
in, walking like a man in the clouds. Harry waved at him, "Over here,
Tom! Come meet Libby!"

And Tom came over, and after being introduced to Libby, turned to
Harry and explained the reason for his excitement. "They did it,
Harry! Star Fleet Command just confirmed Captain Janeway's field
commission, I'm officially back in Star Fleet!"

"Tom, that's great!"

"And not only that - I've got new orders! I'm going to the Bismarck."

"Is that what you wanted?"

"What, are you kidding? The Bismarck! New construction, deep draft,
and homeported at Star Base Twelve! Star Base Twelve, Harry! That's
Babe Central!"

And Tom went over to talk to the captain and thank her for everything,
and Libby whispered in Harry's ear, "Why don't you show me your
quarters, Harry? You do have private quarters, don't you?. . . "

. . . And, as always, at this point Harry woke up.


The dream was the same, exactly the same as it was every time. The
only thing that was different was Harry's reaction to it. Instead of
the disappointment he usually felt at recognizing it was only a dream,
Harry woke up crying, "Tom! Don't leave me!", and then felt an
overwhelming relief when he realized they were still in the Delta
Quadrant.

Well. He'd gone to sleep wondering what he should follow - the promise
he'd given to a woman on the other side of the galaxy, or the heart
he'd given to the man two doors down the hall. And the answer came to
him in a dream.

It was Tom. If they got home tomorrow, it would still be Tom. Harry
got out of bed and headed down the hall. Tom's door was only on the
level one lock, and Harry had had that code for a year now, so he let
himself in, and went into the bedroom.

Tom was asleep. He was frowning slightly in his sleep, which made
Harry feel bad. Harry shed his pajamas, and slid into bed with Tom,
and began to kiss his throat.

Tom stirred and woke. "Wha - Harry?"

Harry said, "Shh," and kissed him on the lips.

The two kissed passionately for long minutes, and then Tom sighed and
said, "Oh, Harry, I hope we never get home!"

Harry said, "I hope we get home tomorrow." He smiled at Tom with his
heart in his eyes, and added, "My mother will just adore you!"

---

B'Elanna Torres was trying to sleep, but her mind was racing around
the Tom and Harry problem, wondering what she could do, when her
communicator chimed. "Please activate your emergency medical
holographic channel."

B'Elanna got up, and switched the computer to EMH, and the Doctor's
face appeared. He was smiling. "I just wanted to report to you that I
am discontinuing my monitoring of Lieutenant Paris' quarters."

"Why?"

"Because Ensign Kim has taken over that duty."

"Uh - really!"

"Yes, and judging by his manner of dress, I assume he intends to
continue his monitoring throughout the night."

"His manner of dress?"

The Doctor seemed a bit self-conscious. "Well, you did tell me to
monitor for unusual activity, so I did activate one-way video for just
a moment." He gave her a reassuring smile. "As I disconnected, Ensign
Kim appeared to be taking the lieutenant's pulse with his lips, so I'm
sure the ensign will take good care of his patient."

"Well, that's good, Doctor. Thank you for letting me know." She was
never sure when the EMH was putting her on.

After reporting to Lieutenant Torres, the Doctor had to admit a
sneaking curiosity about the status of his unofficial patient. Turning
on the audio connection, he heard some very unusual sounds. So
naturally, he turned on video. Just to check, and make sure everything
was all right.

Well! Lieutenant Paris was face down on the bed with his legs spread,
and unless the Doctor was mistaken, Ensign Kim was sodomizing the
lieutenant. The Doctor was not a naive program, he had huge blocks of
memory storage devoted to human sexuality, and he recognized anal
intercourse when he saw it. He certainly hoped it was consensual, he
would hate to have to call security at this time of night.

The lieutenant was saying, "Oh yes, Harry, fuck me, take me, deeper,
oh GOD - Harry!", and the ensign was punctuating each thrust with a
declaration of love, and the Doctor realized guiltily that he'd been
watching for quite long enough to verify the consensual nature of the
relationship, and reluctantly closed the connection.

That night, Tom Paris smiled in his sleep, his head pillowed on Harry
Kim's chest, naked in his best friend's arms.

And the ship sailed on.

---

continued in the second story in the Tom, Dick and Harry series 'Lifewish'