by Jessica
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DISCLAIMER: Voyager's characters. I screwed around with the plot of the episode "The Chute" a little to suit my purposes.

Archivers: Archive wherever you want.

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No.

This is not happening.

You are not asking me if I think you should propose to B'Elanna.

As if you couldn't tell by my expression that what I want to do is scream at you for being so blind and scream at myself for being so foolish. So utterly foolish. How could I ever think you cared about me -- I mean really cared. I thought, after we returned to Voyager from that prison, that it meant something to you that I had protected you.

To think that I believed you. Or maybe you weren't lying. Maybe my view of the world is completely skewed. Maybe all those furtive glances and all those "friendly" arms draped over my shoulders didn't mean anything. Maybe you don't remember what happened in the prison when we were alone.

Maybe you don't remember how you called me to you and told me that you wanted me to try my hardest to get out the chute and to forget about you. Maybe you don't remember how you told me that I was the most important thing in the world to you and you would be glad to die if it meant I could live.

Maybe you don't remember how you slid your hands around my neck and pulled me down to kiss you, your mouth seeming to try to taste as much of me as you could, my mouth responding just as eagerly. Maybe you don't remember your tongue running over my sweat-slicked neck to its junction with my shoulder. Maybe you don't remember the feel of my skin, golden against your pale whiteness, made so much paler by hunger and fever.

I remember, Tom.

I remember how you felt in my arms.

I remember how you tasted.

I remember how you smelled.

I remember the way you moaned when I took my mouth from yours.

And you're asking me if I think you should propose to B'Elanna.

This is preposterous.

After we came back from that prison, after we feasted on "real" food that night, was it stupid of me to think that our time together meant something? Was it so wrong for me to think that you meant it when you told me you loved me? To think you'd remember when we came back?

At first I thought you needed time to sort things out.

Then I saw that you began acting as if it had never happened.

As if we had never happened.

And I saw you chasing after B'Elanna.

I never told her about it. I don't really talk to her much anymore. I don't know why. But it made me jealous. It made me so jealous I couldn't see straight. To think that my Tom, my best friend for years and the man who'd finally returned my affections, was leaving me for her.

But you were never really mine, were you?

It must have all been a lie.

And if it was a lie -- why did you do it? Why did you deceive me? Why couldn't you just keep your hands off me so that now I wouldn't be tortured by such vivid dreams of that night?

You're asking me if I think you should marry her. You say you love her. I know that I should encourage you, that if I really love you all I should want is for you to be happy.

But it doesn't work that way.

Oh, I'll encourage you. I'll tell you to marry her aloud. But in my head the same words are repeating over and over: iloveyouiloveyouiloveyouiloveyou.

Don't leave me, Tom.

Do you remember the words whispered in a haze of lust late at night in an alien prison camp?

I love you.

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End