The BLTS Archive - Briefing at 0700
by Amiroq. aka Gypzy (fitchett@netaccess.co.nz)

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Disclaimer: Paramount owns Star Trek. I don't. Nuff said.

To Kat, Rule Britannia! b/c Harry isn't a contortionist
anymore... ;)

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Harry woke up in an awkward position. It took him a moment
to work out just why it was awkward, and that was only
because he tried to move his arm and heard the clanging of
chains. He groaned, and  opened his eyes. He was alone.
"B'Elanna?"

After a moment he heard footsteps, and then she appeared in
his field of vision - just. He had to look out of the corner
of his eyes to see her, and pretty soon he decided it would
be a better idea to leave her a disembodied voice. "Why am I
chained to the bed?" he asked, managing to sound as if he
was simply querying the weather.

"Work it out yourself," she told him. She sounded slightly
pissed off. "Oh, and remember the staff briefing at 0700?
That's in, uh, an hour forty-seven minutes. You wouldn't
want to be late."

"What's that supposed to mean?" He didn't get an answer, and
after a moment he realised she'd gone back out to the other
room.

Shit.

Okay, so he'd annoyed her in some way. //Well, that's
obvious,// he thought, wincing as he tried to move and the
cuffs grated against his wrists. Not that he'd mind being
chained to her bed, except that these weren't exactly the
circumstances he would have chosen.

//*Think*,// he told himself. //You got an hour forty five
until work. What the hell did you do this time?//  He
thought back to last time they'd had a fight, when he'd let
her stay behind in his quarters when he went to work and she
left a mess. Well, that didn't help; it hadn't been his
fault, for once. Except... hadn't he left plates on the
floor a few days ago? She'd never mentioned it, and he
remembered getting really nervous because she was being just
way too nice. "Is this because I left dirty plates on the
floor?" he called out.

"Not even close! One hour forty three left."

Well, it had been worth a try, although he doubted she'd
torture him like this because of a few plates. She'd had
plenty of other opportunities to get back at him. So...
"What about when I kept playing Yankee Doodle Dandy on my
clarinet?"

"Well, actually that was kind of funny."

Okay, so... dirty plates on the floor was 'not even close'
and Yankee Doodle was funny, so it was probably something
completely different. Like, work maybe. What had he done at
work recently?

Two days ago... she'd been mad at him for something. What
*was* it? Something that had disrupted something she'd been
doing. A sensor recalibration?

"B'Elanna! Is it because of that sensor recalibration I did
that disrupted your work?"

"Not quite. One hour thirty seven left."

Damn. Okay... Not quite. That meant something to do with
work was the right track to go on. Unless she was being
sarcastic, or deliberately leading him off on tangents.
Which just didn't bear thinking about. //Okay, just assume
it's to do with work. If that gets nowhere, try something
else.// He shifted into a more comfortable position and
closed his eyes, trying to remember everything he'd done in
the past... say, week, that might have annoyed her. There
was the sensor recalibration, which he'd tried. What else?
//Think one day at a time.//

Last Saturday he'd had the afternoon shift. They'd had lunch
together, she'd been fine. It had been kind of boring,
actually, and they spent most of it chatting through their
consoles when the Captain was in her ready room and Chakotay
was going over reports. He hadn't done anything that even
remotely affected Engineering, and she'd seemed pretty happy
to see him afterward anyway, so he decided he could
basically rule out Saturday.

Sunday, he'd had the night shift, and he'd been in the Big
Seat. That was only six hours after he'd got off duty on
Saturday, and he'd spent most of that either writing or
reading reports or with B'Elanna. On shift, he'd basically
sat there and made sure no one tried to sneak off the bridge
or anything. It had been a quiet stretch of space, on
reflection. Then he'd spent the next eight hours sleeping
until he got up and finished his reports at 1600. B'Elanna
got off at 2000 and then they'd gone out again.

Monday, he'd been sent to do repairs in Engineering.
B'Elanna was probably asleep; at any rate, she wasn't there,
and he'd borrowed a repair kit from her office to fix the
relays. Then he'd... forgotten to take it back. Damn. "Hey,
what about that repair kit I borrowed? Are you mad about
that?"

"I was wondering what happened to that. I'll get you back
later. One hour, nineteen minutes."

Hell! Where did all that time get to? //Think fast,// he
ordered himself.

Tuesday. They'd had an encounter with a race called the
d'bailre-maakao in the previous shift and they'd both been
assigned to Engineering to clean up the mess. He opened his
eyes. He'd done a diagnostic that ran through some systems
that were down... and when power transferred through some
overloaded relays the whole thing went down. He'd thought
she hadn't minded, but maybe... Then again, he hadn't had
time to explain it was his fault. Maybe she didn't know.
Maybe she would just get even madder if he mentioned it. The
best idea would probably be to suggest it when he'd run out
of ideas.

Wednesday. He yawned, and closed his eyes again. Wednesday,
they'd been finishing the last of the repairs, then had
spent the last half of the shift discussing a course of
action. According to Seven, the territory of 'species 6904'
was huge, but they shared it with species 7128, and were in
a state of almost constant war. The latter concentrated more
on defence and lived mainly underground, hidden from
sensors, while the d'bailre-maakao lived on the deserts and
moved around with the seasons to find better places. Unlike
most nomadic races, they'd discovered space travel and other
advancements, although somewhat later than their shy
counterparts from the caves. Was there anything he could
have done at the meeting? He yawned again. Hadn't he...? He
really couldn't remember.

Suddenly he jerked awake and felt the cuffs dig into his
wrists as he tried to sit up. He yelped.  "B'Elanna?" There
was no answer, and he sighed. Pulling himself as close as
possible to the head of the bed, he let his left hand slide
right up to the bars the chain was linked through, giving
him much more length on the other side. Then he levered
himself up and inched his lower half around so he could
*nearly* see out into the other room. So close.

He settled back into his usual position and tried to think
where he'd been up to. One thing was sure,  B'Elanna had
moved the clock, probably to torture him. For all he knew,
the meeting had already started.  Or maybe she'd just gone
to breakfast; they'd been going to meet Tom at 0600.
//Assume the best,//  he thought, and tried to remember.

He'd been up to, what, Friday? No, Thursday. That was... two
days ago, right? So, yesterday was when  they'd had the
peace reception, and that meant Thursday was when they'd
started negotiations.  B'Elanna had been there, he hadn't,
but he'd heard it had been totally boring - over and over
when she  got back, actually. Could she be mad because he
didn't have to go? She wouldn't really chain him to the bed
for *that*, would she? It was hardly his fault, after all.
And he couldn't even ask until she got  back, or decided to
speak to him if she was here, so he wouldn't know for only
God knew how long. He  sighed, and decided to try Friday.

He'd had the day off work, and so had B'Elanna. She'd spent
most of the day in bed, and didn't even  get up until about
1645, while he got up earlier and spent the time putting
more work into a project the Captain had asked him to do.
That evening they'd gone to the peace reception - well, more
like a party -  in the messhall. He groaned.

She'd kept brushing him off all night when he tried to do
*anything*. Even when he just wanted to  dance, she'd
muttered something like "leave me alone!" and went to make
small talk with aliens, which was odd, because she hated
making small talk, especially with strangers. And then he'd
got a bit woozy  when Tom started to spike the punch - he
was stopped by Ensign Brooks, he'd heard later, who didn't
deign to report it - and probably made a complete fool of
himself.

He heard the door whoosh open and sighed, relieved.
"B'Elanna?"

"What?" she snapped. He winced.

"Is this because I didn't have to go to the peace talks, or
because of... my behaviour last night?"

"*No*! Twelve minutes left." Now she sounded positively
seething.

"*Twelve*? Why didn't you wake me?"

"I was out. Having breakfast. Are you going to guess, or are
you going to be late?"

"You aren't really going to leave me here, are you?" There
was only silence in reply. "Oh, come on,  B'Elanna, I can't
afford to be late to this! Do you know how much *trouble* I
would be in?"

"What's more important to you, work or me? I'm going to
leave you there until you work out what your priorities are
and I'm *not* going to let you out early."

Realisation dawned on him. "You mean this is because I've
been spending too much time *working*?"

"How observant of you," she replied drily. "You can use the
safety catch to get out."

He groaned as she left, then, realising exactly how long he
had left, pulled them off, grazing his wrists again as he
did. Next he ran for the sonic shower, spent an extra quick
time in there, and was about to pull his uniform on when he
decided that probably wasn't the best idea, and had to
replicate another. He glanced at the chrono, which he could
now see, cringed, and decided there probably wasn't enough
time to gel his hair. And B'Elanna *had* always said he
should leave it out. He ran a brush through it quickly and
tossed it on a chair as he went out, practically sprinting
for the turbolift. It seemed to go obnoxiously slow, and he
found himself fidgeting and mentally willing it to go
faster. His watch, which he'd picked up on the way out,
read 0701. He arrived at the briefing room two minutes
later.

Everyone looked up as he came in, and he could swear
B'Elanna was smirking at him. "Uh.. sorry I'm late. I
was... tied up with work." Tom muffled a snort.

"Take a seat, Ensign," Janeway said frostily.

He was way too aware of the tension as he sat down behind
B'Elanna.

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The End... for now.