The BLTS Archive- The Apprenticeship series The Obligatory Holodeck Story: Where Angels Fear to Tread by Bridget Cochran (bjcochran@aol.com) --- 1998 Disclaimer: I own the ideas, Paramount owns the rest. Thanks to Amirin for the excellent beta'ing and Jane St. Clair for the suggestion of the title from the EM Forester novel set in Italy. --- "Katarina, you are working far too late," the master said as he puttered around, tossing manuscript paper and paint rags. Where was it? "It doesn't feel like work," Kathryn Janeway said as she pumped the pedal of her pottery wheel. She tossed water onto the clay mound and centered it on the spinning plate, her eyes never wavering from the shapeless gray mass. Careful fingers slid onto the slippery coolness. The hologram nodded, as if her words finally registered into his surging brain. "If you love the work, no time matters. Aha!" He grasped something from under a wealth of table top rubbish and unearthed an ancient brass gyroscope. "I will see you in the morning, Katarina," da Vinci said as he bustled to the studio door, but he paused at the heavy door, turning back to the woman bent over the potter's wheel. "Why have I not seen your young man here of late?" "My young man?" She was concentrating on centering her clay. "Yes, the one who wears a costume like the one you wear. The black with the red shoulders. Hair the color of sunrise. Like a northerner." The pressure Kathryn applied to her clay pushed it out of kilter. The pedal skittered beneath her foot when she stopped pumping to look into the laughing eyes of her mentor. "Tom?" He'd only been in the program in the beginning to help her fine tune the studio. "You don't think I see the beautiful expression that comes to your face at his arrival?" Was she that obvious? Did her expression change that much? She scraped the ruined clay into the slop crock and pulled out a fresh hunk. "Katarina, have I said something wrong?" She turned to him a rueful smile lurking on her lips. "No, maestro. The man you speak of is the helmsman on a large sailing vessel. We don't see each other much when he's working." Lately, that had been true. "The path of love is never smooth," he said before pushing the portal open, disappearing into the night with his gyroscope. The path of **life** is rarely smooth, Janeway amended as she began to center the clay again. So, I get a beautiful expression on my face when Tom comes in here, huh? Wonder what Seven would have to say on the subject. No. That's not a good idea. I'll have to make do with my imagination. Beautiful look on my face? Ye, gods. Two rudimentary pots were eventually formed. Kathryn was throwing a last chunk of clay on the wheel when the door pushed open to admit Tom Paris. She was honestly surprised to see him and wondered if she had the look da Vinci had described earlier. The smile was gentle on his face. They hadn't seen much of each other in the past weeks. Their larder had been restored and their cargo holds were overflowing. B'Elanna and engineering had refitted everything in sight. But their travels were boring. Morale was okay, but it wasn't rip-roaring or flag-waving. Tuvok had suggested he, Chakotay and Janeway overlap shifts into the Gamma shift, so there was always a command presence at the helm. Tom even took his turn as shift commander. Subsequently, she saw less, or nothing, of her senior officers. Although she could always call on them, she missed the daily interaction. Now Tom stood looking around the cluttered chamber, the flickering of lamps and candles placing his face in dark relief. Janeway started up the wheel, trying to concentrate on the clay. The pilot moved along the massive wooden table covered with the paraphernalia of Renaissance Italy. He picked up a rag and sniffed it as he studied parchments covered with drawings and calculations. Making calculations of his own, he determined the model would never fly. Still the concept was clever, and you had to start somewhere. A water tumbler turned upside down in a flat, shallow dish caught Tom's eye. The water was pushed up inside the glass at a higher level than that in the dish. "Have you made your friend a barometer?" he asked, his mouth holding a wry twist. "I don't think the Prime Directive applies to holodeck programs." Tom continued to study the primitive weather device. "I think you're right." Kathryn sighed when her thumb accidentally ripped the thin wall of the burgeoning pot. She squished it together between slurry covered fingers and threw the remains into the crock. Tom watched the clay cling to the inside of the large pot. "I didn't mean to distract you." The look she gave him told of her disbelief. He shrugged, moving to the open window. Its sill was high, at his chest, thick slabs of stone cool and rough to the touch. There was no view to see, but a breeze blew through the window glanced off his skin. "The air comes from the mountains," Kathryn was now beside him pouring water into a stoneware basin. "Which mountains?" "Who knows?" she was rubbing the heavy silt from her hands and forearms, pushing the sleeves of her linen smock up past her elbows. Her chin length hair was stuck to the dry clay on her face. Tom picked up an unbleached piece of flannel and dipped it in the water. Kathryn straightened, looking at the cloth he held, but raised her eyes when his gentle fingers brushed her ever errant hair from her face and began to rub dried clay away from her cheek bone. She closed her eyes as he rubbed the stubborn dirt and gripped her chin, tilting her face up into the dim light of a flickering wall lamp, looking for more smudges. The soft pressure of his lips was unexpected, thoroughly unpredicted. Her quick intake of breath opened his eyes, but did not release the pressure of her lips or his fingers from her chin. After a moment she relaxed to circle his neck with her arms. Tom welcomed her embrace, pulling her closer to him, like a deep breath. He had crossed a line, an invisible, heretofore, impenetrable barrier between them. His hands rested on the small of her back, her cheek rested on his chest. "Why did you come here?" she murmured, a hand rubbing the contours of his uniformed chest. It was sometime before he answered, so many responses seemed to play across his face a he reviewed and discarded them. "I wanted to see you, hear your voice." He paused again before making the decision to finish the sentiment. "I need to feel your heart beat with my lips." Kathryn was struck dumb. She looked up at him unable to form words. There **were** no words for what she felt, her senses were on overload, her tongue no longer capable coherent communication. His lips dipped to apply gentle, insistent pressure at the base of her neck. He must certainly feel her pulse; her blood was pistoning through her veins. His hair ruffled against her cheek, it felt like the wrong way nap of velvet, and it felt **so** good. She reached her fingers into it as his lips inched to her collar bone. A small sound escaped her. A gasp? A moan? A ragged sigh? She couldn't recall because the hot touch of his tongue replaced the nibbling teeth. She arched into him, vaguely aware of what she was doing to him, feeling his need as she pressed her belly against his pelvis. His kiss deepened at the contact with his body, sweeping her up onto her toes. When they broke away, Kathryn still couldn't speak. She wanted to, but her breath was so depleted and the wonder of the moment so complete, that she remained silent. Tom smiled down at her. They'd shared a kiss or two in the past two weeks. But now he seemed serious. That was a serious kiss. That was a serious look in his eye. How could she refuse him, break his heart? And he was giving her his heart. The fact shown from him like a beacon. "Don't look so worried," he said softly as his thumb pushed at the frown mark between her eyes, "I'm not going to declare my undying love. Yet. Just wanted to take a liberty or two." He trailed his thumb down her nose to bounce off the tip. "What if I don't want you to stop taking liberties?" Tom ran his thumb along her bottom lip, his eyebrows raised slightly. "Well," he drawled, "that would be fraternization, which is against protocol." "I'm aware of protocol, Lieutenant." It was all she could do not to lick the thumb that rested on her mouth. Kathryn suspended thought as she allowed her mouth to open under his sweet insistence, returning the pressure, inviting his tongue to duel with hers in a beautiful wicked dance of barely restrained desire. And it felt marvelous--real and right. Kathryn's arms moved to hold him, she stepped into the welcoming embrace and allowed herself to be consumed by him. Inching her smock up, Tom moved his hands over the fine rounded flanks clothed in the finest black silk to pull her flush against him, his erection firm against her hip. His fingers sent sparks across her backside right to her own arousal. She felt her toes curl in her slippers as she reached up on tip toes to still his tongue and lips with her teeth. Why was he pushing her away? Kathryn blinked and frowned up at him as she tried to swipe her hair from her face, recovering slowly, as if from anesthesia. "Tom?" "We have to stop now, if we're gonna stop at all," Tom breathed, as he stumbled back to the table. "Stop?" "Captain, I don't know about you, but I haven't had a BC booster in a year. Afterwards would not be a good time for me to find out you haven't either." That certainly was sobering, Tom Paris telling her he wasn't protected; not quite asking her if she was. She wasn't and shook her head, "Good point." Embarrassed, and a little disappointed, she moved away, but Tom pulled her back into his easy embrace. Kathryn pushed back to look into his eyes, aware that he was still aroused, just more in control. "Should I get a booster?" he asked. She could see the openness in his eyes, and the vulnerability. How could she let him down gently? How could she let him down at all? Hell, she was letting herself down. In the end, she didn't have to say anything. It was all on her face--doubt, consternation, guilt, everything. Tom sighed and pulled her back to him until her head lay on his chest. "It's all right, Kathryn, I understand. I probably understand better than anybody else on this ship. I watched my mom and my dad. My grandpa with my grandma, Uncle Joe with Aunt Bailey. Not just anybody can understand a captain's relationship with her ship; I come from a long line 'Fleeters." He paused. "I'll keep my shots updated. Just in case." Janeway was silent. Tears formed in her eyes at his understanding that seemed so necessary to her sanity at that moment. "Thanks, Tom," she barely whispered. Tom smiled at her murmur and pushed her upright. "Computer, save program." They watched the studio disappear, each silent with their own thoughts. "Come on, Captain, I'll walk you home." Hand in hand, they left the holodeck. --- The End