The BLTS Archive - Season V: A Friend in Deed
by Bridget Cochran (bjcochran@aol.com)

---

This is the third story in the Season V Series.  The first two
stories are The Way of All Flesh and A Friend in Need.  There are
Timeless spoilers.

Disclaimer:  I own the ideas, Paramount owns the rest.

Archive at will, includes BLTs, R'Rain and AllSlash.

This is the story of two men who will eventually be involved in a
consensual sexual relationship.  If that sort of thing offends
you, move along home.

---

Yeah, maybe a day on an unpopulated planet was just what Tom
needed. They'd spent so much time warping through space and
examining anomalies that they'd hardly spent any time on a
planet's surface, in an atmosphere.  Might be just the right
thing to assuage this claustrophobic feeling he'd been carrying
around.

They'd strip mined what they needed for Voyager from the odd
asteroid or uninhabitable moon, not bothering to find a Class M
to take a couple of days off.

He mentioned the fact one night at the resort and the next day
they were parking at an uninhabited rock-toid planet.  He didn't
know who told whom, and he, frankly, didn't care; he was going on
a long hike and didn't need to be back for thirty-six hours. 
That's all that mattered.

Transport was arranged to a moderately rocky terrain on the
daylight side of the planet.  He'd hike.  Nap.  Hike.  Nap. 
Perfect.

He was surprised when Chakotay entered the lift, pack in hand,
heading for the same transporter room.  "So, where you going?" 
It was polite to ask, so he did.

"Same place you are,"  Chakotay eyed Tom's away team uniform.

Tom looked at Chakotay in off-duty gear and felt over dressed. 
"Same place I am?" Wait a minute.  "Yah, there's lots of places
to hike down there."

Chakotay didn't say a word, as Tom gave the coordinates to the
transporter chief.  They materialized in the warm dry air of the
barren, rocky planet.

---

Tom sat be the fire trying to calm down his pissed off mood.  The
small rocks had been placed in a pyramidal pile and zapped with a
phaser 'til they glowed, the dry bark of long dead flora added to
create flame.  For a minute he entertained leaving the rocks in a
smiley face formation, to be discovered millennia from now by
whatever species evolved on the planet.  He was almost perverse
enough to leave it so a primitive species would claim the
primitive countenance for their god.  Yah, shut up, Tom, told
himself.  You can't fuck with the Prime Directive if no one has
even developed on the planet to appreciate it.

Chakotay had left the circle of the fire to take a piss, Tom
guessed. He wasn't lucky enough for the guy to walk the whole way
back to the base camp. He threw a handful of dirt into the fire,
momentarily entranced by the sparkle of the sulfur based grit.

Chakotay had followed Tom all day, at a respectful distance.
Respectful, bullshit.  If the son-of-a-bitch was respectful, he
wouldn't have followed him.  Tom had made it plain that he was
not interested in company, but not plain enough, apparently and
Chakotay had hiked behind him all damn day. When he stopped for
lunch, Chakotay stopped about half a click below him on the
gently sloping plain. 

As he walked, Tom tried to keep his irritation down.  Tried to
clear his mind, think happy thoughts.  But it was kind of hard
while he was being stalked. 

Another handful of dirt hit the fire when Chakotay reemerged from
the darkness.  It was hard to keep a coldness from creeping into
his eyes, as he watched the man sit, cross-legged, across from
him.  Ire moved into Chakotay's eyes at Tom's expression, but was
dampened.

"You need to talk about B'Elanna," Chakotay fired the first
salvo.

"Bullshit.  I need to think about B'Elanna."

"You've been thinking about it for some time.  Now you need to
talk."

Tom leaned forward, the glow of the fire radiating on his face. 
"I need to talk?  I end a relationship with one person, and **I**
need to talk?" Tom, himself, was spitting fire.  "You hook up
with a Cardasian spy, a recovering Borg and some kind of mind
wiping spy, and **I** need to talk about B'Elanna and me going
our separate ways?  Isn't that a little one-sided, Chakotay?"

Chakotay lost color.  "That's different."

"How?"  Tom wanted to know.  Chakotay was silent for a heart beat
too long. "I'll tell you how: they aren't around you everyday. 
**You** don't have to look at them everyday.  One's dead after
she tried to steal Voyager, after she left you to fend for
yourself on a nasty planet.  The other let you go after she
planted a neuraltransceiver into your brain.  A transceiver that
told you to go to against orders.  She took advantage of you,
too, and let you off the hook at the same time.  And then
there's…."

"I get your point, Tom," Chakotay's voice was quiet.

They stared at each other a minute and Tom didn't feel mad
anymore.  He felt stupid and churlish.  Chakotay's eyes never
wavered, but they had changed. Swallowing, he lowered his head. 
Christ, Christ, Christ.

"I just thought you needed to talk, and you wouldn't do it
without a good prodding."

Tom closed his eyes, not sure of why he wanted to hurt Chakotay
the way he just did, yet he'd done it again:  spoke first,
thought later.  But he was pissed and Chakotay wasn't letting him
alone.  "Who do you talk to about the hurts in your life,
Chakotay, huh?  The Captain?  No," he dismissed,  "she's part of
the problem.  Tuvok?  Harry?  Neelix?  No, no and no."

"I meditate."

"Uh-huh."  Tom sat back, he face passing into the shadow.  "Your
inner self talks to your outer self.  Must be an exciting
conversation."

Chakotay was silent.  Tom was quiet, scraping the ground with a
flat rock. "What would be the point in talking about my
failures?"  Chakotay asked at last.  "I'm a weak man."

Tom smiled at the forlorn sound of Chakotay's words.  He shook
his head so slightly and didn't respond for a few minutes. 
"You're not weak, just needy."

Still scraping with the rock, he didn't see the anger that came
onto Chakotay's face.  "I'm pretty needy myself," the pilot
admitted.  And left it there.  They were on very, very shaky
ground here.  In as few words as possible, Tom was letting this
man see what nobody saw.

He looked up when he heard his first officer move to recline on
his mat.

"Do you know what it felt like to find that phase variance in the 
slip stream protocols?" he asked.  "Felt like shit.  I was the
one to rain on everybody's parade."

"You did what you had to for Voyager."

Tom threw another handful of dirt into the fire.

"Well, B'Elanna took it personally.  Like I found the variance to
show her up."

He could hear the frown in Chakotay's voice.  "She said that?"

"Yah, and a couple of other things." 

"But, you were right."

"Since when did that matter?  She took it personally.  She lashed
out because she was embarassed about not finding it herself."

"But she's not a pilot, she wouldn't look at things the same way
you do."

Wasn't that obvious?  Uh-oh, just keep quiet, he means well. 
"No, she wouldn't."

Chakotay was quiet.

"Harry must have gone through hell after Voyager was lost."  Tom
ventured.  The ensign had told him about the message he received
from Future Harry, that Harry and the doc were in the Delta
Flyer.  Harry had been responsible for some terrible accident
with the slip stream drive.  The solution of the Delta Flyer
riding point hadn't worked.  Something catastrophic had happened;
Tom's worst fears had come true, apparently.

Tom felt no satisfaction that he had been right.  B'Elanna hadn't
come near him since evidence of his vindication had been
presented.  Did she really believe that Tom would rub in an 'I
told you so'?  He shook his head at how little she knew about
him.

But something occurred to him.  He looked across the fire at the
reclining man.  "Do you think you and Harry were lovers?"

Chakotay shifted his body toward Tom.  "I hadn't thought about
it.  Why do you ask?"

Tom shrugged, another handful of dirt hit the fire, wondering if
Chakotay was telling the truth.  "You'd be the only two left.  It
would hurt."

"It would hurt like hell."

Tom nodded.

"Are you jealous again?"  Chakotay's voice barely rose against
the background noise of breeze and camp fire.

"Probably," Tom admitted.  "Jealous that you two were alive and I
wasn't. Sorry that you both would have to go through that kind of
pain alone. Jealous might not be the right word."

Chakotay was once again on his back, eyes closed, hands clasped
and resting on his stomach.  Tom knew that Chakotay would let him
kiss him, let him touch him.  Chakotay would hold him close just
to hold him.  Another handful of dirt hit the fire.

Okay, so Chakotay had invited himself on this overnighter.  Yes,
it had pissed Tom off.  But, now, he was glad for the company,
glad he could talk about some of what was bothering him.  But
especially glad that the information wasn't being forced from
him.  Chakotay took as much as Tom offered.  Maybe the Commander
asked for more information than he could give at any one time;
but once the man hit the wall that Tom used to protect himself,
he would back off. Then Tom had the room to say what he could.

Of all the counselors he had seen through out his illustrious
career, this one was the best.  Shit.  He was now less irritated
at Chakotay, but focused back on the irritations of Voyager life
in general.

"Do you snore?" he asked, as he laid down on his own pallet.

"Don't know," Chakotay said to the sky.  "Let me know."

Tom smiled.  He almost hoped Chakotay did.  It would be something
to tease him about.

---

The End