The BLTS Archive- Everything I Own by Joanne Collins (luchenbackoutlaw@gmail.com) --- Disclaimer: Everything Trek belongs to Paramount/Viacom. Please do not distribute, archive, etc, without my permission. May be archived on the ASC archive, the PKSP story archive, and R'Rain's Slash Archive only. Posting to BLTS, PKSP, ASC/EM only. Anything else, please ask first. I will probably say yes, but I'd prefer to know about it. What can I say? This one just came to me after rewatching Deadlock. Usual warnings: M/m, reasonably graphic, lots of heartbreak and stuff. For Christopher, of course. --- I never got to say goodbye. Oh, Harry, if only I'd had that chance. I could endure your loss,if only I'd had the chance to tell you one more time how much I loved you. I know, you knew, we both did, but the closure would have helped a little. As much as anything could. It's funny, people thought I was the strong, independent one in our relationship. I still don't know how I managed to fool so many people. Never you, though. You knew what I needed, and gave it to me gladly, without hesitation. And I did the same for you. --- You sheltered me from harm... You kept me warm, you kept me warm... And you gave my life to me... You set me free, you set me free... The finest years I ever knew... Were all the years I had with you... --- I know exactly when I fell in love with you, Harry. It was that moment in the Mess Hall when you said nobody chose your friends for you. I couldn't admit it then, though. Oh, I'd known from the moment we first met that I found you attractive, but I couldn't admit that either. I was still too raw, too emotionally vulnerable, from prison to ever be able to admit it then. And of course I was trying to prove to myself that I could have any woman I wanted after what happened, that no one would ever take what I didn't want to give again. Then I met Lidell, and realised that there are other forms of violation, that can hurt as much as the physical kind. That was when I realised what I was doing with the women, and I was finally, with help from the Doc's counselling algorithm, and, to my utter shock, Chakotay's help, to face what had happened to me in prison. It wasn't easy, and I still wake up screaming some nights, even now, but I know that I'll get through this. I think it'll take longer than it would have with your help, but I think I'll still have it, somehow. It took a while. I still wasn't ready to admit to more than that I found you attractive for a long time, and that only to myself. I finally got up the courage to admit it to you after you died the first time. I couldn't live with the possibility of never being with you. Even then, I still thought it was just sex. And gods, was the sex incredible. You fit your body to mine so well that first time, stroking, teasing, kissing, moving down to clasp my hardness in your hand, making it harder than I thought possible, then asking me to make love to you. Oh, gods, preparing you, smoothing the lubricant inside you, stretching you out carefully, smoothing the lubricant on myself, then moving slowly, oh, so slowly inside you. So hot, so tight, gods, Harry, you felt...right. So very right. I wanted to do it harder, but I didn't want to hurt you. And it felt good, doing it slowly. Then you gasped for me to move faster, harder, and it was all I wanted. I complied, and it didn't take long. I moved a hand down to you, and you were so hot, I thought I'd burned an impression on my hand. Then I was thrusting forward, you were thrusting back, we found our rhythm, and before long, I was seeing brightness shatter around me, hearing your cries and my own... Damn, I never thought I'd be crying over those memories. Chakotay has told me to work on my own. I think he understands that I need to remember you, even though I can't go somewhere and yell out the injustice of our loss. I never thought he'd be so...sympathetic. Guess his relationship with Ayala's mellowed him. --- And I would give everything I own... I'd give up my life, my heart, my home... I would give everything I own... Just to have you back again... --- What would it take to get you back? My death? I'd give up my life for yours in a second Harry. I'd even accept you not being with me, somehow, if I could have you back. Anything that it took. --- You taught me how to love... What its of, what its of... You never said too much... But still you showed the way... And I knew from watching you... Nobody else could ever know... The part of me that can't let go... --- I'll never forget you, Harry. Never. Even if I go on, maybe find someone to ease the loneliness, it'll never be the same. It'll never be you. Gods, I loved your love for me. And mine for you, of course, but your love for me was the only pure emotion I've ever felt from anyone in my life. I think that's the part of me that can't accept your being gone, you know, the part of me that only existed in you. --- And I would give everything I own... I'd give up my life, my heart, and my home... I would give everything I own... Just to have you back again... --- Dear gods, I've just been called. Apparently the Harry Kim from the other Voyager is coming over. Captain Janeway wants me to help him adjust. And I'm not going to refuse. Not after everything the ship's just been through. But...it's not you. No matter what, it's not you. --- Is there someone you know... You're loving them so... But taking them all for granted... You may lose them one day... Someone takes them away... And they don't hear the words you long to say... --- The door chime to our quarters rings. "Come." "Hi, Tom," oh, gods, it's your voice, your walk, your eyes... "Hi, Harry." "I understand you didn't see me die, so why are you so shocked to see me?" "I...Harry, you were dead. How am I supposed to react to the sight of you?" "I thought my best friend would at least be glad to see me!" Wait a minute... "Best friend?" "We are best friends, aren't we? No matter what, that has to still be the same. It just has to." "Harry what was your relationship with me on your Voyager?" "We were friends. Best friends. Like family." Oh gods, no. "What about...romantic relationships?" "You...he was in love with Chakotay." "Chakotay?" I can't keep the shock out of my voice. "You mean you're not...?" "Definitely not. Chakotay and I are colleagues and just barely friends. Or we were before the spy thing." "Did my going undercover cause problems for you?" "Your going undercover?" "I didn't?" "No, I did." "Oh. Well, obviously we both made it back. Seska get herself your DNA here too? Or was it easier for her here, and she didn't need to...extract it? Who knows how your relationship played out over here." This is too weird. I had a relationship with Seska? "Seska and I...?" "Yes. She apparently recruited you to the Maquis." I finally realise, odd that it took so long, that this Harry is from a totally different universe. His and mine developed along similar, but hugely different in the little things, lines. "Tom?" "Yes?" "There's something else about my universe. I was in love with someone." "B'Elanna?" "No, not that the guy who gets her isn't going to be very lucky, but no." I allow myself a tiny sliver of hope, but push it down. He's not the Harry I love. "Who is it?" "It was Tom." "But...he was with Chakotay." "Yes, and I'd never interfere with that. Besides, Tom loved Chakotay too much to look at anyone else, and vice versa." "But you loved him." "Foolish as it seems, yes I did." "Oh, I don't think there's anything at all foolish about Harry Kim loving Tom Paris," I finally manage to say. --- Give up my life, give up my heart... Everything I own... --- He realises at once, of course. "You and your Harry?" I nod. "Gods, my being here now must be so hard for you." "In a strange way, it's not. I know he's gone, and isn't coming back now, because you're so different. If you'd come from an identical universe, one in which you and Tom were in love, it'd be all too easy to just fall back into what we had before, but now we can't. We have to get to know each other, to see if we're meant to be friends or lovers." "I...don't know." "Neither do I. But I do know that I have more than I had this morning, Harry. I have a chance to have what I thought I'd lost back. Or at least something as wonderful." "Tom, we can't rush this. We have to start again, from the beginning." "You're right. There's such a large part of me that still wants to pick up where we left off, but you're not him, and I have to remember that." "Yes, Tom. And I have more than I had this morning. I have a chance to be with you in a way I only dreamed of." --- You know, baby... My love for you will always be true... That's right... Because there is no me without you... --- I don't think you'd hate me for this, Harry. I think if you knew, which I think you do, you'd be encouraging me to do this. But I can hear you saying now to take it slowly, which of course I must. It's not fair to him to start something while I'm still mourning you, and I think he needs time to mourn his Tom, and his world. He's going to have more trouble than he thinks adjusting, that's the one thing I am sure of. And I still don't know if I can accept his love after having your love. --- I would give everything I own... (Everything I own)... Nobody can love you... (love you, love you) like I do... -- Of course, there's no way that the other Tom would ever have loved him like I can. Even if he hadn't been with Chakotay. That's weird. Not because he's a guy, but because he's Chakotay. Who knows? Maybe out there somewhere in another universe is a Tom and Chakotay who are really happy together. And maybe there's a Tom and Harry who were never separated by death. Hell, maybe there's even a universe where I fell in love with B'Elanna or Ayala, who knows? But I'll bet none of those Toms loves their lover like I loved you, Harry. It's just not possible. --- And I would give everything I own... I'd give up my life, my heart, my home... I would give everything I own... Just to have you back again... Just to have you back again... --- "Kim to Paris." "Yeah, Harry?" "One thing that's still the same is Sandrine's. Want to meet there, say in an hour?" I'll have to get used to doing these things with him, whatever happens. Now's as good a time as any to start. "Sure, why not? So was I teaching you to play pool on your Voyager?" "Not quite. I was teaching you, actually." One more difference. But are any of them significant? I do have you back, Harry, in a way I never thought I would. And I must find out if *we* are still meant to be. "Meet you there," I say, chuckling. As I change my clothes, I catch sight of a photo of you, the one I took and insisted we frame for the bedside table. You're looking out of the camera with such a sincerely lustful expression, I still can't believe you showed it to Janeway. And I realise, you *would* want me to do this. You would want me to go on if I can with him, and with someone else if I can't be with him. I can't do it yet, but when I can, I know he'll be there for me, whatever happens between us. --- The End