Intimates

Don't you care for my love? she said bitterly.

I handed her the mirror, and said:

Please address these questions to the proper person!

Please make all requests to head-quarters!

In all matters of emotional importance

please approach the supreme authority direct! -

So I handed her the mirror.

And she would have broken it over my head,

but she caught sight of her own reflection

and that held her spell bound for two seconds

while I fled.

-D. H. Lawrence, "Intimates"

Author's Note: They don't belong to me, I just borrow them to play with. RE the premise: I'm raiding the sacred tombs of J/C and plundering it for the purposes of J/P. Avid J/C fans may want to turn back now. . . Or else keep reading, and be converted. :-)

Chapter 1: Proximity

Janeway woke up from stasis first, the sound of her communicator sounding far away through the haze of induced unconsciousness. She sat up to answer it, looking at Paris as he sat up a few moments after her. He was taking longer to wake up, but his body seemed to relax. He'd gone into stasis practically kicking and screaming, and his posture now told her that his body was one big kink. It must have tensed up even when the stasis cycle began. Poor man.

Tuvok's voice filled the empty space around them. "Tuvok to Captain Janeway."

"We read you Tuvok. Anything?" Her face was hopeful. She looked to Paris. He wore a mask of indifference.

"I regret to inform you that the Doctor has made no progress isolating the virus you and Lieutenant Paris have contracted from the alien insect."

Her stomach flipped and her mouth went dry, but she felt herself nodding. When the conversation with Tuvok, and then Chakotay, had finished and the channel closed, she allowed herself to look over at Paris. She was sure her fear didn't show on her face, but somehow her helmsman always managed to read what she was thinking even when she hid it. She wanted to reassure him, and looked him in the eye. He smiled at her, a smile she was sure he didn't feel.

"Looks like we're going to be spending a bit of time together, Captain." He gave her a wink, leaning against the stasis chamber. Despite herself, she shook her head. He was trying to reassure her. Only Tom.

"Let's just hope you're right about it being only 'a bit', Mr. Paris. Not that I don't think you'd be fascinating company."

She was about to find out.

. . . . .

The day they recorded their farewell messages to Voyager, Janeway and Paris were mostly silent. Both were lost in their own thoughts, but it was also apparent that neither one was entirely comfortable with their proximity. Janeway thought that she was going to have to address this sooner or later, but today she just didn't have the energy. She noticed when he immediately changed out of the Starfleet uniform, and something about how swiftly he did it made her mood darken. She wanted desperately not to give up, to believe that they would still see home. Seeing him in civilian clothes somehow made her feel like she was alone. It was an irrational thought, she knew. Tom wanted to get back to Voyager as much as she did; he loved to fly, he loved the stars. Still, she'd excused herself in the evening, taking a walk down to the river that was near their small metal house.

After an hour, he found her. She was sitting beneath a tree, her back pressed against its trunk. He thought that even on an alien planet, sitting below a tree, she looked like she was in command. He realized that the thought, a year earlier, would have been a dark one- an insult, an unfriendly estimation. But now, it was a mere statement of facts. A small recognition of the kind of person the woman in front of him was. She didn't hear him approach, which he knew was out of character, and when he drew closer he tried not to startle her. If that was even possible, he thought, given that they were the only two people on the planet.

"Hey," he said finally, catching her attention. It wasn't a formal greeting, but he wasn't big on formalities even on Voyager. "You've been gone an hour."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to worry you, Mr. Paris." His tone of voice had been chosen to give that implication, but he decided it wasn't a good way to start this conversation.

"Truthfully," he sat down about half a meter from where she was, "I didn't worry." She looked at him, and he shrugged. "You've managed to take care of yourself so far, when we'd been surrounded by Kazon and people who'd rather fire on you than say hello. I had no doubts you'd be just fine on an uninhabited planet. I was just. . . Curious ." She realized that they needed to talk. That this was the time she should reassure him that they weren't out of options, and that everything would be okay. This was the time to discuss the fact that, despite their discomforts, they were going to living together in close proximity. Before she could find her resolve, he began to speak again. "I'm sorry I changed out of the uniform so quickly." The statement caught her off guard and she tried to hide it. Had she inadvertently shown her displeasure? "Please understand, it doesn't mean anything. I want to get off this planet. Back to Voyager. I'm not giving up."

"I know you do," she said, realizing he was going to go on.

"But the uniform holds no particular meaning for me." He was looking away from her to the river, and she could see him working through his words as he spoke. "The clothes, the pips. . . I don't hold them sacred, and I get out of them as soon I can when I hit my quarters." She was still waiting for him to finish, still watching. "But that doesn't mean that I don't care. I do. Just in a different way than you do. I care about Voyager, about her crew." He looked back to her. "I care about not letting you down. But the rest, Starfleet. . ." He didn't finish his sentence, only shrugged.

She understood what he was saying. He cared about Voyager, but to him, Voyager and Starfleet were separable. He also understood that to her they weren't. "I'm not sure why your changing made me so upset." It wasn't what she'd planned to say, but the whole conversation had taken her off guard. She hadn't expected him to the be one to tackle things, to come and find her. Emotional honesty was not his strong suit, and he normally diffused anything resembling a sincere moment with a joke. She realized now that he was trying to make things easier on her. She felt pride, and somewhere beneath that, gratitude. He deflected his eyes back to the river.

"You felt alone," he supplied. He said it casually, as though he was calling out a course correction rather than revealing her darkest feeling with sensational ease. His tone made it bearable for her.

She took a breath. "I suppose you're right."

"Well," a rueful smile appeared on his face, "I'm afraid alone is the last thing you're going to be here." It was more an apology than a reassurance. He was seamlessly shifting one concern to another, she realized.

"I know that this is going to be uncomfortable for both of us, at least at the beginning." Her tone sounded far too formal compared to his. He almost snorted.

"I think that it's going to be more uncomfortable for you." Again, his words took her by surprise and she tried to derail him from where he was going.

"Oh, Tom, you aren't that bad of company." He laughed, but she could tell she didn't affect his course.

"I'm serious. As a Captain, you've gotten used to a certain kind of distance. You think it necessary, even without the requirements of protocol." He thought as well that she was a private person by nature, but made no remark to this. "I'm sure. . . this is all a bit unsavory." She was shifting uncomfortably, and he was trying not took at her, trying not to make it worse. "Not to mention the person you're left alone with was once in prison."

She gave a small laugh, and put her face in her hands, rubbing her forehead. It was very un-Captainly. "When, exactly, Mr. Paris did you become so perceptive? Have you been holding back on me the whole time you've been on Voyager?" Her voice was filled with affection. And frustration. He couldn't help but grin.

"I'm sorry. I'm sure you came out here and planned a long speech about our new living arrangements, and trying to get back to Voyager." He was smiling and gesturing with his hands. "And now I've ruined it all by coming here and being mature." His voice grew more dramatic. "And you're irritated, because I chose this moment, when you've already had a very long day, to finally grow up and behave like something less than a full jackass, thus ruining your lovely planned speech." He looked at her innocently. "Does that about cover it?"

"What were you saying, Lieutenant? I wasn't listening. I was too busy wondering what your name would sound like with 'Ensign' in front of it." The joke was dark and brooding, and amused Tom to no end. He flopped back on the grass, laughing. Janeway chuckled silently, and then they were still for a moment.

He looked up at her and his eyes were suddenly serious. "When we get back to Voyager, ma'am, you can call me Crewman for all I care." She was sure he'd said 'when' instead of 'if' for her benefit, but the conviction he said it with struck her. She felt stinging behind her eyes, and patted his arm, moving to stand up.

"I'll remind you of that when your rations account is reset to reflect your new rank." He didn't reply. It was senseless to try to get the last word with the Captain. Instead, he fell in line behind her as they walked back to the house.

. . . . .

It had been two weeks that they were on the planet, and Paris and Janeway were now more comfortable sharing space. Tom cooked breakfast and dinner, and Janeway was pleased to learn that his culinary skills far surpassed her own. At lunchtime, he munched on fruit or a sandwich while she was out tinkering with the insect traps he'd help her set up. She never, ever ate lunch, though sometimes when she knew he was eating she would pop in the house to keep him company at the table.

Now, it was dinnertime, and she was pouring over the data she'd collected while he sat tinkering with a PADD.

"Anything?" he asked, in between bites of food.

"Absolutely nothing useful." He didn't look up from what he was doing, but knew that if he did, he'd see her scowling. He heard the sound of a thud; she'd just thrown what she was working aside in exasperation.

"What are you doing over there?" she asked finally.

"What? You mean besides eating?" He tore his eyes away from what he was working to look her, and realized she was glaring at him. He'd become less phased by this now than he was on Voyager. By now, she'd glared at him for tracking mud into the house, for dumping out her coffee, even though it was cold. She still scared him, interestingly enough, but it wasn't because he associated her anger purely with command structure and life and death decisions.

"Obviously, you're not reading. What are you tinkering with over on that PADD?" A week ago, he'd begun to spend hours of his day reading. She suspected it was boredom setting in, and it partly was, but he confessed that he'd always felt like he was under-read, at least for his background and education. He hadn't had to elaborate on 'background'; not only did she know his father, but she knew firsthand what it was like grow up with an admiral. He knew this, and explained in few words that he'd always devoted his free energies to flying and doing the things he loved, but had shown little interest in what his father thought made a well-rounded person. Now, with time on his hands, he wanted to change that, he wanted to read all of the classics.

He smiled at her sheepishly at her, and knew that he'd been caught. He thought it would take her at least a day to notice he was doing work rather than reading, at least given how preoccupied she'd become with her research on the virus. "To be honest. . ." He scratched the side of his neck, and put down the PADD. "I'm working on shuttle designs. Specifically, warp core modifications." Her eyebrows drew together, and she grabbed the PADD he'd been working on. "Oh, of course you can see what I've been doing. Thank you so much for asking." She glared at him again, and he slumped against the back of his chair.

She read with interest, and after a few minutes looked up at him. "These designs are fascinating, Tom. Do you think you can really execute them?"

He shrugged. It was his all-purpose reply, and she'd taken it, mistakenly, as a sign of indifference when he first came aboard Voyager. Now she realized that he used it to express a variety of things.

"I'm not sure. I think I could." He picked up his fork and began to eat again. "But that isn't quite the point." She arched an eyebrow, a sign for him to go on, and he did. "I find this kind of thing enjoyable. And it's mentally active, unlike reading, so it's nice to break up the day with. But I enjoy it for its own sake, and not just because I want to physically create anything I come up with." He was telling her, indirectly, that his hobby didn't assume that they were getting back to Voyager. That it wasn't some possibly futile effort that, if not realized, would be cast aside with scorn. He was voicing that he understood the possibility that they may never see Voyager again, or fly among the stars. And he was doing it in a way that gave her the chance to not engage the conversation.

"It's not that I haven't considered the possibility that we'll spend the rest of our lives here."

"I know."

"It's just that I have to do everything in my power to fight against it."

"I know that, too. And I'm grateful."

He smiled at her, and she smiled back. They ate the rest of their meal in a comfortable silence, but when they stood to clean up she decided that it was her turn to broach a touchy topic.

"Tom?"

"Hmm?"

"I've noticed that you haven't used my title in almost a week."

He looked at her with confusion as well discomfort. "There's only two of us on the planet. I kind of assumed that when I begin to speak, you know that it's directed at you."

She ignored his dodge and pressed on. "Are you becoming. . . Uncomfortable with the formality? I have the liberty of referring to you by first name, but you haven't had the same. "

He looked away from her, trying to decided the answer. "I think I'm uncomfortable with it because I worry that you are."

"I'm sorry?"

"I know that probably no one calls you by your first name on Voyager, but . . . There's 146 of us on the ship." They both still referred to their time on Voyager in the present tense, and neither of them ever corrected the other or remarked on it. "Here, there are only two. It feels somehow. . . Unkind? Rude? I don't know."

"I understand what you mean. . . But we aren't exactly in a chain of command anymore. It's okay if you call me Kathryn." She expected him to be uncomfortable, to react the way Harry would, but this was Tom, and she wasn't sure why she expected him to be anything less unflappable when it came to the overlap of the professional and the personal.

"It's okay with me. My question is . . . Is it okay with you?" He wanted to know if him using her first name was going to be a painful sign of defeat, a marker to her that she had failed them. But he wouldn't ask this, and instead looked at her with open eyes, willing her to understand. She did.

"It's fine, Tom. Truly." She added, "As long as you stick with 'Kathryn', with no variations on the theme." She shouldn't have said it; it was a challenge and she knew by the glint in his eye he was going to take it.

"You've never liked any nickname?"

"No." It was a lie, but she wasn't going to encourage him.

"Hmm."

"I mean it. Crewman Paris."

"And here I thought we were on a first name basis. How very impolite." She snorted, her only response.

Later that night, after they'd settled at the table reading, she remarked with some disdain that she was going to take a sonic shower before turning in to bed.

"Not a fan of the sonic shower?" he asked.

"I prefer baths." On Voyager, he would have made some kind of slight innuendo here, but here it was only two of them in a tiny house. Awkward moments were excruciating, and he did everything in his power to avoid them. His face twisted in thought.

"You know, we could probably build a bathtub."

"You really think so?" Her face lit up with interest.

"Well, I'm no engineer. But I know some carpentry. I'd need your help though."

"Tom, if we can successfully build a bathtub, I'll give you whatever you want." She was already moving across the house to the sonic shower.

"Ah. Well, after your first bath, I will demand one nickname as payment."

"Not going to happen. Ever."

"In that case, enjoy your sonic shower."

She grumbled, and he laughed, though mostly to himself. He knew that he'd try to build her the bathtub. He knew that he'd build her a life-size replica of Voyager, if for one second he thought it would make her life here happier.

. . . . .

The tub had taken three weeks, and five unsuccessful attempts to seal it. Tom learned with some amusement that Kathryn could swear in seven different languages, and with great fluidity.

"Maybe it doesn't have to be sealed," Tom said after their second to last attempt. "Maybe we can just let it leak water, and I can come out and fill it with buckets." She looked at him, hands on her hips. "Of course, you would have to bathe with all your clothes on. And it would be more a pain in the ass than relaxation. But still." She'd turned away from him, cursing in Romulan, and he shook his head.

Now, she was outside taking a bath in the functioning, but less than perfectly sealed, bathtub, and he was inside toying with a new engine design. He heard her shout, and before he could blink was running outside, the chair he had occupied clattering to the floor. The primate-looking creature that had startled her looked at them with interest, but had no intention of letting them get close and quickly slipped away. They were left standing with her back to him, her body covered only by a towel. He noticed her tense when she realized their proximity, and he excused himself to the house. When she was dressed, she joined him at the table. It was obvious he was waiting for her.

"We're not going to do this," he said firmly, and she was immediately thrown off by his tone- by the fact that he seemed to be ordering her.

"Do what?" Her arms crossed instinctively in front of her, though she had no idea yet what they were fighting about.

"Have awkward pauses, sideways glances. Uncomfortable moments that one of us feels like we should apologize for."

"Tom, you said yourself this is an admittedly awkward situation. You can't get angry at me for recoiling when my privacy feels threatened."

"I understand that, but it's not just about privacy, is it?" His tone was shifting from frustration into fear. "At some point, one of is going to get hurt and the other is going to have to heal them. Someone is going to walk in on someone changing. We live alone together, and there are going to be body parts, and moments of completely unfortunate timing." She was staring at him now, and he was practically sputtering, closing his eyes to get the words out. "And there's going to be discomfort with all of that, and that's normal. But there can't- there absolutely can't be tense moments and silences that stretch on for days because of them." He opened his eyes, and they were full of anticipated pain. "There's only two of us, and you're all I've got right now. So please, please, please, know that I'm trying to make this as painless as I can for both of us, and not punish me for the things that are out of our control."

Her arms fell from their defensive posture, and her shoulders seemed to hunch right after.

"You're right. I'm sorry. You've been. . . Incredibly understanding about this, and I've yet to thank you for that."

"I don't need you to thank me." It was a lie, but he wanted it to be the truth.

"I do." She sighed. "And I'm sorry about outside. I know that our proximity is something I need to adjust to. . . I just haven't yet."

"I know. And I'm certainly not expecting you to adjust all the way. Gods know I might not. But I need to know that when it gets to be too much, you'll talk to me, you'll tell me. I need to know that you'll trust me." His face was open, and his eyes were vulnerable in a way he'd never allowed her to see before.

"I will. I promise." She wasn't sure that it was the truth, but she wanted it to be.