The Morning After
By AnneHart
P/T; Rated R do to languageSynopsis: The morning after Tom and B’Elanna get together, hence the title. Set directly after Revulsion.
Disclaimer: Same old story…Paramount owns everything but my mind and its fanciful daydreams.
Dedicated: to all those people who have put up walls between themselves and possible lovers and friends. May your very own Tom Paris come and rescue you from yourself. And to all the men out there who know when to grow up when it really counts.
Email: AnneHart00@msn.com
It was the morning after and B’Elanna didn’t want to open her eyes. Not that last night hadn’t been amazing. More amazing than anything else because it actually happened. Part of her hoped she’d open her eyes and Tom wouldn’t be there. And yet, she knew she’d rip him a new one if he weren’t. She could do this. It’s very simple. I’m gonna open one eye…then the other. I can do it! Slowly she opened them and turned her head to the right.
“Fuck him!” she growled at the empty side of the bed. She slammed her head back into the pillow, closing her eyes. Well so much for ‘love’. Obviously something he only said in the heat of sexual frenzy. If he actually thought she was going to be around as just a good lay he had another thing coming.
“Fuck You, Tom!” She yelled. As an afterthought hopefully not loud enough for her neighbors to hear.
What she hadn’t noticed, while her eyes were squeezed shut, was a rather tall, blonde haired, blue-eyed pilot leaning against the bathroom door.
Clearing his throat, “What’s that?”
At the sound of his timber voice, B’Elanna shot up in bed. Looking towards her small bathroom directly at Tom, she smiled demurely. Sweet and innocent was her key to freedom from those penetrating warp core blue eyes.
“Nothing sweetie.”
He moved his way towards the bed with catlike agility.
“Really, because I thought you had said something about wanting to a- how can I best say this- fuck me. “
“Hmmm… I might have said something of the sort. In fact I think I said it quite a few times last night.” She leaned back on the bed as Tom moved his body upon hers.
“Well, I wasn’t exactly talking about last night and you know that.” His face was serious and the smile she had just seen slipped away.
B’Elanna had thought he would let it slide and that she would get off easy but that wouldn’t be the case. In the last couple of months Tom had come into more fits of seriousness then she had thought possible. Obviously that wasn’t about to end.
“Did you think I had abandoned you,” his gruff voice made it clear that denying it wouldn’t be an option.
Her skin began to crawl under his intense gaze. Tom was purposely making her feel uncomfortable. How he knew how to accomplish that, she didn’t know.
“Well part of me hoped you hadn’t.” She said while pushing him away.
She had to stand up. Get some space between them because she was feeling like a caged tiger. B’Elanna moved to the opposite end of the room, moving into her usual defensive stance, arms folded across her chest. She focused on a spot on the ground not wanting to meet his eyes.
“And the other part of you…” He trailed off expecting her to finish.
“Hoped you had left me alone.” She didn’t fail him.
Tom sat on the bed smiling to himself. New day, same story. Was she ever going to have faith in him? Because if this was any indication of their burgeoning relationship, Tom was not hopeful.
“Nothing like the morning after to knock some sense into a guy!” He got up heading toward the door.
B’Elanna’s eyes opened wide when she saw the direction he was heading. She had to stop him.
“What’s that suppose to mean,” She said trying to appear as angry as possible.
It was enough to get Tom to turn around. But B’Elanna wasn’t prepared for what she saw. He was a man shredded and betrayed. A man who had worked tirelessly to prove himself to her, only to have that effort thrown back into his face as if it had meant nothing. And he was angry. Angry that he had tried so hard. Angry that he had let himself fall in love. Angry that he believed that she could possibly love him back.
“It means that I am the biggest fool in this quadrant. I chased the moon, and when I thought I caught it, it was just a damn illusion.” Agitated he ran his hand through his hair, not knowing what else to do with himself.
“ Tom, there is no illusion here. I am doing the best I can. I can’t just change overnight!” she pleaded with him. “This is who I am!”
He just stared waiting for something more but she didn’t know what would appease him. And what the hell, she wasn’t going to try.
“ I doubt, and I push people away… That’s what I do and you knew that going in. Did you actually think I was magically going to drop three decades of baggage?”
Tom looked down at his feet only somewhat ashamed, “No, I guess not.”
“If this is going to work then we are going to have to work at it. We are probably the two most screwed up people on the ship and we’re working against impossible odds.” She smiled slightly.
He met B’Elanna’s eyes knowing that she was right. “If it’s so impossible then why should we even try?”
B’Elanna moved toward him. She brushed his cheek with the back of her hand. He closed his eyes enjoying the feel of her soft skin touching his. She took Tom’s hands in hers.
“Because against all odds I fell in love with you and if that could happen… then I’m willing bet on us making it in the long run.”
Tom smiled. Well, well B’Elanna saw a future. That was something, wasn’t it? He could bet he would never hear her admit that again.
“So….?” She was waiting for an answer.
“So… I’m willing to put in the overtime to make it work.” The sparkle had returned to his eyes.
Who knew the morning after could get that intense, Tom thought to himself. He had never stayed to find out before this night. Yet, this morning it had never crossed his mind not too. And as B’Elanna led him to her bed, he knew he was a changed man, even if he would have to remind her of that every once in awhile.
The end