Disclaimer: The characters belong to Paramount, the story is mine. Cheers!

Credits: Ann and Sorcha for the beta-read, encouragement, and general good wishes. Kat for the intriguing thought.

*****

He couldn't go back.

Her words were still in his head, every damned one of them. They were there when he went to sleep, they were there when he awakened, sweating, one hand grasping for her still in his bed.

She wasn't there, and she never would be again.

He didn't know which was worse--her not being there or knowing he was the one that had thrown her out.

Tom got up and went to the bathroom, running cold water and splashing it across his face, then staring into the mirror for a moment.

There were so many things he regretted in his life--he had the scars to prove some of them. The knife scar on his thigh that hadn't regenerated properly, a reality he could live without. The faded imprint of teeth on his shoulder, the last time he and B'Elanna had made love in what seemed like another life.

Another man completely. {God, was it that long ago?}

He still didn't consider having it fixed.

He closed his eyes, leaning against the wall, wondering how in the name of God he could just get up every fucking morning and do this.

He checked the chronometer. 0200 hours.

And went to get dressed.

* * * * *

It was something Seven had commented on to him, that he didn't seem to be getting much sleep. He'd never needed much--you didn't get through Starfleet Academy and not learn how to sleep little and light. She was right--he wasn't sleeping, and he didn't see a time in the near future he would be--

--he grinned bitterly and walked into the holodeck, looking at the bare walls as he turned in a small circle.

"Computer, run program Sandrine's, Paris beta three version. Authorization Paris Omega four two. Initiate privacy lock."

The bar shimmered into view.

His private retreat, unlike the one he had written for the crew. Less clean, less reputable--and a hell of a lot less safe.

Dark. Musty. The smell of mildew and rotting wood.

This was the Marseilles of two years of Tom Paris' life.

"Computer, disengage safety protocols, authorization Paris Omega Four Two."

Just in case.

He turned to the bar. She'd be waiting, as she always was.

"Tom."

He sat down.

"Hey." He didn't look at the hologram that seated beside him.

"You're still mad at me, aren't you?" Her voice was gentle. He'd worked hours to get that voice right.

"And I'm dealing with it in the healthiest way possible," he answered grimly, then looked at Sandrine. "Water."

"When did you stop drinking?" The curiosity was frighteningly familiar.

"I promised Seven."

"You do keep your promises. More or less." She looked at the bartender and shrugged. "Water, too. No reason Tom should drink alone."

Sandrine, uncharacteristically silent, brought both glasses together and retreated to a dusky corner of the bar. Serving some smugglers, perhaps, or flirting with Gaunt Gary, whose sexually predatory tendencies Tom didn't bother to edit here.

This was his place.

"I still hate you." A whisper.

"I know. I know what happened too." Her fingers traced little circles on the holographic wood. Tom tried to count how many times he'd seen her do that in staff meetings.

"I even know why you did it."

"So do I."

"I know you're sorry for it."

"I am. But I sure as hell don't want to show it." She took a long swallow of the water. Stared into the bar, dark hair sweeping forward to block her face. He was glad--he didn't want to see it.

He grinned bitterly.

"Why did I program you up anyway?"

"So you can tell me what you won't tell her." She tossed her head, her hair moving to reveal a delicately ridged forehead, dark eyes. "Because you can hit the reset button in here and get the last word."

"I got the last word during the fight."

"Yeah." She mulled that.

"There are so many things I could have said to defuse you--I should have left. I should have left the minute your temper broke, give you time to cool off. But I thought I could handle you." He stared at the water. "I thought I could handle your depression too. But that--well, that was my own fault. I wrote the programs you almost died in. I still find that some kind of irony."

"Did I thank you?" Her glass touched the wood with a muted clink.

"Yeah, you'd fuck me after I wrote you a new one." He took another drink.

She didn't answer.

"I covered for you. I regenerated you when you let me touch you."

She didn't say anything.

"I fixed your broken bones, I did whatever the hell you wanted me to do." He lowered his head onto his arm. "Anything you said would make it better, I did it. And burned out six regenerator cells one night for you so I wouldn't have to go to the Doc and explain how the hell I got that ripped up in my own quarters."

"I know." Almost a whisper.

"You used me."

Nothing.

"I let you. I wanted you to."

The bar was quiet around him. The soft sounds of conversations that would get you killed if you listened to them, the smell of smoke from the fire, the glow of the replicator a beacon in the recesses of the bar. Familiar, even with her presence, a presence he had visited since that night.

"I wanted to be whatever you wanted me to be. Because I thought you loved me. Because I thought you liked me, you respected me--or maybe I was just being as stupid as I usually am."

"Tom--"

"But did you ever care? No one who cared would have said what you said, did what you did. What the hell did you mean, when you told me every night that you loved me, that you needed me?"

Her fingers tapped on the wood in a discordant rhythm she used in engineering so often. He knew the pattern by heart.

"I still miss you. Seven is great, though. I didn't expect that." He bit into his lip, hand tightening on his glass.

"Do you think she's falling in love with you?"

"I don't know. I know I'm falling in love with her."

Silence.

"She's constant. I always know what she's thinking. I always know that she's there. And when I touch her, she doesn't flinch."

"She's using you."

"I'm used to that. At least she's honest about it. I know what she wants, and I can give it to her."

"Do you know what she wants?"

Tom twirled his glass idly, watching the water form a tiny cyclone in the glass.

"Yes. I know."

"And you can live with it?"

Tom smiled a little.

"What does that mean, that you're falling for the Borg?" Her amusement hurt. He closed his eyes.

"That I hate being alone and hearing your voice in my head every night. I hate waking up and realizing you're not there. I hate wanting you so much still." He took a drink of the water, staring down at it.

"You stopped drinking for her." She tapped his glass significantly.

"There's not much I won't do for her," he answered softly. "It's pathetic, but she's everything I have--after all, you inherited Harry."

"That's not--"

"You slept with him, B'Elanna." His voice was harsh. "It's written on his face. He couldn't hide something like that if his life depended on it. And he wants to confess so badly it's killing him, and I won't let him. My own little bit of malice. He can damn well live with the guilt, I'm not going to act as his damned confessor now."

"You're bitter." Without heat.

"So is she. So are you. I wrote you, after all."

He glanced at her face. It was unreadable.

"It hurts. I don't think it will ever stop hurting. But I won't live like this, hating myself and hating you. I just can't."

"What are you going to do? Stay with Seven because she's safe? Stable? Kind? Incredibly beautiful?" A mocking lilt in a smoky voice.

"Because she'll stay. Because she won't leave me. Because she can never do to me what you did. Because I love her."

"You don't love her, Tom."

"I love her. It's not the same as it was with you, but that's okay. I can live with that." He turned his glass around idly.

"Are you going to forgive me, Tom?"

He closed his eyes.

"I have to. I love you."

"It's not going to be the same, with Seven, you know. She's not like me."

"I know."

"Will you take her against the wall of a turbolift because the way her uniform fit caught you in the right mood?" Her nails slid slowly along the wood, raising goosebumps on his arms "Will she drag you into a Jefferies tube in the middle of a diagnostic scan because its been two days since she had you and that's too long? Will she make you scream every night?"

"I don't know." His hand shook and he gripped the water tighter, wishing for whiskey. Something strong, something hard, something that would numb everything. But this was the new improved Tom Paris, who went into bars to look at what he refused to ever have again. "I don't know if I even care. Sex isn't everything."

"But it's a lot. You know that. You know yourself. She's not that type." Delicately, her forefinger traced the rim of her glass.

"I'll change."

"For her?"

"To be more than you said I was."

"I didn't mean what I said, Tom." The gentleness hurt more than the sarcasm.

"I know. You didn't. But you said it anyway, which makes it worse in some ways. I told you everything, B'Elanna--everything there was to know about me, bad and good. And you dragged every bit of it up and used it against me. To hurt me like you were hurt. I can't forget that."

"But you'll forgive it."

"Eventually, I could forgive you anything, you know. You do know--you've used that more times than I can count. And you will in the future, no doubt, knowing me, knowing there are things that you can get away with that no one else on this ship can."

"You just won't come back to me." Reproachful.

"You don't want that." God, he hoped that was true. He could drive himself insane if it wasn't.

"How do you know?"

His head came up sharply. Stared at the glow of the replicator because he couldn't look at her. Not now.

"If I knew that, I would go back. So I don't want to know, ever. Because there'd be nothing left of me when you got through, and I want something more. I want--I want to feel, just for a minute, a second, secure."

"Like Seven makes you feel. The wonders of the Borg. Who would have guessed?" The light sarcasm was unmistakable.

"I'm grateful to her."

"And you'd build a relationship on *that*?" Her voice dripped scorn.

"I'd build my life on that, on her, on everything she makes me feel, everything I make her feel."

"You're being a coward." Her voice was dismissive.

"I know. But I won't be this--this man anymore. I want to be something better, I want to be--"

"What Seven sees when she looks at you?"

"The past is irrelevant," he quoted softly, taking a drink.

"She would say that," she answered with a low chuckle. "Are you going to forgive me?"

"I already have." He stared around the bar and got up. Looked at her, really looked at her, not caring how much it would hurt for just that moment, that space in time in a fantasy world. Because he was going to reality now, he had to live there. And he would, very well. She watched him in return, predatory, reminding him of nights that were too close to the surface for him to ever really forget.

"She'll never be what I was to you." A purr. His back straightened.

"I know. But she'll be better for me, and I'll do anything for her. I'll make her happy. That will be enough."

He closed his eyes, then opened them to look at her one last time.

"Wait." She leaned across the bar, activating the replicator, then pulled out a glass half full with golden liquid. Tom stared, mesmerized, as she took a sip. "Look at two things you can't have. Then just walk away."

"Computer, delete--" he stopped, her eyes staring into his. "Encrypt file Sandrine's Paris Beta Three. Erase from holodeck files, save in my personal database." Then he turned his back. "End program."

And walked away.

Just like that.