Author Notes: Leans heavily on Kat Hughes' "Reading Material" and my "Progression", POWs #8 and #9. Reference to "A Degree of Familiarity", POW #10. If you haven't read them, you may want to first. Special dedication to the writers of the POWs, who helped make this part possible. And to my lovely betas--Kat, Ann, Queco, and Stephane, who walked me through everything that was wrong and right. My appreciation.

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Harry woke in a cold sweat, staring at the bland grey ceiling of his room, heart pounding in his ears.

It wasn't the brig, and that was the only thing Harry could really be thankful for. This wasn't the Brig. It could have been--it should be. But it wasn't.

He wondered if he'd ever, in his life, sleep well again. If he'd ever wake up and the nightmare that was existence on the happy ship Voyager would turn out to be a holodeck-induced fantasy or an alternate timeline or--

--or fucking *anything*. Anything that wasn't this. Anything that wasn't reality.

Harry Kim could give a few lessons on reality and fantasy and the differences thereof. He could give definitions and show diagrams and wonderful pictures, a media display to prove that there was line. That it was a damned visible line unless you're playing the deliberate blindness game, in which case that line could be so easily scuffed out of the dirt and you can pretend there isn't one.

For Harry, that time was gone, dead, buried, and mourned over, in a very real way. He no longer had the ability to tune it out, block it out, *stamp* it out into the ground and pretend that if he believed it enough, it would come true.

Yeah, Harry Kim knew the difference between fantasy and reality.

Fantasy was making love to Seven on the beach, cool water swirling around them, she whispering his name.

Reality was fucking B'Elanna to hurt Tom--the whisper of Tom against his ear.

Fantasy was Seven realizing that Tom would never forget B'Elanna and getting out of the relationship, accepting how much healthier it would be if she came to him, to Harry, patient, punctual, dutiful Harry Kim, who would be as perfect as she wanted him to be--

Reality was being best man at Seven and Tom's wedding, giving the toast with a smile plastered across his face and a champagne glass clutched in one shaking hand.

Fantasy was saying he had no idea what Q had in mind when he asked Harry to beam that study, those PADDs, to the Delta Flyer, that he really believed that all that was in it was Seven's endless research project on The Perfecting of Tom Paris, Parts I, II, and III.

Reality told him that he knew that whatever Q planned, it wasn't so simple as breaking Seven and Tom apart with a diary and a few home truths about the personality of his wife.

Fantasy was--fantasy was everything would work out if he just sat back and let it.

Reality was--

* * * * *

Harry hated it.

He'd expected to, so it wasn't much of a shock. A beautiful white beach, complete with nice greenery and perfectly coordinated waves lapping at the shore. A brilliant white sun overhead in the perfect position in the summer-blue sky.

The bitter thought was unworthy--but then, he really didn't care much about that right now, worthy or not. He felt his feet sink a little into the sand as he walked, tricorder and PADD with him, checking the coding and configuration carefully.

"Hello, Ensign Kim."

No, that voice wasn't feminine at all.

Harry turned around, blinking to see someone else on the sand, watching him from behind green eyes. Dark hair rumpled from the wind, a curious smile on the unusually pale face. An ordinary face, oddly out of place in a beach scenario. Dressed in shorts and a loose t-shirt, he seemed a part of the program. Harry frowned, glancing down at the tricorder.

"Computer, delete holocharacter." {I thought they programmed this for no characters--}

The character didn't delete. Instead, he walked forward, with what appeared to be--no, they *were*--ancient earth glasses with darkened lenses in one slim hand. The hologram smiled genially. Harry almost smiled back, an automatic Harry-reaction he'd perfected. When smiled at, smile back. It made for less questions.

"Computer, delete holocharacter." Nothing happened. He stared down at the tricorder, tapping in commands, checking the readings--and no, this wasn't in Tom's and Seven's program--

"I'm not a holocharacter, Harry Kim." He smiled, tilting his head a little. "I'm Q."

Harry took a step back, hitting his commbadge. Nothing. Not even the static of an open line.

"What do you want?" He began to back to the area he had a vague idea the arch was located. "How did you get in here?" {Stupid question, Harry.} "Why are you in here?" He slapped his commbadge. "Kim to Captain Janeway!" And fell unceremoniously when he tried to back up on shifting sand. His usual reaction to the unexpected--pure panic. There was just something about him that screamed victim.

"You do remember that comms are disabled in here, right?" The hologram--Q--whatever the hell it was--favored Harry with a singularly patient expression. "Seven and your dear friend--Paris, right?--deactivated it when they were working through some--er, tricky programming and didn't want to be interrupted." The green eyes seemed to light up, and Harry controlled his stomach with some effort--so that was what they had been doing earlier--

It was a remarkably liberating feeling, even if holographic sand was getting into his uniform pants and working its abrasive way into his underwear. Q shook his head, still smiling and, to Harry's shock, crouched companionably down beside him, giving him a friendly grin liberally laced with sticky malice.

"You're a masochist, Harry--I can call you Harry, right?" The most conversational tone in the world, as if they were discussing the smooth symmetry of the artfully-placed boulders. "You're even best man at the wedding, aren't you?" Q sighed, leaning back on one arm as he settled himself into the warm sand, giving Harry an impossibly patient look. "You're worse than *she* is--and I've been watching. At least she didn't volunteer to help the bride choose curtains--no, you wouldn't know that reference, would you?" Q grinned then, lifting one hand to trace a languid pattern in the air. Then a sharp, almost conspiratorial glance from beneath lazily lowered eyelids. "So did you ever tell him about those logs of Seven's?"

Harry lost color, fought a brief battle to get enough air back into his lungs.

"I know lots of things, Harry--after all, I'm omnipotent." He stretched lazily, then brought both hands down to the sand again, leaning back. "Humans--sometimes I wonder why I even bother."

Harry blinked and realized he was still sitting. He scrambled to his feet, dropping the tricorder in the process and gripping the PADD between clenched fingers, almost a lifeline.

"Computer, arch."

Harry hadn't really thought it would work, but hell, it was worth a shot.

And the arch appeared. It actually took him several seconds to comprehend its appearance. He took two faltering steps toward--.

"You still want her, huh?"

Harry froze, mid-step.

"It's written all over your face every single time you look at her. Your best friend--Tom Paris, right?--knows too. You're not alone with her very often, are you?"

Harry turned around, ignoring the implication. Tom trusted him.

"I don't need this."

Q stood up, looking around the program appreciatively.

"Lovely." He must have seen Harry's eyebrows arch. "Really. Seven's perfection, Tom's art--and you here to fix whatever might be wrong, right? Because Seven asked so sweetly, with those big blue eyes staring straight into you--I've never seen anything like that. If she told you to toss yourself out an airlock you'd probably do it."

"Not without an EVA suit." The joke fell flat. Harry shook his head sharply.

"So you've made their first date perfect--gonna go for the whole tamale now?" Q put on the glasses, squinting a little as he did so, gazing up at Harry with a quirked mouth and a tilt of the head achingly reminiscent of Seven. "Make doubly sure that they live happily ever after? Nice work, Harry Kim. Gotta give you credit for creativity in self-torture. I honestly couldn't think of a more fitting way to rip someone to pieces--in the metaphorical sense, that is." Q's grin showed all his teeth that time. "Glad to see you're so enlightened--me, I would have sabotaged this little project."

Harry grimaced, breathing noisily through his nose in almost a snort.

"The temptation--" he stopped himself in shock, turning away quickly, wondering what he had been thinking--what he had said--and why the hell was he still here, anyway?

"Nice to see you're so enlightened that you can still be friends with the man that stole the woman you love, Harry. Absolutely wonderful, how much humanity has achieved."

"Seven isn't an object," Harry shot back, spinning again to face him, angry with himself, with Q--hell, with the known universe right now. "She made the decision--"

Q was on his feet, glasses in hand again, head tilted slightly, that damned little smile on his mouth--as if the whole incredibly bad situation was a source of amusement--hell, it probably was.

"And you didn't say a word when she chose your best friend over you." Q shook his head in wonder. "What's the attraction, Harry--does every woman you fall for run for him? B'Elanna and Seven--I just don't get it."

Harry's mouth went dry, and sweat broke out on his palms, the PADD slippery in his grasp. One secret, one thing that was his alone, never shared--an unspoken regret he'd never admit to.

"It was never like that between me and B'Elanna--" His voice was hoarse

"But you wanted it to be, until she fell head over heels, I believe the term is--and what does that mean, anyway, head over heels? Are not humans always with their heads above their heels?--for the ex-convict, while you, Harry Kim, stood watching." There was no mistaking the amusement. "If you really wanted him to leave Seven, you should fall for that pretty Cortez girl you screw so regularly--I'm sure Paris will drop Seven the instant it happens."

Harry's eyes narrowed, but he didn't answer the cool malice. Q shook his head a little, then took another step forward.

"And now you come here to make sure that their new life together starts off perfectly--right?"

Harry closed his eyes.

"Ensign Kim?"

Harry turned around to see Seven walk in the holodeck. Her hair was uncharacteristically loose and she looked--odd. No, not odd at all. Harry knew that look, he'd seen it on enough women's faces to recognize it easily.

Come to think of it, B'Elanna had spent many mornings, not to mention evenings, looking a lot like that. During her relationship with Paris, that is.

Harry took a deep breath.

"Seven."

"Have you finished your analysis of the program, Ensign Kim?" she asked. She'd never used his name, not ever--not at the frequent dinners he'd had with Seven and Tom, not in holodeck recreation--not ever. Always Ensign Kim this, Ensign Kim that, Ensign Kim why the hell don't you just do one more thing, make sure that my life with Tom is even more perfect than it already is--

"Um..." He looked for the tricorder, noticing Q was no longer in evidence, and quickly trotted across the sand to retrieve it from the ground. Once it was in his hand, he looked at the surveys he'd made--tried to remember making them.

"I--uh, think it's fine, Seven. You shouldn't have any trouble with it."

Seven frowned a little, turning in a slow circle as she surveyed the program.

"I believe you are correct, Ensign Kim. I will assist Tom in finishing--"

"Nope."

Tom Paris leaned against the door, a smile turning the corners of his mouth upward. It was like a bad holonovel--the hero shows up in the nick of time to stop the efforts of the villain in accosting the virtue of the wondrous heroine--

"Explain." Seven half turned to look at her fiancé, obviously surprised, and equally, though more subtly, pleased. Harry gritted his teeth together beneath his plastic smile.

Just once, to see her look at him like that--just once, to see her attention focused on him--just once, to touch her and know she wanted it--

"I'll finish it. You are due in an hour for a fitting with Ensign Zephyr for your wedding dress." He shrugged as the full lips parting in denial. "I can take care of this, don't worry. I'm perfectly capable of holoprogramming to your specifications. And Harry here can help." He tossed Harry a casual grin that made every hair on Harry's body revolt. He tried to return it, but knew he failed, and quickly made himself busy staring at the readings on his retrieved tricorder with eyes that didn't see a damned thing.

There was a pause--doubtless Seven was toting up probability studies of her lover being able to do anything without her direct supervision and involvement--{I'm surprised she let's him on duty shifts without her--}

Harry forced his eyes back to them. It *was* a creative way to torture himself--and he indulged in it twice a week regularly at the dinners with them in their quarters. Watching them together, watching Seven's complete focus on Tom, to the exclusion of all else in the universe, Tom's smile that Harry had once, a thousand years ago, seen turned only on B'Elanna, on that specific day Harry knew he'd never have a chance with her, that specific moment when he'd lost.

God, why the hell was it like this?

"Seven, you taught me the Borg algorithms for this--I could probably do them in my sleep." Tom took a step forward, giving Seven a smile Harry really couldn't look away from, and lightly touching her shoulder. "Go ahead. I'll meet you in our quarters when I'm done."

"Do you plan to begin the process of moving our possessions to the new quarters, Tom?" Harry wondered if either of them even remembered he was here.

"If that's your idea of recreation tonight, but I had something else in mind." He'd moved about a step closer, and Seven had tilted her head up, a very slight smile turning her lips.

Harry bit into his lip, stabbing one finger into the PADD with unnecessary force, never quite able to look away even when he wanted to--sometimes imagining it was him in Tom's place, recipient of that beautiful smile and the casual touch of her long fingers on his shoulder.

That was all for them. One small, shared smile, and Seven, belatedly, at least to Harry's eye, turning to give him a brief nod, then exiting the holodeck. Tom had turned his attention to the control console.

"You know, Tom, I *can* finish this without you." Harry stared down at the tricorder as if his life depended on it.

Tom lifted his head. blue eyes startled.

"Huh?"

Harry took a deep breath, punching a few buttons before finding his smile, pasting it quickly on his face to meet his friend's trusting gaze.

"I can finish this--I know the code as well as you do. Why don't you go--begin moving?" Harry's breath was tight in his chest, but he got the words out somehow, and grinned as he said it. Tried to believe it, even.

After dozens of dinners he'd stood outside their door, for a few brief minutes, knowing what they were doing the minute he was gone. Every other day at precisely twenty-three hundred hours.

A sick thing, when he knew their schedule. He needed therapy.

Harry shot down the thought, keeping his grin in place, feeling the blue eyes of his best friend regard him without suspicion. {Believe me, Tom. Come on, run off and fuck the living daylights out of your fiancée. Run along now. You know you want to.}

"You're sure, Har?" Harry could see Tom's feet practically itching to leave and felt his own grin widen as if to split his face. He nodded enthusiastically.

"Go ahead. I have your plans here--" he tapped the PADD significantly, noting from a distance how surprisingly steady his hands were. "I can get it done. Go ahead." His hand of its own accord actually came up and made a playful shooing motion. "Have fun."

Tom smiled, and took two steps over to slap his shoulder with absent affection, eyes already on the arch.

"Thanks. I owe you."

"I'll add it to the others," Harry replied lightly. {Get out, Tom. Get the hell out of here.}

The holodeck doors closed behind the enthusiastic groom, who was no doubt on his way to his quarters to spend some quality time screwing Seven, leaving Harry to finish his leave program.

Harry gritted his teeth and turned around, seeing Q looking at him with a wise expression, leaning against the control console.

"You are indeed a spectacular example of your species." The cheerful voice radiated amused disgust.

Harry looked around the perfect program, teeth clenched, gripping the tricorder so hard he could feel the edges biting into his palms..

"Fuck you." It lacked heat.

"But there are a few adjustments you could do here, for a friend," Q said softly, maliciously, just behind him, feeling Q against his back. "Right, Harry?"

Harry imagined Seven turning to see the door open, and Tom walk in. Imagined the blonde hair Tom would run his fingers through as he kissed her, pushing her up against the wall.

Imagined Seven smile, just for Tom, that smile that never failed to stop Harry's heart, from the first time he had seen it--directed at another man. He walked to the console, staring down at the controls.

His hands were still steady. That should have surprised him.

"Or are you less perfect than you seem, upstanding Ensign?" Q's voice was a purr in his ear. Harry didn't turn around to look at him, but stared down at the readout and then began to make the new adjustments.

* * * * *

"So it was B'Elanna."

Tom knew he was being oversensitive when he thought he heard a faint note of relief in the Captain's voice.

The briefing room seemed so--so *small*. Even with the porthole out into space, he'd never realized it, how very small this room was. The table took up so much space--the chairs--the people--the smell of sweat and nervousness and anger, leashed because the woman they condemned was in a coma in Sickbay, victim of a freak electrical surge.

All B'Elanna--exploding Delta Flyers, destroyed tricorders, two attempted murders under her belt, all of it, logs to prove it. All kinds. Logs that could now be associated with an expert in computer programming and a former Maquis who knew how to cover her tracks.

And Seven, his wife...Seven had found them all, summarized into a PADD for the delectation of the Senior Staff to peruse. Now all of them could be traced to B'Elanna. She had tried to kill Tuvok because of the evidence against her, right there in his computer.

Mystery solved. Case closed. They could all sleep better at night knowing it.

{Is this room getting smaller?} Sweat beaded on the back of his neck, and his palms were becoming clammy, sticking to the PADD's metal frame. He stretched his fingers, letting the PADD rest on the table with the soft sound of metal on metal.

Almost furtively, with a kind of sick curiosity, he glanced around the room--Seven's impassive face--{is that pleasure?}--Harry, so completely shut-down that he wasn't sure the younger man was hearing a damn thing--Chakotay as grim as always, Ayala in the corner, apparently trying with some indifferent success to disappear completely into his chair.

Tom wished he could do the same. God, he wished he could just disappear. But no, he was the main attraction here, the victim--no, scratch that, *one* of the victims of these crimes. But the victim who got the most coverage, the only one conscious and the only one they were able to look at with barely-concealed pity.

He had never wanted to be the object of someone's pity.

Once, if Tom had been asked, he would have said the Voyager senior staff could no longer truly be shocked by anything. Seska and Jonas had killed for all time the belief in absolute crew loyalty. They'd been betrayed far too many times by alien species to really believe in cooperation from anyone in the Delta Quadrant. And that final blow, the telling blow--the Equinox on its merry killing spree.

One of those things he was glad he couldn't remember.

No, nothing. Nothing could shock them, horrify them, sicken them anymore.

Tom picked up the PADD again, reading those neat log entries. {This room is definitely getting smaller, Tommy-boy.}

He could hear his own breathing, harsh in the stunned silence of the briefing room. God, he wished he felt something. Anything. But just this, the need that overwhelmed him, just to leave, to walk out, get in a turbolift--{nope}--okay, climb a Jefferies Tube--{small space}--*beam* himself back to his fucking quarters, just out of here, right now--

"Tom?"

He looked up--Janeway's concerned expression, Chakotay's unreadable gaze, Seven's--{my wife}--obvious worry, so clear on the face of a woman who had once been Borg. And Harry--who hadn't looked up once from the PADD clenched between his fingers, slumped in his seat.

And he blinked, because everything left focus so suddenly he found himself staring at a mass of indiscriminate color.

"With your permission, I'd like to--" he stopped, searching for the words he'd abruptly lost. "I'd like to return to my quarters."

Everything snapped painfully into focus, complete with gaudy colors and painfully sharp edges.

And just as predicted, the Captain, oozing compassion, nodded her assent, and he got away--away from the sympathy, away from that hot, tiny room, just *away*.

And with a nod for the sake of a civility he didn't feel, he was out the door, onto the Bridge, to the turbolift, hearing his own breathing in his ears--looking for the concentration to tell him what deck he was supposed to go to--where the hell he was supposed to go--bracing himself on one hand against the turbolift wall.

It didn't hit often, that claustrophobia he kept under such strict control, but when it did, when it asserted itself--

"Tom." A hand was under his arm, bracing him. "Computer, deck 3, section 5." {Those aren't my quarters.} Cool voice, speaking with that precise inflection--he wasn't sure his knees would hold him up anymore, but she was bracing him.

"Seven."

"Yes." She didn't say anything else, probably didn't need to, and he--he just couldn't think through it right now, didn't dare to, just enough that he was upright and against the wall and not throwing up on the turbolift floor.

"I don't believe it, Seven." He had to say it, say it to her, let her know where he stood, that he didn't care how many logs and files and how much incriminating evidence he heard, he'd never believe it--

--and his voice didn't reflect that, and he knew it didn't.

Seven, as usual, took a moment, he recognized that, but she jumped to the correct conclusion almost immediately. Smart girl. He'd always thought so.

"I assembled the evidence, Tom. It is not mistaken." She paused, and he wondered what expression would be on her face if he could see it.

"Are you?" His voice was harsh.

"It has caused you pain, Tom. I have never wanted that."

He shook his head. The dizziness had passed. And, God help him, he just felt tired-ordinary, unromantically, uninspiredly tired--

He felt Seven's hand on the back of his neck, softly stroking in a jarringly intimate gesture that seemed far too familiar for his peace of mind--

"I am sorry, Tom."

* * * * *

"Harry."

Harry Kim looked up, startled to see Sue's deliberate approach. He sunk down a little farther in his chair, glancing around the Messhall, then down into his cup of coffee that had gone cold since leaving that horrible briefing fifteen minutes ago.

She slouched into the seat across from him, regarding him from behind narrowed blue eyes, studying him. He tried a weak smile on for size.

By the feel, it wasn't the best fit.

"Hey." He picked up the coffee, trying to look entranced with it. Like the Captain did when she got her first cup out of the replicator in the morning. Like it was a transwarp coil, or a Borg's severed head--or maybe a one-way ticket back to the Alpha Quadrant, won in the special Caretaker Lottery, you may be a winner already, just check your replicator--

{I'm losing my mind.} It felt pretty darned good, actually.

She didn't say anything for a moment that seemed to stretch out a few millennia, before she dropped something on the table in front of him. He took it in one hand, glancing down to read it--and spilled his coffee across the surface of the table.

It rolled along, like a small brown flood toward his lap, and if he'd had any control of his motor functions, he'd have already moved out of the way. A cold dark waterfall spilled across his uniform trousers and splashed his tunic and thighs.

His hands were shaking. Funny, how they did that.

"What is this?" he whispered.

"The report on your argument with Tom in the corridor a few days before the explosion," she said sharply, spelling it out as if she was speaking to a particularly dense child. Which wasn't far from wrong, come to think of it. "To Tuvok." She still sprawled in that relaxed position, eerily reminiscent of Q, watching him with that same rather cool curiosity. "You know the funny part, Harry? Part of it's gone."

"You--" His mouth was dry--wondering how she'd gotten a copy, how she'd even know it was edited--

He scrolled down, knowing already what she was referring to--even if he hadn't read the report completely, he knew what was missing, had known since the briefing and reading Seven's so-meticulous report on those tampered logs. He looked up, seeing the suspicion in her eyes.

"I didn't do it, Sue." He scrolled back up, reading it slowly, carefully--not that he needed to, not that *this* particular incident wasn't burned into his memory as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.

The end of the report was gone.

* * * * *

"So you never told him?"

Harry knew walking faster wouldn't get rid of Q, and came to an abrupt stop.

"No." Harry wished that Q would leave him alone. It had been constant all day--Q following him around, asking questions--making snide comments any time Tom came into range.

"Why?"

"She asked me not to." That was enough of an answer for Harry Kim, lost cause extraordinaire, but not for Q--it never was. He planted himself in Harry's path, head tilted, green eyes glistening.

Of course, Q probably knew the why. This was just a game. Harry remembered that PADD still clutched in his hand, unbelieving, while Seven explained, so logically and clearly, why it was best Tom *not* know about this--

--at the time, it had been logical. {Or was it Seven, Harry? Keep her world perfect, is that what you were doing? It could have all ended right then, right that minute, if you just took that PADD to Tom--hell, to B'Elanna. Showed them exactly what Seven was up to, what she thought, what she wanted--}

Sue had been the first to tell him--the first to stare at him with that disappointment in her eyes when he took the PADD from her hand that long-ago day and take it to Seven, ask her, tell her, try to get her to--to what?

"She has an interesting effect on you," Q observed, smiling a little. "So he's your best friend, and you never told him, because she asked? How sweet and romantic of you. What were you hoping for--she'd strip herself to her doubtless attractive underwear and offer her body as payment? I guess that didn't happen." Q paused, mouth curving a little as he seemed to reconsider his statement. "Or does she even wear underwear?"

Harry felt himself flush and, pushed by Q, continuing his walk down to Tom and Seven's quarters to deliver the research on the mineral deposit in the Edikan system that Tom would be on an away mission to collect in a couple of days.

"You've *got* to be the sweetest man I've ever met." Q's voice dripped scorn, and Harry came to a stop.

Puppies were sweat. Chocolate was sweet. Harry was just--Harry. Always and forever, amen, working to make everyone's life a little easier. A little better. A little more perfect.

"It would only have hurt Tom if he knew about her study," Harry said, with a little more force than necessary. "She's a Borg, she needed a frame of reference to help her understand relationships. It was just a diary. She wanted--she needed to understand Tom better, her feelings for him, her relationship with him--"

Even now, he protected her, excused her. From someone who understood her better than he probably did.

"Just a diary?" Q grinned, shaking his dark head slightly. "An improvement manual, a nice little critique of the honorable denizens of your miniature fishbowl society--and a ten-step program on how to turn your boyfriend from a loser to--"

"I don't need this." And he didn't, he really, really didn't. He didn't need to be heckled everywhere he went. He needed a drink, maybe a few, maybe a lot, and a nice dinner companion--Anna Zephyr was available tonight, wasn't she?

"So it wasn't malice, was it, that kept you from telling Tom? It was--*respect* for his feelings?" No human voice could contain so much utter disgusted disbelief in a simple statement. Q shook his head, idly stroking the wall as he spoke. Harry turned away.

"Harry?" A voice behind him. Something went off in Harry's mind, maybe a crude kind of alarm, that wasn't Q's voice.

"That's the truth! He didn't need to know what she was doing--he's happy with her, maybe she was right--"

"*Harry*! Who are you talking to?"

Harry spun on a heel, staring at his best friend--taking in the sight of the corridor, recognizing it abruptly--and realized he'd been talking to Q right outside Tom's quarters. From the corner of his eye, he saw Q's happy smile.

"Uh--no one--" {How the hell do I explain--}

But apparently, Tom's real attention was somewhere else completely. Though he would doubtless remember eventually that Harry had been talking to--well, no one. Which might bring up some questions Harry couldn't answer.

"What would hurt me, Harry?" Cool blue eyes watched him with that remarkable focus that Tom usually reserved for his piloting.

"N-nothing." Harry extended the PADD abruptly, almost forgotten in his hand and now remembered, seeing as if from a distance the PADD visibly trembling in his fingers. "Here is the information you needed on the system." He was babbling, couldn't do anything about it, knew every damned word was making Tom more suspicious, more curious, more-- "I've got to get back--"

"What would hurt me, Harry?" Tom took a step forward.

"So you're still not going to tell him?" Q asked, amused. Harry turned desperate eyes on Q, who leaned comfortably against the wall, grinning, arms crossed over his chest, then looked at Tom.

"Harry, what would hurt me? What diary? What study?"

Harry searched for something to say, anything to say that would make some sort of sense in the context--{How the hell much did he hear?}.

"Its a study she did--nothing important." His voice tried for casual--it achieved shaky at best.

"She?" Though Tom was looking at him now with an expression Harry could not interpret. A still look--one Harry recognized from days long before Seven, days before B'Elanna even. "Seven?" he said finally, almost as if in hope Harry would say no--

"Go ahead and tell him, Harry. Spit it out."

Harry blinked, taking a breath. Felt Q's breath on the back of his neck

"*What* study, Harry? Whose study?"

"It's--it's--nothing, Tom. I don't know if she's even doing it anymore." Harry began to back up, and came into contact with Q. Funny, Tom couldn't see him, but Harry sure could feel him. Damn him.

"Doing what?" Tom answered pleasantly, leaning with beautiful unconcern against the wall, as if it were perfectly normal for him to interrogate his best friend.

"Tom, I don't think--maybe you should talk to Seven--"

"Tell me."

"She'd tell you if you asked."

But she could get out of this--she could explain in a way that would make sense, not sound quite as bad as it actually was--

"She'll lie, Harry. She'll say you lied."

Tom didn't move for a moment, eyes unfocused for the briefest instant.

"What study, Harry?"

"On relationships, Tom," Harry said desperately, unable to back up. "It was just her way of coordinating information, understanding it, I mean. You know Seven, she studies everything."

"She was studying relationships? Whose?" Tom straightened, and Harry could actually see the pieces click into place in Tom's eyes. He must have heard rumors--on this ship, you couldn't avoid them. But this was Tom Paris--he didn't do subtext when he didn't have to. "Ours? My relationship with her? She was studying us?"

"He's quick. Doesn't he have the right to know, Harry?" Q's smooth voice slid into Harry's ear like thick honey.

"Tom--" {Don't do this.}

"She had a study on our relationship?" And whatever Tom had of unconcern dropped as he took a step forward, making Harry acutely aware that Tom was at least two inches taller than he was.

Sweat beaded on his forehead and he felt it slick on the back of his neck.

"What was she doing, Harry?"

Harry didn't have anywhere to run.

"How long? Since the beginning?" Harry ran sticky hands down his uniform trousers. "Damn it, Harry, tell me!"

"Its not what you think," Harry said desperately, but Q was whispering in his ear, and maybe Tom did have the right to know, maybe should know-- "She wanted to understand human interactions better, Tom, that's all."

And he was standing here, making sure Seven's reality stayed perfect. Didn't that just figure?

"Since the beginning?" Tom's expression was unreadable now--Harry recognized that look.

Harry closed his eyes for a moment.

"Tell him, Harry. Tell him what his precious Borg wife has been doing to him. Tell him, Harry. Tell him everything she told you, that you saw. That you read."

"Yeah. Since the first night." He'd seen her notes. He knew what she had done. How much she had done.

"Seven was using me?" His voice was flat.

Harry tried to breathe.

"You're leaving out the good stuff, Harry." The sheer childlike delight in Q's voice was impossible to ignore. "The bits she wanted to improve about him. Tell him about her improvement list, tell him about it. Tell him what she said about him, about his personality, about his sexual habits, about his love of old movies. Tell him what she said about B'Elanna. Tell him what happened to Riga on the Monean Homeworld when he backed down for Seven. Tell him, Harry Kim. Tell him everything."

"Tell me, Harry. What--did--she--*do*?"

And he did...under Tom's steady gaze. Told what he knew, what he remembered.

What was engraved on his memory as completely as how to run diagnostics on the Ops station and the taste of leftover leola root casserole.

The silence afterward was the worst.

"How long have you known?" Tom's voice was quiet, utterly devoid of anything, even interest. Harry couldn't look him in the eyes. And wished he could lie

"Awhile."

Tom tilted his head.

"Where does she keep them? Her notes, her study?" The clear voice was utterly cool-they could have been discussing the state of the power relays or the newest holodeck programming techniques. It had been a long time since Harry had seen Tom flair up about anything--Seven hadn't liked emotional arguments--

Harry swallowed.

"Tom--"

The coolness disappeared again with an abruptness that reminded Harry, at this unfortunate moment, that Tom could be at his most dangerous when his emotions got ahead of his sense--or worse, when he *allowed* his temper to get ahead of his sense. Impulse took over, and while this worked very nicely when he piloted Voyager, it could have interesting consequences in a deserted hall.

"Tell me where the fuck it is, Harry, or I'll go to her right now and find out the hard way."

It chilled Harry, that even now, Tom's voice was still so expressionless.

"I can get them," Harry said desperately. He heard his own harsh breathing. "But Tom-"

"When?" The cold voice cut Harry off without apology. Harry tried to figure out how in the name of God he was supposed to break Seven's encryption codes, how he would even find the data, how--

"I'll send them to you when you go on your mission--to the Flyer." Tom would have several days to think about them, then, come to terms with them, not destroy his marriage--his relationship with Seven--

"Good." As suddenly as that, the cloak was once again drawn over that temper, and Tom was--well, himself. He reached out, taking the PADD from Harry's limp fingers. "Don't say a word to her about this."

"All right."

And the older man turned away, walking into his quarters, the door sliding smoothly shut behind him. Harry leaned against the corridor wall.

"This will destroy them." He slid down, feeling his hands brush the cool carpeted floor that desperately needed to be refurbished, staring at his feet, trying to believe this had just happened.

"You're right." Q crouched on the floor of the opposite wall, looking remarkably innocuous, hands clasped innocently over his knees. "This will be interesting."

Harry lifted his eyes to look at Q.

"You like this."

"Yeah." Q grinned, leaning his head against the wall. "I do. Humans are remarkably stupid on occasion, but they do furnish great entertainment, you know. I've looked over the holodeck programs--you wouldn't believe the programs that Nicol--"

"I don't care!" Harry stood up, backing two steps before spinning awkwardly on his heel. "Leave me alone, Q. Just--just get the hell away form me."

"Why?" Q caught up with him effortlessly. "Why are you--"

* * * * *

He met Sue's eyes, dropping the PADD on the coffee-slicked table.

"What's going on, Sue?" he said softly. "Where did you get this?"

She shook her head sharply.

"My name isn't used as witness--I'll go to the Captain and correct the mistake myself. There is evidence on here that puts you in just as much suspicion as B'Elanna--because you were supposed to beam those PADDs to Tom on the Flyer. Did you?" She leaned forward, staring into his eyes. "What did you beam over, Harry?"

"I didn't beam a detonator!" he answered sharply, somehow keeping his voice low, somehow able to stop his hands from twisting on the table. "I beamed the PADDs--"

"Then that's the transporter log entry, isn't it?" she said. "The one a few minutes before the explosion, during the diagnostics." Her eyes widened. "It interfered with the diagnostic program, didn't it? That could be why B'Elanna and Ensign Paris never found the microfissure in the power relay." She was getting to her feet so fast, Harry had to lean into the coffee-splattered table to catch her wrist, jerking her back down.

"Transporters wouldn't use the same frequency as the diagnostics--they are two completely different systems. It would be like saying using the replicator adversely affects the sonic shower." He didn't move for a moment, gathering his scattered thoughts. "Sue, I didn't erase anything. I saw it last night at Tuvok's during my interview. And I didn't try to kill Tuvok."

Sue didn't move. He looked down at his grip on her wrist and unpeeled his fingers, staring in shock at the bright red track of his hand on her skin. She raised her other hand to rub the redness carefully, staring into his eyes with nothing of understanding or forgiveness.

He glanced down at his splayed hand.

"B'Elanna's being blamed." Her voice was hard.

"I know." He heard the guilt in his voice.

"She didn't do it." Sue met his eyes squarely.

Harry was staring past Sue's shoulder--watching the wall, the window, anything away from her accusing gaze, anywhere that wasn't where he could see the reflection of his own failures.

"I know."

* * * * *

"Captain?"

She was still in the briefing room, staring at the door. Her eyes never moved.

"Chakotay."

Warily, he crossed to the chair beside her, and slowly, he sank down.

"It can't be just one thing," she said softly. "It has to be everything, all at once, doesn't it?"

He touched her limp hand.

"We need to wait for B'Elanna to wake up. To ask her--"

"Ask her?" She swung around, looking at him with disbelieving eyes.

He tried again.

"Captain--"

"The proof is all right there." One hand gestured to the PADDs scattered on the table in front of her. "Tuvok was right."

She might have been pronouncing sentence already.

She shook her head, absently rubbing one hand across her forehead. Signs of a stress headache, he knew the signs quite well.

"All those logs prove is that someone with technical expertise did it, Kathryn." The switch to her name was deliberate.

"Maybe." She stared into space, then shook her head roughly. He could see the dark circles under her eyes--she hadn't been sleeping. Absently, she reached for her coffee mug, seeming to notice only belatedly that it was empty. She dropped it back on the table, barely waiting to watch it roll toward the edge before stopping inches from Chakotay's ready hand. "We don't have time for that now--I've got two crewmembers in Sickbay, Chakotay. B'Elanna was scheduled for a conference with Tuvok--"

"There wasn't anything on her computer from Tuvok about that--"

"She erased it." The hard grey eyes turned to him. "What, you think there's a ship-wide conspiracy to frame her now? Theories, Commander?"

And his title use was just as deliberate, he could feel it. Hated her for it for a brief moment.

"You don't want to believe it could have been Seven."

She stood up abruptly, turning away from him, as she always did.

"She didn't have a motive--"

"Tom finding out about her 'study'--you don't think that's a motive? Tom abruptly deciding that he didn't want children? Seven and Tom didn't share their quarters the night before Tom was scheduled to leave--the same night Seven came to you to talk about their argument. The witness's statement was pretty clear--Tom and Seven--"

"They would have worked it out!" She spun around, facing him now. "They needed time to talk, for Tom to understand why she did it--why she--"

"Why she was trying to make him perfect?" He was on his feet, facing her down now, too angry--too frustrated--to even care anymore about being careful, delicate of her sensitivities regarding Seven. "Her criticisms, her isolation of him from his friends, her manipulation--you know it all, you saw it all--you gave it your tacit approval, Kathryn, when you didn't show him what the hell Seven was really doing. And Tom built a relationship with a woman who he thought was completely honest with him--who was using him--"

"She loves him, Chakotay!"

"She's a Borg, Captain."

It fell between them like a rock in a deep pool--not a splash to mark it as it settled into their souls.

"You've never forgiven her for being Borg." Her voice was low. "She isn't anymore, Chakotay."

Maybe it was the dismissive quality of her voice--always dismissive where Seven was concerned, always an excuse ready, always a reason given. She's new to humanity, she doesn't understand Starfleet procedure, she has a different value structure from being Borg, she doesn't think like that, she doesn't understand--

--she never would.

Maybe it was the sight of B'Elanna unconscious on the biobed, Tom standing outside the door and that blank look that consumed his face when he was denied entry. Or maybe it was eleven long months of excuses and encouragement and frustration and deliberate, conscious blindness. For both of them.

And Seven following Tom out of the briefing room today at a nod of the Captain.

Like he was some kind of damned reward for good behavior.

Like a prize.

"A human wouldn't tote up probabilities on her lover, Captain. Manipulate him in every way she could think of--I know she didn't do it out of spite!" He gritted his teeth, trying to get a handle on his own frustration, that she just refused to *see*. "She didn't understand--none of us told her--none of us wanted to interfere!" He took a step forward, some part of him wanting to reach her, so she'd understand--*make* her understand what she was doing. "We're all to blame--no one told Seven that what she was doing was wrong. That you don't enter a relationship to make the other person perfect. Did she have a motive, Captain? Yes. She would have destroyed this ship to see Omega come together in perfection. You think she would scruple--"

"She didn't do it, Chakotay." Her voice was firm, lips a flat line of denial. "Seven isn't capable of murder."

"You want to believe it was B'Elanna." And he couldn't take that back, and didn't want to, even when her eyes widened in shock, mouth loosening at an accusation as damning as he knew it was accurate. "You want to believe that B'Elanna did it, that B'Elanna tried to kill Tom in a fit of jealousy or anger or whatever motives you subscribe to. You want to believe it, you want to think that B'Elanna is capable of killing Tom, because then you don't have to sit here and think about the possibility that Seven found a logical reason to dispose of her husband when he was no longer perfect--"

"Get out." Her voice cut through his, and he raised his head, feeling the anger pass out of him--leaving only frustration, only a sick sense of inevitability--that she would never see it, never believe it.

Never.

The door chimed, and Janeway snapped a command. Chakotay watched Sue and Harry tentatively enter--Harry looking worse than he had in--well, in as long as Chakotay could remember.

And he'd looked pretty damned bad the last few days.

"Permission to speak, Captain?" Sue's voice was firm and she clutched a PADD in one hand. Slowly, Chakotay took a seat, then glanced at the Captain's face.

"Go ahead," she answered, sinking down behind the table. Harry gave a desperate glance at Chakotay, but nothing more.

"There was a mistake, Captain, in Tuvok's report." Sue extended the PADD, giving Harry a look from the corner of her eye. He seemed to shrink even further into himself.

Chakotay watched the Captain take the PADD from Sue's fingers, her glance alternating sharply between the younger woman and the data. Her eyes widened as she recognized it--Chakotay, from the angle he sat at, recognized it too.

"Where did you get this?" the Captain said sharply. Sue straightened, chin going up.

"I was the witness, Captain."

* * * * *

Everything falls into four categories, every experience in life. The experiences that fall under the category 'anecdotes', and you tell those at parties for the laughs. You've got the 'learning experiences', which are apparently good for you, though God knows why. You've got the ones that send you into intensive therapy in a nice, quiet building with friendly people in white. And you've got the ones that kill you.

Everything falls in there somewhere, and you could be really surprised just how many learning experiences there really are, come to think about it. Count 'em up, and they beat your anecdote storage big time.

Oh, sometimes they transfer over, one or two levels up or sometimes, though not often, down. But they're always with you.

Always.

Tom had learned that. More than once. And he'd decided, somewhere along the line, that he was pretty much through with the trauma, that he would keep everything on the level of learning. That he'd get a nice big anecdote file and avoid the possibility of getting in too hard or too deep.

He'd met B'Elanna. Then, apparently, he met Seven.

And since he'd awakened in Sickbay only a few days before, he'd been in category three.

Seven called for lights as they entered her--their--quarters.

"Would you like something to eat?" she asked softly, already walking to the wall unit.

"These are our quarters, aren't they?" he asked suddenly--and obviously. The curiosity he couldn't help right now, when he was trying his damndest not to think of that briefing room--the Captain--B'Elanna in the biobed--

Security posted outside Sickbay. He wasn't allowed to see her.

Seven turned around, inclining her head.

"They are." She paused. "You may look around, if you wish," she said, then turned back to the small kitchen. Tom slowly making his way around the living room.

Yeah, there it was, pictures from their wedding day. He looked at them, curious, wondering about the man in the picture, who looked so happy--the smiling Seven--the cheerful Neelix holding a piece of the wedding cake while the Captain and Chakotay each got a piece of their own. And others. Many others.

He tried to remember when he'd seen the crew look so relaxed, so content.

When he'd looked so happy.

Laughing, cheerful people, in a wedding on Voyager, complete with a stunning bride in white--{Why didn't she wear her dress uniform?}--the Seven of Nine he saw now.

Seven Paris.

B'Elanna, unsurprisingly, was in none of them. He wondered if she had even attended.

She said she loved him, always had. And they'd made love in her bed, and she'd smiled--and there was no way, *no* way he could ever believe she could plot to kill him.

Yeah, he had done that before--not thinking about it, not accepting it, refusing to consider it--{what if--}

All his speculations ended with that night--that whatever B'Elanna had done, he couldn't believe her capable of murdering him. There had to be one certainty for him, just one--just one fucking absolute he could live with, when no one else seemed the same, from his life--to his wife--to his best friend--to himself. B'Elanna. She wouldn't kill him. She wouldn't.

He picked up the picture of Harry, standing on a chair, giving the toast.

Or Harry had lost his mind. Either were possible--hell, for all Tom knew, Harry made it a habit to talk out loud to absent omniscient beings, and Janeway just hadn't had time to replace her Ops officer.

Harry had told Q he wouldn't do anything else. That B'Elanna had enough evidence against her.

Harry had sold out B'Elanna. For what?

He turned around, looking at Seven as she set out the plates, the blue-green uniform of the sciences outlining her body just as thoroughly as any catsuit. It made her look--so human.

Questions he knew he would never get answers to.

So normal. He wondered if every day with Seven, she'd make dinner--{When did she learn to cook? Or replicate complicated dishes, not nutritional substances, anyway}--and they'd sit at the table and chat, maybe discuss the day's events. {"I had an efficient day in astrometrics. Perhaps after we have consumed our nutritional supplements, we could retire to engage in coitus before sleep."}

Tom grinned, unable to help himself. Yeah, he was losing his mind.

But looking at Seven engaged in what was obviously a routine task--looking around the comfortable quarters, with the jukebox in the corner--{Do I dance with you, Seven? At night?}--this was his reality, the one he had tried to escape last night with B'Elanna.

If Seven knew what had happened, she'd be hurt. It was sudden, that realization--the reality of his marriage, of his life, hit him. He was married. These were his quarters. This was his wife, making dinner.

She turned to look at him briefly, blue eyes open and perfectly clear.

Like this was his home and she did it every day.

Of all the things that he had learned since he woke up to this new Voyager, all the ways he had changed--and the explosion, Harry and Q, the Captain's willingness to condemn B'Elanna out of hand, holodeck malfunctions and random log entries--nothing hit him as hard as this did. Nothing made him feel so utterly out of place. He didn't belong here in these quarters, with this woman, about to eat dinner. He didn't belong in this uniform, he didn't belong on this ship.

Voyager was no longer his home.

"Dinner is ready."

And it was jarringly normal, the concept of sitting down at that table with Seven, looking over the menu--very nutritional, very sensible, two vegetables, bread, a casserole, everything in order--

--everything perfect.

Numbly, he took his seat.

And as she picked up the fork, maybe forgetting this wasn't a normal day in the Paris household, perhaps oblivious to his stare into the casserole dish, she gave him a smile.

Perfect.

* * * * *

Ayala was waiting in her quarters when Sue returned, sitting on her couch. Impatience written in ever muscle, in the lines of her face, the tension in her hands. She engaged the privacy lock before taking the seat beside him, handing him the sticky PADD. He gave it a cursory glance before placing it on the table.

"What did he say?" There was both curiosity and a touch of distrust in his voice--Sue didn't blame him.

"He didn't change it." Sue shut her eyes, leaning back. "I believe him, Ayala. I do. He was pretty shocked--he went with me to the Captain to make the corrections."

"Does she have a full copy now?"

Sue nodded thoughtfully.

"Yeah. He's confined to quarters until this mess has been sorted out." Sue turned her eyes on Ayala, thoughtful. "I don't know, Ayala--I just don't anymore."

Anything, except the one thing she could believe--that B'Elanna hadn't killed Tom. Afterward, after beaming B'Elanna to Sickbay, she'd found him sitting in the messhall, staring out at the star field. He'd turned to see her, brown eyes dark, and she'd sat down, listened to what he told her.

Told her what he had seen. What he knew.

"How was Tom during the staff meeting?"

She noticed Ayala's hands tighten suddenly.

"You know--the accident has changed him so much." Ayala leaned back against the cushions, staring up at the ceiling, obviously trying to pull together his thoughts, put them in order before relaying them. "I honestly don't know. He left as fast as he could." He turned his head, meeting Sue's eyes. "Seven followed him out." Sue felt her mouth turn down and saw Ayala's nod. "He's changed."

Sue let her lips turn in a bitter smile.

"Interesting to see it, isn't it, how he was before Seven?" She lifted one hand to her head, lightly rubbing her temples. "Harry sent those PADDs with Seven's diaries to the Flyer that day--I wonder, I really do, what he would have done about it, if anything. Maybe in the end, he would have forgiven her. He loved her very much."

Ayala turned on his side.

"Did she know about it, about Tom finding out about the diaries from Harry?" He frowned a little as he spoke, eyes growing distant suddenly. "He spent most of the night before he left running simulations in the holodeck, you know. About the flight path, he said, since it would be tricky. He insisted on going on that mission alone--I guess to give himself time to read what she wrote, make a decision. But--do you think he told her what Harry told him?"

Sue sat up straight.

"I don't think so--Seven didn't act any different than she had before--" she stopped, looking down at Ayala, eyes narrowing. "She was on the Flyer too, Ayala. B'Elanna, her, and Tom, all three." Then she shook her head. "No, it doesn't make sense. She wouldn't kill Tom--"

"What if she wasn't trying to kill Tom?" Ayala sat up too, leaning forward eagerly, suddenly more alive than she'd seen him in a long time. Especially since Tuvok had taken the police-state, guilty-until-proven-innocent approach on Voyager. "What if she wanted to get rid of those diaries?"

"There are other copies."

He tilted his head.

"Besides the ones in her possession, who else had a copy?"

Sue shook her head, standing up and walking to her workstation. He watched as she knelt, opening a drawer at the bottom and removing something that was hidden by her body when she rose. Then it lay beside him--a PADD. He picked it up, reading the first entry.

"You have a copy?" The disbelief in his voice was apparent, even as he held the evidence in his hand.

"Chakotay missed it in his round-up of all the originals on Voyager a few months ago. How little you know me." She smirked a little, shaking her head. "Besides, Harry got copies from her database to send to Tom--though I'll bet she erased the database by now, if she has any sense." Sue took the PADD from his fingers, a thought occurring to her abruptly, and put it on the coffee-table. "This one is pretty out of date--it stops around the time we left the Monean system."

Ayala frowned at the reminder--he was the only person she'd ever told about Tom and Seven's argument in engineering.

"She's a Borg, Sue. I'll bet those things are encrypted within an inch of their lives--makes me wonder how the original copies got out months ago--so if she said Harry was lying about them, who would Tom believe?" He braced his elbows on his knees, looking at her earnestly. "That explosion was a freak accident, Sue. The microfissure, at best, should have simply caused an electric surge, wiping out the core memory and damaging all the equipment on the Flyer--but not irreparably. Tom would have had to leave, then she could go in and find the logs and get rid of them when they did repairs. Hell, she's a good engineer--she'd have every opportunity to get on the Flyer before Tom could get to them, especially if it happened fast."

Sue leaned her head on her arm.

"So she--what? Deliberately overlooked a diagnostic error? I don't like her, Ayala, but I know she'd never risk Tom, ever."

"But you think it's more reasonable that B'Elanna, nine months after Tom and Seven started their relationship, decided to get even by blowing up the Flyer?" Ayala's surprise was visible on his face, and Sue shook her head hard.

"No! You don't--"

"There are only three viable suspects here, Sue. Harry, Seven, and B'Elanna. One of them did it."

"Or it really was an accident." But even Sue felt doubtful about that now. "It's possible."

"And the conveniently destroyed tricorder?" Point. "And the computer core hasn't shown anything yet, has it?"

"Nothing we can decrypt yet," Sue admitted. "But we're only finished with ten percent of it so far--its pretty fragmented. I can't see Seven doing it that way, Ayala, assuming she knew Tom had found out about her little project."

"Or Harry, in a fit of jealousy, decided to kill Tom to get Seven." And here, Ayala faltered. "No, I don't believe it either. So where does that leave us?"

Sue frowned suddenly.

"An accident." She looked thoughtful suddenly, her doubt lifting as pieces clicked into place. Logs. A tricorder. An explosion. "What if it really was an accident, Ayala?" Seeing his disbelief, she leaned forward, looking him in the eyes. "Think about this, Ayala--what if the whole fucking mess was an accident--but no one could believe it really was? Because someone wants it to *not* be?"

* * * * *

After Tom left, Seven began to clear away the dishes, putting them into the recycler automatically.

It had gone well--almost as if nothing had changed. They had talked, as she had grown accustomed to. Tom's conversation had been quiet, but he had shown interest, and had seemed genuinely regretful to leave.

She was certain he would soon understand why he had chosen her.

"You're doing a wonderful job."

Q's voice was warm with admiration, and Seven turned around, watching as the green-eyed human-looking male Q dropped onto her couch, giving her a long look of approval.

"Why are you here?"

Q smiled a little, tilting his head, much as she did, she realized.

"Nothing--just hanging around. Watching. You don't waste any time, do you? Get B'Elanna out of the way and go in straight for the kill. I admire such--single-mindedness."

Seven felt herself begin to goosebump.

"It was necessary. Lieutenant Torres was not permanently damaged."

And yet--she still felt uneasy. It was a logical move for her to have made--removing B'Elanna's presence from Tom's life was necessary were he to accept his life with Seven.

She had told Q she wanted Lieutenant Torres removed from Tom's life. It was clear, from all the evidence, that Lieutenant Torres was guilty of causing the explosion of the Flyer. Her continued presence was jeopardizing his existence. And her marriage.

Q had told her that B'Elanna had done it. Had tried to kill Tom.

For that, for hurting Tom--Seven shook her head sharply, turning toward her bedroom.

"What are you going to do when B'Elanna wakes up?" Q asked softly.

"Tom is now aware of what she has done," Seven answered coolly, back still to him, fingers over the door release. "He will not wish to associate himself with someone who tried to take his life."

"He loves her."

Seven turned. Q lifted one hand in a questioning gesture, fingers slightly splayed.

"He loves me."

The lips turned up in a grin of good humor, but the voice remained soft.

"He loved you, Seven. He doesn't know you now."

Seven stiffened.

"He will. There will not be--"

"Any problems? Unless he finds your diary." Q shook his head softly. "I'm sorry, your 'relationship study'. For some reason, I thought you were brighter than the average crewmember aboard this ship. Apparently, I was wrong."

"He will not. I have removed it from the ship's computer."

As gracefully as a cat, Q curled himself on her couch, smiling with a merriment she did not understand.

"He'll find out, Seven. Things like this always come out eventually--didn't Harry tell you that in the Messhall that day? Told you that you had better tell Tom yourself? Before someone else told him? Why no one bothered is still a mystery--unless they were worried what B'Elanna would do if she found out--and wouldn't *that* have been fun."

Seven shifted uncomfortably, then turned away.

"It does not matter."

"Will you tell him now?"

Seven's breath stopped as she considered this, mind running over the entries she remembered perfectly.

"No. It would not contribute to Tom's well-being to read--"

"What you said about his immaturity and lack of strong ethical principles?"

Seven was surprised to feel her teeth grit together.

"What would have happened if the Flyer hadn't exploded, if Tom had read those entries? Do you think he would have forgiven you?"

Seven straightened.

"We are married. I would have explained my reasoning and he would have come to terms with it, in the spirit of compromise. We discussed--"

Q waved a hand airily, and her response was cut off.

"Yes, so you keep insisting." Q shook his head, green eyes meeting hers. "How sure are you of that, Seven? Even after he said he didn't want children? Even after he did not return to his quarters that night? How the hell sure are you that he would have stayed, knowing you hid the actions of Riga of the Moneans from him, after you wrote those oh-so-sweet little examinations of his psychological hang-ups and his unhealthy relationship with B'Elanna? Hmmm? You really believe that's all there is to it, don't you?"

Seven turned away.

"Leave."

She heard Q rise, pacing to stand just behind her.

"What do you think he'd do if he knew you helped contribute to his exes little accident with the power relays--hmmm, Seven?"

Seven tried not to think about that--because he would never know. The question was irrelevant.

"I just want your happiness, Seven." He leaned closer, his breath against her ear. "I can help you."

"I do not require any further assistance."

"Maybe not now--but you will, sweetheart." Her eyes closed briefly.

When she turned around, Q was gone.

* * * * *

Tom left his quarters seconds after getting in them, PADD in hand.

A normal enough bit of equipment, unusual in that it had been left--by someone--on the floor by his door just inside, where he was almost required to step on it. To be honest, he didn't even notice it until his boot came in contact with it and he'd nearly--hadn't, but nearly--tripped over it.

Simple. A couple of PADDs, with a variety of interesting information, not the least of which was a conversation in the corridor dated two days before his much lamented accident. And what appeared to be--was--a diary. He'd taken only a moment to glance over it, and decided, quite firmly, that he'd wait on the rest, once he saw the entry it was scrolled to, the first line he read.

With it was a set of encryption sequences that he faintly recognized as Borg-Starfleet hybrids. Perhaps what a former Borg would use to keep her private files private.

First things first.

Tom realized something, looking down at the PADD. He had some choices to make. He could either accept his life or not. He could accept he was married to a woman that he didn't remember, that he had a duty to, or he could curl up in his quarters and sulk. Which is what he'd been doing, no fancy words for it. Tried to flip it all back, tried to deny it, but he was married, this was his life, and someone had tried to kill him.

His fingers hovered over the call button for a brief second before dropping back to his side.

Someone had tried to kill him, but he'd never believe it was B'Elanna.

Irrelevant. He smirked.

He looked over the door, then went to the code panel and began to enter a series of codes.

No reason to give Harry warning, after all.

* * * * *

"Hello, B'Elanna."

B'Elanna opened her eyes on a ceiling. It was grey, vaguely familiar, in that way that told her she had seen it before.

It took a moment--the moment she moved her arm and was rewarded with a remarkable variety of pain. She hissed, half sitting-up.

"What the--"

A hand covered her mouth, stopping whatever she was about to say--and if she was honest with herself, as she rarely was, she had no idea what she would have said anyway--maybe a 'why the hell am I on my back?' or a "Kahless, my head hurts.' Blinking, she looked into--

"You're even in my dreams?" Her voice was hoarse.

--green eyes. Smiling green eyes. Happy green eyes that were as pleased with the world as a child opening Christmas presents.

Sickbay.

"There's security outside." There was a conspiratorial tone to his voice, matching the smile as he removed his hand and seated himself comfortably on the biobed beside her. She felt his hands glide over her wrists and stomach, briefly tried to pull away--and realized he was unfastening the restraints.

She sat up straight and was rewarded with a pounding headache that had one advantage--she couldn't see a damned thing, even Q's smirking face, for the few seconds it took to adapt.

"Why--" she answered through clenched teeth--"is there security?"

"Because--well, B'Elanna, you want the long or short version?"

She closed her eyes, trying to string together some memories--security, Q, Tom--

And a blinding flash of light that took up her entire vision--that was not B'Elanna's idea of a moment of clarity. Though it had been.

"You set me up." She heard the low growl in her voice--the Doc must have given her a sedative, because she couldn't get the energy to do anything else.

She could see Q fully now, see his little grin planted so naturally on his face as he seated himself more comfortably on the biobed, leaning casually over her legs with one arm, and smiled again, tossing his next remark as casually as you threw seeds to birds.

Or crumbs to shattered half-Klingons.

"You'll understand."

* * * * *

Light splashed across Harry Kim's legs.

Harry had grown to like the dark. Janeway had confined him to quarters--though no security around him, apparently his reputation for lacking a rudimentary personality had paid off.

Being awake, Harry noted this occurrence, and also noted his door was open. He sat up, trying to re-adjust his eyes to the sudden brightness, trying to define who was at his doorway.

"Harry."

"Computer, lights, seventy-five percent." Harry wished Tom hadn't done that. The brilliance was disorienting. He rubbed his eyes briefly before looking up into the blue eyes of his best friend.

That wasn't the voice he needed to hear right now. And where the hell was Q, anyway? Playing Parcheesi with the rest of the Continuum?

"It's about time we had a talk, don't you think?"

Something dropped at the foot of the bed, and Harry leaned over to pick it up. He touched the controls on with one finger, watching the screen come to life with a nauseatingly familiar text ready for viewing.

This was his day, it had to be, no explanation necessary. This fucking PADD would haunt his sleep. That twice damned, three times damned report. A second followed on the heels of the first--it was already on. The top line was damning.

Somehow, he couldn't even find it in himself to be surprised.

He looked up at Tom, watching the older man make himself comfortable on the bed, blue eyes utterly unreadable.

"Best friend." Tom said it softly, almost conversationally. "When did you start talking to Q--buddy?"

* * * * *

B'Elanna shook her head.

"Why?" It occurred to her, for the first time, that the Doctor wasn't near. "And where's the Doctor?"

Q laughed softly.

"He deactivated himself a few minutes ago--after all, you're stable and obviously not going anywhere--though you would think that with all your supposed expertise in sabotage, they would have posted someone inside, no?" Q grinned, reaching out with one hand to push the hair from her eyes.

She wished she had the energy to just push him away.

"So I'm under suspicion--"

"Yes, just about tried and convicted, 'Lanna dear." He leaned back, regarding her with a smirk. "And I did this for your own good. You were about to ruin everything."

"Ruin?" B'Elanna sat up, and to her surprise, Q retreated. He frowned a little in thought, before shaking his head abruptly, turning a smile on her that looked--shaken? "You electrocute me to keep me from ruining--"

"Telling him everything. I think we can still salvage the situation, if you just listen. For once." He twitched, eyes narrowing abruptly. "I'm sorry, B'Elanna dear, but this will have to wait. I have--pressing business." To her shock, he winked out, leaving her to stare at the empty space he had been.

"Computer, reacti--"

B'Elanna slowly swung her feet off the bed, wincing at the pulling of rehealed muscles and tendons.

"Q?"

Pressing business. Biting down on her lip, she placed both feet on the floor, letting them take her weight in increments. It wasn't easy--God, there was so much she needed to do--explain.

Tried and convicted. Tricorders, diagnostics, forged log entries. All her, only her. And they knew...

Once she was on the floor, however, she had no idea what to do.

"Computer, locate Lieutenant Paris."

:::Access denied.:::

She should have guessed.

* * * * *

Harry shut his eyes, blocking out the view of the PADD.

"It doesn't show up in Tuvok's investigation, that Q has something to do with this. You want to explain?"

"I was going--"

"To hide it." Tom's voice was devoid of expression, and he reached out one arm to support himself, studying Harry as he would some recalcitrant space anomaly. "This was part of the investigation, wasn't it? You had an interview with Tuvok before B'Elanna's scheduled visit. The visit she missed, you know."

Harry nodded dumbly.

"I heard you in the corridor, talking to Q." Tom tilted his head. "I'll bet you didn't know that. Did Q tell you?"

"Yes, of course I knew." The smooth voice was uncharacteristically testy, but Harry recognized it all the same.

Harry's eyes swiveled up abruptly.

And he was--God help him--relieved. And sick.

Tom and Q wasn't something he could handle at the same time.

Tom's blue eyes focused with alarming sharpness on his face.

"Harry?"

"Of course I knew." Breezily, Q stepped forward, sitting down on beside Harry, studying Tom. "Harry, Harry, Harry, what the hell are you doing?" A devastatingly effective mimicry of Tom.

Harry heard his own breathing.

"Don't tell him anything. Get him out."

Harry's eyes darted sideways, and Tom's followed instantly.

"Don't let him know I'm here, you idiot!"

"*Harry*."

He forced himself to look straight ahead, meet Tom's eyes.

"What do you have to do with Q, Harry?" The voice was sharp now.

"Make him leave!"

Harry's teeth ground together.

"Can we talk about this later, Tom?" He managed the words, didn't know how, but he did it. He felt Q's hand on his shoulder. Harry shuddered under the impact, a mouse under a cat's paw.

{A mouse.} How *damned* appropriate.

"No, we can't." Tom didn't look away from the brown eyes. "Tell me what the hell is going on." He reached forward, touching the shoulder Q touched, and jerked back. As if he could feel Q there, maybe. Harry didn't know. He almost didn't care

"Make him leave, Harry! You want everything to fall apart? You're so damned close!" There was an edge of hysteria that shook Harry to his toes. Something was very wrong.

B'Elanna in Sickbay, Seven comforting Tom, and it wasn't falling apart already? God, Harry didn't know--he didn't know a damned thing, except one shining moment of Sue's cool accusation--an accusation he could only partially deny.

He hadn't said anything yet, not about Q. Even with the revised report in the Captain's hands, even with--even with--

"Harry!" Toms' voice was urgent.

Harry blinked, staring up at Tom.

"Harry, get him out of here." Q's voice raised at least an octave, enough to feel as if it would shatter Harry's eardrum--though that couldn't be logical, could it? Could it, if only Harry could hear him?

"Tom, I can't talk right now. Pl-please leave." {God, Tom, get out of here, I don't know-}

"Tell me what I want to know and I'll go away." Tom took the PADD from Harry's hands and scrolled down--obviously, he'd read it already. "Seven's diary--research--whatever--"

"Ask Seven about that--"

"I'm asking you!" Tom had hit the end of his patience.

"Get him out, Harry! Or something may happen to him--like it did to B'Elanna."

Harry swung around, staring into narrowed green eyes, not seeing the smile or remembering Tom was sitting right in front of him.

"What did you do to B'Elanna?" His voice was a whisper. He was on his feet, watching Q blinking up at him. Q looked--surprised. He took a step toward the bed, finding his fists clenched at his sides. "What the hell did you do to her?"

"She didn't listen--" Q left the bed, meeting Harry's eyes easily.

"What the hell do you mean, she didn't--" Harry sucked in a breath, stepping back. And a lot of things abruptly fell into place. "She didn't listen--she--you--"

"Harry, he's looking right at you! He can hear you, you idiot!"

Harry spun around.

Saw Tom

Standing at the foot of the bed--tricorder out, oddly enough, as if Q's could be scanned, as if they lived like other humans did--as if--

As if he knew Q was here, could see him--but he couldn't, the tricorder was off by about five centimeters--

"Harry--" Tom's eyes were fixed on the tricorder, his voice low. "Harry, listen to me--"

"I'll kill him, Harry. We've worked too hard to let this go to hell now. I can do it with a thought, just get him the hell out of here!"

A shudder ran down Harry's spine.

B'Elanna was in Sickbay.

He turned around, seeing Tom was already taking a step forward, to that area of the bed where Q was watching, the sardonic smile returning--

"Get out, Tom." He hoped his voice sounded better to Tom than it did to his own ears.

"What the hell have you done, Harry?" Tom's voice was a whisper, blue eyes coming up to meet his.

"Get out!" Harry spun around, taking two steps toward Tom, not sure what he would do if Tom didn't leave--he couldn't just throw him out--

"He has ten seconds, Harry."

"Harry--"

"Get out! Damn it, Tom, leave me the hell alone!" He was face to face with the taller man, staring at each other, utterly blank blue that Harry couldn't read at all.

"Eight seconds, Harry." Q's voice was shrill, near his ear--he felt Q's breath on the back of his neck. "Maybe that would be best--leave you free to pursue the lovely, grieving, widowed Seven--"

Tom didn't move, didn't seem to even breathe, studying him, and the blankness cracked--and beyond it--Harry couldn't stand what he saw there.

"Did you do it, Harry?"

"Six seconds, Harry. He should hurry now--how long does it take to get to your door, anyway?"

Something was pounding in Harry's head--maybe a blood vessel ready to explode or the beginnings of the mother of all tension headaches--Harry dismissed it, watching Tom slowly back for the door.

"Harry--"

"Get out!" He took two steps, coming face to face with his best friend, the knowledge that Q would do it. We haven't been friends in a long time, dammit, so get the hell away from me, out of my quarters, and out of my life! Go back to your precious fucking wife you took from me and leave me the hell alone!"

"Only three seconds, left. Wanna wager whether he makes it?"

Tom turned and left. No stunned shock, no surprise, just a quick turn on his heel and he was gone, out the door. It slid slowly shut behind him.

Harry didn't know when the adrenaline stopped moving, but he knew when his knees came in contact with the cool carpeted floor of his room. When he looked up, Q was gone.

* * * * *

B'Elanna sat gingerly on at the workstation, staring at the screen with a blank expression before entering the codes.

She really hadn't expected them to work. But Chief Engineer, former Maquis, and gifted saboteur that she was, she could get around that. It was relatively easy to find and retrieve the recording of the staff meeting that had occurred the day before, while she was unconscious here--the burning in effigy, so to speak, in the Captain's ready room.

"B'Elanna." His voice had lost its oil--it sounded ragged.

"Get away, Q."

"We need to talk."

"No, we don't." She flicked a few keys, watching the meeting, listening to the dialogue--they'd found everything--

--including a few things she hadn't done. She rewinded, listened again.

"Transporters." She turned around, seeing Q standing just behind her. The usually cool green eyes were wide. "Transporters? Where the hell--"

"Get away from that thing!"

Her eyes widened briefly and with a few taps of her keys Tuvok's investigation was on display--she watched in shock as the list of computer tampering crimes stretched unto infinity--

"I didn't do this," she whispered. "I didn't do even--"

When she turned around, Q was gone.

* * * * *

Tom almost ran down Sue Nicoletti in the hall. The younger woman staggered, catching herself against the wall and dropping her tool kit. Tom paused, trying to clear his head, and tried to smile.

"Sorry, Sue. I--here, let me help you."

"It's okay." She smiled--either he was a better actor than even he had ever guessed, or Sue was really distracted--neither mattered, the effect was the same. "Sorry--I didn't see you. I should have locked the kit before I left engineering."

"Where are you going?"

She picked up the last hypospanner, placing it back in the kit and closed it quickly.

"Holodeck just crashed again," Sue said, and sighed. "I guess someone tried to run that damned beach program again." She seemed to recollect suddenly she was facing its author. "Sorry, Tom. I don't know what the hell--"

"Did someone report in?" he asked sharply. Sue's blue eyes jumped to his face briefly, and he modulated his tone. "Who was it?"

Sue shrugged.

"No idea--B'Elanna wired up a failsafe, so every time it crashed we'd know about it, since it had so many problems--and when it crashes, it knocks out communications anyway. Carey told me to go check it out--he and Vorik are still working on the core retrieval."

Tom nodded.

"How about I come with you?" Sue looked startled, and Tom tossed out a careless grin. "It happened to me a couple of times--I'm curious, as its creator, what the problem with the damned thing is." He tried on another smile for good measure and matched her steps. "I couldn't find out what keeps making it do that. When did you get the report?"

"About fifteen minutes ago--"

"About fifteen minutes?"

"Yeah."

Tom nodded slowly.

"Close enough." At Sue's look of confusion, Tom shook his head. "Never mind. Let's check it out."

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