He doesn't hear me come in.  I pause, thinking the closing door might alert him but he doesn't stir.  His attention is fixed entirely on the smears of light beyond the force field of the galley view port and for a moment, I'm mesmerized by the beauty too.

Blond hair, muted to the colour of brass in the dimness, his long legs stretched before him and his hands folded on his stomach; it's a pose that speaks of a calm I know he doesn't feel. I knew immediately that things were not quite right when we rescued Tuvok and him from that planet - the two of them and their unlikely companion, Nas.

I can guess what has him preoccupied and it crushes my heart whenever I think about it.  So I try not to and think instead about how I can get him to talk about what's close to his heart.  Try to figure out how to tell him that he's looking for it in the wrong place, that what he wants is closer to him than he thinks.

Close enough to reach out a hand and touch a tense shoulder.

He jumps when I touch him, colourful Paris expletives at the ready.  I can only smile stupidly at him and feel something release in the depths of me when he smiles back.  He must recognize that the commander has his ship's counsellor's hat on this evening: it's in the look he gives me just before returning to the stars.  I hesitate for a moment but then decide that it's alright.  He doesn't have to say a word.  I sit beside him, Voyager hums around us and I play the conversation we don't have in my head.

It didn't take much to interpret the looks Nas gave Tuvok during her short stay on Voyager.  Harder to decipher was the way Tom watched them.  Tuvok, of course, pretended to ignore it all.  When he decided to transport Nas himself, a stillness came over Tom that set me wondering even more.  Was it relief?  Was it jealousy?  Then, whatever tenuous connection Tuvok and Paris shared seemed to snap.  The Chief of Security was back, wrapped firmly in his Vulcan inscrutability and Tom, well, Paris doesn't do vulnerable well.  I was the only one, I'm sure, who saw that well recovered stumble.

It had hit me then.  My spirit supplied the information my brain had missed.  I couldn't say how Nas fitted into the picture but I suddenly knew how Tom felt about Tuvok.  What I was unprepared for is how this knowledge makes me feel. How watching him silently put himself back together makes me want to hold him.  How moments like this one make that spark inside me a flame, engulfing me completely.  I am grateful for this happiness, though I wish for so much more.

Tom stirs and I think I hear a sigh. Remembering has lowered my defences and when he turns to me, I am unguarded.  More than that.  The look that comes over his face tells me I'm betrayed.  I see the moment of disbelief, can hear him telling himself he's wrong. I want to tell him that he isn't, that everything he sees is his.

Suddenly, he knows.  I feel the moment of release, the loosening of his pain. Time takes care of many things, the dissipation of old hurt, the strengthening of new love.  The thread between us is new and tender and I fall into its comfort.  Tom has closed his eyes and radiates calm.

He knows I'm here.
 

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