"We Three Together (Janeway)"
by Maisie
(maisierita@comcast.net)
copyright 1998
(VOY, J/C/P, R)
A few more weeks and it would have been too late. A few more weeks and Chakotay and I would have been together, and *this* would never have happened.
Oh, Owen, you'll never forgive me for this. You might excuse me for becoming romantically involved with a Commander, especially under these circumstances, but a Lieutenant? Junior grade? No. You'd shake your head at me in disbelief and disapproval. I can see it, Owen. You'd say it was an unjustifiable breach of protocol, having an affair with a junior officer. I suppose it is, at that. But it's more than an affair. That word implies this is just some sort of fling, and it's not. It's so much more than that. I love him.
Him. Tom. Your son. Good lord, Owen, I'm in love with your son. The boy in the pictures on your desk, except that he's now grown into a man. A fine, beautiful, caring man. Yet even as I fall deeper and deeper in love with him, there's a part of me that can't help picturing the little 10-year-old in those photos on your desk. And when I think of him that way, I just want to wrap him in my arms and hug him. Nurture him. Protect him, like a mother protects a child. Although, heaven knows, my feelings for him are nowhere near maternal!
They never were, not even before this began. God. That day. We were having breakfast, all of us. Tom and B'Elanna and Harry were there first. They used to be inseparable, Owen. It's such a pity ... So they were eating together when Chakotay and I walked into the mess hall. Tom winked at us. Of course, there was nothing to wink at. Not yet. As I said, a few weeks later and it would have been different. But back then, on that day, Chakotay and I were still dancing this intricate dance around each other, neither of us quite willing to take the final step towards intimacy.
We sat with them. It wasn't that uncommon. I preferred to sit with senior staff at mealtimes. We talked. We ate. Tom flirted with B'Elanna. Then Seven came in.
Seven is our resident ex-Borg. She still doesn't quite understand we humans, but she's trying hard, and she's infinitely curious. When she came into the mess hall, she surveyed the room in a very Borg-like manner, and approached the table. God, Owen, if I'd known what was going to happen I'd have stopped it, but how could I have known?
Tom kissed B'Elanna. Just a light, little kiss. I should have guessed there was trouble coming when I saw that look cross Seven's face, but it was probably too late by then. Seven doesn't believe in small talk. She simply approached B'Elanna and said, "I was under the impression you had terminated your romantic association with Lieutenant Paris."
Tom actually laughed, Owen, and kept his arm around B'Elanna's shoulders, but I knew we were in trouble when I saw the expression on B'Elanna's face. "Why would you think that?"
"Because I observed you kissing Ensign Kim in the Jefferies tube yesterday."
Dear god, Owen. Tom's face, at that moment ... I've never seen anything like it. He turned to B'Elanna, and to Harry, looking back and forth between them and waiting desperately for them to say it wasn't true, or that they had an explanation. Something. Anything. But they didn't. They were silent and so we all just sat there, frozen, until Harry finally mumbled, "Tom, we were going to tell you ... "
Tom didn't say another word, and his face was so pale that for a second I thought he might have gone into shock. But then he was up out of his chair and out of the room and before I knew what I was doing, I was following him.
That's how it started. I never realized the depth of the feelings I had for Tom until that moment. I'm not sure I would have ever realized them, and if it had been a few weeks later ... yes, I know I'm repeating myself ... but if it had been a few weeks later, Chakotay and I would have been together already and everything would have been different.
When I reached Tom in the hallway outside the mess hall, he was shaking. It was like watching him disintegrate before my eyes. With each tremor he fell apart a little more, but I felt I could hold him together, if only I hugged him hard enough. I tried my best.
The next few months were bad. The worst, maybe, since we've been out here. Tom was a wreck. In one stroke, he'd lost his lover and his best friend, and for a while, I was afraid we'd lose him too. I don't think he was truly suicidal, but I also don't think he cared if he lived or died. He just hurt. I wanted so badly to comfort him, to make him stop hurting. The pain burned so bright in him, it was like a flame. And we, like moths, were drawn to it.
We. Yes, I said we, and no, it wasn't a mistake. You see, Owen, when Tom got up and left the mess hall on that awful day, I ran after him ... but Chakotay reached him first. And when I hugged Tom, I was hugging Chakotay, too.
We took turns caring for him. Chakotay staggered our shifts so that one of us was always with Tom when he wasn't on duty. We were afraid to leave him alone. We didn't *want* to leave him alone. And he and I ... Chakotay and Kathryn, the couple ... we never came about. The status of our relationship was never discussed, because we both knew that our relationships with Tom were far more important. We were both in love with him, and we hadn't even known it. Yet somehow, we were in love with each other too. Oh, Owen, it was all very confusing.
During a routine shore leave several months later, Harry and B'Elanna got married. They'd found someone on the planet to do the ceremony, and they'd invited no one from the ship, which was probably a good idea because I don't think anyone would have come. I was relieved, frankly, that they took care of the ceremony themselves, because I'm not sure I could have brought myself to perform it. I don't blame Harry and B'Elanna for falling in love, but I blame them for hurting Tom.
That night was the first night we were together, and yes, Owen, I do mean *together*. It was the first time for any of us to be with the other, and now you can understand why I say this would have been different if it had happened a few weeks later. If Chakotay and I had already been lovers, we could never have integrated Tom into our relationship. He'd have always felt himself to be the intruder. This way, we thought we just might have a chance.
So we were together for the first time, and it was marvelous, but when it was over, Tom curled up on the bed and cried. Chakotay and I hugged him until he fell asleep, then we sat up for hours and whispered to each other about all the horrible, terrible things we could do to Harry and B'Elanna.
Don't worry, Owen. We didn't do anything to them. I haven't gone completely crazy out here. But we plotted revenge until we felt better, then we curled up on either side of Tom and went to sleep. We did the same the next night, and the night after that, and every night until Tom stopped crying himself to sleep. Some nights there was sex, and some nights there wasn't, but there was always Tom, Chakotay, and me.
He did fall in love with us, eventually. Don't worry. It just took him a while to let himself risk loving again. But when he did ... that night when we were together ... god. It was incredible. The next morning, Tom did something that I'd never have expected.
Oh, Owen, you'd be so proud of him. He's such a good man. We went to breakfast together, and Harry and B'Elanna were there. Sitting alone, of course. The crew had been terrible towards them and Chakotay and I hadn't done anything about it because we felt they deserved it. Nobody was really mean to them, but everybody ignored them. It was hard on Harry. It was hard on B'Elanna too, but it was really hard on Harry. It's ironic, actually. When Tom came on this ship he was a virtual outcast, and if Harry and B'Elanna hadn't befriended him, he'd never have integrated as well as he did into the crew. And now the crew was completely sympathetic to him, and Harry and B'Elanna were the outcasts.
So when we walked into the mess hall, and Tom saw Harry and B'Elanna sitting by themselves at a table surrounded by other empty tables, he told us that he was going to eat with them.
Chakotay couldn't understand it. "Why?"
Tom indicated the empty tables around Harry and B'Elanna. "Because I've been there. No one deserves that." So he went and sat down with them and ate. God only knows what they talked about. They were tense, all of them, and I knew then that they'd never really get past it, never get back the easy friendship they'd once shared. But damn it, Owen, Tom sat there the entire meal and ate with them. I've never been prouder of him, not even when he accepted the suicide mission to catch our spy. This was harder for him.
Every couple of days, Tom would eat with them, and sometimes when he couldn't stand it he'd drag Chakotay and me with him, and we'd all eat. Sometimes he'd drag other people to sit at the table, and eventually, people began speaking to Harry and B'Elanna again. It was the bravest thing Tom has ever done, and one of the best.
Chakotay has even begun to schedule Harry on Alpha shift again, and sometimes Tom goes down to Engineering to run tests on helm controls. But we're never going to send Tom on an away mission with either of them, Owen. He's still fragile. Chakotay and I take the best care we can of him. Between the two of us, we do a pretty good job.
Chakotay's out there with him now. I can hear them through the bathroom door. Soft noises, which could be conversation but which are more probably lovemaking. The two of them are so good together. I love to watch them, and not just because it's erotic, although it is. The sight of the two of them together is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and I consider myself fortunate that they let me share their bed.
My bed, really. I *am* the Captain of the ship, and I have the biggest quarters, and by extension, the biggest bed. I often joke that it's the only reason they put up with me. Tom sometimes agrees, but Chakotay just shakes his head and throws me down on that big bed and tickles me until I scream for mercy. You remember how ticklish I am, Owen? It doesn't take long until I surrender. And then the two of them descend on me and kiss me and love me until I can't see straight.
A few weeks later, and everything would have been totally different. It scares me to think how close I came to losing the best thing that's ever happened to me. Not Tom, not Chakotay, but Tom *and* Chakotay. Together. I love them. They love me.
I'm going to go out there and be with the two men I love more than anything. Good night, Owen. Sleep well. I will.
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The End
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