A/N: As always, many, many thanks to Photogirl1890 for her patience, hand-holding and eagle eye; this piece would not exist without her help and encouragement.
Also, I still own nothing but am happy to once again borrow these characters and their universe.

Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?

or, Five times Tom and B'Elanna didn't spend the night together, and one time they did…

I.

The coupler slips from her grasp, its honed edge slicing across her palm before it clatters to the deck.

"Shit." B'Elanna presses her left palm hard against her right. She leans against the wall of the Jeffries tube, wincing at the sharp pain. Stupid.

Her mind isn't on the work. Hasn't been for the last two days.

Stupid. How could she have been so stupid?

There had been a moment of confusion when she had awakened in Sickbay, a minute to realize that she was not, in fact, dead. Then her stomachs had dropped as she processed where she was, who was lying unconscious in the biobed next to hers and that, yes, she had really said…that.

She had left Sickbay with a level of rapidity unusual even for her, fled to the safety of Engineering. And she knows, had she been able, she would have run even further.

After all, running has always been one of her talents. Little doubt which half of her split genome that trait had come from…

Opening her eyes, B'Elanna examines the cut on her hand. The incision is clean but deep and the bleeding has not abated. She's not going to be able to avoid heading back to Sickbay. She'll have to apologize to the Doctor for her precipitous exit the day before but at least the trip will give her an excuse to stay away from her quarters for another hour or so. She's well past the point of exhaustion and her quarters will mean sleep and sleep will mean dreams and dreams will mean ice blue eyes and an endless sea of stars.

Damn her stupidity.

Damn ion turbulence and questionable concepts of Klingon honor.

And damn Tom Paris.

II.

Fuck the Prime Directive.

Tom's composure lasts – barely – until he enters the turbolift and the door swishes closed.

Fuck Janeway for blindly following protocol, and Chakotay too for blindly following her.

A polite ping from the computer requests a destination. Blinking, Tom tries to remember where he's heading. To go work on his 'rescue plan'? Tom snorts and throws another curse back in the first officer's general direction.

He's almost unbearably edgy, pumped full of adrenaline that he has no means of burning. "Computer, are either of the holodecks available?" A long shot, but it's deep into the beta shift so there's a chance…

:Holodeck One is in use with privacy settings engaged. Holodeck Two is in use and open:

Tom considers. "Which program is Holodeck Two running?"

:Holodeck Two is running Paris 3:

Sandrine's. Damn. Neither socializing nor alcohol has the least appeal. "Computer, is the gym currently occupied?"

:The gym is currently occupied by Lieutenant Baxter and Crewman Chell:

Chell works out? That nugget of information is enough to distract Tom briefly but also confirms that the gym is not an option.

Tom sighs. "Computer, Deck Four." Then, as the turbolift begins to move, "No: belay that. Deck Nine."

The turbolift alters its course accordingly. Tom closes his eyes and leans his head back against the wall, the events of the day replaying through his mind.

"I wish I could give you a clearer idea, Mr. Paris." The EMH's regret had seemed genuine – and, more importantly, the hologram hadn't reminded Tom that the information was none of the pilot's business. "There is simply no literature on anything like the Mari's 'engramatic purge', and, even if there was, Lieutenant Torres's physiology is unique."

"Your best guess, Doc?" Tom had pushed. He wasn't above begging – not now. "Please?"

The Doctor had sighed, fiddling with a hypospray in his hand before looking up at Tom. "I would expect some amount of retrograde amnesia, at the least. Quite possibly pronounced changes in personality as well, especially given B'Elanna's mixed heritage." His holographic lips tightened and his voice softened. "Whether temporary or permanent, even I cannot guess."

The turbolift doors open and Tom steps out, grateful for the deserted, ship's night-dimmed corridors.

Muscle memory takes him to her door. The access code requires more conscious thought.

B'Elanna had offered the code hesitantly, almost defensively: she had had full access to his quarters for weeks, her habit of mislaying personal items having given Tom the only excuse he needed to 'hand her the keys'. Seeing her reluctance, Tom had demurred on her first offer to reciprocate the gesture, but, when she insisted, he had for once in his life wisely shut up.

He hadn't used the code until today – and now he is about to use it for the second time in eighteen hours.

The doors open and Tom enters. Her rooms are warm, as they always are. Several degrees above the ship's standard temperature. Tom inhales deeply, not for the first time envious of B'Elanna's Klingon sense of smell. To his duller senses, Voyager's filters have done their work too well.

Tom moves through the darkened rooms toward the bed, illuminated by the red glow of the headboard lights. From atop one of the pillows, B'Elanna's tattered stuffed targ silently contemplates a cubic package sitting on the mattress, unmoved from where Tom had left it earlier that morning.

Earlier that morning. Tom swallows hard.

He reaches across the targ to retrieve his gift, then pauses, the close proximity to the bedding offering him the slightest hint of its usual occupant's scent.

Straightening, he gives the targ's ragged fur a fond pat and nods at the package, his acquisition from the Mari marketplace with which he had been so pleased just hours before. "When -" if? - "when she gets back, this is the last thing that she's going to want to see, right Toby?" The targ only continues its wordless vigil of the now empty bed. Tom half-wishes he could do the same.

He passes back through the room and out into the corridor, the doors automatically closing and relocking behind him. Suddenly, his legs, his arms, the package he's carrying all feel overwhelmingly heavy. Leaning back against the closed doors, he slides down until he is sitting on the floor of the corridor.

His eyes close and he drops his head to his knees, muttering another litany of obscenities.

III.

"Thomas. Eugene. Paris."

Tom winces…sleepily…as he presses the base of his palms against his eye sockets in an attempt to order his sluggish thoughts.

Six syllables of address is never a good sign, from B'Elanna or from anyone else for that matter. Six syllables of address with each disyllable distinctly punctuated is even worse.

He tries to remember what he might have done in the last twenty-four hours (…or is it forty-eight hours? How long has it been since they had last seen each other? And what ungodly hour of the night is it, anyway?) that might provoke both the address and B'Elanna's less than pleased expression as she stands in his doorway with one hand on her hip and the other clutching a PADD in a manner that suggests that it might soon be weaponized.

Drawing a blank, Tom – warily – reaches out to guide her far enough into his quarters that the doors can close behind her. Whatever it is that he has done – or hasn't done - or might have done, no need to broadcast it to Deck Four generally.

She lets him move her into the room before yanking away from his touch and swinging around to continue her unrelenting glare.

After one final attempt at a sincere examination of conscience, Tom gives up. "Okay, what'd I do?"

In apparent answer, she holds out the PADD.

Tom takes it and looks, curious despite his better judgement. He finds himself scrolling through the quotidian minutia of Voyager's officially-frowned-upon-and-ever-immensely-popular weekly betting pool: next object to be added to Baytart's talent show juggling act; classification of the next spatial anomaly requiring reduction of speed, full stop and/or course change amounting to 48-hour or more delay; number of visitors to Sickbay following Surprise Soufflé Tuesday…

Near the bottom of the list, he finds the apparent item of interest.

"Well that's a little after the fact, don't you think?"

Tom looks up to see B'Elanna frowning, clearly not sharing in his bemusement. "What do you mean?"

He chooses his words with extreme care. "Well, it's been a few months now and I know we haven't been advertising anything but we haven't exactly been quiet about it either…" He trails off as her scowl deepens. Reference to noise level had likely not been his brightest of ideas.

B'Elanna snatches the PADD away from him, pointing furiously at the item in question. "'Spend the night together', Tom – not 'have sex'. 'Spend the night together'. Literally." Tom blinks, taking the PADD back and rereading the offending item: 'Stardate on which Torres and Paris will finally spend the night together: must provide verification of the event.' B'Elanna's tone shifts. "This wasn't you?"

Tom shakes his head in the negative. B'Elanna looks down at the carpet, biting at her lip.

Three months. They've been together three months and they still haven't managed to spend a full night together.

And, evidently, everyone on the ship knows it.

Taking a chance, Tom again reaches out and takes B'Elanna's hand, tugging her over to the sofa. She slumps down into it.

Grabbing two cups of coffee from his replicator, Tom moves back to the sofa and, still tenuous, settles down beside her, handing her one of the warm mugs. She takes it from his hands but seems otherwise oblivious to his presence.

He mentally cycles through possible openings – 'it's not that big of a deal really…', 'it could be worse…' – but all fall flat. Finally, unable to fight his own nature, he tries for the joke: "At least they aren't betting on which of us will be the first to break a clavicle."

She turns to stare at him, disbelieving. Tom mentally shrugs: at least she's looking at him.

"I almost wish it had been you." Some of the anger returns. "Gods, this ship can be fifteen decks of hell sometimes."

"Maybe we just need to start some better rumors? Something about Tuvok's off-hour visits to the Paxau karaoke stage or the Dabo game Mortimer Harren is running out of the plasma relay room or what really happens when Chell heads down to the mess hall for a late night snack?"

B'Elanna snorts at the last. But her humor is short-lived. "How, in three months, have we not managed to find one night to spend together?"

The Borg. The Mari. The fickle impulse reactors. The Doc's ridiculous idea of 'work hours'…

Impulsively, Tom sets his coffee down on the end table and picks up the PADD, tapping out a command.

B'Elanna cranes her neck to see. "What are you doing?"

"Making a bet." Tom finishes and drops the PADD unceremoniously to the floor. Turning back to B'Elanna, he takes her mug from her hand and sets it next to his own. Impediments removed and possibly at the risk of life and limb, he reaches out to grasp the back of her neck and draw her to him.

There is a hint of hesitation as their lips meet; Tom braces himself. But then her fingers are in his hair and her mouth is responding to his own with matching eagerness and hunger.

A long, breathless moment later, they break apart. Recovering speech, Tom says simply, "Stay with me. Tonight."

She smiles: that rare, amazing smile she has when one has finally managed through luck, skill or sheer pig-headed persistence to maneuver past all of her defenses. But her reaction is fleeting.

"I can't."

Tom tries to remember if Culhane is flying the graveyard shift tonight because his stomach feels as if Voyager just rolled 180 degrees. "Why?" He's pleading. He knows it. He doesn't care.

Obviously frustrated, she reaches down to retrieve the PADD and then stands, vaguely indicating the instrument. "The Captain…I promised her a report on the possibility of adjusting the intermix ratio by 0900."

The Borg. The Mari. Captain Janeway…

Tom nods, standing as well, biting at the inside of his lip. "I'm on a double shift tomorrow: the bridge and Sickbay." It's an apology.

Her turn to nod, looking down.

"Thursday morning? Breakfast?" Tom offers, giving them both an out.

B'Elanna nods yet again and looks up to give him a small smile. "In the mess hall?"

Despite everything, Tom chuckles. "Yeah, the mess hall, unless you want to buy." He points to the PADD. "I just lost the rest of this week's rations on an overly impulsive bet."

She rolls her eyes, but the corner of her mouth is twitching. "The mess hall then. 0700?"

"0700," he agrees, and then she's gone, leaving Tom to make his best attempt at getting some sleep in what is left of the ship's night.

IV.

She makes it almost to the door.

"B'Elanna?"

She hesitates but, despite the muffled, half-asleep volume, claiming to have not heard Tom's call would be too much of stretch.

"I was just leaving."

"Why?"

She hears him shift on the bed and the headboard lights come on. She shields her eyes, having acclimated to the dark as she gathered her clothes and dressed.

"Sorry -" The lights dim down to an acceptable level. "Why are you leaving?"

She has no answer – or at least not one that he will want to hear, lying naked in bed as he is, his hair still damp with sweat from their recent exertions. He's relaxed – the tensions of the day burned away by the cathartic release they had both sought.

Tom smiles softly: an invitation.

She feels nothing. Except the desire to escape.

"I've gotta go." She turns quickly and slips out the door, not needing to look back to know his reaction. Realizing that, about that too, she feels nothing.

V.

The mess hall may seem an odd place to seek solitude but Tom had long ago found that between 0200 and 0400 hours it's consistently deserted. And, unless you're on the bridge, you can't beat the view of the stars.

After the last few days, Tom needs some time alone with those stars - and his thoughts, poor companions though those might be.

He flops down on the sofa in the darkest corner of the room, propping his long legs on one arm rest and his head, cradled on top of his interlaced fingers, on the other. He shifts over slightly so that his view of the vastness of space is unimpeded.

Idiot. Fucking blind idiot.

How, in the name of whatever is still holy in this universe, had he missed the signs? How had he not noticed just how bad things had gotten?

Selfish, self-absorbed bastard.

The stars have nothing to say in argument.

The mess hall doors open, sending a thin shot of light across the front of the room near the galley. Tom blinks into the glare of the corridor, trying to make out the silhouette of whomever is intruding upon his self-flagellation, but he remains otherwise carefully still.

Tom recognizes her by her movements as she turns to the replicator and speaks a command. He knows he should call over to her but the inertia of the silence that has stretched between them since docking the Delta Flyer is too heavy to overcome.

He watches as B'Elanna settles into a chair, placing her stack of pancakes – he can smell the bananas and maple syrup from across the room – on the table in front of her. She hesitates, contemplating the meal before her. Tom stills even more, barely allowing himself to breathe, recognizing that, whatever she is up to, it is something of much more personal importance than a simple off-hours breakfast – and that she would be far less than pleased to know that she is not alone.

Visibly steeling herself, she picks up the fork and takes a bite, chews and swallows.

Then she smiles.

Tom inhales sharply: never would he have thought it possible to be jealous of a stack of banana pancakes.

He remains a silent spectator as she works her way through the meal, sees her smile a half dozen times more and listens to her quiet, surprised laughter - how long had it been since he heard her laugh? When finished, she clears her tray to the replicator's recycler and walks out, her shoulders more squared than when she had entered.

Gingerly, Tom stretches his now cramped and tingling arms one by one, letting his head fall back directly against the arm rest, again looking out at the stars. And then he allows himself the slightest of smiles as well.

VI.

She awakens to the unfamiliar.

A surge of adrenaline sends her blood rushing; her fingers and toes both tingle, ready to fight – or flee. But her eyes stay tightly closed, a remembered habit from waking in the midst of childhood nightmares.

She's naked – her bare shoulder, nose and left cheek chilled by the unusually cool air while a covering of unaccustomed weight and texture hugs and warms the rest of her body. Her right cheek presses against a pillow's cool softness. She breathes in and the pillowcase smells of sweat and sex – and him.

Tom.

Her eyes open.

She can feel the heat of his body now, supplementing the warmth of the comforter that he must have thrown over both of them. His scent fills her nostrils, temporarily eclipsing her other senses.

Her eyes slowly adjust to the darkness, and she begins to pick out details in the layered shadows of Tom's quarters, left in no little disarray by their exertions a few hours before. They had been fighting…and then not fighting. Their activities had circled them around the small room until they had landed on the bed. Physically and emotionally spent from the evening, from the day, from the week, from the whole clusterfuck of her existence, B'Elanna had closed her eyes. Briefly. Or at least that had been her intention.

This is a bad idea.

Carefully she shifts to her left, onto her back, glancing over at the pillow next to hers. An errant reflection of the ship's nighttime ambient lighting softly illuminates Tom's sleeping form, casting his tousled hair paler than usual against the darkness. He lies half on his stomach, turned toward her with one long arm casually flung overhead in her direction. His features are relaxed and vulnerable in sleep. He looks young – younger than she has ever known him to be. And content.

This is definitely a bad idea.

Rolling back onto her side, she begins to shrug off the comforter, steeling herself against the onslaught of cool air. In her moment of hesitation, she feels his hand on her upper arm, the pressure light: a careful invitation made without insistence.

"Stay." A sleep-muffled request, leaving her every excuse to claim she had not heard – or understood.

A chill passes down her spine and she shivers, curling back under the warmth of the blanket, remembering that her quarters reek of incense. Perhaps just this once…

.

Within a handful of minutes, her breathing has deepened as her body stills, succumbing more, Tom suspects, to exhaustion than contentment. But she has made no move to shrug off his hand, still lightly cupping her shoulder. So there's that. Because, when so easily and in so many ways she might not be, she is here.