Author's Note: Canon-friendly fluff piece. Friendship, with mild tongue-in-cheek factor.

The Thing About Principles

"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."

- Groucho Marx

"Between Chakotay and Tuvok, who do you think would win in a fight?"

Paris voices the question idly, if without any apparent irony, from his seat at the helm of the Delta Flyer.

Two meters behind the Ensign, Kathryn Janeway's gaze is torn from her work, two elegantly arched eyebrows drawing up and in as she looks at the back of Tom's head.

"A beg your pardon?" she says, her voice hovering between hesitancy and something thornier. "Chakotay and Tuvok?"

"If you had to place a bet," Tom rejoins, in the same casual tone as before. "You know, on one of them. Who would you take in a fight? That whole Vulcan neck thing maybe notwithstanding."

The Captain opens her mouth to voice an acerbic retort regarding decorum and appropriateness, but then pauses, trying to parse whether Paris' inquiry is actually meant to goad her.

If it is, she should shut him down harshly. But if it's not- if this actually something other than an officer she's recently punished trying to push her buttons- her responding to him coldly and without humor will return them to the same stilted silence they've spent the last three hours in.

Hell, she thinks. Return us to the he stilted silence we've spent the last two weeks in. Only permanently.

With eyes locked on her companion, she turns slowly in her chair, crossing one leg over the other.

"I don't know if a Captain should answer a question whose very premise assumes two of her officers have turned against each other," she replies finally, but in the same light manner as Paris himself used.

When the pilot's shoulders sag a little, Janeway feels something relax in her at the same time that something else tightens.

Obviously Tom isn't trying to goad her. Just trying to have some kind of conversation, however. . . odd?

"I guess you're right," he says in a low, mirthless voice that makes his Captain worry more.

The idea that this is what the rest of their journey home could be like- the thought that she could foreseeably pass a decade, two decades, not being able to banter with her favorite helmsman- pries loose a nest of fears Janeway has previously kept in check.

Grey eyes, still tractored on Tom's now ramrod straight back, cloud over with disquiet.

"I assume this is just a hypothetical question," she begins anew, "not something to be recounted at the next staff meeting?"

"Yep," he answers coolly. "But no need to answer. I certainly wouldn't want to put you in an untenable position."

There's enough venom in the last part to warrant some kind of censure. And he would certainly get just that, were that venom not resting atop a throbbing hurt that is easy for his companion to see.

It's impossible for her not to spot, after all. Not when she feels the same.

"I think I can trust you," Janeway says eventually. In a much lower voice than before.

"I'm listening. . ." the pilot murmurs, his fingers dancing over the conn.

"Are we saying hand-to-hand combat?" she hedges, crossing her arms and sliding down further in her chair.

"Yep. No ships, no weapons. No tricks."

"Oh, there are always tricks," Janeway smirks. "Especially in hand-to-hand combat."

Tom's clap of laughter signals his agreement, and his Captain watches with interest as some of the tension dissipates from his shoulders.

"I think they're pretty evenly matched," she muses. "What Chakotay lacks in Tuvok's formal martial arts training, he makes up for with his boxing background."

"So they're evenly matched," Tom shrugs. "What does that matter? I've won more than one fight I shouldn't have. . ."

"And so have I," Janeway finishes, plucking the thought from his head.

"So."

"So."

"Who do you think would win, Cap'n?"

"You mean who do I think would cheat?"

Tom turns around in his chair, a mischievous, toothy grin on his face matching the one he can hear in Janeway's voice.

"If you think that's what it has to come down to," he replies, with a feigned air of diplomacy.

"Fine," she chuckles. "Fine. . . If the cards were down, and it was just the two of them. I think Tuvok. Definitely Tuvok."

"Really?"

The one-word gasp is louder than it should be, but Paris can't contain his disbelief. Not even if he tried. For all the replicator rations on Voyager- all stars laying out before the Delta Flyer- he would never, never have guessed that she wouldn't pick Chakotay. Chakotay.

"That really surprises you?" she queries, her curiosity now competing with her amusement.

"Well," Tom begins slowly, searching for something to say, other than the obvious. "Chakotay was in the Maquis, and known for his daring raids. One would think he would find it within him to go for the low blow when it was really do or die time. . ."

"On behalf of a larger cause," the Captain concedes, "yes. But in a fight of the kind we're talking about? I doubt it. He's just too. . . Principled."

Oddly, the last word isn't voiced with the kind of lofty praise Tom would expect Janeway to attach to it, especially in light of the person to whom their discussion pertains.

But then, five years is a long time with someone. Sometimes the things that first appear to us as strengths turn out to be something else entirely. . .

"So. Tuvok," Paris repeats neutrally, if now with a more thoughtful look.

"Definitely Tuvok," Janeway echoes. "But so help me: if you tell anyone I said that, even Harry- I'll keelhaul you myself."

"Rest at ease, ma'am," Tom smirks, spinning back around in his chair. "I'm sometimes a cheat. But never am I fink."

"And that," Janeway sighs, picking up her PADD again, "is something I have always respected about you, Mister Paris."