Disclaimer: Star Trek belongs to Paramount/CBS and no copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: Written for CaptAcorn who supplied the request - "A P/T story related to the episode Repression, from B'Elanna's POV. What does she think when Chakotay shoots Tom? Does she interact with Tom when she's brainwashed and what does she remember afterwards? Is the aftermath when Miral is conceived? I'd like this one to be canon-consistent, please. Any rating is fine!" Thanks, CA, for a great prompt.

And all the usual very grateful thanks to Delwin for beta services and general encouragement and also for coming up with the title because I couldn't think of one.

Awakenings

"B'Elanna? Would you come here a minute?"

B'Elanna turns around, sees Tom kneeling on the floor in the middle of their quarters. What the hell is he doing down there? She asks him just that, omitting the mild profanity. Tom smiles softly. And then B'Elanna sees what's in his right hand and she understands exactly what he's doing – he's trying to make light of what has hurt him the most in this whole sorry mess, something she should have rectified the minute they stepped back into their quarters. But she'd been preoccupied with shedding the layers of itchy wool and drab brown leather.

Swallowing hard, B'Elanna quirks an eyebrow. "I don't think you need to do that again."

"Humour me. Please?"

She can't refuse that smile. Still half-dressed, she moves to stand in front of him, offering her left hand. He clasps it with his own, squeezing gently. B'Elanna squeezes back.

"At least you didn't recycle it like all of your Starfleet uniforms."

At that she almost chokes.

They say the magic words, and he slips the ring back onto her finger where it belongs.

It's a dream: a bad one. Probably a result of the drugs the Doctor had administered hours earlier in order to run some neurological scans. B'Elanna has always found drug-induced dreams to be the most graphic and disturbing.

She isn't awake: she can't be. Her vision is hazy, but Chakotay would seem to have just walked into Sickbay and phasered Tom. And if that isn't the stuff of nightmares then B'Elanna doesn't know what is.

"Pagh'tem'far, b'tanay," Chakotay had said.

"I understand." The words had spilled out of B'Elanna's mouth unbidden. But the statement was false – she hadn't understood at all.

And then, in a heartbeat, it hits her. The meaning behind Chakotay's pronouncement. Her purpose. The plan and her part in it.

She fights her involuntary movements – she tries to, at least. But her legs are as unruly as her mouth. Climbing down from the biobed, she fixes her gaze on Chakotay. Her neck won't turn the way she wants it to. She needs to check on Tom again – is he breathing? Where on his body was he hit? In the one quick glance she'd taken it was impossible to tell.

But, competing for her consideration, is the overwhelming compulsion to follow Chakotay out of the Sickbay doors and not look back. To find a weapon, to link up with her comrades – her real comrades. She remembers now: she's Maquis, she's always been Maquis. How could she have forgotten that?

But Tom is her husband. She loves him. And her oldest friend and sometime mentor has attacked him in an act of sudden and unprovoked violence. A painful pressure builds behind her eyes. Every outlet for the rage that boils up within her is blocked. Her muscles are not her own.

"We need to move quickly," Chakotay insists, gesturing to the door with his phaser. "Jor and Yosa will meet us at weapons locker five-gamma."

Weapons – yes, she needs to arm herself. She'll lead a team to capture Engineering while Chakotay's group assaults the bridge. B'Elanna falls into step behind her captain.

No, Janeway is her captain not Chakotay. The Maquis and Starfleet are one crew – a Starfleet crew, united by a common goal, married together in the effort to return to the Alpha Quadrant.

Married…

Reaching the doors, B'Elanna finally asserts some control over her lower limbs, stopping in her tracks. With a further effort of will that sends electric shocks shooting through her temples, she succeeds in twisting her body around. Tom lies on his side on the floor between the biobeds. His chest rises and falls evenly.

Her relief is intense but short-lived. Chakotay grasps her arm, tugging her towards the corridor. The feel of his fingernails digging into her bicep convinces her that this is no dream. Strobe-like flashbacks intrude as she matches his stride: Tuvok approaching her in the cargo bay. B'Elanna yelling at him, raising her hands in self-defence. The Vulcan overpowering her, pressing his hand to her face, showing her the error of her ways and the truth she's been denying for years. A Bajoran voice: Vedek Teero, a visionary, devoted to the Maquis cause. The leader they should have been following all along.

They reach the weapons locker. Jor and Yosa are standing there, patiently waiting. Chakotay's command codes unlock the cache. He presses a phaser rifle into B'Elanna's hands.

This isn't a weapon she's used to handling on Voyager, but, nevertheless, it feels comfortable in her grip. Back in the DMZ she'd been a crack shot with the Starfleet type-3 phaser. The model had been difficult to acquire, but one of Teero's contacts had sourced a stolen shipment through a Ferengi trader. The vedek had supervised a target practice session with the new weapons, motivating the participants, B'Elanna included, with his tales of a battle with Cardassian militia on Bravosh III that had left twenty Bajoran children dead or missing.

Tabor and Jackson arrive.

"Remember," Chakotay says, "there's no need to use lethal force. Set your phasers to stun."

With everyone armed, B'Elanna and her team split off to take the turbolift to Engineering. Tabor is a good luck charm. She thinks back to the times they'd spent together on the Val Jean – to how its engine room would always avoid damage if Tabor was working beside her. Before Starfleet had chased the Maquis raider to its doom, condemning all souls aboard to death or a subservient exile under the sanctimonious Captain Janeway. Bendera was dead because of Janeway. Hogan too. Good men who'd deserved to die for more.

B'Elanna stumbles over her own boots as the lift doors open. Another after-effect of her treatment by the holographic doctor? She pushes on, regaining her poise but with a stiffness in her legs she can't shake off.

"When we get there, try not to damage any of the consoles," she tells her companions. "We don't want to have to make repairs. It'll slow us down."

It's going to be difficult enough to run a fully functioning Engineering department until Teero's instructions have been conveyed to every Maquis on board. But she knows she can do it. For the cause.

Had Tom Paris ever met Teero? He couldn't have: had he met Teero he'd never have gone running back to Starfleet. She wonders how she could ever have forgiven the pilot for his desertion. She can't recall what had subsequently attracted her to him and how they'd ended up married, but it feels important to try. Sure, Paris had been good – no, great – in bed (and in various other locations…), but there had to have been more to it than that. There had to have been a good reason for her to let her guard down with him in the first place, to share her body with a man who was, at best, a mercenary, and at worst...

The connection between the facts and emotions of these past events is increasingly blurred.

Somewhere between Deck Five and Deck Eleven she ceases to care.

She strips off her uniform, stuffing it into the replicator for disposal. Hanging at the back of her closet are her Maquis clothes – they've been gathering dust for six years. She puts them on, glad to find that they still fit perfectly. Then, she seizes her Starfleet dress uniform, her Starfleet excursion uniform, the Starfleet physical training uniform she's never actually worn, and a grey and white flight suit. Those are bundled into the replicator too, the uniforms first and then the flight suit separately afterwards. It's typical of Starfleet – so much unnecessary excess. Returning to the bathroom to stand in front of the mirror, she nods, satisfied with her reflection.

As for her quarters, they'll need a thorough clearing out after the Starfleet crew have been put off the ship and the Maquis have time to attend to such matters. Paris's lamps will be the first items destined for disposal. And that antiquated toaster – so pointless when there's a fully functional replicator system.

"Computer," she orders. "Increase room temperature by three degrees."

There'll be no need to make compromises on comfort any longer. If she wants to sleep in the temperature equivalent of a 'Bolian sauna' then she'll damn well do so. Who's going to complain? The stuffed targ on the bed?

"Take ten minutes," Chakotay had told her when she'd last reported to him on the bridge. "Ditch that uniform, get something to eat and get back here."

All the Starfleet crew and those Maquis who are still under Starfleet's spell are safely secured in quarters or in the brig. The small group of liberated Maquis have the run of the ship.

After replicating a strong black coffee and a couple of large slices of pepperoni pizza, B'Elanna slumps down onto the sofa under the window. She's ravenous, her stomachs unsated for the past thirty-two hours. Eating quickly is not a problem.

There's a clink of metal against the ceramic dinner plate. The simple gold band on her left ring finger. It had slipped her notice. It has to go.

She tugs at the ring. Her fingers must have swollen in the heat, but, with persistence, she wriggles the ring free and places it on the arm of the sofa.

A couple of minutes later, she recycles her empty plate and coffee mug before exiting her quarters.

Ayala approaches B'Elanna at the bridge's engineering console where she's trying to reroute the auxiliary deflector controls, a should-be-simple task that is proving difficult and frustrating.

"Paris wants to see you."

"Me?" she asks, glancing up.

Ayala nods. "Says it's urgent."

"Can you find out what he wants?"

"I tried. He won't tell me. 'Medical confidentiality' or some such."

Her console bleeps a warning. B'Elanna swivels back to examine the display. "Shit. Look, Mike, I don't have time for this. It's probably just some trick to–"

"You should speak with him," Chakotay calls over from the captain's chair. "Paris was monitoring you when I stunned him. It's possible he does have something important to share."

"But I feel fine."

Chakotay shoots her a look that says he's not going to concede on this point. "See what he wants. Just in case. I need you at your best. We're not exactly overrun with able hands right now."

If her 'best' was so concerning, then perhaps Chakotay should have checked on her condition before deactivating the EMH and rendering the medic attending her unconscious. She beckons for Yosa, currently lingering behind Jor at the conn, to take over at her station. Turning back to Ayala, she asks, "So, where did Chell put him?"

"One of the empty geoscience labs next to Sickbay. Lab Four."

She takes Jackson with her to Deck Six, sending him into the lab first with his phaser drawn.

"Hey, Jackson," she hears Paris say. "Was the Ritz fully booked? Or does Chell just really hate me? I could use a drink, you know. Water would do."

So he's in that kind of mood.

Stepping through the door behind Jackson, B'Elanna notes that Paris is seated on the floor with his back to the wall at the rear of the windowless lab. The floor is his only option for sitting: the room is empty – literally empty – but for Paris and a shiny metal bucket that occupies one corner.

Paris scrambles to his feet and addresses her urgently by name. The conditions of his incarceration do bother her somewhat. But she quickly recalls why Paris can't be moved to the more cosy environment of his quarters. Their quarters. No. Her quarters.

"B'Elanna," Paris repeats. "It's me. Tom."

She quirks an eyebrow. "I know who you are. Paris."

He flinches, his brow knitting into a frown. "But not who you are?"

"I'm Maquis. I've always been Maquis." It feels like the most logical answer.

"Listen to me," Paris says. "Tuvok mind-melded with you. You're being controlled by some kind of … programming." He takes a step forwards. Jackson mirrors the move, prompting Paris to pause and raise his hands in the universal gesture of 'don't shoot'.

Controlled? Programming? B'Elanna has never felt more sure of herself, as confident in her own judgement. The nagging self-doubts that have plagued her through the years have fallen silent. She's where she should be, doing what she needs to be doing. "I was told you had something to say to me. Something important. So get on with it."

"This is important."

"What? Your Starfleet lies?"

"I'm not lying." Paris gestures to Jackson whilst keeping his unsettling blue eyes firmly locked on B'Elanna. "Can we speak alone?"

Some instinct tells her that would be a very bad idea. "Whatever you have to say to me, you can say it in front of Jackson," she counters.

"What are you afraid of? I'm unarmed. And I'll stay back here against the wall. I promise." He shuffles backwards to slouch against the wall in question.

"He's trying to manipulate you," Jackson cuts in.

Paris shakes his head. "It's not me that's doing the manipulating."

Jackson scoffs at that. "He doesn't have anything important to say. He's a piece of shit traitor. That's what he is."

B'Elanna's knee-jerk reaction to this assertion – a powerful impulse to punch her Maquis comrade in the face – surprises her. "Wait outside," she snaps at Jackson. "I didn't ask for your opinion."

"But–"

"Out. Now! I don't need you in here."

With a shrug, Jackson plods out of the lab, leaving B'Elanna alone with Tom Paris.

She should draw her weapon.

She doesn't.

The pilot stares at her for an indeterminately long moment, chewing on his lip. Then, "Come with me to Sickbay," he suggests. "Let me run some more tests. I can prove that something's wrong."

B'Elanna binds her arms across her chest, rattled by the way she'd turned on Jackson. "I'm not going anywhere with you. I'm perfectly fine."

She should shut this conversation down. She's the one in control here, not Jackson nor Paris.

Drawing himself up to his full height, Paris moves a cautious foot forwards. "You most certainly are not fine." So much for that promise to keep away from her.

B'Elanna retreats a pace, one hand moving to rest upon the phaser at her hip. Sighing, Paris gives ground and shows her his palms once again. "So, what's the plan?" he asks, impatience creeping into his tone. "Chakotay can't keep over one hundred people locked up indefinitely on this ship."

"We don't need to. We've found a suitable M-class planet for your relocation. The Starfleet crew will be put off the ship when we arrive."

There is fear in Paris's eyes now, all traces of the levity – forced or otherwise – he'd initially used with Jackson have vanished. "You can't be serious."

"We'll leave you with food, medicine, power units, tools–"

"We just got married, B'Elanna. Ten days ago. Don't you remember?"

Ignoring the question, she falls back on the comforting litany of, "I'm Maquis. I've always been Maquis."

"You're my wife. I'm your husband." Paris fingers the ring on his left hand demonstrably, swallowing hard as he stares at her own unadorned and currently clenched left fist.

"We… we had some fun together." Embarrassing but true.

Paris brightens. "Yes."

"But it's over now." She no longer needs such distractions.

"No, it isn't," Paris says. Try as he might to stay calm, he's losing patience again. "You can fight this. I know you're still in there. The real you."

"This is the real me," she insists, jabbing at her sternum with a finger so hard that it hurts. "And… and the real me doesn't love you just like you don't love me. You found me fascinating – you said so yourself. That's all it was."

That shuts him up. He gapes at her, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. But then he rallies again. "Remember when the Hirogen made us think we were fighting the Nazis in World War Two France? And when that alien pitcher plant fooled us into thinking we'd found a wormhole back to Earth? Those situations felt real to us at the time – but they weren't." Paris pauses, then, with an even more pained look, continues with, "You know what happened to most of the Maquis in the Alpha Quadrant. You've known since Chakotay got that letter."

Does Paris think reminding her of that last fact will win her over to his way of thinking? If so, then he couldn't be more wrong. Inhaling deeply to force down the sudden onset of nausea, she replies, "As long as we exist, so does the rebellion."

She will not be swayed from her purpose. This is a holy time – a time of awakening. Why is she even still here listening to this man? She's indulged him long enough.

But still, it takes the bleep of her combadge and a summons from Chakotay to finally stir her into action.

"I'll be right there," she replies over the comm, then, to Paris says, "We're done," in a tone that should brook no argument. She backs up to the door, turns when she hears it hiss open behind her.

Paris's protests echo in her wake.

Tuvok's fingers close around her head like a vice. B'Elanna kicks out towards her assailant's shins and tries to wrench herself free of his grasp, but her strength is already waning as the heat from those tightening fingers intensifies. In a couple of rapid heartbeats, it's all she can do to suck air in and out of her lungs. Her legs have collapsed from beneath her. Heavy eyelids won't stay open. Fire storms into her brain through her temples, her cheekbones, her jaw.

She hears the discharge of a phaser. A return blast. Someone – Jor? – crying out. The thud of a body landing hard. Tuvok chanting, "My mind to your mind." A more distant Chakotay imploring Mike Ayala to trust him: it will all make sense very soon. All the sounds around her diminishing in volume and decreasing in pitch as her awareness turns inwards, the pressure of Tuvok's fingertips on her skin becoming her only link with the external world.

For what feels like a lifetime. Buried emotions are painfully exhumed. Broken links made whole. Knots untangled. Teero's truth debunked.

When B'Elanna's eyes snap open, it's Chakotay's face that stares down at her. She's slouched in his chair – the first officer's chair. Rubbing at her rheumy eyes, she lets him help her to her feet, her mind still processing through the onslaught of revelations. Tuvok is tending to Ayala at Ops, the tall human blinking his way back to the same true wakefulness. Jor lies unconscious behind the conn, Chakotay's jacket placed beneath her head as a makeshift pillow.

Tom.

A cold rush of guilt, shame, and self-loathing steals B'Elanna's breath away. She shoves Chakotay's hand from her shoulder, stumbles up to the raised rear area of the bridge, her balance improving as she closes on the turbolift.

"B'Elanna. Where are you going?" Chakotay demands.

"Where do you think?" she fires back.

"Do you want a drink?" Releasing B'Elanna's hands, Tom rises stiffly from his kneeling position and motions to the replicator. "Or some dinner?" He's been fussing like this – paying excessive attention to B'Elanna's basic needs – since the minute she liberated him from his makeshift prison in the geoscience lab.

B'Elanna shakes her head, moving across to the bed and proceeding to undress further. "What I want most right now is a long, hot sonic shower." She feels grimier today than she had after her return from that filthy Malon freighter and fears she'll still feel unclean even after the maxed out sonic pulse vibrations have thoroughly cleansed her skin.

Tom isn't his most well-groomed or fragrant self either. He steps away from the replicator with a steaming mug in hand and sinks down onto the sofa beneath the window. "Ugh, it's good to rest my butt on a soft surface."

"I'm so sorry," B'Elanna tells him. Again. "For everything."

"It wasn't your fault." It's a phrase Tom's had on repeat for the last few hours: through the retaking of the ship and the debriefings that had followed. For all he says it – for all B'Elanna knows that she's as much a victim in this as he is – she feels no less guilty. Having never been accused of lacking a strong will, why hadn't she been able to resist Teero's programming?

"Don't," Tom chides, and B'Elanna wonders how long she's been standing there beside the bed, staring miserably into space, with one arm in and one arm out of her tank top. "Don't keep torturing yourself. It's over. And we're all still here, safe and well."

But things could have – and very nearly had – turned out very differently. She could have lost him, and the life they've built together, and the future they hope for.

"You could join me." She hesitates then clarifies, "In the shower, I mean. If you like." They've never been one of those inseparable couples who are joined at the hip, but, at this moment, however irrational it may be, she'd feel a lot better not letting Tom out of her sight, even if she's only in the next room.

Tom hasn't yet declined such an invitation, and he doesn't turn down this one. B'Elanna hasn't had time to activate the shower controls before he strides through the bathroom door to join her in the cubicle. When his hands slide speculatively around her waist, she hums her approval and leans in to rest her head against his chest.

They don't speak as the acoustic inverter powers up and the sonic pulses get to work on refreshing their bodies. But, after several minutes pass wordlessly, Tom clears his throat. "Do you remember everything that happened? Or just what you told the Captain in the briefing room?"

B'Elanna had kept to essentials during the debriefing, omitting the more personal details of the conversation she'd had with Tom in the geoscience lab. "I remember it all," she murmurs, the soothing effects of the last few minutes undone by his questions. "Everything I did and every word I said. But I really wish I didn't – and I really wish you didn't either." Tom's response is to hug her tighter. "It was like I was accessing all my memories through some kind of lens. And the emotions that went with those memories were all distorted by it. But I couldn't see that until Tuvok brought me back to reality."

"How the hell was this Teero guy able to hack into a secure Starfleet datastream in the first place?"

"Probably the same way he hijacked a starship: mind control."

"Worrying, isn't it?"

"Very."

Especially given that Voyager won't be able to inform Starfleet Command of Teero's actions until next month's communications window opens. Tuvok's report will urge Starfleet to issue an arrest warrant for Teero. But thirty days is a long time for that Bajoran petaQ to wreak more havoc in the Federation or to flee beyond Starfleet's jurisdiction.

With reluctance, B'Elanna shifts in Tom's arms, turning around and shuffling forwards a bit to ensure that the sonic pulses get full access to every patch of sweat and grunge on both of them. Disinclined himself to break their contact, Tom rests his palms on her shoulders, his thumbs pressing into the knotted muscles at the base of her neck, melting away some of the tension there.

"I was thinking I'd suggest a movie night for all the crew," he says. "It would bring people together without anyone having to make much effort to be sociable if they're not in the mood for conversation. We could run the movie theatre program instead of Sandrine's for a few hours in Holodeck One."

"Good idea." B'Elanna snorts a laugh. "As long as you don't plan on showing Mutiny on the Bounty."

"I could make it a double feature. Maybe start with The Beast with a Million Eyes and move on to Attack of the Lobster People or… oh, how about The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent?"

B'Elanna rolls her eyes. "Please. That last one can't be a real movie."

"Sure it is. Even I wouldn't make up something so crazy. It's a genuine 1957 classic."

"Uh huh." Though she has to admit – to herself, not to Tom – that if one swapped out 'Viking' for 'Warrior' it could be the name of a Klingon romance novel… "Is there a movie called The Holographic Doctor Invents an Inoculation Against All Types of Mind Control? That's something I'd like to see."

"Yeah. Me too." Tom chuckles, but B'Elanna knows that he knows she's not entirely joking.

"This kind of thing happens to us way too often. Memory tampering, brainwashing – this had better be the last time." She sighs. "And I guess we'll have to wait a couple of weeks until we can get the holodeck to ourselves again."

"Unfortunately," Tom agrees. "But," and he manoeuvres her around to face him again, "in the meantime, we can smooch just as well on the sofa in front of the TV."

"'Smooch?'" It sounds like one of Neelix's desserts.

"That's what they used to call it in the 1950s. This. In the back row at the movies." He lowers his head to kiss her, somewhat more passionately than B'Elanna would assume to have been socially acceptable in a mid-twentieth century movie theatre, even with the lights turned down low. Not that she's objecting.

"It's a lot easier without those ridiculous 3D lenses getting in the way," she quips, when they finally pause for breath.

"But they look so good on you," Tom banters back.

B'Elanna deactivates the sonic shower. She can tell Tom is suffering with the heat, putting up with the temperature for her benefit: she's starting to feel a bit lightheaded herself.

And it hits her again how she'd very nearly lost all this – she'd nearly lost him.

It's as if Tom can read her thoughts. "Hey," he says, as she's leading him back into the main room, "whether it's mind control or … subspace sinkholes … or the Borg, we always find each other. We always will."

They've beaten some long odds to get this far, that's for sure. But does each unlikely victory over catastrophe bring them closer to the time when their luck will run out? Or is each victory added evidence that they can always overcome whatever fate throws at them? She wants to believe it's the latter.

Reaching the bed, she pulls back the covers and climbs in, scooting aside to give Tom room to nestle in beside her. For now, neither of them is going anywhere, and B'Elanna intends to take full advantage of that.