Lifted

"[Stella Adler] used to say to me, "Darling, you know you're going to have many men; you're going to have many men and you're going to be up and
you're going to be down; you're going to be rich and you're going to be poor, and you're going to fuck and you're not going to fuck, and you're going to
laugh and you're not going to laugh. And I'm going to tell you one thing, and I'm going to tell you straight. Only the work will lift you up." And she
was right. Only the work has lifted me up. . . So I'm blessed and cursed at the same time. More blessed."

-Kate Mulgrew

Chapter 1: Basic math

As crushing as it is when they have to use fatal force to subdue Tuvok and so the alien entity that posses him, more torturous for the crew is the painful two-day process of incorporating Chakotay's consciousness back into his body.

All of the Doctor's efforts culminate in a prone form that has no brain activity, kept alive by artificial means.

The Doctor folds his arms in front of himself, effected despite the mere photons he's made of, and goes into his office while B'Elanna sits next to Chakotay's body.

"He wouldn't want to be like this," B'Elanna whispers, several minutes after Janeway enters but stands silent. Staring at the motionless form that will never again animate.

"I know," the Captain agrees solemnly. "We'll honor him. His spirit."

. . . . .

Tom disappears shortly after the funeral services, slipping from the side of Harry's contemplative silence to the quiet of his own quarters.

Despite his differences with Chakotay, he respected the Commander as well as Tuvok. He feels, too, for the former Maquis, their raw pain evident as Janeway spoke solemnly of her fallen First Officer's compassion, his courage.

More heartbreaking than her eulogy of Chakotay, however, was the way she stood silently next to Tuvok's coffin. Her eyes filled with tears she wouldn't shed in public.

He'd thought about going to her after that. Standing beside her as a show of support or maybe placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, the way she's done any number of times in their months out here. But he didn't. Too selfish- too cowardly- to push through the fears that suddenly circled him, standing there in the cargo bay. Unable to contain the panic that caused him to quit Harry's side as soon as he was able, hiding away in his quarters.

Whatever Paris' academic shortcomings in the Academy, he is more than able to count to four. He's the next in line.

When his door chimes several hours later, he's deep in thought in his living room, his uniform jacket and boots discarded beside a chair.

"Come," he says softly, watching as the light streaks past his viewport.

He's surprised when he realizes that it's the Captain rather than Harry, but he stands the moment he sees her. She waves off his formality with a dismissive gesture. A small movement, but one whose inelegant execution manages to reveal the depth of her exhaustion.

He offers her a seat, but after that isn't sure what to say to her, this woman who has now lost two officers on top of the dozens she did when they were ripped for the Alpha Quadrant; who only hours earlier shot into space her friend of more than ten years.

"Can I get you some coffee?" he asks, his face more open than usual.

"Yes. . . Coffee would be. . . nice."

When he hands her the mug she wraps both of her hands around it but doesn't take a sip. Looking at its contents as though it's a nebula she's deciding whether or not to map .

He wondered, hoped, that when she first walked in she'd come to tell him that she was passing him over. Kim and Torres are already senior staff, but neither are options she would consider for First Officer. Still, there's Ayala, who on top of being a Lieutenant was Chakotay's second in command before Voyager.

Sitting across from her, he can tell that she isn't here explain why she's passing him over. And while a small part of him feels some sense of relief that she trusts him more than he might have thought, the rest of him is frozen with panic.

"They aren't going to trust me," he says, after they've sat a few minutes in complete silence.

"You've already begun to earn their trust. You'll earn the rest of it still."

She means what she's saying, but the fact that she won't look at him reveals her own misgivings. He tries to push away his own selfish concerns, even if with great difficulty.

"I could drag you down. . . If they don't trust your First Officer, it could take its toil on your command. Morale."

She pauses for a moment, sipping her coffee before finally meeting his eyes.

"Are you declining?"

"No," he says, hanging his head. "I'm just making sure you've considered all of your options. . . You could ask Ayala."

"It would look like I was skipping over you in favor of having a token Maquis."

"Ayala would hardly be a token. He has command experience. A hell of lot more than me."

She leans back in her chair, casting her eyes around the room before settling on him again.

"I don't trust him the way I do you," she confesses. "Which isn't to say that I distrust him. . . I just don't know him the way I already know you."

He nods, flooding with understanding.

Ayala is like Chakotay in his deep sense of honor and commitment, but unlike Chakotay, Ayala's characteristic silence has likely left Janeway with misgivings. He sympathizes. Despite his time with the man in the Maquis, Tom doesn't even know where he stands with the somber security officer. Most days, Tom doesn't want to know.

"So what now?" he asks, at some point later.

"You'll need to get up to speed on personnel and ship administration. Ensign Baytart will take over as Chief Conn Officer."

"I'm still the best pilot you have," he cautions.

It's a statement that reveals his own sense of loss more than his doubt in Baytart. He's only just gotten a ship to fly and he's being ripped away from the helm.

"I'm sure we could find time to work the ship's First Officer into the rotation now and again."

She smiles as she says it, but the amusement doesn't make it up to her eyes. She's still shielding him as an officer and he doesn't think to stop her. It's a routine that will be harder for her to break than him.

He nods slowly, and she eventually rises, setting down the coffee mug.

"We'll talk tomorrow morning. Come to my ready room when you report for your shift."

"Captain," he says hesitantly, stopping her just before she reaches his door. "Are you sure you don't want to take a day?"

She looks at him searchingly, her face betraying nothing at first. After a few beats, her expression softens.

"We'll talk tomorrow morning," she repeats, but before she turns to go she adds, "thanks for the coffee, Tom."

. . . . .

When she finds Tom in the mess hall in the wee hours of the morning, he's bleary eyed and working through a stack of PADDs.

"How long have you been here?" she asks, taking note of his rumpled appearance.

"What hour is it? No, what day is it?"

She chuckles as he rubs his eyes with his hands, the trace of a rueful smile appearing on his face.

After three months, they're still figuring out most of their working relationship. But the levity in private- this was the first thing to come.

"It's after 02:00," she says, slipping into a seat across from him. "You should sleep at some point."

"It's 02:00?" he asks with surprise. "I stayed here after dinner. . . Didn't realize five hours had gone by."

"You went to dinner at 19:00," she informs him, "so you've been at it for six hours, at least."

He only shrugs, getting up to fill his coffee and grabbing her a cup as well.

"If you can't do basic math anymore, you should probably pack it in. I can't imagine B'Elanna's engineering report will resonate at this point."

She hides her smirk behind the mug he hands her, and he pulls a face at her mention of B'Elanna's engineering report.

"I saved it for last," he confesses. Realizing now this was a mistake.

"Always read the engineering report first," she says firmly, a rueful expression on her face.

She won't comment out loud (yet) on how unnecessarily dense Torres' reports are. But it's something that initially took Tom by surprise, having expected the fiery engineer to be as lively in writing as she is in person.

When he realized how mistaken he was, he started shuffling the engineering report to the bottom. His feeling of accomplishment often coupled with one of dread, as he worked his way down the pile.

"Now you tell me," he drawls presently, propping his tired head up with his arms. "Three months in."

"Well I can't tell you everything, Lieutenant," she teases, her face the picture of innocence.

The matter of his rank was one of some discussion between them. She felt the promotion should come with a change in title, but Tom's profound discomfort with the idea had stopped her in her tracks.

It's one thing to be lifted in position, taking the second chair out of necessity, in Tuvok and Chakotay's absence. But it's another altogether for him to feel like he's climbing the rank ladder by using their corpses as a step stool. He is, without a doubt, still tied down by the memory of three other dead officers; the guilt and self-loathing that has remained with him long after his official punishment ended.

"I would be happy with knowing half of everything," he retorts.

He's somewhat joking, but he's also being honest about how overwhelmed he is. He knows he's too young and inexperienced to be the First Office of a starship, and sometimes he finds himself clinging to his chair on the bridge like it's about to buck him off.

Still, he's tried to bury himself in the work, learning about departments whose functioning he was previously unfamiliar with. Figuring out, with painstaking slowness, how to create a duty roster than doesn't send the department heads into a tizzy. Especially Torres.

"You're doing well," she assures him, touching his arm briefly. "Much better than I would be doing in your situation."

The dry chuckle he lets out as he buries his face in his hands is both self-deprecating and skeptical.

"I so doubt that," he says, still laughing. "I mean is there anything you aren't good at?"

Only a few months early the question would be paired with a mischievous look or maybe a saucy tone. But sitting across from her now, he feels the weight of his position bearing down on him. His inappropriate brand of humor, however often it still manifests, is now of more consequence.

"Tom, a galaxy-class starship couldn't contain all the things I've failed at," she says, honestly.

"Name one."

"Sleeping through the night."

He chuckles again, this time without the dryness.

"I don't think that counts," he points out.

"No?" she asks, raising an eyebrow. "Well, you try to remember that sentiment when you're sitting next to me tomorrow for a nine-hour shift."

Eventually they both still, and Janeway looks at Paris softly.

"The rest is going to come," she assures him. "So much of it already has."

He looks at her with contemplation, running his finger around the rim of his cup.

"Do you think. . . there will ever be a day when I'm the one assuring you, instead of the other way around?"

She smiles, tilting her head to the side.

"Yes," she confirms softly, "and I imagine it will come sooner than I would like."

. . . . .

When Tom enters the mess hall for lunch, he feels the same wave of dread he always feels in this situation. He used to eat with Harry, and still mostly does, but his relationship with the Ensign has slipped more toward awkward than comfortable. He finds Harry forcing a laugh even when he doesn't think a joke is funny. Or else, when Tom makes an offer-color joke, looking on with more horror than usual.

"Relax, Harry. It's just me," he'd laughed uneasily, two months earlier.

Kim had nodded and smiled, but there was something about the way he looked at Tom afterward that made it clear he hadn't really heard him.

Now, looking at the mess hall, it would be a relief to find Harry's uneasy smile waiting for him.

The room isn't very crowded, though Torres and two engineers are at one table in the center, while Ayala and a few former Maquis sit off in a corner. The latter group seems to look through him and the Chief Engineer openly bristles.

Only the day before, he and B'Elanna had their first out and out argument since he became First Officer. To Tom's relief, it took place in engineering rather than in a briefing, but news of it quickly traveled all the way up to Deck One.

"I know she's not making it easy on you, but the two of you have to figure this out," the Captain warned later that day, sitting in her ready room. He'd only managed to nod in response.

Unlike Harry, B'Elanna hasn't walked on eggshells around him, and it's something he's found oddly comforting, everyone else on the ship seeming to be a bit too kind of him, or else more disdainful than before. A kind of understanding having been reached with the half-Klingon, however silently, after their experience in Vadiian captivity, B'Elanna occasionally snarling at him in her usual way is something Tom found a relief. Initially.

But at the end of the day, Torres is still Torres. And she resents the hell out of the fact that he's now giving her orders. When he vetoed something that she'd proposed yesterday, she finally exploded.

Looking back at the altercation, Tom realizes that a good portion of it was his fault. He hadn't voiced his thoughts in a diplomatic way and, worse, he shot B'Elanna down in front of her staff. A year earlier, she probably would have punched him.

Settling at an empty table by himself, he feels grateful that he thought to bring a PADD with him. He'll look less pathetic with work in hand.

When Janeway strides in ten minutes after Paris, it doesn't take her long to spot her First Officer sitting by himself. The sight pulls at her. She's keenly aware of how lonely the number one can be.

"Working through lunch?" she asks casually, sitting down beside him.

He only looks at her out of a sense of decorum. A sense that has eluded him much of his life, but now looms ominously before him.

"Something like that," he responds, going back to his work. "What are you doing down here- the Doctor threaten you with more vitamin supplements?"

"No," she retorts, putting weight behind the one word. "I just. . . "

He meets her eyes when her voice trails off, and she realizes she doesn't want to lie to him. Not when he's sitting alone at a table, looking at her with an open face.

"Had to get off the bridge," she finishes, her voice low.

"Strange that it sometimes feels like a prison," he notes.

She observes the slight bitterness that comes with the statement, disappearing shortly afterward.

"The furniture is a little more comfortable than most prisons'," she observes, trying to lighten the mood.

"True." He pauses, looking at his tray. "But back in Auckland we didn't have Neelix's cooking."

She begins to laugh, the smattering of crew present in the room starting to watch them when a smile appears on their Captain's face.

"At least we get to boss people around?" she quips.

"That part doesn't seem to be going well for me."

As the smile slips from his face she hesitates, throwing a glance at the engineer who now studiously avoids looking at them.

"Have you talked to Lieutenant Torres yet?"

He knows she's asking a question she already knows the answer to, and so he makes her wait as he picks at his tray.

"Not yet. . . I'm going to give her a few days to cool off. She won't accept an apology if I go to her with it now."

"She shouted at you in public," she warns. "I don't know how much of an apology you should give her as her CO."

In a certain sense, she's right. But Tom isn't one to lean too heavily on protocol and they both that isn't going to change.

"I handled the conversation inappropriately," he admits. "Tempers flared because of that. I'll go to her with an apology, then the conversation can go from there."

She looks at him with obvious doubt and he looks back at her with confidence. He knows B'Elanna better than she does, after all.

"Trust me," he says, taking a sip of his beverage.

She nods, allowing her worry to abate slightly.