Paramount owns all. I'm just a lowly fan. Things That Go Bump In The Night Part One It had been one long, boring day in engineering. For once, everything seemed to be working exactly as it should. No power surges, no glitches, no gremlins. B'Elanna sighed. She almost wished that something would happen to stir up some excitement. Almost "Be careful what you wish for" wasn't just a line she used to throw certain lieutenants off their stride. It was a creed she had learned to live with. That and "Don't go looking for trouble. It'll find you soon enough". She sighed again. It was pretty bad when all she could do was sit around mouthing platitudes at herself. She searched for something else to think about and settled on a matter that she had been going over since dinner the night before. At first, she had been too surprised at Seven's joining them to notice Tom's reaction to being teased about being enclosed in small spaces. But Harry hadn't let the matter drop. He kept pestering Tom to tell the tale, and the more Harry pushed, the tighter Tom's mouth grew. Harry had finally taken the hint and changed the subject. Later, when they were alone, she asked Tom why it was such a big secret. He had taken a deep breath and told her in so many words to mind her own business. Instead of being offended as she would have been a few years earlier, she was intrigued. Whether he knew it or not, Voyager's pilot had just tossed down the gauntlet. And she was about to pick it up. Dangling tantalizingly in front of her was a puzzle to be solved. She licked at her lips and squirmed into a more comfortable position on her chair. B'Elanna loved to solve puzzles She remembered Tom's behavior in the conference room when the captain was explaining what was going to happen. He had been so uneasy. Then she'd thought it was just what the captain had said about Star Fleet officers not liking to give up control. That would be especially true in the case of Mr. Independent. But, looking back now, she realized that Tom's nervousness had gone beyond just a control issue. She had already been in the stasis chamber when Tom went under. In fact, Tom, Harry and the Captain had been the last to go. And from what Harry said, they practically had to knock Tom out to get him in the chamber. Followed by the fact that Seven said he had to be put back four times. FOUR. It wasn't unheard of for someone to come out of stasis like that, but not four times in a little over a month. What else did she know? He hated the Jeffries tubes. He did all right at the junctions, where you could stand and work, but crawling through the narrow tubes themselves always made him sweat. She had attributed that and his labored breathing to the physical stress of fitting his six foot three frame into a three foot tall space. Now she knew better. . Of course, Harry's comment about Tom being locked in dark closets as a child was ridiculous. Except for an overbearing, pompous ass of a father, he had a perfectly normal childhood. Unlike her own, his memories of growing up were uneventful and filled with laughter and love. At least the ones he had told her about. She smiled when she remembered a Tri-D vid he had shown her of him and his mother when he was about six. He was sitting on her lap as she held him in her arms. They were looking at the camera, laughing. Tom's mother was pretty. It was from her he had inherited those eyes. And that smile. But B'Elanna had paid more attention to the boy than to his parent. His hair was burnished yellow gold then, not the darker, near auburn shade it had turned as he grew older. But the eyes were the same. Bright, sparkling, filled with irrepressible mischief and joy. The eyes of a child before life took hold of him and stole some of that sparkle away. Wow! Where did that come from? Now was not the time to get all misty and sentimental thinking about Tom's misspent youth. She had a mystery to solve. Back to the subject at hand. It had to be more than claustrophobia. After all, Tom speelunked for pleasure, and a claustrophobic wouldn't be caught dead inside a cave. Of course, the couple of times she had been in a cave with him, he'd had more to worry about than feeling confined. She blushed a little as she remembered what had kept him occupied the last time they were underground together. She quickly turned her thoughts away from that incident. She still didn't like to think about being that far out of control. Ok. So he wasn't a full claustrophobic. Maybe just a half, or a quarter. If that was possible. So how could she find out what the deal was? She could cheat and look at his medical records and personnel file. As Chief Engineer she could gain access to those easily enough. But she tossed that idea aside before it even fully took shape. She had a feeling that there were things in those records that she wouldn't want to know. Ignorance is bliss. Another platitude. But also one that held true. Besides, that was too easy. No, she would have to get this information from the source. But how to go about it? Her nose wrinkled in concentration as she tapped her finger against her lip, unaware of the picture she made. Tom, watching her from the door, smiled to himself. He knew that look. She was up to something. But even plotting some devious scheme, she was still incredibly beautiful . He could stand there and watch her all day. Except he was expected back on the bridge soon, and he knew she wouldn't be happy if she realized he was staring at her like that. So he coughed slightly, drawing her out of her reverie. Startled to see the object of her thoughts standing before her, she jumped up, her hands fluttering nervously about. Tom almost laughed out loud. Yep! She was definitely up to something. She recovered enough to present a modicum of composure and smiled tentatively at him. He smiled back. She moved forward a little, just enough to invade his personal space, but not enough that they would appear to be fraternizing on duty. Janeway's dressing down of them for that still stung, and they went out of their way not to get too near when they were in public, whether they were on or off duty. Only alone, in one another's quarters, did they relax their self imposed 'no-touch' rules. His smile broadened. She was trying to distract him. He could feel the heat emanating from her. For a moment, he let himself be distracted as vivid images flooded his mind. Then he brought himself back to the here and now and tilted his head as he raised an eyebrow at her. "B'El, what are you thinking?" he asked, the tone of his voice telling her he suspected her of something, but wasn't sure what. Her smile broadened and his heart skipped a beat. Oh yeah, she was beautiful. Beautiful, brilliant and slightly demented. He had a feeling for his own sake he'd better get to the bottom of whatever she was scheming. Soon. "Nothing in particular. Just working on a...um...particularly intriguing problem. So are we still on for dinner tonight?" He watched her for a second before nodding his head. "Yeah. That's why I stopped by. Just to make sure. Your place, right?" She nodded back. "My place. 1830 hours." He glanced around to see if anyone was looking, and decided to chance it. Reaching out, he ran his finger down the side of her face, tracing a path across her lips. She shivered and drew a deep breath. Mistake. Big mistake. He was close enough that his scent was all she could smell. She swayed a little toward him. Then, realizing that they were headed down a very slippery slope, she quickly moved back at the same time that Tom abruptly turned to head out of engineering. "Tonight," he tossed over his shoulder. "Tonight," she answered. Then her eyes narrowed as she set about coming up with a plan. Part Two Three days later Tom was whistling tunelessly as he headed down the corridor toward the holodeck. He had a rare afternoon when he wasn't on duty on the bridge or in sick bay, and he planned to spend it with his second favorite baby. His good mood was buoyed by more than just getting to work on his car. His dinner with B'Elanna the other night had been wonderful. The only slightly sour note in the entire evening had been when she had pressed him once again to tell her why he was so claustrophobic. But she had backed down gracefully when he refused to answer. He had seen her several times since then, mostly in the course of their duties. Nothing in her demeanor caused him to worry. Whatever B'Elanna had been plotting was obviously not directed at him. She also didn't appear to be upset that he was blocking her out of some part of his life again. Yes, things were looking good. Calling up the program 'Greasemonkey', he entered the holodeck and went straight to the garage door. Holding his tool box in one hand, he pulled on the handle with his other, letting the weighted door flip up on its own. Then he froze. Where he had expected to see a gleaming black 1969 Chevy Camaro, there sat instead a...a...he searched his mind for the word. A Pinto. A lime green Pinto. At least he thought it was lime green. One of the doors was actually white, and the left front fender was a strange shade of puce. The rest of the car was so rusted that he could only assume that lime green had been its original color. The car listed ominously to the right. One headlight dangled from its socket, held in place only by the wiring. All four tires were bald. And the interior seat covers were...he squinted his eyes in disbelief....plaid! Instead of early sixties surfer music, the radio in the back was happily playing something called 'Sugar' by The Archies. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Then he slapped at his comm badge. "Torres!" he roared. B'Elanna was on duty in Engineering. Even though she had been expecting his call for more than a day, both she and Sue Nicoletti, who was standing next to her, jumped a foot when they heard him yell. Taking a second to regain her composure, she answered sweetly, "You bellowed?" "Torres, what the hell did you do to my car?" "Your car, Tom? Oh yes, the Camaro. Well, I just thought that maybe you were getting a little tired of working on the same old thing everyday, so I gave you something new to work on. Don't you like it?" "Like it? Like it? This is the worst looking piece of junk I've ever seen. Why the hell would you think I would like this?" "Well, Tom, it really is hard to read you sometimes. I mean, there are so many things about you I don't know. I tried my very best based on my limited knowledge." He snarled. So that was her game. This was her way of pushing him into telling her why he didn't like tight places. Well, by God, he was not going to give in. Not this time. "Give me back my car." his voice sounded odd and it took her a second to realize that he was talking through gritted teeth. "Well, if you insist. But you know, I'm not sure I recall the name of the program where I stored it. I remember tying it to something out of my past, you know, so it would be easier to remember. I'll tell you what. Since I've told you so much about my past, maybe you can go over some of it with me to help me remember. We should be able to figure it out in, oh, say two or three months. " "B'Elanna!" His voice was rising in decibels again. He crossed his arms against his chest and leaned heavily against the fender of the car, which promptly pulled loose with a hideous screech and clattered to the ground, taking him with it in a loud, clanging bang. One of the hubs caps fell off and rolled noisily across the room, spinning in a crazy little circle before it finally rocked to a halt. In Engineering, B'Elanna and Sue stared at each other. There was now nothing but silence on the other end of the comm. Finally, B'Elanna said tentatively, 'Tom?" "Yes?" "Are you all right?" "I'm fine, thank you. How are you?" he answered conversationally. B'Elanna's lips twitched. "What was that noise?" "Planned obsolescence in action." "Oh." Tom half lay, half sat on the floor. His upper body rested in the newly exposed and extremely rusted wheel well. His legs were sprawled out before him. On the radio, a new song was starting up. "Feelings, nothing more than feelings, whoa, whoa, whoa, feelings...." Wincing, Tom raised his eyes heavenward. Then, wearily, he said, "B'Elanna?" "Yes?" "You win." "I do?" "Yeah. When do you get off duty?" "In an hour." "Meet me at my quarters." "OK." Tom closed his eyes. It was his own fault. He knew how she was, and he had fallen in love with her anyway. Stubborn, pig-headed, irritating, adorable. He grinned. This one he had to give to her. She must have done some serious research to come up with all the right touches. He shook his head. A lime green Pinto for crying out loud. The maudlin music mercifully stopped in the middle of a plaintive 'whoa', to be replaced by the manic drum beat of the Venture's 'Wipe Out'. His eyes snapped open and he found himself leaning against a shiny chrome bumper. It was back! His lean, mean, testosterone machine. He jumped to his feet and ran a loving hand over the satin smooth paint. Sighing, he patted the car on the hood as he picked up his tool kit. Looking back, he said softly, "If you only knew what I'm about to do for you." Then the little boy grin was back on his face. He closed the garage door behind him and headed toward his quarters. Back in Engineering, Sue looked at B'Elanna. "If I were you, Chief, I'd go there armed tonight." B'Elanna smiled. "I was just thinking the same thing." Part Three B'Elanna did go armed, but not in the way Sue meant. Or, she thought to herself, maybe this was exactly the way Sue meant. She was wearing curve hugging pants, high heeled boots, and a leather vest that was left over from her Maquis days. The blouse she had on was full sleeved and low necked, lacing up tight under her breasts. She had woven a braid into her hair and been extra careful with her makeup. Three ensigns and two lieutenants had turned around to watch her as she passed them in the hall. At least one of them had practically run into the wall. Her confidence sufficiently bolstered, she rang the bell at Mr. Paris's quarter. The door slid open and she stepped cautiously forward. The lights were dimmed and she had to squint to adjust her eyes from the brighter lighting of the corridor. "Good evening, B'Elanna." For the second time that day, B'Elanna jumped. Tom had been standing just inside the door, and was now about a foot away from her. "A bit nervous, are we?" he asked as he moved past her to take a seat on the couch. "Why should I be nervous?" she asked with false bravado. "Why, indeed?" he answered. She bit at her lower lip. He was not going to make this easy. But then, she hadn't expected him to. Taking a deep breath, she decided to make the first move. "Are you angry?" Tom looked at her standing in the middle of his quarters looking like an obstinate little girl. Then his eyes widened as he finally took note of the outfit she was wearing and thought that he should change that to an obstinate little vixen. A sumptuous, provocative, obstinate little vixen. His lips twitched as he struggled to keep a blank expression on his face. But she knew him too well. Realizing that anger was the last thing on his mind at the moment, she stepped toward him. He jumped up, moving away as fast as his long legs would take him. "Oh no, Torres. You came here tonight to hear a story. And that's what's going to happen. You just park your gorgeous derriere on that chair and listen." B'Elanna complied, settling herself on the chair he indicated and looking at him expectantly. Tom carefully seated himself as far away from her as he could get and still be in the same room. She was just too bloody distracting. Especially wearing...he gulped...were those high heeled boots? B'Elanna, noting where his eyes had drifted, crossed her legs and began to swing her foot. Tom watched, mesmerized, as if it were a metronome. Finally, wrenching his gaze away with a sigh, he looked up and grinned wryly at her. "To begin, no, I'm not angry. I bow before you, humbled by a master. That Pinto was a stroke of genius. And the music. Oh Lord, the music." B'Elanna grinned back. "Thank you. It took me seven hours of research. I was up almost all night. Tom nodded. "I don't doubt it for a minute." He was quiet for a while and she waited patiently. It was never easy for Tom to talk about his past, any part of it, though she never understood why. Maybe growing up as a Fleet brat had something to do with it. Then she thought about her own reluctance to let people into her world, and she backed down. She had learned to be so open with Tom that she had forgotten how she had been before. Tom laughed, that nervous laugh he had, the one that said he was about to embark on something he really didn't want to get into. Then he smacked his lips together and began. "At first I didn't understand why it was so important to you to hear about this. I mean, it just isn't that big a deal. But then I thought about what you had said, about me shutting you out all the time and I think I understand. So you are about to hear a story about something that happened to me when I was fourteen years old. The incident hasn't been spoken of in all these years. My parents refused to talk about it and, well frankly I'd just as soon have forgotten it. Except for this stupid thing I have about narrow spaces that keeps reminding me. "Anyway, when I was fourteen, Dad was stationed on Lisareus II. He was acting as diplomatic envoy, attempting to settle some civil unrest that was threatening to escalate into full warfare among the citizens there. It was a pretty tricky situation and negotiations were dragging. "I was sent to the local school, but not because I needed to go. I had the usual tutoring programs from Fleet, and the truth was that I was miles ahead of the other kids there. But Dad thought it was best that I mingled with the natives, you know, to build up good will and stuff. Only, mostly all I built up was a lot of resentment. Because I was so far advanced in my studies, the other kids thought I was showing off all the time. And," he grinned ruefully at her, rubbing his hand along the side of his face, "maybe I was." He rose and went to the replicator, ordering them both an iced tea. Handing it to her, he took a sip from his own glass before continuing. "So I ended up spending a lot of time on my own. I explored as much of the outdoors as I could, which I really enjoyed. But, when we were in class, I couldn't get away like that. "Lunch time and study halls were the worst. No one would talk to me much, so I went to the library, took long walks around the school, did just about anything I could to keep from being bored. I think the only thing that kept me going was the fact that I knew this was just a temporary assignment and that we would be back home in California before too long. "As it turned out, the building where they held classes was one of the oldest on the planet. It had been built on and added to over the years so that it was more like a warren of rooms and hallways rather than an organized structure. I actually started to enjoy wandering around because it was kind of like spelunking, only indoors. There were hallways that led nowhere, rooms that were only two feet deep. Really weird stuff like that. "So, late one afternoon I was in the basement part of the school, poking around in an abandoned room, when I heard the sound of water running mingled with the sound of giggling girls." He glanced at B'Elanna and saw her mouth twist in a knowing smile. He gave her that same rueful grin and said defensively, "Aw, B'El, keep in mind I was fourteen years old, at the peak of puberty. Hormones were rampaging through my body. I was a boy obsessed. "Anyhow, I did some surveying and realized that on the other side of the wall was the girls' shower room. Heaven to a fourteen year old libido in hyper drive. I started looking around to see if there was anyway I could, well..." He blushed bright red and B'Elanna grinned. "Get a peak through the gates of heaven?" she offered. "Precisely," he answered dryly. "And I found the peep hole. Or at least I thought I had. There was a sort of crawlspace that ran alongside the lower edge of one wall. I don't know if it was meant to be some sort of ventilation shaft, or what its purpose was. But when I knelt down and looked inside, I saw a gleam of light shining through, so I thought it might be a register that opened onto the shower room. "I didn't even think about how narrow the space was. After all, I climbed through small places like that all the time when we were exploring caves. I just slipped my arms inside and started scooting my way in. About half way through, I saw that the walls were narrowing even more, so I squirmed harder, trying to force my way through. Finally, I gave up, realizing that there was no way I was going to fit." He took a deep breath and leaned back on the couch, his eyes closed, the glass of iced tea clutched tightly in his hand. B'Elanna watched him in concern. Fearing that he might actually break the glass if he continued to hold it like that, she started to rise. "Tom." Tom jerked up, almost spilling the tea. "No," he shouted. Startled B'Elanna stared at him. "I need to finish this," he spoke more softly. "It's important to you. And to me." He swallowed hard, his face taut. But he began talking again. "I tried to wiggle my way back out, but I learned fast that I couldn't budge. My hands were half trapped beneath me so that I couldn't use them for leverage. I struggled for what seemed like forever. Panic was setting in. It was so tight in there, and so hot. And it seemed like all the oxygen was gone, like my lungs had to labor for every breath. "Finally, the fear of dying there and never being found overcame the fear of what my Dad was going to do to me for getting caught like that. Just about the time I decided to yell for help, the light went out. And I realized I was all alone. "If I had been panicked before, I was terrified then. I began to scream for help, which of course just made my situation worse. I don't know how long I lay there screaming until my voice was too hoarse to scream anymore. I remember thinking how sad my mother would be because she would never know what had happened to me. Then I must have started to hallucinate. "At first it was just the sound of water dripping from the faucets in the shower room. And the smell of dry rot and mildew and all those other odors that permeate old buildings. Then I thought I heard scuffling sounds in the dark. My imagination went wild. I pictured huge rats coming through the crawlspace to start nibbling on my toes and face. I struggled frantically, but only succeeded in making the situation worse. "What made the whole thing even more nightmarish is that I had been going through this gothic thing in my choice of reading materials, and had just finished with the collected works of Poe, including "Premature Burial." Looking back now, I see just how surreal the whole thing was. But at the time..." he shook his head. B'Elanna realized that she had been holding her breath, and expelled it slowly. Tom noticed and smiled slightly. She was certainly getting what she had asked for. " I must have finally fallen asleep during the night, or passed out, because the next thing I remembered was seeing the light come on in the shower and hearing the girls talking. I tried to call out to them, but my throat was so hoarse from screaming the night before that it just came out as some eerie sounding croak. Eventually one of the girls heard the sound coming from the register. They all thought it was some kind of monster, and began doing some serious screaming of their own. "My father, Star Fleet security, and half of the civil police force had been out all night looking for me. The school knew that I had never come home the night before. It didn't take them long to figure out who was making the sounds coming from the register. "It took nearly five hours to get me out of there. They had to tear down part of the wall. By then, I was so glad to be alive that I didn't care what my dad did to me. For the most part I got off light. Because most of the adults thought that I had received punishment enough by being stuck all night, the school authorities didn't take any action against me. Some of the parents, especially those of the girls, were upset that there was a pervert loose in their midst, but for the most part, everyone except Dad let the matter drop. "He grounded me for three months, which at the time was no big deal since I didn't hang out with anyone anyway. Except he was transferred back home a week later, so the grounding nearly killed me. He never did say, but I assume Star Fleet transferred him because of that incident. I mean, it's tough to negotiate a peace treaty when the people you're sitting with are too busy smirking at you to listen to what you have to say." He turned toward her, and for the first time since he started his dialogue, looked her straight in the eyes. "So there you have it. The real reason I don't like to be confined in tight places. Satisfied?" She winced a little at his tone. Then she stuck her chin out defiantly. "Yes, though I don't see what the big deal was. I mean about telling the story, not about being trapped. That must have been awful." Tom sat silently for a minute, staring off into the distance. Finally he looked at her, his eyebrows raised in a look of surprise. "You know, I don't see what the big deal was, either. I actually feel better now that I've talked about it. I guess I held on to what I felt I was a kid without ever really thinking the thing through. I mean, back then I thought that I really must have been a pervert or something. Since my parents refused to talk about it, I thought that my wanting to look made me the worse kind of person in the world. "But now, looking at it through the eyes of an adult..." At her quirked eyebrow, he amended that, "more or less." She twisted her mouth in a smile. "Anyway, looking back, I see I was just a very bright kid with too much time on his hands." She moved toward the couch, sitting down next to him and lifting his arm around her. "Not much different than now." "Hey," he started to say. But she effectively silenced him the only way she knew how. And he decided that being a pervert wasn't such a bad thing after all.