"A Heart That Burns"
by Lauren E Taylor


"Send someone from security to check on B'Elanna!" Janeway's commanding
voice shouted out. 
"Captain, wait!" Tom called to her from his post, "I should go down. I
did take that one medical class, so, I might be able to help some." he
told her. 
"Agreed. Go." the captain told him. 
Tom jumped from his seat and ran to the turbolift. He'd seen the way the
doc had been acting earlier, and was extremely worried when he heard what
had happened. He still loved B'Elanna, and was worried about what the
doctor had done to her. He didn't even want to think about some of the
possibilities. "Deck six." he told the turbolift.
 *Why is this turbolift so slow?!* He couldn't beleive he'd just thought
that. God, this was killing him. He had no idea what would be waiting for
him when he walked into sickbay. The doors whooshed open, and he ran out.
                                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lt. Joshua Turner got to sickbay before Tom did. He gave B'Elanna a
hypospray, and then went into the doctor's office to see if he could find
anything to explain the doc's behaivior. Tom rushed in to see B'Elanna
trying to wake up.
"Turner, what happened to her?" Tom asked the young, dark-haired man.
"I'm not sure. I gave her a hypospray to wake her up, and you can ask
her. I don't know a thing about this stuff." Turner told him.
"Thanks." he said as he raced to her bedside.
B'Elanna blinked and looked around, groggily. There was someone staring
at her with a smile on their face. She blinked a few more times and
realized that it was Tom.
*Oh, god. Anyone but him.* she thought to herself. She hadn't talked to
Tom since the time in the turbolift, and she certainly didn't want this
time to be the next time she'd talk to him.
"How are you?" he asked her with a sympathetic smile on his face.
She sighed and told him all that had happened. While she did this, she
could see Tom's smile getting weaker and weaker. When she told him about
being paralyzed, his face turned to panic.
"Oh, god. Oh, god. I don't know how to fix this! I'm sorry. I wish there
was something I could do." he apologized, with tears welling up in his
turquoise eyes. 
"Tom, it's not your fault. Where's Kes?" she asked, feeling like she
already knew the answer.
"The doctor's taken her off the ship down to the surface." he explained
to her. 
B'Elanna tried to sit up, but fell back against the bed. Tom looked at
her and prayed that Kes would come back and help her. He never wanted to
see B'Elanna like this again, and he hated himself for not knowing what
to do.
                                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom was sitting in his quarters, trying to make a log entry about what
had happened. He'd heard that the doc had made it back, but he hadn't
heard a thing about B'Elanna. 
<ding, dong>
"Come in" he told the visitor.
B'Elanna walked in and gave a huge smile to Tom. He looked back at her,
and caught her gaze. He knew everything she wanted to say to him from
that one look. He could tell that things would never be the same between
them again.


Legal junk. Blah, blah, blah. My story. Blah, blah, blah. MY STORY. MY
STORY. MY STORY.