A YEAR IN THE LIFE Part One: May By: Lauren Taylor ^525,600 minutes 525,000 moments so dear 525,600 minutes How do you measure Measure a year^ B'Elanna sat on the couch in Captain Janeway's ready room, nervously holding a cup of tea. She kept her eyes out the window on the planet where Tom most likely was. The crew had shore leave for four days on a planet called Hyga, which was inhabited by very friendly aliens, and beautiful mountainous settings. She was supposed to meet Tom down there, and had ended up being a bit late, due to a problem in engineering that held her up for about half an hour. When she got to the spot where they were meeting, however, he was gone. He wasn't anywhere in the market place, or on Voyager. She had contacted him, but got no reply. For the past three hours, Captain Janeway had been trying to track him down. They seemed to be getting close, but still hadn't found anything certain. "We have your Ensign Paris in our holding facility." a voice said from her monitor. B'Elanna jumped up, but stayed where she was by the couch when the Captain signaled her to stop. "Why is he in a holding facility?" Janeway asked harshly. "He was caught aiding a criminal that was being persued." the man answered, "Captain, his punishment has already been given, and we do not need him anymore. You may have him back, if you like." "Oh, I think we'd like to have him back." she replied. "What kind of punishment did you give him?" B'Elanna demanded as she stormed over to the Captain's desk. "An injection of a chemical. It will not do any harm to him until one year from now." the man explained. "And then?" B'Elanna asked. "The chemical will kill him." he answered, "Would you like us to beam him to your ship?" he asked. Captain Janeway just nodded, and ended the transmission. She then contacted the transporter room and ordered the operator to beam Tom to sickbay when he arrived. "Don't worry, B'Elanna." Janeway reassured her as she stood up and placed a hand on her shoulder, "We'll find a way to fight this." * "Tom?" B'Elanna whispered when she made it to his bedside. He was unconscious, looking as peaceful as if he were just sleeping in his own quarters. She wondered to herself if he even knew what they'd done to him. "Can you wake him?" Janeway asked. The Doctor, having just left his office after learning what had happened, picked up a hypospray from a shelf nearby, and pressed it into Tom's neck. B'Elanna took his hand, and noticed a red mark, looking like a prick from a needle, just below his elbow, showing clearly thanks to the short-sleeved shirt he'd been wearing. He blinked his eyes a few times, and then suddenly opened them wide. He dropped B'Elanna hand quickly, and sat up alarmed, looking around the room in fear. B'Elanna placed her hand on his shoulder, and laid him back down soothingly. "Tom, do you know what happened?" she asked him after he had calmed down. He just nodded, all while taking deep breaths in order to relax. "What did they take you in for?" Janeway asked. "There was a woman who ran to me, carrying a baby. She- she told me that they were going to take the baby away from her, and that... that she needed to hide. I helped her into the woods, and we hid in some overgrown bushes. We were found, and then I was transported to some sort of hospital room, and some people who I guess were police officers explained to me that the woman had kidnapped the baby in the market place, and I was helping a kidnapper escape." he said. His breaths were becoming rapid, and it was clearly taking an emotional toll on him to recall this. "Then..." he started again, "then they took out this syringe, and injected something in me. It made me lose consciousness, and, when I woke up, I was in a different room, strapped down to a bed, and then someone explained to me what the injection was for. I got a little angry, and they knocked me out. Then I woke up here." His eyes were closed now, and he was still taking deep, breaths. B'Elanna took his hand once more, and he squeezed back. "Mr. Paris, I'm going to need to run a few tests on you, to see if we can possibly rid your body of this chemical." the Doctor informed him. He just nodded, and opened his eyes to see what the Doctor would be doing. The Doctor disappeared into one of the storage rooms, and Tom sat up as soon as he left. "B'Elanna, why did this happen?" he whispered. "We're going to get you through this, Tom. I won't let anything happen to you." she whispered back. "Don't let me die." he pleaded. The Doctor entered before she could answer. She didn't even know what to answer, she had no way to prevent his death, if it happened. B'Elanna slowly took away her hand from his, and the Doctor placed a device that fit over the bed, looked like a tricorder situated between two poles that hooked to either side of the bed. "Now, please, just relax and this will take a quick chemical scan of you." the Doctor explained to him. Tom closed his eyes and took in deep breaths, seeming a bit more calmed than he had been before. B'Elanna moved over to the Doctor's examination station to see the results. She couldn't make much of the medical jargon appearing on the screen, but she was really just using this as an excuse to leave Tom for a few moments. It scared her to death the way he was acting. Sure, he'd been faced with death many times, probably more than some crewmembers on this ship combined. But this was the first time that he'd been told he was going to die, and even had a date of the occurance. Today, according to the old Earth calendar, was May 10th. The time it happened on the Hyga homeworld was about early evening. One year from that exact time. His epitaph was carved in stone. B'Elanna was praying for a miracle. The Doctor's face, however, showed otherwise. He gave B'Elanna a devastated look, and then walked to Tom's bedside. She followed after him quietly. "Tom. I was able to detect the chemical. It's one I can't even identify, which means that we have no way of getting it out of your body safely, and that is if we can even do that at all." he explained. "So I should just wait around and see what happens in a year?" Tom replied sarcastically. "Tom..." B'Elanna whispered as she sat down beside him and wrapped her arm in his. He jerked it away immediatly. "Let go of me. I just... I just want to be alone." he informed them. He jumped off of the bed, and headed out of sickbay. * It had been over a week, and B'Elanna hadn't seen Tom. He refused to leave his quarters, and refused to let anyone in. She hated what this was doing to him. She always worried that he was hiding his emotions at times, but this wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind. She turned away from the padds where she'd been filing a few engineering reports, and stared out the window at her reflection. She then noticed the monitor next to her, and it gave her an idea. "Compose message for Ensign Tom Paris." she began. "Tom. I know this is hard on you. It's hard on all of us. But it will be a lot easier if you'll come and talk to someone. I can't even begin to know what you're going through, but I can help you come to terms with. I want you to know that I love you, no matter what they did to you. I'd love you if they decided you were going to die tomorrow, I'd love you if they had killed you right then. I will always love you, Tom. But the way I'm seeing this is that we have an entire year together, and I'm not about to let you waste those 365 days hiding out in your quarters. Please, Tom. I need you." "Message sent." the computer confirmed. *I just hope this works* she pleaded. * The next day, B'Elanna still hadn't heard back from him, although a check had confirmed that he'd received the message. She instead tried to distract herself from what was happening, and concentrated on the ship. Engineering seemed to be the only place where she wasn't getting constant questions about Tom. She didn't even go to the mess hall or to the holodeck anymore, too many people there wanted to see how she was doing. She noticed a minor fluxuation in one of the plasma injectors, and began repairing it. She heard faint murmers of shock coming from near the doorway to engineering, but chose to ignore them. It was most likely the staff telling the latest gossip they'd overheard in the mess hall. "B'Elanna." she heard from behind her. She hardly paid attention to the voice, and didn't turn away from her work. "What is it?" she asked, hinting that she was busy and didn't have time to deal with some supposed "engineering crisis". "Would you mind turning around?" the voice asked. A wave of shock overwhelmed her as she realized who the voice belonged to. With a surprised smile on her face, she turned to face Tom. He looked exactly the same, especially good for someone who hadn't left his quarters in the past ten days. He was wearing the same outfit he'd worn on their first date, a pair of khaki pants and a navy blue button-down shirt. He had that cocky smile that drove her nuts, but yet, she always fell for, and his eyes were full of passion. "What is this about?" she asked, laughing over the thrill of seeing him. "I got your message, and after hours and hours of thinking about it, I realize that you're right. We still have... well... at this point, 355 days together, and I'm not about to waste a minute of them." he told her. She saw that, all around them, the engineering staff was watching them, but acting as if they were working. When she turned back to Tom, he was down on one knee, and holding out a black velvet box. He opened the box to reveal a silver ring with a diamond in the middle, and two tiny emeralds on either side. "Marry me, B'Elanna. Make this last year of my life the best year of my life." he asked her. She knelt down on the floor facing him, and kissed him. As they kissed, he placed the ring on her finger. TO BE CONTINUED Please give me comments! I love them! Either to fiddleritw@aol.com or to neverneverland47@yahoo.com Paramount owns all, except my storyline. The song (which will be used through this entire series) is from the Broadway musical "Rent", and is called "Seasons of Love".