Chapter Text
=/\=
Tom is deeply asleep the first time it happens.
He usually sleeps well, but tonight something penetrates his consciousness. He moves into REM sleep, his mind conjuring disjointed images. He's on the bridge. The captain stands next to him. There's danger ahead - a large, pulsating star appears to grow rapidly as they fight its gravity well. He needs to break Voyager free, or they're dead. He can't get his hands to work the panel. 'Lieutenant!' she shouts, and she’s clearly as tense as he is. His fingers won't move properly. He can't control them. She grips his shoulder, hard. 'Lieutenant!' The pulsar fills the viewscreen. 'Tom!'
He wakes, sweat sheened and trembling. She shakes his shoulder.
"Tom!"
"What?" Confusion. "What's going on?"
He looks around. He's in his bed. In his quarters. Captain Janeway is gripping his shoulder, waking him from his nightmare. She's in his bed, too. She's not in uniform. Her hair is down. It tumbles over her bare shoulder, a fine satin strap the only other cover.
He settles into consciousness. But still he can’t make sense of his situation, as if he’s skipped to the end of a chapter of his life.
"Captain?" He asks, voice saturated with bemusement.
"It's okay, Tom, it's me."
"What are you doing here?" He doesn't mean to sound rude.
"I don't know," she says quietly, and he notices the worry on her face. "I just woke up here. At first I thought I was in my own bed, and you, somehow, had got in with me."
"Captain, I would never-" she cuts him off with a simple hand gesture.
"I know, Tom. When I called for lights, I realised I was in someone else's quarters. And I saw you, asleep beside me."
"How did you get here? Have you been sleepwalking?" He sits up, mirroring her posture. Now he's properly awake, it seems oddly intimate to stay lying down. He tries to preserve his modesty using the covers. She's wearing a satin gown, and he is treated to the view of it covering her back, the bumps of her spine visible through the slinky fabric. He, on the other hand, went to bed naked.
"I have no idea. I'll ask ops and tactical to check for anomalies. If nothing shows up, I'll ask the Doctor to check me in the morning. But right now, I'm going back to bed." She climbs out of the covers, and Tom gets the full view of her night attire. At least she's wearing something.
"You can't walk the corridors dressed like that!" he blurts. She turns to face him and he starts to wonder if he's still dreaming.
"I don't intend to, Mr. Paris." And she calls for a site-to-site transport back to her quarters.
Tom tries to get back to sleep.
~
He hears the sound in his sleep. He's only dozing. He wakes easily.
"What the hell?" Janeway is back in his bed.
He rolls to face her, staring. "What time is it?" he asks.
"Computer, time?" she calls to the disembodied processor.
"The time is 0423 hours."
"Nearly half past four," she says, seemingly to herself. "That's just over two hours since it happened last time."
"Did you find out anything to indicate the cause? Did anything show up on those scans?" he asks, wondering if he is going to get any unbroken sleep tonight.
"No. Nothing at all. I'm sorry, Tom, I don't know what's going on. But I can't say I like falling asleep in one bed and waking in another. It's disconcerting."
"So, you're going to let the Doc check you over tomorrow?" he prompts.
"I guess so. Meanwhile…" she gets out of his bed again, flashes him an apologetic smile, and transports back to her quarters.
~
The third time he wakes immediately. So does she.
"Computer, time!" she calls, a mix of panic and frustration in her voice.
"The time is 0456 hours."
"What happened after you transported back last time?"
She rolls to face him. "I contacted ops and tactical, and asked them to check again. I also asked for a security sweep. I got into bed and waited for them to report back. They each did within a few minutes, with nothing to report. I tried to get back to sleep. I must have succeeded. Then I woke up here."
"Any theories? A practical joke?" He gestures to the air, as if the answer might be within reach.
"No one would be that stupid, surely? Not unless they want to get out and walk home." Her brow creases as she searches her mind for answers, for possible culprits.
"So, what shall we do?"
She runs a hand over her face. "I have no idea. I think I'm unlikely to get back to sleep now. I'll get an early start on alpha shift. Try to find something, somewhere, that might clear this mystery up."
"Sounds like a plan," he offers. She was talking to him as a captain to her lieutenant. But they were lying in his bed, and this felt too much like pillow talk. He pulled his half of the cover up around his bare shoulders.
"Have a lie-in, Tom. If you can." For the third time in one night she climbs out of his bed. "Maybe by the time you get to the bridge, I'll have some answers." And the transporter beam takes her. Tom is undisturbed for the rest of the night.
=/\=
Tom flops into bed at the end of an exhausting day. At first he had simply stripped his uniform off, washed, and pulled back the covers. But the memory of the previous night gives him pause for thought. He goes to the closet and finds a t-shirt and shorts and pulls them on. Just in case.
He lies down and reviews the day's frustrations. They've run every scan they can think of. On the ship. On the surrounding space. On Tom, on Janeway. Nothing. Nada. Bupkis. Not one scintilla of data that might lead to a hypothesis. So the next question has become: will this happen again?
He's roused from sleep by the answer, lying next to him in her peach nightgown, a fist thumping the mattress in frustration.
She throws the covers back and gets to her feet.
"Where are you going?" he asks, confused and concerned.
"I'm going to put a stop to this!" she snaps, face like thunder.
He wants to argue. That they don't know what this is. That they have literally no information about what's happening or why. That she can't hope to stop what she has no chance of understanding. But he doesn't. He knows it's pointless.
=/\=
By day three, Tom isn't sure what to do for the best. They are no nearer either an understanding or a solution. Janeway is increasingly frustrated, and increasingly exhausted. The two states feed off each other and she is eaten up by them. He dresses for bed, and sometime after he nods off, he wakes to find her exiting his bed, curses flying. She leaves without speaking to him.
=/\=
It's Janeway's fourth disrupted night. They've been through everything and they only have one consistent fact to work with. It only happens when she's asleep.
So far it's only happened when Tom's asleep, too, but they don't know if that's a necessary condition.
She suggests staying awake. Tom looks at her drawn cheeks, and the dark shadows under her eyes and dissuades her. It's not sustainable, he argues. She'll end up confined to sick bay. She relents, and Tuvok tries to placate her with the offer of an impenetrable force field around her quarters and guards posted on the door. No one will be able to disturb her. Nothing will be able to transport in or out.
~
"I don't believe this!"
He hears her frustrated curse in the dark.
"You're making a habit of this," he says, sleepily.
"This can't keep happening, Tom. I'm beat. You must be too. We can't function with an exhausted captain and an exhausted pilot."
"So sleep," he murmurs, dozily.
"What? Here?"
"Of course here. Seems we can't escape this mystery phenomenon. We both need sleep. Let's sleep."
He closes his eyes, hearing the rustle of sheets as she tosses and turns, feeling her weight shift on the mattress besides him. He wants to reach out. To place a reassuring hand on her. To help still and settle her; as reassurance that, weird though it is, this is okay. Of course, he shouldn't cross that line. And, of course, he does.
Tom reaches out in the dark until his fingers brush satin. He hears her suck in a breath, feels the strained position in which she holds her body.
"Shhhh," he whispers, a soothing white noise.
His palm rests on her midriff. It's not stroking. Not seeking. Just reassuring. Simple contact to communicate peace. Rest. Reassurance that it's alright to relax, like he is.
Her tension melts away under his hand. She accepts the current situation, the loss of control. She makes the best of it. And the best of it, right now, is a good night's sleep.
=/\=
On the fifth night she lands next to him again. This time she doesn't even wake.
=/\=