It actually took no time at all to get everybody up and out of there: once the captain was properly infuriated, all kinds of things could happen. Samtha was the only casualty, though the Doctor came close to being erased when he chirped, "Excellent job!" at the sight of her dissected body.

What to do occupied some hours of discussion. Examination of what computer logs they could decipher and of what parts of the building they could safely move through hinted at a disaster of global proportions sometime in the distant past. Something--one of those fabulous diseases that the Delta Quadrant seemed to specialize in, perhaps--befalling the population led them to create these monstrous automatic laboratories, kidnapping the crews of passing starships, to be analyzed, apparently in the hope that they held the key to an antidote. Poor Samtha had almost done in Chakotay: her biology, fed into the system, taught the computer that humans were now lab subjects, to be caught if they escaped, and to be held until a member of the planet's population came to take charge.

Which was where the cannibals came in. Descendants, it seemed, of the original builders. Survivors of the devastation, now living quite literally on the accidental bounty that arrived every few months.

A couple well-placed photon torpedoes changed their diet for good.

From his place on the bridge, Paris looked at the abandoned starships in their decaying orbits and thought about the crews, kidnapped and helpless under the knives of people more curious about how they tasted than about what they knew or thought or created. The damned arbitrariness of the universe was just breathtaking sometimes.

Yeah, he thought, like you didn't know that already.

It actually took no time at all to find out who'd done it; apparently, once Torres was properly pissed off, all kinds of things could happen. Later, Tom wasn't sure what set her off: Harry getting hurt--though she was right back to standoffish the instant he could leave sickbay--or one of her precious shuttles being damaged. Whatever it was, it inspired here: she tore right through every log, every sensor reading, and swept the others along like some gravitational tsunami.

By the time Tom woke and stumbled out of sickbay, the only possible suspect was in the brig.

Seska.

He didn't know if it was a surprise or not; he hadn't thought about her much except to note that she reeeeally didn't like him with Chakotay. The hate in her eyes was almost palpable when Tom found Chakotay and Janeway questioning her in the brig. Jealous. Chakotay's gaze at her was stony, but under it was a hint of absolute loathing. Another of his friends murdering among the crew; and this one turned out to have been trying to leave the remains of a nice little shuttle for her new friends, the Kazon, to pick over. Tom's death would have been a nice little bonus for her.

"You two are off duty," Janeway said firmly. She and Chakotay shared a glance: respect and sympathy and determination. In that instant, it was hard to believe that either had been ready to kill the other just a few months ago.

Tension just radiated from Chakotay as he and Tom went to Chakotay's quarters.

"How's Kim?" he asked.

"He'll be fine. If Torres bouncing off the walls in sickbay doesn't kill him."

Chakotay smiled. "She gets intense," he said. "When it's somebody she cares about, she--gets intense."

Chakotay got a little intense, himself, once they were at his quarters, bossing Tom into eating, into showering, into bed. Where he couldn't seem to leave Tom alone--touching, examining. It was like having a second physical.

"I'm okay," Tom protested. "Really!"

And the look Chakotay gave him then: half tenderness, half agony. Tom pulled him close; and ahgod, the rest of that sweet night....

He woke before Chakotay did and watched him sleep for a muzzy moment and then thought very clearly, Oh, shit--that was NOT supposed to happen. And what the hell was he supposed to do now? Tell Chakotay?

Then Chakotay's eyes opened, and they looked at each other for a long moment.

"When did I fall in love with you?" Chakotay asked conversationally.

Tom felt his heart skip a couple thousand beats. Okay, so the big lug got it in first. "Oh, I don't know," he said more lightly than he felt. "I just woke up one day, and there I was--head over heels in love. With you," he finished a little shakily.

A smile touched Chakotay's soft mouth. Tom grinned at him. If the computer hadn't reminded them at that exact second that they were due on duty in thirty minutes, who knows what would have happened?

As it was, as Tom dressed, behind him, Chakotay cleared his throat and said in a tiny, shaky voice, "So, you want to just move in here, or should we get married first?"

Tom swiveled his head around so fast his ears nearly flew off. Married? HIM?!?

It was a really great wake--everybody seemed to think so. Samtha probably would have enjoyed it: eulogizing her, everybody managed to forget the time she fried the newly refurbished antimatter reactant injector and the time she cracked the case on the antideuterium sublimator--which really shouldn't have been possible--and the dozen or so times she tried to attach the injector nozzles backward. Instead, they focused on the times she didn't screw things up; and Neelix told a really funny story about how she taught him to make trianon. He made it for the wake. It was a really good recipe.

Chakotay waylaid Paris when he went for his third piece of cake. "What you did," he said, "trading yourself for me with that cannibal--"

Paris felt his jaw tighten. "When an officer is in imminent danger of death, a subordinate is expected to take his place if it is at all feasible." And a Thanks, Tom! You saved my ass! wouldn't kill you.

Chakotay blinked. "Where is that in the regulations?"

It was in the Paris Code of Conduct, which he wasn't going to explicate.

"What I wanted to say," Chakotay went on, "was that it's the kind of thing I don't want you doing again."

Paris looked at him: Chakotay's eyes had the familiar disagree-with-me-and-die expression. So much for that little warm moment on the planet.

"Voyager needs all the good pilots she has, to get her home," Chakotay continued.

"And she needs her Commander more."

Chakotay's spine straightened at that; Paris thought, Here we go again. He braced himself for Dressing Down Number 92 on the subject of not arguing with a superior officer.

"The lieutenant's conclusion is correct." Tuvok's dry voice firmed Chakotay's jaw. "Your influence on Voyager clearly outweighs that of a single pilot, who can be replaced by anyone with sufficient skills."

Ah, gee, Tuvok; didn't know you cared.

Paris's dismay must have showed: Chakotay's mouth quirked. He leaned in. "Happy now, lieutenant?"

Oh, yeah. Paris watched Tuvok stride purposefully off. Thanks, Tuvok. Thanks a LOT. Every time Paris thought about it, trading his life for Chakotay's was an act of loyalty; in Tuvok's explanation, it was just Starfleet mathematics. Made Paris feel just peachy.

"And, Paris--" Chakotay's voice was steel; his eyes were stone. "--like I said, don't. Do it. Again."

It was a really great wedding--everybody seemed to think so. The captain looked proud and a little misty-eyed as she presided; Harry Kim practically smiled himself right in half. Torres was a little quiet, but she came around about the time the level in the punch bowl dropped halfway. Even Tuvok's right eyebrow hinted that he was having a reasonably good time.

Neelix outdid himself: the cake was gaudy and bizarre and just about inedible. Welcome to the Delta Quadrant wedding, Tom thought, trying to decide which of the little figures on top was supposed to be him and which was supposed to be Chakotay--or maybe they were both Neelix's impression of Starfleet Kazons. Tom wasn't really sure.

What he was sure about was that he had to be sick or something: clammy hands, and his stomach wasn't really doing that well, and breathing--something wrong with the oxygen mix. As the service progressed, he had the increasingly overwhelming sense that everything was closing in all around him. He grabbed Chakotay's hand at some point in the ceremony, and there was a ripple of amusement around him; but couldn't they all see how sick he was?

"Breathe, Tom," Chakotay murmured; and breathing helped a little.

After the ceremony, he started to feel a little better. The ring was uncomfortable, though: it was heavy and kept getting in his way, and he felt like he was about to clonk himself with it every time he raised his left hand. And time wasn't moving right: it kept surging forward and hanging back. Some sort of time distort. Temporal anomaly, or something, though nobody else seemed to notice.

Finally, he and Chakotay left the party under a barrage of confetti.

"This ritual once was believed to increase the fertility of the newly married couple," Tuvok said loudly to no one in particular, which indicated that maybe he'd been at the punch a little often. That he immediately pitched his handful of confetti into the side of Chakotay's face proved it.

They were going to be cleaning confetti out of the carpet for weeks, Tom realized when they got to their quarters. Every time he or Chakotay moved, it seemed to swirl around them like a little snowstorm.

"You want a shower?" Chakotay said.

By which he must have meant, "by yourself," because he didn't come in to share it, which was okay because Tom felt a lot better after those minutes by himself and that really hot shower. But his heart was jumping. It was stupid: he wasn't any damn virgin, especially not with Chakotay. This, though, was for keeps. And, boy, the guy reflected in the mirror looked really scared.

When Tom stepped into the bedroom, Chakotay was sitting on a corner of the bed, naked. He didn't look like the commander, sitting there; he didn't look like the arrogant Maquis captain. He just looked like a man, staring down at his wedding ring, about as uncertain as a guy could get.

Tom walked over, put his left hand on Chakotay's. For an moment, they stared down at the two rings.

Then Chakotay looked up at him, and Tom saw the smile come into his eyes. And he slid his hand down Chakotay's face; and bent; and kissed the sweet mouth; and Chakotay pulled him down onto the bed.

A wonderfully long time later, Chakotay laughed somewhere among the ravished sheets and drawled, "Well, no backing out now. We're officially consummated."

Tom laughed, too languid to move. "Yeah," he said; "they probably noticed that in the Alpha Quadrant."

That delicious laugh again; and Chakotay was pawing through the bedclothes, searching for him. The hand grabbed Tom's thigh, fingered it. Found his hand. Their rings clicked as their fingers intertwined.

A minute.

"Any regrets?" Tom asked.

A tightening of Chakotay's fingers; then he shifted and suddenly was grinning down at Tom.

"Just," he said, "that we didn't do this the day after I came aboard."