**************************************************** Disclaimer time once again!   Fifty-first verse same as the first . . everybody *sing*: I don't own these characters, (chorus) Paramount does! I don't own this venue, (chorus) Paramount does! I am making no money off of this, (chorus) Paramount does not either! This story will eventually involve sex between two men, aka: slash.  If that is *not* your cup of tea, sweet as it is, then don't read it! (simple, ain't it??) Feedback is *very* much appreciated, and always answered. Flames will be passed around to friends and chuckled over.  :) Yes, another series.   'Ssst' by Amirin **************************************************** How the hell did I get talked into external maintenance?  I've gone over it time after time in my head and I still don't know. I hate this.  I know it's necessary, but I hate it.  Being outside the ship in an EVA suit, damn, it's like I'm the only person in the universe.  I *really* hate this. It's a one-man job, though. No help for it.     Voyager is beautiful out here, I gotta admit.  The lights, the faint thrum on the hull as I'm working on the relays.  It's like it's my ship, all mine. Nice to have something that's mine and mine, alone. I've got to quit this, I'm just depressing the hell out of myself, again. So, B'Elanna and I didn't work out.  She needed an engineer, she found one, she dumped me, life goes on.  Big deal.   So, Harry and I didn't work out, either.  So the hell what? So, he started chasing after Seven, again.  So, she let him catch her. So, I lost my best friend. That's what. Chakotay and the Captain are perfectly happy, good for them.  B'Elanna and Vorik are happy, good for them.  Harry and Seven are happy, good for fucking them.   And my universe consists right now of relays and junctions and couplings. Good for fucking me.   Being tethered to Voyager is almost like being in the womb again, not that I remember it.  The energy comes from 'mother', sustaining my life, everything, through the umbilical cord.  A lot alike, the two.  A lot of differences, I know, I know.  Like, I don't recall stars in my mother's womb.  That would explain a lot about me, though, wouldn't it?  And it's cold out here; my fingers are already feeling it. Two more to go.  Hell, I can't find the problem with these damned things. Although it figures that B'Elanna would send *me* out here, doesn't it? Part of me wonders if she's mad enough at me to bring the engines back online.  One slight 'ssst' and no more Thomas Eugene Paris. Or, flip the power switch on the tether and watch me slowly suffocate.  I'd be dead before I could get back into the ship. Not very pleasant, my thoughts, are they? "One more to go," I murmur and damn-it-all if B'Elanna's voice doesn't come over the comm-link. "What was that, Tom?  Speak up." "Nothing, Lieutenant," I answer back with soft resignation. Damned if I'm going to call her by name.  It really pisses her off, too.  But, it's easier that way.  Only two people on this whole damned ship I don't refer to by rank, the Doc and Neelix.  Seven has become a nod.  I don't talk to her at *all* unless I have to.  I even call Harry 'Ensign' and he just looks at me with that . . . damned . . . *look* of his when I do it, too. He won't call me anything but 'Tom', though.  He refuses to.  So be it. "Tom, I'm getting some odd readings on that last relay.  Are you there, yet?" "Getting there," I mutter. I know her voice wasn't harsh and judgemental, but I hear it that way, regardless, these days. I'm suddenly distracted by the alarm chirping.  "I'm getting a power surge, Lieutenant, where the *hell* is it coming from?!" I know I sound suspicious and angry.  I am.  The readings are heading off the scale, I can hear her yelling across Engineering to 'cut everything, and I mean *NOW*, dammit' and it occurs to me that I'm in serious . . . **********************end