What seems like from out of nowhere, Ensign Vorik, who is finishing up work with B'Elanna in Engineering to coordinate a team to mine some galacite from a once-inhabited planet below, suddenly declares the Vulcan's equivalent of a marriage proposal to her. B'Elanna stares at him in shock, but Vorik goes on to explain the logic behind their union. His Vulcan control and discipline will complement her Klingon temper and tendency to outburst. B'Elanna carefully says, "I can see that you've given this a lot of thought, but my answer is no." Vorik, almost beginning to sound desperate, even goes as far to mention that his Vulcan strength is likely to be one of the few species that can possibly withstand Klingon mating. That does it for B'Elanna, and she flat out turns him down again. Then Vorik grabs her face in his hands, initiating what looks like some kind of mind meld. B'Elanna manages to force herself free, and gives Vorik a solid punch in the jaw, bringing him down to the floor.
The Doctor determines that his jaw is broken, but that there is a more serious condition afflicting him. B'Elanna is curious, but the Doctor claims doctor-patient confidentiality. After she leaves, Vorik confirms that he is going through the pon farr, a biological change that occurs every seven years in Vulcans that drive them to take a mate. Obviously a very personal matter for Vorik and all Vulcans, he refuses treatment and demands that he resolve the matter on his own with meditation.
Meanwhile, B'Elanna goes on with the mining plans, which now exclude Vorik but includes Tom and Neelix for their rock-climbing experience. As they prepare to beam down, there is a certain energy in B'Elanna that Tom notices. Is it just that she's excited about the away mission?
On the planet, they don't get a few feet down the steep ravine when Neelix's rope gives way and he falls, taking B'Elanna down with him. She lands without serious injury, but Neelix believes his legs are broken. Nonetheless, B'Elanna is furious and takes it out on Neelix that he could have gotten them both killed. Tom tries to calm her down, but she refuses to and insists that she go on into the caves by herself, and when Tom tries to stop her, she bites him hard on the cheek and hurries off.
Tom stays with Neelix to wait for help from Voyager, but when Tuvok and Chakotay beam down, they also bring with them the knowledge of what is going on with Vorik and that the mindmeld that he'd attempted possibly caused a chemical imbalance in B'Elanna, involuntarily turning on her Klingon mating instincts. They need to find her and bring her back to Voyager. When they catch up with her, she has found where the galacite is. She is almost ecstatic to see Tom and takes him by both hands (which slightly confuses Tom) to show him the source of galacite. She is practically gushing over the fact that the galacite is in what looks like artificial conduits. Tuvok and Chakotay ask her how she is feeling, and she brushes them off quickly with an, "I'm fine."
Then out of nowhere, a group of camouflaged aliens appear and demand for an explanation why they are on their territory. Chakotay explain that they didn't detect life forms and are explorers mining for galacite. The inhabitants, the Sakaari, play twenty questions with them, but Chakotay assure them that they have no violent intentions. They point out that B'Elanna does. The aliens accept the explanation that her emotions are fueled by a chemical imbalance, and also warn them of seismic activity in the caves. One of the aliens jumps down from a ledge to lead B'Elanna away from an unstable wall, but she reacts violently and wrestles him for his weapon. She manages to defeat him, but when she looks back at him, she and Tom notice that everyone except them have disappeared, perhaps behind a wall or a hidden passageway.
Tom pulls out his tricorder and says that he doesn't detect anything like that. B'Elanna snatches the tricorder away from him and snaps, "Then you're using it wrong." Irritated, Tom grabs the tricorder back and says, "Yeah, that must be it." He addresses their situation. "Or else these aliens are generating some kind of interference so we can't detect them. We have to get out of here before they come back."
At this point, B'Elanna suddenly looks very exhausted. She peels off the top of her uniform, leaving only her gray tank top underneath. "We can't just leave Chakotay and Tuvok."
Tom, still reacting from the anger she provoked in him earlier, snaps, "If you have any ideas on how to find them, I'm listening!" He sees B'Elanna having a hard time getting grip on emotions, and softens a bit. "We have to get back to the ship and get some help. For them, and for you."
B'Elanna turns confused. "Why does everybody keep saying there's something wrong with me?"
"I'll try to explain it to you, but we've got to get moving."
Meanwhile, on Voyager, the Doctor proposes an alternative treatment for Vorik, one involving the Holodeck. Vorik, possibly getting desperate because his meditation hasn't helped much, sees the Doctor's logic.
Back in the caves, Tom explains Tuvok's theory on her chemical imbalance influencing her behavior, but she doesn't buy it. Tom practically laughs. "How about starting a fight with a group of armed aliens? Shouting at Neelix? Giving me this?" He points to the deep bite wounds on his cheek. "If I remember my Klingon customs, biting someone on the face means --" B'Elanna cuts him off, very much not wanting to hear him finish the thought. "I know what it means."
She stops walking for a moment and slumps against a wall. "All right," she says, relenting a little, "so maybe I do feel something, some kind of instinct. What am I supposed to do about it?"
"When we get back to the ship, the doctor should be able to help." Tom smiles a bit. "Or there's always Vorik ..."
B'Elanna refuses to even consider that for a moment. "I am not helping that Vulcan p'tahk! The idea of bonding with him ... it's ludicrous!" They continue on through the caves, until they come to a wall of crumbled rocks blocking the passage. "What's this?"
"The tremor must have shaken the rocks loose," Tom says. B'Elanna raises the weapon she's been carrying. "Well, they're in the way." Tom grabs the end of the weapon and pushes her aim out of alignment. "Hold it! We don't know how stable this tunnel is. An energy blast might bring the rest of it down on our heads."
B'Elanna tries to pull the weapon free from his grasp. "Let go!" Tom refuses to. "No, I think I should be keeping this."
B'Elanna's eyes grow threatening. "Never pick a fight with a Klingon."
"I'm not going to fight with you, B'Elanna," he says, though he stands his ground.
"Afraid I'll break your arm? You should be," she rasps. Tom manages to wrestle the weapon from her grasp and throws it to the ground. B'Elanna draws her hand back to punch him one, but Tom grabs her wrist and blocks it cold. He pulls her inches from his face and yells, "B'Elanna, stop it! This isn't about the gun, this is about sex. But that's not going to happen right now."
Tom must be well enough versed in Klingon customs to know that her agression is practically foreplay. And it's clear from previous episodes that he has a thing for B'Elanna, but, as difficult it is for him to not be turned on by her sudden sexual desire, he has to be the one with the cool head right now.
But B'Elanna's far from having a cool head. In fact, she's letting those Klingon instinct take over, and, in a lower voice, she disagrees with Tom. "I think it is." Rather roughly, she turns his head to the side, and presses her face against where she'd bitten him earlier. "I've picked up your scent, Tom. I've tasted your blood."
Tom pushes her away gently. "No. No, I'm your friend. And I have to watch out for you when your judgement's been impaired. If you let these instincts take over now, you'll hate yourself, and me too for taking advantage of you." This is damned hard for Tom to say, but he makes himself clear. "I won't do that."
His words finally makes B'Elanna aware of what's happening to her. "Maybe ... maybe we should continue separately." In her condition? "No," Tom says.
B'Elanna's words come out with a great deal of effort. "You don't know how strong ... how hard it is ... to fight this ... urge."
"Are you telling me I'm impossible to resist?" Tom asks, trying to keep the laughter from his voice. B'Elanna glares at him, saying, "I wouldn't go that far." Tom is glad to hear it. "Good." He tosses her backback to her and they continue on through the caves.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the network of caves, the Sakari continue grilling Tuvok and Chakotay about their presence and their technology. Eventually, they agree to let them take some galacite in exchange for some of the technology that caused them to detect that galacite in the first place, so they can install more defenses to avoid future detection. At that moment, a seismic activity alarm goes off.
Back to where Tom and B'Elanna are, the walls come crumbling down, and they barely get through it without getting knocked out. B'Elanna suggests that they use the weapon now that they are trapped and have nothing else to lose. Tom shrugs a bit. "I might agree with you if I still had it. It's buried somewhere under all that." He points to the newly formed wall of rubble.
B'Elanna doesn't believe it. "What?!"
"Sorry," he says. He watches as B'Elanna leans her arms and head against a wall in desperation. "Try to stay calm," he tells her. "I know it's hard."
"No!" She turns around and sinks to a crouched position on the floor. Tom kneels in front of her. "You don't know anything," she says. "I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin. I need to do something. I can't take this!" At that moment, she throws her body on top of Tom's, but he rolls her to her back and stands up.
B'Elanna practically starts to laugh. "You've never been hard to get, Tom."
"Well, I'm making an exception. I can't let you do this." He backs away from her advances.
"Oh, but you wish you could." She sneers at him. "All those invitations to dinner. And on the holodeck, the way you would stare at me, when you thought I wasn't looking. And get jealous when I'm with someone else." She backs him against a wall, pinning his wrists with her hands. "You can't tell me you're not interested in me."
Tom stares back at her. "You're right. I can't." B'Elanna pounds her fists into the rock above his shoulders. "Then don't push me away!"
"Oh, believe me, I'd like to. But I also know this isn't really you. You've made it clear that you're not interested, and I have to accept that's how you feel. Even now." Those words sting her sharply, and she looks down for a moment, almost embarrassed. She shakes her head. "No. No, it isn't. I was -- I was just afraid to admit it." Her face inches closer to his. "You see, I've wanted this for so long," she whispers. Their lips meet for a brief second. "Just let it happen."
She moves her lips to his again, but he turns his head away, an almost pained look fleeting across his face. B'Elanna isn't discouraged though, for she tries again and their lips meet, leading to a longer, very delicate kiss. Tom backs her gently to the opposite wall, and tenderly and deeply kisses her again before pulling away, caressing her jawline with his fingers. With his face still only an inch away, he says softly, "I hope someday you'll say that to me and mean it."
For a few seconds, B'Elanna looks him in the eyess, her expression registering nothing. Then she explodes, violently pushing him away. "You'd rather let me go insane rather than help me?!" she demands, looking as if she is about to break down again.
"You know that's not true," Tom says, and watches as she backs away and crawls up onto a rock, curling her legs to her chest. "You just ... stay away from me," she begs of him. Tom's face registers the pain in her voice and the helplessness he feels.
Back on Voyager, it appears that the Doctor's Holodeck idea worked for Vorik, and makes plans to program the Klingon version for B'Elanna (though I can't imagine B'Elanna wanting to go through with it that way), but little does he know that time in running out for her. Her condition is worsening, and while Tom works to dig their way out of their confinement, B'Elanna lays, passing in and out of consciousness. She wakes up, confused about being the caves. "The caves," she mumbles. "The galacite. Where's my tricorder?" She fumbles around, looking for it, but Tom stops her.
"No, we're not looking for the galacite anymore. We're trying to get back to the ship, remember?" B'Elanna stares at him and shakes her head, even more confused. "No, I don't." Just then, rocks behind them begin to fall, but this time, not from seismic activity. From a hole, Chakotay peers through and asks if they are all right. Tom says B'Elanna needs help, pronto.
But when they get out, they find themselves cut off from the ship's communications and Tuvok expresses his concern that B'Elanna's condition is worsening too quickly to risk waiting for Voyager to repair whatever is wrong. "You must help her now, Mr. Paris. If she does not resolve the pon farr, she will die."
With that, he and Chakotay leave Tom to consider the best way to approach this very awkward situation. With a bit of hesitation, he kneels in front of a very miserable-looking B'Elanna, who sits on a rock with her face buried in her knees. "B'Elanna, I know this is a pretty bizarre situation, probably not either one of us had in mind, but it's too late to worry about that now."
B'Elanna looks up, and places her fingers over his mouth. "Tom ..."
"What?" he mutters. She places index fingers to her lips in a hushing motion. "Be quiet," she says, and she grabs his hand and leads him into the forest. There, B'Elanna engages in the more physical type of foreplay, kissing him on his wrist, his shoulder, the bite wound, all over. Tom, though, just stands there, looking rather confused. "So, this is the part where you throw heavy objects at me?" B'Elanna spares a second to say, "Maybe later."
"I'm not sure exactly what it is I'm supposed to do," he admits. B'Elanna responds by arching her head back, and Tom, hesitantly, moves in to kiss her neck. She responds by emitting a deep growl. Tom tries to do the same, not quite sounding right. B'Elanna stops for a moment, then in one quick, smooth movement, she shoves him to the ground on his back. Tom lays there, looking stunned. B'Elanna, when she doesn't get a reaction from him, slaps him on the chest. "Well? What are you doing?" she demands.
"Enjoying myself?" he asks, still confused. B'Elanna grabs his wrists and pins them on the ground above his shoulders. "Then show it!" Tom struggles to wrestle free from her grasp, which is apparently the reaction she was looking for. A grin spreads across her face, and Tom tries struggling again. Unable to get free, he tries a new tactic. He flips her onto her back with her legs straddling his body.
But then, a moment later, a hand comes out of nowhere, grabs Tom by the shoulder and throws him onto his back. It is Vorik, and he's looking mighty angry. He points his finger at B'Elanna and roars, "You are my mate, not his!"
Tom and B'Elanna scramble to their feet, and B'Elanna demands, "What are you doing here?" Vorik says he has come to fulfill their bond and fight to win her if necessary. He yells for Tuvok's presence and confirms that Vorik is following Vulcan instincts and customs. But Tom is quick to defend himself and B'Elanna. "You want a fight? You've got one!"
But Chakotay interferes. He turns to Vorik, demanding if he was responsible for communications being down. In fact he is, all in the name of making sure he is united with his mate. B'Elanna reacts and tries to charge at him, but Tom holds her back. "I am not your mate! If anyone's going to smash your arrogant little face in, then I will! I take your challenge myself!"
Vorik stops cold and glances at Tuvok who says that she can choose herself to be her defender. Chakotay steps in again, questioning the logic of allowing this to go through, but Tuvok says, "The risk of injury seems preferable to the certainty of dying from a chemical imbalance. Commander, I see no alternative but to follow Vulcan tradition." Chakotay finally relents.
B'Elanna and Vorik start taking swings at each other, and to sum it up, B'Elanna eventually defeats Vorik, but just barely before she collapses and falls into Tom's arms. He asks, "It's over, isn't it?" Tuvok nods. "The blood fever has been purged. They will both recover."
Back on board Voyager some time later, Tom runs into B'Elanna in a turbolift. It looks as if she was deep in thought until the doors opened. Their eyes barely meet as Tom enters and calls out, "Deck two." He tries to make small talk. "So, looks like you're feeling better. You back on duty?"
B'Elanna nods. "Yes. Yes, I'm fine, thanks. The refit is going well. We should have new warp coils by the end of next week."
"Oh, good. Glad to hear it," Tom says. An uncomfortable silence falls between them, and they stare at the wall in front of them for a few moments until Tom decides he just can't take it anymore. "Computer, halt turbolift." He turns to B'Elanna who still is trying to avoid his eyes. "Look, this is ridiculous," he says. "We are going to be together on this ship for a long time."
B'Elanna nods, but suddenly becomes clammy. She scrambles for a response, the first one that instinctively comes to mind. "You're right, we have to pretend that the whole mission didn't happen."
Not quite the reply Tom was expecting. "But something did happen, B'Elanna."
"Look, Tom, I really appreciate what you did -- what you were willing to do for me. But as far as I'm concerned, I was under the influence of some weird Vulcan chemical imbalance, and ... whatever I did, whatever I said ... it wasn't me." She shrugs if off like that, not wanting to accept any personal/emotion responsibility of saying that she had feelings for Tom. Blame it on the blood fever. Easy answer.
Tom doesn't buy it. He calls her on it. "Yeah, I know. You're afraid that your big, scary Klingon side might have been showing. Well, I saw it up close, and you know, it wasn't so terrible. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing it again someday." At this B'Elanna stares at him for some time, but says nothing. Tom turns and calls for the turbolift to resume. At the next stop, B'Elanna gets off, but just before the doors close behind her, she says, without stopping or turning around, "Careful what you wish for, Lieutenant."
Tom adopts a confused expression on his face, but doesn't get a chance to say anything before the doors shut.
The big question that this episode brings up is whether or not B'Elanna had indeed harbored feelings for Tom all this time, and was only now able to admit it to herself and Tom because of the situation she was in down in the caves. I would like to think that this is the case, rather than the other possibility that the hormones coursing through her body would make her tell a lie like that. It just seems to make more logical sense, to me at least.
