"Come on Tom!" B'Elanna cried, faking annoyance. She grinned wickedly, and skated away. Tom began to chase her, but suddenly, an overwhelming, unexplainable dread filled him. Up ahead, he heard a sickening crack. The sound of weak ice breaking. B'Elanna's scream of suprise filled the air, and unbidden memories came forward. No matter how hard he tried, he could not move his legs. Terror filled every pore of his being. This wasn't right. He had been here before, he thought.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and crumpled down to an almost fetal position. He couldn't help her. Couldn't help either of them, and now they would both be dead because he was a coward. Afraid of the water's murky depths, of the memories it held. 

"Come on Tommy! I'll race you!" green eyes dancing, six year-old Elyssa Paris called across the frozen expanse of the lake to her older brother, Tommy. Giggling, she skated off, her long, wavy red hair following behind her.

"I dunno Elyssa. What if I fall in?" Nervously, her blond, blue-eyed older brother stepped onto the ice. The younger of the two siblings turned around and skated back.

"Then I'll save you. But only if you save me when I fall in!" She grinned wickedly, and sped off again, with an ease that amazed her brother. Tom began to chase her, but stopped as he heard the sickening crack. The sound of weak ice breaking. Elyssa's scream of surprise filled the air, and little Tommy's terror of water took hold of him. No matter how hard he tried, how hard he wanted to, he couldn't reach out an arm to pull her out.

"Never, Thomas." Instantly, Tommy knew something was wrong. His father never called him by his full name.

"What's wrong, Daddy?" he asked innocently. Usually, his blue eyes mirrored his father's, but not at a time like this.

"Because, Thomas. She's dead. Drowned in the lake. You should have been a man, Thomas, and saved your sister. I will never forgive you for this. Never." What kind of father spoke those types of words to their children? Tommy, shocked and outraged at both his father's outburst and the news of his little sister's- best friend's- death, let out a peircing wail, and burst into uncontrollable sobs. It couldn't be true! It just couldn't! How could his own sister be dead? These sort of things happened to other people, not to them!

"B'Elanna?" he croaked out. Although he felt he knew the answer already. He had failed her, failed to be her hero and rescue her. Just like last time....-No!- he commanded himself. -Stop thinking about her, Paris. She's dead and gone and there's nothing you can do about it!-

"Lieutenant Torres is fine. She suffered some mild hypothermia, but I was able to get rid of it. I am curious, however, as to why you have been in a catatonic state for eighteen hours," the holodoc spoke up. At least history hadn't completly repeated itself, then. Tom sighed, silently bidding the tears that were threatining to pour down his face to go away. He didn't want to explain to the Doc about his troubled childhood and the phobia that ruined life as he knew it back then. It was best if no one knew about Elyssa, best if they didn't know about his failure to save her.

Besides, he would be gone before they knew it.

After injecting the hypo, his body fell to the floor in an unflattering heap. 

He wasn't answering his door either. Something was terribly wrong, Chakotay thought, and his suspicions were confirmed when he saw the crumpled form of Tom Paris on the floor. Tapping his commbadge, he requested an emergency beam-out to sickbay. One thought reverberated through his head.

-Why?-

"Here," a slender hand reached out to help him up. Gazing into her face, he found the young woman to be familiar to him, though she had changed, since the last time he saw her.

"Hi Tommy." She said somberly.

"Elyssa? But, but, you're dead. How can I be talking to you?" She regarded him seriously.

"Because, you attempted suicide. But, big brother, death is not the way for you."

"What do you mean?"

"I've watched you grow up, Tommy. I've grown up with you." She gestured to her body, definitely not that of a six year-old girl's. His eyes filled with tears. This had to be some sort of dream. His little sister was dead, wasn't she? Drowned, in the lake, because of him. "Oh Tommy," the woman- his sister?- sighed, and pulled him in a tight hug. For the first time in a long time, Tom Paris cried. He let out the years of grief and regret seep out of him, and bit by bit, began to feel better.

"Go back where you belong, Tommy. I don't blame you. I never did. But B'Elanna needs you, big brother." She released him slowly, and as Tom watched her fade away, a quiet peace filled him.

"Lieutenant," she demanded. "I just heard a report from the doctor, saying that you attempted suicide. Is this true?" Of course the Doc wouldn't lie, but Janeway needed to know for herself. Her worst fears were confirmed when Tom nodded weakly. "Why?" she asked, her tone softer.

"Captain, did you ever meet my sister?" he asked. "No," he frowned. "That's not right, she would have been fourteen by the time you met my father. Silly question,"

"Would have been, Mr. Paris?"

"Yeah," he nodded again. "She died when she was six. I was seven. And a half," he added, as an afterthought. An awful suspicion crept into Janeway.

"How did she die, Tom?" she asked, quietly.

"Fell through the ice." His tone was distant, as if reliving that very moment. The Captain gasped. No wonder he had gone into shock when B'Elanna fell through the ice. It must have been horrible for him. Obviously, he and his sister had been very close. "You know something?" Tom finally broke the long silence that had filled the room since his last statement. "I think you would have liked her."

"Liked who, Tom?"

"Elyssa. My little sister. Too bad she never got the chance. It's all my fault, you know."

"How is it your fault?"

"I should have saved her, but I couldn't. I was terrified of the water. Always have been," tears began to make their way down his cheeks. "I was supposed to protect her, be the big brother. The strong one. The smart one. The brave one." Tears began to trickle down his cheeks, and he wiped them away, embarrassed.

"Do you want me to talk to B'Elanna?"

"Yes! No! I don't know," he sighed in frustration. "I should've put the whole thing behind me by now. I mean, it's been years. I can't believe I froze up like that. Can't believe it- she could have died, you know. That would have been five deaths on my hands. Not something I'm proud of,"

"Well, I'm going to go talk to her. She's been asking about you, you know," Janeway stood up. She never got the chance to talk to B'Elanna though. The half Klingon engineer burst into sickbay a little while later.

"Tom!" B'Elanna cried, rushing into the room. "How could you do something like that??" She demanded furiously.

"What?" Paris replied, obviously confused. "Didn't the Captain tell you?"

"No." Suspicion lit her dark brown eyes. Beautiful eyes, Tom thought.

"Well, it's about the- the accident. Why I froze like that." B'Elanna leaned closer. All she wanted was to know what had happened that day. "You see, B'Elanna, when I was really little, seven years old, my sister Elyssa, who was a year younger, and I went skating on this pond at our grandparents house. I was terrified of falling through, I'd always been afraid of the water, and I didn't even know how to swim," he paused as a tear made it's way down his cheek. "So anyway, she skated off somewhere, and I follwed her. Then I heard this awful crack," he shivered, remembering. "And the next thing I knew, she was in the water, had fallen through a thin patch. I couldn't move, couldn't save her,"

"Oh, Tom, why didn't you just tell me?" She gathered him into her arms, and held on, tight.

"I don't know. It's not something I like to talk about. And then, when you...when you..." he couldn't even finish his sentence. B'Elanna said nothing, just hugged him tighter, if that was possible.