The BLTS Archive- Points of View: The Greatest Man I Never Knew by Joanne Collins (luchenbackoutlaw@gmail.com) --- Disclaimer: Everything Trek belongs to Paramount/Viacom. The Greatest Man I Never Knew is sung by Reba McEntire, and can be found on several of her albums including For My Broken Heart, Greatest Hits Volume Two and Moments And Memories. Please do not distribute, archive, etc, without my permission. May be archived on the ASC archive, the CPSG archive, the VSPS archive (if there is one) and R'Rain's Slash Archive only. Others *must* ask. Please do not link directly to the story without my permission. This story will make more sense if you read those first, but I think it does work as a standalone coda to Hunters. Yes, I'm back in this universe again. I've actually got vague ideas for more of the earlier parts of Tom and Chakotay's relationship, but this is the story my muse gave me. Funny thing, my muse looks *just* like a certain pilot... One more bit of blather. I wrote a story a while back with this song, Missed Opportunities, because I heard this song first as a love song. Then when I found out that it was actually about a relationship with a father, the idea of the 'great' Starfleet hero, Admiral Owen Paris, and the father who screwed Tom's life up converged in this song for me. The line 'The greatest man I never knew,' just seems to sum up Tom and Owen so well for me. It's like there were two sides to Owen, the 'great' man Starfleet knew, and the man Tom knew. Possibly disturbing content, hanky alert, NASAL. --- Numb. That was my first reaction, I just felt numb. It didn't feel *real*, you know? I mean, it *was* almost a year ago, and back home. Home. What does that mean for me now? If there was *any* reason left for me to really hope to get back there soon, it's gone now. Because my father is dead. I don't know how I really feel. It's like there were two Owen Parises. The great Starfleet Admiral, and the father who had no time for me. I know, it's not *all* him, I know I did my part to make our relationship not the best, especially when I wouldn't see him in prison. But I just couldn't face him then. Not after a night spent servicing a lowlife just so I could work in peace. Or after a night that the lowlife decided to get rough. I didn't want him to see what my screwing up had done to me. If I couldn't do anything else, I could at least spare him *that*. We've never had the *greatest* relationship, to put it mildly, but he was my father. And that means a lot. I never knew how much of my sense of identity was involved with my family, not the *Paris* family, but *my* family, mom, dad and my sisters. And that's gone now. It's funny...you don't know what you do have until it's gone, sometimes. --- The greatest man I never knew.. Lived just down the hall.. And everyday we said hello.. But never touched at all.. He was in his paper... I was in my room.. How was I to know he thought I hung the moon.. --- I don't ever remember just *talking* with my father. He lectured me, a great deal, and I answered with smartass replies that I didn't mean half of. I think at times that our longest conversations that didn't degenerate into shouting matches were the good mornings exchanged over breakfast. Then he'd bury himself in the newspaper. Why didn't you ever *tell* me, Dad? Why did you leave it until after you died to send those words to me? Why didn't you ever say, just once, that you were proud of me? --- The greatest man I never knew.. Came home late every night.. He never had too much to say.. Too much was on his mind.. I never really knew him.. And now it seems so sad.. Everything he gave to us took all he had... --- There were a lot of nights I stayed up, wanting to see him. When I'd done a particularly difficult maneuver, or done well on a test in school. It always seemed that those were the nights that he came home later. I don't suppose it really was, it just seemed that way. It seemed like it was more a rejection of me. I know *now* that it wasn't, that he had so many other things on his mind, but when you're a fifteen-year-old kid who just wants his Dad to be proud of him, it's really difficult to know those things. It's strange...I just realised that I can't even think of what his favourite colour was, or if he liked twentieth-century vids as much as I do, that *had* to come from somewhere, or what kind of books he liked to read. I didn't know Owen Paris the man, or Owen Paris the father very well. All I knew was the man everyone else knew, the great Starfleet Admiral Paris. I'd have preferred to know the man or the father, though. I wish I could have. I wish I could have known him, and that he could have known me as I am now. I wish he could have known Chakotay and the happiness he has brought me. I wish he could have known Harry and B'Elanna, and the ups and downs our friendship went through. I wish he could have known about Kathryn, too. I'd never dare to call her that without permission, but when I think of her, I don't think of her as Captain Janeway, I think of her as Kathryn, the woman whose happiness I almost destroyed in finding mine. Thank the gods she has Seven, and no guilt about Mark now. I know wishing is futile, but it's all I have now. All that I ever will have. --- Then the days turned into years.. And the memories to black and white.. He grew cold like an old winter wind.. Blowing across my life.. --- Since being out here, I've changed so much. There was a part of me that almost forgot about my father. I mean, he's seventy-five years away, and I truly *didn't* think I'd ever see him again. I didn't know how much it would hurt to know for sure, though. And the memories of sadness have been replaced with so many good memories about Chakotay that I'd almost, but only almost, thought that I wouldn't need memories of my father. But I do. --- The greatest words I never heard.. I guess I'll never hear.. The man I thought would never die.. S'been dead almost a year.. --- I always wanted him, just once, to say that he loved me. I never thought I would hear them, especially when I got the message that he was dead. Chakotay told me. He didn't want it to be anyone else. Then he gave me the data chip. The one with a personal message on it. --- He was good at business.. But there was business left to do.. He never said he loved me.. Guess he thought I knew.. --- It was a holochip. I almost started crying again when I realised that it was him. The standard Starfleet Death Message. I've made my own, for the people out here, and even, just in case, one for him. I guess I can erase that one now. But it wasn't a standard message at all. He said all the things I'd ever wanted to hear him say. He apologised for his part in our estrangement, and accepted that I would have to do the same. He said that he regretted the lost years as much as I do. He said that he was proud of me. And, just before the clip finished, he finally said it. The words I have wanted to hear from him for so long. He said that he loved me. I had to replay it, because I didn't hear it through my tears the first time. --- The End