The BLTS Archive- Return to Sender
by Fanfic Chick (yharrison@hotmail.com or vonnie@paradise.net.nz)

---

Legal disclaimer:  The horrible facts: Paramount owns Voyager lock,
stock and barrel.  I am using the characters for my own naughty fanfic
purposes but I'm not making any money, so that's okay isn't it?  I
solemnly promise to have all the characters dry cleaned before
returning them to Paramount.

Rated R for strong language and adult themes.  This story could
possibly bore you but there's no sex.  Sorry.

Synopsis:  Voyager gets home in slightly different circumstances. The
story is definitely a little on the AU side.  Warning to P/T fans -
move along, there's nothing to see here and if you do look you'll just
be horrified so move along.  Focuses on Tom Paris but everyone else
eventually makes an appearance.  Loril Tayor is my character.  He was
introduced in 'Ashes to Ashes'.

Thanks:  Thanks to Jung Frau, Seema and Rina for the first beta
reading.  Thanks to the mailing group (you know who you are :-) for
the second reading.  Thanks to Judy for finding all of the typos!

Feedback:  As always with my serious stuff, this probably isn't going
to be to everyone's liking.  Mind you, if you do manage to wade your
way through it, feedback is warmly accepted and deeply appreciated.
Yes, even if it's not complimentary.

Spelling note:  This was written using the Australian English spell
checker in Word.  I'm sorry to say, my American friends, that in my
country "colour" is spelt correctly :-)

--- "Someday it will be you Harry.  You'll meet her.  You'll know it's
wrong from the first moment you see her and you'll know there's
nothing you can do about it."

'Ex Post Facto' ---

There was something quietly humiliating about living with his father
at the age of 38.

Like most of the Voyager crew Tom Paris had imagined what it would be
like to return to Earth.  In his case none of the scenarios offered
much comfort.  While others dreamed of seeing family and friends he
had nightmares about going back to prison.  While others dreamed of
continuing their careers in Starfleet he had nightmares about being
court martialled.  He could never really explain why he thought of
Earth in such dark terms, only that Earth had been the source of too
many storms in his life.  His old life.  The one he had before he
found himself on Voyager.

Dreams or nightmares of Earth hadn't really mattered much anyway. On
Voyager he'd found a sort of forgiveness borne from having a best
friend, and a partner that he cherished and adored.  Their love for
him bolstered his self esteem.  Being able to pilot, and pilot well,
began to bury the ghosts of Caldik Prime.  Other talents, hidden under
layers of cynicism and bitterness, began to appear.  He turned his
hand to holoprogramming.  Not only was he very good at it but he
enjoyed creating new stories for the crew. He was officially the
ship's pilot, the official medical assistant, and the unofficial
storyteller.  He changed slowly, matured a little, and surprised
himself by growing up.  In his mid- thirties he thought he had finally
grown up.

Of course, he should have known it wasn't going to last.  Life had a
strange habit of trampling over any victories he managed to acquire.
When it all began to go wrong he'd been only mildly surprised that
Life was, once more, kicking the supports out from under his feet.

His father came into the room.  Perhaps that was the one upside to the
whole experience.  His father had been overjoyed that he'd made it
home.

"Tom, I was going out for a walk around the gardens.  Why don't you
come with me?"

He blinked, realised he'd been sitting in his bedroom for the better
part of the day staring blankly at a padd.  He looked up at his
father's face.  His father was smiling but these days Tom always
thought it was hiding an expression of concern.  His father had
somehow turned into his guardian.  Not in the way of fathers and sons
but of someone who watched over those less fortunate.

"I was a fool," his father had said when Tom had arrived home.  "I
won't be a fool for a second time."

Tom slowly nodded at his father's request.  Oh yeah, a walk would be
okay.  Exercise was good for the brain and the body.  The Doctor kept
telling him that when he dropped by every other week to check up on
Tom's health.

He got up from his chair, grabbed his coat off the bed.  The fog that
sometimes settled over San Francisco had persisted through the
morning.  The air was chilled.

They left the house together to trudge through the botanical gardens
filled with plant forms from across the Alpha Quadrant, to admire the
roses, observe the frogs that lived in the pond, and let the silence
reign as it always did.

---

Admiral Paris had never been good at the following: discussing his
feelings, practising active listening, and going to counsellors.
Therefore he didn't have much of a clue as to what had driven him to
locate Loril Tyor - Tom's counsellor in prison.  Possibly it was guilt
but he was so habituated to the feeling of guilt that he couldn't
really tell any more.

Loril was young.  Achingly young.  Talented and young.  Owen had read
Loril's Starfleet record.  The kid had graduated from the Academy at
18.  He had served his allotted time on active duty before going back
into research and finally leaving the Fleet to start his own practise.
Loril hadn't minced words in his exit interview.  He wanted out of
Fleet politics.  Owen had noted with interest that even though Loril
was no longer in Starfleet Fleet Command frequently sent their most
severe trauma cases over to Loril for treatment.  It seemed Starfleet
appreciated the kid's talent even if the kid wasn't exactly the
military type.

Sitting in Loril's office Owen found himself very much aware of his
own age.

Loril smiled at him warmly.  Loril's office was hopelessly informal.
A desk was at one end, covered in padds, and the flotsam and jetsam
from random trips to the nearest Chinese restaurant.  The rest of the
office contained the sense of another home.  Two large couches faced
each other.  Owen tried his best to appear as a seasoned Starfleet
veteran and not be distracted by the alarmingly bright blue rug
covered in fluorescent orange flowers.

"I'm so pleased to be able to meet you," said Loril and he seemed to
mean it.

"Likewise, son," said Owen and then winced because it sounded so
condescending.

"They tell me Voyager is less than six months away from Earth."  Owen
nodded.

"It must have been a shock for you," continued Loril.

"A Borg conduit opens up on the edge of the Alpha Quadrant and Voyager
pops out.  Shock doesn't really describe it, but I can't think of
another term."

"Did you talk to Tom?"

"Not really - so far it's been Starfleet business.  There's a lot to
do before Voyager gets home.  Once everything has settled down we'll
make sure channels are open for private subspace calls. It's only
going to take a couple of more days."

"I can imagine," said Loril with a hint of humour.  "Those Vulcan
Children's Choirs tend to be perfectionists about their practice
time."

Owen ignored the remark. It was too similar to something Tom would
have said.

"So, Admiral, why have you come to see me?" Loril asked, although Owen
suspected that it was purely out of politeness.  The boy was pure
Betazed.  He had probably figured out Owen's motivations within the
first five minutes.

Owen sighed.  "To be honest, I'm not really sure. I guess I thought
since you'd talked so much to Tom in prison."  Owen stopped, not sure
how to proceed.

"Have you read his prison records?" asked Loril.

"Yes."  Owen blushed.  Yes, he had.  All of it.  Even the
psychological profile and the records of his sessions with Loril. It
had been a terrible invasion of his son's privacy.  It was a terrible
blow to a father's pride. Tom, refusing to censor his words because he
didn't have to - Owen, reading and listening to it all later and
feeling a deep ache in his heart.  He'd helped Tom along the path.
His son had been locked up in a penal colony. He son had spent two
years wandering around the backwater planets of the AQ, trying to
survive.  His son was angry.  His son had make choices he shouldn't
have had to make.  His son had struggled to exist.

"You don't need to be ashamed."

"Why not?"

"You wanted to learn more about your son.  Admittedly it wasn't the
best method but the reason wasn't at fault.  You had good intentions."

Owen spread his hands in exasperation. "When they declared Voyager
MIA, I planned Tom's memorial service.  Then I sat down to write his
eulogy and I realised I didn't know anything about him."

"You thought he was dead as soon as Voyager was officially listed as
missing?"

"I'm Starfleet.  I know the odds.  MIA usually means the ship has been
destroyed but there's no verifiable evidence."

"Did you go through with the service?"

"It seemed important.  Grace - my wife - she told me that it was
wrong.  I ignored her of course, like I always did."

"What was the service like?"

"It was awful.  You know who turned up?  *My* friends.  My side of the
family.  The people who had personally known Tom totalled five.  And
they were old friends from school." Owen felt his perpetual state of
guilt increase.  He bent his head to look at the rug again.  He'd
never quite recovered from the perverse mixture of loss, guilt and
embarrassment.

"And that's when you decided to find out more about your son."

"I didn't have any choice.  I couldn't put the ghost to rest."

"Then you find out four years later through the array that your son
has come back from the dead.  Can't have been easy on you."

Owen evaded the line of questioning.  "I'm sure it was just as hard on
the other families."

"But a lot of the other families were still hopeful.  Not much, but
they'd never quite given up.  Hearing from Voyager vindicated that
faith."

"I'd spent all that time trying to be the sensible one.  Coming to
term with Tom's death.  My wife hated me for it.  It didn't take much
for her to leave. It was the final straw."

"She left you?"

"The divorce was amicable.  I'm just surprised it didn't happen
sooner."

"How is she now?"

"Dead."

"I'm so sorry," said Loril.

"Transporter accident."  He didn't elaborate.

"Do you have any other children?"

"Yes.  I have two daughters.  They keep in contact but they've got
assignments off-world so I don't see them very often."

"It must be very lonely for you."

It was something he hadn't considered until a few months ago.  The
loneliness.  And yes, he was lonely.  He missed his children.  He
missed his wife.  All he had was his career and it was ironic that the
career didn't seem to matter as much as it had in his past.

"I've been a stubborn old man.  I've spent my entire life trying to
hold myself to the Starfleet ideal and all it's managed to get me is
pain and heartache.  When Tom comes home I don't want us to be back at
square one.  I want him to know that this time around, I'm there for
him.  No matter what happens."

"Sounds like a good plan to me."

Owen waited for Loril to offer more but Loril waited patiently for
Owen to say the next words.

"I want to support him and I don't know how.  I need some help.  I
don't want to screw this up."

There, he had done it.  Admitted that there had been mistakes on both
sides of the relationship.  That he hadn't been right.  He didn't
realise how humbling it would be to say the words.

Loril smiled.  "That took a lot of guts to admit, Admiral."

"Don't call me Admiral.  Call me Owen."

"All right."

"I've been the Captain of two ships.  I've worked my way through the
ranks.  I was part of Strategic Command for the Dominion War. Coming
to this office was a thousand times harder.  Although I have no idea
why."

"Don't worry, that's what they all say."

"So what do we do?"

"Well, why don't you tell me some of the things you remember from
Tom's childhood?"

Clearly it wasn't going to be easy.  Loril wasn't going to tell him
anything about Tom, or provide any clarification.  But Owen had
committed himself to doing this, to making up for lost time. Then a
memory came to him, of his dazzling, bright little boy.

He remembered that there were the good times when his son was small.

---

"Up Da!  Up-pey!"

His child was squealing with delight.  The sun shone into the
backyard, through the trees, creating small shadows that dappled the
hair of his only son.

He breathed in hard, pretended his son was too heavy.  Once more
heaved his son into the air so he could briefly defy gravity. Caught
him as he came down.

"'gain Da!"

His son was 13 months old.  He'd started to walk and talk early and
now at the tender age of just over a year he was using the two or
three word sentences typical of children that were months older.  He
was light enough that Owen could still throw him around in the way
that his child, for some reason, thought was the best thing he'd ever
experienced in his small life.  He placed his child on the ground.
Tom stood on the grass, clad only in his diapers.

"That's enough honey.  You're growing too fast.  Poor daddy is getting
puffed."

Little hands reached up towards him.  Tom let loose with a set of high
decibel chortles that could only be generated by the vocal cords of
babies and toddlers.

"Round Da?"

"You want me to spin you around?"

The fine blond hair flew as his child nodded twice.

"Okay, but this is the last time because we've got to go inside for
dinner."

"No.  No house.  Stay out."

"Mommy won't be pleased with that.  Besides, it will be dark soon. Are
you going to stay out in the dark?"

A still chubby arm was held up, the hand palm up, with all of the
fingers spread out. The small face scowled with the insult.

"I big boy! I this many."

Owen shook his head, laughing gently.  His son had decided that he
could count.  He'd been insisting he was five years old ever since.
The fact that he knew a few numbers was amazing enough but at this
early stage of development he sometimes got confused. Owen held up two
fingers.

"You're not this big yet, how can you be five?"

"I not two?"

"No, still a little young for two."

"Not five?"

"No, that's even further away."

"No fair."

"Plenty of time to grow up, pumpkin.  Come on, one last spin around
and then it's inside."

He took his son's tiny hands in his own and then begun to spin and as
he spun around, as fast as he could, Tom hung down by his arms so he
could straighten up as the centrifugal force began to lift Tom's feet
off the ground.  A few spins with Tom linked to his arms and they were
flying like a circus act.  He placed his son back on the ground again.

He watched the baby of the family stagger off to the left, crowing in
triumph because he thought being made dizzy was some fantastic piece
of magic.

"Let's go inside now."

He held out his hand and his son took it trustingly, small face
holding an unguarded radiant smile. They slowly wandered towards the
house, small infant legs waddling along in their strange half walk,
half tippee-toe manner.  Their progress was halted as Tom suddenly
stopped, a familiar scrunched up look of concentration on his face.

"I poop."

Upon this uncensored announcement all Owen could do was burst out into
uproarious laughter.

---

The walk had at least worked the fuzziness out of his brain.  He'd
been trying to come up with an idea for a holonovel.  The Doctor
seemed to think Tom had some creative talent, even if it was for
slightly "lowbrow" ideas and Owen had promoted the idea with
enthusiasm.  It even seemed like a good idea to Tom.  At least, it had
until he'd discovered his ability to think up interesting holonovel
ideas seemed to have been left behind in the Delta Quadrant.

Still, his father seemed strangely patient.  The traditional Paris
pride had disappeared.  Tom wasn't sure where it was but he was
certain that it was bound to surface soon.  How long had it been since
he'd come back to his parent's house, to his childhood home? A year?
A long time to have to wait to be proved right.

"Oh dear God!  What in the hell happened to you?"

Well, he had to admit that he probably hadn't been a great sight at
the time.   Tom had stood in the foyer looking vaguely dazed by his
father's shock.  That was the problem with going missing for a year.
Everyone was surprised when you turned up again.  Even people you
thought were unshockable.

The first night home had been a combination of awkwardness and panic.
He'd started to wobble on his feet within the first 15 minutes of
making it through the door and at some point his legs had given out
from under him.  He'd found himself butt first on the floor looking up
at the stunned face of his father. The last thing his father needed
was for his adult son to turn up late at night and then fall over in
his gleaming and very clean hallway- slash-foyer-slash-entranceway.

"Let me help you."

Somehow his father managed to haul him up and manoeuvre him over to
one of the couches in the living room.  Then his father had used the
terminal on the other side of the room to call someone. Tom found
himself maintaining his silence, unable to think of much to say,
unable to trust himself to say anything even if he could.

A few minutes later there was the whine of transporter
materialisation.  The EMH of all people.  Or more accurately, of all
holograms. At that point in time Tom thought he *should* say
something.  Something witty, something profound, something for the
occasion.  Instead he just blurted out the phrase bubbling in his
brain.

"Why are you here?"

The Doctor ignored his question.  Tom remained silent as the Doctor
scanned him.

"Hmmm...  For a change, nothing too serious.  At least not enough to
admit him to a hospital.  A shower, food and a week of bed rest should
cure most of it."

The Doctor reached down and Tom once more found himself being hauled
into a standing position, supported by a collection of photonic
particles that had the strength of three men.

"Admiral, if you could direct me to your bathroom we'll get some of
this dirt cleaned off."

Owen nodded.  "Need any help Doctor?"

"I'm a hologram, Admiral.  If I needed to I could also lift the couch
but I'm not going to."

Owen Paris smiled slightly, led the way.  "I'll get some sheets on the
bed and some towels."

"Very good, Admiral."

The EMH continued to drag his charge down the hallway to the bathroom.
Tom didn't have any choice but to allow himself to be hauled along.
He was unable to keep himself upright anyway and if it wasn't for the
helping arm of the Doctor he'd be flat on his face.  They struggled
through the doorway, the Doctor deposited him on the floor, propping
him up against the vanity unit.

Tom sat on the smooth tiles of the floor, felt their coolness.  It was
the same bathroom he remembered from his childhood.  Sonic shower, hot
water shower, and a bath.

The EMH reached down to undress him.  He batted the hand away as it
reached for his shirt buttons.

"Go away."

"Mr. Paris, I will not go away.  You need to get cleaned up and then
you need to lie down."

"I don't need your help."

"Oh really?  You can't even stand by yourself."

Tom decided that even though he probably couldn't lose much more of
his dignity being undressed by the EMH had never been on his Top 20
List of Things He'd Like to Do Before He Died.  He made a pitiful
effort to get to his feet.

"If you're worried about me seeing you without your clothes - and I
use that term loosely - I assure you that it's nothing I haven't seen
numerous times before."

Tom sank back down to the floor and then made the effort to simply
crawl out.  Only his way was blocked by another person.  His father.
Tom abruptly sat back on his haunches.  He felt like he was five
again, surrounded by adults, always taller than him, always a person
trapped in a land of giants.

"I'm sorry I came back.  This was a bad idea."  He didn't speak with
anger or hatred but with genuine sorrow.

His father crouched down.  Looked his son in the eye.

"Tom, I don't know why you decided to come back but I'm relieved, and
I'm grateful.  However, right now there's no practical way for you to
leave in your condition.  Let us help you.  If you decide to leave
after you're stronger I won't stop you."

Tom looked at this father.  His father who was years older.  Years and
years.  Older, and it seemed, wiser.  Of course his father was right -
he didn't have any other choice.  He had come here on blind instinct,
not for any reason.  He'd been pulled back to the only place he could
think of from his previous life that might still be standing.  He
shrugged his shoulders, giving in.

"Okay," he whispered, feeling himself overcome with emotion.  "I'm
sorry.  I just - it's just been hard getting here."

"Don't be sorry Tom.  There's nothing to be sorry about."

Tom nodded again, quietly acquiescing to the terms and his father's
statement.

The EMH bent down again and once more began the task of undressing him
with Tom trying his best to help and maintain some dignity. But it was
hard.  And he was very tired.

---

Six months out from Earth.  Tom Paris couldn't believe it and he was
pretty sure the crew couldn't believe it either.  One day they were
running for their lives, in a showdown with the Borg Queen, Borg
sphere on their tail, and then they were blown out into the Alpha
Quadrant.  At the time he was too busy trying to get his heart rate
under control to really even process the news.  All of his
concentration had been centred on keeping Voyager intact while
negotiating the Borg conduit.  Even the incoming message from his
father hadn't really registered.

For eternity the bridge records were going to show his total lack of
amazement.  In fact it would show him checking a panel alarm on his
console.  Well, there was something for the record books anyway.
Voyager comes home and its helmsman sits there like it was an every
day occurrence.

The next week was a total blur.  System checks.  Constant
communication with Starfleet.  Plotting the course back home. There
would be no stopping for the next six months baring any engineering
problems.  No diversions, no missions, no exploration, nothing.  They
wouldn't even be stopping at any starbases.  Even more amazingly
Starfleet had negotiated safe passage through various zones.  They
hadn't had all of the details yet but it seemed that relationships
between various factions were in a better position since the Dominion
War.  Even the Romulans were letting them go through unhampered.

He staggered back to his quarters five days after their arrival in the
Alpha Quadrant completely exhausted.  Bone weary.  At least the
sickbay duties had the blessing of being light.  Injuries and sickness
had plummeted.  A happy crew was a healthy crew according to the
Doctor.

B'Elanna, surprisingly, was there.  It was a great surprise.

"Hello, Mrs. Paris-Torres.  I thought you had a long shift today."

She glanced around at him, didn't really smile.

"Hello to you to Mr. Torres-Paris," she replied, using their private
joke.  "I'm just taking a break.  Vorik can handle it while I'm gone."

He came up to wrap his arms around her.  She broke free to continue
folding her laundry.

"What's the matter?  Can't I give my wife a hug?"

"You can hug your wife after she's finished folding the towels."

"I'd better help then."

He picked up a towel, neatly folded it and placed it on the stack on
their bed.

Was it his imagination or did she seem distant?  It was hard to tell
with B'Elanna.  She had always been good at hiding her feelings, even
better than he was and that was no small feat. Ever since her bout
with depression he'd found that he was always on guard for those
little signs.  He'd missed it the first time, and hadn't felt
particularly good about being questioned by Captain Janeway and being
totally oblivious to what B'Elanna was doing.  It had bordered on
humiliation to have Chakotay be the one to find out, to be the one who
consoled her.  Then there was the time B'Elanna had gone on her quest
to find her mother's spirit. Who had comforted her then?  Oh, right -
the Captain.  He'd been unceremoniously shoved into the background
while the two women bonded. Something that still irked him years
later.

"What do you want for dinner?"

B'Elanna continued folding towels.  "To be honest, I don't know that I
have time."

"No time?  We finally have unrestricted access to the replicators and
you don't have the time?"

"Remember, I'm just taking a break.  I've got to get back down to
Engineering."

Tom frowned.  "You took a break to fold towels?"

B'Elanna shrugged.  "I needed something to do that was."  She stopped,
searching for the right word.

"Ordinary?" finished Tom.

"Ordinary.  Ever since we got back to the Alpha Quadrant it's just
been so insane.  Folding towels seemed like a good idea."

"Tuvok will be proud of you."

"To quote him, 'concentration is found in the devotion to everyday
tasks'."

"So he's big on housework?"

"Absolutely."

He hugged her, kissed her on her forehead.  She seemed slightly stiff
in his arms, hesitant.

"You sure you're okay?"

"I'm okay.  I've got to get back to work."

"Okay."

She left, towels still lying on the bed, only two of them folded up
neatly.  He was puzzled by her lately, and he hated puzzles because
they frustrated him.  The solutions could be a long time in coming.

He had his first night off in a week, and no one to share it with. He
commed Harry but Harry was busy.  Harry excused himself, said he was
helping with some navigational charts so that Tom could have a clear
course run to Earth.

Oh well.  He needed the sleep anyway.  He finished the towels,
puttered around their quarters.  He distracted himself by removing a
small beer stain from the rug.  Then he watched TV.

Sleep was a long time coming.  He was pleased to be back in the AQ but
at the same time a small unsettled tinge of fear had started to snake
through his mind.  He hadn't felt it in a long time and he hated
feeling it now.

---

Harry Kim had grown up in the Delta Quadrant.  He'd turned from green
Ensign, fresh out of the Academy to highly competent bridge officer.
He was steadfast.  He was dependable.  He had serious doubts about his
loyalty.

It was an affair.  Only he didn't know it at the time. He waited for
her to break up with Tom because she'd told him the marriage was a
huge mistake but she never quite did and they continued to meet in
secret and at odd times, stealing little moments together.

It had started months ago back in the Delta Quadrant after B'Elanna
and Tom had fought again.  Harry couldn't even claim it had started in
innocence.  It had started in lust and frustration.

B'Elanna's frustration at Tom's ways and habits.  Harry's frustration
at Tom and his own longing and desperation for a stable relationship.

The Buddha had said suffering was caused by hating what you had and
longing for what you didn't - and he had certainly done that in
bucketfuls.  He'd longed for home without realising he had a home and
longed for a relationship without being prepared to simply bide his
time.

It was late.  She was alone in the messhall, the lights were down.
Neelix had finished cleaning up and gone to his quarters.  Harry
couldn't sleep and he'd wandered in to find a midnight snack or maybe
just watch the stars streak by in their familiar and comforting warp
pattern dance.  Of course, he could have done all of that from his own
quarters but he was restless and wanted to do something.  Anything but
lie awake and alone in his bed.

He was surprised to find B'Elanna there and not where she usually was.
With Tom.  In their quarters.

"Hey," he called softly.

She broke from her contemplation of the stars and turned around. She
relaxed and smiled as she saw him.  Her friend.

"Hi, Harry.  What brings you down here at this time of the night?"

"Couldn't sleep."

She smiled at him.  He couldn't help but notice the way the dim
lighting in the messhall made her eyes sparkle, the way it accentuated
the ridges in her forehead.  It reminded him that he'd always found
her ridges to be supremely fascinating and desirable.

"I couldn't sleep either.  I didn't realise this place was so quiet on
Gamma shift."

"Gamma shift are usually working too hard to hang out in the
messhall," he joked.  He'd been on Gamma shift enough to realise that
mostly they just ate left overs and replicated food.

She sat on the couch, he wandered into the kitchen, managed to find
some of the cookies that Neelix had baked that morning, made his way
back to her and sat down beside her.  It was all so familiar and easy.
Just to sit down right up against her, feel her warmth, and watch the
stars with her.

But of course he had to ask.  Had to know.

"Why aren't you with Tom?"

Her eyes narrowed briefly. Her expression became hard for a moment.

"Tom and I had an argument.  I didn't want to deal with him."

"You two always argue. What was it about?"

Her lips pursed.  He loved her lips and the way they moved. Beautiful.

"Nothing, as usual.  Everything."

And suddenly, the woman he thought was tougher than latinum, who was
always resilient and tough and yelled at him and called him
'Starfleet' when they first met, was crying.  Crying silently, fat
tears running down her face, dripping down her neck and chin.

Instincts came into play. He loved her in his own way and he couldn't
bear to see her cry.  He was angry at Tom for doing this to her.  He
reached up with the sleeve on his sweatshirt, wiped at her face.

"B'Elanna, please don't cry.  He's not worth it."

He couldn't believe he'd said it the moment the phrase came out of his
mouth.  He opened his mouth to apologise for insulting Tom, and
wondered why he'd bothered to say it at all.  He'd never been jealous
of Tom, he told himself.  They'd been best friends from the moment Tom
had rescued him in the bar at DS9.

She began crying harder, turned her face into his body, against his
chest, seeking comfort.  He held her, feeling awkward and at the same
time horribly aroused.

The universe slid apart.  In another quantum reality, Harry Kim did
not reach down and smooth his hand through her hair, and hold her
close, and kiss her gently on her forehead.  In another reality he let
her cry, told her everything was okay, and left.

In this reality he did those things and B'Elanna did not move away.
He kissed her forehead and she tilted her head upwards to regard him
with eyes red from crying and when she closed her eyes, he kissed her
eyelids.  Each one.  Gently.  One, then the other. Just like that.

She didn't say anything.  She didn't move.  He thought she was holding
her breath.  Maybe she was aware that the universe was splitting apart
too.

He kissed the tip of her nose, moved down to her mouth.  He kissed her
softly on the lips, as gently as her eyelids.  Neither of them moved,
he doubted they were breathing.  Two lips pressed chastely and lightly
together.  He waited for one of them to break the moment.

B'Elanna was first.  She moved back enough to break their touch,
slowly and delicately, and Harry opened his eyes to look at her.

"I can't keep going like this.  I can't believe I married him."

He panicked.  "Oh, shit.  Damn it, I'm sorry B'Elanna, I should have
never have kissed you.  I-"

She placed a finger on his lips to silence him.

"I didn't do anything I didn't want to.  I could have stopped you."

She took a breath to steady her nerves and continued.

"Tom and me - we're just not going to make it I think.  As a couple.
We love each other and we hate each other.  One of us is always
getting hurt.  When he's hurt he goes and plays on the holodeck.  When
I'm hurt I just... well, I just shut down.  It can't last.  We're
going to end up divorced."

She pushed herself back from his body.  "I'd better get some sleep."

Then she left.  He sat in the messhall for an hour or more, his mind
running around like a chattering monkey, trying to sort out what in
the hell was going on.

After that - well, for once, the ship's biggest gossip kept his mouth
shut. Oh, he was bad.  So very bad.  He'd lied before when it came to
sex.  Various alien women had seduced him easily and the dark side
that he didn't like to acknowledge came out and played.  He was Ensign
Eager in more than one way.  Eager on the job and more than eager when
it came to his sex life.

So here he was, lying in his bed, B'Elanna lying against his side,
lying by omission.  She'd lied to Tom again.  Been caught in their
quarters folding up the towels they'd used that morning.  They took
reckless chances.  He'd actually had the nerve to go to Tom and
B'Elanna's quarters and wound up in the shower with her. She'd
convinced him, as she always did.  Tom was on duty at sickbay and the
Doctor never let him off duty except in emergences.  It was exciting
to do something so illicit, nerve- wracking to think they'd be caught.
She could say, "Jump", and he'd say, "How high?"

He was having an affair with a married woman.  A woman married to his
best friend.  Harry Kim was definitely losing ground in the morality
stakes.

God, now he had an inkling of how Tom must have felt back in the days
after Caldik Prime.  It was so easy for the lie to happen and then it
just sat there like some old moth eaten dog, reminding you of its
presence while you politely pretended it didn't smell so bad and kept
wanting to put it down but for matters of loyalty and familiarity,
couldn't.

Shit.

Ensign Eager wasn't as innocent as everyone presumed.

Of course, whenever he contemplated breaking up with B'Elanna, of just
coming clean with Tom and laying the whole matter to rest, B'Elanna
would have a bad day in Engineering or be frustrated and she would
come to talk to him.  It appealed to his vanity and ego. She never
really talked to Tom.  They'd worked out their mutual frustrations
through a very active sex life but they'd never really felt safe
enough with each other to open up their emotional lives.  She seemed
to feel different with Harry and she'd told him this often enough.

After a heart-to-heart about her childhood, he could never bring
himself to confront her on the issues of their continued life
together.

Then they were suddenly back in the AQ.  For some reason he thought of
it as being back in reality.  The DQ was an aberration, a strange
nightmare.  The AQ was real.  Reality had its problems though.
Somehow he realised that if he'd thought it was bad back in the Delta
Quadrant, he'd been a fool.

---

He had spent the first two days back in his childhood home in a state
of drowsy weariness.  His father and the Doctor had manhandled him
into the bath and he'd been too damn exhausted to really be able to
care.  With his clothes off he looked even worse.

Too thin, too dirty, with long white scars that he didn't want to
explain to anyone just yet.  The Doctor scanned him, noted the scars,
and frowned.  The EMH opened his mouth as if he was about to start a
long line of enquiry but then seemed to realise that it was perhaps
not appropriate, or wise, and shut it again.

He felt the Doctor physically trace one ugly scar with a holographic
finger, noting the lumpy keloid formation that had resulted from the
fact that the wound had been stitched together.

"I should be able to take care of these, if you like."

Tom glanced down at his very graphic reminders of what he liked to
call 'his vacation'.

"They're not infected are they?"

"No."

"Then leave them."

After the bath, he was dressed in a nice pair of replicated shorts,
t-shirt and socks.  Everything was baggy.  An old template, Tom
realised.  His measurements from the last time he'd been home.  He'd
missed having a decent pair of socks and a decent bed.  They put him
in the guest room and what little energy he'd used to keep himself
going rapidly vanished.

The Doctor insisted on hooking him to an IV of dextrose solution for
the night.  Tom didn't like it.

"You're dehydrated.  The drip is designed to take care of most of it
but I also want to get some nutritional support into you.  You can
either lie here and have the drip, or I can admit you to hospital."

Tom threw him a dirty look.  His father hovered near the bed.

"The only thing you will be doing for the next week is lying in this
bed with the exception of using the bathroom."

He tried to protest but suddenly he had no further reserves of energy.
His father said goodnight, dimmed the lights slightly for him, and
left the room.  With the door open.  He could hear his father
whispering in urgent tones to the Doctor but it was too far away to
hear.

He slipped into darkness.

---

Owen found that he liked talking about his son.  He enjoyed
remembering the good times, the times when his son was such a
wonderful child.  A child he felt so proud of, was sure would do so
well.

As Voyager made her way through the Alpha Quadrant his excitement
grew.  He made it his mission to talk to Tom at least twice a week.

"Tom is playing his cards close to this chest," he said to Loril.

"What makes you think that?"

"I'm his father.  I taught him how to do it."

"Why do you think he's doing that?"

Owen didn't know.  He shrugged. Ventured a guess.  "He's not used to
the newer, softer side of me?"

Loril laughed.  "I think you're right."

"What makes you say that?"

"I don't think I'm about to tell you anything you didn't know already.
Tom and you had a very angry relationship before he left.  He's still
adjusting."

"There's so much I want to say to him but he keeps the discussion
level superficial."

"Give him time.  Give yourself time.  You don't want to scare him off.
Imagine it from his point of view.  Seven years ago you barely spoke
to each other.  Now you want to speak to him regularly.  He probably
expects some ulterior motive."

Sadly, Loril was right.  Owen had never been above manipulating and
bribing his son when he wanted Tom to do something that Owen felt was
'important'.  Tom was right to be suspicious.

"The more I think back to his childhood, the more I realise that he
was such a good kid. A really kind kid.  Why do we never appreciate
what we have, at the time we have it?"

---

"Daaaaadddddddd!  Moooooommmmmmm!"

Owen glanced up from his padd as his seven year old son ran down the
stairs as fast as he could.  Something he'd been reprimanded for doing
many times before.  However, the urgency of Tom's cries indicated that
something was more important than his own personal speed record for
getting down to breakfast.

"What's the matter?"

"One of the baby birds fell out of the nest!  It's outside my window."

This year's crop of breeding blackbirds had decided that an eave just
above Tom's bedroom would make a perfect place for their home.  Owen,
like any typical home owner for the past 2000 years, was not keen on
the amount of mess the birds could make but the family had decided to
let the birds go about their business, building their nest and finally
laying a clutch of two eggs.  The eggs had eventually hatched.  Now
two greedy fledglings spent their day waking at dawn's first light and
demanding food, much to Tom's fascination.  He'd go outside and use
the binoculars to observe them at closer range.

Owen went back upstairs with Tom to see the small creature unsteadily
wobbling  around the ledge. It was a wonder it had survived the drop
from the nest. Falling a further two stories would probably kill it as
it was nowhere near ready to fly.

It was almost a pity that his son was going to follow the family
tradition and join Starfleet.  He had the makings of a fine
naturalist.

"What shall we do Dad?  Can we put it back in the nest?"

Problematically the task of placing it in the nest was going to
require a long ladder and even then he doubted he would manage to get
his large hands through the small gap the bird had fallen from.

"I don't think we can.  Why don't you bring it inside?"

Tom nodded, opened the window and gently scooped the small creature
into his hands.  Owen quickly emptied a box that Tom had been using to
hold model glue and lined the bottom with some paper.  Tom placed the
bird into the box, then picked up a padd.

"I'll find out how to take care of it," said Tom.

"Okay, you check out what you need to do and I'll call the vet."

While Tom sat in his room, padd in one hand, the box on his desk, Owen
went downstairs and commed the local veterinary clinic.  The Paris
family was well known to the clinic due to the almost constant
collection of dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs and goldfish that had visited
the clinic for vaccinations, check-ups, cures and the occasional
depressing euthanasia.

The vet confirmed the basics of bird care and that if it lived past 24
hours it would probably be okay.

"Birds and small animals have a nasty habit of going into shock very
quickly even if they're not injured.  If it's going to die it's going
to probably die within the next few hours."

"Anything you can do?" asked Owen.

"Not a lot.  I could come around and check it hasn't broken anything
or has internal injuries but at that age, I doubt any attempts I make
at a cure would be effective.  Bird shock has always been tricky.
Make sure it's kept warm.  You can use mushed up cat food thinned down
with a small amount of water to feed it. Use an eyedropper.  Let it
beg for food and when it opens its mouth you can put a few drops in.
You'll know it's eating well if its crop starts bulging."

Owen nodded, thanked the vet and went upstairs.  He discovered his son
had placed the small bird in one of the socks he'd been wearing and
was sporting one bare foot while still reading the padd

His son grinned at him. "Can I replicate some cat food and an
eyedropper?"

"Sure."

Owen smiled as Tom left the room to go to the replicator in the
kitchen.  He was so proud of him.

---

Tom glanced at one of the terminal panels in sickbay.  It was 15:30
ship time which meant that his father was due to call.

Five weeks back in the AQ and his father seemed hell-bent on talking
to him at every opportunity.  It was something he couldn't quite get
used to but at the same time he found himself looking forward to the
regular calls.  His father usually called on the same day, at the same
time.  Probably pulled rank to make sure that he could always get a
channel open to Voyager in that slot. Voyager had been inundated with
subspace transmission requests shortly after news of their return hit
the media.  So many that Seven was having a hard time keeping up with
the volume. Starfleet had a fight on its hands trying to keep the
requests for interviews under control.  There would be no interviews
until Voyager got to Earth and everyone was debriefed, however this
wasn't going to stop the journalists from trying.

It was a whirlwind.  A whirlwind that seemed suspiciously too good to
be true.  Maybe it was the pattern of his life so far but he refused
to believe that every cloud had a silver lining. More that every
silver lining contained the potential for a storm. Something niggled
at the back of his mind.  Vague suspicions about things that he didn't
want to consider.

He'd barely seen B'Elanna in the past five weeks.

"Ops to Tom Paris."

It was Harry's voice.

"Tom here."

"You've got an incoming transmission from Starfleet Command."

"Put him through to sickbay Harry."

"Sure thing.  Kim, out."

Tom went into the Doctor's office.  The Doctor had gone off to a
meeting with the Captain to discuss the prospect of having absolutely
no rights when he set foot on Earth.  As much as the Doctor annoyed
Tom, he felt sorry for him.  It also made him wonder about his own
status.

"Hello Tom."

"Hi."  Tom had yet to decide what to call him.  Admiral?  Dad?  It was
still strange.

"How are you?"

"About the same since the last time you called," he answered with a
grin.

"I'm sorry.  It must be a big adjustment for you.  We haven't really
spoken in a long time.  Did you read all of my letters that I sent you
while you were in the Delta Quadrant?"

The Pathfinder project had allowed very little time for face to face
communication.  Owen had informed Tom that he'd decided that he would
give some of the other families a little more time by sacrificing some
of his own.  Instead of talking, Owen had sent long letters down the
data stream, and included photos of family. The letters and photos
were still less bandwidth than forcing through a bisynchronous
transmission and it seemed a better use of the limited time.  Owen had
used the letters to tell Tom of his mother's death.  Said he'd hoped
it would be the right way.

"Yes.  Thanks."

"There's some things that your mother wanted you to have.  It was in
her will."

Tom looked down at the floor.  He'd found out about his mother's death
about seven months ago.  It was just one more tragedy to pile onto his
life.  Still, he knew he wasn't the only one receiving even more bad
news after Pathfinder had established regular communication.  The
others had at least had the blow softened somewhat with the Hirogen
array.  His letter had been lost.  The news of his mother's death had
temporarily destabilised him.  He'd been looking forward to seeing her
again.  He wanted to go back home to his mother's arms, to his
sisters.  His father would be there too but the warmth of the women in
his family would balance it all out.  No arguments, just everyone
together.

He'd been fractious that week.  As always, he was too mortified at his
own emotions to mourn properly.  Instead, he'd argued with B'Elanna
before telling her what was wrong.  She'd forgiven him, at least she
said she had.

Trying to be an adult about it, and realising that piloting probably
wasn't a good idea at the time, he'd even gathered up his courage and
requested a few days of leave from the Captain.  It was happily
granted with appropriate concern.

He expertly changed the subject.  "Is it busy at Starfleet?"

"Unfortunately, yes.  Seems I've been placed in charge of project
Homecoming, as we like to call it at Starfleet Command."  His father
smiled at the name.

"You'd better not tell me you're arranging a Vulcan's Children Choir."

"Me?"  His father feigned innocence.

"You love them.  This is the perfect opportunity for you to have an
excuse to have them perform live *and* have them sing your
favourites."

His father caught onto the joke.  "Never."

"I'm getting a disturbing mental image of Project Homecoming.  A
Vulcan's Children's Choir and possibly a dessert menu featuring
meringue."

"Okay, so I like pavlova."

Tom shook his head.  His father was strict. Strict on his staff and
strict on himself.  Except for the one treat he allowed himself every
so often.  The pavlova on his birthday.  Some rogue antipodean in
their ancestry had resulted in a family recipe being passed down
through the generations.  Tom had never developed a taste for it,
despite his hedonistic tendencies.  Pavlova's were so sweet, they made
his teeth ache on contact.

Ton sighed.  "I guess things have changed a lot since we've been
away."

"Yes, some of if has changed.  We're sending through an overview of
the past seven years for the crew tonight.  One of my staff has been
collating together some edited highlights." Owen changed the subject.
"Tom - have you have any ideas about where you and B'Elanna will stay
once you get back?"

"I hadn't really thought about it.  Too many things happening."

"You're more than welcome to stay with me."

Tom hesitated.  "Yeah.  That would probably be okay.  I have to talk
it over with B'Elanna first."

"Of course.  No obligation."

God, even when the man was being helpful he made Tom feel guilty. The
small talk was giving him a headache.

"I don't want to be rude but I've got some cultures that I need to
check on."

"Sure, Tom."  His father seemed relieved.  He also looked nervous. "I
read the report from the Captain regarding crew conduct.  I'm proud of
you."

Tom blinked, staring owlishly at the screen.  Had the man not read the
report on the Moneans?

"Uh, sure. Uh, that's great."

"I'll talk to you in a few days time."

"Bye," said Tom then promptly cut the transmission.  Felt sweat break
out on his forehead.  Felt giddy.  Finally, the words he'd been
waiting to hear since he was a boy.  Now that he'd heard them - so
totally unexpected - he felt ready to puke all over sickbay.

His father appeared to have mellowed with old age.  Or was it that he
had mellowed with the passing of his wife and at the time, what he
thought was the passing of his son?

Tom pondered his thoughts for a moment, then went into the lab. He
really did have cultures to check.

---

Harry had been doing his best to avoid Tom.  He wasn't sure if Tom was
completely aware of it yet.  The affair had barely started before
they'd found themselves back in the Alpha Quadrant.

It was a small blessing that there was so much work to do lately, no
one had any time to relax.  That was going to change however. Once
everything settled down, and the crew established a routine, Tom was
bound to get suspicious.  Then again Tom was well known for his
ability to be selectively oblivious especially when it came to his
personal life.

Harry couldn't believe that when he looked inside of himself, he found
a coward.  He couldn't believe he could tell so many lies. What was it
about B'Elanna that he was prepared to do this and to hell with common
sense and the fact that it would break Tom's heart?

B'Elanna wasn't a terrible person, nor was he.  They were good people.
Good people doing what millions of good people had done before them.
Let themselves be overpowered by hormones and lust, and convincing
themselves it was love.  For lust, it wasn't justified.  For love,
everything was justified.

Thing was, he really did love her.  Had from the first moment they
woke up together on Ocampa, after being kidnapped by the Caretaker.
Initially it was a kind of kid's love.  A crush.  He'd pined after her
in the way that teenagers did.  She had a temper, a short fuse and she
kept calling him 'Starfleet'.  Clearly she didn't consider him to be
dating material.  Besides, he noticed how Tom looked at her.  He
noticed how B'Elanna looked at Chakotay.

Harry knew that Tom had the same thing - a crush.  Only it grew into
something more than that as soon as they'd been faced with the whole
problem of Vorik's pon farr and his deliberate infection of B'Elanna.
Harry had watched Tom and B'Elanna dance around each other, draw
together, fuelled by arguments and lust and more hormones than anyone
thought possible.  It was so volatile that not one person predicted it
would last.  Certainly not up to the point of marriage.

As B'Elanna told him so often; the marriage had been a mistake. She
knew it the moment she'd taken the vows.  She'd forced the issue,
she'd had her doubts and then Tom, faced with possibility of losing
her, had proposed.

"My fault," she would say curled up beside him.

It was his fault that the affair continued.

"Be a man Harry Kim," he would tell himself.

The man was nowhere to be found.

---

He lay in his bed for a week, as ordered, and let his father fuss over
him.  The Doctor had slapped a cortical monitor on his head before
leaving on the first eventful night, accompanied by the announcement
that he'd be visiting every morning until further notice.  Tom's first
48 hours of sleeping were punctuated by demands from the Doctor or his
father that he needed to eat something, or drink something.  He would
rouse himself to use the bathroom, or take a shower.  Somewhere in the
vague haze of exhaustion the drip was unhooked.  His father would help
him out of bed so he could shuffle a few steps to a chair and watch
with bone weary tiredness while the sheets on the bed were changed.

The Doctor injected him with various hyposprays every morning.  He
didn't know what they were for and he didn't bother to ask.

But admittedly, after days of merely sleeping, or lying in bed barely
able to process the contents of a padd for five minutes, the fog began
to lift.  Regular food, regular liquids, and the luxury of decent
accommodation were beginning to energise him.  He began to feel like
an actual human being.

The Doctor nodded his approval.  Tom found himself spending more time
sitting up in bed, reading from the constant supply of padds provided
by his father.  They were nothing very strenuous.  Novels he'd read as
a child, novels from new authors that he'd never heard of.  As the
days wore on he began to notice more things - the colour of the walls,
the carpet, the ceiling.  The weather outside.

Nine days after his arrival, he decided it was time to get up.

He hauled himself out of bed, put on the robe that his father had
given him and quietly made his way to the end of the hall and the
stairs.  He slowly made his way down the stairs, finding them to be a
strenuous chore and then walked across the living room.  The house
seemed strangely deserted and he wondered briefly if his father was
working at his office at Starfleet Communications. That didn't make
sense however.  His father seemed to have been around the house for
the entire nine days and he certainly hadn't encountered any hired
help.  He stood still for a minute, thought he could hear the faint
strains of music coming from the garden.

His mother's garden, the one she'd planned and built and taken care of
for 20 years.

He wandered towards the backdoor.  Out into the sunlight.  His father
was carefully pruning the roses, clipping off each dead flower.  His
mother had told them both that clipping off the dead flowers was an
excellent means of forcing the rose to keep flowering.

The image of his father tending roses was all wrong.  He glanced over
at the table and the deckchairs.  A pair of sunglasses, a padd playing
music, a pitcher of lemonade.  A shovel lay on the ground, an open bag
of compost spilled out onto the lawn.  Some new plants still in their
containers. His father with faded trousers covered in dirt.

"Who are you and what have you done with my father?"

His father whirled around, clearly startled by his voice.

"You shouldn't sneak up on people like that.  You want to give your
father a heart attack?"  It wasn't said with an angry tone of voice.
It seemed good natured.

"Sorry.  I'm just coping with a mental image of you out of uniform."

His father waved a pair of pruning sheers around, gesturing at the
garden.

"Ironically, after you mother died, I got interested in gardening."

"Mom would be proud of you."

His father smiled.  "I hope so.  The roses were hard work but they're
doing well this year.  Last year they were infested with aphids."

Tom made a face.

"However, this year I have a lot of very grateful ladybirds."

"Biological control."

"Naturally."

Was it Tom's imagination or was his father firing off rather subtle
jokes at him?

His father continued.  "Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"

"I got bored."

His father beckoned to a spare chair.  Tom sat himself down, let his
father pour him a glass of lemonade.

"I thought you'd be at work," he said to his father.

Owen smiled.  "I decided it was my privilege as a long serving Admiral
in the Fleet to take three days off every week."

"Is there something wrong?"

"Dear God, no.  I just figured that once Voyager was home, it was time
to go into semi-retirement."

"Retired?  You?"

"I know.  I wouldn't have imagined this 30 years ago."

"What made you change your mind?"

"No matter how hard I tried, Starfleet just wasn't the same as having
a family."

"It must have been tough on you."

His father held up his hand to stop him.  "On the plus side, I have my
son back.  For which I'm eternally grateful.  Having you back has made
up for a lot of the pain."

Tom chose not to reply, but to take a sip of the lemonade.

"Tom, there's something else you should know."

Ah, here it was.  The other shoe was about to drop.  Tom suspected
there were other things.  The things were probably terrible.  His
father was due to die.  That's how the Paris life worked.

"I've been seeing a counsellor.  Loril Tyor."

Tom felt his paranoia well up, anger suddenly coming from nowhere. Tom
folded his arms.  "You're telling me that you volunteered to see a
counsellor."

"Yes.  Believe me, it took me long enough to work up the courage."

"Why?"

"I had some things I wanted to work out.  I needed a disinterested
third party."

"But you went and saw Loril.  My counsellor in prison."

His father frowned, looked uncomfortable.  "Yes.  I went to see him
because I knew he was your counsellor in prison."

Tom was seething now.  He struggled to his feet.  He should have known
there would be a problem.  There always was.  His father got to his
feet as well, placed a restraining arm on Tom's shoulder.

"Just wait a minute would you?  Just stop."

He tried shrugging off the hand. "Let go."

"Look, I admit it wasn't the best idea I've ever had.  But I did it
because I wanted to know more about you.  I thought you were dead, I
couldn't really find anyone who knew you well after Caldik Prime.  I
wanted to know."

"Tell me you didn't read those files.  Tell me you didn't read them."

"I'm sorry Tom."

The anger got worse.  The files contained nothing good, certainly
nothing nice.  There were the transcripts of all the nasty things he'd
blurted out in Loril's office.  Loril had told him it was all recorded
and that they were sealed records.  No one would see them unless he
combusted mentally and they had to haul him off to the psych ward for
treatment - and although he was depressed, angry, and had a serious
attitude problem, Loril didn't think a breakdown was coming any time
soon.

"They're supposed to be private."

"Of course they're private.  Not even Kathryn got your records, even
though she was bringing you aboard her ship.  She got a recent psych
evaluation, your latest medical and a report from the review
committee.  I used my rank to get to the rest."

"You know I didn't mean any of those things, don't you?"

His father shook his head.  "Of course you meant them.  You were
angry.  You were trying to come to terms with your life.  They hurt
like hell to read but don't apologise for saying them."

"I don't think that way any more."

"I don't believe that for a second.  I'm struggling to put 20 years of
history behind me and I think you're in the same boat. Now sit down
and take a deep breath."

Tom did as he was told.  Didn't like it, but could see the sense in
it.  His father was different.  More willing to discuss things.

"When did you suddenly get to be so wise?" Tom joked, to break the
tension.

"When I took my head out of my own ass," said his father.


---

She was bleeding out when she was transported into sickbay, supported
by an incredibly frightened Harry Kim.  Bleeding out all over the
place.  Blood running down her legs in torrents, haemorrhaging so
badly Tom reeled back in shock for a second.

He yelled for the Doctor and helped hoist her onto the sickbay
diagnostic bed.  So much blood. He placed the diagnostic shell over
her, going onto automatic, letting his emergency training kick in and
before the Doctor had asked he was setting up a bag of packed red
cells and plasma and setting the IV to pump it in as fast as her veins
could take it.

The Doc was working frantically too, frowning over the diagnostics.
Harry was standing to one side, almost as pale as B'Elanna.

"What's wrong with her Doc?" Tom managed to ask while rechecking the
IV and running a tricorder over her at the same.  Of course, it was a
fairly dumb question because of the blood placement and the amount of
blood but his brain had yet to connect the dots.

The EMH seemed to decide that patient confidentiality be damned at
this point.

"Miscarriage.  The placenta is still attached to her uterus."

Tom blinked, blinked again, felt far away and dislocated as the
implications sunk in.

"Pregnant," he said, not as a question but as a statement.  "How many
weeks?" he heard himself ask.

The EMH had managed to staunch the flow of blood by that time and as
he worked he answered Tom's question, seemingly unsurprised that
B'Elanna had yet to tell him.

"Fourteen weeks."

Enough time to get past the first trimester.  Enough time to show up
as a soft little belly that he'd joked to her about.

"You've been eating too many banana pancakes."  He'd laughed, held his
face against her stomach because he liked it with its gently rounded
shape.

She hadn't told him.  Hadn't mentioned it.

He glanced up.  Harry was there still, looking at him, and at B'Elanna
with a peculiar expression his face.

"She's not going to die is she?"  Harry asked.

The EMH seemed to have forgotten the Ensign's presence.

"No. Not if I can help it.  I suggest you leave Ensign.  You can do
nothing more."

Harry nodded once, and stumbled out on shaky legs.

Tom continued to concentrate on B'Elanna, cursing himself for not
noticing this, for being as oblivious to the serious side of their
life as he'd always been.  Tried to remain professional at the same
time and succeeded enough that he wasn't booted out of sickbay.
Questions busied themselves in his mind.

"Where's the baby?"

The EMH looked up from his work.

"I'm sorry Mr. Paris I don't understand."

"If she miscarried, the baby has to be somewhere else.  Where is it?"

The EMH looked surprised too, as if just considering that particular
part of the medical puzzle.

"If she miscarried at fourteen weeks Mr. Paris the foetus wouldn't be
viable, we couldn't save it, if that's what you're asking."

That wasn't it. His friend had told him about a miscarriage she'd had
once, early on in her pregnancy.  In a toilet in Starfleet Academy,
cramps, holding on to her stomach as the pain rolled through her body,
thinking she had bad diarrhoea and the shock of the blood and clots of
matter that had been designed to support a baby and somewhere in
there, a small, tiny thing.

God, he couldn't stand the thought.  Not for that.  It didn't seem
right for the beginnings of a life to end in such an ignominious
place.  Then again, who was he fooling - it was the logical conclusion
for a woman to go there, thinking she was sick for some reason, not
imagining for a moment that she was experiencing contractions.

The EMH announced he would have to operate and he'd rather that Tom
wasn't actually there.  He could handle the procedure himself. Tom
nodded dumbly and he wandered off on automatic. He went back to their
quarters, vaguely unsavoury thoughts niggling at the back of his
brain.  He went into the bathroom, spared himself a glance down and
saw the blood...

He reeled back, backed out of the bathroom, all the way to the edge of
their bed and sat down heavily.

And there it was.  The dinner table set out for two.  Two plates. Two
glasses.  Two half-eaten meals.  A discarded padd sitting by one of
the plates.

Someone else was here.  Someone else was in their quarters, eating
with her.

He made himself go to the table, pick up the padd.  It was Harry's.

Of course it was Harry, after all, she'd beamed in with him.  But he'd
presumed it was from Engineering, not her quarters.  Not over a half
eaten meal.

It was innocent.  Harry was his friend.

Wasn't he?

---

"When do you think Tom began to hate himself?" asked Loril.

It was Tuesday morning.  They always had their session on Tuesday
mornings.  Owen simply excused himself from work, Admiral's
prerogative.  He told one other person, Admiral Terno, where he was
going.

"You've been through a lot Owen.  Especially where Tom's concerned.
This will be really good for you," said Terno.

Owen was paranoid enough to wonder if Terno thinking it was a good
idea was a subtle hint that he should have actually gone and done this
years ago.

Yes, he supposed it was good for him.  He reluctantly admitted to
himself that talking to Loril helped him sort through the issues, and
solidify thoughts and feelings that swept inside as a vicious
undercurrent.  He was an Admiral.  Admiral's tended not to make
mistakes.  It was hard for him to contrast his success in Starfleet
against the failure of his family life.

"I'm not sure when," he answered honestly.  "I don't think I took much
notice of what he was feeling.  Just yelled at him."

"Why did you yell at him?"

"I wanted him to do well in school and get into Starfleet."

"Did Tom want to join Starfleet?"

"I never asked him."

"Why were you so concerned that he join Starfleet?"

"Why do you keep asking leading questions?"

"It's my job."

"It's annoying."

"You know that you sound exactly like Tom?  He used to complain about
it as well."

"At least we have something in common."

"So why did you feel that you had to push him so hard?"

---

When Tom had been tested before he started school, Owen and Grace had
both been warned that they all faced a certain amount of struggle when
it came to the academic environment.  Yes, Tom had an extremely high
IQ.  Yes, he was very advanced for his age. However, he was also a
child that had the attention span of a gnat when it came to having to
learn about things that didn't interest him.  He was a bundle of
contradictions.  He was good at analytical tasks and the sciences,
with spatial manipulation abilities suited for piloting, and yet
enormously creative.  In the trade it was known as
'multi-potentiality' but it also meant that Tom would eventually have
to make choices about specialties and careers.  He was also in the
category for high risk taking which meant their beloved son was going
to be a child that learnt about gravity by trying to jump out of a
tree.

Not that this was news to Owen and Grace.  So far their delightful son
had managed to wedge his head in a bucket at two, both feet in the
toilet at two and a half, in the gap in the fence at three, and he'd
also shoved a coffee bean up his nose at the tender age of three.  He
had also broken a wrist.  The broken wrist came when he and his older
sisters had invented a game.  The game involved Tom sitting on a piece
of reinforced packing material that acted as a sled.  His sisters
pushed him down the stairs.  Unfortunately one of the sledding
adventures had resulted in Tom colliding with a wall and as he'd put
out his hands to stop himself, the fall had broken his wrist.  It
seemed no matter how many times Owen yelled at them, or gave them time
outs, they ignored him.  Or switched to equally injurious games.  If
any of his children actually made it out of childhood without a
medical history three feet thick it would be a miracle.  The girls of
course should have known better as they were older.  Tom however,
played to a crowd effectively and knew just how to convince his
sisters to conspire in some foolish idea.

Owen sighed.  The walls around the house were dented, chipped and
gouged.  Thank God for modern building materials that were easy to
repair.

So there they were, in yet another parent/teacher meeting.  This time
Tom had turned in a really amazing book report - on the wrong book.

"It was an excellent book report.  Very well researched.  It just
wasn't the book the class had been asked to read," said the teacher.

"What was it?" asked Owen, curious as to what Tom's latest obsession
was.

"'Twenty thousand Leagues Under the Sea' by Jules Verne."

Oh God, not the current nautical jag.  His son had blueprints of 19th
century schooners all over his bedroom wall.  He'd taken to carefully
painting model ships, and had even written a little holoadventure in
which swash buckling pirates crashed around on one wooden leg with
parrots attached to their shoulders.  What was he going to do?
Starfleet was not going to even consider Tom with his miserable
academic record to date.  Admittedly the child was only nine but this
had been a constant theme for four years.  He was sick of telling Tom
to go to his room and he thought Tom was sick of it as well.

He'd just have to be harder on the boy.  Someone had to force Tom to
take things seriously and knuckle down.  His child may have flown his
first shuttle at aged eight and could charm the wings off a fly at 20
paces but those weren't exactly life skills for adults.

He worried.  He worried for his son's future.  What did a Paris do if
they didn't serve in Starfleet?  He had no idea.  The thought scared
him.  After all that's what the Parises *did*.  For six generations
there had been someone from the Paris line serving in Starfleet.
Serving in Starfleet was like eating and breathing. Hell, his own
father used to joke it was genetic.  He just didn't know what to make
of a child that might not serve in Starfleet. He had even less clues
about anyone making a living out of being creative.  Oh sure, he could
understand the creativity of science. All of those fine minds within
Starfleet working on projects that advanced warp field theory and more
efficient transporters. *That* he could understand.  The other things
he could not.  He played in holodecks on occasion but had never been
particularly fond of them.  He didn't understand.  He just didn't
understand.

---

Voyager was left alone by every other ship in the Alpha Quadrant,
except for the frequent Fleet escorts.  Other Starfleet crews
considered it an honour to fly a few light years with them.  Crews
took the opportunity to beam over and tour the ship, like curious
spectators.  The Voyager crew found themselves placed into the
celebrity category.  It was disconcerting to walk down a corridor and
find some other crew staring at them with undisguised admiration.

Other species however, left them alone.  Klingons, Romulans,
Cardassians, Ferengi - they were nowhere to be seen.  Starfleet had
negotiated safe passage across any disputed territories and it seemed
they were so famous that no one was prepared to cross paths with
Voyager and risk Starfleet's wrath.

Tom had other things to worry about.  He had learned in his eventful
life that secrets were secrets for a reason.  It was easier to be
quiet, to shut up, to ignore something than to admit to the problem.
It was the reasoning of childhood.  If he didn't talk about it then it
didn't exist. The fact that he suspected that his best friend was
having an affair with his wife was one of those secrets.  He'd taken a
scan of the foetus.  Stored the scan in his private database.  Hadn't
thought any more about it, just kept it there, a quiet little secret
that he didn't want to investigate any further.  It was best left
alone, untouched and unacknowledged.  He could only imagine the
consequences on a ship the size of Voyager.  He had been the target of
enough gossip in his life and he didn't want to go through it again.
The quiet whispers in the messhall.  The sudden silences when he
walked into a room.  The gossip would be bad, although presumably this
time around he would the object of their pity, which seemed even
worse. Once the truth of the affair became public, Captain and
Chakotay would have to move people around to other shifts and he
didn't imagine Janeway would relish the prospect of having to deal
with the fall-out of Tom and B'Elanna's relationship on the eve of her
greatest triumph.

Try as he might, as suspicious as he was, he couldn't quite think that
B'Elanna would go so far as to have an affair.  She was his wife.  If
nothing else her Klingon blood made her take an oath seriously and she
had taken a vow of marriage.

He'd been kind and supportive when she'd been released from sickbay.
She had to take a few days off, doctor's orders.  So he'd made her
breakfast in the mornings, replicated her flowers. Forced all of his
suspicions out of his mind, pretended they didn't exist.  He dedicated
himself to banishing the suspicions by proving to B'Elanna that he was
everything she could imagine in a mate.  He did the housework, did the
laundry.  Steered clear of the holodeck.  Checked on her in his
breaks.

Caught himself staring at her when she wasn't looking, trying to
fathom why she could so easily go behind his back.  When he thought
about it, he got angry and then he wanted to not be so nice, then he
wanted to go over to her, shake her, yell at her, throw her out, make
her suffer.

He kept telling himself it was all a mistake until the moment that
morbid curiosity overtook him and he'd used the sickbay holoprojector
to project an image of what he had hoped and prayed was his daughter.
He wanted to be wrong.  Very, very wrong.  When he saw the beautiful
almond shape of the child's eyes, the delicate pale brown skin, the
jet black hair, he felt that peculiar missed beat of a heart suddenly
revved on adrenaline and fear.

A scan of the medical database for a DNA comparison of likely genetic
donors confirmed it.

Harry Kim was the baby's father.

He stared at the computer results on the screen.  Somehow he thought
he would have been angrier.  Instead he surprised himself by laughing.
He couldn't help it.  Oh, but the Universe had one sick sense of
humour.

He'd been a fool to presume that things could ever get better. He'd
been a fool to allow himself to trust.

Saving the results to a padd, he went back to calibrating the biobeds.
There didn't seem to be much else to do when trapped on a ship of the
damned.

---

Life slowly returned to normal. Or what passed as normal in the Paris
household.  Tom wandered around the house and when he wanted a change
of scene, he visited a public holosuite and aimlessly played the
available holoprograms that he didn't really like or enjoy.

The Doctor declared him physically fit with reservations about the
level of various neurotransmitters.  Not much of a problem to be of
serious concern but something the Doctor said, "he would keep an eye
on."

His father spent most of his time at home, seemingly content to keep
up a constant stream of aimless banter that was incongruous with Tom's
image of the self-controlled, disciplined man he'd known as a child.

Maybe his father had some awful neurological disease.  That would
explain everything.  He'd asked one day, over dinner, and his father
just laughed.

"It's only a neurological disease if being a stubborn idiot is a
disease."

All that self-awareness and confession and good natured charm was
beginning to rub Tom the wrong way.  What he really needed was the
arguments he was so used to having when he was growing up.  The other
thing he wondered about was his crewmates on Voyager.  Not all of them
of course, but some of them. Captain Janeway, Seven, even Chakotay.

"Owen?"  He hadn't managed to get around to calling his father "Dad"
yet.  He did on occasions but for this new model of Admiral Paris he
felt that the easiest option was simply his name.  His father didn't
seem to mind.  Again, another strange thing.

"Hmmm?"  His father was engrossed over a padd.

"Can you tell me what the others are doing?"

"The others?"

"The Voyager crew.  I wondered what they were doing."

His father put the padd down. "I can tell you that Kathryn was
promoted to Admiral."

Tom smiled at the news.  "Is she giving the Admiralty a run for its
money?"

"Kathryn doesn't take no for an answer if that's what you mean."

"I can't imagine her staying on Earth."

Owen shook his head, temporarily serious.  "There were issues
regarding some of her command decisions.  We understood her position
but, well, the logs were reviewed.  She was questioned quite
extensively.  We felt it was better to give her a promotion."

"Promotion to keep her out of harm's way." "Yes.  She's not happy
about it."

"Can't imagine she would be."

"The Maquis were given the option to stay in Starfleet or leave with
an honourable discharge.  The ones who left were all given healthy
pensions and back-pay.  If they want to come back, the door is open."

"What about Chakotay?"

"I seem to remember he chose to leave, went back to Dorvan Four with
Seven."

He didn't want to ask but felt compelled.   Two names out of
curiosity.

"What about B'Elanna and Harry?"

His father frowned but didn't say anything.  Tom had been grateful for
his father's sensitivity about the issue.  Owen hadn't mentioned them
in front of him, hadn't questioned him about the final days aboard
Voyager when things had fallen apart in such a spectacular way.  Owen
got up and walked over to the terminal on the table.

"I can tell you whatever you want to know," said Owen.

Tom came over, looked over his father's shoulder.  Seemed his father
had been collecting information.  Lots of information.

"I thought I'd keep my eye on them.  Just so if you asked, you'd
know."

"That's . uh, that's an awful lot of data."

"Let's just say that when I found out what had been going on, I wanted
to know more about them."

"You have Harry's birth certificate."

"I can also tell you how long his mother was in labour."

"That's just-"

"-obsessive?"

"Uh huh."

"They hurt you.  What's the saying, 'know thy enemy'?"

"Please tell me you haven't been using your position as Admiral to
interfere."

Owen smiled slightly.  "Believe it or not, I've been restrained. Loril
advised against it.  He was right."  He tapped up a few commands.
"So, what do you want to know?"

"I'll take the edited highlights."

"Ms. Torres is serving aboard the Enterprise in Engineering."

Tom frowned.  The last thing he expected was for B'Elanna to wind up
in Starfleet. He'd figured she'd go into private contracting the first
opportunity she had.

"B'Elanna continued working in Starfleet?"  It was more to himself.
His father instantly called up the appropriate data.

"She almost left, but several Admirals convinced her to stay. However,
Admiral Janeway was not one of those Admirals.  She was given the post
on the Enterprise, flattered a great deal and told that like all of
the Voyager crew she could walk away.  In the end I think the
opportunity to spend her time tinkering with the Enterprise's engines
was too hard to resist."

"She's not the type of person I could ever imagine working on the
Enterprise.  Let alone enjoying it."

"I never said she enjoyed it. The impression I get from Captain Picard
is that it's been a bumpy ride."

Tom nodded.  So, B'Elanna seemed to be at a crossroads in her life.
Seemed fair to him. Besides, he wasn't listening to all of this out of
a sense of charity or forgiveness.  The appeal of the suffering of
others was too much on his mind.

"Mr. Kim is on an extended posting as a Lieutenant Commander on the
research ship the Solar Flare," said his father.

They were serving on different ships.  What had been going on?  He had
to ask the question that had been killing him for a while.

"Are they married?"

"No.  As you know it was pretty much all over on Voyager."

"I kind of suspected they would get back together again."

"Well, they never did.  Seems they deeply regretted the entire thing."

"Good," said Tom because it was.  To him.

"Is there anything else you want to know?"

"No.  That's fine for now."

"Just ask if you do.  Believe me I'll have no problems.  I can find
out what Harry Kim ate for breakfast this morning."

"Wow, you really take revenge seriously."

"I've had practise."

"With who?"

"After I came back from being tortured by the Cardassians I had a
certain compulsion to find out more about my torturers.  I don't know
what I hoped to find.  I guess it was just some strange faith that the
universe would somehow give me justice and I needed to know exactly
what they were doing to be able to have a front row seat."

"Did it work?"

"I knew about Gul CerTak's death within two hours of it happening."

"Did it make you feel any better?"

"Yes and no.  Which I thought was kind of odd.  I thought I'd enjoy
hearing that he'd died but it turned out he'd died peacefully in his
sleep."

"Which pissed you off.  You wanted him to die painfully."

"Exactly.  Hopefully after being tortured."

"What'd you do?"

"Tried to remember that the universe wasn't there to personally avenge
me.  Tried to be in control."

"Did it work?"

"No.  I got through it because your mother made it clear that if I
didn't get my act together, she was leaving me."

"Mom said that?"

"Your mother could say a lot of things when she was really upset. Mind
you, she really did leave me in the end."

Tom sighed.  "I didn't mean to pry."

"You didn't pry.  It was something I should have told you before now.
Besides, you need to know that if you do spy on your friends you might
not find the answers you want."  His father closed the file.  "So, do
you want to go out and get something to eat for a change?"

"That would be good."

"We'll get pizza."

"Great."

"Get your coat, it's chilly for this time of the year."

Tom gave him a mock salute, got his coat from upstairs.  When he came
back, his father had also thrown on a coat.

"Tom?"

"Yeah?"

"I want you to go and see Loril too."

Tom ignored him and continued doing up the fasteners on his coat.

"I know you don't think you need therapy but it's helpful," his father
continued.

Tom couldn't quite keep the surly tone out of his voice.  "I had to
have counselling in prison remember?  Been there, done that. Besides,
it'd just be weird if both of us went to therapy."

"For God's sake, not at the same time you idiot."

That was more like it.

"What if I don't want to go?"

"Then you don't have to.  But I'd like you to."

"You should know by now that I never do anything that you want me to."

"True."

"Is it conditional?"

"As in?"

"If I don't go, you throw me out onto the street to teach me a
lesson."

"No.  That's never going to happen."

His father looked pitiful standing there with a pleading look in his
eye.

"Oh, all right.  I'll think about it."

"Good.  Now let's go and get that pizza."

Tom followed his father out of the door feeling as if he had an itch
that he couldn't scratch and his father all too damn accommodating for
his liking.  It seemed his father could no longer be baited.  There
was no comfort zone to be had.  On the good side however, it sounded
like Harry and B'Elanna might be miserable.  A possible fact that made
him feel happy.

---

His wife had betrayed him, best friend had turned into a duplicitous
little weasel.  He spent his nights wondering if he should cry and
then found he couldn't.  Sleep turned into a challenge.  He was
perpetually tired during the day, but couldn't sleep at night.  He lay
on the couch at 03:00 ship time and his fertile imagination provided
him with vivid images of B'Elanna and Harry sharing the same bed.

He hadn't worked up to confronting either of them and knew he should.
B'Elanna wasn't a fool.  She must have figured out why he was suddenly
sleeping on the couch, why he preferred to take his meals in the
messhall, why he wasn't talking to her, why he kept any contact he had
to have with her strictly professional.  If she was innocent he was
pretty sure she would have called him on it by now.  One day he made a
point of taking off his wedding ring and leaving it by the basin in
the bathroom.  He never put it back on again.

The ring stayed there, then vanished three days later.  He found it
discreetly tucked away in a drawer by his bed.

If he was childish, he didn't care.  No one really noticed that his
wedding ring was missing.  It was one of those small details in
people's lives that tended to be overlooked until it was mentioned.

As to Harry Kim, ex-best friend - he'd been fighting the urge to just
march around to Harry Kim's quarters and begin punching him repeatedly
in the face.  He could watch in satisfaction as Harry's nose broke and
the blood started to flow.  Oh yes, it would be so very good to do and
so very satisfying to watch.  It would also probably land him in the
brig and he had no urge to go back there.

He didn't really glance at Harry when he came onto his shift. Made a
point of going past him as quickly as possible.  He kept things
professional.  When he had to work with Harry, Harry had a tendency to
drop eye contact and break out in a sweat.

Yeah, the guy was guilty.  Harry had never been good at lying.

What in the hell was he going to do?  If he confronted them, then it
was all over.  Divorce, scandal, a detour at the least.  In the Delta
Quadrant they would have had to remain on the ship, the Captain and
Chakotay would have probably had to scramble around to try and shore
up the damage.  They would have been placed on different shifts at the
very least.  In the Alpha Quadrant Fleet regulations would take
precedent.  There was an entire section in the manual that covered
messy divorces and relationship meltdowns. For the sake of the crew,
the ship and the people involved, the parties were given the support
of the ship's counsellor until such time as they could be transferred
to other postings as speedily as possible.

As they didn't have any counsellors, Voyager would probably just have
to dump everyone at the nearest starbase.

Not a great way for the mission to end.

To take his mind off things he'd easily fallen back into the habit of
replicating a few glasses of scotch every night.  He wasn't drinking
on duty so he was sure it wouldn't be highlighted in any security
reports.  It was comforting, and familiar and it only helped
marginally.  He drank far too much coffee during the day and spent too
much time replicating snacks full of sugar.  They didn't give him any
pleasure, just a biochemical jump start that began to lose its
effectiveness rapidly.  When he went to the holodeck, none of the
holoprograms really seemed to make him feel any good.  His ability to
feel pleasure had mysteriously vanished, to be replaced by a long
plateau of monotony.

He turned up at sickbay for his regular duties.  He kept his witty
banter and jokes going, forcing out the expected persona of Tom Paris
that everyone knew and loved, even though his entire world was
colourless and drab.  His old enthusiasms were gone.

His father picked up on it.

"You don't look well."

"I'm okay."

"Are you sure you're fine?"

"Don't worry about it.  I think it's just the workload and the
excitement of getting back."

"Starfleet has called in some fine counsellors.  They'll debrief
everyone when Voyager gets back to Earth.  They're also going to be
available to talk via comms next week.  We're hoping the crew on
Voyager can raise any concerns they may have before they get home."

"That's great."

"Would you like to talk to someone?"

Tom plastered a smile on his face.  "No.  It's fine.  Really. We've
had to deal with tougher things in the DQ."

"I know.  I've read the reports."

"I'll talk to you later.  I'm on duty in sickbay in five minutes."

His father seemed disappointed by the short conversation.

"I'll talk to you tomorrow, Tom.  Same time?"

"Uh, sure.  Can't promise anything though.  The closer we get to
Earth, the busier it seems to get."

"I understand.  Admiral Paris, out."  The link was closed.

Tom closed his eyes, feeling weary from the effort of talking.  He
didn't know how he was going to tell his father about B'Elanna. He
didn't even know if his father would be that sympathetic.  It was just
one more thing on the list of things that Tom Paris had done to screw
up his life.  He felt conflicted and he'd never particularly been
comfortable with feelings that didn't involve being excited, or happy.

Tom replicated a mug of coffee to take with him to sickbay, and drank
it along the way.

---

Owen had started bringing over some family photo albums when he saw
Loril.  He found himself getting nostalgic for those days.  At home
with his growing children, and his wife.

Well, what was done was done.  He couldn't go back.  Too bad for him.

"There's something wrong with Tom," he told Loril as soon as he walked
into the office.

Loril was normally a relaxed person.  Casual in the office, a body
language that said that nothing was really as bad as it seemed. It
changed at the news from Owen.

"Give me the details."

"Nothing I can really pin down but he looks tired.  He's distracted
when he talks to me.  I suggested counselling and he turned me down
flat."

"Could be the strain of getting ready to come home to Earth."

"That's what he said."

Loril pursed his lips, considered something.

"He's always been good at keeping his emotions locked down when he
thinks there's a need.  I don't think you're going to get much out of
him."

"I'm worried."

"Just keep talking to him.  That's about all you can do."

Owen slumped down in the couch, holding the photo padd in his hand.

"He was such a spontaneous little boy.  I stopped all of that.
Couldn't have him showing any sign of weakness."

"You were doing what you thought was best."

"What I thought was best was pathetic.  He loved animals.  He could
have been a vet.  He might have made a good vet."

"You can't get the past back Owen."

"I brought over some photos of our first dog.  Barney."

---

There had always been dogs in the Paris household.  Owen had a dog as
a child, and naturally he got one for his own children.  A mild
Labrador named Barney by the eldest girl. Owen had no idea why but by
the way the girls snickered to themselves for the first two weeks
every time Barney was called inside, Owen suspected the Labrador was
the unwitting participant in some school prank.  Tom seemed happy to
go along with the consensus.

Tom adored Barney, Barney adored Tom.  Tom insisted on helping out as
best he could, filling Barney's bowl with water, filling Barney's
other bowl with far too many dog biscuits and struggling to walk
Barney on a lead when Barney was the size of a small pony to a three
year old.  Grace and Owen were both forced to keep their eye on their
son as he attempted to be an adult before his time.

It was a summer's day, the girls had gone off to camp.  Tom was at
home enjoying the task of being the only child.  Owen sat in the
kitchen with his feet up on a chair, going through some reports on his
day off.  Grace was working on some needlepoint. The sounds of
giggling reached his ears.  They'd just sent Tom outside with an ice
cream cone.  Chocolate chip, his absolute favourite.

More giggling.  Slightly more hysterical this time.

Owen raised an eyebrow at Grace.  "Do we want to see what he's doing
or should we presume that it's perfectly innocent?"

Grace shrugged.  "Well, whatever it is, he thinks it's funny."

There was no accounting for a small child's sense of humour.
Especially where Tom was concerned.  The last time he'd laughed that
hard his sisters had buried him up to his neck in the back garden.

"I'll go and check on him."

Outside he found the source of amusement.  Tom was sitting next to
Barney.  Barney, in typical Labrador fashion, had been unable to
resist the ice cream.  A large, pink, wet dog tongue snaked its way
out to take a lick of ice cream.  Tom took a lick of the same ice
cream. Tom pointed it back in the direction of the dog's face. The dog
took a large lick of the ice cream.  Tom giggled.

Owen put a hand to his face. Fifteen minutes before he'd seen Barney
attempting to eat the cat's crap out of the kitty litter tray.

"Honey, don't let the dog eat your ice cream."

Tom turned around to him still holding the ice cream in Barney's
direction.  Barney took full opportunity of the interruption to start
taking as much as he could.

"Barney likes it Daddy. We're sharing!"

"That's nice sweetie, but Barney's tongue has got germs on it."

"Is it yucky?"

"Yes, it's yucky."

Owen suspected that like most little boys Tom actually found the
concept of something being yucky to be appealing but he also knew that
when his parents told him that something was yucky he shouldn't do it
any more.  The last discussion about all things germ ridden was Tom's
short lived attraction to eating dirt.  Not that it would kill the kid
but it did upset his sisters.

"Okay Daddy, I won't do it any more.  Can Barney have his own ice
cream?"

"I think he's had quite enough for one day."

Tom turned his attention back to the dog.  It had eaten the ice cream
in two gulps and was working its way down the cone in surreptitious
nibbles.

"Daddy!  Barney's not sharing!"

"No, he's not.  Come back inside and you can have another ice cream."

"You're a bad dog," Tom told the dog sternly. Barney had the good
grace to look pitiful.

Tom scrabbled to his feet, Owen held out his hand and they went back
inside together.  He told Grace what had happened and both parents
resisted the urge to scrub Tom's mouth out with antiseptic.

---

He was as nervous as hell as he sat on Loril Tyor's couch. In Loril's
office.  A nicer one than the office he'd used in prison. Sure, the
prison authorities tried to make it relaxing and comforting but there
was no getting away from the traditional wall colouring of Starfleet:
battleship grey.  Even a series of paintings couldn't disguise it.

Even though he knew Loril, knew the kid was okay, he was still
nervous.  He'd developed a certain skittishness around Loril when he'd
been in prison.  Too many secrets that he needed to hide and too many
prying eyes and minds. A Betazoid counsellor had to be the worse.

He unconsciously wiped the palm of his hands across his trousers and
hoped his profuse sweating wasn't too obvious.

The kid was definitely older.  Loril was insanely young when he'd
graduated from the Academy.  Seven years later he was 25.  A few years
older than Harry when they'd first met back on DS9.

Loril began the session by throwing a softball at him.  Tom caught it
easily.

"How are you?" said Loril.

"Fine," said Tom. Then threw the softball back at the kid.

Loril tossed the ball up into the air and pitched it back.

"So, are you here of your own free will, or here because you thought
you owed your father something?"

"You always did get straight to the point."

"And you were never one for just opening up immediately.  I had to
work to get underneath that shell like exterior.  It worked better to
go straight for the jugular rather than beating around the bush."

Tom held onto the softball.  "Owen suggested it.  I guess I came
because I thought I owed him."

"As payment for putting up with you."

Tom shrugged.  "I guess so."

"He only suggested it out of concern."

"Admiral Owen Paris usually does thing to further his own agenda."

"That's a bit harsh."

"Whose side are you on? Besides, isn't this a conflict of interest or
something?"  Tom threw the ball back, missed Loril.  The ball hit the
wall with a thud, hit the carpet.

Loril grinned.  "It's only a conflict if I have sex with either of
you."

Tom screwed up his face.  "Oh, there's a mental image I'll be stuck
with for the rest of the day.  Thanks."

"Of course the other conflict is if I favour one party over the other
but I don't.  Besides family and marriage counselling has been around
for 400 years.  We have a code of ethics so rigid, it could prop up
the Golden Gate bridge. So, as I'm not having sex with either of you,
or on anyone's side, and I've got all those ethics to abide by, I
guess it's fine."

"Were you this annoying in prison?"

Loril pretended to think for a minute.  "Hmmm - I do believe I was.
And I think you made a point of telling me."

"Glad to see we're consistent."

Loril got up and went to retrieve the ball.  He wandered over to the
replicator.  "Do you want anything to drink?"

"Alcoholic or nonalcoholic?"

"Let me rephrase that.  Do you want coffee, tea or hot chocolate?"

"I'll take a raktajino if you've got one."

"I should have guessed.  Starfleet and raktajino.  It's like people
are selected for the Fleet based on a gene for strong coffee."

"Keeps us awake through the final semester."

"I know just what you mean."

Tom turned his eye to the informality of the place, the family
atmosphere generated by the searingly bright rug, the comfy furniture,
the desk covered in paperwork and the overly perky artwork.

"I can't believe you treat patients in this room."

"Haven't had to treat any patients in a while and if I do, they're
usually somewhere more sedate than this."

"So what am I?"

"A client.  You weren't exactly a patient in prison either."

"I guess."

"The official term is counsellor, not psychiatrist, or for that
matter, prison warden."

"So you're going to counsel me, if I decide to stay.  About what?"

"About whatever you want to be counselled about."

"Can't think of anything."

"How about the fact that you don't have anything to do, you're living
with your father at 38 and your doctor worries that you could wind up
with a bout of depression."

"Is having a bout of depression like getting a bout of flu?"

"Smart ass."

"I try."

"Generally, people like to keep busy if they can.  So what have you
been doing?"

"Holosuites.  Eating.  Lying in bed. Gaining weight."

"Glad to see you have hobbies.  Anything else you want to do?"

"If my father told you to work on getting me back into Starfleet
again-"

"-No.  He did not.  He worries about you.  That's all."

"Whatever."

"So, you don't want to go back to Starfleet."

Tom nodded in agreement.  "They'd have to knock me out, handcuff me
and drag me to a ship."

"We can cross that off the list.  You should be doing something else
anyway."

"I'd really like to know what that something else is."

"We'll figure it out.  Of more to the point, you'll figure it out and
I'll just provide assistance when needed."

"I seem to remember having this conversation in prison."

"I think I recommended you go and get some career testing and figure
out what else you wanted to do."

"I seem to remember that I wound up on Voyager before we got to that
point," said Tom.

"You had a thing about flying."

"Still do."

Loril abruptly stood up, putting the softball down on the couch.
"Let's go out."

Tom frowned, puzzled and bemused. Loril kept trying the same tactic on
him in prison.  Suddenly switching gears, hauling off to do something
with Tom, tolerating Tom's weird hobbies.

"Where do you want to go?"

"Let's go to a holosuite.  You said you liked hanging out there."

Tom rolled his eyes.  "I don't like it that much.  Most of the
holoprograms are damn boring."

"Why?"

"Totally lacking in imagination and creativity.  Unbelievably *Dixon
Hill* is still being played."

"You don't like Dixon Hill?"

Tom cringed.  "It's so predictable that if it were any more
predictable Dixon Hill would either be a Vulcan or a block of wood."

Loril snickered.  "And the others?"

Tom ticked them off on his fingers. "Spy programs.  Silly.  Las Vega
in the 1950s.  Very silly."

"I played that.  I liked Vic."

"A lounge singer who gives advice to the love lorn.  How cliched is
*that*?"

"My, we are in a critical mood today."

"You want to go and play one of these dumb programs or sit here and
talk?"

"Play."

---

"Get the fuck out of my sight Harry."

The soft glow of sickbay lighting surrounded them.  Tom, his best
friend, suddenly seeming a good deal taller than he was, staring
straight into his best friend's eyes with a look that challenged Harry
to start a fight.

"Please, Tom, I wanted to explain."

"There's nothing to explain!  Get the hell out!"

Harry tried to appear neutral, he willed his body to relax.  He wasn't
going to set Tom off and Tom was about six seconds from exploding
judging by the shade of red creeping across his cheeks.

"If you'd give me a chance-"

"-NO!  You've had your damn chance.  You took it and ruined my life
Harry!"

There was the sound of the Doctor's matrix flicking in.  Great, he'd
arranged the whole thing for a time when the Doctor was going to be
out of sickbay, playing golf or whatever in the holodeck. He'd checked
it out on his Ops station, made sure he could casually stroll into
sickbay while Tom was there, and deal with the whole issue in an adult
manner.

B'Elanna had left him a few days ago.  After they talked to each
other.  After B'Elanna refused to at least spare Tom any more
suffering and tell him what was going on.  B'Elanna it seemed, may
have liked to appear tough but underneath that tough exterior she was
a coward, just like him.  It was easy to be morally superior when
nobody knew what they were doing.  She didn't try to justify herself,
just said, "we all have our dark sides."  Her dark side was set long
ago by her father's abandonment of the family.  For B'Elanna, love
meant that you never left and because it seemed that people always
left her anyway, she made a pre-emptive strike and assumed control by
being the leavee, rather than the leaver.

Somewhere in the back of Harry Kim's mind, Harry thought that B'Elanna
could have really used a top rated Starfleet certified therapist.

So, neither of them said a thing even when they were agreeing to call
it all off.  Not that Tom hadn't already guessed.  They were both
aware of that from his small but obvious hints about his utter
contempt for both of them.  The wedding ring was removed. He avoided
any contact with Harry.  Strangely though, whereas Harry would have
buckled and asked to be transferred to another shift, Tom seemed to
take a perverse delight in torturing Harry with his presence.  No
doubt about it, Tom could be a superb actor when he needed or wanted
to be.  The rest of the bridge shift was none the wiser.  If either
Janeway or Chakotay had noticed a problem between Harry and Tom, they
hadn't said.

He took one last shot.  Tom needed to know that it was okay in a way.
That Harry was out of the picture.

"B'Elanna and I, we-"

He didn't get to finish.  He saw that the Doctor was standing there
probably realising something was wrong.  Then he saw Tom reach back,
pull back his fist and send that fist into his face. A right hook that
connected with his nose in such a spectacular manner, there was the
dual sensation of his nose cracking and blood gushing down his face in
torrents.

"Mr. Paris!"  The EMH scuttled to his side, throwing worried glances
at Tom.  Tom seemed to have figured that he might as well go the whole
way.  Tom launched himself straight towards Harry, trying to climb
over the EMH to get to his target.  The EMH looked
uncharacteristically alarmed and hit his commbadge.

"Security to sickbay!"

Harry decided against heroism and hid behind the protective barrier of
the EMH's collection of photonic particles.  The EMH kept in front of
him, Tom did his best to get around them, and they danced their merry
way over to the nearest hypospray.  Harry realised that the Doctor was
going to try and somehow sedate Tom. At least he hoped that was the
plan.

While the Doctor tried speaking soothingly, Tuvok and two security
guards came hurtling into sickbay.  They didn't stop to question. The
guards each grabbed an arm.

"Really," muttered the Doctor.

Harry noted that Tom hadn't calmed down much.  He was trying to get
free from the guards but not having any luck.  Tuvok was taking in the
entire scene with the Vulcan equivalence of amazement.

Harry found himself standing there in the midst of chaos, blood
soaking into his uniform.  He opened his mouth again, thought better
of it.  Closed it.

Tom stopped struggling and went back to glaring at his former friend.

"Don't ever come near me again.  If you come near me again, I'll make
sure I finish the job."

Tuvok raised an eyebrow.  "Lieutenant Paris, are you threatening
Ensign Kim?"

Tom didn't answer him but it was clear from his expression that, yes,
he was threatening Harry with something more than a broken nose.

So Harry watched as they dragged his friend out of sickbay to escort
him back to his quarters.  Tuvok said he'd inform Captain Janeway of
the whole incident.

Harry sat on a biobed, the Doctor healing his nose, realising that
things were worse.  Captain Janeway would ask questions.  Dirty
laundry was about to be aired.

Oh God, what in the hell had he done?

---

Owen Paris decided he hated being an Admiral.  He hated being an
Admiral because of the bureaucracy of Starfleet.  Bureaucracy that was
directly affecting his son.

Did these people have nothing better to do?

He sighed.  Reverted to old strategies and schooled his expression
until it was neutral.

He could see the conference room, Janeway seated at one end, Tom
sitting beside her on the right.  To her left was her First Officer,
Chakotay.  Owen had checked out his service record.  A promising
officer with a bone to pick.  Still, the man had high principles and
stuck to them, even if the principles did involve killing a large
number of Cardassians.

"I'm so sorry," Owen said.

Janeway considered the padd she was holding.  "This has to be some
sort of mix-up.  They can't be serious."

Tom had his hands clasped together tightly. The knuckles were going
white.

"I checked.  Someone in Starfleet has decided that since you were
never recertified to fly, you shouldn't officially be piloting
Voyager," said Owen.

Chakotay stood up, obviously indignant on Tom's behalf.  "I wasn't
certified to fly a Federation ship either but I didn't noticed any
similar orders from Starfleet."

Owen spread his hands in a gesture of agreement and puzzlement. "If I
knew what the reasoning was behind this decision, believe me, I'd tell
you."

"So you're going to go through with this then?" Tom asked with a tone
that expressed his unhappiness.

"Tom, it's an order," said Janeway.

"They wouldn't know," Tom said.

To Owen it seemed a strange thing to say.  Of course they'd know.
Every pilot had to sign on to the command console. As soon as he sat
down and punched in his code, they'd know.  Even if they switched the
codes, created him a new one, Starfleet would know.

"I'm sure the Admiral will do everything he can," said Chakotay.

"Yeah.  Sure."

Owen let out a long sigh.  He'd been hoping everyone could have a
straight run home.  It was bad enough that Starfleet paper pushers
were running around discussing the 'Maquis Problem' every five
minutes.  When they'd started reviewing Tom's case, several of them
had to stop themselves from squealing in delight.

"Tom, I'm sorry but this one is out of my hands.  But I promise you
I'm going to get this whole situation resolved.  Until then you're not
authorised to fly Voyager."

His son again didn't say anything, just gave a nod.  Owen couldn't
think of anything to say.  He'd talk to Tom later.

"I'm sorry," he said again.  "Paris, out."

Something was not right with Tom.  He knew that.  When Tom was upset
he closed down and this was more than being removed from pilot status.

Damn, it was hard.  He didn't know his own son and hadn't for nearly
10 years.

---

The guards gave him a gentle push into his quarters and Tom found
himself alone with plenty of time to consider his ill timed actions.
He'd been coping fine, keeping himself in check and then Harry had to
come to sickbay to try and confess to him.

Harry had never been good at dealing with guilt, or lying for that
matter.

Still angry, he spent the first five minutes circling the room,
looking for something to hit and choosing one of his walls.  Not that
it did any good.  They were designed to stand up to the stresses of
space travel.  Someone's fist certainly wasn't going to make a dent,
let alone leave a mark.  It did however hurt and hurting physically
made him feel a little better - at least it distracted him from the
pain of his confrontation with Harry and the enormity of the betrayal.

He reeled back from the wall and sat down, nursing his hand.  Then he
found his mood crashing and with it his ability to maintain any
facade.  He surprised himself by crying and he didn't cry. Not ever.
Not in front of people, not alone.  He'd had all the expressions of
sadness drummed out of him long ago.  Crying was a weakness and
weakness was something to be banished.

His father's words echoed from long ago when his father was taller
than him, smarter than him, successful and demanding.  "Crying doesn't
serve any purpose and you can't afford to express any sort of weakness
in command."

Even that was confusing now. His memories of his father and his father
today.  They didn't add up, didn't mesh, certainly didn't gel.  He
hadn't spoken much to his father since his capture and trial for
serving with the Maquis.  What was he - all of 27?  Old enough to have
known better anyway and certainly old enough to stop butting heads
with his father.  They'd had a brief showdown at his trial.  A hurried
conversation in the hallway.  Tom in handcuffs, flanked by Fleet
security.  His father, looking harried, trying to have an adult
conversation with his son but failing.  Raised voices, rising tempers,
the security guards having to steer Tom into a different room as his
father's escalating volume caused heads to turn.

So, just over 10 years ago.  His adolescence added even more years.
But he'd changed, so that could mean that his father had changed too.

Maybe.  But it didn't seem to matter. Earth was still a life time away
as far as he was concerned and his immediate problems didn't bear
thinking about.

He waited for the Captain to turn up to send him to the brig, again,
but she didn't show up.  Hours passed and exhausted he gave up, went
to his bed and lay down, noticing that B'Elanna's things were gone.
Her side of the bed was neatly made up.  She'd left the TV.

Well, at least he got to keep something.

Sleep wasn't hard to find.  He closed his eyes, his last conscious,
misery laden thought was about B'Elanna and how he could have been so
blind. And such a fool.

---

He woke with a start.  He was vaguely aware of hearing the door chime
sound.  Captain Janeway was standing over him, along with the Doctor.

He'd been wondering when she'd turn up.  He just didn't understand why
it took so long.  The softness of the bed seemed to suck him down.  It
was a struggle to sit up and his skin crawled and itched.  He didn't
bother to get off the bed, as protocol would have demanded.  It was
too tiring.

"I've talked to Harry.  He hasn't said much," said Captain Janeway.
Her voice was strangely kind.  He had been expecting to be given a
taste of her famous ability to strip the hides off men with her
acerbic tone of voice.

Tom couldn't help but snort in disbelief that the kid could continue
to be such an idiot.  How could Harry keep gravitating between naivety
and hypocrisy?

"Yeah, well, there's not much to say.  I punched him.  I'm pretty sure
I broke his nose."

"Yes you did," confirmed the Doctor.

"Any explanation Mr. Paris?"

"Not really.  I don't suppose you'd accept that we were arm wrestling
and it got out of control?"

"No."

The Doctor frowned at his tricorder readings.  "It appears that you
have a nasty case of urticaria."

"That explains the itching."

"Doctor?"  Janeway was looking at the EMH, waiting for his
explanation.

"The lieutenant told me once that he suffered a severe case of hives
after breaking up with his first love, Susie Crabtree.  I checked his
medical records after he told me.  The Academy physician noted that in
times of severe stress Mr. Paris could be prone to manifesting hives
as a response."

Great.  Even his body betrayed him at key junctures in his life.

"Anything you'd like to tell me?"  Janeway's expression was oddly
sympathetic.  Maybe she had managed to worm something out of Harry
after all.

"Not really."

The EMH was on one side, continuing the scan.  Tom didn't bother to
talk to the EMH, just studiously ignored him while the Doctor took
some notes on his generally wrecked physiological state.

Finally the EMH spoke.  "As of now, you are officially on medical
leave."

Tom tried to appear indignant. "Why?!"

"My scans indicate extreme stress.  There is an excessive amount of
cortisol in your bloodstream."

Tom snorted at the news.  "Yeah, yeah, cortisol."

"Mr. Paris, this is serious.  With your personal history you should
know that you're prone to being a high-stress responder."

The Captain stood there, quietly conducting her own assessment.

"I'll leave you to the Doctor's care Tom.  I hope you'll talk to him."

"Just what did Harry say to you?" said Tom.

"Someone else came to see me," she said.

She didn't say anything else.  Tom watched her go.  He knew who that
someone else was.  A someone else who had her own attack of
conscience.  It explained the quarters being devoid of her belongings.

The Doctor busied himself, taking out a hypospray from his bag,
tut-tutting at Tom's general state of ill-being.

"What have you been eating lately?"

"Anything that made me feel better."

"Which was?"

"A lot of coffee, chocolate and peanut butter on toast."

The EMH winced.  "I hope that hasn't been every day."

"Every day for weeks," said Tom, trying to joke but really, it was the
truth.  It was a wonder he didn't have a case of that old sailor's
disease, scurvy.

"Mr. Paris you should have come to me for advice.  Cortisol stimulates
production of neuropeptide Y in the brain, and insulin. Neuropeptide Y
is one of the factors that turns carbohydrate cravings off and on.  It
also makes you retain additional body fat, along with insulin.  And
let's not even get into the elevated triglyceride levels..."

"Is this where you tell me I have to go on a diet?"

"No, this is where I tell you that I'm deeply concerned for your
welfare.  This is tipping over into a full blown depression."

Tom screwed up his face. "What's the Captain said to you?"

"Nothing.  Just that she had talked with on of the parties concerned
and it wasn't really your fault."

Tom didn't know what to say, or how to respond.  Actually, that was a
common problem these days.  He felt like crying again but couldn't.

"Mr. Paris I understand the past few weeks has been hard on you, but
surely Starfleet will resolve the problem. The captain values your
contribution as a crewmember.  She'll fight to get you reinstated as a
pilot."

If only the Doctor knew. He laughed.

"Yeah, good old Starfleet.  I can hardly wait."

It seemed that the EMH had worked with him far too long.  He seemed to
pick up on his deflections of the question, his change in body
posture, his defensiveness.

"Something else has happened?"

Tom considered.  He'd been keeping the secret for far too long and
breaking Harry Kim's nose had definitely aroused suspicions.  At least
if he told the Doctor there were certain guarantees to the information
remaining private.

"This is strictly under doctor/patient confidentiality."

The EMH nodded.

Tom took a breath, felt like it would be more appropriate if the
Doctor went back and dressed up in his priest's cassock from the Fair
Haven program.

"The baby wasn't mine."

"Not yours?  I'm not quite sure I follow you."

"When you were treating B'Elanna I went into her quarters and I...
scanned the remains.  Took a tissue sample. I ran a DNA comparison."

The Doctor looked very concerned but spoke softly. "And what was the
result?"

"The baby's DNA was a match for two donors.  One was B'Elanna. The
other was Harry."

"Ensign Kim?"

"Are there any others on board I don't know about?"

The EMH looked aghast. "Ensign Kim was the baby's father?"

"Yep."

"That mean's that he and Lieutenant Torres were-"

"-yeah.  They were."

"Mr. Paris, I am sorry.  Extremely sorry."

"There's nothing to be sorry about.  Boy chases girl.  Boy gets girl.
Girl leaves boy for another boy.  It's a story that's centuries old."

"It can't have been pleasant for you.  Facing Ensign Kim on the bridge
day-after-day must have been extremely stressful.  No wonder you took
a swing at him."

Tom held up his hand, bringing the EMH to a grinding halt.

"It doesn't matter.  It's over now."

"You need to rest.  Please stay in bed."

"I couldn't get up anyway, even if I tried."

"I've given you something to take down the hives.  It may have a side
effect of making you feel slightly sedated."

"That's hardly fair Doc."

"You need the sleep.  I'll be back in a few hours."

"Are the guards gone?"

"No.  They have their orders to remain until further notice."

Tom shifted down again, to lie flat on the bed.  Then turned on his
side, curled up slightly.  The Doctor was walking out the door.

"This is right up there with being one of the worst days of my life,"
he said softly, more to himself.

The Doctor glanced back.  "It will improve.  I'm sure of it."

"I wouldn't bet on it."

---

Owen felt like strangling someone.  The specific someone being one
Commander Simms, attached to the Judge Advocate General's Office.

"I'm about this close to killing someone," he said to Loril. These
days it was about the only place where he could say exactly what he
felt.  Since Voyager's return the entire situation had become
distinctly sensitive in Command Headquarters.  More than one person
had questioned whether his involvement in the homecoming for Voyager
was such a good idea.  After all he had a vested interest in the
outcome and how could any one be 'fair' and 'impartial' with their son
serving on the ship?

More to the point, thought Owen, how could anyone contemplate putting
Voyager's crew through anything more?  They had all been through far
too much.

"The Paris Problem'.  Not a very good title considering how many other
things in history had been labelled 'problems' in need of drastic
solutions.

"You can't countermand them?"

"I wish.  I may be an Admiral but I don't have that much control. My
department is Starfleet Communications.  I don't outrank the JAG
office, not even one of their ferrets."

"Excuse me?"  Loril seemed bemused by his term.

"Sorry.  Fleet term for the underlings working in the office.  JAG
ferrets.  Good at sneaking around and getting out of tight spots."

"Do these, uh, ferrets pose much of a threat?"

"Far too many people are interested in Tom's case.  I'm losing
control.  I've been trying to track the record trail but some of it's
been encrypted.  That makes me suspicious and it also pisses me off.
Tom has had enough woes in his life.  For once he deserves a damn
break."

Loril steepled his fingers together, considering.  "I have contacts
within Starfleet.  I'll see if I can find out anything more."

"I'll take all the help I can get."

"You know, if things don't go as planned, Tom's going to need a lot of
support."

Owen nodded.  Felt miserable and powerless.  So much for his attempts
at fatherhood, at raising his son to be the best and brightest in
Starfleet.  It had all turned to ashes.

---

"I don't understand!" wailed his son, close to tears and hating his
homework.

"Tom you do understand this.  Take a deep breath, calm down and try it
again."

The battles over homework were becoming increasingly fraught.  Tom was
a very bright child but had a low frustration tolerance.  He usually
came up with a solution but he couldn't come up with the solution by
using the methods outlined in his textbooks.  He was supposed to
demonstrate the methodology used for solving the problem and it
frustrated him.

"Dad, I got the answer right, I don't see why I have to explain it."

"You have to show how you worked it out."

"Why?"

"So that the teachers can see you're using the right method."

"I don't want to use that method, it's dumb."

"Well then show me what method you used."

Tom would struggle through his own way of doing things but at nine he
lacked enough knowledge and skills to express his thoughts in a
coherent mathematical structure.  A lot of it was pure instinct in a
way that his son could never articulate.  That was pretty clear from
the way he could fly a shuttle at such a young age.  The problem was,
flying by the seat of his pants wasn't going to get him into
Starfleet.

"I want to go outside and play."

"You have to finish your homework first."

"I hate it.  I don't want to do it."

"Tom, listen to me.  You know you're a very gifted, talented and
special little boy.  You're destined to go on and do great things but
you need to have an education first."

Tom started crying in earnest. "I don't want to be special."

Owen tried to keep his temper in check.  He was more than aware that
every week night and much of the weekend was becoming a constant
monotonous battle.  Tom would have homework.  Tom wasn't allowed to
play until he'd done his homework.  Tom would try to do his homework
and start day dreaming or get frustrated.  Owen would try to help him.
Tom would start to cry.  Owen would yell.  Tom would cry more.  Owen
would yell at Tom for crying.   Five hours later the homework was
done, leaving both Tom and Owen emotional wrecks.

Tom would go to bed exhausted and Owen would go to bed feeling guilty.
The guilt made him mad at himself and mad at Tom for putting the both
of them through hell every night.

Their relationship kept getting worse and he couldn't understand it.
He tried helping Tom but Tom just couldn't be made to see the point.

Grace kept the peace.  Weekends saw an overindulgence in Tom that was
creating ill feeling amongst his sisters.  Week night battles were
made up with ice cream treats, buying more books for his groaning book
collection, trips to the museum and trips to the Academy flight
simulator.

"You spoil him Daddy!"  His eldest child was 15 and less than
impressed.

He had three children and at the moment he was pretty sure that
everyone of them had a bone to pick with him.  So much for the
perfect, happy Fleet family.

Grace had suggested counselling but he wasn't prepared to go down that
path.  He was certainly not admitting that he, an Admiral, a man in
charge of hundreds of projects and hundreds of people could not manage
his own family.

If they brought any more helpful texts about child rearing they could
open their own library.

---

Tom sat at the desk in his room, absentmindedly chewing his thumbnail
and trying to think of a plot.

Loril had played the holoprograms with him.  Tom, to demonstrate how
totally unimaginative it all was, loaded up his own program. 'Captain
Proton'.

His counsellor had just about died laughing by Chapter Seven.

"This is fantastic!" said Loril, giggling to himself as he leaped over
the metal corpse of one of Chaotica's robots.

"I told you it was fun.  But stop laughing so much.  It's not a
comedy."

"When do we get to meet Chaotica?"

"In about 20 minutes if you stop laughing long enough to help me
defeat the vampires."

"Vampires?  What's a vampire?"

Tom couldn't believe the guy had such a poor knowledge of mythological
beings.

"You'll find out."

At the end of the adventure Loril had exclaimed, "you need to sell
this.  You'd make a fortune!"

He shouldn't have taken Loril's word at face value.  It had instilled
far too many vague hopes about fulfilling a strange dream he'd had as
a child.  Something about sailing ships and submarines and heroic but
emotionally removed Captains having grand adventures on the high sea.
He'd talked about the idea in vague terms with his father.

Surprisingly his father was enthusiastically supportive.

"Good for you Tom!"

Tom had begun to realise that if he couldn't live the dream, he could
write about his dreams and live them in a different way, by creating
them.  Only writing as a possible profession was proving to be more
pressure filled than slapping together a program for his shipmates.

After all on the ship it had been a hobby. Hobbies didn't have to work
to deadlines or any other such reminders of real life.  You could get
caught up in a hobby, spend your life there, lose yourself and then go
back to real life.  The real life the hobby helped you avoid.  That
was his main problem.  To keep the thrill of discovery going.  One
thing after another, something to keep him entertained and amused with
the thrill of total and complete dedication to a task.

B'Elanna of course, had been less than amused.  Not with his garage
holoprogram where he'd spent hours pulling cars apart, not with
'Captain Proton' and all the adolescent silliness it entailed, not
with the quaint Irish aspect of 'Fair Haven', a holoprogram she didn't
even bother to set foot in.  She didn't see the attraction, but then
again, she'd never been a fan of holonovels.  In that way, she and his
father shared a common point of interest.  Hell, they probably would
have hit it off the first time they met.

He wasn't quite sure if he could do this.  An annoying, dull ache sat
behind his right eye, his forehead hurt from frowning. Besides, was
sitting for two hours staring at a blank padd alternated by periods of
wandering to the replicator to program increasingly fat filled snacks
a normal part of the process?

Maybe it was something to discuss with Loril.

He stared at the padd again.  He needed to sketch out a plan for the
holonovel.  He'd have to set up the physical parameters and that meant
having a good idea about the plot and the characters. It would at
least get him started.  Mind you it was all too easy to fall into
physical stereotypes. Want to show a villain?  Show a guy with a scar,
ugly haircut and a crooked nose.  Want to show a heroine?  Make her
pretty.

It was definitely time for another snack.  Or a walk.  He couldn't
decide.  He got out of the chair and wandered downstairs.  His father
was at Starfleet Communications for the afternoon.  Working fewer days
and pleased to be out of the politics. Owen Paris seemed to have lost
his enthusiasm for the Fleet and Tom knew it was mainly due to the
entire debacle of the previous 18 months or so.

Poor guy.  It had really punctured his father's illusions.  What
little he still had at the age of 68.

The kitchen was just off the living room.  His mother had always loved
to cook.  His father had kept the kitchen even though it was
excessively large for the average home.  With a replicator all that
was really needed was a way to wash the dishes, if someone wanted to
have dishes, and some cupboards to store a few bits and pieces.

Grace, his mother, would have none of it.  She liked to cook. That
meant a full compliment of pots, pans and roasting dishes. His mother
actually used words like 'bain-marie'.

It was a coveted moment in the Paris household to be asked by Grace to
help with cooking.  The Sunday night ritual was the highlight of the
week.  Guests came to dinner on occasions.  Tom stood in the kitchen
at 11, helping to whisk cream, or eggs, or cream butter and sugar, or
coat something in spices.

"If you're going to eat, you might as well get your hands dirty."

It may have been resequenced protein but his mother had the peculiar
quirk of believing that if you ate food, you should prepare food.
Like the human race had been forced to do for million of years.  That
included having to rip the giblets out of the turkey.

So, the kitchen was still there.  Tom had felt no urge to cook since
arriving home and his father wasn't particularly skilled in that area.
Suddenly it seemed a dire shame to leave things as they were, neatly
hanging up and sparkling clean.  It was more like a mausoleum, a
testimony to his mother's life than a space in the home to be used and
enjoyed.

He stared at the space, thinking back to his childhood.  About the
things he missed, the things he didn't miss, the things he wished
hadn't happened.  A gentle beeping from the terminal in the kitchen
broke his reverie.  An incoming message, which he presumed was from
his father.

The transmission was addressed to him and he answered it without a
second thought.  A stranger, neatly dressed, peered at him from the
other side.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Paris."

Tom frowned.  "And you are.?"  He didn't see the point in being
polite.  He knew enough that a call from a complete stranger couldn't
be good.

"I'm Tucker Morse.  I represent your wife in the matter of her divorce
proceedings."

For a moment Tom was taken aback.  What wife? Then of course, like a
hit of plasma charge, he remembered B'Elanna.  He'd had other things
to deal with and he'd managed to effectively bury his conscious
reminder of her under a layer of a year of backwater worlds and
recovery.  He didn't want to really have to dwell on her and he'd
found the most effective way was to pretend she'd never existed.

"Divorce?"

"Yes, you're still married.  Didn't you know that?"

Somehow it hadn't occurred to him.  He hadn't officially filed any
papers.  Just wrenched off his wedding ring.  As far as he was
concerned, that had been the divorce.

He didn't want to deal with this now.  Not so long after the event.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked.

"I've got a file to download to your terminal.  You just have to
authorise them and send them back.  It's the standard annulment of
marriage contract.  Once they're signed, that's it."

"Yeah.  Okay," said Tom.

Tucker Morse smiled at him, trying to appear sympathetic.  "I know,
these things are never pleasant.  But you'd be surprised at how many
couples completely forget to deal with the paperwork for their
marriage.  It's such a very simple thing, it takes me all of 30
minutes work."

"Yeah."

There was another beep.  "There are the files.  Do you want to sign
them now, or would you like to consult with your own contract
specialist?"

"No, as long as it's standard, I guess I can sign."

A short, simple annulment contract appeared on the terminal.  A
contract in line with Federation law for couples without children.
Each partner got their own belongings, anything jointly owned was
sold, the proceeds split 50/50 and everyone went their separate ways.
No courts, no bitter fighting, no disputes over property. The divorce
was no fault, and over in under an hour from start to finish.

At the bottom of the contract B'Elanna's signature stood out. She'd
signed it two weeks ago.  The location and timestamp said she'd signed
it on the USS Excelsior. The First Officer had witnessed it.

Huh.  She'd transferred off the Enterprise.

Sighing, he picked up a stylus, flipped the screen up at a 90 degree
angle so he could sign, resent the file back to the Tucker Morse.

"Thank you, Mr. Paris.  The marriage is now officially annulled."

"Yeah, thanks."

Morse seemed to choose to ignore the sarcasm in his voice.

"I'll send an official copy once it's been certified.  Good-bye, Mr.
Paris."

The screen went blank, replaced by the official Federation
communications logo.

Tom stood in the kitchen, staring at the pots and pans, thinking he
should have been feeling a lot more - maybe anger or sadness or
something - but felt only emptiness.  As if someone had pulled a plug
from under him and everything inside him had slithered down a drain.

A desire to make a meal caught him.  He was sick of replicating food
and his father would appreciate it.  He had a few hours before Owen
came home.  It would probably cheer him up and it would certainly fill
the empty pit in Tom's soul.

Tom opened the cupboards, started rummaging around for bowls and
spoons, whisks and beaters.  It was like he remembered it, the same
bowls, battered from decades of use.

His mother's recipe books were still on a shelf.  The grease from
fingers, the stain of chocolate cake that had never washed off and
soaked into page 73.  He hadn't seen his mother since prison, and then
he hadn't really had the chance to say good-bye on Voyager. The urge
to connect with her in some way seemed overwhelmingly strong.  The act
of cooking and using her possessions would be that connection.

Housework.  There was also housework.  Someone had to dust and
straighten the rugs.

---

The Doctor told him on his fourth day of being confined to his
quarters that Harry Kim had been moved to the Gamma shift on a
permanent basis.  In Astrometrics.  Effectively, he'd been banished.
He worked Astrometrics while Seven was regenerating. There wasn't much
to say about B'Elanna.  She'd been assigned her old quarters, some
luckless lower decks Ensign was forced to go back to sharing with
another lower deck Ensign.  She remained as Chief of Engineering.

It was all very quietly done, threats had been issued.  It was not to
be discussed.

Curiously, he thought he would feel more emotion but at this stage,
lying in bed, his hives making their presence known again, he pretty
much figured he was all out of the biochemical effects needed to make
him cry, or scream.  He was lethargic, he was exhausted.

The Doctor just told him to lie in bed.  It was not like he could
really do much anyway.  As usual, in trying to cheer him up, the EMH
depressed him even more.

Of course, because his life had been once more brushed with the tinge
of terrible luck, he fully expected more.  And he got more.

His father broke the bad news to him personally on the sixth day after
breaking Harry's nose, in Janeway's Ready Room.

"I'm sorry Tom.  I did my best."

"It's okay Dad. Don't worry about it."  He couldn't summon up the
ability or energy to say any more.

"It is *not* okay."

Tom had read the file that his father had sent through the previous
day.  It turned out that Thomas Eugene Paris was proving to be a
bureaucratic nightmare for several divisions of Starfleet. He'd never
been officially released from jail, he'd never been certified as fit
for piloting, he'd never been officially reinstated into Starfleet and
his rank had never been approved. Even the Maquis weren't having this
many problems.

As it stood, various legal entities outside of Starfleet had declared
that as soon as he got back to Earth he would need to spend a week in
jail while everything was cleared through official channels.  The
prison sentence had not been mandated by Starfleet, but by the Justice
Department, therefore it was just one more government entity that
Tom's case had to pass through.  Starfleet was on the verge of
resolving the flight clearance case when the Justice Department had
pointed out that not only had Tom been given a temporary release from
jail, but when he was released he was a private citizen and not
subject to Starfleet regulation.

Although in the official, extremely apologetic transmission from the
lawyer handling the case for the Justice Department, Tom had been
assured that it was merely a legal hiccup and that he would be spared
any inconvenience, as much as possible.  Of course, that didn't stop
them requesting a full detail of his service aboard the ship from
Captain Janeway, a full medical report from the EMH and that he be
scheduled for several supervised meetings with the rehabilitation
committee.  Just, so it seemed, to really make sure he had been
rehabilitated.

Crap, it was humiliating.

"Tom, as we speak Admiral N'gura is in a meeting with Judge Asira from
the Justice Department."

"Dad, you know it's not going to make any difference."

"Like hell, it's not."  His father was beginning to fume.  "I don't
want to hear any more of that kind of talk from you.  This isn't right
and I'm going to fix it."

Tom put his head in his hands, scrunched up more behind Janeway's
desk.

"Just don't expect this to work out, that's all I'm saying."

His father seemed to soften his expression, trying to look
sympathetic.  "This isn't about the past.  This is about your future.
You haven't done anything to deserve this."

Tom shrugged.  "Whatever."

His father shook his head, glanced down at his papers.

"I've got to go now and talk with some more people.  We're going to
sort this out.  You'll see."

Tom didn't respond and instead, twiddled his thumbs.  Well, here he
was again, making a mess of things, screwing up, ruining his career
and as always the irony was, he never suspected a thing. His father
looked at the Captain, he seemed to be pleading with her to talk sense
into his son.

"Admiral Paris, out."

"You know he's right," said Janeway.

"He always is."

"How are you?"

"Compared to what?"

Janeway gave him a look that said she wasn't going to tolerate any of
his smart ass remarks today.

"I assume the Doctor has told you what's happened."

Tom nodded.  "You're not going to put them off the ship are you?" It
was his worst fear that she would stick to regulations.  Mind you,
she'd only really stuck to regulations when it suited her.

"No.  Call it old fashioned pride but the last thing I want to do is
have to divert from our course so I can put Harry or B'Elanna off at
the nearest Starbase."

"So no one knows do they?  Not even my father."

"No, I've said nothing.  The members of crew who know are Chakotay,
Tuvok and myself.  And of course Harry and B'Elanna."

Well, that was something anyway.

"I have made a note in my personal log," she continued.  "I'll deal
with it officially when we get back to Earth.  Starfleet won't be
happy.  The section dealing with situations of this nature on active
duty are quite clear.  Personal relationships cannot interfere with
duty.  According to the regulations, all involved parties should have
been transferred immediately to the nearest starbase for
reassignment."

"Me included."

"Yes, you included."

Tom ran a hand through his hair, realised he probably looked like a
mess.

"I can't believe this is happening."

"Neither can I. For what it's worth Harry and B'Elanna are extremely
sorry."

"Sorry doesn't cut it."  He was suddenly angry all over again.

"I know," she said quietly.  "This can't be easy."

He took a sip of lukewarm coffee so he didn't have to reply.  If he
spoke, the quaver in his voice would betray his hurt.

"You need to talk to your father.  Owen will understand," said
Janeway.

"Maybe later."

"He's very concerned about you."

"I know.  I'm just not used to it."  He laughed.  It was derisive of
himself and his father, all at the same time.

Janeway stood, walked to the viewing windows, looked out at the stars.
The now familiar stars in a familiar quadrant.

"I guess we put this one down to God's sense of irony," she said.

"What?"

"That we get through seven years in the Delta Quadrant and everything
falls apart once we make it back."

Tom joined her. "Don't you ever wish everything could be the same?
That things would never change.  Ever."

She smiled slightly.  "There's not an human adult who hasn't wished
for that at some stage.  But life is change.  For better or worse."

"I don't want change.  I want the familiar."

"Change can have its good points.  I think your father's changed a
lot."

"You've only talked to him about Fleet business."

"I can see it in the way he looks at you."

"Do you think one man can change that much?"

"Look at yourself.  You've changed a hell of a lot since I first met
you."

"Some would argue that it's the same Tom Paris from jail, just with a
happier attitude."

She changed the subject on him.  "By the way, how are the hives?"

"They come and go."

"I'm sure the Doctor will find something to help eventually."

"So, what are you going to do with me for the next three months?"

"I'm still working on it.  You know how this ship works.  People will
be wondering.  Rumours will spread."

"As long as it's not boring."

She laughed.

"I assure you.  It won't be boring."

"Good."

They were both still looking out of the window.  Not really looking at
each other.  Each caught up in a disaster that seemed even bigger than
the Borg.  As if a betrayal could really be that big.

"Tom, I want you to promise me one thing."

"Okay."

"Whatever happens over the next three months, don't do anything
stupid."

"I won't," he answered smoothly.  He knew she couldn't see the crossed
fingers he held behind his back.

---

A pot-roast, a salad, hand made pasta, a divine pesto made with fresh
basil, pine nuts, garlic and the finest virgin olive oil, two
chocolate cakes, a batch of chocolate chip cookies and a vanilla and
hazelnut toffee semi-fredo later Tom felt he had made enough food to
last for two days or so.  He did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen,
helped himself to three chocolate chip cookies.  Then he tidied the
house, straightened the rugs, and ran a sonic cleaner over the carpet.
Then he ate some more cookies and a slice of cake.

After that, there was still a great deal of the afternoon to be
disposed of.

Perhaps the windows were in need of a good cleaning.

Clutching the sonic cleaner he went around the bottom part of the
house, carefully cleaning the windows of the miniscule dirt clinging
to the glass, happily ignoring the fact that the afternoon was taken
not in writing, but in cleaning.

Every so often, he ate some more cookies or cake.  As a reward for
doing all of the cleaning and cooking.

Somewhere around 17:00 he ran out of cake.  Oh well, he could always
bake another one.

---

Tom had too much time on his hands and because he had too much time on
his hands it gave him time to think.  He'd done an excessive amount of
thinking in prison too, before they'd assigned him vast amounts of
busy work to stop the sort of navel gazing contemplation that tended
to make people depressed.

The order to remain in his quarters had been removed but Tom didn't
really feel like doing much.  The Doctor had banned him from sickbay,
more out of a concern that Tom's current lack of attention could
result in an accident.

They were so close to Earth it seemed pointless to concentrate on
designing new shuttles or running any piloting classes. Certification
was back in the hands of Starfleet trainers when they got back to
Earth.  Cullhane was temporarily promoted to Alpha shift and Chief
Pilot. Cullhane seemed to know better than to question his sudden
promotion.  Still, Tom knew that 100 + people were entertaining
themselves in their free time, idly speculating on the furtive
activity that had been going on.  Shift changes.  People moving
quarters.  People didn't get into Starfleet based on their stupidity
levels.  Those 100+ people had probably figured it all out by now.

For some reason, Tom found himself feeling incredibly ashamed of the
entire thing even though it wasn't actually his fault.

At least that's what he told himself on the days that he wanted to
feel better about himself.  On the other days he would replay all
those little conversations, the courtship, the proposal to B'Elanna,
the reserve she carried with her because she didn't want to get too
close, not even to him - hell, he should have seen it coming in the
same way people in hindsight knew that they shouldn't have done the
dumb thing that landed them in hospital. The dumb things that involved
skiing down dangerous mountain slopes, playing Parises Squares without
a helmet, baiting predatory species or mistakenly giving a gesture of
supreme insult during First Contact.

Then there was the problem of his father.  Was it even a problem? Tom
didn't know but for some reason it was just one more thing in his
rapidly disintegrating life that he had no desire to face.

A plan began hatching in his mind.  The plan that Janeway had defined
as "not doing anything stupid."  The little voice that tried to warn
him that he was about to do something moronic was ignored.  He'd
ignored it a few times before, one more time around the block wasn't
going to make a difference.

It had been seven years but surely there would still be contacts out
there.  Contacts who wanted to make some money, who wouldn't mind
indulging in something illegal for money.

He went to his terminal, encrypted a message.  It would look like just
one of the hundreds of messages that now went backwards and forwards
between Voyager on a daily basis.  He remember the name of an old
contact.  Sent it out.  Let the message go where it may.

---

Harry was lonely.  Astrometrics was lonely.  Gamma shift was lonely.
No one went to the messhall any more.  He replicated soup in a mug and
drank it hunched over the console, sifting through the communication
requests, routing them to the appropriate people, making sure live
data streams went to the right crewmembers.

It was boring work and required a great deal of ability to tolerate
repetition.

It was suitable punishment.

Every time he encountered a message to Captain Janeway, he had a
mental flashback to the scene in her office.  The Doctor had healed
his fractured nose.  A few days later he'd experienced a dreaded need
to confess and damn the consequences.  He'd babbled in her office,
telling her about the affair.

Oh yeah, now he knew how Tom felt back at Caldik Prime.  Been there,
done that.  Lied through his teeth due to fear, then confessed due to
fear.  Neither solution offered any solace.

Her look of contempt burnt its way into his brain.  Now whenever he
thought of Captain Janeway, he thought of that look.  The one that
said she could never trust him again.

"*How could you?*" she said.

"I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry.  We broke it off.  I was trying to tell Tom
and-"

She held up a hand to silence him.  "It's too late.  The damage has
been done."

He stood to attention.  He didn't dare speak.

"Starfleet regulations demand that I put you off this ship.  But I'm
not going to do this, not at this point in our journey."

"Thank you Ma'am," he spluttered.

"Don't thank me yet.  I'm removing you from the Bridge.  You'll be
working in Astrometrics from now on."

That hurt but what did he expect?

"You will make sure that you do your job and that when you're not
doing your job you are to stay in your quarters.  I don't want Tom
telling me he even caught a glimpse of you."

"No Ma'am."  He had to ask.  Couldn't shut up.  "Uh, Ma'am, will this
be going on my record?"

Again, the look.  "It's your private life Ensign, but it's affecting
this ship and your duties, so yes, it will be going on your record.
It will also be going on B'Elanna's record."

"What about Tom?"

"Get out of my sight Ensign."

He left, feeling her glare as a heat on the back of his neck as he
left her Ready Room.  He glanced around.  Chakotay's face as always,
remained neutral.  He didn't say anything.

Later, lying in his quarters he commed B'Elanna.

She sounded like she'd been crying.

"Harry, don't contact me again."

"I wanted to know you're okay."

"How can I be okay?  Kahless, what did I do?  What did *we* do?"

"It'll be fine.  You'll see.  It'll work out."  He couldn't believe he
said the words.  They were pathetic.  She began crying again.

"I can't start again," she sobbed out.  "I can't."

He heard his mother's voice just then.  From a long time ago. When
he'd been crying because he was two and he'd broken a favourite toy in
a fit of two-year-old rage.

"What's done is done."

It was just a shame that everyone kept forgetting that before they
ruined their lives.

---

"How is the writing going?" asked Loril.

Tom was sprawled on the couch, picking the lint from the armrest.

"Who does your cleaning?"

"I don't know.  It's contracted out by the building supervisor."

"They don't do a very good job.  I could clean it for you and do a
better job."

"No writing then?"

"There hasn't been a lot of time lately."

Loril seemed puzzled.  "What have you been doing?"

Tom ticked off his busy work with his fingers.  "Cooking. I thought
Dad deserved some home cooked meals.  Tidied up.  Found all my old
books I had as a kid and put them into alphabetical order.  Purged
some old data files that I had lying around."

"Glad to see you've been keeping busy.  Or should I say, providing
yourself with distractions."

Caught out.  Tom knew what he'd been doing on a subconscious level but
didn't want to acknowledge it. Not to himself.

"I wouldn't worry, it's normal human behaviour," said Loril.

"I've baked two dozen cookies and three cakes since Tuesday."

"I'm sure your father appreciates it."

"And I'm working on making sure my writing desk is tidy.  I haven't
been this distracted in a while."

"Your subconscious must be working on the problem."

"That's nice.  I wish it would let me in on the secret.  I would love
to know what my subconscious is working on."

"I'm sure it's good."

"What if I can't write?  What if it's no good?  More than one person
has said my stuff is low brow."

"So?  The world thrives on variety."

"You think I should send out 'Captain Proton'?"

"Sure.  I'm surprised you haven't yet.  I think it will sell like
hotcakes."

"Not that I'd ever trust you.  You thought it was funny."

"Funny in a good way."

"But you still laughed."

"With affection.  Besides, you can't tell me no one has laughed at the
concept of 'Captain Proton'."

Tom remembered all too well his embarrassing efforts in the Ready Room
explaining 'Captain Proton' to the other Bridge staff. Just his luck
they had to be invaded by photonic beings in the holodeck.  While
'Captain Proton' was running.  It felt like he'd been caught with a
padd full of smut downloaded from Risa.  Except of course, it wasn't
smut, it was worse.  It was a puerile adolescent fantasy.

"A few people thought it was funny."

"But they played it anyway."

"Only because they had to."

Loril handed him a padd.  "I downloaded a list of publishers.  You
should start sending it out."

Tom scowled, glanced down the list.

"Good grief.  Hilltop Publishing?  Don't they publish the Flotter
series?"

"You never know."

"I'm insulted.  You're suggesting I go to a children's publisher."

"I'd go to whoever agreed to get it out there."

Tom clutched the padd, stuck it in his jacket pocket.

"What now?"

"Go forth and create.  Or clean.  Maybe keep a journal.  Surprise me.
Bring me something next week."

"You want me to bring some writing?"

"Well, I'll also take baked goods if you felt inclined to create in
that area."

Tom snorted.  "You're a funny guy."

"So they say."

"Did I mention that I signed the papers for the divorce?"  Tom dropped
it in casually.

Loril shook his head.  "No.  But I thought something was up.  What was
it like?"

"Weird.  I'd been practising forgetting all about her and then
suddenly it's right back in my face again."

"Do you feel better now that it's officially all over?"

Tom shrugged.  "Don't know.  I'm trying to convince myself I don't
care."

"You know, one of these days, you're really going to have to deal with
it."

"Yeah.  But not now." Tom's voice carried a slight pleading quality to
it.  He would deal with it maybe, in a later session. Just not at this
moment while he was feeling so vulnerable.  He preferred to tackle
this things with some semblance of his psychic armour intact.

"No, not now," agreed Loril, picking up on the vibes.  "When you're
ready."

"I don't think I'm ever going to be ready."

---

The closer they got to Earth, the worse Tom felt.  The Doctor kept
expressing his concern.  Captain Janeway asked him to take his
father's calls.  He rarely left his quarters because he couldn't stand
the looks that he got from various crew members, the little whispers
when they thought he was out of hearing range.

Everyone was worried about him, or so they said and at the same time
he dealt with stupid requests to re-sit his piloting exam, to talk to
rehabilitation committee members, and to talk to his legal counsel
appointed by the Justice Department.

He refused them all, simply making sure the calls were never answered
and dumped into a holding directory on his personal system.

Threats were made, alternated with his appeals to fly, appeals to his
future career with Starfleet, appeals to his - hopeful - need to stay
out of prison.

Tom Paris had plans of his own.  He'd managed to find his old contact.
He called on some old skills, and did some work hiding unauthorised
transmissions on the regular data streams.  The contact made some
inquiries and it wasn't long before he was in regular communication
with the captain of a freighter.  A captain that could use some
credits, had some dubious cloaking technology and was willing to
smuggle a passenger.

Another ship approaching Voyager wouldn't be suspected.  Tom could
beam over, and they'd be out of range before anyone had time to react.

Yeah, it was a good plan.  It would work.  He didn't have to face any
of the crap waiting for him on Earth, or any more of the crap on the
ship.

For the first time in months, he felt a glimmer of hope.

---

Owen liked Loril.  He had a certain affection for the kid, who he
thought reminded him of Tom the more he talked with him.  The same
irreverence for authority, the same biting humour, although slightly
softer with Loril.  A humour that hadn't gained the hard edge
sharpened by the years of dealing with the disappointments of life.

"What did Captain Janeway say?" asked Loril.

"She said she shouldn't be telling me and she made Tom promise not to
do anything stupid."

"We both know Tom.  I don't think that's going to make a difference."

"He won't answer a lot of his calls.  I've got three departments
screaming at me as if they think I can do anything about it."

Loril pondered the situation.

"How long would it take to rendezvous with Voyager?"

"A month.  We'd have to hop quite a few ships to get there."

"We should go."

"What?"

"Look, it's either two months here crossing our fingers and hoping
he's okay, or we take a month or so and get there before Voyager
reaches Earth."

Owen spread his hands.  "I'm not sure I could get authorisation."

"You're an Admiral.  With a son on board.  They'll understand family
problems.  Voyager is high profile.  Can you imagine the news reports?
'Admiral denied the rights to visit heroic son?'"

"It's worth a try."

"Tom is stubborn but I think if we both talked to him, he might see
reason."

"Or he's going to dig his heels in."

"At least we can keep an eye on him."

Owen nodded.

---

"Dad I want to join the Federation Naval Patrol."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because it's not a good career choice.  There just aren't the same
opportunities for advancement as there are in Starfleet."

"*Dad*."

"Don't whine."

Puberty hadn't been kind to either one of them. Tom was increasingly
alienated from his father.  Owen found himself constantly placed in
the role of the dictator.

"Dad, this is something I really want."

"I've told you.  Everyone is in agreement.  You're ideally suited to a
career in Starfleet.  You're going to go a long way."

He could see the frustration in Tom's face.  Realised that they were
probably about five minutes away from another shouting match. Not that
Tom really shouted.  Owen did the shouting.  Tom did his best to
resist but eventually, as in all households, the parent wound up the
victor one way or the other.  At the back of his mind Owen knew that
this state of affairs couldn't last for much longer.  He only had the
advantage because Tom was scared of him and as Tom grew taller and
bulked out, that advantage was rapidly dwindling.  It was not good,
not good at all.  Owen could feel a sense of unease at his own
behaviour, aware that if Tom was one of his crew, he'd be concerned
that the crewmember would do something foolish.  Instead he ignored
it.  He told himself that once Tom got through the Academy and settled
down to life in Starfleet he'd see that it was the right choice and
that Owen was only trying to do the right thing.  Eventually as Tom
matured, their relationship would mend itself.  He would get his son
back and it would be like old times.

Until then, it was a battle of wills.

"You never listen to me."

"This discussion is over."

"Dad, it's my career, can't we just-"

"-Go to your room immediately!"

"Don't shout at me!  That's all you ever do!"

"Tom-"

"-Yeah I know. Go to my room. Is that what you tell them at the
Academy if they don't obey you Dad?"

"That's enough from you.  I'm doing this for your own good.  Now get
out of my office."

Tom wore a look of disdain. "One day I'm going to be out of here and
then I'm never going to have to listen to you ever again!"

His son left.  Owen tried to go back to his reports but he couldn't
get Tom's words out of his mind.

---

Harry couldn't keep his mouth shut.  He confessed all to his parents
when they called.  He felt they had a right to know about his tainted
service record and the reasons.  Well, not that it wasn't tainted
before, just that Janeway had always granted him a certain amount of
leeway, like his mother had.  His youth had always been a great
excuse.  Fresh faced, green, eager to please - what woman could
resist?

His age was beginning to fade the wholesome glow.

His parents were the most honest, straight forward, concerned, loving
parents any child could want. Their disappointment in his behaviour
was palpable.  It oozed through subspace and leaked into Astrometics
with the heaviness and stench of an industrial lubricant.

"Harry.  Oh, Harry," was all his mother could say.

Why he did he have this urge to confess to all and sundry?

"I just thought you should know."

Of course, what he didn't realise at the time was that he didn't have
to tell his parents anything.  He was a man now, not a boy. Men did
not discuss matters of sex and infidelity with their parents.

His father stated the obvious.

"Son, we're very disappointed in you."

Harry Kim had never been a disappointment or a problem for anyone in
his entire life.  The shock of disapproval skewed the universe,
catapulted him into another world.

Tom Paris' world.

It didn't feel good to be in this world.  He was a first time visitor.
Everything was caked in dirt and the air smelt of decay.

---

Starfleet credited a large sum of back pay to the crew accounts 10
weeks from Earth.  Tom had been told by his father that he was
personally coming over to Voyager.  It made his compulsion to leave
all the stronger.

He kept his own counsel on that matter.  If nothing else, he was good
at knowing when to keep his mouth shut.  The Captain invited him to
her Ready Room for coffee.  Chakotay kept dropping by, just to 'talk'.
The Doctor reassigned him to sickbay duties.

They were all suspicious. He could tell.  His perceptions of people
were laser accurate.  He was like a cultural anthropologist - look at
a person and know instantly all of those dirty little secrets no one
liked to confess to owning.

The jolly prodding by his colleagues caused him to plaster a smile on
his face, and joke back at them.  They had to think everything was
normal until he was ready to make his move.

The back pay from Starfleet was more than enough to pay the freighter
captain for the fare.

The plan seemed to go smoothly, frighteningly so.  Voyager had been
picking up a flotilla of ships that followed alongside it. The closer
they got to Earth, the more ships just wanted to tag along for a few
light years to say they were part of the welcome home party for
Voyager.  The captain's freighter was just one more.

It was so easy to go.

He left his commbadge on his bed.  He flung his rucksack over his
shoulders, gave the freighter captain his signal from the terminal in
his quarters.

He felt the tingle of the transporter from the other ship, blinked and
was standing in a grimy looking bridge, with a grimy looking crew.

The captain shook his hand.

"Your credits are due to turn up in your account in about 30 seconds
Captain."

"Good.  Where do you want to go, Mr. Paris?"

"I hear the weather on the non-aligned planets in the Tebera system is
nice at the moment."

The captain smiled at him, showing a chipped front tooth.  "Tebera it
is."

It felt familiar, it felt right because it was familiar.  He was okay.

As they broke off from the flotilla, they were hailed by Voyager. No
one  answered.

---

Owen worked diligently through the mounds of red tape caused by Tom's
disappearance and then his reappearance.  The Justice Department still
wanted to speak to him, even his status in Starfleet was undecided.
Owen Paris shielded his son with the full weight of his rank and
status within Starfleet.  He was well and truly over any need to
protect his own career.  If the various idiots within Fleet Command
wanted to make it difficult then he was going to give them one hell of
a fight. It took two months of considerable help from Admiral Janeway
and threats of going to the media before various factions and
departments eventually dropped their arguments.

The damage was done however and Owen doubted he would head any more
projects for Starfleet.  He'd be left signing paperwork and
requisition forms for new uniforms until he retired or finally died
behind the desk.  Not that he cared.

At the end of it all, it seemed like an anti-climax and he went back
to slouching in his deckchair in the garden.  Tom sat with him
sometimes.  He used it to tackle a particularly tricky subject.

"Please tell me what happened after Voyager.  I want to know."

His son sighed, ran his hands through his hair.  His child had always
seemed to have too many secrets.  Secrets that he could never share.

"You don't want to know this.  Honestly.  You don't want to know."

Owen sat forward in his chair, peering at Tom intently.

"I have spent my entire life ignoring my own son.  I ignored who you
really were so I could try and make you into something that I could
understand."

"Owen."

"Tom, this is important to me.  Please.  If you think I'm being
selfish then you're right.  I need to put my own demons to rest as
well.  I wanted so much to make everything up to you, and then when
they told me you'd disappeared from Voyager." His voice trailed off.
"Tell me what happened."

Tom cast his eyes down to the floor so he wouldn't have to look his
father in the face.

"The usual."

Owen didn't say anything but he could guess what Tom meant.  Hell, he
didn't even have to guess, he knew.  All those files, all that digging
around in Tom's personal life.  He knew exactly what his son had been
doing.  He tried to keep his expression neutral because he knew Tom
would feel even worse if he showed any sort of pity.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"There's nothing to be sorry about.  That's just the way things were."

"Why did you decide to come back?"

"Credits."

"Credits?"

"I was broke. Ran out of credits.  Too many bad hands at poker. Piled
up a debt I couldn't pay off.  That's where the scars came from.
Certain people were very unhappy with me."

"So how did you get back to Earth?"

"I did crew duty on a freighter headed back here.  They were slavers
so they didn't really need to pay the crew, or feed them for that
matter.  They needed a good pilot.  I tolerated it enough to get back
to Earth."

"Tom. I'm so sorry."

"There's nothing to be sorry about.  I'd made the same mistakes enough
times to know what I was getting myself into."

"I wish you'd contacted me."

"Dad, don't worry about it.  It's over."

"No, it's not over.  I was an arrogant son-of-a-bitch.  I should never
have treated you like I did.  I'm sorry for everything and I want to
make up for it."

"Stop saying you're sorry."

"I want to make this up to you."

"You can't just 'make up' for 38 years."

Owen sighed.  A long sigh of frustration.  "Whatever you decide to do,
I'll support you.  Whatever you need, you've got it."

It was time for Tom to sigh.

Owen sat back in his chair, feeling that he needed to say more,
wanting some sort of closure, realising he wasn't going to get it. He
changed the subject.

"Loril suggested we attend a counselling session together."

Tom stared at him a moment, like he'd grown another head, then burst
out laughing.

"You're kidding.  We'd kill each other."

Owen smiled.  "I think I told him the same thing."

"Maybe he thinks we'll have one of those cathartic break throughs and
we'll end up crying and hugging each other."

"I did tell him that in general, Paris men have problems expressing
their feelings."

"What'd he say?"

"He said he thought the Paris men were emotionally repressed idiots."

"Loril was always straight to the point."

"So do you?"

"What?"

"Want to go to a father-son counselling session?" Owen tried to keep
his face straight.  He told himself that if Tom really wanted to do
this, then he could make himself attend.  After all, he'd faced a
number of hostile alien species while in command of his own starship.
Then again the thought of any number of wonderful counselling
techniques Loril could use on them in the same room seemed to be worse
than any hostile alien.  The thought of either of them actually crying
made him cringe.

Tom seemed to be having the same thought.  "Dad, the fact that we're
both going to counselling voluntarily is a miracle. Let's not push
it."

Somewhere at the back of his mind, Owen catalogued the fact that Tom
had actually called him 'Dad'.

---

Deep Space missions were no fun.  Harry had been assigned to one
within a month of arriving back on Earth.

He'd been promoted.  That had cheered him up.  Starfleet had decided
that with all the experience he'd acquired from being stuck in the
Delta Quadrant he deserved the suitable rank of Lieutenant Commander.
They weren't going to promote him to full Commander but it was still a
huge jump in his status.  However, now that he'd crept into his 30s,
Harry Kim had often told himself as the galaxy's oldest Ensign that he
would have made the rank anyway if he'd been in the Alpha Quadrant.

The promotion began to feel like a bad birthday present the day he set
foot on the USS Solar Flare.  The Solar Flare was a small research
vessel similar to the Equinox.  Apparently their mission was to go and
watch a freshly formed black hole two kilometres in diameter try and
swallow what remained of its solar system.  Some bright spark had made
some alterations to their warp core and shields so they could get
fairly close to the event horizon without being affected.  He still
couldn't get that enthused about the mission.  Black hole observation
had been done to death.  The only people excited about it were the two
astronomers on board.

He was stuck on a ship full of science types and he just wasn't that
much of a science type any more.  The adventure bug had bitten him in
the Delta Quadrant and the urge to go exploring more exotic phenomenon
was strong.  But instead of having adventures he was on a research
vessel, doing his standard Ops job and twiddling his thumbs because in
the AQ unexpected hostilities just didn't break out as easily as they
did in the DQ.  Irritatingly it appeared none of the scientists wanted
to hear about his exploits in the DQ unless it was about some
interesting astronomical event. In fact, he suspected that several of
them thought he was an idiot.

The Captain and First Officer were nice enough but they were strangely
distant.

Harry, increasingly paranoid, was beginning to suspect that the
mission was an effort to keep him out of the way for a while.

He tried sending letters to B'Elanna.  They were never answered. His
relationship with his parents seemed to be the same but underneath it
all there was a chill in the air.

At night, alone in his quarters, he kept wondering what had happened
to Tom.

---

After a month of ship jumping, station hopping and being cooped up in
a borrowed Class 1 shuttle with Loril, Owen Paris was unamused to hear
that his son had decided to skip out on the event.

Janeway had been trying to reach him, messages had been bouncing
around in subspace and routed around like lost children, arriving at a
destination a few days after he'd left.

After Loril and he were settled in their separate quarters, they'd
gone to Janeway's Ready Room.

She'd apologised and explained what had happened.  They'd tried
tracing the ion trail but there had been three ships breaking away
from the Voyager flotilla at the same time. They hadn't been able to
pick up the signature sufficiently to pursue Tom.

Tom had refused to answer any communications from Voyager.  They had
no clues as to his whereabouts.  The freighter registration was false.
Starfleet had alerted all ships to be on the lookout for the freighter
but it was a nearly impossible task.  It would be pure chance if they
found him.

It was a disappointing chapter in a thoroughly disappointing book to
date.  Unfortunately Owen was committed to finishing the entire thing.

He left the Ready Room in a bad mood.  Loril stayed behind to talk to
the Captain about offering his services as a counsellor to the crew.

Owen fought down the urge to go and personally find Harry Kim and
B'Elanna Torres and make them both deeply regret their actions. He
stalked the corridors, calming himself down by the action of walking,
calling on years of experience to project an image of the friendly
Starfleet Admiral, smiling automatically at everyone, while at the
same time scanning the faces for the two people he most wanted to
hurt.

When he finally made it back to his quarters, he noticed his hands
were shaking.  He hadn't been so angry in quite some time.

A terminal was provided in his quarters.  He sat down, logged on,
grabbed all of his messages, collated them all, sent through a message
to Headquarters to let them know he'd arrived.

Then for the hell of it, he began drawing up a list of all the
terrible things that a Starfleet Admiral could do to annoying people
from the lower ranks.  He'd never do them of course, he was a man of
principle.  But, oh, the list made him feel good.

About 23:00 hours, he finished the list, smiled in satisfaction and
then deleted it.

---

The conversation was the same, the echoes reaching out over time, down
to millions of other people with the same regrets, the same problems,
the same desperate need to be forgiven for their transgressions.

Harry Kim understood them now.  More than he could have before. The
Solar Flare had a counsellor on board.  It was relatively standard for
these types of missions where a small ship was populated with a
compliment of introspective personality types prone to mishaps.

Harry found the counsellor was someone he could talk to - and in some
ways the only one he could talk to.  It was private.  It was
confidential.

"There are things I regret."

"We all have something we regret."

"Does this make me a bad person?"

"I can't say because I don't know what you did.  It does, however,
make you a person who is capable of remorse for his actions."

"I have remorse.  But remorse won't make up for the things I did."

"You realise the past no longer exists don't you?  It's gone. It's
only the memories that remind us of the past.  We all have the chance
to start again."

"I don't think I have the energy."

"If you don't start again, what are you going to do?  Drift?"

"Drifting isn't so bad."

"There's still your career."

"Let's not talk about that."

"Are you going to give it up?  Would that be suitable punishment?"

"Maybe."

---

Tom wandered.  It was easy to wander.  He'd done it before and the
Alpha Quadrant was as big and as densely populated as he remembered.
There were more than enough unaligned systems on the edge of the
Federation that were homes for people that wanted to keep their past a
secret and were too exhausted to think of their future.

They were places of cheap entertainment.  Bars, women, intoxicants of
all kinds, cheap hotels and motels, gambling, holosuites with programs
deemed far too unsavoury for the Federation.

It was easy to slip back into his old life.  The one he'd had
somewhere between being drummed out of Starfleet and before joining
the Maquis.  Trying to find a purpose and failing miserably.  Not
really living, far too scared to kill himself. Not that he hadn't
found himself looking into the jaws of the Dark Beast more than once.
Just that he had a vivid imagination that worked over time.  Reminded
him of all the ways he could screw it up without access to a standard
issue phaser, or an unattended transporter.  It left the messy methods
and he was stopped by the thought of someone having to clean up yet
another one of his messes.

The one disadvantage he had in this revised version of his former life
was that this time he was older.  Back then he'd been a young man in
his 20s.  Forty now beckoned and his left knee creaked as a result of
an old injury from some run-in with yet another set of disgruntled
aliens.  The Doctor had fixed it, the pain was gone but bending down,
or walking up stairs produced an alarming crunching sound which
apparently was called crepitation in medical parlance.

The Doctor had informed him of a need for knee surgery at some stage.
A misaligned ligament was sliding in out and of the groove on the
inside of his patella.

His right arm got stiff on cold days.

He weighed more.

It was the old life with less tolerance for the uncomfortable aspects,
a yearning for roots and home and irritation at his knee and his
shoulder and kidding himself that he could just do it all again.

As if.

He watched the others in the bar.  People joining up into groups, the
solitary ones sinking into the shadows at the back.  He tended to
nurse his drinks these days.  His liver wasn't nearly as tolerant as
it used to be.

Still, his troubles for the most part were far away and he was just
bitching to himself as people always did, simply because it was human
habit.  When he'd left Voyager the relief was wonderful. Like a warm
blanket spread over him, intensely comforting.  He did not have to
deal with any of it.  He didn't have to see his father, or see
B'Elanna or Harry or the Captain.  He didn't have to deal with
whatever awaited him on Earth.

He could be here.  And nowhere. Drifting peacefully and aimlessly. A
man who had learnt to run away because in running away the trouble
became small and distant and could be forgotten until a new set of
troubles presented themselves.

It seemed appropriate that at that moment, sitting in a bar, 1000
light years from home, that he took his wedding ring out of his
pocket.  He had taken it out of his bedside cabinet, placed it inside
of his pocket as a reminder of his bad choices.  At long last, he felt
that he could let it go.

Without hesitation, he placed it on the table and walked out.

---

Once aboard Voyager, Owen found himself stuck there for the duration.
At least Loril put himself to good use, helping the crew deal with
their growing fear in regards to confronting family and friends who
had moved on.  A regular transmission wasn't quite the same as being
in the same room with a loved one.  The separation of distance
provided a much needed buffer.

It would be different in real life.  Even the crew who had desperately
fantasised about the moment they could wrap their arms around the
warmth of their children, or wives, or parents, found themselves
unexpectedly anxious.

Owen had found it just as useful to coordinate the homecoming aboard
Voyager as he had at Starfleet.  He'd asked the Captain if he could
take over Tom's quarters as accommodation and she'd agreed, although
she looked at him oddly, as if he was asking to sell knick knacks in
the middle of a wake.

Even though his son had vanished, part of him remained present in his
belongings and possessions.  Owen rummaged through drawers and
cupboards, experimented with the TV, read through personal files. It
was an invasion of privacy, but he didn't care.  He breathed in the
scent of his son in the absence of the breath, hugged the clothing in
absence of the body, read the personal logs in absence of speech.

If Loril thought it was strange, he didn't comment, for which Owen was
grateful.

As he absorbed his son's life, played the same holoprograms and spent
his time slightly confused by 'Captain Proton' and the appeal of
fixing old cars he also found a certain perverse delight in making
sure he just 'ran' into B'Elanna Torres or Harry Kim whenever he
could.

Possibly it bordered on stalking but it wasn't often and he had no
intention of harm other than to see them stiffen at his approach,
blush and cast their eyes down towards the floor.

He noted with interest how this small ship functioned.  How everyone
knew each other, for the most part.  How gossip spread quickly, as
gossip did, filling in the same social needs in human society as
grooming did for primates.  It was comforting.  As the crew came to
know him, they seemed to slowly forget he was an Admiral to a certain
extent and accorded him the same privileges that they had shared with
each other through the DQ.

It was easy to sit in the messhall and play a game of Kaltoh with
Tuvok.  Not that he was very good at it but Tuvok was more than
willing to have a new partner in the game.  The boy Icheb tutored him
in the finer points.  Naomi Wildeman introduced herself as the
Captain's Assistant and offered him a tour of the ship, which he
accepted, even though he knew every centimetre.

He could understand being frightened to leave this home of deck
plating and force fields and danger because underneath it all was the
smell of coffee brewing, the sounds of children playing, the simple
pleasures of games, the warmth of knowing a person thoroughly and
completely.

The crew had told themselves that they wanted to go home in the way
that settlers in the far flung regions of the Earth in the 19th and
early 20th Century had told themselves that they wanted to go home to
Mother England.  Children born in India and Australia and New Zealand
made their long pilgrimages back to their mythic homes to find that
Mother England was distant and cold and spoke with a strange accent.

Home was in the mind and heart, not in a physical place.

Slowly, Owen understood why Tom had fled.  After Harry and B'Elanna's
affair, Voyager was no longer a home.  Earth had never been much of a
home for Tom, even as a child.

It was better to run away and try and find a new home because any home
was a good home, as long as it was warm.

---

Writing was damn hard work.  It also required discipline.  Lots of it.
When he'd been putting together a holoprogram on Voyager it had served
as a distraction and therefore it was fun.  Without the excuses of a
distraction it maybe wasn't so much fun any more.

What was the famous quote?  "How do you write?  Just stare at a piece
of blank paper until blood comes out of your forehead."  Of course, in
the 24th Century the updated version was: "How do you program a
holonovel?  Just stare at a blank holomatrix until blood comes out of
your forehead."

He'd been staring at blank holomatrixes quite a lot lately.
Disturbingly whenever he had to come up with a character template for
the antagonists, the antagonists always had faces that were beautiful
and a little bit Klingon or a little bit Asian or possibly both.  They
were never an exact copy of Harry or B'Elanna, even though he was
tempted to use all of their physical parameters.  Instead the
templates bore the quirks, scars and ticks of their original owners.

Loril seemed to find it unremarkable.  "Exactly where did you think
fictional characters came from?"

Tom reflected that novelists had it easy back when the Word ruled.
They could write about a person that they knew but unless the writer
was particularly cruel and exact in their description, the target
would rarely tweak to the subtle act of revenge.

He was moving in a direction he thought, but the movement was slow and
it still felt like he was standing still.  Sometimes the siren call of
a Starfleet career sang to him.  Better the devil he knew than the
devil he didn't.  His current devil had been serving him with visions
of his future.  Fifty years old and living with his father, probably
bald, probably fat, wiling away the hours of his life as a failure by
absorbing himself in meaningless trivialities.

A career in Starfleet would be undistinguished.  He would never get a
command, not that he cared but he could live out the next 20 years or
so, sitting at a variety of helms until one day he either retired, or
got killed.

At least if he went back into Starfleet his father would be pleased.
There would be hell to pay, his father would probably have to pull a
few strings and he'd have to humble himself to several departments,
submit to an official psych evaluation, swear he'd try harder but in
the end, he wouldn't be in his old childhood room, living off his
father's generosity.

Self-doubt.  He had lots of it.  And if there was ever a more useless
emotion, it was self-doubt.

---

The rest of the trip on Voyager was uneventful.

Owen stood on the bridge, observing the last climactic act of
Voyager's journey as Commander Chakotay piloted the ship down through
Earth's atmosphere.

The man was a competent enough pilot, thought Owen, but lacking in
flair.  They flew over San Francisco in lazy circles and Owen found
himself imagining what Tom would have done.  He certainly wouldn't
have politely flown Voyager in the correct airspace, at the correct
altitude and flown *over* the Golden Gate bridge.

It was so boring, it was disappointing.  Fireworks shot into the air
but they were far below Voyager, Chakotay seemingly uninspired to try
and make them a backdrop to Voyager.

Owen held himself in the correct stance for such an important event
and stifled a yawn.

Well, once they went back into orbit, then the real work began. The
crew needed to start being transported back to Earth, debriefed
thoroughly and then have some private time with their nominated family
and friends.  After that, they were to be carefully paraded before the
bevy of reporters howling for an exclusive.

Owen watched North America recede again on the view screen, reminded
himself that even as an Admiral, it was not his place to comment on
the crew.  He restrained himself from commenting sarcastically to
Chakotay, "thanks for the average ride Commander."  He spared a glance
at Kathryn and thought he saw a touch of disappointment on her face.

He wondered if he was becoming grumpier with old age, or simply cared
less about what others thought of him.  He'd noticed that one of the
benefits of old age was that life became slightly clearer.  The
problems of career demands and making sure paperwork was completed on
time faded.  It seemed at the magical mark of 60 or so it was a gentle
coast to old age, unconcerned about the latest fads, or trends, or
whether keeping opinions to oneself was really all that necessary and
like a large tabby cat he was quite content to curl up by the fire for
a nap.

He missed his son.  That was one demand he wanted back.  One demand he
would gladly devote himself to if he could have the demand back.

He reflected on the curious fact that parents would complain about
their children when they had them.  Parents seemed to forget that
their children were children for 18 years and then they lost them.
After 18 their children were free to be with whom they liked, to spend
decades and decades being adults.  Children remembered their 18 years
well. The decades could be long and lonely for those parents who found
themselves rejected by a frosty period of revenge.

---

Tom was sitting in his room.  The desk now faced the window.  He
stared out at the view.  The garden and the oak tree that had been
growing there for 70 years or more, beyond that the spires of Fleet
buildings, blocking the view to the bay.  Shuttles went here and
there, scudding across the blue sky and the off-white clouds. The
noise of the city rose and swirled, millions of people went off to
their daily routines, or came home from nightly routines.

He had spent the previous week feeling determined, afraid, out of
step, displaced and rudderless.  It had meant an excessive amount of
time with Loril, although the man hadn't seemed to mind.

"Let's call it a creative emergency," said Loril.  Which was a polite
way of saying his brain had been stewing in its own battered
neurochemistry for nearly a year and a half and had finally had
enough.

Maybe that's why he had come home all those months ago. Somewhere,
perhaps he sensed that a showdown was due - one with himself.  He
needed a place of sanctuary and at a subconscious level he thought of
his childhood home as that place even though it was mixed up with the
good and the bad.

Perhaps he thought he would find peace at last.

His father noticed it immediately when he'd arrived home the previous
Monday.  Tom hadn't noticed himself but he could feel it vaguely, an
irritation that wouldn't go away.  A need to distract himself a
thousand times over that was never satisfied.  The deep ache in his
stomach that sat between hunger and the gnaw of stomach acid.

It was the afternoon.  He hadn't bothered to dress but wandered
wearily around the house in his robe, pyjamas and slippers, unshaven,
clutching his padd in a fist, tapping the side of his head with it.
It wouldn't be so bad if he hadn't been doing it for the past hour. It
wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't drinking as well.  Taking gulps of
whiskey from a large glass because he needed to find that
anaesthetised state that only alcohol seemed to bring.

It had been a while since he'd bothered to drink a glass of anything
more than synthehol, a whole lot longer since he'd been drunk.

He was heading towards suitably sloshed when his father came in.

"Are you okay?" his father has asked as a matter of form.

"Uh-huh," slurred Tom, bouncing the padd on his head.  Well, that's
what he thought he was doing.  The next morning the details had been
fuzzy.

His father got that look - the look he'd had when Tom was 15 and his
father meant business - and went off to make a call.  He didn't say
anything more.

The EMH arrived two minutes later, waving a tricorder at Tom.  Tom
batted the hand away, with force.

Tom had never been a good drunk, it was one of the reasons he gave up
drinking.  He was not an angry drunk, but he too quickly slid from
happy party boy, to melancholy and then into a suitably pliable mess
that would let himself be led home by whoever happened to want some
company and to pay the bar tab.  That's how he wound up with the
Maquis.  A happy party boy who hadn't had anyone to take him home, a
really big bar tab and a band of rebels who needed a pilot and could
pay for the privilege.

It was so easy not to have any scruples or beliefs at the time. He had
his self-doubt of course, as always.  That little internal voice that
liked to tell him that he wasn't really very good at anything, not
even piloting.  Inside he felt like he was a void, a lie for the
masses.  He hid behind hefty doses of cynicism and sarcasm, which he
guessed were a kind of a belief in themselves. Apparently, so one
person told him, cynics were really just sensitive people who couldn't
stand it any more.  Cynics were people who slapped a layer of hardness
on themselves to protect a soul that felt far too much.  Tom, a good
cynic, laughed.

He staggered around the living room, trying to keep out of the EMH's
reach, increasingly belligerent.  His father grabbed his arm.  Hard.

"Tom, that's enough."

The Doctor managed to jab him with a hypospray which sobered him up
quickly.  His head hurt, compliments of a nasty bruise and a hangover.

"That's it," said his father.  "You are going to see Loril right now
and keep seeing him until you some how find some common sense."

"Isn't Loril busy?" said Tom.

"I'm sure he'll find time to see you," his father replied in the more
familiar manner of his younger self.  "In fact I'm sure on the
Doctor's recommendation he'll come over for a house call."

Tom tried to hide his surprise, tried to think of something to say to
break the tension.

"Just don't expect me to cook."

His father didn't smile.

---

Coincidence was a funny thing.  Carl Jung had called it synchronicity.
The thing that happened when you least expected it, or expected it but
couldn't quite believe the universe has managed to put together such
an alarming confluence of good or bad luck.

Tom's synchronicity hit him square between the eyes, walking towards
Starfleet Communications to meet his father for lunch.

B'Elanna.  B'Elanna walking along the same sidewalk, straight towards
him, towards the main entrance to the building.

Synchronicity always meant that even though it was a big universe, you
always bumped into people that you knew, mainly it seemed, so everyone
could stand around going, "what was the chance that I'd bump into you
like this?!"

So, B'Elanna walked towards him, he walked towards the entrance, both
of them noticing each other at the same time.  Typically, there was no
way to run.  Both of them had business there. Besides, how lacking in
poise would it be for him to simply turn around and run for his life?

He comforted himself by remembering that Nietzsche had said that what
didn't kill you made you stronger.  He just wasn't sure how meeting
his ex-wife was going to make him stronger.

He could see the strong blush on her face, the way her eyes flicked to
the left and right, as if she was also considering whether running was
a good option.

They reached the entrance at the same time. They both stopped.
Ignoring each other was also not an option.

He felt himself distancing from her, his mind busily checking that his
defences were in place, that his vulnerabilities were locked neatly
away, that he could pretend she was just an old ship mate from
Voyager, no one really special, just someone he recognised and that he
was pleased to see her, and that he was a good actor with a smile
plastered on his face.

"Hi, " he said.  Smiled.  Casually.  He couldn't believe he'd done it.

"Hi," she replied.

They stepped through the doors together, went to the nearest turbolift
in the foyer.

They entered in silence.

"Floor 114," said B'Elanna.

"Floor 220," said Tom.

The turbolift started.  They were the only ones in the lift.  Both of
them stared at the door.

"Are you back on Earth?" said Tom with a casual tone of voice.  He was
beginning to admire his own level of coolness.

"The Excelsior is here for a week."

Tom nodded, faked looking vaguely interested but not that interested.

Thankfully turbolifts were quick.

"Floor 114," announced the computer.

The doors opened, B'Elanna hurried past him.

"It was nice to see you again," she murmured politely.  Then she was
gone.

Tom sank back against the wall, his cool demeanour promptly vanishing.
He should have said something more.  All of the things he'd imagined
saying to her for a start.  All the things he'd been rehearsing in his
head, all of the things in his dreams.

Things like, "why did you do it?"

Things like, "he was my best friend."

Things like, "did you enjoy it?"

But he didn't.  Now she was gone again.  Somewhere on Floor 114. His
rational mind said it was simple enough to go back, find her again and
say what needed to be said.  However since he was pretty sure he was a
coward, he would let it all go.

She was just a person he'd known on Voyager.  Someone he used to meet
for lunch in the messhall.  Voyager was a long time ago.

*She* was a long time ago.


---

Loril arrived at 18:00 for an early dinner.  Owen went into the
kitchen to replicate food.  Tom sat on the couch, dressed, and
suitably humbled by his afternoon's behaviour.

The Doctor had insisted on staying until Loril arrived and tried to
break the thick atmosphere by telling lame jokes.  Apparently he'd
been trying to develop his 'lighter' side.  The jokes had been old in
the 20th century.

Loril took up position in a large chair as the Doctor wound up his
comedy routine.

"Why did the chicken cross the road?"

"Stop it," growled Tom.

"I'm just trying to practice my joke telling."

"Those are not jokes.  They're comedy monstrosities."

"I was assured they were funny."

"By what?  A replicator?"

"No, I've been corresponding with a very interesting member of the
Enterprise crew. Commander Data."

Owen came back with a glass of water for Tom.  "Commander Data is a
synthetic life form."

Tom frowned.  "An android?"

His father nodded.

"Doc, you're getting your joke telling repertoire from an android?"

"Mr. Data has made extensive studies of the human capacity for
humour," sniffed the Doctor.  "Besides, he now has an emotion chip
which gives him an effective capacity for understanding the subtle
complexities of human emotion."

"Doc, you can't tell me you thought 'why did the chicken cross the
road?' was funny."

"Commander Data assured me that it was hilarious."

"Did he mention if anyone actually laughed?"

"He said he had received numerous interesting reactions to it."

Tom laughed. Poor Doc.  Poor Data.  The two of them struggling to
figure out what was funny and failing miserably.

"I fail to see what is so amusing, Mr. Paris."

Tom held up a hand.  "Okay, I'm sorry.  Just let me help you out with
some decent jokes."

The Doctor looked bewildered.  "Yes.  That would be fine.  Thank you."

Tom stifled a laugh.  He noticed Loril smiling to himself.

His father regarded the Doctor.  Realised the Doctor also shared
another common trait with Data.  An inability to take a social cue at
the appropriate moment.

"Thank you for coming over Doctor.  I really do appreciate it." Owen
showed his usual assertiveness by firmly placing his hand on the EMH's
shoulder and guiding him towards the door.

"Oh, yes, well I was hoping to stay for dinner," said the EMH.

"I didn't know that holograms could eat," replied his father, rather
smoothly.

"Well, no they can't but I was hoping to be able to study interaction
in families that are dysf-"

"-Doctor, I can send you some reading material on the subject,"
interrupted Loril as smoothly as possible.

Tom laughed again.  The EMH was unaccountably flustered, and for once
it was nice to meet some people who could handle the hologram's
personality subroutine vagaries.

The Doctor now stood in the doorway, clearly not quite understanding
how he got there.

"So, I'll come back tomorrow and check on you?"

"Of course Doctor, that would very much appreciated," said Owen.

"Bye!" said Tom and burst out laughing as his father shut the door.

"Tell me again how you put up with him for seven years?"  His father
was shaking his head.

"He's okay.  He's just got a few quirks in his subroutines."

"Well, he thinks highly of you.  He told me as much when he
transferred over to the Alpha Quadrant to help Dr. Zimmerman."

The news surprised Tom.  "Huh.  Well he didn't say anything to me when
he was kicking my ass in sickbay everyday."

"Think of him as a curmudgeon but ultimately loveable," said Loril.

"Well, I've got a pot-roast ready," interrupted Owen.  "Is everyone
ready to eat?"

"Sure," said Loril.

All very civilised.  They sat down to eat.  It was good.  Although Tom
was pretty sure it wasn't as good as *he* could have cooked. It was
replicator food, so what did he expect?  For the most part replicators
came with a range of standard food templates created by Federation
food technicians.  The food was good, it was nourishing, and no matter
where you went in the quadrant, the food looked, smelled and tasted
exactly the same.  According to his understanding of the 20th Century,
fast food restaurants had been accused of much the same thing.

Tom didn't really feel much like eating due to the effect of his
hangover and his nervousness.  He concentrated on small talk for the
most part.  The weather.  Paper work.  The garden.

Owen excused himself at the end, clearing the dishes.  "I'll be up in
my office if anyone needs me."

Which left Tom alone with Loril.

"Do you want some dessert?" Tom wandered over to the replicator and
suddenly thought that chocolate mousse might follow a pot roast rather
nicely.

"Not really.  I figured we could talk instead."

"Oh yeah.  I guess.  You're sure you don't want something? Coffee or
tea?"

"No, I'm fine."

Loril went back into the living room, Tom followed, and watched as
Loril looked over the family photos clustered on a small table near
the window.

"So, let's get straight to the point.  What happened?"

Tom shrugged. "I got drunk.  I won't do it again."

Loril picked up a photo of Tom as a gawky 14 year old.

"You must have got drunk for a reason."

"I only meant to have one drink.  I guess I got out of control."

"Try again.  We went through all this in prison.  You've never been
good at drinking and you've never been a social drinker.  The only
reason you ever got drunk was to obliterate the ability to think."

Damn, that's what he got for trying to hide something from the one man
in the galaxy who knew each and every single one of his psychological
quirks.

Well, he could try and dance around the point but Loril didn't look
like he was in a dancing mood.  The kid could be damn serious at time
- this looked like one of those times.  Besides, Loril's expression
said he could guess at what had caused Tom's little slide off the deep
end, even if Tom was reluctant to voice the problem.

"I saw B'Elanna.  At Starfleet Communications."

"How long ago?"

"Last week.  I was going up to meet Dad for lunch."

They were both still standing.  Tom used the position to work off some
energy.  He walked around the room.

"I just didn't expect her," he continued.  He aimlessly picked up a
small ornament belonging to his mother.  A paperweight made of glass,
an awful shape and an awful design.  For whatever reason, his mother's
good taste did not extend to her collection of paperweights.  The
tackier the better.

"I wouldn't have either.  She's supposed to be on a deep space
mission."

"The Excelsior got back to Earth to pick up some Academy graduates for
her new crew, get some shore leave, that sort of thing."  He ran a
hand through what was left of his hair. "I just didn't expect it.  Not
to see her walking down the street."

"And if you had expected it?"

"I could have prepared.  You know, sometimes when I can't sleep I used
to imagine myself having the Revenge Conversation."

Loril smiled.  "The conversation where the aggrieved party berates the
instigator and make them cry?"

"Yeah, that's the one. You know, I just wanted to know that she
regretted what she did."

"I think she probably does.  Most good people usually regret their
actions."

"You think B'Elanna's a good person?"

"Of course.  She's just a person that made a mistake and you, of all
people, know what that's like."

Of course he did.  Better than anyone.  But of course, when faced with
betrayal, it was always easier to demonise the other person because
being hurt by someone who was cold and calculating and cruel was
easier than being hurt by an actual human being.

"I just didn't expect to see her," he said again, once more feeling
like a ship on a stormy sea.

Loril sat back down in the chair.  "In the entire time I've been
seeing you, you've never really spoken about B'Elanna or Harry."

"Yeah.  I know."

"So do you?"

"What?"

"Want to talk about them?"

"There isn't much to say.  Besides, I think I dealt with it when I was
on my prolonged vacation in the clubs and bars of the quadrant back
waters."

Loris showed his disapproval by giving a snort of disgust.  "If you'd
dealt with it, that minor sighting of B'Elanna wouldn't have thrown
you into a drunken rampage."

"I didn't expect it."

"So you keep saying."

"Well what do you want me to do?"

"I want you to talk to me, tell me about it, get rid of some of that
anger and move on."

Tom crossed his arms.  "You know, I really hate talking about personal
stuff."

"Tell me about it.  You've always been my biggest challenge."

Tom smiled a little.  "Hey, at least I keep you on your toes. Besides,
if you didn't have the Paris family to deal with, you wouldn't be half
as good as you are."

"So I can thank you for my outstanding reputation as a counsellor?"

"Yeah.  I think so."

"If that's the case, then you can do me the favour of letting me
improve my skills again by talking about Harry and B'Elanna."

"Do you think it will help?"

"Sure.  Guaranteed you'll finally complete your holonovel, too."

"But you knew that all along didn't you?"

Loril tapped the side of his head.  "The advantages of being Betazoid.
There aren't any secrets around me."

"I always knew there was a reason Betazed was considered the most
annoying planet in the Federation."

"Cute.  Now let's make some coffee because I think this is going to be
a late night."

---

Harry hated promotion ceremonies.  He hated them because he usually
wasn't the one being promoted.  He hated them even more now that he
was back in the AQ and got to watch so many more of them.

Standing in the Solar Flare's meeting room, he watched as some nerdy
senior officer with a penchant for hand calculating the precise mid
point of an event horizon earned himself another pip and wound up a
full Commander.

Crap, they were handing these things out like candy and Harry Kim just
wasn't getting any of it.

His last evaluation hadn't gone well.

"You're a very competent officer," said the Captain.  "We just think
that perhaps you're a little too eager in the face of danger.  It's
all about accurately accessing the situation before acting."

Harry knew that it meant that once more, he was being skipped over for
promotion.

"Look, when I was aboard Voyager we didn't have the luxury of running
endless scans.  When we saw a chance to get home, we took it."

The Captain hadn't looked particularly impressed with that line of
reasoning.

"Yes, well, from what I understand of Voyager, regulations were
regularly bent or broken, as needed.  That's not how we work on this
ship."

Harry left the Captain's office.  He knew two things.  He would serve
out his time onboard the Solar Flare, he wasn't going to see a
promotion for the duration of the trip, and that the crew of Voyager
were considered in some circles to be heroes merely for surviving
their own penchant for getting themselves into trouble.

Well, he was long past blaming himself and he was long past blaming
B'Elanna.  He was now well settled into a sort of comfortably numb
routine recognised by most adults as the thing you did when you grew
up, stopped dreaming and were passing the time before death paid a
visit.

---

The shadow of the self always dwells in uneasy places of the psyche.
Not often glimpsed because people never enjoy exploring their dark
sides.

The more he talked, the more the sudden sweet desire of revenge welled
up from within him.  He wanted them to pay and pay and they hadn't,
not as much as he wanted, and so he cursed them, under his breath.

The revelation:  it wasn't fair.  Wasn't fair at all.  He had made
mistakes, he'd paid the price.  Being stranded on Voyager was his
chance to start again.  And he had.  Gained the trust of everyone on
the ship. Sure, he'd slipped on occasions but he'd got himself back on
track.  Finally, he'd been like everyone else wanted him to be.  The
good little Starfleet officer.  The person that obeyed the rules.  The
responsible family man. He was just like everyone else and somewhere
along the way, wasn't the universe supposed to give him a break for
that?  Reward him for being a good boy at long last?

"I'm too old to start again," he said.  Miserable.  Because he was.

"Thirty eight hardly qualifies as old."

Tom spread his hands, looked around at Loril's office, the tangible
reality of someone who knew what they were doing and where they were
going.

"It's too late to start another career.  What in the hell am I going
to do?"

Loril sighed.  "That's what I love so much about Starfleet," he said
sarcastically.  "Everyone is wrapped up in career advancement.  It's
so healthy."

"Well?  I failed at everything I've ever tried.  I don't have anything
left."

"Except for your writing and if you fail at that, it's all over.
Right?"

Tom nodded.  "I'm beginning to think it's easier to just not try any
more.  I can leave, go back to what I was doing."

"Drinking yourself to death?"

"At least I'd get something right."

Loril frowned at him.  "Don't even joke about it."

Tom got out of the chair, feeling a sudden move to walk around the
office. A week had passed since his embarrassing night at his father's
- nothing like revisiting old habits.

"I kind of wished we hadn't managed to get back to Earth."

"You think B'Elanna would still be with you?"

"Maybe.  But even if she wasn't it would be a damn sight easier to
leave.  The Captain would have tried to convince me not to go, but in
the end she would have let me leave.  I'd still be there in the Delta
Quadrant."

"One lone human on the other side of the galaxy.  It doesn't sound
that appealing to me."

"Every day would be the chance to start again, to build a new life.
No one knew me, knew who Starfleet was.  We were anonymous in the DQ,
just a little ship trying to get home."

"And no links to the past or the future.  Just a constant holding
pattern in an uncertain present."

"Something like that."

Tom stopped, stared at the garish carpet for a moment.

"I don't think I wanted to ever come back here.  It changed
everything.  Somehow the AQ and I don't get along."

"I think blaming an entire quadrant is getting a little paranoid."

Tom smiled at Loril's attempt at humour.  He went back to the chair.

"So, what's the deal?"

"About the only thing you can do.  Learn to accept what's happened.
Write.  At the end of that phase, we see which direction the road is
headed."

"That's not very profound."

"I don't do profound.  I'm a counsellor.  I do practical."

Tom sighed.  Loril was right of course.  There weren't any profound
answers.  Just the work of accepting something that was only a memory.
The past had long gone and there was no really cheap, easy way to get
it all back.  He had to work on acceptance, something he'd never been
good at.  It was easier to ignore it all, bury himself under alcohol,
or toys, or games or piloting, or any other thing he could think of
using to distract himself at the time.  He didn't like the thought of
having to accept anything, not when he felt so incredibly wronged by a
universe that handed out breaks to others and not to himself.

Loril leant forwarded, briefly patted his knee.  "I know this will
sound simplistic but this could all work out for the better."

"Yes, you're right, it is simplistic."

"Heard the Zen version of it?"

"No but I guess you're going to tell me anyway."

"It's the story of a farmer whose horse ran away. That evening the
neighbours gathered to commiserate with him since this was such bad
luck. He said, "Maybe."

"The next day the horse returned, but brought with it six wild horses,
and the neighbours came exclaiming at his good fortune. He said,
"Maybe."

"And then, the following day, his son tried to saddle and ride one of
the wild horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. Again the neighbours
came to offer their sympathy for the misfortune. He said, "Maybe."

"The day after that, conscription officers came to the village to
seize young men for the army, but because of the broken leg the
farmer's son was rejected. When the neighbours came to say how
fortunately everything had turned out, he said  "Maybe.""

"Your point being?"

"That for everything that happens, it might be bad or it might turn
out for the better.  So maybe you should go with the ride and see how
this whole thing turns out, whether it's good or bad and not worry
about it.  Just keep writing.  Write your story, write about your
feelings.  Write down everything."

Tom didn't think it sounded like very good advice at all and he didn't
see how the telling of Zen stories was going to enlighten him
regarding his current dilemma.  Then again, maybe that was the whole
point.  Starfleet didn't teach that approach to life. Starfleet and
her officers could fix anything given enough time and resources.  They
were the best and the bravest.

Maybe it was time to stop thinking like the best and the bravest and
just to think like Tom Paris.

Whoever he actually was.

---

Harry Kim stood on the viewing platform overlooking San Francisco and
the Golden Gate Bridge.  He hadn't been back in a while but he wasn't
surprised to find that little had changed after serving aboard the
Solar Flare.  He was a Lieutenant Commander and would stay that way
for some time.  His annual review at Starfleet Headquarters hinted
that somehow he now had a problem with maturity.

When did the thirties suddenly sneak up on him anyway?  He'd been a
kid on Voyager, seemed like he'd be a kid forever.  He'd had his 30th
birthday in the Delta Quadrant but it hadn't seemed to be that
significant mainly because it was somewhere around the time he
betrayed his best friend and his own principles.  He'd hadn't had much
time to think what it meant to leave the twenties behind, except that
he was no longer the wunderkind.

The night air was cold.  He pulled his coat around him, pulled the
collar up.  He wondered if he should even go, even turn up.
Undoubtedly, knowing the Kim luck, he'd screw it up and things would
never be right again.

He turned back towards the main transporter to beam over to the
Presidio.  Voyager was down there, now a permanent museum.  Across
from Voyager was a large convention hall and the hall had been rented
out for the party to which Harry had been invited.

Not that he understood why.

His nerves were getting the better of him, it was now or never.

---

He remodelled his templates in his holonovel and for three months they
looked exactly like B'Elanna and Harry.  For three months, he took
satisfaction in watching his villains being destroyed in a number of
imaginative ways.  He kept a journal.  He visited Loril. He tried to
be patient.

Then one day, he woke up, and he was over it.

Somewhere in his subconscious, he seemed to have accepted that the
universe may have seemed unfair but it was unfair to most people. He
didn't really have a personal hold on bad luck, even though it felt
like it. All he could do, like most people, was weather the storm,
pick himself up and keep going.  He was still here, still in good
health, still had decades of living to do.

The only thing life kept asking was that he keep trying.  There might
not be any payoff at the end, but he could at least say that he'd
given it his best shot.

He stripped out the physical parameters, rebuilt them as suitably
anonymous people and realised that the works were ready to start
sending out to publishers.

Surprisingly, at least to Tom, the holonovels didn't take long to
sell.  He pulled out 'Captain Proton' and made some adjustments and
found himself with a large contract to Starfleet.  One that generated
a frequent and very large amount of credits.  All flowing happily into
his personal account.  He just had to adjust to the fact that 'Captain
Proton' was being played by people he could never imagine playing
Buster Kincaid.  For some bizarre reason, the Klingons loved it.
Every time he imagined Klingons playing 'Captain Proton', he was
reduced to hysterical fits of laughter.

His second holonovel, 'Pirates', sold just as quickly.  It seemed he
was now a hot author.

The credits allowed him more choices than he'd ever had before. He had
been prepared to move out of his parent's house even without the
credits, rent a place for a while and depend on a small payout fund
set up for the Voyager crew.  He was able to afford to own a place of
his own and to furniture it to his taste. Even to get a private
holodeck added to the house.

Owen and some of the staff from Owen's office had been called to help
with the packing and general movement of boxes between rooms to the
prearranged transporter coordinates in his new living room.

Turned out after a life time of running away and being stranded in
strange places he wasn't moving very far.  A place had come up for
sale about two blocks from his parent's house.  He'd liked the view,
liked the proximity and liked the fact that it was a place he could
call his own, and that he could at long last settle down.

He father had brought him a house warming gift.  A small Labrador
puppy.  The puppy was instantly named Barney.  It grew quickly into a
gangly teenager of a dog who gnawed his furniture, destroyed dog toys
and insisted on lying on Tom's bed despite Tom's best attempts at
training it.  Barney could sit and stay but he seemed resistant to any
other forms of obedience.  His father had brought the galaxy's dumbest
dog. Tom loved Barney anyway. Even when the dog had managed to wedge
his head into the same gap in the fence and they'd had to get the
fence dismantled.

He started making human friends.  Some people from his father's
office.  Some writers and artists introduced to him by his publisher.
It was strange being friends with non-Fleeters. His entire life had
been Starfleet.  To meet people for dinner that had no interest in
Starfleet or what Starfleet was doing was a weird experience.  They
didn't particularly care that he'd been Chief Pilot.  They were more
impressed with his holoprogramming skills.

He was also dating an artist, Alerah Bishop.  An extremely talented
artist with a devotion to oil paintings and a mind that didn't really
understand, nor cared to understand, the finer point of warp field
dynamics.  She was different from B'Elanna. Grounded and stable, a
woman who preferred quiet nights at home and even quieter sex.  They
weren't living together, and perhaps they knew it wasn't going to
last, but for the moment it was something to cherish and build on.
Alerah seemed to sense that and give him the support he needed.

At times he couldn't believe that he was being paid to do something
he'd always had fun with.  Alerah reminded him that he was talented.
He was creative.  He was a writer.

Who knew anyone would be paid this much to tell stories?

---

His publisher threw him a party to celebrate his best seller and his
contracts with Starfleet.  The publisher loved him.  His holoprograms
were a resounding success and the payments were substantial.

It was very odd being a success after so many years of being the
terminal screw-up. His new novel, 'Vampyre Slayers' was running in one
of the suites the publisher had hired, and guests were able to be the
first to interact with the new adventure.  He'd found he was quite
versatile in his interests and programming and could turn his hand to
romance, action-adventure, historical, fantasy and host of other
genres depending on what he was interested in at the time.  Currently
his love of old horror movies had more than one person exiting the
holosuite looking slightly green.

Nothing like a good scary encounter with a few vampires and other
assorted undead to get underneath all of that Starfleet training,
although more than one person seemed confused by his reference to the
'Scooby Gang'.  He'd smile and wink and tell them it was part of the
fun.  They had to do some research and figure out the references.

His father came over, clutching a glass of champagne. Barney sat at
Tom's feet waiting for the next person he could slobber all over.

Owen eyed up the dog before it could launch its attack of tail wagging
and over eagerness.  "No Barney!"

The dog obeyed the stern tone but couldn't help himself and kept
flicking out his tongue to lick empty air. Tom bent down to give the
dog a pat on the head and a dog biscuit as a reward.

"Good boy Barney.  Why can't you do that with me?  You're pathetic."

"I'm afraid your dog is more interested in being friends with
everything rather than taking any notice of you."

Tom nodded at the wisdom of that observation.  "Did you have any idea
that a little cute ball of golden fluff would grow into this?"

"Nope.  That'll teach me for buying pets on a whim."  Owen looked
around the room at the crowd.  "By the way, it's your party. You're
supposed to be mingling, not supervising Barney."

"I thought I'd just sit back and observe instead."

"A good author is always on the outside looking in - or so I read
somewhere."

Tom raised an eyebrow at him.

"I don't know if you're making some sort of veiled reference to my
lifestyle or not."

Owen chuckled softly.  "Sorry.  Couldn't resist.  You were always a
strange mixture as a child.  You were always getting into some sort of
mischief and on the other hand, you would happily go and entertain
yourself for hours on end.  You spent entire days sitting in that tree
house I made for you."

"Well, it was a very cool tree house and my copies of Jules Verne were
up there."

"I found an old photo last night.  I think it was taken before I
shipped out on the Exeter.  I was reading 'Voyage to the Centre of the
Earth' to you. Your expression was priceless.  Your forehead was
scrunched up in concentration."

"Dad, if you tell me that you're going to start pulling out baby
photos of me naked, I am never visiting you again."

He father laughed.  It was good to hear his father laugh.

Tom spotted them as Owen left to refill both of their glasses. Tom
hadn't thought that he would turn up.  But fame and fortune did have
its advantages and it seemed some of his former Voyager crewmates were
curious.  Tuvok hadn't been able to make it from Vulcan but said he'd
found his complimentary copy to be "interesting".

He watched as Chakotay, Seven, Admiral Janeway, and Harry Kim, crossed
the large hall and walked towards him.

An older, fidgeting Harry Kim who looked like he wanted the floor to
open up and swallow him.  Something that made Tom just the teeniest
bit glad, even if it was he who had extended the invitation.
Presumably Harry had arrived with everyone else so he wouldn't have to
face Tom alone.

Still, he was glad to see the rest of them.  He hadn't seen his former
Captain and First Officer in the flesh in quite some time although
he'd established regular contact with Chakotay, letting him know that
Tom Paris was alive and well and actually doing something useful with
his life.

Chakotay's new life on Dorvan 4 seemed to suit him.  Seven held
Chakotay's hand.  The relationship had done them both good. Seven
looked softer, more relaxed.  She wore a loose fitting pair of pants,
a white blouse, flat plain shoes.  Chakotay had a lot more grey in his
hair but he looked happy.  A certain twinkle seemed to be in his eye.

Janeway smiled broadly at him and then the group crossed the floor
together to where Tom stood, propped up against the table holding the
champagne.

Chakotay took a proffered glass and gave it to Seven, took one
himself.  He bent down to pat Barney on the head, who whined in
delight.

"Your dog?"

"Yeah.  Unfortunately," Tom said with a grin, glad Chakotay was taking
it upon himself to start the conversation and giving him a chance to
work up to actually speaking to Harry.

"I know what you mean.  Dogs have the habit of worming their way into
your heart while digging up your garden."

"That would be Barney."

"It would also be our dog, Sausage."

Tom burst out laughing.  "You named your dog Sausage?"

"You haven't seen our dog. Mostly it lies down and it's built like a
fat sausage. I've tried walking it but he acts like he's dying. The
only exercise it ever seems to enjoy is digging up my garden or
chewing through the fence. We put it on a diet but we've just found
out it's mooching food from a neighbour."

"I must concur that it is an extremely lazy example of canine
domesticus," agreed Seven.

"I hear you're the talk of the entire Alpha Quadrant," said Chakotay,
raising his glass.

"Yeah, it seems that 'Captain Proton' and 'Vampyre Slayers' appeals to
quite a few species, including the Andorians."

Chakotay glanced around the room.

"It's good to see you've found your calling Tom."

Seven nodded.

"I have been playing 'Tango for Two'."

Tom did a double take.

"You're playing my romance holonovel Seven?"

"Yes, it has been very instructional.  For example, I now know that
when someone tells me my eyes are the colour of the ocean and the sky,
the person is in fact complimenting me."

"I'm afraid Seven took everything a little too literally when I tried
laying on the charm," explained Chakotay.  "She kept telling me not to
use inappropriate analogies."

"I'm glad I could be of help."

He turned his attentions to Kathryn Janeway.  She'd turned up in
uniform despite the invitation saying 'casual dress'.  Somehow it
didn't surprise him.

"I hear you're lecturing on the Borg at the Academy Admiral," he said
teasingly.

She raised an eyebrow at his use of her rank instead of her name.

"Yes, it's interesting work."

"What's the average cadet like these days?  Giving you any trouble?"

"Nothing that can't be handled."

Tom laughed, imagining some poor cadet being caught in the death glare
of Admiral Kathryn Janeway.

While they talked, Harry Kim stood in the middle of them all, looking
frighteningly out of place.  Tom noticed the pips on this uniform.

"I see you finally made Lieutenant Commander.  Congratulations."

"Uh, thanks." Harry Kim smiled shyly at him and tried not to look as
if he was pushing his antiperspirant to its limits.

"So. I guess we have a lot to talk about," said Harry.

"Yeah.  Right.  We do."

"I've got to hang around here for a while but after that, do you want
to go and get something to eat."

"That would be nice."

Tom nodded once, smiled at everyone and then picked up a wine glass,
tapped it to get everyone's attention.

"I want to thank everyone for coming over tonight.  It's been great.
I also wanted to introduce a very special guest: Admiral Kathryn
Janeway.  As you know she was my Captain when I served on Voyager and
I'm honoured she could be here tonight to experience 'Vampyre Slayers'
with me.

Everyone applauded.  The Admiral waved, obviously enjoying the
attention.

After the speeches from his publisher and several others, his father
came over to the group.

"I'm going to get something to eat with Harry," Tom told Owen.

His father tried not to appear worried.  Made him promise that he
would check in at 23:00, just to make sure everything was okay. Tom
snuck at glance at Harry, noted that Harry seemed to sense that things
hadn't been quite right somehow.  That it was strange that a father
should be so concerned for his adult son in this way.

"Don't worry.  I promise I'll get home safely."

"If you need anything - someone to come and collect you, anything like
that, you promise you'll contact me?"

"Sure Dad. Don't worry about me.  I can take care of myself."

"I know you can," his father said somewhat sadly.  "And don't worry
about Barney.  I'll take him home for you."

Tom smiled at him, trying to reassure him and then left with Harry.

---

They went to a restaurant a couple of blocks from the house. Sisko's.
Tom hadn't felt like venturing further and he could easily walk back
afterwards.  Besides, he honestly didn't want his father to worry.
They could have both just as easily taken a transporter and he could
have wound up in Marseille for old time's sake.  He reminded himself
that those times were very old indeed. Another version of Tom Paris.
One from a long time ago.

Sisko's was nice. His father had taken him there a couple of times
before, back when he'd been moping around the house.  It enjoyed a
regular patronage of Fleet families and locals and although the food
was superb, it never seemed to be overly crowded.  Just families out
for a gentle evening of good food and pleasant conversation.  He liked
it.  He liked the owner.

Jake Sisko recognised him as he came in, offered them a seat by the
bay window.  He didn't bother to give them a menu.

"The usual?" said Jake, seemingly amused.

Tom nodded, smiled back.

"I'm guessing pizza," said Harry.

"They were willing to add it to the menu.  I was willing to help them
test it.  They also make a hell of a good gumbo," said Tom.

Harry had never been fond of pizzas but he seemed willing to put aside
his choice in food stuffs if it made Tom even marginally happy.  Tom
was a man of simple tastes.  He liked his food to be grounded and
plain and usually swimming in fat.

"They make it fresh here," continued Tom.  "You'll have to wait about
20 minutes."

That's what restaurants were all about.  A chance to talk while the
food was prepared.

"So.  How have you been?" asked Harry.

Tom shrugged at the question.  "I'm doing a whole lot better than I
was this time last year."

"I tried finding you after you disappeared."

"I didn't want to be found."

"Where'd you go?"

Tom narrowed his eyes, a frown creasing his forehead.  "I thought we
were going to patch things up, not go through the inquisition. If you
want to know where I was you can go and talk to my father about it."

"Sorry."

Tom shrugged again.  Sighed.

"We need to clear this whole thing up about B'Elanna," said Harry.

"Yeah, I guess."

"If I'd known how much this would hurt you, I would have never have
done it."

"Then why'd you do it?"

Harry looked supremely miserable.  "Oh God Tom, I'm so sorry.  I just
didn't think.  It doesn't excuse it but I always thought B'Elanna was
going to break up with you.  B'Elanna said you two were fighting all
of the time, and that she was really unhappy and I guess that's how I
justified it to myself.  If you two fought so much, you weren't going
to last were you?"

Harry was right in some ways.  B'Elanna had wanted to call it off
several times.  He'd always managed to convince her to stay.  They
always made up.  But for both of them, the post argument sex was
beginning to become boring - almost a tried and true method that had
lost its novelty.  Could they have stayed together through it all?  He
didn't know - wouldn't ever know.

"She said she'd talk to you," continued Harry. "She never did.  I was
too much of a coward to confront you directly.  That's the one thing
I'm really sorry for.  Not having the guts to talk to you about it and
just get it over with."

Tom picked up a breadstick and broke it in half so he didn't do
anything else, especially not to Harry.

"I went through hell Harry.  You were my best friend and you betrayed
me."

"I know.  Nothing I can say can make up for it."

Exasperated, Tom took a sip of water.  "Jesus Harry, you were like my
little brother.  I just couldn't believe you'd do that.  Not to me.
You didn't even have the decency to come and tell me."

"I thought-"

"-What?"

"I don't know - I guess that you'd confront me, maybe we'd fight and
that would be that."

"You were my best friend for seven years Harry. You knew me better
than my anyone in my life at that point.  You knew I would never, ever
do that."

"I guess deep down, I knew that too.  You wouldn't do anything about
it because you wouldn't want it to get around the ship.  You keep
secrets really well.   Too well.  I knew that."

"Why are you here Harry?"

"You invited me.  I wanted to apologise.  God Tom, I can't believe
I've treated you so badly."

"So, you felt guilty, still do and you want me to forgive you? I'm not
going to forgive you just so you can clear your conscience Harry."

The full force of the betrayal, feelings he'd buried for more than two
years came through in his voice.  He'd asked himself a million times
whether he could forgive Harry for all that'd he'd done. When he'd
thought that he couldn't he remembered that Harry had been the one to
extend the hand of friendship to a guy straight out of prison, a
Maquis sympathiser, Fleet disgrace, liar and a murderer.  Because
that's what he was for Caldik Prime.  For killing three other people
whether it was an accident or not.  He hadn't exactly been a prime
candidate for a role model.  No, his own behaviour hadn't been stellar
either.  He was caught between his loyalty to Harry for the early
days, and his utter hate of Harry for the betrayal.   That was why
he'd extended the invitation to Harry.  To finally be able to look
Harry Kim in the face and figure out how he felt.

Harry blushed.  "If it makes you feel any better, B'Elanna and I broke
up."

"I know."

"I ship out tomorrow and .."  Harry seemed to have run out of steam.
" I guess it's time I was going."

"Yeah.  If that's what you want."

Harry stood.  "I'm sorry Tom."

"I heard you the first time."

"Do you think we can ever be friends again?"

Tom considered.  Considered what he would do.  Reflected that perhaps
it was time to move on.

"Look, I can't promise anything Harry.  But I'm prepared to listen.
If you want to contact me, tell me all about your adventures that
would be great.  I won't mind Harry, I may even reply."

Harry truly smiled then and Tom found he had forgotten what Harry
looked like when he was happy.

"It's a start.  That's all I'm asking for.  The chance to prove
myself."

"A chance is all any of us are looking for Harry."

His former best friend nodded at him in gratitude.  Jake came over,
holding the pizza.  They ate in silence and Harry excused himself
after one slice.  They had said all that they could at this point in
time.

Tom sat, holding a glass of water, looking out of the window at the
San Francisco Bay.  The lights of houses and the Academy and the
complexes downtown glowed in the night.  Rain was beginning to fall.
He watched Harry walk off, illuminated by the street lights, heading
back to Starfleet Headquarters.

His father had provided him with information about Harry's career. The
fact that Harry Kim was struggling his way up the ranks, no longer the
wonder child, no longer young, no longer innocent. Having to work
through average postings to average ships on average duties.  Just one
more average officer in a pool of a thousand gifted officers.

It was ironic.  It was something he had wished for but now, having
seen his former friend, Harry's troubles didn't seem nearly as
satisfying as he wanted them to be.

Someone came over to Tom's table and tentatively asked for an
autograph.

---

The End