by Melanie
Sunfire beamed the five coffins, flags, and Souris' uniform out of the Mess Hall and into space. Tom turned towards the windows as they reappeared then were vaporized by a blast from Sunfire's phasers.
There was nothing left to say. At any other memorial there would have been socializing over a meal, toasts to the deceased, stories told of past good times and bad. This was not a normal memorial. Three of the mourners did not even really know the deceased and the fourth was incommunicative. It did not help that exactly half of the mourners consisted of a Vulcan who did not show emotions and hated socializing and a hologram who saw the subtleties of a funeral to be something to be analyzed in his attempts to evolve a
better personality. The Captain and Tom were the only ones who truly appreciated the affair and Tom was standing, silently staring out at the stars, oblivious to the others.
Finally, Tuvok motioned for the Doctor to follow him and they left the two humans alone in the Mess Hall.
Kathryn stood there, watching her Conn Officer. As she had been unconscious when he had arrived in Sickbay, she had not seen him in his uniform until now and see took a long look at him.
Sunfire had permitted her to do some reading in the AlphaOmegan database. Because of that, she knew the four bands of white-edged black braid around the mock-turtleneck of his midnight blue uniform indicated his rank of Captain and his status as a Chosen One. It was his rank that surprised her. Logically, the last time they could have promoted him was over five years ago and back then she would not have thought Tom Paris mature enough to handle a Captaincy.
'But it wasn't Tom Paris who was made a Captain. It was AlphaOmegan 41783. You have no idea how mature or experienced he was or is.'
Sighing, her gaze ran over him, pausing only for an instant on what she secretly considered to be the best posterior on the ship. Mentally shaking herself, she refocused her attention on the clothes encasing that posterior and the rest of the lanky frame. His stance reminded her of someone else's. It took her only a moment to realize whose it was. His father's. After they had been rescued from Camet. The Admiral had seemed older somehow after the experience. Tom did too now.
As if he had read her mind, he began talking. "You didn't ask me much about Camet, Captain. You wish to talk about it now?"
She wanted to say it was a funeral and they could talk about Camet at a more appropriate time, but she did not. "Did you know it was me?" she asked. "That I was that ensign with your father?"
"At the time, I saw your name, yes, but until recently I didn't remember it." His lips formed a sad parody of a smile. "The general consensus always has been I'd willingly die to protect you. Turns out I already did. The good man - what little of him was left - died that day."
She swallowed hard. "Would you do it again?"
"Yes."
Reflexively, she took a step back.
Turning, Tom regarded her sadly. "You don't get it, do you? Camet nearly destroyed my father. Until Dad's capture, I had hope that we might one day be close, that one day I might actually do something that would make him proud. After he was rescued.... Most of the time it was like none of us even existed anymore. Mom... Anyone who looked at them together could see how much she loved him and he shut her out. And Moira and Kathleen... Before, he'd always made time for them, but he suddenly 'had too much
work to do.'" He swallowed hard. "And me... When he even acknowledged my presence it was one of those speaking glances people talk about in novels. The ones that seem to communicate exactly what the person was thinking? Well, he always was disappointed I hadn't done better, no matter how hard I'd tried or how well I'd done. He always communicated his displeasure without even saying a word."
"Tom...."
"Because of what Camet did to him he never was the same. Mom lost her husband. Kathleen, Moira, and I lost my father. He had to pay for what he had done to all of us."
"What you did...."
"Was what he deserved. I saw Camet's file. He was on track to become a very powerful man and The Protectors weren't going to stop him. He already was responsible for the deaths of so many. If he continued on in his career, more would be dead now. Consider it a public service, Captain. That's what I try to do."
"It was vigilante-ism, Tom. He should have been brought to the authorities. You had no right to do what you did."
"And what right had he to do what he did to you and my father? To all of us?"
Kathryn had no answer to that. She merely lowered her eyes and left the Mess Hall.
-------
"Captain?"
She emerged from her stupor to see her First Officer inside the turbolift. Looking around, she discovered herself to be standing in the doorway. Quickly, she stepped inside and the doors closed.
"Please state your destination," the computer requested.
"Uh..."
Chakotay called out her deck number. As the lift moved, he touched her arm. "You okay?"
"I know what he did was wrong," she whispered, "so why can't I disapprove of him for having done it?"
"Paris," he guessed, "killing those Cardassians on that base?"
She nodded.
He sighed. "I seem to be having the opposite problem. I mean, given my history with the Cardassians, as much as I hate them for what they did to my people and the others in the Annexed territory and along its border, I should be feeling like you. I shouldn't be wondering if they really deserved what he did to them. I shouldn't be thinking it's one thing to, in the heat of the moment, kill an enemy in battle. I've been there. I've done that. With my bare hands even. But it is something else entirely to cold-bloodedly torture two of them. I keep remembering that he had them strapped down to chairs and systematically tortured them then killed them. I completely understand your feelings, Kathryn, but I can't understand why I don't totally share them."
Forgetting her own pain for a moment, she sadly smiled a comforting smile.
He smiled crookedly back.
"Why doesn't knowing how he did it seem to make the same difference to me?" she whispered. "Why doesn't knowing they suffered horribly and he's showing absolutely no remorse for it not make me hate him?"
The lift doors opened and he shepherded her out and down the corridor towards her quarters. "I can't answer that," he sighed. "But right now, you're tired and need rest. Maybe later we'll be able to figure things out."
At her door, she stopped and looked at him with glazed eyes. Without a word, she walked into her quarters.
"Is she resting, Commander?" the voice of Harry's second in command of Ops asked at his elbow a moment later.
Chakotay turned to her. "I hope so."
"She wanted to see this the moment it was finished, but I guess I should give it to you." She handed over a padd. "No further AlphaOmegan surprises have been located. Voyager is in need of supplies both for Engineering to complete repairs and for the kitchen and Astrometrics has found a planet nine days from here which might suffice."
"Good. And Sunfire?"
"Scans indicate she has been repaired for the most part. She still refuses to permit anyone other than Lieutenant Paris to board her so no exact estimate on remaining damage is available."
He frowned. "But there's nothing to indicate she's of any danger to us?"
"Engineering doesn't think so, however they're unfamiliar with most of her systems."
"Then let's hope Paris is a better engineer than we think he is and she doesn't suddenly self-destruct on us or something."
"Yes, sir."
"Any signs of the Gherop returning?"
"None."
"That's something at least," he sighed and followed her away from the Captain's door.
-------
Tom heard the doors to the Mess Hall open a couple minutes after Janeway had left. From the eau de plasma coolant, he knew who the one to enter had been.
B'Elanna stopped two meters away from him.
Keeping his back to her, he let her play the opening gambit in the conversation. An
d it was not one he expected.
"Was the thing about the druid at Stonehenge really your memory or Raven's?" she asked.
"Mine. He knew about it because Alpha Two knew from a mindmeld he forced on me."
She paused then asked the question he had been expecting her to ask. "Chakotay says Raven used some sort of chemical to make me fall for him."
"It's a hormone his people exude. Normally it's used during mating to bond mates to one another for life. Raven is different than most. He has a kinked chromosome or something and he can't form a permanent bond to a mate, but he can form temporary bonds. That was what he was doing to you."
"So none of it was real."
"If you're asking if he loved you, no. Raven is incapable of love. He wanted to seduce you for revenge for imagined and not so imagined slights from me."
She was silent again for a while then asked the other important question on her mind. "Was our entire relationship because you really loved me or was it just expediency?"
Turning, he frowned at her. "Expediency?"
"To solidify your information network on the ship. So that when anything happened on the ship you'd know about it and be able to control it."
"If you're thinking I was using you then don't," he denied vehemently. "I was not given any instructions regarding establishing any ties, romantic, sexual, or otherwise to anyone, either during my time in the Maquis or here on Voyager."
"Are you sure? According to Tuvok, you claim you're still remembering things. How do you know you'll not remember them ordering you to get the Chief Engineer into bed?"
"If I were ordered to get you into bed then why did it take me over a year before I started pursuing you in earnest and so long after that before I succeeding in taking you to my bed?" he questioned earnestly. "Why did I spend so much time chasing Megan and Nicoletti instead of chasing you right off the bat? And why would they have ordered me to bed the Chief Engineer anyway? None of the Starfleet crew was going to survive their trip through the Badlands. The Protectors never waste time on anything that doesn't benefit them in some way. My seducing the Chief Engineer would have been a waste of time since the man who was the Chief at the time was going to be dead soon anyway. Besides, if they had wanted me to bed anyone it would have been the Captain, not someone as far down the chain of command as the Chief Engineer. Always go for the one with the power. That's one of the first rules we're taught."
"You've had to seduce others."
"Yes, I have."
She looked away from him, repulsed.
"As much as I wish it were otherwise, back then I had no say in whether I did something or not, so I can't apologize for following orders, no matter how distasteful I find them now. Back then, I was what they created me to be and, yes, unfortunately, part of me always will be. Until I Awoke my motivations and desires were dictated by them. If you had asked me which way was up, I couldn't have told you without their having told me first. If they told me to seduce someone, I did it."
He stepped closer and amazingly she did not move away. "Then I Awoke and for the following few months I was so wrapped up in trying to protect all of us from them that its only recently that I have been trying to figure out who I am now that I'm aware of all of my past." He cupped her face in his hands, forcing her to meet his eyes. "But the one thing I've never doubted through all this was that I love you. How I feel about you is the only certain thing that I do know about me."
"But what about how I feel about you?" she returned, stepping away. "What about how I feel about all this?"
"I know this is a huge shock, but I'm still the same man."
"Are you? The Tom Paris I knew wasn't a mass murderer. He wasn't someone who could cold-bloodedly torture or kill anyone."
"But that wasn't really me. There's no way I would do that now, not of my own choice."
"What about this Camet?"
Tom stopped short, feeling his position eroding.
And it was. At the look of revulsion appearing on her face, it felt like a physical blow was delivered to his midsection. She was not going to be swayed by any declarations of love and devotion anymore than she was going to believe he had changed. He could see her harden herself against him. The last hope he had of keeping her love died when she turned on her heel and left the Mess Hall.
Slowly, he turned back to the windows, tears trickling out from under his thick lashes.
-------
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the little boy again. This time he was perched on the top of a nearby table. Slowly, she shifted her gaze from the emotionally broken man in front of her to the child. Unlike their last encounter, he did not disappear. He returned her gaze then stared at Tom again. The main emotion she sensed from him was confusion. It was as if he could not comprehend what was happening.
Of course neither could she really. Sadly, she looked at Tom and resisted the urge to draw him into her arms. He was in so much pain, physically and emotionally. The desire in her to ease that pain was almost tangible.
Yet she limited herself to the merest of strokes to his face. Much more than that and he would sense her for sure. And it was not time for him to know of her. Not yet.
She glanced at the boy once more then headed for another problem in the making -- Sunfire.
-------
His heart leapt. B'Elanna was back, he thought.
Blue eyes flew open. Hope was evident in them.
But the Mess Hall was empty and the hope died along with his smile. He was alone. The soft hand brushing his cheek clearly was wishful thinking. Camet had been right all along. Now that they knew the truth about him, he was to be ostracized as he had been when he first came on board. Only this time there would be no green ensign declaring "he didn't let others choose his friends for him" and his only companions would be the chorus of voices saying "We told you so" in his head.
-------
'I am going to beam her over here and give her a piece of my mind,' Sunfire insisted to the voice.
*No you are not,* she told the ship.
'How can she treat him this way. Doesn't she understand what she has? He loves her.'
*Like you love him.*
"Yes. But she has his heart. And she is organic. She has arms that can hold him. Lips that can kiss him. A body to give him the children he wants so badly. I have none of that anymore."
*She needs time to accept what she now knows about him.*
'Meanwhile his heart is broken.'
*I'm afraid so.*
'The Universe isn't fair.'
*No, it sadly is not.*
'Why are you so interested in him anyway?'
She sighed. *There is a debt that must be repaid.*
-------
"Owen?"
Admiral Owen Paris heard the sound of his wife's voice as if from a long ways off. He heard it, he knew she was there in his home office, but he could not acknowledge her. The only thing he could do is stare blindly at the padd in his hand as he slumped in his desk chair.
"Owen, what's wrong?"
He felt hands roughened from years of palaeontological digs smoothing back his greying blond hair. In a moment of weakness rare for the great Admiral Paris, he turned into the hand as it caressed his cheek. "Just hold me," he whispered and buried his face in her slight chest.
The pad fell to the ancient hard wood floor. The highly classified information that Admiral Naychev had given him on his way out of his office at Command blinked off so Tom's mother did not see what his father had seen. She was spared reading the report detailing an attempt to recover Voyager and her crew, an attempt whose failure was directly attributable to the actions of one Thomas Eugene Paris.
-------
"Owen Paris has read the report, as have the others you wanted to see it," Alpha Two informed Alpha One when he found her in Vassanji's lab.
Alpha One nodded her head, long hair as snowy white as her Protectors uniform swishing with the movement. Her eyes remained focused on the pale pink mass flo
ating in the chamber before them. "And they immediately classified it so Thomas Eugene Paris would not give Starfleet yet another black eye?"
"As you predicted they would."
"And none have asked any questions as to who undertook this mission or how?"
"Section 31 have taken the credit for it as they agreed. No one is questioning any further."
"They know they don't *want* to ask any questions if Section 31 is involved."
"I do not understand, Alpha One, why you asked them to do this."
"All part of my master plan," she smiled secretively then sobered. "Now, has the team reported back from this secret base of his yet?"
"Yes. Raven says they found nothing other than precisely what AlphaOmegan 41783 had told the party who supposedly were leaving Voyager in the parole test to expect. They are examining the databanks of the base's computer, but so far nothing. Perhaps we should permit them another twenty-four hours? If they still have nothing, then have them destroy the base?"
"No, I think not. That base could be useful. Continue the cover story that they are an archaeological team studying the practices of past archaeological digs and have them secure it for our use. I don't want anyone accidentally finding it and stumbling across the files that we somehow overlooked. Plus, I don't want him being able to use it again should he return to this quadrant."
"Alpha One, the odds are against his ever returning to the Alpha Quadrant. Even if Voyager or Sunfire or both made it home, it is unlikely it will be with him on board. The area the ships are in is fraught with danger. They will blame him for their remaining in the Delta Quadrant while we left. There are many temperamental ones on that ship. Someone will deal with him. All providing he actually survived being bombarded with the akoonah frequency as we left."
"Ah, but this is AlphaOmegan 41783 we are talking about here," the old human reminded him. "That one is like the Zarzar cat. Just when you think he is dead, he reappears once more. He has survived impossible situations, ones that would have been the end of anyone else. I am not willing to underestimate him. Not when he is so dangerous to us." She grimaced. "Besides, Sunfire is there with him. She can substantiate his claims. So can any AlphaOmegans who survived."