To Tell The Truth Series 02 Parole

by Melanie

  Rubbing feeling back into his sleeping arm and shoulder, Tom smiled apologetically at her. "I'm sorry I didn't make it to the Resort, but...."

  "It's okay. I understand." She took up rubbing his shoulder, though her ministrations were more a caress than a rub. "I was late myself. Engineering."

  He nodded. No more explanation than that was necessary. That was a good thing as he clearly was finding himself rapidly losing the capacity to speak as her hands trailed down from his shoulder and buried themselves in the golden chest hair visible through his unfastened and untucked shirt. His own hands lifted to her waist and pulled her to him.

  "What say we forget the party and go to my quarters," she growled at him in a low voice.

  Tom glanced at Harry sound asleep less than a meter behind them. Reluctantly, he drew back. "As much as I'd like that, I don't want to leave Harry."

  "Harry's just going to sleep," she insisted, trying to pull him back to her. "He doesn't need you to watch him do that."

  "I'm worried about him. He seemed pretty homesick earlier. I think I should be here in case he wakes." He led her to the armchair and assumed their favorite position with her seated in his lap. "Okay?"

  "Mmm." She laid her forehead against his neck and resumed playing with the chest hair that so fascinated her. She was quiet for many minutes. Finally, he squeezed the hip under his hand.

  "What are you thinking?"

  "Hmm?"

  "I asked what you're thinking."

  She flattened her hand over his heart. "About the messages from the Alpha Quadrant. About the Maquis and all my friends." His arms tightened around her. "About how the coded message from Starfleet might be a plan for getting Voyager home." She paused. "And about what will happen to us if they do. When I was in the Maquis, I always knew I could end up in prison or worse if I were caught, but it always was sort of unreal to me, you know. Like the classes at the Academy when they'd outline all the worst case scenarios and expect the class to hypothesize about what they'd do if it happened. It was unreal, something which you had to plan for but probably wouldn't ever happen."

  "And now you're thinking that if Starfleet can get Voyager back to the Alpha Quadrant you and the other Maquis will be put in prison and you don't know if you can handle it."

  "It's not that I don't think I can handle it, I mean it would be a Starfleet facility, not a Cardassian one, and given my service here it probably would be minimum security. It's not like they throw you into some rodent and insect infested hole and forget about you except to drag you out to torture you like the Cardassians do. It wouldn't be that bad. I mean, you can't go wherever you want, you have to stay put and wear a monitoring anklet, but it isn't all that bad... is it?"

  Tom did not answer for a moment. He shut his eyes and rested his cheek on her hair. Even though he had let her in farther than anyone else ever had been permitted in his entire life, he had resisted talking about his time in the Rehab Colony in New Zealand. That was until now that it had become obvious she needed to here the truth about life inside of a Federation prison.

  "For you it probably would be like you think. Not too bad. There'd be other Maquis there so you'd have them to be with."

  "Huh?"

  "Everyone tends to stick with their own kind. All the Starfleet, all the Maquis, and so on. They tend to stay in the groups they were in on the outside. The Maquis would look after you while you were there."

  "They didn't do that for you, did they? The Starfleet or the Maquis... or the others."

  "Of course not. I was a traitor to Starfleet AND the Maquis as well as a triple murderer who'd gotten off scott-free from what had happened on Caldik Prime. Plus I was a Paris, a shame to the family, but a Paris just the same." He kissed her hair. "No, I was on my own there."

  "Caldik Prime was an accident, Tom," she soothed, stroking his chest in a comforting, not sexual way.

  He continued as though he had not heard her. "But they can't protect you all the time. You'll still have to watch out for some of the others. They... they can be trouble." He raised his head and shook it, opening his eyes. "But none of that matters. If there is a war, they're going to need everyone they can get with Starfleet or combat experience to be on their side. If they're smart, they'll snap all of you up in a second and wave all threat of prison as incentive to keep you in Starfleet."

  She raised her head to look in his troubled blue eyes. "Tom, you said 'snap all of you up,' not 'all of us.'" He tried to look away. She refused to permit it and pulled his face back to hers. "You don't think Starfleet will take you back too, do you?"

  He wrapped her tighter in his arms and pulled her head back to the crook of his neck. "The odds are against my ever serving in Starfleet again," he told her in a monotone.

  "You don't think they'd actually make you return to New Zealand to serve out the rest of your sentence, do you? Wouldn't it be up yet?"

  "No, I still have three more years on my sentence before I'd be free."

  "I thought the deal you made with the Captain was that after you lead them to the Maquis was you would be cut loose."

  "I bargained in bad faith, B'Elanna, and the Captain knows it."

  "I don't understand."

  "I knew the little information I had about the Maquis was out of date. The first thing everyone would have done after I was caught was pick up stakes and clear out in case I talked. They wouldn't have run the risk of remaining where they were and having Starfleet waltz in and capture them all because I'd told them where to find them. As far as they were concerned I would tell Starfleet everything because the only one I was looking out for yours truly and it might spare me a heavy prison sentence. It was only by bizarre coincidence that I actually was leading Voyager in the right direction, that, were it not for the Caretaker, Voyager would have stumbled across Chakotay's ship."

  "But they don't know that."

  "The Captain does. I told her a long time ago. I don't know if she made an official note of it in her log or not, but she knows."

  "Why?"

  "Why did I tell her or why did I strike a bargain with them when I knew I couldn't do what they thought I could?"

  "Both."

  "I told her because she has been damned good to me and I thought she deserved the truth. As to why I lied to them... I wanted out of prison and it was a way out."

  "Prison really was that bad for you, wasn't it."

  "I've been through worse."

  "But surely you were eligible for parole at some point, weren't you? You might have been released soon, with good behavior?"

  "Supposedly, I would have been eligible last month."

  "Supposedly?"

  "I always knew I'd be serving the maximum. They were making an example of me. They had to. The authorities couldn't be lenient on me without everyone saying it was because of my family connections." He shook his head. "But none of that matters now. I got out anyway."

  "It does matter or you wouldn't have said anything about it." She threaded her fingers through the hair at his nape. "If they hadn't let you go, we wouldn't have met."

  "Probably not, no."

  She tilted her head up and gave him a lingering kiss.

  "What was that for?" he asked when she snuggled back into his neck.

  "Because I almost missed out on us. Because I almost lost you yet again only three weeks ago and it's finally hitting me how much I would have lost if you hadn't come back from the Spirit World or wherever you were."

  "You honestly think it'd be that easy to get rid of me?" He laid a kiss on her ridges. "I'm like a stray dog, show me a little affection and I'm yours for life."

  She half smiled. Though he was joking, the truth in the statement was glaring. Tom Paris was a stray dog. Anyone who had shown him a little affection or friendship or kindness *did* have him and his loyalty, possibly for life. 'Even in a strange way, the father who's message might have been more recriminations for past failings,' she thought, secretly thanking the Fates for the missing body of the lett
er. It truly was better he had to guess at the contents and choose to think the best rather than know the contents and be crushed were it more of the usual.

  The joke he had made before they knew the identity of the sender about the letter possibly being from the rehab colony telling him he had broken the conditions of his parole. It was so unfair that he felt he had no right to have any expectations for a future when they returned to the Alpha Quadrant. Even the Maquis could hope for some sort of a good future if his prediction about Starfleet needing their experience were correct.

  Her fingers threading through the hair at his nape, she closed her eyes and joined Harry in sleep.

  -------

  "I didn't make a note of it," Kathryn assured her once B'Elanna had lapsed into silence after telling an abridged version of their talk. "At the time I made the offer to him in the Rehab Colony, I knew it was a long shot and so did Starfleet. The Maquis were too smart and too well organized to take such a risk as staying where they were. Tom was our only option for finding Tuvok so we took it."

  "I agree with Tom," Chakotay chimed in, "Starfleet does need everyone they can get their hands on. At least for the duration of the war we would safe with them. Afterwards, I'm not so sure."

  "I can't speak for Starfleet, but I hope all of the Maquis know I will do everything in my power to help them when we get home."

  "We know that, Captain," he smiled.

  Briefly, she smiled back then turned to Seven. "What about you, Seven? You have spent some time lately working with Tom on a couple of projects. How has he been with you?"

  "Professional, Captain," the former Borg replied succinctly. "He performed his tasks adequately and within time constraints." Her head cocked to one side. "Perhaps that in itself is confirmation of abnormal behavior."

  "How so?"

  "Since my first encounter with him after becoming a member of this crew, Lieutenant Paris invariably has been solicitous and jovial." She said the last word like it was a grievous sin. "However, my interactions with him over the past seven weeks have not been so. He has been detached and strictly professional. He has not made any attempts to engage me in idle conversation."

  "Seven weeks ago appears to be the focal point, Captain," Tuvok announced. "It was at that time that the relay station was destroyed."

  "So the consensus is that right after that Tom began to act oddly?" Chakotay received nods of agreement. "If he had received a letter from home and it was bad, then this would have made sense, but not receiving a letter? I don't get it."

  "Perhaps what he said to Lieutenant Torres is the answer. Perhaps Mr. Paris's problem stems from an inability to see a future for himself after Voyager. With Starfleet now knowing of our continued existence, we can assume they shall be working on a method of returning us to the Alpha Quadrant. Every day he must awaken to the concern that today might be the day assistance arrives or we decode Starfleet's message."

  "And the day it does he thinks he is headed right back to prison."

  "That was the second time that day he'd mentioned parole and prison," B'Elanna admitted.

  "So it is weighing heavily on his mind," Kathryn frowned. "I know he probably is right about them making an example of him, but I can't believe that with his record on Voyager they'd send him back there. They need him too much. He's too good to lose."

  Tuvok might as well have shrugged. "It will depend on how heavily they weigh your reports concerning Lieutenant Paris's performance here against the need to provide an example and not be accused of leniency for the privileged. Starfleet may well choose saving face over all else. They will not wish to be proven wrong in their so thorough condemnation of him as a failure. However, in light of the vast improvements he has made here, they may find it difficult to rationalize the action."

  Harry groaned. "If only that letter from his father hadn't been lost. We wouldn't have to be speculating. We would know if they were going to free him or what.

  "To save face, it most probably will be a strictly monitored parole, not a suspended sentence, Ensign Kim. But you are correct. Its loss does leaves him without a clue as to the nature of the reception he will receive upon returning home."

  "That could place quite a strain on him," the Doctor agreed, catching on to Tuvok's train of thought. "This new attitude of his could be a manifestation of that fear."

  "I don't understand," Neelix admitted.

  "He is escaping into the unreality of the Holodeck, trying to retreat from everyone. His way of avoiding the reality of one day losing the freedom being in the Delta Quadrant has provided him."

  "But how does avoiding Sickbay fit in?"

  "I think it may be another escape from reality," Kathryn explained. "Nothing is more real than the life and death which goes on there." She ran her hand through her hair. "I also think there is more to it than that. After Steth was gone and I read the Doctor's report about their interactions, I was disturbed by what I'd read so I went to Tom's quarters." She smiled wryly. "They looked like he was in the midst of scouring them to remove all traces of Steth, not that I blame him. I would have done the same had Steth been in my body longer than the couple of hours and touched all my things and slept in my bed."

  -------

  "Captain," Tom gestured towards the living area with a cleaning rag in his hands. "Come in."

  "Thank you." She stepped into the room. Over their years on Voyager there had been few reasons for her to enter her helmsman's living space. When she had come, she had become accustomed to seeing a T-shirt over the foot of his bed or a stack of padds toppled over on his couch or coffee table. It was the usual clutter of a semi-neat bachelor. Today, however, it looked like it was an Academy cadet's quarters ready for inspection. Today, it was neat as a pin with everything gleaming like new.

  "So, to what do I owe you this pleasure?" he asked, motioning her to the couch.

  "Actually, I came because I needed to discuss this with you, Tom." Kathryn handed him a padd then sat where he had indicated.

  "The Doc's report about Steth? What more do you need to know? I filed my report."

  "I know. I read it. What I need to know, Tom, is: is what he told the Doctor true?"

  Tom looked at her blankly. At her gesturing towards the padd, he scanned it, stiffening at the contents.

  "Is it true, Tom?" she asked again. "Is what Steth told the Doctor about medicine not coming easy to you like most other things do and your feeling unable to live up to the Doctor's lofty standards true? Is that how you really feel?"

  Not looking at her, he returned the report and collected the pile of clean uniforms from the refresher. When he strode into his bedroom area, she was right behind him.

  "Seven caught Steth reading my personal logs, Tom," she reminded him as he set the garments on the expertly made bed and headed for the closet with one of them. "The only explanation for that is he planned all along to move into me at some point and was preparing for that eventuality. We know he downloaded all the files pertaining to you before he switched bodies with you. He had to have studied them so he could blend in easier."

  Tom hung the uniform up them headed for another one without commenting. He repeated this twice more before she came up behind him and laid a hand on his back. The muscles under her hand were taut. Tension radiated off of him like heat from a fire.

  "I know you don't like talking about your feelings, Tom, but if you are having doubts you must talk about it. If this is true, I'll help you work through it. I need you in Sickbay as much as I do at the helm." The hand glided up to grasp his shoulder. "I promise to keep it between us. It will go no farther."

  -------

  "And then Chakotay called me to the Bridge to tell me about finding this planet we now orbit and wanting to stop to survey for food, materials, and shore leave so Tom never did answer me."

  Chakotay frowned at his bad timing and stared at his hands. She laid a hand on his shoulder.

  "It's okay, Commander. Given his attitude, I doubt he would have answered
me truthfully anyway," she assured him.

  Slumping back into the couch, Harry sighed. "So if Tom's acting this way because he is scared of what the future may hold, what do we do about it?"

  "Obviously he needs to be reassured of his value and progress," the Commander concluded. "The past is behind him and he is a new man, a valued member of this crew. The despised traitor and convict who boarded as an observer almost five years ago is gone."

  "Agreed." Kathryn ran a hand through her hair. "The catch is, how do we do it? We all know Tom is awkward with receiving praise unless it is about his flying abilities. He's not used to any praise for anything else and has difficulty accepting it."

  "I have observed Lieutenant Paris to be one who responds well to physical displays," Seven commented. "As Ensign Kim stated in his account, he is more comfortable with a physical exchange than a verbal one. He has exhibited such with you numerous times, Captain."

  "Explain."

  "You have a tendency to touch people, Captain. On the Bridge alone, I have observed you place one or both hands on Lieutenant Paris's shoulder while he was at the helm 57 times since I boarded. Typically, he will smile at the sentiment you no doubt have meant to convey to him."

  "So what are you suggesting?" Harry asked. "We all give him a group hug?"

  All except Tuvok, Seven, and B'Elanna grinned at that idea.

  "Actually, Ensign Kim, I was not suggesting a course of action, merely making an observation."

  Chakotay threw out another idea. "We have to do something which would demonstrate his worth to him. A party or something akin to that. Tom does love a party and the casual atmosphere would put him at ease. He might accept what we tell him."

  "No," Harry vehemently disagreed, "Tom would hate that."

  B'Elanna picked up the explanation. "He doesn't mind being the centre of attention if he is telling a joke or something like that, something which will be over in a short time then someone else can take centre stage. An entire party in his honor? He'd hate it. You remember how he claimed fatigue and ducked out of his welcome back party after he'd ferreted out Jonas as a Kazon spy."