by Melanie
"But was going to do it anyway."
"He was leaving to keep you safe. These people he told Chakotay want him-"
"If we were going to be so safe at this base of his, this base that no one knows about, then he would have been too. No, he wasn't coming because he was going to try to stay with Starfleet. This story about people wanting him dead, it was just a story. He was telling it to Chakotay so he wouldn't hurt him for hurting me."
"First of all, I doubt Starfleet would take him back all that easily, B'Elanna, and secondly, do you honestly think he would pick Starfleet, who threw him out when he told the truth about his mistakes, over you, a woman who loves him? Not the Tom Paris I know."
"I don't think any of us really know Tom Paris," she scoffed and stormed out of the Conference Room.
'Yes,' Kathryn sighed, 'one Hell of a day.'
-------
The man who no one really knew was back in his safe place again -- seated on the deck in the corner of his bedroom. This time he wasn't crying as he had been after regaining consciousness from his experience with the akoonah and his Awakening. This time he was staring blankly ahead of him, knees to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs, right temple against the bulkhead. This time there was no chance of a certain beautiful engineer coming in, wrapping him in her arms, and murmuring quietly to him until he fell asleep. She had betrayed him and by now someone, probably Chakotay, had told her of his lie to her as well. She certainly wouldn't be coming to him after hearing that he had planned not to stay at her side when Voyager returned home. This time he was alone and was going to stay that way.
*Oh, but you're not alone,* Gul Camet sneered, *we're here with you. We'll always be here with you.*
He closed his eyes and thought longingly of the hypospray. If only it all had been real. The others would be home in the Alpha Quadrant and this would all finally be over, for them and especially for him.
*It'll never be over now. They'll find out just what was in that precious little hypo of yours.* He laughed. *I can't wait to hear how you plan to explain why you had it and what you were planning on doing with it.*
'I'll tell them it was for protection.'
*Against whom? Them?*
'No. I told Chakotay about people wanting me dead. I could say it was to protect myself against them.'
*Like they'll believe that,* Camet laughed.
Camet was right. How was he going to explain the hypo? Only the truth would suffice and only by telling them about his past, what he was and what he had done, would the truth make sense. There was no other way of understanding why his committing suicide was the only way of saving himself and all of them.
*Do you really think your remains being found would stop The Protectors from sending the AlphaOmegans in for a full investigation what had happened on Voyager?*
'Everyone would think my being responsible for yet another crash that killed some of my friends had thrown me over the edge. No one would question Tom Paris committing suicide after causing the death of his mate.'
*Tom Paris, no. But Alpha Two would wonder how you were able to actually do the deed. How you could do something which was contrary to one of their Commands. They'd wonder if you were Awake.*
'They'd investigate and they'd wonder, but they would not find anything. The plientis root would have damaged The Implant enough they couldn't have told whether it was active or dormant. And I altered my medical file and checked the Doc's logs for any mention of anything strange about my recent test results. They'd never have found evidence to confirm I was Awake.'
*But the others will have seen you changing your file.*
'They won't see any changes,' Tom interrupted.
*But your so-called friends will make a report about all of this in their logs. And they're on to you now so you just can't go in and change their logs without them noticing at some point.* He could sense Camet grinning. *Face it, your situation is hopeless. They are on to you. Your attempts to act normal only made it more obvious that things weren't normal. Now they know about your plan. Not that it would have worked anyway. With the technology The Protectors are withholding from the rest of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, they might have something that would have uncovered the fact there had not been any shuttle accident, that you had faked it all. They probably could have figured out you'd changed your medical records too. Face it, you're doomed and so are all of them.*
He curled up even tighter. It was ironic really. They had done all this in an attempt to give him hope for the future and in doing so had taken away all his hope.
The End of Part 2