Disclaimer: Viacom owns everything I love to watch, in which everything I love to ship never happens. Connection? Perhaps. Party-poopers.
I actually had a lot of fun writing this, and too much fun imagining the Doctor's clothes and new name.
This is also my 20th story on here, so PARTY! I guess I had to write it about something I really don't understand.
Par
By AStormIsBrewing
"Excellent shot, Captain!"
In the distance, a speck of white dropped down to earth on a small, flat green. Kathryn Janeway paused only for a moment to watch it, then lowered her club and turned to her new mentor. "Doctor, if you're going to call me by my rank, the proper one would be 'Admiral,' now, but I'd prefer it if you would call me Kathryn."
Nonplused, Voyager's EMH replied, "You still won't call me by my name."
"That's because it's ridiculous. Your shot."
The Doctor gave her a sour look he usually only reserved for extremely unique forms of stupidity, deciding to ignore her incorrect terminology as he took his stance. "My name is not ridiculous," he muttered as he swung with such force that the beanie he was wearing nearly flew off his head.
"My mistake, it's just ridiculously long." Capt— Kathryn shaded her eyes to follow the ball, which had veered wildly off-course. Literally. "That looks like it'll be quite a hike, Doctor. Do you want to just try again?"
The Doctor didn't know when he had become the captain's (hey, fair was fair) verbal punching bag, but at some point during the debriefings the two had become too acerbic for anyone to consider them polite company for prolonged periods of time. The captain's every word was laced with the bitterness of baker's chocolate, and the Doctor was living up to Tom's holodeck rendition of him. It was natural that they would seek each other out.
"Lucky for me, my superior physical parameters will allow me to retrieve it in record time without breaking a sweat."
Janeway held up a hand in that familiar command gesture. "Excuse me, superior?"
"It's a simply matter of fact, Capt—" Set examples by leading. "Admiral." Small steps, you know.
"You know my medical records better than anyone. I've passed every one of my physical fitness exams."
"Yes, but you never enjoyed them, and you use the same cramming method any cadet would for an Advanced Temporal Mechanics exam." The Doctor began to walk towards the tree-line where his ball disappeared. "You could get a head start on me to the green—"
But he never got to finish his veiled counterstrike. A club-wielding blur streaked passed him, making for the trees at the side of the course. "A race then," the Doctor muttered, before grabbing the golf bag and following the admiral who would always be The Captain to one of the most decorated crews in Starfleet.
"Thoephrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim."
"What?"
"The Doctor's new name," Tom Paris said, lowering himself into a chair as if he was sitting on needles. "But he wants us to call him Paracelsus for short. He chose it just to give whoever was doing the paperwork a headache for classifying him as 'technology.'"
Harry was nursing vulcan tea with Tuvok because he wanted to avoid this sort of absurdity. He shook his head, wondering how else the world would be turned on its head now that they were back to earth. The debriefings were ridiculous circus side-shows, everyone was acting strangely, and earth smelled funny. The Delta Quadrant never looked so good.
He was grateful to be home — so amazingly enraptured — but he had been right, when he made that toast all those lightyears away. It really was the journey that mattered.
No one really cared about the people who went on it; the Starfleet red tape over everything had made that painfully clear. They just wanted to know what they did.
Who could blame them, thought? They had just gotten out of a war, and were fresh out of ideas. Voyager had been running on new ways of doing things for seven years, and had some shiny new time-stolen technology to boot.
"The world went crazy while we were away," the ensign finally concluded, tapping his hand nervously on the table.
"On the contrary, Terran bureaucracy has always been equated to maneuvering through a proverbial minefield, though I have heard some accounts of it being called a 'shark pit.'"
"Thank you, Tuvok, for your wonderful insight," Tom said. He seemed to be converting to his most basic personality traits (the dominant one being sarcastic) as a side-effect of his return to earth and his new fatherhood. Of course he never showed it around Miral or B'Elanna (his treasures and his hold on sanity and the reason he was straining; debriefs had left too little time with them), but everyone was feeling the strain.
Everyone except Tuvok, who seemed to be reveling in the pit of logic that was his mind now that he wasn't going to lose it. It might have been why he chose to ignore Tom's sarcasm; that, or an errant side-effect of his previous condition.
"I want to get out of here," Harry complained, resting his head in his hands. "The only thing to do is golf and eat and everything tastes weird."
"Too much of Neelix's home cooking will do that to a guy," Tom answered before Tuvok could field the question.
"I'm glad we got subspace communications back up, though. It still feels like we're missing a member of the family."
"It's going to feel a lot like that soon, once we've been released. You'll be begging for it back."
"Like I'm begging for the delta quadrant right now?"
"Sort of like that." Tom shrugged. "I feel like I missed out, not getting to pilot Voyager with Miral on my lap and all, but I'm glad she'll get to grow up somewhere stable. I don't know how many life or death instances we missed out with her in the other time-line, and I honestly don't care to."
"You panicked when she had to burp."
"For all I know, something could have happened to her during the delivery!"
"Have a little more faith in me than that, Tom." B'Elanna pulled over a chair, surprisingly baby-free. When she received questioning looks, she said, "Owen wanted to show off his granddaughter."
"He has to start spoiling her sometime," Harry added.
Tom was the only person slightly uncomfortable with the arrangement; the only certainty he had in the relationship with his father was that he had no idea what was going on. He had decided a long time ago that it was best to just leave it at that. "Can I ask why my darling wife decided to grace us with her presence?"
"Chell came by and told me that the senior officers were gathering over here."
"But we're still missing the freaky foursome."
"That is a highly disrespectful manner to address the command team and your fellow officers, Mr. Paris," Tuvok said, looking up from his PADD.
"There are four of them, and they're grouping in ways that we didn't expect them to now that we're back on Earth."
"I feel the need to remind you, Lieutenant, that human betting pools are not the most accurate method of predicting human behavior. Your moods are highly erratic in any situation, and become nearly impossible to anticipate under great stress."
"If anything, I think it usually become more predictable. People always seem to fall back on instinct or training."
Tuvok considered it for a moment, then nodded(this didn't destroy the cosmos, in case you were wondering). "Captain Janeway relied on her training. Commander Chakotay bowed to instinct."
B'Elanna snorted. "That's one way of putting it. Personally, I'd just call it a mid-life crisis."
The table fell silent in agreement. "There was a betting pool?" Harry asked suddenly.
B'Elanna rolled her eyes. "There's always a betting pool, Harry. How long have you known us, again?"
The operations officer reddened at the ears. "It just seems wrong."
"Don't we all know it? Everyone lost rations on that one, except the pervert in security who gets to review all the holodeck logs."
"I'd like to reiterate the statistical evidence that not all security personnel engage and such activity, and the crewman in question was severely punished."
"Right, Tuvok, you guys were just doing your jobs."
"It is not my fault what some less-discreet crewmen do in front of my security sensors."
Tom took a glass from the table, hoping that whatever Harry was having was stronger than water. "Tell me, what did those less than discreet crewmen accomplish in front of you darling sensors?"
"I am not at liberty to discuss that," said Tuvok, "but needless to say, there was only ever one couple who actually accomplished the goal of such behavior while anyone was monitoring the sensor grid."
Maybe the drink was too much. It was all Tom could to do keep from spitting it up all over the Vulcan while he choked back his laughter.
Kathryn Janeway slowed to a trot in the clearing where she assumed the Doctor's ball had landed, panting with her hands on her knees. She had made good time, and had beaten the Doctor, handicapped though he was with all the equipment. The doctor slogged over a moment later, not the least bit out of breath of course. But he was a hologram. He had an excuse.
"See," she gasped out between breaths, taking a seat on a log. "I'm not so old and out of shape."
"If age is what's worrying you, I can tell you right now that you have a few years before you reach—"
"Doctor, I'd prefer to avoid this topic altogether if you don't mind."
"Captain—"
"Kathryn."
"Right. Now, I'm no psychologist, but I do know that being confronted with your eventual aging can be just as traumatic as confronting your mortality. You have to at least talk about it."
"One step at a time, Doctor. I'm not an old maid, yet."
"But you do have to face the eventuality of becoming one someday. It should be easier to adjust here, now that you don't have to wear the captain's hat all the time."
"You're going to have to let me adjust to being 'here,' first. I'm not sure I know how to take the 'captain's hat' off. As for the 'old maid' bit, I hope I can take care of the latter part of that problem before it becomes an issue."
"Do you have anyone in mind?" Due to her recent manner of speech, the Doctor almost expected the next words out of the Captain's mouth to be 'If I did, do you think I would be here with you?' But she was not that bitter — not yet. With any amount of luck, not ever. But men of science were not supposed to trust luck.
"There wasn't exactly anyone to come home to," she said, about as cryptic as a blow to the head.
"Tell me about it," the Doctor muttered, sitting down next to her. "I was born on Voyager for all intents and purposes. I've had time to adjust to the idea, but I had no idea what Starfleet would try to do with me once we made it home."
"Home." Kathryn smiled, a genuine expression that had been missing for far too long. Pride and steady happiness (poisoned by the promise she had made and couldn't keep to some) shone on her face, emotions that themselves had been gone for too long in the stalwart woman. "I won't be home until I get a good dinner from my mother back in Indiana. I'll have to invite all the senior staff. It'll be one last hurrah before we all hit the high road."
"So we have one more journey? How lovely."
"The whole road is a journey, Doctor," Janeway said, standing up. "To stop is only to arrive safely at death, and humans don't have that kind of time."
"Which is no excuse to deprive yourself of sleep, which you're still doing. You've experienced all the joys and pitfalls of the high road. It wouldn't kill you to try some peace on for size."
The following has nothing to do with the above story. (except maybe a little wishful thinking)
Has anyone else noticed that in the first and second season, whenever they're talking about the Kazon, it's always 'Kazon sects this,' and 'Kazon sects that,' and when they say it to fast, it sounds like Kazon sex is very bad news indeed.
Maybe I'm just a teenager with too many hormones. Actually, that's probably a given. But maybe the writers just have dirty minds, even though the command team could have used a little more 'doing it the Maquis way,' if you know what I mean, wink wink, say no more.
Sorry. I had to get that out. Please Review!