A/N: Written for Crlkseasons who supplied the prompt "A piece about Tom set sometime between his visit from Kathryn in Auckland and his arrival on Voyager."
Many thanks to Crlk for a great prompt. All credit to Delwin for the title and all the usual beta assistance.
Disclaimer: Star Trek belongs to Paramount/CBS and no copyright infringement is intended.
Re-entry
It was there piled neatly on his bed when he returned from another mind-numbing session of Life Evaluation therapy. Tom did a double take, but concluded he wasn't hallucinating. Starfleet-issue underwear, uniform pants, the two-tone jacket's red shoulders seeming brash against the crisp and clinical white sheets in this white-walled, white-shuttered room that Tom currently called home. On the floor, in front of his gloss white desk, a pair of polished black shoes. Was this someone's idea of a joke? Tom's fellow inmates wouldn't have access to a Starfleet uniform and, in any case, only the guards and Tom himself had access to this room.
On the top of the desk was a PADD, and it wasn't one of the blue-rimmed prison-issue PADDs that the facility's residents were issued on admission for educational and recreational purposes. This PADD was black. Tom picked up the device and thumbed it on. He found a letter addressed to him at the head of the home screen and opened the file. It was from the captain, his visitor from yesterday afternoon: Kathryn 'I served with your father on the Al-Batani' Janeway. The woman he'd contacted first thing this morning having slept – fitfully – on the offer she'd made him. He'd decided to accept it.
The uniform was her idea. Something to help Tom 'blend in' as he travelled on a series of Starfleet ships to his rendezvous with the USS Voyager at Deep Space Nine. Janeway clearly meant well, but it would only take a glance at the pip-less collar for anyone with a modicum of astuteness to determine that Tom was without rank. And then the questions would begin. Tom planned to spend as much of the week-long journey as possible in his assigned quarters, but, even so, before he left the rehab facility he would face a long, exposed walk from his room, through the corridors of an accommodation block populated by Maquis and various other enemies of Starfleet, across the vast central courtyard to the admin centre and its well-secured transporter room. Tom's fellow prisoners ignored him, for the most part, and that suited Tom just fine. But they wouldn't ignore the sight of him in a Starfleet uniform.
Then Tom discovered another message on the PADD – from Governor Trudeau, a strict but fair woman who'd always treated Tom with courtesy during their several scheduled encounters.
Paris,
Don't even think about putting on the uniform until you've transported to the Hadfield. We've not had a riot in this facility since '53 and I don't want one tomorrow.
Reading on, Tom saw that he'd been granted permission to leave the facility wearing civilian clothing – that would have to be the same formal suit in which he'd arrived here given that he had nothing else in his closet but prison-issue garb of various sorts. Tom had always chosen to spend his earned rations on diversions at the console in his room. What did it matter what he wore in here? He wasn't looking to impress anyone with his good fashion sense. He figured the suit might hang off him a little now. He'd certainly lost a few kilos over the past nine months. But, again, what did it matter?
Truth be told, he'd been in no hurry to leave this place. He had no real incentive to get out: no home, no job. Not that he'd ever have chosen to end up here, but there were many advantages to being institutionalised, his daily routines all planned out for him – barring the hours of evening recreation when he would lose himself in a book or a good docuvid. One knew what was coming the next day, and the day after that. It was tedious at times, but, at other times, Tom could forget where he was. Who he was. Why he was here.
He'd made no friends during his incarceration. Well, that wasn't entirely true. He was certain the Denobulan chickens had developed a fondness for him, no doubt due to the fact that he always tossed them an extra handful of grain when the farm supervisor wasn't looking. Tom looked forward to his hours on the smallholding. It was a simple, unsophisticated set-up, with little in the way of modern technology. Time with the animals – the poultry, sheep, and turtles – was supposed to 'promote a sense of calm and encourage empathy' according to the facility manual that all new inmates were assigned as reading. Tom decided he might take a stroll to visit his feathered friends now before darkness fell. A bit of fresh air might help to clear the queasy feeling that had been lingering all day in his stomach.
The track to the farm curled around the northern side of the sports field. There was a game in progress. Two dozen or so of Tom's fellow prisoners were participating in the contest with others – and a few prison employees – enjoying the spectacle. Tom couldn't remember the exact name of the game but it was an ancient team sport, played with an oval ball, that was still popular in the Antipodes. It looked pretty violent, but the guard acting as referee was completely unfazed by the level of hard physical contact. A Bolian woman – one of the Maquis – crashed through three human would-be tacklers before diving to the ground on top of the ball to a barrage of cheers and backslaps from her teammates.
Tom didn't wait around to watch the next play but continued walking, the track soon beginning to gradually ascend and the faint but distinctive smells of straw and the prison's non-sentient residents arriving in his nostrils. Passing through the turnstile in the partition fence, Tom whistled. To a soundtrack of gentle clucking and their distinctive rustling plumage, the Denobulan hens rushed out from their clapboard shelter. Speckles, as Tom had named her, led the way, as always. The fat cream and black hen was the matriarch of the flock. Next came Rusty followed by one-eyed Leela, Tom's favourite, and then the rest of the female birds. Foghorn, the rooster, lived in a separate dwelling behind the main coop. Tom wasn't so fond of him and his razor sharp beak.
"I guess this is where we part ways," Tom said to Speckles. Her feathered head bobbed from side to side as she scrutinised Tom with both of her jet black eyes. She emitted a loud squawk, then another. "Will you miss me?" Tom quipped. "Is that what you're saying?"
Perhaps not. With a final quizzical tilt of her head, the fat hen spun about and raced back the way she'd come from. The flock bunched in behind her and soon they had all disappeared from view into their shelter. Tom called out, attempting to coax them outside again, but they didn't want to know.
Beyond the farm, the track became a dead-end at an overlook. Here there were a couple of weathered wooden benches, handmade decades ago in the prison workshop, set on a small lawn. As the benches were currently unoccupied, Tom decided he would sit for a minute. After tomorrow, who knew when he'd get to breathe non-recycled air again.
From this vantage point, he could see the beach across the treetops. Beyond the sand, the grey-blue waters of Whangaparaoa Bay were peppered with the tiny outlines of sail boats and the larger shape of a cruise ship. There was a moderate breeze blowing in from the Pacific – not particularly cold but Tom shivered nevertheless.
He should have joined the Federation Naval Patrol. He could be out there at this moment, riding the waves. Maybe he'd have made captain by now. It was far easier to ascend the ranks in the FNP than it was in Starfleet. He'd have been saving imperilled sailors, monitoring the ocean environment, and perhaps apprehending the occasional band of smugglers – making the oceans a safer place on whatever planet he was assigned to.
Caldik Prime didn't have any oceans: there was no chance he'd have been stationed there.
But such a career path would never have been good enough for his father, though Tom bet that, in hindsight, Owen Paris wished fervently that his son had stuck to his early childhood dream and signed up for the maritime service – even though that blue and white uniform would never have made him as proud as seeing his son in Starfleet's command red.
That door was forever closed to Tom now. Federation justice might be all about forgiveness and rehabilitation, but organisations like the Naval Patrol wouldn't give anyone with a criminal record any position of authority when there were plenty of citizens with unblemished pasts clamouring to serve.
He would do this one last thing for Starfleet. Then, as Janeway had told him, they'd cut him loose. Adrift. He'd be back where he'd been before joining the Maquis, but this time with even more disgrace to his name.
###
Halfway between Earth and Starbase 375, Tom's curiosity – and claustrophobia – got the better of him. The windowless cabin he'd been assigned on the Hadfield was more like a coffin than any sleeping quarters he'd been accustomed to on starships in the past. Tom had a suspicion that the room was originally some sort of supply closet and the Hadfield's captain had had it hastily converted into rudimentary accommodation just for Tom's 'benefit'.
It was late into ship's evening when Tom ventured forth to seek out the supply ship's communal facilities. Those, Tom discovered, consisted of a lounge area with low sofas and viewing windows (not that there was anything to see right now but star trails), as well as an adjoining dining room with inset replicators. Tom headed for the dining area, ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and a coffee from the replicator furthest from the nearest other patron, and took his snack to an empty spot at the end of a long table. The far end of this table was occupied by a couple of Vulcan ensigns – a female wearing science green and a gold-shirted male – each with their noses in a PADD as they nibbled at their bland-looking meals. Tom figured, of the dozen or so diners present, they were the least likely to show any interest in who Tom was or try to make small talk with him. Tom wished he'd thought to bring a PADD too.
Though trying to focus solely on his food, it wasn't long before his attention was piqued by the infectious laugh of an attractive brunette whose request for lightly scrambled eggs had clearly been taken to the extreme by the faulty replicator she was using. When the woman's equally striking identical twin arrived on the scene to help mop up the offending puddle of raw yellow goo, Tom's efforts to keep his head down were done for.
It had been a long time since he'd noticed the physical appeal of anyone. It was as if he'd switched off that part of his brain in the rehab facility. Or maybe the authorities had put something in the water to dampen the ardour of the facility's residents. Tom didn't think he'd gone a single day since the age of fourteen without checking someone out. It didn't take much eavesdropping for Tom to establish that the sisters were, like him, on their way to DS9. And Voyager.
In fact, quite a few of Tom's fellow diners were Voyager-bound, late transfers, who, like him, had not joined the ship before it left the Sol system. The Vulcans on Tom's table turned out to be one of Voyager's engineers and the ship's nurse. A blonde woman chatting about Ktarian food with one of the Hadfield's flight controllers was a xenobiologist also headed for Captain Janeway's ship. Tom was torn between wanting to find out more about these people – soaking up the sheer normality of the scene – and an instinct to get the hell back to his coffin as soon as possible. None of them had paid him much attention so far, but that could change.
And it did, when Twin One – Jenny – caught him staring her way and her lips curved up into a lingering smile. Tom didn't think it was his lack of rank pip that had triggered her interest in him. He recognised the look in her eyes: it mirrored the one he'd been giving her. For a moment he forgot himself, flashing his most charming grin back at her, just as he would have done before his life went to shit. Then her sister, facing away from Tom, spoke and Jenny's gaze was diverted. Tom snapped back to reality.
Swallowing the last big bite of his sandwich, he chased it down with the dregs of his coffee. Then he scuttled for the exit – trying not to look like he was rushing – stuffing the crockery and utensils into a replicator en route and then remembering, halfway down the corridor, that he'd forgotten to hit the 'recycle' control.
###
With several hours to kill at Starbase 375 before beginning the penultimate stage of his journey, Tom had wandered the central plaza with its restaurants, stores, and other unrestricted facilities. There were civilians living here. He'd known that, of course. 375 was a mere ten light-years from Caldik Prime. Tom had visited this base before, on several occasions.
He'd been slow to disembark from the Hadfield, wagering – correctly – that her other Voyager-bound passengers would have transferred to 375 ahead of him. Tom had spied Jenny and her twin sister from a safe distance across the plaza but he hadn't set eyes on the rest of the crewmembers he'd encountered over dinner the night before last.
Now, under the artificial sky of a domed park, he sat on a wall eating a sandwich from the Andorian deli and taking in the scene as adults and children relaxed and played by the holographic pond. A young human boy with blond hair and blue eyes held the hand of his father, a Starfleet captain, as they strolled along the path past Tom's position. Tom wondered if his own father was aware that Tom had accepted this 'assignment'. Whether the admiral's disappointment in Tom had been in any way assuaged by the fact that Tom was helping Starfleet in this way. Or whether Owen Paris would only be annoyed that Tom was back out in the field where people could notice him and say, "Isn't that Admiral Paris's son? The traitor? The criminal?" It didn't really matter. Tom wasn't doing this to regain his father's approval or to further piss him off.
He regretted now his quick exit from the Hadfield's mess hall and his failure to return. Why shouldn't he have had a little fun? A little normalcy? When this mission was over, Starfleet would cut him loose – Janeway had made that quite clear. It wasn't as if he had to get along with her crew in the long-term, so, if they snubbed him when they found out who he was, it would only be a short-term problem. In the rehab facility he'd been able to put aside his need for connection with other sentient beings, but out here, in the real world, Tom found that he craved it. It was a part of being human.
So, when, despite her parents' protests, a toddler insisted on repeatedly kicking her ball off the grass and across the path to where Tom sat, Tom was happy to patiently throw it back to her. When, on the transport ship from 375 to Bajor, an elderly Kalandran botanist sat down next to him in the public lounge and, without invitation, practically narrated her life story over a long couple of hours, Tom was content to indulge the old woman. And when, in orbit of Bajor, he reported to the transport's shuttle bay and met the captivating Betazoid pilot who would be his personal escort to DS9, there was little question that Tom was going to pile on the charm and flirt with her.
###
He was so out of practise. What the hell had he been thinking? Stadi hadn't been remotely interested in returning his flirtatious banter and, instead of accepting that graciously – as was his habit in such situations – he'd been a jerk about it. He'd taken her lack of interest so personally, assuming it was down to his 'status', getting all defensive and, he had to admit, a little obnoxious in the end. That just wasn't him: he prided himself on knowing when to quit.
At least they'd parted on better terms. Once they'd started discussing the technicalities of Starfleet's new Intrepid-class – typical pilot talk – Stadi's aloof demeanour towards him had softened again. He'd found out that she'd graduated a couple of years behind him at the Academy and had just been promoted to full lieutenant, an impressively swift climb up the ranks. Janeway had personally selected her to be Voyager's first chief flight controller.
Stadi had been instructed to drop Tom off at a runabout pad on DS9's habitat ring. He was free to roam the station until twelve hundred hours. Whilst that gave him time to pay a quick visit to one of the station's holosuites – a visitor's information terminal converted Federation credits to latinum, the Ferengi holosuite owner's preferred currency – Tom decided to stay in the real world. According to the same terminal there was a clothing store on the promenade's lower level. Tom was going to need some new civilian attire when this mission was over, and he much preferred to wear non-replicated clothing whenever possible.
The store was small, but a good selection of various garments hung on racks and adorned mannequins. As the loquacious proprietor was assisting a customer in one of the curtained changing rooms at the back, Tom was free to browse without pressure. After a cursory glance at some swimwear and a rack of shirts, his eye was drawn to a stylish blue wadded vest. It looked to be about his size.
"Krausian velvet. You won't find a more versatile fabric in the Quadrant. I have it in a stunning cerise and chartreuse pinstripe if you'd prefer. Or a lovely magenta and veridian check."
Tom turned to face the voice. The Cardassian voice. Though momentarily taken aback by the man's species – why was a Cardassian running a retail establishment in Bajoran space? – Tom recovered himself quickly. "Oh, I, uh, I think I like this one just fine. I'm not sure about the fringing at the bottom though." It was a little tawdry, especially for everyday wear.
The Cardassian smiled. "Not a problem, sir. Everything I sell is custom made to your exact requirements. This is merely an example of my work. Shall I take your measurements…" he studied Tom's collar with a slight frown of incomprehension, "… Mister…?"
"Tom. It's just Tom." Something about this guy – and it wasn't the fact he was Cardassian –made Tom reluctant to share his full name, and he certainly wasn't going to explain his lack of rank. "And sure, why not." Stadi had said Voyager would make DS9 a port of call on her return journey from the Badlands – Tom could collect any purchases then.
"Elim Garak," the Cardassian said, pulling a small measuring device from his jacket pocket. "At your service."
A Cardassian tailor: the idea seemed somewhat incongruous to Tom. But then Cardassians wore clothes, so why wouldn't they have tailors? They couldn't all be armour-clad military types with a reputation for brutality.
As Garak encouraged Tom to invest in some "very flattering" vitarian wool pants "and perhaps one of these rather sophisticated cravats" that would "perfectly compliment the vest", a Bajoran couple entered the store. Catching sight of the Cardassian, they swiftly turned about, exclaiming their disgust at his presence in no uncertain terms. Tom felt a stab of foreboding.
"First impressions can be so critical, can't they?" Garak said evenly. He flashed Tom a smile. "And this vest will advertise to all that you are a man with impeccable taste. As would one of these jackets," he added, pointing.
Tom wasn't sure that his off-duty attire was going to win him any points on Voyager. But his nerves were soon soothed with some more retail therapy. In addition to the vest, he allowed himself to be coaxed into purchasing a jacket, a robe, and a set of pyjamas, the latter of which he suspected he'd regret as soon as he walked out of the store. Still, he wasn't short of funds – Starfleet had given him a generous credit allowance for this trip – and he'd enjoyed doing something as normal as shopping. Garak's unrestrained friendliness was, of course, an essential part of the tailor's sales patter. But, nevertheless, it raised Tom's spirits further. By the time he'd let Garak give him a run down on the promenade's eating and drinking facilities, Tom only had another half hour to kill.
"Spend it in Quark's bar," the Cardassian told him. "You shouldn't leave the station without experiencing its … distinctive charms. Though, should you choose to eat there, you might want to avoid the mapa bread." Garak leaned in close to Tom's ear. "I have it on good authority that Quark has been bulking out the flour this week with crushed tube grubs. Unless you like that kind of thing?"
Tom didn't. He'd had enough questionable food for a lifetime courtesy of the prisoners on chef duty back in Auckland. Paying Garak the necessary deposit for the clothes, Tom bade the tailor farewell, and headed back out onto the bustling promenade.
The last time he'd visited a drinking establishment was the night he'd been recruited by Chakotay. It was somewhat ironic that the Maquis commander was, in a way, paying Tom's bar bill once more. Tom wasn't planning to get inebriated on this occasion, however. One glass of something syntheholic would be his limit: he'd have to do without Dutch courage today.
He stood at the open doorway to the bar, smoothed his hair and took a steeling breath. Then he walked inside, as ready as he could be for the next chapter of his life.