This was the last straw. "The captain sends her regards." The same
message, every day, every morning, for three weeks, spoken through a
messenger who looked as tired of repeating the message as Tom was of
hearing it. Reading between the lines, Tom had come to the conclusion that
Chakotay was frustrated by his failure to get through to the captain and
was on the cusp of giving up.
"To hell with this," Tom yelled suddenly, slamming his hand down on the briefing room table. Chakotay's eyes narrowed.
"Careful, Lieutenant," he said softly. Tom paused, knowing he would not get anywhere with blatant rebellion while Chakotay was around.
"Sorry, sir. But I think I speak for all of us when I say that enough's enough, even if she is the captain."
"If you have any ideas, Paris, I'm all ears," Chakotay answered dryly.
"Well...not exactly, but somebody's got to do something." Chakotay was getting angry. Everyone knew it. When his eyes glowed with black fire like that, all bets were off. Tom gulped.
"What do you think I've been trying to do?" he said dangerously. "Do you think I've been spending all those hours on the holodeck? Playing velocity? Sunbathing? I've almost ended up in Sickbay more than once literally trying to break her door down, for lack of a better strategy. She'll come back to us when she's ready, not before."
"What if she doesn't?" Tom whispered. Everyone was silent for a moment, and then Chakotay spoke again. All the anger was gone, and his voice sounded flat and defeated.
"Go ahead." Tom nodded, and everyone was silent once more. "Dismissed," Chakotay added, slightly annoyed.
Tom almost ran for the door and made a beeline for the captain's quarters. He was shaking slightly from nervousness as he pressed the chime, but he stood his ground when her voice came firmly through the door: "Go away, Chakotay."
"Captain, it's me," Tom replied. "Please let me in." There was a silence, and Tom's eyes widened as he realized she was probably shocked and angered by his audacity in coming here after her refusal to see even her first officer.
"Sorry," was the only response.
"I can stand here all day and all night, Captain. I'm not on duty until tomorrow afternoon."
"Chakotay sent you. The answer is no."
"He gave me permission. It's not really the same thing."
"This isn't a debate, Lieutenant. This is not even a conversation. Go home."
Tom had a sudden insight. This confrontation wasn't going to get him anywhere. He needed to be himself; that was the person she wanted to see- whether she knew it or not- not Chakotay's last ditch effort. He needed to remind her of everything that was going on without her. "I can't go home. B'Elanna's still steamed about the other day, when I forgot about our date and spent the evening driving around on the holodeck in the Doc's '57 Chevy. She said she wasn't going to waste any more time on 'a juvenile Targ's ass who cares more about some bucket of metal on wheels than he does about her.'" There came what sounded like a muffled snort through the door, but no invitation to enter was forthcoming, so Tom continued.
"Harry took me in, but his clarinet is driving me nuts. I've fought a constant battle with myself to avoid recycling it when he's not looking." Still only silence, but somehow it felt like interested silence. Encouraged, Tom prattled on. "I'm not even getting a decent meal. I lost this month's replicator rations to Ensign Wildman in an ill-advised game of darts- don't ever play her, by the way, I swear she grows fangs when she comes within two meters of a dartboard- and I've had nothing but leola root stew for lunch since I can't remember how long. I skip breakfast, simply by virtue of possessing taste buds, and dinner is- guess what?- fried leola root." He could hear her trying not to laugh, and he added deadpan: "With chicken." She dissolved in giggles, and the door swished open in front of him. Grinning, he walked inside and found her collapsed in the arm chair by the window, tears running down her cheeks from laughing so hard. She motioned for him to sit down on the footrest, and he did so, flashing her a charming smile that still held a spark of uncertainty.
She quieted slowly and softly smiled at him. "I needed that," she said simply. He nodded and waited expectantly. Sadness suddenly flooded her eyes again, and his widened in alarm. "You see. You're all doing fine."
"We're not," he retorted vehemently. He calmed himself, seeing the closed- off look creeping back over her face. "You don't know what it's like," he began in a tightly controlled voice. "Chakotay gives orders like a zombie holding a grudge; whenever the controls beep at some slight task, he says it's giving him a headache, the ship hates him, and so on for the next 20 minutes. B'Elanna's never been more Klingon, Harry's being petulant, Seven's downright insulting, Tuvok is a block of wood and I'm losing my mind," he finished in one long breath that felt like draining poison.
"The void," she nodded sagely.
"No," he said gently. "You." She looked puzzled and slightly hurt, so he hurriedly elaborated. "We take our cues from you," he explained. "We're a pretty mismatched group under normal circumstances, but without you, the whole house of cards flops in on itself. We can't be brave without you. Hell, I can't even enjoy playing Captain Proton without the knowledge that he's a twentieth century version of you."
"That would have made me very happy only a short while ago," she said in such a heartbroken tone that Tom scooted closer, abruptly scooting back when she sat up ramrod straight and warned him off with a glare. She was still very much the captain; she had simply forgotten for a moment that he was there. "You might not understand what I'm saying here, but you're making this worse. I need to spend this time apart from the crew, to clear my head and to show them they can't always expect me to be their safety net. I've let them down before, it shouldn't be anything new."
"Well, frankly, it's a bust-up, as Proton would say. I don't think you're clearer, I think you're slowly letting yourself drown in this, and you're only showing us how much we need you, rather than the reverse. In short, you're destroying yourself and us."
"I don't need you to tell me how to live, Lieutenant," she said icily. "I brought you onto my ship fresh out of prison, and if I hadn't stranded us 70,000 light years from New Zealand, I could send you right back in a nanosecond."
"This is about the Caretaker's array? Captain, that was the right decision to make, no matter what. Not only were you saving a whole race from enslavement, you were carrying out the Caretaker's own wishes and bringing the two crews together all at the same time. Because of you, I found myself saving Chakotay's life, something that only days before would have made me check myself into an asylum. I was part of a crew, pulling my weight again, and it was incredible. I felt useful again. And you didn't just give me a second chance; you started to look out for me. At first I thought you were just mothering your crew because you felt it was part of your job, but you really took care of me, like that time when I was convicted of murder. You weren't just determined to prove my innocence; you postured like an angry tigress in front of those Banean officials. And I felt your presence...when I went through the cycle. The vision of the murder blocked out almost everything, everything except the fact that you were there and you wouldn't let anything happen to me. After that, as strange as it sounds, I've always felt safe on Voyager, in spite of everything; it's been a sanctuary...until now."
She had been silent throughout this boyish, passionate outburst, almost mulishly so, but she interrupted him then. She was struggling with tears, but her voice was steady. "This ship isn't safe, Tom. On the contrary, it's a time bomb."
"It's our *home*," he countered. "Yes, I want to get home to Earth, probably just as much as anyone, even Harry, but I wouldn't trade the last 4 years for anything, and especially not the penal colony in Auckland."
"You've turned yourself around, Tom. You should take the credit for it, not give it to me."
"You've been more of a parent to me than my father ever was." Tom mentally kicked himself as soon as the words were out of his mouth; he knew she would be uncomfortable with the remark and offended on Admiral Paris' behalf. But something in him wouldn't let up. "He wouldn't give up on you, and neither will I. I'm here to throw the proverbial ice bucket over your head, and I can do it literally, if all else fails." Tom stared as a strange mixture of pain and amusement flew across her eyes, and she turned a wry grin in his direction.
"Sorry. It's just that you've drawn an eerily strong parallel. When I was a girl- that is, a few years younger than you- I was engaged to be married. I had a promising career. I was the picture of a hand-picked Owen Paris protégé. And then, suddenly, it was all gone. A crash on an ice planet, only seconds to transport either my father or my lover...how could I choose? I couldn't. They both drowned under the polar ice cap. I never left my bed for weeks; I refused to take an interest in anything around me. I felt like that icy planet had put down roots in my chest. And then one day, my sister, Phoebe, decided she'd had enough. She came into my room when I was asleep and poured a bucket of ice water all over me and the bed. I woke up spluttering and ready to kill her, but she dragged me out into the cornfields and smacked life back into me. I can't help but think that this isn't any different."
Their eyes met briefly, and suddenly he grinned. "Except that I don't have the rations for ice water. I might have to make do with Neelix' leola root stew." She stared at him for a moment, stunned into silence by his flippancy, and then she began to laugh.
"Tom Paris, God only knows what I'd do without you." He smiled shyly.
"Have a lot less fun, I'll tell you that," he said seriously. "And Sandrine would ban you. I'm the only one who's dumb enough to take you on at pool more than once; without me around, you'd clear the table just by walking into the room- very bad for business."
She smiled a real smile then, the first one in weeks. "How about a rematch? Well, a re-re-re-re-re-re-rematch, technically," she said slyly. "A chance to reclaim the Paris pool glory?"
"No chance of that. But what the hell. Since when have I ever turned down impossible odds?"
"Not lately," she said softly. She reached out a hand to his cheek and pulled him close for a moment. "Thank you."
"My pleasure, Captain," he said warmly, taking her hand from his face and squeezing it affectionately.
"You're wrong about your father, you know," she said hesitantly. "The anger he felt was not directed towards you; it was towards himself. He blamed himself for everything that went wrong between you, Tom, but he didn't know how to fix it. When we get back..."
"I'll try," he promised.
"Good. Now that that's all settled, the tigress would like to take you up on that offer to wipe the floor with you. I hear you reprogrammed Sandrine's table so it no longer tilts to the right."
"There goes my trump card," sighed Tom dramatically. "Oh, well. Something good will come out of this. B'Elanna always takes pity on me when I'm flattened."
"What are we waiting for, then?" she laughed, accepting the hand Tom offered to pull her to her feet.
They made it out the door and down the hall before Tom said suddenly: "I just thought of one last path to victory open to me."
"What's that?"
"Getting you drunk."
"To hell with this," Tom yelled suddenly, slamming his hand down on the briefing room table. Chakotay's eyes narrowed.
"Careful, Lieutenant," he said softly. Tom paused, knowing he would not get anywhere with blatant rebellion while Chakotay was around.
"Sorry, sir. But I think I speak for all of us when I say that enough's enough, even if she is the captain."
"If you have any ideas, Paris, I'm all ears," Chakotay answered dryly.
"Well...not exactly, but somebody's got to do something." Chakotay was getting angry. Everyone knew it. When his eyes glowed with black fire like that, all bets were off. Tom gulped.
"What do you think I've been trying to do?" he said dangerously. "Do you think I've been spending all those hours on the holodeck? Playing velocity? Sunbathing? I've almost ended up in Sickbay more than once literally trying to break her door down, for lack of a better strategy. She'll come back to us when she's ready, not before."
"What if she doesn't?" Tom whispered. Everyone was silent for a moment, and then Chakotay spoke again. All the anger was gone, and his voice sounded flat and defeated.
"Go ahead." Tom nodded, and everyone was silent once more. "Dismissed," Chakotay added, slightly annoyed.
Tom almost ran for the door and made a beeline for the captain's quarters. He was shaking slightly from nervousness as he pressed the chime, but he stood his ground when her voice came firmly through the door: "Go away, Chakotay."
"Captain, it's me," Tom replied. "Please let me in." There was a silence, and Tom's eyes widened as he realized she was probably shocked and angered by his audacity in coming here after her refusal to see even her first officer.
"Sorry," was the only response.
"I can stand here all day and all night, Captain. I'm not on duty until tomorrow afternoon."
"Chakotay sent you. The answer is no."
"He gave me permission. It's not really the same thing."
"This isn't a debate, Lieutenant. This is not even a conversation. Go home."
Tom had a sudden insight. This confrontation wasn't going to get him anywhere. He needed to be himself; that was the person she wanted to see- whether she knew it or not- not Chakotay's last ditch effort. He needed to remind her of everything that was going on without her. "I can't go home. B'Elanna's still steamed about the other day, when I forgot about our date and spent the evening driving around on the holodeck in the Doc's '57 Chevy. She said she wasn't going to waste any more time on 'a juvenile Targ's ass who cares more about some bucket of metal on wheels than he does about her.'" There came what sounded like a muffled snort through the door, but no invitation to enter was forthcoming, so Tom continued.
"Harry took me in, but his clarinet is driving me nuts. I've fought a constant battle with myself to avoid recycling it when he's not looking." Still only silence, but somehow it felt like interested silence. Encouraged, Tom prattled on. "I'm not even getting a decent meal. I lost this month's replicator rations to Ensign Wildman in an ill-advised game of darts- don't ever play her, by the way, I swear she grows fangs when she comes within two meters of a dartboard- and I've had nothing but leola root stew for lunch since I can't remember how long. I skip breakfast, simply by virtue of possessing taste buds, and dinner is- guess what?- fried leola root." He could hear her trying not to laugh, and he added deadpan: "With chicken." She dissolved in giggles, and the door swished open in front of him. Grinning, he walked inside and found her collapsed in the arm chair by the window, tears running down her cheeks from laughing so hard. She motioned for him to sit down on the footrest, and he did so, flashing her a charming smile that still held a spark of uncertainty.
She quieted slowly and softly smiled at him. "I needed that," she said simply. He nodded and waited expectantly. Sadness suddenly flooded her eyes again, and his widened in alarm. "You see. You're all doing fine."
"We're not," he retorted vehemently. He calmed himself, seeing the closed- off look creeping back over her face. "You don't know what it's like," he began in a tightly controlled voice. "Chakotay gives orders like a zombie holding a grudge; whenever the controls beep at some slight task, he says it's giving him a headache, the ship hates him, and so on for the next 20 minutes. B'Elanna's never been more Klingon, Harry's being petulant, Seven's downright insulting, Tuvok is a block of wood and I'm losing my mind," he finished in one long breath that felt like draining poison.
"The void," she nodded sagely.
"No," he said gently. "You." She looked puzzled and slightly hurt, so he hurriedly elaborated. "We take our cues from you," he explained. "We're a pretty mismatched group under normal circumstances, but without you, the whole house of cards flops in on itself. We can't be brave without you. Hell, I can't even enjoy playing Captain Proton without the knowledge that he's a twentieth century version of you."
"That would have made me very happy only a short while ago," she said in such a heartbroken tone that Tom scooted closer, abruptly scooting back when she sat up ramrod straight and warned him off with a glare. She was still very much the captain; she had simply forgotten for a moment that he was there. "You might not understand what I'm saying here, but you're making this worse. I need to spend this time apart from the crew, to clear my head and to show them they can't always expect me to be their safety net. I've let them down before, it shouldn't be anything new."
"Well, frankly, it's a bust-up, as Proton would say. I don't think you're clearer, I think you're slowly letting yourself drown in this, and you're only showing us how much we need you, rather than the reverse. In short, you're destroying yourself and us."
"I don't need you to tell me how to live, Lieutenant," she said icily. "I brought you onto my ship fresh out of prison, and if I hadn't stranded us 70,000 light years from New Zealand, I could send you right back in a nanosecond."
"This is about the Caretaker's array? Captain, that was the right decision to make, no matter what. Not only were you saving a whole race from enslavement, you were carrying out the Caretaker's own wishes and bringing the two crews together all at the same time. Because of you, I found myself saving Chakotay's life, something that only days before would have made me check myself into an asylum. I was part of a crew, pulling my weight again, and it was incredible. I felt useful again. And you didn't just give me a second chance; you started to look out for me. At first I thought you were just mothering your crew because you felt it was part of your job, but you really took care of me, like that time when I was convicted of murder. You weren't just determined to prove my innocence; you postured like an angry tigress in front of those Banean officials. And I felt your presence...when I went through the cycle. The vision of the murder blocked out almost everything, everything except the fact that you were there and you wouldn't let anything happen to me. After that, as strange as it sounds, I've always felt safe on Voyager, in spite of everything; it's been a sanctuary...until now."
She had been silent throughout this boyish, passionate outburst, almost mulishly so, but she interrupted him then. She was struggling with tears, but her voice was steady. "This ship isn't safe, Tom. On the contrary, it's a time bomb."
"It's our *home*," he countered. "Yes, I want to get home to Earth, probably just as much as anyone, even Harry, but I wouldn't trade the last 4 years for anything, and especially not the penal colony in Auckland."
"You've turned yourself around, Tom. You should take the credit for it, not give it to me."
"You've been more of a parent to me than my father ever was." Tom mentally kicked himself as soon as the words were out of his mouth; he knew she would be uncomfortable with the remark and offended on Admiral Paris' behalf. But something in him wouldn't let up. "He wouldn't give up on you, and neither will I. I'm here to throw the proverbial ice bucket over your head, and I can do it literally, if all else fails." Tom stared as a strange mixture of pain and amusement flew across her eyes, and she turned a wry grin in his direction.
"Sorry. It's just that you've drawn an eerily strong parallel. When I was a girl- that is, a few years younger than you- I was engaged to be married. I had a promising career. I was the picture of a hand-picked Owen Paris protégé. And then, suddenly, it was all gone. A crash on an ice planet, only seconds to transport either my father or my lover...how could I choose? I couldn't. They both drowned under the polar ice cap. I never left my bed for weeks; I refused to take an interest in anything around me. I felt like that icy planet had put down roots in my chest. And then one day, my sister, Phoebe, decided she'd had enough. She came into my room when I was asleep and poured a bucket of ice water all over me and the bed. I woke up spluttering and ready to kill her, but she dragged me out into the cornfields and smacked life back into me. I can't help but think that this isn't any different."
Their eyes met briefly, and suddenly he grinned. "Except that I don't have the rations for ice water. I might have to make do with Neelix' leola root stew." She stared at him for a moment, stunned into silence by his flippancy, and then she began to laugh.
"Tom Paris, God only knows what I'd do without you." He smiled shyly.
"Have a lot less fun, I'll tell you that," he said seriously. "And Sandrine would ban you. I'm the only one who's dumb enough to take you on at pool more than once; without me around, you'd clear the table just by walking into the room- very bad for business."
She smiled a real smile then, the first one in weeks. "How about a rematch? Well, a re-re-re-re-re-re-rematch, technically," she said slyly. "A chance to reclaim the Paris pool glory?"
"No chance of that. But what the hell. Since when have I ever turned down impossible odds?"
"Not lately," she said softly. She reached out a hand to his cheek and pulled him close for a moment. "Thank you."
"My pleasure, Captain," he said warmly, taking her hand from his face and squeezing it affectionately.
"You're wrong about your father, you know," she said hesitantly. "The anger he felt was not directed towards you; it was towards himself. He blamed himself for everything that went wrong between you, Tom, but he didn't know how to fix it. When we get back..."
"I'll try," he promised.
"Good. Now that that's all settled, the tigress would like to take you up on that offer to wipe the floor with you. I hear you reprogrammed Sandrine's table so it no longer tilts to the right."
"There goes my trump card," sighed Tom dramatically. "Oh, well. Something good will come out of this. B'Elanna always takes pity on me when I'm flattened."
"What are we waiting for, then?" she laughed, accepting the hand Tom offered to pull her to her feet.
They made it out the door and down the hall before Tom said suddenly: "I just thought of one last path to victory open to me."
"What's that?"
"Getting you drunk."