Innocent
By Laura Schiller
Based on Star Trek: Voyager
Copyright: Paramount
It's all right, just wait and see.
Your string of lights is still bright to me.
Who you are is not where you've been:
you're still an innocent.
It's okay, life is a tough crowd;
thirty-two and still growing up now.
Who you are is not what you did:
you're still an innocent.
- Taylor Swift, "Innocent"
"I'd stay away from him if I were you," said Neelix.
Kes, who had been watching a blond Human in the mess hall with cautious concern, looked over her shoulder to meet the Talaxian's eyes.
"Why?" she asked.
"That's Tom Paris." The Talaxian wrinkled his slitted nose as if at a bad smell. "He's a criminal. The Captain had to get him out of prison for the mission; she wouldn't have done it if it weren't for his piloting skills."
Kes took another look. Tom Paris, almost indistinguishable from the other Starfleet officers in his red and black uniform at first glance, was the only one sitting alone. He was absorbed in his yellow drink, shoulders slumped. He had chosen a seat right next to a viewport, so he could watch the white streaks of stars warping away, but he wasn't looking at them.
"He doesn't look so dangerous to me," Kes commented. "What did he do?"
"I don't know, and I don't want to." Neelix nodded to her decisively, turned his back, and began stirring a bubbling pot of something viscous and orange. Kes sighed; that was the difference between them. He was a good man, but had less sense of adventure than it took to fill one of those pots. As for her, being warned not to do something often had the strange effect of making her want to do it.
Kes smoothed her blue sweater, walked straight over to the criminal and pulled up the chair opposite him.
"May I sit?"
Paris looked up and smiled. It was a brilliant smile, transforming his entire face. If he was so glad of company, why had he been sitting alone?
"Yeah, sure! You're welcome. Ah … you're Ocampa, aren't you? What's your name?"
"I'm Kes."
"Pleased to meet you, Kes. Is that your whole name or are you hiding the rest of it?"
He flashed that smile again, making her grin in response.
"It is my whole name, actually. And you, Tom Paris, er… what's your rank again? I can't really tell those metal things apart yet." She gestured towards her own collar to indicate his pips.
"Oh. Er, Lieutenant. But my friends call me Tom."
He held out his right hand across the table. She stared at it, not knowing what to do. Turning slightly pink, Tom reached for her own right hand, squeezed her fingers gently, and let go.
"Uh, it's a greeting," he explained, taking a sip of his drink without meeting her eyes. "It's called a handshake. Humans do it when they're introduced to someone new."
Kes looked down at her small hand. She could still feel the warmth of the stranger's touch.
"Interesting," she said. Humans seemed to be like the Talaxians in that respect, if a little more restrained. Neelix had hugged her on first meeting.
"So … Tom?"
"Yes?"
"May I ask you a personal question?"
Tom's eyebrows shot up. "You don't beat around the bush, do you? You can ask, but I don't promise to answer."
His blue eyes, which had been like open windows a moment earlier, seemed to have their curtains drawn.
"How did you get into prison?"
He dropped his eyes, sighed, and swirled his drink around. She watched the ripples of liquid moving through the glass between his hands.
"Y'know, it's no secret," he said drily, "You can ask anyone on this ship. They'd tell you more than you want to know."
Kes's mother could have told him that telling this girl more than she wanted to know was impossible. She leaned forward.
"I'd like to hear your side of the story, please. If we're going to be friends, as you say, you should know that my worst flaw is curiosity."
"Huh." Tom shook his head. "Wow. What is it with this ship? A few weeks ago, this little Korean Ensign was telling me the same thing. And here I thought the trip was gonna be lonely." Looking half pleased and half embarrassed, he leaned back in his chair and told the story.
He had made a piloting error which accidentally caused the deaths of his three shipmates, then covered it up. Later, tormented by his conscience, he had confessed the lie and been expelled from Starfleet. Having nowhere else to go, he'd joined the Maquis, been caught on his first mission, and sentenced to a penal colony in New Zealand.
"So I basically screwed up my life," he wound up, with a too-casual shrug. "And that's the truth. I won't be pitied, and I won't be judged. You're awfully quiet, Miss Kes. Don't tell me I shocked you?"
Kes was a little shocked, but not very much. She did pity him, but instead of showing it, she tried her best to keep a straight face.
"Ah," she said. "I see. Well … that's not so bad, now is it?"
It was Tom's turn to be shocked. "What? Hey, you're sitting across from a jailbird. If it weren't for the Captain and some damn good luck, I could be sitting behind a forcefield right now."
"I got that. But considering your reputation, I was half expecting murder. You made a mistake, that's all. Everyone does that."
"Hmph. Most people's mistakes don't end up with three people dead and your father disowning you."
Disowned … Kes tried to imagine it. Ocampa families were very close. Since their enforced exodus to the underground city, cut off from the sunlight and living on the Caretaker's rations, her people's fertility rate had been declining until single births, once a rare anomaly, had become the norm. This led Ocampa parents to cherish their children even more, sometimes becoming downright overprotective. This was the very reason Kes had escaped to the surface. It was hard to picture a father disowning his son.
"Did you try to contact him afterwards?"
"No!" Tom scoffed. "Why would I?"
"Because he might have changed his mind."
"Paris men don't change their minds." Tom tossed back the last of his drink, excused himself, and headed for the replicator. Not wanting to end the conversation, Kes followed.
"In any case," she saiod, "I think it was very brave of you to confess."
Tom turned on his heel, wearing a look of utter astonishment. "Really? You think so?"
She nodded and smiled up at him tentatively. "Yes. And look - here you are, with a whole blank slate to start over with. I have a feeling it's going to be an interesting journey for all of us."
"With you around," said Tom, turning up the charm in his blue eyes again as he guided her toward the replicator with a touch on her arm, "I'm sure it will."
"May I try a glass of – whatever that was? I'll use my own rations." She took the chip out of her pocket and held it up. Tom waved the offer away.
"I'll pay. I'm old-fashioned that way. But are you sure it's a beer you want? They're made with synthehol, you know. That's an acquired taste even for us Humans, and it makes you kinda … " He waved his hands near his head to indicate confusion or intoxication.
Kes shrugged. "I'll risk it."
"I like the way you think." He winked at her, then addressed the replicator. "Two Budweisers. You're probably way underage," turning back to Kes, "But it's not like you'll get arrested in the Delta Quadrant."
"Underage?"
"Yeah. Back on Earth, there's an age limit for drinking this stuff. You're only about one year old, aren't you?"
"One year and three months," she said defensively, drawing her small form up a little straighter. "I'm a legal adult, for your information. How old are you, Tom?"
"Twenty-six, why?"
Kes burst out laughing. Twenty-six! That was like a senior Ocampa telling his grandchild he personally remembered the Surface Years.
"No, seriously, how old are you? Two? Two and a half?"
Tom joined her laughter, but sobered up very quickly as they sat back down at the same table.
"Kes … I think you're forgetting something. We're from very different species – really different. The Human lifespan is a lot longer than yours. It's a hundred years, a hundred and twenty if you're lucky. Some of the Alpha Quadrant species live even longer."
Kes dropped into her seat harder than she had intended, surprise making her knees give way. Beer spilled over her fingers, foaming and fizzing on her skin. She saw it reflect the light.
"A hundred years?"
Tom nodded.
"Seriously?"
"You betcha."
A hundred years. That was … she calculated in her head … eleven Ocampan lives.
"So you really are … twenty-six years old."
Tom spread his hands in a universal gesture of demonstration – 'here I am, what you see is what you get'. "Twenty-six and still growing up. Amazing, eh?"
"Amazing … "
Kes felt awed and alive, from the roots of her hair o the tips of her toes. She was on a ship of wonders – sights, sounds and sensations none of her people had ever experienced before. A ship of aliens who lived for centuries, who made it their life's goal to explore the unknown, who took strangers to their hearts. A ship piloted by a man who was a bundle of contradictions, older than her great-grandfather but as young at heart as she was; with a criminal reputation and eyes as innocent as hers.
He held up his glass of beer. "Clink them together, like this. It's called a toast. To new friends."
"To new friends," she echoed, and the chime of glass rang through the room.
