"Now I know"
By Major_Ryan
A/N- Written for Secret Anniversary Drabble exchange 2013. The first line given was Now I know and the subjects were C with anyone except J . I chose Paris and told it from his POV.
Now I know, Tom thought.
His eyes focused on the Commander by his side, studying his brow and the ripple of tension brushing past his features. Each furrow signaling a mastery of detail and plan as he concentrated on the view screen in front of him. The Commander's self control was evident as he swiftly accessed the situation unfolding with the Delta Flyer. The away team was infiltrating the borg cube while Voyager's weapons barraged a parade of weapons off the cubes shielding.
My time in the Maquis, I have seen many men with these characteristics in the line of duty, but I have never seen them exhibit them all at once. Justice, courage, the ability to deliver more then what was expected of him, it was all there.
He has a pleasing personality that holds equal amounts of sympathy and understanding, but there is also something else there, something I never understood before. It has been the one element that has prevented me from rising through the ranks, even when it was slapping me in the face. It was spoken to me when I stood before the courts, my sentence for covering up my involvement in the Caldik Prime incident. It was present last year, when the pips were stripped from my neck after I disobeyed the Captains orders and took the Delta flyer into the ocean planet. How is it that I did not see it until now?
Responsibility
A willingness to take responsibility for your actions, an ownership of choices made, whether noble or not.
This is the true definition of leadership and when I think back to all the different choices I made and there were some doozies, I could kick myself for not seeing it there. But I will now.
"Now I know" he sighed.