September 2364

B'Elanna's leg bounced as she waited for their first flight controller lesson to start. For this particular class, she was more than happy to be in the beginner section with the rest of the engineering and science geeks. B'Elanna had read the flight manual it felt like a hundred times, but had never so much as driven a hovercar before - the thought of having to pilot a shuttle was more intimidating than she'd like to admit.

She was sitting alone - again. When they'd first arrived on campus, her roommate had made an effort to ask her to join her and her ever increasing group of friends, but B'Elanna had noticed the invitations had dried up in the past couple of weeks; no doubt related to B'Elanna's total inability to tolerate the insipid small talk that Danica and her friends seemed to thrive on. She'd made a few small inroads with some of the other engineering students, but while they'd been happy to discuss classwork with her, none of the conversations seemed to move beyond that. She missed her friends from Kessik. There had never been many, to be honest, but there was a bond that went along with attending school together for most of their lives. But, even with them, B'Elanna was sensing an increasing distance. Her life on Earth was so different from what their existence was like on the edge of Federation space.

She jumped a little when someone dropped into the empty seat beside her.

"Hey, Torres!"

Of course. Tom Paris.

He had studied for their second lab session, as promised, but was still hopelessly behind where B'Elanna was in his understanding of warp mechanics. B'Elanna was quite sure she'd be carrying most of the weight this semester. And, much like her social butterfly roommate, he seemed to have a constant gaggle of people around him at all times. But despite all that, she had to admit the affable human was starting to grow on her. B'Elanna had noticed that whenever Paris saw her, he made an effort to draw her out and actually listen to what she was saying. In fact, he was the one that suggested running track, which had turned out to be a much needed outlet for when she couldn't stand to study another minute. B'Elanna supposed he was just trying to pay her back for how much she helped him in Warp Theory, or maybe he was one of those people that liked to collect strays. At any rate, she found herself smiling back at him, if a bit grimly.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "You look kinda green."

"I'm just a little nervous," she replied, trying to sound casual. She wasn't that successful given the smirk that was developing on Paris' face.

"Nervous? About this?" he asked, leaning towards her. "Not much flying experience?"

B'Elanna scootched over in her seat, retaking her personal space. "No flying experience, really. Until I came to Earth for Orientation, I hadn't been in space since I was a toddler."

Tom raised his eyebrows at this. "You signed up for Starfleet Academy without knowing if you liked being in space?" He started laughing. "What if you found out you were prone to space sickness? Or had a raging case of astronautical claustrophobia? Were you that desperate to get away from home? How bad could Kessik be?"

"Kessik is just fine, thank you very much," B'Elanna grumped at him, crossing her arms. Frankly she couldn't wait to get off that dry hunk of rock and see the rest of the quadrant, but that didn't mean she was completely lacking in loyalty to her home planet. "The Academy was simply the best place for me to study warp theory and propulsion."

Actually, it was the only place. SFA wasn't the only institution that had a somewhat dim view of the quality of education on some of the Federation's more remote colonies. She sometimes wondered if the Federation's interest in continuing peaceful relations with the Empire had led to her acceptance at one of the few government controlled schools in the region. Not that Tom Paris could relate to any of that. He was probably assured admission to the Academy just by being born.

"Anyway, Paris," she said as she threw him her own smirk. "Not much point in sitting next to me in here. I can't bail you out like I do in Warp Theory."

Paris leaned back leisurely in his chair, crossing his arms to match hers. "Oh, I think I'll be able to handle myself," he drawled, winking at her.

Torres shook her head in amused exasperation as their flight instructor stalked to the front of the room.

"Eyes front, cadets," the dark haired human male barked. "I'm Lieutenant Isaacs, and I'll be your flight instructor this semester. We're going to split into groups of five - my TA and I will each take up one group at a time, and the two remaining groups can study their flight manuals. Which you should already be well familiar with. Paris, get your ass up here."

B'Elanna watched, perplexed, as Paris threw her a casual grin over his shoulder and made his way up to the front of the room. How had he managed to get in trouble already? Wasn't that her job?

"This is my TA, Cadet Paris," Isaacs said. "And yes, I realize he is your classmate. He also has a level one flight certification, so is more than capable of showing a bunch of scientists how to fly a shuttle straight. Please afford him the same respect that you would me." Paris didn't exactly help Isaacs' case, sticking his tongue out at B'Elanna from where he stood just outside of the lieutenant's line of sight.

And so, forty minutes later, B'Elanna found herself staring at the back of Paris' head as their class two shuttle smoothly ascended into the lower thermosphere above Earth. She had deliberately hung back in the second group, hoping that would give her a better chance of going up with Isaacs; but when the two men returned to the classroom, she'd been directed by the lieutenant to go with Paris. As they had made their way to the shuttle bay, the cadets noted one of their own vomiting into a planter in the corridor. Whose shuttle was she in? B'Elanna wondered desperately.

"Medical's on their way, Sinha," Paris had called out blithely as they passed her. "You'll be fine! Happens to the best of us!"

Paris blathered on cheerfully about all the things that could go wrong in a shuttle during the entire pre-flight and ascent. "There's one thing you should always remember, though…" A pause as he checked his sensors. "Never mind. We're here!" and he spun around to face his group of cadets. "Who's up first?"

But what's the thing we should always remember? B'Elanna tried to will her heart rate to slow. And is it really OK for him to completely turn away from the control panel like that?

Paris glanced around their craft, before locking eyes with the half-Klingon. "Come on, Torres. Show me what you can do."

"Me?" she said, attempting to sound scornful, but knowing she just came off as nauseated.

"Why not? You've thoroughly reviewed your flight manual, right? And done the recommended simulations?" He was winking at her again. Why was he always winking at her?

But when he spoke again, B'Elanna noted a change in tone. He sounded almost… encouraging. "You'll be fine, B'Elanna. I promise. I'll be right here with you."

And so she took the controls. She could feel, and she was sure every single occupant of the shuttle could feel, the immediate difference in their flight when Paris turned the controls over to her, as she tried to compensate for the atmospheric tides and keep their flight steady. How had he made this look so easy?

"You're doing just fine," he reassured her. "I've decreased inertial dampeners, so you all have a better feel for what you're doing. Best way to learn. Oops," he said suddenly, and leaned over B'Elanna to tap the control panel. "Uh, don't do that again."

B'Elanna swallowed hard. "Sorry," she said, afraid to look away from the panel.

He patted her shoulder. "You did great. Weeks, why don't you take a turn? You said you've flown once before?"

B'Elanna switched with Weeks so she was seated on the bench directly behind Paris. "So," she said, relieved to let someone else take over responsibility for their lives, "how does a first year cadet have a level one flight certification?"

"Starfleet Prep," Paris replied, keeping half an eye on Weeks' flying. "It's an elective in the last two years."

"Starfleet Prep?" B'Elanna said, confused. "But don't you go straight to the Academy after that? I thought you were in the Naval Patrol."

He made a few quiet suggestions to Weeks. "Uh… you don't have to go the Academy, you're just guaranteed admission. I went another way. OK, next up!"

B'Elanna was confused. Getting into Starfleet Prep wasn't easy, and from what she'd heard, academically in some ways it was harder than SFA itself. Her uncharitable thoughts about his legacy status aside, Paris must have worked his ass off to get through it. Why would he just toss that opportunity aside? Especially given he just ended up in Starfleet anyway? "Have commitment issues, Paris?"

"That's a bit personal, don't you think?" He laughed lightly, most of his attention still focused on his latest cadet.

"I mean about your career," she clarified. "You obviously thought you were going to Starfleet at one point. Then you changed to the Naval Patrol, but here you are back again, except not in the academic track you're prepared for. Still don't know what you want to be when you grow up?" Her father would say she was prying too much, but considering all the grief Paris had given her about her pre-flight jitters, he deserved a little guff.

Paris' shoulders stiffened, and he swiveled back so that he was facing the front viewscreen. "I guess we can't all know what we wanted to do from the day we were old enough to hold a hyperspanner, Torres." His tone was even, but B'Elanna knew him well enough by now to pick up on the chill.

Within a few minutes, B'Elanna was able to forget the unsettling feeling of having stepped completely wrong when the shuttle made a sudden sickening lurch.

"Increasing inertial dampeners," Paris said calmly. "It's all right, Hurwitz, you just overloaded the torque buffer."

"What?" the nervous man babbled, holding his hands well above the console, clearly afraid to touch anything.

"You zigged when you should have zagged," Paris replied. "It's not a big deal, but you need to reinitialize the impulse response filter."

"Can't you just take over? I don't know how to do that!"

B'Elanna was with Hurwitz on this one. It felt like they were plummeting straight towards the planet. "This isn't a teaching moment, Paris!" she snapped at him. "Take over the damn controls!"

"I could," Paris said, waving a hand at B'Elanna as if he were trying to shoo away a pest, "but you can do this, Mike. Just put your hands back on the console and shut down the response filter, then reinitialize."

Hurwitz lowered his hands back towards the console, but was clearly still hesitant. It felt like hours were going by as Paris calmly repeated the individual steps to be done until the cadet was able to perform them. A glance at the chronometer showed Torres that, in fact, they had been out of control for barely more than a minute.

"See?" Tom said, clapping Hurwitz on the shoulder. "I knew you could do it. And now you're an old pro! You'll know exactly what to do next time this happens."

"I'm never flying a shuttle again," Hurwitz moaned in response.

"That's crazy talk!" Paris exclaimed. He lowered his voice several decibels. "Especially because they won't let you graduate until you can fly one. It's only the first day - you'll get the hang of it. If I can fly this thing, a trained monkey could! Am I right, Torres?"

There was that damned wink again.

"In fact, just to prove it to you, I'm going to let you take us down."

"What?" chorused the remaining cadets in the shuttle, conveying varying levels of incredulousness, alarm, and in Hurwitz's case, abject terror.

"It'll be fine," Paris laughed. "I'll walk you through it."

B'Elanna watched intently over Paris' shoulder as he talked the petrified cadet through the landing sequence. The other cadets in the shuttle had strapped themselves in as soon as Hurwitz began their descent so likely didn't notice - but B'Elanna saw how Paris discreetly tapped a button here and there to smooth out their landing, never stopping in his soothing monologue that reassured Hurwitz he wasn't about to end the lives of himself and several of his classmates.

"I did it," Hurwitz said, in a mix of pride and disbelief, once they were safely on the ground.

"I noticed," Tom said, smiling as he elbowed the other man and made his way to the rear hatch. "Good job, Mike."

B'Elanna jogged to catch up with him as he walked back to their classroom. "Paris!" she called out. "Tom! Wait up!"

He paused and turned at her voice, and she was startled to see his expression was… pleased? "What's up, Torres?" he asked, with only a hint of his regular smirk.

As she stood in front of him, and looked up at those blue eyes, she regretted calling out to him. What had she done, really? Just made an offhand comment about his circuitous career path. Was it really necessary for her to apologize? Then she recalled the many times he'd gone out of the way to ask her how she was doing, his kind encouragement when she took the shuttle controls, his gentle handling of Hurwitz's mistake. She also recalled his sudden change in tone and posture at her barb. OK. An apology was definitely in order. "It's just… I'm sorry. For what I said on the shuttle about you having commitment issues. It's not really any of my business how you ended up here, or why you changed tracks."

B'Elanna was surprised again when his expression closed off, his genuine smile changing to something more forced. "Don't worry about it. It's forgotten." He stood up straighter when he saw Isaacs walking towards them from across the shuttle bay, the other man's expression dark. "Crap," he muttered. "How did he know I let Hurwitz land the shuttle?"

"Tom," the lieutenant said as soon as he was within earshot, "I just heard from the dean. Your mother commed - she needs you at home. Now."

B'Elanna didn't realize it was possible for someone as fair skinned as Paris to get any paler. "Shit," was all he said, and he started jogging across the bay, without so much as a backward glance at her.

"Lieutenant?" she asked cautiously, as the other man looked nearly as grim as Tom had. "Is everything all right with Cadet Paris' family?"

"None of your damn business, Torres," he snapped as he walked away. "Get to your next class."