A/N: This chapter has some references to my pre-series story Looking for Space. You don't have to have read it to understand this, but if you'd like to hear my take on Caldik Prime that's where to look!


"Why don't you stay here? I can take Miral around on her tricycle."

"I'm fine, B'Elanna," Tom said, allowing just a touch of aggravation to seep through. "The doctor just essentially gave me a clean bill of health. You were there, remember?"

"She said you need to do a better job with your shoulder exercises, and she asked you three different times if you're getting enough sleep," his wife volleyed back at him. "How does that translate to a clean bill of health?"

"Fine," he said, his irritation growing. "Take her. I'll just sit here and wait for you." He dropped into the bench beside them, ignoring the sharp twinge in his shoulder as he crossed his arms tightly in front of him and refusing to meet her eyes.

"Tom," she said quietly, as Miral pulled on her arm. "I just don't want you to push yourself too hard. It hasn't even been a week. You need to give yourself time to recover."

He stared at the large pond that marked the centerpiece of Mars' main green space. Why was she being so fucking nice all the time? His wife was a lot of things - smart, passionate, driven - but she wasn't nice. She had been treating him like a child since he'd come back - constantly checking on him, reminding him to eat, to sleep, to exercise his shoulder. He just wanted everything to go back to normal; he wanted B'Elanna to go back to normal, instead of this coddling nursemaid routine.

"OK," she said when he failed to respond. "We'll see you in a little bit. Come on, Miri - I'll race you!"

Tom watched his wife jog just behind his fiercely peddling daughter as they moved down the path away from him. Shit, he thought, yet another thing to apologize for. He couldn't seem to help himself - everything she said to him lately was like nails on a chalkboard. It wasn't just B'Elanna - Miral's laugh was more like a screech, his mother's hovering had made him want to rip his hair out. He'd only been able to talk to Harry for ten minutes the other day before he had begged off, claiming he was tired even though he'd woken up only an hour earlier.

And the counselor he'd been assigned! Pathetic. He knew from counselors, between Caldik Prime and Auckland. This one was so wet behind the ears, it was like he'd just climbed out of the pond Tom now sat beside. Tom had easily deflected the Bajoran's amateurish inquires about his mental state, and completely ignored the man's prosaic lecture on "embracing his justifiable anger and depression." Gee, thanks, buddy. I feel so much better now that I know it's OK to be pissed about being captured and tortured by asshole radicals. I'm cured.

After his first session, B'Elanna had let him rant freely for over fifteen minutes about the man's incompetence, (as well as a few unflattering comments on his appearance and suspected parentage), before suggesting he ask for a new counselor from the 'Fleet.

"God!" he'd snapped at her. "Do you always have to try to fucking fix everything?" And then he'd been consumed by a wave of guilt when he saw the hurt look on her face. That had been the first apology, but it wasn't going to be the last by a long shot. In an attempt to avoid another fight, he'd told her that he could take himself to his second session yesterday. Instead of meeting the counselor, though, he had sat on this very bench for an hour before returning home, making a resolution to himself that he'd stop being such an ass to his wife.

Clearly, his resolve wasn't that impressive.

A hand suddenly gripped his shoulder, and Tom nearly fell off the bench as his heart leapt into his throat.

His father rushed around the bench to face him. "It's just me, Tom," he said apologetically. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. I thought you heard me - I called your name three times."

"I didn't," Tom said faintly as his heart rate slowed. He cleared his throat, and settled back into the bench as his father sat down beside him. "It's fine. I was just...thinking." Ironically, despite their lifelong adversarial relationship, Tom now found his father was the only person he could stand to be around these days.

Maybe it's because he doesn't feel the need to fill every silence, Tom thought as they sat together, watching the ducks swim on the pond. They weren't real, of course. Terraformed worlds were odd that way. Mars had been the first, and everything had been experimental. The biologists that helped design the colony determined that if people wanted a large grassy park, they needed to have pollinators. Easy enough - several species of bees were brought in. Bees that reproduced at an alarming rate. So songbirds were brought in, and spiders, and then larger birds… When it was suggested that a small number of foxes or badgers be introduced, and possibly some freshwater eels to deal with the burgeoning frog problem, the colony government put their collective foot down. So… artificial ducks, among other things. They were ingenious feats of engineering really, and cleverly programmed to aggressively avoid contact with small children, much to Miral's frustration.

"Is there any point in asking how you're doing?" his father said finally.

"As well as you'd expect, I guess."

"Not very well, then?"

"No," Tom said as he kept his eyes locked on the ducks. "Not very."

"Your mother and I are going back to Earth early tomorrow - she wants to visit with Moira on her birthday. We'd like to come over for dinner tonight, so we can see Miral; if that's all right with you and B'Elanna." Three days after Tom had returned home, his parents vacated the Torres-Paris guest room in favor of a hotel.

"Mom isn't still mad?" Tom asked, finally glancing over at Owen. Julia and B'Elanna hadn't clicked from day one, although his mother would never actually say so. (B'Elanna, on the other hand, felt more than comfortable sharing her frustrations with him). Add in the close quarters of their three bedroom apartment and the stress level due to his capture, and Tom thought they were fortunate the two women hadn't come to blows. Normally, he would have played the go-between, subtly redirecting both woman back to their respective corners. He'd done it with Julia and Kathleen for much of his childhood, after all, he was an old hand at it. But this week... he didn't seem to have the interest or energy.

His parents decampment was a direct result of B'Elanna's patience reaching its end - and that, frankly, had lasted well past its normal expiration date. That particular day, Tom had simply refused to leave their bedroom. He hadn't touched the food B'Elanna brought up for breakfast; he'd snapped at Miral to leave him alone when she'd come to the door, triggering her to start crying uncontrollably, and then his mother had come up at lunch time, asking him to come down.

He had ignored her, which made her get more and more insistent. Finally B'Elanna had come up to intervene, and things got...heated.

"He needs to get back into his normal routine! He can't just hide up here. You need to trust me, B'Elanna. I know it won't work." More knocking on the door. "Tom, come down. I've made some of your favorites. Macaroni and cheese!"

"Damn it, Julia!" Even Tom had cringed at his wife's tone, despite his deep mental fog. "You're not going to fix this with lollipops and pats on the head!"

Owen's voice brought Tom back to their bench at the park. "Your mother is at least pretending she isn't still mad," he said. "Which will have to do. You know I love B'Elanna, but…"

Tom felt his hackles rise. He thought Owen and B'Elanna were close. Did his father really think now was a good time to start pointing out his wife's shortcomings? But, to his surprise, a beat later his father began to chuckle.

"Could you have married someone any less compatible with your mother?" Owen was openly laughing now. "Lollipops and pats on the head!"

Tom couldn't help but grin. "At least she and Kathleen get along."

"That's even worse, as far your mother's concerned. She feels like it's two against one now." Owen was quiet a moment. "It's good to see you smiling again."

Tom didn't know how to respond to that. Should he apologize for not being more cheerful? Promise to make more of an effort at faking it? It was as if everyone thought he could control what he was feeling right now, like he could change his mood by flipping a switch if wanted. And where the hell were B'Elanna and Miral? He wanted to go...somewhere, anywhere that wasn't here.

"I'm sorry," his father said in the face of Tom's continued silence. "That you had to go through what you did. I know something about what you're feeling right now."

I know! Tom would have screamed, if only he had the energy. I know the Cardassians held you for weeks, not days! I know that your injuries make mine look like a stubbed toe! I know I should just get over this! But all he could manage to do was shrug.

"This is the last thing I wanted," Owen continued. "This is why I didn't want you to go to the Academy."

Tom found enough energy to reply to that.

He stood up from the bench, rounding on his father. "What the hell are you talking about? Didn't want me to… My whole damn childhood, all you talked about was the fucking Academy!"

"Settle down, Thomas!" his father barked back at him, with a quick glance at a family walking past. "You're making a scene. Give me a chance to explain."

Tom glared at his father, panting in his anger. He ignored Owen's gesture for him to sit back down.

"Fine," his father said, calmer but returning his son's glare with interest. "Be stubborn. But you will listen to me." He looked down at his clasped hands. "Do you remember, the day you told me you'd been accepted? How I reacted?"

"Of course," Tom said bitterly. How could I forget? During much of Tom's childhood, Owen seemed to simply assume his son would follow in his footsteps and join the 'Fleet. Tom had rebelled against this plan through much of his teenage years, but Owen's capture by the Cardassians had been the impetus he needed to finally acquiesce to his father's wishes. When he'd gotten his acceptance at the Academy, however, he ended up hurt and confused when the Admiral lashed out at him over the news. "I thought you would be proud - happy that I was doing what you wanted." Boy, was I ever wrong.

"I would have been, if you'd come to me a couple of months earlier. But…" His father took a shuddering breath and was quiet for a long moment. Tom wondered if he had temporarily lost his father to long ago bad memories when Owen finally raised his head. "A big part of what got me through what happened, what kept me going - it was knowing that none of you children were in the 'Fleet. That none of you would ever have to face what I did."

"Oh," was all Tom could say to that. He sat back down on the bench, his anger draining away and leaving him even more exhausted than he'd been before. He dug a small hole with his shoe in the dirt beneath the bench. "It wasn't like that. What the ZFT did. They aren't the Cardassians. It wasn't that bad."

"Don't," Owen snapped at him. "Don't minimize what happened to you. It won't help - thinking you're not allowed to feel bad because someone else had it worse. Believe me, I know."

Tom wondered if there was a story there, wondered if it had anything to do with his former captain. He didn't know if he'd ever be brave enough to ask.

"You can get through it, though." Owen said, more gently now. "If you let yourself accept what happened. Accept that you feel guilty about Prieto, and even about Khau; but that you blame them too. Just deal with the feelings as they come - the unfairness of it all, the anger. You've been through worse in your life, Tom. You can get through this."

And with that, Owen hit on the fear that had plagued Tom since the moment he'd been reunited with B'Elanna in the hospital; when he realized that simply seeing his wife again hadn't brought him the relief or comfort he'd been waiting for. "I don't know if I can this time, Dad," Tom whispered.

"I almost resigned after the Cardassians," Owen replied, as if he hadn't heard what Tom said. "I didn't think I could go back into space after what happened. And I didn't, of course. That was the compromise - promoting me to Vice Admiral. The 'Fleet didn't want me to leave, but I couldn't command a ship again after that."

Tom stared at him in shock. He hadn't known any of this.

"But what you need to know," Owen said. "What I should have been telling you for years - is that you're better than me. I suspected you were from the beginning. That's why I pushed you so hard. And now, when I see what you've survived, the things that happened on Voyager, even Caldik Prime. Lesser things have ruined some very good officers. And you're good, Tom. Better than good. The things I've heard from Katie, from Commander Khau. You can do this. You can get back out there. I know it."

But what if I don't want to go back? he desperately wanted to ask. But it felt like his father was giving him a gift, with what he had told him. He couldn't just throw it back in his face. As he opened his mouth to say… something, Tom heard his daughter calling.

"Grandpa!" Miral ran up the bench and threw herself at Owen with her typical enthusiasm.

"Hello, Granddaughter!" Owen said, smiling at the little girl. "Did you ride around the whole pond? I'm very impressed!"

"Don't be that impressed," B'Elanna said as she came up to the bench, carrying the tricycle. "I've been carrying her and the trike for the last ten minutes."

Tom stood and reached his uninjured arm towards his wife. "I can get that for you."

B'Elanna looked like she was about to scold him for not taking care of himself again, when her expression softened and she handed him the tricycle. "Thanks."

Tom listened as Owen told B'Elanna of their plans to come for dinner before leaving Mars, and his wife swearing she'd be on her best behavior for the occasion. He felt a small tug on his pant leg.

"Here, Daddy," Miral said, thrusting a slightly crushed flower at him. "I got this to make you happy."

Tom knelt down to his daughter's level, and took the flower with a gentle smile. "Thanks, Kitten. It's a good start."