Perfectly Logical

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine.

Chapter Fourteen: Tom's Story

"I come from a long line of Parises in Starfleet, my dad, who you know, being the latest. So it was my dad's dream to have at least one kid in Starfleet. So my story really starts with my sisters deciding not to be in Starfleet. Anyway, my dad was determined to have one child there, so he was planning my future from the moment he found out my mom was pregnant. Not that anything with my life ever went according to plan."

Owen Paris raced down the hall at the civilian hospital, almost knocking over a nurse. Anyone who was familiar with the Admiral would have assumed he was either an imposter or possessed. But he was neither. What he was was a man in a panic.

He finally found the correct room, only to be prevented from entering by two nurses. He tried to push past, but they held him back.

"What happened?" he demanded.

One of the doctors took pity on him. "She's in early labor."

"Labor? But she's only six months along."

"I know. But there's nothing we can do to stop it. She'll have to deliver now."

"Now?"

"You'll need to make use of the sonic sterilizer, and then you can join her."

Numbly, he allowed himself to be led to the sterilizer, and then to Julia Paris' side. "Honey?"

Her face was a haze of pain and fear. "Owen..."

"Shh." He reached out and touched her forehead as she moaned through another contraction.

"She's fully dilated," the nurse reported.

"Get her onto the birthing chair," the doctor ordered. The nurse took one of her arms, Owen took the other, and they helped her onto the chair.

"All right, you should feel an urge to push. Just go with it."

She did, crying out and clutching at her husband's hand. Perhaps because the baby was so small, it took less than an hour before the delivery was complete.

"It's a boy," the doctor told the parents.

"A boy - I have a son." Owen stared at the bundle in shock.

"You can hold him for a minute, then we'll have to get him down to intensive care. Do you have a name in mind?"

"Thomas. Thomas Eugene Paris."

"I spent four months in the ICU before I was big enough to survive on my own. As soon as I left, my dad resumed his plans for me. I was six the first time he took me flying on a holodeck..."

"Okay, Tom. You want to try flying now?"

The ever-eager boy scrambled over to the controls and did something that might possibly have blown up or crashed a real ship, but fortunately they were on a holodeck and the safeties were on.

"No, Tom, you have to sit in the chair and do exactly what I tell you, okay?"

"Okay, Daddy."

Two hours and a decent flying session later, father and son beamed into their house. Tom released his father's hand and ran off to tell his mother and sisters about his flying experience. When Owen found his wife ten minutes later, she was having her ear talked off by the six-year-old.

"I heard it went well," she said, smiling.

"An understatement." He leaned over his son to kiss his wife. "He's likely to be the best pilot Starfleet's seen in several years at least. What do you think, Tommy? Are you going to be in Starfleet like Daddy?"

"Would I get to fly more ships?"

Owen smiled and swung his son into the air. "Many more ships."

"I wanna be in Starfleet!"

Owen put his son down and ruffled his hair. "That's my boy."

"Tommy, can you tell your sisters to get ready for dinner?" Julia asked. The boy scampered off, but not before hearing the first strains of an argument between his parents.

"I didn't know why they were arguing, any more than - any more than you understood why your parents were whispering so much. But I figured it out soon enough. My mother didn't like how my father kept pushing me towards Starfleet. We had our first major argument on that very subject when I was twelve."

"Tom, what's this?" Owen pulled a flier from his son's bag. "Federation Naval Service?"

"I want to go into the Service when I grow up."

"I thought you were going to go into Starfleet, weren't you?"

"I - I was, but you know how much I love the sea..."

"You are going into Starfleet."

"Dad -"

"That's final, young man!"

"Mom always says I can be whatever I want to be!"

"Do not use your mother against me!'

"What is going on in here?" Julia came running in.

"Mom, you always said I could be whatever I wanted to, didn't you?"

"You are going into Starfleet!"

"Both of you, stop it now! Tom, please go upstairs. I need to have a talk with your father."

"My mom took my side, but my dad was firm. And it wasn't like I hated Starfleet. I've always loved the feel of flying. And that brings me to where I am now. Wherever that is."

"That's not the only reason, is it?"

"You're too damned perceptive, you know that?"

"My roommate's a counselor-in-training. She taught me a few tips."

"I - I wanted to make my dad proud of me. He's always seemed so disapproving, you know? I wanted him to say he was proud of me. He's got a junior honors thesis student now, you know."

"I didn't."

"He spends more time with her than with me."

"Maybe you're just busy all the time."

"You'd think he'd make the effort."

Tasha had nothing to say to that, so she just sat in silence.

"On the subject of being perceptive..." Tom said finally.

"Yes?"

"Why did you really tell me all you did? It has to have been more than needing to talk. If that were all it was, you'd have told your roommate, or your mentor. So what was it?"

"Turnabout's fair play, I guess.

"You're damned right it is."

"Okay, then. Three parts, really Part one is the need to talk. I hadn't intended to tell you everything, just to sort of summarize. But once I started talking - frankly, it felt good. And I couldn't stop.

"Part two is that, in a way, I did tell Tuvok - I showed him, via a mind-meld. I think it's possible that sort of helped me come to terms with it a little. And I'm not quite comfortable telling Deanna yet. Too many bad experiences with counselors.

"And part three - well, part three is hard to explain. The best I can put it is to say I trust you. I can't explain why. I didn't like you a bit when we got on the shuttle."

"I wasn't too fond of you either. I thought you were cold and stuck-up."

"I thought you were cocky and arrogant."

"I thought you thought you were too good for everyone else."

"I thought you had no respect for women."

"I thought..." he couldn't come up with anything else, which caused Tasha to burst into giggles.

"You ever read all those old stories?" she asked, sobering up. "Where people fall in love at first sight? The moment they lay eyes on each other, they know they're meant to be together?"

"Tasha, uh, you're not saying-"

"What? Oh, no, no. What I'm saying is, if two people can know they're meant to be lovers in that first moment, can't two people also know that they're meant to be friends, possibly the best friend each has ever had, in the same way?"

Tom gave a small smile. "You sure you're not taking philosophy or something on the side?"

"Not unless there's two of me."

"Ah, something for security to investigate."

She put on an affronted face. "I am security, Mr. Paris."

He smiled but grew serious quickly. "Thanks for trusting me. And I think you're right. I think you just might turn out to be the best friend I've ever had. Well, one of the only friends I've ever had."

"Oh, come on. You've always got a million friends around you."

"You wouldn't believe how many of them just hang around me because they want something. I'm the Admiral's son to them. Not Tom Paris, Admiral Paris' son. The only person who's ever not cared is Charlie Day, and that's because we were friends when all we could do was crawl in circles around each other."

"I have exactly one friend my own age. My roommate. And then I have my honorary baby sister, but she's five."

"I hope you don't drive her as crazy as my sisters drove me."

"Me? Why does everyone suspect me? She has three brothers!"

Tom laughed, but it turned into a coughing fit. Tasha quickly moved to hold his shoulders.

"How bad?" he asked. "Tell me the truth, Tasha, how bad is it?"

"You've probably got about two weeks."

"Until what?"

"Until you run out of time to be rescued." She said it flatly, but he could tell how much it upset her.

"Don't worry, Tasha. You may be an expert on survival, but I'm the expert on Starfleet. They'll find us."

I know the whole "friends at first sight" thing probably seems really cheesy, but I had to come up with some explanation for why she spilled to someone she barely knew. And take it from me, it does happen.

I know Tom's story isn't as long as Tasha's, but frankly most of the big events in his life occur after the Academy.

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