Tuvok – The Other Half

Stardate 55171.6

17th Day of Ko'rek, 1256 A.E.

            I am somewhat unsettled by the fact that, though I returned to Vulcan a month ago, I have not yet completely adjusted to being home.  While it is reasonable that a return after seven years' absence should be followed by a long period of readjustment, I did not anticipate that mine would be quite so long, or so difficult, as it has been and may yet be.  I have heard it said that a return to familiar things, changed by the passage of many years, is harder than a venture into completely foreign territory.  Although I was skeptical of this statement when I first heard it, I now understand it to be true.

            The family I returned to is not the same one I left behind.  Joren, who was just completing his university studies when I began serving as Voyager's security chief, is now the assistant of a prominent historian at the Archives.  Kel'tu was having some difficulty with his studies in secondary school, but he is now studying engineering at Starfleet Academy: Payek, who I remembered as a mischievous boy, is almost an adult.  And Mikar, a frail infant when I departed seven years ago, is now a healthy and precocious young girl.  It is unfortunate that I could not be there to see my children grow, and that it was necessary for T'Pel to raise them on her own.  But there is no point in regretting those events that I could not control.  I can only try to make amends in the present.

            It has been difficult to reestablish a relationship with my children, especially Mikar.  She was too young to remember me when I left, and so she initially saw me as a stranger.  Now she is more accustomed to me, but she does not seem to think of me as her father yet.  That will, of course, take some time.

            I have managed at least to earn her friendship by relating to her my experiences in the Delta Quadrant.  While telling my daughter stories has helped a great deal to form a bond between us, it has also caused a problem.  Mikar has developed a puzzling fascination with Mr. Neelix, and she often demands that I tell her more about him or, failing that, that I recount to her some story of him that she has already heard.  She has also expressed the desire to meet him, although she is aware that such a meeting is all but impossible.

            At first I thought that I should discourage her interest because of the uneasy relationship I had with Mr. Neelix.  First, while we did eventually come to an understanding, the amicability of our relationship was always quite clearly one-sided.  Second, I do not think that he would be a good example for my daughter to follow.  But upon further reflection, I realized that it would not be prudent to discredit him in that fashion.  That Mr. Neelix so tried my patience was due as much to my own faults as his overabundant ebullience.  Despite the fact that he proved himself to be of great value to Voyager's crew on several occasions shortly after he came aboard, my initial impression of him led me to feel toward him a contempt that lasted much longer than it should have.  I regret that I was too close-minded to see his merits until my attitude made him upset, and that I did not respect him as he respected me.  I never gave him credit for his attempts to befriend me, despite the way I treated him, and I will never be able to tell him so.

            I have decided that I do not want my daughter to have cause for such regrets in the future, so I intend to teach her in childhood that which I learned with great difficulty – and even, I admit, reluctance – in adulthood.  She should not automatically dismiss those who do not think or behave in the same way that she does, as was my habit for so long.  She will find, as I did, that one person's self-control and logical patterns of thought are often complemented well by another's emotionality and intuition, and that she should consider carefully the value of ideas developed by methods other than her own.  Instead of simply using non-Vulcan values as an example of what she should not be, she should use them as a counterweight.

            Mikar is too young to understand such advice now, but when she is ready I will impart it to her.  Though my exile in the Delta Quadrant caused us both a great loss, my experiences during that time have proved a benefit to me, and they may yet do so for her.  I hope, as every parent does, that I can learn enough from my own mistakes to keep her from making them.

            And, whatever situation Mr. Neelix may be in, I wish him well.

A Note from the Author:  Okay, so Tuvok's on Vulcan, which isn't on Earth or even within transporter range of it, but I couldn't very well leave him out because of that little technicality, especially since he's my favorite character on the series.  I will also have to ask you to excuse me for guessing at some things and just plain making up some others, but it was necessary: from the series, the Star Trek Encyclopedia and his biographical information on Startrek.com, I know that Tuvok's wife is named T'Pel and that he has three sons and a daughter.  From his reference to his own children in Innocence, I gathered that his youngest son was only a child when he left, although his exact age was not given.  Other than that I have no information on his family, so I could only extrapolate.  First, I guessed that his daughter is the youngest of the children, and so she would have been only an infant when Tuvok first became an officer on Voyager.  For obvious reasons, I figured that the births of his children would have been spaced seven years apart, so that when he returned home the eldest of his children would be in his late twenties, the second-eldest in his early twenties, the third in his teenage years, and the last would be a small child of seven or eight.  Some of the other things, such as the Vulcan calendar date at the beginning of the journal entry and the names of Tuvok's children, come out of my imagination.  Please alert me if there are any discrepancies, and I will be glad to fix them.