Invisible Tears
By: Zappy Zaps
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters. I don't get any money from this….blah, blah blah.
Author's note: I was bored so I wrote this -short and bitter.
March 02
"Yes sir."
Chakotay was ready to leave. He had never much enjoyed the company of Tom Paris but something in the other mans voice gave him pause. "Are you alright?" he asked. In this rare moment where Chakotay actually worried about Paris he allowed himself to look at the man without letting his personal feeling cloud the image.
The simplest description was tired; that's how Tom looked to him. As if, for once holding his own and surviving against unbeatable odds had finally worn him out and he had given up. Chakotay hoped he was wrong but Tom's next words didn't quell his fears any.
"Don't act like you care Commander," Tom said and dropped the utensil on his tray. "I don't anymore." He picked up his tray and after disposing of the uneaten contents he left the mess hall. Chakotay watched him go. He didn't want to read too deeply into what Tom had said. In all honesty, the commander didn't want to deal with Paris. He'd caused enough trouble around here and Chakotay didn't want to get involved. Had it been anyone else he would have made some attempt to gain an insight into their problems or offer his help but this wasn't just anyone, this was Thomas Paris.
Stumbling into his quarters, he called for lights. They were brighter than he expected and he closed the eye that wasn't swollen shut. The physical pain he felt was only a minor annoyance compared to the pain he felt emotionally.
Slowly walking to his couch he sat down relieving the pressure from his injured legs. There wasn't a part of him that had been spared. They had mercilessly beaten him and it hadn't been the first time. He wished they would just kill him already and get it over with. If he didn't think his life was worth living anymore why should anybody else believe otherwise.
Shaking himself from his depressed funk he got up and went to the washroom where he had a med kit. Taking it out, he put his medical training to good use. What was the point of putting up with the Doctor during the lessons if he wasn't going to use his skills? He only had enough battery power to heal the visible injuries but it was enough. He packed up the regenerator that was being used more often than ever before. The pain wasn't any better though. He couldn't heal the deep injuries, not with a dermal regenerator. He would need the Doctor to help him with that but instead he did nothing. They would just hurt him again so what was the point.
Laying in his bed he thought about the mistakes in his life and how he could never seem to escape them. Every time he tried to do something he ended up screwing up and after he had finally found a cause he was stripped of the one thing that still meant something to him: the Captain's trust. It was all he had left and now he had nothing.
He and B'Elanna had broken up a few months ago and had not spoken much since. Everybody thought the break up had been his idea but it had been her decision. Tom was in love with her but hadn't been able to tell her and now he regretted that. His own insecurities had lost him his first true love since Suzie Crabtree and nothing he did would change that. He couldn't chase after her and get her back only to end up hurting her again. He wouldn't do that. So he let her go, despite how his heart begged him to try again. His calm acceptance of the break up surprised his best friend, Harry Kim.
'I want her to be happy Harry, even if it's not with me,' he had told the Ensign late one night after the break-up. Only in those rare private moments did Tom allow his emotions to surface so his pain could be seen. Harry was the only other person who knew it was B'Elanna who had ended the relationship but Harry had promised Tom not to tell anybody despite how much he wanted to. The crew had begun to treat him badly, especially the former Maquis contingent. Tom warned Harry not to get in the way unless he wanted to incur their wrath as well.
The crew had been particularly hostile towards Tom since the break-up thinking that B'Elanna's depressed state had been his fault when really she was only trying to deal with the news of her friends in the alpha quadrant being dead or imprisoned. B'Elanna was too busy with her own problems to care about Tom. She had noticed that other crewmembers were being unnecessarily cold to Tom but she did not intervene. Tom's misery seemed to make her feel better. At least somebody was feeling worse than she was.
Harry Kim was another person Tom missed very much. His friendship with Harry had deteriorated and they were now more like strangers than the close friends they had once been. After the break up Harry and eventually started to spend more time with B'Elanna. It was generally less stressful than spending time with Tom and having to ignore the scathing comments that were thrown at Tom. From there the relationship between the former best friends worsened.
Tom had warned Harry about Seven. She was still regaining her humanity and hadn't been ready for a relationship but Harry had a crush on her. In trying to protect his friend from potential heartache he only angered the Ensign and Harry had become more distant.
In the end Tom had been right though. Seven hadn't been ready for a relationship and had, unknowingly, trampled all over Harry's fragile heart. Harry being too proud, had not been able to admit to Tom he had been right or apologize but instead he felt a keen sense of anger and resentment towards Tom. Tom had been right and he had been wrong. The green, wet-behind-the-ears Ensign, had screwed up again even when he had been warned. Harry thought he saw smugness in Tom's eyes whenever he looked at him but there was nothing there except compassion, but Harry was too blind to see it.
Harry and Tom didn't socialize with each other anymore and Tom had even overheard Harry putting him down with some other crewmen. Tom had only glanced at the other man and walked on ignoring everything but the pain in his chest that Harry's words had caused.
It was always the same, the people closest to you hurt you the most. It was a cardinal rule and Tom had run his life by it until he came to Voyager. After years of learning to trust them Tom had let Harry and B'Elanna into his little world. The pain of the recent incidents would have made most people regret allowing them to get so close but Tom felt that it had been worth the risk even if it cost him everything. In these last two years Tom had really lived, truly felt and openly loved.
The life he had made was toppling down around him and nothing he seemed to do could stop it. His last big mistake had been to try and save the water-world. The only thing he had managed to do was incur the wrath of the person he respected most. Demoted to ensign and placed in the brig for thirty days of solitary confinement where the dreams came back and the pain returned.
After the thirty days Tom dreaded seeing the rest of the crew again. Only a few people still called him a friend and even fewer were willing to call him so in public. With his last stunt the respect he had earned form the crew was shattered like a piece of fine crystal leaving to many pieces for him to even attempt to put together, so he didn't try.
When the attacks began he rarely fought back. There were too many anyway and so he took what he had known was coming to him. The crew's opinion of him had reverted back to what it had been when he first arrived on Voyager and Tom no longer held the physical or mental stamina to start from scratch again and rebuild what he found was only an illusion of respect among his peers.
He never told anybody about the assaults but who would have cared anyway. He was on his own, only this time he knew better than to open up to anybody or ask for help.
Tom slowly pulled himself from his prone position on the bed. He had Gamma shift in Sickbay and needed to be on time. He didn't want the Doc reporting to the Captain that he wasn't taking his duties as a medic seriously. He left his quarters, his features almost automatically relaxing into a totally unreadable and neutral expression.
Eight hours later:
"Ensign Paris, I expect you to be on time for your shifts on the bridge. I will not condone tardiness, especially from a senior officer," Janeway said angrily. Tom stood at attention in the centre of the bridge in plane view and with everyone within earshot of the Captain. "Do you have anything to say Ensign?" She stressed his rank but Tom held perfectly still.
"I just came from my shift in Sickbay, Captain. I came straight here," Tom said in his defence. He had taken the night shift in Sickbay and was due on the Bridge for Alpha shift immediately after.
"That's no excuse. Either show up on time or don't show up at all. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Captain," he replied.
"Take your station," she practically spat. She had no more patience for Mr. Paris. She still felt betrayed by his actions with the Moneans. She had liberated him from Auckland Penal Colony, given him a second chance to fly and how does he repay her. He turns his back on her and the crew endangers all of them for nothing. Her mind conveniently overlooked the years of loyal service the Tom had provided and the numerous occasions when Tom had willing risked his life to help the crew. What else did she want from him? At this rate Tom would never be able to repay her for her help.
He was grateful for what she'd done for him. He had told her in both actions and words but her anger at him made her memory very selective. Tom relieved the Gamma shift pilot and checked the chronometer. He was only two minutes late. Commander Chakotay wasn't on the bridge yet either but Tom knew that when the XO came Janeway would ignore his transgression unlike the public dressing down she gave him.
He sighed silently to himself. It was going to be fifty long years.
Tom continued to conduct his duties as an officer with only the occasional small slip up but there was always somebody there to make sure that everybody knew about it, including the Captain. He did more than he was asked to only because he had nothing better to do. He rarely ever went to the holodeck anymore. The only time he was with other people was during his shift on the bridge or in sickbay, when he babysat Naomi Wildman, one of his few friends or when he met with Jenny Delaney, the only person who chose to believe there was more to Tom than he allowed them to see. She knew something was wrong and hoped to all the gods he was alright. She knew of the crew's hostilities towards him but didn't know of the almost daily beatings.
One night she found him sitting in the mess hall staring out at the stars, looking like he was alone in the universe. She approached and sat down silently. She didn't know what to say and hoped her presence would provide some comfort.
A chilling silence filled the room as long minutes passed until Tom looked at her. She smiled softly at him but he could not return it. Smiling, she knew he hadn't done that in a long time and longed for the sparkle in his eyes and the love of life he once had.
"Thank you, Jen," he said softly.
"For what?"
"Lately, I've discovered who my friends really are."
She smiled slightly and he found it in him to give her a smile as well. He leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek. He pulled away and laughed softly when he noticed her blush. He got up and left the mess hall without another words leaving a confused Jenny in his wake.
Absently she touched the spot on her cheek where his lips had been only a few seconds before. The kiss had been simple but the meaning of it confused her. It held no promise they would go further than a simple kiss, only a strange and slightly frightening feeling he was going somewhere and not coming back –a farewell kiss.
She sat there for a few more minutes hoping to understand what had just happened when a cold chill went through her. Her hands clenched and her eyes began to water. "Tom," she whispered but there was no one there to hear her. Nervously she tapped her commbadge. Her hand shook involuntarily. "Delaney to Paris," there was no response. "Computer location of Ensign Paris."
'Ensign Paris is in the Mess Hall.' The computer replied and that was when she noticed the commbadge resting on the table.
Janeway and Chakotay watched Tuvok carefully. When Mr. Paris had not shown up for his shift on the bridge, they commed him and when there was not response Janeway to Tuvok to dispatch a security team to get Tom. Maybe a day in the brig would remind him to be on time for his shift. They didn't find him at first. He didn't have his commbadge with him. It took a scan of the ship to find Tom or rather his body.
"I regret to inform you, Ensign Paris is dead." Tuvok said calmly. Janeway and Chakotay looked up at him startled. Dead? How could that be? Their anger at Tom's absence was replaced with grief and guilt. How could this have happened?
Tuvok reported that Tom Paris had been beaten the night before and due to the injuries he sustained compounded with the other he had received earlier, he had died. The security team found Ensign Paris in the hydroponics bay. The search was now on to find those who had done this to Tom but even more daunting was the task of breaking the news to the rest of the crew. With so many issues between so many of them and Paris, more than one person would be feeling the guilt and grief they were experiencing right now.
More people than were expected showed up for his funeral a few days later. The Mess Hall was packed. There were not enough chairs for everybody that had come. Nobody had expected such a turn out. The mood of the ship was very somber. Nobody smiled and uncomfortable silence prevailed throughout the ship.
Naomi Wildman was crying and her mother was trying to console her but having a hard time trying to keep her own grief under control. Jenny Delaney entered the Mess Hall, looked around noticing all the sad faces and was overwhelmed with disgust, especially when she saw Kim and Torres.
Tom had trusted and loved them both, heart and soul and they had thought nothing of his emotions and thrown it all back in his face. Now they had the nerve to come to pay their last respects looking so distressed when they had been the source of most of his pain.
Jenny had sat through the service and listened with anger growing in her heart as Tom's 'closest and dearest' recounted the memories they had of him. The Captain spoke last and Jenny just barely contained herself. She sat through it and once it was over she said a quiet good-bye to her friend before taking her leave. She ran into Kim and Torres as she was leaving. Jenny gave them a look full of hate. She had thought they were such good people. When Tom had first befriended them at the beginning of their journey Jenny had been happy for him. Kim was a good person, or so she had thought. They would never hurt Tom. Jenny could not believe how wrong she had been.
She managed to leave the service without causing an incident. She couldn't grieve properly with all these phonies around her. She made it back to her quarters before letting the tears fall. This couldn't be happening. He couldn't be gone. She stood in the middle of her quarters and looked around. Everything was spinning, she felt so dizzy. Finally she collapsed to the floor crying. She didn't know the details of Tom's death but from what Anderson had told her, it looked like Tom had been beat to death.
She couldn't imagine how horrible it must have been for him, thinking that nobody wanted him around, feeling so alone and helpless. A strangled sob came from her as she started to cry harder. She had never been ashamed to be part of the Voyager crew until today. How could she have called those people her friends, her family?
A few nights ago in the hydroponics bay….
The worst was what they assumed. They assumed it didn't matter to him. B'Elanna, Harry, Caldik Prime, the alpha quadrant; they assumed it all meant nothing to him not knowing how wrong they were. More than anything it had been those things keeping him on the straight and narrow. They had given him a reason to look forward to his future.
Laying in the growing pool of his own blood he looked at the flowers blooming around him and noticed the one dying plant. Limp leaves sagged towards the ground dried out petals littered the soil and the stem was a sickly brown colour. While others flourished in their environment he weakened and died and he knew it was coming but their was no pain and no fear.
He hoped he would be able to start again. He didn't know what came after death but hoped death was not the end of existence as he knew it. He hoped he could be free of the burdens and of the guilt; he hoped he could in death find what he never could in life, peace.
His eyes expressed to those who looked closely enough, what he did not express to the world. The pain, the anger, the sorrow…
Blue eyes closed for the last time, lungs took in air for the last time and he said a silent good-bye. One last tear fell from his eye; this one could be seen, unlike the others that he had cried before.
End