To Tell the Truth, Part 2/8: Parole

Chapter 1

(post Vis a Vis)

Captain Kathryn Janeway looked at each of their faces in turn. Even if she had not told each one to keep their appointment with her a secret from everyone, they had known this meeting was out of the ordinary merely by the choice of venue - her quarters. It was rare for her to meet here with anyone other than Chakotay, who now lounged in his favourite arm chair beside the couch, or Tuvok, who stood almost at attention near her desk, Seven in identical position at his side. On occasion, the Doctor, who perched on an arm of the couch, also was admitted to her inner sanctum to administer therapeutic massages to the overworked Captain, though only on occasion. The other two guests, however, rarely ever had reason to grace the couch on which they sat side by side. Any contact with Harry or B'Elanna typically was at their duty stations or in the Resort, not here.

The door chime interrupted the tense silence that had descended over the group following her refusal to begin until everyone had arrived. Kathryn triggered the door and Neelix smiled at her, a large plate of sandwiches in his hand.

"I brought some refreshments, Captain. My latest creations. Thought you could be the first to try them out while we had our meeting." He stepped into the quarters and stopped, staring at the others. "Oh. I must have misunderstood, Captain. I thought it was to be just us." He moved to set the plate on the small table beside the door. "I'll have to get more."

"No need, Neelix," the Captain insisted, herding him towards the couch, "and you were not mistaken. I deliberately gave each of you the impression it was to be a secret, one-on-one meeting. I apologize for that, but I needed to be certain none of you discussed this meeting amongst yourselves in case someone overheard. We all know how gossip does spread."

Taking the plate with him, the Talaxian sat down between the Doctor and Harry on the couch. "It is a small ship, Captain," he agreed, passing the plate along.

Harry's good manners overrode potential danger to his stomach and he took half a sandwich then passed the plate to B'Elanna beside him. "Where's Tom?" he whispered to her.

"Bridge," she whispered back, refusing the food and handing it on to the Commander.

"I had Commander Chakotay intentionally arrange the duty shifts that way," the Captain announced, proving how good her hearing was, "because it is Tom that I want to talk about with all of you."

Kathryn took the plate from her first officer and placed a sandwich half next to his on the coffee table. As was to be expected, Seven, Tuvok, and the EMH refused the food and she returned the half-filled plate to the table once more.

"As we're all well aware," she began, "Mr. Paris has been acting strangely for the past few weeks. I know everyone is as concerned about him as I am and want to get to the bottom of his problem. I'm sure all of you have attempted to talk to him about it as I have. Since the problem persists, my guess is none of you have had any better luck with getting him to open up than I have. What I think we need to do now is co-ordinate our information and figure this out on our own since he doesn't want to help us and himself."

Despite being the one who had born the brunt of his recent mood, B'Elanna still leapt to her mate's defence. "Captain, I really don't think so."

She quirked an eyebrow. "You don't think Tom needs our help?"

"No, it's not that. It's... Despite what he pretends, about not caring if people are talking about him behind his back, it does hurt him. The fact we are here doing exactly that would upset him if he knew."

"B'Elanna," Kathryn said softly and smiling reassuringly, "Tom's already hurting from something yet won't tell us what. You know that better than anyone." She paused. "Or am I wrong? Has he opened up to you about what's going on?"

The half-Klingon could not meet her eyes. "Not exactly."

"I didn't think so." She looked at the others. "Has he confided in any of you?"

Everyone responded in the negative.

"Well, I think we all agree we cannot permit it to continue. Perhaps if we can pool our observations of anything he has said or done then we might at least know where we stand."

"You want us to break his confidences in us." B'Elanna flung herself off of the couch. "Do you know how hard it has been for him to learn to trust us? To open up to us? If he ever found out we betrayed him... No. No, I can't, *won't* do it. He'll talk when he is ready."

As she stomped away from the couch and towards the windows, Kathryn could see Harry and Neelix wavering towards agreeing with B'Elanna.

Chakotay came to her rescue as usual. "We may not be able to wait that long. He is ducking his shifts in Sickbay, B'Elanna. If there is an emergency, we need him there, ready to deal with it, especially if the Doctor's offline. If he is unprepared, it could be a disaster for the crew."

"He is not exaggerating, Lieutenant," the EMH concurred. "At this point Mr. Paris does have the skills to take care of routine illnesses, triage, and some minor surgeries, but were I offline for any length of time, it would fall to him to become the Chief Medical Officer and deal with *all* medical emergencies. He is not prepared for that and never will
be if he continues to avoid his studies."

"But that's over," she insisted. "He was feeling restless and with this bit of excitement with Steth and finally getting sometime planetside after a couple of months in space, he's got to be feeling better now."

The Captain looked at her inquiringly. "Steth has been gone for seventeen days and we've been here five. Have you noticed an appreciable change in him? I haven't. He's still ducking Sickbay and doesn't seem to be his usual cheerful self."

"Okay, maybe he's not *totally* back to normal yet," she conceded, "but he is getting there. He's talking to me again."

"But you said you haven't discussed whatever is troubling him," Chakotay reminded her.

"Okay, not about whatever was wrong with him about Sickbay or whatever, but we are talking about *us* again. It's a start."

Neelix smiled to himself. "And the crew thanks you."

B'Elanna frowned at him and the morale officer/cook knew he inadvertently had expressed the thought aloud.

"Umm, you see, after your last, uh, fight, in the Mess Hall, some of the crew were a little leery about coming to eat there if there was a possibility the two of you were going to..." Neelix swallowed. "Come to blows."

"Come to blows?" B'Elanna ground out. "What business is it of theirs if Tom and I have an argument?"

"Please, you two," the Captain interrupted, "can we get back to the matter at hand?"

The two closed their mouths, one gratefully, one reluctantly.

"Now, if we can figure out when this began, maybe then we can figure out what the problem is and resolve it. Can anyone pinpoint precisely when Tom first started acting out of character?"

Everyone thought back for a moment.

"The first scheduled shift in Sickbay that he missed was two days after the Hirogen relay station was destroyed," the Doctor answered. "At the time he gave a perfectly reasonable excuse, one of this pilots was cross-training with Engineering and he was covering her shift at the Conn."

"He and I talked about that," Chakotay informed him. "He told me he would make up the time with you later."

"Yes, he told me the same when we rearranged the duty shifts to cover his shifts in Sickbay."

"If I remember correctly there wasn't any problem then with finding crew to cover," Janeway mused.

"No," the EMH admitted, " some of the crew needed to re-certify their emergency medical training so they came in to cover a shift each and we covered the personnel shortage that way."

"So what happened once the cross-training was over?"

"He avoided it by saying he was swamped with a navigational sensors problem which could not be cleared up."

"The upgrading we did," Harry explained. "Every time we thought we had it fixed it would go down again."

Remembering the muffled cursing in some unfamiliar language from the Conn, Kathryn nodded.

"Then the Hirogen took over Voyager-" the EMH grimaced- "and I saw all too much of Mr. Paris and quite a few of the crew, albeit in an unconscious state."

"And after the Hirogen left?"

"He did spend some time with me, treating the wounded, Captain, but once everything was under control medically he was reassigned to assist with repairs."

The Commander nodded. "He volunteered to sort out the Holodeck files. Exorcise all of the Hirogen programmes and put the rest back to rights."

"And after that I haven't seen him in Sickbay since, with the exception of the incident with Steth. Any time I have called him on his avoidance he says he forgot, was too busy with something else or gives me the excuse that we haven't treated anything worse than an ingrown hangnail. That may be true, but it is beside the point. I still need him in
Sickbay."

The Captain rubbed the back of her neck in thought. "What about this new attitude of his, this restlessness, when did it start?"

"He's been acting a little out of the ordinary for a while," Harry admitted. "He's been spending a lot of time alone on the Holodeck or in his quarters. At first I thought he was with B'Elanna until I saw her alone in Sandrine's one night and she remarked on how she'd assumed Tom had broken their date to be with me. He did do that few times."

All eyes shifted to B'Elanna who remained silent, gaze on the stars they passed.

"He hasn't been in the Resort or Sandrine's in weeks," Neelix added to the silence. "I thought he was busy elsewhere. I mentioned it to him once or twice. He'd mutter something about being too busy and excused himself."

"And when did this begin?"

Harry and Neelix looked at one another.

"I don't know exactly, Captain," the Talaxian replied, "after the Hirogen occupation certainly."

"Yeah, about then, I-" Harry stopped for a moment. "Come to think of it, he began acting strangely long before then. I mean it's become increasingly more noticeable since then, but I think it began before it." His frown lifted. "It started right around the time the messages from the Alpha Quadrant started coming in. He acted like it didn't matter, that it was all no big deal. Even after the relay station exploded and some of the letters were lost, including his father's, he still didn't seem to care."

"Tom?" Harry bustled in, grinning from ear to ear. "Tom, you've got to read this."

Picking up his shirt, the half-dressed pilot glanced at the padd in the ensign's hand. "What is it?"

Harry gave him and exasperated look. "My letter from home."

Tom slipped on the shirt, leaving it hanging open as he skirted Harry and headed for the desk. "You want me to read your parents' letter?"

Watching Tom tap in a couple of commands on the desktop computer, Harry frowned. "Yeah. You okay?"

The pilot straightened and turned. "Just have a lot to do." He took the padd and moved over to sit on the couch. "Bit behind in my Conn reports and assignments for the Doc."

"Oh," Harry said in an offhand way, parking himself on the cushion to Tom's immediate right. "I thought maybe you were upset by whatever was in the letter from your father."

Tom sent a startled glance towards him. "You honestly don't know do you?"

"Know what?"

"It didn't make it through in time." His eyes found to the padd again.

"Tom, I'm sorry. I didn't know. You okay?"

"Of course. Let's see what your folks have got to say."

Harry put a hand over Tom's holding the letter. "Tom..."

With his free hand, Tom mussed Harry's hair. "Hey, it's no problem. Probably just more of the same. I've heard it all before. Don't really need to hear it again. It's okay. Really."

The Ensign was unconvinced yet let the matter drop for the time being. His hand released Tom's.

"Let's see what we have here. 'Dear Son...'"

As his best friend read aloud the letter he already had read and reread countless times, Harry settled back into the couch cushions. He let Tom's gentle voice reading the precious words from home wash over him as he relaxed. The past few days had been so hard on Harry. First there had been the waiting for the message he knew would come from his doting parents and the worry they might have died never knowing he still lived, then, if they still lived, that their message would be lost...

Like Tom's father's. He knew Tom was feigning this nonchalance about its loss. Past experience predicted Tom would resist all attempts to get him to share his disappointment so Harry let go of the issue. Instead he comforted Tom the only way he knew he would accept it, comfort without words. Shifting only slightly, he laid his head on his best friend's shoulder. Tom automatically transferred the padd to his left hand and reached up to pat Harry's cheek. Harry knew Tom would interpret things as though it was Harry needing consolation, not the other way around, but he didn't mind. Satisfying Tom's need to feel needed gave more consolation to the pilot than any mere words regarding Tom's importance as a person ever could achieve. As Tom read and stroked Harry's hair the way he did Naomi Wildman's when she was scared or upset, Harry closed his eyes and relaxed.

Harry shook his head. "He was so cool about it all, as if he couldn't care less about it all. Part of me actually wonders if he didn't care, given his past and his family and all."

"He did care," B'Elanna corrected softly from behind him. Arms folded across her chest, she had not moved from her place, staring out at the stars. "You were right, he was covering up his anxiety about it. Tom was scared about what his father was going to say."

"Do you think that might be the root cause of all this?" Chakotay asked.

"I don't know."

"B'Elanna," Kathryn gently began, "you called Tom to Astrometrics when the letter from the Admiral began to come in."

"Yes."

"What was Tom like when he heard it was from his father? I know when he left and returned he looked like a man on his way to his execution."

The Chief Engineer sighed and gave in. The Captain's request for them to break Tom's confidences in them was for his own good, she rationalized. "He was sarcastic. He made jokes about how it probably was from the parole board about revoking his parole. He was anxious to return to the Bridge as soon as possible. He was scared about the contents of the letter. Said what he had here on Voyager was the best thing that ever had happened to him and he was worried the Admiral's message would be bad."

"And when it was lost?"

"I told him to assume the best and I think he honestly tried to, for a while anyway." She leaned her temple against the bulkhead beside the window, uncertainty evident in her profile. "By later that night it was obvious he was doubting it again. He said a bit to me about it then but not all that much really."

Harry started. "I didn't know you'd been there."

"I arrived shortly after you fell asleep on his couch."

Exhausted, B'Elanna ran a hand through her hair as she rushed down the corridor. The news of end of the Maquis and the deaths of most of her friends then hours spent repairing the damage caused by the relay station's - plus very nearly Voyager's as well - destruction had take its toll on her. All she wanted right now was to be held in the strong arms of a certain pilot and she could not find him.

After a quick shower in her quarters, she automatically had headed to the Holodeck where Neelix's party was in full swing. When she entered the Resort, it very quickly became obvious Tom Paris was absent. A clear indicator of this was the fact so many were so openly discussing his, in their opinion, odd reaction to the letter from Admiral Paris and its subsequent loss. Had the pilot been in attendance they would have avoided the topic as strenuously as he would. Questioning of Neelix and the Captain only confirmed the theory.

'This wasn't like Tom,' she thought tiredly. ;We need each other right now and the Computer says he's hiding in his quarters.'

'That's not fair,' she argued with herself. 'Tom probably had known you would be held up in Engineering so was waiting for you to notify him you're finally free. You knew by now he would be having doubts about himself and whether the Admiral actually *had* said he loved him and was proud of him or not. Had it not been for the repairs they'd had to do, you would have been with him.

'You should have been with him anyway,' she chastised, stopping in front of his door. 'You should have left Carey to handle it all and been with Tom where you wanted and needed to be.'

The reality of exactly how important this man had become to her and she to him hit her, and not for the first time either. She smiled for the first time since she had heard Chakotay's news about the Maquis and reached for the door chime.

"Come."

"Tom, I-"

B'Elanna stopped short just inside of the doorway. Her smile turned to a giggle at the sight of Harry snuggled up next to Tom, arm draped across his waist, contentedly sleeping with his head on Tom's shoulder, while Tom read a padd.

"Get me a pillow, will you?" Tom whispered.

She hurried over to Tom's bed for one of the multitude which invariably occupied the bed whenever he was not. Picking up one plus the throw from across the foot of the bed, she returned to the living area. Between the two of them, they slowly moved Harry into a reclining position on the couch and covered him.

Rubbing feeling back into his sleeping arm and shoulder, Tom smiled apologetically at her. "I'm sorry I didn't make it to the Resort, but..."

"It's okay. I understand." She took up rubbing his shoulder, though her ministrations were more a caress than a rub. "I was late myself. Engineering."

He nodded. No more explanation than that was necessary. That was a good thing as he clearly was finding himself rapidly losing the capacity to speak as her hands trailed down from his shoulder and buried themselves in the golden chest hair visible through his unfastened and untucked shirt. His own hands lifted to her waist and pulled her to him.

"What say we forget the party and go to my quarters," she growled at him in a low voice.

Tom glanced at Harry sound asleep less than a metre behind them. Reluctantly, he drew back. "As much as I'd like that, I don't want to leave Harry."

"Harry's just going to sleep," she insisted, trying to pull him back to her. "He doesn't need you to watch him do that."

"I'm worried about him. He seemed pretty homesick earlier. I think I should be here in case he wakes." He led her to the armchair and assumed their favourite position with her seated in his lap. "Okay?"

"Mmm." She laid her forehead against his neck and resumed playing with the chest hair that so fascinated her. She was quiet for many minutes. Finally, he squeezed the hip under his hand.

"What are you thinking?"

"Hmm?"

"I asked what you're thinking."

She flattened her hand over his heart. "About the messages from the Alpha Quadrant. About the Maquis and all my friends." His arms tightened around her. "About how the coded message from Starfleet might be a plan for getting Voyager home." She paused. "And about what will happen to us if they do. When I was in the Maquis, I always knew I could end up in prison or worse if I were caught, but it always was sort of unreal to me, you know. Like the classes at the Academy when they'd outline all the worst case scenarios and expect the class to hypothesize about what they'd do if it happened. It was unreal, something which you had to plan for but probably wouldn't ever happen."

"And now you're thinking that if Starfleet can get Voyager back to the Alpha Quadrant you and the other Maquis will be put in prison and you don't know if you can handle it."

"It's not that I don't think I can handle it, I mean it would be a Starfleet facility, not a Cardassian one, and given my service here it probably would be minimum security. It's not like they throw you into some rodent and insect infested hole and forget about you except to drag you out to torture you like the Cardassians do. It wouldn't be that bad. I mean, you can't go wherever you want, you have to stay put and wear a monitoring anklet, but it isn't all that bad... is it?"

Tom did not answer for a moment. He shut his eyes and rested his cheek on her hair. Even though he had let her in farther than anyone else ever had been permitted in his entire life, he had resisted talking about his time in the Rehab Colony in New Zealand. That was until now that it had become obvious she needed to here the truth about life inside of a Federation prison.

"For you it probably would be like you think. Not too bad. There'd be other Maquis there so you'd have them to be with."

"Huh?"

"Everyone tends to stick with their own kind. All the Starfleet, all the Maquis, and so on. They tend to stay in the groups they were in on the outside. The Maquis would look after you while you were there."

"They didn't do that for you, did they? The Starfleet or the Maquis... or the others."

"Of course not. I was a traitor to Starfleet AND the Maquis as well as a triple murderer who'd gotten off scott-free from what had happened on Caldik Prime. Plus I was a Paris, a shame to the family, but a Paris just the same." He kissed her hair. "No, I was on my own there."

"Caldik Prime was an accident, Tom," she soothed, stroking his chest in a comforting, not sexual way.

He continued as though he had not heard her. "But they can't protect you all the time. You'll still have to watch out for some of the others. They... they can be trouble." He raised his head and shook it, opening his eyes. "But none of that matters. If there is a war, they're going to need everyone they can get with Starfleet or combat experience to be on their side. If they're smart, they'll snap all of you up in a second and wave all threat of prison as incentive to keep you in Starfleet."

She raised her head to look in his troubled blue eyes. "Tom, you said 'snap all of you up,' not 'all of us.'" He tried to look away. She refused to permit it and pulled his face back to hers. "You don't think Starfleet will take you back too, do you?"

He wrapped her tighter in his arms and pulled her head back to the crook of his neck. "The odds are against my ever serving in Starfleet again," he told her in a monotone.

"You don't think they'd actually make you return to New Zealand to serve out the rest of your sentence, do you? Wouldn't it be up yet?"

"No, I still have three more years on my sentence before I'd be free."

"I thought the deal you made with the Captain was that after you lead them to the Maquis was you would be cut loose."

"I bargained in bad faith, B'Elanna, and the Captain knows it."

"I don't understand."

"I knew the little information I had about the Maquis was out of date. The first thing everyone would have done after I was caught was pick up stakes and clear out in case I talked. They wouldn't have run the risk of remaining where they were and having Starfleet waltz in and capture them all because I'd told them where to find them. As far as they were concerned I would tell Starfleet everything because the only one I was looking out for yours truly and it might spare me a heavy prison sentence. It was only by bizarre coincidence that I actually was leading Voyager in the right direction, that, were it not for the Caretaker, Voyager would have stumbled across Chakotay's ship."

"But they don't know that."

"The Captain does. I told her a long time ago. I don't know if she made an official note of it in her log or not, but she knows."

"Why?"

"Why did I tell her or why did I strike a bargain with them when I knew I couldn't do what they thought I could?"

"Both."

"I told her because she has been damned good to me and I thought she deserved the truth. As to why I lied to them... I wanted out of prison and it was a way out."

"Prison really was that bad for you, wasn't it."

"I've been through worse."

"But surely you were eligible for parole at some point, weren't you? You might have been released soon, with good behaviour?"

"Supposedly, I would have been eligible last month."

"Supposedly?"

"I always knew I'd be serving the maximum. They were making an example of me. They had to. The authorities couldn't be lenient on me without everyone saying it was because of my family connections." He shook his head. "But none of that matters now. I got out anyway."

"It does matter or you wouldn't have said anything about it." She threaded her fingers through the hair at his nape. "If they hadn't let you go, we wouldn't have met."

"Probably not, no."

She tilted her head up and gave him a lingering kiss.

"What was that for?" he asked when she snuggled back into his neck.

"Because I almost missed out on us. Because I almost lost you yet again only three weeks ago and it's finally hitting me how much I would have lost if you hadn't come back from the Spirit World or wherever you were."

"You honestly think it'd be that easy to get rid of me?" He laid a kiss on her ridges. "I'm like a stray dog, show me a little affection and I'm yours for life."

She half smiled. Though he was joking, the truth in the statement was glaring. Tom Paris was a stray dog. Anyone who had shown him a little affection or friendship or kindness *did* have him and his loyalty, possibly for life. 'Even in a strange way, the father who's message might have been more recriminations for past failings,' she thought, secretly thanking the Fates for the missing body of the letter. It truly was better he had to guess at the contents and choose to think the best rather than know the contents and be crushed were it more of the usual.

The joke he had made before they knew the identity of the sender about the letter possibly being from the rehab colony telling him he had broken the conditions of his parole. It was so unfair that he felt he had no right to have any expectations for a future when they returned to the Alpha Quadrant. Even the Maquis could hope for some sort of a good future if his prediction about Starfleet needing their experience were correct.

Her fingers threading through the hair at his nape, she closed her eyes and joined Harry in sleep.

"I didn't make a note of it," Kathryn assured her once B'Elanna had lapsed into silence after telling an abridged version of their talk. "At the time I made the offer to him in the Rehab Colony, I knew it was a long shot and so did Starfleet. The Maquis were too smart and too well organized to take such a risk as staying where they were. Tom was our only option for finding Tuvok so we took it."

"I agree with Tom," Chakotay chimed in, "Starfleet does need everyone they can get their hands on. At least for the duration of the war we would safe with them. Afterwards, I'm not so sure."

"I can't speak for Starfleet, but I hope all of the Maquis know I will do everything in my power to help them when we get home."

"We know that, Captain," he smiled.

Briefly, she smiled back then turned to Seven. "What about you, Seven? You have spent some time lately working with Tom on a couple of projects. How has he been with you?"

"Professional, Captain," the former Borg replied succinctly. "He performed his tasks adequately and within time constraints." Her head cocked to one side. "Perhaps that in itself is confirmation of abnormal behaviour."

"How so?"

"Since my first encounter with him after becoming a member of this crew, Lieutenant Paris invariably has been solicitous and jovial." She said the last word like it was a grievous sin. "However, my interactions with him over the past seven weeks have not been so. He has been detached and strictly professional. He has not made any attempts to engage me in idle conversation."

"Seven weeks ago appears to be the focal point, Captain," Tuvok announced. "It was at that time that the relay station was destroyed."

"So the consensus is that right after that Tom began to act oddly?" Chakotay received nods of agreement. "If he had received a letter from home and it was bad, then this would have made sense, but not receiving a letter? I don't get it."

"Perhaps what he said to Lieutenant Torres is the answer. Perhaps Mr. Paris's problem stems from an inability to see a future for himself after Voyager. With Starfleet now knowing of our continued existence, we can assume they shall be working on a method of returning us to the Alpha Quadrant. Every day he must awaken to the concern that today might be the day assistance arrives or we decode Starfleet's message."

"And the day it does he thinks he is headed right back to prison."

"That was the second time that day he'd mentioned parole and prison," B'Elanna admitted.

"So it is weighing heavily on his mind," Kathryn frowned. "I know he probably is right about them making an example of him, but I can't believe that with his record on Voyager they'd send him back there. They need him too much. He's too good to lose."

Tuvok might as well have shrugged. "It will depend on how heavily they weigh your reports concerning Lieutenant Paris's performance here against the need to provide an example and not be accused of leniency for the privileged. Starfleet may well choose saving face over all else. They will not wish to be proven wrong in their so thorough
condemnation of him as a failure. However, in light of the vast improvements he has made here, they may find it difficult to rationalize the action."

Harry groaned. "If only that letter from his father hadn't been lost. We wouldn't have to be speculating. We would know if they were going to free him or what.

"To save face, it most probably will be a strictly monitored parole, not a suspended sentence, Ensign Kim. But you are correct. Its loss does leaves him without a clue as to the nature of the reception he will receive upon returning home."

"That could place quite a strain on him," the Doctor agreed, catching on to Tuvok's train of thought. "This new attitude of his could be a manifestation of that fear."

"I don't understand," Neelix admitted.

"He is escaping into the unreality of the Holodeck, trying to retreat from everyone. His way of avoiding the reality of one day losing the freedom being in the Delta Quadrant has provided him."

"But how does avoiding Sickbay fit in?"

"I think it may be another escape from reality," Kathryn explained. "Nothing is more real than the life and death which goes on there." She ran her hand through her hair. "I also think there is more to it than that. After Steth was gone and I read the Doctor's report about their interactions, I was disturbed by what I'd read so I went to Tom's quarters." She smiled wryly. "They looked like he was in the midst of scouring them to remove all traces of Steth, not that I blame him. I would have done the same had Steth been in my body longer than the couple of hours and touched all my things and slept in my bed."

"Captain," Tom gestured towards the living area with a cleaning rag in his hands. "Come in."

"Thank you." She stepped into the room. Over their years on Voyager there had been few reasons for her to enter her helmsman's living space. When she had come, she had become accustomed to seeing a T-shirt over the foot of his bed or a stack of padds toppled over on his couch or coffee table. It was the usual clutter of a semi-neat bachelor. Today, however, it looked like it was an Academy cadet's quarters ready for inspection. Today, it was neat as a pin with everything gleaming like new.

"So, to what do I owe you this pleasure?" he asked, motioning her to the couch.

"Actually, I came because I needed to discuss this with you, Tom." Kathryn handed him a padd then sat where he had indicated.

"The Doc's report about Steth? What more do you need to know? I filed my report."

"I know. I read it. What I need to know, Tom, is: is what he told the Doctor true?"

Tom looked at her blankly. At her gesturing towards the padd, he scanned it, stiffening at the contents.

"Is it true, Tom?" she asked again. "Is what Steth told the Doctor about medicine not coming easy to you like most other things do and your feeling unable to live up to the Doctor's lofty standards true? Is that how you really feel?"

Not looking at her, he returned the report and collected the pile of clean uniforms from the refresher. When he strode into his bedroom area, she was right behind him.

"Seven caught Steth reading my personal logs, Tom," she reminded him as he set the garments on the expertly made bed and headed for the closet with one of them. "The only explanation for that is he planned all along to move into me at some point and was preparing for that eventuality. We know he downloaded all the files pertaining to you before he switched bodies with you. He had to have studied them so he could blend in easier."

Tom hung the uniform up them headed for another one without commenting. He repeated this twice more before she came up behind him and laid a hand on his back. The muscles under her hand were taut. Tension radiated off of him like heat from a fire.

"I know you don't like talking about your feelings, Tom, but if you are having doubts you must talk about it. If this is true, I'll help you work through it. I need you in Sickbay as much as I do at the helm." The hand glided up to grasp his shoulder. "I promise to keep it between us. It will go no farther."

"And then Chakotay called me to the Bridge to tell me about finding this planet we now orbit and wanting to stop to survey for food, materials, and shoreleave so Tom never did answer me."

Chakotay frowned at his bad timing and stared at his hands. She laid a hand on his shoulder.

"It's okay, Commander. Given his attitude, I doubt he would have answered me truthfully anyway," she assured him.

Slumping back into the couch, Harry sighed. "So if Tom's acting this way because he is scared of what the future may hold, what do we do about it?"

"Obviously he needs to be reassured of his value and progress," the Commander concluded. "The past is behind him and he is a new man, a valued member of this crew. The despised traitor and convict who boarded as an observer almost five years ago is gone."

"Agreed." Kathryn ran a hand through her hair. "The catch is, how do we do it? We all know Tom is awkward with receiving praise unless it is about his flying abilities. He's not used to any praise for anything else and has difficulty accepting it."

"I have observed Lieutenant Paris to be one who responds well to physical displays," Seven commented. "As Ensign Kim stated in his account, he is more comfortable with a physical exchange than a verbal one. He has exhibited such with you numerous times, Captain."

"Explain."

"You have a tendency to touch people, Captain. On the Bridge alone, I have observed you place one or both hands on Lieutenant Paris's shoulder while he was at the helm 57 times since I boarded. Typically, he will smile at the sentiment you no doubt have meant to convey to him."

"So what are you suggesting?" Harry asked. "We all give him a group hug?"

All except Tuvok, Seven, and B'Elanna grinned at that idea.

"Actually, Ensign Kim, I was not suggesting a course of action, merely making an observation."

Chakotay threw out another idea. "We have to do something which would demonstrate his worth to him. A party or something akin to that. Tom does love a party and the casual atmosphere would put him at ease. He might accept what we tell him."

"No," Harry vehemently disagreed, "Tom would hate that."

B'Elanna picked up the explanation. "He doesn't mind being the centre of attention if he is telling a joke or something like that, something which will be over in a short time then someone else can take centre stage. An entire party in his honour? He'd hate it. You remember how he claimed fatigue and ducked out of his welcome back party after he'd ferreted out Jonas as a Kazon spy."

"How could I forget that interlude?" Chakotay rubbed his jaw where Paris had hit him during his performance as "Paris the Malcontent" before he left Voyager.

"What if..." Neelix slid forwards to the edge of the couch. "What if Tom were left in charge of Sickbay and he saved someone's life."

"Excuse me?" the EMH gasped, clearly affronted at the suggestion.

"No, no, hear me out," the Talaxian begged. "Tom is uncomfortable being in Sickbay, right? He is worried he can't cope with what he will be confronted with there. What if it were proved to him he could cope?"

"And precisely how do you plan to orchestrate this? Put me offline and phaser one of the crew?" Sarcasm dripped from every syllable.

"No, of course not, Doctor. I-"

"Because you'd have to do something drastic to get him in there, believe me."

"What if it were Harry or B'Elanna was sick?" Chakotay asked.

"Cucumber."

All eyes snapped to Seven at her seeming non sequitur.

"Naomi Wildman. Lieutenant Paris once was called away from a project we were working on to go treat her. He told me, she absolutely refuses to permit the Doctor to treat her."

"I don't know why, but she prefers Mr. Paris to do it," the EMH stated haughtily.

"She might be proper incentive to lure him back to Sickbay. Perhaps another case of indigestion from chewing on her crayons."

"I thought she had stopped that," Neelix, godfather of the little girl in question, interrupted.

"For a while, yes," the Doctor confirmed, "but I doubt it will continue."

The Captain frowned. "No matter who the designated patient was you'd literally have to make them sick though. The diagnostic equipment would make it impossible to fake an illness."

"And Ensign Wildman, Mr. Paris, and I have spent so long trying to cure her of that habit. If we suddenly told her to forget what we had said and do it again-"

"She would not understand the mixed messages she was getting," the Captain finished for him.

"The simple solution is either to programme the equipment to return false readings or to use a holographic representation of the specific patient," Tuvok interjected. "The holoemitters in Sickbay can be used for that purpose. However that would be missing the point. The root of Mr. Paris's problem is not Sickbay; it merely is a symptom. His problem appears to be a need to feel more certain about all aspects of his life, not only one. If it is his future which is of the greatest concern to him, then it is upon reinforcing the potential positive outcome of that future any efforts must concentrate."

With that pronouncement, the Vulcan began to outline his idea.

As she undertook her long journey to his position, she maintained the link to him that she had forged, without his knowledge, upon her first sensing his existence in the Universe. Part of her wished there were another method of finding him than that link. Because of her efforts to keep him in her mind, the sound of his screaming and images from her first, one-sided encounter with him haunted her waking thoughts and nightmares haunted her sleep as she was certain they did his. Some times, when she was awake and the sounds and images almost were absent, she would be able to return to her deep meditation, hoping he would revisit the place where she learned of him, hoping she might then be able to learn more about him. Yet he never reappeared there. She spoke at length with the animals, the "spirit guides" as they referred to themselves, but they still knew nothing more about what had occurred than she did.

So she patiently awaited the day they would meet in person to confirm or eliminate him as the one she sought. In the meantime, she endured the nightmares like the one he was having at that very instant. It was not the worst of the atrocities she had witnessed through his eyes. Disjointed fragments of scenes of violence, destruction, death, all had assaulted her without mercy and made no sense. She only hoped they did not destroy him before she could reach him.