Letters
Concept by Rick
Edited and compiled by Cybermum
Written by: Voyager Season 7.5 writing staff

Tom Paris sat in the farthest corner of the mess hall nursing a rapidly cooling cup of hot chocolate. The room was empty - the last dinner shift long over - and Neelix was nowhere in evidence. B'Elanna was still in engineering. She'd warned him she was going to be late. He knew she was working on something big, but so far she hadn't elected to share whatever it was with him. And amazingly enough, he realized, although he was very curious to know what it was, he was willing to wait for her to tell him. Just a few months ago he would have been all over her to reveal, tell, spill or at least give him a hint. Things were so different now. He was... he thought about it for a moment... he was relaxed. And he trusted her. And, most importantly, she trusted him. He started to write:

From: Lieutenant j.g. Tom Paris U.S.S. Voyager NCC-74656 T
o: Dr. Gregory Paul Andersen Router Heading:
Sector 010 Christchurch, NZ 127764729
Stardate 54382.4

Dear Dr. Andersen,

You were absolutely right (as usual). Your letter was a total surprise-but a very pleasant one. Of all the people I had the "opportunity" to meet at Auckland, you're about the only one I would want to hear from right now.

I had a really bad moment when I first opened the file and saw your name, you know. I remembered you chaired the Outmate Review Committee. My first thought was that the committee had gotten tired of waiting for me to get back home to the Alpha Quadrant. You'd decided to do my review in absentia and ordered me to spend the rest of the trip in the brig for overstaying my parole. I know, I know. Just another case of Tom Paris expecting the worst. I'm sure you've got a whole bunch of exotic theories about why I thought that, but I think we both know the main reason. Anyway, I was relieved when I read your letter and found out the real reason you wrote.

(Congratulations on your retirement, by the way. I hope your new private practice works out well for you. Say hello to the missus for me. I'm pretty sure anything has to be better than being the Director of Psychologists for a Federation Rehabilitation Colony, but I understand that Christchurch is a beautiful place to live.)

I can just see you nodding your head and saying, "Get back on track, Tom! Stop running away from the subject! Meet it head on." So, I'll answer your question. Yes, I really am doing as well as the newsvids say I am.

I'm sure you can appreciate the irony. I'm at the lowest point of my life. Screwed up my career, my family life, everything. Everyone I'd ever cared about was out of my life. Then I'm told I can take a mission that, at best, will get me a "good word" when I want to get out of prison, and then I'm back out there drifting again. I get lost 70,000 light years from home-and everything turns around. I get my career back. Get the girl of my dreams. Who would believe it? Maybe you're right. I had to hit bottom before I could finally figure out how it all works. The only down side is that I'm heading back to where I was a total screw-up. Everybody on this ship wants to get home-except me.

Well, maybe not everybody. My wife couldn't care less either. I know you've seen her picture in the media. (I can't believe our wedding was the second story on the newsvids the day the news came through on the data stream, right after the President's State of the Federation message!) She's gorgeous, isn't she? And just as smart and sharp as she is beautiful. She keeps me on my toes, that's for sure. I'm sure you'd have a field day analyzing our relationship. I know half the people on this ship love to play that game. I'll let you in on a little secret though. We were meant for each other. We're just lucky both of us managed to get lost in space at the same time and in the same place. I don't even want to think about how terrible this voyage home would be without her.

I have to thank you for a lot, Doc. You kept hammering away at me to drop the cynical con bit. You always said that inside me was a good guy and a good officer, trying to hide himself away to keep from getting hurt. It wasn't easy, even out here, where I didn't have to worry about the old man hanging over everything I did and trying to micromanage my career. I tried to sabotage myself plenty of times out here, too, but this time, I didn't do it. Not permanently, anyway. B'Elanna wouldn't let me, and neither would the captain.

One thing about your letter didn't surprise me, Doc. I'm not shocked about your little conversation with Captain Janeway at Auckland. The truth is, she told me all about it herself, a little while ago.

I don't know how much I can tell you about our missions; I know some have been stamped "Top Secret." This one time, though, I don't think is any big deal. Our security officer, the EMH, and yours truly crash landed onto a planet inside this weird spatial anomaly. Time didn't run the same way there, but we didn't know that at the time. We thought we'd been there for months and that Voyager had long since left us behind. The captain isn't one to give up easy, though, and we were rescued. It turns out we were only gone a couple of days. There wasn't any big welcome home for us when came back-we hadn't been away all that long as far as everyone on the ship went, even though Commander Tuvok and I thought we were going to spend the rest of our lives on a planet where the big item on the menu was spiders-morning, noon, and night-broiled, sauteed, or in the raw.

I was feeling pretty down that everyone else treated it as business as usual. That was the time the captain had busted me back down to ensign, too-and yes, I did deserve it-that old anti-authority thing of mine again—but that's another story. Anyway, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself when the captain called me into her Ready Room to talk it over. She told me I'd done a good job (even though there wasn't a promotion in sight for me yet). She'd always known I had it in me, she said.

And that's when she told me about what you'd said to her at your meeting that day at the penal colony. She thought she'd come on a fool's errand. Everyone at Starfleet Command insisted I was a worthless, spoiled 'Fleet brat' who destroyed everything he touched, but she'd come to see me because she didn't have any other options. She figured she'd check me out, decide I wasn't worth bothering with, and then go on her way with a clear conscience, knowing that she'd done her best to get my help.

But she talked to you first. You told her that I may have lost my way, but I had the potential to do great things, as long as someone truly believed in me and left me alone long enough to realize I could do them. That you had a really strong hunch this was just the thing I needed to show the stuff I was made of. And you warned her about my attitude, because it wasn't the real me. So when she met me, she saw right through my act and offered me the mission that changed my life. In a very real way, I have you to thank for my being on Voyager, and for becoming an officer again, and for my happiness with my wife. So, this is it. I'm very grateful, Doc.

About after we get home-I'm not even thinking that far ahead yet. Ten, maybe twenty years from now sounds soon enough for me. Then I might not even have to think about whether Starfleet would want me to stay or not. I could call it a career. I'm not sure I'd want to stick around.

B'Elanna and I have been talking about having a family. It's not going to happen any time soon, we know. That human-Klingon fertility incompatibility factor isn't likely to go away on its own, so we're not counting on the patter of tiny feet right now. We've talked it over, though, and as long as we're on Voyager, there wouldn't be any problem if we did have a baby. We'd be on board the ship with our "family" all around us. Everyone here would be the kid's aunts and uncles. For all the dangers the Delta Quadrant holds, it would be worth it.

Once we got home, that would all change. A decade ago, serving as a family on board a starship was routine. I understand that since the Dominion War it's not that way any more. One thing I don't want to be is one of those Starfleet dads who blows home once every year or two, spends six weeks smothering his family with all the advice and "fatherly guidance" he can squeeze into one visit, and expects to make up for all the time he'll be away for his next tour that way. I know how that goes. No matter how hard he tries, it doesn't work out. A kid needs his father around more than that. So, if I can't have my family on board a Starfleet vessel with me, I'm not planning on going on any Starfleet vessels at all.

You know, I promised myself that I was just going to write you a short answer to your letter-say thanks, I'm grateful to you for all you've done-thanks for writing-and that would be it. Instead, I've written a book. How do you do that? You always could get me to run off at the mouth and say things I never expected to tell anybody in the galaxy, let alone a counselor. You haven't lost your touch. You must be pretty good at what you do, huh? I probably should delete most of this stuff and keep it simple. Say the right thing-blah, blah, blah, thanks for writing. But I'm not going to do that. I owe a lot to you, Doc. Being honest with you here is the least I can do.

Thanks, Doc. Thanks for everything,

Tom Paris, Lieutenant j.g.