To Tell The Truth Series 02 Parole Read online

  To Tell the Truth, Part 2/8:

  Parole

  By melanie (www.ocl.net/~melanie's_mind)

  Code: VOY, P, P/T, ALL

  Rating: PG

  Date: Story finished: June 1998. Revised (spelling mistakes/grammar corrected): December 1999

  Comments, admiring or outraged, may be sent to me at: [email protected]

  Note 1: Read Part One "Spirit Guide" first or this won't make much sense at times. Well, it probably won't anyway, but

  I digress.

  Note 2 : If you haven't read Jeri Taylor's book "Mosaic" you might want to do so since it is the origin of one of the

  characters and a situation to which I have referred. Plus it is a pretty good read. :)

  Disclaimer: The usual -- theirs not mine, wish they were, but they're not, etc., etc., don't sue.

  Parole (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 favorite 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 defense. "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 programs 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 hai
r 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.