Chapter Text
On the three-block walk from the transport station to the park, Tom refused to allow his mind to do anything but take note of the blue sky, puffy clouds, and soft breeze. Palm fronds rustled and iguanas blinked their circular eyes. Tom’s footsteps on the sidewalk were nearly silent. The brightly colored gift bag hung from his limp fingers.
Tom heard Miral before he saw her. She screeched, “Daddy!” and his knees sunk to the earth. Her small arms wrapped around him and Tom hugged her fiercely. He smelled her hair, marveled at her strength, and was amazed at how much bigger she was than when he’d kissed her goodbye on the Denmark. Sure, he saw her every few days on subspace. But it wasn’t the same.
“Daddy!” she said again, her smile toothy and dazzling. “We are together!”
“Yes we are, baby.” Tom kissed her ridged forehead. “Yes we are.”
B’Elanna and her boyfriend came by to greet Tom. The two men hadn’t seen each other since B’Elanna told Tom the truth about her feelings. They exchanged curt nods.
“Where’s the admiral?” B’Elanna asked.
“Duty calls,” Tom said lightly.
But B’Elanna knew him too well. Her eyes narrowed. “What are you hiding?”
Miral squirmed to be set free and Tom forced his arms to relax. She pulled on his hand to lead him to a play area. First, though, Tom handed B’Elanna the gift bag. “It’s a story collection. Actual books. I have another copy so I can read to Miral over subspace — since I’ll only see her through a screen for another eight months.”
Guilt may have been the low road, but it worked. B’Elanna didn’t ask any more questions.
As he followed Miral, Tom recognized people from Voyager’s engineering department and a few others from the ship.
He wouldn’t let himself wonder how many of them knew the only reason the party was on Earth was because Tom was supposed to take his daughter home with him.
He wouldn’t let himself speculate whether they knew their former captain was supposed to be there.
He wouldn’t let himself do anything but spend every moment he could with Miral. He pushed her on a swing, cheered when she slid down the big slide, let her ride on his shoulders so she could see the whole park from up high. Her delighted giggles were infectious and Tom was sure her zeal for all types of play was his genetics.
Chakotay ambled over.
“I want to apologize for clocking you, Paris,” he said. “Honestly, truly apologize. I was out of line and, frankly, a little out of my mind.”
“Thanks.” Tom stuck his hand out, still a little dirty from the castle he and Miral were building in the sandbox. Chakotay shook it. “No hard feelings.”
“Good man,” Chakotay said. “Where’s Kathryn? I owe her an apology as well.”
Tom said the admiral was attending to Starfleet business. He ignored the slight shake of Chakotay’s head and the pitying look in his eyes.
Chakotay called over and then introduced his girlfriend, a woman Tom knew slightly from Voyager — Ensign Sue Brooks, now Lieutenant Sue Brooks. She and Chakotay were working together on a Starfleet project to improve planetary defense systems for far-flung colonies. Tom shook her hand, too, then excused himself to continue building the sandcastle with Miral.
There was the Happy Birthday song plus snacks and cake. Voyager's EMH took holo-photos and promised to send an album to both Tom and B’Elanna. Tom helped B’Elanna pack up the gifts.
Then it was over.
“I’ll see you soon on subspace,” Tom whispered into Miral’s ear as he held her tightly. “I love you so much, baby girl.”
“I love you, too, Daddy,” Miral said. But it was normal for her not to see her father in person very often, and Miral trotted off with B’Elanna and B’Elanna’s boyfriend without a backward glance.
Tom pushed the heels of his hands against his closed eyes. He just had to make it through the transport ride, Tom told himself, then he could let his brain process what had happened.
When Tom returned to the apartment, the computer console message light blinked. The text-only communique was: Three-day mission. Classified. I’m so sorry.
Even though he was alone in the apartment, Tom slept on the sofa that night.
***
Of the half-dozen simulations Tom’s research team tested, the beach resort and Fair Haven both had scored highly as potential crew morale boosters.
When Tom got to work the Monday after Miral’s party, he went into one of the holo-labs. He opened the parameters for Frannie Sullivan, wife of Fair Haven pub owner Michael Sullivan. Tom tidied her hair, darkened her lips, and made her chest more prominent. He upgraded her dress to a finer material. He altered her personality subroutines so she would be cheerful, slightly saucy, and funny.
Tom walked around the holo-character, inspecting every centimeter of her from head to toe and back again.
He nodded crisply.
“Computer, save revised character profile and apply to all simulations.”
The doors hissed open and then shut as Tom stalked out of the lab.
***
Because Tom was still sleeping on the sofa, he woke up when Kathryn came home from her mission. He heard her tiptoe so her boots wouldn’t click, first to the bedroom, then she backtracked to the living room.
“Tom.” Her hand was on his arm. He yanked it away.
“No,” he said.
A few minutes later he heard her crying in the sonic shower.
In the morning, he found a padd on the coffee table.
Please, her note read, let me explain. I’ll try to come home early today.
She didn’t come home early.
The next morning, the note read: I was detained unexpectedly last night. I’ve already cleared my schedule so we can talk tonight.
That night, Tom heard her come home after he had been asleep for hours. He kept his breathing even so she wouldn’t know she’d awakened him.
The note he found in the morning was: I’ll go to counseling. By myself or with you. If you still want that.
Tom made the appointment for Friday at 1500 hours and instructed Starfleet Medical to relay the time and date to Admiral Janeway’s official calendar. He would leave work early and she would have to as well. If Kathryn didn’t show up, Tom would know her priorities and he could make decisions from there. His back hurt like hell from sleeping on the sofa.
But when Tom walked into the waiting room at Starfleet Medical, Kathryn was already sitting in a chair, padd in hand. He sat as far away from her as he could, pulled a padd from one of the waiting room tables, and tried to read.
A few minutes later, a counselor emerged. She tapped Kathryn’s shoulder, then Tom’s. Tom watched the back of the counselor’s head as he and Kathryn walked side by side down a long hallway. The counselor opened a door and they followed her into a windowless room. There was a couch with two armchairs facing it.
Tom strode over to an armchair and sat.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Kathryn sit in the other armchair.
The counselor settled on the couch and introduced herself. She explained the purpose of counseling, common psychiatric methods used to help Starfleet personnel, and why counseling could be useful at any point in a Starfleet career.
Tom frowned.
“Why are you talking like we’re a couple of first-year cadets?” he demanded.
The counselor addressed him coolly. “Starfleet Medical guidelines suggest clarifying the counseling process at initial intake.”
Tom blinked.
He looked at Kathryn, really looked at her, for the first time in nearly a week.
Her uniform was pristine, her hair pinned perfectly in place. But her cheeks were sunken. Her eyes were dull. Her hands were folded in her lap, her wrist bones more prominent than Tom remembered.
“You’ve never, ever seen a Starfleet counselor?” he asked her.
Slowly, she shook her head.
Counseling could be strongly encouraged, but not ordered. Tom had seen a counselor many times over the years from his depression after Susie Crabtree dumped him his freshman year at the academy to frustration with professors or commanding officers to guilt over the accident at Caldik Prime.
Tom knew, since Kathryn joined Starfleet, her father and first fiancé had died, she’d fought hand-to-hand in trench warfare against Cardassians, and, of course, she had returned home after seven years of commanding an isolated starship through uncharted territory. He had no idea what else she had been through that could be classified.
He turned to the counselor. “Can we have a minute?”
The counselor looked to Kathryn, who nodded slightly.
The counselor stood and left the room, the door hissing closed behind her.
“You’ve been in Starfleet for twenty-five years — and you’ve been through hell more than once,” Tom said. “Why have you never seen a counselor?”
Kathryn stared at him.
Tom realized he hadn’t heard her voice in days.
“Are you here because of me, because I suggested counseling?”
With agonizing slowness, she nodded.
The anger that had filled Tom’s chest for close to a week turned into a chill. They both knew a Starfleet counselor, as a medical officer, could relieve personnel of duty. There was a real chance Kathryn was risking her ability to do her job — and she was doing it for him.
Tom’s head dropped into his hands. Minutes ticked by and he couldn’t do anything but hammock his head as if the weight inside it was too much for his body to bear.
“Moving into my freshman dorm room at Starfleet Academy was one of the worst days of my life.”
Kathryn’s voice was raspy, and Tom’s head lifted to look at her.
She continued, dull eyes fixed on him.
“My father had been working obsessively for years. The Cardassian War was coming and he was almost never home. But he’d promised he would take me for move-in day.”
Tom didn’t want to press her, but, when the silence stretched, he finally asked, “What happened?”
“Tactical conference on Vulcan. I moved in by myself.”
Mindful of what he had seen of Gretchen Janeway, Tom phrased his question carefully. “Why didn’t you ask your mom to help you?”
Kathryn’s shrug was nearly imperceptible. “I didn’t want her anymore. I was just … broken by disappointment, you know? The lie hurt worse than anything. He had said he would be there for a once-in-a-lifetime event and he chose his job over me. Again.”
Tom thought of his own move-in day. The Cardassian War had been going on for close to a decade. Owen was back on active duty after a mental breakdown that Tom, thanks to Gretchen, now knew had something to do with the Cardassians. But Owen had been by Tom’s side, jubilant and asking Julia to take holo-photos of everything. Tom had pretended to be embarrassed, but he’d actually been proud. They disappointed each other many times before and after, but move-in day was one of the best times Tom and Owen had shared.
“I’m sorry your father did that to you, Kathryn,” Tom said.
A ghost of a frown tugged at her lips.
“Tom, I did the same thing. I knew how important that birthday party was to you — being with Miral, having to see B’Elanna with her boyfriend, facing Chakotay again. I broke my promise to keep leave time sacrosanct. I hurt you and I’ve been hurting you and I don’t know how to stop hurting you because I can’t justify doing what’s right for us at the potential cost of lives I’m responsible for all over the quadrant. I don’t want to lose you, but, at this point, I really don’t know why you would stay.”
Kathryn seemed too exhausted to even cry. She sat there, motionless, her hands in her lap.
Tom could hear his mother’s voice telling him Kathryn’s problems didn’t have to be his problems.
He could feel his daughter’s arms around him, confident her father would be where he said he would be when he said he would be there. The thought of Kathryn ever disappointing Miral turned Tom’s stomach.
But he also could see Kathryn.
Her hands on her hips as she introduced herself that sunlit day in Auckland, the first step to Tom getting his life back on track.
Her jawline, illuminated by the crimson light of countless red alerts, but always, always, set on bringing her crew home.
Her fingers curled around a glass at the dingy dive where she threw back whiskeys and propositioned him.
Her legs, strong and sure, leading him on hikes, trembling in her bed, stretched out lazily as she read on the sofa.
Her auburn hair, blocking her face from his view when she dematerialized from the transport as clouds whipped past the viewports.
And now her eyes, listless and almost blank, in a counselor’s office with walls that seemed to be closing in on Tom centimeter by centimeter.