Fan Fiction
TITLE: Dear Dad
AUTHOR: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
RATING: PG
CODES: J/P, C/T, AU
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Paramount owns the characters and the general situation, though they probably didn't anticipate this particular use of same. This story originally appeared in THE FLIGHT LOG 25 (n/l for Robbie McNeill fan club RanDoM Flight), and was edited by Marianna Genakos.
SUMMARY: On the day of his wedding to Kathryn, Tom writes a letter to his father.
Dear Dad,
Well, I guess you'd say I really went and did it this time.
I'm getting married today, Dad. Can you believe it - me getting married? I almost can't believe it myself. And what I really can't believe is that she'd even have me. She's only the most incredible woman I know, and she's agreed to marry *me*? I better move quick before she changes her mind.
Actually, you know her too, Dad. I think you even kind of liked her. Well, as much as you liked anyone. Do you remember Kathryn Janeway? Yeah, that's right: *Captain* Kathryn Janeway. My captain.
The more I think about it, the more I think it's probably a good thing that you won't actually find out about our wedding until it's way too late for you to do anything about it. You'd probably try to talk her out of it. No, that's wrong. You wouldn't try to talk her out of it; you'd *order* her to break the engagement. Tell her she has to go back to her quarters and live the rest of her life -- or at least the rest of this mission, which might just amount to the same thing -- alone, like a good little captain. Tell her she can't touch. Tell her she can't love. Tell her she can't laugh.
Do you have any idea how much you did to cripple her, you and all the other idiots at Starfleet Headquarters and that crap you taught her about command isolation? She's a beautiful, vibrant, passionate woman, and she was ready to die on the vine sooner than break those precious unwritten rules of yours. Well, I didn't let her.
I can see you snorting now, wanting to know where a reprobate like me gets my nerve. How could I even think of a starship captain as an eligible woman?
Well, I could say that living with you taught me that starship captains weren't little plaster saints. And I guess that's part of it. But it wasn't the first part. The first time I thought of Kathryn as a woman -- let's face it, the first time I thought of her as a human being -- was the night she hustled me at pool.
Oh, she suckered me completely. She pretended she didn't know anything about the game at all. Even called the cue a "stick." I decided to go easy on her; I figured it would be bad policy to make the captain look bad, especially on a long mission where I wasn't going to get a chance to transfer away. So I smiled politely, and bowed her to the table, and --
She shellacked me. Of course. I probably should have seen it coming, but somehow it never occurred to me that a starship captain would hustle a game. I mean, *you* wouldn't have. And then I looked at her, smiling with the crew, and it occurred to me that there were a few other ways she wasn't much like you, either. I couldn't even imagine you coming down to my little holodeck Sandrine's, much less kidding with the crew.
Well, she joined us for a few more pool nights, and I always made a point of challenging her. No more pretending to take it easy on her, either. I tried to give as good as I got, and we traded off victories for a while. When I got my nerve up � real person or not, pretty woman or not, she *was* still my captain �
I even flirted with her, a little bit. Well, why not? I can't say I honestly expected to get anywhere with her. She just oozed class, and I never got much of anywhere with classy women, unless there was a really stupid husband or boyfriend hanging around to not appreciate them, which was definitely not the case here. But she didn't seem to mind the attention. I thought it amused her. At least, it made her smile sometimes, and you know, I liked her smile.
Then she stopped coming to Sandrine's.
That was early in our second year, not too long after we almost lost our first officer, Chakotay, to some stupid Kazon rite-of-passage. That made our chief engineer, B'Elanna Torres, decide she'd waited long enough to get some kind of commitment from him. Right after we recovered him, she marched into Sickbay and proposed. My sickbay contact told me he goggled � but he accepted. (I can't blame him for either reaction; B'Elanna is quite a woman. If I'd been braver back in the Maquis, I might have gone after her myself. But even then, she and Chakotay were a major item.) And of course Kathryn had to perform the ceremony. It was our first wedding on Voyager.
Oh, she said all the right words, and she made all the appropriate expressions of joy. And I knew that on some level she really *was* happy for them. She knew them both pretty well by that time, and everybody could see how much they belonged together. But to me she seemed a little withdrawn, a little depressed. Even when I danced with her � oh, don't let your eyes bug out, Dad, it was a party and half the officers there danced with her � she was too quiet. I tried to flirt with her, and she didn't even deflect me. It was like she didn't hear me.
So when she stopped coming to Sandrine's right after that, I got a little worried. I didn't think she really cared one way or the other about Chak being taken out of circulation -- near as I could tell, there was never any interest there -- so I wondered what was bothering her. Of course, I saw her a lot on the job, too, but that didn't make me feel any better about her. She was just as smart a captain as ever, and just as efficient, but she hardly ever told stories on the bridge any more, and it seemed like she never made jokes.
Chakotay and B'Elanna were too caught up in newlywed bliss to pick up on anything like subtle emotional cues from the captain, and Tuvok wasn't cut out to catch stuff like that. Much as I like Harry, he was just too young, and the Doc didn't have enough emotional experience. Kes might have picked up on
something � she was real perceptive � but I think Kathryn was avoiding her. So nobody seemed to notice but me, and I didn't have any idea what the problem was or what I should do. I worried about her. I missed her smile.
A couple months later, I decided to go down to the holodeck one night when I couldn't sleep. Well, it turned out both the decks were in use, but somebody was running Sandrine's on one of them. Since that's my program, nobody's ever objected if I walked in on it. So I did. And I found her there, shooting pool all by herself.
She looked up, but not right at me. "Oh," she said. "Tom. I suppose you want to use the program." She moved to leave.
It had been so long since I'd seen her there, I didn't want to see her go. "We can both use it," I offered. "I'd rather have some live competition anyway."
Her eyes met mine, and they were flat, like she was hiding something. "I don't think that would be a good idea," she said. Her voice was flat too. And she went to walk past me.
You know what, Dad? I don't know where I got my nerve, either. But I reached out and put a hand on her arm, and she stopped. "Why not?" I said.
"Tom �" she said, and broke off. And she looked sad, so sad.
I didn't know what it meant, but something in that look, and something in her voice, made my heart do a weird little twist in my chest. "Why not?" I said again. (I honestly couldn't think of anything else to say.)
"It's not - appropriate," she said simply, and made one more attempt to leave.
I let her go that time. But I didn't play any pool, and I didn't get much sleep the rest of the night, either. I was thinking about what she said. "Not appropriate"? What in the world - any world - did that mean? Why would playing pool with me not be appropriate? And did it have anything to do with why she'd gotten so sad and withdrawn since Chakotay and B'Elanna got married?
Then, at about 0400, I heard you in my head, reciting one of your famous Starfleet-issue speeches about command isolation. "The higher, the fewer," all that crap. And it hit me: she'd gotten sad and withdrawn after Chakotay and B'Elanna got married because she knew she'd never be able to make that choice, not as long as we were on Voyager. If she thought it was "inappropriate" for her to play pool with me, it might mean one of two things. One, that she didn't think it would be appropriate to make friends with me. Two, that she was afraid that if we spent enough time together, she might be tempted to make me more than a friend. Which she could never do as long as, and so on.
Well, she had other friends on the ship, like Tuvok and maybe even Chakotay. And she hadn't seemed so worried about making friends with me before. So, did that mean --?
I remembered the look in her eyes, there in Sandrine's, and I thought maybe it did. The thought made my heart do that weird little twist again.
I asked the computer to flag me the next time she used Sandrine's. Normally it won't tell you what other people are using, but Sandrine's is *my* program, after all.
A couple weeks after that, I got the signal one night at about 0130. I got dressed and went down to the holodeck.
And there she was, all by herself, lining up a shot. She was in her uniform -- I don't think I'd ever seen her out of uniform back then -- but somehow she didn't look like a captain, just that minute. She looked lonely.
I didn't so much want to protect her. Even I'm not macho enough to presume like that, not with a woman like Kathryn Janeway. But I wanted to help her. I wanted to hold her. And it looked to me like she would be just the right size to fit into my arms...
Then she noticed me watching her. "Tom," she said quietly. And she moved to leave. Again.
I put up a hand to stop her. "What did you mean?" I said. She looked confused, so I said, "About it not being appropriate. You and me playing pool."
She got a stubborn expression on her face. "It wouldn't."
"Why not? We played pool together before, and it didn't bother you then." I was brave enough to take a few steps closer. "And it didn't bother anybody else, either. What's the difference now?"
"It's different," she said. The tone told me to back off.
But I didn't. "How?"
"I don't have to explain myself to you, Mister Paris."
*Mister Paris.* Ooh, *that* sounded cold. Putting me in my place and all that. I guess it should've scared me off. But you know what, Dad? I guess you spent so much time putting me in my place that I just got used to hearing stuff like that. I took a few more steps closer. "No, you don't," I said, deliberately meeting her eyes. She has wonderful eyes, big and dark blue like a clear lake. But right then they kind of reminded me of a wild animal's eyes, looking back and forth like she was trying to find a way to escape. "You don't have to tell me anything," I told her. I kept my voice real gentle like I was trying to calm that wild animal down, which was just about how I felt then. "But I wish you would." I took another step. "Kathryn."
She almost jumped. As far as I knew, nobody'd called her "Kathryn" since we came into the Delta Quadrant. (Unless maybe Tuvok did, but coming from him it wouldn't sound any more personal than "Captain.") But she looked me in the eyes. "Don't, Tom," she said, real soft.
"Don't be afraid of me, Kathryn," I answered her, just as soft. I was close to her then, so close I could have reached out and touched her. But I didn't.
"I'm not afraid of you, Tom," she said. She was still looking right at me, but her voice wasn't as strong as it could've been.
"Good," I said. I probably should've backed off then, and said, "Then let's play pool," or something else lame like that. It would've been safer. But I guess you were right about me, Dad. Sometimes I'm reckless.
So I didn't say anything else. I just took her hand.
Nobody said anything for a minute, nobody moved, nobody breathed....And then she turned her hand in mine, and gripped it. She still didn't look away, but her eyes got bright. And oh God, I wanted to kiss her, more than I've ever wanted to kiss anybody, but even I'm not reckless enough to push that hard that soon. So I settled for a peck on the cheek - but you know, there was more of my heart in that peck on the cheek than I put in a lot of, well, more intimate stuff. When I pulled back, her lips were kind of trembly, and her eyes...there was definitely something softer there.
I never figured on what happened next.
She took a deep breath, and she squared her shoulders. Then she put her hand on my shoulder, leaned up, and kissed *my* cheek.
I was stunned. Then she squeezed my shoulder, and her voice sounded almost normal when she said, "Let's play some pool, Tom."
My mouth was dry. "I'd like that � Kathryn."
It was probably the worst game of pool I've ever played. And you know what? She didn't play so well, either.
Well, that wasn't as-they-say "that," but I guess you could call it a start. The months after that, we played some more pool, and I introduced her to a few of my other vices, too. (No, not the ones you're thinking of, Dad. I know better than to rush a lady.) Some of the 20th-century stuff she wasn't too crazy about, but she really liked the amusement parks. Still does. You should see her eyes sparkle when she's riding in the front car of a roller coaster....I won her a big stuffed dog once, at one of the carnie booths, for knocking over some milk jugs. Then she won me a big panda bear, for putting three darts in the middle of a painted apple. She looked at me with this sly guess-you're-not-so-smart look in her eyes, and we both laughed. And that was the first time I really kissed her.
Later I blew some replicator rations to recreate the animals. We still have them.
Geez, look at the time! I'm gonna be late to my own wedding if I don't wrap this up soon. But then, you always did say I was gonna be. Late to my own wedding, I mean. Or was that my funeral? (I never did get why that was a bad thing, Dad. I mean, who'd want to be early for their *funeral*?) Whichever. Anyway, like I said before, I don't want to give her time to change her mind. You'd probably say, to come to her senses.
I'm not going to tell you that it's always been easy. After all, she's still the captain, and I'm still her subordinate. She tries so hard not to show any signs of favoritism on the bridge that sometimes I feel downright picked on. (I even *volunteered* for some shifts in Sickbay, can you believe it?) And I'm on my best behavior as much as I can be, so hopefully nobody will feel like I'm trying to get away with stuff because I'm with her. Not that she'd stop Chakotay or Tuvok from disciplining me, but I guess that could get pretty awkward.
But things aren't too bad. And it's definitely worth it. I mean, she's definitely worth it.
Well, now I really have to finish getting ready. Harry's going to be ringing my door chime off the wall in a few minutes. And we'll get to the mess hall and there she'll be, in her dress uniform, with her lips trembling and her eyes sparkling, waiting for me....I can't wait to see her. She's going to be gorgeous. We'll send you holographs when we get in range.
I hope she's smiling. I know I will be.
And hey, Dad, look on the bright side. You probably think I'm corrupting Kathryn. But isn't it just as likely she's reforming me? Like we say around here, anything is possible in the Delta Quadrant.
Gotta go, Dad. See you around.
Your son,
Tom
