Work Text:
Boy, Uninterrupted
Tom is awoken by a kiss to his ear and a short, “good morning”.
With a grunt he disagrees, but all that earns him is an amused chuckle. A weight lifts from the bed and B'Elanna's voice hobbles further and further away, presumably to get dressed.
“Come on,” she urges from across the room. “You'll want coffee today.”
“I know,” he moans into the pillow.
“Unless you want to skip today?” she laughs suggestively, Tom already knowing she doesn't really mean it.
Tom groans as he rolls over, opening his eyes for the first time to glare at the ceiling.
“Would I ever,” he agrees whole-heartedly. “But you know Chakotay's been on my case lately, I don't think I should annoy him any more than necessary.”
“Hmm, yeah, you're probably right,” she admits, shuffling back over to give him a poke in the shoulder. “It's a big day. Have you given it any more thought? What you're going to say to him, I mean?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe think on that,” she adds. “Whilst we get coffee.”
He doesn't miss the subtle hint.
“Alright, alright, I'm up.”
“Hey,” comes a familiar voice as a flash of yellow uniform passes behind him, a hand quickly giving his shoulder a friendly squeeze of compassion. Harry Kim, his brain supplies effortlessly.
“You look nervous,” the younger man smirks, though not without a layer of genuine concern behind his expression as Tom thumbs the isolinear chip in his left hand absentmindedly.
Harry joins him, taking up the opposing couch as Tom picks up his coffee mug and reclines further into the sofa situated by the replicators in the mess hall. B'Elanna took her leave less than two minutes ago, citing an early start as her reason.
“Am I that obvious?” he asks, quirking his eyebrow over the rim of his cooling caffination, taking a sip.
“Well,” Harry's expression turns mildly sheepish. “It's not like you haven't been… vocal about your father in the past. Besides, everyone keeps an eye on the roster these days. Three people a day get to call home and you think people aren't curious?”
Tom can't help but let out a sigh, the conflicting feelings increasingly becoming more and more overwhelming as the minutes pass.
“I'm certainly not one of those people keeping an eye on that roster, Harry,” he says shaking his head.
The younger man snorts, “Yeah, you and Seven seem to be the only two who could care less.”
Before the MIDAS array and the artificial wormhole, home had seemed so far away. Like they really were seventy-two light-years from Earth and stranded in the Delta quadrant with no hope of ever seeing their families again, or at least not without a miracle. Now, everything seems far too real and close. Pasts are being dragged back out into the light, spots on people's characters reminded to them. His notwithstanding.
“I know,” he replies quietly, earning him another sympathetic look. “I just… didn't ever really think I'd talk to him again. I can't believe I'm admitting this, but I was happy knowing that he assumed I was dead. Maybe he thought I died a hero or something. It was… easier.”
Harry presses his hands together, a studious look gathering traction on his face as he appears to attempt to decipher these emotions, so foreign to the young man.
“Do you know what you want to say to him?” he asks.
Tom shakes his head in reply.
“Honestly, I've got no idea,” he twists the chip around so that the number faces him. 146. The very last one. He'd traded and traded and traded with people, putting it off for as long as possible, but there was no way of getting around it this time. The conversation was coming, no more putting it off.
“Maybe I can just. Update him. You know, I'm married now. I've got a kid on the way. What else is there to say?”
Harry rolls his eyes disapprovingly. “That's all you're gonna say? Three minutes of uninterrupted com time and you're not going to talk about you?”
“No,” he scoffs. “Why? He doesn't want to hear about me. He's never wanted to hear about me. Come on Harry, my family was never like your family. It was always rules and accomplishments with Admiral Paris.”
“But Tom,” Harry presses emphatically, practically perched on the edge of his seat as his tone gathers a firm edge to it. “You died and came back to life! Or at least in his eyes. He lost a son and maybe that's changed him, you don't know!”
“You're right, I don't know,” he grits, annoyed with the eagerness in his friend's tone. “I don't particularly want to know either!”
Harry doesn't get it, but it's not like Tom can fault him. The guy's major plus is his enthusiasm and optimistic outlook on life, he can't take that away.
“All I know is that the last thing he said to me was that I was a disappointment,” he bites, placing his empty mug on the table between them. “And I'm starting to think I should give my chip up to somebody who actually wants to talk to their family.”
Harry looks appalled at the notion but he doesn't get a chance to voice it, because Tom stands abruptly and strides out of the mess hall with the intent to get as far away from the conversation as possible.
“You're late for your duty shift, Mister Paris,” says The Doctor disapprovingly. “You were meant to be here fifteen minutes ago.”
Tom pulls a tight smile, still professional in every way that counts.
“Sorry Doc,” he apologises as he crosses through office, reaching the EMH on the other side of the medical bay. “I lost track of time.”
“Clearly,” the hologram agrees, his raised eyebrow broadcasting disapprobation as he gives his trademark side-eye. “Well, you can start by cataloguing those samples in the incubator.”
“Sure thing,” Tom nods, happy to focus on something other than the conversation with Harry from earlier, still rolling about in his brain much to his chagrin. “I'll get right on it.”
Only a moment passes before the hologram joins him in his task and the two of them work quietly for a comfortable five minutes until the small-talk subroutine B'Elanna installed makes it's appearance.
“Crew morale is at an all time high, don't you think?” says the EMH, examining a sample.
“Yeah, sure is,” Tom replies, picking up a medical tricorder to examine a sample of his own.
“Must be the messages from home,” The Doctor smiles. “Everyone's seemed in good spirits these last few weeks.
“Sure,” he agrees offhandedly.
“What about you?” The Doctor continues. “Have you had a chance to talk to anyone back home yet?”
Tom stalls, briefly wondering if somehow his conversation with Harry has made it back to the EMH's ears somehow. No, not possible. Unless of course Harry spoke with him directly? No, must be a coincidence. Not like anyone is talking about anything else these days though, he supposes.
“… B'Elanna and I spoke with her father,” he answers, hoping that'll be enough to satisfy the curious hologram. “We talked about baby names.”
“Ah. How nice,” The Doctor chuckles. “It went well? I know B'Elanna isn't exactly close to her family."
“Yeah,” he nods, a smile spreading across his features. “Yeah, I think it did. She seemed happy. If we ever make it back I think she's hoping to reconnect with him.”
“You haven't spoken to anyone from your own family yet, though?” The Doctor continues. “Siblings? Parents?”
It's an innocent enough question in itself, but Tom feels himself freeze.
“N-no,” he stutters out. “I've got the last chip. 146.”
“That's a shame,” The Doctor replies, the corners of his mouth twisting down with a compassionate empathy.
“Just rotten luck, I guess…” he lies.
“Indeed.” The hologram agrees. “Who are you planning to speak with, if you don't mind me asking?”
There's a pause, a silence that fills the space until Tom admits the name with a heavy sigh.
“Admiral Paris,” he says, dropping the tricorder onto the workstation carefully. “My father.”
“Oh, yes,” The Doctor continues without missing a beat. “I've talked to him once before, very dignified man.”
Tom snorts.
“Dignified is one way of putting it,” he mutters, catching the Doctor's curious frown and waving him off with a clipped apology.
The Doctor keeps an eye on him for a moment, but Tom is thankful when the hologram decides not to pursue the conversation any further and they lapse back into silence.
Tom's feet seem glued to carpet outside Astrometrics and the few crew members who pass him send curious and mildly worried glances in his direction. It's reassuring to know they are concerned for his well-being, at least. They are his family, after all.
Family. The word brings up such conflicting emotions within him. It's not something he's thought about in such a long time and yet here he is, moments away from contacting his estranged father and the only person on Earth who could make Tom's palms so sweaty just by thinking about them. He's honestly not even sure if the man even wants to speak with him, surely Admiral Owen Paris has better things to do than speak with a son whom he practically disowned? But before he can engage his feet to unstick from the carpet and carry him far from the Astrometrics lab, Seven emerges with Ensign Bola shortly behind her, the doors parting to make way for the pair.
Ensign Bola gives him a brief nod and an encouraging smile as she passes him, but the red rings around her eyes and the tears still clinging to her eyelashes only serve to make Tom's anxiety all the more poignant, especially when coupled with Seven's no-nonsense stare that has him practically buckling under the weight of his own anxiety.
“Your isolinear chip, Lieutenant?” she requests, unclasping her hands from behind her back to reach for the rectangular chip still clutched in his tense grasp.
“Right,” he says haltingly, handing the thing over as he follows her inside the room.
Seven makes her way to the control console on the right side of the room with a few confident strides, but Tom can only drag his unwilling feet to the center console, facing the enormous screen that will soon be filled with his father looking down upon him with a disapproving stare.
Tom's brain barely registers that Seven has said something, the blood rushing past his ears making everything tinny, and it's only when she repeats herself does he shake himself out of his stupor.
“Sorry?” he apologises.
Seven raises an eyebrow of irritation.
“Who would you like to contact, Lieutenant?”
“Oh,” he huffs, letting out a breath of tension. “My father, Admiral Owen Paris. He's the only family I've got left on Earth.” He's not completely sure why he's explaining himself to her, but for some reason it helps.
Seven, however, seems uninterested as she turns back to her console and taps away at it, “One moment.”
The screen lights up with static as the request goes through and Tom finds the lump in his throat unwilling to go down, no matter how many hard swallows he makes.
The call goes through more quickly than he'd prepared himself for, because one moment the request has gone through and the next his father's face is filling the screen.
For half a second, all they can do is stare, drinking in the sight of the other, but Tom is thankful when he doesn't have to make the first move.
“Tom.”
The tone his father emits is breathy and filled with such emotion that it nearly overwhelms him, the older man's hand coming up to touch the screen with a reverent tenderness that Tom hadn't known he was even capable of.
“Hi, Dad.” He nods back, allowing a small smile to brush across his lips. “How's Earth?”
His smile is reflected back at him when his father responds.
“Earth is just the same as she's always been,” he says, smile growing wide. “How's the Delta quadrant?”
“Oh,” he huffs out a single laugh. “You know, cold, spacey.”
There's a moment of pause before his father speaks next.
“How… are you?” he asks, a hint of concern filling his eyes.
Tom feels proud when he manages a shrug, his shoulders losing some of their tension.
“I'm good, Dad,” he answers honestly. “Really good.”
His father's concern seems to lessen at this admission.
“Good,” the old man replies. “That's good.”
“Yeah, I got some news to tell you though,” he continues, reaching his hand up to rub the back of his neck uneasily.
His father sits up straighter in his chair, unwarranted worry returning before Tom can placate it.
“Don't worry,” he adds hurriedly. “It's nothing bad. Actually, just the opposite.”
Tom holds up his left hand to the screen, making sure that the Astrometrics lights catch the gleam from the ring on it.
“I got married,” he announces, privately proud of the way he makes his father's jaw drop. It's a sight that sends a buzz of satisfaction through him. “A couple of years ago, actually.”
“Married?” the man blinks rapidly, his words coming out almost inaudibly. “To whom?”
“Her name's B'Elanna,” he smiles. “B'Elanna Torres. She's the chief engineer.”
It apparently takes a moment for his father to gather his thoughts, but the next words out his mouth are more than encouraging.
“So, when do I get to meet her?” he asks, a sparkle appearing in his eyes.
Tom stalls, his eyes darting down for a moment.
“I… just thought we should talk first,” he admits, feeling small. “You know, before…”
His father holds up a gentle hand and gives him a nod.
“I get it,” he replies. “You and I haven't spoken in such a long time.”
“I didn't want to overwhelm you,” Tom adds earnestly, making a mental note not to mention the baby until the old man has met B'Elanna herself.
“You don't have to explain yourself to me, son,” the older man continues, his brow knitting together in an indecipherable expression. “Really.”
There's another pause, this time much weightier and drawn in length, but once again, Tom is thankful not to be the first to break it.
“Tom,” his old man smiles. “I need you to know I'm proud of you.”
The words hit him like a tonne of bricks and his automatic reaction is to scoff.
“Come on, Dad, you don't have to―”
“I mean it,” he interrupts imploringly. “I am so proud of you. If you believe nothing else I say, believe that.”
“… thanks,” Tom manages to utter, his throat so tight he can barely breathe. “I… miss you.”
The old man's face lights up with joy. Were they in the same room, Tom has no doubt they'd both be in tears by now, manliness be damned.
“Oh, my boy, I miss you too,” he admits easily. “You have no idea how overjoyed I was to find out you were alive. I thought… the last thing I said to you… I never should have…”
“Hey,” Tom interjects. “It's alright. I'm fine, I'm alive. I know you didn't mean it.”
“No, you're right,” the old man agrees. “I didn't mean it. Please, forgive me. I'm so, so proud of you, my son.”
Seven's voice interrupts their conversation, alerting Tom to the thirty seconds he has left and also how wet the sides of his face have become. He can only wonder at how quickly those two and a half minutes have passed.
“We've got half a minute.” Tom says, wiping at the tears leaking from his eyes as the old man nods and does the same. “I've got so much I want to tell you, but there just isn't time.”
“I know, I know,” replies his father. “As do I.”
“I'll bring B'Elanna next time,” he hurries to include. “She wants to meet you.”
His father nods as the screen starts to flicker with space static.
“I can't wait,” he says, unbidden tears now pouring from the old man's eyes. “I love you, Tom.”
The static fills the screen and Tom isn't sure if his father hears his choked reply as the screen goes dead, the words escaping him almost as an affective response.
“I love you too, Dad.”