Disclaimer: Paramount owns all. I'm just playing.
Summary: Tom and Chakotay’s chase for the truth is interrupted by a strange accident.
~~~
Tom woke with a splitting headache. He opened his eyes carefully, glancing around him. He was lying down on a bed. No, it was too rigid and narrow for a normal bed. He was on a bio-bed. He was in some sort of medical facility. The clean, sweeping lines of the consoles definitely seemed familiar. He turned his head the other way and saw Chakotay, lying unconscious, or asleep, on the next bed. A silvery grey sheet lay draped across his chest. Tom blinked, staring at its emblazoned insignia. A Starfleet medical bay. No wonder it seemed familiar.
They’d been caught then. But was this the Starship that had been chasing them? Or was it a space station? The pain in his head seemed to be subsiding, so he pushed himself up to a sitting position. As he did so, his movement caught the attention of someone else in the sickbay. A balding man, clad in a teal Starfleet uniform, stepped into his line of vision. Tom breathed a sigh of relief and grinned at the man.
“Doc. Thank God.”
The man stared at him for a moment, as if measuring him.
“You know who I am?” he said carefully.
“Of course. You’re Doctor Zimmerman. Thinks on his feet. Champion of unorthodox medicine. Best bedside manner in the whole fleet.”
The doctor still watched Tom, a curious expression on his face.
“Alright”, he said after a pause. “Do you remember who you are?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Unfortunately?”
Tom rubbed his temples tiredly. Zimmerman moved closer to him, his face concerned.
“Are you in pain?”
Tom waved him off. “It’s just a little headache. Yes, I know who I am. My name is Thomas Eugene Paris.”
“That much is correct.”
Something in the other man’s manner seemed very odd, but Tom couldn’t place his finger on exactly what it was.
“Look”, he said, swinging his feet off the side of the bed, and pushing himself to a standing position, “I don’t know how I got here. Or how you got here. Or where here even is. But I feel okay. So how about you fill me in on what’s going on. Did they catch us? How’s Chakotay?”
“Perhaps”, the doctor hesitated, “perhaps I should let the Captain tell you.”
“The Captain? This is a starship, then?”
“Yes,” the doctor said slowly.
“Which one?”
Zimmerman frowned, shaking his head slightly. “I’m not sure you are fully recovered, Mr Paris. Whatever happened to you out there… well, I’m sure she has questions for you too. Where you got those clothes, for a start.”
Tom peered down at what he was wearing. It was his usual outfit – a pair of soft leather pants, a rumpled tunic. It was his turn to frown. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”
“Nothing’s wrong with them, if you like that sort of thing. But why are you dressed like that?”
“Dressed like what?”
The man made a pained face. “Mr Paris. Where is your uniform?”
“My…” Tom’s voice trailed away. He raised a palm to his forehead again, and began feeling his scalp for bumps. “Maybe I did hit my head harder than I thought”, he said softly.
“I’d say you did.”
“I don’t feel unwell, Doc. Why don’t you let me go and talk to the Captain.”
“I’ve already called her”, the doctor said.
Just as he finished speaking, the sickbay doors swooshed open, and a familiar woman strode in. Tom gasped.
“Kathryn?” he said. “Is this Voyager?”
Kathryn Janeway’s eyes narrowed, and she exchanged a quick glance with the doctor. He merely shook his head again.
“Tom”, she said, gesturing to the bio-bed behind him, “I think you’d better take a seat. We have a few things to talk about.”
Zimmerman hovered behind her, a worried look on his face. “I’ll monitor his heart rate”, he said.
~~~Chakotay woke to see her standing beside his bed, staring down at him. It took him a moment to realise why she looked so strange. It was the uniform. And her hair, he noted. Her hair was a little shorter than it had been last time they had spoken. It hung down to a little below her shoulders. Then there was the odd expression on her face. It was uncertainty, and something more. His mind rapidly ran through the possibilities. Had Kathryn been on the Potemkin, the Starship that was chasing them? Had she been helping them to track down the Maquis again? He quickly dismissed that option. Kathryn had no idea he was heading for DS9.
Was she visiting him then, in a secure medical bay? Were they back on DS9, perhaps in the station’s infirmary? Was he a prisoner here? He glanced quickly around the room. No, this was definitely the medical bay of a Starship. His eyes flickered back to Kathryn’s, noting that she was still merely watching him, her expression kind but guarded.
Before he could think further about it, and before she could react, his emotions took over. In one fluid motion he sat up, reaching out his palm to caress her face, and pulling it gently towards his own. Her blue eyes flashed with a strange emotion (was it something like regret?) as she covered his hand with her own, then slid it down off her face. Chakotay tried to cling to her fingers but she disentangled them, resting his hand back down on the bio-bed.
“We have a lot to talk about”, she said. Her voice was cool, somehow distant. What had happened here? he thought.
“Of course. It’s been a while. Don’t I get a hello kiss though?” He said the words lightly, not expecting the look of regret that flared again in her eyes. So, he thought quickly, perhaps she had helped Starfleet to find him after all.
“Kathryn”, he said, reaching for her hand, “whatever’s happened, we can work it out. Where am I?”
This time Kathryn didn’t move her hand away, but allowed him to rest his on top as though savouring the feel of his warm skin against her own. Before she could respond, a movement behind her caught his eye. Doctor Zimmerman had stepped into the room from a small office, and was eyeing the scene keenly. At his approach, Kathryn quickly snatched back her hand. Before Chakotay could be puzzled by her almost furtive reaction, the doctor spoke.
“I see my other patient is awake.”
Chakotay glanced around the room again as he was reminded of his companion. “Where’s Tom? Is he alright?”
“Mr Paris is fine. I believe he is enjoying the delights of the mess hall as we speak. B’Elanna is probably keeping him out of mischief.”
Chakotay stared at him in surprise. “B’Elanna is here too? How?”
At that the Doctor and Kathryn shared a glance. Chakotay knew enough about them both to recognise a meaningful reaction when he saw one.
“What is it?” he said. “What’s going on here?”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Kathryn said.
“Tom and I were flying the ship we’d stolen from the Deep Space Nine dockyard. There was a Starship, the Potemkin, I think, on our trail. We’d been playing cat and mouse with them for about a week when…” he hesitated, trying to recall the sequence of events. “There was some kind of singularity. We came upon it out of nowhere. We read high levels of chronoton particles, tried to get out of the way. But it pulled us in. The Potemkin”, he frowned, again struggling with his memory. “I think it tried to follow us in.”
Kathryn nodded as though familiar with this story.
“It did”, she said, “but something went wrong. Tom said they sustained heavy damage, and pulled back from the aperture instead.”
“I don’t remember anything after that.”
“We found your ship drifting near the singularity two days ago. You were both unconscious.”
Chakotay rubbed his forehead. “Two days?”
“You had minor internal injuries”, the doctor added, “so we wanted to let you get sufficient rest. Mr Paris got away with a bump on the head, so he’s been roaming the ship since this morning.”
Chakotay looked from one to the other. There was still something they weren’t telling him. By the look on Kathryn’s face, he could tell it was something very important.
“Where am I?” he said again. “What ship is this?”
“You’re on Voyager”, Kathryn said quietly.
“Voyager?” He wrinkled his forehead in confusion. “They gave you Voyager back?” When Kathryn didn’t respond, he went on. “Alright. How did you find us?”
“We were responding to a distress call from… from two members of our crew. We believe they were pulled into the same singularity as you. B’Elanna thinks they may have come out the other side, as it were.”
Zimmerman began to speak, but Kathryn waved him to silence with one hand. “I think I should explain this, doctor. I don’t know how good a job you did convincing Mr Paris yesterday.”
The doctor stared at her indignantly for a moment, as if about to argue, then shook his head.
“He needs more rest, but there’s no reason he can’t leave, as long as he takes things easy”, he said. “Call me again if you need me. Computer, deactivate EMH.”
Then he was gone.
Chakotay yelped in surprise as the man vanished. Kathryn reached out a hand to press it against his arm. There seemed to be something instinctive about the comforting gesture, but once again, she pulled it back quickly, as though afraid of violating his personal space.
“It’s alright”, she said quietly. “He’s a hologram.”
“A hologram? What the hell is going on here?” He peered suspiciously at the woman beside him. Despite her uniform and her haircut, she looked exactly like the Kathryn he remembered. She even smelled familiar. “Are you a hologram too?”
She smiled at that, but it was a small nervous gesture. “No”, she said. “But I’m not your Kathryn, either.”
“What?”
“I’m not the Kathryn Janeway that you know. The singularity you encountered… that we both encountered… is some kind of multidimensional portal.”
Chakotay stared at her, nonplussed.
“Tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“This is a different Voyager, you’re a different Kathryn and he”, here he gestured to the empty air where Zimmerman had been standing, “is a hologram?”
She nodded. “Our emergency medical hologram. Of course he’s much more than that now. Our own doctor was killed when we were pulled here, into the Delta Quadrant.”
Chakotay thought rapidly. A different reality. He’d heard such things were possible, of course. He remembered Voyager… the Voyager in his reality, that is… had lost several officers when the array brought it to the Delta Quadrant. But Zimmerman hadn’t been one of them. And here, the same man was a hologram? Was it only small details like this that differed in this universe? Where else did their experiences diverge? Would these small differences cause a timeline, which had been similar until then, to head in a completely different direction? He had so many questions to ask Kathryn, and couldn’t think where to start. To his annoyance, he found he wanted to ask about the two of them. Her odd reaction when he greeted her earlier seemed to suggest they weren’t as close in this reality. Did they even know each other at all? He glanced at her quickly. Her actions seemed to suggest they did. She hadn’t asked who he was. She seemed to know him, or at least to know a Chakotay.
“I have a hundred questions for you”, he said eventually.
“I thought you might. I have some for you, too.”
“I’m guessing I won’t get a hello kiss then”. The words slipped out of his mouth before he could stop them. Kathryn’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t seem angry.
“No”, she said quietly.
A sudden thought struck him. “You said ‘pulled here, into the Delta Quadrant’,” he recalled.
“Yes.”
“Then you’re… we’re still in the Delta Quadrant, only on Voyager. Not the Liberty.”
Her lack of surprise told him that Tom had already filled her in on the events of their reality.
“That’s right. We’re on Voyager, in the Delta Quadrant. We’ve been here for six years now.”
She made the last statement calmly, as if stating an everyday fact of life. Chakotay gazed at her in wonder, his mind again awhirl with questions. Six years? They’d only been in the Delta Quadrant for ten weeks, which seemed long enough. They had speculated it could have been a much longer journey if they hadn’t found the wormhole. Voyager was better equipped than the Liberty, it was true. But how had they coped with the challenges that living so far from home had thrown at them? Watching the woman who stood beside him, he also wondered what toll it had taken on the crew personally, and on its Captain. She was, he noted absently, still in uniform, as was the holographic doctor.
“Am I here?” He shook his head, feeling a strange sense of disorientation at the odd use of tenses. “I mean, do you have a Chakotay here. An alternative me?”
“Yes. He and Tom Paris were flying the shuttle that was sucked into the singularity.”
“Ah”. There seemed to be a strange kind of logic to that.
“Actually”, Kathryn went on. “You’ll find several things that are different from your experience.”
Chakotay glanced around the well-equipped sickbay, reminded of his doctor’s complaints about “primitive working conditions” on the Liberty. He also recalled a phrase from Kathryn’s farewell message to him, when she had quipped that she’d wondered what life would be like if they had been stuck on Voyager instead. He’d speculated too, but had never given it much serious thought. He eyed Kathryn’s uniform again. Did all of the crew continue to wear them, so far from Starfleet?
“So I see”, he said. “Six years…” he trailed off, shaking his head wordlessly.
“Here, you... I mean, he”, she amended, “is my first officer.” As if sensing his thoughts, she added, “He wears this uniform, too.”
Chakotay’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”
She grinned. “Tom said exactly the same thing. In the same tone.”
“Don’t tell me”, he said, rubbing his eyes tiredly, “that Tom Paris is your second officer here.”
“No. Pilot.”
“Oh spirits,” he groaned.
“Why?” she said, looking at him curiously. “Can’t your Tom fly?”
Chakotay grimaced, wondering how to explain about the young man’s insolent behaviour. “No. It’s just Tom… I can’t imagine him serving under you. To be honest, I can’t imagine me doing it either.”
Something in that seemed to amuse her. “If it’s any consolation, I said the same thing to Tom when he told me I served as first officer on your ship.”
He remembered something else then. “The doctor mentioned B’Elanna before. She’s working on your ship too? What about the other Maquis?”
“Chief engineer. The others are also crewmembers.”
Chakotay wondered at the fierce look of pride in her eyes at the mention of the young Klingon woman. Had they become friends in this reality, too? Surely six years would have brought a whole new sense of community to this stranded ship. The thought made him wonder again about his… or rather, about this Chakotay’s relationship with this Kathryn. Had they not established the same rapport, a friendship that evolved into something deeper? Or, perhaps, he thought, they had, but then something had gone wrong. Perhaps the relationship hadn’t lasted. Six years was a long time, after all. He pushed the rogue thoughts away and tried to concentrate on something more practical.
“Does B’Elanna have a theory about how to return us to where we came from? And to get your Tom and Chakotay back?”
“She’s working on it. Seven thinks we can-”
“Excuse me? Seven what?”
“Oh, of course. You wouldn’t know her. Seven of Nine.”
Chakotay stared at her once more. “A Borg designation? You have a Borg drone aboard your ship?”
“Not a drone. An individual. We freed her from the collective. She’s a crewmember now.”
“Okay.” Chakotay tried to keep his voice neutral, but wondered if he was imagining the slightly defensive tone that had crept into Kathryn’s voice. What did he think of this Borg in her reality? Had they argued about keeping her onboard? How did they manage to snare themselves a Borg drone anyway? And why? The questions flooded his mind, and with a start he realised Kathryn was still talking.
“- thinks that if we recalibrate the deflector array to emit-”
He raised his palm to forestall her explanation. “Never mind. I think I have enough to digest at the moment.”
“That’s true.” She fell silent, then seemed to come to some decision. “Speaking of digestion, are you hungry?”
His stomach growled involuntarily at her words. “I am actually.”
“It’s Thursday”, she said with a small smile. “Neelix’s food is usually edible on a Thursdays.”
“Neelix is still with you?”
“Yes.”
“Alright. Neelix’s food. A Borg. A Starfleet ship. I think I can handle all that, for a little while, anyway. You can start answering my hundred questions over lunch then.”
As they walked towards the door he instinctively started to slip his hand around hers.
“Sorry”, he said, retracting his hand, then rubbing his palms together to cover his embarrassment. “I guess that answers question one, then.”
Kathryn seemed to share his awkwardness, but masked it with a grim smile. “I can see I’ll need to have a few words with your Mr Paris.”
“Paris?”
“To see if there are ninety-nine others things he left out of his story yesterday.”
“Oh”. He grinned at that. “Well, we were only in this Quadrant for ten weeks. Surely you must have many more interesting stories to tell me.”
“Maybe its quality not quantity that counts”.
Chakotay chuckled, now more curious than before about his counterpart’s relationship with Kathryn. What could possibly, he thought, explain the curious expression of regret that kept darting across her face?
“Quality - that reminds me. Do you have leola root here?”
At the grimace on Kathryn’s face he let out a small groan.
“Don’t worry”, she said. “Not today. Besides, the doctor said you should rest. I can’t very well bring you back with a case of indigestion.”
“Now I could kiss you”, he said.
Her laughter – a sound he hadn’t realised just how much he had missed – followed them both out into the corridor.
~~~
“This is pretty comfortable. Not to mention tasteful.”
“I’m glad you like it. Our Tom helped to design it, after all. It’s one of our old resort programs. I thought it might be a bit early in the day for Sandrines, his French bar.”
“To tell the truth, it’s been a while since I’ve had access to a holodeck. That must make me easily impressed.”
Tom glanced sideways at the young Klingon woman as she chuckled. It had been quite a shock to discover that in this reality he and B’Elanna were a couple. It wasn’t that he’d never considered B’Elanna attractive. It was the stability of their relationship he found strange. Even if only half of B’Elanna’s stories were actually true, this Tom Paris had made good use of his time aboard Voyager. Apart from his holodeck adventures, that is. He’d changed himself, changed his behaviour, changed his priorities.
While B’Elanna took a break from finding out how to get their crewmen back through the anomaly, and to return Tom and Chakotay to their universe, she filled him in on what her missing partner was like. It became clear to Tom that they were talking about two completely different people. It was the strangest sensation, hearing about this person’s life. Someone who was much like him, but yet not him. A mirror Tom, someone who’d taken his messy life and managed to clean it up.
After lunch she’d brought him to the holodeck, more to get away from other people than anything else. He’d manage to cover his surprise at seeing Sam Wildman, alive and well, eating her lunch at a table with a young girl (B’Elanna had said it was her daughter). The entry of Harry Kim, however, had sent a shock wave up his spine that he couldn’t easily disguise. As the ghost of his friend waved hello at them, B’Elanna noted the look on his face, and asked what was wrong. When he told her the Harry he knew was dead, she suggested they make a quick retreat. This B’Elanna, he’d thought then, also possessed some of the hidden sensitivity he’d seen aboard the Liberty.
“I still have a little time left before I have to head back. So, remind me again”, B’Elanna said, as she stretched out on the deck chair, “you said you were in the Delta Quadrant for about two months?”
“That’s right. Quite a short trip compared to yours.”
“I’m just amazed that bucket of rust held together for so long. Didn’t you run into any Kazon sects?”
Tom winced. “More times than I’d care to remember.”
“You seem to have made it through alive.” At Tom’s guarded expression she added quickly, “Sorry. That wasn’t very tactful. Most of you, I meant.”
“It’s alright. It’s not your fault. Actually, someone called Michael Jonas killed Sam. And Harry… he was killed later on.” He hadn’t told B’Elanna about the shuttle explosion yet. It seemed too difficult to put into words at the moment. Anyway, they had plenty to talk about without bringing up the Cardassians. She appeared as eager as he was to learn about their alternative experiences. He wondered if she was merely trying to cover her own discomfort at her Tom’s absence.
“Jonas? You’re kidding?”
“You know him too?”
“Yes. He was a traitor on Voyager, but he didn’t kill anyone. Not that I know of, anyway.”
“Well”. Tom shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about that at the moment.”
B’Elanna took a sip of her drink, then rested it down on the ground beside her. “Okay. What else can we compare?”
“So, you’re the Chief Engineer of this ship.”
“Yep. Chakotay had to fight to get me there, but I haven’t let go of the engines since. Apart from that time the Kazon took over the ship.” At Tom’s chortle, she added, “I’m serious actually. But I’d rather not reminisce about that right now, either.”
“It’s funny, you know. When we were in the Delta Quadrant, Kathryn told me that she thought you would have made a fine Chief Engineer.”
“Captain Janeway always had faith in me. More than I had in myself, at times.” She gave him an odd look. “She doesn’t let us call her Kathryn though.”
Tom laughed at that. “The Maquis didn’t all have to sign up to Starfleet on your ship. On the Liberty, I mean. So the rest of the command structure seemed a little out of place.”
“Things must have been very different.”
Tom eyed her uniform. “They were.”
She followed his gaze, but didn’t comment on it. “The Captain always had faith in you, too. I mean, in my Tom Paris.” She shook her head in annoyance. “This is getting confusing. But you know what I mean. She gave you… him the chance to prove himself. And he did.”
Tom nodded silently, a little too uncomfortable with the comparison to respond.
“I guess she always brought out the best in people,” she concluded.
“She certainly brought out the best in Chakotay”, Tom said lightly. “First officer?” He laughed. “That doesn’t seem much like the Chakotay I know.”
She gave him another searching look. “Was it just my imagination, or was there something strange going on at lunchtime?”
“What do you mean?”
“Between the Captain and your Chakotay. When they were eating lunch together, there was something…” she cast her eyes around for a moment, trying to think of a way to describe it. “Something weird between them. The way they were looking at each other. The body language. It was bizarre.”
Tom shrugged. “You were the one facing them. But”, he added, “I’m sure Chakotay finds it strange being here with her. He hasn’t seen Kathryn for a while. Neither of us have.”
“Oh?”
“It’s a long story. But I know he misses her.”
There was a definite gleam in B’Elanna’s eye then. She leant towards him, her tone suspicious. “He misses her? Like a friend misses a friend? Or-”
Tom shook his head. “Or the second option.”
B’Elanna stared at him for a moment, then, to his surprise, let out a guffaw. “The little devil”, she said. Tom blinked, unsure who in the partnership she was referring to. “So, the two of them are…”
She waved her fingers in the air vaguely.
“-together? Yes,” he finished. “They were, anyhow. Kathryn’s on a mission at the moment.”
“And you two?”
“We’re on a mission too. Just a different one.”
“I don’t believe it. We’ve been stuck out here for six years, and between the two of them… nothing. You were stranded for two months and they managed to get together.”
“I suppose the situations are different”, Tom said slowly. “Did… did someone else make a move first? With Kathryn I mean.”
B’Elanna laughed shortly at that, but sobered quickly. “No. She’s quite the lone ranger here. Lonely ranger, maybe”, she said in a softer voice. “You know”, she went on more cheerfully, “earlier in the journey, we thought that something might be going on between the two of them. You, I mean my Tom, had a betting pool going on them.”
“Now you’re kidding.”
“I’m serious. He ran odds on when they’d get together. Or how. Bets dried up after the five year mark though.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure what happened. I think maybe Chakotay just stopped hoping. You didn’t though.”
“Me?”
“Tom didn’t. He was quite the scheming matchmaker.”
“That doesn’t sound like me at all.”
B’Elanna looked at him for a few seconds before responding. “I suppose he isn’t you.”
Tom bit his lip and glanced away. “No, I guess not. In a lot of ways.”
“That wasn’t meant as a criticism.”
“It’s alright. This is just very… odd.”
“Am I like B’Elanna? The B’Elanna you know?”
“That’s hard to answer, given I don’t know you very well.” He eyed her for a moment. “She doesn’t wear that uniform. Her hair’s a little shorter. I can’t imagine her wanting to start something with me.”
“It took me a while to come around to the idea.”
“Apart from those major differences, you seem similar.” He thought about the last few times he’d seen the Klingon woman. “She mixes a mean cocktail.”
“Ah… that I can do. There isn’t much call for it, here, though.”
“I think good bar skills are often underrated.”
B’Elanna laughed, then smiled at him warmly. “Don’t worry, Tom. We’ll get you back to her.”
“To B’Elanna?”
“No, to Kathryn.”
“Kathryn?” He frowned at her, confused by the shift in conversation.
“She is the one you would have liked to start something with, isn’t she?”
He shook his head, but it wasn’t a denial. “Are you a mind reader? How do you do that? B’Elanna, our B’Elanna, says things like that, too.”
“I just listen.”
“I didn’t say anything about how I feel about Kathryn.”
“Yes you did. Every time you mentioned her.”
He stared at his feet glumly for a while before responding. Was he so transparent? Or was it just B’Elanna who could, for some reason, see through him so clearly? It seemed pointless to lie about it now.
“I can’t compete with him. He’s everything she needs. Apart from the wanted criminal part, of course”, he amended. “What am I? I’m a screwed-up guy who feels inadequate even compared to alternative universe versions of myself.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Yeah?”
“Of course.”
“But it’s true.”
“Then don’t compete. Let her go.”
“Is it really that easy?”
B’Elanna shifted on her deck chair, and he could see she was thinking about some past decision, perhaps even some past lover.
“No”, she said eventually. “But it beats letting jealousy eat away at your insides, until all you have left is the bitterness.” She leaned towards him again. “If you’re anything like my Tom, you can do whatever you want.”
“B’Elanna Torres”, he said softly, “multi-dimensional motivational speaker.”
“Maybe it isn’t too early for that drink”.
“B’Elanna Torres, multi-dimensional woman of wisdom.”
She rolled her eyes. “Tom Paris. Multi-dimensional idiot.”
“If you’re going to insult me, at least let’s do it over a glass of alcohol.”
“Later tonight, if you’re still here.” B’Elanna chuckled, then stood, pulling him with her.
“Computer”, she ordered, “end program”. She grinned broadly at Tom as the resort disappeared, to be replaced by the yellow grid lines of the holodeck. “I think there’s someone I need to introduce you to before I go back to work.”
“Can’t I convince you to join me?”
B’Elanna made a face. “Seven’s minding the fort at the moment. I don’t want her to start thinking they’re her engines.”
“Seven?”
“Never mind. You’ll meet her later. Right now, I’ll leave you in Sandrine’s capable hands.”
Tom groaned. “She’s not a counselor, is she?”
B’Elanna laughed again. “Not quite. You’ll see.”
She left Tom in the holodeck, wondering why his mood seemed to have lifted, why this Voyager would have a crewmember named after a numeral, and whether there really was hope for Tom Paris in his universe after all.
~~~
end of part twenty six
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