Disclaimer: Paramount Pictures owns Star Trek, Tom Paris, Kathryn Janeway, Harry Kim, Chakotay, Tuvok, Kes, Telek R'Mor, Seska, Sandrine and B'Elanna Torres. No copyright infringement is intended. The story however is mine.

Author's notes: Although I've watched Voyager off and on since its debut, I only become immersed in it since seeing Worst Case Scenario back in May. Shortly afterward, I rewatched the first half dozen or so episodes from Season One, and found myself intrigued by the premise of Eye of the Needle. I began wondering what kind of messages the crew would have sent via the Romulan commander R'Mor. If anyone else has used this idea, I'm not aware of it. Any errors in continuity or canon are mine.

Sorry it's taken me so long to post this segment. Honestly, I really feel like I should have finished a Harry letter first, and I've been working on one (well, two, actually, but that's another story), but that chatterbox Tom Paris wouldn't shut up -- he kept talking in my ear while I was trying to write Harry! Obviously, Helmboy had more to say, so I finally asked Harry to yield the floor (which he did, very politely) and this is the result.

Since this is set early in the first season, Tom still has his walls up pretty high, and isn't completely integrated into the crew yet. Oh, and as you'll see, I'm assuming Tom had a much closer relationship with the real Sandrine than he ever told Harry.

Dedicated to Perri, who gave me my first introduction to Voyager fanfic and for lighting the Parisian spark, and to Melody, Pam, Cathie, Mary, Biz and Lara for fanning the flames. Kung Pao, baby!

Special thanks to my beta readers, Anne, Janet, Patti, Jeff and Terry, without whom I couldn't have finished this...and to my dad, whose comments made me go back and rewrite the whole damn thing, or you would have seen this two months ago! In fact, I'd probably still be messing around with this, but I'd set myself a deadline of getting it out before Message in a Bottle airs. It may not happen for the rest of the series, but at least I can get this letter out!

Last but not least, I'd like to urge you all to read Anne Wasserman's Letter to an Absent Son and Margaret Berger's Closing In, two absolutely lovely, heartbreaking and lyrical pieces that got me to see Owen Paris in a whole different light. Both these stories had no small influence in my final rewrite of this letter, so here's a tip of the hat to both talented authors.

Feedback is appreciated --- I consider this a work in progress, (and may very well go back and revise the whole darn thing when it's finished). Send roses or brickbats to redshoes@ix.netcom.com.

Letters from the Delta Quadrant Part 5

by Katherine Fritz
(redshoes@ix.netcom.com)

Chere Sandrine,

Oui, c'est moi, cherie, it's Tom. I've never properly thanked you for anything, and now I have an opportunity, however brief, to let you know what happened to me and how much I appreciate what you did for me.

I'll tell you a story, one I've never told you.

Once upon a time, the idea of prison frightened me.

But then I grew up and got in trouble and went to jail.

Once in prison, I learned that there were certain rules, and if you followed those rules, prison life actually could be rather peaceful. Oh, sure, some of those rules were things that in civilian life would be considered appalling, but in prison, you just accepted them. At least if you wanted to have a halfway decent life while incarcerated.

"Halfway decent." Listen to me, making it sound like prison was some kind of picnic. Hardly that, cherie, but you don't need to hear the details.

Prison rules were actually rather egalitarian in their own way -- more so in many ways than in civilian life. Or Starfleet life, which was almost the same thing as civilian life, at least compared to prison. Part of the difference was a difference in attitude. Breaking the rules on the outside -- well, that could mean being threatened with prison. Once behind bars...well, what could they threaten you with? More prison? What was the difference, really? Verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse? Punishment from the authorities? From the prisoners? In some ways, they were all the same in prison, or at least that's how I came to see it.

All those punishments were doled out in measured fashion, sometimes harshly, sometimes not, but rarely in any manner other than the most egalitarian one. Who you were didn't exempt you from anything -- how you handled yourself, what your attitude was, pretty much defined your position in the prison food chain. Though I have to admit that I had three strikes against me going in: the Admiral's son, the disgraced Starfleet officer, the traitorous Maquis rebel. Simple labels used to mark me, define me. It wasn't easy at first, but it didn't take too long to prove I couldn't be neatly categorized. I surprised a lot of people, for good and for bad.

Outside of prison, I'd always had trouble fitting into the norms. Before New Zealand, I couldn't have explained why -- whether because of a chronic failure to live up to my father's impossibly high expectations, or plain old dogged stubbornness, laziness or rebelliousness, who knew? I was the screwup son of the Admiral, the son who'd squandered all the advantages and opportunities the legendary Paris name carried with it. Before New Zealand, I hadn't given a damn.

After New Zealand, I knew my failure had been due to fear -- a fear of failure so deep, it had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'd sabotaged myself -- the known failure -- rather than face the fear of the unknown failure that I knew, just knew was waiting out there for me.

When I was younger and still trying to please the Admiral, I always used to be able to figure out a way to play within the rules. If I messed up and he didn't notice at first, I could usually manage to fix things up enough to try again and make it right. But I screwed up so badly at Caldik Prime, I'd fallen into a hole I didn't know how to get out of. And so I drifted from job to job, and that hole got deeper and deeper. By the time I joined the Maquis -- talk about your spectacular failures -- I was spiraling in like a pilot who'd lost his nav controls...and crash-landed my butt in the penal colony at Auckland.

Even a character as optimistic as good ol' Tommy Paris -- and make no mistake, I've always been an optimist, despite my certainty that it was only a matter of time before I sabotaged myself again -- knew he'd gone about as low as he could go. Hey, I may have been a screwup, but I'm not stupid. No. That's my father still talking. He's the one who kept telling me I was a screwup. My mistake was believing him.

OK, so maybe that doesn't exactly sound like an optimist talking. Before Caldik Prime, I would have called myself an optimist, and I think I am one now. I guess it was in prison that my optimism finally turned to despair.

So there I was, a convicted felon, learning to play by a different set of rules, learning how to cope with a whole different life. Hating it. Accepting it. Loathing myself. And then one day, Captain Janeway showed up, and showed me another alternative. I would have kissed her feet if I'd thought it would have helped, but she had other ideas. "Come with me," she said. "Help me find your former Maquis colleagues." Well. As if I knew much of anything -- I'd been caught on my first mission, after all, just a few weeks after I'd joined up. But at that point, I'd have done just about anything to get out of prison, even pretend I knew something I didn't, even turn against my ever-so-brief colleagues. OK, so life in prison wasn't as peaceful as all that. Sorry, cherie, sometimes I still try to paint things in a better light than they really are. Huh. I guess that defines optimism in a way, doesn't it?

But life wasn't through handing me a few more lemons. And now here I am, stuck in the Delta Quadrant, millions of miles from anyone who has ever hurt me, has helped to hurt me, or simply has not helped me find my way.

I realize the incongruity of it all, and know that some of my shipmates might find it hard to forgive me for feeling, for the first time in my life, content. Content to be stuck thousands of light-years from home, content to have the chance to fly a pilot's dream ship...content to be out of prison.

As Captain Janeway's "personal reclamation project" -- as Commander Chakotay sometimes likes to call me -- I think I've finally figured out how to confront my demons.

Unfortunately, it also means that once again I'm frightened of prison.

Why that is, I'm not sure -- Because I don't want to face that dark side of myself again? Because I'm afraid I won't have the strength to pull myself up out of the muck again? -- But, like everything else in life, I'll just have to face that fear, and try to learn from it. I've figured out that much anyway. Lord knows, you spent enough time trying to knock it through my thick skull, cherie, that only a fool never learns from his mistakes. Thanks for that. Sorry it took so long for the lesson to sink in.

And, contrary to popular belief, I am not a slave to my hormones. Maybe before I met you, cherie, and, OK, so I backslid awhile there, before I started thinking straight again, but not anymore. Oh, definitely not anymore! God, I hope not anymore...

I think back to those carefree days when I first met you, and shudder to think about how naive I was, and how callow. Callow and callous. Suzy Crabtree had dumped me the year before, and I'd finally started getting over it -- by going out with every woman I could get to pay attention to me. I figured if I could make her jealous, I could prove she'd made a mistake by leaving me. Pretty juvenile, sure, but I didn't know any better.

It's a wonder you didn't throw me out on my ear. What did you see in me that you thought was worth cultivating, I wonder? What made you take me into your bed, teach me about what it really means to love a woman, to give her pleasure? And how much pleasure could be derived from such generosity, such kindness of spirit? You must have had some sophisticated sensor array to see something in me worth salvaging. Is there a bigger jerk than an Academy cadet, full of himself and convinced he knows everything? That was me, in a nutshell, wasn't it?

No matter. For that semester of my Academy career, you were my haven. There were those who thought it was just an excuse for more drinking and gambling and carousing and womanizing, but we know better, don't we, cherie? Certainly, there was a lot of all that going on -- well, except for the womanizing -- but I was learning more than how to do bank shots from your pool sharks and whiskey shots from that other guy whose name I've mercifully forgotten. The one who threatened to beat me for taking you away from him, you know the one.

Sometimes I think it's too bad that I couldn't have hung around Chez Sandrine for the rest of my life. Certainly I wouldn't have ended up here -- 76,000 light years away in the Delta Quadrant. But like all the best things in life, it had to come to an end sometime. Probably it was better than if you had tired of your Thomas and sent him on his way. I graduated from the Academy, got posted to the Exeter, and for awhile there it looked like life might settle into a comfortable routine, away from my father, away from all those expectations, his and mine.

Unfortunately, such a life was simply not to be. Guess we all have to face it sometimes, that life is never what we expect. It was just a little more bizarre in my case. Well, I won't bore you with the details of the accident at Caldik Prime. It was all over the news anyway -- I'm sure you must know every last tidbit about my court-martial. How my father publicly disowned me. Oh, yeah, and when I got arrested for trafficking with the Maquis -- my trial for treason. You never could resist the newsvids, I'm sure you saw it all. Ah, cherie! I'm sorry I didn't get to see you or talk to you then, explain a little. I could have used a friendly face.

I'll just say this: yes, the accident was my fault. Why did I cover it up? Oh, lord, I really don't know anymore. Because I was an idiot. Because I panicked. All I could think of was: My father's going to kill me. Afterward, when it finally hit home what I'd done, what I'd hidden from everyone -- that the accident was my fault, due to pilot error, my error -- they had all patted me on the head and said, "Bad luck, Tommy, old boy, could happen to anyone." I just wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere. All I could think was "Not to me! It can't happen to me!" Only it did, of course, and I'd screwed up -- twice -- and I couldn't live with myself. Maybe for the first mistake, the one that crashed the shuttle -- but never for the second, never for the second, for the lie. Even if my father did kill me. And it had nothing to do with thinking I'd blackened the family name. I just knew that I didn't want to live behind a lie. I couldn't handle having that on my conscience.

My father told me he was ashamed of himself for "raising a son with so little sense of morality or basic judgement." You know, I don't think he could have said anything else that would have hurt so much. Damn. It's been nearly five years, and the pain still cuts to the bone. I wanted to shout at him: "If I had no conscience, would I have confessed? All I had to do was keep my mouth shut, and nobody would ever have known." But I didn't shout, I didn't answer him. This time, I did shut my mouth. Stood there ramrod straight, like a cadet on parade, and took it. Ground my teeth till I thought they'd turn to powder. Listened to his deprecations, his insults, till he ran out of breath, ran out of things to say. And I left. And didn't look back.

I knew there would be consequences. I thought they'd put a black mark in my fitness report, bust me back to ensign, suspend me from flight status. I didn't think they'd court-martial me, that I'd be thrown out of Starfleet. Were they harder on me because I was a Paris? Did my father have anything to do with it? Maybe. I still don't know the answer. Probably never will. But you know, even knowing the worst, I still would have confessed. Even though I couldn't make him understand, even though it could have been so much easier not to tell the truth, to say that there was no pilot error, that it wasn't my fault.

Sometimes I wonder where I'd be if I hadn't panicked. Not here, that's for sure. But I couldn't live with that lie on my conscience. I just couldn't.

The Maquis thing? Just a convenient excuse to throw the book at me, the failed Starfleet officer. Yeah, so I was running blockades, smuggling medicine and supplies. Treason? Brother, not hardly. It was a show trial as much as anything else. Don't sign up for a Maquis dance card and expect leniency, not even for an Admiral's son -- that was the lesson, I think. And I'd hardly have called myself committed to the cause -- the Maquis were just the only ones who were willing to let me fly again. And I had to fly. It was all I had left.

Anyway, by that time, I was pretty much just an accident waiting to happen. All those hard-earned lessons from life, from my father, from the Academy, from you -- I'd thrown 'em all out the window at that point. I was depressed. I was bitter. No friends, no family. Lots of women, lots of drinking. Anything to make the pain recede, if only for a little while. I didn't care if I got myself killed.

Actually, now that I think about it, getting caught was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. If I hadn't been arrested and convicted, I'd probably be dead now. And I've learned that I don't want to be dead. There was a life out there for me -- I didn't know it -- but now I've found it, and I wouldn't give it up for anything.

Captain Janeway didn't like me at first, when she got me out of Auckland. If our mission had gone as planned, no doubt I'd be back in prison. Or maybe her help at my outmate review would've gotten me paroled, like she seemed to think. In either case, I don't think I'd have changed much. No one seemed to believe in me anymore, least of all myself.

Instead, we got thrown to the other end of the galaxy, and I got a real second chance. Captain Janeway turned out to be a lot more open-minded than I'd given her credit for when we first met. I thought she was just another one of my father's tight-assed officer-clones. Shows what I know. I guess I shouldn't trust those first impressions. She isn't that at all, though she's tough as nails and I would never, never in a million years, want to cross her. She's tough -- and she's fair. She's assigned me to Conn, and given me my commission back, and made it clear that she expects nothing less than my best. And I give it to her. Freely. I'd feel like I was defacing those shiny pips she gave me if I didn't. And that would make me feel like a heel of the first order.

Funny when I think about it -- I'd jump through hoops of fire for Janeway if she'd ever ask -- and she would never ask unless she was going to jump through those hoops with me. And she learned at my father's elbow, first at the Academy, and then on the Al-Batani. Someday maybe I'll talk to her about him, find out what it is about him that she admires so. Someday.

This is not to say I've gotten over it all, the bitterness and anger that had twisted me while I was in the Maquis and in prison. It took me the longest time to realize that my anger toward my father had blinded me to everything else about him, good, bad or indifferent. What was at the root of it, I've discovered, is this: I was afraid he was right about me. Right about my imperfections. Right that I needed to work harder. Right about my not being good enough "to be a Paris."

In so many ways, we're nothing alike. I couldn't imagine in a million years, for instance, that my father could have made it through Auckland, like I did, especially after his having been held and tortured by the Cardassians. It's not surprising he changed after that -- for the worse, in my opinion -- but while some people are the tougher for such experience, I think somehow it made my father more...fragile. That won't help you a bit in prison. To get through prison, you need a little creativity, a lot of adaptability, survivor's instincts, sheer stubbornness and luck. Didn't think I had any of that except the stubbornness, but surprise, surprise. No wonder I never got very far trying to work a death wish.

Oh, and pride, you have to have very little pride. My father has too much pride. Me? Sometimes I have too much, sometimes not enough. Before Caldik Prime, I had too much. When I was in prison, I had none.

But now -- after all this time, after everything that's happened, and as much as I hate to admit it -- I'm finally having to face the fact that, in many ways, I've turned out exactly like him. I'm just as stubborn, impatient and judgmental as he ever was. For good or ill, I am my father's son. Imperfect. Needing to work harder. But, dammit, I am good enough to be a Paris.

And I know this now, too: I am my own man. (Do I sound like I'm tooting my own horn? Ah, cherie, that shouldn't surprise you -- I'm a pilot, after all.) I don't need my father's approval to make my own decisions, my own mistakes, my own successes. And I can live with them, and myself.

Almost. Almost. Because...cherie, I've written him something very cruel -- I've told him I hope I never see him again, which surely must be the cruelest thing a child can tell a parent. But I can't find it in my heart now to say anything else. Maybe it's turnabout -- for his having disowned me at my court-martial, probably the cruelest thing a parent can do to a child -- so it's my own bitter piece of revenge. I've forgiven him, mostly, and I don't hate him anymore, not really. Ah, cherie, I guess now I have too much pride. It's just that anger, still eating away at me. The anger I carry for still wanting to please him after all this time. After all this hurt. The anger I hope someday to purge. Too much pride, cherie.

I'm starting to settle in here at last, I think, make friends, find my place in this little world. It's a strange feeling, but very nice. Harry Kim -- you'd like Harry. Green as I was when I first met you, but nowhere near as arrogant. He's a good kid. I like him. Not least because he was the first person on this ship to offer me friendship, freely and with no strings attached. Harry is...a true idealist. I cherish that in him. I hope it lasts for a long time. Being friends with Harry is a lot like having a little brother, in a way. God, he'd hate to hear me say that, though! He wants to be more like me. Perish the thought, Harry! I'm doing my level best to steer him right. I've never had to be a damn role model before. Who'd have thought I'd ever be one?

Kes and Neelix, our Delta Quadrant odd couple. We picked them up at the Ocampa homeworld. Neelix is a Talaxian, and he's one of those annoying guys you can't shake off, who you end up tolerating because you know you've gotta work together, and he's got something you need, and then one day you realize you've actually become friends. He can't cook worth a damn, but his heart's in the right place. Kes is his...girlfriend? Lover? Who's to say? They're a couple, very definitely a couple, but so mismatched it's almost laughable. He really adores her, though, and she, him. Kes is an Ocampan -- they only have a 9-year lifespan, and she's already 1-1/2. Unless we find a wormhole or something, you'll never get to meet her, I'm afraid -- she'll be dead long before we get near the Alpha Quadrant. She's very pretty, very curious, enthusiastic about learning -- she wants to know everything. I like her a lot, and I'd like to get to know her better -- strictly as a friend, mind you! -- but I'm not sure I like the looks Neelix has been giving me. I guess I need to get to know Neelix a little better, too, then I can explain to him that I would never step over that line. I have my principles. I do! Stop laughing, cherie!

I think I probably ought to stick with the other women on board this ship anyway. Some of the Starfleet types don't want to give me the time of day, though -- and the Maquis women don't know what to make of me at all. God, I love being the man of mystery! Ha ha. I'm kidding. Well, maybe only a little.

For now, I'm trying to keep my nose clean, prove myself to Captain Janeway and Commander Chakotay. I wish he'd cut me a break. You'd think he would, after I saved his life on Ocampa. What a tight ass. We never got along when I was in the Maquis, either. I guess he must have thought, since he left Starfleet on principle and I got thrown out, that he had nothing to say to me, no reason to think I had any honor of my own. Janeway seems to trust him, though, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. For now, anyway. But unless I can figure out what it takes to get his respect, I think one of these days, we'll have to have it out. Something about him reminds me of my father -- maybe that's the problem. Makes me shudder to think about it. Guess I'm not as grownup as I'm pretending to be.

The one person I think I find most fascinating is B'Elanna Torres. She's an Academy dropout, and was one of the Maquis, and now she's our Chief Engineer. I'm not sure what it is about her exactly. She certainly shows no interest in me! She's half-Klingon, half-human, and beautiful and smart and feisty as all hell. She and Harry have become good friends, and since Harry and I hang out a lot together, I've gotten to know her a little. She reminds me of me, somehow. A little bit. I guess because of the way she holds people at arm's length, trying to keep them from getting too close. (Yes, I know I do that. It's a good way to keep from getting hurt, cherie!) Except Harry. Maybe because of the time they spent together on Ocampa, when the Caretaker was experimenting with their DNA matrices, whatever -- they've developed a very amiable friendship. I'm a little envious, sometimes. I wonder if she'll ever look at me like that...oh, hell, where did THAT come from? Getting involved with B'Elanna is probably not the wisest thing I've ever thought about. I don't think she'd take anything like that casually or lightly, and...well, I can't say that's a step I'm ready to take anytime soon. Besides, if Harry ever gets over his Alpha Quadrant girlfriend, I think B'Elanna's going to be right there for him.

But what do I know, really? My track record with romance isn't exactly stellar, and I've proven to myself over and over that I'm not always the best judge of character. Listen to me, there's that insecurity talking again. God, I've really got a lot to learn yet.

Ah, cherie. Would that you were here with me, to offer me advice, in that cool, smooth way of yours. You'd tell me what I ought to do. You always did that, and sometimes I think I can still hear you talking to me. I've been working on a holodeck program of Sandrine's, my little gift to this crew. You're in it, of course! If I can't be in Marseilles, I'll just bring Marseilles to the Delta Quadrant. It isn't quite the same, but it helps a little.

One of these days I plan to show up again on your doorstep. Maybe you won't recognize me -- maybe I'll have a beard and have lost all my hair. Ha ha. Imagine that. You won't care. You'll sweep toward me in that casual way of yours, throw your arms around my neck and say, "Thomas! What took you so long?" I can hardly wait. I'll have so much to tell you.

Je t'adore toujours,
Tom

End Part 5

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