Sign In Sign-Up

Welcome!

Close

Would you like to make this site your homepage? It's fast and easy...

Yes, Please make this my home page!

No Thanks

  Don't show this to me again.

Close

Kathryn Janeway shook a stray strand of hay off the bottom of her skirt and made a full 360 degree appraisal of the Fair Haven market square, seeing familiarity wherever she turned. The fragrance of Maggie O'Halloran's nearby flower stall reached out to flood her lungs and imbue her brain with a sense of relaxed pleasure. Midday sun blazed from a stunningly blue sky, and somewhere she could hear the faint buzzing of a bee, mostly drowned out by a mixed bird chorus and a few low human voices. For the time of day, there was a remarkable lack of activity in the streets, but given the heat, that was understandable. She imagined that most of the townsfolk had taken the opportunity to shut up shop and go down to the coast, where at least there would be a cool breeze coming off the ocean. If she headed that way, no doubt she would find the fields bustling with people and a festive atmosphere prevailing.

Her path took her past the town's railway station, also devoid of activity. There was one lone figure sitting on a bench and as she came parallel with the main station building she saw that it was Tom Paris, looking down at something in his hands, apparently deep in contemplation. Curious, she changed trajectory and approached him.

He was using a pen and paper notebook - not quite old-fashioned enough for the time period in which Fair Haven was purportedly set, but considerably less out of place than a padd would have been. The notebook was covered with a combination of diagrams, mathematical notations, symbols and writing, in the neat, flowing script of someone possessing extreme manual dexterity. The complexity of it surprised her, not least because she couldn't understand it herself and she was an accomplished scientist whereas Paris was… well, he'd never claimed to be an intellectual.

Her presence by the bench finally impinged itself into his consciousness, and he looked up and managed a nod and a very preoccupied half-smile.

"Planning a trip to Dublin?" he murmured, before returning his attention to his notations.

"How far would I get before the program ran out?"

"About a mile past the headland."

She took another look around, enjoying the way that everything within eyesight seemed sparkling and bright. "Nice day for a train ride, though."

He looked up again, assessing her briefly. "You'd roast in that outfit."

He had a point. The heavy cotton dress with copious white petticoats underneath had not been designed for near tropical heat. Sweat was beading around her neck and starting to trickle further down inside the punishing whalebone structure of the corset. In contrast, he had abandoned the waistcoat he normally wore in the program and was sitting in a loose cotton shirt, untucked over equally loose cotton pants, which looked much more in keeping with late 20^th century American popular culture than 19^th century Ireland.

Paris added a couple more complicated notations to the bottom of his current page. "If you'd allowed me to reset the perceptual filters, you could've sat around in your petticoat and no one would even notice."

There was something about the tone of his voice, and the way he said the word 'allowed' that rang a little warning bell in her head. It piqued her interest, and she searched for an indirect way to probe further.

"Working the old fashioned way?" she asked.

"It helps to focus my thoughts," he replied, distantly, his thoughts obviously still focussed elsewhere.

She remembered she'd once made the same claim about log keeping to Chakotay. A vision of completing her log entries while lounging in the wildflower meadow at the top of the hill near Castle O'Dell came to mind, and she decided that she'd maybe follow up on the impulse later on. For now, her helmsman was being particularly enigmatic and she wanted to know why.

"So what are you doing at the station?" she asked him, taking the bench seat next to him.

"Staying clear of Harry."

Long moments of silence made it clear he wasn't going to elaborate.

"Why are you avoiding Harry?" she persisted.

"Chapter 41."

"Chap…" it took her a moment to work out what he was talking about. "Are you two still on that Captain Proton thing?"

"You make it sound like a viral infection."

His tone was mild, but it was clearly a pointed rebuke, and that in itself was unusual for Tom. There was definitely something wrong. Maybe he'd been getting grief from B'Elanna again and had retreated to avoid her disparaging tongue. B'Elanna, she knew, found Proton more than pointless - it had been a source of tension between them for some time. She phrased her next question with more care.

"Have you had a falling out with B'Elanna?"

"No more than usual." His tone discouraged further questioning along that line. Before she could think of an appropriate response to his remark, he continued, "I promised Harry the next chapter two days ago, but sometimes it's tough to keep up. Just thinking that stuff up takes time."

"Why are you still working on Captain Proton when you have Fair Haven?"

"What, I can't do more than one thing at a time? Do you really have such a low opinion of my attention span, Captain?"

She frowned, unable to unravel the intention behind the remark. With Tom's sense of humour, sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between flippant and edgy.

"What does Proton have that Fair Haven doesn't?" she asked, remembering the monochrome, over-mechanised, over-exaggerated sterility of the former and comparing it to the incredibly lifelike natural environment in which she now sat.

"Lava, evil queens, monsters - It's much more variable. Nothing ever really changes in Fair Haven."

"Wasn't that the point?"

"I guess."

"But you don't like it that way…?"

"It's pretty enough, and relaxing, and for most people that seems to be enough." It was a concession, not an acceptance.

"But not for you?" she probed.

He looked up from his work at last, his face slightly creased with a thoughtful frown.

"The holodeck has got to be one of the best tools for entertainment that we've ever invented. I just don't see the point of having it and then not using it."

"But we do use it."

"Not the way we could. We've lost something since the twentieth century, some - spark of creativity. Maybe it's because we have it so easy, we're so spoon-fed with our culture it blunts something inside us. You wanna go walk on the beach? Go turn the holodeck on, there'll be a program that will give you any beach you want. A couple of commands, and you're there. It doesn't take any effort any more. I guess, when I realised that other people wanted something different out of Fair Haven than I did, I got disappointed. I WANT to be able to do things people can't really do. It's FUN. But other people don't like it. They want their entertainment safe and predictable. I don't get that."

"Because the rest of our lives isn't safe or predictable?"

He turned back to his notebook. "Maybe." His tone wasn't exactly dismissive but he made it clear that his opinion of the crew's attitude towards the holodeck was less than heart-warming.

She frowned, perplexed. "I don’t understand why you wrote it if that's the way you feel."

"Creating it was the challenge. Being in it, isn't. I guess if it hadn't been for all the trouble we'd had with it, I'd have lost interest ages ago. It is a nice place to work, though," he conceded. This, she agreed with wholeheartedly as a gentle breeze played with her hair and cooled the sweat on her face just enough to make the heat feel pleasant.

His tone became more conversational, as if he had been expecting her to react a certain way to what he had said, and had relaxed slightly when she didn't. "Every time I've made a program, I've done it with someone else in the back of my mind. Sandrines started off kind of being for Harry, and so is Proton, really."

"It is?" That surprised her. He was always so enthusiastic when he was working on a new program, and his exploits as Captain Proton had been a source of shipwide amusement for nearly two years now. "I thought Proton was your childhood fantasy."

The edge was immediately back in his voice. "You can say it, Captain, everyone else does. Proton was my childish fantasy. Or 'infantile' is the description that seems to have stuck." He imitated a female member of the crew she couldn't quite place; "'All that lantern-jawed heroism, really, Tom, isn't it just a bit - distasteful? What do you see in it?'" His voice acquired a snap that was quite unusual for him. "I'm getting pretty tired of having to live down to other people's mundanity."

She opted for a soothing and conciliatory response. "I didn't imply it was childish at all. I thought it was part of a sociological study - that seems like a very worthwhile pastime."

"Everything always has to be worthwhile, doesn't it."

Nothing she could say seemed to satisfy him today. He seemed determined to interpret everything she said in the worst possible light. She wondered if it was actually wise to continue pushing him when the vibes he was giving off made it plain he'd rather be by himself.

"I didn’t do it to be worthwhile. I didn't do it for self-improvement. I did it because I wanted to have fun, and I wanted Harry to have fun. He was going nuts in that void so I talked him into getting involved. And it reminds him that it's just a holodeck - Fair Haven's too lifelike for that. He was getting way too serious about Maggie O'Halloran. He's way too serious about everything."

She had to concede that point. "I think he might have been - if he hadn't had your influence."

"My bad influence?"

"Oh, you really are trying to pick a fight, aren’t you?" She kicked herself as soon as the words were out of her mouth. By the time an officer got to command rank they were generally pretty good at picking the right attitude for the right situation; management skills were after all an integral part of a captain's job, but there was something about Tom Paris when he was being deliberately obtuse that brought out a kneejerk reaction in the most solid of Starfleet officers. It wasn't as if Paris was oblivious to the effect he had on people, either.

He raised an eyebrow, halfway between challenge and surprise.

"With my captain? I don't think so."

"I am off duty."

"Captains are never off duty. I learned my childhood lessons well. I know how it is. The crunch comes when everyone else is expected to never be off duty as well."

Was this, she wondered, what was eating him? "Is that what you think I expect?"

"You, Tuvok, B'Elanna. Even Harry's starting to think that way. The crew can't sustain on-duty performance twenty-four, seven. It's not good for them."

"I agree. Which is why Fair Haven is so valuable." She tried to keep the abrupt tone out of her voice, but the accusation stung. So did the implication that a mere helmsman might know what was better for her crew than she did. 

They fell into a silence that wasn't quite companionable. She was about to get up and move on, leaving him to his mood, when a movement out of the corner of her eye in the road behind the station caught her attention. She turned her head and felt a sense of the surreal wash over her. She couldn't be seeing… No, it was the heat, she'd started hallucinating…

A reptilian creature the approximate size of the Delta Flyer, with four stubby, scaly legs, furled wings over its back and a very long pointed tail was meandering through the streets of Fair Haven, stopping every now and then to sniff at something or peer into a window. Its hide glittered bronze and olive in the sunshine. She watched, frozen motionless in shock, until the creature disappeared round a corner.

She became aware that her mouth was hanging open and shut it.

"Tom."

He didn't answer, being re-engrossed in his notations. She wasn't sure if he actually hadn't seen it or was just pretending he hadn't.

"Tom!" she nudged him hard, and he looked up with an expression so perfectly innocent she couldn't tell if it was faked.

She indicated in the approximate direction of the market square. "A large dragon just walked down the main street!"

He shrugged. "It's a free country, Captain." His tone was mild and reasonable. Way too mild and reasonable.

"What's it doing in Fair Haven?"

"Enjoying the sunshine?"

Now she knew he was deliberately trying to deflect her and pressed home her advantage. "Is there something you feel you ought to be telling me?"

"There's no problem really, Captain." His emphasis on the word 'Captain' was almost imperceptible but it was there. "I was working on my new program a few days ago and merged some subroutines by accident into the live program. I've been working round the clock to clean it up, but haven't finished yet."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I've had enough people on my back about this."

So, he wasn't quite as laid back about it as he seemed.

"How do the good people of Fair Haven feel?" The moment the challenge was out of her mouth, she knew she had touched a nerve. Something that might have been anger sparked briefly in his eyes.

"They don't feel anything, Captain. They're not real." It was an odd reaction from Tom. Edgy, defensive, definitely annoyed. She had touched yet another exposed nerve - there seemed to be a whole lot of them today.

"I get the impression I'm missing something here."

"Isn't everybody?"

"Tom…"

He closed his notebook with a snap and slapped it down on the bench beside him. His eyes showed the kind of smouldering fury she had very rarely seen in Tom Paris, and she realised she'd pushed him too far with her curiosity.

The dam was about to burst.

"It was my playground, Captain. My toy, and that's all it was, until everyone else got involved. So I turned Maggie O'Halloran into a cow. So what? She's a plaything, for heaven's sake! A construct of light and forcefields, held together by a few computer subprograms, she's not real. But suddenly she's a wounded victim and I'm an evil monster. Suddenly I'm in the wrong, and I've got to shut up and play nice with the other kids, and it's their rules I have to play by, not mine. Suddenly it's 'we' should do this and 'we' should do that, and I'm getting orders about how to change or adapt or not change my own creation. Or worse, somebody slips in behind my back and changes it for me."

She knew he was talking about her adjustment of Michael O'Sullivan, but she didn't say anything. She didn't get the opportunity, as he was in full flow and only stopped for the briefest of breaths.

"Big chunks of that program were written in baseline. You can't just delete random bits out of it without tearing great holes in the whole web! I was the one who got blamed for it going wrong but it went back much further than that. The perceptual filters started to degrade the minute someone snuck into the lab and started messing about with my carefully constructed character set. But I'm still the one who gets the blame for it. I mean - if you wanted something changed why didn't you just ask me?"

Her reaction was out of her mouth before she could stop it, embarrassed and defensive. "That was none of your business, Ensign."

And that was the wrong thing to say, as became immediately apparent. He was not in the mood for deference and her attempt to slap him down only made the fire burn brighter.

"None of my business? I made that program in my own free time. I made it, not Harry, or B'Elanna or anyone else. A few hundred years ago, I would have had intellectual property. There would have been no doubt it was mine, and that would have meant something. But in Starfleet, nothing is yours. Everything is for the good of everyone. Your superior officer pronounces, and you do what you're told."

She was shaken by the depth of the resentment that sparked in his eyes.

"My entire life doesn't belong to Starfleet, and it doesn't belong to you."

It took her a few moments to put herself into the right mindset to deal with his anger. She kicked herself for her previous comment, as it had lived up to his obviously negative opinion. He deserved to be listened to calmly. It was all too easy to take that tone with Paris, to snap him back into line rather than think about whether what he was saying actually had any relevance. The problem was, Tom Paris could hit awfully close to home when he chose.

"If you felt like this, why didn't you say something?" she asked.

"Because I would have been told to shut up and get on with it. Isn't that the way things work? I'm normally invited to 'check that attitude at the door'." He stared at her with an angry, stubborn set to his jaw. She couldn't remember ever seeing him in such a mercurial mood.

She had used that phrase with him before and with hindsight she supposed that it wasn't exactly motivational. She remembered Tom's own father Owen Paris using the same phrase on her once, and how it had made her feel. She wondered if the young Tom had received that kind of treatment at home when he was growing up and wasn't all that surprised that he might be a bit sensitive about it. The trouble was, Tom hid his feelings so well most of the time that when an outburst came, it usually caught her completely off guard. Her first reaction wasn't always the most appropriate. But she didn't quite know how to respond to this Tom Paris - found herself unable to predict how he would react to anything she might say. It was as if she was talking to a stranger. She wrestled to phrase an appropriate response, but long, awkward seconds passed between them before she found what she hoped were the right words.

"Tom, we're not on duty. I'd hate to think you felt you couldn't say what you thought to me."

"On duty, off duty, what difference does it make?" He seemed determined not to accept her platitudes.

She forced herself to keep calm. Reacting like a 'captain' would only reinforce his opinions. She felt annoyed that he was being unreceptive though. "Even a captain cares if the people under her command are unhappy," she persisted.

"You haven't exactly been receptive when I've dared to show I have feelings. You know, I think I've figured out why the Fair Haven characters are so real to you. Maybe it's because you don't consider real people to have any more feelings than the holodeck characters. Maybe we only have feelings when its convenient for you to indulge them, and the rest of the time, we're just as re-programmable as Michael O'Halloran."

Whack. Right between the eyes. Paris's emotional aim was deadly. And painful.

"Ouch." She said it out loud to, as Seven would say, defuse a tense situation with humour. "I hear what you're saying, but sometimes I have to ignore people's feelings. The ship has to come first."

"When have I ever done anything on duty to make you think I don't understand that?"

She had to concede that. She couldn't remember a single time she'd seen him lose his cool on the bridge. He could be relaxed and informal, but nothing got in the way of him getting the job done. "Never," she told him. "But this isn't about duty, is it? Tom, you were brought up in a Starfleet family. You understand - deeply - what it actually means to be an officer. You can switch it on and off; most people can't. We've obviously stepped on your feelings about Fair Haven without realising it. It's just that…sometimes it's difficult to remember that it's your program because it's so damned good."

He snorted, not yet ready to be mollified. "Yeah. The Starfleet syndrome again. You can't have brains unless it's obvious that you spend your entire life thinking profound thoughts. Starfleet's new religion is science. Imagination; that's a dirty word. The person who can paint a beautiful landscape or make a chocolate fudge cake everyone lines up to eat - they're just not important. And yes, sometimes it gets to me, and I know it gets to Neelix too. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to put up with the rolling eyes of someone who thinks they're superior to me because they're a 'scientist' and I'm not. Sure, they'll take what I have to give them, and enjoy it. But I'm not considered clever for being able to do it. I'm just a dumb pilot."

"You think I think you're dumb?"

"You treat me as if I am."

"I do?" That did shock her. She'd had no idea at all that she'd given him that impression.

"Yes." His response was flat and emphatic. "Are you really trying to tell me you don't realise it?"

"I've never meant to imply that you're stupid, Tom. You're very far from stupid. But you are different from anybody else on board, you know. You come at things from a different angle."

"That's my point. So I think differently. What does it get me? Indulgent smiles and exasperated head shakes. It gets me a girlfriend dismissive of my leisure activities who thinks I should be trailing along after her handing her hydrospanners because obviously that's all I'm good for!" He paused for breath and some of the fire died from his eyes. He had all but exhausted the bright spark of his temper and was calming down again. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm a bit sheepish about the mess I made and I'm in kindof a bad mood. B'Elanna's been on my back about missing an evening with her to sort out the program. Tuvok was supercilious and obnoxious, Chakotay took teasing a step too far and the Doctor… well, the Doctor was unbearable today, going on about his 'flock'. He gets too caught up in it and I'm the one who catches the fallout. I'm just a seething mass of resentment at the moment. I'll get over it."

Well. She seemed to have uncovered a positive snake pit of shipboard inter-relationships that she'd had no idea about, no idea at all. One of the problems that went with being captain was that you didn't always hear things people thought you shouldn't be exposed to. But if Chakotay had thought there was a problem, she was sure he would have brought it to her attention, so it seemed that possibly she wasn't the only person who had been running roughshod over Paris's feelings without being aware of it.

It seemed as if damage control was required first and foremost. "It sounds as if you have some justification."

He shook his head, depracating his own weakness. "I shouldn't be sounding off to you."

"It doesn't sound as if there are many other people you can sound off to."

He managed a small wry smile. "People have been kind of - unreceptive - when it comes to Fair Haven." The smile faded yet again. "You included. It was you who refused to turn off the program. I don't particularly enjoy being tied to a chair for several hours having incantations and threats tossed at me."

She tried to imagine the events of the Fair Haven witch hunt from his point of view, and realised that even ignoring the potential danger, it probably hadn't been all that amusing.

"Is that another issue between us?" she asked.

He refused to meet her eyes, "Rumour was, you wouldn't do it because of Michael. It's kind of depressing to be prioritised below a computer subroutine."

"Is that why you think I handled that situation the way I did? That's just not true, and you should know better than to listen to rumours on this ship." She could have kicked herself. She'd forgotten what Paris was like when she'd first met him, what a low self-image and what little self-confidence he'd had. Obviously, she'd pushed an old button, and the old feelings had come back to bite him. She should have spoken to him about it, but she hadn't, mostly because she'd been too embarrassed about the situation herself. "Killing the program would have destroyed everything, all of your work. I didn't think you'd want that. I didn't initially think you were in any danger. B'Elanna was standing by to kill the program, but when the Doctor got merged with it, that wasn't an option any more. Not except in the last resort. We had to find another way to resolve the situation."

He thought that through and accepted it with a nod.

She put out her hand and persuaded him to turn his head towards her so he could see she was trying to be friendly and humorous. "I didn't think you'd particularly appreciate being Chief Medical Officer for the next couple of decades."

He managed a small smile and warmth started to creep back into his eyes. His temper had cooled with its usual suddenness. Tom never bore grudges. The ship was lucky that he had such an easy going personality, and so was she. She made a stern note to herself to try not to take him for granted in the future, and to make sure certain other people got the same message

She patted his knee. "Please believe me, Tom, I've never intended to belittle you or your accomplishments. I'm not creative the way you are, and it's obvious that I don't really understand how you feel about your creations. It's obvious I've missed that you've been feeling taken for granted, and I'm sorry."

He struggled for a second with his reply, hesitant and obviously awkward bringing up the subject. "I just wished you'd asked me. I mean, I know why you didn't but… you know I made this for you."

It must have cost him a lot to make that admission out loud, and she didn't want him to think she didn't appreciate the gesture. "I think I was always aware of that. Who else would you invent a little Irish village for?"

"I would have changed anything you wanted, no questions asked. But I hated that it was just taken for granted that the whole thing was public property and anyone could do what they wanted to it."

"It's your program Tom, if you want to re-write it, or reset the characters' memory and perceptual sub routines, or even if you want to get rid of a certain bartender, you have a perfect right to do so. I'll admit I've enjoyed having Micheal to talk to, but I can happily live without him. I shouldn't have changed anything without consulting you first. I'll try to remember in future."

This time, his smile was much more genuine and relief washed over her. She could feel that the air had cleared between them. She sat back, prepared to enjoy the sun for a few more minutes in his company, when she remembered just what had sparked all this off.

"So - what are you going to do about the townsfolk's perceptual subroutines, after this little incident?" she asked.

"Nothing." He didn't sound at all concerned.

"They are nineteenth century Irish Christians," Janeway persisted, careful this time not to give the impression she was criticising. "I would have thought they wouldn't have been all that flexible about mythical creatures."

"Some of the cultural subroutines got mixed up too." Tom shrugged again. "They're not quite as easily alarmed as they were. Lucky for me, really. Anyway, after the Dwarf invasion, I don't think there's all that much that surprises them anymore."

"Dwarf invasion," she repeated, feeling a little brainlocked, trying to picture it and failing horribly.

He laughed, "you should have seen Maggie O'Halloran. Broomstick in one hand and an old iron skillet in the other. Scary. If I was a dwarf, I wouldn't have gone anywhere near her."

She craned her neck and looked around, peering across the road to the houses beyond, expecting to see wizened little bearded faces peeping out of every window. "If I were to ask where the dwarves were now, would I regret it?"

"Dragon ate them."

It was so blindingly obvious, once he'd said it. "Of course it did! what was I thinking?"

"It ate Mossie Donnegan's talking pig too. I promised him a new pony as compensation, but I'd better wait until I get it out of town. Dragons are particularly fond of ponies. You'd be surprised how much research I had to do and how much literature there is on a dragon's gastronomic habits."

At that moment Seven appeared to their right, and stood by the bench, looking down at Paris. She had made no concessions at all to the local dress code and obviously cared not one whit about the present state of the program's perceptual filters.

"Aren't you hot in that?" asked Paris.

"Heat is irrelevant. Your 'pet' has regurgitated what appears to be semi-digested dwarf over Maggie O'Halloran's flower stall. She is looking for you."

Paris grimaced. "Does she have the skillet?"

"I believe so." Seven looked, if not actually pleased, then certainly amused.

He stood up, decisively. "Well, I guess it's time this boy got out of Dodge."

"You are going to leave a large, hungry carnivorous reptile free to menace this town?" Seven asked, raising a supercilious Borg-enhanced eyebrow.

"It's not a reptile. It's a dragon. And it's only a baby."

Both women stared at him. Janeway was sure Seven was thinking the same thing she was. Paris looked from one to the other and didn't need to be told.

"It's parents were in completely different subroutines! There's no chance they're in Fair Haven!"

"I suppose that is one thing we should be grateful for," Janeway suggested to Seven, whose perfect mouth twitched upwards slightly in subtle amusement.

"I guess that puts me in loco parentis," Paris sighed. "I'm gonna have to go sort it out. Kids. What can you do?"

His teasing sense of humour was back and it lightened Janeway's spirit considerably. She rose to her own feet, and the movement reminded her forcefully about the uncomfortable state of her own attire. The corset had ridden up slightly while she was seated and now felt like it was suffocating her. Impatiently, she tugged at the tight bodice and skirt and discarded them, leaving just layers of white petticoat which felt cool and light but still covered the essentials. She felt immediately better.

Paris raised an amused eyebrow in an almost exact imitation of Seven's mannerism. "Am I to think of this as a symbolic shedding of the shackles of command?"

She didn’t get the opportunity for a witty answer as at that moment one of the pub regulars whose name she didn't know came running up the platform, his huge belly bouncing with the unaccustomed effort. "Tom! Tommy me boy!" He reached the small group of Voyager crew and stood, panting and wheezing. "That wee beastie of yours is after me best Connemara pony, up by Castle O Dell!"

Tom grimaced. "I'd better hurry. I can't afford any more replacement ponies, my 'inheritance' wouldn't stand it."

This promised to be too entertaining to miss. "Could you use a hand?" she asked.

He looked, or pretended to look, sceptical. "I don't know - do you know anything about dragons?"

She cocked her head to one side and pretended to think about it for a moment, "Well, I worked for your father."

He didn't miss a beat, "you're hired."

Employment negotiations complete, Paris handed his notebook to Seven and unbuttoned the next couple of buttons on his shirt, preparing for a long, hot climb. "Let's get up to Castle O'Dell before Junior finds the unicorns. Or Maggie finds me."

End