My son is alive. It sounds strange to say those words. For the last three years I have been telling myself the exact opposite. I never thought I’d gotten used to it, but I guess some of it must have sunk in, because now I can’t believe he’s alive.

I had the call today from Starfleet, telling me that the Voyager had been pulled into the Delta Quadrant with the Maquis ship, and that Thomas was still on board.

Tom, I should say, but I don’t think I’ll get used to that again, not after the thousands of memorial services and messages of condolences. ‘I was very sorry to hear about the loss of your son Thomas.’ I heard that so often I got used to thinking of him as that. I suppose I’m going to go through it all again now: ‘I was very glad to hear about the gain of your son Thomas…’ I really should just insist that they call him Tom.

They haven’t told me much about what was going on out there it’s still being sorted out and declassified even while I’m saying this. The fact that the EMH was the one-- Well there’s no need to go into all that: I know what happened and it’s in all the logs so I’m not likely to forget it either. All that matters is that the information did get through.

And Tom’s alive.

I just wish I knew more about how he is. Safe, I’m sure, as long as Kathryn Janeway’s running that ship, and she’ll be running that ship as long as Tuvok’s alive and able. But how *is* he? Is he still sulking in self-pity, determined that everyone despises him? When they do get back, will he still refuse to talk to me? Still telling me it’s my own fault for not talking to him that day he admitted what he’d done? Not that he’d be wrong-

After over ten years wavering between ‘I should have talked to him’ and ‘How the hell did he expect me to react?’ I still haven’t decided which one I believe. There’ve even been days I wished he’d never been born. Not many of them, I’m not that bad a father. Not quite. Hell.

Of course I know the real answer. Logically. In my mind, not my heart. I’m not claiming I was always there for him. What parent is? Kids aren’t the sweet things you see on school demo nights, and don’t get me started on teenagers. There were days when all I wanted to do was lock myself in my office and forget about him. But I think I managed to avoid doing that too often. He kept in touch - seemed friendly enough, visited home enough, looked suitably happy when I visited him - all through the Academy and his first assignments. And I know when he’s putting on a face - I saw that face often enough after Caldik Prime. Until he got as sick of it as I was and just told me to leave him alone.

I still blame myself for that. If I hadn’t frozen when I heard his admission… If I’d talked to him, told him it didn’t matter, I loved him, I was proud he’d admitted it… And then I blame him. If the idiot hadn’t lied in the first place… If he’d listened to me, instead of telling himself that I hated him for ‘dishonouring the family name’…

Which I probably did, a bit. Maybe even said it in one of those damn arguments we got into, one of those ones where you can’t remember what you said an hour after you said it, let alone a decade after. But you remember what the other guy said, no problem.

Hell, why am I talking about this? Ancient history. Been there, written it up, talked it over with counselors galore all two of them, that is. I even thought I had it out of my head, until Starfleet called and told me. Tom’s alive. I can’t get used to it, or what it means.

Probably because I don’t *know* what it means. They’re sixty thousand light years away. I can write him a letter, but what does that tell him? And if they don’t find a wormhole or a miracle pretty soon, I’ll likely be dead before they get back. And that’s if they’re not attacked by the Borg, and we’re not conquered by the Dominion, and no other unprecedented disaster comes along to destroy us all.

But then there’s the possibility they come back tomorrow. Or next year - it’s close enough in those terms. What’s he going to say to me? What am I going to say to him? Will he even let us talk?

It’s not like I’m even happy. I’m supposed to be. Maybe I am. I just don’t feel like it. It’s like… Like he’s a piece of me that got hacked out. If he’s dead, there’s no problem, I just heal. It’ll take a while, hurt for a while, but I’ve been through that, I can do it. But for him to be alive, but sixty thousand light-years away, it means I can’t heal, I have to keep the wound open to fit him back in when I get him back. Whenever that is.

I can’t believe I’m debating whether or not I should be happy about my son being alive. I love him. I remember how glad I was to hear about the mission he was being offered. Even if it would get him a day less in prison, even if it would make him feel for a minute like he was needed. Wanted. Even if he never spoke to me again, and never got back his career. If he got a second’s worth of happiness from that mission, it was worth it. Instead it got him seventy thousand light-years away, on a ship where half the crew hates him for Caldik Prime, and the other half hates him for betraying them to the Federation.

And there’s not a thing I can do about it. I’m stuck back here, reading reports about the political situation on the Cardassian border-- Apparently they’ve told Voyager they’re going to do what we can to get them back. There’s a joke: we’re busy building as many Defiant class starships as possible and then some, desperately trying to stave off a Dominion attack that we’re told is inevitable; the Voyager is halfway across the galaxy, and they say we’re going to rescue it.

If Kathryn Janeway believes that for more than a second… Mind you, I believed it for about two seconds. How the hell do they think we’re going to spend the resources for a rescue mission? Voyager’s on its own, and everyone knows it. We might as well never have found out.

The more I think about it, the more that last sentence makes sense. We can’t do anything, after all. All it’s done is opened old wounds. But we know they’re alive. Thomas-Tom is alive. I haven’t figured out what that means yet, but I guess it means something. I guess it means I have to wait for them to get back and then figure out how to convince him I love him. Or I can try writing him a letter, try to convince him in that that I love him. How much I want to know he’s okay.

Perfect, isn’t it? I hate waiting, and I hate trying to convince him of something he doesn’t believe. I’ve succeeded once or twice, but it’s a tiring job, usually best left to others. And by correspondence? What am I supposed to say to him?

But he’s hardly going to think a great deal of me if I don’t even bother sending one. And what am I supposed to say anyway? ‘Hi, Tom, I hope you are well. I am well…’ I just know I’ll phrase it wrong and blow every chance I ever had. Hell, if he walked in the door now I’d freeze and end up telling him to wipe his shoes or comb his hair!

Hell, I’m going to try and get some sleep.

End log