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Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2004 18:04:33 -0400
Subject: [ASCEM-S] NEW:  Ceremony:  The Commanding Officer (VOY; J, Owen; PG-13);
  1/5
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Title:       Ceremony
Author:      Kelly [Chambliss]
Email:       rather_be_reading @ yahoo.com
Website:     http://appelsini.tripod.com/Kelly/
Series:      VOY
Codes:       Janeway and others
Rating:      PG-13
Part:        1/5
Posted:      June 22, 2004
Archive:     ASC(EM); BLTS; others please ask
Disclaimer:  All that is Trek belongs to Paramount.
Summary:     Captain Janeway gets promoted.
Warning:     Part 1 contains some violence and hints of other
              unpleasantness.




                        Starfleet Command

       requests the pleasure of your company at a ceremony

                           in honor of

                      Captain Kathryn Janeway
                           USS Voyager

               on the occasion of her promotion to

                             Admiral

                 The twenty-second of June, 2378
                          StarDate 54994
                            1100 Hours

                      Starfleet Headquarters
                          San Francisco
                             Earth


~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Part One:
The Commanding Officer

//// indicates a flashback

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He had to attend the ceremony.

He had no choice -- after all, when Starfleet had finally managed to
make contact with Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, he'd been one of the
first people to speak to the crew.  And to the captain.

So of course he was expected to attend.  People even assumed he
wanted to.  "You must be so proud, Admiral Paris," they kept
saying.  "Janeway was your protegee, wasn't she?"

He suspected that if left to herself, Kathryn wouldn't have wanted a
full-dress -- and full-media -- promotion ceremony.  But she had no
choice, either.

The story of Voyager's journey had created a stir unlike anything
since the end of the Dominion War.  People wanted Voyager's captain
and crew on public display, as if they had to be seen before anyone
could believe that their tale of hope and heroism was true.  Owen was
reminded of an old Earth myth, about a man who needed to touch the
wounds of his leader before he could believe in him.

So on the appointed day Paris sat, sweating in his dress uniform,
among dozens of officers on a platform that dominated the campus of
Starfleet Headquarters.  Despite the chair beneath his legs and the
floor beneath his feet, Owen felt adrift.  His eyes were on the
carefully-tended flowerbeds dotting the grounds, but his mind saw
only Kathryn in her admiral's uniform, her body trim in black and
grey, her new rank designated by the bands of dark red circling the
wrists of her tunic.

Of course, today was not the first time he had seen her since
Voyager's return.  After the initial debriefings, the crew and their
families had been reunited at a private reception.  Owen had shaken
hands, slapped backs, played the admiral to perfection.  When he had
finished embracing the stranger who was his son, he had turned away
quickly, only to find himself face to face with Kathryn Janeway.

He had embraced her, too, mostly to avoid having to look into her
eyes.  Her cheek had been cool against his, her hair soft.  "It's
good to see you, sir," she said, smiling at him.  Owen had moved on
quickly, rocked by a surge of queasiness.

Today, sitting on the presentation platform, he felt the nausea
return.  There were speeches and cheers and more speeches, but Owen
heard none of them, not until a single sentence pushed into his
mind:  "From the time she was an ensign, captured by Cardassians,"
the speaker was saying, "Captain Kathryn Janeway has shown a
courage. . . "

Owen's stomach lurched.

Captured by Cardassians.

That had been twenty years ago.  More.

Then, like now, he had watched Kathryn. . .



////. . .watched her as he sat on the edge of a narrow bunk in the
dim Cardassian prison cell.  He kept still, trying not to disturb her
now that she had finally fallen asleep, worn out by the long, tense
hours they had spent in the prison, at first separated, then locked
together in the dank room, just waiting. She lay there, her face
serene, looking like the child she had been not so long ago, in the
days when he would glimpse her pale, leggy form disappearing around
the corner from her father's study.  Owen smiled slightly at the
memory -- how anxious she had been not to be caught eavesdropping on
Starfleet business.  Kathryn had been Fleet-obsessed even then.

He wanted her to sleep as long as she could; the Cardassians would
come for them soon enough.  This delay was part of the plan, standard
psychological procedure for breaking captives.  It would *all* be
standard procedure, the whole looming, inevitable process.  He
thought it might be easier to take, somehow, if the cruelty were
personal or meaningful instead of what it was -- just another
indifferent move in the endless game of interplanetary politics.

He glanced at Kathryn again, and nausea rose in a wave.  The
Cardassians would. . . He should have talked to her, prepared
her. . . He was her damned commanding officer; he should be
protecting her. . .Christ, she was just a kid. . .

But she wasn't.  When Admiral Paris had met Cadet Janeway at the
Academy, she had been a child no longer.  At first her woman's body
unsettled him, but he had soon seen beyond it to her fine mind, had
become her mentor and even her surrogate father. . .that's how he
thought of her:   as a daughter. . .

He stood abruptly, moved away from the bunk.  He was pacing, trying
to quiet his churning stomach, when he heard the first scrape of the
opening door.

There were three of them:  a burly soldier who pushed Owen to his
knees, twisting his arms behind his back.  A second soldier, not much
older than Kathryn, who shoved her against the wall, held his phaser
to her head. . .

And Gul Camet, the Cardassian leader who had spoken genially to Owen
when he and Kathryn had first been captured.

"Admiral Paris," said the gul now, in the same charming tone.  "Since
I saw you last, I had an interesting conversation with your young
ensign.  I showed her one of the many inventive little devices that
we use to induce our prisoners to. . .chat with us.  But Ensign
Janeway did not seem impressed.  She said. . .now, I want to be sure
I quote you accurately, my dear. . .she said that my approach to
interrogation was 'a ridiculous method of getting information.'  Is
that correct, Ensign?"

Kathryn was silent.

"Ensign?" repeated the gul sharply.  Kathryn's guard jammed his
phaser into her neck.

"Yes."

"Ah."  Camet turned back to Owen.  "Since she disdains our modern
technology, I wonder, Admiral, if Ensign Janeway might approve of
more old-fashioned methods?"

He nodded to the soldier who held Owen's arms.

The first blow caught Paris behind the ear, sending him sprawling.
The next was a kick to the stomach, the third a thrust with the butt
of a phaser rifle.  After that, he ceased to count.

"Enough," said Camet at last.

Owen lay still, for the moment feeling nothing but the blood cooling
on his skin.  Gradually, he became aware of pain and random images --
the soldier's boots.  A dark stain on the wall.  Kathryn's wide
eyes.  The gul's smile.

"What did you think, Ensign?" Camet inquired politely.  "Personally,
I find this method a bit crude, don't you?  Perhaps we should try a
second experiment. . ."

"No!"

"Oh, don't worry," the gul chuckled.  "We'll leave your commander
alone this time."

He drew a fingertip along her cheek.

She jerked her head back, but refused to look away from him.  "I
don't know anything."

Again, Gul Camet smiled his urbane smile.  "No," he said.  "I don't
suppose you do."

He continued to smile as he led her from the room.

Owen had closed his eyes then, opening them only much later, after he
had long been alone. ////



That had been twenty years ago.  More.

Admiral Paris thought of that long-ago day as he waited for Kathryn
Janeway's promotion ceremony to end, trying to ignore his queasiness,
trying not to stare at her, at the elegant hands, at the smooth, pale
skin, so clear against the dark hues of her new uniform.

What had happened to her after Camet had taken her away, Owen never
knew. She had once tried to raise the subject, but he had pretended
not to understand.

Today, narrowing his eyes against the sun and the sight of Kathryn,
he damned her.  For surviving, for returning.  For reminding him.
For no longer letting him pretend he hadn't failed her.  Hadn't
wanted her.

And he damned himself.

Applause and cheers told him that the program had finally concluded.
Janeway was standing now, and Owen watched as she turned to greet
friends and colleagues.  He watched as she rested her hand on her
Asian lieutenant's arm, lifted an amused eyebrow at her old friend
Tuvok, spoke softly to the Borg drone.

Pushing through the crowd, Admiral Paris hurried down the steps of
the platform and into the grounds, unmindful of paths or flowerbeds,
heedless of the pale blooms crushed beneath his feet.


End Part One of Five




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