Ad Infinitum
Part Two: Past Progressive
Disclaimer: Star Trek and its characters are the property of Viacom/Paramount/CBS, and I am just borrowing them for fun, not profit.
Synopsis: Set during various periods of time post-"Endgame." Canon-consistent (though, as it deals with time travel, may not seem so – keep reading, and it'll make sense). Rated PG-13 for some frank discussions of sexuality.
In Part One, Miral Paris and Andrew Kim entered Starfleet Academy and began dating, to the chagrin of their parents. After three years together, Miral and Andrew headed off for summer internships at different ends of the quadrant and found themselves breaking up. The beginning of their last year at the Academy brought about a reconciliation. Faced with the end of the tenure as cadets and the possibility that their first duty assignments would once again scatter them around the galaxy, they became engaged. Miral's parents, now adjusted to the idea of the couple, welcomed friends and family to their San Francisco home to celebrate, but the festivities were interrupted when Q2 appeared, announcing, to everyone's confusion, that he was the reason Andrew existed.
Part Two begins in the past, exploring what happened between "Endgame" and Part One as Harry Kim tries to understand how exactly he acquired a son.
Pairings: P/T, K/f, J/C, others.
Notes: Voyager Relaunch, Pathways, and Mosaic are not canon. (For that matter, I don't consider "The Fight" canon, but that's neither here nor there.)
Language Note: Klingon expressions were translated using several different sources. I have not provided the English translations here, as the meaning should be more or less evident from context.
Chapter 1: Earth, San Francisco, Residence of Admiral Owen Paris, 2382
"Are you sure about this, Har?" Tom asked. "They're only cute for the first five hours or so, and then they become impossible."
Harry grinned. "You don't mean that. Besides, I spent all night with Naomi Wildman when she was a baby. And with Miral when we were in quarantine on Mariana Two."
"And did you get any sleep?"
"No." Harry grinned again, looking at Tom. "Come on, Libby and I really want to do this. We want to practice for when we have one of our own. Don't you trust us?"
"Of course I do. Help me pack up the ten kilos of supplies you're going to need."
When at last they had the necessary bags packed, Tom and Harry went into the living room to rejoin B'Elanna, Libby, and the girls. Miral was looking at a padd on the floor. B'Elanna, on the couch, was sipping a glass of wine while she watched Libby holding a sleeping L'Naan against her chest. Tom wondered how B'Elanna could handle someone else taking charge of their daughters with such ease when he was feeling so apprehensive. He tried to focus on the fact that Harry was a trustworthy friend and reminded himself of the advantages of having a child-free night with his wife.
"Libs, you ready?" Harry asked.
She nodded. "So what are you two going to do tonight?" Tom and B'Elanna exchanged a slight glance, and B'Elanna took a slow sip of wine as her lips curved into a smile. "Never mind."
Harry knelt down next to Miral. "Hey, munchkin, you ready to go?" Like Tom, Harry had developed a habit of calling her by her nickname.
She looked up at her surrogate uncle. "Where?"
"You're going to spend the weekend at our house. Sound like fun?"
Miral frowned slightly, processing. Clearly she wasn't sure if it would in fact be fun or not.
"Miral," Libby said, hoping to tip the scales in their favor, "I'll teach you how to make those cookies you like."
"Easy on the sugar if you want her to go to sleep tonight," B'Elanna warned.
"And tomorrow we can go to Libby's museum," Harry added.
"Can we go to your work?" Miral asked eagerly.
Without looking behind him at Tom, Harry knew he was bristling. The first time Tom had taken Miral in a shuttle, she said she wanted to be a pilot, but after her first visit to Harry's house she had become completely absorbed in emulating him and Libby. It disappointed Tom, Harry knew, though it was silly – she was only four, after all. There was still plenty of time for her to decide her father was her hero.
"Sure," Harry pledged. "We can do anything you want. We're going to have fun all weekend."
"This is nice," B'Elanna commented as she and Tom snuggled on the sofa in the tranquility of the now-empty house.
"Pretty good luck my parents were gone this week, huh? It wouldn't have been the same otherwise."
"Pretty good luck that Harry and Libby wanted to baby-sit." She took one of Tom's hands in her own and caressed his long fingers.
"They have no idea what they're in for."
"No idea," she agreed. "But they can call us if they run into any trouble, and in the meantime you and I get some peace." She let go of his hand, and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to his chest. "Tell me about that program you and Powell have been running."
Tom smiled. She didn't care about it, he knew, but it was nice to have a wife who not only let him spend hours on the holodeck indulging his fantasies with her assistant engineer but who also patiently listened while he recalled the details for her. He described the scenario involving him and Powell as masked superheroes for a minute until he could feel her start to fidget out of boredom. "You never finished telling me about the showdown with Ensign Briggs," he murmured as he leaned down to kiss her neck just below her ear.
B'Elanna craned her neck back to look at him. "You remember that?" He nodded. "Impressive. That was three weeks ago."
"I listen when you speak."
"I know you do. You know what? I'm not really angry about it anymore, but I think I'm going to have her transferred to beta shift anyway. She causes too much trouble on duty." She shrugged. "Let's not talk about work."
"Okay, what do you want to talk about?"
B'Elanna twisted in his arms and kissed him deeply. It wasn't difficult for Tom to understand that she didn't really want to talk at all.
"When was the last time we had a whole night alone together?" Tom asked.
B'Elanna lifted her head slightly from his chest to look up at him. "I think it was before L'Naan was born."
"Really? That long?" Tom lazily traced up and down her spine with a finger. "We should get some more friends then, so we can have more free baby-sitting. I almost forgot how much I like being alone with you."
"Is that a compliment or an insult?"
"Definitely a compliment," Tom said wisely, and she settled back down on his chest. "Before L'Naan was born? Oh, yes, the night we took Chakotay to that American Indian opera."
"I forgot about that," B'Elanna admitted. "But that was actually quite a fun night, if memory serves. And the next morning was pretty fun, too."
Tom gave a little laugh and wrapped his arms more tightly around her. "Were you thinking about the time we celebrated our anniversary on the beach?" He felt B'Elanna nod. "That was when we decided to have another baby, wasn't it?" he asked, his voice soft. She nodded again. He took a moment to consider what he was about to say and decided to chance it. "B'Elanna, did you ever think about having a third?"
B'Elanna repositioned herself, balancing on her elbow so she could look at him. "I thought we agreed that two was the perfect number. One of us for each of them, right?"
"I know," Tom said, looking away from her eyes.
B'Elanna's free hand gently touched his cheek. "We have two perfect, amazing daughters, Tom. There's no reason to feel sad that we aren't going to have any more."
Tom nodded. Somewhere, deep in the back of his mind, he registered how foolish he must seem, to be sad about children who never existed in the first place, to ask her to change plans they had carefully constructed together, to betray Miral and L'Naan, as if they weren't enough for him. What more could he want?
USS Enterprise, Private Quarters of Torres-Paris Family, 2381
"I'm home!" Tom called as was habit. So habitual, in fact, that he often found himself calling to empty quarters when his shift ended before hers. Tonight, however, he was in luck: both wife and daughter were waiting for him. Miral was sitting on the sofa, her feet dangling in the air. B'Elanna was sifting through a stack of padds while standing at the dining table. He grinned when he saw them. His family. Waiting for him. The people he belonged with. It was an incredibly satisfying feeling.
He put his arms around B'Elanna from behind. His hands clasped together well above her waistline, and he planted a kiss on as much of her cheek as he could reach. As she turned in his arms, her belly knocked him a step backward. He kissed her more fully, and then he placed two hands on the mound that was soon to be the newest member of his family.
"Hi," she said softly with a hint of a smile.
"Hi," he said, not fully recognizing the softness in his own voice. It had, he knew, something to do with babies. "How is she today?"
B'Elanna's brown eyes shined. "She was pretty excited about the isolinear chip backup, but the staff reports really bored her."
"Her or you?" Tom kissed her quickly again, and she withdrew her arms from around his neck. He crossed the room to the sofa. "Hi, munchkin," he said softly to Miral as he knelt down in front of her.
It was as if she'd just noticed his presence, and in that instant her whole universe changed. "Daddy!" she cried, sliding off the sofa. She dove into his open arms.
Tom loved it. No, loved wasn't a strong enough word. Before he had this life, he didn't understand how something a meter tall could completely reshape his values, his measure of success and happiness, the feeling of importance he had in the world. And here it was. All he had to do was simply come home, and her face lit up. He was "dad." It was an identity he liked. Savored. Relished. Felt completely unworthy of but eager to hang on to.
He hugged his daughter against him and then kissed her cheek while running a hand through her bobbed hair. "Hey, munchkin, tell me about your day."
Like her mother, who could talk for hours about her engines and really enjoyed it when Tom actually listened to her doing so, Miral Paris liked having his attention. She stood in front of her father and told him what she had been up to at school all day. Her face was animated, her voice rose and fell with inflection, and she gestured wildly as she recounted incidents both significant and trivial out of chronological order, divulging their importance to her three-year-old mind. She remained in firm eye contact with something over Tom's left shoulder the entire time she was talking. Tom was riveted.
"That sounds pretty exciting," he agreed when she finished. He glanced over at B'Elanna, who was scrolling through a padd with one hand while the other hand rubbed her lower back pain. He looked back at Miral, took her tiny hands in his own, and stood up. "How about making dinner with me?"
"Yeah," she whispered with a nod.
"Hey, B'Elanna, what should we eat for dinner?"
"It's up to you two."
"Miral? What should we have for dinner?"
"Pizza!"
"We had pizza two days ago. Aren't you tired of it?" She shook her head. "Good, neither am I."
"Tom?" B'Elanna called. "She's kicking."
Tom quickly crossed the room to place his hands back on B'Elanna's belly. He felt a delicate, time-delayed push back from the inside. He and B'Elanna looked at each other.
"Daddy! The pizza!" Miral called insistently.
Even though they'd done it three years before, Tom was still in awe of the feat of science he and B'Elanna were accomplishing. He was moved to kiss her. He placed one hand under her jaw, his thumb grazing her cheek as their lips pressed together gently.
"Daddy!" Miral demanded.
"Miral," B'Elanna warned.
On occasion, and especially since the news that a third female was entering the tribe, B'Elanna and Miral didn't share the mutual man in their life well. Tom assumed it was a passing phase and tried his best to make Miral feel as important as possible.
"Okay, munchkin," he relented, grabbing her sides and throwing her up in the air. "Pizza time." She shrieked with delight as he tossed her. Then he held her mid-air over the replicator, and she ordered their dinner. Tom's special recipe for pepperoni pizza materialized with a serving spatula. He set Miral back on the floor and carried dinner to the table.
"No padds at the table," Miral reminded her mother as she climbed into a chair.
It was an echo of a rule they'd established some time ago. B'Elanna complied, moving her stack of padds on the desk, and then sat down for dinner with her family.
"You're just so gorgeous pregnant," he told her.
"Tom, I am not," she said in complete disbelief. "Both times I looked swollen and fat, and I couldn't walk very well, and –"
"And you were glowing, and your breasts were plump and round, and you were emitting all kinds of hormones, and you were really very sexy," he finished in a breathy whisper, his lips grazing her cheek.
B'Elanna shifted on top of him so that he was now completely submissive under her body. "And you're telling me you want to consider having another baby because my body looks good when I'm pregnant?"
He knew she was kidding, but it frustrated him that he wasn't able to tell her what he really meant. How the feeling of having a family felt to him. How he'd worried that having a second child would make Miral feel less important – even if he didn't want her to be – and instead it had just made his love for her grow. Tom sighed. He wasn't going to be able to get it all out in words. Not tonight.
And, anyway, it wasn't how he wanted to spend their one free night together. They were supposed to be making mad, passionate love. As B'Elanna shifted on top of him again, Tom was reminded of this objective and began to look forward to another opportunity to do so.
Kim Family Residence
Libby looked down at the sleeping form of Miral Paris with a little sigh. Married about a year, she and Harry had decided they were ready for a family. As much as she adored taking care of the little Parises, it only made her more eager to have a child of her own, but the process was proving difficult for them.
Harry must have sensed what she was thinking because he came up behind her and put an arm around her waist. He leaned his chin on her shoulder. "Some day, Libs," he promised in a whisper. "Just be patient."
Libby turned to leave the bedroom, and Harry followed. Back out in their living room, she spun around to look at him, suddenly serious. "I think it's time we started talking seriously about artificial methods."
She saw Harry's body visibly stiffen. "We've only been trying for a few months," he said. "I don't want to have to artificially conceive a child. If we're supposed to have one, it'll happen."
"That is such an archaic idea," she ridiculed. "You're willing to use technology to replicate your meals, to clean your body, to let you travel faster than the speed of light. You have no problem with hyposprays for hormone suppression when you don't want to have children. Why is this any different?"
"Libby…"
"No, Harry, give me an answer. If we were two different species, you'd be perfectly willing to seek medical assistance. But because we're two humans who have some kind of problem conceiving together, your own ego won't let you do anything about it? For god's sake, Tom and B'Elanna aren't even supposed to be able to have children together, and they have two!"
"And both of them were conceived naturally," Harry said through clenched teeth.
"I don't even think you want to have children! I think you're just making excuses."
"I'm not making excuses, Libby," he said, trying to sound calm. "I'm saying that there are reasons things happen. It hasn't been very long. We need to let this play out on its own."
"You cannot make that decision unilaterally!"
"And neither can you!" he challenged back.
"Give me one good reason why artificial conception is out of the question," she demanded. "One. And don't give me some damn excuse about social order or the laws of nature or fate. Give me one real, solid reason, and I'll never bring it up again. I dare you."
As he watched her work herself into a near frenzy, Harry wondered if he'd ever seen her so upset before. It was definitely the top, and it was all directed at him. He realized that the issue of not having a child was going to be entirely his fault for the rest of their lives if he wasn't able to give her a satisfactory answer.
The truth was that he didn't have one. He simply thought it was superfluous to use medical assistance for something that was supposed to be as natural as conception. That answer, though, would never pass muster in Libby's eyes. If he wanted a child as much as she did – and he certainly thought he did – then he had to accept that he was the primary obstacle at this point. If the look on her face was any indicator, she would never forgive him for it, and Harry knew he could never accept that.
So he relented. "I don't have one, Libby," he said quietly. "You're right."
She had prepared herself so thoroughly for a fight that she didn't quite know what to do or say. It took her a moment to recover. "What?"
"You're right. We should go to the doctor together."
Libby smiled in surprise and relief and opened her mouth to say something, but a piercing cry from L'Naan interrupted her. She turned her head toward the door with a laugh. "Impeccable timing, Miss Paris."
A minute later, Libby returned to the sofa with L'Naan on her shoulder. She hummed softly and gently rubbed L'Naan's back as the child sobbed against her. Harry watched them, admiring Libby's technique and realizing how lovely she looked with her face pressed against a baby's. She caught him looking and smiled at him.
"What are you thinking about, Harry Kim?" she asked.
"Do you remember the first time you met Miral?"
Libby nodded with a smile. "Of course I do. I was surprised. I had always pegged you as a one-woman man."
"You were jealous, admit it."
"Of course," she admitted freely as L'Naan continued to wail. "I had just gotten you back after seven years, and you expected me to share you?"
San Francisco, Janeway Residence, 2379
Miral Paris's first birthday coincided with the anniversary of Voyager's return to the Alpha Quadrant, and Admiral Owen Paris saw no better reason to use his influence to arrange a reunion. The official Starfleet parts of the two-day affair included medical exams and file updates to see how the Federation's long-lost citizens were faring, press interviews (which B'Elanna had vehemently protested to her in-laws), several dull presentations on how Starfleet was integrating DQ technology and research into its ships and science (presentations that several of the crew who had left Starfleet were planning to skip in favor of a poker game), and a dress uniform reception with the brass (which now included their former fearless leader). The unofficial parts of the reunion, however, were the most anticipated: a party at Janeway's, Miral's birthday party, and a hastily organized Velocity tournament that was Harry's idea.
When Tom and B'Elanna arrived at Admiral Janeway's apartment with Miral in tow, they stepped into the spacious living room a little tentatively. In a flash, Janeway, with champagne glasses for each of them, was calling their names and crossing the room to them. Tom took his glass and then gave the admiral a strong hug. She patted his back warmly. Then she turned her attention to B'Elanna and Miral. Janeway's small hand gently caressed the side of Miral's face, and Miral, only slightly alert, blinked at her. Janeway put an arm around B'Elanna maternally and, still holding B'Elanna's champagne, led her into the living room.
Harry was next to accost them. Still Ensign Eager at heart, though now a Lieutenant junior grade by rank, he had been among the first to arrive – beaten only by Tuvok and Vorik (Vulcans having a naturally acute sense of punctuality). He had been enjoying catching up with the early guests and introducing his girlfriend Libby to his Voyager family, but what he really wanted was to see his other true love.
"Where's my niece?" he called, setting his drink down on the nearest table and beelining toward them. He nearly ripped Miral out of B'Elanna's arms. Harry beamed as he held her to his chest and gently bounced her up and down. Miral came fully awake and looked up into Harry's eyes.
"Careful," Tom warned. "She's teething, and she can get pretty fierce pretty fast."
Harry dismissed him and moved back into the folds of the party to show off his prize.
"They seem to like each other," Janeway noted as she handed B'Elanna the champagne she'd been holding.
"They're the loves of each other's lives," B'Elanna corrected before taking a long sip.
"Admiral, you should see it. The minute Harry calls us, she hears his voice and tries to stand up in her crib," Tom said with pride.
"One year old tomorrow," Janeway remarked. She put an arm around each of them. "Any thoughts about having another?"
B'Elanna took another drink of champagne to avoid answering, but her smile was visible around the rim of the glass.
"So there I was, standing with Sue Nicoletti, talking about Mozart, and you came bounding across the room with this tiny little Klingon thing in your arms," Libby said. "And you had a smile on your face that you've never had for me."
Harry stretched out his arms for L'Naan, and Libby passed her over. L'Naan gave one final heaving sob before falling silent against Harry's chest. "Don't tell me you're jealous of a baby?"
Libby watched him, admiring his confidence with the baby. It was no secret between them that they liked Miral and L'Naan better than their biological nieces and nephews. Both were quite close to their families, but Harry's special connection with his friends from Voyager was something beyond familial, and as a result his two adoptive nieces were dear to him.
Libby wasn't really intimate with either Tom or B'Elanna, though she appreciated how graciously she had been welcomed into their circle. She thought Tom was funny, like a big brother who was always teasing her and Harry, and it amused her to imagine the Harry she'd known as a cadet falling under a spell of hero-worship for him. She'd also watched Tom as a parent, and she'd noticed that for all his tough exterior and sordid past, when it came to Miral and L'Naan, he was a big teddy bear.
Libby's relationship with B'Elanna was a little stickier. B'Elanna wasn't the kind of person who warmed to new people instantly, but Libby knew Harry loved her dearly and that they had been through a lot together. Libby admired her strength and courage, her principles, her ability to handle Tom's sometimes childish nature, and her rather impressive career. But she didn't really have much in common with her. She got the distinct impression that B'Elanna Torres was better attuned to male friends, and that Libby, a girl's girl by all the old gender stereotypes, wasn't of much interest to her. Still, they always had plenty to talk about, as long as they discussed Miral and L'Naan, and Libby hoped that she would one day be the kind of mother B'Elanna was, fiercely protective yet willing to let her children encounter the world on their own terms.
As she watched Harry holding L'Naan, Libby imagined what kind of father he would be.
