TITLE: T'LORAH'S TALE
AUTHOR: Kate Davis
EMAIL: dreamtv_wacko99@yahoo.com - I love feedback!
RATING: PG
STATUS: This version is submitted in three parts - all complete
TIMELINE Info: The bulk of this story occurs about 20 years after the Voyager setting.
SPOILERS: None
ARCHIVE: The answer will probably be yes, but please email me first anyway.
SUMMARY: What might have happened to the married Paris/Torres if Voyager returned home? This is the story of their daughter, T'Lorah Paris, and it takes place on Earth. The story jumps back to other times, the oldest of which is on Voyager where he and B'Elanna have married and they have two children.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is my first attempt at any sort of Fan Fiction, so please keep that in mind when reading this and when supplying feedback. Note that I have taken poetic license so please forgive me if the correct terminology is not used. Oh, and the Shakespeare quote at the end is supposed to be Sam Tanner's view of T'Lorah Paris.
DISCLAIMER: Tom Paris, B'Elanna Torres, Kathryn Janeway and all the other Star Trek: Voyager characters, scenes and objects remain the property of Paramount Pictures and Viacom - I'm just borrowing them. T'Lorah Kathryn Paris, Greg Paris and Sam Tanner are mine and if anyone wants to use them e-mail me! Quote reproduced without permission.
Any feedback, be it praise or criticism, is appreciated.
SPECIAL NOTE: Please review my story after you've finished reading it - I guarantee to read & review one of your pieces in return. If you give a review that shows some thought has gone into it, I'll review at least three of your works.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T'LORAH'S TALE - PART 1/3
A pretty young woman sat staring blankly at the Starfleet Commander, who droned on incessantly about warp engine carbonators. Her deep brown eyes occasionally drifted to the window and beyond. How she longed to leave the Earth's surface and race through the stars at high warp, but she was only in her first year at the academy - not even far enough into the course to observe a test flight. Of course she'd been to a few space stations for vacations, but she was desperate to escape her father's watchful eye and fly herself. She wasn't taking in anything the Commander said, nor did she respond when he called on her to name the parts of the carbonator.
"Ms Paris!" the Commander bellowed.
The girl clicked out of her trance.
"The parts of the carbonator if you don't mind!" he repeated sternly, directing the harmless laser pointer at the group monitor at the front of the room. She got up slowly and walked to the front and took the laser from him.
"Outer metabolic casing, tangible rim coils, minapola cooler, plasma projector and the plasma cylinder," she recited, pointing to each as she recalled the names her mother had taught her years before, then she handed back the laser.
"Very well, I guess you were paying attention. Please continue to do so."
But as she returned to her seat, she returned to her daydreaming. She had learnt all facets of the first year course previously at Starfleet camps for a selected few whose potential for success had been identified. Both her mother and father had drilled her on strange words and various controls of a starship, often on her asking, though changes were being made all the time. She still had to attend the classes to gain ranks, which rendered the gifted programs useless.
"Class is over for today, enjoy your three day break. Keep practising your terms for the exam on the warp engine next week."
Kathryn grabbed her picture padds and portable computer and left the room. She, however, still had another class to go before the weekend. As other cadets raced happily out of the Academy doors, she raced through the emptying corridors, to the opposite end. She took her place in the middle on the right hand side; grateful for once she'd beaten the lecturer. These were the only classes that challenged her mind and she loved every minute of them.
"Excuse me. Is this the First Year Extension Course in Engineering?"
Kathryn looked up from her computer to see a young man, roughly her age looking right back at her.
"Ah... yes. It is", she found herself replying, trying to keep her voice stable.
"Thank goodness" he replied taking a seat at the front.
The scientist arrived then and instantly began the class. Today it was on the potential affects of a new substance called mekalonia on warp propulsion.
Despite the interesting topic, she was glad to see the weekend.
"Excuse me! Hello!" A voice called as she exited the Academy. She spun around.
It was the guy from Engineering Extension.
"Um do you how to get to... to... (pulling paper from his pocket) to Yolanni Estate?"
"Yolanni? Oh there's a hoverbus when classes end normally... now you have to hail a passing hoverdome or walk." Kathryn paused. "I live on Yolanni..."
"Really? I'll do whatever you do then... I mean can I go with you?"
"I usually walk to keep up my fitness but if you'll split the cost of a hoverdome we could share that."
"Alright."
The young man was clever at hailing the speeding things down and they threw their stuff and piled in after it.
"Plot 5 on Yolanni housing estate, please." Kathryn stated, slotting in her card and looking over at the man next to her.
"Where to buddy?" croaked an alien voice.
"Ah... I'm with her." He replied clumsily slotting in his card in order to halve the cost.
The hoverdome pulled into the sky and into a steady stream of hoverdomes.
"Pardon?" Kathryn whispered. "You are not with me!"
"Sorry I'm not used to dealing with different species - there aren't many away from the spaceports. Plus I live two plots down from you. I'm sorry I should have explained myself earlier. I moved from Denver to attend this Academy... best in the country, you know. I'm first year obviously, like you." Getting no response he continued. "Ah... my name's Sam."
"Just Sam?"
"Samuel Mark Tanner, so sorry madam. And you are?"
The hoverdome pulled up at her home and they both piled out. It hummed away.
Getting no response he tried "How you finding First Year?"
"I've done it all before. I'd drop out and start second year but I'm not allowed because I started school so young. I only go for the extension classes at the end of the day."
"I started school normally at five, Training school at eleven and was accepted early into the academy when I sat the test at seventeen - youngest ever in Denver. After the one year break I started at the Academy this year," Sam boasted.
"But only a year early. I began school at four, was doing extension lessons at nine and got a scholarship to Training school at age ten. I sat the Academy entrance test at sixteen and after the year break started this year. I wanted to start straight away but the break is regulatory," she retaliated in a bored tone, making it sound like she didn't really care.
"You're only eighteen?"
"Yes, two years too young."
"That's what you get for living in San Francisco - the Starfleet State."
"That's what you get for having a Commanding officer for a father and a top ranking engineer for a mother. Both who flew numerous missions. Excuse me, but I've got to go."
"Oh, please tell me, what is your name?"
"Kathryn."
"Just Kathryn?"
"Kathryn Paris, then."
"That's a beautiful name - it suits you perfectly." Sam said with a smirk.
"What?"
"You heard me."
"I'm trying to forgive your forwardness but I don't think that's possible. If I told my father what you said..."
"I apologise, but I don't take it back. I feel like I've known you for... there aren't many like you."
"Don't be silly. There are hundreds of girls in San Francisco, and the Academy comes first. I'm going to be a captain with my own ship."
"Me too."
"Don't mock me."
"I'm not. I've never told anyone my true ambition before. I want to follow my father into a captaincy."
"Can I tell you something? Something you must never repeat? She dropped her voice to a hush and sat on the porch. Sam dropped beside her.
"My full name is T'Lorah Kathryn Paris."
"T'Lorah? That sounds almost... almost Klingon."
"It is Klingon. Starfleet officials have barred me from using it. My mother was... I am Klingon."
"You?" Sam looked into her smooth pale skin and her deep brown eyes. She had medium-length blond hair that was piled on top of head, and a few strands had been allowed to fall casually onto her shoulders, framing her picturesque face. She was certainly uncommonly beautiful... there wasn't even a hint of those hideous characteristic brow ridges.
"Yes. I really must go inside now. She got up and touched in the code on the front door and it slid smoothly open with a soft hiss.
Sam got up, pulling out the paper from his pocket. "This has my comm signal on it if you want to reach me. Can I walk you to the academy tomorrow?"
"I have an early start. 0800 hours - a pilot simulation, I think."
"Oh" Sam replied. "See you in Extension Coding & Communication then? Perhaps we could walk home together."
"Alright, father will be glad if I'm accompanied."
With that, he walked down the path below the hoverdome lane looked around, then went left.
Kathryn looked briefly at the paper. 'It certainly was unusual to use such a material anymore!' she thought to herself, ' and certainly not in San Francisco!', before stuffing it into the folds of her Starfleet jacket and disappearing inside.
* * *
He was waiting for her at the door to their classroom after class the next day. She was secretly glad and smiled to herself. She was the last cadet to gather their things and leave the room.
"Hello", he said and smiled in a way that made her stomach flip and her heart pound.
They started towards the door and were out on the street before she spoke.
"Is it alright if we take a hoverdome? I'm so tired I can hardly walk... I didn't get much sleep last night."
"Of course." He hailed one immediately and they performed the same ritual as the day before.
Sam didn't speak again until the hoverdome had pulled away from Kathryn's door.
"I'm sorry that I feel the need to ask and please don't take it the wrong way. I'm finding it hard to believe you have Klingon blood in you. You aren't at all like what they said back in Denver... ferocious and unrelenting, uncaring and inhumane, and you, you look so, so... not like one of 'them'," Sam tried to cover his distaste.
Kathryn was immediately on the defence.
"Well I am, very much so - my maternal grandmother was a full-blooded Klingon and my mother had the characteristics of a Klingon. My other grandparents and my father were all humans. My mother and brother were taken prisoner during the Klingon War eight years ago. They, along with all the other Klingons were held in the huge compounds - prisoners of war. Those on Earth were divided about the prisoners but united against stopping the Klingons destroying the planet. One stray Federation ship took shots at the power domes on the compound my relatives were in. The shots triggered massive explosions around the compound, especially the force fields, fire consumed everything and everyone. There was nowhere to escape to and I lost my mother and brother forever. I was meant to be in that compound - as one quarter Klingon I should have been taken prisoner too. But I'd been awarded that darn scholarship and my paternal grandfather had been a Starfleet Admiral, they used those reasons before knocking me unconscious on the floor of our home and letting me live. I know the real reason though - it was because I didn't look like them. They said it would be like punishing one of their own."
"Kathryn..."
"Every time I hear that name it sounds like a lie, as if I'm someone I'm not." Kathryn interrupted, louder than she meant.
The door slid open behind them "T'Lorah is that you?." The man's voice drifted off, noticing the human stranger seated next to his daughter, "ah Kathryn..."
"It's okay Dad, I told him - it's no secret besides... we kind of made it one."
Sam jumped up, noticing the commander badge. "Sir! Cadet Samuel Tanner. Just started at the San Francisco Academy. Pleasure to meet you, Commander."
"At ease Sam. I'm Commander Thomas Paris... but I don't really go in for that starfleet crap anymore, (he brought his fingers up to lightly stroke the badge) not since they... just wear the badge because it reminds me of... are you coming in Kathryn?"
"Just a second Dad." The door slid shut.
"Sorry, he's never been the same since my mother died. Sometimes I want to leave the Starfleet program, they betrayed... mother would have wanted to me to stay, because of my potential. He agrees with that, so I stay. I have a lot to prove. No Klingon loyalties to begin with."
"Kathryn I... "
"You'd better go, Sam."
He looked dejected. "I'm sorry if I..."
Kathryn got up and went inside. She didn't even hear the rest of what he said. She quickly wiped away a tear that had threatened to embarrass her and was the cause of her abrupt exit.
"Dad thanks for that, really."
"T'Lorah, why are you repeating personal details to someone you don't even know?"
"Sam's kind, he..."
"Haven't I warned you about telling of your Klingon heritage to strangers? For all we know he's going to shoot you dead in the street one day."
"You also told me never to lie if someone asked and to be proud of my heritage!"
"Just be more careful... B'Elanna would... I... you're all I've got and to lose you would mean..."
"I know Dad, he seemed sincere - I was in the wrong, I guess I made a mistake."
"Without B'Elanna and Greg..."
"Dad I know." She left him then, and disappeared into another room.
Greg was her older brother. He'd been taken too because of those damn brow ridges across his forehead and his tanned skin. No one had believed that she was B'Elanna's daughter or Greg's sister, and she was only alive because of it. They'd left her and only because she looked like a 'real' human.
Tom Paris eased himself into a chair, watching his daughter leave. She was so much like her mother, so determined, so strong and beautiful. But she was Earthly beautiful, not exotically beautiful like her mother and T'Lorah had never suffered emotionally like he had at the loss of her - that must be the Klingon in her. As usual, his thoughts drifted to his days in the Academy, his time on Voyager and his time with B'Elanna. How he had loved that woman! He had never been able to describe what he felt to himself, let alone to her. He thought of the terrible conditions in which she and their son spent their last year - held prisoner on the ground under guards that had once obeyed her command. It was a daily ritual for Tom to punish himself for not being here when the 'alien' sweeper teams arrived. Deep down he knew he couldn't have stopped them - they would have killed him. They nearly killed T'Lorah, because she began to scream and cry as her mother and brother disappeared. They had given her a blow to the back of the head and he'd found her sprawled on her stomach on the living room floor, surrounded by blood - not all of it hers. He'd run home after hearing what Starfleet had decided, thinking they'd all be gone. The overwhelming sense of relief he had felt when he realised they had at least left her for him, flooded back over him. Everyday, T'Lorah's eyes reminded him of his B'Elanna - the years they had spent together and the treacherous way in which he lost her and their son. Even now he cried silently to himself, stuck at a painful reality between devastated and thankful...
* * *
Continued in T'LORAH'S TALE - PART 2. Please read the whole story!
AUTHOR: Kate Davis
EMAIL: dreamtv_wacko99@yahoo.com - I love feedback!
RATING: PG
STATUS: This version is submitted in three parts - all complete
TIMELINE Info: The bulk of this story occurs about 20 years after the Voyager setting.
SPOILERS: None
ARCHIVE: The answer will probably be yes, but please email me first anyway.
SUMMARY: What might have happened to the married Paris/Torres if Voyager returned home? This is the story of their daughter, T'Lorah Paris, and it takes place on Earth. The story jumps back to other times, the oldest of which is on Voyager where he and B'Elanna have married and they have two children.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is my first attempt at any sort of Fan Fiction, so please keep that in mind when reading this and when supplying feedback. Note that I have taken poetic license so please forgive me if the correct terminology is not used. Oh, and the Shakespeare quote at the end is supposed to be Sam Tanner's view of T'Lorah Paris.
DISCLAIMER: Tom Paris, B'Elanna Torres, Kathryn Janeway and all the other Star Trek: Voyager characters, scenes and objects remain the property of Paramount Pictures and Viacom - I'm just borrowing them. T'Lorah Kathryn Paris, Greg Paris and Sam Tanner are mine and if anyone wants to use them e-mail me! Quote reproduced without permission.
Any feedback, be it praise or criticism, is appreciated.
SPECIAL NOTE: Please review my story after you've finished reading it - I guarantee to read & review one of your pieces in return. If you give a review that shows some thought has gone into it, I'll review at least three of your works.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T'LORAH'S TALE - PART 1/3
A pretty young woman sat staring blankly at the Starfleet Commander, who droned on incessantly about warp engine carbonators. Her deep brown eyes occasionally drifted to the window and beyond. How she longed to leave the Earth's surface and race through the stars at high warp, but she was only in her first year at the academy - not even far enough into the course to observe a test flight. Of course she'd been to a few space stations for vacations, but she was desperate to escape her father's watchful eye and fly herself. She wasn't taking in anything the Commander said, nor did she respond when he called on her to name the parts of the carbonator.
"Ms Paris!" the Commander bellowed.
The girl clicked out of her trance.
"The parts of the carbonator if you don't mind!" he repeated sternly, directing the harmless laser pointer at the group monitor at the front of the room. She got up slowly and walked to the front and took the laser from him.
"Outer metabolic casing, tangible rim coils, minapola cooler, plasma projector and the plasma cylinder," she recited, pointing to each as she recalled the names her mother had taught her years before, then she handed back the laser.
"Very well, I guess you were paying attention. Please continue to do so."
But as she returned to her seat, she returned to her daydreaming. She had learnt all facets of the first year course previously at Starfleet camps for a selected few whose potential for success had been identified. Both her mother and father had drilled her on strange words and various controls of a starship, often on her asking, though changes were being made all the time. She still had to attend the classes to gain ranks, which rendered the gifted programs useless.
"Class is over for today, enjoy your three day break. Keep practising your terms for the exam on the warp engine next week."
Kathryn grabbed her picture padds and portable computer and left the room. She, however, still had another class to go before the weekend. As other cadets raced happily out of the Academy doors, she raced through the emptying corridors, to the opposite end. She took her place in the middle on the right hand side; grateful for once she'd beaten the lecturer. These were the only classes that challenged her mind and she loved every minute of them.
"Excuse me. Is this the First Year Extension Course in Engineering?"
Kathryn looked up from her computer to see a young man, roughly her age looking right back at her.
"Ah... yes. It is", she found herself replying, trying to keep her voice stable.
"Thank goodness" he replied taking a seat at the front.
The scientist arrived then and instantly began the class. Today it was on the potential affects of a new substance called mekalonia on warp propulsion.
Despite the interesting topic, she was glad to see the weekend.
"Excuse me! Hello!" A voice called as she exited the Academy. She spun around.
It was the guy from Engineering Extension.
"Um do you how to get to... to... (pulling paper from his pocket) to Yolanni Estate?"
"Yolanni? Oh there's a hoverbus when classes end normally... now you have to hail a passing hoverdome or walk." Kathryn paused. "I live on Yolanni..."
"Really? I'll do whatever you do then... I mean can I go with you?"
"I usually walk to keep up my fitness but if you'll split the cost of a hoverdome we could share that."
"Alright."
The young man was clever at hailing the speeding things down and they threw their stuff and piled in after it.
"Plot 5 on Yolanni housing estate, please." Kathryn stated, slotting in her card and looking over at the man next to her.
"Where to buddy?" croaked an alien voice.
"Ah... I'm with her." He replied clumsily slotting in his card in order to halve the cost.
The hoverdome pulled into the sky and into a steady stream of hoverdomes.
"Pardon?" Kathryn whispered. "You are not with me!"
"Sorry I'm not used to dealing with different species - there aren't many away from the spaceports. Plus I live two plots down from you. I'm sorry I should have explained myself earlier. I moved from Denver to attend this Academy... best in the country, you know. I'm first year obviously, like you." Getting no response he continued. "Ah... my name's Sam."
"Just Sam?"
"Samuel Mark Tanner, so sorry madam. And you are?"
The hoverdome pulled up at her home and they both piled out. It hummed away.
Getting no response he tried "How you finding First Year?"
"I've done it all before. I'd drop out and start second year but I'm not allowed because I started school so young. I only go for the extension classes at the end of the day."
"I started school normally at five, Training school at eleven and was accepted early into the academy when I sat the test at seventeen - youngest ever in Denver. After the one year break I started at the Academy this year," Sam boasted.
"But only a year early. I began school at four, was doing extension lessons at nine and got a scholarship to Training school at age ten. I sat the Academy entrance test at sixteen and after the year break started this year. I wanted to start straight away but the break is regulatory," she retaliated in a bored tone, making it sound like she didn't really care.
"You're only eighteen?"
"Yes, two years too young."
"That's what you get for living in San Francisco - the Starfleet State."
"That's what you get for having a Commanding officer for a father and a top ranking engineer for a mother. Both who flew numerous missions. Excuse me, but I've got to go."
"Oh, please tell me, what is your name?"
"Kathryn."
"Just Kathryn?"
"Kathryn Paris, then."
"That's a beautiful name - it suits you perfectly." Sam said with a smirk.
"What?"
"You heard me."
"I'm trying to forgive your forwardness but I don't think that's possible. If I told my father what you said..."
"I apologise, but I don't take it back. I feel like I've known you for... there aren't many like you."
"Don't be silly. There are hundreds of girls in San Francisco, and the Academy comes first. I'm going to be a captain with my own ship."
"Me too."
"Don't mock me."
"I'm not. I've never told anyone my true ambition before. I want to follow my father into a captaincy."
"Can I tell you something? Something you must never repeat? She dropped her voice to a hush and sat on the porch. Sam dropped beside her.
"My full name is T'Lorah Kathryn Paris."
"T'Lorah? That sounds almost... almost Klingon."
"It is Klingon. Starfleet officials have barred me from using it. My mother was... I am Klingon."
"You?" Sam looked into her smooth pale skin and her deep brown eyes. She had medium-length blond hair that was piled on top of head, and a few strands had been allowed to fall casually onto her shoulders, framing her picturesque face. She was certainly uncommonly beautiful... there wasn't even a hint of those hideous characteristic brow ridges.
"Yes. I really must go inside now. She got up and touched in the code on the front door and it slid smoothly open with a soft hiss.
Sam got up, pulling out the paper from his pocket. "This has my comm signal on it if you want to reach me. Can I walk you to the academy tomorrow?"
"I have an early start. 0800 hours - a pilot simulation, I think."
"Oh" Sam replied. "See you in Extension Coding & Communication then? Perhaps we could walk home together."
"Alright, father will be glad if I'm accompanied."
With that, he walked down the path below the hoverdome lane looked around, then went left.
Kathryn looked briefly at the paper. 'It certainly was unusual to use such a material anymore!' she thought to herself, ' and certainly not in San Francisco!', before stuffing it into the folds of her Starfleet jacket and disappearing inside.
* * *
He was waiting for her at the door to their classroom after class the next day. She was secretly glad and smiled to herself. She was the last cadet to gather their things and leave the room.
"Hello", he said and smiled in a way that made her stomach flip and her heart pound.
They started towards the door and were out on the street before she spoke.
"Is it alright if we take a hoverdome? I'm so tired I can hardly walk... I didn't get much sleep last night."
"Of course." He hailed one immediately and they performed the same ritual as the day before.
Sam didn't speak again until the hoverdome had pulled away from Kathryn's door.
"I'm sorry that I feel the need to ask and please don't take it the wrong way. I'm finding it hard to believe you have Klingon blood in you. You aren't at all like what they said back in Denver... ferocious and unrelenting, uncaring and inhumane, and you, you look so, so... not like one of 'them'," Sam tried to cover his distaste.
Kathryn was immediately on the defence.
"Well I am, very much so - my maternal grandmother was a full-blooded Klingon and my mother had the characteristics of a Klingon. My other grandparents and my father were all humans. My mother and brother were taken prisoner during the Klingon War eight years ago. They, along with all the other Klingons were held in the huge compounds - prisoners of war. Those on Earth were divided about the prisoners but united against stopping the Klingons destroying the planet. One stray Federation ship took shots at the power domes on the compound my relatives were in. The shots triggered massive explosions around the compound, especially the force fields, fire consumed everything and everyone. There was nowhere to escape to and I lost my mother and brother forever. I was meant to be in that compound - as one quarter Klingon I should have been taken prisoner too. But I'd been awarded that darn scholarship and my paternal grandfather had been a Starfleet Admiral, they used those reasons before knocking me unconscious on the floor of our home and letting me live. I know the real reason though - it was because I didn't look like them. They said it would be like punishing one of their own."
"Kathryn..."
"Every time I hear that name it sounds like a lie, as if I'm someone I'm not." Kathryn interrupted, louder than she meant.
The door slid open behind them "T'Lorah is that you?." The man's voice drifted off, noticing the human stranger seated next to his daughter, "ah Kathryn..."
"It's okay Dad, I told him - it's no secret besides... we kind of made it one."
Sam jumped up, noticing the commander badge. "Sir! Cadet Samuel Tanner. Just started at the San Francisco Academy. Pleasure to meet you, Commander."
"At ease Sam. I'm Commander Thomas Paris... but I don't really go in for that starfleet crap anymore, (he brought his fingers up to lightly stroke the badge) not since they... just wear the badge because it reminds me of... are you coming in Kathryn?"
"Just a second Dad." The door slid shut.
"Sorry, he's never been the same since my mother died. Sometimes I want to leave the Starfleet program, they betrayed... mother would have wanted to me to stay, because of my potential. He agrees with that, so I stay. I have a lot to prove. No Klingon loyalties to begin with."
"Kathryn I... "
"You'd better go, Sam."
He looked dejected. "I'm sorry if I..."
Kathryn got up and went inside. She didn't even hear the rest of what he said. She quickly wiped away a tear that had threatened to embarrass her and was the cause of her abrupt exit.
"Dad thanks for that, really."
"T'Lorah, why are you repeating personal details to someone you don't even know?"
"Sam's kind, he..."
"Haven't I warned you about telling of your Klingon heritage to strangers? For all we know he's going to shoot you dead in the street one day."
"You also told me never to lie if someone asked and to be proud of my heritage!"
"Just be more careful... B'Elanna would... I... you're all I've got and to lose you would mean..."
"I know Dad, he seemed sincere - I was in the wrong, I guess I made a mistake."
"Without B'Elanna and Greg..."
"Dad I know." She left him then, and disappeared into another room.
Greg was her older brother. He'd been taken too because of those damn brow ridges across his forehead and his tanned skin. No one had believed that she was B'Elanna's daughter or Greg's sister, and she was only alive because of it. They'd left her and only because she looked like a 'real' human.
Tom Paris eased himself into a chair, watching his daughter leave. She was so much like her mother, so determined, so strong and beautiful. But she was Earthly beautiful, not exotically beautiful like her mother and T'Lorah had never suffered emotionally like he had at the loss of her - that must be the Klingon in her. As usual, his thoughts drifted to his days in the Academy, his time on Voyager and his time with B'Elanna. How he had loved that woman! He had never been able to describe what he felt to himself, let alone to her. He thought of the terrible conditions in which she and their son spent their last year - held prisoner on the ground under guards that had once obeyed her command. It was a daily ritual for Tom to punish himself for not being here when the 'alien' sweeper teams arrived. Deep down he knew he couldn't have stopped them - they would have killed him. They nearly killed T'Lorah, because she began to scream and cry as her mother and brother disappeared. They had given her a blow to the back of the head and he'd found her sprawled on her stomach on the living room floor, surrounded by blood - not all of it hers. He'd run home after hearing what Starfleet had decided, thinking they'd all be gone. The overwhelming sense of relief he had felt when he realised they had at least left her for him, flooded back over him. Everyday, T'Lorah's eyes reminded him of his B'Elanna - the years they had spent together and the treacherous way in which he lost her and their son. Even now he cried silently to himself, stuck at a painful reality between devastated and thankful...
* * *
Continued in T'LORAH'S TALE - PART 2. Please read the whole story!
