Author's note: This takes place in an AU of my own invention, and came about because I started wondering one day: What if Tom and B'Elanna were at the Academy together, and had to be lab partners? He would drive her nuts. It took on a life of its own after that. Much of the rest of the crew (Chakotay, Janeway, Harry and others!) will be making cameos, but this is definitely a P/T story. It is complete, and I'll be posting updates 2-3 times a week.

A huge shout out to all the ladies of Deck Nine for their support and for inspiring me with their own writing. Particular kudos to RSB for some early plotting advice, and to Photogirl 1890 for patiently pointing out all my typos/assorted other errors and for telling me that the completed narrative does make sense, after all (Thank God). Extra special mega thanks goes to Sareki02, though, for making me take out a bunch of extraneous conjunctions, arguing with me about Klingon eye color, and saving the world from Nice Guy Tom.

Prologue

November 2346

Miral, daughter of L'Naan of the House of Korath, let loose a howl of pain. If asked, she could not have said how long she'd been in labor. At times she felt as though it had been ongoing since her own birth. She now lived from one contraction to the next, using the increasingly brief respites between to remind herself of what awaited at the end of this trial.

"Please, Miral," John Torres begged his wife. "You can't keep this up. It's been over two days. Ask the midwife for something for the pain."

"No," Miral panted, too spent to protest further.

"'Something for the pain'," L'Naan spat back at John. "My daughter is Klingon, not one of your puny human females. She will endure her labor with honor, as generations of women before her have done."

Miral had insisted on having the birth and on spending much of her pregnancy on Qo'noS. Her scientific brain knew that her previous failures had had nothing to do with the doctors on Kessik. They did not create the genetic abnormalities that were incompatible with survival. And the last - a truly heart-rending cord accident at over twenty weeks' gestation - was a fluke. Simple bad luck. It was nothing any doctor, Klingon or human, could have prevented.

The child had been a boy. John had wished to give him a name, but Miral hadn't seen the point.

But, regardless of what science or logic told her, the idea (implanted by L'Naan) that spending her pregnancy surrounded by Klingons might better ensure a healthy infant was hard to ignore. So, despite the fact that it meant taking a leave of absence from her job and separation from her husband for several months, Miral left for Qo'noS during her ninth week - once the fetus' genetic code had been cleared and there was every reason to believe it would be viable. She refused to think of it as a baby, even in the sheltered privacy of her own thoughts, until week twenty-one.

Her mother had made a traditional Klingon birth sound appealing as well - no cold, sterile hospital room, with its overly bright lights and antiseptic smell. A home birth, attended by a midwife and a few of the women of the family. Typically, the men stayed out until it was over - but John had insisted on being present. Miral now regretted giving him permission to do so. Her mother and her husband rarely saw eye to eye. Spending hours upon hours in the same room together had done nothing to improve their relationship.

"I do not understand you people!" John snapped back at L'Naan. "What honor is there in enduring unnecessary pain? She can't eat; she's barely slept! You can't make me believe it's better for the baby. It's barbaric to let your daughter suffer like this!"

"You," sneered L'Naan. "You claim to be here to support her, to love her. Yet you distract her with your bleating and your weakness." Her mother grabbed the translator off the table where John had left it and clenched it in her first. "This, Miral," the older woman growled in Klingon to her exhausted daughter, "is why I told you to make him wait with your father."

"Out!" Miral bellowed in Standard, as the crest of another contraction swept over her. "Both of you!" she added in her native tongue at the look of triumph on her mother's face.

John whispered his love for her in her ear before he departed, the look of hurt on his face filling Miral with a guilt that only added to her already considerable burden. L'Naan's expression, on the other hand, conveyed her anger and offense, but the midwife's assistants knew who they were here to serve, and escorted her out before she could verbally rebuke her laboring daughter.

"Brave child. Not much longer now," her grandmother, Krelik, reassured her with a smile. She was now the only member of Miral's family still present. "May your daughter have your strength of will."

Five hours later and her long trial was over. The baby let out a full-throated wail within only seconds of her birth, but to Miral - who had waited so long and had suffered so many disappointments on her journey to this moment - those final seconds of silence lasted an eternity. Once the midwife declared the infant healthy, she handed her to Krelik for the traditional blessing. Krelik, in turn, placed the child at the exhausted mother's breast, and Miral sent for her husband.

"Meet your child, John," she said when she heard his step approach, unable to tear her eyes from the tiny being that gazed up at her.

John eased onto the birthing couch and wrapped an arm around his wife. "My God," he choked out. "She's beautiful."

Miral turned to her husband when she heard the emotion in his voice. His face was shining with tears. "The baby is entirely healthy. There is no reason for you to be upset."

Her husband laughed gently and kissed her temple. "I'm crying because I'm happy, Miral," he explained. "We humans do that sometimes." He stroked the baby's cheek with one gentle finger. "We're going to have such great adventures, you and I," he whispered. He looked back up at Miral. "You had the final vote. So what are we going to call her?"

"Her name," Miral murmured, nearly overwhelmed by the amount of love she felt for the little person she had carried inside her for these past eight months, "is B'Elanna."