=/\=

"Well, well, how's our little mother today?" B'Elanna commented as Marla rushed into engineering. Despite the touch of sarcasm in her words, the chief engineer had a smile on her face and in her voice.

"I'm sorry I'm late, Lieutenant. Aimee started fussing just as Harry came in, and I wanted to quiet her down a little before I left her."

"HARRY is taking care of her today? Poor kid! I wonder how many times you'll get an urgent call to take care of an emergency."

"Harry is terrific with her!" Marla said defensively.

"Of course he is. When she doesn't need a diaper change."

"He used to take care of Naomi, he said."

"Oh, yes, he certainly did!" B'Elanna barked with laughter, "but not alone, not until she was old enough to be out diapers."

"Did you take care of Naomi, too?" Marla asked.

"A few times. I was usually too busy here," B'Elanna acknowledged cheerfully. "I know how to change a diaper, though!"

"I'm sure Harry will be just fine. What do you want me to do?"

"Here, let me show you the schematics for the adaptation of the aft thrusters we have in mind . . ."

=/\=

"There you go, Aimee. All nice and clean."

"You're really good at that, Tom," Harry said, accepting the freshly changed baby from his friend.

"I got lots of practice while she was in sickbay."

"I can do the ones that are just wet. It's the messy ones that get me."

"Harry! It's not such a big deal! Just forget how it smells and do what you have to do. The quicker you get it over with, the quicker you get to have some fun with her." Tom, with a few deft movements, cleaned up the baby's changing area in Marla's quarters and dumped the by-products in the recycler. "How did you manage when you watched Naomi?"

"I called for help-just not you. I didn't figure you'd know how back then."

"Your lack of confidence wounds me," Tom said, feigning insult. "If you're going to spend time with Marla and Aimee, you're going to need to add diaper changing to your resume. Naomi was out of them a lot quicker than Aimee will be. She isn't growing anywhere near as fast as Ktarian kids do."

Harry made a couple of funny faces at the appreciatively chortling baby before responding, "I'll work on it. I promise. Who knows? Maybe I'll need to baby-sit some more babies soon. You and B'Elanna have any plans?"

"Please, Harry! We haven't even officially moved in together yet."

"Not officially, maybe, but you're inseparable."

"B'Elanna knew the way to my heart. She built me a television."

"She's hypnotized you with that thing to keep you home every night, that's what I think."

"I'm not complaining, Harry!" Tom laughed. "Trust me, we do a lot more than just watch the tube!" Taking a seat on the sofa, Tom observed his friend playing with the baby that most of the crew still called "Littlest of Five" whenever her foster mother wasn't in the room. Despite his reticence about diaper changing, Harry was very good with the baby. And the baby-not to mention Marla-had been very good for his friend.

"But seriously. She's a very nice person." Tom leaned back, carefully looking at the ceiling to avoid meeting Harry's gaze.

"B'Elanna? Well, sure, I've always thought so . . ." Harry said, glancing at Tom with a puzzled look on his face at the direction the conversation seemed to be taking.

"Not B'Elanna! Well, of course B'Elanna is nice . . . especially to me . . . but I wasn't talking about *my* girl. I was saying Marla is nice."

"Oh!" replied Harry as the light dawned. "She certainly is! Taking on an orphaned baby she might have to give up at any time if we find her people. Marla is pretty special."

"Special. Absolutely. I totally agree."

"Not that there's anything between us, or anything."

"Really," Tom drawled.

"I just like to help out with Aimee."

"By getting your best buddy to change the poopy diapers?"

"Hey, I'll do it myself next time. Somehow." Harry said sheepishly.

"Promises, promises."

"It's fun to come here and play with Aimee."

"I can see that," Tom said, grinning down at the baby, who was obviously enjoying the way Harry was bobbing her up and down on his knee.

"Tom, will you stop looking at me like that?"

"Who's looking at you?" Tom said, all exaggerated innocence.

"You are! You're going to give me another lecture about getting into another impossible love situation."

"Not at all. I was wondering if Aimee is the only one you have fun with. I think Marla could use a little fun, too, don't you think?"

"Forget it, Tom. I'm giving romance a rest for a good long while. I'm not ready to be with anyone, not after Lyndsay."

Tom looked steadily at his friend, keeping his face as still a mask as possible, although he was not unsympathetic. The past few weeks had been very bad ones for Harry. He would like to have said that Harry protested too much, but on second thought, all he said was, "Okay."

The silence between them threatened to stretch out awkwardly while Tom tried to think of some clever way to change the subject. The *deux ex machina* was the chime of Marla's door.

"Enter," Harry called out.

The door swished open to reveal the chief engineer. "I knew I'd find you here, Tom. Always flirting with pretty young females. Is Littlest of Five going to be replacing me in your affections?"

"Nah. I've got too much competition from Harry."

Harry glanced back and forth between the lovers. B'Elanna's comments seemed like a joke, but there was always such an undertone of fierceness in whatever she said that he couldn't always be totally sure. Tom, however, remained as he was, stretched casually on Marla's sofa, as B'Elanna came to Harry and put out her hands for the baby. He relinquished her to B'Elanna, who sat down next to Tom.

"Isn't she sweet, B'Elanna?"

"Yes, she certainly is," B'Elanna replied, making growling noises at the baby that amazed the child, if her widened eyes were any sign.

"Wouldn't you and Tom like to have a little one soon, too?"

"I don't have the right color hair, Harry."

"Huh? What does hair color have to do with anything?"

"Harry, think about it. We've got three 'mothers' on this ship, and they're all blondes," Tom replied.

"Oh, yeah. I never thought of that. Marla, Seven, and Sam. I didn't realize that was a requirement!"

B'Elanna stuck out her tongue at Harry, whose chuckle prompted a squeal from the baby that made everyone laugh.

"Besides, Harry, the way we've been picking up hitchhikers for the last couple of years, I don't know if we'd have room on the ship for B'Elanna and I to have a kid," Tom said.

B'Elanna cuddled the baby against her chest. "And I don't have time for it, either. Not right now. If Seven ever finishes that analysis of the propulsion technologies in between playing mother to the other Borglets, we may get home in the next couple of years. Tom and I both have too much unfinished business in the Alpha Quadrant to settle before we can even begin to think about something like that."

After giving the baby another quick hug, B'Elanna handed her back to Harry and said to Tom, "Speaking of unfinished business, isn't it time we left the baby-sitter to his job?"

"You don't have to go. I don't think Aimee and me would mind having you around," Harry said hopefully.

"I would mind," B'Elanna said dryly.

Taking the hint, Tom stood up and said, "And remember that promise you made me, Harry."

"Don't worry. I'll get it done, and all by myself, too!"

"Right. No calling in reinforcements behind my back, now," Tom admonished as the couple waved their farewells to Harry and little Aimee.

=/\=

As soon as the doorway to Marla's quarters had closed behind them, Tom groaned, "There he goes again. He's doing it again."

"Doing what?" B'Elanna asked, grabbing hold of Tom's elbow and guiding him away from Deck Nine, Section Nine, towards Section Twelve.

"Harry. He's falling for the wrong woman again."

"Really? I'd say it would be a while before Aimee would qualify for that position."

"Not Aimee . . . what I mean is, he's getting all gooey eyed about the baby, but he's not interested in getting involved with Marla, who might actually *be* the right woman."

"You think Marla is right for Harry? I don't know about that. She's so skittish. Good engineer, though."

"I think any of us would be jumpy if we'd been through what she'd been on Equinox, B'Elanna."

"We went through the same thing."

"No, we didn't. Let's face it, we only had a taste of what they went through. They had to fight off those attacks for months, with a lot fewer resources."

"True. I don't know about Marla and Harry, though. I don't think there's anything there."

"Not from Harry's end. He told me. 'I'm not getting involved in any romantic relationships.' It figures. Marla's right here on the ship. She isn't an alien masquerading as a hologram, or the wrong twin, or an ex-Borg, or a member of a xenophobic species. She's a nice, pretty person who's very lonely. Just as lonely as Harry is. But is he interested in her? No! He's never interested in the ones like Jenny or Sue, who actually *are* interested in him. Only the ones that he can't have."

"Tom, you can't play matchmaker for Harry if he isn't interested. He's a big boy now. You can't blame him for being a little cautious."

"No, I guess I can't. Losing Lindsay was even worse this time than the first time."

To divert them both from memories of Harry's lost friend, B'Elanna asked, "So, how do you know Marla wouldn't be just another 'wrong woman'?"

"Have you seen the way Marla looks at him?"

"Not really, Tom," she replied in a low-pitched, breathy voice. "I've been too busy looking at someone else."

Tom had been about to turn towards the turbolift to ascend to his quarters and to the television set B'Elanna had built him. The sudden change in the tone of her voice distracted him. His left foot stepped down a little unevenly as they reached the junction in the corridor which led, on the right, towards the turbolift and on the left, to B'Elanna's quarters. Halting, Tom looked down at the way B'Elanna was holding onto his elbow. Her grip had gotten tighter. A lot tighter. "Is it getting warmer in here, or is it just me?"

"It could get a lot warmer, Tom. Hot, even. Very hot. Baking hot."

Tom's only reply was a little gurgle that slipped out of his throat, even as his fair complexion took on a distinctly rosy hue.

"In fact, it's warm enough so that I'd like to slip into something a little more comfortable. Something out of my second drawer, maybe."

Tom swallowed hard a couple of times, amusing B'Elanna with the sight of his Adam's Apple as it bobbed up and down. Finally, Tom was able to choke out, "Something silky and dark blue, maybe? Or even something . . . red?"

"Maybe. Do you really want to go to your quarters and be a couch potato tonight? Wouldn't you rather be a baked potato . . . all steaming hot and squishy inside . . . until you just have to burst right out of your skin?"

By this time, B'Elanna was whispering, but every syllable was enunciated so perfectly that the two crewmen hurrying by them heard every word. They gave the chief helmsman and chief engineer a very wide berth, well aware of what was going on between the two. The powerful, distinctive pheromones Tom and B'Elanna threw off at times like these were all too familiar to the crew. Since they were on duty this shift, at least they wouldn't have to try to sleep through the commotion tonight.

As B'Elanna expected, Tom chose the hot potato, garnished- briefly-with red silk.

=/\=