a/n: References to season 7's Lineage

Tom considered himself a pretty even tempered guy. A good pilot had to be, as a rule. You couldn't lose your shit every time something went wrong. Every second counted - you had to stay calm, have complete confidence in your abilities, and make quick adjustments when needed - no time for hissy fits.

But right now he was so pissed off he felt like he could rip someone's head off with his bare hands. A holographic head, particularly.

As he stormed down the corridors that lay between him and Sickbay, various crew members scattered out of his way, the expressions on their faces similar to ones he usually only saw elicited by his wife, or maybe the Captain before her first cup of coffee. He paused outside the doors to the medical bay. The Doctor generally didn't respond well to full-frontal assaults - they only made him even more condescending and sarcastic than usual. No, Tom had to regain his composure and calmly, rationally explain to the hologram exactly why it was that he was a complete asshole.

The doors slid open to reveal Sam Wildman and the Doctor reviewing the results of a biobed diagnostic. At the first glimpse of that supercilious bald head, Tom lost every trace of his self-possession. "Doc! What the hell is the matter with you?"

Before the Doctor could recover from his shock and offense, Sam cautiously approached Tom with a look of concerned confusion on her face. "Tom? What's all over your shoulder?" She walked around the fuming pilot, her nose wrinkling. "And your back?"

"That," he said, panting through his nose, "would be spit up. From a holographic baby. An angry, frustrated holographic baby. That he programmed!"

Sam had grabbed a cloth and was doing her best to clean Tom's uniform. "I don't understand. If it's from a holographic baby…"

"Replicated vomitus adds to the experience, of course," the EMH interrupted her, looking very determinedly at his tricorder and refusing to make eye contact with Tom. "When the lieutenants' actual infant arrives, her spit up won't simply disappear at will. Better to get accustomed to it now. Don't worry, Mr. Paris, the program used very little of your replicator rations, considering the immense amounts of knowledge and practical experience you're acquiring."

Tom's jaw nearly hit the floor at that. "You used my rations? To make this?" He gestured wildly at his still stained uniform.

"Of course," the Doctor said, his expression clearly indicating he was astounded by such a ridiculous inquiry. "Why would I use my rations for your baby care program? And really, Mr. Paris, I'm surprised at you. Will you get this upset at your daughter just because of a little spit up?"

"I'm not upset about the spit up, Doc," he near growled. "I'm upset because you gave us a baby that cried for over an hour straight!"

"Only an hour?" the EMH said brightly. "I'm impressed! Perhaps you will be a competent parent after all. However did you manage to soothe her?"

"I shut the damn program down! That's how!"

The Doctor regarded him reproachfully. "Typical. You won't be able to shut your daughter off when she cries, you know."

Sam had been watching the two men like she was at a tennis match. "I'm a little confused. What sort of baby care program was this?"

"As the future godfather of the not-yet-named Torres-Paris baby-"

"That can be changed," Tom muttered.

With a long suffering sigh, the Doctor continued. "I decided that Mr. Paris and Lieutenant Torres needed more practical experience in child rearing, versus just reading a text on the subject. Neither one has been intimately involved with the care of an infant before. As it's often wise to be prepared for the worst case scenario, the child I programmed was suffering from infantile colic."

"Colic?" Sam queried. "Isn't that quite rare these days?"

"It's true that idiopathic infantile colic only occurs in roughly 0.15 percent of Klingon children, but it's significantly more common in human babies."

"Oh?" Tom remarked, eyes narrowed. "How common?"

The EMH picked at a loose thread in the mattress of the biobed for several seconds before answering. "0.98 percent."

Tom was feeling some real sympathy for his wife's occasional outbursts of rage right now. "So you made B'Elanna cry, lock herself in our quarters, and claim that she's going to give up the baby for adoption at the next M class planet we see for a less than one percent chance of colic? My wife is not a crier, Doc. Do you have any idea what you've done to her?"

Sam frowned at the hologram in disappointment. "Oh, Doctor."

The Doctor had the good grace to look remorseful. "Well, I certainly didn't intend to upset her! At least not that much."

"You do remember what happened less than three weeks ago, don't you? When we first found out she was pregnant and her hormones were all out of whack? It didn't occur to you that giving her the holographic baby from hell was a bad idea?" Tom had given up all pretense that he wasn't enraged. He was pretty sure the Captain could hear him yelling from her Ready Room at this point.

Unfortunately his (completely justifiable!) anger had given the Doc an opening to drop his guilt in favor of acting put upon. "Mr. Paris," he sniffed. "I was simply trying to prepare you for the myriad difficulties you will be facing once the baby arrives. It seems to me that you should be grateful that you are now aware of how woefully unprepared you are for fatherhood, so you have the time to take appropriate measures." He put the tricorder on the biobed. "Now if you'll excuse me, since you and Lieutenant Torres have elected to end your holodeck time early - there's a golf course in Scotland with my name on it."

As the Doctor walked out the doors of Sickbay, Tom extended both hands in his preferred obscene gesture. He heard Sam clear her throat behind him, and turned to her, an apologetic smile in place. "Sorry, Sam," he said in the face of her disapproving frown.

Sam's face broke into a wide grin. "I'm just teasing, Tom." She returned to her diagnostic. "If you think I haven't flipped the occasional bird at that pompous hologram, you'd be dead wrong. Don't look at me like that," she said in response to Tom's raised eyebrows. "Just because I'm Naomi's mother doesn't mean I'm not a human being. And that's what B'Elanna needs to hear right now."

"She needs to hear that you've given the Doc the ol' silent 'fuck you'?" Tom asked, amused.

"No," Sam said patiently. "She needs to hear that becoming a mother isn't going to change her - for better or for worse. If you think too much about the day to day grind of caring for a baby, it's overwhelming - the diapers, the feeding, the lack of sleep. There's no question it's hard and sometimes feels all-consuming. But she'll get through it, just like a billion mothers before her. And when all is said and done, she'll still be the same person - just one with a baby. That goes for you, too."

"That's what I'm worried about," Tom groaned. "Maybe the Doc's right. Maybe this program upset me so much because I know we're not ready to be parents. B'Elanna and I have barely figured out how to live together, much less raise a child."

"You know what I think?" Sam asked him. "I think the Doctor doesn't know what he's talking about. When was the last time he had to raise an infant? He tried to babysit Naomi for me once when she was eight months old, and called me after twenty minutes because he couldn't handle it."

Tom brightened immediately. "Why am I just hearing about this?"

"Because he made me promise not to tell anyone," Sam replied. "But given what he just put you and B'Elanna through, I think he deserves to be taken down a peg. My point is this: forget his stupid holo-program. Heck, you can even forget most of the books. You and B'Elanna are both smart, caring people who want to be good parents. You'll figure out what works for your baby once she gets here. I promise. And when you get stumped, you can ask me for help - any time day or night. I mean it."

"Thanks, Sam," Tom said, genuinely touched. "I forget sometimes - how hard it must have been for you, must be for you - raising Naomi on your own."

"I have about a hundred and forty helpers, actually. It's not so bad," she said with a wistful smile. She cleared her throat and pulled him over to a wall console. "And now I'm going to help you. You need a new program - one that can wipe all traces of that evil hologram from B'Elanna's mind."

"Are you talking about the colicky baby or the Doctor?"

"Yes," she said, grinning at him. "Now tell me what B'Elanna likes to do to relax." She tapped a few buttons to call up the holodeck controls.

"I didn't know you were into holo-programming," Tom said as he peered over her shoulder, wondering what else he was going to learn about the xenobiologist and part-time medic today.

"I'm not," she said. "I'm terrible at it. I'm just the idea man - you're going to have to do all the work."

"Thank you," B'Elanna said, as she reached across their neighboring Adirondack chairs to give Tom's hand a squeeze. They were relaxing on the back deck of an oceanfront cottage on the coast of Maine after a few hours of sailing on the Atlantic. The holographic sun's final rays were fading, and a gentle breeze was cooling what remained of the hot August day. "This was exactly what I needed."

"Good," Tom smiled at her. "You deserve it." It had taken quite a bit of finagling, but he'd managed to get eighteen consecutive hours on the holodeck for just the two of them. Harry had graciously sacrificed his planned hike in the Andes, Joe Carey agreed to swap for a block Tom had for the following week, and four of the hours he'd guilted out of the Doctor after subjecting the EMH to a prolonged, lurid description of all the distress and anxiety the baby care program had triggered in his wife. "More fried clams? Or we could walk over for ice cream?"

"Ugh, no. I'm completely stuffed," B'Elanna groaned, rubbing her stomach. "But I do need to ask you something. I'm not complaining, but I thought you said this program had something to do with the baby. I haven't seen a child yet - not even on the beach earlier."

"I said it was a 'baby-moon'," Tom clarified. "It was a term used in the early twenty-first century - a little time away for a couple before their first child shows up."

"Stupid name," B'Elanna remarked, then turned to smile at her husband. "But a fantastic idea."

It wasn't that long before B'Elanna thought maybe walking for ice cream was a good idea, after all. But just for the walk - she didn't really need anything more to eat. Except the little walk-up stand did have a banana chip ice cream. How big could a kiddie cone be, really? And maybe she could have just a lick or two of Tom's. Just to try it - she'd never heard of ice cream called "Moose Tracks" before.

After Tom jogged back to the stand to get himself a replacement cone, they sat in the sand on the darkened beach, watching a programmed meteor shower in comfortable silence. When B'Elanna's head got progressively heavier on Tom's shoulder, he pulled his wife up the cottage's stairs to the bedroom. Once in the upper hallway, he paused at a closed door. "There's one more thing I need to show you," he said quietly as he eased the door open.

In the center of the room was a cream colored crib, bathed in moonlight from an overhead window. The nighttime sounds of crickets and the occasional owl were now accompanied by a soft, rhythmic breathing. Tom gently pulled B'Elanna in when she hesitated at the doorway, giving her an encouraging smile. "It's OK," he reassured her. "I promise you'll like this."

He wrapped his arm around his wife and they leaned over the side of the crib. It was the holographic projection of their daughter - curly brown hair, gentle ridges across the forehead - but this time, she was sound asleep, wrapped in a cozy green sleeper decorated with ducks and sheep. Her mouth worked a little at an imaginary bottle, and soon found a tiny, perfect fist to suck on. And with that, the baby let out a deep, contented sigh.

"Oh, Tom," B'Elanna breathed, as she grasped his hand. "She's gorgeous. Thank you."

Tom kissed his wife's hair. "Thank Sam Wildman. This was her idea. She thought you might like a reminder that as crazy and hard as parenting can be - mostly what it is, is amazing."