March 2380
"And then, get this: she marked me wrong because I used an adiabatic boundary condition! The question specifically asked for the worst case failure scenario! There is no way in hell convective cooling is going to be the worst, but she said that wasn't the scenario I was given! Hey, guess what? Things don't always function in the environments you specify them for!"
B'Elanna was pacing back and forth in their small living room. She felt like a caged animal, having to reverse her direction every four or so steps. Tom sat quietly before her on the couch, watching her move back and forth through the room. He hadn't said much- well, not that she'd really allowed him a word in edgewise.
B'Elanna had gotten home rather late tonight, trying to work out her frustrations about Professor Henkel and her goddamn exam by getting work done in the lab. In the end, B'Elanna had missed dinner and bedtime arriving home at 21:00- tired, hungry, and still in a foul mood.
Then Tom had asked the fateful question, "So, how was your day?" which led to at least twenty minutes of ranting.
B'Elanna couldn't believe the gall of this stupid professor. Exactly how many warp drives had this woman kept running, stranded, halfway across the galaxy? The utter arrogance of telling B'Elanna that she needed to answer the question asked, not the question she made up in her head…
In a fit of rage, B'Elanna picked up the nearest object (an empty metal water bottle) and flung it across the room while letting out a frustrated growl.
It all seemed to happen in slow motion and even before the water bottle hit the wall that separated the living room from Miral's room, B'Elanna regretted her action. She could hear Tom's sharp intake of breath, and then the bottle hit.
They both waited, not making a sound. Maybe Miral didn't hear it?
The scream that erupted from her room indicated she did. Tom began to rise, but B'Elanna held her hand out. "No, Tom, I'm the idiot who woke her up. I'll get her back to sleep."
"But she's calling for me," Tom responded.
B'Elanna didn't quite know how Tom got that out of Miral's inarticulate yells, but it didn't matter. Even if she was calling for him, it was just because she didn't know B'Elanna was home. "You've had her all day, I can take care of it."
Tom shrugged. "Okay, let me know if you need help." He leaned back on the couch.
Taking a deep breath to compose herself, B'Elanna headed into her daughter's room. They'd transitioned Miral out of a crib a couple months ago, after she'd made one too many attempts to climb out on her own. Lowering the guard rail on Miral's small bed, B'Elanna sat on the edge, and reached out for her daughter. "Hey, honey, it's okay. Mama's here."
While B'Elanna knew the child would not be instantly calmed, she never expected that Miral would hit her. Twice. And then yell, "No!"
B'Elanna sat there, a bit stunned while Miral continued to scream. And now B'Elanna could hear it: between sobs she was saying "dada".
Reaching out again, B'Elanna tried to keep a calm voice. "Honey, what's wrong?"
As soon as B'Elanna made contact again, Miral shoved her away. "No! Dada!"
B'Elanna was trying to figure out exactly how to deal with this when she heard a noise behind her. "Sweetheart, what's wrong?" Tom voice was soft and comforting, and immediately Miral responded, reaching out her arms while calling for him.
Tom came to the bed and B'Elanna moved aside. She waited for Miral to greet Tom the same way the little girl had greeted her: kicking and screaming. But Miral allowed Tom to easily pick her up and hold her.
B'Elanna watched, helplessly, as Tom rocked and soothed her baby. Unable to look at the scene anymore, B'Elanna went back into the living room and dropped onto the couch. So now her own daughter didn't even want her? Not that she could really blame Miral, after all, B'Elanna was never home these days. Recently, even on the weekends, B'Elanna had went to school in order to have a quiet place to work on problem sets and study for exams. So why would her daughter want her? She didn't even know B'Elanna anymore.
And it was all because of stupid school. Not that that was going well anyway. She barely had enough research done to present at the most Podunk of conferences, to say nothing of something journal quality. And the classes! She wasn't learning jack, and if she strayed at all from the ridiculous course work - showed a modicum of original thought - she was shot down!
Bringing her knees up to her chest, she wrapped herself in the blanket that hung over the back of the couch. What was the point of all this? She wasn't getting very far in her research, the classes were pointless, and now her own child didn't want her.
A hot tear ran down B'Elanna's cheek, and she quickly wiped it away. And great, now I'm crying...
B'Elanna noticed that there were no longer cries emanating from Miral's room, and a few moments later, Tom reappeared. He stopped short when he saw her, and B'Elanna realized how pathetic and ridiculous she must look; crying on the couch while he had to actually do the work of getting Miral back down.
B'Elanna waited for him to scoff at her, or maybe just to turn and leave her to her pathetic wallowing. But instead, he said, "I bet you're hungry. You didn't eat dinner yet, right?"
What?! Tom was trying to feed her? "I'm not hungry," she responded, curling up tighter.
"Did you eat?" Tom pressed, heading for the kitchen.
B'Elanna growled, "I didn't, but I'm not hungry."
She could hear Tom rustling around in the kitchen, and then the sound of the replicator. "Tom, I said I'm not hungry!"
Tom came back around the couch, and set a stack of pancakes on the coffee table. "Well, I'm just going to put these here, and you can eat them if you get hungry."
B'Elanna just stared at him for a moment. Seriously? He was treating her like Miral. She was a fully grown adult who could make her own food choices!
Although the pancakes did smell pretty good.
B'Elanna looked from Tom to the pancakes and back again. Part of her didn't want to eat them on principle, but their scent was making her stomach growl. Heaving a sigh, she sat upright and grabbed them, digging in.
She heard Tom let out a long breath, and lean back into the couch. This was ridiculous. Her going to school was running Tom ragged (as evidently he now had two kids to look after). Taking another bite, she tried to remember why it was so important to be an engineer. She should just quit and get a technician job. Doing minor repairs on ships would be dull, but she'd have a lot more time and a lot less stress. They should turn their attention to Tom's career, and stop wasting time with her floundering.
"I think I want to quit," B'Elanna said staring down at her food.
"Quit what? School?"
B'Elanna looked up to see the shocked expression on her husband's face. "Yes," she replied, trying to keep her voice even.
Tom shook his head slightly. "Just drop Henkel's class if you hate it that much."
"But then I'd get behind schedule," B'Elanna argued.
"So?" Tom replied. "Better that you're behind schedule than miserable."
B'Elanna growled in irritation. "Look, things aren't going well at school, you're exhausted, I'm not around enough for Miral to even want me..." B'Elanna looked up, to see Tom rubbing the bridge of his nose. When he didn't respond, she added, "It just doesn't seem worth it anymore."
"I don't even know how to respond to that."
What the hell was that supposed to mean? "It's the right choice. I'll get a tech job with regular hours and you could get back to piloting and out of the damn house."
To B'Elanna's surprise, Tom got up and started pacing. Why was he not agreeing to this?
After a few laps around the living room, he turned and faced her, a much more annoyed expression on his face than she would have expected. "B'Elanna, this is ridiculous. You're never going to be satisfied doing tune-ups on shuttle crafts. And I keep telling you—I'm happy with what I'm doing. I don't know how you could think I'd rather be flying - I love Miral a lot more than I love being a pilot."
B'Elanna's eyes narrowed. "Oh, so I love engineering more than Miral?"
Tom took a deep breath. "Of course not-"
B'Elanna didn't let him finish. "I must, because I spend all my time at that fucking place. I don't blame Miral for hating me."
Tom rolled his eyes. "Miral doesn't hate you. And it's not like she hasn't played favorites before."
While Tom was right, Miral had also never acted so violently toward her before. "You don't understand. She hit me!"
"She's in a hitting phase!" Tom replied, exasperated.
B'Elanna slammed down the plate of pancakes. "This is exactly what I mean! I didn't even know that! I don't spend enough time with her to even know her!"
Tom closed his eyes and took a breath. "What if you worked from home more often? Then you could take short breaks and spend them with us."
B'Elanna looked around their tiny apartment. "Where? There's no room for a desk in our room, and I can't concentrate when Miral's with me."
"I could find us a new place. With an office for you and a yard for Miral."
B'Elanna froze. He wanted to move? Now? "Oh, moving is going to make things less stressful," she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm.
"I'll take care of everything, you won't have to get too involved." B'Elanna had seen this look in Tom's eyes before. He had a plan. And it would be hell to talk him out of it. And, if she were honest, a home office sounded nice.
"Okay, fine, but that still doesn't address..." she trailed off. It didn't address what? That she had problems with authority figures? She sighed. "I don't do well with professors who have sticks up their asses. And that seems to be pretty much the entire faculty, other than Carla."
Tom sighed and sat down next to her, taking her hand. "I don't know what to tell you about that. Other than... sometimes you just have to ride these things out. But I really do think you should consider dropping Henkel's class, because she does sound ridiculous."
"I can't-"
He interrupted her. "At least go talk to Carla about it. Please? Maybe she'll have some suggestions about if you should drop the class, or how to deal with Henkel. And maybe what classes you should take or avoid in the future. Or if you should take a lighter load and take longer to graduate... I think you have a lot of options other than just quitting."
B'Elanna took a deep breath. She was feeling a bit better (maybe Tom had been right to feed her), but she still wasn't convinced quitting wasn't the right choice. "Tom, I don't know..." B'Elanna said, looking down at their intertwined hands.
Tom placed a finger under her chin, tilting her head up and forcing her to meet his eyes. "I believe you can do anything you put your mind to. But there is no reason to make this any harder than it needs to be. Just go talk to Carla. Okay?"
B'Elanna stared at his face for a moment, and wondered what in the world she ever did to deserve this man. Slowly, she nodded. "Okay. I will."
The next day, B'Elanna sat on the train headed home, slowly munching on a granola bar. She had talked to Carla, who had been nothing but sympathetic. Evidently, she'd had run-ins with Henkel before.
"You're taking a class from Henkel? Amara didn't warn you?" Carla said in disbelief.
B'Elanna turned her attention away from the window in her advisor's office and its sweeping bay view. "I didn't realize I was supposed to tell Amara what classes I was taking..." B'Elanna replied defensively.
"Well, you don't have to, but it's a good idea to talk to the other students about what classes to take. They would have warned you away from Henkel. The woman may be brilliant, but she is one of the most difficult people I've ever encountered. And she's the very definition of 'ivory tower'."
From there, Carla mentioned another couple professors she thought B'Elanna would clash with, as well as others she thought B'Elanna would like. "But you should really be talking to the students about this," she said. "My opinion is only based on working with them, not taking a class from them."
B'Elanna sighed. She didn't realize choosing classes would be so... communal. "So what should I do about my current situation?"
Carla shrugged. "Well, you have a couple options. I know the university allows three years, rather than the normal two, for student parents. So you could drop the class and take advantage of that." Carla smiled, wistfully. "I know I wanted to spend as much time as possible with my son when he was Miral's age. And hell, I still love to spend time with him, but at fifteen, he wants little to do with me."
B'Elanna shook her head. "I can't say I look forward to teenage Miral."
Carla laughed. "As with all stages, it has its pluses and minuses. But about Henkel, she won't give you anything less than a C, because then she'd have to justify it. Not that grades really matter. And the teaching assistant will probably be the one that assigns grades anyway, so Henkel's personal grudge won't affect your final grade much. You might just try to keep your head down and tough it out. It's only two more months, after all. But it's up to you."
B'Elanna stared at her reflection in the window of the train, wishing for that bay view rather than the wall of a tunnel. Dropping the class and spending more time with Miral and Tom sounded great, but an additional year in school did not.
"You just have to balance your priorities, B'Elanna," Carla had said.
Balance... but there were so many variables, it was hard to tell which combination achieved the optimal result. There were Tom's needs, Miral's needs, her needs. Sometimes she wished they were still lost in the Delta Quadrant. At least out there the answer had always been clear: whatever it takes to survive.
As the train pulled into her station, B'Elanna rose. While she was now pretty sure she didn't want to quit the master's program (after a good night's sleep, that idea had sounded pretty stupid), she still wasn't completely sure what to do about Henkel's class. Since the semester was nearly half over, in some ways it seemed like a huge waste to erase all the work she'd already put in.
On the other hand, she really hated that petaQ.
B'Elanna walked out of the station and to the queue of people waiting for the autonomous hovercars. As she got closer to the front of the line, she tried to picture going to that stupid class again and listening to that woman talk. Just the very notion of it made her blood start to boil, to the point that once she got into a car and told it where to go, she was ready to quit school all over again.
B'Elanna crossed her arms tightly. This was ridiculous. She should just drop the class and be happy. With that thought, a weight lifted from her shoulders. The decision was made; now to tell Tom.
A few minutes later the car stopped in front of her apartment building and B'Elanna got out. The vehicle drove away, off to its next passenger, and B'Elanna headed inside. Tom had suggested she drop the class in the first place, so he wouldn't be upset, right? So what if it took another semester or year? In the grand scheme of things, that wasn't that much time.
B'Elanna opened the door of their unit to find Tom and Miral at the kitchen table. "Mama!" Miral reached out to B'Elanna with her spaghetti sauce covered hands.
B'Elanna deftly avoided them and gave Miral a kiss on the top of the head before giving Tom a peck on the cheek. "How was your day?" B'Elanna asked as she set down her things.
"Good. Miral and I went to the park. You should see her on the monkey bars. Anyway, she took a good long nap after that, so I was doing some reading and found the most amazing article about this new ship that Zapalan Corporation is making. It sounds incredible. You have to read this article so we can talk about it." B'Elanna turned to see a dreamy expression on Tom's face. "Man, I'd love to fly that thing. Anyway, how was your day? Did you talk to Carla?"
"Yeah…" she drew out, as a crushing realization hit her. She couldn't ask Tom to wait another six months or a year for her to finish. He'd already sacrificed enough for her, all because she couldn't get her act together at nineteen years old and finish school the first time.
Just minutes ago, dropping the class had seemed right, but looking at Tom right now, it felt completely wrong.
"And?" Tom asked, picking spaghetti up off the table and putting it back on Miral's plate.
"I'm not going to drop the class," B'Elanna replied, trying to sound confident. "I talked to Carla and she said that if I just keep my head down, it'll be fine. And I've already put half a semester of work into it anyway. It makes more sense to just stick it out."
Tom reach out and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her down onto his lap. "Okay, but I still think it would be a good idea to find a bigger place." He gave her a sly smile. "After all, I might like having you around more often, even if you are locked away studying."
B'Elanna looped an arm around Tom's neck. "I might like that too," she whispered, before giving him a long kiss.