December
B'Elanna was sitting in front of the fire, still trying to warm up after her morning of skiing, staring at a long column of numbers and trying to figure out why they didn't look right, when she felt a slight tugging at her sleeve. She put down the PADD to find herself looking right into Linssay Houston's big blue eyes.
"Dad says we're going to go outside in about half an hour. Is that enough time to braid my hair?"
Torres raised her eyebrows at the question. She had hoped that the eight-year-old would forget about her request to have B'Elanna braid her hair; apparently, she hadn't. She sighed, wondering if her continued good standing with the Paris family depended on fulfilling Linssay's request. She figured it wasn't worth the risk to find out and conceded. "Yeah, that should be enough time. I need a hairbrush and a few hair bands." The girl held the items up, clearly anticipating the needs. "Okay," Torres said with a sigh, wondering how to go about doing this. She had never braided anyone else's hair before. "Why don't you kneel on the ground here, in front of my chair, right, like that, so your head is in a good position."
Elisabeth looked up from her seat at the opposite side of the room and headed over. "Do you mind if I watch? I never learned how to do a proper French braid, and I have a feeling Lins is going to want me to learn."
"Sure," B'Elanna replied, wondering why she was doing this as she took the hairbrush. "Do you want one braid or two?"
"You can do two?" Linssay asked, her eyes wide. "I want two."
B'Elanna parted the hair down the middle and tied one half off with one of the bands Linssay provided. "You start with a small section right at the forehead," she explained to Elisabeth as she began sectioning the fine blond hair. "Linssay, be sure to tell me if I pull too tightly, I'm not used to braiding other people's hair."
"Okay," she replied. As B'Elanna worked the hair, she winced a few times, but didn't say anything. Tom watched from the doorway as Torres worked her fingers through the young girl's hair, explaining what she was doing to Elisabeth as she was going. She still wasn't completely comfortable around his nieces and nephew, but had improved a great deal over the past week; there was no way she would have sat down to braid Linssay's hair before they left for France. In fact, he was impressed she was doing it then.
"Did your mom used to braid your hair like this?" Linssay asked, trying her hardest to remain still as B'Elanna worked.
"No, my mom didn't like it when my hair was braided." It was one of the many things that Miral Torres had declared to be 'too human' for her daughter. B'Elanna had taught herself how to braid her hair when she was thirteen just so she could annoy her mother. "She said it looked better when it was just down and curly. She really didn't like it when I made my hair straight."
"Why did you want to straighten it?" Linssay asked, making a face. "Straight hair is so boring. I wish mine was curly like yours."
Elisabeth chuckled. "I used to want really curly hair, too. Tell you what, Lins. Before we go out to dinner tonight, I'll put curls in your hair. It won't be like B'Elanna's, but it won't be straight like it is now, either."
"Really?" Linssay's eyes went wide at the idea, making Torres chuckle as she tied off the second braid. She caught Tom's eye when she rose to return to her seat and raised her eyebrows at him, a slight smile on her face, before picking up the PADD and getting back to her work. She knew he was itching to say something but didn't want to lose on the bet less than two hours after eating lunch. Instead, he stood behind her chair, looking over her shoulder at the display on the larger data PADD. It was a fairly complicated looking diagram, complete with equations he couldn't begin to understand. He frowned slightly as he watched her make corrections to those equations. He didn't know how her mind worked, but it was obviously on a completely different level than his own.
"Why did you just start to work on this today?" he asked, moving to take a seat on the couch. "You've probably had this for weeks."
She glanced at him, her eyebrows raised as she checked the chronometer on her PADD. "Two hours and three minutes. I'm impressed you lasted this long."
He shrugged. "Curiosity killed the cat, I guess. So, why now? You usually can't wait to analyze your results and get started designing your next experiment."
"I wasn't planning on going back," she said matter-of-factly.
"To Chapman's lab?"
"To the Academy," she clarified, glancing at him quickly to gauge his reaction before returning to her work.
"I didn't realize things were that terrible for you there," he replied softly. "You didn't tell me."
"You were on Mars," she retorted. She softened a bit, then added with a shrug, "I don't tell you everything that happens to me. Nova Squadron hasn't been very much fun, classes are classes, and I didn't think Chapman even wanted me around."
"So what changed your mind?"
She thought about that for a moment. "I guess when I talked to your father last night," she admitted. "When he told me that Chapman thinks I have a lot of potential. Nobody really ever said that before."
"Siobhan and I have said it thousands of times," he argued.
"Yeah, but that's you and Siobhan. You don't know much more than what's covered in the introductory engineering courses, and Siobhan was just trying to keep me around for the squad. This is the first time someone who is considered an expert in the field has actually given me any sort of praise or indicated that I even have a chance."
"I know it's not much, but I always knew you had a chance," he replied.
She sighed. "I know. And I'm sorry for what I said yesterday, about you not understanding. It's just… it's just that it's so hard, to try to fit in. Most people at the Academy have never really met any Klingons, and so when they look at me, they just think about what they've heard, about how Klingons are mean and vicious, incapable of controlling their most basal emotions and always looking for a fight. The look of surprise on people's faces when they realize that I know what I'm talking about is almost universal."
"You need to give people a chance to get to know you. After awhile, they'll see more than just the ridges."
She studied him for a moment, waiting for him to make his trademark joke. "So what do you see when you look at me?"
He returned the stare, not saying anything for several long minutes. "I see a beautiful woman with a mind that is working at a level mine can't even comprehend."
"Tom…" she said warily.
"Sorry. I know. You asked, though," he replied, giving her a quirky smile that failed to reach his eyes. He stood from his seat. "I'll let you get back to your work. Do you need someone to remind you when it's getting close to time to leave for dinner, so you have time to get ready?"
"I'll be sure to watch the chronometer," she replied softly, studying him for some sort of reaction. They continued to watch each other silently for a minute before Torres shook her head almost imperceptibly. "Now get out of here so I can get some work done."
