Ulterior Motives

B'Elanna Torres had no need to see her husband poke his head into Engineering before shouting over to him, "Sorry, I got tied up." The fussy baby in his arms had heralded the pair's arrival as soon as the turbolift doors opened.

"I figured." Tom bounced his daughter in a futile attempt to quiet her while her mother turned away from the console she was examining.

"Sue, can you complete the impulse drive diagnostic I started? The results should come up in about 5 minutes."

Lt. Nicoletti nodded as she moved to another console and punched in codes to give her access to the data when it was ready. Reassured that one essential task was now covered, B'Elanna turned to the chair positioned in a corner that was partially blocked from view by a support beam. Tom shielded her with his body as B'Elanna loosened her jacket and pulled up her tank top and bra, exposing her breast for the briefest of seconds. Her very determined, hungry baby lunged out of her father's arms into her mother's, latched onto her mother's breast, and gave a shuddering sigh as she began to suck enthusiastically.

"I think Linnis has a Klingon sense of smell. She certainly knows when you whip out that nipple for her, Lieutenant," Tom teased.

B'Elanna glared at him for only a second before settling back into the chair with a contented sigh. Nature definitely knew how to perpetuate mammalian species. Nursing her baby was almost as relaxing as a hard physical workout at the end of the work day. The problem was, her work day wasn't really done yet.

The sight of the Chief Engineer nursing her baby had become so routine over the past few months that her staff continued to work on their tasks with barely a glance at the family in the corner. Nicoletti reported that the impulse engine diagnostic showed no issues when the final data was displayed. Lt. Vorik asked if he could start immediately on the gel pack maintenance she had scheduled for tomorrow, since he expected to have some time on Beta shift. Except for the fact that Vorik focused his eyes around her forehead while asking his question, B'Elanna could have been doing anything she normally did while on duty, for all the attention that was paid to the youngest member of Voyager's crew.

"How much longer do you think you'll be before you can get home for dinner?" Tom finally asked, as his daughter continued rhythmically sucking her own dinner.

"Shouldn't be long now. I just wanted to run one more diagnostic on that console over there. When I started the impulse drive diagnostic, there seemed to be an abnormal delay before the program began to run."

"Why don't you let me run it for you now, so you can get off a bit earlier?"

B'Elanna shrugged. "If you want to do it, it's fine by me."

Tom picked up the tricorder next to B'Elanna's chair and hummed a bit to himself as he pointed it at the console. "There seem to be a fluctuation in the connection between the consoles in this area, Chief."

"Just what I suspected. That would explain the lag. The connections must be weak here."

Tom moved to the next console down the line, then moved over to check then next console the other side of the one already identified as problematical. "There's a very slight hesitation on this side, too, but it's not in the critical range. The main problem seems to with the first one I checked. Do you want me to work on it for you now?"

"No, that's okay. Vorik, why don't you leave the gel pack maintenance for tomorrow, the way we had originally planned? This console is more of a priority. Once you've got this one fixed, check out the console on the left, too. I think that one is only showing that hesitation because of this one, but it's best to be certain."

The young Vulcan engineer nodded his head. "I will take care of both of them, Lieutenant."

While B'Elanna was instructing Vorik, Tom could not stop smiling. Linnis had finally finished her evening meal. Drooped in her mother's arms, half asleep, she still held her mother's nipple firmly between her bow lips. Tom could not imagine a more perfect picture: B'Elanna, in Engineering and in her element, cradling and nurturing her child. Tom hoped he would always remember that moment, but the only thing he said was, "Since you're almost finished here, why don't I put our daughter to bed before preparing a nice dinner at home for the two of us?"

Since it was supposed to be B'Elanna's turn to "cook," she gratefully accepted his offer, gracing him with a dazzling, if brief, smile while her husband gathered their sleeping daughter into his waiting arms.

Forty-five minutes later, B'Elanna strolled into the Paris-Torres family quarters. Before doing anything else, she peeked into the second bedroom to check on her daughter. Now that the nightly bouts of colic had dissipated, thanks to Tuvok's help, Linnis was sleeping peacefully. B'Elanna breathed a sigh of relief. B'Elanna wasn't surprised Tom had to bring Linnis to her when she was late getting home. Linnis tended to wake up to demand a meal right around the time of shift changes, apparently aware of the change in activity at those times of the day. While the EMH was very pleased to see the baby had such a good appetite; the down side was that Linnis could become extremely fussy when her mother wasn't home right on time to feed her. Unfortunately, B'Elanna's responsibilities did not always permit her to follow the regular schedule that Linnis deserved. Fortunately, Tom was more than up to the task of caring for his daughter, even if it simply meant he had to bring Linnis to her mother for a feeding, as he had done this evening.

B'Elanna found Tom lying down on their bed, dressed in casual, off-duty clothing, with his left arm covering his eyes, "catching a few Z's," as he always liked to say. As she entered the room, however, he quickly rose up. "Why don't you get comfortable, Be'? I'll finish setting up for dinner."

"Sounds good to me, Flyboy," she said with a quick kiss.

When B'Elanna, dressed in a robe and nightgown, entered their main room, she saw a replicated red rose in a vase on the table. A quick peek at the replicator informed her that dinner was to be one of Tom's favorite salads and Coq au Vin, programmed in and awaiting only a final command before being "whipped up" into dinner. A bottle of wine to accompany their repast already rested in the chiller.

B'Elanna raised her eyebrow. "Champagne? What's the occasion?"

Tom smiled seductively. "Goes with everything."

"Everything? Hmm. What exactly did you have in mind? Other than the salad and the chicken?"

Tom glided toward her. "Please! Coq au Vin is so much more than just 'chicken!'" He wrapped his arms around his wife and nuzzled her ear, adding, "I thought we might want to supplement the main courses with a little extra. . . as the spirit moves us."

"Why, Lieutenant Paris. You wouldn't have any . . . ulterior motives now, would you?"

"Who, me?" Tom said, popping the champagne cork and grabbing one of the glasses on the table. "I just thought that our chief engineer deserved a nice, relaxing dinner after all of her labors today. Must have given her quite an appetite."

"Could be. Aren't you asking for trouble? A nice dinner, with a baby always willing to barge in on a good time? Especially at dinner time?"

"Oh, I think Linnis is going to be out for a while now. She seemed really tired- didn't even stir when I put her down to bed. So, I think we can count on an hour or so, so we can eat."

"Okay. Shall we get the salad for the first course?"

"Well, sure. If that's the first course you really want." His voice teased her with a promise of an alternate first course. No surprise there.

"What did you have in mind if we don't have the salad first?" she responded, innocently.

"I've got a couple of appetizers we can choose from, if you like. And they go great with champagne."

"Uh huh. And then, when we actually are going to eat . . . food . . . I'm going to have to eat with a baby pulling on my breast, aren't I? That isn't much fun, Tom."

"I know, but considering the kind of appetizers I've got on the menu. . . at least you can eat the Coq au Vin and salad while you've got Linnis at your breast. You'd have one hand free to eat. With these appetizers, now, I'd prefer to keep it to a twosome. We'd have to keep it to a twosome, in fact."

"I see your point."

B'Elanna was more than willing to get into the spirit of "appetizers" with Tom. It didn't take long for her glass of champagne to be placed on the floor while her husband served up the first very first appetizer. Tom helpfully licked up a little spilled champagne from B'Elanna's torso before the pair began to roll around on the floor, enjoying a bit of Klingon/human foreplay. A certain masculine cheek received a big chomping bite on it, courtesy of Voyager's Chief Engineer, before the atmosphere started to get hot and heavy.

Tom and B'Elanna were just about to join together completely when they heard the sound they dreaded even more than their daughter's cries:

::::Red Alert. All senior officers to the bridge. Red Alert.:::

"Oh, damn!" yelled Tom. A second later, he yelled out something else. It may have been his wife's name, but in the context, she wasn't particularly thrilled.

"Well, that's nice for you," a grumpy, on-the-edge B'Elanna groused.

"Sorry. I couldn't exactly go to the bridge that way," Tom apologized as they rushed to get back into uniform.

In seconds, they'd pulled themselves together enough to go to their duty stations, although Tom's unhealed bite mark still glowed upon his cheek. Scooping up Linnis from her crib so she could drop her off at Sickbay with the Nanny and Naomi on the way to Engineering, B'Elanna hustled out the door one step after Tom.

The crisis was serious, as so many were to the crew of Voyager, alone in the Delta Quadrant and without any back-up. An aggressive race had fired on them. After a couple of tense hours, Captain Janeway was able to control the situation well enough that Voyager managed to escape without the crew suffering any casualties or injuries. B'Elanna had to deal with repairs, however, so Tom, once released from the bridge, picked up Linnis from her refuge with Nanny next to Sickbay.

Tom was just about to replicate a bottle of milk for a very fussy Linnis when B'Elanna finally appeared.

"B'Elanna! I'm so glad to see you!"

"I'm glad to see both of you," she replied, throwing her arms around both of them.

"Do you want to eat while you're nursing her?"

"No," she sighed. "I can wait. Linnis cannot."

Tom sighed sadly. "So much for my nice dinner. Maybe later. Right now I'd just like to crawl into bed with you and sleep for several hours straight, if Linnis will let us."

B'Elanna didn't even bother to reply as she opened her uniform top and crawled into bed. Tom handed the baby to her, and within a few seconds, he was stretched out beside them.

A very short while later, a visitor to the Paris-Torres quarters would see a half empty champagne glass on the table. An almost full glass sat on the floor near the couch, where other activities had been taking place earlier in the evening. The replicator light blinked patiently, indicating that a meal program was ready to be enabled. In the bedroom, three beings could be seen lying on the bed. The two larger life forms were fully dressed in uniforms, although the uniform of the life form with darker hair and a ridged forehead was in disarray. The smallest of the life forms slept soundly between them, her mouth loosened by sleep from the bared breast of her mother.

While their plans for the evening had been disrupted, there were two things for which the little family would have expressed gratitude (or at least, those capable of speech would have expressed such feelings), had they been awake.

They were alive. And they were together.

Early the next morning, B'Elanna fed her baby while Tom looked on from their bed, a thoughtful look upon his face. Both parents originally had been scheduled for duty that morning, but their schedules had been altered by the previous night's events. Tom's shift in Sickbay now was to start at 1200 hours. B'Elanna wasn't due in Engineering until an hour later, and then only to make sure her staff had completed the long list of repairs she had outlined the previous night, after the crisis had been resolved.

"A penny for your thoughts, Flyboy," B'Elanna whispered, returning to bed after tucking her now-sleeping daughter back into her own crib.

Tom's smile was sincere but brief. "Just thinking about last night. A couple of times there, I thought I might never see either of you again."

B'Elanna snuggled her body against her husband's and sighed. "You weren't the only one, Tom. It was touch and go there for a while."

Tom shifted his weight onto his hip to face his wife. "Be', it's time we faced up to facts. We've been avoiding certain decisions about Linnis, but we really can't wait any longer. We need to make sure Linnis' future is secured. I know our choices are limited, but it's time to choose someone to. . . someone to care for her. . . if neither one of us is here to take care of her ourselves."

"I know, Tom, I know. I can't bear to think about it, but you're right. We have to do it."

Tom hugged his wife closely as they finally came to the decision that, in retrospect, seemed obvious. Now they had to ask the persons they had chosen if they would be willing and able to take on such a responsibility.

That evening, Kathryn Janeway greeted her chief engineer, her helmsmen, and the youngest of her crew's complement in her ready room. Once they'd arrived, she summoned Chakotay from the bridge, as the couple had requested. From the solemn expressions on both Tom's and B'Elanna's faces as they took their seats on her couch, the captain knew that the subject to be discussed was a serious one.

"Captain, Commander Chakotay, thanks for agreeing to meet with us," Tom began hesitantly, glancing at his wife as if he needed some of her strength to continue.

"Of course, Tom. Anytime," the captain replied.

Sighing, Tom continued. "I hope you can help us. We've realized for a long time, even before Linnis was born, that something could happen to both of us. We've been avoiding it, but we know we can't wait any more. We need to make plans for someone who will take over for us and care for Linnis if we. . . if we both are killed."

Kathryn closed her eyes and breathed in sharply. She had expected them to come to her about this at some point. Really, she had expected they would have come to her before this. Since there were only two young children on board the ship so far, she had always felt they would manage somehow if the worst should happen. So far, it hadn't, but last night's events had reminded all of them that it might be only a matter of time before it did.

As if Tom had read her thoughts, he went on, "Captain, Neelix is Naomi's godfather, and he will take care of her if anything happens to Samantha Wildman, but we haven't really established anyone so far. Who can we choose? Harry? It doesn't seem fair to him. He's a young guy and he hasn't found anyone to be with up to now, after losing Kes. It doesn't seem fair to ask him to raise our child, knowing he expected to be raising his own with her by now. We had to ask ourselves who on this ship could we ask to fill such a heavy responsibility. Who else are we close enough to?

"We'd prefer to ask a relative, but obviously we don't have any of those handy. Neelix has been Naomi's unofficial uncle. We'd like to do something similar for Linnis. To have an unofficial extended family that she spends a lot of time around, to cushion the blow if the worst happens to both of us, even though there wouldn't be any blood ties. Sort of an adoptive family."

B'Elanna nodded her head, adding, "Harry is already Uncle Harry, in a way, and Tuvok is 'Gramps,' but to ask him to actually raise a part human, part Klingon child, at his age, might be an imposition. We think he's better at being, well, Gramps."

Kathryn smiled. "I agree. He may have the experience and the patience, of course, but he isn't a young man anymore."

Tom hesitated, looking down at his folded hands before meeting the captain's eyes. "Captain, you know my father. He was your mentor at one time. You're the closest thing to family I have on board this ship, other than B'Elanna and Linnis."

"I suppose that is so," she replied.

B'Elanna turned to the First Officer. "Chakotay, you've been my mentor for a long time, in the Maquis, and here. You 'gave me away' when Tom and I married. So, I'd like you to be 'Uncle Chakotay' to Linnis. She'll need someone who can provide spiritual guidance in the future. . . especially if she's anything like me!"

Smiling, Chakotay replied, "I just hope she won't try to kill her spirit guide, too."

They all laughed, then Tom, in all seriousness, asked the captain, "So, can you be 'Auntie Kathryn' along with being 'the captain' to Linnis? I realize it may be difficult, with all of your responsibilities, but I really can't think of anyone I'd rather take care of her, if B'Elanna and I can't be here to do it."

Kathryn pursed her lips. Her mind flew back to an incident earlier in their journey. This wasn't the first time the issue of children had come up between the captain and Tom Paris, although to bring up that incident openly now seemed crass. She hadn't been capable of any decisions at the time, or communicating them even if she did, yet she'd always felt some guilt about what had happened. When Tom and Kathryn both were transformed into more primitive life forms as a result of traveling at Warp 10, they'd lost all higher thinking processes and mated. Thus, they already had 'children' together. The captain sometimes thought of those amphibious offspring with regret. Leaving them to fend for themselves on that planet hadn't been her decision; others had made it for her. Yet somehow, their existence made this decision easier, even though, as captain of Voyager, it was crazy to think about having children under any circumstances. Since she could not serve as parents to those offspring she had borne to Tom, at least she could help him with the daughter he had fathered with B'Elanna.

Kathryn hoped this promise would never need to be fulfilled, but making it just might ease her longing for what she could never have otherwise. After only a short hesitation, she replied, "I don't think it would be right for me to refuse."

Chakotay nodded his head. "I feel the same way. I'm honored by your trust in me."

"Thank you, Captain, Commander," Tom said, in obvious relief. B'Elanna echoed his sentiments, hugging her daughter close, as if this act would banish the need to ever think about the subject of losing each other again.

"It might be a good idea to write up a formal document for us all to sign. I'd like to think that by doing something formal, it will never need to be invoked," Kathryn said.

"Thanks, Captain. That's a good idea," Tom said. "I can draft something for us to sign tomorrow, if you're okay with that."

There wasn't much more to be said. Tom and B'Elanna thanked their superiors again, and "Aunt Kathryn" gave little Linnis a hug, before the family left the Ready Room.

After they left, Chakotay took a seat again on the couch, lingering, as if he had something to say. Kathryn sat down next to him, murmuring, "Doubts about what you just promised, Chakotay? Already?"

His dimples appeared briefly, then slipped away again. "No. None at all about this. They have to do something. I was just thinking about another decision we made, a few years ago."

"New Earth?"

"Yes. When we were rescued, we made a very different choice about proceeding with the relationship we'd had down there than B'Elanna and Tom have on board Voyager. This could have been us, you know, having to decide something like this."

"I know."

He looked into her eyes intently. "Do you have any regrets?"

She sighed. "Maybe. I just don't see how we could have done things any differently. This crew needs us to be captain and first officer, not mother and father."

"Then, maybe. The longer we're out here, the more I'm starting to feel like Dad anyway. This seems to be one more push towards that."

"As long as we are on Voyager, and en route home, it can't change, Chakotay."

"Do you wish it could?"

She gazed into his eyes and saw they were as wounded as her own must be. How could she say it? 'Of course! Every second that we are together, I'm reminded of what I can't have. And now I know that Mark is gone, the only barrier is our duty. But duty is enough.' If she did say that, she knew she could lean into his arms, arms which she knew he would stretch around her in comfort. She remembered well what it felt like, after their equipment was destroyed: when it was only Kathryn and Chakotay, castaways for a lifetime, or so they had thought. Instead, she answered, "It's been difficult, Chakotay, that's all I can say. For both of us, I think."

"Yes, for both of us," he agreed.

After a very long, serious moment, Janeway added, to lighten the mood, "Of course, I realize that was one of your motives for talking about finding a 'nice planet to settle on' when we were confronted by the Borg, Chakotay. We settle down, and our New Earth agreement would be off, too, wouldn't it?"

"Are you saying I had an ulterior motive for fighting with you that day, Kathryn?" He was grinning now.

"As if you need an ulterior motive to behave like the excellent first officer you are! Even though I wasn't too willing to recognize it at the time."

"Serving with a strong-willed captain is always a challenge, ma'am."

"Watch it, mister. I don't recall it being crunch time at the moment." They laughed together as they stood up, with the captain's hand brushing gently against his forearm in a gesture that, as soon as she did it, she realized could be either misconstrued or cruel, given the context of their discussion. Patting his arm more firmly, she asked him, point blank, "Does this bother you, Chakotay? I'm so used to touching you, but I do wonder, is it fair to you, after all that's happened?"

"No, Kathryn. It doesn't bother me at all. If I can't have you touch me another way, a pat on the arm suits me fine."

She looked up into those deep brown eyes. They glistened with emotion, threatening to spill out more words that might be hard for her to counter, but they did not come. Despite their lack of any other source of command support on Voyager other than one another, and even though he'd resigned his original commission years ago, Chakotay's adherence to Starfleet protocols was as complete as her own. She suspected that no matter how long it took them to get home, it would remain that way, unless that planet of refuge someday became necessary. Unless . . . a stray suspicion suddenly struck her. "Chakotay. You don't think Tom and B'Elanna might entertain any, shall we say, 'ulterior motives' in asking us to care for their Linnis, do you? They aren't trying to get us together?"

His grin slipped out, unguarded, genuine. "I don't think B'Elanna is much of a matchmaker, but I wouldn't put it past Tom." His smile faded as suddenly as it had come. "But I hope it doesn't happen, no matter what motive they might have. I don't want to lose B'Elanna . . . or Tom, for that matter. We need them both, and their expertise, too much to lose either of them."

"I hope so, too," she answered softly, although she couldn't help feeling that it would be just like Tom to plan something like this, perhaps even to anticipate that caring for their daughter could ease her grief if both Tom and B'Elanna were gone forever.

The moment could not last long. There were duties to perform that a responsible officer could not shirk. "I'd better get back to the bridge now, Captain."

"Of course, Commander. Dismissed." She felt a little sad and could not stop herself from a small comfort, indulging herself with a quick pat of his right shoulder as he turned away.

After Chakotay had withdrawn to the bridge, in the solitude of her Ready Room, Kathryn Janeway replicated herself a cup of coffee and sat down on the couch, alone with her thoughts. As she sipped her beverage, her eyes may have been on the stars streaming by her viewport, but her mind drifted away to another place, another time. Instead of the stars shining through the viewport, another night sky came to mind. Visions of chittering monkeys clinging to the branches of alien trees floated by; and she remembered a bathtub hidden in a forest glade, a gift from a very kind man, and oh, so welcome at the time. The coffee was hot against her lips, but she hardly noticed. Her senses were reminded of the way a certain man's hands warmed her when giving her a massage.

Janeway sighed as she rested the empty mug upon her desk. Such a long time had passed since then. Such a very long time, and so far yet for them all to go.