Second Chances: Chapter 10
Stardate 48657
2371
San Francisco, Earth
Lt. B'Elanna Torres winced at the tightening on her abdomen, gritting her teeth as she concentrated on keeping her breathing even. "Three minutes," Lt. Sasha Vazquez said calmly from the other side of the console, her eyes still down on her work.
"What?" Torres asked.
"Your contractions," Vazquez replied, glancing across the console. "You haven't been doing a very good job hiding them all day. They're lasting about a minute, and are three minutes apart. I don't know what your doctor told you, but that was when my midwife said I needed to get into the hospital."
Torres honestly couldn't remember what Dr. Gault had said at her last appointment the week before, still upset at him about her hospitalization the week before that. "I'd like to finish setting up this simulation," she said instead. Vazquez snorted.
"And I'd like to not have to deliver a baby at my work station," she countered. "I shouldn't think I would have to make it an order to seek medical care while in labor, but I've given up trying to understand how we engineers rationalize things." She returned her attention to her console before looking up again. "Go, Torres."
Torres glanced at the simulation she was setting up and sighed, and then winced as another contraction hit. "Okay," she said a minute later. "I'm going."
"I'll tell Johansen," Vazquez said. "Good luck."
The rooms in the labor and delivery suite were large and provided an expanded view of the San Francisco skyline and the gardens behind Starfleet Medical. They were clearly built for the families of the women in labor, which just served as a reminder to Torres that her family was all dead or estranged.
Her family may have been, but Tom's wasn't.
She opened a comm link. *Denver Pediatrics, this is Dr. Sanders' office,* a pleasant receptionist answered.
"Is Dr. Sanders available?" Torres asked.
*She's with a patient. Would you like me to take a message?*
"Can you ask her to call B'Elanna? Use this frequency."
*Yes, ma'am. Thank you.*
She closed the link just as the door slide open to reveal Dr. Gault. "No false alarm this time," he said as a greeting. "Klingon labor has been known to last several days—" she shot him a glare, which he missed, "but based on how long you waited to come in and how you're progressing, I'd say about eight hours. However, I know how unpredictable you like being."
"I'm really not in the mood for your jokes today, Doctor," she snapped.
"I seem to get that a lot in these labor suites," he observed. She rolled her eyes, then winced as she was hit by another contraction.
"Another eight hours of this?" she asked.
"This is nothing compared to what you have coming up," he replied. She glared at him. "I'm going to check up on you periodically as we get closer to delivery time, but I'll do most of my monitoring from my office. Do you need anything?"
"Just for this kid to come out," she replied.
"Soon enough, B'Elanna." He gave her a slight smile before exiting the room.
A few minutes later, her PADD chirped with an incoming transmission. *Go time?* Dr. Nichole Sanders asked as a greeting. Torres couldn't help but smile at her sister-in-law's blunt way of getting down to business, before she groaned from the force of another contraction.
"You can say that," she said when she recovered. "Dr. Gault said eight hours."
*Well, he is the expert,* Nicki said. *I have patients scheduled for the next three hours, and then I can beam over. Does that work for you?*
"I'll be here," Torres replied.
*What I meant was, are you okay alone until then?*
Torres knew what she was asking: was there anyone else she could comm to keep her company? Her half-sister Navi was probably too young to be hanging out in a labor and delivery suite—and was in school—which left other members of the Paris family. For as well as she enjoyed spirited scientific discussions with her father-in-law, this was neither the time nor the place, and she was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to stand the emotional roller coaster Alicia would be going through. "I'm sure I'll manage," she said instead.
*Okay,* Nicki said cheerfully. *I'll see you in three hours. Let me know if anything significant changes before then. Maybe you should focus on the romance novels instead of the engine schematics.* She gave a wink and a grin and signed off before Torres could reply to that.
The hours went by quickly, the combination of the pain medications and the Klingon romance novels—Torres abandoned any thought of doing work when she opened up her latest experiment and couldn't make heads or tails of it through the pain of the contractions and the pain medications—and the next thing she knew, Nicki was in the room, her usual professional clothing and long medical coat replaced by medical scrubs, her long blond hair in a ponytail and her usual smile on her face. "What? No baby yet?" she joked as she entered the room.
"You're as good at measuring time as your brother," Torres replied. She winced with another contraction.
"Not too much longer now," Nicki said, her eyes on the contraction monitor above Torres' head. "Contractions are pretty strong. How're the pain meds?"
"Doing their job, I guess," Torres replied. Nicki looked back down at her and gave an apologetic smile.
"Sorry. I'll try to get out of doctor mode," she said. She gave an encouraging smile. "I've been at hundreds of births, including those of the three bratty children who currently live in my house. You're doing great. Of course, I'm usually the one standing over there," she said, gesturing toward the doctor in the back of the room, checking the pediatric equipment. "How's it going, Solaris?"
"Everything looks good from here, Nicki." The pediatric hybridologist said with a grin. "How's Denver?"
"As beautiful as always," Sanders replied. At Torres' questioning look, she explained, "We went to med school together."
"How does someone get from Johns Hopkins to being a Starfleet doctor?" Torres asked, now even more confused.
"I've always wanted to go Starfleet," Solaris—Torres had no idea if that was a first name, last name, or nickname—replied. "I graduated from the Academy and everything. Starfleet Medical Academy can't train all the physicians they need for the fleet. About half come from civilian medical schools. It keeps a constant infusion of new techniques and methods, instead of everyone training under the same people, who all trained under the same people, for as long as Starfleet has had a medical school. Plus it meant I got a four-year break from wearing uniforms." He smiled at his own joke. "Starfleet has some of the best medical training programs, so some people join just for the training. There aren't many options for training in hybridology out of Starfleet. And hybridology is really cool." He sounded genuinely enthusiastic about his career field, so much so that Torres would have laughed at the eagerness in his voice if it weren't for the fact that she was suffering through another contraction.
Much like she had done when Torres was hospitalized after Voyager disappeared, Nicki distracted her with funny stories from her work and her kids, throwing in a couple about the way she and Sydney, Tom's oldest sister, had tormented him when he was little.
Not even the funniest stories could distract Torres from the fact that the contractions were getting more forceful, the pain intensifying to the point where it seemed the medications weren't even touching it, and then Dr. Gault reappeared in the room. "Next contraction, go ahead and push," he instructed. "Just a few more minutes now."
Nicki took her hand, which Torres shook off. "I will break your fingers," she said, hoping the words came out as a statement of fact and not the threat they sounded like after she spoke them. Fortunately, Nicki took it well, using her hand to push back a lock of Torres hair that had fallen out of her bun.
"You're almost done," she said encouragingly. "And then the hard part begins: putting up with Tom's kid for the next eighteen years."
Despite herself, Torres wheezed a chuckle at her sister-in-law's words, and just as Dr. Gault had claimed, a few minutes later it was over. "It's a girl," he said matter-of-factly as he placed the baby on her chest and glanced up at the chronometer. "Time of birth, Stardate 48657.66. For the sake of whatever baby book you're planning on making, it's July 1, 2371, at 2147." He looked at Torres and did something uncharacteristic: he smiled at her. "Congratulations, B'Elanna. You did it."
She did it. She had defied her angry words to her mother that she would never have kids in order to spare them the pains she had grown up with; she had defied the genetic incompatibilities that made hybrid pregnancies difficult; she had defied the Klingon physiology that didn't want her to be pregnant without her mate present.
She had become a mother. She had a daughter.
Solaris and Nicki were both grinning as he checked over the bundle of baby. "We're going to keep an eye on everything for a while, but she's very healthy," Solaris said. "And very beautiful. Congratulations, mom. Does she have a name?"
"Isela," Torres managed, her eyes fixed on the blue eyes of the brand new baby in her arms. Her fingers gently traced the ridges on her forehead, still so soft and faint. She had despised her own ridges for most of her life, but now, seeing them on her daughter, couldn't imagine anything more perfect. "Isela Miral Paris."
"Hi, Izzy," Nicki cooed, ever the pediatrician and fascinated with the new baby.
"Izzy?" Torres asked, looking over at Nicki, who just nodded.
"Isela's such a big name for such a tiny baby," she said. "She needs to grow into it." Torres snorted at the explanation. "She is beautiful," she said. "She has Tom's eyes."
"I thought all babies have blue eyes?"
"A lot do," Nicki said with a nod. "But even if hers darken, those are still Tom's eyes. I remember when he was a baby." B'Elanna was surprised to hear the thickness in Nicki's voice. "He would have loved her so much."
Torres had to swallow the sudden thickness in her own throat. "He already did," she said softly. She kissed Isela softly on the forehead. "Your dad loved you so much," she said softly.
Nicki wiped away a tear quickly and managed a chuckle. "This is a happy occasion," she declared. "Crying is not allowed." She gave her eyes another wipe before she managed a smile. "Enough of that. Before you comm Mom and Dad and give them the news, I have something to tell you."
"Oh, Kahless, you're not pregnant, are you?"
"No," Nicki said with a laugh. "I always get baby fever around fresh kids and now I really want another one, but no. I'm joining Starfleet. In about a week."
She didn't know if it was the unexpected words or the pain meds or the just the general rush of emotions and hormones at the moment, but something made B'Elanna laugh. "You?" she asked, incredulous. "You hate Starfleet!"
"I don't hate it, I just... Okay, yes, I've never had the best relationship with anything Starfleet," she said with a laugh of her own. "But with Izzy on the way, I did some research and I got really interested in hybrid pediatrics, and you heard Solaris—there just aren't any good hybridology programs outside of Starfleet. I have a couple of weeks of direct commission officer training—mostly how to put on a uniform and recognizing ranks, as if being born a Paris didn't leave that permanently embedded in my neural networks—followed by a one-year training program and three years of obligation. I figure getting the best hybridology training in the quadrant is worth four years of saying sir and wearing a uniform. Besides, I already know all the protocols, and I look good in blue."
Torres could only shake her head in wonder. "I really wish Tom could see this," she said with a laugh.
"I know, right?" Nicki said with a laugh of her own.
"What did Owen say?"
Nicki pinked slightly. "I haven't told him yet," she admitted. "I don't want to have to listen to him saying that he told me so!"
Torres could only laugh and shake her head. "Oh, Nicki," was all she could manage, not even having the energy to point out that showing up at her parents' house in a uniform would probably be a dead giveaway. "Thank you," she said a minute later, once her laughter was under control. "Thank you for being here for us."
Nicki gave her a long hug and kissed the top of her head. "That's what sisters are for."