January 2366

"The answer is simple, Saj. You must adjust the conduit configuration," Miral stated, her face filling up nearly the entire monitor. No matter how many times B'Elanna had told her the comm system worked just fine even if the user was a meter or more away, her mother insisted on sitting directly in front of her console, her eyes boring into the camera as if it were an enemy she was trying to stare down.

B'Elanna bit back a sigh. The noise had always irritated her mother, nearly as much as eye rolling. ("Sighing is such a human mannerism, B'Elanna. It signals capitulation. Klingons do not sigh.") "It's not that simple, Mother," she said. "My professor is not just going to let me change something that is used almost universally in all other 'Fleet vessels. The regular conduit set-up is standard for a reason. The Engineering Corps Board of Standards believes the current one is the most practical for working vessels."

"Convince them otherwise," Miral declared. As if a second-year cadet could just march into Vice Admiral Sonn's office and suggest they change the entire 'Fleet's EPS configuration on her whim. No, not a whim, B'Elanna corrected herself. A carefully researched and tested theory that she knew would work if her bull-headed professor would just look at her computer modeling, but still…

"They're not going to listen to me, Mother," B'Elanna said, the sigh slipping out after all. She saw her mother's eyes narrow. "I'm just a cadet."

"You are not just anything!" Miral insisted. "You are B'Elanna, granddaughter of L'Naan of the House of Korath! You are descended from some of the greatest Klingon scientists in Qo'noS history! You will make them listen!"

"Miral," B'Elanna heard her father say from a corner of the room. "She's not on Qo'noS. She's on Earth. So, like it or not, being human is going to help her a lot more than being Klingon." His voice was dripping with condescension. Great. Her call was going to trigger them to have yet another fight.

In the year and a half since she'd come to Earth, B'Elanna had yet to find a satisfactory solution to the problem of calling home. For as long as she could remember, Miral and John's marriage was one that was fraught with tension. She remembered the first time she had had a sleepover at her friend Malee's house and her surprise when she saw the friendly and affectionate way the other girl's parents engaged with each other. Apparently, in most homes, it was normal to have both parents home at the same time, for families to share meals as a single unit, for the adults to speak to each other without shouts and insults.

B'Elanna's childhood, on the other hand, sometimes made her feel as if she grew up in two different households. It's just that they happened to share the same physical space and were run by two people that were ostensibly married to each other. It was rare to see her parents even speak civilly to each other; B'Elanna couldn't recall ever seeing a moment of real caring or love passing between them. When she was a small child, she would occasionally hear noises from their bedroom that to her young ears sounded like more fighting – just with fewer words. She'd been horrified when, at age ten, she realized exactly what those sounds really represented, but even that interaction seemed to have mostly stopped by the time she left for the Academy.

She had asked her mother - after her acceptance letter to the Academy arrived and B'Elanna had become worried about what would happen to her parents once she was gone - if Miral was happy with her life as it was. Miral had replied that her work was highly satisfying, even if battling an inhospitable planet was not the same as fighting a more traditional enemy. When B'Elanna clarified that she specifically meant her marriage, Miral became uncharacteristically reticent. Her family's tradition was that Klingons mate for life, she had said, and that was that. She added, after a long pause, that she would honor the commitment she had made of her own free will, and that regret was a wasted emotion.

B'Elanna never had the courage to ask John why he stayed.

All this meant every call home was a potential powder keg. Calling when she knew both parents were likely to be home resulted in the two of them having an argument more often than not. She'd quickly grown weary of calling them at separate times each week, having to repeat all the same information for each parent. For a period of time, she tried alternating each week which she would speak to. That had resulted in a hurt and angry letter from Miral the first week, when B'Elanna had only spoken with John; then, in week three, when it was John's second turn, he'd been short with her, having felt slighted the week before.

So, it was back to calling when they were both home. John had now negotiated the comm console away from his wife, who had stormed out of the room in disgust, barely remembering to say goodbye to B'Elanna before she departed. "Your mother doesn't understand Starfleet," John said as soon as his face appeared on the monitor. "If your professor doesn't think the configuration is practical, you should really defer to her. There's probably things you aren't considering."

"But that's the problem!" she exclaimed. "She won't even look at it! I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's just a design project! It's not like we're planning on building it at the end of the semester! You'd think she'd be happy we're being creative and trying something new!"

"B'Elanna," her father admonished her, "you're shouting."

She looked down at her lap and chewed her lip. "Sorry."

"It's fine, sweetheart," John said. "But I can understand why your professor isn't listening to you if this is how you've been talking to her."

B'Elanna's fists clenched below the desk, out of her father's sight. "This isn't how I've been talking to her. In fact, Tom's been doing most of the talking, and he's not getting anywhere with her, either."

"Tom?" her father asked. "I didn't realize he was working on the project with you. How are the two of you doing? After being apart last semester?"

Odd, a corner of B'Elanna's brain pondered, how when she spoke with her mother she wanted to engage in so many human behaviors – the aforementioned sighing, eye rolling, and the like. Now that she was speaking with her father, she felt an urge to pick up the nearest breakable object and hurl it at the screen.

"I didn't call to talk-" She stopped. It didn't really matter what she had called to talk about. Sometimes B'Elanna thought John was more invested in his daughter's relationship with Tom Paris than she herself was. "We're fine, Dad. It's good to be able to spend time with him again."

And it was. For the most part.

She'd gone to Mars last summer for the second year extended physical training semester – a common choice for those on the Engineering track, as they all hoped they'd get to meet and ideally impress the higher ups at the Shipyards. She assumed that Tom would choose Mars as well - from the day they'd met he'd expressed interest in getting a position at Utopia Planitia. As she'd learned more about his family problems, she had realized this was at least partly so he could stay in the same system as his parents after graduation. So she'd been surprised when he'd told her last June, apologetic and hesitant, that, in fact, he'd be spending the semester in Alaska.

"Of course I understand, Tom," she had said when he'd told her - repeatedly promising he'd call often and telling her he'd already checked the shuttle schedule between Earth and Mars. And she did understand. His father's condition was poorly understood and unpredictable; Tom needed to be within transporter range of San Francisco. The retired captain would have days or even a few weeks where he seemed quite well - B'Elanna had met him during one of these periods, and had been impressed and even a bit intimidated by the man's intelligence and breadth of knowledge about all things Starfleet. But then something would trigger him - it might be as simple as a news story mentioning the Cardassian Union, or it could be a former colleague paying a visit - and he would revert to the angry, frightened and confused man that he had been the first night B'Elanna had stepped foot inside the Paris home. Of course Tom would prioritize looking after his parents over their relationship – he had to. It would be selfish of her to feel otherwise.

"No fighting, then?" her father was asking. "You're getting along OK, now that you're back on the same planet?"

"We're getting along fine, Dad," she said with a sigh. At least it didn't irritate John as much as it did Miral. "No more fighting than usual."

"What does that mean?" John said, with a hint of alarm.

"Nothing," she laughed at the worried expression on her father's face. "Tom and I are always fighting - you know, the best place to get breakfast, whether he should help me put my coat on, who's parisses squares team is better - normal stuff. That's just what we do." Which was true. Except the fighting seemed to be a larger part of their relationship than it used to be. But that was probably to be expected after so many months apart, right?

"B'Elanna," her father said slowly. "You need to be careful. No one wants every conversation to be an argument."

B'Elanna raised her gaze to the ceiling and huffed a short breath of air. Believe me, Dad, after twenty years of watching you and Mom, I don't want that, either. "That's not what we-"

"I'm just saying," John interrupted, "that you're very lucky to have Tom. He's a great person. And I think he's been a good influence on you. You don't want to drive him away."

"I know, Dad," she said. "Don't worry. We're good. Really."

It wasn't that she didn't feel lucky to have Tom in her life, she thought as she closed down the comm window a few minutes later. He was a great person, and he seemed to understand her, or at least tried to understand her, in a way that no one else had before. It was just… It would have been nice if her father thought Tom was the lucky one, instead.