Disclaimer: Not mine. Someone else's. And it's all done anyhow. (i.e. Live long and syndicate)



Chapter Thirteen



Tom pounded on the door with renewed enthusiasm. Nobody had answered the polite chirps of the doorbell, and nobody could be seen through the curtains when some judicious peeking was done. So good old-fashioned pounding it was, though that appeared to be having as little success as the beep that could dare be called a doorbell.

"It appears we missed the party," he murmured, turning back to where B'Elanna stood holding K'Athra in her arms. "I told you we should have called."

She shrugged slightly. "Well, we didn't. So there. What now?"

He looked past her into the street. It was midmorning, and for some reason few people were about. Even though it was raining, he found the weather quite pleasant as opposed to the chill of an April in northern Ontario. Yes, much better, if just as damp. He shrugged back at her.

"I don't know. Maybe they're off at work or something."

"Tom, it's the weekend. Even Starfleet lets people off on weekends," she reminded him somewhat smugly. "Maybe they're just out for breakfast."

"Or maybe we really did miss the party."

"Don't you dare even say it. They'd have called."

He was sceptical. "Are you so sure? Well, only one way to find out. Let's try the Captain's place. Maybe they're over there."

"You get to carry the luggage."

He shrugged. "That's all right. We didn't bring much. I thought we were going to stay here for a while."

She hefted K'Athra slightly and turned around up the old cement walkway that led up to Seven and Chakotay's house. Tom noticed the carefully ordered garden. Who was the gardener? He looked again. Maybe it was both. The plants were too carefully balanced not to warrant some interference by Seven -too symmetrical- but they were also, in the same thought, too haphazard to be entirely hers. He lifted the two suitcases that he had set on the doorstep.

"We are going to stay for a while," she cut in. "But that's the beauty of civilization. Big, new and working replicators. And shops. I've got more back-pay credits from Starfleet than I know what to do with. And so do you."

"I sense that was a not-so-subtle hint?" he inquired, falling into step beside her as they walked up the street.

"No. I like living up there. It's peaceful. I find I like that for once."

"Motherhood has mellowed you," he said sagely, wondering if that was a safe comment to make.

"Taking care of two Parises has taught me to value quiet, is what."

He winced at her tone. No perhaps not a safe sentence, and she was not all that mellow.

"Ah, I see. Sorry we had to go make it three."

She gave him a sideways glance. "Sorry, hmm? You weren't sorry at the time."

"Never am," he agreed.

"Good."

"Ha. I guess."

He didn't know why B'Elanna insisted carrying K'Athra. Their daughter could very easily make a five-block walk without too much incident or fatigue. He had often noticed that his wife was very protective . . . occasionally in a scary lioness-and-her-cub way. Unless it came to worms, then she didn't give a damn.

He wasn't sure if she wouldn't actually resort to ripping throats out if she thought the situation demanded it. To live with a Klingon was to wonder every day. At least he could say that she liked him. It was comforting to know that for the most part, she was on his side.

For the most part.

Somehow all that translated into wanting to carry her nearly two-year-old daughter everywhere instead of allowing her to walk. B'Elanna was strange sometimes. And now there was going to be a second baby. He wondered if that would temper her a bit. Most likely the exact opposite, if precedence meant anything.

All in all, it didn't matter to him. Her mood swings could be frightening, yes, but it would take a lot more than that to deter him. What would his father think of that? Tom the Transient Paris needing more than a slight push to bail out? That was why Tom didn't want to see his father, because questions like that would turn any reunion into a re-enactment of childhood lectures. Although, he wouldn't have minded seeing his mother . . . but if you got one you got the other. Owen Paris dominated everyone. Except for Kathryn Janeway, of course. That was no surprise to him. The Captain was the straightlaced daughter the Admiral had never had. The poor Captain.

That didn't matter to him . . . and yet it did. Strange.

He convinced himself that he didn't want his father's approval, and left it there.

He and his little family traversed the five blocks in short order. Tom noticed that the Captain's house was dark, and surmised that she was probably not at home either. So what then? Coincidence? False labour? Now there was a possibility. He'd had run-ins with that before.

But maybe -just maybe- the real thing? Only a few days until her due date, if B'Elanna was correct. B'Elanna probably was. She was a maniac about keeping track of numbers sometimes.

Yes. Perhaps, today was it, and B'Elanna was just being arrogant in assuming she'd get a call right away.

***



Captain Kathryn Janeway -as it happened- was not in labour. Nor was she in false labour or having any such trouble. She was sitting in a deserted waiting area in Starfleet Medical, tired because of her lack of sleep.

She had been there since about dawn that morning.

She had not eaten. No one was there to tell her to.

She sat silently, numbly, wringing her hands a bit, and she stared with dejection at the floor.

***



Tom dropped the suitcases as soon as he entered the room, a testament to his occasional flippancy. He stood for a moment and gazed about, inspecting the room as if any hotel establishment on Earth was ever suspect anymore. Of course, they had used her name and credit for the room. He was so paranoid sometimes, especially when in San Francisco. She wondered when he'd get over it and she could really meet her in-laws and introduce their grandchild to them. She had only met him once, and somehow she doubted Admiral Paris was as fearsome as Tom made him out to be. His initial greeting to the three of them had been a bit stilted, but she could hardly fault him for that. It had to be a shock to see your long-lost son and his hybrid family suddenly drop onto your doorstep. No, she did not think he was so bad. Exaggeration was one of Tom's strong suits, after all.

However, she would tolerate none of this dreaded "grilling" that Tom insisted would occur. No one got to grill Tom but her, and that was it.

Tom was still scrutinizing the upholstery for some reason. The room was absolutely fine of course. There was even a sort of trundle for K'Athra, who was wont to fall out of beds that weren't either cribs or at floor level. She was an active sleeper, as was her mother. Jumpy Klingon muscles, she supposed.

"Tom, what are you doing?" she asked, setting the squirming K'Athra on the floor.

"I don't know. Checking out the living arrangements."

She pursed her lips dubiously. "I see. And do they meet your Highness' strict standards?"

He shrugged, refusing to rise to the jab. "Fine enough, I guess."

"We could have gone to Starfleet Residence," she stated. "They'd have taken us in, since we both got our official commissions now, if not missions in general. How would you have liked that, O Inscrutable One?"

"I would not have, O Ye of Little Faith," he quipped, matching her supercilious tone, but grinning a little and therefore dispelling her antagonism. "The last thing I want is to be sharing a glorified apartment building with half the commissioned quadrant. And K'Athra would probably be put in a creche for the day as we worked out the paper trail, and you know she wouldn't put up with that. Neither would you, for that matter. You'd drive the caregivers buggy."

"High praise," she murmured.

"Have I anything but for my wife? She'd kick my ass if I ever said otherwise."

She grinned. "That she would."

His eyes danced at her, telling her more than he himself ever did. She loved his eyes. She was relatively sure that her penchant for the colour blue had started from both looking at the warp core and looking at him. K'Athra had his blue eyes. She was going to be a heartbreaker when she grew up. And a pilot, ack.

"So what now?" he asked, making an expansive gesture. "We don't know where anyone is, or why they're gone."

She shrugged ambivalently. "I have no idea. We could go take a walk, go have some lunch, shop . . . Suppose the Captain was in the hospital already? How would we find out which one? There are tons of them in this city."

"That's easy. She'd be at Starfleet Med. The Doctor's there, and he's been doing all the preliminary work. They'll probably have him deliver too. Keeping it in the family, you know?"

She made a face. "We keep it in the family so much it's a wonder we noticed that we left the ship at all. Whenever it is that we have a reunion, you know it'll be an exercise in schmoozing. And a ton of people married others from the ship, ourselves included. Give it a couple generations and we'll all be related."

"I wouldn't doubt it," he said with a snort. "See, what if K'Athra and the boy-twin, Acoya or whatever, got married? That'll have the whole senior crew in on one gene pool except for Tuvok and Harry. One more generation down and you never know. This is why I knew it was pointless to come home anyhow. Nothing changed but the scenery."

She shook her head. "At that point, it'll feel like we're inbred."

"The situation's weird enough for me already. Kids with three parents . . . and those three parents. I'm surprised they all haven't gone insane by now."

She sat down on the bed, watching K'Athra toddle over to the window beyond. "Well, I'm not," she stated matter-of-factly.

"How come?"

"Because they all love each other too much to do anything stupid. I know the Captain and Seven fight, but you know how it is when they're both in a relatively good mood too. The Captain would kill and die for her, and Seven would give over to the Borg in the same breath if she could trade herself for the Captain. Chakotay is married to Seven and that explains itself. I don't care how much he wants to deny it, but he loves the Captain as much if not more. She feels the same way about him, that's obvious. If I didn't know them and the situation as well as I do-"

"You could accuse Chakotay of polygamy, if you didn't know it wasn't true," Tom stated, wincing. "They're so tangled up together that it's impossible for them to do anything but be entirely proper about it, because no one of them could stand to hurt the other two."

"Exactly."

"Are we the only ones who get that?"

"I guess. They sure don't, at least not consciously."

"Doesn't it drive you crazy?"

"Yes."

"They are so-" He paused, looking for the word.

"Bewildering?"

"Actually, I thought exasperating."

"That too."

B'Elanna sighed. So, so complicated. So many things could blow up in their faces if the wrong word was said, the wrong impression given. And what of the twins? What were they being born into? A big mess, which would come to centre around them, she knew. B'Elanna knew how very close one became to the idea of children when pregnant. Would the Captain hand those infants to Seven without balking? No. Never, because that was not the way it worked. Even if you were wholly detached, and the Captain certainly was not, she didn't think any woman could willingly give up her children to another . . . even if they were mostly that other's. It just would not work, Why had the Captain been crazy enough to try it?

Someone was going to have to help. To lend an ear and possibly a shoulder to cry on. Chakotay was obviously out of that category by reason of his association to both women. So who did that leave?

"Let's go check at Starfleet Medical. See if anything's up," she stated.

"We could call . . ."

"No. Let's just go."

"All right. Tally ho," Tom murmured, noting her pensive expression and echoing it.



To be continued

***