Feedback: All feedback (minus flames) would be greatly appreciated.

Disclaimer: Well, Miral and her mommy and daddy belong to Paramount which belongs to the Ferengi. I just take them out for dinner every once in a while. Dave, Frank, Rona, Arah and Ethan are all mine. NAD and Coke are owned by NAD and Coke, of which I have no delusions of owning.

Author's Note: I'd like to especially thank my three excellent Beta readers, Angela, Kate and Sam. I'd also like to thank my RL friends who made cameos: Ethan (Lt. Frank Hall), Alex (Lt. Rona), Ariel (Lt. Arah Taval) and Xander (Crewman Reiss). Also, a very special thanks to Rob who was there for me throughout my efforts at writing fanfic.

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            Miral Paris watched her new surroundings in awe, as her mother dragged her through the busy corridors of Starbase 515. At the age of four, she had never seen so many people that were all different shapes, sizes and even colors, in so small a place.

The quarter Klingon intently observed the different officers at work through open lab doors and transparent aluminum windows at every chance she got, which was a hard task, seeing as her mommy was walking at a pace that bystanders could describe as light speed. She had never been with her mother to work before, and was excited about the prospect of getting to see the place where her mommy spent so much time. Her mother, on the other hand, was more nervous than excited.

B'Elanna Torres had had serious doubts about taking her young daughter to such a busy place, but unfortunately she had run out of options. Today Tom was off at a mandated piloting re-certification and her usual sitters, Admiral and Mrs. Paris, were both unavailable. The Admiral was in tenuous negotiations with the Romulans and his wife was visiting a sick cousin in Hoboken, a continent away from the Torres-Paris home in the suburbs of San Francisco. Complicating matters, Harry Kim, who often enjoyed baby-sitting when he was on shore leave, was instead on a mission in the Beta Quadrant and as a result unavailable for the next three months. At the same time, Miral's godfather, the Doctor, was on Luna Colony, attending a weeklong conference on the application of homeopathic remedies in modern medicine. Even B'Elanna's father John Torres, always a last resort for babysitting duty, was on a business trip to Betazed. So that was why B'Elanna was towing an excited four year old through Starbase 515, one of the countless facilities that made up the famed shipyards at Utopia Planitia on Mars. In fact, the 515 was a research and development center serving as the headquarters of Project Omni, whose goal was to produce a new class of starship that integrated many of the Delta-Quadrant technologies brought back on Voyager with the latest in Starfleet technology.

            The pair negotiated their way to a widened corridor in which the noise of many children could be heard. B'Elanna pulled her daughter through a crowd consisting of multitudes of parents and their giggling, screaming and often crying children. The sight of all these children served only to remind B'Elanna of part of the reason for her nervousness in bringing her daughter to the base's daycare center. Memories of her very troubled childhood still haunted her deeply. Would Miral fit in with all these strangers? Would she make friends and have a good time, or would she be ostracized and alone as B'Elanna had been? Then she tried to calm herself. Starbase 515 wasn't Kessick. For one thing, there was a lot more diversity. While she'd been the only Klingon child surrounded by humans, here Andorians, Bolians, Vulcans and even an Orion were milling around in the crowd outside the daycare center's doors. Putting her own troubled thoughts at the back of her mind, B'Elanna led her daughter through the crowd.

Once out of the mob scene, they found themselves at the Starbase's daycare center. It was a large room with colorful walls on which familiar cartoon characters from many worlds were painted. Several little tables were lined up neatly in rows and huge quantities of toys were haphazardly thrown about the room. In one corner sat a large fuzzy rug with a high stool positioned at the end, looking out over the rug and back towards the main doorway. This was surrounded by a series of low bookcases that were filled with large children's picture book PADDs. Next to this area was a large fenced-in corner filled with the softer, larger toys intended for younger children. Across the room from this sat a series of painting easels.

As parents and their children started filling in, a large human woman with tied back brown hair, wearing a flower-print dress walked towards the door to greet them.

 "Good-morning! Good-morning! How are we all doing today? Lt. Crawson, how are you and, oh! Little Emil! It's good to see you again today! Ensign Forbes, how's Frankie here doing today? Oh, my! A new face…"

The merry woman approached B'Elanna and Miral, an oversized grin plastered upon her face. "I haven't seen you two around here before, Lt. Commander…"

"Torres. And this is Miral. She'll be spending the day with you."

"Isn't that lovely? Hello, Miral, my name is Mrs. Browning! We're going to be doing some finger painting today, so why don't you go over there and put a smock on, we'll be starting once everybody's gotten settled here…"

B'Elanna stopped her daughter before she could run away too far. "Miral, I'll check in at lunch to see how you're doing. And be good…"

The little girl ran off for the easels, missing the end of her mother's farewell.

"Don't worry about a thing, Commander Torres. We'll keep her busy all day. We're going to be doing a little finger-painting right now, and then we'll clean up, have free play, a story, a snack and then a nap. Don't you worry yourself now; she'll be perfectly fine here!"

Doing her best to keep from being annoyed at the patronizing tone of the woman's last comment, B'Elanna kept a smile on her face and then walked towards the door, catching a quick glance of Miral donning a painting smock on the other side of the room.

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            Miral was both bored and disappointed. Sure, the finger-paining had been fun and the story exciting and she had made some new friends over cookies and juice, but she was bored and disappointed nonetheless. She was bored primarily because even though there was a half hour long mandated naptime, she was far from tired, and in actual fact, she was still wired up and bursting with energy as always, no thanks to the sweet and sugary juice dispensed at snack time. Secondly, she was disappointed because she had wanted to see where her mommy worked. She'd heard stories at the dinner table for as long as she could remember. Daddy was always talking about his latest exploits flying and mommy continuously talked about building starships and the strange people that she worked with. Little Miral was, in fact, determined to see all of these things for herself while she was here. Unfortunately, she had discovered during free-play that the large doors to the nursery wouldn't open for her, no matter how much she moved in front of, walked into, asked of, growled at, hit at or kicked on them.

            However, she was nowhere near giving up as she now saw the perfect opportunity for her escape. While pretending to be asleep with the rest of the children, she observed Mrs. Browning escape to a back room where she could be seen through the transparent aluminum window taking a long drink out of a small metal flask. The assistant sent to watch the sleeping children was sitting in the corner, totally engrossed in a PADD. In fact, when Ensign Forbes came and picked up little Frankie from the 2 years and under program, nobody had noticed Miral quietly slipping out of the door at her heels.