* * STARBASE 515 EDUCATIONAL COMPLEX, DECK 7 DAYCARE CENTER* *
When B'Elanna entered the Daycare Center on Deck 7, she noticed that all the toddlers were lying on the floor in sleep while the older children who were awake lay quietly on the floor pretending to sleep. On a chair near in the corner of the room, an aid sat reading a PADD.
She scanned the group for her daughter, but she couldn't find Miral. She approached the aid, a young human woman with short blonde hair, "Excuse me, Miss? Miss?" It took a moment for the woman to snap out of whatever she was reading and look up at the older woman.
"Oh, Commander. How can I help you?"
"I can't seem to find my daughter here. Do you know where else she could be?"
"You know, I don't know, but I'm new here. You should probably ask Mrs. Browning. I think she went into the back room a few minutes ago."
B'Elanna, though slightly irritated at the young woman's inability to help her, smiled and gave a quick "thank you" before walking to a door at the rear of the room. When she entered, she found Mrs. Browning sitting at the table, her torso lying on the tabletop with her head in her hands, fast asleep. As she went to wake the woman, she noticed the small steel flask resting on a chair next to the sleeping Mrs. Browning.
B'Elanna stared in disbelief at the flask, then at Mrs. Browning and then back to the flask. Employing every last sap of strength in her body to keep her from cramming the bottle down the woman's snoring throat, she knocked the offending flask to the ground before she brought her fist down on the table with a crash.
Rose Browning was awakened by the jolt to the table on which her head rested and opened her eyes to see a blurry figure in front of her. As the image cleared up, she searched her memory for the face, and finally finding it, spoke up.
"Oh… Commander. What are you doing in here?"
B'Elanna was fuming and strained to keep from injuring the woman whose breath carried the strong odor of gin. B'Elanna spoke with a calmness in her voice that was dangerous, "There seems to be a problem finding my daughter."
"What sort of a problem, Commander?"
"She's not inside the schoolroom. If my daughter isn't inside the schoolroom, then where could she be?"
"Uh… Well, there's nowhere else she could be. Maybe we should look again, you probably just mis-"
B'Elanna grabbed the shorter woman by her collar and physically lifted her up off the ground and against the bulkhead wall. "Now shut up and listen to me you gin-swilling *petaQ*," Torres sneered, "My daughter is obviously not in here and if she's hurt in any way because of your little luncheon here," she kicked the flask across the deck and into the bulkhead, "then a little hangover is going to be the least of your worries. Do we have an understanding here, Mrs. Browning?"
The stout woman could only nod her head furiously as B'Elanna unceremoniously dropped her back to the deck. B'Elanna turned towards the wall so that the woman wouldn't see the uncontrolled panic that was spilling out quickly at the thought of her daughter being lost and alone. B'Elanna didn't want to afflict that type of pain on her child. She didn't want her little girl to go through that. Ever.