See disclaimer in the first chapter.
Part Two
He didn't tell anyone, of course. It would upset the careful balance of things.
Anyway, he didn't want anybody to misunderstand. He was deliriously happy with B'Elanna, and Miral was just perfect, from her tiny toes to the soft ridges on her forehead. Tom Paris was very, very happy with his life and his family.
But as he watched his newborn daughter's chest rise and fall while she slept, he couldn't help but wonder about his other children.
It would be easy to say that he was incapacitated, not himself, and remembered none of it; that it was Chakotay's command decision to leave the three lizard beings behind, and that Captain Janeway hadn't countered Chakotay's decision. There were a lot of things that could be used to justify what they had done.
And for the most part, those reasons worked. Still, watching his daughter, Tom couldn't help but wonder if they had made the right decision. B'Elanna had his whole heart, and he didn't doubt that having three children with the captain would be awkward at best. He tried not to think about it. It would only cause trouble.
In fact, before they found out B'Elanna was pregnant, he probably hadn't thought about them in a year. At first he'd thought about them. He didn't tell anyone; it was much easier to be cavalier and let people draw their own assumptions. Privately, though, he pictured them as two girls and a boy. The boy would be Edward, of course, after the captain's father. He picked the names Ashley and Elizabeth for the girls.
As time went on he thought about them less. Besides, he felt guilty, because a large part of him was glad they left the children behind. What kind of monster did that make him? Truthfully, he didn't think he wanted to know the answer. Triplets with the captain, conceived while they were in an altered shape. It was too much. Still, part of him regretted leaving them behind. Either way, guilt followed.
Two girls and a boy, like him and his sisters. He wondered what nicknames they might prefer. Would Edward like Eddie, Ed, Teddy, or Ted? Ashley might go by her full name, or perhaps use Ash. And Elizabeth could be Liz, Lizzie, Beth, or even Lizbeth.
He and B'Elanna had been dating for a little over a year when he brought the subject up. She couldn't understand, precisely, but she listened to him and didn't blame him. It was good to air the topic, which seemed taboo.
Later, when she tried to have Miral's genes manipulated, he wondered if she remembered his three lizard-children on some forsaken planet, and he wondered if he contributed to her fears.
He meant what he told her, then. He was not going to leave. 'In sickness and in health, for better or worse, till death do us part.' There was not a word in the vows that he didn't mean with all his heart. Miral was beautiful, and he loved her before she was born. Seeing her in front of him only cemented that love.
For the rest of his life, he would never forget. As conflicted as he was, Tom Paris knew a great deal about wrestling with a less-than-perfect past. He would not let the past, and the triplets, overshadow the present and the future. That in itself was perhaps doing injustice to his oldest children.
He had learned a long time ago that justice is a dangerous foundation to build a life on. So he would go on, thinking of the lizard children from time to time, but keeping them in the back of his memories.
B'Elanna, Miral, and their return to the Alpha Quadrant: things were looking better than they had in years. He was an extremely happy man, and things were what they were. He resolved to cherish the life he had and allow himself to bury his three lizard offspring in the depths of his mind.
Despite the unsavory nature of it, some things are better that way.