Second Chances: Chapter 5
A/N: I have a confession to make: when DS9 was on, I was largely bored by it and didn't watch. Now I'm frantically trying to watch it and figure out what's going on, because when writing a story about what's going on in the Alpha Quadrant, I figure I need to know what was going on in the Alpha Quadrant. (All of that will make sense in a few more chapters; we're not there yet).
And I'm still largely bored by it. Sigh.
The parade of people coming and going from Torres' hospital room in the antepartum department was too much for her. In addition to the doctors—many more than were necessary for her care, she was sure—nurses, and medical students, there were more visits from family—the Paris family—than B'Elanna knew how to deal with. Normally, she didn't mind being around Tom's family, but when they were still dealing with their own grief over the loss of a son and brother was not when she would want to see them. She still hadn't figured out to deal with her grief, and couldn't handle theirs as well.
Of the parade of people, Torres was surprised to find that her favorite visitor was her sister-in-law Nicki. Before all of this, she had only had passing interactions with the younger of Tom's two older sisters, and always with other people around. B'Elanna had always found her slightly flighty and never thought she had anything in common with the civilian pediatrician.
Turned out that someone who focused on the bright side of things was exactly what Torres needed.
Dr. Nichole Sanders didn't try to pretend that all was well—B'Elanna had gotten so good at reading Tom's emotions that it wasn't hard to see them in his sister—but she didn't dwell on it, either, unlike Alicia, who always looked like she was seconds away from falling apart, or Owen, who seemed to think it was his job to be everyone's rock of stability and tried too hard to seem unaffected. Nicki said things the way they were and managed to joke about something Tom had done or some of his stranger personality traits without becoming sad. Without saying anything, she reminded B'Elanna that it was okay to remember Tom.
Even though the thought of having to remember him was still so strange that it didn't feel real.
The treatment that Drs. Gault and Hrom had come up with as a temporary measure until they could find something better seemed to be doing the job of keeping the levels of hormones standardized—Torres felt like her emotions were more in check than they had ever been—but had the side effect of leaving her very drowsy, sleeping between twelve and sixteen hours a day. For someone who did just fine on four hours of sleep a night, and never got more than seven, it was quite the change.
Of course, when she complained about it to Dr. Gault, he had tried telling her that the medicine was just trying to make her catch up on the sleep she had been missing her entire life. She had rolled her eyes, but had been too tired to come up with a witty response.
There was a new presence in her hospital room when she awoke an unknown number of hours later, a tall, dark-haired Betazoid in the teal uniform of the sciences, one gold pip on her collar. With that uniform and that rank, she looked exactly like a medical student, which Torres was sure was the point. "You didn't need to come here," Torres protested to her former Academy roommate. "Shouldn't you be in class?"
Ensign Reyana Srani finally looked up from her PADD and arched an eyebrow in a way that made Torres think that there must have been a few Vulcans in Reyana's xenovirology graduate program on Alpha Centauri. "I had final exams yesterday," she replied, "which is why I did not come sooner. You should not have had to be alone."
Torres looked away as she adjusted herself into a seated position, still trying to wake herself up. Just about the only benefit she could find from sleeping so much due to her medications was that they somehow kept her from dreaming and experiencing that same nightmare that had haunted her slumber since the week that Voyager was lost, the one where she was standing on the bridge of a ship somewhere, the lights dimmed and the red alert blaring, confused and disoriented and alone.
She blinked aside thoughts of the dream as she returned her focus on her Academy roommate. She knew how difficult it must have been for Reyana to be there; Navi had tried visiting a few days before, but she barely got a few steps into the room before her eleven-year-old mind and still immature telepathic powers, combined with all the emotions B'Elanna was experiencing, got the better of her. She barely managed to stammer out an apology before running from the room.
After four years of living with the oft-volatile half-Klingon cadet at Starfleet Academy, Ensign Srani had a little bit more practice blocking out most of the negative emotions, and sure enough, when Torres faced her again, she saw the familiar tightness around her former roommates eyes, a sure sign that she was straining to keep her own emotional balance. "I was alone by choice," Torres finally replied to Srani's statement. "The Parises keep asking if I want someone to stay with me, but… I can't even figure things out for myself, and they…" Her voice trailed off, not even knowing how to continue that sentence. "The only person who knows how to make me feel better isn't here," she finally said.
"I know," Reyana said softly. "Have you talked to Dr. Bayrote about it?"
B'Elanna shook her head. "I haven't seen him since last time I was on Earth, right after Tom and I…" found out we were going to have a baby, she thought but again couldn't vocalize. The pain of knowing that she was going to have to raise that baby—that girl—alone was still too raw, too many conversations with Tom telling her that she wouldn't be doing just that still ringing through her head. "He asked if I wanted him to come up after I got here. I said I'd comm him when I was ready."
"It cannot hurt to talk," Reyana suggested, and B'Elanna knew that she wasn't volunteering herself for the part. Although as telepathic and empathic as any other Betazoid, the virology graduate student found other people's thoughts and emotions largely uninteresting and failed to see the appeal in playing the role of counselor or confidant, much to the surprise of everyone at the Academy who had their preconceived notions that all Betazoids are naturals at it. The other two girls who lived in their room during their plebe year managed to alienate Reyana very quickly by trying to talk to her about their problems in more detail than any roommate would ever want to know. "How is the baby?" Reyana asked after they again lapsed into silence.
"Dr. Gault said she's doing well."
"She?" Reyana asked with a smile. B'Elanna found herself nodding and smiling as well.
"It's a girl," she confirmed. Her smile became sad. "Tom didn't say anything either way, but I think he wanted a girl. He told Owen that it would be fine by him if no one else ever knows the pressure of being a man in the Paris family."
Reyana chuckled. "I would be just fine not having a girl for the same reason. Family obligations and family traditions are not things I wish upon a child. Especially if those are obligations and traditions of my family." Reyana's older sister was heir to the First House of Betazed and the role as Betazed's representative to the Federation, but rebelled against the idea of serving in either position, creating strife within the family and endless conflict between Representative Srani and both of her daughters. Reyana was under the constant hope that her sister would just stop whatever it was she was doing and accept her position in the family, mostly to keep herself out of that same position. "Are you okay?" Reyana asked softly.
"You know the answer to that," B'Elanna said, surprised that she was only resigned and not angry. "I'm not okay. My body is rebelling against being pregnant without Tom here, the medications that are keeping that from being a problem keep me from being able to do any work, I can't stand to be around my in-laws, I'm angry beyond belief at Owen because I don't know who else to be angry at, and my husband is gone. Missing, dead, I don't know, but he's gone, and I just don't know how to do this without him." She looked down before looking back at her old roommate. "This is so much worse than last time," she said, referring to the coma that left her physically weak for months after it was over, and the depression she went through while dealing with that. "It took Tom to make me better then. Who's going to help me this time?"