Second Chances: Chapter 11

Between the doctors, medical students, nurses, medical crewmen, and no small amount of Paris family, there had been a constant stream of people in and out of Lt. B'Elanna Torres' room since she had arrived at Starfleet Medical, and the whole experience of putting up with them and their constant examinations was more exhausting than labor and delivery and nursing a newborn who always seemed to be hungry. Probably the redundant digestive system, Dr. Yagasaki had reasoned when he examined Isela, seeming unfazed when she pointed out that she had two stomachs and didn't need to eat every hour and a half around the clock.

Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if Isela had shown any interest in sleeping, but in the three days since her birth, Torres would be willing to swear that her new daughter had slept maybe a total of half an hour. It was an exaggeration, but not too much of one, as they learned when Dr. Zalun put a sleep monitor on her in response to Nicki's concern about the lack of sleep. He was still collecting and analyzing the data, but so far was unconcerned, even going so far as reminding her that she functioned on very little sleep as well.

Her response probably changed his mind about how well she was functioning on very little sleep.

Torres glanced up as Nicki emerged from the room's sonic shower looking barely better rested than Torres herself. "Don't you have a job you need to be doing?" she asked, knowing she was being short with her sister-in-law but not really caring.

"I took off," Nicki said lightly, not bothered by B'Elanna's tone. Torres rolled her eyes.

"You Parises have strange views of work schedules and duty requirements," she said, remembering how much time Tom had taken off while she was in a coma her second classman year.

"I wouldn't recommend making that observation around Dad," Nicki said dryly. "Besides, not really. I'm going through a drastic career change, remember? I haven't taken any vacation time all year so I could save it up for the end, and I set up the transition to close out and transfer my patients before Izzy was born in case you needed help before I head off to demonstrate that I do, indeed, know how to survive in the Starfleet system." Torres blinked, realizing after the fact how much sense that made and how much time with her own family Nicki must have sacrificed to be there for her. "And I think before Tom took that time off to be with you in the hospital, he hadn't taken a single day off work. He probably had more than enough leave stored up."

Torres' eyes widened at the realization that Nicki must have been right, because Tom did have a tendency to store up leave days in order to take off longer chunks of time, whereas many of his coworkers—and hers, when she was stationed on Mars—would spread theirs out and take a Friday or a Monday off as often as they could for the quick trips back to Earth.

She just never realized that that was what he was doing, because she was too engrossed in her work to notice that they weren't taking time off. The thought gave her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomachs, that she could have had more time to spend with her husband, but was too busy with her warp engines to take it.

She hadn't realized how little time they would have to just spend together.

"Mom's going to be here in about an hour, and Dad said he's coming after his last meeting today," Nicki said lightly, the exchange about work and leave already behind her. "I think Ainsley said she's going to come by after school again, even though I told her that any missed homework assignments would not be tolerated. Christopher also expressed interest in coming, so I apologize in advance for that if it happens. The Pathrind will be here tomorrow, so this is the last day you have free of Syd and the Wylands."

"I didn't know they were coming in," Torres commented.

"They're not, really," Nicki said, almost apologetically. "The Pathrind will actually be at Mars Station for a quick stopover and personnel change. Syd and Jens and the kids are taking the commuter shuttle in and then are going to meet up with the ship somewhere in a week," she explained. She rolled her eyes. "They've only been off parental leave for a few weeks, and now they're taking a week off. Why they decided to take their parental leave on the ship instead of back here, I have no idea, but I've long given up trying to figure out why Syd does what Syd does."

"How is baby Alex?"

Nicki shrugged and waved dismissively. "I'm assuming fine, because Syd doesn't talk to me about such things. She's so competitive that she's worried someone else's babies might be meeting developmental milestones before hers, so she just doesn't talk about it."

Not for the first time, Torres found it hard to believe how three kids with the same genetic material and raised in the same house could be so different, which brought a now-familiar pang of sadness that Isela wouldn't have any opportunities for the sibling rivalries that Sydney, Nicki, and Tom had, no opportunities for wondering how someone who looked so similar could act so different.

About an hour later, Alicia appeared, followed closely by Ainsley, sans Christopher, explaining that her seven-year-old brother had changed his mind at the last minute and just walked home from school. "Can I hold Izzy?" Ainsley asked eagerly almost as soon as she entered the room.

"For someone who couldn't be bothered with her own brothers, you do sure like holding your cousin," Nicki teased her daughter.

"Maybe your parents will have another baby, and you'll get to do as much holding and baby-sitting as you want," Alicia teased. A look of horror crossed Ainsley's face.

"No!" she said emphatically. "No more!"

"Wow," Nicki said, her eyebrows raised. "That was certainly…forceful."

"What if it's another boy?" Ainsley asked. "I already have two brothers. I don't want to risk having a third."

"Unfortunately for you, kiddo, you don't really have a say in the matter," Nicki replied. "That's between me and your dad. The only uterus you have control over is your own, and it's going to remain empty for another fifteen or so years."

"Fifteen?" Ainsley asked. "I'll be twenty-six."

"You're right," Nicki said. "Maybe twenty years would be better. Twenty-six is too young."

Ainsley rolled her eyes. "You were twenty-two when I was born."

"And that was too young. We should have just waited and started with Christopher. When I was twenty-five."

"B'Elanna's twenty-three," Ainsley continued. Nikki threw up her hands in defeat.

"It's your life, do whatever you want with it," she said with a sigh. She turned to her sister-in-law. "This is what you have to look forward to," she said.

"Whatever," Ainsley said dismissively, her attention already back on the baby. "Your life would be boring without me."

"The funny part of this entire exchange, Ainsley, is that I'm pretty sure I had the exact same one with your mother when she was about your age," Alicia said with a smile.

"I think I told you I wasn't going to have kids," Nicki replied. "That certainly worked out well for me."

"I told my mother the same thing," B'Elanna admitted.

"So does that mean if I say I want kids, that I won't have any?" Ainsley asked with a frown, looking up again. "I'm still trying to figure out what direction I want my life to go."

"You're eleven," Nicki pointed out. "You have plenty of time to figure that out."

"Life is short," Ainsley replied. "Tom was 26 when he died."

It was like time stopped for a second before B'Elanna was able to take a breath again. It had been months, but hearing the words, and so bluntly from her niece, was like a punch to the gut, and she could tell Nicki and Alicia had the same reaction. "Ainsley—," Nicki finally said, her voice little more than a whisper.

"What?" Ainsley asked. "Are you going to say that he had a dangerous job?"

"Well—"

"And now you're joining Starfleet, too," Ainsley continued, her voice now harsh. "Because it's not enough that Izzy has to grow up without her dad, but now you have to go risk your life, too?"

"Ainsley," Alicia said gently. "Your mom's a doctor. Tom was a pilot—"

"And his whole ship disappeared," Ainsley interrupted heatedly. "Everyone on the ship. Not just the pilot. Including the doctors. And now Mom's going to be joining Starfleet—"

"I'm going to be a hybrid pediatrician," Nicki said. "There aren't a lot of kids on most ships. I'm pretty sure I'm going to spending my time here at Starfleet Medical."

"You don't know that," Ainsley shot back. "Sure, you're going to be here at the start, but maybe they'll want you on a ship, and—"

"Tom loved flying," B'Elanna finally said, and finally, the others stopped talking. "Gods, he loved flying. Even after all his years of doing it, it was still his favorite thing. The more complicated the flying, the happier he was. If he had known that Voyager was going to disappear, there's no way he would have gone on that mission—Kahless, there's no way Starfleet would have had the mission go forward if they had known—but he was so excited to go. Everyone knows that Starfleet ships can't keep up with the Maquis in the Badlands, but with Voyager, and with Tom at the helm, he was ready to prove them wrong." She took a deep breath. "I know he would do anything to be here; I would do anything to have him here, but since that can't happen… He was doing what he loved. I love my job. Your mom loves her job. Sydney, well, I don't know if Syd really has feelings, but I'm sure she loves her job, too. Certainly, nobody loves his job more than your grandfather. Life is short, Ainsley. It's too short for you to be worried about your mom or anyone else. And it's too short for you not to do whatever makes you happy."