Second Chances: Chapter 13

Still seething from her encounter with Commander T'Pana Tulon, Lt. B'Elanna Torres cancelled on lunch with Nicki and went straight back to the Paris house.

Where she got her second unpleasant surprise of the day.

Seated across from Owen Paris in the living room was John Torres.

"What is he doing here?" she demanded of her father-in-law.

"I invited him," Owen replied mildly.

"Why?" she asked emphatically.

"He has a right to know his granddaughter."

"A right?" B'Elanna repeated. "A right?" She was so angry at the words that it took a minute to get her thoughts straight, and when her words finally came, they came loud and fast and barely in the right order. "You give up your right to see any grandchildren when you leave your child. He has no rights here." She finally turned to face her father. "Maybe someday Navi will have kids. I'm sure she'll let you spend time with them."

She turned to leave the house. "B'Elanna," Owen said, forcefully enough to make her stop walking. "It's time for this to stop."

"That is not your decision," she snapped angrily as she twirled to face him. "You do not have a say in my life, or my daughter's life. We are not things for you to play with or order around. It didn't work with your children, and you better be damned sure it won't work with me." She barely paused to take a breath before she continued. "Tom hated when you did that. In case you didn't know. Thank you, Owen, for helping me finally realize why he spent so much time angry with you. I understand him a little bit better now."

And with that, she turned and left the Paris house. She stood outside for a long minute, wanting to scream but not wanting to disturb the infant still strapped to her chest. She glanced down at Isela to see large eyes watching her in return. Her daughter looked uncertain, but strangely enough, not terribly upset. Satisfied, she strode resolutely away from the house.

All of her things, and Isela's things, were in Tom's old bedroom, but they were just things. Nothing that couldn't be replicated. Nothing that couldn't be walked away from.

She made her way to the nearest transport station. "Where to, ma'am?" the civilian transporter tech asked.

"Hawaii," she replied after only a few seconds of hesitation. "The Big Island."

Almost the next thing she knew, she was sitting on the balcony of the hotel room, looking out over the water and enjoying the heat and humidity of the tropical island, when, right on schedule, Isela began fussing. "Don't worry, I'm still here," B'Elanna said to the small baby. "I'm not going anywhere, Isela. We've got to stick together. We're the only family we've got."

B'Elanna had an appointment with Dr. Gault—or was it Dr. Hrom, or maybe both?—about a week after she angrily stormed out of the Paris house. She hadn't been in contact with anyone since that day, but didn't fool herself into believing that everyone she or Tom was related to hadn't heard about the events in great detail, which was why she did something she usually didn't do when Nicki commed her asking if she wanted to do lunch after her appointment—she hesitated.

Ultimately, she decided it wouldn't hurt, and composed a brief reply saying that she'd meet her in Starfleet Medical's mess hall.

The appointment was with Dr. Hrom, who hmmed and hawed while studying her hormone levels, asked how she was feeling, made a decision to lower the pheromone treatment and follow up in two weeks to see how it goes, again stated his desire to have her tapered off by the time Isela was done nursing, and wished her a good day.

Nicki was already seated when B'Elanna entered the mess hall, and even after all those weeks, it still took B'Elanna a beat to recognize the woman in the teal uniform as her sister-in-law. "I heard about what happened," the pediatrician said as B'Elanna sat down, getting right down to business, as usual. "Not that it fixes anything, but Mom is furious with Dad. She usually looks the other way when it comes to Dad's edicts about our lives, but even she knows he crossed the line this time."

"I really don't want to talk about it, Nicki," B'Elanna said forcefully.

Nicki studied her for a second before shrugging dismissively. "Okay," she said. "How's Hawaii?"

They talked about meaningless things, like the differences in weather between Hawaii and Colorado, and then B'Elanna saw her sister-in-law stiffen. Even before she turned in her chair to see what had gotten Nicki's attention, she knew what—or rather, who—would be there.

Seeing Admiral Owen Paris approach their table, she spun quickly back to Nicki. "Did you do this?" she demanded. "Trick me into talking to him?"

"No!" Nicki exclaimed. "Why would you—"

"Because that's what you did to Tom!"

Nicki opened her mouth to respond, then closed it, then opened it again. "I did," she finally admitted. "But that was different," she added quickly. "That was… That was Tom and Dad stuff. This isn't. I get that. He had no right to meddle with things in your family, and on behalf of someone who was raised in that household, I wish I could apologize for that."

B'Elanna had no time to respond to that before Owen was at their table, and she didn't even give him a chance to open his mouth before she was on her feet and making moves to leave. "B'Elanna, please," and there was something in his voice that made her stop.

She turned to face him and blinked in surprise. He looked like he hadn't slept in the week since she had left the house in a fury, his eyes red and puffy, his skin almost sallow. He didn't even look like that when Voyager had disappeared. "I'm sorry," he said simply, his eyes on her before moving over to his daughter. "To both of you," he amended, before turning back to B'Elanna. "I've had no right to try to make decisions for anyone else in my family, and looking back on it…" His voice got thicker as it trailed off, and B'Elanna was surprised to see tears in his eyes. "You aren't extensions of me. None of you are, and I don't know why it took me so long to see that." He swallowed, then continued. "I never thought I would have so little time with my son, and to have wasted so much of it with him mad at me because I couldn't let him be his own person… I'll never get that time back. I don't want to lose any more time with anyone else. I'm always here to help you, any of you, but I'm done giving unsolicited advice. And I'm sorry I didn't realize how harmful it was sooner."

Lt. B'Elanna Torres stared at herself in the mirror critically. If she didn't have the proof in the form of the very loud three-and-a-half month old, she might have been able to convince herself that the whole pregnancy and childbirth had just been a strange dream for how quickly her figure returned to close to its previous form. Dr. Hrom had muttered something about hormones, Solaris Jaxon had excitedly launched into a long hypothesis about Klingon post-partum metabolisms and returning to fighting shape to protect their infants, and Dr. Gault had dryly commented that if he could bottle it, he could make his patients very happy, because it was about at the three month mark that most of his patients started complaining about how much they wanted their old bodies back.

But beyond being annoyed with so many people talking about her and dissecting her down to her hormones and genetics, B'Elanna couldn't bring herself to care. Much like she had told Dr. Yamisuko at her first prenatal visit, she didn't skip meals because of any desire to keep her weight down; she hadn't cared about her weight then, and didn't care about it now. She had the strength and endurance to do what she needed to do—which at the moment was caring for an infant without sleeping—and that's all she cared about.

For another two weeks; after that point, she'd need the strength and endurance to care for an infant without sleeping, and work full shifts at Starfleet Engineering.

She finally turned away from her reflection and got dressed, pulling on a sundress, practically her parental leave uniform after she moved to Hawaii. She dressed warmer if she was going to San Francisco, but where she was headed that day, the dress would be fine.

She had forgiven Owen. She had forgiven her mother. Most of her had forgiven Tom for going on that damn mission and dying. It was time to see if she could forgive her father.

"C'mon, Izzy," she said as she picked up the infant and strapped her into the carrier. The move to Hawaii was nice overall—they now had a great apartment and the weather was warm and perfect—but she did miss having the built-in help that came from living with her in-laws.

She had forgiven Owen, but not even that was enough to make her want to move back to San Francisco.

The transport from Hawaii to Ixtapa, Mexico was as brief as always, and then she was there. In front of his house. It hadn't taken much to get into the surveillance systems to know that he was currently alone inside that house. All she had to do was walk up to the door and press on the announcer chime.

And yet, her feet might as well have been rooted to the ground, for as unwilling as they were to move.

And then she took a deep breath, and moved.

The door opened about two seconds after she pressed on the announcer, and there he was. John Torres. Her father. Now standing closer to her than he had since she was five. "B'Elanna," he said in surprise. She didn't know what to call him, so she just nodded. "Please, come in. Can I get you anything?"

"No. Thank you." She followed him into the house, looking around at the warm, tasteful decorations, and awkwardly sat where indicated.

That awkwardness stretched on for several long minutes before John cleared his throat. Not waiting for him to ask her why she was there, she beat him to it, her words coming out in a rush. "I went to Qo'noS to find my mother, a few months before she died," she said. "And I figured if I could forgive her for how she raised me, that maybe someday I could forgive you for not raising me." She finally looked over at him, fully looked at him, to see a pained expression on his face. "But I need to know why."

And he told her everything, as painful as it was for him to say it and her to hear it, everything about the quick marriage, how they thought bringing a child into it would save them, how it obviously didn't, how weak he had been and how easily Miral had convinced him that he shouldn't have any contact with his daughter, how much he doted on Navi as if that could make up for the fact that he couldn't see his first daughter.

When he was done talking, B'Elanna stood up without saying anything and headed for the door. She exited the house, but didn't go far, taking a seat on the stairs leading up to the front door, where she sat, looking at her daughter, for what could have been minutes or hours.

"Lieutenant?" She looked up to see the uniform-clad figure of Commander Tulon several meters away.

"Commander," she replied. She swallowed, then said, "I need help."

The psychologist gave a short nod, her expression resolute. "Let me go inside and tell John where I am. We'll comm Dr. Bayrote on the way."