Second Chances: Chapter 19
Stardate 50188
February 2373
Mars Station, Mars
Lt. B'Elanna Torres removed another driver coil and scanned it, muttering under her breath before placing it in the "replace" pile on the hangar floor, a pile that was rapidly outgrowing the "repair" pile to the other side.
"Don't tell your grandfather, but I think he was right. This shuttle is hardly worth the headache," Torres said to Izzy, who was engrossed in watching something on a PADD and clearly not listening. "Doesn't help that the person I'm repairing it for couldn't be bothered to care," she added. To be fair, she didn't exactly expect the 19-month-old to have much interest in a collection of loose and broken parts that only barely resembled a shuttle. Although at this rate, it would still be a collection of loose and broken that only barely resembled a shuttle by the time Izzy was old enough to care.
She didn't know what it said about her state of mind that most of her best hours recently had been those that she had spent in that hangar with a toddler who was ignoring her, hunched over a shuttle that would require a small miracle to fly again. Work was rewarding but hard, with a small handful of her one hundred or so mechanics taking up the majority of her time and attention and too much time being a commander and not enough being an engineer. Running was still a favorite escape, of course, but with still five months to go until her next marathon—Madagascar, which Sydney was already grumbling would be too hot—her training was haphazard at best. She had started mountain biking with some of the other company commanders and staff officers in the battalion a few months after she arrived, and while she enjoyed it, adding more social interactions to a long work day of social interactions made it that much more tiring.
It was actually mountain biking that led her to her hangar that afternoon; the non-commissioned officers and chief warrant officers spent Thursday afternoons training the mechanics, and Commander Winters liked to use the downtime for the officers for group physical training. That day, they had taken their bikes up to Pavonis Mons, but the ride was cut short by a medical evacuation when Lt. Commander Zalty had a spectacular crash that resulted in a concussion and broken collarbone. She would be fine, but Winters had called it a day before he found himself in a situation that would leave him even more short-staffed the next day. And instead of going back to work on something that wasn't that urgent, Torres had taken Izzy out of daycare and brought her to the hangar. Where B'Elanna was finding more components that needed to be replaced, and Izzy was watching a Flotter cartoon on a PADD.
Quality time. Or something.
She had just removed another driver coil and began the process of scanning it when the computer chimed. *Incoming transmission from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Earth. Identification: Sarah Carey. Accept?*
"Accept, on screen," Torres replied, turning toward the communication console in her small hangar. She searched her memory, trying to remember if she knew anyone from Pennsylvania.
As soon as the transmission connected and the woman's face appeared, she remembered. Joe Carey had been an ensign in engineering of...some ship that had been laid over at UP for a few months when Torres was an ensign. He had been out of the sector for a year without a break before that point, so Sarah and the boys had moved to Mars for those few months to be with him. They were older than her and Tom—he had been an ensign, but had been an enlisted mechanic for several years before attending the Academy—and she didn't remember how they had met, but she and Tom had had dinner over at their temporary house a few times in those months. They were...normal, which Torres had found somewhat refreshing. And then Ensign Carey went back out on his ship, Sarah and the boys went back to Pennsylvania, and they had fallen out of touch.
Until Torres saw him again in engineering on Voyager in the last few weeks before the launch. Since he hadn't been assigned to the station, she was sure that that meant that he had met the same fate as her husband.
Sarah was plain, almost mousy, but had been nice and charmingly witty, and now smiled over at Torres from across space. *I hope this isn't a bad time,* she started. Torres glanced at her PADD; it was almost 1700 Mars time; she didn't care nearly enough to try to determine what time that made it in Pennsylvania.
"No, not at all," she replied. It was actually one of the best times to talk, as she wasn't at work and wasn't actively chasing a toddler or around or trying to convince her to eat or sleep.
Before she could ask why Sarah was calling, the woman answered the question for her. *There's going to be a private reception for partners and children following Voyager's memorial next week,* she said. *I tried sending an invitation, but I didn't receive a response. I just wanted to check that you received it.*
"Oh." To be honest, Torres had forgotten about the upcoming memorial service for the Voyager crew. She had no intention of going; not only was it on Earth and thus required a trip on the shuttle and at least a few days of leave, but she hated big ceremonies. And so did Tom; even their wedding had been a very small and private affair. The thought of putting herself—and Izzy—through a ridiculous Starfleet ceremony that the person they were remembering wouldn't want didn't appeal to her in the least. "I did, and I meant to respond; it just slipped my mind. I'm not planning on attending."
*The reception?* Sarah asked.
"The memorial," Torres clarified. "It's not really my thing. Or Tom's. And traveling on the shuttle with a toddler is not the easiest thing. Especially my toddler." She didn't know how to explain the rest of it, that she didn't want to be around other people's grief—or lack thereof. She didn't want to have to compare her grief to other people who had lost what she had lost, didn't want to have to explain why she had no interest in "moving on," didn't want to be "gently" reminded of how young she was and how she still had plenty of time to find someone else to grow old with, didn't know how to explain that there would be no "moving on," that Tom was still her husband, even if the Federation said he was dead, even if she actually saw that he was dead and had a body to bury. She didn't want to explain that, although she had been widowed for longer than she had been married, that she still considered herself to be married to him and always would.
And she didn't want to have to explain she had no interest in "moving on," even if nothing else applied. She had been a loner for most of her life, different from everyone around her, and she learned how to be content in her own company from an early age. It was only through his determined and patient persistence that Tom had broken through the barriers that she had long ago erected. She missed him every day, but she didn't regret being "alone" in a relationship sense and was content that each day started and ended with just her and Izzy.
Sarah smiled that way that all mothers smiled to each other, that smile that said she had understood the difficulties of life with a toddler and had been there, and B'Elanna knew that that was true. The youngest Carey boy, Patrick, had been a little older than Izzy was now, and the elder, Sean, only three years older, when the Careys were temporarily living on Mars, and that couldn't have been an easy shuttle ride in either direction. *I understand if you can't make it,* she said. *But I really wish you could. It would be good to see you again and to meet your daughter. Even after two years, these things are still so hard, and a toddler would certainly add some much-needed levity.*
B'Elanna snorted. "You haven't met Izzy," she pointed out. "She could be some much-needed levity, or she could be a holy terror. Or both in the same day."
Sarah laughed, an honest, delighted laugh. *I'm enjoying my sons at the age they are now, but I'd be lying if I said I missed the toddler years. Everyone moans about how difficult everything is—and it certainly was—but, gods, they were entertaining.*
Torres snorted. "'Entertaining' could be one word for it," she agreed. "Some days, 'mortifying' could be as well." And she wouldn't trade one moment of it. At least, in retrospect. Some of Izzy's more enthusiastic temper tantrums had been pretty trying while they were happening. "Let me talk to my commander and my in-laws. I'll see what we can do."