Second Chances: Chapter 23

Stardate 54470.6
October 2377
U.S.S. Voyager
Alpha Quadrant

"He sounds pleasant," Tom Paris said dryly, and to his surprise, she didn't laugh.

"Being a single parent is lonely," she said. "I've spent most of my life alone, but I wasn't lonely. It was different when Izzy was little. I was never alone; I was either at work and surrounded by other engineers or mechanics, or I was at home and Izzy was there. I couldn't even go to the bathroom or take a shower without her following me or needing me. After she was out of her crib, I woke up to her in my bed more often than not, and that girl has always been a restless sleeper. But it was lonely, and got so much worse after we moved back to Mars. At least on Earth, I had your parents and Nicki and Navi. John and T'Pana, on occasion. I even visited my cousin Elizabeth once every few months. I didn't have that on Mars. Some of our friends from before Izzy was born were still living on Mars Station, but they either didn't have kids and didn't understand why everything had to revolve around Izzy, or they did have kids but spent all of their time and energy complaining about their partners." She snorted. "I would have given anything to get to complain about how difficult you were making parenting," she informed him.

"Hey!" he protested. "I wouldn't make anything difficult."

She snorted again. "You'd keep Izzy up after her bedtime watching cartoons and would leave your pizza crusts on the table." He opened his mouth to protest again, then had to nod in concession. After all, he had done just that.

"But I would get to complain about how many hours you spent at work and abandoning us in the evenings to go running," he pointed out. "Or the fact that you don't like fun."

She arched her eyebrows challengingly. "I like to have fun," she said. "I just don't think holonovels are fun."

"You treat holodecks like training simulators." He actually said the same thing to Harry several years ago, when he was excitedly describing one of his holodeck programs and Harry had asked if Paris was just looking for a substitute for his wife. B'Elanna doesn't do these programs with me, he had scoffed. She treats holodecks like training simulators. Klingon martial arts, rock climbing, and Velocity games are the programs she runs.

"I just don't see the point in having to memorize parts in order to act out some fantasy. The real world is just fine."

"Says the woman who reads Klingon romance novels in her spare time."

She rolled her eyes, and he laughed. Even this bickering non-argument felt good; they had both changed over the last six and a half years, but it was nice to know that they were capable of having the same disagreements about how to spend their free time. "Not that I had time for holonovels, anyway. Not while working twelve hours a day and dealing with a toddler for the other twelve and a half. I had work, Izzy, and that S-class shuttle, and that was it. Kwasi seemed to be the only person who understood how isolating it is to be parenting alone and not even being on the same planet as the rest of your family. It was nice to get to talk to someone else who understood how lonely being a single parent could be. It was nice enough that I was willing to put up with his incessant requests for a date in order to have someone to relate to. He installed the hardware for a holo nanny—don't judge me, that thing is a much more attentive parent than any flesh and blood parent could be—" Tom held up his hands defensively; it didn't even cross his mind to think that a hologram couldn't be a good nanny, not after spending more than six years with an EMH as the ship's only medical provider "—and that was the only way I got to go on my long runs on the weekends, because he understood that it's hard to get alone time when dealing with a toddler. And he was a big help when I became a project officer and started grad school and teaching classes at the Technical Academy." She took a deep breath to redirect herself. "He finally got the message after that hike. Why it took a broken ankle and not just me telling him no is something I will never understand, but he was a good friend in those years."

"Where is he now?"

She shrugged. "He went to a holo engineer position at Jupiter Station a few months after Owen started Pathfinder and I moved back to Earth. We—Pathfinder—consulted his team after the datalink was established, to see if we could facilitate holographic communication with you, but Voyager isn't equipped with the right holoemitters outside of Sickbay, and the files would have taken up too much bandwidth. The transmission times would have been so short that it would have defeated the purpose." She frowned slightly, studying his face. "Are you jealous?" she asked, her tone a mixture of confusion and hesitation, and he had to think about the question.

Jealous from a romantic point of view, no. He knew B'Elanna didn't care about pursuing romantic relationships—he had confessed his love for her twice before she had agreed to even date him, after all—and was too honorable to get in one when she couldn't give all of herself to it. He wasn't going to ask anything about sex, because everyone back in the Federation thought they were dead for almost four years, and sex and romance weren't the same thing. "I'm jealous of anyone who got to spend time with you and Izzy over the last six and a half years," he said honestly. "Including my parents and sisters. I'm jealous that I couldn't be the one you complained to about feeling isolated and lonely or the one to watch over Izzy while you went for a run."

"If you were there, there wouldn't have been any feelings of isolation or loneliness," she said dryly. "You would have dragged me to every party, holiday, and social gathering you could find. And then created new ones to drag me to."

He laughed and nodded his agreement, because he would have. And he would have been dragging her along. Until she started fighting back, which probably would have been after the first two weeks. "I could have gotten used to the quiet family life at home," he said thoughtfully. She snorted.

"For someone who accuses me of getting restless, you sure do get bored easily," she pointed out.

"I have the holodeck for that," he said quickly, making her laugh and roll her eyes.

"How many new programs have you written in the last six and a half years?"

He tried to count, but couldn't. "A lot," he finally settled on. She chuckled. "But they weren't all for me," he said quickly. "I wrote a lot of programs for other people. Harry's played his clarinet in every major concert hall on Earth. And a few on Vulcan. And one on Ktaris, of all places."

She chuckled. "Forget the ship design division. Starfleet's going to be sending you to Jupiter Station for holoprogramming when we get home," she teased.

"I requested an assignment with the ship design division," he said. He wasn't planning on telling her this way, but couldn't think of anything better. She looked ready to laugh, and then changed her mind at the look on his face.

"You did?" she asked. "Why? I thought you'd be fighting to get back to being a test pilot."

He shook his head. "I've had enough living dangerously to last me a while," he said. "It's been a pretty rough six years. I need some time doing a job where I know that I'll be going home at the end of each day. I want to think of flying as something fun again, not something my life depends on. And being a test pilot took me away from you and made me miss the first six years of my daughter's life." She didn't say anything for a long minute. "I figured that since Pathfinder completed its job, you'd either be on the team tearing Voyager apart and analyzing every component, or on a team working to make singularity travel a stable option, and both of those would probably be on Mars."

She nodded slowly. "You've really thought about this, then." It was a statement, not a question, and he nodded in agreement.

"I have," he replied. "The other idea was resigning my commission and following you around as a stay-at-home dad. It wouldn't take much to talk to me into that."

"With dabbling in holoprogramming on the side," B'Elanna said dryly, but with a smile.

"And coaching a junior flight team," he said.

"She also plays soccer," she pointed out. "And has been talking about wanting to learn Klingon martial arts. Navi wants her to start learning a musical instrument, but I'm afraid she's as tone deaf as I am."

"Sounds like there would be plenty to keep a stay-at-home dad busy," he said with a laugh. "How does she have time for all of that? How do you?"

"Izzy inherited her father's intolerance of sitting still and her mother's ability to function without sleep," B'Elanna replied. "And I leave shuttling her around to her various activities up to your mother."

"That would be significantly more difficult if we move back to Mars," he pointed out.

"True," she agreed.

He thought about that for a minute, then asked, "Do you want to move back to Mars?"

"I haven't had much time to think about it," she admitted. "My only focus for the last three years—aside from those brief interludes when Starfleet felt the need to remind me that I was an engineer in demand during a war—has been finding you and bringing you back home. I didn't stop to think about what would happen after that. I guess I probably have my pick of assignments to choose from. I don't really care where it is, though. All I care about is that you're there with us."

"I'm not leaving you again," he said. "Like I said, I will turn in my resignation before that happens. That, I can promise you."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Thomas Eugene Paris, making a promise?" she asked in disbelief. "I didn't think I'd live to see the day."

"I'm serious, B'Elanna," he said, and he was.

"And so am I," she said. "I don't care where we go, we go there together."

"Just as long as it isn't anywhere in the Delta quadrant," he said. "I'm done eating anything with leola root." She frowned, and he shook his head. "Neelix is a great guy, but his cooking leaves a lot to be desired. And he uses far too much of that vegetable in everything."

"It can't be worse than rations."

He frowned and thought about that. "Let me put it this way," he finally said. "If the majority of your diet for over six years was rations…"

"I get your point," she said quickly. "That month I had them on the Jem'Hadar ship was bad enough."

"The Jem'Hadar was part of the Dominion, right?"

She chuckled. "Your whole crew is going to need a crash course in Alpha and Gamma quadrant relationships when we get back home. Yes, the Jem'Hadar were the military branch of the Dominion. And I have a master's degree in how their ships work."