Second Chances: Chapter 50
A/N: I didn't expect 50 chapters, and we're barely more than halfway through the journey. Thanks for sticking with it this long.
Stardate 51874
January 2375
Hawaii, Earth
B'Elanna Torres felt like she had just fallen asleep when the announcer chimed on her apartment. "Go away," she muttered, even though she knew that the person on the other side of the door couldn't hear.
Unfortunately, the person also didn't go away.
The chime kept coming, and then her combadge beeped. *Wyland to Torres,* Sydney's voice said. *I know you're in there. Let me in.*
"Go away," B'Elanna repeated, this time into her combadge.
*It's time to run.*
"The sun isn't even up yet," B'Elanna replied, feeling silly talking to an empty room. She was awake now; she knew she should just let her sister-in-law in, but still wasn't feeling like it.
*That's the point,* Sydney said with a sigh. *If you aren't running when the sun rises up on the new year—*
"It's seven years of bad luck?" B'Elanna asked, finally pulling herself out of bed. She grabbed her robe as she made her way to the living room and called for the door to open.
"Well, no," Sydney said as she entered. "But c'mon. What better way is there to greet the new year than running?"
"Sleeping," B'Elanna said emphatically. "You should have done this stupid 'run while the sun rises' thing a few years hours again in San Francisco."
"Why, when I could sleep in and do it here?" Sydney teased. "I told you not to go out with Nicki and Jason." B'Elanna groaned at the memory. "Where'd you go, anyway?"
"London," B'Elanna replied. "And then New York, Chicago, Denver, and back here."
"Five New Year celebrations?" Sydney laughed. "Thank the gods for synthehol."
"I'm pretty sure Nicki switched us to real champagne in Denver."
Sydney rolled her eyes. "What can I say? My sister's a bit of a loose cannon. I still don't know what Starfleet was thinking when they offered her a commission." B'Elanna snorted in agreement. "Hurry up," Sydney said. "The sun's going to start to rise in less than an hour."
They beamed over to the southern end of the island and made their way to their usual running route in the Ka'ū Forest. B'Elanna had selected Jakarta for the next marathon; they had until October to train, but since the chill in San Francisco would do nothing to help prepare for the heat and humidity near the equator, Sydney often beamed over to Hawaii to run with B'Elanna, and they now had several running routes of various distances plotted out.
Wednesdays were usually their recovery runs from Tuesday speedwork, and they were definitely taking the run at recovery pace, B'Elanna still feeling thick-headed from the synthehol—and possibly real alcohol—and lack of sleep that came from ringing in the New Year with Nicki and Jason. Never one for parties in the first place, she still didn't know how Nicki had convinced her to go to five of them in one night.
They made their way up the side of a mountain, stopping at an overlook to watch the sun rise above the water. "I'm sorry that your idea to find Voyager didn't pan out," Sydney said, their first words since they started running.
"It was a long shot to begin with," B'Elanna replied, still watching the sunrise. The whole project was a long shot, but that didn't mean she was going to stop trying.
"What are you going to do now?"
B'Elanna shrugged. "Same thing I've been doing since September," she said, finally looking over at her sister-in-law. "Keep working on running signals through the communications network, trying to figure out how to expand it. That huge network that stretches into the Delta quadrant… We're going to have to use that. Somehow. I haven't figured out how yet."
Sydney smiled slightly before returning her attention to the sunrise. "It's going to work," she said with a confidence B'Elanna wished she felt. "2375 is going to be a good year. You'll see."
They made their way back down the mountain to the transporter station and beamed over to San Francisco, heading straight for the Paris house. "Mommy!" Izzy greeted B'Elanna as soon as they crossed through the door. "It's my half birthday!"
B'Elanna frowned down at her before glancing up at Alicia, who shrugged. "I think it was Stephanie who told her about her half birthday. She's been going on about it all morning. Now go get cleaned up, you two. The natives are getting restless and want brunch."
As ordered, Sydney and B'Elanna showered and changed before joining the rest of the family in the living room and kitchen. "Did Nicki switch out the synthehol champagne for the real thing in Chicago last night?" Jason asked B'Elanna as he nursed a cup of coffee and looked worse than she felt.
"I thought it was in Denver," B'Elanna replied, "but yes."
He groaned and rubbed his eyes. "I knew it," he said with a sigh. "Dammit, Nicki."
"Hey, you're the one who married her."
He gave a slight chuckle. "Yeah I did," he said, his tone an odd mixture of pride and resignation. With a crooked smile, he lifted his coffee mug slightly. "Gods help those of us who married a Paris."
"Amen," she agreed, also lifting her mug in a slight toast.
After brunch, the adults remained gathered around the table with their coffee while the younger kids loudly playing and running throughout the house. Ainsley and Kajsa were shooting glares to each other across the living room—the two had gone to a New Year's Eve party together, and B'Elanna could only imagine how that went, as she couldn't see the quiet and intense Kajsa and the loud and spontaneous Ainsley having the same idea of what constituted a good party—when her PADD chirped. "What is it?" Nicki asked before she even pulled it out of her pocket.
"Probably an errant signal," she replied, then frowned as she studied the data. She typed a few commands, her frown deepening, and then rose from the table.
"What is it?" This time, Owen.
"I'm not sure," she said slowly. "I need to go to the lab to check it out."
He also rose. "I'll go with you," he said. She shook her head.
"It's probably nothing," she cautioned.
He shrugged. "I have some reports I need to catch up on, anyway," he said. "And if it's not nothing, I want to be there."
She nodded, then glanced at Alicia. "You don't mind watching Izzy?"
Before Alicia answered, Izzy somehow appeared. "I wanna come!" she exclaimed. "It's my half birthday!" B'Elanna was really starting to wonder what exactly Stephanie had told Izzy about half birthdays, but that would have to wait until another time. She was about to explain that she was just going to the lab, but Owen interjected.
"You want to spend some time in my office?" he asked. She brightened; she liked the toys he kept there, and B'Elanna was too distracted to argue.
A quick change into their uniforms and they were off, her comfortably in the lab less than ten minutes after her PADD had chirped.
It wasn't a random signal from a spatial anomaly, but she didn't know what it was. She called in everyone she could think of and get hold of on the holiday; Lt. Cohen and Lt. Commander Makarova, the astrophysicist, got to work on trying to find out where the signal originated. Lt. Barclay and an ensign from the engineering section got to work on isolating and clarifying the signal. Two of the comms techs from the Dominion section came in to see if the signal was traveling through the Dominion network without any issues.
She tried not to get her hopes up, but that was hard.
"It's definitely coming from the Delta quadrant," she informed Owen a few hours after they arrived, the first piece of definitive news she had to share. They were sitting in the CRC's mess, the room all but empty on the holiday. "We're still working on cleaning it up enough to figure out who's sending it." She could imagine Captain Janeway standing on the bridge of the lost ship, frustrated at not being able to get a message through. "We're sending instructions on how they should remodulate their transducer to clarify the message, but," she shrugged in frustration, "their tech is more than four years old, and we don't know how beat up it's gotten in that time. We don't even know if they can hear our message."
"If it's Voyager," Owen pointed out.
"If," B'Elanna agreed, then sighed and glanced at her chronometer. She had only been gone from the lab for ten minutes and was already itching to go back. "I'll comm you as soon as we have something."
"I wanna come!" Izzy insisted for the second time that day. B'Elanna sighed again.
"Izzy, there's nothing for you to do in the lab, and there are a lot of people who are working really hard. You're going to be in the way."
"I won't!" she insisted.
"There are toys for you to play with in Grandpa's office," B'Elanna reminded her daughter.
"But I wanna go with you!" she whined. "It's my half birthday!" B'Elanna frowned at that again and made a mental note to try to figure out what Izzy expected to happen on her half birthday. Did she think there was going to be a party? She had a nagging feeling that she was about to be faced with the temper tantrum of a very disappointed preschooler.
"How about if we both to go the lab with your mother?" Owen asked Izzy. "But you need to stick with me, okay?"
"Okay!" she agreed cheerfully, and B'Elanna sighed. She was too distracted by the puzzle she was trying to figure out from 60,000 light years away to point out how terrible of an idea it was to have a three-year-old in the lab. If Owen wanted the responsibility of making sure Izzy didn't get in anyone's way, that was on him. He was the commanding admiral, after all.
Owen's presence in the lab made others nervous and jumpy, and that was not improving B'Elanna's mood. She had to snap at Ensign Hummel twice just to get his attention, and if it happened one more time, she was going to send him home.
Before she got the opportunity, everything changed.
"I-I think I can make out the-the signal!" Lt. Barclay exclaimed. "I just need to—"
"Do it," B'Elanna interrupted. "Explain later."
She didn't even realize she was holding her breath until she heard it.
*Starfleet Command, this is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the U.S.S. Voyager, do you read?*