Second Chances: Chapter 51

Stardate 51874
January 2375
San Francisco, Earth

*Starfleet Command, this is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the U.S.S. Voyager, do you read?*

A cheer went up in the lab, lasting barely half a second before Admiral Owen Paris raised his hand to silence them. "Captain Janeway, this is Admiral Owen Paris, we read you."

*Your message…clear…Admiral…clean—*

"We're working on it at our end, Captain," Owen said. "Lieutenant," he said, addressing B'Elanna.

"I'm working as fast as I can, Admiral!" she snapped back. She punched in a few more commands, then said, "Voyager, you need to remodulate your signal to frequency Tau-5 and adjust by 0.3 gigahertz." Her fingers were already flying over the console, preparing to make the final adjustments to the signal once the transmission came in from Voyager.

*B'Elanna.* That voice, somewhere between a question and a statement, three syllables that came out as if he wasn't expecting them, and she looked up in surprise just as the visual came through.

He was sitting there, right in front, his blue eyes wide with surprise, a smile still forming on his lips. Tom. He had less hair on his head than he had almost four years before, which amused but didn't surprise B'Elanna—Owen lost his battle with his hairline by the time he was a lieutenant commander, and she had seen old holos of Alicia's father, completely bald by the time he graduated college. Nicki had loved to tease Tom about the genetics behind hair loss, and really, he should consider himself lucky that he still had any hair on top at 29.

But balding or not, he was there, on Voyager's bridge, alive. Tom was alive, and now grinning in that way he did, that almost-smirk he wore when he felt victorious, about anything, and for a brief second, it was like she was 20 again during that summer they were dating. He would give her that same smile immediately before tackling her onto his bed, getting shrieks of surprise, then laughter once she figured out what that smile meant and what had been about to come.

Owen cleared his throat, and B'Elanna wasn't sure if it was to remind both of them of proper decorum or if he needed to try to swallow the emotion before he spoke. "I'm glad you got our message, Captain," he finally said.

*To be honest, we weren't sure it wasn't a trap of some sort,* Captain Janeway said, a half-smile on her face. *How did you know how to find us?*

Owen turned to B'Elanna, and then back to the viewscreen. "That's a very long story, Captain," he said, "and I don't think we have time for that. I'm going to turn you over to my chief engineer, Lt. B'Elanna Torres."

B'Elanna blinked in surprise and forced her gaze from Tom to Captain Janeway. She looked older than the holos Torres had seen, more worn, which after almost four years of commanding a ship on the other side of the galaxy with no support from Starfleet, was hardly a surprise. "We have a little over four minutes before we lose this comm channel," she said, getting down to business. "I'm sending you instructions for future communications." Her eyes flitted back to Tom, and she knew she was losing that fight to keep from smiling. "Starting now, we're focused on figuring out how to get you home." She was mostly making it up as she went, her mind spinning too quickly. "I'm sending you a list of diagnostics we need you to do, so we can assess your capabilities. If you can send the results the next time we make contact, we'll be able to get started."

She saw Captain Janeway turn to the officer at Ops—Ensign Harry Kim, anyone even remotely connected to Voyager could identify him, from how much his parents loved to overshare—who gave a nod. *We're sending you our logs, crew reports, and navigational logs,* Janeway said in reply.

"Received," Lt. Barclay said from the back of the room.

B'Elanna heard the fast and light steps of a running Izzy, and she automatically reached down to intercept her and lift her to her hip without thinking, forgetting in those few seconds that she was on screen. She heard the sharp of intake of breath, and smiled at the fact that she could surprise Tom.

Having a preschooler on an official channel was beyond breaking Starfleet protocol, as if this comm hadn't been unusual from the beginning, and B'Elanna's mind spun as she tried to figure a way to do this that wasn't completely unprofessional. "It being a holiday, we're a little short-staffed today," she finally explained. "We had to bring in one of our junior engineers. This is Isela Miral Paris. She's been running numbers today. Her arithmetic isn't that great yet, but we needed all the help we could get."

"Hi, Daddy," Izzy greeted cheerfully, and B'Elanna did a double-take in surprise. They had shown her holos of Tom, of course, but she hadn't realized that Izzy connected the stories and the images to an actual person. Or that she would be able to recognize the actual person without someone holding up a holo and saying that that was her father.

*Hi, Izzy,* Tom greeted from 60,000 light-years away, his voice thick with emotion. And of course he knew that she went by Izzy. *It's nice to meet you.*

"It's my half birthday," Izzy informed him, and B'Elanna couldn't help but laugh. All that talk all day about it being her half birthday, and at least she remembered to tell the one person who actually cared.

*Happy half birthday, Miss Paris,* Captain Janeway said. The video broke up on the edges, and B'Elanna returned Izzy to the ground so she would have two hands to dedicate to the console. They had known this would be a short message, but if she could just a couple more seconds out of it, she was going to try. *I hope your family has a party planned for you.*

"There's certainly going to be a party tonight," Owen promised, his voice again thick.

*There will be one here, too, Admiral,* Janeway replied. The video broke up again, a slight crack now coming through on audio as well, and B'Elanna wanted just a few more seconds.

"You are no longer alone, Voyager," Owen said, quickly and passionately, also realizing that they were losing the signal. "We aren't going to stop until we get you home. The year is just beginning, but I can tell 2375 is going to be one of my favorites. Happy New Year, and stay safe."

And then they were gone.

The entire lab was thick with silence for a beat, and then erupted in cheers and chatter and noise, none of which B'Elanna heard. She stared in disbelief at the now blank viewscreen, reliving the last few minutes over and over in her head.

It worked.

Tom was alive.

"Mommy," Izzy said impatiently, tugging at her uniform. B'Elanna looked down in surprise, wondering how long she had been trying to get her attention. She lifted Izzy to her hip and gave her a kiss on her temple.

"Happy half-birthday, baby girl," she said.

"I'm not a baby!" Izzy protested. "I'm three and a half." B'Elanna laughed and nodded in agreement, squeezing Izzy tightly. "Why is Granpa crying?"

B'Elanna glanced over to Owen to see him still staring at the viewscreen, a disbelieving smile on his face and wet streaks of tears down his face. "He's happy," B'Elanna explained.

"Why?"

"Because we found your dad."

Starfleet immediately went to work on notifying everyone on the crew manifest—those listed as crew, and those on the deceased list, and B'Elanna couldn't even imagine that pain. To have that split second of hope when told that Voyager had not been destroyed, only to have it crushed when told that their loved ones were truly dead, that they would not be coming back, no matter what Starfleet Command or Pathfinder Project could manage.

And Owen, B'Elanna, and Izzy went home to tell the family that Tom was alive.

Alicia processed that news surprisingly quickly, and immediately went into celebratory mode. She invited everyone from Pathfinder and everyone even remotely associated with Pathfinder over to the Paris house, and then as many family members from Voyager she could get hold of. It was short notice, so she wasn't sure how many would make it, but still ordered Nicki to grab the case of 2361 Veuve Clicquot and chill it to be served.

And there was cake, because Izzy insisted that a half birthday party had to have cake.

The toasts were plentiful and frequent, and although she was still feeling the regret of the champagne she had consumed the night before, B'Elanna was grateful for them. Toasting to Captain Janeway and her crew distracted people from coming up to her and offering their inarticulate but heartfelt thanks for finding their loved ones. Which came with a lot more hugging than she liked.

Hours into the celebration found B'Elanna out on the back deck, the heaters thankfully on. She stared up at the stars, wishing that she could be seeing the same stars as Tom, that they could at least have that together. "There's a party going on, and you're outside with a glass of whiskey," Nicki observed. B'Elanna spun quickly in surprise, immediately regretting the move as she had to grab for the railing to keep from falling. She was not used to drinking real alcohol. "I mean, the good champagne is gone, but still. Whiskey on the back deck? That's a Dad move if I've ever seen one."

B'Elanna smiled slightly. "There are a lot of people in there," she replied. "It's good to see Sarah and the boys, but Mrs. Kim already cornered me twice."

Nicki laughed. "That woman certainly loves her son."

"That she does," B'Elanna agreed. They lapsed into silence, B'Elanna going back to staring at the stars. "I'm not the same person I was four years ago," she finally said.

"No," Nicki agreed. "You're not. Which is a good thing. Gods, that would be horrible if people stayed 22 forever." B'Elanna smiled at her sister-in-law's humor, and then Nicki became serious. "We've all changed, B'Elanna. That's what life does. You're a mother now, for fuck's sake. You can't emerge from that unchanged."

"What if he doesn't love the person I've become?" Her words came out in a rush, that horrible thought she hadn't let herself vocalize, even though it had been there for months. Ever since she had gone through that quantum fissure, had encountered those other Toms, had realized how different they were from her own and how different she was from the B'Elannas they knew. She was different now from even the B'Elanna her Tom had known. He fell in love with her when she was 20 and trying to figure out who she was in the world. She was 21 and brash and impulsive when they got married. He left on Voyager when she was 22 and pregnant and honestly believed that pregnancy or motherhood wouldn't change her.

"B'Elanna," Nicki said forcefully, turning B'Elanna to face her. "I'm not going to get into this whole idea of your father leaving you when you were a kid making you think you're not worthy of love, because I'm not a fucking therapist and you have Bayrote for that kind of nonsense. But if you think we keep you around out of some sort of obligation, you couldn't be more wrong. We spend time with you because you're somebody we like spending time with. Because we love you." She stared at B'Elanna intently. "You've changed," she said a few beats later, "but inside, you're still the same person Tom married. You're still passionate and loyal and fierce. And Tom's not going to be the same 25-year-old kid you knew, either. Deep space missions change people. We've known that for as long as we've been sending people to space. Especially unintentional deep space missions that were supposed to be three-week rescue missions. On an Intrepid-class ship. Without a counselor. Without a doctor anymore, other than an EMH. With the same hundred and fifty or so people. And no ability to talk to anyone back home. Well, until now." Nicki frowned, then rubbed her forehead. "I forgot where I was going with that," she admitted. "I'm a little drunk, for the second day in a row." She suddenly wrapped B'Elanna in a tight embrace. "You brought my little brother back from the dead," she murmured. "That's the most amazing thing anyone has ever done, and if that's not a reason to love somebody, I don't know what is."