Second Chances: Chapter 64
A/N: I remembered, belatedly, how long Ensign Wildman was pregnant with Naomi, and finally thought to check the stardate to figure out her birthday: June 20, 2372. Which makes her almost a year younger than Izzy. So, she's five, not six. I've gone back and corrected it in the other chapters, but just stating it here in case there are any questions about why her age suddenly changed.
A/N2: Confession (kinda): I daydream. A lot. It's almost a problem, because I sometimes zone out when other people are speaking and imagine what my imaginary friends (lately, characters in Voyager fanfiction) are doing. That's where all these AUs keep coming from. The confession is that I'm having a hard time figuring out what happens in these last two years of this story between when we last saw B'Elanna and when we opened with Voyager returning to the Alpha quadrant, because I keep daydreaming other Voyager stories instead of this one. Like the [other] AU that we saw this time when B'Elanna was doing her alternate universe hopping. And lately, prompted by the new trailer for ST: Picard, imagining one set in the same general time, but with the Voyager crew. The main character is Miral Paris, who is now a second classman (junior at Starfleet Academy) and for reasons unknown to everyone, including herself, is self-sabotaging her Starfleet career-showing up late to classes, talking back to her professors, getting in fights with her boyfriend and people who were her friends-and her actions and bad reputation are starting to threaten her sister's chances of getting into the Academy. Tom and B'Elanna are at their wit's end and are fighting constantly about whether or not they should intervene in Miral's life before she takes it too far and does something she can't recover from. B'Elanna arranges for Miral to spend the summer break working with Chakotay; Tom doesn't agree with the plan, and Miral is equally reluctant to spend the summer with some old friend of her parents whom she barely knows (because he's Chakotay and immediately isolated himself somewhere remote as soon as they got back from Earth). Then some sort of drama happens. I haven't gotten that far in my daydream yet and probably won't flesh that out until after watching Picard and figuring out what Starfleet and the Federation circa 2398 looks like.
Wow, that was a lot of rambling. If I can figure out how the story goes, maybe the story will start appearing on FFN eventually.
Anyway, back to this story. Because we still have two years to cover.
Stardate 54477
November 2377
U.S.S. Voyager
Alpha Quadrant
Lt. Tom Paris knew how to read a navigational chart. He learned when he was eight or nine; it was a condition to "graduate" to actual shuttles in his junior flight league when he was ten, and it wasn't a skill he had ever let diminish.
He knew how to read a nav chart, which was how he knew that they would be at Earth the next day. Around noon the next day, in fact, unless they had a planned paused around Jupiter to time their entrance to just when Starfleet wanted them. Which was the most likely scenario.
Starfleet loved a good show.
He had spent more than six and a half years working toward getting home, and now that it would be there the next day, was dreading it. He was being selfish, and he knew that. He had B'Elanna and Izzy here on Voyager with him, and that was all he wanted. He didn't need to be on Earth, or on Mars; he'd be content to stay on Voyager as long as they were with him.
And once they got back, everything would change. Izzy would be going back to school, B'Elanna back to work, and there would be debriefings, probably months of debriefings and inquests as Starfleet tried to figure out what to do with the former Maquis, with the former Equinox crew, with their two former Borg, with the data they had gathered along the way and the changes they had made to their ship.
And he would have to decide what he wanted to do when he grew up. There was the ship design division; they liked the specs of the Delta Flyer and wanted to see it in person, but already thought they had a place for him in their group. Then there was the test flight division, which he knew would take him back without any complaint, but as he told B'Elanna, he didn't think he wanted to go back to being a test pilot.
He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to remain a Starfleet officer.
It felt strange to him to know that Nicki, the sister who never wanted anything to do with Starfleet, had the same internal struggle about whether she wanted to stay or leave. Now that he thought about it, he realized he could talk to her about it and get her thoughts on the matter, since she had had similar internal debates; in all his life, he never thought hey, let's discuss pros and cons of sticking with a Starfleet career would be a conversation he would have with Nicki. With either of his sisters, actually. It seemed like Sydney had been preparing for Starfleet for as long as Tom had been alive, and there had never been a question in anyone's mind that she would retire as an admiral or die trying. Having a conversation with Sydney about her thoughts on leaving Starfleet would be as productive as having a conversation with a wall. And if Jens was involved, as exciting as one.
For the first time since he and his fellow crewmates were sent to the Delta quadrant, Paris wondered if maybe they had gotten to take the easy way out. He certainly hadn't thought so, not as they were struggling with the Kazons, the Vidiians, the Hirogen, the Borg, the constantly draining supply of dilithium, the endless repairs to the ship and the constant rebuilding of shuttles, but now hearing B'Elanna's story, he doubted things would have been easier if he had been in the Alpha quadrant. Voyager's struggles were real, but they had made it with their morals intact, more or less. From what he had heard from B'Elanna and read through the datastream, there weren't many people in the Federation who emerged from the Dominion War without blood on their hands. There were a lot of morally questionable decisions, decisions that had given Captain Janeway a sad look on her face when she read about them, and a lot of deaths. He knew how hard that must have been on B'Elanna, who had defined most of her life by the loss of her father and struggled with getting close to people, fearing that she would lose them, too. He was a little amazed to hear from her own mouth about the mechanics and cadets she had mentored, and felt her pain when the universe again decided to kick her in the teeth and remind her why she shouldn't let anyone get too close. He wished he could have gotten to know these women or even gotten to know Glass as an adult, outside the artificial environment of the Academy and their roles as training officers for plebe summer.
His internal musings on the bridge must have been pretty obvious; Captain Janeway came out onto the bridge, glanced around for a minute, and then said, "Mr. Paris. I've asked Mr. Neelix to prepare a party of the crew tonight in the holodeck. I was thinking that it would only be appropriate to have it in one of our old shared programs. I'd like you to work with him on any necessary modifications to whichever program you choose."
He smiled as he rose from the helm. "Yes, ma'am."
Neelix and Paris had enlisted a couple of assistants—Izzy and Naomi; Neelix had been on baby-sitting duty—and after a run through each of the shared programs—Sandrine's, the beach resort, Fair Haven, the movie theater—Paris and Neelix settled on Sandrine's. Izzy and Naomi were more interested in the beach, but Paris felt that Sandrine's was more symbolic. The first program the Voyager crew had shared would also be the last.
So engrossed in his programming, Paris barely noticed when Neelix left the girls with him as he went to the mess hall to get ready for lunch, and he definitely didn't notice when lunchtime rolled around until B'Elanna came into the holodeck. "Sandrine's," B'Elanna said with a smile. "Why am I not surprised?"
He grinned up at her from where he had made camp at one of the tables. "Wanna play a game of pool?" he asked. She snorted and rolled her eyes. Despite the fact that she was much better at math in general, and geometry in particular, than he was, he could usually beat her at pool. Probably because it was too sedate of a game for her.
"What's for lunch?" she asked instead.
"It's Sandrine's," he reminded her. "You hate the food here."
"Please tell me you didn't program the replicators to only produce Sandrine-level quality of food," she said warningly, and he grinned again.
"Standard programming for the replicator," he assured her. "It's in the kitchen, for authenticity's sake. Back there."
"You want anything?"
"Grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup?"
"Ah," she said knowingly. "Thinking food." She frowned, then said, "I'm assuming you have a recipe saved, with how particular you are about your tomato soup."
He grinned up at her, strangely pleased that she remembered that, even if it was only annoyance that had made that memory stick. "The meal's Paris 15. Thanks."
"How long did that one take you to perfect?"
"Three years," he said proudly. "But it is perfect." She rolled her eyes and he chuckled. She finally saw the two girls, playing on the hopscotch court he programmed in for them on the middle of the dance floor to keep them occupied while he worked on figuring out the right configuration of the room. "Izzy, Naomi, are you ready for lunch?"
The girls came over and helped B'Elanna carry the food. Even though tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich was his thinking food, Tom put aside his PADD to focus on his lunch companions. "Can Naomi come and visit us when we're back on Earth?" Izzy asked eagerly. Without waiting for a response, she turned to Naomi and said, "We live in Hawaii. Do you know where that is?"
Naomi shook her head. "Mom's always talking about Earth," she said. "But my dad is from Ktaris. I programmed a scale model of Ktaris for a science fair project a few months ago."
Izzy's eyes widened. "I've never been to Ktaris!" she exclaimed, then turned excitedly to B'Elanna. "Mom, can we visit Naomi on Ktaris?"
Tom chuckled and B'Elanna gave a slight smile. "I think that's more up to Naomi's parents than it is us," she said mildly. They had all talked about what they were going to do when they got back to the Alpha quadrant and where they were going to live. Last time he discussed it with Sam, she said they hadn't decided where they were going to live; Greskrendtregk had left DS9 during the Dominion War and hadn't gone back, and she didn't want them to go back. She didn't want to live in space anymore and didn't want to raise Naomi in space if she didn't have to. Like a lot of them, she wasn't sure if she wanted to stay in Starfleet, but she did know she wanted to be planetside. Any planet, as long as she could feel a sun on her face and see stars at night that weren't streaking by at warp. They discussed both Earth and Ktaris, as well as a few other places where both could pursue their careers and Naomi would have kids to play with and go to school with.
"Do they have beaches on Ktaris?" Izzy asked. "Hawaii has a lot of beaches. Me and Mom—"
"Mom and I," B'Elanna corrected, then rolled her eyes. "And eat your lunch, Izzy. You're talking enough for the whole table."
Izzy rolled her eyes in return, but focused down on her lunch, and Tom had to fight from smirking. He was pretty sure B'Elanna had said the same thing to him on more than one occasion. "What happened to your cadet?" he asked B'Elanna, now that there was a break in conversation.
"Which one?" B'Elanna asked. "Oh, you mean Nu."
"Nu?" Izzy piped in, excited. "Are we going to see Nu?" She turned to Naomi. "Nu is so cool. She's Xahean. Have you met any Xaheans?"
"No," Naomi said thoughtfully, then brightened. "I bet Seven has! We can ask her what their Borg designation is!" B'Elanna looked up, startled, but Naomi didn't notice. "I'm trying to learn all the Borg designations, but Seven doesn't want to help me. She said my mom wouldn't approve, but my mom's a xenobiologist. Of course she'd want me to learn about other species."
Tom smiled. He was happy to see Izzy and Naomi get along. Naomi was the quintessential only child, spending all of her time around adults and really having no idea how to be a child. Since Mezoti and the twins left, the closest person to her age was Icheb, and the former drone was far too concerned with trying to be an adult to play any of the childish games a five-year-old—even a five-year-old half-Ktarian who looked closer to ten—should be playing. Izzy, while still an only child, had spent most of her childhood surrounded by cousins and kids at daycare and school and soccer practice, and just as B'Elanna had told him, had no problem making new friends whenever the situation presented itself.
"Xaheans are really cool," Izzy was saying. "Nu can make herself invisible. It's like they have their own cloaking devices! And she gets to eat ice cream whenever she wants. She used to live on Earth, when she was a cadet, but now she's an ensign—"
"Lieutenant," B'Elanna corrected with a smile.
"That's right," Izzy said quickly. "Mom said she was promoted early, because she's really smart. She's on the Curie, right?" she asked, turning to face B'Elanna, who nodded. "Where's the Curie, Mom?"
"The Barrens," B'Elanna said, and Izzy frowned.
"Is that close to us?"
"It's close to nothing," B'Elanna replied. Izzy frowned as she considered that, but ended up shrugging a shoulder and taking another bite of her lunch. Tom also frowned as he thought about Voyager's experience with their own version of the Barrens—the Void—and hoped for the sake of this Lt. Nu that the crew of the Curie was better able to handle it than they had. Judging by the name of the ship and the fact that nobody went to the Barrens except to do research that had the potential to destabilize large regions of space, he was guessing that they were so deep in research projects that they didn't even notice the lack of stars outside their viewports.
"They're working on singularity travel," B'Elanna said to him, as if guessing what he was thinking. "We wouldn't have figured out how to make it as stable as it was without their experiments. They're working on making it more stable. And making the singularities wider and more predictable. It was the perfect assignment for Nu. I would have been happy to keep her at Pathfinder, but she said she if she had wanted to spend her entire career at some research station, she never would have left Xahea. Thankfully, the war ended a few months before she graduated. Our time on AR-558 was her only combat mission, and because she graduated as one of the few in her class with any combat experience, she had her choice of assignments. Of course, as the Scott recipient, she pretty much had her choice of assignments anyway."
"I guess you only mentor the best," Tom commented. She snorted slightly, and he remembered a few seconds too late the conversation she recounted between her and Nicki about B'Elanna only surrounding herself with the best and the brightest. And, somehow, him.
"Did you guys know the war was about to end?" he asked, and she frowned as she considered that.
"No," she finally decided. "It still went on for another eight months after we got back from AR-558. And it actually got a lot worse before it got any better."