Second Chances: Chapter 68

A/N: Another long chapter. Sorry.

Stardate 52743
December 2375
San Francisco, Earth

Although the old dress uniforms would always have a special place in her heart for being the uniform she got married in, Lt. B'Elanna Torres was really glad they redesigned them. She much preferred the white and gray jacket with the gold pipping to the long gold tunic of the old uniform. She wasn't one to give her appearance a lot of attention, but they just fit better and looked better.

Of course, there was a downside to everyone having the same white jacket with the section color relegated to one stripe at the wrist: everyone looked the same, as she was reminded when she arrived at the Paris house before the Academy Ball, where there was a small collection of officers in white jackets. "Gods, Nicki, I don't understand how you can mess up wearing your dress uniform," she heard Sydney's exasperated voice from the upstairs bedrooms as soon as she entered the house. She didn't even have time to shut the door before Izzy was racing through the house in search of cousins. "And you're missing a pip! Unless you got demoted to lieutenant, jg since I left for 204?" B'Elanna didn't hear Nicki's response, but she heard Jason's chuckle and figured that Nicki wasn't missing a beat.

"At least you know how to put a uniform on." She blinked, not even realizing that she had let her mind wander, missing Sydney's entrance to the living room.

"Good to see you too, Syd," she replied. Sydney and Jens had arrived from Starbase 204 about two hours before; the last time she had seen her sister-in-law had been October, when they met in Indonesia to run the marathon. It was the first time B'Elanna had solidly beat Sydney, coming in almost five minutes ahead. Sydney complained that it was station life, but Starbase 204 was huge, with plenty of room to run and designated running times in some of the lesser-used corridors, holosuites for when she needed a change of scenery when running, and was close to a class-M planet with good running conditions. It wasn't station living that interfered with Sydney's training, it was her command. Starbase 204, while spacious, had few permanent staff; there wasn't enough to keep a commander busy, so the job was dual-hatted as the operations planner for the region. Now that the Federation and the neighboring Breen were combatants, that aspect of the job gave Sydney more than enough work.

Jens was the next down the stairs, tugging at the bottom of his jacket as if wondering why it wasn't as long as the old ones. This would probably be his last time wearing that jacket with that rank, as he was getting promoted to captain in March and would switch to the white-on-white jackets of captains and flag officers. She still couldn't believe Jens, probably the least-spirited officer in the Fleet, was going to be promoted to captain and given his own ship. Tom's reply when she wrote to him to tell him the news was that the Dominion War had done for Jens' career what his own personality couldn't, and there was a lot of truth to that. They had lost a lot of ships and a lot of officers since the war began, and it was getting to the point that 'still have a pulse' was just about all it took to get a promotion. Even if that pulse was in the Delta quadrant; B'Elanna didn't know if anyone on Voyager knew—Owen asked her not to talk to Tom about it—but he had submitted their personnel files to the promotion boards, and so far, all of the Starfleet crew except Captain Janeway had gotten at least one promotion on paper. He probably wouldn't wear the rank until they got home, but B'Elanna was now married to Lt. Commander Thomas Eugene Paris. And she had no idea if he knew that or not.

The promotion boards had tabled the issue of the field commissions Captain Janeway had given the Maquis crewmembers until JAG had decided whether or not they were going to charge the former outlaws with any crimes. Another thing that they didn't talk about in their messages to Voyager.

Nicki and Jason descended the stairs, Nicki managing to look elegant even in her dress uniform—with the right number of pips—and Jason in a well-tailored tuxedo with accents in the same color of teal as the bands at the wrists of Nicki's jacket. "Let's hear it for dog and pony shows," Nicki said with a grin, then, raising her voice, "assuming the dog and/or pony is ready!"

"Your father kept insisting he had 'just one more thing to read,'" Alicia said as she appeared from the hallway in a bright red evening gown, "and now he's fussing over his uniform."

"Almost like he's related to Sydney," Nicki said sweetly, then rolled her eyes. "Gods, I need a drink already."

"You really want to waste your one drink with pre-gaming?" Jason asked. Nicki frowned, then pouted.

"No," she admitted. When Starfleet Medical was attacked, the debris had badly lacerated her liver. The surgeons had removed and regenerated most of it, but the healing process took a lot longer than the overnight she had had in the field hospital. Absolutely no alcohol for at least six months, and no more than one syntheholic beverage in a setting for at least another few months. B'Elanna didn't see what the big deal was, which prompted a long monologue from Nicki about how inferior synthehol was to alcohol, and by the time Nicki was done talking, she was the one who felt like she needed a drink.

There was a loud thump from upstairs, followed by stifled laughter, and Nicki sighed. "Broken bones aren't getting knitted until tomorrow morning, so watch yourselves," she called up the stairs. Turning back to the other adults, she said, "Let's make a run for it before they test that theory."

The Academy Ball was a sea of monochromatic participants, with the white jackets of the officers, black dress uniforms of the cadets, and gray uniforms of the Starfleet band, only the occasional civilian guest providing any color to the room. "I'm going to get a drink," Jason said. "Nick, you ready for your one drink of the night yet?"

She shook her head. "There might be an occasion to celebrate with champagne later," she said. "Just juice for now. T'Pana, good to see you." B'Elanna spun at the sound of her step-mother's name to see John and T'Pana approach.

"You look healthier every time I see you," T'Pana said to Nicki, who smiled slightly at the compliment.

"That's because with the construction at the hospital, you haven't seen me in six weeks," Nicki pointed out. "I'm getting better each day," she said, more seriously. "It's a process, and I'm not as young as I used to be."

"She would probably be healing faster if she didn't insist on going back to work the minute she was discharged from recovery," Jason commented, reappearing to hand Nicki a glass of something unnaturally pink. "I guess it wasn't 'the minute,'" he corrected, frowning over at his wife. "You had to find a place to replicate a new uniform first."

They continued to make small talk for a few minutes—work, the kids, the trifecta of Navi, Ainsley, and Kajsa that had taken over B'Elanna's apartment more often than not, the latest news from Voyager—and then they all wandered off to talk to other people before it was time to sit down for the dinner.

Most people continued to hang out in their small groups after dinner; some had begun dancing, and B'Elanna remembered her first Academy Ball and the stupid grin Tom had had on his face when he asked her to dance. Kahless, she had been so suspicious of him, wondering what stunt he was about to pull, how he was going to suddenly turn it into another lesson about… something. How to act appropriately when surrounded by Starfleet brass. How to keep from striking your very annoying commanding officer.

How not to storm out of the room when you saw your father for the first time in twelve years.

Her eyes went out to that patio and saw a small group of cadets sitting by the heaters, laughing, and she could still remember when that had been her and Tom, how he thought his stupid story about his haircuts came even close to the identity crisis she had had her entire life. It had been good she had held him in such low regard back then, she realized in retrospect. If she had had any respect for him, if she had even allowed the thought that he might be someone she could be in a relationship with, who knows what would have happened, to their careers or to their relationship. She winced now at the thought of what she was like for those first few years at the Academy and was still surprised that nobody had asked her to leave. That attitude she had had was certainly not conducive to a Starfleet career and even less so to a meaningful relationship, and she couldn't imagine Tom, or anybody else, putting up with it for long. Burke hadn't, but to be fair, she had gotten sick of him before he had gotten sick of her.

She wondered if she would ever be able to attend that ball without thinking of Tom, of that first ball when she had been a plebe and him her company commander, or the one a few years later, when she had received the Scott Award and he had been a few weeks from moving back to Mars, only a couple of months before their engagement. How different she had been at those two events; how different either of those people had been from the 26-year-old professor, section chief, wife, mother she was now.

She wondered if maybe someday, she would be back at that ball with Tom at her side. Based on the diagnostics Lt. Carey had sent her, there were a lot of reasons to hope that that would happen.

The sound of the speakers activating snapped her back to the present, to where she stood inside the ballroom and the awards were about to begin. Owen silently handed her a glass of whiskey; necessary for getting through the tedium of the awards. And for steeling her nerves. She took a sip of the whiskey before pulling her PADD from her pocket and scanning the words written there. When Nu asked her to introduce her for the Scott Award, she reminded the cadet that awards were usually presented by more senior officers, but Nu had insisted that none of those senior officers knew her or her work the way Torres did.

Somehow, it was easier to teach complicated engineering problems to a group of cadets than it was to explain just what it was about Nu that made her such a good cadet and engineer.

She wasn't sure how many times she had read through her speech when she noticed Commander Ao stepping forward, and knew it was time for the Shalan Award, the junior faculty award; they always had their Andorian professor introduce the award named after the Andorian engineer. "After graduating from Starfleet Academy in 2247 and serving as a junior engineer on the U.S.S. Yang and U.S.S. Denali, Lt. Shalan returned to his alma mater, becaming the first Andorian professor in the Engineering department at Starfleet Academy when he became an assistant professor in 2254. At the onset of the First Klingon War, he volunteered to return to the Fleet to join the fight, and unfortunately was killed in action aboard the U.S.S. Gagarin. Maybe it's fitting, then, that this year's recipient of the Lt. Shalan Award is our resident half-Klingon." Torres blinked in surprise; she hadn't even considered that she could be up for the Shalan, then narrowed her eyes as Owen's satisfied smile. The bastard had known and hadn't told her. "Lt. B'Elanna Torres began her teaching career at the Starfleet Technical Academy on Utopia Planitia as a project officer and graduate student. Upon completion of her thesis in comparative systems engineering, she was assigned to the Pathfinder Project at the Communications Research Center and finished her teaching requirements for her master's degree at Starfleet Academy. She officially joined the faculty as an assistant professor after graduating with her master's degree in May. Her classes have been favorites among our cadets since she returned to San Francisco, often having cadets drop in to attend lectures even when they weren't enrolled in her classes. And unlike Lt. Shalan, when she went off to war, she had the good manners to come back to us unharmed. This year's recipient of the Lt. Shalan Award in Engineering, Assistant Professor Lt. B'Elanna Torres."

Torres stepped up to the podium, her mind spinning. "I thought award recipients were supposed to be made aware that they won, so they could prepare something to say," she said, glancing at Commander Ao, who seemed satisfied that he had surprised her. "Nine years ago, I was sitting back there, with my plebe company," she said, gesturing toward where the cadets were sitting near the back. "Actually, I was sitting outside," she corrected. "My company commander had to come collect me and stop me from running away." Normally here she'd add a joke about marrying her company commander, but while it was the worst-kept secret at Starfleet Headquarters, it wasn't something that was appropriate for her to acknowledge publicly, especially not at an Academy function. She also neglected to fill in the rest of the story, the fact that she was outside and trying to run away because she had seen her father for the first time for twelve years and wasn't ready to face him or the woman he was there with. "I'm pretty sure there wasn't a person at the Academy who thought that someday I'd come back as faculty, much less be standing up here, receiving the Shalan Award. When I was given my first teaching assignment at the Technical Academy, I told Commander Winters that while I found the project interesting, I didn't think I could do the teaching part of the degree requirements, nor that a career path that included teaching would be the right one for me. He told me that at that point, I didn't have a choice and I should probably figure out how to do it." That got some chuckles. "I think I surprised everyone, myself included, when I found out that I actually enjoyed teaching. There were a lot of people who helped me get here, not the least of which would be my own professors, many of which are still teaching in the department." She glanced at the table where a lot of the engineering faculty were seated and smiled slightly. "And, of course, the cadets themselves. It has been an honor to teach them, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they will accomplish as officers." She pulled her PADD out of her pocket. "And this seems as good a time as any to transition to the next award, the Captain Montgomery Scott Award, given to a graduating engineering cadet who demonstrates promise in the field of engineering. Captain Scott began his Starfleet career as an ensign in 2241 and served for a total of 51 years, most notably aboard the Enterprise and Enterprise-A, and was the captain of engineering during the test runs of the U.S.S. Excelsior. A recognition in his name was first awarded to a Starfleet cadet eighty years ago, the year after he disappeared in 2294." He had been rescued from a transport buffer in 2369, the year Torres had been the Scott recipient, and as far as she knew, was still living in Scotland. She wondered if he knew just how much in Starfleet Engineering bore his name.

"Cadet Ku Lia Ika Nu is already a brilliant engineer, but it takes more than engineering skills to be a Starfleet engineer. She's hard-working and dedicated and incredibly stubborn. She knows what she wants and isn't afraid to ask for it. I first met Nu almost a year ago, after the first lecture of Advanced Communication Network Engineering, a class she took despite being a Propulsion major because it 'sounded interesting'—her words. She wasted no time asking if she could join Pathfinder as a research intern—a questionable choice, considering that Pathfinder was still finding its legs, less than a week after we made contact with Voyager in the Delta quadrant for the first time. I was still learning the names of the engineers and mechanics on my team in addition to teaching three courses at the Academy and really didn't have time to take on any more responsibilities, but like I said—Nu is stubborn and didn't take no for an answer. And I'm glad she didn't. Her research has advanced the Federation's knowledge of transwarp. It will still years, maybe decades, until the technology advances to the point that we can use transwarp for propulsion, but when it happens, it will be due to Nu's research.

"As I said, though, her research is secondary to her dedication and her sense of duty. When we had the opportunity to take over a Dominion communication relay, she didn't hesitate to join the team to go into Dominion space, despite the obvious risks. Even when she was injured on the mission, she refused to stop. I'm not sure whether or not we could have still taken the relay if she hadn't come along, but I do know it would have taken a lot longer.

"Starfleet is lucky to have a cadet like Nu, and in a few months, we'll be lucky to have an officer like Nu. I wish I could convince her to stay with Pathfinder to help us bring Voyager home, but her talents are needed elsewhere. Whatever ship she ends up assigned to is going to be lucky to have her. Everyone, please join me in recognizing the 2375 recipient of the Captain Montgomery Scott Award, Cadet Ku Lia Ika Nu."

Nu was beaming when she accepted the award, that wide grin she wore when an experiment went well, or when she figured out a difficult problem, or just about any other time. "Thank you, Lt. Torres," she began. She had known for almost two weeks that she was getting the award, and was still so excited that she was bouncing on her toes. Torres envied her that giddiness, that excitement. She couldn't remember the last time she herself had been that excited; when she had received the Scott, she was half-convinced that it was some sort of prank and that her professors and classmates would reveal the real award recipient when she went up on stage to accept it. Even discovering that she was pregnant with Izzy left her with more trepidation than excitement.

Tom had that same child-like excitement, about everything: his hobbies, the ships he flew at work, new holoprograms, Izzy. He had been more excited about her getting the Scott than she had been, and she regretted that he hadn't been there to see her get the Shalan.

Soon. She was going to get him home soon, and she was already looking forward to getting annoyed by his constant enthusiasm.