Two Voyager Pairings That Should Have Been and One That Was
Author's Note: Basically my attempt at telling the writers how it should have been done. My own opinion. This time the one that did work out. Reference to 'Parallax' (first series). Star Trek: Voyager belongs to Paramount.
Tom and B'Ellana Paris-Torres
B'Ellana Torres collapsed onto her bed next to her husband, rubbing her slightly ridged forehead with relief. It had been one heck of a day for both of them.
It had started off quite ordinarily; they had shared breakfast and gone off to their respective workstations. For Tom it was the Bridge as Chief Helmsman. For her it was Engineering as the head of the department. A quite ordinary working morning. A few malfunctions here and there but what kind of an engineer would she be if that intimidated her? Hardly anything did. It was after lunchtime that things had gone pair-shaped. They had ended up colliding with a particularly unfriendly nebula and lost 90% of their shield capacity. She didn't know what the Bridge must have been like but in Engineering, things had been as chaotic as brawl in a Klingon bar. And just as tense. B'Ellana couldn't say she was exactly cool-headed, in fact she had frequently been known to break noses in her early days on Voyager, but she was good in a crisis. That was one of the reasons Chakotay had put her forward for the role.
In this condition, several gaping hull breaches and such a low shield capacity, Voyager had found herself pitted against a ship of nearly equal size carrying full firepower, photon torpedoes, fully functional shields…and almost 50 Borg.
Yet another seemingly suicidal away mission followed which Tom, Harry, Captain Janeway, and of course Seven, had volunteered for. B'Ellana had insisted on coming too, much to Tom's disgust.
"But You're…" he had begun.
"Pregnant, not an invalid!" she had retorted sharply and Tom had been forced to back down. When your wife was half-Klingon, you found you often had no choice. Their plan to activate the self-destruct mechanism without tripping the security systems of the reconnaissance ship had proved successful, thanks to a new shielding technique Seven had developed. B'Ellana was forced to admit that she was warming to the ex-drone. She wasn't quite ready to tell her that yet, though. If there was one trait she was guilty of, it was pride.
Tom sighed next to her "Phew. Just another ordinary day on Voyager. Do you think this Quadrant will ever give us a break for more than a week?" he asked with a grin. She smiled too, Tom hadn't changed a bit. Still an adrenaline junkie. Just the other day he had been complaining that nothing interesting was going on. She felt it only fair to point this out. "Besides, adventure is the spice of life, Honey. Keeps things interesting."
"Yeah, interesting, not life-threatening. And preferably borg-free. And anyway, it's Variety that's the spice of life".
"I was paraphrasing you" she said dryly.
"I've matured since then!" he retorted.
"That'll be the day!. Don't change, Tom Paris. That's an order!"
"Hey, the Captain promoted me back up. We're equal!"
B'Ellana paused. "You know, I have got some holodeck time. How about a weekend away? Get a bit of the spice of life? Your choice, this time."
"How does al fresco in Central Park sound?"
"Good to me" she grinned.
"How 'bout you, kiddo?" Tom asked her bump. A small kick seemed almost like a response.
"Yep, sounds good to her, too."
"Goodnight, then"
"Goodnight, Tom." She yawned "Computer, dim lights". And within seconds, they were both asleep.