"I was wondering if you'd ever get here, Harry," Tom Paris said with a mouthful of smoked salmon. Harry Kim appeared in the middle of the living room with a small duffel bag.
"Well I'm glad to see you guys didn't put yourselves out waiting for me," the Ensign retorted back.
"There's always room for one more," Admiral Paris said while getting up to pull over a chair. "I'm sure John replicated more than enough food for all of us."
The older Torres smiled sheepishly, "I had no clue how much to make, so I guess I went overboard."
"Don't worry about it, B'elanna said with a small smile. Starfleet here can put his share of food away." The engineer turned to Harry, "what took you so long?"
Harry Kim smiled. "Starfleet seemed to be more interested in asking questions about Seven than learning about our findings in Astrometrics. It was at least an hour before the conversation even turned to our work."
"Well there's nothing more interesting than the Borg," Tom replied. Realizing Harry had not had a formal introduction, he stood up to perform the honors. "Harry, this is my father…." Tom stopped there as he did not know how he should introduce his father. His face crinkled in frustration as he tried to cover his mistake.
"Owen Paris," the older man shook Harry's hand. "It's Admiral in any official conversation, I'm sure you know, but someone who is such a good friend of my son and his family," the Admiral said with a warm smile, "I certainly don't mind calling me Owen."
B'elanna stood as well. "And this is my father, John Torres."
The older Torres smiled, "no real confusion, you can just call me John."
Harry smiled while shaking his hand, "I'm sure I can remember that, sir."
Although the group vowed not to talk about work to be done during the remainder of dinner, the topic kept coming up. Harry was informed of the work to be done tomorrow and B'elanna continued to voice her disdain for Starfleet's decision. The end of dinner was signified by a beginning of a whimper from Miral's carrier at B'elanna's feet.
"It's feed and change time," B'elanna said while getting up from the table. She turned to her husband, "Do you care to join me."
Tom, who was not a dense man, got the message quickly. "Of course," he said while wiping off his mouth and excusing himself from the table. He followed his wife into their bedroom.
B'elanna wasn't two steps in before her rant began. "We've all given way too much. We've contributed more knowledge to Starfleet than any ship in the Alpha Quadrant!"
"I know that as well as you do." Tom said while beginning to rub his wife's shoulders. "And we're going to do our best to make sure Starfleet can see that. We won't give up until they at least understand where we're coming from."
"That's just it," B'elanna sighed. "Starfleet can't understand our point of view. They see our journey as simply a seven year assignment. They don't understand that Voyager was our home. We were not simply doing our jobs for the sake of careers, we we're fighting to survive. With how many times we narrowly escaped death, we learned to be more than just a crew, we were a family in every sense of the word." Slightly exasperated, she finished her tirade and finished changing Miral's diaper before beginning to feed her.
Tom didn't know what to say. Although he felt his wife to be a passionate woman, she was rarely passionate like this. It was something he was unfamiliar with and although he normally enjoyed B'elanna's 'human' side, he was more familiar with the aggressive Klingon half. "You have my word, B'elanna, I will stay by your side and defend the crew of Voyager as long as we have to."
B'elanna looked Tom in the eye, "I find new reasons each day for loving you."
After rejoining the rest of the detainees in decon, the group sat in the living area and talked of anything and everything while passing around the infant. John and Owen both shared embarrassing stories about their children, while Harry was more than happy to supply equally awkward stories of times on Voyager. Tom and B'elanna tried to retaliate, but their efforts failed. Not even accounts of Harry's extreme relationships could break through stories of rendezvous in Engineering. The new parents finally gave up and just accepted the good-natured teasing. As it approached twenty-one hundred hours, Miral issued another set of cries and the rest of the circle began to yawn. An agreement was met that it was bedtime with the new family entering one room, the grandparents entering another, and Harry Kim plumping the pillows on the couch.