AN: Well, I kept my promise... It hasn't been eight months. It might have been, though, if it weren't for the absolutely amazing scifiromance, who wrote pretty much this entire chapter and gave me some great ideas for how to follow up on it. I owe you a million.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this.

"Cleo, can you get that?" Neveah shouted loudly as she heard the doorbell ring for the third time from behind the bathroom door. B'Elanna had either arrived early to drop the younger Paris girls off for their trip to the funfair or else she'd spent a lot longer getting ready than she'd thought. A quick glance at the clock set into the wall told her that the latter scenario was the case. Hurriedly, she gave her hair one last hot blast with her hairdryer and padded out of the bathroom, fully dressed but barefoot, her blonde hair still damp at the roots. "Hey, Clee!" she called to Cleo in mild exasperation as she finally reached the front door and unlocked it to let her foster family in.

Luna and Lexi, as springy and irrepressible by nature as the matching brunette ringlets in their hair, flung themselves on Neveah as soon as the door opened. "Veah, will you take us on the rollercoaster?" Lexi asked eagerly by way of greeting, "You know Cleo won't take us because she hates being upside down."

"Well…" Neveah began slowly, trying to think of a way to let them down gently as she unwound their arms from around her waist.

Talia was less tactful, irritation that had obviously been bubbling since she was crammed in the car with her sisters beginning to boil over. "Both me and Mom have told you that you're too small to go on the big rollercoaster! Why don't you just…"

"Talia…" B'Elanna started in a warning tone to her teenage daughter.

Luna got stuck into her elder sister first, clinging to Neveah stubbornly. "You're just saying that because you're scared, Neveah will take us, Uncle Harry always says she's very brave…"

Neveah and all of the older Paris women flinched. They all knew that the bravery Captain Harry Kim had spoken of wasn't the kind that made you fearless on a rollercoaster. B'Elanna felt especially pained when she saw Neveah disguise the discomfort with almost as much ease as she'd seen Seven do so many times. It was insignificant little things like that which caught her off guard with Neveah more often than not, a wry lift of an eyebrow there, or sometimes a hand through the hair, a nervous habit she recognised from Chakotay. "Thanks Luna, I like to think everyone's brave at something but your mom and Talia are right, you're too small for the big rollercoaster." Neveah told the little girl solemnly, "But I'll tell you what, if you two can't go on I won't either. There are plenty of other things to do at the fair which all of us can do."

The twins looked up at her beseechingly, "You promise Veah?" they asked in perfect unison. Neveah nodded in relief and the girls beamed in delight. It was an easy promise really, she'd been close to the twins since they'd come back from the hospital years ago. It had started with Avia in those early weeks after her father's departure, when she couldn't sleep or had had a nightmare, going to help her godparents with the baby had soothed her and brought some purpose back into her life. The habit had lingered on when the twins had come along and she'd never regretted helping with them. At the time it had felt like a way of paying Tom and B'Elanna back a little for taking her in, but she'd never voiced that thought to anyone then or now.

"Why don't you say thank you to Neveah instead of peppering her with questions?" B'Elanna suggested with a soft laugh and a grateful smile at her goddaughter, which Avia, who'd been driven to distraction by the twins' and Talia's arguing during the ride over, mirrored happily.

"It's okay Auntie Bee." Neveah assured her but still grinned as the twins' thanks rang in her ears.

"They need to learn manners at some point remember." B'Elanna joked before glancing around the apartment in search of her second daughter. "As, apparently, does one Cleopatra Paris, where is she?"

"In here somewhere." Neveah replied, uneasily glancing around for her surrogate sister before saying to B'Elanna quietly, "I'm not sure what's up with her to be honest, she's not been acting like herself since she last spoke to Admiral Janeway."

"The Admiral?" B'Elanna asked pensively, her lips curling in angrily as she mulled over the woman's strange behaviour, first Miral now Cleo too? "She's maybe stressed at work, I'll talk to her when I come back to pick the girls up…"

Neveah shook her head, "Don't worry, it's probably nothing, you know she can stand up to Janeway." B'Elanna couldn't hide her proud smirk at that, "I'll try to talk to her went we're out today."

"Maybe it's just her "time of the month"." Avia remarked knowingly.

Talia looked scandalised, "How do you know about that? Have you been reading my diary again…"

"No." Avia interrupted, "I'm old enough to get those classes in Biology now you know."

"Oh God…" Talia muttered before her mother held up her hand for silence and addressed Neveah, ignoring that short exchange.

"You do that Neveah, and remind her that she can always come to her father and me." She said seriously before looking at Neveah in concern, "Did the Admiral upset you at the reunion honey?"

Neveah gave a noncommittal shrug, "Nothing compared to last year." She smiled at her godmother reassuringly, "I can handle it now Auntie Bee, I promise."

B'Elanna nodded, satisfied. "Good. Remember though, that what stands for Cleo is for you too, come talk to us."

Neveah blinked back the tears that sprang to her eyes as she gave her a soft hug. "I'll remember."

"Strawberry!"

"No, it's raspberry."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, can't either of you read?" Avia exclaimed, raising her arms up in exasperation. "It's cherry, and it doesn't even matter anyway, because we're not having the crushed ice. Look over there."

"I'd better go and take them." Talia said resignedly as her three younger sisters ogled the stand which sold both candyfloss and its ice cream flavour equivalent. "Can I have some credits Cleo?"

"Sure." Cleo agreed, quickly transferring some monetary credits from her card to Talia's. "Thanks for taking them, we need a coffee don't we, Veah?"

Neveh nodded, "Yeah, we'll go get that and wait for you on that picnic bench over there."

After going through the queue for coffee, which was much shorter than the child inflated line at the candy floss stand, both girls settled down on the bench to wait. Neveah decided this was her chance to draw her friend out, "So, what's up with you these past few days? And don't tell me you're fine because I know you're not."

Cleo looked at her oldest friend ruefully for a moment before taking a deep breath. "Remember those rumours I told you about the Admiral?"

"The missing Macenitoa and inoculations?"

Cleo nodded, "Yeah, turns out time travel really was part of the plan."

"Part of it?" Neveah squeaked in disbelief, "What else do we need to know other than she wants to do something as crazy as send herself back to the past?"

"That's not the crazy part." Cleo murmured, "She wants me to go back."

Neveah gave a panicky laugh, "You?" she echoed, "Why you? You were either really young or didn't exist yet when Voyager was travelling! God, if you did this neither one of us would exist!"

"Janeway didn't seem to think so. Apparently both of our sets of parents were so loved up we're almost inevitable."

"The "almost" is the important word in that sentence!" Neveah exclaimed, "I can't believe you're considering this Cleo!"

"Think about it Neveah." Cleo countered seriously, "We could change everything bad that happened in Voyager's later years and afterwards, including your mom dying, you being sick, Chakotay leaving…"

"I don't think the Admiral's suggesting this for my sake, she just picked now to start feeling guilty!" Neveah snapped hotly, "If she feels so strongly about it, why doesn't she go herself?"

"Starfleet is watching her, they suspect something. I could slip through the net." Cleo answered mutedly, "She also thinks the crew might listen to me more, being a Voyager baby."

Neveah snorted as she ran a strained hand through her hair, taking several deep breaths as the implications of all this sunk in. "Couldn't two Voyager kids do a better job than one?" she whispered thickly.

Cleo squeezed her friend's hand. "I told the Admiral you might say that."

AN2: Future chapters will come a lot quicker, and for once that's not a promise that's going to be easy to break. Chapters have been written in advance, so we should be getting to a more regular updating schedule (don't hold me to that... why do I do this to everyone?). Anyway, hope you enjoyed it, and maybe leave a review? Pretty please :D