In the Arms of Family

Source Episodes: VOY 2x4 Elogium, 3x17 Before and After, 4x8/9 Year of Hell

Bajoran wedding vows inspired by DS9 5x26 Call to Arms and the Bajoran Language Project, along with my own tweaks

"Talia?"

I opened my eyes as Harry shook me awake. I had fallen asleep on the living room floor in front of my duranja—again. Coming to my knees, I reached my arms up and stretched tight muscles.

"It's 0600," he said with a sigh before making his way to the head.

My emotional withdrawal wore on him more with every passing day. We had only just turned in our request to share my quarters on the night I had my first vision, and I hadn't gotten many peaceful nights since then. But, Harry was as good and patient as ever, knowing without asking to respect my need for space. When I was ready, I would go to him.

I leaned back against the wall and stared into the lamp's flame.

The final two weeks of our journey through the Nekrit Expanse had gone by much like this. I kept as busy as I could, working past shift's end every day, hoping to fall into bed too exhausted to dream. Yet, I laid awake at night, in spite of my exhaustion, because I saw the dead on Valo whenever I closed my eyes. In time, I found that sitting by the duranja made me feel connected to them all, and to Marnah.

It was the only place I could sleep.

My eyes filled with tears, blurring the light of the flame, as I prayed for protection over Marnah's pagh, along with the souls of all those slain, as they traveled to whatever afterlife might await them. "Uranak ralanon Eelo Fayeni. Uranak anja Valo'yan per vel bajori'yan. Propeh va nara ehsuk shala-kan vunek."

If Marnah was dead, she had died in defense of the innocent. That thought helped me feel a little better, but a splinter of doubt in her goodness still stuck in my skin. It wasn't merely her death that disturbed me, but the gut feeling that she had lied to me about who or what she was.

I was terrified that perhaps I hadn't ever really known her at all.

Beyond the limits of my quarters, I put on a well-practiced front of normalcy. Admittedly, the previous evening's ceremony, held in honor of Kes completing her doctorate, did lift my spirits a fair bit. Still, it was a quiet breakfast between Harry and me until our friends showed up.

"So, have you two decided yet?" Tom asked as he slid into the seat next to me. B'Elanna took the seat across from him, just beside Harry, and leaned in expectantly.

I exchanged glances with Harry, then smiled at Tom. "Yes, I decided that Harry can have you as his best man. Although, the idea of putting you in a formal gown was deeply amusing to us both."

B'Elanna grinned at Tom, a glint of mischief in her eye. "I agree. A blue one, with lots of lace."

Tom laughed and shook his head. "I guess that means you'll probably ask Chakotay, then?"

"Well, according to some Terran customs, the best man and maid of honor are supposed to be the second to dance at the reception. And, as amusing as it would be to enforce that tradition on you and Chakotay, there's someone else that I'd rather see you dance with." I gestured towards B'Elanna.

She looked at me with confusion for a moment, then her eyes widened as she realized what I was implying. "Wait, what? Me? Oh, ha-ha, very funny, Talia."

Tom grinned impishly. "I don't know why you're being so resistant, B'Elanna. I'm an excellent dancer."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Very cute, flyboy. But obviously Chakotay deserves to be her attendant more than I do."

Tom leaned closer. "But, if he's her attendant, who's going to walk her down the aisle?"

"Unlike Terrans," I interjected, "Bajorans don't give our daughters away as if they were property."

"Ah, right, women are the head of the Bajoran family." He turned to Harry. "So, who's giving you away, then?"

"Commander Chakotay," Harry answered with a shrug.

"Awkward."

"Right? But what can I do? She's the boss."

I rolled my eyes.

"Wait a minute," B'Elanna cut in. "Talia, are you being serious?"

"I am. It's Terran custom to have a same-sex attendant to hold the rings and plan the bachelor parties. Believe it or not, B'Elanna, you're one of my best female friends here."

She blinked, slightly shocked by my admission. Even in the Maquis, B'Elanna had kept me at arm's length, always nervous about what my psychological training might tell me about her. Little by little, she had allowed me to come closer—most notably after our encounter with the divergence field—but the truest connection we shared was our unique understanding of what it was like to grow up as bicultural aliens surrounded by Terrans.

Yet even in that, our experiences were wildly divergent.

After a few moments, B'Elanna offered a half-smile. "Well, I'm no party planner."

"You're the chief," I returned. "Delegate."

"Wait," Tom interjected, looking at Harry, "I get to throw a bachelor party for you?"

"Yes," Harry confirmed, "but nothing too crazy, Tom, okay?"

Tom glanced at me, and I winked. When he looked back at Harry, he wore his most charming smile. "Don't worry, Harry. Just some good, clean fun."

Chief Science Officer's Log, supplemental

Dr. Schmullis' anti-chroniton procedure has successfully brought Dr. Kes back into temporal sync with us, thus ending her journey backwards through time. Upon waking from the procedure, Kes stated that her memories of the past have been completely restored, and she has also confirmed that her memories of the future are also in tact. While it has been agreed that she should keep most of her experiences from our future to herself, there is one particular species that she insists we must avoid.

"They're called the Krenim," Kes told the senior staff in briefing. "In my timeline, we encounter them on stardate 51283.6. They don't negotiate; they just attack. As we attempt to get through their space, they devastate Voyager. The crew later come to refer to this time as the 'year of hell.'"

"What exactly do you mean by 'devastate'?" Tom asked.

"A lot of good people are killed, and the ship is nearly destroyed. The experience will leave deep emotional scars on the crew."

Tuvok folded his hands. "What can you tell us about their chroniton-based weapons, other than the temporal variance frequency?"

"They can pass through Voyager's shields because they are in a state of temporal flux. After the first attack, we found a fragment of one lodged in a jefferey's tube, which was leaking chroniton radiation into the entire ship. The Prophet accompanying Lieutenant Commander Eelo was forced to leave suddenly due to its sensitivity to chroniton radiation, and the entire crew had to be inoculated."

"Chroniton radiation?" I asked, surprised to learn that a Prophet could be vulnerable to anything in our lower-dimensional existence. "Interesting."

"Do you have any idea how to stop the torpedoes?" Chakotay asked.

Kes nodded. "You were able to destroy their torpedo launchers by remodulating the targeting scanners to a parametric frequency."

"We could also use the temporal variance of the torpedo to modify our shields so they will deflect the Krenim's weapons," B'Elanna suggested.

"Only if the temporal variance remains unchanged," Tuvok said. "There are still many variables that could lead to a different outcome than the future that Dr. Kes experienced. The Krenim we encounter, if we do indeed encounter them, could be different from the Krenim she encountered."

"That may be true," Captain Janeway said, "but I'll take any advantage we might have. Chief, work with Mister Kim on those modifications. I want to be as ready as we can be if we do run into them."

B'Elanna gave a curt nod. "Aye, Captain."

After my shift that evening, I finally gave into doing something that I'd tried to convince myself not to do—I paid a visit to Iliana. I needed her to finally tell me what it was she had been hinting at during our initial conversation in sickbay.

"I wondered if you were ever going to ask," she remarked.

"I have to know the truth."

"You know as well as I do that you can't trust anything I said that day, with that Bajoran's memories still mucking up my mind. I wasn't thinking straight."

I stared at her blankly for several seconds, waiting for her to say more. "That's it?"

She quirked her brow, skewing the beige-grey ridges around her eyes. "I told you that I didn't know anything, and that I wouldn't tell you if I did. Besides, do you really want Janeway knowing that you're trying to gather intel behind her back? You could lose that shiny bar on your collar."

"I'm not here for intel. I just... I need to know—"

"If she lied to you?" she interrupted. "All parents lie to their children."

"This is different."

"Is it, though? Surely, you must know things that you have to keep from dear Harry. Is that a betrayal of your personal relationship?"

"No," I answered. "It's just protocol."

Iliana leaned forward in her seat, angling towards me. "One does what one must for the good of one's own people. It's not personal. It's duty. You Starfleet like to think that truth is some immutable, absolute thing that you can just hold up for everyone to accept, but it's not. Truth is what you perceive it to be. It changes from moment to moment, and person to person. You already know the truth. There are other truths that you don't know, but they won't change what you do know." With a sly smile, she relaxed back in her chair. "When you accept that, you'll sleep better than ever."

Harry was already at home when I arrived—weary, heartbroken, and feeling completely alone in my grief. Only the senior staff and Kes knew about my vision, and no one was ready to jump to any conclusions about the fate of the Maquis based on that alone. Still, it was better feeling something definite after two weeks of nothing but aimless despair.

Iliana was right. I knew my mother loved Bajor, and I also knew that she loved our family. That was my truth, and I would accept nothing else. I also realized that I might never know the reality of what happened, so I chose to go ahead and accept that which I knew to be the most likely scenario. Since I would certainly be assumed dead, and neither of my siblings would be willing to take up the mantle in my place, my aunt Aradne would be named the Kori'Asmara—leader of the Eelo family. I believed she would do well in that role, though with the d'harra'i gone, it was more of an honorary title anymore.

So, instead of numbly curling up in front of the duranja once again, I padded wordlessly over to my husband-to-be, allowed him to tuck me tightly into his embrace, and finally let myself grieve the woman who had meant more to me than anyone else ever could. When my tears were spent, Harry gently guided me into bed, pulled me close, and stroked my hair until I fell asleep to the familiar sound of his beating heart.

Although the future Kes told us about seemed bleak, there was at least one positive that came from her experience. The research project she undertook for her doctorate was to find a way to reproduce in spite of being the only Ocampa on board. After a great deal of effort, she devised a procedure that would allow her and Neelix to have a child that would be genetically related to them both—though the Talaxian genes would need to be heavily altered in order to be compatible with Ocampa gestation and development. Dozens of medical simulation studies had shown the procedure to be a success, but of course, it couldn't be tested in reality until Kes entered her elogium. Evidently, her experiences in the future proved that it would work.

Her research also gave her insight into what triggered the elogium—and how it could be manipulated somewhat by telepathy. By the time my wedding day arrived, Kes and Neelix's daughter was already twenty-one days into her thirty-day mitral period of development.

Just before dinner on December fifth, Harry and I put on our dress uniforms and took our places with Captain Janeway, Tom, and B'Elanna in the forward section of the mess hall. I fingered the Bajoran wedding mantle that I wore over my uniform, its deep scarlet fabric crossing at an 'X' in the middle of my chest where it was held by a large gold-colored brooch that featured the Eelo family symbol—the Bajoran sun within a square.

It was lucky that both Bajoran and Chinese cultures favored red and gold in their wedding color schemes. Even with the mixture of Bajoran faith symbols and Chinese double joy characters, the decor looked well-matched. The red and gold colors were balanced by arrangements of flowers that Lon had grown himself—white lilies interspersed with blue and yellow orchids so the colors of our dress uniforms didn't look quite so out of place.

Once all of the guests were seated, Janeway called Harry and me forward to the altar. It was set with a second mantle for Harry, an empty wooden drinking bowl, and a bottle of synthetic Bajoran springwine.

Janeway beamed at us as she began to speak. "Less than three years ago, the Federation and the Maquis stood on opposite sides of a conflict, their relationship broken and wrought with enmity. There were many who questioned the probability of finding peaceful solutions—not just between Federation and Maquis, but also on a larger galactic scale. Are Federation values at all realistic between worlds so different from each other? Yet each and every member of this crew has proven that reconciliation is indeed possible.

"We are gathered here today to bear witness to the union of two officers who exemplify this potential. Three years ago, they didn't know each other's names. Today, they stand in the arms of a family born out of hardship and loss, and they have come to find that walking together in love is far better than walking alone."

I took the mantle from the altar, gathering the sleek fabric in my hands, and turned to Harry. "Ja'ahkaya per ja'ital, sholey'ah il Eelo Kendra'yan, melar's Bajor-B'hava'el. My love and my light, I welcome you into Eelo of Kendra, house of the guiding star of Bajor. May we guide one another throughout our days, and together guide our people, just as the sun guides Bajor through hers. El ekan'lo jed ekan'vo."

With that, he bowed to me so I could place the mantle on him as he echoed my family motto in Standard. "If we might, then we must." Once it was positioned, he straightened and said, "May the Prophets guide us on our path together."

"May they walk with us always," I replied, bowing to him.

"Mister Paris," Janeway said, holding out her hand towards him to indicate that it was time for the ring. After he gave it to her, she looked at Harry. "Lieutenant, please repeat after me."

Pausing every so often to allow him to echo her words, she led him through a traditional Western-Terran marriage vow. "I, Harrison, take you, Talia, as my lawfully wedded wife, to love and to cherish above all others, in sickness and in health, until death parts us." Unlatching my engagement bracelet and setting it on the altar, Harry slipped the band over my left ring finger and gave my hand a gentle squeeze.

Then, Janeway led me through the same process. "I, Talia, take you, Harrison, as my lawfully wedded husband, to love and to cherish above all others, in sickness and in health, until death parts us."

With the rings exchanged, Janeway tipped the ornate bottle of springwine over the wooden bowl, filling it halfway with the sweetly fragrant liquid. Replacing the bottle on the table, she took the bowl and held it up in front of her face. "Let the Prophets bear witness, and all of us with them. Today, I stand before a marriage. In conflict and in joy, take care of one another. From this day on, may you share in the blessings of the Prophets together from one table."

She lowered the bowl and held it out to me. "I join Talia," she said as I took it and drank. "I join Harry," she repeated as he did the same. When Harry finished, he passed the bowl back to Janeway. "Abrem, your paths are one. Lieutenant Commander Eelo Talia, Lieutenant Harrison S.L. Kim, with the power vested in me by Starfleet Command and the United Federation of Planets, I now pronounce you husband and wife." She grinned. "You know what to do."

Just a half step forward brought us together as we wrapped each other up in our first wedded kiss, barely even aware of the applause filling up the room.

Whatever the reality was back home, and no matter what happened to us out here in the Delta Quadrant, my first allegiance was no longer to Starfleet, the Maquis, Marnah, or some other externally imposed duty. My allegiance was finally to my own self, to the man I loved, and to the crew that I had come to care for so much. How could it be that the worst thing to happen to a starship crew would turn out to be my salvation?

Indeed, I was still quite far from the bones of my ancestors and impossibly far from their sacred places. But perhaps I didn't actually need them as much as I tended to think. In fact, I was entirely certain that I could spend the rest of my life right here—wrapped up in my new husband's embrace, surrounded by our Voyager family—and never run out of reasons to be happy.

Like Harry's lips, which were doubtlessly the best thing I would ever touch in my entire life.

And Tom Paris, who teased us for making out too long, then spent almost the entire reception chasing after B'Elanna.

And Kes and Neelix, who announced that they'd chosen a name for their daughter—Alixia, in honor of Neelix's late sister.

And Little Naomi Wildman, who was growing up so fast. She skillfully slipped away from her mother and lifted a bunch of lilies from a tabletop, then asked me to do a Terran bouquet toss. Not only did I say yes, I put her up on my shoulders so that she could toss them for me, eliciting a head-shaking smile from Sam.

And Captain Janeway, who caught the flowers and looked positively mortified as the rest of us teased her and Chakotay relentlessly for her luck.

The journey was long and the path was daunting, but holding onto moments of joy like these made it seem less threatening. I could honestly say that even if I were offered the chance to go back and change history so we'd never been stranded so far from everything familiar, I would refuse it. My choice wouldn't be based on some murky vision from a Prophet about our purpose here, but because I had finally learned a truth that would stand ready to carry me through every trial ahead of us.

Home wasn't a place on the other side of the galaxy. Home was something that came from inside of me.