To The Journey

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This is an AU story.

Chapter Eleven: A Family Christmas

"Are you sure you've got all that?"

Data hoisted the bags expertly. "Yes, I am certain. In addition, this is the sixth time you have asked. If it had been a problem, I would have mentioned it on one of the other five occasions.

"Fair point. I'm just a little on edge, I guess."

"What reason do you have to be nervous? You told me this is not the first time you have been to one of these events."

"This is different. Those times, I was just Tom's guest. I wasn't family. I mean, I was, but I didn't know I was and niether did they. I haven't met most of these people since I found out I was related to them."

"You are still the same person you were before."

"Thanks, Data. Now, should we get to it?"

"We would be over an hour earlier than we said we would."

"You have a better idea?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. You did tell me that Admiral Paris insists on separate bedrooms for unmarried couples?"

"Yes, I did."

"In that case, I believe our time might be better spent - making up for lost time in advance?"

"Oh, Data. I like the way you think."

And that was the last thing either of them said for awhile.

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"How far from the house are we?"

"Only about a hundred meters. The ground's too uneven, this is the closest safe beam-in site."

"I see what you meant when you said you did not believe you were overdressed."

"The first time I came, I was horribly underdressed. I almost froze between here and the house. Lucky you don't get cold."

A loud shriek cut through the air, and they glanced at each other.

"That didn't sound good. Can you tell where it's coming from?"

"That way." He took off, Tasha at his heels.

They found the problem quickly. Geordi was crouched beside Leah Brahms, who was grimacing in pain, the source of the shrieking a baby in her arms. An older boy, maybe four years old, stood nearby, also crying. Not one of the four was wearing weather-appropriate clothes."

"What happened?" Tasha shouted, coming to kneel down next to her friend.

"I'd ask what on Earth you were doing here if I wasn't so glad to see you. She slipped on ice and hurt her ankle. It's at least twisted, may be broken, I can't tell, but she can't walk and we weren't expecting it to be this cold. No one's happy right now."

"Leah." She got the woman's attention. "Remember me?"

"Y-yeah," she shivered.

"All right. Let me take the baby."

Leah slowly handed over the screaming baby, and Tasha slid off her scarf and wrapped the child in it. The screaming decreased slightly in volume, and Tasha held the bundle closer.

"Data, you help Leah to the house. Geordi, why don't you grab this nice young man and join us?"

"No argument there," he said through chattering teeth as Data lifted Leah to an upright position. It spoke to the amount of time Geordi had been spending around Leah's family that the child allowed himself to be picked up without so much as a squeak of protest or a second of hesitation, and they hurried the rest of the way to the house.

Tasha had no sooner rapped on the door than it swung open and Julia Paris stepped into the frame. "Dear God, what happened here?"

"Leah slipped on ice coming up here, hurt her ankle," Tasha explained, "and I think the whole brigade's half-frozen."

"You're one to talk, my dear. You weren't exactly dressed for the weather the first time you came. Well, don't just stand there. Come in." She ushered the troupe through the door. "You can set her on the couch, my daughter's a doctor, I'll have her take a look. Moira! Moira! Tasha, I can take the baby."

"It's all right, I've got him - her -" she looked over at Geordi.

"Him."

"I've got him." She rocked the still-crying baby in her arms. "There, there. Everything's going to be okay. You're nice and warm and Mommy's just fine, see?"

The boy stopped crying and lay still in her arms. Then his eyes closed and he was instantly asleep. She handed the child back to Leah, who by now was lying on a couch in the living room.

"Just a strain," Moira pronounced. "No broken bones or torn tissue. I'll give you something to help the healing, and just stay off it for a couple of hours, okay?"

"Tasha, could I have a word with you?" Julia stepped briefly into the sitting room.

"Yes, of course." She followed the older woman back into the kitchen. "What do you need?"

"Tasha, can I ask a personal question?"

"Of course."

"It's about your date. What - what exactly is he?"

"He's an android." Tasha figured she shouldn't have been surprised. A lot of people weren't quite sure how to react to Data at first.

"You mean - he's not real?"

"He's not an organic lifeform, no. Though he looks real enough to me."

"Can I ask you why you invited - him?"

At least Julia hadn't said "it." She was trying. "Your husband told me to bring a guest."

"Yes, of course. But why an android?"

"Data's more than just an android. He's a person, and more importantly he's the man I love."

This stunned Julia. "An artificial lifeform?"

"He's a person," she repeated. "Listen, I don't expect you to pretend he's no different from anyone else. But - get to know him before you judge him."

Julia smiled. "Now, that I can do."

"So, who all is coming anyway?"

"Pretty much all the Voyager crew's families - Owen and I invited everyone, and most of them accepted. A lot of adults, a handful of kids - I think Leah's baby's the youngest of that crowd by a bit, although there are a few family members that size. Most of the people who you probably remember from your last visits, some of them with dates, spouses and even kids of their own. Remember little Monica?"

"The girl who used to follow me around like a shadow?"

"She just got married in October."

"Wow. I feel old."

Julia laughed. "Natalia's coming too. It'll be the first one she's been to since your mother got married and left Earth."

"Really?"

"For a long time, she blamed Owen and me for going along with the wedding and didn't want to see either one of us. Then we lost contact with Eva and she didn't interact much with anyone. She was sad and she isolated herself. Frankly, Tasha, she's been better these last four years than she had been in a long time. Having you around has done wonders for her." Julia sighed. "Though I must admit, I think I understand her better now than I ever did."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean -"

"That's all right, dear." Julia wiped at her eyes. "It's just - I don't think you can understand. Losing a child isn't like losing anyone else. No matter how much you hate it, you know you're probably going to outlive your parents and maybe your siblings, but no mother expects to outlive her baby."

Tasha swallowed hard at the flood of memories this brought back.

"It's the worst thing in the world, Tasha. I pray you never have to understand that."

That broke her completely. She burst into tears, covering her face with her hands. She felt the floor under her knees but wasn't at all sure how it had gotten there. All she knew was that Julia was right, it was the worst thing in the world, and she wanted her baby girl as she'd wanted her for twenty years.

She became faintly aware of a hand on her shoulder, a soft voice asking her what was wrong. She turned into the body attached to the hand and voice, something in the back of her mind telling her that this person was okay, would help her.

"What's wrong, sweetheart? What is it?"

A million things went through Tasha's head. What was right? It was probably a shorter list.

"I want my girl," she sobbed finally.

"I don't understand." Julia held the woman helplessly. What was Tasha asking for?

"I want my girl," she whimpered again. "I want my baby."

"Tasha," she said slowly, "you don't have a baby."

"You think I don't know that? Would I be crying like this if I had her?"

Julia slowly ran the conversation backwards in her head. What Tasha had been saying through her tears, what they'd been talking about right before she started crying - "Sweetheart, are you trying to tell me you had a child?"

"For about a day and a half."

"What happened?"

"She was early, like Tom and Patrick." She vividly remembered Kathleen's early labor with her first child. "Where I come from, there wasn't technology to save her."

"Where you - I thought you were fifteen when you left."

"I was. I was fourteen when she was born."

This shocked Julia completely. "But -"

"It's not like I had much choice in the matter," she said bitterly.

"Oh, you poor dear." She hugged Tasha tightly, reading her implication clearly. "Just let it out, darling."

"I want my baby," she sobbed again.

"So do I, Tasha. So do I." And then she had to stop talking because she was too choked up.

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"Hey! Cut that out!"

Geordi's protest might have sounded better if he hadn't been laughing so hard. Four-year-old George Carey had teamed up with five-year-old Joanna Jensen and six-year-old Lisa Dudley to pelt snowballs at the engineer, who appeared to be taking it all in stride.

"You'd never guess they barely knew their uncle," Moira remarked to Tasha. "Annie! Play nice!" she added as her daughter pushed her cousin out of the way for better position. "I'm starting to think Kathy and I might have made a mistake letting them grow up together."

"Was that what Tom was like growing up?"

"Growing up? I don't think he ever outgrew it."

Tasha laughed at the memories that brought back. It was true, really. It was also the first time she'd remembered Tom with laughter instead of tears.

"Does he have kids?" Moira asked, pulling Tasha back to the present.

"Who?"

"Your friend." She pointed to Geordi, who was now swinging Joanna in a circle, pretending he was going to throw the laughing child into a snowbank. "He's good with them."

"No, he's just like that. Though he's been spending a lot of time with your daughter's new friend."

"And his mother."

"Right."

"It's going to be hard for those kids, especially the baby. Growing up without a father."

"Look very carefully." She pointed at Geordi, who was now giving George the same treatment he'd given both the girls. "You really think they're going to grow up without a father?"

"No," Moira admitted. "I guess not."

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"Tell me everything. I want to hear the whole last few years."

Tasha had to admit that Julia was right. Natalia Paris definitely looked more alive and even younger than she had when Tasha had first met her.

"Where do I start? A lot's happened in the past few years."

"Such as?"

"If it could happen, it probably did. Frankly, if it couldn't happen I wouldn't necessarily rule it out. Not a dull moment on the Federation flagship, I'll say that much."

"What do you mean if it couldn't have happened it may have? I may not be in Starfleet like you or my Eugene, but I do know that the laws of physics can't be broken."

"They shouldn't be, but they are. I've given up even trying to explain it, but more than a few things have happened to us I would have said were impossible. My Captain was a science officer, he was as much at a loss as I was."

A knock on the door startled both of them, and Julia hurried past them to answer it. When she opened the door, it was so silent that Tasha thought it must have not been a knock at all, but just some illusion or a stray branch. But then she heard Julia say "Your mother said you weren't coming."

"My mother does not speak for me," said a surprisingly familiar voice.

"I - apparently not. Please, come in."

"Excuse me a minute," Tasha said to her grandmother before standing up to welcome the new arrival.

Asil's long black hair was streaked white with snow, and the back of her coat was similarly coated. Tasha noticed with a small snicker that she had dressed properly, no doubt having done things the Vulcan way and looked up the probable weather conditions ahead of time.

"Fall down?" she asked innocently.

Asil glanced behind Julia to see the woman standing further in, and Tasha would have sworn she saw her shoulders relax a fraction. "I was - accosted by several young children."

"Oh, not again," Julia said wearily. "I'll tell them to settle down."

"That will not be necessary. I was not injured, and I have observed in my time around humans that those that are allowed to - how do you say, run wild? - under controlled circumstances are often the healthiest and the most content."

Julia looked a little taken aback, but also pleasantly surprised. She looked back at Tasha, who just smiled.

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"You and your mother still aren't speaking?"

"I tried, Tasha. I contacted her, but she terminated our conversation when I refused to concede that I was in the wrong during our last encounter, she terminated the communication. I believe that in order to reestablish communication with her, I would be required to leave Starfleet, or at least to take a leave and immerse myself in traditional studies. I do not wish it, and I do not believe Father would have either."

"No, I don't think so."

"I do not enjoy this dilemma. However, a choice had to be made. I am making it."

"I know this can't be easy for you, but if he were here, I'm confident he'd say you're making the right choice. And so do I."

"That means a great deal, coming from you."

"I meant all of it."

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"What's wrong?" Tasha asked Julia. The Voyager guests had left over the course of the past few hours, but she seemed anxious, even though she was alone in the kitchen.

"Oh, it's nothing serious, just a little problem."

"Maybe I can help." Tasha sat down at the kitchen table, her manner inviting Julia to do the same. "Why don't you tell me about it?"

"Well, it's that young Vulcan woman. Not her fault, of course, but her mother made it quite clear to me that none of the family were planning to come. I wasn't aware she and her daughter were -"

"Fighting?" Tasha offered.

"Well, I would have put it more diplomatically, but basically yes."

"So what's the problem?"

"Well, I'd spoken to all the families, asked them to provide gifts for each other. I could replicate something for her, that's not a problem, but I have no idea what she'd like, and I have a feeling her mother wouldn't appreciate a call - if she'd even tell me what I want to know."

"You're right. She wouldn't."

"Oh, you know her?"

"I thought I did." She tried to sound dismissive, but the idea that the woman whose house she had lived in, who had nursed her back to health when she was sick, now resented her stung a lot.

"I won't ask."

"I appreciate that."

"But what about the gifts? She can't be the only person left with nothing."

"What is it you need?"

"Just some ideas. A sense of what she might be interested in."

"Well, why didn't you just say so?"

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"What are you doing sitting over here?"

"I expect nothing. It would not be productive to immerse myself in - that," she indicated the literal pileup of people, "in order to search for something I will not find."

"You seem very sure."

"I overheard other members of the Voyager group in conversation. Family members brought items for each other. Since no one even knew I was coming, they will not have brought items."

Tasha shrugged and threw herself back into the pile. It wasn't long before she came up with what she was looking for. Then again, she knew right where it was, having placed it herself.

"Looks like you were wrong." She tossed the package into her sister's lap.

"There must be some error."

"Hardly likely. I wrapped it myself. Now go on, open it."

She peeled back a corner of the paper to reveal a heavy, square silver object. "I do not comprehend."

"Keep opening it," Tasha urged, still smiling.

She pulled the paper completely off. The item turned out to be a picture frame. Inside was a holo-image, twenty by thirty inches. The picture depicted Tasha some years earlier in her Academy graduation clothes. A nine-year-old Asil was cradled in her arms where she'd ended up after Tasha supposedly scooped her out of the way of foot traffic. Her father stood behind Tasha, and her mother off to one side. It was clear from the fact that only Tasha was looking at the camera that the other three didn't have the faintest idea they were being photographed.

"Where did you obtain this?" she asked, shocked.

"Well, actually it wasn't that hard. Years ago, I had Tom Paris take that picture when you three weren't paying attention, just to have, but I forgot to get it from him before he shipped out. Actually, I'd almost forgotten about it, but when Julia mentioned to me that she didn't have a gift for you, it occurred to me." She placed one hand over Asil's. "Let this help you to remember how it used to be."

Asil's eyes met hers. "Thank you, Tasha. For all of this."

A lot of loose ends being sort of tied together in this chapter. Hope I did it well!

Please review.