AN: Here we are, the last piece to this little story.

I hope you enjoy! If you do, please let me know!

111

"Do you really think that chocolate cake is an appropriate food for breakfast?" Jean-Luc asked. There was no genuine accusation in the question. He looked even somewhat amused. There was a hint of a smile on his face.

Of course, they'd all gotten some sleep. It hadn't been enough, by far, to counteract the exhaustion that had set in for all of them, but it was far better than adding another sleepless night to the tally that, realistically, they'd all lost track of while trying to survive and hold onto some semblance of sanity until Laris returned and their home was complete again.

Beverly fought some battles as a parent, of course, but she also knew when to pick and choose her battles. There was nothing—absolutely nothing—special about Laris's "Romulan Chocolate Cake," except for the fact that Laris, a Romulan, made it. Still, Jack loved it. He thought there was something special about it, and maybe the most special thing about it was that Laris let him stay up under her in the kitchen while she baked it, and she let him lick the spoons, and the beaters, and the bowl. She let him help her ice the cake.

Really, the cake tasted better to Jack than any other "chocolate cake," simply because his tongue tasted the memories his mind held and the love his heart kept safe.

And a little love and happiness, Beverly figured, was just as nutritional for breakfast—at least once in a while—as anything else they could prepare.

Besides that, both boys seemed content for the moment, and that made cake for breakfast feel like the best choice that Beverly could make for her entire family.

When Elnor was done with his cake, of which he had eaten arguably very little, he eyed Beverly and made the solemn request for the one thing that seemed to bring him half as much solace as the cake really brought Jack.

"Milk?"

Beverly wiped his mouth and hands with a damp cloth, which he allowed in light of the fact that he could tell she intended to give him what he wanted, and she offered Jack the rest of Elnor's cake to finish—an offering of peace, really, given that Elnor had made the past week and a half a living hell for Jack as much as he had for anyone else.

Beverly took the baby up and settled down into her chair again, sighing with the pleasure of simply sitting—her body practically thirsting for rest in whatever way it could get it. She offered a breast to Elnor and, without seeming to feel any need for skepticism or screaming, he latched on and happily focused his attention on staring up at her while he scratched her breast lightly with his little fingernails—fingernails that needed to be trimmed.

Beverly sank into something of a contemplative daydream, her mind drifting off with fatigue and the welcome of the first peace they'd known in a while, so she naturally jumped when she heard the sound of their security system disengaging and their front door opening and closing with a loud slam. She heard the fast, hard footsteps. She felt like she recognized them, though they often weren't quite so hard or quite so fast. She made eye contact with Jean-Luc. He recognized them, too, and he understood the reason for their heavy and fast rhythm.

Laris appeared in the kitchen, and her face said everything that Beverly imagined it might take her mouth a moment to produce.

Jean-Luc stood.

"Laris…" He said, clearly expecting to offer their wife a hug of greeting.

"Not a word!" Laris barked, pointing her finger with frustration and anger. "Not a call! Not a message! The transporter's been turned off!"

"We can explain…" Jean-Luc said.

As he was saying that, however, Laris's shocking and unexpected arrival to the Château seemed to catch up with everyone in the house. Jack abandoned his cake in favor of running toward his Mama for a hug. Elnor sat up and, immediately, began to fight Beverly and scream, requesting to be put down. Even Number One, closed outside the house in the backyard, barked as though he were aware that things had, at least to some degree, been restored to the state that they all considered normal and comfortable.

Laris hugged Jack as he wrapped his arms around her. Beverly readjusted her shirt.

"Pick him up…please," she said to Laris, when the woman seemed at risk of ignoring Elnor a moment too long.

Laris picked him up, and Elnor wrapped his arms tightly around her neck, crying into her neck but, thankfully, abandoning his now-usual screaming.

"I think he'd like more milk," Beverly said.

Laris looked between Beverly and Jean-Luc with an expression that Beverly couldn't quite read.

Actually, the truth was that Beverly could read it, but she didn't want to read it. It was anger and frustration, but that emotion was clearly fading. It was being replaced by something else—confusion and hurt.

Even as a facial expression, Laris's pain hurt Beverly.

"It seems that…he was getting all that he needed of that," Laris said. Her words were heavily laced with hurt and a certain sharpness.

"A lot's happened since you've been gone," Beverly said, keeping herself as grounded as possible and knowing that was the only way to lower the emotions in the room.

"And I've heard nothing about any of it," Laris said. Her voice cracked slightly—just slightly. Beverly didn't miss it. Laris rubbed Jack's back with one hand, and she hugged Elnor to her with the other arm. "I've been worried sick. I thought something was wrong. I thought…maybe something happened. I kept thinking…I'd wait until I heard from you. Finally, I decided I had to come back and see for myself…but…it seems like you don't need me here at all. You locked me out. Literally."

Beverly reminded herself that, from the outside, things probably wouldn't feel quite the way they'd felt from the inside.

She walked over and put her hand on Laris's back. Her other hand, she placed on Elnor's back. It was clear that, now that he had his Mama again, he wasn't interested in letting go of her any time soon.

"You are right," Beverly said, keeping her voice soft. She could feel her whole body relaxing. Slowly, her muscles seemed to be unknotting. Her breath even seemed to come easier. She could practically taste the return to normal and the opportunity to truly rest that waited on the horizon. "You are. And—I'm sorry. We're sorry. We made the decision to leave you out of the loop, because we wanted you to focus on your work, without distractions. We wanted you to be able to accomplish all the things that you needed to accomplish."

"I have a few things to finish," Laris said. "I can finish them from here…"

Beverly smiled at her. Laris seemed a bit unarmed, and Beverly understood. Now that rest and recovery was within sight, she could feel her eyelids growing heavier. Everything, really felt like it was growing heavier. It was as if the gravity in the Château had changed.

"You shut me out…like…you didn't want me here at all. You didn't need me here at all," Laris said.

Jean-Luc moved closer to them, but his glance at Beverly said that he was letting her handle things. Really, she understood that he didn't know what to say or do, so he was counting on her to handle them.

Beverly drew in a breath and shook her head.

"I understand how you feel, but…that wasn't the case at all. In fact, we found that…maybe we needed you more than we even knew, and we certainly wanted you here more than we knew," Beverly said. She laughed, thinking back over the past few days. "I'm so tired," she breathed out. "I don't even know where to begin. Elnor…hasn't handled things well."

"Elnor cries too much! He cries all the time! And he's loud!" Jack offered. Jean-Luc put his hand on Jack's shoulder and, catching the boy's attention, somewhat distracted him from his involvement in the conversation by picking him up. Immediately, Jack rested his head on his father's shoulder like he might simply take a nap there. Elnor's eyes were closed where he rested his head on Laris's shoulder, and the only proof that he was awake was the sound of a low hum that he was emitting as he enjoyed the comfort of his new, highly-desired position.

Beverly wouldn't be surprised if, all the emotions lowered as they would hopefully soon be, everyone in the Château found themselves dozing a little before long.

Beverly gently ran her fingers through Elnor's hair and rubbed the tip of the ear not pressed against Laris's body.

"Elnor has had some really big feelings since you've been gone," Beverly said. "I didn't want you to worry, because we've taken care of him, but…he didn't really want to eat while you were gone."

"He hasn't eaten…"

"He's OK," Beverly interrupted quickly, rushing through the things she had to say, because actually saying them was difficult in its own way. "We gave him supplements, and I started the lactation stimulants. And, then, I found out I was pregnant, because they worked very quickly. And Elnor finally got settled, last night, for a while."

Laris's brows furrowed.

"Pregnant?"

Beverly smiled.

"I was as surprised as you are," Beverly said. "If my calculations are correct—and given that your gestation lasts longer than mine and you're already ahead of me—we should welcome two little ones very, very close together."

"Pregnant?" Laris said again, this time smiling, though her brows were not entirely unknit.

Beverly felt her chest flood in response to the genuine affection on Laris's features. She smiled, too, and her eyes prickled.

"Don't you do that," Beverly said.

"What? Do what?" Laris asked.

"Look at me like that and make me cry," Beverly said. "I'm too tired for it."

Laris reached the hand not supporting Elnor out to touch Beverly's face. She stroked her cheek. The expression didn't fade, and neither did the sensation that Beverly felt. The warm tear that slipped from her eyes, though, was wiped away as quickly as it appeared.

"May I kiss you, at least, to say how happy I am?" Laris teased. "If I'm not allowed to look at you?"

"I'll come to you," Beverly teased back, leaning her head toward Laris. "Please…please…do not disturb that baby. Quiet is the sweetest sound…"

She kissed Laris, and she let it linger, tasting her lips in lazy ways that let them both keep drawing in breath so that the kiss could simply last longer between them. When the kiss broke, Jean-Luc was smiling at both of them, though his exhaustion was clear on his features.

"Voyeur," Laris teased, pretending to disapprove of his watching them.

Jean-Luc laughed.

"I have only recently discovered my inclination," he teased back. "Am I allowed a greeting now…or…?"

Laris smiled at him and kissed him, too, each of them carefully maneuvering around the boys that they were holding.

"I have to admit," Beverly said, "I wasn't sure what you were going to come back to, if you were gone much longer. Jean-Luc reached a point where he was convinced that we weren't able to handle this properly, and was talking about packing everyone up with pointy ears and dropping them off at the nearest Romulan colony that was taking in refugees."

Laris looked at Jean-Luc with surprise and a half-opened mouth. He looked at Beverly and held his hand up to Laris to still her.

"I can explain," he said. "In my defense…I was very, very tired. And Elnor had screamed for days with no end in sight. I was delirious, and not in my right mind or thinking very clearly."

"It won't be that long before there are three of us," Laris said.

"And many more to come, I'm certain," Beverly interjected, feeling a rise in tension that was unwanted. "And we will love each and every one of our pointy-eared family members, Laris. I was only teasing, so you would understand how exhausting everything has been without you here to keep things running so smoothly."

"Smoothly enough that I'm at risk of being exiled to Chaltok IV?" Laris asked.

"I was only teasing, Laris," Jean-Luc said, affectionately stroking Laris's cheek before letting his hand trail up to stroke the tip of her ear.

Beverly smiled to herself when she saw the corners of Laris's mouth turn upward slightly. She wasn't truly angry or even hurt, now. She was relaxing, too. She shifted and hugged Elnor against her. The baby boy was now asleep with his mouth open, lost to the world entirely. Against Jean-Luc's shoulder, Jack slept in almost exactly the same way.

"Smoothly enough that, realistically, we may never let you leave the Château again," Beverly said. "In fact, we're going to let you get things running smoothly again. You have Elnor. Enjoy. He'll want milk when he wakes up. We're all going to take a nap. Welcome home…and, please, don't ever leave again!"

Laris laughed. She hugged Elnor closer to her.

"Maybe next time, I'll just have to take you all with me."