Be Careful What You Wish For

by Barbara Watson

“She’s fine, Seven,” he reassured her. “Though I wish I had a better sense of when she’ll make her appearance. I just want to make sure nothing goes wrong.” He didn’t say ‘this time,’ though he was thinking it. He wasn’t up to explaining to Seven the complicated story of his first and only other baby delivery. The fact that the Naomi Wildman he had helped into the world died shortly after her birth—while the doctor was overwhelmed with casualities from a Vidiian attack—was too painful for him to think about in light of the young woman her duplicate had become. The story would require too much explanation: the phenomenon that had copied Voyager and her crew, the death of their own Ensign Kim, and the painful choice the duplicate Captain Janeway had made to destroy her vessel to set them free. He wasn’t even sure he could explain how the duplicate Harry and Naomi had made it onto their ship. Suffice it to say his track record where infants were concerned was weighing on his mind at the moment.

  Seven couldn’t know why, but she did sense the Doctor’s concern for his youngest patient. “She’ll be fine,” she said reassuringly. “And so will you.” Without moving, she reached down and took his hand into hers, and squeezed it gently. “Now why don’t you join me and Icheb for dinner.”

  He smiled, happy to see this change in Seven. “I’d like that,” he said tenderly. Maybe this day would turn out alright after all.

  ~*~*~*~*~

  Tom had seen his father off, then went to change into the civilian clothes he’d salvaged from their old quarters. While he knew his dad would be in uniform for their dinner, he and B’Elanna decided to dress less formally. He wanted to put himself and his wife at ease in what was an inherently tense situation, and he thought this might help. Their outdated uniforms had made him feel like even more of an outsider around the Starbase crew that afternoon. Besides, tonight he wanted to be a son, not a junior officer.

  He was a little surprised to find their quarters empty when he arrived. His detour to the bridge with his father had given B’Elanna an extra thirty minutes. He had expected her to be waiting there impatiently for him to get home. As he dressed, Tom started to worry that she’d never crawled back out from under that relay assembly in engineering, considering how easily she lost track of time while she was working. He was about to hit his combadge when the doors to the lab opened. In walked a vision in aubergine velour—her favorite casual maternity outfit—looking more than a little miffed. “There you are,” he said enthusiastically. “I was afraid you were in the brig for punching out Vorik after that little scene in engineering this afternoon. Are you okay?”

  B’Elanna’s anger was instantly redirected from the Doctor to her husband as she remembered his little drop-in visit earlier in the day. She’d get him back for that later, but for now she needed to vent a different frustration. “I was in sickbay getting this,” she said, raising up the purple top and revealing the fetal monitor flashing on her abdomen. Tom was confused. She’d been wearing a monitor ever since they’d beamed back from the Resnick. It was part of their agreement about her continuing to work.

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “What’s the big deal?”

  She rolled her eyes. “The ‘big deal’ is that it makes my already huge body look even bigger, and I wanted to look nice when I see your father. I don’t think he saw me at my best this afternoon, and I just don’t know why I can’t have a few hours without this thing sticking to me. So I ripped it off.” She was pouting now. “Which threw the Doctor into red alert, of course. He made me come up to sickbay so he could put it back on and readjust it.”

  Tom smiled. “First of all, my dad thought you were delightful, which you were, by the way. He’s not even going to notice. Secondly, I thought you knew by now that—as far as the Doc is concerned—she’s just as much his baby as ours. I’m surprised he’s even letting you leave Voyager.” He stood up, walked over to his wife, and drew her into his arms as he spoke. “You look beautiful. Just the way you are.” Those words had special meaning to them now, and he gave her a quick kiss: the best way he knew to break a B’Elanna bad mood. “Are you ready to go?” he asked.

  “I am,” she answered, “but you’re not.” She looked down to point out that he was still without his trousers and shoes. “I’m guessing you’re wearing more than that?” she asked in mock innocence.

  “Yikes,” Tom said as he moved back to pick up his pants. B’Elanna was just as glad to have another few minutes to talk.

  “So, it looked like things went well with you two today,” she asked as much as said.

  Tom looked a little wistful as he nodded. “Yeah, it was kind of nice, actually. We didn’t really talk about anything—about the past, I mean—but I think we were both kind of surprised at how much we missed each other.” He smiled. “Go figure.”

  He sat down on the bed to put on his shoes and B’Elanna sat next to him. “You’ll have plenty of time to work though the past,” she said gently. “I’m really happy for you.”

  Tom realized that his reunion with his father must be reminding B’Elanna of her own unresolved relationships with her parents. Maybe, he thought, this could be an opportunity to let her share his own family, not to replace hers but to give her some taste of that kind of connection again—instantly feeling surprised at how reconnected he suddenly felt himself.

  “He’s going to love you, B’Elanna.” He said softly. “They all will.” He kissed her again before standing up. “But he hates it when people are late for dinner, so let’s get moving.” He pulled B’Elanna to her feet, and they called the Scobee’s transporter room.

  Tom noticed immediately that the crew of his father’s ship was a little friendlier than the staff of Starbase 32. Maybe it was working so close to the Neutral Zone, he guessed, that made the base staff so guarded. Or maybe the Scobee’s crew knew how much this reunion meant to their commanding officer.

  As they were escorted to the Admiral’s quarters, Tom could feel the nervousness radiating from B’Elanna. He reached down and grabbed her hand, squeezing her fingers slightly. In all honesty, he was a little anxious, too. Not if the Admiral would approve of his wife, but whether B’Elanna would be able to forgive his father for the toll his poor parenting had taken on the man she loved. He was all too aware of the fact that sooner or later they’d have to move beyond small talk. But he was equally determined to be comfortable in his own skin, something Tom always found difficult when he was around his dad.

  When the doors opened, Tom was glad to see they were the only guests. “Welcome,” Owen said as he showed them in. “B’Elanna you look lovely,” he offered sincerely. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  She answered without thinking, “Some leola tea would be lovely.”

  The Admiral looked at her questioningly. “Leola...?”

  Tom laughed. “A Delta Quadrant delicacy. You’ll have to forgive us, sir. We’ve been on replicator rations and Neelix’s Talaxian cuisine for so long, it’s hard to remember what we used to eat before Voyager.”

  B’Elanna blushed. “How about some grape juice?” she corrected.

  “Of course,” Owen laughed. “What about you, son?”

  Tom wanted a beer, but he didn’t want to revisit an old fight during his first five minutes in the room. “Coffee is fine,” he said instead. Owen got their drinks, then invited them to the living area.

  Two seconds into the conversation, they all realized that even small talk was going to pose some problems.

  It started simply enough: “B’Elanna, tell me all about yourself,” Owen said innocently—then realized how uncomfortable it might be for her to answer that question under these circumstances. She’d know he’d read her Starfleet file, as well as Captain Janeway’s logs. She and Tom probably knew he would have her whole history committed to memory by now. What could she tell him that wouldn’t be either painful or difficult?

  “Well...” she hesitated.

  Captain Proton to the rescue.

  “B’Elanna’s the best engineer in the Fleet, Dad. She kep
t Voyager going for seven years on nothing more than the strength of her will. I’ve never seen anything she can’t fix. You know she even built me a 20th century television set out of components she replicated.” Tom was rambling a little, but Owen liked the look in his son’s eyes as he spoke about his wife.

  “Captain Janeway agrees,” the Admiral interjected. “She’s asked that B’Elanna supervise the refit when we get to McKinley Station.” Oops. Another delicate subject, since no one knew if B’Elanna or Tom would even be allowed to stay in Starfleet—or out of jail—once they got back.

  “I hope I get the chance,” B’Elanna said softly, then covered the awkward moment deftly. “You know, depending on when the baby arrives.”

  Owen was just as happy to have the conversation turn to more personal matters. “I can’t believe you actually made it home before she was born. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see my granddaughter, much less be around for her birth.”

  Considering they never dreamed they’d be home so quickly, Tom had to agree. “I know. We thought she’d be a Delta Quadrant baby. I’ll be just as happy to have her born on Earth. I hope we make it back in time.”

  ‘Me, too,’ B’Elanna thought as she began to feel a slight twinge across her lower belly. She was ready for this pregnancy to end, but she was looking forward to getting things a little more settled first. She couldn’t imagine bringing this child into the chaos that was currently their lives.

  “So, I gather from your letters, Tom, that you two have been together for a long while. Did you meet on Voyager?” His question was answered with an uncomfortable silence before Tom finally spoke.

  “No, sir. In the Maquis.” Oh. “We served together for a few weeks on Chakotay’s ship before....” He let his voice trail off. Before Tom was captured and convicted of treason. Owen already knew how to end that sentence, and wasn’t about to let the evening get derailed this quickly.

  “So the two of you were friends before you ended up in the Delta Quadrant,” he surmised. Tom and B’Elanna both laughed out loud at the thought.

  “Actually, Dad,” Tom chuckled, “she hated my guts. She would just as soon kill me as look at me in those days. I, on the other hand, found her totally fascinating from the moment I met her.” B’Elanna rubbed her hand across Tom’s knee as she listened to him repeat the mythology he had created around their relationship, conveniently forgetting that countless holograms, Megan Delaney, Sue Nicolletti, and Kes were also occupying his thoughts in the early days of their exile. She didn’t mind, though. She knew Tom’s attraction to her had been different. She wasn’t a consolation prize; she was the brass ring. And she had no complaints about how it had worked out.

  Tom smiled back at her before he continued. “By the time we ended up on Voyager, B’Elanna thought I had been spying on the Maquis for the Federation, so she didn’t say more than two words to me for months.” Only Owen realized how ironic the idea was, but he kept that thought to himself.

  “Three words,” B’Elanna corrected. “I’m pretty sure I used the phrase ‘You’re a pig’ quite a lot in those days.” She smiled. “Before I got wise to your act.”

  Owen was fascinated. He had read the letters Tom exchanged with his sisters, and never got a clue that the couple’s relationship had so much interesting history. “So how did you finally end up...?” he started to ask. Once again he could tell he’d accidentally struck a nerve.

  Tom looked off into space for a moment before he answered. “We were each best friends with the same guy. Harry. Harry Kim. He was our ops officer, fresh out of the Academy, and he had a habit of picking up strays. B’Elanna and I were his first two pet projects, so we couldn’t avoid each other. If we wanted to spend time with Harry, it was a package deal.”

  Owen recognized their friend’s name from Voyager’s casualty list. He could see Tom was getting choked up at the memories, and was glad when B’Elanna picked up the story, her own voice full of emotion. “We ended up a threesome—pretty much joined at the hip. After a while, Tom and I got to be good friends ourselves. Then suddenly Harry mysteriously started having other things to do. He’d cancel on us at the last minute so we’d be stuck alone together. I think he knew something we didn’t.” She smiled sadly and checked to see if Tom had pulled himself together. Not quite, so she continued.

  “Things just progressed from there.” She decided she’d leave out the parts about the Sakari caves, the Day of Honor, and their three-year-long fight to stay together through some incredibly painful times. But her words made Tom remember something the Doctor said several years earlier.

  “It was the longest flirtation in Starfleet history.” He smiled at B’Elanna and let the look in his eyes tell her he would be alright.

  As she smiled back at him, B’Elanna felt another painful twinge, this one on the other side and a little stronger. Her daughter didn’t seem to care for all this melancholy reminiscing, she surmised. Still, this didn’t feel like a kick.

  Owen could tell there was a series of silent conversations passing between the couple, and he smiled. There was more than a casual romance playing out between them, he could tell. He’d known this kind of connection once in his life, though he hadn’t truly appreciated it at the time. There was a completeness now to Tom he hadn’t expected to find, a kind of quiet confidence that had always seemed to elude his youngest child in the past. “I guess it was meant to be,” he said supportively.

  Tom laughed, pulled back into the moment. “Well, if it took getting trapped in the Delta Quadrant for seven years for me to find B’Elanna, it was more than worth it.” He grabbed his wife’s hand and kissed it, unaware that she was now experiencing the third of three unfamiliar pains across her abdomen. When her hand suddenly squeezed tightly around his, he could tell something was wrong. “B’Elanna, are you okay?”

  There was no way this was anything more than her restless daughter’s Klingon side acting up, she decided. “I think the baby wants her dinner,” she joked, sending the Admiral to his feet.

  “Of course,” he said. “I didn’t know what you’d enjoy, so I thought we’d just replicate something to your liking.” Tom smiled. His father was probably too afraid to make some Klingon cultural faux pas, he decided, not knowing that B’Elanna’s tastes ran more toward banana pancakes and chicken salad than blood pie and gagh.

  “Let me do the ‘cooking,’ then, Dad,” he offered. “You two get to know each other a while.” He let go of his wife’s hand, not able to tell if the look she shot him was because of their daughter’s abuse or a fear of being left alone with her father-in-law. “I think I can come up with something we’ll all enjoy,” he said, deciding B’Elanna would forgive him either way.

  As Tom moved into the dining area of Owen’s quarters, his father’s eyes couldn’t help but watch him go. He still had a look of shock and relief at the sight of his son, B’Elanna noticed, deciding she might have to forgive this man his transgressions after all. “Don’t be afraid,” she said, the Admiral not understanding her meaning. “He knows his way around a replicator.” They smiled.

  Owen spent the next few seconds examining the young woman in front of him, and the scrutiny was making B’Elanna a little uncomfortable. Yet when he spoke, his words were about Tom. “I’ve never seen him like this,” he said gently, “so confident and at peace with his life. I’m guessing you’ve have a lot to do with that.”

  She smiled at the compliment. “I hope so. We’ve come a long way together,” she said with some understatement. B’Elanna decided she would be honest about their situation, even if it was painful for Owen to hear. “Neither of us had an easy time before Voyager. I think it takes someone who’s experienced real pain to understand what it can do to your soul, to your view of yourself. But I didn’t ‘fix’ Tom, Admiral. As a matter of fact, in some ways I think he’s more responsible for ‘fixing’ me. Tom did a lot of growing up while we were away, and he’s the only one who can take credit for the man you met today.”

  Hmm. Not on
ly beauty, love, and loyalty, but eloquence, too. Owen could definitely see what Tom had come to love in this woman. “I understand, B’Elanna,” he said sincerely. “I’ve spent my entire life underestimating my son, and I won’t make that mistake again. But it’s more than that. I can see it in his eyes when he looks at you.” His expression turned sad as he continued, “I’m grateful that you and his other friends gave him a chance to start over. As strange as this may sound, I hate to think of what might have happened to him if Kathryn hadn’t taken him with her on that mission. If he hadn’t found friends like you and Harry Kim. He had to get stranded on the other side of the galaxy before he could come back to me, and I’m never going to let anything come between us again.”

  “I know the feeling,” she said smiling, remembering making that same vow a few months earlier only for different reasons. Now it was B’Elanna’s turn to marvel. The man sitting before her wasn’t the two-headed monster she’d imagined when she’d contemplated her husband’s father so long ago. Yes, he had hurt Tom—in ways he might never be able to atone for—but he was imperfect like everyone else, she supposed. He’d clearly learned his lessons about the damage he’d inflicted on his son. And he clearly loved Tom, too. She decided in that moment to forgive him, as Tom was so obviously trying to do.