TIME FRAME: Present day + Ten years in the future

WHAT YOU ARE HERE FOR: THE STORY.

   A KISS FROM BEYOND FOREVER: Part Two of Four.

        By: Amy Player

B'Elanna Paris smiled as she looked at the two limp forms on the
couch.  She had finally gotten some sleep, taking Tom up on his offer to
watch the colicky infant through the night.  Those few peaceful hours
were a gift she fully appreciated, knowing how hard it was to stay up
with Kathryn when she wasn't feeling well.

She wasn't sure exactly when, but both man and child had given up
sometime during the night.  They were both out cold, Kathryn cradled
contentedly in Tom's arms as she slept.  Kathryn had apparently spit up
again a number of times during the night, judging from the numerous
dirty rags scattered about.  Yet Tom had learned quickly.  His black and
burgundy uniform tunic and gray undershirt were folded neatly on a side
table, only a rag separating the baby from the bare skin of his chest.

They looked so picturesque, the father and his baby daughter.  It
was like a scene from a holonovel, and it was so easy to get caught up
in it.  So this Tom Paris was a bit younger, a bit out of touch with the
times.  Did it matter?  He clearly loved her, and he had to love Kathryn
or he wouldn't have stuck it out all night without stuffing the child
into the replicator as even she had wanted to a few times.  She wished
there was some way she could keep him with her in this time forever.

Tom looked absolutely exhausted, and she hated having to wake him
when she knew that he couldn't have gotten much sleep.  However, it was
oh-eight-hundred, and the Captain had called an emergency staff meeting
to deal with the unique situation brought about by Tom's presence.  It
was fairly vital that Tom be there.

Ever so gently, she shook him awake.  "Tom?  Tom, honey, it's time
to get up."  His deep blue eyes blinked open, and he took a moment to
focus on her before he spoke, his voice slightly slurred from sleep.

"B'Elanna?  Is it morning already?"

"Yes, I'm afraid it is.  The Captain wants us in the briefing room
in thirty minutes, and you need a shower." *Gods,* she thought, *this is
so real.  This is just what it would have been like if he'd lived.
Husband and wife, parents and child.*

He ran a hand through his matted curls, grinning impishly.  "Yeah,
I guess I do."  Tom passed Kathryn over to her, careful not to wake her,
then stood and stretched.  B'Elanna watched appreciatively as the
muscles of his back rippled beneath the skin as he did so, then nodded
towards the dirty uniform.

"I just wanted to thank you for watching Kathryn last night.  I
know it wasn't much fun."

"Nonsense," Tom protested, "she's a great kid."

B'Elanna laughed, "Tom Paris, don't you try to lie to me!  I was
married to you for nine years and you could never manage it!"

"All right," he admitted, "so it wasn't the most fun I've ever
had.  But you were right when you said it's all part of being a father,
and I intend to *be* a father to her."

She frowned, "You sound like you intend to stay."

"If possible.  B'Elanna, I walked out on you once, I won't do it
again.  Not when I know what we have together."

Kathryn stirred, and she began to rock the infant, using it as an
excuse not to look at Tom.  The sincerity in those mesmerizing blue eyes
was overwhelming.  It was her wildest dreams come true, he was back with
her, alive and well, wanting to be a part of her and their daughter's
lives.  She had hoped for this, prayed for this ever since he had died.

But she knew it couldn't last.  In only minutes they would be
attending a staff meeting where the primary topic of conversation would
be how to take him away from her and send him back to the time where he
belonged.  Forcing up a faint smile, she looked up at him again.

"Don't start, Tom, please.  You know that can't happen.  You have
to go back...and that's something we both have to accept."

He nodded reluctantly, but as he turned to go clean up, he paused.
"B'Elanna...."

"Yes?"

Tom opened his mouth, and she could see from the tormented
whirlwind of emotions in his eyes that there were a hundred thousand
things he wanted to say.  Finally though, he just looked away,
uncertainty winning out. "Nothing."

She watched him go, shaking her head in amazement.  Tom had always
thought he could hide his feelings from her, but he was as transparent
as fine Alverian glass. B'Elanna looked down at her daughters serene
features and smiled, "Nothing," she repeated, "Oh, Kathy, your Daddy can
be such a charming liar."
 
    * * *

A Klingon drum orchestra pounded out their staccato rhythms within
B'Elanna Torres' skull as she struggled back to consciousness.  Two
questions immediately asserted themselves.  The first was *Where was I
to get so damn hungover?* , and the second was, *Who hit me?*

As it turned out, the source of her monumental headache was
neither of those.  Memory slowly returned, and she recalled the Doctor
giving her some kind of hypospray to counteract all the Raktajino she'd
been drinking.  Soon after that, the world had begun to fade away, but
she distinctly remembered him saying that the high dosage might shock
her system.

Moaning in agony as she sat up, Torres pressed both hands against
her throbbing temples.  Her thoughts towards the hologram turned
malicious.  *I'll show you a shocked system!  Just wait until I get my
hands on my tool kit...I'll adjust your program like you won't believe!*

However, revenge could wait until she got a painkiller. Forcing
her eyes open, she waited until sickbay stopped spinning, then called,
"Doctor?" There was no response, so she raised her voice somewhat,
allowing a little of her indignation to creep into her tone. "Doctor?"
Still nothing. "You holographic sadist, you'll answer me if you value
your matrix!" Nothing.  She felt a growl building as she slipped off the
biobed.  "That's it!" She warned. "I'm getting my tool kit!"

When even this dire threat failed to bring a response, worry began
to supplant outrage.  The Doctor didn't just leave sickbay when he had a
patient--even if that patient happened to be unconscious.  Had there
been a medical emergency somewhere else on the ship?  She looked for his
mobile emitter, and sure enough, it wasn't in it's customary place in
his office.  Torres tapped her commbadge, "Computer, tell me the
location of the Emergency Medical Holographic Program."

The computer's voice was as emotionless as ever as it responded.
"The Emergency Medical Holographic Program is no longer aboard Voyager."

She frowned, hurrying to a nearby console to confirm the readings.
"Computer," she directed, "locate the EMH mobile emitter."

"The EMH mobile emitter is no longer aboard Voyager."

Her eyes widened as she slowly realized that the Doctor must have
been taken while she was unconscious.  But just how long had that been?
Was she the only one left on Voyager?

"Computer, what is the current crew complement of the Starship
Voyager?

"Sixty-four."

Sixty-four.  Out of one-hundred and forty-five.  Torres quickly
began to search sickbay, looking for where the Doctor had put her
uniform.  She found it on the Doctor's desk, and was for once thankful
for the hologram's fastidious nature as she saw that it had been cleaned
and neatly folded.  It really had been rather disgusting.

As she pulled it on, she tried to sort out her thoughts, arranging
the hundreds of questions and things she had to do into some semblance
of order.  The first priority was clear.  Find the Captain and find out
what she needed of her Chief Engineer.

If Janeway was gone, things would be a little different.  Chakotay
had been one of the first taken, and Tuvok didn't know the first thing
about temporal phenomena, so if Janeway was no longer on the ship, then
she would have every right to take command for the duration of this
crisis.  The thought was strangely exciting for a woman who had never
really wanted command of anything beyond the walls of her engine room.

"Computer, locate Captain Janeway."

"Captain Janeway is in her ready room."

Oh well, so much for being Captain before she was thirty.  Finding
her commbadge and rank insignia inside her left boot, she pinned them on
as she hurried out of sickbay and started down the corridor.  "Torres to
Janeway."

Nothing.

"Torres to Janeway. Captain, are you all right?"  There was still
no response, and Torres frowned.  Had something happened to the Captain?
Or had she simply not heard her?  There was only one way to find out.
She broke into a run, and only when she was in the turbolift and it was
well under way did she notice that she was still holding the one boot.

    * * *

He hadn't been watched this closely since his last outmate review
at the Penal Settlement in New Zealand, and Tom discovered that he still
didn't like it.

Everywhere he went, he could tell that all eyes were on him, a man
who should be dead.  In the corridors and turbolifts on the way to the
briefing room, it had been bad enough.  Someone would pass him with a
nod or friendly smile, but then they would realize who he was, and that
last they had heard, he was dead.  At the least, this realization would
prompt a severe double-take.  One young Lieutenant had even missed a
curve in the corridor and run into the bulkhead.

Here in the briefing room, among these people who were once his
colleagues, it was ten times worse.  Physically, they were much the same
as the people he knew, but with just enough differences to remind him
that they weren't.

There were quite a few wedding rings at the table; a matching set
on Kim and Seven, one on B'Elanna of course, and (finally!) rings on the
Captain and Commander Chakotay.  Seven looked much softer, her hair
falling loosely just below the shoulders of her Starfleet uniform, and
even smiling now and then.  Fourteen years in the Delta Quadrant showed
in the lines just beginning to appear at the Captain's eyes and mouth,
and in the few silvery strands that ran through her auburn hair.
Chakotay also showed a some gray, but otherwise the years had left
little evidence of their passing.  Harry looked as youthful as ever, but
some of his wide-eyed enthusiasm had been tempered by experience, making
him seem much older.  They were all older, only he had been frozen in
time.

They tried to act professionally, as if de-briefing a dead man was
an everyday happening, but he could see it in their eyes.  Especially
Harry.  *Lieutenant* Kim, a man now six years his senior but still just
as transparent emotionally, seemed more deeply bothered than most.  He
would meet Tom's eyes for only a split-second at a time, his black eyes
tormented, then look away again.

Of course, it wasn't too hard to understand.  He remembered how
awkward it had been when Voyager had been caught in that dimensional
rift and Harry had been dead for a few hours before being replaced by an
exact duplicate.  Part of Tom had already accepted his friend's death,
and only the fact that the 'new' Harry was absolutely identical and had
all the same memories had made it something he could adjust to with
relative ease.  It must be far worse for this Harry Kim.  His Tom Paris
had been dead for months, and while he was technically the same man, he
was ten years out of touch.

"Are you all right, Mr. Paris?" The concern in the Captain's voice
was like a splash of cold water, and he virtually snapped to attention.

"Yes, Captain."

"Then perhaps you would care to answer my question.  Have you
noticed any other unusual temporal phenomena?"  He almost said, *you
mean other than being thrown forward in time to discover that I've got a
widow, a kid, and am destined to wind up space dust before I'm forty?*
Thankfully, he thought better of it.

"I've already told you my theory that the people disappearing on
my Voyager were moved in time like I was, but that's about it."

"You haven't noticed anything since you got here?"

"I haven't noticed anything," Tom spread his hands innocently,
"but I have to admit, I'm not exactly sure what's normal on this
Voyager."

A few people chuckled, and he was pleased to see that even
B'Elanna smiled.  He had the feeling that--even more than his B'Elanna--
this woman didn't smile enough.

Yet even she seemed more cheerful than Seven/Annika. Apparently,
even this many years in the future, the ex-Borg still hadn't fully
refined her sense of humor.  She merle raised one sculpted eyebrow, "I
don't see what's funny about such a statement of ignorance.  We need to
know if the incursions have begun yet."

"'Incursions?' What's she talking about, Captain?", Tom asked.

Janeway nodded, and Harry slid a padd across the table towards
him. Picking it up, he scrolled through the information.  Tom had passed
most of his science courses in the academy with fairly decent grades,
and he had a deep love of anything involved in high-speed flight.  That
love required a good understanding of physics and engineering, which
even B'Elanna had admitted he had something of an affinity for.  Yet the
numbers and symbols on the padd were way over his head, and he wasn't
afraid to admit it

"Sorry, Harry, but I haven't the slightest idea what any of this
means.  You'll have to translate for a mere mortal like me."

Kim took the padd back, a slight flush creeping into his cheeks,
just like the young ensign he so resembled.  "Oh.  I forgot you hadn't
gotten into temporal theory yet."

"Yet?"  Tom laughed, "I can't imagine ever being able to tolerate
the subject."

"Well, after the Liserians captured B'Elanna with that temporal--"
He cut off abruptly as Janeway gave him The Look; the very same look she
occasionally gave *Ensign* Kim.  "You'll eventually develop a strong
interest," he finished awkwardly.

The Captain nodded towards Annika, who took up where her husband
had left off.  "We've discovered that whatever phenomena threw you
forward in time had a destabilizing effect on time in general.  Harry
described it as shooting something through a piece of cloth--threads
will begin to unravel around the edges of the hole.  These 'threads' are
manifest in the form of temporal incursions, which will become
increasingly severe the longer you remain in this time.  Eventually,
they will become apparent to the naked eye as glimpses into other times,
from there evolving into portals.  We will attempt to harness one of
those portals to return you to your own time and end the incursions."

"And if it doesn't work?"

"Then the incursions will increase to the point where Voyager
would be in the grip of multiple timelines at once.  The ship would be
destroyed quite violently.  We would die in all times at once...in
essence, it would be as though none of us were ever born."

    * * *

Torres burst through the doors to the Captain's ready room, her
fertile imagination coming up with any number of things that might have
happened to prevent Janeway responding to her commbadge, ranging from
simply not hearing to being on death's doorstep.  Much to her relief,
the latter was not the case.  Sometime in the last eighteen hours,
fatigue had overcome even the Captain's iron will, and she was at her
desk with a padd still clutched in one hand.  Dead asleep.

*And she orders <me> to rest!*  She shook her head in amazement as
she walked over to the Captain and shook her awake. "Captain?  Captain,
it's B'Elanna.  Wake up."

Janeway moaned softly, and her blue eyes blinked in confusion
several times before focusing on her Chief Engineer.  Torres had never
noticed the color of her eyes before, and the deep azure made her think
of Tom, and how very much she missed him.  The possibility that she
might never see him again hit her with surprising potency.  She felt her
eyes begin to burn, but blinked back any tears that might want to
escape.  They just didn't have the time.

"B'Elanna, are you all right?  What happened?"  Torres was taken
aback, how could the Captain know anything was wrong?  She didn't know
how clearly her thoughts were written in her expressive eyes.

"Nothing.  Just...you were asleep and I was worried...it's really
silly."  Janeway wasn't fooled for a moment, and she placed a
compassionate hand on the younger woman's shoulder.  Torres was
surprised to see that this didn't just seem to be a rote expression of
'sympathy' from some Starfleet personnel management course.  The look in
her eyes showed real understanding.

"It's Tom, isn't it?  You think we aren't going to be able to get
him back."

"How did you know?" Her voice was openly awed.  Did the Captain
have some Betazoid blood that she didn't know about?  How else could she
possibly read her mind with such total accuracy?  The real answer was
much simpler.

"I've seen that look in the mirror enough times to know it fairly
well."

She looked at the Captain with new interest, "Chakotay tells me
you had a fiancee back in the Alpha Quadrant, a man named Mark.  He says
you loved him very much."

"I did.  And it was very hard to forget him...I still haven't, and
I don't think you can ever completely get over someone you love.  But
you can't let it impair the way you do your job.  If I ever wanted to
see Mark again, I knew I had to get us home, and I couldn't let every
random memory get in the way of that.  I could grieve or reminisce, or
anything I wanted to in my quarters, but on the job, there is no choice.
One must remain professional." She locked eyes with Torres, and somehow,
it didn't seem as much a lecture as a confidence. "You're going to have
to understand that, B'Elanna.  It's part of Starfleet romance.  I know
you love Tom, but he is not the only one missing, and if we are going to
get them back, I need my Chief Engineer.  Do I have her?"

Torres nodded, thankful that Janeway hadn't simply told her to
forget about him and well aware of how much her openness meant.  "Yes,
Captain, you do."

Janeway clapped her on the back.  "Good to hear."  She turned and
gathered several padds off the cluttered desk, finally handing the
engineer a stack of two dozen or so. "Because think I've made a
breakthrough here, but I need help double checking, and if I'm right,
I'll need a *lot* of help building the solution."

    * * *

"I may not be the temporal expert yet, but surely there's
*something* I can do to help?"

Harry shook his head, his expression resolute as he and Tom headed
back to Paris' quarters.  "You will be helping.  You're the focal point
of all the temporal disturbances, and we want to keep you near where the
initial incursion occurred to try and keep it contained to this deck for
as long as possible."

"So I'm supposed to just sit there and act as anomaly bait?  Come
on, Harry, you know--I mean you *knew*--me well enough to know I don't
do well just sitting around."

"I'll ask the Captain if there is any way you can assist,
Lieutenant."  Tom stopped right there in the corridor, hands on his
hips.  It took Harry a moment to realize that they were no longer
walking side by side, but when he turned, his expression was still
politely formal.  "Is there something wrong?"

Tom gave him a fairly good imitation of Janeway's trademark
'Look', and he could see his friend cringe a little.  "You know what the
problem is.  You've never addressed me by my rank.  Ever.  Even when you
first met me and everyone was telling you not to get within a parsec of
me because I was trouble...even then you called me by my name.  Not my
first name like you did after we became friends, but at least my name."
 
He waited a moment, gauging Kim's reaction, then continued.
"What's happened to you, Harry?  I remember always telling you not to be
so naïve, not to trust every alien that crossed our paths, but I'm not
an alien.  I'm Tom Paris, and I thought I knew you."
 
The response was so quiet he almost didn't hear it, but the guilt
and the shame in the Lieutenant's eyes when he looked up almost took
Tom's breath away.  "What happened to me, Paris, was that I was
responsible for the death of a good man."
 
"Who?"
 
"You."  Tom felt all the blood drain from his face.  He knew
first-hand what it felt like to be responsible for the death of another,
and the look on Harry's face was the same look he had seen on his own
after the accident on Caldik Prime.  If nothing else, Harry *thought* he
was guilty.

Carefully keeping his voice neutral, he asked, "Me?"

"I didn't get you out in time.  I saw the energy surge in the ship
that fired on you, but I didn't think anything of it.  It had been so
badly damaged, and the signature looked like just another system
overload, so I dismissed it, concentrating on the other ships.  Then it
fired, and you died."  He laughed bitterly, "Funny thing is, after I
killed my best friend, I didn't have the guts to tell B'Elanna and she
made me Kathryn's godfather.  She did it right there at the memorial
service, said it's what you would have wanted."

Tom put a hand on Harry's shoulder, giving it a slight, reassuring
squeeze.  He knew through personal experience exactly what kind of
negligence was considered murder.  That wasn't it, in fact, it didn't
sound like negligence at all.  It sounded like being mortal.  He said as
much, adding, "B'Elanna was right, though, Harry.  Your being Kathryn's
godfather *is* what I would have wanted.  I understand you've been
indispensable."

Harry sighed deeply, but the melancholy air was quickly giving way
to the light teasing they had always enjoyed. "I've tried.  Kathryn's a
great little girl, Tom, but she's inherited both your stubborn
streaks...and I'm outclassed by either of her parents.  Forgive me if
your daughter picks up a few unseemly descriptive phrases heard during
her all-night crying sessions."

"From you?  The most upstanding Ensign in the Delta Quadrant?"

The response was a genuine laugh, and Tom was pleased to see his
friend's cheerful manner.  This was more like the Harry Kim he knew.
"I'm a Lieutenant now, remember?  A *full* Lieutenant, Mr. Lieutenant-
Junior-Grade.  And I'm not so upstanding as the young ensign you knew."

Tom pretended to be scandalized, gasping in mock horror as he took
a step back.  "*You*, Harry?  Anything less than an absolute boy scout?
I cannot believe my ears!"

"Believe 'em, Tommy."

He grinned evilly, "You must tell me of the exploits of this all-
new, devil-may-care Harry Kim."

"Sure.  I've even got pictures of some of them."

"Pictures?" His curiosity piqued by the thought of Harry as--well,
to be honest, as someone more like him--Tom gestured eagerly down the
corridor.  Perhaps there would also be a few pictures of himself and
B'Elanna as well, something to fill in the ten year gap in their
relationship between dating and Kathryn. "This I have got to see."
 

    * * *

Just hurt her a little bit.  Maybe slam her against the bulkhead a
time or two.  Try out her fist against a welcoming nose or chin.  Re-
discover the bat'leth as a viable part of her heritage.  Torres could
think of several dozen delightfully satisfying things she wanted to do
to That Borg.

Seven of Nine was one of the few remaining crewmembers with a
competent grasp of engineering, and thus the Captain had assigned her to
work with Torres.  She had seriously considered insisting on working
alone, but then she had thought of Tom, trapped in another time.  With
gritted teeth, she had agreed to take on Seven as a partner...a decision
she was rapidly reconsidering, Tom or no Tom.

If nothing else, though, working so closely with Seven had given
her an all new appreciation of Joe Carey's restraint.  Working with a
stubborn, temperamental, dangerous half-breed was a very familiar
situation for him, and she resolved to thank him for his patience with
her later.  If she had been anything like Seven of Nine when she first
came aboard, she would have deserved a 'mysterious accident' years ago.

"Listen to me.  This is not a matter of efficiency.  Nicoletti
just has a better feel for this kind of thing."

"Ensign Golwot is more qualified than Lieutenant Nicoletti for
these procedures."

Torres felt her fists clenching.  The Captain had placed the two
crewmembers in question under Seven's command, and she just needed to
get Nicoletti to re-align the plasma flow in Jeffries tube eleven.  It
was a very delicate task, and she needed the best.  Of course, if she
had to argue with Seven much longer, it would be quicker to do it
herself.

"If formal knowledge is all that mattered," Torres pointed out,
"then I wouldn't be Chief Engineer."

Seven simply raised one eyebrow, an infuriating gesture she had
picked up from Tuvok, "The position the Captain granted you is
irrelevant.  Also, I believe there is a saying: 'To err is Human.'"

"Yes, there is," Torres shot back, "and that obviously explains
*your* presence.  But I'm not debating which one of us the Captain
should have taken in.  I'm here to get Nicoletti, and that's just what
I'm going to do.  Whether you like it or not."

With that final statement, she turned on her heel and stormed off
to find Nicoletti.  If the young officer wouldn't be assigned to her
officially or willingly, she would be assigned to her by virtue of the
fact that Torres would physically apprehend her for her own purposes.
As she headed for the stairs that would take her to the upper level of
engineering, she remembered another Earth saying, modified slightly for
her own situation.

"There's more than one way to skin a Borg."

    * * *

B'Elanna cursed softly as her console flashed yet another error
message back at her.  She was only trying to download the data from a
padd, something a first-year cadet could do in their sleep, yet even
such simple tasks were giving her trouble.  Of course, it wasn't hard to
figure out why she was so distracted.  In fact, it could be summed up in
two words.

Tom Paris.

Even in the days immediately following his death, she had been
able to find solace in her work, burying her pain in isolinear chips and
warp conduits.  She had known that as long as she could fill her mind
with work, she wouldn't have room for him.  It had even worked a little
with Kathryn: concentrate on feeding her, rocking her, caring for her,
and she could almost ignore the incredible resemblance to her father.

This time, however, it was different for some reason.  Nothing
seemed to work to get him off her mind.  The blue swirls of the warp
core were the same shade as his eyes, his reflection seemed to look back
at her from each console.  The ship itself was telling her that this was
different.  He wasn't simply waiting for her like he had so many nights
during their nine years together, but he wasn't dead either.

Tom was in some strange temporal limbo, with her for the time
being, but unable to stay long.  A treasured guest she knew would have
to leave before the party was even underway.  Her husband, her lover,
the father of her child, and her best friend would have to leave her
again soon--this time surely forever--but right now he was waiting in
her quarters.  And she was down in engineering.

What the hell was she thinking?

    * *     *

He felt a little guilty for the way he had sent Harry away, but
under the circumstances, Tom hoped his friend could forgive him.

It had started out lightly enough, with Kim bringing out several
thick albums of holophotos collected over the past ten years.  They had
laughed over Neelix's endless string of bad parties, marveling at how
the little Talaxian's taste had stayed so consistently garish through
over a decade.  There were pictures of weddings, birthdays, and
anniversaries, and a few memorials.  Seven of Nine's transformation from
Borg drone to loving wife was there, all part of their long journey
home.  Exactly what you would expect in a photo album.

But then Tom had noticed a gap in the neatly catalogued dates on
the pictures.  A gap of several months, occurring about a year after he
and B'Elanna were married.  Curious, Tom had followed Harry over to the
shelf where the albums were kept, and had indeed spotted the missing
album, tucked into a far corner behind the one for 2477-2478.  Harry had
tried to shrug it off as nothing, but his very reluctance convinced Tom
that it was something he needed to see.

After much debate, he had gotten a look at it, and it had seemed
at first to be more of the same.  Pictures of the crew, and especially
the Paris' and Kim's.  Then he had seen what looked like just another
baby shower...except the guest of honor was B'Elanna.  Her belly was
swollen to such a degree that she must have been almost full-term, and
for a moment, he simply assumed that it must be Kathryn.  But the gifts
she was receiving weren't pink, they were blue.  And most came in sets
of two.

Gifts clearly intended for a little boy.  Or boys.

He had pressed Harry for answers, but received none, only the
vague comment that it was 'not his place' to tell Tom what had happened.
Finally, Paris had lost his temper, insisting that he either talk or
leave.  Harry had left.  And Tom still had no answers, only a single
photo album.

Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could follow the
growing swell of B'Elanna's pregnancy well into the sixth month. After
that, the photographer graciously began to exclude her expanding figure
from the pictures, focusing on her head and shoulders only, or using
strategically placed furniture.  Except for the baby shower, where the
entire focus was on the mother-to-be.  Oddly, there were no pictures of
the baby (or babies?).

Tom was puzzling over this when he heard the gentle hiss of the
doors, and turning, saw B'Elanna enter.  She clearly had come back to
see him, but he was too confused to feel in the mood for romance or
anything else.  He avoided meeting her eyes, stalling for time as he
tired to come up with a way to ask that was a bit more graceful than *by
the way, did we have any other kids I should know about?*

"B'Elanna.  I...I thought you were in engineering."

"The Captain let me off.  We agreed that you qualified as
extenuating circumstances."  She reached up, unpinning her hair and
shaking it loose to cascade down her back.  "Besides, I can't leave you
with the baby all day."

He shrugged awkwardly, "Oh, that's all right.  She's just slept
all day.  Hasn't even cried once."

The answer seemed to have an opposite effect from the reassurance
it had been intended as.  B'Elanna's eyes widened, and she hurried to
the bedroom to check on Kathryn.  He followed her into the bedroom,
where she already was holding the baby.  The mother's expression was
etched with concern, and Tom realized that something was very wrong.

Kathryn was lying like a rag doll in B'Elanna's arms, her dancing
blue eyes now dull, as if covered by a thin film of soap.  Her golden
complexion was pale, and Tom felt his heart quicken as his field medic's
training kicked in to recognize that this was a very sick little girl.
How could he have been so caught up in this new timeline as to ignore
his own daughter like that!?  He should have checked on her more
carefully, instead of taking her quiet slumber to mean automatic well-
being.

"B'Elanna, I'm sorry, I didn't...." He moved forward, lifting a
hand to feel the child's tiny, ridged forehead.  "Gods, she's burning
up!"

"It's all right, Tom.  It's probably some human childhood illness.
Like that spotty chicken thing."  Her voice was tight, she was clearly
trying to reassure herself more than him, and he could see the fear
shining hotly in her eyes.  "I'm sure the Doctor can handle it."
 
"Of course he can."

She started towards the doors, but nodded towards the living room.
"Get her blanket first, Tom.  The Captain made it for her, and she
doesn't like those sickbay sheets."

He did so without thinking, and by the time he saw that the photo
album was resting on the corner of the blanket, it was too late.  The
thick volume was pulled to the floor with a loud crash, and he heard
B'Elanna's voice as she came up behind him.  "Tom, are you all--" Her
voice faded to a choked cry.  The album had fallen open to the pictures
of the baby shower, and the memories of the festive event caused an
expression of unimaginable horror and pain to cross her lovely face.

She involuntarily clutched Kathryn closer, as if afraid someone
would come to snatch the infant away.  Her words were whispered, barely
audible, but they were as clear to Tom as if she had shouted them over
the ship's comm channel.

"My babies.  Oh, God...my little boys."

END OF PART TWO.

Remember, I've copyrighted all the rights and lefts to this story.
Archive it, print it, and pass it out all you want, but remember who it
belongs to. It's written to be enjoyed, not stolen.

MORE LEGAL JUNK: Viacom is God...yada, yada, yada.... (See top)

WHEN IS THE NEXT PART COMING OUT? When I have time. I do have a life, you know (actually, this is pretty much it, I'm a hopeless P/T addict!)