AUTHOR'S NOTE: Written for Sareki, for the inaugural exchange of the newly-formed "Deck Nine" comm, a haven for us Paris-Torres fans among the Voyager diehards. She had asked for "A story about B'Elanna and/or Tom interacting with either or both their families", and I immediately knew what this had to be.

The story arguably echoes the head canon from my very first-ever fanfic, "Choices," but you'll have to squint to make it actually fit.

Convergence

By

Alpha Flyer

"Hello?"

For a second, she thinks Tom must have come back from his interview with the Daystrom Institute - but that can't be. Keen as the Institute was to learn about the trans warp drive, he won't be coming out of the holodeck for hours.

Besides … the timbre in the voice is a little bit off. Darker.

"You must be B'Elanna."

Definitely not Tom, although with a very similar cadence. A stranger? On Voyager?

B'Elanna understands perfectly well that she will eventually have to get used to the idea of new people being onboard her ship, but the idea of having it happen this soon is a bit disconcerting.

She grabs the hypo spanner and crawls out from under the console, trying to ignore the pain and slight wooziness produced by the motion. Who knew childbirth was so damned incapacitating? (And weren't her Klingon genes supposed to protect her from that?)

"Sorry," she says, not trying very hard to keep the irritation out of her voice. "And you are…?"

The words have barely left her lips when she realizes the answer.

She's never met the man face-to-face, but she's seen his image, of course: replays from that first interaction via the Pathfinder project, and the trial for the Doctor's independence. The occasional snippet of a recording sent to Tom via the monthly mail transmission, glimpsed over his shoulder before he'd had the chance to turn it off.

But it's his eyes that give him away if the voice had not, so very blue and still bright, despite the inevitable dimming that comes with age and responsibility.

"Never mind," she says, automatically wiping her hands off on her uniform. Welcome aboard, Admiral Paris."

"The Captain told me I'd find you here," he replies, in a sort of non sequitur. After a moment of waiting for a reaction she's not sure she can give, he continues. "She said if the baby was asleep, this is where you'd be. So I came here first, to check."

B'Elanna does a quick calculation.

They've been at McKinley for three days now; quarantine was lifted an hour ago. The ship-wide announcement by the Doctor had been followed by the Captain's, tempering expectations about what kind of incoming visitors could be expected.

Starfleet Brass first, Janeway had said. Family later. Well, she hadn't called them 'Brass', obviously.

"Better the Brass than the cops, huh?" one of the former Maquis - Dalby? - had quipped in response. A handful of people had laughed, but it wasn't really all that funny. No one knows what Starfleet intends to do with all those outstanding warrants, and the fact that family aren't permitted yet suggests the answer wont be forthcoming for a while. The crew would have to carry out their reunions via view screens for a while longer.

But all that said, neither she nor Tom had considered the implications of what could happen when Starfleet brass and family were basically the same thing …

Now, assuming the Admiral had beamed over from McKinley almost immediately after quarantine was lifted, he must have seen Janeway first, to do what Brass does on occasions like this. She was his protégé, Tom had said, so they'd probably done a bit more than shake hands, maybe sat down to enjoy a bit of small talk, without the usual delay in subspace transmissions. That would have taken, say, half an hour.

And that means …

"You haven't tried to see Tom yet, have you? The Captain knows where he is, too."

It's a question of fact, not a challenge, but Paris winces nonetheless. That's a no, then.

"I … wasn't sure whether that would be appropriate," he says; surely that sounds as lame to him as it does to her. "Seeing my son before anyone else gets to see their families might be seen as an abuse of position."

"I'm your daughter-in-law," she points out. "That counts as family, no? Although in my case it's not quite the same thing, optically speaking."

For a moment he is silent, and she wonders if her response was what Tom would call 'hostile'. But if it was, well, he's the one who came to the bowels of the ship before seeing his long-lost son - for whose return he'd practically moved heaven and Earth, and in the middle of a war, too.

"An excellent point," he finally says, his hands raised a little in near-surrender. "You got me."

They look at each other in silence for a moment, then; the Admiral in that grey uniform that B'Elanna will never get used to seeing, and her in antiquated engineer's gold. The father who didn't run to see his son, the first chance offered to him, and the mother who ran off to tinker with her engines the moment her child dozed off.

"How's the baby?" he asks.

B'Elanna catches herself glancing over at the silent warp core, before remembering to look at the wristband with Miral's vital signs.

"Still asleep," she says, aware that she sounds a little defensive herself. "That's why I came here for a bit."

The Admiral nods; her answer must have sounded reasonable enough.

He steps deeper into the engine room, looking around with undisguised curiosity at the bypass she'd put in when they had experimented with the slipstream drive, and touching one of the Borg tech patches in the plasma vent.

"I almost expected chewing gum and a piece of string," he says, turning back to her. There's a touch of genuine awe in his voice. "You have done remarkable things here … Lieutenant."

For a moment, B'Elanna is taken aback by his sudden use of her title, but then she hears Harry's voice in her head: It's a compliment, Maquis. Dock the paranoia and just say thanks.

"Thanks," she replies, her lips curling into a smile she is pretty sure doesn't reach her eyes. "We did the best we could with what we had, Admiral."

Paris purses his lips and nods, his eyes sliding from her to the hyper spanner she'd left on the console, and back.

"It's the silence, isn't it?" he asks, his tone different.

B'Elanna opens her mouth to ask what he means by that, but actually …

Yes.

For seven years, her life had pulsed to the rhythm of the warp core. Its hum was in the air, the walls, under her feet, in her pillow at night … She looks at the dark, lifeless column behind her.

The silence is deafening. It's why she's here, and not in her quarters, watching Miral.

"Do you ever get used to it?"

Admiral Paris looks down at his left hand, lets it hover over the console for a moment before settling it on the surface.

"Eventually."

He takes a long breath.

"At first, it's like you can't breathe. You think there's something wrong, and you don't know what. But there isn't, and that takes a while to accept. And you have to avoid blaming others for what it is you're missing. I learned that far too late."

B'Elanna looks back at the hyper spanner on the console.

"I guess I should stop trying to fix things that aren't broken."

Paris smiles wistfully.

"And I should try to fix things that are. Guess we're both hiding down here."

The sensor on B'Elanna's wrist starts to buzz before she can formulate a response, and her attention is instantly diverted. (Maybe she does have maternal instincts after all?)

"Miral is waking up. I have to go."

She starts to head towards the door, but stops herself as she walks past him. Standing beside her, the Admiral is surprisingly short in stature, nothing like Ton's height. Somehow, she had always imagined him to be the size of a Hirogen hunter. Maybe age has compressed his vertebrae?

Something occurs to her.

"Would you like to see her? Since you're already here?"

The expression on the Admiral's face runs the gamut from delighted surprise to mild panic, but eventually he nods. She doesn't bother to wait for him, trusting he will know to follow.

Just as she'd suspected, Tom isn't back from his re-enactment of the Warp 10 flight for the Daystrom institute. (Knowing him, he's probably making them watch that program about those lizards Harry had made for him for Father's Day the next year, before giving them any of the technical specs they mostly want to hear about.)

Miral is still mostly asleep, but is beginning to surface. Her eyes are closed, but her little arms and legs have begun moving under the blanket. (What do babies dream of?) She makes tiny smacking sounds, and finally opens her mouth in a hearty yawn that causes the space ships mobile above her bed to start a slow dance.

It still amazes B'Elanna how this little person could even exist: Living evidence of something she'd never thought she could have, and deserved even less - but more importantly, a perfect little being all of her own.

"She's beautiful."

Belatedly, B'Elanna remembers that she hadn't come alone, that Owen Paris is standing beside her. She reaches into the crib and lifts the baby out, carefully cradling her head as she does, and turns to face him.

"Miral, meet your grandfather."

Miral yawns again, and makes a burbling sound.

"May I touch her?"

For a brief moment, B'Elanna feels a whole host of ancient instincts roaring to life, but Owen's voice is a little choked and his eyes are glistening, and so she bites them down and nods. His fingers caress first Miral's cheeks, then the ridges on her forehead (softer than B'Elanna's own). The joy on his face is genuine.

"She's perfect," he says. "I have three grandsons already, but I really wanted a little girl."

There's a noise behind them as the door opens and Tom steps through. He must have terminated his session with the Daystrom people when his own sensor had buzzed. Just why that should come as a surprise, B'Elanna isn't sure.

She watches over the Admiral's shoulders as Tom freezes in mid-stride, his mouth opening as he catches his breath at the sight of his father.

The Admiral himself is completely absorbed in Miral, who is currently clutching one of his fingers with that universal baby reflex; he is utterly oblivious to his surroundings.

"Look, she's opening her eyes," he says. And then, in amazement, "They're so blue."

There are tears running down his cheeks now.

"They're just like Tom's."

B'Elanna looks straight at her husband, and from him back to Owen, waiting.

Finally, Tom breaks the silence.

"And yours, Dad."