A/n: Long time no see! Hope you all enjoy this story's return!

Neither I nor my co-author TheLadyMage own Star Trek: Voyager unfortunately. Or else these holodeck antics might just have been filmed...

B'Elanna's shocked shriek became a frustrated yell. "We didn't make it! They…They threw us in…" She trailed off, her hands breaking above the sea of rainbow plastic in which she was half submerged to check her body. Her shoulders, her long arms, the swell of her breasts… "I'm not a baby anymore!"

Seven promptly burst her bubble of awestruck relief. "No, B'Elanna, you are not. You appear to be your actual age."

B'Elanna's gaze narrowed, "Uh, thanks." As she spotted the blonde, just out of retaliatory reach, she smirked wickedly, "Shame about you losing the Shirley Temple curls, they really did something for…Hey!" She rubbed the sore spot on her head where Seven's well aimed missile bounced off. The static electricity in her hair was practically audible… "You could've knocked me out with that!" she hissed.

"Indeed, I could've." Seven retorted stiffly, gaze narrowed.

B'Elanna threw her arms in the air. "And how would me being unconscious help us get out of here, huh?" She looked around, "Just where are we anyway?"

"We are in a large netted enclosure surrounded by several thousand soft plastic spheres."

"Yeah, Seven, I know we're in a ball pit! I mean, where are we?!"

"Hopefully that will become clear." The ex-drone muttered, narrowed eyes now anxious. "Where is the Captain?"

B'Elanna's eyes widened as they scanned the pit. No Kathryn. "Don't tell me the holodeck has split us up now…"

Her answer was an impassioned slew of curses. Muffled, but certainly enough to raise a few pompous and embarrassed eyebrows at Starfleet HQ. The ocean of balls before them rippled, then began to move like a breaking wave. Captain Kathryn Janeway popped up like buoy, still cursing like the sailors of old, and spraying balls everywhere in all directions. "Where…" She huffed, "…are…" She batted the balls away viciously as they tried to roll in on her, "…we now?"

B'Elanna and Seven exchanged a smirking glance. "In a ball pit." They said together.

Kathryn glowered at them, red faced, before she got a grip on herself, and some stability in the pit, and rolled her eyes. "And have Chakotay, Tom or anyone else projected themselves from on high with a plan?" She asked tartly, pressing her lips together. "Or at they too busy laughing about our break-out from daycare?"

"Let's put an embargo on speaking of that, right now." B'Elanna muttered darkly, "And if you're hearing this Tom, you'd better believe that includes you too!" That yelled declaration earned her strange glances from the kids in the pit. One little boy with gel-spiked hair even backed away from her. Maybe his name was Tom. Or he thought she was about to attack her imaginary friend.

"A floorplan of this programme, at least, would be useful." Seven remarked. "So that we can find an escape route."

B'Elanna's answer was a wry chuckle. "I think the exit route is right above your head."

Following the Engineer's glance, Seven blanched. A ladder, which seemed to prioritise colour over strength, hung above them, just kissing the highest mound of spheres and attaching at the top to a port in the wall, a Jeffries tube like exit to a destination unknown. Currently, a lithe red-headed child, her long braid swinging almost as much as the ladder to which she clung, was making a break for it- with admirable swiftness and a suspicious lack of vertigo. Each rung initially buckled under her weight, but by then she'd be on the next… "Unfeasible." Seven finally declared with a gulp. "Perhaps if we were still child-sized, it could support our weight, but…"

"With those diapers, we wouldn't have been able to climb up on the first rung!" B'Elanna cut in, breaking her own embargo. "The only other route I see out is to scramble up those slides, wanna try?" Thrusting her shoulder above the balls, she pointed out the full wall of slides on the other side of the pit. They may as well have been a continent away. Children also flew down at full speed, legs extended ready to kick anyone unwise enough to linger at the bottom.

Kathryn turned away with a shudder as one plump child plunged head first off of the slide and into the ball pit, creating a ripple she could feel even at this distance. "No. We go for the ladder. The programme should adjust for our weight, and we survived falling in here first. I'd rather fall from that ladder than lose my front teeth."

"Or we could just wait it out here…" B'Elanna began before snorting on a laugh, "…like Seven is demonstrating." The ex-drone had leaned too far back, apparently trying to see where the exit led, and was now half floating on the balls, limbs fully splayed.

Seven giggled, though her own eyes widened the most at that reaction and she quickly tried to preserve what was left of her dignity with a serious tone. "I can…see the appeal. We could wait here in relative safety until the holodeck shifts."

"Who knows how long that will take?" Kathryn ground out, "No, we're going to do something for ourselves. The plan to complete the programmes, we need to stick with it." With her intent thus stated, she set a determined eye on the ladder, and dived forward. At first, she flailed, kicking balls back into the faces of her hesitant officers, but eventually the skills learned as captain of the Academy's swim team came to the forefront of her mind and with a combination of spluttering breaststroke and scrambling front crawl, made definite progress.

B'Elanna deflated, sinking lower into the quicksand of plastic as she sighed. "Decision made then."

"Apparently." Seven agreed wryly as the Captain finally seized the ladder with a triumphant whoop. It swayed and jerked in her grip however, meaning that her victory was laced with frustration and edged with fear. If Seven wasn't mistaken, her mentor's face, though still determined, had turned a little green. "Perhaps we should race to assist her?" she suggested with a smirk.

B'Elanna laughed loudly, trying to elbow her playfully but only succeeding in pushing a ripple of balls Seven's way. "I knew you'd catch on eventually!" She started to dive forward, as Kathryn had done, but thought better of it, staying upright. Though trying to walk through the pit was exhausting, since the pit immediately tried to suck her down every time she moved, at least it meant steady, if slow progress. The 'race' may as well have been in slow motion. But the win was still sweet. Both of them had kept an even pace, pausing to help the other if they tripped or sank, but at the last second, B'Elanna just had to make the leap. Her hands found the ladder even as plastic balls tried to fill her mouth in revenge. "Ha!" she cried gleefully, barely spitting on the taste of plastic, "I win Sev-"

"B'Elanna!" Kathryn yelped angrily as she was thrown from the ladder. Despite its wayward nature, it had been a lifeline as she got her breath back, and her Engineer's exuberance had just sent her flying back into the hated sea of balls.

"Does that count as a foul?" Seven asked dryly as she grabbed onto the ladder with one hand and reached out to Kathryn with the other. Unfortunately, the Captain took this helping hand too far by using Seven as a buoyancy aid, crawling bodily over her until she was up the ladder.

B'Elanna cackled at the ludicrous sight. "You wish! I won fair and square!"

Seven didn't care about her erstwhile opponent as she rubbed her aching head. "That was uncalled for, Captain." She groused.

Kathryn had the grace to look guilty as she glanced back at her, but soon had her eyes focused firmly on the prize. "Just hold this as steady as you can, we're almost there." It didn't feel like almost as she stared up the ladder and edged her way up in increments. "Hey! I said steady!" Oh God, it was a mistake to look down halfway up…

"Sorry!" B'Elanna called back, "These kids…" Kathryn heard an irritated grunt, and the ladder shivered again. "…are jostling us."

"I suggest you hurry Captain!" Seven added. "B'Elanna, there is no need to respond to their antics. Not only are they children, they're holograms…"

A ball bouncing off her clenched butt made Kathryn's feet rock on the rung. Out of the corner of one eye, she saw a ball arc through the air. Undoubtedly B'Elanna's response to her being used as target practice… "I…I don't think I can keep going!"

"You passed zero-G training!" B'Elanna shouted back, "You can do this! Is Voyager's Captain going to be defeated by heights?!"

The challenge hung in the air. It worked. She moved. First her arms, then one foot and the other. "No, no I am not." She ground out, inaudible to all by her own ears.

As Kathryn finally, torturously, dragged herself onto the platform above them, the ladder defeated, B'Elanna's bravado kicked in as she climbed on. Then went no further. "Proceed B'Elanna. I still have a firm grip on the ladder." Seven advised.

"You'd better have!" B'Elanna hissed, "And don't rush me!"

Seven regarded her quizzically, "You also passed zero-G training, didn't you?"

"No, I got kicked out of the Academy before that and was glad of it."

"You will also be glad when you are out of this pit…" Seven glanced over her shoulder at the small group of children eyeing their predicament with gleeful glints in their eyes and hands ready to volley balls at the back of her head. "…as will I. So, let's get this over with."

"Oh, I'm all for that." Re-motivated, she powered up three full rungs and couldn't resist grinning triumphantly down at Seven. She didn't even feel sick looking down- take that Kathryn. "Oh, obviously I would've aced zero-G-"

"Perhaps we will find ourselves in the assessment programme next and we will see."

B'Elanna grimaced, "Way to be a killjoy, Seven."

"Will you just keep moving?" Seven shot back, unrepentant as she struggled to stay upright and hold the ladder steady. Surely, in a children's area, her feet should be able to find the floor? A laugh rang out behind her like a warning, but she didn't duck fast enough and the missile hit her square in the back of the head- again. And B'Elanna was still hanging there, while she was under attack! Decisively, her grip moved from steadying the ladder to climbing herself.

"Hey!" B'Elanna protested as the ladder swayed under their weight. "What happened to keeping it still?"

"I was sick of staring at your ass. Move!"

Seven's drill-sergeant tone that had always riled her was not a surprise, that wording was. She could only baulk down at her. "Seven, I can't believe you just said tha-"

"Use your disbelief to fuel movement!"

Meanwhile, the kids were staring up at them agog. "She just said A-S-S…" One muttered warily.

His companion rolled his eyes. "No shit, Kyle." This wittiest of comebacks earned him competing choruses of gasps and riotous laughing.

Seven glared down at them in warning as B'Elanna thankfully pushed her disbelief aside and resumed climbing. "If any of you shake this ladder, I will put worse words to good use and tell your parents."

B'Elanna watched the kids' eyes widen, then narrow resentfully. Kyle, wanting to make up for being the butt of the butt joke apparently, launched himself towards the ladder and gripped the ladder menacingly. "You provoked them Seven! I swear to Kahless, if they start shaking this ladder, you can just stare at my ass. I won't be going anywhere."

"If you don't move, I'm going to shake this ladder and it will be everyone for themselves!"

"You wouldn't-"

"I have enhanced grip capabilities."

"Both of you shut up and climb, damn it!" Kathryn shouted down from within the tube the ladder led to. Just seeing her up there, all snug and secure, was the push B'Elanna needed and she began to climb, with Seven immediately on her tail. Kathryn took some pleasure in dragging each of them up into the tube roughly by the scruff of the neck. They may not look like toddlers, but they were still acting like it!

As she finally got her breath back, B'Elanna scowled in the dim depths of the tube before glancing questioningly at Kathryn. "Any idea where this leads?"

"No, I was a little preoccupied with you two to investigate properly."

"Great." B'Elanna groused, "As if I don't spend enough time on my knees…"

"It's hardly my favourite position either, but we'll make the best of-" Seven's snort of laughter made Kathryn stop in her tracks to shoot her protégé a scandalised look.

B'Elanna threw up her hands defensively as she laughed, though the movement brought her head dangerously close to the roof of the tube. "I don't want to know about all the positions Seven and Chakotay have-"

"B'Elanna!" Kathryn hissed.

Seven however was laughing hard, there wasn't even a hint of a blush in her features. "That would be a long list."

"Seven, shhhh…." Kathryn pleaded, causing B'Elanna to cackle, which of course only egged her partner in crime on.

"It was you who made the innuendo Captain, I was merely-"

"IT WAS NOT MEANT AS AN INNUENDO!"

"That's neither here nor there. My point is, one was made and I was just-"

"Seven! Just stop, okay? Please, hush."

"What's the matter, Kathryn?" B'Elanna asked oh-so-innocently, earning herself a glare, but she only exchanged a smirk with Seven. "You do know that she's not actually Shirley Temple, right?"

"Of course I do, I just-" She decided to cut her losses as she felt her flush deepen even further. "You know what, I think I prefer you two fighting like cats and dogs to ganging up on me…"

"You hear that, Seven?" B'Elanna cocked her head at the blonde. "She just gave us carte blanche."

"Indeed." Seven agreed with a little grin, but her face fell almost immediately as her gaze dropped back towards the ballpit- and the kids scrambling up the ladder after them. "We're being ambushed."

B'Elanna shoved past her to look out. "Damn. What do we do?"

Seven considered for a moment. "B'Elanna, you know we've had our differences in the past…and in these holo-programmes…"

B'Elanna's head whipped around distractedly. "Wait, what are you-?" Her eyes widened in horrified realisation just before Seven's hard shove made contact and she was sent in a comical arc through the air back into the ball pit. Her startled shriek echoed off the walls.

Seven gave B'Elanna a wave as the other woman resurfaced, spluttering. "Sorry!" She called down as the kids that had been gathering around the ladder scattered in fright. "But it worked!"

"Seven!" Kathryn yelped, almost falling out of the tunnel as she leaned over to see where her Chief Engineer had ended up. "You could've hurt-" She was suddenly struck by a wave of déjà vu and turned to glare at Seven, "What is this, tit-for-tat?!"

"…Yes."

Kathryn's mouth dropped open as her temper rose. "What, so if B'Elanna shoved you off a holographic bridge, you'd then shove her off a holographic skyscraper would you?!" She gave a growl of frustration at the stubborn set of Seven's jaw and then sighed. "B'Elanna, are you okay?"

"Fine, no thanks to Blondie up there! You can tell her that she just started a battle she can never hope to win!"

"You started it, Torres!"

"I should've ended it! Then you'd be dead and stuck looking like a knock-off Shirley Temple!"

Kathryn scrambled away down the surprisingly short tunnel as B'Elanna scaled the ladder in record time to meet Seven. There was no way she was getting caught in a shoving match hanging over a goddamned children's play pit! She scowled as her escape route led to, of all things, a rope bridge- with obnoxiously rainbow coloured plastic slats and a net below that dipped into a parabola. Yes, that was sure to save her from breaking her neck! She turned resentfully back to her charges. "Okay then, I'll just leave you here while I get out of here alone, shall I?"

Both girls twisted round to give her twin looks of affront. "No!"

"The Captain is practically Montana James on that bridge!" Harry commented with a soft laugh, "Look at her go!"

Tom shot him a pained look. "I think you mean Indiana Jones, Harry." He did chuckle when he looked at Kathryn, knees bent, feet shuffling, hands gripping the rope for dear life. "But yeah, a dead-ringer. Only thing she's missing is the hat."

"And the whip." Icheb added sagely, earning a proud grin from Tom.

"At least he didn't confuse Indiana and Kentucky." Chakotay remarked, "The Captain wouldn't have liked the comparison then." He nervously watched B'Elanna and Seven follow Kathryn over the Bridge, but other than an incident at the start where Bee nudged Seven against the ropes- hopefully playfully- and Kathryn barked at them to 'Stop it or she really was leaving both of them behind!' they'd focused on griping about the breeze that made the bridge reliably sway from side to side even when they stayed perfectly still. His gaze widened as Kathryn finally reached the platform at the end of the bridge. "Is that a fireman's pole?!"

Icheb blinked, "There's a programme replicating a fire station?"

"Maybe a fireman's calendar shoot, but no station as far as I know…" Tom answered with another chuckle.

Now it was Harry's turn to give Tom a disappointed look. "Really, Tom? You don't recognise the iconic entrance to 'The Pilot's Bunker'? I know it's been meshed somehow with that soft play programme here, but…"

Chakotay drew a blank as Tom's face suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree. "Do I want to know what the hell 'The Pilot's Bunker' is?"

"It's my number two holodeck creation." Tom replied seriously. "Better than Sandrine's, better than Fair Haven-"

Icheb coughed. "That would not be difficult."

Tom chose to ignore him, since he did have a point there…given certain events. "Captain Proton gets all the attention from the public, but it's really the Bunker which is my piéce de résistance, my labour of love…"

"That I've never heard of until now."

Tom gave Chakotay a withering look. "I'm sorry if I underestimated your capacity for fun, Commander."

"Hey, I'm plenty fun-!"

Tom snorted with laughter. "Yeah, Seven made that plenty clear with her list!"

Chakotay couldn't stop himself from preening a little. "Evidence to my point. I'm fun."

Icheb was grimacing, his teenage mortification present under a veneer of Borg stoicism. "The Bunker is an arcade. A less…intimate kind of fun."

Harry smirked to himself, "I don't know, Tal and I got pretty close during our dance mat battle…"

Tom raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really?"

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but what was playing out on the screen distracted him. "They're at it again!" Seven had started to lower herself onto the fireman's pole- Kathryn having made it safely to the bottom- and B'Elanna couldn't resist the push. Seven jolted downwards with a gasp, but the loop of her legs held fast and she safely slid the rest of the way down.

"BaQa!" B'Elanna cursed, "You would know how to ride a pole!"

Seven gave the pole a pat as her feet gently found the floor and looked up with a wicked grin on her face to reply, but Kathryn pre-empted her. "If you two don't stop, I'll put both of you over my knees!"

B'Elanna and Seven shared a look. "Promises, promises, Kathryn!" B'Elanna replied gaily in a sing-song voice as she slid elegantly to the floor.

Icheb backed away towards the door. "I'm…leaving. I can work elsewhere. Goodbye!"

This time it was Tom, Chakotay and Harry who all shared a long look. Finally, Chakotay shrugged. "Well, Bee isn't wrong." Their cackling laughter echoed through Icheb's traumatised mind as he bolted from Astrometrics.

A/n: Please review. :)