Synopsis: Set during various periods of time post-"Endgame."

Miral Paris, the daughter of B'Elanna Torres and Tom Paris, and her friend Andrew Kim, the son of Harry Kim, are preparing to enter Starfleet Academy. But after eighteen years of friendship, things between them are starting to change – and their parents struggle to deal with what that means for the future.

Chapter 13: Paris, Place de la Concorde, Klingon Embassy, Grand Hall

Part of her new, mature approach to life was that Miral begrudgingly agreed to allow a small reception to be held at the Klingon embassy in honor of her engagement to Andrew. It didn't really make any sense; she was only a quarter Klingon, and Andrew was fully human. But the "old windbags," as she called them, liked her mother, and weddings were occasions for pomp and circumstance among diplomats. One thing she had insisted upon, though, was that the catering had to include some human food and drink.

Tom was having the time of his life. He was standing in a corner with a group of Klingons in full warrior attire, and from their hand gestures it was obvious they were discussing the art of the bat'leth. Harry was standing slightly out the circle, listening, appreciating the fact that, unlike the last time he'd had a run-in with so many Klingons in one room, no one had yet tried to claim him as a mate.

Hmm, I wonder if I can get Libby to do that later.

B'Elanna had made the rounds with Worf and had regrouped to where the bride and groom-to-be were seated. It wasn't difficult to find them; the only pack of humans in a hall full of Klingons stood out easily. They were seated on several small couches by the large windows, and it looked as though they were trying to keep their distance from their Klingon hosts. Miral and L'Naan, B'Elanna knew, were fine in the rambunctious Klingon atmosphere, but Andrew and Libby looked sorely out of place and more than a little shell-shocked.

"Mom, tell us about your wedding," Miral prompted. She took a sip of champagne to cover the grin she felt spontaneously erupting at saying the last word.

B'Elanna noticed that her daughter had a tendency to burst into smiles, and it made her smile as well. "There's not much to tell," she replied.

"You've always said that you and Dad were married on Voyager by Captain Janeway after you were in a race."

"That's true."

"But you never describe the ceremony."

"Was my father there?" Andrew asked.

"Yes," B'Elanna answered. "I think he would have felt left out otherwise."

"What about Chakotay?" L'Naan asked, taking another sip of champagne.

"Careful," her mother warned. "That's the real stuff. Drink slowly. Chakotay would have felt left out, too, so he was there."

"What about your other Voyager friends?"

"Tuvok had the bridge, and a patient had come into sickbay after us – Nozawa, if I remember correctly, had gotten a plasma shock – and Seven – Annika – was still in the astrometrics lab, but Neelix was there."

"The cook?" Andrew asked with a frown. "The one you've all started talking to again?"

"He was more than just the cook," B'Elanna said. "He and Tom were pretty close. And he always gave me the sweetest advice." She decided to edit out the part where Neelix helped her realize she should call it quits with Tom. Fortunately, she hadn't, and she'd ended up married two days later.

"Well, did anyone do anything? Read poetry or something?" Miral asked dubiously. Clearly the story was not unfolding as she had expected.

"No, Miral, there's really nothing to tell," B'Elanna reiterated. "It was very impromptu after your father proposed during a core breach. We didn't want to make a big deal out of it. It was just the five of us in the captain's ready room. It took all of five minutes."

"That's not very romantic, Mom," L'Naan informed her.

B'Elanna shrugged. "It was us."

USS Voyager, Delta Quadrant, 2377

"Tom, why are you looking at me like that?" B'Elanna demanded.

"Because I figure it's going to take us about two minutes to make it to the bridge, and I don't want you to change your mind between here and there."

B'Elanna smiled and took his hand in hers. "I'm not going to change my mind. Are you?"

He shook his head with a smile. "No way."

When the turbolift doors opened, they stepped out onto the bridge, still holding hands. Tuvok saw them first and raised an eyebrow, taking in this breach of protocol that, he rightly assumed, the captain would let slide.

Tom spoke before anyone asked for a report on the antimatter explosion. "Captain, can we see you in your ready room? Please?"

Captain Janeway looked at him and her chief engineer, and glanced down at their hands. "All right." She rose from the command seat and started for the door to her ready room.

"Harry?" B'Elanna's voice called softly behind her. "Can you come with us? And Chakotay?"

Chakotay looked toward Janeway with a question written across his face, but Tuvok, ever prescient, told them, "I will take the bridge in your absence."

The five senior officers went into the captain's ready room. Before the captain or Chakotay could ask them what was going on, Tom spoke up. "Captain, we have a request to make of you."

The door to the ready room chimed, and Neelix entered, looking puzzled. "Tom told me to meet him here, Captain."

Suddenly Harry saw that Tom and B'Elanna were holding hands and realized that he, Chakotay, and Neelix had been deliberately summoned. Suddenly he knew what their request of the captain was going to be. He knew – he just couldn't believe it.

"Captain, will you marry us?"

It could have been a temporal distortion rippling through the ready room. Janeway and Chakotay turned to look at each other in slow-motion, their faces a mixture of disbelief, surprise, happiness, and slight terror. Harry's smile erupted slowly across his face as he reached up to clap Tom on the shoulder and give B'Elanna a hug.

The captain tried for a minute to encourage them to have a formal dress ceremony in the mess hall, at which Neelix could organize the throwing of rice and replicate a cake, and perhaps the doctor could take holoimages that they would no doubt want to keep as memories. But a minute was all they would grant her, before they patiently but insistently told her this was all they needed.

"Tuvok and the Doctor and Seven are going to be disappointed they didn't get to be here," she said, acquiescing. She took a deep breath and said a few ceremonial phrases.

Chakotay slipped over the replicator quietly and murmured something to it.

It was Tom's turn to speak. He took B'Elanna's hands in his own and looked down at her. He couldn't believe she'd been contemplating ending their relationship mere hours ago, and now she was ready and willing to marry him. He wasn't sure what the right thing to say in such a situation was, so he simply said what he was feeling. "I don't know what I did to deserve you, but I promise I'm going to try to keep doing it. I meant it when I said my life on Voyager is so much better than anything I ever had in the Alpha Quadrant. That's because of Harry and the captain and my friends –" he looked over his shoulder to acknowledge them briefly – "but most of all because of you. I love you." He turned as he felt a tap on his shoulder, and he looked down to see a small gold band in Chakotay's upturned palm. He grinned in thanks at the first officer, and then slid the ring onto B'Elanna's finger.

B'Elanna stared down at her hand, processing what this new piece of jewelry meant. She barely heard the captain prompt her to speak. "Uh, right." She looked up at Tom, at the face she loved. She realized her voice was unsteady, but she didn't care. Not this time. "You stood by me when most people would have run for the nearest airlock." Tom gave a sweet chuckle but squeezed her hands supportively. "Thank you for accepting who I am, the good and the bad, and for making me a better person. I love you." She looked expectantly at Chakotay, who was smiling at her. He gave her another ring, and she slid it with a little force onto Tom's finger. Then they looked at the captain with great anticipation.

"Well, go ahead," she said with an impish smile. She gave the official "by the power of the United Federation of Planets" declaration as her two officers kissed each other, totally unaware. Then she, Chakotay, and Harry clapped for them. She tapped her com badge. "Attention all hands. It is my privilege to announce the marriage of Lieutenants B'Elanna Torres and Tom Paris. I'm sure you will all join me in celebrating their new life together."

"That sounds sweet," Libby told B'Elanna. "Much more romantic than you made it seem."

"I thought you always said on Voyager everyone celebrated everyone else's everything," L'Naan cut in. "Weren't people upset that you didn't have a shipwide wedding?"

"Well, the engineering crew organized a small party, and Neelix threw a shipwide reception in the mess hall a few days later, when we got back from the Delta Flyer, and Naomi made us a card."

"Got back? Where did you go?" Andrew asked with curiosity.

B'Elanna smiled, and her eyes looked from one of them to the next. "Nowhere," she said with a suggestive raise of the eyebrows.

Miral shook her head and put her champagne down on the table. "I'm not spending my honeymoon cooped up on a shuttle."

"All right," L'Naan asked her sister with eagerness, "what do you want your ceremony to be like?"

San Francisco, Torres-Paris Family Residence

"Come in," Tom said warmly. "Everyone's here." He took his father's jacket and put it in the closet. Then he took the old man's elbow and led him slowly into the crowded living room. He helped him settle into a chair. "Dad, you know Harry and Libby and Admiral Janeway." He gestured to the tall tattooed man near Admiral Janeway. "Do you remember Chakotay?"

Chakotay shook Admiral Owen Paris's hand politely. "It's nice to see you again."

"Hi, Grandpa," L'Naan said with her usual effervescence. She gently laid a kiss on his cheek, and he smiled at her.

"And, Dad, you remember the Doctor?" Tom said, extending a hand toward him. "He delivered Miral."

"I'm old, son, but I'm not stupid," Admiral Paris chided. "When's that twenty-fifth anniversary holodeck program going to be ready, Doctor?"

Tom looked at the Doctor with surprise as the latter said, "Very soon, Admiral, with my co-authors' help."

"He's the one who gave you permission to publicize our lives?" Tom muttered. The Doctor nodded as he bit his lip slightly. "Don't tell B'Elanna, Doc, whatever you do."

Miral crossed the room to her grandfather. "Hiya," she said, kissing his cheek. "Remember Andrew?" She loving touched the shoulder of the man standing behind her.

"Of course. You look quite handsome in that new uniform, Ensign."

"Thank you, sir," Andrew said with surprise. He gestured across the room. "Those are my grandparents. I'll introduce you when – if my Grandma Lucille ever stops talking."

Chakotay put an arm around Miral's shoulders. "That uniform is really becoming, you know. How does it feel to have graduated?"

Miral shook her head slightly. "Honestly?" she said, dropping her voice so no one else could hear them. "The last two weeks have been a whirlwind. Getting my assignment, getting engaged, graduating. I'm looking forward to some quiet time."

The get-together at the Torres-Paris home was interrupted just then by a flash of light, then a young male voice crying, "Aunt Kathy! I can't wait to attend my first wedding!"

The chattering stopped as a young man materialized in the middle of the room. He looked about Miral and Andrew's age, with brown hair and pale complexion, but he was wearing a uniform with the rank of captain.

It took Kathryn Janeway all of two seconds to figure out who he was, and her hands flew immediately to her hips. "Q Junior!" she called. "What are you doing here?"

"Is that any way to greet me after all these years? I'm your godson!" he pouted.

"Junior," she said in a gravelly voice, "if you want to attend the wedding, ask the bride and groom politely for an invitation."

Q Junior flashed himself across the room and into Andrew's lap. He batted his eyelashes. "Pretty please?"

"For the love of god," Harry said through gritted teeth.

"Who are you?" Andrew asked, looking around the room for answers.

"Andrew, we've met before," Junior said, as Andrew shoved him off his lap. "In fact, I met you before you were born."

Andrew looked at Harry in sudden surprise. "Dad?"

"I don't know what he's talking about, son," Harry said honestly. "We met him in the Delta Quadrant." He looked at Q. "But you were a teenager the last time we saw you. Shouldn't you be older?"

"You humans!" Junior threw his head back on the couch. "You have no understanding of how our immortal lives work." He looked to Janeway for support. "In your form it's more fun to be young. I'm twenty-two."

"Happy belated birthday," she said flatly, crossing the room to him. She sat down next to him to try to explain. "You can't interrupt our lives for your own pleasure, Junior. This is an important day for Miral and Andrew."

"But, Aunt Kathy," he began, stopping suddenly. He looked at Chakotay, who had moved to Kathryn's side and was standing over her protectively. "Did you two finally get together?"

"Junior, you were saying?" Janeway prompted with some annoyance.

"Oh, yeah, Andrew," he said, turning to the graduate, "I'm the reason you exist."

End of Part One