The Tears Trilogy Tears of Joy
By Misti (aka Lark, aka A'Lehsen)Summary: This takes place right after "Tears of Pain". B'Elanna gets some shocking news (this one's easy to guess, huh?). Also, her emotional reactions to Tom's death, and how they effect the way she treats some crewmembers. This story is very emotional. Please don't be offended by the way the characters are portrayed. Keep in mind that you are looking through the eyes (sort of) of a grief-stricken woman. And, okay, yeah, this has some angst over the way Janeway's been acting this last season.
Disclaimer: The characters are Paramount's. I don't pretend to own them (but, boy, wouldn't I love to!). I do own this story, though. Please respect that fact.
Rated: PG
Note: This story begins about an hour after "Tears of Pain". The first
part is the Doc's POV. The rest is B'Elanna's POV.***************************************************
The Doctor had been programmed to accept the loss of crewmembers. Still, he had not been prepared for the news. Yes, Tom's death had always been a possiblity. He often went on dangerous away missions. Now that it had happened...he just could not fathom it.
These last years, as Tom had assisted him in Sickbay, the Doctor had
come to respect the pilot. Yes, he was impudent, impulsive, reckless...all of that and more. But he had a good heart, and he was quick and intelligent.
The Doctor would miss him, especially after the message Tom had left for him. It had been very touching, and so serious that he could hardly believe that Tom was the one talking.
The Captain had asked him to go to B'Elanna's quarters to see how she was doing, if she was handling the shock healthily. He had waited an hour to allow the engineer to grieve in peace.
Now he was standing in outside of her quarters getting more worried
by the minute. He had chimed five times, and still there was no answer.
Surely she was not so overcome with grief that she was refusing to let
anyone in!
Finally, the Doctor used his Medical Emergency override on the lock.
He rushed in, not certain what to expect.
The front room was empty. He winced when he saw a uniform jacket
that had obviously belonged to Tom draped over the back of a chair.
The doctor moved on to the bedroom. He was amazed to find B'Elanna
laying in bed, fast asleep. She was even smiling! He did not know what
to make of it.
After staring at her for a few moments, the Doctor walked over to her.
He shook her shoulder gently and said softly, "Wake up, B'Elanna."***************************************************
B'Elanna heard someone calling her name. She rose up out of the foggy realm of sleep slowly. She wrinkled her nose, stretched, and blinked her eyes open.
The Docter was standing over her, wearing a worried frown. She sat up
and frownedback, unable to think of any reason why he should be in her bedroom.
"Doctor, what--" she began to ask. Then, she remembered. Tom was
dead. An indescribable amount of sorrow rose up within her, and the tears stung her eyes again. What was wrong with her? She had never cried so easily in her life. But, then again, she had not had such a good reason to cry in years.
"The Captain asked me to come and see how you were feeling," the Doctor said quietly. He sat on the edge of her bed. "So how are you holding up?"
"Not well, or easily," she said. "I feel like someone has stepped all
over my heart, beating it to the ground. Do you have a cure for heartbreak, Doc?" she asked bitterly.
"I--could make it easier for you," he offered hesitantly.
"No. I want to feel the pain--it keeps me from hoping he'll come through the door, smiling and trying to bribe me into dinner," she said.
"It makes you face reality."
"Yeah. So, is there anything else, Doctor?" B'Elanna asked. She really
did not feel like talking about it anymore.
"I should run a few scans, to see how your sytem is reacting to the emotional trauma," he answered. "If you would permit me?"
"Go ahead. I feel all right, just really tired." She laid back down.
"Well, that's natural," the Doctor said as he stood up and began to
scan her with his medical tricoder. "In fact, I would expect it..."
B'Elanna looked at him, curious about the odd way his voice had trailed off. The look on his face was surprised and--happy?
"What is it, Doc?" she asked.
"B'Elanna, a month ago Tom was late with is injection, did you know
that?" the Doctor asked.
B'Elanna was confused for a moment. His injection? Oh, yes, his
inconception injection. "Yes, but it didn't seem like a big deal," she
said.
"Well, your bodies did not agree. And they took full advantage of it,"
the Doctor said.
B'Elanna did not understand for a few moments, but then, she KNEW. A baby! Her hand covered her stomach. She and Tom had made a child! She did not know whether to laugh or cry, so she did both.
"Oh, Doc..." she tried to express how happy she was. Then she remembered that this child would never know his or her father, and her happiness dimmed a little.
"Yes, B'Elanna. You're pregnant. That's not all, either. I detected
*two* fetae," he said.
Twins? B'Elanna felt faint, but she held on to conciousness. This
was the most amazing thing in the world. She would have two precious littleb lives, parts of Tom, to keep his memory alive. It was the most wonderful thing that had happened that day!
"I'm so happy," she whispered.
"You should be," the Doctor said with a smile. "In eight months, you'll
have two healthy babies, as far as these scans show. It will help keep him alive, won't it?" he asked, unknowingly echoing her thoughts.
"Yes, it will," she answered softly.
"The rest of the scans check out. You should be fine. Now, I want
you to come in for a full check-up in a week or so. Take it easy, and get more sleep. You should eat more, too," the Doctor advised.
"Okay," B'Elanna said. She was still in partial shock.
"Are you going to tell the Captain, or do you want me to?"
The Captain...For the first time since the accident, B'Elanna realized
how angry she was with Janeway. Why had she just stood there and let Tom to off like that. She was probably relieved he was gone! She had treated him so terriblly this last year, as if she just could not forgive him for that one little incident, even though everyone else had right away. What was her problem anyway.
B'Elanna realized that she was glaring at the Doctor, and she tried
to tone down the anger. It was hard, but she managed it.
"I'll tell her," she said harshly. Her voice was harder to control
than her expressions.
"All right..." The Doctor looked as if he wanted to say more, but
finally just said, "Come to Sickbay if you start experiencing nausea or
dizziness."
"Good-bye, Doctor."
"Good-bye."
B'Elanna waited until she heard the door swish closed behind him before getting up and going over to her bathroom. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, and she was not surprised to see that the frown was back.
She was going to have to get that under better control. It would not be
good for anyone but the Captain to realize how angry she was.
And she *wanted* Janeway to know. She wanted Janeway to feel guilty
for killing Tom. Especially when she learned that she had allowed the
father of the next two children of *Voyager* to die. B'Elanna knew that
that, at least, would trouble the seemingly-heartless Captain.**********************************************
B'Elanna made it to Janeway's ready room with a perfectly neutral ex-
pression on her face. She noticed the sideways glances the rest of the
crew were giving her and knew they were trying to tell just what she was going to do next. But she was not going to let them know that.
Hearing Janeway's "Come in," B'Elanna entered. She nearly lost it
when she saw the Captain sitting so calmly behind her desk. She did not look as if she was unhappy about Tom's death at all. Instead, she was intently reading something on a padd.
"Captain," B'Elanna said flatly.
Janeway looked up. She must have seen the cold look in B'Elanna's
eyes, because she raised her eyebrows and said, "Yes, Lieutenant."
"The Doctor said I should inform you that I'm pregnant," she said.
Janeway smiled. "That's wonderful news!" When B'Elanna did not return
the smile, she frowned. "It is good news, isn't it? The baby's all right?"
"Yes, *they* are. I simply can't get past the fact that they'll never
know their father," B'Elanna answered coldly.
"They?" For a moment, Janeway seemed truly surprised and happy to hear the news. Then, seeming to sense something else from B'Elanna's tone of voice, she frowned again. "You blame me." It was not a question.
"Yes!" B'Elanna said fiercely. "These little babies will never be
held by their father, never know how much he would have loved them, never see how wonderful he was, and it's you fault! You should never have let Tom go on that mission! Any other damn pilot on the whole damn ship would have been able to handle that simple little mission! Why did you let HIM go?!" B'Elanna let the anger take over, enjoying the way it burned through her, making her feel strong.
Janeway looked shocked at the outburst, but there was something else in her eyes. A look that said she agreed with B'Elanna.
"I had to let him go. He had to know that I trusted him," Janeway
said unhappily.
"But you didn't. You haven't really trusted him for more than a year.
But you felt guilty about that, and tried to fix it by letting him do some- thing you *knew* was dangerous!" B'Elanna shouted.
"You wanted those resources! You were the one who was insisting that
we needed them so badly! You are as much to blame as I am!" Janeway yelled back.
B'Elanna felt herself go pale. "There were other ways. And Tom didn't
have to be the one. I never wanted him to die!"
"Neither did I! If I had thought that he was in *that* much danger I
would have ignored all of you and forbidden it!" Janeway said. She wore a haunted expression. "It's not anyone's fault. It was a tragic accident, that deprived two children of their father before they even had a chance to know him. Don't think I will forget that, B'Elanna, but I'm going to make an effort to live my life as normally as possible. I'll miss Tom, but I will go on with my life. I suggest that you do the same," she said stiffly.
B'Elanna pulled herself up straight and allowed her face to settle into
a mask of indifference. "I will not forget him, and I will not forget who
caused his death. I will live my life for my children and my friends. Don't think that includes you," she said. She left without asking permission, afraid of what she might say if she stayed any longer. Not that she had not already said it all, of course.
From the looks on the faces of the Bridge crew, they had heard every
shouted word. B'Elanna did not care. Let them think that she was hysterical, or going crazy with grief. She knew that she was right.**********************************************
For weeks, B'Elanna's mood shifted from extremely happy to extremely angry. She avoided Janeway as much as possible, barely talked to Chakotay, tolerated most of the other crew, and smiled only when Harry or the Doctor could coax one out of her. She spent most of her time planning for the babies.
She went to Chakotay to ask for new quarters. He tried to talk to
her about what he called "this unreasonable grudge you're holding against the Captain." She had refused to listen, simply interrupted him with a repeat of her request. Chakotay had given up and assigned her the new quarters without arguement.
The crew learned that Janeway was *not* a good topic to bring up around her. That was just as well in her opinion; it meant that she could count on having more time to concentrate on her job and her expectant babies. B'Elanna did approach Janeway about marrying Tom post mortem. Janeway commented that it was not usual, but B'Elanna was insistant. She wore Tom's rings anyway. Janeway finally gave in and signed the document that Tom had set up before his death. It already had his signature. The most amazing thing about the whole procedure was not that she was marrying Tom *after* he was dead, but that she managed to stay in the same room with the Captain and not say one word that was not civil.
The weeks passed uneventfully into months. B'Elanna thought that her
stomach grew a little more every day. The Doctor informed her that the
twins were fraternal, one boy and one girl. She decided to name the boy after his father, although she went for months without being able to choose a name for her daughter.
The pregnancy lasted seven months. When B'Elanna began to experience contractions, she was in Engineering. She was supervising some repairs, even if she was not allowed to do the work anymore.
"Paris to Sickbay," B'Elanna said as she breathed the way the Doctor
had taught her. Saying it did not even hurt anymore. Instead, she was proud of bearing the name Paris.
"Sickbay here. Is it time, B'Elanna?" the Doctor asked anxiously.
"Yes. I'm on my way up," B'Elanna said.
"Did you just start feeling the contractions?"
"No, my back has been aching and I've felt some twinges, on and off,
but I thought they were the usual," B'Elanna said as she slowly made her way out of Engineering and to the turbolift. "Deck Seven."
"That's good. It shouldn't take too long after you get here. Klingon
women give birth more quickly than Human women," the Doctor said reassuringly.
B'Elanna did not answer. She leaned back against the turbolift wall
as another wave of pain washed through her. That one was definitely
stronger than the last.
"B'Elanna?" the Doctor asked.
"I'm fine, just a little pain. I should be there in a minute or two.
Paris out," B'Elanna answered. She needed all of her concentration to
keep the pain from overcoming her.
By the time B'Elanna got to Sickbay, she was panting. It was hard
to keep up with the Doctor's breathing excersises.
The Doctor rushed up to her. "Let's get you on the biobed, and I'll
give you something for the pain," he said.
B'Elanna let him assist her, but she shook her head at the hypospray.
"It's all right, Doc. I can handle it. It's really not that bad," she
said insistantly.
The Doctor listened to her reluctantly. He began to scan her with
a medical tricorder. He looked up, and she could see through her pain
that he was surprised.
"You're fully dilated already," he informed her.
"Does that mean that this will be over sooner than you thought?" she
asked through gritted teeth.
"That means that you get to push with the next contraction. Ensign
Yinar, come and support her back," the Doctor instructed his new assitant.
This seemed wrong to B'Elanna. It should have been Tom helping her
as she gave birth to his children, not an ensign she barely knew. Yinar,
a Bajoran who had actually been a Starfleet officer instead of a Maquis
at the beginning, had been in Stellar Cartography before the Doctor had recruited him. B'Elanna did not trust him as much as she had Tom, but she really had no choice.
B'Elanna did start pushing with the next contractions. It seemed to
take mere minutes for her son to be born, but in fact it was more than half an hour. Ten minutes later, her daughter followed.
The Doctor delivered the afterbirth. Then, after he and Yinar had
cleaned up the baby, he placed them in B'Elanna's waiting arms.
As B'Elanna looked down at the two little lives that she and Tom had
created, she thought how beautiful they were. The boy had his father's
blond hair and would probably have his blue eyes. To B'Elanna's surprise, the girl had a head full of dark red hair. Both children had slight forehead ridges that proclaimed their Klingon heritage. B'Elanna felt tears in her eyes, but this time they were joyful tears, cleansing tears. In that moment, as she stared down at her babies, who were calming down from the initial screams of annoyance, she forgave Janeway. She was not sure why, yet, but she did know that Janeway had felt Tom's loss, if not deeply. She was no more to blame for the accident than B'Elanna herself.
It had happened, and it had to be forgiven.
Just then, Janeway entered Sickbay. She came over to B'Elanna's biobed hesitantly.
When B'Elanna smiled at her a little, she seemed relieved. "Have you
named them yet?" she asked.
B'Elanna nodded. "This," and she lifted the arm holding her son a
fraction higher, "is Thomas Eugene Paris II. And his sister is Kathryn
Paris." She knew that she had made the right decision when Janeway's
smile widened.
B'Elanna felt peaceful now. Even though that was likely to change,
with two babies to raise and a demanding job as Chief Engineer, she enjoyed the feeling.The End (for now!)
One more, just one more, I promise! No more, no less. You just have to wait a little while longer... :)