The Tears Trilogy   Tears of Regret By Misti (aka Lark, aka A'Lehsen) Summary: A story that's very sweet. B'Elanna tells Tommy and Kat about their father. This story is for those of you who LOVE the sweet, mushy P/T stuff. Kat is named for my friend Kat (yeah, the one who wrote "Traits"). The character does not reflect her, that I am aware of, at least. Are you like this, Kat? Chronologically, this takes place ten years after "Tears of Joy". In this reality, *Voyager* hasn't made it home yet. It was much more simple to do it this way, even though I know that they'll probably go home soon on the show. Disclaimer: As usual, Voyager and the crew belong to Paramount. Tommy and Kat Paris are mine, though, so if you want to use them, you have to ask me first! And I get to read the story you write, to make sure you haven't made them different than I want them to be. Rated: G ************************************************** Kat Paris ran down one of the corridors as silently as she knew how. She was playing hide and seek with her brother Tommy, and if Tommy caught her before she reached Uncle Harry's quarters, she had to give him two replicator rations. Since she had been saving up to make a FABUlOUS chocolate-and- strawberries cake for Mama's birthday, she definitely did not want to get caught. Kat stopped at the corner and cautiously peeked around it. At the same time, she listened for footsteps behind her. She had very good hearing, and she was sure that she would hear Tommy at least four or five meters away. No one was down the next corridor, so she dashed down it. Two more to go, and she would be home free. This was Kat's favorite game, and the fact that Tommy rarely caught her made it even better to play! The next corridor was empty, but when Kat glanced around the last corner, she saw that Tommy was comming around the opposite one! This had never happened before. He always spent twenty minutes wandering around *Voyager*, searching for her vainly. Kat's first impulse was to try to make it to Uncle Harry's before Tommy got there. Then, she realized that that would be a mistake. Not only was Tommy closer, but he was a faster runner. So, Kat's only option was to circle around and hope that he would not be there her next time around. Kat turned around quickly and almost ran into--of all people--her mother! Mama did not look too pleased to see that she was not with Uncle Harry.  "Hi, Mama," Kat said. She hoped that Tommy could hear her. All thoughts of the game flew from her mind. The only thing that mattered was that they could not get into trouble, not so close to Mama's birthday! She would restrict their replicator use, and *then* how would they be able to throw her a party. "Kathryn Paris, what are you doing out here?" B'Elanna Paris asked sternly. "Mama, Uncle Harry said we could play a game while he ran a report up to Commander Chakotay, and Tommy and I were playing hide and seek. We stayed on this deck and in this section, honest! We just got so bored in Uncle Harry's quarters, and we didn't disturb anybody, honest! We were really quiet, no yelling or anything!" Kat knew that she was babbling, but she could not help herself. There had to be *some* excuse her mother would accept! B'Elanna shook her head and sighed. She took Kat's hand and led her back to Uncle Harry's quarters. She did not seem too angry, so Kat let herself enjoy the attention. Mama had been really busy lately. "Kat, sometimes I don't know what I'm going to do with you two," B'Elanna said in exasperation. When Tommy, who had heard Kat and run back around *his* corner when Mama had appeared, came back out of hiding and grinned. "Hi, Mama! Are you going to stay with us for a while?" he asked ingen= uously. He and Kat exchanged quick glances. Both twins knew by now that B'Elanna had a special soft spot for blond, blue-eyed Tommy. Not that she did not love them both equally, because she did. But Tommy was able to make her forget why she had been angry just with a smile. They used that to their full advantage. B'Elanna looked as if she was trying not to smile back, but finally she did. Kat and Tommy breathed sighs of relief. "You two really should have stayed inside," B'Elanna said as she tapped the keycode into Harry's lock and the door opened. She led them both inside. "We'll wait here for Uncle Harry to get back, and then we'll go home," she informed them. "You don't have to work tonight?" Kat and Tommy asked in unison. "Nope. I can stay home and make sure that you two don't get into any more trouble!" Kat felt that it was safe to giggle over that. The small family sat on Uncle Harry's couch to wait, B'Elanna in the middle with Kat on her left and Tommy on her right. Kat took this opportunity to ask a question that she'd been thinking of for a few weeks. "Mama, what was Daddy *really* like? I mean, all our lives you've said stuff about how proud he'd be of us, and how great a dad he would have been, but you've never really talked about him," Kat said earnestly. B'Elanna stared into her daughter's dark brown eyes, so like her own, and felt a small twinge of shame. She had avoided telling their children for one simple reason: it still hurt too much to talk about him. However, while she had been shielding her children, she had inadvertantly kept them from knowing what their father had been like. Then she looked at Tommy, so much a younger version of Tom that sometimes it hurt to look at him. His eyes--they, too, pleaded with her to tell him about the man whose name he carried.  B'Elanna sighed and pulled them both into a hug. She stayed quiet for a few more moments, then she began quietly. "Tom was a wonderful man. He had some faults; he was too reckless, im- pulsive, over-confident, and arrogant. I actually didn't really like him for the first few months of our journey. We became friends, and after a few years we started dating," she said. She stopped for a few moments.  "When I realized that I was in love with him, I was so unsure about how he felt. I shouldn't have been. He loved me just as much," she continued. "We thought we had all the time in the world, but we didn't. In one, quick accident he was gone. He never even knew about you two. I learned that I was pregnant on the day of his death, actually," she said with a sad smile. "You two are the most important people in my life for a good reason. You were all I had left of Tom, the children of our love." B'Elanna realized that she was crying. They were tears of regret, that  her children would never know just how much their father would have loved them. Kat reached up and stroked her mother's cheek. "What's wrong, Mama?" she asked. "I wish he could have lived to know you two. He would have loved you both so much!" B'Elanna said. "I miss him, Mama. How can I miss someone I never knew?" Tommy asked. "I don't know, Tommy. But I miss him, too." B'Elanna held her children close and thought of how lucky she was to  have them.   The End Okay, maybe it was a little odd and mushy, but I enjoyed writing it.