"How are you feeling, B'Elanna?" The Doctor's voice came from what seemed a very long way away, like he was calling from very far down a Jefferies tube with his head turned in the wrong direction. It was, simultaneously, a very comforting sensation and very annoying.

It was comforting because she knew that he was calling for some really insignificant reason: the warp core was not about to breach. She was sure of that. She was just lying there taking a quick nap in the Jefferies Tube -- which was pleasantly warm and comfortable today -- and the Doctor was there to tell her that it was snack time in Engineering and he had milk and cookies for her.

The annoying part was that should like he should know where she was. Didn't he tell her to wait right here? And why did she have to pee so badly?

And then she remembered: she always had to pee this badly. This is what her life was about these days.

She mentioned this to him. After all, he asked how she was, didn't he?

"That's fine, B'Elanna. You just go ahead."

"But I'll get the Jefferies Tube all wet."

There was a pause, and though she had her eyes closed, B'Elanna sensed that there were people looking each other in the eye somewhere above her asking each other with silent looks, What the hell?

After a moment someone else spoke. It was Tom, she thought. He was saying, "It's all right, hon. Go ahead. We'll get Vorik to clean it up."

"Oh," she said. "Well, okay then." He was only an Ensign and he was such a stuck-up jerk sometimes. Yes, this would be a good thing for him to do later.

And then she remembered something else: She wanted to kill Tom.

"Tom? Are you there?"

He spoke up almost immediately, though it seemed to take a really long time for his response to make sense. "Yeah, hon. I'm here."

She smiled and tried to reach up to pat his face. "Oh, good. I'm really glad." She moved her wrist slightly, the way she would if she could actually lift her arm and touch his face. "I have to kill you now, you know?"

"I know, B'Elanna. You mentioned that before. Would make you feel better to know you broke my wrist?"

She nodded her head and grinned. Or at least she thought she was grinning. Maybe not. Anyway, just to make sure her bases were covered she said, "Yes. Yes, it would? Did I? I'm sorry, Tommy." She started to sniff and she could feel her sinuses filling. "I'm sorry. Really. I only meant to kill you," she said, through a tightening throat.

"It's all right, love. You can do it later."

"That's right, B'Elanna," the Doctor said. "You can kill us all later. You said you wanted to."

"Okay."

She sank into the floor for a little longer, feeling kind of glowing and floaty. Then, she became aware of an odd sensation, a slight suction-y feeling. Like something was trying to draw her back into the world.

She knew Tom was still somewhere hereby, so she called to him: "Tom?"

"Yes, love?"

"What's that strange sensation? On my..." She tried to lift her hand and point towards her breast. "There."

Tom touched her face and brushed some hair off her forehead. "That's Lila Rose, love. She's nursing."

"Ohhhh... Lila Rose is nursing. That explains it."

"Yes."

"Okay." She felt herself drifting off to sleep. Lila Rose nursing was a remarkably pleasant sensation, but a thought kept nagging at her, keeping her from sinking into the floor of the Jefferies Tube. She searched around for the thought like she was looking for some long forgotten tool at the bottom of a tool chest. Finally, she grasped it and pulled it up: "Who," she asked, "is Lila Rose?"

"She's our daughter, love," Tom said very matter-of-factly, very tenderly. "Our new daughter."

"Ohhhhh," B'Elanna said softly, a little surprised by how the statement made her feel so watery in the center of her chest. "Is she pretty?"

"Yes, B'Elanna. She's beautiful. And so are you. Now go to sleep. You've had a busy day." He tightened his grip on her hand and she realized that it had been there for, well, for a really long time. She wondered if it was the hand with the wrist she had broken. She hoped not. Just before the darkness closed in, B'Elanna said, "Tommy?"

"Yes, B'Elanna?"

"I don't want to kill you anymore."

"Thank you, B'Elanna."

She tried to say, "You're welcome," but Lila Rose weighed so much, so pleasantly, so warmly, that B'Elanna sank down into the floor of the Jefferies Tube and didn't wake up for a long, long time.

"How are they?"

Tom Paris sank down into a chair and gratefully accepted the coffee Neelix offered. "Okay," he said. He had been awake for almost 23 hours straight. He was down to one word answers. And his newly mended wrist bones ached.

Harry Kim cocked his head to one side and raised his eyebrows. "Okay?" he said. "That's the best you can do?"

Tom tried to gather his thoughts. He knew he was supposed to deliver this news in some sort of organized fashion. He was used to doing this sort of thing. Catalog the data. Coordinate by type and communicate it effectively. He felt a dull ache above his left temple that might have been the remnants of a tension headache or a place where B'Elanna had hit him with the heel of her hand.

"Well, let me ask you something, Har. How did Seven act when she delivered Kai?"

Harry had to gather his wits and regroup. He hadn't been expecting this. "During or after?" he asked.

"Both."

"During..." Harry searched his memory. It had been four years and a lot of memories about his son had accumulated since that day, accreting on these first ones. "Well," he said, "she has implants that can control her sensitivity to pain, so not too bad. Mostly she just wanted to be left alone, though, naturally the Doc wouldn't let her.. Afterwards, she was sort of... floaty. Quiet, but not stand-offish. I don't think the implants were prepared to deal with the level of hormones being pumped into her system so she was pretty warm and fuzzy for Seven."

"Uh-huh. But no pain," Tom said.

"No. I don't think so. If there was, she didn't mention it."

"Okay. Well, imagine this. Imagine a woman with a human-sized vagina trying to deliver a child with a Klingon-sized skull. Without anesthetic."

Harry grimaced. "Without pain killers? Why? What would possess her to do that?"

Tom shrugged, sipped his coffee. "B'Elanna can turn Klingon on you at the weirdest moments," was all he said. They had discussed the possibility of B'Elanna delivering the baby in the traditional Klingon manner several times, but Tom had never expected her to go through with it. This was a woman who, despite her strength of character and innate toughness, clenched her teeth and moaned when her husband removed a splinter from her big toe.

"But she's all right? The baby, too?" Neelix asked, speaking for the first time.

"They're fine," Tom repeated. "The baby has B'Elanna's forehead and her eyes and my mouth and hair color if you can believe that. A blond Klingon." He snorted. "And she broke my wrist."

"The baby?" Neelix asked.

Tom rolled his eyes and set down his coffee cup.

"Yes, Neelix. Of course the baby. My three-hour-old daughter reached out of her mother's womb and snapped my wrist."

Neelix winced at the unexpected sarcasm. "Well," he said, trying to turn the comment into a joke, "this is a Klingon baby we're talking about, isn't it? B'Elanna's child?"

Tom shrugged, instantly sorry he had insulted his friend. "Right, Neelix. You're right. Sorry. Hey," he said, changing the subject. "Is there any way I could get something to eat? It's been a while."

Neelix perked up instantly. "How about a nice grilled cheese sandwich?"

"With the burned cheese around the edges?"

"On rye bread," Neelix said, rising, setting the coffee thermos on the table.

"Exactly. Thanks, Neelix."

Tom and Harry sat together for several minutes, each holding their peace, pondering private thoughts.

Finally, Harry broke the silence. "Feels weird, doesn't it?"

Tom nodded, staring at the curls of steam rising off his coffee. The galley was a little cool that late in the evening in keeping with the energy conservation rules. "You know what was really strange?" Tom said. "The stray thoughts that kept flitting through my head while she was in labor... I kept thinking about the night we, well, you know, made Lila Rose. Or think we did. There were a few possibilities, but whenever we talked about it together we always talked about this one night. I came back to our cabin at the end of my shift and she was waiting for me..." He let his mind wander.

She had been wearing a floor-length, deep red nightgown cut low in front and dipping down to the small of her back behind. Spaghetti straps. Slit up to her hip.

"She was different that night," Tom said. "Intense, like she knew it was the right time. Made me kind of nervous, if you want to know the truth."

Harry smiled, a little embarrassed at his own memories perhaps. He had often thought he would like to tell his friend about the night Seven had come to him telling him that she had made up her mind. She had been wearing what he could only describe as a body stocking, a sheer, black garment that had covered her from foot to neck, both concealing and revealing her abundant charms. Though Harry had been with her several times before that night, this had been the first time he had felt for certain that it was him she desired and not just a man, a mate.

The memory made him blush, not least because he, too, had thought of that night when Seven had been in labor. But all he said was, "Yeah, you think of strange things. It's normal, I think. You could ask the Doc, I guess, but you, well, you know."

"He'd tell me the truth..."

"One way or the other. Right."

"So, when will B'Elanna be able to have visitors?"

Tom thought about it, tried to remember if the Doctor had said anything one way or another and decided that he hadn't. "Probably tomorrow. The labor was hard on her, but Doc was on top of it from minute one. There was never any real risk..."

"No," Harry said. "Of course not."

Tom thought about B'Elanna screaming as the contractions really began to take hold. The pain in his hand and wrist as she grabbed, and knowing that the pain he was feeling was nothing compared to hers. Wondering about the child. What was happening with his daughter, he wanted to ask, but didn't want B'Elanna to hear the fear in his voice even though he was pretty damned sure she couldn't have heard a damned word he said.

His mouth went dry and he tried to sip his coffee, but he realized his hands were shaking too hard to raise the cup to his lips.

Neelix walked out of the galley carrying a plate. He set it down in front of Tom: Grilled cheese sandwich on rye. Crispy burned cheese around the edges. Potato chips on the side with a pickle garnish. "Here you are, Tom. Your first grilled cheese sandwich as a father." He grinned beatifically.

"Thanks, Neelix," Tom said through clenched teeth. "It looks great." He tried not to look down at the food since he knew he would throw up if he did. He started to panic, wondering what he was going to do when, not for the first or last time, his friend saved him.

"Say, you know what you should do, Neelix?" Harry said.

"What, Harry?"

"You should cobble together some kind of birth announcement. Something to put on the ship's net. You did something for Kai that I just loved. It was really cute. I still have it in my personal database. The Doctor will do the official one, of course, but, well, you know. It'll be very..."

"Very clinical. Yes, Harry, I think I remember the one you mean. And it would be my pleasure. With your permission, Tom."

"Sure, Neelix," Tom said gratefully. "Have fun. Just remember that B'Elanna will see it someday, so keep it tasteful."

"Of course, Tom. Tasteful is my middle name." Before he left, he pushed the plate towards the center of the table. "You look hungry, too, Harry. Why don't you help Tom eat this one and I'll make another if he's still hungry later."

Harry picked up half the sandwich and took a bite. "Thanks, Neelix." He lifted the coffee thermos and warmed his cup. He held the thermos aloft and sloshed the contents. "Tom? Warm up?"

But Tom Paris shook his head no. He stared out the galley window at the unnamed stars as they rushed by in their courses and thought about... what? If someone had asked him ten minutes later he would not have been able to say.

After a time, he reached down without looking and picked up his half of the grilled cheese sandwich, took a bite, and began to absently chew.

Later, the next day as he told his wife about it, he would describe it as the most delicious grilled cheese sandwich he had ever eaten.

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Last updated on February 09, 1999

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