The BLTS Archive- Warmth II: Scenes from a Mating
#1: Honeymoon
by J. A. Toner (jamelia116@aol.com)

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Archive:  Yes to ASC, BLTS, PTF, PTCollective. All others,
please ask.

Disclaimer: The Star Trek universe and the Voyager characters
are the property of Paramount/Viacom. No claim of ownership
is being made. I will make no money from this--my only
payment is the feedback I hope to get from readers (hint, hint).

Author's Note: In the spring and early summer of 1997, I wrote
a novel-length story called "Warmth." It was actually a set of
three stories. The first told a tale of B'Elanna Torres and Tom
Paris' acknowledging their passion for each other while
stranded on a planet with a harsh climate. They may have done
what they had to do to stay warm, but that was really more or
less an excuse. What they really did was show how warmly
they felt towards each other. "Meanwhile, back on Voyager,"
Harry Kim and Kes discover their own feelings for one
another and marry.

In the second story, taking place several weeks later, B'Elanna
broke off her relationship with Tom. Only afterwards did she
find out that she was unexpectedly pregnant and was to proud,
at first, to let him know. Kes has her "transformation" and is
lost to Harry. When Tom found out about the baby, he asked
B'Elanna to marry him. The final story described the wedding
on a holographic beach. The last sentences describe the couple
walking up the beach, holding each other up as their feet slip
in the sands. A fitting image for marriage, I thought.

And the end of the story, I thought.

Silly me. I underestimated the fervor of those who wanted to
see Tom cuddling his newborn daughter. The ones longing to
see B'Elanna holding her baby were less vocal, but I did hear
from some of them, too. I thought I'd said all I had to say and
dragged my feet about a sequel.

But something else happened. Both Roxann Dawson and
Robbie McNeill announced they were adding to their families.
Roxann's pregancy was not written into the storyline. So,
when people begged me to write a sequel, I thought that
maybe I could write an AU of the rest of the 4th season, and
how it would look if Roxann's pregnancy had been written
into the storyline of the series.

As a result "Warmth 2: Scenes from a Mating" was conceived,
a series of self-contained stories which, when taken together,
tell how Tom and B'Elanna forged a marriage from a rocky
beginning, as well as how Harry adjusted to the loss of Kes. In
this AU, all of the episodes would happen as they had in the
televised series. Obviously, some details would differ, but I
would not assume that all the events of any show failed to
occur. Many episodes would not be mentioned at all or if they
were, only in passing. In others, a great deal from the episodes
might be shown.

I expect to post a total of nine stories altogether. The first four
are being posted now, and the remaining ones will be put up
when they're finished. Currently (I reserve the right to change
a title or two, as I've already done), the stories will be:

"Honeymoon"--[R]--the night following "Vows," the last
  segment of "Warmth"

"Nanny"--[PG]--a few months after "Honeymoon"

"One Corner of My Heart"--[R]--set after "Hunters"

"Deliverance"--[R]--set during "The Killing Game"

*"Gramps"

*"Ulterior Motives"

"The Devil's Own"--[NC-17]--AU retelling of "Demon"

*"Clap Hands"

*"Strolling Down the Beach"

The stories marked with an *asterisk are not yet available.

I'll get the rest of the stories done and posted as soon as I can.
Thanks, in advance, for any comments about these stories you
feel you can make.

Thanks: to PTFever, especially Terri, pjinnh, pjs, Julie, and Ann
for their assistance with these stories.

November, 1998

---

The rhythmic sound of pounding surf sifted though the open window. It
was not perfectly even. Every now and then, a wave curling its way up
the sands might be just enough out of synch to save the listener from
classifying what she was hearing as monotonous. That slight hesitation
before the holographic waters crashed on the edge of the beach made
the illusion complete. Instead of flying through the Delta Quadrant,
far from everyone's home, it was as if Voyager were sailing the seas
of Earth, in the Alpha Quadrant. The salty womb of all life on that
planet (and the majority of others, as it turned out, once humanoids
began
to explore the cosmos to discover such things) seemed to be outside
the window of a simulated beach house on the Holodeck.

Tonight, the beach house was a honeymoon cottage for two people who
had
consummated their marriage a few hours before--not that this
consummation had been the first time the couple had known each other
in a carnal sense. That first time had taken place months ago, on a
desolate, inhospitable planet named Tantrum IV by the inhabitants of
the starship known as Voyager.

As she pulled the satin sheet and soft blanket higher over her naked
form, the chief engineer's thoughts drifted back to what had happened
on Tantrum. In a natural cave, to help each other survive, B'Elanna
Torres had seduced Thomas Paris. B'Elanna accepted that as truth, now.
Despite her own qualms about his intentions and her uneasiness about
how her forehead ridges made her look to someone with classically
handsome human features, B'Elanna had asked her only companion on that
desolate planet to "keep her warm."

That he did. Repeatedly. Throroughly. Deliciously.

And today, he promised to continue to keep her, in good times and in
bad times, for as long as they both lived. To be one blood, in the
Klingon reckoning.

B'Elanna snuggled a bit deeper into the bed, against the toasty warm
body of that same Thomas Eugene Paris, Lt. j.g., and chief
helmsman/flight controller/pilot/resident hero of Voyager, soundly
sleeping with his arm thrown casually over her stomach, within which
dozed another life form. B'Elanna guessed her daughter-to-be was
dozing. What else would a foetus do in the womb most of the time? It
was pretty wet with all that amniotic fluid sloshing about her, but
it's not like she would be swimming around in there. Or would she?
Babies kicked in the womb when they got to be a certain size. Is that
because they were used to having lots of room to swim around, and when
they got too big
to do that, they'd kick to try to free themselves so they could swim
again? To have a temper tantrum, in other words?

Temper tantrum. Tantrum IV. B'Elanna's thoughts had been circling
around like this for a while now. With a sigh, she wiggled her butt
against Tom's stomach, hoping that he'd wake up again and treat her to
another session of love making. He was good at that, and whenever they
were involved in bringing each other to a sexual frenzy, B'Elanna
didn't have to think about cold caves, misunderstandings, words of
love, marriage vows, tantrums (planetary or emotional), amniotic fluid
swimming pools or what a baby thought about before she was born. All
B'Elanna would think about was how great she was feeling and how good
she could make Tom feel.

After several more deliberately provocative movements failed to change
the even pattern of Tom's breathing, B'Elanna used the one last tactic
she was willing to use in her arsenal of methods for arousing her
sleeping mate. To encourage him to engage in some marital fun and
games with her, she stretched her petite but strong frame from the top
of her fingers to the tips of her toes, then lowered one arm to her
side to allow that one hand to creep down to about hip level and
explore a bit behind her. She was in luck. Her fingers encountered a
nice patch of wiry hair and a fleshy appendage that began to stiffen
the more
she played with it. It wasn't the only part of his body moving now,
either. His arm began to tighten around her, and another hand, not
attached to her, was on the move. As his hand reached breast level and
began to squeeze gently, Tom's lips, likewise, grazed against her
shoulder.

"Okay. I'm up. You can have your way with me if you want to."

"I do."

"Not surprised."

B'Elanna rolled over, quickly engaging Tom's mouth and body in joining
with her in the kind of pleasures they had come to expect from each
other over the past few months.

One thing B'Elanna could always count on. Once you woke the man up,
you knew he'd be enthusiastic about whatever it was you wanted him to
do--especially if the whatever was sex.

Tonight was no exception, even if this wasn't the first time tonight.
The man was good, there was no question about that. Every touch was
calculated to induce the most wonderful feelings inside her. B'Elanna
sighed into his mouth as he drew his lips against hers, his hands
busily stroking over her pregnancy-enhanced breasts before slipping
down to the swell of her belly.

By the time she was on top of him, enjoying the feel of him within her
while her hands felt the outside of him, B'Elanna found herself
thinking this being married wasn't so bad at all. Not at all.

---

"After is a good time, too, you know that, don't you, B'Elanna?" His
arms cradled her body, his shoulder pillowed her shoulder, and his
breathing rocked her gently as she lay sated in his arms.

"Pretty good. I still like during."

"My wild Klingon beauty, always ready for battle."

"Tom, cut the Klingon crap for one night, okay? It's my wedding night.
I don't want to fight with you tonight."

"I don't know. A fight might be nice, too. Break that clavicle. That'd
please the Doc."

"No, thanks. I'd rather all four of our clavicles stayed in working
order without the Doctor weaseling into my honeymoon cottage."

He laughed, then held her in silence for a while. His breathing got so
even that she thought he might have drifted off to sleep again. She
was about to turn over and throw her arms around him to try to go to
sleep herself when she heard him murmur, "I wonder what it's going to
be like?"

"What's going to be like?

"Being a father. Parents. I was talking to Chakotay today at the
wedding. He said I'm going to have to be responsible. Hope I can
manage it."

"As long as you aren't expected to keep your mouth shut, I think
you'll do fine."

"Thank you so much for that vote of confidence."

"You're welcome."

"I will have to talk to her sometimes, you know."

"Of course, Tom. I was joking. You're going to be a wonderful father.
You're really good at telling little stories about your life that help
people get through some bad times. I'm sure you'll do the same with
her."

"Thanks, I hope so," he murmured, shifting his weight around
underneath
B'Elanna. She mentally shook her head. As usual, as much as the man
talked, paying him a compliment about his more sincere tendencies was
obviously making him uncomfortable.

"And if you don't have any little life lesson of your own, you can
always study up on the standard Mom and Dad lectures. I'm sure the
database is full of them."

"Oh, man. Lectures. I hope I don't ever give the 'just think what this
will look like to the general public, Thomas,' speech. Or the 'Thomas,
how come this grade is a B, not an A?' speech. I really hate those."

"I don't think you'll have to give your daughter any lectures that
have you calling her Thomas. All we have to do is not name her
Thomas."

"Very funny, Lieutenant. Don't you have a list of things you don't
ever want to hear yourself saying?"

"You mean, the 'your behavior has been dishonorable' speech? How
about, 'That is not the Klingon Way!' Or all those lectures when I
argued about how I wouldn't need to follow all those Klingon
traditions in Starfleet. 'Who needs the Day of Honor, anyway, Mother?'
"

He tightened his hold on her, obviously thinking about what had
happened only a few weeks ago, on the Klingon Day of Honor. "I thought
we were goners, then, B'Elanna. Here we had just made up and then we
manage to blow up the Cochrane."

"We didn't blow up the Cochrane; the Caatati did."

"I'm not sure the captain much cared who did the actual blowing up. We
lost another one. And I thought, for a moment, I would never be able
to touch your face again. Or ever see our daughter's face."

The slight choke in his voice made her snuggle her face against his
chest before murmuring, "It turned out okay, Tom. We're okay. You'll
see her."

His grasp around her shoulders tightened a moment before he whispered
back, "Sure."

They were silent for a moment more, lost in their own thoughts about
what had happened so recently. So many dangers, yet they were still
here, together. No guarantees about tomorrow, though. That was one
thing that both had learned to accept. Today's wedding was just the
final acknowledgement. No matter what happened now, there was one
thing that could not be taken away. Tom Paris had taken B'Elanna
Torres as his wife, and she him for her husband. Death could not
change that.

"This is a pretty morbid subject for a wedding night, isn't it, Tom?"
B'Elanna finally said, breaking the spell of silence--or perhaps it
was a pall--that had fallen over them.

"Yeah, I guess. Let's talk about something else."

"Okay. What do you want to talk about?"

"Well--I don't know. What about Janeway and Chakotay? Do you think
they're going to do it?"

"Do what?"

"Become lovers, what else?"

"Tom, why does everything have to center on lovemaking with you,
anyway?"

"Everything doesn't. I like to talk about flying, too, but we promised
no shop talk, remember?"

Shaking her head, B'Elanna started to chuckle, then started. That
strange feeling was back again. She wondered if it was what she
thought it was.

"What's the matter? B'Elanna?"

"Oh, nothing's the matter. Not really. I just . . . "

"What?" She immediately detected the note of concern in his voice as
Tom
propped himself up on his elbow, the better to see B'Elanna's face in
the faint light of the stars.

"Oh, it's just this little fluttering I'm feeling. Here." She took his
free hand and pulled it to her lower abdomen, over the swelling of her
belly that was becoming noticeably more pronounced every day, in
B'Elanna's eyes, at least.

"Flutter, huh? Is Baby Girl making herself a part of the festivities?"

"Maybe, you never know."

"It's about time for it." He softly moved his hand over her stomach,
so lightly that she shivered.

There was another flutter. No, this time, it was more than a flutter.
Most definitely like a jump. Or like a swimmer, taking a turn against
the far wall of a pool. "There it is again. Think it's a tic?"

He shook his head in the dim light, his teeth reflecting just enough
light so she could tell how broad his smile was. "Not a tic. The real
thing. The girl."

She covered his hand with her own and moved it to the spot where she
had felt the movement. This time, she was certain, he was right. Baby
Girl. There wouldn't be any way for him to feel it, yet, but from the
way his hand was grazing her skin, she knew he understood what she was
indicating.

Tom moved his hand away from her before lifting his elbow from the
bed, balancing himself on his hand. Carefully, he bent down and kissed
the spot she had shown him. As his lips broke contact with her skin,
he rested his cheek upon the place he'd kissed. Dragging her hand
through his hair, she encouraged him to stay where he was. She felt it
only fitting that on this night, of all nights, she should feel life
for the first time.

"I wonder what she'll be like."

"Don't know, B'Elanna. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess."

"I wonder what her life will be like?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows. I just hope that she'll be
happy."

"Me, too. As happy as I am now."

He nodded his head in agreement, then turned his eyes down to the spot
again. Gently, he kissed her again. Both of them, really--his wife and
his child-to-be.

B'Elanna sighed as she felt his arms settle about her. She was
content, yet filled with curiousity and a sense of wonder, too. There
were so many things that could go wrong. So many dangers. So many.
Yet, with Tom's arms around her and his face pressed against her
belly, as close to the third member of their family as he could get,
she felt that somehow, it would come out all right. Somehow.

Outside the window, the surf continued to pound, as restlessly and as
unceasingly as the real seas of Earth.

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The End