The BLTS Archive - Reunion
by KateCarter (starlightstables@gmail.com)

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Published: 08-01-03

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I transported him up myself.

There was such a flurry of excitement inside me. I didn't
know how to do this just a few days ago. But Harry Kim had
taught me again, and we tried a few test runs to make sure I
remembered it all. Then, we started to transport crewmembers
up to the ship. We would lock onto a human lifesign, and
beam them up one by one, except when we detected the
human-Ktarian lifesign near a full human. We beamed the
Wildmans up together.

I was practically itching with excitement. It was taking too
long! So I went and concentrated the scan near the bar where
he'd worked.

We beamed up about ten people, and all of them had been
alone. But there were several human lifesigns in the bar,
along with a Bolian and Vulcan. We decided to beam them up
in several small groups.

The baby was turning cartwheels inside me, kicking me almost
constantly. I winched a couple times as she managed to kick
me under a rib. It seemed like she was as excited about
seeing him as I was, but she didn't know, of course. I
couldn't help but wonder slightly if the treatment they had
given me had any effect on her. The Doctor had said she
would be fine, that no lasting damage had been done to her,
which was good, because if there had been, those people
would all be short a head.

I completed the transport, then looked up. Three people were
on the transporter pad. It was with a thrill that I
recognized Vorik, Chell.and Tom.

Not caring that Harry and Neelix were both there, I sprinted
down from the platform and onto the pad. "Tom!" I yelled,
before tackling him with a hug.

He took a step back from the force of my tackle. "B'Elanna?"
His brow furrowed. "Where are we? What happened to you?"

I pulled back from him slightly. Of course, he didn't know
who I really was. "It's a long story. I'll tell it all to
you. But, right now, we're on a starship, Voyager. Our
starship. Our home."

He shook his head. "I've never been here before in my life.
And I can't stand space travel. It makes me sick."

"Tom," I reached up and gently put my hand against his
cheek. "To make a very long story short, they wiped our
memories. To make us willing workers." I suddenly remembered
the hypospray full of medication I held in my hand. "Here,
this will help." I injected it into him. The Doctor had used
me as something of a guinea pig. He'd figured out how to
help the patient almost immediately with a single dose of
medication. Then, with introduction to their quarters, and
given their own logs to read, as well as some ship's logs,
they "re-awakened" their memories. After a final treatment,
they'd be back to normal. It'd already been started on
everyone else beamed up. Chakotay had undergone the
treatment for such a short period just the hypospray had
helped. He was now helping Captain Janeway with hers. The
staff that was left decided it was definitely better that
the captain be back up and running first.

I had already cleared it with Harry and Neelix to take care
of Tom's treatment myself. So now, I led him off the
transporter pad. "Come on, Tom. I'm going to help you."

There were several places I had to take him. It was
difficult to know where to go. Sickbay was off limits, since
several crewmembers were recuperating in there. I felt it
was probably best to avoid the bridge for now. So, I could
take him to the holodeck, or our quarters.

Well, I had to let him know I was his wife sometime.
Straight to our quarters we went. There were more of his
mementos there anyway.

He was somewhat hesitant as I led him along. I opened the
door to our quarters and stepped inside. "Come on, Tom.
These are your quarters."

He stepped inside, his hesitation now obvious. I gave a
gentle tug on his hand to urge him on. We were silent for a
moment as he looked around.

"Wait a minute, B'Elanna. There are two people living in
here."

It was my turn to hesitate. "Yes, Tom. You share these
quarters with your wife."

"Wife?" His eyes widened in disbelief. "I'm married?"

"Yes." I said softly. "You are."

He hesitated for a minute. "Do you know who she is? What
she's like?"

"She... she's the engineer, the chief engineer of this ship.
It's fitting, because you're the helm officer, the pilot.
You used to hate each other, at least on her part. Actually,
you pursued her, almost from day one. She thought you were a
scoundrel who would go after anything with a pulse. But,
when you were both captured by a species called the
Viidians, you both began to see the other in a different
light. She realized you actually cared about people, and
that the way you acted was because you were unsure about
yourself. You realized that she wasn't as tough as she
pretended to be. But it was over two years later that she
finally told you she loved you. Even then, it was in a
situation where you both thought you were going to die. It
seems to be a pattern with you, because you thought the same
thing when you proposed to her." It was such an odd feeling.
These memories had come flooding back recently, all of my
memories of Tom. I remembered how I used to hate him, and
how he had helped me when the Viidians split me in half. I
remembered how we would lay in bed, next to each other, and
share our memories of each other, which was where I learned
how he thought of me after the incident with the Viidians.

He looked at me for a minute. "But what is she like?" he
pressed softly.

"She loves you, very much. She doesn't know what life would
be like without you." I replied honestly.

I saw the enlightenment hit his eyes. "Is it you?" he asked
softly.

I nodded. My throat was suddenly tight, dry. My chest felt
so tight that if I didn't know better I'd have sworn the
baby had decided to move up a foot. I couldn't trust myself
to speak. He placed a hand on my belly, hesitantly. "Then is
this...?"

"Yes, Tom. This is your daughter."

He stood there, in obvious shock. Then he hugged me, hard. I
clung to him, barely noticing the trickle of tears down my
cheeks, because he was crying too. After a minute, he
released me and stepped back. "B'Elanna, you're really..." He
trailed off, before he grabbed me again. I couldn't help but
lean into him, clutching him just as tightly. It was
awkward, thanks to our daughter, but we managed. We stayed
like that several minutes, until the baby gave an especially
hard kick. He pulled back from me. "Think she's giving us a
hint?" he said, that slightly cocky, trademark Tom Paris
grin on his face. We laughed and sat down. For the next hour
and a half, I alternately quizzed him on what he remembered
and told him about our experiences. We had just begun
reading his logs when the chime rang. "Come in," I called.

Harry entered. I stood up. "Tom, this is Harry Kim, our
friend."

"I just came to see how you were getting along. I see he
hasn't gone berserk on you, B'Elanna. Lucky you." He
grimaced and rubbed his shoulder. "Unfortunately, Vorik
still remembered the Vulcan neck pinch."

I winched in sympathy. "Ouch." One of my newly rediscovered
memories was of being subjected to that once.

Harry nodded. "Yeah. Anyway, Neelix has some food in the
mess hall, if you're hungry."

I started for the door. "I'm starving. This kid has as much
energy as her father, and once she's burned all of hers, she
starts on mine. Coming, Tom?"

He stood up. "Sure, why not? I'm a bit hungry."

The three of us sat down to eat together, but Harry was
called to the bridge pretty quickly. Neelix was gone,
leaving me alone with Tom. Despite what he had said, he was
more than "a bit hungry". I watched in astonishment as he
downed three plates of almost everything Neelix had out.
That's not to say I didn't eat my fair share of things, but
at least I had a reason.

"Did you get any food on that planet?" I asked. He looked up
at me and grinned. I nearly laughed at the sight, as a long,
purple noodle was still dangling from his mouth. Slurping it
up, he nodded. "Came with the job."

"Really. Well, I somehow doubt you missed Neelix's cooking."

He shrugged. "I don't remember how it tasted. Maybe I did."

I snorted. "Maybe they wiped your taste buds too. You used
to complain about it all the time. I think the one time you
ever actually wanted it was when you and Harry were in
prison together."

"In prison?" He pointed at himself. "What would I do to
merit prison?"

Thinking of his past - and more specifically, where Captain
Janeway had found him - I gave a half-smile, half-frown.
"You'd be surprised at how much trouble you've gotten
yourself into in the past."

"You'll have to tell me." His eyes locked onto mine. After a
second, I looked away. He didn't remember much about me. I
was a virtual stranger to him. He didn't remember his life
here on Voyager, or his soon-to-be-born daughter, or his
wife, or his best friend.

"So!" I said, standing up. "Why don't we go to the holodeck,
and I'll run through some things with you?"

When we got to the holodeck, I ran the training simulation
of the bridge. Leaving the characters out, I stood Tom in
the middle of the bridge.

"All right. Which one is your station?" I asked. He
hesitated for a minute, then walked to the helm, looking at
me for confirmation. I nodded, smiling. He frowned.
"B'Elanna, I should tell you, that was pretty much a
educated guess. This is obviously a helm console, and you
said I was a pilot."

My smile disappeared. Yes, I supposed that was so. "All
right.let's see. Can you remember the proper pattern for
initiating warp?"

This was one I knew Tom knew well. He had done it
absentmindedly several times, when he was thinking
particularly hard and tapping his fingers, in the precise
pattern required to initiate warp six. He'd even done it in
his sleep. There had been several occasions when I had been
awakened by Tom using my arm as a helm console.

After a moment's hesitation, he slowly tapped the buttons in
the proper order. While I didn't cheer, I was on the verge
of it. My smile was so wide, it felt as if my face would
split.

"All right, now drop us down to.half impulse. Perform a
corkscrew, then take us to warp 7. Can you do that?"

His trademark cocky grin came out. "Of course." He dropped
down to half impulse, and began the corkscrew dive.
Unfortunately, there was the dull thud and shudder of an
impact on the hull. Half a second later, he was sitting on
the floor. I was grateful that I had elected to stand.

"Ouch." He stood up. "What happened?"

I sighed. "You didn't bother to scan before performing the
maneuver. We hit something, and it destroyed the ship."
Obviously, we had some work to do.

But, I reflected, he had done well. Maybe it was time to
call in reinforcements.

"Come on, let's go." I grabbed his arm and hauled him out
the door.

"Where?" he asked, trying to keep up.

"Home. Our quarters. You are going to read all of your logs.
You are going to read all of my logs. You are going to read
all of the ship's logs."

He winched. "Sounds like a lot of logs."

"Seven years worth."

His eyes widened in disbelief. "Seven years?!" he asked
incredulously.

"Yes, seven years. You don't have to read them all tonight."

"That's a relief. I'm not Borg, I can't just assimilate
information."

I whirled around on him. "What?"

He looked confused. "What'd I do?"

"You said you weren't a Borg!"

"Well.I'm not. Am I?"

"No, you most definitely are not. But how do you know who
the Borg are?" I asked.

He looked even more confused. "I remembered it.oh, now I get
it. I remembered it!"

"Yes! Yes, Tom, that's it exactly!"

He still looked confused though. "Just tell me one thing."

"What?"

"Who are the Borg?"

So I explained to him who the Borg were, as we walked to our
quarters. As we approached them, I spotted Seven, with the
Doctor escorting her. "And there's our own personal Borg
there!" I said.

"Hello." Seven greeted us coolly.

"Hello, Lieutenants!" The Doctor, on the other hand, was
cheerful. "How's it coming along?"

"Very well, thank you." I said. "What about you?"

A brief flash of annoyance passed over his face. "Slowly.
Apparently, her Borg physiology makes her resistant to the
medication."

I frowned in sympathy. "So, it's the long way, hm?"

He frowned again. "Unfortunately, yes. And she hasn't quite
learned that resistance is futile. She's resisting my
attempts to teach her."

"Well, good luck," I said. "Somehow I think you'll need it."

His frown deepened. "So do I."

Tom and I entered our quarters. I took a padd to the
computer console and downloaded our personal logs and
ship's, giving it to Tom, neatly filed in chronological
order, so he could read the ship's logs, then see our
personal viewpoints.

It was late, though, and I was tired. It had been a long
day. "Come on, Tom, we need to get ready for bed."

He nodded, and went over to the drawers, pulling out his own
drawer instantly, with no hesitation. I smiled. As he went
into the bathroom to change, I changed into my own pajamas,
loose sweats that fit comfortably, which seemed to be harder
to find the further my pregnancy went.

He came out after a few minutes, and I went in to use the
bathroom. When I came out, he was standing, looking
obviously uncomfortable. "I was just wondering," he began.
"Where do you want me to sleep?"

I hadn't thought of this. "Are you uncomfortable with the
idea of sleeping in the bed?" I asked, as gently as I could.

He blushed slightly. "Yeah, sort of. No offense. But with no
memories and everything."

I nodded. "It's all right, Tom. I understand." I guess I'd
had some idea that we'd beam him up, and he'd be fine after
a couple shots of medicine. This really showed me otherwise.

"Thanks. So, is the couch all right?"

"Whatever you want is fine. These are your quarters too."

He nodded, somewhat uncertainly, before grabbing his pillow
and going to the couch.

I took the bed. I began reading the novel I'd been working
on in the last day, and got so involved with the storyline,
I was startled when I felt Tom getting into the bed. I
looked at him and raised my eyebrow a bit.

He shrugged. "I decided to try the bed idea. The couch is
hard. Besides, I'd have a beautiful companion to share it
with." The trademark Paris grin came out in full. I laughed.
"All right. Whatever you want."

He laid there reading the logs, while I read my novel, until
he fell asleep. Even though my own eyes were growing
increasingly hard to keep open, I stayed awake. The novel
was too good to put down.

Finally, I was forced to put it down, when I realized I
hadn't comprehended the last few paragraphs, I was so tired.
I took a moment to watch Tom as he slept, though. Leaning
over, I kissed his cheek. He'd come so far, in just a day,
and I was proud of him.

"Sleep well, Tom," I said, before allowing my eyes to close
and my body to drift into the relaxation of sleep.

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The End