DISCLAIMER: The story and characters belong to Paramount, etc. They are not mine and no money is being made from this piece of nonsense. No copyright infringement is intended. Original characters are mine though.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Although this can stand alone, it would probably make better sense if you read Temptation first. This is an AU fic based on the "world" created in Temptation. Hope you enjoy.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Fantasy 1
Little Misunderstandings
By allie
Bethany growled. Just like her mama did when she was as mad as Grethor. It was so illogical for this to have happened. All of her research indicated that she would be exonerated for this misdemeanour and not confined to the Brig.
How could Janeway, of all people, confine a child to the Brig?
Why did her mommy agree to it?
What was her mama going to say when she returned from her away mission?
What was she going to say to her mama?
More to the point; what was her mama going to say to her?
Oh, she was in so much trouble!
Her mama was going to blow a fuse just like her mommy said she did when she was real mad.
Bethany paced the cell, her restless Klingon side ready and able to fight her way out of the latest scrape she'd gotten herself into, but her human side was terrified.
How was she going to explain this to her mama?
She frowned, her little forehead ridges wrinkling as she heard footsteps outside in the main Brig area. Although she had the benefit of both sensitive Klingon hearing and Borg enhanced audio-acuity she could not make out what was being said. She did, however, have a feeling in the the pit of her stomach that said it was her mommy outside the brig.
The click-click of metal heels on metal plating made Bethany's hearts plummet to her toes. Her mommy was outside and heading towards her location.
Swallowing hard she pulled herself up to her fullest height and puffed up her chest. The littlest Klingon on board Voyager was determined not to show her fear.
Her mommy entered the code to lower the forcefield and stepped over the threshold into the cell. The imposing blonde ex-borg looked down at her child and smiled softly.
"What have you done this time Wa'Hom?"
Staring, dumbfounded at her mommy's obvious calm, she could only stutter, "Muh…mom…mommy?"
Inwardly grinning Seven looked down at the miniture image of her wife and repeated her question.
Bethany's frown increased until her eyebrows almost met in the middle and tried to formulate her repsonse.
"Mommy, I didn't do anything wrong."
"Irrelevant." Seven responded coolly, knowing her daughter's abilities. "What did you do?"
Bethany could no longer maintain eye contact with her mommy and gazed at her feet as she spoke. "I fixed Capa'gwan's chair in her quarters and changed Doc's trousers."
"You fixed the Captain's chair? Clarify?"
"It's squeaky. I fixed it. It don't squeak no more." Bethany elaborated.
"The Captain confined you to the Brig for fixing her chair?" Seven looked and sounded doubtful that such an incident had warranted time in the Brig for the little girl.
"She put me here for 'being a menace to Voyager and putting her on her damn ass'; that's what she said." Bethany's eyes filled with tears as she spoke.
Seven's heart melted at the sight of her daughter's eyes filling with tears. Kneeling in front of her child she spread her arms and embraced the child who'd immediately dived into the welcome cuddle.
"Mommy?" Bethany sobbed. "Mama's gonna be mad as Grethor at me now, isn't she?"
"Most likely. As she will be the one who needs to 'repair' your 'fixing' of the Captain's chair." Seven kissed the top of her daughter's head and stood again to her full height still holding her child in her arms. "What did you do to it that 'put her on her damn ass'?"
Bethany mumbled something under her breath. Although Seven heard what she had said thanks to her own enhanced hearing, she made the child repeat it. "I forgot to tighten the bit which holds the seat to the back bit and she fell off when she sat on it."
--Before it all began
There was no way B'Elanna was going to allow her wife to take part in this away mission. Seven's pregnancy had been fraught with complications and false alarms, so she decided as Head of the House of Hansen-Torres that Seven remain behind onboard Voyager.
As the only other able-bodied engineer who knew how to extract Dilithium ore AND prepare it for refinement she would supervise the mission. Engineering had been decimated by an epidemic of bad-ficitis which left them with only three engineers unaffected; herself, Seven and Ensign allie.
With more brawn than brain at her disposal, allie was the one who would be completing the manual labour of extracting the ore, all B'Elanna would have to do was push an anti-grav sled and assist in lifting the small crates into the Flyer. Nothing that a heavily pregnant woman couldn't cope with normally.
--Start at the Beginning – Bethany's decision to adjust the Captain's Chair
"Beebop, I know you are very clever, but you can't take the Captain's chair apart!"
"Ni-mee, I can. I know how to fix squeaky!" The child responded as she puffed her chest up proudly. "Mama showed me."
"Your mama will kill you if you do this." Naomi wasn't really scared of Torres. She knew she wouldn't hurt the child, but trying to explain to the curious little girl, that repairs to the Captain's chair were best left to the Engineering teams was a daunting task. She'd been arguing with her for nearly ten minutes when Bethany suddenly stopped gathering tools dropped them and stood stock still.
"Beebop?" Naomi frowned at the child's sudden stillness. "What's wrong?"
Growling low in her chest the littlest Klingon looked skywards then back at Naomi. "Baby come. She tell mama she ready to come."
Rubbing her spikes in consternation, Naomi simply looked at the child. No one had ever managed to explain the link the child had to her parents. She could tell when one of her parents was in pain, happy, sad, or growly together (which translated, meant they were kissing).
"The baby? Which baby?" Naomi knew both of Bethany's parents were pregnant as she'd been helping in sick bay (her own mother was assistant medic) as part of her Captain's Assistant duties. She now knew quite a bit of theory behind pregnancies and childbirth.
"Mama's baby. Mommy's baby not want to come out yet." Bethany informed her calmly, picking up the dropped tools and turning back to the chair she was in the process of "fixing".
Naomi shrugged and rubbed her spikes again. Turning back to her studies she contemplated the intracasies of warp theory and quantum physics. The stuff she studied for fun would make any normal teenager faint. She wanted to be as clever as Seven of Nine, and have her mother proud of her, so she studied hard with her assigned subjects and worked even harder on texts Seven recommended for her.
A satified sigh made her glance up at the littlest Klingon and raise her brow a la Seven.
"Done." Bethany announced with satisfaction. "I to go Doc's for check now, Ni-mee."
"Yes, soon."Naomi agreed. "I'll just tidy this up first then take you."
– The Away Mission - concurrent with Bethany's repairs
B'Elanna Torres guided the mini anti-grav sled out of the cave for the final time that day and started towards the Delta Flyer. Cursing her Klingon physiology for the millionth time that day she shivered in the cool temperature of the early evening dusk.
The planet, to which she had been sent to for Dilithium ore, was a blazing furnace during the day, which suited her prefectly; but as the evening drew closer, the temperature plummeted with the darkening sky. For the second night in a row she was cold and getting colder, even under the exertion of mining and hauling Dilithium ore.
Although she was six months pregnant and due to give birth any day now she was still the best engineer onboard and the best person left for the job of supervising the mining the Dilithium required for Voyager's survival.
Shoving the sled a little harder she increased her speed as much as her six month pregnant frame would allow. Swollen with child she felt encumbered, unable to move with the same strength and grace she had previously, she struggled with both the sled and her own body.
Sighting the Delta Flyer in the near distance she cursed the various deities she knew of; who seemed hellbent on preventing her from using a transporter to deliver her load quickly. The surrounding mountains were laced with alliemorphium which prevented getting a clear signal lock.
Sighing heavily, she pushed again and turned her thoughts to her precious loves. Her women. Her passion and her soul. Grinning at the thought of her wife and daughter, she wondered what kind of scrape her tinyWa'Hom had gotten herself into this time. There was never a day when Bethany didn't manage to get into trouble for something – usually unintentionally, but trouble none the less.
Smirking at the thought and chuckling quietly to herself, she acknowledged Ensign allie J and accepted the assistance to unload the sled's contents into the Delta Flyer. Once safely stowed away she took the controls and laid in a course to take them off the planet to rendezvous with Voyager.
As she guided the ship into the stratosphere of the planet she felt a sharp twinge in her lower abdomen. Scowling deeply she looked to the Ensign sitting beside her. "Can you take helm control allie?"
Automatically transferring control to her console and accepting piloting command of the vessel she quietly asked, "Are you okay Leuitenant?"
"Yeah." The growl escaped B'Elanna before she could stop it. "Fine, just a twinge. Wa'Hom Number Two is due any day now and she's getting restless."
B'Elanna moved to the rear of the vessel and removed a medical tri-corder from the storage locker. Quickly scanning herself her frown became more pronounced and she gasped in shock.
Turning slightly to gaze in the Leiutenant's direction, the ensign's eyebrows silently asked the question she was afraid to voice.
"Kahless, I'm in labour!" B'Elanna blurted out.
-- Visit to the Doc --
Bethany and Naomi arrived in sick bay hand in hand giggling like the little girls they were. The tension between the two surrounding the Captain's chair long forgotten.
Bethany was due a check up to confirm her latent nanaoprobes were still inactive. Some of them would activate when she reached five years old, but the majority of them would remain dormant until Seven activated them.
The Hansen-Torres family had decided to activate them when Bethany was old enough to actively decide if she wanted the Collective-like link to her mommy. The way she was progressing developmentally, that would be sooner rather than later.
Passing through the entrance into sickbay Naomi felt the tension return to Bethany. The child had increased the strength of her grip on Naomi's hand.
"Beebop? What's wrong?" Naomi quizzed gently. "Is it your mama again?"
"Nope, smell ickey, something not well." The child frowned and wrinkled her little nose.
Lifting her and placing her on the biobed Naomi looked around for the Doc. Unable to locate him, she requested the computer to activate him.
Appearing in a shimmer of blue sparkles the Doc looked around as he spoke. "Please state the nature of the medical emergency?"
"Doc, you funny." Bethany giggled. "No 'mergency, just me."
"Ah, glad to see you Miss Hansen-Torres." He intoned. "If you could just have a seat, I'll be with you in a moment. What can I do for you Miss Wildman?"
Naomi frowned, Doc was being overly formal and the child was already sitting. He usually referred to her as Beebop or "my littlest Klingon". Rubbing her spikes she wondered what was going on with him.
"Doc, me sitting already." Bethany frowned too. "You broke Doc, cuz me can fix you if you want?"
"What? No, I'm not broken. I am practically perfectly perfect in every way. I am programmed in over five billion medical procedures and know how to treat a little girl for bad-fanficitis."
Naomi's frown changed to a scowl. Now she knew something was wrong. "Doc, Beebop is here for her nanoprobe check up, not allergies."
"Who are you child? Why are you questioning me?" The hologram turned a couple of shades redder than normal indicating his displeasure at being questioned, especially by a minor.
Meanwhile, Bethany had hopped off the bio-bed and wandered over to the main sickbay console. Accessing the holomatrix controls was simple enough for her. She'd seen her parents do it a thousand times. Mumbling the authorisation codes her mama used for the controls she accessed the Doc's matrix.
Ignoring the argument between the Doc and Naomi she frowned in concentration as she looked into the depths of the control panel. All of the wires etc looked intact, nothing obviously out of place. Moving slightly to her right she noticed the discolouration of the optical relay feeding the holo-emitter. The tiny gel pack feeding the relay had split and obviously leaked all over the relay.
The Doc and Naomi continued arguing, getting louder and louder with each passing sentence. Naomi objecting to being spoken to like a child and the Doc being his usual condescending self meant the two were at loggerheads and unable to move on from their current impasse.
Bethany fiddled with the wiring to loosen it; completely oblivious to the noise of the argument raging at her side, intent on replacing it with undamaged wiring.
A sudden high pitched squeak and silence from the arguing duo made her look up from her repair.
"Oh, Kahless on a crutch! Me in soo much trouble!"
-- Ro's reaction to Janeway –
Ro Laren almost fell off her seat laughing at her wife; who couldn't believe she'd been bested by the littlest Klingon. The child had an unerring knack of annoying Janeway but endearing herself to the rest of the crew as a result. There wasn't a member of the entire crew who wouldn't lay their life down to protect the Wa'Hom. The only other person who evoked this kind of reaction was Naomi, and that pair were inseperable.
Ro had the image of her wife falling ass over tea-kettle off the "fixed" chair indelibly etched on her brain. The look on Janeway's face was incredibly funny. She obviously didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of what had just happened.
Ro had been "babysitting" Beebop whilst Seven was on duty and B'Elanna was off on the away mission. Naomi had visited to keep her little friend company. The two had been playing happily on the floor in the main room of Capa'gwan's quarters, so Ro had retired to the bedroom to change her daughter's diaper. Knowing that Naomi was sensible enough to keep Wa'Hom out of trouble Ro had no qualms about leaving them unsupervised.
Janeway had returned for lunch with "her girls" and had sat in the fixed chair and promptly ended up on her ass. Ro had re-entered the main room, holding her now clean and slumbering daughter, just as Janeway sat down so she saw the entire scene.
Unable to do anything to prevent her wife from falling she simply stood where she was; roaring with laughter. The children watched in horrified fascination. Naomi's first thought was akin to a Torres stream of invective. "Great Spikes! We are in so much trouble now!"
The look on Janeway's face made Bethany grin. She was used to her mama's fierce glowers, so a force ten glare from Capa'gwan didn't scare her. She started giggling, which in turn set off Naomi, which in turn encouraged Ro to laugh harder.
Janeway picked herself up from the tangled heap she'd landed in and lowered her command mask.
"Miss Hansen-Torres, Miss Wildman, what did you two do to my chair?" Senior Officers normally quail at that tone but the children knew Janeway too well to react.
Bethany piped up. "Capa'gwan, me fix it. No squeaky now."
"YOU? You fixed it?" Janeway looked at her wife for confirmation but Ro could only shrug and point to their daughter indicating she'd been busy taking care of Naimh. "You, young lady are confined to the Brig! For being a menace to Voyager and putting me on my damn ass!"
Various choruses of "you can't," and , "you wouldn't" echoed through the now silent room. Backed into a corner, Janeway now had no choice. She had to carry out her threat. Commanding the computer to transport Bethany to the Brig, she scowled at her wife and left the room.
Ro stared, dumbfounded at her wife's over-reaction. Unable to comprehend the logic in confining a child to the Brig for a prank. Naomi silently shook her head and sobbed quietly, wondering why her world was slowly turning itself inside out.
--Back at the Delta Flyer –
Ensign allie manouvered the Delta Flyer through the shuttle bay doors and heaved a huge sigh of relief. A pregnant Klingon about to give birth was not her first choice of away mission partners; no matter how much she idolised the beauty, this was more than she could handle. She gingerly helped the cursing woman out of the Flyer and into the shuttle bay hanger.
Torres had educated Ensign allie in approximately forty new curses in twelve different languages over the twenty minute flying time from the planet back to Voyager. Every new curse heralded by a painful contraction for the Klingon.
"Ensign allie to the Doc." She called as soon as she closed down the door control panel on the Flyer.
"Doc here Ensign, please state the nature of the medical emergency?"
"It's Lt. Torres Doc, she's in labour. She's been having contractions for the last twenty minutes and she's cussing up a storm." Ensign allie informed the Doc.
"Get her to Sickbay as soon as possible Ensign."
The Ensign frowned at the order and chose the most sensible course of action. "Ensign allie to Seven of Nine."
The dulcet tones of Seven echoed in the cavernous hangar. "Seven here Ensign."
"Seven, can you meet me in sickbay please? Your wife is in labour and cussing me all ways. I think we need your calming influence on her before she kills something."
"On my way."
Gently wrapping an arm around B'Elanna and guiding her out of the hangar and along to the turbolift Ensign allie was in a quandary. How could she resist the temptation to hold Torres that little bit closer than was really necessary when she had been in love with her for years? Secretly enjoying the close contact with her unrequited love she sighed and silently prayed that one day she would find a love of her own who wasn't already in love with someone else.
--Janeway's Explanation
Glowering at her wife Janeway tried to formulate her response in such a way that she didn't appear like a vindictive or stupid woman.
She knew that the child annoyed her profusley but it didn't stop her loving the child like her own daughter. She'd put her on her ass and then laughed at her. Janeway's pride found that unacceptable. The child was forever making her look foolish; usually in front of the crew. The littlest Klingon was far too clever for her own good.
There was no way she could do anything other than confine her to the Brig, it was the safest place for her. Janeway was convinced that the safest place for her until one of her mother's could collect her was the Brig, that way she wouldn't throttle the little brat.
Lifting her head and sucking in a deep breath she spoke quietly to her wife. "She can't "fix" anything else from the Brig. She can't escape from the Brig. She can't put me on my ass again if she is in the Brig. She can't cause anymore damage to any more of Voyagers systems if she is in the Brig."
"True Kath, mylove, but YOU are the one who has to explain that to Torres. She's gonna "blow a fuse" at you for this one." Ro warned quietly, the explanation was reasonable, Bethany was notorious for playing tricks on her Capa'gwan in front of the crew. She was also forever taking things apart and "fixing" them – usually at the most inoportune moments – trying to emulate her parents.
"If Torres doesn't kill me then Seven will." Janeway complained.
-- Bethany's Explanation
A couple of hours later Ro collected her "granddaughter" from the Wildman's quarters where Seven had left her after removing her from the brig. Escorting her to her mama and mommy in Sickbay to greet her little sister Ro held the little girl's hand and smiled at the rascal's antics. She'd found the whole situation hilarious.
Kathryn's over-reaction was too much for Ro, she thought the whole incident was hilarious especially since it was a child who had once again bested the venerable Captain Kathryn Janeway. The same Janeway who could face down the Borg Queen was confounded by a child. Ro smirked, secretly proud of the little girl for keeping her wife in her place.
Seven had already informed her wife about the incident with the Captain's chair and the Doctor's trousers. B'Elanna had roared with laughter between contractions, until her sides ached from laughter.
Only her Wa'Hom could end up in the brig at such a young age. A feat even Torres at her wildest hadn't been able to accomplish.
Ro and Bethany entered sickbay quietly, unsure if the new baby would be napping. As soon as she saw her mama sitting on the bio-bed Bethany's chin dropped to her chest. She knew her mama would be mad at her for this one.
Not so much for the Captain's chair but the Doc's holomatrix was going to be the one she got into real trouble for. When Bethany had pulled the damaged wiring from the protective casing she inadvertantly damaged the Doc's holomatrix.
"Wa'Hom? What did you do?" B'Elanna asked as she opened her arms to invite the child into the offered embrace.
"Mama? You not mad at me?" Bethany clambered up the biobed (with a little help from her mommy) and cuddled into her mama. Spotting the new baby sleeping at B'Elanna's side she whispered whilst smiling gently at the baby, "Caitlin here now?"
Gasping in surprise Seven glared at her wife – she'd wanted to tell Bethany of her little sister's name. Shaking her head in silent communication B'Elanna denied having told her daughter the younger child's name.
"I'm not mad at you Wa'Hom, I just think you should be supervised if you're gonna tinker with the Doc's holomatrix."
"It was broke mama. I fixed it. I done it right too." Bethany defended her actions.
"I know Wa'Hom, but the Doc really shouldn't be wearing a pair of shocking pink spandex shorts and a flourescent green muscle shirt.
The End