DISCLAIMER: Alexa is mine; born right from my head as for the others; I don’t own ‘em, I just like ‘em… A LOT. And as someone (don’t remember who) said before… they have more fun in my world than they ever had in Paramount’s world!
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Split Seconds
By The Other Liz
Part Nine
"Whoa… hang on there." Alexa smiled. "Mama isn't one to piss off is she?"
"Anyone with half a brain would not piss off your Mama." B'Elanna grinned. "Of course I always thought it was fun. But yes, she is not one to piss off, especially when it pertains to her family."
"I have a little recollection of the stories I was told about the time before you two got together."
"A couple of hotheads with misplaced passion." B'Elanna grinned again. "Of course when it comes down to my engine room and her Astrometrics… there are still flares."
"You still fight?" Alexa became a little worried, only imagining what a fight between them could be like.
"Not really." B'Elanna said. "Just enough to start a little… something for later."
"Okay. Time for you to stop right there." Alexa smiled, and changed the subject rapidly. "So uh… why is it that my ridges and stuff are re-appearing?"
"You know, we really weren't sure about that either, but your Mama seems to think that it had something to do with your nanoprobes adapting to pre-Federation Earth."
Alexa grinned. Her Mama had a point. You didn't really see too many Klingons walking around in 2004.
"So if I got my ridges and other stuff back… How come I'm still pasty? I'm supposed to be… you colored."
"Me colored? You were never the same color as me, just a few shades lighter." B'Elanna smiled. "But I can't really answer that one. It doesn't matter though, you're still beautiful."
B'Elanna sat back from the gel pack she was working on to admire her child. She still couldn't believe that Kah'less had granted her prayers in bringing Alexa back to her.
"I don't think so." Alexa said only loud enough that B'Elanna's hearing picked it up.
"Oh. You and your Mama." She smiled remembering how long it had taken her to convince Seven that she was indeed the most beautiful woman onboard.
"Me and my Mama what?"
"It took me forever to convince her that she is beautiful."
"Are you kidding me?!" Alexa said. "She's amazing! If I was just an average guy I wouldn't know who to pick between her and Naomi…"
Alexa's eyes widened as she realized what she'd just revealed. B'Elanna bit her lip hard to keep in the laughter threatening to bubble over.
"Naomi huh?"
"I… I don't know what you're talking about." Alexa said. "So why I am I seventeen and not six?"
B'Elanna quickly recognized that Alexa wasn't quite ready for this conversation and acquiesced to her daughter's thirst for knowledge on her situation.
The older Klingon hybrid sucked in a deeper breath. She was a scientist after all and she would have to explain to her child what happened in, perhaps a more clinical term, than the child was used to. However Alexa's saving grace was that she was a fan of upscale science fiction, not the crap Helmrat enjoyed.
"Okay...um its going to sound a bit complicated..."
"SoS'oy… I pulled A's in Calculus and Physics in school okay? Yeah, okay its high school junk but I think I get some of it." Alexa smiled. "Besides I like figuring out how things work. I'm not bad at putting motorbikes together either. Had to be, my little rice burner seemed to take a shit all the time."
B'Elanna chuckled at her child's reassurance. It seemed she was her mothers' daughter after all.
"Okay Wa'Hom... you got it. I said it gets complicated and it does, because it gets into quantum mechanics. This is really your Mama's field of specialty but I'll try to explain it to you the way she did for me."
Alexa raised an eyebrow, perhaps having an instinctual idea just how technical her blonde mother could become.
"High School SoS'oy, not college. Okay?"
B'Elanna flashed a reassuring smile.
"Trust me, I won't get over your head. The best example is to say it was a Schrödinger equation."
"Schrödinger?"
"Quantum Physics. He basically is the human father of understanding Quantum Physics." She paused and looked Alexa for a beat. "Look honey, are you sure you don't want your Mama to explain this? I mean this really is her field."
"Yeah, well you know use the laymen's terms SoS."
"You mean the dumbed down version?"
"No!" Alexa didn't want to insult her mother.
The warm smile on her SoS'oy's lips defeated any hint the Klingon might have been insulted.
"I just....um...need your take on it. So.... this whole Quantum physics crap...what like Quantum Leap?"
"Quantum Leap?" B'Elanna frowned not understanding.
"Never mind, guess you don't get Nick-at-Night or the Sci-Fi channel on that mega screen in Astrometrics. Anyway you were saying."
Pop culture of the late 1990's was never anything B'Elanna was interested in, but for her child she would verse herself in the history.
"Okay Schrödinger, High school level." Wine red lips curled into a smile. "Okay I'll give you an example. Schrödinger had this theoretical experiment. Put a cat in a box, add a can of poison gas, activated by the decay of a radioactive atom, and close the box. At any one instant, the cat would be both dead and alive at the same time. An atom state is indeterminate until measured by an outside observer. That's sorta what happened to you. You were both alive and dead.... but because of the entropic pocket crated by the nearness of the wormhole and the radiation of the Warp Core breech, it was you in that "box" and you were flung back into a temporal flux. And because Time is relevant you aged several years on earth while it was a year on Voyager."
Glancing at Alexa and seeing that she was actually following B'Elanna continued on with her explanation.
"Um...well the time dilation was a result to the intense gravity, which is directly proportional to the proximity of the artificial Quantum singularity that had been generated by the solar flare and the cascade failure of the Warp Core. Time for Voyager passed more slowly, relative to Earth, we all experienced a paradox."
"Wait, I thought Time abhorred a Paradox." Alexa frowned.
"It does Sweetie." B'Elanna said gently. "But that was why you aged as you had and for us it was only a year. The warping of Voyager's space-time seems to be in advance of the gravitational field rather than as a result of it. Seven said it was probably a lensing effect generated by the unstable wormhole itself."
B'Elanna took a breath before continuing on.
"The point is, wa'Hom, time is passed more slowly on Voyager, in fact according to relativity. Now with the intense gravity field of something like a quantum singularity, time actually slows down. And for a brief moment Voyager was connected to its gravitational field. It would have expanded taking Voyager with it if Seven...er... your Mama...hadn't shut down the matrix. "
"Sorta like... like a bubble slowly extending outward." Alex tried to grasp what her mother was saying.
"Right. That was how your Mama explained the event. Quantum gravity. We were experiencing a time dilation in a radius in advance of the gravity field that's caused it. Now according to everything your Mama thought she knew about relativity, it's just not possible. But it happened."
"Oh." Alexa said after a moment. "Wow… that's uh… complicated."
"It took us forever just to get that far."
"So pretty much a year here on Voyager is like eleven… wherever I was?"
"That's the easy way of saying it."
B'Elanna struggled with the last gel pack for a moment before it slid into place.
"There. That's all of them." B'Elanna said, then laughed. "For now."
"So where can a couple of way cool super high tech engineers like us manage some food?" Alexa asked a grin covering her face.
"Well, we can give those replicators a run for their money if you're up to it."
"Rock on." Alexa giggled. "I can replicate McDonalds… right?"
Naomi was distracted. Again. No matter what she was trying to do her mind always came back to the same thing, or actually, person. Alexa. It was all the young Katarian could do to push the right buttons and run the right scans. After 3 hours, 6 mistakes and 15 miscalculations Seven took notice. Well, truly, Seven had noticed after the first mistake and second miscalculation it was only now that she decided to say anything.
"Cadet Wildman, you have made 6 mistakes and 15 miscalculations in 3 hours." Seven said coolly.
"I know." Naomi said once again finding the floor captivating.
"In my office. Now."
Naomi swallowed hard.
'I'm so in for it. Seven hates it when we mess everything up.' She thought to herself.
Once they were safely tucked into Seven's office, Seven shut the door and drew the blinds over the windows. She then perched on the edge of her desk and motioned Naomi to sit.
"What is the matter?" she asked gently.
Naomi knew she had become like a little sister to Seven if not another daughter but this was information she wasn't ready to let go of. In an all time record she found the floor captivating once again.
"You are attracted to my daughter." Seven said with a very un-Borg like half smile.
Naomi's head snapped up.
"Who told…" she then found the floor again. "Idunnowhatyertalkinabout."
"Your respiration and heart rates both increase significantly not only when she is around but also when she is spoken of."
"I… no…" Naomi spluttered.
"It is nothing to be embarrassed of," Seven began. "Mizoti is quite beautiful."
"Huh, wait. No! Not Mizoti, Alexa." Naomi said quickly and without thinking first.
Seven's smile could have lit up a thousand worlds. Naomi's eyes widened as she realized what she had revealed.
"You tricked me." Naomi said, pouting a little.
"An efficient means of acquiring useful information."
"Please don't tell her." Naomi begged. "She's way out of my league anyhow."
Seven quirked an eyebrow but before she could inquire, Naomi finished her thought.
"Ask Mizoti."
"Very well." Seven said. "I shall ask Mizoti on Alexa's being 'out of your league', but I will honor your wishes of confidentiality to Alexa."
"Thank you."
"Have you eaten?"
"Uh… No."
"Retrieve Mizoti, we will 'take a break' and eat in the Mess Hall."
"Okay." Naomi said, standing.
Seven started for the door when she felt Naomi's hand on her shoulder. She turned and found the young girl looking up at her with hope in her eyes.
"You don't think she's out of my league?"
"No. I do not." Seven said with a half smile.
Seven then pulled Naomi into a comforting hug before they headed out to get Mizoti and then head to the Mess Hall.