Work Text:
2401
B’Elanna crossed to her closet and pulled her favourite comfy I’m-relaxing-with-a-good-schematic sweater off a shelf. She held it at arms length and stared at it, lips pursed in thought, then sloppily folded it and shoved it back. She surveyed her rack of button down shirts with a frown, then crossed to Tom’s side of the closet and grabbed his navy and black checked flannel from its hanger, walked back to the bed to shove it into the small kit bag.
“It’s going to be fine, since when are you such a worry wart?”
Tom’s eyebrow rose at the blatant theft. “How do you know that? Have you consulted the Doctor?” He trailed behind her from the closet, to the bed, to the chest of drawers. She opened the top drawer and grabbed an armful of underwear and her nightgown. “Want me to help you with that?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows. She rolled her eyes and dumped the clothing on the bed.
Tom caught her by the arm and turned her to face him, more so she would stop moving for a minute than to decipher her expression. He gazed at her anyway, noting the streaks of gray in her hair, the fine laugh lines at the corners of her eyes and the sparkle that was still in those eyes thirty years on. He slid his arms around her and pulled her closer, and she laid a hand on his chest as he leaned down and kissed her softly. “All I’m saying is, you don’t know for sure. Are you sure you can’t postpone—”
“I’m pretty sure that no, everyone else is not going to put their plans on hold for a week to accommodate the ravings of my overly hopeful husband.” She smiled at him and leaned up to give him a little nip on the jaw.
Tom snorted. “To be honest, I’m hoping that you’re right. I’m not getting any younger.” He grinned and kissed her again. “But what if you're not?”
“Tom, have you met our two youngest children? The pon farr is a mating imperative and I’m in menopause, hot flashes, mood swings and extra kilos included. A viable egg, not included.”
His hand slipped to her menopausally-enhanced ass and squeezed. “I’m rather fond of those kilos,” he grinned.
“Yeah, I’ve noticed.” She gave him a quick peck on the lips and moved away. “Besides, you have the WTTF championships with your father this weekend. You have the tickets, you don’t want them to go to waste.”
“I can cancel and come with you. He’d understand.”
B’Elanna whirled back around and stared at him, her eyes wide and her mouth open. He held up a hand. “I wouldn’t tell him the real reason I have to cancel, I’d make something up!” He held her gaze for a moment, then they both started to snicker.
“Can you even imagine how he would react? Or your mother!” B’Elanna doubled over with laughter and reached for him again. “Oh, no. Damn,” she giggled.
Colour rose in her cheeks and she pulled up her shirt and started to flap a hand in front of her belly. “No strong emotions, remember?”
“Sure,” he agreed, “not a problem for you.” Tom slid a hand onto her naked back, and felt heat rise and radiate outward. A fine layer of perspiration had broken out over her skin. He shook his head. “It’s amazing.”
“Yeah, I’m a physiological wonder.”
He sobered. “You could talk to the Doc.”
“It’s a perfectly natural process, why would I allow him to medicate me?”
Tom secretly thought it was some sort of Klingon honour thing, but he wasn’t dumb enough to suggest it to her.
How the hell did I get so lucky, Tom thought. Pon farr, included. He couldn’t deny that it had been disruptive, but it had produced some definite benefits, too. It had brought them closer as couple, and though he hoped that they would have had Isela and Joe anyway, those weekends of nonstop sex had bonded them in a way that he was sure most couples had never experienced.
B’Elanna cupped his cheek and stared into his eyes for a long moment. “Take Joe and your father to Lisbon and enjoy your table tennis.” She smiled. “We can have one more pon farr when I get back. For old times’ sake.” She wrinkled her nose at him in that way that he never failed to find sexy and adorable all rolled into one.
Tom grinned and kissed her again.
***
They were in the cab on their way to the transport station, Tom having insisted on coming with her. B’Elanna was looking out the window but every once in a while she would shoot him a sideways glance. Tom raised an eyebrow in that are you thinking what I’m thinking? way of his, but so far she hadn’t taken the bait.
She turned from the view out the window and smiled at her husband. He reached for her hand and squeezed, and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. It still made her fingertips tingle. He was still an extremely handsome man despite nearing sixty and his own menopausal extra kilos, still made her breath catch sometimes. She felt her pulse jump as she stared at him, and felt the prickle of perspiration along her hairline and between her breasts. Her tummy did a little flip.
“You really didn’t have to come with me, you know.”
“And pass up the opportunity to kiss you goodbye one more time?”
“I thought you did a pretty thorough job at home,” she said. “And if I recall correctly, kissing was only part of it.”
“I have an idea,” he said, pitching his tone to that damned, soft, cajoling timber that still made her blood heat. “How about you forget about that boring work conference on Utopia Planitia, and instead we head to Risa for a little playtime?”
It’s not that she wasn’t tempted, or that she didn’t see most of the attendees regularly anyway. Now that Paul Chapman had retired from his position at the Academy she’d had lunch with him just last week, but the chance to have the greatest engineering minds in the Federation in the same room together, practically on her doorstep, was too tempting to pass up. And she was genuinely looking forward to the series of lectures as well as the social aspect of the conference. She hadn’t had a chance to corner Seven, Annika, she reminded herself, and pick her brain in years.
She sighed and squeezed his hand. “It’s tempting, but they’re expecting me.”
“Okay.” Tom accepted defeat graciously, the way he usually did when work was involved. “We won’t arrive at the transport hub for at least another ten minutes. You want to fool around a little while we’re waiting?”
B’Elanna laughed, suddenly remembering turbolifts and Jefferies tubes, and tube junctions. And that one time on the diagnostic console on the upper engineering deck. She leaned over, and kissed him.
***
It was uncomfortably warm in the reception room, even for a half-Klingon.
She’d been cornered by Chapman and Ferris, quite literally as her back was to the wall, and as Saan from the ShirKar Academy on Vulcan approached them she found herself completely boxed in. “You’re B’Elanna Torres.” This was a statement, issued in the proper, slightly superior, highly-proud-of-himself Vulcan manner she’d grown accustomed to after seven years on Voyager. Of course, he’d pronounced her name properly, so maybe he had a reason to sound superior.
“I am.” She smiled and extended a hand just to see if he would unclench his own from behind his back and take it. He did, though she was sure Tom would describe his handshake as of the limp fish variety. “And you’re Saan. Your reputation precedes you. I’m looking forward to your lecture on Sunday.”
The older man inclined his head in a nod. “Your former colleague requested that I convey salutations and his inquiries as regards your health.”
B’Elanna’s lips quirked. She took a sip of her drink and patted her upper lip with her napkin. “Vorik?” She was almost afraid to ask.
“Tuvok.”
“Oh.” She felt a wash of relief. She shifted as heat started to build in her chest and spread outward from her core. Sweat prickled under her breasts. She glanced beyond Saan’s ear, and caught a peek of a sandy blonde head attached to a tall, lean male body, and felt a different kind of warmth as desire curled in her belly. Tom? What was he doing here? She started as she heard her name again.
“...modulating frequencies, Ms. Torres.”
“What?” Damn. When in doubt, confess. “I’m sorry, I thought I saw someone I knew.”
To his credit, Saan’s eyebrow stayed in place. “I was inquiring about your work with the quantum slipstream drive while you served aboard your former vessel, Voyager. In particular, the adjustments to the phase variance of the quantum field. Did you programme the computer to make the adjustments, or rely upon your…”
Where did he go? It couldn’t have been Tom, but she wouldn’t put it past him to show up, unannounced, just in case. She shifted and craned her neck, looking around Chapman’s shoulder. Was that him? But he didn’t own a shirt that colour. Of course, there was nothing stopping him from replicat—
“Ms. Torres?”
Oops. B’Elanna gulped a breath and felt her cheeks flood with colour. Her heart started to pound, and she felt a zip of electricity gather in her elbows. “I am so sorry. I just… I… excuse me.” She pushed between Saan and Ferris, grazing the Vulcan’s arm with her shoulder. He’d just have to live with the contact.
She strode toward the centre of the room, glancing left and right, trying to find him in the sea of bodies. He was gone. She moved quickly toward the main entrance of the room, and let her gaze skim the clusters of people against the far wall, when she literally walked into someone. A hand clasped her elbow, and she’d raised her hands to push the person away when she belatedly recognized her.
“Seven!”
She’d cut her hair into a bob that actually looked quite attractive with her no-longer-Borg-enhanced wide blue eyes, and was dressed casually in roomy slacks and a sweater. From behind, B’Elanna wouldn’t have known it was her. One elegant eyebrow rose at the use of her former designation-cum-name.
“B’Elanna. It’s good to see you again.”
“You, too. It’s been, what, five years?”
“Eight years, three months and seventeen days.”
B’Elanna blinked. Looking at her now, with her implants gone, you’d never suspect that she was a former Borg drone but, obviously, her eidetic memory remained intact.
“That’s right, you missed the last reunion.” B’Elanna’s stomach tightened, and her nipples hardened. She risked a glance at her chest. She looked up to see Seven—Annika!—also staring at her chest.
“Um, it’s really great to see you, but… Have you seen Tom?” She darted a glance toward the viewports beyond Seven’s left ear.
“I was not aware that he accompanied you to the conference. Or has he gained an engineering diploma since we last met?” She was smiling.
B’Elanna grinned. “No. No, he hasn’t. Though he can hold his own in a discussion on propulsion systems.”
“I look forward to discussing them with him.” Seven—Annika!—smiled again. It looked natural, which made it seem even more strange.
“Well, he wasn’t supposed to come but I thought I just…” her voice trailed off as her gaze slid to the right. Sev—Annika turned to follow the direction where B’Elanna was looking. A tall, slim man with sandy hair, wearing a brown shirt, was laughing with a group of younger humans. He had the noticeable nose wrinkles and earring that instantly identified him as a Bajoran. Oh. B’Elanna felt immediately embarrassed, and more than a little chagrined. She’d spent the last several minutes hunting down and lusting after a man who was not only not her husband, but was twenty years her junior.
“Um, so, Annika,” she said brightly, hooking the other woman by the arm and steering her toward a couch under the curved viewport, “what’s new with you?”
**
She’d used the excuse that she needed to use the bathroom, but SevAnnika had come with her. Really, she was taking this reclamation of her human femininity a bit too far. B’Elanna opened the little clutch purse she’d brought with her and removed a couple of PADDs from inside, and fished out her comb and lipstick. She tidied her hair, and took note of the colour in her cheeks and chest, and patted her flushed skin with a hand towel. She’d worn a light, short sleeved dress with a cardigan so she could layer up or strip down as need be, but she was wishing she’d chosen a sleeveless mini instead of the full skirted, mid-calf length dress and boots. She was wearing too much clothing; she felt like she’d just endured, was still enduring, an hour long hot flash. She felt like she had working in the bowels of deck thirteen where the snaking Jefferies tubes made proper ventilation and cooling difficult.
She smiled, thinking of the many times Tom had helped her work in those tubes bringing a little bag of isolenear chips and a hyperspanner with him. Half the fun had been the threat of getting caught with their pants down, literally. To his credit, he had managed to turn into a promising engineering cadet during the four years they’d been together on Voyager. They hadn’t spent all of that time fooling around. She puffed a long slow breath and willed her pulse to steady, willed her tingling nipples to stand down! She paused in the act of replenishing her lipstick. No. Nonono.
She stared at herself in the mirror, cheeks flushed, eyes bright, respiration rapid. A fine sheen of perspiration filmed her brow, and her breasts could almost be described as heaving. No. She was fifty-four, solidly in middle age for a human, and certainly past the point of child bearing for a full-blooded Klingon. She’d been in menopause for over a year, and besides, Tom had had a vasectomy years ago, so her primitive brain should remember that he couldn’t get her pregnant even if he wanted to. Not that he wanted to: they were way past being able to deal with a newborn.
This could not be happening. Shouldn’t be happening. To put it bluntly: it defied logic.
Annika came out of a stall and smiled at her. “Are you alright? You look a little warm.”
“Umm…” B’Elanna capped her lipstick, shoved everything back into her purse, and snapped it closed. “I just remembered, I need to call Tom.”
“Please give him my—”
“Sure!”
She abandoned her sweater on the counter, and was out the door and down the short hallway that led to the accommodations portion of the habitat building before Seven had time to finish her sentence. She found a quiet corner near a supply room and fumbled through her bag looking for the comm device that Tom had given her. He had modeled it after the old communicators used by Admiral Kirk back when he was still captain of the Enterprise, and had made enough for all of them, not that Miral, long out of the house, needed one. B’Elanna thought they were silly, though fun, and needlessly over engineered. Joe and Izzy, of course, had loved them. The flip cover was wholly unnecessary in her opinion, but she hoped that turning the dial would magically increase the comm’s range. It didn’t. She was much too far away to reach him.
She closed her eyes, and panted, counted pulse beats. She squeezed her thighs together as a wave of desire built in her gut and zinged to her nipples. Her room. She had a comm device in her room that was hardwired to the station's systems, and if Tom and his father hadn’t left for Lisbon yet, she could call him and he could be here in a couple of hours. She could just imagine his smarmy, told you so grin.
She didn’t care. It wasn’t his teeth she was interested in. Well…
It took her twenty five minutes to wend her way to her room through the overflow of convention guests, many of whom she hadn’t seen in years, most of whom wanted to stop her to chat. She crossed to the comm immediately and put in a call to home. No answer. She hadn’t bothered to do the math, didn’t know if it was three in the morning or eight in the evening in San Francisco.
She tried the hotel in Lisbon, but they hadn’t checked in yet, so they could still be on the transport, on their way to Portugal. That meant it could be five hours or more before Tom could get here. Longer if the shuttle to UP Station was full. She bit her bottom lip and rocked slightly in her chair, caught herself when she realized she was grinding her groin into the cushion. A high, whining sound burst from her throat and she cut it off. A shower? No, getting naked would definitely be a mistake, and the swirling sonic waves didn’t exactly soothe her when she was in this mood. She flashed on the many many times she and Tom had fooled around in a shower in the last thirty years. That was decidedly unhelpful.
There was always Tuvok’s meditation techniques. What had he said, imagine you are the flame? She felt like she was on fire right now!
Not helping! She started to pace her small room, rubbing her hands briskly up and down her arms. She could book transport back to Earth and meet Tom somewhere, anywhere, but she needed to know where he was first! He wasn’t home, so he had to be on the way to Lisbon. She’d left a message for Tom at the hotel to contact her immediately. Unless he had taken his father and Joe literally anywhere else for the weekend!
She could take matters into her own hands, which was ultimately unsatisfying during a breeding imperative. She could take a shuttle to Vulcan and hunt down Vorik and torture him! Which might be satisfying, except she was held back by imagining the scene she would walk in on if she did find him! She could go back to the party and snag that young, Bajoran Tom… she barked a laugh that turned into a yelp of surprise when her door buzzer chimed.
Seven with her sweater? Likely. She was tempted to tell her the whole sordid story. An epilogue for her study on the mating behaviour of Lieutenants Paris and Torres! She walked stiffly to the door and hit the console. “Seven, I don’t—”
Tom stood in the hallway, his kit bag slung over one shoulder, arm curled around a wicker picnic basket that he held to his chest. The neck of a bottle of wine poked out of an open flap. “Sorry I’m late. I had to track down Izzy and get everyone on the shuttle.”
B’Elanna stood in the open doorway, staring at him. “Izzy’s here? Everyone’s here?” It made no sense. Why had he brought his father and their children to Utopia? They’d never get any time alone, they’d nev—
“Izzy took my ticket. They arrived in Lisbon hours ago. They’re probably at a match right now.” Tom smiled and brushed her shoulder with his arm as he sauntered into the room.
She caught a whiff of her husband’s scent as he walked past her and her knees turned to jelly.
He placed the picnic basket on the desk and dropped his bag to the floor. “That’s a small bed. Reminds me of being in residence in the Academy.” He glanced at her and his eyes widened as he saw the expression in her own. He grinned, slipped out of his jacket and pulled his tee shirt over his head, then opened his arms. She flew into them, burying her nose against his shoulder, breathing him in, scraping her teeth against his throat.
He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Told you so,” he murmured.
Her head snapped up and she stared him in the eyes. “Tom,” she said, “be quiet.”
Then she shoved him down onto the narrow bed.