Title: Late Night Reassurances Author: Stacy Email: natassia2@aol.com Rating: [PG] Part: 1/1 Synopsis: P/T. Takes place after B’Elanna runs the Doctor’s holo-novel. Minor spoilers for "Lineage" and "Author Author" Disclaimer: Paramount owns the characters yadda, yadda… Posting Date: September 2001 I want to thank Brigid and BR for their excellent beta reading. Also I want to thank Cassatt who encouraged me to dip my foot into the fan fiction pool. I hope that you like this. I also hope that my friends like this as much as I do. B’Elanna Torres glared at the sleeping form of her husband. He was fast asleep, curled up facing the other side of the room and had most of the comforter with him. In fact he was snoring loudly, and she just rolled her eyes at the image of her rake of a husband snoring. She wondered how he could sleep when she couldn’t. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was almost six months pregnant and it was just plain uncomfortable to find a good position to sleep in. This insomnia had to do with the damn, talking bit of holographic technology that they called the doctor, and his stupid holo-novel that depicted the crew as gun toting, womanizing lowlifes who were enslaving the poor holographic doctor. No guesses whom the long-suffering holographic doctor was, she thought snorting. She had a good mind to just erase his program or delete some of his beloved subroutines starting with the opera subroutine. It was starting to get on her nerves, especially since he had started to sing to her baby as part of their parenting classes. She could only imagine the trauma that her baby girl was going through listening to that…that screeching noise, without having any control over it. B'Elanna herself was going though a lot of trauma from that damn annoying voice. She'd had to mute him herself a few times to put both her and the baby out of their misery. 'And people say Klingon opera is awful.’ she mused. Obviously they haven’t been listening to the doctor lately. ‘He could----‘ She shook herself out of that particular tirade and focused on seeing “Lieutenant Marseilles” giving his patient a tonsillectomy. Now that really, really boiled her blood. She wasn’t too thrilled with her alter ego’s hair either. Man, was that truly awful hair. She should delete the opera subroutine because the Doctor programmed her with that hairstyle. B’Elanna wasn’t a person who usually cared for those things but she couldn’t help but feel a bit of vanity concerning that hair, knowing that people in the Alpha Quadrant were thinking that this was really her. “Keep your focus, B’Elanna,” she growled to herself as her mind kept running off in different directions, thinking up different scenarios for the doctor’s demise. She needed to devise a suitable punishment for the Doctor but at the moment now she needed to rage at her husband. She needed a bit of assurance that he wouldn’t be like “Lieutenant Marseilles” and that he loved her, and all that “mushy” stuff. Sometimes a woman just needs to hear those “three little words” and Tom had been lapsing a lot lately in that category. Tom wasn’t vocal about his love for her but she knew he loved her by his actions. She thought of the time when she was going off on that crazed mission to infiltrate the Borg by being assimilated, and he told her that he would gladly give up his newly re-assigned Lieutenant position to keep her safe. She had also read his personal logs when they were brainwashed by the Quarrans a little while back to gain a little perspective on who exactly her "husband" really was. But that was her little secret. She pinched him to wake him. He pushed her hand away mumbling in his sleep. She decided to change her tactic and hit him square in his arm. He jumped up, arms flailing about and almost falling out of bed. “What the hell---?” he asked her crossly. He had obviously been in a deep sleep. “I wanted to talk,” she said innocently. “Couldn’t it wait until the morning?" he asked grumpily rubbing his arm and glaring at her. “No it couldn’t. I want to talk to you about the Doctor’s program,” she retorted. “What about it?” he asked, immediately sobering at the sliver of vulnerability that came through the gruff tone of his wife. B'Elanna was avoiding his gaze. “About Lieutenant Marseilles. You know---," she said trailing off. “B'Elanna.” “I know that wasn’t you. And I know I wasn’t Lieutenant Tory but yet I can’t get over seeing you kissing that ensign. I wanted to break her nose. Much more than I wanted to break Seven’s nose that time I caught her taking notes on us,” she said, punching the pillow with each word she uttered. Tom took mercy on the poor pillow and pulled it away from her before she destroyed it. He was pretty glad that Seven had stopped taking notes of on them. An almost 6 month pregnant Klingon wasn’t someone to mess with. “B’Elanna, I know that you were shocked. But I would never do that. There is no other woman for me. Now can we please go back to sleep?” he asked, lying down and closing his eyes. He drew the covers up to his chest and drifted back to sleep. “Tom!” “Fine. I’m sorry??” he asked, trying a different tactic and not opening his eyes. She whacked him one with her other pillow. He opened his eyes and turned to face her, propping his head up on one hand. “Oh, I see you want to get frisky,” he said wiggling his eyebrows. “Get serious Tom,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I know that the Doctor’s holo- novel isn’t real. And I don’t think anyone on this ship would try to flirt with you. That is unless they want their noses broken or worse. I mean they can just ask Carey what it feels like. And I wasn’t even hitting him that hard,” she said babbling away and picking at the comforter. Tom stilled her hand and kissed her. “B’Elanna, I am not like Lieutenant Marseille and you definitely know I am not interested in anyone aboard Voyager except you. So what is this really about?” he said, getting through her tough talk. He knew she wasn’t waking him up just to talk about Lieutenant Marseilles. He would have to talk with the Doctor about that mustache. It made his top lip itch just thinking about it. Maybe he needed to teach him a lesson. ‘Hmm, the Doctor with a comb-over, now that would be a hoot.’ “Well, it's just that we are communicating with Starfleet more regularly and we are even getting to talk face to face via that link. And the fact that Q shaved ten years off of our journey----“ “And you think that my feelings might change once we reached the Alpha Quadrant,” he said, gauging her mood correctly. “I thought we had this talk a few months ago when we found out abou---." his voice trailed off as he recalled that incident in sickbay months earlier. B’Elanna colored a bit. She rubbed her stomach recalling what she almost did to their daughter. She didn’t regret that Tom came in when he did. Maybe, deep down, she wanted someone to stop her from doing something irreversible to their little girl. Maybe that’s why she reprogrammed the Doctor. She knew that Tom would catch her and stop her. She remember seeing the holo-picture of her baby after her talk with Tom and realizing that this baby would be loved no matter how she looked. She was damn cute too. And she knew that Tom would never leave her, but that was before Q had given them the ability to shave ten years off their journey. Now some of those deep- seeded doubts were creeping back into her head. “I know I know. It’s just that now there is-----“ “B’Elanna, I don’t care how many women are out there. I only want you. There is no woman out there who can put up with me. I can be thoughtless sometimes and I can get caught up in activities like the holodeck----uh… you can stop me anytime when you disagree, you know” he said, a bit annoyed. “I will when I do. Go on---“ she said laughing as he rolled her on top of him. “Tom, I'm too heavy,” she protested. “No you are perfect. And beautiful and sexy and did I tell you how much I adore your …" “My what?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Your temper. It's an excellent excuse to make up,” he said grinning. He kissed her soundly and deeply. She sighed and rested her head on his chest. “Bella, I am serious. I am nothing like Lieutenant Marseilles. I would never cheat on you. There is no way I am leaving you until death separates us and not even then because I couldn’t bear to be without you,” he said against her hair. She sighed. “I am very glad to hear that. I just needed to hear you say that.” Then he did something that in all the years they were together he had never done, “I love you,” he whispered softly. She smiled. She knew then that all her fears were for naught. Tom wasn’t going anywhere. “Just don’t ever grow a mustache okay? That was just awful!” “Like your hair?” “Touché” she said laughing as she drew her foot slowly up his leg. “Oh, Mrs. Paris, are you trying to seduce me by any chance?” he asked huskily. “Is it working?” she purred. “Um…maybe.” She laughed and proceeded to completely seduce him all night long. The End?