He stood beside her, holding her hand, as most of the husbands do at my clinic. Although she was lying on the examination bed, both held themselves in a stiff way that showed their tension. They had to be aware of the long odds of conception for anyone with a Borg history. The Borg don't reproduce, they assimilate. In autopsies conducted on terminated drones, the reproductive organs are often missing altogether, an inefficiency that the collective systematically removes. His own medical record was extraordinary for a human of his age. They were both lucky to be alive.
I put on a comforting expression as I unfolded my medical tricorder and began the exam. Surely they'd be more comfortable with the holographic doctor with whom their crew had reportedly become so familiar, but he was off on a new assignment, so I, the humble planetside fertility specialist, did the honors. They were a novel and fascinating case. I had been delighted to receive the referral.
It would have been inappropriate to ask about their decision to pursue parenthood so soon after their return from the Delta quadrant, but their presence in the clinic still piqued my curiosity. At that point, the crew of Voyager was famous on an interplanetary scale, none of them moreso than the members of the senior staff. Their images were familiar to anyone not stranded at the bottom of a hole in the months following the ship's dramatic return.
After a detailed scan, I put away my instruments and reviewed the readings. She sat up and he put his arm around her, lifted his hand to massage the back of her neck. She threw an anxious glance my way and he kissed her temple.
"It will be okay," I heard him whisper. "Whatever she says, it will be okay. You'll be the same person whether" – then he broke off and rested his head against hers.
She didn't answer, but pulled his hand close to her chest in a defensive gesture. Satisfied with my analysis, I turned toward them.
"I have good news and bad news," I said. At their blank, stony expressions, I modified my intro. "Better good than bad, really." I'd had relatively few patients from among the upper Starfleet brass, but they were all like this. No emotion, no matter how devastating the news. I couldn't imagine living that way, but they all seemed highly functional.
"Just tell us, Doctor," she said, the first time I'd heard her voice since she responded to my initial greeting. Her tone was flat, void of emotion. She seemed closed in on herself. After what she'd been through, it wasn't surprising. He was a little warmer – graced me with a smile along with the handshake – but his mind was clearly on her. I could see him holding himself still as she hitched herself onto the examination bed, clearly wanting to help her up and aware that the over-solicitous gesture would not be welcome. They knew each other well, these two. I wished that my good news were better.
"The good news is," I came around the bed to the side where she'd dropped her legs and began with an energetic nod, "you still have your reproductive organs."
She tilted her head to one side and eyed me as if evaluating my competence on looks alone. "I could have told you that."
This response caught me off guard. "Oh, I see. Well, of course, removal of reproductive organs is a common step in Borg assimilation, so I had to be sure before we go any further."
Her eyes flashed at him and he squeezed her hand. "Can we continue?" he asked. He straightened, too, just enough that I suddenly noticed how tall he was. He was very good at giving subtle signals of authority – a look here, a lifted chin there. Very effective in front of the crew, I imagined. In here, these tells had the opposite effect. They told me that he was nervous, afraid of what I might say.
"Certainly. As you know, it was impossible to remove a few small Borg components without risking damage to the spine," I said.
They both nodded.
"And in fact, there is further good news. There is no physiological reason why you can't conceive."
Some current passed between them and they met each other's eyes again, then looked back at me with those same immobile faces.
"The problem is with carrying a pregnancy. Your spinal structure has been compromised by the assimilation. A full-term pregnancy would pose great risks. I would not rule out the possibility that the additional strain on your spine could lead to paralysis. It's actually very lucky that you haven't conceived."
She raised her eyebrows. "Permanent paralysis, or only until the baby is born?"
His eyes snapped to her, angry and defiant, but she ignored his reaction.
"If paralysis occurred, we would hope to be able to reverse it, but we might have to take extreme measures, such as android technology, to restore function. And if the paralysis moved high enough, your life would be in danger without immediate medical attention. You would have to remain under medical supervision at all times for the duration of any pregnancy, even an apparently healthy one."
"That's our answer, then," he said. He moved between me and her and helped her off the bed. "It's too big a risk."
She put a hand on his chest and turned to me. "Now that we understand the risks, we can manage them, isn't that right, Doctor?"
I nodded, without enthusiasm. If they disagreed on the way forward, things could get complicated. She would need his constant support for the sort of high-risk pregnancy this would be. "I'll step outside for a moment and let you two discuss what I've told you."
I moved into the corridor and shut the door behind me. We were at the edge of a small nursing bay, so I took a seat and began to review patient status reports. The voices inside the examining room were increasingly audible. She became firmer, he became more emotional.
"We've managed risk before, Chakotay," she said. "This is no different."
"This is completely different!" he countered. "We don't need to do this! I will not take unnecessary chances with your life."
"Every pregnancy is a risk, Chakotay. It's not ancient times when women died regularly in childbirth. I'll have Starfleet Medical at my side at all times. I'll be careful. I'll do whatever they say."
"You know you won't. You're still the same person who told the Doctor he'd have to phaser you to remove you from command. You haven't changed. The only thing that's changed is that now I can tell you how much it hurts me to see you risk your life again. Please – there are other ways. There are surrogates. Adoption. Or just being the two of us. We're happy as we are. You don't have to prove anything by having a baby. Just come home with me." The nurse and I looked at each other in silent embarrassment as his voice broke. Barely audible came the words: "I never wanted more than that."
There was a silence, then a minute or two later: "You wouldn't feel empty, never having a child of your own? You wouldn't long for that, or feel like I'd taken it from you?"
"If anything, the Borg took it from us, but I don't care about that. We got back the one thing that really matters: us. We both survived. It's enough."
Another moment's silence, then her voice: "I don't know what I did to deserve you."
After several minutes of silence, I tapped gently on the door and let myself back in. They were standing in the middle of the room holding each other, her head tucked under his chin, matching uniforms intertwined to the point where it was tough to tell where his limbs ended and hers began. They pulled apart, but not entirely.
"Were there other questions I can answer?" I asked. "Do you want to hear about other options?"
With one pinky finger, she wiped at something in the corner of her eye, then threw her head back. "Not right now. We'll talk more and get back to you if we need anything."
"Very well," I said. "Good luck."
He looked back at me as they moved toward the door, arms around each other. "Oh, we're already lucky," he answered and gave me such a brilliant smile he looked like a different person. Her hand clenched the fabric of his jacket in her fingers and he shut his eyes for a second as he kissed the top of her head. Lucky indeed.