A/N: This is set during the Season 4 episode "Scientific Method."
Just as a reminder, this episode is early Season 4. At this point, Tom and B'Elanna have just begun dating; Seven of Nine has not yet formed her friendships with the Doctor or Naomi; and no contact has been made with the Alpha Quadrant. This is also many episodes before "Mortal Coil," in which Naomi appears barely out of her toddler years. They hadn't even taken on Scarlett Polmers to play her yet. (I forget the name of the little girl who played her in "Mortal Coil.") So, basically, this takes place during an awkward time period that doesn't seem to get a lot of focus in fan-fiction.
WARNING: Sexual content. It isn't graphic, and you won't even "see" anything, but it will be…weird. Maybe too weird for some readers. If you find this story too far-fetched to accept into your head-canon, I understand.
I don't own "Star Trek: Voyager," for which many people are probably grateful.
Samantha Wildman amazed herself every day, with how well she was able to carry on parenting a child on Voyager. She imagined the situation would have been strenuous enough had she only herself to look after. But raising a child aboard this ship…Sam had lost count of the number of times she'd been truly terrified for her daughter's life. She'd lost a baby once. The fear of losing her daughter again would probably have been with her forever, even if they had been living a safe, normal life back home.
So far, Naomi hadn't suffered any serious trauma. But it was clear that growing up on Voyager was having an effect on her development. Her recurring fear of "monsters in the replicator" wasn't a simple result of a child's imagination; it originated from the "macrocosm" incident, when giant germs attacked the crew. Three of them had soared out of the Wildman replicator, before rendering Sam and her daughter unconscious. Luckily, that was the only time Naomi had ever been faced with Voyager's "monsters" up close. But it was clear the girl could sometimes sense the danger when the ship was battling the Borg or hostile aliens.
Just a little over a month into their fourth year in the Delta Quadrant, Sam already felt that this year was the most difficult. For starters, Voyager was now officially in Borg space. Granted, they were ten years out of the heart of it; but the threat of running into the Collective was still looming. And Kes was gone. She'd been one of the people Sam had confided in the most. The threat of Species 8472 was another source of stress. And then there was Voyager's newest crewmember, Seven of Nine. Sam, like most of the crew, wasn't decided on her feelings towards Seven yet. The former drone could wind up fitting right into the crew, as yet another misfit just in need of understanding; or this might turn out like "Lord of the Rings," with the parts of Frodo and Gollum being played by Captain Janeway and Seven of Nine. Until Sam was confident that the former was the case, she didn't want Naomi spending too much time with Seven.
Now that Naomi was walking and talking, there was the issue of how to school her. Sam was starting her off with homeschooling, but the Doctor, Neelix and a few others were volunteering to tutor the child in various subjects. Being a Xenobiologist, Sam figured she was as qualified as any to educate Naomi on the various species she'd be growing up with on Voyager, and dealing with in the Delta Quadrant. Not surprisingly, Naomi had a special interest in the Ktarians, her father's species. There were no Ktarians onboard besides Naomi. Sam's husband Greskrendtregk was on Deep Space Nine, or had been three years ago when Voyager departed. He didn't even know he had a daughter; Ktarian physiology made pregnancies extremely difficult to monitor, even in the 24th century. (Sam still remembered how she'd spent her pregnancy thinking Naomi would be a boy.)
Naomi kicked her heels against the edge of the sofa, clicking through images of Ktarians on a PADD. She appeared five or six in human years, ready for kindergarten. But her mother was painfully aware that she was little over two years old.
"Daddy!" Naomi said happily, bringing up the image of her father.
Sam leaned over the back of the sofa to share Naomi's view of the picture. In the photo, Greskrendtregk stood in front of his tailor shop on DS9. At first glance, the only trait Naomi had inherited from him was the row of four horns running down the middle of his forehead. She hadn't received his yellow Ktarian eyes, or the layered eye-sockets that came with them. But she did get the rapid aging of a Ktarian, and the near-photographic memory that came with any fast-developing species. And maybe it was Sam's imagination, but she was sure Naomi was displaying the mischievous, often "nosy" personality that she'd loved so much in Greskrendtregk.
"Daddy's waiting for us on Deep Space Nine?" Naomi asked, for probably the twentieth time.
"That's right," Sam replied, knowing that she couldn't really know.
She tried not to think about how dangerous DS9 could get. It was a political hotbed. For all Sam knew, they were in the middle of a war zone right now. Her husband might be in more danger there than she and Naomi were on Voyager.
Naomi flipped to the next picture. This one displayed Etana Jol, a crooked Ktarian leader famous for trying to conquer Captain Picard's ship with mind control. Etala Jol looked little like Naomi's father, despite being the same species. Jol's forehead lacked horns, instead sporting two rounded hemispheres over a small formation on the bridge of her nose.
"Her head looks like a butt!" Naomi giggled.
"Naomi," Sam scolded, "That's not a nice thing to say." It was purely the parent in her speaking. Sam privately agreed with her daughter's observation, and silently added that the formation between Etana Jol's "butt cheeks" was even more unfortunate looking. Wanting to get the unattractive face away as soon as possible, Sam reached over and flipped the PADD to the next image. "Ktarian foreheads vary even more than Klingon ones," she explained to her daughter.
"I know," Naomi rolled her eyes upward with exasperation. "You told me that two days ago!"
It was so easy to forget that even this young, Naomi's memory wasn't human.
They flipped through the various images of famous Ktarians, and relatives from Greskrendtregk's side of the family. As Sam had said, Ktarian foreheads came in a great variety, to the point where one might not realize all these individuals belonged to the same species. One Dr. Adon had three dome-like growths on his forehead, the largest in the center; a known politician from a century ago had a formation like a shank-bone sprouting up from between his eyes, with a single horn in the center; Naomi's Aunt Orlana had a segmented crest, almost resembling a spine, running from her forehead to her nose.
"They all look so different," Naomi observed, almost with admiration.
"I know." Sam folded her arms on the back of the sofa. "Listen Naomi, I have work tonight. Two of my friends are coming over to watch you."
"Not Neelix?"
"Neelix will stop by, but he's got duties in the kitchen. It'll be Lt. Baxter. You've met him."
"Lt. Walter Baxter," Naomi recited, with enthusiastic recollection. "The security guard!"
"My god Naomi, you only met him once!"
"So? He told me his name."
"Well he's going to be coming over with one of my work friends, Ensign Blackhorse."
Naomi glanced at her Ktarian rocking horse, and pointed. "Is she a horse like Tali?"
Sam couldn't tell if her daughter was joking or not. At this age it was hard to tell. Sam sighed, and left the sofa to get some coffee from the replicator. "No Naomi, she's not a horse. It's just a name. She's a human, like me and Lt. Baxter."
"Does she like horses?"
"I don't know. You can ask her."
"Is she a Xenobiologist like you?"
"Not quite." Sam said. "She's a botanist. She studies plants. But she's from my department. Neelix runs a lot of his vegetables and fruits past her, to make sure they're safe to eat. Kes used to rely on her data sometimes for the airponics bay."
Naomi had stopped listening, and returned to flipping through the pictures in her PADD. Sam realized her coffee was waiting for her, and retrieved it from the replicator. Sipping slowly, Sam watched Naomi and wondered, uncomfortably, what other images her daughter would wind up seeing with those beautiful hazel eyes, as she grew up on Voyager.
Sometimes it annoyed Ensign Annalie Blackhorse, that so many of Voyager's crew knew her only as one of the other Native Americans onboard besides Commander Chakotay, or as one of the dark-eyed crewmembers who "might be a Betazoid." But other times, like today, she welcomed those reputations as a shield, hoping they would deter people from ever wondering about her personal life.
Her personal life had become very complicated out here in the Delta Quadrant, and frankly embarrassing.
Starfleet wanted outsiders to think that everyone from Earth was like Ensign Kim, all wholesome and pure. The fact was that, utopia government or not, humans were still humans, and they were prone to human weaknesses. Like loneliness, and romantic pickiness. And losing faith in finding a fast way home, and coping by falling into an on-and-off romantic relationship with a married security chief.
Mercifully, Ensign Annalie Blackhorse and Lt. Walter Baxter were "lower decks" officers, and on top of that, both very practical and cautious people. So it was likely that their relationship would never make ship-wide news, like that of Lieutenants Paris and Torres. Which reminded Annalie, her friend Ensign Kao Li Xiong owed her a week's worth of replicator rations.
"Hey, Big Sister."
And speak of the devil.
"Hey, Little Sister," Annalie looked up from her chicken wrap.
These were nicknames the two women had adopted in the first year aboard Voyager, jokingly referring to the way that so many of the non-human crewmembers had trouble telling them apart, or thought they were related. Their human comrades found this just as absurd as Annalie and Kao Li did, since the two were clearly from opposite sides of the planet. And even if one somehow couldn't see that, there was the fact that their accents were completely different; Kao Li always had a mild Hmong accent, while Annalie spoke with a feint Southern twang. But apparently for Bolians and Vulcans, all it took was two thin, petite human women with long dark hair and slanted eyes, and they were lost. To be fair, a lot of those crewmembers would likely be hearing Annalie and Kao Li speaking in their own planet's language, thanks to the Universal Translator, so the difference in their Asian and Southern accents might not be any help. And humans like Annalie probably couldn't tell various ethnic groups among Vulcans and Bolians apart.
In any case, even humans tended to get the birth order of the two "sisters" wrong. People generally assumed Annalie was the older one, since she was quiet and reserved, while Kao Li had an outspoken spunk almost comparable to B'Elanna Torres.' In truth, Annalie had stepped aboard Voyager at age twenty-two, while Kao Li was a year older.
"I just remembered," Annalie told her friend, "that you owe me replicators rations."
"For?" Kao Li sank into her seat with a tray of Neelix's Alferian hair pasta.
"Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres. Don't pretend you don't remember our bet. I called them back in Year One. You thought Torres was gonna hook up with Carrey!"
"Or Vorik." Kao Li began sprinkling cheese on her hair-pasta. "I can't tell you how bad I wish you could've seen it when he 'proposed' to her!"
"So basically anyone B'Elanna punches, you think she'll end up with."
"Well Klingons do use aggression to show affection, don't they?"
"Don't ask me, I work with plants. Sam Wildman's the one who's all about living species. Speaking of which, I'm watching her kid tonight. Me and Walter."
Kao Li didn't say anything. Annalie knew her friend didn't approve of her adulterous relationship with the security officer.
"Annalie," Kao Li said quietly, "What are you gonna do if we find a shortcut home? Or if we find some way to communicate with Starfleet? Are you going to keep seeing him? Is he gonna tell his wife?"
"We've talked about it." Annalie looked away and sighed, scratching her neck. "Neither of us has much hope for Voyager getting home. If we do, I'm stepping away. Then what he tells her is up to him. But he doesn't think she'll wait for him either."
"You know, there are two-hundred other guys onboard."
"And I've probably dated all of them," Annalie said bitterly. "I know it's my fault. I'm too picky. The problem is, Starfleet churns out too many 'nice boys' like Harry Kim and Billy Telfer. I need a sourpuss like me. I gave Mortimer Harren a try a few weeks ago. But he's so obsessed with his quantum-theories or whatever, I don't think he even has a sex drive. Except maybe for mathematical equations."
"So date a Maquis." Kao Li suggested.
"Did, remember? They were all headaches. The available ones anyway. I'm sure Ayala and Tabor are decent, so naturally they're taken. Kurt Bendera was a possibility, so of course he had to go and die on me. Gerron's a good guy, but he's too religious for me. Chell's just a complete man-child. Yosa seemed perfect, and then it turns out he's already got a boyfriend. Don't get me started on Dalby, that man belongs in a straightjacket!"
"So you're just gonna play second-choice to a married man." Kao Li drubbed her fingers on the table. "Because he's 'close enough' to your type."
"Why not. Might as well make the most of what we can out here." Annalie took a swig of her orange juice.
"You have a weird way of coping."
"At least Walter and I can keep our dysfunctional relationship private."
Kao Li shook her head, eyes wide. "You should see Torres and Paris in Engineering. It's like they're in high school." After a moment, she added, "It's not just them either. All of Engineering's slowly going nuts."
"I'll bet. First the Borg, and then—"
"No Big Sister, I'm not talking about stress. I mean actually going crazy. Well not 'crazy' per se, but acting really strange. First there's Lt. Torres, snogging Paris everywhere in public. Then Joe's been getting weirdly forgetful." She meant Lt. Joseph Carrey. "He's usually got everything memorized, especially the rule book. But now…I mean, today Vorik had to remind him where we kept the gel packs. And he forgot his com badge, had to go back to his quarters and get it. And then there's Jor and Tabor. They're having the opposite problem of B'Elanna and Tom."
Annalie could feel her brow furrowing. "They didn't break up…?"
"No, but they're having, shall we say, 'problems.' Marina's been complaining about her senses fading." Marina Jor was half Betazoid, and though not powerful enough to help Captain Janeway as the famous Deanna Troi had aided Picard, she could usually sense vague emotions from other people if in close proximity. "She's afraid she's somehow losing her empathy. I mean, her empathic abilities. And Tabor—well, to use his exact words, he 'can't get his warp core running at full power.'"
Annalie chewed her chicken wrap slowly. "Sounds like the warp core might be emitting some kind of radiation or something. The literal warp core I mean."
"So nothing weird's been happening in the science department?"
"Nope." Annalie shrugged. "Granted, ours is a small department. But I haven't noticed anything unusual. Well, Walter's been whining more than usual, worrying about people's safety, but that's probably just stress. Having to deal our new shipmate stealing a shuttle and stomping past security."
She was referring to the recent incident where a Borg signal had affected Seven of Nine's mind.
Whispering, Kao Li asked, "Do you think she's going to betray us? Get us all assimilated? I hear Chakotay doesn't trust her."
"Pfft. Doubt it. If the Maquis could integrate, so can she. If you ask me, that was just the Delta Quadrant stealing that shuttlecraft. It seems like all the senior officers have to get possessed by an alien or have their brains fried by radiation once a year. I'm starting to think it's a Starfleet requirement."
"Seems like all the crazy crap happens to the senior officers." Kao Li observed.
"That's because they're the ones who go diving into this crap, usually. That's part of being a senior officer. Anyway, our jobs are plenty interesting in their own right. I don't know about yours, but I sometimes feel like us in the Bio department could have our own holo-series, one of those science-mystery-solving dramas."
"Engineering would probably be a soap opera," Kao Li said, spinning her fork into her pasta.
Lt. Walter Baxter knew very little about children. He and his wife Olga had never wanted any. Now, he almost wished they had; maybe it would have made him more confident that Olga would stay faithful to him, even with him legally dead back home. Or given him more incentive to stay faithful to her. He felt a bit of shame, a man in his mid-thirties with a receding hairline, cheating on his wife with a young woman fresh out of Starfleet Academy. But Annalie Blackhorse seemed years ahead of her age in maturity. Or maybe Walter was just years behind in his. He made his way to Sam Wildman's quarters, wondering how he'd ended up in this position, a lower-decks security chief, cheating on his wife with the young ship's botanist.
Walter hadn't even been a security officer when he was assigned to Voyager; his first uniform aboard this ship had been red. But due to half the crew dying in the Caretaker incident, and effort to integrate the Maquis, several people had had their jobs and uniforms switched around a few times before finally settling in a permanent position. With Walter's obsession with sports and working out, he had great reflexes and good aim, and was an obvious candidate for a backup security chief.
Why was he cheating on Olga? Because he could, and he should. He and his wife were both practical people, who'd never been big on sentiment. Their marriage proposal had taken place over lunch in a café on the Aldeberan Colony, discussing the benefits of getting married like discussing a business proposal. After three full years, Olga would accept her husband's legal death, morn properly, and move on. And if somehow Voyager made contact with the Alpha Quadrant, Walter knew she wouldn't blame him for doing the same. He tried to take solace in the fact that he wasn't the only one on Voyager being unfaithful to someone back home. Ensign Vorik had stated outright that he'd given up on his arranged fiancé, when he proposed to Lt. Torres. Rumors circulated about Sam Wildman and Joe Carrey, both of whom had spouses back on Earth (and Walter, being a friend of Sam, knew those rumors had merit). Even Harry Kim and Captain Janeway were supposed to have fiancés back home, and both had clearly broken those vows, as early as Voyager's first year out here.
When he reached the Wildman quarters, Annalie was already there. She'd brought a potted alien flower from Airponics, and was showing Naomi the designs on its petals.
"Ready to babysit, Wally?" Annalie asked.
"Eh," Walter grunted, collapsing into a chair with his PADD. "You can do the nurturing, I'll stand watch."
While Naomi examined the flower, Annalie asked off-handedly, "You think anyone else besides Sam's gonna start having children?"
Walter grunted again. "Doubt it. Too many people already have families back home. Distraction is one thing, but starting clean over is another." Well, this had gotten awkward fast. "Listen, I'm gonna work on my security report for Lt. Tuvok, alright?"
Annalie nodded, focusing (or pretending to focus) on Naomi and the flower.
They replicated a pizza for dinner, and Annalie started read Naomi some Earth folk tales from her PADD. When she started a Native American story, Walter cringed inwardly, fearing one of Commander Chakotay's parables; but luckily, this one was short, and Annalie's storytelling voice was a lot less annoying (in Baxter's opinion) than Chakotay's. As he finished his drink, Walter found his attention drifting to his reflection in his PADD. He'd gone several days without shaving once, and didn't have even a five-o'clock shadow to show for it. Was that normal? Did the growth rate of a man's beard fluctuate throughout his life? He made a note to ask the Doctor at his next checkup. It was really beginning to bother him.
Annalie finished her pizza and went to wash her hands at the sink, leaving the washroom door opened.
Naomi moved around on the couch to ask her, "Can Indians really turn into animals?"
Annalie's laughter echoed from the washroom. "If only. What I'd give if I couldn't morph into an eagle and take off whenever the Doctor was giving one of his opera performances."
Walter scolded his lover, "Annalie, she's like five. Well technically two, but you know what I mean! She doesn't know fantasy from reality. You have to clarify these things for her."
"What's wrong with letting a kid have a little imagination?" Annalie dried her hands, glancing at her reflection in the mirror.
Walter sighed, and turned to Naomi. "No, Indians can't turn into eagles or wolves."
Annalie leaned into the mirror, examining her reflection closely. "Well let's not rule anything out."
"What?" Walter spun in his chair to look at her.
Annalie grimaced at her reflection. "My fuzz is back! I swear, I must be turning into a werewolf. I usually only have to groom my upper lip once a week, but the last four mornings in a row I've had to vaporize my mustache, and by dinnertime it's back!"
"You do not have a mustache." Walter left the couch to join his girlfriend at the mirror.
From the couch, Naomi laughed.
"Yes I do!" Annalie argued. "And my eyebrows keep growing in! And I've had to shave my legs three times in the last—"
"Well I can't seem to get my facial hair to grow. Wanna tra—" Walter stopped, noticing Naomi standing in front of the washroom with a distressed look on her face.
"Naomi?" Annalie asked gently. "What's wrong?"
"I can't remember your names," the girl said, as if this was devastating.
"I'm Annalie. And this is Walter. It's okay, you've only known us for one day!"
"But I never forget people's names." Naomi pouted.
Annalie knelt in front of her to offer some words of encouragement, then stopped and frowned. "Hey, Walter."
"Hmm?"
"Does anything about Naomi look different to you?"
Walter looked at the girl, and shrugged. Same little girl as always, looking like a mini-version of Sam, except for those three mini horns…
Wait a minute…
"Naomi," Walter asked, "I hope this isn't a rude question, but how many horns do you normally have on your forehead?"
"Four." Naomi's fingers came up to count her horns, as if proof was needed. "One, two, thr…" she stopped, then rushed to the washroom mirror. "I'm missing a horn!"
Walter hit his com badge. "Baxter to Wildman!"
A/N: On Ktarians: very little is revealed about them in canon. The only two we ever see are Naomi Wildman, and Etana Jol (from the "Next Generation" episode "the Game"). Suffice to say, the two look nothing alike. So I came up with the idea of Ktarian foreheads varying like Klingon ones.
All of the characters in this story are canon, except for two: Annalie Blackhorse and Kao Li Xiong. Annalie Blackhorse originates from my one-shot "New Age Hippies." She returns in "The Silver Bird," which also introduces Kao Li Xiong. I was itching for a way to develop these two beyond their ethnicities and ranks, in a way that connected them to the real characters.
I assume everyone knows who Sam Wildman, Naomi, Vorik, and Joe Carrey are. I'll back up a few of the others though. Lt. Walter Baxter is an early-season character, appearing in "Eye of the Needle" and "Twisted." We don't learn much about him except that he's a workout enthusiast, and he's super-whiny. (And just so we're clear, Baxter is not my type. But something about personality seemed to fit with Annalie Blackhorse, and I decided it would be more interesting to pair her up with a distinctive, imperfect character, rather than another hot guy.) Ensign Tabor is a later-seasons character, from "Nothing Human" and "Repression;" the latter episode also introduced Jor. I won't list all the other names dropped, but they're all from various episodes. If you're really curious, you can look them up on Memory Alpha.
Several details about the canon characters, I either invented, or borrowed from other stories. Jor being a half-Betazoid named Marina, and Walter Baxter cheating on his wife, were my ideas. Sam and Joe having an affair is already a popular fan theory. And the idea of "Macrocosm" leaving poor Naomi traumatized is one I read on TV Tropes.
