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When I was very young, my godmother told me the story of how I was born between two quadrants.
"It was called a trans-warp hub," the admiral explained. "It took us from the Delta quadrant to the Alpha quadrant in minutes. And you came along somewhere on the way."
I was always thought of as unique, for several reasons. I was part Klingon, part human, conceived in the Delta, raised in the Alpha. My grandfather, my mom's dad, calls me a girl without a galaxy. My dad's father calls me the ultimate Starfleet brat.
I'm not exactly sure what I am. Or who I am.
I've been called a lot of things in my life. Before I was born, I was a savior, a hero, to an entire race of Klingons in the Delta quadrant. I was daughter, student, athlete, and to a few narrow-minded individuals, mongrel child. I have been nothing.
I remember the first time I tried it. Right after our championship decathlon meet. I had broken my high school's record that night, and though I was elated, I was too worn out to celebrate. Amber had the hypo. Take it, she said. It'll keep you awake for hours. I took it. Worst mistake of my life.
After that night, I took it three more times willingly. It made me feel giddy, carefree. I needed more. I tried to convince myself that I didn't need it, I just wanted it. I managed to tell myself this for almost a month, until I used it the night before my Starfleet Entrance Exam, so that I could stay awake to study. That's when I knew I had lost control.
I failed the exam.
Two months later, my parents were starting to notice things. I tried to hide my addiction, but they could see it. My hands shook. My muscles twitched. My body was wasting away. Finally they approached me directly. It was the first time I had seen my father cry. My mother was stoic. She said she knew what it was like, this addiction. She said we would fight this together. But this was my battle, and I had no intention of making them suffer with me. That's why I had to leave.
John Janeway always managed to find me. He never told me to go home, to get help. He only stayed with me. He held me, brought me food when I was too delirious to realize it had been days since my last meal. Once, when I couldn't find the money, and my frail body was wracked with the symptoms of withdrawal, he got it for me himself. The one thing I remember vividly from that night was the look of helplessness in his eyes when he gave me the hypo.
Oh, John. You're a year and a half my minor, and already so careworn.
Those next months are an incoherent blur in my memory. I remember cold sweats, chills, living day by day, until I could get the next dose. Some things I'm not sure if they were real or imagined.
I remember John's hands on me, his lips on mine.
I didn't remember much until the baby.
I woke up in Starfleet Medical, two and a half months pregnant. My parents were there. They hugged me, and told me everything would be alright. This baby, I thought, could be what I needed to turn my life around. It wasn't just me I had to be concerned about. Maybe this was my way out of this circus from hell that was my life.
He died anyway.
When I had been admitted, I had overdosed. He took enough in his little body to keep me alive. He had died saving me. An honorable death.
Some Kuvah' Magh I was.
It was another half a year or so of sporadic memories before my mother told me to take the Challenge of Spirit. At that point, I felt like I had nothing left. No memories, no place to live. I had John, I suppose, through those months. I began to feel something toward him. Rather, my sporadic, mutinous brain began to associate a feeling with him. Was it love? Or was he just the one constant figure in my troubled life. To figure that out, I needed to get my head straight. I took the Challenge.
I've been living on Boreth for almost 4 months now. Most who take the Challenge consider it to be just that; a challenge. Ironically, in me, the Challenge is my safety net. It has possibly held death at bay, so that I can find myself, and recover. I can finally string two thoughts together. They were simple ones at first. I am Miral Paris. I am 19 years old. Those came fairly easily. The more recent ones are more difficult. Like who the baby's father is.
There's another baby. I realized that about a month after my arrival here. This one is a fighter. He might make it.
He has to.
Is he yours, John?
The Klingons in the Delta quadrant called me the Kuvah' Magh. The savior. Only now, the only person that needs saving is me.
I am a girl without a galaxy, perhaps. But maybe I can find a place in this one after all.
I still haven't quite finished stringing these thoughts together yet.
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