AN: This will have at least one other part to it (and perhaps I'll do something more with it in the distant future after I finish writing Roots and Wings). I just wanted to do this because it's been on my mind for a long time. I know that Threshold is an episode of some debate, but it does open a world of possibilities. This is just one of them (that I'm sure has been written about 389 times, at least, but here's 390). It's just a little self-indulgent nonsense, but I hope you get some enjoyment out of it.
I don't own the show or anything related to it.
I hope that you enjoy! Please let me know what you think!
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Chakotay hadn't imagined he'd be waist deep in swamp water that was so warm that it was beginning to steam when it made contact with the cool night air of the planet, but such was the life of a Starfleet officer.
The water smelled faintly stagnated and there was a certain sliminess to it thanks to the thick vegetation and floating plant life that he preferred to think of as moss rather than the scum that he was pretty sure it actually was.
He was telling himself that he would do this for absolutely any captain. He was telling himself that he was doing it simply because it was his duty.
He knew, in reality, that he would never do this for anyone except Kathryn Janeway.
Chakotay held his breath when he reached down around his ankles so that any of the water that came into contact with his face wouldn't accidentally slip into his mouth. He was pretty sure he'd vomit if he even accidentally ingested any of it.
The creature swimming around his ankles was newly born into the world and knew that it was afraid, but it didn't know what to do about its fear. Chakotay caught it by a slick tail and held tight. He didn't want to hurt it, but he absolutely didn't want to lose it once he had a grip on it.
Stunned and bound, both the larger amphibious creatures were already loaded into the shuttle. Tuvok was somewhat keeping watch over them and somewhat keeping watch over Chakotay to hold the light that—for all its disappearing and reappearing—Chakotay was really learning to do without.
Now all Chakotay had to do was catch the three small amphibious creatures and they could head back to Voyager. Without a net, and wanting desperately to avoid hurting any of the small creatures, he was left to call on the spirits of his ancestors for some guidance as to how he might round up and snag the little things.
He had this one.
"Tuvok! You better get me a bucket or—something," Chakotay called out. The little thing pulled against him under the water, but it was too fresh to the world to realize that it was well and truly caught. Once he surfaced it, however, there was a good chance that it would truly fight against him with everything its little body had to offer.
"A bucket, Commander?" Tuvok asked from the bank.
"A bucket, a box, a container of some sort, Tuvok," Chakotay said.
"Pardon me, Commander, but what do you intend to do with the offspring once you've—captured them—in said container?" Tuvok asked.
"I'm going to take them back to Voyager," Chakotay said. "What else do you think I would do with them?"
"With all due respect, Commander," Tuvok said, "it may be better to simply leave them here. We don't know much about them given that they're a life form that does not yet exist."
"They exist now," Chakotay said. "And the doctor thinks that he can reverse the changes to Tom and the Captain's DNA."
"We do not know if he'll be able to do anything to help their—offspring," Tuvok said.
"We don't know what he won't be able to do, either," Chakotay responded. Underneath the water, he dared to loosen his grip on the baby fighting against him just enough to find a foot. Wrapping his hand around it, he held the foot so that he had a more secure hold on the creature. Somewhere in the boggy, swampy mess, the creature's siblings were swimming around. Chakotay hoped they would be no more difficult to catch than this little one had been.
"If he is unable to restore them to current human DNA, then they will have a difficult time surviving on Voyager," Tuvok said. "They will require a specialized habitat."
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Tuvok," Chakotay pointed out. "Can you please find me a container of some sort?"
"Commander," Tuvok insisted, "if he is able to restore them to current human DNA, then there will be three newborns onboard Voyager. We do not know what Tom and the Captain will recall about this ordeal. It is highly possible that this will be a great surprise to them."
"Either way, this is going to be a great surprise to them," Chakotay said. He laughed to himself. There was nothing else to do. He had to laugh because there was a great deal about this situation that made him feel more like crying.
And now was not the time to deal with any of those feelings. There would be time for that later, on the ship.
"Commander," Tuvok started again, but Chakotay didn't let him finish.
"Tuvok, I'm ordering you to find me a container or some way to get these—these babies—back to Voyager!" Chakotay barked.
"Very well, Commander," Tuvok said. "I will see what's available on the shuttle."
"Thank you," Chakotay called after him as the Vulcan gave up trying to talk him out of his rescue mission and returned to their shuttle to search it for something useful and, more than likely, to make sure that the larger of their species were still resting peacefully.
Chakotay finally pulled the little creature up. As soon as it surfaced, it started to fight against him wildly. It didn't seem to understand how to fight him, though. It didn't try to bite him or claw him in any way—though he didn't believe it to have teeth or nails worth mentioning. Instead it simply thrashed wildly against him. He held it to his chest and, soon, it stopped fighting like it had reached a level of absolute exhaustion. It let out a series of clicking noises—probably the equivalent of a cry—but it gave up the battle.
When Tuvok returned, he'd found and emptied a supplies container. He brought it, uncovered but with its lid in his other hand, out to the bank of the swamp.
"I assume that the offspring will be willing to share their space," Tuvok said.
Chakotay laughed to himself. The Vulcan didn't joke—since joking wasn't exactly a Vulcan thing to do—but sometimes he certainly came dreadfully close to it.
"I'm assuming they shared a womb, so they can share a storage container. We'll put the cover partially over it so that they can't escape," Chakotay said. "Come get this one."
"Escape?" Tuvok asked, walking closer toward the water with the container. "I thought we might stun them just as we did the captain and Tom."
"The stun setting might be too strong for them," Chakotay said. "They are newborns. This one's tired. It's not going to try to escape for a while. They're probably—hungry." Chakotay held the amphibious thing out in Tuvok's direction. It was clear that Tuvok didn't relish the idea of holding the baby, but he came toward the edge of the water to accept it. "I've got another one swimming around my ankles," Chakotay said.
"Are you certain that's what's swimming around your ankles, Commander?" Tuvok asked. He accepted the exhausted baby and unceremoniously deposited it into the container. Chakotay grimaced at the thought of any number of creatures that might be swimming with him in the warm water.
"We might not know exactly what they are," Chakotay said, "but we know they're babies, so let's be as gentle with them as we can."
"I still think we should consider leaving them here," Tuvok said. "This is, after all, their natural habitat."
"This is simply the world they happened to be born on," Chakotay said. "Tom could have crashed them anywhere. They might have even been born on the shuttle. These babies are something outside of space and time at the moment. They don't belong here, and we don't know how they would affect the ecosystem of this planet if they were even capable of survival." Chakotay reached down, holding his breath for a moment out of the fear of accidentally ingesting any of the water, and felt around for the one that kept flicking his leg with either its foot or its tail. He caught it and realized it was a foot. He pulled it up, catching it with his other hand to support it before he surfaced it and dealt with its thrashing.
On the shore, Tuvok looked at least a little disgusted by the slick-skinned baby that was fighting Chakotay for its freedom and crying out in clicks for a mother that was bound and stunned in a shuttle some feet away.
"Are you sure that it wouldn't be best to stun them?" Tuvok asked.
"We know so little about them that we don't know if they could tolerate it," Chakotay said. "I'm sure that I don't want to kill them."
"They may escape in the shuttle," Tuvok pointed out.
"Then I'll catch them again," Chakotay offered. "Here—this one's tired."
"We don't know what they eat," Tuvok said as he took that one from Chakotay and deposited it a little more delicately in the box than he had the first.
"We'll try some plants," Chakotay said, "out of airponics. I doubt they know what they eat. The same as the captain and Tom in their current forms. We don't know what we're dealing with. At best, we can hope that the doctor is able to restore them quickly."
Chakotay waded a bit further in the murky waters and kicked his feet in the silty bottom to stir up anything that might be down there, as he hoped, he brought the third out of hiding. It barely made a run for it, and he caught it with very little problem. It was clear to him that the third had possibly been trying to nap. For any species, after all, being born was a pretty exhausting ordeal.
Chakotay hugged the third baby against his chest and carried it with him as he walked up the bank to come out of the water. He slipped the baby into the box with its siblings. All three of them looked up at him, but none of them scrambled for safety. One of them clicked at him, the tone of its clicks different than they had been when it had been fighting him in the water.
"They have calmed down," Tuvok pointed out.
"They're exhausted," Chakotay said.
"It's possible that they have found some comfort in your company, Commander."
"Maybe they just realize that I'm not trying to hurt them," Chakotay said. He reached down and tested the weight of the box. With the three babies in it, it was heavy, but it wasn't impossible for him to lift on his own. He picked the box up and started toward the shuttle. "Grab the lid, Tuvok. We don't want to wait too long to get everyone back to the ship. It's a good thing the doctor doesn't need to sleep. He's got his work cut out for him."
"He certainly has," Tuvok said, following behind him.
He'd finally given up fighting Chakotay about taking the babies back to the ship.
Chakotay didn't know if taking them back was the best thing for the babies. He didn't know if taking them back was the best thing for anyone. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he couldn't help thinking about Kathryn. He couldn't imagine telling her that she was a mother—three times over even—and he'd simply left her offspring behind.
He didn't know what would happen, or even what their EMH was capable of, but he thought they had to at least try.
He had to at least be able to tell her that he tried.