CHAPTER 6 –
The Doctor sniffed loudly and peered down at the floor where the usually cheerful officer was sprawled, dead to the world. "Commander, can you please avoid breaking my medic? He's the only one I've got."
He hunched down to examine Tom. "You didn't break his jaw. I should be able to heal him expeditiously."
Chakotay stood looming over Tom and the Doctor, surprised at what he'd done. I didn't think. I just reacted. He groaned. What did I just do to him...to us?
Tuvok walked over to flank Chakotay. "That was a court-martial offense, Commander."
Chakotay looked up to see Tuvok's phaser aimed at him and backed up from the unconscious man, hands in the air, to indicate he was no longer a threat. Tom Paris doesn't deserve to be the recipient of my pent-up anger and frustrations. He cradled his left hand in misery, unable to look his wife in the eye. What did I cost our marriage by using Paris as a convenient punching bag?
Kathryn struggled to slide off the biobed without anyone to help her. I have a hard enough time getting off one of these damned things without being pregnant. She found her short stature and the slight change in her center of gravity particularly annoying at the moment.
"Tuvok, stand down. I think we might be able to persuade Mr. Paris not to file formal charges when he wakes up." She glanced down at the lieutenant for a moment and winced. "And I'm not sending Chakotay to the brig. Although he might be in the dog house for a while," she added, her voice husky with emotion.
Tuvok holstered his phaser and helped the Doctor move Tom to another biobed. The security officer functioned briefly as a nurse as the EMH worked his magic on the prone medic.
By the time Kathryn was able to get to her husband's side, her flash of anger had turned to disappointment. Her eyes were brimming with unshed tears. "You don't believe me?" she whispered.
"Yes… Spirits, yes. I believe you. It's just that I'm a fool. And …" He sighed and tapped his comm badge. "B'Elanna, please report to Sickbay to help the Doctor run some diagnostics. We have some faulty data on the main medical console."
He started to reach for her and stopped, dropping his hands at his sides. His left hand was throbbing and staring to swell and he wasn't sure he deserved her comfort right then. Boothby always said I needed to work on my left hook. He could see Tom starting to stir. At least I didn't break his jaw.
The captain closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose in an attempt at gathering her composure. "I guess you're not handling this as well as I thought you were."
"I'm a man…not a machine." I'm also an ass. He ran his right hand slowly through his hair. "I'm not perfect, Kathryn, far from it. But I've never hit anyone outside of the ring before. Not counting Dalby. I don't normally act before thinking. Don't break the rules… not for me. I should be sent to the brig."
She tried to lighten the mood. "And being married to me isn't punishment enough? Or do you need the time to escape my raging hormones?"
He didn't find it funny. "Hey." He reached over to tilt her head up and gaze into her eyes, "Being away from you would be punishment."
She blushed. "So what if the diagnostics are inconclusive?"
Chakotay sucked his teeth for a moment. "And the computer still points to Tom Paris as one of the fathers?"
Tom finally felt well enough to get up from the biobed. He gingerly walked toward the command team, making sure to keep the Doctor between Chakotay and him. "One of the fathers of what?" he said in utter confusion.
"The captain's babies," volunteered the Doctor.
Tom backpedaled and threw his arms up, "Whoa! But I…we didn't…" Well, that's not…. He thought that and all he did was punch me? Lucky for me, he's in my debt for keeping him from getting killed on the Ocampan homeworld. B'Elanna would probably flay me alive.
The Doctor used the time while they waited for the chief engineer's arrival to heal the commander's hand. "You really should give up that barbaric sport."
Seconds later, Lieutenant Torres walked into Sickbay and listened attentively as the Doctor explained why they thought a diagnostic was necessary. Unfortunately, they didn't get very far with their explanations before she reacted.
"PetaQ, how could you?!"
Tuvok and Chakotay barely caught the rabid chief engineer when she launched herself at her commanding officer, hell-bent on letting the captain experience the feel of her fist against her face. She struggled hard against the two men, intent on getting them to let her go.
Tom tried to help. "Calm down, B'Elanna. Listen!"
She turned to yell at Tom, "DenIb Qatlh, I'll geld you with a Bat'leth!"
I'd much rather face the Borg than this angry young half-Klingon. The Borg are slightly more predictable. Deciding to trust her intuition, Kathryn stated confidently, "Let her go, gentlemen."
Tuvok raised an eyebrow. Both men hesitated a moment and looked at her quizzically. Are you crazy?
Unaccustomed to being disobeyed, she hissed. "Release her. That's an order." She's not going to strike me. She stepped from behind the biobed, directly into the chief engineer's path and held up her hand to signal to the men not to step between her and her errant officer.
Only his dedication to duty and to Starfleet enabled the security officer to allow what seemed to him an unnecessary and unwise security risk. After years of working closely with this extraordinary human woman, I am almost accustomed to her methods in dealing with aberrant situations.
I hate when she does that, thought Chakotay. Her fearlessness can be alluring, like when we first met, and intent on protecting Tom, she stepped between him and me- but now I'm just dismayed.
The irate half-Klingon advanced into the captain's personal space with a clenched fist, but stopped as Janeway held her ground. Hu'tegh, I can't hit a pregnant woman.
They stood nearly toe to toe, neither of them yielding to the other. "I shouldn't have to remind you that I'm your commanding officer. And as such…"
"Are you trying to say that rank has its privileges, Captain?" The engineer went on and pleaded with her lover, "Why not break it off with me before you went to her?"
By this point the captain was almost trembling with suppressed anger. "I have not been intimate with Tom."
She was almost oblivious to the bits of spittle which struck her as B'Elanna spoke. "You have three children together in the Delta quadrant that say otherwise."
First Chakotay doesn't believe me, and now she doesn't either. It's not like I'm some kind of femme fatale or Tom some playboy. "We managed to hyper-evolve and reproduce in only three days. Let me say that again: three days. Do you really think the usual form of procreation was involved? Do you think so little of yourself, 'Lanna, that you assume that Tom could be unfaithful? I love Chakotay, not anyone else. Kathryn lay her hands on the B'Elanna's shoulders, "Tom loves you."
B'Elanna started to calm. "What did you call me? Did you just call me Lanna?"
"I'm sorry, I guess I did.…"
"Only my mother calls me that."
=/\=
A little while later, the engineer scratched her head in confusion. "All systems appear to be functioning properly. I even ran a quick diagnostic on the Doctor's subroutines. It's still possible there's a problem, but I'm stumped for the moment. I need to take a short break."
Chakotay motioned to the blood pie on one of the biobeds. "Neelix dropped this off a while ago, want some?"
"I couldn't get enough of it before, but I think …"
Kathryn looked from B'Elanna to the blood pie when she was suddenly struck with an idea and approached the medical console. "Doctor!"
"Captain, what's wrong?" He flipped open the tricorder and she waved it away.
"We need to run the babies' DNA again through the computer."
"But…"
"Let's do it!"
The Doctor tapped a few keys.
The captain impatiently drummed her fingers as they all stood in front of the console watching the data flash on the screen.
"How is this possible?" the Doctor asked rhetorically. "Only two of the babies are yours, Captain."
Kathryn tapped a few keys on the console and remarked in wonder, "It seems I managed to pick up an interloper."
Chakotay walked over to his best friend. "Congratulations, B'Elanna."
B'Elanna looked at him, stunned. "But how… when did it get in there?" She pointed at the captain and sat on the biobed next to her, thinking back to recent memory. "The transporter accident! Captain, what gave you the idea?"
"The pie. And well, Tom and I didn't… "
The Doctor turned away. He appeared to be in a snit. "I would have figured it out eventually."
After B'Elanna, Joe Carey, Harry Kim, and the Doctor thoroughly reviewed the transporter logs of the accident, they confirmed what was already suspected.
The Doctor explained, "It appears that your pregnancy was a little further along than B'Elanna's, and with the addition of the fertility enhancer, the algorithm we wrote to extract all of you from the pattern buffer made an error."
The engineer scrolled though the data on the console, "But if that error hadn't happened, would I still…?"
"I don't think so," the EMH answered truthfully.
Kathryn asked, "When can you transport the baby back to B'Elanna?"
"It's not that simple."
"Why not?" mused Chakotay.
"If we had realized this earlier, then transporting the baby back into her womb and getting the placenta to reintegrate would have been tricky but not impossible. But she's no longer pregnant." The Doctor ran the tricorder over the chief engineer to confirm his hypothesis.
"But you could use hormones to simulate a pregnancy and create the ideal conditions in just a few days or weeks…" suggested Tom.
"From my calculations, the blastocyst was transported into the captain shortly after implantation occurred in the mother. I believe we're close to the point where an attempt could prove detrimental to all of the fetuses and not just your own, Tom."
"Detrimental in what way?" asked B'Elanna. "I don't want to harm the babies, but I actually thought that when the time came, I'd give birth to my own child."
"Premature delivery… or worse. There's no guarantee that they would live. Trying to transport one of the babies before the mother goes into labor introduces a certain amount of trauma."
Tom huffed, "Okay, status quo remains. So we have three babies, five parents, and one very pregnant mom!"
"I know I may look huge to you, Tom. But I haven't even felt them move yet"
The Doctor advised, "Captain, with the different gestational periods involved I'll want to more closely monitor your progress to ensure they are all developing normally."
"Do you anticipate any problems, Doctor?" Chakotay asked, worried.
Oh! I think somebody moved! I thought it was still too soon to feel them?" She smiled broadly and placed B'Elanna's hands on her belly.
The Doctor reached for his tricorder again and took some brief readings. "Even part- Klingon babies develop faster than humans. However, it will still be a few weeks before everyone else can feel them kick."
Kathryn was surprised when she heard the chief engineer apologize for her earlier behavior. And she was stunned when she felt B'Elanna wrap her in a large bear hug and burst into happy tears. I'm not sure a happy Klingon is any easier to deal with. Ack! I can't quite breathe.
Author's Note: Klingon translation was found on you swear dot com.
DenIb Qatlh – Denebian slime devil
Hu'tegh – Damn