A couple of days later and Marlaya was walking along a corridor towards the Mess Hall. Trip soon came round the corner.

"Good morning Trip." Trip looked and saw the familiar happy face of the young alien guest they had on board. He walked over to her and gave her a light hug upon greeting her.

"Hey. I haven't seen you for a few days. You been trying to avoid me or something?"

"No, I've just been a little busy, check ups about my arm and ribs."

"How are they?"

"They're fully healed now thankfully." She said nodding her head and smiling slightly. She was still deciding whether she should tell Trip what had happened to her.

"And these check up take a day?"

"No. Not for that, but I've had to meditate a lot recently and that takes time." Trip looked at her with a little confusion showing on his face. 'Meditation? Since when has she needed to meditate? And why?' he was thinking to himself.

"Meditate?"

"All Tarnisian females have to when they're in the condition I'm in." Marlaya now knew she had to tell him because the conversation was going that way. She couldn't keep it secret for long. How was Trip going to react when he hears that she's going to have a kid? Will he be pleased for her, or will he not want to know her anymore, after all she was just a kid really, still quite young to become a mother.

"What kind of condition is that?" Marlaya moved out of the way as a crewman walked passed the pair of them. Noticing they were kind of blocking the corridor they moved off and soon found they were in the gym, no one else was in there. "Well, what kind of condition are you in?"

"A couple of days ago, the morning after that meal with Captain Archer…"

"The night you spent with Malcolm?"

"How'd you know about that?" Marlaya asked surprised. She thought that bit of information had only been kept between herself, Malcolm, Archer and Phlox.

"Malcolm told me why he was late for our meeting that morning." Marlaya nodded her head realising that Malcolm had to tell Trip where he had been. He couldn't exactly lie to a superior officer.

"Well, that morning I found out that I was pregnant." Trip looked at her, his eyes wide with shock thinking about Malcolm and Marlaya sleeping together. Marlaya noticed his expression and decided to quickly explain a couple of things to him. "Malcolm isn't the father, I've been pregnant for a month." Trip's face relaxed slightly at the sound of that.

"Well, I guess that's good news. The Tarnisian population might stand a chance of surviving. Marlaya sighed a bit, relieved that he was pleased for her, slightly. She wasn't so sure why she was worrying about his reaction. Part of her knew that this was how he was going to react. "So why do you need to meditate?"

"It helps to pass on information to the baby ready for when it's born. Things like how you can learn to walk, how to start speaking, what different cries can mean and how you get the message across to your parents."

"That's quite amazing." Marlaya started moving around the gym inspecting all the equipment. "Thanks." She turned round to face Trip. "For saving my life."

"You've been the best friend I've had. If I didn't try to heal you I know I would've regretted it." She said as she leaned against the handlebars of one of the exercise bikes. It was true that Trip was her best friend. Everything that Trip had done for her, helping her out when Triaan had been fighting her, making friends with her at the prison camp, and generally making her feel happier. In a way when Marlaya looked at Trip, she saw her father. In such a short space of time Trip really had become like a father to her.

"But you did do it, and it worked, and if it weren't for you I wouldn't been standing here right now." Marlaya smiled. Something about that smile made Trip move closer to her, something about the young Tarnisian made Trip kiss her on the forehead and the two of them were hugging. Marlaya knew that Enterprise would be a safe place to bring up her child with such good friends around her.

2 months later and Marlaya was halfway through her pregnancy, three months until Enterprise would have a baby on board. Marlaya was sitting on a bio bed in sickbay while Phlox took scans of her. Malcolm was with her waiting for the news about how the foetus was doing. Phlox was looking rather puzzled at the results of the scans he was getting.

"Is there a problem with it?" Malcolm asked, not standing the silence any longer.

"I'm not sure. I'll need you to go into the imaging chamber to be certain." Marlaya jumped off the bed and lay down on another one. It slid into the imaging chamber and the door sealed. Inside the bright lights began to flash, so Marlaya just closed her eyes to relax. Phlox began to look at the pictures coming up on the big screen. Malcolm looked at them too.

"The baby hasn't got two hearts has it?" Malcolm said noticing that there were three heart beat patterns, one belonging to Marlaya.

"No." Phlox replied. "I believe Marlaya is going to have twins." Malcolm looked at him giving him an 'are-you-serious?' look. He pressed a button and the bed slid out, she sat up waiting for anything Phlox had to say.

"Well?"

"I believe you're expecting twins." Marlaya was in shock. At first she was going to have to look after one child, and that would've been hard enough, but twins? She had no idea how she was going to cope with twins.

"How common is it for Tarnisians to have twins?"

"Not very. The odds of that happening are more remote than the odds of being a Peaso." She took a deep sigh. "We'd better tell Captain Archer."

"I'll take you up to him, that's if she's ok to leave?"

"Of course." Phlox said smiling cheerily.

"Thanks." With Malcolm's help Marlaya slid off the bed and they left sickbay.

Up on the bridge John was sitting in his chair waiting for something to happen. Nothing exciting had happened on the ship since Trip and Marlaya returned from the Tarnisian battle cruiser. Soon Malcolm and Marlaya appeared at the side of the bridge.

"Good morning captain." Archer turned round and saw her with Malcolm. He began to smile.

"Hello Marlaya. How are you today?" He asked getting out of his seat and moving over to them.

"I've just had a check up with doctor Phlox about the baby."

"And is it doing well?"

"Well, I should really now be saying 'babies'." Travis, Hoshi and T'Pol all turned round to look at Marlaya. Hoshi and Travis then looked at each other smiling.

"You're going to have twins?" John asked with a huge smile on his face. Marlaya nodded her head. "Congratulations."

"Thank you sir."

"Any ideas yet about names?"

"I'd prefer to wait until they're born before deciding that."

"Of course. We can't rush things like this." Everyone, except T'Pol was smiling. They were now just going to hope that nothing would go wrong.