Things of Which We Do Not Speak
She tried not to think about it, but never quite succeeded. It had been quite memorable, after all. Giving birth was the most wonderful thing she'd ever done, but it made her miss Gres all the more. Still, she had been optimistic that their child would see him sooner rather than later, and they'd be a family.
All of her hopes, all of her excitement, and Naomi had died shortly after birth. There was nothing that brought even a glimmer of hope to her, then. Her daughter was dead, the odds of getting home in her lifetime were slim to none, and she would never see her husband again. It was all too much, and the universe seemed to be imploding in on her.
On duplicate Voyager Naomi survived. She couldn't imagine how painful it had been to give her up, but knowing that the crew would die, to give her daughter to herself made sense. The sacrifice of that duplicate crew quickly became just another in an ever-lengthening string off odd incidents. To Samantha Wildman, though, it was special; it was charged with emotions that she didn't even know how to describe.
As Naomi grew, she thought of the incident slightly less, but could never completely put it out of her mind. In time she was able to stop using the term "original" for the baby that had died, but there was still something she couldn't ever quite comprehend. Naomi was her daughter, but she could never help but wonder if the other Naomi would have been exactly the same. She would have raised both of them, as twins. No matter what happened, she could never forget the despair she felt as her baby girl died. Naomi may have been the same, but her mother wasn't.
Once when Naomi was a toddler she had started to talk to Harry about the experience after their shift, but then they reached the mess hall and Naomi latched on to her legs. She picked up her daughter and Harry gave an understanding nod. In the end, she didn't know what to make of the experience, but she did have a daughter that she loved with an intensity that couldn't be matched. Her mind might wonder, but her heart had no doubts.
Since then the topic had never been brought up again. From her short conversation with Harry, it was evident that he also felt the experience was too quickly forgotten, and he also sometimes tried to make sense of it all and failed. Yet he too found a way to move past it. His friendships were intact, and that was enough. Neither of them had any full intellectual satisfaction, but she for one had emotional satisfaction.
A part of her would always try to make sense of the duplication and what it meant about Naomi. Someday she'd have to explain it, and she knew no other way to tell her daughter except to explain that it didn't change how much she loved her. That was in the future, though. She hoped to be able to tell Gres first; her optimism had returned.
As Naomi read Little House on the Prairie, her mother looked over and smiled with pride. Perhaps it was better that the crew never talked about the duplicate incident. It did give her more time to tell Naomi, although in the first two years she felt that nobody cared about the trauma she went through.
Of course, it was entirely possible that people wanted to forget as much as she did. Things like that happened in the Delta Quadrant. She didn't hear a lot of talk about the lizard babies Captain Janeway and Ensign Paris had, back when he was still a lieutenant and they were both mutated from the effects of warp ten. Nor was anyone ever found talking about the time Seven's accusations had caused that innocent trader's death. There were some things that people buried deep within their collective souls because if they didn't, the sheer number of odd and painful things they'd encountered would overwhelm them. It was a little Vulcanesque, but it worked.
For the most part it worked, anyway. Samantha knew that she would never forget the pain she felt when Naomi died. The joy of her daughter outweighed the confusion and the pain, though. There was nothing that could change that.
"What's a petticoat?" asked Naomi, bringing her mother's reflection to a halt.
Samantha Wildman smiled at her daughter. Her heart had no doubts at all, and she was grateful that she had her beautiful, spirited Naomi.