AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

I am not sure how many of you missed yesterday's updates, but there were four chapters yesterday that you'll absolutely want to read before reading this one.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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Tuvok came once to the sickbay to ask about the situation. Kes was making rounds to handle any minor medical issue throughout the ship. The doctor was temporarily not seeing anybody, short of an absolute emergency, as he ran some scans within the bubbles that were set to find out information about the alien parasites. Daryl didn't understand much of what was going on, but he also realized that he didn't have to. This wasn't his area and nobody was looking to him for answers.

Kathryn was confident that whatever it was would be taken care of in no time, and Daryl was so thankful for her optimism that he could have kissed her if she weren't as inaccessible as Carol was.

Kathryn's optimism had returned some of the color to Carol's face and the smile to her lips. The panic attack had taken it out of her, and it had reminded Daryl how emotionally fragile Carol really was. They were three hundred physical years and seventy thousand light years away from everything that had hurt her in the past, and she wanted to move past it all, but it was all still with her and she was still going to have to work through it—a little at a time. The distance would help with that, of course, but it wasn't simply gone.

Chakotay was avoiding telling the crew much of anything for the time being. He'd told Tuvok what was going on, but the decision had been made that they would make no formal announcement until the doctor knew a little more about the parasites. Tuvok would remain in command and, as soon as Kathryn was able, she would join them for a debriefing that would inform them all of what happened on the planet's surface and what resulted afterward. She fully intended for her debriefing to include information about how the doctor got rid of the alien parasite.

To avoid having to answer questions—or having to actively avoid answering said questions—Chakotay wanted to keep away from the rest of the ship. The doctor had tried to suggest that he and Daryl could go anywhere they wanted, but they couldn't stay in sickbay, since it would violate the privacy of his patients, but his patients had quickly declared that they simply didn't care. They forfeited their privacy rights in the presence of each other. They were, after all, all in this together—even if the doctor didn't exactly know to what extent, and even if Daryl couldn't figure out what the women had done differently to expose only them to a parasite.

Without knowing what they were dealing with, the doctor kept the forcefields in place. He could pass through them, by losing his solidity somehow, when he wanted, but equipment was more complicated. In addition, he was working with the diagnostic programs and the information that the Vidiians had given him, so it was all a game of touch and go—from what Daryl could tell—while he tried to get everything prepared to diagnose the women. It was a great complication, and a hindrance, that everything about the planet was entirely alien—despite its physical resemblance to Earth.

It seemed like hours—though it was probably only one long and boring hour at most—that he fiddled with things and ran scans before he seemed ready to star talking about his findings.

He was punching information into one of his data PADDs when he waved at Chakotay and Daryl that they could both join him at Kathryn's bubble.

"Did you find something, Doctor?" Kathryn asked. She hopped down off the biobed where she'd been sitting, instead of choosing to sit with her legs crossed on the floor like Carol. Kathryn had also shed her uniform jacket, clearly feeling that she could relax a little if she was going to be stuck in a bubble for possibly hours.

"Yes and no," the doctor said. "I have no definitive information. However, I feel that I'm much closer to having an answer."

"What do you know?" Chakotay asked.

"The parasites are not identical," the doctor said. "They register differently with my equipment, but not entirely differently. I've identified a point of attachment for both parasites. I've also confirmed that they have clear life signs."

"Are they sentient?" Chakotay asked.

"I have no way of determining that," the doctor said.

"It's probably better if we don't," Chakotay said with a sigh. "I don't want to get into any moral or ethical discussions over parasite rights."

"The scans are inconclusive, mostly owing to the fact that the information that the Vidiians gave us is incomplete, and I'm running all my analysis from their data to try to find the closest match for our new alien stowaways. I am planning further tests, but there are things that we need to discuss as I move forward. The parasites are clearly steadily drawing nutrients and energy from the bodies of the captain and Carol."

"So, we gotta stop 'em," Daryl said. Nobody paid him any attention except to glance in his direction. He assumed that nobody else wanted to put into words the simple truth that he'd identified without fancy, beeping PADDs and machines.

"Treatment options, Doctor?" Kathryn asked.

"I have attempted to terminate the parasites with several variations of the Vidiian cure," the doctor said. "There has been no effect on the parasites. Their life signs remain present and stay at a steady strength."

"Surgery?" Chakotay asked.

"I'm afraid that's the only other option," the doctor said. "I simply don't have enough information on the planet and its flora and fauna to create a better option. I have located the parasites, though, and I believe that I could extract them with surgery."

Daryl's heart pounded. He glanced back toward Carol's bubble. She was sitting near the edge of it, just inside the part where it would start loudly protesting her attempts to escape, and she was listening. Like Kathryn, she had her brow furrowed, but she didn't look terrified. She looked, if anything, somewhat intrigued.

Carol was almost always fascinated by everything that had happened around them since they'd been brought onto Voyager the first time.

"Is the surgery dangerous?" Daryl asked.

"There's an element of risk in every surgery," the doctor said. "However, I believe that it poses no obvious serious threats to either of my patients."

"The parasites could kill them," Chakotay offered, clearly able to see Daryl's reluctance to let Carol risk her life over the removal of a parasite that they hadn't even known was there. "It's probably lucky that we came back when we did. Otherwise—who knows what would have happened and we'd have been helpless against it on the planet."

"You OK with it?" Daryl asked, directing his question to Carol. She nodded from inside her bubble. She laughed to herself.

"I don't think I have much of a choice," she offered. "And—I'd rather have the surgery and have my seventy or eighty years than…wait to see what's going to happen when this alien parasite takes over my body."

"I think we're both in agreement," Kathryn offered. "When will you do the surgeries, Doctor?"

"Soon, Captain," the doctor said. "There's—just one more thing I'd like to pursue before we accept that surgery is our only option."

"I think you oughta—pursue a couple more. As long as the parasites aren't like…hurtin' 'em right now."

"It would appear that, while the parasites are feeding off the captain and Carol, to a degree, they are not being harmed in any extreme way at the moment," the doctor confirmed.

"So, there's time to explore things," Daryl said.

"There's time to explore things, Mr. Dixon," the doctor said somewhat dismissively.

"What were you thinking about, Doctor?" Kathryn asked.

"Changing the parameters of the scans," the doctor said. "I've been focusing on the Vidiian information because of the alien nature of the planet. I would like to run a few scans using our Starfleet knowledge."

"You think that Starfleet technology will be able to identify the parasite?" Chakotay asked.

"At the very least," the doctor offered, "it will offer some information about what the parasite is not."

"Whatever you think is best, Doctor," Kathryn said. She was clearly relaxed, as was Carol, so Daryl decided to try to take a page from each of their books and try to relax, himself. Even Chakotay didn't seem too worried. It seemed that alien parasites, and surgeries to remove said parasites, were just a part of another day at Starfleet.

Daryl crossed his arms across his chest and distanced himself just a little so that he was nearly halfway between the outer boundary of the two bubbles.

The doctor made a quick trip to his computer and made some changes there, like he'd done a thousand times already. Then he walked back over with a tricorder in hand.

"May I scan you again, Captain?" He requested.

"Of course," Kathryn said. She stood at full attention at the edge of her bubble and the doctor scanned her. He studied the information on his tricorder. Chakotay leaned like he might try to look at the information and the doctor tipped the tricorder away and gave him a warning look. Daryl laughed to himself, but swallowed the laughter down. That was how the doctor treated him every time he wanted to see what one of the machines said about Carol. It was nice to see the doctor slightly annoyed with someone else for a change.

He went to Carol's bubble, and she got up long enough to come closer to the edge of her bubble, even though the doctor told her it wasn't necessary. Daryl didn't even walk over or try to look over the doctor's shoulder because he already knew that the doctor would simply deny him the right to see anything. The doctor would tell them exactly what he thought they should know in the exact moment that he felt he could report to them with some confidence.

"Is there anything there, Doctor?" Chakotay asked when the doctor came back over to Kathryn's bubble.

"Absolutely," the doctor said. "Mr. Dixon—could you come here a moment?"

Daryl came closer. He kept his body turned, though, so that it was clear that he wasn't turning his body to Carol or shutting her out of the conversation.

"Captain—I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for more information that will help me determine the next course of action," the doctor said.

"From me?" Kathryn asked.

"Your situation has the potential to be the deciding factor in this case," the doctor said. "So, I'm afraid so."

"I've already told you everything I could think of," Kathryn said. "We ate—meat. Mostly we ate a species that was a type of fowl. We ate—hoppers. The rodent species. We ate—the large cat."

"And that iguana in soup," Daryl offered.

"We drank the water, but it was always boiled," Chakotay offered, deciding that they were simply ticking back through what they'd all been through once before with the EMH—all the things that might have allowed the parasites to gain access to the interior of the women's bodies.

"But we all ate and drank the same things," Daryl said. "Even the vegetables we ate and the roots. We ate the same things. When we tested 'em for bein' toxic? We all tried it. Figured—we all lived or died together."

"Was there any other method through which the parasite may have been introduced into your system?" The doctor asked.

"We all used the same water for baths and swimming," Chakotay offered.

"I was injured a few times," Kathryn offered. "Minor injuries. Scratches or cuts that broke the skin. It could have been that Carol and I picked up the parasites that way."

"It's unlikely that you touched anything that we would have never touched with broken skin," Chakotay offered.

"I've had at least one open blister on my hand since we damn near got outta the pods," Daryl offered. "I shoulda cleaned up on germs around that place if there was some."

The doctor sighed.

"I'm going to be direct, Captain," the doctor said. "Were you involved in any intimate interactions of a sexual nature on the planet's surface?"

If discretion had been their plan, they'd failed. Daryl saw Kathryn and Chakotay make eye contact—albeit quickly—before Kathryn straightened herself up and responded. Even if the doctor didn't call them out, there was no way he'd missed the exchange.

"Is there—need for such private information, Doctor?" Kathryn asked.

"Is it some sorta sexually transmitted parasite?" Daryl asked with a laugh, unable to stop himself.

"It would appear that it might be something of the sort," the doctor said.

"Then that would mean that Kathryn and Carol wouldn't be the only ones with it," Daryl offered. He felt like he might as well say it, since he was pretty sure that nobody was left under the impression that he and Carol hadn't given in to their desires as far back as the fever.

"I'm afraid they are," the doctor said. "But—Captain—your answer changes everything about how we'll want to proceed. Let me see if I can be of some assistance. If you answer in the negative, then the surgery is the last solution that I have to offer to remove the parasite from your system. If you answer in the positive, then…I believe it may be better for the health of everyone involved if we simply allowed nature to take its course. If that's the case, it appears your particular situation would resolve itself in approximately thirty-four weeks, while Carol's situation should resolve itself in about thirty weeks. Both, hopefully, with the successful delivery of, as you called it, future crew members."

Daryl stared at the EMH. He let his eyes drift over everyone present. He felt overwhelmed by confusion for a moment, and it was clear that he wasn't the only one.

"What are you—saying, Doctor?" Kathryn asked.

"Captain," the doctor said, "what I'm asking is…is there any chance that Starfleet medical technology is correct and you're pregnant, or should I assume that Vidiian medical technology is correct and I need to proceed with surgery to detach the alien parasite that has taken up residency in your body by attaching itself to your uterine lining?"

Daryl was almost certain he felt his face go numb and, from the looks of his companions, he wasn't the only experiencing that rather alien sensation.