Charles Dickens Oliver Twist, courtesy of Emily Janeway, that had been tonight's bedtime story, Emily's all time favorite story so far. Amelia had fallen asleep first as she often times did during a good bedtime story or really if you talked long enough. The sound of her mothers voice could always lull her to sleep weather Janeway was reading a story or reports. Emily on the other hand actually sat there and listened to the story, sometimes right up until the end of the book unless you stopped and set it aside. With Amelia snoozing in one of her arms it made it rather difficult to turn the pages but Janeway managed. She was half way through the book before she heard something a little like snoring, Q was notorious for snoring, often times forcing her to wake up up so she could get any sleep, it seemed he wasn't alone in his ability to wake the dead while sleeping. Closing the book she looked down at Emily, the girls head rested in her lap, curled up next to her and with how loud she could snore making a damn fine attempt to beat Q's record. "Q." Janeway called over to him, his feet propped up against on a little table while he sat back in a chair going over a PADD he was putting together for Emily, Q 'history' as it where. Amelia had inherited knowledge of the Q and the continuum, at five and a half months old if she could talk she could have given a lecture on it. For the same reason Emily couldn't change her form or teleport herself at will seemed to explain why she wasn't born with the same knowledge. "I think I need your help." She laughed trying to keep quiet, with Amelia in her arms and Emily in her lap she wasn't going anywhere."

Q set down the PADD and walked over to Janeway taking the baby from her. "Looks like you bored them to death."

She shot him a teasing glance and shifted a little now that her arms were free, resting a hand on Emily's back and patting her lightly to stop her snoring. "At least they are BOTH asleep now." One child was a lot of work, especially a young one. Amelia alone could outlast both of them when it came to needing sleep, Emily was no different. Certainly they could send her off to her quarters and let her entertain herself until she got tired but more often than not Janeway got a call from someone on the night shift telling her Emily had wandered to some unsafe portion of the ship because she was bored and wanted to see if there was something to do. Once Q had tucked Amelia into her crib he walked back over to Janeway and shook his head. "Looks like I am in a bit of a predicament."

"I guess you are on your own." He joked looking over at Emily who had manged to not only fall asleep on the captains lap but was holding onto her uniform jacket. Getting her to her quarters without waking her was going to be the trick. "I have an idea, unzip your top and take it off." Janeway shot him one of those looks as if she was on to him. "Prude, you have a shirt on under it." He sassed back at her. Rolling her eyes at him she took off her top as carefully as possible so her slate blue undershirt was exposed. As soon as her jacket was off Emily curled up a little more clearly aware of something going on around her. Luckily she didn't wake up. "You know for a one year old she is pretty big." Q pointed out. She was physically the size of an 8 to 10 year old human child and weighed just as much. Not that he couldn't life Emily, there was just a difference between carrying Amelia and Emily. Carefully Q slipped his arms under Emily and lifted her off the bed stopping as he felt his back strain. "And heavier than a normal one year old." He groaned and lifted her up holding him close to his chest she he didn't drop her. That would be a rude awakening.

Now freed from Amelia and Emily Janeway swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Emily was still fast asleep, Janeway's jacket dangling from her hand. "When has anything ever been 'normal' in this family? I'm the captain of a starfship lost in the Delta quadrant, you are renegade Q, Amelia can shut down Voyager's warp core from sneezing, and Emily was grown in a lab from Amelia's DNA."

"Well when you say it like that you make it sound so mundane." He joked letting her get the door for him since he couldn't reach the controls. Janeway followed him out into the hall keeping on an eye on Emily. It would be easier to not have Emily in separate quarters but the girl required about as much space and privacy as a teenage human. "You know I admit, one year ago I didn't think I would be the father of two little Q's and engaged to the human captain of a starship." Q admitted pausing in front of the door to Emily's quarters and waiting for Janeway to open the door for him.

They stepped inside as Janeway smirked, "A year ago I didn't think I was going to be the mother of one child, let alone yours."

"And was it really so bad?" Q teased as Kathryn rolled her eyes at him.

"No, it was unexpected but I wouldn't change anything." Very carefully Q set Emily down on her bed, her blankets covered in images of Captain Proton thanks to Tom Paris taking her on one of the holodeck adventures as his sidekick Rocket Kid. Very carefully the captain took off Emily's shoes and set them off to the side. "Well, aside from the fact that Emily snores about as loud as you do."

Q raised his hands up in defense. "Hey don't blame me for that, Amelia doesn't snore, those Vidiian's reprogrammed Emily's DNA so she would snore, not y fault."

"Oh yes, because along with curing the phage they always wanted to discover the cure to the second more horrifying disease known to humanoid species, snoring." She covered Emily with the blankets and paused seeing the golden glint at the girls neck. Not that she was too concerned Emily would snag the locket and choke herself in her sleep but Janeway didn't want that as a potential outcome. Unclipping the chain Janeway pulled the necklace off from around Emily's neck and continued to pull the blankets up over the girls shoulders. Janeway went to put it on Emily's night stand but some small trace of curiosity had made her pause. Opening the locket she smiled a little seeing just what it had been Emily had put inside.

"What?" Q asked seeing the bright grin on Janeway's face, that smile he could never get tired of.

Janeway closed the locket again and set it down on the night stand. "Just the picture Emily put in her locket." Leaning down beside the bed Janeway kissed the girl on the cheek and set the book Oliver Twist down next to her locket.

"Oh?" Was a little curious to look in the locket now. "Was it Rowley? I bet it was Rowley, everyone loves that mutt." Q joked trying to get an honest answer out of her.

"Nope." Janeway walked over to him resting a hand on his shoulder and grabbing his arm as they walked back out into the hall.

"Amelia?"

"No." Janeway answered smiling again as he tried to guess.

"Pepper?" Janeway nodded her head no. "You?" She looked up at him, he had guessed right. "Seems someone doesn't want to admit they are a total mommy's girl." Q laughed at Janeway, Emily honestly spent the majority of her time with him when she could, she was honestly more of a daddy's girl than Amelia but it seemed he hadn't made a good enough impression to get in the locket yet.

"You were in the picture too." Janeway replied as Q raised a brow, or maybe he had.

In the morning it had been Neelix's responsibility to look after the children while they explored a nebula, the Captain and Wildman would have their hands full. How much trouble could three children be? Three children who had proven that they were nothing but angels. Naomi and Emily were content to talk about adventures they had on the holodeck as Amelia crawled around the floor picking up colorful blocks and dropping them again to the ground when she lost her interest in them. "What else can you do?" Naomi asked curiously after Emily had mentioned using her powers to interface with the holodeck and turn Pepper blue.

"I can do a lot of things." She giggled and looked over at the replicator in the mess hall. "Watch this." Emily focused on the replicator not even bothering to fiddle with the restraint on her wrist. She had gotten much better at controlling her powers without it thanks to Tuvok's meditations and training. The replicator turned on creating two bowls of chocolate ice cream. Naomi and Emily sprang up from the floor skipping over Amelia to grab the ice cream before Neelix caught on. "I'm getting much better, maybe one day I won't have to wear this stupid thing." She despised her restraint, without it she wouldn't have been able to be on Voyager or with her father. She would have been too dangerous, too out of control but Emily wondered. Had they never put this restraint on her would she have had these problems or would she have been like Amelia? Even more so Emily wondered, would she have been as powerful?

"Can you take it off?" Naomi asked looking at the black band clasped around Emily's arm with a screen that sort of resembled a control panel but much much smaller.

"I can take off the control band my father made me which is this part." Emily pulled the black band off her wrist that held the control screen to her. "Without this I couldn't use any of my powers. The restraint creates some sort of strange energy field, the control panel helps to dampen it." When she had pulled her band up off her arm a strange network of circuits were revealed, partially embedded into her arm and moving through her wrist.

"It looks...Borg." Naomi spoke with a frown. "Does it hurt?"

"Not really." Emily responded poking at the device. "One day when I can control my powers without it the doctor said he could have it removed. I won't even know it was there." That would be the second best day of her life, the first best being her arrival to Voyager. She understood now why her father had sacrificed himself to leave her here. He was right in that she would be safe and in his act to die for her she knew he was right when he had said he loved her like his real daughter.

"That will be good." Naomi responded taking a bite of her ice cream.

"Want to see what else I can do?" Emily smiled putting her control band back on her arm. She hadn't actually ever shown anyone the real restraint before other than the doctor and the captain. Janeway had been there when the doctor initially tried to remove the device and nearly got erased from some sort of charge. Emily looked over to make sure Neelix was still busy cooking in the kitchen and not paying attention to the two girls. "Watch this." She intended to use her new and improved control to knock the fruit bowl off the counter. It would be funny and Neelix wouldn't know what happened. Maybe just assume it had been teetering on the edge. Focusing her mind on the bowl she pictured it moving away from the counter but it didn't fall over and it didn't move. Instead the bowl was engulfed in bright light and blinked away with a little spark before reappearing in the same bright light just out of arms reach from her hands. It hoovered for a second after appearing before it fell to the ground, the fruit falling out around her feet and making Emily scream. Something so simple to Amelia was almost terrifying to Emily. Something that was suppose to be as natural as breathing to her was as daunting as a monsters maw.

Neelix ran out from the kitchen and stepped over to where Naomi and Emily were standing. In an instance the bowl in Emily's hand vanished in her hands with a flash of light making the girl jump back and scream again, her hand brushing the wall of the mess hall. "Emily? What's wrong?" Neelix asked before he hit a force field. "Emily?"

"I can't make it stop." She crouched down feeling her body shifting slightly, bursts of light cracking inside her mind. "Amy, help." Emily begged looking back down at her control band. "It's not working." She seemed panicked now.

"How is that possible?" Neelix tried stepping closer to her again only to be reminded Emily had put up a force field around herself.

"I might have damaged it when I took it off." If she had pulled any wires connecting the restraint to the control brace then it was possible the technology was malfunctioning and not her, or it could be the other way around. Perhaps she had unlocked abilities she didn't know about until her control over them grew and due to the power usage it had damaged the restraint itself. Emily grabbed her head and curled up, sparks flying overhead and the hull started to buckle under some invisible pressure. Another flash of light occurred, this time at Emily's wrist, her control band vanishing into a splash of light and appearing not far from where Amelia was sitting up. Almost as soon as it was gone Emily went unconscious.

Emily opened her eyes looking around at a red desert, the sky above black and full of stars and astronomical wonders. "Where am I?" Emily asked feeling her heart race in her chest.

"Safe, for now." That had been a familiar and comforting voice. Turning around she could see Amelia as she did when they shared dreams. A girl who looked just like her wearing a blue dress.

"What happened?" Emily asked Amy feeling more comfortable talking to her like this than with her thoughts as Amy did.

The girl in the blue dress held up the black band that had been around her wrist. "I tried to save it but I think it's broken." Amelia handed it back to Emily. "It was, malfunctioning, your powers are outgrowing the restraint. You can't hide behind it forever."

"I'm not hiding Amy." Emily corrected her. "I want to be like you."

"What they did to you was wrong, I am sorry they made you broken with this, thing but I can make you not broken." It wasn't exactly poetry but Amy was only five months old. "Trust me Emily, I want to protect you."

Waking back up Emily saw the familiar sight of the sickbay ceiling hovering over her head. Trying to sit up she winced grabbing the bridge of her nose and feeling like she had her brains blown out her ears. "Captain, Emily and Amelia are awake." The doctors voice sounded like a siren in her ears. Glancing over to the biobed next to her it didn't look like Amelia was having a rough time at waking back up. In fact the little baby was already sitting up and smiling. Emily moved her hand to her forehead groaning again and noticing her control brace was still gone.

Feeling hands grab her she jumped. "I'm not safe, wait." Emily cried out trying to push Q away defensively.

"I don't see why not, your brain activity has returned to normal levels." The doctors voice spoke over hers. "I can't speak for your restraint however, Lt. Torres is attempting to make repairs to it but I think your little display in the mess hall has proven it's not going to do what it was meant to do, and neither is this thing." The doctor scanned her wrist getting some strange feedback readings from it. "It's functioning at half it's original power, but I'm not an engineer, that's doesn't happen to be my field. Your best option is to remove it."

"No." Emily cried out a little frightened, her attention snapping back to Amy. She wasn't hiding behind it, that's what she had told Amelia but even now the baby was giving her a suspicious look. Amelia had said she would help fix her but how could a baby do that? Even if Amelia had control of her powers she didn't have the fear of losing that control like Emily did, hurting someone important to her. "Leave it as it is, for now. Half power is better than nothing at all. Maybe it won't hold back all of my abilities but it can hold back the full force of them. At least until I can control them well enough so that I don't hurt anyone."

"With the restraint exposed it could take damage, it wasn't built with an active lifestyle in mind like the one you have on Voyager." He was right, she was suppose to sit in a lab, do close to notice and only get out of her room when she was put into another room to be tested on. Most of her ways were spent strapped down to a table and being poked. Not running around and playing. At least her father has considered that when making the control band.

"I can continue to wear the band over it, even if it can't be fixed. Remove the control interface and reinforce it. It's protected the restraint so far."

"From outside forces but not from you." The doctor added.

Emily's eyes shifted over to the captain who had been seated next to Amelia. "I had hoped for this to be a temporary fix not a permanent one. Now I don't know, it might be better if you let Torres repair the restraint and leave it at that." Emily let out a sigh, to be locked up her whole life in a 'cage' and never allowed to be who she really was. What sort of life was that? "You could have hurt Neelix, Naomi, and we still don't know why Amelia went unconscious when you did." She knew where this was going, Janeway was blaming her for Amelia going unconscious too.

"I didn't hurt Amy, I can't hurt Amy, she made me go unconscious, she told me..." Emily looked back down at the restraint on her arm. "She told me I was broken, she knocked me out so she could make me stop, she removed my control band to shut the restraint down, Amy wanted to help me. I'm sick and she just wanted to make me better again." The captain wouldn't understand but Q seemed to.

"How do we know this won't happen again? Kathryn asked.

"I guess you won't know. Just like if you lock me away behind a prsion door with this restraint I'll never know if I could have come to control it by myself." Janeway had a responsibility to look after her crew and keep them out of harms way, but she also had a responsibility to help every member of her crew improve themselves, even her own daughter.

"Alright, but until you have mastered that control, I would think it...unwise for you to be too far from Amelia. At least if something does happen she can, and I hope she will, correct it."

Emily looked at Amelia and smiled. "She said she will, so long as I don't put Voyager in the Amber Cascades. She can't transport something that large."