Author's Note: This story takes place after Neelix left Voyager, but before the last episode. Written on February 8th, 2008. Reviews welcomed and appreciated!
Story Summary: Naomi Wildman throws a birthday party for the Doctor. Also featuring Tom Paris, Harry Kim, Chakotay, Kathryn Janeway, Seven, B'Elanna Torres, and Tuvok.
Naomi's Gift
PenPatronus
His combadge chirped: "Kim to Sickbay!"
The Doctor didn't look up from his computer screen, or mute the recording of Les Miserables echoing through his office. "What's the emergency, Mr. Kim, I'm rather busy."
"It's hardly an emergency, but Tom took an eight ball to his eye socket!" The Doctor heard Harry chuckle at his own joke while Paris groaned from somewhere nearby. "We're on Holodeck One, Doc."
"Well I certainly didn't think you were in Astrometrics. Sickbay out." The Doctor tapped his combadge and released an annoyed sigh. As he gathered a medical tricorder and a dermal regenerator he vowed to speak to the Captain about mandatory security protocols whether the holoprogram was Sandrine's or The Three Musketeers.
When the Doctor transferred to the Holodeck he discovered that his program was malfunctioning. All of his senses were gone: he couldn't see, couldn't hear his own simulated breathing, couldn't feel anything beneath his boots. But then a child's voice broke through the darkness.
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you," Naomi Wildman sang. Light bloomed from a sun that suddenly appeared. Additional voices joined Naomi's. "Happy birthday, dear Doctor, happy birthday to you!"
The Doctor found himself standing next to a picnic table in the middle of a field of white and gold wildflowers. In front of him the ground dove over a shallow cliff and into an excited sea. On the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth was a gigantic pink birthday cake adorned with a single candle.
"Happy birthday, Doctor." A grinning Kathryn Janeway, wearing a bright sundress, stepped forward and embraced him.
"Oh my," the Doctor breathed, "I don't know what to say!" He shook hands with Chakotay and Harry, and returned Seven and Tuvok's nods. Tom slapped him heartily on the back before helping the pregnant Torres sit on a bench.
"Make a wish, Doctor!" Naomi had a palm cupped around the candle. "Quick, before the breeze blows it out!"
"What should I wish for?" the Doctor asked, moving to lean over Naomi's shoulder and admire the cake. "What more could a hologram ask for than his very own birthday?"
"Miss Wildman's idea," Janeway explained. She thanked Chakotay when he handed her a cup of coffee. "I'm curious, Naomi, how did you decide on today?"
Naomi shrugged while using both hands to protect the candle. "According to my research Dr. Zimmerman was born on January 2nd, he first introduced the EMH on March 14th, the Doctor was first activated on November 20th…" Her eyes widened in fear as the candle flickered from her breath.
Seven, the only partygoer in uniform, cocked an eyebrow. "This date is not the second of January, nor the fourteenth of March, nor the twentieth of November."
"I know. I couldn't decide and then I got tired of waiting. Doctor, hurry!"
"Here, help me, ready? One, two—" Together, Naomi and the Doctor blew the candle out and everyone clapped.
Paris began to cut the cake and he handed the first piece to the drooling Naomi. "What did you wish for, Doc?"
"Oh no," Kim said from the seat next to him. "If he tells us then it won't come true!"
"Maybe that rule doesn't apply to holograms," Chakotay surmised.
"Hey, if this is a party, where are the presents?" the Doctor demanded with a grin.
Janeway choked a bit on her coffee. "The combined minds before you couldn't think of a single thing, Doctor."
"I kid, this is lovely. Naomi, did you choose the location, too?"
Naomi was cutting her next bite with her right hand and fishing in her pockets with her left. "It's from the northern hemisphere of my father's home planet," she explained. "Mom helped me choose it. Here, I made you a present." Naomi handed the Doctor a crumpled piece of paper but B'Elanna spoke up before he could look at it.
"You dodged the question, Doctor." Her green dress amplified her skin which was aglow with motherhood. "What do holographic doctors wish for on their first birthday celebration?"
"I'm not so sure I should tell…" The Doctor glanced at Naomi for permission. She shrugged and went back to concentrating on the icing on her fork.
"If it will ease you, Doctor, we could guarantee that your wish will not leave the Holodeck." Tuvok sat between Janeway and Seven, and had already finished his slice of cake.
"Well, as long as you all promise of course." The Doctor stood and raised his (empty) glass. "Years ago I would have wished for a family…Today I know that I already have one." The Doctor smiled and nodded at each person around the table. "So for my first official birthday, I find myself thinking of another birthday." He aimed his raised glass at Tom and B'Elanna. "Today I wish for the healthy arrival, and life, of my first goddaughter."
Chakotay raised his own glass. "Hear, hear."
Cups clanked and clinked in a toast and Paris and Torres shared a quick, happy kiss. When the Doctor sat down, the Captain stood. The cheery sunlight brightened her yellow dress. "A toast! A toast. Today we celebrate you, Doctor. Most of us at this table wouldn't be alive if it weren't for you. Your work has been exceptional and tireless and…nearly without complaint." The group, including the Doctor, chuckled. "Your efforts have been above and beyond not only the call of duty, but of your programming. And that spirit you show us daily is an inspiration. You not only heal but inspire us to grow and stretch beyond ourselves. For that reason, and a hundred more, we are thankful that you are part of our family."
"Hear, hear," said Seven this time. Everyone drank.
Suddenly a voice came from the sky. The magic spell of the cake and the wildflowers was broken. "Bridge to Holodeck One."
Captain Janeway rolled her eyes and dug her combadge out of her pocket. "Janeway here."
"Captain—we've got a distress call emanating from the wake of that plasma storm we rode out this morning. Three unidentifiable vessels with about three hundred life signs."
Janeway tossed her napkin down on her empty plate. "Acknowledged. Yellow alert!" She turned towards the Doctor with an apologetic half-smile. "Sorry to cut your first birthday short, Doctor."
He shrugged. "Best one I've ever had, Captain."
"Computer, end program," Tuvok ordered. The remaining cake, the table, the wildflowers and the sea disappeared.
"Naomi Wildman. I will escort you to your quarters." As Seven marched her out, Naomi whined something about never getting to have any fun.
"See ya later, Doc," Paris called as he and Kim jogged out, Torres waddling behind them.
"Happy birthday!" The doors swished shut behind Chakotay, leaving the Doctor alone in the empty, silent room. His only companion was the gift in his fist.
Carefully, with his surgeon's hands, the Doctor unfolded and smoothed out the paper. It was, he concluded, what ancient earth called a "comic." Four rows of three boxes each comprised a story told by pictures and scattered bubbles of dialogue. Naomi had drawn the outlines of the figures in pencil, and then colored them in with crayon.
"A Day in the Life of the Delta Quadrant's Best Doctor," the Doctor read aloud. He chuckled at the word "life." In the first box was, he assumed, a representation of himself. The stick figure was awkwardly covered in the medical blue and black uniform and was, the Doctor noticed, completely bald. He also had extremely muscular legs and arms, his strength emphasized by the fact that he was holding the entire Intrepid-Class Voyager above his bald head. In the second box he was putting a bandage on a wounded crewman's head. In the third he was singing, teaching in the fourth and then giving a photo-lecture in the fifth.
In the sixth box a rather odd character appeared: a smiling girl with wings and a stick with a five-point star on the end of it. She pointed the magic wand at the bald stick figure and said, via word bubble, "Because of your good deeds I give you a heart, and a name!" The next few boxes showed stick-Doctor rejoicing over his heartbeat, eating piles and piles of food, and sleeping with a smile.
In the final box, Naomi had drawn the muscular, breathing, smiling "Leonard" standing on a planet labeled "Earth," holding hands with the winged girl who was labeled "Naomi."
Some alien with spikes for feet and claws for hands crawled up the Doctor's throat.
If he weren't a hologram, he would've diagnosed himself with acute joy.
The End