A/N: Thanks for your reviews so far. They make writing worthwhile.
Time Enough
Chapter 2: Possibilities
Captain Kathryn Janeway was grateful for a harmless Mencari pursuit, allowing her to remain on the bridge. She now watched the stars distort on the view screen as she recalled the last few hours.
It kept her from sharing an awkward moment with Seven of Nine, who had retired to her quarters to change for a meeting with the Doctor about the child. Their child!
When the Doctor had revealed the girl's parents, she and Seven had shared a look for several moments. Seven was awash in eagerness and joy. It was profound and unmistakable. Janeway regretted meeting Seven's consummate happiness with dark dismay. Seven's pained eyes told Janeway that she had understood her Captain's non-verbal cues all too well. The joy was banished by fear and disillusionment. It was as if the Captain had ripped Seven's beating heart from her chest and tossed out an airlock. I'm such a fool, she thought. Such a damn fool.
Janeway squeezed the arm of the command chair, watching her skin fade to white with the grip. "Captain," her Chief Security Officer said at his station behind her. "Do you believe the Mencari are capable of locating Voyager?"
She was grateful for this interruption. "Your guess is as good as mine, Tuvok."
"It appears our escape was easily accomplished," he said in his flat, matter-of-fact way.
"Too easily."
Janeway reached around to massage her aching neck and perhaps to alleviate five-million-isoton headache. Why don't I leave the bridge, she wondered. Because I have total and complete control here. When the Captain ordered a hard to starboard, nothing prevented its execution short of a hull breach. Even then, the maneuver would be completed. But to be a mother was a challenge she never pursued or even considered. And yet she was a mother to a seven-year-old girl.
She absent-mindedly rubbed her neck, glancing up at the view screen. The Captain almost hoped that the Mencari would overtake them. Not that she would yield one single millimeter of Voyager or a single cell from any crewmember. She merely dreaded the looming discussion in sickbay about the child.
=/\=
The Sick Bay doors swished open. A biobed beeped. A small figure lay covered. She could just make out strands of reddish blonde hair. Her milky skin looked clean. Janeway remembered registering a heavy and revolting scent of manure as the Doctor had approached station-side and when they had parted in the transporter room. She wondered at it, more for its absence now.
The Captain could hear the faint hum of Voyager and finally the murmur of soft voices. She stood at the door of the Doctor's office, with the EMH seated behind his desk, Seven in the only other chair and Chakotay standing as a sentinel over his girlfriend. His tanned, muscular hand lay possessively on her shoulder. The sight of their touch nearly caused Janeway to stumble. It reminded her there was no hand at her own shoulder. The bleak loneliness gnawed at her.
The choices in favor of her Starfleet career over lovers crashed down, sounding in her ear like the ticking of a clock in a large, empty house. Three words burned themselves on her heart. You were wrong. You made the wrong choices. Ah, but how could one change the past?
Seven watched a confident Janeway stride coolly into the room. Her unshakable trust in herself and her beliefs had always attracted the former Borg drone. Janeway's self-awareness was so compelling and beautiful.
But in one stumbling heartbeat, Janeway's mask had been stripped away, revealing for Seven's surprised scrutiny an unexpected vulnerability and a tenderness so eager it rendered the younger woman breathless. In that moment, Seven of Nine wanted to bridge the divide between them – of rank and rancor, culture and age differences. But in another heartbeat, the public Janeway was locked firmly in place again. The chasm grew to insurmountable proportions and in that moment a longing so profound took root in Seven, one she'd never even imagined. It was for the private Janeway that Seven hungered.
Seven moved to rise to her feet, but a casual flick of Janeway's hand and a low "as you were" spared the room the stifling Starfleet protocol. The last thing Janeway needed to remind any of them was that she was their commanding officer. Steering a course through this with a woman who had defied her at any opportunity would be difficult enough.
Janeway took a spot near the far door, giving her a view through the transparent steel to see the girl lying asleep on the biobed. My daughter!
The Doctor looked around to find a pensive Captain, an uncertain ex-Borg and a fidgeting First Officer. "Well, I'm certainly glad that Dani has been sedated," he said, patting his desk down. "Given the level of enthusiasm in this room, I may have to break out the fire suppression hoses."
"Doctor, can you just give dispense with the theatrics?" Janeway asked.
"Fine, Captain," he said, handing both women two padds he had found lying on his desk. "As I mentioned earlier, Dani is the offspring of Captain Janeway and—"
"Doctor," Chakotay growled with a bitter edge. "We remember that part."
The Doctor regarded Chakotay with an annoyed look. The imposing Commander crossed his arms before giving a lift of his chin. The Doctor looked down at his own padd, thumbing down the information. "Very well...then I'll skip—"
"Doctor," said the smooth, even intonations of Seven of Nine. "I believe that I have several questions."
"As do I," the Captain said, trying to avoid glancing at the couple. "Despite Commander Chakotay's complete understanding." Then she turned toward the couple, finding a glower from her First Officer and a blank look from Seven. "Seven, after you."
"Thank you, Captain." Gracefully, Seven shifted her long, shapely legs to face the Doctor. "Doctor, I was unaware that two females could copulate—"
Janeway closed her eyes and pursed her lips. Two fingers pinched the bridge of her nose. The purple stars behind her clenched eyes gave way to a curvy, naked figure draped across her bed. Her blonde hair splashed on a pillow. Seven's eyes hooded and her moist lips parted. Janeway's open mouth poised over a scrumptious nipple and a hand hidden between lanky legs. Janeway snapped open her eyes when she almost groaned. She found a bold curiosity in intense blue eyes, a blonde head tipped to one side.
"My apologies," Janeway whispered. The words sounded half-hearted even to her own ears.
Chakotay edged forward in his seat. "What Seven would like to know," he said, "is how could she and the Captain have a child together but be completely unaware of it?"
Seven turned steely blues toward Chakotay's handsome face. "That was not my question, Commander." Seven said with an edge of steel.
The Commander smiled softly at the warning in her voice. He had always preferred spicy women.
Seven frowned before turning her attention to the Doctor. "As I was saying," Seven said, "I cannot comprehend the mechanics involved in, nor the biological process permitting, two females to mate. Could you explain how this can be?"
"Excellent question, Seven," he said, without sarcasm. He favored the woman whom he believed had more in common with him than either human present. As the Doctor droned on about the various theories, Seven turned her eyes to Janeway.
Seven had always felt pleasure to study the classically Irish face with its smattering of freckles brushing her cheek bones. The gray-blue eyes that could esteem or immobilize even the most experienced Star Fleet Officer. The expressive eyebrows that rose and fell in harmony with her logical arguments or playful banter. In fact, Seven mused, Janeway had such a sharp mind; it was nearly Borg-like in its efficiency. But as a drone, the Captain would have been an abysmal failure and likely recycled because of her proclivity to independence and enterprise.
Again, Seven's gaze perused the Captain's body from eyes to thighs. The thought of having sexual relations with her was intriguingly tempting. Seven made a note to research female-to-female copulation techniques.
Seven lamented the apparent disinterest of the Borg Collective in the aggregate sexual experience of millions and billions of lives. That they had assimilated female lovers of females (a statistical probability, after all), no group memories of homosexual practices survived in her database. For that matter, heterosexual and even polysexual rituals and logistics had been discarded out of hand, irrelevant to a species that reproduced through assimilation.
Belatedly, Seven of Nine turned her full attention to the Doctor when he began a breathy explanation of an absorbing concept. "Actually, there are numerous natural instances of parthenogenesis—that is female-only reproduction—all resulting in solely female children, as is the case with Dani. This phenomena has been studied in the Alpha Quadrant in lower plants, invertebrates and vertebrates. It's interesting to note that the Alanchoe plant on Tiburon undergoes an internal flowering—"
"Doctor!" the Captain said, sharper than she intended. Then more gently, she added: "Doctor, we appreciate your...thoroughness on the matter. However, we may encounter another Mencari contingent any moment. Can you confine your remarks to this specific case?"
"As you wish, Captain. I just find the entire notion of reproduction quite fascinating." The Doctor gestured to the padds he had given them earlier. "Dani's DNA is split between the two of you, as you would expect in any offspring—"
"I do not believe you have answered my question," the Borg said, giving a sideways glance to the Captain. Their eyes held for a breath, each reveling in that brief moment in a powerful affinity neither had ever really experienced before. Seven turned her attention back to the Doctor when she heard Chakotay clear his throat. "In this particular case. How can a subunit have two mothers?"
"Because this subunit," he said with a lift of a brow, "doesn't have two mothers, Seven. I've highlighted in yellow her specific mitochondrial DNA. This section is passed unchanged from mother to children. Dani's mt-DNA is a perfect match to Captain Janeway's." The Doctor regarded the Captain, whom he noted had once again pulled on a mask of impassivity.
"Is there evidence of...genetic manipulation" The question tightened Janeway's shoulders and expression, but it was one that had to be asked.
The words "genetic manipulation" hung in the air like tobacco smoke, filling their minds with historical atrocities. Earth had banned genetic engineering in the twenty-second century after the protracted Eugenics War when the world fought to overthrow the oppression of a group of designer supermen led by Khan Noonien Singh. These men were designed through genetic manipulation to be mentally and physically superior to ordinary people. The practice was banned worldwide and, later, within the Federation.
"No, Captain, I see no such evidence." To Captain Janeway's skeptical lift of a brow, the Doctor elaborated. "If Dani were genetically engineered, I would have detected anomalous sequences or genetic fillers that match neither—" and then with a brief, deprecating glare to Commander Chakotay "—donor."
"Yet," Seven said. "Dani exists."
"Oh, yes, she does," the Doctor said enigmatically, nodding his head emphatically. "Eliminating all possible conjectures leaves the likely solution. Sexual reproduction."
A tense, stillness descended in the room. Janeway was unsure if it was directed at her from the pair or from Chakotay to his girlfriend. She chanced a glance to see the couple withdrawn and disregarding each other. Janeway hated to see anyone's relationship sour, especially Chakotay whom she had always considered a friend. But the possibilities with Seven made the Captain feel that perhaps the consuming loneliness could finally be extinguished.
Into the void, Seven of Nine spoke. "Doctor," she said. "I was not aware that women could copulate with each other. Nor have I ever noted any sexual tension between the Captain and I."
Janeway inhaled sharply, looking away. She'd give up her morning coffee for an entire week to fast-forward through this meeting. A sexually inquisitive ex-Borg drone newly independent and facing a potential lesbian tendency more than complicated an already complex situation.
The Captain gathered all of her dignity to speak the words about herself and a member of her crew with whom she'd had only the most casual of friendships. ""Doctor, are you saying are you saying that we had sex to produce this child?" She forced herself to not look in Chakotay's direction.
"Of course not," he said egotistically. "I use sexual reproduction in its scientific sense. The union of one egg and one sperm. It doesn't matter whether that union was in the bedroom or petri dish."
"Doctor, I do not possess testicles. Therefore, I do not produce sperm," the Borg pointed out helpfully.
He arched an eyebrow, handing them both another padd. "Here is an article I found from the twenty-first century detailing experiments with stem cells."
The three officers groaned.
"Indeed," the Doctor replied. "Remember that medicine then was in its infancy. However barbaric the use of stem cells, there was an actual successful experiment coaxing bone marrow cells from a female to create sperm. I can only conclude that may be the case here. So, Seven, to answer your question succinctly, you are the father. Congratulations, daddy."
"But where does the girl come from?" Chakotay inquired. "Seven has never had this procedure. Is she from our future or—"
"No," the Doctor replied. "Once again, by brilliant deduction, I have found a phase variance within her cells. She is one-point-two percent out of phase with our universe. Ergo—"
"She comes from an alternate timeline," the Captain said. "But that still doesn't explain how we found here in the Delta Quadrant. In our universe."
"If I had that answer, Captain, I would probably be Q and certainly not dependent on a computer to sustain my holographic matrix."
"Thank you, Doctor. I'm so glad you pointed that out."
Her look of disdain was completely lost on the chief medical officer. "Your welcome."
Chakotay shifted on his feet and squeezed Seven's shoulder. "How do we send her back?" Chakotay drew a slow and furious look from the Borg. This was the man whom she gave her virginity to, Seven thought. She was mystified about why he was adopting a defiant attitude toward the girl. My subunit, she thought. She also cast a murderous glance at Captain Janeway. If the good Captain perceived her as insolent before, she would likely be thrown in the brig over the child. "Unacceptable." Her voice was molten with fury.
Captain Janeway brushed aside the uncomfortable feelings that Seven set to simmer. She'd always prided herself on doing the right thing, regardless of extenuating circumstances. The tempest brewing in Seven of Nine's inner cube would have to wait. She dropped her arms and straightened. Her contralto voice of command was a cat-o-nine tails aimed at her First Officer. "Chakotay, the child will remain on Voyager, if and until we determine why she is here."
He crossed his arms, lifting his chin. "She's not a puppy. You can't just keep her. She—"
"Hold on," the Captain said, raising a hand. "We have no way of knowing whether it is even safe for her to return."
"The Captain is correct," Seven said, her features softening at the older woman. While the Captain and Chakotay stared each other down, Seven heaved to her feet, obstensively to speak as a peer. But the blonde wanted physical distance to match her increasingly emotional distance from him. "Perhaps the Captain or I sent the child through a singularity to this universe."
Slowly, the Captain's battle weary eyes met Seven's. They had always sparred relentlessly. She felt a sudden flooding of relief to not be alone. "Perhaps that universe was too dangerous," the Captain whispered.
Janeway was rewarded with a small curl of Seven's lips.
"But in this timeline," Chakotay said, stabbing his own palm with a finger. "To allow her to remain here would be a violation of the Temporal Prime Directive."
Janeway stilled herself. She'd always promised that she would listen to a crewman, even if she disagreed with him. That was more imperative now than ever. She did not need a mishandled disagreement with Chakotay to divide the crew.
Chakotay nodded at her consideration of his arguments. "We don't know what a child will do to this timeline. This universe. To keep her here in our time is both unethical and against Starfleet regulations."
Slowly, Seven turned a glacial gaze on him. Though she was most uncomfortable with anger, it was the only emotion she could feel at this moment.
"The reverse could also be true, Commander," the Captain said. "To return her could be unethical and a violation of the Prime Directive."
Janeway's words brought Seven back from a cauldron of fury. "Since we are unaware of the circumstances of her temporal displacement, it would be unwise to return her." Seven turned to meet the Janeway's gaze. "Do you not agree, Captain?"
"Definitely." Janeway rewarded Seven with one of her patented crooked smiles, the ones that always made the Borg want to shudder. It was a baffling response considering the ambient temperature inside Voyager was a constant twenty-two-point-two degrees Celsius. Neither hot nor cold, she thought. Puzzling.
The Commander steadied himself with one hand on the back wall, looking down at his Starfleet-issue boots. He stomped a foot, as if to remove caked-on dirt. "I would like my objections noted for the record, Captain." He looked up to meet her gaze, but offered no softening of his features as a gesture.
She nodded sharply once. "So noted, Commander."
"I will note them as well, Commander," the Borg said, the thorny displeasure in her voice lapping at the First Officer.
=/\=
"Well, now that we've gotten paternity and maternity out of the way," the Doctor said, more to himself than to his three guests. "Ah, here it is." He displayed a three-dimensional image. "This is Dani's skeletal frame." Three red flashes displayed. "On the clavicle, tibia and metatarsus. Here, here and here. Her bones were broken—"
"When?" the Captain asked stridently.
"From bone ossification scans, the metatarsus break appears to have been the most recent. I would estimate within the last three months. What I found disturbing, Captain, was that each break, beginning in the foot, was progressively worse than the one before it."
"Almost as if it were intentionally inflicted?" the Borg asked.
"Possibly," the doctor replied grimly.
"Torture!" the Captain said, a barb of rage embedding inside of her.
"I cannot confirm that as of yet, Captain," the Doctor said hastily. "But I cannot rule it out either. So it remains a grim possibility." The Doctor watched the two women. When he was certain they'd finished this line of questioning, he resumed. "None were set with any precision."
"Meaning?"
"They will have to be re-broken and set with a bone-knitter."
"Will the child experience pain?" The Borg asked.
"I can render her unconscious and, as the three of you are aware, there would be some discomfort even after the bone-knitter had completed its cycle."
The Captain had lowered her head, arms across her chest. "Is that the worst of it, Doctor?"
"No." The barbs cinched around the Captain's heart. "I wish I could say it was," the Doctor said. He turned to push another button, changing the three-D skeletal image to one of the central nervous system. A red light flashed in the front of the brain. "That is the prefrontal cortex. A device of unknown origin is embedded there."
"Does this device transmit signals?" Seven asked.
"Does it override any of her higher brain functions?" the Captain asked.
"Can it be removed safely?" Seven inquired in one breath while the Captain continued with another.
"If it is removed, how will it affect her?"
The Doctor's head had ricocheted between the two women, until he finally held his holographic cheeks with his hands. "Stop. You're making me dizzy. I do not know the answers to these questions. Dani has only been my patient for all of two hours. I will need time."
"This device could potentially be a weapon of some sort," Chakotay said. Finally looking around to find Seven once again discontented with his remarks. "In theory. Isn't that right, Doctor?"
"In theory, it could be her very own personal holodeck, Commander. As I said, I will need to conduct more tests, run more scans. Things of that nature. I don't have the luxury of pulling—"
"Fine, Doctor," the Captain interrupted. "When can you start?"
"Right now, if you'd like. But I think there are more important matters."
"Such as?" the Captain said.
He rolled his eyes. "I sedated her as she was crying out for her mother, Captain. Crying for Seven of Nine. She needs your comfort while I prepare other diagnostic procedures."
The Captain's eyes widened. Her breath quickened. She could almost feel her heart beating out of her chest. It was so much harder to focus. She'd faced the Hirogen, the Borg, the Kazan and countless others, but a seven-year-old daughter was the most frightening prospect of all.
She glanced quickly at Seven, who appeared not to have any of these panic reactions. Oh, wonderful, she thought.
"How many more procedures are required?" Seven inquired.
"Captain and Seven of Nine, Dani has been through a harrowing experience. The fact that she has recovered recently from pneumonia is of little note at this point."
"Doctor, I want a full and complete medical report on my desk as soon as humanly possible. Is that understood?" Even the Doctor was not immune to Captain Janeway's whip of command.
"Yes, of course. Though to say as humanly possible is a little insulting to me, Captain."
"As holographically possible, then."
"Thank you, Captain—"
"Oh, Doctor," Janeway said. "One last question. What of the girl's smell when you carried her?"
He leaned back in his chair. "I believe that she was safeguarded—"
"Safeguarded?" Chakotay's voice was almost shrill.
The Doctor nodded, but continued as if uninterrupted. "Safeguarded against the Mencari adults. It appears from the information they gave me prior to our hasty retreat that Mencari can be somewhat...cannibalistic. Their hatchlings protect themselves by wallowing in fecal matter until they are large enough to defend themselves. The smell wards off potentially hungry adults."
The look of horror was matched on all three human faces. "Docile indeed," Seven whispered.
The Doctor was unphased by the habits of corporeal beings. He found many human rituals and habits to be equally repugnant, but he knew that now was not the time to enumerate them.
He stood and gestured toward the door. "Shall we meet your daughter?"