Chapter 2: The Aftermath

There was a tension-filled unrest in the private exam room in sickbay as it was cleared of all staff but Doctor Selar and Nurse Ogawa. It was hard enough for the senior officers to address the three affected crew members directly in their new bodies, so to prevent any added confusion, the captain thought it would be wise to limit the amount of people who were aware of what had happened. They were putting in a good effort despite how disconcerting and strange the whole situation was, but every once in a while, someone would slip, addressing one of the away team's physical bodies only to be answered by that person from their new 'host'.

In one part of the room, Doctor Crusher was standing at a monitor going over readings with Doctor Selar and Data could see aspects of her mannerisms that reminded him that she was the one who now inhabited Geordi's body. They were little idiosyncrasies she subconsciously engaged in when she was working on a complicated problem, like when she kept reaching back to run 'her' fingers through her hair only to get frustrated by its absence, and when she occasionally bit down on her lip.

Nearby, Geordi's eyes were bright with discovery as he sat there flexing 'his' fingers and toes and taking in all of the colors and shapes around him while he spoke to Commander Riker and Captain Picard, who kept looking over his shoulder to watch Nurse Ogawa examining Doctor Crusher's body.

"So there were no warnings or signs of anything unusual on the sensors before this happened?" questioned the Will.

"No," answered Geordi. "We were just talking about Data's emotion chip and getting ready to eat when all of a sudden everything started to shake and then there was this bright light. It happened so fast that I didn't feel a thing. It wasn't until we regained consciousness that we realized we were switched."

The captain turned him. "Do you think that the emotion chip was emitting a sub-space signal that attracted an unknown phenomenon? After all, Doctor Soong was able to activate a signal that Data picked up from across several systems."

"I don't know. Doctor Crusher was holding on to both of us when it happened, so another theory is that we came across some sort of alien probe or transporter-type anomaly that scanned us and somehow got us scrambled. But until we check out the sensor logs, there's just no telling how this happened."

"Studying those logs will be your first priority just as soon as we are sure that there has been no physical damage done to your bodies."

Back across the room, Doctor Selar and Beverly were looking at some of the results of the away team's medical scans. The intensity in the Vulcan physician's eyes was the only thing that gave any hint that they were looking at something that Beverly would preferred to have kept private had the circumstances been different, but every little detail would be important to finding the cause, and much more importantly, the solution to this problem.

A few feet away from them, Data closed 'his' eyes for a moment. He felt strange. One of the sensations he could recognize as hunger, but the other one was something for which he had no frame of reference…a fluttering of some sort, followed by small, unpleasant waves of nausea. Curious about the results of the medical scans, he reached out for one of the tricorders the doctors had been using and gasped when he read the results. Then he gasped again when he realized that he had just gasped. He was feeling…really feeling.

"Doctor, are you aware that these results are showing-"

Beverly turned to face him and when she realized what he was looking at, cut him off before he could continue. "Yes, Data. I know what the results show."

The ominous tone of Beverly's words drew the attention of the other officers as she took the tricorder from him and looked at the image on the screen before passing it to the captain, who unintentionally flinched when she followed that action with a gentle squeeze of his arm. Even with the visor covering her eyes, it was obvious that the gesture wounded her.

"Beverly, is everything all right?" asked Deanna

"Yes…and no, given the current situation."

The captain took the tricorder from her, intensely focused on the readings. "Has the child been affected by the phenomenon?" he asked, slightly choked from a combination of joy and concern as he looked from her body to Geordi's.

"Child?" said Deanna and Will almost in unison.

"Did you just say child?" reiterated Geordi.

"Yes. I'm…I mean, we…are pregnant. And by the looks of these results, she seems to be fine."

"She?" asked Jean-Luc, a faint smile cracked his melancholy as their eyes remained fixed on each other.

Beverly nodded, folding her arms in front of her in frustration after realizing that she didn't have that blue lab coat pockets to shove her hands into.

Judging by his initial statement and the lack of shock he expressed when he looked at the scans, Data figured that the captain must have known about the pregnancy, although the gender had obviously been a mystery until now. Everyone else responded with a combination of shock and worry that manifested itself in a respectful silence and a bunch of blank stares. Whereas under any other circumstances, an announcement like this would have been met with jubilation, the gravity of the situation dictated that questions or celebratory responses would somehow be inappropriate, if not ill timed.

Will was the first to muster up a response. "Was this somehow caused by the phenomenon?"

"No. I was aware of the pregnancy before I even left the ship."

"You did? Then why didn't the baby get displaced along with yours?" asked Deanna.

"I don't know. Maybe because there was an insufficient amount of hosts to go around." she answered.

Fascinated, Data took a tricorder and started to scan 'his' abdomen. "Perhaps it was just that at this stage of development, it was simply too small to be perceived by whatever did this to us as a person. The fetus is only about fourteen weeks in gestation, and history has shown that many cultures still debate on whether or not to recognize an unborn child as a sentient being until it has developed to a stage where life outside of the womb is viable."

"Or maybe trapping one of us in the body of an unborn child simply wouldn't have been amusing enough," responded Beverly.

Will raised a suspicious eyebrow. "So you think Q could be behind this?"

"No, this is not his style," answered the captain. "And even if he did do it, he would have revealed himself and his purpose by now. Whatever caused this…accident…has an intelligence and knew that there were three distinct being on that shuttle even though one of them was an android, and if we are going to find out who or what it is, we are going to have to go back to where it all happened."

"Captain," asked Deanna, "if we go back there and run into whatever caused this, how can we be sure that it won't happen to the entire ship?"

"I think we can start by sending a probe out to the sector first," suggested Will. "We can keep the ship on yellow alert with the shields raised to until we get there and, just as an extra precaution, we should also consider confining all non-essential personnel to quarters."

"Agreed. I also want a team to go over sensor readings of the shuttle and provide their findings to Commander Laforge and Mister Data. For now, I think it would be in the best interest of everyone if you all limit how much interaction you have with the rest of the crew. I will provide you with whatever you need for your research, but you should confine yourselves to quarters until we can figure this out."

"Captain, I think it might be wise if the three of us stayed together just in case the anomaly returns or it becomes necessary for us to remain in close proximity when a way is found to reverse the scramble," suggested Beverly as she looked over to Data. "It will also allow me to keep an eye on the baby."

Data watched as, with no trace of hesitation, the captain reached over to the body of his chief engineer, now the home of the woman he loved, and put a reassuring hand on hers. Without his positronic brain, he couldn't calculate how long the gesture lasted, but he could see by the way Beverly's expression softened that it brought her comfort.

"I think that is a good idea. I will not even attempt to imagine how difficult this must be for you, but I promise you," he paused, then looked around at the other two officers, "I promise all of you that we will find a way to reverse this."

Again, Data closed his eyes and focused on the new sensations he was feeling. His heart was beating rapidly and his skin felt warm. There was also some kind of lump in his throat and he had an overwhelming desire to cry as he watched the captain tentatively pull away from Beverly and leave the room. The only thing he could quantify was that he was frustrated by the fact that he couldn't tell if what he was feeling was empathy, anxiety, hope, fear or love…and that whatever it was, he couldn't turn it off or bury it in a sub-routine.