Chapter Text
Tuvok keeps himself in check as he walks through the strange jungle, but he is apprehensive. In a sense, Janeway is Voyager; he finds himself disturbingly unsure about the ship’s future every time something afflicts her.
He pauses at the edge of a clearing, observing the small creatures illuminated by his flashlight. They look completely and wholly amphibian, but something about the patterns on their backs is reminiscent of the mutations that had developed on Lieutenant Paris in sickbay. They are sentient, even if they are no longer human, and Tuvok finds himself unsure how best to attempt communication.
Chakotay takes a more straightforward approach: he stuns them with his phaser.
They step into the clearing and kneel next to the two… creatures. Captain Janeway and Lieutenant Paris. While Chakotay analyzes preliminary tricorder readings, Tuvok looks more carefully and notices a small sort of nest obscured by leaves, sitting between them. He leans in to look more closely.
“There are traces of human DNA.” Chakotay turns to Tuvok, who sits back upright. “But I have to admit, I’m not sure which one is the Captain.”
“The female, obviously,” Tuvok replies.
Three babies poke their heads out of the nest and stare at the away team.
“I believe they are studying us,” Tuvok comments in his usual wry tone.
Chakotay runs his tricorder over them. “Those appear to be infants. We should take them back with us; we have no idea how much they’ve bonded with their parents.”
“Very well.”
As they prepare the five amphibians for transport to the ship, Chakotay laughs quietly to himself, then turns to Tuvok and comments, “I don’t know how I’m going to enter this into the log.”
Tuvok raises an eyebrow in amusement. “I look forward to reading it.”
Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager wakes up in sickbay with a strange, slimy taste in her mouth. She is disturbed by that, as well as the fact that she isn’t in her quarters, but then things start coming back to her. Tom Paris had completed the transwarp test flight, but then he started changing. Evolving, the doctor said. B’elanna tried a treatment that was supposed to cure him, but he escaped and got loose in the ship. She was on her way to the bridge when a creature that was hardly Tom Paris attacked her, and she shot him with her phaser before blacking out.
Her memories after that are fragmented, vague. She has the sense she wasn’t entirely herself either. She remembers the shuttle, a brief rush of sensory input that she couldn’t begin to process, Tom sitting beside her and tending to her wound, the feeling of being unable to breathe—
Then she woke up here. She sits up, intending to check her own body to see if she is truly human again. Her body feels surprisingly normal, given the amount of trouble she’s been through. Sore everywhere, and her joints don’t move quite right, but within normal tolerances. The sight of the doctor attending to Tom Paris’ familiar form is an enormous relief. Tom looks like his normal self as well, though he is still unconscious.
She notices something strange in the corner of the room, and is so puzzled trying to figure it out that she hardly notices the doctor’s attention shift to her.
“I’ve eradicated all traces of the mutant DNA from your system and restored your original genome.” The doctor attempts a slight smile at Janeway. “Congratulations. You’re human again.”
She makes herself look at him while she speaks. “Thank you, doctor.”
“Captain, it’ll take some time for your genetic codes to stabilize. I’d like you to remain in sickbay for the next three days, just to be safe.”
She looks at the corner again. It appears to be a glass terrarium, full of water and sand and leaves. “How’s one and a half?”
“Two duty shifts, minimum.” The doctor follows her eyes and frowns, then continues, “there’s someone else you need to meet. While you were… mutated, it seems you and Lieutenant Paris wasted no time procreating.”
“Excuse me?”
“Right this way, if you will.”
Janeway follows him to the corner that had captured her attention. He reaches into the glass enclosure and comes out carrying a wriggling salamander-like creature. It is various shades of brown, with a long whisker on either side of its mouth; there are two others like it in the enclosure, one brown and orange, the other brown and red. The one in the doctor’s hands is wriggling as if desperate to escape the doctor’s grasp. He hands it to her and she puts her hands up to refuse, but he holds it to her again and she acquiesces, cradling it carefully in her arms. The creature calms down when she holds it, and presses itself against her heart. She feels strangely touched by that small act of the creature’s trust, and wonders why she is so affected.
She looks up at the doctor, feeling the beginning of tears welling in her eyes. “This is…” It’s a question that she doesn’t have the heart to finish, and a statement of miracles at the same time.
“Your offspring, yes. Commander Chakotay believed you would have bonded with them, and appreciate raising them yourself.”
She isn’t sure how she feels about that, but if the way holding the creature makes her feel is any indication, she would have to thank Chakotay. “You were able to revert me to human form. Is there anything you can do for them?”
“I’ll have to look into it, but I don’t see why not. They may not be what you expect, however. And under no circumstances are you obligated to keep them. You do still have the option to leave them behind, in an environment for which they are appropriately adapted. The species they resemble generally do not care for their young once they have hatched.”
She looks into the small creature’s all-white eyes and feels the tears well up again. “I wouldn’t imagine it, doctor. I’m keeping them.” At the same time that she knows it is against her code to leave anyone behind in the Delta quadrant, she wonders when that strength of conviction began to extend to amphibious aliens. Amphibious super-evolved humans, technically, but they’re as alien as anything else she’s seen.
“You might want to talk to their father before you make a decision. His DNA was more damaged than yours, but I should be able to wake him now.”
Their father. That’s weird.
She follows the doctor to Tom Paris’ bed, where the doctor places a hypospray to his neck.
Paris’ eyes flutter open and his brow creases. He looks at Janeway, the doctor, back at the captain. “Captain, uh…” He pushes himself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, opens his mouth, slaps his hands on his legs, closes his mouth again.
Janeway adjusts the small amphibian against her chest and lets the hint of a smile cross her lips. “I’ve thought about having children. But I must say, I never considered having them with you.” She feels something warm in her chest, where the cold-blooded creature is sitting, but she feels that same warmth from seeing Tom.
“Children?”
“Apparently we wasted no time when we were lizards.”
Tom laughs, looks at the bundle in her arms, smiles like he just executed an impossible maneuver. “Is that… one of the babies?”
Janeway looks down at her bundle and hands it to him, finding herself reluctant to let it go. He cradles it eagerly, pressing his nose against his, murmuring nonsense words to it.
“They’re something, alright. It’s still hard to believe we made them.”
Tom looks at the bundle in his arms with increasing horror, even as he rocks it softly. “Captain, I’m sorry. I… I don’t know what to say, except: I don’t remember very much about… uh… you know.”
A wicked thought pops into her head and she raises an eyebrow at him. “What makes you think it was your idea? Sometimes it’s the female of a species that initiates mating.” At the look on his face, she wonders if she’s gone too far, but then, he always was expressive. “Apology accepted, nonetheless.”
He smiles at that, and it crinkles his eyes.
“You may be interested to know I’m putting you in for a commendation,” she continues. He frowns in confusion. “Regardless of the outcome, you did make the first transwarp flight.”
He nods lightly, and hands the child back to her. “Thank you, captain.” His eyes flutter around the room, and he sits a little too straight to be casual.
She meets his eyes for a moment. “Is there something wrong, Lieutenant?”
“I don’t know.” He shakes his head, stands up, begins to pace, rubs his face with his hands. “I guess this whole experience has left me feeling a little overwhelmed.” He wraps his arms around his chest and faces her again. “Flying at warp 10, evolving into a new life form, mating, having alien offspring…”
“You’ve broken more than one record, that’s for sure,” she replies, looking at the creature, impossibly small in her arms.
“Breaking the threshold,” he continues, saying the phrase as if it isn’t about speed at all, stepping closer, looking into her eyes. “It was… incredible.” For a moment she’s certain he’s talking about more than just defying all known laws of physics, that he’s talking about something greater, something they both saw a glimpse of when they weren’t themselves, something that is breathing rather quickly tucked away inside Janeway’s arms. Then he stands up a little straighter, his eyes more focused. “But somehow it doesn’t mean as much as I thought it would.”
“Oh?” she asks, slightly breathless, slightly worried.
“I guess I went into this looking for a quick fix. I thought making history would change things. Not just my service record,” he amended, “my reputation.”
“If I’m not mistaken, you’ve changed quite a few minds on this ship.” Her voice is still breathless, but she whispers more firmly to drive her point home. “You’ve earned a lot of people’s respect and admiration.”
“Yeah,” he replies, looking away at the nest where their other children still sit. He furrows his eyebrows as he meets her eyes again. “But I’m starting to realize that other people’s opinions aren't what I should be worried about. Now that I’m apparently a father, I've got more to look out for than just myself.” He laughs at himself and looks down for a moment. “It seems, Captain, that I still have a few barriers to break. I just hope they’re not theoretical impossibilities.”
The captain stares meaningfully at the corner as well, then nods at him. “I don’t think they will be.”
He smiles, and steps back to sit down again opposite her. “We're going to leave the lizards back on the planet, though, right?”
“Amphibians,” Janeway corrects. “And I don’t know. I’ve grown rather fond of them. The doctor is checking to see if he can give them the same procedure he gave us.”
“There’s no way… their entire biomolecular structure is incompatible with anything in our databases.” Tom looks at the floor. “And I’m not cut out to be a father, not yet.”
“Who’s to say parenthood isn’t one of those barriers to break?”
Tom presses his face into his hands and sighs, then looks at her again. “No offense, Captain, but you’re very busy keeping all 150 of us alive; you don’t exactly have time to keep three little kids from drinking bleach. And I’m not exactly a good role model. It seems selfish to mess up their lives.”
“You won’t. We’ll find a way. Ensign Wildman is due to have her child in the next two months; it should be easier to set up a daycare facility if she isn’t the only child on board.”
“I don’t know if I can do it.”
“I won’t pressure you into anything, Tom, but the prime directive says I can’t leave them behind. If necessary, I’m willing to raise them on my own,” Janeway replies. “But for what it’s worth, I think you have it in you to be a wonderful father.”
“I appreciate your faith in me, really, I just—”
“Captain.” The EMH steps out of his office. “Would you hand me the child you’re holding? I believe they can be reverted to humanoid form using a combination of antiproton treatments and restorative gene therapy. As this one is the oldest, she is most likely to be amenable to it. I’ve coordinated with Lieutenant Torres, and Kes is on her way to bring her to Engineering.”
The captain frowns, and does not change her grip on the creature. “Are you sure it’s safe?”
“It was perfectly safe for you.”
Janeway frowns, looks at the thing in his arms then back to the doctor. “That’s not what I asked. I was human before all this. Is it safe for her?”
“There’s no way to be sure, but I believe there is little risk.” The hint of a smile flirts with the doctor’s mouth, and he stands straighter. His smugness is nearly always a good sign.
Janeway briefly tightens her grip on the small creature, her little girl. “I’ll bring her to Engineering myself, if you don’t mind.”
The doctor shifts, obviously uncomfortable with the idea, but ultimately says, “very well. Since this is turning into a family event, would you like to come along as well, Mr. Paris?”
Tom smiles nervously at his eldest daughter, fails not to think about how weird that is, and tells the doctor, “What kind of father would I be if I said no?”
The creature that emerges from the antiproton chamber is humanoid, alright, but not human. She is the size of a toddler – perhaps three or four years old, if she were human. The back of her hairless head is covered in ringlike patterns. They extend onto her cheeks, where they merge with her human-looking skin. Her thin lips are more brown than pink. Her nose is flat and wide. Her orbital ridge is strongly defined in a way that makes her eyes appear sunken. The darker patterns continue onto her neck, where they form what appears to be gills, and down into the rest of her body that is hidden under the blanket. The front of her neck, like the front of her face and the insides of her arms, has soft human skin on which not a single hair grows. Her hands only have four fingers each, or three fingers and a thumb; her feet each have four toes. When her biobed emerges from the chamber, she looks around, sees her parents, smiles wide enough to show her many pointy teeth, and immediately falls asleep.
She is the most beautiful thing Tom Paris has ever seen.
“Eliza,” Tom says. “We’re naming her Elizabeth.”
“No way,” Janeway replies. “I’m not naming my firstborn daughter after my own middle name.”
“That’s your middle name? I didn’t know.” Tom stares at her for a moment, and begins a mischievous smile. “Kathryn Janeway the Second, then?”
She just glares at him.
“What, do you have any better ideas?”
Janeway frowns, stares for a long moment at the girl lying on the biobed. “Elizabeth is fine.”
“I just think she could use a reminder of where she came from,” Tom says, reaching out to the girl and marveling at how she wraps her little hand around his finger. Her skin is cold and clammy, and he doesn’t mind in the slightest. His voice is choked when he speaks again. “I can’t believe I considered leaving them behind.”
“I take it you’ve made up your mind, then?”
Tom looks her in the eyes with a fierce intensity. “I want to do right by these—our kids.” He looks at Eliza and laughs lightly. “Even if I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”
At that, Janeway laughs. “Trust me, that makes two of us.”
Kes enters the room, arms full with the amphibious children’s enclosure. She fishes out a slightly more orange-toned salamander, which appears to be dripping wet. They’re amphibians; of course there was a pool in there.
“Oh, I should have brought a towel,” Kes frets, holding the dripping infant above the enclosure. This child is significantly calmer than the last, and just appears to be looking about inquisitively.
“It’s fine,” B’elanna interjects. “The antiproton chamber is based off a biobed. It’s watertight, and we’re going to disassemble it after they’ve all gone through, anyway.”
“Here, let me,” Tom says, taking the small amphibian from Kes and gently cradling him in one arm on the way to the biobed. B’elanna pushes a button, the bed slides into the chamber, and all eyes watch a progress bar fill on the attached monitor.
When the now-humanoid child emerges, slightly smaller than Eliza, lankier and distinctly oranger, he cries loudly. Janeway takes his hand and attempts to soothe him. Tom looks at his wet and slightly slimy sleeve, shrugs, and hoists the little boy into his arms, where he stops crying.
Tom looks at Janeway, eyes sparkling. She is still holding their son’s hand.
“What should we name this one?” Tom asks.
“I don’t know, since you insisted on Elizabeth, I’m thinking Eugene.”
Tom grimaces, but only says, “That’s fair, I guess. I just hope he likes that name better than I do.”
They have a hard time naming the third one. B’elanna offers use of her office, and scurries off to take care of some other issue on the ship. Kes holds the smallest child – about the size of a human two-year-old, with red and brown spots on her scales – while her parents frantically brainstorm.
“Dolores,” Tom offers.
“No, that sounds like a supporting character in a bawdy holonovel. How about Violet?”
“You want to name our daughter after a flower?”
“Why not? They’re beautiful and resilient.”
“She won’t even see a violet for years. It’s too much of a reminder of home. Susanne.”
“There are already four women on this ship whose names are some variant of Susan or Sue. I don’t want our daughter getting mixed up with everyone else.” Janeway thinks for a moment. “I’ve always been fond of Kristen.”
“Nope, I’m vetoing that one. Don’t like the sound of it. How about Diane?”
Neelix steps into the room and steps next to Kes quietly enough that the new parents don’t notice.
“Good afternoon, sweetheart, Neelix whispers to her
“Neelix, hi,” Kes whispers back.
“You’ve been here with them all morning and haven’t had anything to eat. I thought I’d stop by and see if I could bring you something.”
“Sure, I’d love that. You might want to check with Tom and the Captain, too.”
“What are they arguing about, anyway?” Neelix asks.
Kes just nods at them and smiles.
“We are not naming our daughter Melody,” Janeway insists emphatically.
“You could always name her Neelix,” Neelix suggests.
Janeway and Paris both look at him in shock, but the toddler in Kes’ arms smiles and makes a happy burbling noise.
“You like that, don’t you, little one,” Neelix says, singsong voice directed at the toddler. “You can be Neelix too. It’s a good name, a clever name.”
Tom opens his mouth, furrows his brow, closes his mouth again, then finally speaks. “She’s a girl. Isn’t Neelix a men’s name?”
“Oh, no. All Talaxian names can go to anyone. I was named after my grandmother.”
“Huh,” Tom replies.
“I think Neelix is a wonderful name,” Kes chimes in.
“We are not naming our daughter Neelix either,” Janeway sighs.
“I don’t know, Captain, I think she likes being Neelix,” Tom replies, then stands up and walks over to take the child from Kes. “Isn’t that right, little Neelix?”
The baby laughs, a bright and melodious sound.
“She really does like it.” There is wonder in Kes’ voice.
Janeway stands up from her chair then, puts her hands on her hips, taps her foot, frowns.
“I’ve heard stories of children choosing their own names,” Neelix adds. “The Ak’uin people consider it a sign of tremendous fortune. I never thought I would see it with my own eyes, let alone be a part of it.”
The baby babbles something unintelligible, and Tom kisses her temple.
Janeway sighs in defeat. “Fine. We’ll add her to the ship’s register as Neelix Janeway.”