| Author | Message | ||
     Doctor Alec Reed, Chief Medical Officer |
Tal was pregnant. The tricorder readings had all but floored him when they appeared. The whirlwind of thoughts and emotions tearing through him reduced Tal's own otherwise priceless reaction to a mere distant amusement. Sickbay, of course, chose that moment to become a bustle of activity, tearing Reed away from his own private reverie on the matter. Now that things had settled down to some degree, he had time to reflect. Tal was pregnant...with his child. The odds against interspecies mating aside, Reed found it difficult to fathom for logistic reasons as well. Tal was extremely disciplined. Even suggesting that she had forgotten her injection would have been an insult to her very character. Similarly, Reed was the Chief Medical Officer. For him to have forgotten his own injection would reflect extremely poorly on his own professional capability. This thought jolted through him almost as quickly as it fell apart -- he knew for certain that he had taken all of his injections ever since he and Tal had started...recreating. There was, of course, an alternative, if somewhat unlikely explanation. In extremely rare instances, and almost exclusively aboard starships that saw heavy replicator, computer, or combat loads, the species-specific birth control injections had been known to fail. It was so exceedingly rare that it was usually mentioned as no more than an afterthought in medical journals and other similar publications. Nevertheless, it was known to happen. And Coronado certainly qualified for all three potential hazard scenarios. As rare as this occurrence was, however, it was next to unheard of in humans. Reed's first scan following securing sickbay and seeing to Lora Kor had been of himself. Sure enough, the trace elements of his injection were all in place. To be sure, he checked all of his prior scan data as well, which only further corroborated his theory: Tal's injection had simply failed. He relayed this to Tal, whose first instinct was clearly to take out such a medicinal failure on him. She never said as much, nor did she feel this way for very long, but he could detect the flicker of the emotion on her face, betraying her usual determined calm. Ultimately, she accepted it as simple, inexorable truth. Although only a few weeks into the pregnancy, all indications suggested that everything was perfectly normal in the fetal development so far...if one considered a Romulan-human hybrid at all normal. Tal, he knew, would consider terminating the pregnancy. But he also knew just as surely that she would ultimately dismiss this choice. Whether this relieved or concerned him, Reed could not be sure. As a physician, he felt that all life deserved a chance, even before it could be considered life. As a military officer in a hostile environment, he felt that allowing the child to be born could only endanger it. A military starship was no place for a child. But if Reed's past conduct had proven anything, it was that he was more physician than soldier. That he and Tal both would ultimately choose against aborting the pregnancy meant one simultaneously simple and complex thing... Tal and Reed were going to have a child. |