"Move your leg right now, or I'm going to remove it from your body!"

"There is no where else to put it."

"Find somewhere."

"Better?"

"Marginally. Hold this while I push the catch up."

"You are going to look back on this someday and find this really funny."

"I doubt it. Of all the people I would most like to have pressed against my body, you don't even make the list. You tell anyone we got trapped together in a storage locker, I will personally escort you out the nearest air lock, Neelix. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly, Commander."

He set the lamp on the low table and began to stare at the small flame. His concentration seemed to flicker with the flame, burning brightly, sputtering, wavering, growing. His mind, flame like, refused to be tamed today but leaped from one memory to another.

His eyes finally closed against the flame but his will could not stop images from flickering behind his eyelids. His fingers moved in memory over the image of her velvet skin and the tight curls in a soft cap against her head.

Finally he stilled his images, stilled his fingers, stilled his mind, his heart.

She gazed out the viewport at the hated blue marble shining below. Her bags lay scattered about her where she had thrown them in a fit of temper.

"I don't want to leave you."

"I know."

"Come with me."

"You know I can't."

"I know......Will I ever see you again?"

"Of course, I still care."

"It won't be the same."

"No, it won't."

Naomi turned and kneeled to gather her things into some kind of order.

"I will never love him!"

"If you really love me, you can try to love him."

"Why?"

"Because he is your Father too."

Pant, pant, pant, breathe out, breathe in. Push. She tried to remember the sequence, but the pain kept washing over her.

He dabbed ineffectually at her forehead with a wet cloth, trying to ease her.

"Get that rag away from me Paris."

"Yes, mam'."

"Pant, pant, breathe. Arghhh!" Push.

Her belly rippled with her efforts.

"Its almost over, Captain. Keep pushing."

"Push!"

"Arghhh!"

"That's it! Its coming! Congratulations. You are the proud parents of …..a lizard?"

He woke up screaming, the same dream haunting him the last three nights.

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