Threshold is without a DOUBT a terrible episode, but I have terrible tastes and a fondness for thinking of what could have been had Janeway's character been allowed past the straight-arrow scientist she ended up. My apologies in advance if you find it horrible.

It isn't until what will eventually be the Captain again is back on board and within the restraints in Engineering that the Doctor notices the sharp increase in her progesterone levels. He wonders for a second if he should reevaluate the procedure, see what this development is going to produce, but decides against it after thinking about the various factors (change of successful pregnancy, possible change of genome therapy working on infant, etc) that are against the pregnancy, if there even truly is one. For all he knew, Captain Janeway could simply be ovulating, and that would be a foolish reason to keep from transitioning her back to her original form.

When the levels don't go down after the first blast of anti-proton radiation and, in fact, her blood chemistry shows signs of human chorionic gonadotropin, the Doctor is stunned. There should be no way for an embryo to survive this sort of exposure, and yet, as far as the hologram can tell, whatever life is taking shape within the Captain seems to be doing just that.

By the time all vestiges of the salamander-like creature she once was are gone, the baby Captain Janeway is carrying had leveled out its growth rate and for all intents and purposes appears to be a typically 12-week old female human fetus. The Doctor stares at the screen before him showing the results of the scan he'd just run to confirm his medical tricorder's results, unable to understand how a viable pregnancy has managed to occur.

"It just doesn't make any sense." He mutters aloud to himself, forgetting any other presence in the room.

"What doesn't Doctor?" The hologram glances backwards towards Kes before returning to the monitor, knowing that regardless of the outcome, her role as medic will require her to be aware of the Captain's condition.

"Captain Janeway appears to be pregnant, something that rather goes against the medical odds, although that seems to be the case of most things on this ship."

"How can that be possible? I would think the anti-proton radiation would have been too much for a developing lifeform to withstand in the early stages of life."

"I have no explanation for it." The twosome continues to study the readings on the monitor for a few more moments before they are interrupted by the arrival of Commander Chakotay and Lieutenant Tuvok, the two men wanting to check on the condition of their commanding officer and helmsman. The Doctor quickly dismisses the fetal scan from the monitor, preserving the Captain's privacy for as long as he can. While he has often times been accused of an insensitivity to the more emotional side of his patient's needs, the EMH isn't entirely oblivious to the finer points of bedside manner and doctor-patient confidentiality. He also has come to understand the mind behind Kathryn Janeway and he knows that while she might be able to easily move on from the offspring left behind on the planet they are now lightyears away from, a pregnancy is something she will find much harder to reconcile with her duty of command.

Several hours later the Doctor feels confident in waking Paris and Janeway. All bodily functions have returned to within normal parameters and it is now simply a case of allowing them a few days of rest to recover from the stress they'd endured. In theory, this period of evolution should become simply a distant memory over time.

Well, except for the pregnancy, but the Doctor is getting to that.

He wakes Tom up first, knowing that he has the least chance of any unexpected complications. It takes a minute for the lieutenant to come to and as he blinks his eyes against the lights of sickbay the Doctor can see the moment where at least some recognition of something going completely awry comes to Tom. He goes to sit up, the hologram quickly moving to help him, urging him to take it easy as he does so. When Paris catches sight of the still unconscious captain on the main biobed he lets out a pathetic sound of disappointment, realizing he must have been the cause of it.

"Mister Paris, don't alarm yourself. Everyone realizes you weren't in your right mind, Captain Janeway especially."

"Wha- "Tom coughs briefly, his throat unexpectedly dry. The Doctor reaches for a hypospray but Paris pushes his arm over further to a glass of water Kes must have placed earlier. When Tom manages to get drink from it, he does so greedily, so much so that the Doctor wonders if he's suffering from some sort of dehydration. A quick scan reveals that's not the case. With his throat soothed, Tom manages to continue, "What did I do to her?"

"You took the Captain with you on a joyride to Warp 10. It took us 3 days to find you two and when we did… you weren't alone." Tom's eyes widen at the implication, flickering back over to the prone form of Janeway before looking back at the hologram. "You'd managed to produce 3 offspring in the short amount of time you were on the planet, which is a rather remarkable reproductive cycle if I might say so." At the way Paris was starting to blanch, it was safe to say the Doctor really shouldn't.

"Has the Captain been told?" Tom's voice was remarkably weak, far removed from the confident persona he usually projected. The Doctor couldn't say he was surprised, but it didn't mean he wasn't unsettled by it.

"I haven't woken her yet, but I plan on doing so in a few minutes." The news doesn't seem to bring the man any comfort, in fact his embarrassment and shame only seems to double knowing that he'll soon have to face his captain as her kidnapper. "Lieutenant, we both know the Captain well enough to know she's going understand you weren't in control during all this. She saw it with her own eyes in this very room. And yes, the issue of… offspring make it a bit more complicated, it's a well-documented fact that reproduction is often times a biologically driven- "

"You've made your point Doc" Paris' face was pinched in discomfort, although now not so much tinged with the depth of emotions he was showing moments before. Something about the familiarity of the situation, of being back in his own skin, was starting to put him more at ease.

The hologram only wished the pilot wasn't going to have the rug pulled out from under him with the news of the Captain's pregnancy.

He waited for Kes to arrive back in sickbay before moving to wake the Captain. The two of them had discussed it in advance and felt it was best to have the ocampan occupy Tom while the Doctor got Janeway up to speed on the biological aftermath of her transwarp adventure.

He would leave the full events briefing to the Commander.

She awoke with little fuss, her years of experience in waking up unexpectedly in various sickbays having eliminated a need to jump to confusion or panic. As the Doctor helps her sit up, she notices how bloated she feels, but dismisses it for now until she hears what exactly she went through. Her mind is still fuzzy, but she can remember brief moments in the shuttle as it powered to Warp 10 and can only assume she experienced the same evolution as her chief helmsman had.

Janeway takes the Doctor's briefing in without so much as a balk, even when she's told about the three offspring she produced. She knows that the eyes of her crew are on her, even if they are all intimately involved in this situation, and her calm acceptance sets an example for how to handle situations. She also anticipates that it will help swell the tide of embarrassment that she's sure Tom is feeling at that particular moment. Glancing across the room to where he's sitting, listening to Kes share some piece of information, their eyes briefly meet and she flashes a quick reassuring smile, the instinct to calm his nerves too great for her to ignore. It seems to help. She sees him let out a held in breath and nod back at her before returning his full attention back to Kes, giving the Captain privacy to finish her conversation with the Doctor.

"I do need to tell you, Captain, that there does appear to be a lasting side effect of your experience, unique to you." Arching an eyebrow, she straightens up slightly at the Doctor's statement, almost like she's physically bracing for the news. It's her command persona, the Doctor can tell, and it isn't surprising to see her fall into it at the hint of something being wrong.

"And would exactly would that be Doctor?"

"Right as I was about to administer your treatment, I noticed a spike in your progesterone levels. Considering all you'd gone through, I wasn't sure if was part of some hyper occurring reproductive cycle or if you were actually-" He stops himself from saying the word quite yet, something telling him to avoid it for a moment longer. "But considering that you were about to be exposed to doses of anti-proton radiation, I assumed that the situation would naturally take care of itself. I was wrong. It appears you're pregnant."

Her head tilts to the side slightly as she processes the information, giving no hint of the emotions she's feeling, save for her increase in blinking. After a moment, she swallows and clears her throat, her decision for how to continue on made.

"I'm assuming the fetus is healthy."

"Yes, surprisingly so in fact. After an initial period of intense growth that I can only assume was part of the evolved reproductive process, the rate of development has leveled out around the 12-week mark of gestation and her genetic makeup is consistent with that of current human evolution."

"Her?" The hologram cringes at his slip, having already become accustom to the idea of the Captain's pregnancy after spending the better part of the last day examining and still trying to understand how it survived, his program's awareness that is was best to be personal and engaging on the topic of a patient's developing child had already clicked into gear, spurred on, no doubt, by his ongoing treatment of Ensign Wildman. It's a choice he shouldn't have chosen to make, especially considering he had no certainty just how the Captain would choose to handle the situation.

"I apologize, Captain, I shouldn't have said- "

"No, it's quite alright. That's… information I'd like to have."

"Is there any other information, in particular, you might want to know? About the pregnancy or about… options relating to it?" It's an unsubtle attempt to try to gauge where her mind is at in terms of if she's planning on allowing the pregnancy to continue. The point of the comment is not lost on her.

"I don't anticipate terminating the pregnancy Doctor." She tells him, a trace of annoyance that he's trying to pry so soon after giving her this news evident. However, the aggravation slips away and a vague feeling of panic settles over her. "Although, I must admit, I'm struggling to see how this can possibly work." Her hands rub over her face as she settles into a quiet contemplation of the scenario she's been thrust into, the Doctor aware without being told that he's been dismissed. Walking away from the surgical bay, he shares a brief look with Kes before he goes into his office, preparing to work on the Captain's prenatal plan for the upcoming months. A few moments later, his assistant joins him.

"How's the Captain?" He considers Kes' question for a moment, wondering how to best articulate the state of their commanding officer.

"Conflicted, I'd say. She appears to want to continue with the pregnancy but I can imagine she'll struggle with the idea she's being selfish or the crew will see her actions as giving up by having a family out here." The young woman in front of him seems to give the matter some thought before sharing her conversation with Lieutenant Paris.

"Tom seemed especially concerned with how the Captain was while we were talking."

"I can imagine so. He's probably still concerned he'll be Ensign by the end of the week."

"No, it was more than that. He knows something isn't right with her." The EMH looks out his window to the biobed Paris is laying on. Having returned to rest after the ocampan came into the office, the Doctor can see that the man's head is turned not towards the ceiling or sickbay doors, but instead over in the direction of the surgical bay. Even if his eyes were now closed, it was evident that at some point he'd been watching the Captain.

"His instinct will serve this situation well. No matter what, she'll be unable to handle this all on her own, regardless of how she might think." The Doctor's penchant for gossip and speculation on the personal lives of the people on this ship might be a newly developing habit, but his having genuine medical opinions on almost all situations was not. "They'll both have to rise to the occasion."

I have a very long plot idea in mind, but I'd rather have the idea put out of its misery if people don't even enjoy this snippet. Let me know. I know Threshold offshoots can be terrible (I've read a lot of them) so don't worry about sparing my feelings.