Never a Mother

Posted on Thu Feb 28th, 2019 @ 9:20am by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox

Mission: Recovery Trek
Location: Crew Quarters, Deck 8
Timeline: 2396

“Children?” Mnhei'sahe Dox said, looking in the mirror of the bathroom of her quarters. The quarters that no longer felt like a barren wasteland of nothingness since Mona Gonadie moved in.

The entire room was in the process of being redecorated by the colorful Miradonian pilot and Dox couldn't be happier about that fact. Everywhere she looked, she could see Mona's touch in their now shared quarters and it was an amazing comfort to the red-headed Romulan woman.

But that wasn't what was weighing on Dox's mind. Instead she was focused on what Mona had told her just before the new couple had decided to move to the next step by moving in together. Mona wanted children. She wanted Dox's children. And that idea had Mnhei'sahe Dox in a cold sweat.

While she was thirty-one, she still felt like a child herself. She was only just beginning to feel like she might actually have a future for the first time and had no idea if she was prepared to be a parent. To say nothing of her horrible relationship with her own mother. Children were never a consideration in the young Romulan's mind.

Then again the short, routund pilot never even considered the possibility of finding love of any kind, and yet here she was. Of course, there were other factors to consider. While Romulans, even those with altered DNA, could live until the age of two hundred and sixty, Miradonian's tended to live until around the age of eighty. And Mona was thirty-three already.

She had told Dox that she wasn't sure how many fertility cycles she had left and now Dox was worried that her indecisive nature would rob Mona of her happiness. But she worried about that on a general level as it was. But their different life spans was already a cause of pain for Dox. Miradonian's mate for life and Mona was bonded to Dox. But as much as Dox loved her, she knew she was fated to lose her when she was still proportionately young.

Any children they had would like have extended lifespans, but it was entirely possible that Dox could outlive them as well. The idea was terrifying to her and it was that fear that was driving her mind as it raced.

Mona would still be on duty for another half hour, but Dox had collapsed in the large round nest that was their shared bed. It was incredibly soft. Almost as soft as Mona's arms. Almost as soft as the trilling hum she made when they held each other. Dox felt that absence every moment they were apart to a bizarre degree, so why did the idea of becoming a family terrify her so much?

Maybe 'family’ was the operative word. Her own family was an epic disaster. A Mother that was a party to genetically and surgically having her own daughter altered for reasons Dox didn't know. A father that it turns out was nothing more that the source of human DNA that was used to hide her some something. A real father she had but a single memory of.

The only positive family memories she had were Shawn and Juliet Dox. The parents of the man she thought was her father. The elderly human couple that took an angry young Romulan girl into their home just on the belief that they were family. Only recently did Dox learn that they were in no way related. But they offered their home and their love to a stranger. But Dox was too angry to accept it and she ruined that as well.

So to her, family has become a dirty word. And the idea of being to someone else what her mother was to her was terrifying. But she wasn't her mother and she was committed to never never becoming her. But wasn't that what every daughter said? She knew she had so much of her mother in her. When she reprimanded an officer under her command, she heard her mother's voice. When she gave an order, it was spoken with the same tone she cringed from so often as a child.

Rolling face down, Dox burried her head in the pillow wrapped in bedding that mirrored the beautiful blues and yellows of Mona's plumage and let out an exaggerated scream of frustration, properly muffled.

Miradonian's had multiple children at a time. Between two and four, Mona said. So Dox would have the opportunity to screw up with up to four lives at a time. On a Starship where a space god could wipe them all out at a moment's notice. There were a thousand reasons to not even consider it.

But here she was, thinking about it anyway. Thinking about the longing look in Mona's deep, Amber gold eyes when she told Dox she wanted her chicks. Which was in one hand impossibly romantic and in the other, another problem. They were literally from different worlds.

Romulans, like all Vulcanoid races, had green, copper based blood. It made having children with other races an act that required considerable scientific intervention to achieve. And while Mona had complete faith in Doctor Asa Dael's ability to solve the dilemma, Dox wasn't so confident.

What if she could succeed, but the children were born sick? What if something went wrong? These were questions that every potential parent in history had stressed over, but they still dug in tight in Dox's mind.

She had never wanted children. She had never wanted to be a mother. She had never thought anyone would love her. But here she was, waiting for the woman that was bonded to her for life to walk through the door and wrap her soft arms around her.

And suddenly everything she thought she knew was different.