The song 'He's My Son' is copyrighted by Mark Shultz

A doctor is capable of many things.  Healing small cuts and bruises that happen along life's rocky road.  Setting a broken bone, lowering a fever.  Literally bringing a person out of the hands of death.  Miracles happen at your fingertips.

I think back to all the people I've healed, all the sicknesses I've cured and all the miracles that happened at my own fingertips.  It all seems so vague and far away.  And so mundane even.

Why can't I heal him?  That little two year old boy lays within the darkness of Sickbay, has been there for almost a year, and I can do nothing except sit and watch him struggle to breathe, see the disappointment in those brown eyes when kids hop off a biobed and leave with their parents.  All this healing I've caused, all these miracles I've done and it feels empty.  Like nothing now.  Because I can't cure this one little life that lays asleep not far from my office.  It brings holographic tears to my holographic cheeks.  How fair is it, that I a hologram, a computer generated being, can live life to it's fullest and this little boy must suffer indefinately?  He has so much life in him.  He could be so much.

But it doesn't seem like that's ever to be.  I can't heal him.  I can't do a miracle for him.  I'm helpless.  I gaze out into the main of Sickbay as the doors slide open and she goes to him.  She visits him every night.

"Seven," I whisper as I leave the confines of my office.  My hands immediately rest on her shoulders as she leaned back against me.

"I didn't realize you were active, Doctor," she says.  I smile.  She still calls me Doctor, despite my chosen name.  Then again, most of them do.  The most I can hope for is when I'm introduces as Dr. Zimmerman.

Leaving all thoughts of that behind, I sigh.  "I couldn't sleep.  How about you?  Are you sleeping okay?"

She nods, just barely.  She doesn't sleep well at all, I know.  She was supposed to be regenerating tonight.  Seven, I wish you wouldn't tire yourself.  I can feel her body getting slightly heavier as she rests against me.  She can't afford to spend another night here.  She has got to regenerate tonight.  "I will go to my alcove soon," she sighs, almost as if reading my thoughts.

"Good," I reply gently.  She needs this time with him.  He isn't awake as much anymore and I think it panics her.  I know it panics me.  His time is running out.  I've got to do something.  But what?

He's my son.  Or as close to it as any child will get.  I still remember how jealous I felt when Seven told me she wanted to have a baby and that she was going to ask Lewis to help us out.  I felt betrayed.  Not by her, but by my own makings.  My own wife and we'd never have the privilege of creating a life together.  I suppose it's no different than what some other parents go through, inter-species marriages suffer that frequently.  But I coudn't help but repeat over and over in my mind, 'If you'd only been human, you wouldn't suffer this.'  Seven said that I was being stupid, but it really bothered me that I couldn't ever make a child with her.  And it didn't help when Lewis, my creator and father you could say, agreed.  I knew she had no feelings for him, but I also knew his reputation concerning women and it left me less than thrilled.  But he was the best choice.  The child would virtually be mine in appearance and be everything he would have been had I been human and his father.

But evertually that jealousy and disappointment turned into purest joy when she conceived.  Her pregnancy was fun.  There were the bad times, like when she was sick to her stomach, but even in those days we bonded closer.  And then the night Aaron was born.  I'll never forget it.  Ten hours of seemingly endless labor and Seven trying to devise ways of hurting me because I didn't understand what she was going through.  Things would be quiet for an hour at a time and then she'd suddenly look at me and size me up.  Things like that can leave even a hologram chilled.  But then he came and we stared at his beautiful face for the first hour.  We were sure everything was going to be fine.  We were so damned certain.

And for the first year everything went as planned.  He had a normal babyhood.  Seven was very particular about just what he was exposed to and who held him.  Why shouldn't she have been?  He was our child and too precious for us to let anything bad to happen.

Then came the night of Voyager's annual reunion and everyone was there.  Starfleet society, ambassadors, you name it.  And a lot of attention was focussed on little Aaron.  Everyone wanted to see the son of the hologram and Borg.  Unfortunately everyone included some very bad people.  People who didn't think it was proper for a hologram and a Borg to be acknowledged as people, let alone a family.  Since we'd arrived in the Alpha Quadrant it was no secret that there were those who thought Seven nothing but a 'freak' as they put it and that she'd marry a hologram proved she wasn't right.  And there were those who thought that I was some sort of sick program designed to take advantage of a young woman who was still learning who she was as a human and that if she'd been a little more experianced she'd know that a hologram wasn't the right mate.  That was I taking advantage of her.  Where still not even sure who did it, but when Aaron wandered away that night, they took the opportunity to rip him out of our lives.  Bio-warfare waged against a child!  They dared to suggest that my wife and I were wrong for our love and then they brought themselves to such a twisted atrocity as poisoning a child?  The anger doesn't fade ever.  Every time I think of those who might have done this, I want to rip them to shreds and then put them back together so I can torture them again.  They should could themselves blessed that I don't know who they are.

I take a deep breath, not that I've ever needed it, and rest my head against hers.  I try to be strong for them both, but sometimes it's hard not to let it show.  It kills a part of me each time I think of what he could have been.  She turns around and touches my face, knowing what I need.  "I love you," she whispers, wrapping herself into me and joining my tears.  Just once I wish I could feel the tears sting my eyes.  As if it would make it more real.  But how could it be any more real than this?  It's devastating.

We stand here together for a long time, almost fifteen minutes and then she pulls away.  Her lips brush against my own and she says, "We will be fine."

I tell her that almost everyday and yet sometimes it's just so hard to believe.  How would I ever be all right if he...if he.  I can't afford to think that way.  I can't live without this little life sleeping not far.  What would I be without him?  How could I ever go on?  What would a day be like without him?  I don't want to know.  Please don't let me know.  I couldn't stand it.  But I nod and try to smile at her.  She's so beautiful.  Does she know how precious she is to me?  I kiss her once more and she turns back to Aaron, taking his little hand and kissing it.  "I love you," she whispers.  "Sleep well."

Turning back to me, she says, "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Seven.  I love you," I answer and she leaves.  And I let my eyes go back to my son.  My little boy struggles to rest and my hands shake.  What can I do?  I have to find the answer.  Seven misses me those nights that we spend in our quarters and she wakes to find I'm gone.  But she never contacts me to see where I'm at.  I guess she instinctively knows that I'm still here in my Sickbay, still searching for the answer.  For the miracle cure that will save my boy from this terrible fate.  I'll never stop either.  Not so long as he lives.  I wipe the holo tears from my cheeks and touch his hand.  I love you, Aaron.

Creator of this universe, hear me.  I would trade this soul you've placed within a hologram's matrix if it would save him.  Don't take him from this place yet.  Let him live life and know the things that I've been allowed to know.  I would be incomplete without him.  Give me that miracle I need to save him.  He needs You.  I need You.

As I sigh and return to my office I turn my terminal on and stare at the screen, waiting for that breakthrough to hit me.

I can't help but grin in surprise when it does.