Examination a la Doctor

Posted on Tue Jun 23rd, 2026 @ 8:17pm by Lieutenant Commander Nyxala Valentine & Captain Taiga Aisaka

2,775 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Flight Of The Valkyries
Location: Starbase 43

Whatever else could be said about Nyx, she was true to her word and very dutiful. After visiting Taiga and Ryuuji and the new Riko, she hadn't had any other reasons to avoid her own exam. Oh certainly, there were reasons to not need one, in fact when she'd come aboard, she had already had one performed by her head nurse Sayo. That was when she'd found out about her own little problem. But there was something different about having a nurse perform an exam and a doctor, specifically because the doctors had the knowledge to go along with experience.

She'd commed ahead before she made her way down, but both of the Doctors Pallister had been busy with new arrivals and the nurse had been apologetic that she would have to wait for a while until they were available again. The nurse had offered to find another doctor, but Nyx was patient and had no issue with the wait. There had been a room already empty and Nyx took her time changing into an examination gown, one that resembled a nurse's scrubs, but looser and with easy access in case anything was found.

During the forty-minute wait, Nyx had stood in front of the full-length mirror for a few minutes prior to donning the gown, checking her body for anything she didn't recognize, or thought just looked different. The majority of it was looking at her stomach for anything that could be considered a small bulge, but it was much too early for that to be showing. A hand ran over the flat, taut stomach, wondering how it would feel when she was farther along, but it was beyond her. In the Marines, you didn't often see pregnancies and those were evacuated from front lines combat immediately. She'd run into a few on her shipboard assignments, but not enough. Not enough to be comfortable with is.

Finally she had just finished dressing in the gown and after elevating the back of the biobed, settled herself into it to wait, closing her eyes in the standard procedure of 'Sleep when you can, not just when you want to.'

Rachel entered and smiled. "Good morning," she greeted calmly and softly as she approached.

Nearly fifteen years of experience meant that Nyx had gone from snoozing to fully alert between heartbeats and her eyes opened and focused on Rachel, her own smile forming rapidly, "Good morning, doctor, and it really is a good one. Captain Aisaka is awake and in good spirits, so it looks like in a couple of days I'll be headed back to Tokyo with her and life will get back to normal... Or as normal as it can be."

Rachel smiled. "Yes, I checked up on them last night. Little Riko is doing really well, even latching on nice and securely during feeding. Both of them are a tribute to your care Nyx." She smiled. "Oh and please, just call me Rachel. I prefer a more relaxed bedside manner. Especially between us doctors."

Which meant that she’d also checked up at least by computer in the last hour or so, after Nyx had updated it with Riko’s name after finally being told of it. Good doctor, this. “You got it, Rachel, but I only did what anyone else would do.” Her eyes flickered at how close it had been for Taiga, ‘At least would try to do.’ She added in her own mental conversation. “So, let’s pretend that I don’t have a clue what is going to happen during my examination now, so I can be a wonderful pain in the butt patient?” She chuckled, “After all, a doc is always the worst kind of patient, since we look after others before ourselves.”

Rachel nodded as she flipped open a medical tricorder that she had attached to her belt. "Well, first I'm going to take a few scans. Check over your vitals, make sure everything is ok. I'll link my tricorder readout into the monitor to your left, so you can see that I'm not going ahead and making anything up." She explained. "Just a quick scan over. Then we'll do a more thorough scan of the foetus and ensure he or she is cooking nicely in there. After that we'll have a little discussion regarding what we find in the scans, and I'll go and update your Starfleet medical records accordingly."

She paused a moment before starting her scans. "Oh and of course. Whatever you say here is purely confidential. It will stay between only you and I. Not even the base's Chief Medical Officer will be informed, unless it is something serious that requires her attention. So, please, feel free to speak freely and with confidence. If you want to ask any questions, or have anything you wish to tell me don't hesitate. Oh, and if you don't feel like you can discuss anything with me here today, then you can send me a personal message through the computers. Or you can request to talk to one of the many counsellors on board." She finally stopped her little 'introduction routine'. "So, first things first. Are you happy with me starting? You may request another doctor at any time if you feel uncomfortable or believe that I may not be suited to your needs."

“By all means go ahead and get started,” Nyx grinned, “and As if you’d ever see me willingly go see a counselor.” Nyx scoffed with a laugh, “And I have no intention of asking for anyone else, because I’m an open book, especially with my sidearm over there with the rest of my clothes! In fact, I think I have everything truly relevant in my file that you’ve no doubt reviewed, but I’m still willing to answer questions on anything that isn’t clear or that looks suspicious, etcetera. I have utter and complete faith in you, Rachel.”

Giving her a small nod, Rachel uplinked her tricorder readings to the monitor and began her scans. The little wand that popped out of the top of the tricorder was soon being slowly waved over Nyx's body accompanied by the beeps of the device taking its readings. "Everything looks normal here. A few little things are off balance, hormones for example. But thats perfectly normal for someone who is pregnant. I also detecting that you need a slight boost in Vitamin D. I would strongly suggest a nice week on Risa... You know, when the War and all that Jazz is over..." There was a snort of amusement from Nyx at that comment.

She tapped on the surface of her tricorder. "Ok, so overall you're in pretty good health for someone who's been on the front lines. However, lets take a look at the little Mini-Nyx and see how they are doing." she said with a smile. Her fingers once again tapped on the surface of the tricorder. She then focused the wand over the lower half of Nyx's body.

There was a moment of silence as Rachel's frowned. "I have to ask. When your nurse examined you. They only confirmed the pregnancy correct?"

The look on Rachel’s face caused alarm in Nyx’s mind, she knew that look and it was never a good one. Sometimes it was when a doctor was focused on whatever the problem was, but it meant that there WAS a problem. “Pretty much, yes. They showed me an image, but at eight weeks, there isn’t much to see.” She inhaled and exhaled deeply, “What’s wrong, Rachel? I’m a big girl, I can take it.”

"One moment. Let me just confirm this..." Rachel said as she ran the wand over the lower half of Nyx's stomach again. "Hmm..." she said as she pondered to herself. Finally after what seemed like an eternity, but in fact was only a few seconds she looked up from her tricorder. "Well, you say you're a big girl... And it would seem that you're going to get a lot bigger... As in, a hell of a lot bigger."

She closed the tricorder and slotted it back onto her belt. Then she walked around the bed to the monitor. After a couple of light taps to its screen an image came up. "This is the scan of your womb that I've just examined. We can clearly see that you have a foetus living rent free in there... But then there is this..." she pointed out the image of the foetus which was starting to show development into a little baby. However, next to it was something else. "This would appear to be his sister..."

She paused and a sheer look of shock hit her face. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I just let that slip out! I didn't mean to reveal that!"

Nyx’s eyes were as wide as saucers as she stared at the screen, “You have got to be shitting me.” She said, despite the proof all but slapping her in the face her hands coming up to cover everything below the eyes. There were surprises and then there were bombshells, and this one? Nuclear. “Don’t worry about that, I’d want to know in any case, even if this will make my grandmother all smarmy and possessive and completely unmanageable, which was why I didn’t want to have kids in the first place.” Her words were muffled, then she dropped her hands to her thighs, “She’s going to be insufferable when she eventually finds out. But… How is the placement? Not in the fallopian tube, I’m presuming?” The calm in her voice was unsettling, clearly she was in shock and just non-functioning.”

"Placement is fine. Perfectly normal and healthy in that regard. Each have their own placenta. Which is common in fraternal pregnancies." Rachel replied. She was blushing a little from her stupid mistake. "I can report however, that both are healthy and at this stage show no signs of abnormalities, or problems. According to these readings, in just under fifty one weeks, you'll have a little baby girl and baby boy. Both are full Betazoid, so around the twenty six to twenty seven weeks mark you might start sensing them empathically, and they may start sensing you and each other. Basically, you'll all know each other before they arrive."

“Except I won’t.” Nyx said, her voice sad as she said it, “I’m… Broken, that’s how my grandmother put it, “I effectively don’t have any of the ‘normal’ telepathic or empathic sense that everyone else on the planet does. Imagine a whisper while standing on the beach next to an ocean and that’s what it feels like to me. Sometimes it’s there, so close you can almost hear a word or two, then it’s gone, lost in the background.” She bit her lip, now feeling more vulnerable than when in the worst firefight she’d ever been involved in and that confused her even more. There was a flicker of a way out, but no, she’d dismissed that before and this wouldn’t, couldn’t change that.

"You know, we could always look into that if you wanted?" Rachel suggested. "We actually have a Betazoid doctor here on the station. He is a specialist in his field regarding the Betazoid Empathic abilities. He might be able to help?"

“Been there, done that.” Nyx made a tossing away motion, “The Valentines are one of the major families, we ARE the Sixth House’s matriarchal family.. Grandmother brought in the top specialists, poked and prodded me, told me I inherited the wrong set of genes and then my grandmother declared me not worthy. Still, tradition dictated that when I turned seventeen that I inherited the Bow of Raxzha, which will pass in.. Apparently a bit over seventeen and a half years to my own daughter, now.”

Rachel gave her a soft smile. "Well, I don't think you inherited the wrong genes. After all, they are what makes you, you." she soothed her. "However, there is nothing that dictates that you must follow your families or any Betazoid tradition. After all, you're about to have your own family. That in itself is precious and should be worth protecting."

She didn't really give Nyx a chance to let those words sink in, however she knew that the doctor would need some time to consider them. "Well, is there anything else you want me to check out? There's nothing else that needs doing unless you want something specific. I have to update your medical records, but that will only take me a few minutes."

Nyx gave a wan smile. Rachel didn’t need to know the standoff that was going to be coming almost as soon as her children were born, wouldn’t be there when her grandmother came for them with every weapon in her arsenal. “Maybe have your colleague check out the genetic markers on these two, make sure I didn’t pass my own down to them? I know that’ll mean you need samples of the DNA, but hey, I’m here now, no time like the present?”

"Luckily, the Tricorder scans have already catalogues your DNA sequences, and those of the foetuses." Rachel replied. She brought the data back up on the monitor and studied it, her eyes darting from left to right as she processed the information. "If I am reading this right, I believe that both of the foetuses do not seem to have any abnormalities that may affect their Betazoid empathic abilities. However, I will run this by our specialist just to be safe. With them being Paternal Twins, there is a chance that they inherited that 'part' of their fathers DNA sequence. However, I'll admit, this is not my area of expertise."

“So, aside from an extra hitchhiker, the need for more sunlight or a supplement, was there anything else at all that you’re concerned about?” Nyx asked carefully. Good, maybe she hadn’t cursed her children like she’d been afraid she would, “And how often should I get prenatal checkups, especially with two of them?”

"Usually I would say every four weeks, up until the last two months. However, just to be safe regarding your concerns, I would recommend every three weeks up until the last three months, and then every week from then onwards." Rachel replied. "I know it'll be a bit of a hassle, but I'll ensure that the Command Staff of the Tokyo can accommodate your timetable."

“Soyo is going to be all over me to make sure I make every one, plus Amu will come up from her sickbay to do the exams personally, no doubt. It’s not like I can hide from them while I’m already in medical, is it?” Nyx laughed again, “Plus, Captain Aisaka will insist, since she’s just been through this herself. Trust me, Rachel, I’ll be getting the best care Tokyo can give, whether I want it or not.”

"I'll make sure to draw you up a schedule and send it to Doctor Hinamori personally. I'll also include some reccomendations for diet and exercise as well." Rachel replied with a smile. It was clear just from that sentance that the young doctor had done her homework on the Tokyo's medical staff. "Right now however, I am going to prescribe you three things..." she walked over to one of the drawers set into the wall and pulled out a PADD. After typing a few words she held it out to Nyx.

The PADD contained only three simple sentances.

- Rest & relaxation.
- A good healthly meal.
- One hypospray daily of Vitamin D, Iron and DHA with breakfast.

"I think that should do it." She said.

“The last two should be no problem, the first?” Nyx gave a shrug, “I’ve got another day or two for that, but I can’t promise anything past that.” She pointed a warning finger at Rachel, “And no going to Captain Aisaka to make me take some extra time off, that’s cheating!” She laughed.

Rachel gave her a mischeavous smirk in response. "Oh, I don't have to. Thats already taken care of... But, I'll let you find that out for yourself. Right now the Tokyo isn't due back here for a few days and I would highly recommend the Italian on the third level of the Promenade. Their Lasagna is to die for!"

End

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Mission Post by:

Nyx Valentine
CMO
USS Tokyo

Rachel Pallister
Doctor
Starbase 43

 

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