Calling Her Katie
By Amelia Elizabeth
Summary: AU. Kathryn wonders when her husband started using her childhood nickname. A prequel of sorts to "Anson, Iva, Rory and the baby," with a bit of backstory on how the command couple came to be. Sweet relationship fluff.
Disclaimer: I don't own them, because if I did, things would have ended up just like this.
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They had been sitting like this the entire night; Kathryn, her slender form and barely showing baby bump hidden under a bulky sweatshirt of his, sat with her legs drawn up under her and her head gently resting on his shoulder as she read. Every now and then he would hear her make a little noise to herself as she made a notation on her report, but mostly she was silent and focused. He sat next to her, his legs resting up on the old coffee table he had built for them on New Earth. A computer sat in his lap as he tried to focus on what he was reading. It wasn't easy. Unlike his wife who had the latest reports on the construction of their new shuttle, he had a manifest of food stores to review. As if they didn't have enough leola roots already.
He sighed and closed the laptop. "Katie, I'm going to turn in," he said stretching his arms and feeling the stiff muscles pull against him.
His wife didn't look up. "Hmmm?" she murmured as she readjusted her position on the couch since her headrest had decided to move.
"I'm going to bed, Katie, and I think you should too."
A yawn escaped her as she staked the PADDs on the table. "I suppose so," she paused, thinking. "Chakotay?"
"Yeah?"
"When did you start calling me "Katie"?" she asked.
He smiled. "Officially, when your mother told me I should."
She looked puzzled at that. "And unofficially?"
"The night I sat with you in sickbay after our first Borg attack." He stood up and walked into the bedroom. Kathryn stood and followed him quietly, a look of concern playing across her features. She didn't remember much about that night, only what she had heard afterwards. It had been almost two years ago, less than two years after they had found themselves stranded in the Delta Quadrant. She'd been trapped on the bridge during the attack and had been knocked out and badly burned before the rescue teams could get to her. It had been Chakotay who found her and who had carried her in his arms to sickbay. He was just her first officer then, she remembered, before New Earth and before they had fallen in love.
"You stayed with me the whole night, didn't you?" she said.
He turned to see her standing in the doorway, looking at him intently. "Yes," he finally said. "Yes I did. You were in pretty rough shape that night. The Doctor poured a liter of blood into you and god knows what sorts of drugs before starting the surgery. He wanted me out of there but I absolutely refused to leave you. So I scrubbed in and I held your hand as the Doctor worked. You were in surgery for nearly six hours. By the end of it, we didn't know if you were going to live or die.
"The Doctor pulled me aside and told me that you would probably not wake up until the morning, if ever. If you made it through the night, he said, you'd live. So I stayed. I sat next to you and I talked to you all night long."
Kathryn bit her lip as she watched her husband relive that horrible night. He saw her eyes glistening and he reached out a hand to her. Gratefully, she took it and fell into his arms as silent tears fell down her face. He held her tightly.
"Do you know what I said to you, while we sat there?" he asked.
She shook her head no.
"I said, 'Goddammit, Katie, if you die now I'll never forgive you!'" Kathryn giggled in spite of herself. He continued, "I told you over and over how I couldn't command this ship without you and how wonderful a person you were. I kept saying, 'For gods' sake, live Katie!' over and over and over until I knew you hear me."
"And I did," she said softly.
"Yes you did. Do you want to know why I called you Katie that night?"
"Yes I do," she admitted.
"Well, I do too," a slow grin spread across his face. "I don't know why I did it. It just felt like the right thing to say at the time. As you laid there on that biobed, with tubes and wires covering your body, all I thought was that you were my Katie and that I would never let you go.
"When the Doctor left for the triage center we had built in the mess hall, I started having actual conversations with you as if you were awake, right there with me. I told you how much I had enjoyed spending time on New Earth with you, getting to know Kathryn not the Captain. I told you how sometimes I had wished we had stayed there and that I had built the boat and you had finished the loom and we had your garden in the summer, and that I had always hoped that we would one day get to build a nursery on to the cabin." He held her hands tightly in his, as he looked deep into her eyes. "I told you that I loved you, Katie, and that I always would." He sighed.
"You woke up right after I said that, you know," he said smiling. "You had a look on your face as soon as you opened your eyes like you wanted to say something, something to me, but you just stared. Once we knew you were in stable condition, the Doctor forced me to go home and to sleep, lest I take up permanent residency in his office," he laughed at that and Kathryn could just imagine that battle of wills.
"I had no idea that you've been calling me Katie that long," she said as she raised a hand to trace his tattoo. "I had always just thought you had heard someone say it once and that you liked it."
"That did happen too," he said. "Your mother wrote me a letter right after we made transmission contact with Earth, about the time we got engaged. The letter was titled, "Call Her Katie, Already." He grinned. "She seemed to think that you needed to hear it."
Kathryn smiled. "She was right. I like it when you call me Katie."
"I like it too."
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