Redecorating The Ready Room
By Amelia Elizabeth
Summary: AU. Chakotay, Voyager's acting captain, walks into the Ready Room to find that someone has been doing a little creative and unintentional redecorating. Set before "Anson, Iva, Rory and the baby" and after "Calling Her Katie." Cute couple fluff.
Disclaimer: I don't own them, because if I did, things would have ended up just like this.
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Chakotay ran his had through his hair in an action that was becoming all the more routine. The sensor array had blown out, again. Ever since a comment had been made that astrophysics hadn't been using all of their time with the dish, department heads had been swarming Harry Kim to get additional usage hours. Harry had been forced to draw up a new schedule so no minute of precious "dish time" was wasted. This meant that the array had been operating at full power for 154 consecutive hours, thus the reason for the blow out.
It was a simple fix, Chakotay knew, but the crew was getting fidgety. Ever since video contact had been established with Earth, a forlorn sense of futility had swept over the ship. Some how being so close to loved ones made the distance seem even greater. He made a mental note to talk to Neelix about organizing another talent show or something.
As the bridge crew silently worked, save Tom Paris who was animatedly explaining the finer points of navigational theory to some junior helmsmen (Chakotay found himself doubting the validity of Tom's claim that "when in doubt, punch it" was the best practice for new pilots, but the crewmen were all diligently taking every word down), Chakotay nodded at to his acting First Officer. Tuvok proceeded to enter in his access codes into the computer screen. Having transferred authority, Chakotay rose and walked to the ready room, making another mental note to have Harry impose strict guidelines on sensor array operational time.
He entered the office and stopped. The room was completely torn apart as if someone had turned off the gravity generators then turned them on a moment later. Papers littered the floor, several photos lay scattered across his desk, and even a chair had been tipped over. In the middle of all this stood his very pregnant wife, a guilty look on her face, her hands braced behind her on the desk as she slowly eased herself down to the floor in an attempt to retrieve a report she had dropped. A smile spread across Chakotay's face.
He rushed over, stopping to pick up the report and helped his wife up, leading her to an unharmed chair where she sat, biting her lip as she looked around the room.
"Redecorating?" he asked.
"Waiting for you," she said.
"And reading a briefing on thruster efficiency?" he picked up the report and glanced at it, mentally adding it to his growing list.
"I thought I'd just look and see…" she stopped. "Then it fell and I tried to get it, but…" she smiled, her hands resting on her belly, "… and I think you can guess the rest."
"Why didn't you tell me you were here?" he asked.
"I didn't want to disturb you."
"Kathryn…"
"I know, I know."
"You could have fallen. You could have hurt your head or the baby." He sighed.
"I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I just wanted to stay in the loop. I want to know how this ship is doing, how our crew is doing."
"So you decided to read a thruster report?"
"It was the one on the top," she laughed.
"I think you'd really enjoy reading a proposal on biathlon training courses as part of the new tactical training requirements." He handed her another PADD.
"Don't tell me, they watched the Olympics."
"They think it will be helpful."
"This is like the ping pong table in Main Engineering all over again," she laughed again.
He wrapped his arm around her, helping her to stand and gave her a quick kiss on the head. "Come on, let's go get dinner."
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