Disclaimer: I only own Dyami, everything else, except this story, is Paramount's.
Rating: R for strong language.
My father and I have always been best friends. I knew that no matter what, I could talk to him about anything; his people, girls, Voyager and even sex. He was the kind of man that was open to any and all questions and would never, ever judge me. No, he didn't know it all, even though as a child I thought he did, but he imparted all the knowledge he could onto me.
His sister Peta said that in their culture, sons -especially if a first born- were very important. They are taught to be a man from their father; we are to learn from our father's experiences to be a good, decent person. Fathers teach their sons the importance of the Spirits and our rituals, and Chakotay really stuck to that while raising me.
His relationship with my mother was…peculiar; they never got along. I can't remember a day going by in which they didn't argue, didn't fight. They tried to shield me from their quarrels and their fighting, especially when I was just a little boy, but I knew. Sometimes, I would lay awake in my bed at night and hear them yell at each other until my father stalked out of the house and my mother locked herself in her room, claiming to regenerate. We got rid of her regeneration unit before I was even born, but she couldn't be sleeping because she was always afraid to do so alone.
Now, I never told either of my parents this, but I hated my mother; I don't know what my father saw in her. Sure, she is fairly pretty but she is also indifferent and clingy and will manipulate people to serve herself while my father is an honorable, warm, caring and honest man. An honest man, indeed.
I still remember the night at dinner when she told me that she couldn't go to my football game. Actually, it wasn't that she couldn't, it's that she refused to go. She refused to attend my first match that I'd been training for, even before school was in session. She said it was archaic and violent and held no purpose. As always, my father sided with me and tried to urge my mother to see my viewpoint. She stomped off to her office. My father stayed at the table and held his head in his hands while I went upstairs to hide in my room before they started yelling again.
It wasn't the first time she refused to go to any of my school related activities. She missed the science fair, my marching band pep rallies, parent-teacher conferences and even my graduation. She hated the fact that I went to a Traditionalist school instead of one designed specifically for all the 24th century advancements with hoverball, holodecks, and Parrises Squares. She was embarrassed by the way I was being educated. I personally was glad that I did not attend such a technologically superior school, I felt if I lived simply and was close to nature, I would be closer to my father.
During my sophomore year of high school, my mother urged me to begin applying myself for Starfleet Academy. I, on no account, had any sort of desire or drive to attend, and I never craved space travel or exploration. During this time, my mother was not only fighting with my father, but me as well.
My father told me not to listen to her, that I should do whatever I want to do in life, whatever will make me happy. I was almost crying and I know that he was close to tears as well and at that moment, all I wanted him to do was pack us up and let us leave mothe –Seven.
In my junior year, I realized how sensitive and withdrawn my father had become. At the time, I had been too busy with tests, girls, football games and marching band competitions to notice my father's depressive mood and I failed to realize he was torn up inside.
The day I came to my senses will forever be ingrained in my memory. It was Saturday and I had gotten up late. I bounded down the stairs, anxious for breakfast –like my father, I'm always hungry- but Seven and my father were nowhere to be seen. I checked the closet and Seven's jacket was off her hook and sadistically, I felt a thrill of excitement crawl up my spine. Selfishly and cruelly, I had hoped she was gone for good.
I clambered back up the stairs and knocked on my father's bedroom door. I got a muffled grunt, which I hoped was permitting my entrance and I slowly slid the door open. My father was sitting at the end of the bed with his head in his hands, his fingers pulling at his hair, a gesture I had become accustomed to, yet this day was different. Seven was finally gone. How can he be so upset by her absence when their relationship could hardly be described as a marriage?
Frightened, I carefully sat down beside him and let my hand rest on his back, the muscles under my hand were hard and tense. He wasn't crying, but judging by the wetness on his face, I knew he had been and I doubted he was done.
"What happened, Dad?" I asked as I rubbed his back lightly. I rarely had to comfort him; it had always been the other way around.
"I'm a fool, Dyami; I'm just a damn old fool."
"Is this about Seven?"
He gave a watery, humorless chuckle. "I guess you could say that."
"Why aren't you happy with her?" I blurted bluntly, rudely. I felt horrible immediately; who says that to their father who isn't asking for a tongue lashing?
There was a long, great silence that stretched uncomfortably between us before he cleared his throat to speak. "I don't love her. I never loved her. I can't."
I felt his body shaking with silent sobs but I only sat there in stunned silence. How did I come to be?
That morning he told me everything I never knew, and things I wasn't sure I wanted to know; I never was acquainted with this other side of my father. I was completely bewildered and slightly angry.
My father's heart and his soul belong to a woman I barely remember; his former captain, his best friend. He's loved her since forever, he said, and he will until his dying day.
He said they were both stubborn and pigheaded and too prideful to confront one another and tell each other of their feelings. Eventually, after waiting for years for this Kathryn to come to him, my father gave up. No point chasing after something you can never have, he said.
He moved on and found false comfort in Seven of Nine. He never thought of her as a romantic interest, never even liked her but she was attracted to him, she wanted him.
Long, unromantic story short, my father got drunk and Seven lured him into bed. My father, in waiting for Kathryn to show up at his quarters to profess her undying love for him, kept his boosters updated in the hope that one day they would become more than friends. Seven's nanoprobes and Borg physiology took care of that small problem; completely nullifying them. She became pregnant after that one, huge mistake of a night.
Chakotay is an honorable, warm, caring and honest man. He took Seven and married her, determined for this baby to have a solid family unit if it killed him, and in a way, it did. Several months after their hasty wedding, Dyami Kolopak Hansen came around and screwed everything up.
I was an accident from an unwanted and loveless relationship with misplaced feelings that should have never happened. My father was never happy with her, and I doubt my moth –Seven was satisfied with their marriage either.
I was right in my assumption that Seven had left us. Tearfully, my father told me what happened the night before, in the bed that I tried to comfort and console him on.
Kathryn Janeway, the woman of his fantasies and the woman he pretended to make love with when he had sex with my mother, came to him, to speak as friends. But nothing is ever that simple when two people with such a history come together for a chit chat.
Kathryn Janeway was married and had a family as well, a son and a daughter. She was in a similar position; loveless marriage and a child or two dragged on for the ride. But her relationship was lucky enough to avoid the yelling and long, sleepless nights without Daddy.
They didn't fuck each other, like I'm sure my father does to my mom. They didn't have clinical, scientific sex; a direct fitting of two disparate body parts. They made love; something I was sure my father had missed for Spirits knows how long.
I thought it had just been that night; just a lapse in judgment in a weakened state of mind, between two people who shared feelings for each other and were trapped in marriages of convenience.
Turns out, however, they had been having an affair for many years and by now nearly two decades. As the years trailed on, their love and their passion never dimmed but they knew this affair couldn't last forever. That night had been different; they planned on it being their last intimate time together, the last time they would make love. It was time to say goodbye and live with what life had dealt them.
Their plans were soiled when my mother came home early from a long, tiring day at her think tank. She climbed up the stairs and was going to change when she caught them in the act.
Nights before, my father would claim to be 'working late', but now I know he was with her. They met in his office, her office, motels, Kathryn's house or ours if they could manage to hide it; anywhere they could be alone to release their feelings for a short time before bottling them up and storing them, hiding them away.
My father is an honorable, warm, caring and honest man. Where was that man when he was with Kathryn Janeway? When he yelled at Seven? How did he hide this sordid affair for so long? Why did it have to go to this level?
I've graduated high school and I'm at Arizona University. Kathryn Janeway's children are adults and at Starfleet Academy. Seven of Nine is probably on Vulcan or hiding in her think tank.
What happened with my father and Kathryn? They escaped. They left their marriages and their children to do something for themselves for once in their life. Now that their babies are grown and the tangled webs of marriage no longer keep them isolated from each other, they can be happy.
For all his lying, for all his cheating, for all his scheming, my father is an honorable, warm, caring and honest man. Kathryn Janeway is a kind, compassionate, wonderful woman. They wed, they adopted a little boy, they moved to Indiana and they make love.
My name is Dyami Kolopak Janeway.
The End