As the weeks went past, Kathryn and Chakotay got used to sharing their recently connected quarters. For ease of movement, Ayala's door was locked on open much of the time.

After a few weeks, it became clear that Chakotay's bedroom had become theirs and Kathryn's remained her own. She used hers as a dressing room and as a retreat for those nights when she felt the need for the solitude and the space of her own bed. He didn't mind the odd night alone, especially if he was so tired he knew he might possibly snore. If he was alone, he could sprawl on his back and snore in peace, rather than have those small hands poking him in the night until he rolled onto his side.

Living in close quarters all the time meant they discovered more about each other.

There was one thing he'd noticed before, but had never mentioned to her. When she was complaining one morning about him thrashing about in his sleep the night before, he decided it was time to share. He said at least he didn't talk in his sleep. That got her attention. He suspected she thought he was exaggerating or making it up, but actually, everything he said was true.

Sometimes she muttered random half-sentences, often addressed to Seven or to her sister, Phoebe. Other times she barked fragments of orders that caused him to sit bolt upright, until he realised where he was and that she was sound asleep.

The counter attack was instant. She claimed that she had made an alarming discovery about him. Now that they were free to socialise openly and spend entire evenings together, she told him she'd never known a man with so little tolerance for real alcohol. She said that after only two glasses of wine, his notoriously twisted sense of humour became completely indefensible. She told him that she realised now why B'Elanna had bundled him off to his quarters in the past on the few occasions when he'd been drinking.

She added that if they ever did make it back and he wasn't incarcerated, she would need to keep an eye on him at cocktail parties with Starfleet brass, or he'd get himself blasted back down to ensign in the time it takes to order a vintage scotch.

A few weeks later, the ship was shattered into 37 different time frames and Chakotay found himself tasked with trying to put it back together.

He did so, eventually, with the help of Captain Janeway; a Captain Janeway from the earliest time frame he came across. Voyager was still in the Alpha Quadrant, just about to set off and follow his ship into the Badlands.

Once it was all done and dusted and all he had to do was initiate a warp pulse in engineering, she took him aside to ask him something.

He watched this delightful, Alpha Quadrant Kathryn formulate her question, rather coyly, it had to be said.

"May I ask you one last question?"

"Will I have to break the Temporal Prime Directive to answer it?"

"Maybe, just a little. For two people who started off as enemies it seems we get to know each other pretty well, so I was wondering, just how close do we get?"

He saw uncertainty and anticipation in those familiar eyes, and he was tempted to do something he shouldn't. Because obviously, it wouldn't count as cheating on Kathryn if he were to kiss her younger self… Just in time, his better judgment kicked in, as he remembered just how devoted she was to her fiancé at this point.

So, he leant in, far closer than propriety really allowed, his lips almost brushing her ear. "Let's just say, when you're a soldier and a philosopher, some barriers are there to be crossed," and pressed one feather-light kiss to that spot half way down her pale neck that made his Kathryn shiver. This one did too.

He held his breath as he waited for a reaction: a slap or something? Perhaps she might knee him? She'd always been pretty hot on self-defence. But she just drew back, unflustered, looked straight into his eyes with a smile in her own, and offered him her hand.

"Well, I guess I'll be seeing more of you in the future then."

He couldn't help himself - his eyes danced as he shook her hand and replied, "Oh yes, a whole lot more."

xxx

Then what should have been a straightforward diplomatic reception turned into an ambush and Kathryn and Tuvok were seriously injured.

"Sickbay to the Bridge."

"Chakotay here. Doctor, have you got them?"

"Yes, Commander, but I won't lie, they're both in a bad way. I'll let you know as soon as I have news."

"Understood, Chakotay out."

He stared ahead at the view screen.

Chakotay entered sickbay.

Tuvok was lying motionless on the biobed closest to the door, and Kathryn was lying on the next one. The Doctor was leaning over her and turned as he heard Chakotay enter.

"Report, Doctor."

"They're both stable and recovering now, Commander. I sedated Mr. Tuvok to allow me to regenerate his shattered femur, but it will be safe to revive him shortly.

"And the Captain?"

Chakotay had moved to stand next to the Doctor. The relief he felt at seeing her there was powerful. He allowed it to wash over him and he felt something loosen inside, some spring that had been wound tight for the past four hours, ever since they lost contact with her away team. Her eyes were closed and she looked peaceful, as if she were enjoying a much-needed, enforced rest. It was evident the Doctor must have already finished dermal regeneration. Both she and Tuvok bore no visible signs of the trauma, although Tuvok's leg was still under a surgical arch, as was Kathryn's abdomen.

"I had to sedate her too, as there were…. additional complications. Please accompany me into the office, Commander, there is something I need to make you aware of."

Chakotay followed him in, the spring starting to wind again.

The Doctor pulled up his scans of Tuvok's leg on the monitor in the office. "When the weapon blast hit them, Mr. Tuvok had placed himself directly in front of the Captain - a move which undoubtedly saved her life - and the top of his right femur took the brunt of the blast. As you can see here, it shattered this side of his bone and a fragment passed through his leg," he brought up an image of Kathryn's body now, "and lacerated the Captain's abdomen, as she was directly behind him. How on earth he managed to drag her to the transport enhancers with this sort of injury is really anyone's guess."

"Go on, Doctor."

"Indeed, so…. the residual blast from the weapon and this bone fragment pierced several of her vital organs and caused massive internal bleeding and considerable blood loss. Once she was transported here, I was able to stabilise her within minutes, but in the course of my initial scans I detected… there's no easy way to say this, Commander, so… I detected a foetal heart beat."

The Doctor paused, presumably to allow Chakotay time to process what he'd been told. Chakotay didn't want time, he wanted the rest of the information. "Please go on, Doctor."

"She was in the process of miscarrying the foetus, due to the massive internal trauma. I was able to tell her that much, but there wasn't time to explain the options. She said 'Get Chakotay' just before she lost consciousness, and I'm interpreting that as consent to inform you of the situation."

The physician paused. "I was able to extract the foetus with a foetal transport, and I placed it in stasis."

Chakotay felt the floor move.

"Would you like to sit down, Commander?"

He leaned forward, putting his hands onto the desk to steady himself. "No, go on, I need you to tell…"

"Of course, yes. I had to make a decision. The Captain was unconscious and you were in command in the middle of the battle - I could hardly call up to the bridge to ask you..."

The Doctor looked stricken, clearly reliving the dilemma in the telling of it, but pressed on. "I had to make the decision I felt the Captain would be most likely to make herself, had she had the time to consider all the implications of this situation, and I'm presuming she wasn't..…?"

"No, she wasn't aware of it before. I. ... We weren't aware… How…?"

Despite Chakotay's lack of eloquence, the Doctor seemed able to anticipate the direction of his question. "It was a side effect of the partial assimilation she underwent several months ago. The partial assimilation neutralised any substances in her body that weren't naturally produced. The Captain was at risk of conceiving until her next routine booster, which wasn't until fourteen days after her return to the ship. I was aware of this, Commander, and I put it in my report at the time, but, as I wasn't aware at that time of your…situation with the Captain, I hadn't highlighted the information, and I can only presume she didn't read all the detail in my report. It was several pages long." He paused for a moment. "Lieutenant Torres had already stopped her booster programme some months before, so it wasn't relevant information in her case. I can only apologise. I had wrongly presumed it wouldn't be relevant to the Captain's...circumstances, and so I didn't contact her when she failed to appear for an immediate booster, I simply presumed she was content to wait for her next routine one, given how she likes to avoid sickbay."

Chakotay realised the Doctor was waiting for him to respond. "I see. And now, is she out of danger?"

"Yes, she will make a full recovery. The surgery was extensive, but I have repaired all the injuries to her internal organs and there will be no permanent damage. She just needs to rest now."

"You're certain? There was no permanent damage…. at all?"

"Yes, I assure you, Commander, I would only say that if I was one hundred per cent certain. Once she's rested and had time to consider her options, if she wished to proceed, there is absolutely no medical reason why the foetus couldn't be re-implanted. And I should add that it is perfectly healthy. I obviously performed the routine scans before placing it in stasis."

Chakotay looked away and took a deep breath before addressing the Doctor again, his voice controlled and his tone firm. "I'm sure she will come to discuss this with you, when she's ready."

"Of course, Commander. And I hope you don't…."

"You made the only decision you could, Doctor, and I'm sure the Captain will thank you herself when she's recovered."

"Thank you, Commander. I'm so sorry things have turned out this way. But were it not for Mr Tuvok's swift actions, both the Captain and the foetus would have died instantly. And please let me apologise again for not highlighting the information regarding the side effects of the partial assimil-"

"That's not necessary, Doctor...I'd like to see her. Can you wake her?"

"Yes, of course." He paused and seemed to choose his next words carefully. "Would you like to tell her yourself, or would you like me to?"

"No. I mean, no, thank you, Doctor. I'll tell her."

"Very well. I'll continue monitoring Mr. Tuvok from in here, or I can deactivate myself..."

Chakotay had walked out before the Doctor had finished his sentence.

They discussed the choices and Kathryn decided to keep the foetus in stasis. For now.

Chakotay understood why she'd arrived at that decision and wasn't surprised. The fact of the removal had already stacked the odds in favour of that outcome. To re-implant now would have to be an active choice. A frightening choice.

Exactly what Chakotay thought about them having a child, of her having his child, now, he didn't know. He just hadn't thought that far into their future together yet. He had been content just to have her, to finally have her open commitment and her open affection. That had been enough for him in the present.

What he felt about it was quite another matter. When the Doctor had said there was a foetus, he had felt everything all at once. He struggled with the whole concept of stasis. For him, the child belonged here, in the present with them. To put it off for a future no one could guarantee was madness. He felt like he was suddenly being asked to deal with time travel. The room had started to spin.

Kathryn had never mentioned wanting children with him and he hadn't asked her. Surprising though that might have been in a 'normal' relationship between childless individuals of their respective ages, given where they were, what their lives consisted of and what their responsibilities were, it was less surprising. He loved the idea of raising a family and having a stable planet-side life. It was simply that years ago he had given up thinking of himself as someone for whom that sort of life was ever likely to be a possibility. Nothing that had happened since being thrown into the Delta Quadrant had led him to believe anything had changed in that respect.

If they had been together longer, officially together, rather than just the two and a half months it had been since Kathryn had agreed to go public, perhaps he might have had the time to start thinking more about the future. Their daily lives were unpredictable and incredibly demanding, and for years he'd been living with her, knowing that she was still only on the very edge of commitment to the idea of a relationship with him, let alone anything more.

He didn't find it difficult to understand the myriad of reasons that had swayed her thinking when she gave the Doctor her instructions to continue with stasis for the time being. He instinctively knew that despite the validity of all those reasons, how they both felt about the situation was quite different.

Kathryn was struggling with her decision. That much he was sure of. She wasn't herself. He thought she seemed brittle, too quiet.

It was the sort of experience that she wouldn't be able to contain and control. He could see it was seeping into her thoughts and colouring her experiences. It wasn't something she could stop with sheer will power. Everything he knew about her told him this would be something she would find it very hard to adjust to. And adjust to it she would have to.

Two weeks later, B'Elanna discovered she was pregnant. When she almost fainted one day in engineering, Icheb scanned her and discovered two life signs. Once it had been explained to him that she wasn't infested with parasitic life forms, the word spread.

Chakotay was delighted for Tom and B'Elanna, but it was obviously impossible not to think about his and Kathryn's situation and he found himself fighting melancholy. He pushed his own feelings to the bottom of his heart and went to congratulate them.

Initially, Kathryn coped well. But as the days went by, it became clear that whenever anyone mentioned B'Elanna's pregnancy, Kathryn was unable to engage. It was just too much, too soon.

They lay together late one night and he decided it was time to just say it.

"You know, if you change your mind, we'll find a way."

She turned into him and rested her chin on his chest. She studied his face for what seemed like the longest time before she spoke. "You've never asked me, and the Doctor said you didn't ask him either."

"Asked what?"

"You know what."

Now it was Chakotay who paused before he answered her. "It would've made it harder."

"But isn't it hard now, that I know, and the Doctor knows, and you don't?"

"Is that hard for you?"

"Yes. I feel guilty. Like I have a secret from you."

"It's not like that, Kathryn. I don't feel like that about it." He pulled her closer.

Her eyes were still on him. "Well convince me. Because it's too hard at the moment. Convince me you're not angry with me, for all of it, for asking to see, for knowing what you don't want to."

"I'm not angry. Not with you, for anything. I didn't want to see the holographic projections, because I don't want to make a child in my mind out of this, a child that we may never meet. That wouldn't help me live with our situation. And anyway, the extrapolations aren't real, they're only an approximation."

"I know."

"People deal with things differently, Kathryn."

Her right hand came up and she threaded her fingers into his hair, while her other hand still rested on his chest. She gently pressed into his scalp in small, rhythmical circles for a while. She seemed lost in thought. He closed his eyes. Eventually, she spoke again and he half-opened his eyes to watch her face.

"What if I decided to go through with the pregnancy now, do you really think we'd cope?" He suppressed a sigh. This was going to be something she would find it hard to allow herself to believe. He suspected they would have this conversation over and over.

"Yes. I'm sure."

"Just like that?"

"Yes, just like that. Why is that so hard to accept?"

"How can you be so certain? How could we raise a child and run a starship? Head up this community still?"

"We'd find a way, we'd adapt. We could be out here for the rest of our lives, and we realised years ago that in the future, the crew would eventually pair off and start having children. Well, maybe this is the beginning of that future...now? And anyway, people have been combining child-care responsibilities and work lives for centuries. You'd be quite capable. We'd be quite capable. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard, because it would, but it wouldn't be impossible. We have help, Kathryn! When you're ready, we could do it, if that's what you want."

He stroked her back through her nightgown and he felt her relax a little more against him.

Then her voice came again. "I love you."

"Good."

She dipped her head down and wiped her tears into his t-shirt. He pressed a kiss into her hair and his low, rich tones sounded once more.

"When the time comes, if you're sure, we'll go ahead with the re-implantation. And we'll be spectacularly good parents." She laid her cheek down on his chest and closed her eyes. He closed his too and pulled her a little further across his side.

"Did I mention that I love you?" she said into his t-shirt.

"I don't recall. Perhaps you should say it again?"

"I love you."

Things got easier.

The topics of the conversations Kathryn initiated with him over the next few days made Chakotay believe that she was really beginning to consider new possibilities for the future. He even dared to hope that she was winning in her battle to suppress her self-destructive instinct to martyr herself and sacrifice her own happiness for the good of the ship. Perhaps she might even start to question one day whether there was, ever had been, a link there?

In relation to the running of the ship, he could see that she was laying the foundations for more detailed planning, tailored to the unique future that they were all facing. She tabled discussions with the senior staff that entertained the possibility that it might take decades to reach Earth. Really entertained it in practical terms.

It no longer felt like an act of heresy on Voyager to start to plan for a life on the ship, a life on the journey.