I still own nothing, I still don't make any money, and I'm still really sappy.
Enjoy.
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With a plan in place to refract the sensor net and slip through the alien territory undetected Voyager moved forward into unfriendly territory. It would take days to travel through the space these aliens occupied; they began their journey through it. At some point in the trip the Captain told a brief story about how it felt like sneaking out of her parent's house in high school. Her first officer just grinned beside her, remembering how she had been sneaking into his quarters for the last few nights. It was Tom that responded, "Where were you going?" She avoided the answer stating that she'd just leave that to the imagination. Tuvok interrupted the conversation to alert the crew that a large ship had been detected on sensors. Bringing the image onto the view screen they discovered that it wasn't one ship but thousands of tiny ships; a large swarm of tiny ships.
Stumbling upon a damaged ship the Captain ordered the lone survivor beamed to sickbay. The unfortunate survivor of the damaged ship died in Voyager's sickbay. A tiny swarm ship that was still attached to the hull spotted Voyager. Once Voyager was spotted a frantic B'Elanna tried to repair the warp drive by realigning the dilithium matrix, but this was something best done while the warp drive was shut down, and the current situation wouldn't allow it. Without the warp drive at full capacity, the swarm was able to overtake Voyager and dozens of ships locked onto her hull. Several aliens beamed onto the bridge and a brief face to face battle ensued. The Captain and her senior staff figured out how to get their phasers through to hit one of the ships and given that each of the ships was connected to every other ship in the swarm they hoped destroying one caused a chain reaction. It worked. The ships began exploding one at a time, including the ones clamped onto Voyager, rocking the ship with each and every blast.
Captain Janeway congratulated the crew and gave the order to proceed out of alien territory. With her hair all a mess, having been knocked out of its tight bun by the jolts of the explosions, she turned the bridge over to Commander Chakotay and proceed to her ready room. She was somewhat surprised to find that Chakotay followed not two minutes behind her. When her door chime rang she was still capturing escaped strands of long soft hair and wrestling them back into place forming a neatly placed bun. "Come in."
Walking in and eyeing her lovingly Chakotay gave her his opinion on the matter, "You know your hair looks beautiful when it's down."
She smiled at him, "Thank you, but you know it's not exactly convenient in a close range phaser fight. If I want to wear it loose I have to cut it short, you know the regulations."
"That I do. You know Kathryn, those blasts were quite jarring, enough to knock your hair out of place. That takes some force you know." Chakotay was trying to raise the issue lightly and failing miserably.
"What are you getting at Commander?" She moved closer to her desk and set both hands down on it as she leaned slightly towards him.
"Kathryn, it's not just your health anymore. Please don't get defensive; I just want to know if you're ok, if the baby is alright. You've already had some issues, my fault I know, and I'm concerned that it may leave you and the baby more susceptible to injuries." Chakotay tried to use the least confrontational, most soothing tone he could come up with without being condescending. He wasn't sure it worked.
"What would you have me do? Should I run to sick bay every time there is the slightest bit of turbulence on my ship?" Kathryn's voice was firm but not angry.
"Why don't we go to sickbay, make sure you're alright and ask the Doctor how concerned we should be with sudden forceful jolts like these or falls during jolts like these. That way we have a guideline of when it is appropriate to report to sickbay, and I can stop worrying about you constantly." Chakotay was hopeful.
"Alright Chakotay," she gave in, "but not right now. I feel fine and I'd like to see my ship return to full working order before I stray too far from the bridge. As soon as all systems are running normally I will go to sickbay."
"We." He, corrected her.
"What?" Kathryn asked confused.
"We will go to sickbay. I want to hear what the doctor has to say too." He wouldn't back down from this one.
"Very well, we will go to sickbay."
XXXX
In her ready room the Captain was contemplating the fact that her uniforms were starting to fit a bit too snug around the waist even though she'd replicated them a size bigger than she usually wore. When the door chime rang she quickly seated herself behind her desk as if hiding her stomach, which then made her feel silly because she'd been walking around in front of everyone all day.
"Come in."
"Captain, my report." B'Elanna had gotten the warp core back online and engineering back to normal, in only a few hours. Captain Janeway knew she was lucky to have her onboard.
"Thank you, B'Elanna." B'Elanna lingered hesitantly.
"Was there something more?" The Captain asked.
"I was wondering how you are doing, the explosions were pretty strong." There was a sincere concern in her voice.
"Chakotay has already made me promise to report to sickbay before the day is out B'Elanna."
"That's good; at least he's doing that right. You seem to have made peace with him. Are you giving him another chance?" B'Elanna wanted to see the Captain happy, but was still angry at Chakotay for what he did to her.
"A chance at what B'Elanna? Kathryn asked in a softer tone.
"At a relationship, being a family… that's what you want from him… isn't it?" B'Elanna questioned her. The Captain pursed her lips thoughtfully. This wouldn't be an easy conversation.
"Why don't you come by my quarters in about an hour so we can talk more comfortably, and in private, B'Elanna. Right now I'm waiting on one more report before I report to sickbay."
"That sounds fine Captain, just have some coffee ready; for me of course, only decaffeinated tea for expectant mothers." B'Elanna chuckled a bit. The Captain had avoided even mentioning coffee since the day she found out she was expecting, as if the words themselves would shake her will to avoid it.
"You'd really drink coffee in front of me and expect me to drink tea?" The Captain was only half joking. She really didn't want to watch someone else enjoying her favorite drink if she couldn't. One cup couldn't hurt -she thought.
"See you later Captain."
Captain Janeway nodded her dismissal.
Chakotay walked into the Captain's ready room a few minutes later with the last report in hand. "The Ops report, Captain. Now I believe you and I have a date with sickbay. Are you ready?"
"I still need to look over that report, Commander." She was still in her Captain mode.
"I've already looked it over, if you'd like to double check my work you can do that later. Right now you and I are going to sickbay." Chakotay stood firm.
The Captain didn't take orders easily, but she had agreed to go, so she conceded, "Fine but only because B'Elanna is expecting me in about an hour. Let's get this over with."
The doctor was surprised to see the Captain in sickbay; all injuries sustained during the day's battle had been minor, even the crewman hit by the swarm alien's electro-neural weapon had already been released. "Captain what can I do for you?"
"I'm apparently in a fragile state, Doctor. My first officer here feels I need to be looked at by a Doctor simply because the ship rocked a little." Chakotay cringed at being called her first officer; he went with her as the man who loved her, as her child's father, not as a duty bound crewman.
"A wise precaution, you know it wasn't just a little rocking several crewmen were knocked around and needed medical care. Lay down on that biobed and I'll just make sure everything is fine, and then you can go on your merry way."
As the doctor was scanning her, Tom and B'Elanna walked into sickbay together. "What can I help you with Lieutenants?" The Doctor asked barely glancing up at them.
"Actually," Answered Tom, "I have something for the Captain. I think I can get that holograph of the baby now. I know it took more than the week I promised, but I was imprisoned then attacked and left for dead, flew through a swarm of thousands of hostile aliens, you know, the usual run of the mill distractions."
"Lieutenant, I provide a holographic image of the fetus at 30 weeks gestation, I see no need to do one now." The Doctor somehow managed to sound insulted.
"I know, that is why this one is a gift from Uncle Tom. Oh, and Auntie B'Elanna did end up helping me, but just a little bit." Tom smirked and braced himself for a smack in the arm from B'Elanna.
B'Elanna went to stand beside Kathryn's biobed, opposite Chakotay.
"How's she doing Doctor?" Chakotay asked once the doctor had finished his scans.
"Well her body mass hasn't increased sufficiently but the baby looks healthy." The Doctor concluded.
"What do you mean, her body mass?" Chakotay was sure he knew what the Doctor meant but he wanted no room for doubt.
"She isn't gaining as much weight as is typically considered within normal range." He clarified.
"Not enough weight! I don't even fit in my uniforms anymore!" Kathryn was appalled; she wasn't far along enough to be that big yet. Chakotay gave her a stern look.
"Yes, well you are pregnant Captain, and at this stage you should be showing. At 19 weeks your uterus is roughly the size of a cantaloupe. "
Kathryn let out a frustrated sigh.
"Well I'll let you get to your holograph Mister Paris." And with that the Doctor busied himself with other things around sickbay, but never venturing too far to eavesdrop.
Tom linked his tricorder to the holoemitters in sickbay, punched in a few codes and scanned the Captians abdomen. Making a few adjustments more to make sure the image was of the baby and not surrounding tissues, he entered the commands to project the holographic image. As the image of the baby came into view a collection of gasps was heard.
With a wide grin and pride in his voice Tom said, "Congratulations Captain, it's a girl."
"She's beautiful." murmured Chakotay as he squeezed Kathryn's hand. Her eye's welling up with tears, she clasped her hand to his, almost as if she were afraid he'd let go.
"Her head is big." Countered B'Elanna.
"She's a fetus, Lieutenant, her head is supposed to be big in relation to her body." The Doctor replied.
"Tell me she's mine, Kathryn." Chakotay said softly ignoring B'Elanna and the Doctor.
The response was a unified disbelief and a chorus of "What!?" Even the Doctor's voice was included.
"Chakotay! You jerk! You're lucky she didn't stick you in the brig for life after what you did. She gave you another chance. The least you could do is not be such a petaQ this time!" B'Elanna looked like she wanted to tear him into little bits.
Kathryn lay on the biobed quietly, the tears that had filled her eyes earlier now starting to come down onto her face. She relaxed her grip on Chakotay's hand but didn't move, and so their hands remained together.
Chakotay continued addressing Kathryn, "Everyone here has referred to her as the baby, the child, your child, your baby, even your pregnancy. I haven't heard you, or anyone else for that matter, refer to her as mine or even ours, only yours Kathryn. Even Tom congratulated only you just now. I need you to say it, I want you to tell me I'm her father, that she's mine too, not just yours."
"You told me you weren't ready for a child. When Seska… remember? I didn't know I was pregnant then. When I told you I would never force anyone to be a father if they didn't want to be, or weren't ready to be, I meant it. She's only yours if you want her to be." Kathryn spoke carefully trying to keep her emotions out of her voice. This was something she normally didn't struggle with, but this pregnancy did strange things to her emotions.
Chakotay hadn't realized that there had been yet another misunderstanding driving a wedge between them. "I didn't feel I was ready, or sufficiently prepared, is a better way to put it, to raise a child that had been created against my will in that manner. I was afraid I would resent him. No child deserves that. But even then I wanted to protect him from Seska. When I found out he wasn't mine, I was disappointed. I realized that I was looking forward to being a father."
"Will you resent her, Chakotay? Being that you didn't plan for her existence?" Kathryn asked cautiously.
"No, of course not, Kathryn. The circumstances of her creation weren't the same. I love her mother, and I love her more than anything in the universe already." Chakotay's voice was soft and soothing. Kathryn felt an overwhelming sense of relief come over her.
"In that case; congratulations, Chakotay, you're going to be a father. I'm having your child; your daughter." She squeezed his hand tightly again and motioned with the other in the direction of the holographic image of the fetus.
As he gently wiped away the trails of tears on her cheeks he told her, "I love you, and you've just made me the happiest man in the delta quadrant."
As Chakotay leaned over to kiss her the doors to sickbay slid open and Harry Kim and Samantha Wildman walked in. In his arms Harry held Naomi Wildman who had a large red bump on her head and was testing the full capacity of her lungs. With a gasp the two Ensigns registered the meaning of what they saw; the holographic image of a baby, the Captain laying on a biobed, and Chakotay leaned over planting a kiss on the Captain's lips.