Rumors and Stomach Bugs
Kathryn picked the cups of tea up off of the replicator pad and proceeded towards the upper level of her ready room, where Chakotay was standing, mutely. She asked him to join her after a long and tiring sift on the bridge. The last few days had been quiet, almost too quiet for the Captain's taste and she'd found herself making subtle observations about her crew. She handed Chakotay the cup of tea he requested, and said, "The crew is more comfortable talking to you then me, but I made an observation this morning and I was wondering if you'd made the same one."
Chakotay raised an inquistive eyebrow. "Oh? What observation was that?"
"Tom and Sarah were sitting shoulder to shoulder."
"Shoulder to shoulder? I'm sorry, Captain, I don't think I'm following. Tom and Sarah always sit next to each other, unless of course one is mad at the other."
A crafty grin spread across her face. "Don't play stupid with me, Chakotay. You're closer to the crew than I am, and even I have heard the rumors. Are you feigning ignorance to protect them?"
Chakotay looked partially baffled. "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be protecting them from—you?"
Kathryn chuckled softly. "The rumor does insist that they're keeping their relationship a secret in fear that I'l court martial them."
"You can't believe every rumor you hear, Kathryn."
"What do you believe?"
Chakotay paused and took a long sip of his tea. What did he believe? He very much believed that Sarah and Tom were in a relationship and doing their best on a small ship to hide said relationship. He hadn't thought much about the two of them until Neelix had burst into his office one day asking that Chakotay discipline Tom for flirting with Kes. Chakotay had decided to indulge him and told Neelix he'd handle it. What he found was Tom and Sarah laughing and joking and looking more like a couple than friends in the mess hall. Added to the fact that Sarah's face had lost color considerably when Kathryn joked about the crew pairing off after the first officer had witnessed the couple in the turbo lift. "I believe...there's more to the story than we know."
She lowered her body down onto the teal sofa, noticing that Chakotay paused before he followed suit. " Our circumstances are quite different out here. It seems your concerns about fraternization were…prophetic," she told him with a small smile. "Maybe it's time to start rethinking Starfleet's policy, maybe it's time that we tweak to our needs."
" We should consider the fact that it might be necessary for the crew to start having children."
"It might take us a long time to get home."
"If it does take seventy-five years, we're going to need replacement crew in about half that time," Chakotay said, searching her eyes.
Kathryn let out a sigh, her face conveying a string of emotions and he noticed tears trying to creep into the corners of her eyes. "Who knew we would be considering a generational ship when we were originally ordered on a three week mission?"
"I know, but it's a problem we have to face now."
She was silent for a moment, studying her glass coffee table. "What would that mean for the children?" she asked him, rhetorically. It had been a question she had been struggling with since she had stranded her ship so far from home, and facing the prospect of raising her children on a starship. And even though she had found childcare in the form Tal and a teacher in Sarah, it was only a fix for a couple of children, not a whole generation. "What kind of life would we be giving them, aboard a starship, traveling through potentially hostile space? And are we equipped to provide for their needs? Childcare, educational facilities, we'd be building an entire community onboard this ship. That's a massive commitment."
"What if Tom and Sarah come to you, ask to be married? Are you prepared to tell them they can't have children?"
Kathryn shook her head. "I can't do that, not when I've got my own children on board with me but…there aren't any easy answers here." She placed her cup down onto the coffee table, noticing movement out of the corner of her eye as the port doors to the room slid open and Michael came in pulling Ava by the hand.
"Ava's sick," the boy said, looking rather disgusted at his sister.
Kathryn pressed her eyes shut for a brief second. "Did you take her to the Doctor?"
"She didn't want to go to the Doctor," Michael replied, stepping into the room further.
His mother and the commander exchanged bemused glances. Kathryn opened her arms and gestured for Ava to come and sit on her lap. The toddler let go of her brother's hand and climbed up the steps and onto her mother's lap; Michael, happy to be released of his charge, scampered off to go play while Kathryn snuggled Ava into her arms. "What's the matter my little bird?"
"Tummy," the toddler replied, rubbing a hand over her stomach. "It hurts."
Kathryn immediately, almost instinctively it appeared to Chakotay, emptied the vase of flowers on her coffee table, water and all, onto the floor, and leaned the toddler into the vase. As if on cue, Ava vomited up whatever she'd eaten that day, Kathryn rubbing her back soothingly. Then she smiled at Chakotay, "could I really deny them this particular joy of parenthood?"
Chakotay suddenly realized that she could not. He laughed softly. "I'll start working on rotating the crew through child rearing training."
As Ava sputtered and vomited again, Kathryn frowned, "No amount of training is going to prepare them for this."
"And just when you thought it was too quiet in this region of space."
"Well, my mother always said be careful what you wish for."
Teaser:
He wasn't nearly as shocked now when he saw who he was facing now then he had been when they had first shown up on the shuttle's sensors. Tom knew that he was walking on thin ice and he wished he had half the negotiating skills that Sarah had, however, she was back on Voyager, blissfully unaware of the danger that he was in at that very moment.
