Disclaimer: Paramount, Paramount, Paramount!
Chapter Three
"You mean to tell me, oh King of All Things Twentieth Century American, that your family isn't even from America?" B'Elanna demanded incredulously. "And here I was wondering how you'd ever managed to find out about this place."
Tom looked slightly affronted from where he sat, eyeing her suspiciously. "Well I was born in California, but no, the greater part of my family wasn't American. And why does it matter? They were certainly North American. Norther American than the Americans. Geography doesn't matter. History's history."
"So how did you find out about this place?" she asked. "I didn't think there was any place on Earth left that was so isolated. Not that I don't like it. The lake's lovely."
"Never doubt the deterrence of a winter spent in the Precambrian Shield," he said piously. "I knew this place because my father used to drag me up here to go fishing all the time."
"Fishing?"
"Yes, fishing. I hated it. That, and I understand I've got some very removed cousins around here."
"The wonders never cease."
"Thank you."
"So is there a difference, may I ask, my displaced Canuck?"
He made a face at her for the moniker. That was probably the most annoying national nickname ever invented. "Chesterfields."
"What?"
"Exactly."
She rolled her eyes at him and continued her attempts at stuffing their active one-year-old into a jacket, with the intent of taking her for a walk. Their daughter was protesting the intrusion at the top of her considerable lungs. She had always had her mother's capacity for extended hollering, only the baby didn't yell about warp cores. At least not yet.
K'Athra rolled her eyes towards him, beseeching. She didn't have much of a grasp on language yet, but her voice was quite penetrating at times. "Daaaa!" she squealed. "Daaa!" That was her version of "save me from my maniacal mother," but he was no help in that department. Her maniacal mother was his maniacal wife.
"Sorry, kid, can't help you or she'll get me too."
"Daaaa! Maa!" and off she went into her regular babble, trying to tug away. She was not yet a master of running either, and was never going to escape no mater how hard she tried.
Tom felt great sympathy for his daughter, but bided his time. K'Athra would get back at her mother yet, once some of her Klingon traits set in, and she got her legs under her. Wouldn't B'Elanna have a high old time chasing her around? He winced. Like as not, he would be drafted into chasing duty.
One thing that this area didn't have going for it was the shuttle-craft-sized mosquitoes that in warmer months never left off. How had he forgotten the mosquitoes? Or the hummingbirds that buzzed by one's head at regular intervals and scared the hell out of him . . . mostly because they sounded like big mosquitoes.
The area was developed, per se, but there wasn't a transporter hub for fifty kilometres in any direction. They did have neighbours, but no one really cared about why they were there . . . if they'd noticed his half-Klingon wife and quarter-Klingon daughter at all. It was bloody hard to miss seeing B'Elanna, so he opted for the conclusion that no one cared to intrude. He liked that about the people here, always had. They never asked stupid questions . . . nor did the myriad retired Starfleet personnel in the area care to say anything to that organization. He didn't want to deal with his father, not yet. Not until he was sure K'Athra was big enough to give him a hard time too. He grinned at the thought.
The house they had acquired was not large, almost a cottage, but it was well suited to him. B'Elanna didn't seem to care, as long as she had a replicator and a computer to mess around on. That they did. They had a vidphone, as well, but only a choice few knew the number.
The only thing he really missed was flying. There was no way he could get clearance for a craft without having his name plastered all over the application files that the Federation loved so dearly.
The phone bleeped insistently, and B'Elanna abandoned the jacket idea in favour of punching a finger at the small console. There appeared the somewhat drained visage of Kathryn Janeway. Tom grimaced eloquently, knowing her news. She only got that look at certain times.
B'Elanna was also aware, and sank with a thump into the chair in front of the phone console, rubbing a hand over her forehead. "Again?" she said, anger creeping into her voice.
The Captain nodded. "Yes. Sorry I didn't call sooner. I've been . . . occupied."
"I can imagine. How is he? How is she?"
"Like the first time, only worse. This did it in for her. She had to have a hysterectomy."
"They still do that?"
"Yes. B'Elanna, I know it's probably difficult, but you should come down. Just you. I doubt Chakotay could handle seeing K'Athra right now, and I know Tom wouldn't want to be down here . . . Not that I'm saying I think you don't care, Tom." The image of the Captain glanced apologetically in his direction.
Chakotay and Seven.
Somehow, that had never seemed right to him. The names, said in congruence, gave him a bad feeling. Not that he didn't wish them the best -God knew they deserved some sort of respite by now- but yet, it had never seemed right. The reason for that inkling was staring at them wanly through a comm line.
Even now Tom wasn't sure about the Captain. Upon first meeting her, he had been struck by the pure presence she possessed. In spite of her small stature, she always seemed to dominate any room she walked into. Somehow she managed to add two feet of height and a hundred years' worth of knowledge to herself by simply moving her hand a certain way, or glaring just so. It had always discomfited him, that presence behind him on the bridge. It wasn't a benign thing, not all the time.
"I'll come," B'Elanna said emphatically, loyal to both her captains until the bitter end. She was like that. She held grudges and loyalties forever. It was an aspect of her he admired. Somehow she affected that Klingon honour so well, but without affecting that ever-so-much-holier-than-thou attitude that sometimes went with it. She was just B'Elanna.
"Thank you, B'Elanna. It will mean a lot to him."
"I know. No problem. Goodbye, Kathryn. I'll see you in a couple hours."
"Goodbye."
B'Elanna switched the console off, rising from her chair muttering to herself and running a hand through her hair. She looked at him, expression somehow pained and angry and something else all at once. "You'll stay with, K'Ath, right?"
"Of course, but B'Elanna, how will I . . . I know she eats cereal, but I'm not exactly equipped for the other part."
She shrugged, off in her own little world. "Replicate something," she said, heading slowly towards the bedroom to pack.
***
They sat there, both red eyed, both calmer, but outwardly showing everything she felt . . . what she stomped down mercilessly. She . . . did not . . . want . . . to feel. Once again -one more time of many over the years- she wished to sink herself into automatic, mechanical oblivion. She wanted someone to tell her what to do.
She wanted to be alone; she wanted company. Grief liked company, she had noticed. Towering rage did not, and she had both roiling under her forcibly blank mind. She didn't want to think, she wanted to scream.
The Captain and the Commander. Kathryn and Chakotay. They sat there, looking unaccountably hurt by her resolute silence. She didn't care. Irrelevant.
Not irrelevant. Painful. His eyes were no longer so empty, the Captain had said something to him, but what was there was only mildly less awful. She had caused this. This was what she got for throwing caution and logic to the wind in favour of some base, trivial Human need for procreation. Two potential lives lost, nearly her own as well, and what was left of Chakotay's battered soul out the window. Who was she to toy with such things like that, the ignorant pedant she was? She was the irrelevant one, and in her struggle for purpose she had hurt them.
Hurt the Captain in some basic way. The Captain. Saviour, mentor, surrogate mother . . .
Rival.
Hurt the Captain, because she had hurt Chakotay. Reckless, Seven of Nine. You are reckless, weak even before you weakened yourself physically. She should have stuck with her would-be keepers. The Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One had killed children also, under the influence of a basic, thoughtless purpose. Was Seven of Nine, Annika Hansen the Human, so very different from that? She had become what she had escaped and ultimately come to loathe.
She knew she had left everyone alone now, but the cold part of her didn't care. She was alone, wasn't she? Chakotay tried, but he didn't understand all of it. Alone, more so than she had ever been. It was not entirely based in the Borg, but certainly some of it was. She had harboured some sort of seething resentment her whole life. For what? Voyager, the Borg, her parents, Axom, the Queen . . . the Captain. She ultimately resented the Captain even as she considered the other woman her first real friend in the Universe. She had that low hatred for everyone who intruded on her, especially and poignantly that of the Collective. But not Chakotay. His intrusion was the considerate kind, even when she did not fully want it either.
Did he know that? And if he did, would he . . . ?
There were always two sides to everything. Seven and Annika warred.
She needed someone to tell her what to do.
The obvious candidate for that was silent, having apparently decided that her voice would be an intrusion on the aching silence in the room. So the Captain merely added her own to it, and gazed on, frowning pensively at nothing. She was thinking, hard.
There was a knock at the door, and the Captain rose immediately and cracked it open as quietly as she could, looking outside. Some low words were exchanged and she turned her face back in, looking at Chakotay.
"B'Elanna's here," she murmured.
That was the first time Seven had seen his expression improve since she had awoken. It only improved slightly. Yes, B'Elanna. They were close. She would help him. At least he was not alone, like she was. He left to room almost reluctantly though, his gaze lingering on her until the Captain shut the door.
Seven blinked in slight surprise as the Captain began to pace beside the bed, frowning that much deeper and glancing at her periodically . . . until she stopped, heaving a great sigh.
"Seven, I know you're not in the mood for talking, but I have been thinking about something. This is important. I need you to listen to me."
Important things in the space of a few hours. Typical.
"You don't need to tell me what you think until you want to, but I thought I should throw this by you first, because Chakotay won't like it unless you do. All right? Will you listen?"
The Captain. She nodded wordlessly. The Captain had an idea. Something to be done. Function. Purpose. Goal? The obvious candidate for direction had come through, and some of Seven's lingering resentment dispelled.
To be continued.
***