Disclaimer: All credit for characters (sans Erin), technobabble ad infinitum goes to Paramount and whoever else got their foot in the door on that one. As for me, I own nothing, not even the screwy idea of kids with three parents. (That has actually happened. The procedure probably even has a proper name, and a fertility specialist who must be credited with it, so, whoever you are, thanks for providing fanfic fodder)



Chapter Eight



The general rule for those working in the offices on level thirteen of Starfleet Headquarters was: walk softly and carry a big stick . . . possibly a phaser rifle if it was one of Captain Kathryn's bad days. No one had the guts to suggest she take her maternity leave, not even Erin Lange. The Captain was perhaps two weeks from her due date, and showing all the expected girth of a mother of twins. Of course she could hardly injure herself doing desk work, but most expectant Starfleet officers took their leave long before two weeks.

For some reason, she had become very waspish of late. Some women were like that throughout their pregnancy, as Erin knew, but somehow it had come up unexpectedly one day, and everyone had been treading lightly since. The poor intern cadets who ran files around lived in fear of their lives. Captain Janeway was already a legend with the younger set, even with the older set, but a pregnant, bad-tempered Captain Janeway added whole new dimensions of terror to the tales, with or without the Death Glare.

Erin Lange was a good-natured sort who would take verbal abuse if she knew it wasn't really intended for her. She supposed that was why she had been assigned to be the Captain's secretary. She did, however, have to grind her teeth and bear it on occasion when the Captain was having a particularly bad day. Bad days being a headache, a backache, any other possible kind of ache, a pile of work, the constant calls from the other mother of the babies, and the added dimension of having two active infants playing soccer tournaments with her internal organs.

However, Captain Kathryn appeared to be in a decent mood. Erin breathed a little easier . . . that much more so when she heard her senior officer laugh at something in the other room.

"May I inquire, Captain?" she called lightly, hoping she would take it the way she used to.

"Sure," came the amiable reply. "It's Icheb's Academy report. I don't understand why they just don't give that young man four pips, a ship, a good crew and send him on his merry way into the record books. He's making every cadet class in history look like a bunch of dunces."

Erin had met Icheb -a very serious, intelligent young man, not all that much younger than herself. At first, his somewhat didactic manner had disconcerted her, until she met Seven of Nine immediately after, who was even worse when dealing with strangers. Captain Kathryn insisted that in familiar surroundings, Seven acted quite naturally. Erin had her doubts on that score. Of course, it was not her place to speculate.

"Not to impugn on him, but he needs better personal interaction skills."

There was a snort. "Maybe, but the Vulcans do fine, don't they?"

"You're right, of course, Captain."

It always came down to admitting that. Captain Kathryn was a total "jusqu'au bout" arguer . . . she never stood down on anything unless she could be proven, without doubt, wrong. That was rarely possible, at least not for her mundane self. She learned something from her superior every day, in that fashion. It was good mental exercise, even if she always lost.

Starfleet was Erin's life . . . mostly on account of the fact that she was what could be termed as a "Starfleet brat." She'd been born on a Federation science ship, the child of two crew members there. She'd gone to the Academy willingly, and lived on tales of James T. Kirk and his crew, of Captain Picard who was yet serving, and more recently on those stories of Voyager, even though they had not yet acquired the mystique of some, due to the recentness of those exploits. And then she'd become Captain Kathryn Janeway's secretary, which had stuck her in some sort of bemused zone for months . . . until she found out the Captain really wasn't so untouchable as the official reports made her out to be.

She respected the Captain's wish not to release her personal logs. She would have done the same in her place, most likely, but still, the official comings and goings of Voyager were somehow . . . dry. Especially in the face of all the rampant familial feeling all the people from that crew exuded when they were in contact with each other. So many stories that had escaped "official." It was not her business, unless someone chose to tell her.

All she understood of late was that the very same familial feeling she had come to recognize in them had tangled Captain Kathryn into offering to be a surrogate mother to Commander Chakotay and Seven of Nine's children. With the added magnitude of being a partial parent herself, due to old medical science. As an outsider, she was not privy to such things, and nor should she be, but she perceived that it had gradually produced unwanted stress between the Captain and her former First Officer . . . with Seven of Nine apparently blissfully unaware as she prepared to become a mother.

Of course, it wasn't her business, but she was a secretary, and that position provided her with an odd, oblique view of events. She thought perhaps that Captain Kathryn's dark moods could be attributed to that pervading stress that hung in the air whenever the Commander entered the office . . . which was less often of late for the same reason.

Erin mentally kicked herself. What was happening there was not her business. What was her business was to help the Captain in an official capacity. She was an aide, as the job description had said when she had first had it offered to her.

"Hey, Erin, would you mind getting a tea for me, or something?" came the request through the open door.

"Of course, Captain," she replied, rising. "But it will have to be decaffeinated."

There was an almost audible rolling of eyes, the silence replete with complaint.

"No stimulants, you know that," Erin said as she entered, moving to the small replicator beside the door. The replicator was not far from the desk, but one of the Captain's few -very few- admissions of discomfort had been to say that rising often from her chair was troublesome. Erin had happily assumed the role of gopher, knowing that she could at least spare the somewhat encumbered officer that. The tea shimmered into view.

"Well, what good is it then?" Captain Kathryn demanded, setting down the padd she had been working on to accept the drink.

"Maybe it will help your nerves," Erin said neutrally, fighting not to smile at her cantankerous charge.

"Huh. My nerves are fine," the Captain stated, taking a sip from the steaming cup. "On the other hand, I think I have broken ribs."

"Active today?"

"And yesterday and last night and probably tomorrow! They're getting restless, I think."

"Only two weeks . . ."

"Don't remind me."

"Most women want it over with at this stage. I know my sister did, before she gave birth to my niece," Erin said thoughtfully.

The Captains expression flickered, she looked downward. What had that been in her eyes? Regret? "Not that I'll mind not having to carry them around all day, or that I'll be able to sleep on my stomach . . . but, I've sort of gotten used to it, I think. All this enforced healthy eating, even the kicking . . . not to mention the interesting complexion changes."

"The mother's glow."

The Captain rolled her eyes. "Skin pigment increase, due to the vagaries of my pituitary gland and all the lovely blood chemicals provided by it. No, I will not miss the hormones . . . or my sore chest. Ah. I'm going to have to ask the Doctor about that."

"You'll not be breastfeeding?" Dumb question! They weren't her children . . .

"Just the colostrum, I think, or whatever the Obs call it."

Erin shrugged, not knowing what she meant. "I don't know anything about it."

"Ever thought of having children, Erin?"

She shook her head. "No. I don't think so."

"Hmm. You're like I was . . . until I got engaged, then I thought about it . . . but there were exceptional circumstances both times. Then there was a swarm of aliens that took a liking to Voyager, and I started thinking again, even though I knew that on Voyager, it was impossible. And then there was Seven, but I suppose this is different. They aren't mine." That was said with a little sigh, patting her distended abdomen. Did the Captain regret that they were not her babies?

"Well, in the technical sense, they are, and you'll always be a part of their lives, won't you? It's not as if it's anonymous hosting, or anything."

"That's true," Captain Kathryn stated. "And Seven will need help."

"And you'll have all that maternity leave, should you choose to take it."

"Ha! Seven and I can trade places."

"Pardon?"

"She's been over at my house for most of this whole thing. I think it's my turn to stand over her shoulder wherever she goes."

Erin wagged a finger. "I'm sure she'll be stressed enough without having to fear doing you some disservice."

The Captain looked mildly offended, but her tone was amiable when she replied. "Am I really so threatening? Does everyone think I find fault in everything?"

"I don't, but those who don't know you as well liken you to Professor Chapman."

"Who?"

"Instructor Chapman, science instructor at the academy, very exacting."

"I'm getting old. I don't even know half the instructors anymore . . . or else I served with them when they were younger. Tell me this Chapman I am likened to is not some wizened old man."

"Actually, she's a fifty-year-old blonde with a tendency to blush a lot, but she's not at all like you. Not so much exacting as just plain mean spirited, I think."

"And probably not as wide as a house," the captain commented wryly.

"You manage to outdo us all in that department," Erin replied, with a wry grin to match the Captain's and a mock salute. She should take advantage of the good mood while she could.

The older woman laughed. "Such sauce, Lieutenant! I introduced you to Tom Paris, right?"

"No. I understand he left rather abruptly."

"Too bad . . . or maybe fortunate. You two could be a holy terror if you set your minds to it. Though I must hand it to you, you're a lot more tactful than he ever was. Somehow, you manage to remind me of someone different every day."

"Feeling nostalgic, Captain?"

Captain Kathryn sighed, looking out the window into the rain. It was just the beginning of April, and the weather was seeing fit to dump buckets of water on everything this week, even though the last had been fine. Erin worried at intervals that the Captain would slip somewhere and do herself injury, but she always arrived at work safely.

"Oh, damn, Erin, when am I not nostalgic? I can barely stand to know that my ship is a museum . . . it's so lifeless. Is it hypocritical of me?"

"Is what?"

"To have lived on that ship for seven years, trying to get home . . . and when I finally do, thinking of that same blasted ship as home? Here I am on Earth, and I'm missing the holodeck programs Tom made to try and recreate it for us."

She didn't seem as melancholy about it as she had at other times. All she seemed to be searching for was an opinion, which was safe enough. "I don't think so, Captain. You're all very attached to that ship, I think. It was your home. What's hypocritical about missing your home? It's like anyone else. When I lived with my parents, all I ever wanted was to come to San Francisco and join Starfleet, and I did . . . but sometimes when I'm here, I miss the place I grew up in. It's not exactly the same, but it works, doesn't it?"

"Poor Naomi is still so terribly homesick."

"I sympathize. I was born on a ship too. I grew up hearing almost nothing but exobiology all day. I had a firm grasp on the thirteen classes of mitochondria in copper-boron-based life forms by the time I was five. I miss it, even if it wasn't always the best of places."

Captain Kathryn smiled slightly. "There's no life like that of the Starfleet brat. I was a quantum physics sort of child . . . and biology, but that came later."

"What about Naomi?"

"Kadis Kot and Astrometrics, since she wouldn't leave Seven alone if she didn't attend to both. We all taught her what she could, I've never asked Sam how she's done in school, but I'm assuming well. She's terribly bright."

"Must have been the company she kept."

"Too much adult interaction, I think. She's an old soul, sometimes."

Captain Kathryn looked beyond her to the door, and her thoughtful expression immediately turned to one of deepest censure as she rose. Erin turned to see what she was taking such exception to, and saw in the doorway of the office a very tired-looking, very damp Seven of Nine.

The Captain stalked over to the other woman, flexing her hands at her sides. "Seven, what the hell were you doing out in this sort of weather?! And without a proper jacket or anything?! Why didn't you just call and-"

Seven of Nine stood there resolutely, dripping rainwater on the carpet. Erin knew the Captain's concern was well founded. The other woman could not afford to endanger her health that way . . . a mere chill could develop into something far more serious in a matter of hours, given the chance. Erin went back to the replicator, and retrieved a towel.

"I wanted . . . to clarify something," Seven said tensely, gazing at the Captain with slight, cold uncertainty. This was the woman Captain Kathryn insisted could act so naturally? Wordlessly, Erin extended the towel, but it was declined with a curt gesture

"What, Seven?" the Captain demanded. "And take the damn towel!"

Seven didn't do as she was told, merely looked down at the Captain.

Erin left the towel and scuttled outside, closing the door . . . even if she was painfully and inappropriately curious as to what Seven needed to have clarified.



To be continued

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