Disclaimer: Star Trek: Voyager belongs to Paramount Pictures.
Chapter 3: Stone, paper, scissors
San Francisco, August 20th 2379.
Kathryn opened the door to the house expecting to see unpacked boxes lined against the wall, but was pleasantly surprised to see that there weren't. She closed the door, and headed towards the kitchen. There were still unpacked boxes that lay scattered around, but she quickly noted that they had been placed near to where they needed to be unpacked. Moving over to the kettle, and filling it up she also noticed that the oven was on, obviously Chakotay was cooking something.
She heard footsteps, and immediately recognised them as Chakotay's, she turned and smiled at him, before turning the freshly filled kettle on. "I missed you," Chakotay said as he moved towards Kathryn, and looped his arms around her, kissing her the top of her head.
"Missed you too," she said as she brushed her lips against his, before disentangling herself from Chakotay and opening a cupboard, "would you like some coffee?" she asked as she removed a jar.
Chakotay pulled a face, "how much coffee have you had already today?"
"A few mugs," she tried to shake off the question.
"How many's a few?" he crossed his arms and leaned against the work surface.
"Less than I drank on voyager," she shrugged as she poured boiling water through the filter paper.
He pulled another face, "that's not really answering my question," they weren't joking, and he had the feeling that this conversation was about to erupt into an argument.
"Three, four, not that many," she still had her back to him, and purposely didn't turn round preferring to watch the black liquid pour steadily through the filter paper.
"Not that many!" his voice was rising slightly, "I thought that we'd discussed this already, that you were going to try and give up coffee!"
She turned round a little too sharply to be diplomatic, "I changed my mind," she said fiercely and restrained, "It's my life Chakotay, and if I want to drink coffee then I will!" She grabbed a mug and quickly poured the black liquid into it.
"Did you listen to nothing that the doctor said about giving up coffee?" he asked at she grabbed her mug and made her way passed him, "Kathryn, you know that coffee isn't good for the baby!"
"Fine!" she held a her hand in the air as she walked out of the kitchen, "I'll give up coffee and you can carry the baby," she left without turning round. He heard her walking up the stairs, probably to go to her office.
Sighing he took a quick look at the timer on the oven, and made his way also out of the kitchen. Immediately he returned to the house's first floor, and went back to painting the room that he and Kathryn had decided the baby would have.
Ten minutes into painting he heard Kathryn enter, but didn't look round, afraid to spark off another minor argument. Instead he concentrated on painting the ceiling from the ladder that he was standing on. "I'm sorry," he heard Kathryn apologise, but chose not to look round, "I didn't mean to get at you," she tried again, and this time he turned, but didn't climb down.
"So are you going to give up coffee?" he asked sceptically.
"I can try to drink less," she said honestly.
He studied her face, trying to decide whether such a compromise would be acceptable, "how much is less?" he asked.
"Two cups, three maximum," she offered, but only to get a frown, "okay, two maximum!" she gave up.
Chakotay relaxed his posture, "acceptable," he grinned.
"But I'm wearing one of your shirts to paint in," he heard her say as she disappeared from the door entrance, only to appear seconds later with one of his white shirts left unbuttoned over her own T-shirt.
The argument was forgotten, and they began to paint the room together. Half an hour into painting they heard the bell to the front door ring, exchanging a quick glance they both rushed out of the bedroom, and down the stairs. Chakotay ran straight to the kitchen and Kathryn rushed to the front door.
"Hi mum," said Tad as he stood at the door's entrance, then smelling smoke he added, "you haven't been trying to cook have you?"
Kathryn laughed, "no, it's Chakotay," she stepped back from the entrance to allow her son to enter.
"That poor child," Tad shook his head as he walked in, Kathryn closed the door quickly behind him, "my little brother or sister is going to grow up eating charcoal."
Smiling, Kathryn rushed towards the kitchen to give Chakotay a hand, "you turned out okay," she said without turning, leaving Tad in the hall to remove his coat. But getting to the kitchen she saw that he had the situation under control.
"It's okay," he said looking down at the burnt remains of potatoes on the work surface, "we'll just have to eat around the burnt bits."
Tad laughed and sat himself down on the edge of the table, "what happened?" he asked.
"We must not have heard the alarm," Kathryn looked down at the mess.
Tad looked at both his mum and Chakotay, and saw that they were both covered in paint, and knew better than to ask. Kathryn made her way over to her son and embraced him, "Chakotay," Tad nodded towards the man as he broke away from the embrace.
"Hi Tad," he said grabbing the oven tray in a tea towel and putting the charcoaled remains into the recycler.
Tad put both hands on Kathryn's pregnant stomach, crouching to kiss it, staying level he said, "I hope you know what you're letting yourself in for," before returning to his usual height.
"What time will your sister be here?" Kathryn asked on a slightly more serious note.
"Half an hour before me, and I'm on time, so she's half an hour late," Tad shrugged, "I know she was doing a test flight last night; I spoke to her just before she left, but she hasn't called me to say that she's back, so she might still be off shore."
Kathryn was getting used to this type of behaviour from her daughter, and to Tad it was second nature to turn up half an hour late to arrangements he had made with his sister, knowing that she would turn up at the same time he did, also half an hour late. "Shall we replicate?" Chakotay, broke them from their thoughts.
Before Kathryn could answer, Tad broke in with a suggestion of cooking a stir fry, and after no objections, Chakotay and Tad went about preparing it. As expected, late as usual, Felicity turned up at the house. From her own perspective though, she had turned up just in time, and dinner was just being served as she entered the kitchen. She hated turning up while the food was still being prepared, because she often found that she was hauled into helping in the kitchen, or doing some menial task which she detested. Tad gave her a superficial glare as she sat her self down, knowing full well that she had turned up late to avoid cooking. Being who she was she returned the glare, but broke into a snigger after some seconds of trying to keep a straight face.
It had become almost customary for the four of them to meet up at least once a week. However, Kathryn made an attempt to see her children more frequently, after not seeing her son for Seven years, and not having seen her daughter for thirteen years, she wanted to catch up on as much of their lives she had missed as was possible.
Although Felicity was genetically her daughter, Kathryn never felt a mother- child bond between her and Felicity, as she did with Tad. At first she thought it was just because of the time that they had spent apart, and she assumed that they would gradually rebuild a bond. But after some time, she realised that such a prospect was near impossible, and after thinking on the matter she realised that she had never been that strong a bond between her and her daughter to start off with. Even from when she was first born, to when she thought her daughter was dead, she never strongly felt connected in the way she thought she ought to. It wasn't just Kathryn who had noticed it, Chakotay and Tad had also, but Felicity had never expected there to be a bond, and so didn't seem to care that she was treated any differently from her brother.
"Can you remember when we were little," Tad looked over at Felicity, "and we used to do that like, signal thing before we ate mum's cooking?"
Felicity thought for a moment, "I think so," he said putting her fork back into her plate, "is it the one where we'd do stone, paper, scissors, or something before we ate?"
Tad nodded. "What's this?" Chakotay looked across at Tad, smiling, then at Kathryn, who just gave him a confused expression.
"Well," Tad turned to Chakotay, "we used to do this thing right, where we'd do stone, paper, scissors to decide who would eat mum's cooking first. Obviously loser went first," he added with a cheeky grin, "and then the one testing the food would give a signalled report on how good the food was." Tad pulled an earlobe, "this meant it's edible," he explained the action, "a cough meant one of us would cause a distraction while the other fed it to the dog, and then putting your hands together meant: prey because the dog's not going to eat it."
The table laughed, "my cooking wasn't that bad," Kathryn protested.
Tad looked away and coughed, as if to say that he disagreed, which just made then all crack up again. "Fortunately for you I didn't cook that often," she admitted her own failure.
Putting an arm around Kathryn's shoulders, Tad looked across at Chakotay, "that's why I always volunteered to cook," he explained.
Chakotay had always thought that if Kathryn ever had a daughter, then her daughter would be a lot like her. Although, in some ways Chakotay realised that Felicity was a lot like Kathryn, she was also very different. Physically, it was obvious that they were related, although Felicity was blond with dark brown eyes similar to her brother's, her figure was petit as was Kathryn's, and they both also shared distinctive widow's peaks at the front of their hairline's, to name but a few of their similar, physical characteristics.
Personality wise they were very different; Kathryn was always prompt and organised, whereas Felicity, was always late and slobby. Kathryn was compassionate, and empathetic, Felicity was the sort of person who would watch war films and comment on how it should have been done, and how unrealistic the torture was. However, there were characteristics that they did share, such as caffeine addiction, and love of science (although Felicity preferred practical science, and Kathryn preferred theory), also they both had a habit of fiddling while thinking, or planning.
"So when are you guys getting married?" Felicity stuck her foot in it, between mouthfuls of stir fry.
Kathryn and Chakotay exchanged a glance, searching each other for the correct answer. Tad, as always more sensitive to what other people thought, noticed their pause, "oh well done Flic," he said, giving his sister a look which told her that she shouldn't have asked the question, "now you've gone and got them started."
"I'm just asking what everyone else is thinking of asking," she pointed out.
"Who's everyone else?" Kathryn asked. They had all finished eating, except for Felicity who was still eating. That was another thing, Chakotay thought to himself, that Kathryn and her daughter differed on; Kathryn would eat only when she had to, whereas Felicity would eat when she could.
"Well, I think it was like, um, three days ago, I attended a lecture given by Sebastian Ockleford," she paused when the name she had mentioned received blank faces, "the first person ever to fly the DV749," again more blank faces, she decided to continue anyway. "So, there was a guy there, Tom Paris I think, from voyager, he was there with Harry Kim, and I overheard them talking. They were talking about some betting pool, I don't know, and apparently because no one knows when the two of you first got together, the person to win the bet, will be the one with the closest date to when the two of you decide to get married."
"A betting pool!" Tad sniggered, "was the delta quadrant really that boring?"
"Life is that boring," Felicity tried to ignore him, "so, I was thinking, maybe you could tell me first the date you are planning to get married, and I can enter the betting pool and win."
"I knew they were up to something," Kathryn said what Chakotay was thinking, and already plans were going through both of their minds on how they could confuse their former crew.
"So?" Felicity had finished with her plate.
Chakotay looked over at her, "if ever, then we probably won't get married until after the baby is born."
Kathryn nodded, "and I don't think you could enter anyway honey, you're not a member of the crew."
At this she rolled her eyes, "as if I hadn't already thought around that slight technical detail, where ever there's a rule, there's someone willing to take bribes," she quite openly lay out the perspective she had on life the universe and everything.
"I'm not even going to ask this time," Tad got up from the table with his plate and put it by the sink.
"This time?" Kathryn questioned.
Felicity shrugged, "ignore him, he's known me for too long. So, I need dates!"
~*~
End of chapter 3
Chapter 3: Stone, paper, scissors
San Francisco, August 20th 2379.
Kathryn opened the door to the house expecting to see unpacked boxes lined against the wall, but was pleasantly surprised to see that there weren't. She closed the door, and headed towards the kitchen. There were still unpacked boxes that lay scattered around, but she quickly noted that they had been placed near to where they needed to be unpacked. Moving over to the kettle, and filling it up she also noticed that the oven was on, obviously Chakotay was cooking something.
She heard footsteps, and immediately recognised them as Chakotay's, she turned and smiled at him, before turning the freshly filled kettle on. "I missed you," Chakotay said as he moved towards Kathryn, and looped his arms around her, kissing her the top of her head.
"Missed you too," she said as she brushed her lips against his, before disentangling herself from Chakotay and opening a cupboard, "would you like some coffee?" she asked as she removed a jar.
Chakotay pulled a face, "how much coffee have you had already today?"
"A few mugs," she tried to shake off the question.
"How many's a few?" he crossed his arms and leaned against the work surface.
"Less than I drank on voyager," she shrugged as she poured boiling water through the filter paper.
He pulled another face, "that's not really answering my question," they weren't joking, and he had the feeling that this conversation was about to erupt into an argument.
"Three, four, not that many," she still had her back to him, and purposely didn't turn round preferring to watch the black liquid pour steadily through the filter paper.
"Not that many!" his voice was rising slightly, "I thought that we'd discussed this already, that you were going to try and give up coffee!"
She turned round a little too sharply to be diplomatic, "I changed my mind," she said fiercely and restrained, "It's my life Chakotay, and if I want to drink coffee then I will!" She grabbed a mug and quickly poured the black liquid into it.
"Did you listen to nothing that the doctor said about giving up coffee?" he asked at she grabbed her mug and made her way passed him, "Kathryn, you know that coffee isn't good for the baby!"
"Fine!" she held a her hand in the air as she walked out of the kitchen, "I'll give up coffee and you can carry the baby," she left without turning round. He heard her walking up the stairs, probably to go to her office.
Sighing he took a quick look at the timer on the oven, and made his way also out of the kitchen. Immediately he returned to the house's first floor, and went back to painting the room that he and Kathryn had decided the baby would have.
Ten minutes into painting he heard Kathryn enter, but didn't look round, afraid to spark off another minor argument. Instead he concentrated on painting the ceiling from the ladder that he was standing on. "I'm sorry," he heard Kathryn apologise, but chose not to look round, "I didn't mean to get at you," she tried again, and this time he turned, but didn't climb down.
"So are you going to give up coffee?" he asked sceptically.
"I can try to drink less," she said honestly.
He studied her face, trying to decide whether such a compromise would be acceptable, "how much is less?" he asked.
"Two cups, three maximum," she offered, but only to get a frown, "okay, two maximum!" she gave up.
Chakotay relaxed his posture, "acceptable," he grinned.
"But I'm wearing one of your shirts to paint in," he heard her say as she disappeared from the door entrance, only to appear seconds later with one of his white shirts left unbuttoned over her own T-shirt.
The argument was forgotten, and they began to paint the room together. Half an hour into painting they heard the bell to the front door ring, exchanging a quick glance they both rushed out of the bedroom, and down the stairs. Chakotay ran straight to the kitchen and Kathryn rushed to the front door.
"Hi mum," said Tad as he stood at the door's entrance, then smelling smoke he added, "you haven't been trying to cook have you?"
Kathryn laughed, "no, it's Chakotay," she stepped back from the entrance to allow her son to enter.
"That poor child," Tad shook his head as he walked in, Kathryn closed the door quickly behind him, "my little brother or sister is going to grow up eating charcoal."
Smiling, Kathryn rushed towards the kitchen to give Chakotay a hand, "you turned out okay," she said without turning, leaving Tad in the hall to remove his coat. But getting to the kitchen she saw that he had the situation under control.
"It's okay," he said looking down at the burnt remains of potatoes on the work surface, "we'll just have to eat around the burnt bits."
Tad laughed and sat himself down on the edge of the table, "what happened?" he asked.
"We must not have heard the alarm," Kathryn looked down at the mess.
Tad looked at both his mum and Chakotay, and saw that they were both covered in paint, and knew better than to ask. Kathryn made her way over to her son and embraced him, "Chakotay," Tad nodded towards the man as he broke away from the embrace.
"Hi Tad," he said grabbing the oven tray in a tea towel and putting the charcoaled remains into the recycler.
Tad put both hands on Kathryn's pregnant stomach, crouching to kiss it, staying level he said, "I hope you know what you're letting yourself in for," before returning to his usual height.
"What time will your sister be here?" Kathryn asked on a slightly more serious note.
"Half an hour before me, and I'm on time, so she's half an hour late," Tad shrugged, "I know she was doing a test flight last night; I spoke to her just before she left, but she hasn't called me to say that she's back, so she might still be off shore."
Kathryn was getting used to this type of behaviour from her daughter, and to Tad it was second nature to turn up half an hour late to arrangements he had made with his sister, knowing that she would turn up at the same time he did, also half an hour late. "Shall we replicate?" Chakotay, broke them from their thoughts.
Before Kathryn could answer, Tad broke in with a suggestion of cooking a stir fry, and after no objections, Chakotay and Tad went about preparing it. As expected, late as usual, Felicity turned up at the house. From her own perspective though, she had turned up just in time, and dinner was just being served as she entered the kitchen. She hated turning up while the food was still being prepared, because she often found that she was hauled into helping in the kitchen, or doing some menial task which she detested. Tad gave her a superficial glare as she sat her self down, knowing full well that she had turned up late to avoid cooking. Being who she was she returned the glare, but broke into a snigger after some seconds of trying to keep a straight face.
It had become almost customary for the four of them to meet up at least once a week. However, Kathryn made an attempt to see her children more frequently, after not seeing her son for Seven years, and not having seen her daughter for thirteen years, she wanted to catch up on as much of their lives she had missed as was possible.
Although Felicity was genetically her daughter, Kathryn never felt a mother- child bond between her and Felicity, as she did with Tad. At first she thought it was just because of the time that they had spent apart, and she assumed that they would gradually rebuild a bond. But after some time, she realised that such a prospect was near impossible, and after thinking on the matter she realised that she had never been that strong a bond between her and her daughter to start off with. Even from when she was first born, to when she thought her daughter was dead, she never strongly felt connected in the way she thought she ought to. It wasn't just Kathryn who had noticed it, Chakotay and Tad had also, but Felicity had never expected there to be a bond, and so didn't seem to care that she was treated any differently from her brother.
"Can you remember when we were little," Tad looked over at Felicity, "and we used to do that like, signal thing before we ate mum's cooking?"
Felicity thought for a moment, "I think so," he said putting her fork back into her plate, "is it the one where we'd do stone, paper, scissors, or something before we ate?"
Tad nodded. "What's this?" Chakotay looked across at Tad, smiling, then at Kathryn, who just gave him a confused expression.
"Well," Tad turned to Chakotay, "we used to do this thing right, where we'd do stone, paper, scissors to decide who would eat mum's cooking first. Obviously loser went first," he added with a cheeky grin, "and then the one testing the food would give a signalled report on how good the food was." Tad pulled an earlobe, "this meant it's edible," he explained the action, "a cough meant one of us would cause a distraction while the other fed it to the dog, and then putting your hands together meant: prey because the dog's not going to eat it."
The table laughed, "my cooking wasn't that bad," Kathryn protested.
Tad looked away and coughed, as if to say that he disagreed, which just made then all crack up again. "Fortunately for you I didn't cook that often," she admitted her own failure.
Putting an arm around Kathryn's shoulders, Tad looked across at Chakotay, "that's why I always volunteered to cook," he explained.
Chakotay had always thought that if Kathryn ever had a daughter, then her daughter would be a lot like her. Although, in some ways Chakotay realised that Felicity was a lot like Kathryn, she was also very different. Physically, it was obvious that they were related, although Felicity was blond with dark brown eyes similar to her brother's, her figure was petit as was Kathryn's, and they both also shared distinctive widow's peaks at the front of their hairline's, to name but a few of their similar, physical characteristics.
Personality wise they were very different; Kathryn was always prompt and organised, whereas Felicity, was always late and slobby. Kathryn was compassionate, and empathetic, Felicity was the sort of person who would watch war films and comment on how it should have been done, and how unrealistic the torture was. However, there were characteristics that they did share, such as caffeine addiction, and love of science (although Felicity preferred practical science, and Kathryn preferred theory), also they both had a habit of fiddling while thinking, or planning.
"So when are you guys getting married?" Felicity stuck her foot in it, between mouthfuls of stir fry.
Kathryn and Chakotay exchanged a glance, searching each other for the correct answer. Tad, as always more sensitive to what other people thought, noticed their pause, "oh well done Flic," he said, giving his sister a look which told her that she shouldn't have asked the question, "now you've gone and got them started."
"I'm just asking what everyone else is thinking of asking," she pointed out.
"Who's everyone else?" Kathryn asked. They had all finished eating, except for Felicity who was still eating. That was another thing, Chakotay thought to himself, that Kathryn and her daughter differed on; Kathryn would eat only when she had to, whereas Felicity would eat when she could.
"Well, I think it was like, um, three days ago, I attended a lecture given by Sebastian Ockleford," she paused when the name she had mentioned received blank faces, "the first person ever to fly the DV749," again more blank faces, she decided to continue anyway. "So, there was a guy there, Tom Paris I think, from voyager, he was there with Harry Kim, and I overheard them talking. They were talking about some betting pool, I don't know, and apparently because no one knows when the two of you first got together, the person to win the bet, will be the one with the closest date to when the two of you decide to get married."
"A betting pool!" Tad sniggered, "was the delta quadrant really that boring?"
"Life is that boring," Felicity tried to ignore him, "so, I was thinking, maybe you could tell me first the date you are planning to get married, and I can enter the betting pool and win."
"I knew they were up to something," Kathryn said what Chakotay was thinking, and already plans were going through both of their minds on how they could confuse their former crew.
"So?" Felicity had finished with her plate.
Chakotay looked over at her, "if ever, then we probably won't get married until after the baby is born."
Kathryn nodded, "and I don't think you could enter anyway honey, you're not a member of the crew."
At this she rolled her eyes, "as if I hadn't already thought around that slight technical detail, where ever there's a rule, there's someone willing to take bribes," she quite openly lay out the perspective she had on life the universe and everything.
"I'm not even going to ask this time," Tad got up from the table with his plate and put it by the sink.
"This time?" Kathryn questioned.
Felicity shrugged, "ignore him, he's known me for too long. So, I need dates!"
~*~
End of chapter 3