Disclaimer: Star Trek: Voyager belongs to Paramount Pictures.
Chapter 15 : Coffee at midnight
Egypt, November 2nd 2379.
Her breathing had shallowed and her crying ebbed, but Chakotay waited a little longer, kissing her forehead and gently caressing her arm. "I'm sorry," he said at last, "it was too soon, I should have waited."
Kathryn reached out and placed her hand on the back of his head, bringing her self up from his chest to kiss him tenderly on the lips, "don't be sorry," she said softly, "I love you, this is what I wanted."
"You were crying Kathryn, I hate to see you like that, I hate even more to think that you were crying because of me," he placed a hand on her cheek and tucked some loose strands of hair behind her ear. Then moving him self closer to her, "talk to me," his voice was barely a whisper but it had all of his strength behind him.
"I shouldn't have left him," Kathryn said at last, "that afternoon at the memorial service, he said that something bad would happen if I left him, and it did. He had been thinking about doing it, and my just leaving him there to deal with it alone just made it worse."
"Something happened to him Kathryn, I don't think that it would have made any difference whether you had have stayed with him or not," Chakotay insisted, holding her close.
"No, you don't understand," Kathryn pulled away from him and sat up in their bed, "I did make it worse!"
Chakotay sat up also, reaching out for Kathryn, fearing that she was becoming hysterical, "Kath-"
He tried to calm her down but she interrupted, "I did the same thing last time, I just left him to deal with it alone, seeing him upset just made losing Felicity harder for me to deal with. I'm nothing more than a coward, I sent my son to boarding school when he needed me the most-"
"Calm down Kathryn!" Chakotay raised his voice to override hers.
"Chakotay you're not listening!" She couldn't bear it any longer and broke down crying.
The pain Chakotay felt at seeing her like this, someone might as well have been stabbing him in the chest. "I am listening," he moved to her on the bed and put his arms securely around her, "I always listen, I always have done and always will. And now I'm trying to make you listen to yourself, to understand what you're saying the way I do." She relaxed slightly in his arms, although he could still see tears falling down her cheeks glinting slightly in the moonlight.
"You were there for Tad all those years ago when you were told that Felicity was dead, as much as you could have been under the circumstances," he rocked her gently in his arms, "and Tad knows that. You think you're a bad mother because sometimes you were too scared to deal with your children- well how do you think I feel every time I see Aaron? I'm terrified, I'm so worried Kathryn that one day I'm going to let him down and he'll grow up thinking that I've failed him as a father."
"You'll never do that Chakotay," her voice was soft and steady now.
"How do I know that the day I can't make it to his school play, won't be the day that he decides that he doesn't love me?" Kathryn turned round and faced Chakotay putting a hand on his upper arm. "Or the day I shout at him for not coming home until well past midnight and causing us to worry all night, won't be that day that he runs off and joins a terrorist organisation?" He continued.
"Chakotay," Kathryn interrupted, "let's make a deal now that I'll always be the parent that screws up."
But he shook his head, "not this time Kathryn, apparently you've have twenty five years of being the screw up parent, it's my turn this time." She reached out and held his face in her hands, placing a soft kiss on his lips, Chakotay smiled down at her, relieved that she had calmed down. "The point I'm trying to make is that you never screwed up, Tad loves you, he probably doesn't idolise you," Chakotay added with a grin, "but he respects you, and at the end of the day you must have been doing something right amid all of those mistakes, because he hasn't got a bad word to say against you."
"Really?" Kathryn looked up and met Chakotay's eyes, and was almost overwhelmed by the love for her that she saw in them.
He nodded his head, "really," he confirmed. "And I love you," he ran his hand down her back, "and I'm sure Felicity loved you in her own unorganised way, and Aaron loves you, and I know that our son is never going to feel unloved by either of us, so stop questioning yourself!"
Kathryn nodded, "I love you," she leant up and kissed him again on the lips, before breaking away from him and climbing off from the bed.
"Where are you going?" Chakotay watched as she crossed the room.
"I just want to check on Aaron," she said grabbing her silk robe from the hook, and then slipping it over her shoulders, tying the silk cord securely around her waist, emphasising her figure.
"Okay," he smiled as she left the room.
~*~
Some minutes later- "is everything okay?"
Kathryn looked round at the door's entrance and saw Chakotay standing in the opening wearing nothing but a concerned looked, she smiled up at him and saw his features relax. "Everything's fine, Aaron's sound asleep," she said at last.
Light poured through the thin curtains of the room, gently illuminating where Kathryn stood. The light was too strong to be that of the moon, but came from a near by street light, dimly lighting up the dusty track for a road. Chakotay made his way over to where she was standing, wrapping his arms around his lover and looking over her shoulder and his sleeping son. She could feel his warm breath against her neck, and feeling comforted she leant back against his shoulder relishing in the closeness. "It's ironic, isn't it?" Chakotay said abstractly and almost to himself.
Not understanding Kathryn frowned, although it was lost in the darkness Chakotay could almost feel that she was frowning. Maybe it was because he knew her so well, that he knew that would be her reaction, or maybe because he felt slight changes in her posture which he subconsciously translated. Either way, he knew, and went on to explain. "Voyager I mean."
His explanation helped very little, if at all, "what do you mean?" she asked, turning to face him.
"Well," he took in a breath and let it out slowly, to figure out for himself exactly what he did mean. "It was Voyager that brought us together, but it was also the one thing that kept us apart. I mean, Aaron, he was conceived on New Earth, when we had left Voyager and our ranks and began to make a new life on the planet, and then Voyager returned and you cut the pregnancy short with the hope that you could carry it on at a later time when things weren't so complicated." Kathryn had rested her head against Chakotay's chest feeling the strong pulse of his heart drumming against his ribs and the vibrations made throughout his torso as he spoke, the gentle lift and fall as he inhaled and exhaled. "And then when we left Voyager, things weren't so complicated, and here he is, six years later."
"And here we are," Kathryn mused, "six years later, and to think that you married Seven," she caressed his upper arm, unaware that her voice was slightly muffled by the side of her lips still against his bare chest.
Chakotay froze slightly, "huh?" he furrowed his eyebrows.
Kathryn pulled away from him, she had never mentioned that part of what the Admiral Janeway from the future had told her. "In the alternate time line that would have happened had we not have travelled trough the wormhole to return to Earth, destroying half the Borg process," she added with a mild glint in her eye, she'd never finish relishing in that.
"Uhuh," Chakotay said, a little more relaxed now understanding what she was talking about.
"The Admiral told me that you and Seven were married before Seven died, what would have been about two years from now," Kathryn looked at Aaron sleeping so quietly and peacefully by them, and had a thought that their voices may wake him if they weren't careful, and so led Chakotay from the nursery pulling him gently behind her by the hand.
"How come you never told me this before?" Chakotay closed the door carefully so as not to waken Aaron.
"It never came up," she shrugged, but by his look she could see that he wasn't satisfied with this answer, "well, it's not something that you just say is it?"
Chakotay shrugged, "you just did," he pointed out, following Kathryn in the direction of the kitchen.
She turned and smiled broadly at him, "oh yeah," before walking over to the kitchen units, "do you want a coffee?"
He nodded, "if your making them," he gave her a mock glare remembering the last time that she had asked him if he had wanted a coffee, and when he had answered that he would, she had smiled quirkily at him saying: 'could you make me one too?' He had obliged of course after hearing her complaints about fourteen hours of labour and what thanks did she get? A screaming baby!
"So did the Admiral tell you anything else about what happened with me and Seven?" Chakotay asked, picking up one of Aaron's soft toys that he found lying on the stone tiled floor and looking at it fondly for a brief moment before returning it to a wicker basket containing numerous other soft toys (most of which they had received as gifts).
"No," Kathryn said distantly, thinking to herself, "she said very little about her timeline. She only told me about Seven and Tuvok as a last attempt to changing my decision about travelling through the Borg conduits," she said finally, remembering their encounter with her future self.
"Hum," Chakotay said thoughtfully, Kathryn looked round at him sitting on the sofa with a questioning look. "Do you think maybe that was part of why she travelled back in time to bring Voyager home- to maybe prevent my marriage with Seven?"
"Don't flatter yourself Chakotay," Kathryn tried to sound serious but a smile tugged at the corners of her lips, giving her away.
He laughed as she walked towards him with two mugs, "admit it Kathryn, you hate the idea of me with Seven!"
Keeping her face serious, she set the two mugs down on the coffee table and turned to glare at Chakotay, "I have no idea what you're on about," she decided she wasn't going to boost his ego.
Chakotay's smile just broadened and he laughed again, and eventually Kathryn joined him in laughter and sank into his arms as she sat beside him. Some moments later when they had both settled, Chakotay took another sip of his coffee and took a breath in as it to speak, and as Kathryn predicted- he did. "It's a weird thought to me now though; to think of being with any one but you, I just can't image it," he admitted.
Kathryn nodded slightly, "I can't image not being with you either," she agreed. "I think that you might be right though, maybe your marriage to Seven did have something to do with the Admiral helping us to get home early, but I can't help thinking that there was something more, something that she didn't mention." She shook her head, lost for what it could be.
"Did she ever say what happened after Seven died?" Chakotay attempted to maybe trigger a lost memory.
"No, not really," she paused, it seemed such a long time since the Admiral's visit to Voyager, "she did say that you were never the same after Seven's death."
This last piece of information was very little to go on, and Chakotay felt a little guilty disagreeing with what Kathryn had said the Admiral had told her about his reaction to Seven's death; as he didn't think that he would be so permanently devastated at her death as he knew he would be if he ever lost Kathryn. "Maybe when she was talking about me, maybe she meant us," Chakotay said what he was thinking, "after Seven died in her reality something could have happened between us, that meant our relationship was never the same again."
"I doubt that it was anything good that happened between us then," she considered what he had said. There was another moment of silence, "I saw Seven the other day," she blurted out, suddenly remembering their encounter.
"Oh yeah?" he was only vaguely interested in this change of conversation and he thought that maybe if he didn't get back to bed soon he might just fall asleep where he sat. Thinking about this, the thought that holding a hot coffee in his hands if he did fall asleep probably wasn't the best of ideas, and so he rested it on the table in front of where he sat.
"Yes, when I went to visit Tad in the hospital she was at the reception desk as I walked out- Chakotay!" He sat up suddenly, falling asleep was officially no longer an option he realised. "Anyway, she's lost all of her Borg implants."
Okay, he decided, maybe he would stay awake until the end of this conversation, unless she started talking about work, and then he just might drift off- "Oh," she was looking at him for some type of response, a question maybe? That would show he was listening! "How come?"
"I think it had something to do with Tad," Kathryn furrowed her eyebrows, "no one's exactly sure what has happened to him, but it seems she came to his hospital room and he did something to her which removed all of the nano- probes from her body. Within days her implants started to fall off, a painful experience no doubt, and so the doctors heavily sedated her not knowing exactly whether or not the should stop the process."
"Tad?" he was alert and awake.
"Yes, it seems that Seven was his mysterious girlfriend these past few months," she raised an eyebrow and smiled slightly at the memories of Felicity pressing her brother for details of his new girlfriend, and Tad insisting that he would never tell her anything as long as Felicity had the intention of meeting the new girlfriend.
"Ah," Chakotay smiled, although it was a little weird; his almost step son dating his ex-girlfriend, "I think that they would have been good for each other," he considered their two personas, and thought that they made quite a good match.
Kathryn shrugged, "anyway, me and Seven got talking and we've- I don't know, I guess over the past few months we've grown apart and things were a little weird between the two of us when we did meet."
"Does she know that Tad's your son?" Chakotay asked a little concerned about this confrontation.
"Yes," she shrugged, "she figured it out herself- I'm kind of angry I guess with Tad, he knew that something like this would happen if he made contact with people that knew me, and he went and started an intimate relationship with one of the few people I know that analyse everything!"
She felt him inhale deeply before he spoke, "have you reported this?"
Kathryn shook her head, "I don't think that I should. They rarely erase memories unless it can be avoided, and probably the only reason that they didn't erase Seven's memory the first time is because they wanted to question her about when happened with her confrontation with Tad. But if they find out that she knows that he's my son, they may not be quite so lenient."
Chakotay nodded, he could see how much distress it had caused her to erase his memories, and knew that she didn't want to repeat the experience with Seven. "Now that they've captured this Paul guy, shouldn't you be able to tell people about Tad?"
This time Kathryn let out an exhausted breath, "you'd think wouldn't you!" she leant back against the sofa and closed her eyes briefly, running her thumb across the rim of her mug. Obviously she had had this conversation with intelligence and they were still putting pressure on her to conceal the fact that Tad was her son. "For me, a son that no one's heard of means press, press means lack of privacy, lack of privacy means that Paul's boss, a man called Obi, can track our positions. Personally, I think that he can anyway, but intelligence insists that it's easier to deal with a few people that know my whereabouts rather than the whole journalist-leach circuit trying to get interviews from the both of us. As usual intelligence just can't cope with the idea that one of us may mention them and our spot light will be momentarily shifted to them and questions will be asked about what other children of other officers they've kept secret."
Kathryn finished and shot Chakotay an exasperated look, "suddenly it all makes sense," he said a little sarcastically, with a small smile on his face at the complexity of it all,
"Well you're the first person that does," Kathryn returned the smile, "there's a theory within the elite," he looked at her blankly, "agents etc- that intelligence in run by Romulans trying to confuse us all by creating rules and documents and conspiracies, and to create a complete chaos within Star Fleet, and when that happens the theory goes on to say that they will then annihilate the federation and bring a rule of absolute evil for several generations before they realise they have no defence against the Borg, at which point the Borg will rule ultimately. And then the Q will realise that the Borg are getting too strong and step in, only to find that the Borg have adapted to their interference, at which point the universe will collapse back in on itself before another big bang, at which point the universe will start all over again."
"Very philosophical," Chakotay grinned.
"It's called chaos theory," she smiled briefly before her smile faded and she looked back across at Chakotay sitting beside her, "want to go back to bed?"
He nodded and stood, turning slightly to see Kathryn's hand offered to him for a hand up from the sofa. He obliged and they walked back towards their room in a zombie-like state.
End of chapter 15
Chapter 15 : Coffee at midnight
Egypt, November 2nd 2379.
Her breathing had shallowed and her crying ebbed, but Chakotay waited a little longer, kissing her forehead and gently caressing her arm. "I'm sorry," he said at last, "it was too soon, I should have waited."
Kathryn reached out and placed her hand on the back of his head, bringing her self up from his chest to kiss him tenderly on the lips, "don't be sorry," she said softly, "I love you, this is what I wanted."
"You were crying Kathryn, I hate to see you like that, I hate even more to think that you were crying because of me," he placed a hand on her cheek and tucked some loose strands of hair behind her ear. Then moving him self closer to her, "talk to me," his voice was barely a whisper but it had all of his strength behind him.
"I shouldn't have left him," Kathryn said at last, "that afternoon at the memorial service, he said that something bad would happen if I left him, and it did. He had been thinking about doing it, and my just leaving him there to deal with it alone just made it worse."
"Something happened to him Kathryn, I don't think that it would have made any difference whether you had have stayed with him or not," Chakotay insisted, holding her close.
"No, you don't understand," Kathryn pulled away from him and sat up in their bed, "I did make it worse!"
Chakotay sat up also, reaching out for Kathryn, fearing that she was becoming hysterical, "Kath-"
He tried to calm her down but she interrupted, "I did the same thing last time, I just left him to deal with it alone, seeing him upset just made losing Felicity harder for me to deal with. I'm nothing more than a coward, I sent my son to boarding school when he needed me the most-"
"Calm down Kathryn!" Chakotay raised his voice to override hers.
"Chakotay you're not listening!" She couldn't bear it any longer and broke down crying.
The pain Chakotay felt at seeing her like this, someone might as well have been stabbing him in the chest. "I am listening," he moved to her on the bed and put his arms securely around her, "I always listen, I always have done and always will. And now I'm trying to make you listen to yourself, to understand what you're saying the way I do." She relaxed slightly in his arms, although he could still see tears falling down her cheeks glinting slightly in the moonlight.
"You were there for Tad all those years ago when you were told that Felicity was dead, as much as you could have been under the circumstances," he rocked her gently in his arms, "and Tad knows that. You think you're a bad mother because sometimes you were too scared to deal with your children- well how do you think I feel every time I see Aaron? I'm terrified, I'm so worried Kathryn that one day I'm going to let him down and he'll grow up thinking that I've failed him as a father."
"You'll never do that Chakotay," her voice was soft and steady now.
"How do I know that the day I can't make it to his school play, won't be the day that he decides that he doesn't love me?" Kathryn turned round and faced Chakotay putting a hand on his upper arm. "Or the day I shout at him for not coming home until well past midnight and causing us to worry all night, won't be that day that he runs off and joins a terrorist organisation?" He continued.
"Chakotay," Kathryn interrupted, "let's make a deal now that I'll always be the parent that screws up."
But he shook his head, "not this time Kathryn, apparently you've have twenty five years of being the screw up parent, it's my turn this time." She reached out and held his face in her hands, placing a soft kiss on his lips, Chakotay smiled down at her, relieved that she had calmed down. "The point I'm trying to make is that you never screwed up, Tad loves you, he probably doesn't idolise you," Chakotay added with a grin, "but he respects you, and at the end of the day you must have been doing something right amid all of those mistakes, because he hasn't got a bad word to say against you."
"Really?" Kathryn looked up and met Chakotay's eyes, and was almost overwhelmed by the love for her that she saw in them.
He nodded his head, "really," he confirmed. "And I love you," he ran his hand down her back, "and I'm sure Felicity loved you in her own unorganised way, and Aaron loves you, and I know that our son is never going to feel unloved by either of us, so stop questioning yourself!"
Kathryn nodded, "I love you," she leant up and kissed him again on the lips, before breaking away from him and climbing off from the bed.
"Where are you going?" Chakotay watched as she crossed the room.
"I just want to check on Aaron," she said grabbing her silk robe from the hook, and then slipping it over her shoulders, tying the silk cord securely around her waist, emphasising her figure.
"Okay," he smiled as she left the room.
~*~
Some minutes later- "is everything okay?"
Kathryn looked round at the door's entrance and saw Chakotay standing in the opening wearing nothing but a concerned looked, she smiled up at him and saw his features relax. "Everything's fine, Aaron's sound asleep," she said at last.
Light poured through the thin curtains of the room, gently illuminating where Kathryn stood. The light was too strong to be that of the moon, but came from a near by street light, dimly lighting up the dusty track for a road. Chakotay made his way over to where she was standing, wrapping his arms around his lover and looking over her shoulder and his sleeping son. She could feel his warm breath against her neck, and feeling comforted she leant back against his shoulder relishing in the closeness. "It's ironic, isn't it?" Chakotay said abstractly and almost to himself.
Not understanding Kathryn frowned, although it was lost in the darkness Chakotay could almost feel that she was frowning. Maybe it was because he knew her so well, that he knew that would be her reaction, or maybe because he felt slight changes in her posture which he subconsciously translated. Either way, he knew, and went on to explain. "Voyager I mean."
His explanation helped very little, if at all, "what do you mean?" she asked, turning to face him.
"Well," he took in a breath and let it out slowly, to figure out for himself exactly what he did mean. "It was Voyager that brought us together, but it was also the one thing that kept us apart. I mean, Aaron, he was conceived on New Earth, when we had left Voyager and our ranks and began to make a new life on the planet, and then Voyager returned and you cut the pregnancy short with the hope that you could carry it on at a later time when things weren't so complicated." Kathryn had rested her head against Chakotay's chest feeling the strong pulse of his heart drumming against his ribs and the vibrations made throughout his torso as he spoke, the gentle lift and fall as he inhaled and exhaled. "And then when we left Voyager, things weren't so complicated, and here he is, six years later."
"And here we are," Kathryn mused, "six years later, and to think that you married Seven," she caressed his upper arm, unaware that her voice was slightly muffled by the side of her lips still against his bare chest.
Chakotay froze slightly, "huh?" he furrowed his eyebrows.
Kathryn pulled away from him, she had never mentioned that part of what the Admiral Janeway from the future had told her. "In the alternate time line that would have happened had we not have travelled trough the wormhole to return to Earth, destroying half the Borg process," she added with a mild glint in her eye, she'd never finish relishing in that.
"Uhuh," Chakotay said, a little more relaxed now understanding what she was talking about.
"The Admiral told me that you and Seven were married before Seven died, what would have been about two years from now," Kathryn looked at Aaron sleeping so quietly and peacefully by them, and had a thought that their voices may wake him if they weren't careful, and so led Chakotay from the nursery pulling him gently behind her by the hand.
"How come you never told me this before?" Chakotay closed the door carefully so as not to waken Aaron.
"It never came up," she shrugged, but by his look she could see that he wasn't satisfied with this answer, "well, it's not something that you just say is it?"
Chakotay shrugged, "you just did," he pointed out, following Kathryn in the direction of the kitchen.
She turned and smiled broadly at him, "oh yeah," before walking over to the kitchen units, "do you want a coffee?"
He nodded, "if your making them," he gave her a mock glare remembering the last time that she had asked him if he had wanted a coffee, and when he had answered that he would, she had smiled quirkily at him saying: 'could you make me one too?' He had obliged of course after hearing her complaints about fourteen hours of labour and what thanks did she get? A screaming baby!
"So did the Admiral tell you anything else about what happened with me and Seven?" Chakotay asked, picking up one of Aaron's soft toys that he found lying on the stone tiled floor and looking at it fondly for a brief moment before returning it to a wicker basket containing numerous other soft toys (most of which they had received as gifts).
"No," Kathryn said distantly, thinking to herself, "she said very little about her timeline. She only told me about Seven and Tuvok as a last attempt to changing my decision about travelling through the Borg conduits," she said finally, remembering their encounter with her future self.
"Hum," Chakotay said thoughtfully, Kathryn looked round at him sitting on the sofa with a questioning look. "Do you think maybe that was part of why she travelled back in time to bring Voyager home- to maybe prevent my marriage with Seven?"
"Don't flatter yourself Chakotay," Kathryn tried to sound serious but a smile tugged at the corners of her lips, giving her away.
He laughed as she walked towards him with two mugs, "admit it Kathryn, you hate the idea of me with Seven!"
Keeping her face serious, she set the two mugs down on the coffee table and turned to glare at Chakotay, "I have no idea what you're on about," she decided she wasn't going to boost his ego.
Chakotay's smile just broadened and he laughed again, and eventually Kathryn joined him in laughter and sank into his arms as she sat beside him. Some moments later when they had both settled, Chakotay took another sip of his coffee and took a breath in as it to speak, and as Kathryn predicted- he did. "It's a weird thought to me now though; to think of being with any one but you, I just can't image it," he admitted.
Kathryn nodded slightly, "I can't image not being with you either," she agreed. "I think that you might be right though, maybe your marriage to Seven did have something to do with the Admiral helping us to get home early, but I can't help thinking that there was something more, something that she didn't mention." She shook her head, lost for what it could be.
"Did she ever say what happened after Seven died?" Chakotay attempted to maybe trigger a lost memory.
"No, not really," she paused, it seemed such a long time since the Admiral's visit to Voyager, "she did say that you were never the same after Seven's death."
This last piece of information was very little to go on, and Chakotay felt a little guilty disagreeing with what Kathryn had said the Admiral had told her about his reaction to Seven's death; as he didn't think that he would be so permanently devastated at her death as he knew he would be if he ever lost Kathryn. "Maybe when she was talking about me, maybe she meant us," Chakotay said what he was thinking, "after Seven died in her reality something could have happened between us, that meant our relationship was never the same again."
"I doubt that it was anything good that happened between us then," she considered what he had said. There was another moment of silence, "I saw Seven the other day," she blurted out, suddenly remembering their encounter.
"Oh yeah?" he was only vaguely interested in this change of conversation and he thought that maybe if he didn't get back to bed soon he might just fall asleep where he sat. Thinking about this, the thought that holding a hot coffee in his hands if he did fall asleep probably wasn't the best of ideas, and so he rested it on the table in front of where he sat.
"Yes, when I went to visit Tad in the hospital she was at the reception desk as I walked out- Chakotay!" He sat up suddenly, falling asleep was officially no longer an option he realised. "Anyway, she's lost all of her Borg implants."
Okay, he decided, maybe he would stay awake until the end of this conversation, unless she started talking about work, and then he just might drift off- "Oh," she was looking at him for some type of response, a question maybe? That would show he was listening! "How come?"
"I think it had something to do with Tad," Kathryn furrowed her eyebrows, "no one's exactly sure what has happened to him, but it seems she came to his hospital room and he did something to her which removed all of the nano- probes from her body. Within days her implants started to fall off, a painful experience no doubt, and so the doctors heavily sedated her not knowing exactly whether or not the should stop the process."
"Tad?" he was alert and awake.
"Yes, it seems that Seven was his mysterious girlfriend these past few months," she raised an eyebrow and smiled slightly at the memories of Felicity pressing her brother for details of his new girlfriend, and Tad insisting that he would never tell her anything as long as Felicity had the intention of meeting the new girlfriend.
"Ah," Chakotay smiled, although it was a little weird; his almost step son dating his ex-girlfriend, "I think that they would have been good for each other," he considered their two personas, and thought that they made quite a good match.
Kathryn shrugged, "anyway, me and Seven got talking and we've- I don't know, I guess over the past few months we've grown apart and things were a little weird between the two of us when we did meet."
"Does she know that Tad's your son?" Chakotay asked a little concerned about this confrontation.
"Yes," she shrugged, "she figured it out herself- I'm kind of angry I guess with Tad, he knew that something like this would happen if he made contact with people that knew me, and he went and started an intimate relationship with one of the few people I know that analyse everything!"
She felt him inhale deeply before he spoke, "have you reported this?"
Kathryn shook her head, "I don't think that I should. They rarely erase memories unless it can be avoided, and probably the only reason that they didn't erase Seven's memory the first time is because they wanted to question her about when happened with her confrontation with Tad. But if they find out that she knows that he's my son, they may not be quite so lenient."
Chakotay nodded, he could see how much distress it had caused her to erase his memories, and knew that she didn't want to repeat the experience with Seven. "Now that they've captured this Paul guy, shouldn't you be able to tell people about Tad?"
This time Kathryn let out an exhausted breath, "you'd think wouldn't you!" she leant back against the sofa and closed her eyes briefly, running her thumb across the rim of her mug. Obviously she had had this conversation with intelligence and they were still putting pressure on her to conceal the fact that Tad was her son. "For me, a son that no one's heard of means press, press means lack of privacy, lack of privacy means that Paul's boss, a man called Obi, can track our positions. Personally, I think that he can anyway, but intelligence insists that it's easier to deal with a few people that know my whereabouts rather than the whole journalist-leach circuit trying to get interviews from the both of us. As usual intelligence just can't cope with the idea that one of us may mention them and our spot light will be momentarily shifted to them and questions will be asked about what other children of other officers they've kept secret."
Kathryn finished and shot Chakotay an exasperated look, "suddenly it all makes sense," he said a little sarcastically, with a small smile on his face at the complexity of it all,
"Well you're the first person that does," Kathryn returned the smile, "there's a theory within the elite," he looked at her blankly, "agents etc- that intelligence in run by Romulans trying to confuse us all by creating rules and documents and conspiracies, and to create a complete chaos within Star Fleet, and when that happens the theory goes on to say that they will then annihilate the federation and bring a rule of absolute evil for several generations before they realise they have no defence against the Borg, at which point the Borg will rule ultimately. And then the Q will realise that the Borg are getting too strong and step in, only to find that the Borg have adapted to their interference, at which point the universe will collapse back in on itself before another big bang, at which point the universe will start all over again."
"Very philosophical," Chakotay grinned.
"It's called chaos theory," she smiled briefly before her smile faded and she looked back across at Chakotay sitting beside her, "want to go back to bed?"
He nodded and stood, turning slightly to see Kathryn's hand offered to him for a hand up from the sofa. He obliged and they walked back towards their room in a zombie-like state.
End of chapter 15