Disclaimer: Star trek: Voyager and its characters belong to Paramount.
Author's note: I'm glad you all seem to be enjoying this story so far, so please keep up giving me feedback, and I'll keep up posting chapters. Enjoy.
Chapter five: The official story
Back on the shuttle he'd been on autopilot; he'd eaten and slept and read a book and washed and shaved and for some reason thrown up at the smell of coffee. But the two days after landing on Cardassia he hadn't bothered to do any, never leaving the seat that he sat at except to go to the toilet. A few times the nurse had brought his daughter to him, and he had held a bottle robotically to her mouth and watched her feed, or had just held her until she fell asleep, but he never went out of his way to see her.
He knew it was wrong. He knew that he should be happy; he was a father, he had a beautiful baby daughter, but the thought that Kathryn wasn't there to share it with him broke his heart every time that he saw the baby. He'd cried once, on the second day, but he was cried out by the third day.
Chakotay drank of course, but only coffee, or at his weaker moments: whisky. It was the only thing keeping him from dying, other than hope that she would wake up of course.
She had been so pale when he'd first seen her, but the machine by her side ensured that her lips were still warm when he'd leaned over to kiss her. He'd only kissed her the once though, it felt wrong when he didn't feel her respond, when he didn't feel her arms wrap around his body.
He'd asked if he could take her back to Earth, but the doctors had replied that it would be too dangerous to move her in such a fragile state. He had asked to contact someone; her family, some friends, but for some reason unknown to him, they had said that he couldn't. He didn't bother to fight their reply, he was too exhausted from sleeping so little.
Then, on the fifth day, as he sat with his daughter in his arms, and a coffee by his side, he saw movement. It wasn't the first time he's seen Kathryn move, it happened to coma patients he'd been told, from time to time, and it didn't always mean anything. But still, he couldn't help but hope. She stilled again, and his heart sank. The nurse came, took the sleeping baby from his arms, and he was left alone with Kathryn.
He had been on the verge of sleep when he had again noticed movement from the bed beside him. Chakotay sat up a little straighter, and then noticed her eyes flicker. She had more colour in her face, and then when she opened her eyes, her face was filled with life. Kathryn glanced around the room and frowned, then her eyes rested on him, and he got up from his chair and sat on the edge of her bed and smiled.
Her frown deepened as tears filled his eyes and he reached out to touch her face, just to see if she was real, that he wasn't dreaming. Her blue eyes locked with his brown, her eyelids separated the connection once, twice, and third time, and then severed the connection completely, as her eyes closed.
"Kathryn," Chakotay said calmly, brushing her lips with his thumb, "Kathryn," he said again when she didn't respond. He shot off the bed and ran to the door of her room, shouting for a doctor.
Two days later.
The seventh day and Chakotay was standing outside Kathryn's room talking to a couple of StarFleet officials. One was Gregson, who he had first met ten days before, and the second was a woman that he'd never before seen. "It's important that no one finds out about the attack," the woman informed him.
He frowned, "why not?"
Gregson sighed, "Admiral Janeway's presence here is very important to StarFleet, if the public were to find out that she in particular was targeted by terrorists, then they would be pressured to assign her somewhere safer."
"So you're saying," Chakotay looked frantically between them, "that she's going to have to stay here?"
"We have already discussed the situation with the Admiral, and she has agreed the staying here is in the best interests of all sides," the woman said calmly, obviously trained to deal such situations.
He looked from Gregson and back to the woman, they weren't joking. Without saying another word to either of them, he stepped into the room, to see Kathryn sitting up in her bed with their sleeping baby in her arms. She looked up and smiled sweetly across at a very angry Chakotay, before returning her attention to their daughter. "She's beautiful," she ran a hand over the infant's head, admiring their creation once again.
"You're not staying here," he stated and moved to sit on the side of her bed.
She looked up at him, "so they've told you," she said coolly.
"Kathryn, come back to Earth with me."
"I can't," she replied quietly, purposefully looking at their baby to avoid meeting his eyes, "there's still a lot of work that I need to do here."
"Do it on Earth, do it on Vulcan, do it on Romulus if you have to, just anywhere but Cardassia," he pleaded desperately, now that he had her back he was suddenly aware that he was in his enemy's territory.
She looked up and reached a hand out to touch his face, "I'm not asking you to stay."
His face shot around and their eyes locked fiercely, "what about Yuna?"
Kathryn looked back down at her daughter, "you should probably take her back with you."
For a moment he was too stunned to speak, but only a moment, "no, I'm not going back without you, and you're not staying here."
"I hear that they've reactivated your commission," she changed the subject.
He frowned, "it was the only way that Admiral Paris could find to get me here, apparently civilians aren't allowed to stay here, they say it's too dangerous!"
Kathryn let out a long breath, "don't make me order you to leave," she gazed fiercely at him.
He looked at her for a moment, not quite believing what he was hearing, "eight days in a coma hasn't changed you, has it Kathryn?" he shot snidely.
"Fuck you Chakotay!" she near to shouted angrily.
Suddenly he stood from the edge of her bed, towering over her, he looked away. Taking some deep calming breaths, he finally found the strength to look at her without mirroring her anger. "I'll take Yuna back to Earth with me, but if I don't hear that you've left Cardassia within a week of my return, I'm getting on the next transport here to drag you back kicking and screaming if I have to."
Both of them were actually quite amazed with the speed at which they were able to plunge back into an argument after Kathryn's very near to death experience, which not only had nearly cost her life, but also that of their daughter's, and probably eventually, Chakotay's well being.
He left the next day without saying goodbye.
The official story was that Admiral Janeway had gone into labour prematurely after a gas leak had caused an explosion in the embassy on Cardassia. However the premature labour had had its complications and left her in a coma for eight days. The press were so busy focussing on the newborn Janeway, (predicted already to be the next most promising StarFleet officer,) and the Admiral's quick return to duty, that they seemed to totally ignore the officers killed in the explosion along with five Cardassians.
The week passed, and Chakotay still hadn't heard that she was on her way back, but when he had attempted to get on a transport, he'd kindly been informed that StarFleet had ordered him to be grounded on Earth. He'd been furious, but his attempts to contact Kathryn also failed, so he just sulked.
When he'd first arrived back on Earth, he'd soon found himself confined to Kathryn's apartment as the press refused to leave him alone. His only contact with the outside world came from his visitors, who were always screened by security officers before even being allowed to enter the building, and then again before being allowed to knock on the front door.
One of his fist visitors had been Kathryn's mother. It wasn't the first time that he'd met her, having met her briefly two times before, but it was the first time that he'd actually spoken properly with her. He'd found her a wonderful woman, very much like Kathryn in so many ways, but much more laid back and open. She'd invited him to stay with her at the family home, but he'd turned down her offer, in the hope that Kathryn would soon return, and help him out with the midnight feedings.
The old Voyager crew slowly made their ways to the front door. Tom and B'Elanna were among the first, then Tuvok made his way from Vulcan with his wife T'Pel. Naomi had come with both her parents, although she'd spent most of the time holding Yuna, she seemed much more interested in telling Chakotay stories of her father. He'd smiled, and hoped the one day his daughter would speak so fondly of him. It was with great relief that he never recieved a visit from Seven, it would have been too awkward, as he wouldn't have known what to say to her.
Eventually the press started to lose interest, and the security to his apartment started to become slack, letting the odd stray photographer or reporter make his or her way to Chakotay's front door.
He wasn't quite sure whether to consider the apartment Kathryn's, theirs, or even his (as she had not even been there for the past month). That night that he'd arrived from visiting his sister, he'd stayed the night in the spare bedroom, and after a discussion the following morning, it had been decided that he should stay with her, in the spare bedroom.
That was another thing that was starting to get to him, he and Kathryn had again reached that point where the parameters of their relationship needed to be defined, but to Chakotay's annoyance Kathryn had avoided the topic quite successfully, and so no definition had been made. He knew that he loved her, and that she loved him, but he still wasn't sure if they were going to go anywhere with their feelings. Sure, they had a daughter together, and they were living together, but that didn't necessarily mean that they were going to be together.
It was after Gretchen's second visit to see her grand daughter, that Chakotay decided to accept her offer to stay at her house in Indiana. After a week of not sleeping through the night, or knowing why the hell his daughter was crying, he accepted that he needed help from an expert, and Gretchen was that expert, after all, if she could handle Kathryn, he was sure that she could handle her daughter's daughter.
"You heard anything from my caffeine addicted daughter?" Gretchen asked one morning, three days into his stay at her house.
Chakotay looked up from the morning paper and shrugged. "I got a letter from her this morning, but she didn't mention whether or not she was planning on coming back any time soon."
Gretchen smiled, almost apologetically, "that's my daughter for you," she said, "too much like her father; stubborn and obsessed with work."
He lifted his mug of coffee to his lips, and sipped some of the dark liquid, "how did you manage?"
She laughed, "Edward and I broke up so many times before either of the girls arrived, our friends were surprised that we even bothered to stay married. Of course by the time Kathryn and her sister came along, we'd come to an unspoken agreement; I wouldn't bother him about his work, and he'd take time out to come with me to the lectures I used to give or attend, without complaining."
"So you always stayed together?"
"Unless he was going on one of his suicide missions, then we'd try to stay together." She grinned as she thought back, "and up until he became a Commander, he was often stationed aboard space stations, or on various planets, so he was always in the same place, which made it easier for us to go from home to home to satisfy both our couriers."
He nodded slowly, "and what about when he was promoted to Admiral?"
Gretchen grimaced a little, "he'd go off on missions still," she shrugged, "but never for more than a few months at a time, and never very often."
"You don't suppose that Kathryn will ever allow herself to be grounded for more than a few months?" he asked, taking another sip of his coffee.
The older woman laughed lightly, "she's been on the go for seven years Chakotay, just give her a little time to slow down and reflect on everything that's happened."
He nodded slowly, "I'm just hoping that she slows down before she misses out on our daughter growing up."
End of chapter five.