Chapter eight: Announcement.

Two weeks later.

It was drawing towards the end of the summer, the evenings were still light, and the morning still early, but there was that tension in the air that warned that autumn was approaching. It was mid afternoon, and the sun was still quite high in the sky, but there was plenty of shade and a cool breeze that countered the sun's attempts to over heat the surface. Beneath one of the trees, basking in the shade that it provided, Kathryn sat with her daughter and Chakotay on the lush green grass.

She smiled as Chakotay lifted their small baby up to his face and kissed her belly, before resting her back on his lap. He reached out, a smile still plastered on his lips, and grabbed another sandwich from the picnic food layed out on the blanket. "You're amazing with her you know," Kathryn admired.

He shrugged, "she's a lot easier than her mother."

The quip caused Kathryn to shoot him a mock death glare, and he tried his best to stifle a grin (he didn't do very well). They again relaxed into a comfortable silence, "this is nice," she sighed.

Chakotay looked up, his six week old daughter squirming a little in his firm grasp, "hmm," he agreed.

"I was thinking," she started.

"Uh-oh."

"What?" she turned sharply to him.

"I'm sorry," he picked up his glass of wine, and put it to his lips, "I've just heard you say that so many times on Voyager, that I get a little weary everytime you start to think."

She threw him a sarcastic smile, which just caused a flicker of a grin to cast over his face. "Anyway," she tried again.

"This doesn't involve me does it?" he looked a little worried.

"Will you let me finish?"

"Sorry, go on."

"Well actually, it does involve you," he pulled a face, but she ignored it, and decided to go on anyway. "I was thinking that, I don't want Yuna to grow up an only child."

Chakotay frowned, "she won't, she'll have Miral and," he paused, then realisation hit him, "oh," he said, finally getting what she meant, she rolled her eyes, "you mean us having more children?"

"Well that was kind of what I meant Chakotay," she came close to patronising him, but resisted.

"Oh, okay," he said thoughtfully.

"Well obviously not right away," she ammended, "but one day," her eyes locked with his, "what do you think?"

For a moment he didn't really know what he thought, he'd just been happy with Kathryn and Yuna, he'd never really thought about extending what he already had. "I'm not sure," he said at last, and at the expression on her that followed, he realised that maybe that wasn't the answer he was supposed to have given. "It's just you're always working Kathryn," he tried to explain his initial reluctance, "I love you, and don't get me wrong, I'd love us to have more children together, but I really don't think that we could make it work with more than just the one."

She still looked disappointed, so he went on, "I was hoping to go back to university once Yuna's a bit older, and start on my phd, and I don't want to be that guy stuck at home with all the kids, that you come home to when you feel like it."

"Right," she sounded less than happy, "if that's the way you feel."

"It is," he didn't see the point in lying to her, it was better that he be honest with her from the start.

The rest of their picnic passed awkwardly, and they were both actually relieved when Yuna started crying, and soon decided to head back to their appartment in San Francisco.

The next day.

Tom looked round at B'Elanna after having watched the news vids with her, "at least we now know what Kathryn spent those two months on Cardassia doing," he pointed out.

She shot him a glare, clearly further agrivated by his relaxed tone, "they can't join the federation," she said angrily.

Suddenly he felt like running, but he was already sitting on the sofa, and B'Elanna would catch up with him before he could even unlock the front door. "Well," he said carefully, "it seems that they're going to try."

"I still don't get why Admiral Janeway's at the centre of this," she was fuming beneath her sensible words.

Tom shrugged, "my dad says that it's got something to do with her not being here for the entire war, she's never really been in battle with them, and so it makes her one of the most neutral Admirals in StarFleet."

B'Elanna got up from her seat, "do you think Chakotay knew about any of this?"

Why was she asking him? he looked around the room, but there weren't any answers. "I'm not sure, but he probably does now," he replied.

She made her way past her husband, "I'm going to call him."

Chakotay had known prior to the announcement made by some Vulcan at the press conference shown on the new vids, but only that night as Kathryn had lain beside him. "They're going to join," she'd told him, nestled into the side of him.

He'd frowned, "who?"

"The Cardassians, they're going to join the federation."

He hadn't been sure what he should say, and so didn't say anything. It was quite a few hours later, and he was confronted with an angry B'Elanna, demanding if he'd known. "I found out about the same time you did," he answered honestly, he didn't think a day's notice before the announcement really counted as anything significant.

"They can't actually let them join can they?" the question was asked in disbelief, but he guessed that she probably wanted an answer.

"It seems that they're going to B'Elanna," he answered calmly.

"And you're not going to do anything about it?" she was fuming.

"What can I really do?" his soft voice just agrivating her further, "the decision has been made."

"They killed our friends!" she shouted over the comm., "you're not just going to let Kathryn open her arms and forgive them like they didn't do anything wrong."

"I don't think this about forgiveness," he said slowly, "I think this is about moving on."

She glared at him for a few moments, "I can see where you stand on this."

Before he could make any form of reply, she terminated the transmission and was gone from his view.

The day after that.

"This is not about forgetting, or forgiving, or lessening the efforts of all those that were lost." Kathryn said calmly to the large crowd before her, Admiral Benson to one side of her, looking more than pissed off that she was giving the speech and not him. "This is about accepting what has happened, and trying to move on, of being the better side and showing the Cardassian people that democracy will not leave them starving on the streets, or fighting a pointless war."

There were some shouts from the large crowd.

"What do you know? You weren't part of this war."

"Have you even ever met a Cardassian in battle?"

"Traitor!"

She swallowed, and gave the crowd her best death glare, silencing most of them. "True, I was not on the front of this war, but I am as patriotic as any other StarFleet officer, and like any other officer, I have met the Cardassian's in battle, and I do know what it is to lose good friends to them. But we were fighting different Cardassians, we were fighting their military, and like us, they were following orders. Maybe if we can be the first to offer our hand of friendship, we can once and for all stop fighting."

Kathryn stepped back, and allowed Benson his chance to bullshit to the press and various other representatives within the crowd.

That night Kathryn walked into her bedroom, after putting Yuna to sleep, to find Chakotay sitting up with the bedside lamp on, reading. He looked up from his book after she'd been standing in the doorway for some time, to try to figure out why she hadn't entered. He gave her a questioning look. "Maybe I should sleep in the spare room tonight," she suggested.

Chakotay frowned, "I'm already confortable here," he protested.

"I meant we should sleep seperately," she said tiredly.

"I know you did," he went back to his book.

Not sure what to make of his attitude she left the room, to take the bed in the spare room. Since he had found out what she had been doing on Cardassia for all those weeks, their relationship had been very strained. She knew that he still didn't trust them, and more than that, didn't want her involved. But he also knew that there was nothing he could do to stop her, and so he hadn't said anything to her. It was the fact that he wasn't speaking to her about it, that was getting to her the most, it was unlike him to not confront something, that was usually her job.

She was finally confortable beneath the white sheets, when a small amount of light flooded the room, as a tall figure entered. She watched as he stumbled around for a moment, and made his way over to the bed, placing the baby monitor on the table, peeling back the sheets, and climbing in. "I told you I was already comfortable in the other room," he said as he shuffled up beside her.

She felt his arm slip around her under the covers, and his warm breath on her neck as he leant forwards and kissed her. "We need to talk Chakotay," he rolled over and faced him. He nodded. "Tell me what you're thinking."

He looked at her through the darkness, "I'm thinking that what you're doing is a mistake," he said honestly.

Kathryn blinked in disbelief, not quite the answer that she had wanted. "Time will tell," she couldn't be sure herself if she was getting herself into the biggest mistake of her coureer or not, so deciding there was no point in arguing with his comment. "Are you angry?"

Chakotay thought for a moment, "I should be," he said, closing his eyes for a moment, "but no, not at you."

She let out a sigh, it wasn't relief, but more exhaustion, she'd hated keeping that secret from him for so long, especially when she'd ordered him to return to Earth with Yuna.

"I'm going to support you on anything that you do Kathryn, I always have, well, most of the time, and I always will," he said, kissing the top of her head.

"I don't deserve you," she choked at his words, and closed the short gap between them, feeling safe and complete in his embrace. "The other day," she said into his chest, her voice slightly muffled, "you said you wanted to go back to university..."

"When Yuna's older," he confirmed.

"How much older?"

He paused, "I guess in a year or so," he'd never really thought too deeply about it, just that it was something that he wanted to do. "I was thinking I could go back to my research on the rubber tree people, that we met back in the delta quadrant, and write my thesis on them."

"Would you have much more research to do?"

"A year or so's worth," he replied.

"Maybe you should enrole this year," she suggested.

He frowned, but she didn't see it, instead she felt him stiffen a little in her arms. "What about Yuna?"

Kathryn placed a hand on his chest, and kissed his bare collar bone, "the term doesn't start for over a month, and when it does, I'm sure we'll find a way to manage."

Closing his eyes he thought through his options, he had already lost so many years with the Maquis and on Voyager that the prospect of getting straight into a phd was exhillerating. But then, he'd just become a father, something that he'd always wanted to be, and the thought that Yuna would probably just end up being cared for by strangers didn't appeal to him. "No," he said at last, "I've waited this long, I can wait a little longer."

Sleep finally getting to her, she closed her eyes, "we'll talk about this in the morning," she said, moments before she slipped into a dream filled state.

She won in the end of course, as she always did, and part of him was glad for it. One call to Gretchen had settled it; she would baby sit, whilst Kathryn was out at work, and Chakotay at the university. Deciding that travelling each day with a baby all the way to Indianna and back wasn't the easiest of options, they agreed that they would move closer to Gretchen, and then commute their seperate ways from there.

Within a month they had moved out of the appartment, and were living in a small town, in a large house, with the picteresque garden, that Chakotay had often imagined his future to involve. For two weeks, life was perfect; Gretchen would arrive at eight, and they would leave for the nearest transport station ten minutes later. She would head for San Francisco, and he for Germany. Chakotay would always be back by four, and then Kathryn would return by six (most of the time).

Just when it seemed like nothing could go wrong, Kathryn arrived home late one evening and told him that she was going back to Cardassia, there was nothing that he could do.

End of chapter eight.