Disclaimer: Paramount owns all.

Chapter nine: Confrontation.

Tom and B'Elanna sat in Chakotay's lounge some nine months after their return to Earth. B'Eanna was currently working with StarFleet to create a transwarp engine, and Tom was test flying the new ships that StarFleet was churning out. The three of them watched fondly as Miral and Yuna sat on the rug and played. Miral was six months older than her playmate, and spent most of the time either trying to push the wrong shapes through the wrong holes, or watching helplessly as Yuna lay on her belly, her arms and legs moving in some sort of swimming motion.

"They grow up so fast," B'Elanna smiled sweetly at the scene, Tom and Chakotay exchanged brief glances, as the half Klingon started to get all mushy on them.

"True," admitted Chakotay.

"It's what babies do, I'm afraid," Tom broke the overly mushy scene with one of his quips.

B'Elanna just nodded.

"So you two planning or any more children?" Chakotay looked across at the two of them, sitting on the sofa opposite himself.

Tom smiled, "probably one day," he shrugged.

His wife turned round to him, "I think two children's enough for me," and she gave her husband a sweet but sarcastic smile.

The two men just laughed, "are you trying to imply that I'm childish?" Tom started on a mock argument.

"Yes," she rolled her eyes, finishing the argument with only one word. "Have you heard that Sam's pregnant again?" she turned to Chakotay.

Chakotay nodded, "I got a message from her yesterday, she said she's expecting another girl."

"You know," said Tom thoughtfully (which wasn't always a good thing), "it would be nice for someone from the Voyager group to have a boy. I'm not saying that baby girls aren't any less adorable, but there's a serious misdistribution of gender going on, seeing as this is going to be the fourth Voyager girl."

Chakotay chuckled lightly, "I think it's the women trying to get back at us for out-numbering them 3 to 2 back on the ship."

"Ah the days," Tom said with a smile, "the borg attacks, the nebulas, the borg attacks, the quantumn singularities, and of course, the borg attacks."

B'Elanna slapped him playfully on the shoulder, "you're hilarious, you know that?"

He nodded, "but you love me all the same."

Suddenly, Yuna started crying, which sparked off a bought of crying from Miral. Chakotay and B'Elanna lept up from where they were sitting and tended to their daughters. After several minutes of trying to calm them both down, B'Elanna decided that the only way to calm Miral was to get her a chocolate button, and so left the two men alone in the room.

With the noise of Miral's crying coming from a distant area of the house, Yuna settled against Chakotay's chest, and he shared a short smile of relief with Tom.

Tom's smiled dropped. "Can I ask you something?"

"You want to ask me another thing?" Chakotay offered, kissing his daughter's head.

His friend smiled when he realised what he'd said, but he went on. "You know that night, at the house warming party; what were you and Seven doing in the garden?"

The older man looked momentarily confused, before a flush of anger came over him; it wasn't any of Tom's business. "What do you think we were doing?" it registered with the pilot that he was annoyed.

"From what it looked like," Tom said slowly, "I don't think that you were finished with Seven when you moved in with Kathryn.

Chakotay sucked in a deep breath, "it was the first time we'd seen each other since we'd broken up, well, the first time we'd had an oppertunity to talk. I thought she might have been upset by the fact that Kathryn had been pregnant at the time we started dating, and wanted to talk it through with her."

Tom nodded, "so nothing happened right?" he sounded hopeful.

There was a pause on Chakotay's part, and Tom started to feel a little ill. "It's not as bad as you think," Chakotay said calmly, "Seven kissed me, I pulled away, told her that nothing between us could ever happen again, and then you called me in."

B'Elanna suddenly appeared through the door, with a silent Miral on her hip. She frowned as the two men looked guiltily up at her when she entered, but didn't say anything; if it was anything important Tom would tell her about it later, she decided.

V

A month later

Kathryn ran her hands through his dark hair, as he lowered her onto the bed. He held himself above her and pulled her lips around his. His pants and shirt lay in a pile with her uniform jacket, and she allowed him to pull her undertop over her head. He pulled her bra strap a little way off her shoulder, as he kissed her neck, but decided to leave it until later, as he realised she was still wearing her StarFleet black pants.

He reached a hand down, and held her inner thigh as he continued to consume her neck with his mouth, relishing in the uncontrolled noises that escaped her mouth when he brushed over a certain area.

She closed her eyes and turned her head to one side to allow him better access to her neck, coming face to face with Chakotay the next time she opened them. Tears filled her eyes, "no, please," she pleaded.

At hearing her words for him to stop, he did so, and pulled himself away from her, propping himself up on his elbows, to see her tear filled eyes. He looked up at her bedside table, and seeing the problem, he reached out and placed the picture of the human man on its front. He turned his face back to her and lowered his lips, with the intention of reaching hers, but finding his decsent blocked by her soft and warm fingers.

She shook her head, "I'm sorry Trajiv, I can't do this."

He attempted to change her mind, by kissing her fingers, "you can," he said softly.

"He's my baby's father, and the man I love," she tried to explain, "I've hurt him so many times before; I can't do this to him."

The Cardassian hung his head for a moment, before raising it at again, and meeting her sharp blue eyes. "I love you," he confessed.

Tears started to fall down her face, and being unable to bear it, he rolled off from her. "I'm sorry," she said again.

"No," he sat up, and wearing only his underpants, walked over to where she'd left his clothes, "don't be," he said, picking up his pants, and pulling them on.

Kathryn reached out for the photo of Chakotay, it had been taken on a picnic they had taken in the park with their daughter. She sat up and ran her fingers over the still form, remembering how she had agognised over bringing a holo-image or a still picture of him with her. The holo-image had been most tempting because she knew she would be able to capture his laugh, but the movement within them was sometimes a little creepy, and so she'd settled for a still picture of him sitting and smiling.

She reached across once she'd put the photo down, and grabbed her shirt, pulling it over her head. She walked out to the main room of her appartment and saw him pulling his shoes back on, "I guess you'll be going back to Earth now," he said without looking up.

Folding her arms she nodded, "there's not much left for me to do here," she tried to sound professional, but her voice was straining, "I'll probably be back in a year or so, to sign the final papers."

He shrugged, "I don't suppose we'll see each other before then," he said, and straightend up.

She shook her head, biting her lip,

"I'll see you in a year or so," he said, and made his way out of her appartment.

Once he was gone, Kathryn leaned her back on the wall beside her, and sank slowly down to the ground. Trajiv had become a good friend in the months that they had been working together, and she had been aware of his feelings for her for some time. It was only after Seven had made a passing visit to her and 'accidentally' mentioned her encounter with Chakotay, that she had even started to consider Trajiv.

She had thought it would be easy, to sleep with Trajiv, and allow Chakotay to 'accidentally' find out about it. She had wanted some form of revenge on the man that she had repeatedly told that she loved, whilst the entire time he had been keeping such a secret from her. But at that moment when she had seen his face in the photo, she had found herself unable to go through with it, and in those fleeting moments afterwards when Trajiv had been reluctant to climb off from her, it suddenly dawned upon her what she had actually done. She had seduced a Cardassian.

Tears weren't enough to make her feel better, and so she retreated to the shower, where she stayed until her skin started to shrivel. Then she had packed a bag for her trip back to Earth the following day, and slept on the sofa, finding her bed strangly uncomfortable.

V

A few days later.

Chakotay chewed quietly on his food for a moment as he considered what she'd just told him, "okay," he'd said at last.

Kathryn frowned, "okay?" she questioned.

He nodded, reaching out and taking his glass of wine to his lips, gulping probably more than was neccessary, and returning the glass to the table. "Okay," he repeated for her confirmation.

She paused, "is that it?"

"Is what it?" he prodded the food on his plate with his fork, still refusing to meet her eyes.

"You're not angry, or anything?" she asked, not sure whether to be worried or angry by his reaction; didn't he care that she'd come treateningly close to sleeping with a Cardassian?

"Furious," he contradicted his calm and calculated tone. "But what do you want me to do Kathryn? If I knew he was on Earth, I would transport to his location and fight it out with him, or at the very least threaten him. But he's on Cardassia, so there's not much I can do about that."

He finally met her eyes, "I suppose if it would make you feel better, I could shout at you, call you a slut, and refuse to sleep in the same bed with you for a time, but what's the point? You'd just shout back at me, reminding me of the whole Seven affair, refusing to let me forget it, tell me that you were upset and just wanted to get back at me. Then I would say that I only dated Seven to get back at you. We'd fall out, and somewhere along the line Yuna would become neglected by one of us."

"So what's ignoring it solve?" she asked angrily.

Chakotay looked uncertain for a moment, "it means that we avoid saying things that we'll later regret."

"Like what? Like I wish you'd never found out about our baby?" she said vehnomously.

"That was the intention," he muttered under his breath, looking back down at his plate.

"Or that for a moment, I'd actually enjoyed kissing a Cardassian?" she continued to twist the knife.

He looked up sharply at her, and clenched his bottom jaw, and she instantly regretted trying to provoke a reaction out of him. With a great effort, he managed to avoid shouting at her, knowing that it would serve no great purpose, and only wake their sleeping baby girl. "If I didn't know that to Yuna you're nothing more than a familiar stranger, and that you'd never be able to handle her if she started crying, I would leave and stay in your appartment in San Francisco. I would suggest that you go and stay there, if I didn't know that Yuna needs to know her mother, so I'm going to make the suggestion that we sleep seperately for a while."

Kathryn swallowed hard, realising that she'd just shouted at him, when it should be him shouting at her. Then the thought of Seven entered her mind, and she was again fuming at the man opposite her. Suddenly she stood from the table and stormed up the stairs of the house towards their bedroom. For a moment Chakotay just sat there, not sure whether to follow or let her be. He decided to leave her for a few minutes first, he then went up to check on her.

"What do you think you're doing?" Chakotay stood at the door way, seeing clothes littering the floor, and Kathryn shoving clothes into a bag on the bed.

She turned around sharply, "you slept with her Chakotay!" she shouted, "how can I stay in the same house as you knowing that?"

"What?" he sounded startled, "with Seven?"

That question didn't improve her mood, and she continued to chuck things into the bag, "well how many have there been Chakotay?" she kept her back to him.

He came up behind her and grabbed her wrist harshly, pulling her round to face him, grabbing her other wrist and forcing her to look at him. "What the hell did she say to you Kathryn?"

Although she was crying, she still attempted to struggle in his grasp, but he was much stonger than her, and didn't seem to try too hard at keeping his grip on her. "She said that something had happened between the two of you at Tom's house warmning party, and that..." she broke of, being unable to continue as a sob escaped her lips.

"And what?" he demanded.

"And that," she took a deep breath, "that she had just had a miscarriage."

Chakotay's grip on her wrists loosened, with his suprise, and she pulled free with ease from his grasp. Seeing his shocked expression, she decided to continue packing, but just as she turned, Chakotay seemed to come to his senses, and grabbed her waist. "I never slept with her," he said, once he'd regained eye contact, "not on Voyager, not when we returned, and not at Tom and B'Elanna's house warming party; never!"

Kathryn looked searchingly into his eyes. "There's only been you," he went on, "I love you, I would never do anything to hurt you Kathryn!" He raised a hand and cupped her cheek in his palm, continuing in a softer tone, "she's playing us; at the party I tried to speak with her, to try and explain our situation, but she didn't or wouldn't understand, and tried to kiss me. I told her that there would never be anything between us. If she was pregnant, then it had nothing to do with me," he insisted.

She breathed heavily, she'd been angry for so many days, and suddenly she didn't feel anything. His thumb brushed over her lips, and she looked back into his eyes, almost overwhelmed by the love for her that she saw in them. Slowly, he leaned forwards and brushed his lips against hers, he'd forgiven her, and kissing him back she let go of the last shred of anger that she had been feeling towards him.

They slept in the same bed that night.

V

End of chapter nine.