Angel of the North

Part 2- Replacement

It was midday when Chakotay went back to the hospital room, where his son still lay motionless in his bed. The nurse said that Kathryn had been gone for some hours, and so he assumed that either she'd been called away for work, or she had finally become aware of her mortality and had gone to catch up on some sleep.

There were magazines that he could have been reading, or papers that he could have been rifling through, or coffee that he could have been drinking, and plenty of people that he could have been talking to. But instead, he sat on a chair, by his son's bed, his hands clasped together and his body bent forwards in thought. Every now and again he would lift his head, and just check that all the instruments monitoring and maintaining his son were still working, but then he would return to his hunched shape.

He had been sitting like that for close to two hours, although he had no idea how long it had been. He was remembering the first time that he had held Ryan as a baby; it had been different to when he had first held Aaron. Aaron was the first, and so Chakotay had been so scared, not only of holding the small frame, but also of being unable to take care of him when he cried out in the middle of the night, he was scared that he might not make a very good father, that his son would grow up to hate him. With Ryan it had all be different, he already knew that he could take care of a baby, and so he had no doubts when he had held his youngest son for the first time, just the sheer joy of helping to create the new life in his arms.

There was the sound of the door opening, and Chakotay looked up to see Aaron enter. His son looked a little startled to see his father, and then his surprise was replaced with anger; what right did this man have, to just walk back into his life? For a moment he thought about leaving, he thought about turning around and slamming the door behind him as he walked off back down the corridor. But then the Janeway stubbornness got the better of him, and he decided that if anyone was going to leave, then it would be Chakotay.

He dumped a bag filled with various padds and books against the wall, and grabbed a chair, moving it to where he had left his bag, sat himself down, and took out a book.

Chakotay watched intently as his son slammed his bag, then chair against the floor, then proceeded to unzip his bag and remove a book; it was Shakespeare. For a moment he wondered why his son was reading something so old, before realisation suddenly hit him. "Why aren't you in school?" he found his voice.

Aaron stiffened at his father speaking to him, but didn't glance up from his book; he wasn't really reading the words, just looking at them, he turned the page just for dramatic affect, to show that he really wasn't listening, or planning on giving a response.

"Aaron, I'm speaking to you," Chakotay was suddenly angry as his son continued to ignore him, but he attempted to keep his voice low and calm, "now tell me why you're not in school?"

With an eerie calmness, the eighteen year old marked the page he was on, closed the book, and placed it carefully back into his bag. He turned slightly, so that he was face to face with Chakotay, and gave him a look, so cold that sent a shiver up the older man's spine. "What's it to you?"

His jaw dropped for a moment, "I'm your father Aaron, I don't need a reason to ask why you're not in school."

The younger version of himself just stared blankly at him, "you're not my father," he replied calmly and steadily, no hint of sarcasm or venom in his voice, like he was stating a well known fact, not a deep wounding, lash-out.

Chakotay decided that he wasn't going to show any signs of anger, he could match his son for calmness any day; after all, he was the one that started it. "If that's the way you feel," he said at last.

The atmosphere was thick, it was like watching two adult, male tigers, gazing across at each other from opposite sides of the stream. Both looking like they are lazing in the sun, but the tense shoulder muscles showing that they are just waiting for the other one to make his move, so that he can make his. They sat and looked at each other for a moment longer, before Aaron broke eye contact, and Chakotay turned to look back across at Ryan.

It stayed like that for some time; not speaking to each other, not looking at each other, and it gave them both a chance to calm down and reflect. That was always the way it was with the two of them, they were both so calm and patient that they had never had a major argument with one another. Sure, they had had falling outs, but one of them would always realise that they were wrong, and within hours they would have forgiven each other. Forgiveness would probably take Aaron a little longer this time, but if any two people could do it, it was them.

Finally Aaron looked across at his father, who was mechanically twisting his wedding ring round his finger, and then back the other way. "Sorry about what I said," he broke the silence, and Chakotay looked instantly up at him from across the room.

He shook his head, "it's alright, you have every right to be angry at me; even I'm angry at me."

"It's just that after you left, things just got worse;" he tried to explain, taking a shaky breath, "I know things weren't great when you were home, but at least then we all had you, and then when you were gone, we saw mum even less, and when we did see her, she was always so upset…"

"I'm sorry that I went so far away," Chakotay continued as his son broke off, too upset himself to continue, "you know that I love you."

Aaron nodded his head solemnly, "I love you too dad," he said, looking down at the floor, determined not to cry.

Chakotay stood up from his seat, and crossed the room. When he reached his son, he placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, then ruffled his hair slightly. Aaron stood from his seat, and warmly and desperately embraced his father, gripping him tightly, not wanting to let him go. Chakotay held his son equally as tightly, and they stayed like that for a short time. Eventually Aaron tapped his dad on the back for release, and they broke apart, clearing their throats uncomfortably, recovering from their short moment of father-son bonding.

His father smiled across at him and shook his head as he chuckled lightly, and quickly Aaron joined him with a grin, and then a short bout of laughter, until they were both laughing hard. At some point a nurse walked in, and gave them a weird look when she saw them laughing, they managed to subdue their laughter until after she had checked on Ryan and left the room, at which point they went into hysterics. It took them a while to recover, and by the time they had, any rift that had formed between them, was on its way to being repaired.

They had moved their chairs and were sitting next to each other. Chakotay now had a coffee in his hand that he was taking sips from as he read a magazine, and Aaron was writing notes on a padd from the book that he was reading.

"So are you staying for long?"

Chakotay looked across at his son once he'd spoken, and looked momentarily uncertain, "in this room, or on Earth?"

Aaron looked up at his dad, and finally met his eyes, "both."

He frowned, "I'll probably stay here until I get too hungry and feel the urge to grab myself some dinner. But I'm not sure how long I'm going to stay on Earth; it all depends on Ryan."

"You mean if he dies or not?" Aaron looked back down at his book, his voice had an eerie sense of acceptance to it.

His jaw hung for a moment or two, "you think your brother's going to die?"

The young man with the same dark hair and complexion shrugged, "maybe, but I don't think it should affect your decision."

"What do you mean?" Chakotay crossed his arms.

Finally, Aaron put down his padd and book, and looked across at his father, "it's not really my business, but if Ryan wakes up, he's not going to be any better off if you and mum start playing happy families."

"And what makes you think that's going to happen?" he asked sternly.

His son looked at him for a moment, something close to disbelief on his face, "you and mum always to that; you always put a front on for us."

"We don't," he insisted, but got one of those looks that meant that Aaron was totally unconvinced. "Well we always thought that we did quite well to hide it from you," he admitted.

"It worked when I was younger I guess," he said thoughtfully, "but it's not going to work on me or Ryan now."

"Well if it's any consolation," Chakotay said slowly, "I don't think it's likely that me and your mother will even be able to be in the same room as each other, let alone pretend to get back together."

Aaron didn't say anything, and soon a cold silence washed over them.

V

He had done as he said he would, and gone out to get himself some dinner when the hunger started to overwhelm him. He had only been gone an hour, and didn't expect to see Aaron still there when he returned, and so wasn't surprised when he saw that he'd already left. He was caught a little off guard though, when he saw a doctor walk out of the room his son was in, as he approached it from the corridor.

Thinking against calling out to the doctor and asking him why he had been in there, and what the progress of his son was, he went right ahead into the room, seeing Kathryn already in there with Tom and Taya.

Tom looked across at his former commander, and gave him a brief grin, shifting Taya slightly on his hip.

"Daddy," the little girl cried out when she saw Chakotay, causing Kathryn to look up sharply at the man by the door.

Chakotay ignored her scrutinising look on him, and went over to where Tom was standing, who was quite happy to hand the little girl back over to her dad. "Hey sweetie," he said into her hair.

"Mummy, daddy's here," Taya pointed out eagerly, as she strained her head round.

"I know honey," she said softly, "can't you remember seeing him last night?"

The little girl screwed her face up as she thought back to the day before, then shook her head. "I think you were too tired to notice me," Chakotay explained, stoking back her long dark hair.

She looped her arms even tighter round his neck, and refused to let go.

"Tom has offered to look after her for the next few days," Kathryn explained his presence.

Chakotay nodded, he wanted to take care of his daughter himself; it had been so long since he had seen her. But he reasoned with himself that he couldn't just suddenly walk back into their lives and expect things to go back to how they were before. After a few moments he also realised his wife's subtle hint, and with some reluctance handed Taya back over to Tom, kissing the top of her head before he did so.

"I'll see you later," he promised, then looked across Kathryn, "maybe I could pick her up from school tomorrow, and take her out for a milk shake."

Kathryn looked at him, then at Taya's thrilled smile, and then at Tom, "that would actually be easier for me," he said, "it means that I don't have to rush the flight tomorrow afternoon."

Eventually she nodded her consent, and after some goodbyes, and some protests from Taya, the two of them left, again leaving Kathryn and Chakotay alone together in the hospital room with their unconscious son. They stood motionless for a minute or so, looking after the door that their friend and daughter had just left through, before Kathryn turned to him, "doctor Henley said that you've been here most of the day."

He shrugged and walked coldly past her, "so?"

"Chakotay, please don't be like this!" she pleaded as he sat himself down.

"Like what?" he folded his arms and looked across at her.

She stayed standing. "We need to talk about this."

"No, we don't," he looked away from her, still finding it hard to come to terms with what she had done.

"I thought that you knew about me and Brendan," she decided that they were going to have this conversation whether he wanted to, or not. "For a while I thought that was why you left," she said honestly as he looked at the floor, "and then when you never mentioned it, I slowly came to terms with the fact that you had left entirely because of me." Her face was pained, and she was obviously on the verge of tears, "I was so angry at you, and then when I found out I was pregnant-" she paused, "I don't expect you to forgive me, I just want you to understand… I want to understand myself."

Finally he looked up at her, "are you sure it was Brendan's?"

She looked confused for a moment, then when she realised that he was talking about the pregnancy she suddenly realised that she didn't have the energy to continue standing. "At first I wasn't sure to be honest," she admitted as she sat herself down on the end of Ryan's bed, "when I told Brendan that it was either him or you, I expected him to be really supportive, but he said that he only wanted to father the baby if it was biologically his."

She took a deep breath, "we had the genetic test, and determined the baby was Brendan's, but I miscarried only a few weeks later." She paused, "for some reason Brendan became angry at me; he couldn't understand how I could carry three of your children to term, and not his. We broke up a few weeks after I was out of hospital, and haven't spoken since."

"Why did you have the affair in the first place?" he asked softly, but she could see the pain in his face.

Kathryn shrugged, "we were having problems, we'd been having them for some time, and he was always there for me. The night you cancelled dinner with me and Brendan because of an argument between the two of us, I guess we both had a little too much to drink and well, you know the rest."

She looked across at him, but he refused to keep her gaze, "but why carry on with an affair? Why not just leave it at one night?"

"I don't think I can answer that," she admitted, "Chakotay, I'm sorry, I never meant to put you through any of this."

He shook his head, "I can't say I'm surprised, you've been doing this to me since we first met."

"What do you mean by that?" her voice was dangerously calm.

"You still weren't over Justin when you got pregnant with Aaron, and you've always blamed me for forcing you to move on before you were ready."

"No Chakotay, my sister did that well before I met you." She raised her voice a little, "if anyone's blaming anyone, it's you blaming me for getting pregnant, for bringing your career to a swift halt by forcing you to settle down."

She saw the anger rising in his face as he stood from his chair, "I married you because I loved you," he insisted, "and because you needed that stability after losing your father and Justin, and having a baby. I knew that I was your second choice, but I've learnt to live with it, but you seem intent on punishing me for replacing that man Kathryn.

"As for my career," he blew out a long breath, "I've always been much more content with home life than you have. I realised early on that you were destined to command star ships, and become a much decorated officer like the great Admiral Janeway before you. I realised that, accepted that, and promised myself to do whatever it took to make our family work, and that meant sacrifices, that meant serving below you, but for a long while it was worth it."

"And you regret that now?" she asked sharply.

"No," he looked sharply round at her, "before the Cardassian war started, we had a great marriage. The attack on Dorvan shook it a little, and then the peace treaty, a little more. But you were different then; I couldn't have asked for more support when I told you that I wanted to return to university." He sighed, "and then the war started, and I rejoined StarFleet to be your first officer again, a year later I started to notice that our marriage was failing. But we were in the middle of a war, so let it fail; I let you use me, I didn't stop you when you became reclusive, because if I had have done anything, I knew we would have failed as a command team. And do I regret letting that happen? Every fucking day!"

Kathryn watched him for a moment longer; it wasn't often that she saw Chakotay looking so distressed, but then she looked away as the words sunk in. What hurt her the most, was not that he had realised they were sacrificing their marriage for their ship and crew, or that neither of them had done anything about it, but the fact that he didn't expect her to have done anything about it.

Had she ever made an effort with their relationship?

"I'm sorry," she turned round and looked at him, he was sitting back down, breathing heavily with his head in his hands. He looked up at her as she said the words, but then turned away, the emotions exchanged as their gazes met having been too much for him.

There was a long and drawn out silence between the two of them, before she finally spoke again. "I remember one summer, about seventeen years ago, we were out on one of the meadows in Indiana, lying in the long grass," she started to recall. "You were wearing a deep red shirt, that had the top few buttons undone, and I remember thinking that you were going to get a triangle of tan there if you weren't careful."

He looked at her, his face passive and she paused for a moment, as she collected her memories. "It was about two weeks before our wedding day, and I had been starting to rethink my decision to marry you; I wondered if you were only marrying me because of Aaron, and if it was too soon after Justin to be marrying another man. But whilst we were lying there, out on the field, I just forgot every reason why I shouldn't marry you, and it was a euphoric moment Chakotay, I only remember thinking to myself: 'so this is what it's like to know that you'll be in love for the rest of your life'.

"Maybe up until that point I did think of you as a second to Justin, but I married you two weeks later knowing that I would spend the rest of my life falling in love with you." He looked deeply at her as her voice started to crack up, "you weren't second choice, you were the inevitable decision- I'm sorry that I didn't try harder, and that I've hurt you so badly, but please don't think that I did it on purpose to pay you back for replacing a man that I once loved!"

He swallowed hard, and looked down at the ground. Minutes passed, people moved outside the room, doctors rushing past the window to other rooms, and nurses consoled patients, but Kathryn and Chakotay stayed exactly where they were seated.

"You were wearing a pink floral dress that came just below your knee, it had a low cut and was held by thin straps, you wore it because you knew I liked it," his voice had at first startled her, but as he continued in his low and steady manner, it started to calm her. "You told me that you loved me, and for the first time I felt like you meant it; I was so surprised, that it took me a while to say that I loved you back. We made love in that field, not caring how well hidden we were in the long grass, and then you showed me to your tree refuge, where we climbed into the branches, and sat to watch the sun set."

"You remember," she said quietly, a soft smile on her lips.

He nodded, "do you think Ryan was conceived there?"

"I like to think so," she admitted.

There was a pause and Chakotay smiled, "let's hope that Ryan doesn't remember this conversation when he wakes up."

She returned the smile, "I don't think he'd ever forgive us for telling him how he came about."

They both chuckled lightly, the atmosphere was light for the first time in a long time. "Can I ask you something?" he went on almost hesitantly.

She frowned, "sure."

"How do you feel about me?"

Her frown didn't dissipate, "what do you mean?"

He paused, trying to figure out himself, exactly what he meant, "I mean… are you still angry at me? Did you miss me at all in the past eight months? Or were you glad to see the back of me?" he paused for a beat, "do you still love me?"

This time she leant forwards and pinched the bridge of her nose; he was asking her all of the things that she didn't herself know. "I'm not angry at you anymore Chakotay," she admitted at last, "and of course I missed you; but everything that I miss about you, was years ago, before the dominion war even started." A sad and distant smile took up residence on her face, "I miss our old house from when the boys were little, and I'd wake up in the mornings to find out that you'd let them both into our bed. I miss the neck rubs, the cooking, the times that we'd just lie on the grass in the garden, under the shade of that old willow tree, and just not do anything."

He smiled at the old memories, "then we'd hear the boys fighting and have to go and break them up."

She laughed, "and it was always over the same stuffed animal, that horrible thread bear!"

"Sir Edward was a legend," he insisted, "but remember those two months after we brought Taya home, and they were the best behaved boys anyone had ever seen."

She covered her face with her hand for a moment as she laughed, "only because they had nothing left to fight over after they had given Sir Edward to Taya?"

"Did we ever get that thing back from decon.?" he asked, laughing himself.

She shook her head, "I don't know," she said between bouts of laughter.

Eventually their laughter subsided, and the atmosphere between them was not nearly as thick as it had been previously. "So?" Chakotay said after some time had past.

Looking back at him she looked confused, "what?"

"Do you still love me?" he persisted.

It didn't take her long to think about it, but it took her a little longer to make sense of everything and put words to how she felt about him. "Of course I still love you," she said at last, "I've loved you so intensely for so many years, I don't know how not to."

"Do you think it's worth giving our marriage another shot?" he asked.

"I don't know," she replied honestly, then took a deep breath before going on, "maybe we could go on a date some time, and see how things go from there."

Chakotay smiled up at her, "I'd like that."

End of part 2