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THE LOST YEARS
(R)
CHAPTER SEVEN
THREE MONTHS LATER
A bump now visible, Kathryn stood in the middle of the room she and Chakotay had selected to be the nursery and tried to visualise how the plain and empty room would look when it was redecorated.
"I think blue carpet," she said, looking at the presently uncovered floor. "And curtains to match. Not dark blue, though. Something bright and cheerful. The walls should be cheerful too. I'm thinking yellow teddy bears and blue bunnies..."
"Sounds good," Chakotay replied cautiously, bridging the gap between them, "but maybe we should opt for a more gender neutral color like purple or green..."
"I like blue," Kathryn answered. She turned to look at the window. "We're going to need to put up a blind too as the sun really hits this part of the house in the afternoon. We don't want our son to be dazzled..." She then turned to her right. "And I think we should put the cot over there. It's away from both the door and the window so he should be nice and snug..."
Chakotay looked at her in concern. "Kathryn," he said hesitantly. "We don't know that we're having a boy. We may be having a girl."
"I know that," Kathryn replied. She then tried to change the subject. "I think we should have a blind to match the curtains. I can replicate a catalogue and we can look through it tonight."
Chakotay didn't follow her change in direction. "I don't think you do know it," he continued. "I mean...I don't think you accept the possibility that we might have a girl. You never talk about having a daugther, you only ever talk about having a son. And now you want to have a blue-themed nursery, the traditional color for a baby boy..."
"Then maybe it's just instinct," Kathryn responded. "Maybe I sense we're having a boy."
Chakotay closed the gap between them. "Sense it or want it?"
"I don't know what you mean..."
"I think you do. You want this baby to be a boy, don't you?"
Kathryn was about to protest, but the look on Chakotay's face made it pointless and she nodded in defeat. He knew her too well, better than she knew herself. She could hide nothing from him.
"Tell me why," Chakotay asked gently.
"Because the thought of having a girl terrifies me," she said, looking at her hands. "How would I keep her safe? How would I spare her going through what I have?"
Chakotay put his hand on her shoulder. "After what happened to you it frightens me too. All I want is for our child to grow up in a happy, loving and safe environment. And all I can say is that I know we will both do our best to make sure that happens."
Kathryn looked up at him. "But what if our best isn't good enough?"
"I can't answer that," Chakotay said sadly. "But having a boy wouldn't make the problem go away. Boys are abused too."
"I know," Kathryn replied, turning away from him to look out of the window. "I know that having a boy doesn't make the danger any less. I just...Statistically more girls are abused and raped than boys and being the scientist that I am, when it comes to statistics and probability..."
Chakotay finished the sentence for her. "You see the probabilty of risk to a son as less."
Kathryn nodded. "Ironic, in a way. I mean, statistics are meaningless, aren't they? They're just numbers assigned to an experience. They say nothing about what that experience was like. And, statistically, I'm not a statistic. There is no record anywhere of what happened to me. Statistically, I'm a non-statistic." She paused. "They say that for every one boy abused there are two girls, but what if there are more boys? How can we know? I don't know why a cold meaningless statistic should be of any comfort and yet...and yet I suppose for the scientific mind it offers the lesser danger, like choosing a route with the less number of reported casualties even though both are dangerous..." She paused again. "And then there is the other issue."
"What's that?"
Kathryn was a moment in answering. "Boys don't get pregnant."
There was something in the way Kathryn said those words that sent a cold shiver down Chakotay's spine. For a long moment he stared at her, a growing fear inside. "Are you saying...?"
Kathryn nodded. "When I was fourteen."
Pain knifed Chakotay's heart. After all they had been through, after all she had told him...not once had he suspected this...
"I lost the baby," Kathryn continued. "Lost it before I even knew I had it. I don't even know if it was a girl or a boy. No one told me. No one cared. I collapsed in chemistry class one day and the teacher sent me to sickbay. I don't remember much except coming round and being told I'd suffered a miscarriage. I'd been bleeding for a few days but I thought it was just a period. I had no way of knowing it was anything else. Before Matron called my mother she questioned me for a long time, asking again and again who the father was. I wanted to tell her the truth, but I was so scared of what my step-uncle would do to me if I did. So I told her it was a boy I'd dated on Talkon Prime in the summer. There was no boy, I hadn't dated anyone, but I didn't know what else to say. When she asked me to name him, I said I didn't know his full name, just his nickname. She asked if he'd forced himself on me, and I said no." She paused. "I should have told her the truth, I know that, but I was too scared."
Chakotay put his hand on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Kathryn."
"I thought my mother would be furious, but she wasn't...at least, if she was she didn't show it. She took me home, put me in bed, and then gave me a long talk about how it was wrong of me to do what I had with this boy and in the future I should wait until I loved someone. All I could think about was what Daddy was going to say and begged her not to tell him. She said she wouldn't, I guess because she knew he would be angry and he had enough on his plate as it was..." She paused. "I blamed him...my step-uncle...for my baby dying. The night before I started bleeding, he made me do things and...I blamed him. And I hated him more than I hated him already because I wanted my baby, I really did. I know some people would never understand that, but I did." She paused again. "My step-uncle left a few weeks later. Maybe my mother confided in him about what had happened, I don't know. But he left for Africa and I never saw him again."
Chakotay gently turned Kathryn towards him. "Why haven't you ever told me...after everything we've been through...?"
"I didn't think you needed to know," she replied. "You had so much to come to terms with already and I didn't want to burden you with more than was necessary."
"Whatever you've been through, I want you to be able to tell me. I don't want you to ever feel you have to hide something from me." He paused, hardly daring to ask. "Is there anything else you haven't told me?"
"No," Kathryn answered honestly. "That's the last thing. You know everything now." She looked up at him sadly. "We're having a daughter, aren't we?"
Chakotay flinched at the question. "Why do you ask me?"
"Because if you know me then I know you. You've clearly been worrying about my preoccupation with having a boy, and my guess is you've spoken to the doctor about our baby's gender. If he had confirmed that we're having a boy then you wouldn't have said anything to me,you'd just have let me go on believing it would be a boy. But he said we're having a girl, didn't he?"
Chakotay hesitated, but then nodded.
Tears welled in Kathryn's eyes and she lowered them. "I think I knew," she said quietly. "Deep inside. I think I knew and that's why I was so afraid..."
Chakotay caressed her arm softly. "I understand. But our daughter is going to be the luckiest little girl in the world to have you as her mother. Don't ever doubt that."
Kathryn looked up at him and smiled wanly. "Not half as lucky as she'll be to have you as her father."
Chakotay brushed his fingers against her cheek and then gathered her against him. Kathryn wrapped her arms around him and leant her head on his shoulder.
"Purple," she said after a while. "I think we should make the room purple."
Chakotay kissed her hair. "Then purple it is."
END OF CHAPTER SEVEN