AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

We have big things coming up, but we have a few housekeeping "daily life" things, for everyone, before that.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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Carol was smiling when she came in the door of the ready room. She was carrying a small cake on a plate and, under that plate, it was evident that she had at least two other plates.

"What is this?" Kathryn asked.

"It's cake," Carol said, matter-of-factly.

Kathryn nearly laughed, both at Carol's tone of voice, and the fact that she'd come very close to telling the woman that her time with the ship's "morale officer" was clearly rubbing off on her.

Kathryn stood up from behind her desk and followed Carol to the little table in her ready room—a place where she normally sat for necessary discussions about how they would progress toward home. Carol put the cake down, separated out the plates, and walked over to the replicator to demand a pot of decaffeinated coffee, the necessary condiments, cups, and silverware for two, along with a knife for cutting the cake. Her order materialized immediately and she brought it over to the table before she sat down.

She looked at Kathryn and then stood up, rather abruptly. A smile curled up on side of her mouth this time.

"I'm sorry, Captain," she said, drawing out the title. "Am I not supposed to sit before you?"

"Please call me Kathryn," Kathryn said, not quite sure why the words stuck a little uncomfortably in her throat. "I don't want that to change between us. And—you don't have to wait for me to sit. I just—what is this? I mean I know it's cake, Carol, but…"

Carol smiled. She sat down again, and Kathryn sat next to her. Before she even answered, Carol started slicing into the little cake and separating the pieces out onto their plates.

"I told Neelix that I was pregnant," Carol said. Her cheeks blushed pink with the words, and she continued to smile to herself. She poured the coffee as she spoke. "He said that I needed cake to celebrate properly. I told him that people didn't normally have a cake just for being pregnant. They normally saved the cake for the baby shower, and that doesn't come until much later. But Neelix said that the only thing better for morale than one cake was two cakes, and I couldn't really argue with that. Then you called, so I thought you could share the cake with me. It's too much for one person."

When Kathryn didn't immediately take the cake plate, Carol picked it up and put it in her hands. Kathryn thanked her and accepted the silverware that was offered to her.

"You didn't have to share your baby cake with me," Kathryn said, laughing to herself.

"Daryl is off somewhere with B'Elanna," Carol said. "And—I couldn't think of anyone I'd rather share it with. Plus, you sounded a little urgent when you called me here."

Kathryn sighed and frowned at the cake. Something inside of her wanted the chocolate cake more than she could imagine wanting to eat anything at all. Something else, though, was too tangled up in nerves to even dream of enjoying the dessert.

"I feel silly asking you here, now," Kathryn admitted.

"I'm guessing it wasn't ship business?" Carol asked. She laughed to herself. "Not that I figured it was. I organize things for the doctor, sometimes, when Kes is off-duty, and I help out in the mess hall and airponics. I didn't imagine I was going to be someone you called in a real ship emergency."

Kathryn hummed to herself.

"This coming from a woman who—helped keep me from being killed by what Daryl called a saber-toothed tiger," Kathryn mused. "If you only work in the mess hall and, sometimes, in sickbay, that's because that's what you've chosen. I believe you could intern anywhere you wanted on the ship."

Carol tasted her cake, clearly not noticing—or choosing not to mention—that Kathryn had yet to taste her own.

"I like the mess hall," Carol said. "Honestly—I think I'd be sad if I were moved from there. It's nice. Neelix is always so happy and it's contagious. I need that."

Kathryn smiled to herself.

"Then you'll stay in the mess hall," Kathryn said. "From what I hear, the crew is fond of your dishes when you take over the kitchen for a shift. I've heard you can even make leola root not entirely unappetizing."

Carol laughed to herself.

"It's all in how you season it," she said. "And the key is soaking it before you cook it. It takes some of the bitterness and toughness out." She sighed and put the cake on the table. "But you didn't ask me in here to discuss the finer points of cooking leola root. What's bothering you?"

"I guess—I was missing my mother and my sister," Kathryn said. "I feel silly, now, that I called you in here for that. But—I was just…really missing them. And then, I started to miss my friend."

Carol smiled and reached a hand over. She patted Kathryn's arm affectionately.

"I didn't go anywhere," Carol offered. "It's the same as it was on the planet. I'm never too far away that I can't hear you when you call." She raised her eyebrows at Kathryn. "That's especially true now that I've got my communicator back." Kathryn smiled and nodded to acknowledge what Carol had said. "You want to tell me what you wanted to talk to me about? What you wish you could talk to your mother and sister about?"

Kathryn considered it a moment. She and Carol had grown quite close over their time on the planet. It had been like having her sister back, but without any of the sibling rivalry that had naturally been present with Phoebe. When she was with Carol, Kathryn felt like she could simply be "one of the girls." She could just be "Kathryn" without any expectation attached to being a leader. In fact, with Carol, she could seek some guidance instead of always feeling pressured to give it.

"I never had any practice being a mother," Kathryn said. "I was involved in so many other things, and I didn't even really play with dolls. I don't know how to be a mother, and I'm terrified that—I'm going to be horrible at it."

Carol's whole demeanor softened.

"I was so scared before my daughter, Sophia, was born," Carol said. "I didn't know—how I would keep her safe. I didn't know how to be a mother and I knew that my husband wasn't going to be any kind of father…"

"I shouldn't even be talking to you about this," Kathryn said. Her cheeks suddenly burned warm and she put her hands up to cover them and cool the heat that pooled there. "After everything you've been through as a mother, you don't want to hear that I'm scared that I won't know what I'm doing when…I'm not even in the same kind of situations that you were in."

Carol reached and moved the cake plate off of Kathryn's lap. She placed it on the table, and then she moved close enough to Kathryn to reach and pull her hands away from her face.

"Whether I was a mother in an abusive household or a world full of Walkers," Carol said, "some concerns are just universal. You want to protect your baby. You want to give them a good life. You want them to be loved and provided for. You don't want to screw them up."

Kathryn nodded her head.

"Sometimes there are dangers here," Kathryn said. "And the Delta Quadrant is unknown to us. We don't know what we'll be facing."

She saw the blood drain from Carol's face, but the woman regained her composure quickly. She passed on a smile that was a little less sincere than the one she'd worn before.

"That's where we've all got to work together," Carol said. "If you can run a whole ship, Kathryn, you can handle a family. Besides—you wanted four children, didn't you?"

"That was when my mother was going to be close to me," Kathryn said. "She would've been able to help me. She could have taught me what I needed to know and helped me figure things out."

Carol's smile renewed itself, this time more sincere than it had been before. She squeezed Kathryn's hands in hers.

"Then you're just going to have to settle for a friend who can help you," Carol said. "A friend who has a lot of patience and can teach you whatever you don't know. But, Kathryn? You already want to be a mother. You're already going to be a good mother, because you already love that baby."

Kathryn's face ran warm again. Her whole body ran warm and she slipped her fingers into the collar of her uniform, suddenly aware of how unforgiving the fabric was and how it trapped heat. She'd never noticed that it didn't breathe at all.

"I hardly know that there is a baby," Kathryn said.

"And still you love it," Carol said. "Just like a mother should."

"I can't say that I love it," Kathryn said. "How can I say that when—it's not even big enough for the doctor to tell what it is, beyond a baby, of course?"

"Because you wouldn't be so distracted, in your ready room, over whether or not you'll be a good mother in like—seven months—if you didn't already love that baby and want the absolute best for it," Carol said.

"You decided that you want yours," Kathryn said. She neither really meant it as a question nor a statement. She meant to open the door for Carol to talk to her about it.

"I don't think there was ever any question over whether or not I wanted the baby," Carol said. "I don't want—what I fear comes with the baby. I told you what happened—with all of my children."

"I'm so sorry," Kathryn said.

"You don't have to keep saying that," Carol said, "every time that I bring it up."

"I feel it every time you bring it up," Kathryn said sincerely.

"I'm very tired," Carol said. "The kind of tired that the doctor can't even help me with. And—I want this baby. As much as I want this baby, though, I want everything that this baby represents to me. I want a new life with Daryl. A whole new life. I want to build a family with Daryl. I want to be three hundred years and thousands of light years away from everything I knew before. I want—to bake cakes with Neelix and listen to his silly little Talaxian stories. I want to be a mommy again, and I want to worry about what normal mommies worry about—without all the extra of abusive husbands and walking, man-eating corpses."

Kathryn laughed ironically to herself.

"How do you feel about—possible hostile aliens?" Kathryn asked.

Carol winked at her.

"As long as Captain Janeway's running the ship, and my phaser is fully charged, I'm willing to take a few chances for a shot at absolute, unadulterated joy," Carol said. "Besides—I'm also looking forward to helping my…can I say best friend? Kathryn Janeway?" Kathryn swallowed, but she nodded her approval. Carol looked quite pleased with the confirmation. "I never had one of those before, either. I've had Daryl, but not a girlfriend. I'm looking forward to helping her get ready to be a mommy for the first time."

Kathryn smiled to herself and sighed.

"It sounds so wonderful when you say it like that," Kathryn mused.

"It's going to be wonderful," Carol said with a sharp nod of her head. "I have to believe that. I need that. More than I can express. So, you have to believe that. And—Daryl is thrilled. He's going to be such a good daddy. I'm actually going to be able to sleep, at least a little, and know that the baby is fine with its daddy."

Kathryn couldn't help but smile at the image. It was easy to imagine Daryl as a good father but, more than that, it conjured up images of her own domestic situation.

"Chakotay will be a wonderful father," she breathed out.

"I'm sure he will," Carol confirmed. "Are you feeling better?"

"I am," Kathryn admitted.

"Good," Carol said. "So, when are you telling the crew?"

Kathryn's stomach lurched, again.

"I don't know how to tell them," she admitted. "They're going to have every right to be angry with me. To feel betrayed. They should be my greatest concern. My only concern should be getting this ship safely back to Earth. They'll feel that I had no business falling in love with my first officer and getting pregnant with his child."

"That's not the way that I hear them talk about you," Carol said. She shook her head for emphasis. "And I hear everything in the mess hall. And, besides that, that doesn't sound like the crew that threatened mutiny to come back for you. If their concern was just getting safely home, Kathryn, then they wouldn't have done what they did. They would have simply continued safely home with a new captain. It's not really the captain that they're interested in—at least not as a title. It's the person. And everyone's always going to perform their duties better if the rest of their life is going well."

"Chakotay thinks I should tell them sooner, rather than later," Kathryn said. "He thinks they'll feel more upset that they found out late than…well, than they will over anything else."

"I think he's right," Carol said. "If you need a few days to let things settle, then, by all means, take those days. But after that? It's time to tell the crew."

"I don't know how," Kathryn said.

"Just like you told them about the relationship," Carol said. "Nobody's blinked an eye as far as I've seen. Let them offer their congratulations. Tell them you'll take their concerns into account and then file them in the garbage if you don't care for them. But let them in on the secret that their captain's brought a souvenir onboard from the planet."

Kathryn laughed to herself.

"Are you sure that you don't want to give up working in the mess hall and being assistant morale officer to be the ship's counselor?" Kathryn asked.

Carol shook her head gently.

"If you only knew how big of a fucking mess I am," she mused.

"You've helped me immensely," Kathryn said. "Just by being there. Just by being you."

"Someday, I may need you to repay the favor."

"You can count on me," Kathryn offered.

"I already knew that," Carol responded. She offered the cake plate back in Kathryn's direction.

"Eat your baby cake, Kathryn," Carol offered.

"Decaf?" Kathryn asked, gesturing toward the coffee on the table.

"Rule one of budding motherhood," Carol said. "Try to keep caffeine to a minimum. Their little systems can't handle it."

Kathryn checked her breathing. It was real. It was very real. And it was only beginning to really sink in. She tasted the cake.

"Decaf it is," she agreed. Somehow, she'd make do.

"Good," Carol said. "Now—when you tell the crew, make sure you tell Neelix you want a different kind of cake. And share it with me."

Kathryn laughed to herself.

"How do you feel about…something with a light flavor? Like strawberry?"

"Is that what the first baby wants?" Carol asked.

"The first baby?" Kathryn asked.

"Captain's baby has to be something like ship royalty," Carol offered with a shrug.

Kathryn laughed to herself.

"Chakotay's going to find that amusing," she said. "I guess—we'll see how I feel when I tell the ship."

"Don't wait too long," Carol warned. "It's really way more likely that they'll be upset that you didn't tell them than they will be that you did."

"Maybe tomorrow," Kathryn said. "Maybe I just need to sleep on it a little longer to feel—comfortable."

"Then I'll pray for you to have sweet dreams," Carol offered.