AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Daryl had disappeared for most of the day. Carol hadn't been worried, she'd gotten information, from B'Elanna, that had confirmed that he'd remained in the holodeck playing with the simulation Klingon game that held his fascination for hours. Carol had let him be. She had busied herself with other things, and she'd let him have his fun. Eventually, she knew, he'd come back—and she'd been right.
He should have been exhausted. When he got out of the shower, he should have been dragging himself to the bed to rest. Instead, he came out of the shower with a seemingly endless amount of energy and dripping testosterone as much as he was dripping bathwater.
Carol had never heard Daryl speak as enthusiastically as he spoke about the rush of managing to kill the first of his Klingon opponents after studying their battle tactics and learning how to get the best of the alien. His enthusiasm for having killed the simulated Klingon quickly turned to declarations of his willingness to fight the entire Klingon Empire for her—if that's what was required of him—and those declarations had turned to husky-voiced declarations of love.
Carol's entire body responded to the fact that, even after his shower, Daryl practically smelled of testosterone. It radiated off of him and she'd unapologetically pushed him to the bed and crawled on top of him to show her appreciation for even the most unnecessary efforts to protect her that he could demonstrate.
Now, he was still breathing heavily from their exertions, even though they'd been simply resting together for at least fifteen minutes. Though much of his body had tagged out for at least a while, his mind still wasn't entirely satiated. In response to what his mind still seemed to need of her, he was peppering Carol's body with kisses, tracing every mark and scar, all of which she'd considered having removed before, with the tip of his tongue as he passed them.
Carol groaned out her appreciation as he stopped, his mouth paying special attention to the skin just below her navel, to allow his hands—trailing under her—to squeeze her ass and massage it.
He dragged his teeth gently across her skin and growled at her in response to the groan of appreciation, before he moved his hands and, panting from his mental stimulation every bit as much as he had been from his earlier physical stimulation, he rubbed his hand over Carol's abdomen and kissed the area with the same hungry intensity as before. Then, he moved, pushing himself up, to line himself up with Carol before he rested his hand on her stomach again.
"I can see it," Daryl said.
"What?" Carol asked.
"The alien," Daryl said with a smile. "I can see it. Growing. I mean—it's you, but…I can see you've grown."
Carol hummed at him.
"There's nothing there," Carol said. "Except maybe some fat, but that isn't…it's just fat. If there's anything. There's nothing there."
He frowned at her.
"I know what I see, Carol," he insisted.
"And I know that we didn't know it was there two days ago," Carol said. "There's no way there's anything visible there now."
Daryl frowned at her, brows furrowed.
"I see it," he said, sounding, for just a split second, like a child that was angry that their beliefs were being picked apart by someone being cruel to them.
And it struck Carol. It all struck her. The realization that everything that Daryl had probably ever wanted or believed as a child had been torn apart, systematically, one piece at a time. Everything good, more than likely, that he'd ever believed or felt—in the time when he was most vulnerable—had been ripped away from him and ripped in half right before his eyes.
All he wanted, at that moment, was to believe in something good. He wanted to trust that he could see something he wanted—something they both wanted—dearly.
Carol's chest ached, and her throat felt tight as she swallowed. She forced a smile and nodded at him.
"You know," she said, hoping he didn't hear the rasp in her voice that her tight throat caused, "I did kind of think my pants were—a little tighter. You…" She paused, clearing her throat. "You think…maybe they really were?"
Daryl's features softened. He relaxed. He brushed his fingers over her, again. He nodded, returning to plant a single kiss just below her navel before he moved to look at her again—this time with a soft smile playing at his lips.
"You oughta wear them dresses you had on the planet," Daryl said. "There was room in 'em. You said they were comfortable."
Carol smiled to herself.
"Tomorrow," she assured him.
He rested next to her, propped on his elbow, but he didn't move the hand that was resting on the evidence he was convinced he could see of their little, growing, alien.
"You want a boy or a girl?" Daryl asked. "Alien—I mean."
Carol smiled to herself. She felt the familiar tightening in her chest.
"Whatever you want," Carol said.
"I don't care," Daryl said. "From what they say—hell, we could probably have a half dozen of each if we wanted 'em. Maybe even pick and choose each time. I'm just—askin' what you want."
"Right now, I don't know," Carol said.
"You don't want to know?" Daryl asked.
"When I think about it," Carol admitted, "I can hardly breathe. I see Sophia. I see Henry. No matter what I think it might be? I just see—them. I see something happening and I see their turned faces. I think—it's going to look at me with eyes like that…"
Carol closed her eyes. The sharp pain in her chest, made her pulse pick up. It was difficult to breathe, suddenly, and that realization only made it more difficult to breathe—it always seemed to compound itself.
She heard Daryl's voice, too distant, at first, for his physical proximity, and she felt his hand running smooth laps around her body.
"Nothings going to happen," he assured her. "Nothing's happening right now. It's just you and me. Just you and me, and we're just talkin', and not a damned thing's happening. We ain't in that world no more. We ain't in that life no more. All that's back there—a world away. Three hundred years away. It's just us, now."
He kept talking, and Carol was thankful for that. She appreciated it. Slowly, she latched onto his words. She listened to them. She practically absorbed them. The muscles in her body let go, one by one, of the tension they were storing. She relaxed back into the mattress. She felt the comfort of the bed around her. She felt Daryl's closeness and smelled the sweat from the love they'd made—the scent was strangely comforting and hanging in the air around them. She opened her eyes to him and he smiled at her before planting a soft kiss on the corner of her mouth.
"Hey," he said.
Carol smiled to herself.
"Hey," she echoed.
"It's a different world now," Daryl said. Carol nodded. "Little alien—conceived in outer space? That's a whole different ballgame." Carol laughed, her chest loosening even more.
"It is," she ceded.
"What you think—you might like that alien to be?" Daryl asked. "Boy or girl?"
"I can't choose," Carol insisted. "I want—everything with you."
Daryl smiled.
"We'll work on it, then," he said. He laughed to himself. "Gotta start somewhere."
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Kathryn was practically buzzing. Chakotay imagined he could almost hear the electricity of nerves running through her body. Still, he would take this uptick of energy and enthusiasm over the low that she'd been suffering since finding out about the baby any day.
She was just finishing the braid in her hair. He watched her as she manipulated the last length of her hair, the elastic already prepared around her fingers in some way—evidence that she'd been doing this for years. She was pacing around the living area of her quarters—their quarters—while she worked. Her feet were practically keeping time with her fingers. Chakotay sat on the couch and watched her. The vision of her, in her nightgown, was one he never really tired of anyway.
"What do you think?" She asked.
"Any way you want to do it, Kathryn, is fine with me," Chakotay offered. "I promise. I'm not going to be bothered either way."
"I just think—if we make a big production of things," Kathryn said, "then we're inviting more criticism from the people who would just want to be negative."
Chakotay hummed.
"You may be right," he said, feeling that she needed him to simply agree with her so that she could continue to walk—and work—things out for herself.
"If we're casual about it," Kathryn said, "then I think they'll be casual about it. It'll just be something that they all know about. A natural occurrence."
Chakotay laughed to himself. He shifted on the couch, uncrossing his legs, and patted the space beside him to try to subtly invite her to sit with him. She stopped pacing just as she secured the braid, which would keep her hair from tangling horribly during the night, with the elastic. She turned and headed toward him.
"Whether we announce it dramatically or just as another piece of random information thrown out to the ship at shift change," Chakotay said, "it's still going to be perfectly natural." Kathryn reached him, but instead of sitting on the couch next to him, she crawled on top of him, facing him, and straddled him. She rested in his lap and he happily caught her around the waist to make sure that she didn't accidentally topple backward. He hoped she wouldn't be offended by the fact that his body naturally responded to such a position with arousal, and he gently kneaded the skin beneath his fingertips as he held her. "There's nothing unnatural about the woman who—once, not so very long ago—promised to spend the rest of her life dedicated to me, discovering that she's carrying our child. In fact, for as much as I've ever learned about any number of species and civilizations, that's one of the most natural things that can occur between a man and a woman who are very, very much in love with one another."
Kathryn kneaded his shoulders beneath her own fingers in the way that he was kneading her hips. She purposefully rolled her hips, her eyes never leaving his, and made it very clear that she was fully aware of his arousal—and she was enjoying it.
"It's perfectly natural," she said. She almost purred the words. The quality of her voice only added to Chakotay's desire to move just enough to free them both from the few scraps of clothes that stood in the way of bringing them together. He tightened his hold on her, his fingers digging deeper into her skin as she rolled her hips again and smiled. It was almost an evil smile, and he appreciated everything that was behind it.
"The only thing more natural than the baby being there," Chakotay offered, "is the act of—of love and dedication to one another that got it there."
"Love," Kathryn echoed. She kissed Chakotay and lifted herself off of him enough that he could slip one hand between them. He was wearing nothing more than underwear and it took very little effort to free himself enough for what they both wanted—something fast, urgent, and perfectly timed. "Just love?" Kathryn asked, her arousal showing in her eyes.
"Passion," Chakotay offered. She moved to come out of her underwear and Chakotay held her to ensure that she didn't fall as she manipulated the panties to work her way free from them.
"Desire," she offered, sliding fully onto him. She closed her eyes to him and he massaged his fingertips into her skin as she made the first quick movements that both of them ached for.
They ignored the first chirping of her combadge. They ignored the first chiriping of his, as well. Instead of answering the call, Chakotay sped up their pace, and Kathryn dropped a hand between them, both of them determined to get what they wanted before the urgency of the calls mounted too high.
Kathryn came first, thanks to her efforts to help move things along as quickly as possible, and Chakotay had only barely reached his climax before Kathryn was running after the combadges that—having moved on from simple chirped requests—were now issuing forth the request, in Tuvok's voice, that either Captain Janeway or Commander Chakotay answer the call.
"Yes, Tuvok," Kathryn said, immediately upon reaching the combadge. She did her best to control her breathing. Chakotay could tell that. "What is it?"
There was a pause as, without a doubt, Tuvok dealt with the quick lapse in professionalism.
"I hope I am not interrupting anything, Captain," Tuvok responded.
"No," Kathryn said. "We were—just getting ready for bed."
"You may want to report to the bridge, Captain, as quickly as possible," Tuvok said. "We have encountered an encrypted subspace message from a message buoy. We have unencrypted the message, Captain. I believe that it's one that you'll want to hear."
"Can it wait until morning, Mr. Tuvok?" Kathryn asked.
"I believe that you would not wish to wait until morning, Captain," Tuvok said.
"Very well," Kathryn said, accepting that the Vulcan was conveying as much urgency as he possibly could. "I'll be there in a moment."
"You will want to bring Commander Chakotay, Captain," Tuvok offered. "The message is, arguably, more for the commander than it is for Voyager."
