AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
For my Voyager people, please know that I'm not following the show/canon exactly (hardly at all). I do have a few lines and plot points, though, that will be familiar.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Kathryn sat and watched Chakotay as he processed things. It was like watching a storm brewing. She knew it had the potential to get bad, but there was nothing she could do except sit and give it time to turn into whatever it was meant to be.
The message that had come through was a roughly and hastily recorded video message. It went to audio, partway through, suggesting that things had gotten as terrible as Seska—the woman speaking in the message—had suggested they might.
Seska had been a lover of Chakotay's when he'd been captain on his Maquis ship. It was only once they'd all been thrown into the Delta Quadrant that they discovered that Seska had actually been a spy the whole time. She'd been a Cardassian spy, surgically altered to appear as a Bajoran. She'd meant to use Chakotay and nothing more.
She'd betrayed Voyager. Since their first moments in the Delta Quadrant, they'd been fighting against a problematic and warring species—the Kazon—that regularly turned up to try to do the most damage they could to Voyager and her crew. Their goal was to gain control of Voyager so that they could strip her of her technology and, more than likely, could use her crew for their own gain. Seska had turned, and she'd aligned herself with Culluh, who was the First Maje of the Kazon-Nistrim sect. She'd regained her Cardassian appearance, and she'd fully embraced her Cardassian personality. She had helped Culluh capture Chakotay, once, and torture him to try to gain information about Voyager and her technology. And, in a move that Kathryn could only see as purely one of cruelty and manipulation, Seska informed Chakotay that she'd stolen his DNA to impregnate herself.
Her most recent message—the one that had just played out and was still playing in Kathryn's mind—had been from a frantic Seska. She'd shown them the infant—Chakotay's son. Maje Culluh, she said, had been angry upon discovering that the child she'd given birth to wasn't his own. He intended to kill Seska and, possibly, to kill the baby. At the very least, he intended to send the child to a slave camp.
Seska had begged Chakotay to come and save the baby—not for her own good, she'd claimed, but for the good of his son.
Kathryn had done the only thing she could do on the spur of the moment. She'd directed Tom to drop them out of warp and to inform Engineering that they could work on any short-term repairs that needed to be made. That would cover questions about the delays while they essentially hung in space and waited for other orders.
Then, she'd dragged Chakotay to her ready room for him to begin working through the situation at hand. He would need to work through this, but Kathryn didn't know, yet, what kind of storm he'd have to pass through before he got to a place to handle it calmly and rationally. For the moment, he was practically wearing a hole in the carpet.
"She has no right to ask this of me!" Chakotay finally exploded, his words slamming into Kathryn. Both of them were only somewhat properly dressed at the moment. They'd rushed to the bridge at Tuvok's urging—Tuvok having been called by the Gamma shift because the message seemed important. Kathryn's hair still hung in a braid down her back. Much of the Alpha shift crew had been called back to the bridge, and they were in similar states of disarray. Every breach of protocol, at the moment, was forgiven. They were all tired, but this was an emergency that needed to be handled by those who were directly involved and, in many cases, the most capable.
"She knew that she could get to you," Kathryn said. "She knew you would feel a sense of duty and responsibility toward your son."
"He's not my son, Kathryn," Chakotay protested. "At least—she stole my DNA."
Kathryn nodded her head.
"And you feel violated right now," Kathryn said. "Rightfully so. But—she knew that wouldn't stop you."
"The child did look like it could be part human and part Cadassian," Chakotay said. Kathryn quietly nodded her agreement. He needed her there for support more than he needed her there for anything else at the moment. "It would be about time for her to deliver."
"It's reasonable to think that someone as hot-headed as Maje Culluh would be angry if he didn't know about the child," Kathryn said. "If he thought it was his child and then it turned out it wasn't? I wouldn't be surprised if he killed Seska, and I could imagine he'd be capable of doing anything to the baby. Seska would know that you would come and try to save the child."
"Do you think it could be a trap?" Chakotay asked.
Kathryn laughed to herself.
"Do I think Seska is capable of lying to you and manipulating you?" Kathryn asked. "Absolutely."
"Then I'll go alone," Chakotay said.
"I'm certain that you must know me well enough, Chakotay, to know that I would never allow you to go into a Kazon-Nistrim stronghold on your own. Nobody on Voyager would allow that." Kathryn sighed. "Seska would know that, too. And you can bet that she'd use that to manipulate the both of us."
"You and I both know that this could be a trap," Chakotay said. "Something to get us to walk Voyager right into Kazon space and hand her over to be picked apart by those vultures."
Kathryn nodded her head.
"It could be," she said.
"I can't let that happen," Chakotay said. "If I go, I have to go on my own. I can't—see the whole ship in trouble for me."
"Let's get one thing straight," Kathryn said, "if we go—if anybody goes? We go together. We're a team. A family. We stick together. And if we get in to trouble, we do that together, too. It's not your fault, though. Nothing that happens is going to fall on the shoulders of one person."
Chakotay laughed to himself. Kathryn's chest tightened at his expression. She could practically feel the pain coursing through him.
"Except for the captain's," Chakotay said. "Right?"
Kathryn smiled to herself. She touched his face. He closed his eyes to her touch and then turned his face to kiss her palm.
"My shoulders are stronger than they look," Kathryn said. "If someone has to shoulder responsibility for this, I'm the captain. I can handle it. But—I'm certain that I speak for the entire crew when I say that, if you want to do this, you will not do it alone."
"I don't want to do this," Chakotay said. He shook his head. "I didn't want this child."
"I understand that," Kathryn said. "But—you need to think long and hard about the implications of this. If you want us to leave, we will. I'll tell Engineering we need the warp drive and we'll reset our course for the Alpha Quadrant. Before I do that, though, you need to think about this. Are you going to be able to leave your son behind, Chakotay? Never knowing what's happened to him?"
Chakotay frowned at her, and then he did his best to steel his face.
"Seska never should have put me in this position," he said.
"You're right about that," Kathryn ceded. "But Seska never cared about anyone but herself. If she had, this would have never happened. Seska doesn't matter anymore, Chakotay. All I'm asking you to think about is what you want. What you can live with?"
"What about you?" Chakotay asked. "What can you live with? If something happens—if we're all captured. If we're all killed. Can you live with that? Am I forcing you to live with that?"
Kathryn knew that there were risks involved. Of course, there were risks involved.
"We're Starfleet," she said softly. "We know the risks."
"That's fine for Starfleet," Chakotay said. "But what about the members of our crew that aren't Starfleet? What happens to them? Neelix and Kes, Carol and Daryl? We just watch as they end up Kazon slaves?"
"You and I both know that, if that happens? We won't be watching," Kathryn said. "Because they'll have already had to kill us both. Still, those are the risks of life on a starship."
"What about—if we find the baby?" Chakotay asked. "If we recover it? Then what? What does that mean for us? For you and me, Kathryn?"
Kathryn's heart chose an uneven beat for a second. She kissed Chakotay, doing her best to wipe away some of his concern with her affection.
"Chakotay, if we find your son, then we'll raise him," Kathryn said, pulling out of the kiss. "We'll care for him. As our own. There's nothing else to discuss about that. This decision is not about what's good for the ship or what's good for—for our relationship. We'll handle all of that. The only concern you have right now is coming to terms with all of this and deciding what you want—what you can live with."
"I'm going to need some time," Chakotay said. "To think."
Kathryn nodded her head.
"Just don't take too long," she offered. "We have no idea how long those coordinates Seska sent will be correct."
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Carol took the knife from Daryl and turned it over in her hand. She'd almost forgotten the weight and the way it felt in her hand. As soon as she slipped her fingers into the knuckle-buster handle of the knife, though, she felt a familiarity seeping into her and running through her veins.
"Here," Daryl said, offering her a leather sheath.
They were clean. They were brand new. Otherwise, they were absolutely perfect replicas of the knife and sheath she'd carried for years.
"Are we really going to need these?" She asked, sheathing her knife and slipping it into one of the boots she'd replicated when he told her that it was best to have a pair.
"I'd rather have it and not need it," Daryl commented, slipping his own knife into the sheath on his belt, "than to need it and not have it. That's for damned sure."
"I can't disagree with that," Carol mused. She checked the charge on her phaser, too, and decided to replicate an extra power cartridge for it, as well.
She didn't know much about what was happening. Kathryn was busy, at the moment, and didn't have the time or opportunity to fill Carol in on everything—though she'd promised to brief her, as soon as possible, as a friend instead of a crew member. Daryl had gotten a bit more information from B'Elanna, since she'd had Engineering at work on a project that, from what Carol could tell, would essentially end up being something like a trick with smoke and mirrors.
They were going up against some alien species. The aliens were aggressive, power-hungry, and they wanted Voyager. Carol didn't understand how, and Daryl hadn't gotten the specific information from B'Elanna, but they had a woman—apparently some former lover of Chakotay's—that had given birth to Chakotay's son. Now the Kazon—the aliens— wanted to kill the woman and, possibly, to kill or enslave the infant. They were going to stop that from happening.
They really had no idea if it would come down to a fight or not. They were hoping for the best, of course, but Carol and Daryl were more than accustomed to preparing for the worst.
"Here," Daryl said. "I—got somethin' else for ya."
"What is it?" Carol asked.
Daryl offered out something, and Carol smiled to herself as she accepted it. She smiled at him.
"A bracelet?" She asked. It was braided twine.
"You missed the old one so damned much," Daryl said. He shrugged his shoulders to allow the gesture to finish saying anything he maybe thought he couldn't say.
"This one is different," Carol said. "It has flowers." Braided into the tan twine were three white flower-shaped beads.
Daryl laughed to himself.
"I asked it to make me Cherokee Rose beads," Daryl said. "After about two dozen messages about not being able to comply, I asked it for them white flowers. Got that and the string. Fixed it up for you in between followin' B'Elanna around and checkin' on power relays."
"You made it?" Carol asked.
"Braided it," Daryl said with another shrug.
"Why didn't you just replicate it already made?" Carol asked.
Daryl searched her face. She would have thought that the anxiety on his features when he looked at her like that would be gone by now, but it was still there. She smiled at him. He seemed to relax, just a little.
"Because I knew—you wouldn't look at me like that if I just replicated it. I know it's not the best, but…"
"It's perfect," Carol assured him. He smiled, clearly pleased with himself.
"Three little flowers," he said. "You, me, and the alien."
Carol laughed to herself. She offered him the bracelet and her wrist.
"I love it," she assured him. "Put it on me? Please?" He nodded, accepted it, and knotted it on her wrist. She pretended not to notice that his fingers were shaking. She didn't know if it was because she still unnerved him or because he was afraid of what was coming. At the end of the day, it didn't matter anyway, and it was probably a bit of both.
As soon as the knot was in place, Daryl raised Carol's hand up and kissed the underside of her wrist, just where he'd knotted the twine.
"You don't have anything," she offered quietly when he straightened up to look at her. "I don't have anything to give you."
"Gimme a kiss," he offered. "And I got everything I need."
Carol smiled at him, nodded, and then obliged his request as best she could.
