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Chapter 3: The perfect first officer.
Nine months
Nine months. Chakotay had tapped his fingers impatiently on his arm rest. Four hours. The doctor had sent an update on the captain's condition to the bridge. An hour later. A baby boy. The bridge crew had erupted into cheers at the announcement of Voyager's newest crewmember.
A ship wide announcement was delivered professionally by the ship's first officer; the winner of the baby pool was announced by Tom Paris in the mess later that night. As the replicater rations were divided between Chell and Harry Kim who had correctly guessed the baby's late arrival, Chakotay entered into a darkened sickbay, surprised to see that the doctor and Kes weren't still there. He guessed Kes had probably gone back to her quarters to rest after a long and busy day, and the doctor had deactivated himself whilst neither of his patients needed him.
Chakotay approached the bio bed where Kathryn rested, obviously exhausted from childbirth. He looked past her, and over to the incubator, and unable to help himself, walked up to peer over the top. His son lay on his back, with one of his tiny arms up to the side of his head, the other hidden beneath the blanket. His head was covered with black fluff that stuck up perpendicular to his scalp. The newly made father was surprised by movement as the tiny baby moved his lips and wrinkled his forehead before opening his eyes slightly to look up at his father, although unable to focus, probably aware that there was someone standing there.
He reached down into the incubator and touched his son's head, stroking his thumb gently over his soft hair until he closed his eyes again and drifted back off to sleep. "Hello there," he greeted in a whisper, "I'm your daddy."
Kathryn woke slowly, but didn't remember straight away where she was, then it came back to her, and she smiled to herself, turning her head in the direction of where her son lay. She was surprised to look across and see the back of a red uniform, but then she recognised the man as Chakotay, and her surprise was subdued. She was still sleepy, and so just watched him for a short while as he stood there and watched their son, only disappointed that she couldn't see his face. "You can pick him up if you want," she said when she realised the tentative touches were probably partially to do with his uncertainty over what he could and could not do.
Shocked he turned around, wondering how long she had been awake, not sure if she was angry or not at his presence there. Her smile disarmed his worry, and he mirrored it with a goofy grin of his own. "You have a beautiful son," he stated, remembering the plan.
In that moment Kathryn didn't care about the plan, or the crew, or protocol, and so she held out her hand to him. He hesitated, but eventually reached out and took her smaller hand in his, meeting her eyes as they shared a delighted smile. "We do have a beautiful son," she amended.
He nodded; he knew this wasn't any sign that she had changed her mind, he knew it was just her being overcome by the emotions of becoming a mother; the joy of having created a life, and he knew that she just wanted to share it with the one person who could truly appreciate such emotions: him. She squeezed his hand, and he absently rubbed his thumb over the back of her fingers; this was the closest they had been since she had allowed him to feel her belly one and a half moths previously, and it felt natural.
Releasing her hand, he turned back to the incubator, wondering whether or not he trusted himself to hold something so small and fragile. Eventually the desire to hold his son overcame his fear and he reached into the incubator, and remembering the books he had recently been reading, didn't forget to support the head both on lifting and resting in his arm. He stared down into his arms as they became accustomed to the weight, then his attention was drawn back to Kathryn.
"I'm going to call him Noah," she told him, then worried as he looked away from her and down at his son in his arms, "unless you have any major objections."
He shrugged, "it's not my decision, but no, I don't have any objections," he gave her a small smile, "I'm guessing he's going to have your surname?"
"Noah Mark Janeway," she confirmed.
He looked up sharply, "Mark? That's the name of your fiancé?"
"Yes," she said slowly.
"Do you think he will mind you giving his name to another man's child?"
Kathryn shrugged, "I do hope to get back to my fiancé before he gives me up for dead, and I'm not certain whether or not he will be able to accept Noah as his child, but Mark and I were good friends before we were anything more, I know he would be honoured for me to use his name even if our engagement falls apart because of Noah."
Chakotay pursed his lips, but decided not to say anything; she had made it perfectly clear that she didn't want him involved with her child.
"Do you have another suggestion for a middle name?" she enquired, realising his unnatural quiet was probably due to his uncertainty over if he should voice his opinion.
He shrugged, "I guess I always thought I would give my first born son my father's name," he smiled awkwardly, "I didn't really give much thought to what my child's mother would say. I guess there's always my second born son."
"What's your father's name?"
"His name was Kolopak," he answered.
"Kolopak," she repeated, "it's a nice name." She looked up at him until she had caught his eye, "if I gave him that name the crew would guess within five seconds that you're the father."
"I know," he agreed, wishing not for the first time that it didn't have to be that way.
"But how about I don't give him a middle name," she suggested, "we could just leave it blank until a time when this crew is stable enough to know that you're Noah's father, and then we could give him Kolopak's name officially?"
He studied her for a short time before he finally gave a nod of agreement, "thank you," he answered.
They exchanged small talk for a while longer before Kathryn finally started to feel sleepy. Deciding that he had spent more than enough time in sick bay, Chakotay lay Noah back in the incubator, careful to tuck him back beneath his blankets. Ignoring his thoughts over what was and what was not appropriate for a captain and first officer to do, he approached the mother of his child as she lay on the bio bed fighting to stay awake and leaning over placed a kiss on her cheek. "Thank you for giving me my son," he smiled as he pulled back and watched her confused expression soften into a smile. For an instant he was able to forget that he would never father her child beyond the biological sense, that she was nothing more than his superior officer and that they were stranded in the middle of the delta quadrant, but then the moment was gone, and both remembering themselves he made his excuse to leave and she fell asleep not long after the sick bay doors had closed behind him.
/\
Eleven months- Persistence of vision
It wasn't the fact that he had had sex with his captain that caused Chakotay to sit alone with his thoughts in the mess, it was why it had been her and not any other woman on board the ship which confused him. The obvious answer was because she was the mother of his child, and in an ideal situation he would be in a committed, loving and obviously intimate relationship with the mother of his child, and so that was what he had wanted, and so that should have been what happened.
However, the sex with Kathryn hadn't been loving and caring, it had been lustful and self satisfying. It had also been quite brutal, against the walls of the turbo lift, in the middle of a corridor, on her desk, and for some reason on Tuvok's console. He couldn't deny that he was attracted to her, or that he hadn't considered what it might be like, but out of respect for her, he had never allowed himself to delve too deeply into such thoughts, and so why it had been her was still somewhat of a mystery.
Most other people had experienced visions of returning home, of seeing old friends and family again; it would have to be him who fanaticised about fucking his captain in inappropriate places.
His thought process was abruptly interrupted as B'Elanna Torres sat down opposite him, "a penny for your thoughts," she said as she placed her tray on the table.
"Just thinking about my hallucination," he offered.
She let out a grunt, "that's all anyone seems to be able to talk about these past few days," her annoyance was evident in her voice.
"I'm guessing yours wasn't that great then?"
B'Elanna decided it was best not to tell him she had hallucinated about making love to him, and that it wasn't the first time she had thought about it either. "No," was all she gave him, "yours?"
"It was…" he paused, he couldn't exactly say it was bad, he had quite enjoyed the sensation of Kathryn's smooth skin against his, the feel of her breath against his neck, the smell… he stopped himself before he lost himself in his thoughts again. "It was not what I expected," he admitted.
"How about we don't talk about it," she suggested.
He smiled, "sounds like a good idea to me."
/\
12 months and two weeks- Manoeuvres
Chakotay accepted the coffee cup that he was offered as Kathryn sat down beside him on the couch in her waiting room. It had been a couple of days since Voyager had rescued Chakotay from the Kazon ship he had been held prisoner aboard, and this was the first time she had formally confronted him about it. It wasn't looking good for him; she normally only took her time in delivering a punishment when she wanted to make sure that it was really horrible.
"You and I both know that what you did was wrong," she stated, "you put this ship in danger, and you put yourself in danger."
"I told you not to come after me," he reminded her.
"What the hell did you think I was going to do?" she gave him a serious look, "I wasn't just going to leave you to the mercy of a ship of Kazons."
"Why? You didn't want your son to grow up without a father?" he asked sarcastically.
She gave him a cold glare, "is there something you'd like to say commander?"
He bit down hard on his tongue and shook his head, "I'm sorry," it was the truth, "I shouldn't have put Voyager in danger; and I'm sorry that I betrayed your trust like that."
"It's not about trust anymore Chakotay," she admitted, "it's the fact that you went against all of the work we've done over the past year to integrate these two crews. Although I consider the maquis members of this crew part of my crew, not all of them consider me their captain, but they follow me out of loyalty to you. What kind of example is it setting them to just go off and do your own thing like that?"
Chakotay nodded, "as I said, I'm sorry, it won't happen again."
Kathryn sighed and sat back on the couch, "I know you and Seska have… a history, are you sure you can promise that nothing like that is ever going to happen again, especially now that she's pregnant with your child?"
He thought about what she said for a moment before he turned to look at her, "I'll admit that Seska's betrayal hurt me more than if it had have been any other member of my maquis crew, and yes, that is because of our history, and that's the reason why I wanted to deal with her by myself. But I realise now that I can be too easily manipulated by her, if I ever have to deal with her again, I'll do it by the book and I'll consult you every step of the way."
"And your child?"
"I'll never consider her child my own," his voice had a slight edge to it. She was slightly taken aback by his words, it seemed unlike him to talk in such a way, but before she could respond he smiled bitterly to himself, "it's ironic; I take no willing part in creating two lives, the mother of one will use her child to manipulate me, and the mother of the other doesn't want me to have anything to do with her son."
"I thought we'd settled this months ago," she sighed inwardly, not wanting to launch into another debate with him, "you know why you can't be involved."
"I know," he let out a long breath, "I just wish it didn't have to be that way. It's difficult to see Noah every day; to watch him grow and know that I can never be involved, to see you comfort him in a way that I can never do. I've always thought one day I would be a father, but when I found out you were pregnant with Noah I slowly came to realise, I didn't want to be a father, I wanted to be his father."
There was a long silence, one that Chakotay was a little uncomfortable at having created, but finally Kathryn found the words to speak. "What makes my child different to Seska's?"
Her question caught him off guard, he wasn't sure why he felt so differently towards both situations despite some of the similarities between them. Finally he shrugged, "I guess in the real world outside of Voyager and in the alpha quadrant you're the sort of person I would have wanted to raise a family with," he paused, "I would never have thought of marrying Seska."
She looked away from him for a long moment, and he was almost certain he had made her feel uncomfortable with his words. "It's hard for me too you know." Her voice was soft and when he looked down at her he wasn't sure if it was sadness or pity in her eyes. "When I found out I was pregnant I didn't want to go through with it, but you convinced me that I could be a good captain and still have a child. Ironically if it wasn't for you I wouldn't have kept Noah, let alone become pregnant with him in the first place. In an ideal world you would be helping me with the late night feedings, taking care of him when you can; bathing him and doing everything else that I have to do alone. But Seska's defection, and many of the maquis who are only hanging on here by the thread that is their loyalty to you, is the reason that you can't be involved. You know that's the only reason."
He looked away and nodded to himself, "I'll never have to see Seska's child; I should imagine that will be a lot easier."
Placing a hand on his shoulder he turned to meet her steady gaze as she gave him a sympathetic smile, "maybe you could be put down on the babysitting rota," she suggested.
He sighed, then shook his head, "it's okay, it'll probably just make things harder for both of us if we start to do that. I'll just have to stop thinking of Noah as mine," he gave her a small smile, "for now anyway."
Kathryn looked at him for a while, then dropped her hand from his shoulder, "let me know if you change your mind."
Chakotay gave her a small nod, indicating that he would. "What about my punishment?" he reminded her of why he was there.
"I've read your report about what the Kazon did to you aboard that ship," she explained, "I don't think disciplining you will make a difference; besides," she smiled, lightening the mood, "B'Elanna made a fairly good case for your actions whilst you were away, I'd hate her to think her words had been for nothing."
He gave her a surprised look, "I'll have to ask B'Elanna about that."
"I'll see you later commander," she smiled.
With that he got up from the couch and left her waiting room, deciding he would pay a quick visit to engineering on his way to the mess hall.
/\
One year, two months- Alliances
Two tired hands activated the tap on the bath and warm water started to fill the tub. Putting her fingers into the water to check that it was the right temperature she unscrewed a bottle of bubble bath and allowed some of the creamy liquid to mix with the water watching only for a moment as bubbles started to form on the surface of the water. She peeled off her jacket and kicked off her boots and when all of her skin was exposed she pulled the pin from her hair allowing it to drape over her shoulders.
It had been a long week for Kathryn. Having gone so long without losing any members of her crew she had started to consider them all safe, to have some of their lives taken away from her by Kazon scavengers made her feel sick to her stomach as she realised there was only so much she could do to protect them all.
In the past three days alone she had had no more than six hours sleep in total, at first the losses had been weighing too heavily on her mind to allow her to sleep, but now it was trying to find the time in between Kazon attacks that caused her lack of sleep. When the water was high enough she stopped the running water and climbed into the tub, and once safe within the blanket of water she felt like she could sleep right then and there.
The memorial service had been a disaster; everyone had said their part, she had even managed to put some comprehensible words together, but then the tension she had been feeling all throughout the service finally erupted when a crewman confronted her about her refusal to give in to the Kazon. She had had time to glance around at the faces surrounding her, and was disappointed to see so many who agreed with the confrontational engineer; most of all she was dismayed to see Tuvok among them. Chakotay had backed her up of course, but then he had personal issues with the Kazon after Seska had joined them, his opinion couldn't be trusted to be as impartial as usual.
She sighed, although she was determined not to give away federation technology to an alien species, part of her wanted to just give it all away and let the Kazon fight amongst themselves for it.
A noise on the baby monitor in the bathroom caused her to raise her head from where she had been resting in against the wall. Noah was awake after she had spent an hour trying to get him to sleep, and now she finally had some alone time she worried that he was going to demand her attention all over again. The monitor went silent and she relaxed again; however much she loved her son, and despite the fact that she had hardly seen him in the past seven days, the last thing she wanted was to spend another hour with a crying baby.
It was almost twenty three hundred when Kathryn was finally washed and dried and ready for bed. After having run a brush through her hair she decided to quickly check on her son before she went to sleep herself. Five months previously an extra room had been added to her quarters so that when anyone but her was taking care of Noah, they could do so without having to enter her bedroom. Two months previously she had finally taken her son out of her room permanently and into the nursery, thinking that he was old enough to be able to wait an extra minute for her to come to him.
The room had no windows, and the walls were grey, and except for the cot and the baby itinerary scattered around the place, the room could have been used for anything. Peering down into the cot, she saw her son sleeping soundly beneath his blue blankets, his dark hair ruffled on one side where he had been sleeping on it before turning over. She smiled slightly to herself as she reached out and ran her hand over the soft strands covering his head. Over a year ago she hadn't even known she was pregnant, and she thought it strange that now she couldn't imagine not having him in her life, she couldn't imagine not loving someone as much as she did him.
After having placed a kiss on his forehead a strange lump at the end of his cot caught her attention. She lifted up the blanket by his feet and was surprised to see a pink rose sat on top of a white envelope. Frowning, she picked up the two items and replaced the blanket. The rose was wrapped in clear plastic and its thorns had been removed, unwrapping it from the top she took in the scent with her nose to realise it was freshly cut. Thinking that maybe the contents of the envelope may explain where the rose had come from she pulled back the paper flap and pulled out a card. It was a mothers day card. Thinking back to the Earth calendar, she realised that tomorrow it would be mothers day; someone had obviously put the card and rose in the cot for her to find in the morning.
The card had apparently been written from Noah, the true sender obviously wishing to remain anonymous, but that didn't stop her from wondering who it had been. Stepping outside of the nursery into her main quarters she called out, "computer, who was the last person to enter the nursery in my quarters?"
"Captain Janeway," the computer replied.
She realised her mistake and rephrased, "in the past… four hours, how many people have entered these quarters?"
"Noah Janeway, captain Janeway, lieutenant Tuvok, commander Chakotay and Neelix."
It wouldn't have been Neelix as he wasn't familiar with Earth traditions, and Chakotay had only stayed a couple of minutes to drop off some reports and she would have seen if he had been carrying anything. Tuvok had been looking after Noah that afternoon, and had dropped him off soon after her shift had ended, but then Kathryn had been in Noah's room since Tuvok had left.
"Computer, have there been any transports into or out of my quarters within the past four hours?" She attempted again.
"Affirmative."
"Who?"
"Please specify question."
"Who transported into my quarters?"
"There have been no recorded transports of crewmembers within the past four hours."
She sighed, obviously no one had transported into her quarters, they had just transported the rose and the card. "Computer, who initiated transport?"
"Lieutenant Tuvok."
She smiled to herself as she uncovered the culprit, that Vulcan had a knack of surprising her from time to time.
/\
One year, five months- Investigations
Harry Kim was granted entry to Tom's quarters only to be faced with the sound of a screaming baby. The floor was littered with Noah's toys and accessories, with it was mixed the mess he usually associated with his friend's quarters to give a combined concoction of mayhem. Tom was pacing with the nine month old baby against his chest, rubbing his back and bobbing up and down in an attempt to sooth him. The door closed behind Harry before he could escape so he sighed and stated, "so you're on babysitting duty then."
"I know," Tom said apologetically, "I'm sorry but we'll have to go to alter Tuvok's holoprogram another time; Sam was meant to be looking after Noah, but she's out with back pain and I offered to look after him before I remembered this afternoon."
Harry had waded through the mess and had cleared himself a space on the couch to sit down. "It's okay," he smiled, "I'm just surprised that the captain is trusting you so soon after you deflected."
Tom laughed, "hey, I helped to smoke out the real traitor you know!"
"You could have told me!" Harry insisted.
Rolling his eyes the pilot gave his best friend a grin, "miss me?"
Harry laughed, "miss you?" he repeated, "when I had the Delaney sisters all to myself…"
"I'll take that as a yes," Tom smiled, then let out an annoyed sound as the captain's son refused to settle down.
"You want me to have a go?" Harry offered.
Without hesitation Tom stepped over towards the young ensign and handed him the screaming baby. As Harry attempted to calm him down, Tom started to tidy up some of the mess, but before he could be asked why after two years of living like a slum he was starting to change his ways the bleep for the door went off. "Damn," Tom muttered, and made his way quickly over to the door, purposely standing in the door's entrance before he opened it, obviously intent on preventing whoever was there from seeing any of the mess.
"I have the report on… is that Noah crying?" Harry heard B'Elanna at the door.
"Hi B'Elanna," he greeted as he saw her push past Tom and enter into his quarters without waiting for an invite.
"I thought Sam was looking after Noah," she looked a little confused, absently handing Tom a padd before making her way over towards the couch.
"She's supposed to be," Tom explained, "but her pregnancy is becoming hard on her back, and she's been ordered off duty for the next few days."
"Oh," she took her eyes from the baby and looked back across at Tom, "you need to read that before the briefing tomorrow and let me know if you'll be able to pilot the ship whilst I'm implementing the changes to the warp core."
"Sure," he said easily and he bent down and started to pick up items from the floor.
"I'm serious Paris," she said with a warning, "I want everything sorted before I give my plans to the captain tomorrow, and unfortunately it's me who's going to look bad if you mess up."
"I said I would," he insisted as he chucked a load of his things onto his bed.
"Good." She then looked over at Harry, finally frustrated with talking over the crying, "give him to me," she instructed.
As soon as the baby was in her arms it was like someone had finally found the volume switch on the side of him and quickly turned it down, and a few seconds later Tom could finally hear his ears ringing as his quarters were consumed with silence. "Wow, you're good," Harry commented; he'd had his fair share of babysitting shifts, and considered himself quite an adequate carer, but B'Elanna's way of getting him to quieten down so quickly astonished him.
"Surprised Starfleet?" she gave him a semi-serious glare.
Tom laughed, "he's probably too scared to cry with an anger prone Klingon holding him."
"I'm not anger prone," she insisted, but then when Harry looked awkwardly away pretending not to have heard her she sighed, "well maybe a little."
Tom sat down opposite, "but seriously, how come you're so good with him; I've been trying to calm him down for the past half an hour."
She shrugged, "I don't know. He always seems to be in engineering, I guess he recognises me more than either of you."
"Why engineering?" Harry looked confused.
"I guess he likes the sound of the warp core," when both men gave her baffled expressions, "don't you know that trick?" When they both shook their heads she sighed, "I thought everyone knew, they all seem to bring him to engineering whenever he gets too unsettled. I think it was Carey that discovered that one."
"I'll have to bare that in mind for next time," Tom commented, then as a thought occurred to him he gave B'Elanna his best smile, "hey, you don't think you could look after him for a couple of hours do you?"
She laughed, but then shook her head, "how about: no."
Harry was only partially paying attention to his two friends as his attention was focussed on the baby in B'Elanna's arms, "does Noah look familiar to you?" he asked when there was finally a gap in the conversation.
"What? You mean does he remind us of captain Janeway?" Tom said sarcastically, "well he is her son."
He shook his head, "no, like someone else…"
B'Elanna frowned, "I guess he kind of looks a little like Chakotay…"
"Yeah, that's it!" Harry felt like she'd put his thoughts together and given them a name.
"Do you know if the captain's fiancé is native American?"
Harry shrugged, "I never met him… and I know she used to have a picture of some guy in her waiting room who I assume is her fiancé, but I can't remember what he looked like."
"I wonder why she took that down?" B'Elanna pondered.
"Probably because she misses him too much," Tom cut in swiftly, "this is a really weird conversation."
"Yeah, imagine if Chakotay was Noah's father," she shuddered, "actually, I wouldn't want to think how that could happen."
"I don't know," Harry shrugged, "they would make quite a good couple; I mean, neither of them could exactly date anyone on this ship below Tuvok, and they seem to get on quite well."
"They would," B'Elanna agreed, surprised as she realised she wasn't at all bothered at the idea of Chakotay dating their captain, "but if they had have gotten together a year and a half ago; that would have been very weird."
"I think we should talk about something else," Tom suggested, and after a few moments they laughed off the entire notion of their captain and first officer getting together and discussed the ever more interesting relationship between Ayala and Jessica Harlow.
To be continued.