Disclaimer: Paramount controls Voyager.
Authors note:
No, it's not Jaffen's baby (but that gives me an idea for a workforce episode rewrite…). Yes, of course it's Chakotay's baby. As if Kathryn would ever cheat on her husband! Sorry for Chakotay's indiscretion, but when I first watched resolutions and coda, like many other people I assumed that there was something more to the JC relationship, then unity sent it all crashing to the ground so I thought if I was to stick as close to cannon as possible it was important that I include it.
Chapter 8: To Mourn A Dream
Three years and two months (references to the episode 'Nemesis')
Except for the gentle hum of the life force provided by the warp core running throughout the ship, and the soft sounds of breathing, it was as quiet as it got aboard a star ship. Chakotay lay beside his wife, his hand rested gently on her swollen abdomen. "Did you feel that?" she asked.
He smiled, "yeah, just about."
Kathryn was five months pregnant and showing it well. During her first pregnancy Chakotay hadn't been privy to details of how she was doing, her experiences with morning sickness, her mood swings during private off duty moments, back pain, dreams of her future child, sore feet, sudden coffee cravings, other food cravings, stretch marks… the list was endless, and he was happy to be part of it this time.
"I think it's a girl," she smiled to herself.
"You asked the doctor?" they'd already agreed that they wanted to be surprised.
"No," she reassured him, "I'm just carrying very differently, and this baby doesn't kick quite so much; it must be a girl."
"Yes," he said with a grin as he kissed her temple, "that's a very logical assumption to make."
She slapped him playfully, "you'd better apologise for that when the doctor hands you a baby girl."
"Only if it's ours," he joked.
This time he was elbowed, "okay, okay, I'll apologise if we have a daughter."
"Have you thought of names?" she changed the subject.
He shrugged, "I thought Adam might be nice, or Ben, William, Parker, Darien…"
"I'm noticing a trend with all of those names," she pointed out.
Chakotay chuckled lightly, "you don't like them?"
"They're all boys names!"
"They are?" he pretended to be surprised, "well so they are…"
"We're having a girl!" she insisted.
"Of course Kathryn," he over simplified his tone of voice, then when he received a glare he conceded with a large grin. "I hope she looks just like you." He wrapped his arm around her, and raising himself up slightly, "with your nose," he kissed the top of her nose, "and your ears," he lowered his head to tug gently at her earlobe with his teeth, "and your lips," he then proceeded to kiss her mouth, and getting caught up in the exchange he forgot to go through all of her other features he wanted their daughter to have.
"I'm going to be really disappointed you know," she said when he finally pulled back.
"How come?"
"When our daughter ends up looking just like you," she teased playfully.
He considered an appropriate response, but before he could think of a come back she was pressing her lips to his and wanting a little more than mild flirtations. In the first couple of weeks that he had moved back into her quarters, he had spent most nights on the couch, except on a few occasions where she'd asked him to join her. After a mission had gone wrong and he'd ended up spending a week on an alien planet fighting someone else's war, he had been very distressed over what he had found himself again capable of doing. She had comforted him, and they had talked properly and openly for the first time in months, then they had made love. Since that night, he could almost say that things were back to the way they were when they had first married. Almost.
There was still a distance that she forced between them. He understood that she was only trying to protect herself from the way he had hurt her before, but in doing so she was hurting him. He had to be very careful over what he said and did around her, sometimes on duty if he thought there was a better way of doing something he just kept his mouth shut to avoid a confrontation, knowing that she would blow any small thing out of proportion. He felt like a stranger in his own home, sometimes he would go back to his old quarters to take a nap, or to do some meditation, sometimes he would work a little later or rearrange their shifts so that they didn't have to spend quite so much time with one another. It was all the small things that were now different that made him wonder whether or not the pregnancy was such a great thing after all for forcing them together.
Chakotay lay beside his wife spent and breathless, and as she snuggled up against him and closed her eyes he added one more thing to the list. She no longer said that she loved him.
/\
Three years and three months
With Noah taking a nap and no obvious sign of Chakotay, her quarters were very quiet when she returned to them after having visited sickbay. She had assumed that her husband was on the holodeck until she saw his com badge sitting on the table and she started to second guess her assumption, as she knew he rarely left their quarters without his communications device. She found him in their bedroom, sitting cross legged on their bed, with one had on his akoohna she realised that he was in deep meditation.
His face whilst he meditated was very different to when he slept. When he was asleep he looked overly docile and often had a slight upwards twist to his lips, however, whilst he meditated, although he looked calm and relaxed, often his brows were furrowed as if in contemplation. She smiled to herself as she stood in the doorway to their bedroom, he was such a caring, gentle and passionate man, not to mention devilishly handsome, that she often wondered how she had been fortunate enough to meet someone such as him. Her thoughts were interrupted as he opened his eyes and without missing a beat looked right across at her; she instantly worried that she had disrupted his meditation.
"I'm sorry," she smiled softly, "I didn't mean to disturb you."
Her husband shook his head, "you didn't."
"I haven't seen you meditate for a long time…" she said thoughtfully, "not since before we married. Is everything okay?"
He considered telling her what his animal guide had said to him, but then thought against it, "I usually meditate in my old quarters; I didn't think you'd be back for another couple of hours." She was about to question him about why he preferred to meditate in her absence, but he interrupted her thoughts before she could. "So how's our baby?"
Kathryn was distracted and rubbed her hand absently over her swollen abdomen, "fine, it seems none of the experiments the aliens conducted on me have had any effect on the baby."
"That's great," he smiled, "and you're doing okay now?"
She entered further into the room and sat on the edge of their bed, "I'm sorry for being so snappy over the past few days, but the doctor has assured me that my hormone levels are back to normal now, so you need not worry."
He raised an eyebrow, "well, I didn't mind making up with you… you're very sexy when you're horny."
Kathryn slapped him playfully on the arm, remembering hitting on him at very inappropriate times and places, and then getting annoyed with him when he regained self control and pointed out how thin the walls of the briefing room were, or how there was very little privacy in the kitchen of the mess hall. He laughed as he climbed off the bed, "you know, you're sexier when you're mad."
"Even when I'm mad and pregnant?"
He turned around after having placed his medicine bundle in his draw and gave her a very serious look, "especially when you're pregnant."
She smiled brightly at his words, she always felt very contented with her growing size whenever he said things like that. "What about now?" she said suggestively.
Chakotay's lip quirked up wickedly, "you sure your hormone levels are back to normal?"
"Almost," she replied.
He crossed the room to her and taking her by the hand pulled her into the main living area of their quarters, "then you can wait until after dinner," he told her.
"Chakotay," she called after him as he headed into the kitchen area.
"You haven't eaten all day by my count," he pointed out as she grudgingly moved away from their bedroom doors, "our baby needs to eat even if you don't."
She stood in front of him and looked up into his dark brown eyes, he took her hands in his own and linked fingers with her before he leant down and with a grin still evident on his face he pressed his lips to hers. Sighing in defeat she pulled back slightly, although their hands were still linked, "what's for dinner then?"
"What do you have a craving for?"
"Steak," she replied, "a really big slab of meat."
"We could do a roast," he suggested.
"We?" she shook her head, "you're cooking."
"You're helping," he released her hands and walked over to the replicater, typing in his order, "you want synthahol?"
Kathryn shrugged as she walked over to the kitchen units and started to pull out various cooking implements, "red."
The raw ingredients materialised, along with a bottle of red synthahol. He managed to pick up the tray of ingredients in one hand, and coming up behind his wife placed them on the work surface, then proceeded to wrap his arms around her and place a kiss on the side of her neck. "I love you," he reminded her every so often, and wasn't surprised when she turned around in his arms and kissed him quickly on the lips before wriggling free of his hold without returning the affection.
He was reminded of what his spirit guide had only just been telling him, that forcing a relationship now was only covering over the cracks that would undoubtedly later appear. His spirit guide had suggested that they take a step back from such an intimate relationship and try to rebuild trust through a friendship, but Chakotay had argued that he wanted to be part of every aspect of his second child's life, including the pregnancy, and he knew that this was the best way to do that. He only hoped his spirit guide was wrong about their problems resurfacing, as soon as Kathryn started to admit that she loved him again, everything would go back to normal.
/\
Three years and four months
There was nothing. At seven months there most definitely should have been something, but there wasn't, and however hard he tried to feel for the smallest of all movements, he just couldn't. He looked across at her and forced her to look up at him before he said anything, "I can't feel anything," he stated.
She looked away, hating him for saying the words.
"Kathryn, how long haven't you been able to feel anything?" he tried to sound calm, but a small amount of panic escaped into his voice.
"She's never kicked that much," he wasn't sure who she was trying to convince.
"How long?" He was sat beside her on the couch in their quarters, his hand still resting on her belly.
"Since this morning," she answered at last.
Chakotay took a calming breath, it wasn't looking good. "Chakotay to sickbay."
"Doctor here," the response came through his comm. badge.
"I'm bringing the captain to sickbay."
-
The doctor scanned his patient thoroughly, then looked up at the two expectant parents and shook his head solemnly, "I'm sorry, there's nothing anyone could have done."
Kathryn fell into sobs and leant against her husband who stood beside the biobed. He wrapped an arm around her but didn't take his eyes from the EMH, "we've lost the baby?" he asked in disbelief.
"I'd say twenty one hours ago," he confirmed.
"How? Everything was fine the last time we came in…"
The hologram nodded, not liking to deliver the news any more then they to receive it. "I'm not sure yet, but I will be carrying out some investigations."
"It's nothing similar to what Noah had?" he questioned.
"No," he could say that with all certainty, "that's one of the first things I scanned for when I confirmed the captain's pregnancy."
"If we had have come here earlier, do you think you could have done something?" he had to know.
The truth was that he probably could have if they had have been early enough, but chances were that the baby had died during the night, and by the morning it would have definitely been too late. "Miscarriages such as this can be prevented if medical attention is received within four, five minutes, but even then it's likely your baby would have suffered severe brain damage. Under these circumstances, with no pain or bleeding, it takes the mother a while to notice that there's something wrong."
Chakotay trained his attention back to his wife who was wetting his shoulder with her tears, "I'm sorry," she said needlessly, "I thought something was wrong, but I didn't want to hear it."
He shook his head, "it's not your fault," he insisted, then pressed his lips to her forehead.
She sobbed even harder, "I wanted this baby so much."
The doctor was keeping a respectful distance, and Chakotay was grateful for that, "I know," he placed a hand on her shoulder, "I did too."
Finally the doctor stepped forwards, "the safest way to remove the foetus is to induce a premature labour," he stated in an emphatic manner.
"I don't want to do that," his wife looked up at him for support, she then looked back at the doctor, "couldn't you use the transporter?"
"It's not an emergency," he stated, "there are far too many risks associated with such accurate transportation to make me even consider it in these circumstances."
Chakotay felt her clutch his hand and looked up pleadingly at him, he saw the desperate look in her eyes but he felt himself shake his head, "I'll stay with you," he promised, then glanced over at the doctor just to check he wasn't going to object.
"I'll set up a privacy screen," he said softly, "it will only take a couple of hours."
"Chakotay," he looked back at her, "I don't want to do this."
The doctor stepped forwards, "the longer we leave it, the higher the chance of infection is," he stated, "it will be a lot easier than a normal labour."
The go ahead for treatment came more from Chakotay than it did from Kathryn, and so a privacy screen was set up, and soon he was helping his wife change into a gown and trying to sooth her as the doctor administered medication via a hypospray.
For the two and a half hours that Chakotay stood by his wife in the sick bay, he knew all of the things that he should be feeling, but he could honestly say that he felt nothing. He wasn't upset that he'd lost a child. He wasn't angry either that it had happened, especially so late in the pregnancy. He wasn't disappointed at the lost chance of being a father for a second time. He wasn't relieved that he was being released of further responsibility. And when the doctor wrapped the still born baby in a blanket before he could see it, he wasn't at all curious towards any aspect of his dead child. Then Kathryn called out to the doctor, "is it a boy or a girl?"
The doctor stopped in mid stride and turned around, "a girl," he replied solemnly.
Tears started to form in the captain's eyes, "can I see her?"
"Of course." As he took a step forwards Chakotay subconsciously took a step back.
"Are you sure that's such a good idea?" he looked down worriedly at his wife.
She looked up at him with a sorrow that he had never seen in her eyes before, "I need to do this…" she paused, now noticing his discomfort as the doctor closed the gap between them, "you don't have to stay."
He looked at her for a long moment, the EMH standing a small distance away. Although he still wasn't feeling any of those things he should have been, one thing he did feel was an unexplainable fear that caused him to shake his head, "I'm sorry," he glanced at her briefly before making his way quickly out of sick bay.
-
Four days later Chakotay sat in a dark and deserted mess hall late at night. An untouched coffee sat cold in front of him, and the work he had been planning on doing was nothing more than a blank padd. Kathryn had spent the rest of that night in sick bay before returning back to their quarters the following morning having been temporarily relieved of duty and ordered to take it easy by the doctor. She hadn't left her bed since, and every now and again he would hear her break into sobs. He had tried to comfort her at first, but when one of his comforting phrases had been 'we can try again for another baby Kathryn, it's not the end of the world' she had shouted at him, ordered him out of the bedroom and had been refusing to speak to him since. He hadn't really tried to comfort her since.
Now he sat alone, his thoughts on nothing in particular and everything all at the same time. The entrance of someone into the space didn't disrupt him from his revere at first, until that person was sitting opposite him.
"You look lost."
He smiled slightly despite himself, "I guess I am."
"Anything you want to talk about?"
"She lost the baby," he stated.
"I know," came a compassionate reply. "You're upset?"
Chakotay sighed, "I want to be, I know I should be, but how do you mourn someone who you never knew and who never even took a breath in this world?"
"You can mourn a dream."
He looked across at the man who he had seen as his enemy for many years, "I never dreamt of a family, I just assumed one day I would have one. I have a family, I have a son and a wife and I love them both very much. I never dreamt of a daughter, but I would have loved one just the same as if I had."
"So what did you dream of Chakotay?" his voice was curious.
There was a long moment for which he paused thoughtfully, "Kathryn."
A small smile spread across the other man's lips, "and are you still content with that dream?"
"We have our ups and downs," he replied honestly, then grinned at his many memories of her, "she drives me mad, but I guess somehow that centres me. Yes, I am content."
"Did she dream of this child?" Kolopak asked.
Chakotay met the eyes of his father, "yes."
"Then can you not mourn her dreams?"
Suddenly his empty heart was filled with all of the emotions he should have been feeling. Pain, anger, disappointment, relief, curiosity and sadness, came to him all at once, and without saying good bye as there was no one to say good bye to, he left the mess hall and headed hurriedly down the corridor.
Kathryn lay in an uneasy sleep which she was easily broken from at the sound of her husband entering their quarters. She closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep knowing that he wouldn't disturb her at such a late hour even if she was speaking to him. But the light that suddenly entered into her bedroom and then left it as soon as it had flooded the grey walls caused her to turn around beneath her sheets. His silhouette could only just be made out with the minimal starlight that was provided from her window, but he stood by the foot of the bed for a short while before he said anything.
"I think I owe you an apology," he said when he was sure she was awake enough to listen to him.
There was a moments silence, "computer, minimal lights."
The room was consumed by a soft glow, and he watched as she started to sit up in their bed. She wasn't jumping up to push him out of what had become her private depression zone, so he decided to risk closing the gap slightly between them and he sat himself down on the edge of the bed opposite to her. "I'm sorry," he said sincerely.
"It is the end of the world," she reminded him of his words just a couple of days previously.
"I'm sorry for that as well," he admitted, "but I'm apologising for something else as well."
She frowned slightly, "what?"
"For doubting we were going to have a daughter," he smiled slightly, reaching a hand across to cover hers.
His wife shrugged, "we're not now, there's nothing to be sorry for."
There was a long silence, one that he eventually filled, "Scarlet."
Kathryn looked round at him with a confused expression, "what?"
"Or Emily, Kaya… Willow…" he gave off a short list, "I read a few books, and made a couple of lists, they're some of the names I would have liked to give our baby girl."
She looked up at him for a long moment, "I didn't know you were thinking of names."
He nodded, "when I had a few moments to spare."
"I like Emily," she admitted, "it was on my list as well."
Chakotay squeezed her hand with his own before closing the gap between them on the bed as he climbed further on. "I'm sorry I haven't been here for you over the past few days in the way I should have been, but you should know that I'm here for you now, just let me know what you want me to do, and I'll do it."
She looked up at him for a long moment, "can you just hold me?"
He smiled softly and nodded, then lay down beside her on the bed opening his arms to her as she snuggled up against him and rested her head on his chest. "I love you so much Kathryn," he stated before kissing her forehead.
"I know," there was a short silence, "I love you too."
He allowed the impact of her words to wash over him, the first time he had heard them in a long time, longer than he liked to think about. Soon she was asleep in his arms, and he fell asleep not long after that.
To be continued.