AN: Here we are, another piece here. (There's hopefully another coming very soon!)

I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!

111

"Would you prefer tea or coffee or…?" Chakotay asked.

Raffi tugged at the jacket of her uniform. As far as Starfleet uniforms went, the newest ones were some of the most comfortable she'd ever been issued—they had a great deal more give than some had before—but she still found herself constantly reassuring herself that everything was properly in place.

"I'm fine," she said, refusing a beverage.

Chakotay smiled at her. Immediately, she knew that she amused him. She could also immediately understand at least one thing that probably made Kathryn Janeway as crazy about him as everyone knew she was. He had an undeniably nice smile, and Raffi couldn't help but smile back at him.

"Relax, please? This is informal. Take a seat. I just want us to talk—to get to know each other."

Raffi felt herself relax at the suggestion. She nodded.

"Tea or coffee?" Chakotay asked. "I'm having tea, but Kathryn assures me that the coffee is excellent."

Raffi laughed quietly.

"Coffee, then," she said. "With cream."

Chakotay made the order at his replicator and refused to hand her the coffee until he'd practically herded her toward the comfortable seating area of his ready room. Raffi sat down on one of the comfortable chairs, put her shoulder bag to the side, and thanked him for the beverage. She sipped the coffee, nodded to gesture that it was good, since he was watching her, and waited for him to get started.

"I suppose you've read the report for the morning," Chakotay said.

"I did," Raffi assured him.

"Then, you know there isn't much happening today—at least, not without any surprises. Everything has been running smoothly, and we're headed for the wormhole. The wormhole is stable and predictable, but it still requires about two hours of travel time to traverse from the Alpha Quadrant to the Delta Quadrant."

"Better than seventy years," Raffi teased. Like everyone else, she was familiar with Voyager's travels and struggles—she also knew all that they'd had to face while they'd been trying to make it back to the Alpha Quadrant. It was one reason that they were such a tight-knit group of people, even after their return.

"Much better," Chakotay said. "From there, our first stop will be the station that's currently under construction. We'll spend a couple of days there. We have a delivery for them, and they're in need of the expertise of a few of our engineers. B'Elanna and her team will do what needs to be done, and then we'll be ready to move on."

"Smooth sailing," Raffi said, settling into her seat a little more comfortably as she accepted that Chakotay wasn't pressing for this to be formal in any way.

"Should be," Chakotay said. "It's the perfect time, then, for me to get to know the members of my crew. I've discovered that it's really the relationships that matter most of all when you're trying to get a crew to really work together. And building those relationships starts with understanding and discovery."

"Are you asking me about myself?" Raffi asked, raising her eyebrows at him. He laughed quietly and nodded.

"I am," he said.

"Well—I'm sure that Starfleet gave you my files," Raffi said.

"I have reviewed your files very carefully," Chakotay said. "I'm familiar with every aspect of your professional life. And—it's quite impressive."

"Except for that whole radio-silence, dark spot," Raffi said.

"Would you like to talk about that?" Chakotay asked.

"Is it a requirement of my position?" Raffi asked.

"You are not required to share anything," Chakotay said. "And, really, it's more the personal side of your life that I'm interested in. Whatever you want to share, of course. I'd like to know—who is my first officer? Who is Commander Raffi Musiker? What's important to her?"

Raffi took a deep breath and drank some of the coffee. She understood what Chakotay was trying to do. She'd been a right-hand before. She knew the process. The best teams worked together like a non-romantic couple and, in the case of Janeway and Chakotay, sometimes those lines became blurred with the commission was over. If they were going to perform the best that they could together, she and Chakotay were going to have to get to know one another very well.

"Captain—I don't want to talk about my past, unless ordered to do so," Raffi said. "That dark spot in my professional file was a dark spot in my personal life, too, and…I've moved on. I'd like to leave the past where it is."

"The past has a way of not always staying there," Chakotay said.

Raffi nodded.

"I know, but for now? I'm content to leave as much of it as I can, Captain. If that's OK with you."

"It's fine with me," Chakotay said. "As long as you start calling me Chakotay and tell me what you do want me to know. Tell me what's important now."

Raffi sat back and relaxed. She could feel her muscles accepting her brain's decision.

"Last night, you said almost everything that's important to me," Raffi said. She couldn't help but smile, even though her chest ached when she thought about how truly important the important things were—especially now that she'd learned what it felt like to be without anything to bring light into her life. "I am married to Seven, and…she is incredible."

"She is a very remarkable woman," Chakotay offered.

Raffi felt her face burn warm. Chakotay and Seven had had a brief—would fling be the word? Nothing physical had ever happened between them beyond a few kisses and a few daydreams of what might be. Seven had told Raffi all of it—she'd been trying to understand her human side. She'd been anxious to explore the things that made human's tick. She'd wondered about sexuality, and she'd only had one kind of sexuality to study, to some degree, as she explored things. Chakotay had been a friend. He'd been someone she'd looked up to. It was easy for someone with Seven's level of innocence to confuse things.

At the same time, Chakotay had been madly in love with Janeway, but she'd been pushing him away because of her role as captain and her fear of crossing professional lines. He'd needed comfort and solace—some evidence that it wasn't him—and Seven was undeniably beautiful to anyone who could find it in them to get to know her and to move beyond the fact that she practically had "Borg" written across her face.

Neither of them had truly meant what they'd proposed to have with each other—they'd simply been friends who had accidentally confused those feelings of affection for one another for something more. Whatever it had been had dissolved nearly immediately upon returning to Earth. Seven had moved on, and after a short period of strife between them all, Chakotay and Janeway had accepted their love for one another, Chakotay and Seven had admitted that they were truly only friends, and Janeway had forgiven Seven for a very brief period of heartbreak over what she'd thought was the loss of what she wouldn't allow herself to have.

Everyone knew what had happened, of course, but it still felt like the proverbial elephant in the room, and Raffi was happy that they were at least addressing it.

"If everyone could see Seven like I see her," Raffi said, "nobody would ever hurt her again."

Chakotay smiled, clearly pleased with that statement.

"I think we have all felt that way about the people we love," Chakotay said.

"You wanted to know what's important to me," Raffi said. "Seven is important to me. She is my greatest happiness. Family is important to me. We adopted Elnor—not because he can't survive without us, but because all our lives are made better by being together. I'm allowed to share the news with you—and I know you've already been briefed by medical—so you know that Seven is expecting the newest little member to our family…what we jokingly call the Musiker Collective."

Chakotay nodded his head.

"I'll give you my sincerest congratulations now. I wanted to wait until I had the opportunity to talk to Seven in private to offer my congratulations to her," Chakotay said.

"Tell her when you see her. Wherever you see her. We're not trying to keep it a secret," Raffi said. "It's too difficult in Starfleet."

Chakotay laughed.

"I understand," he said. "Both times that Kathryn was pregnant, it felt like half of Starfleet knew before I did, and that was just in the amount of time it took for her to get out of her appointment."

"If you don't mind my saying," Raffi said, "from what I hear, everyone was surprised that there were only two for you. From what I understand, you're both fans of large families."

"We meant to have more," Chakotay ceded. "We talked about it. We meant to have a large family. We tossed around ideas like five or seven. But—Starfleet got in the way. Kathryn is one of the great wonders of the universe, at times, and she has, without a doubt, earned her position as admiral. That means, sometimes, sacrificing a little of the personal. As the promotions came, and the missions came, and the responsibilities came, the babies just got put off."

"There's still plenty of time," Raffi offered.

"There is," Chakotay ceded. "Of course—you know that there's always some planning involved. Babies require a certain amount of, if not absolute downtime, slow time." He laughed at his own explanation.

"Smooth sailing," Raffi said, shrugging her shoulders. She gestured around her. "Upon the ship of dreams. A family trip, a family-oriented mission…"

"I thought we were talking about your family," Chakotay said with a nervous laugh.

"We were," Raffi said. "My getting to know you—to understand how you work—is just as crucial to our working together like two halves of a whole as your getting to know me."

"Touché," Chakotay teased. "Fine—there's always that possibility and, certainly, the medical staff would be happy to assist us in any way they could to ensure that, were we to choose to expand our family, everything would be uneventful…"

"I sense a 'but' coming," Raffi said, leaning forward and finding that, without feeling like she was in an interview, she was actually enjoying herself. That was something that, in her gut, she recognized as a good sign of how they might learn to get along as the mission progressed.

"The biggest 'but' for both of us wouldn't be the pregnancy itself," Chakotay said. "I think Kathryn would do that in a heartbeat. She enjoyed pregnancy. I think it would be the starting over again." Raffi only had to raise her eyebrows at Chakotay and change her position, making it clear that she was listening and ready for a story, to have him ready to tell her exactly what he meant. He licked his lips, looking for his starting point, and Raffi gave him time. "Sekaya—our oldest, Kaya—is only a little younger, really, than Miral Torres-Paris."

"I know," Raffi said, nodding her head.

"We got through all the baby stages with Kaya. The long nights, the feedings, the diapers, the potty training—we got through all of it. And then, there was a lull in Kathryn's career where she felt settled enough to relax a little, and along came Kol. We had to do it all over again. I think—right now? B'Elanna and Tom are understanding that sentiment with Miral being as old as she is and Owen, well, he has them starting right back over again. If we were to expand our family, we'd have to start over again."

"Sometimes, starting over again is the best thing that can happen to us," Raffi offered, "even if it feels scary at the moment."

"There's a big gap between Elnor and…"

"Baby Musiker," Raffi supplied. "Baby M? We don't have a name yet. And—we never raised Elnor, so that's very different. Still—we don't want that kind of gap. We've discussed it and we've planned for it. We…hope for two babies. We'd like them as close together as is medically possible. We already communicated that to the Doctor. As soon as Seven's healthy and ready for another go at things, we're planning on repeating the process. We actually signed up for this research project, and we signed up to do it twice—for added data, we said. We just knew we wanted them as close together as we could have them. If the twins had worked out, we might have stopped there. As it is, we talked about it. If the Doctor gives us the green light on Seven's health, and we're still on the ship, he'll prepare our embryos and we'll either arrange for Seven to undergo the procedure during shore leave, or the Doctor will put in a request to perform the procedure himself and process the data back to the Vulcan scientists that are running the study on the attachment procedure."

"It sounds like you've got everything planned," Chakotay said.

"We know what we want," Raffi said. "And my family is very important to me. Seven knows what she dreams of having, and I'll do anything to make sure she gets it. Especially since we share most of the same dreams. Now you know our plans for the time that we're on this mission. Like you said—we have to get to know one another, and I don't think I should keep that a secret. If it's going to be a problem, though, I fully understand if you need to choose a different first officer."

Chakotay looked amused.

"I absolutely don't think it's going to be a problem," Chakotay said. "Choosing to have two babies close together so that you can do everything at once and…and so that they have each other…is not an unusual choice. It's a personal choice, beyond that, and I know that you'll both still perform your duties to the best of your abilities. We have enough personnel and time for that not to be a problem. Rest easy, Raffi—I'm happy with my choice. It was late when I sent it, did you have a chance to look at some of the proposed first stops following our departure from the station?"

"As it turns out," Raffi said, laughing to herself, "sleep was limited in my quarters last night, but that left plenty of time to review the reports."

"Do you have some ideas on where we might go?"

"I've got a few," Raffi said, reaching for her shoulder bag to retrieve her PADD.