A/n: Thank you so much again to my beta for this story, NikkiB1973, her encouragement has helped feel brave enough to post this next chapter. :) Also her hilarious new one-shot, 'Breathless' helped me to lighten up while I was wrapped up in writing all this intensity. Tom and B'Elanna playing party hosts, a tipsy pair in Seven and Chakotay and a very drunk Tuvok (?!) I can't recommend it highly enough. :)
Seven woke with a jolt as she heard the front door close downstairs, that sound almost immediately followed by the familiar thudding rhythm of Chakotay sprinting up the stairs to check on her. She shuddered slightly as the heavy cloud of exhaustion lifted and she remembered where she was. After the hasty, bitter, but necessary tears had been released, she'd sunk into the padded rocking chair all of their old Voyager crewmates had insisted on clubbing together to purchase to present to her at the reunion almost three months ago. She'd merely intended to sit there for a few minutes to recover her calm, but obviously she'd fallen asleep…
"Seven?" Chakotay called as he reached the landing, giving a start of surprise when he turned enough to see that she was in the nursery. "What are you doing in here?" he asked as he stepped inside, trying to keep his voice lightly curious but instead sounding wary, his smile forced and his eyes uncertain. He'd witnessed her avoiding this room too often in the past few to be unconcerned.
Seven self-consciously ran a hand over her face, knowing from the itchy feeling around her lids that her eyes were probably still at least a little red. "Just thinking." She said quickly, guilt making her fingers clench around the arm of the rocking chair as he gave her a long, searching look.
"Oh Annika…" Irene's soft gasp of delight interrupted the awkward moment as the older woman, who'd followed Chakotay upstairs at a steadier pace, reached the room's threshold, "What a lovely little room this is now that you've decorated, it's so sunny and light!"
Her words made Seven glance around the room with a new perspective, the negative tint of the past pushed aside. It really was a pleasant room, with a big window that looked directly down on the flourishing trees whose leaves were already tinged with varying shades of amber to russet as autumn began to take hold, even if the current temperatures still told of an Indian summer. "It is." She finally agreed softly, smiling a weak but honest smile at her husband over her aunt's shoulder, "Chakotay is responsible for the manual work of the decoration, although…" She shifted in the chair and pointed out the opposite corner, where the yellow paint didn't quite meet the crisp white of the skirting board, "I've noticed a flaw or two."
Chakotay wasn't about to be fooled by the idea that she'd spent the last four hours in here checking for issues with the paintwork, but he was glad enough to see the light-hearted, teasing glint in her eyes that he let the evasion pass. "See what it's like being married to a perfectionist Irene?" He gave an exaggerated, humorously long-suffering sigh as he laughingly when to assess what Seven meant, "I'll fix it before the end of the week honey." He assured her as he saw that she hadn't entirely been joking.
Seven replied with her old habitual birdlike nod, "That would be acceptable." She replied with amused gravity.
"Oh, I don't know…" Irene countered as she walked up to her niece, "I think, looking at you, he'd better do it sooner rather than later." She saw Seven's face waver at that and knelt down to wrap in her a gentle hug, "You're looking well älskling, I promise." She murmured reassuringly in her ear as she pulled back, giving her taut, swollen body a warm, cursory glance as she did so, "You just look like every other woman who's really ready for her pregnancy to be over, that's all."
Seven awkwardly began to reposition as she braced herself for struggling to her feet. "That would be a fair assessment." She muttered breathlessly as her arms buckled under her weight. Her once superhuman lung capacity had been severely impeded by her baby seeking out any space in which to grow inside her.
Chakotay stepped in to carefully help pull her up, his arm pulling her protectively into his side as soon as she managed to stand. "Irene's going to make us a homemade lunch, isn't that great?"
Seven blushed at the imposition, "Aunt Irene, you are under no obligation to do anything. As our guest you should…"
Irene waved her objections away, "Nonsense min flicka." She shushed her firmly, "I'm a special kind of guest this time, the kind that's happy to act as surrogate chef, maid, nanny, as anything you two need until you get back on your feet, okay?" She smiled in relief as Seven nodded slowly, "Good. Now, I brought fresh ingredients here from the farmers' market at home, since it's still so hot here how do you fancy a salad?"
Seven finally allowed herself to show her gratitude, "I'd like that. Someone…" She shot Chakotay a significant look, "…won't let me stand on my feet for more than five minutes so I haven't been able to cook anything."
"Hey, I was just enforcing the Doctor's advice…" Chakotay reminded her in retort, "I'm the one that really suffers from that, I've been spoiled by your cooking for over six years and this past month or so I've had to go completely cold turkey!"
Seven allowed herself a laugh along with Irene, who said, "I'd better get started on remedying that then shouldn't I?"
With that Irene bustled down the stairs, with Chakotay and Seven following at a much slower pace, Chakotay half-carrying her down at his insistence when he saw her struggling. By the time they'd made their way into the kitchen and had settled side by side at the table, Irene had already set out the vegetables in preparation and was halfway through making a bowl of coleslaw. "So…I already know that Voyager's Doctor will have the hospital all set out for you, and I've seen the nursery all prepared, but have you had any luck picking out a name yet?" She asked companionably as she washed the lettuce under the tap.
Chakotay looked over at his wife; half-hoping that looking through names was what she'd been doing all that time in the nursery. The regretful sigh that left Seven's lips told him not. "No…we have yet to decide." She admitted quietly, biting her lip as she caught Chakotay's momentary disappointed expression. As with learning the baby's sex, she'd been equally reluctant to consider, let alone settle on, a name for the baby. With her eidetic memory, she could recall every name they had discussed during her previous pregnancy; they hadn't reached that point the first time. Before they'd discovered that it had been a girl, she and Chakotay had created a shortlist of both boys' and girls' name to choose from. Now, although she was guiltily aware that it was unfair that this new baby remained completely nameless, all of those names she'd liked then felt like a bad taste in her mouth and she hadn't gotten the same pleasure out of discovering alternatives. She suspected Chakotay felt somewhat the same way though, since he hadn't pressed the issue any more than she had and had also left the old, carefully catalogued list untouched.
She was pulled out of her thoughts as Chakotay clasped his hand around hers tightly in understanding, his throat moving up and down in a small gulp as he too considered a reply. Seeing that vulnerability in him made Seven give the hand holding her an empathic squeeze as he said, "No, we haven't decided the first name at all." He turned his gaze towards Seven again, "We did decide that we didn't want the baby to have a middle name as well as a first name though." He told Irene.
"Yes, we did." Seven confirmed, "We thought that, since we have so many people who are special to us and have done a great deal for us it would be wrong to honour any particular one in that way."
"Well, I for one think you're perfectly right about that." Irene assured them worriedly as she brought the finished salad over to the table and sat down beside them, "It can be a nice tradition of course, both you and I have middle names Annika, but I decided against it for my boys…" She grimaced grimly, "…too many arguments with Harald's mother. I'd already had a fight on my hands to keep my maiden name at work." Seven smiled to herself, she'd met her aunt's firebrand of a mother-in-law, the mother of her late Uncle Harald, at a family reunion two years ago. Even at ninety, 'Grandma Nora' seemed to have the ability to have her two cousins Jakob and Matthias, ten and twelve years older than her respectively, a Federation diplomat and a neuroscientist, quivering in their boots even now. "Anyway…" Irene continued in a lighter tone, "…sometimes you don't know if the name will really suit until you see that little face in your arms. Jakob's name stuck, but I remember Matthias was our third choice name until we met him." She chuckled to herself at some private joke.
Seven gave both Irene and Chakotay a shaky smile, "Yes, it may well be like that. Our baby will be an individual after all, perhaps it is better that we don't choose beforehand."
Chakotay grinned back at her hopefully as she subtly lifted his hand to rest on her stomach where the baby was kicking her.
Seven forced the air her shocked body had sharply gasped in as the contraction peaked back out in a slow exhale. 57.35 seconds in duration and following 8 minutes and 43.6 seconds after its predecessor. These statistics were oddly soothing in their own way, she was already counting down, in nanoseconds, until the next one, but she supposed focusing detachedly on these numbers was letting her divert her attention from what they actually meant. She was in labour; one she doubted was false despite knowing of B'Elanna's experiences. This had been going on for too long… Yet, looking around where she was, her and Chakotay's en-suite, she wasn't exactly acting on these rational conclusions. It hadn't exactly been what she'd expected either, despite her access to the memories of billions of assimilated mothers. The contractions reached the highest level of pain of course, but she hadn't anticipated being quite this uncomfortable in the gaps between them. For hours, it had felt as if some invisible pair of hands had her back and stomach between the palms and was pressing hard, individual fingers of pain clawing at each muscle. When a contraction came, that pressure changed to a wringing squeeze that left her breathless each time. It hurt sitting like this, but one glance at her shaking legs told her she wouldn't be able to stand. She didn't really want to look at anything, her head was throbbing already and the unusually bright lights of the bathroom were making her squint. Wiping a hand across her forehead she dazedly wondered why the gusts coming from the bathroom fan were making her shiver but yet beads of sweat were still a constant on her brow. Her stomach rolled unpleasantly and she dropped her head onto one of her quivering knees, tears flowing under her lids as her thumping heart began to race faster, its frantic beat roaring through her ears.
"Seven?" Chakotay's voice bounced off the closed door, but soon his clumsy, sleep numbed footsteps heralded his entrance, the light from their bedroom framing his tall figure. A lump rose in her throat as she watched him take her in, his face draining of colour. "What's wrong?" He breathed a panicky laugh as his rationale answered his own question, "How long have you been in here?"
Despite that he spoke in a startled whisper, Seven heard the note of reproach, though his lack of real anger under the fear and frustration made her want to cry. "Ninety…two minutes…" She muttered, her answer broken by the first stabbing spasm of the start of a contraction.
"Why didn't…" Chakotay started before shaking his head and moving towards her, "We have to get you to the hospital sweetheart…"
Seven sucked a breath in, the exercises forgotten. "Ugh…" She groaned, her stomach lurching as the contraction yanked at her abdomen, "I'm going to…vomit…" Chakotay acted quickly, snatching up the waste basket and thrusting it into her hands. Hunching over it, she dry heaved as the contraction intensified, then eased, only able to cough up a little bile that burned her throat but brought no relief. Tears blurred her vision as she lifted her head and saw Chakotay's pinched eyes gazing into hers, his warm hands encircling the cold skin at her wrists. "I…don't want to go!" she sobbed out, the tears choking her even more than the pain as utter confusion reflected in his face. "I'm…so afraid…" She admitted in a tearful whisper, self-hatred seizing her in tandem with the constant ghost of fear.
She saw enough of his face to see understanding dawn before it disappeared as he knelt and embraced her, clutching her to him, his face buried almost as deep into her shoulder as hers was in his. "I know." He whispered thickly as she realised just how much his indomitable frame was shaking like a leaf as she felt him pull in a lungful of air, "I am too." His fingers curled around her flimsy dressing gown, "But we have to go Seven…"
She was deaf to that, her wet face pressing into his neck where she could feel the reassuring throb of his pulse. "I'm sorry…I'm sorry…sorry…" She wept, frightened even as she did so by these continual outbursts.
Chakotay's voice wouldn't get over the lump in his own throat for a second, "You have nothing to be sorry for, shh…"
"Annika? Chakotay?" Irene's concerned voice made Seven jerk back from Chakotay, her tear stained face reddening further in shame. "Oh…" Irene gasped as she saw her niece hunched over with pain that could only have one reason, "It's started my love?" She walked in slowly, as if trying not to startle Seven, smiling at her gently, "I thought it might be tonight, when you hardly ate anything at dinner." Seven managed a nod as Irene put firm hands on her shoulders, she'd been suspecting that her aunt had been watching her for signs since she'd arrived two days ago and this was confirming that thought.
"Since dinner? Before dinner?" Chakotay echoed incredulously, "Seven, it's two in the morning now…"
"That doesn't matter now." Irene reminded him firmly, guiding him into helping her to get Seven upright and standing before grasping both of her hands. "Come and I'll help you get dressed Annika while Chakotay calls the hospital for transport and gets your bag." She coaxed, leading a now quiet Seven back into the bedroom, still holding her hand as she searched around the room for clothes. Chakotay hovered like a ship without a compass, unsure whether or not he could risk leaving Seven's side even for a few seconds. "Chakotay, remember what I asked, she won't have the baby yet but we need to be ready to go." Irene instructed, taking pity on him.
"Right." Chakotay breathed, running a hand through his hair as he tried to summon up all of his Starfleet training about a keeping a cool head, "I'd better call and let some people know too…" He muttered distractedly.
"No!" Seven exclaimed pleadingly, "Don't tell anyone else, we'll tell them when it's over, please Chakotay…"
Chakotay swallowed as the sudden resurgence of Seven's fear brought his own back to the fore. "Alright, I'll just contact the Doctor and tell him we're on the way in."
Irene watched Seven's face crumple as Chakotay hurriedly departed, "Let me get you dressed Annika…" She repeated softly.
Seven took several deep breaths to calm herself as she submitted and began to change from her nightdress and dressing-gown, both already soaked with sweat. "I upset him Aunt Irene, I shouldn't have said anything…" She fretted.
"Listen Annika…" Irene interrupted, "Chakotay is not upset with you, that man never truly could be, he loves you so much. He's just worried about you and your baby, just like you are." She gave her a quick hug, "It's okay to be scared, everyone is. I was, your mother and father were, that's normal, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't deal with the fact that this baby has chosen tonight to come."
Seven felt a sob break free but managed to force her voice past it, "I've tried to be brave, for months, but I'm failing. I…I can't lose another, I can't do that to Chakotay again…"
"You won't." Irene replied desperately, bringing her hand together with Seven's to rest on the latter's tight belly. "It's kicking you right now, and you're in labour. You have to believe that in a few hours you'll be holding your baby and all this will be over."
"Are you sure she can't just lie down Doctor?" Chakotay asked beseechingly as he helped Seven circle the perimeter of the high-risk birthing room at Starfleet Medical for what felt to him like the fiftieth time. He was sure that to Seven it felt like a lot more, shuffling around while being wracked with ever more numerous and painful contractions, all while under the instruction to dilate. She'd calmed down a great deal since they'd reached the controlled environment of the hospital by transporter two hours before, her mindset of silent endurance that was more usual for her seemed to have reined in her emotional side, at least enough to stop her being able to express it.
"She's at three and a half centimetres, labour isn't considered active until four centimetres, I'll let do whatever's most comfortable for the rest of the labour but for now walking around is the best thing to speed everything along." The Doctor replied tiredly. He had a tricorder constantly trained on Seven, couldn't Chakotay realise that if there was something else to do to help he'd know it before he did?
"If your water breaks before then we'll let you lie down Seven." Sandra, the midwife in attendance, kindly advised.
"Would that mean that there's something wrong with the baby?" Seven asked, her voice catching painfully as another contraction, they were less than five minutes apart now, started.
Sandra made sure her reassuring glance caught both Chakotay and Irene's eyes too as she answered Seven, "Not at all, just that your baby's eager to see you."
Seven's face relaxed in relief even as the pain still lingered, but as she saw another doctor walk through the door in front of her she stiffened again. "Dr Perritt, what are you doing here?"
Dr Perritt, a fair-headed man in his late fifties, smiled at her warmly, though he obviously picked up on the dread in her face. "The Doctor called me to tell me you were in labour and I thought I'd better come in to start the monitoring of the baby while you're still in the early stages so that we're nice and prepared when you're ready to deliver."
Seven shot the Doctor a fearful, almost betrayed, look. "But I…"
"Seven…" The Doctor reasoned, "I told you we'd need a neonatologist to come in. Dr Perritt will check the baby over after it's born while I'm attending to you and how you're implants are doing."
"You said the baby seemed healthy…" Seven choked out, her tone becoming more and more high-pitched.
The Doctor grasped her shoulder and forced her to meet his gaze even as she tucked herself tighter into Chakotay for comfort. "It does seem fine right now Seven, I'm very pleased with your progress so far, but you know better than anyone that we can't be too careful…"
Chakotay couldn't help but mirror Seven's violent flinch, but moved to soothe her anyway; coaxing her to just lean her already exhausted body on him and ignore anything else, but the Doctor's words had grazed too sensitive a nerve. She gave the hologram a hard, unblinking stare, her wounded gaze narrowed, "Yes, I suppose I do know." She answered harshly, making the Doctor grimace guiltily.
"Seven…" Chakotay finally verbally intervened, pulling her head down onto his shoulder as he felt her shudder in anticipation of another wave of pain.
"It's all just a precaution." Dr Perritt said quietly, smiling kindly down at Seven's bowed head, "It may well be that I'm sitting in a corner with very little to do throughout all this. I'm just here as a backup for the Doctor really."
Seven sighed at his tactful words, realising once again that she'd perhaps overreacted initially. "I know, thank you Dr Perritt." She took a leaden step back from Chakotay; standing still brought on another layer of discomfort, of back pain and pressure, "I meant no offence…" The apology was abruptly cut off by a lightning strike of pain surging through her nerves, and she felt her knees buckle even before she heard the sound of her own startled cry hitting ears. The unquantifiable…gushing sensation was immediately repulsive to her, she couldn't help associating it with blood, with life draining away from her…
"That's your waters broken now." Dr Perritt declared, sounding impossibly calm, "You really are doing well, everything looks fine."
Seven found herself gasping repeatedly as Sandra, with the help of a game Irene, helped her stand again. "It won't stop…" She muttered in disgust as she felt and watched the strangely warm fluid cascade down the inside of her legs. With her research and preparation from before, she had of course known that membranes cushioning the baby would rupture at some point, but the uncontrollable nature of the process in reality was frightening her, it was like she had a tap inside her that she had no say in turning on or off.
Sandra chuckled, obviously having heard that complaint before. "It's not supposed to honey, not until it's all out. Try not to worry about it." She put an arm around Seven's waist and began to lead her to the bed, "The good thing about it is that you'll probably dilate a lot faster now, and that you get to lie down, right Doctor?"
"Right." The Doctor agreed readily, visibly trying to lighten his tense, sombre features. "I'll check you over more thoroughly when you're comfortable."
"How probable is that, being comfortable?" Seven ground out drily through gritted teeth as she tried to ease her seizing, cramping body up into the bed, the violent burst of fluid having eased to a constant trickle down her legs.
The Doctor smiled at her affectionately as he pulled the sheets back for her, "Not very probable no, but you are progressing and that's very good."
"So we just wait now?" Chakotay asked tersely as he slumped into a chair by the bed, seeking out the nearest of Seven's clenched hands and grasping it tightly in his own.
"Obstetrics is all one big long waiting game Chakotay. Very different from the immediacy of life on Voyager much of the time I'll grant you, but just as worthwhile." The Doctor replied, "If its any comfort, the two of you really are quickly approaching the end of this long journey, I promise."
A/n: PLEASE REVIEW! :D I've spent the whole week working on both this chapter and the story's conclusion, so it was a lot of work! Also, when you've finished reading 'Breathless', check out battlevalkyrie's new story 'Comfort Zones' too. What could have more 'aww factor' than a story about Seven babysitting Miral, with some C/7 thrown in? Nothing in my opinion. ;)