Just One More Day
Author: Naomitrekkie
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek Voyager or its characters, but the ones I made up are all mine.
A/N: Sorry this is a day late, but technical problems arose.
To those who did:
chocobo87: I kept that in mind the whole time. :D
LynnEGib: I hope this chapter helps to clarify things somewhat. If you have any particular questions, just ask me!
The Winged Ferret: That's so sweet of you! ;D
tayababy: Thanks, it makes my day to know people like what I write.
LucyMelissa0600: I promise I won't cut it short, I'm just not sure how many chapters until the end, other than it's coming soon. You'll see about the ending, though. ;D
mab13j: :D (I'd smile bigger but idk how to)
thesecret21: let's hope this one's just as great
Sabrina T. S.: mind-boggling, I like that phrase. one chapter, coming up ;)
CalmintheChaos: I make no promises, but here's that update.
Now here's the story. Enjoy! As always, please review!
Chapter 16
Kes and Celes were in the small day care building, watching the little children. Well, Celes was supposed to be there watching them and Kes was there to fix any injuries that befell the toddlers and infants. Only a handful could even walk, so the work was pretty light. Assisting them was an expecting native, coming close to the birth of her first child. Ravana was her name, and she was one of the few natives who spoke English. While not entirely fluent in the language, she had a better understanding of the it than most of her people, even better than most of the others who spoke it.
Celes had summoned Kes to deal with a cut the oldest child under their care, a short two-and-a-half year old boy named Mark, son of Susan Nicoletti and Michael Parsons, had received while running and tripping over his own feet. Kes was more than happy to help, as she had little else to do in the infirmary. Jenny Delaney had been in earlier for a prenatal examination and Neelix had stopped by between preparing breakfast and lunch in his restaurant, Chez Néelix, to chat, but other than that, no one had been by and she had been growing bored simply cataloging supplies.
After healing the cut with her mind, a talent she had discovered and developed over the years due to necessity and tried to practice whenever she could so as to stay sharp, Mark was off and running again as if nothing had happened. Kes stayed in the day care facility to chat with Celes, something she enjoyed doing. She liked spending time just talking with people, and knowing that she had already lived more than two-thirds of her life only made her want to talk more. She wanted to fit in as much as she possibly could with the time she had left from her short life.
"So, how are things going with you and Harry?" Kes asked, curious. Harry had never given up hope on returning to Earth and to his girlfriend, Libby, even though she had most likely believed him to be dead and moved on. He had seemed completely uninterested in the female population on the planet. That was until Celes walked up to him one day and kissed him, right in the middle of the fields where he and many others had been harvesting. She had been giving him hints but he seemed to be imune to them, until that kiss, anyway. That had been six months earlier, and he seemed to have let dreams of Libby go as he started seeing Celes more and more often.
"Great," she began. "We took a midnight stroll near the lava pools. It was beautiful."
"I remember Neelix took me there once. It sure is quite a sight."
"Yes, but I think the company made it even better," Celes said, a smile crossing her face. Kes smiled back, understanding.
"Ravana, have you ever gone to the Castintas?" Kes asked, using the native term for the lava pools.
"Yes," she answered. "I go with Jonthont. He take me when moon up. Very beautiful."
Before either Kes or Celes could respond, one of the infants began to cry. Celes went to deal with it but Ravana stopped her before she could.
"I get it, I get it," she told them, walking over to the crib and soothing the child. Kes and Celes watched her in awe, amazed at the effect she had on the children. Even the fussiest child would calm in her presence.
Kes could not enjoy the sight for long as she felt a sharp, but numb, pain tugging at her through her telepathic powers. She searched for the source and found Alixia was relaying what she felt of Naomi's pain back through their link. The pain, numbed as it might be, was still quiet great and kept Kes somewhat paralyzed for a few minutes. Before she could regain control, Katrina and T'Lana came running in frantically.
"Kes! Kes! Kes!" the girls screamed, running over to her and tugging on her clothes. "Come quick! Come quick!"
"What's wrong?" Celes asked, as Kes had yet regained control enough to talk.
"It's Naomi," Katrina answered.
"And Alixia," T'Lana chimed in.
"What's wrong? What's happened to them?" Kes asked, suddenly regaining control as she blocked the pain, as well as her link with her daughter, from her mind.
"We where playing hide and seek and Naomi fell from the tree," Katrina rushed.
"We went to check on her but Alixia was all still and stuff. We tried to get her to listen but she was all distant and couldn't hear us, so I tried to talk to her with my mind." T'Lana shuddered at this point, obviously having not liked what she had experienced.
"What happened when you did that?" Kes asked, trying to be as gentle as she possibly could.
"It was scary," she answered in a small voice, one that would not be expected from a Klingon-Vulcan-Human hybrid.
"Would you let me enter your mind so I can see it too?" Kes asked. T'Lana nodded her head slowly. Kes focused her mind so as to read T'Lana's mind as quickly as possible, so as to prevent the girl from having to relive anything too traumatizing.
Kes sifted through T'Lana's thoughts until she came across those from the meld. As she expected, they were quite traumatizing. Alixia's mind was frantic. Between the pain she was telepathically receiving and the worry over invaders, she was a frantic, hysterical mess, at least in her mind.
Breaking off the connection with T'Lana, Kes allowed her mind to expand so as to check on Naomi and Alixia. Alixia was still in a panic, but the pain Naomi had been experiencing subsided greatly, replaced by the pain of injuries from the fall.
Kes returned to the link between herself and her daughter, attempting to calm her.
"Alixia," she called out with her mind. "Alixia, you must calm yourself. How can I help you if I cannot understand you?"
"Mother? Mother, people have invaded the village! Mother, you have to do something! I sense them in the Meeting Hall. Mother, I don't know what they're doing, but they're strangers!"
"Alixia," Kes tried to sooth her daughter, "I will take care of the strangers. I will tell Captain Janeway about them, but I must know about Naomi. How badly is she hurt?"
"I-I don't know. She's in a lot of pain. Mother, you have to help her! I see blood, lots of blood." Alixia's internal voice became completely frantic and panicky, as if she was only noticing the blood for the first time, which she most likely was.
"I'll be right there," she told her daughter. Turning to look at Celes, she said, "Tell Kathryn someone's in the Meeting Hall. Strangers, I don't know who."
Kes headed for the exit, but Celes asked, "Where are you going?"
"Naomi's hurt," she yelled back behind her as she continued rushing out, not even bothering to stop and turn around.
Still a bit flustered by everything that was happening, Celes turned to Ravana, asking, "Can you stay here and watch the children quickly? I have to go tell someone about this."
"I stay. You go," Ravana told her. Celes felt secure in the knowledge that the children were safe in Ravana's care, then rushed out to find Janeway or someone else with enough authority to deal with the situation.
As she ran through the village toward the fields, as it was another of the year's many harvest times, she came across Janeway in the center of the village, sitting by the fountain. Water never ran through the fountain, as it was a rare commodity, but water did gather in the large base during rainfalls and could be used for drinking if the water gathered through the stills was not enough.
Currently, the fountain base was halfway filled with water due to the unusually rainy season they had recently experienced. Janeway was sitting in front of it, staring down at her reflection. If the problem wasn't so urgent, Celes never would have interrupted her and her serenity, but as the issue was important, she had no choice other than to bring Janeway back to reality.
"Kathryn?" she asked. "Kathryn, someone's in the Meeting Hall. Strangers."
Upon hearing this, Janeway looked up at her. What sort of strangers could be on the planet? she thought to herself. Knowing the situation was urgent, she got up and headed to the Meeting Hall, stopping by a weapons storage building on her way and grabbing a sort of bat to use in self defense. Then she and Celes, who had grabbed a sort of rock slinger, only more accurate, hurried to the Meeting Hall, which they entered with caution. When they heard voices coming from one of the side rooms, Janeway signaled for Celes to go through to the room from the other side, so as to surrond their intruders.
After giving Celes enough time to get into position, she barged in, ready to attack. She had tried to peek inside using the windows in the doors but the intruders, whose voices could be heard but not their words, were out of view from her perspective.
When she got inside, she had the bat at the ready, when she looked over the two men in the room. Both wore Starfleet uniforms, ragged as they may be, both in the red of command. The shorter of the two, who was scanning with a tricorder, had sandy blond hair and blue eyes, but it was the man with him she focused on. The other, taller, Native American man who stood there, a familiar tattoo over his left eye.
"Chakotay?" Janeway asked, dropping the weapon to the floor carelessly.
"Kathryn," he breathed.
Janeway rushed over to him, pulling him into a hug because she needed to feel he was real. "Oh, Chakotay, it's really you."
"Yes, Kathryn, I'm here now, but I won't be here for much longer," he told her.
"What?" Janeway asked, teary eyed. The thought of finally seeing him again and losing him so suddenly was not one she wanted to picture. She wasn't sure she'd be able to lose him again.
"Tom and I have been traveling through time due to a chroniton field we passed through, so we don't have much time. How long have you been here?"
"Five years," Janeway answered. "Five years." She was still a bit shocked about everything that was going on to fully comprehend just how soon he'd be leaving.
"Tom, does that fit in?" Chakotay asked, still keeping Janeway near him.
"Yes, it's following the pattern perfectly," he answered.
"Would you care to fill me in on this 'pattern'?" Janeway asked, annoyance creeping into her voice. She did not like the thought of losing Chakotay again, especially if she did not know why he would be leaving her.
"The pattern in our jumps," Tom explained.
"You've lost me," Janeway said before he even had a chance to dive into the more complex aspects of their journey.
"We arrived on this planet seventeen years after the crew of Voyager was abandoned because of some sort of anomaly in the atmosphere, and almost immediately we jumped to a time when Katrina was fourteen, making time on the planet close to fifteen years. We didn't know how this could be possible, until we jumped a second time. We didn't get the exact year, but Harry told me his children were two and five at the time. Our third jump brought us to his youngest's birth and then our fourth to when his first born was born, which happened to be the same year Kes turned nine. Now, after our fifth jump, we're five years from arrival. Don't you see it?" he asked as if were the simplest thing in the world, but before he could get an answer, two little girls came running in, screaming frantically.
"Mom! Mom!" the redhead yelled.
"Kathy! Kathy!" the brunette yelled.
The two girls ran straight for Janeway's legs, colliding into her with enough force to temporarily cause her to lose her balance, although she quickly regained her composure.
"Girls, what's wrong?" Janeway asked, concerned.
"Naomi's hurt really bad," Katrina told her. "Kes said to tell you."
Janeway, who was unable to think of something to say that a three and four year old would understand and be able to respond to, was saved by the sound of footsteps running towards the room, with the doors suddenly busting open, revealing a panting Alixia.
"Alixia, what's happened?" Janeway asked.
"Naomi fell and she's in critical condition. She's hit her head and broken her spine and my mom's not sure she's gonna make it, not if she gets another one of her headache attacks like she did earlier, before she fell."
Katrina began to cry because even though she wasn't sure what all the words meant, she knew the tone, a tone she only heard before having to go watch a person being buried in a hole in the ground, never to be seen again. Naomi was her friend and she didn't want to burry her. They were best friends. She played with T'Lana and liked her alright, but Naomi had always been there. She couldn't burry her friend and never see her again. She just couldn't.
Chakotay, in an attempt to sooth his daughter picked her up and held her close. She felt safe in his arms and her tears dissipated in his warm embrace. She didn't know who was holding her, but she did not half to. Her thoughts of fear and worry subsided as she lulled of to sleep, leaving Chakotay staring down at his beautiful daughter in awe, never wanting to let go of her.
Tom ended his serene moment with his snoozing daughter by tapping him on the shoulder and whispering.
"Chakotay, I'm not sure the plan's gonna work."
Chakotay gave him a look as if he were ready to challenge him to a fight to the death. This was not the time to be second guessing yourself.
"What do you mean, Paris?" he asked in a low whisper as they crossed the room, his daughter still safely in his grasp. He was unable to use Tom's first name, he was so angry.
"This is going to sound morbid, I know, but the only way for our jumps to continue is from the chroniton and antichroniton reaction, as it's been progressing. It were a simple matter of the pattern, we'd be fine, but for us to get to the right time, we must use the chronitons that build up around us, while releasing the antichronitons. If those antichronitons have no place to go, the reaction doesn't work and we still have two more jumps to go."
"So what are you saying?"
"I'm saying that if Naomi dies, we're stuck here."
Chakotay looked at Tom as if he had announced that if Chakotay was to ever see his Kathryn again, he would have to pray he managed to leave before his daughter died, which in a bizarre and somewhat twisted way, he was. Naomi had been like the daughter the crew hadn't had, with each of them loving her as their own. Even Chakotay had exhibited paternal protectiveness of the only child born on Voyager, well before he even knew about his own daughter.
"You can't be serious," Chakotay told him.
"I wish I weren't. Our only chance is to pray we make it to Voyager in time. If we can carry out our plan before Naomi dies, we might be able to save her, with just a slight alteration to our current plan."
"How slight?" Chakotay asked, not liking the sound of things.
"You know what I said about the antichronitons having no place to go? The process works in reverse as well. If the chronitons have no place to go, the antichronitons won't build up."
Chakotay understood what Tom was saying and the sheer horror of it all danced across his face. He looked down at his sweet, darling daughter, and knew the choice he had to make. It was their only option.
Tom's tricorder began to beep, a prearranged warning Tom had devised, and Chakotay forced himself to set Katrina down gently on the floor before vanishing into another time completely.
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Kathryn Janeway sat with Samantha Wildman having a small lunch while watching their daughters play together. Well, Naomi did most of the playing as she had the appearance and activity level of a six year old and Katrina simply watched in awe and ran around, occasionally falling down but getting right back up.
"It's hard to believe how quickly she's grown," Sam said, smiling as her daughter laughed joyfully.
"I thought Katrina was growing up fast, but Naomi, it's unbelievable," Janeway answered.
"Yeah, I only wish—" Sam began but stopped herself. She could not think of her husband now. It would only cause her to lose control.
Janeway placed a reassuring hand on Sam's shoulder and smiled at her confidently.
"Sam, Voyager's going to come for us, and we'll make it back to Earth and the Alpha Quadrant, I promise you."
"I know," Sam said, although she had already given up hope of ever returning to Voyager. It had been two years, and two years was too long a time for them to simply be lost.
Suddenly, distant screams could be heard in the background, but neither Janeway nor Sam were bothered by it. It was B'Elanna, as usual. As she neared her due date she became more and more hostile, especially towards her husband as well as directed towards Janeway. Janeway had suspicions their martial problems were greater than Vorik's overprotectiveness. She suspected B'Elanna had loved Tom, although she hadn't realized it at the time. Tom, whom Janeway herself had sent away along with Chakotay and Tuvok, none of which had been seen in the past two years. It was no wonder B'Elanna was mad at her. She was angry with herself, regretting having sent Chakotay along with the away team.
"I love B'Elanna, I really do, but I hope the baby's born soon. I don't think I can take much more of this screaming," Sam commented. "It's giving me a headache."
Suddenly, as if Sam's words had summoned it, Naomi began to cry and scream out in pain, horrible pain. The surprise of the entire incident frightened Katrina, who began to cry as well. Both mothers ran over to comfort their daughters, but there was little Sam could do for Naomi, who's screams had been replaced by the silence of lifelessness.
To Be Continued . . .
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See ya next week!