bTitle:/b Stellar Entanglement a href="."part I/a || part II
bAuthor:/b Oparu
bRating:/b teen
bPairing:/b Janeway/Chakotay
bWord Count:/b 12585
Notes and Summary, see part I.
lj-cut text="If hed had a chance, he would have told her. He just, hadnt had that chance."
"She looks sick." B'Elanna's off-hand comment startled Chakotay's attention up from the report she'd just handed him.
"Pardon?"
"The admiral." B'Elanna took a step closer to the comm panel were Kathryn's message still sat open, waiting for him to reply. "She looks sick. Her skin's too pale, and she has dark circles under her eyes. How hard are they working her back on Earth?"
Chakotay couldn't argue that Kathryn looked well. To B'Elanna's practised and knowing eyes, Kathryn looked like hell. Maybe she really did. Chakotay was still so excited about the baby that he nearly vibrated with the idea. He just hadn't noticed. Kathryn was beautiful, frightened and a little overwhelmed, but absolutely beautiful all the same.
B'Elanna saw it differently. "Don't you see the marks beneath her eyes? She looks like she did when we were running from the Oluksaan patrol ships. When she hadn't slept in five days and Tom caught her hallucinating on the bridge?"
That Chakotay remembered all too vividly. Though none of the patrols had found them, Kathryn had been so exhausted by the end that he worried if she'd even make it back to her quarters on her own feet.
If B'Elanna thought it was that bad... He attempted cleared his head of his joy and failed. Centring himself slowly, he did better the second time. B'Elanna was right, of course. Kathryn looked like hell warmed over and poured into her uniform.
What could he say? Should he lie? Did he dare tell B'Elanna the truth without talking to Kathryn about who they wanted to tell? Could he even lie to B'Elanna?
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing." His answer was too quick, and no captain's rank would protect him from his best friend's glare. "She hasn't been feeling well."
"And she can't walk across the grass to Starfleet Medical? The admiral's on Earth. I believe they have a hell of a lot of doctors." B'Elanna uncrossed her arms and pointed at the screen. "Did you tell her to go see one?"
"She has."
"And?"
"And she's fine. Nothing's wrong."
He should have dismissed her. He could have sent her away and kept Kathryn's secret.
"What kind of-"
When B'Elanna cut off, he was a dead man. She didn't need to finish her thought. Chakotay knew what she was going to say and her eyes shifted from angry to livid.
"You and the admiral...and you were going to tell me, when? When she went into labour?" The PADD in her hand was suddenly a deadly weapon as she held it up in front of his chest. "You're...and you didn't tell me?"
A younger B'Elanna, the woman he'd first met, would have smacked him across the face with the PADD. Once she'd joined the Maquis, she knew enough of finesse to hit him with the PADD instead. Now, a grown woman with a husband and daughter, B'Elanna no longer needed to hit him to bring him to his knees.
"You and the admiral were the first to congratulate Tom and I when we found out I was pregnant. You were the ones we talked too. That we came to for advice. I…dammit, Chakotay, you were the first person I told about Tom."
She shook her head, pulled her hand back and folded her arms tightly over her chest. "Tom and I are helping the baby write the admiral after dinner. I hope you make sure she's taking care of herself. I'll see you in the morning. Congratulations, Captain."
zzzz
She couldn't remember the last time she'd been in a line. Lines were not part of being an admiral. Meetings started when she arrived. Food arrived and people began to eat when she sat down. Starfleet admirals did not stand in lines. Hell, even captains didn't do it much.
Kathryn rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet and stared at the serpentine line of people ahead of her. They wound around the entrance hall to Zartoarin Prime, all waiting to pass through immigration. Zartoarin Prime was not part of the Federation. The tall, wiry, bird-like aliens weren't even a Federation Protectorate. They maintained sovereign space and had their own laws regarding transit. Of course, Phoebe would find a way to be on the most distant and quaint of backwater planets. Kathryn couldn't even remember the last time she'd been asked to prove her identity.
When she was on a starship, she was the captain and that was it. She just flew through. Part of the many wonders of a starship was the ability to go wherever she pleased. Thinking about starships inevitably lead to thinking about Voyager and the handsome, gentle-hearted captain of Voyager who was far too outside subspace comm range to think about.
Thinking about Chakotay reminded her how much she missed him. Missing him made her nauseated, arguably the two weren't related, but since they were both omnipresent, Kathryn had decided they were connected.
Even allowing herself the momentarily recognition of her nausea made it worse. Kathryn folded her arms tightly over her breasts, which hurt, like they always did, so that distracted her momentarily. The idea that her nausea, which so far had stubbornly remained a background problem that had not yet escalated to vomiting, might finally take the next step, culminating in her spilling the contents of her stomach onto the shoes of the obnoxious couple in front of her.
It would be worth it. If she had to listen to the two of them talk about how good the shopping was outside of Federation space for one more minute…
Maybe she'd be lucky and pass out first. She was lightheaded again, she was always lightheaded, just not enough to pass out.
She bounced again on the balls of her feet, wishing they didn't ache. Was it the non-Starfleet issue boots? Maybe there was something to be said for Starfleet design. She missed her uniform boots. Her feet hurt after her shifts, but her shifts were sixteen hours long. Everything hurt.
Except, today she wasn't working. She was trying to visit her damn sister and her damn opera opening. She didn't give a damn about which ancient opera was going to be performed for the first time on this planet nor did she care why anyone else wanted to listen to it. For all her faults, and as much as it exhausted her just to listen to Phoebe's letters, she was her sister; Kathryn wanted to see her.
Even if that meant surviving this endless line.
Provided she even could.
She dug her fingers into the pressure points at the top of her nose and sighed.
What was Phoebe going to say? Kathryn could have predicted what her mother said. Gretchen loved the idea of grandchildren, she loved being pregnant, and she loved her children. It was easy. She'd had- well, she hadn't had her father. Edward had been nearly always gone with the fleet. He'd been present for her birth, but Kathryn knew that was just barely.
Could she face having this baby alone? She stopped her hand before she rested it on her belly. So far pregnancy was exhausting and confusing; her own body was against her, imprisoning her within. Childbirth didn't frighten her, pain was endurable.
She wasn't afraid of carrying this baby alone. She'd survive. The thought that nagged her, the thing that clawed at the back of her mind, was the moment in the near future- and thinking about it made her eyes sting- where someone would hand her a baby, and with that all the responsibility that followed.
She needed Chakotay for that. He was everything she wasn't, patient, calm and loving in the way she needed to be loved. She needed him for this. Her thumb stroked across her stomach, then she let her hand stop and rest over the baby. Forgetting the people around her and all the sounds of half-conversations and shuffling feet, she shut her eyes. For one, stolen, quiet moment, she thought about the baby, and how much she already loved that life. However small, fragile and secret it was, she loved their child.
Kathryn didn't know if the baby could know that. She didn't know how she could possibly communicate all the warmth in her heart, even when she hated how hard it was to sleep, and how fear had settled in like a spider roosting in the corner of her mind: she loved the baby.
He or she had to know that. It had to be possible. She, well, she wouldn't know what to do if the baby could sense her doubts and fears.
"It's not you." She repeated to herself, over and over in the back of her mind. "I'm not afraid of you. I love you."
zzzz
Sweat eased a lot of problems. Working himself until he was wet and trembling chased away anger. That kind of physical self-abuse eased frustration and quieted his mind. Chakotay needed to sleep. He had a ship to run, and for all the times he'd told Kathryn a ship did not benefit from an exhausted captain, he was running the risk of becoming one himself.
Thankfully they were still at warp, and he had little to do other than catching up on his Starfleet correspondence. He'd written Sekya at least six times and Kathryn's mother twice. No matter how many times he started to write Kathryn, he'd inevitably stop and delete it. Nothing felt like the right thing to say. He wanted to hold her, more than anything, he wanted to kiss her over and over and tell her how incredible her pregnancy was.
He'd only contemplated parenthood once before, when Seska had informed him of his unintended son. Chakotay had been angry, afraid, even lost…but Kathryn had helped him. She'd trusted him. She'd been willing to risk her ship, ask their crew to risk their lives, to save his son.
She'd had faith then; Kathryn had faith in him now. She knew their child would be all right. What could he say? How could he reassure her? What did she need from him? What could he possibly do from hundreds of light years away?
And yet, no matter how much he worried, he couldn't sleep because he was excited. He was too giddy to sleep. He had barely managed to contain himself enough to meditate and tell his father. Having a child with Kathryn was beyond his expectations, beyond what he imagined could be possible for them. He thought they'd date, that they'd be together; the baby was beyond them.
He loved them both, his unexpected family, and taking them into his heart had remade his existence, changed his universe like his own personal Big Bang. He was theirs and his life would revolve around what his family needed.
Not that he could do much for them from here. He might as well have been in the Delta Quadrant for all the comfort and support he could offer Kathryn. She wouldn't receive his letter, provided he found the words for one, for another week, possibly even two.
Chakotay rolled his hands through the towel on his neck. Perhaps after he showered, he'd try writing her again, finally find what he wanted to say.
Circling a corner, he found Tom walking slowly through the deserted corridor. Miral was cradled against his chest, the toddler's arms around his neck and her legs dangling limp from sleep.
Tom smiled sheepishly over her shoulder. "Mommy needed to sleep, so we went for a walk. She's heavy, but if I walk long enough, she usually gives in and falls asleep."
Would he do the same thing? Walk until their daughter slept in his arms? Or would it be a little boy with Kathryn's cheekbones and and his dark hair?
Tom's eyebrows raised, as if he'd been Betazoid and reached out to read Chakotay's mind. His voice was soft, knowing what fragile things he was bringing up.
"Last time B'Elanna was that upset with me, I had to sleep on Harry's couch. If you need to talk..."
For a moment, he just stood there, staring at his first officer. While he was tongue-tied when he opened a letter to Kathryn, his chest burned with unuttered words. Chakotay sighed, inclining his head towards to Mess Hall. "Will she sleep if we sit for awhile?"
"You can sit." Tom shifted the burden of his daughter in his arms. "You'll have to put up with me swaying back and forth."
"I'll try not to get seasick."
"Seems fair."
The empty mess hall was dark, a quiet refuge. Chakotay replicated a cup of tea. When he looked at Tom, he grinned.
"Beer, if you don't mind spending the rations."
Chakotay almost laughed. His smile brightened and warmth spread through him. How long had it been since he worried about replicator rations? Just over a year? In a way, he missed them. The camaraderie of trying to make sure everyone had enough to avoid whatever had leola root in it.
He set his tea down and held up Tom's beer so he could drink it. Tom gulped a sip and nodded his thanks. He rocked back and forth, slowly keeping a rhythm as his daughter slept.
"Crackers help. Ginger ale, peppermint tea, plain toast…simple things." Tom shrugged a little when Chakotay met his eyes. "B'Elanna was worried. Half-Klingon's get dizzy but they don't get nauseated."
"B'Elanna hates being nauseated." Chakotay had almost forgot. He'd been so distracted by how he felt that he hadn't spared any part of his overworked brain to wonder how his impending fatherhood might affect their friends, who all loved Kathryn.
"Our admiral has my wife's deepest sympathies."
Tom eyed his beer over his daughter and then looked thoughtfully at Chakotay. "Could you take her for a moment? It's not so bad when it's just my arms asleep, but my shoulders are starting to go too."
"She won't?" Chakotay couldn't contain his surprise. Not that he minded Miral. She was adorable, and she did seem to like him a little. She even smiled at him when she saw him.
"Keep rocking and she'll keep sleeping. Just let me say, that for the benefit of everyone on board, that's what we want."
Chakotay took a quick gulp of his tea, mildly scalding his tongue, but he didn't have time to think about it.
"Watch her head, that's it, she'll settle."
As Miral snuggled in, still asleep and headless of the sweat from his workout, Chakotay smiled. The complete trust the little toddler showed in him was both comforting and disarming.
"See, she likes you."
"She threw food at me last time she saw me."
Tom chuckled, rolling his shoulders. "We're working on sharing. Throwing food is a start. We think she might be trying to share."
Chakotay bit his lip, trying to swallow his laughter before it woke Miral. "Glad you're having such success."
Pulling his arms one at a time over his head to stretch them out, Tom beamed. "Everything's progress." He shook out his arms and started flexing his wrists. "So, you want to tell me about the admiral?"
If anyone had told Chakotay, eight years ago, that one day he'd be standing with Tom Paris, asking his advice on parenting, he would have had them hauled off. Maybe even hit them himself. Yet here he was, holding B'Elanna and Tom's daughter against his chest as he tried to find what he needed to say. Watching Tom sip his beer, Chakotay's gaze fell on the foam. His thoughts were just as opaque and insubstantial.
"I'm going to guess this wasn't planned."
"No." Chakotay sighed. "Definitely not."
"But you had talked about having children?"
He shifted Miral's head to his other shoulder and met Tom's eyes helplessly. "No, not…not at all actually."
"if you don't mind me asking, how long have you been together? Since we got back or…?"
Chakotay stopped rocking back and forth and Miral started to stir.
Tom quickly gestured with his hands. "Just keep moving. Even pacing works."
Circling the table while embarrassment heated his face, Chakotay sighed and finally confessed. "When we were on Proxima Station, we had dinner."
Shock slacked Tom's face. "You, I mean, then, that was just-"
"About eleven weeks ago."
"So you- and then she?" Tom grabbed his beer then set it back down without taking a drink. "The first time?"
"The only time." Chakotay added, stopping his circle of the table and rocking back and forth. "She's doing the best she can. It's just not easy."
"Better you than me."
Chakotay didn't follow and Tom laughed.
"After the warp ten incident, back when she was still the captain, we were in sickbay, waiting for the Doc to tell us we weren't going to turn back into salamanders. She told me she had often thought of having children, just not with me. I think you're a much better choice, though, she probably didn't have you in mind at the time either."
Tom stared down at his drink, then up at his daughter, still thankfully asleep. "You know, you look good with a kid. Eleven weeks, that doesn't give you a lot of time. This survey mission is supposed to take us another seven months, and you don't want to be out here the whole time. Pregnant's kind of fun."
Chakotay's face burned, both with pleasure and embarrassment. Kathryn would be beautiful pregnant. He couldn't say if he'd get to see her in person, but he knew they'd be all right.
"The kid part's a lot of fun too." Tom added. "Even passing them off to someone else occasionally."
"What do I tell B'Elanna?"
Tom winced a little then scratched the back of his head. "The truth. Quickly, before she throws things at you."
"I wasn't trying to hide anything-"
"I know."
"I only just found out this afternoon."
Tom raised a hand in defense. "Hey, hey, I'm on your side. You want my advice?"
Chakotay's chest was lighter at the thought. "Please."
"Ask B'Elanna's help. Tell her you're overwhelmed by the whole thing. Tell her you don't know what to tell our admiral. She's your best friend, treat her like it and she'll forgive you in no time."
zzzz
Phoebe tilted back her head, closed her eyes, even though they were beneath her dark sunglasses, and sighed heavily.
"Is she late yet?"
At her side, her lover of the last eight months, Eirixa Xhezin, smirked and ran her hand playfully through the ends of Phoebe's short auburn hair. "She was late an hour ago, but you know how it is with customs. We forgot it even exists inside the Federation, but once you're outside it's a whole different galaxy."
"Peek in her head and see if she's out here yet, would you?" Phoebe shoved her sunglasses up, and settled back against the bench in the sunshine. It was a calm spring day in the capital city of Anoraen. The air was cool but the sun had the promise of summer's heat in it. Phoebe would be happier when it was warm. She absorbed the sun like a sea otter.
Eirixa kissed her bare forehead and quieted her thoughts. It was doubtful she'd find Kathryn in the sea of minds on the other side of interstellar port control. As a Betazoid Eirixa was telepathic, but she was most skilled in sending, and visual images were far easier for her than emotions or thoughts. As a trained singer-sender in the Betazoid opera, she'd honed her abilities and could make the most of her ability to create and share an image with a telepathic audience.
Kathryn was not telepathic, and making her think she was somewhere else would probably cause commotion. Erixa's other telepathic skills were lax, and she contently usually allowed them to be so. Phoebe's busy, determined mind was her constant companion, and since her lover always said exactly that she was thinking, mind-reading wasn't something she often needed to do.
She pondered the idea while Phoebe stretched out in the sun. Phoebe's mind was intimately familiar, and Kathryn's had to be similar. Maybe if she reached out, looking for what was Phoebe and not Phoebe at the same time, she could find her. Her brothers were always teasing her that just because she was extraordinarily gifted in one area, didn't mean she could let her mind go dark in others.
She was dreadfully out of practice and there were hundreds of minds around. As a test of her abilities, she'd picked a nastily hard one. Not that she ever let that stop her, and even as she realised how much of a headache this was going to give her, Eirixa quieted her thoughts, reached deep within to centre herself then let her mind wander in search of Kathryn Janeway.
Human minds had an earnestness and insatiable curiosity that made them easy to pick out from the other species around them. Out on the galactic fringe, there were few humans and ignoring everything else made her task that much easier. As Phoebe sighed and shifted on the stone bench beside her in the sunlight square, Eirixa focused on her mind, then looked for what was like her.
She found one human mind full of happy anticipation and Eirixa almost decided that had to be Kathryn, except, Kathryn and Phoebe spoke so rarely that the joy of that mind didn't fit. She wanted someone logical and controlled; a Starfleet honed mind would be orderly and calm, even with the frustration of a queue.
Eirixa's eyes were starting to hurt, a definite sign that she was pushing too hard, but she thought she had Kathryn's mind. She felt a little like Phoebe, same determination, same quirky sense of humour, but with an extra level of restraint and a kind of exhaustion that turned Eirixa's stomach. Either it had been a very long trip or Kathryn was about to be sick.
Swallowing hard against a wave of nausea that was almost her own, she sat up and startled Phoebe's head off of her shoulder.
"What?"
"Is she sick?"
Phoebe blinked, antique sunglasses falling to her nose. "Kathryn?"
"I-" she shook her head and tried to refocus. Sometimes her mental abilities were unreliable but this didn't feel that way. Eirixa rubbed her palms against her skirt, trying to dry the sweat that had appeared. "I think she's sick."
"Kathryn doesn't get sick." Phoebe assured her, straightening her sunglasses and reaching down to stroke the lazy dog at her feet. The huge green-grey mutt they'd picked up in a shelter on Betazed, Bruekelen, rested his eyes on his mistress before dropping his head back down. His sister, Maggie, pawed at Eirixia's feet before settling back into the sun. The dogs were too big for their apartment, too big for the shuttles they travelled in, but far too sweet to live without. Phoebe said they resembled Terran dogs called Newfoundlands, but Eirixa thought she saw Betazoid Mastiff's in their jet black eyes.
Where the green in their fur had come from was anyone's guess, and they'd grown much bigger than anyone had anticipated.
Thankfully, Kathryn loved dogs, so her two week visit should be all right. Hopefully she wouldn't mind Maggie in bed with her, or Bruekelen headbutting her to be stroked.
Eirixa sighed and reached down to stroke Maggie's soft, warm head. "She feels sick to me. If I found her."
"Control freak, genius, confident, infallible, unstoppable, capt-admiral- she doesn't get sick. She's Starfleet."
Tilting her head and trying to shake what she'd felt, Eirixa shook her head toward Phoebe. "She's sick. She's nauseated enough that I can feel it. I'm not that much of a kinaesthetic telepath but…"
"I trust you." Phoebe kissed her cheek, distracting Eirixa from Kathryn's nausea. "You thought she looked pale in her letter."
"You didn't watch it."
"I know what my sister looks like. I listened, that's enough." Phoebe stood up and stretched her arms slowly. Bruekelen sat up, ready to follow her if they were moving. She patted him and turned back to Eirixa. "She doesn't usually take time off. If she is sick, she might be avoiding mom."
Eirixa grinned a little at that idea. Betazoid mothers were some of the most overbearing in the galaxy, but Phoebe had adapted instantly to Eirixa's mother, Jol. Having met Gretchen, Eirixa found her very competent, caring and intelligent. Phoebe said she was too much of all those things, and she suspected Kathryn agreed.
It was hard to tell with Kathryn. Phoebe idolised her sister, but kept her at arm's length. Perhaps the three Janeways had too much spirit between them to get along without the space they kept.
"She's through." Eirixa reported. A sudden rush of relief was impossible to dismiss as anything else. "Be gentle."
Phoebe bounced in place, trying to get a look over by the door. "Gentle?"
The dogs got to their feet and wagged their great plumed tails, sensing Phoebe's excitement.
Eirixa brushed their minds and calmed them with a mental image of Kathryn Janeway. The dogs seemed content with that and companionably fell in step behind.
"She's fragile."
"Fragile?" Phoebe laughed and took her hand. "My sister? My big bad 'I beat the Delta Quadrant' sister? She's incapable of being fragile."
Eirixa squeezed Phoebe's hand and wished she could share what she felt. Phoebe's carefree smile had concern beneath it, but she'd made a lifelong habit of being the baby sister. If Kathryn was as bad at accepting help as Phoebe was, it was going to be an interesting visit. She muttered a quick prayer to the Four Deities that she'd have any patience left at the end. One Janeway was a blessing, if a damn stubborn one. Two…would be challenge.
zzzz
Dropping her bag to flagstones beneath her feet, Kathryn put both hands on the stone planter full of bright orange flowers in front of her and wondered if she was really going to vomit. She'd made it the last three weeks without, but some combination of the alien sun, the dinner she'd forced down too quickly and her damn persistent hormones had her stomach twisting like a subspace rupture.
Wondering what Phoebe would say if Kathryn greeted her by throwing up in some undoubtedly precious flowers, she had to smile wearily. In all her memories, Phoebe had rescued her once, when her depression had consumed her after her father's and Justin's death. Other than that, they let each other live their separate lives. Phoebe's letters never failed to make her smile, and she always responded to Kathryn's.
Kathryn didn't know why she was here. She could have spent her leave on Earth, or refused to take it, but she'd found a transport route out here to the middle of nowhere, and she was headed for her baby sister's spare bedroom.
Provided she could let go of the stone planter.
"Since when do you get spacesick?" A very familiar voice taunted just behind her head. Two large and inquisitive canine heads slipped beneath her arms and Kathryn had to stand up before they knocked her over in their curiosity.
"Back ruffians," a softer, more lilting voice called to the dogs. "Let her be."
The dog on her left retreated, but the one on her right remained, whining in what Kathryn knew was sympathy. Dropping to a crouch to look into the animal's completely black eyes, she had to catch the dog's shoulders for balance. The animal responded by nosing her with a very large black snout.
Someone with dark hair, definitely not Phoebe, crouched at Kathryn's side. She had almond-shaped eyes, with characteristically black Betazoid irises. Her thick black hair was entirely straight and fell to her waist. This woman, who had to be the Eirixa Phoebe kept mentioning, smiled gently and steadied Kathryn's hands on the huge dog.
"This is Maggie. The one who doesn't think he's a nurse is Breukelen. They'll shed on everything you brought, but they're very gentle giants." She paused, studying Kathryn's face and undoubtedly reading her nausea in her thoughts and her features. "She'll let you hang on as long as you need to."
"You really are in bad shape, aren't you Katiedid?" Phoebe crouched down on the other side of Maggie, both eyebrows up in surprise. "You catch Terrellian plague on the way over?"
Kathryn winced, both from the old nickname and the idea that she was so visibly ill. She hated both almost as much as she loathed her stomach for turning traitor.
"Sit." Eirixa suggested.
Maggie sat obediently and Kathryn had to giggle weakly as she half-collapsed into following suit.
Phoebe caught her chin, trying to look into her eyes. "Do you need a med centre?"
"No." Kathryn shut her eyes and leaned forward into Maggie's thick coat. She smelt of grass and trees; it was incredibly comforting. A hand ran gently up and down her shoulder. "I'll be all right in a moment."
"We're not in a hurry." Eirixa's voice was definitely accented with old Betazoid, something Kathryn didn't hear often outside of the Federation Senate. She must have been from one of the noble houses, but Phoebe hadn't mentioned it.
"Katiedid, what did you do to yourself?" Phoebe sighed, clucking her tongue. "Overindulge on the inflight bar?"
Something passed silently between Eirixa and Phoebe and her sister's teasing tone faded away. Instead of mocking, Phoebe wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
"You can tell me you know. I promise to make sure Starfleet doesn't cashier you down to commander again for lewd behaviour."
Kathryn's chuckle caught painfully in her throat. She had tears in her eyes when she lifted her head away from the bulk of Maggie and looked at her sister.
"Hey-" Phoebe cooed, reaching for her. "It's okay."
"It's not."
When tears began to escape the confines of her stinging eyes, they barely had time to run before a large green tongue intercepted them.
Phoebe hugged her close around the dog and Kathryn tumbled into her.
"I promise, it's okay. Starfleet will-"
"I'm pregnant." It escaped as if Kathryn's internal containment fields had all collapsed at once. She was so tired, and Phoebe and Eirixa and their dogs were all so kind.
Phoebe stiffened as if she'd been stunned. She was still for a moment, then hugged Kathryn even tighter.
"Okay, so, Starfleet might need to know that one."
"And no drinking." Eirixa weighed in, rubbing Kathryn's back with a slow, steady hand.
"Definitely no drinking. Though, you can still pretend to get sloshed on synthahol if you want. That can be fun." Phoebe released her and patted her cheek. "So, Katiedid have at least one good night, didn't she?"
The irony of that made Kathryn's tears run so quickly even Maggie's huge tongue had trouble keeping up.
"Oh, Kathryn, sweetie, you didn't…he's not-"
When Kathryn failed to speak and looked desperately at the telepath, Eirixa plucked it from her mind.
"He's alive," she promised Phoebe.
Kathryn shot her a grateful glance.
"Someone with a dark mark…a tattoo?"
Phoebe's eyes narrowed. "You didn't."
Kathryn gulped and found enough space in her throat to whisper. "We did."
Phoebe kissed her cheek, startling Kathryn right out of her tears. "I'm so proud of you. He's adorable. So tall, dark and rawr…"
Both dogs looked at Phoebe as she rumbled a growl in her throat. Eirixa laughed and kissed Kathryn's forehead. She wouldn't have even allowed her mother to do that, but it happened too quickly for her to react.
"Congratulations."
"He's gorgeous." Phoebe promised Eirixa. "Absolutely gorgeous, intelligent, in Starfleet so he won't get mad that he has to share. I like him. If I was into men and Kathryn let him go…"
Kathryn grabbed her sister's hand off her cheek and held it tight. "Thank you."
"You're going to be fine. A few years in the Starfleet gym and you might even get your figure back."
Phoebe's attempt to be serious made Kathryn first wince, then try to laugh at the same time. She hadn't even thought about losing her figure. All the time she spent working out to keep her uniform fitting in all the right places, and so she could glare back at the older, less in shape admirals who never passed their annual fitness tests.
"And Katiedid, dearest, maybe this is a good thing. I mean…just look at your breasts. You could wear all sorts of things you never would have before."
"They are rather lovely." Eirixa added, reaching down to help Kathryn back up to her feet. When Kathryn leaned a little heavily on the dog, Maggie rubbed against her, seeming to understand.
"Come on, we can replicate you crackers and watch old holovids with the dogs. I still have Jianna, Star Princess and the Search for the Blue World."
"You still…?" They'd watched that when Phoebe was barely three. How she could have possibly found it and held on to it was completely beyond Kathryn. "Really?"
"She has it memorised." Eirixa insisted, smiling. "The costumes are my favourite part."
"It'll be all right." Phoebe rubbed Kathryn's shoulder. "Chakotay will come back, and you'll curl up together with the baby before you go back to work. You can teach her to do algebra, or him how stars stay up in the sky. You'll be a great mom, Katiedid, a real nerdy one, but great."
Kathryn smiled weakly. It took all her energy to keep her lips upturned. "Thanks."
zzzz
Phoebe and Eirixa have a spare room, but she can't help falling asleep on the sofa. Even on leave, she had much to do, and when Phoebe woke up to let out the dogs, Kathryn caught her half-smile. Kathryn set aside the PADD she'd been clutching in her sleep and contemplated Phoebe and Eirixa's kitchen. She wasn't hungry, she never really is now that nausea has settled in like a parasitic orgasm sharing her stomach with the baby, but she should eat.
She dragged herself off the sofa, pulling the blanket someone put over her around her shoulder and creeps into the kitchen. It was still spring, and the floor was still cool beneath her bare feet. Kathryn leaned on the wall next to the replicator, running mentally through the list of things she trusted herself to keep down.
"Coffee, black. Lemon ginger tea and toast."
The replicator paused, taking in her request. "Specify bread."
"Whatever is most used." Phoebe must have a favourite. She had always been especially good at stocking a replicator's database.
The replicator hummed and her breakfast appeared. Coffee made her nauseated, but she had yet to find anything that doesn't. Kathryn clung to the cup, setting her tea and plain toast aside. She will make the attempt at both in a moment, after her coffee.
Tapping the comm panel, she checked for messages, as she had too many times a day since she arrived.
"Phoebe Janeway, four new messages. Eirixa Xhezin, one new and three saved messages. Admiral Kathryn Janeway, two new messages."
Even though she knew better, Kathryn's heart jumped into her throat. Yesterday Tuvok wrote back from the Titan, reminding her to take care of herself, and her mother writes twice a week. It was probably her mother and Starfleet. She won't think about Chakotay.
"Origin and senders of messages for Admiral Janeway?"
"Grid four-four-two, Federation Starship Voyager, Captain Chakotay, and Lieutenant Commander B'Elanna Torres."
She set the cup down on the counter before her hands failed her. With trembling fingers, she pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. "Computer, date of messages?"
"Stardate 56832.1."
Two days ago.
She reached for her toast, she should eat it while she listened to him, but her hands were still shaking. Flattening them out on the counter, she dropped her head, letting her gaze fall past her breasts to her still flat stomach. Maybe listening to B'Elanna's first would make it easier to hear what Chakotay had to say.
Not that she doubted him. Kathryn couldn't. He'd loved her for years when she couldn't love him back, when she didn't have the strength.
Her voice was nearly as unreliable as her hands. "Computer, play message."