Justin Three-Socks

Submitted posthumously.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note: this one has been pieced together with snippets of conversations, sentences and lone paragraphs. If it’s missing something that anyone out there has extra notes for, or is inaccurately pieced together, let Jean-Paul or Zuleika know.

Summary: Chakotay and Janeway have met before.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Life was far from perfect. In fact, it was a mess and it was about to get worse.

She swallowed. Blink. “You can’t be serious?”

The Admiral eyed her. “Are you trying to convince me . . .or yourself?”

She swallowed again. “Why me?” she asked, or would have. Her voice failed right about then.

“Because I’m ordering you. Because you’re all I have available. Because you’re chief of security is aboard. Because . . .”

His voice stopped as her face paled.

Her gaze dropped.

“Don’t let the past get in the way. I turned a blind eye to what was going on then and I saw the hell you went thru after he left. Don’t let it get in the way. You are given four hours to pack what you need. You leave immediately. Don’t let me down, Kathryn.”

“No, Sir,” she replied in a quiet voice.

And as ordered she took the Fleet’s newest ship into the Badlands to find the Maquis ship.

=/\=

Nine days later she was thrust into the biggest nightmare of all.

“Commander Chakotay . . .”

“How do you know my name?”

That hurt. Despite her promises and her assertions that it wouldn’t, it hurt. “I was sent to find you when we were pulled here by the array.” She mentally patted herself on the back. That sounded convincing. And it had to, she had no choice. “It makes sense to work together on this, Commander,” she said.

She saw him slowly nod. She wondered if he recognized her. There was no sign that he did, but then they had planned it this way. He still looked as handsome as he had been all those months ago, and her heart, mind and body still yearned for him, even now.

The next eight days were more hell being with him than the previous months had been without him. And she maintained the air of neutrality. She did not know him. He was an enemy of the state.

=/\=

He stared around at the star scape and slowly blew out his cheeks. Someone’s footsteps approached, but he didn’t turn.

“Here’s your pack, Chakotay . . .what’s wrong?”

His dark eyes turned to Seska, once his lover, now just a friend who sometimes teased with a little too much innuendo. But he liked it. Until now. There was too much memory and not enough breathing room. And he knew they had promised each other, but it had hurt just a little more than he had expected. And now he was here - on her ship. “I have to see the captain,” he said, snatching at the first thing that came to mind.

“Janeway to Chakotay. Please report to my ready room.”

Seska looked up at him with a small smile on her face. “You do now,” she noted.

She could always see through him, even his poor attempt at a lie on the few occasions when he had tried. Chakotay smiled. “Prepare the others. We could be spending a long time locked up, but I’m going to try and get quarters for all of us. They’ll be more comfortable than the Brig.”

“What do you want us to do?”

“Do? You’ll do nothing. I mean it, Seska,” he told her, as he saw her ‘oh, come on’ look. “Sit down and wait. Anyone who does otherwise will be blown out an airlock. Is that clear?”

Dalby looked at him askance. “As a bell,” he replied shortly.

“Why not try smooth talking her,” Henley smirked. “She might even give us something to do.”

“And what are we going to do for the next 75 years? Paint the hull?” Dalby almost sneered.

“Don’t tempt me to answer that,” Chell put in crossly.

“That’s enough,” Chakotay told them. “Wait here until I get back.”

=/\=

“I’d like you to be my first officer,” she told him. She waited for his reaction, but as far as she could tell there was no reaction at all. His expression was blank, his eyes were empty . . . “Say something!” she almost forced between her teeth.

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say that you agree. But you can decline. The choice is yours . . .”

“I accept,” he put in. “But that’s not what you meant, and you know it.”

“I know damned well what I meant. Chakotay . . .don’t make this any harder than it already is.”

“I’m not making this harder, you are. You’re the one who’s all captain about this.”

“Me? So it’s all me now. That’s cheap.”

“You didn’t have to accept the assignment . . .!”

“I had no choice!”

In silence, they glared at each other. Kathryn lowered her voice.

“God knows I just want to hold you just one more time, but I have no choice now. We have had our time. We have to accept that fate got in the way and move on.”

“Of course, Captain.” Chakotay slammed the shutters down, ignoring the soft beseeching voice, and the unshed tears in her eyes. “Just assign me my quarters and I’ll see about locking the rest of my crew in the Brig.”

After taking his lead she shut him out as well. They talked shop for over an hour until she felt as if she had shut herself out of her own body. He had then left.

“Sickbay to the Captain?” came that thin wheedling voice again.

Kathryn rolled her eyes. She pressed the console button and looked into the screen. “Captain here.”

“This is the Emergency Medical Hologram speaking. The last person here failed to terminate my program, which is just as well because there is a patient here who is not listed among the crew. I’d like you to come down and identify her.”

“Her?” Kathryn frowned. Slowly it dawned on her. “Her!” Without another word into the screen, she bolted from the room.

“Hello? Captain?”

=/\=

Keeping the squalling infant quiet was one thing, feeding it was another. Doing her job was yet another. She slowly walked up and down the floor of her quarters, long into the night. Even the Admiral had not known about this small surprise. Kathryn had been one of those lucky women who barely showed during pregnancy, and then had such a quick uneventful birth that she was back to normal after a 24-hour bout of ‘Tanzerien pox’.

Kathryn inadvertently winced at the thought of the Admiral’s face when her medical records would have finally arrived on his desk from her family doctor in Indiana, which would have been three days after she had left Deep Space Nine.

She looked down at the small child wondering why the program on her stasis pod had failed. It should have continued running for another two weeks. Long enough for her to have been home a few days. Kathryn knew that so much damage had occurred that it was no small wonder that the child had not been killed, or hadn’t died from starvation.

“Well,” she thought aloud, ruefully. “At least I had the sense to leave her in a stasis pod in sick bay where someone was bound to find it sooner or later. So why did it fail now?”

After hours feeding, changing, feeding again and walking the tiny baby she sat down exhausted and turned her attention to the small stasis pod lying open on her low coffee table. Ordinarily these units were used to transport medical samples across the quadrant. A scaled down version of the La Forge module, if she recalled correctly, originally built to contain plasma plague samples. But at 3 am, it was hard to add 2 and 2, if she could recall what 2 was.

Finally she could lay the sleeping child in the small carrier she had used up her replicator rations on. Kathryn sighed. Almost a month old and she still looked the day she had been placed in stasis at 3 hours of age. Now Kathryn was facing several dilemmas. How to obtain extra rations for her baby without alerting Tuvok. How could she continue to do her duties for the next 75 years without someone noticing the extra mouth to feed? And more importantly how to keep her hidden from the crew, especially her father.

She had to tell Tuvok.

There was no way that she could keep the stasis chamber going for 75 years, that would be unfair, and would ultimately kill the baby. She looked at the unit and eyed the panel. The circuitry was fried. Pressing the data panel it popped loose and Kathryn scanned the data. After a moment, she sighed. At least the baby had been overlooked when everyone else had been transported to the array. The problem had come about during the final battle with the Kazon. The shockwave from the exploding array had knocked the resin patch loose from its housing. In effect, the baby had woken herself up - hungry.

Kathryn gazed down at the tiny child, her dark red-almond colored skin, rosebud lips and black hair; there was no doubting who her father was. With a sigh, she pressed her communicator and steeled herself for the lecture to come.

=/\=

“So you see,” she continued, having barely taken a breath in the last few minutes. “Now I am faced with a very big problem, and for the first time in my life . . .I don’t know how to deal with it.”

Tuvok regarded her for a second more before lowering his gaze, the only clue to his ‘deep in thought’ mode. “There is surprisingly little to concern yourself with, Captain.”

Kathryn looked at him like a teenager being told by her parents that she looked good and meaning it. “There is?”

“Indeed,” Tuvok assured her. “Extra replicator rations are easier to acquire than you realize.” In her surprise she did not speak, so he continued. “Might I point out, that we accounted for 156 Voyager crew members and 40 Maquis? However, not all of those survived the journey to the Delta Quadrant.”

Kathryn’s eyebrows twitched. “Why did I do that?” she asked more to herself.

Tuvok’s eyebrow rose to its full height. “Evidently, to give the crew a margin of survival,” he suggested mildly.

Kathryn slowly smiled in that sardonic half grin. In truth, she had forgotten the oversight and they both knew it. It was the only way their two newest crewmembers could be accommodated. “That is convenient of me. That means I can dress and change her when needed.”

Tuvok nodded. “I believe that it would be prudent to name your daughter.”

Kathryn’s expression went blank. “A . . .name?”

“I believe it is customary,” Tuvok noted.

Kathryn let out a short giggle. Vulcan humor was often dry and hard to see, but she knew Tuvok. Her laughter just as quickly dissolved into a sob. “I hadn’t even thought that far ahead.” Brushing angrily at the annoying tears that seemed so persistent these days, she looked at the tiny face as the child stretched in her sleep, her rosy lips drawn back as she squirmed. “Rose,” Kathryn blurted out suddenly.

Tuvok nodded. “I commend your choice,” he complimented as the baby began to squirm some more.

Suddenly she mewled for attention, a second later she opened her mouth wide and let out a wail. Gently and with practiced care, Tuvok lifted the baby out of the rocker chair and held her against his chest. Her eyes opened with a start and peered upward blinking in the light.

Tuvok regarded her as he set her in the crook of his arm. “I believe she has her father’s eyes.”

“She does?” Kathryn remarked. The one detail she had omitted was Rose’s father’s name, saying only that he was on board.

“There is no doubting who the father is and I understand somewhat of your reticence for allowing him to know.”

Kathryn relaxed.

“But,” he continued.

Kathryn tensed.

“You will not be able to hide her for long.”

“I know.”

“Given his position on Voyager your secret will be harder to keep and harder to explain the longer you wait to reveal it.”

Slowly she nodded. Tuvok knew. They gazed at each other for a moment an then Tuvok’s normally blank expression turned hard.

“I believe she is wet.”

Kathryn took her daughter from him, and sure enough, the baby was wet through.

“I will allocate further rations and see to the appointment of a captain’s Assistant. You will need at least two among the crew whom you will be able to call upon at a moment’s notice and be relied upon to say nothing. I have two security Ensigns who would be, as you would put it, ‘perfect for the job’.”

Kathryn smiled. “Thank you, Tuvok.”

=/\=

Chakotay frowned at the duty roster. The changes to the finely tuned schedule he had drawn up the previous day for the captain’s approval had been altered. By whom and to what end he had no idea, but it pissed him off. Thankfully he had saved a copy of the roster to PADD. He frowned deeper still, this time in confusion. Why would a Captain on a ship this small need two assistants? Wasn’t a first officer enough?

He sighed in annoyance. “Of course,” he thought allowed. “Why would she trust me? I am a Maquis. She has two assistants running around following every move I make and altering my records.”

But as soon as the thought was out, he retracted it. That line of thought did not make sense.

“If the captain is spying on me, why would she make it this obvious?” he wondered. After a moment he consulted his PADD. “These two are both junior security ensigns . . .” He looked up at the screen on his desk. “Alright, Captain, time for some of my own play.”

Rising from his seat, he left the office and took the turbo-lift to Deck 3, hands full of some 6 PADDs, 5 of which he secreted in a pocket, the roster he continued to carry in his hand. On exiting he saw the ensign in question coming towards him from the far end of the corridor, also carrying a PADD. The captain’s door was half way down the hall and they would reach it almost simultaneously, or would have if Chakotay had not been almost twice her size. As the distance between them closed, he called out her name.

“Ensign Strickler?”

Strickler drew to a halt. “Yes, Sir?” she enquired, blankly.

“What are you doing here, Ensign? You’re assigned to the security sweep of Deck 12 today, aren’t you?”

“No, Sir,” she replied and then added quickly, “I mean I was, Sir, but I was reassigned to another duty.”

“What duty?”

“I’m not sure yet, Sir. I haven’t seen her?”

“Seen who?”

“The captain, Sir.”

“Who gave you your orders, Ensign?”

“My orders came from Lieutenant Tuvok, Sir . . .have I done something wrong?”

Chakotay tapped the PADD he was holding on the end of his thumb in contemplation. So it was Tuvok, was the thought going through his mind.

“May I continue, Sir? I was told not to be late.”

“Yes, Ensign. And make sure your report is in on time.”

Strickler looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, sir. Lieutenant Tuvok explicitly ordered no reports and complete secrecy.”

Without realizing it Chakotay’s eyes darkened with anger. “Report as ordered, Ensign,” he said with deceptive calm.

“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.” Strickler rushed to the nearest door where she pressed the buzzer. At the sound of what must have been a question from inside, she said, “It’s Ensign Strickler, Ma’am.”

The doors parted and the Ensign stepped inside.

Left alone in the corridor, Chakotay stepped closer if to catch a stray wisp of a conversation. Suddenly the doors opened and the captain emerged. Chakotay continued walking. “Good morning, captain,” he greeted airily. “Did you sleep well?”

“Like a log for the last two hours,” she admitted with rather too much honesty. “Before that it was a nightmare. I could not get to sleep. Ever get those nights when no matter how hard you try you can’t find that comfortable spot?”

Chakotay smiled. “Yes, Captain. On occasion. My mother used to suggest warm milk, but I hated it.”

Kathryn laughed at the grimace on his face. “I shall have to try it. How about you? How did you sleep?”

“Very well, thank you.”

She frowned although still in good humor. “By the way, you’re up awfully late.”

“Aah, not really. I found a glitch in my duty roster and I was coming to find you.”

“Well, it appears that you found me, Commander. What seems to be the problem?”

“Well, I had completed the duty roster last night as ordered only to find that someone broke into my office and drew up a completely different one during the night.”

Kathryn pressed the turbo-lift call button. “I see.”

“I discovered that two security officers had been reassigned without my knowledge. Lieutenant Tuvok gave Ensign Strickler a new assignment. Whilst perfectly understandable given that he is head of security on Voyager, it undermines my position as first officer. I had assigned her to aid the security sweep on Deck 12. That will now have to be postponed until next week after the new relays are installed, which Lieutenant Carey will not be pleased about.”

“Why?” Kathryn asked, her voice hardening as they stepped into the lift.

“Because the entire deck has to be swept clean of tetrion gas before any work can be done. This reassigning of Tuvok’s has really messed up Carey’s day. It could affect the entire ship.”

Kathryn said nothing.

Chakotay regarded her with a silent, stony glare. “Well, I can understand that my being a Maquis means not informing me of decisions and changes, that I am not to be trusted, that I am under suspicion until I can prove myself above it, I thought I had better notify you first of a possible problem of insubordination that . . .”

“That wont be necessary, Commander,” she almost retorted tightly.

“Captain,” Chakotay began raising his voice a little. “As first officer it’s my job to assign personnel. If you did not trust me enough then why did you ask me to take the job?”

Kathryn regarded him for a moment. “It has nothing to do with trust.” She opened her mouth to say something more, but the doors opened onto the Bridge. Thinking quickly, she motioned him to follow and she entered her ready room. “We have a meeting to attend. We don’t need to clutter this up with personal baggage, do I make myself clear?”

Chakotay’s eyes widened as he stared at her, taking a breath and about to speak, but she stormed out and across the bridge to the briefing room. Chakotay released the breath in exasperation. What the hell was that all about? Without stopping to think about it, he followed.

=/\=

Chakotay sat in his quarters reading a PADD and sighed. It had been a long day. It had started out frustrating and perplexing, but had ended with some measure of satisfaction. B’Elanna was now Chief Engineer, although he doubted he had anything to do with the final decision. B’Elanna had done all the hard work on her own. But it was Kathryn’s stinging retort that still burned in his mind. Then, he reasoned, his own retort was probably just as grating on her mind.

But not as much as the noise from the quarters next door. He lifted his head frowning at the noise. What was that noise? He slowly rose from the table and stepped around the furniture. Gentle steps across the carpeted floor led him to the partition between their bedrooms. Kathryn’s was only centimeters from his ear, but just as he reached it the sound stopped.

He blinked for a moment trying to work out what the sound reminded him of. It sounded like a small child. Maybe Kathryn was listening to her last messages from home. This separation from all things known was bugging them all. There was no reason to think Kathryn was any different, but that was the second time this evening that she had played the message with the crying baby, and loudly.

He sighed and shook his head. Stripping off he ordered lights off and crawled over the covers of his bed. Flopping down on his stomach he buried his face in the pillow. He was asleep within a minute.

Several hours later his eyes opened. Something had disturbed his sleep. He lifted his head a little and sure enough the sound came again. It was the same sound as before and the time before that, and the time before that. Chakotay sighed. He realized that Kathryn must have been missing her family more than he realized.

He huffed out a breath, suddenly angry. Pining for your relative’s kids just was not right. He loved her, he was right here, but more than a simple partition kept them apart.

The crying got louder and Chakotay winced. Kathryn was going to make herself crazy if she kept this up. Finally it stopped and Chakotay drifted into a restless sleep.

=/\=

Chakotay did not get out of bed the following morning feeling rested. His head pounded. After a breakfast of coffee and oatmeal he went to sickbay to get something to ease ache and something to help with the disturbed sleep.

“Try warm milk with a touch of nutmeg,” the doctor suggested gruffly. “If that fails I will prescribe a mild sedative to aid your sleepless nights.”

Chakotay gazed at him mildly. “I have no trouble sleeping. It’s the Captain. She is playing her messages so damn loud I can’t sleep.”

“Messages?”

“Yes . . .or whatever it is that she’s been replaying every two and half hours every night for the past week.” The doctor said nothing, just looked at him, so Chakotay elaborated. “It sounds like a baby crying, a very young baby,.” The EMH continued to stare. “Someone should say something to her. It can’t be healthy to replay the same message over and over. I mean . . .if it’s keeping me awake, what is it doing to her.” Finally he noticed the Doctor staring at him. “Is something wrong? You think I’m hallucinating? Is that it?”

“Hmm? Hmm.” the Doctor replied wordlessly. “I will try to mention this to the Captain, but I have even less of her ear than you do,” the rough-voiced electronic medic said.

“Thanks,” Chakotay accorded. He knew the Doctor was right. Kathryn regarded the EMH as nothing more than a tricorder. Most of the crew thought that too.

Taking the turbo lift up to the bridge he began his shift with a smothered yawn. Taking his seat he looked at Kathryn and then looked again. She looked exhausted. He sighed under his breath. He thought secret thoughts of what would happen if she was deemed unfit to command. . . .he brushed them all aside. If Kathryn found out that he was having these thoughts she would recommend his arrest on grounds of plotting a mutiny or a Maquis uprising.

And so the hours rolled on.

=/\=

“The engineering staff has suggested that a laundry facility should be set up in an unused compartment on Deck 7.” B’Elanna waited for a response. She looked at the captain who, for want of a better word, looked half asleep.

In truth, Kathryn was, but she recovered quickly. She nodded briskly. “Sounds like an excellent idea,” she smiled. “How quickly can the equipment be installed?”

“That’s the problem, Captain,” B’Elanna began. “We are already a week behind schedule with the repairs. The loss of Ensign Strickler from the tetrion sweep and Ensign Delaney from the calibration detail, the rest of my staff is working flat out just to maintain a decent velocity. All my proposals so far have all had to be put on hold, including the deuterium refinery, while they are on this . . .secret reallocation.”

The tightness in the half-Klingon’s voice was clear for all to hear. Gotcha, Chakotay silently gloated as he turned his cold eyes to Kathryn’s silent blue ones. There was a fragile silence as all eyes rested on her and she could feel the glare from Chakotay. He could tell by the imperceptible cringing wince of her tiny frame that she felt very uncomfortable. He almost smirked with pleasure, but his pleasure was cut short.

“Mr. Tuvok,” she began slowly. “It has come to my attention that you overstepped your bounds when reassigning the two crewmen in question. Firstly,” she put in, cutting off a sharp inrush of air into Tuvok’s lungs, meaning that he was about to speak. He would not have the opportunity to utter whatever it was that he had had planned. “You illegally accessed the first officer’s logs, which is in and of itself an act of insubordination, not to mention breaking and entering a secured area. Secondly, you circumvented the first officer’s authorization codes to access the crew roster. That is a blatant security breach bordering on insurrection or even mutiny. Thirdly, you removed crewmen from critical assignments and reassigned them to me. I find that totally unacceptable.”

Tuvok’s dark eyes were locked before Kathryn’s needle sharp gaze and if he had been half the man he was he would have squirmed, if it had occurred to him to do so. She was using him as a scapegoat and they both knew it, but the points she had made were all valid. “I apologize unreservedly, Commander. I make no excuses for my actions, Captain. It will not happen again.”

Chakotay listened carefully to Tuvok’s words; his eyes alone flitted from one face to the other. There was more to this and he knew it. Something did not sit right. If it had been anyone else, Kathryn would have demanded reasons, explanations and possible time in the Brig. But Tuvok seamed to have gotten away with what were very serious offences that in the Alpha quadrant would have led to a court martial.

“I will not allow any member of this crew to overstep their bounds when it comes to seniority, Mr. Tuvok,” Kathryn threw back in a finely chiseled tone.

Chakotay sat back gently. Well, maybe he had been wrong. She was not going to let him off the hook so easily after all.

“When I ask for two crewmen to be assigned to a particular project that I am working on that requires a higher level of security that does not mean you put the lives of this crew in jeopardy to follow my orders. Frankly, Lieutenant, I thought you would know me better than that. Any further actions that go against orders or is inappropriate behavior and I will not hesitate to put you on report. Cancel the duty assignment until further notice.”

“Captain . . .”

“Lieutenant Torres,” Kathryn spoke, drowning out Tuvok’s argument. “How quickly can you make up for lost time?”

“Give me two days, Captain.”

“You have them,” the captain promised her. “If that is all . . .? Dismissed.”

“Captain,” Chakotay spoke up. “If I might ask . . .what were Ensign Strickler and Ensign Delaney assigned to do?”

“That is not for you to know,” Kathryn replied. She noted Chakotay’s look darken and softened her own. She smiled gently and touched his arm to reassure him. “I was running a critical new experiment before we left the Alpha quadrant and it needs constant watching. But, because of the sensitive nature of the materials involved I can’t let just anyone handle it. And being Captain I can’t tend to h-it twenty-four hours a day.” She paused for a moment knowing that he did not fully believe her and her blunder almost blew her cover story. “Believe me, it has nothing to do with trust,” she finished.

That part he truly believed, the rest of it was a lie. He knew her better than she thought he did. He nodded gently. He would wait. He was a patient man. Sooner or later, her lie would develop more holes and when it did he would know what Voyager’s captain was hiding from her crew.

=/\=

Crew evaluations, in truth, were not due for several months, but since the first officer was new and did not know Voyager’s crew his relaxed interviews were not perceived as anything out of the ordinary. In fact, he had enjoyed them, had met some very interesting and intelligent people. They had joked, shared ideas and plenty of laughs, talked about hopes and missed families.

The ‘nuanga’, as he had called it, was not as bad as he had perceived it at first, but some felt it more than others. For the most part it was a young and single crew.

The true reason for Chakotay’s ‘get-to-know-you’ chats was clear cut right from the get-go, to him anyway, but when the crew had each left his office, particularly Strickler and Delaney, he was no closer to finding out what it was that they had seen or heard or done during their days on Kathryn’s assignment.

He sat back and sighed. It still did not make sense and Kathryn’s verbal stalling during the senior officer’s meeting did not make the uneasy feeling in his gut go away. If anything it had gotten steadily worse.

The crying at night continued. Chakotay went to great lengths to block out the noise. Earplugs, covering his head with a pillow and even sleep aides had no effect. That night was no exception, in fact the crying was worse.

Attempting to drown out the noise beneath his covers was no use. Finally unable to take any more he rose in frustration. Throwing the blankets aside he pounded a fist against the bulkhead.

“Kathryn! Knock it off, already!”

Although the crying lessened a little, it did not stop. This was the final straw. With another angry sigh, he walked out of his quarters and visited sickbay. He walked in and the lights came up.

“Computer, activate Emergency Medical Hologram.”

A humanoid appeared. “Please state the nature of the medical emergency?”

It was more a demand than a question. Chakotay looked at him and sighed. “You should rephrase that. We’re not all here to intrude.”

The Doctor was about to explode with a retort, but then saw the look of the man before him. “On the contrary, I do not perceive anyone entering sickbay as intruding, simply . . .”

“A nuisance, I know,” Chakotay finished softly.

The Doctor lifted a tricorder and proceeded to scan the man. “I was merely going to say that few members of this crew see me as more than a tool to throw away at the merest whim of its user. I may be a program, but I do have needs. Being switched off while in the middle of performing treatments, testing cell cultures and so on, or being left running for hours at a time without so much as asking leaves me to wonder why this ship does not one day decide to turn the tables, maroon the crew on an M-class planet and simply leave you there is beyond me.”

Chakotay struggled not to laugh, but smiled. “Sometimes I wonder that myself.”

The Doctor looked up sharply from his scan. “How could you? You are an organic life form. I am just a program. I am part of the ship. I don’t have feelings.”

“I think you do, just not as openly as we do, but feelings nonetheless. You’re frustrated, just like I am now.” Chakotay watched the scanner move downwards in front of him.

“I can see why. You have had less than fourteen hours sleep in the last five days.”

Chakotay sighed softly, but the earlier anger had dissipated. “I’m worried about the captain. She’s been playing that damned recording non-stop night after night and it’s driving me insane. I can’t sleep, so how can she be sleeping? Losing that much sleep is causing me to lose concentration, I can’t focus on my work. So, what must it be doing to her? How can she captain a ship without sleep? If she can’t get passed that one recording she can’t focus on this mission or the safety of the ship and crew. If she has a fixation for that child then I need to know about it. It could impede her judgment and her ability to command.”

“What child?” the Doctor interrupted.

Too fast, way too fast, was his first thought. “The child in the recording. She keeps playing it over and over again with the sound turned up so high its coming through the bulkhead. I understand what it is to miss family and friends. I have people back home too, but this is taking things to extreme.”

“And you say she is listening to this ‘recording’ right now?”

“Yes, full blast. She might as well have it playing in my bedroom . . .”

“Sick bay to the Captain?”

“Yes, Doctor?” came the reply several seconds later.

She sounded exhausted even to Chakotay’s ears. What was wrong with her? But, as he listened, there was something in the background that put him on edge more than the words being said. It was the whimpering of a very small child.

“I can’t get her to sleep. I’ve tried everything. I am so tired,” she told him piteously. She was on the edge of tears, that much was clear.

Chakotay turned to the EMH as something suddenly clicked. “That’s no recording,” he hissed and stepped back slightly before turning for the door.

“Oh dear.”

“What?’ Kathryn said. “Is there something wrong with her?”

“There may be a simple explanation, but right now there is something you should know,” he responded quickly.

“What is that?”

“Commander Chakotay is on his way to your quarters.” There was a long pause. “He heard everything.”

“Oh god,” she whispered slowly and the comlink went dead.

=/\=

She thought about refusing to answer his entry request, but by the time the chime sounded she had uttered the two words ‘come in’ before her senses had could catch up with her. The doors parted and Chakotay stepped inside.

Chakotay allowed the doors to close before giving in to the anger that had returned with a vengeance. “I’ll ask only one question since I have two many to ask them all at this time of night. Why was I not informed that you had family aboard, Captain?”

As the Captain paced back and forth trying to coax the still whimpering infant into sleep the wince at his harsh tone was hidden from view. “It was not as intentional as it may appear. She was in stasis and since our assignment should have concluded after three weeks, her being here at all should not have mattered, nor would it have been noticed.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he suddenly shouted. “How can you not notice an infant for three weeks?” Chakotay suddenly stopped as the sound if his voice roused the infant from the outstretched clutches of sleep. The wailing that had been a constant torment for several nights started up again. “I’m sorry, Kathryn,” he said. “Here, let me hold the child. You sit down. Physically, you have reached your limit. Mentally, you can’t be far off it. No arguments,” he added as he felt her arms tighten around the tiny form.

Kathryn relented and almost fell into the sofa. He looked down at her, her face drawn and eyes ringed with dark shadows.

“All this time I was regaling you for keeping me awake and torturing yourself with a recording from home, and you took it. You should have told me the truth, Kathryn. This is no top-secret experiment. A child is far more important and precious than that. But, more than that, her mother must be frantic Kathryn. You should not have brought her with you, even if you are the legal guardian.”

“I’m not her guardian, I’m her mother,” Kathryn replied, softly.

“You . . .? I must say, you hid it well,” he praised. “I would never have known you were pregnant. Anyone not holding a tricorder would never have noticed. But what angers me is . . .Star Fleet sent you after me so close to your due date? Of all the bureaucratic . . .!”

“She wasn’t born out here. She was in stasis. Her pod failed and she woke up prematurely.”

“What!” he blurted out quietly but stridently. Holding the infant close to his chest, more than obviously the first infant he had ever held, he swayed gently to rock the child to sleep. “You had her in stasis?” He was horrified. “Damn it, Kathryn. Of all the stupid . . .Star Fleet doesn’t know about her, do they?”

Kathryn shook her head, too tired to speak.

“Damn,” he grated. “I knew we made promises, had to go our separate ways, but I . . .I never knew you would get over me that quickly.” He let out a soft sarcastic snort of laughter. “What am I saying?” he spoke almost to himself. “I was just as bad. Tried to forget what being in love was like, how loving a woman felt that I went straight into the arms of another. That was a mistake. I could never love her. I could never love anyone like I love you. I held on to the hope that we would meet again some day, be together again, that all that had happened would be put behind us, that we could settle somewhere, serve together on a ship or a station, didn’t matter which one. But the caretaker destroyed my dreams and brought me the truth. You hadn’t waited for me. Couldn’t have been long after I left.” He sighed heavily, his eyes drifting off into the distance with his thoughts. “I hope you and he, whoever he is, are happy. That will be enough for me, to know that he’s good to you.” From the view of the stars he allowed his eyes to drift down to the sleeping child in in his arms. “Hey, Kathryn, she’s finally asleep.”

He looked up when there was no reply. Kathryn lay back against the cushions, her chest rising and falling with each breath; deep sleep had finally overtaken her.

Chakotay stood alone holding the baby and looked across to the monitor. A small part of him wanted desperately to put a name to the mysterious lover who had taken his place so suddenly after his departure for the Demilitarized Zone. Then his better judgment took over. It was none of his business. She had moved on even though she wanted to hold him. She had admitted as much on his first day as her first officer. So, she had had a one-night stand after he had left. Did it really matter that much?

“No,” he whispered in reply.

A baby, on the other hand . . .now that put another slant on things. Kathryn needed help.

“Sickbay to the Captain?”

“Shshsh. Keep it down!” Chakotay suddenly hissed. “I just got the child to sleep. The captain is asleep as well.”

“Finally. I was beginning to wonder if I would need to resort to drugs,” the Doctor replied, lowering his voice a little.

“She has stasis-induced insomnia. Am I correct?” Chakotay asked.

“You are correct,” the Doctor replied. “It should correct itself with time. The other problem is the colic, which will need treatment. The methods the Captain has used so far have not alleviated the problem.”

“I’ll sit with her tonight. The captain is exhausted. Once she wakes up I’ll let her know that you want to see her child straight away.”

“I will send Kes first thing in the morning.”

“She’ll be pleased. Chakotay out.” The second he closed the comlink he mentally kicked himself for not asking the Doctor who the baby’s father was. “Why didn’t she leave you with your father?” he asked softly, as if the child could answer or was even awake to hear. Sitting down on the sofa he shifted the child slightly to gaze down at her face.

Dark hair and red-almond skin met his eyes, along with rosy lips. He somehow knew that if her eyes opened they would be dark brown, almost black irises. For several seconds he simply stared. For several seconds his mind went over all that had happened weighing up the clues in Kathryn’s behavior. But it was not until out from beneath the baby’s footsie-pyjamas a glint of a gold wedding band on a short chain peeped out that he made the final connection. A stunned quiet voice floated across the silent room.

“Computer? On what stardate was this child born?”

“Stardate 48216.1.”

“That’s what I thought,” he replied softly. Carefully, fearful of becoming attached and being shunned later he planted a gentle kiss on the sleeping child’s forehead. Turning he did the same to the sleeping woman beside him neither wondering why she hadn’t told him nor angry that she hadn’t. No matter how he tried he couldn’t make it happen. Looking at it from her point of view he understood her reluctance and concerns. “You should have told me sooner,” he whispered and kissed her again.

He stood up and crossed to Kathryn’s bedroom and set the infant down in her cot. Returning to the living area he lifted Kathryn into his arms and carried her to her bed. Thinking he could make a clean get away he was sorely mistaken. The baby whimpered and woke up. Chakotay wrestled to fight the groan that rushed towards his lips. He peered into the cot and found the infant awake, and worse, she was about to cry.

“No, no, you don’t want to cry,” he whispered beseechingly. He picked her up and held her close, rocking her back to sleep. He put her down in her cot and she promptly woke up. He tried again and again with the same result. Rocking her to sleep was easy, keeping her asleep was the problem. Chakotay sighed and had an idea. She probably craved company. “After all,” he whispered with a slow smile. “All alone in that nasty stasis pod for over a week will make anyone lonely for a hug or two.” He grinned to himself. “Even your mother admitted that she missed a hug or two. So, how about . . .” He suddenly yawned as he sat down on the bed. “No, that won’t work,” he decided. “If I walk out of here with you to give your mother a rest, she’ll go frantic. She’ll never forgive me.” He yawned again and settled back against the pillows. “I’ll just keep you company for a little while so you don’t wake up your mother,” he promised drowsily.

=/\=

Kes frowned. It was unlike the captain not to answer her door. Fearing the worst she used the medical override and walked in. The room was deserted. Frowning deeper she wandered further into the quarters, moving into the bedroom.

There she found a heart-warming sight. Resting her head on Chakotay’s shoulder lay Kathryn, his arm around her. On his chest lay the baby, his other arm holding and supporting her. All three of them were in deep sleep. Smiling, she left them alone.

“Kes to sickbay?”

“Sickbay, EMH speaking.”

“I have visited Rose. She is sleeping. Her parents are both sleeping as well. I didn’t want to disturb them.” She looked up. Tuvok arrived just as the doors closed behind her. “Good morning, Tuvok. Are you here to see the captain?”

“That is correct. Both the Captain and the first officer are late for their duties and are not answering their hails.”

“They are both sleeping. I would like to recommend that they not be disturbed today. They need their rest.”

“I beg your pardon?” Tuvok said.

“They are both suffering from exhaustion. They have had little or no sleep for several nights with the baby being so restless. Isn’t that right, Doctor?”

“I agree, but . . .”

“I think a few hours extra rest will help them a lot. The first few weeks after the birth of a new baby is a stressful time, Tuvok. Don’t you remember?” Her soft angelic voice carried across the space between them and also caught the ears of a blond-headed Lieutenant making his way to the turbo-lift. He looked back over his shoulder wondering what he had heard and if he had heard what he heard correctly. Kes sent him a ‘don’t you dare’ look and looked up at Tuvok with her ever-present smile.

“I believe a few days of medical leave are due to Captain Janeway. Commander Chakotay, however . . .” Tuvok paused, noting the pleading look on the young woman’s face. “Needs time to adjust to his new role as father,” he added.

If Paris had been surprised before now he was positively shocked. Noting the warning looks in Kes’s eyes he made a hurried exit from the corridor.

“I recommend leave be given to them both for the period of one week,” the EMH’s voice concluded.

“I would concur,” Tuvok replied although with slight reluctance.

=/\=

In the bedroom behind closed doors, a small body began to stir and, instantly attuned to the waking of her child, a pair of blue eyes slowly opened. For several seconds she tried to work out where she was and who she was with. After a moment of surprise and then shock realizing that Chakotay must now know everything, she lay back and smiled contentedly. Life was perfect.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~