PART
FOUR
Chakotay
looked up sharply when someone entered the gym. The punching bag swung back and
he caught it in time before it hit him.
"What
are you doing here, B'Elanna?" he asked as he stepped forward. Using his
teeth to unlace the one glove, he slipped it off quickly and then the other
glove followed.
"I've
come to kill you, Chakotay," said B'Elanna advancing on him.
"What,
in that condition?"
"It's
been known to happen."
"Why?
Because I'm giving everyone hell and the Captain won't let me go on duty?"
"You've
got part of it right," she retorted, and Chakotay saw how twin spots of red
stained her cheeks. She really looked angry.
"I
need to work - "
"You
also need to look in on your baby. She's dying, did you know?"
Chakotay
turned ice-cold inside, thought for a moment that B'Elanna was pulling some
fantastic stunt or trying to shock him. Shock him she did, when he realised that
she was serious.
"D-dying?"
he stammered, the coldness slowly making way for an unaccustomed pain in the
depth of his chest. He hadn't wanted to feel anything. Coldness meant he didn't
have to feel. The baby... Carina...
"Yes,
and that's why I've decided not to kill you. Besides, you're our first choice
for godfather for this one," replied B'Elanna, her voice tinged with fierce
pride as she patted her swollen belly. "And Miral is wondering why her
Uncle Chakotay hasn't yet visited her and carried her on his shoulders... She
misses you..."
"The
baby... Carina... what is wrong with her?"
"She's
rejecting all affection, Chakotay. Also, she's not taking in fluid. I guess I
can say she misses her Daddy..."
"I'll
go..."
"Get
dressed properly first. You wouldn't want to present yourself as Kid Crap to
your own daughter, would you?"
Chakotay
gave a smile, one that made him feel the pain inside again. B'Elanna looked
worried...
"Fine
- "
"Look,
we all know you miss her and we understand. Only, we're left behind with the
living, and I guess that's where we should dwell, right?"
"I
guess so..."
B'Elanna
hooked her hand through his arm and walked with him to the door. When they were
in the corridor, she released him, giving a sheepish smile. She couldn't walk
too fast, and it must have taken a very long time for her to walk from sick bay
to the holodeck, even giving the short ride in the turbolift.
"And
Chakotay," she started as he walked ahead of her. He looked back, saw the
old flash again in her eyes.
"What
is it?"
"Go
easy on the Captain..."
************
After
he cleaned up, Chakotay felt much fresher as he looked at his image in the
mirror. The last three nights he dreamed of Seven; sleep was a commodity he
wasted, lying with eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. He had loved her,
passionately even. She was an apt pupil, willing to learn everything and he had
enjoyed being with her. The nights were always the hardest, he thought as he
rubbed his chin and felt its smoothness.
There,
in a time long ago he'd almost forgotten it, he had lain awake, thinking of
Kathryn and imagined that the look he had seen in her blue-grey eyes was one of
deep affection, of love, deeper and more profound than the friendship he had
guarded so jealously and for so long.
The
last three years, with his new-found love for Seven of Nine, he had forgotten
those looks, didn't imagine the hurt, or the affection or the odd slipping of
the precious masks they always kept in place. Kathryn had blurred, even receded
mercifully where thinking of her in that way couldn't cause his heart to stop
beating. He had thrown himself wholeheartedly into his marriage and committed
himself for life at the side of Seven of Nine. All that he had felt before that,
was safely packaged and stored away and forgotten in a corner where it collected
dust and cobwebs and where the arachnid surreptitiously crawled all over the web
and guarded the treasure with fierce alliance to someone else's heart.
Seven
wanted the baby...
Chakotay's
shoulders drooped at that thought, but the momentary depression was ruthlessly
driven out before he could allow himself to think. A tiny baby, Seven's greatest
desire in the last year, lay waiting for her remaining parent. He experienced a
sudden rush as he left his quarters and made his way to the sickbay.
Carina
was going to see him... Or, was he going to see his daughter at last? He didn't
even know what she looked like and she was already a few days old. If she were
dying...
God,
he couldn't let that happen. Was that what Kathryn was warning him about?
Suddenly, the realisation of his responsibility finally establishing itself in
his heart, he wondered who cared for the baby since her birth. It wasn't
difficult to wonder why Carina was pining as he thought the case to be, but now
that his own steps quickened towards the sickbay, the excitement mounting in him
at last, he hoped fervently that his own presence in his baby's life would
change all that.
For
once he felt selfish enough to claim his child for himself. He had built her a
crib, the compactum, and Seven had collected an unholy number of items for the
baby. Gifts from the crew... Tonight Carina was going to come with him just like
Kathryn ordered. If only he could stop thinking. Stop thinking about a pale Borg
too tough to cry, and the arachnid that had quietly started eating up her own
cobweb...
But it
wasn't to be. The memory of his last conversation with Seven rattled him and
helped to eat away at the fine webs covering the treasure that was the Captain
of the starship...
"I
wish to name her Kathryn Elizabeth, Chakotay," Seven said stubbornly.
"You
got your wish already. You're going to have a baby, aren't you?"
"You
helped make this baby..." Seven responded, her eyes dark and cloudy where
she sat opposite him at their dining table.
"I
know. I'm sorry. It's just - "
He
wasn't fair to her; he'd had a rough day on the bridge, and Kathryn's
compliments to him kept him basking in her soft voice and warm eyes. Any mention
of Kathryn's name from anyone else
but him was almost sacrilege. Kathryn had given him permission at a time when
they had become closer than they had even been.
"What,
Chakotay? Don't you like the Captain's name for our daughter?"
Chakotay
almost stumbled in the corridor as Seven's words cut through him. Her eyes at
the time had been hopeful, expectant. She wanted the name and even now, with his
heart broken in pieces, he couldn't understand why. The only thing he could see
was the only thing that made him irrational in those moments.
Seven
wanted to punish him and gloat over Kathryn Janeway.
If he
allowed the godawful reality and truth to reclaim his heart and mind and
intellect as a prisoner, that was it. It was always a contest.
She
didn't have to see Kathryn Janeway as a competitor; she had never behaved in a
way that he could accuse her of something as human and as unfair as jealousy and
resentment. Yet, Seven's eyes had always lit up whenever they were in the mess
hall and Kathryn Janeway left the area, or when Kathryn had been sitting with
them and they had excused themselves to go to bed. Those nights Seven had been
excessive in her generosity towards him.
Seven
may have been hurt by his terrible insinuation, but she looked cool and
impassive. She was also dogged.
"Don't
you like 'Kathryn' for a name?" Seven had persisted.
And he
lost it for a moment.
"I
want to know only one Kathryn on this vessel, dammit," it burst from him.
It was
the final straw. Seven had seen the aperture, seen the treasure chest's key
shattered as it opened to reveal the face of a Starfleet Captain.
"Seven
- " he started, "I'm sorry... pllease forgive me... I didn't mean to
snap at you..."
Chakotay
shook his head hard as he exited the turbolift on the sick bay floor. Seven's
eyes had lit up in pathetic happiness again at his profound apology. How easy it
had always been to please her! Her hand had flown to her belly where she
caressed her fullness and her eyes had become soft again.
"I
know, Chakotay. I love you... whatever name you want...is okay..."
"Carina.
I like Carina."
After
that she didn't mention it again, until the mission, the one he didn't want her
to undertake.
When
he walked into sickbay, his equilibrium of earlier destroyed by the ravaging
thoughts of his own guilt, it was the last thing he expected to see: Kathryn
Janeway holding his daughter in her arms as if it belonged to her.
*****
He
stopped dead in his tracks, and when he gathered his shattered wits about him
sufficiently to walk towards them, the old anger rose in him. What was she doing
with the baby?
"Here
she is, Commander, your little Carina," the doctor said soberly. Carina was
crying heartbrokenly.
"What
is wrong with her, Doc?" he asked, ignoring Kathryn as he felt his eyes
drawn to the tiny scrap of humanity held in her arms.
Kathryn
held the baby to him and very gently he received his daughter, the baby's face
red from crying.
"Doctor?"
"Just
hold and rock her, see if she'll quieten down," the EMH replied.
"Like
this?" Chakotay asked and slowly he started rocking Carina, with the doctor
looking pleased for once and Kathryn... He didn't want to look at her.
"Yes,"
he heard her answer him and then watched how she touched Carina's hair.
For
the first time he had a good look at the baby and a few seconds he closed his
eyes. The child's resemblance to her mother was remarkable for someone so young.
It tore at his heart, remembering Seven of Nine, remembering warm nights in
happy conversation, in their bed, making love...
It was
inevitable that he broke down again.
He
missed her. She was a part of his life for three whole years, spent every night
in his arms with him. Now she was gone...gone... He felt Kathryn touching his
arm again and he flinched at her touch. He sobbed brokenly with the baby held
against him. And Carina cried on, as if she understood his sorrow.
He
jerked away from the hand that stroked his arm in solace. He couldn't bear it.
When he looked at Kathryn, her eyes held compassion. It angered him, suddenly
and irrationally.
"I
know what you're going through, my friend. Believe me. Baby Carina misses her
mother's touch. She misses - "
Chakotay,
unbridled in his anger, lashed out suddenly, cutting into her words.
"What
do you know, Captain? What do you know? You're not a mother. You're not her
mother... how could you possibly know?"
"Commander!"
the doctor interjected, shocked. "That was grossly unwarranted."
"Captain...
Kathryn, I'm sorry... I shouldn't have said it."
But
the words were out, damaging, hitting at what he only sensed belatedly, the very
core of Kathryn Janeway. The next few moments were heavy and dark. Chakotay saw
Kathryn's eyes cloud, watched how she frowned as if to control an unknown force
that threatened to undo her in front of him and the doctor. Something hidden and
mysterious and too deep for both of them to understand. Did she turn as pale as
a sheet? Did the same paleness suddenly blotch red with blood as her cheeks
began to stain? She stood there, and he wondered if she were going to pass out
or burst into tears. She swallowed painfully.
"I've
always been your friend, " she said in a hoarse voice, "and I
really...don't know a time that I couldn't count on your honesty and your
strength when I needed a friend. I - I only wanted to help."
He
couldn't bear to see her like that. An animal, wounded too severely to recover,
that wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere and die where no one could see the
blood...alone...
"Oh
God, Kathryn. I'm sorry..."
"I
know she's not mine, Chakotay," Kathryn Janeway said with heartbreaking
honesty.
She
looked at the EMH.
"Doctor,
we'll talk again later." She turned and walked slowly towards the sickbay
doors that opened, then closed again.
Chakotay
felt how the doctor's eyes bore into him.
"Wonderful.
You've been very kind to the only person on this vessel who can help your
daughter, Commander Chakotay," the doctor said angrily, but keeping his
voice down when Carina's crying had suddenly stopped.
"Doc,
I didn't - "
"No,
I'm sure you didn't mean any of it. The Captain only fed and bathed and changed
diapers and many times dropped little kisses on the child's forehead and talked
to her of starships and spheres and Flotter and Treevis and named the many
crewmembers by name who would love to hold her in the absence of the absent
father. Why should she care?"
"Doctor?"
"As
Tom Paris would say, you've blown it, Commander. You hurt that kind woman very
badly today..."
*
End Part four