IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER
Disclaimer: Paramount owns Voyager, Janeway, Chakotay.
PART THIRTEEN
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow.
He trudged through the pristine whiteness, leaving his scars behind him. His chest was on fire, yet he kept walking, wanting the burn to continue. His breath frosted, warm breath that died as it left his mouth.
Strange, he noted idly, how the stream silenced, its water freezing into a thin layer and where water splashed over rocks, it seemed to leave brulé-like shards of glass. In a word, midwinter in Indiana was beautiful. It was silent, stark, aloof. So completely in contrast to the world he had left ten days ago. He pulled his parka tighter around him to insulate what heat he had left in his body, the fur lined hood deep over his head.
He heard a barking and realised that Missy had followed him. The dog appeared unaware of snow and cold and ice and bounded through the snow towards him. He patted the panting dog and she sped off ahead to the copse where the shuttle pad was located.
He stood still, unable to keep himself from looking back to the house. Great, big old farmhouse of the Janeways. He could discern the bay window and front porch. He thought he saw Kathryn sitting on the seat in the bay window, with Elizabeth next to her. He pictured Kathryn combing Elizabeth's hair.
Giving a little cry, he turned away from the view and continued to trudge. He had no idea where he was walking to. It didn't matter. He needed to think. He needed to digest all of what Kathryn had told him. There was a burning sensation in his eyes. He bit his lip so hard he tasted the blood. There was no clear point where he could declare that 'this was where I finally believed her' or 'now I know she was telling the truth'. Kathryn's tale itself, every word that wheezed stutteringly out of her sick body was not a truth, but an indictment.
She didn't ever mean for her story to be that. But to him, his iniquity started the day he didn't believe her. And that day started the day in the sickbay when she told him she wanted to terminate her pregnancy.
That was the bottom line.
He never saw her panic. He never saw her pain. He never saw her torment. He never saw her.
All he could see was himself, Maquis, renegade fighter for freedom, first officer of Voyager able to deal with crewmen who needed counselling or his brand of discipline being outraged at her statement. Self-absorbed in his own anger that she wasn't with him sharing his dream. In self-righteous condemnation he judged her. He had waited so long for her to open up to him, had waited so long to declare his love for her, had been patient beyond his strength as he watched her command her crew. And when it mattered in the most important, controversial decision she was to make for her and her unborn child, he walked away and refused to fight with her by her side.
He pictured her as she was days ago in hospital, lying in bed, better but still very sick, after she started telling him her story. She looked like she had then, on Voyager - haunted, hunted, destroyed. And she was waiting for him to refute her story. Her eyes had that fear in them again as he had seen it so many times during the surrogacy when he denied her, refused her, never believed her, told her outright she was wrong.
And she didn't have to ask if he believed her. Even now, now that they were reunited, she was still unsure of his trust in her.
Something bubbled up in him, something fierce and terrifying. He sank down onto his knees.
"I believe you Kathryn!" he screamed into the silence. "I believed you!" It was too much. He began to rasp painfully as he struggled to breathe.
Kathryn's eyes. Kathryn's face. Kathryn's smile. Kathryn's wonderful compassion.
It was all there, on their little girl, from the moment she was born.
There was no way out for him. Sarah Hargreaves was a criminal, as evil and as malicious as he had never seen or known before. Systematically she had broken down the finest, strongest, bravest, most fearless woman on Earth. Systematically she garnered the sympathy and support of the crew against the woman he loved and he had joined them in throwing stones and murdering her. He had been so insidiously programmed to believe that Kathryn never wanted her child, lost interest, was bent on aborting her baby, he didn't think he could ever look at Kathryn again and not remember his abysmal treatment of her.
That was what they did to Captain Kathryn Janeway of Voyager.
Sarah Hargreaves. Guilty. Commander Chakotay. Guilty. Senior officers of Voyager. Guilty.
And what did Kathryn say to him?
"I know I don't deserve to have my baby back..."
Was that the level to which they had destroyed her? That they could so completely make her believe she wasn't worthy to be a mother? When she signed away her baby, why wasn't he thinking then? Why didn't he think there had to be reason behind Kathryn's madness? For Kathryn, dear, sweet Kathryn who believed in fairness, it was madness to give away her baby.
Of course she wanted her child. Of course she couldn't breathe without her baby.
As guilty as Sarah had been, so was his complicity in the foul deed of bringing down a woman of honour and robbing her of her child.
It was Sarah who engineered everything, cold-bloodedly knew that Kathryn would never let Sarah kill the child, a threat Sarah held over Kathryn for so many months. Kathryn engaged from the start in a rescue mission to save an innocent baby. In the process she had to play the heartless, worthless mother and make everyone think she didn't want Elizabeth and would give her away at the drop of a hat.
All through the pregnancy, things happened, things Sarah told him with, what he realised belatedly, her deceptive charm. He recalled being called to sickbay when Sarah was six months pregnant. The doctor had just stabilised her and had the baby breathing again. Sarah had been distraught, her eyes full of tears.
"It's Captain Janeway, I'm sure of it. She must have had something to do with this. My food was tainted..."
He held Sarah's hand. "Don't worry, we'll soon get to the bottom of this."
Without Kathryn's permission he had assigned Tuvok to investigate and only hours later, when Sarah had been made comfortable again in her own quarters with one of the women crew watching over her, he had returned with the results.
"Commander, Ensign Hargreaves's replicator had been reprogrammed so that her nutrient had to include a substance strong enough to give her cramps that would induce her to lose the baby."
"What?"
"And, the computer in Captain Janeway's quarters was used to reprogramme the ensign's replicator."
He had been with Sarah who had become restless and weepy again when Tuvok returned with the news.
"I told you, Chakotay. You know what happened the first time and the second time. I didn't think Captain Janeway would go so far..."
Sarah's voice had been plaintive, with an absence of malice that astonished him, now that he knew the truth. Blinded by his own anger, he had gone and confronted Kathryn. And Kathryn had tried her best to explain, to deny her complicity in the very serious crime of attempted murder. His rage had been murderous. He knew about the previous times she had tried to kill the child, but then it had been threats which he and Sarah had taken seriously. His rage had known no bounds and he had trouble preventing himself from striking Kathryn.
And after that episode, Kathryn had been on her best being totally disinterested. She smiled her way through the next two months, never asked him again anything. He had been overwhelmed at becoming a father and so he spent more and more time with Sarah who remained fearful of what Kathryn would do next. He had given her the assurance that Kathryn would never try anything again.
They had a baby shower when Sarah was eight months pregnant. Kathryn had asked if she could give something for the baby. He had refused, saying B'Elanna and the others who organised it, wouldn't want her there. Kathryn had given up, dismissing him from the ready room. That night, several of the crew had stayed away from the shower.
He found later that eleven crew including Annika Hansen, his best friends Dalby and Ayala, Marla Gilmore and Mariah were in Kathryn's quarters giving her a baby shower.
He could account for them and the skeleton crew who had been on duty, and couldn't figure why thirty more crew weren't at Sarah's baby shower as well. Now he knew. They saw what he had been too blind to see. He continued in his stupid blind adoration and celebration of his own pending fatherhood and hated Kathryn for what she had become.
The following night he and Sarah had gone to her quarters. Chakotay closed his eyes at the memory of that night.
"I want full custody of my baby, Kathryn," he said without preamble as they entered. Kathryn never looked at Sarah or her stomach. But her eyes had gone dead for a brief moment. He pressed on, refusing to be affected by her or feeling sympathy. He wanted the child because Kathryn showed little or no interest.
"And that means?"
"You don't touch my child, you don't demand your rights, you don't give presents..."
"Under normal circumstances you wouldn't regard me as family then, so why deny me seeing a baby born on my ship, or giving a little gift to a member of my crew?"
"Because you wanted to abort the child, because you didn't want the baby, because you were apathetic and indifferent, and then you tried thrice to kill the baby just so that you can deny me my rights and my fatherhood. Need I say more?"
"Full custody... Chakotay, you know that - "
"That's what I want. If you don't, we have all the evidence needed to prove you're an unfit mother."
"Please, Captain Janeway. Chakotay has assured me it would be best for the baby."
It seemed to him then that Kathryn must have grown cold inside, insulated herself with her mask of indifference. But he had not forgotten Kathryn Janeway who could do just that and fool everyone around her into thinking she was cruel to give her baby away. But her eyes - window to her soul - spoke volumes in those brief moments she allowed him to see her pain.
"I know you're not interested and I know you won't trouble us again or - or - "
"Hurt the baby..." came Sarah's whisper.
"Yes, but because you are the genetic mother, I thought I'd ask you anyway."
"Captain?"
Kathryn's eyes were on Sarah. Then she had given a little sigh of capitulation.
"Yes. Yes, it's okay, Commander. The baby is yours."
"Thank you, Captain!" Sarah's voice sounded up, much lighter and happier now.
But he couldn't forget Kathryn's eyes.
Some days later he had spoken with Sarah.
"We must give her at least something, Sarah. You know the baby is tied to her too," he told her, his own shame at how shattered Kathryn looked when he demanded full rights over the baby troubling him.
"But, Chakotay, you said she is nothing now to the baby. You said we'll raise the baby together as mother and father."
"I know, Sarah," he said, stroking Sarah's full stomach and feeling the instant the baby kicked. "It's not as if she'll trouble us again, or threaten the baby."
"So why make a concession to her?"
"Because I say we must."
And then he had seen the fear in Sarah's eyes for he had raised his voice just a little pitch higher and became firm with her.
"Okay."
"And please, you know how beautifully you can charm everyone. Smile so that she knows it's what we really want her to have okay?"
"As long as you don't give her the baby..."
"I want her to give the baby's name."
"But I have already thought of a name."
"And I say we give Captain Janeway this honour, Sarah. She has nothing. We have everything."
And so they summoned the Captain of Voyager to Sarah's quarters and asked her to name her baby. When she left, he told Sarah that he wanted Kathryn added as middle name.
He never told Kathryn after that that he had added Janeway as the last name.
****************
Now in the cold winterland, with his breath frosting and his bones cold, with the beauty of the landscape hardly affecting him, he realised Kathryn's truth. He realised now what was happening from the moment the foetus was transported into Sarah's body.
Captain Kathryn Janeway, mother of the unborn child, in the greatest battle to save a baby's life.
In the process, she lost Elizabeth.
To her mind, giving Elizabeth to him was the guarantee of knowing the baby was still alive. She could go on now and no longer be a threat to the jealous, obsessed, cruel Sarah Hargreaves. To his mind, the most heartbreaking sacrifice Kathryn has ever had to make.
Chakotay remembered the day Kathryn asked him for one hour to be with her baby. His whole body trembled as he recalled the way she stood behind her desk: proud, erect, her stance readying itself for his rejection. He wanted to. Wanted to reject her right there.
"Oh, spirits!" he screamed again.
Every scene in which Kathryn pleaded, begged, asked, never given, the way her eyes died every time he turned her down.
Then everything overwhelmed him at once as images of Kathryn trying to reason with him, Kathryn trying to see her baby, Kathryn trying to reason with mistrusting crew, Kathryn saying "Elizabeth" when he asked her to name her baby.
He gave her so few concessions while she gave everything.
I lost the most valuable thing I had on Voyager - your friendship. It was what kept me going and kept me hoping that we'll be like this one day - on our way to Earth. I go home the same way I came - with nothing.
He
thought of how Elizabeth grew up on Dorvan. A shy child afraid to make friends,
a child whom Sarah ordered to call by her name, a child who cried many nights
not knowing why she cried. A year with Sarah who had done the perfunctory tasks
of feeding the baby, changing her diapers, never holding her really close like
the day Kathryn pleaded with him for one hour with her baby. That day he had
seen how Kathryn held Elizabeth as if she were the absolute most precious thing
in the world. Never after that on Dorvan had he seen Elizabeth in the arms of
Sarah being held so close. It was a connection his daughter missed from the very
beginning. And he had been too proud to take action then. Too proud to come to
Kathryn and demand she help him with the child.
Kathryn's
tears had fallen on her baby that day.
Did
something happen then? Did her tears fall into the child and became a part of
her? That sorrow touched Elizabeth and when she cried at night, it was in an
instinctive hunger to have a vacuum in her filled, a vacuum he couldn't even
fill. He was her father. Elizabeth loved him, but her eyes were sometimes far
away, too distant and searching for a child so young.
He
had taken her away from Sarah when she was a year old, for Sarah had done
nothing for her after he reminded her that he was never going to sleep with her,
that they had an arrangement. Sarah stayed on, bothered him at night in his
home, trying to bed him. She did what she accused Kathryn of for seven months
long - lose interest in the child.
A
simple, stupid agenda, an obsessive love that turned her into a killer. That was
the woman who raised his little girl.
And
how many times didn't he picture Elizabeth as she lay cuddled against her mother
- her real mother?
He
had seen pictures in Kathryn's room, in the lounge, in Elizabeth's room that
Mariah Henley-Hamilton had taken. He had no such record of his baby. There were
no pictures of Sarah with Elizabeth at three weeks old.
For a stupid obsession, a brainless idiot made him throw away the most beautiful thing that ever happened in his life.
Kathryn
Janeway.
Who
gave up her daughter to him, saying, "she's yours, Chakotay." Who did
so because she was protecting her child from harm. Harm done by Sarah
Hargreaves.
He
robbed Kathryn of her daughter.
He
robbed Elizabeth of a mother.
Why
didn't he bring Elizabeth home then?
Pride.
He began to howl in pain at what he had done to her. The howling was heard by the dog who ran back to him and began to howl with him. His face, the hood thrown back, his breath steaming from his mouth, was raised to the lonely, cloudy sky. The howling continued, long and loud and fierce.
Once, when his hand touched his face, he wiped from his cheeks what had become ice.
*********
END PART THIRTEEN