IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER
Disclaimer: Paramount owns Voyager, Janeway, Chakotay.
PART NINE
It was two weeks later. She was on the point of getting ready for bed after a particularly harrowing day in which the ship had again sustained damage, and a myriad of other problems she and Chakotay had dealt with. Negotiations with the ministry of an M-Class planet for much needed provisions and mining possibilities were being thwarted at every conference she's had with them during the past few days, not least by the fact that they were the aggressors in an armed struggle with a neighbouring world, one which had turned down their request for trading in the first place.
She was tired and had felt guilty during her solitary meal that she hadn't given the baby any thought. They were now in their third month and Sarah was experiencing the queasiness Kathryn had in the first weeks.
Annika Hansen's words also wouldn't leave her. Chakotay had admitted that Sarah was attracted to him, something he discovered during a crew duty exchange programme and he had worked with her in hydroponics. It wasn't why he decided on her as their surrogate, he said, insisting and confirming the doctor's own findings that the exobiologist was the best person to carry their child to full term. Should Sarah experience any complications near term, the doctor would induce labour or at worst, transport the baby from her womb.
But that had been all. Chakotay had been remote without actually being unfriendly towards her and she had put it down to him being preoccupied with the baby. He loved her, that she knew, but her reactions to the pregnancy had put a blight on a possible relationship. He was still not completely convinced that she wanted her baby.
She had to convince him that she wanted her baby, wanted her very much. She dreamed of the day she would hold Elizabeth in her arms.
Elizabeth. She was going to call the baby that. She wanted to honour Tom's mother, the doctor who did so much in her recovery to humanity, to healing, to find a measure of peace.
Her door chimed.
"Enter."
The doors slid open and the visitor stepped inside. Already she was beginning to show a slight bulge.
"Sarah! Is anything the matter?"
She had been sitting on her couch but stood up to receive the young ensign. Light was at almost full illumination and Sarah's face was friendly. Her hands were at her sides, but it was the way Sarah flexed her fingers that caused Kathryn to frown. Something was up.
"Sarah, you can tell me..." she encouraged the young woman, moving to touch Sarah's shoulder.
The ensign stiffened almost imperceptibly. Kathryn felt something, a cold shiver moving down her spine.
"Captain," Sarah started in the same sweet, smiling voice, "I want you to leave Commander Chakotay alone. He belongs to me now."
"W-What? What are you saying?"
The shiver turned into a cold snake that slithered inside her, a contaminant that left only fear in its slimy wake.
"I love him. Now the baby will tie us together forever. Commander Chakotay belongs to me and so does the baby. He wants me to be her mother, you know."
The cold persisted; Kathryn felt the nausea rise. Something in her wanted to scream that Sarah was lying. The veneer of friendliness was gone. She knew how Chakotay felt about her and whatever happened, those feelings, sublimated, will still remain, even though he was so angry.
But the baby…
Surely
the law is on my side?
"You're carrying my baby, Sarah. I have nothing - "
"Don't come near him."
"We work together. I don't see how that can be achieved, if I am to listen to you, Sarah. You're unhinged..."
Kathryn thought instantly of Seven of Nine whose premonition was playing out before her in absolutely alarming tones.
"Oh no, I am not, Captain Janeway. I know he loves you, but very soon he will hate you. I now have the ammunition to keep you away forever. Your sweet little baby growing here…"
Sarah stroked her
stomach, the smile still on her face, but her eyes - dull grey that complimented
her light hair - were suddenly cold. Kathryn's coldness intensified and her
heart pounded. What did the girl mean?
"My baby. How can she be ammunition?"
"I know Commander Chakotay will do anything in his power to gain full rights over the baby, and declare you an unfit mother. I know he will do anything for me because I carry his baby - "
"It's my baby, Sarah Hargreaves, whatever feelings I have towards it. Know this: I want my baby."
"Now, see, Captain? Everything worked for me. This baby will be mine, once Commander Chakotay sees how evil you are. He's going to marry me. He does like me a lot, didn't he tell you? If you want the baby to live, you must tell Commander Chakotay you don't want him and you don't want the child."
"Sarah, for heaven's sake. I think you need to see the doctor - "
She was about to tap her commbadge when Sarah's hand covered hers.
"Don't call the doctor. Don't call Commander Chakotay. Don't call or tell anyone on the ship, Captain Janeway."
"Are you threatening me?"
"No, merely making sure you will do as I tell you. You didn't want this baby, Captain, but I'm pretty certain you wouldn't want to see it dead, would you?"
Seven
of Nine's terrible foreboding...
"You cannot want to do anything like that just because you're in love with Chakotay?"
"It's the way I see him turning more and more towards me so that we'll eventually marry. If you so much as purr into his ear, or think you can tell the doctor or the bitch Borg, I will abort this thing."
"Oh, my God..."
"Trust me. I want only one thing, Captain Janeway, and it's not this thing. You're going to give me Chakotay. I think you know how to do that, don't you?"
"You can have him, just leaven my baby alone!"
"Not that easy. I see the way he still looks at you. It's your job to make him hate you. This little thing will do nicely as a marker, don't you agree?"
The woman was no longer a woman, but a deranged hussy who masked her evil under the most engaging demeanour, sweet smiles, friendliness, and easygoing disposition, mostly shy to appear in large groups. Seven had been right. Sarah's obsession with Chakotay was going to impact on their baby.
And Chakotay didn't know.
He was unaware of Sarah's deceit.
Kathryn reached forward to grip Sarah's shoulder, implore her to see reason. But the sweet smile, the cold dull grey eyes remained, and the ensign quite coolly removed her hand as if she recoiled at Kathryn's touch.
"Please, it is an innocent child. Don't harm my baby."
"For someone who didn't want this thing, you're suddenly possessive aren't you, Captain?"
"It's an innocent life!"
"Tell that to Noah Lessing and Tuvix and others you have killed, Janeway."
Kathryn was blind. Blinded by fear that the most terrible thing was happening to her, more terrifying and cataclysmic than her torture in a Cardassian laboratory. Her baby's life was threatened.
"Sarah, in the name of heaven, you need help. Please, please let me take you to sickbay. We can – "
"Try anything, Captain, and I will abort this foetus. And know what? Everyone is going to blame you..."
"Sarah, for the love of God, it's an innocent baby!"
"Too late to remember that, Janeway. Now, I'll see myself out."
Sarah turned and left the room quietly. A thunderous silence followed. A silence in which Kathryn's thoughts bounced about inside her head. A silence in which only Sarah's sweet threat echoed from all the bulkheads.
She clutched the sides of her head, then as the nausea rose up in her, she rushed to the bathroom, spilling even before she reached the toilet. There, bent over, she retched so painfully and so intensely that she only pulled up when she saw specks of blood before her. Her teeth chattered. She felt deadly cold inside. She remained where she was, unable to get to her feet. She had to tell Chakotay…the EMH…someone… Her baby was going to die…
Seconds later her commbadge beeped. It beeped again. She tried to pull herself together.
"Janeway here."
"Captain Janeway," came Sarah's voice, "I hope you remember our arrangement."
She signed off instantly before Kathryn could reply. Her mouth felt bitter, the taste of bile sickening. She touched her neck, felt the dampness of intense perspiration. Another spell of uncontrollable retching followed. The darkness came and engulfed her, sweet darkness that mostly cloaked her with jealous intent. In a daze she realised she was lying on the hard floor of the bathroom, her head unable to move anymore, yet her stomach continuing to heave even after the retching had stopped. It smelled sour, bitter, unpleasant around her, realising vaguely she was lying in her own vomit.
For a moment she was back in the Cardassian prison, with doctors in white coats hovering about her, soldiers standing ready to service the subject. Their voices came from afar, from the depths of the past, through the tunnels of darkness and lunged at her with sickening reality.
We
have not punished her body enough, Doctor...
Do
not be perturbed. It is her mind that will be punished.
Is
this then my punishment? I have done nothing.
Even
when you are innocent, you are guilty.
Janeway closed her eyes, tried to will away the voices, the images, the treatment. Her lips moved, the lips which in the last half hour moved only with the violence of her vomiting.
"Please...please... Don't punish me. Not this way..."
****
Over the next few months Kathryn learned how crew affiliation could change in the blink of an eye. Before the baby she was the revered captain of Voyager, admired, often drawn into conversation with crew in the mess hall. Now, they avoided her, their eyes accusing. She had little doubt as to what Sarah Hargreaves was feeding them. They had not liked her decision to abort in the first place and it seemed as if everyone held that against her.
She played an intricate game with Sarah Hargreaves who wormed her way into the affections and sympathies of almost every crewmember.
It was a game in which she tried with desperation to save the life of her child.
For that was what their relationship had become. That was what was happening: her baby's life was in terrible danger. She couldn't tell Chakotay; she couldn't tell the doctor. That was how the game was played. Every move she made was countered by Sarah who would only mention something about Chakotay or their unborn child and she'd back off a little. Then she'd hear afterwards from Chakotay or one of the senior crew how badly Sarah felt that the Captain was paying so little attention to her as the surrogate and had no interest in the baby.
She wanted to tell Chakotay he was a fool to be blinded by a woman.
Then the old guilt surfaced. How could she tell him that? But the ensign, previously insignificant on Voyager, now the centre of attention, carrying the child made by her and Chakotay, and Chakotay, more over the moon about the baby than actually thinking about how strange Sarah's behaviour was.
"Captain, that is the third time this week I've treated you for severe headaches. Is the baby giving you sleepless nights?" the doctor asked as she sat up on the biobed.
"Are you finished?" she asked, knowing how terse she sounded. Terse and irritated. The doctor gave an impatient click of his tongue as she prepared to leave, the headache mercifully gone.
Only a year ago Chakotay would have been in her quarters, concerned for her health. She would have liked to see him again, to sink against his chest and just rest her head and not think of anything. Many, many nights she had done just that, and they'd be sitting in the semi-dark in utter silence, but a silence that soothed, that soaked into her weariness and charged her for the next days' work. Sometimes she'd find herself lying on her bed, realising that Chakotay must have carried her there after falling asleep in his arms. They had been good friends then. Great friends. She shook her head. The greatness of their friendship, the closeness they shared and enjoyed wasn't enough. It didn't stand against the likes of a lowly ensign on Voyager, bent crazy to get her man.
Now, Chakotay stayed away, mostly because of the baby, and their friendship was in tatters.
At six months pregnant, Sarah had made Kathryn go to hell thrice and back. The third time was the final straw. She backed off completely after that.
She had come off duty and had her solitary meal in her small alcove when Chakotay burst into her quarters. There had been no time to demand how he got her codes or wonder how he could override them. And he had been fuming.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Kathryn?" he demanded, standing close enough to her that she could see the flames of anger in his eyes, the flaring nostrils and the way he could just barely keep his fists to his side.
"I have no idea what you are referring to," she said, but once again, she knew with stomach-turning dread, that it had to do with their baby.
"Don't play the innocent with me. Sarah - "
"Is something the matter with her? The baby?"
"Her baby almost died."
She turned ice-cold.
"Chakotay, on a point of correction. It's not Sarah's baby."
"The last few months have been hell for her. You threatened her, threatened the child. What kind of woman are you?"
Only
someone desperately trying to save her baby.
"Chakotay, for heaven's sake, I've done nothing - "
"Nothing? Sarah is in sickbay. She has been poisoned, and so has the baby. Dammit, Kathryn, how far would you go to kill your own child?"
"I did nothing of the kind. I would never do anything to harm my baby!"
But she knew Sarah was carrying out her threat. This time, going too far. Before, it had been like a sword hanging over her, just the threats and the late night reminders of their arrangement. The first real threat made Kathryn hurrying to Sarah's quarters where the woman had stood ready with a hypospray to induce an abortion. Kathryn had grabbed the hypospray from her and seen too late the light of victory in Sarah's eyes. Of course her fingerprints were on the hypospray. Who would believe her? Kathryn had been frantic, imploring Sarah to be reasonable.
What had been her crime? Asking Chakotay, under pain of rejection, how the baby was doing.
Sarah had not let her come anywhere near her. That alone should have convinced Chakotay. However, Sarah was as devious as she was pretty and sweet. All attempts was interpreted by the crew as attempts to injure Sarah, just so there wouldn't be a baby. Kathryn Janeway hated babies.
Now Chakotay's fury was too much to bear. A familiar queasiness in the pit of her stomach. She struggled to control her nausea. She had lain several times on her bathroom floor retching her guts out, in a crazed stupor of fear because Sarah Hargreaves had once again threatened to kill the child. And her timing was impeccable. It put Janeway time after time in a worse light than before.
"How – how was she poisoned?"
"As if you didn't know! The replicator output of Sarah's morning nutrient has been tampered with, and it bears your signature."
"Impossible."
"Tuvok has already determined it came from your quarters."
Kathryn shook her head, unable to digest fast enough what was happening. What had happened? Chakotay being in her quarters the previous night? Discussing crew duties and studying the weekly reports from all departments? Chakotay rubbing her shoulders that ached with tiredness that had seeped into her bones? Chakotay unable to tear himself away from her and pleading, once again, on behalf of their baby?
"You know, Chakotay, I already told you I won't be able to care for the little one once she's born. That's why I thought it better if - if I didn't feel the baby's kicking..."
"But Sarah won't mind. You're part of the process - "
She had given a tired sigh, remember the two occasions Sarah had threatened to abort the baby, remember Sarah's words "And believe me, I can and will do it..."
"I was part of the process, Chakotay. My part in this is over."
But inside her heart bled. Inside, her mind screamed at the injustice being done to her. Inside, she heard Sarah's charming voice which so incongruously taunted her. Inside, she wanted to die, missing her baby so.
"Kathryn...you don't know what you're saying..."
"I have my duties, Commander," she said tiredly, "which precludes any of this. I have made up my mind."
"I don't want to let you go. But you know, the crew are talking. Of you. Your disinterest. Your heartless abandoning of your child. Is this what you want?"
No, I made a mistake. I made an error of judgment. I want to lie down and die, but every moment you are like this with me, is further endangering my daughter's life... Instead, I have to play the heartless mother who has no interest in her child, who doesn't think twice of giving it away, and then when the surrogate shows her love for the commander, I can't show any reaction for fear that it will kill my baby.
He
had joined the crew the first two times accusing her of trying to kill the
unborn child in Sarah's womb. She couldn't strike back, she couldn't deny it,
for Sarah would come up with another game in which Kathryn Janeway became once
again the villain.
She
conceded that her own hysterical denial and response to her pregnancy didn't
help. Chakotay's equally frantic search for a surrogate drove the nail deeper in
her coffin. From the outset she had been seen as a woman to whom pregnancy was
an inconvenience, who didn't want the baby anyway. So why would it be any
different when Sarah went complaining that Captain Janeway was in her quarters
to suffocate her with a pillow?
But she couldn't tell him all of that.
That had been last night. It had been a poignant togetherness, one with aching memories of good times.
Now he stood before her, and she had committed the final act of cruelty.
"It came from my quarters? Last night? Someone was here?"
"You were the only one here, Kathryn, after I had left."
How could she confirm or deny his accusation? She didn't want the baby anyway, did she?
She only wanted to touch and feel the baby move. See on the sickbay monitor the heartbeat of her Elizabeth. She regretted with painful bitterness her decision to abort, regretted her own reactions.
She had no excuse, had she? No Cardassian ever poked inside her womb or soldier rode her body to impregnate her, or her ova removed. None of that happened. She was to blame.
And so the guilt and the punishment had to be hers too.
"Chakotay, I can't deny it because I have no evidence...as yet. But I can assure you in all sincerity that I had no part in this."
"Come near her, Kathryn, and I will personally see you in hell. I will break you."
Wrong, Commander. I have been to every known hell and back. I am there now.
"Leave
now. You have said enough. Is - is the baby alright?"
"What
do you care?"
"Dismissed."
********************
END PART NINE