By KerryW
Disclaimer: Paramount/Viacom owns all.
Chakotay had just gotten his shirt off when the crying started.
His heart kicked into overdrive, and he ran from the bathroom, leaving his shirt where it fell. The room beyond was dimly lit, and he spared a quick glance towards the bed, but Kathryn hadn’t stirred. Mentally, he sent a quick thank-you to anyone who might be listening, even as he stopped beside the small crib next to the bed.
The tiny baby inside was working her way to a full wail, unimpressed or unaware of his arrival. “Hush, sweetheart,” he crooned as he scooped her up. “Hush, hush. You’re going to wake your mama.”
Cradling the tiny form against his chest, he bounced her lightly. Slowly, her wails tapered off, and her huge eyes peered up at him, struggling to focus. Chakotay held her carefully, supporting her head in the crook of his arm and snuggling her little body against his bare skin. As she blinked up at him, he kept talking, wanting her to learn the sound of her voice.
“Hi, honey. That’s my brave girl,” he whispered, hearing the catch in his voice. “That’s mama’s daughter. Let your mother sleep, sweetheart. She’s had a long day, and your daddy’s heart can’t take the strain. So we’re going to let her sleep, okay? Daddy’s here, so there’s no need to cry.”
As he spoke, he stroked one finger down the length of her downy cheek. Her rosebud mouth opened and closed reflexively as she turned towards the slight pressure. Chakotay chuckled lightly. “Sorry, sweetheart. Wrong parent for that. I’ll see what I can do though.”
He was halfway to the door when he remembered his state of undress. Wincing, he retreated, torn. He was reluctant to put his daughter back down, but he didn’t want to make the trip through the hospital corridors half-dressed. Chakotay glanced down. His daughter, lulled by the warmth of his arms, seemed to be nearly asleep, her mouth slightly open and her eyes completely shut.
His heart melted, and he leaned over to press a gentle kiss to the skin of her forehead. “You going to be good for me, honey? I’m going to find you some food, but I need you to let your mama sleep. And that means no crying okay?” Despite his words, he made no move to put her down. He couldn’t quite convince his arms to do it. Pressing his lips to the pulse point of her temple, he whispered, “I’m your daddy, and I love you more than life itself. No matter what, sweetheart, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you’re safe and happy. I love you so much, and you know what? I’d love you even if you weren’t my baby. Because you’re your mama’s daughter, and your mama’s my whole world. So have pity on your poor daddy, okay? He loves you both so much that it’s scrambled his brains.”
The baby made a mewling sound against his cheek, and he chuckled. It was a watery sound, and he had to blink hard to keep the tears in his eyes from overflowing. One slipped past him and rolled down his cheek. Before he started bawling, he pulled himself away from her laying her gently back into the bassinet.
To Chakotay’s relief she fussed for only a moment before settling down. Keeping his eyes on her, he backed away for a second before sprinting to the bathroom. Once there, he yanked on a clean shirt, and, still struggling to get his left arm into the armhole, he dashed towards the hallway.
He heard the familiar voice the moment he reached the hallway. He heard the familiar voice the moment he reached the hallway. Jogging now, he headed towards the nurses’ station, where his mother-in-law was in a heated debate with the head nurse.
“Gretchen,” he called. She turned, and his heart contracted. The look on her face was one of barely controlled desperation, and Chakotay knew, instinctively, that she had missed his messages. “They’re fine,” he said, cutting to the important matters without a pause.
She was already barrelling towards him. “Both of them?” she ground out, fear in her eyes. “Kathryn?”
Chakotay grabbed her shoulders, stopping her. “Both of them,” he said, grinning. “You’ve got a healthy granddaughter and a daughter who is almost insufferably proud.”
She stared at him for a long moment, as if afraid that he was lying to her. But she must have been able to read the truth in his eyes, because she flung herself at him. The hug she gave him contracted his ribs with enough force to bring tears of pain to his eyes, but he returned it with a broad grin.
“I wasn’t home,” she said, still crying. “I only got the news reports, that your shuttle had gone down…”
He winced, barely able to imagine her state of mind. “Everyone’s fine, Gretchen,” he said, knowing she needed to hear it. “We went down, all right, and Kathryn went into labor a few weeks early, but other than shaving a few years off my life expectancy, there isn’t any lasting damage.”
She laughed slightly and squeezed his aching ribs one last time before pulling away. “I knew I could count on you, Chakotay. So why aren’t you with them now?”
He explained the situation quickly, both to her and the and to the nurse. Moments later, he was heading back to their room, a replicated bottle of breast milk in his hands and his mother-in-law at his side. She watched, an amused expression on his face, as he tapped a few drops onto the skin of his inner wrist. “It’s replicated Chakotay,” she laughed. “It’s going to be perfect temperature.”
He grinned sheepishly. “I’m new at this Gretchen. Give me a few days to find my daddy legs, okay?” He caught an odd look on her face, and peered at her.
“What?”
Her expression turned pleading. “Don’t suppose you’d let an old hand have one more try?”
For a second his hand squeezed jealously on the bottle, but her eyes, so like her daughter’s, worked their usual magic. “I’m a sucker for the Janeway women,” he sighed, handing over the bottle, “Just my luck to have a daughter, so I’ve got another female to wrap me around her little finger.”
“Fate, Chakotay,” Gretchen crowed, scooping the bottle out of his hands before he could change his mind. Clucking like the mother hen she was, she proceeded into the room a few steps ahead of him. She headed straight for the cradle, but Chakotay stopped beside Kathryn’s bed.
She was still sleeping peacefully, and he touched her lips with trembling fingers. The soft breath that brushed his fingers reassured him, but he knew, instinctively, that it would be quite a while before the fear left him entirely. Despite his comforting words to Gretchen, the crash had been one of the most terrifying events of his life.
He didn’t remember much before waking up in the Starfleet hospital, wracked with pain and nearly out of his mind with a frantic need to get to Kathryn.
The doctor’s had tried arguing with him until Chakotay used his fists to punctuate his point. After that, everyone had prudently stayed out of his way. He made it to her side in time to see her bring their child into the world, but his battered body had collapsed soon afterwards. By the time he woke up again, the doctor’s had managed to patch up the various injuries that he had sustained.
As far as they could tell, judging by his injuries and the position the rescue crew had found them in, Chakotay had tried to shield Kathryn with his own body shortly before impact. For his part, he had no recollection of the event, but judging by the damage he’d sustained and his state of mind when he woke, it was probably a fairly accurate guess.
Still, all three of them had made it, a fact that he planned to offer prayers of thanks for as soon as everything calmed down.
“Chakotay?”
Startled out of his reverie, he glanced over to where Gretchen was standing frozen beside the crib. Something about her stance alerted him, and he crossed the distance between them quickly.
There was a second baby in the crib.
Blinking in shock, he stared at the curl-haired toddler in a miniature Starfleet uniform that now shared space with his newborn daughter. The little boy was, for his part, staring at the baby girl with a singularly rapt expression.
“Who would dress a baby in a Starfleet uniform?” Gretchen asked, her voice perplexed. “And how did he get here?”
His heart nearly stopped. Before his brain had even finished putting the pieces together, he had lunged across the room, snatching his daughter from the cradle. Gretchen stared at him as he retreated back towards the door, clutching his baby protectively against his chest. He would have fled from the room if he wasn’t terrified to leave Kathryn unprotected.
Gretchen stared at him, her mouth open. “Chakotay? What is wrong with you?”
“Gretchen, back away from that child,” Chakotay said, keeping his voice quiet while he tried to interject the proper note of caution into his tone. “Slowly, but do it now.”
She stared at him, obviously convinced that he’d lost his mind. “It’s just a baby, Chakotay,” she laughed. Then, to his horror, she leaned over and picked up the baby. He stretched his tiny arms towards Chakotay, who backed up another step, clutching his daughter protectively. Gretchen didn’t seem to notice as she continued speaking to the baby. “Who do you belong to, little one?”
There was a flash of light, and Chakotay groaned.
“He belongs to me.” The aristocratic voice of the female Q rang out with no small authority. She stomped forward and snatched her child from Gretchen’s hands. The baby barely seemed to notice as he continued to stare fixedly at the youngest Janeway female.
“Hello, Q,” Chakotay said tensely. “Why is he doing that?”
“Chuckles,” she replied by way of greeting. “And he has some sort of fascination with her.”
Chakotay felt his skin go clammy. “No. Oh, no. You keep that… that thing away from my daughter.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Believe me, if I could, I would. I have absolutely no desire to see my son slumming around on some backwater planet. Who knows what he might be exposed to.”
Gretchen looked from one to the other, her eyebrows jumping. “If this is going to get violent,” she said finally, “Maybe you’d better let me have the babies.” Before either of them could object, Gretchen had the baby Q back in the crib and her granddaughter against her shoulder. She hummed happily as she fed the gurgling baby girl. “And don’t wake my daughter,” she told them, a thread of steel in her voice.
They stared at her. Q sighed after a moment. This is all Q’s fault,” she muttered. “Filling my babies head with all sorts of nonsense about Earth and humans. But this is just too much. I’m going to wring his neck.”
“I’ll help,” Chakotay told her, crossing his arms over his chest.
She smirked slightly. “Have you got a reason?”
“I’ll take any reason you’ve got.”
Q laughed, a short sound. “Either way, no matter whose fault it is, I’m afraid we’re stuck with each other.”
Chakotay stared at her, feeling a headache beginning just beneath his skull. “And why is that?”
She nodded towards the crib. The baby Q was still staring at his daughter, his eyes gleaming above his toothless grin. Chakotay felt a shudder travel down his spine as he suddenly had a bleak vision of his future as a father flashed through his mind.
He buried his head in his hands. “Oh spirits,” he moaned. “She’s not even a day old. We haven’t even named her. I refuse to begin worrying about her love life.”
“Don’t even think of it,” groaned out Q. “I will not permit-”
The baby disappeared from Gretchen’s arms and appeared in the crib. Q stomped over and picked her up, obviously intending to hand her back to Chakotay. But his daughter, jostled and unhappy, threw up. Everyone froze as the Q looked down at the mess on her shirt. “This is going to be the longest hundred or so years any Q has ever suffered through,” she sighed.
There was a flash, and both Q were gone. Chakotay looked down at his daughter. “Your mama would be proud of you,” he chuckled.
“You mean she will be proud,” Gretchen said. “When you tell her.”
“I’m not telling her our daughter is the focus of attention of a baby Q. If you want to, you can.”
Her eyes went wide. “Actually I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”
“I thought not.”
“She’ll find out eventually.”
A long pause. “Hopefully, by then, I’ll be dead.” Gretchen laughed. Chakotay looked down at the baby, who was sleeping peacefully in his arms. “Maybe I should name you Trouble.”
He could have sworn she smiled.
