For the love of a friend
a
story by
vanhunks
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer for all parts: Paramount owns the characters.
Summary: In a certain universe, Voyager travels a further 23 years before they reach the Alpha Quadrant. Chakotay grieves his loss. How far would Kathryn go to help her dearest friend?
PART
ONE
The
light was at ten percent illumination in sickbay when Kathryn Janeway entered.
Somehow, she had expected it. There was a silence that hung in the air,
yet it carried with it the soft strains of an ancient hymn of sorrow. It touched
her as it touched everyone in the last few hours. Her eyes were riveted to the
biobed and the figure that lay on it, to the man who sat with bowed head in a
chair next to the bed. Her footsteps quickened and the EMH looked up
distractedly, then continued to work, briskly touching panels and monitoring
read-outs.
Kathryn
reached the bed, looked first at the patient, then at the man who sat hunched in
the chair. His face showed little emotion, but the lines around his mouth were
tight, white, like a wanderer in the desert long deprived of water. His large
hand covered that of the still figure on the bed, his thumb stroking and
stroking it in an uneven, jerky motion. She
touched his shoulder gently and her heart contracted painfully when he
stiffened at her touch.
"We've
arranged the memorial service for 1700, Commander..."
"No..."
the denial burst from him. "She's not dead..."
"Chakotay..."
"Can't
you see?" Chakotay said as he spared Kathryn a sorrowed glance, eyes in
which the black night had come to stay. Her hand left his shoulder and she
turned to look at the woman. Seven appeared pale, the stiffness of death already
setting in. Yet her face looked peaceful, Kathryn thought. Ironic, considering
the violent manner of her demise.
"He
won't let me cover her face, Captain," the EMH said, finally moving to the
small incubator nearest the console he was working at.
"You
have your daughter to think of now, Chakotay," Kathryn said quietly, her
heart breaking for her friend. "She's needs you."
Chakotay
looked up at her. His eyes were hollow. Hollow and fierce and angry. Her words
seemed to have washed over him and he frowned as if he couldn't understand the
import of it. Since the moment Seven of Nine was beamed into sickbay, Chakotay
had not once directed his attention to the newborn infant. The doctor pressed
his frame between her and Chakotay.
"Commander,
I have to prepare the body for its last rites - "
"Just
a few minutes... Just let me stay with her a few minutes...please..."
The
Doctor glanced at Kathryn. Chakotay was falling apart. In truth, it had already
happened. If they couldn't get him back on track very soon... Sighing, she bent
to touch Chakotay's shoulder again.
"A
few minutes, Chakotay. It's getting late..."
When
he nodded wordlessly and turned to touch the dead woman's face again, Kathryn
Janeway moved away from him and walked over to the incubator. She stood there, a
warmth and intense compassion filling her as she looked at the motherless baby
girl.
"It
was touch and go, Captain," the EMH whispered as he reset the temperature.
"She's six weeks premature and suffered fetal distress..."
The
Doctor's words were superfluous. It was understood. Seven's death was traumatic
and violent. A few more minutes, and the baby
would have died if the EMH hadn't transported her out of Seven's torn body.
After that the EMH had worked a few small miracles saving the child's life.
Chakotay, too caught up in his wife lying dead on the biobed, seeing the
severity of her injuries, had been unaware of the medical wonder the doctor had
performed. There hadn't been any reaction from Chakotay when the infant had
given her first plaintive cry as if she knew already that her mother was dead.
All these facts Kathryn knew already, but the Doctor needed to say it again, a
kind of self-corroboration as witness that the baby was alive and well.
"But
she'll make it," Kathryn affirmed.
"Oh
yes."
At
that moment the baby stirred. Tiny fists waved the air. Her little face creased
and the sound that escaped her sounded to Kathryn like the wail of a lost little
kitten. She gave herself a mental shake to
dispel the awful analogy. For a moment she looked at the doctor, not
certain what to do. Then he gestured she put her hand through the gloved
aperture on the side of the incubator. She hesitated a moment, turned to look at
the biobed where Seven of Nine lay motionless and held her breath as she
proceeded to stick her hand through the aperture.
"It's
okay, Captain. You're cleared for touch," the Doctor assured her as she
felt a whoosh pass over her hand.
Entranced,
Kathryn touched the tiny baby's hand. Long, thin fingers curled instantly round
her index finger.
"Oh..."
"It's
a reflex movement, Captain," the EMH said softly.
The
plaintive crying stopped suddenly and the next moment the baby opened her eyes.
A pair of brilliant blue eyes, like the spring sky on a bright cloudless
morning, stared up at Kathryn. She felt like something touched her heart, or
more likely an arrow pierced it when it seemed to her the baby's eyes were fixed
on her. She'd marvel for year
afterwards why it was that some babies could look so directly at a person just
minutes after birth. Kathryn blinked several times, her index finger still in
the grasp of tiny spindly fingers of the baby.
"It's
as if she knows me..." Kathryn said in wonder. "How could that
be...?" Seconds later the baby's grasp loosened. She caressed the child's
hair which Kathryn could see, already showed signs that she was going to be
blonde - golden ripe corn.
When
she felt the doctor's hand touch her shoulder, she withdrew her hand
reluctantly.
"She'll
be ready to leave the incubator in a few days," the doctor said
matter-of-factly. "After that, Commander Chakotay - " He paused
abruptly, turned his head in the direction of the biobed, then looked at the
Captain again. "She'll need constant care, Captain. Without a mother, this
poor little infant..."
"I'll
see to it, Doctor. I'll have a word with Commander Chakotay after the memorial
service..."
"Fine.
The infant will need her first feed very soon. I see she's already eating her
fist." The EMH smiled, for the baby's eyes had closed again and she looked
to be sleeping peacefully.
Kathryn
nodded, walked over to where Chakotay sat holding Seven of Nine's hand. For a
few minutes she allowed the grief to wash over her too. The former Borg lay in
death as aloof as she had been in life the first few years after she had come on
board Voyager. They had tried everything to save her. The first few seconds when
even the EMH worked in furious denial of the truth before him had been
harrowing. By the time Tom Paris arrived in sick bay, the doctor had already
started working on saving the life of the baby.
It
wasn't enough.
Chakotay
had been demented in the first hour after Seven had been beamed to Voyager.
Ensign Dillinger had been killed on impact, but Seven of Nine's injuries were
too severe. By the time she had been beamed to Voyager she was declared dead on
arrival, but the baby still alive...
"She
wouldn't listen, Kathryn!" he had shouted at her. "I told her not to
go - "
"And
I overrode your decision. I sent her on that mission, Commander. It was a
routine inspection check that given her condition, shouldn't have resulted in
the catastrophic complications it did. Tuvok is conducting a full
investigation..."
Chakotay
had been trembling with rage, unable to control his emotions. She had been
filled with silent guilt that she had sent the pregnant woman on an away
mission. Nothing was supposed to have gone wrong. Nothing.
"She
should have stayed, dammit. Why wouldn't she listen to me?"
"Because,
Chakotay, it was an order I gave her and she was confident that it would not
impede her health or jeopardise the welfare of your child. She gave me that
assurance and the Doctor confirmed it."
She
had wanted to throw her arms around her friend and hug him. But Chakotay turned
from her abruptly and almost charged the doctor.
"Do
something, Doctor! Why can't you do something?"
The
doctor had given a shrug, his own demeanour sad.
"Anything...?"
Chakotay asked again, his voice urgent, pleading. Only minutes before the doctor
had successfully delivered the tiny baby but Chakotay had hardly given his
newborn infant a look, his eyes only on his wife of three years.
"I'm
sorry, Commander. There's nothing we can do for her. Sorry..."
That
moment, Chakotay had broken down, half threw his body over that of his wife and
wept bitterly for a few minutes. Kathryn had waited till he calmed down
fractionally before she gripped his shoulder again, her own throat thick with
emotion. Before her lay the woman-child she had brought on board Voyager and
whom she nurtured and counseled, who challenged her openly and who sometimes was
so much the child who burned to understand the nature of her humanity. Now that
woman was dead and crying his rage was her husband who loved her and who
despaired of continuing his life without the former Borg by his side. Now, she
had to help her dearest friend through his grief and see to it that he
acknowledge his baby and care for her.
When
she reached Chakotay, she didn't touch him this time. Instead, she pulled the
sheet very gently over Seven's face. Chakotay looked on, stone-faced, unmoving,
unseeing, it seemed to her. She watched how he released his wife's hand slowly,
very carefully tucking it under the blue sheet. For a few seconds he clenched
his fists, knuckles straining furiously against tanned skin.
"Come,"
she commanded. "We must leave the Doctor to do his work here."
Chakotay
didn't move. A long time he sat like that, staring with unseeing eyes at the
blue sheet drawn over Seven's body. Then he gave a long shudder.
"She
was so happy...about the baby..."
"I
know. She told me, Chakotay," Kathryn whispered.
"Did
she tell you what we were going to name her?"
Kathryn
was glad that he was talking at least about his daughter; it was acknowledgement
that she was alive and in his life. She knew that Seven had put off naming their
child until the last.
"No...no,
she didn't."
"Only
last night, you know. We put off naming our baby..."
"You
must have had a reason, Chakotay."
He
nodded.
"There
was no real reason. But she - " Kathryn noticed how he couldn't say his
wife's name. "She desired Kathryn
Elizabeth and I said I didn't like the idea."
Kathryn
smiled. She felt a rush. Seven had wanted to name the baby for the Captain.
"Care
to tell me why, Chakotay?"
He
shrugged, the movement careless, apathetic.
"I
told her I wanted to know only one Kathryn. I suggested Carina.
Her - her name is Carina..."
"It's
a beautiful name, Chakotay. Nordic."
"I
know. She - she looked forward to being a - a m-mother - " he stammered.
Kathryn
watched how Chakotay's shoulders shook again for a few agonising moments.
Finally he rose to his feet, slowly, like a very old man. Kathryn thought his
eyes bleak. Not even the thought of his baby girl would remove the bleakness
from his eyes.
"Carina
has you, Chakotay, to care for her."
"And
I have no one, Kathryn..."
*
End Part one