Getting Home, part two
by Jennifer Ferris

**For notes and disclaimers see part one

~*~

Kathryn went to the bedroom door, calling out softly, "You can stop hiding now." Both children came tumbling out. Paka was tugging on his sister's hand. "We weren't hiding, Mom. Come on Liz, you've got to see her," he was saying impatiently.

Chakotay tagged his son as the boy burst into the room. "Paka," he warned. The boy rolled his eyes, but his attention was focused on his grandmother. He stopped in front of her. "What should I call you?" he asked, his voice perhaps a little challenging.

"I haven't had time to think about that," Deborah admitted gravely. "I didn't even know about you until I got here. Are you going to introduce me?" Her eyes smiling, she shifted her gaze from one child to the other.

Liz had her father's coloring. Dark hair, and dark eyes that right now were huge and a little frightened. Kathryn knelt by her daughter. "Lizzie, it's time you met your grandmother." She looked at Deborah. "Mom, this is Elizabeth."

"Hello, Elizabeth," Deborah said softly, kneeling down beside the girl. "Is that what you like to be called?"

The girl stared at her. "I didn't know I really had a grandmother," she said quietly, stating a fact.

"I didn't know about you, either," Deborah admitted. "I just found out. Feels a little funny, doesn't it."

A silent nod. Deborah knew she shouldn't push. She got up from the floor slowly, and crossed to sit on the couch. She left plenty of room beside her, just in case. "Maybe, later, I can tell you some stories about your mom. And then you can tell me some." she said quietly. She looked at both children.

Kathryn cleared her throat. "I think some of us are...a little overwhelmed."

Chakotay sat on the floor, deliberately shifting the focus in the room so the children would have a little time to get used to the idea that their family had suddenly grown. "It's just been us, for their whole lives, Deborah. The idea of having more family...we've talked about our parents, our families, but it's not the same as having you here." He smiled at her as he spoke.

Deborah recognized what he was doing. "Well...I know all about Kathryn's relatives," she said dryly. "But I don't know anything about yours, yet."

Kathryn shook her head, almost imperceptibly. Deborah raised an eyebrow, but Chakotay was already speaking. "Ah, I come from a big clan. Three sisters, lots of cousins, uncles, aunts. I don't know who's left," he said openly, as if this too was something they'd discussed many times. "But we'll have a chance to find out, now."

"It must be strange to be back," Deborah fastened on the change of subject, realizing there were things here she didn't understand. Plenty of time for that, too.

"You can't imagine... well, maybe you can," Janeway smiled. She pulled her daughter with her onto the other end of the couch, cuddling with Liz, positioning herself so that her arms were around her daughter, but Liz could watch her grandmother all she wanted to. "Just over a week ago we were 50 years from home. We thought. Then...well, we found our chance. The wormhole we'd been searching for, all this time. And everything changed. It's almost hard to make the adjustment," she said, smoothing her daughter's hair. Deborah noticed, with a little surprise, that there was a small feather braided into the wavy strands. "But worth it. Worth everything," she smiled.

"We got through on subspace right away, but it still took us days to reach DS9," Chakotay explained.

Paka interrupted. "Yeah, we got here and all of a sudden everybody was talking about Starfleet Command and the ships that met us and we headed for Deep Space Nine and how did you get here so quickly--" His voice broke off awkwardly.

"Maybe you could just call me 'grandmother', until we figure out something better," Deborah said to him. "How did I get here?" She glanced over at Kathryn. "I've kept in touch with the Admiralty. Of course, it's been less and less over the years. But enough that I heard, when the news came in." She grinned at Kolopak. "Of course I had to get here as fast as I could."

"How did you--" he broke off as Janeway's communicator buzzed.

Kathryn touched the badge on her uniform, her eyes still on Liz as she spoke. "Janeway."

"Captain--sorry to interrupt," Torres' voice came over the link. "I've been, um, asked to show some of the...officers...from DS9 around my engine room. They're asking a lot of questions," she said carefully.

"B'Elanna...can't it wait?"

"Of course, Captain. I'm sorry."

"It's all right. Tell them--you'll be happy to see them tomorrow. After they've talked to me. And they should call me first."

They could hear a smile in the engineer's voice. "Understood. Torres out."

As she closed the link, Janeway caught Deborah staring at her. She shrugged. "Well. There ought to be some advantages to being captain."

Behind her, Chakotay laughed. "They're going to be breathing down our necks, Kathryn."

"Let them." A look passed between them. Chakotay politely returned his attention back to Deborah.

. . .

They fixed a simple supper, in quarters. Chakotay surprised Deborah by cooking. "My grandmother taught me," he said. "And I'm a better cook than Kathryn. Believe me."

"Well, unless she's gotten a lot better at it--"

"She hasn't."

"-then you'd have to be." Deborah laughed at the expression on her daughter's face.

Chakotay sent Liz to the galley to bring back some fresh vegetables, and Deborah found her heart in her throat as the little girl brought back a flower, too, and placed it beside her grandmother's plate. "It's from Neelix," she explained carefully with the gravity of the very young.

She watched as the children assisted Chakotay. They were old enough to actually help, but Deborah had an irresistible mental image of toddlers in this room, wanting to be part of things, wanting to help, making a mess, being chastised, being cuddled...being loved.

They were taking great pains to impress her, minding their manners and keeping their voices quieter than they probably did normally. She wanted to tell them that she knew what children were like, she didn't expect this careful treatment. But she didn't. Let them get used to her a little, first.

The meal was wonderful. She couldn't remember what she ate, the moment she was finished. But it didn't matter. There was a lot of warmth in this home, she decided. More than Kathryn had gotten as a youngster, probably, trying as hard as she had to live up to impossible standards.

She realized she'd missed whatever Kathryn had said, that time.

"You'll stay here, won't you? On board, I mean."

"I hadn't thought about that yet," Deborah admitted.

"Of course you are," Kathryn persuaded. "Do you think I'm going to let you get that far out of my sight? To go back to the base? Bad enough we can't put you in here. But--"

"But I don't think I want my grandchildren's first real memory of their grandmother to be that I kicked them out of their room," Deborah agreed. "You think you can find me a cot somewhere?"

"I don't know," Chakotay mock-frowned as he nodded to the children, telling them without words to finish clearing away the table. "Do you suppose we could find an empty cabin somewhere, Captain?"

Janeway appeared to give it serious thought. "Maybe we could get somebody to double up."

"Will you two stop it?" Deborah shook her head in exasperation. "Yes. I'm staying here. I suppose I can borrow a toothbrush. I was just...thinking of other things, waiting for you to get here."

Kathryn reached across the table and squeezed her mother's hand. "Yes. I know. I shouldn't tease. But in this family, I've had to learn how, in pure self-defense."

Chakotay was laughing, saying something to Kathryn, pulling Lizzie into his lap as they talked, and Deborah found that she couldn't help just watching. She'd never thought to see this. Kathryn, alive and well, and with a family of her own. A beautiful family, Deborah thought, watching Chakotay with Paka and Elizabeth, watching Kathryn and the generous hugs and kisses she gave to her son and daughter.

The evening passed before she knew it. The children were finally sent to bed, and for all her resolve, Deborah found that she was tired. Well, it had been a strenuous day. When she found herself hiding a yawn for the third time, Chakotay shook his head at Kathryn and said, "We should let this woman get some sleep."

"All right. I know," Kathryn reached out to hug her mother. "This time we'll be here in the morning, Mom."

"I know. I just don't quite believe it."

"Come on," Chakotay held out his hand to her. "I'll walk you to your quarters. Kathryn thinks everybody knows where everything is. You wouldn't believe how often I got lost when I first came aboard. I never told her, of course."

They went down two decks and through several corridors before stopping at the door to the empty cabin. Chakotay smiled at Deborah. "I'll leave you in peace now. See you in the morning."

"No, come in for a minute. Please."

"Sure."

She sighed unconsciously as she crossed to the couch, and Chakotay smiled at her from across the room. "Quite a day."

She leaned back and closed her eyes. "Do you know, I'm exhausted. But it's a wonderful kind." She opened her eyes again and looked at him. "Thank you."

He sat down on the generic coffee table, facing her. "For what?"

"Should I make a list? For making my daughter happy, I guess."

He shook his head. "You've got that backwards, though. I-" and then he laughed at himself, at whatever he'd been thinking. "I can be unbelievably corny at times."

"I won't tell anybody."

"Oh, they know it," he said cheerfully. "Everybody knows how lucky I am. There was a lot of, um, teasing at first. I wasn't quite as...discreet as I might have been. Heart on the sleeve, and all that."

Deborah rolled her eyes. "I remember Kathryn talking, oh, I don't know how many years ago, about Starfleet and-"

"And protocol, and the rules that have to apply to everybody, and-"

They smiled at each other. Deborah nodded. "Yes. I imagine that was a problem for a while."

He shrugged. "We got past it."

She grinned again. "She said you were stubborn."

"She said I was stubborn. Oh, that woman," and he smiled to himself, shaking his head.

Deborah leaned back, her expression gone serious. "So...what happens now?"

"Ah." Chakotay stood up, stretching, and settled beside her on the sofa. "Well...there could be a lot of answers to that." He stared at some distant point for a moment. "I don't think anybody..." Some unnamed expression crossed his face, and he sighed. "Deborah."

"Yes?"

"Let me tell you something about your daughter," Chakotay said. "I don't think most people realize what it means, to be a starship captain. Do you?"

"Of course I do. I've spent my life around Starfleet. It took my husband. I thought I'd given it my daughter too."

"I know," he said gently. "But...forgive me. Being in Starfleet, being a captain... it's not the same thing, here, as it was out there. --I don't think I've ever known anyone braver than Kathryn."

"I don't know how you mean that. Yes, I suppose she is." Deborah curled up now, legs folded, so like her daughter, Chakotay thought. Her movements, her abrupt manner sometimes, even her laugh was like Kathryn's. He smiled at the thought.

"I don't mean physically," he answered. "Though there's that too. She's faced...terrible dangers out there. Sometimes alone. Without paying much attention to the thought of injury or death. As if she didn't have time for such worries. Well, she didn't I suppose, except maybe in that little corner of her that she won't admit to, that fearful human part. But that's not what I meant."

He shook his head. "All the officers you've ever known, even the admirals--no matter how high the rank, or how great the responsibility-- they're part of a larger structure. They've got backup. But for all the time we were in the Delta Quadrant...and we thought it would be our whole lives... She had no one. No authority to appeal to, or help to ask for. Think about how crushing that would be. Whatever happened, it was her fault."

"Of course it wasn't," Deborah protested. "I know what you're saying. But she wasn't--"

"Yes, she was. Oh, 'fault' is the wrong word. But it was her responsibility. I couldn't take that from her, I couldn't help with that. I don't know how she bore it."

"She had you, at least," Deborah tilted her head, watching Chakotay. Seeing the intensity in his eyes.

"Yes, she had me. And I had her. Thank the gods."

"She said you saved her. That she wouldn't have made it, without you."

"Did she?" A little smile, not meant for Deborah, touched his eyes, and he looked away for a moment. "I think she would've. But the pressure...I don't know what it would have done to her. Without at least a safety valve."

"I wondered about that," Deborah said. Chakotay looked at her in surprise, and she shook her head. "The last few days, waiting. It was a very long three days," she said dryly.

"I can imagine."

"Yes. Well. I started to worry, of course. And wonder what the years had done to her. I never dreamed she'd be so rich." Shyly, she reached and touched Chakotay's arm.

He grasped her hand gently between his own. "Yes. We're very blessed."

"She wouldn't use that word. Not the way you mean it, I think."

"No. Though I'm working on it." Chakotay flashed that smile again and Deborah wondered, once more, how Kathryn had resisted him for so long.

He was shaking his head now. "Though there's a reason I brought all this up."

"Oh. Yes?" And Deborah straightened a bit, retrieving her hand and bracing herself somehow against the undercurrent in Chakotay's voice.

"No, nothing bad. Not exactly. Just...I think you need to understand this." He leaned forward, elbows propped on his knees, and turned his head to look at Deborah again. "As bad as it was, sometimes, during those first years. The terrible..." he sighed, facing some memory. "The stress and the uncertainty. The weight she had to bear. She'd have you think that was the worst of it."

"Yes. She said something like that. That it had been very bad at first, and that lately it was mostly just managing. Making do."

"Perhaps." With seeming irrelevancy, he added, "Were you surprised she has children?"

Deborah smiled. "I was...astonished. But of course I hadn't known what happened, I didn't know you thought you were out there forever. That would change things. Still, I don't think having children was as important to her as to many women. Of course it wasn't. She had other priorities."

"Yes. And she already had 150 children, on the ship. That was the way we thought of it, sometimes. So many of them were so young. And yet...do you know, when she told me she was pregnant...Well. That's a day I hold in my heart. We both ended up in tears, that day." He smiled at the memory. Then he shook his head. "I worried more than she did during her whole pregnancy. Both of them. She's strong, but she's so small. And she was 46 when she conceived Paka. Even in this day and age, that's late to start having babies. But that's not my point, either."

He flashed a look at Deborah, the intensity back in his eyes. "Can you understand how hard it would be to *decide* to have children. Out there. To give that kind of hostage to fortune."

"Of course I can, Chakotay," Deborah said. "I have two daughters. And I gave one away and she was snatched from me."

He touched her cheek apologetically. "I know. Forgive me. I guess the only difference is that we were so alone. We had no way of ever being sure where we'd find help, or energy, or food for that matter. And to bring children to that. Every woman on this ship who has children deserves a medal."

"But I say all this to tell you something. After Paka and Lizzie were born... think about how afraid she must have been."

"Every mother is afraid, you know. Every parent."

"Yes. But they don't have to... Deborah, a few years ago we were going through a very...troubled area. We were caught between two factions, pawns really. The details don't matter. They threatened to destroy us, if we wouldn't give them -- well, something Kathryn wouldn't give them. Couldn't, if she were to hold true to what she knew was right. It would have helped one side enough that there would have been devastation on that planet. Genocide. But they had our ship. They had the Voyager. Almost all the crew was aboard, and all the children. Paka was four then. Elizabeth was barely a year old."

"They told her exactly what they were going to do. She knew. We all knew. She had to look them in the eye and tell them to go to hell." Chakotay reached for Deborah's hand again and held it, eyes focused on her fingers, squeezing unconsciously. Not describing what he himself had gone through in that terrible time. "She did it. She had to, and she did. Knowing she was condemning us all to--"

"Us? You weren't with her?"

"No. I was on the ship. It was my place to...carry out her orders."

Deborah held her breath, watching Chakotay. Not really understanding how either of them could live with those conditions. Except, she told herself, they had no choice. So they did it. We carry the burdens we must, she told herself.

"And then the danger passed and we managed to grab her from the planet and get away. She was fine during the crisis. She kept that steel in her backbone and she got her ship out of danger. After that, of course, she fell apart. Not so most of the crew noticed, maybe. But... she was physically ill. She woke up almost every day, for a few weeks, throwing up. If she hadn't gone for an examination, we'd have thought she was pregnant again. But that's not what it was. Her body was rejecting her. What she'd had to do. She was... it was months before she was really all right again."

"And what about you? How were you during this crisis?"

"Deborah... she was right. I knew that. And I wasn't the one who had to decide. No matter that I understood, or that I would have died too. That would have been much easier, than what Kathryn had to do."

"And that's my point. We're home now. I didn't think we'd ever be back here, you know. All these years, Kathryn has talked about bringing her people home. I've been home all that time." He shook himself. "None of that matters."

He reached out to Deborah again. "I think in some ways the next months are going to be very hard. I think she's going to need your help."

Deborah started. "...my help? How?"

"I don't know where they'll send us," Chakotay said absently, standing up and pacing a bit, looking around the room but not seeing it. "We don't even know what their reaction is, really, about me and the Maquis. We've stopped thinking in those terms so long ago. But Starfleet has a long memory. I don't think they'll send me to prison," he paused, as Deborah made an involuntary sound of protest, "but they might. I certainly don't expect them to let me continue to serve with Kathryn. Not on a starship. And... B'Elanna, Tom, Ken, Aya... all of them. We don't know what will happen. Well--Kathryn and I have been prepared for that, in theory. I'm finding that theory and reality are two different things. We could manage to deal with that, somehow. And Kathryn is a...formidable opponent, if they should prove to be--adversarial."

Chakotay turned to her, shaking his head. "But it isn't that simple. Even if we could work all that out -- somehow - there's Paka and Lizzie. The ships that allow whole families are very rare. Kath's something of a ten-day wonder, right now. The hero who brought us all back. But we can't count on that lasting. Not at the Admiralty."

Arms folded across his chest, his eyes searched Deborah's face. "This is going to be very difficult for her. I don't know where we'll end up. But wherever it is... she's going to be at something of a loss."

He grimaced. "She reacts well to adversity. She tightens her belt and keeps on going. But she's going to have to face a different kind of attack now. She's going to be floundering, and she doesn't do that well. And she's probably going to be something of a bitch during part of it." He grinned. "She does do that well. I just wanted you to have some idea of what was coming. Of what to expect. Because she's going to need you."

Deborah stirred after a moment, her heart going out to this man and her daughter and all the things they hadn't thought of yet. "I'll be there," she said.

"I know."

"But... what about you," Deborah said soberly. She got up from the couch and stood before Chakotay. "What about your family? You haven't been in contact with them yet?"

"...I don't know where they are. From the reports I've seen, there's almost no one left on Dorvan. I don't know... who survived. My people are very good at disappearing. We've had to do it too often. I don't how to find them. I've been hoping all the news stories would have brought..." He shook his head. "But nothing, yet."

"Oh." Her voice was soft as she laid her hand on his arm. "That must be very hard."

"It is," he admitted. "But it's mostly for my mother. I hope she has a way to find out I'm not dead. And that she has grandchildren. More grandchildren," he smiled.

"What about your father?"

"Oh. We haven't had time to talk about all that yet. My father's been dead for twenty years. That was part of the reason I joined the Maquis. Most of it, probably, though I wouldn't admit that for a long time. I--"

His communicator sounded, interrupting them.

Chakotay smiled and touched the insignia on his chest. "Chakotay here."

"I don't know who I should be chastising," Janeway's voice said. "Are you going to let my mother get some sleep? Or should I complain to her? Mom, are you going to send Chakotay home anytime soon?"

Deborah smiled. "I don't know, Katie. I kind of like having him around."

Janeway laughed. "So do I. Well, when you get tired of him, kick him out."

Chakotay shook his head at them both. "I'll be there in a few minutes," he said to the comm.

"All right. --Good night, Mother."

"Night, Kate...Captain."

"Ha." And the link went dead.

Deborah walked with Chakotay to the door. "Thank you," she said quietly. "We have more to talk about."

"Endlessly," he leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek. "I'll see you in the morning. Do you think you can find your way back? Tell you what. I'll send Paka down for you. Not too early," he grinned.

"That'd be fine. And..." Deborah shrugged, a little, and looked seriously up at him. "It doesn't really make any difference, you know."

"What."

"All the fuss out there, whatever they try to do. I've got my daughter back, so what can they do to upset me? And you've got each other. At the end, that's all that counts."

He smiled in understanding at her. "Yes. It is."

After he'd gone, she laughed at herself. She'd forgotten to ask them if they'd ever gotten married.

As if it mattered.

FIN

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