IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER
Disclaimer: Paramount owns Voyager, Janeway, Chakotay.
PART TWELVE
"Enter."
Kathryn took a deep breath as Chakotay stepped into her ready room. There was a smile on his face. They were only seventeen hours from Earth, a great and momentous journey ended when Voyager travelled through the Borg transwarp hub and they found themselves home.
"You wanted to see me, Captain?"
She remained standing behind her desk. Her heart raced. She wondered how he would react to her request. Elizabeth was three weeks old and she had seen the baby only in the seconds after her birth.
"Yes. We'll be home within hours now and I have prepared all reports to be handed to Starfleet when we dock. I've been given the assurance that all Maquis will be pardoned as well as the five officers of the Equinox crew."
"Thank you. I won't be staying on Earth."
"I am aware of that, Commander. I can't hold you back."
"We'll be leaving for Dorvan V after the debriefings."
She nodded. The past weeks she had been at her best deflecting her heartache into work, work and more work. She had returned to her normal friendly communication with her crew. They were wary of her, it seemed, but she had persevered and finally managed to convince them that she was still the same person on the outside, the same captain who led them steadfastly, never giving up that they would one day be home. She was glad of that. B'Elanna had given birth as well and the experience had mellowed her towards her captain.
Now as she looked at Chakotay, his face, his smile so achingly dear to her, she hoped that he would be forthcoming.
"I know. I won't be seeing you again, I take it?"
She knew she sounded a little off-hand, the question just a matter of confirming information.
"No. We'll be raising Elizabeth there. Look, if you're trying - "
"Chakotay," she sighed, almost losing her courage, "I have just one request, if you'll grant me it."
"You can't get her, Kathryn."
Keep your heart pumping. Don't let him see you bleed.
"Chakotay, it seems I did everything wrong in all of what has happened. We should never have made love. I can tell you now it was my most memorable experience for it sealed our friendship and changed the boundaries. But I screwed up."
"It's not that - "
"Yes. My instantaneous revulsion of being pregnant, not wanting to keep the baby - that didn't endear me to you, I know. In fact, from there everything I did to make things right went downhill. I am sorry and you will never know how sorry I am. I am not the witch or the murderer or the disinterested mother you have made me out to be.
"But I had transgressed in your eyes. Nothing I did could change your opinion of me. The opposite happened and now I know that you must hate me. You cannot know how deeply I regret that. 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, Chakotay, except my captaincy: four rank pips that held Voyager together because you were there to help carry that burden.
"I have lost my rights over my baby and yes, from where you're standing, I never deserved those rights. You're thinking I don't have feelings, I don't want the baby, that I made several attempts to terminate her existence. Why would I do that? She was created in the most beautiful moments of my life. You're thinking I gave her away. Yes, I did that and I cannot explain why. I see you are very happy with your little girl and Sarah must be overjoyed too. You have known me for so long, yet our friendship couldn't survive mistrust, lack of faith and compassion when I asked that you believe my innocence.
"When you leave Earth for Dorvan V I will probably never see my daughter again. Therefore I ask you this one wish, just this one, Chakotay."
Kathryn watched him closely. He looked indecisive for a moment, as if he had to ask Sarah first. Her heart sank. She felt close to tears. But she was never going to cry again. Never. So she held those tears back and swallowed painfully.
"What do you want?"
"To spend only one hour with my baby, to say goodbye to her."
Did something flash in his eyes? Was he afraid that she was going to make a claim and take the child away from him, the father? Why was he hesitating?
"Please..."
"One hour then."
He didn't wait for her to reply. He was out of the ready room before she could speak. Kathryn sank back in her chair. At least he didn't refuse outright.
Sighing, she pressed her commbadge.
"Janeway to Gilmore."
"Marla here, Captain. What can I do for you?"
"Could you and Mariah come to my quarters at 1400?"
**********
It was Chakotay himself who brought Elizabeth to her in the holodeck where she had recreated the lounge of the farmhouse in Indiana. The room was large, airy, yet warm. There was a great fireplace and over the mantelpiece stood gilt-framed photographs. There were two large windows, the one really French doors leading to the porch and the other a bay window that overlooked the spacious lawns that tapered gently down to a gentle stream. In the distance the small shuttle launching pad could be discernable.
Kathryn had been nervous that Chakotay might turn back again. But he walked to her and placed the baby carefully in her arms.
Her eyes closed briefly, wonderingly, at the feel of the sleeping baby in her arms. Elizabeth smelled of baby powder and everything baby. She sat down on the couch and forgot about Chakotay's presence there. Elizabeth was beautiful with her flush cheeks, rosy lips and dark hair.
She had asked Mariah Henley and Marla to join her in half an hour. But for now her baby slept peacefully in her arms and when she yawned, her little hand went to her mouth and an instinctive sucking action started.
The baby's cheeks felt wet as Kathryn caressed it and then she realised it was her own tears that had spilled on the child. She looked up. Chakotay stood at the fireplace, but his image blurred through the sheen of her tears.
"Thank you..."
The baby's eyes opened, and for the first time Kathryn saw the colour of Elizabeth's eyes, a more piercing blue-grey than her own. The downy hair was her own colour. Trembling fingers touched velvety soft skin, counted fingers, touched the rosiest lips she ever saw. She planted a kiss on the baby's head. Elizabeth made soft mewling sounds, like a tiny, tiny kitten just born. Her head lolled and when it was positioned that she face Kathryn, their eyes made contact.
Kathryn knew the baby couldn't focus at that stage, but to her it felt as if the child knew her. Another tear rolled down and dripped on Elizabeth's hand. She was losing her resolve not to shed tears, but holding the helpless infant in her arms, thinking it was the last time she would ever see the child again, dislodged the boulder she had rolled in front of those floodgates of unhappiness. Finally, unable to hold back, she pressed the baby to her and wept.
When the tears stopped, she smiled sadly.
"I'm saying goodbye, Elizabeth. I don't think I'll ever see you again. But you're going with your daddy and new mommy to live happy together in a place very far away. You behave now, will you? I know you will. You're so small... Maybe one day I will see you all grown up, who knows? But fate has not been kind to me lately. I don't know if that will happen, but it's okay. I want you to know that I love you and I will always love you. You will always, always be here, in my heart, understand?"
So she kept talking to the child who could only stare at her with unfocused eyes. Chakotay remained at the fireplace, not moving. She appreciated that he didn't interfere with her moments with the baby. In softly whispered tones she spoke to Elizabeth of her love, of growing up, of being a teenager, of going to school and winning prizes. Once she looked up sharply when she heard a sound from Chakotay. He had taken a step forward, then, in aching disappointment, he resumed his position at the mantelpiece.
Later, when Marla and Mariah arrived - Kathryn couldn't help noticing how Mariah gave Chakotay a dirty look - they asked him to leave the holodeck.
"We have another half hour you gave us, Chakotay," she told him. "The captain needs this privacy, understand?"
"I'll wait outside."
"Fine. Go and count your blessings while you're there."
When he left, Mariah began taking pictures of her with the baby, using the imager she had replicated in their second year after saving replicator rations for months.
"Smile, Captain..."
Her tears had dried, she had smoothed her hair and hoped her make-up wasn't smudged. She wondered absently how Sarah had reacted, and then summarily dismissed all thoughts of the ensign.
"Now, hold her up and against you, Captain. Yes, in a nice hug. Profile shot. Just turn baby's head to look at the imager..."
Mariah continued to take shots, of Kathryn with the baby, of the baby alone, of all of them together, letting the timer run while she quickly dashed to sit next to Marla.
"Captain," Marla said, "do you have any idea how much Elizabeth resembles you? It's uncanny. I've never seen a likeness in an infant so young."
"Her eyes are exactly the same colour," Mariah said as she took a few close-up studio shots of the baby.
Finally, with minutes to spare, they all sat together, with Kathryn in the middle and holding Elizabeth close to her. The girls touched the baby's cheeks, her tiny fingers, made cooing baby sounds.
"She's a beautiful baby. My word! Look how she nudges her face against you, Captain!"
Kathryn had noticed too. Elizabeth was probably hungry. She had never taken the boosters the doctor had suggested she used in order to breastfeed the baby. So many things had changed since that day. But suddenly a sharp stab of pain shot through her breasts. She was lactating, she knew, as it had happened the previous night too.
She sighed as she kissed the baby one last time, for Chakotay had entered the holodeck again. Very gently he took the baby from her.
"It was the best I could do, Kathryn," he said, his eyes uncommonly bleak.
She nodded, feeling bereft of the weight of the baby in her arms, trying not to feel at all as Chakotay left the holodeck.
There was a hushed silence in the room. Mariah and Marla, a Maquis and an Equinox officer, ones who had struggled to fit in and become part of Voyager, sat beside her. She leaned over, resting her hands on her knees and kept staring at the floor. Now her tears were over, she thought. She would have to take the precious hour she had with her baby and stretch it to last the rest of her lifetime in which she would remember, or, strive to forget.
She felt the hands of her friends on her shoulders, touches that offered solace in her grieving.
"Captain, you know what?" said Marla in the gentle way she always had of speaking. "Don't despair. As tiny as Elizabeth is, she is going to take your smell with her to Dorvan and she will remember. I believe that when she is told of the circumstances of her birth, she will want to come looking for you."
Kathryn straightened up.
"Thank you Marla. These last weeks, I don't know what I would have done without you."
"If we could do more..."
"Stay in contact with me, wherever you'll be posted?"
"Aye, Admiral!" the two of them chorused.
****************
Captain's Personal Log, Stardate : 550794
We are home, finally, after seven years. I have returned but left my heart somewhere on Dorvan in the hands of a tiny infant. I cannot hate Chakotay anymore. There is nothing left in me to hate. He has taken Elizabeth with him and Sarah who is now her mother. I believe they have married and together they will raise the child. In that, I suppose, I should take comfort: my daughter has two parents raising her. I picture Sarah as she stood next to Chakotay just before they left, holding the baby possessively. Had Chakotay seen her look of malicious intent, he might have reconsidered his decision to leave.
My health is failing. In the bleakness of winter I care not whether I live or die. I am frozen like the icicles hanging from the eaves of my house in Indiana. I am cold like the icy stream that flows not far from the house and which sometimes, in the heart of winter, freezes over. I am lonely like the solitary wolf as it crosses the white landscape of the remote, silent Steppes where the only sound is the sound of its breathing. It is dark around me and inside me. I function, yes, but I don't live. I have family who express their concern and who tell me I should demand to take what belongs to me.
But I have made a decision, one not of my own choosing, ultimately. Inspired by a malicious, devious, petty and obsessive individual, Sarah Hargreaves held my daughter hostage for the sole purpose of getting the man with whom she was in love. Who was the heartless, cruel one? I sometimes wondered.
Love can make us do strange things. It takes us to the skies to dwell and hover there on gentle clouds, and we can believe that miracles can happen, or it can take us to the depths of wickedness.
I gave away my darling baby girl not because I didn't want her, but because I loved her too much. There can be no greater love than the sacrifice we make in the name of that love, and so I let her go. It has broken my heart into a million pieces and I have absolutely no idea how to become whole again.
My heart is hollow.
My eyes pierce the dry landscape of Africa, or Mexico, or the moon of Mars or Earth and I see the mirage forming in the distance. The mirage appears like shimmering rings, beckoning me to lose myself in my illusion. My illusion is simple, unaffected. I had a child. I see her in the shimmering, cruel, cruel distance that distorts her image and finally when I reach her, taunts me with its reality. There is nothing that I can see except the rocks - heated, angry, silent witnesses to my rage.
My heart is hollow.
My ears have stopped listening for a voice that cries at night when it's hungry or when it's wet, or simply, when it needs comfort. My ears have lost the familiarity of sounds of her, my little one. I die, I live, I die again, for the sounds terrorise me at night and make me lose my sanity. My illusion is simple: I hear her voice as she says "I love you, Mommy", but when I strain to isolate the words from the raging wind at night, there is nothing, not even a whisper.
My heart is hollow.
My senses knew how soft a baby's skin could be to the touch and it rang in memories of then, when I could hold her just once, just once. I felt her in me and she knew my tears as they fell on her. I inhaled her and she came to live in me, filling me with her knowledge, her memory, her image. I walked the meadows, paused here and there, struck by the beauty of the vista before me. When I bent to smell a flower, she was there as familiar as the day I held her. And then, only then, I allow a tear to quench the flower's thirst for her.
My heart is hollow.
I cannot cry anymore, nor do I speak about my hopeless yearning. People have come to know of me and of Voyager. Mostly, they have come to know of Elizabeth, of her birth, of her parentage. Some question me about it. I find words impossible to direct my thoughts and so my inability to respond is seen as heartless. As on my ship, I am here, at home, a villain again.
I don't have peace anymore. I don't know what it is. I have become restless, missions to deep space no longer the diversion I craved. Sleep has become an expensive commodity. My heart bleeds night after night when I lie in my bed, for after the toil and tribulations and noise of the day, my rest is as elusive as my peace.
My heart is hollow.
I try to forget. I try to forget.
Then I tell myself that one day, one day I shall go and tell Chakotay my story.
For Elizabeth's sake alone, I hope he listens.
End personal log.
******************
END PART TWELVE