The Sand Paintings

Chapter three: Kyrie

 by

vanhunks

A series of stories following "Finding Kathryn"  

Rating: [PG-13] 

Disclaimer: Paramount owns Janeway and Chakotay

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The new series "The Sand Paintings" follow the short story "Finding Kathryn". "Kyrie" is the third story in the series.

SUMMARY: Kathryn and Chakotay get to know their daughter better. Elizabeth explores her surroundings and Chakotay is unsettled. From Kathryn's POV.

*

THE SAND PAININGS

KYRIE

Elizabeth Brinkmann was now formally Elizabeth Phoebe Janeway. It was hard to describe just how much it meant to me as her mother to have our family together once again. Going back in time to retrieve memories - much against my will, I suppose - was counter-productive to my restored equilibrium. Yet, in order to go forward, we had to visit aspects of the past again, however much it pained me to do so.

Make no mistake. I love Chakotay with my whole heart and soul, and there's nothing in this universe I wouldn't do for him. In a sense he suffered more than I did. I was the object of terror, of the vilest and most reprehensible acts against my person, but Chakotay was the terrorised husband, forced to witness my degradation at the hands of men.

That time is past. It happened and I can never write it out of my life. For eighteen years we both lived through a process where we raged, unable to forgive, tried to heal. We lived during that period, we loved during that period, and God help us, we mourned our lost daughter during that period.

I had been melancholy that whole week when the academic year started; I had wondered more than ever before about Elizabeth, taken with force away from us. I thought that by then she would have been an Academy cadet had she chosen that road. Poor Chakotay! He missed nothing, just held me quietly in the evenings when we were home, sitting on the couch, being lost in thought. Then he kissed me gently; there  was always a look of understanding in his eyes. He too thought of Elizabeth then. How many years hadn't I looked at young girls who had to be her age, wondering if that was our lost daughter! We had no idea what Elizabeth looked like and many times, much to my own pain and descent into self-pity, we played guessing games. How would her eyes be? The colour of her hair? Would she have dimples like her father? What would her personality traits be? Would she look like her cousins, Phoebe's children? Or like Chakotay's sister and his niece?

That Friday I noticed that someone at the back of the class had been hiding behind another cadet. She kept peeping from behind Cadet Dayaram's head and it made me curious and slightly irritated. Normally I could pride myself in getting everyone's attention and this one wasn't paying much of it. I was going to have a word with the wayward cadet after class and then suggest she take a seat in the front row for our next lesson.

It was the turning point. As they filed out, I beckoned her to stop, then bent down to look at the name on the PADD. When she stood in front of me, I thought I would die. Every dream we had, every wild flight of imagination where we never expected returns but simply enjoyed punishing ourselves just thinking about her, every time a saw someone whom I thought could be her…in those moments something broke in me. I turned cold inside, then hot.

There was no mistaking the resemblance and it scared the life out of me. All our musings about her appearance... There was absolutely no mistaking the likeness and that was what jolted me out of my lethargy. How did she get there? Who was this girl? Only her name... I didn't think much of it as I looked down on the PADD and noticed the name. Many people named their daughters 'Elizabeth'. We had been no exception. Yet, that provided the first shock; my heart felt as if it jumped right our of my ribcage.

Then I looked up.

As I said, I think I did die a little in those first heady moments. Young Elizabeth stared at me, scared as a young doe, it seemed to me.

I knew then why she had come to the Academy. Something Chakotay and I never openly talked about but wished in our wildest dreams only, came true that day. We spent years searching for our daughter, agonising over her milestones, wondering whether she was well taken care of, pondering on her achievements, who were the lucky people in whose care she was... Elizabeth had searched for us and found us.

The parents who raised her had both died, her father only three months prior to her finding us. At first we were so over the moon that she wanted to know and be with us and wanted so badly to be our daughter because she had been afraid we'd not want her. Especially after Chakotay's outburst.

We had her back, our little girl, our tiny baby, the one I had never seen. I had gone into labour in that Cardassian prison... Well, it's so hard to think back on that time. My body had been wasted and labour had started quickly after that. By the time Elizabeth slipped out of me, I was unconscious.

For years Chakotay blamed himself. He killed Gul Gerek and would have killed Nechayev too if she hadn't died years later after a short illness.

My heart was in my throat every time I looked at Elizabeth. The first night when she asked me to read to her a fairytale, I knew that the gods finally smiled on us.  She felt soft and warm, and I think a little shy too. After all, we had to establish relations again and had to get to know one another. We were complete strangers to her. Then again, not. Elizabeth always said she felt the instant connection the moment she saw me, and even when she looked at Chakotay and he screamed her name so, she felt connected to him too. That much had become stunningly clear later that weekend.

Elizabeth looked at me that first night and she smiled shyly as I slipped under the covers with her and I began reading to her. My dreams of reading to my little girl, my heart that had been so empty so many years, so in need of someone to need me and to look at me as if I'm her only anchor... The drought had finally broken and the dam of beautiful, warm, wonderful rain was filling. Sometimes I wondered if things weren't moving too fast. There were still so many pieces of the puzzle in disarray but over the first few days we had to shelve our burning curiosity in order to make our daughter feel home. That whole weekend we couldn't stop looking at her, or she looking at us.

We had fallen asleep and the following morning Chakotay looked down on us with a big grin on his face, and wife and daughter looking suitably mortified at being found out.

"Anyone for breakfast?" he asked, his eyes creasing as he smiled.

I looked at Elizabeth and she looked at me. We both scrambled frantically for the  "Complete Book of Fairytales".

"Where - ?" Elizabeth started, suddenly distressed.

"Is this what you're looking for, young lady?"

I heard Chakotay suck in his breath as Elizabeth stared at him. Our eyes were identical in shape and colour and that must have shaken him a little. Elizabeth grabbed the book, the momentary distress making way for uninhibited possessiveness.

"Mine!" she said, clutching the book to her. I had to laugh at the way she looked, picturing scenes of her as a four year old doing something just like that. I felt the old hand of depression clamping round my heart and squeezing the life out of me. Without looking at me Chakotay touched my shoulder. The gesture was reassuring as it had always been and quickly I was able to close off those images. It was no use dwelling on what might have been.

I got up and joined Chakotay. We  watched Elizabeth paging through the book. Then she looked at us, suddenly shy again.

"Breakfast...what's for breakfast?"

"What do you like?" her father asked.

Please, let her love banana pancakes...

"I have never eaten banana pancakes..."

I turned around quickly and left the room. I didn't want them to see my tears. I heard them talk. It sounded bright, with none of Chakotay's agony of the previous day in his voice. Elizabeth wanted banana pancakes. B'Elanna had started it on Voyager and after that, every other crewman and officer saved their replicator rations for the sweet dessert.

I had taken a quick shower. Chakotay and I were going to walk the property that day but with Elizabeth's arrival that idea flew out the window. Chakotay barged into the room and opened the shower door.

"Are you coming, Kathryn? We're having everything Elizabeth has asked for."

"And that is?"

"The pancakes, fresh juice, some muesli and - "

"Black coffee."

"How did you know?"

"She's our  daughter, isn't she?"

I got out of the shower and wrapped the robe around me. Chakotay pulled me into his arms. His voice was gruff. His eyes had a new shine in them, like he had been given a new lease on life.

"I love you, Kathryn  Janeway."

"I love you too."

I rose to kiss him. It was a lingering kiss, one that burned me up. Chakotay groaned his pleasure. Long seconds later he broke off the kiss, very reluctantly, I thought. His eyes were smouldering.

"Come, Elizabeth is waiting..."

****

Later that Saturday something happened. At first I thought it was nothing major. Elizabeth had taken calmly to the news that she had a grandmother and grandfather, an aunt for whom she had been named.

"I have a family name?"

"My sister Phoebe. She'll be very happy to make your acquaintance. You have three cousins - "

"Cousins...family..." Elizabeth's eyes were moist, her voice sounding wistful. We  had been sitting on the swing seat on the porch. Chakotay sat near the steps, his back resting against a pillar.

"A girl, Laurie, who is fifteen years old, and the boys..."

"Boys..."

"Twins Matthew and Paul. They are thirteen."

"They are terrorists..."

"Chakotay!"

"I'd like to meet them," said Elizabeth. Then her eyes had that faraway look again. "Family..."

We had been excited at her meeting her cousins and didn't show her any pictures of them yet Both boys had the same eyes, the same colour hair as her own. The family resemblance was startling. Chakotay still couldn't stop looking at her. I knew what he was thinking. Elizabeth would find the emotional connection, the sense of belonging, the knowledge that she resembled several persons in my family. Chakotay's sister and niece Liane had dimples…

It was an easy banter, with Elizabeth eagerly soaking in information about my mother, and Admiral Ponsonby whom she married not long after we had gone missing in the Delta Quadrant. They would all arrive the Sunday. Chakotay had been in great spirits.

Then the afternoon, Elizabeth vanished.

As I said, I didn't at that moment think it was anything major.

"Chakotay, have you seen Elizabeth?"

"I thought she was with you."

Chakotay frowned. He had just walked from the back garden into the kitchen. Elizabeth wouldn't have left without letting us know. She was in civilian clothing and wore no commbadge. Chakotay had flicked on the tricorder we always kept in the kitchen on a shelf. After a few seconds, his face went white.

My heart stopped. I felt a wheezing sensation, my lungs emptying of air. Elizabeth could be anywhere on the farm…

"Where is she?" I asked, my voice sounding thin. I wanted to pull him into my arms and kiss his distress away.

"Upstairs…in the studio…" 

The studio – off limits to visitors, family…

"I'll go," I said, moving towards the stairs as I spoke. Chakotay followed and when I reached the room, my hand was shaking as I pressed it open.

Years ago Phoebe had used the spacious room spanning half the upper floor of the house for her art work. Now, it was Chakotay's, a studio where he kept all his sand paintings. They chronicled Chakotay's torment and suffering over a period of almost twenty years. Always such a private person, he had never allowed anyone to view them. They were his life, his soul, an expression of everything he endured. All the walls were covered, and on the large table in the centre, his latest, unfinished work.

And Elizabeth was staring at them. Most of the wall of one side was taken up by a window and the light streamed in, creating around her some kind of ethereal aura. The blinds had been drawn and now each painting exposed its creator in all its glaring wonder, glory, awe, ugliness...

She turned to look at us. Her face looked…haunted, hunted, blotched from her raging emotions.

"Elizabeth, honey…"

I touched her shoulder, but she looked past me, at Chakotay.

"Here…" she started, as she pointed at the canvas she was facing, "I understand this… My mother suffered. I can see the tears. This tree… the leaves are falling and they are shaped like tears… My mother's tears…"

"Elizabeth, please, don't distress yourself."

"And – and here…the bark's been stripped. It's weeping…"

Chakotay looked beaten. I saw again his face the way it looked when I regained consciousness and asked for my baby. My tears, my blood.

"Mommy…?

"Sweetheart…"

"Daddy?"

Chakotay, undone in those moments, stripped of his composure, took my hand and held me close. I wasn't the one needing comfort, but always it was his reaction since that day. Hardly had we time to assimilate the glorious knowledge that Elizabeth was calling us 'Mommy' and 'Daddy'. She looked lost, yet understanding the nature and message of the first painting, the one Chakotay called "Kyrie".

"They stole me away from you. Stole me…stole me…"

She started to cry again, not uncontrollable sobs, but tears that ran unchecked down her cheeks.

"The Cardassians violated you…"

"Elizabeth, please."

"While you were carrying me."

I released Chakotay's grip on my hand and tried to touch her. Elizabeth froze, shrank a little away from us.

"We'll tell you everything – "

"You – you d-don't have to," she stammered, jerking her head as her arm swept to take in the rest of the paintings.

I closed my eyes. How could I forget?

"Elizabeth, it's over now…" Chakotay said.

"No, it's not. It's only beginning," she replied with a small sob. "They took me from you. I've done some searching. I could never understand my alienness, feeling like an outsider… I dreamed, often… You don't know how much…"

Chakotay and I understood. Her hostile separation from me, the aggression of the soldiers… Whoever had taken her… To this day we never found out. Dead ends, warm trails, cold trails, we've been through them all. Elizabeth held the key, somehow.

"What is it you want to tell us?" I asked her.

"On his death-bed Paul Brinkmann t-told me to f-find my real mother… That's when I realised I was adopted. Then he said…"

Elizabeth would have collapsed if Chakotay hadn't caught her in time. She was feverish, about to lose consciousness, it seemed.

"Shhh… It's okay. You're home now, with us…"

All my life with Chakotay I always marveled at the way he could centre himself after extreme trauma and explosive emotional outbursts. Always, I knew it was because he needed to give me solace first. Always supremely disciplined, reining his emotions with rigid control, Chakotay comforted me and had comforted many a crewman on Voyager. He had been the only man who could handle B'Elanna in the early days of our journey. Downstairs, when he realised Elizabeth was in the studio studying his paintings, he had gone as pale as a ghost. I wondered whether he would go missing again and walk the estate for hours to become peaceful.

That day when he held Elizabeth and whispered endearments, comforted her, he had concealed his own pain, the terrible agony he suffered in order to be calm for her. At last, when she had composed herself she stood away from him. She took a deep breath.

"You wanted to know about me, and how I found you."

"Yes. Tell us."

"I found my father's documents. Amongst them an encrypted series of logs. I – "

She paused; we waited for her to speak again. We had all the time in the world to listen to her.

"He didn't know my real mother's name. All he told me was that she had been a Cardassian prisoner. He said I would know how to find you."

I wanted to rush to her and pull her into my arms, like Chakotay did moments before. Elizabeth held up her hand to stop me. She was going to be okay. She needed to speak, even though the memories were very painful for her.

"They took me when I was already almost a year old," Elizabeth continued. My heart skipped a beat. It was shocking news. Where was she before that? Where? I glanced fleetingly at Chakotay. He was frowning, thinking what I was thinking.

"Do you know where you were before that?" he asked.

Her brow creased as she tried to control her emotions. She was still very pale, but so, so courageous!

"I was apparently taken by a Cardassian soldier who handed me to colonists traveling deep in the Gamma Quadrant. They were of the Lokamu race. I guess they thought me too different."

Elizabeth's hand covered her mouth, and tears squeezed from her eyes.

"Oh, honey…"

"After that I was sold or given away probably three more times, before the last one gave me to the Brinkmanns. From his records I understand that they could see I was…neglected. Paul and Marina asked questions about my heritage. The alien told them that my mother was human, but that she died in child-birth in a Cardassian prison. Before she died, she cried the name "Elizabeth". They were told not to conduct any search or they would die. War was still raging at the time. The Brinkmanns had no other children. I think my father meant for me to look for my real parents when I decided I wanted to attend the Academy."

I understood. Elizabeth was alive; she had been raised by the Brinkmanns to the best of their ability. As a childless couple the temptation to keep a baby no one seemed to want was great. Where would Elizabeth have been had the Brinkmanns not rescued her? They loved her, and like most parents they were confused by her extreme restlessness, her anger. What would have happened had they told her sooner? We returned from the Delta Quadrant only a year ago…

Now, looking at us, she was so much Chakotay's daughter it was humbling. She understood his paintings, appraised them with eyes that saw deep into our hearts and pierced his wounded soul.

"The first painting – "

Elizabeth was silent so long that I thought she'd gone into a trance. Her eyes had a faraway look in them, almost sightless. Just like the way Chakotay appeared moments before he would sink into the oblivion of a vision quest. My heart was racing.

"Elizabeth?"

"It's called 'Kyrie'"

That was when Chakotay froze. I must have shown my surprise too. Chakotay and I were the only ones who knew what he called each painting. 'Kyrie' was not his first painting but it was the one Elizabeth pointed at.

"Elizabeth, no one knows this painting's title. It's not written anywhere – "

"But that's what it's called."

"Yes, but how did you know?"

Our daughter looked like a angel, an emissary from the very heavens come to bring us good news at last.

"My dreams… I could never understand," she began. "Sometimes, even during the day, I would go off; I never knew where I was, but there was always a man in it, a gentle, smiling man. He appeared old…"

I glanced at Chakotay. He looked stunned, but a smile formed slowly round his mouth. A light had gone up.

"A vision quest…that's what you experienced," Chakotay said, awed. "The man you saw was my father, Kolopak…"

"That's how I got to know about the paintings…"

"But you couldn't have seen them."

"I know. I always wondered why I had the ability to work with sand and shells and feathers, but mostly sand… In one of my…vision quests, I saw a tree, just like this one…"

I gaped. Elizabeth inherited her father's gift. She smiled as she took our hands and held them together.

"You can do sand paintings?" he asked, incredulous.

Elizabeth gave a relieved little laugh as she watched his expression.

"I made a sand painting a year ago, exactly like this one, Daddy. I called it 'Kyrie'…"

*****

END

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