Title: Rebeccah, pt2 Author: Veronica Williams Email: xkhoi@iafrica.com Size: 26K Rating: PG Codes: F; J/P Summary: Voyager finds a wormhole that would lead them directly to the Alpha Quadrant. They make it through the wormhole but must suffer casualties. PART TWO "Well, Captain, your baby is doing just fine," Doc said as Kathryn sat up on the biobed with Tom standing beside her. He held her hand as he helped her off the bed. She ran her fingers through her hair. Tom could see that she was edgy, and though the tests showed their baby was in fine health, Kathryn didn't respond too well. Tom pursed his lips as he tried not to show his concern. "And Captain," Doc said on a more amicable note, his bedside manner honed to perfection, "you must really follow doctor's orders and allow your husband to ensure that you do. I can see you are still not taking in the nutrient supplements like you are supposed to," he added, emphasizing the last words. "Doctor..." Kathryn looked a little mortified now, "I don't know how I can. I have excessive nausea most of the time - " "Kathryn," Tom said as his arm went round her, "it will go over soon now. In a week's time," he said with a smile. He was rewarded with a quelling stare from her as her eyes flashed. He knew better than to say anything more now. At home though... "Here's a new list for you, Captain," the EMH said as he finished up. "You're entering your second trimester now and I would suggest you rest more." The last was said with a note of warning. They had been here since the previous evening when Kathryn had complained of cramps. She was in her third month and she had been scared, as was Tom when he rushed her to Starfleet Medical. Everything seemed to be okay now. He was hopeful that she would at least now listen to some reason. B'Elanna had been difficult, but Kathryn's iron will and implacability made her impossible as she tried at times to pull rank on him, he thought ruefully. By the time they were back home, Kathryn had calmed somewhat. She balked at first when Tom insisted that she lie down. She saw his intractable look and sighed. Sometimes *he* was impossible, she thought. She acquiesced with as much grace as she could without revealing that she was really tired and wanted to rest anyway. "Okay, I will Tom. But I'll lie on the couch. I can put my feet up," she said, giving him a smile. He nodded and went to her room, returning seconds later with a pillow and afghan. He tucked her in and heard her sigh again. Looking at her he saw that her eyes were closed. He sat down on the couch lifting her feet so that they rested on his lap. He started first on one foot, massaging gently and letting his thoughts stray to the events of the last two months. * The nights as he expected, were the worst. They were fraught with nightmares, screams and hopeless crying. Although they had their own rooms, Tom spent many nights in hers, just holding her and offering her comfort. She would shiver uncontrollably as she cried for Chakotay, or berated herself that he dived over her as the bulkhead came down that tore through his body. "Shhh... don't cry so, please," Tom begged one night. "He saved my life, Tom," she wailed brokenly. "He d-didn't follow orders..." "That is why you are alive Kathryn," Tom soothed as he stroked her hair that was plastered to her forehead. She was feverish and he could do nothing more than hold her and croon softly to her. "Because he didn't follow orders, you are alive, Kathryn and so is our baby..." "He's dead, Tom..." "I know, Kathryn...I know," he comforted her as he felt his own tears at the sight of her grief. He would get up from the bed, walk to her dresser and take out the watch Chakotay had given her. Like a baby she would clutch it to her breast while Tom rocked her gently until she fell again into an exhausted sleep. He knew that as commanding officer Kathryn had to contain her own fear and agony, suppress her own trauma and see to the needs of the crew first before she could go to sickbay where Chakotay, he suspected now with hindsight, was already dead. Now everything surfaced with such a vengeance that he wondered if she would ever recover fully. Kathryn would wake up in the morning and find him asleep in the deep armchair he had brought into the room the first night she had a nightmare. She would be embarrassed when she saw him. It was the sign that she had been terrified during the night, and remembered little of it. She would try to hide the watch quickly before he saw it, but had given up after a while. Kathryn knew that he knew of its existence, and the sentiments with which it had been given to her. One night - a week ago - Tom realised suddenly, he woke up to the sound of water running. It was 0300 when he looked at the chronometer. He sighed. What now? He got up, put on his robe and went into the bathroom. He paled visibly. "Kathryn, for God's sake!" he cried as he saw her sitting on the floor of the shower, steaming water running over her. He had taken off his own robe, pulled her up none too gently and wrapped her in it before he lifted her in his arms and carried her to her bed. He had the inclination to throw her down on it and shake her hard, so angered he was. But his anger subsided quickly as he saw how she was shivering. Taking a towel from a rail in her room he dried her hair. "Damn it, Kathryn, what the hell do you think you were doing?" he asked softly as he wiped the hair from her face and looked into her eyes. He almost died then. They were bleak... empty, empty... That was when he slapped her gently. The sting of his palm against her cheek seemed to work as she jerked back, then she focused on him. She looked a little confused, her blue eyes filling quickly with tears as she recognised him. "Tom?" "Oh dear God, Kathryn, what's to become of us?" he croaked as he wrapped her in his arms and held her like that for a long, long time. She was shaking like a leaf, her tears soaking into the old T-shirt he was wearing. He caressed her hair, cried with her and wiped her tears when she calmed down after a while. He removed the robe and walked to her drawer where he pulled out a fresh nightgown, something long and satiny, he noticed idly. He helped dry her and then she put on the nightie. When she was at last settled, he sat down next to her. "Kathryn, please listen to me," he said calmly, placing his hand against her stomach. "For our baby's sake if nothing else, Kathryn, I want you to get beyond this. She is what you have to live for now. Do you understand?" Tom saw her eyes welling with tears again and cursed himself silently. His hand rested against her cheek. "Will you?" "I - I'm sorry, Tom. So sorry," she said tremulously. "It - it was too much, too much..." "Tell me," he encouraged softly. Kathryn started speaking, haltingly at first, her voice trailing away sometimes. She was not aware at times of the scalding tears as she related details of the accident and aspects of her life with Chakotay. The rest of that night Tom sat with her while she spoke to him of her love for Chakotay, of the man he was in private, of his kindness, his quiet strength... "I called him my rock," she said with a gentle smile, her cheeks shining with the streaks of tears still on them. "He was that, Kathryn. Always calm and steady... your perfect mate..." "Yes..." "It's how you will remember him, Kathryn. How you must always remember him..." "Remember what was good between us?" "Yes, even now that...he is - " "no longer with me... I know, Tom." She fell back against the pillow and closed her eyes briefly. Then she looked at Tom and took his hand. His fingers curled around hers and they felt warm and reassuring, she thought absently. "Our grief, Kathryn, is still so raw and open. We can't just stop feeling it, or suppress it... or make it go away quickly. But we have little Rebeccah to think of now..." Tom touched her stomach again then said softly, "and she is alive, Kathryn. A living, breathing legacy Chakotay has left for us. She is his gift to you, gentle Kathryn..." "Tom...?" He saw her eyes widen with incredulous wonder. "Yes... you never thought of Rebeccah in that way, have you?" "He - he must have known, Tom... He must have known deep down..." "There, you see? Chakotay did not die in vain, Kathryn. Believe that, and Rebeccah will be our real blessing," he said before he leaned forward and kissed her brow. He rose from the bed to go to his own room but she called him back softly. "Tom?" "Hmmm?" "Are you my friend?" "The best you can have, Kathryn." "Will my friend hold me again?" she asked quietly. There was a pleading in her eyes, and in that moment he knew he couldn't refuse her. "Sure," he said, then he got in beside her. Tom spooned her body to his and brought his arm around her. His hand covered hers where it rested protectively against her stomach. Her hair had dried and he nuzzled her neck gently, taking in her smell. Tom thought he heard her soft "thank you" before she settled into him and became quiet again. Like that they lay until he could feel her breathing ease into the blessed rhythm of peaceful sleep. He had fallen asleep again - a dreamed-filled sleep - and bright sunlight streamed into the room when he eventually woke. An amused Kathryn was braced on her elbow, her head on her hand and she watched him, a whisper of a smile on her lips. "What?" he asked groggily. "You called me B'Elanna..." "I - I'm sorry," he stammered, turning red. "You miss her," Kathryn said. It was a statement. "Yes... yes, I do..." he whispered, his eyes growing bleak again. *********** "Tom..." Kathryn's voice broke into his reverie. He started up. He must have been dreaming, he thought as he was still rubbing Kathryn's ankles absently. Or wasn't he? He looked a little bemused. "What..." "You fell asleep..." "I did?" "You did, Tom..." she smiled at him and he was suddenly ridiculously happy to see her smile. It changed her face, lit her up. She had no idea at all how she was blooming with her pregnancy. "Rebeccah has a very good effect on you," he said, leaning over to touch her face. He smiled when he saw her confusion. "You are the most beautiful pregnant woman I've seen, Kathryn," he said with conviction. She blushed a little then tried to look away, but he held his finger under her chin and made her look at him. She gave a nervous laugh. "In a few months I'm going to be fat and ugly, you know that," she said acidly. He detected some of her old humour in her statement and played along. He was glad she was looking much better now than yesterday morning. Then she had been disgusted and ashamed when he helped her to the bathroom to retch. Her eyes were very blue and clear, direct almost as she looked at him. He replied nastily: "Don't worry, Rebeccah will more than make up for your lack of beauty - " He was rewarded when she grabbed the pillow and thumped him with it. He laughed out loud for the first time then added: "She'll upstage you, Kathryn." "Not a chance. If she's going to look like me, we're even, so there," Kathryn retorted and stuck her tongue out at him. He grabbed her and held her to him. "It's good to see you smiling again, Kathryn," he said softly. "You're good for me, Tom," she replied, then she kissed him on his cheek before she rested her head against him and sighed with contentment. His hand covered hers where she pressed it against his chest. "Damned right I am," he muttered softly, then planted a kiss on her hair. ***** Three months later. Tom was standing in his room in front of the mirror, fingering the three pips on his collar. Well, two and a half really. But six months had passed since their return and both he and Kathryn would be back on duty today. Kathryn at six months pregnant was adamant that she wanted to be busy again. He was adamant - and how glad he was that Doc was on his side - that she do only very light duty. Trust his father, he thought wryly, to pull some strings for his daughter- in-law. She would be taking a few classes daily for the next two months, teaching quantum mechanics to senior cadets. "I'm glad, Kathryn," he had told her a week ago, "that way Doc can keep an eye on you all the time, and my parents are on hand if there are any emergencies." They had been taking a walk in the late afternoon, enjoying the balmy sunshine. Inevitably they had to consider their future, and spent the time talking about the possibilities of Kathryn working for two months. The last month he would be home again with her for the birth of the baby. "I haven't been sitting still, you know, Tom," she told him as she stopped to look up at him. He didn't either. He spent the time working on designs for new shuttles. Type nine flyers that would be fitted with the transwarp technology B'Elanna and Harry had been working on. He sighed. His was flying Voyager as its Chief Helmsman, newly promoted to Lieutenant-Commander. A two month mission that would include flying Voyager through the Badlands to an M-class planet on the other side. He would be gone and he was worried that Kathryn would need him again as she's had so often in the last three months. It was a healing process he thought that was progressing slowly and painfully. It drained Kathryn and it drained him. Yet they were able offer one another the solace each needed when their dark hours were so dark that they wondered whether the heavens conspired to punish them. Then one of them would remind the other of the baby, of little Rebeccah not yet born, but with a name and identity and personality who, without knowing it, was assisting in her parents' healing. It was a struggle to come to grips with the traumas both experienced; a time in which they were sometimes too distraught to communicate, when they pushed each other away. Then everytime the thought of the baby would bring them back from that brink of the abyss to the reality, to face yet another day in which their longing for their mates lingered just beneath the surface of their pain. But right now he was little worried. It would be the first time away from Kathryn, and she still had some amazing mood swings he had learned quickly to handle. He had picked her up twice from the bathroom floor after that first time, and that was when he suggested she see a counsellor. It was something to which Kathryn readily agreed, realising she was possibly endangering her pregnancy. She did promise she would keep him up to date with her progress. It was the one advantage of being back in the Alpha Quadrant, he thought grimly. Now they could be in contact anywhere and anytime. ***** Kathryn stood in front of her mirror and surveyed herself. She grimaced. Starfleet's concession to pregnant officers didn't sit too good on her. The top of her uniform fell gently over the rise of her belly. She touched her stomach and smiled as she felt a sudden movement. It still left her breathless the way the baby kicked. But she was glad to be in uniform again. It gave her new purpose, stimulated her endlessly when she could study and brush up on quantum mechanics again. She felt enervated now. She was still rising from the very dark abyss into which she and Tom had been plunged six months ago. A period of intense mourning that's not over, she believed. It was a beginning though and both of them could look with greater expectations to the birth of their baby. Their baby. It was always *our* child, *our* baby from the very start. From the minute he placed his hand on her stomach and said: "I love her already", Tom had seen Rebeccah as his daughter. He was not the man who was going to help her out of a tight spot, Kathryn thought wryly. He was Rebeccah's Daddy exactly as though she carried Tom's DNA. She knew that they would have to tell Rebeccah the truth about her father one day. It was something ironically, Tom broached first and insisted upon. "She has the right to know, Kathryn," he said some time ago. "But you, Tom, you will be the only father she will have," she had answered him. Tom was totally in love with his unborn child, she thought tenderly. So completely it was almost unnatural. But she could see even now, with him so caring, so concerned, that he was imminently Daddy material. Yet there was a night... She closed her eyes remembering Tom's shattered expression when he felt the baby move for the first time. ***** They had been playing 3D chess one evening three weeks ago. The multi-level set was perched on the coffee table and he had been sitting in the chair opposite her. He had honed his skills considerably since his return, playing often with his father at his parents' apartment. She had been amazed that they could be friends now, considering all that had happened that turned Tom into the rebellious youth and young officer before his Voyager years. The older man was clearly a changed person, she thought. "I'm beating you, Tom," she said as she noticed how preoccupied he looked. Was he concentrating at all? she wondered as she put him in check. "Huh, what?" he asked as he looked up. "Sorry, I was thinking," he said. "Next game though, is mine, Kathryn," he added with a gleam in his eye. "Tom!" "What is it?" he asked with great concern and jumped up to reach for her. "What is it?" he asked again as he held her, seeing her eyes fill with some secret wonder. She took his hand and guided him to her stomach. Her lips were parted and she was breathless with excitement. She held his hand flat against her belly. Tom felt a faint fluttering of movement that became suddenly frenzied at his touch. He was so stunned that he became dizzy; there was a crazy buzzing sound in his head. It was as though he was somewhere else...Voyager... He heard a voice: "He knows it's you, Tom." There was a bright and breathy laugh that followed the words, then, "this is one Klingon that will listen to his Daddy..." Where did that come from? "B'Elanna?" he asked as he looked up at her. "Our son?" Kathryn's heart broke in that second as she saw Tom's blue eyes look like they had cracked into a thousand shards. There was so much pain that her own eyes filled at the sight of his heartache. She put her hand to his cheek and felt him flinch at her touch. "Tom, it's me, Kathryn," she said softly, her eyes full of concern as she saw his face. "It's our baby, Rebeccah - " "No!" he cried, "I have a son..." then he jumped up in alarm, knocking the chess set from the table in his hurry to get up. He gave Kathryn one last agonising look before he stumbled to the door. "Tom! Wait! I understand - " But the door opened and closed again with a slamming finality. Kathryn had paced the floor of the lounge most of that night until she was so tired that she reluctantly lay down on the couch and fell into an uneasy sleep. It was in the early hours of the morning that she heard the front door open. She did not move but watched him walk past her. Then she heard another door open and close. She waited a few minutes before she rose tiredly, her body stiff and cramped from lying in an uncomfortable position. She ran her fingers through her hair and walked slowly to the nursery. She saw him sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. His shoulders were hunched, his head resting on his drawn up knees. "Tom..." "Go away..." She reached him and bent down with some difficulty to kneel in front of him. She stroked his hair and felt him stiffen, but she kept on touching him until she could feel the stiffness leave his body. She felt his hand come up to touch her shoulder. Still he didn't look at her. "Forgive me, Kathryn," he whispered, his voice taut with emotion. "Tom, look at me, please," she pleaded. He lifted his head slowly, looking at her with his heart in his eyes. She caressed his cheek, feeling how he leaned into her hand as she did so. "What happened, Tom?" she asked softly. But Tom, looking at her, saw the uncomfortable position in which she was kneeling. He stood up and pulled her gently with him. He made her sit in the rocking chair and he sat down on the floor beside her. He held her hand in his all the time as he spoke. "For a wild moment, Kathryn, I was back on Voyager the night before we came through the wormhole. You remember how elated everyone had been, the lively atmosphere?" Kathryn nodded. She and Chakotay had - she closed her eyes at the thought - they conceived Rebeccah that that night. Tom's voice interrupted her thoughts again. "B'Elanna and I - we were playing chess..." He was quiet and Kathryn's hand went out again to stroke his hair. He looked tired, she thought. She knew how despair could turn one insane. "Kathryn, you said 'she knows it's you', didn't you?" he asked her quickly. When she nodded, he continued: "It was B'Elanna's voice I heard. She said exactly the same words - except - " " - she was referring to your son..." "Yes..." He said that very softly, and she gripped his hand tightly seeing his unhappiness. "I understand, Tom. We - we knew from the start it was never going to be easy..." "For a strange and wicked moment I thought she was alive, talking to me, excited about our boy. Her voice, it sounded so clear then, so clear. I - " Kathryn saw him become agitated again and she soothed him, touching his lips with her fingers. It was a gentle touch that seemed to calm him. "Your mind wanted her to be alive, Tom," Kathryn said very quietly. You were angry that she died, weren't you?" Tom looked at her astounded and for a few moments he was stunned into silence. "How - how did you know?" he asked at last. "I felt the same, Tom. The morning I came to see you I had walked the whole night being angry at the world, angry that Chakotay died and I lived, angry that he left me to cope alone... Not knowing what to do about my - my condition..." He shook his head in affirmation. "I had nothing left, Kathryn. Nothing. I was angry, yes... And then when you told me to feel the baby move, it was as if I wanted you to be her, to be my B'Elanna and our son... My reaction... It was unforgivable, Kathryn. Forgive me..." But Kathryn had taken his hand and once again guided him to feel her belly. The baby moved again, and again it was a frenzied fluttering the minute his hand pressed into Kathryn's stomach. This time he looked at her, his eyes clear before the tears sprang into them and he said with wonder: "She knows it's me, Kathryn." "Yes, she knows it's you, Tom..." And she smiled tenderly as her hand covered his. ******* "Dreaming again, Kathryn?" Tom asked as he entered her room quietly and saw her standing in front of her mirror absently stroking her swollen belly. At six months she was positively blooming. "I was thinking, Tom." "That's dreaming." "Really." "Oh yes, and if you don't stop this minute, we'll be late." "Tom - " she said quickly and he saw a look of panic cross her features. "What is it?" Kathryn's next move surprised him. She threw herself in his arms and hugged him tightly. His arms went around her and he could feel her trembling. His hand cupped her head for a moment, then he held her a little away from him. She looked with saddened eyes at him before she said: "Please, do be careful, Tom." He knew she was referring to his mission into the Badlands. He enfolded her again very tenderly before he said: "I will, sweet Kathryn, I will... for Rebeccah," he said. "For Rebeccah," came her answer. came his silent plea. ********* END PART TWO.