Author's Note: I had intended my last story, “The best man,” to be my farewell to the alternate Voyager universe in which Zoe is the light of Chakotay’s life but I felt afterwards that it didn’t really do justice to Zoe, who deserves to go out with a bang in a story in which she is the center of attention. She evidently agreed with me because she began telling me this one almost immediately. It is the most singularly sappy story I’ve ever written, and I hope that it will satisfy everybody who asked for more--in fact, I will be very surprised if you all haven’t had MORE Zoe, with this one, than you really wanted! She has been a joy to write about but this is definitely her swan song. This story is dedicated to everyone who asked for it--you all know who you are. Thanks for being so enthusiastic and supportive of my fledgling “career” as a fanfic writer!

The characters still belong to Paramount. Zoe has thoroughly enjoyed playing with them, especially Chakotay.

...And They Lived Sappily Ever After…
by Maquis Mom

My husband has the sexiest ears in the universe. I think it’s neat that every time I tell him that he always grimaces and says they’re not sexy, they’re just big. Well, okay, they’re big, but that’s exactly what makes them so sexy, and I keep trying to tell him that but he really doesn’t get it. Ever since we were married nearly a year ago, I’ve had ample opportunity to lavish all kinds of attention on his ears and various other parts, though I suppose if he were the type to complain that I’d been neglecting certain of them he would have good reason to do so recently. These days, see, I am so massively, hugely pregnant that it’s almost impossible to get close enough for even something as innocent as a goodnight kiss, and sex has become one of those things I just think nostalgically about from time to time, like when I look at him and see those sexy ears of his. At eight months along, you’d think sex would be practically a four letter word in my book, wouldn’t you? Well, probably not--you all know me too well to buy that! Of course I miss it desperately and I find myself thinking back more and more often to the carefree days when Chakotay and I were newlyweds, madly in lust with each other and humping like bunnies whenever the spirit moved us. And that reminds me of the story of how I got pregnant...

It starts, oddly enough, with my closet. It probably won’t surprise you to hear that my closet looks like the aftermath of a bombing, huh? I like to open the door and throw stuff inside, then shut the door. It gives me the illusion that my life is in order, since you can’t see the actual mess. Well, of course, Chakotay’s closet is the exact opposite, so neat and clean you could practically eat off the floor. The man doesn’t even roll his dirty athletic socks into those little balls and toss them into dark corners where they sit for months until they’re as hard as plaster of paris but still smell bad. He’s amazing, really.

So, anyway, I’d seen him glance casually into my closet several times and then back hastily away, and he’d taken to making the occasional snippy little remark about it. Like once when I asked him what I should do with some leftover corn salad, he said I probably ought to put it in my closet because he was pretty sure that a family of Petrakian dust weevils had taken up residence in there and corn salad was a staple of their diet. I just laughed because he really can be very funny sometimes and as a newlywed it was my duty to laugh at all his jokes, but I got the message and I resolved to clean it out one of these days--and this happened to be the day. I was astonished at how much junk had accumulated there in the three months we’d been married, and I was hard at work trying to bring order to the chaos when Chakotay came back to our quarters after he got off the bridge for the day.

He seemed a little surprised when I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and then went right back to my task. He asked me how my day was and told me the latest gossip from the bridge--I’d already heard about Harry Kim’s hickey, but I didn’t let on--and then he just stood there and watched me like he’d never seen anybody clean a closet before. I was peeking out of the corner of my eye, and I saw him shake his head and retreat to his side of the room to change, so I went back to sorting through boxes of miscellaneous junk and trying to figure out how to organize them at least semi-logically.

It seemed like it was taking him a long time to remove that uniform and get into something comfortable, and I swear that’s the only reason I finally crawled out of the closet and took a look at what he was doing. And what he was doing was sitting on the side of the bed, stark naked, grinning at me!

I guess I gaped at him like an idiot. “Wh--what are you doing?” I asked.

“Why not forget the closet? We have better things to do,” he said.

I looked down at myself. There were dust bunnies clinging to my clothes, my curls were hanging in my eyes, and I’d managed to work up a major sweat. “Now?” I asked in disbelief.

He was doing all he could to keep a straight face. “Ah, Zoe, don’t tell me the honeymoon is finally over,” he said tragically as he lolled back on one elbow. “You’d rather clean a closet than make love, is that it? I’ll bet my ears aren’t even sexy any more.”

“No! I mean--yes, of course they are, they’re the sexiest ears in the Delta Quadrant. In the whole universe! But--” I wiped at my damp face, smearing the dust that undoubtedly had settled there.

“Then come over here,” he said, patting the bed invitingly.

What neither of us were saying was that we’d decided that we wanted to have a baby, and it had been that very day that we’d seen the holodoc to have our contraceptive boosters reversed, and THAT, of course, was the real reason I was cleaning my closet--because, having decided that there was nothing I wanted more than to have Chakotay’s child, and being ready and able to conceive, suddenly I was scared to death by the entire prospect, so much so that wrestling with three months’ worth of dusty clutter suddenly seemed preferable to getting on with it. Well, maybe not preferable, exactly, but safer. Less frightening. A LOT less frightening.

For just a second the tiniest look of disappointment crossed his face, gone so quickly that if I hadn’t spent countless hours watching him and cataloging his expressions I might have missed it entirely. “I guess if you’re really that motivated to clean I shouldn’t try to stop you, should I?” he said with a rueful grin. “I’ll get dressed and fix us something to eat.”

I had to swallow hard. I pretended it was just dust, but it really was a huge lump which might very well have been my heart. I watched him get up and walk over to his pristine closet. “Chakotay?” I said when I finally trusted myself to speak.

He turned to look at me. I jumped to my feet and began shoving all the boxes and hangers and clothes and piles of junk every which way back into my closet, then closed the door with difficulty. “All done, see?” I said cheerily. “How about a shower?”

His lips twitched and he turned to hang his shirt back up, hesitated, then to my astonishment just let it fall on the floor of his closet. “Good idea,” he said as he closed the door.

I love to shower with Chakotay. I remember discovering to my great satisfaction, on our honeymoon at the Saturn Waldorf, that his favorite romantic retreat was the massive marble bathtub in our suite. I’d never imagined Chakotay in a bubble bath, but he seemed very much at home there, and perfectly ready to give soapy back rubs and help me wash my hair and--well, YOU know. Since then, we only used the sonic shower when we were really in a hurry.

When we were both standing in a steaming stream of water, he turned me to face him. “We don’t have to do this now, you know,” he said softly.

I thought about that. It’s true, we hadn’t been married long, and we were on a journey that could well take the rest of our lives. And Voyager, though it was becoming our home, was certainly not the ideal place to raise a family. Since little Spike Wildman had been born just over a year ago, though, there had been two other babies added to the crew, and Lieutenant Ayala had just a few months ago received permission to adopt a four year old Kazon boy who had lost his parents in a shipwreck we’d happened upon. In spite of our desperate situation, life and love would not be denied, and the Voyager nursery, under Kes’s watchful eye, was the happiest place on the ship. After I spent one particularly memorable afternoon there feeding the little ones, changing their diapers and playing peekaboo with Spike, I knew that what I wanted more than anything was to have a baby of my own, and I marched right up to the bridge where Chakotay was standing second watch and told him so.

That had been three days ago, and since then we’d been discussing and debating and talking until we were both blue in the face. At first he’d been the hesitant one. As First Officer, he understood better than most of us how perilous our situation really was, after all. We’d been in fairly good shape since we’d left the Kazon sects behind us--at least we hadn’t made any new enemies to speak of--but there were still the Vidiians, and there were rumors that the Trabe were mobilizing, and of course we all knew that the Delta Quadrant was where the Borg originated. On top of that sort of danger was the undeniable fact that Voyager was constantly running short of food reserves, raw materials, electronic components, and other stuff like that. Things ran out, wore out or were damaged all the time; it’s a fact of life when you’re traveling through space. Sometimes it seemed we spent more time hunting down supplies for the trip than we did making any actual progress toward home. And who could say that the rest of our lives might not go this way, always headed back but never making it? That, I told him, was exactly why I wanted to have a baby now rather than next year when maybe things would be better--because what if next year was worse, and what if every next year showed no sign of improving? At that rate the time might never be right.

Chakotay didn’t argue for long. When I first broke every rule of protocol and confronted him while he was on duty, dashing onto the bridge and breathlessly informing him that I wanted a baby, his first reaction, over in a fleeting moment, was unmistakably positive. His eyes lit up, an incandescent smile broke across his normally somber face, and he reached out to take my hands. Feeling the sudden scrutiny of the second shift bridge crew on us, he’d dropped them quickly and frowned as he told me we’d talk about it later. I’d known then that no matter how many rational arguments he might pose in the coming days, in his heart he’d already decided he wanted to be a father, and that proved to be the case.

So three days later I stood in the shower with him, still nervous but knowing that the time really was right. “Yes, we need to do this now,” I said confidently. “It’s what we both want, and--it IS what you want, truly, isn’t it?” I looked up at him through the steam, wondering if he was having second thoughts.

He didn’t answer right away, just picked up the soap and started working up a lather. His hands came to rest on my shoulders, stroking gently down my arms in a froth of bubbles. “I never thought that much about it,” he finally said, his voice hesitant. “I’ve always liked kids but somehow I never pictured myself having any. For most of my adult life there was Starfleet, and my only goals were to see as much of the galaxy as I could and to eventually make captain.” He frowned then, thinking of the Cardassian situation, the dire predicament of his home world, the death of his father, or maybe all of those things. “When I joined the Maquis there was never any question of falling in love, having a family, planning a future. There was no goal for any of us beyond living through another day.” He picked up the soap again, automatically continuing to help me wash even though his thoughts were light years away. “I didn’t think I would survive that life so I couldn’t consider bringing a child into it. But now things are different.” He looked at me almost apologetically, as if knowing that his words were inadequate, but of course I understood. We’d talked about how everything that had happened to Voyager had changed us both--many times, really, starting way back when I’d gone missing on that moon and he’d thought for a time that I was dead and that had made him realize that he cared for me.

“We’ll be good parents, I’m sure of that,” I told him. “And our child will be so loved that he won’t care a bit if he has to live his life out on a starship.”

“Or she,” he reminded me with a grin. “I suppose having a hundred and fifty doting aunts and uncles will give her a secure environment and a chance to develop a strong sense of family.” He pulled me gently against his chest and began to soap my back. “It’s almost as if we’re becoming a tribe,” he said meditatively, his hands slowing and coming to rest on my hips.

“I like that idea,” I said. “I like it that we’re a part of that, and that our children will be, too.”

He nodded. “So do I. But--” He paused as if unsure whether he should say anything else, then continued, “I want this to be right for both of us. If you’re having any doubts at all I want you to be honest with me about them. Don’t do this for me, because you think it’s what I want.”

I snuggled closer, tucking my head into my favorite spot under his chin, feeling his arms slide around me almost reflexively. Three months of marriage had made this a comfortable and familiar position, but I never failed to appreciate how wonderful it felt. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” I asked. “Having a baby was MY idea, not yours.”

“I remember vividly when you announced to the entire bridge crew that you were ready to get pregnant,” he commented dryly. “But what concerns me is that you might not be as sure as you seemed that night, that you might be going through with it because you could see how much I want to be a father.”

Once his initial arguments had fallen by the wayside he had become very excited by the thought, that was true. We’d sat up half the night talking about it, a night full of laughter and tears and happy dreams. I’d seldom seen Chakotay that animated, as if the mere thought of a child we hadn’t even conceived yet had transformed him in some inexplicable way. I love him in all his moods, even the dark ones that sometimes settle on him, the ones he tries to hide from me by donning that impenetrable stoic mask--but that night I saw a new side of him, one which I very much wanted to see more of. So, yeah, I guess probably he was right, I would have gotten pregnant for him, because he obviously wanted it so much.

“But it’s not just you,” I blurted out. “I would do anything for you, of course, but this is something that’s also for me. I want to be a mother. So will you please stop washing my back, which is already very clean anyway, and take me out of here and make me pregnant?” Grandma always said that the best way to get something was to come right out and ask.

He laughed and kissed the top of my head, and the next thing I knew I was being wrapped in a soft fluffy towel and led off to the bed. When we got there, though, and I was quickly toweling my damp hair, he stopped me. “What about the closet?” he asked.

“The closet?” I repeated.

“You successfully avoided cleaning it for months, but it suddenly became a priority. I don’t think it was an accident that it happened today, was it?”

“Well, no.” I still can’t lie to him, probably never will. “I guess I was cleaning because I was feeling a little scared and nervous. But any sane person would be scared and nervous at the prospect of becoming a parent, wouldn’t they? Aren’t you?”

He sat down on the bed. “I’m terrified,” he admitted.

“So does that mean you don’t want to do it?”

“No, of course not.”

“I rest my case.” I whipped the towel off and tossed it heedlessly in the general direction of the bathroom. “Now, can we get on with this or do I have to report you to Captain Janeway for dereliction of duty?” I sidled on over and stepped between his knees, hands on his damp shoulders.

He grinned at that, and shook his head. “I’d better not take the chance that you’re bluffing,” he said, looking resigned as he grasped my bottom and fell backwards, pulling me with him.

“I never bluff,” I told him cheekily. “And Captain Janeway really likes me, so she’d probably be very hard on you.” I began to press little nuzzling kisses along the line of his jaw.

“I suppose she’d restrict me to quarters until the rabbit died,” he said, turning his head to give me access to his left ear. His fingers were tracing light patterns on my back, occasionally dipping south and stopping to knead the soft skin of my buttocks, then moving on to tickle the backs of my thighs before sliding back up and starting over again.

“Rabbit? What rabbit?” I asked hazily. It never took more than a touch or two before I was tingling with desire and completely unable to think. My nipples hardened against his chest, and I shifted upwards so he could see what he was doing to me with the subtle torment of his caresses.

“Never mind,” he said before his mouth found something better to do, lips and tongue caressing the swollen tip of my breast.

I moaned, fingers twisting in his hair to pull him closer. He’d started letting it grow--his hair, I mean--because I’d asked him to forego the weekly buzz job, and it was coming in nicely, showing a tendency to wave as it got longer that I never expected. He’d been threatening to cut it all off almost daily and grumbling because it took him longer to get ready in the morning, but he hadn’t done it yet and I was determined to enjoy it until he got really p.o.’d someday, invoked Starfleet regs, and went back to the military look. I held his head and closed my eyes, surrendering to the indescribable sensations his wonderfully talented mouth evoked.

I couldn’t lie there passively and just enjoy it for long, though--soon I was pulling away, shifting downwards to straddle his legs, hands grasping at his penis. He hardened as I touched him, and his breathing quickened as I pressed his foreskin back and bent my head to take him in my mouth. I teased him to readiness, feeling his fingers burying themselves in my curls, subtly guiding my head--not that I needed guidance, after three months of marriage, of course. I knew by now exactly how to arouse him, and he--well, he only had to favor me with one of his intense, searching gazes to start my juices flowing, and if he followed that up with the merest shadow of a smile, a fleeting glimpse of dimples--?

That was all it took; that was all it had ever taken for me.

“Mmmm--Zoe?” His voice was husky with desire. I looked up at him and he smiled at me, holding out his arms and waiting for me to slide back upwards into them. He held me and rolled us over, coming to rest between my legs. “You know that you might not conceive right away, don’t you?” he asked. “It could take weeks, or even months.”

I felt a giggle erupting. “You mean we might have to do this over and over again, day after day, month after month? Oh, the horror!”

He grinned. “Can you bring yourself to endure it? If not, we could always ask the doc to tell us when you’re ovulating, and--”

“I’m ovulating right now, bud,” I growled. I raised my hips, bumping against his groin, rubbing insistently. His reaction was gratifyingly instantaneous. His hands slid under my bottom, his hips lifted, and he plunged deep inside me with a hiss of pleasure. I held on tight, trying to pull his head down so I could kiss him, already lost in the sensation, but he stopped me.

“Even so, it might not happen right away,” he said gently. The dear sweet man can’t help himself, he’s always trying to make things easier for me, to prepare me for them, to illuminate and explain and make it right.

“No excuses,” I grunted. “Let’s just do it. Gimme sperm, right now.”

His smile flashed before he bent his head to kiss me. A second later, when I realized what I’d just said, I felt my cheeks flushing with embarrassment. Two seconds later, as he began to thrust powerfully, penis brushing at my womb with every stroke, I forgot to be embarrassed, but the flush deepened along with my arousal. I clung to him, moaning, giving him all that I had to give.

Sometimes he makes me scream, but this time when I heard him groan my name and felt the warm gush of ejaculate flooding around the spasms of my release, I just smiled, and then I started to cry--me, who never cries! In moments I was sobbing my head off, face buried in his chest, and he was panicking, trying to shake off the effects of what had sounded like a very powerful orgasm, trying to comfort me.

“It’s all right,” he said as he sat up and pulled me into his lap, cradling me like a child, rocking me. “It’s all right.”

I let him hold me while I cried all over him and snuffled and hiccuped and just generally behaved in a disgustingly unZoelike fashion. When I finally wound down I noticed that he was still murmuring that same phrase, “It’s all right,” like some kind of mantra. I chuckled damply and raised my head from his shoulder to look at him, seeing the concern in his face. “I know,” I said hoarsely. “I’m pregnant.”

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Well, of course I was pregnant even though Chakotay insisted that I couldn’t possibly know that for sure. Right after breakfast the next morning I made him go down to sickbay with me; ten minutes later we were outta there, having received the news that not only was I expecting but that there were TWO fetuses swimming around in my still-flat tummy. I was overjoyed, in contrast to Chakotay, who looked as pale and shaken as I’d ever seen him. “You’re not going to pass out, are you?” I asked wickedly. He just shook his head and clenched his jaw and stomped off to the bridge, leaving me standing there staring after him like an idiot. It wasn’t until about 0930 that morning, when he came flying into Stellar Cartography and swept me into his arms and kissed me until I was breathless that I was sure he was really happy about it after all.

Pregnancy has been--interesting. Being the cocky sort, I assumed I’d just take all the nasty little side effects in stride, so it was a rude awakening for me to have to cope with morning sickness and crying jags and the need to take ten naps a day, to say nothing of this mounting feeling that my body is not my own anymore. Chakotay has been wonderful, of course, attentive and uncomplaining. He gives backrubs tirelessly and insists with perfect sincerity that the sight of my hideously bloated body is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He even managed to share my morning sickness with me. I guess it was quite entertaining for the rest of the bridge crew that every morning at about 0815 for several difficult weeks he’d give Captain Janeway this wild-eyed look and go dashing off to his wardroom to throw up. When I heard about it I thought it was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to me. Sometimes, before then, I wondered if Chakotay truly loved me, but I’ve never questioned it since, not even on the days when I’m feeling at my miserable hormonal worst.

Everything is different now in ways I’d never expected. I’ve always been the carefree type, never wasting time worrying about things I couldn’t control or imagining the worst, but in the last eight months all that has changed. Every time something untoward would happen aboard Voyager--and, let’s face it, not much of our time in the Delta Quadrant has been boring or uneventful--I’d find myself enduring unaccustomed feelings of fear and panic. Every time Chakotay would leave the ship, even on the most innocent of food-gathering trips, I’d wait nervously, counting the minutes until he was back safely. I tried not to let on to him how these things affected me because I know how important being Voyager’s first officer is to him, and how seriously he takes his responsibilities to Captain Janeway and to the crew. I couldn’t ask him to change his habits for me, but knowing that he was the kind of officer who would jump in and do whatever was needed without a thought for his own safety was very difficult. I was going to have two babies to raise soon, and I did not want to do it alone.

All of that came to a head when I was in my fifth month. I remember Samantha Wildman was barely showing when she was five months pregnant, but I had a belly at barely two months along and by the fifth month I was already huge. The doctor had put me on reduced work shifts and I had way too much time on my hands to worry about all the myriad things that could happen to my all-too-active husband in the course of his normal routine.

We’d come across a very young planetary system that offered us a multitude of raw materials waiting to be harvested, mined, or otherwise collected, and we spent several days there, cramming every spare centimeter of storage space with minerals and various other substances. To B’Elanna’s joy, we even managed to locate some sirillium in a gaseous cloud we passed through one day. Sirillium is a big deal, I guess, and we hadn’t had much luck finding it and safely onloading it until now. Not being actively involved in the procurement process myself, I didn’t pay much heed to what was being gathered; I was just glad for a relatively quiet period, one where not much went on to interfere with my latest craving for pistachio ice cream, something which I never had eaten before and probably never will again. I used all my replicator rations on it and had to suffer well-meaning lectures from Chakotay, who was quite positive that when the doctor told me to increase my intake of green stuff he actually meant vegetables and fruits! Well, of course, I knew what he meant but I was not being precisely sensible at the time, pregnancy being as unsensible a condition as I have ever experienced. Anyway, I was on my third bowl of pistachio heaven early one afternoon, having already completed my work shift, when I got an unexpected call to report to Captain Janeway’s ready room.

By the time I lumbered up to the bridge my heart was in my throat. I knew that Chakotay had been spending his days on the unnamed planet we were currently orbiting, engaged in collecting whatever it was we were now collecting, and I also knew from experience how quickly things could go wrong for Away Teams. I could tell by the look on Captain Janeway’s face that she was worried. She ushered me to a seat and fussed over me, offering me drinks and snacks, and I knew something bad had happened.

“Please, Captain, will you just tell me what’s wrong?” I finally asked her.

She sat down and massaged her forehead as if she had a headache, then turned to me and gave me one of her level glances. “Zoe, there’s been some trouble on the surface. The zyfrenium deposits are buried deep underground, and there’s been a cave-in. Chakotay and several others are trapped in the lower part of the tunnel.”

Well, I’d known it was something. “Can’t you beam them out?” I asked shakily.

“Unfortunately, no. The planet’s atmosphere has become very unstable in the past several hours, with almost constant upper level plasma storms. We’ve managed to stay in sporadic contact with Lieutenant Tuvok on the surface and I can assure you that he’s doing everything he can to get Chakotay out of there, but it’s possible that we may have to wait for the storms to pass before we can bring them back to the ship.” She frowned. “Ensign Kim says the weather pattern should begin to dissipate very soon. If it doesn’t, you know that I won’t hesitate to land Voyager. I’ll do whatever it takes to rescue them.”

“Yes, I know. Thank you for telling me, Captain.” I stood up to go, but my legs were shaking and I had to sit down again hastily.

She was at my side in an instant, putting her arms around me, offering support. I clung to her for a long moment, willing my heart to cease its frantic racing, but it was very hard to be brave when I--when all three of us--needed Chakotay so much. I had never felt that vulnerable before.

“This is simply intolerable,” she murmured. “When Chakotay returns to the ship I’m going to place him on restricted duty. He can’t continue to carry on as heedlessly as he has been doing. It’s unfair to you, and he’ll just have to realize that. His first responsibility now has to be to you and to his children.”

I pondered that for a minute, and at first I agreed with her. I’d been worrying and fretting in silence for months, after all, and now that something bad had happened it seemed I had been right to feel that way and to want the situation to change. Then, I thought about Chakotay, about the way he felt about Voyager and the kind of man he was, and I knew better. “Captain--I--forgive me, but you’re wrong.”

Her head came up at that, and she stared at me. “In what way?” she asked.

“Before Chakotay married me, before he was even aware that I existed, he made a commitment to you, and to all of us on Voyager, that he would expend all his effort, down to the last ounce of strength he possesses if need be, to bring us home. It’s a promise he doesn’t take lightly, as I’m sure I don’t have to tell you.”

“No, of course not, but situations change, and new priorities take precedence over old.” Captain Janeway said with a smile. “When you were married, that was the first change. Now, with two children on the way, Chakotay can’t possibly avoid shifting his loyalties and refocusing his energies.”

I just shook my head, ever more certain that she was mistaken. “If you believe that, maybe you don’t know him as well as I thought you did,” I told her.

She glanced sharply at me, waiting to hear more.

“Captain, a man like Chakotay doesn’t change his priorities when his life changes,” I explained. “He just--” I shrugged, not knowing how to say it, “--adjusts them. Expands them. Opens himself up somehow, and handles them all. His family doesn’t come first but we also don’t come last and we never will. He’ll always care equally for Voyager, for the crew and our mission, and for the babies and me. It’s--that’s just the way he’s made.”

I didn’t think I did a very good job expressing myself, but when I finished Captain Janeway nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps you’re right,” she admitted. “You do know him better than I do. But, tell me, Zoe, is this the way you want it to be? And can you handle it as well as he does?”

“Not as well, no. I worry, sometimes I worry a lot.” My voice trailed off, but at the open sympathy in her gaze I felt I wanted to go on, to be perfectly honest with her. “I can be very selfish, wanting him to forget about being Voyager’s first officer and just concentrate on being my husband. I want to come first with him, always. But then--well, I realize that I do, and that just because he cares so deeply about the commitment he made to you, that doesn’t mean he cares less about the commitment he made to ME.” I smiled. “I don’t think I’d have fallen in love with him if he were different. And, you know, even though it’s not always easy being his wife, I would never want to change him.”

She was silent for a long time. “So, what you’re saying to me is that when Chakotay comes back on board Voyager, you don’t want his captain issuing him a bunch of stringent orders intended to bind him safely to your side until the babies are born, and after?” she asked humorously.

“Hmm, no. He’d just worry about everything he was missing and fret because he thinks you can’t possibly handle things without him there to help, and he’d drive me crazy. And I think having twins to look after will be reason enough for me to lose my mind.” I patted my bulging belly and grinned at her. She reached out and patted it, too, laughing out loud as two tiny bodies kicked obligingly for her.

“My goodness. Are they always this active?” she asked in amazement.

I was about to answer when Harry Kim’s voice interrupted. “Captain Janeway, the storms have nearly dissipated and there’s good news from the surface. Lieutenant Tuvok’s team has been able to phaser their way through the worst of the rock fall and they should have the Commander and the others out of there within the next half hour.”

We looked at each other and heaved identical sighs of relief, and then Captain Janeway bent over so she could address the babies personally. “You see? Everything is going to be just fine, little ones,” she said confidently.

She was right, of course--that’s why she’s the captain, I guess. Chakotay had a nasty gash on his forehead and assorted other bumps and bruises, and Geron broke his arm, but everything was basically fine. When Voyager left that planetary system a few days later we were loaded to the gills with valuable stuff of one sort or another, and we set a course for home, feeling for the first time in a very long time that we were making some progress.

******************************

Chakotay was more than usually attentive after the accident, and he finally admitted to me a few days later that he felt guilty for having put me through such anguish. I assured him that I understood his need to perform his duties as first officer to the best of his abilities (which was true) and that I hadn’t been unduly alarmed about the cave-in (which was not). Being that it was me saying so, of course he knew I was lying, but I think he was grateful to me for at least trying to set his mind at ease. In any case, he pretended to accept my words, and I pretended I didn’t know he knew better, and--well, you get the picture. I had known exactly what marriage to Chakotay would involve before I took my vows, and I’d made up my mind to take the bad with the good. And I don’t suppose I’m the easiest person in the universe to live with either, considering overflowing closets, contagious morning sickness, and the like.

Several months passed, marked by our slow but steady progress across the Delta Quadrant and the ever-increasing dimensions of my belly. Chakotay had begun to worry that I was too small to carry the babies to term and that natural delivery was going to be impossible. He took to spending his spare time with his nose buried in medical databases, reading everything he could find about obstetrics, and pretty much driving the holodoc crazy with his questions and concerns. I thought it was sweet that he’d go running off to sickbay every time he came across some new and alarming symptom or statistic. The doc, of course, saw nothing sweet about it, since his expertise was being called into question. I finally had to ask Chakotay to leave him alone, and not to come with me when I was having my checkups.

I admit, I was a little worried myself. It sometimes felt to me like the babies were trying to batter their way out through my ribcage rather than waiting to emerge in the usual manner, and even though I’d seen the med scans often enough that I could easily tell them apart, I frequently worried that the next time I saw them they’d have grown armor-plating and horns. It never happened, but I still worried, especially after those nights when they had been playing soccer with my internal organs and it felt like they were both wearing spikes.

I remember one scan in particular. It was before the doc had banished Chakotay from sickbay for being such a pain, but he’d been delayed on the bridge and Kes had begun without him. We had previously decided that we really didn’t want to know what sex the babies were, preferring to do things the old-fashioned way, but on that particular day one of them shifted suddenly, tiny legs spread wide, and I saw without question that we had a son.

“An exhibitionist, just like his father,” I said to Kes, giving up the pretense that I hadn’t noticed. We both giggled as the other twin, disturbed from sleep, heaved grumpily and obligingly posed for us as well. I couldn’t quite tell, so I glanced quizzically at the doctor.

“Female,” he said with his usual superior air. “She’s more modest than her brother, but not by much. It will certainly be easier to discuss their progress with you now that you know.”

Kes took my hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry, I know you wanted to be surprised,” she murmured consolingly.

“Oh, no, I don’t mind,” I said. “And Chakotay will be so happy. He hasn’t said so but I know he was hoping for a girl.” I hadn’t had a single premonition or felt any real preference myself but I was more than content with one of each. I lay back as Kes continued the scan, contemplating my new-found knowledge, only then realizing that Chakotay had come in unnoticed and stood staring at the monitor in rapt attention. He felt my gaze and turned to look at me, smiling suddenly with a dazzling display of dimples.

“A son and a daughter,” he said huskily. He can sometimes be annoyingly stingy with words, but this time it was all that needed saying because his face spoke volumes and I had no trouble interpreting the joy I saw there. I saw Kes wipe a tear away as she turned to one of the displays; as her telepathic abilities continue to grow, I think she is finding it harder all the time to maintain that air of contemplative gravity which makes her such a wonderful confidante and caregiver.

As for me, I swallowed down the urge to weep through a mighty effort of will, and instead took refuge in a major disagreement Chakotay and I had been having since the day I knew I was pregnant. “Now we can decide on names, and no excuses about waiting to see whether they’re boys or girls will work,” I told him smugly.

It was true that we’d been debating this issue from the very start. I’d wanted to pick names immediately, but Chakotay just said that when the babies were born and we saw them we’d somehow know what they should be called. I ignored that idea, of course. I pored over lists and tried all my favorites out on him, quizzed him ruthlessly about his own preferences, forced him to explain to me his tribe’s customs of name selection, and just generally harped on the subject for weeks and weeks. He’d finally pointed out that since there were two babies to name we’d have to pick four names and then eliminate two when the time came, and even I had to admit this seemed like a real chore, so we’d let it drop.

He gave me one of his looks, the one that usually means I’m being a pain in the ass, but it softened instantly when he remembered that I was the mother of his children, I guess, and he agreed with me that it was probably okay to start thinking seriously about it. And to my surprise we settled the issue that very night. Our daughter would be named for her great-grandmother the duchess, and our son would be named for no one but himself, his names chosen just because we liked them so much.

*******************************

So, I guess you’ve noticed that I sort of like to narrate my own life pretty much as I’m living it, right? I’ve never been one to keep elaborate personal logs, at least not the kind you record and save forever and leave to your kids in your will so they can satisfy their avid curiosity about what you ate for lunch the day you met their father. (I skipped lunch that day, as I recall, because we were zooming through the Badlands in hot pursuit of a certain Maquis commander and I was feeling more than a tad nervous and queasy as a result.) Instead of a formal log, I--umm, well, I talk to people, inside my head. I’m not really sure who the people are, of course, though I suspect that you all find me vastly amusing and you undoubtedly think Chakotay is just about the most wonderful, sexy man who ever lived. And you’re right, which certainly proves to me that you’re people of good taste and high intelligence, and therefore it’s worthwhile to talk to you. I don’t let on to anybody, not even Chakotay, that I sometimes feel like I have an actual audience hanging on my every word. It might embarrass him, especially when I go off into rapturous detail about what a wonderful lover he is. And, I admit, a lot of the times when I’m pretending to narrate what’s happening right when it happens, the truth is that it might have actually happened yesterday, or last week, and I’m just now getting around to thinking about it. Sometimes there really isn’t time to think while a whole lot of stuff is happening, and maybe it’s smarter to be alert in an emergency situation rather than trying to describe what’s going on right then and there, you know? And sometimes, if it’s a difficult and painful occurrence, I really can’t make myself tell that part of the story until I’m sure it’s going to come out all right.

And that pretty much explains for you the fact that I’m lying in bed, right this minute, looking down at a tiny figure soundly sleeping in my arms--my son, Adam Tonweya, who arrived in the midst of a huge crisis on Voyager three days ago. He’s lost in dreamland now, though an hour ago he was howling his head off and acting like he was starving, poor kid. I had no idea it would be so hard to feed two babies at once, and I’m beginning to agree with the doctor that there’s no way I’m gonna be able to breastfeed for long. Better I hand Chakotay a bottle and a baby and we split the job 50/50, I’m thinking!

Like now. I look over to the rocking chair pulled up next to the bed where Chakotay is stretched out, having fallen asleep there with Mikayla Patricia O’Meara de Wynne in his arms. They both look quite peaceful and comfortable. She’s curled up like a kitten on his chest and I can just make out her downy dark head, so like his. Even in sleep he’s holding her protectively, and I marvel at how big his hands look as they cradle her tiny body. She wiggles a little and lets out a whimper, and although he doesn’t fully wake, he draws her closer and soothes her until she stills in his arms.

I knew that Chakotay would be a good father, and as you’ll soon hear he played a memorable and dramatic role in the birth of our babies. What I wasn’t really prepared for was the way that a small, unguarded moment like this--sleeping children, sleeping husband--would make me feel. I want this simple scene to go on forever because it’s as close to perfect as my life has ever been. And it occurs to me that maybe this is why I feel the need to narrate my life the way I do, so that a moment like this can be immortalized somehow. It also occurs to me that if the two of them stay in that position for very much longer it’s highly likely that Chakotay is going to wake up soaked or worse, given our daughter’s propensity for filling her diapers hourly with great enthusiasm. Somehow I suspect he won’t even mind. The man is amazing. You all know that.

I should be sleeping myself, I know. The babies will be hungry again in another hour or two, and it isn’t going to matter to them that their mama is too tired to feed them. Somehow, though, this peaceful hour, with no sound except the soft breathing of the three people who mean the most to me and no light except the immense blanket of stars outside my windows, seems the perfect time to think back, to remember all the details of the days just past, when I was way too busy living my life to narrate it. I suspect that this is a story you will all want to hear, after all...

*******************************

It started innocently enough. I was eight months and two weeks pregnant and getting bigger and more miserable by the minute. Pregnancy is highly overrated, if you ask me. It had been months since I’d lived anything like a normal life. Chakotay had to heave me out of chairs and into bed, I’d long ago forgotten what my feet looked like, and to make things even more difficult the babies were obviously not getting along, as they spent every waking moment pummeling each other, and me.

“Don’t they know I’m their mom?” I remember asking Chakotay one particular night in bed, after an evening when it seemed they’d gone twelve rounds without a decision. “Aren’t they supposed to automatically love me?”

He grinned and dropped a kiss onto the top of my head. “I’m sure they will. Everyone else does.”

“Oh, yes, I am so eminently lovable in this condition,” I commented sourly, staring down at my enormous belly. As I watched, a large brown hand reached over and caressed the jiggling mass. The babies stilled instantly--HIM, they love--and I felt myself smiling even though I wasn’t in the mood to do that.

“Never doubt it,” he said lightly, fingers moving in a gentle, calming rhythm. Some nights he could actually soothe the babies to sleep like that. I snuggled closer, closing my eyes and surrendering to the urge to rest. I hadn’t done a darn thing all day but at this point just breathing with this voluminous mound pressing up against my diaphragm was hard work. Still, I’d accidentally managed to settle into a position where nothing hurt and there were no little kneecaps or hipbones digging into my vital organs, and the most wonderful man in the entire universe was curled up beside me and devoting every ounce of his formidable concentration to making me comfortable. I was good at feeling miserable, but not THAT good...

I nearly dozed, then an insistent little twinge began. “Damn,” I muttered. “Damn, damn, damn.” I wanted to say something really shocking and vulgar, one of those nasty curses I remembered from my Academy days, but I managed to control the urge. There were minors present, after all.

“What’s wrong?”

“I have to pee,” I said, putting all the misery and angst and despair I could muster up into the words.

He really tried not to laugh, I’ll give him credit for that.

It took all of five minutes and our combined efforts to lever me out of the bed so I could waddle into the bathroom for momentary relief. It seemed to me to be a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions that by the time I did what I had to do, got back into bed, and settled myself and the babies down for sleep, I’d have to go again. I remember thinking that maybe I should just sleep in the bathtub, except of course that I no longer FIT in the bathtub--! That was the kind of mood I was in, kinda grumpy and dour and feeling more than a little bit sorry for myself.

In my negative frame of mind I was unsurprised when I got inside that the room remained dark. “Lights,” I barked. Nothing happened. Hmm. Well, I could do this in the dark--in fact, I really didn’t have much choice.

“The lights in the bathroom don’t work,” I complained. No answer from the other room. I finished up and went back to the bedroom, repeating the words louder this time.

Chakotay sighed. “I’ve been hearing complaints about malfunctioning systems all day,” he commented. “Nothing serious, just minor power failures in isolated parts of the ship. Tuvok and Neelix got stuck inside Neelix’s pantry for over an hour this afternoon because the door wouldn’t open and their comm badges weren’t working. I’m surprised they both survived the experience.” He got out of bed and slipped his arm around me, preparing to execute the “lowering Zoe into bed” procedure he’d perfected in the last month. “B’Elanna has no idea what the problem is,” he added as he skillfully deposited me on the mattress.

“Sounds pretty strange to me,” I commented. Engineering was not my thing--in fact, it wasn’t really Chakotay’s thing, either--but by our second year in the Delta Quadrant there were very few of us who hadn’t picked up extra bits of knowledge as we were forced to make do with the limited crew we had. “What do the diagnostics say?”

“That’s the odd part--everything checks out fine. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for the failures, and they have a tendency to fix themselves.” He pulled the covers up over me, then glanced over his shoulder at the bathroom. “Watch,” he said as he walked over to the bathroom and went inside. Sure enough, the lights came on. He stepped back out, and this time the lights stayed on. “Damn,” he said with a grimace, evidently wishing he hadn’t bothered to illustrate.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll have to go again in twenty minutes anyway,” I said gloomily. “They might as well stay on.”

Chakotay just laughed and crawled into bed next to me. To my surprise, he still liked to cuddle as much as he had when we were first married; I suppose part of it was that there was now so much more of me to cuddle WITH. In spite of my bad mood I relaxed immediately, thinking idly about what he’d said about the systems failures. An image suddenly struck me, and I giggled.

“What’s funny?” he asked, raising up on one elbow, cheek propped in one hand. He seemed quite relieved and encouraged that I had recovered my usual good humor, even if only momentarily. He hadn’t seen much of it in recent weeks, poor dear.

“I was just thinking about Neelix and Tuvok,” I said. “I imagine that our morale officer’s response to being trapped in the pantry with Tuvok was to suggest that they sing a few songs.” I could picture Tuvok’s face, and I laughed harder.

“Kes discovered them when Neelix didn’t show up to start dinner on time,” Chakotay said. I could just make out the grin on his face in the light from the bathroom. “She told me that she could hear a Talaxian marching song from behind the door, and she swears that Tuvok was singing harmony.”

I laughed even harder. “You’re making that up, aren’t you?”

“Me?” Obsidian eyes widened with an unholy innocence. “Ask Kes if you don’t believe me.”

“Well, I will, and--damn!” Laughing hadn’t been a good move; I had to go again.

This time Chakotay definitely couldn’t control his amusement.

To my surprise, the babies were not in the mood for gymnastics that night, and not only did I fall asleep quickly once I’d got into bed for the third time, but I also managed to stay asleep until nearly 0600 the next morning when my overfull bladder awoke me in the usual manner. I noticed as I approached the bathroom that the lights apparently had turned themselves out sometime during the night. Weird, very weird.

******************************

After a full night’s sleep, I felt great that day. Chakotay was on duty so I puttered around all morning rearranging things in the newly-completed nursery, part of which used to be--surprise!--my closet. Later, we’d need more space, but for now the small room with its two cradles was just right, cozy and warm, decorated with hanging dream catchers and soft toys piled everywhere. Voyager’s crew greeted each new addition to our numbers with a wealth of presents. I smoothed the hand-stitched blankets which Captain Janeway had given me yesterday, admiring them, then bent to place one of them into each cradle. Chakotay had made the cradles out of highly polished lovely golden wood he’d bartered for on some planet, and it had taken months to finish them. The captain’s blankets got places of honor, naturally, and I tucked and folded and re-tucked and refolded them just so. When they were perfect I straightened up, feeling a twinge as I did. Not the bladder twinge but the other one, the kind I’d been having once or twice a day for the last few weeks. The doc referred to them as Braxton-Hicks contractions but everybody else called them false labor. This one felt slightly different, shorter and sharper, but I didn’t think anything of it, just automatically raised my hand to rub the tender spot under my ribcage. That was when I noticed for the first time that I could actually feel my ribs. The huge high mound of my belly which made breathing difficult and bending over next to impossible seemed to have dropped. I felt around experimentally, using both hands, and noticed that there wasn’t a lot of activity from the babies, unusual considering that the more active I was, the more active they generally got as well. It was very surprising because I’d actually been on my feet and doing things for nearly two hours. Maybe after lunch I should go and see the doctor, I thought. Food didn’t sound all that appealing but I was feeling so good otherwise that I decided to stroll on down to the mess hall and surprise Chakotay by joining him for lunch. I freshened up (polite term for having to pee again), ran my fingers through my curls, and headed out the door.

Or I would have headed out the door if it had opened. It wasn’t locked, but no matter where I stood the sensors didn’t seem to sense me, and the manual controls didn’t work either. Damn. I guessed it was another of those inexplicable malfunctions Chakotay had told me about the night before. Remembering the lights, I sat down and made myself wait ten minutes to give the problem a chance to fix itself, then tried again. Nothing.

I raised my hand and tapped my comm badge. “Ensign de Wynne to Commander Chakotay.” There was no reply. “de Wynne to Ensign Kim.” Again, nothing. I tried Mira, Tom, and various others, and finally just went for it and hailed Captain Janeway, but got no response at all. I took the comm badge off and checked the settings, wondering if I had deactivated it by mistake, but it was live. Apparently the systems failures were becoming more widespread--either that or the gods had noticed I’d been having a nice day and decided to get even with me! I wasn’t too concerned at first, figuring that if the malady had spread this far B’Elanna and the engineering people would be hard at work fixing whatever was wrong. No doubt they’d have a handle on things before the afternoon was much older. I decided to sit tight. I wasn’t going to let a little inconvenience like this spoil my mood, so I picked up a padd and curled up in my favorite chair to read.

I don’t think more than five minutes had passed when I had another of those twinges. This one felt different, lower and deeper than before and radiating through my belly. “Gas,” I said to myself confidently, knowing somehow that it wasn’t gas. I tried to go back to my reading but the words blurred on the screen, and I finally tossed the padd aside and levered myself to my feet. I’d just try the door again. Maybe by now it was working. I took a few steps in that direction but a sudden warm gush of liquid from between my legs froze me in my tracks in shock.

“Oh, great,” I muttered. “I’m locked in here with no way to communicate with anybody and my water just broke.” I was leaking all over so I shuffled off to the bathroom to clean up, uneasily aware that the contractions I’d been feeling probably had been the real thing. I knew that even though my membranes had ruptured and chances were that labor might begin in earnest at any time, it was unlikely that I’d be stuck in here for very long. And I could actually be in labor for hours before the births became immanent, so there was really nothing to worry about. Or so I told myself.

An hour passed by, minute by agonizing minute, while I continually assured myself that I was not going to give birth all alone in my quarters. About twenty of them ticked off before I felt the next contraction, and it was a strong one. I’d been going over in my mind all the things I’d learned in the classes which Samantha Wildman had taken it upon herself to teach to the next several prospective mommies and daddies among the crew, and I felt pretty calm, all things considered. I knew what to expect, I was prepared, but, jeeze, I hadn’t expected the early contractions to be quite so intense. I wouldn’t let myself worry that that meant something. I got out of my clothes and into one of Chakotay’s t-shirts, which fit me like a loose nightshirt. I pulled the covers on the bed back and brought in a mound of towels from the bathroom, just in case.

I didn’t want to lie down; in fact Samantha had said that walking around was really a good thing to do. I began to pace, arms curled protectively around my babies, who seemed as quiet and well-behaved as they had been in the nearly nine months I’d known them. I stopped abruptly, wondering if walking might actually speed the labor up.

“Not a good idea, de Wynne. We need to slow down, not accelerate. But how?” All I could think to do was to sit down and clamp my legs tightly together, which sounded ridiculous. I tried it anyway, perching gingerly in the rocking chair by the bed. This chair had been a gift from Neelix and Kes, and they’d had it practically since the day we announced that we were having babies, although they’d just given it to us a few days earlier. We’d spent a few days in a Talaxian outpost to make repairs after riding out a severe ion storm, and Neelix had found the chair there. It was odd-looking, like Talaxian stuff tends to be. Captain Janeway said very charitably that it resembled a bentwood rocker she remembered her grandmother having, but I thought that its strangely assembled, variously colored elements looked like one of Neelix’s jackets. Still, it was comfortable and it rocked, which was all that mattered, and Kes had found some lovely cushions for it in subtle patterns which looked vaguely Native American to my untutored eye. I piled several towels up to protect the chair from the trickles of amniotic fluid that continued to seep from my traitorous body, then sat down and rocked for a few minutes, waiting for the next contraction. With any luck it would be a long wait.

Twenty minutes went by and I began to breathe a little easier. Obviously I was in the very early stages of labor. And then, at twenty one minutes, I had another contraction. It felt like an elastic band tightening across my belly, pulling almost but not quite to the point where it felt like something down there was going to tear. I remembered the breathing exercises we’d practiced, and how the first few times we’d tried them I would start to laugh and Chakotay would lecture me sternly for not concentrating hard enough. I couldn’t help it; it seemed like such a silly thing to do, sitting there puffing away, pretending I was in labor when I had absolutely no idea how something like that was going to feel. I liked the relaxation sessions a lot better since nearly all they involved was me lying still while Chakotay rubbed various parts of my body and talked to me softly in his deliciously sensual voice. Sometimes I would fall asleep. More frequently I would start touching back and we’d end up making love rather than relaxing--but I assured him that the exercise was good for me, which of course it was. And, yes, it’s true, I really WAS thinking about sex while I was in labor!

Anyway, I remembered at that point that I was supposed to be breathing through the contractions and relaxing between them, so I watched the chronometer and tried to stay calm and focused. It occurred to me that since I had a lot of time to kill I should try to contact my spirit guide, something which I’d never had a lot of luck with until just recently though I’d been trying diligently since way back before Chakotay and I were married. My guide was a small female feral cat with spotty brown and gold fur. She looked like she had been in more than a few fights in her time, and one of her ears had the tip bitten off. When I first met her she didn’t show much interest in guiding me. Sometimes, in fact, she would just curl up on a rock in the sun and go to sleep, which I found unpardonably rude. Other times we would prowl around in the underbrush together; it was fun but seemed fairly unenlightening. Since I became pregnant, though, she was much more interested in me, and we’d had--well, not conversations, really, but long moments when we were sharing some kind of nonverbal communication which left me feeling uncharacteristically peaceful and centered. Sometimes I asked her questions, like about the babies and whether I would be a good mother, that kind of stuff, and although she never replied directly, more and more it seemed that after I would come out of my trance I would simply know the answers. Chakotay says it’s different for everyone, and that my animal guide and I would work something out between us. I wondered now if she would be much of a labor coach, assuming that I was really going to be stuck here for a while.

That was not the kind of thought I figured I should be having, so I let the whole idea slide. Maybe later, if it began to look like I wasn’t going to be rescued and the pains began to get closer together... Instead, I tried to think of another option, some way to get out or to contact the bridge for help. I thought belatedly of email, but when I activated the console and tried to log on the system seemed totally frozen. Whatever was bothering the ship’s internal circuitry was obviously spreading rapidly. I still had lights, heat, air, and gravity, which was a blessing, but I wondered nervously what might be next to go. I even found myself, between contractions, half-seriously considering the possibility of trying to locate a Jeffries tube and climbing out that way. The thought of getting stuck quickly put paid to that particular notion.

The contractions came every twenty minutes, and they were strong right from the start. Each one lasted every bit of the forty-five seconds I’d been led to expect, though there’s a funny thing about the relativity of time that I never really understood until I was in labor: forty-five seconds can seem like an eternity, and twenty minutes like the blink of an eye. Pretty amazing. The afternoon passed and the contractions began to get closer together and I found myself cursing the technology which we take so for granted until things go wrong, and eventually cursing Chakotay for being so uncaring as to be off handling this crisis instead of here helping me. I mean, he wasn’t just my husband, he was also my labor coach, and where WAS he? I couldn’t believe that he hadn’t even bothered to check on me, or to send someone else to do it if he was too busy, and--

Well, but maybe the turbolifts were down, too. And maybe all ship-wide communication was totally out. And maybe the warp drives were affected, and other critical systems as well. It could be that the whole ship was in danger of just--I don’t know, imploding or something--and he had to be wherever he was, trying to find answers and save everybody. He wouldn’t just forget about me. He’d be here if he could be, especially if he knew that my labor had started and his babies were acting a lot like they really meant to be born soon. He couldn’t know that, of course. I was still several weeks from my due date and I’d been perfectly fine when he’d left me this morning. He was probably consoling himself with the thought that I was safe in our quarters, in no more danger than anyone one else on the ship might be. He would know that I’m sensible and competent and not the type to fall apart just because I was stuck in here and not sure what was going on. He would expect me to simply wait and trust in him and in the rest of the crew, and he would know that I would understand that in a situation which was beyond my control the best alternative was to sit tight and think positively and maybe say a prayer.

Those arguments comforted me for a time because I forced myself to believe them, and I can be very persuasive if I want to be. Nevertheless, by about 1700, when I calculated I had been in labor for nearly five hours and I was still locked in, alone and feeling totally helpless, the cursing began again. I was becoming certain that this wasn’t going to be one of those ‘fourteen hours of labor’ births; in fact, I’d have been willing to stake an entire month of replicator rations on the probability that I was almost fully dilated. The pace of the contractions picked up and my breathing had become difficult to control. I guess I was starting to panic. (I’d really like to know who wouldn’t?) In an effort to cheer myself, I thought about pioneer women who gave birth all alone in primitive conditions I couldn’t even begin to imagine, in snowstorms, or in the backs of wagons on the Oregon Trail, or while the men were fighting off Indians, or--well, you’ve probably heard those stories, too, so you know what I mean. I told myself I was lucky to be someplace warm and clean and relatively safe, assuming that we weren’t moments away from a warp core breach, though incidentally that was about the ONLY excuse I could think of which would warrant my husband’s continuing absence from my side...

Not long after those heartening thoughts I found myself at the door, pounding on it. I had some silly idea that if I beat on the thing hard enough, it would just magically open for me. It didn’t. Then I thought that if I made a lot of noise, someone would be bound to hear me and get the idea that something was wrong, so I grabbed the nearest solid object, which happened to be a wooden bowl Chakotay was particularly fond of, dumped the potpourri out onto the floor, and started hammering with it. Probably if I could remember my Morse code, I could have beat out a coherent call for help, but with the distraction of rapidly intensifying contractions, all I could come up with was “three longs three shorts three longs”. S.O.S. seemed as good a message as any just then. I banged and banged, probably for a good ten minutes. I would stop from time to time and try to listen for some kind of response, but all I heard was the pounding of my own heart. I knew I was getting way too worked up, wasting energy I was going to need soon, so I made myself stop. I went back to the bedroom, thinking that it really was time to just lie down and concentrate on what was going on with my body instead of worrying about trying to get out. Whether I liked it or not, it seemed certain that my children were going to be arriving soon, and I needed to be ready for that. If I had to give birth alone I would do it. I mean, what other option did I have?

I gathered up as many pillows and blankets as I could get my hands on and, between contractions, tried to decide how to arrange them on the bed. I would need some kind of support for my back, which had begun to ache with an intense, grinding throb. We’d talked a lot about birth positions and the doctor had told me that my best option was to wait and see what felt the most comfortable when the time came. Whenever I imagined giving birth I’d seen myself in Chakotay’s arms, leaning against him for the support I knew I would need, using the strength of his body and of his love to help me bring our babies into the world. I admit that as I constructed a makeshift wall of pillows to prop me up, I shed a few tears for what was evidently not to be.

The contractions continued unabated, and although I hadn’t yet begun to feel the need to push, it seemed unlikely that the time was far off. I piled a stack of towels where they would be near at hand and prepared to sink my bulk down into the nest I’d built, wondering if I could possibly do this alone. I bit my lip, hesitating, feeling that once I got into position there would be no turning back.

“Come on, Zoe,” I muttered. “There IS no turning back here.” With a sigh, I started to lower myself down onto the pillows.

“Chakotay to Ensign de Wynne.” It was faint and crackly, but most definitely my beloved’s voice. My comm badge--where was it? I hadn’t pinned it to the t-shirt so it must still be on the tunic I’d left--in the bathroom! I clambered to my feet as quickly as I could. The few steps into the next room seemed to take forever to negotiate, with my legs shaking and rubbery. I grabbed up the tunic from where I had tossed it on the vanity and fumbled with the comm badge.

“Chakotay--I--” Another contraction gripped me and I leaned against the sink and tried to ride it out. “The babies,” I managed to grunt.

The signal was breaking up so badly I couldn’t make out his reply. All I could understand was his final words, part of what must have been a disbelieving question. “--in labor?”

“Yes,” I half-shrieked through the pain. “I’m in labor and I don’t think it will be long before the babies come. You have to get me out of here now!”

I guess he got the gist of my message because I heard very distinctly the unrepeatable curse that was his immediate reply.

“Can’t you beam me to sickbay?” I asked desperately. The contraction had passed but I continued to grip the sink tightly, too scared to move. Now that I’d heard Chakotay’s voice, now that he knew what was happening, it seemed real to me in a way it hadn’t even during each contraction I’d experienced up to that point.

“--can’t trust--equipment failures--too dangerous to try--” I didn’t need to hear every word to understand what he was telling me.

I couldn’t answer him, not so much as a moan.

“Hold on--there as soon as--can.” Through the crackling and hissing, I caught those words. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ Yes, he would. I knew Chakotay, knew that he would batter his way through the walls with his bare hands if that’s what it took, but I didn’t know where he was now or how long it would take him to get here. Voyager was small by starship standards, but it was still plenty big enough if turbolifts were inoperable and doors didn’t open. How many decks away was he? What if it took an hour to get here? Would he be too late?

“Zoe, I--” There was a high-pitched whine and the jury-rigged comm system evidently gave up the ghost altogether. I knew what he would be saying, anyway—‘I’m on my way, I love you.’

I gritted my teeth and shoved away from the sink, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My eyes looked wild, my hair was a tangled mess, and there were tearstains on my cheeks. I ran some cool water and splashed my face before I turned to grope my way back to the bedroom to wait, praying as I did so that the babies would be willing to wait with me.

******************************

It didn’t take an hour. About twenty minutes later I heard a commotion at the front door, and seconds after that Chakotay came crashing into the room with a pry bar in his hands. He tossed it aside and came to the bed, his expression worried.

“Are you all right? How far apart are the contractions?” he asked. And, before I could answer: “I’m so sorry.”

Now that he was here I was ready to cut him some slack. “It’s okay, but I think you’d better get me to sickbay because I really want to push.”

“I wish I could do that, but I took a chance with one of the turbolifts to get here and it got stuck between decks. I had to climb out and then down another level through a Jeffries tube. There’s no way I would try to take you there now. I sent Tom to sickbay. Hopefully he’ll be able to bring Kes back with him. The doctor's program is on the fritz, like nearly everything else.” Chakotay sat beside me and rested a gentle hand on my belly. “Can you hang on?”

While he talked I was wracked by another contraction, and although I’d been trying not to push, I knew that by the time the next one hit, or the next one, I wasn’t going to be able to avoid it. “I--really don’t--think so,” I gasped when I could speak.

His first, unguarded look spoke volumes. Panic, followed by dread, and finally the clenched jaw and narrowed eyes that meant determination. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll get through this somehow.” He glanced down at himself. He’d obviously spent the afternoon engaged in physical activity. His uniform was dusty, he’d been sweating, and there was a lock of hair falling forward onto his brow as if he’d been running his hands through it in frustration. “I have to clean up. It’ll take thirty seconds, so don’t push yet. And that’s definitely an order.” He flashed me a grin and sprinted into the bathroom.

He was back in about twenty seconds, dressed in clean sweats and a t-shirt.

“Let’s see what’s going on,” he said cheerfully. I spread my legs and he inspected the territory carefully, then glanced up at me. He suddenly seemed a shade paler. “I can see a head,” he said shakily.

I just nodded. I’d known how close it was. “Chakotay, are you--can you do this?”

“Deliver the babies, you mean? He patted my thigh. “I don’t think I have much choice, do I? But don’t worry, I’ve been studying those obstetrics texts for months. Maybe this is why.”

I could feel the first twinges of another contraction and I tensed against the pillows. I hadn’t done a very good job breathing and relaxing my way through labor, and the pains had become a frightening experience. I must have shown some sign of that on my face because he instantly dropped into labor coach mode. Midway through the contraction he had me breathing right and was encouraging me to relax my shoulders and had managed to find the tender spot on my belly where I absolutely needed his hand to be. I’d been pushing ineffectually, but as soon as I gained some semblance of control he began to urge me to work harder.

I tried, over and over again, but nothing was happening. “I don’t think I can do this,” I grunted.

“Yes, you can. We’re really close, just a few pushes away.” He was gently massaging my abdomen as he spoke, his eyes on the baby’s head, but he looked up at me and gave me a quick wink. “Piece of cake,” he said confidently.

“For YOU, maybe. I--” I broke off as the next contraction hit. It seemed like they were nearly continuous now, giving me no respite. “My back hurts,” I whined. “I need you to hold me.”

“Zoe, if I do that, I can’t deliver the baby. You don’t want him to pop out onto the floor, do you?” he asked with a humorous little grin.

“No, but--oww, why did you make me laugh?” I grimaced.

“No laughing allowed, this is serious business. Now, push!”

I pushed, feeling his hands gripping mine, trying to help as much as he could. “It’s not working,” I wailed when it finally ended.

He frowned, evidently agreeing with me. “Maybe we need to get you off your back and figure out a way to let gravity help a little.”

“I can’t squat unless you can hold me up,” I said miserably.

“Okay, let’s try this,” he said, presumably after a mental review of the various illustrations of birthing positions he’d been studying lately. He pulled me effortlessly up to a half-sitting position, then scooted me forward so my legs hung off the bed. He knelt between my knees, tucking a mound of pillows behind me as I rested back on my elbows. When the next pain hit I found that I could get some leverage, both from my arms and from the way my feet braced on the floor on either side of him. I pushed, chin to chest, straining for all I was worth, and although my back still hurt, this time the baby was definitely moving downward.

This is about the time my memory begins to get very hazy. I guess it’s a defense mechanism, the same convenient amnesia mothers have always experienced after childbirth. Were it not for that fortunate occurrence, none of us would ever allow ourselves to go through with it again, I’m certain! Anyway, I remember Chakotay urging me on, telling me when the shoulders were out, and then there was a slippery, squirmy baby boy lying in my arms and I was crying happy tears when I saw that he seemed to be just fine. Adam Tonweya came into the world howling his head off. I definitely remember Chakotay’s first wry comment. “Good lungs,” was all he said.

There was a bit of a respite during which we cleaned our son up as well as we could, and Chakotay wrapped him tightly in a big towel to keep him warm before placing him close beside me. And then it was Mikayla Patricia O’Meara de Wynne’s turn. She shared her name with her great-grandmother the duchess, and she emerged like a duchess, in great dignity. She was smaller than her brother. She whimpered almost politely when her father gave her a gentle tap to get her breathing, then stared up at me with huge obsidian eyes as I held her close and cooed at her. By then the urge to cry had totally passed, and I remember talking a lot of nonsense and laughing delightedly while trying to hold both babies at once. I was feeling better by the minute, probably due to adrenaline and the sheer relief that it was over and we’d all survived it, but Chakotay, who had sunk down onto the bed next to me, seemed stunned and speechless. I finally stopped babbling and turned to look at him, and he just swept me and both babies into his arms and held us all tightly. I could feel his shoulders shaking, and I wanted to touch him and soothe him, but my hands were full of his children.

“I am so sorry,” he muttered hoarsely into my hair when he could talk.

“Chakotay, it wasn’t your fault. Whatever is going wrong with the ship--”

“No, not for that,” he interrupted. “For putting you through so much.” He shrugged, unable to explain, but I knew he meant the whole nine months, as well as the unimaginable adventure of giving birth during a ship-wide emergency.

“Oh, THAT,” I said airily. “Heck, it was nothing. A breeze. A piece of cake.”

I can always make him laugh--I guess that’s why he loves me. In fact, when Kes and Tom came bursting into the room with their arms full of medkits and tricorders and all the other unnecessary paraphernalia they thought they might need, we were both laughing.

******************************

I never really followed the explanation I got about what was wrong with the ship during those fateful hours even though both Chakotay and B’Elanna tried to explain it to me. I guess my mind was just too much on motherhood to be able to process the information. But for those of you who care about such things, here’s the answer to the best of my recollection. Engineering had been using some gaseous stuff called sirillium, which we’d picked up when we were prospecting in that system where Chakotay got trapped in the cave-in, remember? This gas apparently works some kind of magic on various ship’s systems, see, making them operate more efficiently, and B’Elanna had begun implementing its use in conjunction with the warp engines the day before all the systems started going haywire. It seems that our good ol’ bioneural gelpacks had--well, some kind of allergic reaction to the sirillium they were exposed to, because it had somehow been contaminated with something else we’d picked up along with the sirillium. The gelpacks began performing irregularly or not at all, and the ship’s computer tried its best to compensate for the ongoing problems, but eventually the circuitry was overwhelmed and various systems began to shut down. The comm system was the first to go. The navigational computers reported that we were in the Alpha Quadrant, just fifty thousand kilometers from Deep Space 9. False readings of every description abounded. Nearly all of the ship’s systems were affected in some way, though fortunately life support remained relatively stable, probably because the computer automatically shut nearly everything else down in order to keep vital processes such as atmosphere and artificial gravity working. Environmentally, the worst that happened was that temperatures varied greatly from deck to deck. By the time B’Elanna and Harry figured out what the problem was, doors and turbolifts all over the ship were inoperable, Deck 6 was like a sauna, the bridge was in total darkness, Neelix’s freezers all defrosted themselves, and on and on... Late that night they’d finally come up with a solution which involved passing the sirillium through some sort of buffer which eradicated the irritant. I’ve probably fouled that explanation up, but suffice it to say that eventually all the bad stuff got flushed away and within two or three days the ship was completely back to normal.

Well, except that we had two new crew members, of course, and Chakotay and I had a family. The arrival of Adam and Mikayla has changed our lives in ways I never really anticipated. I guess I had never looked beyond the idea of having a baby, or babies, to the reality that I would be a mother, and Chakotay, a father. It has been quite an eye-opener for both of us, being responsible for these two tiny beings. Some days I’m just too exhausted to appreciate the changes, but others, when the feedings and changings manage themselves agreeably and I can sneak in a nap along with the babies along about midafternoon, I feel truly blessed. In truth, I have more help than I sometimes need. Someone is always willing to babysit when I need a break, or even when I don’t--and, of course, Chakotay is wonderful. He can put in a twelve hour shift on the bridge and still manage to come home and change diapers and sing lullabies and rub my tired feet, and all of it with a smile. Captain Janeway says he was born to be a father, and I agree. He says I was born to be a mother, but I’m not so sure about that--sometimes I feel like I’m still a kid myself, after all! But I’ve found, in the month since my babies made their entrance into the world that having them has made my life complete.

They are such amazing little people, as different as night and day. Adam will be big and strong like his father and Mikayla probably small like me, but I think that their personalities may be quite the opposite, even though Chakotay says it’s too soon to tell. I suppose he has a point, but this morning something occurred that makes me believe I’m right. It had been a bad night, one of the ones where one baby was always waking up just as the other fell asleep and both were cranky and fretful, so that neither Chakotay nor I got much rest at all. In spite of all that I awoke early and could not get back to sleep. I didn’t want to wake Chakotay so I decided to spend some quiet time with my animal guide.

A remarkable thing happened as I went into my trance. We were in a pine forest, ambling along a trail that led down a long gradual slope. At the bottom there was a shady, tranquil pond of cool green water where we sat down to rest. A few minutes passed while we watched frogs lazing on lily pads and flies buzzing and a family of fat brown rabbits hopping around next to the water. It was so peaceful that I wanted to curl up in the grass and take a nap. Before I could so much as think about lying down, though, the peaceful scene changed abruptly. An eerie sound intruded, something strange and uncanny. It took a moment for me to recognize that it was the cry of a wolf. I stared around nervously but could not see the animal. Still, all the frogs jumped into the water, and the rabbits raced around in alarm before they disappeared into the underbrush, little white tails flying. I gave my guide, whom I had named Slugger (she needed a name, and it seemed to fit!), a questioning glance. She just looked past me and let out a low meow of welcome.

To my surprise, two small figures were coming down the pathway. A sturdy little boy of about five with an unruly head of dark curls led the way. His shirttail was hanging out, the knees of his pants were torn, and his face was dirty. I caught his eye and he laughed and waved at me. I could see the mischief in his big brown eyes, and I remembered when I was that age, never content to sit quietly and play, needing to be up and doing, exploring my world and expanding its boundaries. I always had to see what was beyond the next hill, or to tag along after the bigger kids who probably didn’t want me around but who would let me come anyway because if they didn’t I would scream bloody murder and get them all in trouble. After a moment he turned and gestured impatiently, and the second child came into my view. She was a tiny elfin girl with a cloud of black hair and skin a full shade darker than her brother’s. She bit her lip in concentration as she slid gracefully down the last few feet of the path, then brushed at a small dirty spot on her sleeve. She had something in her hand, and as she came closer I saw that it was a white feather, collected on her walk, no doubt, and destined to be part of a wall hanging or a collage or something else eye-catching and full of meaning. Chakotay does that, too; he can never go anywhere without coming back with his pockets full of rocks and seed pods and other treasures. I studied her carefully, marveling at her serious little face, and she must have felt my gaze because she turned suddenly and her face lit up in a familiar, dimpled smile. I felt my heart skip a beat, the same way it does when my husband gifts me with that identical smile, and I knew somehow that I was seeing my children the way they would be in a few short years. I glanced down at Slugger for confirmation, and when I looked back to the hillside they were gone, leaving me stunned and bemused.

When my vision was over I went into the nursery and peeked at the babies. Adam was sound asleep, legs tucked under him and bottom high in the air. His second name, Tonweya, means “scout,” and I thought about the way he had come ahead of his sister down the hill, deciding that we’d chosen well. I covered him, knowing that he would kick the blanket away as he always did; even at just a month old, he was a rambunctious sleeper. In the other cradle, Mikayla lay quietly. She’d been as miserable as her brother earlier, and I had no doubt that she probably had inherited the same contrary streak both her parents manifested so strongly, but now she was as placid and serene as a little china doll. I touched her smooth brown cheek with my fingertip, caressing the spot where I knew the dimple would be. Her eyes opened at my touch and I knew a moment of panic when I remembered the hours of rocking and singing lullabies and walking the floor we’d just endured. She sighed and her eyes fluttered shut, and I breathed a sigh of my own, one of relief.

I sat there for a while, listening to the babies breathing and thinking about my vision of them. I wanted to tell Chakotay about it in the worst way, to share the precious details of our children’s future lives with him, and I was very tempted to run in and wake him but I knew he was exhausted after a full day as Voyager’s first officer and a fuller night as harried daddy of twins. Finally I got up, deciding I would just slip back into bed and enjoy a warm snuggle until he was ready to wake up. To my surprise, though, he was standing in the doorway, watching me. Starlight revealed rumpled waves of rapidly greying hair, lots of sleek dark skin, and the smile he saves just for me.

“You’re awake, too?” I whispered as I reached his side.

He nodded as he took me in his arms. “I had the most amazing dream,” he said softly, “and I wanted to tell you about it...”