Title: Early Morning Slumber Party

Author: Megara79

Series: Star Trek: Voyager

Rating: K

Summary: On Chakotay's birthday, Gretchen Janeway decides to meddle.

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Thanks to: Missyhissy, who always comes up with the right suggestions and keeps my English in check. And to Eydie, who looked over the final draft.

A/N: This fic was inspired by last year's Secret Drabble line, which was supplied to me by EydieMunroe. I didn't post it at the time since it didn't meet the requirements, and then forgot all about until this year's exchange. Better late than never though, right? Also, the cheese is strong with this one. You're hereby duly warned.

"Another long night?"

Gretchen Janeway eyed her daughter with well-honed concern as she entered the kitchen.

Walking to the stove, she wondered if her oldest had made it to bed at all, insomnia proving tenacious and predictable in its routine since her return from the Delta Quadrant. A non-committal sound emanated from Kathryn's vicinity by the kitchen table, thin hands absentmindedly playing with a seemingly empty coffee mug, and Gretchen had her confirmation, regardless of her daughter's intentions.

She spooned a generous amount of freshly ground coffee into the coffee machine and leaned against the counter, studying her eldest daughter as she waited for it to brew.

It'd been nearly five months since the USS Voyager exploded through a transwarp aperture and into the Alpha Quadrant in an emerald storm of vented plasma, Borg shrapnel and charred flesh. The ship had barely made it through in one piece, and every now and then Gretchen worried that the same was true for her daughter. To most people, Kathryn seemed as she'd always been – strong, vibrant and fiercely protective of the people she cared about. She kept herself busy and appeared content and at ease, but in the early morning when the sun was just breaking and she was too tired to keep her guard up, Gretchen could see the exhaustion within her.

Sighing, she poured herself a cup of coffee and joined her daughter by the kitchen table. Bright shining sunbeams were already sifting through the drawn back curtains, partially bathing the kitchen in light. The back door had been opened, presumably to let Gretchen's not-so-stray cat out for the day, and the faint chirping of birds supplied a pleasant background noise to the morning.

"There's fresh coffee in the pot," Gretchen said as she sat down.

Kathryn pulled a face. "I'm not sure I can stomach another cup just now."

"I'm already worried about you, Katie. If you stop drinking coffee I may actually have a heart attack."

Kathryn snorted, and Gretchen smiled into her coffee mug. At least her daughter's sense of humor was back.

"Have you made any plans today?" she asked, putting the mug back onto the table.

"No, not really," Kathryn hummed, stretching her bare legs towards the sun streaming through the room.

"I hope you've put sunscreen on," Gretchen commented. "The Irish burn."

"I don't think sunscreen exists anymore," Kathryn replied dryly. "There's this state-of-the-art invention called a hypospray? I'm not sure you've heard of it." She leveled a pointed look in her mother's direction. "It's only been around for the past two hundred years or so."

"Sass burns too, you know." Gretchen warned and Kathryn snorted again. In a tone that left little room for argument, she added, "Why don't you help me around the house today? I've already put a load of washing on. It should be done in a few minutes."

"Replicators. Hyposprays. Recyclers. Join the 24th century, mother."

"And miss out on all this whining?"

As if on cue, a ping sounded from the utility room.

Gretchen smiled sweetly. "I think that's for you, dear."

"I wonder if Phoebe will consider having you put in a home," Kathryn grumbled as she got to her feet.

Gretchen chuckled and stretched a hand towards Kathryn. Kathryn took it, and Gretchen gave it a squeeze. "I do love you, daughter of mine."

"Too little, too late."

Gretchen burst into laughter and enjoyed seeing a smile bloom on Kathryn's face in return. The knot inside her chest loosened, if only a little. She was a warrior, her daughter was, and the good days were finally beginning to outweigh the bad, even if the nights could use a bit more work.

Letting go of her mother's hand, Kathryn went to pick up the laundry. Gretchen got to her feet as well and took the two mugs over to the sink to rinse them out.

"Mom?" Kathryn's muted voice sounded from the other room.

"Yes?"

"What's the date?"

"July 7th. Why?" Gretchen's spider sense was beginning to tingle.

"Oh, nothing really," came the reply. "It's just... It's Chakotay's birthday today."

Huh.

Gretchen considered her response carefully. "Make sure you tell him happy birthday from me when you speak to him."

Kathryn emerged from the utility room, a basket of wet towels in her arms and stayed suspiciously quiet.

"You are going to speak to him?" Gretchen asked. Kathryn said nothing. "We could invite him for breakfast?" Gretchen pressed on. "Or a celebratory birthday lunch?"

Kathryn studiously avoided her mother's eyes and headed for the back door. "Maybe..."

Gretchen quelled the urge to throw her hands up in exasperation. She didn't know what had happened between her daughter and the man who'd served as her first officer, but she was pretty sure there was more to their relationship than Kathryn wanted to admit.

"Well," Gretchen mumbled to herself as Kathryn went outside. "She didn't say not to invite him."

Even at seven a.m., the temperature in the outskirts of Bloomington, Indiana was warm and pleasant, and Kathryn Janeway felt something akin to mild contentment as she trudged her way up the small incline by the house to where the washing lines were. She savored the feeling, reveling in the fact it was there and couldn't find it in herself to begrudge her mother's insistent need to do most chores around the house the old fashioned way.

Maybe this meant that the tide was turning?

Kathryn hoped so.

The months that had passed since Voyager's impromptu return had not been easy. In many ways, Kathryn felt like she hadn't quite made it back with the rest of her crew, and her days were spent in an unrelenting daze that seemed impossible to shake. The overwhelming shock at finding herself in the Alpha Quadrant had stayed with her through the debriefings and the many promotional ceremonies that had followed. She had worked just as hard during those weeks as she had on Voyager, maybe even harder, but she had felt completely detached from the world around her and struggled to accept that they'd actually made it home. It was as if she'd been split down the middle, one part of her trying to enjoy their return while the other desperately grasped for reality.

Because after all this time – after so many failed attempts – there was no way Earth was real.

It was an elaborate alien deception orchestrated by one the Delta Quadrant's plethora of hostile species.

She was in stasis, fighting a vicious viral infection, a vivid dream of home playing through her mind as she slept on a biobed 60,000 light years away.

The Borg Queen had won and Earth was nothing but Kathryn's personalized Unimatrix Zero – a virtual reality concocted as a safeguard to ensure compliance even in the face of a malfunctioning drone.

By the time Kathryn finally stood relieved, everything came to an abrupt halt. A mandatory leave of absence had been instituted for the entire crew and Kathryn had moved home to her mother. It was only meant as a temporary solution, but as the weeks stretched on and her fractured thoughts quieted, she was left with a dull sense of nothingness that enveloped her completely. When Gretchen insisted she remain in her childhood home, Kathryn hadn't argued. Even through the haze that had settled within her, she'd kept working; helping her mother on the farm and making sure the crew managed their homecoming better than she was managing her own. Kathryn's acting skills had been honed close to perfection over the years and she doubted anyone, bar her mother and sister, even knew she was struggling.

Tuvok would have seen through her in a heartbeat, but he was on Vulcan receiving treatment for his illness. Chakotay would have seen it too.

But then she didn't really speak to Chakotay anymore.

Reaching the top of the slope, Kathryn put the basket down by a tree trunk. Straightening, she closed her eyes and allowed the sun to warm her face from where the beams filtered through the leaves overhead. Things had changed in the last few weeks. It was as if her sense of self – her soul – was beginning to wake after a long overdue nap. Feelings and emotions were finally coming back to life again, albeit slowly, and with them thoughts of Chakotay had become more and more prominent, prodding at her at inopportune times.

They hadn't argued.

Not really.

But there had been a decidedly uncomfortable...discussion...in which Chakotay's relationship with Seven had come up. At the time, parts of Kathryn had still been reeling from the news her older counterpart had shared of the couple's would-be-marriage and Seven's untimely death. Kathryn had tried to convince herself that the reason she'd been so shaken by the news was solely because of Seven's death. The ensuing conversation had reflected that, and in the end she'd wished him well with his new relationship and told him she hoped he was happy.

Looking back, she wanted to cringe at the clinical detachment with which she'd carried herself. She'd been cold and efficient, yet made sure she remained personable. A gentle hand on his arm, a hint of a smile, a hug. Each gesture just enough to keep up the pretense that she had no problem with Seven and Chakotay's relationship. She left him at the coffee shop where they'd met, and had hardly said two words to him since.

Chakotay, Seven, any desires of her own had been swallowed up in the descending fog of her depression, and it was only now, when the air around her had started to clear, that her mind had allowed her to return to that conversation and hinted at other options. She wasn't sure what she wanted those options to be, but she knew she missed him.

She chewed her lip, lost in thought, and secured a pillowslip to the line with a clothes peg.

"There's something to be said for doing your own washing, Chakotay." Gretchen Janeway explained in a manner that left little room argument. "It's therapeutic, if not the most effective way of cleaning one's clothes. You should try it. You do look a little worse for wear, if you don't mind me saying." She patted his arm sympathetically, and went to pour him a glass of lemonade.

"You did comm me at seven in the morning," Chakotay replied, amused, and accepted the drink. She had the grace to look a little chagrined and he ducked his head, smiling as he added. "To be honest, Mrs. Janeway, you're not wrong. It's been surprisingly difficult to get a decent night sleep since we got back."

The older woman eyed him, a strange look on her face. "Interesting," she mumbled, more to herself than him, making Chakotay wonder why she found his bouts of insomnia so fascinating.

"How so?" he prodded.

She seemed to snap out of it, her voice taking on an admonishing tone as she spoke. "Please call me Gretchen."

"I think my father would roll over in his grave if I did that."

"I appreciate his manners, as well as yours, but we don't really stand on ceremony in this house. We do believe in tit for tat though. If I'm to call you Chakotay, you will call me Gretchen."

Expectant eyes of cornflower blue locked with his, and for the barest of moments Chakotay found himself thousands of light years away on a completely different planet where another expectant Janeway had told him to call her by her first name.

"I've never been particularly good at refusing your daughter," he admitted. "I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise that I have the same problem when it comes to her mother."

A fact that had become abundantly clear shortly after he'd realized who the person comming him at 07:00 hours was. His surprise at seeing Gretchen's face on the monitor had swiftly turned into an innate sense of panic. Thankfully, she'd wasted no time, quickly telling him her daughter was fine, before promptly inviting him for breakfast. Chakotay's excuses and partially formulated reservations had fallen on deaf ears, and it hadn't taken long before he'd found himself in Kathryn's childhood home, questioning his sanity and her mother's way of doing laundry.

"I'm impressed that you got Kathryn Janeway, infamous technophile and child of the 24th century, to hang your washing for you." Chakotay chuckled at the thought.

"A mother's prerogative." Gretchen shrugged, rising from the chair she'd been sitting in. "And you can wipe that grin off your face," she continued good-naturedly. "This load isn't going to hang itself." A wicker basket was unceremoniously shoved into his arms. "The line's out the back, and so is my daughter."

"Yes, Ma'am." Chakotay rose as well, and clicked his heels together.

Gretchen smiled, eyes twinkling. "Good man."

Making his way to the back door, he paused. "She doesn't know I'm here, does she?"

"No," Gretchen confirmed. "But she wants you here. Whether she knows it or not."

"We haven't really spoken since the debriefings ended."

"And yet, here you are." Gretchen gave him a knowing glance.

Chakotay felt an insistent need to tug at his ear. Kathryn may have inherited her gifts as an officer from her father, but her ability to read people was definitely all Gretchen. "And here I am," he confirmed, smiling.

"Happy birthday, Chakotay," Gretchen smiled back.

Stepping into the sunshine, Chakotay felt a mixture of apprehension and excitement stir in the pit of his stomach.

Whether they wanted to admit it or not, the truth of the matter was that over the last leg of their journey something akin to resentment had crept up between him and Kathryn. The strain of command had changed them both. Twisted and bit at them until their personalities faded and all they knew was how to be Captain and Commander. It was always going to be worse for Kathryn. In the end she'd stopped fighting it, too tired and worn down by her responsibilities to the crew, and Chakotay couldn't find it in himself to help her. What they'd shared on their visit to holographic Venice dwindled into a distant memory, something so unattainable that it was best left in the past.

And then Seven had happened.

Who knows if their relationship would have survived if Voyager had stayed in the Delta Quadrant, but with the unexpected appearance of a white haired admiral, that future evaporated and another stretched out before him. The Alpha Quadrant had sent him into a tailspin, and he hadn't even thought to protest when Seven had told him she wanted to terminate their relationship. He'd been too preoccupied with the debriefings and doing what he could to help the rest of the crew transition back to the lives they'd left behind all those years ago to even conjure up an ounce of disappointment that the relationship had ended. He wished her well, and still spoke to her often, but he didn't miss her.

He missed Kathryn.

It had taken him a few months to realize that that's what it was, this restlessness that lingered within him, even as things seemed to settle down for everyone else. The more time that passed, the more he thought about her. Whenever they inadvertently ran into each other, they still chatted amicably enough, but their conversations were airy and non-committal. He could tell that Kathryn was struggling, and he told himself that he didn't want to add to her troubles. But the truth of the matter was that he was scared; scared that the connection they once had wasn't retrievable, and that they they'd drifted apart for good reason.

Or that Kathryn had come to the conclusion that her life was better without him in it.

And who knew? Maybe she was right. Either way, they owed each other a resolution, one way or another, and now that he was there, he might as well find out. The sun glittered encouragingly overhead, and for Chakotay, one thing became abundantly clear. Despite all of his reservations, he was really looking forward to seeing her. Making up his mind, he hoisted the wicker basket further up in his arms, and started walking towards the clothing line.

It didn't take long before he spotted Kathryn between the billowing sheets. She had her back towards him and was dressed in navy shorts and a white t-shirt. Her hair up in a short ponytail, auburn locks glowing in the sunlight. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her out of uniform. It was a curiously pleasant sight, and he was glad he'd left his own at home.

He watched her secure the bedding she was holding with a peg, ignored his nervousness, and cleared his throat.

She jumped at the sound and turned around, shielding her eyes from the sun with a hand.

"Hi," Chakotay said, with a sudden need to tug at his ear again. "I've been drafted," he quickly explained, lifting his basket higher in the air for emphasis.

"Forget Phoebe, I'm definitely putting her in a home."

"I'm sorry?"

"My mother. She's a menace."

Chakotay couldn't help but smile. "She doesn't exactly leave much room for discussion, I'll give you that."

Silence descended and a strange kind of awkwardness fell upon them. Clearing his throat again, he made his way to the line, put his basket on the ground and grabbed a sheet.

"You have to flick it first," Kathryn said as he moved to hang it. "The sheet," she clarified, as he looked at her, eyebrows raised in question.

She hesitated, then stepped a little closer and grabbed a corner. She gestured for Chakotay to move back until the sheet was stretched out between them. "And now we flick," she instructed.

The sheet snapped loudly, like a whip, and Chakotay found it oddly appropriate.

Neither of them moved.

'Well, this is going great,' Chakotay thought, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Kathryn chewed on her lip. He wanted desperately to say something, anything to break the tension, but all he managed to do was tug at the sheet a little and watch Kathryn take a step towards him as a result.

She looked at him, the corners of her lips darting upwards for the briefest of seconds. She looked tired, but otherwise okay. More than okay, really. The frantic exhaustion that had been such an integral part of her the last couple of years of their journey had disappeared, replaced by a sense of calm that he couldn't remember seeing on her since New Earth.

She cocked her head as she regarded him and did her own little tug on the sheet. The smile that followed his move towards her lasted a little longer this time.

Chakotay grinned back. "What do we do now?" he asked, not sure if he meant the sheet or them.

Kathryn seemed to consider her answer.

"Maybe we meet in the middle?" She shrugged a shoulder.

Relief washed over him and another smile lit his face. On the other side of the sheet, a similar grin bloomed across Kathryn's features.

"You know, that might be the corniest thing you've ever said," Chakotay quipped, pulling her another step towards him.

"I know. I can't believe I actually said that," Kathryn agreed. "How do you do it?" She tugged Chakotay closer.

"It takes practice. The dimples help," Chakotay pointed at his left cheek, and grinned broadly for emphasis.

Another tug.

Another step.

"A dangerous weapon, those dimples," Kathryn said, laughter coloring her words. Her eyes met his, and he watched, fascinated, as they went from playful to curious before settling on something akin to wonderment. She looked beautiful.

He moved before she pulled at the sheet, and just like that they were toe to toe. "How are you?" he asked, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

Kathryn, in turn, closed her eyes and sighed. "I'm fine now."

Gretchen surveyed the spread on the kitchen table and nodded to herself, content that this was a birthday breakfast worthy of the man she'd practically ordered to the house. She peered through the window to check on the pair, but couldn't see them and headed for the door.

She'd only met Chakotay twice before, neither of those occasions allowing her much time to speak with the man who had served as her daughter's first officer. She'd watched them on both occasions though, a cool detachment between them as they interacted. And yet, what had stuck with her was the way they'd eyed each other when the other wasn't looking. Gretchen hadn't asked her daughter much about their relationship, mostly because she knew Kathryn hadn't been ready to talk about it. But regardless of their apparent aloofness towards each other, Gretchen had seen a bond that went deeper than either of them was willing to acknowledge.

Walking out back, she looked towards the washing line. Neither Kathryn nor Chakotay were anywhere to be seen. For a split second she pondered whether to just leave them be. Glancing back towards the food she'd prepared, Gretchen changed her mind. "Just don't let me stumble into something inappropriate," she muttered to herself. Wiping her hands on her apron, she made her way to where she thought the two might be.

"Breakfast is ready," she announced, voice loud and clear. "I expect you have enough sense to leave anything that might frighten the cows and unassuming mothers till later!" she yelled out, just in case.

No answer.

Gretchen wasn't sure if she was grateful or if she was starting to worry.

She'd barely finished her train of thought when she saw them by the big oak tree that made up one of the poles for the washing line. Chakotay had his back against the tree trunk, one of Gretchen's newly washed sheets behind him for support. His legs were stretched out before him, crossed at the ankles, and he was sound asleep. On the ground next to him, Kathryn, too, was sleeping. She was on her side, head resting in Chakotay's lap and another one of Gretchen's sheets propped under her hip. The tree partially shaded them from the sun, and they both looked so perfectly content that Gretchen nearly cried at the site of them.

Apparently they'd both found a cure for the insomnia that had plagued them since their return.

Gretchen felt the ever present tightness of worry in her chest loosen even further and swore to herself that she'd make sure Chakotay stayed for lunch.

And dinner.

And maybe even supper too.

Heck, why not throw in a lifetime while she was at it.

Smiling to herself, Gretchen turned and made her way back to the house. Breakfast might have been ruined, but at least – bar two sheets – the washing was done.

The end