AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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"The worst part about it is that you look so damn satisfied with yourself," Kathryn said.

Chakotay had gained, at least temporarily, the right to cuddle their daughter when Ensign Parker had left their quarters. In theory, Kathryn was going to take a bath—a long hot soak in the tub—and then he was going to take a nap. If he were lucky, he might persuade Kathryn to nap with him if Kaya would allow such a thing.

First, though, they absolutely had to discuss what had taken place during Parker's visit.

"We have to be reasonable, Kathryn," Chakotay said. He could read her well enough to tell that she might be a bit irritated, but she still had a sense of humor about things. "We've talked about this before. We're promoting that Voyager become a multi-generational ship. We're promoting families. It's only natural that people will begin to pair off—to seek mates. Ensign Parker's young. She's going to be looking for a suitable mate."

Kathryn laughed.

"A suitable mate is not my mate," Kathryn said.

Chakotay smiled at her and rocked Kaya as the baby made a sound. It wasn't a sound of distaste. She was quite satisfied, even if she was lingering somewhere between being asleep and being awake. She had thrown an absolute fit—going rigid in her mother's arms with unhappiness about a diaper and then, about a snack to top off the one she'd had earlier—and her loudest screams were what had sent Ensign Parker away, insisting that she had things she had to accomplish before she was wanted for some assignment or another.

But Kathryn had cleaned Kaya, fed her what she wanted and, insisting that Chakotay was the best at burping her, she'd passed the baby over.

Really, Chakotay knew that Kathryn tried, as often as she could, to be sure that he got the opportunity to hold the little one when she was in a pleasant mood.

"I find your possessiveness very attractive, Kathryn," Chakotay said. He smiled at her when she narrowed her eyes at him.

"Every woman's possessive of her husband," Kathryn said.

"You misunderstand," Chakotay said quickly. "I wasn't scolding. I was being sincere. I find it very—sexy—that you're possessive of me. It's very primal and, I think, in short, that speaks to the primal side of me."

Kathryn smiled at him and crossed the room from where she was sorting a few items of Kaya's. If all went well, within a few days they'd be expanding their quarters, and Kathryn could begin to build a proper nursery for Kaya. Chakotay didn't know much time the infant would actually spend in a nursery, but Kathryn was at least seeming a little interested in moving some of her more unused things there.

When she reached him, Kathryn leaned close to him as she looked up at him. Chakotay couldn't see, but she might have even been balanced on her tiptoes to make herself taller. The only thing that kept her from getting any closer was her fear that she'd disturb Kaya, and she didn't want to do that.

"The primal side of you, huh? I like the sound of that," she growled at him.

Chakotay leaned enough to kiss her, and she caught his lip with her teeth and tugged it a second before she released him when he pulled away. He shook his head at her.

"We've got a wait period," he said, raising his eyebrows at her. "Doctor's orders. Or did you forget?"

"I could do something for you," Kathryn said, holding his eyes with her own. "Just for you. I could take care of you and any of those…primal urges you might have."

He shook his head.

"I'll wait until we're both free to do what we want," Chakotay said.

Kathryn almost looked forlorn.

"There are a lot of young ladies on the prowl around here," Kathryn said.

Chakotay laughed to himself.

"Even if she is prowling, Ensign Parker is harmless," he said.

"That's where most men get into trouble," Kathryn responded. "Thinking women are harmless. We are very seldom actually harmless."

Chakotay smiled to himself.

"I understand that about you," he responded. "But Parker is harmless. She's young. She'll be looking for someone to mate with." He shrugged his shoulders. "It's nothing more than a little—harmless flirtation."

"With a married man," Kathryn said.

"Think of it from the primal perspective," Chakotay offered. "When a woman is looking for a mate, there are specific things she's looking for. Just like there are specific things a man is looking for in a mate. A woman's looking for someone she finds attractive, but that's not enough. He's got to be—able to provide. He's got to be able to protect her. And he's got to be—well, virile."

Kathryn narrowed her eyes at him.

"And you're just the man to fill all those roles," Kathryn said.

"Don't you think so?" Chakotay asked with a laugh.

"For me or for her?" Kathryn asked.

Chakotay laughed.

"It's probably even more basic than that," he said, turning Kaya to hold her against his chest so he could pat her back and try to soothe her from her emerging dislike of being held in the crook of his arm. "Look at Kaya."

"I see her," Kathryn said. "But we're not talking about Kaya."

"She's a beautiful baby," Chakotay said.

"The most beautiful baby in the whole universe," Kathryn said. "A baby who looks nothing like her mother."

Chakotay swallowed back some of his laughter.

"She looks a great deal like you," he said. "My point is that—a young woman, searching for the ideal mate, finds a man who has proven that he can have children. He's fertile. And he produces an absolutely beautiful child. Seeing that baby? It's sure to drive her crazy. Kathryn—seeing babies can drive women to want babies. You know that. Even when you were just pregnant there were crewmembers who commented on how just being around you made them want a baby."

"And there are women that steal other women's babies," Kathryn said. "Across species."

"On Voyager? Nobody's stealing a baby, Kathryn," Chakotay said.

"But stealing husbands is fine?" Kathryn asked.

Chakotay detected a slight hint of irritation in her voice. He decided to tread delicately. He feared things taking a turn from a playful conversation about an Ensign's misplaced crush and turning into a real conflict.

When Kaya continued to whine about her situation, Chakotay carried her over to where her swing was. He buckled her into it while Kathryn stood close by with her hands on her hips.

"Do you want to hold her?" He asked. "Before I get her buckled in here?"

"Not if she wants to go down," Kathryn said. "It doesn't usually last for long."

"That's because you usually pick her up before it has a chance to last, Kathryn," Chakotay said. He could see, immediately, that he'd said the wrong thing at the wrong time and he held his hand up in Kathryn's direction and tried to physically wipe away what he'd said from the air around them. "I don't mean that's a bad thing. I simply mean that—she hasn't spent much time in a swing because she's spent most of her time in the loving arms of her parents—which is where she absolutely should be as long as they want to hold and nurture her."

Kathryn stared at him. He would have given anything to have been able to read her expression accurately. He wasn't sure, though, if there was anger or frustration there since her mouth was practically a straight line.

"Kathryn—Ensign Parker is just a young woman with a schoolgirl crush," Chakotay said. "Nothing more."

Kathryn shrugged her shoulders. She walked around, straightening things up. Chakotay followed her because he knew that her trip around their quarters was just something to keep her busy while she thought and processed things.

"I'm not a young woman, Chakotay," Kathryn said.

"You're hardly an old woman," Chakotay responded quickly.

"She's a good deal younger than me. And the thing about men is—they can go on being young much longer than women can. Producing children. Building families. Someone like Ensign Parker could really give you as many children as you could ever want."

Chakotay reached out and caught the upper part of Kathryn's arm. She straightened up, but she kept her back to him. He squeezed her arm hard enough to let her know that he was serious, but without doing her any real damage.

"I thought you were the mother of all my children. Present and future. I hope to hell that when you turn around, Kathryn, you reveal to me that you're joking. Because—it bugs the hell out of me that you would really think of trying to pawn me off on some random person just because you think I care about something as insignificant as the fact that she's a few years younger than you are."

Kathryn laughed to herself.

"I would never pawn you off," she said. She turned around, almost like she was dancing, and turned into him. She drew her arms against her chest and leaned against Chakotay's chest in a fluid motion. She rubbed her face against his chest like a feline seeking comfort. He closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around her, and sighed at the satisfaction of holding her there. "I love you more than life, Chakotay," Kathryn breathed out.

Chakotay laughed ironically to himself.

"Then why were you trying to give me away to Ensign Parker?" Chakotay asked.

"I would never want to lose you," Kathryn said. "But—if it made you happy…I'd never want to be the reason that you weren't happy, Chakotay."

Chakotay squeezed Kathryn hard enough that she grunted at him, but she didn't fight to pull out of the comfortable position when he released the squeeze.

"You're what truly makes me happy, Kathryn," he said. He paused a moment and simply enjoyed the feeling of holding her before he continued the conversation with the next thought that struck him. "What'd you do to our children, Kathryn?"

"Hmmm?" She hummed at him.

"All our beautiful children, Kathryn," Chakotay said, hugging her comfortably against him. "What'd we say? Last time I think it was four that we were going to have?"

"Five," Kathryn said. "Last time we said five"

"All five of our beautiful children," Chakotay said. "Ten or eleven months apart. Perfect stair steps. And you just threw them away like pushing them out of an airlock."

"I never threw them away!" Kathryn protested. She didn't fight to even move away from him, though.

"You threw me to Ensign Parker and threw our precious children out of an airlock," Chakotay teased. "And—my feelings are a little hurt, to be honest."

Kathryn sighed.

"You know I don't mean anything by it," she said. "I love you and I love our little family. The three of us. And I want us to have our perfect, stair-step children. But—today really made me think about the fact that there are going to be crewmembers who do try to flirt with you. Who try to see if they can have what we have."

"You're right," Chakotay said. "And they're much more likely to do it with me than with you because you're the captain. And I'm not nearly as important as you are."

"There's not much that I can say to them about flirtation," Kathryn said. "Starfleet doesn't have any rules that allow me to throw them in the brig, for the rest of the journey, for trying to have an affair with my husband."

Chakotay laughed and pushed her away, far enough to kiss her on the forehead.

"Then you let me handle it," Chakotay said. "Flirtation is just that—and I'm capable of handling flirtation, Kathryn. I don't have to jump into bed with every woman that invites me. Just don't pay it any attention. Think of it as nothing more than that animal instinct. It's just—the reaction of women who are searching for mates. And when they realize that I'm already taken, and that I could never love any other woman but you? They'll move on and find someone else. Someone more appropriate and, hopefully, available to them."

"Is that how you'd feel if the shoe were on the other foot?" Kathryn asked. "And it was all the young male ensigns that were after me?"

"No," Chakotay said, doing his best to swallow back his smile. "It would eat me alive. But I'm not the captain, and so I would take the demerits I would receive for fighting back. Lucky for me, though, I don't have to worry about that too much. There aren't many young men who would try to hit on the captain."

Kathryn's only response was a facial expression, but it said everything that she wanted it to say. Chakotay laughed to himself. He kissed her forehead again, and then he kissed her lips. She kept the kiss going, deepening it, until he finally had to push her away.

"We have a wait period," he said. "For your health. After that…"

"I'll start counting down the days," Kathryn told him, quite sincerely.

He could feel his body already responding to her words—to the kiss.

"So will I. Go take your bath," he said. "Soak. Read a book. Relax. I've got Kaya for now."

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AN: I don't know if anyone would be interested, but I'm trying to let everyone know that I'm writing a slow burn/"a little help from others to get together" kind of fic called "Love Beyond Time". It includes characters from The Walking Dead as well as Janeway/Chakotay. It takes place on Voyager and in the Voyager timeline. The couples (Carol/Daryl and Janeway/Chakotay) will both be main characters, and there will be minor characters from Voyager, because you know I love ensemble casts. I'll let you read to find out how everything happens. It isn't necessary to have seen Walking Dead to enjoy or understand the story at all. There's absolutely no pressure to read, but I am simply getting the word out/letting people know in case they're interested.

At any rate, I hope you enjoyed the chapter here. Of course, we're never too worried about J/C, but they do have to have some little rocky spots every now and again.