Christmas, 2385
"Duncan, no, don't do that sweetie." Exasperated, Kathryn took the wooden spoon from her son's hands, and made the best effort she could to clean the cake mixture he had been wiping onto himself from down the front of his pyjamas.
"Mama. NO! I want spoon!" he said, frowning.
She looked straight at her three year old son and shook her head in an authoritative manner. It was then that Kathryn saw his bottom lip begin to wobble.
And the crying began.
Kathryn Janeway, mother of two, put down the mixing bowl and made her way with Duncan into the lounge. She sat him on her knee until he calmed down enough to saunter back into the playroom and hunt out his toddler PADD, a birthday present from Harry Kim and his new wife Ellie.
She sighed. Duncan was normally such a good child, but this past week he had been getting increasingly cranky due to absence of his father. It was Christmas Eve, and Chakotay still hadn’t returned from the Starfleet “Relations Exercise” he had been sent on. She had been on her own since then, as her mother Gretchen had chosen to spend Christmas with Kathryn’s sister, Pheobe, in Australia. Kathryn didn’t like to admit it, but she was feeling lonely. The Paris’ had popped in the day before, but it had been a flying visit as they left for an immediate transport to Martha’s Vineyard, where they were to spend the holiday with Tom’s parents.
Kathryn looked in on her sleeping daughter Leah before attempting to resume her cake-baking antics. As much as she preferred replicators, Chakotay had told her years ago that if there was one time of year when replicators became redundant, it was Christmas. Fortunately, she hadn’t had to cook at any of their Christmases together so far: that task had been shared between her husband and her mother.
Logistically, she knew that if she could captain a starship from one side of the galaxy to the other, a turkey dinner shouldn’t present too much of a problem. But in practice, given the option she would have been more comfortable back on Voyager’s bridge.
Taking off her apron and returning to the lounge she found Duncan sound asleep in front of the fireplace. She lifted him and carried him to his room, tucking him into bed and placing a kiss on his forehead. At the foot of the bed hung a stocking Gretchen had made for him on his first Christmas, with “Merry Christmas Santa! Love Duncan” stitched on the front.
Making her way back downstairs, she smiled to herself. When she and Chakotay had first announced their engagement to family and friends, it had been Tom Paris that had commented that she would be “domesticated at last”. He hadn’t meant it maliciously, but B’Elanna had kicked him hard in the shin, asking her husband if he considered her to be “domesticated”. Tom’s expression of fear had stayed in her mind for a long time after that incident.
So she couldn’t cook a turkey dinner, and her Christmas cake wasn’t looking too healthy in the oven at the moment. But she loved her family, and her family loved her. And that was what mattered.
Kathryn lay in bed, and watched the clock turn from 23.59 to 00.00. The outer door opened and closed and familiar footsteps padded up the stairs and into their room. Her husband greeted her with a kiss, and a whisper:
“Merry Christmas, my love”.
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