Caretaker - L. A. Graf [16]
Seven weeks? It seemed like she should have realized what was going on by nearly halfway through a dog's pregnancy. Janeway clapped a hand to her head, barely able to push ship thoughts aside long enough to consider what to do. "Mark," she cried at last, "you've got to take her home with you!"
"With me? I just got the rugs cleaned!"
"She's with child," Janeway objected. It was all she could do to keep from laughing at his far-too-dubious scowl. "I can't leave her in a kennel while I'm--" "Is this another love-me-love-my-dog demand?" Mark interrupted sweetly.
Janeway smiled at him. "Yes."
He sighed and rolled his eyes in his best imitation of heroic martyrdom. "How could I ever refuse you?"
"Thanks, honey." She meant it for so many things other than Bear, but felt sure Mark already knew that.
"When do you leave?"
The question only reminded her of the landslide of work still crowding the ready-room table, and she glanced down at it with throb of sudden fatigue. "As soon as I approve these system status reports." She picked up one and made herself scan it as she spoke.
"All right," Mark told her. "I won't bother you anymore."
"Hey..." Lifting her eyes from the data padd, Janeway reached out to trace the image of his face on her monitor, frustrated by the light-years of distance. "You never bother me," she told him gently.
"Except the way I love to be bothered. Understand?"
He reached out for her in turn, the channel stopping both of them just before contact was made. "Aye, Captain."
"See you in a few weeks." A few very short weeks, judging from the speed with which things had happened so far. It hardly seemed long enough to get everything done. "Oh! And, Mark--go by my house and pick up the doggy bed. She'll be more comfortable."
"I already did," he admitted, teasing her. "An hour ago."
Janeway made an attempt to look put out by his humor, but, as usual, couldn't maintain even false irritation with him. Kissing her fingers, she touched his lips on the screen and smiled. Just a few weeks.
Returning her silent gesture, he winked a jaunty farewell before breaking the channel to leave her to her work.
A mixed blessing, at best. There was certainly a lot of it, although none of it was very hard. An acknowledgment here, a verification there. Janeway affixed her thumbprint to so many different reports and manifests by the time she'd reached the bottom of her coffee, she was surprised she hadn't worn the ridges away to nothing. At least the stack in the middle of the table was somewhat neater now, and filled with completed work instead of chores yet waiting. Just that minor triumph always had a tendency to calm her somewhat at the start of a mission.
Standing, Janeway carried her empty mug back to the ready room's sole replicator, and was still contemplating whether or not to actually finish off the second coffee or recycle it when the chime to the outside door sounded. "Come in."
She recognized Paris from their brief conversation in Auckland, and the boy--Harry Kim--from the crew manifest she'd filed away earlier that afternoon. Paris was cleaner and a good deal more respectable with his neatly trimmed hair and Starfleet-issue singlet. Kim looked young enough to be thrown out of every drinking joint in the sector, not to mention terrified.
"Gentlemen, welcome aboard Voyager."
Paris nodded once, with a certain wry dignity, and Kim made a valiant attempt to pull even more stiffly to attention. "Thank you, sir," the young ensign said breathlessly.
"Mr. Kim..." Janeway thumbed a control on the replicator, watching both mugs fade away into nothing. "At ease before you sprain something."
He made what she assumed was an attempt to relax, but not much about his posture changed.
Janeway folded her arms and turned her back on the replicator, regarding him. "Mr. Kim, despite Starfleet protocol, I don't like being addressed as `sir."" He flushed and nodded stiffly.