Disclaimer: ST: VOY is not mine.

Author's Note: My response to Singing Violin's challenge.

Failure to Fight Fate

By mistress amethyst une

Chapter 1

They should have known better. It was all too good to last. Such utter bliss… Ten years of unimaginable happiness after Voyager reached home. All their dreams came to fruition. A few years were spent rekindling their old romance and, after that, marriage swiftly followed. Nobody could have wished for a better union. After the seven years they had spent wandering the Delta Quadrant, they thought that fate was finally rewarding them for having weathered so many trials together. Who knew that the happiness they had grown accustomed to for so long could be snatched away so quickly? In the admiral's time line, their romance had been doomed. Fate was not so kind as to aid those who messed with its web. It had humored them by letting them taste happiness for as long as it could. Now, it was time for the salt of tears to permeate. Destiny would be fulfilled. It was unavoidable. Fate almost wished it wasn't.

It had started with an assassination attempt a month after she and Chakotay had begun their retirement. She had been hit in the head with a shock of some sort and, despite a few days worth of headaches, there seemed to be no adverse effects. The assailant was never caught but, seeing that she was fine, it almost seemed a non-issue. Then it began...

It progressed slowly. Snappy remarks she'd immediately take back saying she had no idea what would possess her to say such things slowly turned into slapping, biting and scratching until it finally escalated to episodes of rage and randomly lashing out at people she cared about. She would then hold her head in agony and weep wondering out loud what was turning her into such a horrible person.

The Doctor could find nothing wrong with her and neither could any physicians. Counselors said she was under stress but nothing she hadn't handled before, nothing that could trigger such intense bursts of emotion. She was ill, that was certain. But what ailed her, no one knew. And as long as no one knew, things could only get worse.

Her worst outburst to date occurred on the day Chakotay would grow to consider the worst day of his life. After a particularly violent and random fit of rage that came out of nowhere, she'd grabbed a kitchen knife and tried to stab him. He managed to pin her down and wrestle the knife away from her but not before the force of his takedown had knocked her head against the hardwood floor. Her head bled as she seemed to regain her senses.

"Thank you…" she said weakly. She touched her fingers to her own lips before gently pressing the kiss on her hand against his mouth to halt his apology. Tears streamed down his face as she closed her eyes. He carried her to their hover car and hurriedly drove to the nearest hospital. If she died now, he knew in his heart that he might as well die too. The thought of being the one to kill her, of being the one to kill Kathryn after he'd so desperately tried to protect her from her own madness, tore through him sharper than the knife she'd intended to stab him with ever could have.

She lay unconscious for three days. To Chakotay, it seemed much longer. Every second she didn't stir was sheer torture yet he bore it and sat at her bedside, holding the hand that had always expressed such affection for him. Laying on his shoulder to give encouragement, touching his cheek to make her affection known, firmly holding his head in place as they indulged in sweet kisses… The same hand that had grabbed a knife and tried to hack to pieces the heart that loved her so much. He was still in shock at what she'd done but he knew very well that she didn't do it out of her own volition. To think that she'd thanked him for causing her bodily harm, for almost killing her to save himself.

"Damn martyr," he muttered under his breath wondering if he was referring to her or to himself.

When her eyes finally fluttered open, the gaze that greeted him was cold, almost menacing. No, this wasn't Kathryn. Her madness was in possession of her and there was nothing he could do but weather another outburst. He was just lucky that the drugs kept her in a mildly sedated state and she was in no shape to launch another attack on him.

"I hate you," she said in a voice that was both her own and someone else's entirely, "Some husband you are… An utter failure. You couldn't even give me children. I should have killed you. Worthless…"

He took her biting criticism in stride. It was all somehow true. They had waited too long to have children and her biological clock had run out on her. He blamed himself for that. He knew he had no control over her body but it was he who had insisted that they wait a couple of years before having children. A couple of years proved to be a couple of years too late. Kathryn had seemed to take everything in stride. She only showed mild disappointment and even joked that the universe had probably had enough of them and didn't want them reproducing more of themselves to run around and wreak havoc on the cosmos.

"I guess the two of us are meant for just here and now," she had said with such pride.

Her madness showed another side. Bitterness and resentment… It made sense. She held in her sadness out of love with him. Uninhibited, she didn't consider his feelings and he could hear the truth of her raw feelings as they would be if unmarred by affection.

Her eyes had regained their usual kind glow and welled up with tears, "I didn't mean it…"

He shook his head, "Kathryn, you did and you know it. All this time, you endured all that. I knew it but I refused to see."

She began to shake with the force of her sobbing, "No… I was fine with it. I-I love you. And as long as you're happy, I'm content. Chakotay, please don't listen to me when I ramble like that. I-I don't want to lose you over a few words that were never meant to be spoken."

"Just now, you said you were content as long as I was happy. Content… You didn't say you were happy too. Now I'm beginning to understand the Admiral from ten years ago. You're turning into her. You're content just to be content. She was content to let me marry Seven thinking I'd be happy with another woman and you were content to suffer without a child just to humor me and my cold feet."

"After what Seska did to you, I understood your hesitation about the idea. I was just trying to give you the choice."

"It was your choice too. I told you that."

"I just wanted you to be happy."

"Look at us now, Kathryn! Do I seem happy to you? Knowing that I hurt you like this? Before you decide to play the martyr, think about the one you're making the sacrifice for. Maybe he'd like to crucify himself for your sake once in awhile."

He left the room and stood outside the door as her sobs grew progressively louder. Why was he letting this tear them apart like this?

"She told such beautiful lies," he thought to himself as he fell to his knees and wondered how they could go on like this.

OOO

Author's Note: So there's the first chapter of my response to Singing Violin's challenge. I admit, I've never written anything this full of angst before. Ever. I love happy endings and my sad endings almost always end up feeling contrived and forced. At least to me… I can only hope I did Singing Violin's idea justice and that this pleased you enough to merit your desire for another chapter. I admit, I'm very skeptical about my work on this and I can only hope I pull it off without offending readers with my amateur approach. By the way, I don't have a beta and English isn't my first language so pardon any grammatical errors. If anyone would like to beta for me, I would be more than a little grateful.