Outcome, a startrek: voyager fanfic

Disclaimer: Star Trek and all of its subsequent incarnations, (including Voyager) are sole property of CBS Corporation and Paramount Pictures. No characters belong to me. No profit made. No harm intended.

Title: Outcome (A Workforce Episode Addition)

Author: kneipho
"R" Checker, Unbeknownst: Thank you, Glasskey
Rating: T (PG-13)
Fandom: VOY
Character/Pairing Codes: J and C, references to J/Ja

Spoilers: Resolutions, Workforce

Synopsis: Chakotay considers the impact of restoring Janeway's memory and returning her to Voyager while hiding from the authorities on Quarra.

Notes: Written for the 'Here an R, there an R, Everywhere an R Contest," (The letter "R" must not appear in the body of the story –title, synopsis, and introduction excluded), and was originally based on spoilers.

I made some changes to this story, well after Workforce aired, for the cannon lover in my family.

Acting Command Log 54584.3, Chakotay:

"Ensign Kim, Neelix and I have successfully finished an extended away mission, but upon docking the shuttle in Bay 2, have found the ship poisoned, and devoid of it's usual inhabitants.

Two weeks ago, this vessel made contact with an intentionally fashioned anomaly –which caused massive system declination and induced a shipwide climate hostile to all humanoid life. Obliged to abandon ship and leaving only the EMCH at the helm, the captain and ship's populous escaped to safety on an abutting M-class planet. Once the escape pods landed, instead of finding safety, the full assemblage was abducted and somehow made to indulge in 'mental wipes.' They have now all begun new lives. They exist as employees at some kind of fuel mill –all association of a past in space, eliminated.

My team and I have managed to devise a plan to emancipate them, but as unknowing intellectual molestees, many seem acutely satisfied living as automatons. I doubt anyone will join us willingly. We intend to nab and de-empanel the whole band, but it won't be easy. Hopelessly outmanned, the men and I feel anxious about the mission's possible outcome."

Janeway said she would come back soon. Even though he had been publicly labeled a deadly thug when she found him in the empty dwelling, she tended to his welts and damaged bones. It was a good sign. He knew his tale of space voyaging must seem fantastic, but he also thought she just might have begun to believe him.

B'Elanna hadn't known him. Wild with panic, she had fought him until she beamed away. He had spooked, then kidnaped an excitable young woman heavy with child. The scene in total, ugly; an abominable incident, left him feeling like some kind of ignominious beast. Chakotay's head pounded. He didn't want to think about B'Elanna.

He shut his eyes, fixing to sleep, his thoughts floating back, instead, to Janeway, back to lunch that day in the convenience lot at the mill...

It was a shock initially, seeing the captain like that, so happy. In all time he had acted as XO, he had not seen his commanding executive so unimpeded by the chains of accountability. The culpability she obviously felt since misplacing a Fleet ship filled with admixed ensemble in an unknown galaxy had etched itself into tiny lines on the woman's face. It had continued to augment itself, as each day passed by, bit by bit, fashioning new notations –many beneath the skin.

Nothing but joy and the attentions of a tall man, standing to the left, bound the individual Chakotay beheld as he stood on the lot. No bands of disquiet spoiled any section of that euphoric, utterly smooth and smiling face.

v-v-v v-v-v

The woman extends up on tiptoes to kiss the man. He beams down, saying something lost to the wind, his gaze low and loafing on the woman's chest. He is openly impassioned, teasing, blatantly seductive. The woman scowls, stepping back, scans the patio with flashing eyes. They are blue and vivid, alive with lust and pleasure. She is disingenuously sullen. She is distracted.

She is plainly if not inelegantly, in love.

v-v-v v-v-v

Chakotay shook himself, unable to sleep. "You could be managing this place if you wanted," he had said, not long ago, his voice coaxing as she bent to heal his ugly blemishes in the abandoned gloom. He had hoped to titillate the cells inside his captain's head, animate some sense of command; anamnesis, in the mind of the being that once had been his custodian. His ally. His confidant. His cohort and companion.

"Why would I want to do that?" She asked him then, her tone light.

She had slipped out of the dwelling subsequently, leaving the question to whip about the tissues of his dull mental substance. It duplicated itself, multiplying in echo.

Why would I want to do that?"

Chakotay slammed his head back against the wall, his hands flying to his temples. Old images he had tucked away in the defensive folds of his thoughts kicked loose. Fuzzy holo-shots taken by his affections half a decade ago –when they lived together, alone on a vacant planet. His captain had been almost happy, then.

v-v-v v-v-v

The wind dances gaily along the wide fuel plant lot, the woman chatting with the man. The woman laughs aloud, face luminous, speaking into the wind. Her speech lost.

Chakotay knows what she is saying.

She is plainly, unashamedly in love.

v-v-v v-v-v

That lobotomized identity would not leave the fellow she idolized so openly. She was not Chakotay's captain –not his companion. Not his anything.

Chakotay acknowledged his duty and suddenly hated it.

Would she be satisfied, old actuality, again in place, to be Captain Janeway the competent –yet isolated militant official? How changed would she be once she put the pieces of command immovably in place? He closed his eyes, again, this time imagining unessential pleats developing on a face full of joy. The duplication of a statement began echoing in his head anew.

Why would I want to do that?"