Disclaimer: Paramount owns Star Trek and its characters. Sadly I do not. If I did they would have far more fun!

ONE MAN'S TERRORIST IS ANOTHER MAN'S FREEDOM FIGHTER.

Chapter 1

Getting to know you.

"She was pleading with me Chakotay!" Kathryn said as she spun around to face where her first officer stood on the other side of her quarters.

"Pleading?" Chakotay replied looking confused.

"I think she thought I would tell her to terminate."

"Abort her baby? She really thought you would order her to do that?" Chakotay's facial expression did not hide his shock.

"Well she didn't say so in so many words, but I could see it in her tone of voice. The way she told me her and her husband had been trying for a long time." Kathryn said very quietly looking down at her feet and biting her bottom lip.

"Where is her husband now?" Chakotay asked moving closer to his captain and longing to hold her in his arms.

"Still on Deep Space 9. I met him once; he's Ktarian, nice chap. A bit shy but he's nice. Oh Chakotay she told me that this baby was all she had left of him. It made me want to cry."

"It will be a bitter sweet birth." Chakotay replied understanding what the captain was meaning in her words.

"What have I done Chakotay?"

"Captain?"

"Condemned a child to grow up without a father, Condemned Ensign Wildman to be a single mother. And then there's Tuvok and Allya and many more I am sure who have children left behind in the Alpha Quadrant. And young Harry who is only fresh out the academy, I know he miss's his parents so much. Oh Chakotay it's all my fault, all those families separated because of me"

"Captain, that's not your fault, you did what was right, and you did what you had to do. Nobody blames you for that."

"I do."

Chakotay moved closer to her still, all he longed to do was hug her. His growing attraction for his captain had been growing even more over the last few weeks. At first he had tried to suppress his feelings but was now finding it harder to do, especially today with all the talk of mating and paring off and fraternization. He had even tried to test the subject with her first thing that morning by asking if she had any plans to 'pair off' as she called it. She had replied by saying the captain doesn't have that privilege, and then there was Mark, the fiancé. But he saw something in her eye when she said those words, Longing perhaps? She had suddenly become very shy when he had asked her.

"Captain you don't have to. We all have loved ones left behind, even you. I know it's been hard for you all these months without Mark." he replied hoping to offer her some small amount of comfort that he could while still staying in respectable parameters.

"I survive"

"I know you do." He replied simply.

"Because I have to, it's the only way." She sad with deep sadness in her blue eyes that Chakotay just noticed had turned a grey colour and looked distant, like they were remembering a very distant and long forgotten memory.

"Are you OK with that Captain?"

"I have to be commander, I have to be strong for my crew."

"And who is going to be strong for you captain?" There she was again always thinking of her crew, never herself Chakotay thought.

"I can be strong for myself" Kathryn sated rather sadly as she turned from him.

"Everyone needs somebody captain." Chakotay said hoping he could be that somebody. 'Maybe one day' he thought. When she did not reply or turn back to face him she just stared almost absentmindedly out of her window Chakotay decided to return to the original topic of conversation, One of their crew had just informed the Captain she was pregnant, "What did you tell Ensign Wildman?"

"I simply congratulated her and then asked if she had been to see The Doctor about it. There is no way I can tell her to terminate a child, all life is sacred." Kathryn turned to face her First Officer with an expression on her face that Chakotay couldn't read, but what she said had caused him to break into a large grin, dimples flashing. "It's not funny Commander!" Kathryn said looking at him very sadly.

"No it's not, I am just admiring you, for a woman who's life is governed by science you surprise me every day." Wiping the smile from his face.

"I surprise you? In a good way?" she asked tentatively.

"Oh yes Captain so very good. I didn't think a scientist would consider an unborn child as sacred."

Kathryn's brows drew closer together as she placed her hands on her hips and angrily told him "Commander, I am not cold hearted."

"Of course your not, your heart beats very warmly in that chest of yours." Chakotay replied trying to lighten the mood in the room, his way of defusing the short temper of his annoyed Captain.

"Commander! How dare you! What do you know of my chest?" she snapped issuing a famous 'Janeway Death Glare' as the crew called it, the glare that would make the ensigns on deck 15 weak at the knees as they trembled with fear, but not the Native American warrior that was now on the receiving end of it.

"Nothing captain, but you did say you would turn to me if you had any questions about mating rituals." Smiling at her once more with his dimples flashing. Those dimples made the captain go weak at the knees in a very different kind of way, and he knew it.

"well I suppose I did say that didn't I commander? But what does that have to do with my chest?" The captain said lightening up and playing along with her first officer's joke, after all she had said that to him in front of all her bridge crew.

"That you did captain. And I find a woman's chest is involved very nicely in mating rituals."

Rolling her eyes she swatted his arm playfully with her hand she moved towards the replicator. "Coffee?" She asked, this was one of the first times Chakotay had been in her quarters and she wasn't too sure what he liked to drink in the evening after a shift.

"Tea if you're offering."

'Tea' She thought, 'interesting, same as he likes during the day in my ready room, I need to remember that.'

Moving towards the couch after making the order to the replicator and picking up the two hot mugs she gestured with her head for him to join her there.

Once he had settled next to her she had handed him his mug of tea. The two had been sat silently thinking for a few minutes. Breaking the silence Kathryn asked, "Commander, do you ever think about having children?"

"I suppose I did once. But that was before-" Chakotay stopped mid-sentence as though he thought he had said to much already.

"Before?" Kathryn urged.

Chakotay did not reply, he just sat holding his tea near his face and looking into it, meditating, much as he had earlier that day in her ready room after their conversation about generational ship,s replacement crew and procreation.

"I'm sorry commander, forgive me, I am being too personal." Kathryn said deciding she should change the subject. Kathryn went to stand up from the sofa trying to break the intimate feeling that had washed over them when Chakotay began to speak in a soft voice;

"I suppose the idea of being a farther went from my mind when I saw the true evil of the universe."

"The Cardassians?" Kathryn asked sitting back down, closer to her first officer this time and placing her mug on the coffee table in front of her.

"In my opinion captain they are far more evil than the Borg." Chakotay was not raising his voice or talking with hatred in his voice as he said this he stayed calm and collective but was not making eye contact with his captain.

"They do have quite some evil tendencies." Kathryn said leaning back on the sofa and staring into space as though remembering something she would rather not remember.

"Far more than just tendencies captain" Chakotay spat, the first signed of anger Chakotay had displayed.

"What about Wolf 359? You can't say that what the Borg did there wasn't sickeningly evil to the core." Kathryn pointed out trying to get a wider perspective on the conversation as she was not too sure she liked where it was heading.

"No I can't and I wont, I never implied it wasn't."

"Why Chakotay?"

"Why what? Why wont I say Wolf 359 wasn't evil?"

"No, I mean why are you a Maquis?"

"I am no longer a Maquis, captain, I am first officer on board your Starfleet ship." There was something about the way Chakotay said the word 'Starfleet' that put Kathryn on edge.

"Does that bother you?" she asked with genuine concern.

"Captain?"

"Does it bother you that your serving on board a Starfleet ship?"

"I sacrificed the Val Jean to save voyager Captain, I put my life at risk doing it and while I do not regret that action I sometimes find it hard to be in Starfleet again."

"Because as a Maquis you opposed Starfleet?"

"Because I blame Starfleet."

"For the treaty with the Cardassians?" Kathryn thought it was about time somebody mentioned what they both knew was the real problem.

"For killing my family. My people. My tribe" Chakotay angrily said staring at her wide eyed.

"The Cardassians killed your people commander." Kathryn said calmly but with a hit of forcefulness determined that Chakotay should keep some perspective in his anger.

"Because Starfleet let them." He reminded her.

"Because of the treaty?" Kathryn pushed on.

"What do you know of the treaty between the Federation and Cardassia captain?" Chakotay spat at her very sarcastically. She had touched a raw nerve and he was angry, not really with her but it had angered him.

"Are you asking because you think it's none of my business? Or because you think I don't know anything about it?" she asked trying to understand his meaning behind his words.

"I am asking because I want to know what you really think of me," he said staring into her blue eyes.

"Chakotay?" she asked unsure. 'How can he question what I think of him?' she thought to herself.

"Well you have just made it clear that you think I am a terrorist." He said looking away form her.

Moving closer to him as they had moved apart in their frustration for each other Kathryn placed a delicate hand on his chest lovingly as she looked into his eyes, Blue eyes blazing with honesty as she sat next to him "I could never think that."

"You just called me a Maquis. To the federation the Maquis are terrorists. You hold your Starfleet principles in high esteem."

"So therefore I think you're a terrorist? Is that what you are saying commander?" she took her hand from his chest but still looked at him feeling hurt that he could generalize her and her feelings like that.

"I am saying I did what was right."

Kathryn knew he meant joining the Maquis. "So did I." she said talking about staying with her Starfleet principles.

"By staying with Starfleet knowing that many innocent people were being massacred each day by the Cardassians because your precious federation made a treaty with them and practically handed those people over to the evil that is Cardassia? That was right?" he spat at her angrily. Criticizing her staying with Starfleet when the war broke out.

"And that's why you left Starfleet and joined the Maquis?" she asked feeling defensive.

"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter Captain. You were ordered to capture us and bring us home to prison as disgraced terrorists and traitors to the federation but there are some back in the Alpha Quadrant who would have welcomed us as heroes."

"But the Maquis changed you?" she asked trying to get back on topic to the original conversation, the argument of right and wrong terrorist or not was annoying her.

"Changed me?" Chakotay said slightly taken by the sudden change is apparent topic of conversation.

"Well you said that before you were with the Maquis you would have considered fatherhood, but now you wont."

"No I said before I saw what the Cardassians were capable of I would have considered fatherhood. What about you Captain? Why no children when you have lived your life in a nice safe Starfleet protected planet? With a fiancé who loves you." Chakotay said feeling bitter and sly, 'Spirits she can be so naive and innocent sometimes!'

"Maybe I saw the evil in this universe and I couldn't bear to bring a child into it." She said again sounding sad and turning away from him.

"What evil does a beautiful daughter or a Starfleet admiral know?" He knew as soon as he said the words it was wrong of him to say but the anger the Cardassians made him feel was bubbling inside of him.

"Evil can not be measured in that way commander."

"When you have seen true evil as I have captain you will know, I was forced to watch helplessly as the Cardassians tore into my village and slaughtered all our elders, my grandfather among then, I watched as his throat was slit and the Cardassians spat on his body as he hit the floor. I watched as they burned our wooden houses to the ground, many of our people still trapped inside. The smell of burnt flesh and the screams of my people still plague me as I try to sleep each night. I watched as my mother and sisters and many of the other women and children from our village were taken from their hiding places, tied to poles in the ground and rapped before the eyes of their fathers, brothers and husbands and sons before they were slaughtered. I, and a few others managed to escape. My father did not make it. I have a cousin who lives in Ohio and I have a sister who survived but was rapped and it has haunted her and changed her in ways you could not begin to imagine Captain. They are my only living relatives it has changed me. Don't judge me for that. I can find no peace Captain. The federation handed our colony over the Cardassians in that treaty and that was the result; the same can be said for many more like it. I joined the Maquis when my friend Sveta recruited me, I wanted to pay them back for the horrors they committed against my people and my family, yes but I also wanted to make a stand and try to prevent it happening to others." He wasn't really angry with this little woman sat before him but he wanted to get his anger out somehow and he trusted her.

"Chakotay, I am so sorry." Kathryn said with deep compassion

"Don't be, you did nothing wrong." He said to her but it was clear to her he didn't really care about reassuring her.

"No, but what you went through, what your people went through is evil and you do blame the organization I work for and who I represent. You blame the very thing in which I place my values."

"You think I should blame the Cardassians."

"But because the federation let Cardassia have access to your home planet you blame the federation and therefore Starfleet."

"Where was Starfleet when my sister screamed as a Cardassian rapped her?" he spat angrily in her direction.

"It was a war Chakotay." She said in a pained and husky voice.

"Oh so because it was a war that makes it all right does it? My sister should have just rolled over, shut up and let that happen to her should she?"

"I did not say that Chakotay!" she insisted.

"You did not have to!" Shouted Chakotay as he slowly place his barely touched mug of tea on her coffee table in front of him and stood up stiffly.

"Chakotay please." Kathryn begged as she stood to join him where he was now moved away towards her door.

"Goodbye captain." Chakotay was only just beginning to build a relationship with his captain and had never yet called her Kathryn but hoped one day she would allow him to call her by what he considered to be such a beautiful name. Though something about the way he snapped her rank at her then showed her he was hurt and annoyed. Chakotay brushed her hand of his arm before leaving through her door.

Kathryn stood staring at the now closed doors of her quarters that her first officer had just left through in an angry and hurt hurry. A tear fell from her deep blue eyes and down her rosy cheek.

End of Chapter 1.

Chapter 2 NOW UP... read on to find out what happens next!

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