This is a "tag" to the end of Unimatrix Zero. An attempt to answer one of the more pressing questions the episode posed: who the heck allowed Janeway to have coffee 48 hours after getting assimilated?

I don't own Voyager or any of the happy people that inhabit that ship.

=/\=

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Really, captain, just try to rest. You've been through a difficult ordeal. You were assimilated, for heaven's sake, just rest."

Janeway fumed and turned her head away from the Doctor. "Doctor, I am resting. I just want to do something."

The Doctor huffed and retreated to his office, passing a sleeping B'Elanna and a sedated Tuvok on the way. When he reached his inner sanctum, he slid into his chair. The captain was going to be – as usual – the worst patient ever. She was practically immobile and yet for the past forty-five minutes had been talking his ear off, trying to get updates on the ship's status, crew morale, and anything else she could think of. He needed some peace and quiet so he could finish the series of delicate procedures that Tuvok would require to recover. He needed his secret weapon.

Luckily, his secret weapon was also chomping at the bit to be deployed.

"Doctor to Commander Chakotay."

"Go ahead."

The Doctor smiled at the immediacy of the response. "Commander, the captain is awake and -"

"Driving you crazy?" Chakotay cut in, sounding bemused.

"Yes," he said, relieved. "Would you mind?"

"Of course not, I'll be right there." There was a pause, then, "Doctor, can she have coffee yet?"

The Doctor gave a long-suffering sigh. Coffee was the last thing in the universe that Captain Janeway needed right now. But, desperate times… "I suppose," he huffed. "If, and only if, it is decaf."

The first officer chuckled through the comm link. "I'll be there shortly."

=/\=

Janeway had momentarily given up trying to coax any more information out of the Doctor. He was ensconced in his office, which, while not exactly sound-proof, muffled sound enough that he wouldn't have been able to hear her. She had resorted to counting welding seams on the ceiling and listening to the air filters turn quietly on and off in the wall below her biobed.

She would go crazy if she had to lay here much longer.

She couldn't sleep – of that she was certain. Every time she closed her eyes (which now watered constantly from all the circuitry that had been removed from the side of her face), she saw the Queen, Borg drones, green glow from a console, her own hands pasty white and encased in black tubules…

Janeway drew a deep breath and gritted her teeth. She was scared. Plain old scared of what had happened to her. And she wanted to hide, both physically and mentally. She wanted to curl up under the blankets on her bed, stuffed up with her back against the headboard and a pillow covering her head. It was a juvenile reaction, possibly, but also a very real one. She couldn't run and hide, though, and so she craved for something to distract her mind. She knew herself well, and she understood that if she put enough mental distance between the bad experience and her daily activities, there would come a day a few months down the road when she could evaluate her experience more objectively.

But the Doctor wasn't putting up with her need for distraction. Janeway shuddered and closed her eyes – bad idea – and then opened them again, trying to focus her watering eyes on the ceiling seams. She needed to find some control.

The door hissed open to sickbay, and she made the ultimate effort to lift her neck up to see who it was. Tom had been by a few times already, checking on B'Elanna. Each time he had smiled and stopped to talk for a few moments with his captain, and Janeway was hoping he would again. Seeing a good friend who was worried about her condition – even if he was actually more worried about his wife's – was ultimately reassuring. It was nice to be cared about.

It wasn't Tom who came in, though. It was Chakotay, carrying a huge bin in both hands, and smiling at her. The sight of him sent a flood of warmth through her, and she found herself smiling back.

"Chakotay," she greeted, not bothering to keep the brightness out of her voice. The sight of him, right at this moment, was like sunshine.

He carried his burden over to the side of her bed and set it on the floor before reaching out and capturing her hand, the same one she had held out to him two days before. "Kathryn," he smiled at her.

Maybe he mistook her eyes watering for tears, because his face darkened and he leaned down close, still clutching her hand, and gently touched her cheek. "I'm so glad you're home," he murmured.

Responding to the genuine affection Chakotay was offering her, a few real, hot tears did spill down her cheek. "Me too," she said throatily.

His fingers brushed away the tears. "For being assimilated two days ago, you look amazing," he told her with a hint of teasing.

She gave an involuntary laugh through her stinging throat. "Thanks. It's not something I would recommend."

He nodded sincerely. "Just the transceiver in my spine was enough, thanks," he said. "But Spirits, I wouldn't have wished this on my worst enemy."

"No."

"I have nightmares about that still, sometimes," he admitted quietly. His eyes locked on hers.

She knew what he meant. If something like that gave a brave man like Chakotay trouble nearly five years later, it was no shame to for her to be afraid right now. "We can start a club," she answered. "We'll work out a secret knock for the wall between our quarters."

He smiled and brushed her loose hair from her forehead; inexplicably flecked in cold sweat. "Sounds good," he said. What he didn't say was I already hear you scream in the middle of the night, Kathryn. I know when you're having nightmares.

Unable to control her gratitude, she reached her free hand up and claimed his hand from her face, holding it tightly. "Thanks."

They held on like that for a few seconds, his thumbs working over her fingers and their eyes locked together in arguably the most intimate gesture the two of them ever shared. At last, Chakotay smiled and dropped her gaze. "Do you want to see what I brought?"

Janeway felt her limp jaw stretch back into a smile. "It looks like you brought a small shuttlecraft in that box."

He laughed and stooped down, extracting a small stack of padds. "Well, you did tell me to surprise you," he replied, handing her the stack.

She shuffled quickly through them. "Status reports? Shift rotations? Next week's crew physicals?" She shot him a glare. "This is hardly high literature."

"No," he agreed, taking them and setting them on a tray beside her, then pulling out a desktop padd and setting it on the tray too. Janeway watched him with semi-cloaked horror.

"Chakotay -"

He leaned over her, hand behind his back. "I know you, Kathryn, and I know you want the entire report on Voyager's current status. You won't be able to relax until you have it."

She sighed. "You're right."

"But, I do have that surprise for you."

She perked up a bit. "Oh?"

He produced a leather-bound book from behind his back. "Robinson Crusoe. Written by Daniel DeFoe on earth in 1719. This is a reproduction of the 1972 edition." He smiled and held it out to her. "I might have peeked at your reading list. Consider it a late half-birthday gift."

Janeway accepted the book with something near starving eyes; that rush of warmth flowing through her again. "Oh…Chakotay, thank you."

He just grinned as she opened it, hands held feebly over her head, to get the first taste of the story.

"I think," he ventured, "that you'll need to be a bit more comfortable than that to read."

She snapped her attention back to him. "I'll read if it kills me," she retorted.

He chuckled. "I know you would." He took the book and set it next to the padds. "That's why, I also brought this." He bent down again, this time pulling an enormous pillow from the box.

"That might help," she said dryly, smirking at the ridiculous pillow he was holding.

Chakotay shook his head. "You can't move, can you?"

Rebelliously, Janeway tried to rise up on her elbows, but her right side spurted pain into her system and she fell back, gritting her teeth. "Spinal clamp," she grunted.

"I thought the Doctor removed all the implants," Chakotay said, worry tingeing his voice.

"That's why it hurts," she sighed. "I guess it's just my arms that feel all right…as long as I don't look at my hands too long." She hadn't meant the last part to come out.

Chakotay was nodding sympathetically, though. "You spent two days on a Borg cube, assimilated. I bet that's what you see every time you close your eyes."

She looked at him, gaze softening. "Yes."

"Then it's high time we gave you a distraction," he said firmly, moving the pillow to his right hand and bending down low over her. He slid his other hand around her middle and held it gently against her spine. "Hold on, I'll slip this under you, okay?"

Obediently, and because she honestly wanted the embrace, Janeway slid her arms around Chakotay's neck and pulled herself against him as hard as she could without causing her spine to protest. His strong hand eased her up to nearly a sitting position, and she felt the pillow settle behind her back. He helped scoot her back until she was resting comfortably on it, and only then did she release his neck.

"Thank you," she said sincerely, smiling at him.

"Anytime," he grinned back at her. "Oh, I have one more thing before I leave you to your status reports and desert islands."

"There's more in that box?" she asked disbelievingly.

He smiled slyly. "Oh yes." He disappeared for a moment and then resurfaced, a thermos in one hand and a coffee mug in the other.

Janeway felt her face stretch into an expression of total disbelief and shock. "That's not -" she managed.

"Caffeinated," he finished. "Decaf coffee for now." He set the mug down on the tray and began unscrewing the thermos.

As the smell of coffee slowly began to permeate her senses, Janeway felt her mouth water and she swallowed hard. "Chakotay, you are going to spoil me," she said huskily, eyes never leaving the coffee mug.

He handed her the steaming mug. Janeway cupped it in both hands and brought it to her nose, inhaling slowly and deeply, eyes closed, letting the steam curl around her jaw and watering eyes and the scent work its way into her brain. She held onto that breath, letting the coffee trigger all of the chemicals in her body that told her she was okay, that she was in control, that she was safe.

She felt her leg move slightly and knew Chakotay had sat down beside her on the bed.

"Exhale," he reminded her, amused.

She opened her eyes and lowered the mug from her face, releasing the breath with a sheepish grin. "Sorry, it helps."

He gave her a crooked smile. "That's why I brought it. The Doctor said it was the last thing you needed, but really…" He shrugged at her.

She nodded fervently and lowered her face again, sipping tentatively at the drink. She could feel the hot fluid moving down her throat, spreading heat out into her body horizontally, and pooling in her stomach, warming her core and continuing down into her somewhat numb legs. "It's really exactly what I need," she agreed with him.

She looked up and reached her hand out to him again. "And you," she said. "I needed you." There was a beat as he squeezed her hand. "I know this was hard for you, Chakotay, but I want to thank you for doing such an admirable job with it. The three of us owe you our lives."

He pulled on her hand a bit. "When I accepted the position as first officer, I knew my job was to keep you safe. I didn't know you liked to come up with the riskiest ideas in the universe and then act on them."

She pulled back, inching him closer to her cold legs. "And I didn't know that I was getting the only first officer in the universe who could still manage to keep me safe after all that."

"Well," he reminded her seriously with soft eyes, "you're not just my captain, you're my friend. There won't be a day when I don't come back for you, Kathryn."

Janeway felt tears escape her eyes again and she blinked hard to clear them. "I know," she whispered huskily.

They sat like that for nearly a minute, hands joined, looking over at a sleeping B'Elanna and Tuvok.

"I'd better get back to the bridge," Chakotay said finally, giving her hand a hard squeeze.

She nodded. "Yes. Chakotay, thank you."

He stood up. "You're welcome. Now, make sure you read those reports before starting on your book, because I'll expect comments on them when I collect them later." He winked.

"Aye, sir," she laughed, and watched him go.

Janeway gave a sigh of contentment and leaned back on her pillow, bringing her coffee mug back to her nose and relishing the scent. She could feel the vestiges of fear abating, moving back into the woods around her. They would be back, she knew, but for a few hours she would be safe.

=/\=

A/N: I am supposed to be writing my thesis this semester. Which means, obviously, that I will be writing a lot of fan fiction. *sigh* Please read and review!