Kathryn sat in a booth, she'd been waiting almost an hour, her meeting with Paris didn't last ten minutes, what could be taking him so long? She stared into her empty cup, contemplating getting a refill, when a person slipped into the chair opposite her.
"Can I get you another?" Chakotay asked.
She nodded. "Yes please."
He keyed in their order on the screen built into the table, entering his Starfleet number so it would be credited to his account.
"How did your meeting go?" She asked, nervously tapping the cup.
He shrugged. "Probably no different to yours."
She let out a half hearted laugh. "I'm sure it wasn't that bad."
"One black coffee?" They jumped at the sound of the waitress' voice. The blue Bolian stood holding a tray with one cup on, the other was in her hand.
"Yes please." Kathryn said.
The woman put the cup in front of her, picking up the empty one, then proceeded to put the second cup in front of Chakotay.
"Thank you." He said before she nodded and walked off. "Yours didn't go that well?"
"No." She confessed. "Let's just say I made some comments I'm glad didn't go on record."
"Sounds interesting." He commented, taking a sip of his tea.
"I'd rather not talk about it." She said, shutting down any further questions.
"Okay, so let's talk about something else. How have you been these past two weeks?" He asked.
"Where have you been?" She asked out of the blue. "You've not been at the briefings, you've not... you've not contacted me?"
Her questioning and harsh tone took Chakotay by surprise. "I was told due to further private meetings, we were not allowed to see each other. Did Starfleet not tell you the same?"
Kathryn shook her head, resting her forehead in her hand, feeling bad she had a go at him. "No. They didn't say anything to me." She took a moment, looking up at him. "Why didn't you tell me about you and Seven?"
He paused, his cup inches from his mouth, it took him a minute, lowering his cup back down. "We hadn't been together that long. I was waiting for the right time."
She scoffed at him. "You could have told me before, you could have told me you wanted to... to date her!" She realised her raised voice had drawn the attention of nearby customers. "You could have told me." She hissed at him more quietly.
"Like you told me about Micheal?" He threw back at her. She hadn't told him about her relationship with the hologram as she knew it wouldn't have been serious.
"That's different." She replied.
"How so?"
"I didn't consider Micheal to be part of my family." She spat at him.
"Am I interrupting?" Seven stood at the end of the table.
Kathryn, angry at Chakotay, glared at the younger woman, it wouldn't have surprised her if he'd invited her down here. Shuffling out of the booth she threw at her. "He's all yours." As she stormed out of the cafe, she could hear Seven asking if she'd done something wrong.
She started walking down the street when she heard him call her name, she ignored him and carried on.
"Damn it, Kathryn." He snapped, grabbing her arm.
He hadn't spoken to her like that since the events with the Equinox, she couldn't remember him ever grabbing her as roughly as he just done.
"It doesn't have to be like this." He said, releasing her arm, she resisted the urge to rub it.
Her fists were clenched, she trying to hold herself together, she wasn't going to break in front of him. "Leave me alone, please." She said through gritted teeth.
He sighed, placing his hands on his hips. "Why don't you join us for dinner? Then you'll see everything is okay. And we haven't had one of our dinners for ages."
The anger built up, she thought she might lose control of it, of course they hadn't had their dinner for ages, he'd been off having dinner with Seven. "Our dinner. Ours." She empathised the word both times, their weekly dinner had been just that - theirs. Now he wanted to bring Seven into the mix. She slowly turned and walked away from him, disappearing into the crowd.
Kathryn paced in her room, when Mark had remarried her mum had taken back all her belongings, so the spare bedroom had become hers again. It'd been several hours since she'd seen Chakotay but yet she was till angry, though she couldn't give an exact reason why. It shifted between him and Starfleet. Angry that now she'd lost him for good, angry that he was moving on from her. That he hadn't told her. That she was alone again. Angry that pretty much every night since they'd been back she would cry until she fell asleep, thinking he didn't care. Angry that Starfleet didn't relay the message about not talking to him to her.
She growled in frustration when a knock at the door made her jump, it slowly opened to reveal Gretchen.
"How could Starfleet tell him not to contact me? How did they fail to get that message to me?" She rounded on her mother. "How could they let me spend two weeks thinking he didn't care?! And why haven't they - why aren't they - correcting it?"
Gretchen stood in silence, not knowing if she was expected to answer or not, not that she would know how, Kathryn had yet to tell her about bumping into Chakotay. "Dinners ready." She said slowly.
Kathryn stood with her hands resting on her hips and looked at her mum. Even with her grey hair and smile lines, she looked like she did in her youth, Phoebe was a spitting imagine of her. Kathryn had always looked like their dad. "Already?" She said, the angry suddenly drifting away.
"You've been up here all day." Gretchen informed her.
Kathryn shook her head slightly, disbelief that she'd wasted a day. She nodded at her mum. "I'll be down in a minute."
Hey sat around the table, her Gretchen and Phoebe. They had chatted for a while but now sat in silence, when Phoebe turned on the display screen. There was a report on Voaygers return home, there was always a report or something related to Voyager, at Gretchen tended to keep it switched off. This one was about the upcoming welcome home party and possible promotions.
"Are you going to the party?" Gretchen asked.
Kathryn shrugged. "I don't have much of a choice."
She half listened to the reporter announce the party was on board Voyager and all of Starfleets finest was going to be there.
"Oh look Kathryn, it's you!" Phoebe cried, almost like a little girl who'd just seen their hero.
Kathryn glanced at the younger sister, with her blonde hair tied up on top of her head and her flowing dress she was every inch their mother. Then she turned her attention to the screen, there was indeed a picture of her in her Starfleet uniform, the reporter was doing a quick bio, asking if she'd make Admiral within the coming weeks. When Chakotay picture appeared, she looked down at her plate, shifting her food around.
"Isn't he handsome." Phoebe commented to no one in particular. "You should invite him around, Kathryn."
"I don't think so." She mumbled.
"Come on Kathryn, he's your first officer, we haven't met him." She leaned closer to her. "Did you ever think about... you know... with him?"
"Phoebe stop." Kathryn put her fork down as her mum scolded her daughter. Gretchen knew, Kathryn had told her everything within the first day of being home, she would have told her about today's events if Phoebe hadn't been there. But mothers instinct told her Kathryn was not in the mood to be teased, normally she could give Phoebe as good as she got.
"If I wasn't married I certainly would." Phoebe ignored the warning. "Weren't you two trapped on a planet together? And you're telling me you and him -"
She didn't get to finish as Kathryn pushed her chair back and walked out of the kitchen, grabbing her coat of the peg by the door. She slammed it shut behind her, stepping out in the the chilly air of the evening, it hadn't gotten dark yet, though the sun was slowly setting. She walked the three miles into the town centre, to the transport hub, her heart was racing, she wasn't sure if she was doing the right thing. But where else could she go?