PART TWO

The sun was scorching the group of students sweating on an excavation dig in Mexico. Chakotay had gathered his best second year cadets working towards their archaeology credits to assist him. Artefacts lay hidden at least two metres below the burning surface, too fragile to transport out. They had cleared away a metre and a half of top soil over a large area and were in fact sitting on a crater-like hole, engaging in the finer chopping and brushing that was needed to expose the priceless pottery.

Transporting the artefacts had been a question asked by Chris Cairns, one of his best students.

"Where's the fun in that, Cadet?" he'd asked. "Besides, some of the pieces might be too brittle to transport and could disintegrate.

"Understood, Professor. Just testing!"

Chris had given a wide smile before he continued to chip with a small hammer, then brushed away sand and small stones. Some of the early tribal pottery work and implements used in their daily lives were what they were expecting to discover. He was excited since the collection would form part of a major exhibition in New York.

Chakotay settled into work again, his mind on what had happened in the last month and his final separation from Seven of Nine. He had been blindingly angry with her. He had never been that angry before with any woman, though Seska had tried his patience many times. He'd gone to Oslo where Seven had been staying with her aunt before making a decision to travel to Vulcan. Seven had looked subdued, he'd thought.

"You have to understand. I was blinded by my anger, Annika. I am sorry that I lashed at you. I have never - "

" - been that furious, I understand. I concede I was not more…diplomatic."

"Perhaps. I am sorry and I apologise. I've never come that close to losing complete control. It was a heck of a blow - "

"You did not hurt me, Chakotay. I stumbled over the coffee table - "

"No, I mean your announcement. It came like a bolt of lightning, you understand?"

"Then I apologise as well. I loved you, perhaps not with the same dedication as you love Admiral Janeway. I thought it was the way to fight for something. Voyager's database contained no information on the subtleties of - of 'getting your man' as Tom Paris would say. I am Borg. I did not know any better."

"It cost me the woman I love, dammit!" he'd said with sudden fervour.

"I said I'm sorry."

He'd given a deep sigh, controlling his breathing until he was calm again. Then he'd nodded. Annika had done the right thing. She had chosen to break it off with him. Had she not done so, he would never have separated from her. It was a daunting thought, that he could live without Kathryn for the rest of his life.

"I hope we can be friends, Chakotay."

He'd given a wan smile. "Yes, I hope so too."

They had parted amicably then. She had to finish her tenure at Starfleet Science Division before leaving for Vulcan. He was happy for her, glad that the air had been cleared between them.

After that, his thoughts had been constantly on Kathryn, not knowing how to face her, refusing to contact her lest she reject him again. She probably thought he was still married. He couldn't forget the look on her face when he'd told her he was marrying Seven. Only now, months later, did he realise how shattered her eyes were, though she'd instantly managed to subdue her distress. But that last time, just after Voyager had been fractured into different time frames… She'd once again pleaded duty above everything, that she couldn't afford to be distracted by him anymore.

Anymore.

They'd had something amazing, greater than special. He closed his eyes, trying to blank out images of Kathryn, the way they were a lifetime ago.

The past month he'd lived dangerously, despite warning his students to be careful. He'd wanted to forget the damning pain in Kathryn's eyes, his own shame and wrongdoing, his refusal to wait…

One time B'Elanna cornered him in the holosuite where he was fighting two Klingon adversaries. He was good with a bat-leth, but the safeties had been off. She and Tom had been looking for him to invite him to a weekly dinner and to connect with Miral.

"Chakotay!" she'd yelled as the enraged Klingon swung his weapon, the blade cutting him across the chest.

He'd frozen the programme, glared at the Klingon then swung round to face Torres, oblivious to the blood streaming down his chest. He didn't feel any pain.

"Dammit, Torres! I had him!"

"What you almost had," she'd replied, her voice tinged with concern, "was a near death experience had that Klingon impaled your chest! What were you thinking!"

He'd stepped right up to her, clutching his bleeding wound, the bat-leth swinging loosely from his other hand.

"You've got to see the doctor," she'd said quietly, the anger leaving her when she saw the gaping wound to his chest.

"Sure thing, Torres. Just let me get through this, okay?"

And so in the space of a month, he'd engaged in free-falling from twenty thousand metres in the holodeck like B'Elanna had once done. He'd gone skydiving, free-falling from one of Voyager's shuttles piloted by an unsuspecting young ensign, plunging feet first into the Atlantic. He'd dived from the forty metre platform of a bridge into a deep river, a position in which again, he went down feet first. He had had a scrambled stomach and broken ankles for days and invoked the ire of the EMH who'd treated him. He tried everything to assuage the fury that had slowly but surely seeped from his body. It seemed he couldn't forget how he'd been deceived, the image of Kathryn seeming to taunt him every time he performed a dangerous stunt.

Chakotay sighed. He'd had a meltdown for almost a month after Seven of Nine left him so crushed. B'Elanna and Tom were concerned when he told them one night of what Seven of Nine had done, what he had done, that there were mutual apologies.

But B'Elanna especially had been sceptical, still angry about the deception. Yet, her words contained her thinly veiled accusation that he'd been a fool letting Kathryn go in the first place.

"You threw away the key to your heart, Chakotay! Go and get your woman!"

"Chakotay," Tom had said, "we're probably all allowed to make mistakes, but they will mean nothing if we keep making them, not acting to turn them into something positive. We could see how unhappy you were…"

"She turned me down when I asked her," he'd tried to explain.

"That's because she was afraid. You just had to storm her defences and weather them. Maybe you were too impatient to wait."

That was the truth. That was the key. He couldn't wait. He didn't want to tell them the details of Seven's deception. If anything could keep Kathryn from ever revealing her true feelings for him or show a renewed commitment to him, it would be Annika pregnant with his child. Kathryn would do the honourable thing and Annika had known exactly which of Kathryn's buttons to push.

He'd promised Tom and B'Elanna that he would contact Kathryn. Up until now he hadn't done so. He was still fearing that she wouldn't want him back. B'Elanna disagreed with him, saying that he needed to explain to Kathryn.

Chakotay gave a deep sigh as he slammed the hammer hard into the ground. How could he explain to Kathryn he'd made a colossal mistake? Could he stand the cold, distant look in her eyes again?

"Professor?"

Chakotay pulled himself from his reverie, almost surprised to see Chris' face come into focus.

Then right at that moment something happened. Chakotay felt a shift in the ground which caused him to rock haphazardly.

"Professor!"

"Cadet!" he yelled as he realised what was happening. "Stand back! Now! Now!"

Then the ground gave way, swallowing him into a vortex of sand and rock as it swirled inevitably downwards. He gave a keening cry of alarm as he plunged into the depths of the hole, tumbling, tumbling, his body slamming against rocks that jutted from the walls of the cavern. Still he kept falling, unable to hold on to consciousness or to grab at anything to find purchase.

Then he landed against an incline, his head striking a rock with such force that his skull cracked open. He rolled down, stopping barely a metre away from a large pool.

But Chakotay never registered that he had landed at the bottom of a sinkhole. He was knocked senseless, his last thought of a mystical rider on a great black stallion.

"Kathryn…"

END PART TWO