Chapter 4

The music felt as if it were making her heart beat as she was whirled around the light-filled dance floor. For just that minute she was an expert ballroom dancer, light on her feet, watched by no one and perfectly content.

Tuvok really knew how to waltz.

Why the fact that a Vulcan had such a wonderful dance floor technique still surprised her after all these years, Kathryn had no idea. It was only logical, after all, that her old friend learnt social skills that would make life easier for him when dealing with Starfleet events. Or so he told her. Secretly Kathryn believed he just loved the music, especially as most of the paying guests had left by now leaving just those of the Voyager crew without children or responsibilities first thing the next morning.

As he brought her into a twirl, she looked over Tuvok's shoulder - admiring the new captain's pips on his collar as she did so - to see his wife being swung around the floor expertly by Chakotay. She caught his eye as he overtook her and Tuvok.

Kathryn tried to read the look in his eye, but unusually couldn't grasp what it was she saw at all. That unnerved her. She always knew what he was thinking. She knew his moods as well as her own. Sometimes better. When had understanding him stopped being as easy as breathing?

Something had definitely changed in him, beyond the fallout from Seven's death. He had fundamentally changed in these past few weeks somehow. She just wished she could pinpoint what it was. And her mother's gentle nudge about listening to him had her even more on edge than a red alert.

The music came to a lilting stop and Tuvok gently let Kathryn go, thanking her, as politely as ever, for the dance. He could never know how much she hadn't wanted the moment to end. He was so reassuring, strong and so very calming. She'd missed him while he was recuperating on Vulcan and she'd miss him once again when he returned in a day or two. He'd come to Earth especially for the benefit, not daring to disobey Gretchen Janeway's command, sorry invite, to attend.

Chakotay led T'Pel over to join Tuvok and Kathryn after their dance. The evening had come to a close and it was time for the guests to make their way to the transport.

"Thankyou for the dance, Commander," said Tuvok's wife, as stiff and formal as her husband and yet eminently friendly somehow. "It was lovely to talk again and to hear of your plans. I do hope to read your next paper upon your return to the academy."

Kathryn felt her face split into a wide grin as she heard this. He was going to come back to work. That was incredible news. She turned to look at Chakotay who had obviously been looking to see what her reaction would be to T'Pel's comment. He smiled back at her shyly.

"Thank you, T'Pel. I do hope it won't disappoint, I know you are somewhat of an expert in the field."

"I'm sure it will be an interesting read, Commander," the typically understated Vulcan replied. "Now, Admiral, Commander, if you'll excuse the Captain and me, we really must be making our way back to our accommodations."

"Of course," Kathryn moved to reassure her friend he was in no way offending them by taking their leave, "it's been so wonderful to see you. I do hope we can see you again before you head off world."

Tuvok and T'Pel bowed their heads in formal goodbye and left the party arm-in-arm. Kathryn stared at their retreating backs.

"Penny for your thoughts, Admiral," Chakotay softly said into her ear, standing almost-too-close to her back for comfort. Kathryn jumped and turned to face her friend.

"Oh, I was envying them a little," she said, the truth popping out of her mouth more freely than she had expected.

Chakotay didn't push her for more of an explanation. Kathryn just hoped he didn't know what she was really thinking, despite his usual habit of knowing her thoughts better than his own.

"Well, I think it's time we headed out of here and let the clean-up crew do its job. How about a cup of coffee back at the homestead?"

It was an offer she couldn't refuse, especially as she looked around to realise they were the last two people standing.

"Absolutely, Commander, a cup of coffee is just what the doctor ordered," Kathryn replied grabbing his proffered arm to walk back to her mother's front door.

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Settled at the kitchen table, Kathryn kicked off her ridiculously high and perilous heels, eliciting a chuckle from her best friend, sat opposite, who caught her look of pain and disgust as she jettisoned the offending items to the corner of the room.

"Who would have thought a pair of shoes could defeat the great Admiral Kathryn Janeway. Stories of your being able to stand upright in a fire-fight in those three-inch - and non-standard uniform, by the way and don't think I hadn't noticed – black boots are legendary," he teased as she stuck her tongue out at him.

"Trust me, my regulation boots – and I resent the suggestion I break uniform rules, Commander – are actually comfortable. Those things, picked out by Phoebe, of course, are torture. I don't know why I allow them to dress me up like a doll," Kathryn retorted with appropriately cheeky emphasis on his rank and a sulky attitude.

"If the outfit tonight was your sister's choice, you should let her pick out your clothes more often," Chakotay said with flattering sincerity, "you looked stunning".

Trying to calm the blush she knew was creeping up her chest, Kathryn moved the conversation to something else.

She wouldn't, couldn't get caught up in her own feelings tonight. Her mother had warned her she needed to get him talking and, more importantly, listen to him.

And she didn't plan on letting him down.

"You're looking well too, Chakotay. Rested, calm, and I'm thrilled to hear you are coming back to work…" It was an open invitation to talk about whatever he needed to and she was just hoping he'd take the hint.

She held back her sigh of relief as he tipped his head up to look her directly in the eyes through his long lashes and she knew that he was going to take the plunge.

"Well, that depends a little bit," he said, startling her. She tilted her head to the side, giving him a quizzical look.

"I would very much like to come back, but I need to make a few changes to my life before I do.

"This time away from the world, just reflecting, learning how to cope with what's happened in my life has been exactly what I needed. But it's left me with a much bigger question to answer: what do I want from now on?"

Kathryn nodded, urging him on.

"Your mom thinks I should tell you a bit about what I've been discussing with Deanna. It was never as simple as just grief, Kathryn."

At that she smiled sadly, that came as no surprise to her. When was anything ever simple about their lives?

"My love for Seven was all-encompassing, no doubt, but things weren't perfect between us. You know that horrid phrase, there's no smoke without a flame?" Kathryn nodded again but was unable to keep the shock and slight worry from her eyes. "Well, those press rumours may have been totally off-base as to the cause of the arguments, but we did argue before she left on her tour of duty.

"The guilt has eaten me up. We'd been working through it during our nightly communications while she was away, but it was far from fixed. I'm actually not sure we could ever have fixed it, if I'm honest."

This shocked Kathryn to her core. She thought Seven and Chakotay were blissfully happy. She hadn't noticed anything to suggest they were fighting or that anything was wrong in the picture-perfect life they seemed to have built on their return to the Alpha Quadrant.

She'd taken comfort from that as she'd battled with her own emotional demons. Not only revelling in the support and comfort their joint friendship as she spent time relaxing with them, but also helping her swallow her loneliness and jealousy of their marriage.

She'd only been able to cope watching the man she loved in the arms of another woman because she felt it was what was best for him. What on Earth could they have been fighting about?

He saw her reaction.

"I know, it seemed perfect. I was so ashamed of what was going on, I didn't want to let anyone else know. That actually made things worse." He stopped a beat. And as she was about to open her mouth, her mother's warning rang through Kathryn's head: "And don't interrupt him…" She shut her mouth and he carried on.

"The kid thing came up. It was cruel of me really. I knew before we married that she couldn't have children, that the Borg modifications included removal of all her reproductive organs. But I couldn't help it. We were so happy; I just wanted to make it absolutely perfect. And for me, that meant kids.

"If I'd known before we were involved, I mean really involved," he looked up into Kathryn's eyes as he said that, "then it might not have gone further. But I wasn't privy to how the modifications affected her the way you were."

He sighed loudly.

"I'm ashamed to admit, I blamed you for that. The irrational side of me was furious at you for not telling me sooner. And that then made me feel even guiltier when I realised that the problem wasn't our biological inability to conceive but that she actually didn't want children at all, no matter how they came to us." His sentences started to tumble out more and more quickly, with him struggling to breathe as he clearly fought to get the thoughts out, as if he worried that any interruption to the flow would stop them coming out at all.

"I raised the possibility of surrogacy, or adoption - there are so many children who need loving families after the war - but she would always just reply she'd make a terrible mother. I suggested we try getting a pet first, just to prove to herself that she could do it. That I'd do all the caring, that she'd already been surrogate mother to Icheb, that she'd changed, that it was a natural thing to be a mother…."

He took a sudden deep breath, and Kathryn could see himself try to centre his emotions. After a second he opened his eyes and looked at her, speaking more slowly now.

"But ultimately, even I knew, she just didn't want children. It was never part of her plan. She was too young, too invested in her career. She was still learning to be human, let alone try and teach someone else to be one.

"I was stupid. I asked her to marry me in this whirl of returning, of emotion, when I was still struggling with so many other issues - and so was she – and we never actually sat and talked about what we wanted from our lives, from our marriage.

"When I first started to see Deanna – and I saw your shock earlier when she was mentioned, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you she was who I was seeing earlier, but I needed to sort things through on my own for a while – she spent hours and hours trying to persuade me it wasn't just my fault.

"I'm slowly seeing that perhaps Seven also bore some responsibility for it, but let's face it, she was still so new to everything human, to what a marriage was, I had to be the one to be sensible about it.

"We should never have married so soon. She should have had the chance to see other marriages at work, beyond Tom and B'Elanna's."

His statement, spoken so quietly, so sadly, so wistfully, with his head drooping, looking at the table, made Kathryn's heart physically ache.

She grabbed his hand, urging him to keep going, but still being sure to stay silent, allowing him the space to talk.

"Deanna's been at great pains to tell me that I have to try and move on from it, that I need to learn to somehow live with what's happened. And I'm getting there, I really am. But the next step is to physically move on."

At this, he squeezes her hand and sets his expression to one of resolve.

"I'm going to put the cottage on the market. I was hoping you might help me sort through all Seven's things and look for somewhere else to live," he seemed nervous at asking her this.

"Of course I'll help, Chakotay. Anything I can do to help you, I'll do it. You just have to ask," Kathryn said, taking her free hand to tip his chin up so he was looking at her once more.

As his eyes met hers, she could see something else behind them. The same something she'd seen earlier in the evening, that change she couldn't quite put her finger on.

"I was thinking," he said, more lightly, "maybe I could look at getting an apartment near you. I miss living close to you. It was one of the things on Voyager I enjoyed most, Kathryn, that close proximity, dropping in for coffee when I couldn't sleep, or asking you if you'd eaten yet when I made too much food."

Kathryn smiled at that. She felt exactly the same way.

Their easy friendship had, by necessity, become a more formal affair after he had started dating Seven. She could no longer assume he was alone in his off-duty time and he had less free time to spend with her, instead lavishing the attention where it belonged, with his partner. She didn't blame him for that, it was natural.

Her upset at the change was irrational, she knew that and she bit it down every time it threatened to bubble to the surface, reminding herself that she chose this path, that they had agreed they couldn't go beyond friendship while they commanded a starship together. Eventually she'd gotten used to needing to call him before she popped over to the cottage, found alternative dates for formal events and begun to call her sister when she needed to talk something over and it was late at night. At least she was back on Earth where those alternatives we a possibility for her, no matter how much she railed against them.

"I'd love that," she smiled broadly at him. "But is that the only change you want to make, Chakotay?"

She'd been dreading asking him this, but anything else he wanted to change would be inconsequential now; he was going to be near her. She was getting her best friend back. Her heart soared.

"For the moment, that's as big a change as I can manage, but I'll also be taking the changes I've already made with me.

"Deanna's agreed to keep me on as a client in her private rooms. She was concerned about your friendship with Will being an issue, but I've reassured her that I trust her to keep our sessions just between us, and I know you'd never interfere or ask Will to betray her confidence, even if they did talk about what we spoke about." The ease with which he brushed off Deanna's entirely understandable concerns was incredibly sweet. He really did trust her completely. Kathryn could now see just how much progress Chakotay had made emotionally over the past eight weeks.

He continued: "And I think I'm now ready to move away from my little protective cocoon her with your mom. She's been just wonderful. I don't know how to thank her and Phoebe enough, Katie."

There it was again, her childhood nickname. She knew it had come from Phoebs.

"I think they'd say seeing you recover will be thanks enough, Chakotay. They never hesitated when I asked them to help," Kathryn said forcefully, trying to really hammer it home to him that he needn't feel in anyone's debt, that his friendship was reward enough for anything they offered to him.

"You are all incredible women," Chakotay said, grinning up at her. "Nuts. But incredible." They both laughed, Chakotay letting go of her hand and standing up to move towards the kettle. She was sad to lose the contact, but Kathryn also felt herself relax a little that had all been very intense.

"Kathryn, why didn't you tell me you had seen a counsellor? Was that when we got back, or before. After Justin and Edward?"

The question floored her, partly because of his use of her father's and former fiancée's names so freely, she'd never spoken to him at length about them, and she stuttered out her answer: "Both."

He turned away from his work filling the kettle form her mother's tap and raised an eyebrow at her, prompting her to expand on her answer.

"I, um, well, Deanna was my counsellor all those years ago," she said, wondering if this would be news to him. It obviously was. He put the kettle down abruptly and walked back over to the table.

"Sneaky, sneaky woman," he said with a knowing smile on his lips. "Your sister knew, didn't she?" Kathryn nodded.

"Yeah she did," she confirmed, "I imagine she knew Deanna had managed to help me with Justin and Daddy's death, and so she knew she'd be able to reach my best friend in the same way.

"But I haven't been seeing her this time. I wanted to explore the Delta Quadrant fallout with someone else. Deanna had become too much of a friend for me to be able to really open up to her in the same way. I needed someone anonymous."

From his expression, she knew Chakotay could understand that. And he also looked a little relieved. She could get that. Sharing shrinks was probably a little much, even for best friends.

Suddenly it occurred to Kathryn that Chakotay must have spent a long time talking to her mother and Phoebe. She wondered what they'd told him. She was jealous somehow, that they'd been able to help him and she'd been feeling so useless, kept away from him.

"Chakotay, do you know why I wasn't allowed to visit you? Why Mom asked me to stay away? Did you ask her to do that?" Another questions she wasn't really sure she wanted to know the answer to.

"Yes and no. I knew she'd asked you to stay away and in the end I agreed with her. But no it wasn't my idea at first. I'm sorry about that. It wasn't because I didn't want to see you, it was just I needed some time to speak to other people. I needed to hear some other perspectives." He looked up at her, clearly torn about whether to say the next sentence. Her breath caught in her throat in anticipation. "I can find you a little overwhelming at times and I needed to sort through what were my thoughts and what were thoughts I thought you'd want me to have."

"Pardon," Kathryn spat out, dumbfounded once again. "What you thought I'd want to have?" She was suddenly angry. "I've never expected you to have any thoughts, Chakotay. I'd never do that."

"He stood up, rushing to her side as she sat in the wooden kitchen chair, kneeling beside her and taking her hands, despite her trying to pull them away and refusing to look him in the eye.

"Kathryn, listen to me. It wasn't you," he let go one of her hands, his turn this time to gently grab her chin and pull her head towards him to look at him. "It was me. I was so confused, so… damaged… I just thought that if I said what you wanted to hear, the world would be okay. And it wasn't just you; I did it with Seven, even B'Elanna and Tom." She was horrified by his admission. All these years he hadn't been honest with her?

He clearly saw the allegation in her eyes.

"It wasn't that I lied to you, I promise," he said, almost pleading and with a tear falling down his cheek. "It was more that I just didn't know what I wanted and so I allowed myself to be swayed into what I thought would make everyone else happy. I wasn't made miserable by it, I just didn't take the time to think about what the consequences of that would be."

Kathryn's mother's words rang in her head again as he continued: "you need to listen".

"Before we ended up on Voyager, my life wasn't really my own. I'd plunged from one crisis to another. I'd dream death and destruction. I was haunted," his words came tumbling out again.

"I suddenly found myself back in charge of a crew's well-being, back to having to check in with a Captain, back to having time to think, back to having friends. It was all such a shock. I was so traumatised I didn't know how to process my own thoughts. So instead of processing them, I buried them and decided to be happy and content. And I was. It wasn't a lie at all. But of course, as soon as we were back, I suddenly had to confront change again and it was too much for me. I buried that by deciding to be Seven's husband, to try and be perfect in one area of my life at least so no one would see how lost I was."

He took another steadying breath, centring himself once more.

Kathryn suddenly realised she recognised what he was doing. He was using a grounding technique. Standard when dealing with post-traumatic stress.

It came as a stark reminder to her of what her friend had been though, and as quickly as it flared up, her anger subsided. She was just deeply sad, it dawning on her that his depression hadn't just been about losing Seven. It was everything he'd been through since the Cardassians attacked his homeworld.

Who knew? Perhaps it went back even further than that.

She grabbed his other hand.

"When you dragged me out of the house all those weeks ago, Kathryn, it was like I was stuck in this feedback loop.

"It's taken hours and hours of talking to even begin to start to sort through it all and I've got a long way to go. But I'm strong enough to tackle it in the real world now, step out of the short-term hostel you made possible for me and to no longer fear I'll be swayed, even by your strength" He grinned up at her reassuring her that wasn't a bad thing, but the smile quickly turned into a grimace. His knees were clearly giving out. "Not as young as I was," he joked, letting go of her hands to stand up. "Now, more coffee?"

"Yes please," she said, smiling kindly back at him, and stealing a glance at the clock: 3am. It was clearly going to be a long night. She had so much more she wanted to ask him and it looked like he had a lot he still wanted to say.