A love lost and loves sacrifice.

Chapter 4

How is he?

I have had a few PM messages and reviews off people saying they see no hope for Kathryn and Chakotay but I will fix things for them, it wont be easy but if you read to the end of this adventure I assure you this IS as J/C story! Thanks.

"How are they all?" a very exhausted Kathryn asked after she managed to calm down and sit in the overly large and comfy armchair.

"You mean the Voyagers?" B'Elanna clarified.

"Yea the crew." Kathryn confirmed as she took her coat off.

"Well Tuvok has spent the last fifteen years teaching at the Vulcan science academy and living on Vulcan with his wife and children and grandchildren." Tom said calmly "we do see the old Vulcan master from time to time. The doctor is head of Starfleet medical now, which has only grown his ego ten fold. Sam and Naomi live happily on the Katarian home-world with her husband and Harry is a commander now, first officer of the Venus, finally found the right girl and married."

"I must see him, I must see them all, and none of them know I am out."

"Why Kathryn?" B'Elanna asked abruptly.

"Why what?" came Kathryn's reply.

"Together we could have made it."

"Those are the words I heard and believed in for so long, the words of the man I loved." Kathryn told them bitterly "it was not I who let go," and then as though snapping from her absent-minded trace she looked wide-eyed and tearful at B'Elanna and said, "How is he?"

"Who?" B'Elanna asked slightly confused.

As tears poured down her face Kathryn felt like a little girl on the rebound again, "Chakotay" she whispers softly "how is Chakotay?" For Kathryn more tears poured as she said his name, a name she had not said aloud in fifteen years, a name of only her dreams.

"One of Five." B'Elanna spat in anger and bitterness.

"Pardon?" asked a wide-eyed Kathryn.

Tom got up and moved around the room to sit next to his wife where he wrapped an arm of support around her shoulder, Kathryn couldn't help wondering if it was to stop her from exploding in anger, "Chakotay married Seven of Nine." Tom told Kathryn calmly.

The news didn't come to Kathryn as a huge surprise and she managed to control her pain a lot easier than she had thought she would. "Are they happy?" she asked calmly but maybe a little too stiffly.

"Oh Seven is, or should I say Two of Five, running her little Borg collective of perfection." A very bitter B'Elanna spat.

Kathryn thought of the implications of B'Elanna's words and then understood what she was hearing, "they have three children?" she asked as a sour and hurt knot clenched her chest, it was adding salt in the wound, insult to injury. Not only did her husband leave her for a younger, more intelligent and more beautiful woman he left her for a woman who could provide him with the one thing she could not, the one thing she had always known was a mark of respect and achievement in his culture, children.

"The fourth is to be born any day now." Tom told her steadily.

Kathryn didn't know what to say or do; there was nothing to say. She had chosen all those years ago to sacrifice herself for Chakotay and Seven for she had known they were together when Voyager flew into the Alpha Quadrant. "I lost him." she mumbled as her shaking hand reached up to remove the necklace that had hung around her neck since the day Chakotay had given it to her all those years ago on new earth. Placing the necklace on the coffee table before her she looked at it. This was the necklace Chakotay had given her as a symbol of their marriage, she had worn it everyday since, perhaps in hope but it had been part of her as he was and it had been her strength as he was.

B'Elanna looked at the necklace showing Chakotay's tribal mark and then back at Kathryn, "how close were you two?" She asked trying to care for her friend "We have asked him many times but he will not talk of you. He will not say a word about you since you made the plea bargain, he will just leave the room whenever any of us talk about you."

"He pretends I don't exist?" exclaimed a very hurt and shocked wide-eyed Kathryn.

"No!" said Tom in horror, "that's just it, far from it. It's like for him to say your name or to hear your name is far too painful for him."

Kathryn stared at the necklace for a long while and then she said softly with love in her voice, "He was my husband."

Tom and B'Elanna exchanged shocked looks before turning back to Kathryn for understanding.

Through her tears Kathryn took a deep breath and explained to her former crew members what she meant "While we were alone for those few months together on New Earth-"

"New Earth?" B'Elanna interrupted sounding confused.

"Yea, do you remember we both got that virus had had to be left behind on that planet until a cure could be found?"

"Oh yea!" Said Tom wide eyed, he was about to find out what he had always wondered but never dared ask.

"Well we named that planet New Earth." But more tears poured down her face. B'Elanna went to console her old friend, which gave Kathryn the strength to carry on and release all she had held in for so long, "we fell in love there. I think we had loved each other before then, do you remember all that was going on with his anger when he threatened to rape me and I had to have in my brig?" She asked.

"How could I forget?" Muttered B'Elanna as she looked down at the necklace.

"I fell in love with him then, and I think he me. I saw the real Chakotay, the Chakotay I trusted." Here Kathryn took a pause to look at the necklace where it lay.

B'Elanna urged her on, "So you fell in love with him and trusted him even though he threatened to rape you and attacked you? In a way that's beautiful, the crew knew you trusted him despite what he had done but I had no idea you loved him."

"I couldn't afford to, protocol saw to that." Kathryn said in a deep pain "but there was no protocol on that planet, you have to understand we thought we were to spend the rest of our lives together there."

"So you married him?" asked Tom as he picked up the necklace, which lay on the table.

Kathryn nodded as tears poured from her eyes making her unable to talk.

"So where did seven come into it all?" B'Elanna asked feeling suddenly annoyed with Chakotay the man she had seen as a father for many years.

"He and Seven got together day's before we arrived in the Alpha Quadrant, I knew it at the time even though he couldn't bring himself to tell me." Kathryn told them.

Now so much of the goings on between the command team both on duty and off made perfect sense to Tom now, they were married all that time. "So he cheated on you?" Asked Tom "Chakotay cheated on his wife." Tom was almost in disbelief, he had respected the older man for so long but had no idea he was married to the captain.

"We both cheated on each other over the years, a game we played I suppose, we were lonely, protocol forbid us to be open in our marriage like you two." At Kathryn's words the younger couple felt shame for the openness the relationship they had thrust in the command teams face without consideration to how much pain and restraint they were putting in with each other. Kathryn carried on, "I think we both tried at times to make the other jealous, to have the forbidden open relationship and know there was nothing the other could do."

"Riley!" muttered B'Elanna "that Borg woman he met on that planet. The one who turned out using him! What a P'tak!" Spat a very angry B'Elanna referring to Chakotay as a P'tak.

"I was guilty of that just as much as he was, Michael Sullivan comes to mind." Kathryn said sadly, "and of course not to forget inspector Kashyk." She said in shame.

Tom and B'Elanna thought for a moment and then in dawned on Tom what she meant, "The Devore inspector?" he asked in horror.

"I knew Chakotay was in the shuttle bay watching." She told them with a nod.

"What shuttle bay?" asked B'Elanna.

"the one where I kissed the inspector." Kathryn said coolly.

Tom and B'Elanna looked at her in shock until B'Elanna said, "you knew Chakotay was watching?"

With a slow sad nod Kathryn said "you have to understand when you have to spend nearly every minute of everyday next to the person you love, the person you were once free to be married to but now you can't have them in that way, now you must command them and they must serve under you and the risk of even thinking of love for them is too high in case you order them to their death then you will understand what a little bit of persuasive jealousy can do to keep the desire and passion of ones marriage alive." She was talking in a deep husky voice almost as though even to think of it was turning her on, like even the jealousy and desire she felt for Chakotay with Seven or any of the other women was making her body react in a way she had taught it to for so many years on Voyager, it was a game of not only the mind but of the physical aspects of the body the husband and wife had played over the years a game that kept both the emotion and physical aspects of love in a constant burning passion for one another. Tom watched as his former captain as she wrestled with her current physical and emotional desire that even thinking of it had caused her and he could only smile to think of how the two would have lived on Voyager playing this game.

"so it was a game when Chakotay got with Seven?" Tom ask smiling at Kathryn, though it was heartbreaking the idea of his commanding officers in deep love for each other made him smile.

"I really do not know what Chakotay was thinking when he got with Seven, we got back to the Alpha Quadrant before I really found out much about it, I suppose by then it was too late, Seven could give him what I could not." Kathryn told her old friends, slowly she picked up the necklace and turned it around in her hands much as she had all those years ago on 'New Earth'

"but when we got to the Alpha Quadrant you were both free to admit your marriage and be open about it."

"That was the plan yes." Kathryn said absent-mindedly "or at least I thought that was the plan." Tears began to pour down Kathryn's face as she shivered with the release of such pain that she had held in for so long.

"Kathryn" B'Elanna said tentatively, "maybe you should go up stairs and get some rest." The half-klingon didn't really know what to say or do about it.

With a nod a tearful and very tired Kathryn stood as Tom lead her up the stairs to the guest room that was to be hers.

A few hours later…

Kathryn woke to the sound of muffled and yet raised voice's coming from down stairs, "I really think you should go now!" She heard Tom shouting.

Kathryn stood to slowly move towards the door of her bedroom to strain to hear some more of what was being said when a deep voice she had not expected to hear rung in her ears causing her heart to literally stop, "Where the hell did you get this?" The voice of the man she knew so well boomed out angrily around the house.

"Please just go, you are embarrassing yourself." Kathryn heard an exasperated B'Elanna shout.

"He is drunk." She heard Miral say. Kathryn had almost forgotten about Miral who seemed to have diapered once they entered the house.

"You would be too!" hissed the unmistakable voice that Kathryn had dreamed of hearing once more for so long.

Creeping slowly towards the door and turning the handle to silently open the door she slipped into the landing the hear Tom say "come on man just go home to your wife and children."

Kathryn heard that strong, deep voice ask once more, "Where did you get this?" Kathryn stood on the top step of the marble stair case looking down at the four stood in the entrance hall between the stair case and the main door, "this does not belong to you, this is sacred and private." He snapped as Kathryn watched him brandish her precious necklace angrily in B'Elanna's face.

Although Kathryn felt as though he was going to buckle at her knees and faint she drew herself tall as she began to walk down the stairs completely forgetting she was still only wearing a pink silk night gown and bear feet she took a large intake of breath before saying firmly and steadily, "nor is it yours, a gift once given is a gift given forever, and such a gift once held so sacred has now become so very worthless." As Kathryn said these words all eyes fell on her, the anger in his eyes faded as he turned slowly to her in horror his familiar and strong deep jet-black eyes locked with her watery blue orbs. That moment could have lasted for eternity as Kathryn stopped three steps before the bottom so that she was ever so slightly higher than the drunk and angry guest she tilted her head and said to him slowly and sadly, "I believe there is congratulations in order for you and your extremely lucky wife, I would very much love to meet your family." Though Kathryn appeared calm and friendly all the while anger and pain raged in her heart as she looked upon the older and yet familiar face of the man she had loved for so long. Her tiny lips almost curled into a tiny smile as she looked upon the dark lines of the inky tattoo that framed his left brow.

"Kathryn" she heard his deep and yet almost loving voice whisper before the room began to spin and she had to grab the banister to stop herself from falling, but it was too late, her tiny knees buckled under her and her tiny body was about to hit the floor as she fainted off the step, noticing this Chakotay quickly stepped forward to catch his ex-wife as she fainted into his strong and loving arms.

End of Chapter 4… CHAPTER 5 NOW UP… reviews and comments always welcome.