A/N: Thank you, as always, to MissyHissy3. Also, warning for one or two instances of strong language.
Seven
I wake feeling the most rested I have in… I don't know how long. I can't remember the last time I slept without feeling as if I needed to keep one eye open. Somehow, on this tiny bunk in this rickety little ship, I feel the most secure I have in a long, long time.
The room is dark. I sit up, realising that there's something soft draped over me, although underneath it all I'm wearing is my leather pants. I reach for the light, blinking as it sparks into life. I recognise the blanket. It's one Chakotay used to have in his quarters aboard Voyager.
I get up, folding it before I put it back on the bed and reach for the t-shirt instead. Pulling it on over my head, I realise I'm moving more easily. My abdomen is no longer sore. My back feels better than it has in weeks, too, although until now I hadn't realised it wasn't right – obviously I'd forgotten how it feels to be completely pain-free. Now that my mind is clearer, the hours following my failed attempt to make contact in that bar are thrown into sharp focus.
Chakotay.
Of all the people to bump into, and right now. If it weren't so tragic I'd laugh. Mathematicians could spend years writing papers on the astronomical numbers involved in the statistical probabilities that precipitated this chance meeting. On the other hand, some things in this Universe are built on paths that continually bring them together, even across distances that represent periods of time so vast that human imagination can barely comprehend them. Part of me would like to think we are two such things, as unhappy as that gravitation seems to be. The certainties I used to believe in have long since let me down, but despite the bitter nature of our unexpected reunion, Chakotay has yet to do the same. Our relationship is so damaged that I know it can't be repaired, but right now, simply knowing that people like him still exist – people who do good just because it's who they are, and not because of what they can get out of it – is more valuable than he could possibly imagine.
Ayala's door is shut and the galley is quiet – tidier than the last time I saw it, too. On the table is a back pack, and around it lie various items that make me think it's intended for me – ration packs, a flashlight, a micro-fabric emergency blanket, even a stack of latinum strips.
Chakotay is alone in the cockpit. He looks up from the ancient PADD on his lap as I appear on the step. I don't expect a smile and I don't get one.
"There's coffee," he says, by way of greeting. "Help yourself."
"Thanks." I see the empty mug in front of him and hold out my hand. He passes it to me without a word.
In the galley I find another mug and the percolator with its almost-full jug, and I pour some out for both of us, wondering where they got fresh coffee so far out in the boondocks and also how long Chakotay has been a drinker. On Voyager he rarely drank it much, but you don't waste a jug like this for a single cup. Somehow, it seems wrong that I don't know.
Back in the cockpit, I slide into Ayala's chair. The stars outside are still spinning past.
"How long was I out?"
Chakotay checks the chronometer in front of him. "Almost eight hours."
"Eight? Where are we?"
"We crossed into the Kralis sector about an hour ago. At this speed we'll be at the coordinates you gave us in two hours."
Two hours. My heart ticks an extra beat in silent celebration. Ironically, thanks to my near-death experience and Chakotay's infallible conscience, I'm almost a full day ahead of schedule. There's still a chance that I can succeed.
Chakotay leans forward and places the PADD on the control panel and then clasps his hands in his lap. "I think we need to talk."
"About what?" I brace myself, expecting to have to deflect questions about my mission in the Kralis sector. I'm fresher now, ready to undo the damage I've done by telling them as much as I have already.
And then he says: "I owe you an apology."
The words are so completely out of the realms of what I was expecting that I just stare at him dumbly. He shifts slightly, uncomfortable under my scrutiny, and I try to find something to say, but I can't, so I just wait for him to continue.
"I really thought that Seven had told you our plans," he says, softly, and I realise that he's taking us back to five years ago, to that last, horrible week when I was trying to hold everything together and failing miserably. I've been failing ever since.
"When she told me she wasn't going to join us, the reasons she gave made me think that she had discussed it with you," he goes on, his voice still quiet. "I thought you knew what we were planning. I realise now that wasn't what happened. I've blamed you for that ever since, and for that, at least, I'm sorry."
I stare into my coffee mug. "She didn't say anything to me until a month after you'd gone," I tell him. "By then, Starfleet had accepted they'd lost you, and they gave up questioning me about it. I assume that's why she didn't tell me earlier. She wanted me to be able to completely deny I knew anything at all. Which, of course, I could."
He nods. I should leave well enough alone, but I can't.
"If you wanted to punish me by leaving the way you did, Chakotay, you succeeded. Even if you thought Seven had informed me of what was going on, didn't you realise I would have wanted to hear it from you? To have a chance to say goodbye – not just to you, but to all of the Maquis? You'd been my crew for seven years."
His jaw clenches and he flashes me an angry look. "You want to talk about punishment? You want to talk about saying goodbye?" He takes a breath, and spits the next chain of words so rapidly that it's obvious he's relaying them from what must be a very potent memory. "'Chakotay, Janeway here. I'm sorry, but I can't spend any more time on these debriefings. I need to move on. We all need to move on. In fact, I think it would better if Starfleet and the Maquis keep as much distance as possible from now on. The Starfleet crew is jeopardising their futures by their continued association. I'm sure you understand. Janeway out.'"
I stare at him. I have absolutely no idea what it is I've just heard. Chakotay stares back, his eyes brimming with rage.
"Janeway out," he repeats again, his voice full of venom. "That, and cutting us all loose - that's your idea of a goodbye, and you imagine you have a right to say that I was the one punishing you?"
"I don't… I…" I stutter, trying to work out what the hell is going on. "Chakotay, what are you talking about?"
He's not listening, still in full flow. "The thing is, I've been sitting here while you sleep, thinking about this, and the fact that you didn't know what we were planning makes that message so much worse. I thought it was you signing off after talking to Seven. I thought, when I watched it, that it was your triumphant comeback. No, she's not going with you, fuck you and goodbye. But if you really didn't know – if she really hadn't told you – then it was just you. It was just you, cutting me – all of us – off. Hanging us out to dry at the mercy of Starfleet. Which makes it worse, doesn't it? It makes it so much worse."
My heart is hammering, and I'm trying to catch my breath. None of this makes any sense. "What message?" I ask, "Chakotay what message?"
He throws me an incredulous look. "Are you seriously telling me you don't remember?"
I must look like a goldfish out of water, gasping for breath. "I don't know what you're talking about. Remember what? What message?"
"The message that was waiting for me when I got home from that last debriefing. You couldn't even tell me to my face. You left it when you knew I'd be out."
"I didn't leave you any message."
He laughs, an awful, bitter sound. "How can you sit there and lie to me so easily?"
"Chakotay, look at me," I reach forward and grab his arm, spinning his chair so that he faces me. "Look at me. I never left you any message. The day of your last briefing I didn't even leave Starfleet HQ until after midnight. They called me into another interminable meeting. By the time I got up next morning, the Maquis – you – had gone. Whoever left you that message, it wasn't me."
He shakes my hand from his arm, staring at me hard. "It was you. Do you take me for an idiot? Don't you think I've spent long enough looking at you to know you in a fucking snowstorm from fifty paces?"
"So you think I'm still lying to you, even now?" I ask him. "I tell you it hurt me when you left without giving me a chance to say goodbye and you think I'm trying to play you?"
He turns away, his jaw set. "I don't know, Kathryn. I thought I knew you, once, but that was before. Now…"
Chakotay trails off and I stare at the hard planes of his profile, trying to make sense of what he's saying. Because whatever he thinks he saw and heard, it wasn't me. And why would anyone do that? Who would be able to do that? Who could-
The answer hits me like a thunderbolt, so hard that when I speak my voice is nothing more than a whisper as I sink back in my chair. "Section 31."
"What?"
I blink at him, feeling sick. "I swear to you, on the memory of every person I have ever loved, Chakotay, that I never left you that message. It must have been fabricated. It must have been-"
"Section 31."
I nod. "They could do it. I know they have the means."
A silence follows, in which I continue to watch his face. He's trying to work it out. I can tell that part of him wants to believe what I'm saying, but that to do so means letting go of something monumental. At last he shakes his head. It's a denial, but not a furious one.
"Why? What would be the point?"
I've been asking myself the same question, and only one thing seems to make sense. I shrug. "United we stand, divided we fall? Certainly worked in our case, didn't it? They must have known about your escape plan. Maybe you not being around suited them. They must have wanted Seven even then. She'd said it herself enough times: Voyager was her collective - her protection. With the Maquis gone, that collective was weaker. And I was such a trusting fool I posed no threat. You would never have told her what I did – that she should go along with whatever Starfleet wanted. Would you? You would have seen their requests for what they were."
He rubs a hand over his face. "I did see. It's why I asked her to go with us. If Starfleet couldn't trust the Maquis, how were they ever going to trust her?"
We sit in silence for a while. I replay in my mind the words he has spent five years thinking I'd left for him to listen to. How could he ever have imagined I would say such things, do such a thing? Were we really at such a distance by the end of Voyager's journey that he could imagine that of me? But I already know the answer to that.
"I was so angry," he says then, quietly. "Angry and hurt. I couldn't believe you would do that, and yet there you were – and it was you. There was no reason for me to think it wasn't. I re-watched that message a thousand times that night and it never once occurred to me that it wasn't… The likeness, the intonation, the mannerisms… they were perfect. Perfectly you. And just earlier that day, Seven had said she wasn't coming with us, so I thought… If I had spoken to you, face to face, before then – if I hadn't just left Seven to be a go-between, I'd have known. I'd have known it wasn't you. But I couldn't find it in me to tell you before, and then I got that message and… that was it."
I shrug. "Guess that's what they were counting on. That you'd hate me too much to follow up. That you'd just go, and-"
"-and leave Seven," he finishes. "And leave you."
[TBC]
