Seven
The force of the blast threw Janeway against the bulkhead, smashing her head against the wall. Stunned, she slumped to the ground as the air around her filled with deadly flying shrapnel. Something sliced into her cheek, narrowly missing her left eye. Finding her way to her knees, she felt arms around her, pulling her up. Once on her feet, she pushed Chakotay away, holding both arms up to shield her face, deaf from the concussive force of the blast. At first she thought there had been another hull breach, but there was no grasping lack of air, no pull towards oblivion. This was something else.
Then the smoke began to clear. The corridor ahead was buckled and twisted, strewn with debris and thick with fumes. One of the escape pod hatches was empty, she realised, but the other must have failed to disengage before its thrusters had been activated. Without shields, the effect had been catastrophic, burning through Voyager's skin and igniting every one of the volatile bio-neural gel packs in the vicinity. The result was a blast that had mangled everything in its path.
Including Tom Paris.
Janeway, ears still ringing, ran forward as she saw him slumped against a bulkhead. His skin was grey and sweating, his eyes-half closed. A large shard of metal had pierced his chest.
The blood that poured from him was a torrent.
"Someone get the Doctor," Janeway barked, ripping off her jacket and trying to stop the flow.
Tom's blood pumped over her hands. He coughed, painfully, and there was blood on his lips, too.
"Hold on," Janeway told him. "Tom, we're getting help. Hold on."
His face contorted in pain. "B'Elanna…"
"She's fine," the Captain reassured him. "B'Elanna's fine. Everything's all right. Do you hear me? The Doctor will be here at any minute. You're going to be fine."
The blood kept coming, too bright, too fast.
"Where's the damn EMH?" she shouted.
No one answered her, but in any case she already knew it was hopeless. The Doctor's programme ran off power emitted by the ship. He'd been at full capacity for days, and they'd all known it couldn't last. He'd had to resort to the mobile emitter as his last remaining power source the previous morning.
If he wasn't here by now, he wasn't anywhere.
"Cap…" Paris managed.
"Don't talk, Tom. Just hold on. That's an order, Lieutenant."
He smiled, the line of red inside his lips in ghoulish contrast to the expression. "Nice try, Captain," he whispered. Tom managed to lift one hand and wrapped it over hers, forcing her to look him in the eye. "The baby," he said, with shocking clarity. "I really wanted to be a good –"
His words died with the last beat of his heart. Janeway watched his eyes flutter closed, and he was gone.
She stood, his blood dripping from her hand. To wipe it away seemed sacrilegious, somehow.
"It's over, Kathryn." Janeway turned to find Chakotay standing behind her, his gaze resting on Tom's broken body. "He's at peace."
She felt the sob before she heard it. It wrenched out of her throat, a harsh cry of pain and despair.
"Don't be ridiculous. He's not at peace. How could he be? When he died like that, when he leaves behind-" She stopped, unable to go on, turning away. Then a fury gripped her. "Is this all your doing?" she demanded.
"What?"
She waved her hand. "Every time I say no to you… every time I tell you I still have hope… I lose something – someone – else. Is that you? Are you killing them one by one, to get at me? Is this – is this you? Doing this? Doing all of this?"
Chakotay shook his head, expression half way between hurt and anger. "How could you think such a thing? Of me?"
"I don't know you."
"You do. You know you do."
Kathryn shook her head. "You didn't want me to leave the ship. You kept trying to get me to stay. You keep – distracting me. Why?"
Chakotay took a step forward. "I told you. I told you the first time I came to you, Kathryn – I don't want you to suffer. Don't you think you've suffered enough? Don't you think they have?" He gestured towards Tom's body, but she couldn't bear to look. "I just want what's best for you. And I know I can make you happy, Kathryn. Don't you want the chance to see just how I can do that?"
She backed away. Her head hurt, her eyes stung and she was so tired. So tired. It was so difficult to think.
"I just want to save the crew," she whispered. "Just let me save the crew."
"Okay. What if I told you I can help you do that?"
She shook her head. "If you are Chakotay and you could have done that, you would have already done so by now."
He stepped forward again - moving slowly, inexorably toward her. "All right. I'll admit, I haven't been entirely truthful with you."
"I knew that already."
"I am Chakotay. I promise you that. And I promise that everything I've told you is true. You can have whatever you want."
"But?"
"No buts. You just have to relax, that's all. Not everything has to be a struggle, Kathryn. Not everything has to be a fight."
She was against the buckled wall now, eyes half-closed, leaning against it as if it could hold her up. "I don't understand…"
Chakotay moved to stand close. Then he leaned down and whispered in her ear. "None of this is real, Kathryn. With the exception of me and you, our crew is fine."
She looked up, straight into his eyes. "Fine?"
Chakotay smiled. "Yes."
"Tom's still alive?"
"Yes."
She looked around. "But… what, then? Where am I?"
He raised one hand and brushed his fingers across her cheekbone. "With me, Kathryn. You're with me."
Her brain was working overtime, trying to work it out. "So – I was injured? When the Pyrie ship-"
"Yes. Fatally so. But you're still clinging to life. And it's hard for them – the crew. You've lingered – so badly hurt, but still refusing to let go. You always were a fighter, Kathryn Janeway. That's why I'm here. To make it easier."
She frowned. "So – Neelix's death, Vorik's death, Tom's death – none of that actually happened?"
"Exactly."
"They're alive?" Relief poured into her heart, followed almost immediately by suspicion and abject anger. She pushed him away. "But – why? Why would you do that? Why would you make me think that-"
"I knew you wouldn't let go until you thought you had exhausted every option," Chakotay told her. "Like I said, you're a fighter. You don't know when to quit. I thought that if I could finally show you that there was no way to survive, you'd eventually accept that you'd done all you could."
She stared at him. "And you think this… this façade… has been an act of kindness?"
He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "I did what I thought was best. For you. For the crew. You're hurting them, Kathryn. They can't move on while you're still there, lingering helplessly in sickbay. But there is no hope. None."
She went to step away, the leaden pain in her head swelling and swelling. Chakotay's arm reached out to catch her around the waist, pulling her against him. "I know this is painful," he said, gently. "This truth. This slow dissolving, this gradual loss." His lips brushed against her cheek. "But you did all you could, Kathryn. It's time to let go."
The urge to relax against him was strong. She was so tired, an exhaustion so bone-deep that it was as if her skeleton was coated with lead.
"Be with me," he whispered. "Let everything else fade away. Just be with me."
His lips touched hers again: warm, gentle. He moved his mouth to her cheek and then her earlobe, pulling it gently between his lips. "Isn't this better?" he whispered, holding her close. "Isn't this better than struggling?"
It was. Oh, it was.
Kathryn – wake up. You've got to fight. Do you hear me? Please hear me. You've got to-
His voice was so clear in her head that Janeway gasped. With it came the acrid smell of burning, forcing its way up through her nostrils and into her lungs. She pushed against Chakotay's chest and wrenched herself out of his grasp, stumbling backwards against the wall.
"That was you!"
Chakotay frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"I heard you."
"Of course you did. I'm standing right here." He reached for her, but she avoided his touch, taking a step backwards.
"No," she said, holding up her hand. "No. Not this you."
"Kathryn, you're not making sense."
She stared at him, hard, pieces of a jigsaw slotting into place in her mind. "No, but I think I'm beginning to." She shook her head. "You said this isn't real. You told me it isn't. So what is real, Chakotay? You? I don't think so. I don't think you're any more real than-"
A blast of heat suddenly radiated at her from the blank wall behind her, so powerful that she flinched and turned toward it, though there was nothing there.
Yes! She's moving – B'Elanna, she's moving-
Kathryn snapped her head back around to meet Chakotay's eye. "That's the real Chakotay. Isn't it? He's not dead," she said, her heart pounding with realisation and hope. "What's happening? Where am I?"
"Kathryn, I told you – you're in sickbay. You're very sick-"
"I don't believe you. Chakotay – that Chakotay, the real one – is telling me to move. He wants me awake. All along, he's been trying to tell me to fight. That's not the way you talk to someone who has been fatally injured."
The figure before her didn't answer, but as she looked at him, his face seemed to change. It was still Chakotay's features, but suddenly, somehow, she didn't recognise him. She was looking at a stranger that happened to be wearing his face.
"Who are you?" She hissed, squaring her shoulders and taking a step forward, adrenaline spiking. "What are you?"
The Chakotay before her smiled slowly, a terrifying distortion of the gesture that usually brought his face alive. "Oh, Captain. I do believe you already know."
In an instant, he had been replaced. Chakotay disappeared, and the figure standing in his place filled her with so great a nausea that she almost gagged.
"Don't," she hissed, reaching out behind her, searching for something solid to grip. "Take off that face, you monster. Show me what you really look like, coward."
Her father stood before her, fully uniformed and as whole as he had been the last time this entity had taken his form. Admiral Janeway smiled.
"Oh, Kathryn," it said, in her father's voice. "You really will never learn, will you? I told you I'd be back for you. This time I tried to make it even easier."
She looked around, wildly, searching for some chink in the illusion.
"You could have been happy," the entity said, stepping closer. "You could have spent eternity with the man you so obviously desire. I could have given you the closest thing to heaven you will ever know."
"I told you before," she hissed. "I will never go with you. Do you hear me? You can throw heaven at me for all eternity and I – will – never – give – up."
"Ah, but you see," said her father's voice. "I don't need you to give up. Not any more. You've dallied in this little heroic fantasy of yours for too long, Captain. And now there's nothing anyone can do to save you. You're mine. It's just a matter of time – and not much of that, either."
The heat rolled over her again, white hot, burning. Suddenly she felt something across her legs and arm, a heavy weight holding her down, pressing against her. She blinked and the corridor around her was replaced by flames flickering in a well of darkness.
"Kathryn!"
She looked up through the smoke. There was the sound of something, sparks caused by a tool rather than the flames that seemed to be about to engulf her. Shadows floated somewhere above her head, indistinct shapes cast against a wreckage of metal.
Another flash and she was back in the corridor. Her father's face was gone, replaced once again by Chakotay's.
"Last chance, Captain," said the entity that wore his skin. "Burn alive and die in agony, once and for all, or spend eternity with this man. Which is it to be?"
She raised her chin. "While I breathe, I hope," she rasped. "He's alive and he hasn't given up. He's still telling me to fight."
"You're a fool," the entity spat. "You're both going to die, and there won't be any afterlife to soothe you then."
"Maybe," Kathryn whispered. "But you could never be him any more than you could be my father. And if I ever wanted anything, it was him, not just my idea of him."
"Burn, then," hissed the entity. "Burn."
[TBC]