Notes: As my beta pointed out to me, apparently C/7 never happened in my universe cause I just completely ignore it as a possibility. Just fyi. And while I'm at it up here...Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing. I really appreciate it.
The soft mattress and cushy pillow under Kathryn's head made her think she wasn't actually regaining consciousness. She'd expected to feel pain when she woke up. Despite her inclinations, Kathryn slowly opened her eyes and found herself blinking up at an unfamiliar ceiling. The fog in her brain concerning her whereabouts did not recede quickly, partially because she had no real desire to confirm that she was, in fact, still dreaming. She liked the thought of waking up in a warm comfy bed without feeling the usual edge of panic and anxiety she lived with on a daily basis. Relishing in the delusion, she turned her head and saw an old fashioned clothes dresser and nightstand taking up space next to the bed. There was a single silver framed pictured positioned on top of the nightstand, and she remembered having put it there.
She put it there after the little girl had left the room. The little girl's name was Miral. She was the daughter of Tom and B'Elanna. Kathryn pushed up to her elbows as the day's events all fell into place in her mind. She scanned the room and saw her overshirt and jacket hanging on the back of a chair with her boots sitting neatly on the floor underneath them. She glanced down at her chest, realizing she was only wearing her undershirt, but whoever had put her to bed had at least had the common sense to leave her pants alone. Her former crew or not, she would've had to kill someone for that.
Her former crew? Well, she had certainly taken hold of that thought rather possessively. Throwing the light blanket off and swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she slowly got to her feet. Running a hand through her hair, she pushed one of the curtains aside and saw that it was still daylight outside. She hadn't been asleep for too long then. Unless it was the next day already.
She frowned at that thought and took a seat on the chair so she could put her boots back on. Sitting closer to the door, she could hear hushed voices coming from the hall. Damn. That meant Chakotay wasn't alone. She really didn't feel up to dealing with a whole slew of people right now. She hadn't had any intention of dealing with anyone besides Chakotay, and she hadn't expected to be dealing with him as much as she was. Everything had gotten so out of hand. She'd already been here a day longer than she'd intended. Damn again. She hadn't contacted Trevor. He'd probably be going out of his mind by now with worry.
Kathryn got to her feet, stretching out a few muscles before quietly easing the door open. The voices were still continuing their quiet conversation, and it was by instinct that she wanted to hear as much of it as she could. She knew when she made her presence known they'd stop talking about…her. Kathryn turned her head slightly. They were talking about her. Chakotay and Tom. It sounded like it was just the two of them. She crept closer. If she heard something she didn't like, she could disappear before they even knew she was awake.
"So what did you tell her?" Tom asked.
"Who? Kathryn?"
"Well, yeah her too I guess, but I was really referring to the call you just took. It was Gretchen wasn't it?"
Gretchen. The woman Chakotay had said was her mother. She was oddly relieved to hear that her mother was apparently alive and well. She hadn't really given it any thought up to this moment, but it was comforting to know.
"I didn't tell her anything," Chakotay sighed. "What am I supposed to tell her? Your daughter is back but she doesn't know who you are. She was probing though…she suspects something."
"How is that possible?"
Chakotay snorted. "She's a Janeway."
"Actually, she's a Warren," Tom corrected. "She just married a Janeway."
"Then where do you think Kathryn gets it?"
"Gets what? The chip on her shoulder the size of Saturn, the steely resolve in the face of death, or the uncanny ability to have trouble find her like she's wearing a homing beacon?" Tom speculated only half-joking.
Kathryn sighed, growing tired of their conversation at this point. She wasn't learning anything, and she considered just going back to bed.
"So, are you going to tell me or not, Tom?"
Kathryn had just been about to show herself but the seriousness of Chakotay's tone had her flattening back up against the wall.
"Tell you what?"
"I saw you scan her."
Kathryn's hand tightened into a fist at her side and she forced herself to remain still.
"She was unconscious on the bathroom floor, Chakotay. I'm a medic. I had to scan her," the pilot defended himself.
"Damn it, Tom! If she finds out–"
"All I scanned for was her vital signs," Tom argued. "I didn't calibrate the tricorder for anything further. As much as I want to know what was done to her…she's been violated enough. I wouldn't do that to her."
Kathryn rested her head back against the wall and released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
"Thanks, Tom. I'm sorry I jumped to conclusions."
"Well, don't think the thought didn't cross my mind, but I just…couldn't."
She chose that moment to make her presence known. Tom immediately jumped to his feet, almost toppling the barstool he'd been sitting on. "K-Kathryn…you're up."
Chakotay rounded the bar to see her. He wondered just how much she had overheard. "How are you feeling?"
The corner of her mouth quirked upwards as she looked between the two men. She felt…something for them that she couldn't quite name, but it made her feel good. "Oh, I think you'd find my vital signs have all returned to normal." She watched Tom swallow convulsively and enjoyed the moment of putting the younger man on the spot. She had a feeling it didn't happen all that often, but she sobered quickly. "I'm sorry you had to see me like that. It doesn't happen all that often, but it was…nice to wake up in a bed."
Chakotay seemed to understand how uncomfortable of an admission that had been for her. "Would you like something to eat? B'Elanna took the munchkin home for her lunch and a nap."
"She gets cranky without a nap," Tom commented. "Trust me, it's not something you want to witness."
Kathryn gave him a smile before answering Chakotay. "Sure, a sandwich or something would be nice."
"Coming right up." He gave Tom a significant look as he moved back towards the main part of the kitchen.
Tom offered the barstool he'd been sitting on. "So, uh, what was that earlier anyway?"
The cabinet door Chakotay had just opened slammed shut with a loud bang, but Kathryn just raised an eyebrow at the question. "Just clear the table and go straight for the eight ball, Mister Paris? Not very subtle." He blinked as though she'd hit him between the eyes. "And you, Chakotay? I suppose you're wondering as well."
Chakotay walked over and slid a plate of food in front of her. "It looked almost like you were having a panic attack, but I'm a bit more curious as to what triggered it."
The sandwich and chips he'd placed in front of her looked good, but she was suddenly no longer hungry. She looked up at him. "Champagne."
The surprise on Chakotay's face was plain to see. "You want champagne?"
Kathryn shook her head. "No. I don't want…you gave me champagne."
The two men exchanged a confused look.
She growled in frustration as she tried to put her thoughts in order. "You were wearing a tuxedo, you gave me a glass of champagne, and then your hand was on my shoulder and I was back here. Standing in the living room before I…" she gestured towards the bathroom. "Anyway, that's what I saw."
It was silent as they all tried to sort through what she was trying to say.
"Well," Chakotay started, feeling utterly unsure, "I have brought you champagne or its Delta Quadrant equivalent several times over the years at functions and such."
Tom was frowning. "But at all those you would've been wearing your dress uniform."
Kathryn looked between the two of them. "He was wearing a tuxedo. I saw it clearly." She jutted her chin in Tom's direction. "And so were you."
"Wait, we're talking about a memory here," Tom clarified. "You're saying you saw both of us, wearing tuxedos, and there's champagne?"
With the idea that it was a memory, Kathryn inexplicably felt herself becoming more resistant to the idea. "Yes."
"Are there other people there?" Chakotay asked. "Did you see…B'Elanna?"
She knew if she closed her eyes she'd be able to see the vision she'd witnessed earlier clearly, but she didn't want to. It would be…painful. If she'd learned anything during her captivity, she'd learned that. "I might have."
Chakotay glanced at Tom. "Are there a lot of people in this…vision?"
An involuntary flash of shimmering gowns, crystal lights and smiling faces surfaced, and Kathryn flinched against it, trying to force the sight out of her mind.
"Kathryn?"
"Yes! Okay," she snapped at them, "there are hundreds of people! They're all dancing and laughing. Applauding…"
"Are they the people from the photo album?" Chakotay asked as gently as he could.
The more they talked about it, the easier the vision came to her. She closed her eyes, steeling herself for the inevitable headache that would follow. But she could see them more clearly now. The bald man that Miral had referred to as the Doctor. The tall, buxom blonde woman that was, according to Miral, the only non-scary Borg. Uncle Harry who bore no resemblance at all to Tom or B'Elanna. B'Elanna in a shimmering teal dress standing next to Tom who was looking handsome, his tuxedo jacket missing but wearing a black vest over his dress shirt.
Kathryn nodded. "Yes. They're all there."
"Do you happen to see a large, melting ice sculpture, by any chance?" Tom asked.
If Kathryn thought the question was odd, it really surprised her when she saw exactly what he was describing. Her eyes flew open. "How did you know that?"
Tom exchanged another knowing look with Chakotay before he answered her question, "That was three years ago, the night of Voyager's Welcome Home Gala after spending seven years in the Delta Quadrant."
Chakotay looked grim. "And until we found you in that bar six months ago, it was the last night any of us saw you alive. You disappeared sometime early the next morning."
Kathryn sat on the edge of the couch, massaging her temples. Unsurprisingly, she had a headache. The memory, if it was indeed a memory, of the banquet hadn't been painful to recall, but the insanity of the entire situation was causing her no less grief. How could it be true? Seven years in the Delta Quadrant captaining a starship across 70,000 light years only to be home in the arms of her family for a mere week before disappearing for three years. Her mother must have been devastated.
Chakotay cleared his throat, and she looked up to see him approaching her from the kitchen. "Sorry, I didn't want to startle you."
She gave him a weary look. "How can it be true, Chakotay?"
He wanted to sit down next to her on the couch, but chose instead to sit across from her on the ottoman. "What do you remember?"
Kathryn scoffed and rubbed a hand across her forehead. "I remember…waking up to darkness. Pain…everything hurt, and I didn't know why." She snorted and shook her head. "My first memory is realizing I had no memory."
Chakotay resisted the urge to take her hand in his.
"I mean, I knew stuff. When I finally heard people talking, I could understand them. I could read, operate a PADD, that sort of thing…I knew who I was – well, I knew my name," she corrected herself. "I had a sense of self, but I knew…nothing of Starfleet or my family…my past." Her eyebrows pulled together as she concentrated. "When I did see people, it didn't shock me to see non-humans. Space, physics, science…they were all familiar concepts to me. It's strange, the stuff I knew and the stuff they…erased."
"Stole," Chakotay emphasized. "Whoever did this…they left you all of your skills, but they stole you."
Tom pushed himself off the door frame he'd been leaning against and moved further into the room with them. "I hate to play devil's advocate here, but we don't know for a fact that someone did this to her. It could be the result of an accident."
"No." Chakotay immediately discarded that possibility. "It's too…specific. An accident would have left gaps of memory or erased entire skill sets. This is too precise."
"Knowledge and ability with no emotional anchors to hold you back," Tom acknowledged grimly.
Kathryn nodded, her hand tightening into a fist. "They wanted me to do something for them, but I told them no," she chuckled darkly. "They didn't like that."
"Wait," Chakotay stopped her. "Do you know who did this to you?"
"I told them no," Kathryn repeated in a whisper.
Chakotay looked worriedly over his shoulder where it seemed Kathryn's gaze had focused. "Kathryn?" She didn't acknowledge him and he glanced nervously at Tom, who gave him a slight nod. Chakotay put his hand on her knee and said her name more forcefully. "Kathryn."
She jumped slightly, her blue eyes locking on his. "I told them no."
"Captain Janeway, may we have a moment of your time?"
The laughter that seemed to have been flowing endlessly from Kathryn Janeway since the banquet had started slowly faded away, and she let Harry see her eye roll before she turned away from him and his parents to face the two newcomers.
"Gentlemen," she eyed the two grey-chested officers, her glance immediately taking in the gold trim on their dress uniforms that identified them as security, "is there a problem?"
The two officers exchanged a glance. "No problem, Captain," the commander took a step towards her, "but we need to speak with you about an urgent matter."
"Now?" Kathryn looked around at the gathering. It was a sea of friends, family, and upper echelon Starfleet. Everywhere she looked she saw smiles, embraces, champagne, and a wonderful crisscross of formal wear with everything from dress uniforms to tuxedos to…some bizarre outfit that Chell was wearing that could have been borrowed from Neelix's closet. Despite it being on Earth, the gathering felt wonderfully like events they'd always held on Voyager. Even after a week, it still felt surreal to finally be home, but her smile this evening hadn't left her face since Chakotay had escorted her inside. It was his fault actually that she couldn't stop smiling like a schoolgirl. Moments before they'd made their entrance, he'd abruptly pulled her into the coat closet, wrapped his arms around her, and promptly kissed the daylights out of her until her knees had gone weak.
She had incredibly high hopes for what the end of the evening would bring.
"Our apologies," the commander offered, not sounding the least bit sorry and bringing Kathryn's thoughts abruptly back to their conversation, "but it's vitally important that we speak with you."
She frowned at them, her smile finally dimming. "What's this all about?"
The two men glanced at each other again. "We'd rather not discuss it here."
Putting one hand on her hip, she made it clear she wasn't going anywhere without more information.
The commander straightened perceptibly. "You're needed, Captain."
"For a mission?" she scoffed.
"Yes, ma'am," the lieutenant assured her quite seriously.
Her eyes narrowed as she studied them. "Who sent you?"
"I'd rather not discuss that here, ma'am."
Kathryn scanned the crowd and caught more than one person looking in their direction. Looking past the two officers, she could see Tom and his father standing together talking to Admiral Patterson. Patterson inclined his head to her. The anger she'd felt at the beginning of the evening flared up, but she was determined to not let this ruin her evening. "No, I don't think so."
The lieutenant glanced at his commander. "I beg your pardon, ma'am?"
"You can remind your superiors that I have already told them I will consider their request and get back to them." The commander began to interrupt and she spoke over him, putting a bit of steel in her voice so they'd know she was serious. "After tonight. Tonight is about Voyager and her crew, and I will not let this matter take precedence over that."
She started to turn away but the commander caught hold of her arm. He quickly let go when she glared at him. "Captain, I beg your pardon, but time is a significant factor."
Glancing around the room again as she tried to hold onto her temper, she saw Tom was now walking back towards B'Elanna and the baby, the Doctor was chatting with Samantha Wildman's husband, Owen and Patterson were chatting with her mother, and no one was paying any real attention to her and the two men standing in front of her. A few people smiled as she caught their eye but that was all. "This mission…it's going to be rather involved, isn't it?"
"The situation is…complicated, Captain. We'll brief you on what you need to know once we're away from here."
"It'll be time away from Earth? Away from my family that I haven't seen in seven years?"
"Unfortunately, so," the commander answered, missing the note of danger in her voice that anyone who knew her better would have heard. And wisely acknowledged. "We hope that your involvement will only last a few months at most."
"A few months," she repeated. Her smoldering anger at the request now blossomed into a raging inferno. The admirals she'd spoken with in the afternoon had deliberately made it seem like it would be only a couple of weeks. She clucked her tongue against her teeth. "I see."
The realization had been a bit delayed, but the two officers seemed to recognize the threat they were now facing. The lieutenant also noticed that more than one of her officers had begun to take notice of their trio. "Captain, it would be best if we could make a discreet exit."
"Yes, I think you should leave." She bit out the words. "Now."
The commander was not happy. "This mission needs you, Captain."
"No."
"You have a duty–"
Kathryn closed the distance between her and the commander. "I have done my duty for the past seven years, Commander. I have put duty before everything else in my life. Everything. For seven years." She fixed a smile on her face for anyone who may have been observing them from afar, but her eyes held the commander's and her tone remained hard. "I'm home now. I'm going to take a well deserved vacation. I am going to live my life. And then, maybe, after a few months, I might consider putting on my uniform again and picking up the mantle and the duties that come with it."
"But Captain–" the lieutenant tried.
"I said no, gentlemen!" She backed up a step. "Are we clear?"
The commander saw two of her officers heading towards them, and he gave Janeway a small nod of his head. "Thank you for your time, Captain."
The two men turned as one, disappearing into the crowd just as Chakotay reached her side. He handed her a glass of champagne. "Who were you talking to?"
She took a sip of the bubbly liquid before answering him, giving herself a minute to calm down. Then she gave him a genuine smile and hooked her arm through his. "No one important."
"I think I remember that," Tom said, his forehead wrinkled in concentration, "but by the time I got to you, Chakotay was there and you were smiling again. I just thought they had been reporters or something."
The fury in Chakotay's chest felt like a raging beast that he was barely keeping under control. He'd thought about and scrutinized every detail of that night over the past three years. He'd remembered the two security officers walking away from her, but she'd assured him it had been nothing. After she'd disappeared, he'd brought it up to Owen, wondering if there'd been some sort of security threat against her that night, but Owen had assured him there'd been nothing. They'd probably just been another couple of Starfleet gophers, clamoring for her attention. "Were those the men that took you?" he asked.
"I don't know," she admitted, her eyes registering that she could hear the tremor in his voice. "I don't remember what happened next or later. I just remember waking up."
"Did they tell you their names?"
She shook her head; her frustration at her own inability to help was growing.
"That's no problem," Tom said, surprising both of them. "There were so many photographers taking pictures at the banquet. There's no way their picture wasn't taken."
Chakotay was nodding, but Kathryn looked between the two men. "I already know what they look like, how will finding their picture help?"
"We'll run it through facial recognition software. Dad will have access to all the Starfleet files. We should know who they are within minutes."
Kathryn glanced at Chakotay and he reassured her, "His dad's an admiral, Owen Paris, he was your mentor actually." He saw the objection immediately cross her face and he held up a hand. "We won't tell him why we need to know. We'll come up with a cover story."
Tom watched as the woman seated in front of him immediately relaxed. Her trust in Chakotay, whether she truly remembered him or not, was fairly evident to see. He'd always suspected that the two people in front of him had gotten together that fateful night, but he'd never been brave enough to come right out and ask. Kathryn got to her feet, one hand rubbing at the muscles of her neck while the other patted Chakotay's chest as she walked past him. Tom suddenly felt like there were one too many people in the room.
"Well," he clapped his hands together and rubbed them, "I'm going to go get started looking at pictures. See if I can't pull up the archived footage and find our two mystery guests."
Kathryn barely acknowledged his departure as she stared out the window. Chakotay got to his feet and tidied up the empty mugs, but quickly running out of things to do, he came to a stop a few steps behind her. He wanted to say something to reassure her but nothing came to mind that could possibly help the situation.
"Well," she sighed, breaking the silence, "now you know my secret."
He really didn't think that he did. "Which one?"
She snorted lightly and turned to face him. "Surely, you didn't miss that little tidbit about who I think is responsible for my…problems."
"Starfleet?" Chakotay shrugged. "It hadn't occurred to me before now, but I think when you start to remember me you'll find I don't put Starfleet on too high of a pedestal. I've had my differences with them."
Keeping her gaze locked on his, she asked, "You really think…I'll remember you?"
He nodded and took what he hoped was a reassuring step closer. "I do."
She nodded too, took a deep breath, and clucked her tongue. "Well, you've told me a bit about your past; I suppose it's only fair that I do the same."
.
