The beginning will be the end of all things.
Chapter 12.
Kathryn's son.
"Never" hissed Kathryn as she violently shook her head. She was blindfolded once more and talking to her lead captor.
"It's easy, let him capture you and then kill him" came the man calm voice.
"Never" hissed Kathryn once more.
The man stepped closer to her and growled in her ear "The Kathryn Janeway I have been watching for the past months would do it, she was a rouge, she ran with the pack, where is that Kathryn?"
"I would never kill another," she told him straight.
"Your husband has" the man said in cold dry voice.
Kathryn's heart pounded, all of Starfleet just like any in the military have killed, but it was almost ignored, she herself had killed as a Starfleet officer but killing in cold blood, murder, never would she do that. But the man now watching her on the other side of her blindfold was right Chakotay had killed, murdered. His beginnings in the maquis were not the fair rights and humanitarian way he showed as a call leader when he arrived on Voyager. Kathryn thought how to choose her words carefully, to one not deny the truth, to two allow Chakotay not to tarnished as a murder and for him to be recognised as the brave warrior her was fighting for what he believe in, she decided to go for the simple answer, "my husband was once a maquis cell leader."
The man snorted slightly as her skimmed reply and asked her "you were never maquis, even after the cardassians did what they did to you, why is that? Or is it you were in league with them to create your son?"
Kathryn's heart stopped a beat at those words, still blindfolded but sat comfortable and fully clothed she asked almost in horror but begging "what do you know of my son?"
"More than you know." Came his reply.
Kathryn was getting agitated now "what the hell is that supposed to mean?" she snapped at him, she had been there for days, well treated yes, well fed, but whenever she was talked to the room they kept her in was blacked and somebody came from behind and blindfolded her, she had not seen anybody since her capture, after they had finished talking with her the blindfold was removed but the lights only returned when the room was emptied of people once more.
"I need to know, where did your son come from?" he asked her calmly completely ignoring her question or the sharp tone in which she asked it.
Kathryn thought for a moment before she asked them smugly "Come from? What are to talking about? I would be happy to give you a lesson on reproductive biology if that's what you're talking about."
"Janeway, you want to watch what you offer to people." He told her with a deep hint of laughter in his voice, when she did not reply, apparently unaware of what her words had sounded like though they were similar to her words to Chakotay on the bridge the day Sam Wildman had announced her pregnancy. With out a reply from the tiny woman before him the man burst into laughter as he told her "I like you, a lot more than I thought I would."
"I am glad" Kathryn told him stiffly and coldly, she did not sound glad, she didn't sound glad at all.
There was a long pause, Kathryn who was sat blindfolded in complete blackness still began to wonder if she was alone once more, she was about to call out when he asked her in a very quiet and gentle voice "your son, did you name him? Did you hold him? Why did you give him up?"
Hurriedly Kathryn insisted, "I didn't give him up! I fought all I could to keep him!"
"It wasn't enough." The man growled deeply at her.
"No it wasn't," she admitted sadly as she hung her head. The she asked, "Who are you, why do you care so much for my son?"
After another long pause the man asked once more in a gentler voice "did you name him? What did you name him?"
Kathryn raised her head slowly and said "yes, yes I did" then took her own pause before saying "not at first, it was many, many years later" then hurriedly with a slight shrug she said "he may never know what I named him, of course he will all ready have a name but-"
"But as his mother you named him" the man cut across her with a kind tone of voice.
"Yes" Kathryn nodded. She couldn't help feeling this man understood her and she couldn't think why.
"I would very much like to hear his name, tell me what did his mother name her son?" he asked her softly, to Kathryn it felt as though he had moved very close to her.
As if jumping from a trance she pulled away slightly and demanded, "Who are you?"
The man chose to ignore her question but did ask, "You love him don't you?"
"Yes, he is my son" she insisted without hesitation or question.
"Then tell me, why do you go looking for him now, all these years later now because you want something from him? Never before did you search for him." The man asked her in only a slight accusatory tone.
"The dominion war, he's cardassian, the federation fought Cardassia. After that I was in the Delta Quadrant, and later a federation prison." Kathryn said softly in her own defence. "My husband, Chakotay, it's in his strength I can do it." Her head panged when she thought of Chakotay, she never thought she would be separated from him again.
"Your husband the maquis, why does he look for the Cardassian-Human hybrid?" the man asked her in his own slightly defensive tone.
There was something about the way he had said 'the' that set Kathryn on edge "the Cardassian-Human hybrid?" she asked.
"Yes, you didn't think there was more than one did you?" he asked her slightly shocked, "it's unheard of, there is only one, your son."
"You seem to know much of my son." Kathryn stated thought it was loaded question.
"You don't deny your son." He stated with words almost of respect.
"Why would I do that?" she questioned in horror.
"Many would if their son be who yours is." He told her truthfully.
"And who is that?" she asked almost not wanting to say her son was any different to any other man.
"Half-cardassian" he said almost in disgust.
In her son's defence Kathryn stepped in "my son is my son, my flesh and blood, I may not have been there for him, I may not have been the mother I could have been but I am his mother."
"Most would deny that," the man told her truthfully.
"Not I" she replied clearly and distinctly.
"That is risky Ms Janeway, to admit to being the mother of such a man"
In her sons defence and without hesitation Kathryn announced, "he is my son, I will not deny that"
"And if he chose to deny you as his mother?" the man asked her what she had often pondered should she ever meet him.
"Then that would be his choice, I can not deny him that." She said knowing that would be extremely painful but it had to be his choice to make and a chance she would have to take.
Suddenly almost as a subject change like the man couldn't bare to talk of Kathryn's son he said coldly "and I ask you to kill Zife yet you will not."
"No I will not" she once more insisted.
"Why is that? For all that Zife has put you through these many years." The man reminded her.
With a heavy slightly unconvincing voice Kathryn said "Zife has been out of my life until these last few months."
"You lie and you know it" her captor growled at her "Zife visited you in the federation prison after he ensured you were put there."
After a long pause she shook her head and told him extremely sarcastically "oh no, did you know hear, it was a plea bargain."
Kathryn's captor became angered at her words as he snapped and hissed "Zife forced your hand, he backed you into a nice neat little corner with no choice out and you squirmed, you played right into his hand and did exactly what he wanted you to do, and went down for fifteen years for a shame crime"
"This is all true but I will not kill him" Kathryn insisted once more.
With a deep grown he said "you may li-" but was abruptly interrupted by the sound of a door being flung open and footsteps moving towards the two.
"Sir" squeaked the high-pitched man Kathryn had heard on her first day their.
"What?" hissed her interrogator clearly annoyed at being interrupted.
At this point Kathryn who was still tightly blindfolded and couldn't see a thing hear scuffling and a whimpered voce. Then her interrogator called out almost in shock "where?"
"What's going on?" asked a blindfolded Kathryn.
A firm hand pulled her to her feet and guided her towards where the door had opened "Your coming with me"
"What?" Kathryn asked almost shocked and trying to dig her feet into the ground.
"We are taking a little trip," she was told.
"A trip?" she questioned as he tried to pull her with him but she was stranger than she looked, more so than he had guessed.
"Yes, in a starship, you like a starship wont you" he told her with a laugh.
"Where are we going?" Kathryn demanded.
Then the cold drawl of another man rung in Kathryn's ears causing horror as he said "Cardassia Prime"
"What?" She shrieked and tried to pull away.