Notes: Thanks for continuing to read. I'm guessing you can see where this is going, but don't worry, there are still a few bumps in the road ahead. Two chapters today since this one is a little short.

"I'm looking for Kathryn Janeway."

She heard her name and poked her head up from underneath the console where she was working. She saw the idiot Korent pointing over to where she was working, directing the Starfleet officer right to her. The young commander saw her watching and an easy smile broke out on his face. He probably got a lot of women with that smile.

She sighed and looked at the circuitry she was almost finished repairing. By the look of the officer, someone else was going to have to finish this project. She'd been in the New Zealand Penal Settlement for thirteen months, serving two years of a ten-year sentence. The Federation had been kind enough to consider the eight years she'd spent as a Cardassian prisoner as time served.

During her first seven months in the facility, she'd spent a majority of her waking hours in interrogations; Starfleet had called the sessions "interviews." She'd been made to recount every moment of the eight years she'd spent in hell, starting with her and the admiral's shuttle coming under fire all the way through to the terrorist attack on the facility which led to her joining the Maquis.

It had been a special kind of torture, educating the Federation on what the Cardassians were really like. In one of her more emotional outbursts, she'd strongly suggested that her interrogators simply go and read her file; she'd also suggested where they could shove the files afterwards. She may have even questioned the legitimacy of their lineage, but she just hadn't understood how they could know so little.

Chakotay had told her once that the Maquis had retrieved prisoner records from the facility where she had been held. He'd only glanced at them before transmitting them out; the encryption on them had been more than he'd been able to crack. But Starfleet had been in possession of the records for years now, surely, they'd decrypted the files, learned that her existence had lasted long past the six weeks the Cardassians had claimed.

Turned out that Starfleet's perpetuation of ignorance regarding the Cardassians had been prolific. Yes, Starfleet had received the files, but they'd been highly classified and buried almost immediately. Kathryn had politely suggested to her interrogators that they might want to start digging. That particular session had not ended well. The counselors had had a field day with her hostility towards Starfleet and the Federation.

And that was before they'd started questioning her about Maquis activities.

But lately, the many officers and doctors coming to see her had finally slowed. She was down to bi-weekly sessions with the facility's assigned counselor. Her continued cooperation with the waste-of-time meetings was a condition of her continuing sentence. A sentence that had just had four months tacked on for a fight that she'd been involved in near the cafeteria the previous week. She hadn't started the fight, but she had finished it.

The young commander reached the console where she was working. He asked, "Kathryn Janeway?"

She nodded, barely acknowledging him despite his easy countenance; the blonde hair and blue eyes weren't difficult to look at as long as you could get past those three Starfleet pips on his collar.

He shifted his stance so that his hands were draped behind his back. "I'm Commander Tom… Paris."

This time her eyes went straight to his. The tips of his ears turned pink under her new scrutiny, but damned if he wasn't who he said he was. She could see it now…especially in the eyes.

Shattered blue eyes that could barely look at her as he mumbled his apologies.

And then tried to kill her.

She went back to her work, picking up the console's interface component so she could begin adjusting it. "Yeah. So?"

Tom cleared his throat. "I, uh, wanted to talk to you about a possible deal that could secure an early release for you."

She didn't believe him for a second. "Look, Commander, I've got work to do," she said, preparing to slide back under the console. "I don't really have time to talk about pipe dreams and unlikely scenarios."

"Actually, it would seem that time is something you have plenty of," he countered cheerfully, "fifteen months of it to be exact. Assuming you stay on your best behavior." He smiled when she glared at him. "And let's be honest, good behavior isn't your strong suit."

"I have anger management issues, post traumatic stress, and about a hundred other things wrong with me according to the esteemed facility counselors," she said. "I'm allowed to have a few bad days."

"You've had more bad days than good," Tom said. "I'm surprised they even let you handle a hypospanner."

Kathryn slammed down the tool in question and got to her feet. "If I'm such a bad case, why would you want to get me out early? Wouldn't it be better to just leave me locked up?"

"I think you've spent enough time locked up," he told her in all seriousness. "Besides, I've got a thing for hard luck cases, and I think if anyone in the universe deserves a second chance it's you." When she still seemed unconvinced, he continued, "Come on, take a walk with me. Let me put an idea in your head."

"Do I have a choice?"

"Of course you have a choice." He grinned. "But… one choice gets you out of prison and off of Earth while the other lets you get back to repairing an obsolete console."

She sighed. "Lead the way, Commander."

.