CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

On the bridge the next morning Chakotay seemed quiet about the previous night's revelations from Kathryn. He stared at the main viewscreen for endless minutes, drumming his fingers on the console between them.

From time to time Kathryn glanced at her husband. He was definitely contemplating things. He had not been overly shocked by her revelation last night. He'd recognised the need for her to fill him in on the good and bad things that had happened the past six and a half years.

Chakotay was right, she thought. He needed all his memories, good and bad, to be the complete man she wanted back in her life. Leave out all the bad ones and there'd be something lacking in him - depth perhaps. The Chakotay of the past had loved her deeply, with all his traumas as part of his experiences, and that was what she loved so much about him. He loved her in spite of her regrettable and shabby treatment of his feelings.

The Chakotay of the present loved her as deeply, she believed. It was new, thrilling, but she needed both of them. She had been reading Keats in the holodeck last night when Chakotay came in, and sonnet 19 stood out so like a beacon of what she desired of her Chakotay as she thought of the lines…

"Yourself - your soul - in pity give me all,

Withhold no atom's atom or I die..."

As her husband he could be complete if she had all of him, and she needed to fill those dark chambers so that he could achieve fullness. Her old Chakotay had understood the reason for her own fears, that indeed, she had fears. That Chakotay had come to terms with the fact that they made it to a marriage bed only two years ago, more than a year after they were back on Voyager.

After New Earth Chakotay had become impossible to deal with. It shattered her when he closed all feelings so absolutely. She couldn't reach him anymore. They played their role as Captain and First Officer perfectly, but underneath all the veneer of decorum, duty and discipline his rage had simmered . It was her fault and she'd had to come to terms with that during the years between New Earth and their marriage. Most times when she caught him off guard there was a look of total desolation in his eyes. All those years and even now, that look haunted her. She never wished to see him look like that again, not by her hand.

When they returned to Voyager Chakotay stopped walking the corridors. Before he used to give her a friendly greeting whenever he passed her, something that made her heart beat faster at the sight of him. After New Earth Chakotay changed, became excessively polite and deferential, always calling her by her rank. That, more than anything else, settled the chasm between them, and established the manner in which Captain and First Officer conducted themselves away from the prying eyes of the crew. Chakotay's face became drawn and austere. He never came to her quarters for dinner when she invited him, always thinking up some excuse.

On New Earth, after the first day she had told him to drop the rank and call her Kathryn. She had become so accustomed to that, because no one called her by her name. To live on board a vessel for three years without ever hearing her name... From Chakotay's lips it rolled like music. She missed that. Oh, how she missed that.

The only time he showed emotion after New Earth was when she appeared on the bridge one morning with a new hairstyle. She had her hair cut shoulder length. Gone were the long tresses she favoured in the first years. Chakotay had taken one look and the initial anger in his eyes was soon replaced by pain.

He had quickly recovered, said nothing and continued looking at the main viewscreen. On New Earth he loved her long hair... He loved to run his fingers through it.

The crew noticed. Tom Paris was the first to ask, 'What's up with the Commander, Captain?"

What could she tell them? How could she reveal her deepest joy and her deepest sorrow all at once to a member of her crew? She had given Chakotay entitlement. She had been his in every way - mind, body and soul. She had thrown all of it away in a mindless, juvenile display of fear that she'd lose something of herself on Voyager. For months afterwards she had dreamed of Breakfast Rock, woken up in a sweat because she thought he was in her bed with her, making love to her in the sweetest, most elemental way.

Kathryn smiled inwardly. She had always preferred walking around naked in the shelter on warm days. They had stripped to Eden, and wherever they walked in the forest, taking covering with them, she had lain with Chakotay and made love to him. She had no reserves, had liberated herself and shown him she was a woman with the same needs as every woman. She had shown him she could embrace her new freedom and join herself to him, become one, yet retain so much of her identity. He had allowed her space. There were days she wanted to be alone, or days that she missed Voyager, her crew, the thought of home, and he'd know she desired solitude.

This morning she had woken up in his arms. "I know now why you made arrangements to have Tara looked after," she had breathed warmly into his neck.

"And good morning to you too, Kathryn Janeway," Chakotay had said and her heart flipped again when the dimples formed in his cheeks when he smiled.

She crawled quickly on top of him and showed no surprise at how quickly he had become aroused. More than an hour later, they rose in delicious lethargic aftermath of sex in the morning and prepared to come on duty.

Now Chakotay was pensive again and she wondered what was going on in his mind. She clasped his fingers.

"Are you okay, Chakotay?" she asked, the concern immediately in her voice.

He frowned heavily when he looked at her, his face drawn. Kathryn hit her commbadge while still keeping her eyes on him.

"Janeway to sickbay."

"What can I do for you, Captain?" the Doctor asked.

"Commander Chakotay is on his way to you, Doctor. I suspect he's suffering from a severe headache. Janeway out."

"It seems I have no choice," Chakotay said as he tried to smile, but for the first time he rubbed his fingers against his temples, closing his eyes as he did so.

"You've been having these headaches since the accident, Chakotay. I wasn't going to intervene, thinking you'd actually see the EMH yourself. I am concerned, Commander, when one of my crew behaves in such an irresponsible manner - "

"Thank you very much, Captain Janeway. I'll see the Doctor."

Kathryn sat back in her chair, smiled at Chakotay's belligerence. He had never liked seeing the doctor.

"I hope the Commander is alright, Captain," Tom Paris said at the conn, not turning round to face the Captain when he spoke.

"He will be after Doctor's seen him."

"Jeez, I'd like to be a fly on the wall there..."

Forty five minutes later her commbadge beeped.

"Sickbay to Janeway."

"Go ahead, Doctor."

"Captain, Commander Chakotay is fine. I just told him to go to the nursery and play with the babies for an hour or so. Could you come to the ready room? There's something I must discuss with you."

Kathryn was immediately on her guard, but she nodded reassuringly to Harry and Tom and Tuvok when they looked pointedly at her.

"He's probably tried to beat up the doctor," she said, her smile not reaching her eyes. "Tuvok, you have the bridge..."

In her ready room she switched on her console.

"Captain, Commander Chakotay had a small but benign tumor that was responsible for his headaches. I've cleared it, I'm happy to say."

Kathryn closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

"There's more, Captain."

"Doctor?"

"Commander Chakotay might not regain his memory, as I've indicated before."

"I'm filling in the blanks for him, Doctor. It's not ideal, but it's helping a somewhat."

"I have no doubt that some of those 'blanks' are traumatic, Captain," the Doctor ventured.

"Yes - yes, you're right. But it has to be done. Commander Chakotay is already aware that he might never regain his memory, so he relies on what details I can fill in - the personal ones. The rest he studies through the ship's logs and database."

"Ah, yes, that's what I was coming to, Captain. I believe the Commander has repressed some of his memories. They are ones he might not have wanted to remember before the accident. But Captain, there will be occasions when there would be minor triggers that would necessitate you coming out in the open with it."

"What are you saying Doctor?"

"Tara, Captain. Your infant. She was born a month prematurely."

Kathryn turned cold at the doctor's words. She drew in her breath sharply, and before she could prevent it, her hand had gone to cover her mouth but collected herself moments later.

"Commander Chakotay knows Tara was born prematurely, Doctor."

"Captain," came the Doctor's terse rejoinder, "most babies born a month prematurely are born healthy, they weigh the average weight for babies, they don't go into incubators, they don't have problems breathing."

"Tara was fine, Doctor."

"Captain, how much have you told your husband?"

"He understands that Tara was - was healthy at birth," she answered stonily. Her voice had become suddenly stern as she tried to brush the doctor off.

"Commander Chakotay is going to ask. Depend upon it," the EMH persisted.

"What do you want me to say, Doctor? That our baby suffered fetal distress?"

"No, but have you told him, Captain, that you suffered complications during your pregnancy? Are you going to tell him that you kept quiet about it, not wanting him to know?"

Then the EMH closed communication abruptly.

Kathryn Janeway stared for a few seconds in stunned silence at the Federation insignia on the screen.

END CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE