Disclaimer: See chapter one, they're not mine.

Chapter Rating: T

Chapter Twenty-Six

"Cha–" was all that made it out of the captain's lips, the rest of his name drowning in a silent scream as the figure took a confident few steps in her direction, sweeping into the room without hesitation now that he'd obviously been noticed. White flashed in front of her before the black descended, and for a long, terrifying moment, she saw nothing but darkness.

But she heard the screams – her own screams. It took a while to realize they were only in her mind, but at the sound of other voices, Janeway gradually began to understand that she had not been screaming aloud. Her vision returned, inexplicably, to her once again, and that roaring in her ears began to fade along with the fear.

The fear faded slowest of all.

"Please forgive the unannounced visit," the newcomer was announcing, "but we thought, under the circumstances, a more informal meeting would be appropriate."

He even sounded like him. It was insane. But hell, at this point, Chakotay thought, eyeing their visitor, he'd already watched Kathryn come back to life. He didn't put it past Xi to have done the same…somehow.

"Who are you?" Chakotay demanded. He was already in front of her again, prepared to move heaven and earth with sheer will alone if he had to, but there was no way in any reality that Garan Xi was coming near Janeway. Not again. "Stay where you are." He didn't understand what was happening here any more than Kathryn did, but there would be no hesitation on his part to simply kill the general again if he had to.

If he could. Unarmed and outnumbered, he knew there was more than a chance that he couldn't. Even if it would be his last act among the living, he'd gladly die trying.

"Chancellor," the female doctor purred obligingly before the man could reply, "you'll have to forgive the commander. I don't believe he recognizes you, but even beyond that, I'm afraid," she shrugged, straightening after having bowed low, "he simply doesn't like us."

Chakotay didn't bother arguing. He was too busy watching the newcomer and waiting for him to take another step forward. Apparently, the aides had noticed this, too. They stepped to the chancellor's side, their hard eyes gleaming menacingly in the dim lighting of the well-furnished room. It was a look mirroring Chakotay's.

He ignored them, focusing now on the man those two men sought to protect.

"Chancellor Gerros Xi, Commander, Captain." The Xi look-alike inclined his leathery, grey-skinned head regally. "This is my personal estate. And do forgive me. I'm so used to my own appearance, it isn't often I stop to reflect upon it. I'm told I bear a great resemblance to my father, whom you've met."

"Xi." It came out of her in a breathy whisper, and Chakotay reached back to find her hand as she spoke. "Garan Xi. He was your father."

There was a moment of profound silence, in which Chakotay took in her meaning but did not remove his eyes from the figure in front of them.

"The general," she broke off in bitter little laugh, "was your father."

And Chakotay had killed him, she didn't have to add.

"The likeness is incredible," the commander mused aloud, suspiciously and not accidentally. He wasn't yet certain that it wasn't a trick of some kind, and he hadn't ruled out the possibility that the man standing in the doorway was, in fact, the general. Not when the resemblance was so freakishly uncanny…

Not that it mattered. He could feel the captain's distress in the way her nails dug into his fingers, could hear it in the wheezing quality of the deep, steadying breath she tried to take behind him. Whoever this man was, he wouldn't be getting any closer to her.

The chancellor's face twitched oddly, the muscles near his jaw working back and forth. He had simply stared hard at the humans for a long minute, saying nothing. Finally, opting to ignore his guests' remarks entirely, his gaze slid over to the physicians, and he inquired in a falsely cheerful tone, "How is the captain this morning, Doctors? She looks much improved."

She looked much improved? Chakotay's brow furrowed at the oddity of the statement. How would the chancellor know whether or not her appearance was an improvement? This was certainly the first time he'd visited their room; Chakotay would have known otherwise.

"From what we can see, Excellency, yes. The drugs have cleared her system and her injuries have been healing steadily since, but of greatest significance is that we've finally broken her fever," the lead doctor reported smoothly, bowing again as she spoke. "The new treatment plan seems to have worked. Now we have only to rehabilitate the unused muscles in her legs. She'll require an aid to walk, I believe, for a time."

This last bit clearly displeased the chancellor. "For how long?" he demanded, growing ever more like the late(?) General Xi in his annoyance, from Chakotay's point of view.

The woman shrugged. "A few weeks, perhaps. It is possible she will not regain full mobility in the one leg."

The chancellor scowled along with Chakotay, who dared use the moment to glance back to Janeway. She looked even more exhausted, not that he blamed her, but she was managing to hide most of her distress under a neutral expression.

"If I can get her back to her ship, our doctor can treat her injuries," he insisted aloud, for what felt like the millionth time since they'd been here, "and she won't lose any mobility at all."

As usual, he was ignored by the doctors, though the chancellor, Xi – whoever he was – did deign to throw him a terse acknowledgement. "Impossible. At least at the moment." Of his physician, he asked, "Were there unexpected problems in setting the bone? Why wasn't I informed of this?"

"No, Chancellor. Human bones are not terribly complicated structures," the woman smirked. "The break was bad, but with the bone of the other leg intact we had a sufficient model to compare for reconstruction. The bone is, in fact, healed completely. It's the other leg that presents the greatest problem."

"I don't understand, Doctor; you stopped the bleeding there over a week ago." This came from Chakotay, who had just heard more concrete prognosis in the last few minutes regarding Kathryn's condition than he had in the past two weeks combined. Kathryn remained silent, content to gather and conserve her strength for the moment while her first officer handled this part of the conversation. After all, he did know more, she was able to rationalize, about her condition than even she did.

"Yes, we did stop the bleeding, Commander, that's true. However, the human nervous system is slightly more complicated. Our scans show the possibility of nerve damage is quite strong, and that is not something we are confident in being able to fix, I'm afraid."

"Again, Doctors, that's something that our doctor would have no problem treating."

"If we could find him for you, Commander, I'd consider it. Unfortunately, your ship has not been seen. Now. Those are her external injuries," the chancellor acknowledged. "Internal?"

Chakotay's gut clenched painfully. Damn him – whoever the hell he was. Not in front of her, not yet, was his first reaction. He had no idea how far Garan Xi had gotten before he'd pulled the general off of her in that interrogation room. And he hadn't wanted to know. He'd been hoping like hell that Kathryn didn't know, didn't remember that part of it at all. He didn't think she knew; she'd been in horrendous shape when he'd arrived, and he wasn't even sure she'd been conscious. Not to mention that she'd…he'd lost her shortly thereafter for a time. She couldn't know, he'd decided…and he didn't want her to know. Not now. Not until she was able to get some sort of sense back of the world around her first. Some sense of security. She'd only just barely opened her eyes…

"Chakotay." He turned slightly and glanced down at her, realizing belatedly that he'd been the one applying steady pressure to her hand this time, and he abruptly let up.

"Sorry," he mumbled, wondering how he hadn't noticed what he was doing. "I didn't realize…"

"It's all right."

None of this was "all right", his mind wanted to scream. Instead, Chakotay drew a fortifying breath and concentrated on listening to the doctor make her damning report.

"The soldiers did some damage with their little games, of course. Nothing that should be too difficult to repair. Much of it has been addressed already. We are only speaking in terms of minor muscular damage, you must understand…"

"And the general? How far did he get?" the chancellor demanded coldly, directly, making Janeway turn completely white and Chakotay's heart stopped beating in that moment that he looked back at her stricken face.

His heart fluttered unpleasantly. He could see now that she did know…remembered at least part of it.

The doctor shot the captain a smug look full of barely contained derision, noticing her sharp intake of breath and tensing muscles and chided, "Captain, do calm down. Such hysteria serves no purpose. You are hardly in any present danger of mistreatment, after all. I'm sure the entire experience was unpleasant, but that's no reason to–"

"You will address your comments to me and only to me," the chancellor growled on the heels of having emitted the angriest noise Chakotay had ever heard – including those that had come from the general's throat as the commander had been pummeling him into the hard stone ground. Chakotay's head snapped up in concern, but Gerros wasn't looking at the two of them; his focus was on the female physician, and his orange-flaring eyes seemed to burn with a blanketed rage. "Do not speak to her as if you were her equal! This woman is by far your better, and next to her, you are nothing! In fact, you are beneath her notice!"

"Excellency, I only meant…" the woman stammered, paling noticeably, but Gerros wasn't placated in the slightest.

"I know very well what you meant, Nyra, and if you had an ounce of sense in that physician's brain of yours, you wouldn't presume to mock your betters. You may be one of my most gifted healers, but there are plenty of others who could take your place. Do not presume yourself indispensible to me – or even immune to finding yourself on the receiving end of those very techniques you so casually mock now. I'm quite sure I could find some underworked troupe of soldiers, even with the current situation, who would be happy enough to make sure you regretted your words, do you understand me?"

The physician quailed noticeably under her master's ire, blinking rapidly in her mounting distress, and the commander and captain alike found themselves appalled (if not surprised) at the casual threat the Jehnz-yin chancellor threw out in his displeasure, but Chakotay still caught the look of pure venom the woman shot at Kathryn before making a low bow of deference.

"O-of course, Excellency. Forgive me." The woman seemed entirely unsure of herself now in the face of the chancellor's rage.

"Now answer my question. How far did he get?" the chancellor again demanded.

Janeway didn't want to hear that answer. She didn't want to think about any of that: how Chakotay had come to find her, what had been happening when he had, or what he had most likely stopped the general in the act of doing when he'd arrived. She could recall the sensation of clawed hands digging into her hips and of agonizing pain in both legs as they'd been positioned with no regard for the grievous injuries they'd already sustained at Xi's hands…

She recalled burning, but she simply didn't have it in her to break into the conversation being had back and forth across her bed, one way or the other. It was as if she was frozen, suspended in a bubble of terrified inactivity, and it was neither like her nor was it within her power to change in that moment.

"There is no mark on her neck," the physician mumbled.

Nothing more was said for a moment. In the tense silence that followed, Chakotay couldn't stop himself from saying, "What does that mean? There was no mark on her neck? What does that signify?"

"Answer him," Gerros growled tersely at the physician's questioning glance.

"He was diverted from his intent before he could initiate the joining."

Chakotay felt a massive ball of tension releasing within him at this news. He hadn't… In the past few weeks, he'd avoided asking the question, even in his mind. Couldn't bring himself to be able to think about… But it had hung over him like the blackest of storm clouds nonetheless. Hearing that the captain had at least been spared one indignity, perhaps the worst, relieved him of that unacknowledged albatross of ignorance, at least. He closed his eyes briefly, feeling Kathryn's hand go lax in his – he assumed in relief, also.

"You're certain?" the chancellor was demanding pointedly. "It looked from here as though he'd…"

"No. There was no mark." The doctor sounded positively miserable at having to admit it aloud, and Chakotay knew why. It was a topic she'd been avoiding directly addressing, probably assuming the commander had been dying to know, most likely because she had seen just how much seeing Kathryn in pain bothered him, and she had no love for "the humans" as she usually referred to them. The woman had enjoyed tormenting him with the uncertainty of it, and she was certainly no reason to rethink his hatred for all things Jehnz-yin.

"Good. Now get out, Nyra. And take your minions with you."

The trio bowed low once again, all three looking decidedly relieved as well upon dismissal, then, as one, filed out of the door without further comment.

The chancellor, still flanked by his aides, bowed again to his guests. "I'm of course pleased that my father was unable to complete such a reprehensible act, Captain. On behalf of the Jehnz-yin people, you have my sincere apologies for the terrible ordeal you have suffered at General Xi's hands."

"Why?" she found herself whispering. Janeway's heart had begun beating more normally, but none of the shock had really washed away as of yet.

The chancellor frowned. "Why what?"

She tried to shift herself so that she was more upright in bed, but her muscles were every bit as weak as they'd warned her they would be. They felt like gelatin, and if it hadn't been for Chakotay's immediate realization of her intent and his subsequent assistance, she probably wouldn't have managed it at all. Once she had, she was able to look the chancellor more in the eyes, gaining a perspective on her instinctual fear while she tried to come to terms with the fact that the man before her was not the same man that had tormented her for hours on end, and she clarified, "Why should you care what your father did or didn't do? We killed him," she reminded, the steel in her voice reminiscent of the woman she'd been…before. "Why should it please you that he wasn't able to harm me further before we did?"

We. She was assuming responsibility for her role as leader, and Chakotay's heart leapt a bit more at that sound, at that timbre in her voice. The note of certainty, of unsatisfied curiosity, however morbid the circumstances. It was almost Kathryn. Almost.

The Jehnz-yin's careful, rasping voice broke into his thoughts. "The general…was acting outside of the government's authority. In fact, he was ordered to stop long before your injuries became grievous."

She didn't pick up on it immediately, but Chakotay did. "Long before her injuries became grievous," the commander echoed with an ever-darkening visage. "You've just admitted to having had knowledge of the captain's predicament, Chancellor, if not from the beginning of her capture, than at least early enough on to have seen much of what took place."

The chancellor said nothing. Neither did he look uncomfortable at this accusation.

The Jehnz-yin met Chakotay's challenging eye with implacable, confident silence as the human continued, "Their treatment of her was unacceptable from the outset. What she was subjected to from the very beginning were things no living being should have to endure at the hands of another. Obviously you were comfortable enough with much of what occurred on that base to hold your silence, at least for a time. And yet you expect us to believe that you suddenly changed your mind once the stakes got too high for you to stomach?"

Xi…the younger…smiled, and, for the first time, Chakotay caught a hint of menace in that wide, toothy countenance before the tall alien masked it under a neutral expression. "What you believe, Commander, is of no consequence. You have only to cooperate with my directives, and all will remain cordial between us from here on out."

"What directives? What are you talking about?" Chakotay pressed, no longer fearing for his charge's growing weariness but more for her safety. "Why don't we get straight to the point here? What do you want from us, Chancellor?" he demanded coldly.

"I would prefer to discuss this with the captain, Commander," Xi retorted with just a hint of ire creeping into his rasping voice. "Unless you have assumed her role during her convalescence, of course?"

"No. He hasn't," Janeway spoke up at last. "But I can assure you there is nothing that you can say to me that cannot be said in front of my first officer." The brief glance she shared with Chakotay told him as much as her words did; she meant it. Kathryn would not be quick to make that mistake again, and, for both of their benefits, she added, "Mister Chakotay is privy to my every confidence."

"Nevertheless, Captain, he is not privy to mine," Xi countered smoothly, unaware of the deeper exchange taking place in front of him. "He has yet to prove himself worthy of my confidence."

"And I don't?" she inquired incredulously.

"You, Captain, have earned my admiration." Gerros's oval, now dark eyes fixed intently upon the woman sitting up in bed across the room from him. "While the commander has gained my respect – as evidenced by the fact that he has been allowed to remain at your side this long, despite his less than cooperative demeanor at times – he has not yet proven himself a great leader in my eyes."

"How so?" It was demanded, in a commanding cadence if not with the typically strong voice to back it up. "He infiltrated the same military base that I did. In fact, from what I understand, if your guards hadn't come calling at the precise moment they did, he would have managed to escape it unscathed, which is something I wasn't able to do, was it?"

Chakotay met the Jehnz-yin's hard gaze without flinching as Xi allowed, "What you say is true, Captain. However, what you accomplished and were willing to sacrifice was for the benefit of your people. The commander's actions were clearly all for the love of one woman. Which makes him a wonderful mate, perhaps. But it does not make for a particularly convincing demonstration of his capacity to lead."

"You're overstepping the bounds of polite interaction, Chancellor," the captain snapped warningly. At least, it was meant to be a snap. In reality, her tired voice managed little more than a general tone of rebuke.

He made no response. Xi's gaze slid from her to Chakotay, and the commander's eyes narrowed under the Jehnz-yin's scrutinizing gaze. The chancellor obviously meant to gage his reaction to the assumption of a closer connection between the command team than met the eye. Chakotay kept his cool under the piercing stare of his adversary – and he was an adversary, a captor, no matter that they'd been pretending otherwise – until the chancellor finally turned his attention back to Janeway.

"Forgive me, Captain. But I can see that you're exhausted. I think, perhaps, that now is not the time to pursue this conversation –"

"No." All remaining eyes in the room drew back to the pale woman on the bed. "The commander and I have been separated from our ship for far too long already. Too much has happened between our people, Excellency, for me to believe for one moment that your intentions are in any way philanthropic. Your bringing me here had nothing to do with generosity; I think we both know that. You insult our intelligence by pretending otherwise."

"And here, Captain, I thought you were a diplomat," Xi smirked in response. "I gathered from your many attempts at communications with us that you were more oriented to peace and peacemaking. You spoke in impressively charming phrasing when urging me to a peaceful solution for all parties involved, as I recall."

"And I recall you ignoring us completely," Janeway snapped quietly in response. She forced her eyes to remain open despite the fatigue that wanted the pull the heavy lids closed and block out the world, reality, for as long as possible. Chakotay, and then XI, more recently, had been entirely correct in his assertion that she was exhausted. If she felt she'd had any choice, she would have put this entire meeting off for just a few hours while she snatched some much-needed sleep, but, under the circumstances, she knew she didn't really have that option. Wise or not, she wanted this all out in the open as swiftly as possible and forged on, abandoning diplomacy for some future occasion when it might prove more fruitful. "If you'd had any interest in peace, you would have responded to me then. What is it you really want from us? Why have you brought us back to your estate?"

Once again, Gerros carefully studied his quarry. She surprised him: pleasantly so. He had seen the naked terror in the woman's eyes when she had first noted his arrival. He thought he could still detect a hint of it now, though it was carefully hidden behind a practiced mask of purpose. He toyed with the idea of stepping forward, just to see her reaction then, but knew doing so would agitate the male by her side. If he forced the human's hand, forced him to respond with what he perceived to be necessary violence in her defense, his guards would kill him where he stood. And that would upset her. This he knew instinctively already, and he did not yet want her upset. Not unless she left him no alternative.

He smiled, feeling the expanse of his sharp teeth freeing themselves from the covering tissue of his lips and gave a small nod. A small concession. "Very well, Captain. As you wish. As to what I want…" he spread his clawed hands wide. "I want what you want. Peace, between our people, yours and mine. But above all, peace with the remaining Oncaveat in the sector. There have been too many lives lost already. Too much time has been wasted on this futile and pointless feud between our tribes. For some time now, I have believed it in our best interests to coexist with the Oncaveat in a peaceful cooperative union, if you will."

Janeway was more than taken aback by the benevolent speech. She stared at him, her jaw gaping only in the slightest, then exchanged a look with Chakotay before venturing, "Even if I were to believe you really had any interest in calling off your blood sport, I don't see how I can be of any use to you now. Without my ship…"

"I assure you, Captain, all I need is you. You will be the one to help me bring about this end, once and for all."

"I don't understand." It was said flatly, which was all she could manage.

"Perhaps this can be conveyed best if I simply show you."

A nod to his senior assistant and personal body guard had the man moving swiftly to the wall at the end of the bed where he drew back a small blue curtain to unveil a moderately sized viewscreen. At the reveal, the commander started, realizing he hadn't thought to take a very thorough look at what was behind that unobtrusive swatch of hanging fabric, having assumed it to be the Jehnz-yin equivalent of crude artwork. What else hadn't he seen in this room where he had spent the past two weeks attending to his ailing captain? He resolved to take a thorough look over the room later.

"This is the view outside of the main palace gates at this very moment."

The viewer switched on at the guard's manipulation of the small control panel to reveal…what was quite possibly the largest public gathering either of them had ever seen. Thousands of Jehnz-yin were crowding the opulent palace gates, barely held back by the guards lining the entryway. A well-dressed official in resplendent robes addressed the crowd, or rather, tried to, from an open terrace built into the palace behind the sturdy gates, but he was virtually ignored. The crowd was ecstatic, roaring over him, but it was not the typical, indistinguishable roar of a crowd or mob. As the image solidified and the two humans took in the unruly scene, it gradually became apparent that the throng was chanting a specific phrase. Like a mantra, the members of the crowd repeated the sounds with excitement and almost with reverence. They seemed hypnotized by the chant, drawn and compelled by some unseen force to keep repeating it over and over again. It was a simple chant: two syllables the translators in the room, Chakotay's commbadge included, had no need to interpret. They were familiar sounds forming a single, very familiar sound…a name.

Kathryn's eyes widened at the same instant she felt Chakotay turn to her in stunned realization. They'd both recognized what was happening at once…what it was the masses were saying.

Janeway.

The crowd was chanting her name.