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For a moment he had wondered if she was going to try to "define parameters" again. She was such an unfathomable woman. Most of the time she avoided talking with him, but in sparse intervals she decided to say something, and make him that much more confused. Unfathomable.

Having since decided that she needed to be on the bridge, she was trying to get there, but hardly successfully, since the ship was shaking violently that the bulkheads were groaning in protest. He just wanted to make sure she didn't fall back and split her head on something.

Kathryn was making slow progress towards the door, having to find a handhold every time she moved forward. He followed along behind her with equal difficulty, ready to catch her should she come flying backwards like she nearly had a moment earlier. Ever the daredevil, she took the opportunity of a small lull in the ship's assault to make a mad dash for the door only about two metres distant. She made considerable progress before the ship's renewed shuddering caused her to have to hold on to the doorframe.

He expected her to go through, but instead she waited for him, watching him clumsily make his way to her. When he did, she realised that she had taken all the handholds in the vicinity, and gave one up to him, nearly falling as she did so. Barely thinking, he put a steadying arm around her waist as she nearly toppled backwards into the ready room.

"Damned anomaly," she muttered, reaching again from the doorframe and pulling herself toward it. "It's like trying to walk up a wall."

He was momentarily distracted by the fact that she was pressed against his side, but quickly avoided staring down at her as he was wont to do sometimes. "You first, I guess," he muttered, pushing her forward through the door, but keeping his hand on her back in order to brace her for the trip into the wider expanse of the bridge.

"I have to go to the Ops console," she muttered, preparing herself. Of course she picked the farthest station from them. She likely to knock herself out on the way. "You go to Tactical."

"We probably shouldn't try to walk there," he said seriously, watching her make her awkward way to the rail just beyond them. She was going to fall. . . .

"And what? Crawl? I think not, Chakotay," she said, the ship's shuddering making her voice unsteady.

"It would be safer," he said, pushing himself out of the doorway. It almost felt like the floor was uneven, and maybe that his legs were a bit numbed. He supposed that was possible, all the same. She had made it to the rail, and seemed to be hanging on for dear life, looking back at him skeptically.

"If it's safer, why don't you do it?" she demanded.

"Because I'm not," he replied firmly. "I was suggesting that you take the safer route."

"You damned hypocrite. Were you always like this, or just lately?"

He reached the rail and stood beside her, looking down unintimidated into her glare. "I don't really know. Probably since I decided that it was my job to take care of you."

"And when was that?" she asked, going hand over hand along the railing to the upper part of the bridge.

"The moment I beamed onto this bridge and had the death glare turned on me. Basically the moment I met you. The fact that you saw fit to make me your First Officer made it easier, so I can thank you for that, among other things."

The ship shuddered violently, forcing both of them to brace themselves against the rail. He began moving around the rail as she had, angling for the Tactical console.

"When we first spoke," he continued, "I thought to myself, 'if she wasn't such a hard-assed Star Fleeter, she would make a hell of a Maquis.' And you would, even though I know you'd never do that. You're still a hard-assed Star Fleeter."

She had made it to the Ops console, and was pulling herself around it labouriously, glaring at everything in sight. She then turned the glare on him. "Thank you," she said acidly.

"The point is, Kathryn, that no matter what you say or do I will always be on your case about everything. If you order me to leave you alone, I'll just go off-duty and keep going. That's just the way it is."

Various parts of the Tactical console were lit up with warnings. Thankfully, it showed no outright hull breaches yet, but definitely some spots that were close to it. Deck fifteen was going to be torn off the ship if the shaking didn't dissipate. Deck fourteen wasn't in good shape either.

Kathryn let out a small laugh, looking with narrowed eyes at the blinking Ops console. "What do you know . . . the anomaly's moving up. It'll be into Engineering soon."

"Do you think that will cause a problem?" he asked.

"You tell me . . . It shouldn't if it goes by fast. It seems to be moving in hiccups. As long as it doesn't stop in the middle of the core, we should be fine. B'Elanna is always a stickler for core reinforcement, so it should be safe. The systems on decks fifteen and fourteen are fine. It's the hull causing problems. Damn!" She stabbed her finger angrily at the console.

"What?"

"The systems down there are so bloody slow that they probably won't receive my commands for another hour! We'll have to survive without forcefields for now."

"You can forcefield the upper decks. I'll fiddle with structural integrity, you put 'fields over the weak points. We'll fort-up here."

She looked at him. "If I 'field the turbolifts and the Jeffery's tubes, we'll be stuck up here."

He shrugged, looking down as the integrity controls were displayed on the console. "There are worse places. We could be in a Jeffrey's tube."

She smiled her crooked smile. He loved that smile. "True," she conceded.

Not that he would have especially minded being stuck in a Jeffery's tube with her . . . he shook his head. Too much thinking. He needed to leave it alone. She had asked him to, hadn't she? It was always like this, his mind wandered and it all came down to the fact that she didn't want to chance it. She was too firmly ensconced in protocol, "parameters" and comfortable friendship to take the chance and break their constant inner monologue to that effect. Kathryn Janeway liked her constants where she was personally concerned, even while she called herself an explorer. And he was the hypocrite?

The shaking of the ship lessened slightly, at least enough so that they could walk with relative ease. He moved away from the console and walked over to her. She was working quickly to pretty much "nail down" every bulkhead in the ship, paying special care to Engineering and the things contained therein. She glanced at him, and shied away slightly when she realized he was right at her shoulder.

He was reminded of another time, when she had been clad in nothing but a bath towel, gesturing frantically for him to turn the light on the trees. They had seen the small primate the first time then . . . but he had been too distracted by one bare, pale shoulder to even really notice when the creature had left. And she'd seen him looking at her like that, and shied away accordingly, fighting to hold the towel higher. Her "knots getting knots" and the first time he had ever touched her in any way but to get her attention . . . and . . . damn! . . . Kathryn in her nightgown on the holodeck with the full moon directly behind her. . . .

"Chakotay?" she said, staring back at him. "Something wrong?"

"New Earth," he replied truthfully. "And the holodeck." Why lie?

She flushed slightly, frowning at him. "There was nothing wrong with New Earth," she muttered, looking back down at her work.

"Do you ever wish we could have stayed there?" he asked quietly, staring ahead at the view screen as Voyager shook beneath them.

"It's probably disloyal . . . but yes, I do. I wanted to try those tomatoes," she added a little petulantly.

"Kathryn Janeway, gardener extra-ordinaire," he said with a chuckle.

She grinned. "Well, it beat moping about my wrecked equipment."

He sighed. "I never got to build you that boat."

"Well there was the holodeck-"

"I know, but it wasn't the same. You wanted to explore the river."

She turned, reaching up to put a gentle hand on his face. When had she stopped doing that? Started doing that? It killed him every time. She smiled sadly at him. "That's hardly something to feel bad over. I like space better, even if it does give me hell every so often."

It was all he could do not to turn his head and kiss her hand. Instead he took it in his own and held it, marvelling not for the first time at how small it was. This hard-assed, death glaring Star Fleeter was so small. That was part of the reason he had such a compulsion to protect her.

She sighed, drawing her hand away from his, and turning back to look at the screen. The bridge still shook. He had forgotten about that for a moment. He wanted desperately to beg her to take the chance . . . but refrained. She wouldn't want him to.

"That plasma seems to be doing its job. No one's decided to come have a look anyhow. I think those clouds are even serving as a buffer for the ship. We'd be getting a lot more trouble out of this without it."

He smiled. "A good place to hide then."

Voyager's shaking began to intensify again, and both of them put steadying hands on the console. She made a wry face. "On the other hand, it may not be helping that much. The anomaly's moving up through deck thirteen now. I hope the warp core can take it."

"The computer hasn't complained yet. That's always a good sign."

She moved past him, using the console as support.

"Where are you going?" he asked, watching her stumble.

"To sit in my chair," she replied primly. She stumbled as she said it, which made him laugh. That's what she got for playing pompous. "I'm a hard-assed Star Fleeter, after all. I should be where I belong. If it wasn't so hard to walk in here, I'd go into the ready room for a coffee too." She frowned slightly. "I think I may have 'fielded that bulkhead. Damn."

He grinned maliciously. "Aha! How to keep the Captain away from her replicator!"

"You had damn well better forget about that, mister. That'll earn you a stay in the brig for mutiny, or at least a sound beating."

"Last time I checked, Star Fleet prohibited corporal punishment."

She moved awkwardly to the lower part of the bridge, gripping the rail as before. "Yes, but they don't have to know about it, do they? Never come between me and my coffee."

"It looks like you came between you before I could," he retorted, holding onto the shaking Ops console.

She made a face at him. "Don't get smart with me. That happened for as good reason."

The console beeped, and Chakotay looked down. A slow grin formed on his face. "Kathryn, you were worrying about nothing. You do that a lot."

"Pardon me? What do you mean?"

"Life signs on the lower decks!" he declaimed, stabbing a finger at the reading. "Human . . . and here we go, Klingon, Vulcan, Bajoran, Bolian. Engineering's out of it."

She grinned. "What's their condition?"

"Stationary. They aren't moving at all, like the rest of the ship. They're alive though."

She laughed triumphantly, clapping her hands together once, and then snatching at the rail when the movement unbalanced her. "That is more like it! You were right, Chakotay. I think they only had to catch up with us, even though they haven't yet. When the anomaly passes through the bridge, we should be put back in the right time. That's some of the weight off our shoulders." She sat heavily in her chair, sighing loudly.

"Let's just hope the hull doesn't breach," he muttered. "The warp core is all right. The anomaly passed right through it."

"Good," she said in a clipped tone. "I don't think this shaking is going to let up any time soon. It's annoying, and I'm starting to get a bit dizzy."

"We'll probably feel this for about a week after it's done," he said, moving around the console and taking an unsteady step towards the railing. "At least the anomaly isn't really pulling the ship with it, or we'd be in trouble."

"Maybe it would take us home," she grumbled, crossing her arms about herself. "Ha! Wouldn't that be ironic? We end up home in pieces!"

"You're getting morose now, Kathryn," he said, a warning tone in his voice as he walked along the railing. "This will let up. We'll probably have micro-factures and things like that to take care of, but that's nothing."

She was looking away from him, intent on the screen. "They're red," she stated.

He was finally seated in his chair, looking across at her quizzically. "What're red?"

She gestured at the view screen, her hand shaking in tandem with the ship. "The aurora. It's red now . . . or pink, I guess. Whatever."

He looked. The pole of the chlorine planet was awash with deep pink and white light that swirled slowly over the darkened hemisphere. It reminded him of opal, with blue-gray cloud lit slightly by the atmospheric reactions and red, white and some green shimmering across it.

"Hmm, that's something," Kathryn stated. "I think later I'll make a holodeck program and see that from the right side . . . minus the hostile atmosphere. Would you like to join me for that?"

"Certainly. That would be nice."

"Maybe we could have dinner on the holodeck," she mused. "I always liked that."

"We'll do that then," he agreed, smiling. "When the ship stops shaking."

"When the ship stops shaking," she echoed with a nod, "and when the crew is back."

Well, at least she wasn't going to try to study it, which was hardly beyond her. She was scientifically curious to a fault, and he had a feeling she'd be tracking their little anomaly as long as she could.

He sympathized with her professed dizziness -the ship's constant shuddering was beginning to bother him more than a little, giving him slight vertigo even when he sat down and it was hard to look at anything for long. It was better than being flung around like they were sometimes, anyhow.

It turned out to be one of those moments that fate wanted to impose irony on him. The ship almost seemed to make a short leap forward, causing Kathryn to be unseated and fall unceremoniously to the floor.

Not really thinking about how he was likely to fall also, he rose from his seat and extended his hand to her as she attempted to rise. Another shock hit, and she fell almost straight into him as she got onto her feet, nearly knock them both back down.

He could tell she wanted to pull away, but the floor was a little too unstable for that, so she merely held onto his arms sheepishly as he kept them from falling by bracing himself against the command console. Suddenly she laughed, almost giggled.

"We are a pair!" she said mirthfully. "It's like the blind leading the blind, though in our case it's unsteady holding up unsteadier . . . if that's even a word. I don't think it is. I think with another good jolt we'll both end up on our behinds."

He used his free arm to pull her a little closer to him. Almost immediately he was thankful he had, because the ship jumped again. Not that he really wanted to let go of her, he moved her with a steadying arm towards her seat as the ship shook.

"This time try to stay in-" he began.

It seemed almost as if the ship was flung on an angle. He was holding onto the console, and was able to keep from falling . . . but she went flying straight past her chair before he could grab her again, and hit her head with a sickening sound on the railing beyond. She cried out once, and fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.

His heart was in his mouth and in his shoes all at once, and he scrambled precariously over to her, thwarting the ship's shuddering in his blind concern. She appeared to be unconscious, or almost so, and there was a deep gash across her forehead which began to ooze deep red blood. He gathered her into his arms and held one hand to the cut, hoping to stay the bleeding until he could get the medkit.

"Kathryn!" he said desperately, trying to wake her. "Kathryn!"

She groaned, trying to lift a hand to her forehead. She groaned again, opening her eyes to look blearily up at him. "I think I hit my head," she said thickly.

The ship rocked again, and he clutched her to him. "You did," he managed, "and you're bleeding. I have to get the medkit out." He placed her in a sitting position against the rail and the raised portion of the floor, looping one of her nerveless arms around it for her.

"There's blood on your hand," she mumbled, reaching her hand out first for his and then to her forehead. "Blood in my eyes . . ."

"Try to stay seated, Kathryn, and stay awake."

"My head hurts too much to fall asleep. What about the anomaly?"

He moved backwards slightly, reaching for the compartment behind the console. "To hell with the anomaly," he said, blindly grabbing for the medkit, and pulling it out in short order. He crawled back over to her and opened it, pulling out the gauze pads, the small dermal regenerator and the hypospray that contained the painkiller. Perhaps with that she would stay lucid until the anomaly was gone and he could find the Doctor. He pressed the gauze to her head and fumbled for the regenerator.

The ship shook a little harder.

She gasped at the pressure on her wound, but submitted without comment, watching him with glassy eyes. She was concussed. He had done enough boxing to recognize it by sight only. He couldn't let her fall asleep, especially not with a bleeding head wound.

She frowned slightly, raising a hand to fend him off. "I'm all right, Chakotay. Check on the sensor readings and see if the anomaly is still moving."

"That is the least of my worries. Hold still." He took her chin in his hand, turning her head slightly so her could run the dermal regenerator over the cut. It was too deep to heal completely, almost to the skull, and bled profusely. She could faint from the blood loss if he didn't at least close part of it.

"Go check it," she commanded, jerking her chin away.

"Hold still," he countered. "Here." He pressed the hypospray to her neck. "Does that help?"

"Yes," she said, her eyelids drooped. "This is going to be a hell of a headache."

"Stay awake, Kathryn," he said, running the dermal regenerator over her wound again. "You have a concussion, you have to stay awake until we can get the Doctor's help."

Her head lolled to one side, and she looked at him with yet-glassier eyes. "Easier said than done, Chakotay."



To be continued . . .

***