Disclaimer. Yeah, yeah. It all belongs to Paramount, but they screwed it all up, so let me try it.



Chapter Seven



What might have turned out to be a rather nice little party was rapidly turned upside-down with Chakotay's arrival -ergo the message. The Captain's knees had pretty much given up on standing, and she had fallen into Chakotay's arms, crying silently. Seven had quickly retreated from the room, which had seemed rather odd to Tom at first, but she had turned up again shortly thereafter having done the Captain's packing -her own wordless support.

Somehow it came about that Tuvok went with her. Tom supposed he knew the Captain's mother, since they had been friends for so long. In the space of a couple hours, the captain had left for Indiana, leaving her flummoxed senior crew still sitting in her living room. B'Elanna was never happy to just sit, and set about cleaning the place up with all of her usual subtlety in full tow, swearing alternately at things. His wife had a good grasp of bad language, and he wasn't sure if he should tell her to curb that tendency when there were children around.

Seven seemed to regret having let the Captain leave without her. The former Astrometrics officer was showing a very odd streak of protectiveness over the woman she had seemed to be at odds with for most of her free life. There was the obvious reason for that of course, but Tom, falling on habit, speculated slightly on that.

Chakotay obviously did not like to be the bearer of bad news, and was frowning pensively at nothing, like he sometimes did. Leave it to him to feel guilty about bringing a message. And why now? This wasn't the first time he had ever brought bad news to the Captain, not by a long shot.

Of course, the whole situation was strange to him. His natural attunement to tempestuous relationships had always served him as a warning when something was going on. While on Voyager, he had refined that talent slightly. This was a five-alarm sort of day, and it had started the moment he had seen the Captain, Chakotay and Seven all in the same room.

But Tom said nothing, and merely leaned back in the chair and observed, until of course B'Elanna decided he was in the way and chased him off. Naomi had already left for home, as had the Doctor -going wherever it was he went. Tom wasn't sure about what exactly the Doctor was up to now, not even after a year. Of course, he'd been hiding out in the woods for most of that year.

He felt very sorry for the Captain, even though he knew in the back of his mind that she had not been as close to her family in later times . . . less than she maybe would have liked. Seven years stranded out in space changed a person, he supposed. It had certainly changed him. They had all expected her to go back to Indiana after they touched down, en masse, that one fateful night . . . but she had not. She had applied to the Federation for a house in San Francisco, got it, and stayed there . . . within a mere five blocks of Seven and Chakotay, which had struck him as strange at first.

He'd always known the Captain and her First Officer were joined at the hip, but apparently it ran a little deeper, at least in some ways. Her attachment to Voyager was well-nigh gravitational, it seemed. The ship-turned-museum was in geosynchronous orbit right above the city, and from Harry's accounts she was often to be seen craning her head upwards. She would not let Voyager go, probably not even when she died.

Nor would he, for that matter.

For some reason, Voyager was still home. They had all left something there.

B'Elanna insisted that Chakotay had left the most of himself there, more that anyone else. He was sceptical. Although, Chakotay was still somewhere halfway between New Earth and the Equinox, if the look in his eyes said anything. That was where Tom thought he had lost something. Not that he could contest B'Elanna about anything concerning Chakotay, or he'd get his ear chewed off.

How he ended up sitting across from that same man in the Captain's suddenly empty living room was beyond him. Seven had disappeared somewhere, Harry had gone home and B'Elanna was puttering about in the kitchen beyond, with K'Athra following at her heels. Chakotay was still mentally exploring space, a worried frown on his face.

"Worried?" Tom inquired.

The older man seemed startled, and glanced immediately to his right. He found the view lacking, it seemed, and sighed.

"Think you're on the bridge?" Tom asked. His former Commander had very obviously gone looking for the Captain. Even after one year, he hadn't shaken that habit? "She's only gone to the funeral. Maybe for a couple days. You're all reading missing her?"

"What? Missing . . . ? I know where she is, Tom."

"Well, she isn't to your right."

"What?"

"You were looking for her. You glanced right. Do you do that every time someone startles you out of a daydream, or what? You certainly used to, since it was usually the Captain startling you."

Chakotay blinked, and then frowned. "So when did you become such an expert?"

"Oh, come on, Chakotay. I've been watching the two of you do the dance for the better part of a decade. You're so used to it, you even do it when she's not here. It probably goes both ways. You can see a lot from the conn station, and not just what's on the view screen." Only at the last moment, you had to go bring in the third party, didn't you? Way to go, Big Guy, you idiot.

"What are you talking about, Paris?"

"I'm talking about how you and the Captain act." Well, you act like a fool. You think I don't know anything, don't you? Well that's your loss, isn't it? For cutting the roots out from under her in the space of what? The second after she saw you leave the transporter hub with Seven? Good work on tactful informing, too. You left her hanging out in purgatory until you needed her, and now what? Having doubts? Poor idiot.

God, he wanted to say it. He wanted to yell it at him. It was no great mystery what was bothering Chakotay, and he suspected that the man in question had yet to take a clue. For the Captain's sake he hoped he did, for Seven's sake he hoped he didn't. Who cared about Chakotay's sake, he had started the whole mess.

Hell had frozen over it seemed, now that Tom Paris was the one having insights. He never had insights. He was pretty blind himself, though apparently not as impaired as Chakotay.

What did it take to make them see what they were doing?

And did no one see it but him?

Maybe he was just crazy, wandering off into the realm of speculation once again and getting lost. He couldn't be that off track. After all, all of the betting pools had been about the Captain and the Commander, hadn't they? There had never been any about Chakotay and Seven.

That pair of names still gave him a bad feeling.

"Oh? And how do we act?" Chakotay asked ominously.

"Never mind." You act like goddamn binary stars, is how. Just doing the dance around each other, occasionally getting close enough to exchange something . . . until some epiphany knocked you out of orbit and you both wound up like this. The Captain's starting to look more like a red giant as we speak, and we've got the three of you lunkheads to blame for that. The thought was noble, but the end result is going to be hell on all of you, I can see it coming.

B'Elanna reentered the room, looking around her, as if to make sure that she had been here before and cleaned up. She appeared satisfied, and bent down to retrieve K'Athra as the little girl tried to squeeze past her in the doorway.

"Time to go, Tom," she said quietly, breaking the tense silence. "See you, Chakotay. Come and visit us sometime, hmm?"

"I will," the man addressed said, rising to wrap both mother and child in a goodbye embrace. "Goodbye, B'Elanna. It's too bad this didn't turn out better."

That's everyone's lament, isn't it?

***



Kathryn had chosen a strange location to do the rest of her grieving, but then again it seemed somehow appropriate. She hadn't stayed in Indiana any longer than she had needed to without seeming distant, saying her family had felt somehow stifling at that moment.

The thing that had separated her from her mother was somehow offering solace to her. Of course, the orbital museum was closed on weekends, but they were given special dispensation to enter the inert ship that had been their home.

While it heartened her, it disheartened him. It was wrong for a ship that had once been the centre of so much life to be inanimate and lifeless. Silent. There should have been sounds -the hum of the engines, talk of the bridge crew, beep of the consoles- but there was nothing, just the deafening silence of space and Kathryn's occasional sigh as she stared at the darkened screen. Perhaps it was not that comforting to her after all.

She sat in her seat, Chakotay in his, comfortable familiarity suffusing both positions, despite the lack of activity in their surroundings. It was like all of Voyager was dead but them, stuck in the stasis of one of the endless moments on the bridge. They had spent the better part of their voyage sitting just so.

He felt some thread of guilt, being here alone with Kathryn. These moments were solely theirs. Who else had lived such a life on the bridge? Everyone else had lived from other areas, but not them. They had lived on the bridge, in the ready room. Even the idle chatter over dinner had never held so much. Maybe this was what he was missing.

He knew the guilt was for Seven. There was no way to include her in this . . . and he wasn't sure that he wanted to. As much as he loved her, she still stood on the outside of many things. Kathryn knew many things about him that Seven did not, and vice versa, but it was different somehow.

Who else had lived a life time on the bridge, and had been prepared to spend the rest of their lives there, if that became necessary? Who had shared that unspoken resolution?

"How was the funeral?" he asked quietly, looking over at her.

"Funereal. My mother was Catholic, and it's a pretty doleful religion, even if I do respect it. It was nice though, even if my relatives wouldn't stop staring at me like I was a stranger. I hope, Chakotay, that you never have to do something like that."

"You felt like an outsider?"

She nodded, a tear escaping one eye. "They don't know me anymore."

"You have us," he stated. "It's not the same as blood relatives, but-"

She looked down at herself. "It is now," she murmured. The swell at her waist was not that noticeable yet, not at three months, but he couldn't but wonder at it. His children, and those of his best friend and his wife. That in itself sent his mind reeling. She spoke again.

"You are all I need. Just you and Seven, and Tom, B'Elanna, K'Athra, Harry and Tuvok . . . the Doctor and . . . just all of you. I suppose you're my family now. I suppose you have been for a long time. I still feel so awful for stranding you all out there, but I-"

"Don't get into that again, Kathryn. How many times must you be told it wasn't your fault? Don't you get it? What would we have missed if the Caretaker had sent us back the way we came? It's a poor trade."

She smiled wanly. "I suppose, but the whole thing is a what if. What if the Caretaker had pulled us all out there, and then the Kazon had killed us? What if the Vidiians had gotten both ships, the time Naomi was born? What if Seska had never defected? What if we had never left New Earth?"

Then we would not be here, wondering about it and I would have built that boat for you.

"And it goes on and on," she continued. "With the Borg and Q and everything else. But somehow, we ended up here, even though we are short a few people. I never did get my whole crew home, you know."

"That was beyond your control."

"Was it?"

"Yes, it was." Learn, Kathryn, that you cannot be responsible for everything.

"What if we never had Seven? What if she had died there, when the Doctor was trying to remove her Borg implants, and she started seizing?"

What are you getting at?

"That's a sad prospect, Kathryn," he stated. "She has given us so much."

"I know."

And yet taken it away. Kathryn, how is it that you are always here, even when she is not? I cannot be rid of you, can I? And that's the last thing I want. What happened to our dinners, the walks on the holodeck? What happened to those times when it was perfectly comfortable just to stare and say nothing? Was it me?

"I'm sorry this all had to happen," he said softly, looking at the gray screen.

"What?"

"All of it. Any of it. Anything that you didn't like, I'm sorry." We dance around it like Tom says, though maybe he didn't realize what he was saying. And where is Seven in all this? I can't forget her . . .

"It's not your fault," she said, extending her hand to him, bridging the gap.

He took the gesture for what it was, and New Earth came flooding back, even after all the years. That was before Seven, before all hell broke loose. That time when it had been as simple as a pathogen and an order not to call the Vidiians. She smiled sadly at him, and his heart filled with something he had tried hard to forget. And was it his fault that she was more sacrosanct than ever? It was. He had made it that way.

Kathryn, why can't it just stop?



To be continued.

***