CHAPTER ELEVEN



Chakotay was already holding out a steaming mug of coffee when she finally stirred. Kathryn stared at him blankly a moment, confusion clouding her face, and as he studied her intently with concerned black eyes, he felt a prick of fear at the bewilderment in her expression. If she's still not lucid... He felt relieved, and then sympathetic when embarrassment suddenly flooded her features. Chakotay wordlessly pressed the coffee against her flaccid hand, and she took it automatically as she pulled herself stiffly up.

"Thanks," Kathryn murmured, her voice hoarse, her eyes fallen to the ground. She raised it to her lips for a generous sip, and color slowly returned to her cheeks. Chakotay watched in silence until she looked ready to talk.

When she began to mutter an apology for her behavior, Chakotay waved her off. "It doesn't matter, Kathryn. I understand." He let the silence hang between them, somehow already aware that she'd break the silence he'd just begun to crack. He didn't have to wait long.

Janeway still stared bleakly into the mug when she drew in a breath to speak. "Durant helped us. All of us, when we first reached Earth. He secured the freedom of the Maquis, almost single-handedly. And my freedom. He persuaded the Committee of Ethics to rule in my favor, and he averted the court martial... I owed him a great deal."

Chakotay was silent a moment after her words, before prompting gently, "Is that why you married him?"

"No." She shook her head for emphasis, and Chakotay settled back on the bunk across from hers as she continued, "We were just friends, well, little more than acquaintances. I honestly didn't see it coming. I knew he had these... ridiculous political views-- comical, really-- but I had no idea just how far he wanted to take them. I wouldn't have-- well, that doesn't matter now.

"At some point, I suspected he had some sort of romantic interest, and he confirmed it eventually... but that was the other lie." Her expression was dark. "They were all lies. When he realized he couldn't manipulate me, he partnered with the Orion Syndicate to force me. They killed my family, they threatened to kill the rest of you. And he could do it. Jenny, Tal, Mortimer..."

"But Kathryn, that was a virus--" Chakotay began patiently.

"No!" Janeway's eyes blazed into his, slanted and enraged. "No. There was no virus." Her voice was bitter and caustic. "It was just a convenient device. A good one, at that. Don't you realize that 'latent retro-virus' could easily spring back to life and migrate to the rest of the crew, should it meet my beloved husband's whim? That's why they used it. It was the perfect cover."

"What does he want from you?" Chakotay's mind whirled with her terrible words.

She shrugged, her expression suddenly bleak and unfeeling, seemingly emotionally shredded to the point that the turmoil barely touched her. "It's just name recognition. Politics is about name recognition. He made me into something greater than I was-- the Medal of Honor, the promotion, the publicity..." At the surprise and Chakotay's face, a mirthless smile twisted across her lips. "You truly believed they'd hand me those honors after the Equinox? After the Temporal Prime Directive? And even if they did.... You actually believed I was such a publicity hound at heart?"

"I didn't know what to believe," he confessed, holding her eyes with his dark ones. "Kathryn... I just didn't understand any of it. We returned, and I had so much to work out in my own life. And then after the reunion.."

Janeway spoke on dully, "He arranged it all, and he rode on my reputation into the spotlight. Now he's running for president, and it looks like he'll win." She glanced towards the viewing screen with a jaundiced eye. "God help us all."

"And what did he want you to do?" Chakotay asked softly. The question seemed to surprise her, and her air of indifference suddenly faltered.

"I-- just have to play a role. Be a wife. Smile for a holocamera. Some days I'm better than others."

"Does he hurt you?"

"Only when I bring it on myself." Kathryn must have seen the appalled look on his face, for she quickly added, "I know I don't deserve it of course-- I haven't bought into that mentality, if that's what you're assuming, Commander. I simply mean I know how to avoid it, but I have my slip ups."

"How do you slip up?"

"If I leave when I'm not supposed to, when I speak outside the directed parameters, if I talk to Admiral Paris or basically anyone I care about-- ever."

"Am I one of those people?" Chakotay asked, suddenly understand her behavior. Maybe she'd been forbidden to see him...

"No."

Chakotay felt hurt by this statement, and almost laughed at how ridiculous the feeling was. Of course it should be a good thing that he wasn't suspected... But if no one saw anything truly there between he and Kathryn... She hadn't been forbidden from his company, yet she still avoided him all those months...

She must have read the look in his eyes, because her hand darted out and clasped his dark one, and she held his gaze intently with her own. "Chakotay, I took every step to make sure you weren't one of those people. Don't you realize that's why I avoided you? If Durant knew about you and I..." she hesitated. "If he knew about what we had for that night, or what we'd felt, you would have lived under the same sword I did, if he hadn't murdered you outright."

"I understand, Kathryn. I do." And he tried to make himself understand. "I just wish you could have trusted me to watch my own back. I wasn't a Maquis fugitive for nothing."

She smiled fondly, her eyes sad. "No, I guess you weren't." Kathryn's gaze slipped around the shuttle. "Who else could pull a stunt like this?" She was silent a moment, then suddenly her face was grave. "You're insane to go through with this, you know."

"I know." He paused. "That's what friends are for." His smile crinkled the sides of his eyes.

Something changed in her expression suddenly, in her eyes. A new softness stole about them, a warmth that made the back of Chakotay's neck prickle.

"You've been a good friend to me, Chakotay," Kathryn breathed softly. "Not many people would have been there for me after my behavior."

"I understand why you acted--"

"No," she cut in, her finger suddenly pressed to his lips as her appreciative eyes bore into his. "No, don't say anything to change it. You were a good friend to me, and I want to-- I have yet to return the favor. I haven't let you know how much it means to me."

Her eyes were intent upon him, and he felt the electricity in her gaze as she drew imperceptibly closer. Chakotay was caught in the turmoil of emotions-- disbelief... was she going to kiss him? And suddenly fear.

He jerked back away from her, wincing at the blatant action on his own part, and he thought for a second he saw hurt flicker in her eyes before she offered him an uneasy smile and looked away.

"Well, I guess we understand each other now," she said in a low voice, still not looking at him.

Chakotay couldn't say anything immediately. The situation was too confused, too muddled.

"I--" he fumbled. "No, not quite. You haven't explained everything." She looked up questioningly. "You haven't told me what happened the other day, with Durant. How you ended up on my doorstep."

He immediately saw her withdraw, her face shuttering, her form tensing. He reached out and clamped his hands over her thin shoulders, his fingers digging into her skin harder than he had intended, as though he hoped the pain would hold her back from her retreat.

"Don't shut down on me now!"

Her cheeks had paled, and he could see that she was embarrassed, morbidly embarrassed. He shook her lightly. "Kathryn?"

Kathryn's hands flew to his, urging his hands from her shoulders. "Chakotay-- you're hurting me--"

He released her abruptly, and she recoiled from him. Chakotay leaned closer, inching towards her retreating form, pausing only when she held up a spindly hand to mollify him.

"I'll tell you," she said. "It's just--"

"Just what?"

Kathryn didn't elaborate on that line of thought. She jerked to her feet and prowled to the other side of the shuttle, her entire body emanating something along the lines of rage and distress.

She finally whirled and shot it all out. "He wants to have a baby."

"A baby?" Chakotay echoed. "With you?" Stupid question, he berated himself. "Of course with you."

She shot him a dubious look before continuing, "He's made appointments at fertility clinics, and I've always dodged them. He grew sick of waiting, so he decided to do the work himself." She stared darkly at the ground. "I don't remember much of what happened. He drugged me at the reception, I attacked him, I found you. The details... they just aren't there."

The implications of her words staggered him. He rubbed his fingers over his mouth, thinking back to that reception with a rather ill pit in his stomach-- he'd seen her exhaustion. He simply hadn't thought anything of it...

"My God..." He thought of Durant then, swaggering about the reception like he owned the universe-- a man with a plan. A bastard who had to trample a woman to conquer his world. That whole reception, greeting dignitaries, smiling, he'd just been waiting...

Chakotay was suddenly pissed, brimming with anger at Durant, and at her.

"And you wanted me to send you back to that man?" Chakotay flared up. "Good God, Kathryn, the bastard tries to rape you and you're simply going to march back into his custody?"

"He's done worse," she muttered.

"And what the hell difference does that make?" he smoldered. "You should have come to me the minute he hurt-- no, you should have come to me the second he even threatened you."

"Chakotay, you know why I--"

"Because you wanted to protect me," he sneered as he said the words. "Well, Goddamn it, Kathryn, did it ever occur to you to give me the choice whether I wanted to be protected? You were my commanding officer, my best friend-- If I'd been in a life threatening situation, wouldn't you have wanted to know?" She looked down away from his hard gaze, and he threw his hands into the air in exasperation. "And you've been trying to manipulate me into returning you for the last two days without even telling me the situation--"

"Well now you know the situation!" Janeway erupted, her patience frayed. "Now you know. So cut the fucking diatribe and take me back!"

Chakotay laughed suddenly, disbelieving. "It's just like you to pound the same note even after you know I'm not going to follow it! There isn't a chance in hell I'm returning you after this."

"Chakotay," her voice was shaking now, clearly on the verge of hysteria. "You know what will happen, you know what he'll do to you, to all of us. How can you possibly-- now that you know... He'll think I ran away. He'll kill them because he'll think I ran away."

"No, he won't."

That stopped her suddenly.

An unsettling smile twisted across his lips, and he reached back to brutally jab his finger at the controls of the viewer. The screen lit up, and she watched his fingers dance across the controls, frequency after frequency slipping across the screen.

"What station do you want, Kathryn?" he demanded harshly. "It's on every single one of them."

"What's on? What the hell are you talking about?"

Chakotay settled on one, and he saw the horror on her face when she saw an image of herself looking back as the news reporter related the horrifying saga of the kidnapped Admiral Janeway.

As she watched, her face went deathly pale, and her hand rose slowly to cover her own mouth. She slumped back against the wall, staring in disbelief at the channel.

"How can they--" her voice was ragged and died quickly. He watched her, feeling dark turmoil rage within him. She managed, "How can they say that? You would never kidnap me."

"Kathryn," Chakotay said with a cynical smile. "I did kidnap you."

"That's not what I mean," Her voice was shaking with anger. "How can they say that you--" She stopped, her eyes suddenly intent with a train of thought.



"The Syndicate thugs clearly believed I kidnapped you-- the impromptu cavity exam, remember?" Kathryn's face flushed, and though they had not spoken a word of it, he knew it was humiliating for her to think about. "The news stations are claiming I kidnapped you. Not one word on the air about tragic deaths of any of the celebrity survivors of Voyager-- so clearly there have been no reprisals for your actions." He watched the dawning understanding over her face. "You know why, Kathryn? Because as far as they are concerned-- as far as Durant and Empek know-- I kidnapped you. Which means--"

"--which means, as long as they don't catch us," Janeway cut in suddenly, her eyes glinting with a new light, her expression both delighted and malicious. "Everyone is safe."

"Exactly."

"And we have time to form a plan."

"Right again."

Janeway flashed him a grin, suddenly alive with an energy he remembered from days long passed. "And all it cost was your reputation," she added, on a note both playful and aggressive.

The sting of the barb was only mild, because Chakotay suddenly felt as though a great weight had been lifted from his chest. The pressing fear about his new fugitive status, looming in the back of his mind from the moment Torres shook him awake with the alarming news, mounting as he waited for Kathryn to regain consciousness, all but disappeared.

As her eyes glinted dangerously into his own, he felt the old electricity in the air. Janeway and Chakotay, locked in the same line of thought, engaged in the same dilemma, working together again with the same energy and resourcefulness that had forged their way through the Delta Quadrant. They'd defeated the Hirogen, outsmarted the Devore, overcome the peril of the Borg. And after a long absence, the formidable duo was back in business.

Jonathan Durant had no chance.

"My reputation for all of our lives," Chakotay said wryly. "I think I can handle that."

Janeway reached out and clasped his hand firmly in her own, gratitude and determination written on her face.

But strongest of all-- hatred.