***
"Captain, there is a signal coming from Voyager." The communications officer on board seemed surprised to report such a finding. Restraining herself from answering, Janeway stole a puzzled glance at Tuvok. As of the present time Voyager had been fighting valiantly, just as Janeway knew she could. Though there was no chance that the battered ship could win, Janeway knew that her ship still had plenty of life left in her. Perhaps, she simply wouldn't let being who had so violated her access that hidden power that had saved the lives on board so many times.
Tuvok stared impassively back at her, knowing her question, but unable to answer. He knew that their last shot had finally penetrated the ship's shields, but the subsequent damage was not enough to warrant surrender. His logical mind surmised that foul play was at hand.
"On screen," Ossrin ordered. He knew how hard it had to be for Janeway to see them firing on her ship, it showed in her eyes every time the familiar whine of the omnichronic-photonic weapons fired. His tactical mind had made the same deductions Tuvok's had, but he nonetheless took the chance of receiving the hail. After all, he would want to take the chance if her were in Janeway's position.
An unfamiliar face appeared on the screen. Not the expected hulking, battle-scarred face of an Arthiorian commander, but the smooth, elated expression of someone from the same species as Captain Janeway.
"This is the Chief Medical Officer of the USS Voyager, I request that you break off your battle immediately." After his declaration, he eyes shifted to the left, as if listening to a more important piece of battle information. He nodded slightly and his gaze returned to his view of Ossrin.
"We will be launching 10 lifepods in a matter of seconds," he informed them. "Do not fire on these. If you do, it will be considered an act of hostility and—Captain!"
The undisguised surprise and joy etched on the Doctor's face was unmistakable. Janeway smiled at the effect her movement into camera range elicited, and a wave of homecoming washed over her. "Doctor, I take it you held down the fort while we were on our little vacation. I hate to cut short your stint of command, but I'd like my ship back if that's all right with you."
"Absolutely Captain!" His enthusiasm arced across the transmission. "You must understand that in order to get the ship back I had to promise that we would not pursue the Arthiorians," he explained as an internal shudder ran through the ship as the lifepods disengaged from the ship, "we have to let them go."
"You did what you had to," Janeway consoled, but inside she stewed in her inability to bring retributions against those who had hijacked her ship.
Ossrin interrupted, "I may remind you, Captain, that just because your Doctor made that promise that does not mean that we are held to the same stipulation." He eyes shone with human-like mischief, "You can be guaranteed that they will not escape without paying for what they have done under Pachin law."
Janeway nodded her thanks to the commander' promise. "Thank you for everything you have done Commander Ossrin. If there is anything we can do for you…?"
Ossrin smiled, pleased at finding such an ally in such an unlikely place. "I'm sure we can discuss it when your crew is safe onboard."
"Yes," Janeway agreed, "Lower shields Doctor. We're coming home."
***
Voyager's wounds were new and vicious, eating away at the precious integrity of systems that was left. It pained Janeway, and she saw that same pain mirrored on the faces of all of the crew, as she transported onto the ship. The turbolift ride to the bridge jerked unsteadily as it moved from deck to deck, fighting its way to the top of the saucer section. As the bridge crew rushed to their stations, assessing as they went the extent of the damage to their department, Janeway and Chakotay stepped towards the center seats to confer with the two people waiting there for them.
The Doctor never interrupted the abbreviated story that the Neelix told her, and she could tell that certain parts had been edited out for her and Chakotay's benefit. Nonetheless, she saw Chakotay stiffen at least three times in indignation, not the least when Neelix retold with barely controlled rage the way he, and more importantly to him, Kes had been treated. After their briefing, which Janeway was sure had been overheard by B'Elanna, Tom, and Tuvok, Janeway's first question was about the brave Ocampa girl.
"Where is Kes?" She asked, almost fearing the question. The reactions from the two men were starkly different. While the Doctor's mouth turned in a puzzled frown, Neelix's face twisted in a combination of pride and embarrassment.
"In there," he pointed to the door that led to her readyroom. As Janeway turned to follow Neelix's directions he added, "but I wouldn't go in their Captain."
Before Janeway could ask the question, Chakotay did. "Why not?"
"It's not pretty in there," Neelix warned. "I left because it disturbed me so much. I really suggest that you don't go in there Captain."
Little did he know, but Neelix had only piqued the Captain's curiosity, not to mention her danger instincts. "But you left Kes in there?"
"She may not look like it Captain, but Kes is much stronger than I am. She thought she could help and there was nothing I could do to change her mind," Neelix answered thinly. It was obvious that he didn't like what he had done. He placed a hand on Janeway's shoulder in entreaty, "Please don't go in there. You've had a hard enough time as it is, we'll figure this out. Besides, I don't think he wants to see you right now."
That sealed Janeway's decision. "Neelix, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I want to know who this 'he' is and protect my crew from him."
Before Neelix had a chance to open his mouth and explain further, Janeway turned her back on the discussion, and at the same time Neelix's warnings, and strode purposefully to the door of her ready room. Without pausing, she entered.
"Neelix, what the hell are you talking about?" After everything they had been through, Chakotay was not in the mood for ambiguous answers to straightforward questions.
Knowing that the Doctor couldn't help him, and that the rest of the bridge crew was listening intently despite the busy noises they were making, Neelix began to explain as Janeway learned for herself.
***
The door closed, locking out the bridge, the ship, and the rest of the universe for the time that she was in this room. This room had seen the vulnerabilities of Captain Janeway; the sorrows and regrets that she sometimes couldn't keep locked up in her heart. The walls were unlit by any means, and the only lights came from the interminable, tender starscape outside of the viewport. The temperature was markedly lower, and the crispness of the air had an aura of the coldness that Janeway associated only with death. She could almost feel the icy claws of some hidden horror wrapping around her shoulders.
It was hard to shake the feelings that crowded her heart and mind as she stood immobile a few feet inside the door. Her waning sureness of only a few seconds ago accented her senses to the point that only fear could. With these heightened senses, her ears focused on something. To her emotion-flooded mind, the walls seemed to be softly weeping, as if shedding tears for all of the pain that had crossed this room.
Shaking herself from the irrational state of mind Janeway mustered her voice under control and made her presence known. "Who's here?"
Immediately someone answered, a familiar voice Janeway was not used to hearing laced with pain. "Shhh…Captain."
"Kes?" Janeway whispered, feeling the underlying urgency in Kes's response. Now that her mind had dispensed with its earlier fanciful ideas, she tracked down the source of the voice, and in turn, the tears.
When Kes didn't reply, Janeway didn't understand. Carefully picking her way through the familiar room she came upon two figures, huddled on the couch. Her eyes finally adjusting to the nearly dark conditions, Janeway's throat tightened at what she saw.
On the couch Kes held the huddled form of Harry, soaking wet and sobbing quietly into her shoulder. Opting to ignore the Captain, Kes stroked his hair comfortingly, murmuring to him in a combination of Ocampan and English. The musical cadence of her native language seemed to console him little as he continued to cry. Even if she had wanted to, Janeway would not have been able to say anything, for fear of disturbing even such a heart aching scene.
Shifting slightly, Kes moved to face the distraught young man before her, grasping his hands firmly between her own. "We're not going to hurt you, Harry. You need to try and trust me. I swear I'm not going to hurt you. Everything's okay." She didn't seem to mind that her own outfit was slowly absorbing some of the water that soaked the boy through to the skin. The final method of keeping their captive awake that the Arthiorians had tried consisted of dousing him in water every time his eyes drooped in an attempt to prolong his agony. To make it more sinister they had lowered the temperature in the room, adding hypothermia which induced a sleepiness all its own, to the mix. The brutal cycle had been kept up to the last minute before the Arthiorians had evacuated, and as a going away gift the Arthiorian commander had frozen the environmental controls for the room. The pale sheen that bordered on blue that tinged the ex-captives extremities unnerved both women in the room.
Rather than stare at her in answer, the torn boy simply stared down at where his hands laid enveloped in Kes'. He wanted to believe her, more than anything else, but there was no way that she could be telling the truth. The warmth of her body and spirit called to him though, after so many days and nights of cold terror. The woman he had thought epitomized the idea of an angel just a few short days ago now symbolized all of the lies he had ever been told, all of the façades he had ever had to put up because of others' expectations. His mind was numb to the thought that anything could change; whoever had said that the universe thrived on change had never taken the slightest look at his life. Everything was not okay, nor would it ever be.
Painfully he shook his head, not being able to find it in himself emotionally or physically to answer her with words. He expected her to abruptly release him, throw him to the floor for rejecting the first hospitality he had ever been shown in his life. An equal response of hostility outwardly as he felt inwardly because of his perceived ingratitude to her compassion. Instead the ever-radiant woman squeezed his hands tightly in comfort, then ran her hands soothingly over the various bruises and scars he had accumulated on his hands after being thrown into the room's toppled and destroyed furniture so many times. It still astounded his mind that he could have been abused so easily: a statement to his shock. It didn't bother him anymore that it had happened; contrarily a morbid fascination gripped him whenever his mind didn't cower in fear from his demented flashbacks.
The tenderness she showed towards him, the unrestrained kindness, was so out of place from everything else he had experienced in the recent past that his mind couldn't process it. Dazed from his ordeal, his mind came up with pictures to watch from a distance, antique, soundless movie reels of what had happened to him. This time, though, they were different. An angel, the mythical creature that he was sure couldn't exist, came to him on shining wings of ivory feathers dispersing the evil men that had occupied the same space she now possessed like pollen in the wind. The angel wore the face of the savior in front of him, and as reality set it, the dream shattered. No one had come to save him before because no one cared, and no one did now. That thought pervaded his body, as much a part of his living as his own blood, and for once he was not able to keep his emotions locked away. Everything had built to this point, and shamefully he began to cry again.
Thinking nothing less of him, Kes resumed her initial position, arms tightly bound around the maltreated Asian. Expectantly she looked in Janeway's direction.
Janeway had could do nothing but stand frozen, shocked to immobility at the naked desperation she saw, and stare horrorstruck at the scene before her. She couldn't see Harry's face, but from the condition of his clothes, the soul-splitting whimpers, and violent shivers that Kes did her best to control with a tightening grip, Janeway could tell that something profoundly horrific had happened here.
Finally able to speak around the lump in her throat, she softly asked, "Kes, what happened?"
Returning her gaze to the person she held: curled up, shivering from fatigue, cold, and things Janeway's mind refused to think about, Kes hugged Harry closer as she answered. "Neelix and I found him here right before you came up to the bridge. We hadn't any time before, and we had no idea where he was. The internal sensors on the bridge had been shut down by the Arthiorians because their Captain didn't want any of his own men spying on him, so we had no idea." It was clear to Janeway that Kes was trying to justify the lack of response that she imagined. Janeway could find no fault. "He was so scared," Kes admitted in a soft voice, pausing ever so slightly with her hand resting entwined in Harry's hair, reliving the memory. "I think he thought that we were going to hurt him. The only thing that made it worse was that he didn't run away, like he was used to the way he had been treated. He looked so pained, and alone, and just didn't seem to want to do anything anymore. Not fight, not live, not anything. I know what it can be like, with Jabin," her voice broke at the memory, "and I couldn't just leave him like that." She looked directly at Janeway with fierce determination, "He needs to go to sickbay."
The implications of her statements were too great, and Janeway didn't want to think about them now. Her mind was flooded with thoughts. It seemed that every time she entered this room something happened to the innocent boy she saw before her now. Something that he had no control over, and which probably killed him in one way or another, bit by bit. Her mind's-eye flashed back to a thousand times over the years when she had treated him unfair, like he didn't deserve to be given even the most basic of respects: the respect for life. She now knew how wrong she had been, how she should have realized that there was something else there. A fire of spirit that she had seen hinted at and promptly dismissed so many times because she didn't want to think about it.
Those words haunted her now. Forcing herself to think about the implications of Kes's last statement, Janeway bit back a curse. It was obvious that he had been abused, the way he flinched in pain from Janeway's light touch as she placed a hopefully comforting hand on his back. She promised herself she wouldn't shy away from the implications this time. There was no way that she could and keep a clear conscience.
"The transporters are online. Beam to sickbay and transfer the Doctor's program back to the sickbay holo-emitters. Do whatever you need to do." She couldn't bear to make it an order, to take away the right of self-determination that she and other people had taken away so often before.
Though she nodded, Janeway noticed that Kes didn't make a move to free a hand to tap her communicator and request a beam-out. Kes was too afraid that if she let go of her self-appointed charge something horrible would happen, though she couldn't imagine what could be worse than what Harry had already been subjected to. Running her hands through his hair again she soothed, " It's all right now, Harry. You're safe. I promise."
Whispering orders into her own combage, Janeway repeated to B'Elanna what she wanted, without offering any type of explanation yet, and took her own badge off. Tenderly she placed it on the right hand side of Harry's chest, the side that she could reach and which wasn't turned seeking protection in Kes's shoulder. She tapped it a final time as it adhered itself to Harry's tattered shirt and the pair disappeared, lighting up the whole room. Promising herself she would visit sickbay the minute the EMH would allow her, she exited the re-darkened room.