Disclaimer: Star trek voyager belongs to paramount. It does not belong to me, however, the sky does not belong to me and I still look at it.

V

Chapter 3: Friday

Opportunity, opportunity, opportunity, the triple O to life. The only problem with waiting for opportunity, he thought to himself, was that you had to wait. He hated waiting, but over the years Paul had developed patience.

Satriani? The name rang a bell, he sat back in his leather chair. He ran the name through a computer, it came up with several thousand people with the name, no, too many, he thought, and any way, he was stupid, but not that stupid. Then again, it might not even be him, it could just be an innocent civilian with the name, but for some reason he thought that he had heard it before, and his gut told him that this was the one.

Music. "Computer, search data base for historical musicians with the name Satriani." The computer complied, no, still too many, it had come up with every one who had ever played, and or was playing a musical instrument in the past two thousand years that had been successfully documented. "Computer, narrow search to musicians of the," he paused in thought, then finished, "twentieth and twenty first century."

Again the computer complied, and came up with a smaller list. "Narrow search to musicians," he thought, "guitarists. Narrow search to guitarists." He found what he was looking for.

V

They sat on the sofa, Kathryn took a sip of coffee, Chakotay traced his finger round the rim of his own cup.

"You wanted to talk," she was still on duty, always on duty.

"Why not?" he turned to her, "why wouldn't it work?"

She hadn't expected him to confront her quite as quickly, but guessed that he would eventually. She could have given him endless excuses, and no doubt he would have counter argued each point, and she would have had to admit that he was right, as usual.

Kathryn was not in the mood for arguing, it was late and she was tired. By habit she pinched the bridge of her nose in between her finger tips, and then rested that arm on the back of the sofa, turning to Chakotay. He waited patiently for her excuses, but quickly realised that she wasn't going to give him any. She had her reasons and she wasn't going to share them with him, he suddenly realised the amount of strain he was putting on her, the stress that he was causing her. He had promised that he would do everything he could to lighten her burden, and now he was doing the complete opposite.

She looked into his eyes and saw the conflict and the love that he had for her. For a moment she forgot all the reasons she had fabricated for not having a relationship with him, and in that moment she realised how much she really loved him, and that if she lost him again she didn't know how she would be able to forgive herself.

It was in her moment of weakness that she leaned in towards him. He didn't expect her to, but didn't pull back. She pushed a lose strand of hair back into place, and placed her palm against his cheek. She ran her thumb across his bottom lip, she knew exactly what she was doing to him; she knew exactly what he was thinking, feeling, and how easily she could have him. How easily she could give herself to him again.

She brushed against his lips, and as the kiss continued she felt his hand come up her thigh and rest on her waist, he wasn't as full on as he had been the other night, he was holding back slightly, afraid that she would pull back and ask him to leave. Discarding him again.

He felt her body shift away from his, and her lips left his, he looked up. She was standing in front of him, her hand in his, her arm extended, a gentle tug and he realised she wanted him to follow her. Not thinking straight, he stood up, and followed her as she walked across the living area. Suddenly he realised, she was taking him to her bedroom.

"Kathryn," he stopped in the middle of the room.

Still hand in hand, she turned to face him. She gave him a look that seemed to pierce straight through him, and made him feel weak to stop her. "What's wrong?" she asked softly, a softness, and tenderness that was new to him, but still, so familiar.

"Are you sure?"

She smiled openly at him and nodded, weakening him still further, he didn't want to stop her, he didn't have the power to stop her, not now. Giving in to her, he nodded, tomorrow he would probably be nothing to her again, but right now, he was everything.

V

"What kind of security breach?" Alex sighed, he hated Fridays, everything always happened on a Friday, so that his whole weekend was ruined. His marriage was just about failed, probably because work always got in the way. And his family had more or less abandon him years ago. He couldn't even remember his brother's birthday let alone his brother's children.

The intelligence agent on the screen paused, and looked across at another console. "Some one has been going through Log entries, transport details, medical reports, personal files, there's a whole list sir, we could be here all night if I went through every thing."

"What classification are they?" he folded his arms across his chest. He really hated Fridays.

"Mostly delicate, none of it is general public access allocation level, some is classified, some strictly classified."

The guy probably spent most of his life watching computer screens, Alex thought to himself, poor guy. "How long has this been going on for?" he sighed again. Definitely all weekend.

"About three months sir, just under," the young agent was a little reluctant to admit that it had been going on right under their noses for so long.

Alex paused, if some one was able to go around their systems unnoticed for so long, then it meant that they would be able to access anything unnoticed for a long amount of time. There was a reason they were caught out. "Okay, I'll be right down." He said eventually. Friday sucked.

V

Thirteen years ago Raphael had made a decision that had changed his life. He liked to think for the better, but thinking back he may not have gone about it the right way. No, he thought to himself, more assassins would have been sent after him, and he would have been added to the list. His decision had saved both of their lives, but still, he regretted getting involved in the first place.

She was going to hate him. He knew that she would, he couldn't help thinking that he could have done things differently, could have maybe warned her. Oh well, that was in the past, what was important was that he went about things the right way this time. She was going to hate him though.

V

Light streamed through the bedroom window, and fell across the bed, it was this that alerted Chakotay to the fact that it was morning. He felt the warmth of the sun on his face and opened his eyes. There was a moment where his mind was totally free from all thoughts, and then suddenly it hit him, and he remembered the events of that night.

Kathryn was no longer in bed with him, and a feeling of déja vous confronted him, before he realised that he really had been in the same situation before; falling asleep next to her and then waking up with her already gone.

Lying on his back he closed his eyes and recalled the memories of that night, not wanting to leave the bed, because he knew that as soon as he did he would have to confront Kathryn again, and she would ignore him again. He couldn't go on like this.

The bedroom was much larger than the captain's bedroom had been on voyager, and comfortably accommodated a double wardrobe, double bed and sofa. To the side of the room there was a window which overlooked various buildings, and streets. There were large glass doors that led out onto a balcony a few metres from the foot of the bed. The curtains had already been opened, and Chakotay was able to look out onto the beautiful Starfleet gardens.

He was almost lost in the landscape when he heard the door open, he looked across to see Kathryn. She was wrapped in a silk dressing gown, that hung elegantly over her body. She smiled, "you're awake," she walked over the sofa and sat down, placing a mug of coffee on the table in front.

He didn't know what to say, he just smiled; happy that she wasn't ignoring him.

"Beautiful view isn't it?" she looked out of the glass doors, he followed her gaze, "star fleet's way of asking me to stay."

He looked back across at her, "not that you'd actually consider leaving," he smiled fully displaying his dimples.

"I know, but don't tell them that, I like a room with a view," she joked.

He liked this, she was talking to him, smiling with him, but in-between the smiles he noticed her face flicker. She was troubled by something, but he didn't know what, afraid that it was him that was troubling her he didn't want to ask what was wrong. But he knew that he was going to.

"Anything wrong?" he asked, sobering.

Damn it! She thought. He had a habit of doing that; no matter how much she tried to conceal what was troubling her, he would always figure out that there was something. The trouble was that she couldn't tell him, and she wished that she could. "No," she lied, although it wasn't very convincing. She walked over to the bed and climbed over to him, sitting beside him, "there's nothing wrong," she added, slightly more convincingly.

He put an arm around her shoulders, she would tell him when she felt like it, he decided. He put his other arm around to embrace her, kissing her cheek. Kathryn turned her head to face him, and smiled tenderly at him, he couldn't help noticing that her eyes were not fully included in the smile and instead looked worried. Before he could enquire further she was kissing him, and he totally forgot what he was going to say.

End of chapter 3.