Disclaimer: Star trek voyager belongs to paramount. I would write something vaguely witty but I really can't be bothered.

This chapter I have spent the most time editing out of all of the chapters so far, because the conversation with Janeway and Chakotay needed a lot of work on it. I'm still not completely happy with it, but I'm probably not going to do any more work on the main structure of this chapter because it may drive me insane.

V

Chapter 10: Revelations

Kathryn paced from one side of the waiting room to the other, agitated, and finding it unable to sit still. She couldn't stand waiting like this, it was her fault that Chakotay had been taken, the guilt she would feel if she lost him like this. Shut up! She told herself, he's going to be fine. But still she paced the waiting room.

Raphael walked in with a mug, he approached Kathryn and handed it to her. She gave him a weak smile, "thank you," she said, "not just for the coffee."

"No need to thank me," he sat down, "I'm just happy you're not still giving me the cold shoulder."

"Only because I'm too worried about my best friend to be angry with you," she quipped.

He nodded, looking down at the floor. She continued pacing, drinking coffee as she did so.

"Have you seen Flic since you came back?" he asked.

She stopped pacing, and almost glared at Raphael, but relaxed a little before she spoke, "yes," she sipped some more coffee, "we had lunch some weeks ago," pausing slightly she continued, "but it was like having lunch with a complete stranger- we are strangers to one another! She can hardly remember me, and she's grown so much since I last saw her that I wouldn't have known it was her if it wasn't for the pictures my mother sent me."

Raphael again looked at the floor, not liking the fact that he was to blame for Kathryn hardly knowing her daughter. "She would often ask about you." he started.

"I don't want to talk about it," Kathryn interjected.

"We're going have to some time you know," Raphael pointed out, his voice a little harsher than he meant it, but he was getting frustrated with Kathryn's evasion of the subject. A Borg cube and responsibility of a star ship for seven years she could handle, but as soon as it became personal.

"Okay then," Kathryn started a little impatiently, "what do you want to say? What do you want me to say? Do you want me to forgive you?"

"Kathryn don't be like this." he stood from his seat and tried to reason with her.

She cut him off "do you want me to apologise? Okay, I'm sorry that I never loved you, I'm sorry that you took my daughter away from me, I'm sorry that I ever had anything to do with you-"

"Are you?" he closed the distance between them in a single stride. She pulled herself up to her full height, and managed to stretch a little extra, and looked up into his face. "Are you sorry that you ever had anything to do with me?" his voice was quiet and gentle, she felt his hand gently hold her upper arm, but didn't reject it. "It wasn't all bad you know," he tilted his head as she relaxed a little in his grasp. Slowly he moved his hand to rest on her waist, and moved his body closer to her own.

"Raphael," she said in a quiet, husky voice realising that he was trying to seduce her, "it wouldn't work," she swallowed back years of memories of being with the man in front of her, remembering his touch, his kiss, how well they had worked together, and the look that he used to give her, telling her that he would follower her anywhere. "I don't hate you like I did when I found out," she rested a hand on his chest, putting a little distance between them both, "but I don't love you either," she looked up at him, waiting for a response.

"And I never loved you enough to make it work," he nodded, understanding what she was saying. He released her and walked over to a seat, "if Chakotay ever hurts you in anyway," he said eventually, "I can easily get him killed, all you have to do it ask."

Kathryn laughed, "I won't, but thanks anyway," she walked over to the seat next to him and sat herself down.

"Admiral Paris is going to have a fit when he gets in this morning," Raphael leaned back in his chair.

"The thing about being an admiral is," Kathryn smiled for the first time in a while, "a court-martial means a captaincy in most cases, which isn't too bad."

Raphael smiled also, "unless you get chucked thousands of light years away from home," he pointed out.

Kathryn was about to say something more when the door opened. Speak of the devil, they both turned to see Admiral Paris standing in the door way.

"Owen," Kathryn said with a start. He didn't look too happy.

He glared at her, "mind telling me why you couldn't have waited for authorisation?" he asked, crossing his arms.

"Authorisation would have taken days, we needed to get Chakotay out of there quickly."

"And because of your rashness," Paris came close to bellowing, "a terrorist, that intelligence has been looking for, for close to twenty years has escaped."

"With all due respect Admiral," Kathryn didn't like being undermined, not even by her mentor, "he was long gone by the time we entered the facility, a few days to get authorisation would have given him more time to find out that we planned to raid the facility, and more time to escape."

"Admiral," Paris was still angry, "I could quite easily have you court- martialled."

Kathryn was about to retort, when the door opened again, they all looked round, this time to see a doctor standing in the doorway. "How is he?" Kathryn asked quickly, walking towards the man.

"Stable," the doctor answered her, the two of them left the waiting room, leaving Owen Paris a little gob smacked a having being forgotten about, and Raphael sitting tensely knowing that he was next to feel the Admiral's wrath.

They began to walk down the corridor. "It's dangerous to initiate MRT after so many years," doctor Urwin began to explain, "but I think he should be fine."

"Should be?" Kathryn started.

"There's a chance that he could go into shock. I wouldn't recommend suppressing his memories again. I've had to finish off the job that someone already started, he's already regained the majority of his suppressed memories, but he is understandably confused at the moment." The doctor paused outside a door, "I understand that you may have been apart of many of the memories he has regained."

"Yes," she said rather defensively.

"Then his best chance, is if you reassure him that he isn't going mad," the doctor smiled.

Kathryn nodded, but didn't say anything. Doctor Urwin pushed the door that they were standing by open, and they walked inside.

The room was white, as many rooms in intelligence often where. Medical equipment lay randomly around, and a console stood near to the centre of the room at the bottom end of a bed. In the bed Kathryn saw Chakotay lying unconscious. Even in such a fragile state he still appeared strong and in control. His eyes moved beneath his eyelids to indicate that he was dreaming, Kathryn's immediate instinct was go to him, but she restrained himself.

"He's asleep," the doctor stated the obvious, "but, maybe you would like to stay with him for a while, talk to him if he wakes."

Kathryn nodded vaguely that she had heard him, before the doctor left the room. She immediately made towards the bed, and sat down by his side, taking one of his hands in her own and squeezing it gently.

Almost immediately Chakotay woke. "How are you?" she asked softly, moving herself closer to him.

Slowly he looked around the room, "where am I?" he asked, finally returning his gaze to her.

"You're in hospital," she said, purposely not mentioning that it was an intelligence hospital.

Chakotay propped himself up onto his elbows, eventually leaning against his headboard for support. "How long have I been here?"

"Six hours or so," Kathryn smiled at him, but he didn't return the smile.

He nodded slowly, "what happened?" he asked an inevitable question.

She looked away from him, and then sighed heavily. "It's a long story," she place a hand on his, but he realised that she was purposefully being evasive and wasn't going to give up that easily.

"I'm not exactly going anywhere," he pointed out.

She nodded accepting her defeat. "Thirteen years ago, while I was on vacation, on a shuttle, I ran into some trouble. I was distracted at the con, and I'm not sure exactly what happened, as I wasn't in the room at the time, but when I went back there, there was a terrorist lying on the floor unconscious. When the man came to, it was discovered that his entire memory had been swiped, and in my rashness to find out what had happened I used a process called MRT on him," she swallowed hard, "memory revival therapy is not suitable for all people, and as a result the man was left permanently brain damaged. That man was the brother of a very lethal terrorist, Paul, or at least that's one of his alias'.

"This process of MRT was used on me?" Chakotay asked.

Kathryn nodded, "Paul hoped that you might also be left brain damaged if he used MRT on you, as some sort of poetic justice for my mistake. Fortunately it doesn't seem to have done that."

Chakotay cut in, "so, they're real?" he looked deeply at her, "these memories that I suddenly have."

"About New Earth?"

"Yes. They're real," she confirmed for him.

Chakotay looked away from her, "what did you do to me?" she could tell that he was in pain from what she had done, even though his voice didn't show it.

"I suppressed your memories of what happened between the two of us on the planet, and adjusted your memories so that you wouldn't know that we had ever been intimate."

"Why?" this time the hurt and disappointment in his voice came through much clearer.

"I didn't know what else to do," she tried to defend her actions, "I knew that a relationship between the two of us on voyager would never work, and it would have been too awkward to go back to voyager and go on as if nothing had happened."

"So you erased my memories to make it easier for yourself!" His voice had an edge to it. He was usually very calm and collect, but there had been times on voyager when he would become aggressive in his views, or approach to people he felt were a threat. It was one of the things that had first attracted her to him; he was emotionally available, but strong and confident, which made him well respected by both Starfleet and Marquis crews. It annoyed her though when he would impose any form of authority on her; stopped her from doing something, or made clear his objections to her actions. But at the same time she respected him for doing so.

Realising, that he may begin to lose his calm exterior, she tried to sooth him. She touched his arm but he pulled it away, "I'm sorry," she said, realising that there was no defence for her actions.

Chakotay collected himself, calming himself down, not wanting to lose his temper with her. He didn't like to argue with Kathryn, and realised, that arguing wouldn't solve anything anyway. So he concentrated on his own breathing, as he did so often while meditating. "Have I got any more suppressed memories?" he asked, calmly, but without looking at her.

"No," she said, "memory retrieval therapy exposes all suppressed memories, although there are certain memory suppressing methods that can deceive the therapy, but that time on New Earth was the only time that I altered any of your memories."

He sighed heavily, she had no reason to lie to him now, it was all out in the open anyway. Chakotay smiled a little spite himself, when he thought that all of those years he had dreamt of being with Kathryn, when he had actually had a relationship with her, but just couldn't remember it. It hurt to think that she didn't want him to remember their relationship on New Earth, didn't trust him enough even, to allow him to keep his own memories. He was so angry with her, but in some strange way he understood why she had done what she had done, although he didn't agree with it.

"You said that you had a son," he recounted in his head what she had said to him on New Earth.

"Yes, Tobias," she smiled, a little relieved that she wouldn't have to tell him all over again.

"You were on vacation with Tobias and your daughter when this incident happened, your daughter was killed." Suddenly he wanted reassurance that everything that he could remember was true.

She nodded slowly, "we don't have to talk about that now," it was a decision not a suggestion.

What Paul had said to him still haunted him. He didn't want to believe it, but a large part of him did. "Paul said some things to me while I was captive, I'm not sure if he was trying to wind me up, by playing mind games, but I have to ask."

"Yes," she encouraged him to say what was troubling him, although she furrowed her eyebrows in confusion at what it could be.

"He said that, a while after we had returned to voyager from New Earth, you found out that you were pregnant. He says that there are medical logs showing that you had an abortion." He knew the answer before she said anything, he knew her well enough to realise that.

She looked away from him and nodded slowly, "I didn't know at the time I altered your memories, I found out some weeks later. If I had have known-."

"But voyager came first!" his voice suddenly hard and blunt.

She looked back round at him, and seeing the hurt in his face she almost cried, but years of training had taught her to control emotions, to bury them, and deal with them at a more convenient time. Years aboard voyager had taught her how to do that. She suddenly resented voyager for what she had become, and what she had done, for forcing her to make such decisions.

"I think that you should go," Chakotay was unpleasant in the way he said it, but restrained, as if he felt like saying a lot more on the matter.

Unlike herself, Kathryn nodded and got up from the side of his bed. With a last look at him she left the room, they both knew that their brief relationship was over.

V

End of chapter 10.

I'm not going to get into a debate over pro-life and pro-choice, I'm a writer not a politician, this is what I've written and I'm sorry if you don't like it.

Thanks again for reading.