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C/7 bad shakes head

J/C good nods head

Chapter 12: Cruising for a bruising

B'Elanna was one of his most trusted friends. There was a time when he thought that he would be able to tell Kathryn anything, to confide in her anything that was troubling him or on his mind, but now even the possibility of such a thing would not even enter his thoughts. B'Elanna and Chakotay had returned to the table in silence, and remained quite silent for the duration of dinner. Tom would probably ask B'Elanna what her and Chakotay had talked about once they were alone, but Chakotay was confident that she would not tell him.

Seven and Chakotay had stayed in contact since they had broken up, but it was the first time since the 'welcome home' banquet that they had actually spoken face to face. He was surprised at how he had no feelings towards her, no thoughts of if only he had done this or that, or of resentment. It was a good feeling to have that kind of closure, but then when he thought about it, it was never as if they had been in love, and so there weren't any deep feelings that had been formed or broken since they split.

His break up with Kathryn had shaken him quite deeply though. Once he had been let out of the hospital he felt numb. It was the first time, in a long time, that he had had such a feeling; the emotions that he had been put through over those weeks had shaken him, not changed him, but he felt empty. Suddenly the idea of captaining Voyager seemed wrong, and one of the first things that he did was to tell Starfleet to find another Captain for the position. He was no longer sure of his feelings towards Kathryn, he had spent so many years loving her, and then when she began to return that love he found out what had happened on New Earth and felt betrayed by her.

So he had packed a bag, gotten on a transport ship and left. He didn't know exactly where he was going, but for the first time in Seven years he did not want to be on Earth, he didn't want to return to his home planet either, so he travelled until he found a recently colonized moon that was rich in an untouched landscape. There, he had explored by himself, something that he had not done for many years. He spent much of his time meditating, and after some time he managed to clear his mind and sort out his life from inside of his head.

Chakotay approached the bar. It had been bugging him all evening, he was sure that it was him, but wasn't sure that he should speak to him, just in case it wasn't. In the end he decided that he would go over and speak to him, being careful not to drop any hint of how he might know the man, just in case the resemblance was just coincidence. The man looked up at him, "do I know you?" Chakotay asked, watching the man's face to give him the answer.

The man looked back down at the book he was reading, "take a seat, and don't talk too loudly," he instructed. Hearing the man's voice, and watching his reaction made it blatantly obvious to him that it was the same man that had helped rescue him from the facility.

Chakotay sat on a stall at the bar, looking about. He saw B'Elanna and the others talking intensely amongst themselves, and so thought that there couldn't be any harm in sitting down for a quick chat. "You helped me out of that place I was being held in," he wasn't guessing, but was now thinking twice about approaching the man. "I just wanted to say thank you."

Raphael nodded, "don't thank me, I do that kind of thing everyday," he said, with out taking his eyes off the page that he was reading. Finally he looked up, "my name's Raphael Correlli," he introduced himself at last, "I work for intelligence."

"Nice to meet you," Chakotay tried a friendly approach.

Finally he looked up from his book, placed a book mark in-between the pages and placed it on the bar table. "You ever met her son?" Raphael lifted his glass and took a drink.

"Kathryn's," Chakotay was a little taken aback by the question, "no, I only found out about him over two months ago."

"He's a great kid," Raphael went on, "from what I've heard of you, you'd probably get on with him quite well. He's a great judge of character, a lot like his mother, he takes people as individuals, not groups." Raphael paused, "he hates me, and if you knew why you would hate me too."

"Why does he hate you?"

"Long story," he pushed the question to one side, "but if you hurt Kathryn he will hold it against you for a very long time."

"What are you trying to say?"

Raphael paused, "I'm not exactly sure what you two broke up about, I don't really want to know either, but I know that Kathryn loves you. Have you ever thought that maybe while your hurting from what ever she did, maybe she's hurting from you totally avoiding her?"

"I don't see that this is any of your business," Chakotay was about to get up from the stool.

Raphael put a hand of Chakotay's shoulder, his grip was strong and Chakotay knew that it may take a lot of force to remove the hand from his shoulder, which may or may not result in a fight, but he wasn't willing to take the risk. Chakotay gave Raphael a fierce look, but remained sitting. "What I'm trying to say," Raphael said in a retrained voice, "I let Kathryn go and I have never forgiven myself, you still have a chance with her, don't screw it up. What ever happened, is it really worth losing her for?"

"You're right," said Chakotay as he stood, "you don't know why we broke up." Without any further exchange of words he left to join his friends at the table.

V

(Two weeks later)

Chakotay made his way up the gravel path towards the house, he wasn't even sure that she would be there, he wasn't even sure if this was the right house. Getting closer to the house with light blaring out of the windows, he wasn't sure if he wanted to go there at all. Well he had come this far, he told himself, it was probably too late to turn back now anyway.

He went up to the door and rang the bell. The house was several hundred years old, it had once been a farm house, but there was no longer a farm that was run from the house. He remembered stories that Kathryn had told him about her life in Indiana, although they were usually of how her parents had forced her to do something that they knew she hated, he knew that to some degree she was glad that she had done them. He thought of ringing the bell a second time when he heard a sliding of a lock, and saw the handle go down.

"Hello," enquired an older woman.

This was the right house, he decided, the woman had to be Kathryn's mother Gretchen. Chakotay noticed how alike she was to Kathryn, and shared even more of a resemblance to the Admiral Janeway that had brought voyager back home. He smiled at her, "hi," he greeted her, "I'm here on the off chance that Kathryn is here."

The woman studied Chakotay, then smiled at him, "you must be Chakotay?"

"Yes," obviously Kathryn had mentioned him to her.

"I'm her embracing old mother Gretchen," she introduced her self, her smile faded briefly, "I'll just go and get her," she said, disappearing back inside.

It seemed for ever that Chakotay was waiting at the door, there was some kind of hold up, and he began to think that he'd be standing by the door forever. Eventually he heard distinct footsteps approaching the door. The door swung open, Kathryn stood in front of him, looking very puzzled. "Chakotay!" she exclaimed, before walking out onto the porch, leaving the door a jar, "what are you doing here?"

"I just needed to speak with you," he replied.

She furrowed her eyebrows, "about what? Has something happened?"

"No," he smiled a little, "I just thought that we should talk."

She grabbed him by the elbow, and took him down the short steps that led up to the front door, letting go of him, she walked in a direction to the side of the house, he followed automatically. "You came to talk!" she didn't sound to happy, "after you've been ignoring all of my calls for the past two and a half months, doing everything possible to avoid me, and you come here to my mother's house totally unexpected, without any warning, to talk!"

"Yes," he admitted, "is this a bad time?" he asked as they both sat down on a bench.

"A little," she admitted, getting over the shock of having Chakotay suddenly appear at her front door. "How did you know I was here?"

"Tuvok hinted that you might be," he shrugged.

"Out of all the people that you think you can trust to keep it quiet," she smiled a little, as she half joked, and was half annoyed that Tuvok had said where she was, especially to Chakotay.

"If it's a bad time then I can come back later," he offered, standing from the bench.

"No," she slouched back on the bench, "I'm glad for the break," he looked at her as if to ask what she meant, and so went on to explain, "family squabble, I guess I should thank you, you saved me from the vultures that can be my family."

Chakotay laughed lightly, sitting back down. "Family squabble, who else is here?"

"My sister Phoebe amongst others," she relaxed slightly, "so what did you want to talk about?"

"I'm not sure really," he said facing her, then breathed deeply, "I guess, once I stopped hating you, I realised that I still love you, even after everything. To be honest I'm not exactly sure why I'm here, I just didn't like the way that we parted-" he trailed off and looked away, "maybe I just want some sort of closure, pick up the pieces of what's left of our friendship, or maybe-" he looked across at her deeply, his eyes locking with hers, "maybe try again at a relationship with you."

She looked down, "do you think that we could do that, after everything that has happened?"

"I don't know," he paused, "but what I do know is that I think about you constantly, and I love you more than I have any other woman. We have something, and if I let it go with out at least trying, I don't think that I would ever forgive myself."

He waited for her reply but she still looked away from him, at the house in front. Slowly she turned and he saw that she had tears in her eyes, he smiled faintly at her, bringing his hand up to her cheek where he wiped away a tear with his thumb. He moved his body closer to hers, putting an arm around her, "you'd think a Starfleet Admiral should be able to control her emotions," she joked.

"I think this time an exception can be made," he softly retorted. "Who's Raphael?" he asked at last.

He felt Kathryn take a deep breath, "ex-husband," she said almost casually, "irreconcilable differences."

"What was so irreconcilable?"

"A year of non-stop arguing and two affairs later we were filing for divorce," she shrugged.

"He cheated on you?"

Kathryn looked a little guilty, "not him, no," she shook her head.

Their conversation was disrupted by the sound of the front door swinging open, they looked up to see a figure walk out onto the porch. Slowly the figure made it's way in their direction. Chakotay could see it was a young man, maybe in his twenties. Although it was getting dark, he could still make out his dark brown hair getting lighter at the edges, and hansom face. Kathryn disentangled herself from Chakotay and stood. "Dinner's just been served," he told Kathryn with a semi-strong British accent.

"Okay," Kathryn nodded, "Tad, this is Chakotay," Chakotay stood and smiled at Kathryn's son, "Chakotay, this is my son Tobias." She introduced them both.

Politely they both shock hands, "nice to finally put a face to the name," his smile friendly and genuine. "Um, if you want you can stay for dinner, it's my sister's birthday, but she won't care." Realising the look that Chakotay gave Kathryn he decided that it was best to make an exit, "I have no, 'none lame excuse' to get out of this situation, so I think that I'll just go," and he walked quickly away from the two of them.

Once he had disappeared back inside the house Chakotay decided to speak, "Sister?" he questioned.

She shook her head, "like so many things it's a very long story. I'll explain after dinner." she promised, "That is if you want to stay for dinner?"

"I think I'd better if I'm ever going to get the full story off of you," he smiled. Grabbing him by the hand she lead him towards the door to the house.

As soon as he stepped into the house, he realised how cold it had been outside. He heard voices and people laughing from the other end of the house, and they became louder as they walked through the hallway.

She lead him through into the dining room, with a large wooden table in the centre. Most of them looked round when they both entered, "you'd think they'd never seen a marquis before," she muttered to him under her breath. "Everyone this is Chakotay," she introduced him, "he was my first officer from voyager." She went on to introduce the rest of the table, "You've already met Alex Kemp," Chakotay nodded, "these are two of his sons Luke and Riley," she pointed out a young man the same age as Tad and a much younger one of about ten. "My sister Phoebe, her husband David, and my niece Jessica," she pointed out a young girl sitting on Phoebe's lap.

"Nice to finally meet you," Phoebe smiled.

Kathryn looked round, "where's Flic?"

"Her boyfriend just called to say happy birthday," Luke told her, "she'll be ages," he added.

Tad and Kathryn's mother Gretchen emerged from the kitchen with plates and bowls of food. They set them down on the table, as Kathryn indicated a seat for Chakotay to sit at. "You're vegetarian as well aren't you?" Gretchen asked Chakotay.

"Yes," he answered. "As well?" he turned to Kathryn.

"Tad," she answered quickly.

Just as she said his name he could hear her son calling for Felicity to come down for dinner. Within moments a young woman appeared at the dining room door. Kathryn summoned her daughter over, "Chakotay, this is my daughter Felicity."

"It's nice to meet you Felicity," Chakotay was almost taken aback by how much she looked like Kathryn, but smiled pleasantly.

"Please call me Flic, people only call me Felicity when they're telling me off or cruising for a bruising," Gretchen coughed, "or they happen to be called Grams," she laughed. Her accent, Chakotay noted, was very much American, unlike Tad's own British accent.

Again Felicity smiled and walked over to her place at the table.

Chakotay turned to Kathryn, "how old is she?" he asked.

"Twenty at five o'clock this morning," Kathryn pulled a face, "I was up all night giving birth to her," she added.

"Tobias is twenty five?"

"Twenty four-"

"And a half," Tad added, grinning broadly.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Kathryn began with mock sarcasm, "I wrote the invitations for this conversation and I can't remember your name being down."

Tad shook his head, "I shouldn't need an invitation, I'm your only son and favourite child," he said loud enough for Felicity to hear.

"I am here you know!" Felicity punched her brother playfully in the upper arm.

"Felicity are you really going to eat all of that?" Gretchen's voice broke their conversation. Everyone looked over at where Felicity was sitting, and saw a plate piled with food.

"Relax Grams, if I can't manage it all Tad'll eat it, won't you Tad?" she looked to her brother for support.

"No!," he turned away from the argument, and started speaking to Luke.

"You'll have to ignore my crazy family," Kathryn apologised to Chakotay.

Chakotay smiled at her, "you haven't met mine yet," he dismissed the apology.

V

End of chapter 12.