Star Trek Voyager characters are the property of Paramount Pictures.

CHAPTER ONE

REGAINING YESTERDAY
Part One

2377

It was almost 21:00 hours and Chakotay stopped off at his captain's quarters to say goodnight before retiring for the night himself. Kathryn was still incapacitated following her partial assimilation by the Borg and had only been released from sickbay on the promise that she would stay in bed and rest. Chakotay had kept her company as much as he could, but with her off duty, the responsibility for running Voyager fell on his shoulders, and for the past week, very little time had been his own.

Using his override privileges, Chakotay entered Kathryn's quarters, and then called out to her from the living room.

"Alright if I come in?"

Kathryn's voice answered. "Sure, Chakotay. I'm decent."

He went inside and sighed when he saw that she was sitting up in bed, working at a monitor. She was meant to be resting completely.

"Impeccable timing," she smiled. "I'm going through the ship's systems and..."

She stopped as Chakotay took the monitor away from her.

"The Doctor said complete rest."

"But..."

"You can review the ship's systems when you're better. Complete rest means no work."

Kathryn curled her lip, part in frustration, part in amusement. "Spoil sport."

He put the monitor down on the table beside her bed and then pulled out a padd from his pocket.

"But here's something you can read instead. Letters from home."

Kathryn took the padd hesitantly.

"They arrived just an hour ago. Seven is checking them all. There's four for you." He paused. "One from Starfleet Command."

Their eyes met in mutual concern. This was the first communication from Starfleet Command since Kathryn had told them she had merged the Maquis crew with her own and had made Chakotay her First Officer.

Kathryn lowered her eyes and stared at the padd. Chakotay watched her. He knew how worried she was, worried that Starfleet would not approve. After a moment she activated the padd and began to read...

From the look on her face, Chakotay could tell it was not good news. "Well?"

Kathryn looked up at him, her eyes heavy. "They say that, given our circumstances, I made the right decision."

He knew there was more. "But?"

"In the eyes of the Federation, you and the other Maquis are still outlaws." She paused. "Admiral Paris says it's likely that because of your dedicated service on this ship you'll be looked upon kindly, but when we get back to Earth, you'll all have to stand trial and account for your actions."

A sadness filled Chakotay's eyes and he averted them.

"We always knew that was a likelihood," he said quietly.

Kathryn reached for his hand, wanting to comfort him, wanting to connect with him. But, as soon as her fingers touched his, he withdrew his hand. When he looked up at her, the pain in his eyes knifed her heart.

"Well, I ... I'd better leave you to rest."

"Chakotay," she protested...

"Goodnight, Captain."

With that he turned around and walked away, leaving her alone.


The night was long. Chakotay lay on his couch in his quarters and gazed vacantly at the stars flying by at warp speed. He knew now, without a doubt, that Kathryn could never be his. He had been a fool to ever think they could have a future together. They came from different worlds. Hers was Starfleet and his was ... he didn't even know what his was. He never had. He had always been torn between his tribe and the world beyond. As a child his eyes had been drawn to the stars. He had dreamt of being amongst them, of escaping his world and exploring new ones. He had defied his father to follow that dream, but the hurt he had left behind, the guilt he had felt at that hurt, had overshadowed any joy he found in his new existence. And when his family was killed by the Cardassians, the guilt then was too much to bear. He should have been there to fight with his father. He should have been there to die with his family. Joining the Maquis was the only way he could begin to deal with that guilt. At least then he felt he was doing something to avenge their deaths. But while in battle he found satisfaction, his soul still longed for peace.

It was only on Voyager that he finally began to find peace. By putting Kathryn's needs before his own, and helping her shoulder the overbearing burden of getting the crew home, he had found an unexpected contentment. He had also found himself falling deeply in love with her. Deeper than he had ever thought love could be. His relationships with women in the past had been largely physical and served a mutual end. But with Kathryn it was different. He just wanted to be with her, to love her, to protect her, and he couldn't imagine how wonderful it would be just to hold her in his arms.

And yet, as pure and unselfish as his love was, it hurt him. He read somewhere that all true love calls for love in return and he wanted her to love him. He wanted it so much that the longing had become a steady ache in his heart. But while he had once fooled himself into thinking they could have a future together, he knew now it had all been wishful thinking. Even if she did love him, and he didn't really know what her feelings were towards him, a future together would be impossible. She was a Starfleet Captain and he was an ex-Maquis, an outlaw. When they got back to Earth, she would be hailed as a heroine and he would put on trial for criminal activities. Their worlds could never be one. It was only here, on Voyager, that those two worlds could momentarily collide. To ask for her love would be to ask her to be less than what she was. It would be asking her to jeopardize everything she had worked her entire life for as becoming involved with him could only earn her the disrespect and scorn of her superiors and fellow Starfleet captains. He loved her too much to even contemplate that.

Suddenly an eerie blue strip of light shone before him. Chakotay turned to it, unsure whether he was awake or dreaming. The light extended upwards and then a human form materialized. Chakotay gasped when he saw that human form was an older version of himself. He was wearing a padded black jacket that made him look weightier than he was and his hair was gray.

"Don't be alarmed," the old man said as Chakotay stood up. "I'm from the future. I'm here to help you change it."

There was such a humble sincerity about the man before him that Chakotay found himself believing him. Or at least wanting too.

"How did you get here?"

"I stole a temporal deflector," the man said honestly. "My ship is pursuing Voyager but is cloaked so it won't be detected. I don't want anyone else to know I'm here."

Chakotay stepped away from him. "If you're really me, then you'll know how I feel about temporal violations."

"Yes," the older man replied, "but a small violation now will prevent a greater one in the future, a violation that will have devastating consequences."

Chakotay swallowed. "Are you saying I will violate the temporal prime directive in the future?"

"No," the old man answered. "Kathryn will."

The older-self saw pain fill the eyes of his younger-self.

"I see," Chakotay replied quietly. Knowing Kathryn aswell as he did, that was not hard to believe. "And you're here to help me stop that?"

"Yes," he replied.

There was a moment of silence. "What does she do?"

"She travels back in time to try and get Voyager home sooner. I'm not going to give you all the details, or how exactly we got home, but I'll give you this. In the original timeline, the journey from the Caretaker's array to the Alpha Quadrant took twenty three years. Voyager received a triumphant welcome and Kathryn was made an Admiral. But there were many casualties, many tragedies. Amongst other things, Seven was killed, and Tuvok went insane from a degenerative neurological disease. Kathryn went back in time to prevent all that and in about a year from now, you'll be visited by Admiral Janeway. She'll bring future technology and a plan that will get you home sooner. After Admiral Janeway tells Kathryn what's going to happen, Kathryn agrees to use her technology and follow her plan, thinking getting the crew home earlier will make things better. But it won't. It will only make them a thousand times worse. Things will go well for a while, and Kathryn will even be promoted to Admiral, but then it will be one disaster after another. Tom and B'Elanna will be killed in a shuttle crash and Samantha and Naomi will drown in a boating accident. The mind-meld that Tuvok thinks will cure him won't as it's nothing but superstition and a temporary relief from the symptoms. The Doctor will eventually find a cure, but Tuvok will die before it can be given to him."

The old man reached into his pocket and pulled out a padd.

"I've downloaded the cure for you so you can program the Doctor to discover it."

He handed Chakotay the padd.

"The future I am from should never have happened. It was a mistake, everything was a mistake from the moment we went along with the Admiral's plans...even before."

He then began speaking in the past tense, recounting his own experience.

"Thirty four years ago...six years into your future... the Borg launched an assault on the Federation that was an indirect consequence of ... let's just say the way Voyager got home. If the Admiral had never traveled back in time, the chain of events leading to that attack would never have happened. It was a devastating attack and millions of people were assimilated. Kathryn played a part in the defense of the Federation, but in her desperation to defeat the Borg, she employed a lot of unorthodox methods, methods that served us well in the Delta Quadrant but had no place in the Federation. Public opinion turned against her and she became the Federation's scapegoat for what happened. She lost her rank and was sentenced to eight years imprisonment."

The old man turned to the window and gazed out into the blackness of space.

"I couldn't believe how someone could go from such popularity to such infamy and couldn't believe how much she had been made to suffer. I went to visit her in prison, but she would never see me. She wouldn't see any of us. But I never gave up. When she was released, I went to see her in Indiana. She was so thin, so pale, and already so changed. She said it was all her fault, that she should have defied the Admiral, that this future wasn't meant to happen. I tried to tell her that it wasn't her fault, tried to relieve some of the guilt that was killing her, told her that she wasn't the Admiral and that we were all to blame in different ways. But she wouldn't listen."

He paused, his trembling voice the only indicator of whatever emotion he was feeling.

"I told her I loved her, that we could make a life together on Trebus away from everyone and everything. But she didn't want to know. She just shut me out. I tried to help her, did everything I could, but she just withdrew more and more into herself and then one day she was gone. She took a shuttle and disappeared."

The old man turned back to his younger self. "I did everything I could to find her, searched for over three years. But to no avail. It wasn't until the area of space she had escaped to came under threat of war that her sister told Starfleet Command where she had gone. I ... you ... headed the mission to find her, but the woman you found was not the woman you loved." He paused. "I did everything I could to make her stay with me, everything, but she had been on her own for so long that she could survive no other way. And she didn't even say goodbye...The only goodbye I got was this letter."

The old man again reached into his pocket and pulled out the letter. It was crumpled and creased, and the corners were worn.

Chakotay took the letter and began to read. His heart cracked at Kathryn's words.

"But even then I couldn't give up on her...I just couldn't. I returned my crew to Deep Space Nine and then went in search of her in a shuttle. I searched for months, everywhere I could think of. But I couldn't find it... couldn't find a trace." He paused. "Nine years later her shuttle was found by a Klingon explorer. Kathryn was..." He struggled to say the words... " She was found dead inside, lying on a couch, her beloved bird under her arm. The shuttle's heating system had failed and she had frozen to death."

The old man stepped closer to the younger.

"You can't let that happen again," he said. "You have to stop it."

Chakotay looked up at him, the temporal prime directive forgotten. "Just tell me how."

"Tell her that you love her."

Chakotay flinched.

"It's the only way," his older-self continued. "You have to tell her how you feel..."

Chakotay stepped away from him, thought chasing thought in his mind. "And you expect me to believe that would change everything?"

"Yes! If you tell her how you feel, everything will happen differently... There'll be no Admiral Janeway from the future, no conflict with the Borg...Nothing will be the same..."

"How?" Chakotay cried. "How will telling her change anything?"

"Because if you're together, it will all happen differently..."

Chakotay almost scoffed. "Together? She's not interested in a relationship with me...with us!"

"And how do you know that? You've never asked her."

"She knows already how I feel about her. If she wanted a relationship, she would ask me."

"No. No she doesn't know how you feel," the older man said. "How can she? You've never told her. Sure, you gave her that ancient legend when you were on New Earth four years ago, but that was at a time when she wasn't ready, and you've not once told her how you feel since."

"There would be no point! She believes we'll get the crew home soon. As long as she believes that, she'll never contemplate a relationship with me."

"You're wrong, and you're totally underestimating Kathryn..." He paused. "I know you, I know you better than you know yourself. You've always thought that Kathryn would come to you if she wanted you, that time was all she needed. But she never did and then, today, you hear from Starfleet Command that you'll be put on trial when you get home. You think that changes everything. While you were still lost out here, decades away from home, you thought there was a chance for you. But now getting home seems a real possibility, you think she'll be better off without you."

Chakotay shivered and turned away from him at the truth of those words.

"But you're wrong, so wrong. Without any temporal violations it may be years before you get home, but even if you get home sooner, you'll be welcomed as heroes and your trials will be no more than hollow procedure. You'll be exonerated and even invited to rejoin Starfleet. By living in fear of a future that may never happen, you're creating a worse one."

The older-self watched the younger-self and knew that despite his rigid exterior, inside he was in turmoil.

"Even if we don't get home for another sixteen years," Chakotay said at last, "we're in regular communication with Starfleet now. She would have to tell them about a relationship between us and God knows what that would do to her reputation. It would be bad enough if I was her First Officer, but as her prisoner... I can't ask it of her."

"You've got too... You have to change the future..."

Chakotay turned to him now. "And I don't believe this is the only way. I don't believe that for a moment..."

"Then start believing it... There is no other way..."

"Then we'll have to find one."

"But..."

"Look, I know you want to help," Chakotay said handing Kathryn's letter back to his older-self, "but your judgment is clouded by time. Things are never quite as we remember them. The Kathryn that wrote that letter was a different Kathryn to the one here now on Voyager. She was an older Kathryn looking back on a lonely life. We always think we would do things differently if we could go back and do them again, but we often forget why we did those things in the first place."

Tears welled in the old man's eyes. For years he had been planning this mission, years. And now it looked like his efforts would all be in vain because his stubborn younger-self wouldn't listen...

"She needs you," he said quietly. "Can't you see that she does? Can't you see that you need each other?"

"She'll find someone else..."

"No she won't. There'll never be anyone else. A heart can only love so much and Kathryn has loved and lost too many times already... You have to tell her how you feel, you have too...before it's too late. If you don't, you'll spend the rest of your life regretting it."

"Perhaps I will," Chakotay answered. "But I'm sure I'd regret telling her more."

"With all due respect, I think I'm in a better position to judge that."

Chakotay fell silent at that. He then turned his attention to the padd in his hand, needing a moment of reprieve. His head was spinning. All this was too much to take in.

"I'll go and upload this to the Doctor's database," he said. "It'll be quiet in sickbay now. We can talk more when I get back."

"As you wish," his older-self said, understanding his need to have a moment alone to gather his thoughts. "I'll wait right here."

Chakotay gave a brief nod and then left the room.

But the old man had no intention of waiting. Once that information was uploaded to the Doctor's database, the future would already begin changing. As that future disappeared from time, so would he and his shuttle. How long it would take, he didn't know. It could be seconds, it could be hours. But his time was limited. If his younger self wasn't going to listen, perhaps there was someone else who would.


Kathryn lay sound asleep in her bed. Her head was slightly turned to the side and her lips were turned up, almost in a soft smile. Old Chakotay gazed at her in awe. She looked just as he remembered her, just as she looked in his dreams...

Slowly, tenderly, he reached out and brushed his fingers against her cheek.

"Wake up, Kathryn," he said gently. "Wake up."

Kathryn stirred awake beneath him and gasped when she saw the dark form of a man towering over her bed.

"It's alright," Chakotay whispered. "Don't be afraid."

Kathryn relaxed as she recognized the voice and made out the face before her in the dim starlight.

"Chakotay?"

"I'm sorry to wake you," he said quietly.

Kathryn gripped the covers nervously. Something wasn't right. There was something very unfamiliar about this very familiar man.

"What's going on?" She asked, trying not to show her anxiety.

"I'm from the future," Chakotay said gently. "I just want to talk to you."

Kathryn absorbed this a moment and then ordered the computer to put on the lights.

"Computer, lights."

The lights came on and she could see him clearly. The man before her certainly seemed to be an aged Chakotay, but he could just as well be an alien in disguise. Kathryn began to tremble a little and all kinds of thoughts raced through her mind. If this was a wolf in sheeps clothing, she was completely defenseless. All she could conclude was that it would be best to play along for the moment, play this by ear.

"What are you doing here?"

"Come to right some wrongs," he said softly. "I can't really tell you more than that. Temporal prime directive."

He smiled, but Kathryn made no response. Knowing her as well as he did, he could see the reels of her mind working, analyzing his every word, his every movement, and preparing solutions to an infinite number of scenarios.

"My younger-self knows I'm here," he continued, thinking it best to be as natural as possible. "It's him I came to see. I was just going to come, do what I came to do, and then fade away into non-existence. But there's something that my younger-self won't do."

Kathryn studied him with distinct suspicion. "And what's that?"

Chakotay looked deep into the eyes that seemed to be searching his very soul. "Tell you that he loves you."

As Old Chakotay's gazed into her eyes, all Kathyn's anxiety left her. There was so much warmth in them, so much genuine feeling, that no alien could feign it. And no alien could evoke in her the feelings that Chakotay did when he looked into her eyes.

"He loves you so much, Kathryn."

Kathryn's voice was barely more than a whisper. "Then why doesn't he tell me?"

The old man took a deep breath, summoned his courage, and then sat on the edge of the bed. "Because you come from different worlds. You're a renowned Starfleet Captain where as in the eyes of the Federation, he's an outlaw. You have dedicated your life to Starfleet. He doesn't want to ask for your love. He feels to do so would be to ask you to be less than what you are, that involvement with him would jeopardize everything you have ever worked for."

"Then he's wrong," Kathryn answered. "Because loving him could only make me more." She paused. "The opinion of strangers means nothing to me. But the people I love ... they mean everything." She reached out and touched the old man's face. "And I love you, Chakotay."

A tear ran down the old man's cheek at the words it seemed he had waited a lifetime to hear, and he took her hand in his. "Then tell him, Kathryn, please."

There was such profound longing in his eyes that Kathryn had to look away from them. "But what if it jeopardizes the future?"

"How do you mean?"

Kathryn turned back to him. "You're clearly still alive in the future. And if you made it home, how can I jeopardize that?"

Chakotay squeezed her hand. "Believe me, Kathryn, the future I'm from you don't want to happen. I don't know what will happen as a result of my intervention, but I do know that things could never be as bad as what has happened in my existence. And it was an existence that should never have been in the first place. Even if you don't get home, even if Voyager is destroyed, it couldn't be as bad..."

Kathryn paled. It couldn't be that bad ... not that bad.

"But that's all changed now, Kathryn," Chakotay said, seeing her reaction. His intervention had surely changed the course of history, and even if it hadn't, he wanted her to believe it had. He needed her to believe it. He needed her to believe the future was once more a void to be filled.

"The future is now an empty page," he continued. "Anything can happen. Just tell my younger-self how you feel. Please."

Kathryn looked deep into his eyes again and once more saw there only a truth and sincerity she could trust. She smiled softly and nodded.

A light now shone in the dark depths of old Chakotay's eyes and he smiled happily.

Kathryn noticed that the tone of his skin was paling as was the vibrancy of his clothes.

"You're fading," she whispered.

Chakotay looked at his hand and saw that it was paling.

"That means the future I'm from is fading from time," he replied.

He broke away from her and got to his feet.

"Remember, Kathryn. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That's why it's called the present. Let yourself enjoy the journey."

Kathryn nodded. He smiled warmly and gazed again at the woman of yesterday he had loved and missed for so long.

"Goodnight, Kathryn."

"Goodnight, Chakotay," she whispered.

He took one last look at her and then turned to leave, now nothing but a ghostly figure displaced in time.


Old Chakotay was standing before a window in the living room when Chakotay returned to his quarters after visiting sickbay. He was barely visible now and Chakotay knew that could only mean the future he came from had been changed.

The old man turned to him and Chakotay saw there was a peace in his eyes that had not been there before. It was evidently just enough for him to know that the future had been changed. After all, a new future meant new possibilities.

The old man smiled warmly at him and then disappeared forever.


FOUR DAYS LATER

A beautiful crimson nebula glowed in the distance. Kathryn watched Chakotay gaze at it as they sat together at a dining table in her quarters. Her back was better now and only gave her the odd twinge now and again. The Doctor said that would go in a day or two and she'd be as good as new. After spending a few hours in her ready room catching up on work, she had spent the rest of the afternoon preparing a beautiful meal for her and Chakotay. She had used a familiar recipe as she wanted everything to be perfect. She had taken more care than usual in decorating the table and rather than dine with him in the remnants of her uniform, she had put on a classy blue velvet gown with thin shoulder straps. He had once said he liked her in blue. The red tone of the nebula reflected on his face and the white shirt he was wearing. His eyes were fixed on the natural wonder but his thoughts seemed a million light years away. He had been quiet all evening and they had eaten in virtual silence.

For the first time in a long time, she noticed how tired he looked, how life weary.. She wondered how she could have been so blind to his pain all these years, how she could have so completely misread him. She had waited for him to make a move, to tell her how he felt, feeling sure that he would if there was anything to tell. And when he didn't, she had concluded that he didn't care her after all, not that way. But it was out of a misguided notion of acting in her best interest that he had kept silent.

"Chakotay," she said quietly.

He turned away from the window to face her.

"The other day," she continued, "I had a visitor." She paused. "He came from the future."

Pain filled Chakotay's eyes and he averted them. It wasn't hard to guess what he had told her.

Kathryn leant forward and gently lay her hand on his. "Do you really think I care what anyone back home would think about us?"

Chakotay looked up at her now and took her hand in his. "I care, Kathryn," he said quietly. "You've dedicated your life to Starfleet and are the most incredible captain I've ever known. When we get home, you deserve to be welcomed as a heroine and decorated with all the honors possible. You don't deserve to be looked upon with disapproval and contempt."

"I haven't done any of this to be a heroine," Kathryn replied, "or to be showered with honors. Everything I've done is for this crew. They are all that matter to me. My personal life is my personal life and so long as it doesn't interfere with my capacity to captain this ship, and so long as the crew are happy, then it's no ones concern but mine. I don't give a damn about what people would say when we get home. I'm not ashamed of you or my feelings for you. You're a good, kind, man and I would feel it a privilege to have you in my life."

"Even if it cost you your rank?"

"Even then."

He shook his head sadly and turned away from her. He got to his feet and wondered over to the window. "No you wouldn't," he said quietly. "You would end up resenting me and I would resent myself. I love you too much to ask such a sacrifice of you."

Kathryn got up slowly and walked over to him.

"It wouldn't be a sacrifice," she answered. "As I said. It would be a privilege." She paused. "As far as I'm concerned, you are the one who has to do the forgiving, Chakotay. I was on a mission to capture you when I and the Federation should have been doing all we could to help you and your people. The Cardassians were tyrannizing your people with unspeakable cruelty and I was going to take you into custody just for doing what every good man would have done, fight for the lives and liberty of his people. And yet you've never held that against me. You've only ever treated me with kindness, respect ... and love."

Chakotay turned to her and his unshed tears sparkled crimson in the glow of the nebula.

"You were only doing your duty, Kathryn. And I was wrong to join the Maquis. I see that now. I was just so blinded by grief and anger that fighting the people who had killed my family was the only way I could begin to cope with what had happened. But violence was not the answer. There are other ways I could have fought for justice." He paused. "If my homeworld hadn't been taken over by the Cardassians then I probably would have been on missions to capture Maquis ships too. You didn't know what was going on, didn't know what they were capable of."

"I might not have known what they were doing to your people," she replied quietly, "but I was well aware of what they were capable of." She turned away from him and gazed out at the nebula. "So much happens as a result of war. We see and experience things that stay with us for the rest of our lives. A year after the truce with the Cardassians, several of us were captured by them when our shuttle ran into difficulty and we were forced to take refuge on a planet. I'd been captured by them before, a long time ago, but that time I was lucky and was rescued before they had a chance to do anything. But this time we were held by them for days and interrogated. They were suspicious of the Federation, you see, convinced the truce was all a sham... When we didn't give them the answers they were looking for, they tried to torture them out of us. They did terrible things, violated us in every possible way, and made us watch while they did them to others. I thought I had died and gone to hell, but I doubted even hell could be that bad."

Her words knifed Chakotay's heart and filled it with an agony he had only felt once before. He reached out and lay a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Kathryn."

She turned to him slowly and saw her own pain mirrored in his eyes. "We know the risks," she said quietly. "We know if we're captured by an enemy they won't be kind to us." Tears welled in her eyes. "All part and parcel of the job."

Her lips trembled and Chakotay saw her unspoken pain in her eyes. He gently gathered her in his arms and Kathryn accepted the embrace he offered, holding him in return.

It was a while before they drew away, neither wanting to let go, both just wanting to stay locked in the other's arms.

"I haven't been intimate with a man since," Kathryn said at last. "You can't go through something like that and not be affected, and I changed afterwards, withdrew myself. I needed to be alone, come to terms with it. Mark didn't understand. He tried, but he didn't. We separated for a while, over a year, and then just before I got promoted to Captain, we decided to give things another go. He asked me to marry him, I think as a way of showing how committed he was to me, but our relationship was still difficult, and neither of us rushed to set a date. There was a barrier between us that had never existed before and we didn't seem able to take our relationship beyond a certain point."

All the things that had puzzled Chakotay over the years were finally beginning to make sense now. This was clearly another reason she had held back from him. He felt humbled and ashamed, ashamed that he'd misread the signs and made wrong assumptions.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry that I made wrong assumptions."

"We both have, Chakotay. I thought you didn't say anything because you didn't care any more. But the whole time you were silent because you did." She paused. "I'm scared, Chakotay. I'm scared of so many things. I'm scared of loving you only to lose you. I'm scared of not being enough for you and scared at the same time of being too much. I'm even scared sometimes at just how deeply I love and need you. Because I do, Chakotay. I need you." Her voice fell to a whisper. "Please don't reject Kathryn because of the captain..."

Chakotay tenderly put his hand to her cheek. "Kathryn's all I want," he said sincerely. "All I've ever wanted."

Kathryn smiled softly and took his hand in hers. "Whatever happens when we get home, we'll face together. It doesn't matter what anyone will think. It really doesn't. All that matters is how the crew would feel about us being together and every instinct tells me they wouldn't object."

"Of course not," Chakotay answered. "They know how dedicated we both are to getting them home."

"Then shall we call a meeting tomorrow and tell them we would like to pursue a relationship if we have their consent?"

Chakotay nodded with a smile. "First thing in the morning."

He then drew Kathryn close again and she leant her head on his broad shoulder. She closed her eyes as his arms enfolded her and Chakotay held her tight, wishing he could hold her safe in his arms forever.

END OF PART ONE