Part 14: Terra Firma
Summary:
Janeway and Torres help Chakotay deal with the after effects of his first contact with the aliens in Chaotic Space. (J/C, CT)
Pairing: J/C, CT Rating: PG-13 Type of Story: Drama Level: 3
Part 14: Solid Ground
"I want you back in here for some tests…unless you want to be seeing things on a regular basis." And with that statement his most terrifying nightmare began. Up to that time everything was normal. Even the weird vision he had in the Holodeck. All of that could be explained by whatever the Captain was calling him back to duty for. The thought had never entered his mind…..until now. How could it? The details of that particular time of his life, all the thoughts, feelings and fears were hidden in the deepest recesses of his psyche. As he grew up, he constructed walls around those emotions; the walls of adulthood, the walls of supposed understanding that comes with maturity, the walls of separation. With these walls in place he felt safe. He allowed nothing to interfere with the structural integrity of those walls. The Commander seldom drank and never to excess. He never did drugs and he never let himself completely go with a woman. There was always a hint of reserve. There was always a measure of control. In that way he found peace with that part of his life.
Now with the events of the boxing simulation, it seemed that those walls were about to come down.
No!
It was an irrational violent reaction to that thought. Chakotay realized that he had reached his quarters. He looked around to see if anyone had heard him, because he knew he had uttered that thought out loud. It seemed like no one did, so he entered his quarters.
It all comes down to the heart.
Do you have the heart for this?
That's the contest….it's not against him. It's against your own natural human desire not to get hurt.
That's the real fight!
Boothby's words came back to him almost forcibly. He swore that he could hear Boothby talking to him as if he were in the same room with him. At that point Chakotay began to get scared. He shook his head and clamped his jaw
It's just a couple of over stimulated ganglia. When the crisis is over, you'll go to sickbay and have it taken care of. No problem
But what about?...
It's nothing. The Captain asked me to report to duty, I know when I go to the bridge there will be a perfectly logical explanation for all of this.
Chakotay clung to that thought as he exited his quarters.
Begin Round 1
He worked through it, it was nothing; just the simulation playing tricks on his mind.
The computer didn't say anything, you're just tired and working round the clock to get out of Chaotic Space.
But the voices were getting louder and more insistent. Suddenly he looked up and saw his boxing gloves.
I could have sworn I put them away when I was done
Maybe you didn't, maybe you just left them there and didn't notice them on your way in.
But I would have remembered…
Chakotay reached down to touch the gloves as the voices kept getting louder and louder.
Pick 'em up, son. It's the fight you've been waiting for.
"Bridge to Commander Chakotay"
"Go ahead Tuvok"
"Please report to the bridge"
"On my way"
A change of scene; some place other than here, his quarters. Chakotay almost fled out of them. The ship in Chaotic space was getting stranger and stranger. He didn't know why he did, but he turned around on his way out the door.
The gloves were gone.
Just some over stimulated ganglia. The sooner, we get out of here, the sooner I can go to sickbay and get this taken care of and I can get back to normal.
But in his gut, he knew that he was wrong.
Put the gloves on son,
I'm not ready.
Where did it come from? Why did he answer? One minute he was asking the bridge crew if they heard what he heard. One minute he was of sound mind, and the next minute he was falling deep…… He heard the statement and he had answered as if someone real was talking to him. He felt compelled to answer. The voices……..so many voices. He had never done a simulation with the voices of the crowd at the match, but he had been to many matches, it sounded just like a crowd at a prize fight. But what he couldn't understand, what was scaring him the most was his reaction. He didn't excuse himself off of the bridge. He didn't tell Tuvok to take over and leave; he was transported somehow into his hallucination. It was so real. He was in the ring, as he had been so many times in his Holodeck boxing simulation. And he had an interesting opponent. He was dark skinned and had pointed ears. He knew him from somewhere and then the fight began. He got in a few punches and then his opponent did something strange. He reached over and pinched his neck. After that instant of blinding pain there was sweet oblivion.
As much as he could be insufferable sometimes, the Doctor did have a good voice, or at least his program did. But Chakotay was lost in thought until the door opened and Kathryn walked in with a perplexed amused look on her face.
"Music lessons?"
"Pretty soon we'll be singing duets," Anything to lighten the situation, to put the fear that he was feeling at bay. But fear was not the only thing that Chakotay was grappling with at that time, there was also the matter of Kathryn seeing him like this. They were close, very close or too close depending on the time and the situation. In this instance it was the latter. He didn't want her to see him like this, he wanted to handle this privately. But she had to know, she was the Captain, and to tell the truth he was embarrassed. He should be at her side on the bridge, not stuck in sickbay dealing with things that he thought he had long buried.
"Just checking his audio and visual functions, they're all normal. I'm afraid the source of the trouble may be a little...deeper."
"The family curse." The curse that he was born with…..the curse that should have been dealt with a long time ago, but instead was resurfacing here.
The Doctor went on by way of explanation. "Chakotay has the genetic marker for a cognitive disorder…… sensory tremens. The primary symptoms are visual and auditory hallucinations."
"My family Doctor suppressed the gene before I was even born so I never had to go through what the others did….like my grandfather," Chakotay finished the explanation, but not without it taking a toll on him. As Kathryn studied him, he looked haunted by something and it was then that she understood that this was not just something physical with him. It was something that was touching off on something else, something that came from a long time ago and something that had a deep emotional resonance for the Commander.
"For some reason, the gene's been switched on. I'm not saying for certain that's why Chakotay thought he was getting ready for a prize fight, but it's a good bet; the Holodeck boxing simulation was fresh in his memory. A few misfiring neurons did the rest."
"Can Chaotic Space be causing these hallucinations?"
"It's possible, but we won't know for sure until we get out of here."
"In the meantime, the Commander will have to stay in Sickbay." After giving his report, the doctor abruptly walked away to finish some work. Kathryn was glad of it because it gave her some privacy to deal with the ghosts that seem to be awakening in Chakotay.
Leaning over him, Kathryn said in a whisper, "Tuvok tells me you've got a mean left jab." He didn't want to be looking up at her so he sat up on the bio-bed.
"Never spar with a Vulcan," Chakotay said laughing. It was a little easier now, he would remain in sickbay and with a little luck, the doctor would figure out what was wrong and correct it before the worst could happen.
"How are you doing?" Kathryn asked. Chakotay sighed as he answered quickly.
"I'm all right." But his eyes told a different story. And she knew, because she knew him as well as he knew her. A man like Chakotay, always sure of himself and his mental abilities, a man who had helped others better understand themselves would not be taking the possible loss of his mental faculties so well.
Chakotay was spooked. He was trying to chase it away and pretend that it wasn't there and with the speed of his answer, she knew that he was also trying to shield her from what he was going through. Kathryn would have none of it, not now. Perhaps it would have worked a year ago. But now they were too close and she knew exactly how to disarm him. She touched him and he looked at her.
I know you, this has you unsure and scared tell me….
It flowed out from him naturally as if she had unblocked a dam, unlocked a massive door, or opened a box; a Pandora's Box and the truth came pouring out.
"When I was a boy...my grandfather started seeing things nobody else could see...hearing what nobody else could hear. A couple of hypo sprays a day…..that's all he would have needed, but he was stubborn. He said his spirit was in pain...but that the wound...must be honoured."
With the uttering of those words, he began to understand what his grandfather meant when he said that statement. The understanding that was so far from him in his youth came crashing down on him as he realized that just like his grandfather, his spirit was in pain. And what he was running away from, what he was so desperate to avoid at all cost was the cost of the 'gift' to his grandfather, the 'curse' to him. The honouring of the wound…..in that revelation, spiritually, he was naked.
One look at Kathryn and he knew that she had heard all of what he was thinking in his words, and he ran away from her trying to keep the fear which had been building at bay. He tried to laugh it off dismissively, but he ran into the truth.
"Crazy old man."
With that utterance, he had spoken and named his deepest fear. Kathryn saw it and she touched his face. His eyes were cast downwards as he refused to look at her. He was stripped of everything that he was, all that was the best in him, in front of her and he was ashamed of what was being revealed in his nakedness.
With the greatest care that she had ever given, Kathryn raised his face to meet hers.
"We are going to get to the bottom of this Chakotay and we are going to make it through this. Please hold on. We have been through too much and I have not intension of losing you."
His eyes filled and so had hers with the realization of what was tearing him apart.
"And yes that's an order." He chuckled quietly at that. "You'd better be getting back."
"Yes, I have to." Her hand lingered on his face for a while and within a moment, she was gone.
The honouring of the wound
Was this how it was done? He wondered as he stumbled from one vision to the next in his quest, Chakotay felt everything slipping away from him piece by piece. He was barely in one vision long enough to even realize what was happening to him far less for him to make sense of it. In the deepest recesses of his mind, the small part that was still him he realized that it was too much. The images from childhood came with all of the feeling from that time, unfettered with the maturity of adulthood. The fear of becoming like his grandfather was uncontrolled and all consuming.
But underneath it all, he sensed that someone was trying to talk to him, but it was so difficult to hear. Most of the difficulty didn't seem to come from without , but from within himself. Chakotay was fighting tooth and nail to maintain some semblance of control. He didn't want to hear it, he didn't want to face it and from within him, the images came. Images that distracted him from hearing what was being said.
But in his gut, he knew that he had to hear. He didn't know why, but he had to. Someone alien was screaming for his attention and in his soul he made the connection between being stuck in Chaotic space and the importance of the message. His fear of stopping to hear what was being said revolved around that fact that if he did listen to the message, there would be no turning back for him. The worst part for him would not be the losing of his mind, but the realization that he had lost it. The knowing, in the way that others looked at him and treated him, that there was something wrong, something that set him apart from everyone else….something that evoked pity.
And when he was allowed to go back to the important simulation, the one in the boxing ring where aliens were trying to contact him and he realized what they had to do in order to communicate with him, the fear which he had been struggling to control won out and Chakotay surrendered to the madness of fighting the fear so hard that instead of keeping it at bay, he ended up succumbing to it.
The honouring of the wound.
It all comes down to the heart.
Do you have the heart for this?
NO!
His throat was raw and he was screaming, he could remember seeing Seven, and someone was holding him down, and he heard a voice from far away voice, a very different one.
"Janeway…….sickbay. ………progress?"
That voice. If he could only make it to that voice he would be all right. But the screaming in his ear made him lose contact with the voice and Chakotay howled in frustration. The voice kept coming back in and out
"Report to the bridge……pilot…..
Astrometrics…..
And then it was truly gone and the maddening noise was with him again. With a supreme howl of frustration, Chakotay's body shut down.
When he awoke all was quiet, and he longed for the sweet oblivion once again. He called for…….
"Doctor" that was his name, he called to him seeking relief but instead he was taken down memory lane which lead him right back to the madness.
But this time with the Doctor's prodding, he allowed himself to hear more, to focus on one word at a time. He had mastered the fear for that time, but it was short lived. The shouting was too much and this time he couldn't shut himself down. But he had been trying so hard that he began to injure himself and the Doctor, against his better judgement gave him the suppressant.
When he awoke again, his mind was clearer. The voices were still there, but they were faded and muted. His first thought was one of relief. It was over, but with each rocking of the ship due to the increased graviton shear field, he knew that it wasn't. His guilt kicked in. He should be trying again, trying to make contact once more to get the ship out of Chaotic Space.
Let someone else be the responsible one this time,
Someone else could get them out of this.
You're being selfish Chakotay.
He shivered. Words right out of his hallucinations, coming back to haunt him and they were true words. Still the fear was too great. He would not attempt it again. Someone else would do it. Maybe they had gotten enough information from him to do what they needed to do.
When he saw the captain talking to the Doctor, his heart sank, he could see it on her face and in her mannerisms that she was going to ask him to go back.
It was confirmed when she touched him. He took her hand in his drawing strength from her. He could see it in her eyes; she did not want to ask him. But she had to, and she had the right to expect it from him. It was part of the commitment that he had given to her willingly, so many years ago.
"I realize you're frightened...but you're our only hope out of this place. You think this could risk your sanity, but your sanity won't do you any good if we remain in Chaotic Space. I need you to keep trying, Chakotay. Will you keep trying?"
Her voice……that voice, the one that will always demand his best, even when he thought that he didn't have it to give. And the touch, that was brief because she had other duties, but the one that told him of her support of him through this.
He nodded his ascent, because he knew what it would call forth from him, and he was terrified beyond words.
I'm afraid,
I know you are, you'd be a liar if you said you weren't
But I've always been afraid
I know that too.
The only thing that is keeping you from understanding them is your fear,
Your fear of losing control, your fear of the unknown
And what would happen to me….when they're done
You'll be on Voyager surrounded by friends
And his best friend
And he opened his mind and he knew.
It wasn't a fog, and it wasn't absolute clarity, but he made it to the bridge. His best friend wanted to trust him, but she didn't make leaps of faith unless it involved science and odds. This was not something that she would accept just like that. But she had to. He understood what was happening and even more than they did, and he knew the danger that they would be in if they didn't get out right now. His mind was realigned and with that he realigned the sensors. He could sense her watching him, making the leaps of faith little by little as required and then finally when she had to trust him completely and with the sureness of her voice he knew that she did.
"Engage"
And they were out. As Chakotay collapsed, in the back of his mind was the question,
Now what?