Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Voyager crew. The Minatians, however, belong to me.

Rating: PG, sure.

Thing to know: The time line jumps around; you start in the "present" and go to the "past." Hope that clears things up.

JetC factor: About a 5; it's not too bad.

Author's Note: Sorry for the bits and pieces, but it's really much too long to read all at once.

Resurrection
Chapter 1

The ship lurched as another bolt of energy seared past its hull.

"Report!" the captain yelled, and Tom Paris turned to her with fearful eyes.

"The helm's not responding, Captain!" His eyes landed on B'Elanna for a moment, hoping
that she would be able to find a way to give power to the ship's controls.

B'Elanna's hands flew over the console, trying to pull power from where there was none.

"They're draining our power, Captain. I'm not sure how though. They're somehow by-passing our
shields."

Another shot, harder than any of the others, sent Janeway and her first officer flying
out of their seats. She sat up almost immediately, but Chakotay remained still, lying next to
her on the floor. She put two fingers to his neck and her face paled.

"NO!"

With a start, Janeway sat up, breathing heavily. Instead of a half-destroyed, unlit
bridge, she found herself in a cluttered, unlit bedroom. Her breathing began to slow. It had
just been a dream. Another one like she had been having for many nights. He would be sitting
next to her, alive and well at dinner and then he would choke on something and she wouldn't be
able to save him. Or like tonight's dream, he would fly out of his chair on the bridge. The
death of her first officer was plaguing her mind.

She threw back the sheets and swung her legs out of bed. The gray carpeting was rough
under her bare feet so she made her way to the bathroom quickly. Inside, she turned on the
lights to half-illumination and pulled out the metal basin that was her sink. Immediately, water
began to flow and the captain splashed some of it on her face. She let the water drip off for a
few moments before she looked into the mirror.

"You're getting old, Kathy," she announced to no one in particular. Her face had thin
lines showing around her brow and mouth; lines that had not been there a few weeks ago. Her
normally sharp, blue eyes had faded to grey. She felt older than she looked, however.

She pushed the sink back in and walked out of the bathroom, turning on the lights in her
quarters as she went. Maybe the light would make it all less real, or at least banish it all to
the corners of her room. She opened her closet door and stared. She wanted to throw on the blue
dress he loved so much and see him like that, but that wasn't very captain-ly. She still had to be the captain.

Slipping into her uniform and running a comb through her short hair, Captain Kathryn
Janeway exited her quarters. The corridors of her ship were painfully silent; the repairs from
the Minatian attack were almost complete so the night shift was back to minimal crewmembers.
The ride to Sickbay took entirely too long. Turbolifts were an amazingly speedy form of
intra-ship transportation, but on nights like this, they just took too much time. Finally, the
trip ended and she was deposited on deck five. She made her way to Sickbay but stopped outside
the door. She had to prepare herself every time she went in there, in case things were worse.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped close to the door and it opened.

She found the lights were down in the main area, and only a soft beam illuminated the
office area. A light sonata played and the Doctor was humming along. Directly in her line of
sight, on a biobed, lay Commander Chakotay, his body stiff. The stasis unit was clasped over his
body, blocking his head from her view. Those two curved pieces of metal were the only things
keeping him breathing at the moment. He had been like that since the unprovoked attack by the
Minatians. The boarding, the torture, the screaming...Janeway shook her head, trying to rid the
images from her memory. But they would not go.

Slowly, she crossed the floor of the Sickbay to stand beside Chakotay's bed. She used
one of her rough hands to move a wisp of hair gently off his forehead.

"Can I help you with something, Captain?" the Doctor asked from behind, startling her.

She shook her head, never taking her eyes of her first officer. "Oh, no Doctor, I'm
fine. I just came to check on Commander Chakotay."

The Doctor looked at her with his typically straight face. "I assure you, Captain, if
there had been any change in Commander Chakotay's condition, you would have been the first person that I notified." His voice almost betrayed frustration, but there was a sense of understanding behind his words.

She finally looked at him and smiled sadly. Slowly, she moved her hand away from her
injured friend's head. "Yes, I know you would have, Doctor. But I couldn't sleep. I thought
that seeing the Commander might make it easier."

"I can prescribe something..." he suggested, trying to be helpful.

"That won't be necessary," she said, moving away slowly. She felt numb inside now, no
longer afraid. "I'll be going back to my quarters. Good night, Doctor."

"Good night, Captain."

"You expect me to believe that, Kathryn?"

Janeway couldn't help but laugh, leaning into the gray couch as she did so. It was a
light laugh; one Chakotay enjoyed a great deal, probably because she did it so infrequently. It
echoed off the bare walls of his quarters, coming back to his ears even once she had stopped. "It's the truth, Chakotay. My sorority sisters and I were on probation for six months at
the Academy after that stunt. I think it was only the grace of God that kept us all from getting expelled."

Chakotay chuckled, sipping his coffee and resting the other arm absently on the back of
the couch. "I think you got into more trouble at the Academy than B'Elanna did."

She looked over at him, blue eyes showing the embarrassment of her revelation.
Nevertheless, she managed a smile. "Well, after the incident with the Admiral and the spiked
punch, I buckled down with my studies. I don't think I saw the light of day for two months until
I had brought my grades back to where I wanted them to be."

"Amazing," the first officer said, placing his coffee cup down on the glass table in
front of his couch. "Computer, time?"

"It is now 0243," the recorded female voice said flatly.

"We've been talking almost the entire night," Janeway said and then yawned, her body
responding to the realization that she had been awake for over twenty hours. "And we have to get
up for the 0730 shift. I'll be drinking a lot of this later," she said, shaking her cup a
little.

Chakotay chuckled, shaking his black and silver hair, which was just a tad too long. Janeway contemplated suggesting he get it trimmed when one of their com badges beeped.

"Bridge to Commander Chakotay." Ensign Harry Kim's voice came into the commander's
quarters.

He sighed and looked over at the captain. Why is it, he wondered, that everything that
ever goes wrong happens on Harry's bridge shift? "Go ahead, Harry."

"Sir, there's a group of ships headed this way. They appear to be quite heavily armed."
There was a break in the transmission as if Harry were thinking. "Shall I inform the Captain?"

Chakotay looked over at Janeway, who was rubbing her eyes in an effort to look more
leader-like. "We're both on our way, Harry. Chakotay out."

"What seems to be the problem, Mr. Kim?" Janeway asked with only mild interest when she
had reached the Bridge. Had it been 0800 hours, she might have been a tad more enthusiastic
about the situation.

"These ships, Captain," he said, moving out of her seat. "They've been within our
scanning range for approximately thirty minutes and they just began to power up their weapons."

Chakotay's eyes landed on Harry heavily. "Why didn't you contact us sooner, Ensign?"

"I...sir, that is..." Harry stammered. He dropped his head of black hair at the
reprimand, looking up at the commander with sad almond eyes. "They were just sitting there, sir.
I didn't really think they posed a threat."

Chakotay waved him off, sending Harry back to ops where he belonged.

"Open a channel," she said to the Ensign standing at tactical.

"Channel open."

"This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager. I would like an..."

"Retreat from this area of space. You are not authorized here." The voice was tinny as
it was filtered through the Universal Translator, but Janeway could hear how gruff it normally
sounded.

"We didn't realize this space belonged to anyone," she replied honestly.

The voice that filled the Bridge scoffed. "This space belongs to the Minatians. If you
proceed through this area, you will be doing so at your own risk."

Janeway shot a look to her first officer and he pressed a button on the console. "If we
go around, it will add another nine to ten months to our trip."

She shook her head of auburn hair slowly, lowering her voice. "Nine to ten months
without friends for supplies or a month and a half through hostile territory." She sighed. "Why
do I always have to make these decisions?"

Chakotay smiled a bit. "Because you are the captain."

"Thanks for the reminder," she groaned, pressing the button on the console again.

"Surely we can come to some sort of agreement. Going around your space would add almost
a year to our trip," she said, not quite pleading but something in her tone suggested she would
not be above that.

The voice responded, almost bored. "We will board your ship and search it. If we do not
think that you are harmful to us in anyway, we will allow you to pass." It was clear he had made
this speech many times before.

Janeway rolled her eyes. This sounds familiar, she mouthed to Chakotay. "How long will
this take?"

"A few hours."

She raised an eyebrow and Chakotay just shrugged. "Very well," she said, shutting off
the communications link. "Attention all crew, this is the Captain. Prepare to be boarded."

The crew gave a respectful distance to the captain as she walked the corridors of her
ship. Her attitude had changed over the past several weeks; she had become introverted and
anti-social. Or more so than she had been. Without Chakotay to bring her out of seclusion, she
just sat in her room. She showed up at all her shifts, but was rarely seen elsewhere, unless it
was Sickbay, standing by the Commander's bed.

Now she walked to his side again, traveling the well-worn path she had been on so many
times since the Minatians had left.

"How is he, Doctor?" she asked as soon as the doors were open.

"Unchanged, Captain," the hologram responded, trying not to show his frustration. "I
have been playing some selections of music from his personal library when he and I are the only
two in here, but I'm afraid he has shown no progress."

"But he's not declining in health either?" The Doctor shook his head. "That's what's
important," she said, looking down at the comatose officer. She rested a hand on his slowly
moving chest, feeling his heart beat beneath the skin. "Chakotay," she whispered, leaning down
so her lips were millimeters from his ear. "You're going to get better; the Doctor is working
round-the-clock on how to cure you. Just hold on," she added, her own personal plea. It wasn't
very unique, but he would understand.

Chakotay lay still. The voices around him were muffled, clearly filled with concern.

The Doctor and Captain were talking about him. He felt a light breeze on his skin and realized
it was the captain's breath. Her words rang in his mind even after she had left.

Just hold on.

I'm trying, Kathryn. I want to wake up. But this old body doesn't want to listen to my
mind. I will convince it, Kathryn; I will wake up.

If only he could get himself to believe that.