Last of the Intruders

Summary: Captain Janeway makes a startling admission, and now everyone has to deal with the aftermath.
Disclaimer: nothing is mine but my ideas.
a/n: found this one hanging around my hard drive. Should warn you now it's INCOMPLETE, and I'm not likely to finish it anytime soon, but I still wanted to share it. Please enjoy:

"The last of the intruders are down on deck 8, junction 47." Chakotay informed her

"I'm going down there. How many of them are left?" Captain Janeway asked.

Harry's voice rang out from across the bridge, "Ensign Jenkins is down, but only injured. He's talking himself to sickbay."

"You are not going down there, Kathryn!"

"Commander!" how dare he address her like that on duty! "This is my ship and on my ship I will eradicate any and all alien intruders as I see fit!"

"It's too dangerous!"

"Tom says there are only six of them left!" Harry updated them.

"I'm going down there." And with that she turned and went down there.

"Very true." He watched the turbo lift close. "Harry, six of us or six of them?"

She emerged from the lift and followed the sounds of weapons fire to the battle. She found her people, seven in all, at the mouth to a dead end corridor, firing around the various debris. The ship was still in pretty rough shape. Every few seconds, green flares would shoot out, to be answered by the orange of the federation. She pulled out her phaser and sidled up next to Tom.

"Welcome to the party, Captain."

"How are we doing, Tom?"

"Oh, we're fine; these guys just don't know when they're beaten. I say there are five of them left." A cheer came up from the others. "Make that four, ma'am."

"Is it crunch time?" They both got off several shots and took out one each.

"Nice shot!"

"Not bad yourself."

"Captain, they're trying to advance."

"I don't think so." There were another few minutes of firing. Three other officers took themselves to sickbay. Ensign Peters got one more of the intruders, and was promptly shot in the arm in rebuke. The last alien took a little more time, but Tom dove out and got him. When Kathryn saw him dive, her heart was in her throat. 'Please let him be ok.' She thought. When the green blast cut just above his shoulder, missing him by mere centimetres, she just couldn't breathe. Then he let off one blast and fell to the ground, followed shortly by the sound of another body falling, this one dead weight. Cheers went up and Tom stood victorious, arms raised, beaming at his captain. Kathryn rose from hiding, in time to see one last intruder come around the corner, and point his weapon at Tom's back. She watched in horror as the alien fired at the unsuspecting Tom. She felt frozen, watching what in reality was only seconds seemed to take eternity, unable to warn him. She watched as he was shot, as he collapsed, towards her. She caught him in her arms, and they sunk to the floor. The alien came towards her, and she wrenched her hand free and fired. The alien was dead before he hit the floor, but by then he was forgotten. She looked at the man in her arms through her tears, wiping his hair from his face. She cradled him in her arms, hugging him tight. "Why, Tom? Why do you have to be so brave?" She sobbed. "Oh Tom, you can't die, not now. You've been through so much, you've come so far. It's not fair. It's not fair." She hugged him tighter. She didn't hear the ensigns scurry away as Chakotay came down the hall. "I love you. I love you so much. You just can't die now." Chakotay's heart seized up and he just turned right around and went the way he came, his heart breaking. Kathryn went right on sobbing "My son…my only child…you can't die…"

One of the retreating ensigns had hailed the doctor, and he'd headed down immediately. Chakotay didn't even see him as they passed in the halls. The expression on the commander's face only made him hurry the more. What he found stopped him in his tracks. The captain and
Tom, it appeared, had collapsed in a heap of themselves on the deck, and she was clinging to the obviously unconscious Tom Paris. And she was sobbing loudly what had formerly been a secret only between her and himself. Snapping back into action, he bent down to check Tom for a pulse. It was faint, and not very steady.

"Captain," he said tentatively. Slowly, she raised her head; her tear swollen eyes met his. "Captain, if I can get him back to sickbay, there's a chance I can revive him." She nodded her head, but made no move to get up. He beamed Tom to sickbay and started to move away. Turning, the Captain was still in a heap on the floor, staring at her empty hands. The doctor bent down and held her shoulders. "You should come with me too." He had to pull her up from the ground. After a few attempted steps, he just beamed them both to sickbay. Leaving her standing, he found her a chair and positioned it so she could see Tom. He worked quickly and managed to revive Tom, only to have him fall into a coma. It was unknown if he'd ever come out of the coma, but he could wake up at anytime. The doctor didn't expect there to be any permanent damage, provided he woke up. The doctor healed all his wounds and left him to rest. The captain had fallen asleep watching. He smiled in his holographic way, and beamed her directly to her bed. He hailed Chakotay to ask him to make sure she arrived safely, check on her through the night. After conversing with Chakotay he was more concerned about the commander's state of mind, but was confident that the commander could sort it out for himself, and look after the captain. He did a few last checks on Tom, and then turned himself off for the night.

Entering her quarters felt almost like crossing into forbidden territory now. Coming through the door he felt like he was pushing his way through a barrier, one that he would never get to cross, not anymore, not if she loved Tom. He made his way through her quarters to her bedroom, remembering the years past, when he had shared her bed. He couldn't remember why they'd stopped; they'd just fallen out of the habit. And now the longer they went, the harder it got. They'd reestablished their working relationship, had a great rapport, but an entirely platonic relationship. He stood in the doorway and watched her sleep for a minute. She was still the most beautiful woman in his eyes. He bent himself down and removed her boots, for the first time the height of the heel didn't make him smile. He pulled off her socks, revealing light pink nail polish on each of her cute little toes. 'Probably from the last night with the girls,' he thought with no emotion. He removed her jacket, and lifted her to turn down the sheets. Placing her back down in the bed, he tucked her in, and kissed her forehead before turning his back on her and leaving.

Tom woke up, surfacing out of a dark haze. He felt a weight on his arm, so he looked down. He was very surprised to see the weight was his captain's head; she'd fallen asleep on his arm, holding on to his hand. He didn't want to wake her, and his arm had long since lost feeling. He raised his head to look around, but it made him too dizzy and his head fell back, unconscious.

The next time he woke, the Captain was again there, sitting back in a chair, again asleep, she was holding what looked to be a stuffed bear. It looked vaguely familiar. As he tried to place it, someone came into sickbay,

"Tom! You're awake!" he turned his head as fast as he could, and smiled up at B'Elanna. They kissed and talked for a while, she caught him up on all he'd missed. He'd been out for over two weeks, he was surprised to hear. By the time he glanced back at where the captain was sitting, she was gone. She'd quietly slipped out unnoticed almost right after B'Elanna's arrival, after awakening to B'Elanna's cry of delight. Kathryn was overjoyed that he was awake, but couldn't stand not being able to show it, she had to get out of sickbay. She thought she could tell him, but it had seemed so much easier when he'd been unconscious, unable to respond, unable to condemn her for the life she'd left him to live. As soon as he woke up, she panicked, she couldn't tell him, especially not in the cold, sterile environment of sickbay. She continued down the corridors at a breakneck speed, only realizing so when she nearly careened into a crewman. She made her way to her quarters, telling herself that she was not running away again, that she wasn't hiding from him again, hiding from the truth.

It wasn't until several hours later that she returned, fully composed and entirely the captain. He'd been expecting her, and actually by her usual standards, she was late. Being head nurse meant that he was privy to her actions whenever a crewman was injured. Once they were recovered enough to have a visitor, she was always one of the first if not the first to visit them. By the time she showed up, it was well after her shift had ended, almost midnight. The doctor was about to turn himself off when she came in. He briefed her quickly on Tom's status, and then left the area, to eavesdrop from a safe distance. He was certain that she would admit to him what she'd been hiding from him all his life. But he was in for a big disappointment.

"Lieutenant, glad to see you awake." She said, almost curtly. She stood ramrod straight, hands behind her back at the end of his bed, not quite meeting his eyes. He could tell that she'd been crying, and had hurriedly tried to cover it up, probably in the impulsive decision to finally come visit him.

"Yes ma'am. I'm feeling much better." His use of ma'am didn't get the rise he'd expected out of her.

"Good then. The doctor tells me the prognosis is good, and he's releasing you to B'Elanna's care in about two days. I expect to see you on the bridge two days later. Goodnight, Lieutenant." She turned smartly and almost marched out of the room. He had only the chance to nod briefly; he was so startled by her behaviour. His mind drifted back to the one thing that he'd held onto in his battle to survive, the words he'd heard her say while he was dying in her arms, and his need to know their veracity. He thought over her words again, and then of her recent behaviour. He was starting to doubt that he'd heard her correctly: was Captain Janeway really his mother?

An hour later the doctor checked on Tom one last time, and turned himself off for the night. Tom roused himself and snuck over to the doctor's office console. After breaking through a few encryptions and some security walls, he found nothing. Captain Janeway's record was perfect, nothing to detract from her perfect image. But then something occurred to him: this was her service record, started when she began at the academy, when she was 18. And he knew she was 44, and he was 29. If she was his mother, she'd been 15 when he was born. He just couldn't imagine perfect, spotless, Captain Protocol being pregnant and having a child at 15. Shaking his head, he thought of one more way to check. Running a DNA check proved that there was a high likelihood that she was his mother, but it wasn't conclusive. She was missing a distinctive marker that he had, but that could have come from his father. If she was his mother, then who was his father? A quick thought running through his mind made him run another test. It confirmed that Owen Paris could not be his father, since he also didn't have that marker. He couldn't find Elizabeth Paris' DNA on file to test her maternity to him. He put up his DNA next to the Captain's and just looked at the two for a while. He didn't hear the door open, or her come up behind him.

"It's true, you know."

"B'Elanna! I didn't hear you come in!"

"I know," she said with a smile, "I was going to come and watch you sleep, since the captain isn't doing it anymore."

"What? She's been watching over me while I sleep?" B'Elanna nodded. "I woke up a couple of times and saw her sleeping there, but I assumed it was only one night."

"Nope, the whole time you've been out, she's been sleeping here. We tried everything, but she wouldn't leave your side, unless she was on the bridge."

"How's she doing?"

"She's ok; she's actually gone to her quarters. Hopefully, she's sleeping." Tom shook his head, he doubted that very much. He was going to have trouble sleeping until she told him the truth.

"Wait, you said it's true-" she silenced him with a finger to his lips.

"It's not my place to tell you." He just stared up at her. With a determined look, he got up and walked out of sickbay. B'Elanna watched after him.

He rang her chime, and waited. He rang again. He checked: yes, she was in the room. Then why wasn't she answering? Suddenly panicked, he used his medical override to enter her quarters. Rushing inside, he stopped short when he caught her sitting upright on the couch, her hair dishevelled, staring at him wide eyed. She looked like a deer in headlights. She could see the inevitable was coming, and was powerless to stop it, yet she still feared it.

"Tom." She eventually croaked out.

"Captain-" he started, stepping forward, stopping when she shook her head.

"Kathryn, call me Kathryn tonight."

He sat, just watching her. She stared in his direction, but she didn't see him. She wanted to tell him, but she didn't want him to know. Didn't want him to know how she'd resented him for his very existence at first, and then after she'd come to love him, how she'd been forbidden from seeing him. And then the life he'd led before she'd been able to rescue him from that penal colony. She couldn't help but blame herself for the life he'd had, and regret the one they had never shared. If she could have gone back in time, a lot of things would have been different, would have been better. Because nothing was going to be alright again. Chakotay still refused to even see her, let alone hear her out. The love of her life wouldn't speak to her, and it was tearing her up inside. And now Tom had showed up in the middle of the night, searching for answers. Answers she owed him. She did owe him the truth, he deserved to know.

"Tom…" The loudness of her voice in the quiet vacuum startled them both. "Tom, I have something to tell you. But I don't know if I can…"

"Is it true? Is it true, what you were saying in the corridor after I was shot?"

"You heard that? Oh Tom, I thought you were dead! I just couldn't take it; I couldn't handle the thought that you were dead. I just collapsed, I fell apart. And I haven't been able to pick myself back up." She hung her head, staring at her lap. He moved around to sit next to her on the couch, hanging one arm over her shoulders.

"Well, I'm not dead, and I'm here now." She turned in his arms and hugged him with such force he fell backwards into the couch. She clung to him and cried for all that she thought she'd lost. She cried for a long time, while he just held her, caressing her hair.

Once she'd stopped, she backed up a few inches and looked up at him through tear stained eyes,

"Thank you for not dying."

"Well, I try." He cracked a small smile, and to his surprise so did she.

"I think I can tell you now," sitting up straight facing him, she took a deep breath, holding his hands in hers, and looked deep into his eyes, "Tom, I am your mother. Your birth mother, that is. And before you start, no, Owen Paris is not, not, your birth father."

"Well, that's a relief! The two of you…no, that just doesn't work…no, just no." she gave a small laugh.

"It's such a relief to actually tell you. I've waited 29 years to say that."

"Can I call you Mom, Mom?"

"Not on the bridge Lieutenant! But I doubt I'll be able to stop you otherwise."

"You're probably right. Well, this is quite the life-altering event for me. My captain is my mother. Nope, didn't see that one coming. Did you?"

"Nope." She shook her head, laughing. "You always know how to make me laugh; it's one of the things I love about you."

"Ooo, speaking of love, what about the Commander?"

"What about Tuvok?" she asked, shifting her gaze.

"Haha, you know what I mean. Ha, he is not going to like this one bit." Suddenly, she got sad.

"He's not been liking any of this one bit. He refuses to speak to me."

"What? Of all the nerve! You'd think he'd be helping you through this"

Chakotay growled. The first night he's conscious he sneaks out of sickbay and goes to her. How long had this been going on? How long had they been hiding it from everyone, from him?

aaaand that's as far as i got...hope it was okay :)