IX.
The sounds around him were somehow comforting, beeps, clicks and whirs that were almost soothing in their familiarity. At the edge of his consciousness were strange memories. He remembered a searing pain in his skull, and hearing an unfamiliar, booming voice telling him his designation was Drone Zero Two. He could vaguely picture himself repairing systems on a space station, but the images were like those of a dream, fuzzy and fading, not quite real.
More memories surfaced. He remembered Seven's voice telling him that someone was trying to take away his individuality and encouraging him to fight. Seven had been with him in the dream, he thought. Kathryn, too.
The thought of Kathryn brought another memory to the forefront of his mind. He was sitting across a table from Kathryn, interlacing his fingers with hers, but he was seeing the scene through her eyes, hearing her thoughts. I love you, she had thought, but not said aloud. He was seeing himself again, through her eyes, in the ready room, as she sat next to him and wondered whether he was going to kiss her. How am I seeing these things? he wondered. Am I hallucinating?
He had a vague memory of awakening to her holding his hand in an unfamiliar sickbay, but the memory was fuzzy.
A sound from beside him brought him to the present moment. "Doctor!" a woman's voice called. "I think Chakotay is awake."
"Kathryn," he murmured, his lips stiff, his throat dry, his voice cracking after lack of use.
"Doctor," the voice said again, but the voice was not Kathryn's.
Chakotay opened his eyes to find the EMH and a red-headed human doctor leaning over him. There was a hand on his, and he turned his head to find Seven of Nine at his side. "Hello, Chakotay," she greeted him with a smile.
"How are you feeling, Commander?" the red-haired doctor asked.
"What happened?" he asked. "Where am I?"
"You're on the Enterprise," the doctor said. "I'm Dr. Crusher."
"What's going on? Where's Kathryn?"
Seven removed her hand from his. "What's the last thing you remember?" she asked.
He closed his eyes and furrowed his brow. "I'm not sure," he said. "Everything is so confused."
"Relax, Commander," the EMH reassured him. "You'll be able to sort through your memories in time. With some help from Captain Janeway, the nanoprobes have restored your neural pathways."
"Nanoprobes?"
The Doctor nodded. He explained to Chakotay what Admiral Garrett had done to him while Seven and Dr. Crusher stepped away from the biobed. "Seven was powerless to stop Garrett and Zupanich from doing what they did to you," the Doctor said. "Her nanoprobes were extracted and modified without her consent."
"I don't blame Seven, Doctor," Chakotay assured the EMH. His eyes strayed to Seven, who was standing on the other side of sickbay and seemed to be having a comm conversation with someone. "How did I get here?"
"It's a long, strange story, Commander. Lieutenants Torres and Paris discovered that you and Seven were missing from your apartments in San Francisco. Captain Janeway got suspicious, and we came looking for you. It was the captain who found you. She was assimilated into Garrett's collective herself, but Seven managed to make some quick modifications to the nanoprobes so the captain wouldn't suffer the same neurological damage that you did."
"Kathryn and I… we were both part of the same collective?"
"Yes."
The pieces started to come together in Chakotay's mind. He had been linked to Kathryn somehow. Maybe that explained some of the strange images in his memories. Seven walked back over to the biobed. "How do you feel, Chakotay?" she asked.
"Confused," he admitted. "But I'll be okay. Are you all right? The Doctor told me what Zupanich and Garrett did to you… taking your nanoprobes…"
"I am fine now, thank you. Dr. Zupanich did not do any permanent damage," Seven said. "I am relieved that you are going to be fine as well." Chakotay smiled and turned his hand open. Seven rested her palm in his and squeezed his hand.
Chakotay heard the sickbay doors open. "Captain Janeway," Doctor Crusher greeted her. "Commander Chakotay is awake. He's been asking for you."
Chakotay tried to raise his head, but found he was too weak. Seven let go of his hand and stepped away from the biobed. A moment later, he was looking into the concerned eyes of Kathryn Janeway. "Kathryn," he said, his voice sounding strangled to his own ears, "are you all right?"
She smiled, her eyes unusually bright. "Shouldn't that be my line? I'm not the one lying in sickbay."
"I'm okay, now," he said. "Thanks to you, apparently."
"And thanks to Seven, and the Doctor, and Dr. Crusher, too," she added. "How do you feel?"
"Like I just woke up from a very long dream. I don't know what's real and what isn't. Everything is jumbled together."
"I'm sure it's very confusing," Kathryn said, "but I have every confidence you'll sort it all out."
"Captain," the EMH cut in, "there will be plenty of time for conversation later. Right now, my patient needs to rest."
Chakotay felt frustrated by the Doctor's words. He wanted Kathryn to stay, wanted to talk about everything with her. He wanted her hand to find his as Seven's had. But she did not touch him. "Kathryn…"
"I'm glad you're going to be okay, Chakotay," she said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a conference call with Admiral Hayes. I know you're in good hands, and as the Doctor says, you need your rest."
"Okay," he agreed reluctantly. "I'll see you later, then?"
She nodded. "I'll see you soon." Chakotay's eyes followed her as far as they could before she disappeared from view and the sickbay doors opened and closed behind her.
He felt Seven's hand on his shoulder. "I should go as well," she said, "and let you rest. I will see you later."
"Okay, Seven. Thank you."
The EMH administered a hypospray, and Chakotay was left alone to puzzle through the strange memories that filled his mind, until his eyelids got heavy and he fell into a deep sleep.
Kathryn didn't hear the doors of sickbay as they shut behind her. She didn't see the crewman who nodded to her as they passed in the corridor. She wasn't aware of where she was going or of whether she had a destination at all. In her mind's eye, she was still walking into sickbay to find Seven holding Chakotay's hand. The relief she felt at his having awakened was tempered by this image, which had felt like a punch to the gut.
She had forgotten that Chakotay had not experienced their link fully and consciously the way that she had. She had forgotten that he might not be aware of anything they had shared. While she had experienced a moment of deep intimacy with him, she had forgotten that he might not have experienced the same thing. She had walked into sickbay flooded with relief and gratitude that Chakotay was awake and that he had recovered. But then she had seen Seven at his bedside, and an expectation she hadn't known she had was dashed. Until that moment, she hadn't realized that she had pictured him awakening with her hand in his, not Seven's.
Just as long as he's okay, she reminded herself. That's all that's important. But still, she felt hollow and empty inside.
She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she didn't see the person she collided into until after they bumped into each other.
"Captain!" B'Elanna exclaimed. Then she took a closer look at Janeway. "Are you all right?"
"B'Elanna. I'm sorry. I guess I wasn't paying attention."
"If you don't mind me saying so, Captain, you look like hell." She paused. "Is Chakotay…"
"Chakotay is going to be fine," Janeway said tiredly. "He's awake. Or, he was. The Doctor is taking care of him. Said he needs to rest."
"That's great news!"
"Yes. It's great." She felt inexplicable tears sting her eyes and she turned hurriedly away from B'Elanna.
"I'm just on my way back to my quarters," said Torres softly. "Would you like a cup of coffee?"
"I was just on my way to…" Janeway began but then realized that she wasn't on her way anywhere. "Sure."
B'Elanna took Janeway by the elbow and led her to her quarters. She helped the captain sit down on the sofa and replicated two cups of coffee, handing Janeway one steaming mug.
"Thank you," Janeway said, still not meeting the other woman's eyes.
B'Elanna sat down across from her. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"About what?"
"About whatever has got you upset. About you and Chakotay?"
Janeway stared past her coffee cup at the floor, and B'Elanna sat in silence, waiting for her to speak. Kathryn took a long sip of her coffee. "Do you know what the worst thing is, B'Elanna?" she finally asked.
"What?"
"Hope."
"How's that, Captain?"
"Hope is dangerous. When you have no hope, you can't be disappointed. You accept things for what they are, rather than hoping for what could be or might be. If the life you have is so different from the life you imagined would be yours, you learn to live with it. But when you see a glimpse of something you've always wanted, always longed for, when it seems possible for a fraction of a second, then you start to hope for it. You start to believe that maybe things can change, that maybe they could be better. And then, when your hopes are dashed, when you realize what you longed for will never be yours, it's much worse to try and go back to accepting things the way they are than it would have been if you had never had that hope."
Kathryn paused and took a sip of her coffee. B'Elanna watched her silently, sensing she would continue. "In the Delta Quadrant, at first I was filled with hope that we would get home. Every wormhole, every bit of alien technology that had the potential to carry us across the galaxy, I was convinced it would work. But gradually, I had no choice but to give up that hope. How many times can one person be let down, disappointed? How many times can one person take that before they are destroyed from the inside out?"
"But you never gave up hope completely," B'Elanna said. "When Admiral Janeway wanted to give up, you fought her on the hope that your plan to get home would work."
"I wasn't going to give up the chance," Janeway replied. "I understood the possibility that we would be successful. But I didn't dare hope that it would work."
"You had hope that Chakotay would recover. That he would be okay."
"Yes." Janeway put her coffee mug down on the table and dropped her head into her hands. "Oh B'Elanna," she sighed, "you must think I'm so selfish and ungrateful."
B'Elanna wrapped an arm around Janeway's shoulder. "Now those are two words I would never use to describe you. Why don't you just tell me what happened?"
Janeway sighed and pulled away from B'Elanna's arm. "I didn't even realize I had started hoping about us until I walked into sickbay and saw him holding her hand."
"Seven?" Torres asked.
Kathryn nodded. "In Garrett's collective, Chakotay and I were linked. I attempted several times to reach him, to stop Garrett's nanoprobes from wiping away his personality completely. In that process, we shared memories, feelings. It was very intimate, a reminder of the deep connection we share. I used to think that someday that connection could become more than a friendship between colleagues, but I had given up that hope, too."
"Until you experienced that connection through your link to him," B'Elanna supplied.
"Yes. But now, I don't even know if he remembers, or if he experienced what I experienced at all. Maybe for him those memories were just that, in the past. Maybe he doesn't have those feelings anymore. I had… forgotten about his relationship with Seven in that link, because our connection was so strong. It seemed so real. But maybe it wasn't." She paused. "And now I feel like an idiot for feeling sorry for myself when he's the one who's been in danger. And there's still so much work to do. I can't afford to be distracted."
"When the work is over, Chakotay will still be here," B'Elanna offered. "You can talk about it then."
"What's to talk about? I'm not going to say anything to interfere in his relationship with Seven. If they are happy together, then who am I to stand in their way or jeopardize their happiness? I came on this mission to save their lives. We accomplished that. That has to be enough." Janeway paused for a long moment, lost in memories. "Truth be told, B'Elanna, I've never been any good at relationships. They've never worked out very well for me. I had one very, very passionate, very connected, amazing relationship with my first fiance. His death ended that before I could do anything to mess it up. Mark and I had a very comfortable relationship, but it was basically a glorified friendship, and, well, you know how that ended. And then Chakotay…"
"What about Chakotay?" B'Elanna encouraged.
"I don't believe in fate, or soulmates, or things that are 'meant to be.' But, I've thought many times over the years that if those things were real, if there was was one person I was 'meant to be' with, my 'soulmate,' that he was it. The connection that we share is so deep, so real, yet mostly unspoken. We share the same basic values, yet our approaches to life are so different, different in ways that complement each other. We fuel each other, we inspire each other, and, yes, sometimes we piss each other off. I always thought that when we got home, there would be a chance for us, but circumstances never allowed us to explore what our relationship could be. I guess they never will."
"Maybe they…" B'Elanna started.
Janeway held up a hand. "No. I can't. I can't go down that path. I can't start to believe that maybe things will change, that maybe Chakotay and Seven will end it. I have to accept things the way they are right now. And the only way to do that is to know that what we have now is all we will ever have. We will never explore that connection any deeper. I will never hold his hand walking down the sidewalk. I will never wake in his arms. We will never share candlelit dinners or sit on the couch curled in each other's arms. In the Delta Quadrant, I learned to accept that I was alone and always would be. That's what I have to do now, too."
"Captain… Kathryn," B'Elanna said tentatively, "if that's what you have to do for your own sanity, I understand. Kahless knows, I'm an expert at protecting myself by shutting down my feelings and shutting down my ability to hope. But when I stopped doing that, with Tom, that was when things started to change for me."
"I know what you're saying, B'Elanna, but Tom wasn't involved with someone else. With Chakotay and me, things are what they are, and I have to accept that." Janeway took a deep breath. "The most important thing is that Chakotay is going to recover. That's all that really matters. The rest, I can learn to live with."
B'Elanna nodded. "I understand. And I hope you know that when things get tough, Tom and I are always here for you. You're not alone. You've given us a lot of hope over the years. I hope that someday I can return the favor."
Janeway felt new tears spring to her eyes at B'Elanna's unexpectedly kind statement. She wrapped her arms around the younger woman and tried to blink back the tears. "Thank you, B'Elanna. Thank you."
The EMH entered the brig. "I'm here to see Dr. Zupanich," he told the lieutenant on duty.
"Right this way, sir," the lieutenant replied, escorting the Doctor past cells full of personnel from the space station.
The Doctor took a deep breath. This was his test. Would he be able to convince Zupanich to testify against Garrett? If he failed, Garrett would most likely escape punishment altogether. Justice was riding on his shoulders.
Zupanich was seated in his cell and saw the Doctor approach. "What do you want?" he spat.
"I just want to talk to you, Doctor," said the EMH.
"We have nothing to discuss."
"I think we do," the EMH countered. He stepped through the forcefield into Zupanich's cell. "You may leave us," he told the lieutenant. He nodded, leaving the Doctor alone with Zupanich.
"What is it you have to say to me?"
"I want to understand you," the Doctor said quietly. "Because I believe what you told me on the station, that you were really trying to help those people when you took away their individuality. What I can't understand is how a physician, sworn to do no harm, could do what you did in good conscience."
"Why does it matter to you?"
"I want to help you, Torstin. I want to understand what happened to you."
"How could you possibly understand? You don't know. You don't know the pain of loss."
The Doctor looked away. "Is that what you think?"
"How could you? You're just a hologram."
"I may be made of photons and forcefields, but that doesn't mean I don't have feelings. My program was nearly shut down once because I let a patient die, and I couldn't live with the emotional repercussions. My captain suppressed my memories, but they resurfaced. I had to learn to live with what I had done."
"And how did you?" Zupanich asked, his defenses beginning to drop.
"Captain Janeway helped me. She stayed by me while I dealt with my pain. She listened while I talked about what I felt, until I started to feel better."
Zupanich rolled his eyes. "Talking? Is that how you think you solve a problem?"
"It's not a bad start. You should try it sometime." Zupanich stood and walked to the far corner of the cell. After a long moment of silence, the Doctor asked, "Who did you lose?"
When Zupanich finally spoke, his voice was harsh, grating, low. "My son. I lost my son. I lost my son on my own operating table."
"I'm sorry," the Doctor replied, sudden emotion welling up inside him. "I had a daughter once, who I couldn't save. It's the worst part of being a physician, not being able to save the life of someone you love."
"I warned him," Zupanich said, his voice growing in intensity as he spoke. "I warned him, but he didn't listen. Why didn't he listen?" He turned around and faced the Doctor, his features tortured.
The Doctor patted the bench next to him. "Tell me about him, Torstin. Tell me what happened."
Slowly, Zupanich stepped towards the bench. He sat down, but he didn't look at the Doctor. His eyes gazed in the direction of the forcefield, but he wasn't seeing the inside of the brig. He was seeing another time and another place, far away. "When I was a young man, I believed that it was my duty to serve those who needed it the most. I had grown up on Earth, had a medical degree from one of the best schools. I could have become a doctor in Starfleet, taught at one of the best medical schools on Earth, or become a doctor at a fancy hospital with all the resources I could imagine. But I read about the great need for doctors in the border colonies. So I became a physician in the Federation colony on Juhraya. Do you know anything about Juhraya, Doctor?"
"That was one of the colonies handed over to the Cardassians in the Federation-Cardassian Treaty of 2370, if I'm not mistaken."
"You're correct. Before that, the colony at Juhraya was thriving. The life was simple. There wasn't a lot of modern technology, but the people were amazing, and practicing medicine there was a joy. It was like the stories you read about, in the old days, the village doctor that everyone knew and loved. I met my wife there; she was a teacher. We had a son, Kyosti. Then, with the treaty, everything changed. Not right away. At first we all thought maybe it would be okay, that maybe the Cardassians wouldn't bother us too much if we were friendly towards them. But those were false and foolish hopes. Things became worse and worse on Juhraya, and when Kyosti was seventeen years old, he decided to join the Maquis and fight for his homeland."
The Doctor nodded, listening intently. He had heard many similar stories from the Maquis crew members on Voyager over the years.
"I warned him not to go. I begged him. I told him it was a futile battle, that he would only be wounded or killed, that there was nothing we could do against a force as powerful as the Cardassians. But he wouldn't listen to me. 'I can think for myself, Pa,' he said." Zupanich's eyes began to fill with tears. "He thought for himself, all right. He thought himself right into an early grave when he tried to get in the way of a Cardassian who was beating one of our delinquent citizens. Kyosti threw himself right in the middle of it, until he was beaten, too. Beaten and bloody. You can't imagine, Doctor. You can't imagine what it's like to see your own child bleeding to death on your operating table." The tears coursed down Zupanich's face. "I tried. I tried everything I could to save him, but he had lost too much blood. There were too many internal injuries. There was nothing I could do." Zupanich buried his head in his hands, and his body shook from the sobs.
Tentatively, the Doctor reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It wasn't your fault that Kyosti died, Torstin," he said quietly.
"I couldn't save him," Zupanich replied. He stood suddenly and slammed his hand into the wall of brig. "I couldn't save him!" He drew back his fist to strike the wall again.
"Stop!" the Doctor exclaimed, jumping up and restraining Zupanich. "Hurting yourself won't bring your son back. You can't bring him back, Torstin."
Zupanich crumpled to the floor, all the fight suddenly going out of him. "I know," he sobbed. "I know."
The Doctor knelt next to him. "And taking away someone else's individuality is only going to hurt others. Think about Kyosti, Torstin. Think about him as you knew him, as you loved him. Would you really want to take away his ability to think for himself? Would he still have been the same person if you had been able to control his every choice?"
"No. No, he wouldn't have been Kyosti. He wouldn't have been who he was without his mind, without his ability to choose."
"If you could bring him back as a mindless automaton, a drone, would you do it?"
"I want to say yes," Zupanich replied, his tears slowing, "but, no. You're right, Doctor. I would want my son to be himself, to be whole. Otherwise, it wouldn't be my son."
"You can't bring Kyosti back, but you can help another member of the Maquis right here, right now, someone who needs your help desperately."
Zupanich wiped his face with his hands, wiping away the tears. "Who's that?"
"Commander Chakotay. He fought with the Maquis, too, just like your son, and he is here and he is alive and he needs your help."
"I don't know how to reverse the procedure," Zupanich said. "By the time I figure it out, it will be too late for Commander Chakotay."
"No, the commander is going to be fine. With Seven's help, and Captain Janeway's, we've already reversed Garrett's procedure."
"Then how can I help him?"
"Testify," the Doctor said, standing up and offering Zupanich his hand. "Testify against Garrett."
Zupanich took the proffered hand and let the Doctor help him to his feet. "You've got to be joking," he said.
"Do I look like I'm joking?" the Doctor replied dryly.
"You want me to testify against Admiral Vince Garrett?"
"We need you to testify. Commander Chakotay needs you to testify. You're the only one who can prove that everything that happened on that station was Garrett's idea, not yours."
"Even if I do testify, it's my word against his."
"If you don't testify, Garrett's version of events will go unquestioned. If you do testify, then testimony from Captain Janeway, Seven of Nine, and others will hold a lot more weight. They'll corroborate your story. So will others on the station; Garrett was giving the orders, not you." The Doctor paused. "If you refuse to testify, it's almost certain that Admiral Garrett will go free. Please, help bring him to justice."
Zupanich crossed back over to the bench and sat down. He took a deep breath and then looked up at the Doctor. "All right, Doctor, I'll testify. But you and your colleagues need to understand one thing. Vince Garrett is a powerful man. Even if I do testify against him, he's probably going to walk away unscathed."
"More coffee?" Picard asked Janeway as he stood from his desk to go to the replicator.
"Always," Janeway replied.
Picard ordered, "Coffee, black," and "Tea, earl grey, hot," and then returned to the desk with both beverages.
"Thank you, Jean-Luc," Janeway said, before returning to the PADD she'd been examining. "Commander Riker informs me that we are scheduled to arrive at Earth in forty-six hours."
"Forty-six hours," mused Janeway. "That's enough time for us to finish preparing for Garrett's trial. Tuvok has been prepping Dr. Zupanich for his testimony. The doctor is nervous, but I think he's going to be just fine."
"We have a strong case against Garrett," Picard assured her.
"We do. But we have to be mindful of Garrett's warning to me, and what Zupanich said to the Doctor. I've asked Mr. Tuvok to keep an extra eye out."
"I've asked my people to do the same. Has Commander Tuvok had any more luck with Commander Teral?"
Janeway shook her head. "She doesn't want to talk. I can't understand it. Her own government has clearly abandoned her. They requested extradition of the rest of the crew but left her to the wolves, so to speak. She'd get a much lighter sentence if she was willing to cooperate."
"Perhaps she still believes she'll be rescued."
"Perhaps."
The comm beeped. "Crusher to Picard."
"Picard here."
"Captain, Lieutenant Hoffman is dead. We attempted to use Seven's nanoprobes to reverse the procedure as we did with Commander Chakotay, but the damage to his neural pathways was too severe. He went into neural shock."
Hoffman had been one of the two security guards assimilated into Garrett's collective. After Chakotay had been successfully cured, the EMH and Crusher had attempted the same procedure on both of Garrett's lieutenants, hoping that one of them would be able to testify in Garrett's trial. It obviously wouldn't be Hoffman, Janeway thought.
"I understand, Doctor," said Picard. "What about Garrett's other lieutenant?"
"The nanoprobes still appear to be repairing Lieutenant Latham's neural pathways. The EMH and I think it's possible that he will recover, but it's still too early to tell."
"Thank you, Doctor. Keep me informed. Picard out."
Janeway took a deep breath. How close had she come to losing Chakotay altogether? "Well, that's one fewer person who can testify against Admiral Garrett," she said.
"Indeed. Let's hope that his other lieutenant survives. How is Commander Chakotay?"
"I understand that he was released from sickbay yesterday," Janeway said. "The Doctor tells me his condition is much improved."
"That's good news," said Picard. "Yes," Janeway replied, allowing herself a small smile. "Now we just have to get justice for what happened to him and Seven and so many others."
"With Hoffman dead, Garrett should be charged with murder," Picard said.
"Yes," Janeway agreed. She thought about Captain Braxton's warning to her, how in Admiral Janeway's timeline, there was no one to stop Garrett. The results were disastrous. I don't think I need to tell you why. She shivered. "We have to make sure Vince Garrett is put in prison and stays there for a long time," she said. "If he goes free, you and I both know he's going to find a way to continue his work, and then none of us will be safe."