Chapter 16

"My team was investigating a lead at Delnak when we located evidence that Federation shuttles, the Peregrine-class fighters you captured several days ago, were moving between the Romulan border and the outpost on Beloren. We were unable to verify the identity of the crews operating the shuttles so we decided that it was prudent to continue our investigation at Beloren."

Upon discovering that Tuvok was aboard the Valdore it was decided a briefing would be held on board Aegeus. Captain Riker and Commander Troi had arrived from Titan, along with Admiral Paris. Tuvok surveyed the room and his brow arched at the sight of Admiral Janeway seated between Captain Paris and Ambassador T'Kara. Commander Donatra was seated on the opposite side of the conference table with Colonel Urdak of the Reman vessel Erili.

The Aegeus was chosen for the briefing since the Ambassador and their Romulan detainees were still on board.

"That fits with what we found when we reached Delnak," Captain Caldwell said. She had joined them via the holographic comlink. Due to the damage Cerberus had sustained in the battle, she had deemed it necessary to remain on board until her ship safely reached space dock. "We located evidence of a Federation warp signature and technical components made of alloys that are not naturally occurring on Romulus or any of its outlying worlds. Those components would only be found in Federation space. It was apparent to us that if the fighters were being kept on Delnak, they had been moved." She was preparing that report for transmittal to Captains Grant and Riker when news of the attack on Romulus had reached the fleet.

"Once we arrived," Tuvok explained, "we attempted to scan the surface of the planet for Federation warp signatures, but we were unsuccessful." His gaze moved from the Captains present to the Admiral. "We modified our sensors and were able to detect a dampening field. It was upon further investigation of that field that we discovered we were being followed. Lieutenant Weiss and I determined it was necessary to cease communications and continue our assignment in complete silence. During our investigation we uncovered the source of the dampening field and what it was hiding. There were two more Peregrine-class fighters in a shuttle bay on the colony. To protect this information the individual who was following us attempted to kill Lieutenant Weiss and myself. He is currently being held aboard the Valdore."

"His name is Tonvelk. He served as Subcommander to Proconsul Tomalak for many years. He was in charge of the installation at Beloren," Donatra told them. "We have identified the others you are detaining aboard this vessel as Centurions that have served the Proconsul in the past. They are loyal to his cause, as were the Commanders of the ships that attacked you. Praetor Tal'Aura insists she was not behind the attack on your fleet or the attack on Romulus, and while I do not think she is to be trusted, I do not think she had knowledge of either event; though I would not put it past her to use them."

"The Federation Council will not allow diplomatic talks to continue as long as our people are in danger in your space," Ambassador T'Kara explained. "The death of Ambassador Karal weighs heavily on that decision. We are not prepared to fully abandon our purpose here, but the situation has become precarious."

"Proconsul Tomalak cannot be allowed to seize power of our government," Donatra stated. "His hatred of the Federation is well known. If he becomes Praetor, which I believe is his goal, it would not be long before our people are at war. We have both lost too much."

"What do you plan to do?" Admiral Janeway leaned forward in her seat. "You know that we cannot interfere directly. We can provide support and aid, even security for your outer colonies, but we will not engage in a direct conflict between your factions."

"In exchange for the right to rule their own world, and to settle on other colonies deeper within Romulan space, the Remans have agreed to join my fleet," Donatra explained. "Their Elders were killed. Tomalak's fleet has surrounded their world. My fleet is gathering, and with their numbers, we can push the Proconsul's fleet back to Romulus. I would ask that you allow me to take your Romulan prisoners back to my world. I can prove their identities. When my people see that Tomalak has committed these crimes against innocents he will lose standing. Even the Commanders that have fought for him today will not abide those actions. Hatred of the Federation may run deep, but there is one thing the Romulan Star Empire has always been, and that is loyal to its own interests."

"The Cardassians and the Human woman may remain in your custody," Urdak stated. "We have no need of them." His dark gaze moved toward the head of the table and the officers seated there. "I know you have experienced terror and loss at the hands of my people. That is not our way. We want freedom."

Deanna ignored the cold chill that ran down her spine at the memory of the Viceroy's mental touch. "I believe we should trust them," she told the Admiral. "The Romulan government must be allowed to reform itself. That was our purpose here."

"We had hoped it would happen peacefully," the Admiral said quietly.

"So had we," Donatra agreed. "That is still my hope. If that is not possible, then we will fight."

"There is already a great deal of support among the outer colonies," Tuvok stated. "The idea of living without fear of government or Tal Shiar reprisal has given many a sense of hope."

"Change will not happen over night," T'Kara reminded them. "You may have a very long road to peace."

"Yes." Donatra sighed. "We are prepared for that. I am sure that removing Proconsul Tomalak may solidify Praetor Tal'Aura's position for a time, but I am committed to creating an empire where fear is not used as the means of achieving power or loyalty."

"We wish you luck," T'Kara informed her. "The Council will be prepared to resume our diplomatic mission when tensions have settled."

"I look forward to that too," Donatra nodded.

"Work with Commander Donatra to have the detainees transported to her ship," Kathryn instructed Captain Paris. "When our ships have completed their repairs we will resume our course to starbase."

Jake nodded. "Admiral." He knew she wasn't pleased with the outcome, but they had at least accomplished part of their goal. They had reduced the number of factions seeking control of the Romulan government and had allowed the Remans to finally ally themselves with a purpose other than vengeance or the need to conquer.

"Hamliton and Odyssey can remain in position on the Federation side of the Neutral zone," Riker suggested, "in case the situation escalates and our assistance is needed again."

"I agree," Kathryn nodded. They would not involve themselves in a possible Romulan Civil War, but they could secure the border and provide humanitarian aid if it was requested.

"We will not forget what you have tried to do," Donatra assured them. "You still have friends in the Romulan Empire, Admiral, Captain." She nodded to the two who had been at the forefront of their talks.

After the meeting had concluded and all parties had returned to their respective ships, only the Admiral remained. Jake studied her as she moved to the viewport. "Disappointed?"

"A little," she admitted. "We knew it wouldn't be easy, but at least we've helped them get this far. We know where the danger is, and that was more than we could say a month ago. It's up to the Romulans to do something about it. All we can do now is just be ready for it."

"Still…" A small smile tugged at his lips.

Kathryn cast a look at him from over her shoulder. "Still," she agreed. She hoped for more, but the way to peace was never simple. It would take years for the Romulan government to become secure again, and for any lasting alliance between their Empire and the Federation to be arranged. They were only present to open the door. They had done that, at great cost, but they had accomplished something. They had recovered intelligence that would help them further secure the border and stopped the possibility of war breaking out between their people. No one could know what the future held.

A quiet sigh left her. "I should get back to Voyager."

He expected as much, but Jake rose from his seat at the table and walked toward her. "They'll be undergoing repairs for a few hours yet, I could give you a ride back." He hitched a hip against the ledge of the view port and watched her.

The light from the stars and the ships on the other side of the transparent, pressed aluminum caught the gleam in his eyes. She suppressed the urge to smile. "Yes, I'm sure that you could, but I promised Commander Torres that I would assist her teams in getting Voyager operational again. I try never to go back on a promise."

"Good to know." He nodded slowly, lips pursed. "Can I trust that means you'll be at Starbase 343 when I get there in a few days?" He had to drop his remaining detainees off before he could put in to space dock for a few days.

"You still owe me dinner, Captain." Kathryn leaned against the opposite side of the viewport and folded her arms across her chest. "It all still feels a little too easy, doesn't it?"

"A little," Jake agreed, "but there isn't a lot we can do now. With everything we know about Tomalak I would have expected more." His head inclined. "Unless someone was planting the information."

Her brow arched. "A double cross? Perhaps there is someone else inside his faction that was seeking power." It would make sense. Treachery often begot more treachery. Where there was distrust and fear there could be disloyalty. "I suppose we'll find out."

"Either way, they're going to be so busy dealing with their own troubles they won't have time to worry about us. We'll keep up a presence on the border, which will keep anyone else from taking advantage. Now that the Remans have aligned themselves with a Romulan faction, there aren't a lot of powers in the quadrant that are going to be willing to cross them. Too many remember what they were like during the war. They were merciless, Kathryn," Jake shook his head. "The Romulans used them like cannon fodder, but they gave back as good as the Jem'Hadar could deal out. It was a bloody war on both sides."

"So I've heard." Her gaze drifted back to the stars. "They've been repressed for so long that they're spoiling for a fight. Now that they have a purpose, they'll move toward it with all the vengeance and determination we saw Shinzon's forces use against the Enterprise. It's damned troubling, but they deserve the right to achieve autonomy."

"Why do I think something else is troubling you?" Jake's eyes narrowed. "We did as much as we could. The mission wasn't a failure. We would have all preferred to do it without losses, but I don't think that's it."

It should bother her that he was able to read her so well, after knowing her for so short a time, but she couldn't find it in her to be troubled by it. It was the opposite, really. Kathryn offered a small smile. "Old ghosts," she said. "I'll be fine." She sighed again. "I really should get back."

He nodded quietly and pushed away from the bulkhead. Jake took a step toward her. "I'll see you in a few days."

"You will," she agreed.

"Dinner," his eyes crinkled at the corners when his mouth quirked toward a smile, "and a few other things."

"As you were, Captain." Kathryn turned and strolled toward the door. "Mind those EPS relays of yours."

He watched her go with a grin. "I intend to."

KJKJKJ

A few hours later repairs were still underway. Kathryn and B'Elanna had determined that Voyager's damage did not require an escort back to starbase, but it meant pulling some long hours to get the repairs completed so they could get underway again. Once the ship's shields were fully repaired, their attention was turned to the engines and other systems. That didn't mean the ship wouldn't be put into dock for the more extensive repairs, but the field repairs would get them back in one piece, and would hold up in case of another attack.

That was how B'Elanna came to find the Admiral in a relay junction below the port nacelle. There were two junior officers with her, ensigns recently assigned to Voyager's engineering team. The Chief Engineer leaned against the open entrance to the junction and listened, a smile curving her lips, at the sound of her former Captain grumbling over changes that had been made to the ship's systems in the last year.

"These redundancies are slowing engine response time." Kathryn scowled as she bypassed an unnecessary auxiliary circuit that kept threatening to overload each time thruster control was routed through it. "The bio-neural systems can calculate navigation control at a faster rate without controlling the input through the auxiliary backups."

The ensign at her side stared in confusion. "But without the auxiliary circuits the system will overload more easily with a power surge. Those circuits are designed to prevent a thruster failure."

"That power surge would come from a direct hit, Ensign." Kathryn shook her head. "If that happens we aren't going to have to worry about blown circuits. We'll begin venting plasma, and if we're lucky, we won't be burning deuterium by then. The idea is to keep the ship moving at a rate that prevents a direct hit." She cast a look at the young officer out of the corner of her eye. "Schematics are well and good, Ensign, and I agree that they exist for a reason, but there are some instances when those redundancies are just more trouble than they're worth."

The astonished look on the officer's face was enough to have Torres suppressing the urge to snort. It was bad enough that most of her staff was shocked to have an Admiral crawling through the ship with them. She pushed away from the entrance and moved into the relay junction. "Are you corrupting my staff again?"

Kathryn tilted her head and looked around the open circuit panel, a small smirk quirked her lips upward. "No more than I ever corrupted you," she drawled.

"There are some," B'Elanna knelt nearby, a cup of coffee in one hand and a data padd in the other, "that would argue it was the other way around."

"Well, I'm certain between the two of us that we can find some way to convince everyone that it's really Tom that should be blamed for everything." She shared a grin with the younger woman. Kathryn handed the spanner she was holding to the ensign beside her and nodded to the cup in the Lieutenant Commander's hand. "If that coffee is for me I'm promoting you to Captain."

Torres snorted quietly as she held it out. She would never show up at this hour, after this many hours of work, with an empty hand. "All those years of waiting, hoping, peeking at his chair every morning and reminding himself that maybe tomorrow would be the day… if only Harry had known all he had to do was bring you coffee."

Kathryn snorted a quiet laugh and hid her smile in her cup. She took a grateful sip, but as she did she noticed the ensign staring at them. "If only he hadn't read the manual word for word," she sighed.

"Eyes front Ensign," the two women said together. They both smirked when the young woman startled and turned her attention back to the open panel.

"Help an old woman up, hm?" Kathryn held out a hand and grunted when B'Elanna stood and pulled her to her feet. "I had forgotten how hard it is to crawl around this ship keeping up with the younger officers. I think I'm out of practice," she chuckled. She also needed to remind herself that it hadn't been that long since she was wounded on Romulus. The ache in her shoulder was not limited to tension or fatigue. Dr. Ree had suggested that she take it easy for a few days, but she doubted that any of them could have anticipated the current situation. Kathryn supposed that she could have just allowed the engineering teams to handle all of the repairs, but it was not in her nature to sit idly by. She wondered if that was something she was just going to have to get used to in her new role, and if she ever would.

"Never." For a while it had felt like the other woman had never left the ship. B'Elanna didn't think they would have gotten as many of the repairs completed as quickly as they had without her. "If my engines could spare you for a minute, there's something I'd like to run by you."

"I thought," Kathryn heaved an exaggerated sigh, "that we agreed to think of them as our engines."

"Did we?" The engineer handed her a padd as they left the junction. "I've been looking over the sensor data that we obtained during the attack earlier today, and comparing that to what we already knew about the warbirds. I think I've discovered a more effective way of mimicking the warbirds' engine signature. It's based on another idea I've been working on for a few months."

They had gone only a few steps before Kathryn slowed to a stop again. "Tachyon generators along the outer hull?" She gave the engineer an astonished look before her gaze drifted as her mind worked over the possibilities and application. "With a constantly rotating shield nutation that would make us basically undetectable, even to our own ships unless they knew which nutation to scan for."

"I was thinking," B'Elanna explained, "that if we added them to the shield generators, in the low doses we would emit to resist most scans we might be able to absorb weapons fire instead of just having to worry about reflecting it." The engineer shrugged. "I've been working on a way to adapt the ablative generators the Admiral—" She trailed off with a small smile, "the other Admiral gave us so we could use them without worrying about violating the temporal prime directive or worrying that the technology specs have already been assimilated."

"This could work. Then the output would be dependent on the generators and would pull less energy from the deflector. We should work on a way to make sure we don't produce a feedback issue if we do get attacked again." She snorted. "We could use some of the redundant circuits from the engines to reroute the power if a surge occurs and redistribute it along the grid."

"I should be able to put it in place before we leave starbase again. With the extra hands we'll have, it won't take long to make the changes. Rumor has it we're going to be sent back to run patrols along the border," Torres shrugged, "it would be an advantage if any of the more hostile factions try to cause trouble. It would also be a good test, if it works."

"Hm. Indeed." Kathryn handed the padd back to her and took another sip from her coffee. "I'm not the one you should be asking, B'Elanna. I think you know that."

The commander shrugged as they began walking again. "I do, but maybe I miss having a sounding board that thinks the same way I do," she slanted a look at the Admiral, "and knows the ship as well as I do."

"Be that as it may," the Admiral said, "you should discuss this with your Captain. For the record, I think it would work." She cast a sideways glance at the younger woman. The corners of her mouth twitched toward a smile. "I miss that too."

"Chakotay to Torres."

"Speaking of," B'Elanna shook her head as she reached for her combadge. "Go ahead, Captain."

"I need an update, Commander." The frustration in his tone was barely restrained. "We should have gotten underway an hour ago. What is the hold up?"

B'Elanna prayed for patience, which was not a new habit when it came to the demands of her commanding officers in the face of repairs that needed to be completed quickly. "Captain, as I explained at the time, that deadline was my best estimate. We should be bringing the engines back online in…" She tilted her head at the Admiral who held up two fingers, "twenty minutes. We just need to wrap up some last minute calibrations. I will let you know as soon as they're complete."

His sigh was audible through the comlink. "Twenty minutes, B'Elanna. I've got an Admiral that's going to be demanding answers if we don't leave soon. If we're still sitting here in half an hour I'm going to let you explain it to her."

She watched the officer in question make a show of studying her nails while she suppressed a smile. The Chief Engineer shook her head. "Somehow, Captain, I don't think that's going to be an issue."

It was the underlying amusement in her tone that tipped him off. They could hear him choke off a barely suppressed groan. "She's standing right there isn't she?"

Kathryn's lips pursed. She shrugged at Torres before replying. "If my attention to detail isn't complying with your timeline, Captain, perhaps we should discuss it at more length. For the moment, however, your engines will be fixed as soon as you stop distracting us." The junior officers she had left at the relay junction could finish the repairs in half the time she had estimated for it, but she had no intention of telling him that.

"Understood, Admiral. I look forward to hearing from you. Chakotay out."

"You know," Kathryn drawled, "the really nice thing about being an Admiral is that I rarely have to explain myself to anyone."

"So then," B'Elanna's dark eyes sparkled with mischief, "not much has changed, has it?"

"You've been spending too much time with your father-in-law," Kathryn laughed, "but to answer your question, not especially, no." She nodded her head to the padd the engineer was carrying. "I'm only sorry I won't be here to see how that works out. I wouldn't mind helping to implement those changes."

"No," B'Elanna agreed, "but we can spend the next twenty minutes proving they'll work. Then I can convince the Captain it's worth extending our time at space dock long enough to make the changes to the shield generators that will emit the tachyon emissions."

"Then what are we waiting for," Kathryn waved an arm in the general direction of main engineering. If circumstances were different, she might extend her visit for a few more days, get a look at the changes for herself, but Kathryn believed it was better if she got off the ship as soon as possible.

In his ready room Chakotay allowed his head to drop against the backrest of his chair with a thud. He was beginning to question if Voyager being chosen for their prematurely terminated assignment was truly an advantage. He had allowed his emotions to get in the way of his better judgment, but then the bigger question was whether or not he truly had any better judgment where Kathryn was concerned. The Romulan attack had interrupted their conversation earlier, and he was beginning to think that was actually for the better.

"Then I met you. The way you make me feel… the things that move in me when I let myself imagine everything we could have..."

Chakotay recalled the way he felt hearing those words. It had ignited something in him, a renewed sense of hope and peace that came just when he thought there was nothing left of them but the journey home. It sustained him for a while. He would remind himself on the darkest nights that he had something to wait for, that Kathryn had only told him not now, rather than never. Over time, though, that hope began to fade. His peace was eroded again. They saw too much, too much darkness and strife, too many close calls. With every passing day, and month, and year, the woman who had spoken those words, who had kissed him back with such passion that night on the holodeck seemed to fade a little more. Finally there had come a day when he believed he couldn't recognize her at all.

Was he trying to hurt her? Chakotay thought back again to his short-lived relationship with Seven. He didn't want to believe that, even if he knew that part of him hoped she might feel something at realizing he had moved on. He wasn't that petty, was he?

When he thought of the way Kathryn had come alive again after they returned home, Chakotay couldn't understand how there was not still a chance for them. Or had they really missed their opportunity? Had the Delta Quadrant taken that, too?

He considered Kathryn's words, that she had simply locked herself away, even from him. Chakotay knew she could compartmentalize better than anyone else he knew, even Tuvok, but to be able to turn herself off and on like that, had he really known her? Was it Kathryn or his idea of her that occupied his thoughts for all those years?

He looked up at the sound of his door chiming. "Come in." He didn't bother to hold back a groan at the sight of Hugh Cambridge. He had a feeling the Counselor would want to speak to him again; he just hoped to put it off for a little while longer. "Now really isn't a good time," he said.

"When is it ever?" Hugh took a seat in front of the Captain's desk. "So," he wasn't the sort to beat around a bush whenever possible. "She's alive after all. Doing pretty well from what I've seen. That must have been a relief." The last time he saw the Captain, the man was still questioning fate and missed opportunities, and the presence of grief and regret in his current life. Hugh had a feeling that much of that was still present, since the Captain didn't exactly look like someone who had just gotten his heart's desire. Not, of course, that there had been much time for those revelations, but there was an undercurrent still present.

"Relief." Chakotay leaned forward. A long sigh passed his lips and rumbled deeply in his chest. "Yeah, it was a relief." He was still irritated that they'd been left to wonder, but he couldn't argue there were more pressing things happening at the time. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, Counselor, but I'm not sure I'm ready to talk about it. I don't even know if I should." She had asked him for time, and given how upset she was with him, over things he didn't fully understand, Chakotay was wondering if it was time to close that door completely.

"Ah," Cambridge nodded. "That tells me that it's exactly what we should be talking about. Unresolved conflict in our personal life can impact our ability to perform our duties. It can impede our judgment and make us question professional choices; that's why we're put out here," he said, indicating himself and other counselors like him. "When you thought the Admiral might be critically wounded, or worse, you were ready to wrap yourself in the regret of choices you didn't make. Now that you know she is okay, you're still hesitating to make any decisions. When we spoke earlier we touched on the fact that your hesitation was borne of a question about whether or not you wanted the reality of a relationship with Kathryn. What are you thinking about that now?"

Chakotay scrubbed a hand over his face. "More of the same, actually. I don't even know that it's possible now. I've made choices she can't accept, and she's started something with someone else. She asked me for space, so she can decide if we can even still be friends."

There was a note of bitterness in his tone. "Then you did speak to her," Cambridge thought as much. The man in front of him didn't exactly strike him as someone who would wait when an opportunity presented itself. He wouldn't say the Captain was ruled by his emotions, but he wasn't as reserved as most officers Cambridge had known in the past. "Let's start with why the Admiral stated she's upset with you. I assume she gave you a reason?"

"If we're going to do this…" Chakotay stood up and walked to the replicator. He ordered a carafe of coffee and it didn't go unnoticed by him that he always attributed the smell of the dark liquid to the woman they were discussing. "Before we got back to the Alpha Quadrant," he began, pouring cups for them both, "I started seeing someone else. She was a member of our crew, and someone Kathryn was close to." There was a part of him that could understand her annoyance. "Seven wasn't a member of the Starfleet crew, and when she approached me, I was flattered. I wasn't even aware that Kathryn knew about it until after it was over."

"I see." Cambridge held the cup in both hands and crossed his legs, getting more comfortable. Seven of Nine, he thought, the young human woman that Janeway had rescued from the Borg; from what he recalled reading, Voyager's former Captain had been instrumental in integrating her into the crew. Seven's own logs, those that had been released, had indicated she saw the Captain as a mentor and friend. A small frown drew Hugh's brows together. So then, when he was unable to have a relationship with his Captain, the First Office had decided it was appropriate to do so with the young woman she was tutoring in humanity? What the hell had gone on out there in that quadrant? "Do you believe she was jealous, or does it go much deeper than that?"

"Kathryn doesn't get jealous." Chakotay snorted quietly. "No, she claims that she's disappointed. She thinks I used Seven to hurt her." He scowled darkly. "My relationship with Seven had nothing to do with her. What little there was of it was between the two of us."

Hugh didn't believe that for a moment. He thought that might have been the intention, but there was too much acerbity in the other man's tone. "You thought she would be jealous, though," he pointed out, "it bothered you when she wasn't. If she wouldn't come to you on her own terms, you thought you could provoke a response, something that might prompt her to reconsider her position."

He ground his teeth together while he thought about that. It wasn't far from what Kathryn had accused him of and that made him question his own motives further. "At first, maybe," Chakotay relented. "Then I got to know her. Seven, I mean. She wasn't what I expected. She was curious, and away from the crew, there was a vulnerability I had never seen before." He sighed. "I suppose Kathryn had and that was why she was always so damned quick to protect her. Which is probably why she's so furious with me now. If she knew me at all…"

"That bothers you the most?" Cambridge interrupted him. "She knows you well enough to understand your initial motives, but because she has a personal attachment to the both of you, she isn't able to see past that. Or you would expect her to understand your intentions were…" He shrugged. "What exactly were your intentions?"

"I didn't want to be alone for the next fifty or sixty years of my life," Chakotay shrugged. "I can't believe there's anything so terrible about that. Kathryn wasn't going to relent. You don't know how damned stubborn she can really be, and to be honest, at that point I wasn't even sure that my Kathryn still existed."

"Did she ever?" Cambridge asked, truly curious. "Usually our idea of others isn't a true representation of who they are. There isn't anything necessarily wrong with that, as long as we don't lose sight of the true being of an individual. Do you think that is what happened?" He saw reticence in the Captain and decided to backtrack. "When did you realize you had feelings for her, your Captain? When did that happen?"

"I'm not even sure I know." Chakotay shook his head. "It didn't happen right away. She was infuriating. Trusting her was hard, but if we were going to survive we had to figure it out. She was determined, fierce, and I could respect that. Her methods took some getting used to, but it helped that I had been in Starfleet before. I wasn't so far removed that I had forgotten how to serve. That part came back easily enough. Kathryn seemed like such a martinet at first, I was surprised when I figured out she wasn't. I guess it was a few months in, I started to admire her; after that…" He didn't really know. "I guess one day I just looked at her, she was smiling about something. I don't even remember what it was. Something in me shifted and I knew there wasn't much out there to make any of us happy, but I wanted to see her smile like that again."

"Then I met you. The way you make me feel… the things that move in me when I let myself imagine everything we could have..."

Chakotay heard Kathryn's voice in his head again. It was the same for him, he decided. The anger in him had quieted; he didn't lie about that on New Earth. When he thought of her, he felt a peace he hadn't known in years. His place in the galaxy didn't feel quite so hopeless or alone. At some point his happiness became dependent on hers, and he guessed that was where it all went wrong. Kathryn wasn't happy in the Delta Quadrant; she was just trying to exist. It left him with an emptiness that was much darker than his anger and unrest had been. In an attempt to fill it he turned away from her.

"I gave up," he said quietly. "It was never going to happen; we talked about it once. Kathryn wasn't going to allow herself to cross that line, she couldn't, and…" He had promised her that hope would stay alive. He agreed to hold on to it, but he hadn't. The further she appeared to slip away from him, the more he began to doubt there was anything to hold on to. Finally, he had just stopped. "It used to be my place to make sure she was still holding on to who she was, that part of her that was so bright it made us want to walk through hell for her. Not because she asked me to, but so I'd have it when she was ready. Then I just let go, and she retreated completely." He closed his eyes with that realization. "What little of her was left she gave to Seven, she told me as much earlier, and I think I resented that."

"Then you were approached by the one person who still got to see those glimpses you had come to think of as yours," Cambridge stated. "By your own admission you thought it might provoke a response when she learned of it. Is it possible that you were just reaching for the part of her that was left? Perhaps you hadn't given up so much as… diverted your attention to what was available."

"That sounds awfully cold." Chakotay stood up and walked around the desk. He stepped up onto the dais to stare through the viewport at the stars. "If she's figured that out too it would explain why she's so upset about it all."

"Self perseveration, survival, they aren't always pretty when they assert themselves beyond our better control or judgment. Companionship is a basic human need. In the absence of the partner you had chosen you sought the next available alternative. A substitute." Cambridge inclined his head. "It is damned cold, but I don't think it was as callous as all that. I think it was necessary. As you said, you didn't want to be alone for the next fifty or sixty years of your life. Our emotions don't come with a switch to be turned on or off, but we do have built in coping mechanisms. You were in a difficult position, all of you. Even the act of moving from one moment to the next was a matter of survival. My concern is that you're only realizing this now. You did the requisite counseling when you returned, and you were found fit for duty. The issue is that the experience you lived through for seven years had lasting consequences. It was traumatic, and I think it has had an impact on your relationships, and not only those you've formed or revisited since getting home. Out there you were all that each other had, one hundred and forty individuals living on a single ship and that was going to produce bonds and grievances that won't be undone by a single trip through a transwarp hub, or a few months flying around familiar stars."

"What is it that you're suggesting that I do about that?" Chakotay turned a dark frown on the other man. They were home and he was going about his life again. He was even back in Starfleet, commanding the ship that was the only place he'd ever felt peaceful in his life. Was he supposed to give that up because he was somehow inept at living now?

"I think you have a lot of work to do, Captain," Cambridge said truthfully, "and I think at the end of that you're going to understand better the things your friend told you, and why she may be upset with you. I won't pretend to know everything about your relationship, but I can see the impact that it's had on you. I would like to help you, if you will allow me to. Starfleet thinks you're capable of commanding, and I won't disagree with that fact, but for how long? How long are you going to be able to continue to fake it before the last seven years catches up with you?"

"I'm not damaged," Chakotay grit out. "I don't need you to piece me back together." He resented the idea, even as much as he was beginning to think it might be necessary.

"No, but you are bruised," Cambridge pointed out. "All of you were. That's why I'm here. I was assigned to this ship to be available for everyone who might need me, but primarily for those of you who had chosen to stay on board Voyager after returning to duty. Starfleet needs all the personnel it can safely put in a uniform, but your superiors aren't foolish enough to think their officers don't require assistance." He shrugged affably. "You aren't the only stubborn officer on this ship, Captain."

No, he supposed he wasn't. Chakotay tried to imagine Cambridge sitting down to counsel B'Elanna and almost laughed out loud. He might be easy by comparison, and he was a known contrary. "Fine," he sighed. "What do we do first?"

"We already did it. We'll talk more later." Cambridge placed his coffee cup on the desk and stood. "I would suggest you see the Admiral again before she departs, if for no other reason than your own peace of mind. We can meet again afterward."

The idea of talking to Kathryn again was almost enough to raise the hairs on the back of his neck. Chakotay wasn't sure it was a good idea. It might be better just to let her go, lick his wounds, and figure out a way to get on with the rest of his life. He supposed that wouldn't exactly be facing things, though. He turned back to the viewport. He didn't really have anything else to lose at this point, though, did he?

-TBC-

A/N: The text in italics comes directly from Kirsten Beyer's Isabo's Shirt (Distant Shores Anthology). Before you click on next, you should know that there were two endings written for this. I wavered, quite a lot, about how this would ultimately end. Kate04 had the brilliant idea of writing two endings, and so that is what I did. The epilogue goes with either ending you choose to read.