notes: I am so, so sorry for the long gap in updates. I had a horrid case of writer's block, plus a bunch of life stuff happening all at once. I'll try my hardest to get another update out on Saturday, thus getting back on track - but no promises, other than that I'll try really, really hard.

Part XI: Malus

Tom and Harry made it to the bridge just in time for the start of shift. The turbolift doors opened onto an unusual hush, tense and uncertain and wary. They exchanged a sidelong glance, and then made their slow way out onto the bridge and toward their posts.

The captain's chair was, once again, conspicuously empty.

"Maybe she's running late," Harry muttered in Tom's ear, before veering away toward ops.

Somehow, Tom thought as he settled into his seat at the conn., he didn't think that was why the captain wasn't on the bridge. The only thing more constant than his perpetual tardiness—or so he had been told by both Harry and Tuvok, though not in so many words in the latter's case—was Captain Kathryn Janeway's early report to the bridge.

He settled into his chair at the conn. with his heart beating in his mouth, and anxiety that felt suspiciously like the first taste of fear gnawing at his ribs.

The morning crawled by with aching slowness. There was little for Tom to do but keep Voyager steady where she hung, trapped in the asteroid belt's slow orbit. The far distant stars shone pale and taunting. By midmorning, Tom was intimately familiar with the trailing gleam of ice on the surface of an asteroid tumbling a mere ten kilometers from Voyager's shields.

And still, Captain Janeway did not appear on the bridge.

Lunch came and went. Tom and Harry ate together in tense silence, sharing only a few uncomfortable sentences. They knew what was coming—what they were going to do—and it sat uneasy between them, and between each bite of green-breaded sandwich. The meat tasted thick and heavy on Tom's tongue, the lettuce-like vegetable like dust, and he found he had difficulty swallowing, even with large mouthfuls of fruit juice. It looked like Harry was having a similar problem.

Neelix approached as they were finishing, with a cheerful smile and a warm, "Good afternoon, gentlemen!"

"Hi, Neelix," Harry said. He sounded miserable.

Neelix's face fell into a concerned frown. "What seems to be the matter?" he asked, pulling out a chair at their table and inviting himself to sit.

Tom pulled a face, and Harry shrugged apologetically, then nodded in Neelix's direction. With a sigh, Tom looked at the Talaxian, and, with sudden inspiration, asked, "Neelix, have you seen the captain the last couple of days?" It occurred to him that they should have asked Neelix first thing; if something was wrong with the captain, then it was likely that Neelix, as both Morale Officer and Chef, would have heard about it.

Neelix's brow furrowed, and he looked between the two humans in thoughtful silence. Then, "No, I haven't. Which seems odd, now that I think about it. She'll usually stop by in the mornings for a cup of coffee, even when I don't see her in here for meals for a few days." Neelix leaned forward, folding his hands on top of the table.

"Have you noticed anything else odd?" Harry asked.

"I'm not sure what you mean," Neelix said. He was silent for a few more seconds, before saying, "The crew has been a bit on edge. But I figured that was because of what happened with the Kaminoans, and then being stranded by that solar storm. Why do you ask?"

"Because the captain hasn't been on the bridge for two days now," Tom said, blunt as a knife.

"You think something is wrong?" Neelix asked.

"We don't know," Harry said.

"We're going to ask Chakotay this afternoon," Tom added.

Neelix nodded and sat back. "Well tell me what he says, would you?"

"Of course we will," Harry promised.

"Now you two had better get going," Neelix said, standing, "or you'll be late."

Tom rolled his eyes. "Seems like I'm always hearing that," he muttered. Harry laughed.

When they returned to the bridge, it was to find Chakotay already there, sitting in his chair and studying something on the command console.

"Do you think he even left?" Harry asked Tom quietly.

Tom shrugged. "I dunno. He didn't come to the mess hall when we were there."

Harry nodded. "Well," he said, giving Tom one last long, heavy look, "good luck."

"Thanks," Tom said with a grin.

Tom dragged his feet as he made his way toward the conn. Halfway there, with hands clasped in front of him and breath shuddering against his ribs, he spun on his heels to look at Chakotay, sitting quiet and engrossed in whatever he was reading. He did not look up, even when Tom took a step toward him.

"Commander?" Tom said. "I'd like to talk to you."

Chakotay looked up at last. "I'll be in my office after alpha shift."

"I'm afraid it can't wait," Tom said.

Chakotay frowned. "Very well," he said, and made to stand.

"Actually, sir," Tom said, taking another step forward, "I wanted to talk to you now. Here."

Chakotay's frown deepened into a thunderous warning. "Yes, Lieutenant?"

Tom took a deep breath and, holding his hands very tightly together, said as stoutly as he could, "It's about the Captain."

Something in Chakotay's eyes shifted, then bled black. "What about her?" he asked. If his voice had been thunder before, it was lightning now.

"We wanted to know where she is," Tom said, questioning every single choice that had led him to this encounter. "She hasn't been on the bridge in two days now, and that's—well, odd."

"Where she commands from is the captain's prerogative," Chakotay said. His voice was ice and death.

"Of course, sir," Tom said hurriedly, the edges of his words tripping on one another. "But all the same, sir, we're just…worried," he finished lamely.

From the corner of his vision, which had narrowed to contain only Chakotay and the empty chair beside him, Tom saw the commander's hands tighten on the arms of his chair. His knuckles faded to white, while the black in his eyes hardened to stone. "I see," Chakotay said. "And who," he asked, his voice as soft as water, "is this 'we' you speak of."

"Me, and Harry, and B'Elanna, and Neelix," Tom admitted. "And everyone else who's noticed that the captain hasn't been on the bridge lately."

Chakotay's knuckles were as bloodless as bone. "I see," he said again. His fingers uncurled slowly, stiffly, as if he was having to think about each and every movement of the muscles straightening them.

"Sir?" Tom asked. A dark and niggling concern wormed at the back of his throat, but he did not have the time or courage to seek it out—not here, not now.

"The captain has a cold," Chakotay said. His words were clipped, and oddly strained. "It's unpleasant, if not dangerous, and she wanted to spare anyone else from catching it. That's it."

Tom swallowed the bitter taste of disbelief. "I see, sir," it was his turn to say.

"Now if you will take your post, Lieutenant," Chakotay said, inclining his head and stressing Tom's rank.

"Yes, sir," Tom said. He turned toward the conn. and, with heavy footsteps, made his way toward his post.

A message was waiting for him in the corner of his display panel when he sat. It was from Harry.

Well that went well, the message said.

Did you believe him? Tom typed quickly, with a furtive glance behind him to make sure that Chakotay had already returned to his reading.

I mean, it would make sense, was Harry's quick reply.

Sure. It makes sense. But did you believe him?

A long moment passed before the message icon appeared again in the corner of Tom's display. No, was Harry's simple answer.

Me either. But now what?

Another long pause. Then, Let's talk about this after shift. I don't want Tuvok to catch us passing notes again.

Tom stifled a snort, but typed a quick message before turning his attention back to the asteroid still spinning resolutely beyond the viewscreen, and to his troubled thoughts. It was going to be a long afternoon—and he had a feeling a long evening after.

Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. Chakotay wasn't telling them the truth, and something was wrong with the captain. They just had to figure out what.

~*x*~

Chakotay's quarters were quiet and dark. He had just come from Kathryn's room, where he had been met by The Doctor's stern hand and sterner frown. He had only been permitted to stand in the doorway for a handful of minutes, watching The Doctor hover at Kathryn's side like the moth again at the candle flame, before he had been shunted out into the hall with the same warning that had banned him from her room the day before.

Now he sat on his couch, a glass of replicated brandy in one hand, the bottle on the table at his elbow. He was halfway to drunk, and his thoughts were finally beginning to slow enough that he was able to force them into tipsy lines.

His confrontation with Tom on the bridge after the lunch break had been a shock, though in retrospect he realized he should have expected it sooner or later. Of course the crew noticed her absence. And of course they asked about her.

Was he wrong for having lied?

I didn't lie, the logical half of his thoughts said sternly. You just mitigated the truth.

"They're going to find out sooner or later," he told the empty air.

The empty air answered back with silence.

Chakotay sighed and sank back into the couch's back. The brandy burned his throat as he took a slow sip, and his eyes watered. He had never been a fan of brandy, but it was strong—and tonight he wanted something that reminded him where and who he was with every drink.

Why was he hiding the truth from the crew? Was it for their own protection? For Kathryn's? Or was it for his? Was it noble consideration of her status as captain? Or was it more selfish? Was it that he wanted her fragility to be a secret that only he—and The Doctor, and Kes—saw and understood? Did he want her pain, witnessed and borne, to be an unspoken bond between the two of them?

His forehead found the palm of his empty hand. "Why am I like this?" he asked again of the empty air.

The silence echoed back at him, loud and mocking.

He couldn't keep the secret of her illness forever, and the longer he tried, the more painful the telling would be. But when he thought of coming forward—of telling the crew, of telling Tuvok—a sour resentment rose from his throat and choked himt.

So he would keep the secret for a little longer, he decided—for as long as he could. What other choice did he have, for her—for him?

The brandy scorched his throat as he swallowed the last finger's worth, and he poured another too-generous helping. It splashed up the sides, amber and thin and sharp, and Chakotay wondered if it was a metaphor for his life. Then he wondered if he was drunker than he had thought.

Without a grimace, he tilted his head and drained the glass.

~*x*~

Kathryn opened her eyes to darkness and pain. She opened her mouth, to speak or cry or scream, and the darkness crawled in. She choked—and felt the darkness coil around her, loving and warm and empty, empty, empty.

It reminded her of hands, and of eyes peering out from corners, and of saccharine voices that whispered poison and promise.

Run, a quiet voice whispered, between her eyes and thoughts and ribs.

And she tried but the darkness coiled tighter, the warmth leeching past her skin and down into her bones. She opened her mouth again to scream—only to hear a voice, soft and sweet and saccharine, whisper, Easy, Captain, then promise, Everything is fine.

She was infinite, limitless, eternal. She was bound, and infinitesimal, and nothing.

What do you fear? an echoing voice asked her.

And she saw again the eyes peering from the corners of a dark room, and felt again hands that held her down against a cold, cold floor—that pressed, and tore, and pierced her body with their sharp fingers and rising laughter.

And she saw blue light, and the sharp crack of white lightning, and the cold of death crawling toward her like a vast, black spider, its web wrapped already around two lifeless shapes to either side.

And she saw Tom and Harry and B'Elanna lying dead before her, once and twice and a hundred times in a hundred different ways.

No, the echoing voice whispered, whispered, whispered. This is not how it was meant to be.

Then darkness once more, and Kathryn slept.

end notes: I'd love to hear what you think - and even just if you're still reading, even after that hiatus...