A/n: This update is proof of my promise that I will update every one of my fics eventually. Be that as it may, this chapter wouldn't have been finished now without the amazing and inspiring input of my co-author/beta for this story, xXSilentCrescendoXx (formerly xXTheGothicBumblebeeXx). She wrote the whole first section, right up to the beginning of the conversation, and basically resurrected my muse for this story, so thanks to her once again! :)
Seven cast an anxious eye around the sparsely decorated set of quarters that had been assigned to Captain Chakotay. Her uneasiness was partly due to the fact that the room had barely been entered since the death of its former occupant, Assistant Chief Engineer Joe Carey; the only people she knew who had come in here since the Lieutenant had met his untimely death had been Captain Janeway, Lieutenant Torres, and now the elder Chakotay. The walls that had once housed such a well-respected man, one who had had a young family no less, were far from welcoming; she almost felt as if she were intruding twice as much as she would have done had the elder Chakotay been assigned to any other spare room. She'd never been particularly comfortable around death, though she always took great pains to mask her discontent, hiding beneath a veneer of neutrality; a trait that she often suspected the crew perceived as her not caring, as her seeing herself as above them. The other thing attributing to her discomfort was what she was there to do.
She was certainly not unfamiliar with the term 'espionage'; she had been assigned that task numerous times as a part of the Collective. Even aboard Voyager she had done her fair share of listening in, only stopping after an extremely irate B'Elanna Torres had called her out on it. She'd had a more profound respect for other people's privacy after that encounter, but there was something about the newcomer onboard that didn't sit quite right with her. She had had a strange feeling about Chakotay's aged doppelganger since the moment she'd encountered him in Sickbay, and it was something far more unsettling than the trepidation she usually fought with when the crew made contact with any other life in the Delta Quadrant. His peculiar behaviour had been the thing that had sparked her initial apprehension: the way he had stared at her in Sickbay, both awestruck and fearful, had startled her, but then, she was used to that face, albeit a much younger version, looking at her with a mixture of respect and a subtle adoration. Then there had been their confrontation in Astrometrics. Unusually for her, the emotions that had played across his face, frustration, grief, and most disturbingly, hatred, had burned a clearer memory in her mind than the actual terse words they had exchanged. As much as she had appreciated the younger Chakotay's assurances that those feelings could never be directed at her, she had been struggling all day since to take that soothing, and probably wistful on his part, promise to heart. It was the decision to bring that internal conflict to a conclusion, a reassuring one or not, which had brought her here.
She stepped further forward into the room, using quiet, calculated steps. Nothing seemed to be out of place, there wasn't even a single crease on the duvet covering the twin bed. No, bar a brown leather wallet on the bedside table, you could not even tell that a person was staying there. Seven eyed the wallet guiltily, knowing that she would have to take a look in order to satisfy her curiosity. This man was not the Chakotay she knew, she rationalised, this was an older, more hostile version, one that was completely happy to snap at her and go out of his way to make her feel uncomfortable. She was not sure why she felt as though something in the wallet could explain it, but she had come to learn that she should learn to trust her 'gut instinct'; it had rarely let her down before.
The exterior of the wallet was worn, cracked, and the various identifications and mementos inside made no sense to her. She felt a great disappointment, she'd hoped for more than this; a clue would have been nice, some sort of sign that she'd done something to deserve all the ambivalence and malice the elder Chakotay was sending her way rather than the possibility of him just changing his mind about her and their romance. Seven felt her chest muscles constrict, the idea did not appeal. She had taken the first steps into romantic involvement with this man; the thought of it not working out terrified her.
She began to place the items back into the wallet, thanking her eidetic memory for the ability to be able to put it back into order; it would not do to arouse suspicion in Chakotay; she'd hate for either one of them to think she had no issues with snooping around their personal effects, and she wasn't sure she had the words in her vocabulary to explain the emotional battle she'd fought with herself to even enter the room. She got to the last item, some piece of paper tainted with the fragrance of rosewater, and placed it into the back of the wallet. She noticed a slightly frayed edge sticking out, and its texture did not match any of the things she'd inspected before. Curious, she pulled it out, and traced a pattern on the back. It was obviously a photograph, and she debated whether or not it would be worth it to satisfy her curiosity if she found a picture of another woman on the other side. Another, perhaps prettier, untainted woman. Would it, she asked herself, be worth the heartbreak?
Carefully, she moved herself into a sitting position atop the bed, crossing her legs and putting the wallet beside her. The photograph was still in her hands, and she toyed with the filmy texture on the other side. Eventually curiosity got the better of her and she turned the paper over before she could change her mind and run away from the situation.
A woman.
Just like she had feared, a woman was there and Chakotay had his arm around her. Contrary to her fears, Seven found herself smiling, because despite never having seen that face before, she knew immediately who it belonged to. The resemblance was, in a word, uncanny. Hair just slightly darker than her own, hung to just above her elbows, gently curled and bouncy. The face was structurally similar to her own, though the eyes through which this girl saw the world, despite being that familiar shade of blue, shone with a light as she smiled which, she knew, along with the full, graceful lips could have only been bestowed on her by Chakotay. She recognised a few people in the background; there was the unmistakable grin of Tom Paris, and the equally exuberant Harry Kim. She briefly looked over a beautiful woman who she assumed was an adult Naomi Wildman, before returning her gaze to her own daughter, a person she'd never known but already had such strong, confused, feelings for.
She heard the noise of someone clearing their throat and wondered when they'd come in; she had not heard the beep or the sound of the doors opening, so transfixed had she been by the photograph. She looked up, already knowing who it was, but made no move to get off the bed. Any other time she would have made a rush to justify her reason for being there, but the look on the elder Chakotay's face conveyed to her that there was no need.
That he already knew.
"It's a good photo," he began, moving closer towards her, yet she still did not move. "I think I'd forget what she looked like if I didn't have it with me to remind myself." Seven felt worry shot through her, her brows creasing tighter together as new anxiety piled atop the confusion and apprehension she was already experiencing, did Chakotay develop memory issues? It seemed highly unlikely to her that anybody could forget such a charming face, especially as it belonged to his own child.
"It is a good photo," Seven agreed, casting her eyes back to their daughter. She was holding a slice of cake on a paper party plate, and balanced precariously on the edge was one of those weird spoon-fork combination things she'd heard Lieutenant Paris refer to as a 'spork'. She beamed up at her father, who himself wore a weary smile. Seven saw the tension in his shoulders and wondered if the grin was for his daughter or the camera. Looking up, Seven stared the elder Chakotay in the eyes and opened her mouth.
"Freya." he stated, both correctly pre-empting her question and answering it. "Her name was Freya."
"Freya." Seven repeated, the syllables rolling sweetly out of her mouth even as her voice was contained to a strained whisper. She glanced down at the photograph, as if for confirmation, and as her gaze flickered from her daughter, now definitively real in her mind as well as her heart, to the still image of Chakotay frozen in time, the full meaning of his short answer slammed into her. She was dimly aware of a gasping sound around her as she felt the oxygen being forced from her constricted chest, but kept her eyes fixed on the photograph as if it were an anchor to cling to in this storm she'd walked into. Her vision blurred and she was only able to clear it when she realised with a stab of panic and guilt that she was almost crushing the picture in her clenched hand. Only after she'd gently laid it out on her knee and tenderly smoothed out the crumples encroaching on the fragile paper did she dare to face its owner again. "She is the reason for your presence here." She didn't feel the need to phrase her conclusion as a question; in her mind he'd already confirmed it with his actions.
"Yes, the final reason." Chakotay answered, and although a heavy and bitter sigh followed the words as an echo, the hostile edge Seven had so feared had left his voice entirely, with only painful resignation clinging onto the honest, quiet words. Seven assumed he expected her to ask more, probe for more detail, but really, she needed no more. The twin spectres of death and grief hovered around this empty room, Lieutenant Carey was not alone in watching them silently. Freya was going to die, was already dead, and her mother felt that the how of such an event would never be truly relevant to her. So she let the detail hang between them, unasked for and thus unspoken, her eyes merely drifting back to the photograph. The silence was broken by the sound of Chakotay's careful steps towards her, but she still jumped slightly when she heard the creak of the bedsprings, watching as his legs swung off the floor to mirror her crossed legged position and then sensed his head tilting to join hers over the photograph. "That was her 21st birthday." He murmured, the warmth of remembered laughter tingeing his voice as he pointed to the flowing red dress Freya was wearing, "I managed to coax her out of her new Ensign's uniform for the day…" His eyes, which Seven couldn't help but study as he recalled their lost daughter, darkened visibly as he mentioned the Starfleet rank, and Seven, in a gesture of silent empathy even as different scenarios raged through her mind relentlessly, gently pressed the photograph into his hand. His skin felt cold to the touch, making worry again surge through Seven unbidden, but he didn't seem to notice her reaction, instead gazing down at the picture intently, a distant smile passing over his face as he rubbed the image over and over again with his thumb. "I think Icheb took this picture, he had good aim with a camera, but he could hardly ever be coaxed in front of one, just like you…" He trailed off as he felt Seven stiffen beside him, despite the strangeness of the situation their natural ease with each had shown itself for a few moments before fading away again now. As she moved to a more strict position, her beautiful face taut with conflicted emotion, placing her feet neatly on the floor as if preparing to rise. He found himself looking at anything but her, studying the soulless interior of these quarters. "I wish they'd given me any other room than Joe Carey's." He muttered.
Seven exhaled slightly as she noted wryly that she'd had almost exactly the same thought upon entering. "I found it unsettling also…" She admitted slowly, "…particularly now." She stood up, her legs itching to make for the door but she surprised herself by turning sharply around to face him, shoulders hunching with dread as she stared down at his seated form. "I presume that I am dead also?" As blunt as the statement was, and much more detached than any comment she'd made regarding Freya's life, she continued on without allowing him to answer, "I would not just assume that we'd necessarily remained…involved…" Her voice was suddenly in a rush, stumbling in embarrassment, but she forced herself to persevere anyway, "…but I know that if I were able to help you prevent our child from dying, even by time travel, I would…"
"I know that Seven." Chakotay interrupted thickly, reaching forward to grip her badly shaking arm. Her dismissal of the consequences for her own death had shocked even him and sent him reeling, but he saw that he had to be honest now. He wanted to say something more meaningful, but somehow his affirmation became as blunt as her question. "Yes, you died."
Seven blanched, but as she looked down at his hand around her elbow any vestige of her neutral front concerning death began to crumble for an entirely different reason. "I…I hurt you, caused you grief…" She choked out, "That is why you resent me now…"
Chakotay's hand moved swiftly down from her elbow to grasp her hand. "It hurt to lose you because I love you. That could never be your fault." He told her in a whisper, unconsciously rubbing the back of her hand in circles to calm her and himself as he sighed brokenly, "As for the resentment, that's directed at this whole situation, that we even have to go through this…"
Seven closed her eyes for a moment as she tried to hold back the threatening tears and process what he'd said. It struck her that he'd used 'love' in the present tense, and somehow that made her guilt intensify rather than abate. "Why now Chakotay? Freya won't exist as she was for you, even if I am able to have children. Why didn't you go back to save her?" she asked in anguish.
The agonised grimace that instantly scarred his face made her regret the emotional outburst but he answered her immediately, if painfully. It was as if he'd memorised his rationale. "Admiral Janeway looked into time travel before me and concluded that this point in Voyager's journey, the transwarp conduit was the only opportunity to get the whole crew home alive immediately as it stands. I resisted the idea when Freya was alive, but when she was gone I realised how much it could solve. I loved her but I wasn't happy, she was the one thing that kept me going and no child should have to be that for a parent. Doesn't she, or any of our children, deserve to have you as a mother as much as I have as to have you as a wife Seven?" he questioned passionately, "This was the only way I could save both of you, Tuvok and more others than you know…"
Seven drew back from him, the red rims of her eyes standing out vividly against the ghostly white hue of the rest of her face. "I understand." She whispered as her hands fell to her sides, suddenly she was eerily still. "I apologise for the intrusion."
Chakotay knew she was withdrawing into herself and told her truthfully, "I hid all this to protect you Seven…and my younger self and the others too. If this works, you'll never have to know this pain. I didn't want you to have to live it through me."
Seven nodded, managing to reach out and touch his face for a split second in acknowledgement before hastily twisting away. As she reached the doorway however, she found that her body refused to go any further until her last nagging suspicion was voiced. "It…" Only now did a sob manage to escape her iron will to hold herself together, "It was the Borg who took Freya wasn't it?" Chakotay's sharp intake of breath was the only answer she needed. "Your younger self…he hates the Collective for what happened to me in the past, but you…you hate them for what they did to both Freya and I." She explained haltingly without turning around to face him again.
Chakotay was still amazed, even while knowing her as intimately he did, by Seven's sudden bursts of insight, but this was one he wished she hadn't had. "Yes." He answered reluctantly, pushing the word past the lump in his throat, "She wasn't…assimilated. She was spared that sweetheart."
Seven's blonde head bowed into a weak nod, but in the end doing more was beyond her as she finally gave in to the sobs wracking her body. The devastated sound of weeping became freer as Chakotay silently walked up behind her and wrapped her in his arms.
A/n: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW! :D