Big spoilers for (as in direct dialogue from) Caretaker, The 37's, Maneuvers and Resolutions.

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The sickbay doors opened, and they all stood aside to let him pass.

He could see the Doctor standing over her on a biobed towards the back. It was deathly quiet.

With every step he took, images of his life with her flashed through his head.

"The Starfleet ship is hailing us!"

"B'Elanna isn't anywhere onboard, Chakotay."

"Perhaps the Starfleet vessel can shed some light on our predicament."

Chakotay closed his eyes at the onslaught of voices coming at him. "Open a channel!"

Her face came on the viewscreen, imposing and beautiful. "Commander Chakotay. My name is Captain Kathryn Janeway."

He stared at her in confusion. "How do you know my name?"

"We were on a mission to find you when we were brought here by the array."

Another step. The sickbay lights were harsh.

"Commander, you and I have the same problem. I think it makes sense to try and solve it together, don't you?"

The faceless crewman who threw him out looked at him with sympathy.

She stepped right in front of him, the heat radiating off of both their bodies, tense and taut and ready for battle. "You're speaking to a member of my crew. I expect you to treat him with the same respect as you would have me treat a member of yours."

The Captain and Kathryn. Maybe he had loved her from the beginning. Maybe he had loved both of them.

"I don't see that we have any other option than to merge the crews. I can't put you all in the brig for seventy years, and I'm certainly not dropping you off anywhere. It would be better to pool our talents and work together."

"What would Starfleet think about that, Captain?"

"Probably the same thing they would think about you being my first officer."

His eyes widened. "Are you insane? Do you want a court martial when we get home?"

"It makes the most sense. You have the training. Your service record was nothing to sneeze at. You received glowing commendations from every commanding officer you served under, and you taught at the academy. You were a Starfleet officer. And the Maquis need someone in a position of authority they can trust if we're going to make this work."

"But you don't trust me."

She smiled wryly. "Well, you blew up your ship to save mine. I'm inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt."

She had been so beautiful…

"That's why Commander Chakotay and I have agreed that this should be one crew. A Starfleet crew."

She had such fire in her eyes…

"Commander, huh? Okay, now hear this Commander. There's a gun pointed at the lady's head right now, so you call Washington right now and tell them we're holding your people prisoner and they're not going anywhere until I personally talk to J. Edgar Hoover! You've got one hour."

Who the hell is J. Edgar Hoover, he thought. Then he shuddered. A gun at her head? "Captain?"

"It seems we're being held hostage, Commander." Her voice came through strong and clear. "I suggest you pay attention to what the gentleman says."

She had her own insecurities, and he had been able to just be there for her…

"Am I the only one who's so intent on getting home? Is it just me? Am I leading the crew on a forlorn mission with no real hope of success?"

"You're not alone," he said, wanting to pull her into his arms and give her a hug. "I want to get home, too. And there's not a day that goes by when I don't hear someone mention Earth."

"The people here have built a new Earth. We could stay, help them build a human civilization in the Delta Quadrant. Isn't that an exciting prospect? Shouldn't we be grateful for the opportunity they're giving us?"

She looked so sad. But he knew that staying here wasn't the right thing to do, and he knew she knew that, too. She just didn't want to be alone in her decision.

"It is a tempting prospect, but when I hold it up against the prospect of seeing the sun rise over the Arizona desert, or swimming in the Gulf of Mexico on a summer's day, there's just no comparison. I want to go home."

And now he was going home, to swim with his children in the Gulf and camp with them in the Arizona desert. But would she be there with them? Please, he begged silently. Please, please, please.

"I don't want to lose anyone. We've all been through so much together, it wouldn't seem right. But I couldn't blame anyone for staying behind." She hesitated. "I'm not sure I want to go in." She looked ready to panic.

He put a hand on her shoulder, comforting her as best he could. "No matter what happens, we'll make it. Remember that."

But they hadn't made it. They hadn't. But would they?

"Just tell me one thing. What were you thinking?"

"About keeping our technology out of Kazon hands. I thought if I did it on my own, I could keep the rest of the crew out of danger."

"That may be a very noble sentiment, but it wasn't your decision to make." She looked at him, her eyes filled with pain and uncertainty behind her Captain's Mask. "Oh, Chakotay. We've spent the last ten months together on this ship. I thought we had an understanding. Why did you choose to ignore procedure?"

Procedure, procedure, he thought. It was always about technicalities with her, even when he thought it might be more personal. "Seska was my problem. A problem I felt it was my duty to solve."

"So you had a personal score to settle."

"I thought I was doing the right thing."

"Really? Tell me this. How do you expect me to keep order when the first officer takes it upon himself to run off like some cowboy because he decides it's a good idea? What you did was commendable. The way you did it was not. You set a terrible example. And on a personal level, you have made my job more difficult."

His heart sank. She wasn't mad. She was disappointed. "If that's so, I regret it."

"I'm putting you on report," she said wearily. "In case that means anything anymore."

"It means something to me, Captain." He said truthfully. "It means I've let you down, and for that, I'm truly sorry."

More steps, more images. Nine years passing by him in seconds.

"You know, Chakotay, it occurs to me. We aren't exactly in a command structure anymore. Maybe you should call me Kathryn."

He stared after her, a smile of disbelief on his face. "Give me a few days on that one, okay?"

Her name on his lips...

"I'm building something."

"Building? What could you be building?" she chased after him. "And why can't you tell me?"

He stopped walking and turned to her. "You can't stand it, can you?" he teased. "You're like a little kid, wheedling."

She had always been so strong.

"I've never liked saying good-bye, so I'll make this brief. But I want you all to know that serving as your captain has been the most extraordinary experience of my life. No captain could ask for more than what this crew has given."

The way she touched him, even before they became lovers, had always burned him right to his soul.

She gasped as he lifted his hands off of her eyes. "Oh, Chakotay!" she clapped her hands excitedly and made circles around her new toy. "A tub!" she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly before resuming her examination of his creation. "Oh, this is fabulous." She grinned at him. "You shouldn't have."

"Well, you were starting to smell a little ripe…" he trailed off as she lunged for him, but he evaded her, laughing. "Okay, don't abuse me! I just wanted you to be comfortable, that's all. We're doing a lot of physical labor here, and it wouldn't hurt for you to soak those muscles."

"This is so nice, Chakotay. Thank you." She squeezed his hand, her eyes shining."

She had tried to stop it...

"We have to talk about this." She said solemnly as she sat at the table.

He knew this was coming from the way she reacted to the massage. "All right."

"I think we need to define some parameters about is."

There had been no parameters, not really.

"I can't sacrifice the present, waiting for a future that may never happen."

"See that grouping of stars, over there in the Northwest? I think that looks like an angry warrior."

He burst into laughter. "You're crazy. It looks like a bunch of stars."

She shook her head stubbornly. "Nope, it's an angry warrior. And that's what we're going to call it."

"If we were stranded here, with other people, other women…would you still be about to kiss me?"

"I'm pregnant."

"And you'll be the most beautiful when you're holding our children in your arms."

"If something is wrong, and it comes down to me or them…chose them over me. Promise me!"

"Mm..love you…"

"I love you. I love you so much. Please don't leave. Don't you want to watch them grow up? I can't do this alone, Kathryn! Please!"

"My poor little babies."

His steps were bringing him closer. She would still look the same, the way she did five years ago. The way she looked the night the twins were born. The twins…their children, whom he had raised on his own.

"Come on, Edward." He pleaded. "Can't you please take the bottle for Daddy? Please?" Chakotay glanced outside. A late winter snowstorm had blown up, even though yesterday had been a beautiful day. The wind was howling outside, and he was terrified the cold would get in. He thought of Kathryn, alone in the shuttle. His eyes welled up with tears.

The last few weeks had been terrible. He could never seem to please the babies, and they were always crying. He was always crying, too. He couldn't do this. Just them and him, on the planet, alone for the rest of their lives? No, he definitely could not do this.

He couldn't help but think about Kathryn's fairy tale, about the twins who had save their mother with their birth.

That obviously hadn't happened here.

He would never blame them for her death. After all, they hadn't asked to be made. But the simple fact was that their mother had given her life for them to be born. It tore at him, this divided loyalty. His heart broke all over again every morning when he woke up and she wasn't there beside him, and yet when his son grasped his finger tightly or when his daughter looked up at him with her mother's eyes, he couldn't help but be grateful for them. He loved them unconditionally.

But they were as stubborn as their mother.

He closed his eyes in frustration as he heard Kathryn begin to cry. Edward was refusing to keep the bottle in his mouth, and Kathryn had been fussy all morning. The two of them needed his constant attention, and he had begun to feel too paranoid to leave them alone for too long. That meant his forays outdoors were limited, and he wasn't getting anything done. And the isolation was eating away at him. He almost felt like this was a form of Cardassian torture. He had no one to talk to.

"Is that a smile? Is that a smile for Daddy?" he held his daughter up and grinned at her. "Oh, Kathryn, you're smiling! Look at you!"

She gurgled in response.

He settled her back on his hip and continued his one handed work on the vegetables he was sorting. He and Kathryn had managed to plant a substantial array of crops when they first arrived here. He was grateful for it now, especially since he was worrying more and more about the replicator. The babies needed a lot of things, much more than he and Kathryn had. And they needed a lot of food, too.

"We're gonna mash these up for you and your brother, sweetie." He cooed at her. "I promise, it'll taste just like chicken."

The baby didn't get the joke.

The last three months had been the most stressful of his life. He lived in constant fear that he would accidentally hurt one of them, or neglect them in some way. Yes, he had helped his mother care for his sister, but the situation was completely different. Here, he was alone with two infants. And the first few weeks were the worst. Then, the twins had just been two crying, eating, pooping blobs. They hadn't had much of a personality, and the strain of being alone had eaten at him. But over time, he noticed his children becoming…well, people.

But he mourned every milestone. Even now, with his daughter's first real smile that couldn't be attributed to indigestion, he couldn't help but be devastated that Kathryn wasn't here. He could see it so clearly in his mind. She would be holding the baby on her hip just as he was, and she would yell for him to come see. They would coo over her together, and smile together at the development of the baby they made together.

He sighed. Then he cringed. Edward was crying. Damn.

"Edward! Come to Daddy, Edward!" Chakotay held the holorecorder out in front of him as he watched his son crawl around on the blanket he set down for him. "Come on, buddy, come to Daddy."

Edward looked up at him with his intent dark gaze. Unlike Kathryn, who was constantly giggling and flailing about, Edward was a quiet baby. He rarely smiled, opting instead to study everything around him and take it all in. But now, he did grin, and bounced on his hands with delight.

"That's it, little guy. You're doing it!" Another milestone. But with each one that passed, he was able to focus more on what the twins were doing than on what their mother was missing.

At night, when the twins were sleeping, he sat on the porch and gazed at the stars. If he needed to talk just to hear the sound of his own voice, he would make a log. He had more sand paintings and wood carvings than he ever had in his life. He couldn't wait until the twins started to talk.

Kathryn slammed her fist down into the little cake he made them. She giggled, and her brother smiled faintly.

Chakotay laughed, his ever present holo-recorder capturing the moment. He didn't know if Voyager had gotten home. He didn't know if they ever would. But if they did, and if Starfleet came looking for them, he wanted to have documentation of their lives here on New Earth. He had Kathryn had used the holo-recorder quite a bit, especially during her pregnancy. Now, as the twins grew, it was almost constantly in his hand.

"Happy Birthday, guys! Look at Daddy!"

They both looked at him, and Kathryn squealed and tossed a piece of cake his way.

"Gee, thanks."

Their first birthday. They were already walking, small steps, but steps nonetheless. In a few days, Kathryn would be dead a year. He tried not to think about that, and focused instead on the fact that his children had been alive for a year.

But still, some birthday party. The only guest was Daddy.

He really wished they could go home.

Please, please, please…The words drummed an incessant beat on his brain as he held the tricorder over his son. Little Edward held a hand over the bright red mark on his arm, his big eyes filled with silent tears as he stared pitifully up at his father.

His heart was racing. He scanned Edward three times. "Oh, thank you." He breathed a sigh of relief, and might have burst into tears if his son hadn't been staring at him. "It's okay, bud. It's just a little bug bite. Daddy will clean it off, okay?"

Edward just smiled.

He had put the twins on a blanket in the sun while he worked in the garden. Edward had started wailing, and when he went to investigate, his heart skipped a beat at the angry red welt on the baby's arm. It was the same kind of bug bite that had gotten him and Kathryn stuck here.

But there was no trace of the virus in Edward. And it had showed up almost immediately in his parents.

"Thank you, Kathryn." He said softly to himself. The vaccine she had developed for their children, which he had administered shortly after birth, had appeared to have saved them from an entire lifetime on this planet.

"Tree."

Chakotay spun around, startled. He stared at Kathryn, who was sitting up in the playpen he had made for them when they started to walk. "Kathryn?"

She grinned and pointed at the leafy tree overhanging their house. "Tree." She said clearly.

His mouth dropped open. "You talked!"

She just kept smiling.

He ran over and lifted her out of the pen, hugging her to him. "Oh, sweetie, you said your first word!" Tears filled his eyes. "I have someone who will talk back now!"

"Tree. Tree. Wan tree!"

"You want to see the tree?" he walked over to the tree with her and held her up to the lowest branch. She giggled and flung her hand at the leaves.

"Tree!" she laughed.

He held her close to him, relieved to hear the sound of someone else's voice.

"Who she?"

Chakotay held a twin in each arm, but the question had come from Kathryn. At nearly two, she was speaking quite well, a fact which made him nervous about Edward. While he was constantly studying the world around him, he had yet to utter an opinion on it. Unlike his sister.

"That's your mommy." He said softly. There, his Kathryn slept, looking just as she had when she died.

He wondered if it was healthy for him – for any of them – that he hadn't buried her. He knew she was dead. Of course he knew that. But having her in stasis was almost like a refusal to accept her death. Here, he could imagine that she was just sleeping. He could reconcile it, but would the children be able to?

"What mommy?"

He didn't know quite how to explain the concept to a toddler who had never seen a woman in her life. "Well, you know how Daddy takes care of you?"

She nodded.

"Well, mommies do, too. In fact, you grew in Mommy's tummy."

Her eyes widened. "How?"

Hmm. "You just did. And then you and Edward came out."

"How?"

"I'll explain when you're older. But that's your mommy."

"Why she no wake?"

"She died, honey." He sighed. "Death is like sleeping, only you never wake up."

"She no wake?"

"No honey, she'll never wake up."

Kathryn patted her father's cheek with her chubby little hand. "Sorry, Daddy."

And that about summed it up.

"Come on, Edward!" Three year old Kathryn ran out into the snow, jumping into a snowdrift and giggling.

"Hold on, Kathryn!" Chakotay shouted after her. He double checked to make sure his son was bundled up. "Everything okay, Edward?"

His son nodded.

Chakotay sighed. "You don't have anything you want to say to me?"

He shook his head.

He bit his lip. "Okay. Go ahead and play with you sister."

Edward turned and ran out of the house. Chakotay grabbed a steaming mug of tea with his gloved hand and followed them out, closing the door securely behind him as he did.

The twins had just turned three a few days ago, and yesterday had been the anniversary of Kathryn's death. He took them to place roses – which he replicated especially for her – on her stasis unit. They finally understood who Mommy was – largely from the interactive fairy tales Kathryn had programmed before she died – and they knew she was gone forever, but it didn't stop Kathryn from making up stories about her.

"And when I'm bigger, me and Mommy are gonna go in the boat on the river. And you know what, Daddy? Mommy's gonna let me row, cuz you never do." She glared at her father, her expression so eerily like her mother's that it scared him.

"Honey, you know Mommy isn't going to wake up, right?" he asked softly.

She tossed her long dark hair. "I know that, Daddy. I'm just saying if."

"There is no it, Kathryn. She won't be waking up. Not ever." It broke his heart to tell her that, but she had to understand.

"Oh, I know. I'm just making up stories. I know Mommy won't wake up."

Now, as he watched them play in the snow, he wished Kathryn was standing there with him. He wished it a hundred times a day.

"Hey, you two!" he shouted across the yard. They stopped and looked up at him. "You want to learn to make a snow man?"

"Daddy."

"Just a minute, Kathryn." Chakotay didn't look up from the console he was working at. "Did you need something?"

"Daddy." More urgently now. Suddenly, he realized it wasn't Kathryn's voice. He looked down, startled, and was stunned to see Edward standing there.

"Edward?" he whispered.

"Daddy, I have to potty." He said, his voice strong.

Chakotay just stood there, openmouthed. He had talked. Edward had finally talked! He grinned. "I knew finally taking you two out of training pants was a good idea." He picked his son up and hugged him. "Come on. I'll help you. But this better not be a one time thing here, buddy. I want to hear you talk more often."

"Kathryn talks enough. You don't need me to."

Chakotay was amazed by the strength and clarity of his son's voice. "Do you do any talking at all?'

"I talk to my toys at night when everyone's sleeping/"

He stifled a laugh. It made sense, he supposed. Edward probably couldn't get a word in during the day if he wanted to. Kathryn never seemed to stop talking.

One more step. He came up neck to the Doctor, who was staring down at Kathryn with an expression he couldn't read.

"Doctor?" Chakotay whispered.

He looked up at him. "We got her heart started. There was very little loss of brain activity. But she's not responding to the cure for the virus. She's in a coma."

"Did she wake up at all?"

"No. I'm sorry to have raised your hopes, but going into a coma directly from stasis…" he trailed off. "It took Starfleet scientists years to develop that cure. I don't see how I can help her if it's not working. I'll try, but I don't think there's much I can do."

Chakotay trembled. 'So what does this mean? Is she going to die again, or is she going to stay in a coma?"

"I don't know yet, Commander. I'm going to work as quickly as I can to find a solution. I won't let her go without a fight, now that we have her again."

"But she was dead, right?" he demanded, almost hysterically. "I didn't put her in stasis while she was still alive, did I?"

"Her heart was stopped. If you hadn't put her in stasis, her brain would have died, and there would have been no reviving her at all. So yes, she was definitely dead. But as soon as I scanned her brain, I saw that there was still heavy electrical activity. You must have placed her in there almost immediately after her heart stopped. I also think something else was at work here. Perhaps the same unusual properties of this planet's atmosphere which kept the virus at bay in both of you helped keep her brain active even after death. The rate of deterioration isn't what you would normally see in someone who has been dead for even a few minutes. After six minutes, the brain begins to die. I don't see that here."

Chakotay stared in horrified fascination at Kathryn. Her chest was rising and falling, her cheeks filled with color again. He couldn't believe it.

"How long until the virus kills her again?"

"Only hours. I need to get started right away."

"Do it. Find something, Doctor. Just make sure she lives. I've gone too long without her to be able to say good-bye again."

"Bring the children to me. I want to examine their immune systems. Since they were raised on the planet, maybe I can find something that can help me out. And I want to do an examination of you, as well. I don't know why the cure isn't working on her, but I intend to find a way to overcome it."

"Fine. But I don't want them knowing about this. Make sure they don't see their mother. If you can't save her…there's no use in them knowing."

The Doctor nodded, and Chakotay stormed out of sickbay, ignoring B'Elanna's attempt to talk to him. He raced to his quarters, collapsing on the floor the minute the door slid shut, his body shaking with sobs. He crawled up in the fetal position, pressing his fingers to his eyes.

How many times could one's heart break, before it was impossible to fix it again?

TBC

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