The ready room door chimed promptly at 0700.

"Come," Chakotay commanded as he glanced up from a padd.

The Doctor entered and Tom Paris followed in behind him. Chakotay stiffened and retorted, "What is he doing here?"

"You made it clear that you wanted to thoroughly question me on Captain Janeway's medical condition. I want make every possible answer available to you at this briefing. The best way do to that is to have Lt. Paris in attendance. He has been instrumental in helping the captain with her condition."

Chakotay's chair banged against the desk as he rose and to confront Tom. "What?"

Scorn and disgust distorted Chakotay's face. "Yes, I think I saw some of your help last night! Lt., I couldn't help but notice that while the rest of the room was drinking synthohol your table was getting bombed on something quite different. What the hell was that, Tom?"

Tom cleared his throat and answered, "Uh yeah, that, believe it or not, is a Mawasi narcotic. It's nothing like that weak wine they've served us everywhere. A bartender offered me some for pain one night." Tom shrugged, "It tasted fine and did the trick. I shared a little and had no idea it'd become so popular with the ladies."

Chakotay wondered if he needed any more reason to punch Tom, but he still needed answers. He stood in front of his desk and so close to Tom that it looked like he was going to throw Tom against the wall at any moment.

Chakotay turned to the Doctor and demanded, "Explain the effects of this narcotic."

The Doctor stuttered. Distracted by the tension between the two men, he blurted out, "Is there something I should know about before this meeting continues?"

Chakotay pressed his hand against his brow and stared at the Doctor with a sarcastic amused expression. "You mean to tell me that you don't know?"

The Doctor looked hopelessly blank. "Yes."

Chakotay took a deep breath. "Last night Captain Janeway, plied full of Tom's Mawasi narcotic, blatantly propositioned me in the middle of a crowded holodeck."

"And I didn't hear about this?" the Doctor said, immediately indignant that he missed such a juicy piece of gossip. "You didn't tell me," he spoke to Tom.

Tom stood with his hands on his hips and stared at the floor. He sighed and looked up at Chakotay, who towered over him. "Look, can we sit down and talk this through from the beginning. Maybe the muscle relaxant wasn't a good idea but there is more than that that you should know about."

"How come I didn't hear about this? What happened?" the Doctor glanced from Tom to Chakotay.

Tom shook his head at the insecure sounding hologram. "Relax, Doctor. That happened less than six hours ago. The rumor mill hasn't even had a chance to wake up yet."

"Can we sit?" Tom repeated to Chakotay.

Chakotay, ignoring the Doctor, and obviously lost in thought replied more calmly this time. "Yeah, we can sit." He gestured them to the sofa area, "Coffee?"

"Please." Tom answered soberly.

Tom sat down and Chakotay went to the replicator.

Tom began talking, "As you know after our year of hell fighting the Krenim I had some of my own problems. One day I just about beat the living daylights out of a Mawasi engineering assistant because I mistook him for a Krenim doctor." Tom swallowed hard, "Doc was there and after he diagnosed me we set to work examining different treatments for post traumatic stress."

Chakotay interjected as he handed Tom a coffee and sat down across from him. "Tom I received some of the Doctor's reports in my travels and I want you to know," Chakotay paused and waited for Tom to look him in the eye. "They didn't put me through any of that."

Tom winced and bowed his head again.

Chakotay continued, "Maybe because of my higher rank? Or because they felt they only needed to test one of us. But Tom, when I read the reports and saw what you went through, I want you to know that I regretted not understanding then."

Tom nodded and continued. "Virtually all the techniques we found required revisiting the trauma in a therapeutic manner: journaling, guided questions, and even flooding the patient with the same negative stimuli that caused the trauma."

"Why is that, Doctor?" Chakotay asked.

"As long as the trauma remains unresolved, portions of it remain active in the patient's psyche, like sign posts, if you will, reminding the patient they need to go back and deal with something" The Doctor perked up at his spontaneous analogy that communicated a complex bio-neural process. "Any similarities in the present can trigger full blown flashbacks, or at the very least, serve as a constant reminder and cause constant emotional distress. The individual needs to deal with and resolve the trauma for the various signposts to cease."

Tom interjected. "And the captain couldn't even begin this process as long as she'd only talk technical specifications. She needed to let her guard down, to trust, to just 'be' for a while. I invited her to hang out on the holodeck with a few of us and she came. Then one day Neelix's cooking, the fire that is, triggered a flashback and we were there. She agreed to get help, and since we had just got the holodeck running, Kathryn… the captain and I have been meeting on the holodeck and recreating some of her experiences."

"I never received any updates on this." Chakotay replied.

"We didn't record it as 'medical treatment.' Kath… the captain didn't want that."

The Doctor supported Tom. "Lt. Paris and I discussed this and I agreed that it would be best to log these holo-sessions but not to file reports on them as 'treatment' per se until the captain was more comfortable with the process."

"How long has this been going on?"

Tom shrugged, "Around a month, forty days maybe."

The number struck him hard. Chakotay looked ill. "Forty days? I've been tied up in negotiations so long that I missed forty days of Kathryn seeking help?"

He didn't expect an answer but Tom replied, "You've missed a lot more than that."

"Excuse me?"

"If you knew how she was, you wouldn't have put taking back command on her like you did last night."

Chakotay remembered that he wanted to punch Tom. "Oh? And what would I have done Lt?"

"You would have accepted her and realized that she might not be able to meet your expectations."

"My expectations? Were you listening? My entire response to her was according to how I've always understood Captain Janeway's expectations."

"Exactly." Tom looked a little too smug.

"So now you are a therapist." Chakotay snorted, "Dismissed, both of you. I expect to see you in the treaty negotiation briefing at 1000 hrs."