6. Mark Johnsons POV

"How was your father named?" The Klingon asks her.

She is calm. " 'Dad' ." She says.

"Now you answer me this," she continues boldly. "What is your bony friend really after?"

"I...ask the questions" is the Klingons reply.

"It's not to put a halt to the reforms, he knows that's not how Federation politics work."

Without notice the Klingon takes another swing at her and she is violently thrown back. If it hadn't been for the handcuff she would probably be lying on the far end of the room. The Klingon is unmoved by her outcry and calmly gets up to gather the chair en puts her back on it. As soon as she is in an upright position I see the beat has cut her eyebrow and blood is pooring from the open gash. She is breathing slowly but heavily.

"Ours is a more decentralized government then yours." She persists, I don't know whether it is bravery or stupidity that drives her but I fear for her wellbeing none the less. "...Kathryn," I try "...just," Just what? What would I have her do? Regardless, I can't get through to her, her eyes are set steadily on the dark, ridged face beside her. Even though the blanketchest is a lower seat then hers, he is at eyelevel with her. They are so much out of proportion that they look as though a father were disciplining his daughter.

"Our Council is vastly different from your Klingon High Council where one chancellor's influence can change the course of the whole species -he knows this," She thrusts her chin upward to show she means the skeleton on the first floor. "...he's playing you. His demands are outrageous, he might as well ask for-"

The Klingon calmly takes a large steakfork from his belt and holds it above her left upper leg.

"I...ask the questions." He says again.

"Hold it, just hold it for a minute. Let's think this through, I'm sure we can find a solution here," I say, but no one pays attention to me. The two mainplayers in front of me are stuck in a power struggle, the fork being the price, their eyes being the battlefield. It's not a fair game, but she plays none the eyes are set on each other and the silence between them seems to drain all oxygen from the room. "This is barbaric," I try "Where's the honour in this?" I look at the second Klingon in the room but he too pays me no heed. I drop my head to my chest in defeat but raise it again in defiance. "Oh come on." I'm out of breath. "...fuck..."

"You're in control." she says finally.

His mouth shapes into a smirk but he seems unconvinced of her earnestness.

"My fathers name is Edward." He's content with that submission and removes the fork away from her leg. It's more like her to cut straight to the point but I could tell she had changed her strategy and decided to humor the steadfast alien. "What do you want me to say?" Her tranquil willingness is an indirect way of taking away their power and along with it their leverage. I figure she would rather play a psychological game for it would take them little effort to break her physically.

"What is the most pain he has ever caused you?"

Finally, she shifts her eyes to me, eyebrows raised in surprise. She has agreed to playing at higher stakes than she had initially anticipated, I can tell.

"He..." She started.

"Do not tell me, Kathryn daughter of Edward," He paused shortly "...tell him."

At this she loweres her bloody face. The thick, red liquid still comes trickling down her face and has shaped a dark stain on her blouse. I can tell her eyelashes cling together. With her free hand, she wipes blood away from her mouth.

After a deep breath she raises her head and I can see her conviction. Like a martyr, a Spartan ready to fight to the death, she faces me and the realisation hits me; she had commited to the game, and now she was going to play. Disregarding the caution with which she would have to construct her sentences to keep up the ruse of being my wife, she wasn't going bet on my acting abilities. She was going to be truthful.

I can't blame her, I too would prefer this challenge over the steakfork. I just hope she knows what she's doing.

"You...you got over me." She says quietly.

It breaks me.

I know it's the truth and so it breaks me. I don't want to make her already hard game even more difficult by showing her my pain but my sight clouds with tears and I can't help but inhale in short intervals -I know she will recognize the sobs regardless of my fruitless attempt to hide them.

For years I have tried to convince myself with hollow excuses, the most prominent being that I didn't owe her my happiness no matter how crudely she had been taken away. Of course, I had fully realized that it had taken me little over two years to move in with Holly, two years, where Kathryn and I had been in a relationship for almost six but had still lived separately. Or perhaps we were living together in two houses. Whichever it was, more then two years should have passed before permanently moving in with Holly.

I had read the publicized versions of Voyagers debriefings and had calculated that, while I was selling her dog Molly due to Holly's allergies, Kathryn had been battling mind controlling aliens that had appeared to them as loved ones. I can still remember the exact words:

'Captain Janeway tried for engineering but fell victim to the aliens persuasions who used the memory of her fiance this name has been removed due to privacy reasons to render her immobile in the turbolift.'

Reading it had made me sick.

When contact with Voyager had been restored I was kindly requested to report to Headquarters. Once I arrived in the lobby I recognised the familymembers of Kathryns crew. I sat down next to Shannon, wife to Lieutenant-Commander Cabbot, Voyagers first officer. We had grown close after Voyager had gone missing, somehow the invisible threshold between senior officers and their subordinates had stretched all the way to Earth. We didn't speak. We didn't need to. We were about to be liberated from the ignorance that had plagued us for years. The ignorance that had once led us into each others arms looking for comfort, comfort that, as we soon realized, wasn't there to be found.

That day I heard Kathryn was alive. It meant that my daliance with Shannon had been a betrayal rather then just a way to cope. Not only had I moved on and moved in with Holly, I had slept with another woman within weeks after Voyagers departure; deranged by loss and desperate to stop the pain.

This Hirogen network that facilitated our communication was a break through and a victory on Kathryns part. She must have been eager to finally read of love and devotion again, eager to read a letter that would say 'My dearest Kathryn' in the header rather than 'Captain', a letter of hope and future promise - a letter I couldn't write. At the first chance I got to offer my fiance the comfort she needed during the most demanding time of her life, I had simply stood her off. Her years had been harder then mine, but I still wouldn't offer the consolation. Instead I had selfishly turned to other women and had simply...gotten over her.

She is right. And so it breaks me.