A/n: Thanks so much for the great response to the previous chapter! It was unanimous that Chakotay was "screwed" as several of you put it, so I thought I'd better update since you're all waiting to see how this messy situation plays out… Enjoy!
Seven's stumbling run juddered to a painful halt within a few hundred metres of Chakotay's quarters, only sustaining her for long enough to be around a corner and out of direct sight. His words, or at least the meaning she'd garnered from them, replayed in her throbbing head. Pity. Guilt. Lies… Her quaking hand, the embedded implants strangely hot despite her shivering, found a bulkhead to support her weight but her body crumpled forward in desperation as nausea, then breathlessness seized her. She could feel her chest contracting, fighting to drag in air, but no relief came, her heart as well as her head was being crushed. Her feet tried to shuffle forward, but it seemed as if the bones in her legs were crumbling as quickly as the protective, but brief, façade she'd put on before fleeing. Her vision blurred further, unable to focus on the institutional grey carpet in front of her as her knees buckled. There was something agonisingly familiar in the agonised pressure in her skull, hot needles of pain again being thrust through her eyes, but this time burning fluid huddled on her lashes before ripping down her cold cheeks. A groan escaped her, and her hands automatically moved from being coiled defensively around her waist to clutch at her head, as if searching for a release valve.
A shrill, electronic wail hitting her ears made her cringe back further, making the distortion shift from her sight to her hearing. Unable to stand it, she clawed at her throat and chest until she tore the culprit away, her gasps becoming sobs as she felt the blood on her skin but feeling relief as the sound faded, the small device dying in her hand. Crying with pain, she threw it away from her as hard as she could, feeling dazed as it bounced harmlessly against the opposite wall.
Chakotay stared at the closed door in front of him, the previously pleasantly low lighting in the room oppressively dark as he unconsciously strained for signs of her return. She's not going to come back. She's not going to listen to me ever again, I'll never get a chance to explain properly… These thoughts propelled him off the couch and on to his feet, he hastened towards the door in desperation but her words as she'd stood in this exact spot made him freeze. So detached, so analytical, as if she'd severed any link between her feelings and himself in order to ask that short, brutal question. There had been contempt there too, he deserved that, but it had been directed at herself. It was as if the woman he'd known just minutes before, whom he'd kissed, had been re-assimilated by the drone she'd once been, the one who'd rather die than stoop to embracing humanity. Had he taken that from her? Would his attempt to erase the wrong he'd done by her push Seven back into her impenetrable Borg shell? He felt something catch in his chest and realised belatedly as he sank back onto the couch that it was a stricken sob, heavy with loss and guilt. No. He might…might not be able to get her to forgive him, but he wouldn't allow her to go back, couldn't let what he'd done to her be a mortal wound after she'd begun to recover from so much…
The acrid smell of burning food hit his nostrils strongly enough to force him towards the kitchen. As he distractedly dragged out a smoking version of Neelix's tenderloin, he felt his eyes sting, and not only with the smoke. As he thought of the sweet, easy conversation they'd woven around this meal, the flame of self-hatred that he'd misguidedly tried to get Seven to extinguish with her forgiveness, became an inferno inside him and he threw the smoking plate across the room, tears beginning to flow in earnest as he heard it shatter. "What have I done?" he choked out, "Why…why did I…" His throat closed over, since he could clearly remember his rationale for being 'honest'. What had seemed reasonable before he'd seen the reality of Seven's reaction now seemed like self-deceiving folly. It had been selfishness, all of it, from the beginning. He'd exploited her to explore his own feelings. He thought of hers now, was consumed by them as his anxious mind raked over his painfully clear memories of her reaction. Just after being kissed, one of the most intense of his life and most likely her first ever, he'd admitted that he'd violated her privacy and trust. He knew she felt that he'd used her, that these last few weeks had been a mixture of pity and lust on his side, and while her feelings had been growing he'd been laughing at her. Nothing could be further from the truth, but did that matter? What could he say made him different from Riley or, God forbid, Seska? They'd used his feelings to get want they wanted and then discarded him…
The very idea of comparing himself to Seska made him glad he hadn't eaten as nausea gripped him. He felt weak, hopeless, and soon found himself on the couch again, staring blankly at the door once more…
Tom walked companionably in step with his wife as they strode out of the turbolift, though with his long legs and B'Elanna's gait fighting not to be a waddle, it wasn't too easy. "So…" He eyed her distracted frown cautiously, "You've heard all about my eventful day up on the Bridge, do I want to ask about Engineering?"
B'Elanna's face, beautiful even when wracked with irritation, snapped around to his. "If you want to ask, ask." She retorted testily.
Tom exhaled, chuckling slightly, "Okay, I'll give. Vorik told me about the incident with the plasma converters in Jeffries Tube 3…"
"One of these days I should remind Vorik that snitching is illogical…" B'Elanna grumbled under her breath as she crossed her arms defensively, her ire slackening off a little as she glanced up into Tom's affectionate and mildly anxious face, "All that happened with those converters is that they were blocked and several people pointed out that in my 'condition', I shouldn't be crawling through Jeffries tubes…" She sighed as her daughter kicked her and she placed her hand protectively over the spot on her belly, but couldn't stop herself from taking the huffing tone she still felt she was entitled to. "I can go wherever I want in Engineering, I need to be able to go anywhere in Engineering, it's the 24th Century, not the 19th! I'm not that delicate…"
Tom couldn't restrain his amusement entirely, "B'Elanna, you hate clearing plasma converter blockages, you've been saying so since you took on your post in Engineering…" He reminded her.
B'Elanna allowed herself a wry, self-deprecating chuckle, he had her there. "It's…the principle of the thing Tom…" She argued half-heartedly, her good mood lifting until she saw something ahead of her that made her stop in her tracks. "Seven?" She stared down at the woman she knew as indomitable in disbelief. The blonde was hunched over the floor, her long frame slumped against a bulkhead, her entire body shuddering uncontrollably.
Tom, with his medic training completely ingrained however much he complained about his shifts with the Doctor, took control, moving swiftly forward until he was in front of Seven's collapsed form. "What happened Seven?" he asked in concern as he carefully crouched before her. It took several seconds for her gaze to lift to his, and even when it did it remained empty and unseeing. Her piercing ice blue eyes had dulled to a watery, indistinct grey, mirroring the ashen colour of her face.
B'Elanna inhaled sharply as she saw the tears staining Seven's hollowed cheeks, her heart giving an empathic, panicky twist. To see anyone in such a state would've upset and concerned her, but to see Seven like that was so strikingly abnormal, unnatural even, that it was truly disturbing. "Seven…" She murmured, "You've been crying out here, what…"
A ragged breath rattled loudly through Seven, making both Tom and B'Elanna wonder how long she'd been lying there with her breathing suppressed with sobs. "No…" She forced out, but her gaze was so unfocused that the couple couldn't be sure if she was truly answering them, "No…" Her whole body stiffened as if she'd been shocked with electricity and a moan was torn from her as she grasped her head.
Tom knew real, physical pain when he saw it and automatically reached for her arm, flinching back when the searing heat in her implants scorched his palm. "Seven, we're taking you to the Doctor…"
Seven shrank back from him like he'd struck her. "No…I don't need…" She was obviously only semi-conscious, her eyes beginning to roll wildly in her head, but her voice was so brokenly pleading that both Tom and B'Elanna flinched as she half sobbed and half groaned out, "Leave me…alone…please…"
Tom's hand moved to her shoulder, careful to avoid any of the badly malfunctioning implants, now sparking with unnerving blue veins of power as well as heat. "We can't do that Seven." He told her with a soft firmness, as if trying to coax a frightened animal.
"Tom…" B'Elanna whispered fearfully, holding out the small object she'd rescued from the floor for him to see.
Tom shivered himself as he saw what it was, then noticed the scratches scarring Seven's collar bone, just visible under her disordered sweater. "That's a cortical monitor, she was probably wearing it…" He broke off as a final, heavy sigh left Seven and she keeled violently forward, now completely unconscious and with her implants surging more violently than ever. Tom held a shielding arm over her as he slammed his hand into his comm. badge. "Initiate an emergency medical transport for Seven of Nine and take me there too, the Doctor's going to need help." He barked down the line and within a moment both he and the patient had been carried away to Sickbay by the transporter. B'Elanna, having to remind herself to breathe for a moment, struggled up and headed straight for Chakotay's quarters, following a hunch.
Chakotay jumped violently as he heard the door open behind him, filled with an intoxicating mix of elating hope and sickening fear as he turned. "Seven…" He croaked out hoarsely.
B'Elanna's dark eyes, wide with shock as she stood in the doorway taking him in, hardened for a moment. "No." She stated, worry and confusion overwhelming her as she saw her old friend struggle to keep his face from crumpling. "What happened?" she asked bluntly, her voice low and urgent.
Chakotay knew intuitively that she'd seen Seven somehow, her question was too pointed. Suddenly met with B'Elanna's familiar, concerned gaze, the rage of self hatred blazed in him again. "I'm a selfish bastard that's what happened!" he snarled bitterly, unable to rein his destructive thoughts in.
B'Elanna took a startled step back from him, she'd rarely heard such a tone from Chakotay, let alone curse words, not even back in their freer Maquis days. He was such a controlled man, even in anger eerily quiet. His reaction was as out of character as Seven having a breakdown and she knew that they came from the same source. "No, you're not." She assured him softly, "I, nor anyone on the crew, could think that of you Chakotay, and especially not Seven, not the way I've seen you two the past few weeks…" She saw him flinch and twist away at the mention of Seven, as if her name served as salt on a wound, but she wasn't about to back down. "What happened between the two of you tonight Chakotay?"
Chakotay gulped hard, blinking rapidly, and B'Elanna saw as he considered her question that he at one point had been crying as much as Seven. "I tried to…correct a mistake and it when all wrong." He admitted heavily.
He didn't go any further but B'Elanna knew she had to fish for more. "You broke it off with her?"
Chakotay's voice caught, but was painfully intense. "No." He had to take a deep breath to calm himself, "I did something I shouldn't have, something which would hurt her if she knew, but I felt I had to be completely honest with her if we…" Unbidden, images and sensations from his and Seven's kiss flooded his mind. He'd never thought much of time travel, but if he could go back to that moment now he would've told her he loved her when that kiss was over and left it at that. That's the only thing he'd needed her to know if they were going to have a future… "I was wrong." He finished damningly, "I've hurt her. I can't tell you exactly what I did, but I don't think I deserve her forgiveness anymore, I never did." He whispered, looking B'Elanna straight in the eye.
B'Elanna was silent for several seconds before murmuring, "Maybe not, but you should give Seven time to decide that herself before you give up."
Chakotay swallowed hard, not quite willing to let himself take comfort from B'Elanna's words. "Have you seen her? How is she?" he asked thickly.
B'Elanna bit her lip uncomfortably before meeting his eyes sorrowfully. "That's what I came to tell you about. Tom and I found her collapsed in the hallway. She's in a bad way, her implants were malfunctioning somehow. Tom had her beamed to Sickbay…"
Chakotay stepped back as if she'd kicked him. "She…she told me she had an operation this morning, something must've gone wrong…" He muttered torturously as he ran past her out of the door.
A/n: This has to be one of the hardest chapters I've written for this story, it just didn't come easily. I hope you feel that I've done some justice to the characters and the situation. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!