He dreams of obscurity, rippling with darkness and unknowns that he cannot perceive. It surrounds him, consumes him, and allows no impasse. He searches every direction, but there is no discernible exit, no distinguished path that he can traverse to escape. It hisses and slithers against his awareness, prowling around him like a jaguar.
A glow far away captures his attention. He focuses on it, watches it writhe against the inky darkness. The glow brightens, expanding against the ebon backdrop like an exploding star. It grows nearer to him, enough so that he can distinguish individual forms within the shocking brightness. They wriggle and squirm in the darkness, aqua eyes glowing against the iridescence of their scaly skin.
Vipers.
Chakotay turns away from them, running, pushing his feet against the ground with each stride. There is only the dark; he feels like he is going nowhere, stuck in this purgatory with enemies nipping at his heels. Hisses chase him, darkness awaits him, and he continues to run. He runs until there is nothing left to run to and the ground beneath him gives way to nothingness.
He falls, the darkness enveloping him in its chilling embrace.
He wakes to panic, blinded and confused as he rises. His heart pounds in his chest, lungs reaching for every ounce of air around him as a pair of hands grasp his shoulders. His vision clears slightly, and he recognizes the figure.
"Take it easy, Commander," the Doctor says. "You're on Voyager. You've been unconscious for about twenty hours."
He brings a hand to his face, rubbing the exhaustion from his eyes as he blinks away the stains of incarceration. He feels slightly refreshed, if not a little burdened. His body feels tired, despite the copious healing that the Doctor has done for him. He suspects that it comes from the knowledge of the demons he still has to face and whatever conflicts may ensue afterwards.
"The Captain?" Chakotay asks after a moment, dropping his hand to his side.
"Recovering," the Doctor says with a motion to the main medical bay. "She required a bit more medical care than you, evidently, but she's going to make a complete recovery."
"What about after we were rescued? The D'Chasther?"
"Ah, yes... That little skirmish was over rather quickly once we got back in range of Voyager," the Doctor said with a few quirks of his eyebrows. "Their ships were disabled fairly quickly, and we sent them back 'with their tails between their legs', as Mister Paris crudely described it."
Chakotay smiles briefly at the idiom, recalling Tom's fondness for twentieth century lore.
"Since you're essentially recovered, you can return to your quarters. There's a newly replicated uniform for you in the back if you wish to change," the Doctor says, moving to tend to the Captain.
"Thank you, Doctor," Chakotay replies, eager to get out of the medical jumpsuit that feels more like a fuzzy blanket over a pair of pants, a jumpsuit coloured a rather disturbing shade of blue.
He changes into the new uniform, glad to be rid of the scorched and stained one he'd worn previously. He walks back into Sickbay where the Doctor awaits him, a solemn expression on his face.
"The Captain wishes to speak with you," he says, blocking Chakotay's path. "She's rather… insistent that it be now."
"I see," Chakotay says, casting a glance over to the medical bay. He sees Kathryn sitting up on the bio bed, shoulders set, hands planted on the bed and eyes glaring out into the room.
"Doctor," she says, her voice even and calm. "Would you excuse us, please?"
The Doctor nods, and Chakotay almost wishes that he wasn't being dismissed. Any time that Kathryn would request privacy between the two of them has usually resulted in confrontation, and the results are often less than desirable. Afterwards, there is always a long, drawn out silence between the two of them, lasting for days and on the rare occasion, spilling over into a week.
He knows that this time it is warranted, and an explanation on his part is definitely necessary. He and Kathryn are the only ones who know precisely what happened in that facility, which makes the list of confidantes rather slim.
"Computer, deactivate EMH program," the Doctor says, vanishing into nothingness.
"So," Kathryn says, eyeing him with a less than favourable gaze. "This is where we end up."
Chakotay approaches the bio bed, placing a hand on the end as he meets her penetrating stare. He suspects that she's talking about where they've ended up after their ordeal, but he'll admit that it's a roundabout way of stating it.
"What do you mean?" he asks cautiously.
"We seem to be on opposite sides of a line, Chakotay. You made your choices and I made mine, though I was under the impression that we had settled our differences years ago," she says, her words tapering off as she reaches the end of her sentence.
"We did," Chakotay answers.
Kathryn places her hands in her lap, leaning forward slightly so that her hair brushes her shoulders. "Then why did you lie to me?"
Chakotay lets out a sigh, his shoulders falling under the weight of decisions past. He knows that the truth must be told, no matter how much Kathryn may hate him for it.
And Spirits, she will probably hate me for it, he thinks.
"I was trying to buy time for us, as well as give Voyager an upper hand," he answers, one hand drifting to his hip.
"By telling the D'Chasther about Voyager? How is that meant to give them an advantage, Chakotay?"
"Because I gave them the wrong information," he answers. "I gave them inaccurate data about Voyager's systems and capabilities so that we could catch them with their guard down in a fight."
Her expression fills with shock, horror curling over the contours of her face as she takes in his admission.
"After what we went through on that planet – after trying to stay alive – you go behind my back and betray my trust with a foolish plan!" she snaps, anger rolling off the edge of her voice.
"I wasn't trying to betray your trust, Kathryn; I was trying to keep us alive!" Chakotay fires back, narrowing the gap between them. "And it clearly worked. I wasn't going to just wait around for them to slaughter us or for dehydration to kill us. I had to act to ensure our survival."
"And you simply didn't feel the need to consult me before pursuing this little plan of yours?" she says, voice warbling on the edge of disastrous disappointment.
"I couldn't know if the D'Chasther were monitoring our conversation," he replies. "If they found out what I was planning, we wouldn't have been able to say anything without them questioning it, and that wouldn't have gone well for either of us."
"Regardless of what you thought was the just course of action, you still betrayed my trust down there," she answers, eyes fierce in their conviction.
Chakotay feels like a sparrow facing a tidal wave.
"I told you to not tell them anything, Chakotay. Nothing. That doesn't mean that you go throwing away false answers on chance like that."
"What was I supposed to do?" he says, throwing his hands up in frustration. "They were torturing us, Kathryn. I was not just going to sit around and watch them do those things to you, and I was not about to let them treat us like caged animals. We are more than that; we are human beings and we deserve to be treated as such."
"There you go with the 'human' trait again. It always seems to boil down to what's human to you, Chakotay. Sometimes we have to be more than that and be greater than our weaknesses." She hops off of the bio bed and approaches him, looking him straight in the eye. "Sometimes, it's being 'inhuman' that allows people to survive."
"You don't believe that," he replies.
"Really? What makes you say that?" she asks, crossing her arms.
"We've been stranded before, and you relied on principles that seemed pretty human to me," he answers, referring to the time when the majority of the crew had been trapped on a volatile desert planet by the Kazon.
"That was an entirely different situation," she replies. "There we had limited resources to work with. In that cell, we had nothing. We were supposed to stick to survival training and wait for Voyager rescue us."
"And what if that had taken too long?" Chakotay answers her, his voice rising in volume. "What if we had succumbed to dehydration or to the interrogations before then? Would you still say that sticking to 'human' principles is a foolhardy choice?"
"I never said it was foolhardy," she retorts. "I said that it sometimes isn't the best course of action. Something that I learned when I tried to cover for your mistake," she says with a hard edge in her voice.
Chakotay's shoulders slump slightly as he realizes what she means. She tried to give the D'Chasther false information because she thought that I had given them everything, he thinks.
He's shocked that she thinks that he would betray her trust so blatantly. If anything, he would have guessed her to have caught on early and played along, but with no information between them to make the plan clear, it had backfired.
"You thought that I had given Voyager up," he says, pressing a hand to his forehead.
"What else was I supposed to think?" she asks, a defeated expression sweeping over her face. It saddens him to think that she had felt so betrayed by him, when he was only trying to protect the both of them.
You try out a plan and it leaves your captain questioning her trust in you, he thinks to himself. Great.
He knows that she won't buy his opinion of her catching on to his plan, and that leaves him with no other reasonable options.
"I don't know," he replies. "I wasn't thinking about how you would react; I was thinking about how I was going to keep you alive. How I was going to keep both of us alive."
"And you didn't think that perhaps I would like to weigh in on those ideas?" she says, and Chakotay recognizes the disappointment in her voice. "We can't keep going like this, Chakotay. We can't keep arguing and disagreeing and going behind each other's backs. It's a wonder that we haven't fallen apart as a Command team already."
He knows that she is right. If they keep fighting and arguing like a couple of cadets then Voyager will never make it home. They need to reach some sort of agreement to bridge the uneven ground between them.
"We do have our disagreements, and I for one would like us to be on a more even playing ground," he replies.
"I'm glad that we finally agree on that," she says with a smirk before her expression returns to seriousness. "First thing is trust; I need to be able to trust you, and you me. If we agree to honest with each other, no matter what the circumstances, can you commit to that?" she asks, her lips tight beneath the bridge of her nose.
"I can," he says. "However, I'd appreciate if you'd listen to my opinions on your decisions more often."
She recoils slightly, her chin drawing back over her neck. "I do listen to your opinions. If you have something to say, I hear you out!"
"But you rarely take it into consideration," he replies. "You usually just listen and then cast aside, claiming your decision over mine. Sometimes you need to stop and listen to the words outside of your own head, Kathryn!"
He knows that he's bordering on insubordination, but if they're making a pact for their future, then this is the place for him to make his demands.
She breaks eye contact with him for a moment, nibbling on her lower lip for a few long moments before answering. "I know that I may have been slightly… impulsive in my decisions in the past. I will try to consider your opinions with a little more heart from now on. Is that agreeable to you, Commander?"
"Yes," he answers.
"Good," she replies before looking to his uniform and then to her own attire. "You don't suppose that the Doctor replicated another uniform, do you? I'm really getting sick of this thing," she admits.
He chuckles. "They are rather awful, aren't they?"
She gives him a mocking glance, mouth slightly open. "It's like half a jumpsuit with a shirt five sizes too big."
He laughs more this time. "I'm sure the Doctor can fix you up with one."
"I hope so," she admits, rubbing her neck. "One of us should probably get to the Bridge for the time being. Can I trust you with that, Commander, or should I be warning Tuvok beforehand?"
This time he doesn't laugh, because her words strike with more of a stab than a playful joust. It's a warning to him more than anyone; it tells him that beneath everything lies a distinct don't-cross-me-again notice, blazing red in its importance.
"I think it's safe to let me off the leash," he says, keeping his tone calm beneath his words.
"Glad to hear it," she replies with a raised eyebrow. "Also, I'll leave the reports on the D'Chasther in your capable hands. It should be some intriguing reading for you. As well as the report for our lost shuttle."
"Lost?" he asks, already knowing that the reports are punishment rather than protocol.
"The away team wasn't able to retrieve it," she replies nonchalantly. "And neither was Voyager. We had to leave it behind."
Another lost shuttle on his head. Wonderful, he thinks, already imagining the tally in the ship's computer.
"I'll see you on the Bridge soon, then," she says, clearly meaning it as an end to their conversation.
"Understood," he says and turns for the exit. He walks out of Sickbay and doesn't look back behind him. The new parameters set between them will hopefully smooth out some of the bumps in their relationship, but they are just the first steps in what he presumes will be a rocky road ahead. There are many deeper things that they didn't even touch on; things that will have to be addressed eventually.
For now, he has a second chance. But forgiveness, he knows, will come only with time.
Fin
Thanks for reading, everyone!