Learning to depend on another person so completely is a new experience for me. If you are lucky, you'll only be this dependent on another person during infancy and childhood. But here I am, in my 40s, and I am completely and utterly dependent on my First Officer for every single one of my needs.

"What do you want for breakfast?" he asks as he sets me down at the table. I sit propped against the side of my chair, "coffee".

He smiles, "vintage Kathryn" and orders a coffee from the replicator.

"Who are you calling 'vintage', mister?" I laugh in return as he tilts the lukewarm cup of coffee to my lips.

I breathe in, inhaling the rich, comforting aroma, and take a big gulp. The dark drown concoction warms me as it goes down. I let the acrid taste linger on my tongue and I smile, "boy, I missed that!"

He grins at me again, his eyes alight with amusement, "Now Kathryn, you know the saying…"

"What saying?"

"Woman shall not live on coffee alone".

"Well this woman does" I retort defiantly.

"Well not today. I have a full schedule written up for us by yours truly of exercises aimed at getting your strength back. So, no griping! What food do you want for breakfast?"

Chakotay patiently feeds me a replicated cheese omlette. When I was a child, we didn't have a replicator. My mother was adamant that we not become too dependent on technology. Yes, by that time the replicator had already been in use for over 100 years, but still she found something so sensual and uniquely human about preparing her own food. I've never come across anyone else who so thoroughly enjoyed the process of scrutinizing, choosing, touching and preparing her own food. To her, it was a religious experience and replicators were blasphemy. On our farm we had chickens. When Phoebe and I were still kids we'd always been tasked with going out to the chicken coop and collecting the eggs. Once we'd done so, mom made up omlettes with the fresh eggs. I'll never forget the taste of those omlettes. Sadly, this replicated version leaves a heap to be desired and, much to Chakotay's chagrin, I decline to eat more than half. I was really only eating it to appease Chakotay and to convince him to give me the rest of my coffee.

"So, what has yours truly assigned us today?" I ask as my last sip of coffee makes it's way into my stomach.

"Well he wants us to try walking again and then later he's given us some arm and wrist movements".

We look over the padd with the instructions. First we start with simple standing. Standing takes most of the day. Because the virus attacked many of the nerves in the lumbar plexus, they can't integrate the signals coming from my motor cortex and spinal cord. Hence the muscles in my hip, thigh, and leg are unresponsive. But, the Doctor assures me that stimulating those pathways with active 'exercise' will help to re-integrate the signals. In essence, I am building new pathways.

After what seems like my hundredth attempt at standing up without Chakotay's support, I am frustrated. He senses it, though, before I say it.

"Let's take a break. It's noon. Are you hungry?" It's odd to hear him speak again. I hadn't actively realized it, but we hadn't spoken during the exercise. I often notice that my relationship with Chakotay is quite simply, in a word, comfortable. Before I met him, I had never been able to simply sit comfortably with another person in a room without speaking for hours on end. But, he and I have our own private language. We communicate in looks, glances, small movements, or subtle changes in posture; sometimes words aren't necessary.

"No, but I have to pee again."

I stand for the 101th time that day and he leads me into the bathroom. I lean into his solid body as his hands move down to my waist to the top of my briefs. Again, the intimacy of the gesture is not lost on me. All of a sudden and with a slight twinge of shame, I feel subtly aroused. He gingerly sits me down on the seat. I quickly learned to urinate with an audience. But with him, it isn't an audience. He does not look. He makes no expression. He just stands patiently looking away – allowing me to take care of things. In a second I realized how terribly cowardly I had been for the past four years. Peripherally, I felt him wipe me and then I heard the toilet flush.

"Kathryn" he says quietly, "Are you alright?"

"Kathryn?" he shakes my shoulder rousing me from my reverie.

"And? What were your going to say after 'and'?"

"Sorry?"

He holds me a little farther back from his chest and looks down at me. My eyes meet his, "A few hours ago we were here and you said 'and' and then your never finished what were saying. You said 'I almost lost my best friend and'. Well what came after 'and'?"

He pulls me back into his chest and we began walking out of the bathroom. Suddenly I smile and looked down, my legs have started to move weakly in step with his.