A/N: Many thanks to everyone who has reviewed, it's much appreciated. And of course, thanks to MissyHissy3 for beta reading!

Chapter Four

how can I go on this mission

without you

you who might have told me

everything you feel is true?

~ A Woman Dead in Her Forties, Adrienne Rich

It was late afternoon. Kathryn was sitting at the cluttered desk in her small office. She'd been there all day, poring over the tangle of budget planning requirements for the Maywood site. The paperwork involved in the management of a charitable trust such as the one she'd set up to manage this initiative was voluminous enough to first fill a battleship and then sink it without trace. At the moment she was trying to construct a raft of finished forms that would let her float on the rising tide, but the process was agonisingly slow.

She pencilled in another figure that was sure to change almost immediately and then rubbed her fingers across her eyes. Coffee, she thought. What I need is a coffee machine, right here next to my desk so that I don't even have to-

The phone on her desk rang, cutting off her meandering thoughts. She picked it up. "Kathryn Janeway."

"Kathryn, it's me."

She smiled at the familiar voice. "Owen! Hello. How are you?"

Owen Paris had been her first ally in this venture, an old friend of her father's that she'd gone to first, not only because Kathryn had been fairly certain that his regard for her would persuade him to look on her ideas favourably, but also because he owned a multi-million dollar construction company. When Owen Paris spoke, other people with money listened. Without him she might never have gotten this far at all.

"I was calling to ask you the same question. What's the latest?"

Kathryn's eyes fell on the form in front of her. "Still in budget planning. Hoping to be done on this by the end of the week."

"You can outsource that to my staff, if you like," Owen suggested. "I'm happy for the company to carry the hours."

She was grateful and tempted but resolute. "Thanks, but I'd rather do it myself, tedious as it is. It's my responsibility, after all. And I want to make sure I've got a full grip on the details."

"Fair enough," he told her. "There's one way I can help, though – I think I've found you a site office."

"Oh?"

"I've had one of my guys keeping an ear to the ground. There's a property about to come up for rent. It's directly adjacent to the site. Couldn't be any more perfect, really."

Kathryn frowned, thinking of the dilapidated buildings she'd seen the last time she was there. "Where, exactly?" she asked. "From what I saw, most of the buildings were in a pretty poor state of repair. The ones that weren't were already occupied."

"Well, this place is occupied, but only tenuously," Owen elaborated. "The rent's often late and the owner's looking for a more reliable tenant. I said we could lease it and pay two years up front. He's more than willing to favour us."

"Owen, I can't take a property away from a local tenant. How would that look?"

"It's not someone's home, Kathryn, it's mainly just an empty space. It doesn't even get used during the day. The tenant is there under the sufferance of the landlord anyway – it was let on the understanding that it could be short term."

"Even so – this is supposed to be a project for the community," Kathryn argued. "I can't start out by muscling in on a member of the community I'm supposed to be setting out to help! Thank you for the thought, but I'll keep looking."

She could almost hear the shrug in his voice as Owen said, "Suit yourself. If you really think an after-school boxing club for a bunch of delinquent teenagers is more important…"

Something white-hot flared in her chest and was gone again in a second. "Boxing club?"

"That's what uses the space at the moment. It's run by one of the phys ed teachers from the local high school. Odd name. Chairoscuro? No, that wasn't it…"

Chakotay.

Kathryn found herself brushing her fingers over the bruise on her cheek. "Leave it with me, Owen. I'll work something out. OK? Please don't make a move until I've looked into it."

"All right. And what about a project assistant? How are you getting on with finding someone?"

She rested her chin on her fist. "Actually, I had an idea on that score. How about Tom?"

There was a pause. "My Tom?"

"Yes, Owen, your Tom. I know he's busy preparing for college, but-"

Her friend's disgusted snort cut her off. "College? He'll be lucky if they even let him through the door. He got arrested last week."

Kathryn winced. "Let me guess. Racing again?"

"Of course. He's damn lucky he was a passenger not a driver. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do with him, Kathryn, but I certainly wouldn't wish him on you. An assistant? Please. He'd just let you down and cause havoc."

She frowned. "Owen…"

There was a sigh from the other end of the line. "I know I sound harsh but I'm at the end of my tether. He's headed down a bad road and I don't know what to do about it."

Kathryn leaned back in her chair as she looked at the colourful sketches pinned up on the wall opposite her desk. They were just ideas, hopes for the future that she knew, even if they did come to fruition, would never look exactly as they had in her mind's eye. Some aspects of them she would have to abandon her best aspirations for, others would have to be adapted, still others would end up entirely different to the way she had envisioned them when she made those early, daydreaming sketches. She imagined that in some ways this must how it was to be a parent: to see a child grow through the years, always hoping for the best but anxious for the worst, trying to accept every change and unexpected progression along the way. She sympathised with Owen, but she felt for Tom. Owen was a powerhouse, confident, celebrated and fully formed. That couldn't help to cast a shadow over his son, even as Tom tried to find his own place in the world.

"This project is about second chances," she pointed out. "Where's the harm in offering Tom that at the same time? Let me at least give him a try, Owen."

There was a pause. "All right," he said. "But it'll probably be better if you talk to him about the idea rather than me. Anything I ask him to do is likely to get short shrift."

Kathryn drummed her pencil on her desk as she cradled the phone on her shoulder and checked her watch, thinking for a moment. "I'm happy to do that, but I've got something else to do today. Can you tell him I'll call by tomorrow evening to talk to him?"

"All right, will do. Look, I've got to go. I've got an investment meeting about our New Orleans development. And yes," he said, just as she took a breath to speak, "before you mention it, Kathryn, I am tabling a motion to incorporate green space into the build."

She smiled. "Great."

There was a pause. "Your father would be proud of you," Owen said. "I hope you know that."

Kathryn's pencil stilled against the desktop. How could it be that such words caused her heart to thump with a sickening heaviness, even this many years later? "Thank you," she said, quietly. "I hope you're right."

"I am," Owen said seriously. "Now, don't let that troublesome son of mine run you around, you hear? We'll see you tomorrow."

The time was just touching six o'clock when she pulled up outside the doors of Chakotay's modest gym. Kathryn sat for a moment with her wrists resting on the steering wheel, looking up at the two-storey brick building. It must have been a factory at one point, though what had been made here and when she couldn't guess. There were cracks in the walls and some of the single-glazed windows on the upper floor were smashed. The rental this place could demand in its current state would only be minimal. If Chakotay was still struggling to pay it, he probably wasn't getting paid much for all this extra curricular activity himself, if at all.

Taking a breath, Kathryn got out of the car and headed for the doors. She walked into relative quiet, which surprised her. From the number of teens she'd seen on the wasteland a few nights ago, she'd expected the place to be thrumming with noise. But all she could hear was a series of echoing thwacks sandwiched by the reverberation of a spring. No voices, no shouting, no pounding of feet. When she reached the open door of the gym room, she saw why.

Chakotay was the only figure in the room. Dressed in a white vest, black shorts and white sports sneakers, he stood at one of the punch-bags set at a right-angle to the door, turned slightly away from her. His weight on its floor plate was keeping it in place as he pummelled seven shades of hell out of the fading red leather. Kathryn couldn't tell if he was angry or whether this was merely what he looked like in action. She stepped into the room but hung back, unwilling to interrupt what appeared to be the very middle of an intense training routine. The speed and power with which his gloves smashed into the bag was astonishing and, if she were honest, a touch mesmerising. Kathryn was fairly sure she'd be burned out after throwing four punches of the intensity she saw him pitch, but Chakotay seemed in no danger of stopping even to take a breath. Sweat beaded on his neck, over his arms and between his shoulder blades.

He suddenly seemed to sense someone else in the room with him and lost concentration, jerking his head around to look at her. The battered punch bag flipped back towards him.

"Oh!" She took a step forward, seeing what was coming.

Chakotay just barely managed to get his hands up, stopping the bag before it could smash him directly in the face. He let it go and stepped off the plate, breathing hard.

"Kathryn Janeway," he said.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt."

Chakotay started loosening the ties on his gloves as he walked toward her. "It's all right. I didn't expect anyone to walk in, that's all. I usually lock the door when I'm here alone. I must have forgotten."

"Is there no club tonight?" Kathryn asked. "I expected it to be in full swing."

He came to a stop in front of her. She had to work hard not to let her gaze stray to the pumped muscle of his slick biceps. Dammit. She'd told herself that her odd, involuntary and completely inappropriate reaction to him a few days ago had just been as a result of increased adrenaline after her scuffle, nothing else. But the current behaviour of her errant heart was challenging that assumption. Dammit again.

"Club starts at 6.45," he told her.

She was surprised again. "That seems late. For an after-school club, I mean."

Chakotay nodded, then went to a holdall on the floor by the door and took out a bottle of water and a towel. "It's deliberate. I figure if the kids have to come here mid-way through their evening, it might deflect them from other less wholesome ways of passing the time." He opened the bottle and drank, draining half in two powerful gulps.

"Tactics," she said.

He smiled. "Exactly. Probably doesn't work, but it's worth a try. Besides," he added, indicating the punch bag he'd been abusing a moment earlier. "It gives me a chance to work out the day's frustrations." He rubbed the towel over his face as he said, "Anyway, I don't think you came here to ask about my daily routine. What can I do for you?"

"Well, there's something I need to talk to you about."

He raised his eyebrows. "Okay. Sounds ominous."

"No, I don't think so. I hope not, anyway." Kathryn glanced around to the desk beside the wall they had sat at the last time she'd been in this room. "Can we sit? It won't take long."

Chakotay looked down at himself. "If you don't mind me smelling like a bear while we talk. I usually shower before the kids get here."

Kathryn momentarily lost the power of speech and so just shook her head, instead. They took the same chairs as the last time but sat further apart. Chakotay had kept hold of his water and drank more as he waited for her to speak.

"I'm looking for a site office," she explained. "For a project of this scale, it really helps if I have somewhere close by to operate from permanently for the duration of the job."

He nodded. "Makes sense. This isn't a great area for real estate, though, as I'm sure you've already worked out for yourself."

"Yes. But one of my benefactors has been looking on my behalf, and came up with a suggestion for a place he seemed to think would be available soon. It does currently have a tenant, though. It's home to an after-school boxing club."

Chakotay's face froze as his eyes fixed on her face. "You want… this place."

"It's one of the only buildings on the block where the building regs are still up to scratch."

She saw the line of his jaw harden as he clenched his teeth. "I'm pretty sure you're aware that it's already occupied."

"Yes. But the landlord seemed to think that whether it would stay that way was questionable with the current tenant. Due to… financial difficulties."

He flicked his gaze away and she could see the anger in his face. "So that's it. Money talks and to hell with what damage it does. And to think I actually thought you might be on to something. I actually thought that you-" he stopped, shaking his head. "What an idiot."

He went to stand up, but she dropped a hand on his arm, strong enough to stop him. "Chakotay, wait. Listen to me, please." He looked as if he was about to shake her off, so she added, "I'm not leaving until you've heard what I have to say. So you may as well sit down."

Chakotay glanced down at her for a moment and then sat again. Kathryn withdrew her hand.

"I have no intention of turning you out of this place," she said. "What possible good could I achieve by doing that?"

A suspicious frown settled around his eyes. "Then what-"

She looked at him steadily. "It's clear that you're struggling to keep this place going on your own. And much of the time the space isn't even being used, is it? During the week it's just empty in the daytime. So here's what I propose. We share the space. I don't need that much – an office where my assistant and I can work. Occasionally there may be a delivery or two that needs to be stored for a while. That's all. The trust will take over the payment of the lease. During the day it'll be our site office. In the evenings the club can continue as normal. Most of the time our paths wouldn't even cross. I'll be here in the day, you'll be here in the evening."

Chakotay said nothing for several minutes. And then: "You'd do that? You'd take on the cost of running this place and let us stay, just like that?"

She shrugged slightly. "Well, there is a quid pro quo, of course."

His gaze was still fixed on her face, as if he could discern everything he needed to know from her expression alone. "Which is?"

She smiled. "You were right when you pointed out I should be asking what the people who actually live here want and need," she told him. "So that's what I'm asking for from you and your kids. I need your help, Chakotay. Please. Help me to do this."

[TBC]