A/N: Had a very difficult week, hence the lack of updates, sorry. Once again the site is failing to post reviews, but I am getting them, so many thanks - they are cheering me up!

Twenty-Four

Tom raked another root ball into the pile of vegetable wreckage that had accumulated at his feet. Neelix had suggested that they make a compost pile of the ruined plants. At least that way they could still be of use to the garden. He had arrived early – Kathryn had insisted that no one work at the site alone or once the sun began to set. Tom had obeyed this order, but had returned just as soon as he could. He couldn't sit around doing nothing, and anything else seemed empty by comparison.

He kept thinking about Chakotay, lying in that hospital bed. B'Elanna had told him about her visit. He hadn't known how to comfort her. She hadn't really wanted comfort anyway. He didn't know what she wanted, or how to give it to her. Tom wondered where B'Elanna was now. He'd asked her to come back and stay at his place again, but she hadn't wanted to. He'd asked for her address, too, but she'd refused to give it to him. He had her number, and had texted her a few times, but she hadn't answered since the night before.

He raked another root ball from the ground. It was good to have something to focus on, even if the task at hand was endless and depressing. Tom glanced up briefly, looking over to where Neelix was dealing with the remnants of the fruit trees. At first Neelix had been hopeful that he could save at least a couple, but that hope seemed to have faded.

A figure came through the broken gate and began to make his way across the trampled earth. It was Franco. Tom hadn't seen him since he'd stopped by the carpenter's small one-storey home to deliver the reclaimed white oak for the benches. Tom straightened up and waited for the old man to reach him, trying to think of an appropriate apology for the work that would have wasted on seats that no longer had any purpose. Franco stopped on the other side of what had been the vegetable patch and then put his hands on his hips and looked around, slowly, pursing his lips slightly as he frowned.

"Franco," Tom said. "The benches – there's no place for them now. I'm sorry."

The other man didn't answer. Tom was about to try the same sentence in Spanish, but the old man's attention was on the pile of tools leaning against Chakotay's broken fence. Franco reached for a rake, and then, without a word, started to work. Tom looked over at Neelix, who had stopped what he was doing. They looked at each other for a moment. Then they too went back to work. No one spoke. The rising breeze filled the silence instead, interspersed with the sound of their endeavours.

An hour or so later, B'Elanna arrived. Tom was so relieved to see her that he pulled her into a hug. She didn't resist him, hugging back slightly. When they parted, she looked around.

"I didn't know where else to go," she said. "So I figured here was as good a place as any. And there's safety in numbers, right? Tell me what you want me to do."

Tom handed her another rake.

Over the course of the next few hours, the tattered garden filled with people. They came in ones and twos, dribbling in to join the workers, until finally Tom had no more tools to hand out. Then they brought their own. No one really said anything. They just worked in silence. Or at least, they did until the Scouts turned up.

They appeared at lunchtime, a whole troop of them, led by a young man with Asian features beneath thick dark hair that looked as if he could have hired it out for a product commercial. Everyone stopped work and watched the enthusiastic column cross the road. They headed straight for the gate and as they got closer Tom realised that besides the packs on their backs they were each carrying some sort of implement: a spade, a fork, a rake, a bucket. Their leader told the children to wait outside on the sidewalk while he came inside, but when he did it was clear that he didn't know who he should talk to, so he just yelled loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Um… we heard what happened," he said. "And we wanted to help. We brought sandwiches and potato chips, too…"

Tom went over. "Hey," he said, holding out a hand. "Thanks for coming. We can use all the help we can get. I'm Tom Paris."

"Harry Kim," said the newcomer, shaking Tom's hand with enthusiasm. "Pleased to meet you. Just let me know where you want these hoodlums to start."

Kathryn hesitated outside the door to Chakotay's room. She wasn't sure what she was doing there. Once Phoebe had left she'd tried to sleep more, but that hadn't worked. She'd taken Molly out – the poor dog hadn't had a proper walk in days – and Kathryn had tried to stride off some of the nervous energy making her jumpy, but it hadn't worked. She'd made a few more calls when they'd got back, including to a florist she'd known for years, who had declared herself delighted to handle the wedding, even at short notice.

Mark was due in that evening. She'd figured out which flight he was on and when it would arrive at LAX. She'd meet him there, she'd decided.

Then, somehow, Kathryn had found herself back at the hospital. She wasn't sure she'd intended to come. She should really be at the site, especially since she knew Tom and Neelix were hard at work and had been since earlier that morning. But something in her had just drawn her to his bedside. She wanted to know how he was. That wasn't strange, was it? He was a friend, and after what she'd seen-

Locking her jaw, Kathryn pushed open the door. Inside Chakotay was lying on the bed exactly as he had been the last time she had stood in this doorway. Annika Hansen was still at his side. She looked up as Kathryn entered, exhaustion written in the dark circles beneath her eyes and the lines gathering at the corner of her mouth.

"Kathryn," she said, as if they had known each other for years instead of just minutes.

"I…was just passing," Kathryn said, almost truthfully. "I wanted to stop by and see if there was news."

"There's nothing new I can tell you, really. There's been no change," Annika told her, passing the long elegant fingers of one hand over her tired face.

"Have you slept at all?" Kathryn asked, stepping further into the room.

Annika shook her head with a faint smile. "Hospital chairs aren't known for being the most comfortable places in the world."

Kathryn nodded. "You should take a break. Go and get some coffee and breakfast, have a breath of fresh air."

Annika bit her lip, looking at Chakotay. "I don't want to leave him on his own."

"He won't be on his own," Kathryn told her. "I'll stay here until you get back."

After another moment of hesitation, Hansen nodded and stood up. "Alright," she said. "Thank you. I won't be long, I promise."

Kathryn stayed where she was by the door for a full minute after Annika had left the room. The noise of the ventilator filled the sterile space, its mechanical movement a bleak susurration replacing the sound that should have been there. Chakotay's stillness was stifling. Kathryn had only ever known him in action: from the first moment of their very first meeting his energy had been apparent, almost overwhelmingly so. For a moment, Kathryn remembered what it had been like to see him for the second time, when she had found him alone in the gym, throwing punch after punch as if he'd never tire. She'd known then that she was in trouble, although she'd done her best to ignore the spark that had ignited in her belly that evening. She hadn't extinguished it, though, not by a long shot. She'd simply kidded herself that she could ignore it, right up until the point when it had become abundantly clear that she could not.

Get up, she wanted to say to him. This isn't you. It can't be you. Get up and fight.

Pushing herself away from the door she went to his side. She didn't sit. She felt, obscurely and without bothering to analyse why, that it would be wrong to sit in Annika's chair. Besides, to sit would indicate the intent to stay, and she could not stay. She could not. Kathryn did not reach for his hand, either. Instead she touched his foot as she drew closer, then his knee: outliers to his full self, as if this would somehow be less intimate, would be less incriminating, if only in her own mind. She stood at his shoulder, her hand hovering over his bandaged chest. She wanted to place her hand there, to feel his heart beating under her fingers, the way it had as they'd-

She took a shuddering breath. Don't go back there. Don't. She laid her hand on his shoulder, instead.

"Chakotay," she said, quietly, bending towards him slightly. "It's Kathryn. Kathryn Janeway, that is. I-" she stopped, swallowing the lump in her throat and tensing her jaw against the unbidden and unwelcome sting of tears. "I wanted to see how you are. And I wanted… to say-"

Kathryn broke off, staring at the drug-induced serenity of his face. She'd been about to say that she was sorry, assuming he would know exactly what the apology was for. But the word stuck in her throat. It seemed hollow, somehow, not to mention redundant. They say the hearing is the last thing to go, but she wasn't even sure he'd recognise her voice. As if he would care about what had happened between them. As if a single, stolen kiss could possibly matter given the severity of his injuries and the struggle he had ahead of him to simply survive.

"I wanted to say that you would be so proud of B'Elanna," she said, instead. "You were right, Chakotay, when you said the evening of the gala would be a turning point for her." Kathryn tilted her head slightly. "Of course you were right, you know her better than anyone. But what I mean is – she's going to go so far, Chakotay. And you have to be here to see that. You have to – you must – be here to see that. She doesn't want to do it without you. She's not even sure that she can, and-" Kathryn broke off again, wondering for a moment when she had stopped talking of B'Elanna and had begun talking about herself.

She was still standing with her hand resting on his shoulder when Annika Hansen returned. Annika urged her to stay awhile – perhaps she needed company herself – but Kathryn excused herself.

Outside, Kathryn leaned against the solid red brick of the hospital's wall and breathed deeply, trying to centre herself as she turned her cell back on. It beeped immediately.

It was a message from Tom Paris.

"Um, hi," he said. "I'm at the site. Nothing to worry about. Well - nothing new, anyway. But – I think you might want to see this…"

[TBC]