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Switched

Chapter 45

White...mist...The Doctor.

"Welcome back, Captain," he smiled.

For a moment all was blank in Kathryn's mind, every memory lost in haze, but then they all came rushing back.

"The ship," she said. "It was set to...How am I here?"

"How do you think?" the Doctor replied. "I rescued you. And just in the nick of time. Another second and you'd have been incinerated. After a hair-raising hour...or at least it would have been a hair-raising hour had I been a humanoid, as a hologram it's all in a day's work...our frequency finder finally found the frequency for Taron's security shield and I was able to beam you out."

"What about Cayla and the Detective?" Kathryn asked anxiously.

"I got them too," he said proudly. "They're in the aft compartment."

Kathryn relaxed at that and closed her aching eyes. "Well done, Doctor."

"As I said, all in a day's work." He picked up a hypospray. "You'll have a headache for a couple of days, and may feel dizzy and nauseous due to PTT, but so long as you don't undergo any more transports until I say so, you should be as right as rain in a week. That goes for Ms Brenton too." He fiddled with the hypospray. "I just hope she'll listen."

He applied the hypospray to Kathryn's neck and immediately her drowsiness began to subside.

"How's the detective?" she asked.

"He could be better," the Doctor answered. "As a result of Taron's fun and games he suffered a fractured skull, severed artery, punctured stomach and a collapsed lung. But thanks to my usual brilliance he'll make a full recovery."

Now the fog was gone, Kathryn sat up. "Are they both conscious?"

"Your twin, yes, the detective, not at present. He has swelling on the brain and might be out for days."

Kathryn slowly climbed off the wide put-up bed the Doctor had set up for her. "Then I'll go and speak with Cayla. There's things we need to discuss before we get home."

"Which leaves you plenty of time," the Doctor answered.

"How do you mean?"

"Taron's ship and squad didn't go up with your run of the mill bang," he informed her. "Instead it went up with a wormhole. Thankfully it only lasted seconds but it sucked us in and spat us out ten light years from where we were...chewing up the Flyer in the process. Several systems are offline, including warp and communication. Unless we can get them back online then we're just going to have to wait until someone finds us and hope they're friendly."

"So that's what she meant," Kathryn said, more to herself than to the Doctor. "About going up with a bang that would make the history books."

"She?" the Doctor questioned.

Kathryn bit her lip and gave no answer. Instead, she put her hand on the Doctor's arm. "We'll worry about getting offline systems online later, Doctor. Compared to the Delta Quadrant, 10 light years is like landing in your back yard. We're all safe, for the moment, and right now that's all that matters."

With that she left him and made her way to the aft compartment. When she got there, she saw that Cayla's put-up bed was empty and that her twin was standing beside Vic, who was lying on the Flyer's only bio-bed. Her face was pale, deathly pale, and there was a terrible pain in her dull, heavy, eyes.

"How are you doing?" Kathryn asked.

Cayla made no reply, just stared at the unconscious man before her.

"It doesn't seem real," Kathryn went on, "any of this. Any moment now I think I'll wake up and find myself back on Voyager. You must be feeling the same way. You must feel as though this is all some kind of bad dream."

Only silence answered.

"I'm sorry," Kathryn continued. "I'm sorry Lacey was Taron. I never expected it. I could never even have imagined it."

Tears filled Cayla's eyes and her lip trembled...but again she said nothing.

"Neither can I imagine what it's like for you," Kathryn said sincerely. "If the boot had been on the other foot and it had turned out that Phoebe was Taron, I don't know what I'd do."

A tear ran down Cayla's cheek. "I loved her," she said quietly. "I adored her. She was...she was always everything I wanted to be. But I knew she didn't love me, not really. She never had any time for me, never wanted me around. That's why we've never been close...she wanted the distance."

"I'm sorry," Kathryn said again.

"It doesn't matter," Cayla replied. "Nothing matters now...nothing except you, Vic and Chakotay being ok."

"It matters," Kathryn answered. "Your feelings matter."

Cayla shook her head. "They don't. They don't have the right to. I'm nothing. I've always been a nothing. And I wish I was a nothing. I wish I'd never been born. There should only have been one of us and I wish you'd been that one. You've done such great things and I...I've done nothing. I've failed at everything. No matter how hard I've tried, I've failed. I failed my parents, I failed as a cop, I failed in relationships, and I failed as a mother. The only thing I've ever been good at is messing up. The world would be a better place without me and I hope I die soon."

There was so much pain in those words, so much sincerity, and Kathryn's heart went out to her. She knew only too well what it was like not to want to live anymore. And if anyone ever had reason to feel that way, it was Cayla. Life had not been kind to her.

"I don't," Kathryn said quietly. "I hope you'll live a long time. We've got a lifetime of catching up to do and I hope we'll spend a lifetime doing it."

"I don't want to be in your life, Kathryn," she said sadly. I don't want to be in anyone's life. I mess up, all the time. I hurt people, all the time. The best thing I can do for you, for everyone, is to kill myself."

Kathryn gently seized Cayla by the arms and turned her towards her. "Do you think I risked my life to save you only for you to kill yourself? Do you? No. I risked my life so you can live, Cayla. And you will. You will live."

"I didn't ask you!" Cayla cried, shaking herself loose. "I didn't ask you to save me! And I wish you hadn't! I wish you'd let me go up with the ship. Because this, what I have, it isn't a life! It's never been a life! And I don't want this life!"

"Someone else said that to me once," Kathryn said, remembering Seven's words when she was first severed from the Collective, "and do you know what? She changed her mind. When she saw what life could be, as an individual, she changed her mind. And you will too. When you see what life can be like without Taron, you'll change your mind. Because Taron's evil hasn't just been plaguing you these past fifteen years, it's been plaguing you since the day you were born. And I'm sorry for that. I'm truly, deeply, sorry. You should have had a sister who would love you, who would defend you, who would be by your side no matter what, but instead you got a sister whose mind was so twisted that she wrung yours. She was crazy, Cayla, and she used you in her sick perverted games. After the way she's played with your mind all these years I'm amazed you're still here. And the fact that you are here, it shows that you're a fighter. Don't let her win. Don't let Taron win."

"But she has. No matter how bad things got, I always thought I had Lacey, that she was the one true person I could count on. But now she's gone. And not only has she gone but I find out she was never there...that she never loved me...that..." tears choked her. "Taron won when she took my sister."

"I'm your sister too," Kathryn said firmly, "and I promise you right here, right now, that I'll always be there for you."

"How can you be?" Cayla cried. "I don't exist in your world, remember? As far as the world is concerned you're the daughter of Edward and Gretchen Janeway. How does that make a place for me? It doesn't. There's no place for me in your world."

"Then we'll have to make one. I'm not ashamed of you, Cayla. I want you in my life. I want you in my life as my sister."

"And have the whole Federation know that your mother was Taron's mother? I don't think so."

"I don't even want my mother to know she was Taron's mother," Kathryn answered. "And she doesn't have to. Because who knows besides you, me and Vic, that Lacey was Taron? No one. If we don't tell, it will stay that way. For her friends will never tell and somehow, someway, they'll cover up her death. So let's keep what we know to ourselves. Let's let Taron die nameless."

"He doesn't know," Cayla said quietly. "Vic. I was with him the whole time they...you know...and he didn't know."

"Then let's keep it just between us. Just between you and me. Please, Cayla. The truth won't do any good, it will just do a lot of harm to people who don't deserve it....my mother and Lacey's children."

"I won't tell," Cayla promised. "I won't tell anyone."

Kathryn put her hand on her twin's shoulder. "Thank you."

Cayla gazed into Kathryn's eyes and a tear ran down her cheek. "I wish you had been my sister. I think life would have been a whole lot better if you'd been around. But I'm glad you had the life you did. Your parents were too good for Lacey. Because the truth is I've always known that she wasn't a nice person. But I wanted her to be, you know? And because I wanted her to be, I blamed myself for her not liking me. I'm glad that you had her home, a good home, because it's made you the great person that you are. And you're great, Kathryn. You're the greatest person I've ever known...except for Vic. He's great too. The only time in my whole life I was happy was when I was with him. He loved me like...liked I'd always longed to be loved and more. But I never felt good enough for him, not really, and when I got fixed up for jail, I knew I never would be. So I finished things and...well, the rest is history."

"He still loves you, Cayla. Why else do you think he's here? And I can see that you still love him. Don't throw that love away. Hold on to it."

"It's too late," Cayla replied. "If I didn't deserve him fifteen years ago, I certainly don't deserve him now. And you're wrong, he doesn't love me. How could he? I've been a junkie, a drunkie, and I've slept with more men than I can count. He doesn't deserve that. He deserves someone good, someone untarnished. I'm dirty."

"You mustn't think that. What matters is not who you were in the past, but who you are now, who you will be. We all make mistakes, all do wrong things, what matters is that we learn from them and become better people. You're special, Cayla, everyone is special, and you're just as deserving to be loved as anyone else. I'd say you deserve it even more because you've had so little of it in your life. But not anymore. Like it or not, you're a part of the Janeway family now and we sure have plenty of love to go around. Don't throw love away because you think you're unworthy of it. Give me, give Vic, a chance to love you. For a chance is all we ask."

Tears flooded Cayla's eyes and her whole body trembled as she tried to hold them back. Gently, Kathryn wrapped her arms around her twin and drew her close. At first Cayla didn't respond, she just froze like ice in Kathryn's arms, but then her resistance began to melt and in the warmth of her twin's embrace, she wept away years of loneliness and heartache.

END OF CHAPTER 45