The Vulcan breakfast had been surprisingly tasty. Tuvok had been quietly solicitous and she was touched that he had sought out her company; he must have been concerned for her after her recent trauma. She was accustomed to his presence and felt comfortable with the silences they could share, as well as the conversation.

He had offered to guide her through a meditation that he suggested would be helpful to her. She couldn't deny that the alien possession had affected her profoundly. She felt as if something inside her had shifted. She knew she needed to feel like herself again, in order to return to duty the following day, so she had accepted his offer.

He had explained that after a near-death experience, Vulcans practised a specific meditation to reaffirm their connection to the life they had almost lost. The purpose of this meditation, he explained, was to strengthen the bonds with the formative, stabilising forces, whose influence had been integral in the development of the person she was, and who anchored her to her life. He had instructed her to select the three individuals who represented these formative, stabilising forces in her life.

The first two had been easy - her father and her mother. Tuvok had confirmed that whether they were still alive or not was irrelevant to this exercise. She was to focus on the gifts these formative individuals had bestowed upon her, as she had become the person she now was.

The choice of a third person had caused her a moment's indecision. Her sister being younger meant that despite the influence she'd had on Kathryn in so many ways, she couldn't think of her as a formative force. Mark she had known since she was a child; he had been her friend for most of her life. He was several years her senior and she had always valued and respected his judgment. She had relied on his support and had benefitted from the safe haven he created for her with his calm and contemplative nature. In some ways, he possessed a wisdom that reminded her of her father. When she had been at her lowest, following the devastating double loss of her father and her first fiancé, Mark's friendship and support had played a significant role in helping her find her way out of the depression that had gripped her. He had helped her sister persuade her to eventually reclaim her life. So, Mark it was, for the third, formative force.

She had spent almost two hours with Tuvok.

On the way back to her quarters afterwards, she found herself wondering whether the all-too-human practice of denial wasn't actually a lot more use to her in her situation.

The meditation had been too damn Vulcan for her.

She hadn't come away feeling stabilised and reconnected to her life. Certainly not yet anyway. She had actually found the whole meditation exercise to be surprisingly painful.

Spending well over an hour focusing on all she'd learnt from and all she felt for these three dear people had left her with a pervasive sense of melancholy. She had found it impossible afterwards not to consider the possibility that she would never see, touch, embrace, or even speak to her mother or her fiancé ever again, or to her sister for that matter. She'd been unable to suppress the thought that, to all intents and purposes, all three of her formative forces might now be equally lost to her.

For three years, she had intentionally and successfully fought against allowing herself to experience the full depth and breadth of the feelings of desolation that the possibility of permanent separation from her family and her fiancé could evoke in her. She had never allowed herself to feel the expanding darkness that would have moved silently into her soul, had she ever accepted the possibility of them being lost to her for the rest of her life. Whatever mental defences she had possessed, that had allowed her to successfully avoid those thoughts for so long, seemed to have been swept away by the meditation. Hardly a very Vulcan-like outcome surely?

Later, in her Ready Room, she'd been drawn to the photo she kept there of Mark. Spent several minutes just sitting, the photo in front of her. Her eyes unfocused; seeing nothing.

She'd gone in search of Chakotay, hoping they might have dinner, but she'd met Tom at the turbo lift, and he'd mentioned that he'd just had dinner with Chakotay and B'Elanna, so she had settled for something replicated in her quarters and a long soak in the bathtub. When Chakotay had commed her late evening, she'd been so glad to hear his voice. She'd missed him. Silly really, but she was just used to him being there every day. She'd almost suggested he come over for a night cap, despite the lateness of the hour, but she'd been aware of how drained she still felt, and of the need to be back on top of things by the morning.

The night before on the holodeck had been like an evening out of time. It was as if they'd been off the ship somehow, it'd felt like such a break from their usual routine. He had seemed different that evening too, more confident around her. Not that he usually lacked confidence, but that evening they had approached each other very much as equals. Their professional relationship had been discarded along with their uniforms and they'd met as a man and a woman who cared for each other and wanted to spend time together. That was what had been so different about that evening. Perhaps that was why she'd woken the next morning feeling vaguely guilty? Feeling as if she'd been unfaithful. She had reminded herself she hadn't done anything. But, then again, intent is significant. She'd felt so in tune with him, that if Chakotay had pushed her for more intimacy, there had been such an ambiguity to her feelings that evening that she didn't know what she would've done. Or rather she suspected she did. Hence the guilt.

So, two days after the ordeal, she returned to duty, still a little low, but immersing herself in work took her mind off her concerns as effectively as it always did.

More Vulcan meditation? I don't think so; give me a big stack of PADDs any day.

She'd been conscious of wanting to catch up with Chakotay, and his offer of brunch the morning after their evening together had been so tempting, for a split second she'd considered turning back and asking Tuvok for a rain check, but she knew that wouldn't have been fair. The day she had returned to duty, she and Chakotay had both been busy with ship's business and he'd moved himself onto beta shift to cover the three days Tuvok usually did on that duty shift, so that Tuvok could oversee the implementation of the new security measures. She'd stayed up much later than she should have, given how exhausted she still felt, with the intention of calling him as he came off duty, but she just hadn't been able stay awake.

The following day, they'd both been tied up in meetings and the day after, before his shift began, she'd asked the computer to locate him, and had been informed that he was on the holodeck with B'Elanna. She'd felt a little disappointed that he had made a point of organising things so that he would still see B'Elanna, but hadn't tried to make another arrangement to see her. It had seemed odd, given how worried he'd obviously been about her. Only seeing each other once to hand over ship's business at the beginning of his bridge shift on both these days had felt odd too, overly formal. It wasn't like him. It was almost starting to feel like the beginning of their journey again, before they'd begun to socialise with each other. Just captain and commander all over again. All the more surprising, coming on the back of that wonderful evening.

Perhaps he'd sensed she hadn't been herself that night on the lake and he had been fearful of taking advantage of her in that vulnerable state?

She knew he'd understood her unspoken reservations about them getting too close when they'd returned to the ship after New Earth. The silent understanding in those soulful, expressive eyes had left her sure of that much. What she had been less sure of was how he felt about her reservations. Until now, she'd always presumed he didn't necessarily share them. Perhaps now he did? Perhaps he felt now as she had then, that it would be more than they could handle? Perhaps he had sensed that her resolve was wavering, and he'd taken it upon himself to uphold her former position. Ironic really. Were they destined to take turns? Swapping sides from time to time in their gentle tug of war, neither one prepared to cross the line to intimacy, nor prepared to completely relinquish their hold on the other's heart strings.

On the third day he'd been on beta shift, she'd commed him before she went to bed, whilst he was still on bridge duty, and they'd arranged to have lunch together the next day. He'd sounded subdued. He'd sounded like she felt actually. Even so, it was still very good to hear his voice last thing before she turned in for the night. She'd looked forward to them being back to normal on the same shift cycle the following day.

This day had started out well. They had detected a source of galacite on an uninhabited planet, maybe even a full kiloton B'Elanna hoped, enough to re-fit the warp coils. Then, things had become more complicated. Vorik's transference of the chemical imbalance in his brain chemistry to B'Elanna had brought about an extraordinary sequence of events, to say the least.

When Tom had contacted the bridge to report back on the situation that was developing with B'Elanna, the look on Chakotay's face when he'd asked Tom for confirmation of what they'd heard him say had been priceless,

"She bit you?" The look that had then passed between them had made her so glad he'd been back on the bridge to share that moment with her, in all its madness.

Before that he'd been rather quiet, but she'd put it down to simple fatigue after changing shift cycle. However, at one point she had wondered whether there was actually something bothering him, as he had seemed withdrawn and distracted as well as monosyllabic. She couldn't help but wonder where the confidence and warmth she'd sensed radiating from him that night on the holodeck had gone. But, then again, he was probably just keeping things professional whilst they were on duty, and maybe over compensating a bit? She hoped that was all it was. She wanted to see that relaxed and confident side of him again soon. Still waters certainly do run deep, she thought. The man was such a case in point for that cliché.

Then, she sent him and Tuvok down to sort out the chaos of an away team she'd initially dispatched.

After a great deal of confusion, a communications blackout, the discovery of inhabitants on this uninhabited planet, and more craziness with Vorik and B'Elanna, things finally resolved themselves.

She had just been feeling more than satisfied with the outcome of the whole bizarre affair. Chakotay had managed to gain the trust of the Sikari and in exchange for his offer to help them improve their camouflage, they had agreed to provide Voyager with enough galacite to completely re-fit all the warp coils. It was a real result, much better than she could have hoped for. She was looking forward to lunch with him and having the chance to get things between them back to normal.

Then he'd called her down to the planet surface; didn't say why, but she knew from the tone of his voice that he was worried. Very worried.

"Your call sounded urgent, what have you got, Commander?"

"I think there's something you should see, Captain. We found this as we were clearing away the ruins. Undoubtedly one of the invaders who destroyed this colony."

He pulled back the bushes to reveal the source of his anxiety. "The Borg."

They looked down at the Borg skeleton in silence. She looked up and stared straight ahead of her. Her mouth went dry and she felt a wave of nausea wash over her, but it was only momentary.

Then she turned to look at him. He held her gaze. She saw reflected back at her the unspoken understanding of all this could mean.

Then the thoughts flooded back in all of a sudden and she formulated her orders at speed. "Get it back to the ship - beam it to sickbay, then get the Doctor working on it immediately. I want to know everything about it. Try and limit the crew's exposure to it if you can. Though I doubt we'll be able to keep this quiet for long. But I don't want anyone to panic. This could be ancient, they may have abandoned this sector decades ago, for all we know"

"Yes, Captain."

She was so grateful he hadn't countered her obvious anxiety with reassuring platitudes. He understood just as well as she did what they were dealing with here. What it could mean for them all.

She'd left him on the surface to supervise and she'd beamed back up to the ship. She went straight to sickbay to hear the Doctor's initial report in person. She was so on edge that she had found it hard to focus and actually listen to his first few observations.

As they left orbit and resumed their course for the Alpha Quadrant, she took to her ready room. She replicated herself a pot of coffee and focused all her attention on examining the data they had so far on the skeleton, and began to postulate all the possible ramifications of this find. Lunch would have to wait.

It turned out to be a very long first day back on duty.