Right. Finding Kathryn Janeway when she didn't want to be found. On her own ship! That would be easy. Chakotay resisted the urge to roll his eyes. A smile appeared on his face instead. Kathryn was alive and well enough to irate the EMH! Relief washed over him like a warm shower, leaving him almost giddy.

"Computer, locate Captain Janeway."

"Captain Janeway is located on deck 5, Jefferies Tubes access point 74."

Still doubting that his friend would make it that easy he nevertheless made his way to said access point. It was his best lead so far after all. He was truly surprised that he, when he opened the hatch to the Jefferies tube, found their wayward captain.

"Captain?"

When he got no reaction, he leaned a bit closer to get a better look at her in the dim lights. She was sitting with her back resting against the wall, her knees drawn up and her left arm wrapped around them. Her eyes were staring unseeingly at the opposite wall. At least she was conscious this time.

"Do you have room for one more?"

With her eyes still transfixed on the wall she gestured around her. "Make yourself at home." Her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper, reminding him how exhausted she must be.

"Thanks!" Commander Chakotay crawled inside the tube and seated himself opposite of her with a slight groan. He, too, had done enough for the day. He felt her eyes on him as he stretched out his legs as far as he could, but she quickly averted her gaze when he looked up. They sat in silence for a while. He waited for her to make the first move like he would with a skittish animal. So he closed his eyes and tried his best to appear nonchalant even though relief and worry were having a tug of war inside of him.

"One of the biggest mistakes I've made was not to insist on having a counselor on board."

His eyes flew open and he looked at her in dismay. "Kathryn, it was supposed to be a three week mission. You couldn't possibly have known!"

She waved him off."I know that, Chakotay. But if ever a starship needed one, it is Voyager." She sighed, then shook her head. "It would be quite a job, though, keeping me sane", she added wryly.

Chakotay smiled at her. "You, me and everybody else. We would need a counselor for the counselor."

She rewarded him with a half-smile of her own. "Well, if they'll take one advice from a slightly insane captain when we get back, I would advise them to get a counselor on board every ship that leaves the sol system."

"I'll second that anytime."

Kathryn nodded in gratitude and grew pensive again.

Chakotay was surprised that she admitted that she needed a counselor. He knew that she was an extremely private person and he had a hard time seeing her openly talking about her feelings.

He studied her. She didn't seem to be in any pain. The Doctor probably took care of that. But she was pale and now cradled her insured arm. The whole crew knew of her general aversion to visiting the doctor. Nevertheless, he knew her much better than the rest of the crew. True, for what she deemed "minor inconveniences" such as headaches or small injuries she would only pay a visit to sickbay if it got unbearable. Many people would rather walk for miles with a pebble in their shoes than stop and take care of the nuisance. As illogical as it was, he couldn't really fault her for that as he did the same more often than not.

What really unnerved both Tuvok and him was her tendency to delay treatment for any battle sustained injuries until both ship and crew were taken care of. While he understood where she was coming from, it upset him nonetheless. On the other hand, he had seen her pull the captain card on occasion and cut the line if a crisis didn't get solved after a few hours. She always tried to do what was best for the crew.

As for her game of hide and seek with the Doctor when it came to routine physicals? He suspected that she was just having some fun or at least let the crew have some fun at her expense.

Today, though, it was different. Her behavior was off. Normally, she would have sought out the doctor by now, not run away from him. She hadn't talked much about her experience with the alien. Only that it masqueraded as her father as it tried to coax her into its matrix. What else had happened?

"Are you hiding from the Doctor, too?", her voice cut across his thoughts.

"Hmm?"

"What happened to your hands?"

He looked at his hands for the first time since his accident. They were red and sported blisters here and there. And they hurt! The pain had been there in the back of his mind, but now it made itself known full front. He winced. Speaking of people who would walk with pebbles in their shoes!

Chakotay gave her a lopsided grin. "My own wish for a counselor?"

"But they must hurt! You really should… Why haven't you…", she pressed her lips together and looked away. Then she shook her head and looked back at him. "We make quite a pair, don't we? We could start our very own counseling support group."

"That is actually not a bad idea! The DA…" He broke off as she snorted. "What? DA as in Delta Anonymous," he clarified.

"Have you really never read…? Nevermind. You think we should do this? Talk?"

Chakotay shrugged. "Why not? I think we both need it."

"It is just, that I hoped…", she trailed off.

"That it would scab over and heal on its own?"

Kathryn nodded.

"But it doesn't really work, does it?", he asked her gently. "At least it doesn't for me. It is definitely bleeding again."

"I am not sure I can do this", she confessed.

"That's okay. I can go first. And you don't have to say anything, just listen. That is, if you want to." He suddenly wasn't so sure anymore.

"I think I can listen." She smiled. "And it works both ways: you don't have to say anymore than you want to."

Chakotay took a deep breath. "Welcome to DA. My name is Chakotay - What?" He was rudely interrupted by her snickering.

"I thought you said Delta Anonymous."

"Well, true." He thought for a moment. "Anonymous as in nobody else will know about it, just you and me. What we'll discuss in the Jefferies tube will stay in the Jefferies tube."

"Sounds good to me. I am sorry, Commander, I didn't mean to laugh."

"I know. I don't mind. We both need to laugh more often." They really hadn't laughed at all these past few weeks. They had tried to pick up their usual banter on their moonlight sail, but it had been forced. It soon had ebbed away, both of them too shaken with their experience. "It is good to hear you laugh, Kathryn," he added quietly.

"That name is ridiculous," she muttered.

"You can always come up with something better." He grinned at her.

"Oh, I will!" She grinned back. She was always up for a challenge.

They both lapsed into silence once more. Kathryn looked down at his hands with a frown and up again. Her gaze softened when their eyes met.

"You haven't been sleeping well." A statement, not a question. He basked in the obvious warmth and concern in her voice.

"No," he sighed, "no…"

"Nightmares?", she asked sympathetically.

"Hmm-hmm." He peered into her tired face. "You?"

"Yes." She grimaced. "And bad thoughts."

"That sounds about right," he responded dryly. Looking at his hands he sighed. "It was one of the worst days of my life. You were slipping away and there was nothing I could do. I tried to resuscitate you, but you wouldn't… I felt your ribs crack under my hands." Chakotay blinked rapidly to clear his suddenly blurred vision. "I was so scared that I had lost you," he whispered.

"You saved my life that day."

"No… No it was the Doctor's expertise and your strength that got you through your ordeal." Grief-stricken, he looked away.

"That's not true! Without your effort I would have died. If you hadn't kept me alive neither my strength nor the Doctor's expertise would have made a difference." Squeezing his knee in quiet support, Kathryn continued, "there is more than that. You were with me almost all the times when I died in those visions. And it was you who kept telling me to keep fighting, to hang on a little longer. You helped me to discern hallucination from reality. You helped me defeat him in the end."

"You really think so?"

"I know so, Chakotay!"

"Thank you for telling me! I… It helps. I felt so useless at the time." In an effort to get rid of the image that had haunted him these last two weeks, he tried to lighten the mood a bit. "I am glad then that it wasn't me telling you to go into this matrix," he quipped.

"Erm…"

"No, please tell me that I didn't do such a thing!", he pleaded.

"It wasn't you Chakotay! It was the alien's version of you or something like that. In the shuttle you told me that maybe we should fly into the anomaly that seemed to be behind our problems instead of trying to get away from it. I didn't know about the matrix then but I knew I definitely didn't want to fly into it."

"So you didn't listen to me?", he asked in mock exasperation.

"No." Kathryn smiled sheepishly then grew serious again. "Am I not listening to you enough? I should do that more, shouldn't I?"

"It is fine, Kathryn," he assured her. "Sometimes, I wish you would listen to me more often, especially when it concerns you personally. But you have good instincts. And you tend to be right quite often, annoyingly so. Hey…" At the sight of her glare, he raised his arms in surrender. "I am glad that you didn't listen in this case."

"The shuttle's hull buckled under the strain," she countered, raising her eyebrows expectantly, eyes dancing.

Chakotay shook his head. "Of course it did."

"I'll try to listen to you better from now on." At least she tried to sound chastened, he had to give her that.

"See, that you do, Captain," he chuckled.

Another pause, although the air was permeated with their camaraderie. He watched her close her eyes in apparent exhaustion, yet still looking more relaxed than he had seen her in days. It elated him that she could let go like that in his presence, feeling no pressure to be The Captain around him.

"I couldn't go to sickbay after I found you in the ready room, not even call for an update," Chakotay admitted haltingly. "There were so many scenarios going through my head… I was scared that one of them might come true." He sighed. "I should have had you beamed to sickbay right after you got hurt this morning. I'm afraid I panicked. I had a flashback…" He ran his hand through his hair only to stop when the pain snapped back at him. He hissed softly.

Kathryn opened her eyes. "The only one that panicked was Harry. And I, a little," she conceded, "it isn't a fun sensation getting the wind knocked out of you. And it was only that!" When Chakotay started to protest, she cut him off. "You helped me in exactly the right way! And if you really had panicked, Tuvok or Tom would have taken action, you can be sure of that."

Oh, he hadn't thought of that.

"Anyway, I wouldn't have been too happy with you, if you had me beamed to sickbay without my consent while being conscious." She paused. "Besides, the Janeway maneuver did come in handy, didn't it?" She grinned up at him.

Chakotay couldn't help but mirror her infectious smile. "You invented that crazy maneuver on the spot? That one even kept our hotshot pilot on his toes! I've never seen Paris this concentrated at the helm before."

"Oh no, I can't take credit for that. My grandfather came up with it, actually. Got him out of a tight spot, once. But it never made it into the text books: too dangerous and its use too limited. But he made sure that it was handed down through the generations."

"How many times have you used it before?"

She chuckled. "Just this once. As I said, very limited use." Her gaze flickered to his hands and back. A familiar glint appeared in her eyes. "Come on, Chakotay, let's go."

"Where to?"

"Sickbay. You are in pain. Let's get your hands seen to."