February 2004

Rated: R

Star Trek belongs to Paramount. The title belongs to Walt Whitman.

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Ashes of Soldiers

By Sängerin

The suggestion appalled Chakotay, and he said so. ‘It will kill her!’

‘Surely not literally,’ Admiral Paris frowned across the desk at Voyager’s former first officer.

Chakotay took a deep breath, then straightened his shoulders and answered. ‘Sir, for the past fifteen years, Captain Janeway’s major motivation has been her crew, her ship, and getting both of them home in one piece. That’s what has kept her going, and she kept the rest of us going. Without her, we wouldn’t have survived the trip, or else we would have given up, and settled on some deserted M-class planet and made the best of a bad lot. But without the ship…’

Admiral Paris looked steadily back at Chakotay. ‘What you’re saying is that Kathryn’s key motivation is now gone.’

‘Yes, sir. With all due respect,’ Chakotay continued, ‘If you could leave Voyager with her, just until she reaches retirement age, it would be a link, at least. But if you take everything away - her crew and her ship - I'm concerned you’ll be taking away her reason for living.’

‘And you really think it’s that serious?’ asked Paris. He shook his head. ‘I’ve known Kathryn for almost thirty years now - she has more strength of character than that.’

‘I’ve been the one sitting in the chair next to hers for the past fifteen years, sir, and believe me when I say that the ship and crew mean everything. Everything!’ Chakotay checked his rising tone and went on, slightly calmer. ‘Fifteen years in deep space has its effect - you can see that in me, in your son, even in Harry Kim, sir.’

Owen smiled gently. ‘Well, fifteen years would have altered young Mr Kim whether he’d been in the Delta Quadrant or back here at headquarters designing shuttles. But I take your point, Commander. I’ll get an opinion from the counsellor working with Kathryn, and I’ll see what we can do.’ Owen looked down at a PADD in front of him, then back up at Chakotay. ‘Thank you for coming by, Commander. I appreciate it.’

Chakotay took the hint and left Admiral Paris’ office, shaking his head slightly as he walked down the hallway. The Admiral’s reaction hadn’t been exactly what Chakotay had been hoping for, but Owen was an old, old friend of Kathryn’s. He wouldn’t let Starfleet pull the rug out from underneath her.

~ * ~

Six months later

‘You, you… ingrate!’ stormed Owen Paris. ‘How dare you do this to me? After everything…,’

‘Calm down, Owen,’ said Roberta, a hand on her husband’s arm. ‘This isn’t necessary.’

‘Everything?’ Tom Paris yelled back, ignoring his mother. ‘What “everything”? You’ve never done a thing for me!’

‘A good new posting, a nice place to live,’ listed Owen, ‘Not to mention that I saved your ass from prison.’

‘Sorry to bust your bubble, Dad,’ said Tom, ‘But it was Captain Janeway who saved my ass, not you. My fancy posting is a total crock, but thanks for the apartment. Let me know how much rent you want and I’ll transfer the credits to you tonight.’

‘Surely that’s not necessary, Tom,’ said Roberta. ‘Owen…,’ she continued, pleadingly. But neither man paid any attention to her.

‘So that’s it, is it? Six months in a cushy post and you’ve had enough of Starfleet. You’re just going to give up?’

‘Yeah,’ said Tom, in a you-wanna-make-something-of-it tone of voice.

‘What are you going to do with yourself? Go on the rubber chicken circuit?’ asked Owen scathingly.

‘I don’t have to do anything. I’ll go and drop in on Harry - I haven’t seen him in months. Or I’ll go to Pacifica and go snorkelling. I haven’t been cave-diving on Mars in twenty years, you know.’

‘A hobo.’

‘No, I’m going to be my own person. Independent. No orders - no commanding officers. I’m going to do what I want to do - not what you want me to do.’

‘Fine,’ said Owen, with a sigh that sounded like resignation. ‘I never thought that this is how things would when you got home. I thought you would have gotten over this childishness out there.’

‘That’s just the point,’ said Tom, with a sigh of his own. ‘I’m over the childishness of dancing to your tune. I’m not your little boy any more, and I’m leaving.’ He leaned down and hugged his mother.

‘Let us know how you are every once in a while, dear.’ She was dry-eyed - Roberta had known this was coming for months now.

‘What? You’re leaving now?’ asked Owen, a trace of concern breaking through the anger.

‘Yeah, Dad, now,’ said Tom flatly. ‘I’ll stay in touch. See you.’ Tom turned away and left the house. Owen watched from the window, and it was only when his son disappeared around the corner that Owen’s face crumpled, and he sat down heavily in a chair. Roberta put an arm around her husband’s shuddering shoulders and hugged him.

‘He’ll be back, dear,’ she said softly. ‘I promise you.’ But words alone would not be enough to calm Owen’s grief.

~ * ~

Chakotay put aside yet another press inquiry into Kathryn’s whereabouts. It had been four months since Starfleet had announced that Voyager would be scrapped, and no one had seen the ship’s captain since the following day. Except him, and he wished he hadn’t.

Kathryn had either the kindness, or the mean streak, to keep him informed of her whereabouts every week or so. Maybe she didn’t want him to worry, but knowing where she was, what she was doing… that just made him worry all the more. If he was honest, he would rather have been wondering just like everyone else.

The final message on his screen surprised him. It was from Tom Paris, asking if he could come for a visit. Chakotay hesitated before replying, unsure of the younger man’s motives. Voyager’s crew were still in various stages of shell-shock, caused by their return to Earth and the treatment they had received, but Paris had been shielded from the worst of it by virtue of his father’s position. The captain had worked hard to keep her young prodigy out of prison, and she’d succeeded. Thanks to Owen, Tom had been given a diplomatic posting that didn’t even require him to leave Earth. Apart from the break-up with Torres, Paris’s return to Earth was the easiest of anyone.

But something in Paris’s message hinted at desperation, of someone with very little control left over their emotions and their state of mind. So Chakotay let Paris know that he was welcome.

Then he placed a comm to Q’onoS.

~ * ~

‘How the hell should I know, Chakotay?’ B’Elanna was spitting mad, just as she’d been ever since Voyager arrived back on Earth. ‘I’m not the jerk’s minder.’

‘Sorry I asked,’ said Chakotay, lifting his hands. ‘I just wondered…’

‘I haven’t seen nor heard from him in three months, and I’ll be happy if it stays that way. Cocky bastard.’

‘Me or him?’

Finally Chakotay managed to get a smile from his old friend. ‘Him. But it suits you too. Kahless – I’ve missed you.’

‘I never would have known. When did we last talk?’

B’Elanna was silent.

‘I’ll tell you,’ said Chakotay. ‘Three months ago, when I called your mother to find out where you’d gone.’

‘I was mad – furious in fact. Didn’t want anything to do with Starfleet or anyone in it. And that includes Helmboy.’

‘One of the few who still has anything to do with Starfleet.’

B’Elanna hesitated before speaking. ‘So, where’s Captain Janeway gone? I assumed she was with you.’

‘With me? Why? No – she’s off “enjoying herself,”’ said Chakotay.

‘Trip to Risa, huh? I’m jealous.’

Chakotay didn’t correct B’Elanna’s assumption. ‘And what about you?’

‘I already told you I was jealous.’

Her glib remark distracted him. ‘How did you do that?’

‘What?’

‘Two minutes ago you were in a foul mood…not just that, a Klingon foul mood. Now you’re joking with me. But that wasn’t the point.’ He hurried on, not letting her distract him again. ‘What are you doing at the moment? Other than throwing yourself back into Klingon culture, of course.’

‘Trying to avoid Klingon culture.’

‘Both at the same time?’ asked Chakotay, not at all surprised.

B’Elanna nodded. ‘So, why were you asking about the Helmboy?’

‘He’s asked to come for a visit, and I don’t know why. Compared to the rest of us, well, his life’s pretty good.’

‘Yeah,’ she replied, bitter again. ‘The only thing he’s got to complain about is a lump on the back of his head where I hit him our last night together.’

‘Do I want to know?’

‘We were breaking up – I thought I’d point that out to him.’

‘What with – a Bat’letH?’

‘MeK’letH, actually.’

‘B’Elanna! And you wonder why I never got involved with you.’

B’Elanna laughed. ‘I did wonder that. But I don’t know anything useful about Tom. He hasn’t tried to contact me. I haven’t tried to contact him.’

‘Do you think he might be…well, depressed?’

‘Over breaking up? Chakotay – it had been coming for years. Ever since we got together.’

‘He just sounded very strange in the message. Very un-Tom-like.’

‘You mean he sounded like a normal human being?’

‘B’Elanna, this is getting me nowhere.’

‘Sorry. Look, I can’t help you. Honestly. When does he arrive?’

‘Tomorrow, I think. He wasn’t very specific.’

‘Give me a call once he’s left. I want to keep in touch with you. Compared to Klingons, you’re totally sane.’

‘Thanks a lot! Talk to you later, B’Elanna.’

B’Elanna gave a little wave. ‘Bye, Chakotay. Give my best to the captain.’

~ * ~

Tom looked around him. Nothing unusual here – wilderness, isolation, silence, just what he would expect in Chakotay’s dream location. Yet it was close enough to civilisation that friends could visit him easily. ‘Bad mistake,’ mused Tom. ‘You should have gone for somewhere less accessible.’ Chakotay had always called his home a ‘cabin’, but what Tom saw was a house: two floors, and large enough to have two or three rooms on each floor. He walked in the front door, into a long room the length of the building, with stairs at one end and a door to the back of the house. Tom put down his case and called out, ‘Hey – Chakotay! Anybody home?’

‘No – go away,’ came the answer.

Tom’s self esteem was low enough that, for a moment, he contemplated doing just that. But before he had a chance to pick his bag up again, Chakotay walked in the front door behind him. He was wiping his hands on a rag, and his face was slightly sunburned. ‘Hey,’ said Tom, awkwardly.

Chakotay didn't seem any more comfortable. 'You found your way here, then?'

'I did,' replied Tom. Only then did Chakotay hold out a hand, which Tom shook warily. 'I hope you don't mind my descending on you like this.' He took a deep breath. 'To tell you the truth, I didn't know where else to go.'

'I didn't turn you away, did I?' said Chakotay. 'If you want to put your things away, it's up the stairs, second door on the right.'

'Thanks.' Tom picked up his bag and mounted the stairs.

'Want a drink? Tea, coffee…?' asked Chakotay.

'Got anything stronger?'

'I'll see,' said Chakotay. 'But I doubt it.'

'In that case, I'll stick with coffee.'

Tom found the room Chakotay had set aside for him, and dropped his bag on the bed. He looked out the window briefly - the view over the valley was amazing, the sort of view he had tried on numerous occasions to program on the holodeck. But his holodeck creations could never approach this. Shaking his head, he went downstairs, to be greeted by the smell of freshly ground coffee beans. 'Replicated would have been fine,' he said as he walked into the kitchen.

'It's habit,' Chakotay replied. 'Besides, replicated coffee just doesn't taste right anymore.'

'You've become de-acclimatised, huh? One swig of Neelix's coffee substitute would set that right,' said Tom, taking a seat on a stool by the benchtop.

'Spirits, no! Anything but that,' said Chakotay. 'What's he doing now?'

'Wandering the quadrant, I think. He says he's exploring, but I doubt he'll ever settle down.'

'Understandable,' said Chakotay with a shrug. 'Coffee ought to be done soon,' he continued, filling the awkward silence.

'I'm in no rush,' said Tom.

'Sorry I didn't have anything else for you… I thought there might have been some Scotch in the cupboard. There wasn't. I guess I don't pay much attention to my supplies.'

'That's all right, I just thought I'd ask. I guess you don't drink much, anyway.'

'Not much,' Chakotay replied, taking two cups down from a shelf. He poured the coffee and handed one cup to Tom. 'In the absence of the proper liquid refreshment,' he said, lifting his cup in the air, 'A toast. To absent friends.'

'Absent friends,' echoed Tom. He took a sip. 'Are you all right?'

'You're the one who didn't have anywhere else to go,' said Chakotay. 'Isn't that my question?'

'I guess it is,' said Tom. 'It's nothing dramatic - I had a fight with my father. It's not the first time, nor the last. But I just couldn't stick it anymore. Pretending that everything was fine, just because my father pulled strings and got a plum posting for me…that just isn't in me.'

'Well, I'm sorry to hear that,' said Chakotay. 'We all thought you were having the time of your life.' It was the same bitterness Tom had faced from his former crewmates ever since Voyager returned to Earth.

'We? I thought you were here by yourself?' Tom bit off the next question on his lips.

'Oh, I am - I just meant…I talked to B'Elanna yesterday.'

'She's fine, I hope?' asked Tom. He had to say something to fill in the silence.

'Fine - not brilliant, but fine.'

'I'm glad. Life sure is quieter without her.' Tom tried not to sound bitter but he knew he had failed.

'Are you regretting…?' Chakotay sounded almost interested in the answer, yet he never looked Tom in the face.

'What? The break-up?' asked Tom. 'Hell, no. We were a disaster waiting to happen. I'm selfish and pig-headed, and B'Elanna deserved better than me.'

'Who are you and what did you do with Tom Paris?' asked Chakotay.

Tom looked at him, but if there was a smile on the other man's face, it was well disguised. 'I mean it. I'm no good for anyone right now, least of all B'Elanna.' He heard his own tone flatten, the way it did a lot these days. Flat and lifeless, and it suited his mood.

Chakotay nodded slowly. 'Don't take this the wrong way, but why didn't you go to Harry? You and he haven't fallen out as well, have you?'

'Not as far as I know,' said Tom. 'No - you're right. There's a reason I'm here.' He paused, taking a swig of coffee while he geared himself up to ask the question. 'I want to know what’s happened to Kathryn.’

~ * ~

Kathryn Janeway, erstwhile captain of the starship Voyager, would currently be unable to tell anyone what a starship was. In her current state, it was unlikely she knew that Starfleet existed, or even that Earth was part of the United Federation of Planets. But she sure was having a great time. ‘A toast!’ she said.

‘What to?’ asked the woman next to her.

Kathryn laughed derisively. ‘I don’t know…can’t remember.’

‘Love?’ suggested a man leaning against the wall opposite. ‘Let’s drink to love.’ He lifted his bottle to his lips.

‘Nup,’ said Kathryn. ‘Never had any luck with love.’

‘The future,’ said the woman next to her. ‘That’s what high-ups drink to.’

‘None of us have got a future,’ said Kathryn. ‘And we’ve got the same problem with family. We ain’t got none.’

‘I’ve got family,’ said the woman. ‘I’ve got a little boy…somewhere. Don’t know where.’ The woman began to sniffle.

‘Friends,’ said Kathryn. She put an arm around the other woman. ‘We’re all friends. A toast…to friends.’ She lifted her bottle and took a swig.

~ * ~

Telling Tom what little he knew of Kathryn’s whereabouts unleashed a storm. ‘You’re the one who’s supposed to be in love with her! Why in hell haven’t you done something?’

‘What do you suggest I do, Tom?’

‘I don’t know - go and get her out, talk some sense into her, something.’

Chakotay turned away from Tom’s fury, walking out onto the back deck. The mountains that rose behind the house were still lightly capped with snow. Before them were luscious green pines. Chakotay heard Tom’s steps behind him, and reminded him, ‘This is Kathryn Janeway we’re talking about. No one talks sense into her unless she wants them to.’

‘Well, I want to,’ said Tom, a sound of determination in his voice that had been absent until now. ‘So where is she, Chakotay?’

Chakotay sighed and turned back to face Tom. ‘I don’t know, exactly. She contacts me every week or so to let me know. I haven’t heard from her in a while.’

‘Well, where was she the last time you talked to her?’

‘Sao Paolo.’

‘She hasn’t left Earth?’

‘No - and I doubt she will.’

Tom stared at Chakotay for a minute. ‘You can’t possibly think I put any faith in your judgment at the moment. You’ve let her stay out there for four months.’

‘She’s a grown woman, and a Starfleet captain, Tom. She can take care of herself,’ said Chakotay, knowing as he said it that he had just used one of the most useless cliches there was.

‘It doesn’t sound like she’s looking after herself. That Scotch you thought you had, it was hers, wasn’t it?’

Chakotay nodded.

‘And how many times has she been back here in the last four months?’

‘Once,’ he said heavily, ‘And she looked like hell warmed over.’

Tom turned his back on Chakotay and stood by the deck railing, looking out at the pines.

‘What exactly is she into, Chakotay?’ he asked.

Chakotay looked up. ‘Why do you care so much, Tom? You said it; I’m the one who’s supposed to be in love with her.’

‘She’s the Captain, Chakotay. I haven’t forgotten all my loyalties. But it’s more than that. She’s Kathryn Janeway. You don’t forget her…I hated her for years, before I finally met her. She was the one my father was always praising. It was like she could do no wrong in his eyes, but me…nothing I ever did was good enough for him.’

Chakotay sighed. He’d heard this all before.

Tom continued. ‘Did you know I hated her for the first six months I was on Voyager? She was so damned holier-than-thou when she got me out of the FPC in New Zealand. And then, when she promoted me once we were stuck out in the Delta Quadrant, there was something so patronising about her. Like she’d heard all the stories my father had ever told about his worthless, no-good son, and she was certain that they were all true. But she’s the sort of woman you can’t hate for very long…even if you’ve got good reason to. And she never really gave me a good reason to hate her.’ Finally Tom turned around and faced Chakotay. ‘You know what I mean, don’t you? She is just so bright and beautiful and sexy that you can’t help but love her. But it’s a weird sort of love…like a family, I guess. It’s like Harry and Seven and Kes were her children, B’El and I were the younger brother and sister, and Neelix and Tuvok were her adoring uncles.’

Chakotay spluttered at the comparison, and didn’t dare ask what role Tom saw him in. He chose the easiest response instead. ‘Tuvok an adoring uncle? Just try saying that to his face.’

Tom grinned lopsidedly. ‘I know, I know… But I’m right, aren’t I? There isn’t a single member of Voyager’s crew who wouldn’t die for Kathryn.’

‘And what you’re saying is that you sure as hell aren’t going to let her die either. But she’s not in danger of dying, Tom. If she were, I swear I’d do everything I could…’ His conscience niggled at him. There were more types of death than the cessation of bodily function. And the woman who had turned up on his doorstep two months ago was anything but ‘alive’.

‘Fine, then,’ said Tom. ‘Start now.’

‘What?’ asked Chakotay. All he could see was her face the way it had looked the day she came. And then again the day she’d left.

‘Start now,’ Tom repeated. ‘Start doing everything you can to get her back, before she really is in danger of dying.’

~*~

Tom talked at Chakotay into the night, his arguments sometimes passionate and sometimes logical. Always heartfelt and persuasive, drawing Chakotay into his plans to find Kathryn and bring her ‘home’.

Chakotay studied his own reluctance, staying out on the deck long after Tom had gone to bed. You’re the one who’s supposed to be in love with her, Tom had yelled at him. The one thing he had tried to ignore since Voyager arrived back in the Alpha quadrant – his feelings for Kathryn and exactly what they meant to him – and Tom had managed to bring everything back within six hours of arriving.

Tom’s decisiveness, his insistence that Kathryn must be found, unsettled Chakotay. He knew he had been willing to sit back and accept the periodic communications from Kathryn. For four months, Chakotay had told himself that he had suffered enough at Kathryn’s hands: that since he was no longer her first officer, he didn’t need to live his life around her anymore. He relished the freedom that their return to Earth had given him, and resented Tom’s interference.

Chakotay leaned on the deck railing, staring out into the darkness. Deep within him there was an acknowledgement that Tom was right, that anyone who had been on Voyager owed Kathryn their life, and that this was a chance to repay that debt. But fifteen years had given Chakotay a long time to rationalise his feelings for Kathryn, and now they were hidden so deeply he dared not disturb them. There were times when he could fool himself. He wished there were more of those moments, because what he wanted now was a quiet life. Without the curling springs of tension in his gut each time she came near him, or sent him a message, or when her name was mentioned.

He wished that Tom hadn’t chosen to come to him. To treat him as father or older brother or whatever role he’d been given in Tom’s Voyager family fantasy. He was in no mood for this, and he’d thought that the crew knew how much he wanted to be left alone. Clearly, he should have found a cabin further away from transportation, less accessible to former junior officers in need of counsel or some troubled idea of redemption.

Chakotay turned away from the dark pine woods and into the cabin. For a moment he contemplated sleeping in the room off the kitchen, the room Kathryn had used the last time she was here. Sleeping there would mean not going upstairs to sleep in the room next to Tom, he told himself. He could pretend that there was no one else in the house. Then he shut the door to that room and climbed the stairs.

The door to Tom’s room opened as Chakotay reached the top of the stairs, and he jumped, startled.

‘I thought you were asleep,’ he said to Tom, who stood in the doorway bare-chested, hair tousled but eyes alert.

‘I woke up,’ Tom replied, and for a moment they stared at each other in silence. Then Tom spoke again. ‘I made a decision,’ he said. ‘If you don’t hear from her in two days, I’m going to Sao Paolo.’

~*~

Tom was in the nice part of Sao Paolo and he knew it. He knew he wouldn’t find her here, among manicured lawns and flitters waiting to take visitors wherever they wanted to go. But this, to him, was reality. He was about to set out, Orpheus into the underworld, and he wanted comfort and reality to surround him when he returned. A soft bed, good meals, a swimming pool and a sauna. Life’s little necessities after fifteen years on a ship where even the coffee was rationed.

His first morning in Sao Paolo he ate his breakfast in the hotel coffee shop. He nibbled on pastries and drank coffee, and switched between three different PADDs that lay on the table before him. Between his own contacts and Chakotay’s willingness to talk to B’Elanna, he was well prepared: he had maps of the city and a hacked copy of the civilian security records. Tom and Chakotay had scoured the security reports for any mention of Janeway, and had found a few possible references.

None of this made his reticence any less. Getting up from the table seemed too final. Walking out the door, turning left and walking the few blocks that would take him from the hotel to the Praca de Republica seemed too definite. The one thing in his mind since he had walked out of his father’s house was to find Kathryn Janeway. Now that it came to the point of hunting, he hesitated. He didn’t want to fail. He didn’t want to find out what came next.

~*~

He had spent a week in and around Sao Paolo, wandering through the favelas. The conditions appalled him, and he found himself aching to do something about it. But Kathryn came first. He had sat on stools in bars, asking everyone who came in whether they recognised the holo he carried of Kathryn. No one did. He had lingered in the Praca Roosevelt, and spent a freezing night wandering the streets of Bixiga. There had been no sign of her.

Chakotay sent him a copy of Kathryn’s weekly contact with him. She was still in Sao Paolo, she said. She wasn’t anywhere Tom had been.

‘Have you tried Santos?’ Chakotay asked when they spoke. ‘Sao Paolo’s the region as well as the city — maybe we’ve been thinking too narrowly.’

‘Santos,’ said Tom, sighing heavily. ‘Makes as much sense as anywhere else.’

So he found himself in Santos; the busiest port in Old Brazil, back when goods were transported between continents by ship. He spent some time down by the water, looking at the docks that had been preserved, and the few remaining ships, left there as tourist attractions. The pull he felt to the sea was as strong as ever, and it reminded him that he no longer had a job, or a family, or any of those things he’d always been told meant he was a grown up. And that once he’d completed this hot-headed save-the-woman-who-saved-you mission, he had a life to plan. His back-pay from Voyager, after all, was generous but not inexhaustible.

He turned away from the sea and began walking the streets.

~*~

Santos proved to be the right place.

She looked up at him as he approached. He sighed with relief when he saw that it really was her, that he’d found her and everything was going to be all right now.

‘What are you doing here, Tom?’

He tried to read her mood. She wasn’t angry, she wasn’t tired, she wasn’t petulant.

‘I came looking for you,’ he said. ‘People are worried.’

‘Really.’

That same, dull tone. And he realised: she was bored. She didn’t care whether he was here or not.

‘So you came all the way to Sao Paolo. Didn’t you talk to Chakotay? He knows where I am.’

‘He was worried about you, too.’

‘Right.’

‘No, really,’ said Tom.

They faced each other down the length of a back alley, Kathryn slumped against the wall: Tom standing. Tom approached her and held out a hand.

‘Captain – come on, you can’t stay here.’

‘Why the hell not?’ she retorted.

‘Because I’m going to buy you some coffee.’

She regarded him thoughtfully for a moment or two, then pulled herself to her feet, ignoring Tom’s outstretched hand.

He took her into a nearby coffeehouse, one that was open all hours and catered to anyone who walked in the doors. She watched him closely while he ordered their coffees.

‘This is a good place to come for coffee,’ he said when he sat down opposite her.

‘This shop?’ she asked incredulously.

‘This region. Brazil – if I didn’t know better I’d think it was the reason you were here.’

‘But you know better, don’t you Thomas?’ She’d called him Thomas only three times before, and it had always been followed by Eugene. And either a promotion or a prison sentence.

‘I don’t know much,’ he said. ‘I know you disappeared. You told Chakotay you were in Sao Paolo – you turned out to be in Santos. What I can’t work out is whether you wanted someone to find you or not.’

‘My life doesn’t concern you, Tom.’

‘Of course it does. You can’t think I’m about to forget all about my captain of fifteen years, just because we’re back on Earth and my father tried to give me another life? It doesn’t work like that, Kathryn.’ For the first time, he reached out to touch her, laying his hand on hers. Her skin was grimy and rough – that much he felt before she jerked her hand away from his.

‘Leave me alone.’

‘Okay,’ he said, pulling his own hand away, and sitting back in his chair. He took another slow sip of his coffee.

‘I meant leave me alone,’ she said, fiercely. ‘Go back to San Francisco and fly shuttles. Leave me here and forget about me.’

‘Don’t you understand?’ he asked. ‘I can’t do that. If I could do that I wouldn’t be here. I can’t leave you here like this.’

‘Like what?’ she snapped.

Tom took a deep breath. ‘This isn’t the Kathryn Janeway I know. You’re not well, you’re not yourself.’

‘Who am I, then?’

‘The captain I remember when Voyager was stuck in the Void,’ he said honestly. ‘I’d hoped I would never see her again.’

Kathryn laughed, but it was short and sharp. Harsh. ‘Bad luck, because she’s back.’

‘Come back with me. At least to Sao Paolo,’ he said. ‘Don’t spend another night out here.’

‘I have somewhere to stay. I’m not poor – I have back pay just like you do.’

‘Then why are you here?’

‘Because I am,’ she snapped. ‘Go back to your fancy Sao Paolo hotel and leave me here.’

‘No.’

‘Then freeze your butt off here, because you’re not coming with me.’

‘No.’

‘Then go to hell.’

‘I’m not going to do that either, Kathryn.’

She stared at him. She drained her coffee mug and he got up and ordered another one for her. He sat down and he stared some more.

‘Why do you care what happens to me?’

‘You saved my hide more times than I care to think about. I owe you,’ said Tom.

‘No one owes me anything.’

‘Everyone on board that ship owes you their life,’ he retorted.

‘I’m not hurting anyone, Tom,’ she said wearily.

‘You’re hurting yourself,’ he replied.

‘Then let me.’

‘Do you think it doesn’t hurt me to see you like this? You’ve been my hero, and my friend, and I see you like this – drinking too much, freezing to death on the streets of some city just because you can? Because they took your ship away and you want to make them pay? They’re paying, I’m certain of it. Don’t punish me, too.’

He wondered why that speech had become all about him. He’d been going to point out how much she was hurting Chakotay. He had just been the messenger.

Somewhere along the line this had become personal.

She still hadn’t said anything.

‘If you want me to leave so badly, Kathryn, why don’t you just walk out of here? You know Santos far better than I do: you could lose me in a minute. So why are you still here?’

‘You’re bribing me with an endless supply of coffee.’

‘You bet your sweet ass I am.’

She glared at him, but Tom held firm. ‘Right now you’re my friend, not my captain. I’m not in Starfleet any more, anyway, even if you were. And for the last time, will you come back to Sao Paolo with me?’

‘Just for tonight,’ she said. ‘Because it will get you out of my face.’

~*~

He slept on the sofa in his suite and gave her the bed. It would have been possible to get a separate room for her, but he didn’t trust her to stay there.

Tom didn’t like intrigue. He didn’t like predicting her every move and planning his own response. But he was here to bring her home and that’s what he intended to do.

Kathryn hadn’t woken up yet when he ordered breakfast to be delivered to the room, but when it arrived and the smell of coffee drifted across to her, she stirred and stretched, and stared blankly at Tom before walking into the bathroom. When she came out he had a steaming cup of coffee ready for her, and she took it from him in silence. She drank half the cup and refilled it from the pot before she spoke.

‘You’ll make a good husband some day, Thomas.’

He looked up at her, startled by the comment. ‘I’m not looking for that any time soon.’

She sat down opposite him. ‘It doesn’t change the fact that you put coffee in a cup and didn’t speak until spoken to. Good qualities.’ From the breakfast trolley she picked up a piece of limp toast, then took a fork and skewered a few pieces of fruit on it. Her mouth closed around the fruit and Tom tore his eyes away from her lips.

‘I’m not going back,’ she said.

‘To Santos or San Francisco or to Indiana?’

‘I don’t know. There are places that I’ve been I won’t go to again. No one can make me – not Chakotay, not even you at your most determined.’ She reached for another piece of toast. ‘Have you told Chakotay yet that you’ve found me?’

‘There hasn’t been time,’ he said. ‘And I thought you might have wanted to tell him yourself.’

She shook her head. ‘Don’t tell him, Tom. I haven’t returned to your world.’

‘It looks to me as though you have.’

‘That’s just an illusion.’

~*~

She agreed to stay in Sao Paolo, in the hotel, for another night. There was concern in Tom’s eyes when he looked at her, concern she appreciated, even though he seemed to watch her every move. Tom tiptoed around her, treating her like a precious ornament. No wine came near their table at dinner, the refreshments in the suite disappeared and the replicator was suddenly unable to produce synthale or alcohol. The conversation always steered away from what she would do tomorrow – he brought her Regency-era novels to read, and stayed silent when he needed to. When the silence grew oppressive, he talked about Captain Proton and Queen Arachnia, filling the void with harmless chatter. He cared, and she missed being cared for. In his gaze she saw a mixture of fear and desire and apprehension, and as hard as he tried, the desire was never fully veiled.

When they came back to their room after dinner he held the door open for her, and when he followed her in and shut the door, she pushed him up against it and kissed him. Not gently but fiercely. No exploration, no invitation. Just hunger and thirst and desperate need that he shrank from, but then returned. She felt his reluctance, his hands on her shoulders, gently pushing against her, pushing her away. She felt his acquiescence, hands slipping around her shoulders, pulling her closer. Her kisses were returned, and his hands slid down to her hips, drawing her into him.

Her world was one in which she created reality. It was a world without consequences, and a world where she saw something pretty or desirable or something that would taste good and it was hers.

Tom was all three. Still the pretty-boy he’d been fifteen years ago, with less hair and slightly rougher skin, but those ice-blue eyes and thin pink mouth still made Kathryn lick her lips without realising it. Still tall and hard, arms that held her as though she mattered, that put pressure on her body to remind her she was alive. And when she kissed him, she smiled, because he did taste good. Fresh, and young — younger than her — and his breath flavoured with spices from the meal he’d just eaten.

For moments and minutes and hours he was hers, and she claimed him with gentle bites from an eager mouth, with hands that roamed the length of his body, caressing and gripping, leaving bruises and smoothing wrinkles. Wrinkles that probably weren’t there when she first met him. Ravages of time.

The momentum shifted. They moved from door to floor to bed. She sat over him and then he lay over her. Power and hunger in his eyes and his movements, and he leaned down and called her ‘Captain’.

In a world of illusion they could stay here forever. Not speaking, not hearing, just feeling and giving and receiving and screaming in pleasure. There was no outside world.

~*~

The cabin had never seemed empty before. It had been his retreat when they returned from the Delta Quadrant, when Kathryn’s arguments with Admirals and the pulling of strings had resulted in freedom, if not honour, for the Maquis members of the crew. Starfleet had long memories, and even heroism couldn’t overtake terrorism.

He retreated to the mountains, his cabin and solitude. Occasional visits from Kathryn, and a communications console to link with the rest of the world. Fifteen years of sitting by Kathryn’s side left him content to be without that constant pressure of her presence. Solitude made it easier. Solitude made his love seem normal and the longing a regular part of life. Then a week with Tom Paris in his house and the silence became out of place, the solitude had weight, and her absence began to hurt.

Tom said he would go to Santos. Two days and Chakotay had heard nothing. While he chopped wood outside, he listened for sounds from the console; he cooked his dinner and ate on the deck with one ear open. He was unsettled by his own reactions, his reliance on Tom. For the months since Voyager had returned to Earth, and in the years before that, he had been supremely ambivalent, content in his isolation to love Kathryn and hate her simultaneously. Now, he was invested in the search for her, invested in it beyond reason; motivated not by his own wishes, but by the spirit of the younger man. Chakotay was the reluctant sponsor of Tom’s quest, a quest he didn’t even understand. And all the time, Tom’s disbelief echoed. You’re the one who’s supposed to be in love with her.

‘Wasn’t everybody?’ B’Elanna said when Chakotay grew lonely and impatient and contacted her.

‘Were you?’ he asked.

B’Elanna shrugged. ‘In a way. It was impossible not to see something in her fire and drive and the way she would throw her own life away for yours. And there were times when she’d smile and you’d think there were no boundaries to what you’d do for her. Or let her do to you. But you know all this.’

‘She inspires loyalty,’ was all Chakotay was willing to admit.

‘Loyalty, devotion, desire. Aren’t you worried that Tom will get involved with Kathryn if he finds her?’

It was one of the many things he was pushing to the back of his mind. ‘Why should I be?’

‘For every reason I just listed,’ replied B’Elanna. ‘I’m not a counsellor, Chakotay, you know that. Ask me to go five rounds with a Bat’letH to work out your frustration and I’ll do it, and jump your bones at the end of it.’

‘Thanks for the offer,’ he said, dryly.

‘Anytime.’ She looked back at him, through the subspace connection, eyes shining. ‘I mean it.’

There were many things he did not want to think about. The images called up by B’Elanna were one. Kathryn and Tom were another. And at the very back of his mind, pushed deeper each time it appeared, was the memory of Tom at his bedroom door, wearing pyjama trousers but no shirt, his hair messy and his eyes bright with determination.

~*~

Tom left the room while Kathryn was still asleep. He tried not to look at her, tried not to think while he washed and dressed and stole away. He tried not to look at the bites and bruises she had left on his skin, tried not to remember the night’s pleasure that had caused his aching muscles.

He hurried through the corridors of the hotel and out into the heat of the Sao Paolo day. The streets of Centro and Liberdad were familiar territory to him now, and he walked them feverishly. Memories of the night before flocked into his mind. Her skin, her hair, her taste, her scent. Her cries of delight and fury and possession. And even from these he felt need and desire stirring.

His captain of fifteen years. His father’s friend and protégée.

And he wondered just who and what it was he had screwed last night.

~*~

When he returned to the room, she was gone. There was no note and the room had not been cleaned. There was an empty pot of coffee on the table with a dirty cup beside it, and somehow Tom felt that this was the way it was meant to happen. He was left with the guilt and the memories and neither of them obviated the other but somehow only made it worse.

Sitting by the window, he recalled the anger in his passion, and ran his finger over his bruises. It was almost possible to imagine that her scent still lingered in the room, and he breathed in, as though he could capture it. Soon he would need to contact Chakotay and let him know he was coming back. The question was whether or not to mention that he’d seen her and lost her.

Tom laughed at the thought that he’d had what Chakotay had wanted for so long. Kathryn Janeway had been in his bed – or she’d dragged him into hers. He had looked into Kathryn’s eyes and seen naked desire. He had held her breasts in his hands and caressed them with his mouth.

And then he wondered why he assumed that Chakotay had never done the same.

He sat by the window and barely moved for hours. The chase was over and he wasn’t about to start again. He had lost and it was time to go home.

Then the door opened and Kathryn walked in.

‘I left,’ she said.

‘I noticed.’

‘I came back.’

He nodded, not asking why.

‘You came to find me,’ she said. ‘And if I leave, you’ll chase after me. And if I lose you, you’ll come after me. Because that’s what you do.’

He didn’t bother telling her she was wrong. There wasn’t a chance to do so, because she crossed the room and straddled his lap.

‘I like this world we created,’ she told him. ‘I like you inside me.’ She shifted in his lap, pushing herself closer. ‘I want it again.’

So did he.

Later, much later, she sat on the edge of the bed fastening her bra. ‘It’s like the world is coming back into focus. My escape fantasy is over. It’s time to go back.’

Tom nodded but said nothing. Fantasies ended, even twisted ones that made his gut roil even as his libido soared. He watched her cover her breasts with a shirt, and imagined his head between her thighs again.

‘Take me back to see Chakotay, Tom,’ she said.

Reality intruded.

~*~

It had been only three days since he’d spoken to Tom, but Chakotay was prepared to believe that Tom had done his own disappearing act. That search was one Chakotay would willingly leave to the Admiral and his wife – and if Kathryn didn’t want to be found, he wasn’t about to force the issue.

He spent a day in the woods, reconnecting with silence; the silence that was the chirp of birds and the rush of wind through pine branches. The silence that had been his constant and valued companion for six months, that had kept his love for Kathryn as a treasured memory rather than an obsession. That was the life he hoped to return to as soon as possible.

Until he reached home and saw his communications console blinking with a new message.

Tom had contacted him from the hotel in Sao Paolo. He looked tired and stressed, and until he began to speak, Chakotay assumed that Santos had been a dead end and he was abandoning the search. Tom didn’t even smile as he spoke: ‘I found her, and she has agreed to leave Sao Paolo. We’ll be arriving at your place tomorrow, all things going to plan.’

And although Chakotay had thought that the weight would leave his shoulders at those words, it only got heavier.

~*~

Their first night at Chakotay’s cabin, Kathryn appeared in the doorway to Tom’s room wearing a very thin chemise. And nothing else. Tom had no time to protest, even if his brain had managed to override the reactions of his body.

It began again, or continued where it had left off. The cycle of lust and passion and guilt and denial, of sex at night and justification during the day, of trying not to allow Freudian analysis to take over his thoughts, of not looking anywhere near Kathryn in Chakotay’s presence.

Nothing had been said to Chakotay. It became the great unsaid between the three of them, although the walls were thin and Tom’s bedroom was next to Chakotay’s. Tom couldn’t articulate what was happening, and Kathryn didn’t seem to see the need. Kathryn had no firm plans on her return from Sao Paolo, and seemed content with life as it was. Tom was uncomfortable with the lies, and with sleeping with Kathryn under Chakotay’s roof. But didn’t know what to do, and when Kathryn appeared in his doorway and knelt down to take him in her mouth, he didn’t want anything to change.

~*~

Tom and Kathryn drank coffee sitting on Chakotay’s back deck.

‘Why did you come looking for me, Tom?’ It was the first time in a week that Kathryn had mentioned Sao Paolo, even obliquely.

‘Because Chakotay wouldn’t,’ he answered. Chakotay was in the woods and Tom felt like being honest.

‘How did you know that?’

‘I came here looking for you.’

She looked at him, and he didn’t need her to ask the next question. ‘There’s a lot going on,’ he began. ‘I fought with Dad and I needed advice. I couldn’t find you, so I came to Chakotay. And what he told me made me worry about you. Someone had to do something. It turned out to be me.’

‘I’m here now – why did you need my advice?’

He looked at her hair, glowing in the late afternoon sun, and tried to remember the person he’d been two weeks ago when he arrived on Chakotay’s doorstep. ‘I remember telling Chakotay that I was no good for anyone. It was true. You know what my life was like when we got back here. You hated me as much as everyone else did.’

Kathryn shook her head, but it was an unconvincing denial.

‘I got tired of that sheltered life, and I told my father so. I stormed out. I wanted someone to talk to, or something to do. In looking for the first, I found the second.’

‘Very eloquent, Thomas,’ Kathryn said, her voice dropping. ‘And now?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t want to commit myself to anything just yet. Life is — taking a turn I don’t quite understand right now.’ He held out his hand to her but she didn’t take it.

‘There are no fairy-tales, Tom.’

He weighed her words. There was meaning in the space between, in what he said as well as she. They were still in their world of isolated illusion, their Sao Paolo bubble that had to burst sometime. The world couldn’t stay away forever. There were no fairy-tales.

In the silence they watched as the sun slipped behind the mountains and the sky turned red.

~*~

She hadn’t moved since the conversation with Tom. Now Tom was indoors, reading or thinking or working out or sleeping. It was Chakotay – home from the woods, calm and centred – sitting in the chair next to hers. There was food on the table between them, and they ate and talked in the dark.

There were things that had to be said, and the dark made it easier. She couldn’t see his face and she chose to believe that he couldn’t see hers.

Chakotay asked the question that had hung in the air since Tom brought her inside that first day. ‘Why did you disappear?’

‘Life was too hard. It’s the same reason you’re here and not somewhere nearer civilisation. It’s the same reason Tom left his post and rejected his parents and went to Sao Paolo. Life got too hard. And I could leave. So I did.’

‘Then why did you stay in contact? You could have disappeared completely. Off-planet, Tom never would have tracked you down. He was the one with the will to do this — he came to me and told me I had to help him find you. It would have taken far longer if we hadn’t known exactly where to look.’

Through the darkness she could make out the outline of his face and no more. She turned away from the mountains and spoke towards the shadow that was him. ‘You are my link with reality. Ever since you pulled me back from the Void, since you called me over Noah Lessing. You are my link with reality.’

There was silence. It was broken by a deep sigh, and then another.

‘I should have come to find you. I wanted to give you space.’ Another sigh. ‘I liked the space I had given myself. Searching for you, finding you, seeing you like that — it wasn’t something I wanted to do.’

‘It would have hurt too much,’ she said for him. ‘I know. And that’s one of the reasons I left. I’m no good for you, Chakotay. You see yourself as some medieval knight, protecting me. Tom does, too. I’ve seen it in his eyes every night. My champions.’ She laughed, low and bitter. ‘Maybe I need protection sometimes. Maybe we all do. That doesn’t mean I want it. And every time you try to protect me, I take another piece of you away. I’ve seen you drain away before my eyes these past fifteen years. It isn’t good for either of us.’

She paused, and when Chakotay said nothing, she continued. ‘There are people in this world who just aren’t supposed to be with others. I don’t mean hermits, although I don’t deny they exist. But there are people who will suck the heart and soul from anyone they become involved with. Romantically. Or sexually. Like I’ve done to you. It will happen to Tom, too.’

She watched the shadow she knew so well, and saw his shoulders slump, then tense. ‘You knew,’ she said.

He spluttered. ‘Of course I knew. Tom’s room is next to mine. And neither of you are particularly quiet.’

‘Oh.’ And she felt herself blush, and was glad he couldn’t see it.

‘Why he came to find me? No. It’s not a relationship, Chakotay. It’s hero-worship on his side.’

‘And on yours?’

She spoke bluntly. Not to shock, simply to inform. ‘Sex. Pleasure. The physicality of being held in someone’s arms. Of being filled —‘

‘Don’t,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t want to hear this.’ He left his chair and began to walk away.

‘You need to,’ she responded. ‘He was there. He came to find me and he flirted the way he does.’ She paused. ‘Which one of us are you more jealous of?’

She watched him lean against the deck rail and saw his hands tighten around it.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said, his voice low and strained.

‘Yes, you do.’ She walked up beside him and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Love isn’t necessarily sex — and sex isn’t necessarily love. The world has mistaken the two for far too long.’

Chakotay stared into the darkness and didn’t speak. The conversation ended without finishing, and the silence became too much. Kathryn went into the house, into her room. She thought about Tom and Chakotay, so different. Living under the one roof, Tom and Chakotay and herself; nothing hidden, everything out in the open. Lust and passion and need and desire, curling tension-filled springs.

She stayed in her own room that night, the little bedroom on the ground floor off the kitchen. She shoved a chair against the door to make a point. During the night the old-fashioned door handle turned twice, and each time, a set of footsteps walked quietly away.

~*~

Tom went for a walk to get away, to put things into perspective, to feel as though he was moving rather than just standing still. Chakotay met him on his way back, in a clearing some distance from the house. Tom looked at his friend’s face and knew that the unspoken truth had been given a voice. ‘She told you.’

Chakotay nodded. ‘I don’t understand you. I’ve never understood Kathryn, and I’m used to that. But you —‘

‘You’re sounding like my father,’ Tom said, ‘and that’s not a compliment.’

They faced each other, a little more than two arms’ length between them. Tom stared across the space, unwilling to drop his guard. He wasn’t convinced that this wouldn’t come to blows.

‘You don’t get to answer back right now,’ Chakotay said, and Tom realised that he was seeing cold, dark fury.

‘Yes, I do. Because we’re not in Starfleet, either of us. There’s no command structure and nothing to say that I don’t get to talk back. I’m a man just like you, and I don’t have to apologise for what Kathryn and I did. Because frankly, Chakotay, you had your chance.’

Chakotay’s laugh was harsh. ‘If you think that this has any future — this little dalliance with a woman old enough to… you’re more deluded than I could possibly have imagined.’

‘I never said I thought it had a future,’ Tom replied. ‘There are no fairy tales.’

Chakotay said nothing, so Tom kept talking, words dropping into the space between them; sounds he hoped were given meaning. ‘You’re the romantic. I’m the pragmatist, always have been. I take what I can get and enjoy it while it lasts. She doesn’t need me anymore, she probably never did.’

‘You’re not in love with her?’ Chakotay asked.

‘Love never came into it.’ Pleasure, misplaced revenge and fury, lust and desire in a world of illusion. ‘Not everyone falls in love.’

And he wondered just how much of what he said was its own illusion.

‘I’m leaving,’ he added. ‘It’s clear I’m in your way, and whatever Kathryn and I had — and I’m not sure we had much — is over. I’ve done what I came to do.’

Chakotay found a tree stump and sat down. ‘Where will you go?’ he asked, without looking up.

‘Do you care?’

‘I may care. Sometime in the future. But I don’t right now.’

‘Well, that’s honest,’ Tom muttered. ‘I’ll let you know where I am in a month or so.’ He got up from the log and turned toward the path to the cabin.

‘Don’t expect me to come after you,’ Chakotay said.

‘I never did.’

~*~

Chakotay gave Tom plenty of time to leave before he went back to the cabin. Kathryn was sitting on the grass out the front, her knees pulled up underneath her chin.

‘Are you less angry now?’ she asked him as he approached.

‘Perhaps. Are you okay?’

‘Tom’s a good man — a good friend. And yes, I’ll miss him.’ She paused and looked up at him, and he thought he saw a glint in her eye. ‘He’s a good lay, too – you should think about that.’

‘Perhaps some day,’ he said lightly, but he knew he meant it. ‘So, what happens now?’

Kathryn shrugged. ‘It happened. It’s over. I hope he and I will remain friends.’

‘We did.’

She smiled. ‘There were a lot of things I needed to bring me back from that world I was in. Tom was one of those things.’

They sat together in silence for a while, before Chakotay said thoughtfully, ‘He told me there are no fairy tales.’

‘I told him that,’ she said, and laughed. ‘If I’d let him, he would have seen himself as the prince rescuing the maiden in the tower. I’m no maiden.’

‘He’s no prince,’ he added. ‘And not everyone gets their happy ending.’

‘Not everyone wants one.’

Give me exhaustless, make me a fountain,

That I exhale love from me wherever I go like a moist perennial dew,

For the ashes of all dead soldiers South or North

- - Walt Whitman, “Ashes of Soldiers” (1865)