Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

And though she be but little, she is fierce

~ A Midsummer Night's Dream

"Keep your arm up, Torres," Chakotay said, his voice raised against the noise of the other sparring couples and the perpetual echo of the gym.

"I am keeping my arm up!"

"You're not. Look-" he lifted one of the ropes and slid through the gap onto the ragged surface of the tired boxing ring. "You're still dropping your elbow. It makes your hook weak; gives you no strength for follow-through."

B'El Torres made a hawking sound in her throat as Chakotay tapped the offending arm. "Yeah, whatever."

"No, not 'whatever'," the teacher told her, with practiced patience. "I've told you before. If you're going to come here and if you expect me to give you my time, then you give this your all. That was the deal. Right?"

"I am giving my all!" the girl burst out, exasperated. "I just don't need all this fancy footwork shit to beat a boy down. I can already pummel him into the ground and you know it."

"Yeah, right," said the boy she'd been paired with. He was bouncing from one foot to another in what would look like nervousness in any other arena but here denoted eagerness. "Like to see you try, Torres."

"Oh yeah?" said Torres. "Bring it, white boy. Take off that helmet and those pussy gloves and let's see how tough you are then."

"All right, all right," Chakotay stood between them, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was five to eight – club time was almost over anyway. He raised his voice to the rest of the room. "OK, everybody, that's it for today. Good job. See you tomorrow. No - not you," he said to B'Elanna, before she could bolt for it. He waited until her sparring partner had made it out of the ring. "B'Elanna. It's not about 'beating a boy down' and you know it. It's about learning control, it's about reining in that temper and it's about honing a skill. I know you can do it. So why don't you do us both a favour and give yourself a chance?"

"What's the point?" Torres asked sulkily. "It's not like I'm going to get a job in Denny's because I've got a great left hook, is it?"

Chakotay couldn't help but smile. "You want a job in Denny's?"

Torres rolled her eyes. "No."

"All right then. How about a place in the next state youth tournament instead?"

Her dark eyes shot up to his. "What?"

"I think you're good, Torres. Really good. So good that in time, I reckon I could put you up against any kid from any high school in the state. So here's the deal. From now on, you don't cut school. Not even one day. You keep your grades up. You don't skip a training session. You don't fight unless it's in this ring and I'm here to watch you. You don't smoke. You don't drink. You work your ass off and then you work your ass off some more. I see you do that for six months solid and I'll make sure you get your first bout. Deal?"

She narrowed her eyes at him.

He shrugged. "It's up to you, B'Elanna. You had any better offers lately?"

The girl bit her lip. "You really think I can win a bout? Against some rich kid from county?"

"I know you can. But you've got to learn discipline. So? How about it?"

He held out a hand. Torres stared, then grasped it and shook, hard. He grinned. The kid was strong, for sure. "Good," he said. "Tomorrow. You be in school. Got it?"

She skipped away from him, ducking between the ropes as if they weren't even there. "Got it, coach."

"I'll be checking," he called after her, as she ran for the showers.

"I said I got it, coach!"

Chakotay sighed, although there was a slight smile with it. These kids were hard work, but they were worth it. Some of them, anyway. Others were already too far gone by the time they landed on his worn old doorstep. He climbed out of the ring, noting yet another place where the canvas was fraying away from the edges badly enough for the foam beneath to show through. It needed replacing, but then so did everything else in this bare-bones gym. There was, of course, no money. Less than none, in fact. He'd hadn't yet figured out how to cover the rental for the space next month or the electricity for the month after that, let alone the tournament entrance fee he'd have to raise if he was going to keep his side of his bargain with Torres. This place was becoming another monthly drain on his already put-upon high school salary, but the idea of dropping this club – of letting these kids down – was unthinkable to him. They'd already been let down too many times to count and the next time it happened the only organisations likely to pick up the pieces were the gangs that ruled outside the gym's battered double doors.

There was raucous laughter and singing coming from the direction of the two locker rooms. He went into the hallway between them and yelled over the racket.

"Come on, you lot, get out of here. I've got an evening to get on with!"

Chakotay's bellow was met with much good-natured jeering as the two doors opened and his charges poured out in their street clothes. Apparently he was fooling none of them with the idea that he had a life anywhere that wasn't on a direct line that connected school to gym.

Outside, the evening was wearing on into night but the city heat was still oppressive. It radiated from the concrete, washing up over his calves like dust as he locked the door behind him. The kids began to disperse in knots and whorls of the friendship groups that, despite his best efforts inside the gym, still tended to coalesce according to skin colour rather than interest. The saddest thing for him was to know that it was conscious, this separation, yet generated not by genuine racial bias but by inherited, enforced feudalism and basic self-preservation. They were kids. They didn't want to be provocateurs. They shouldn't have to be just to form a public friendship with a peer of a different colour. Yet Maywood was a front line, the downtrodden field of a battle that most people thought already lost and would prefer to leave to sink beneath the mire of defeat. Chakotay, though, was not prepared to surrender, even if all he had left to defend was this small, abandoned corner and these difficult children who thought they were already adults. It had to be worth the fight. It had to be, didn't it, or what was the future for?

"See you all tomorrow," he called, and their sporadic answers of 'See you, coach!' were lost beneath the familiar litany of passing boomboxes and the several, distant wails of police sirens.

He headed for his car, parked against the curb beside the tangle of old galvanised fence that separated the patch of wasteland that had once been slated for a now-defunct development from the cracked sidewalk. A movement in the shadowy dusk across the weed-ridden concrete caught his eye. He slowed, unsure for a moment what he was seeing. The silence fooled him, as did the flash of white amid the grey dust: two figures on the far side of the expanse, dancing. A second later they seemed to drop to the floor, and-

No.

Not dancing , but–

"Hey! Hey!"

In a second he was running, legs stretching flat out as his sneakers pounded the two sides of a square, kicking up dry dirt. He passed two of his kids, who had thought his yell was for them and turned. Chakotay charged between them, still yelling, getting closer but still too far away.

"Hey! Leave her!" he shouted, because he could see now that the flash of white was a woman trying to fight off an attacker: a large man in black whose lower face was hidden by a red bandana.

Chakotay made it to the old wire gates and sent them clanging as he forced his way through. He was vaguely aware that behind him there were more running footsteps, more shouts – the boxing club, excited by something out of the ordinary, following him. He lunged at the assailant, grabbing him by the shoulders and flinging him around, which succeeded in forcing him to let go of the woman, but not her bag. Chakotay turned, keeping her behind him. A second later he saw a bright flash of silver – a knife, pointed at his chest. Chakotay was too quick for the lunge, side-stepping swiftly before cracking his attacker across the jaw with the back of his knuckle, fast, just hard enough to make the guy's head ring. He stepped back and held up his hands, palms open, before the knife came at him again.

"There's no need for that," Chakotay said, breathing hard as the kids eddied around, keeping their distance. "Look, the cops are coming. You've got her bag. That's what you wanted, right? We won't stop you. Just go."

"No!"

The protest came from the woman. Before Chakotay realised what was happening she'd stepped out from behind him with something in her hand – a can of mace. She sprayed it right in her attacker's face. He roared in pain, dropping the bag and the knife and putting his hands up to his eyes. Chakotay grabbed her by the hips, yanking her back out of his reach, but the guy knew he was beaten. He fled, crashing through the gates and out into the streets beyond.

Chakotay bent double, spent and breathing hard.

"Wow, coach," said one of the kids, into the ensuing silence. "That was fat. Ain't never seen you move like that before."

There were other murmurs of assent as Chakotay straightened up. "Go home," he told them. "Right now, all of you. Go home."

Some of them started to move, but Torres stood her ground, arms crossed. "Red bandana," she said. "You know what that means, right?"

"Yes, B'Elanna, I know what that means."

"Could be trouble."

"That's why I don't want you here. Go. Now."

She eyed the woman beside him with the kind of deep suspicion a cat reserves for a collar, then shrugged. "Gone."

Chakotay turned. The woman barely came up to his shoulder, hair with a hint of auburn pulled up in a French pleat made wispy and undefined by her ordeal. Pale skin dappled with faint freckles, eyes bluer than a summer sky: definitely not from this neighbourhood. She was shaking, but only slightly and he thought it was more a result of spent adrenaline than fear. There was a cut across her cheekbone that was bleeding badly and would bruise even worse. He reached out to catch her chin with his thumb and forefinger but she reared back, eyes flashing.

"Whoa!" he said, holding his hands up. "I just want to help. I've got a first aid kit in the gym. I can clean that up."

"I'm fine."

He glanced her over, taking in the tailored white jacket over black fitted top, the white trousers with streaks of dirt from her tussle and the rip that was rapidly developing a scarlet plume from the scrape beneath. The petite ankle boots that perfectly matched the bag she'd been willing to risk her life for. "Pretty sure you've got a long way to go to get home. You really want to bleed all over your car?"

She put her hands on her hips and tilted her chin into the last glance of sunlight, sharp and defiant, all angle and edge. He opened his mouth to say something else but whatever it was sputtered into nothing. He was a browser at a flea market, flipping through paintings and struck dumb to find an old master concealed between the Banksy rip-offs. A second later consternation at himself swiftly translated into annoyance with her.

"For the record, lady," he said, "around here, if a guy like that wants your bag, you give him your damn bag. I don't care what label it's got on it or how much it cost on Rodeo Drive, it's not worth a life. Not yours and definitely not mine or one of my kids."

"I don't-" she began, raising her hand to brush away something from her cheek. Her fingers came away bloody and she looked at them in surprise. "Oh."

Chakotay shook his head. "Come on," he said. "Let me sort that out for you. Keep hold of the mace if it makes you feel any better."

He started walking. After a moment or two he heard her footsteps behind him.

[TBC]

Chapter Text

She followed him into a space whose musty interior reminded her of her own high school gym. It was the smell of old rolled rubber mats, a messy stack of which she could see in one corner. She stood in the doorway, half still in the hallway that would lead to escape through the peeling double doors, half inside the room he'd entered. It was low-ceilinged, utilitarian – whitewashed concrete walls above a wide, almost straight stripe of blue paint, vents and piping out for all to see. There was a boxing ring at one end, punch bags and weights dotted around elsewhere. She wasn't sure what she'd expected when he'd strode ahead of her across the street towards the half-derelict building that was barely any different to all the others on the block. She hadn't really been thinking straight at all: otherwise she surely wouldn't have followed a complete stranger, alone, into a building to which he held the keys. Especially after he'd proven himself strong enough to go head-to-head with a knife-wielding man her well-maintained self-defence skills had utterly failed to repel.

But then, she did have the mace.

Mark had insisted she brought it with her. If you're really going to do this, I'm not always going to have time to play bodyguard. Make sure you keep this to hand, all right? She'd taken no notice and left it to sink to the bottom of her bag, annoyed by the suggestion she'd ever need a man's protection to be safe and wanting to believe her fiancé's other concerns were based merely on snobbery. It was galling that he'd been right, especially since, from the stinging ache in her cheek and the smear of blood still on her fingers, she had a feeling she wasn't going to be able to hide it from him.

Ahead of her, the man who had come to her aid had reached a desk set against one of the walls. Two plastic chairs had been pushed under it and he dragged them out, their rubber feet juddering against the scuffed floor. Then he turned to look at her, abruptly indicating one of them before pulling a medical case from its anchor on the uneven wall. He was clearly used to issuing instructions that he expected to be followed. Teacher, she surmised, adding his manner to the gaggle of teens that had surrounded them minutes earlier and coming up with only one answer.

She looked him over as she walked – limped, really – towards him. He was big and broad, muscular but not obtrusively so, as if his physique was incidental to his lifestyle instead of the purpose of it. He wore a crisp white T-shirt over long orange shorts. Beneath the knee his legs were bare, calf muscles thicker than her upper arms and several tones darker, hued the kind of bronze she'd prayed to be as a teenager.

When she reached his side she glanced up, taking in the strong planes of his face, the full lips, the fine laughter lines that spun out from the corner of his dark eyes, the thick dark hair that held just a flash of grey. He was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome and it perplexed her, this acknowledgement: that it was true and that she had noticed so instantly, she, who never noticed such things. He was in the process of opening a packet of sterile wipes and felt her watching him. He looked up.

"Sit down," he said.

"I don't even know your name," she pointed out, feeling that this was relevant and then realising that actually, she just wanted to know.

"Chakotay."

"Just… Chakotay?" It was a word so unusual that she felt it as a tangible shape in her mouth. She would have been happy to hold it there for a while, mapping its unexpected contours with her tongue.

"Just Chakotay," he affirmed. He reached out, gently pressing his fingers to her shoulder, encouraging her to sit. He couldn't know it but the light touch fell upon the spot where her muscles always ended up sore no matter how many office chairs she tried. As light as his touch was it sent a spark of relief skittering across her skin and she had the fleeting desire to tell him to press harder. She bit her lip and sat instead. He sat down in front of her so that she found herself knee to knee with him.

This time when he reached out to grasp her chin, she didn't stop him. He took a wipe and leaned forward. "This will sting…"

She ignored the bite of the antiseptic, still occupied by his name. "But – what do your kids call you?"

His gaze deviated from her cut to find hers. "My kids?"

"Students, I mean," she corrected. "You're a teacher."

Chakotay almost smiled, apparently amused by her confident deduction. She watched the lines at the corner of his eyes. "Coach," he said. "They generally call me coach. And you? What's your name, lady from out of town who values her bag more than her life?"

She bristled. "Kathryn Janeway," she said, tartly. "And it's not the bag I care about, Mr Chakotay."

Chakotay's eyes met hers again. For some reason she was suddenly forced to take a breath. Sitting this close, what she breathed was him, cedar and warm skin and then wishing she hadn't, not because it wasn't pleasant but because it really was. For a split second she imagined leaning forward across the five inches that separated them and brushing her lips against his, just to see whether they tasted and felt as good as she suddenly imagined they might. You're losing your mind, she told herself, appalled because she never thought of unknown men in this blatant sexual way, hadn't ever since-

She forced herself not to move, not to look anywhere but his eyes for fear of giving herself away as the utter lunatic she had apparently lately become.

"It's just Chakotay," he said, still holding her gaze as his fingers smoothed the band-aid down across her broken cheek. "Show me your leg."

She blinked. "Excuse me?"

He'd already turned away to pick up a tube of antiseptic. He looked back at her. "Your leg. It's still bleeding. I need to clean and dress it."

Kathryn looked down at the cut, just above her knee. "I don't think I'm going to let you do that."

"Trust me," he said, quietly and with the kind of voice that could trickle into the smallest fissures in the coldest of glaciers. "I'm a boxing coach. First aid is a pretty key part of my skillset. I'm not propositioning you, Ms Janeway."

She could feel a blush building and cursed herself for it. What the hell was wrong with her? She never blushed. She never did a lot of the things that she seemed to have done in the last five minutes. Shock, that must be it. "I didn't think you were. And it's just Kathryn. If you're going to handle more bits of me I think we should probably be on first name terms, don't you?"

He laughed, a deep sound that made her realise that this inexplicable tension must just be in her own mind. She leaned down and rolled up her torn pant leg, inordinately glad that she had shaved her legs that morning. When he touched her, his fingers were as warm as his voice. He slipped his left hand under her knee and lifted it slightly. She could feel his long fingers, splayed against the back of her lower thigh. She gripped the chair on which she sat with both hands and tried not to notice how good his skin felt against hers.

"What is it then?" he asked. "In the bag? What didn't you want to lose?"

She shook her head. "Nothing anyone else would find valuable. Notes. Plans. Ideas. That's all. But to me – irreplaceable."

His head was turned down towards her knee, but she caught the frown. "Notes for what?"

"Work. I-" she stopped. All of her fight had brought her here. Up until now her enthusiasm hadn't waned at all, but it had been a long road just to get to the beginning. She had finally arrived and her first introduction had been a violent one. For the first time she doubted herself, and it made her hesitate. She looked across the room, focusing on one of the sagging red punch bags suspended from the ceiling.

Chakotay looked up, pausing with his fingers against her knee. "Kathryn?"

She looked back at him. Something about him engenders trust, she thought. He must be a great teacher.

"I'm a landscape architect," she began. "I've worked on all sorts of projects, big and small, but I've always been interested in urban renewal."

"Urban renewal," Chakotay repeated, although it wasn't a question. He turned to pick up another band-aid.

"Yes. Taking failing or abandoned urban areas and regenerating them. Think of the High Line in New York City."

He turned back to her. "That was a project of yours?"

She laughed. "I wish it had been, but no, although it was an unintentional help. I've been trying to raise money for years, chasing government grants, tapping rich donors. The success there was almost a proof of concept." She watched as Chakotay pressed down lightly on her dressing. "I learned a couple of days ago that I've got the money I need to break ground on the first project. It's a small one, but if I can prove I can make it work, more will follow. And I know it can work."

Chakotay had dropped his hands from her leg, but hadn't leaned back. They were still sitting knee to knee as he listened. "Does that explain why you're here?"

She nodded slightly. "That parcel of wasteland outside. That's the first site I'm going to develop."

Kathryn watched a frown crease his brow and felt a flutter of misgiving in her gut. It was the same expression she'd seen elsewhere too many times to count.

"Why?" he asked.

"Why what?"

"Why here? Why Maywood, why that plot?"

"It was available. And it's ripe for it, don't you agree?"

He did lean back then, crossing his arms. "It depends on what you mean by 'urban renewal'."

"That's what I'm working on now," she told him. "Hence the notes and plans. That's why I'm here, I was surveying the location."

Chakotay was silent, still watching her. "You don't think it might be a good idea to ask what the local people want and need? You know, the people who actually live here?"

She felt the barb in his voice a little more keenly than she should have. "I have asked," she said. "I tried to get the city council to participate in a consultation, but no one seems to be interested."

He nodded. "So you're just going ahead anyway?"

"It's private land," she said. "We bought it. I don't need the city council's permission to build a garden."

"That's what you're planning here? A garden?"

Kathryn tilted her head. "In the most basic sense, yes. A space that will be of use to all the residents in the area. A space that can help build a community."

Chakotay watched her silently for a moment.

"I know what you're thinking," she said. "That I'm naive. That I haven't got a clue what I'm talking about. That there's no chance of making it work, and even if I do it won't last a year."

He shifted in his chair. "What makes you think that's what I'm thinking?"

Kathryn twined her hands together in her lap, then realised her pant leg was still rolled up and began to roll it down again. "Because that's what everyone keeps telling me. It's everyone's first reaction. I'm used to it."

Chakotay waited until she'd straightened up again. "It wasn't my first reaction," he told her.

"Oh?"

He smiled. "Maybe with anyone else it would have been. But you – there's something about you that makes me think you can probably do anything you set your mind to."

The spark of encouragement his words put into her heart raised the first genuine smile on her face for days. "Thank you."

"It's not going to be easy," he told her.

"Things worth doing often aren't."

Chakotay nodded and got to his feet. "Funny. That's often what I tell my kids. Well, I wish you luck. That's one thing you're going to need in spades, Kathryn Janeway."

She stood up. "I know."

"And this really isn't the safest of neighbourhoods to be hanging around alone in at night."

She touched her sore cheek. "I know that, too."

He nodded and then she saw his eyes stray to the clock on the wall. "Oh, no."

It was past 8.30pm. "You're late for something," she realised.

He winced. "Yes. My girlfriend is going to skin me alive. I'm sorry, but-"

She held up a hand, shouldering her bag. "I'm the one who should be apologising, Chakotay. Thank you – for everything – and I'm sorry I've spoiled your evening."

"You haven't," he told her. "Believe me, I'm more than capable of doing that myself. Wait while I lock the door and I'll walk you to your car."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

"Annika?"

He pushed the door shut behind him. The apartment was quiet, but Chakotay could hear muted music filtering into the hallway from his bedroom. He crouched down to undo the laces on his sneakers, waiting for the storm front to appear. He could feel it gathering in the quiet. Annika had a gala at the university that they were both supposed to be attending tonight. He'd promised that this time he wouldn't let her down – that he'd be there, on time and scrubbed clean despite the endless lesson planning and grading that went with his particular territory and the club that he chose to spend time on in addition to everything else. He would have been, too, if not for Kathryn Janeway and the notes she refused to let go, if not for the injuries he'd felt compelled to treat and those eyes that had seemed intent on studying him both inside and out.

Urban renewal, he thought, as he pulled his laces loose. From anyone else's mouth I'd dismiss it as a buzz phrase, a political sop. So why-

He looked up to find himself confronted with the naked perfection of Annika Hansen's immaculately toned thighs. She was barefoot but wearing the silver dress, the one split ankle to hip that on any other woman would look like a prom-night mistake but that managed to make her look like a supermodel who'd simply taken a wrong turn on her walk to the runway. Her arms hung loosely by her sides but her fists were bunched in restrained anger.

"I'm sorry," he said, immediately. "Five minutes, that's all I need. I'll be ready."

"You should have been here twenty minutes ago," she said, the smooth blonde fall of her thick hair framing a face whose icy beauty could only be Scandinavian. "You promised me."

"I know." He stayed where he was, reaching out to circle her slim ankle with his hand and then running his palm slowly up her calf. For some reason at that moment he wanted nothing more than to turn her around, push her up against the wall and kiss the skin at the back of her thighs. It wasn't something he'd ever thought about doing before, but at this moment he wanted to know how that would feel against his lips and tongue, what it would taste like. His fingers reached the spot above the back of her knee as she said:

"It's transference."

He froze, looking up at her. "What?"

"All this time you waste on those kids. In psychological terms, it's transference."

Chakotay pushed himself to his feet, feeling sick and angry and not sure whether both or either were with her or just himself. "Don't do that," he said. "Don't analyse me. You know I hate that. And it's not a waste. How can you even say that?"

"What would you call it?"

He put his hands on his hips and shook his head. "Showing compassion? Making an effort for those less fortunate than ourselves?"

"You think I don't do both of those things?"

"I've never said that."

"No, you just imply it. Because you think earning a decent living trying to solve the problems of people who do the same is somehow selfish. Because you'd rather spend hours on a dead-end project than on building a real life for yourself with people who might actually contribute to your life rather than simply draining it dry."

"And from what do you draw this superlative psychological insight?"

She spread her arms. She was really was stunningly beautiful. "Oh, I don't know, Chakotay. Where do you think? The fact that I'm about to go out alone, again? It's becoming a running joke in the department, you know - that you don't really exist. That you're a figment of my imagination: 'Psychologist treat thyself'. It's a joke that's running perilously thin."

"What do you want me to say?" he demanded. "I've told you I'm sorry. I would have been here if something hadn't happened that I couldn't just abandon. I'm trying to make a difference, Annika – a real difference to lives that no one else seems to care about. Including you."

She raised her hands. "Oh no. You don't get to do that. You don't get to make me out to be the bad person here just because I'm realistic."

His anger was almost enough to fill the hallway in which they stood, tired of this argument they'd been having over and over for far too long. It was a fault line they both should have realised signposted a more fundamental threat to their relationship than a simple difference of opinion.

"You can be so damn cold sometimes."

"One of us has to be," she shouted. "We can't all just live in a dreamworld where everything turns out all right in the end just as long as we try!"

The buzzer to his apartment formed a barbed spur to the end of her words. They stared at each other for a second. It sounded again.

"That's Andrew," Annika said. "I called him when you were a no-show. Asked him to pick me up."

Chakotay nodded with a grim smile. "Not exactly going alone after all, then. Bet he was just sitting by the phone waiting for that call."

She shrugged as she stepped into silver heels that lifted her four inches off the floor. "Your choice, not mine."

Annika reached for the door. This would usually be the moment where he'd stop her, remind her why they kept flaying this dead horse over and over with a kiss that would leave her knees weak and her mind free of any man's face but his. But this time was different. He knew it and so did she. He felt a curious kind of relief. She turned back to him from the open door.

"This isn't working."

"How did we ever think it would, Annika? Really?"

She looked out into the hallway, a statue carved in marble. "I wanted it to."

"So did I."

She didn't look at him. "I'll come back to get my things."

He nodded but it was to the door, already closing behind her.

It was fully dark when Kathryn pulled up outside Mark's house in Pasadena. She sat in her car for a moment, looking over the neat garden. It had been four years since she'd moved in, but Kathryn still thought of this as Mark's house. It had been the family home, too beautiful to let go once his parents had passed and too valuable besides. She'd done her best to maintain the garden that surrounded the colonial four-bed building, but she'd done so according to Mark's late mother's tastes rather than her own. This did feel like a home: just not necessarily hers. She observed this without chagrin, merely as fact. Kathryn had spent most of her adult life moving around the country from project to project, chasing work and something else she could not or would not quantify. When Mark had proposed, it was the culmination of years of a steady, quiet relationship that had fitted like mortar between the bricks of her frequent months away. It had suited her, not because it felt like freedom but because it felt like security, something to come back to that would still be exactly where she left it. But she'd always been aware that sooner or later Mark would want something more. It hadn't occurred to her to turn him down: he had been patient through all her wandering. Now it was her turn to sacrifice, not that she would describe her decision in those terms to anyone besides herself. Mark was a good man – steady and dependable. She was lucky to have him. Everyone said so, including herself. Well, almost everyone. Her sister Phoebe was frequently vocal in her opinion that Kathryn was settling. Perhaps that was true in some senses, but so what? She knew plenty of people who didn't have the luxury of settling for something as good as Kathryn knew she had here.

The lights were on in the dining room downstairs and in the study on the first floor, which told her that despite the fact she'd warned him she'd be late, Mark had not given up hope of them eating supper together. This presented her with a quandary: she'd been hoping to get into the house and changed without him seeing. Obviously she couldn't hide her face, but if she could disguise her ripped clothing and bandaged leg the impact would surely be less. If he was downstairs in the snug she might manage to slip up the back stairs and into their room before he noticed, but if he was in the study there would be no chance of subterfuge of any sort.

She got out of the car and grabbed her bag, shutting the door quietly behind her. She slipped around the back and went in through the kitchen door, toeing off her boots to cross the tiles as quietly as possible.

She made it as far as the stairs before the dog gave her away. Molly spotted her mistress coming and barked once before Kathryn had a chance to silence her.

"Kathryn?" Mark's voice came from the study, accompanied by the creak of his old leather armchair as he got up.

"Hi!" she called back, brightly, petting the happy dog. "I'm so sorry I'm late. Have you eaten?"

He appeared at the top of the stairs, glasses on and book in hand. "No, I had a snack earlier and thought I'd wait for you. I-" he stopped. "Good god, Kathryn, what happened?" He dropped the book on the floor and ran down the stairs.

"Oh, nothing. Honestly, I'm fine," she said, as he reached her. "It was just an accident. Nothing to worry about."

"An accident? What – did someone hit your car?" He cupped her face in his hands, turning her head to look at the cut Chakotay had cleaned and covered. "Have you been to the Emergency Room?"

"No," she said hoping he'd just take that as an answer to the latter and forget about his former question. "Honestly, Mark, please don't fuss-"

He stepped back to look down at her leg, then back up at her face, his jaw setting. "This wasn't a car accident, was it?"

She sighed. "No, it wasn't."

"Kathryn. What happened?"

"Look, it's nothing to worry about-"

"Were you attacked? Is that it?"

"It really sounds a lot worse than it was," she told him. "Some guy just tried to grab my bag, that's all. Knocked me over. It was done in minutes. And look – I still have my bag, so everything's fine."

Even later she would be unable to explain why she didn't tell Mark about Chakotay, about how he'd come to her aid and then patched her up. It was something about wanting to keep that encounter hers: something unsullied by description, private and in her mind. Or perhaps it was simply that she wasn't sure she could talk about him without giving something of herself away that she would prefer to keep away from her fiancé.

Mark was shaking his head. "I knew this was going to happen. I knew it. What did I tell you?"

She stepped away from him, holding up a hand. "Please don't over-react."

He stared at her incredulously. "Over-react? Are you serious?"

"I'm not hurt except for a couple of bruises and if I'd just let go of the bag instead of fighting him for it, I wouldn't even have those. He didn't want to hurt me, that was just – incidental."

"Are you seriously suggesting that that makes it all right?"

"No, of course I'm not," she snapped. "I'm just pointing out that it could have been worse."

"Yes, you're right. It could have been," Mark said, matching her tone. "And now I hope you realise now that what I've been saying all along is right. These people just don't deserve-"

"'These people'?" Her voice rose along with her incredulity. "What people would they be, Mark? Exactly?"

He shook his head. "I didn't mean-"

"You meant exactly what you were going to say," she said, hotly, "that 'these people' aren't worth the effort. As if somehow, in a city less than two hours from where we are now, they are different from us. As if there isn't exactly the same ratio of good to bad as there is everywhere else on the damn planet!"

"You can be as liberal as you like, Kathryn, but you've never been brutalised walking down this street."

She raised her chin and glared at him, so angry she couldn't even speak. Mark flinched and she knew what the next words out of his mouth were going to be even before he did. For some reason that just angered her even more.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Kath, I'm sorry. I love you, that's all. You know that. And you're doing this thing and I don't understand why. I don't understand why you need to do it. You've raised all this money and it's an amazing thing, but why can't you just let someone else be the person on the ground? Why can't you just be happy to be here, with me?"

His contrition caved in her anger with a sledgehammer, followed by a flood of guilt so abject it churned her stomach. Could she blame him, really, for this reaction? Here she was with a slash across her leg, a scar on her cheek and a job that no one seemed to want her to do stretching into a future that would take up much of her time from now on. He always tried to give her everything. He was always waiting for her to come home.

"I am happy to be here with you," she said, taking a step towards him. "Oh Mark, you know I am. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

He reached out and gathered her in, pulling her against his chest. Kathryn raised her head and let him kiss her, again and again, wondering why it suddenly felt as if she might have told him a lie. Everything she needed was here and everything here was safe. Why would she ever need anything more than that?

[TBC]

Chapter Text

It was late afternoon. Kathryn was sitting at the cluttered desk in her small office. She'd been there all day, poring over the tangle of budget planning requirements for the Maywood site. The paperwork involved in the management of a charitable trust such as the one she'd set up to manage this initiative was voluminous enough to first fill a battleship and then sink it without trace. At the moment she was trying to construct a raft of finished forms that would let her float on the rising tide, but the process was agonisingly slow.

She pencilled in another figure that was sure to change almost immediately and then rubbed her fingers across her eyes. Coffee, she thought. What I need is a coffee machine, right here next to my desk so that I don't even have to-

The phone on her desk rang, cutting off her meandering thoughts. She picked it up. "Kathryn Janeway."

"Kathryn, it's me."

She smiled at the familiar voice. "Owen! Hello. How are you?"

Owen Paris had been her first ally in this venture, an old friend of her father's that she'd gone to first, not only because Kathryn had been fairly certain that his regard for her would persuade him to look on her ideas favourably, but also because he owned a multi-million dollar construction company. When Owen Paris spoke, other people with money listened. Without him she might never have gotten this far at all.

"I was calling to ask you the same question. What's the latest?"

Kathryn's eyes fell on the form in front of her. "Still in budget planning. Hoping to be done on this by the end of the week."

"You can outsource that to my staff, if you like," Owen suggested. "I'm happy for the company to carry the hours."

She was grateful and tempted but resolute. "Thanks, but I'd rather do it myself, tedious as it is. It's my responsibility, after all. And I want to make sure I've got a full grip on the details."

"Fair enough," he told her. "There's one way I can help, though – I think I've found you a site office."

"Oh?"

"I've had one of my guys keeping an ear to the ground. There's a property about to come up for rent. It's directly adjacent to the site. Couldn't be any more perfect, really."

Kathryn frowned, thinking of the dilapidated buildings she'd seen the last time she was there. "Where, exactly?" she asked. "From what I saw, most of the buildings were in a pretty poor state of repair. The ones that weren't were already occupied."

"Well, this place is occupied, but only tenuously," Owen elaborated. "The rent's often late and the owner's looking for a more reliable tenant. I said we could lease it and pay two years up front. He's more than willing to favour us."

"Owen, I can't take a property away from a local tenant. How would that look?"

"It's not someone's home, Kathryn, it's mainly just an empty space. It doesn't even get used during the day. The tenant is there under the sufferance of the landlord anyway – it was let on the understanding that it could be short term."

"Even so – this is supposed to be a project for the community," Kathryn argued. "I can't start out by muscling in on a member of the community I'm supposed to be setting out to help! Thank you for the thought, but I'll keep looking."

She could almost hear the shrug in his voice as Owen said, "Suit yourself. If you really think an after-school boxing club for a bunch of delinquent teenagers is more important…"

Something white-hot flared in her chest and was gone again in a second. "Boxing club?"

"That's what uses the space at the moment. It's run by one of the phys ed teachers from the local high school. Odd name. Chairoscuro? No, that wasn't it…"

Chakotay.

Kathryn found herself brushing her fingers over the bruise on her cheek. "Leave it with me, Owen. I'll work something out. OK? Please don't make a move until I've looked into it."

"All right. And what about a project assistant? How are you getting on with finding someone?"

She rested her chin on her fist. "Actually, I had an idea on that score. How about Tom?"

There was a pause. "My Tom?"

"Yes, Owen, your Tom. I know he's busy preparing for college, but-"

Her friend's disgusted snort cut her off. "College? He'll be lucky if they even let him through the door. He got arrested last week."

Kathryn winced. "Let me guess. Racing again?"

"Of course. He's damn lucky he was a passenger not a driver. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do with him, Kathryn, but I certainly wouldn't wish him on you. An assistant? Please. He'd just let you down and cause havoc."

She frowned. "Owen…"

There was a sigh from the other end of the line. "I know I sound harsh but I'm at the end of my tether. He's headed down a bad road and I don't know what to do about it."

Kathryn leaned back in her chair as she looked at the colourful sketches pinned up on the wall opposite her desk. They were just ideas, hopes for the future that she knew, even if they did come to fruition, would never look exactly as they had in her mind's eye. Some aspects of them she would have to abandon her best aspirations for, others would have to be adapted, still others would end up entirely different to the way she had envisioned them when she made those early, daydreaming sketches. She imagined that in some ways this must how it was to be a parent: to see a child grow through the years, always hoping for the best but anxious for the worst, trying to accept every change and unexpected progression along the way. She sympathised with Owen, but she felt for Tom. Owen was a powerhouse, confident, celebrated and fully formed. That couldn't help to cast a shadow over his son, even as Tom tried to find his own place in the world.

"This project is about second chances," she pointed out. "Where's the harm in offering Tom that at the same time? Let me at least give him a try, Owen."

There was a pause. "All right," he said. "But it'll probably be better if you talk to him about the idea rather than me. Anything I ask him to do is likely to get short shrift."

Kathryn drummed her pencil on her desk as she cradled the phone on her shoulder and checked her watch, thinking for a moment. "I'm happy to do that, but I've got something else to do today. Can you tell him I'll call by tomorrow evening to talk to him?"

"All right, will do. Look, I've got to go. I've got an investment meeting about our New Orleans development. And yes," he said, just as she took a breath to speak, "before you mention it, Kathryn, I am tabling a motion to incorporate green space into the build."

She smiled. "Great."

There was a pause. "Your father would be proud of you," Owen said. "I hope you know that."

Kathryn's pencil stilled against the desktop. How could it be that such words caused her heart to thump with a sickening heaviness, even this many years later? "Thank you," she said, quietly. "I hope you're right."

"I am," Owen said seriously. "Now, don't let that troublesome son of mine run you around, you hear? We'll see you tomorrow."

The time was just touching six o'clock when she pulled up outside the doors of Chakotay's modest gym. Kathryn sat for a moment with her wrists resting on the steering wheel, looking up at the two-storey brick building. It must have been a factory at one point, though what had been made here and when she couldn't guess. There were cracks in the walls and some of the single-glazed windows on the upper floor were smashed. The rental this place could demand in its current state would only be minimal. If Chakotay was still struggling to pay it, he probably wasn't getting paid much for all this extra curricular activity himself, if at all.

Taking a breath, Kathryn got out of the car and headed for the doors. She walked into relative quiet, which surprised her. From the number of teens she'd seen on the wasteland a few nights ago, she'd expected the place to be thrumming with noise. But all she could hear was a series of echoing thwacks sandwiched by the reverberation of a spring. No voices, no shouting, no pounding of feet. When she reached the open door of the gym room, she saw why.

Chakotay was the only figure in the room. Dressed in a white vest, black shorts and white sports sneakers, he stood at one of the punch-bags set at a right-angle to the door, turned slightly away from her. His weight on its floor plate was keeping it in place as he pummelled seven shades of hell out of the fading red leather. Kathryn couldn't tell if he was angry or whether this was merely what he looked like in action. She stepped into the room but hung back, unwilling to interrupt what appeared to be the very middle of an intense training routine. The speed and power with which his gloves smashed into the bag was astonishing and, if she were honest, a touch mesmerising. Kathryn was fairly sure she'd be burned out after throwing four punches of the intensity she saw him pitch, but Chakotay seemed in no danger of stopping even to take a breath. Sweat beaded on his neck, over his arms and between his shoulder blades.

He suddenly seemed to sense someone else in the room with him and lost concentration, jerking his head around to look at her. The battered punch bag flipped back towards him.

"Oh!" She took a step forward, seeing what was coming.

Chakotay just barely managed to get his hands up, stopping the bag before it could smash him directly in the face. He let it go and stepped off the plate, breathing hard.

"Kathryn Janeway," he said.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt."

Chakotay started loosening the ties on his gloves as he walked toward her. "It's all right. I didn't expect anyone to walk in, that's all. I usually lock the door when I'm here alone. I must have forgotten."

"Is there no club tonight?" Kathryn asked. "I expected it to be in full swing."

He came to a stop in front of her. She had to work hard not to let her gaze stray to the pumped muscle of his slick biceps. Dammit. She'd told herself that her odd, involuntary and completely inappropriate reaction to him a few days ago had just been as a result of increased adrenaline after her scuffle, nothing else. But the current behaviour of her errant heart was challenging that assumption. Dammit again.

"Club starts at 6.45," he told her.

She was surprised again. "That seems late. For an after-school club, I mean."

Chakotay nodded, then went to a holdall on the floor by the door and took out a bottle of water and a towel. "It's deliberate. I figure if the kids have to come here mid-way through their evening, it might deflect them from other less wholesome ways of passing the time." He opened the bottle and drank, draining half in two powerful gulps.

"Tactics," she said.

He smiled. "Exactly. Probably doesn't work, but it's worth a try. Besides," he added, indicating the punch bag he'd been abusing a moment earlier. "It gives me a chance to work out the day's frustrations." He rubbed the towel over his face as he said, "Anyway, I don't think you came here to ask about my daily routine. What can I do for you?"

"Well, there's something I need to talk to you about."

He raised his eyebrows. "Okay. Sounds ominous."

"No, I don't think so. I hope not, anyway." Kathryn glanced around to the desk beside the wall they had sat at the last time she'd been in this room. "Can we sit? It won't take long."

Chakotay looked down at himself. "If you don't mind me smelling like a bear while we talk. I usually shower before the kids get here."

Kathryn momentarily lost the power of speech and so just shook her head, instead. They took the same chairs as the last time but sat further apart. Chakotay had kept hold of his water and drank more as he waited for her to speak.

"I'm looking for a site office," she explained. "For a project of this scale, it really helps if I have somewhere close by to operate from permanently for the duration of the job."

He nodded. "Makes sense. This isn't a great area for real estate, though, as I'm sure you've already worked out for yourself."

"Yes. But one of my benefactors has been looking on my behalf, and came up with a suggestion for a place he seemed to think would be available soon. It does currently have a tenant, though. It's home to an after-school boxing club."

Chakotay's face froze as his eyes fixed on her face. "You want… this place."

"It's one of the only buildings on the block where the building regs are still up to scratch."

She saw the line of his jaw harden as he clenched his teeth. "I'm pretty sure you're aware that it's already occupied."

"Yes. But the landlord seemed to think that whether it would stay that way was questionable with the current tenant. Due to… financial difficulties."

He flicked his gaze away and she could see the anger in his face. "So that's it. Money talks and to hell with what damage it does. And to think I actually thought you might be on to something. I actually thought that you-" he stopped, shaking his head. "What an idiot."

He went to stand up, but she dropped a hand on his arm, strong enough to stop him. "Chakotay, wait. Listen to me, please." He looked as if he was about to shake her off, so she added, "I'm not leaving until you've heard what I have to say. So you may as well sit down."

Chakotay glanced down at her for a moment and then sat again. Kathryn withdrew her hand.

"I have no intention of turning you out of this place," she said. "What possible good could I achieve by doing that?"

A suspicious frown settled around his eyes. "Then what-"

She looked at him steadily. "It's clear that you're struggling to keep this place going on your own. And much of the time the space isn't even being used, is it? During the week it's just empty in the daytime. So here's what I propose. We share the space. I don't need that much – an office where my assistant and I can work. Occasionally there may be a delivery or two that needs to be stored for a while. That's all. The trust will take over the payment of the lease. During the day it'll be our site office. In the evenings the club can continue as normal. Most of the time our paths wouldn't even cross. I'll be here in the day, you'll be here in the evening."

Chakotay said nothing for several minutes. And then: "You'd do that? You'd take on the cost of running this place and let us stay, just like that?"

She shrugged slightly. "Well, there is a quid pro quo, of course."

His gaze was still fixed on her face, as if he could discern everything he needed to know from her expression alone. "Which is?"

She smiled. "You were right when you pointed out I should be asking what the people who actually live here want and need," she told him. "So that's what I'm asking for from you and your kids. I need your help, Chakotay. Please. Help me to do this."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

"I can't believe you're doing this," B'Elanna said. "I can't believe you're just letting her walk in and take this place away from us."

Chakotay put another pile of papers into the box on his desk as he glanced over at her. Torres was standing in the doorway of his office with her shoulders bunched and a thunderous look on her face. "She's not taking this place away from us, B'Elanna. She's doing the exact opposite."

The girl jerked her chin at the boxes he'd already packed. "Yeah? Could have fooled me. How come you're having to move out of your office?"

He stopped what he was doing and turned to face her, leaning against the edge of the desk. "Because she needs it more than I do. I hardly ever use it. It's no hardship for me to move my things out and let Ms Janeway and her assistant have it instead."

B'Elanna evidently wasn't convinced. "We don't need some dumb white puta hanging around here, telling us how to do things."

Chakotay frowned. "Hey. That's enough. What have I told you about using language like that? Respect others and you respect yourself. You address her as Ms Janeway or you don't talk about her at all, understand?"

B'Elanna crossed her arms, her heavy brow lowered in a fierce glower as she bit her lip. Chakotay suspected the girl was attempting to stop a whole stream of expletives from pouring out of her mouth. This was progress, he reflected. A year ago she wouldn't have even thought about holding back.

"You should have told her to sling it," the girl said. "We don't want her. We don't need her."

Chakotay turned and resumed his packing. "Actually, we do. I was on the verge of not being able to pay for this place. Now I don't have to worry about how I'm going to keep it open. The lease has been paid for two years as of this month," he looked over at the girl again, "which is plenty of time for me to get you right to the top of the tournament leagues."

B'Elanna shook her head. "And you trust her? Just like that? Why?"

"Because she didn't have to do this," Chakotay said. "She didn't have to come here at all and she certainly didn't have to let us stay. Another month or two and this place probably would have been empty anyway. So yes, I trust her."

The girl made a sound in her throat. "Getting old is making you soft, Coach."

He dumped the last of his things into the box and lifted it. "I'm still hard enough to make you drop and give me fifty the next time you're disrespectful, Torres. Remember that. Now help me with these boxes."

"I can't."

"What do you mean, you can't?"

B'Elanna shrugged. The shifty look that settled on her face set alarm bells off in Chakotay's head. "I've got some place to be tonight. Gotta go now."

"Wait a minute. Remember our deal?"

"I know, Coach, I know," she said. "But I've been here, haven't I? I came early, just so I could train first. But now I've got to go."

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere you need to know about."

"B'Elanna…"

"I'll see you tomorrow, Coach. Promise."

"What are you even going to do with this place, anyway?" Tom asked. He was looking through the photographs of the Maywood site on Kathryn's iPad as she drove them both towards it. "It's nothing but concrete."

"Right now it's nothing but concrete," she told him. "In a year or two's time it could be anything. A park? An outdoor gym? A vegetable patch? Maybe all of the above."

Kathryn could feel Tom's eyes on her. She looked over at him at the next stop sign. At eighteen, Tom Paris could have fronted the campaign for the kind of boy her mother had warned her about when she was young. Sandy-haired, blue eyed, athletic and with a bravado younger women would probably mistake for self-assurance. They'd never known each other well – Kathryn had already been away at college when Tom was born - but they'd met at various functions where the Janeway and Paris families had had mutual friends. She'd seen him grow up, Kathryn realised, making her painfully aware that she was, technically, old enough to be his mother. That seemed to be happening more and more these days. It made her feel old. It reminded her that she'd dropped a stitch in the line of her life and it was now too late for her to go back and pick it up even if she wanted to.

"What?" she said.

Tom shook his head. "Nothing."

"Come on. If we're going to work together, you're going to have to talk to me."

He turned his head, his hair ruffling in the wind from his open window. The cast of his shoulders had become uncomfortable. "I heard my mum talking to your mum once."

Kathryn frowned. "Oh?"

Tom shrugged. "It was when all this was starting. When you first asked my dad for help. My mum was asking Gretchen where 'it' had all come from. I guess the 'it' she was talking about was this charity idea you'd had."

Kathryn's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "Oh?"

"Gretchen said it was because you always refused to have therapy. After-" Tom stopped. "I don't even really know what happened. All I know is-"

"Tom," she said, cutting him off. In doing so she was proving her mother's point, but still.

The boy grimaced. "Sorry. I didn't mean- I just-" he sighed, his inherent gangly teenage awkwardness making itself felt. "I don't know why you want me to help you anyway. I'll only make a mess of it. Bet that's what dad told you, right?"

"I want you to help because I think we'll work well together," Kathryn told him. "And it sounds as if you and I both have things we'd like to prove to our parents, doesn't it?"

They pulled up outside the gym just in time to see a girl in a black vest, black skinny jeans and black sneakers walk out carrying a shabby backpack slung over one shoulder. She glanced up from her phone as the car came to a stop. A hostile expression set the girl's jaw as she looked at Kathryn.

"Wow," said Tom, as the girl turned away, her dark shoulder-length hair glinting in the early evening sun. "Who's that?"

"One of the students that trains in the gym."

"Yeah? Then things are looking up." He hurriedly opened the door and jumped out, calling down the street after the girl. "Hey, chica! Don't run away! Come and talk to me, bella!"

"Tom-" Kathryn began, but before she could say anything else the girl turned, still walking, and flipped him the bird as she shouted a string of obscenities in Spanish.

The boy held a hand over his heart, mock-wounded. "Aww! Don't be like that!"

"Tom!" Kathryn said, louder this time and with an edge that brooked no argument. "Stop it."

"What? I was just giving her a compliment!"

"No, Tom, that was harassment." Kathryn slammed the door. "What exactly were you expecting to gain from that? That she'd be impressed and give you a date?"

Tom blinked. "Er-"

"No, didn't think so. So what was the point? She has a right to walk down the street without being yelled at, don't you think?"

"I didn't mean anything by it!"

Kathryn walked past him into the building. "Then don't do it. I really don't need you antagonising anyone here, do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," he muttered as he followed her indoors.

"Let's not get off on the wrong foot, Tom," she said. "You and I both know how it'll go down if you don't even get through a week with me. All I need from you is to work hard and keep your head down. That's not a lot to ask, is it?"

"No," Tom admitted. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologise to me. You can apologise to B'Elanna the next time you see her."

"B'Elanna?"

"I believe that's the name of the girl you were just cat calling."

"B'Elanna," Tom said again, thoughtfully. "Cool name."

Chakotay appeared in the hallway, loaded down with boxes. He smiled. "Kathryn," he said, his gaze taking in Tom, too. "Perfect timing. I'm just moving the last of my boxes out of your office."

Kathryn smiled back. "Thank you. We'll help. Chakotay, this is Tom Paris. He's going to be my assistant on this project."

Chakotay nodded a hello. "Tom. Welcome. Hang on a minute while I put these down."

The office he'd cleared for her was at the back of the building, at the end of the corridor beyond the two locker rooms. It was of a reasonable size, certainly big enough to fit an extra desk in for Tom. Kathryn put her hands on her hips and looked around it, nodding.

"It's perfect. Thank you, Chakotay, it's very kind of you to vacate it on my behalf."

"You're welcome. Oh, and-" he took something out of his pocket and held it out to her. "The key."

She took it and pulled out her car fob, wrestling the new key onto it. "Well," she said, "Looks as if we're all set." Kathryn looked around the room again, feeling a slight wave of something she couldn't name surfing beneath her ribcage. This was a beginning, she realised then. It seemed a long time since she'd experienced such a thing.

"If you have boxes you'd like me to help you bring in now, I'm happy to," Chakotay offered.

Kathryn turned with a smile and a shake of her head. "Thank you, but no – I'll bring the majority of my things tomorrow. I just wanted Tom to see where we'll be working and get a feel of the site and the office. We're probably going to be here quite a lot."

Chakotay checked his watch. "I'd introduce you to the kids properly, but most of them won't be here for another half hour at least. B'Elanna came in early, but she's gone now."

"Yes," Kathryn said, uncomfortably, glancing at Tom. "We saw her as we came in. Hopefully when we meet her again we can straighten a few things out."

Chakotay frowned. "Oh?"

Kathryn sighed. "Tom was… a little inappropriate for their first meeting. He'll apologise the next time he sees her."

Chakotay turned to Tom. Kathryn saw a darkness developing on his face that she hadn't seen before. He suddenly seemed a lot larger than he had a moment ago. "What did you do?"

Tom took Chakotay's question as an open challenge and narrowed his eyes, sticking his hands in his pockets in a gesture of insolence that made Kathryn wince. "Nothing."

"Doesn't sound like nothing."

Tom shrugged. "Tried to say hello, that's all. Not my fault if she's unfriendly."

Chakotay took a step forward and Kathryn actually felt a tiny pulse of alarm. She stepped between them, looking up at the older of the two men. As she did so she became acutely aware that the top of her head barely reached to this man's shoulder. He could throw her across the room as easily as swatting a fly.

"Please," she said. "I've spoken to Tom and he's aware that his behaviour was unacceptable. He will apologise and it won't happen again."

Chakotay's eyes were still locked with Tom's. "It had better not. B'Elanna has enough to deal with in her life without trouble following her into this place too. My kids know that I will not tolerate disrespect, of me or anyone else. Everyone's equal here. They get two strikes and they're out. You go near B'Elanna again except to apologise and the same will apply to you, Tom. Understand?"

"Yeah, whatever," said Tom, sullenly.

"Tom!" Kathryn exclaimed. "What did we just talk about before we walked in here?"

Chakotay's gaze drifted down to hers. There was a brief silence. Kathryn didn't move.

"Yes," the boy said, then. "I understand. I'm sorry."

Chakotay nodded. "Good." Then he turned and walked towards the gym, leaving them alone.

"Wow," Tom muttered. "Nice guy. Guess I'll just move the rest of these boxes myself then, shall I?"

His footsteps echoed against the quiet of the hallway as he went into the office. Kathryn stood still for a moment, thinking about territories and borders and the difficulties of merging one with the other, about how often such experiments ended in war instead of peace. She wondered, briefly, why it was she thought she could do any better.

Then she let out a breath and went to help Tom.

[TBC]

Chapter Text

The concrete came up a week later, peeled slowly from the earth in crumbling segments like the decayed skin of an atrophied orange. It took two backhoes almost a day to clear the site. It was a Saturday, and the activity attracted the attention of the stalwart residents who hadn't yet been driven out of the area by the creeping deprivation of neglect. Between club sessions Chakotay stood with the small crowd, watching the work. Some of the gathered faces he knew, but others he didn't: the usual invisibility of city life. He'd probably been living within a block of all of these people for years and never even noticed passing them on the street.

Kathryn was in the thick of the action, directing the work. Dressed in battered blue jeans and a black top, her hair tucked away under a red hard-hat, he was surprised to find that she looked so at home amid the dust and dirt of a construction site. On their previous meetings she had seemed so polished that he had imagined that was her natural state and one she would be loath to discard. But as he watched her – something he found himself doing frequently – he almost couldn't imagine her any other way. She was animated and confident. Small as she was, Kathryn appeared to almost effortlessly command both the attention and action of the workers she'd employed. She knew what she wanted done and how. Apparently, in this context at least, not one of the burly men handling the backhoes and the subsequent rubble would dream of even questioning her. She wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty, either. More than once he watched her heft a ragged lump of concrete into a dumpster as easily as he's seen other women toss back their hair.

It made Chakotay feel something, to watch this woman at work. It wasn't just admiration. It was fascination too, both bounded by a form of trust that had quickly become so deep that he was surprised at himself. They hadn't seen much of each other over the past week, partly because he'd wanted to give the dust a chance to settle after his altercation with her assistant, Tom. Maybe he'd been too hard on the kid, but out of all his students, B'Elanna was the one of whom Chakotay was most protective. He'd been worried by her abrupt departure that day and his concern had only increased in the interim. Torres hadn't missed a session, but though she'd been present, she'd been distracted and surly. Tom Paris seemed to be keeping his word, though, for which Chakotay had to be grateful.

As if summoned by Chakotay's thought process, Tom appeared at the site gate, carrying a cardboard tray of Starbucks coffee. Kathryn saw him coming and lifted her hands in a gesture of excitement that made Chakotay smile. This he already knew about her: there was probably as much caffeine in her veins as there was haemoglobin. Every evening he would come into the gym to find cardboard cups overflowing from the trash basket and dotted around the place, marking out the routes she'd taken as she worked. The wall of her office had become a mood board of such epic proportions that it had spilled out into the hallway as Kathryn had pinned more and more images to it, as if it were a map to a long journey into unknown territory that she was marking out as she went along. She'd annotated the images here and there, adding lists of questions, suggestions and notes that were at times so cryptic he couldn't even begin to decipher them. Twice his curiosity had been so aroused that he'd scribbled notes of his own to leave on her desk for the next morning, hoping she'd answer in kind so that there would be a similar note containing the answer waiting for him when he got in himself. Twice he'd thought better of it at the last minute and gone back to scoop them up, crunching his paper scraps into balls that he tossed into the trash alongside her endless discarded coffee cups.

This was the other reason that Chakotay had chosen not to cross Kathryn Janeway's path too often in the past week. He didn't understand it, the strength of this sudden and unreasonable attraction that had gripped him. It went beyond the acknowledgement of how beautiful she was. If that was all that preoccupied him about her, it wouldn't have been cause for worry, but he couldn't help thinking – fearing, really – that there was something else there. But it was probably merely a combination of factors, he reasoned, and not for the first time. Her unconventional entry into his life, her energy, the enthusiasm with which she pursued her ideas, the magnetic pull of her drive and determination, perhaps. Besides, he was still feeling the tremors emanating from his split with Annika. Inevitable or not, the dissolution of their life together was nevertheless proving painful, its shards as sharp as those of any broken relationship. That Kathryn Janeway had appeared when she did – well, maybe the peculiar pull he felt in her presence was merely down to that and nothing more.

Whatever the cause, he hadn't failed to note the sparkling band she wore on her ring finger. Even had it not been there, as unconventional as their working connection might be, they were now colleagues. She'd asked for his help with genuine intentions, adding another brush stroke to a line he saw running between them and that he had no intention of crossing. So Chakotay thought it best to stay away from her as much as possible for a while. Just until this – whatever 'this' was – had faded.

He watched Kathryn embrace the coffee Tom had brought, clasping it between her two hands as if it were an old friend. Even from this far away he could see her eyes flutter shut as she took a grateful mouthful. Standing here, watching her rather than the work itself, Chakotay was aware he was fast shattering the rule he'd set for himself. But at that very moment, Annika was moving the last of her things out of his apartment. He'd be going back to a place peppered with absences where another person used to be, so right now he'd prefer to be fully occupied here, standing in the sunshine and watching a woman he could not have and yet could not, at this moment, turn away from.

It'll pass, he told himself. It'll pass and she'll never know. So where's the harm?

For Kathryn, there was always something special about this stage of a project – breaking ground felt almost ceremonial, the ensuing dust sending a smoke signal into the sky: This is beginning. We are underway. Here though, now, her excitement was somehow greater. She felt a sense of exhilaration that she now realised must have been lacking from her work for some time. Perhaps it was the scale of this project, the public nature of it – Kathryn had managed plenty of major undertakings, but most of them had been for rich private clients, their gardens locked away for the use of the few, not the many. She was always a conscientious worker and never delivered work she could not be justifiably proud of. But here in Maywood, she had rediscovered a joy in her work that must once have always existed but had, at some point, been buried. Ideas came to her at the oddest times, waking her from sleep so often that she had started to keep a notebook beside her bed. Once at the site office, she transferred them to walls so cluttered that she thought she should probably apologise to Chakotay for encroaching on gym wall space. She would, when she saw him again. He'd not been around much at all over the past week, a flying visit here and there, but nothing else. She understood: he must be busy juggling school, boxing club and the girlfriend he'd mentioned the first time they met. She suspected he was setting a precedent, too. She'd asked for his help and he'd agreed, but he clearly didn't want to end up spending all of what precious time he had fielding her queries, so he was letting her know up front that the time he'd be available to her would be sparse. That was fair enough.

It was also probably a good idea, given the pulse of personal disappointment she had so far felt every time Chakotay had left instead of staying. She was determined to get over this ridiculous frisson she always seemed to feel in his presence. The fact that something in her kept insisting that she'd really quite like to get to know him better told her that she should really stay as far away from him as possible.

The sun was beginning to drop lower in the sky, timed to match perfectly with the last chunk of concrete being torn from its resting place. She looked around, coffee cup in one hand, the other shielding her eyes. What she saw was satisfying. She clapped Tom on the back, smiling.

"We've done good work here today, Tom."

"Really?" He looked around at the uneven, dusty ground. "Just looks like one big mess to me."

"Ahh, but that's good," she told him. "It's mess we can work with. Earth, Tom! Real earth! And look-" she nodded to the knot of bystanders whose numbers had fluctuated since the work had begun that morning. "We've been noticed. That means that when we put the posters up announcing the consultation evening, interest will already be piqued, and-"

She spied a figure she recognised amid the small crowd. Broad-shouldered and dark, Chakotay stood head-and-shoulders above most of those around him. She smiled and lifted her arm in a wave, unreasonably happy when he returned it.

"And?" Tom prompted.

"And what?"

"You were about to say something else. Before you were…" he glanced over at Chakotay, "…distracted."

"Oh yes, sorry. And that should bring plenty of people in to talk to us, which is just what we need. Tom, go and tell Joe he might as well finish for the night, will you?" She started to head towards Chakotay.

"Joe?" Tom called after her. "Who's Joe?"

Kathryn turned back to him, gesturing across the churned ground. "Joe – the second backhoe driver! He's done for the day, send him home!"

She heard Tom mutter an acknowledgment, but by then she was mid-way to the fence hemming the site from the pathway. She smiled as Chakotay broke away from the other bystanders, hands in his pockets as he came towards her.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey yourself," Chakotay said, smiling. He nodded to the desolation behind her. "When you set your mind on something there's no stopping you, is there, Kathryn Janeway?"

She felt herself smiling from ear to ear. "My defining characteristic, or so I'm told."

His eyes danced with laughter as he nodded at the cup in her hand. "I would have said that was an extraordinary capacity to consume coffee."

Kathryn glanced down and grimaced. "Oh god, you've discovered my weakness."

Chakotay leaned one shoulder against the fence, which gave slightly under his weight. She resisted the urge to move closer. He didn't seem in any rush to leave today, which made her disproportionately happy. "So what's next?" he asked, looking past her to the site.

"Well, I wanted to talk to you about that, actually. I'd like to hold a consultation – we'd put posters up inviting local residents to come and see what this is all about – part of finding out what people in the area want from the space."

Chakotay nodded. "Sounds like the gym would be a good place if you want to accommodate a good number of visitors."

"That's what I was thinking," Kathryn confessed. "But we'd have to do it in the evening and I know that would interfere with the club…"

"I wouldn't mind that as long as it doesn't become a habit," he said. "But what about holding it on a Saturday evening? The club wouldn't be open anyway and you'd probably find more people will turn out on a Saturday than a work night. Although I know that'd mean you'd have to lose more time out of your weekend…"

Kathryn smiled. "That's not a problem at all."

He met her eyes, one eyebrow raised. "No? You must have a very understanding fiancé."

"I do," Kathryn agreed. "Mark's a saint. Actually he'll probably come himself – I spend so much time talking and thinking about this place, it's about time he saw it for himself."

Chakotay pushed away from the fence, his gaze drifting back out over the site as he smiled slightly. "Well. I'll leave the details up to you. But I'll be on hand to help if you-" he broke off, staring hard at something on the far side of the site.

Kathryn turned to see what he was looking at just as the noise of the second backhoe died away. In place of its stutter and grumble rose a higher-pitched sound, long, drawn out and moving closer. Four black motorbikes revved along the road edging the wasteland, their riders crouched over their sleek vehicles. Each was dressed in black from head to toe, aside from the bright red slash of the bandanas tied across their mouths and noses. They slid slowly around three sides of the square, passing not a more than a meter from where Kathryn and Chakotay stood. The gathered crowd had begun to disperse as soon as the bikes had appeared, dissipating like smoke into the sunset.

Chakotay turned, watching the bikes until they turned a corner and disappeared between the grey buildings.

"Trouble?" Kathryn asked.

He looked down at her, a tight frown on his face. "I hope not," he said.

[TBC]

Chapter Text

"I really thought more people would attend this evening," Kathryn said, as she and Tom helped Chakotay to put away the chairs they'd set out for the consultation. "There was quite a crowd watching the groundbreaking, but that doesn't seem to have translated into further interest."

She glanced at the clock on the gym wall, wondering whether they'd set the consultation time too late, but it was barely eight o'clock. Too early, then, perhaps? Kathryn had no idea. She was disappointed. Only about ten residents had turned up and half of them had been Chakotay's students.

"I don't think lack of interest is the problem," Chakotay told her, as he lifted a pile of chairs and moved them to the corner of the room.

"What, then?" she asked.

Chakotay came back towards her. The look on his face told her he was trying to frame his next words carefully. She was learning this about him: that he rarely, if ever, spoke without thinking. Instead his words were weighed, measured and balanced before being deliberately applied. Thus it hadn't taken her long to learn that when he had something to tell her, she should listen. She both trusted his judgement and valued his opinion, because he never stated either without due consideration.

This habit of cautious speaking came from working with his students, she suspected. There had been several evenings over the past two weeks when she'd had cause to still be in her office when they began to arrive for their club sessions. She was slowly learning who was who, the previously indistinguishable crowd resolving firmly into individuals as she put faces and characteristics to names. Kathryn had done her best to be open and friendly and they were slowly coming around, although some – B'Elanna most notably – were resolutely suspicious of her presence in their territory.

She'd found herself listening to snippets here and there as Chakotay's voice lifted over the echoing timbre of the gym and the repetitive noise of training. He was firm and exacting but also sympathetic. He'd told her recently that all of the kids in his care had been on their final chances at school when he'd taken them on. Somehow, by keeping them together and mutually interested in this crumbling gym, he was managing to turn them around – just. If Kathryn hadn't previously understood how important the club was, she did then. She also understood, perhaps better than Chakotay did himself, why these kids responded to him better than they had to other models of authority. He clearly put his all into this place, into these students. Kathryn had seen him come in tired and leave exhausted, but he'd never been absent. Chakotay demanded that the kids put their all into his training scheme, and in return he did the same. He gave them more attention and care than most of them had ever seen outside their own homes, and probably often inside, too.

She wondered what room that left him for a personal life, for his own family. She wondered whether the girlfriend he'd never mentioned again after the first time they'd met was as understanding as he probably needed her to be. She wondered why any of this mattered to her, and told herself that it didn't.

"It's not lack of interest," Chakotay told her. "It's fear. That day of the ground-breaking, when we saw the Crimsons – that was a reminder that this area is their territory."

"The Crimsons?"

"The group on the bikes with red bandanas. That's what they're called."

Kathryn nodded. "I see. The mugger that tried to grab my purse the first time I came here – he was one of them?"

Chakotay nodded. "Probably no one particularly important, but yes. And now they're clearly keeping an eye on what's going on here. They've noticed. And around here, the way to live safely is not to be noticed, especially by the Crimsons."

Kathryn shrugged. "So what do I do?"

"There's nothing you can do, Kathryn, except give up, which can't imagine you'd ever contemplate."

"Too right."

Chakotay smiled. "Then you'll just have to carry on and hope that the gang will eventually realise your garden is no threat to them and leave you alone. And in the meantime, keep your eyes open and be safe."

She sighed. "But it's not supposed to be my garden," she said. "It's supposed to be their garden – the people who didn't come tonight, I mean. I won't be the one still here in three years' time, I won't be the one maintaining it. The idea is that's for the community to take over once I've moved on to another project somewhere else. I won't be here."

Something flickered across his face, just for a second. Then he smiled at her. "Then I guess you and I will just have to take one step at a time and hope that slowly, others join us."

Kathryn surprised him – and herself – by reaching out and briefly squeezing his hand, an impulse driven by a sudden wave of gratitude. Chakotay had enough on his plate already, but here he was, late on a Saturday night, for no other reason than that she needed him. It occurred to her for a second that this was something that could not be said of Mark, who had cried off. She pushed the thought away, vaguely guilty over this comparison, which she knew at once she should not have made. After all, in retrospect she was grateful that Mark had not come. He would have been bored out of his mind, and the poor turn out would also have reinforced his opinion that Kathryn was wasting her time here. Better that he see the project when there was something real to show for her efforts.

"You're not afraid of being noticed yourself?" she asked, as she dropped her hand.

He blew out a breath of air in a brief approximation of a laugh. "Oh, they've already noticed me. Most of my kids would already be mules if I didn't keep them busy training instead. That doesn't exactly mark me down as a useful guy to have around, in their books."

Kathryn frowned. "So you intervening when we first met can't have helped." She had a sudden flashback, a memory of that night. "That's what B'Elanna meant, wasn't it, when she said there could be trouble? She meant for you. Has there been trouble, Chakotay? Something you're not telling me?"

He smiled at her concern and shook his head. "You don't need to worry about me. I can look after myself. And no, there hasn't been."

There was a clatter behind them as Tom shoved the last of the chairs back into their place. "Done!" he called. "Do you mind if I call it a night, Kathryn?"

"No, of course not, Tom – I'm about to do the same. Thanks for your help tonight."

"No problem," he said. "You want me to wait and see you to your car, or…"

"Thanks, but I'll be fine," Kathryn told him. "It's just outside. I'll see you Monday – have a good weekend. You should go too, Chakotay, you must have better places to be. Thanks again for being here."

"It's no problem, Kathryn."

She smiled at him, then went to collect a couple of things from her office. When she came out again she'd been expecting to find the gym empty, but Chakotay was standing in the hallway.

"Were you waiting for me?" she asked. "You didn't have to, Chakotay – I've got a key, remember? I can lock up."

"I know you can," was all he said.

Kathryn's car really was parked just outside. But somehow, Chakotay's presence just behind her as she locked the gym door and then crossed to her vehicle didn't feel out of place in the least.

They said a final goodnight to each other and she pulled away from the curb, glancing in her rear-view mirror. Chakotay watched her drive away and then turned, digging his hands into his pockets as he headed up the street. The intermittent orange glow of the sparse streetlamps lit him like a silhouette until he melted into shadow, and was finally gone from sight.

A long sigh escaped her. With it came a strange sense of melancholy that Kathryn was still puzzling over as she spied a familiar figure out of the corner of her eye. Kathryn glanced back to the corner she'd just turned and saw a young face framed by thick black hair. The girl was standing still, as if waiting for something. A figure walked towards her out of the shadows - a woman with hunched shoulders. She brushed past the waiting girl with barely a pause.

The movement was so quick that Kathryn almost didn't see it, but it was there. As the woman passed her, the girl flicked out her hand, palm up. In it was something small and white that disappeared from sight as her buyer covered it with her own fingers. A moment later the girl's hand was back in her pocket, whatever drugs she was selling replaced by a fold of cash.

The transaction had taken less than ten seconds. Kathryn's car slid on into the night, her melancholy replaced by anxiety.

She'd recognised the girl on the corner.

B'Elanna Torres.

"A lecture tour?"

It was Sunday morning and they were sitting in the garden room, the strong Californian sunlight filtering through the pale shades that covered the quartered windows. Kathryn was seated in her favourite armchair, reading. She loved to read, though she rarely had time. Sunday morning was set aside for at least one hour devoted to whatever she had going at the time. She'd been mid-way through Kingsolver's Prodigal Summerwhen Mark's announcement had startled her back to the present.

He was sitting on the couch beneath the window, the LA Times spread across his lap. "Yes, Kathryn," he said. "There's no need to sound quite so surprised. I know it's been a while, but it seems some places still think I have something to contribute."

"Of course you do," she said, putting down the book. "I'm just surprised you've accepted, that's all. You've said before that you've had enough of travel to last you a lifetime."

"Well, I guess I've changed my mind," he said.

"I'm glad," Kathryn told him, wondering why there seemed to be an edge in the air this morning. "Tell me more about it – where is it going to be?"

"Details are still being finalised, but so far they've confirmed in Oslo, Helsinki, Berlin and Paris, with other cities and dates still to be added, probably in Britain and Italy."

"Europe!" Kathryn exclaimed. "When?"

"The first date in Oslo is booked for a month's time. I thought you could come with me," Mark smiled. "It's been too long since you took a vacation. Think of the variety of gardens you'll be able to visit."

Kathryn was slightly stunned. "Mark, I – I can't. I'd love to, of course I would – but I can't take time out of the Maywood project now. Perhaps later, once the work is more established I could, but you know how critical the early months are. I need to be here. Besides, I've got Owen's benefit dinner in six weeks. I have to be there to speak at it – Owen and all the contributors will expect that."

He shifted the paper from his lap and leaned forward. "Ask him to postpone it."

"I can't do that! You know what it takes to organise one of those things."

Mark stood up. "I have no idea why it's such a big deal. As far as I can see it means shoving some food on a plate, asking people to kit themselves out in ridiculously expensive clothes for an evening and then charging them an equally ridiculous ticket fee for the privilege. As for the Maywood project," he said, with barely-concealed distaste, "I'm willing to bet that delaying whatever you're doing over there for two months isn't going to make much of a difference."

Kathryn swallowed the sudden belch of anger that surged into her throat. She took a breath. "I have obligations, Mark. I know you don't understand them, or even support them, but I've committed to this and I can't just drop them to go on vacation. You know I can't and I don't understand why you would even ask me to."

Mark walked to the window and looked out over the garden. "Yes, foolish of me. I thought perhaps that just for once, you might put me – us – first. But you'd prefer to spend time on this… project, instead."

She stood up. "Don't do that," she said. "That's not fair. This isn't about us. I would come with you if I could, you know I would."

He turned to look at her, and the unhappy expression in his eyes took Kathryn by surprise. "Would you, Kathryn? Really?"

"Of course I would! Europe, with you? I'd love it! Mark – what's all this about, really?"

"I hardly ever see you any more, Kath. Even when you're here you're somewhere else. I thought – some time together, away from everything, would be good."

Kathryn sighed. "I know I've been busy and preoccupied. But it's just work."

"Is it?"

"What else would it be?"

He grimaced a smile. "An excuse not to be here, with me?"

She rubbed a hand over her eyes. "I don't understand where this is coming from. You know how I am when I have a new project to get underway."

"Yes, I do. And this-" he stopped.

"This what?" she asked, impatience beginning to override concern.

"The last time I spoke to Owen, he said you seemed… enthused."

Kathryn raised her eyebrows. "And that's a bad thing?"

"No, it's just-" Mark paused again. "Owen said he hasn't seen you like this for years. Not this excited and… invested. But that's not – that's not how you are when you're here, Kath. You're absent. It makes me wonder if you'd rather be somewhere else."

Kathryn refused to acknowledge the tiny pulse of guilt that danced through her chest. It had no reason or right to be there. "I don't know what you want from me, Mark," she said. "To feel bad because I'm enjoying my work? This matters to me. I want to get it right."

Mark nodded, still looking unhappy. "It just seems as if you'd rather get that right than this," he said, gesturing between them.

She was flabbergasted. "We're engaged to be married! We're committed to each other, and that means we've got the rest of our lives to get us right! And I thought – I thought we were right. I thought you were happy?"

He crossed the room towards her. "Of course I am. I just sometimes wonder if you are. If work makes you enthused in a way that I can't, then what role do I have, really?"

She shook her head. "I wish you'd come to the site. Maybe then you'll understand why I'm so invested in it. Why it's taking up so much of my time and energy to get it going."

Mark touched his hands to her arms. "When I get back. All right? I'm not going to have time before then now. But when I get back from Europe, you can show me everything."

She smiled. "It's a deal. By then it should be well underway, too. I'm determined. It's going to be amazing."

He pulled her close with a sigh. "I don't doubt it in the slightest. And you know what else we should do when I get back?"

"What's that?" she asked.

"We should finally set a date for the wedding. Let's just do it, Kath, this year –before we lose another summer."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

B'Elanna slipped in through the gym door. She could hear the scratch of Janeway's voice, muffled as it floated out from her office mid-phone call, but other than that the place was quiet. The gym itself was entirely empty, as B'Elanna had hoped it would be. She breathed a sigh of relief and dumped her school bag on the floor. She figured she had about an hour's grace between Janeway still being here and Chakotay arriving himself in which she'd have the place to herself to train. With any luck she'd already be on her way out as Coach was coming in. That way he couldn't say that she wasn't keeping her end of the bargain they'd struck, but he also wouldn't have time to ask her any questions, either. Perfect.

She'd already put her kit on under her street clothes and so wasted no time in stripping down to her training gear. B'Elanna was even more eager than usual to start her daily routine. The club was the one place in her life where she felt as if nothing could reach her: not the clamouring, violent arguments between her mother and stepfather; not the rise-and-fall of her stepbrothers' music through the thin walls of their apartment; not the constant, disapproving drone of her teachers. Not even the Crims could get her here, or so she liked to think. This was her place. This was her time. Here, in this dusty no-hope gym, B'Elanna felt as if, for once, she could just be herself. Strong, straight, focussed and fast. She could be the best at something in a world where any larger hopes she may have had had been curtailed almost since the day she was born.

Right now, right here, being free to be herself meant smashing her favourite red punch-bag hard, over and over, over and over until her knuckles ached in their wraps and the constant shadow of what she had to do later faded beneath her concentration. B'Elanna stood on the plate and took a deep breath, then exhaled just as carefully. Then she threw her first punch, swiftly followed by her second, and her third, and her fourth, until anyone watching casually would have already lost count.

"B'Elanna?"

The voice distracted her at 45, irksome not only because her target was 50 but also because of whose voice it was. B'Elanna ignored it, picking up her dropped pace for another five strikes and then deciding to forge on through, heading for 60.

"B'Elanna! Will you stop for a moment, please?"

Kathryn Janeway stepped close enough to grab the punch-bag with both hands, stopping its momentum. B'Elanna was thrown off-balance and stumbled backwards. Fifty-eight! She'd been stopped at 58!

She swore loudly in Spanish. The language clearly didn't stop the woman in front of her from understanding its meaning, nor its intent. Janeway let go of the bag and crossed her arms, raising her eyebrows.

"Well?" B'Elanna spat, still catching her breath. "What do you want?"

"Just to talk to you for a moment."

"I'm busy. In case you hadn't noticed."

"I don't think you'll want me to wait until your coach gets here, B'Elanna, so you might want to make time right now."

Something in Janeway's tone gave B'Elanna pause. She looked up, eyes narrowed, trying to read the meaning of this interruption in the older woman's face. Janeway's expression was impassive but resolute, the look in her eyes clear and determined.

"I haven't got all night," B'Elanna told her. "If you've got something to say, say it."

If Janeway was perturbed by B'Elanna attitude, it was not apparent. She watched B'Elanna steadily, as if biding her time. The girl shifted, uncomfortable and resentful of it.

"I saw you on Saturday night," Janeway said then.

B'Elanna shrugged. "So?" she said. "What are you, pissed that I didn't come to your little get-together here? Sorry. I had better things to do."

"I know what your 'better things' were, B'Elanna," Janeway said, her voice perfectly calm yet with an edge of disdain that somehow made B'E's heart sink. "My question is, does Coach Chakotay know as well?"

Something cold slid down B'Elanna's neck. She stood absolutely still, unwilling to believe what was happening. Had they been here that late? She'd assumed everyone had left the gym by the time she'd taken up her corner. Assumed. Hoped. Not the same thing, she supposed.

She opted for denial in lieu of any other path. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said sullenly.

"Oh, I think you do," Janeway said, taking a step closer. "And I'm disappointed in you. No, that's not right, actually. I'm disappointed for Chakotay. Do you know how hard he works to keep you kids out of trouble? How tired he is most of the time? He doesn't even get paid for all the time he gives to this place. He probably sees your progress as some kind of payment in itself." Janeway's hands shifted to her hips. "Do you sell to the other students here? Do you bring that stuff under this roof? What would he say if he knew, B'Elanna? How would he feel?"

B'Elanna swallowed, rage and fear swilling through her. "You can't tell him."

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't."

"He'll kick me out," B'Elanna said. "He won't want to, but he'll have to. Two strikes and you're out, that's his policy and he won't bend it. He can't."

"What was your first strike?"

"I punched that creep Kurt Vorik," she said. Then she added, just for good measure and because it was true, "He deserved it."

Janeway set her jaw. "You're willing to say who deserved a beating but you're not willing to take the punishment yourself? I'd say you deserve to be kicked out, B'Elanna. I'd say that's the least you deserve."

B'Elanna scrubbed a hand through her hair, suddenly panicked. "Don't call the police. Please. For your own good…"

"Oh, you're threatening me now?"

"No. No, that's not what I meant. Look, it's just – it's just the way things are. Okay? Can't you just – forget what you saw? I'm only selling to junkies. I don't sell to kids. I don't bring it in here – I never would. Never."

"And that makes it all right, does it?"

B'Elanna scratched at one knuckle. It didn't hurt enough. She'd wanted to leave here with her hands bruised and cracked but so far the only part of her hurting was a place she'd never worked out how to heal.

"They know what they're doing," she said, dully. "No one forced them to start. No one's forcing them to carry on, either."

Janeway was silent for a moment. The girl couldn't bear to raise her head. She had a feeling she wouldn't like the look she'd see on the older woman's face.

"I'll do you a deal," Janeway said. "You stop. Right now. You never go back. And I won't tell Chakotay. I won't tell anyone. I'll give you a second chance, B'Elanna, but only if you take it right now."

B'Elanna took a breath. "I can't."

"What do you mean, you can't?"

"I can't stop. It doesn't work like that."

"All right. Then how does it work?" Janeway tried to look her in the eye, but B'Elanna wouldn't meet her gaze. "You're in hock to a bigger dealer? You owe them money? How much? Perhaps I can help."

B'Elanna did look at her then. "That's how it always works with you people, right? You just throw money at the problem until it goes away."

"I'm trying to help you."

"I don't want your help."

"Then what do you want, B'Elanna?"

B'Elanna felt the rage building in her again. She wondered whether to throw a punch, right here, right now, right past Janeway's perfectly sculpted hair, let her fist intersect with the punch-bag just beside this woman's head, let the heavy stuffed leather spin out and smack back again, leave her out cold on the floor before she even saw what was coming.

"I want you to leave me alone," she said instead, her voice low and dangerous, not wanting to let it rise into a child's telltale wail of anger. "I don't need your busy-bodying in my life. All right? I don't need you, I don't want you. I never did. Just leave me alone."

There was a brief moment of silence. The two women faced each other, and B'Elanna saw a flicker of disgust pass across Janeway's face.

"You always seem like an intelligent young woman, B'Elanna," she said. "One who could have a bright future if only she worked for it. But no. You'd rather throw your life away taking money from people who are stuck on a path you're eager to keep them on."

The rage began to boil between B'Elanna's shoulder blades. What did this woman know about it? She of all people! "You think I want to be doing this? You think it makes me proud? You think it makes me happy?"

"Perhaps it does. Or at least, perhaps the money does. I can't see why else you'd turn your nose up at someone's honest offer to help you escape the route you've willingly taken."

B'Elanna let out a sound that was almost a snarl, half anger, half indignation. "You think it's for the money? You think this is what I want my life to be?" She threw up her hands, twisting her mouth into a grimace of unrestrained fury as she spun away and then looked back at Janeway over her shoulder. "Oh yeah, sure – of course, because that's what every little Latino bitch like me looks forward to, right? Little white girls dream of princess dresses while we dream of standing on street corners like one kind of whore or another. Because that's what we want, right? We aim to get pregnant or we aim to sell drugs. Either way we're mules, but that's fine because that's the kind of fairytale we like. Right?"

"That's not what I-"

"Not what you meant? Really, puta? You sure about that?" B'Elanna looked at Janeway with contempt. "You're all the same. All of you. You do these things and you don't even realise what you've done. That it's yourfault. Because it can't possibly have anything to do with you, can it? Coming from where you do, coming into this place, you're just doing us down here in the dirt a favour, isn't that right? Like you're blessing us with your mere presence, like you elevate us, or something. Well, my life, right now? That's on your head. This is your fault. And I mean you, specifically, Janeway. We were fine before you came here. Not perfect, but fine. And then, there you were, getting that little fine-lady ass kicked, and he just had to step in. He just had to help. Because that's who he is. And now-"

She realised she'd said too much when Janeway's face registered a flash of shock that pulled all her muscles taut. B'Elanna clamped her jaw shut, turning away, dancing from foot to foot to quell the rage, but it was too late.

"What? Who are you talking about?" Janeway asked, her voice a hoarse whisper in the tense silence of the gym. "Chakotay? Are you talking about Chakotay?"

B'Elanna shook her head once and went to step away. Janeway's hand clamped on her upper arm, pulling her to a stop. B'Elanna turned sharply, ready to strike, but to her surprise Janeway was ready for her. The older woman was in a defensive stance, free arm ready to fend off an attack. But she still hadn't let go.

"Tell me," Janeway demanded, shaking her slightly as if to emphasize her words. "You said it was my fault. What did I do? B'Elanna, tell me what I did. Please."

B'Elanna stared at her, at this woman who had caused so much damage in so short a space of time without even realising it. What would it be to live a life like that? To live untouched and untouchable, where home was some distant, hallowed place so far removed from the here and now that simply returning to it was in itself some prize to be attained?

"You came here," B'Elanna said, simply. "You came here and you made him think he had to save you."

Janeway stepped back, her gaze moving from B'Elanna's face to roam the gym as she thought. Then she looked back, a light of understanding beginning to flicker in her eyes. "The other day Chakotay told me that the punk who tried to take my bag was part of the gang that thinks they control this area. The Crimsons, that's what they're called, isn't it?"

B'Elanna snorted. "They don't 'think' they control it. They do control it."

Janeway shook her head. "He told me they kept an eye on him. That they aren't happy that he does his best to keep you kids out of trouble. That him stepping in that night could have caused trouble of its own – but that it hadn't."

B'Elanna shifted from one foot to another. "No. It hasn't."

Janeway narrowed her eyes. "Not for him, maybe. But for you… that's another matter. Is that what you're telling me?"

"I'm not telling you anything. Not anymore. Training time's over, I've got to go." B'Elanna made as if to head for her bag, but Janeway stopped her again.

"Wait. B'Elanna, just wait a minute. Have you struck a deal with them? Is that why you're dealing drugs? Tell me – is it?"

B'Elanna shook her head at Janeway's ignorance. "You don't strike a deal with the Crimsons. They tell you what they want and what you'll get for it. And if you say no, well, they just take something from you instead. Usually you're lucky if it's not your life. My cousin, Emilio – he's been looking for a way in with them for ages. He heard what happened that night and he knew I'd been there. So he gave them me. I work for them and Chakotay's safe. I don't work for them, and they'll kill him. As punishment for what happened to their boy that night. For Chakotay's lack of respect. For what he did when he saved you."

Janeway's eyes widened. It was almost comical, the look of awful realisation on her face. Not that B'Elanna felt like laughing.

"Don't worry about it, chica," B'Elanna said, her voice softly mocking. "That's just the way things work around here."

"You've – you've got to do something," Janeway stuttered. "Tell someone. B'Elanna, you can't just-"

"Tell someone?" B'Elanna repeated. "Really? Like who?"

"Well, the police, for a start."

B'Elanna actually did laugh at that. "Jesus, lady. You really do live on another planet. I can't go to the police. I can't tell anyone. I can't stop, and I can't leave. This is my life now. Or Chakotay loses his life. It's that simple. Okay?"

Janeway was shaking her head. "But if Chakotay knew-"

"He can't know," B'Elanna cut her off. "He can't ever know. If he did he'd try to save me, just like he saved you. You've known him long enough now to know that. Hell, you'd only have to know him a day to know that. And he'd get himself killed." She paused, staring at Janeway, hard. "So. Do you get it now? Do you understand?"

The older woman held her gaze. In their shared look, B'Elanna saw that she understood perfectly. B'Elanna nodded and turned away, a black hole opening up where her heart should be, though she couldn't for the life of her work out why. What had she imagined? That telling Janeway this would somehow help? That she really was some kind of saviour? Why would any part of her have ever even imagined that would be the case? She was on her own. She was always on her own. She'd been on her own since the day she was born, and she'd be on her own the day she died. B'Elanna looked around, seeing the gym for what it really was for perhaps the first time: a rubber dingy in a sea of burning oil. Anger rolled into her ribcage and this time it was aimed at Chakotay. He'd made her believe this place was something else. He'd made her think it could change the very fabric of her reality. But it couldn't. Nothing could. She was never getting out of here.

"Just forget you ever saw anything," she advised, the bitterness in her throat tainting her words. "Head on back home to your world and shake our dust of your feet."

"B'Elanna," Janeway called after her, after a moment. "There is no 'us' and 'you'. We're all the same."

"Okay," B'Elanna said, as she kept walking. "You just keep telling yourself that." She'd reached the door before she turned. "You took us apart, you know," she added. "You took us apart and he'll never even see it. All he can see is you."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

Chakotay backed through the gym doors, letting them swing shut of their own accord with their old familiar clunk. He could tell immediately that there was no one using the training equipment, though he peered in through the door as he passed anyway. He hadn't expected to see Torres there, and nor was she. Still, he'd be surprised if she hadn't shown her face at some point. Whatever was going on with her, she'd yet to actually breach the terms of their agreement, although she'd have to be a fool to imagine that he hadn't noticed her marked reluctance to spend anything more than the bare minimum of time in her coach's company. And if there was one thing he knew B'Elanna Torres wasn't, it was a fool.

He'd asked around at school in the hope of catching wind of what was going on with her, but despite the cautious cast of his questions, her peers had still closed ranks, refusing to speak or even hint at anything that might be of use to him. Chakotay wondered briefly whether B'Elanna's reluctance to be here for any prolonged amount of time had anything to do with Kathryn's assistant, Tom. Her distraction did seem to have coincided with his arrival at the gym. Chakotay thought he should perhaps broach the subject with Kathryn – maybe the gift he was currently carrying towards her office would smooth the path of any questioning he might attempt on that score. She seemed particularly protective of Tom Paris, something he'd learned first hand as Kathryn had stepped between them during the unexpected altercation of their first meeting. It had struck him, then, just how small she was – he'd been caught off guard by the dichotomy between her defiant stance and her diminutive stature. The fire in her eyes had been coupled with a brief undercurrent of fear, too – as if, in the same moment that he had realised how small she was, she had in turn realised how large he was by comparison. But that hadn't stopped her putting herself in between him and that boy, positioning herself like a human shield against a looming tank, regardless of the disparity in their physical powers. And if actions spoke louder than words, that one had filled his ears with an entire aria, the myriad notes of which had resolved into two distinct chords: one, the knowledge that Kathryn Janeway would not back down from protecting those who required such even in the face of her own frailty and two, that Chakotay swore to himself he would never cause her to fear anything, however briefly, again. He would stand with her, not against her, for however long their path coincided, however tangled and uneven that route might become. Even if she did have a tendency to be soft toward hot-headed young troublemakers. But then, he couldn't pretend not to understand that, could he?

Chakotay arrived at her open office door to find the woman herself seated at her desk, staring at a sheet of paper laid before her as she drummed a pencil in a fractious rhythm against it. Her head was bent, chin resting on her other hand as she frowned distractedly at the blank page, apparently so absorbed in the wealth of nothing before her that she hadn't heard his soft approach.

"Hello," he said, unable to knock for the box he carried.

Janeway lifted her head with a jerk. "Chakotay."

He smiled slightly, though she didn't return it, which was unusual. She looked preoccupied, he thought, a trace of anxiety dancing around her blue eyes. He nodded at the empty page on her desk. "Hard at work?"

She looked down. "Oh, I was just…" She shook her head with a sigh. "Failing to do what I had set out to do, it seems."

"Happens to the best of us," he said, lightly. "You probably need a fresh cup of coffee."

"Hmm." She reached for the nearest paper cup, tipping its contents towards her and wrinkling her nose. "This one's died a death, I fear, and it's too late to go out for more now."

Chakotay lifted the box slightly. "Perhaps this will help?"

Kathryn looked at what he carried for the first time as she stood. "Is that… a coffee machine?"

He smiled at her astonished expression and stepped forward to put it on the desk. "It is indeed. I thought I'd do my bit for both the conservation of your sanity and the rainforest by bringing you this. No more having to go out for coffee every time you need one, no more drinking your favourite beverage out of wasteful paper cups: I brought mugs, too."

Janeway didn't say anything for a moment, just rested her hand on top of the box and looked down at it. She seemed slightly overwhelmed. Chakotay had the sudden feeling that he'd somehow put a foot wrong, although how he wasn't quite sure.

"You… bought me a coffee machine," she said, softly, still not raising her head.

"Oh, well – no, I didn't, actually. Annika didn't take it with her, and I generally only drink tea. So you don't need to worry about my wallet – it was either here or the thrift shop, and frankly, I thought that in this case, your need was greater."

Kathryn looked up with a frown. "Annika?"

Chakotay half-shrugged. "My partner. Ex-partner. I don't know why she didn't take it, but it seems to be working perfectly and she's cleared the place of everything else she wanted, so…"

He stopped. Kathryn's face had taken on an expression he couldn't rightly read but that for some reason put his stomach into freefall.

"I'm… I'm sorry," Janeway said, as she hurriedly flicked her gaze away from his and down to his gift. "About your – about Annika. I didn't realise-"

Chakotay shook his head with a smile, trying to dispel the sudden and inexplicable awkwardness of the moment. "Nothing to be sorry about. It was a long time coming."

She nodded, frowning again. There was still no smile.

"I've made you uncomfortable," he realised. "With this gift, I mean. I'm sorry."

"No," she said, quickly, looking up again.

"It's just that it's taking up good space in my kitchen, that's all, and I thought it might make your working day a little easier."

"It will. It was very kind to think of me, Chakotay – you were very kind..." He had the sense there were other words on the end of the sentence that she had decided not to say.

Kathryn looked at her watch. "Oh. I didn't realise the time," she said. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to run." She turned and picked up her bag, "I'll set the machine up tomorrow. Thank you so much, Chakotay. Have a good evening, won't you? "

And with that she was gone, leaving him with the impression of a faint smile and the idea that she hadn't quite been able to look him in the eye as she passed.

Kathryn did not go straight home to Pasadena. She left the gym craving the kind of space she knew how to find in only one place. Instead of heading south from Maywood she turned west, driving into the dusk with her hands stiff on the wheel, ignoring the clamour of the traffic around her. She drove until she hit Santa Monica and then headed north along the Palisades until she reached Topanga, where she found a parking place just as the first stars began to force their way through the kaleidoscope of sunset. Here she climbed out of the car and slammed the door, feeling as if her lungs had been frozen since she walked out of the gym; as if she had not taken a breath for moments, for hours, for years. She stepped onto the sand and struck out along it, the shouts and whoops of the evening surfers wheeling around her as surely as the calls of the sea birds overhead. The waves crashed against the shore, curving inland with their perfect, continuous right break, over and over, over and over, breathing in and breathing out, angry and beautiful and endless and with nothing to apologise for, for they simply were.

It wasn't until she'd reached the lagoon that Kathryn gulped a full lungful of air, a harsh gasping intake that burned in her throat and wracked her chest. She stood there, feeling herself shake with an emotion she could not and had no desire to comprehend. She opened and closed her fists, taking a hold of this thing as if she could shake it by the throat until it was forever still.

At length the tremors stopped. Kathryn shut her eyes and then opened them again, tipping her head back to watch the cosmos gradually stud the sky with stars. What distances the spaces between those lights represented, she thought. What voids, that were in themselves such a magnitude of lack that not even loss could take hold between them. What she wouldn't give for that abject nothingness to fill her here and now. But all that was echoing in her empty places were B'Elanna's words. They ricocheted around her head, over and over in different timbres but with the same sharp edges, and the worst thing was that the words were not strangers. They reverberated not only through recent minutes but also through distant years, and not only in B'Elanna's voice but in her own as well. It was a voice that she had spent years learning to live with, to push into the background, but now here it was louder than ever, as fresh as if the thought was new.

This is your fault.

You did this.

This is your fault.

Kathryn clenched her jaw, staring at the water at her feet, at her uncertain reflection in the gathering dark, as if the woman floating there could tell her the secret behind making oneself anew. Something in her was cracking open and she could not afford to let it. What was sealed behind that wall was too great to let out and this fissure in her heart was threatening everything she had built on the level ground she had convinced herself stood in front of it. She couldn't fall apart. She never fell apart, not even when the world itself was falling apart around her.

There must be a way of solving B'Elanna's predicament. Kathryn refused to believe there was nothing she could do to help her, to change this outcome. Whatever it took, she'd find a way. A scholarship out of town, perhaps, a long way away? Perhaps Owen could help on that score. Kathryn wondered what B'Elanna's ambitions were, and realised with shame that she had never asked. Chakotay would know, of course. He would have-

All he can see is you.

She put her hands up to her eyes, pushing her fingers over her lids until colours sparked against them, but still those words lingered in her mind. Was that true? It wasn't, was it? The girl herself had pointed out that Chakotay was simply naturally selfless. He'd go out of his way to help anyone who needed it. It wasn't her. It wasn't her.

If only he hadn't chosen that very evening to bring her his ex-girlfriend's coffee machine. On any other day, it would have been just another sweet gesture from a man whose first instinct was always to be kind. But coming so soon after the assault of B'Elanna's words and that last sting in their tail as she'd left, his sudden appearance bearing that gift had been too much. It had hit a nerve, one that had still been quivering when he'd casually dropped in that he was now without the girlfriend Kathryn had been deliberately picturing him with for weeks.

Not that this change altered anything, of course. Why should it?

All he can see is you.

She shook her head, dispelling the echo for what it was: a passing shot spoken by a disgruntled teenage girl.

It meant nothing at all to Kathryn that he was single, did it? Why would it?

Because you like him, came the unbidden honesty of her next thought. Because you like him more than you should, and because the idea that he might-

Kathryn took a breath, pushing the thought away. This was ridiculous. They worked together, that was all. She had Mark, she had her entire life mapped out before her with Mark. So she found Chakotay attractive. What woman wouldn't? It was nothing but a temporary weakness that she had to overcome. So she had noticed him, and perhaps he had noticed her. So what? It didn't mean anything other than the fact that perhaps, finally, finally, she was really and truly moving on. Part of her was waking up, a part of her that had been dormant ever since her world had last fallen apart around her ears.

The fact that she was waking up now – well, that must be because she and Mark had decided on a date for the wedding. If that wasn't proof to all – her mother and sister included – that she had put the past behind her, then surely nothing would be.

Kathryn sighed. Above her, the stars were winning the sky, hinting at a future while standing surety for an enormity of history she could not comprehend. Her own future was waiting for her and she was determined not to jeopardise it any more than she would have willingly tainted B'Elanna's.

Chakotay was a colleague and she would treat him as such: a colleague, and nothing more. Coffee machine or no coffee machine.

[TBC]

Chapter Text

Ten tons of topsoil arrived the following week, accompanied by three tons of what Kathryn had assured Tom was 'well-rotted' manure, not that he'd know the difference if it hadn't been. To his surprise, she'd trusted him to take delivery of the whole lot alone.

"I have something else I have to do that morning," she said, as she'd told him when it would arrive. "I'll be on the end of a line if you need me. But you won't. You'll be fine. You can handle it."

Tom hadn't quite known what to say to that. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been trusted to do anything. It was possible it had never happened before at all. His father certainly wouldn't have dreamed of leaving his son in charge of unloading the dishwasher, let alone taking delivery of the thirteen tons of soil and fertilizer that would form the physical foundation of this major project.

He'd spent several sleepless nights worrying about somehow getting it wrong. Tom envisioned discovering too late that he'd accepted the wrong sort of dirt – what was topsoil, anyway? Was there also bottomsoil? If so, what was the difference? How would he be able to tell? – and he had trawled the Internet looking for hints. According to Kathryn, first the soil and manure would be delivered, and then the whole area would need a rotorvator to work it over. After that they could start the real work of building the garden, although Kathryn had yet to finalise exactly what that would entail. She'd confided to Tom that she was still hoping to receive input from the local community, although to him that seemed to be a dwindling hope.

Now, finally, Tom's day of reckoning was here. The deliveries were due to arrive at 7am, but he'd been at the site since five, unable to sleep anyway and wanting to be present just in case the trucks arrived early. They hadn't, which had meant standing around waiting for two hours. But at least he'd been able to make himself plenty of coffee. The coffee machine had appeared, unmentioned by Kathryn, a week ago. Since then it had rarely been out of use. Tom clutched a fresh mug of it now as he watched the third load of soil being dumped in the corner he'd specified. There was something satisfying about watching the huge cascade of earth falling from the truck into the exact area he had indicated. The driver hadn't even batted an eyelid when Tom had appeared in his hardhat and started issuing instructions, as if questioning Tom's authority on this matter hadn't even entered his mind at all. It was a good feeling. As if he'd done something right for a change…

"This is all such a massive waste of time."

The voice came from somewhere just south of his shoulder. Tom turned to find B'Elanna Torres standing beside him, watching the trucks' progress with a grim look on her face. It was the first time since his stilted apology several weeks ago that they had spoken, not to mention the first time she had instigated any form of communication at all. Tom wasn't sure what to say. He wanted to defend the project but also didn't want to fracture this fragile moment of progress. She was still the most gorgeous girl he'd ever seen in real life. Not that she seemed to know or care.

"You don't think maybe you could give it a chance?" he suggested. "Maybe if more people were willing to do that, it wouldn't be the waste of time everyone's assuming it will be."

"No, I mean –" Torres shook her head impatiently, making a sound in her throat, "it's literally a waste of time. A garden, here? It's just going to die. Where's the water for it supposed to come from? Maybe up in Pasadena they haven't noticed that California has hardly had any rain for the last six years – maybe up there there's some kind of private reservoir that never runs dry, or El Nino turned things around – but here, we're already pretty screwed without trying to build a garden that's going to take water we don't have for ourselves, let alone for a bunch of plants."

Tom opened his mouth and then shut it again. This wasn't something he'd thought about, although he couldn't believe that Kathryn hadn't. "I guess we'll have to put in plants that don't use much water," he said.

Torres gave him a withering look. "Great, so you're going to plant a load of cacti? Hooray for us, getting our own doorstep desert. Aren't we lucky."

"Well then – what do you suggest?" he asked.

"Me?" she asked, looking a little taken aback at the question, as if she wasn't used to anyone asking her opinion on anything. Tom knew the feeling.

"Yeah. If a garden's a dumb idea, what's a better one? If you can think of something, you should talk to Kathryn about it. She's only gone with a garden because it's what she knows and no one else around here seems to be interested in making any other suggestions. But if someone comes up with something better, she'll listen. I know she will."

B'Elanna's face took on a steely glare as she stared out across the wasteland to where the final truck was now spreading its load. "Like you'll get me talking to her again. No thanks."

Tom frowned. "Kathryn's all right, you know. If you gave her a chance-" He stopped, seeing the glint of anger in B'Elanna's eyes and unwilling to lose her now. "Anyway, I think-"

"It's not that I think a garden's a totally bad idea," Torres said, in a rush. "I just can't see it working here. Not without some plan to provide water. Like, from somewhere other than a reservoir or the sky."

"But where else would you get water from?"

"The way I see it," Torres said, uncrossing her arms and reaching out to twine her fingers around the metal fence in front of them, "the best way of getting what you haven't got is to make it out of something you've got a lot of that you don't need."

Tom stared at her. He wondered whether she'd just started talking a different language. At his silence, B'Elanna looked at him and rolled her eyes at the blank look on his face.

"You think backwards. You look at what you have too much of, and you say, okay, well, I don't need that, but I do need this. So what do I have to do to that to make it into this? Like…" she cast about for an example. "I don't know, say you have a whole load of-"

Her words were drowned out by the noise of an engine rumbling into the street behind them. With it came the stench of rotting refuse. It was trash collection day. The two teens turned to watch as the bright-jacketed workers jumped out of their rig to drag another plethora of sacks from the side of the road, flinging them into the back of the stinking truck.

"Like a whole load of rotting food," B'Elanna shouted over the noise, nodding her head at the truck as it continued on its way. "You say, hey, we've got way too much food waste. But what we need is water. So how can I make the food waste into water? How can we turn what we've got into what we need?"

Tom shrugged, perplexed. "How would you?"

Torres shook her head. The glare had gone, though, replaced by a thoughtful look. "How the hell would I know? I guess you'd need to construct some sort of filtered compactor. But it'd probably need some chemical reaction, too. And then you'd have to remove that chemical from the water to make it safe. But I bet you could do it. There must be loads of water that just ends up in landfill because it's trapped inside half a rotting mango or a loaf of old bread. There must be a way of reclaiming it."

The dumper turned a corner, rattling away in a haze of noise and stench. Tom watched as B'Elanna's eyes stayed fixed on the space it had left. He could almost see the cogs turning in her head.

"What do you want to do?" he asked. "When you graduate high school, I mean?"

Torres glanced at him with a look that managed to be amused and bitter at the same time. "That's sweet."

"What is?"

"That you think I'm going to graduate high school."

"Come on," Tom protested. "You're smart. Anyone can see that."

B'Elanna shrugged. "Since when did that mean anything in the real world?"

Tom was silent for a moment. "If I could do anything in the world that I wanted, I'd want to be a pilot," he said, quietly. "I'd fly things that no one has ever flown before, faster than anyone has ever flown before. I'd go out to the edge of the atmosphere and every time I did no one down here would be sure that I'd come back in one piece. But I'd know. Because I'd be the best damn pilot anyone's ever seen."

Torres was watching him. Just for a second, Tom thought she might actually understand what he was saying, even though he'd never voiced that particular dream aloud before.

"I'd want to invent things," she said, then. "Amazing things. Things that would change the world. Made out of metal, maybe. Like your planes. If I built planes, I'd build the best damn planes anyone had ever seen. I'd look up and I'd see them flying overhead, and I'd think, I built that. Me. If you flew one of my planes, Tom, you'd always know you were coming back to earth in one piece."

It was the first time she'd called him by his name, and it made him smile. Tom hadn't even been sure she'd known what it was. Something across the site caught his eye. One of the drivers was waving him over: the delivery was done.

"You'd like to make things better," Tom said, as he moved past B'Elanna and headed for the gate. "So does Kathryn. Maybe that's something you two have in common."

Tom headed out over the newly poured earth. It was dry under his feet. He turned mid-stride.

"Waste food into water," he called back to her, over the wind picking up across the square. "I bet you could do it. I bet you could make it work, B'Elanna Torres. And then this place wouldn't be a massive waste of time. Would it?"

[TBC]

Chapter Text

Mark left for Europe a few days after their friends and family had received an official 'Save the Date' email. They had set the wedding for the end of September. Phoebe was not impressed.

"It's only three months away," Kathryn's sister pointed out, when they next met up for coffee. "Seriously, how long have you two been engaged? What's the sudden rush? Don't tell me you're pregnant?"

"No, I am not pregnant, and it's not a rush," Kathryn told her, feeling yet another fight in the air and keen to avoid it. "We just decided that leaving it another year was ridiculous."

"We?" asked Phoebe. "Are you sure that shouldn't be 'he'? As far as I can make out, you've never been in much of a hurry to actually seal the deal."

"I've just been busy, that's all."

"Okay," said Phoebe, dryly. "And right now you've got all the time in the world, which is why you've decided to give yourself just three months to organise a wedding."

"Do we have to do this every time the subject of Mark and me comes up?" Kathryn asked, exasperated. "I know that for some reason, he doesn't fit whatever ridiculous ideal you have in your head for the kind of man I should be with. But he's a good man, and he's the man I've chosen to spend the rest of my life with. That should be enough for you to at least try to like him. Sooner or later you're just going to have to accept that I love him, Phoebe."

"I've never said you don't love Mark," Phoebe told her, softly. "I just don't think it's the right type of love, Kathryn. And that might be worse than not loving him at all."

"All right," Kathryn said. "Either we change the subject, or I leave, because I am not having this conversation again. Which is it going to be?"

Phoebe shook her head. "Fine. Here's a new subject for you: What are you going to wear to Owen's benefit gala? Aren't you giving the pre-dinner address?"

"I haven't even really thought about it," Kathryn said. "I'll probably just wear my blue Armani."

"What, again?"

"What's wrong with it?"

Phoebe shrugged. "Nothing, it's beautiful. You look gorgeous in it. I just thought you might fancy a change."

"I'm not made of money, Phoebe. And I've got a wedding to pay for."

Her sister raised her eyebrows. "I've got a great idea. Blow the wedding stash on a new dress. Much better use of funds. Something vintage, maybe. I've always thought you'd look amazing in Versace. That auburn hair is very Titian."

Kathryn gritted her teeth. "I thought we'd agreed to change the subject."

Phoebe held up her hands. "I did! You're the one that mentioned the wedding again, not me."

Kathryn couldn't find a way to argue with that.

Later, as they parted ways outside the café door, Phoebe hugged her tightly. "I just want you to feel alive again," she said. "And I do get it. I do. Mark's safe. What he offers you is safe, and after everything you've been through I understand how attractive that must be-"

"Phoebe. Don't-"

"But I want you to be with someone who makes all your nerve endings tingle at once. Someone who makes your heart hiccup and your knees weak. With the best will in the world, however good a man he is, you can't tell me that's ever been Mark."

Kathryn pulled away. "What I have with Mark is quieter, that's all. Love doesn't always come accompanied by fireworks. It's naïve and foolish to think it does. You read too many teen romances growing up."

"No, I didn't," Phoebe told her. "I had an older sister who fell for the perfect man who cared about the same things as she did. I saw how in love they were and it was more beautiful than any stupid teen romance I could have read at that age. It made me want that and I kept looking until I found it. I just want you to have that again, Kathryn. You have such a capacity to love. I don't want your heart to stay locked away for the rest of your life just because you're afraid of being hurt like that again."

Kathryn stared at her sister, hard. "'Just because'?"

Phoebe shook her head. "That didn't sound right. I just meant-"

"I know what you meant, Phoebe," said Kathryn. "And you don't know a damn thing about it."

A few days later, Kathryn and Tom spent a hot, tiring Sunday tilling the soil. She'd thought about asking Chakotay to help – if not personally, then to find a couple of willing or at least semi-willing volunteers from his squad – but decided against it. As if her own edict to herself in the wake of her altercation with B'Elanna hadn't been enough, her latest argument with Phoebe had given her extra pause. She couldn't pretend that the last time her heart had 'hiccupped' had been through anything her fiancé had done. So she'd kept her distance, trying to make sure she wasn't in the office when Chakotay was in the gym. When they did end up overlapping, she'd kept their interactions as brief as possible. Chakotay didn't seem to have noticed, which was a relief. His indifference reassured her that she'd managed to hide her involuntary attraction and also that B'Elanna's bitter parting words held no truth in reality.

Besides, as she told Tom, hard work never hurt anybody. He grumbled and groaned to begin with as she showed him how to use the machinery, although from his subsequent efforts this seemed to be mostly for show. Now, Kathryn watched him on the opposite side of the site as they slowly worked towards each other, and found herself impressed with how Tom had thrown himself into the task. In fact, Tom had seemed more invested in the project as a whole since the day she'd left him in charge of the topsoil deliveries, which made her think that what he needed to bring out his potential wasn't more management, but more responsibility. She made a note to point this out to Owen the next time she had the opportunity.

As they worked, the square took on the look of a ploughed field, dark and fertile. After today it would be ready for planting. The question was, how and with what? She still hadn't finalised her designs, primarily because she hadn't wanted the garden to be solely to her design in the first place. Kathryn had kept hoping that regular work on the site would bring in more spectators of the sort that had surrounded the still-standing fence when they'd torn up the concrete, but even that interest had dwindled. She couldn't believe the lack of interest was simply indifference. It made her wonder what other bullying tactics the local gang had used to keep the residents in check.

That train of thought led her back to B'Elanna Torres, which in turn flooded her with a wash of guilt and anxiety that had become a familiar part of her thoughts ever since that night. The girl's predicament and what could be done about it had become a preoccupation so great that several times even Mark had noticed during their transatlantic Skype video calls. Kathryn always told him that she was fine and simply preoccupied with wedding plans.

This, though easily believable, was an outright lie, which in itself was another source of guilt, compounded by the fact that every time she did actually try to begin thinking about their wedding day, something in her put up a wall. It was the scale of the thing that she was shying away from. She'd have been quite happy with a quick and quiet civil ceremony followed by a wedding breakfast for family only, but Mark had other intentions.

"We'll only do this once, Kath," he'd said. "It doesn't have to be too fancy, but let's make it a party that all our friends can come to, at least."

He looked so genuinely happy every time the wedding was mentioned that she couldn't voice her fears that their ideas of what was 'too fancy' were distinctly different.

Once the wedding was out of the way, she kept telling herself, once they were married, everything would be fine. Nothing would be that different really, would it? They'd be the same couple they had been for years. It was just one day and there really was no reason why it shouldn't be as big as Mark wanted.

So why couldn't she just knuckle down and organise it?

"Please tell me we've finished," begged Tom's breathless voice, beside her. She turned to find him red-faced and sweaty, leaning over the handle of his stilled tiller.

Kathryn smiled, pushing her sunglasses up into her hair and surveying the site. "We've finished. Good work, Tom. Doesn't it look great?"

He scanned the bare earth and shrugged a little, back in the realms of teenage contrariness. "Whatever floats your boat, I guess." The minute the words were out of his mouth, a look of horror flashed across Tom's face. He stood bolt upright. "Oh God. I'm sorry. That just came out."

She smiled slightly, aware that it was probably a little lopsided as the pulse of guilt briefly flared into something else – something hotter and heavier and even more painful. "It's all right."

"I just didn't-"

"Tom," she said, softly. "Really. It's all right. Come on, we're done here. Help me get these rotavators inside, and we'll get ourselves a cold drink."

They returned to her office and Kathryn broke out two cans of Coke from the small refrigerator she'd added to the room a couple of days before. She went to stand in front of one of her design boards as they drank in silence for a few moments.

"Kathryn," Tom began, hesitantly.

She turned, steeling herself. "Yes?"

He took a deep breath. "Can I show you something? It's something B'Elanna's been working on. I think it's brilliant, and I've told her that she should show you herself, but she won't. For some reason she thinks you'll just tell her to sling it, but I know you won't, especially not once you've seen it. And you'll know what to do with it next. So will you take a look?"

Kathryn blinked as his quick words flew towards her, both surprised and relieved that the conversation had taken a distinctly different turn to the one she had been expecting.

"B'Elanna?" she asked.

Tom nodded. "B'Elanna Torres. You know." He grimaced. "She's the girl I yelled at when-"

"Yes," Kathryn said, with a frown. "Yes, I know B'Elanna. Tom. You know Coach Chakotay told you to stay away from her."

"We've just been talking, that's all," Tom said, defensively. "That's not against the law, is it?"

"No, but Tom-"

"Please, just look at what she's been working on," he pleaded.

"All right," Kathryn said. "Show me."

Tom went to his desk and opened a drawer, pulling out a few sheets of paper, which he spread out as Kathryn moved to his side.

"What on earth is it?" Kathryn asked, looking at the pencilled outlines and scrawled notes.

"That day that the topsoil was delivered, we got talking," Tom explained. "She was saying that the garden would never survive because there isn't enough water. Then she came up with this amazing idea, that there's a lot of water lost in waste food."

Kathryn looked up from deciphering a note about varying filtration.

"We were just standing there, talking, and she comes out with this thought that there must be a way of reclaiming it, instead of dumping it all in landfill," Tom went on. "So I told her that I bet she could work out how. I didn't really expect her to do it. But she has, or at least she's begun to. Look!"

For a fraction of a second, Kathryn was torn between looking back down at the schematics and studying Tom's earnest face as he looked at B'Elanna's work. His eyes were lit with something that she recognised. It was a recognition that twisted her heart painfully enough to bring a shock of tears to her eyes. Because just then it occurred to Kathryn that Tom was probably the same age that Justin had been when they had first met, and she remembered being on the receiving end of looks like that many times. It had always made her nerve endings tingle and her heart skip a beat, and-

Kathryn swallowed and blinked, turning back to the papers before them. It took her a moment to speak, which told her that Phoebe's lectures, coupled with Tom's unintentionally insensitive verbal slip out there on the site, had wounded her more than she'd realised. She pushed it all away, forcing herself to concentrate, cursing Phoebe for making her think of things she had set aside years before.

"B'Elanna came up with this?"

"Yes!"

Kathryn turned the plans around. They were surprisingly detailed. "How does she know about these chemical reactions? And these filters – are these her own designs?"

"Yeah. And she's good at chemistry. Seems to me she's good at everything. And she said she'd been researching stuff in the school library, trying to see how it could work. She says she can't get any further. But I don't want her to give up, Kathryn. I don't know anything about this stuff, but there's got to be a way to make it work, right? She can't give up. Look at what she can do. It's not right that a loser like me can get into college when she's not even sure she'll graduate High School."

Kathryn looked up. "You're not a loser, Tom. Don't think that way."

He shrugged. "Fine. Whatever. Just please tell me you know someone who can do something about this."

"Leave it with me. OK?" Kathryn smiled. "I'll do my best."

The grin that split Tom's face was complete and joyful. "I knew you would! Thank you."

"Now I think you should go home, have a shower, and take the rest of the day off. You've earned it."

"Thanks. I will," he said, gathering up the schematics and putting them back in his desk. "Are you staying?"

"Not for long," she said, returning to her own desk, dropping her empty Coke in the trashcan as she went. "I've just got a few loose ends to tie up, then I think I'll head off, too."

Once Tom had left, Kathryn sat at her desk for a long time, simply absorbing the quiet of the building and sorting out her thoughts. Then she checked over the rotavators and called the hire company to let them know they could be collected the following day.

She could have left after that. But instead, Kathryn went to Tom's desk and retrieved B'Elanna's designs, taking them back to her own workstation. Sitting down again, she studied the schematics, thinking.

[TBC]

Chapter Text

She was asleep.

Chakotay stood in the doorway of the office. Inside, Kathryn Janeway was slumped across her desk, her head cushioned against her arms. He wasn't quite sure what to do. It was already late and he knew he couldn't leave her there – from the angle of her neck she was already going to have one hell of a crick when she woke. Yet he was hesitant about waking her – indeed, about entering her part of the building at all. Since the day he'd given her Annika's coffee maker she'd seemed to have been avoiding him. Chakotay had the sense that in doing so he'd over-stepped somehow and as a result he'd backed off, unwilling to make her uncomfortable in her place of work.

He hadn't expected her to be here on a Sunday, certainly not this late. He'd passed earlier, seen the newly turned earth and surmised that she and Tom must have been working. There had been some forms he'd left in the gym that he needed to collect for Monday morning – applications for B'Elanna's first league bout – but he'd deliberately left it until now, wanting to be sure the place would be empty.

But it wasn't.

She was asleep.

Despite himself, he watched her for a moment. No wonder she'd succumbed – from the state of her jeans and shirt and the skin of her bare arms she'd been working like the devil all day. The depth of her dedication to this project had astonished him since day one, but he found himself even more surprised by her fiancé. Here was Kathryn on a Sunday night and he couldn't imagine she'd actually intended to stay so late. Hadn't she been missed? Hadn't Mark tried to call her – Chakotay knew from experience that the ring tone on her cell was loud enough to wake the dead. She'd apologised the first time he'd been with her when it rang, explaining that it had to be that loud as she frequently missed calls if they came through when she was on site.

The thought gave him an idea. He took out his own phone and scrolled through to her contact, thumb hovering over her name on the screen. Then he realised how ridiculous he was being and put the phone back in his pocket.

He knocked on the door, three hard raps. "Kathryn?"

Nothing. She didn't even stir.

He crossed to her desk, speaking louder still. "Kathryn?"

Still nothing.

Chakotay rested his hand on her shoulder, squeezing slightly. "Kathryn?"

She stirred at last, a frown creasing her forehead before she blinked. Chakotay stepped back, putting his hands in his pockets as she sat up. He saw the wince as she straightened her neck. Kathryn rubbed one hand over her eyes and blinked up at him blearily.

"Chakotay?"

"Hi," he said.

She frowned again, glancing around. "What time is it?"

"Almost ten. I didn't want you to sleep there all night."

"Ten?" she repeated, appalled.

"You've been out for a while, huh?"

She massaged her neck and gave a rueful, throaty hiccup of laughter. "Yes. What an idiot."

He smiled, squashing the urge to offer her help with her sore neck. "Not at all. You're just exhausted. Looks like you've moved a mountain today."

Kathryn sighed. "Yes, we're finally getting somewhere. Although it won't mean a thing if I don't start planting soon. The weeds will take over before I have time to blink." She pushed herself out of her chair, running a hand through her hair with a sigh. "Coffee. I need coffee. Will you join me? I know you don't drink it much…"

Chakotay watched as she crossed to the machine. "You're not heading home?"

She flashed him a sudden smile. "There is always time," she said, with a laugh so unexpectedly impish that it sent something in his belly fluttering, "to have one for the road. Anyway, since you're here, you should see what I was looking at when I fell asleep. I was going to leave you a note about it anyway." Janeway waved a finger at the papers on her desk as she set the machine. "Did you know you have a budding engineer among your students?"

He moved closer to the desk and looked down at the sheets of paper on her desk. "Oh? Who?"

"B'Elanna Torres. Believe it or not, those are fledgling schematics for a system that reclaims water from waste food."

Chakotay glanced up at her, surprised. "B'Elanna did these?"

"Yes. She pointed out – absolutely correctly – that water would be an issue for any garden we built. Tom Paris challenged her to find a solution and that's what she came up with. Pretty ingenious, if you ask me."

It was. Chakotay picked up one of the sketches, taking a closer look as Kathryn finished their drinks and crossed back towards him.

"Well," he said. "I guess now I know why she hasn't been around much. But I suppose I can't complain if this is the result, can I?"

Kathryn handed him his coffee in silence. He glanced up to see an inscrutable look on her face as she raised her mug to her lips. For a second he thought it was guilt, but how could that be?

"Do you think it has any chance of working?" he asked, putting down one schematic and picking up another as he took a mouthful of coffee.

Kathryn tilted her head to one side. "I'd like to believe it could. I certainly believe it deserves consideration by people who could take it further. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. There's a charity gala coming up in two weeks. It's being held by my benefactor," she gestured around the office. "He's the reason I'm here, really – him and the other donors who'll be there. I'll be making an address about our progress. I really think B'Elanna should present her ideas at the event. The sort of investors that will be there are always looking for this sort of opportunity. Chakotay, it could open so many doors for her."

Chakotay smiled, shaking his head as he looked at her.

"What?" she asked.

"I've been looking for a way to get B'Elanna Torres motivated to use that brain of hers ever since I met her. I thought that maybe boxing was the answer," he said. "But here you are coming up with something I'd never even realised she was interested in. And to think I almost threw you out when you told me you wanted this space."

Kathryn was staring into her mug again, that same peculiar look on her face. "It had nothing to do with me. She came up with it herself, and if anyone else had a hand in it, it was Tom. But I want to help her, Chakotay. It's clear that she has so much potential. She just needs… the right kind of chance. If that's what this place can offer her, then even if the garden doesn't last it'll have been worth all the effort. So – do you think she'd do it?"

"A presentation at this gala? You can always ask."

Kathryn grimaced. "I was rather hoping you'd do that. She doesn't have the highest regard for me. I doubt she'd listen to anything I had to say at this point."

Chakotay frowned. "Oh? Has something happened I should know about?"

Kathryn sighed, putting down her mug. She looked as if she were debating something with herself. "She told me a little while ago that she didn't want me here," Kathryn said carefully. "That I'd made things difficult. That I'd… been a distraction. And even if it isn't true, it made me aware that I should tread carefully here. This isn't my territory, I understand that."

Chakotay watched her for a moment, seeing the uncomfortable cast of her shoulders. "Is this… Kathryn, is this why you've been avoiding me recently?"

She looked surprised. "I didn't think you'd notice. And I wasn't avoiding you, per se… But what B'Elanna said made me realise I should probably set some parameters for working here."

He raised an eyebrow. "'Parameters'?"

Kathryn shrugged. "The first time I talked to you about sharing this space, I told you I'd be here during the day and it would be yours in the evenings. But that started to slide. I started to encroach on your space, on your time. I've just reminded myself of what we agreed to in the first place, that's all."

Chakotay smiled. "Kathryn, having you here hasn't been a burden. The opposite is true, in fact." He looked around at the walls, at the colourful ideas pinned all over them. "It's been uplifting to see someone create a vision for this place where others see only something barren, something hopeless. I thought I was the only one. You feel like an ally and I've appreciated having that."

He looked back to find her smiling too. "Well, you've more than returned the favour, Chakotay. There have been many times that I've felt as if I'm trying to do this alone. You changed that. Seeing your passion for those kids, for their futures… It's a very special thing. Which brings me back to B'Elanna." She indicated the sketches on her desk. "This can't go to waste, Chakotay. Will you talk to her? Tell her I'll help her if she wants - but she'll have to ask me."

Chakotay nodded. "I can tell you now that she won't feel comfortable in a room full of the sort of people I can imagine will be at this gala of yours."

"I can understand that. That's why you should attend too. You can offer her a familiar face as support and, in fact, I've been meaning to suggest it anyway. If you could find it in you to say a few words to the masses, it'd be a great help. Local input from someone who knows the area and its challenges – it'll show just how much progress we've made."

It wasn't Chakotay's idea of an ideal evening, but how could he refuse? "All right," he said. "Let me know when and where and what sort of thing you want me to say." Chakotay put down his empty mug, taking one last look at B'Elanna's schematics. "I should go. I've got to be in school early tomorrow."

"I'm sorry for keeping you."

He smiled. "You didn't. I wanted to be here."

She smiled back and they looked at each other for just a second too long. They both looked away at the same moment.

"I'm collecting trees tomorrow," Kathryn declared hurriedly, as she grabbed her purse and keys and followed him out.

"Trees?"

She nodded. "Peach, persimmon and apple, five of each. I have to start somewhere, so I thought – an orchard. What do you think?"

[TBC]

Chapter Text

Kathryn hired a truck and took Tom with her to pick up the saplings. The trees were three years old and already budding, the pink and white apple blossom fragrant even in the lower temperatures of early morning.

"So we're going to have fruit this year?" Tom asked, as he drove them back to Maywood against the morning rush hour. "That's pretty cool."

"Well, maybe from the persimmon, if it's happy where it's set," Kathryn told him, "but it'll probably be another two years before the apples and peaches produce properly."

Tom turned to look at her with a shake of his head. "I don't know how you do that."

"Do what?"

"How you look so far ahead. How you're not be bothered by everything just… taking so long."

She laughed a little. "I guess I've learned patience. A garden takes seven years to mature from planting. That's when you can step back and think, 'Okay, I did a good job with this one.' Relax before that and you might as well just not bother."

Tom puffed out his cheeks. "I can't even imagine two months ahead and you're talking about years as if it's nothing. What happens if you get to the end of those seven years and the garden just hasn't worked? That's like… massive. What do you do then?"

She smiled. "Things never work out quite how you expect. All you can do is put in the hard work, do your best to steer things in the right direction and deal with the problems when they arise." Kathryn paused. "That's nature, and that's life. It's not nothing, but it's not impossible to deal with, either. We're all in the same boat, after all."

Tom sighed. "Sometimes I wish I had a crystal ball to tell me how everything works out. Like – whether I make anything out of my life or if I just stay this mess I've always been."

Kathryn watched him for a moment, noting the frown settling across his forehead. "If we knew how everything worked out, what would be the point of working toward anything at all? You're going to be fine. Just keep on doing what you're doing."

He snorted and raised his eyebrows. "Don't let my dad hear you say that."

"Listen," she said, leaning over and batting him gently on the arm. "You know what your dad's going to hear me say? He's going to hear me say that you're the best assistant I could have possibly hoped for, that you're the hardest worker I've had with me in all the years I've been landscaping, that I couldn't do what I'm doing without you and that I feel lucky you came along. That's what he's going to hear from me, Tom. Because it's true. All right?"

Tom didn't say anything to that. Kathryn didn't prompt him. She leaned back against the truck's wide seat and looked out of the window. They drove in silence, the azure blue of the Californian sky a vivid contrast against the dusty, car-clogged streets. She wondered how it seemed to him, this melding of the natural and the man-made, how closely they coexisted and yet how fragile that connection remained. Did he even notice this dichotomy? She tried to remember how she would have thought of such things at his age, whether, in fact, she had thought about them at all, or if life had been too full of other concerns. Without consciously seeking to Kathryn found herself back in the summer after she had turned eighteen: Justin's face, laughing at her from where he lay on his back on the deck of-

She blinked, fracturing the memory, sending it back into the unstirred darkness where it belonged.

They planted the saplings along the inner perimeter, alternating between species.

"Aren't they a bit close to the fence?" Tom asked, breathless as they puddled in the first peach with the sun in the elevens above them. It was taking an age to plant each tree, especially since they had to carry buckets of water from the gym every time they needed to fill the holes they'd dug.

"We're going to espalier them," Kathryn told him, just as breathless as they heaved the peach from its bag and between them, manoeuvred it into the waiting trench. "We'll train the branches flat against the fence and use it as a support."

"It'll hide that nasty bit of metal, too," said a voice behind them.

Kathryn and Tom turned to find a man with a wide, age-spotted face and long, straggling blonde hair and whiskers standing behind them. He was dressed in a shabby coat too hot for the weather and had both hands were gripped around the handle of a full bucket of water.

"Been watching you two beavering away out here," he said, as Kathryn's gaze dropped to the bucket. "I live over there, see," he nodded to the opposite corner of the square. "I kept thinking you were going to give up on whatever it is you're up to down here sooner or later, but you haven't so far. So I thought maybe you could use another pair of hands. Or at least an extra bucket."

Kathryn smiled. "That's very kind of you, Mr-?"

"Neelix," he said, putting down the bucket with an exaggerated sigh. "That's a fine peach tree you've got there."

Kathryn nodded, resting her hands on her hips. "It is. You know trees, Mr Neelix?"

He came closer, stroking one of the tree's leaves between his thumb and forefinger. "Oh yes. I worked in the orchards. For a while, anyway. Until they – well, until they laid me off. Then I travelled around a bit – here and there on the railroads. You know, just wherever there was work – which there wasn't much of, if I tell the God's honest truth. And now…well, now I'm here."

Kathryn smiled again. "You sound like just the sort of man we need, Mr. Neelix. How would you like to help look after these trees? I need someone I can rely on and who knows what they're doing."

"No mister," Mr Neelix said, contemplating the trees still waiting to find their homes. "Just Neelix. And you can trust your trees to me, ma'am. They'll be the best looked after trees in all of Los Angeles county, I can tell you that much for nothing."

Kathryn laughed. "Well, thank you. I have absolutely no trouble believing that for a moment. But I don't want you to think of them as my trees. Think of them as your trees."

He looked at her quizzically. "My trees?"

Kathryn shrugged, raising her hands in an expansive gesture. "Your trees, your neighbour's trees. Everyone's trees."

Neelix shuffled from one foot to the other. "Never had my own trees before."

She patted him on the shoulder. "Get used to it, Mr. Neelix. If I have anything to do with it, they'll be here to stay."

Neelix smiled so broadly that his whiskers fairly quivered. "Then we'd better get on with settling them in. Don't want those roots drying in the mid-day sun now, do we?"

Kathryn stepped back, holding her arm out to encourage him to go ahead. She glanced up and shared a look with Tom. They smiled at each other, and her assistant nodded.

Yes, she thought. It's a start.

[TBC]

Chapter Text

Chakotay got out of his car and paused for a moment, leaning on the open door. The churned patch of earth outside the gym was no longer entirely bare. A series of small trees had been planted against the wire fence on three sides of the square, leaving the final side – the one with the metal gate – empty. As he watched, a small man with a dusty coat slung over one arm pulled the gate shut behind him before fitting a key to the lock and turning it. Chakotay looked around, but of Kathryn Janeway and Tom Paris there was no sign.

The strange little man headed in the direction of the gym, the key still in his hand. Chakotay pushed the door of the car shut and at the noise the man looked over, a beaming grin breaking out across his face.

"Ah ha!" he said. "Mr Chakotay, there you are."

"Hello," said Chakotay. "I'm sorry - do we know each other?"

"Not yet, no, I don't suppose so," said the man, coming to a halt. "I know who you are because I've seen you coming and going, but there's no reason at all for you to know me. I'm Neelix. I live over there-" he twitched his head in the direction of the block of apartments opposite, "and I have taken on the honour of looking after Ms Janeway's trees."

"I see," said Chakotay, with a smile. He held out his hand, which Neelix shook just a little too vigorously. "I'm glad she's managed to persuade another local to come aboard. I think she was beginning to fear no one else would."

Neelix beamed again. "Well, she's really something, isn't she, Mr Chakotay? And what she's trying to do here – well, it just seems to me she and young Tom deserve all the help they can get."

"Can't disagree with you on that score, Mr Neelix."

"No mister," Neelix said, breezily. "Just Neelix. Anyway, I don't want to keep you. Could you take the key and leave it on Ms Janeway's desk? I just wanted to do one last check of the trees and I told her I'd make sure it got back to the proper place."

Chakotay took the key with another smile. "Of course. I'll be here for another hour or two if you need it again this evening."

Neelix had already started back across the road, stepping off the sidewalk with a wave of one hand. "Oh no, they'll be fine until tomorrow now," he said. "I'm off to spread the word that help is needed here. See you again, Mr Chakotay."

"No mister," Chakotay called after him. "It's just Chakotay."

Neelix turned back briefly with another beaming smile. "There, you see," he said. "Friends already."

Chakotay was still smiling to himself when he walked through the gym doors. They were unlocked, and the faint sound of gloves against leather told him someone was there early. He glanced down the far end of the hallway, but he could see through the glass of the office door that Janeway had already gone.

In the gym, B'Elanna was putting her favourite punch bag through its paces. He stopped and considered her stance for a few moments, pocketing the key Neelix had given him with a mental note not to forget to put it on Kathryn's desk later.

"Your head level is good," he said aloud, "but you're still putting too much weight on your left heel. If you don't level that out you'll strain your back against a real opponent. It'll take you too long to adjust before returning a strike."

B'Elanna stopped, turning to face him but not looking him in the eye.

"Hey," Chakotay said. "Nice to see you. It's been a while."

The girl shrugged and turned back to the mat. "I've been here, though."

"I know."

"Haven't broken our deal."

"Not technically, no. But being your coach implies that at some point, I do actually coach you. Hard to do that when you make sure you're not here at the same time as me."

Torres blew out a breath and threw a punch. "Someone been telling tales?"

Chakotay dropped his training bag and moved closer. "Who would do that?"

"How about a white chick from out of town?" B'Elanna flicked him a look then, before throwing another punch. "Just a wild guess – Coach."

Chakotay caught the bag before she could execute an off-centre uppercut. "Actually, yes - Ms Janeway has been talking to me about you."

B'Elanna danced backwards on the soles of her feet, a tight, unhappy look on her face. "Right. I knew it. Look-"

"She showed me some sketches you'd done. For a water reclamation unit." Chakotay raised an eyebrow. "Pretty impressive stuff, Torres. You could have told me, you know."

B'Elanna opened her mouth and then shut it again, a frown creasing her brow. "Told you what?"

"That you needed time to work on your designs. What did you think, that I'd drop you because of that? B'Elanna, what you've been working on has extraordinary merit, not to mention amazing potential. I can completely understand that it's been taking up training time."

B'Elanna met his eye with another frown. "Janeway said that? That that's what I'd been doing?"

Chakotay shrugged. "What did you think she'd said?"

The girl started untying her hands, giving up when she reached forward to help. "Don't know. She's not… my biggest fan."

He smiled grimly. "Funny. She said pretty much the same thing about you."

She pulled her hands back and freed them from her gloves. "Yeah, well. What were you talking about me at all for?"

"She wants you to present your idea to an audience. There's a benefit gala evening coming up and there'll be people there who might be interested in taking it further. It's an amazing opportunity, B'Elanna."

The girl raised her eyebrows. "Yeah? So why isn't she asking me herself?"

"She thought it'd be better coming from me."

B'Elanna shook her head. "I can't do it."

"You can."

"I can't. You know what it'll be like. Dumb women sitting around in dresses their fat old husbands spent more on than my mom makes in six months. What am I supposed to say to people like that? I don't even know how to make the thing work, I just… have theories, that's all. It's all made up from stuff I read on the Internet or in books. That's it."

"And where you do think everyone else's ideas come from? B'Elanna, come on – even if nothing comes of this, think of where it could lead. Just your ingenuity in thinking of it shows you've got the kind of potential that people with the wherewithal can use."

"Yeah? And what if I don't want to be used?" B'Elanna said, throwing her hands up. "Huh? You ever think about that, Coach? Maybe I've already had enough of being used. How about that?"

She dropped her hands and turned away. Chakotay watched her back, frowning.

"B'Elanna – is there something you need to tell me? Something you need help with? Because you know I'll always do what I can. Whatever it is."

There was a moment of silence. He watched the lines of tension ripple down the girl's back and it saddened him that there could be so much weight on the shoulders of one so young. Then B'Elanna turned around with a sigh.

"Nothing. There's nothing wrong. Everything's fine."

He didn't believe her, but what could he do? He couldn't force the truth out of her. He doubted anyone could.

"Then why don't you just give it a try?" he suggested. "Just talk to Kathryn. Give her a chance, B'Elanna. I don't know why you have such an issue with her, but she's worth that. Isn't she? She's at least worth that."

B'Elanna shook her head. "You're as bad as Tom."

"What?"

"With him it's some weird hero worship thing, but with you-" The girl quirked an eyebrow. "You do know she's getting married, right?"

"Sorry?"

"In two and a half months. Tom told me."

"What's this got to do with me?"

B'Elanna crossed her arms. "Just making sure you knew, that's all."

"What difference does it make to you what I know or don't know about Ms Janeway?" Chakotay said, struggling to tamp down on his growing annoyance.

The girl tilted her head and clenched her jaw. "Makes no difference to me – Coach."

Chakotay shook his head. "I'd forgotten what you can be like, B'Elanna. I thought you were trying to lose the attitude."

She laughed and dropped her arms. "What me? What would be the point of that? So I can be the best behaved of all the bums waiting in line in the soup kitchen?"

"What's happened?" he asked, with blunt frustration. "This isn't you. I know it isn't. You were doing so well, B'Elanna – in school and here. Out of the blue you come up with this fantastic idea. There's the chance of doing something with it – someone who's got enough faith in you to give you a stage for that – and you won't take it. Why? What's holding you back? Tell me and I'll do whatever I can. You know that."

Something flickered across Torres' face, the briefest glimmer of naked fear. Then it vanished again beneath the weight of her sullen brow. "All right," she said. "I'll think about it."

"You'll think about what?"

"Doing what she wants. Talking to her. If that's what you want."

He scrubbed a hand across his face in frustration. "It's not about what I want, B'Elanna, or about what Kathryn Janeway wants. It's-"

She held up her hands. "Yeah. I know. It's about my future, right? My wonderful, rosy future. I'll think about it."

Chakotay shrugged. "All right. Well, I guess I can't ask for more than that."

"Nope."

"Except… you can acknowledge that it's a good thing she's trying to do. Can't you?"

B'Elanna sighed. Then she nodded, reluctantly. "Yeah. It is pretty good of her, I guess."

Chakotay nodded. "All right. Come on, then. Put your gloves back on and we'll spar."

She bit her lip. "I can't be long. I've got to be out of here in under an hour."

He sighed. "B'Elanna-"

"I know. I know. But I'm here now, aren't I? So stop moaning at me and let's get on with it, Coach. But be warned. I'm pretty riled right now."

Chakotay raised an eyebrow at her as he crossed to his bag and pulled out his gloves. "You think you can take me?"

Torres grinned as she wrenched her gloves back on. "Oh, I know I can."

He grinned back, jerking his chin at the waiting ring. "All right then. Feel free to give it your best shot."

Torres waited until he was already out of breath to hit him hardest.

"Tom says her fiancé's a dick," she said, out of nowhere.

The statement blindsided him enough to let her get a shot in while he was off balance. She darted in and clipped his jaw.

"He can't understand why she's going through with it," she added, dancing backwards as he recovered.

"Torres," Chakotay warned, jabbing back.

"Her family doesn't want her to stay with him either," B'Elanna added, ducking out of his way with nimble ease.

"B'Elanna – drop it."

"Tom reckons she just hasn't met the right guy," Torres went on, landing a smart right hook that sent him reeling backwards.

He gritted his teeth. "B'Elanna-"

"It's a pretty sad story, really," the girl went on, dancing back in for another jab, not even slightly out of breath. "She was engaged before and he died. Tom says she was there. Couldn't-" she jabbed, "save-" and jabbed, "him-" and jabbed. "That's gotta be pretty tough, right?"

Chakotay swung back towards her with a wrong-footed and clumsy uppercut, of which she took full advantage.

"Funny thing is, though," B'Elanna added, smashing his ribs with a smart left hook, "Tom reckons she's been really happy over the past few weeks. Like, happier than he's seen her in years."

"Makes sense to me," Chakotay managed through gritted teeth, parrying yet another blow but lurching backwards with the effort. "She's getting married in two and half months."

"Could be it," B'Elanna agreed, letting him swing and then plunging back again. "But Tom reckons it's this place. Actually," she added, with a pause before landing the final blow. "He says he mainly notices it when you're around."

She slammed another fist into his ribs and Chakotay found himself pitching backwards, crashing against the too-slack ropes of the too-old ring with his too-old-for-this-goddamn-shit back.

"Sorry, Coach," Torres said, standing in front of him. "Looks as if you're on the ropes."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

They put down turf next, laying it around the trees in a wide strip. Neelix had somehow pulled together a work party, three of his neighbours from the same block whom he delicately described as 'semi-retired'. Their enthusiasm didn't quite match Neelix's, at least at first, but their spirits were vastly improved when Tom brought them all fresh coffee.

"Looks like your magic might finally be working," he muttered to Kathryn quietly, as they all took a caffeine break in the warming morning air.

Kathryn grinned. "Not my doing. I'd say we're lucky Neelix decided to get involved. He obviously knows his way around this area. Listen – I'll tell him this too – but make sure to leave the side with no trees free of turf too, OK?"

Tom glanced behind them at the wire wall that housed the gate. "Why? What have you got planned?"

Kathryn shrugged. "Not sure yet. It may be nothing. But we'll wait and see."

Tom raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Ah ha. I see. Like that is it? Magic and mystery. It's all go when Kathryn Janeway's around."

She laughed at this absurdity and then glanced up to see him smiling at her. "What?"

He shrugged. "It's just nice, that's all."

"What is?"

"Seeing you happy."

Kathryn was surprised. She hadn't been aware Tom took any notice of her emotional state.

Tom smiled again and took another mouthful of coffee. "I've noticed it now and then lately. It's good. I like to see you this way. You deserve it."

She looked down into her coffee mug, oddly touched and not quite sure how to respond. "Achieving something – getting somewhere – always helps, doesn't it?" She looked up at him again, raising an eyebrow. "I get the sense you might have noticed that lately, too."

Tom nodded, looking around at the site. It was taking on shape now, form where before there had only been space. "Yeah," he said, quietly. "It's this place. I didn't really get where you were coming from at first, but now – now I do. I want it to work, and you know what? I really think it might."

Kathryn smiled. "Well, there you go," she said. "Now I guess you know what's been making me happy lately."

He turned to her and she was again surprised, this time by the serious look in Tom's eye. "It's not just this place though, is it? I mean, that's part of it… but it's not just work that's making you smile at the moment. Is it?"

She stared at him, trying to work out what he meant. "What do you mean?"

Tom regarded her for another second and then shook his head with a smile, gulping the last of his coffee. "Well… I figure planning the wedding probably has something to do with it too, right?"

"Oh!" Kathryn said and then stopped, realising that, not for the first time, she'd completely forgotten about her coming 'big day'. Then she remembered that she should have called the caterer she and Mark had been discussing when they'd last Skyped. She should have done that two days ago. It would take a miracle for them to be available as it was and every day she delayed made it ever more likely that they'd booked solid. She sighed and then frowned, feeling a headache beginning to settle across her brow.

Tom was still watching her. "Everything all right?" he asked.

"Yes, fine," she said, waving a hand and settling her empty mug back on the tray. "Just something you reminded me about. I'll sort it out later. Let's get back to work before Neelix and his friends think we're terrible slackers."

The grass looked wonderful beneath the trees, even in its just-laid state. It was early afternoon by the time they'd finished. The six of them stood back and regarded their work with pride.

"It's going to take a lot of looking after, Neelix, especially at first," Kathryn said. "Think you're up to organising a rota? I can get you a site key cut so you'll have access at any time."

Neelix beamed. "Leave it to me, Ms Janeway. We'll take care of it. Won't we?" he said, addressing his neighbours. There was a general murmuring of tired but encouragingly enthusiastic assent.

There came the sound of soft footsteps scuffing across the bare earth behind them. Kathryn turned to see a tall Latino man making his way in their direction. He looked at least seventy, his face lined with the passage of years, his hair burning silver in the shine from the afternoon sun. His face was stern and Kathryn felt her heart sank. She braced herself for a fight, although what she could have done to provoke one she wasn't sure. She offered a smile but raised her chin, waiting for the onslaught.

"Hello sir," she said, when he was close enough. "What can I-"

He cut her off, speaking in rapid Spanish as he gesticulated at the trees and the turf behind them.

Kathryn held up her hands, trying to stem the flow. "I'm sorry," she said, "But please slow down, I can't-"

He paused for a moment, eyeing her, then started again just as rapidly, this time accompanying his speech with shapes that he sketched in the air with his hands, low to the ground.

"Tom? Neelix?" Kathryn asked. "Any of you? My Spanish isn't up to scratch-"

"He's saying that benches would look good beneath the trees," volunteered another voice, emanating from behind him. "You know, for people to sit on."

B'Elanna Torres appeared from the man's shadow, dressed in her customary skinny jeans and black t-shirt, her hands deep in her pockets. She glanced up at the man, giving him a nod.

"He says he used to be a carpenter. He's offering to make them for you, if you can find him the wood to use. He still has his old tools, but he can't afford to buy the wood himself."

The man nodded and spoke again for another moment.

"Reclaimed would be best," B'Elanna translated. "Better for the environment to re-use old wood. Find him some hard wood that he can treat so that the benches will last a long time. The trees will grow over them. It will be beautiful, he says."

For a moment Kathryn could do nothing but smile. "That's a wonderful offer," she said, stepping forward and reaching out grasping the man's hand in sudden and abject gratitude. He finally smiled back as he clasped her hand in his and B'Elanna translated her words into Spanish for him. "And such a beautiful idea," Kathryn added. "Thank you so much, Mr-?"

"Franco," he said, and then added in English, "I am Franco. And you are?"

"Mucho gusto, Franco," Kathryn smiled. "Me llamo Kathryn. Um… lo siento si mi español sea malo…"

Franco laughed, a low, rumbling growl. "We get by, eh? I-" he waved his hand in the direction of the gate and then back towards the group again, before squiggling a line in the air with one finger and raising an eyebrow at B'Elanna. "El diseño?"

"I think he's going to do some designs," B'Elanna supplied.

"OK," Kathryn said, as Franco began to walk back across the earth towards the gate. "Wonderful. Thank you!" He waved a hand over his head in goodbye.

There was a brief silence as the group watched Franco leave.

"Thank you, B'Elanna," Kathryn said, after a moment. "It was good of you to help."

The girl shrugged. "Next time I won't be here."

"No, but as Franco said – we'll get by."

B'Elanna looked past her at the trees and the grass. "He's right. Benches will look good."

"They will," Kathryn agreed. "Tom, think you can take on finding the wood for Franco to use?"

Tom nodded. "Sure. I'll get on it first thing tomorrow."

"I think we're going to take a break, Ms Janeway," Neelix said. "Is that all right?"

"Of course it is. Thank you all, so much," she said, addressing the group. "I'm so glad you were here – we couldn't have done it without you all. Actually, we really wouldn't have wanted to do it without you."

"We'll be back," Neelix told her, "you can be sure of that."

"Kathryn, there are a few calls I need to take for the deliveries we're expecting tomorrow. I'm going to head inside," Tom said. "I'll organise us some lunch, too. B'Elanna? Shall I get something for you?"

B'Elanna looked surprised. "Oh – you don't have to do that."

"That depends on what brought you here today and whether you're staying around for a while," Kathryn pointed out, turning to pick up two of the spades the group had been using. "If you're staying, you've got to eat."

B'Elanna shrugged. "Coach said I should talk to you. About some gala thing. I've got a free class this period, so…"

Kathryn straightened up and pushed the hair out of her eyes, glancing over at Tom. "Get B'Elanna something too," she told him.

Tom grinned and took the tools from her. "Don't get too excited," he said to Torres. "We live on Subway. Anything you don't eat?"

B'Elanna shrugged. "I'm not fussy."

Tom waggled his eyebrows at her as he passed. "There's hope for me yet, then."

Kathryn shook her head but couldn't help smiling as she and B'Elanna watched him leave.

"He's such an idiot," the girl muttered.

"Aren't they all?" Kathryn asked and then smiled again as B'Elanna turned towards her with a surprised look on her face. "Tom's one of the good ones, though. His heart's in the right place. And he's got a lot of faith in you."

B'Elanna dropped her head and pushed the toe of one battered trainer into the dirt. "Yeah. Dunno why. He doesn't even know me."

Kathryn looked at the top of the girl's dark head for a second, then began to collect the rest of the tools. A moment later Torres began to help.

"I'm keeping room for your water reclamation unit," Kathryn told her, nodding across the site to the empty length of fence. "I'm not sure how much room you need, but I thought it best to err on the side of caution, or at least try to. Think that'll be enough space?"

Torres turned to look at the area Kathryn had indicated, a frown settling on her face. "But it's just an idea," she said. "It's nothing. It probably won't even work. And even if it did, how would I build it? I don't even know where to start."

Janeway leaned her weight on one of the spades, its blade pushing down into the earth. "Well, let's start with the assumption that it will work and that we can build it. Then it's just a case of working out how to get there."

B'Elanna smirked. "Positive thinking? That's your big master plan?"

"Call it determination, call it positive thinking, call it pig-headedness – call it whatever you like," said Kathryn. "But add whatever it is to coffee and together they've got me through a lot. I choose to believe that you've hit on a brilliant idea that just needs application, funding and maybe a champion or two… or three. You've already got the latter in Tom, Chakotay and me. So how about you and I have a go at finding a way of sorting out the first two before we just throw in the towel, OK?"

B'Elanna regarded her for a moment before nodding.

"Good," said Kathryn, straightening up and tugging the spade out of the ground. "Then let's get to it. We've got two weeks to get a decent presentation together. We'll start by talking to an old friend of mine. It's not strictly his specialism, but he's a scientist so he'll probably have some idea of where to begin. And then-"

"Ms Janeway," B'Elanna interrupted.

Kathryn stopped. "Yes?"

An awkward look passed through the girl's face. She shrugged. "Why are you putting time into this? Into… me? After-" she broke off. "Well. You know."

Kathryn rested a hand on B'Elanna's shoulder. "We all make mistakes," she said, softly. "I know that as well as anyone. You pointed out a couple of my most recent to me."

The girl shifted uncomfortably. "I didn't mean-"

"The point is," Kathryn told her, "we all end up in a hole at some point or other. I'm not saying I know the way out; I'm just saying we're in this one together. All right?"

B'Elanna nodded. "All right."

"Good. Now let's see if Tom's found us some lunch, shall we?"

[TBC]

Chapter Text

The following two weeks passed far faster than B'Elanna would have liked.

Kathryn introduced her to Professor Tuvok, an astrophysicist who seemed to have lived and worked all over the place but was now based in California, working as an advisor on some sci-fi show made by Paramount.

"It's an odd choice for him," Janeway had confided as she drove them to the office he worked out of the first time they'd met. "Tuvok is… well, I guess he's a little different. You'll see."

B'Elanna had seen, almost immediately. Tuvok didn't smile during their entire meeting. He and Kathryn didn't hug when they arrived, despite the fact that Janeway had told her she'd known him for most of her adult life. Small talk was not his forte. But he was a brilliant researcher with a diverse background, and moreover, he knew how to make complicated scientific theory quickly accessible to the masses. That alone made him perfect for what they had to try to do now, and it wasn't as if B'Elanna was interested in small talk anyway, was it? Tuvok gave her reading lists and then, when he discovered she couldn't access the texts he'd recommended, he provided them out of his own personal library. There was plenty that she didn't understand, but she was a quick learner and absorbed everything he explained like a sponge.

She began to see that her idea really could work.

The main problem was time. B'Elanna studied every spare minute she had, but between school, her boxing training, working with Kathryn to build the proposal and… well, everything else she had to do, she barely had a moment to breathe. She didn't care if most of her schoolwork slipped, but she couldn't cut classes without Chakotay finding out. If he did, their deal would be broken and she wouldn't get to fight a real bout. She thought about dropping out of the boxing club completely, but how would she explain that to him? Sure, he thought that she was spending all that extra time just on the water reclamation project, but that lie would only get her so far. She was still petrified that he'd find out about her connection with the Crims, and the more she stretched the truth the more likely it was he'd see through it. Besides, she didn't want to let him down, or at least not any more than she already had.

Then there was Tom. He was always there, on the periphery. She knew that sooner or later he was going to ask her out on an actual date and B'Elanna didn't know what she was going to say when he did. He wasn't the sort of boy she usually had anything to do with. And he really was an idiot, a lot of the time. But there was something about him that she couldn't just ignore, something that made her smile in class when one of his quips popped into her head. Something that made her heart jump whenever they bumped into each other in the gym. And he did have faith in her, just as Kathryn had said - a bewildering, overwhelming amount.

Not that B'Elanna had time for a boyfriend. How would that work, alongside everything else? And how exactly would she explain the fact that she was absent pretty much every night? Although recently she'd been cutting into the time she'd spent dealing. Not enough for the cash to drop, because that would be tantamount to signing a death warrant – either hers, or Chakotay's. But she arrived at her patch late and left early as often as she could get away with, which so far had been at least every other night. B'Elanna knew she had to be careful. The Crims had eyes everywhere. They owned everywhere. But she wanted to make her invention work. She could make it work, she was sure of it, if only she knew a little more, learned a little more, had just a little more time…

When she slept, she dreamed of a future formed from metal she had forged with her own hands. She wandered the corridors of her own mind, tracing her fingers along walls inscribed with scientific formulae; actions and reactions; angles and weights; outlines of starships like the ones in Tuvok's television show.

Once she even found Tom's face amid the medley. Her mind had made him indelible in flat planes of silver, his expression caught in the moment he'd looked back at her that day across that wind-swept, barren earth.

I bet you can do it. I bet you can make it work, B'Elanna Torres.

"Kathryn?"

She looked up as Tom's voice echoed to her from the gym's corridor. Janeway was sitting at her desk, trying to get through the site's monthly accounts – not her favourite exercise but one that needed attention or it would get dangerously out of hand. In front of her was a seemingly endless pile of invoices, receipts and orders. There seemed to be more every day, if not every hour.

"Yes?" she called back.

"Can you come out here for a minute?"

"Give me a second…" Kathryn made a mark against the figure she'd just been examining and got up, feeling the familiar ache in her left shoulder and wishing there was some permanent way of healing it.

Tom was standing at the door of the gym, holding it open so that a shaft of bright sunlight fell past him and into the dim corridor. He'd been working on the site, helping Neelix and his friends fit some edging along the border of the new turf. A week in and it was holding its own, thank goodness, although that was only thanks to the tending rota Neelix had developed.

Tom pushed the door open wider as Kathryn approached. Beyond it, idling at the kerb, was a battered and dusty blue Chevy pickup that looked as if it hadn't been new since the mid-60s. A young woman stood next to the driver's door, dressed in cowboy boots, pale blue jeans and a salmon pink sweater. Her hair was close-cropped and very fair. She offered Kathryn a smile that seemed as placid as her general demeanour.

"What is it?" Kathryn asked Tom, as she smiled back.

"Kes – this is Kathryn," Tom told the woman. "Kathryn, this is Kes. She's got something you're going to want to see…"

The two women shook hands. "I've just moved here," Kes said. "From Kentucky. My family has a farm there. I love it, but… well, I guess I just wanted a change. An adventure."

"I can understand that," Kathryn told her with a smile, wondering what this had to do with her. She glanced at Tom, who only shrugged.

Kes headed for the truck's tailgate as she spoke. "Back home all the produce we eat is home-grown. I tried to tell my folks that I probably wouldn't even have a garden of my own, but Mom still insisted I bring stuff with me…" she dropped the gate, gesturing to the truck's bed.

Kathryn looked. Inside were rows and rows of plants.

"Tomatoes, beans, squash, corn, eggplant and sweet peppers," Kes reeled off. "I'm having trouble finding somewhere to live, and if I don't get these in the ground soon, they'll bolt or just die off. I took them to a thrift store a few blocks over this morning and someone told me about this place and that you might want them. Can you take them? I'd hate them to go to waste."

Kathryn looked up at Tom, amazed. He grinned back. "Told you," he said. "You were talking about maybe putting in a vegetable patch, right? Here's one ready to go!"

"Kes," Kathryn began, slightly overwhelmed. "I'm not sure what to say…"

The young woman gave another placid smile. "I know what my grandmomma would say. She'd say some things are meant to be and those things will always find their way to each other. She'd say we shouldn't question it too much when they do. I didn't want to bring them, but I did, and look what I've found because of it. So maybe she's right."

Kathryn laughed slightly. "Well, I'm happy to go along with that – in this instance, at least. Thank you, Kes. You've made a decision I was struggling over much easier."

"You're welcome. And if you don't mind… I'd like to come back to visit? See how the plants are doing?"

Kathryn smiled. "Kes – we'd love you to join us just whenever you can spare the time," she said. "I guess you could say this is our own adventure, of sorts. Frankly, we can use all the help we can get. And you're sure to meet some new people into the bargain."

Kes smiled, looking past the pickup to the garden beyond. "That sounds like a good trade-off to me," she said. "Do you want to unload them now?"

When Chakotay arrived that evening, there was only one figure still working in the early evening sunshine. He smiled as he watched Kathryn kneeling amid a row of plants that hadn't been there the last time he'd visited. Crossing to the gate he saw her look up as the old hinges grated against each other. She smiled but didn't stop what she was doing.

Chakotay looked around as he crossed the site towards her. It was remarkable what a difference just a week or so had made. Sure, most of the place was still bare earth, but it had shape now. There was form amid the young branches of the fruit trees and the fragile blades of grass. The area where Kathryn knelt had been raked into long furrows, along which were standing many plants in pots, ready to be placed into the waiting ground. It looked like something, where before there had been nothing.

"Hi," he said, as he reached Kathryn's side and crouched down beside her. "Looks as if you've been abandoned."

She smiled. "Hi. No, everyone had had a long day. I was planning to leave the rest until tomorrow… but I thought I'd just get to the end of this row. Some of these tomatoes are almost ready to flower."

"Where did all these come from?" Chakotay asked, looking around at the rows of maturing plants. "Don't tell me you've been raising these in your spare time? Don't you ever sleep?"

"They were a gift. From someone who wanted them to have a good home and had heard about this place."

He shook his head. "'If you build it, they will come'" he quoted. "Never thought that one would prove to be true, especially here."

Kathryn laughed, the sound mingling perfectly with the fading sunlight as she patted in another tomato. "I never would have thought of you as an aficionado of 80s feel-good movies!"

"No?" he said, softly, smiling. "Then how do you think of me?"

She turned her head to look at him, a flash of surprise crossing her face. A spark seemed to pass between them, unexpected and electric. For a moment it seemed to Chakotay that Kathryn was on the verge of saying something – something unguarded, something that at that moment he would have given his annual salary to hear.

Say it, he thought. Whatever it is, just say it. Give me a sign…

But instead she bit back whatever had been on the tip of her tongue and flashed him a bright smile. "Do you know anything about tomatoes?"

He shook his head. "Not really."

"They were the first thing I learned to grow when I was a child. My father was away a lot when I was growing up, but that was one thing that he and I did together. We grew them from seed and I found it so tedious, especially at first, just waiting for something to happen. And then, once they had grown, hoping that they wouldn't get eaten by some bug or other, hoping that the fruit would set and ripen. But somewhere along the way it became so satisfying to watch them sprout and grow. I'm glad we have some here. Perhaps some of the local children will have the same experience as I did all those years ago."

Chakotay smiled. "I hope your father will come and visit you here and see this place. I'm sure it would be wonderful for him to see what those tomatoes he planted with you when you were a child eventually became."

Kathryn was looking away from him, but he saw her face freeze into a look of such painful sadness that he felt his stomach lurch.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Kathryn – did I say something-?"

She glanced at him, though she didn't meet his eye, pulling one side of her mouth into an unhappy smile. "My father died, I'm afraid," she said. "He won't be coming to visit me, or this place."

"I'm sorry."

Kathryn smiled again, that same, tight unhappy expression that was all the more tortuous for its contrast to how radiant her face always seemed to him when she smiled. "Not your fault."

Her hand was resting on the tilled soil and before he'd even decided what he was going to do Chakotay had reached out and covered it with his own. "Still," he said, quietly. "I am sorry."

She looked at their hands, entwined amidst the dirt.

"It's so long ago," she said. "He's been gone more than half my life now. And yet still I sometimes wake up and I've forgotten. How is that even possible? Especially given the way that-" she stopped, staring out across the garden, shaking her head.

Chakotay didn't push her. He wondered for a moment if she was still thinking about her father, or about the fiancé she had seen die. He hoped her father, at least, had passed on peacefully. Something in him gave a sharp, painful pulse at the thought of this woman enduring something so terrible once, let alone twice.

A moment later Kathryn cleared her throat and pulled her hand away from his. "Anyway. These tomatoes won't plant themselves. I'm determined to get this row in before I leave."

Chakotay nodded. "Then show me what to do and I'll help."

"Oh, you don't have to do that. Don't you want to go and punch a bag before your students turn up?"

He got up and moved around her to the next plant in line. "I can give that a miss for a day. Besides," he added, "maybe it's the company, but right now I'm feeling pretty peaceful."

She cast him an assessing look for a moment. "Could be the tomatoes."

Chakotay laughed slightly. "Could be."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

B'Elanna had been so caught up in preparing her presentation that the biggest issue involved with her attendance didn't actually occur to her until the day before.

The gala was being held in the ballroom of some insanely huge mansion in Montecito. It was due to start at 7pm on Saturday evening, with the guests being given drinks and canapés while they listened to the presentations. Kathryn had told her that with these things, dinner usually came first to ensure that the guests were sufficiently lubricated, but in this case she had convinced Owen Paris to swap the order of events, as she wanted everyone in attendance to have all their wits about them. Dinner, then, would be served at around eight. After that there would be an auction of promises. The rest of the evening would be made up of whatever constituted a good time for the sort of people who knew what to do with themselves in a mansion in Montecito. Santa Barbara was at least two hours away from Maywood. Even if B'Elanna only stuck around long enough to deliver her talk and eat something before jumping straight in her car to drive back home, she'd be cutting it fine to get back to the neighbourhood much before 10pm.

She was supposed to be on her assigned corner by then.

Over the past weeks, the reality that existed at the sharpest edges of her life had softened, become indistinct. Somehow they had become the dream and this idea of hers –one that seemed to keep growing with her every thought - had become her true waking life. For the first time in her life, school was no longer a fight to be fought – Coach had prompted several of her other teachers to ask her about her ideas, and that interest had parsed, unexpectedly, into genuine interest and encouragement, not to mention the promise of extra credit if she could properly document her progress. Graduation seemed attainable for the first time, and not only that, a graduation with honours if only she could pull all of her grades up as well as in the sciences, technology and phys. ed. Her daily online sessions with Professor Tuvok – which often became debates about theory – were opening B'Elanna's mind, both to what was within her and the possibilities of the world at large. The future no longer seemed an amorphous mass of unhappy inevitabilities. There was positive possibility in her life where before there had been none.

B'Elanna was beginning to believe in herself and her abilities. Was that because people were listening to her? Because they were. Tuvok, despite their differences in age and experience, always focused completely on what she had to say and only offered opinions and suggestions once she was done. Or was this newly-found self-belief, this confidence that her ideas and what she had to say were not, in fact, a waste of time, instrumental in persuading people of exactly that?

Either way, B'Elanna felt herself clawing her way out of the hole she had found herself in. She certainly had no desire to go back down to its murky bottom, and would prefer to believe she was already no longer in it at all. She hadn't seen her cousin Emilio for weeks. Her brothers had told her several times that he'd called around to see her, but she was so rarely home that by the time she got the messages whatever he'd wanted was surely obsolete anyway. She'd gotten into the habit of switching off her phone when she wanted to study, which was constantly, and although she'd missed several calls that could have been from her cousin, he disposed of his phone so regularly that she never recognised the numbers. Text messages with the brief slogan of 'Call me' appeared once or twice. Sometimes she didn't feel like obeying such bald commands. Others she did as she was told only to find that the phone had already been burned.

The Crims, too, had been quiet of late. There had been a spate of inter-gang murders to the west of the county, rumours of rivals encroaching on their patch. The gang was busy elsewhere, it seemed, and perhaps they'd decided that worrying about a vegetable patch on their territory really wasn't worth the hassle when they had bigger, more violent fish to fry.

Anyway, B'Elanna had never actually missed dealing her stash, and she always made sure that the bike boys got every last cent when they came to collect for the gang. It seemed to B'Elanna that the Crims either didn't know about the time she'd taken back from them, or more likely just didn't care. They were still getting their money, after all. She was such small fry. Too small to bother with, surely.

B'Elanna couldn't get out of the gala, and anyway she didn't want to, not any more. She didn't want to waste all that work. And if there really was someone there who could make her idea a reality…

She'd be on her corner, she told herself. She'd just be a little later than usual, that's all. No biggie.

"Who?"

"Chakotay. I've told you about him before. He runs the boxing club here and he's been so much help in getting the garden going."

"And you're taking him to Owen's gala?"

Kathryn tried not to read any undertone into that question.

"He's going to be there with me as one of my guests, along with B'Elanna. Actually, if you want to talk literally, I think B'Elanna will be taking him. They're going to carpool for the evening. He's persuaded her to drive them both – I think it's a strategy to make sure she can't duck out at the last minute. He's got a knack for tactics like that."

Kathryn was sitting at the kitchen table in their home, having wolfed down a belated sandwich in anticipation of Mark's Skype call. The sun had set in California, the single light she'd left on over the workbench leaving the rest of the room in near darkness, though there was still enough to glint off the glass of ruby red Puglia she'd poured for herself. On Mark's side of the world, however, the day was in full swing. He was sitting in the window of his hotel room, a sunlit blue sky framing his head and shoulders as a bright breeze played with the muslin curtains behind him. She could hear distant waves breaking against the unseen beach.

"It's good of him to invest so much of his spare time."

"It is. It would have been so much harder without him. Although it's wonderful – more and more of the community are getting involved every day. This morning a woman who is originally from Mexico brought in six passion flowers as a gift, because she said she'd love to be able to see them growing as she did when she was a girl. On Saturday morning Chakotay and I are going to build a fence beside the vegetable patch to train them against. And Franco's sketches for the benches are just beautiful, I can't wait to see them in place. Tom's found some reclaimed white oak for him to use."

Mark smiled. "I'm glad it's going so well, Kath. I should never have doubted you. You're a wonder."

Kathryn smiled back. "Well, there's a long way to go yet. But I think the people are beginning to understand now. Word is spreading. Now we just have to get some investment and support for B'Elanna's invention, which makes the gala doubly important. To tell you the truth I don't feel as if I'm ready for it at all. I've spent so much time helping B'Elanna put her presentation together that I haven't even thought about what I'm going to say myself."

"Well, at least you've got this Chakotay to help."

"Yes – although I get the impression he's pretty reluctant, really. I think, if it were just up to him, he'd rather not attend at all."

Mark raised an eyebrow. "Who is it up to, then? If it's not up to him?"

"Well, I-" Kathryn began, and then stopped. "It is up to him, of course. But he wants to make sure he's there for B'Elanna and I asked him to speak, so he said yes."

Mark smiled again, although the gesture was small and he wasn't looking at her.

"Did you have a chance to look at the design for the table placements I sent you?" Kathryn asked, feeling suddenly compelled to change the subject. "I need to get them ordered in the next week or so. Let me know if you'd like something different."

Mark nodded. "They're lovely. If you're happy with them then I am too. I'm sorry you're having to do all this on your own," he added. "I promise that as soon as I'm back, I'll pitch in properly and pull my weight. And actually, that might be sooner than we thought."

Kathryn reached for her glass. "Oh?"

"Two of the lectures are looking a little iffy," he told her. "Security issues, I think. Anyway, if they cut the tour short I'll be able to come home sooner."

She smiled, resting her chin on the heel of one hand. "That would be nice. I miss you."

Mark smiled. "Do you? "

Kathryn paused with her glass at her lips. "Of course I do!"

"That's a relief." He shook his head. "I know I'm being pathetic, but it always seems as if you're so busy you might not have noticed I've even been gone. I hate to admit it, but it makes me irrationally nervous when you suddenly announce that you're taking suspiciously helpful men to evenings where I know you'll be the most stunning woman in the room."

Kathryn put her glass down. "Mark, trust me. You would find that evening as deathly boring as every other one I've dragged you along to, and the only person who could possibly think I look 'stunning' – you – is on the other side of the planet. Phoebe's been nagging me to buy a new dress, but I'll be damned if I'm spending money that can go towards the wedding."

"Ahh, Phoebe." Mark sighed. "How am I ever going to win your sister over? She doesn't like me, you know. She never has."

"Just ignore her," Kathryn advised. "And it isn't that she doesn't like you, it's just that she-"

"- doesn't think I'm good enough for her sister," Mark finished for her.

"Maybe something like that," she admitted with a smile. "But we both know that's just absurd. If anything, it's the other way around."

Mark smiled at her again. She felt his affection radiating through the screen, as if he were just across the table instead of three thousand miles and several continents away.

"I wish that were true."

"It is true!"

"Do me a favour, would you?" Mark asked, still smiling.

"Anything, as long as it's legal."

"This Chakotay of yours… Tell me he's happily married with a whole brood of children. Or better yet, tell me he's gay."

She felt something uncomfortable skate beneath her ribcage. "Mark-"

"I'm sorry," he said. "It's not that I don't trust you. Of course I do. I've never met anyone more trustworthy in my life. Ignore me. I'm just thousands of miles away and wishing that I wasn't."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

Saturday dawned bright and fresh. Chakotay had arranged to meet Kathryn at the garden at 9am so that they could fix up the fence along the inner border of the vegetable patch before she had to go off and prepare for the evening's events.

"Tom and I need to be there early to make sure everything for the presentations is in place," she explained as he held a fence post steady for her to swing a sledgehammer at. "And of course, there's all the usual absurdities to observe."

Chakotay raised an eyebrow, leaning back to a safe distance as she drove the post home with a resounding thwack. "Absurdities?"

"Oh," she said, breathing hard and waving one dusty hand as she rested on the sledgehammer for a moment. "Hair. Make-up. My dress is still with the seamstress; when I got it out earlier in the week I realised it needed a bit of attention. Do not," she added, wagging a finger at him as they moved on to the next post, "tell that to Phoebe, she'd have a field-day."

"Phoebe?" he asked.

"My sister," Kathryn explained as she wiped one hand across her left cheek, unwittingly leaving an absurdly endearing smear of dirt that Chakotay had no intention of telling her about. "She'll be there too so you'll meet her tonight – for your sins."

He laughed, hefting another post from the ground and sliding it into the hole they'd already dug. "Older or younger?" he asked.

"Younger, by five years. Bane of my childhood," she added, as Chakotay laughed again. "How about you? Any siblings?"

"One," he told her, as she smashed the sledgehammer home again. He felt the power from the blow reverberating up his forearms and thought, not for the first time, that Kathryn Janeway was stronger than she looked. "Sekaya. She lives with her family – she has a husband and two children – in New Mexico."

Kathryn straightened up again, taking a step back. "Sekaya," she repeated. "Another beautiful name. Your parents knew what they were about when they named their children. I remember the night I first met you and you told me yours. Chakotay." She shook her head. "I'd never heard anything like it. And now-" She stopped.

"Now?" Chakotay prompted.

Kathryn smiled. "Now I can't imagine a time when I didn't know it. Isn't it strange, how these things happen?"

He smiled back. "It is. To me that night seems both as if it were yesterday and years ago."

She stepped to the next hole and he took that as his cue to shift another fence post. "You were not impressed when you met me."

"Where do you get that idea?"

Kathryn tilted her head and did a passable impression of him as she said, "'For the record, lady, around here if a guy like that wants your bag, you give him your damn bag.' And then you made some comment about Rodeo Drive. Which was pretty snobbish, now I come to think of it…"

Chakotay laughed. "That was just the adrenaline talking," he said. "After all, I had just come to your rescue, hadn't I?"

"You had," she conceded. "Very chivalrous of you it was, too. Although I'm pretty sure I could have taken him myself if you'd given me another minute. And if I had… well, perhaps in the long run it would have been better all around…"

"But then we might never have met," he pointed out, holding the final fence post steady and jerking his chin to get her moving again.

"That's true," she agreed, as she readied the hammer for another swing. "You think that would have been a bad thing?"

"I think it would have been a very bad thing. And you're wrong, you know," he told her.

"About what?"

Chakotay straightened up, putting his hands on his hips with a smile. "I was extremely impressed, very quickly."

She smiled again, but this time it was one of her rarest – one of those ones that always seemed so unharnessed and so radiant that it made his heart stutter until every pulse pushed the air from his lungs. Before he realised what he was doing, Chakotay had stepped forward and raised one hand to her face to wipe the smudge of dirt from her cheek. Her eyes went wide with surprise as his fingers brushed over her skin. He remembered that first night, when he'd tried to catch her chin in his fingers to check the cut that had marred her face in exactly the same place. How she'd reared back, blue eyes flashing fire. This time she didn't rear back.

Isn't it strange, how these things happen?

"Dirt," he explained quietly, dropping his hand again.

Her mouth made an 'Oh' shape and Kathryn scrubbed a sleeve against her cheek. "Gone?" she asked.

Chakotay nodded. "Gone."

He turned away to look at the vegetable patch and as he did so he heard her let out a breath that almost seemed to stutter. Chakotay swallowed hard.

"You know, I think the tomatoes have grown even since you planted them a few days ago," he said. "They're obviously happy here."

"Yes," she agreed, "I think you're right on both counts." Kathryn brushed her hands off against her jeans and sighed. "Chakotay, look – I'm sorry but I don't think I'm going to have time to finish the fence today. I really need to get going."

He turned to face her again. "It's fine. We've got the bulk of it done – I can do the rest myself. You go."

"You don't have to do that," she said. "We can leave it for another time, until I can help. The passion flowers can stay in their pots for a while."

"It's fine," he told her. "Really, Kathryn. Go. Do what you need to do, I'm happy here."

She looked away, absently rubbing her cheek again. "All right. Thank you, Chakotay. Again. I always seem to be saying that, don't I?"

He smiled at her. "You are very welcome, Kathryn Janeway, each and every time you do."

"I don't think I can do this," B'Elanna said, her hands white on the steering wheel.

"Of course you can," said Chakotay. "We're almost there. I don't think it's going to be that hard to find. From the image on Google Maps it probably counts as its own continent."

She grimaced at the weak joke, keeping an eye on the 4x4 in her mirrors. It seemed intent on tailgating her grubby little runabout all the way to Montecito. "That's not what I meant, Coach."

"I know. I was ignoring the other thing, because you can't possibly mean it."

"I can, and I do." She glanced at the exit coming up. If she got off the freeway now she could loop back around and head straight back to Maywood. Her fingers hovered over the indicator.

"Don't even think about it," Chakotay warned her.

"Come on, Coach," B'Elanna groaned. "This was a damn stupid idea in the first place. I can't give a presentation in front of all those people. Let's just forget about it, all right? Let's just turn tail right now, and-"

"-and let Tom and Kathryn down?" Chakotay finished for her. "Because that's what you'd be doing if you duck out now, B'Elanna. Think of all the preparation they've both put into this. I know for a fact that Kathryn's persuaded a whole heap of new possible donors to attend on the basis of what you're bringing tonight."

"Really not helping," B'Elanna told him.

"You're going to be fine," he replied. "You've been over the presentation plenty of times. You've got notes, you've got the PowerPoint. I'll be there, Tom and Kathryn will be there. You can do this. All right?"

B'Elanna sighed and bit her lip. "All right."

"Good."

B'Elanna let the SatNav warble on about something for a moment, and then added, "I just wish I had something better to wear. I might as well have a flag over my head that reads, 'Poor Latina On A Fancy Night Out'."

She felt Chakotay glance her over, taking in the scoop-necked knee-length black dress B'Elanna had borrowed from a school friend. "It's fine – perfectly appropriate, I would have said."

B'Elanna snorted. "You do know that every other woman there is going to be wearing something that cost more than this car, right?"

Chakotay frowned. "I don't think so, actually. This morning Kathryn said she had to collect her outfit from being mended, which sounds pretty down to earth to me."

She glanced over at him. "Yeah, well. One person's down to earth is another's 'Holy-shit-didn't-I-see-that-on-Penelope-Cruz-at-the-Oscars-last-year?'" B'Elanna shrugged at the perplexed look he gave her. "Just saying, Coach. I think you'd better be prepared. Up to now you've only seen her on a building site and in a grubby gym. Don't want you tripping over your own tongue or anything, do we?"

"B'Elanna!" Chakotay sounded genuinely outraged, which almost made her laugh outright. "That's enough! You really do have a choice way with words, don't you? And I don't know where this idea you have about Ms Janeway and me has come from. Wasn't it you who pointed out she's getting married shortly? We're just friends, that's all. Nothing else."

"Yeah, yeah," B'Elanna said, leaning forward to check a street name and yanking the car into a sudden right turn that juddered them both in their seats. "But I gotta point out – she's getting married. She's not married yet. Right? Tick tock, Coach. Tick tock."

Chakotay said nothing for a moment, and then: "You've changed your tune. I thought you couldn't stand her?"

B'Elanna shrugged again. "You and Tom told me to give her a chance, and I did. And guess what? You were both right." She looked over to see him staring out of the window, a slight smile on his face. "Actually, maybe I should go ahead and warn her, too. You're looking pretty sharp yourself for an old guy. Why do you even own a tux, anyway?"

Chakotay shook his head, ignoring most of what she'd said and opting to address just the question. "My ex used to drag me to a lot of events where I needed one. Got sick of renting so I bought one instead. Waste of a month's salary that was."

B'Elanna grinned, focusing on the wide street ahead of her just as the SatNav's tinny voice spoke into the air.

'You have reached your destination. Destination is directly ahead.'

She stared through the windscreen. "Jesus Christ."

The house in front of them was bigger than her entire apartment block, not to mention the street it was built on. Ahead of them were two huge cast iron gates, wrought in a filigree style and flanked by high, thick walls of yellow sandstone. Beyond B'Elanna's fender the street turned into a neatly paved brick driveway that led through the gates and towards staggered landscaping that wove up an incline. It passed a marble-edged pond in which three fountains were spurting huge columns of water before curving around on itself in front of a massive double-step arrangement that led up to the main entrance.

"Okay," B'Elanna said, slowly. "I can just back up, right now. I can just turn around and-"

A knock on her window made her jump. She looked up to see a man in some sort of livery complete with a black peaked cap leaning down to look in at her. She wound down the window.

"Can I help you, ma'am?"

"We're here for the gala," Chakotay said, leaning over to speak before she had a chance to say no. "We have invitations…"

The doorman took the proffered cards and checked them with a smile. "Welcome, ma'am, sir. If you just continue through the gates and up to the door, a valet will take care of your car for you. Have a good evening."

"Thank you," Chakotay said, in the absence of B'Elanna being able to speak. "You have a good evening too."

They drove on through the gates in silence. There were lights burning everywhere, marking the edge of the driveway and turning the colours of twilight into something almost too ethereal to contemplate.

"Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas any more," B'Elanna muttered. "This is insane. Who the hell are these people?"

Ahead of them she could see other arrivals in better, bigger, cleaner cars, most of them with drivers who leapt out as they paused at the steps and opened the doors for their passengers. The women stepped out in unimaginable flurries of silk and colour, wearing shoes with heels longer than the span of B'Elanna's hand. When it was her turn to stop at the steps, a waiting valet dashed forward to open the driver's door. B'Elanna got out on shaky legs, horribly aware of just how ridiculous she and her battered jalopy must look amid all this finery.

The valet held out his hand for her keys. "Ma'am," he said.

"Oh, sure," she said, awkwardly, dropping them into his palm. "There you go…"

"Chakotay! B'Elanna!" The voice came from Tom Paris, who jogged down the stairs to greet them. He was also dressed in a tuxedo, which B'Elanna couldn't help but note made him look decidedly cute. Seeing him was an inordinate relief, a burst of welcome familiarity in the looking-glass world she felt she'd fallen into.

"I thought I'd come out and wait for you," he said, once he was closer. "Did you find us all right?"

"Are you kidding me right now?" she asked. "You could see this place from space with the naked eye."

Tom laughed, then turned to look up at the building behind him as if he hadn't really taken notice of it before. "I guess it is pretty big."

"You guess? I-" B'Elanna stopped and stared at him, a truly mind-blowing thought occurring to her. "Tom. Please tell me this isn't – this isn't your house?"

"Well - it's my mom and dad's," Tom said, with a shrug. "Come on – let me show you where the presentations are going to be. Work first, fun later, right?"

Chakotay began to walk up the steps, but B'Elanna was frozen to the spot. Tom smiled at her.

"It's just a house, B'Elanna," he said, holding out his arm for her to take. "Come on. Later, once all the big stuff is out of the way, I'll show you around, if you like."

B'Elanna slipped her hand into the crook of his arm, and as she did it occurred to her that while she'd been telling Chakotay to prepare himself, she'd neglected to do the same herself.

Inside, there was a string quartet playing beneath a glass chandelier in a domed room, the ceiling of which was so high that B'Elanna would have had to lie flat on her back and squint to make out all the detail in the Italianate decoration above their heads. Two staircases arched up either side to a mezzanine that curved with the walls, but Tom led them straight ahead, through the milling throng towards two large carved wooden doors, currently closed. He moved away from her side long enough to snag a glass of something fizzy, which he passed to Chakotay before grabbing two more from a different tray and passing one to her.

"These ones are virgin," he promised, off Chakotay's forbidding look.

She took Tom's arm again and he walked on, nodding thanks to one of the two men on either side of the doors as one of them stepped forward to open it. Beyond was a wide corridor with a wooden floor polished so fervently it could have served as a mirror. Two more large doors stood open onto what turned out to be a ballroom, half of which had been laid with circular tables and chairs. Wait staff were hurrying about, putting finishing touches here and there. At the far end a low stage had been erected, on which stood a podium and behind it, a projection screen. A man in black coat and tails was fiddling with a piece of equipment. With a churning nervousness, B'Elanna recognised the first slide of her presentation as it flashed up, slightly out of focus.

A woman was standing beside the man, her back to them as she looked up at the screen, issuing quiet instructions as the images slowly sharpened. She was wearing a pale blue gown formed from a mass of gossamer-thin layers of silk creating a floor-length full skirt that looked as if it belonged in the sort of fairytale where this house would make sense. Cinched at the waist, the bodice was tightly fitted, the silk falling in soft folds that left her shoulders bare. As they got closer, B'Elanna could see the diamante pins holding up the complicated pattern in her hair glinting in the light overhead.

If B'Elanna hadn't been expecting it, she'd never have recognised her. This look was a world away from muddy jeans and a t-shirt. She wondered if Chakotay had realised who it was yet.

"That's it!" said Kathryn Janeway, holding up one hand as the picture perfected itself on the screen. Then she turned and, seeing them coming, offered a bright smile.

Beside her, B'Elanna heard a sharp intake of breath. In the next second there was a clatter as Chakotay walked smack into one of the chairs and had to scrabble to right it, dropping his glass of champagne in the process.

"Told you," she whispered.

[TBC]

Chapter Text

Tom was waiting with B'Elanna. They were standing just outside the door nearest the stage, out of sight of the people who had now filled the seats around the tables. Kathryn had taken to the podium first, her clear voice calling order on the inevitable hubbub in the room as she'd spoken. She hadn't commanded the room's attention for long – Tom knew that Janeway didn't want to risk tiring their patience before B'Elanna's presentation – but what she'd said about the garden had been intriguing enough to catch the imagination of the audience. She'd introduced Chakotay, who was up there now. That meant there was less than five minutes before the girl standing beside Tom had to take his place.

He could see that B'Elanna was wound as tight as could be. Her hands were curled into fists as she watched Chakotay. Nerves weren't something he'd usually associate with her, but right now B'Elanna looked as if she were sinking beneath the weight of them. He hated to see her so anxious.

"Hey," Tom whispered, touching her arm lightly.

B'Elanna almost jumped out of her skin, jerking her head around to look at him.

"Sorry," he said. "Are you OK?"

"I don't think I can do this," she said, in a hoarse whisper. "I can't go up there. Look at them all! There are so many people."

"You'll be fine," he told her. "It'll be over before you know it, and then we can have some fun. OK?"

B'Elanna shook her head, backing away from the door slightly. In another moment he was sure she was going to turn and run. "I can't, Tom. I just can't."

Tom reached out and took her hand. "It's all right." He bit his lip, trying to work out what to do. They had just minutes before the stage would be empty. He looked out onto the floor, hoping to catch Kathryn's eye, but her attention was fixed on Chakotay. "OK. Look. If you really don't think you can do it… I'll do it for you."

B'Elanna blinked. She was squeezing his hand, hard. "What?"

"I'll say you've been taken ill, or had a family emergency, or something. Your notes are up there, right? And I've seen you do the presentation. So…" he took a deep breath. "I'll do it. I won't do it as well as you would – and most people out there think I'm a loser so they won't listen as well as if it were you speaking, but-"

"But?"

"But I don't want them not to hear it at all. Not after you've put so much work into it, B'E. Not when it's such a brilliant idea."

She stared at him. Out on the stage, Chakotay was winding up to introduce her. B'Elanna was still holding onto Tom's hand. "Tom-," she said, and stopped.

"Yes?"

B'Elanna shook her head. "I'll do it. I'll do the presentation."

Relief exploded in his chest. "Really?"

She took a deep breath and shrugged. "Can't have some scrawny white boy showing me up to his rich friends, can I?"

Tom couldn't help but laugh. "That sounds more like it."

Chakotay's voice carried her name to them from inside the room. "And now, I'll turn the stage over to B'Elanna Torres… Thank you for your attention, ladies and gentlemen, and enjoy your evening." His last words were followed by an enthusiastic wave of clapping.

"This is it, then," Tom said, quietly. "Knock 'em dead, B'Elanna Torres."

She let go of his hand and went to step out of the door. Then she paused. For a split second Tom thought she was going to change her mind again and make a run for it. B'Elanna turned, looking up at him. Her dark eyes were so beautiful, he thought. Then she quickly stepped closer, lifted herself up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his, just for a moment. Tom was so taken by surprise that he didn't have time to react.

"For luck," she whispered, as she pulled away just as quickly.

Tom watched her walking to the stage, surfing a fresh tide of clapping from the audience. He knew the grin on his face was so wide that he probably looked even more of an idiot than usual. He didn't care. Not even slightly.

B'Elanna got to the podium and looked up at her audience. He saw her take a deep breath. Then she smiled, and began to speak.

Chakotay watched B'Elanna's presentation with pride. She spoke clearly and concisely, punctuating her statements with supporting facts and using the slides to illustrate her ideas. Looking around the room, he could see that she was holding her audience's attention. Here and there pairs of glasses had been taken out and put on in order to better see the screen. Several seemed to be taking notes.

It made him a little emotional, actually, to see her speak so eloquently to such a room of people. When she'd landed on the doorstep of his gym more than a year earlier, his priority had been to channel her temper into something productive that would enable her to stay in school. He'd seen pretty quickly that B'Elanna had a potential beyond just graduating high school, although in their neighbourhood just that would be a considerable achievement. But it had taken a chance encounter with an idealistic woman and an unruly, privileged teenage boy to truly utilise it.

Chakotay glanced across the table. Kathryn was sitting opposite him, leaning back in her chair and watching B'Elanna with rapt attention. He was struck again – though not quite as hard as he'd been the first time he'd seen her this evening – by just how beautiful she was. Everything about her seemed to glow, as if she was lit from within. He watched for a second as she smiled at something B'Elanna said, the gesture creasing lines at the corner of her eyes.

He suddenly became aware that his attention had been noticed. Kathryn's sister was seated beside her, and Phoebe was watching him. He met her eye briefly and returned the slight smile she gave him. Kathryn had introduced them earlier, and he'd immediately formed two impressions. The first was that the younger Janeway sister had a decidedly mischievous air and the second was that he'd taken her by surprise, somehow. The latter of these things he couldn't fathom and she covered quickly with a host of genuinely interested questions about his work at the gym and his involvement with the project. Chakotay liked her, and got the feeling that she liked him. This should have been inconsequential – after all, it wasn't as if they were likely to meet again after this evening – but for some reason it pleased him.

B'Elanna concluded her presentation to a standing ovation. Chakotay stood, clapping hard. He felt a hand on his arm and looked down to find that Kathryn had appeared beside him, beaming widely.

"She was wonderful!" she shouted, her voice almost lost beneath the tidal wave of applause that was still crashing around them. "Even better than I thought she would be. Come on – let's go talk to her before she's surrounded by everyone else!"

He found himself being tugged through the crowds and to his shock realised that Kathryn had slid her hand down his arm to lace her fingers through his. Unreasonably flustered, he looked around and found himself glancing back to the table. Phoebe Janeway was looking studiously down at her glass, another smile on her face.

Dinner was delayed because so many of the attendees wanted to talk to B'Elanna. The wait staff hovered at the edges of the room, anxiously trying to gauge when to begin serving. Kathryn took a moment out to stand back. She was on cloud nine as she watched B'Elanna, Tom and Chakotay all fielding questions about the invention and the project as a whole. All in all, the evening was going better than she'd ever dared hope, certainly better than any other charity gala Owen Paris had staged for her. She looked over at the man in question, currently part of the circle surrounding B'Elanna and Tom. She made a mental note to talk to him about his son when he was free. He should know just how instrumental Tom had been in the success of this evening.

"Well," said a voice close to her ear. "At least now I understand why Mark was suddenly in such a rush to set a date for the wedding."

It was Phoebe. Kathryn turned to her with a frown. "What are you talking about?"

Her sister raised her eyebrows and pointedly directed her gaze across the room to where Chakotay was chatting with someone before looking back at Kathryn. "Show me a fiancé alive who wouldn't be threatened by thatchunk of manhood."

"Stop it," Kathryn chided with a hiss. "Someone will hear you."

Phoebe shrugged. "Tell me I'm wrong."

"You are wrong. More than that, you're being ridiculous."

"Am I? You're seriously trying to tell me that you working alongside the most astonishingly beautiful man I've ever seen had absolutely nothing to do with it?"

"They haven't even met. And why would it make a difference anyway?"

Phoebe looked interested. "They haven't met?"

Kathryn shrugged. "Why would they? Has Karl met all of your work colleagues?"

"Er – most of them, yes. The ones that I work closely with on a regular basis, at least. And I've met his, too. You've met most of Mark's peers, haven't you? You've been working on this for months now – planning it for years. You're telling me Mark's never met any of the people involved?"

"He already knows Owen and Tom. And he's been away, hasn't he? And it's not as if there's any reason for him to visit the site itself anyway, is there? It's really not his field."

"No, but it's yours," her sister pointed out. "And what you actually mean is, despite how important this project has been to you for years, Mark just hasn't shown any interest in the day-to-day of your work, or any willingness to help out. Unlike Chakotay…" Phoebe raised her glass to her lips and looked back across the room towards the man in question. "Christ, he's gorgeous. I think I just spontaneously ovulated. Or maybe it was something else. Good job I'm wearing Spanx."

"Pheobe!"

"What?"

"Stop it!"

"Stop what? You can't tell me you haven't had exactly the same thought at least once. I refuse to believe it. Even my ramrod straight older sister can't be that shut off from reality. Admit it. You've had at least one dirty thought featuring Coach Chakotay."

Kathryn felt her cheeks colouring and took a hasty mouthful of her wine. "You little wretch. One, I'm knocking forty, not fourteen. I am no longer ruled by my hormones. Two, I'm getting married in six weeks. So what on earth would it say if I had?"

Phoebe drained her glass. "Well, I know what I'd say. Hallelujah. But knowing you, you'll see having feelings you can't control as some terrible failing of character and attempt to pretend they don't exist instead of examining the possibility that perhaps – just perhaps – you're with Mark for the wrong reasons and about to make yourself unbelievably unhappy."

Kathryn briefly shut her eyes. "Please don't," she said. "Not here, not now. Not tonight."

Phoebe sighed. "All right, all right. But I'm just going to point out one more tiny little thing."

"What?" Kathryn hissed.

"Chakotay hasn't taken his eyes off you all evening. Even when he's looking at someone else, he's thinking about you."

She knew what Phoebe was saying was absurd – it always was, for goodness' sake – but still Kathryn's heart seemed to turn over in her chest. "Will you please just-"

"Look!" Her sister gave her a sharp elbow in the ribs. "See?"

Chakotay chose that moment to look away from the person he was talking with. His gaze swept the room and she thought he was just surveying the crowd. But then he found her amid the throng and stopped. He smiled and Kathryn felt the floor tilting slightly beneath her feet.

"Good job you didn't buy a new dress after all," Phoebe whispered into her ear. "If he ends up ripping that one off you later at least you won't have wasted a ton of money."

"Phoebe!"

When dinner was finally served, B'Elanna found that she was starving. Everything this evening had happened so fast that it all felt like a blur. She couldn't even really remember giving her presentation, or most of what had happened immediately afterwards. So many people had been asking her questions. Some had insisted she call them so they could talk further. One – a man called La Forge who spoke as if she should know who he was – had straight out offered her an internship at his engineering company once she'd graduated. B'Elanna wasn't even sure what she'd said to that. Everything had just been too overwhelming. She'd been so glad that Tom had stayed by her side throughout, and that she'd always been able to see Chakotay and Kathryn through the crowds, too.

Eventually, though, Tom's dad had taken to the stage and told everyone that they really couldn't keep the caterers waiting any longer. Tom had extricated her from her latest conversation and steered her back to their table. They were sitting with Chakotay and Kathryn as well as a few other people B'Elanna didn't know, including a woman who was apparently Kathryn's sister. B'Elanna felt so stunned that she couldn't really take everything in. It wasn't until dessert was served that she even began to come back down to Earth.

"Hey," Tom said, leaning over. "You OK?"

She nodded, reaching for her water. "I think so."

He laughed. "Pretty crazy night, huh?"

B'Elanna laughed too. "You could say that. Are these things always so insane?"

Tom shook his head. "Nope. I've never seen dinner served so late, for a start. It's almost ten already!"

B'Elanna froze. "What? It can't be!"

"It is," Tom held out his wrist so that she could read his watch. "See? Time flies when you're having fun."

She put down the forkful of cheesecake she'd just scooped from her plate. "I really need to go."

"What?" Tom said. "You can't! You're the guest of honour! Besides, I haven't even shown you around this place yet."

"Tom's right," Chakotay observed. "There's no need to rush off, B'Elanna. There'll be other people who'll want to talk to you, and you should just enjoy yourself."

"No, but- still, we really should go. I mean – it's getting late," she said, "Don't you want to get home?"

Chakotay smiled, raising an eyebrow. "I'm not so ancient that I have a bedtime, B'Elanna. I'm fine."

She looked around for help, but Kathryn wasn't in her seat – she'd gone off to talk to someone at a neighbouring table.

Tom reached out, threading his fingers between hers. "Stay. Please. In fact – why don't you really stay? There are loads of guest bedrooms made up. A few people will end up crashing, they always do. My dad said he'd like to meet you properly and invited you to stay for breakfast. So why don't you?"

B'Elanna shook her head. "Oh no, I don't think – I mean, I have to take Chakotay home-"

"I can find another way home," Chakotay assured her. "I'll get a cab if I really need to."

"You will not, that'd cost a fortune," Phoebe Janeway interjected. She glanced up as Kathryn reappeared. "Kathryn can drive you home."

Kathryn paused in the motion of taking her seat. "Sorry?"

"You brought your car and you never drink much at these things anyway. You can take Chakotay home so the kids can have some fun, can't you?"

B'Elanna watched as Kathryn and Chakotay looked at each other across the table. There was a moment of slight awkwardness in which B'Elanna got the distinct impression that Kathryn would like to say no.

"Uh – yes," Kathryn said, taking her seat. "That's – that's fine. Of course I can."

"But that's – that's a long way out of your way," Chakotay said. "It's really not necessary…"

"Yes!" B'Elanna argued. "It'd take you ages, and-"

"I don't mind," Kathryn smiled. "Really, B'Elanna. Of course you should enjoy yourself. You deserve it. And I dragged you to this thing, Chakotay, it's only fair I make sure you get home."

B'Elanna glanced at Tom's watch again. It was past ten by now. Even if she started the drive back immediately it'd be after midnight before she even reached Maywood anyway. Anyone wanting to buy would have found a different dealer by now anyway. And it was just one night. She'd make up for it tomorrow.

She couldn't even really imagine going back there now. She'd found herself in a different world, so far away from that one that it barely even existed any more.

"Okay," B'Elanna said to Tom, with a smile. "That would be great, thanks."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

They began the drive back to Maywood in the dark of full night, and even in the scant and intermittent yellow fluorescence cast by the street lamps overhead, she was beautiful. Chakotay wondered if he was imagining the tension that had seemed to wind itself between them, but he didn't think so. It had begun in the moment that her sister had volunteered Kathryn to take him home, in that look they had shared across the table. That look had communicated something between them – had comprised a conversation in a language neither of them consciously knew and yet, somehow, both of them instinctively understood. There is danger here, that look had said, and we both know it.

It was an irony not lost on him that acknowledging the danger had done nothing to remove it, at least not on his part. Rather, knowing that being alone with him at the end of this night constituted a bad idea in Kathryn's view told him something he'd been trying not to think about ever since B'Elanna's offhand quip about time running out earlier in the day. Although, if he was to be truly honest with himself, it went back further than that. He had failed to stop himself wondering how Kathryn Janeway really thought about him since B'Elanna had told him that Tom believed he made her happy. Was that really true? If it was, what did that mean? What should he do about it?

Nothing, you idiot, he berated himself. She's getting married in less than two months. It was too late for you before you'd even met. Forget it. Even if there were attraction on both sides, it would be wrong to pursue it. You know that.

He forced himself to look out of the windshield instead of at the bare curve of her neck.

"Thank you so much for this evening, Chakotay," Kathryn said, into the silence. He heard the slight twang of awkwardness in her voice and regretted it, knowing that it came from this tension that had no right to exist at all. "What you have done for B'Elanna really does go beyond the call of duty."

"I've done nothing," he said, softly. "It's you and Tom who have changed her life. And I honestly believe so, Kathryn – I think tonight will be a real turning point for her."

He felt Kathryn glance across to him, and he studiously avoided her gaze.

"I think that happened when she joined your gym," she pointed out. "If not for that lifeline, I have the sense she would have been lost long ago."

Chakotay smiled slightly. "If it kept her afloat long enough for you to come along, then it was worth it."

They sunk back into silence, and a moment later Kathryn yawned widely, covering her mouth with one hand. "Oh God," she said. "Sorry! I'm too old for these late nights. Truth is, I'm too old for the kind of work we were doing this morning. I've been aching all day." She pressed her fingers into her shoulder in a gesture he'd become used to seeing her make as she tried to massage away whatever recurring ache had settled there.

"I'm not surprised you strained yourself, the way you swung that sledgehammer. I should have taken it away from you," Chakotay said, apologetically.

"Like hell you should," Kathryn retorted, with a sudden bubble of bright laughter that lit the inside of the car as perfectly as the smile into which it resolved. "Swinging that thing was the most fun I've had in months! Never come between a woman and her tools, Chakotay, don't you know that?"

He laughed with her, not only because of her words but also at the brief glimpse of underlying mischief that her little giggle suggested. Their laughter reduced the tension between them, softening it into something more fluid, more navigable.

"I could help with your shoulder," he said, smiling as he watched her profile. The light from outside pooled in gorgeous shadows beneath her cheekbones before sweeping across her lips and away into the night. "Sports physio is one of my best skillsets. I'm not just about moving fenceposts and rescuing distressing damsels, you know. I could smooth out every aching muscle you have."

Kathryn laughed again, tilting her head to look at him so that he could see the sparkle in her eye. "I've half a mind to call Phoebe and tell her you just said that."

"Oh? Why?" he asked, laughing again, thinking she meant her sister had been nagging her about her health. He could easily imagine it was one of the many things Kathryn Janeway neglected for lack of time. "Has she been telling you that's something you need?"

The smile faltered on Kathryn's face. She blinked. "Yes," she said, quietly. "She has. All evening, actually."

His heart stopped in his chest. Suddenly the tension was back, thicker than before, filling his throat and lungs and sparking along every nerve ending he had.

"I liked Phoebe," he said, eventually. "Any chance she'd ever come down and muck in with us at the garden?"

Kathryn laughed quietly. He could see how tightly she was gripping the steering wheel and something about that small detail set a tornado loose in his gut. "Not really her thing, I'm afraid," she said, with a jocularity that did not match her posture. "Although she'd come every day if I asked her to."

Chakotay smiled around the heavy thump that constituted his heartbeat. "You're close."

"I suppose we are," Kathryn agreed, with a slight smile. "She's still as infuriating as she was when we were children, and now she's frequently inappropriate, too, but I can't imagine what I would do without her or even how she could possibly be any different. And she knows me better than anyone does or ever could, I think. Which is incredibly annoying."

"Annoying? Why?" Chakotay asked.

She didn't answer for a moment. When she did, her words were accompanied by a glance that pierced him right through the chest. "Because she has a habit of making me think about things that would be better off left unacknowledged, for all manner of reasons."

Her words were a careful warning shot for them both, he surmised; a deliberate projectile slicing through this tension between them and dragging behind it a line that marked where neither should dare to cross. Yes, here is the danger, she was saying. This is what it is, and this is what we cannot let it become. Chakotay found himself nodding. He took a breath and accompanied it with a firm mental step back as he turned away to look out of the window once more.

She's engaged, he told himself. Just remember that. She's getting married.

Yet there in his head was B'Elanna's voice – unbidden, unwanted, but echoingly insistent.

She's not married yet, it said. Tick tock, Coach. Tick tock.

Chakotay rubbed his fingers into his eyes. Just let her drive you home and when you get there, get out of the car and don't look back.

But by the time they reached the street on which his apartment block stood, Kathryn was yawning heavily. It was touching 2am. She had another long drive ahead of her and Chakotay was genuinely worried about her making it when she was evidently so tired.

"This is my fault," he said, cursing himself. "I should never have let you drive me home."

"I'm fine," Kathryn told him, as she pulled up where he indicated she should. "Really. I'll head back via that drive-through McDonalds we passed a block or so back, pick up some coffee. That'll keep me going."

He paused with his fingers on the car's door handle, "I can't let you stop there. Not alone, in this car, dressed like that. You'd be a sure target for a hold-up or a jacking in this neighbourhood. Besides," he added, aiming for humour as she opened her mouth to protest, "Surely you'll combust if you have to drink McDonalds' coffee?"

She laughed. "Needs must. I'll survive!"

Chakotay hesitated, glancing up at the window of his first floor apartment. "Look," he said. "I can make you coffee. You don't have to drink it here, I know you must want to get home. I'm sure I've got a travel mug somewhere you can take."

Kathryn looked at him steadily for a moment. "Didn't you give me your coffee maker? I thought you didn't really drink it?"

He smiled, dropping her gaze. "I got a percolator. Just a small one. I thought it would be a good idea, just in case… I ever had a guest that… wanted coffee."

He caught her silent nod from the corner of her eye. He thought she was going to refuse, but as usual she surprised him. "Well," Kathryn said, quietly. "That's a very kind offer, Chakotay. If you're sure…?"

Chakotay opened the door. "Of course I am. It's the least I can do. Come on, come inside."

Following Chakotay up the stairs and into his apartment went against everything Kathryn had been telling herself to do ever since Phoebe had landed her with the task of taking him home. Drive him to his door, say goodnight, leave, was the mantra that she'd been silently chanting ever since he'd stepped up and opened her car door for her as they'd left the Paris's place.

The problem was, though, that despite her best intentions, despite the fact that there were warning klaxons wailing in every part of her mind, she couldn't quite bring herself to turn down his offer. She couldn't bring herself to let him get out, shut the door and walk away without her. It was sheer insanity, this inability to drive away at this moment, especially given the tension that had ratcheted up during their drive and the look in his eye that, thanks to Phoebe, she couldn't pretend to herself wasn't there. She knew it, but she ignored it. She wanted to see his apartment, for one thing. And, God help her, this frisson that was skating like electricity through her veins every time he looked at her – she didn't want that to end. Not just yet.

Neither of them said anything as he unlocked his door and held it open for her. Kathryn walked into a small hallway that had been painted a soft cream colour. There was a line of hooks opposite the door from which hung an assortment of coats and jackets. Below, on the floor, was a shoe rack populated mostly with different styles of trainers. It brought her up short, the normality of this arrangement, this glimpse into the most humdrum aspects of his life. For some reason seeing these things seemed far more intimate than it should. She put her purse down beside his shoes.

"Go straight ahead," he told her, nodding his head to indicate that she should follow the hallway.

She did, and found herself walking into a spacious room that comprised an open-plan living space and kitchen, the large window looking out over the kerb at which her car was parked.

"Make yourself at home," Chakotay said, as he headed for the kitchen, loosening his bow tie and pulling it off as he went. "I'll get that coffee on."

Kathryn eschewed taking a seat in one of the armchairs or the large blue sofa in favour of wandering to his large floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. It housed not only books, but framed photographs of what must be family and friends. There were trophies too – not just for boxing, but for other sports besides, and also what on closer examination seemed to be artefacts – fragments of carved wooden statues and pieces of pottery.

"What are these?" she asked, carefully picking up a restored bowl and cradling it in her hands.

"Ah," he said, pausing the sound of his domestic clattering to look at what she held up to him. "Remnants of a life that might have been. Once, many years ago. I was a student of archaeology."

She put the bowl back and turned to look across the room at him, surprised. "Oh?"

Chakotay opened yet another cupboard. "It was what I wanted to do, originally. But – well, circumstances dictated something else. I got a scholarship which paid my way to college, but that was on the basis of my sporting abilities rather than anything else."

"You couldn't do both?" Kathryn asked. "That seems harsh."

He shrugged, his back to her as he searched the shelves in front of him. "It wasn't possible to juggle the demands of a team season with a course that meant I had electives that put me in the middle of nowhere on digs for six weeks at a time," he explained. "And it was the scholarship that let me attend college in the first place. It's all right. I'm happy with the path I took." He dropped his arms with a sigh. "I can't find this damned travel mug anywhere."

"Is that what you're looking for?" she asked, with a laugh. "You don't need to worry about that. I'll drink it before I go – if you don't mind me keeping you up for an extra few minutes, that is? I'll drink quickly, I promise."

He shut the cupboard door and turned to her, smiling, his dark eyes just too obscenely warm. "You can take as long as you like," he said, softly.

Kathryn broke his gaze but only succeeded in letting it drift a few inches south. He'd undone the first couple of buttons on his white shirt and a triangle of his dark skin glowed there like bronze. She turned back to the bookshelf again. "I'm not sure I would have had you down as a Shakespeare reader," she said, to cover the hammering of her heart.

"Haven't actually read a play for a long time," he admitted, pouring the coffee. "In truth I get very little time to read."

"I can believe it," Kathryn said, reaching out to run her fingers along the spines of his books. "I have the same trouble myself. You have a lot of travel guides here," she observed, as his footsteps crossed the room toward her. "Have you really been to all these places?"

Chakotay reached her side and put two mugs of coffee on the shelf in front of them. "I-" he began. Then he broke off, several seconds of silence filling the space where his answer should have been.

She glanced around just in time to find him staring at her bare shoulder. He was standing very close, so close she could feel the warmth of his body reaching out to touch hers. His gaze lingered for an agonised second, hot and dark and illicit. Then it left her shoulder to trace slowly up her neck and over her face to meet her eyes, and Kathryn felt its path as surely as if he'd stroked his tongue over her skin.

Suddenly she couldn't breathe and she couldn't look away, and her brain was telling her to run, to get out, to get out right now, but her body, her whole body, her whole self was begging for something else-

"I know," Chakotay began, in a low voice that slowly thrummed a chord so deep in her that she would feel it for decades, "that I don't have any right to feel this way. But God- Kathryn-"

She would never know who moved first, or whether they had moved together and anyway how could that knowledge possibly matter? For in the next second their lips met in a touch that instantly electrified every millimetre of her skin. She felt an explosion detonate white-hot in the pit of her belly. It shot down to her toes, turning her legs to jelly before it surged back up to send her heart into overdrive and her mind beyond the point of no return. She couldn't get enough of his mouth, of how full his lips were, how deliciously they fit over hers, between hers; of the taste of his tongue. She wanted him badly, immediately, now. Every nerve ending she had was so over-sensitised that even his hands stroking over her shoulders was enough to make her moan. Chakotay held her against him, his free hand running down her arm as they kissed and kept kissing, constantly returning for more. His fingers danced across her wrist, then laced with hers before letting go to find her waist, then her torso, working his way up, up, until his hand rested beneath one breast, thumb stroking the swell through the layers of silk, the touch not quite reaching where she needed it to, not quite what she wanted, and then he was kissing her neck as he carried on caressing her breast and before she knew what she was doing, Kathryn was reaching behind her, angling her arm to get at the zip, releasing it just enough to loosen the bodice, just enough so that it slackened across her chest, so that the next time he moved his thumb the stroke would brush directly over her naked nipple. When it did they both moaned and staggered a little and then he brought his lips back to hers in a kiss so impossibly passionate she thought she might climax just from the knowledge that such want existed, and for her.

Her fingers found that triangle of bare, burnished skin at his throat and then she was undoing more buttons, touching his skin, his hot, gorgeous skin, when out of nowhere she heard a voice and it wasn't his.

It was in her head, and it wasn't his.

It's not that I don't trust you. Of course I do.

-Kathryn gasped, tried to shut it out, kissed Chakotay again-

You're the most trustworthy person I know.

And just like that, her desire was drowned in a tidal wave of shame and guilt. She stumbled backwards. She wrenched herself out of Chakotay's arms, horrified at what she'd been so willing to do, to him, to Mark.

"Oh God," she said, hoarsely, disgusted at herself as she had to pull her dress back into place.

Chakotay reached for her again but Kathryn raised her hands, stepping back. "Don't. Stop. Chakotay, I can't. I can't do this!"

He backed away, breathing hard, and she could see how shaky his legs were. He found himself against the arm of the sofa and reached down to grip it for support.

"I'm sorry," she said, hiccupping over the words, over the dismay, over the regret. "I have to go. I have to-"

She turned and ran for the door.

"Kathryn, wait," Chakotay said, following her down the hall as she grabbed her purse and made it out of his door. "Don't go. Not like this. Wait, please."

She didn't stop and he followed her to the main door of the apartment block. Chakotay reached her as she dragged open the door, catching her arm and pulling her to a stop so that they stood in the open doorway, the stars above them only just visible through the haze of light pollution overhead.

"Please," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Let's just talk, just for a moment, clear the air. Kathryn, ple-"

She heard the sound of a speeding motorbike roaring past. Then she wondered why anyone would be letting off firecrackers when it wasn't even the fourth of July:

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

- and then there was rain on her face, on her blue Armani dress, except that it was too warm for rain and too red, far, far too red-

-and then Chakotay was stumbling backwards, huge flowers of bright scarlet blooming against his white shirt as he crashed against the wall and then to the floor-

-and then she was screaming, screaming for someone to help, just screaming, trying to hold his chest together, trying to keep him alive with her bare hands-

-trying to stop the blood, so much blood-

-SO MUCH BLOOD AND-

[TBC]

Chapter Text

"Ma'am?"

There was a child crying. The noise echoed over the rows of red metal and plastic chairs that had been screwed into the cold vinyl-coated floor. The little girl was sitting on her daddy's knee in one corner of the room. He was trying to soothe her without jarring her arm, which was clearly bent at an odd angle. The sound went on and on. It wasn't piercing. The child wasn't screaming. She was just sobbing, quietly, helplessly. She hurt and she was too little to know that the future might be different and so to her everything about life was just pain: horrible, inescapable, unending pain.

There was tragedy in that sound.

Kathryn couldn't tear her gaze away.

"Ma'am?"

It took her another moment still to realise the impatient voice was speaking to her. Kathryn turned towards it. She was standing in front of the ER's reception desk. The frazzled receptionist behind it was holding out a clipboard with a form attached to it. The look on her face suggested she had been in that position for a few minutes.

"Ma'am, I need you to fill this out for me."

Kathryn reached for it and then had to clutch at the blanket around her shoulders before it slid to the floor. It wasn't hers. One of Chakotay's neighbours had wrapped it around her as they had waited for the ambulance to arrive.

As she took the clipboard, she saw the woman's gaze drift to the dried blood on her hands.

"Ma'am, are you hurt?"

She shook her head.

Kathryn focused on the boxes on the form, which represented an opportunity for action in a void of helplessness. After a moment she was forced to hand it back.

"I can't."

The woman took the clipboard, put it down in front of her and picked up a ballpoint pen. Kathryn's 'can't' had apparently translated itself into 'can't right now.'

"Name?" the woman asked, head bent towards the form.

"Chakotay," Kathryn said. "His name is Chakotay."

"Is that his given name, or his family name?"

"His given name."

"And his family name?"

Kathryn swallowed. "I don't know."

The woman looked up.

Kathryn felt forced to defend herself. "I don't know that he has one."

"You're not family?"

"No."

"Can you inform the next of kin?"

"No." Then, suddenly: "He – he has a sister. In New Mexico…" she belatedly realised how fatuous this information was, given the lack of what else she could supply with it. It occurred to her that one of the neighbours would have been more use than she could be at that moment. "He's a Phys. Ed teacher at Maywood High School, Los Angeles County. I don't know his social security number. I don't know if he has insurance. I don't know if he has allergies or a heart condition or if he takes medication. I don't know-"

The woman put down her pen and held up her hand. "All right, ma'am."

"Where is he?" Kathryn asked. "What's – what's happening, right now?"

The woman shook her head. "Ma'am, if you're not next of kin, I can't tell you anything."

"But I was with him," she said. "I was there, when the ambulance arrived. I-" she held up her hands, her caked-with-his-blood hands.

"I understand, but-"

"I don't even know if he's alive."

The woman looked at her for a moment, and then nodded. She reached for a keyboard amid the debris of a hectic night and tapped in a few commands.

"Latino male, gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen, Maywood?"

Kathryn nodded. Something began to open up in her heart, like a hollow bullet that had taken its time to impact.

"He's in surgery. That's all I can tell you."

"Chakotay," she said. "His name is Chakotay."

The woman nodded. "I'll be sure to amend his notes."

"I'm going to wait."

"Ma'am, that's really not-"

"I'm going to wait."

Kathryn crossed to one of the cold chairs and sat down. She thought she could still hear the little girl crying, the one who had been sitting on her daddy's knee, but when she turned she saw that they had gone. The sound lingered, somehow.

She folded her hands in her lap and stared at the blood on them.

She sat there for hours. No one came. At 6am the nightshift ended. She was vaguely aware of the woman behind the desk walking past her as she made for the exit. Kathryn saw her pause, the woman's legs just visible from the corner of her eye. Then she backtracked, went back the other way, through a different set of doors.

A few minutes later the woman emerged again and there was someone with her, a man marked out as a doctor by the white coat that fell to his knees. He looked to Kathryn to be in his late 40s, with a narrow face and high forehead, a ring of dark hair around his balding head. He and the woman parted ways with a nod and then the doctor walked towards Kathryn. She went to get up, but he waved her back with a smile.

"Ma'am, my name is Doctor Zimmerman, I'm one of the attending physicians in the ER. May I?" he indicated the seat beside her.

She nodded and he sat, turning towards her slightly.

"I understand that you've been waiting for news of a friend, a Mr Chakotay, Ms-?"

"Janeway," she supplied. "Kathryn Janeway."

"I've just checked his notes and he's still in surgery. I really would advise you to go home. There's nothing you can do here and you must be cold and tired."

"But what-" she began, and then stopped as her voice descended into an unintelligible croak. She cleared her throat and began again. "He's been in surgery for hours. What – what's happening? Is he going to survive? He lost so much blood. There was so much-" she stopped herself.

Doctor Zimmerman smiled again. It was gentle, aimed at providing reassurance. It was a practiced expression and Kathryn wondered how many times he'd used it during the course of this night. How many times, in fact, he'd used it when he knew there was nothing else he could do and in truth nothing that he could be reassuring about.

"There's nothing more I can tell you at this time, Ms Janeway."

She made a sound in her throat. "You can't, or you won't?"

He smiled again, then reached into his pocket and took out a card. "If you dial this number the switchboard will page me. I promise that I will tell you whatever I can. But right now, sitting here is doing neither you nor Mr Chakotay any good. Go home. Get warm. Get some sleep. By the time you've done that I may have more to tell you. Do you need me to ask reception to call you a taxi?"

Kathryn shook her head. "I followed the ambulance. My car is here."

"All right. So you'll go home?"

She nodded and he smiled again as he stood up. She stood too, but she couldn't smile.

The sun was coming up as she drove back to Pasadena. Another beautiful Californian day.

When she unlocked the door of the house Molly came running. The dog sniffed the blood on her and then whined, looking up at Kathryn with worried eyes. Kathryn went into the kitchen, put down a fresh bowl of food, scratched the setter behind her ears with numb fingers. She did all this silently, in her silent house.

Kathryn kicked off her absurd heels and then went upstairs and into the bathroom. She walked into the shower and turned it on, the heat cranked up as high as it would go. The water hit her in the chest, soaking the dress she had not removed. Steam rose around her, the thick vapour enveloping her, flaying open all her pores as if it was aiming to leave her raw. Kathryn raised her hands into the stream, watching Chakotay's blood dissolve and run from her fingers, flowing from her hands to run down her arms like rivers of spilled watercolour. Her cleansed skin remained pink in its wake. The water must have been too hot, but she couldn't feel it.

She looked down at her toes, bare beneath the drenched carnage of her dress. Chakotay's blood swirled chaotically around them for a while. Then it streamed across the white tiles and flowed out of sight, into the drain. Gone.

She reached behind her and tugged down her zip. She let the dress sag around her, the weight of water dragging it down over her stomach, over her thighs. It folded over her feet, a crumpled ruin of crushed silk. Kathryn kicked it out of the way and then did the same with her panties. Then she reached for the pins in her hair. One by one she pulled them out and dropped them. She heard each faint tinkle as they fell.

Eventually she reached for the shower gel.

Later, she dressed in jeans and a white shirt. She dried her hair and pushed it behind her ears. It was 9am when she took the house phone from its' cradle and called Doctor Zimmerman.

Chakotay was still in surgery.

Kathryn wondered how many times he had died since he'd been on the operating table. To her it seemed that the longer he was there the less hope there was of survival. As she considered these things she realised that there was no emotion behind the queries. The numbness she had put down to physical cold was inside as well as out. She was calcified, hardened. She couldn't feel a thing.

When the knock at the door came, she was sitting at the kitchen table, staring out into the garden beyond. Molly leapt to her feet and barked, barked, barked.

Tom Paris was standing on the doorstep in jeans and a Hilfiger sweater, the morning sun glinting off his blonde hair and his face white with anxiety. Beside him was B'Elanna Torres, pale, her dark eyes raw and rimmed in red.

"We've been trying to call you," Tom said. "We've been trying to call you for hours."

Her cell had died, apparently. Kathryn let them follow her into the kitchen and plugged it in as it became apparent that B'Elanna's phone had been very much full of charge when her cousin Emilio had sent her a photograph of the blood-spattered entranceway to Chakotay's apartment block. He'd accompanied it with the words, 'You knew what would be owed.'

"I know someone who can get me a gun," were the first words B'Elanna Torres said, her voice rasping with rage and grief. "A semi-automatic. I'll get the money from somewhere. I'll kill them. I'll cut them to pieces. I'll kill them all, Emilio first and then every one, every-"

Kathryn grabbed her shoulders, hard. "Stop that," she said. "Stop it. Don't even think it. Don't even imagine it. That's not who you are. It's not who he would want you to become and you know it. Don't make this even worse. You can't. You must not. You'd ruin your life before it's even begun. Chakotay won't want that."

"But it's my fault," B'Elanna said. "You know it is. It's my fault. He's going to die and it's my fault, it's my fault, it's-"

Kathryn cupped the girl's face in her hands. "It's not your fault. B'Elanna, it's not your fault. Listen to me. If you let yourself think that way now, you'll always think that way. And it's not true. Whatever happens, Chakotay would tell you the same. You are not responsible for this and I won't let you think that you are. They are responsible. It's not your fault. Do you hear me? It's not your fault."

Her phone rang.

"The hospital has my number," she said, pulling away from the girl to reach for it. "The Doctor promised to call back as soon as he could."

But it wasn't the hospital. It was Neelix. Kathryn stared at the name on the screen, her finger hovering over the 'ignore' button. She didn't really want to talk to him. She didn't really want to talk to anyone. Word must have spread already. Bad news travels fast but tragedy travels at light-speed.

"Oh, Ms Janeway," Neelix babbled, as soon as she answered. "Thank goodness. I've been trying to call you all night. I'm so sorry to bear bad news, but I have something to tell you and-"

"Neelix," she said, shutting her eyes and rubbing her fingers into them. They felt gritty, despite being stripped of make-up.

"-I really wanted you to hear it from me, you know, someone who cares rather than-"

"Neelix," she said, more forcefully. "I already know. I was there. I know what happened."

There was a moment of silence. When he spoke next Neelix sounded confused.

"You already know about the garden?"

[TBC]

Chapter Text

The garden was gone. Someone had taken wire cutters to the gate and removed the locks keeping it shut. The tattered remains stood wide open, compressed earth carried in tread patterns that trailed out onto the blacktop beyond in a testament to how the deed had been done.

The trees had been wrenched from the ground, their branches severed. In some places the green wood had been scorched, as if someone had tried to burn them. The young turf had been trampled and brutalised. The rows of Kes's vegetables had been crushed beneath the tyres of motorcycles that had repeatedly circled and spun over their patch until the earth was churned and the plants themselves were mere smudges of green amid the chaotic soil. The fence that Kathryn and Chakotay had begun together and that he had finished alone was smashed beyond recognition. As she stared at the mess, Kathryn realised that he had done exactly as he'd said he would. Chakotay had carefully planted each of the six passion flowers, which were now mere stubs in the ground, their stems and leaves so torn and mashed elsewhere it was impossible to identify them.

There was nothing left whole. Not a thing.

Kathryn took in the damage with a quiet nod.

"I'm sorry, Ms Janeway," Neelix said, wringing his hands as they stood together with Tom and B'Elanna. "There was nothing we could do. We saw it happening, but-"

Kathryn rested a hand on his shoulder. "It's all right. Given what else happened last night I'm just thankful everyone here is safe."

The little man nodded. "I'm so sorry about Mr Chakotay. I didn't know. I would never have called and bothered you if I had realised. That poor, poor man. And what you must have gone through, being there with him…"

She dropped her hand and lifted her chin. "Don't think about me for a moment, Neelix. I'm fine. The question is-"

Her cell rang. Kathryn pulled it out of her pocket, looked at the screen and then glanced at B'Elanna and Tom.

"It's the hospital," she said. "Excuse me for a moment."

She stepped away, turning her back and walking a few paces across the torn earth before answering the call and putting the phone to her ear.

"Kathryn Janeway here."

"Ms Janeway, it's Doctor Zimmerman. Do you have a moment?"

She put her free hand on her hip, widening her stance on the uneven ground. "Of course. Go ahead, Doctor."

"I thought you would like to know that Chakotay is out of surgery. He's now in the ICU."

Kathryn nodded, focusing on the downed carcass of one of the apple trees. It still had one branch attached. Its wilting leaves were shifting in the slight breeze, a false semblance of life, fading. "What's the prognosis, Doctor?"

Zimmerman paused, as if a little taken aback by her tone. Kathryn was aware that she sounded very different to the last time they had spoken; that she sounded brusque and perhaps even cold. But falling apart wouldn't help anyone, least of all Chakotay. Whatever news was coming, she was going to have to relay it to others. Someone had to keep it together. And she'd always been good at that, hadn't she?

"He is very ill," said the doctor. "You need to speak to his surgical team to get all the details. I know that it was a difficult surgery. He's still very much in danger, I'm afraid."

Kathryn nodded, gaze fixed on the middle distance. "But he's alive."

"He is, yes. I also wanted to thank you. The information you gave us allowed us to contact his family. I understand that someone is with him already."

Kathryn turned and looked back towards B'Elanna. The girl was standing stiffly amid the chaos of destruction around her feet, her eyes resolutely fixed on Kathryn. "That is good news," Kathryn said quietly, into the phone. "Doctor, do you think I could visit, and bring someone with me? I know that one of the students Chakotay mentors would appreciate being allowed to see him."

The doctor hesitated. "It would be up to the family as to whether they would permit anyone else to see the patient. And really," he cautioned, "Chakotay will not look himself. His injuries were severe, Ms Janeway. He's on a ventilator as one of the bullets collapsed his left lung. He is not conscious."

"I understand, Doctor," Kathryn said. "But even so, I think B'Elanna would want to make the effort."

"All right," said Zimmerman. "Let me talk to the next of kin. If she's comfortable with you visiting, I'll call you back."

"Thank you, Doctor."

Kathryn said goodbye and hung up, then walked back to the others. "He's out of surgery," she told them, and saw the girl visibly sag with relief, as though she'd been barely holding herself upright. Tom put an arm around her shoulders as Kathryn went on, "They're going to let us know if we can visit, but B'Elanna – you need to be prepared. The Doctor was clear – Chakotay is very sick."

B'Elanna nodded, briefly resting her head against Tom's chest. For a split second, Kathryn envied them that simple, elemental measure of support. She found herself wishing that Mark was there. She could call him, of course. Whatever Phoebe's complaints about him, Kathryn knew Mark would move heaven and earth to get home if she asked him to.

"I know that this can't possibly be as important right now, Ms Janeway," said Neelix, interrupting her thoughts. "Not with what's going on with Mr Chakotay. But – but what are we going to do about the garden? This can't be it, can it? We can't… we can't just give up. Not now. Can we?"

Kathryn looked around again. "I certainly don't want to give up, Neelix. To do so makes me feel as if we'd be letting the gang win. And to my mind, they don't get to do that."

Neelix puffed out his chest a little. "They don't in mine, either."

"But they've made their intentions clear, and the levels of violence they're prepared to use," Kathryn pointed out. "I don't want anyone else hurt. Not because of a garden that few people here seem to want anyway."

Neelix was about to say something else when her cell rang again. It was Zimmerman.

"You're welcome to come at any time," he told her.

Kathryn looked at B'Elanna. "We're on our way now, doctor."

Tom stayed behind with Neelix. They both wanted to make a start on the garden, and besides, Kathryn felt it best not to crowd Chakotay and his family with visitors.

"There's no point, you know," B'Elanna said, as they drove towards the hospital.

Kathryn looked over at her. B'Elanna was still pale, her eyes were still red. There was a hard edge to her jaw now, though, that hadn't been there earlier. The shock was ebbing, Kathryn realised, slowly being replaced by anger. Better anger than guilt, she thought, although she hadn't forgotten the girl's tortured outburst about the gun. Kathryn wondered how long she could keep B'Elanna with her. She knew only too well the rabbit hole down which the girl could slip. It would be so easy. B'Elanna was already perched on the slope, and it was slippery with rage, guilt and recrimination. Kathryn wanted to grab her by the scruff of the neck and hold on. She wondered if this is how Chakotay had felt when B'Elanna had first appeared at the doors of his gym.

"There's no point to what?" she asked.

B'Elanna stared out of the window. "Trying to rebuild the garden. You shouldn't waste your time."

Kathryn flexed her fingers on the wheel. "It's not a waste of time."

The girl turned to stare at her, hard. "They'll just tear it down again. You do get that, right?"

"Maybe they will," Kathryn agreed. "But it still won't have been a waste of time. The only way it would be a waste of time is if we give up, because then they'll have won. You do get that, right?"

B'Elanna made a sound in her throat and shook her head. "Bitch, they don't need to win. Hasn't this taught you anything? They own this place. When are you going to understand that? When are you going to understand that you can't change how things are by sticking a few plants in the ground?"

"They can't shoot all of us, B'Elanna."

"Yeah? Just how sure are you about that?"

They drove on, the silence thickening the air between them. It continued until Kathryn pulled into a parking space in the hospital car park. B'Elanna went to get out, but Kathryn flicked the locks. She waited until B'Elanna turned to her, noting the defiant glare in the girl's eyes.

"Two things," Kathryn said, quietly. "One: The garden became more than just plants in the ground the second one of those bikes trampled the first leaf. Now it's a symbol, and we can let it be a symbol for them, or we can let it be a symbol for us. I for one know which of those I'm opting for. I will re-build it alone with my own two hands before I stop trying if that's what it takes. Two: You ever use the word 'bitch' when you're addressing me again and I will bar you from setting foot in that gym so fast you'll think you've been knocked out by Ali himself. Respect others and you respect yourself, isn't that what Chakotay says? Well, that's your first strike with me, Torres, and you damn well know I've been lenient so far. Understand?"

There was a moment of silence in which they stared at each other. Then B'Elanna nodded. Kathryn would have liked an apology, but didn't expect one and wasn't going to push for it. She unlocked the door and got out without another look back. She hoped she'd gauged it correctly when she'd surmised that what B'Elanna needed at this moment was guidelines, not leeway.

As Kathryn walked away she heard her passenger door open and close, and then B'Elanna's footsteps echoing across the concrete as she followed.

Inside the hospital, they followed the signs to the Intensive Care Unit. It was on the second floor, closed off through two pristine white double doors. Kathryn paused before she pushed them open, turning to B'Elanna.

"Do you want to wait here?" she asked. "I can go in and then come back and get you if-"

"No," the girl said, quickly. "No, I'm coming with you."

Beyond the doors, there were individual rooms on both sides of a corridor. Most of the blinds were closed, leaving the hallway in which Kathryn and B'Elanna stood lit only by the unnatural and inadequate blue-white glare of strip lights.

"Can I help you?" asked a uniformed nurse.

"We're looking for a friend of ours," Kathryn explained. "His name is Chakotay. I understand his family is here. They said we could come…"

The nurse was already nodding. He pointed down the hallway. "Go to the end and turn right. You're looking for room 16."

"Thank you."

Room 16 was the third on the left. Kathryn found herself slowing as they approached. The blinds were closed over the window, but there was sunshine flowing through the oblong of privacy glass in the door. From inside came no sound except a faint, regular beeping. She looked at B'Elanna. Then she raised her hand and knocked gently on the glass before pushing open the door.

Chakotay was lying on the bed that dominated the room. He was surrounded by machines, wires feeding from them to him, vanishing into his skin beneath strips of white adhesive tape. The ventilator hushed and hummed, keeping pace like a metronome, breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, breathing out as it pushed air into the mask that hid most of his face. His torso was a swathe of thick white bandage. His arms rested placidly by his sides.

For a moment Kathryn was unable to move. Less than 12 hours before, those arms had held her so perfectly that tearing herself out of them had been almost unbearable.

"You must be Kathryn Janeway."

The voice came from the woman sitting beside Chakotay's bed. She stood, cupping his hand in both of hers. Her face was streaked with dried tears, but she tried to offer a smile.

"I've been told you kept him alive, and also that it was thanks to you that they knew who to call."

Kathryn blinked. She'd expected Chakotay's sister to have his colouring – dark eyes and dark hair. But this woman was strikingly blonde.

"I didn't know who to call," Kathryn corrected her. "I just told them-"

"That he was a teacher at Maywood High," the woman finished for her. "Yes. They called the school's out of hours number and got Chakotay's 'in case of emergency' contact." The woman looked down at his hand, still held between both of hers. She seemed on the verge of fresh tears. "I don't know why he hadn't changed it from when we were together. It makes me hope that perhaps… he's missed me as much as I've missed him."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

When Kathryn finally got to bed, she was so tired she fell asleep in seconds, even though it was barely eight o'clock on Sunday night. She woke hours later to darkness and the sound of her cell beeping. She sat up and reached for it, wondering whether it was an update from the hospital. Annika Hansen had promised to keep her apprised of Chakotay's condition. He'd been lucky, Annika had explained, in that although one bullet had collapsed his lung, the other two had missed his vital organs by millimetres. She was refusing to give up hope.

"Fighting is what he does," she'd pointed out. "He's tough. He won't give up easily. I want him to know that there'll be someone here when he wakes up. Sekaya is trying to get here but she has things to arrange. I'll stay, for as long as it takes. I want to."

Kathryn had to admire her for that.

But it wasn't news about Chakotay. It was a text from Mark.

Tried to call but no answer. Hope all OK. I'm at the airport. Last two lectures dropped so I'm on my way home. See you tomorrow. Can't wait. Love you.

She lay down again, one hand bunching her pillow beneath her cheek as she looked at the message. Then she typed a reply.

Sorry I missed your call. So glad you're coming home. Safe journey. Love you.

She sent the message into the ether, then put down the phone and curled her knees up into her chest. Kathryn lay there for a few minutes, wondering whether Mark would try to FaceTime her now that he knew she was awake, but no such call came. Perhaps he'd already been at the gate.

She turned on her back, stretched out her legs and stared up at the ceiling. The past 24 hours seemed like a blur. So much had happened and so quickly, an explosion for which she'd been standing right at Ground Zero. Now it was time to acknowledge the fallout and work out how to survive it. Sleep had cleared her head a little, at least. Mentally she took stock of the situation.

Chakotay was alive and in as good a place as there was for him at this moment. There was nothing she could-

She crashed to her knees by his side, hands searching for the source of the blood, his face white and growing whiter, scarlet on his lips-

-lips that just moments earlier had been on her neck, on her mouth, so alive-

-as he aspirated between them, dark eyes fastened on her as if he wanted to say something but

Kathryn tried to shut out the flash of memory but it came anyway, smashing into her like a closed fist cracking into her jaw. All she could do was let it bludgeon its way through her, let the fraction of a second where she was back there take control until it loosened its grip again and she was returned to the present, staring up at her ceiling, fingers clenched around handfuls of her white sheets.

She took a deep breath. She knew how this worked. She'd been here before. The trick was to acknowledge, but not to feel. She couldn't let herself feel it, or it would drown her as surely as the ocean had drowned Justin and her father, as surely as the blood in Chakotay's pierced lung had almost drowned him and still might.

Kathryn's heart was so thoroughly flensed that it felt light, empty. What had happened with Chakotay would mark her indelibly, she knew that, but so had a million other things that had happened in her life and so would a million more before her hair turned grey with age. That was life, after all, and now it was time to get on with the rest of it.

Life always went on.

Mark was coming home. She had to decide how honest she was going to be about what had happened in his absence. She had kissed another man – in truth, she had been willing to do more than kiss him - six weeks before she was due to become Mark's wife. The most honest part of her felt duty bound to tell Mark this, however much the idea of doing so appalled her.

She wondered how different that evening would have been if she hadn't been the one to drive Chakotay home. What if it had been B'Elanna instead? Would they both be dead or dying now?

What if you hadn't run? whispered a voice inside her. What if you hadn't pulled away and let him follow you to the door, out to where the wolves were waiting?

What if you had stayed? What if you had stayed there with him?

She got up, leaving that thought behind her where it belonged. It would have made no difference in the long run, of course, other than leaving her with something else to regret. If they hadn't gotten to him that night, they would have found another opportunity.

There were a million ways to torture oneself with how life might have been different and none of them were worth a damn because none of them could change a thing.

She knew this, too.

Kathryn went into the bathroom. The first thing she did was pick up her dress, still lying cold and saturated on the white shower tiles. She shoved it into the trashcan and then realised that she didn't want Mark to see the bloodstained mess of it. She took it out again and carried it downstairs. She wrapped it in newsprint and put it in a bag, then stuffed it into the larger trashcan in the kitchen.

Kathryn looked at the date on the calendar on the kitchen wall. Six weeks until her wedding, and there was so much she should already have done that she'd been putting off. Why was that? She couldn't remember now.

She'd kissed another man. So what? It was just a kiss. It didn't mean anything more than a lapse in judgement, a lonely moment while Mark had been away that would never be repeated.

Kathryn put on coffee and while it brewed she got out her laptop. Then she sat down and started making notes and writing emails. If anyone could organise a good wedding in six weeks flat, it was her.

The house phone rang about an hour later.

"I get an email from you at 3am on Monday to ask me to help you pick out a wedding dress on Tuesday?" said Phoebe's voice. "Seriously?"

"I didn't think you'd see it until you got up."

"Well, I did. What gives?"

"Nothing 'gives'. I just realised I have a huge amount to do for this wedding that I really should have already organised. So, can you make Tuesday?"

There was a pause. Kathryn wondered whether Phoebe was lying in bed next to Karl, or if she was sitting in her kitchen, as Kathryn was.

"Why are you doing this at 3am the day after your storming success of a charity gala?" Phoebe asked.

"The two things aren't mutually exclusive, Phoebe. I've got six weeks to organise everything. When do you suggest I do it?"

Another pause. "So how did dropping Coach Chakotay home go?"

Kathryn was on the verge of uttering a short, reflexive 'fine' when she realised she couldn't. Not this time.

"Kathryn?"

She didn't know how to start. Dead air floated down the line.

"I'm coming over," Phoebe said. "Right now."

Phoebe knew something was badly wrong the minute she saw her sister, although it was likely that to everyone else Kathryn Janeway looked perfectly fine. On the surface she was projecting the same air of calm collectedness she always did. To Phoebe's knowing eye it was just a little too calm, a little too collected, delineated by a form of absence that lurked just out of sight to anyone not paying attention or who didn't know Kathryn well enough. Search just a little deeper and there it was; a void, hard to define yet clear enough to set alarm bells ringing in Phoebe's head as soon as she looked into her sister's eyes.

"What happened? Tell me."

Phoebe listened in silence as Kathryn spoke. For once she made no comment, not even when Kathryn, staring resolutely at the dark surface of her coffee, told her about the kiss.

Once she was done, Phoebe reached out and gripped one of Kathryn's hands in hers. "Why didn't you call me?" she asked. "I would have come to the hospital and waited with you, you know I would."

Kathryn shook her head. "I didn't think."

"You were in shock."

"I suppose I was. Anyway, I'm fine now. He's being taken care of and he's got his girlfriend with him. She'll call when she has news."

Ex-girlfriend, Phoebe thought, but did not say. "And Mark's coming home."

"Yes," Kathryn said, with a faint smile.

Phoebe nodded, still holding on to her sister's hand. "Look. I'm not saying this for any other reason than that I genuinely think it's the right thing to do. Don't you think it would be a good idea to postpone the wedding? Even just for a few weeks?"

Her sister frowned. "Why on earth would I do that? I wasn't the one who was hurt, Phoebe. I'm fine."

"Kathryn, you know as well as I do that you've just been through a hugely traumatic experience. Hell, the shooting would have been shocking enough. It'd be traumatic for anyone, but for you-"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He could have died in your arms in that hallway. Do I have to spell it out to you? Are you suppressing that much? Really?"

Kathryn's face grew taut. "If you're equating what happened with Justin and Dad to a man I barely know-"

"Kathryn, five minutes earlier you were ready to go to bed with him. And that might be nothing for a lot of people, but not for you."

"I might have wanted to," Kathryn said, her voice sharp, "yes, for a split second I might have wanted to, but I didn't, and that was because of Mark, Phoebe. I didn't because of Mark."

"Was it love that stopped you?" Phoebe asked. "Or was it guilt? Because they're not the same thing, Kathryn, and that matters. Now of all times, it matters."

Kathryn shook her head, her face hardening. "I'm so tired of this old argument. Just once I'd like to be able to rely on you for support in this. Just once. I am not postponing this wedding, and I have a lot to do. So either you help me, or you stay out of my way."

"Are you going to tell Mark what you've told me? All of it?"

Kathryn folded her hands together on the table in front of her. "Yes," she said. "Why? Hoping he'll call it off himself?"

Phoebe shook her head. "No. Mark won't do that. Not for the sake of a single kiss. It'll hurt him like hell, but he loves you too much."

She saw the flicker of guilt pass through Kathryn's eyes.

"Tell me just one thing," Phoebe said, into the ensuing silence. "When Chakotay kissed you, how did it feel?"

Her sister's jaw set hard and fast, but not quickly enough to stop Phoebe from seeing a flash of something Kathryn couldn't quite crush sparking across her face.

It looked a lot like joy.

[TBC]

Chapter Text

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]

Chapter Text

The garden – or what had once been the garden - was full of people. As Kathryn killed her engine and got out of her car, she saw that the assembly had formed into a sort of chain gang that led from the destroyed main gate back across the site. She paused as she realised that the place looked different to the way she'd seen it last. Gone were the damaged remnants of plants and the grooves caused by the spinning wheels of motorcycles. The earth had been raked over and cleared. It almost looked ready for re-planting.

As Kathryn moved closer, she saw that there was a pick-up pulled up by the entrance. This one was blue, so it wasn't Kes's – although through the gathered throng Kathryn could see the young woman herself standing by the vehicle's open tailgate. Beside her was a burly man in a battered Stetson and grey flannel shirt. They were both in the act of unloading items from the back of the truck, turning to give whatever it was to the first person in the line of workers. The human conveyor belt was transporting whatever had been on the back of the truck through the gate and into the garden itself.

When Kathryn got closer still, she realised they were pots. Pots with plants in them – a lot of plants.

"Kathryn!"

It was Tom. He ducked out of his place at the head of the line when he spotted her.

"Tom?" Kathryn asked as they neared one another, "What's going on?"

He shrugged. "People just started coming this morning. And then-" he turned and indicated Kes, who smiled and tapped the man beside her on the arm. The line took a break as Kes and her compantion came over to join Tom and Kathryn. "-then Kes turned up,"

"Kathryn, this is my father, Ben," said Kes. "Dad, this is Kathryn, the woman I told you about."

Kes's father stretched out a hand to shake Kathryn's. "Mighty pleased to meet you," he said. "I hope you won't consider this a liberty, but Kes told us what you were doing here, and then what happened. It seemed like since I was in a position to do something to help the situation, then I should. So I filled my truck and I got on the road, and now here I am."

"Ben brought vegetable plants and fruit trees to replace the ones that we lost, and a lot more besides," Tom added. "None of us knew exactly where you would want them to go, so we thought we'd unload them and wait until you got here."

Kathryn looked at the gathered crowd, who were all standing in silence, as if waiting for her to speak. She tried to formulate the right words, and had to clear her throat before she could find her voice.

"Thank you," she said to Kes's father, first. "This is – an extraordinarily generous thing that you have done. Thank you. Not just for myself, but-" she gestured to the gathered people, "for the community as a whole. But," she added, raising her voice to the rest of the group. "This was never about what I thought should be here. This is your place, your garden – it's for you all to decide how it should be planted."

There was a brief silence as the people looked at each other. Then Neelix stepped forward.

"You're the reason that the garden exists in the first place, Ms Janeway," he pointed out. "I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we will all take part in looking after it from now on. But we want your expertise – we want you – to help us get started."

A murmur of assent rippled through the crowd. Kathryn swallowed the lump in her throat. "What about the gang?" she asked, her voice husking in the reigning quiet. "There's a danger from the Crimsons. You all know there is, and I-"

A figure stepped forward. It was Franco. He dipped his head and then squared his shoulders, putting his hands deep in his pockets.

"Ya basta," he said, in his deep, rumbling growl.

There was a movement beside him. B'Elanna appeared.

"Enough is enough," she supplied, quietly. "It's what you said, isn't it? This place is a symbol. And we should make sure it's a symbol for us. Not for them."

Kathryn simply looked at B'Elanna for a second. Then she reached out and took the girl's hand. B'Elanna smiled faintly as Kathryn squeezed her fingers.

"All right," Kathryn said, letting go of B'Elanna and turning to address the crowd. "Then it looks as if we have a lot to get started with. Neelix, you know what you're doing with the fruit trees. Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to head up a work party to deal with them. The rest of us can divide ourselves between vegetables and plants and get as many as we can in the ground as soon as possible. How about that?"

There was another general murmuring of agreement. The people began to move away in twos and threes, discussing who should do what and how.

"Kathryn Janeway?"

The voice came from behind her. Kathryn turned to see a woman dressed in a sharp blue suit holding what appeared to be a microphone. Beside her was a heavy-set man in blue jeans and a black shirt, the left side of his face obscured by the steadycam he held on his shoulder. Behind them Kathryn could see a white van with a satellite dish on its roof and the legend 'abc7' on its side.

"Yes?" Kathryn said. "Can I help you?"

The woman made for the gate at a brisk clip, her cameraman following on her heels.

"Stacey Jeffries, abc7 Eyewitness News," she said. "Do you have a few minutes to talk?"

Kathryn's reply was cut off by the tinny, whining noise of a motorcycle engine. It raised the hairs on the back of her neck, the sound of it drawing nearer the vivid precursor to a visceral memory she could not bear to relive or even believe was real. The cacophony grew and multiplied, becoming a roar as not one but an entire fleet of bikes cruised into view. Kathryn's anxiety spiked as she saw that each had a pillion passenger and that all of the riders had helmets with dark visors hiding their faces. Cold fear slid down her spine.

They can't shoot all of us, B'Elanna.

Just how sure are you about that?

Kathryn swung back toward the gardeners behind her. She wanted to yell at them to run, to take shelter, but there was nowhere for them to hide. The earth in the destroyed garden was as flat and blank as a new sheet of paper. Besides which, they were hemmed in by the metal fence. How could they run? Where would they go, even if they could?

She saw B'Elanna step forward. It was only a few paces, but to Kathryn just then it seemed as if the girl had struck out into a void so vast that just one step took her beyond reach.

The bikes slowed, rounding one corner, drawing closer and closer to where B'Elanna stood. Time became a crawl. Everything was still and awful and-

Then Franco moved. He took one slow, deliberate step, then another, then another, until he was standing directly at the girl's left side.

Tom Paris did the same, mirroring Franco's stance on B'Elanna's right.

Neelix stepped forward.

Then Kes.

One by one, every person who had been working on that rough patch of earth moved to stand behind B'Elanna Torres.

The motorbikes slowed still further and then stopped altogether, idling in the centre of the street.

There was no sound apart from the lowered thrum of the motorbikes' engines. B'Elanna stood her ground with her chin up and her shoulders square. The lead bike squatted there like an angry wasp stuck in syrup, the obsidian black visors of its rider and pillion gleaming blankly in the sunlight.

It seemed to last an age, that stand off: ten men on bikes against thirty people standing on the uncertain island of that broken, barely there garden.

Then, finally, the lead bike revved its engine and peeled away. The others followed suit, sliding out of view and away between the buildings.

"Kurt – tell me you got that," Kathryn heard Stacey Jeffries hiss behind her.

"Don't sweat it," the cameraman told her. "I got it."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

Mark rubbed his eyes as he walked out of the final security checkpoint and towards the arrivals lounge at LAX airport. They were gritty and dry, horribly dehydrated after the transatlantic flight. He was tired – the usual blank fatigue associated with being forced to sit in an air conditioned tin can at 40,000 feet for hours on end. He'd managed to sleep for a couple of hours, but as always while flying he'd mostly alternated between trying to read and watching whatever hacked-about films the in-flight entertainment had to offer.

He had definitely had enough of this sort of travel to last him a lifetime, a thought he'd had with increasing regularity the closer he got to the big 5-0. Well, this was it, once and for all. From now on, Mark decided, it'd be cruises or luxury trains: if he had to fly again it'd be only short-haul or else first class all the way. His mind wandered off on a daydream for a moment, as it had repeatedly during this trip. He'd always wanted to see the Rockies properly and wondered what Kathryn would think to that as a honeymoon trip. In fact, maybe they could combine it with a cruise up to Alaska… He'd been once, years ago, long before he had met her, and had adored it: the cold expanse of unspoiled land, the overwhelming beauty of the looming mountains. Mark loved the idea of sharing that with Kathryn.

He loved the idea of sharing it with his wife.

Mark smiled to himself as he walked. It was strange, how much power that small word had over him. It had been the same way back when he'd first asked Kathryn to marry him – for weeks afterwards he'd found himself smiling every time the term had popped into his head. But then it had proven so difficult to set a date that worked for both of them, and the months had turned into years, until they had both grown used to the engagement and had somehow forgotten that it was supposed to lead to something else. Now, with the date set and growing closer by the hour, he found himself back in that state he'd experienced previously: giddy with anticipation, not just for the day itself, but for what it meant.

Kathryn Janeway would soon be his wife. He would soon be her husband.

He wasn't sure he'd ever work out how he got to be so damn lucky.

Mark was still smiling as he walked out into the arrivals lounge. He was carrying the only luggage he'd taken with him – his backpack and a small black case that fitted into an overhead locker. If he'd learned one thing amid the countless hours spent in airports, it was how to travel light. He'd have to get a taxi back to Pasadena as he'd left his car at home, judging a long stay in airport parking to be less economical and-

"Mark!"

Her voice burst over him, that unique timbre that always made him think of sultry smoke-filled rooms and good jazz, as if she should be the hostess of a bar somewhere instead of forever scraping dirt from beneath her fingernails. And then suddenly there she was in front of him, somehow even more beautiful than he remembered, although how on earth could that be possible?

Mark dropped both bags at his feet and breathed her name as he wrapped his arms around her and hugged, hard. "Kathryn. God, I missed you."

She let him fold her against his chest, slipping her arms around him, and just for a second he felt her tremble. Mark frowned, pulling back slightly to look at her face. Kathryn met his gaze and his stomach instantly went into freefall. It plummeted to his toes and smashed there, a sick mess where his equilibrium used to be.

"What is it?" he asked. "What's happened?"

She dropped her eyes to his chest, then looked him in the eye again. That only made his growing nausea even worse because what he saw there was determination: the sort of determination that gets one through an unpleasant yet necessary task. And he knew what the next words out of her mouth were going to be and he didn't want to hear them, couldn't bear to hear them, not from her, not now, not when-

"We need to talk," she said, softly.

In one major way it wasn't as bad as he'd been expecting. Yet it was simultaneously somehow much, much worse.

They sat in the kitchen with coffee in front of them. Silence filled the space between and around them following Kathryn's explanation of everything that had happened around the night of Owen's gala. Molly, incongruously happy, pawed at his thigh and Mark absently rubbed the dog's ears as he stared at nothing, trying to navigate the black hole that had opened up in his heart.

On the drive back to Pasadena he had realised, somewhere around Alhambra, that she hadn't kissed him hello. That had reinforced his assumption that Kathryn was ending it - that this was what she was preparing to tell him. He was so convinced this was the case that he almost told her not to bother saying any more: that he got it and there was no need to rub salt in the wound with further explanation.

He hadn't been able to do that. Hope, that worst and best of human attitudes, held him silent. So he'd waited. He'd held out to hear her voice break his heart directly.

The story he'd got was about as far away from the realms of his imagination as it was possible to conceive.

"But you weren't hurt?" he asked, his voice croaking in the silence. "There wasn't – you didn't – none of the bullets -"

Kathryn shook her head.

Mark nodded, dumb again.

"I'll go," she said then, her hands clasped around each other on the table. "If you want me to. I can stay with Phoebe and Karl, or check into a hotel…"

The black hole opened a little wider. Mark looked at her, aching. "Do you want to go?"

"No," said Kathryn. "But it's up to you."

"Is it?" he asked. "Do you still want to marry me? Do you still want to spend your life with me? Do you love me, Kathryn?"

Mark could see tears in her eyes. "Yes," she said. "Yes."

"You haven't even kissed me," he pointed out. "I've been away for weeks, I've just got off a plane – and you haven't even kissed me."

Two tears slipped down her cheeks. "I didn't think I should. Not until you knew-" she stopped, shaking her head. "I didn't think I had the right to do that."

Silence reigned for another moment, and then Mark said, "Why did you do it? What made you kiss him? Because I know it wasn't drink, Kathryn. You'd never get behind the wheel of a car if you'd been drinking."

Her jaw tensed and released, more tears brushing over her skin. "I don't know," she said. "Mark, I don't know. I'm so sorry. It should never have happened, I should never have let it happen. This project – it's been so all-consuming, so important to me, and it was finally coming together and Chakotay's been there from the start-"

"-and I haven't."

She shook her head. "That's not what I meant. This isn't your fault."

Mark reached out and caught her hand. She held on, squeezing his fingers. "It's true, though. Isn't it? I was always against it. I always made things difficult for you. I didn't want you to do it – I didn't think you could – but there he was, right there-" Mark shook his head. "I'm a fool. I should have been there for you. I'm your fiancé, I had one job – to support you no matter what – and I failed at it miserably. I was afraid it would take you away from me and it did – because I wasn't willing to pitch in. Because I wasn't there."

"No," Kathryn said, "Mark, I don't blame you for that. None of this is your fault."

He lifted his other hand and smoothed his thumb over her cheek. "Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but still. I wasn't there for you. And I will be now. I promise. From now on, whatever help you need in the garden, you can rely on me, Kathryn. I'll buy some gardening boots. I'll learn how to tell a weed from a zucchini. I'll – I'll fork manure until the cows run out, if that's what you want."

Kathryn smiled slightly. "Now that's an image I can't quite imagine."

Mark held on to her hand, pulling her towards him gently. Kathryn got out of her chair and moved around the table as he stood. He wasn't going to kiss her. She had to kiss him. He had to know she wanted to be there. It had to be her choice.

Kathryn stepped in close and pressed her hands to his chest. "I love you," she said, quietly. "I swear I will never hurt you again, Mark. Never."

Mark shut his eyes as her lips touched his. He believed her. Peculiarly, the trust he had in her had not been broken. Kathryn could have stayed in that apartment with Chakotay that night, but she hadn't. If she had chosen to keep the kiss a secret he would never have been any wiser, but she hadn't done that either.

She really was the most trustworthy person he knew.

And still the black hole spun in his heart.

[TBC]

Chapter Text

Screaming.

The sound rushed at him from oblivion, smashing into him like a freight train. He tried to move, tried to take a breath, but the darkness held him down, sucking at his arms, his legs. There was a weight on his chest, a huge weight, a dead weight. He was trapped. There was something in his mouth, over his face. He couldn't move.

And she was screaming.

Her face flashed at him from the dark. There was blood on her pale skin.

Gunshots.

Blood.

Kathryn.

Kathryn, Kathryn, Kathryn, Kathryn-

Chakotay fought, thrashing against the darkness and against the pressure on his chest but he couldn't get to her, he couldn't even move his arms, he couldn't-

More sounds faded in, replacing her screams. Closer, somehow. There was an alarm going off, fast, high pitched, piercing, repeating over and over-

"It's all right," a voice was saying. "Chakotay, it's all right, you're all right, don't-"

The oblivion let go its grip. It's tentacles slipped away. His blindness became tangible instead – there was something over his eyes. He tried to lift an arm to remove it, but something held him back, pushing his arm back down. Something warm, this time. Hands on his skin, warm. Alive.

Kathryn?

The alarm wailed and wailed.

"It's all right," the voice said again. "Chakotay, please. It's all right. You're all right. Don't move. Don't-" the voice rose, an edge of panic gripping it. "Nurse? Doctor? Someone!"

Not Kathryn.

Where is she?

Blood on her face.

Screaming.

WHERE IS SHE?

He fought again, trying to move.

There was the sound of running feet. More hands on him, more voices, too many to single out.

The alarm cut off.

Kathryn, he tried to say, but the thing over his face was still there. He tried anyway. Help Kathryn, please-

Oblivion faded back in. Its tentacles slipped out of the darkness undulating around him. They wound around his legs, his arms, his neck. They pulled him down, down, down.

Kath-

The second time Chakotay came round, there was nothing on his face. He opened his eyes into a dimmed room, staring at a ceiling he didn't recognise. He looked at it for a while. It was white, segmented into oblong tiles, the seams between them its only feature. There was a beeping noise coming from somewhere. He became aware of a machine not far from his shoulder. He angled his head toward it. A black screen showed a gamut of colours moving in lines from left to right. He blinked, slowly registering other machines too. A stand with a pouch of fluid hanging from it.

Hospital.

He felt detached from reality, his mind foggy. He dipped his chin and looked down his body.

What happened? He had no memory, except-

Screaming.

Blood on her face-

"Kathryn," he gasped, gripping the edge of the bed and trying to lever himself up. The lines on the screen beside him squiggled crazily. A machine began to beep faster.

"Chakotay!"

A figure he hadn't realised was there moved beside him. A face came into view, large blue eyes beneath blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. Chakotay recognised her instantly, but the knowledge confused him.

"Annika?" His voice was hoarse and barely there.

She smiled around a small bubble of strangled noise that might have been laughter. There were tears in her eyes. "Yes," she said. "You're awake. Oh God, you're awake."

He looked past her, trying to move again. "I don't-"

Annika put her hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him back down against the pillows. "Don't move. You've been shot."

He lay back, defeated, still confused. "Shot?"

She nodded, the tears running down her cheeks. "You're lucky to be alive."

He tried to work this out, and then-

Screaming.

Blood on her face-

He struggled up again, fighting against the weight on his chest, against the sheets over him and the fog in his mind. "Kathryn! Where is she?"

Annika pushed him down again, frowning a little. "Kathryn Janeway?"

"She's hurt," he rasped. "She was there, she-"

"No," Annika told him, looking over her shoulder towards the door. "No, Chakotay. She's fine."

"But-"

"She wasn't hurt. She was with you, but she wasn't hurt. It's all right. Just rest. Try not to move. I'll get a doctor. OK?"

He swallowed. His mouth was dry. His throat was sore. He kept hearing her screaming.

"Kathryn –"

"She's all right. I promise."

"But she – where is she? She was screaming. There was – blood."

Annika rested one hand on his shoulder. "I'll call her. OK? I'll call her. Please just don't move."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

B'Elanna thumped the blade of her shovel into another mound of earth and then twisted it out again, leaving an even hole ready for planting with the displaced soil sitting at its edge. Over the past few hours she'd gotten good at this. Besides, doing something physical always helped take her away from the present, and it turned out that gardening was no exception.

"Do you feel as if you're helping to build a better world? Is that why you're doing this?"

That's what the journalist had wanted to know. B'Elanna had been shocked when she'd turned around and seen that the standoff with the gang had been caught on camera. She wondered what that meant – what extra level of vengeance the Crims would exact as a result of the encounter being captured digitally – but it barely seemed to matter. What more could they do other than kill her? And if that was what they intended, well – it was the least she deserved after what she'd let happen to Chakotay. Even so, B'Elanna hadn't intended to take a stand. It had just seemed the only thing to do at that moment. All it had meant was taking a step forward instead of a step back. You want me? Here I am. Come get me. After all, you back a rat into a corner and it will always fight. And that's what she was, right? Maywood vermin, born and bred.

She'd forgotten, though, that the same was true of every other person standing on that ravaged patch of land. With the exception of Tom, they were all Maywood residents. And if none of those rats were ready to abandon this ship, then perhaps it wasn't sinking after all.

B'Elanna paused, leaning on her shovel. For perhaps the first time ever, she saw this place from Chakotay's point of view, and from Kathryn's. Not as somewhere to escape but as somewhere that could take her on that journey itself if only she looked after it well enough and if only she could inspire others to do the same.

"Do you feel as if you're helping to build a better world? Is that why you're doing this?"

B'Elanna looked around the patch of ground at the small groups of workers diligently tending the new plants. She had answered that that was a question for Kathryn Janeway, whose vision this was and whom the journalist should talk to if she wanted proper answers. But the question had stayed with her, because it drew echoes of her first proper conversation with Tom, all those weeks ago, when she'd still been so knotted up with hate and fear that she couldn't see past either to feel anything else.

"You'd like to make things better. So would Kathryn. So maybe that's one thing you have in common."

Her first reaction in the wake of Chakotay's shooting had been to pick up a gun herself. To cause pain equal to the magnitude of the raw ache those phantom bullets had torn in her own self. But Kathryn had been right. Of course she had been right. That wasn't what Chakotay would want. It wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't make anything better, it wouldn't even make things even. It wouldn't change anything.

This garden, though. This place… maybe this could. Maybe it really could. Look at how everyone was working together right at this moment: people she'd never usually look twice at, people she would see through if she passed them on the street. They were here, now, together. Making something happen, just because they wanted to, just because they could. So if that was possible, what else could they achieve?

She looked over at the patch of ground that Kathryn had designated for her water reclamation unit. B'Elanna narrowed her eyes and built it in her mind, piece by piece, apparatus by apparatus, an assembly of individual parts that eventually created a new whole.

"Penny for them?"

The image dissipated and she turned to see Tom smiling down at her, the sun glinting off his hair.

"Can we keep that same patch free?" she asked, indicating where her mind had built her machine.

He nodded. "Sure. Does that mean you're into the reclamation unit again?"

B'Elanna nodded. "I was thinking that I might call some of the people that spoke to me at the gala – the ones that wanted to invest in my idea. I'm going to tell them that I want their help – but only if they'll agree to build the first unit here, in the garden. And we have to manufacture all the parts in Maywood, somehow, too. I don't know how, but there must be a way. And if we're going to employ people, I want it to be people from here, even if they need training to be able to do it. I'll go with whoever agrees to all of that. I want it to be something that came from Maywood. I want to show that good stuff can come out of a place like this."

Tom smiled. "That's a great idea."

She grimaced. "You don't think they'll tell me its impossible? Or a plain stupid idea? Or just refuse to help?"

Tom shrugged. "Probably. That's what happened to Kathryn right?"

B'Elanna looked down at her toes, her heart sinking. "Yeah."

She felt Tom's fingers on her chin. He tipped her face up, gently, until he could look into her eyes. "It didn't stop her though, did it? Can't see it stopping you, either, B'Elanna Torres."

The look in his eyes was one of such confidence that she felt her heart lifting again. She smiled. "You know what? I could probably do with a good fight right now. Pity the rich white guy who thinks he can beat medown from what I want."

Tom grinned, his blue eyes dancing with light and laughter. "And bingo! There's the girl I fell in love with."

B'Elanna felt her mouth drop open. From the look on Tom's face, he'd surprised himself, too. B'Elanna felt the rest of the world fading away, every little noise and movement around them curling in, narrowing and distilling until all she could hear was their breathing, as if they had been cast adrift somewhere together in a void where only they existed. She studied his face, wondering if he meant it, wondering if she felt the same, wondering if she should say so, wanting to close the distance between them but-

"Hey guys! I'm going to have to take the kids back to base now," said a cheery voice, somewhere back in the world of the every day. "But how about we make this a regular thing?"

B'Elanna snapped back to the present to find Harry Kim standing beside them, smiling broadly. She and Tom both took a hurried step back.

"Um," Tom said, "sure! That would be great. And hey man, thanks so much for today. It was a really good thing you did, turning up."

"No problem. It's what we Scouts do! Say, do you want to take my number? You can call me if there are any developments or you need extra help or something."

Tom dug out his phone. "Sounds like a plan. Oh-" he said, looking at his screen with a frown.

"What?" B'Elanna asked.

Tom was still looking at his screen. "I missed a call from Kathyrn, but it's OK, she sent a text." He looked up at her and B'Elanna's heart turned over. "B'E, she says Chakotay's awake. She's on her way over there now."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

Mark drove them to the hospital. "I want to come," he'd said, once Kathryn had ended the call from Annika Hansen. All her instincts had told her to say no, but how could she? Why should she? It wasn't as if anything was going to happen during the visit that Mark shouldn't observe. He already knew the worst of what there was to know about her acquaintance with Chakotay and that would never be repeated, whether Mark was there or not. Yet the same part of her that had told her to keep Chakotay secret from her fiancé that first fateful night of their meeting whispered wordlessly in her subconscious once more. There was no sense to it, no form she could describe. It wasn't even guilt. It was something more fundamental than that.

This is mine, part of her wanted to say. You are known in every other part of my life, but this is mine.

Kathryn looked out of the window as the sprawl of Los Angeles scudded by in a flurry of buildings and traffic congestion. Then she turned to look at Mark, his familiar profile fading into silhouette as the evening drew on. She could tell he was tired, and beyond that he was also stressed: there were telltale lines tensing from the corner of his mouth that only ever appeared when he was preoccupied. She wondered when she had learned to read these minute yet familiar changes in his face – changes that he probably wasn't even aware of himself, but that had become, to her, an alphabet of semiotics as readable as the keys on a map. She wondered, too, what he could read in her when she thought she was silent.

It was probable, she realised, that this was the very reason why Mark had wanted to accompany her to Chakotay's bedside. To observe, in person, whether what she had told him aloud was the same as what she was saying in silence.

Kathryn looked out of the window again. She wasn't worried about Mark seeing Chakotay and her together. She hadn't been lying when she'd promised Mark she'd never hurt him again. She did love him, after all – if she hadn't she'd never have agreed to be his wife in the first place. And wasn't this familiarity that she had just described to herself perfect proof that theirs would be a good marriage? They knew each other, inside and out. They had built a life together, around each other, and the sum of the parts they had assembled over the years was too great to bring low in a fit of childish impetuosity, kicked over like a stack of wooden building blocks.

She tried to keep her mind on Mark, on the effect all this must be having on him. It kept the other thing at bay, the quivering that had started up in her heart when she'd heard that Chakotay was conscious and lucid. He was alive. He was going to live. Up until that point she hadn't allowed herself to consider that – in truth, she had closed off any avenues of thought that led towards Chakotay.

He wasn't hers to worry about.

Annika was standing outside Chakotay's room when they arrived. She looked even paler than her complexion would naturally allow for. Gaunt, too, Kathryn noted, with sympathy. Still, the younger woman smiled when she looked up and saw Kathryn coming, the expression turning a little fixed and quizzical as it took in Mark too.

"We got here as soon as we could," Kathryn told her. "Annika, this is my fiancé, Mark."

The pair shook hands as Annika said, "The doctor's in with him at the moment but you should go in as soon as you can. I'm sorry to make you come all this way when it's getting late, but I can't convince him that you're all right. He can just remember you screaming, and that you were covered in blood. So I thought, if he could see you for himself…"

Kathryn found herself reaching out to squeeze Annika's arm. "You did the right thing."

The door to Chakotay's room opened and a physician stepped out. He offered Annika a small smile and said, "You can go in now. I'll check back in an hour – call if you need me before that."

Kathryn glanced at Mark but he hung back. "You go," he said. "I'll wait out here."

"So will I," Annika told her.

It wasn't until Kathryn stepped inside that she let herself acknowledge it: that tremor she had been keeping at bay ever since she'd taken the call telling her he was awake. The door hushed shut and she found herself enclosed. She felt insulated from the world beyond, as if this room was a bubble kept apart from the rest of the universe. It was something to do with the quality of the silence here, and she realised that it was distinctly different to the last time she had set foot in this room.

She finally pinpointed it as an absence. The rising and falling sound of the ventilator had gone.

Chakotay's face had been freed from the machine's mask. The top half of his bed had been elevated slightly so that he was no longer lying flat on his back.

Kathryn walked towards him, following the same route she'd taken on her first visit, except that this time she was acutely aware of the audience behind her, two pairs of eyes she imagined were following her every movement.

For a moment Kathryn thought Chakotay was asleep. But then the toe of her shoe scuffed against the wheel of his hospital bed and the sound was enough to make him open his eyes. When they fixed on her she was reminded of how very dark they were: how very dark and how absolutely unlike any other pair of eyes that had ever held the measure of her in their scope.

Mark watched through the window as the man on the bed spoke. He didn't need to hear to know what Chakotay had said. He would know the shape of that word anywhere.

Kathryn.

Chakotay struggled to sit up, but Kathryn held up her hands – no, don't – and moved closer, rounding the side of the bed to stand at Chakotay's shoulder. Mark saw her bend forward slightly, diminutive beside the patient even though he was the one lying down. She rested her hand on his shoulder. Chakotay instantly reached for it, covering her smaller fingers with his larger ones. He was speaking again, but these words were not as easily lip-read. Kathryn shook her head, her words invisible to Mark's eyes.

Chakotay squeezed her wrist, her forearm, her shoulder. He brushed her hair back over her shoulder with his fingers, then framed her face with one hand. All this he did in the space of a breath, as if these brief touches were themselves an exhalation of relief.

Kathryn, he said. Kathryn.

Mark glanced down at his feet and dug his hands in his pockets. When he looked up again, Annika Hansen was regarding him with clear, assessing eyes. He smiled slightly.

"I think I'll go get coffee," he said.

She nodded.

"Kathryn."

He wanted to map every inch of her with both hands, just to be sure that she was real, that she was whole, that she really was here. Chakotay tried to sit up, but Kathryn rested one warm hand on his bare shoulder and gently pushed him back down.

"Chakotay," she said, her voice rasping softly amid the room's stolid quiet. "Chakotay, just lay still."

"You were hurt," he said. "You were-"

"Ssh," she soothed. "I'm fine. You see? I'm here, and I'm fine."

"But there was blood-"

Kathryn shook her head. "That was yours," she said, her voice still soft.

He swallowed, unwilling to look away from her face in case she turned out to be a phantom after all and vanished while his attention was elsewhere. He reached out, touching her arm, her hair, cupping her face. An emotion shot through her blue eyes, too fast for him to read, and he had the sensation of a door closing, or perhaps a light being switched off. She lifted her left hand and gently pulled his away. As she did, something glinted on her hand, the cold white shine of diamond.

Her engagement ring.

"How long was I unconscious?" he asked. The ache in his chest had been present since he woke, but suddenly it multiplied, making it hard to breathe.

"Three days," she told him, her voice catching slightly.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Her eyes fixed on his. Blue, so blue. "What do you have to be sorry for?"

"You were there."

Kathryn looked down at his hand. She held it between both of her own. "Do you…" she trailed off.

"Do I what?"

She shook her head. "It doesn't matter."

He shifted slightly. "Do I remember? Is that what you were going to ask?" When she looked at him again, Chakotay tried for a smile. "Yes," he said, softly. "I remember, Kathryn. I remember everything."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

"Well, at least now you don't look quite so much as if you've been on the losing end of a bare knuckle bout, Coach."

B'Elanna was perched on the edge of Chakotay's bed. It was her third visit to his hospital room since he'd woken, and each time she'd come she'd had to screw up all her courage to even open the door. She felt that she had to be here, but seeing him lying on that bed, still wired up to the heart monitor and so badly bruised just reminded her of everything she'd done wrong over the past few months. Not that he held it against her. Chakotay had made that quite clear during her first visit, even though he'd been struggling to stay awake by the end.

Chakotay smiled at her. "I feel better every day. They say the drain they put in my lung can come out in the next week. Maybe then I can actually get out of this damn bed. My legs must be wasting away."

"Don't rush it," B'Elanna told him. "This time last week none of us thought you were going to make it, not even Kathryn. She-" At the mention of Kathryn's name, Chakotay looked away, something dark flashing through his eyes. B'Elanna stopped. "Has she been to visit you? She's not been to the garden for a few days. Tom's been handling everything."

Chakotay looked down at his folded hands and smiled. "She came in the day I woke up. But she won't be in again."

B'Elanna frowned. "Why not?"

Chakotay shifted slightly, uncomfortable. "She's got a lot on her plate with the wedding."

B'Elanna watched him. "Seems to me that she's always got a lot on her plate. She still manages to fit everything in. I can't believe she doesn't want to come visit you, not after everything that happened. I mean, she was there, she was-"

Chakotay took a breath. "B'Elanna, just – don't, all right? It was a mutual decision. So let's just leave it there."

"'A mutual decision'?" she repeated, in disbelief. "Coach, you make it sound like a political treaty, or something. All we're talking about is her coming to visit you in hospital. That doesn't take a whole lot of negotiation from where I'm sitting. You've been hurt, she cares about you, why doesn't she want to-" B'Elanna broke off, staring at him. "Oh."

Chakotay raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"

B'Elanna nodded to herself. "I guess that makes a whole lot more sense. I was wondering about that."

"About what?"

"How she managed to get to you so quickly after you got shot. I mean, the doctor's said that the fact someone put pressure on the wounds so quickly is what stopped you bleeding out straight away. I figured they'd shot you as soon as you got out of the car and she managed to jump out, but that wasn't it, was it?"

"B'Elanna…"

"She was already inside with you, right? You weren't arriving. She was leaving."

Chakotay frowned, staring over her head and at the blank blue sky through the window behind her.

B'Elanna nodded again. "I thought there was some pretty heavy chemistry going on between you that night. And now – what – she just wants to forget anything ever happened?"

"Nothing did happen, B'Elanna," Chakotay told her. "It's just… easier all round if we don't see each other again, that's all. It's better if we both just try to forget everything that happened that night and move on with our lives."

B'Elanna stared at him. "Do you seriously believe that?"

Chakotay spread his hands. "It doesn't matter what I believe, B'Elanna. She'd made a commitment before she'd even met me, and she's honouring that commitment. I can't blame her for that. She's known Mark a hell of a lot longer than she's known me."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"A lot. They have a life together. She and I… we don't even really know each other. If we'd met sooner, who knows what might have happened? But we didn't. And there's no point wishing that we had."

"Do you love her?"

Chakotay grimaced, uncomfortable. "B'Elanna…"

"Yes or no, Coach? It's that simple."

He actually laughed at that, wincing as the motion jarred his chest. "Only a teenager could see the world in shades that black and white."

B'Elanna clenched her fists. "If you love her, and you let her go, you're an idiot."

Coach shook his head with a sigh. "That's not how the world works, B'Elanna. Kathryn's not mine to let go of. She never was."

"But if you just told her how you felt-"

"She knows."

"You told her you love her? Just like that? That plainly? Or is she just supposed to assume it from a whole lot of smouldering looks?"

He opened his mouth and then shut it again.

"You know what the problem with this world is?" B'Elanna asked. "It's run by adults who don't get that some things really are that simple."

Chakotay gave a small smile. "Tell me about the garden," he said. "What's this I hear about that news piece going viral?"

B'Elanna almost tried to steer the conversation back to Kathryn again, but thought better of it. She rummaged in her bag and pulled out her iPad instead.

"Whoa," Chakotay said, staring at the piece of technology in B'Elanna's hand. "Is that new?"

"Yup. Tom bought it for me. It's an early Christmas present. He wanted me to have it for all these meetings I've got coming up. It makes it easy to show people my designs." She caught Chakotay's grin. "What?"

"Nothing. Pretty hefty present, that's all. He must be smitten."

B'Elanna refused to blush. She squared her jaw and glared at him instead. "He told me he's in love with me. It made me realise that I feel the same about him. Look at us two, behaving like adults. And we're half your age. You see how that works?"

"All right, all right," Chakotay said, waving a finger at the iPad. "Get on with it, Torres."

She on the screen and brought up some of the Internet coverage of the garden. Since the news footage of the community facing off against the Crims had aired, the story had been picked up by numerous online outlets.

"It was trending on Twitter for days," B'Elanna told him. "So many more people have come to visit the garden. A lot of them want to help out and plenty have brought flowers and vegetables. Tom and Harry have been working on a website and a Tumblr so that we can keep people updated."

Chakotay scrolled through the pages, looking impressed. "I'd be surprised if the gangs tried anything with this much public opinion."

"That's what we're hoping. And the police have started to patrol, too. Two squad cars turned up yesterday. I thought they were there for me at first, but it turned out they just wanted to see what was what. One of the cops said they'd try to swing by a few times a day, just to keep an eye out."

Chakotay handed the pad back with a smile. "Sounds good."

"Hope so." B'Elanna looked at the time on the screen. "I've gotta go. I've got a meeting with Mr La Forge this afternoon."

"Oh?"

"He's the only person willing to go with my idea of keeping everything to do with the water reclamation unit in Maywood," B'Elanna explained. "Professor Tuvok helped me do some drafts outlining what manufacturing equipment we'd need. That's what today's meeting's about." She smoothed down her outfit. It was the same dress she'd worn to the gala. She hadn't got around to giving it back to her friend yet. "How do I look?"

Chakotay smiled. "Like you're about to go into a bout and get a knock out on your first strike."

B'Elanna made a face. "Coach, what with everything… the boxing…"

"It's all right," he reassured her. "I get it. You've got other things to do right now. You can always come back to the ring when you have more time. Maybe by the time that you do I'll be back there, too."

She smiled. "Thanks, Coach."

He nodded. "I'm proud of you, B'Elanna."

Torres squirmed a little under his praise. "Dunno why. I'm the one who got you shot."

"No," he said, immediately. "That wasn't your fault. You hear me? It wasn't your fault and I won't let you think that it was."

B'Elanna let out a sigh. "That's exactly what Kathryn said."

Chakotay nodded. "She's a smart lady." B'Elanna opened her mouth to say something else, but he cut her off. "Don't. OK? There's no point. Now get out of here. It's nearly time for my lunchtime Jell-O."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

"Did you have chance to take a look at the sample arrangements that Janet at Wild Blooms sent over?" Kathryn asked, as she bolted down her second coffee of the day but neglected to eat her toast. "I put them in your study last night, but perhaps you haven't seen them yet. I need to get her an answer by close of play tomorrow."

Mark watched as Kathryn rummaged through her bag and pulled out her phone, a look of concentration on her face as she scrolled rapidly through her messages. "I didn't see them yet. I'll look at them after breakfast."

"Once we've decided on the flowers, we can nail down the swagging, too," Kathryn went on. "Oh, and the napkins, they can coordinate."

"Swagging?" Mark repeated, mystified.

Kathryn looked up. "Yes, swagging. You know," she drew a rapid shape in the air with the hand that wasn't clutching her coffee mug, "on the back of the chairs. The marquee company lets you coordinate with your flower colours."

Mark nodded, wondering if she was going to eat anything at all this morning. "Right. Of course."

"That reminds me, I have to pick up the candles. They should be ready for collection today. I'll have to do that in between this meeting with Owen and my dress fitting." She made a note in her diary and then checked something else before adding, "I can stop by the caterer while I'm over that way too. They wanted me to try the new canapé." Kathryn looked up again with a frown. "You should be there for that, though. Can you make it this afternoon? Say…" she tilted her head as she looked at a schedule that Mark could see from across the table had turned the page almost black, it was so heavy. "Say between 3.30 and 4? Or would you mind if I just went ahead and made the decision myself?"

Mark smiled. "Why don't you go ahead and decide that one? I'm sure whatever it is will be delicious, everything they've given us to try so far has been."

Kathryn smiled back. "It has, hasn't it? We were so lucky to get Chef Daniels. I can't believe he was available."

Mark snorted. "For what he's charging, I can't believe he's ever not available. Not," he added hastily, "that I'm complaining that we went with him. I know it can't have been easy to find someone at all. I can't believe everything you've managed to do for this wedding on such short notice, Kath."

She grinned around another mouthful of coffee. "It's the famous Janeway stubborn streak. Comes in handy at crunch times like this."

"Still, it feels as if you haven't stopped even to take a breath for about two weeks. I can't remember the last time I saw you sit down to eat a meal." He indicated the now-cold example on her plate, which Molly was eyeing hopefully.

"Well, you know me," Kathryn said, lightly. "I like to be busy, and- Oh, shoot."

"What?"

Kathryn ran through her schedule again, shaking her head. "I've somehow got to get Phoebe's dress to her. She couldn't make the fitting today so she's got her own tomorrow. Dammit, I'll have to do that first. If I leave now-"

"I can take Phoebe's dress," Mark told her. "Just give it to me."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure," he said, "I've got to do something useful!"

"Thank you – that would be such a help. It's in the black dress bag hanging on the back of the guest room door."

"No problem. Is there anything else I can do?"

"I don't think so. Today wouldn't be quite so crazy if I didn't have this meeting with Owen, but it's got to be done."

"What's it about?" Mark asked, watching as she picked up a piece of toast and slid it under the table to the waiting dog.

"I'm going to talk to him about transferring all managerial responsibility for the Maywood project to Tom. That will free up my time - we need to capitalise on all this publicity the project has been getting as soon as possible. I've found two more sites that we should get moving on straight away – one here in Los Angeles, the other up in Fresno."

"Wow," Mark said. "You think Tom Paris is ready for that responsibility?"

"Oh yes," she said, with transparent confidence. "He's more than ready for it, and he has such a good relationship with the community down there. Honestly, Mark, the transformation he's gone through is so good to see. It's a testament to exactly what projects like these are capable of."

Mark smiled. "It's a testament to what you are capable of, Kathryn Janeway," he said. "It's remarkable, the good you bring out in people."

She looked down at her hands. "Not always."

"Hey," Mark said, softly. "Yes. Always. Even me. It's one of the things I love most about you."

Kathryn shook her head with a laugh and a smile. "I didn't need to bring out any good in you, Mark. It's always been there. Now – I've got to run or I'm going to be late. Have you seen my keys?"

"Hallway table, in the oak wood bowl. I saw them when I came back from taking Molly out earlier."

"Right. Thank you. And thank you for dropping off Phoebe's dress, you're a lifesaver." She darted forward and kissed him quickly. "I'll see you later. I'll bring something back for dinner, OK? Can't be bothered to cook, I swear that oven hates me."

Mark caught Kathryn around the waist with one arm before she could move away. He pulled her close and kissed her - properly, deeply, remembering the first time he had ever kissed her this way. It had felt to him then as if the universe was in her lips. It still did, he realised, even this many years later. When they parted Kathryn opened her eyes and smiled up at him, leaning against his chest.

"What was that for?" she asked, her voice husky.

He smiled, holding her tighter, just for a moment. It took him a second to speak. "For being the most beautiful woman I'm ever going to kiss."

She grinned. "Smooth, Mr Johnson. Very smooth. Let's see if you still think that when I'm 60."

He kissed her forehead and let her go. "I'll be thinking it forever. Now get out of here, Ms Janeway. Can't keep Owen waiting. Time is money, right?"

The last person Phoebe expected to see when she opened the door was Mark Johnson. He stood on her step with a small smile on his face, holding up a dress bag.

"Kathryn asked me to drop this off for you," he said. "She's completely slammed today."

"Oh, right – thanks," Phoebe said. "That's kind of you."

Mark handed over the bag. Phoebe thought briefly that she should ask him in for coffee, but then wondered what on earth they would have to talk about. Her sister had been with this man for a decade and the two of them seemed to have exhausted whatever conversational interests they shared within six months. But Mark didn't seem to be inclined to leave. He put his hands in his pockets and shifted from one foot to another.

"Do you have a minute?" he asked. "I need to talk to you. About Kathryn."

"Oh," said Phoebe. "Sure, of course. Come in. I'll put some coffee on."

Mark followed her inside and into the kitchen. Phoebe caught him looking around as he did and realised that he'd probably never even seen it before. She frowned. Kathryn's right, she thought. I really need to make an effort with this guy.

"Have a seat," she said, cheerily. "Is there something you need help with for the wedding? I'm happy to pitch in with whatever, just let me know."

Mark sat at the kitchen table and leaned on his forearms, clasping both hands together. He gave a wry smile. "I keep saying the same to Kathryn," he said, "but she seems as if she has everything perfectly under control."

Phoebe laughed. "That sounds like my sister, all right. Perfectly in control."

Mark stayed silent and she looked around to find him staring at the table in front of him. The smile had been replaced by an anxious frown. As if feeling her gaze, he looked up and met her eye.

"Look," he said. "Phoebe, I know that we – we've never really got on. I know that you don't like me, really, and-"

"That's not true," Phoebe protested, feeling herself flush a little. "That's not true, Mark. I guess we just don't know each other, that's all."

He gave her a keen look. "Kathryn and I will have been together for ten years next year. Seems to me that we should probably know each other pretty well by now, and that we probably would if we wanted to."

Phoebe looked down at her hands and nodded, conceding the point.

"Anyway," Mark went on, "that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."

Phoebe turned away and poured the coffee. "All right. What, then?"

He sighed but said nothing. When Phoebe put his mug down in front of him she realised that Mark was trying to work out what to say, and how.

"I've always known," he began, his tone very deliberate, "that I love Kathryn more than she loves me. And I'm not saying that to be self-pitying, or so you can deny it. It's just a fact. And I was OK with that. Because I knew I could be what she needed. I knew I could make her happier than she was. And – and I know this is going to make me sound completely unromantic and I'm sure that's one of the things you don't like about me, but this is the way it is – we are compatible. We fit well enough together to make a good whole. Does that make sense?"

Phoebe nodded, hands clasped hard around her mug. This wasn't a conversation she'd ever expected to have with her brother-in-law. "Yes."

He nodded. "I wanted… to make up for what she went through with your father. With Justin. I wanted to be a safe haven. I think she needed that. Don't you?"

Phoebe felt her eyes fill with tears. She nodded. "Yes. She did."

"I think I was that, Phoebe. And I think it would have worked," he said, his voice quavering slightly. "I think we would have worked. If she hadn't met Chakotay."

Phoebe blinked and then wiped her cheeks, quickly. "Mark – whatever you think happened there… whatever you're imagining… Kathryn would never cheat on you. Ever."

He shook his head. "I know what happened. She told me, and I believe everything she said. And I know she wouldn't be unfaithful. But that's-" Mark stopped and took a deep breath. "I didn't know her when she was with Justin. I didn't know her right after it had happened, but she's told me a little, over the years. What was she like, afterwards? In herself, I mean. How did she cope?"

Thinking about that time was painful, even for Phoebe. She rarely went back there and never willingly. She swallowed, staring at her coffee. "First she shut down. She just… wouldn't come out of her room. She slept and slept. It was terrifying, seeing her like that, my dynamo sister. And then… then she came back, and she was like Kathryn distilled to her purest form." Phoebe shook her head. "Looking into her eyes was like looking at steel. And she started to work. She worked and she worked and she worked, as if she'd never stop and as if there was nothing else in the world worth doing. She set herself goal after goal and she met every one. She just kept moving, as if doing that meant whatever she was feeling couldn't catch up with her."

"Single minded," Mark said. "Determined to make things work. To get things done. To get things right."

Phoebe nodded. "Yes."

"The way she's been with this wedding ever since Chakotay woke up."

Phoebe opened her mouth and then shut it again. They stared at each other, and Phoebe would never have believed her heart could break for Mark Johnson, but it had. "She loves you, Mark," she whispered. "She really does. She's not lying about that."

"I know," he said. "She's not lying to me. She's lying to herself, so resolutely and with such good intention that she believes it. She loves me enough to do that, and it makes me love her even more. But we both know that doesn't make it right. You've known that all along. Haven't you?"

This time Phoebe didn't wipe her cheeks. "What are you going to do?"

Mark smiled quietly. "I think there's only one thing I can do, isn't there?"

[TBC]

Chapter Text

Chakotay couldn't concentrate. This was the first time in years he'd had literally nothing to do but read and he was wasting it staring into space. He sighed and pushed the folio-sized edition of Shakespeare's plays to the edge of the bed. The doctors had warned him that he'd frequently be tired, but this was like no exhaustion he'd ever experienced. The anaesthetic in his system was dragging on him, making him sluggish and dozy. He'd wake feeling refreshed, only to find himself nodding off fifteen minutes later. It was frustrating and in some ways even more debilitating than the actual gunshot wound.

He felt like an old man.

The pain, though pushed to the far edges of his consciousness by the drugs, was still ever-present. His chest felt constricted and his breath was constantly short. He wondered if this was just because he was in recovery, or whether it was something he'd have to contend with permanently from now on. He hadn't asked, mainly because he didn't want to confront the probable answer, not right now. It would only force him into thinking about the future and at this moment there was no point dwelling on the idea that a one-lunged man in middle age probably wouldn't make much of a high school phys ed teacher, let alone a boxing coach. Better to focus on the here and now. Better to simply be relieved that he was still alive.

Besides, avoiding the future also meant preventing himself from considering another date that was slipping quickly closer. Kathryn Janeway's wedding was now less than two weeks away. Chakotay had tried to stop thinking about her. He knew she'd been right to gently suggest she should stay away from now on. There wasn't any more for them to talk about. They had let something happen between them that should not have happened. What had then occurred in the aftermath didn't change anything other than to outline just how different their lives were and would always be.

Still, his mind kept bringing her back to him. He saw her hair glinting in the sun as she swung that sledgehammer. He saw her watching B'Elanna give that presentation. He saw her standing in front of his bookcase in that dress, the silk of her bare shoulder-

Chakotay shook his head and reached for the book again. He had to stop this circular train of thought, because it was just pointless. He had to shake this off.

Do you love her?

B'Elanna's voice echoed unbidden in his head. Chakotay stared out of the window. Did he? Of course not. It was a heartfelt but overly simplistic suggestion from a teenager caught up in her own unexpected romance. He knew from experience that desire, however powerful, did not equal love. You had to know someone to truly love them. He didn't know Kathryn Janeway, not really, and now he never would. He just had to accept that and move on. It was a blessing, too, wasn't it, that there hadn't been the time to know her better, given her commitment to another man. It also, he reflected, showed Kathryn's wisdom in her decision that they should not see each other again in the wake of the trauma of the shooting. Let the dust settle. Let the heightened emotion of that night – in all its forms – reduce in its magnitude. Let them get past this and return to their normal lives.

It will fade, he told himself. It will fade.

A new memory chose that moment to take him by surprise: of her in a hardhat and work boots, face covered in site dust but alive with a wide smile as she clasped a mug of coffee between both hands.

"It's nice to see you smiling again," said a familiar voice.

He hadn't realised he had been. Chakotay looked up to see Annika standing at the foot of the bed, smiling back at him. A pang passed through his chest, one he recognised as guilt rather than pain. He looked at his watch, lying on the unit beside him.

"Hello," he said, "I didn't expect to see you. It's only 2pm. Don't you have clients?"

"I had a cancellation so I thought I'd come see how you were doing." She walked around the bed and kissed him on the cheek.

"You didn't have to do that."

"I know I didn't have to," she said, taking a seat. "I wanted to."

"Annika…" he began, and then stopped.

Annika looked up at him with one eyebrow raised. "Yes?"

Chakotay shook his head. He'd been on the verge of broaching a subject he'd been mulling over for days, but he was no surer of how to now than he had been when he first started thinking about it.

"If there's something we need to talk about, Chakotay, then we should talk about it."

He let out a sigh of laughter that hurt his chest. "Avoidance never has been your thing, has it?"

She shrugged slightly, crossing one slim leg and clasping both hands over her raised knee. Chakotay wondered if this was how Annika sat in counselling sessions. "I always find being straightforward is a better option than prevarication, you know that."

He looked at her, noting the sudden stiffness in her shoulders and arms. Annika had a knack for withdrawing into herself, of pulling down an icy shield that separated her from the world and rendered her unreachable. When they'd first started dating he'd hoped he might be the one to melt it, or at least to be the one person with which it would prove unnecessary. But it was a defence mechanism, he had realised, a way of pretending she was impervious to everything outside her own self, and as it had turned out and entirely unintentionally he had provoked its use more than he had made it defunct. On more than one occasion he had felt tempted to point out the irony of her profession versus her personal demons on this score, but even at the height of their most heated arguments he had held back. Even in anger there was no excuse for cruelty and Chakotay suspected that Annika's profession had grown out of insecurity more than it had self-assurance. It allowed her to closely observe others, after all, and perhaps in doing so she was attempting to convince herself that she was no different to them.

The pang of guilt came again. Chakotay wondered why he hadn't acknowledged that sooner or asked what had happened in her past to make her so aloof and distant, but he also realised that it would have made little difference if he had. They had tried enough times to know that knowing each other better made them less of a whole, not more of one. It was what made this conversation inevitable: if not now, then some time.

"All right," he said, crossing his hands over his lap. "Since the shooting you have been wonderful. I don't know what I would have done without you, Annika, but…"

"But?"

"I don't know what you're expecting from me. From this."

She watched his face, her blue eyes clear. "Is it inevitable that I must be expecting something?"

He sighed. "I didn't mean that to sound accusatory, or cold."

"It didn't," she said. "I believe we've already established that I'm the one here who does not appreciate prevarication."

Chakotay laughed to himself a little. "You never liked making things easy for me, either."

She smiled. "Life isn't easy, Chakotay. Why should anything in it be different? We live, we learn, we adapt to those lessons. And I've learned plenty just from visiting you every day. I did miss you. I do miss you. But why would I want to be with someone who seems to be preoccupied with someone else? I think I deserve better than that. Don't you?"

He stared at her. It occurred to him then that perhaps what he had assumed was a weakness was in fact strength of a sort he simply hadn't recognised. He wondered what else he'd underestimated about her. Chakotay took Annika's hand. "Yes. You do. You deserve much better."

She glanced away. "There were some good things about us being together. Weren't there? There must have been some."

"Of course there were. Two good people can't make an entirely bad relationship. But…"

"But," she agreed. Then after a moment she added, "I've got a date with Andrew on Thursday."

Chakotay grimaced. "You definitely deserve better than that."

"We'll see. I'll come tell you about it."

He was surprised. "You will?"

Annika raised another perfect eyebrow. "Did you expect me to be so heartbroken that I'd never want to see you again?"

Chakotay let out a laugh and then shrugged, revelling in a sudden feeling of acute relief. "You could be right about this no prevarication policy of yours."

Annika smiled.

"With any luck, though," Chakotay went on, "you won't be visiting me here any more anyway. The doctors are talking about giving me the all clear for discharge in the next week or so."

"What?" Annika's face took on a look of concern. "But you're not well enough to look after yourself, not yet. You had major surgery less than a month ago. You can't be in that apartment on your own. Surely the doctors must realise that?"

"I'm not going back to the apartment. I've been talking to Sekaya. I'm going to go visit with her for a while, in New Mexico. They've got a spare room and it's quiet there. I won't be on my own. I'll go as soon as the doctors think I'm well enough to make the journey. I've got an old friend willing to drive me. I want to be out of here by this time next week at the latest or I'll go insane."

Annika nodded, a delicate frown creasing her forehead as she watched his face.

"What?" Chakotay asked. "I think it's the perfect solution, don't you?"

"You leaving the state? It's avoidance, is what I think," Annika said, bluntly. "And-" she added, as he took a breath to protest, "if you follow my statement by asking what you could possibly be trying to avoid, that would be denial. But I know how much you hate it when I analyse you."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

"Mark?" Kathryn elbowed open the back door, her arms full of paper bags. There was no answer from her human companion, but Molly bounded towards her, as happy as ever. "Mark? Are you here?"

"I'm in the snug," came the answer.

"I'm sorry I'm late," she called, as she made it to the kitchen table and pushed her load onto it. "I've brought dinner home. Have you eaten?"

There was no reply. Frowning, Kathryn pulled her bag from her shoulder and shrugged off her jacket before making her way along the hallway. Mark was sitting on the old leather couch, but he wasn't watching the game, as she'd expected. The television was off. Instead he'd apparently been sitting there in silence. He was leaning forward, his forearms on his knees and his hands clasped together. There was an open bottle of red on the table with two glasses beside it, one already in use.

"Mark?" she said. He looked up at her with shadowed eyes and instantly a thousand terrible scenarios exploded in her mind: had something happened to her mother? To Phoebe? Kathryn pressed a hand over her heart as the most obvious answer occurred to her.

But he'd been awake. He'd been in recovery. Oh God. Oh, God-!

Mark must have seen at least part of her thought process as he stood up, hands raised. "It's all right. Everyone's all right."

Kathryn dropped her hand, heartbeat still erratic. "Well… what, then? What's happened? What are you doing, sitting here like this?"

He smiled slightly. "Come have a glass of wine."

She waved a hand in the direction of the kitchen. "Don't you want to eat? It'll go cold."

Mark opened his mouth to say something and then seemed to change his mind. He shook his head and gave that same strange smile again. "Please, Kath. Just come sit down. All right?" He sat, patting the empty space on the sofa beside him.

Kathryn crossed to him slowly, wondering what the hell was going on. She guessed he had some sort of bad news for her, but couldn't imagine what would necessitate this sort of preparation. He'd already said that no one was dead or dying. Molly was clearly fine. Perhaps it was something to do with the wedding arrangements? Had the florist pulled out? The caterer? But surely Mark knew better than to imagine she'd be truly upset by something so ultimately trivial? Not upset enough to warrant this, anyway. She sat down as Mark poured her a glass of wine and then picked up his own, cradling it between both hands.

"Mark," she said. "Whatever it is, just tell me. What's wrong?"

He clenched and unclenched his jaw, then took a large mouthful of wine. Kathryn put a hand on his arm and he turned to look at her. She froze. There were tears in his eyes.

"I love you," he said.

"I know you do," she said. "I love you too. Mark-"

There was a pause, and then: "There's no easy way to say this, so I just have to… I can't marry you, Kathryn."

She stared at him blankly. "What?" A buzzing started up in her ears. "I don't- What?"

Mark reached out and touched her cheek, then dropped his hand to her shoulder, his thumb stroking across her clavicle through her blouse. "Kathryn," he whispered. "We can't do this. We just can't."

A numbness spread through her, affecting her limbs, affecting her thoughts. Her hand shook. She lost her grip on the glass and it fell. Kathryn gave a cry, trying to catch it. She failed. It smashed against the hand-woven kilim she knew he'd brought back from Afghanistan twenty years before, back before the world had turned insane. The wine spread across the weave, obliterating the pattern in a wash of dark claret. She went to leap up, wanting to go get something that would help her save it, but Mark put his glass down quickly and caught both her hands, holding her there.

"Leave it," he said, "Kath, leave it, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Kath, look at me. Please. You can't run away from this. You can't postpone it or push it into the background. You have to listen to me now. Please."

"I don't understand what you're saying," she said, trying to free her hands, "What are you saying?"

"I know this must be a shock-"

"Where is this coming from? What happened? This morning everything was fine. So what's - Is it what happened with Chakotay? I thought we'd put that behind us, Mark, I thought that-"

"It's not about that, Kathryn, or at least not in the way you think. Listen to me. Listen to me. It's for the best."

Kathryn shook her head. "You don't mean that. You can't."

He shook his head. "I wish I didn't."

"You don't…" she shook her head, so perplexed that speaking was difficult. "You don't want to marry me?"

Mark made a sound in his throat, something sad and strangled. "I want to, Kathryn. I can't believe I'm doing this. But I have to. I have to because you can't."

"What are you talking about?" she said, "Why are you doing this? We've been together for ten years. Of course there'll be rocky patches along the way. Every couple has them. I know I hurt you, Mark, I know I made a mistake. But I love you. You love me. Don't you? That means we can get past it, doesn't it? Or are you so angry with me that you don't even want to try?"

Mark looked down at her hands, still clasped in his. "You've got it backwards," he said. "I need you to understand that this isn't a punishment. This isn't because I'm angry, Kathryn, or because I want to hurt you."

She shook her head. "Then what? We can't just throw this away, Mark. Is that really what you want to do? I swore to you I'd never hurt you again and I meant it. Don't you believe me?"

Mark pulled one hand away from hers and squeezed his fingers into his eyes, tears running down his cheeks. "Of course I do," he said. "I know that if we married, you would be as faithful as the day is long, because that's who you are." He shook his head. "Maybe you'd even be happy with me. But would you be as happy as you could be? Would you be as happy as I want you to be? I don't think so. I can't give you that and I know it. If we married there would always be a part of you that's unfulfilled and I don't want to do that to you. I can't love you and knowingly do that to you. I love you, Kathryn. That's why I'm doing this. "

"Where is this coming from?" she asked. "You can't mean this. You can't. I don't believe it. You can't say you love me in one breath and tell me it's over in the next, Mark, you just can't!"

He pulled away from her and stood, wiping both hands over his face. "Jesus, this is hard."

Relief gripped her, washing over her anguish in a flood. She stood, reaching for him. "Then don't do it. Don't. Let's just – let's just talk about this. All right? Whatever you're feeling, we can talk about it, we can make this work…"

Mark turned to her and then backed away, his face fixed in an expression of such unutterable sadness that she felt a black hole opening up at her feet. Her heart stumbled, then fell, sucked into nothing. He shook his head, opened his mouth to say something, couldn't, shook his head again.

They stared at each other over the ruined mess of something that had been pieced together so painstakingly that weaving it alone had taken years. The silence stretched into oblivion, a cord that held them together while it stretched wider, further, until the space between them was too great to cross and would never lessen again.

When it broke, they both knew it wasn't only the silence that had shattered.

Kathryn turned and paced away from him, her shoes crunching on glass. "Why now?" she said, anger beginning to filter into the fractures segmenting her heart. "You wait until two weeks before the wedding to do this? Really? What's that if it's not punishment?"

"It was hope," he said. "It was selfishness. It was wanting you to be mine, Kathryn, but you're not."

"Oh, for God's sake," she spat, throwing her hands up as her rage rose. She spun to face him. "I've shared your life for ten years, Mark, I've shared myself for ten years. I agreed to be your wife, I planned this wedding – what more do you need from me?"

He tilted his head, looking at her hard. "You really want to know what I need? All right. Fine. What I need, Kathryn Janeway, is not just for you to love me but for you to want me. I need you to want me so badly that you override every ounce of your better judgement, every good part of your good soul. I need you to want me so badly that you follow me into an apartment even though you have to tell yourself you don't know why you're doing it to make it OK. I need you to follow me even though you know it's a bad idea, because you, for once, want something so badly that you just can't help yourself."

Kathryn stared at him. "You said this wasn't about Chakotay. You said-"

"I said it wasn't about Chakotay in the way you think it is, Kathryn, and it isn't. But god damn it, I know you. I know you! There's not a thing in your life that you can't give a reason for. You know why you went into his apartment that night and you know why you kissed him. You wanted it enough that it outweighed your fear of ever wanting anything that much again. You wanted him, and I know that you haven't wanted anyone that badly in a long, long time. So if you think I can ignore that – if you think I can marry you and know that there's a possibility you could find that kind of happiness elsewhere, then you don't know me at all. You love me, Kathryn, but you've never wanted me like that. That's not your fault. It's not my fault. It's just the way it is and wishing it were otherwise won't make it so. Would you live up to your vows? Of course you would. Would you put everything into our marriage? Of course you would. But would you ever think that there might have been more? Would you ever wonder?" Mark shook his head. "Of course you would. And so you should. Because you know better than anyone that we get one life, Kathryn, just one, and once it's gone, it's gone."

Kathryn felt the tears coming, but blinked them back. "I don't-" she said, and then stopped.

Mark blew out a breath. "I will always love you. I'm not angry, I'm not punishing you. Am I heartbroken? Yes, probably more than even you could comprehend, but that's as much my fault as anyone's. I'll live with it."

They stood in silence for a few moments. Around them reality was shifting, fragmenting. This is how quickly the future changes. It is never more than one step away. Kathryn wondered how she would manage to navigate this, this unknown ocean that unexpectedly and endlessly stretched before her. She felt bereft, empty, adrift.

"I'm going to go now," Mark said, softly.

Kathryn looked up. "What? Go where?"

"I've booked a room at the Hilton downtown," he said.

"Mark, don't be ridiculous. This is your home."

"It's yours too," he pointed out.

"I'll go," Kathryn said, firmly. "It's only fair."

Mark look pained. "Don't say that. You haven't done anything wrong, Kathryn."

She shook her head, thinking, How can you say that?

Still neither of them moved. Once they did, it really would be over.

"I'll call you," Kathryn said, eventually.

Mark nodded. "Give it a day or two. Please?"

The tears won out at that point. She nodded, speechless.

She went out into the kitchen to where Molly was sitting patiently in her basket. Kathryn knelt on the floor and gathered the dog to her, crying into Molly's thick coat. Then she got up, wiped her face, picked up her jacket and bag.

And she left.

[TBC]

Chapter Text

Tom walked towards his father's office with trepidation. He didn't come here often, at least not any more. When he was a kid, Tom had loved to visit his dad at work. He'd come in, settle down in the corner and play, listening as the great Owen Paris commanded the army in his employ. That had been before it had become apparent that the young Paris definitely wasn't a chip off the old block. He was barely even a splinter, in fact, a disappointment and definitely not a worthy heir to this great monolith of glass and steel. Soon enough a summons to his father's office had been something to avoid and resent.

He didn't know why his father had asked him to present himself at his desk now. Tom didn't really want to know, either – he'd wracked his brain trying to work out what he might have done wrong this time, but couldn't come up with anything. Was some past misdemeanour coming back to bite his ass? Was he about to be reminded of yet another thing he wasn't proud of?

He'd thought about not coming at all, but B'Elanna had talked him around. You've only got one dad, Tom, she'd pointed out. That might not matter to you now but one day it will. And who knows, he might have something to say that you'll want to hear.

So here he was. Tom walked into the penthouse anteroom where his father's secretary worked. The small, grey-haired woman behind the desk seemed to have looked exactly the same for as long as he had known her, which was all his life.

"Morning, Mrs Boseman."

She looked up with a warm smile and then pulled off her glasses. "Well my, my – if it isn't Thomas Eugene Paris, as I live and breathe. How are you?"

Tom glanced at the door that led to his father's private office and grimaced. "Hard to say. Ask me again on my way out."

Mrs Boseman smiled again and picked up her phone, pressing the intercom. "Your son is here, Mr Paris," she nodded at the answer and then looked up at Tom as she replaced the receiver. "You can go right in, Tom."

Tom mustered a smile and then headed for the door, taking a breath before turning the handle. Inside was largely the same as it had always been: the floor-to-ceiling glass windows with the stunning views, the huge desk set in front of it, the bookcases lining the walls, the sofa he used to have his afternoon nap on after a hard morning of playing on the rug in front of it. The rug had changed, maybe even the sofa had, too, but the place felt the same. It held the geography of Tom's childhood within its four walls.

Owen Paris was seated behind the desk but stood up when Tom entered. That was a novelty in itself. There was nothing more powerful than being able to control a room while seated and his father knew it. Tom knew it too, having been provided with numerous demonstrations of just that right here in this very room.

"Son," he said, as Tom crossed the expanse of grey carpet, "thanks for coming. Can I get you a coffee?"

"Uh – sure, that would be good, thanks," Tom said and then watched as his father crossed to the percolator on the stand in the corner. This was not normal behaviour either. The nerves ratcheted up a little more.

"Take a seat," Owen Paris said, as he handed his son a mug, "there are a few things I want to talk to you about."

"Okay…"

"I had a meeting with Kathryn Janeway yesterday," the older Paris went on. "The things she had to say about you… were impressive."

Tom blinked. He didn't know what to say to that, so he took a mouthful of coffee instead.

"She's recommending that you be given full managerial control of the Maywood Project from here on. And I have to say that the arguments she made in favour of the appointment were compelling."

Tom inadvertently inhaled his coffee and had to stop himself coughing it all back up again. He muffled his choking with the back of his hand, his eyes watering. "Me?"

"Yes, you." His father looked down at his hands. "She pointed out that you had been invaluable to her as an assistant, but that you are capable of far more than that. That, in her view, what you need is more responsibility, not less, and that this is the opportunity and the time to give you exactly that."

Tom opened his mouth but found he had no clue what to say.

Owen Paris sighed. "I know I've been hard on you, Tom. I know that you and I… we'll probably never see eye to eye on certain things. We're very different people, and it's taken me too long to accept that. But for what it's worth… what Kathryn said about you yesterday made me proud of you, son. It also made me ashamed. Because I realised that I've got a son I don't know and that can only be my fault."

Tom stared down at his coffee, his chest burning with something he couldn't name.

"So, I've been thinking," his dad went on, "and how about you and I wipe the slate clean?"

Tom looked up, slowly. He nodded. "Sounds good, dad."

His father smiled at him. "Probably won't be easy. But I think it's worth a try, don't you?"

Tom smiled back. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

Owen Paris slapped the surface of his desk lightly. "Good, then. In that case, there's something else we need to talk about. Why did you never tell me you wanted to be a pilot?"

Tom felt his eyes bugging in shock. "I – what?"

The smile on his dad's face turned into a grin. "I had another visitor. B'Elanna. She didn't just turn up - she made an appointment, although I get the feeling that if I'd said no to the meeting she would have come anyway. She was very respectful, though. She had something specific she wanted to talk to me about. Apparently you want to fly planes, although from what she said it sounded as if maybe you'd like to fly more than that?"

Tom shook his head. "No, dad, that was just – that was nothing, just talk. That's what I'm good at, right? Just talk."

The older Paris gave a lop-sided smile. "You know what some of my best memories of you are? When you were little you used to love to just hang out here. Right in this room. You'd sit over there on the rug and you'd take whatever toys you'd brought with you in your little Buzz Lightyear backpack and you'd play with them for hours. Do you remember the ones you played with the most?"

Tom nodded, smiling at the memory. "Sure. My planes. Remember that Tomcat? They don't even make them any more. And the Strike Eagle, that was so cool. I had a couple Tigersharks, too. I used to pit them against the Millennium Falcon and the Enterprise. Who cared that the scale between all of them was completely off? I fought the best space battles right here in this room!"

Owen Paris laughed and shook his head. "I remember. You were good as gold, but there were times I had to tell Mrs Boseman to take you out into her office so that some businessman in Japan didn't think I had an all-out air strike going on during a conference call."

Tom laughed, too, then stopped when he saw the sober look that passed across his father's face.

"That was a dream of yours, Tom. It must have been, even way back then. When did you give that up?"

Tom shrugged. "I don't know, Dad. It just never… it wasn't ever something that I thought I could really do. It was just… just dreams."

Owen shook his head. "I should have noticed. I should have been paying attention instead of deciding on a future for you that you clearly didn't want."

"Dad, that's not-"

"It's not too late."

Tom blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Son, if you want to be a pilot, then you should be a pilot. I've done a bit of quick research. There are various programmes you could apply for. It depends what sort of flying you're interested in and what your ultimate goal is."

Tom's head was spinning. "My… ultimate goal?"

Owen smiled. "This country might not have a space programme right now, but there's a number of guys building commercial versions. Branson, for example. The future's above us. The future is space. It has to be, because God knows we're making enough of a mess of this planet that sooner or later we're going to have to leave it. So what kind of flying do you want to do, Tom? An airliner? A fighter jet? A space shuttle? If it's the former then we can put you on that road right now. If it's either of the others then it's the Air Force or the Navy you need to be talking to."

"I don't…" Tom was so turned around he didn't know what to say. "Dad, I don't – I can't-"

His father held up his hands. "Sorry. Maybe I'm going at this too fast. Why don't you think about it all and we can talk again whenever you're ready? And you should think about what Kathryn has suggested, too. If you'd like to go into management then the Maywood Project is a good place to start. Whatever you want to do, son."

Tom swallowed. He put down his coffee mug and pressed his fingers to his lips. "I'm not smart enough for the space programme. They probably wouldn't even let me into the military."

"You are more than smart enough. Why do you think I've spent so long angry at you for wasting the talents you have? You can do anything you set your mind to, I know it. I've just been pushing you in the wrong direction, that's all. Kathryn's proved that once you're motivated you'll go the extra distance for whatever it is you've set your mind on. That's the kind of dedication you need, and you've got the brain to go with it, I know you have."

His father's mention of Kathryn made Tom frown. "Wait a minute," he said. "If Kathryn wants me to take over managing the garden – what's she going to be doing?"

"She's moving on. She's got another project up in Fresno she wants to get started on and she's scouting places further afield, too. The work you guys have done down in Maywood has really opened up a host of opportunities."

"She's… leaving?"

"I think this shooting she witnessed hit her hard, Tom. Harder than she'd ever let on. I'm not surprised, to tell you the truth. After what happened with Edward and Justin – that would have been enough to end most people, but not Kathryn Janeway. Still, everyone's got a breaking point."

Tom shook his head. "Everyone's always alluding to what happened, Dad, but no one's ever told me. Not properly. All I know is that her dad and her fiancé died, and that she was there. What happened?"

His father regarded him quietly for a moment. "You were so young when it happened. It wouldn't have been right to tell you then," Owen paused. "Do you remember the Janeways' boat?"

"Sure," Tom nodded. "I loved going out in that thing."

His dad nodded. "You really did. When you were really small I used to have to hold on to you the whole time to make sure you didn't lean too far over the side. You loved the water. Well, so did Justin. He was a marine biologist PhD candidate. His big passion was orcas – he wanted to find a way to prevent them from beaching themselves."

"I remember that," Tom realised, an unexpected recollection surfacing from the deep. "Didn't he give me a toy killer whale once?"

"He did, you're right. He was great with you, actually, whenever we went out all together he always had time for all your questions about the ocean. And you always had a lot." Owen sighed. "Anyway, Justin wanted to test a new sonar-activated tag he'd developed, so one night Edward took Kathryn and Justin out. It was just the three of them – Kathryn had tried to talk her dad into letting them take the boat out alone, but Edward wasn't keen because the last time she and Justin had used the boat on their own they'd pranged it bringing it back into harbour. Edward had tried to get them to leave it until the weekend, but Justin had some deadline or other that meant it couldn't wait. And Edward never could refuse Kathryn anything. Anyway, somehow the engine malfunctioned when they were out there – the fuel line ruptured and there was an explosion. Kathryn was the only one who stayed conscious. She tried to hold on to both of the men, but their life-jackets failed – probably punctured by debris." Owen shook his head. "She's never talked about it, but I think she had to choose. I think she had to choose between letting go of her father and letting go of Justin. She couldn't keep both of them and herself afloat and she couldn't bring either of them round. The likelihood is that one or both of them were already dead, but still…"

Tom found himself gripping the arms of his chair. "What happened?"

"When the coastguard found them Kathryn was fading in and out of consciousness. She was still holding onto Justin, but he was dead. They never found Edward's body."

"God," said Tom. "Dad, that's…" he couldn't finish his sentence. The horror his father's words had inspired was too great.

Owen nodded. "She's suffered ever since. I think she blames herself for talking her dad into taking them out in the first place and I think she blames herself for not being able to save them. So being there, when this Chakotay was shot – seeing that at close range… being the one that had to keep him alive…"

Tom nodded, but didn't say anything.

His father's desk phone beeped into the silence.

"Yes, all right, Mrs Boseman. Give me five minutes." Owen Paris put the phone down and looked at Tom. "I'm sorry to cut this short, son, but my next meeting is here."

Tom stood, his head still full of Kathryn's story. "Sure."

"Tom-" his father stepped out from behind his desk and came toward him. "You'll think about what you want to do? And we'll talk again?"

Tom nodded. "Yes. I will. And… thank you."

Owen Paris shook his head. "Don't thank me. Thank Kathryn Janeway and B'Elanna Torres."

Tom smiled, looking down at his shoes. "I can't believe B'Elanna came to talk to you."

"She's got a lot of faith in you," said his father. "So does Kathryn. So do I."

They looked at each other for a moment. Owen Paris raised his arms slightly. Tom stepped forward and they hugged, briefly. It was a little awkward, a little hesitant. But it was good. It was the first time Tom could remember them doing that for years.

[TBC]

Chapter Text

Her cell was ringing. It had been ringing every five minutes since 8am. One of the calls had been Tom, but the rest had been Phoebe. Kathryn glanced at the screen to see her sister's name there yet again. She put the phone down and crossed slowly to the room's large, softly curtained window as the tinny sound repeated and repeated before eventually cutting off. The silence that followed was punctuated by a beep. Kathryn wondered how much more space there was on her answering service. It had to be nearly full. She hadn't listened to any of the messages: she could already imagine the substance of what they would contain. Phoebe must already know about the split or she wouldn't be so persistent. The idea that her sister had somehow colluded with Mark over this was enough to make at least some of the pain and guilt in Kathryn's gut feel more like a helpless kind of anger. At some point she'd have to confront her sister about that.

But not right now.

Outside, the day had dawned with characteristic Californian enthusiasm. The sky was the blue of the Ceylon sapphires that studded the band of her mother's engagement ring. The thought made Kathryn look down at the newly bare nature of her own left hand. The ring Mark had given her had become such a part of her that Kathryn hadn't even thought to remove it before she'd left his house the previous night. When she'd reached the Hilton she'd stood in the centre of her room in the dark. Her engine had carried her that far and then failed, forward momentum parsing through heavy limbs into the kind of exhaustion that makes sleep impossible. She'd looked down and seen her ring, the diamond glinting like the North Star as it somehow managed to find the last available light in the room. Kathryn had gently tugged it from her finger and laid it in the palm of her hand; a downed celestial marker that had lost its ability to provide a sense of direction, because there was no longer a sure path home, nor any home to aim for.

Kathryn had put the ring in the safe. There would be an appropriate way to return it to Mark. There would be an appropriate way to handle everything: cancelling the wedding arrangements, for example. She'd just have to work out exactly what that was.

Her cell rang again.

She ignored it.

The huge hotel bed was undisturbed. Kathryn hadn't even removed her coat. Instead she'd sat in the armchair by the window and stared into the darkness outside while feeling another darkness gathering within. It was in danger of swallowing her whole, she recognised, a depression she had hitherto held at bay with a purpose that, through her own fault, no longer existed. The solution was to find a new goal, a new reason to keep going. If she dwelt too long on what she had lost with Mark, on what she had so stupidly let slip out of her grasp, she would sink without trace.

Somewhere around 3am the answer had occurred to her. She'd picked up her phone and searched for an email that had popped into her inbox a week or so previously, in the wake of the Maywood Project's sudden notoriety. She'd read it with detached interest then, as something that might have been a good proposition at another point in her life, but not right then, not with the wedding looming and the new projects closer to home to put in motion. But with the kind of clarity that only comes in the darkest hours before the dawn, Kathryn realised that now - now it could be exactly what she needed. She'd re-read the email and nodded to herself. Yes, she'd decided. It was ideal. It would mean Tom taking control sooner than Kathryn had perhaps anticipated, but that wasn't a problem. He was ready.

Now, hours later, she stared out at California and wondered what sort of landscape she'd be waking to a month from now. There was a lot to plan. But at least she wouldn't need to go through the struggle of finding a new apartment.

Her cell rang again. She didn't answer it. A second after it rang off, there was a knock at the door.

Frowning, Kathryn crossed to the door but didn't answer it. "Who is it?" she called.

There was a pause and then: "Room service."

Kathryn sagged against the wall. She'd know that voice anywhere. "Go away, Phoebe."

"Kathryn, open the damn door," her sister snapped, "or so help me God I will start yelling through it."

Kathryn stayed still for another moment, then reached out and flipped the lock. Phoebe immediately pushed inside. The two sisters glared at each other.

"How did you find me?"

"How do you think?"

Kathryn jerked away from the wall and moved into the room. "I don't want to talk to you, Phoebe. If I did, I'd have answered one of your fifty calls."

"I brought you some clothes," her sister told her, and Kathryn glanced around to see her tossing an overnight bag onto the bed. "I figured you'd probably need some. But hey, no need to thank me, really."

Kathryn spun to face her. "Thank you? When you knew this was coming – you knew, don't try to pretend you didn't – and you didn't warn me? When this is all probably down to you? What did you say to him? What did you say to him, Phoebe?"

"I didn't say anything."

"Bullshit."

"I didn't say anything," Phoebe bellowed, incensed.

Kathryn turned away, not believing it for a moment, wishing she were alone.

"He wanted to talk to me. And you know what the first thing he said was? 'I've always known I love her more than she loves me.' I didn't have to tell Mark a damn thing, Kathryn. He already knew."

Kathryn looked down at her hands, and then out of the window, tired eyes squinting in the strong sun. "It's not true."

"It is true. For pity's sake, Kathryn, it is true. It's not fair to him to pretend otherwise. Not when he's done something this difficult. This selfless."

Kathryn put one hand on her hip and rubbed the other over her forehead. "Well, I suppose it's irrelevant now, isn't it? It's done and there's no undoing it. Time to move on."

There was a brief silence. "What are you going to do?" Phoebe asked. "You know you can stay with Karl and me for as long as you need while you find somewhere to live."

Kathryn shook her head. "I won't be looking for somewhere to live. Not here, anyway."

"What do you mean?"

She turned to look at Phoebe. "I'll be in Japan for at least the next two years. So I won't need anywhere here for a long time."

The look of utter shock on her sister's face was almost enough to make Kathryn's lips curl into a bitter smile.

"What?"

"A company called Sulu Systems has offered me a job. They want my help to get Fukushima back on its feet, or at least part of it. They want to do something that will give the local people hope in a brighter future for the area." Kathryn clenched her jaw. "How's that for an urban regeneration project?"

"Kathryn – you can't."

"No? Why not? It's not as if I have anything here, is it? Not any more. I need a new focus, a new challenge. I'd say the site of a radioactive spill fits the bill pretty perfectly, wouldn't you?"

Phoebe clamped her lips together so tightly that they formed a livid red line in her paling face. Kathryn watched as her sister shook her head once, twice, apparently entirely robbed of any other form of response.

Kathryn took a breath, forcing air into her lungs, willing herself to stillness and calm. Saying it aloud reinforced what a good move the role in Japan would be for her right now. She'd be surrounded but isolated, entirely occupied and completely insulated. She'd be able to work, without distractions, without external influences. She'd find a way through this, all of it. She'd come out the other side. She'd survive. She always did.

"What about Chakotay?"

"What's he got to do with any of this?"

Phoebe stared at her. "Are you serious?"

Kathryn threw her hands up. "I honestly don't know what you want from me, Phoebe."

"I want you to act like a human being! I want you to realise what you're doing to yourself and just stop! I want you to just see him, just talk to him-"

"Oh, because what? I strike you as the kind of woman who can't get by on her own?" Kathryn shouted. "Is that really what you think, Phoebe? That I need to be with a man or I just won't cope?"

"No," said Phoebe. "No, Kathryn, I just think you need to be with this man. Just this one. And I think you know it. I think you've known it from the moment you met him, and I think that's why now, now, when there's actually the chance that you could be with him without obstruction and without guilt, you've suddenly decided that what you really, really need to do is MOVE TO FUCKING JAPAN!"

"This has nothing to do with Chakotay," Kathryn hissed, "other than the fact that I made one terrible error of judgement where he is concerned and I've paid for it heavily."

"There's a fine line between an error of judgement and a moment of truth, Kathryn, and I'm pretty sure you're looking at that one from the wrong direction."

"My god, it must be so wonderful to be you," Kathryn spat. "To be so completely convinced that you know what's right for everyone."

"Not for everyone. Just for you. Just right now, and just for you, I can see it more clearly than you will ever let yourself acknowledge. Because I saw your heart in your eyes when I asked you how you felt when Chakotay kissed you. That was just a kiss, Kathryn, but the mere memory of it lit you up in a way I have never seen. It's there. It's there, you just won't let yourself feel it."

"And even if I did, what am I supposed to do? Rock up to his hospital bed and say, 'Hey, Chakotay, here's the deal – I'm single now, so how about it?'"

Phoebe spread her hands. "I'm pretty sure that'd work, Kathryn. Men aren't that complicated."

Kathryn shook her head. "As if I would. As if I could after what I've just done to Mark."

"Mark wants you to be happy. He didn't break it off so you could flagellate yourself by staying single for the rest of your life!"

Kathryn rubbed a hand over her eyes. "I'm not talking about this any more. All right? Thank you for the clothes. Now please go so I can shower and change into them. I've got a lot to do." She looked up at her sister. "Cancelling a wedding, for instance."

Phoebe looked at her for another minute and Kathryn saw defeat blooming in her eyes. She nodded and then made for the door.

"Phoebe-" Kathryn said, before she reached it. She watched as her sister turned back toward her, trying to work out how to frame her next words. "Phoebe, I've lost almost everything I love – everything – twice now. And it's too much. It's too much. I can't do that again. I can't risk it happening again. Not for anything. No matter what might-" she stopped.

Her sister looked at her with sad eyes. "Then what are you going to do?"

Kathryn mustered a smile. "I'll do what I always do. Work. And survive."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

Tom sat at a high bench in window of the café, nursing a coffee and hoping Kathryn's would still be hot by the time she arrived. She'd called him earlier and apologised for missing him, then asked if they could meet up. She hadn't wanted to come to the garden office, instead suggesting this place.

"There's just a couple of things I need to talk to you about," she'd said.

"Sure," Tom had replied, his heart fluttering slightly. "I've got something I need to talk to you about, too, actually."

They'd ended the call and he'd wound up being here too early, his nerves getting the better of him. Tom wasn't sure how to break the news to Kathryn, but he knew he had to, despite the guilt and the worry that he was being ungrateful and disloyal.

"She won't think you are either of those things," B'Elanna had told him. "She just wants what's best for you. Once she knows this is what you want to do she'll support you, Tom, I know she will."

Tom could only hope she was right. He glanced up just then to see the woman in question crossing the road, a closed, pensive look on her face that did nothing to dispel his anxiety. Kathryn saw him and smiled, lifting her hand in a slight wave before pushing open the glass door of the café and making her way to his side.

"Oh, wonderful," she said, spotting the extra coffee and immediately picking it up and taking a generous gulp. "Thank you, just what I needed. How are, you Tom? I feel like I haven't seen you for a long while."

Tom watched as she climbed onto the stool. "You haven't been to the garden much recently."

Kathryn tilted her head to one side and grimaced slightly. "I know. I'm sorry, I-"

"It's OK," he told her, softly. He'd been thinking about how he'd feel when he saw her for the first time after his father had explained the truth about what she'd been through with Justin and Edward. Now that it was here, Tom found that what he most wanted was to pull Kathryn into a fierce hug, but he had the sense that even letting on that he knew would stretch the boundaries of their friendship. He'd told B'Elanna, mainly because keeping anything a secret from her now seemed wrong but also because he'd been so shaken up on the return from seeing his father that she'd demanded to know everything. Tom had sworn her to secrecy and she'd nodded silently. Tom had been fairly sure he'd detected tears in her eyes. They'd held each other for a long time after that, and not for the first time since they had met, Tom had felt immeasurably lucky.

"I'm sure you've been dealing with everything admirably in my absence."

Tom shrugged slightly, looking down at his coffee. "Well, everything's fine, if that's what you mean. The trees are really beginning to take off. Neelix thinks the persimmons are in bud. And Franco installed his benches yesterday. You're going to love them, Kathryn, they look so good."

Kathryn smiled. "And you had a chat with Owen?"

He swallowed, the nerves returning with a vengeance. "Yeah. Thank you – I don't know how I'll ever-"

She cut him off with a wave and a smile half-hidden by her coffee cup. "You deserve it, Tom. So – he mentioned my proposal about you taking over the management entirely?"

Tom nodded, shifting slightly in his seat. "Yes, he did."

He felt Kathryn's eyes studying him as he tried to work out what to say next.

"You don't want to take it on," she realised, before he found the right words.

"It's not that I don't want to," he said, hurriedly. "I don't want you to think that. I don't want you to think that it's not an amazing opportunity for me or that I'm not grateful or that-"

Her hand dropped on to his forearm. "Tom," she said. "Slow down before you sprain something. All right? Just talk to me."

Tom took a breath and sighed. "I'm going to try for the Air Force," he said. "I want to fly planes. And… and maybe, in the future… maybe I'd like to do more than that." He curled his fingers and studied his fists, wondering if he'd see her eyes laughing at him if he looked up. "They might not take me. They probably won't. It'll probably never happen, but-"

Kathryn's hand on his forearm squeezed gently. "It will," she said, simply.

Tom blew out a breath, a laugh on the end of it. "Wish I was as sure as you and dad and B'Elanna seem to be."

Kathryn smiled, and just for a second he thought he could see the beginnings of tears gathering in her eyes. "Be sure, Tom. Believe it, and it'll happen. Anything you need that I can help with – references, introductions – just ask. If this is what you want, then I'm with you all the way."

Tom swallowed a lump in his throat. "B'Elanna said you would be."

She patted his arm and withdrew her hand. "Smart girl, that one."

"I know. No idea how I got so lucky."

He looked up at her face to find her smiling at him, but there seemed to be something darker and sadder going on in her eyes. Kathryn glanced away, out of the window.

"So. I'll have to find someone else to manage Maywood."

Tom shook his head. "Kathryn. I can understand why you want to move on. Really, I can. But I don't think you should. Maywood exists because of you. You made it happen. You can't just… walk away. It's up and running now, it won't take much to look after. There are plenty of reliable residents willing to pitch in – Neelix, Kes and Harry, for example. And I'll still be there to help whenever I can - so will B'Elanna. Can't you still oversee it as well as the new sites?"

Kathryn gave a small smile. "It's not going to work, Tom. I've got some news of my own. I'll be working overseas for the foreseeable future. In Japan, actually. I won't be able to carry on with any of these projects. I was hoping you'd be able to do exactly what you've just described for me in my place. That way I know I'd be leaving everything in good hands. But as it is-"

It had taken Tom a good couple of seconds to catch up. "Japan?" he repeated, stunned. "But… but why?"

She shrugged. "Because it's a good opportunity to do what I do best," she said.

Tom couldn't believe it. "When are you going?"

"In a month or so. Sooner, if I can organise everything."

He shook his head. "But – won't you still be on your honeymoon? I thought you and Mark were spending two weeks in Alaska?"

Kathryn's dipped her head, her face freezing just for a second. Then she looked back at him again. When she spoke, her voice was steady, but quiet. "Mark and I aren't getting married."

Tom was flabbergasted for the second time in as many minutes. In his silence, Kathryn twined her fingers together and squared her jaw.

"It's not something I want to talk about," she said, "but I'm sure you can understand why now might be a good time for me to get out of California."

He stared at her for another moment. Then, for some reason his mouth engaged before his brain and he found himself asking, "Have you told Chakotay?"

Kathryn's eyes flashed up to his. "Of course I haven't. Why would I?"

Tom clamped his mouth shut and shook his head. There was another moment of silence.

"How is he?" Kathryn asked, staring studiously at her fingers once more.

"Really good," Tom said, hoarsely. "B'Elanna went to see him at the hospital earlier, actually – he's been discharged today."

Kathryn fixed him with a new look, one of surprise edged with another emotion Tom couldn't read. "That's… that's wonderful news. So he's gone home? To his apartment?"

"No," said Tom, his brain working overtime as he watched her face. "No… he's gone to stay with his sister. In New Mexico. An old friend of his is driving him. They've got to take it easy so they're stopping a few times along the way." He made a show of checking his watch. "They would have left about an hour ago."

Somewhere after he'd said the words 'New Mexico', Kathryn had turned away to stare out of the window.

"That sounds like a good idea," she said, quietly, not so much to Tom as to herself.

"Yes," Tom said, a little lamely. "So… you're both leaving."

Kathryn turned back to him with a smile, but didn't say anything. Tom could see her fingers moving restlessly over each other.

"You'll come and see the garden, won't you?" he asked. "Before you go, I mean."

She took a breath, her shoulders drawing back, her chin lifting. "Of course. I need to collect some of my things from the office, for a start. In fact, I might do that now."

Tom watched as she slipped from the bench and shouldered her bag. "Now?"

She nodded. "No time like the present, is there? I've got a lot to do before I leave, I may not have another chance."

"All right," he said. "I'll be right behind you. I'm just going to finish this…"

"See you there," she said, waving one arm behind her as she headed for the door.

Tom watched her cross the sidewalk and then put his phone to his ear.

"B'Elanna," he said, the minute she picked up. "Are you at the hospital?"

"Nearly," came the reply. "Why, what's the matter?"

Tom rubbed a hand over his face. "Kathryn's split up with Mark and she's taking a job in Japan."

There was a blank pause. "What?"

"Mark and Kathryn – they're not getting married."

"Why not?"

"She didn't want to talk about it. But you know who the first person I thought of was?"

"Chakotay?"

"Yeah." Tom drummed his fingers on the table. "Maybe I'm way off beam here… but do you think…"

"…that it's all about Chakotay?" B'Elanna finished for him. "Yeah. Yeah, I think it might be."

"He doesn't know about them splitting up," Tom said. "Or that she's moving to Japan."

"He and Mike are getting ready to go," B'Elanna said. "Mike's probably already loaded the car. I'll be getting to the hospital in time to say goodbye, that's all. Chakotay didn't even want to go back to his apartment first. In an hour they'll be gone, Tom. What do we do?"

"She's going to the garden office, right now," Tom said, pushing himself to his feet. "I lied and said that Chakotay was already on his way to New Mexico."

There was a pause. "What's your plan?"

"I don't really have one, but they've at least got to see each other, right? Even if it's just to say goodbye."

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line. "You think I should tell him?"

"Yeah. I think you should."

"He might still decide to just leave."

Tom shrugged. "At least he'll know. They can't just… go their separate ways. Not after everything. Can they?"

"No," said B'Elanna, with such determination that Tom felt himself grin. "Not if I have anything to do with it."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

"What do you mean, you can't?" B'Elanna demanded hotly.

"Keep your voice down," Chakotay hissed.

"We're in a private room!"

"Your voice has a way of carrying."

She glared at him as Chakotay put the last of his clothes into the suitcase that lay open on his hospital bed.

"And don't look at me like that, B'Elanna. You can't just come in here like a battering ram and get angry when I don't agree with you."

"I can when you're being a pig-headed idiot."

"B'Elanna-"

"Which you are."

Chakotay sighed and dropped the t-shirt he'd been holding into the case before turning to her. "If Kathryn wanted to see me, she'd have come," he pointed out. "The fact that she hasn't tells me that she'd rather not."

"It's only just happened," B'Elanna said, crossing her arms defiantly. "The split with Mark only happened last night."

"All the more reason for me not to intrude," Chakotay pointed out. "Besides, who's to say this isn't a storm in a teacup and tomorrow the wedding will be back on?"

B'Elanna stared at him, wondering how this man whom she'd looked up to for so long could be such an idiot.

"Because she's going to Japan."

Chakotay shook his head. "B'Elanna-"

"You do get that? Japan. You're really going to let her go without even saying goodbye?"

He glanced down at his case. B'Elanna saw one of his hands curling into a loose fist. Behind him was the wheelchair Chakotay had been using to move around the hospital and would be taking with him when he left. He still wasn't strong enough to stay on his feet for longer than a few minutes at a time.

"Is it because of the wheelchair?" she asked. "You think – what? That seeing you in it will put her off?"

Chakotay's head snapped back up.

"Really - is it a pride thing? Because if you let her go because of that, then you're even more of an idiot than I'm beginning to think you are."

"I told you before," he said, his voice darkening with slight anger. "Kathryn isn't mine to let go of."

"Keep telling yourself that, it obviously makes you feel better."

"Torres-"

"She wants to be with you!" B'Elanna shouted, throwing her hands up.

"You might think that, B'Elanna, but all evidence appears to be to the contrary – and even if it were the case, I can't go steaming in there the minute she's split up with her fiancé! Can you imagine what's going through her head? What arrangements she's having to cancel? The people she's going to have to tell? There couldn't be a worse time. Surely even you can understand that?"

"If you don't you may never see her again," B'Elanna pointed out.

Chakotay shook his head and turned back to his case. "If she's decided to go to Japan, me declaring my undying love isn't going to change much anyway, is it?"

B'Elanna opened her mouth, shut it again, and then finally said, "Undying love?"

Chakotay stared at a stray pair of socks with a frown and then pinched his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. "It's just a figure of speech. You know what I mean."

"Yeah," B'Elanna said. "Yeah, Coach, I do. And you're still just going to let her go."

"There's nothing else I can do," he said, quietly. "It's just… not the right time."

"Just out of interest," B'Elanna asked, "what would be the right time?"

He smiled grimly. "I suspect there was never going to be one where Kathryn and I are concerned."

B'Elanna felt defeat dropping onto her shoulders like a physical weight. She watched as Chakotay flipped the lid of his case shut. The sound of the zip closing filled the heavy air.

"I wish you knew-" she began, and then stopped herself.

Chakotay looked up. "You wish I knew what?"

B'Elanna shook her head. "She deserves to be happy. There's so much…" she shook her head again. "I can't say. I promised. But remember what I told you, ages ago? What Tom said, about how happy she is around you? If you knew, Chakotay… if you knew everything, you'd know how amazing that is. How… how important."

The door behind B'Elanna opened and Chakotay's friend Mike stuck his head around the door. "Hey," he said. "I've brought the car round. You ready?"

Chakotay looked away from B'Elanna. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm ready. Let's get out of here."

Tom watched as Kathryn began to fill a second box. He still hadn't heard anything from B'Elanna. Time was surely running out, too – there couldn't be much more here that Kathryn needed to take with her. He hated to see her emptying her desk. Everything was happening too fast: Tom still couldn't really grasp the idea that she was going, that sometime soon neither of them would be coming to this small office every day. He looked around, still surprised that such a small space had become his means of salvation in an uncertain world. Tom thought about all the things that would not have happened if Kathryn hadn't come to their house that day and convinced him to come work for her. He'd never have met B'Elanna. He'd never have discovered that there were things he was genuinely good at. He'd probably not be where he was with his dad now. He'd definitely not be looking at joining the Air Force. All of those things had happened because of Kathryn Janeway and her faith that this place and what they were doing here could make a difference. Even if he were the only person for whom that was true – and Tom knew he wasn't – hadn't this place proved its worth a thousand times over?

"Kathryn-" he said, just as she dumped another file in the top of the box and straightened up, her hands on her hips.

"What do you think we should do about the stuff on the walls?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

She waved at the mood board that spread out of their office and along the corridor towards the gym. "Should we take it down? It's not as if it needs to be there any more."

"I think you should leave it exactly as it is," Tom said.

"Really? I always meant to apologise to Chakotay for taking up so much of the gym's wall space."

Tom scrubbed the nail of his thumb against the edge of his desk. "I don't think he ever minded."

Kathryn was quiet for a minute, her eyes roving over the haphazard map of their journey. "We did good work here, Tom. Didn't we?"

He looked up at her. Kathryn's face was wistful and a touch sad. "We still are doing good work here," he said. "Kathryn, I wish you weren't going. Are you really sure about this? I mean, Japan – it's such a long way to go. You won't know anyone there."

She dropped her chin and smiled slightly. "I didn't know anyone in Maywood, either. Not the first time I came here. And look how that worked out."

It's not the same, he wanted to say but didn't. He wasn't sure why that statement was true. Perhaps Kathryn would have a very similar experience in Japan.

"You are going to stay in touch, aren't you?" he asked. "Not just with me, but with everyone. Neelix is going to be so upset that you're going. And Kes. Harry might actually have a meltdown. And B'Elanna and me-" Tom broke off, shaking his head. "I don't think you realise just how important you are to all of us, Kathryn."

She lifted her chin, her eyes bright. "Of course I'll stay in touch. Anyway, once I've found an appropriate replacement for us both, there'll be a lot of handovers to do. And after that – I'll always want to know how this place is faring, Tom, as well as everyone who has been connected with it."

"But you don't want to say goodbye to them all?"

Kathryn looked away. "I've never liked saying goodbye. Sometimes it's better to just… slip away quietly and remember the good times. The fun."

They were silent for a few seconds. Tom glanced at his watch. Come on, B'Elanna. Where are you?

Kathryn picked up another file and jammed it into the top of the overflowing box. "Well," she said. "I'm sure there are other things I should be taking with me, but that will do for now. You're sure you're happy to stay on until we can find someone else to manage the project?"

"Of course," said Tom. "It'll be a few months before I know whether the Air Force will take me."

She smiled. "Good. Thank you, Tom, I'll feel much easier knowing you're here to smooth the way." Kathryn indicated her desk. "You should move over here in the meantime."

"Oh, I don't think so," Tom said. "That'd feel a bit too much like sitting in the big chair."

Kathryn grinned. "I hate to break it to you, Tom, but if you want to fly aircraft you're going to have to get used to sitting in some pretty big chairs."

Tom dug his hands in his pockets and smiled. Outside, the door to the gym creaked open and the sound of fast, determined footsteps echoed toward them down the corridor. A moment later B'Elanna appeared.

"B'Elanna!" Kathryn exclaimed, immediately going over to pull the girl into a hug. "I'm so glad you're here. I wanted to say a proper goodbye in case I don't have time to visit again before I go."

B'Elanna hugged back, looking at Tom over Kathryn's shoulder. The slight shake of her head told him everything he needed to know. His heart sank. Chakotay wasn't coming.

The two women pulled apart, though Kathryn kept her hands on B'Elanna's arms. "You'll let me know how progress on the water reclamation unit goes, won't you?"

"Of course I will, every step of the way," said B'Elanna. "But here's a better plan. Why don't you stay here and see it for yourself instead of running off to Japan? What kind of crazy idea is that anyway?"

There was genuine affection on Kathryn's face as she shook her head. "Look at it this way," she suggested. "It gives you a new place to visit, doesn't it? Come and see me out there – both of you. You'll be welcome. Now, I'd better get going."

Tom picked up one of the boxes and B'Elanna reached for the other. Kathryn nodded her thanks and let them go ahead. She paused in the door of the office, then flicked off the light and pulled the door shut behind her. Tom was aware of her footsteps as the three of them walked down the corridor for the final time. At the door of the gym, Kathryn stopped, resting her hand on the jamb, just for a moment. Tom glanced back and wondered what she was remembering as a brief storm of emotion wheeled across her face. Then Kathryn took a deep breath and dropped her hand. Tom stood with his back against the door of the building and waited for her to pass.

"My car's just here," Kathryn said, nodding to the vehicle at the kerb as she pulled her keys from her pocket and unlocked it with a press of a button. "Look – would you two put the boxes in the back for me? I just want to take a few moments in the garden."

"Sure," Tom told her. "There's no rush."

Kathryn nodded with a smile. They watched her cross the street and make for the gate. By the time he and B'Elanna had manoeuvred the boxes into the car she had disappeared beyond the leaves of the young trees that were already spreading along the fences.

"What happened?" Tom asked.

B'Elanna shrugged. "He wouldn't come. He said he couldn't, that it was the worst possible time, yadda yadda…" she shook her head. "He's an idiot."

Tom sighed and pulled her into a hug, resting his chin on top of her head. "Oh well. I guess at least we tried, right?"

"Maybe it never was anything much," B'Elanna said, her voice muffled against his chest. "Maybe we were wrong about them. Because I can't imagine really loving someone and being able to let them just walk away. Can you?"

Tom tightened his arms around her, feeling her hair tickle his nose. "No," he said. "I can't."

A car pulled into the square and turned towards the gym. Tom didn't recognise it. Its windows were tinted, making it impossible to see the driver. It slowed to a crawl as it neared them and Tom's heart rate spiked. He looked around, his hands tightening on B'Elanna as he prepared to shove her behind the nearest barrier – Kathryn's car.

"Tom?" B'Elanna asked, lifting her head.

She saw the car and froze. Tom tried to drag her away, but she resisted.

"Tom – Tom! That's Mike."

The car stopped in front of them and the passenger door opened. Chakotay appeared, slowly unfolding from the seat as if movement wasn't particularly easy. His feet hit the blacktop and he straightened up, leaning on the door. He looked at them both, then at Kathryn's car.

There was a moment of silence.

"You almost missed her," B'Elanna told him, quietly. "She's in the garden,"

Chakotay nodded, then pushed the car door shut. Mike pulled away and he stood with his back to them. Then, slowly, he started to cross the street.

Tom reached for B'Elanna's hand. They held on to each other as they watched Chakotay walk. It obviously wasn't easy for him. But he didn't stop.

"I think I might go back inside and make some coffee," Tom said, after a moment.

"Yeah," said B'Elanna. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. And I could teach you a few boxing techniques, if you like. It's about time I got you in the ring."

He pulled her closer. "Techniques, eh? I like the sound of that."

B'Elanna punched him in the arm, hard enough to make him yelp. "Watch it, flyboy."

[TBC]

Chapter Text

There was colour everywhere, vibrant yet out of focus, as if she had stepped into a Monet painting. Shades of green swirled in knots and whorls: emerald and celadon, jade and myrtle – from dark iron-rich to pale peridot frosted with silver there was an entire virescent backdrop painted with the garden's leaves alone. Bursting between them, over them, through them came star-bright spatters constellating in hues of yellow and cerise, vermillion and iris, indigo and incarnadine as the eager plants threw open their blooms to the bright Californian sky. Their collective scent rose as thick as morning mist over high ground and the deceptively lazy drone of insects hard at work was somehow louder than the ever-present hum of traffic encroaching from the surrounding blocks.

For a moment Kathryn stopped inside the entrance, overwhelmed by the sight. She'd had no idea that the garden had progressed so quickly in the short weeks since she'd busied herself elsewhere. From the main gate a path had been left clear of plants and scattered with bark chippings. Slowly she followed where it led between the vegetable patches on one side and the flowers on the other. Here and there were tools stuck in the ground next to small piles of weeds: evidence of the ongoing industry that had transformed this former wasteland into its current verdant state.

Kathryn remembered what Tom had said about Neelix thinking the replacement persimmon were in bud and went to see for herself. He was right. In the next day or so the young trees would be covered in the small white flowers that would surely provide fruit later in the season. In front of each of the trees stood one of Franco's benches, earthed into the turf that had settled around their small trunks. Though at the moment they dwarfed the saplings, it was clear to see that the seating had been built with the tree's future maturity in mind. Semi-circular, when the trees were fully-grown anyone sitting on them would be able to lean back against the trunk itself for support, as well as resting against the elegant, wave-like curls that constituted the turned arms at either end. The wood had been buffed smooth to bring out the grain, knots and all. Kathryn could imagine it weathering decade by decade, ageing along with the garden until it would be possible to believe that the creation of Franco's skilled hands had in fact sprouted from the earth along with the plants surrounding them.

There was a fluttering above her head and a lark sparrow alighted on the persimmon's flimsy highest branch. It sat there for a moment, tilting its head this way and that, regarding her with curious eyes. Then it began to sing. Kathryn shut her eyes and listened.

"Kathryn."

His quiet voice made her jump. She spun on her heel, the bark beneath her feet crunching with the sudden movement.

"Chakotay!"

He was leaning on the last post of the fence that Tom and Franco had put in place to fill the gap left by the one Kathryn and Chakotay had built on the morning of that fateful day. He was wearing a white shirt, open at the neck and faded blue jeans. For a moment it was possible for Kathryn to believe that what he had endured that evening had merely been a nightmare of her own making. He looked the same way he always had. He looked good.

They watched each other for a moment, as if neither was sure that the other was actually there at all.

"I thought you'd gone," Kathryn said, eventually. "To New Mexico. B'Elanna and Tom said-"

Chakotay glanced down at his feet. "Yes. I'm supposed to be on the road now. But…" he looked up at her again. "I couldn't leave without saying goodbye. Not after what B'Elanna told me."

Kathryn twined her fingers together. "What did B'Elanna tell you?"

He said nothing for a moment, just watched her. She well remembered what it felt like to have those dark eyes of his entirely focused on her. Guilt shivered in her gut, along with something else she couldn't – wouldn't – name.

"That you're going away. To Japan."

She nodded, relieved. "That's right."

"Kathryn, I-" he stopped. He gripped the fencepost, hard. His face set into a frown. "I'm… sorry - I need to sit down."

"Oh!" His admission set her moving. "Of course – I'm sorry. Can I help?"

Chakotay shook his head as he made for the bench and sank down onto one end of it, leaning on the carved arm. He looked up at her with a faint self-deprecating smile. "Not quite the man I used to be."

"Don't say that," she said. "What you survived, Chakotay – it's remarkable you're walking so soon at all."

He contemplated the garden as Kathryn moved to sit at the other end of the bench. "Look at this place. Look at what you did. It's amazing."

Kathryn smiled. "It wasn't me."

Chakotay turned to her. "It was you, Kathryn."

She watched as a butterfly wound a lazy, fluttering path towards a late-flowering hyacinth. She wondered if she'd ever forget the way her name sounded in his voice. "It was everyone coming together to work for a common purpose. It was a collective decision to make something good out of something that was going to waste. That's what did it. That's what will always do it: the desire to find and give hope where it seems as if there can be none. It's always there, that good part of human nature, it just needs something to inspire it." Kathryn looked at him. "It's what you do with those kids. What you did for B'Elanna."

He smiled at her, softly, then looked out at the garden again. "I still can't believe that this has all been re-planted and grown again since that night."

"Well, actually, not everything had to be re-planted after all." She pointed to the hyacinth, moving slightly as the butterfly mined its nectar. "That's from a bulb we planted before the vandals trashed the place. Tom and I had forgotten about them until they started coming up. They were under the surface the whole time and now they're all in full flower. It's the same with the potatoes and the carrots. The gang destroyed what was on the surface, but they missed what was buried, just waiting to grow when it had a chance."

Chakotay smiled again. "Seems like a good metaphor."

Kathryn laughed slightly. "I suppose it is. For a lot of things."

"And now you're going to do the same thing in Japan."

She tipped one shoulder in a half-shrug. "Well. I'll try, anyway."

Chakotay looked down, one thumb tracing the lifeline of his other hand as he frowned. "Kathryn. I don't really know how to say this… but if this – any of this - is my fault…"

Kathryn swallowed. "If any of what is your fault?"

Chakotay looked at her and her heart constricted. She wondered if she'd ever before known anyone who could say so much so silently. He shook his head and when he spoke next, his voice was low.

"B'Elanna told me about your split with Mark. And… if it was because of what happened between us that night…"

"It wasn't," Kathryn said, quickly, her heart turning over on itself in a sick rollercoaster flip. "And if it had been, then… well. A relationship that can be overturned by one momentary mistake-"

She saw a flash of something cross his face and stopped. For a split second Kathryn thought that his chest must have gone into spasm. Then she realised that the pain had been caused by something else. She looked away, her heartbeat quickening.

"A mistake?" he asked. "That's how you see it?"

She looked down at her hands. "Don't you?"

Chakotay was silent for a moment. She glanced up to find his gaze tracing the contours of her face. He met her eyes and shook his head. "No. If you do, then I regret that. But do I regret that we had that moment? No. I don't know how I ever could, Kathryn. I don't know how I could regret anything about knowing you other than having to say goodbye without knowing you better."

She swallowed, all her nerves fizzing and hating herself for it. How could it be that after everything that had happened since they first met, after how much damage this frisson between them had caused, her inner self could still react to him so viscerally, and at a time like this?

"Chakotay…" she began, painfully, tied up in his gaze and drowning. "I can't do this. It's not-"

He looked away. "I'm sorry." He sighed. "This was why I didn't want to come. I know this isn't the right time. Please believe me when I say I had every intention of not coming here at all. But… you're leaving. And a near-death experience tends to throw a few things into perspective. The idea of never seeing you again… We only have one life, Kathryn. I feel like I've had you in mine for far too short a time." Chakotay shook his head. "I had to at least… tell you that."

Kathryn gripped the edge of the bench, staring at the bark chippings under her feet and willing her heart to stop thumping as her eyes blurred. We get one life, Kathryn, just one, and once it's gone, it's gone, echoed Mark's voice in her head. She knew both men were right. She knew it. But taking that leap-

She looked at Chakotay's face, at its strong angles and planes, at its lines and creases that seemed, at that moment, to be the map to a land she had been trying to navigate blind for too long. She remembered how it felt to have his lips on her skin, a sensation all at once completely new and utterly commonplace, as if he had touched her in that way for years. But overlaying that was the memory of him crumpled in the entranceway to his apartment, of him gasping for a breath that just wouldn't come as she tried to hold his chest together, screaming for help. And the terror that accompanied that recollection lurked like a towering demon over what joy there had been, dark and huge and so suffocating that she knew the only way to escape it would be to close off what had summoned it completely.

"I think I know you," she whispered, her voice fraying at the edges and breaking in the middle. "I think I knew everything I needed to know about you the moment that we met."

Chakotay watched her for a moment and then reached out and gently took her hand, cradling it in both of his. "I'm going to take a leap here and assume that what you know is good, not bad?"

She laughed a little, painfully – the feeling of his warm fingers around hers –

"In that case, I'm going to make a suggestion," he said, quietly.

Kathryn lifted her chin and tried to square her jaw. "Chakotay-"

"I know that Tom will be leaving Maywood. I can manage it for you. After all, I'm going to be looking for something less active. That'll free you up to do whatever it is you need to do, wherever you need to do it. But… don't go to Japan, Kathryn, or at least if you do, don't go indefinitely. Please. Stay here. Let me get to know you. Let yourself find out if what you think you know about me is right. Don't go."

She shook her head, uselessly, but couldn't speak.

"I think," Chakotay went on softly, "that you've had enough heartbreak to fill too many lifetimes. And I can tell you now that that's something I understand, perhaps better than you realise. These are things we can learn about each other – slowly. I will be here for whatever you need, whenever you need it. Because you came here and you built this place and you took all of us with you and you would have done it alone if you'd had to. If your way of surviving heartbreak is to try to make everyone else's lives better, then I think you deserve to have one person behind you no matter what, every step of the way. And from now on, that's going to be me."

Kathryn felt tears sliding down her cheeks. "That's already been you," she said. "Ever since I got here. Even since that first night, you've been here for me."

He smiled slightly. "You made it easy to be."

She made a harsh sound in her throat. "Easy is the last thing I am, Chakotay. There is so much about me that is difficult. And I don't know if I'll ever be ready to…" she lifted her free hand to his face, running her fingers from his temple down to his jaw. "Do you know what Mark said, about that night in your apartment? He said 'You wanted it enough that it outweighed your fear of ever wanting anything that much again.' And he's right. Chakotay, I wanted you so much that it made me forget what could happen. And then… then you were dying, right there under my hands, and I-" she took a sharp, painful breath. "I don't know that I'll ever get past that. I don't know that I can. Not again."

He nodded. "I understand that. I do. And I can't promise that something else terrible won't happen to either of us. It would be foolish to even try to pretend that in this world. But one life, Kathryn. That's all we have. One. And having you in mine, even if the worst were to happen to either of us – I have to believe that would be better than never having that at all." He dipped his head and squeezed her hand slightly. "I don't want to pry and I don't want to bring up old hurts where it's unnecessary. But if you had the power to erase the memory of your first fiancé entirely – and with it, the pain – would you?"

Kathryn turned to stare out at the garden. She had spent so long trying not to think about how Justin and her father had met their end that the effort had subsumed everything else. What happy memories did surface she routinely squashed for fear of what would follow. But deep in her mind there was a glint of sunlight on waves, a bright flash of laughter that echoed with an accompanying fragment of joy... For the first time, Kathryn wondered what would happen if she let herself follow that thread instead of snapping it off the moment it began to spin.

"For a long time I think I probably would have said yes," she said, quietly. "But now… I'm not so sure."

Chakotay pulled her gently around to face him, studying her face. "If you ever want to talk about it, I'm here."

She smiled slightly. "I'm not sure I ever will. I'm not sure I'll ever be ready for a lot of things."

Chakotay's gaze dropped to her lips for a moment before meeting hers again. Despite everything, her heart still fluttered. He reached out and cupped her face with one hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb. He watched her for a moment and then slowly leaned in. He stopped when their lips were a hair's breadth apart and her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that Kathryn thought it might crack a rib. Chakotay paused, the warmth from his mouth so close that she could feel it. He held himself there for a beat, for two, giving her a chance to push him away or protest. But she didn't. She couldn't. An echo of the helpless want from that night returned, a flush that caressed her skin as surely as could his fingers if she gave him the chance.

Chakotay closed the last fraction of space between them, kissing her softly. Kathryn could feel the hunger of their previous such union simmering, but he didn't give into it. Chakotay drew back and then kissed her again, then again, briefly drawing her bottom lip between his. It was slow and careful and heated and it turned the deepest part of her into something molten, something with a burning fire all its own. Chakotay pulled her closer, sliding the hand that had rested on her cheek down over her shoulder and her back. He kissed her one last time and then drew back to look at her through eyes that seemed even darker than usual.

One day I think you will be, they said. And I'll be here when you are.

[TBC]

Chapter Text

Seven Years Later

"She's late…"

"She's supposed to be late."

"Not this late. What if something's happened? What if she's not coming?"

"She's coming."

"How do you know?"

"Because even with as long as it's taken you two to get to this point, I've still known her longer than you, and once B'Elanna's made up her mind, she's made up her mind." Chakotay smiled. "She'll be here, Tom. Stop worrying."

He watched as Tom Paris paced the length of the gym and back again, wringing his hands together. The younger man looked good in his dress blues, brass perfectly polished. Chakotay smiled again, remembering the first time they had met all those years ago, wondering at how so much could have altered and at the same time remained unchanged. He glanced at the old clock on the wall over the cluttered table at the other end of the room. B'Elanna was running a little late, it was true.

"Come on," he said. "Why don't we go outside? Everyone's waiting, you can talk to them while we do."

Tom groaned. "That's not making me feel any better."

Chakotay clapped him on the back and used the gesture to propel him towards the door at the same time. "Stop worrying."

"She's late."

"She'll be here. Where was it she was coming back from this time? Indonesia, wasn't it?"

"It was Vietnam," Tom said, as they left the gym and walked into the bright sunlight beyond. "Indonesia was last week."

"I lose track," Chakotay said, waving at Neelix, who had spotted them coming and was excitedly pointing them out to the group who had gathered to wait for them.

The garden had changed over the years, growing into itself as it matured and to accommodate various alterations that had occurred along the way. B'Elanna's first water reclamation unit had required a large footprint of land, but she and La Forge were on the Mark III now, which was far more compact.

Chakotay looked around the square at the old buildings that rose above them as they headed for the garden's open gate. They had changed, too. Gone were the broken windows and the crumbling walls, the peeling paint and cracked steps. One by one, starting with the building that had housed the new factory for B'Elanna's project, businesses had returned to the area. There was a bakery, an industrial laundry, even a manufacturer of parts for electric cars. With the industry had come jobs, and with those jobs came futures for the people of Maywood. Sure, there was still crime, there was a still a drugs problem. But the place was alive and flourishing, much like the garden where it had all started.

Chakotay watched, still smiling, as Neelix enveloped Tom in a bear hug that was then repeated by Harry, Kes, Franco and anyone else who could get close enough. No one had seen Paris for a while. His duties tended to keep him away for long periods. He came back whenever he could though, and not only because this was still where B'Elanna spent her time when she wasn't overseas helping implement one of the water projects her team had developed. It meant that whenever they were both home, the community turned out en masse to see them. Today, of course, was a particular cause for celebration, and Chakotay had helped Neelix and the others spend a long time preparing the garden. Space had been cleared and now two columns of white chairs lined up before a little platform that Franco had built specially for the occasion. The women who ran the florist store that sold some of the garden's flower and vegetable produce had produced beautifully tied bouquets of blooms that cascaded from terracotta pots lining the path. Chakotay himself had laced strings of fairy lights into the old iron fencing that still formed the garden's border, though they wouldn't be visible until much later into the evening. In fact, the whole square had been turned over to the wedding – from where he stood he could see flowers and lights in all the windows. Not everyone would fit into the garden at once, but later anyone who wanted to come had been invited to the wedding meal, which would be served on tables brought out onto the street.

"Chakotay."

He turned to find Owen Paris behind him and smiled warmly at Tom's father. "Owen. Good to see you."

"You too. I've had intelligence that the bride is en route as we speak."

Chakotay grinned. "Just as well. I think Tom's about to go into meltdown."

Owen chuckled. "I can imagine. Ah ha," he added, as a shiny black Cadillac slid into the square, "I believe this is her now. I'd better get to my post."

"Me too. I'll see you later," Chakotay said, and then watched briefly as Owen headed over to disengage Tom from his knot of friends.

"Places, people," he heard Owen say. "I think the show's about to start."

Music began to play, lacing through the air to link with the happy, hushed sounds of chatter and laughter.

Chakotay walked swiftly back up the path as the car pulled to a stop outside the garden gate. He nodded to the driver and opened the back door as the driver did the same on the other side. Chakotay held out a hand. B'Elanna gripped his fingers for balance as she stepped out to stand in front of him. Unexpectedly, a lump lodged in his throat. She was dressed in floor-length white silk, a dress that was as no-nonsense and as honestly beautiful as the person wearing it. Its sleeves were capped over her shoulders, its neckline cut in a v shape to show the single diamond that sparkled at her throat. The skirt was cut close yet had a slight train that glinted with the soft shine of the tiny pearls stitched into an intricate pattern. B'Elanna's hair had been rolled back from her face and pinned to hold flowers from the garden she had helped to make possible, and she carried a handful of the same.

"B'Elanna," he whispered.

She reached up and kissed his cheek, smelling of spice and sunshine. "Chakotay."

"Tom's a lucky man," he told her. "Ready?"

B'Elanna took a deep breath and nodded.

"Hold on just a moment," said the maid of honour, busying herself with making sure the bride's train wasn't about to be crushed. "There. Perfect."

Kathryn straightened up. As she did so she looked at Chakotay. He felt her gaze travelling up his body from his toes to his chest to his face as she took in the tuxedo. He hadn't worn one in a long time. When she finally met his gaze her eyes were alight with that spark of hot mischief he had always loved so much. Kathryn arched an eyebrow and poked her tongue into her cheek, just for a second. The expression was so suggestive that Chakotay very nearly laughed aloud. If he hadn't had an extremely important job to complete just then, he would have whispered something in her ear that would make her blush the way he knew he must be himself.

"Ready now?" he asked B'Elanna, instead.

"Yes."

Chakotay took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm. A hushed murmur started up as they walked along the path towards Tom, who was staring at his wife-to-be with a look of utter awe.

It took a long time for the sun to set and when it did the night sky was lit with laughter as well as stars. The square echoed with the sound of chatter and music long after the last bite of food had been eaten. The day had been so perfect that no one really wanted to go home and end it, and so they lingered, happy in each other's company and in this place that had somehow managed, against all odds, to become a home away from home. B'Elanna and Tom hugged their friends and held each other, smiling, so happy with the simplicity of this next new beginning, this new life grown from the roots of two others.

Chakotay sat watching the assembled party, thinking of everything that had happened in the past seven years. There had been so many changes – so many departures and arrivals, so much laughter and yes, so many tears, too. But this small, inconsequential corner, this patch of land that had once been little more than a battleground in a larger war… it had survived. More than that, it had held them all together within it. If he thought back now, it was hard to remember the wasteland the garden had been when Kathryn Janeway had first stepped onto it, how bare and basic, how neglected and overlooked.

He searched for her in the crowd and found her standing under the light from the stars he had helped to hang. She was with Phoebe, one hand on her sister's arm as she laughed at something the younger woman had said. Chakotay remembered the first time he'd seen her laugh, so long ago now but so indelible in his memory. He'd already thought she was beautiful, but that laugh had made her a superlative that there was no word for. The same was true today. B'Elanna had chosen a dress of the thinnest pale green silk for Kathryn to wear. It hung from her bare shoulders on straps as thin as embroiderer's thread, holding close to all her most delicious curves before flowing to skim the floor in an expanse of colour that shimmered gently as she walked. Kathryn had been aghast when she'd first brought it home. I can't carry this off, she'd told him, as she'd put it on for him to see. Does B'Elanna think I'm still in my 20s? Maybe if I got a wrap for my arms… He'd found a way to stop her speaking such nonsense then, and was reasonably proud of himself for having just enough control not to ruin the dress as he'd divested her of it in the swiftest manner possible.

Kathryn left Phoebe with a swift hug and walked towards him. Chakotay watched as she moved with a grace that still took his breath away. He didn't stand as she approached, instead preferring to look up at her as she stood over him with a smile that told him she knew exactly what he was contemplating.

Kathryn held out a hand to him. "Take a turn around the garden with me?"

Chakotay smiled and laced his fingers through hers, allowing her to pull him to his feet.

"It's been a wonderful day, hasn't it?" she said, once their feet were on earth instead of concrete.

"It has," he agreed. "I don't know how it could have been better."

She smiled at that but said nothing, lifting her chin to watch the fairy lights blinking on the fences. "I think they look good up there, don't you?" Kathryn observed, after a moment. "Perhaps we should leave them where they are."

Chakotay nodded, slipping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close as she wrapped her own arm around his waist. "Good idea."

They strolled quietly for several minutes, slowly making for 'their' bench. Over the years this was the mantel it had acquired between them. For some reason, since that day when he'd decided not to go to New Mexico without saying goodbye, they had always gravitated to the same spot, until in their minds it had become 'Kathryn and Chakotay's bench' and sitting anywhere else simply felt wrong. The persimmon had grown sturdy and strong over it, forming a natural bower they both enjoyed.

Instead of sitting, though, this time Kathryn stopped them before they reached it, turning in his arms to put a hand over his heart. Chakotay looked down at her face, at the light and shadows dancing across it. Her mouth was curled in a slight smile, but her eyes were fixed on his chest. He pulled her closer, kissing her forehead.

"Everything all right?"

"Yes," she said, her voice husky. "Very all right."

He waited her out. He'd become good at that, over the years.

"I have something to tell you," she said, quietly. "I found out yesterday but I didn't want to take the attention away from B'Elanna and Tom." Kathryn glanced up at him. "And once you know I have a feeling you're going to find it hard to keep those dimples of yours showing for all and sundry to see."

Chakotay felt his heart give an uneven jump. "Okay…"

Kathryn took a breath. "I'm pregnant."

He wasn't sure, in that moment, quite what was showing on his face, but whatever it was made her smile and laugh and seem, somehow, brighter than any star he had ever seen. Chakotay pulled her against him, wrapping her up in his arms and muffling her next words against his neck.

"You never would have asked me," she said. "You were waiting for me to get there myself, just as you always do. And time was passing and I know you, Chakotay. I've seen how wonderful a father you have been to all those kids who never had one, and I know how you've wanted your own. I wasn't sure I could do it. I wasn't sure I could ever let myself create something that I know I will love so much, with so much of myself." She pulled back, reaching up to cup his face in her hands. "But that's already how I love you. I'm already there, Chakotay. I have been for a long time."

He laughed a little and cried a little and kissed her, soundly, over and over, until she put both hands on his shoulders and pushed back a little to look him in the eye.

"There's something else," she said.

"Okay."

She glanced down at his chest and he felt her tense, very slightly, before looking back up at him again. "Want to follow Tom and B'Elanna's lead and get married?"

"Yes."

Kathryn stared at him with solemn eyes. "I don't want an engagement."

"We can drive to Vegas right now if you like. It's just occurred to me that I haven't seen you drink a single drop of alcohol all night."

She laughed and shook her head. "No. It has to be here, don't you think? Where it all started. Where we first met." Kathryn looked down. "Where you reminded me how it felt to love."

Chakotay crooked one finger under her chin and tipped her face back up to meet his eye. They looked at each other. Not for the first time he was amazed at how the universe worked: that two such people could cross paths despite the odds of doing so being so astronomical and yet for it to be so completely the right thing to happen. Because it was right. Despite the complications, despite the pain and the difficulty and the long, convoluted meander their relationship had taken, they had been together since the day she had first walked onto this patch of land with her chin up and her hands on her hips.

"Just tell me when," he said. "I'll be here, Kathryn Janeway."

[END]