By Elorie Alton

NC-17

Disclaimer: All Star Trek characters are the property of Paramount. No copyright infringement is intended.

Fatigue dragged Chakotay’s steps, slowing his every movement with a bone weary exhaustion that he couldn’t shake, extending the trip to his quarters. He remembered his father talking about being soul tired, and for the first time in his life he understood. The events of the past few days twisted in his gut. Not since being pulled into the Delta quadrant had he endured anything like this. His fear was worse than the dark days after the Trebus massacre when he made the decision to leave Starfleet and join the Maquis.

Riley Frasier had seduced, and then used him, and he feared that his inability to resist her had cost him Kathryn. He kept wondering if he had tried hard enough to resist Riley and the "cooperative". No answers came to him, only more questions that ran through his mind in circles, repeating and repeating.

When his shift was finally over he left the bridge without a word. His only goal was getting to his quarters and the vision quest he hoped would bring a measure of peace. He needed some way to center himself so he could try to build back the connection he shared with Kathryn. He didn’t know how he could live without her, and he was very afraid that he had destroyed any chance of a future with her.

He didn’t bother to turn up the lights; he just took a quick shower and put on a pair of soft knit pants. Finally kneeling down on the floor, he took out the objects in his medicine bundle; a black bird’s wing, a carved stone from the river near his home, a piece of carved wood from New Earth, and his akoonah.

Picking up the stone he held it between the palms of his hands, finding a comforting calmness in its polished surface. Tracing his fingers over the engraved lines of the chah-mooz-ee carved into it, he willed his mind to clear, then sat back and placed his hand on the akoonah.

"A-koo-chee-moya. We are far from the sacred places of our grandfathers. We are far from the bones of my people. What I ask on this day of guilt and uncertainty is that the wisdom of my father finds me, and helps me understand my dilemma. Speak to me, father, speak to me in my dreams." He closed his eyes and let the visions take him.

The serenity he usually found in the familiar wooded area of his vision evaded him, because in the darkness he found neither his father nor his animal guide, and as he walked he noticed the woods gave away to a strange land. The ground was bare with broken stones scattered about, hard-edged, sharp stones that had never known the rasp of sandy wind, or the rush of water.

He could see the glow of a strange light in the distance, and when he focused his attention on it, he seemed to rush forward in that direction. Then his awareness shifted back to his surroundings, and he found himself on an ancient track, as broken as the land it crossed. The road called out to him, silently begging him to travel down it to the eerie light flashing in the distance.

=^=

Alpha shift had ended and the Beta shift had taken over. Captain Janeway remained in her office, waiting just in case Chakotay decided to speak to her. He had left without a word to anyone at the end of his shift.

She delayed for a while to see if he would return as he often did, to cajole her about eating and talk her into going to the mess hall, but he never returned. After a couple of hours she checked on his whereabouts and when she learned he was in his quarters, she decided to call it a day.

"God!" she thought, "Don’t hide from me Chakotay."

She stood, snapping the screen on her terminal down. She knew she had to talk to him, to know where they stood with each other. She was heartsick with the fear that he had fallen in love with Riley Frasier.

She left her ready room and nodded to her security officer as she passed through the bridge on her way to the turbolift. "Mr. Tuvok, you have the bridge," and stepped inside as soon as the doors slid open.

The empty lift offered no distraction from her disturbing private feelings, fears that had floated up in her mind all day. "What happened between Chakotay and Riley Frasier? Had he wanted a relationship with the former Borg?" The thought of what could have happened gripped like a cold claw, piercing deep into her chest clutching at her heart.

She thought he loved her. He had as much as told her so with his "Angry Warrior" story. They had begun to take steps toward a relationship when Tuvok came back with a cure to the disease that had exiled them on New Earth. There had been other setbacks too, starting with Seska and the baby that she claimed was Chakotay’s.

They had agreed to step back just a while until they had got a stable footing in their command of Voyager again, and it seemed to work. In fact, now that they were comfortable again she thought they were moving closer to the intimate relationship that she longed for.

Chakotay had certainly voiced an objection when Q arrived, wanting her to procreate with him. Then there had been a night of sailing in the Holodeck when they both needed to recover from the alien that attacked her. She thought it would only be a matter of time and not much at that until they would act on the growing feelings between them.

She couldn’t have anticipated the shadow of an ex-Borg falling between them.

At first she feared he would stay with Riley Frasier or even worse, ask her to join Voyager in their return home. Then Riley betrayed him by forcing him to help her gain control over all the stranded former Borg drones. Kathryn knew he was dealing with this now, and she worried that Riley’s actions would cause him to back away completely from any relationship, even the friendship they shared.

She found herself walking along the corridor that ran by his quarters, and stopped in front of Chakotay’s door. The need to talk to him grew as each minute passed, and after a mental debate with herself, she finally reached for the chime.

She waited several seconds, and then requested admittance again. This time when he didn’t answer, she hailed the computer.

"Computer, what is the current status of Commander Chakotay?"

"Commander Chakotay is unconscious."

Her heart jumped high into her throat, threatening to choke her with fright. As her breathing quickened, she punched in her override code and entered, calling for the lights.

She immediately saw him slumped down on the floor.

"Chakotay! Wake up, Chakotay!" She called out his name as she shook him. But his eyes remained closed. She tried to roll him to his back but his limp body was so heavy it was difficult to move him.

She could tell he’d been either in or beginning a spirit quest because his open medicine bundle lay beside him. The fact that he hadn’t responded when she called out his name chilled her and she wondered if Riley had taken over his mind again.

She hit her Combadge, "Janeway to Sickbay!"

"Doctor here."

"Doctor, I’ve found Commander Chakotay unconscious in his quarters."

"I am initiating site to site transport now."

She watched as the transporter beam whisked Chakotay away in a shimmer of blue light, then she ran out of the door, on her way to deck five.

=^=

The doctor and Kes were already working over Chakotay when Kathryn arrived. They had settled him on the main bio bed and were taking scans, calling out to the computer for various readings.

She stood to the side of sickbay, unusually quiet. Only the movement of her lips forming the words of a silent, desperate prayer betrayed her calm façade.

As soon as the doctor finished he motioned her to join them in the examination area.

She looked at Chakotay’s still form laying on the biobed, and found some small comfort in the steady rise and fall of his chest.

"Captain," the doctor’s voice drew her attention away from Chakotay for a moment. "The Commander seems to be in some kind of trance. His brain shows considerable activity and there is rapid eye movement -- he appears to be dreaming."

She let out the breath she didn’t realize she was holding, "Then it’s not those ex-Borg attempting to control of him again?"

"No, there is no activity through the neural link, and his neuropeptide level is completely normal. There is no sign of any attempt to reconnect him to their cooperative. Is there anything you can tell me about his state when you found him?" the Doctor continued to scan as he asked questions.

"He appeared to have been on a spirit quest. His medicine bundle and akoonah were next to him. But when I called out his name he didn’t respond to me." She reached out to his shoulder, reassuring herself that he still lived by touching his warm skin.

Her contact roused him for a moment and she caught the whispered syllables of her name. She bent low to hear, moving so close her lips brushed against his cheek.

"Kathryn, please help me," he begged. His quiet murmurs pierced her, sending fear pounding through her body again.

"Chakotay, Please come back. Where are you?" She whispered back but he was silent as if he hadn’t heard her.

Kes sensed the captain’s distress. She turned away from the patient and gave Kathryn her full attention. She could feel the older woman’s fear and the love at the foundation of her fear.

Touching Kathryn Janeway’s hand, she tried to offer comfort. "He’s still here, just locked inside himself."

"We need to reach him Kes, and I don’t know how."

Kes turned back to Chakotay, touching his forehead as she closed her eyes, attempting to form a bond, trying to contact his mind with her own.

"He’s far away, Captain, almost too far. I can feel his essence, but his mind is in another place. I’ll try to reach him." After several moments she broke contact, her chest heaving as if she had run a great distance. Finally she spoke again. "He needs help, Captain. He’s calling you."

"How do I get there?" Janeway softly questioned.

"Through the spirit quest, I think. But we are going to need help. He is battling a great force. He needs us to link with him, and I don’t have the discipline."

"I know a way," Captain Janeway tapped her combadge. "Janeway to Mr. Tuvok."

"Tuvok here."

"Please report to sickbay."

"Aye, Captain."

=^=

Both Captain Janeway and Kes objected to Tuvok’s first suggestion that he attempt to reach Chakotay by mind meld alone.

"Tuvok, I know the spirit quest ritual. I can enter the meditative state, contact my spirit guide and then you, using the Vulcan mind-meld technique, can connect your mind to mine and Kes’," the captain said, mapping out her plan to reach Chakotay.

"Captain, I have practiced the Vulcan mental skills for many years, but I don’t know if I have enough strength to protect both you and Kes," the Vulcan officer stated. "We have no idea what we will find."

"I have faith in you, Tuvok. Your friendship has sustained me for several years and I know it can shield both Kes and I."

Kathryn still stood near Chakotay, one hand resting on his as if her touch could anchor him to her.

"I agree with the Captain, Tuvok," Kes said, stepping next to Kathryn. "You have great strength and great displine, I have no doubt that you can protect both of us, and I, as an empath, can monitor all of us from within the spirit quest."

"I can see you are determined to do this, so, against my better judgment, I agree to help you in this endeavor," Tuvok relented.

At Kathryn’s direction, sickbay was rearranged. They carefully lay Chakotay on the floor with the objects from his medicine bundle to his right. Kathryn sat on his left side, arranging the objects from her own medicine bundle and positioned the akoonah.

Kes sat cross-legged just above Chakotay’s head, and Tuvok kneeled down beside her as Kathryn put her hand on her akoonah.

"A-koo-chee-moya. We are far from the sacred places of our grandfathers. We are far from the bones of our people. What I ask with fear and trepidation is that the wisdom of my spirit guide finds me, and helps me to find my friend. Speak to me wise one, speak to me in my dreams." And with these words she lay down beside Chakotay, and taking his hand in hers, she closed her eyes.

The familiar Indiana landscape of her spirit quests was dull and dim as if a gray cloud hung over everything and when she looked out she could see a strange broken land beyond. She could hear Tuvok as if from a great distance as he spoke the words of the ancient Vulcan ritual. "My mind to your mind," weaving their minds together with hers and Chakotay’s.

Kathryn was familiar with Tuvok’s calm touch, but the intimate contact with Kes was new, it felt like pure unselfishness and all encompassing love completely surrounding all of them. Then she could see Tuvok and Kes had truly joined her, their bodies strangely shimmering with a faint luminosity.

They found themselves standing at the beginning of an ancient pathway; its broken stones covered with old drawings. A glow of light in the distance called to the trio, and they set off down the pathway with Kathryn in the lead.

As they traveled down the gray roadway, their appearance began to alter. They became different, and yet completely recognizable as their true selves.

"What’s happening to us?" Kathryn said looking down to see her uniform had disappeared, replaced with strange clothing and a golden metal breastplate; and now she carried a fiery spear in her right hand. Tuvok had become taller and wider, his uniform replaced with an ancient Vulcan costume and his phaser replaced with a large round shield covered with Vulcan symbols. Kes was so beautiful, glowing with such an angelic brightness now, that the sight of her was almost painful.

And so they set out to find their lost companion, the woman warrior, the guardian, and the angel.

=^=

How long they traveled down that road, no one could say. It was as if time passed with an incredible speed, and yet it also slowed, stretching out as an endlessly infinitesimal crawl, around them. They seemed to have all the time in the world, and in the same instance, none at all.

The strange grey light increased as they walked, and the symbols on the roadway grew more distinct.

"These markings look like ancient Anasazi pictographs," Kathryn said, pointing her spear at one of the stones, she had stopped to inspect.

"Anasazi? Captain." Kes asked. "They look like old Ocampa drawings to me."

"You are both wrong," Tuvok injected. "These are the letters of an old Vulcan civilization, from a time before Surak came and changed the direction of Vulcan culture."

"Tuvok, I am familiar with those writings, and these are nothing like them." The Captain said. "I’ve seen similar drawings in New Mexico and Arizona."

"Perhaps, Captain, we are seeing a depiction that is interpreted by the mind in a way meaningful to each of us," Tuvok replied.

"So that each of us is seeing something different," Kathryn agreed.

"Then where are we, Mr. Tuvok?" Kes asked. "I thought we were only connecting our minds, but this is a real place. I sense something solid, concrete about this place."

"I agree with Kes’ assessment, Captain, this is a place of substance," Tuvok stated. "Vulcan lore from the most ancient times tells of a place that one can only reach in dreams."

"Like Suspiria’s Exosia?" Kes asked.

"Yes," Tuvok answered. "This could be a place very much like the Nacene’s subspace realm, a place of pure thought, pure energy. It is a place of the mind but as real as our own universe. Nevertheless, I suggest we take great care here, for this is a place that can only be reached in you mind"

In the distance the flashes of light grew stronger and the ground underneath their feet groaned and shook as if a great struggle was taking place. As soon as their attention was focused on the battle, they were swept to it, with the sensation of riding a great gust of wind.

A warrior stood over a frail female, protecting her with a mighty broadsword, waving it at some strange monstrous vapor that seemed prepared to roll over him at its first chance. Lighting ran down the blade leaping into the monster with each muscle-rippling swing of the mighty sword.

Kathryn recognized Chakotay, even though his body seemed bigger, heavier. He was dressed in a loincloth and his great sword glowed with a strange power.

"NOOOO!" Kathryn screamed rushing in to jab at the cloud with her spear, hardly noticing the fire that ran up it, destroying the wisps of vapor it touched.

There was a malevolent face visible in the dank haze, a dark flickering vestige of evil, both devil and fanged animal. Even the air around them moved with the ground under their feet, as the monster rolled up like some dark ocean wave then, folding in on itself, it disappeared.

Only then did Chakotay allow himself to turn to Kathryn, reaching out for her as she did him. In a single moment their weapons lay on the ground and they were in each other’s arms.

"Kathryn, you came," he murmured and visibly relaxed.

"Of course I came," she said, pulling slightly away. "Do you know where we are?"

"No, I thought at first this was only my spirit place of questions and meditation, but it isn’t. This is a real place and I don’t know how I got here," he whispered, dropping his arms from her as he became aware of Tuvok and Kes.

"We came by melding our minds to yours within the spirit quest." Kathryn said turning to Tuvok and Kes who were helping the alien female to her feet.

The strange woman was an ethereal thing almost transparent, as if made up of smoke and vapors too. She wasn’t dark like the monster, but rather a creature of light and beauty. Everything about her was lilac colored from her floating cloudlike clothing, to the soft silky hair on her head. Her eyes and the soft blue heart shaped amulet hanging around her neck were the only opaque things about her.

"Thank you," she said in a musical voice that echoed the sounds of flutes and tiny bells. "Thank you for helping me, but take care because the Hadeon will soon return. It wants my child."

"Child?" Chakotay asked.

"Yes," she lifted the pendent from her chest. "This is my child. My mate and I have fused our love to create a life, but the Hadeon lusts for new beings such as this. It feeds on the life force of our children. Thank you for protecting us."

"I don’t understand, that doesn’t look like a child." Kathryn moved closer looking at the glowing stone now cradled in the woman’s lilac hand.

"This is a fusion of love. My mate and I joined our stones to create new life, now the Hadeon has separated me from my love so he can steal this small life. The Hadeon has hidden my companion from me, and also me from him so we cannot combine our love to defeat it. But now, Cha-kot-ay, your mate is here and with her, you can defeat it."

"I have no mate, Lady," Chakotay explained.

"Do not you share a love of the hearts with Kat-rin? I can sense that your essence is intertwined with hers, as are all true mates."

Chakotay sighed, "I love Kathryn, but we are not a mated pair."

The alien female looked up at Kathryn, "I know you share a strong bond with Cha-kot-ay, Kat-rin. Do you also deny that you are truly a mated pair?"

But before Kathryn could answer the female, Tuvok interjected, "Captain, Commander, now is not the time to deny what we all know is true. You belong to the Commander, as does he to you."

"Tuvok is right." Kes added. "Any one that knows you both can see the love you share."

Kathryn reached out almost touching his arm and then dropped her hand to her side.

"Chakotay, I am just as much in love with you now as I was on New Earth, I know we decided to wait for a while, but I hate the distance between us. I have spent the last few days in fear of the answer to this question, but now I have to ask. Are you still in love me? I know a lot has happened and I’d truly try to understand if you don’t love me that way any longer. I need to know."

Chakotay was stunned, she still loved him even after Riley, Kathryn still loved him. He reached out to touch her, brushing his fingertips across her cheek. "Yes," relief echoing in his voice, "Yes, I am in love with you. I will always love you."

She reached up catching his hand and rubbed it against her face wiping away the solitary tear that had leaked out of her eye. "Thank god," she whispered, and turning his hand she kissed the palm.

"No, it is I that should thank the great spirits, Cha-kot-ay, and Kat-rin, for the Hadeon cannot stand against the love of a mated pair and their protectors. You will save my child."

And as if by some cue the vapors darkened and began to solidify back into the shape of the monster.

Chakotay stooped down to retrieve his weapon but the fragile alien female caught his arm stopping him.

"No Cha-kot-ay, you have no need of that now, for you are the sword as Kat-rin is the spear, and Tuvok the shield. You are pure thought and have no need for a body in this place."

With her words Kathryn relaxed, feeling a strange kind of freedom and the illusion of her body faded and she became a whisper of mist.

They were not corporeal at all; the bodies they possessed in this place were mere representations of their true self, and with that knowledge they were no longer laden with the need to hold a physical shape. Each one glowed as an individual fine smoky mist. Kes was all white and gold, so bright that one couldn’t stand to look directly at her. Tuvok was a deep rich brown that sparkled as if glitter had been thrown into his essence. Kathryn was yellow like the sunshine and Chakotay red like Earth’s early morning sun.

The dual essences of Kathryn and Chakotay rose up over the female alien, intertwining, their colors braiding together in an intricate knot. Tuvok’s shielding strength surrounded them and finally Kes enveloped all of them in her blinding kindness.

The couple’s awareness, each for the other smothered every sensation around them, until a cocoon of privacy surrounded them, so complete that even the Hadeon’s shriek was silenced.

The ability to see everything without the physical limitation of eyes disturbed Tuvok, but he drew on his Vulcan discipline forcing his mind to concentrate on the task of guarding the alien female, his Captain, and Commander Chakotay. He braced himself against any assault the Hadeon could make, but all that came were monstrous waves of murky vapor that stopped short of the boundary of his guard.

Kes hovered over everyone like an umbrella, shielding everyone, even Tuvok, from the Hadeon’s wrath. Her genuine goodness repelled it. Her spiritual love and Tuvok’s deep friendship could hold the monster at bay, giving the life creating love that existed between Kathryn and Chakotay, its chance to destroy the evil creature.

The couple’s red and yellow essence danced over and around tying their spirits together into a burning orange that the outside observer could only see as glittering fire, shooting up to explode, then falling back in a rain of sparks like a roman candle. And from the outside, one could only feel an exquisite joy rolling away from the display in wave after overwhelming, wave.

It was a slow hot pulsing dance, as first Chakotay’s red mist blanketed Kathryn, then turned inside out to allow the yellow of her spirit to dominate, and finally back to the blazing orange that was the sum of the two of them. The Hadeon seethed, shrieking as if each change stabbed at it and it raved, rolling around the group, darting in and out, seeking some fissure in the shield of Tuvok’s protection.

Kathryn and Chakotay, protected in a shielding bubble, were unaware of the chaos raging around them. He desperately needed to enfold her into himself but held back, not wanting her to know the disgrace of the Riley Frasier episode. He was torn between wanting to retreat into his shame, and connecting his very soul with Kathryn’s.

She called out to him sensing his reluctance and he felt her fear, fear that after everything he didn’t really love her. She opened herself, braced for his rejection, and it cracked the final barricade that surrounded his spirit, and suddenly she could sense all of him, his love and his disgrace.

Her voice spoke in his mind, caressing him with soft words that had no sound, holding him with unseen arms, crooning over and over. "There is no shame Chakotay, you did nothing wrong, I love you."

Finally when belief sank into him, he let go of all the negative emotion that had encumbered him, and with a silent sob of surrender he relaxed, folding himself around her.

Kathryn drifted in a sea of sensation enclosed by and surrounding Chakotay, as if they were truly one. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this kind of sensory excess. She touched every part of him, as he held and kissed every part of her.

The desire to touch him with fingertips she didn’t have sent jolts of pure pleasure though her entire being, and suddenly she understood the Vulcan phrase "Always touching and never touched."

Loving words in a strange tongue caressed her and even though she knew they were Chakotay’s native tongue she understood each syllable of love and adoration and exquisite passion.

Kathryn’s delight was a tango, dancing bodies that brushed together without changing positions. She wanted to touch and be touched; she needed Chakotay and felt his echoing need for her and a joint desire for the completion that humans achieved through sex. They locked themselves together in a desire that was instinctive, a craving for that one climatic moment that can only be called rapture.

It was a familiar urge and yet new too, not so much as desiring penetration or even to pierce, but the need to be engulfed. It was the twin yearnings, to fill and be filled. With their minds touching, they recognized these feelings as male and female, and discovered that they were kin. That like two sides of the same coin, they fit together with the same perfection of bodies, during the physical act.

Desire rolled back and forth building with each encounter, mouths were kissed and then caressed even though there were no lips. Tongues touched, fingers stroked, Kathryn’s nipples tightened into small knots and Chakotay felt his erection aching with the necessity of completion. All the familiar sensations were present, only intensified with a new consciousness, and the consciousness of the other’s sensations echoed in time with the rhythm of their own.

Joy rippled across nonexistence nerve ends, familiar yet new. Desire burst in a surprise jolt like the first bite of chocolate. Sweetness so wonderful that memory couldn’t hold the moment but the body’s recollection, craved. Desire curled with the multiple sensations of soft lips touching skin, hands stroking down thighs, the female body cradling the male, loving sensations building arousal higher and higher.

A warm glow encased them easing the solitary throbbing of individuality, at the same time building the luminous yearning to join. There were no bodies, sight, taste or touch only emotion, pure unadulterated love, like thick golden honey glowing in the sunlight, slowly slipping down, engulfing everything in sweetness.

The slow tension coiled tighter and tighter promising shining release to them both, and they reached for it weaving the colors of their essence in a tightly knotted pattern, until Chakotay’s mind brushed Kathryn’s whispering "Let bliss find you, be one with me."

She felt the warm glow first surge through her and then pulse back only to explode in bliss, drawing Chakotay into the vortex of her rapture and thrusting them both joyously out onto the waves of his completion. It was a fiery culmination of pleasure and unbelievable satisfaction.

The orange of their pattern also pulsed with a pure white light driving the Hadeon into a rage. It tried to batter through the barrier of protection over and over each time shrinking as if in pain and diminishing until it dissipated, as if blown away by a great wind. With its exit came brightness like the sunrise and suddenly there was the alien male gathering his mate up to him.

Kathryn blinked in the golden light that surrounded them. Her being still hummed with the pleasure of their coupling, and she pushed herself up from the sweet smelling grass. In place of the dark broken stones were grass and flowers and now this world hummed with a joyous song of thanksgiving.

She felt as if she had a body again and could touch and see. She looked around her to find that all the humans had reverted to their more familiar forms. Chakotay was by her side and Tuvok stood nearby, still supporting his captain, but Kes silently stared into the female alien’s eyes, as if communicating on a different level.

The female turned away from Kes back to Kathryn and Chakotay. She no longer wore her heart shaped amulet, but instead her form had changed to the soft round shape of a pregnant humanoid.

The couple moved as if one, his larger shape hovering, protecting her smaller one and they stood before Kathryn and Chakotay.

"Thank you for my child and my mate," the male said pressing something into Chakotay’s hand.

"Thank you Kat-rin, you have saved us," and the female placed a small object into Kathryn’s hand too. "Now it is time to send you back to your home."

The last words seemed a hollow echo as Kathryn closed her eyes and the bright singing world faded away.

=^=

Awareness slowly filtered into Kathryn’s mind. Overhead lights almost seemed to glare through her closed lids forcing her awake. She opened her eyes to see the lights of Sickbay above her. Blinking in the brightness she turned, rolling onto her side to find Chakotay head turned toward her, his dark eyes filled with love.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi yourself," he grinned back.

"Well it’s about time, I thought I was going to have to beam the two of you to biobeds and let you sleep the trip off." the Doctor’s voice breaking into the lingering spell that seemed to surround them. "Mr. Tuvok and Kes have been awake for ten minutes."

Kes gently laugh as she leaned down to help Kathryn up. "Doctor, they did most of the work, so they had to rest just a little longer."

Chakotay rolled over to push himself up in his knees, and realized he had something in his fist.

"What’s this?" he said opening his hand to find a glowing golden teardrop in his palm.

Kathryn sat up and opened her hand to find an identical teardrop, and when they compared the two they realized that they fit together to form a heart shape almost identical to the amulet the female alien had called her child.

Kes reached out caressing Kathryn’s stone with her fingertip.

"This is the essence of the child you created there with the Commander, Captain." Kes explained. "They told me just before they sent us home. You created life, and when the time is right all the two of you need to do is fit the teardrops together and you will conceive that child."

"Kes, what are you talking about?" the Doctor said, looking over her shoulder at the stone in the Captains’ hand. "I’d like to examine them," he said reaching for the stone.

"No Doctor," the Captain closed her hand around her stone. "This is our gift, and I don’t want them examined or treated like some specimen. We can keep them safe ourselves, now I’m tired as I am sure all of us are. Hurry up and finish your scans, I’d like to return to my quarters."

The doctor ran several tests, but every reading came back in the normal range. He did ask to examine the teardrops one more time, even offering to keep them in special stasis, but the Captain and Commander quietly declined stating that they would hold on to them.

As they left Sick Bay, Chakotay took Kathryn’s hand, "Come home with me, Kathryn," he whispered.

"Yes," she whispered back and the couple walked through Voyager hand in hand for the first time, neither caring who saw them.

"Wait here," he said after they entered his quarters. He went into his bedroom and opened a drawer, taking out a small wooden box carved with the symbols of his tribe. Upon returning to the living room he took a small caliper from the box and quickly measured the teardrops.

"What are you doing?"

"Remember the way the woman wore her stones as a necklace?"

‘Yes"

"I’m going to replicate a couple of settings and chains so we can wear ours."

He began entering information into the replicator and soon was fitting the teardrops into the golden settings.

No words were needed as he fastened the chain around Kathryn’s neck, and then sat down so she could return the gesture.

"When we are ready, we will call this child to us." Chakotay said drawing Kathryn close to his body. "But right now I would very much like a chance to enjoy being close to his mother without a distraction." He tipped her face up, brushing his lips against the soft skin of her cheek.

"Yes, your father is right," she spoke to her stone. "But soon, my darling." She turned to him entering his arms as she wrapped him with her own. Her laughing voice was laced with an ease he had never heard, and elation filled his heart.

Joy bubbled in her laugh and shone in her eyes. "What a fool I am, thinking that you no longer loved me," she said to him.

"You!" he laughed. "Look at me, thinking that I had ruined everything, I should have known I could trust you."

"I think that comes from not trusting ourselves, we need to be together. We are better together, and I shouldn’t have imposed the distance."

"No Kathryn, I share the blame. I should have listened to my heart. I can tell you this, we will be together from now on, so spend the night with me and every night that comes."

"Yes," she breathed, and taking his hand, led him to the bedroom to begin the first night of their life together. Tonight, for the first time in a very long time, there were no shadows across her heart.

The End

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