Title: Breakdown
Author: BEKi [email protected]
Rating: PG-13
Codes: C, crew; angst
SUMMARY: Chakotay reflects on the life of one of his former crewmen.

Roca Kerin made her way slowly through the maze of corridors that comprised the primary dormitory deck of the United Federation Starship Voyager. Her body exhausted, her mind dull with consuming distance, she moved by instinct rather than intention, guided by an intangible intuition that led her down the hall, through the ship and to her quarters as unerringly as a train on a rail. The cabin was dark. She left it that way, her feet slipping soundlessly over metal floors as she crossed the bedroom to the lavatory off the aft bulkhead.

It was an oasis in the devastation of her aloneness: the only room she ever lit, the only room she ever saw, the only room she ever remembered.

Less than three meters cubed, it was very much the same as the lavatory aboard the D'Sovia had been: the lavatory where she and Jovy and Berik had argued over the sink, over the sonic shower, over the defecation chute itself.

The echoes of their voices comforted her.

Roca filled the wash basin with water. She splashed it on her face, watching in the mirror as the smooth sheen of moisture broke to an intricate web of rivers on her flesh. Neither cool nor warm, neither wet nor dry, the rivers ran their courses around the topography of her features and dripped to puddles on the counter.

She felt nothing.

In the viewing plate over the sink, the reflection of a woman she didn't know watched her from eyes she didn't recognize. The stranger stared.

And saw nothing.
 

Paul Majors glanced at the console chronometer for the third time, and then at the empty station to his left. Nearly an hour past shift and still, no Roca. The shift commander was due by any moment. He'd ignore Roca's absence as he'd ignored it his past three rotations if no one brought it up. Drawing a deep breath, Majors set himself for a confrontation.

"Hey, Stan." He smiled in an effort to make the inquiry seem off-handed. "You seen Roca today?"

Stan Jensen frowned. "Roca?" he repeated.

"Bajoran woman. Works station three." Majors gestured, and Jensen's gaze followed.

"Oh," Jensen grunted, the neutrality of his tone fading tangibly to sullen, "the Maquis."

"Yeah, the Maquis. I haven't seen her. She out sick or something?"

Jensen's features flexed ugly. "If she is, nobody bothered to tell me. Probably just didn't feel like dropping in today. You know how they are. Figure they can do anything they want as long as Geronimo's running the show."

Well used to his supervisor's manifest opinions on the Maquis, their Dorvanian XO and the state of justice in the universe itself, Majors ignored the dig, saying, "She's usually on time. Do you think something's wrong?"

"Nothing I can see. As far as I'm concerned, she can drag her dumb ass in here at five to shift change if she wants. Give us all a break from her piss and vinegar routine for the day."

"She's not dumb," Majors muttered. "She just doesn't know much about computers."

"Yeah ... like where the on switch is at." Jensen leaned over the younger man's console, studying the diagnostic screen currently prompted to the monitor. "Why? You need help? Something on the schedule I don't know about? Tuvok doesn't have his knickers in a wad about the interrogative response times again, does he?"

"No ... nothing like that. I just wondered. I mean, she's usually not late."

Jensen straightened. "Well keep a good thought, Paul. Maybe Geronimo decided to dump her off on some other lucky schmuck for a while."

Major's _expression tightened with resentment. "The captain hears you calling him that," he warned grimly, "and she'll bust you to third cook's assistant in charge of leola root."

Jensen glanced around the diagnostics bay. Predominantly machinery, there were only five other crewmen scattered through the large room, none of them wearing command red.

"I don't see her around, do you?" he asked after a beat. "So unless you're planning to have a chat with her, over raktajino in the ready room or something ...?"

"You know me better than that, Stan," Majors muttered. "I'm just saying you'd better watch it. Some day you're going to slip and call him Geronimo to his face. Or worse, you're going to call him that to hers."

Jensen studied the other man for a long, valuative moment. "What's buggin' you?" he asked finally.

"Nothing's bugging me. I just don't think you should be calling the XO Geronimo. That'd be like me calling you ..." He hesitated, then waved the rest of the thought off.

"Calling me what?" Jensen prompted after a beat.

"I don't know; I can't think of anything. But you know what I mean."

"Yeah," Jensen agreed. "I know what you mean." Grabbing Roca Kerin's empty chair, he wheeled it over and dropped into it with a loud whump. "But -- correct me if I'm wrong here, Paul -- aren't you one of us?"

Majors snorted in disgust. "There is no 'us' and 'them,' Stan: We're all in this together. And whether you like him or not, Chakotay is the XO, and you shouldn't be calling him names."

"I'm not calling him names." Folding his hands behind his head, Jensen leaned back in Roca's chair. "I called him Geronimo. If I were calling him names, I'd call him ... I don't know ... Tonto, or something. Hey, did I ever tell you the one about Tonto and the Lone Ranger --"

"I'm busy, Stan," Majors interrupted.

Jensen chuckled. "Lighten up, Paul," he advised. "It's a long way back to the Alpha Quadrant, and it's a funny joke."

"I'm busy," Majors repeated grimly.

Jensen sighed. "All right," he relented. "If it bugs you that much, I won't call him Geronimo any more."

"Thank you."

"I'll call him Sitting Bull."

Majors looked up from his console.

"Or maybe Crazy Horse. Or what was the name of the one who used to wear the Abe Lincoln hat with a feather in it? Chief Waddling Duck or something? Yeah, I think that suits him, don't you?"

"He's a better XO than Cabot was," Majors said quietly.

Jensen's _expression faded from impolitic humor to a specific caste of nasty. "He's Maquis, Paul," he retorted acidly. "He's one of them. If we were back in the Alpha Quadrant, he'd stick a phaser up your ass and pull the trigger just as soon as look at you."

"We're not back in the Alpha Quadrant," Majors countered, "and he's already saved the ship twice. If it weren't for him, we'd all be space dust by now."

"Don't be an idiot," Jensen snapped. "He didn't do it for us; he did it for them. If he didn't need Voyager to get back home, he'd sell us all to the Vidiian for spare parts."

"You're wrong, Stan."

"What do you know about it? You've never even met the man."

"Maybe not, but at least I can seem more to him than who he recommended for chief engineer."

Jensen's eyes flickered with outrage. "Maybe that's because you didn't work your whole miserable career for rank," he snarled, "only to have it jerked out from under you by some terrorist with a hard-on for his bitch Klingon engineer."

Majors snorted. "Captain Janeway made that decision," he reminded Jensen, "not Chakotay."

"Yeah, well, Chakotay obviously stands closer to Janeway's ear than Tuvok does."

"You weren't even in line for CE," Majors pointed out.

"I was a hell of a lot closer to 'in line' than Torres was. I wouldn't have minded if Carey got it over me -- at least he's Starfleet -- but to have some belligerent bitch who can't even clear the academy waltz right over my head ..." Bitterness worked Jensen's _expression. It festered just under the surface, seething and bubbling like a stew on a slow boil. "Cabot may have been an arrogant jerk," he said after a beat, "but at least he was one of us. At least he was Starfleet."

Shaking his head, Jensen resumed the interrupted task of tapping code sequences into his console. "No disrespect, Lieutenant," he said, "but you're an idiot. The Kazon would have eaten Cabot for breakfast, and us along with him. We were lucky he got killed when the array snatched us, and we were lucky it was Chakotay that Captain Janeway tapped to step up. We were lucky he was available: We were lucky he agreed."

Stan Jensen snorted and pushed to his feet. "You know, Paul," he said, "you used to be an okay guy. But I gotta tell you: I think you've been sitting too close to your little buddy Roca. She's got you turning colors. Matter of fact, you're starting to look a little Maquis around the pulse points."

Majors didn't answer. Ignoring the implicit challenge to deny, he entered another command sequence into the computer as if Stan Jensen did not exist.

After a moment, Jensen walked away.
 

Wrapped in a cocoon of utter darkness, Roca Kerin sat.

There was nothing left of her, nothing left of who she had been. She had no legs, no arms, no body; she had no eyes, no ears, no tongue. Her skin was rice paper on bones. Her thoughts were whispers in a vacuum.

The only sensation of which she was aware was emptiness.

It was as it had been in the camps. empty ... alone ... silent ... Except Jovy had been there in the camps. She'd been there to break the crux of Roca's aloneness, to tether Roca to the world and to remind her that they were still alive.

They'd survived the occupation together: survived the Cardassians' rape, their torture, their mutilation, their soulless plundering of her youth and her vigor and her spirit.

Jovy survived.

She survived.

And when it was done, they joined the Maquis together. They found Berik there, already part of the resistance, already fighting, already avenging Cardassian atrocities by collecting blood debts in blood. The three of them forged an alliance. They tempered their bond with hatred, welded it into purpose in the smelting furnace of shared memory. The Maquis leadership sanctioned their rage in return for intelligence on Cardassian culture, on Cardassian war stratagems, on Cardassian interrogation techniques.

It became a home for them, this war they had found.

They slept like animals on the D'Sovia, curled together on the floor, sharing nightmares, sharing memories. Even when the D'Sovia docked -- when Chakotay and the others spent time at the rebel outposts, reminding themselves of what it meant to be Human, or Bajoran, or Klingon -- she and Jovy and Berik had clung to their mutual isolation.

It had been their salvation.

It had been their redemption.

It had been their lives.

It had been everything until the coming of the wave.

Roca shivered. The wave crested in her mind. Her thoughts came apart like navigation with a bulkhead breach. Reality shifted. Her mind slipped. The world around her broke.

Silent and still, Roca Kerin sat, unaware she still existed.
 

Chakotay was lounging comfortably on the ready room couch, a cup of warm pajuta in one hand and a routine personnel report in the other. Across the room, Janeway was busy with energy allocation formulas.

"What the ...?"

Chakotay frowned, his eyes skipping back to re-skim a paragraph in the report. His frown deepened. He read it again, and then a fourth time. His spine straightened. He sat up on the couch, pajuta sloshing over the rim of the mug to stain his fingers.

Janeway looked up. "Something wrong?" she asked, noting the odd tension to her XO's posture.

"This can't be right ..." he muttered, reading the report for a fifth time, his eyes taking time and care with each word.

"Commander?" Janeway prompted gently.

Chakotay glanced up. "It says here that one of my people --" she noted his phraseology but didn't correct it "-- hasn't reported for duty in almost a week. This Lieutenant Jensen is filing an official reprimand with an addendum stating that if she's been re-assigned, he should have been informed."

"Has she been?" Janeway asked.

Chakotay blinked. "Been what?"

"Reassigned?"

Chakotay shot her an odd look. "Of course not," he said after a beat. "If I wanted to re-assign a crewmember, I would have discussed it with you first."

Janeway smiled slightly. "This isn't a trap, Commander," she told him. "It's well within the purview of the first officer to re-assign crewmembers at will. I hardly expect you to approve every personnel adjustment through me."

"I didn't re-assign her," Chakotay repeated. "But even if did, I wouldn't just yank her without informing her supervisor. A ship can't run that way -- Starfleet or Maquis."

"I agree." Janeway folded her hands neatly atop the scatter of papers on her desk. "So, where do you suppose she is then? Have there been personality conflicts? Perhaps difficulties with her supervisor?"

"Not to my knowledge. Roca's an excellent officer. She's the best pilot I've ever flown with and one of the most disciplined individuals I've ever met."

"Roca," Janeway repeated. "The name doesn't ring a bell."

"She was my turret gunner," Chakotay elaborated. "A Bajoran nationalist before she joined the Maquis. Things got a little too civilized for her taste when the provisional government took over. She told me once that as bad as it was being occupied by the enemy, it was worse living under the thumb of your own bureaucrats."

"She sounds like quite a fighter."

"She is." Chakotay hesitated and then continued as if he hadn't considered for a moment not saying what he was about to say: "Roca spent several years in the Cardassian death camps for the crime of being born to outspoken parents. There, if you weren't a fighter, you didn't survive. Sometimes, you didn't survive anyway.

"Ah, yes." Janeway nodded. "I remember her now. She and her sister were both on the D'Sovia, weren't they?"

Chakotay frowned, momentarily distracted from his confusion. "Yes," he said finally, "they were. Jovy was killed when the array snatched us out of the badlands." And then, quietly, his voice dark with repressed anger, "Did Tuvok tell you my shoe size, too?"

"Tuvok was doing his job," Janeway reminded her first officer, "a large portion of which was to identify members of a terrorist group threatening the safety and welfare of several million civilians, as well as the peace between two intergalactic powers."

"It was only peace to Starfleet," Chakotay observed grimly. "To the rest of us, it was war."

Janeway shook her head. "I really don't think this is the time to argue politics," she said. "Do you?"

"No," Chakotay agreed. "I think it's time to find Roca Kerin." He tapped the communicator on his chest. "Chakotay to Roca." There was no answer. He repeated the hail, his voice a little tighter, a little more brittle, "Chakotay to Roca. Can you hear me Kerin?" Again, no answer. "Computer," Chakotay demanded, "locate Roca Kerin."

"Roca Kerin is in her quarters," the computer supplied easily.

Chakotay pushed to his feet. He tapped the commbadge again, his fingers making an audible slap against his chest. "Chakotay to Roca," he snapped. "Answer me, Roca."

Still, no answer.

"I'll go with you," Janeway said, standing. Together they headed for the ready room door.
 

"Why would anyone wait a week before reporting something like this?" Chakotay demanded as they walked, the brisk striding pace they shared only slightly slower than a trot. "It should have been reported on the first day. It should have been reported the first hour."

"Perhaps Jensen was trying to cut Roca some slack," Janeway suggested. "As you will recall, we have asked supervisory personnel to make unusual concessions in Starfleet regulations in the name of Starfleet/Maquis harmony."

"This isn't benevolence," Chakotay countered grimly, "it's negligence. Roca could be in trouble."

"Or more likely," Janeway returned, "merely exercising the Maquis propensity to exert personal freedoms at the expense of discipline and/or protocol."

Chakotay snorted. "Hell of an assumption to make," he muttered, "about someone you don't even know." They reached Roca Kerin's door. Chakotay didn't bother with the door chime. Instead, he pounded on the thin metal slab with one thunderous fist.

"Roca?!" he demanded. "Open the door."

No response.

He pounded louder. "It's Chakotay. Open the door."

No response.

"Come on, Kerin. I know you're in there."

Still, no response.

"Computer," Chakotay snapped. "Chakotay security override. Authorization: Delta Gamma Two Six One."

"Authorization verified," the computer agreed. The door hissed obediently open.

A smell like death on a hot August day rolled out of Roca Kerin's quarters. Chakotay gagged. Anxiety escalating to panic, he lurched through the doorway and into the utterly dark room.

"Lights," Janeway ordered.

Overhead lights flooded the small cabin. It took a moment for them to see her, and a moment longer to believe what they saw actually was her.

Wedged in a half-open closet, Roca Kerin's slender body sat folded in on itself like a rotten tomato left too long on wet ground. Her eyes were open, glassy; her skin, a dull, yellowish grey.

"Oh my God," Chakotay whispered.

Janeway tapped her commbadge. "Medical emergency," she said. "deck thirteen, cabin twenty four."
 

"She appears to have suffered a complete mental collapse," the holographic doctor was saying. "There is no voluntary or involuntary response to external stimuli, and furthermore ...."

The EMH's words sharked through Chakotay's brain like a predator in murky water. Listening without intent, he stared across the medical bay at the prone, motionless body of Roca Kerin.

She was sleeping, her color almost normal, the festering lesions on her abscessed skin nearly healed. Above her, a life support monitor displayed stable vitals and a marginally acceptable toxicologic profile. The readings were not the same readings that had flared to life seventy three minutes ago over the lax, rotting body he'd laid on the first biobed he came to. They were not the same readings that had stumbled the normally imperturbable Emergency Medical Hologram in his request for the nature of the medical emergency.

"Commander?" the doctor prompted.

Chakotay looked up. Janeway, Kes and the holographic doctor were all staring at him as if they expected a response.

"What?"

"I said," the doctor repeated testily, "does Ensign Roca have a history of mental illness?"

"No."

"Are you aware of any such history within her immediate family?"

"No." His eyes found their way back to Roca.

"Has she ever displayed any symptomology that might lead you to believe she harbored self-destructive tendencies?"

"Roca survived the Cardassian death camps," he said quietly. "You don't do that with a death wish. You don't do it unless your desire to live is so strong that it can't be tortured, raped or beaten out of you."

"Perhaps," Kes offered quietly, "in the times since the camps, something happened to change that desire."

Chakotay continued to watch Roca sleep. "You're saying she tried to commit suicide," he surmised finally.

"Although I'm not certain that suicide was the final intent," the EMH allowed, "the wounds are of indisputable origin. Starvation, dehydration, extreme dermal ---"

"I have eyes," Chakotay said.

"Then you no doubt see my point," the doctor returned.

"I see your point, Doctor," Chakotay announced grimly. "But I see a lot more. I see a member of my crew -- a Maquis -- who was missing for more than six days before her disappearance was reported by her Starfleet supervisor. I see someone who, had she died in her quarters, would have only been found by the smell."

"I have found no evidence of debilitating illness or trauma," the EMH stated. "Her neural responses are impeccable, and there is no reason to believe that she was incapable at any time of seeking assistance."

"No reason," Chakotay agreed, "except for the fact that she didn't."

"Which returns us to my previous conclusion," the doctor said firmly. "Her condition is undoubtedly self-inflicted."

"I thought you said she had no voluntary or involuntary neural responses," Janeway ventured.

"No, Captain," the doctor corrected. "What I said was that she had no response --either voluntary or involuntary -- to external stimuli. Her nerves are fine: it's her brain that's disconnected."

"Disconnected?" Janeway prompted.

"Turned off," the EMH clarified. He looked from Chakotay to Janeway, then back to Chakotay again. "Like a light switch," he elaborated helpfully. "On, off." He pantomimed the appropriate gesture.

"You can't just turn your brain off," Chakotay said finally.

"On the contrary, Commander," the doctor countered, "the Human capacity to control biological responses -- including brain function -- is well documented. I can cite you numerous examples --"

"So you're saying she just decided to stop living?" Janeway interrupted. "That she just quit?"

"Yes," the EMH agreed. "That is precisely what I'm saying."

Chakotay shook his head. "You didn't know her," he muttered. "Roca wouldn't quit. It wasn't in her makeup to surrender."

"Perhaps it wasn't a conscious decision," the doctor allowed. "The Human body's last line of defense against a system-wide burnout is to shut down. She may have -- for lack of a better description -- tripped a breaker."

Chakotay began to pace. Though obviously angry, he was trying not to show it. "Roca wasn't a computer," he said tightly. "She didn't trip a breaker."

"I was merely attempting to --" the EMH started.

"I know what you were trying to say," Chakotay snapped. "And you're wrong. Roca was strong. Impenetrable. She went through too much to break under nothing."

"We're seventy three light years from home, Chakotay," Janeway said. "That's hardly nothing --"

"She had no home," Chakotay insisted. "The D'Sovia was her home; the Maquis, her family. She lived to fight. She adapted to new situations like water poured from one container to another. All that mattered to her was to live. To live, and to fight." He was staring across the bay again, his eyes fixed on Roca, his back to Janeway and Kes and the EMH. "Someone like that doesn't crumple because her supervisor is giving her a hard time," he murmured. "She doesn't decide to die because Neelix puts leola root in her chocolate pudding or because she spilled bio-resin on her favorite tunic. She doesn't give up for no reason at all. She was a survivor. She was indestructible."

"No one's indestructible," Kes noted quietly.

"Roca was." His voice had faded to a whisper. He spoke as if the medical bay was a cathedral; and his words, a sacred confession. "She was made of Bajoran steel. She survived everything the Cardys threw at her and came back for more. She survived the trip to the array. She survived the loss of her sister, and of her best friend. She survived it all, because she had no choice but to survive it." His voice caught. He was silent for a moment, then whispered, "How could she not survive this? How could she not survive nothing at all?"

Janeway laid a hand against his back. "I'm sorry, Chakotay," she said quietly.

Chakotay nodded. He didn't speak again because he had nothing more to say. Eyes stark with the sight of Roca Kerin, he turned and walked away.
 

"It's worth the walk -- I promise." Tom Paris entered a senior staff access code into a key padd near the port observation deck portal. The computer acknowledged his clearance, and the door hissed aside. Jill Duffy gasped. Her slender body tensed with surprised delight.

"It's beautiful, Tom," she murmured, seduced -- as was the helmsman's intent -- by the sprawling panoramic view of a hundred thousand stars scrolling past a bulkhead constructed almost entirely of transparent aluminum.

"Told you." Paris offered her his arm. "Care to take a stroll under the stars, Ensign?"

Eyes wide with awe, Duffy accepted his elbow and stepped across the threshold. Tom Paris keyed the door shut behind them.

Darkness lay across the room like a warm, moist blanket. The coldly soothing glitter of a sprawling starfield flickered relief to the unrelentent black of space, but the relief was small and inconsequential by comparison. Though the polished table that dominated the room gleamed in the low light to the illusion of a smooth, waveless lake; the corners and floor and much of the walls cloaked themselves in deep, soothing shadows.

"I can't see anything," Duffy whispered.

"Your eyes'll adjust," Paris assured her. "In the mean time ..." His hand slid around her waist.

Duffy smiled. "What's that?" she asked, pointing at a brilliant smear of color well off the port bow.

"Nebula," Tom muttered distractedly.

"What about that?" she pressed, pointing somewhere else.

"Leterra system. Mostly class Ks. What's this?"

Duffy giggled. "That's my earring, Tom."

"Hmmmmm," he murmured. "Needs a little leola root."

Duffy giggled again, then shifted to allow him better access to the place on her neck he was tasting. "Why don't we turn on the lights?" she asked.

"Kills the view," Paris muttered against her skin. "Stars only glitter at night."

"We're in the middle of the Delta Quadrant, Tom," Duffy returned, smiling. "Day and night don't mean much out here."

"Sure they do," Tom insisted. His hands shifted, wandered. His mouth found its way back to her ear. "Night is an intimate time," he informed her, the whisper of his voice taking over for the feather touch of his tongue. "Cool ... dark ... full of mystery ..."

"Mmmmmm," Duffy agreed. She leaned into him slightly, not only accommodating his hands and the way they moved, but inviting a more aggressive encroachment.

"This room reminds me of my grand dad's farm," Tom told her. "It reminds me of camping out under the stars in the summer, of lying on my back, staring up at the sky, dreaming about what it would be like to -- ah, shit!"

Duffy jolted. Jarred from the whimsical tapestry of his voice, she demanded, "What?"

"Uh ... nothing." Paris grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her back toward the door. "Nothing ... really ... I just remembered something, that's all."

Balking against the pressure of his hands, Duffy leaned into him and murmured, "Must have been something electric." She smiled seductively.

Paris looked into her deep green eyes and said, "We can't stay here. I just remembered there's a senior staff meeting in about twenty minutes."

Duffy's smile deepened. Slipping through his sloppy defenses, she wrapped her arms around his neck. "We could do a lot in twenty minutes."

"Uh ... good idea, bad timing." He peeled her arms away, "I mean, Neelix is liable to show up with refreshments any minute."

Duffy frowned. "You have refreshments in the senior staff briefings?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.

Paris shrugged. "Rank has its privileges," he quipped, propelling her once again toward the door. "I'm sorry, Jill. Really, I am. But we'll do this again real soon, okay? Maybe Tuesday?"

"Do what?" Duffy demanded, her voice taking on a chill as the door swished open. "Do a flyby on the observation lounge and then call it a night?" She looked him up and down in the harsh-edged illumination spilling in from the corridor. "That doesn't sound like much fun, Tom."

"Ah, come on," Paris cajoled. "We had fun, didn't we?"

"Not as much fun as we'd have if we went back to your cabin," she snapped, her tone shedding it's veneer of invitation in deference to one that bore implications of a threat. "Or mine."

"That would be great," Paris said, "and on any other night, I'd be there like that." He snapped his fingers to illustrate the timeframe. "But tonight is just really bad for me. I can't make it ... I really want to, but I can't. You understand, don't you?"

"No," Duffy informed him indignantly. "I don't understand. You're the one who asked meout, remember?"

"I know, I know. And I'm sorry, Jill. I really am. I'm an idiot. I can't believe I could forget something like a staff meeting, but I did, and the Captain will have my head if I'm not there."

Her eyes narrowed. "You have another date, don't you?" she decided. "That's what you all of a sudden remembered."

Paris feigned indignation without much effort. "Don't be ridiculous," he admonished in his best outraged tone. "Why would you say that? Do I look like the kind of guy who would do something like that?"

Duffy glared at him scathingly. "You look like exactly the type of guy who would do something like that," she said coldly. "Who is it, Paris? Is it Sally Delaney again?"

Doing his best to salvage the situation, Paris gave her his most charming smile. "That's not fair, Jill," he said longsufferingly. "I'm not like that at all. You know how people are -- how they like to talk -- but you can't listen to the rumors. I'm a good guy. Really. Ask Harry: He'll tell you."

"You mean Harry Kim?" Duffy sneered. "Mister I-Broke-a-Speed-Record-at-the-Academy who can't even fly a shuttle without running it into an asteroid?"

Paris stepped closer, ignoring the frigidity of her overtly unreceptive posture. "I don't have another date, Jill," he said gently. "But I do have a staff meeting. And while I'd really love to go back to your cabin, by the time we got there, we'd only have ten minutes." He brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. "And ten minutes with you just isn't enough. I think too much of you to rush this. I want to savor it, enjoy it." He pressed her gently into the corridor. "Tuesday, okay?"

"Tuesday, my ass," she informed him. "Thanks for nothing, Paris. Don't bother dropping by. I'm sure I can find something to be busy doing Tuesday, but I'd rather not have to." Then, with a final, parting glare, she turned and stormed off.

Paris stood in the doorway for a moment longer, watching her walk away. Then, with a deep, sad sigh, he stepped back into the darkened observation room and let the door slide shut.

"Thanks a lot, Chakotay," he muttered unhappily. "I'll be lucky if anybody in the tech pool will give me the time of day after this."

Sitting on the floor in the far corner of the deeply shadowed room, Chakotay continued to watch the stars scroll by. "You were lucky she gave you the time of day at all after that line about your grandfather's farm," he said.

"Hey," Paris protested, hoisting himself to a seat on the huge, ovoid surface of the well-oiled walnut table that predominated the room, "that was sincere emotion. They love it when you tell them about your dreams as a kid. It always works -- would've worked this time, too, if I hadn't caught sight of you skulking in the corner." Paris leaned into his hands, swinging his legs freely in the darkness. "Talk about a mood breaker," he muttered. Then, "So what are you doing here, anyway? I mean, other than sitting in the dark, screwing up other people's love lives?"

"This is the observation deck," Chakotay noted quietly. "Not an hourly room at the Galactic Eight."

"I only brought her up here to show her the view," Paris returned. "I was planning to take her back to my cabin to let her thank me." He leaned back on the table top, stretching out like a man on a warm, grassy knoll. Folding both hands behind his head, he added, "Guess I can scrap those plans."

Chakotay didn't answer. Sitting with one knee drawn to his chest and the other stretched before him, his eyes were lost in the panorama view of star-spattered space.

"So what's up, Chakotay?" Paris prompted finally. "Why the long face?"

Chakotay continued to stare out the viewing portal. Instead of answering, he said, "I didn't come here for company."

"Neither did I," Paris agreed. "At least, not yours."

"Then leave," Chakotay muttered.

"Nah. My plans are already scrap. Might as well hang here with you for a while -- you know what they say about misery."

"I'm not in the mood to talk, Paris," Chakotay said quietly. "Go find Duffy and tell her the meeting was cancelled."

"Not a good idea," Paris assured the XO. "The first thing she did when she left here was check the duty roster. Once she verifies there is no staff briefing today, she's going to get mean; and that, my friend, is no time to try and play patty-cake with someone who aeroboxes to stay in shape."

"Maybe I'm not making myself clear," Chakotay allowed. "I don't really care where you go, just go."

Paris turned his head to study the profile of the first officer who sat mostly obscured by shadows. With only the wan glow of starlight playing the rim of sharp features to define him, it was difficult to discern an accurate _expression.

"You're in a pissy mood today," the helmsman observed. "What happened? Your animal guide get indigestion and take it out on you?"

"Roca Kerin tried to kill herself," Chakotay answered. He said it like he didn't want to say it, but like it was too deeply immeshed in his thoughts to keep it inside.

Paris blinked. He sat up on the table, his gaze intensifying on the shadow of commander in the corner. "Roca?" he repeated. "Isn't she the Bajoran national? The pilot who can take a stealth raider through the eye of a needle with room to spare?"

"Yes," Chakotay agreed. His voice clipped itself in the darkness. Strained and tense, Paris couldn't tell whether the tone was irritation or grief.

"Is she okay?" he asked after a beat.

"She's alive."

"What happened?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?" Paris challenged.

Chakotay shifted slightly. "I don't want to talk about it," he revised.

"You're the one who brought it up."

"I don't want to talk about it, Paris," he repeated warningly.

"All right," Paris said carefully, "why don't we talk about something else, then? The weather's been amazing these past few days, hasn't it? Space so clear you could almost reach out and touch those stars."

Chakotay ignored him.

"Speaking of stars," Paris pressed after a beat, "I hear B'Elanna's been beating your butt at hoverball on a regular basis. Had twenty credits riding on you the other day, but --"

"She's a member of my crew," Chakotay said quietly. "I should have seen this coming."

Paris let the statement settle before trying to address it. "She's a member of the crew," he corrected finally, sliding off the edge of the table to a stand, "and you shouldn't have seen it coming any more than anybody else." He took a seat closer to Chakotay, on the deck with his back pressed to the cool, concave surface of the observation portal.

"I know her," Chakotay said. "No one else does."

Paris snorted. "That's pretty arrogant," he noted drily. "I mean, you may have been her captain on the D'Sovia, but I'm sure she had a life beyond you. Hell, we've been on Voyager for almost three months now. She's not a bridge officer, so she must be stationed somewhere else. She had to have friends, supervisors, co-workers ..."

"Her supervisor took six days to report her missing," Chakotay stated bitterly. "No one else even noticed."

Paris sighed. He glanced out at the panorama of stars, trying to see in them what Chakotay saw. "That doesn't mean you should have," he said finally.

"She was a Maquis," Chakotay announced grimly. "I was responsible for her."

"You're the XO, Chakotay," Paris argued, shifting his gaze back to a man who wouldn't meet his eyes. "You're responsible for every person on this ship -- Starfleet and Maquis alike -- but that doesn't mean you're supposed to babysit us. You'd drive us all crazy. Nobody in his right mind wants Big Brother Chakotay looking over their shoulder all the time -- the Maquis most of all."

Chakotay continued to watch the stars. For several moments the dark room lay silent around them.

"Her sister was killed when the array abducted us," Chakotay said suddenly. The statement gave no warning of its approach, no preamble to its intent to share information that would not normally have been shared. He went on: "So was her best friend. They were both in navigation; she was in the aft turret. We'd just finished going one-on-one with Gul Evek. Another three minutes, and she would have been in navigation, too." He paused for a moment, his eyes considering a star cluster he didn't see. "The three of them were self-contained," he said when he spoke again. "They were a family: separate and apart from the rest of the crew. They fought the Cardassians not for Maquis reasons, but for their own. They fought because, for them, the Bajoran occupation never ended. It wasn't about winning or loosing or the demilitarized zone. It wasn't about right or wrong or politics. It was about killing Cardassians. All three were death camp survivors. All three existed for the sole purpose of making Cardassians pay for what was done to them, what was taken from them." He stared out into space for a long time. "And all three of them drew every breath they drew," he said finally, "because they knew that if they didn't, the other two would fall apart." He closed his eyes, then opened them again. "She lost everything, and I didn't notice. I let myself think she was too strong to be dented, too resilient to be broken. I let myself think she would be okay."

"Did she ask for help?" Paris asked after a beat.

"She shouldn't have had to ask."

"You don't read minds, Chakotay."

"I didn't have to read her mind," Chakotay countered. He stared harder into the stars, more intently, more fiercely. "All I had to do was think. If I had thought about it for one moment -- if I had given one moment's consideration to what she lost and how that loss would affect her, I would have seen this coming." His features clenched beneath the veneer of their _expression. "I let her down, Paris," he said quietly. "I was the only one who knew her well enough to see it, and I let her down."

Paris didn't answer because he didn't know what to say.

"I need some time alone," Chakotay said finally. "That's why I came here, instead of going somewhere else. I need to sit and think."

"You sound like you need to talk," Paris ventured cautiously.

"I don't want to talk. I want to watch the stars."

"I know I'm not your first choice, Chakotay," Paris said quietly, "but I've got nothing better to do, and I'm already here."

"I want to watch the stars," Chakotay repeated.

Sighing, Paris stood. He brushed his uniform smooth and retreated. Near the door, he turned again, watching Chakotay watch the stars. "I can tell B'Elanna where you are," he offered.

"No."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

"It wasn't your fault, Chakotay. It wasn't anybody's fault."

Chakotay didn't answer.

After a long beat of silence, Tom Paris retreated, leaving the brooding first officer to his stars.
 

The buzzer to Janeway's ready room buzzed quietly. She set her papers aside and folded her hands neatly atop her desk. "Come," she called.

The door slid open. Stan Jensen stepped inside.

"Lieutenant Jensen," Janeway greeted neutrally, "have a seat."

"Thank you, Ma'am." He took the seat she gestured to. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes," Janeway agreed, "I did." She watched him over folded hands, her _expression calmly composed. He grew uncomfortable after thirty seconds, fidgety after forty five.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," he said finally. "Am I supposed to know about what?"

"How long have you served with me, Jensen?" Janeway asked conversationally. She was no longer watching him, but rather shuffling through papers on her desk.

"Nine years, Ma'am," Jensen stated proudly. "Every since the academy."

"Ah, yes," Janeway mused, "the academy." She settled on a single piece of paper and laid it flat in front of her. "That's a wonderful experience, isn't it? All those cadets from all those cultures, coming together like one. Everybody sharing the same code, the same rules, the same idea of ethics. It created quite a bond, didn't it? Almost like a family in many ways."

"Yes, Ma'am," Jensen agreed. "Most of my best friends are people I met at the academy."

Janeway nodded. "I think it was the most exciting time of my life," she said.

"Mine, too, Ma'am." He grinned. "Except maybe that first shoreleave on Risa. That was pretty exciting, too."

Janeway returned his smile, but her eyes remained distant. Jensen didn't notice.

"I'm sure it was," she agreed. Her demeanor shifted subtly. She touched the piece of paper in front of her with only the tips of her fingers. "So," she said, "I called you in to discuss this report, Lieutenant. It says here that you failed to report Ensign Roca's absence from duty shifts for almost a week. That's rather unusual. Can you tell me why it took so long for you to bring this matter to our attention?"

Jensen shifted slightly in his chair. "I know I should have reported it earlier," he ventured.

"Yes," Janeway agreed, her voice still amiable. "You should have. Can you tell me why you didn't?"

"Well ..." he hesitated, glancing at Janeway out of the corner of one eye. "Permission to be candid, Ma'am?"

"By all means," Janeway agreed, gesturing appropriately.

"To be perfectly honest, Captain, I didn't see the point. I mean, after all, I would have been reporting her to Chakotay."

Janeway considered the statement for a long moment, then said, "I'm afraid I need a clarification of that, Lieutenant. Why exactly would you be hesitant to report a breach of conduct to Commander Chakotay?"

"He's Maquis," Jensen answered as if it should be self-evident.

"And?" Janeway prompted.

"And so is Roca."

"Ah." Janeway shuffled papers again, still touching them with only her fingertips.

"I mean," Jensen added after a moment, "you see the problem, don't you? Chakotay wasn't going to do anything about her. He doesn't do anything about any of them."

"You're saying Commander Chakotay is remiss in his duties as XO?"

"Not remiss, really. He just lets them do what they want to do, which is pretty much nothing. And then when things don't get done, we're the ones who have to pick up the slack."

"We, being the Starfleet officers," Janeway clarified quietly.

"Yeah," Jensen agreed. "The rest of us. The ones who show up on time to work and do what we're supposed to do. I mean, no disrespect to Chakotay, but the Maquis as a whole are a lazy bunch."

"I see." Janeway said.

"And belligerent, too," he added, warming to his subject. "Take Roca, for instance. This isn't the first time she's been in trouble. All I've had is problems with her since she got dumped in my department. She has an attitude the size of Kansas, and she's dumber than a box of rocks. I had Paul Majors teaching her stuff a first year cadet would know, and she had the gall to resent me for expecting her to learn it."

"There doesn't seem to be any notation of difficulties in her file," Janeway observed.

Jensen shrugged. "I mentioned it to Chakotay a couple of times, but he never did anything about it. I mean, what's he going to do? She's one of his people, and I'm not. He wasn't going to take my word over hers."

"Did you lodge a formal complaint?"

Jensen shrugged again. "Seemed like a waste of time," he said.

"I see," Janeway repeated. She lifted her folded hands to her chin and leaned into them. "Anything else, Lieutenant?"

Something in her eyes warned him. Back-pedalling slightly, his tone took on a conciliatory cast. "Don't get me wrong, Captain," he said placatingly. "I'm not trying to stir up trouble or anything. I know that you're doing the best you can to integrate the Maquis into the crew, but ... I don't know. Sometimes it's pretty frustrating. Seeing someone like Torres take the chief engineer slot away from someone like Carey whose been in the service for years ..." He shook his head. "It just doesn't seem fair. It's like we're being punished for being good officers, and they're being rewarded for not being terrorists this week." He shrugged again. "I'm sorry, Captain. I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining. I know you've given up things, too -- like having to take on Chakotay as XO instead of promoting Tuvok -- and I know you're doing the best you can, but ..." He sighed. "It's just that the Maquis don't pull their own weight. They're arrogant, and they're hard to get along with, and they just don't have the same code of discipline we do. I'm sorry for what happened to Roca, but I can't say I'm that surprised. She was always a little bit off -- sometimes a lotoff. I guess she just wasn't cut out for this type of life; not everybody is."

When he finished, Janeway stared at him for a full three minutes without saying a word.

"Captain?" he prompted finally.

"I'm thinking, Mister Jensen," she said.

Jensen fidgeted, but didn't broach the silence again. Janeway contemplated her thoughts for another minute, then nodded.

"Mister Jensen," she said quietly, "until further notice, you are relieved of duty. A hearing will be convened within the week to determine what course of action to pursue in this matter. Until that time, you will remain confined to quarters. You are dismissed."

Jensen blinked. "What?" he said, stunned.

Janeway's _expression flexed. "I said get out of my office," she informed him grimly.

"I don't understand --"

"Stop." Janeway ordered. "Not ... another ... word."

Jensen opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out. He stared at her, his eyes utterly horrified.

Janeway pushed to her feet and turned away. She began to pace. "All right, Mister Jensen," she said finally, tightly. "Since you obviously don't understand, let me try to explain it to you." She turned to face him from across the ready room. Behind her, space reeled past the viewing portal, an endless bolt of black velvet studded with random patterns of rhinestone stars. "You are a Starfleet officer," she said. "More than that, you are one of my Starfleet officers. You went to the academy, you've served under me for nine years, you are supposed to understand what being a Starfleet officer is all about."

Jensen blinked, but nothing more.

Janeway turned and began to pace again. "Your negligence in this matter is astounding," she said. "It is superseded only by your arrogant disregard for its tragic consequences. I assigned Roca Kerin to you with the understanding that you would help her acclimate to her new environment." She stopped pacing and fixed him with a scathing glare. "Never," she informed him, her voice tight and carefully controlled, "in my wildest dreams, did it ever occur to me that you would let her almost die."

Jensen found his voice in outrage. He thrust to his feet. "With all due respect, Captain," he argued, "I didn't have anything to do with that. She did that all by herself. It's not my fault if some crazy Bajoran --"

"That crazy Bajoran," Janeway interrupted, her voice razor-edged with fury, "was yourresponsibility. As a Starfleet officer, you are sworn to uphold your duty and conduct yourself in a manner befitting your post. You have done neither, Mister Jensen. You are a disgrace to the uniform. More importantly, you are a personal disgrace to me."

Jensen stood stock still, too stunned to move. He stared at her, disbelief and mortification vying for dominance in his _expression.

Janeway gathered a sense of calm with an obvious effort. "I would suggest," she added quietly, "that until your review panel is convened, you spend your time re-acquainting yourself with the precepts upon which Starfleet is based and reviewing the base-line protocols required to function within the confines of the service. I also suggest that you give some serious thought to your motivations in this matter. I find myself unconvinced that you possess the moral fiber I require in members of my crew. Should you fail to convince me otherwise, you may find that your options for the future are severely limited. Dismissed, Mister Jensen."

Nodding numbly, Jensen retreated. Only when he was gone, did Kathryn Janeway close her eyes and let her personal outrage sink through her to the floor.
 

"How is she?" Chakotay asked, staring across the medical bay at the still form of Roca Kerin.

Kes glanced up from her reading. She smiled at the commander, but he didn't reciprocate. "She's doing well," Kes allowed. "The doctor

says that physically, she's almost back to normal."

"What about mentally?"

"There's been no change there, Commander," Kes told him gently. "I'm sorry."

"Can she hear me?"

"We don't know for sure. The doctor doesn't think so. He says there's still no response to stimuli of any kind."

Chakotay watched the Bajoran national from a distance for several minutes. Kes waited for him to ask another question, then went back to her reading when he didn't.

"She was one hell of a pilot," Chakotay said suddenly. "I never knew anybody that could run a canyon the way she could." Kes closed her textbook and set it aside. "She'd go through slots that had only centimeters of clearance," he murmured, "but I never once saw a scratch on any of her ships."

"She liked Neelix's leola root pudding," Kes offered. "She's the only person on the crew to ever ask for seconds."

"Roca doesn't have tastebuds," Chakotay said quietly. "The Cardassians burned them off when she was a child."

"I know that," Kes admitted. "But Neelix doesn't. He was very flattered."

"I'm going to stay with her a while," Chakotay said.

"I think she'd like that, Commander," Kes observed.

Roca was less recognizable at close range than she was from across the bay. Staring and silent, her _expression was as blank as the wall behind her.

"Hello, Kerin," Chakotay said, taking a seat at her side.

She looked like a replicant fashioned for clothing display. Though Kes had taken great pains to comb her hair in the style to which it was accustomed and to dress her in appropriate attire, there was nothing that Chakotay recognized in this three-dimensional representation of his Bajoran gunner. Dark eyes that had always burned like ignited oil pits in her face were coldly indifferent now. Features he'd seen shift from amusement to killing rage in a heartbeat had no form beyond their structure, no life beyond the wax caste of a corpse. She didn't speak, didn't move, barely breathed of her own will. Roca Kerin, though her body sat propped up against the backrest of an elevated biobed, was gone.

Chakotay touched her hand. Her skin was cold, plastic. She didn't re-act at all -- not in her eyes, not in her flesh, not in her _expression.

"I'm going to bring you back," Chakotay said quietly. "I'm going to help you find the road home."

Roca didn't move. Staring straight ahead, she remained oblivious to Chakotay, her body as still and as empty as her mind.
 

"He's here every day," Kes said, watching Chakotay from across the medical bay, Captain Janeway at her side. "He talks to her for hours. Touches her. Tell her things."

"He sees himself as responsible."

"I don't understand that," Kes announced. "How could he be responsible? It is every being's choice whether or not to live. Chakotay can't make that choice for her. She has to make it for herself."

"A captain's position is a unique one," Janeway explained. "We take on a sense of accountability for our people. It's not something you can avoid -- it's part of being a good leader. Chakotay feels like he let Roca down. He feels it as strongly as if he'd left her on an away mission, or if she'd died carrying out his orders."

"But she didn't die," Kes pointed out. "She chose not to live. There's a difference."

"It isn't her choice that Chakotay can't accept," Janeway allowed. "It's his part in that choice."

"I still don't understand."

Janeway sighed. She considered it for a moment, then offered, "I don't know how it is with the Ocampa, but with Humans -- and Bajorans -- there are needs that transcend physical requirements. A sense of aloneness -- a sense of no one caring if you live or die -- can be more devastating than any illness. Chakotay was Roca's captain. He knew what she valued, what she couldn't afford to lose. And when she lost those things, he didn't notice. He let her fade away, let her distance herself to a place where she no longer existed, even in her own mind. It's that, that he can't live with. That, that he can't let rest."

"Then you're saying he is responsible?" Kes ventured.

"It isn't our perception of his accountability that matters," Janeway told the puzzled Ocampan. "It's his."

Kes's gaze swung back to Chakotay. She watched him speak to the unresponsive Bajoran as she had watched him every day for the past week. "So he'll care for her now?" she asked finally. "For the duration of her life?"

"No. He'll do what he can to rectify his mistakes. He'll find her, and bring her back, if he can."

"The doctor says --"

"The doctor doesn't understand the intangibles of the Human mind," Janeway interrupted quietly. "It's more than tissue and blood and electrical impulses: It's who we are. Some believe it's the repository for the soul. Others believe there is an entirely separate plane of existence within the deepest recesses. Chakotay's people believe a mixture of the two." Janeway inclined her head to the intricate series of glyphs and stones on a leather hide tacked over Roca's biobed. "You see the medicine chart on the wall?" she asked. "That's a spiritual map for Chakotay's people. It's his way of showing her the way home. The way back."

Kes sighed. Watching Chakotay's gentle ministrations to the motionless woman with sightless eyes, she said, "I hope it works."

"I hope it does, too," Kathryn Janeway agreed. "I hope it does, too."
 

"You wanted to see me, Captain?" Harry Kim ventured.

Janeway glanced up from her datapadd and smiled. "Harry. Come in." Kim stepped into the ready room and let the door hiss shut. "Have a seat," Janeway invited, setting her padd aside. He complied, looking a little nervous as he joined her on the couch.

"I wanted to ask you something," she said directly. "To get your opinion on a matter that has recently come to my attention."

"My opinion?" Kim repeated a little hesitantly.

Janeway smiled and went on. "You're friendly with most of the crew, aren't you?" she asked.

"Uh ... yeah, I guess. I mean, I know most everybody, if that's what you mean."

"I'm curious." She leaned a little closer. "Does the crew think that I'd prefer Tuvok to Chakotay as the XO?"

Kim blinked. "No," he said after a surprised beat. "At least, not that I know of. Nobody's ever said that to me."

"No one's ever implied that Chakotay's posting was political rather than one based on merit?" Janeway pressed. "That I made him first officer to placate the Maquis element of the crew?"

Kim shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I heard some of that at first -- before the Vidiian, before the Kazon. But it was mostly fleet lifers, and they changed their minds after the first couple of months."

"Then it isn't a presiding opinion among the Starfleet officers?"

"No, Captain. I think everybody knows Commander Chakotay's the best man for the job.

Janeway nodded. "Good," she said. "Thank you, Harry. That will be all."

With a respectful nod, Kim stood and started for the door. He hesitated several steps shy of his destination and turned back. "Can I ask why you ask?" he ventured cautiously.

"Just something someone said," Janeway demurred. "I didn't think it was an accurate reflection of the crew in general; but on the other hand, I didn't want to ignore something that needed to be addressed either."

Kim nodded. "If it makes any difference," he offered, "most of the people I know like Chakotay. They're a little afraid of him, but they like him."

"Afraid of him because he was a Maquis?"

"No," Kim said. "I think afraid of him because he's the XO."

Janeway smiled. "Thank you, Harry," she repeated.

Harry Kim nodded and left the ready room.
 

"Commander Chakotay."

Chakotay paused, turning to see who was hailing him from the far end of the corridor. A young lieutenant had just rounded the corner and was trotting his direction. He recognized the man as one of the computer technicians from Roca Kerin's department. Paul Andrew Majors, lieutenant j.g. Six years experience, four of it under Janeway. Good enough at his job, but not much for taking a leadership role. He'd never get beyond full grade lieutenant, if even that. Chakotay waited for the younger man, his _expression neutral despite the wash of resentment he felt for anyone who'd served with Roca in CCD.

"Commander," Majors repeated, slightly out of breath. "Sorry sir. Didn't mean to shout down the corridor at you, but you walk a lot faster than I thought you would."

"What do you need, Lieutenant?" Chakotay asked, in no mood for niceties from anyone on Jensen's staff.

Misinterpreting the source of Chakotay's cool reserve, Majors struggled himself to a more appropriate stance. "Umm, I'm sorry, sir. I'm Lieutenant Majors. I work down in --"

"I know who you are, Lieutenant," Chakotay interrupted.

"Oh." He seemed surprised. "Okay. Uh ... okay, then. So ... you know I worked with Roca, then, right?"

Chakotay didn't answer. Instead, he held his temper and waited for the man to get to his point.

"She was ... she sat in the station next to mine," Majors added when Chakotay didn't respond. "We talked sometimes. Not much -- she wasn't much of a talker -- but somettimes. Like about what Neelix was going to serve for dinner or stuff like that. For some unknown reason, she actually liked his leola root pudding --"

"Do you have a point, Lieutenant?" Chakotay interrupted, his voice level.

"Uh ... yes, sir. I have a point, sir." Obviously flustered by Chakotay's lightly-veiled hostility, Majors struggled to express himself more directly. "I was just wondering ... I mean, I heard what happened to her, and I was ... I mean ... I know you've been working with her; and I thought maybe, if you didn't mind, I could ... I mean, we could ... or, you know, you could ...." His stammer fell away slowly beneath the weight of Chakotay's gaze. For a long moment, he just looked at the coldly indifferent first officer; then finally, his voice muted with defeat, he said, "No, sir. I guess I don't have a point. I just thought maybe ..." He shook his head. "Never mind. I'm sorry I bothered you, sir."

Turning away from the pressure of the disdain in Chakotay's eyes, Majors retreated down the empty corridor. He was nearly to the corner when Chakotay finally spoke.

"You're on record as her skills tutor," the ex-Maquis Commander said quietly.

Majors hesitated for a moment, then turned back. His _expression was doggedly neutral. "That's right, sir," he said.

"So you worked with her every day?"

"Most days," Majors agreed.

"Did you work with her last Tuesday?"

"No, sir," Majors answered, his voice tight in his throat. "She didn't show up for work last Tuesday."

"Did you work with her last Wednesday?" Chakotay demanded coldly.

"No, sir," Majors repeated miserably. "She didn't show up for work Wednesday either."

"Did you work with her last Thursday?"

"No, sir," Majors whispered.

Chakotay waited. From the far end of the corridor, he watched the young lieutenant with unreadable eyes and merely waited.

Majors weathered the demanding gaze of a man who wore authority -- be it Maquis or Starfleet -- as easily as he wore his own skin for almost a full minute before his spine gave way. He looked down, his shoulders accepting responsibility for the accusation that hung in the air.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said quietly.

"Sorry?" Chakotay challenged. "Sorry for what, Majors?"

"I'm sorry I didn't report her missing."

"She wasn't missing. She was in her quarters."

Majors stared miserably at the bulkhead in front of his feet. "I know I should have reported it," he muttered.

"Then why didn't you?"

"I don't know, sir."

Chakotay snorted. He turned away, dismissing the other man from the focus of his contempt as if he were worth not even that.

"That's not true, sir," Majors said suddenly. He looked up, meeting the anger the XO turned back to him. "I do know." He straightened slightly. "I didn't report it because I didn't want to get Roca in trouble. I thought she'd decided Stan was too much of a jerk to work for anymore, and I didn't blame her. I thought she just decided to quit coming in."

"That's not the way the military works," Chakotay said. "You don't quit because your commanding officer is giving you trouble."

"She was Maquis, sir," Majors said as if that explained it. Then, realizing how that sounded, he added, "I mean ... I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

"Despite Starfleet rumors to the contrary," Chakotay said after a beat, "that's not how the Maquis works either."

"I realize that, sir," Majors assured him. "I didn't mean any disrespect."

Chakotay studied him from a distance. "What did you want to ask me, Lieutenant?" he said finally.

Majors flushed. "I just wanted to ask if ... if she's okay. If maybe she's up for visitors or anything."

"You can call the EMH for a condition report," Chakotay said.

Majors flushed a deeper shade of magenta. "I know, sir. I just didn't ... I mean ... I want to visit her, but didn't want to just drop by. I thought maybe she wouldn't want to see anybody yet. I mean ... she's pretty private and all, and I don't want to embarrass her or anything, so I thought maybe ... I mean, I thought if she wasn't ready to see anybody yet that maybe you'd tell me how she was doing and tell her that I was asking about her and that we miss her down in CCD and that I'll come by if she wants me to, or maybe later when she feels better or something."

"You don't know what happened, do you?" Chakotay asked after a beat.

"No, sir. Not any details. Just that she tried to kill herself." Majors swallowed hard, looked away. "I should've ... I mean, she never said anything, but I guess I knew she was upset ... I didn't know she was that upset, but ... I mean, everybody knew how hard Stan was riding her because he was pissed about Torres getting the CE spot, but I didn't think she'd ...." he shook his head, running out of words before he ran out of thought.

"What Roca did doesn't have anything to do with Lieutenant Jensen," Chakotay said.

"I should have reported him," Majors stated, either not hearing or not comprehending what Chakotay had said. "I should have told somebody how hard he was riding her. I should have ...." He let the thought fall off again. "I should have done a lot of things, I guess," he allowed finally. "None of which I did." He shook his head. "I don't know. I guess I thought ... I figured since she was Maquis, she could, you know ... I figured she could take care of herself."

"I thought the same thing," Chakotay allowed quietly. "We were both wrong."

"I'm sorry, sir," Majors muttered. "I really let her down."

"We both let her down."

Majors glanced up. "Sir?"

Chakotay hesitated, as if reconsidering the advisability of the statement, then said, "I knew her better than anyone on board, Lieutenant. If anyone should have been able to see this coming, it was me."

Majors blinked. He thought about Chakotay's quiet recrimination for a moment, then shook his head. "No, sir," he said firmly. "You couldn't have seen this coming. You didn't even know anything was wrong. Jensen never reported it." He winced, then added, "I never reported it."

"I don't usually depend on reports for my information."

Majors studied the XO for a long moment. Chakotay seemed occupied with his own thoughts despite their conversation.

"I was on the Hood for two years," Majors announced suddenly. "When I was re-assigned to Voyager, Commander Dunlovy wished me luck. He called me Peter. I've been on Voyager for almost three years now. I think Captain Janeway would recognize me, but I know Tuvok wouldn't. Commander Cabot used to eat breakfast at the table next to mine every day, but he never spoke to me once. I don't think he even knew my last name, let alone whether I was any good at my job."

Chakotay's eyes narrowed. "Your point being?" he prompted after a beat.

"My point being," Majors allowed, "that I've never even met you face-to-face before, but you not only know who I am, you know what department I'm assigned to. I'll bet you even know my first name."

Chakotay didn't contradict the assumption. Instead, he said, "In the Maquis, the difference between life and death is often as simple as knowing the capabilities of your people."

"You've only been on board for three months and you already know more about the crew than any first officer I've ever worked with," Majors announced. "And not just the bridge crew, either. Or even the tech staff. The whole crew. All of us -- Starfleet and Maquis alike."

"You seem to have a relatively high opinion of me," Chakotay allowed finally, "for someone who's never met me."

"Most of us have a high opinion of you, sir," Majors said quietly.

"I wasn't under the impression that I had a favorable reputation among the Starfleet officers."

"That's not true, sir. You have a good reputation period. Everybody knows you'll lay it on the line when it counts."

"But I still favor my own people," Chakotay said quietly.

Majors evaded the statement by shifting the subject. "Roca liked you," he said. "She talked about you all the ti-- well, she talked about you as much as she talked about anything. She told me about that raid you made on a Cardassian penal colony, and about the time you played chicken with Gul Evek and ... and she just talked about you. When it got real slow, and we were bored out of our skulls, I'd tell her things and she'd kind of ignore me; but once in a while, when Stan wasn't around and I kept asking her questions and stuff, she'd answer me and it was almost always when I asked her something about you. She thought you were a good captain. She told me that -- she told me that several times."

Chakotay smiled slightly. "You missed your calling, Lieutenant," he said. "You should be in the diplomatic corps."

"I babble too much," Majors stated as if he'd been told that a number of times. "Lieutenant Parsons at the academy said I should stick to computers."

"Neelix babbles," Chakotay corrected. "You just pad the conversation a little." Then, as if it were part of the same thought, he added, "I'll be visiting Roca again tomorrow at thirteen thirty. If you want to join us, I don't think she would mind."

"What about you, sir?" Majors asked. "Would you mind?"

"No, Lieutenant," Chakotay allowed. "I wouldn't mind. In fact, I might even enjoy the company."

Majors smiled. "Thank you, sir. I'll be there."

Chakotay inclined his head slightly and turned to leave.

"Sir?" Majors called. Chakotay glanced back. "I'm sorry I didn't report it, sir," he said quietly. "I know I should have, but I didn't know she was in trouble. I swear, sir. I didn't know."

Chakotay nodded. "We all make mistakes, Lieutenant," he allowed. "I'm sure Roca won't hold it against you." He smiled slightly. "And Majors?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You've called me sir twenty-three times in six minutes. I think that should hold you for a couple of months."

"Yes, sir ... I mean, Commander," Majors agreed.

Chakotay's smile deepened. "We in the Maquis are a little less starched than Starfleet is," he told the younger man. "Unless we're on the bridge or in the presence of the Captain, you can call me Chakotay."

"Yes, sir ... I mean, Chakotay." Majors laughed, shaking his head. "That's a hard habit to break, sir. I'm not sure I can do it."

"We'll work on it, Majors," Chakotay allowed.

"Paul, sir." Majors corrected, grinning.

"We'll work on it, Paul," Chakotay said.
 

Stan Jensen stood silently in the corner, watching Roca sit. She hadn't moved since he arrived. She hadn't spoken, hadn't blinked. She didn't flinch when Kes emptied a hypospray into her neck. She didn't react when the Ocampan put high-density lubricant drops in her eyes to keep them viable.

She was gone.

Utterly gone.

Deep inside, Stan Jensen's belly churned sickly.
 

"Commander Chakotay. May I speak with you a moment, sir?"

Chakotay stared at Stan Jensen, his features working to maintain indifference. The Lieutenant was in off-duty blues. He held a cafeteria tray, but it was empty.

"I don't have anything to say to you, Lieutenant," Chakotay answered. He turned back to B'Elanna, coldly aware of the overt silence that had descended like a shroud across the normally raucous mess hall.

"I know that, sir," Jensen allowed. "But I have something I'd like to say to you."

Chakotay laughed bitterly. He sipped of his pajuta, watching himself in B'Elanna's eyes. "Do you think I care what you have to say?" he asked quietly.

"No, sir," Jensen agreed, "but I'd like the opportunity to say it anyway."

Chakotay considered the request. It hadn't been voiced as a challenge. It was respectful, the way one officer spoke to another. For some reason, that made him angrier than if Jensen had addressed him by any of the number of derogatory names he favored when he thought he was among friends.

"Go away," Torres told Jensen when Chakotay didn't answer.

"Yeah," Pong Raya muttered from a table near by. "Go away."

The air in the mess hall polarized itself. Clusters of Maquis and Starfleet took on opposing charges. The atmosphere portended the coming storm in the grumble of discontent that stirred like distant thunder.

"If you've got something to say, Jensen," Steve Nunnor called from across the room, "come over here and say it to me."

"Back off, Nunnor," Jim Bennett countered darkly. "This has got nothing to do with you."

Chakotay turned, stilling the seeds of rebellion sewn around the room with a single, long-eyed glance. Maquis and Starfleet alike gave way beneath the disapproval in his _expression. He turned his attention back to Jensen. "Are you finished eating?" he demanded.

"Yes, sir."

Chakotay smiled at the other man like a shark introducing himself to dinner. "Then you should be getting back to your quarters, shouldn't you?"

"Yes, sir," Jensen agreed, "but I would like to speak with you first, sir."

Leaving his half-eaten lunch on the mess hall table, Chakotay rose. "Meal passes don't include chats, Lieutenant," he said. "I'll escort you back to your quarters."

"Thank you, sir," Jensen said as if the agreement hadn't drawn blood with the razor-edged reference to his minimum security incarceration.

"Chakotay?" B'Elanna asked, the question obvious in her eyes.

"Stay here," Chakotay answered, his voice low, privileged. "Try to keep a lid on things." He glanced at the big Maquis security man in the far corner. "And don't take anything off Nunnor. He starts inciting the Fleeters, call security."

"I'll take care of Nunnor," Torres assured him.

"Call security, B'Elanna," Chakotay repeated grimly. "The last thing I need right now is a brawl in the mess hall. I'll deal with Nunnor later if I have to."

Torres nodded grudgingly.

"Come on, Lieutenant," Chakotay ordered, wielding Jensen's rank like a mallet with a voice that had resumed its normal timbre. "I don't have all day to waste." Turning, Chakotay strode through the mess hall decisively, his very posture daring anyone to make a partisan remark.

No one did.

Jensen waited until they were well away from the mess hall to say anything at all. When he did speak, it was still in the respectful tone with which he'd made the initial request.

"I went and saw Roca today," he started quietly. "The Captain ordered me to: She said I needed to see the consequences of my actions."

Chakotay didn't comment.

"I didn't know she was so bad off," he allowed after a long beat. "She didn't seem to know where she is. Or even, who she is."

"Is that what you wanted to say to me?" Chakotay inquired bitingly. "That Roca isn't doing well today?"

"No, sir," Jensen replied as they neared the turbo lift. "I just wanted you to know that I'd seen her."

Chakotay slapped the call button with the flat of his palm. "That was the Captain's idea," he informed the other man grimly, "not mine. I, personally, don't want you in the same room with her." The lift arrived and they stepped in. "Deck three," Chakotay snapped. The door closed. They began to descend.

"I wanted to say I was sorry, sir," Jensen announced, his eyes straight ahead. "I know I was wrong."

Chakotay snorted just loud enough to be rude. The lift arrived. The doors opened. They stepped out and began to walk.

"I didn't mean for what happened to happen," Jensen went on doggedly. "I didn't know she was in trouble. If I had known she was in trouble, I would have reported it."

"If you had reported it," Chakotay countered coldly, "we would have known she was in trouble."

"I know that, sir," Jensen said, "and I'm sorry."

"What did Roca have to say about your apology?" Chakotay asked, his voice acid.

"She didn't say anything, sir," Jensen answered despite the fact that it was obvious Chakotay already knew as much. "She's still catatonic."

Chakotay favored the other man with a momentary glance that said more than anything he could have formed into words. "Is that all, Lieutenant?" he demanded as they arrived at the lieutenant's quarters.

"Yes, sir," Jensen said. "I just felt it was important that you know how sorry I am."

"Important that I know," Chakotay muttered, the fingers on his left hand flexing and clenching and flexing again. He shook his head, advising darkly, "Don't waste your time, Jensen. I've already disqualified myself from your review board. I told the Captain I wouldn't be able to render a non-prejudicial opinion."

"I know that, sir," Jensen said. "I still wanted to say I was sorry."

"Tell it to Roca," Chakotay snapped.

"I have, sir. And now I'm telling you."

"Doesn't buy much."

"It isn't supposed to, sir."

Chakotay glared at the stiff-spined lieutenant for several seconds, and then he walked away. Jensen waited until the first officer was out of sight before returning to the solitude of his quarters.
 

Tom Paris was sitting at Roca's bedside, reading her a Bajoran fairy tale re-written by Colorin traders to sell to Orion slavers to offer in conjunction with their more elaborately outfitted whores. It was clumsy and vulgar and utterly inappropriate; but, in its own way, it was also very funny.

Chakotay kept his distance for several minutes, listening to the enthusiasm Paris poured into every stanza. He read the characters in voice and the narrative with an amazing eloquence, considering how badly Colorins invariably butchered the English language when translating it by way of Bajor via Orion.

"That's an interesting take on the Journey of the Prophets, Paris," Chakotay observed when the helmsman had finished.

Embarassed, Paris thrust to his feet. "Yeah, pretty funny stuff." He gestured with the book like he was waiving off flies. "Only thing I had that was Bajoran. Figured I'd read it to her -- see if she has a sense of humor."

"Does she?"

Paris grinned sheepishly. "Hard to tell. I think she laughed once, when the Vhedic had the goat by the ... " His voice trailed off, and he frowned, examining the spine as if suddenly rediscovering Tom Sawyer as Calligula. "You know," he said after a beat, "a lot of Bajorans might find this offensive. I mean, if they didn't have a sense of humor."

Chakotay touched Roca's face, brushed her hair out of her eyes. She didn't blink, didn't flinch.

"She probably enjoyed it," he murmured. "She has a collection of Bajoran pornavids. If I recall correctly, Vhedics are featured prominently in most of the plotlines."

Paris grinned. "Maybe I'll read her Balzack tomorrow."

"She likes Danielle Steele," Chakotay noted.

"Hey," Paris returned, "even I have my standards." He gestured at the ceremonial medicine wheel tacked to the bulkhead above her bed. "That yours?"

"It's a map," Chakotay said. "To help her find her way back."

"Looks like a dartboard for rocks," Paris observed, rewarded by the vaguely irritated glance Chakotay flicked his way. "Here. Try one of these." He tossed the book to Chakotay. "The Vhedic Who Loved His Flock isn't half as promising as it sounds, but Sleeping Well With Seven Gnomes and a Troll is pretty spicy for a fairy tale. Speaking of which, I gotta think the Bajorans stole that one from us. I mean, what are the odds of that kind of thing evolving independently?"

"I'll think about it," Chakotay allowed, setting the book aside.

"Yeah, well while you're thinking about it, I've got things to see, people to do." He backed across the medical bay as he spoke. "Duffy and I talked out our little misunderstanding the other night, and we're going to give it another go."

"Watch your back," Chakotay advised, "and keep her off the observation deck." His tone was less than condemning but more than casual.

Lifting his hands in a sign of surrender, Paris assured the other man, "Hey, I'm done with that place. Too damned dark to know what kind of riff-raff's hangin' in the shadows." Grinning roguishly, he added, "Don't lose the book. Comes in handy on long nights, not to mention first dates."

Triggered by Paris's approach, the door hissed open. He turned to step through it.

"Paris," Chakotay called.

Paris hesitated. "Yeah?"

"Thanks."

Paris shrugged, a little embarrassed. "Yeah, well, I had an uncle once. Shuttle accident. Coma for three weeks. He said he could hear every word we said." He shrugged again. "Figured it couldn't hurt."

Chakotay nodded. "I owe you one," he said.

"You owe me a whole bunch, Chakotay," Paris countered. "But not for this. This I did because I wanted to."

Chakotay nodded again, and Paris left the bay.
 

"My God," Majors whispered, "I didn't know ...." He stood at a distance, his eyes dull with the sight of her. "She looks like she's dead."

Chakotay didn't comment. He'd been working with Roca for almost an hour, rubbing her legs, putting them through a range of simple exercises designed to keep the muscles from atrophying. Though the EMH had offered to hook her up to compu-therapy, Chakotay refused, feeling the Human contact was as important as the rehabilitative aspects.

"Will she get better?" Majors asked after a long silence.

"Maybe," Chakotay allowed. "Maybe not."

"What happened? Did she take some sort of psycho-hypnotic or something?"

"No. No drugs. She just turned herself off. Decided to quit living."

"Why?" Majors breathed.

Chakotay shrugged. "Life got too hard, I suppose. Or too empty."

"Too empty?"

Chakotay glanced to the young lieutenant. "Being a Maquis isn't about personal freedom, Majors," he said quietly. "It's about war. About killing. About death. You can only live that way for so long without losing yourself to it one way or another."

"It must have been horrible for her," Majors whispered. "First the Bajoran occupation, then the demilitarized zone. This field trip to the Delta Quadrant must have been the first peace she's seen in her whole life. I guess it just came a little too late, huh?"

"It's worse here," Chakotay said grimly. "For someone like Roca, peace is the ultimate hell."

Majors frowned. "I don't understand."

Chakotay shrugged. "At least in the Maquis, she had a purpose. Her life meant something to The Cause. She was good at what she did, and she understood her importance to the movement. Here --" he gestured vaguely around the room. "-- she's a comp tech." He shook his head. "Life ended for Roca the day the array abducted the D'Sovia. Life ended for a lot of my people, not just the ones who died."

"Do you feel that way, too?"

Chakotay went back to rubbing Roca's feet. "Sometimes," he allowed.

"But you're the first officer," Majors objected. "You're probably more important to Voyager's survival than anybody except the captain."

"That's the difference between Roca and me," Chakotay allowed. "I still have a reason to wake up in the morning. I still have a reason to breathe in and to breath out and to open my eyes and to put food in my mouth. Most importantly, I know that if I quit doing those things, someone will notice. Janeway would notice, or B'Elanna. Maybe even Tuvok."

For a long time, Majors didn't say anything more. When he finally did speak again, it wasn't to say anything Chakotay expected him to say. "I can do that for a while, if you want," he offered, gesturing to Chakotay's methodic manipulation of Roca's extremities.

"No. I'm fine with it."

"I'd like to, sir," Majors insisted quietly.

Chakotay glanced up. He met the younger man's eyes. "Chakotay," he corrected.

"I'd like to, Chakotay," Majors revised. "I think, maybe, in a way, I was her friend. Or if I wasn't, I think I would have been."

Chakotay surrendered his place near Roca's motionless body. Majors slid into it and began a slow, cautious investigation of limbs that possessed no motion of their own.

"Will be," Chakotay said suddenly.

Majors looked up. "Will be," he agreed.
 

Chakotay sat without motion, his legs crossed and his eyes closed. Though his body was in the quiet solitude of his personal quarters, his mind was free in the lush forests of Dorvan V. His spirit guide was with him. She sat less than a yard away, advising him on the futility of his quest.

"She's one of my people," he told the scowling wolf. "I won't leave her behind and go on."

Do you come to me for guidance, Chakotay? she asked. Or do you come for other reasons?

"I come for advice," Chakotay returned. "But what you're telling me isn't something I can do."

Ah, She nodded her grizzled muzzle wisely. So I must advise you as you wish to be advised.

"Advise me however you will," Chakotay snapped, "but don't tell me not to fight for her. I won't let her go. I can't let her go."

Chakotay's spirit guide rose. She tested the wind with her nose, then loped gracefully up a rise a hundred meters away. She stood at the crest of the small hill, her lushly striated fur striking in the midday sun.

"Your wisdom eludes me today," he called after a beat. "Forgive me for being as I am."

You are what you are, she responded without rancor. Her dark eyes peered into the distance. Her ears perked slightly, twisting like tulip shaped pivots where they met her skull. Come with me, Chakotay, she advised. Then, without a sound, she vanished deeper into the forest.

Chakotay scrambled to his feet and ran with her. It was the stride of his childhood, unfettered by the wisdom of an experienced body too familiar with the limits of muscle and bone. The wind swept his body, cooled his skin. The scent of cedar stirred a place in him that lay dormant in his travels.

The landscape began to change. The yellow warmth of the sun faded to grey, and then to black. Harsh edged moonglow lit the landscape in rims and shadows. The forest thinned to nothing until only burned and broken tree stumps jutted from the ground. The earth lost its loamy resilience. It became punishing to the foot and leg like the hardest stone of the burnished desert. Cold penetrated Chakotay's muscles, clenching them to cramps. The stench of sulfur burned his lungs.

His spirit guide led him through the devastation. She moved like a silver ghost through the unforgiving landscape. He followed as best he could.

They came abruptly to a cliff. It was a sharp cliff that gave no warning of its approach. His spirit guide was standing on the rim, her claws curled over the edge of the abyss. Chakotay stumbled to a stop at her side. Breathing hard and rubbing a stitch in his belly, he stared down over the unforgiving vista that lay below them.

Grey stone stretched flat to the horizon. There was no color, no life, no trees, no water, not even the skitter of bugs.

Alone, on the vast plain of desolate stone, sat Roca Kerin. She sat as a child, smally, her knees drawn tight to her chest. Staring into the black skies beyond the horizon, her _expression was one of utter nothingness.

She is too alone, Chakotay's spirit guide told him. She lives with the rock now. This is where she will die.

Chakotay closed his eyes.

He jolted out of the spirit plain with a lurch that sickened him to the pores. He was once again in his quarters, once again seated cross-legged in the darkened sanctuary of familiar terrain.

The wraith of his spirit guide's voice whispered again through his mind: She lives with the rock now. This is where she will die.

Sick to his soul, Chakotay of Dorvan shuddered and dropped his head to his hands.
 

"How long has he been there?" Chakotay asked quietly.

Kes glanced up. She looked across the bay to where Paul Majors sat near Roca's bedside, reading aloud from a tech datapadd. "About an hour," she said, "maybe a little more."

"What's he reading her?"

"Something about computers, I think," Kes allowed. "A technical manual, or software specifications, or something like that."

Chakotay frowned. "Why's he reading her that?"

"He was having a little trouble thinking of things to say to her yesterday," Kes replied. "The EMH told him the sound of a familiar voice would be more important to her recovery than the specifics of what the voice was saying."

Chakotay watched for a moment longer. "Liable to bore her to death with that," he noted after a beat.

Kes went back to her reading. "At least he's trying," she observed. "I think that's nice."

"Yes," Chakotay agreed quietly. "That is nice."
 

A small data chip clattered disruptively onto the text scrolling down Paul Major's reader padd. He looked up, startled.

"I found that in her quarters," Chakotay said, his _expression unreadable. "It's marked where she left off."

Majors picked the chip up. "What is it?" he asked, turning it between his fingers.

"A book, I think. Something she was reading."

"I was reading her the new specs for bio-neural circuitry," Majors offered. "I thought maybe it would help her catch up."

"In all the years I've known Roca," Chakotay noted, "she never gave a rat's ass about bio-neural circuitry. She's a pilot -- a damned good pilot -- she likes Klingon food and she plays a mean game of pareses squares. Other than that, the only thing I've ever known her to take an interest in is killing Cardassians and twentieth century candy literature. She has a whole library in her quarters, if you're interested."

Majors plugged the chip in as Chakotay walked away.

"Daniel Steele?" Majors asked hesitantly. "Never heard of him."

"Her," Chakotay corrected, "and that's what Roca likes."

The first officer left sickbay behind, and in it, a young Starfleet lieutenant about to discover a brand new hobby.
 

"You've heard the evidence against you, Lieutenant," Janeway said calmly, her hands folded precisely on the table before her. "Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

Stan Jensen drew a deep breath and stood. He faced the review panel with squared shoulders, meeting the eyes of each member in turn: Janeway and Tuvok, both utterly unreadable; Paris, coldly indifferent but with perhaps a glimmer of grudging empathy; Carey, all but willing to see his side of things; and Torres, openly hostile. Though Chakotay had disallowed himself from the proceedings, he sat silently in a chair set to one side, listening to the evidence as it was presented.

"Yes," Jensen said grimly, "I do have something to say."

Janeway nodded, giving him permission to proceed.

"I did not know Roca was in trouble," he announced firmly. "I had no idea that she needed help, or that she was in any danger. I honestly believed she had merely quit coming to work, and that Commander Chakotay had either re-assigned her, or excused her from duty." Jensen glanced to Chakotay. "I had no reason to think that other than my own misconceptions, but I did nonetheless believe it." He returned his gaze to Janeway. "What I would like this panel to know is that I would never, under any circumstances, wish harm or knowingly allow harm to come to any member of this crew, regardless of my personal feelings toward that person."

"Is that all, Lieutenant?" Janeway asked quietly after a long beat of silence.

"No, Ma'am," Jensen said. "I would also like to say that I was wrong. Dead wrong. Not only in my failure to report Roca's absence, but in my reasons for doing so."

"Go on," Janeway prompted.

"I didn't report Roca because she's Maquis," Jensen said quietly. "I let something pass that I would never have let pass had she been Starfleet. I made assumptions I would never have made. What happened to her happened because when she needed me to be a Starfleet officer, I wasn't. I let her down. I let myself down. I let the ship down." He paused for a moment, gathering his composure. "I'm sorry, Captain," he said finally. And then, specifically to Chakotay, he added. "I'm sorry."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Janeway said after a long three-beat. "You may return to your quarters. We will re-convene here at oh six thirty tomorrow for judgement."

Jensen nodded tightly. Without another word, he turned and left the room.

Janeway sighed and relaxed out of her captain's posture. "All right, people," she said grimly, "this isn't a pretty job, but it's one that needs to be done. Before we open discussion, let's take an opening vote to see where we stand. Mister Tuvok?"

"Guilty without equivocation," Tuvok said firmly.

Janeway nodded, expecting the response. "Mister Paris?"

"Guilty with extenuating," Paris said.

"Extenuating being?" Janeway prompted.

"No intent."

Again, Janeway nodded. "Mister Carey?"

"Guilty as hell," Carey announced. "There's no excuse for what he did, intent or no."

Janeway turned lastly to Torres. "Mister Torres?"

"Guilty with extenuating," Torres said quietly. "No intent and provocation."

"Provocation?" Paris challenged.

Torres glanced at the helmsman. "Roca was difficult to work with under the best of circumstances," she allowed. "I'm sure she made command an impossible scenario for a Starfleet supervisor."

"I have to agree with Tom," Janeway announced. "I will go as far as guilty with extenuating on the no intent, but I cannot condone dereliction of duty as a response to a difficult subordinate."

"Roca could be more than difficult," Chakotay said quietly. "She could be down right impossible to manage unless you knew how to handle her."

Janeway arched an eyebrow in Chakotay's direction. "Not something I would expect to hear from you, Commander," she allowed.

Chakotay shrugged a one-shouldered shrug. "The truth is the truth," he said. "Roca was an excellent Maquis. I doubt very strongly, however, that she would ever have made an even passingly adequate Starfleet cadet."

"I realize you disqualified yourself from the judgement proceedings, Chakotay," Janeway said suddenly, "but I'd be interested in hearing your opinion, nonetheless."

"Were I to cast a vote," Chakotay said quietly, "I would have to go with B'Elanna. Guilty with extenuating: no intent and provocation."

"Really," Janeway mused.

"Yes," Chakotay answered, meeting her eyes. "Really."
 

"Under the circumstance," Janeway told Chakotay, "I have two choices." They were alone in her ready room, discussing the final phase of Stan Jensen's review. "I can either expel him from the service entirely, relegating him to civilian status and requiring him to work in barter for passage. Or, I can cut his rank to crewman and levy sanctions that would disqualify him for any kind of authoritative duty until he was evaluated and deemed fit to resume such a capacity." Janeway settled her gaze firmly on Chakotay. "What would you suggest, Commander?"

Chakotay smiled slightly. "I would suggest that you are imminently more qualified to make that decision than I am," he demurred.

Janeway smiled as well. "Passing the buck?" she asked.

"Passing it back," Chakotay countered.

"I'm trying to be fair," Janeway told him. "Since Roca was a Maquis, I don't want the Maquis faction of the crew to feel Jensen got a soft deal from his Starfleet captain. We have enough political tension on this crew without driving a wedge into a fresh wound."

"So if I tell you I would prefer to see him expelled from the service," Chakotay said, "that is what you'd do?"

"I'd certainly give that option more weight," Janeway allowed. "Is that how you feel?"

"I feel that Roca Kerin was terribly wronged," Chakotay answered. "And I feel that -- considering where we are and how long it will take us to get home -- de-ranking a man isn't much more than a figurative slap on the wrist."

Janeway frowned. "What would you have me do, Chakotay? Lock him in the brig for the rest of the journey? You, yourself, said his crime was one of negligence, not intent."

"His crime was of bigotry," Chakotay countered. "And for that, there is no excuse."

"What of forgiveness?" Janeway asked after a long moment.

"Forgiveness isn't my strong suit."

Janeway sighed. "He seems to have learned a great deal from this tragedy," she pointed out.

"Roca paid a high price for his education."

"I think Jensen paid a high price as well. I don't think he'll ever get past what happened here. I don't think a day will go by that he doesn't pay for it in his conscience."

"I think you over-estimate his capacity for penance."

Janeway leaned forward slightly. "You knew Roca," she said. "I know Stan Jensen. He isn't the best officer I've ever had, but all evidence to the contrary aside, he's basically a good man. He made a mistake. He let a series of personal disappointments color his judgement and it turned out badly for all of us. But I think he's learned from what happened, Chakotay. I think he understands where he was wrong, and I think he'll do his best to see that nothing like this ever happens again."

"Is that enough?" Chakotay asked quietly.

"I don't know," she returned. "You tell me."

Chakotay stood, moved away from her. "He's your officer," he allowed. "You know him better than I do."

"He's our officer," Janeway corrected. "And I think he's worth salvaging."

"It's your call."

"No," Janeway said. "It's our call."

"What would you do if we were in the Alpha Quadrant?" Chakotay asked. "If Roca had been a Starfleet officer, and his reasons for failing to report her had been the color of her skin, or her planet of origin?"

Janeway hesitated. "I would drum him out of the service," she said finally. And then she added, "But this isn't the Alpha Quadrant, and I don't have Starfleet academy feeding me new recruits. What we have is what we've got, Chakotay. They're all we've got. Based upon that rationale, I have meted out justice for a number of infractions -- including disobeying a direct order and the theft of a Starfleet shuttle, if you will recall -- on a quid pro quo basis. I think Jensen fits well within the confines of this precedence."

Chakotay nodded. "Perhaps he does," he allowed quietly.

"Then demoting him to crewman would not be an untenable solution to you?" she pressed.

"Crewman is too far," Chakotay said. "Cut him to ensign."

"Why ensign?"

"Because taking all a man's pride leaves him bitter and hostile," Chakotay answered. "Granting him leave to stand upright when he walks can be the difference between recovery and loss."

Janeway smiled. "Forgiveness may not be your strong suit, Chakotay," she allowed, "but you have a unique capacity for it that I find extraordinary."

"Thank you, Captain," Chakotay said quietly.

"No," Janeway corrected. "Thank you."
 

"His hand slid over flesh as pale and flawless as the pearls that dangled enticingly from her delicately arched throat, brushing the lush swell of breasts .... Jeeze, Roca. I'm not sure I can read this stuff out loud." Paul Majors glanced furtively around the empty sickbay, checking for the third time in ten minutes to make sure no one was near enough to overhear the quiet readings of a blushing man. They were alone, as they had been since he began. Majors shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He reached out and touched Roca's face, brushing back a strand of hair that had fallen across her eyes.

"I never would have guess you were into this kind of stuff," he muttered. "It kinda clashes with the image of you stomping Cardassians."

The strand of hair fell again, and he brushed it back again, this time, tucking it behind her ear. She didn't blink. didn't move. He stared into her eyes for a long moment, then dropped his hand to her arm.

"You should come back," he murmured, speaking to eyes that didn't react. "I miss you down in CCD. Boring as hell without you around."

Still, she didn't blink. Still, she didn't move.

Majors squeezed her arm a little, then glanced back to the reading padd. "Alright," he said. "Where were we? Oh yeah, the lush swell of breasts. I can't believe I'm reading this to you. Anyway, his hand slid over flesh as pale and flawless as ..."
 

She felt him first. Before she heard him. Before she smelled him. Before she saw him. A hand on her arm, the warmth of flesh against her awareness. She didn't know who, didn't care who. But she felt him.
 

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