#but chakotay going 'I STILL don't understand....' perfect.

[spockvarietyhour]

Parallels and Divergences "Before and After" & "Year of Hell Pt. 1"

[nosuchthingasagruffalo]

S2 Chapter 3

Charlotte kicked off her boots and flopped onto her bed. She was finding this assignment made her feel more weary as the weeks went on. The more she thought of her brother the harder she worked, she took extra shifts and brought her work to her quarters, but now she was starting to feel her brain fog, every day rolled into the next and she stayed away from crew drinks and group holo parties. She heard a beep at her door and pulled on her boots, expecting her managing Lieutenant she stood to attention. As the door open she froze.

"Instinct is driven by subconscious micro calculations. The brain making sense of fragmented observations. Instinct tells me I should leave you here, not involve you. To take you from here will compromise the safety of us both, there are other parties who are involved who will be displeased by this action."

"So why are you here" Lottie responded.

"Because I need someone whom I trust. Because I need someone who is willing to open the Pandora's box and face the consequences with me. Because there's no other officer who has your tenacity, strength of character or quest for justness" An eyebrow lifted "Well there is, but when she finds out what I'm doing, who I'm watching, she will have me scrubbing the nacelles for the next three decades"

Lottie smiled "well seeing as I'm her daughter she will up my sentence to four decades, just so you know. Seriously though, if you're doing this for us, for Amal, you really don't need to become entangled in this messy shit that is our family's cause and curse,"

Seven frowned "your family, sorry, I hadn't thought, I , oh"

Lottie didn't often see the ex-Borg stutter or lost for words, she took a step closer "Seven, Commander, I'm sorry, I didn't mean you aren't our family, of course you are, you're a big sister to me, you know you're an integral part. It's just, I don't want to drag you down, we and especially mom have had such a big impact on your life that hasn't always been for the best, I'd feel guilty if you threw away the chance of a happy life to be part of our spiral into darkness"

Seven put her arm around Lottie "if there's one thing I have learned about human relationships and families. It's that they are dysfunctional, chaotic and perfection, in their own way. Messy shit as you so eloquently put it. If you want to leave with me you can. You'll re-join Abioye's ship, you will be in engineering, I don't want you too visible, you will quietly observe, we will meet off duty and off the record".

"You know I'm not going to say no, I need to message Niamh though as she's due to visit me in two weeks"

"No need, I spoke to her before I left in anticipation of your acceptance"

Lottie's mouth hung open as she watched the woman before her turn away to hide her smirk "One day you'll be wrong about me, but not today I suppose".

*********

The Janeway apartment - San Francisco

Kathryn opened the box, inside was Amal's baby booties, a mother's day card, a badly painted Flotter picture. She heard a noise and looked up.

"Hello dear wife, fancy seeing you here"

"Chakotay, I'm sorry I've been away so long, I've got so much to tell you. I wanted to see the kids too, I didn't realise Lottie was going to be gone so long. I wanted to see them all before I set back off again. Chakotay, I don't know what I should and should not tell you.."

"I don't want to hear anything Kathryn, it's over don't you understand. You can't bring him back, you can't chase his ghost. You need to focus on those of us still here"

"Chakotay, I can't do that, just listen if we can make his death mean something we co..."

"No Kathryn, this ends here. Nothing good will come of this. For your family you need to let it go, stay here, do you even care what I, what we all think?"

"It's not that" Kathryn could feel her voice raising "to ask me to let it go, do you understand me at all? Did you ever understand me?"

"Did you ever care? Really? As in see anything from my perspective? Not even work, just what I might think, I know you love me but I don't think you respect me as someone equal to you. I can't just wait around wondering what you'll do next. If you can't stay here, if your need to be the hero outweighs all else, well it's best for you to stay at our Indiana place for a while, on the off chance you're on Earth anytime soon."

Kathryn expected to feel white hot rage, to wish she had an airlock to throw her husband out of, but instead she felt ice coldness towards him, he was letting her down, he was holding her back. "Well, I guess it ends here. I'll call the kids" she tucked the box under her arm and walked to the door before the tears that had unexpectedly started to sting the back of her eyes threatened to fall.

*** USS Voyager

Captain Tuvok raised an eyebrow as he lifted the cup of tea to his lips. "Admiral, I see you have updated your emergency contact to one Phoebe Janeway"

"I knew you would have done your due diligence Captain, I trust you have updated on all the systems"

"Indeed Admiral, is this something you would like to discuss with me? As a friend, off record"

"No Tuvok, I don't even know what to think myself anymore. There will be a time, but for now I've got bigger things to worry about. I've had further reports of Amal being in some sort of assignment, I don't know who for. But it seems someone recruited him out of the Academy nearly a year ago. Who they were working for I don't yet know. I need to investigate further but I need a mission to cover my investigations, so I thought I'd rejoin you. Seems like you have an assignment I can tag along on that will seem like I'm nicely out of the way?"

"Very well. However knowing the former Commander and yourself as I do, being separated from T'Pel, unsure of the status of my marriage may I offer.."

"Tuvok"

The Vulcan composed himself "Apologies, yes the planet, it's home to microscopic life. First contact will likely never meet the regulations of the Prime Directive but Command has identified a strong intelligence. Our mission is to determine of there is any threat posed by these life forms and to take action if so"

"I think that's just the sort of challenge to distract me" smiled the Admiral.

****

Lottie sat with the junior officers at the mess of the Essex. Seven had explained the suspicions she had about her Captain and Lottie suggested the best way to get more information was to target anyone in the know when their inhibitions were lowered. "So Commander Never Chat On Duty is your godmother then? Gee I'd hate my private life being in the tabloids from the day I was born". Lottie grimaced, these days the press left her family alone but when Voyager returned from the Delta Quadrant, the Captain pregnant with the father being eventually revealed as her second in Command, the rumours and headlines had taken a few years to abate.

"Yes but I haven't really spent much time with her over the years, she was MIA with the Rangers for a bit, I suppose didn't want to slot into our family the way my mother had hoped. I'm not here to spend time with her. I wanted to serve under Abioye, he has a distinguished record in active service. I've heard of some of the battles he served in, he's a hero."

The Lieutenant laughed "yeah I suppose. A great soldier, a leader? I don't know, he's a yes man. He follows orders to a tee, he's ok I guess. What you'd call a company man, he'll give you chances to try new things though. You like trying new things? I can show you a thing or two"

Lottie swallowed her grimace and tried her best coy smile "maybe another time".

****

Back in Seven's quarters Seven was pacing "What a pig, thinking you're an Ensign who wants to please the seniors, I'm going to put him on the Gamma shift back to back for a month" fury burning her face.

"Auntie, really it's fine, I learned how to deal with those losers my first day in the Academy. Besides if they actually got me back to his it would be me teaching them a thing or ... sorry sorry, that's a joke. It was useful "data" to gather. Plus watch this. Some friends and I on DS5 were working on undetectable espionage, an unofficial assignment from our Chief Engineer. You know we couldn't crack the secondary code before? Well, it turns out the first step is based on musical arpeggios, the rest followed from there and of course I was in and out before I could be detected." Lottie looked out of the window "what side are you on Captain"

"I knew you'd make a fine officer. Send me the files and I'll look over them. We need to know if we can trust him or not" Seven said

"The decoded information didn't make much sense to me, do you think you can make sense of it?"

"Twenty years ago it would be simpler than beating Harry Kim at Kal Toh, but as you know the longer I've been away from the Borg the more my humanity has developed, I've lost some of the advantages my Borg upbringing afforded me."

"So now you can tell when Mom's hustling on the pool table but aren't good enough to be her team mate?"

"Oh Lottie" Seven smiled "If there's one thing Kathryn's taught me, it's how to be s shark at the pool table".

****

Kathryn and Tuvok stood on the planet's surface. At first look it seemed green and peaceful, flowers bobbed in the wind and leafy trees with boughs weighted down with summer fruit. Kathryn detected the microscopic life forms on her tricorders, they felt short electric shocks. "Are they trying to communicate?" Kathryn wondered.

"It would seem so" Tuvok responded, "They are making these shocks at will, the larger numbers they congregate in the stronger the shock. Maybe if we lay our weapons on the floor it will show we mean no harm".

Kathryn nodded and placed her phaser on the floor and was stunned to see a force field appear around it. Suddenly the shocks were increasing and she fell to the floor, she felt Tuvok help her up and they stumbled towards the shuttle. A shock to Tuvok's head and he was disorientated, Kathryn pulling his weight over her back as she opened the door and pulled them inside. At the controls Kathryn found every time she touched them they short circuited. She could only get the shuttle a few feet off the floor before it fell down again. She leaned under the console and pushed two of the buttons at the same time, the shuttle shot up and they sped towards Voyager. As the shuttle entered the larger ship, energy beams from the surface knocking Voyager's shields to less than 50%. Kathryn raced onto the bridge "Ensign Hussein what are you waiting for, get us out of here" she roared.