Disclaimers, ratings and warnings are in Part 1.

THE BADLANDERS

PART TWENTY TWO

Chakotay opened his eyes. He opened his eyes and into them flew Kathryn. She was there and she filled him with light. In a field covered with yellow daisies that danced in the breeze and butterflies fluttered noiselessly, creating, as they touched here and there on the flowers, darting shadows that became their avatars which mimicked the movements of their owners.

Even as she moved, the breeze took the flared skirt, lapping her ankles in gentle cadence. How could she not hover, or glide, or in the name of the heavens, become an angel that, like her own little butterflies seemed to touch here and there and yet it never felt as if she made any connection?

Just the simple movement of wholly coming and becoming part of him.

Kathryn laughed and her laughter filled the silences around him. Her laughter assimilated the demonic noises in him and slowly, ecstatically, silenced each of them, sent them away to corners of his conscious where they cowered in fear of the new enemy.

It was an enemy that appeared on the wings of angels. Lifted momentarily from the colourful fields of flowers, against the very blue skies where pure white billowing clouds had moved away, leaving the entire heavens as her palette, emblazoned in new words that even as they burned, could only ever spell the words peace, fulfilment, harmony, completion.

They took his weight and lifted him as if he were nothing. Everywhere she was. In the furthest recesses of his conscious, in his past, in his present. Yes, he exclaimed in wordless and breathless wonder, Kathryn laughed. It was the sound of bells. Her hair, freed from their braided restraints, flowed in long waves, lifted occasionally by the breeze whenever she moved her head.

She reached him and stopped, and the stopping itself was an essay of movement as the lifting hair, the gently lapping skirts against her ankles, the long looped earrings came to a halt, as if they merely paused their movement.

As she sighed, her breath flowed from her and entered his body.

Only then he started to breathe.

********

Doctor Krell helped him up when he asked for Kathryn. For a moment after he opened his eyes, it appeared to him as if she vanished from his sight again and he had been frantic that she could be gone forever. She had been gone.

Two years.

He remembered clearly the day he had been captured, brought in secret to a laboratory at Starfleet Headquarters. He had been pressed into a chair, a brace fitted on his head. He had sworn high and low that he was going to kill the man in front of him. He had sworn high and low that he was going to come back one day and never rest until the man was dead. The man had a helper, a woman who looked scared out of her wits.

He knew the helper and though he had never before seen her, her likeness was too striking not to be missed. He had been stunned and then, as the metal brace had been pressed down and fitted his skull, all lights around it and the tiny electrodes relayed their currents into his brain.

"There is nothing to it, Captain. Just lie back and the procedure will be completely painless."

Then the red clad admiral, red and gold stripes of command on the cuffs of his jacket sleeves, sat down at a console and began entering commands.

He had tried to blank out the pain as it struck him, shooting like a lance clear through his brain and cutting it in half. And then he screamed.

He screamed and screamed and screamed and the pain wouldn't stop. It was as if they used tiny lances and cut his brain into pieces, leaving little blobs of gray tissue lying where the dogs hungrily licked up his life.

And one by one every image he had of Kathryn, his wife, his love, his life, receded from his memory. He couldn't stop screaming as she left him.

The first day he met her. Young ensign freshly assigned to the USS Endeavour. He had been a young lieutenant who had seen her in the grounds of Starfleet when he had been home from a mission. She had smiled at him, yet her smile had been tinged with sadness. He had asked her name, and when she spoke, it sounded like music.

Gone was that memory and every image associated with that meeting, during and after that event.

Kathryn in a field of daisies wearing a heavenly blue dress running towards him. Married to him only ten weeks. They were happy. Happy! The sadness had gone from her eyes.

"Chakotay, I have the most wonderful news for you, my love," she breathed against him as he caught her in his arms.

"What news can be better than Kathryn home from a mission and in my arms for the next three weeks?" he had asked.

"Oh, you'll know soon enough! But only over dinner by candle light, darling."

"Sounds good to me."

Gone was that memory and all images associated with that memory, before, during and after that event.

"Make love to me, Chakotay. Make sweet love to me and let my body sing for you,"' she murmured.

"Right here?"

"Why not? This is our spot, our little peace of heaven on Earth. Right under this giant oak, with the dappled rays like dancing lights over our bodies."

He had complied, because his own body needed hers as much as she needed his. Her body, its creamy, smooth alabaster so translucent that he hardly wanted to touch her but rather worship her with his eyes only, beckoned. He had learned how translucent alabaster belied its own fragility and proved remarkably strong as he kissed every centimetre of her body until, in ceaseless impatience, the rose  opened, revealing its delicate centre  with its soft petals. He sipped with great and infinite thirst from the nectar -  sweet honey, hypnotic elixir that once supped, gave him life, transformed him from the dead to a living, breathing, loving being. He had slid his body up along her in helpless fascination of her perfection and, while staring at her, while his fingers trembled as they touched closed eyes, parted lips, throbbing pulse in the hollow of her neck, entered her and became one with her.

He had never loved her more than he did that day when in his wordless adoration all sense of time and smell and place became a swirling mass of sexual energy neither transformed or assimilated but simply just being.

It was his body that cried, his hands that wrote, his eyes that seared, his breathing that recorded the immortal words I...love...you...

Gone was that memory and all images associated with that memory, before, during and after that event.

"Your life is in danger, Chakotay."

The sad look was back in her eyes.

"Do not worry so, Kathryn. After all, the man is your father..."

"He raped my mother. I am the result of that rape. He killed my mother. Chakotay, you don't know his malevolence..."

"I understand, honey. It's no reason for me to run away, okay? I can handle him."

"He is evil and very powerful. I am not proud."

"No, you're not, because sweetheart, the man who was your Daddy was the real man who loved you without condition, who cared for you and who understood you."

He saw her eyes fill with tears. It made him sad seeing her sad. Owen Paris wanted his wife. He closed his eyes. Kathryn was right. How far would such a man go to fulfil his sexual depravities? Incest?

Indeed. His son was his lover, against his will. The son who was also Kathryn's half brother.

"I am going to confront him, Kathryn."

"Chakotay! No! He will do anything to destroy you."

"He tried to rape you, Kathryn! What manner of man would rape his own kin? What manner of man?"

He had appeared at Starfleet Headquarters where Kathryn had been summoned earlier by Owen Paris to his office. Because she had promised she'd be only half an hour, half and hour later was thirty minutes too late and he had gone, already knowing of Owen Paris's doings and making certain that Kathryn was safe. He had never liked Owen Paris anywhere near Kathryn. The man had a roving and shifting eye, a man who looked with un-fatherly lecherous, lustful eyes at her, undressing her, conjuring images no doubt of having sex with her.

What he saw made his blood boil. Kathryn had been held over the desk by a pair of strong hands that had already stripped her pants over her hips. Owen  was trying to spread her and force his way into her. One hand clamped her mouth. Kathryn looked like she would die of shame as she tried to fight him off. her.

Chakotay had pulled Paris roughly away and flattened him with one swipe of his fist. He had taken Kathryn, waited for her to dress again. Then he had calmly walked round the desk and kicked Paris's guts out.

"Touch her again and you're good as fucking dead."

It had taken him days to calm Kathryn who was nearly raped by the man who fathered her.

What manner of man would rape his own kin?

And then he had lodged a formal complaint with Starfleet Command. Warned Command that one of their own dishonoured the name of Starfleet by his lack of decorum, listing one by one his criminal acts, including the death of Kathryn's father, Vice-Admiral Edward Adam Janeway. Warned them that he suspected Owen McKenzie Paris poisoned Gretchen Janeway who had threatened to expose his lewd behaviour to Starfleet.

So as if Starfleet had never been aware they had a sick fuck in their midst.

Was Command afraid of this powerful man?

"He'll never leave us alone, Chakotay. Not now..."

He had given a sigh.

Then he had gone again to Owen McKenzie Paris and told him to leave them alone.

"Because if you don't, Kathryn and I will hand over evidence to Starfleet Command that you have murdered the President of the Federation. He didn't die of natural causes, as everyone was made to believe."

Gone was that memory and all images associated with that memory, before, during and after that event.

"Phoebe is our only hope, Kathryn."

"She has never liked me, Chakotay. We should ask someone else. Or better still, leave the Alpha Quadrant and settle far, far away from this..."

"But you love Earth...Indiana..."

"I know! But if we're to make a life together, he will always hover over us like a dark evil cloud."

He sighed. She was right. He could feel the danger, living under constant threat.

"We'll go somewhere else, Kathryn."

Kathryn threw herself into his embrace. He felt her whole body shiver. She was a  strong woman, a pro-active woman and Starfleet officer who would soon make captain. Yet, Owen Paris threw her for a loop. He scared her, especially after his attempted rape.

Gone was that memory and all images associated with that memory, before, during and after that event.

In its place they implanted all manner of evil.

When he saw Kathryn again, she was a stranger and he didn't recognise her. When he raped his first victim, he never asked for names. Sweet young virgin, daughter of a minister. It was overlooked because Owen Paris saw to it that he commit atrocities in Federation Space first before letting the Federation hounds loose on him.

No memory of Kathryn, his wife with whom he had made a good life.

No memory that he had ever been a man of honour.

No memory.

********* 

"Captain Janeway is in a private room, Captain Chakotay," said Doctor Krell. "Captain?"

"Yes?"

"You know who I am?"

"Of course. You are the CMO of the USS Voyager."

"We have integrated your memories. How do you feel?"

He rose abruptly from the bed, felt only slightly groggy from the sedative.

"I feel fine, Doctor."

"And your memories?"

"I remember everything. Everything, Doctor. And that is why it is imperative I see my wife immediately."

Krell nodded, also understood the need for privacy as he remained standing while Doctor Survot spoke.

"Follow me."

Chakotay's mind whirled continuously, as if the years of data  and memories still needed to warm up in his brain. He turned to face Krell.

"I don't know how to thank you..."

"None required, Captain."

"Don't think that because I have my memories restored, that I have none now of the crimes I had committed. I will pay for that for the rest of my life, Krell."

Krell simply nodded and without speaking further, Chakotay followed Survot from the room to where Kathryn was.

Only short walk across to another, smaller building.

"A clinic, Captain Chakotay."

"In understand. My wife...how did she come through the procedure?"

"There have been moments that it was possible she would not survive, but she is strong, Captain. I believe that it is the knowledge that you would be healed for her that has strengthened her."

"And those moments? What happened?"

"She went into convulsions three times. The third time was severe. But we have managed to stabilise her. She should still be sleeping peacefully."

"Thank you. For all you have done."

"Vulcan would have been annihilated had it not been for you, Captain Chakotay."

"I take no compliments for my part in uncovering the plot."

"We honour our warriors, Captain. You are one of our warriors."

What could he say but accept the acknowledgement with grace?

They entered the cool entrance of the clinic. Chakotay wanted to rush into the first room. There were a thousand and one things he wanted to say to her. Ten thousand things he wanted to muse over with her, a million questions he wanted to ask.

And of all the millions of questions, extract from them only two or three that stood out, that were beacons of light of his life with her,  burning, burning issues that he needed to know, and others that he needed to tell her.

But most of all, he wanted to see Kathryn. His Kathryn. Kathryn of his past and now, his present. See her face and taste, see every line, every pore, every hair, every minute movement that was the essence of Kathryn Janeway.

"Here," Doctor Survot said coolly as he stopped in front of a door and entered the codes to open the door.

He had no time to look back to where Survot had vanished to. The door stood open.

She was awake. She was sitting up. She was in tears.

"Chakotay?"

He walked up to the bed like a very, very old man, a man who struggled to put one foot in front of the other, hunched forward as though heavy rocks bore down on his back. But he couldn't tear his gaze from her tear-filled eyes.

Her hair was loose, like the very first time he had seen her, free and carefree Kathryn whose life changed when she met him.

A debt he can never repay as he sank down on his knees next to her. How warm her hands felt as they caressed his head, how soft and warm and loving and forgiving!

His hands reached for her, gripping, gripping, wanting the touch to last forever.

The world and its misery was forgotten for the moment as he rose up and looked into her eyes again.

"Kathryn, my love...my life..."

She gave a sob. Already he had seen the chain and locket around her neck. Reverently he touched it, opened the locket and stared at its contents until his eyes bled.

"Beautiful...beautiful..." he murmured, the pain in every syllable he uttered.

"We must go, Chakotay. We must find Phoebe. We must make our family complete again."

"Then I must tell you that Phoebe was there the day Owen Paris purged my memories of you."

"I know. It was the hold they had over me sending me into the Badlands..."

"Their plan misfired, Kathryn."

"Chakotay?"

"Later. Let me kiss you and then we go and find Phoebe."

"Find Phoebe."

"And take back what is rightfully ours."

************* 

END PART TWENTY TWO  

PART TWENTY THREE

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