For Rossy

Part Four

As soon as he stepped through the doors of his quarters his nostrils twitched appreciatively at the rich aroma of warm, spicy food and his stomach growled with such audible enthusiasm that Seska met his entrance with a beaming smile. A smile that slowly faltered as Chakotay's brows drew together in an unmistakable frown of displeasure. 

"I know I shouldn't have just let myself in," she began hurriedly, gesturing quickly at the table laden with her peace offering, "but I've been such a bitch to you since Caton that I wanted to do more than just 'say' sorry."

Chakotay's lips pursed into a thin line and his eyes darkened slightly as he stared first at the table and then slowly raised his eyes until she shivered a little under his penetrative gaze.

"Why tonight?" he asked, in a soft tone that belied his suspicious eyes.

She shrugged and gave him a slightly lop-sided smile. "Oh come on, Chakotay. You aren't still mad at me are you? I didn't mean it when I said we were over. I was just…well; you know how insecure I am sometimes. I was wrong. I'm sorry. Won't you even try to forgive me?"

"It's not a matter of forgiveness," he replied, reaching out and squeezing her right bicep gently. "I do appreciate this…" He paused a moment. "…This gesture, and I'm not and never have been *angry* with you."

At Seska's disbelieving snort, he smiled ruefully. "I admit I was upset by some of the things you said to me but, all in all, I think a clean break was the best thing for both of us."

"Well I don't," she replied, equally calmly. "We were good together, Chakotay. I'm sorry that I allowed my spite and jealousy to mess that up. It's not your fault that I began to want more."

"More?" Chakotay repeated uncertainly.

"I love you," she said simply, raising her hand in a plea for silence when he opened his mouth to reply. "You don't love me. I'm ready to accept that now. I want things to go back to the way they were between us and I promise you I won't ask for more than you can give this time."

Chakotay flushed with embarrassment, feeling wrong-footed and ashamed in the face of Seska's quiet dignity. Something inside of him ached to hear those three words 'I love you', a secret lonely place where old dreams of happiness eked an existence on a starvation diet of stolen kisses and meaningless sexual encounters. Yet although the words created an immediate resonance within him, fitting so flawlessly inside his heart that he became stunningly aware of the vacancy they filled, he was equally certain that although the words fitted, the speaker did not. He wanted to be loved, he realized, but only if he could love in return. 

He could never love Seska. She couldn't fill his vacancy, she could only abide there in temporary tenancy and the tenuousness of her residency would only serve to remind him that he had failed to find the rightful occupant of his heart.

So there was sadness in his eyes as he considered her calm, dignified offer. Sadness and shame and more than a little regret. Yet there was suspicion too.

"Why tonight?" he repeated, gesturing at the table.

"I don't understand."

Suspicion coalesced into certainty but brought sorrow rather than anger. How could he condemn her for the self-confessed sin of loving him? So he answered with calm patience rather than accusation.

"You know Neelix is preparing a special meal on the holodec tonight."

For a fraction of a second something dark and ugly twisted across Seska's face, an expression of hate so transitory that it could have been no more than a shadow flickering over her features and yet so hate-filled that it was burned permanently into Chakotay's memory in the micro-seconds it took for her to regain her composure.

She laughed, a light-hearted trill of sound that was bitter in its obvious falseness.

"You mean you're actually going?" she asked, as though the idea was so ludicrous it hadn't even crossed her mind.

Chakotay half-closed his eyes, drawing on his reserves of patience, painfully conscious that this situation was *his* fault not hers. How would he feel, he asked himself, if he were her? What if it were *his* love that had been cast on stony ground? So he was gentle as he replied, and although his words were truthful he deliberately allowed his tone to suggest a level of reluctance he didn't truly feel.

"I'm the First Officer. My presence at the party isn't a matter of choice. Two senior officers are receiving commendations tonight and my attendance at the celebration is mandatory."

"Perhaps you have to attend the ceremony but you aren't *obliged* to stay for the party."

"I think it would be a little offensive if I didn't," he replied mildly.

"So it's true," she said, her mouth curling in derision. "I thought better of you, Chakotay. I thought you had more honor than to break bread with your enemies. What's happened to your pride? Did you set it aside as an inconvenience when you put on that Starfleet uniform?"

Chakotay took a deep, calming breath, forcing himself not to react to her challenge, reminding himself that this was just the acidic spite of a spurned lover. This was just Seska's pain speaking.

"We're a crew, Seska. I have no enemies on Voyager, not even Tom Paris."

There, it was said. The forbidden name had been spoken out loud and now quivered invisibly between them like a thrown gauntlet. He expected her to grab the challenge and lob it back towards him with vitriolic force. Instead she returned it calmly, with frightening perception.

"Tom?" she repeated, her expression disappointed rather than angry. "I never thought the day would come when I'd hear you refer to that traitor as 'Tom'. I suppose it's true what they say about men. You *all* think with your cocks. As long as the package is pretty enough you conveniently forget the poison concealed inside."

The barb hit home with deadly accuracy, ripping open a wound too raw for defense, gnawing mercilessly at Chakotay's own self-doubts. Was Seska right? Had Kathryn's words of encouragement merely pandered to his own *wish* that Tom was worthy of his affection? What the hell was he doing turning down the love of a trustworthy woman like Seska just because of his lust for a man who had proven himself a traitor twice over? He wanted to be angry with her but he couldn't. Not when she was right. Not when even the thought of Tom Paris made the blood surge into his groin.

"I…" he began, only to pause uncertainly as he realized he had no idea what to say.

"It's alright, Chakotay," she soothed, stepping forward to stroke her fingers gently across the tattoo that arched over his left eye. "I didn't mean to upset you. I understand your attraction. He's beautiful. Just like a deadly snake. It's a glamour he wears to weaken your defenses, using his beauty to weave a spell around you, but you know as well as I do that his bite is poison."

"I know," he breathed, through a throat suddenly tight with pain, and closed his eyes against the assault of images that cascaded through his head at her words. She was right, he told himself desperately, his mind accepting her observations even though his heart insisted that it was *her* words that were the spell that wove around him, constricting and oppressing him, playing cleverly on his own doubts. 

She took his hand and pulled him gently towards the table.

"Why don't you have something to eat? You're tired and hungry, Chakotay. It's no wonder you can't think straight. You've got a couple of hours before the actual ceremony. Spend them here where you can just relax in peace."

He stepped forward, as though in a daze, lured by her soft voice and the smell of good food and the promise of spending a little time not even *thinking* about Tom Paris.

Then he pulled his hand from her grasp.

"You're right," he said. "I've got a couple of hours to myself for the first time in weeks. I'll use them to meditate on what you've said."

Her eyes flashed with irritation. "But what about this?" she demanded, waving at the table. "I made your favorite. Aren't you at least going to try a little taste?"

"I don't eat before meditating. Why don't you take it back to your quarters? It's a shame to let it go to waste. I'll see you at the ceremony, Seska."

He gave her a smile to soften the obvious dismissal then turned and walked into his bedroom, leaving her to let herself out.

~#~#~#~

"What?" Tom snapped irritably, then immediately felt guilty as he sensed Harry's hurt. Then fear came chasing hot on the heels of the guilt and he had to stifle an almost hysterical laugh as it occurred to him how literal the word 'sense' was.

He 'smelt' Harry's hurt.

The moment he'd snapped at his friend's puzzled expression, Harry's scent had changed from its usual smell of cinnamon-spiked goodness. Harry's hurt was a subtle scent, part anger, part confusion but all sorrow, like the smell of rotting mulch in a shadowed forest. 

"Are you okay? You've gone white as a sheet," Harry exclaimed, his scent morphing into the nowadays all too familiar odor of worry.

The laugh broke free of Tom's throat and capered inappropriately around the room until Harry's worry-smell spiked with sharp top-notes of true anxiety. 

"Have you ever wondered why the Universal Translator works universally?" Tom asked, with a slightly maniacal grin.

"Huh?" Harry blinked rapidly, desperately attempting to catch up with Tom's apparent non-sequitor. 

"It shouldn't. Not all species use language to communicate do they?" Tom asked, and then continued without waiting for an answer. "I mean there are five senses, six if you count ESP, so doesn't it make sense that some species use senses other than sounds?"

"I guess," Harry replied carefully. "I used to have a dog and he…"

"Of course," Tom interrupted. "That's the problem, isn't it? It's *animals* that depend on the other senses. It's not a mark of evolutionary progress. It's more of a 'devolution', don't you think?"

"Um…I guess. What's this all about? What's wrong?"

Tom shook his head and gave a self-depreciating laugh.

"Nothing. Just nerves. You know me. I always talk crap when I'm nervous."

"Hey, this wasn't the Captain's idea you know. Everybody agreed," Harry assured him. "Well, almost everyone," he added in an undertone, unable to actually lie. 

Tom arched an eyebrow in disbelief.

"Seriously," Harry said. "Sure it was the Captain's idea to give you and B'Elanna a commendation but it was the crew who asked for the ceremony to be turned into a party for you both."

"Yeah, well nobody turns down the idea of free rations," Tom scoffed, although a faint blush betrayed his pleasure at the idea.

"Maybe so," Harry agreed, "but there's no denying the fact that a lot of people have sincerely changed their opinions about you. Particularly since you've made such an effort to pretend you don't even remember saving us. Everyone expected you to crow about it. They all thought you'd rub it in their faces that you were a hero. The fact you won't even talk about what happened has impressed the hell out of everyone."

"I don't remember," Tom lied. "It's just a blur. The whole thing happened too fast for me to stop and think about what I was doing. Besides, I hit my head in the crash. There's no record of the injury because I regenerated the damage myself but the Doc says it's the probable cause of my amnesia."

"Yeah, sure," Harry replied, with a fond smile. "You don't have to impress *me* with this humble act, Tom. It's not winning you any brownie points. I was your friend already, remember?" 

Tom attempted a smile and although it emerged a little sickly and forced it seemed to reassure Harry that his problem *was* only a severe case of nerves over the rapidly approaching celebration.

~#~#~#~

Walking into the dew-drenched clearing and smelling the fresh familiar scent of the surrounding forest, Chakotay sighed with relief. There still was sorrow here, faint shadows of grief and regret, but his overwhelming emotion was contentment. It was the nearest he could ever feel to being home and it was a source of constant wonderment and gratitude to him that he had this ability to step out of the Delta Quadrant and into the security of this unchanging, ever-welcoming place.

As he stepped unerringly down pathways worn smooth by the passage of his forefathers, he had cause to bless the ancestry and training that gave him a solace that was denied to most of his fellow crewmembers. Yet in that too there was some small sense of shame. He had so much to be grateful for, such an endless source of strength here to draw on, that he felt ashamed of the self-doubts that had sent him rushing here for comfort. Shouldn't he be stronger than this? he berated himself. Shouldn't the fact that he carried this place inside himself be comfort enough to guide his decisions?

A huff of laughter greeted that thought and he spun to meet his guide with a delight and wonder that had never palled, regardless of how many times she graced him with her presence.

"Hello, fur-face." 

As always she glowered at the nickname, pretending offence at the casual address despite the give-away glow in her eyes that acknowledged the love and affection in his voice.

/The deer are running. /

"Oh?" he replied politely, sinking down on his haunches until they were at eye level.

She ignored his invitation to continue, instead lifting a back leg and scratching her neck thoroughly. When it became evident that she would ignore him until he confessed his reason for coming, Chakotay struggled to put the source of his confusion into words. 

"I'm not sure what to do. My heart is telling me one thing and my mind is telling me another. I can't reconcile the two voices and I can't be sure which one is telling the truth. I know which voice I *want* to believe, but then I think that the very fact that I want to believe it is the best reason to doubt its validity."

She paused and cocked her head in his direction, then shook her herself and resumed the frantic scratching.

"I'm in love with him. I must be. I can't stop thinking about him. I thought it was lust…and it is, in a way, but its more than that. I know it is. He…he fascinates me. It's not just the way he looks or the way he moves or the fact that I can't get the vision of his face out of my mind. I…I yearn for him. Something inside me is empty and I *know* he's the only one who can fill that emptiness. He's the only one who 'fits'. But then that frightens me because I don't trust him. I *can't* trust him, can I? Then there's Seska, who I know *does* love me, who I trust with my life and yet I don't *want* to give my heart into her safekeeping. "

/The Great Spirit has a sense of humor, I think, but still there must be sense to all her creations/

Chakotay pondered the wolf's words. "You're saying it's ironic that I want the wrong person?"

/I was referring to fleas, Chakotay. They must have a purpose, but I'm damned if I can figure out what it is. They seem to exist for no purpose. They selfishly steal the life-blood of other creatures, spreading nothing but misery and pain, and yet it's their nature to do so, and so they fulfill the purpose of the Great Spirit. It's our blindness that makes us unable to understand the greater picture/

"Fleas?" Chakotay asked, frowning with confusion.

/Let's walk a little/

She rose and loped slowly towards the edge of the clearing, slipping like a gray shadow into the dark forest. He scrambled to his feet and followed her into the dense undergrowth, his feet slipping on the dank piles of rotted leaves that carpeted the forest floor. His clothes snagged on the lower branches that jutted like malformed arms from the twisted tree-trunks and low-hanging vines slapped his head and trailed slimy cold tendrils over his face until he was stumbling in a half-crouch, eyes half-closed against the assault, following her by sound rather than vision.

On and on she led him, until his chest and legs were burning with exertion and, although his faith in her guidance didn't falter, he was aware of a growing sense of dread as the dark forest closed around him like a smothering shroud. He could sense something dangerous in this forest, a new and alien presence, and he knew without doubt that she was taking him towards that danger rather than away from it. 

/Here/

He stumbled to a halt as they reached a new clearing. Unlike the first this one was still canopied by overhanging branches so that although there was a break in the trees it remained dark and forbidding.

/Look up/

Chakotay raised his eyes and his heart stuttered in sudden fear. No, although he hated to admit it to himself, fear was too small a word. Terror was nearer the mark. Heart-stopping, blood-chilling terror.

/Is beauty its own excuse for existence, do you think? /

The she-wolf's strange comment broke through his frozen fear, jolting his heart back into thudding rhythm, forcing his eyes to *see* what his terror had blocked from vision. It *was* beautiful, he acknowledged reluctantly, and in accepting that truth the fear began to recede to healthy caution as he gazed at the black panther draped across the branch over his head.

Beautiful but deadly, his mind reminded his heart as it soared in wonderment at the presence of this alien creature in his private sanctuary. Vibrant gold-green eyes met his with unblinking curiosity. At least he hoped it was curiosity he saw in its eyes rather than the equally possible hunger.

"What's it doing here? What does it represent?" he asked, deliberately not voicing his other aching question 'is it dangerous to me here in the dream plane?' Partly he left the latter unvoiced because he was 'almost' sure the answer was no. This wasn't a real cat, after all. It was a manifestation of something in his real life. Something both beautiful and deadly. 

"Is it Tom?" he asked uncertainly and then shivered with dread as a new, darker shadow rustled over the clearing as though the name of his fantasy lover had evoked a vengeful spirit.

/Look/

He reluctantly tore his eyes from the fascinating, lazy gaze of the panther and cast his gaze into the rustling leaves to its left. For a moment he was too shocked to even exclaim his surprise, he could only stare in growing dread at the slithering, multi-faceted splendor of the huge snake that was wending a silent, deadly path over the rugged bark towards the unsuspecting large cat. 

A slight breeze caught the tops of the trees, stirring the heavy foliage so that a little light broke through the dense canopy of leaves and sparkled against the rainbow-hued scales of the serpent. And still the black cat rested unaware of the danger, its eyes and ears focused towards Chakotay and although he jumped up, shouting and waving his hands to alert it to the presence of the snake, his antics only served to increase the big cat's fascination with himself.

/This isn't real, Chakotay, / the she-wolf reminded him quietly. /It is just a vision of things that may come to pass. / 

He tried to believe her, as the snake reared up with a sibilant hiss and the panther leapt in crazed panic as it finally sensed the danger too late to escape the lightening-fast strike of the immense serpent.

"Is *that* Tom?" he sobbed, as the snarling, clawing cat wrestled futilely against the constricting coils of the serpent, its screams of fear and outrage choked and smothered by the tightening pressure around its trapped ribcage. 

And suddenly the forest faded around them, dispersing between one blink of an eye and the next, so that he and the she-wolf were alone on a flat, wind-swept tundra plain.

"What did it mean? If Tom is the snake, who is the panther? Who is it he's going to destroy? Am *I* the panther?"

She huffed with irritation.

/You look, but you don't see. /

"I don't understand the vision."

/The deer are running/

"What does that MEAN?"

But the vision fled and his howl of frustration bounced uselessly off the walls of his quarters.

~#~#~#~

"Aren't you going to eat that?" Harry asked, looking at Tom's barely-touched plate with acquisitive eyes. Although Neelix had gone to town on the celebration dinner, he'd prepared special plates for the guests of honor and Tom's steak looked a hell of a lot more attractive than the general fare.

Tom shrugged, glancing at his abandoned meal with disinterest. "It's burnt."

"Burnt?" Harry repeated incredulously. "That's rare in my book. If it hadn't been born in a replicator, it would be practically still alive, Tom." He licked his lips unconsciously at the meat-juices flowing out of the pseudo-steak.

"Tastes burnt to me," Tom said, "but if you want it, knock yourself out." He pushed the plate towards his hungry friend.

"Really?"

"Better than me trying to explain to Neelix why I didn't eat it," Tom replied wryly. 

"At least B'Elanna seems to be enjoying her gagh," Harry said, through a mouthful of steak. "Jeez, Tom. This is 'heaven'. Are you sure you don't want it?"

"I told you, it tastes burnt to me." At Harry's look of disbelief he shrugged. "Maybe it's just nerves. I'm not really hungry."

"Nerves can do that," Harry agreed. "Though personally I tend to eat more when I'm nervous." 

Tom just smiled, although his stomach churned uncomfortably at the comment because he too was usually a nervous eater. In fact he *was* hungry, almost uncomfortably so. The problem was that he wasn't hungry for anything Neelix was offering and he couldn't put his finger on what he *did* want instead.

Or maybe his stomach was churning just because the effort to digest the countless lies that kept tripping off his tongue were making him feel sick. He had an urge to jump to his feet and blurt out the whole sordid truth. 

Guess what, guys? Since you're all wondering how the hell I saved your lives, I've decided to tell you the truth. The thing is something weird's happened to me. I can see in the dark. Really see, like there's a thousand watt light bulb growing out of the middle of my forehead. But that's not all, boys and girls. Oh no. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Know all those secret conversations you have behind closed doors? Well, I can hear them all. Fuck, I can hear your hearts beating in your chests. Oh, and I hear Voyager. She speaks to me. Isn't that amusing? Maybe even as funny as the fact I can walk into an empty room and know who was in there last from the lingering smells you leave behind or the fact that I can tell who you all fucked last night just by sniffing their scent on your bodies.

Yeah sure, and then he'd spend the rest of the voyage home in a fucking straight jacket.

He lurched to his feet.

"Where are you going?"

"I need a drink."

And yes, that sounded a much better idea than a crazed confessional, particularly since Seska had entered the room with her slithering walk and her strange, disconcerting scent, and had made a bee-line towards the corner where Chakotay and B'Elanna were smirking and joking with their Maquis buddies. A drink certainly seemed a better idea than dwelling on Chakotay's presence in the room, particularly since Chakotay stank of Seska's touch.

Bitch.

He reached the bar in a daze, only to find a glass pressed into his hand before he even opened his mouth to order.

"On the Captain," Dalby said, his face cracking into an unfamiliar grin. "She said to keep you filled up unless it looked like you'd fall down."

Tom's eyes flared with surprise but he raised the glass gratefully in the Captain's direction and caught her eye before he took a deep gulp of beer. For synthale it was pretty good, testament to the number of rations she'd allocated towards the celebration, and although it was cold as it slid down his throat it warmed something deep inside of him.

Until he remembered the fact that he was going insane. Which was the point at which he abruptly decided that the idea of getting falling-down drunk seemed a damned fine plan.

~#~#~#~

"Prophets," Geron breathed, his tongue sliding over his lower lip. In an older man the gesture would have seemed lewd. Given his youth and relative innocence, his wide-eyed, open-mouthed admiration was almost comical. Or at least it would have been if the object of his interest had been anyone else.

As it was, Chakotay's eyes narrowed in concern and he flicked a look of intense dislike towards the stunning beauty that had obviously drowned all sense of decorum at the bar and was now flaunting himself shamelessly on the dance floor. Not that anyone, Kathryn included, seemed to mind Tom's impromptu display. In fact there was a suspicious glistening on *her* lower lip too, as though she had recently performed the same unconscious lip licking as Geron had done.

"Where the hell did he learn to move like that?" B'Elanna asked, her mouth curling into an almost feral snarl.

"That's Paris," Seska hissed, punching B'Elanna's arm roughly as though to snap her back to reality.

"That's fucking sex on legs," B'Elanna snarled back, shoving Seska roughly out of her way and prowling towards the center of the dance floor where Tom was swaying, eyes-closed, to the heavy sensuous beat of the music.

"Leave her be," Henley chuckled. "You don't want to get in her way, Seska. She's like a tiger when she spots her prey."

"Spirits," Chakotay gasped, as B'Elanna shoved her way through the throng of admirers circling Tom and his vision quest suddenly made sense to him. *B'Elanna* was the big beautiful cat who would be crushed and destroyed by the sly, deadly serpent Tom Paris. 

He didn't stop to think. He just acted on pure instinct, giving a bellow of rage and charging across the dance floor to rip B'Elanna away from Tom's arms. 

~#~#~#~

NO.

It wasn't possible. Not here. Not in front of everyone. Not after all she'd done to keep him. Chakotay *couldn't* still be so obsessed with Paris that he wouldn't even allow B'Elanna to dance with him.

Seska charged after him, her face contorted with fury, her nails flexing as she visualized ripping the flesh from Paris's cursed face. 

If she had stopped, just for a second, to allow her mind to catch up with the fury coursing through her veins, she wouldn't have done it. She would have withdrawn to coolly hatch her plans of revenge. But her anger had been brewing all evening, since the moment Chakotay had dismissed her from his quarters, it had grown as her disbelieving eyes had watched the whole room beginning to drool at Paris's shameless display and now it was fuelled with too much synthahol for any sense to prevail through her red-fury of jealousy.

So at the moment Chakotay grabbed hold of B'Elanna and pulled her spitting and cursing from Paris's arms, Seska took the opportunity of that considerable distraction to launch herself at her unsuspecting prey.

~#~#~#~

His arms were already filled with half-Klingon wildcat when he came to his senses, and he had a moment to thank his long-standing friendship with B'Elanna for the fact that she responded to his man-handling with stunned disbelief rather than the right-hook across his jaw that he probably deserved.

"What the hell is your problem, Chakotay?" she demanded.

Before he could answer, the room filled with a scream of agony and they both swung towards the source of the sound.

"Kahless," B'Elanna howled, jerking herself free from Chakotay's grasp and leaping onto Seska's back.

Chakotay dove forward to grab Tom's arm, pulling him away from the two wrestling women with one hand while he used the other to slap his Com. Badge to call for an emergency transport.

"Get off me," Tom growled, struggling to break free of Chakotay's grasp before the transporter beam caught them. "I'll fucking KILL the bitch."

Looking at the mangled ruin of Tom's face, at the folds of wet flesh that hung like raw meat from four inhumanly deep claw marks, Chakotay shared Tom's sentiment but not enough to let go of his arm. As the emergency transporter caught them both in its tingling beam, he saw Ayala and Harry racing over to help B'Elanna, and so turned his attention completely to the wounded man he was holding.

"I am so fucking sorry, Tom," he whispered.

/You look, but you don't see. /

"Please state the…oh…get him on the biobed."

"Get off me. There's nothing wrong with my damned legs, you bastard."

/You look, but you don't see. /

"Exactly how much have you drunk tonight, Mr. Paris?"

"Just fix my face and save me the normal bullshit, huh?"

/You look, but you don't see. /

"As this ship's doctor, I think I should have been advised that someone had been stupid enough to bring a wild animal on board. Another centimeter and I would have been cloning you a new eye, not regenerating your face. Is it some form of feline?"

"Just a crazy fucking bitch."

"I understand you're in shock, Mr. Paris, but the sickbay is no place for gutter language like this."

/You look, but you don't see. /

"It was a snake."

The EMH and Tom swiveled to face Chakotay with twin expressions of wary bemusement.

"I really don't see…" the Doctor began.

"I'm sorry, Tom. It's my fault. I've been blind but I see it now. *You* aren't the snake."

Tom blinked slowly and then, to Chakotay's confusion, he sniffed visibly in his direction before shrugging at the Doctor.

"Dunno. He hasn't been drinking. Maybe he hit his head or something."

"Doctor, as soon as you finish regenerating Tom's face I want you to go to the Brig. I want a full analysis done on Ensign Seska. DNA, blood work, everything. I want to know how a small, slim Bajoran woman managed to almost tear Lieutenant Paris's face off with one hand."

He waited until he saw the Doctor's expression change into stunned understanding then turned to Tom with a soft, apologetic smile.

"Tom. I…I don't…well, whatever the analysis shows I just want to say that…"

"Forget it, Commander," Tom snapped. "I get it." He turned to the Doctor. "You finished? Good. I've got a drink waiting for me on the bar."

"Tom…"

Ice now, Tom's eyes blazed cold fire at Chakotay.

"I heard you," he said. "You've decided I'm 'not the snake' now?"

Chakotay nodded.

"Well, wake-up call, Commander. I never fucking was."

"I know. I *see* that now. Everything's suddenly crystal clear, Tom."

"Yeah? Well, it's too fucking late, Commander, and my name's Mr. Paris to you."

He turned on his heel and strode out of sickbay. Chakotay started after him, only to be called back by the Doctor before he reached half-way to the door.

"May I assume that you are inferring that Ensign Seska is not what she physically appears to be?"

"How else could she have injured Tom so badly?" Chakotay asked.

"Indeed, and if I follow that to its logical conclusion the inference is that she would have had no bona-fide reason to conceal her true nature from you. So the implication is that she is some form of genetically engineered spy?"

"That's my belief," Chakotay agreed.

"Then, it would also follow that she is the most probable source of any intelligence that escaped your Maquis cell. Which I assume is why you now are ready to believe Mr. Paris's assertions that he never betrayed you?"

Chakotay nodded.

"And doesn't that mean that his capture by Starfleet and imprisonment at the Penal Colony were a direct result of your erroneous decision not to rescue his damaged shuttle?"

"Yes," Chakotay hissed, his cheeks flushing.

"Then, in the colorful words of Mr. Paris, I would agree that your apology to him *is* probably 'too fucking late'."

And, despite his urge to smack the smug expression off the hologram's face, Chakotay had a sickening feeling that the Doctor was right.

Go to Part Five