He just sits there.

I thought he'd pace like a caged animal, perhaps throw himself against the force field in a maddened frenzy when he saw me. Or sometimes I imagined finding him rocking in silent misery, curled in upon himself, hugging his long legs in his equally elegant arms.

He's supposed to be insane by now.

The Doctor begged us not to put him in the brig. He told such horror stories of Tom's claustrophobia that he made it sound more inhuman to cage him than to kill him. The Doctor said that imprisoning Tom Paris for the remainder of our journey was cruel and unusual punishment and that Tom would literally go mad.

After the trial, the Captain proposed leaving him on an uninhabited planet. She said it was the only humane way to punish his crimes that she had at her disposal. It took a combination of ego-stroking and intimidation to make her change her mind.

Between assuring her that I had absolute faith in her ability to get us home soon enough for Tom to be transferred back to Auckland, sanity intact, and grave hints that the crew of my former ship would take violent exception to the idea that Tom was simply to be put off Voyager, I changed her mind.

"He has to be seen to pay," I told her and, although she hated the idea of giving in to my demand for vengeance, she had seen the vid for herself so never doubted that Tom deserved to be punished.

Perhaps she was praying for a miracle. It was easier for her to procrastinate, to agree that Tom should be imprisoned pending a later decision, than to make the irreversible choice of leaving him behind. Easier, for sure, to offer Admiral Paris the return of an insane son, than to justify abandoning him completely.

So the only problem that I then had was ensuring that Tom did go mad.

I didn't want to leave anything to chance. Just to be certain, I insisted he was put into solitary confinement. Not only was he forbidden any visitors, (not that anyone wanted to visit him), but I ordered that none of his guards were allowed to speak with him either.

He's been alone for nine months.

At first the Captain merely confined him to quarters, but despite Tuvok's best efforts, it was impossible to keep him safe. There were too many people who wanted him to pay for his crimes, and too many moments when the ship would be under attack for the security around Tom's quarters to remain inviolate.

After the third beating, when Tom was so badly injured that he spent two weeks in stasis while the Doctor cloned him new kidneys and spleen, the Captain gave in. Tom was moved to the brig where he has remained to this day.

For the first six months, I alone had access to his cell. It was I who took his meals. I who injected the nutritional supplements into his body when he attempted to starve himself to death. I who crept into the brig in the early hours of the morning, disturbing his sleep, attempting to wear him down through sheer exhaustion.

Instead I simply exhausted myself until I had no choice except to give up smashing my head against his brick wall. 

This is the first time that I have visited him in over three months.

I came here today hoping to find a mad man.

But he's cold, aloof, untouchable. His face is a mask of emotionless pride. He's a glacier. So cold that I could burn myself on his silent hatred.

No-one knows what secrets he hides behind those icy eyes.

I have to clench my fists to prevent myself from grabbing his shoulders and shaking him until he shatters, until he splinters apart and reveals the unspeakable horrors that he witnessed, that he participated in, that destroyed him.

"TELL ME WHY," I scream at him, driven past endurance by the stone wall of his face.

He doesn't even blink.

I use my anger and my suffering to strike him with an emotional tsunami yet my rage washes over him harmlessly. He cannot be eroded or worn down. He is granite. He is ice.

Yet, he is still sane. At least as far as Tuvok defines sanity and ultimately, that's the only yardstick that matters now.

"Go away, Chakotay," he says, his voice so raspy with disuse that I shudder at how many months it has been since he has uttered a word other than the terrible screaming nightmares that the Security Guards report every night.

"A decision's been made," I tell him. "We can't justify the resources any longer to keep you on board. We're going to leave you on an uninhabited planet."

He simply shrugs as though my words have no meaning to him.

"Don't you understand?" I demand. "We're going to leave you. Alone. Forever."

And, just for a moment, I imagine that I see a flicker of fear deep within those expressionless eyes. Although perhaps I only see what I want to see. Just as I have spent all these months believing what I want to believe, rather than the evidence of my own eyes.

"Agree to the mind-meld," I snarl. "It's the only thing that can possibly save you."

And he smiles.

Such a terrible expression. It mocks me with its incongruity on the face of a man whose soul has been crushed.

"No," he says, as he has always said, as he will always say.

I have bullied him, pleaded with him. I have cried, I have raged, I have left him abandoned and alone. I have tried everything within my power to force Tom to tell us what really happened down there. I have tried every argument to convince Tuvok to act despite Tom's refusal.

I have even tried to drive the man temporarily insane. I have tried to have him judged mentally incompetent, so that I can demand a re-trial and force Tuvok to delve into the secrets that Tom so jealously keeps.

But I've run out of time.

So perhaps it's time to try the only remaining key that might fit the lock of Tom's heart.

"I love you," I tell him.

And, finally, he shatters.

Go to Chapter One