Cat’s Eye
By Morticia
Part 4
“What’s wrong now?” Tom demanded, rolling his over-bright eyes dramatically as Chakotay marched purposefully into the shuttlebay, overtook Tom on route to the shuttle and planted himself firmly in his path.
“I want to talk to you,” he told the pilot.
“You’ve been on my ass since we got back to the ship,” Tom griped.
Chakotay shook his head to dispel the mental image that jumped unwelcomingly into his head at Tom’s unfortunate choice of words.
“You’re grounded until further notice,” Chakotay told him quietly.
“WHAT?”
“No more crew are going down to the surface until we find out what went wrong with Tuvok,” Chakotay said. “The shuttlebay doors won’t open, so don’t try taking off.”
Chakotay shuddered as Tom’s face went blank, his blue eyes altering as his pupils elongated into narrow, cat like slits. For a moment Tom seemed elsewhere, then his face reanimated into a satisfied smile.
“She wants to see you in her ready room,” Tom smirked.
“I’m sure she does,” Chakotay replied mildly.
Tom’s smug expression wavered uncertainly at Chakotay’s apparent calmness.
“I know about Tuvok, Chak,” he blurted suddenly. “So I know you’re worried about us, and I guess she should have told you what we were doing, but we’re okay, really. It’s wonderful. You can’t imagine how it feels.”
“So, tell me Tom. How *does* it feel?” Chakotay asked, his face showing no trace of the bile that was surging in the back of his throat as he looked at Tom, who wasn’t Tom anymore.
It wasn’t just the way Tom’s eyes, changed when he had his internal communications with the other Hosts, that worried Chakotay. There was something about the way Tom smiled, even something wrong with the way he walked. His whole aura and attitude had changed in a way that was impossible to define, and was possibly not even noticeable to a casual acquaintance, but Chakotay had been in love with Tom for years and he knew every nuance and expression of the pilot.
“I feel like I finally belong here. I’ve never felt like that before,” Tom told him eventually.
“Because you are one of the Grrchek?” Chakotay asked carefully.
“No,” Tom laughed. “Not belonging like that, although I guess it’s true too. I belong now because I’m as smart as the rest of you. I’m not stupid anymore,” he said triumphantly.
Chakotay stiffened then relaxed, drawing heavily on the feelings of inner calm that had just taken him two hours of meditation to achieve before he had felt able to have this confrontation.
“Explain,” he said softly.
“I never fitted in, Chak. You know that. I never belonged in Starfleet. If it hadn’t been for the Admiral I would never have even gotten into the Academy in the first place. I fly by the seat of my pants. You know that. I flunked Engineering and Astrophysics and Quantum Physics and every other ‘smart’ thing and then I got stuck on a ship, seventy years from Earth, with a bunch of near-geniuses and you wonder why I’ve got such a fucking chip on my shoulder.”
“You’re the best pilot I’ve ever met, Tom. You can also make holoprograms sit up and beg. I hardly think you can call yourself stupid,” Chakotay contradicted.
“Ever heard the term ‘idiot savant’ Chakotay? That’s what my dad called me. He said all I had to do was amaze people with the couple of things that I *could* do, and as long as I had the right, or should I say wrong, ‘attitude’ no one would ever realise how thick I really was,” Tom said bitterly.
“You must have passed your other classes, Tom to have stayed in the Academy as long as you did,” Chakotay argued, feeling sick at the thought of a father saying such a terrible thing to his son.
“You think so? All I had to do was mess about in class like I thought it was all beneath me, and the Admiral arranged for me to get the answers to the exams before I took them,” Tom confessed. “I was kind of glad when I got thrown out, except the Admiral said it just proved that my flying ability was a fluke and I *was* as stupid as he always thought I was. I was a real disappointment to him, Chakotay. A genetic disaster. He’d like me now, though. Now I’m smart.”
“Are you?” Chakotay asked thoughtfully.
“I know *everything* Chakotay. Everything that I used to struggle to get my head around is just there at the tip of my fingers now. The things that used to be all fuzzy are suddenly clear. Shit, I could strip the warp core single-handed. I can sit and talk to Harry and B’Elanna and actually take part in the conversation instead of being sarcastic to cover up the fact that I don’t know what the fuck they are talking about,” Tom said happily. Then his face fell. “I’m going to miss it,” he confessed. “It’s going to be hard to go back to feeling stupid again.”
“I never realised, Tom. I’m sorry,” Chakotay said softly, deciding that he had just found another damned good reason to smack Admiral Paris in the face for causing his son to have grown up with such a low opinion of himself. This wasn’t the time or place to try and disabuse Tom of years of feeling inadequate though, so he let it go. For now. So all he said was, “Thank you for explaining your feelings to me, Tom.”
Tom gave a brilliant smile.
“Hell, you’re easy to talk to. Didn’t you know that?” he asked.
“So you aren’t mad at me for grounding you?” Chakotay asked suspiciously.
A look of genuine surprise crossed Tom’s face and his brow creased as he considered the question.
“I *was*,” he replied slowly, “but I’m not now. It’s impossible to stay mad at you, I guess.”
He shrugged, gave another wide, friendly smile, and sauntered off, whistling happily.
/Since when?/ Chakotay wondered as Tom walked away. /When did I suddenly become someone ‘easy to talk to’, Tom? Someone you could confess secrets to? When did you start finding it impossible to stay mad at me?/
~~~
Chakotay took a deep breath and stilled his features into passivity as he returned the Captain’s gaze. He was glad again that he had been given sufficient warning of her return to Voyager, and moreover, the ‘circumstances’ of her return, for him to have taken the opportunity to meditate before confronting any of the ‘Hosts’.
He felt centered and calm, in harmony with his spirit, and he drew on that inner strength to control his reaction to her over-bright eyes and decidedly odd words.
“It’s as though my consciousness has expanded to fill the universe, Chakotay,” she told him. “I want to know something and instantly it’s there. I wonder about a member of the crew and I am with that person, as though I am in the same room, and if they have a symbiont too, I am able to look out through their eyes.”
“Perhaps you should have considered waiting a few days before allowing any other crewmembers to become Hosts,” Chakotay suggested mildly.
“We CAN’T wait, Chakotay. You don’t understand. The Grrchek showed me the Nebula. There are forces here, solar flares that create cosmic winds that whip up and lash through space in a ripple effect. If we don’t land Voyager now, she’ll be ripped apart by the next flare.
“Yet the planet itself is unstable. There is a high likelihood of seismic activity, and that will make Voyager vulnerable on the ground. We only have a couple of months to get her repaired and relaunched before we lose any chance of leaving here at all,” Kathryn explained earnestly.
“And that doesn’t strike you as a little – um – convenient?” Chakotay asked, his face expressionless.
Kathryn flushed with annoyance at his implication. He didn’t *know*, he hadn’t been in the wall, he wasn’t currently part of the Grrchek. He didn’t know *anything*.
"There’s no danger here. I would *know* if there was danger,” she insisted. “Listen to me Chakotay. Trust me!”
“I have no choice, Kathryn, since you chose to allow the Grrchek to inhabit thirty-eight key members of the crew before advising me about the situation,” Chakotay replied quietly, only his eyes revealing the depth of his anger at her actions.
Kathryn couldn’t prevent a tiny smile of triumph. His next words quickly banished her self-satisfaction though.
“Just as I have had no choice except to relieve you of Command.”
“You can’t,” she growled.
Chakotay shrugged calmly.
“I already have. It’s regulations, Kathryn. You are being inhabited by an alien symbiont. The Doctor has signed my recommendation that you are relieved of command. Not that it makes much difference, I suppose, since we can’t leave the system without the repairs, and we can’t get the repairs without the Grrchek’s help.”
“So what are you saying?” Kathryn demanded.
“That, for now, we will continue with your ‘arrangement’ with the Grrchek. No further members of the crew will become Hosts, however, and all repairs and alterations will be monitored and checked by the rest of the crew. No more ‘arrangements’ will be made without me clearing them first and you, and every other member of the crew will report directly to me for the duration of our stay here,” Chakotay told her.
Kathryn was so furious that she could barely breathe. How dare he? How fucking dare he? It was *her* ship, *her* crew. Didn’t he realise what was going on here? Couldn’t he *see* the opportunity that they had stumbled across.
No, evidently not. His puny brain couldn’t comprehend the magnificent gift of the Grrchek. He was trapped inside his own head while she could reach out and see into the very heart of the stars around them.
“You’re a blind fool, Chakotay. You have no idea of what is going on here. What I can see. What I know. What I can do. The Grrchek won’t only repair Voyager. It will make her faster, stronger, better, just as it is making us smarter, and stronger and better.”
“Except it isn’t making Tuvok better, is it?” Chakotay challenged. “I don’t think the symbiont is doing much good for him.”
Kathryn flushed and deflated.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered.
“So you aren’t omniscient then, after all?” Chakotay asked, his face blank but his words coldly mocking.
“We never said we were,” Kathryn retorted.
“WE?”
Kathryn’s face contorted in horror as she realised the implications of what she had unthinkingly said.
“Oh god, Chakotay. What have I done?” she gasped.
“You just made the same mistake the Savernan did, Kathryn,” Chakotay replied with surprising kindness. “You thought you could resist the lure. You were arrogant. It’s a common trait among Captains. I’ve been known to be arrogant myself,” he added, with a self-depreciating smile.
“You?” Kathryn joked weakly, trying to regain her composure. “Surely not.”
“I think it’s too late to turn back the clock. We are going to have to proceed with this and pray that we get the ship repaired before any of you forget that you still want to be human, Kathryn. I spoke to Tom earlier. He’s been with his symbiont for less than twenty-four hours and he already can’t bear the thought of letting it go.”
“Tom’s a special case, Chakotay. He has a lot of insecurities that the symbiont allows him to forget. He also has an addictive personality. He’s had problems with alcohol in the past. Once someone has been addicted to something, they find it harder to resist other addictions. His reaction to the symbiont isn’t an indication that the other Hosts will have the same problem.”
“But you knew that about him before you took him into that cave, Kathryn. You knew what the symbiont would do to him,” Chakotay accused.
“He’s our best pilot, Chakotay. The Grrchek needs his knowledge. I had no choice,” Kathryn defended herself.
“Of course you had a choice. He’s not our *only* pilot. He’s a vulnerable man emotionally, Kathryn and you have put him at risk.”
“He’s a senior officer of Voyager, Chakotay. It’s his duty to takes risks for the good of the crew.”
“Seven told me what happened, Kathryn. She said you used your relationship with him to make him agree to the symbiosis and then used his ‘joining’ to convince the others that it was safe to agree too. No one could believe that you would put your own lover in danger. That’s why they agreed. You used him, Kathryn. He loves you, and you used him. Do you see now why you can’t be in command?”
“Yes,” she admitted softly. “You’re right, Chakotay. I used him. I’d do it again to get us all home. I understand why you think you can’t trust me. As long as you don’t hinder the repair of the ship, I will support you as the temporary Captain. No more hosts will be chosen without your agreement.”
Chakotay regarded her suspiciously.
“I didn’t expect you to agree so quickly,” he said.
Kathryn looked at him thoughtfully.
“You’re right,” she said slowly. “I was furious at first, but it makes sense to take precautions. It’s more than that, though. I don’t want to fight you. You’re different, somehow. Just talking to you like this seems to calm me down. It’s impossible to stay mad at you, I guess.”
Chakotay narrowed his eyes. There was nothing different about *him*, yet he had noticed the same reaction in all of the Hosts. Especially the way Tom had responded towards him earlier, and now Kathryn had used the very same phrase as Tom. ‘It’s impossible to stay mad at you, I guess.’
Perhaps it was the link. Perhaps Tom’s feelings had passed back through the ‘collective’ so that *none* of the Hosts could feel mad at him. But where or who had Tom’s feeling originated from?
~~~
“The symbiont isn’t a tangible physical being, Captain,” the Doctor pronounced.
Chakotay had to stop himself looking over his shoulder. He had gotten out of the habit of responding to the title, and was reluctant to start. He had a horrible feeling that once he accepted the mantle of Captain once more, it would be as difficult for him to lay it down as it would be for the Hosts to give up their symbionts.
“Does it register on your tricorder?” he asked the Doctor.
“Only as an anomalous energy reading throughout his whole body. There is *something* inside him, but I can’t accurately tell you what it is, and I can’t find a way to remove it,” the Doctor replied angrily.
Chakotay absently patted the hologram on the arm. He knew that the Doctor found it difficult to admit to being unable to solve a problem.
“Apparently the symbiont can’t leave him unless he allows it to,” he told the Doctor.
“Well in that case it’s here for the duration, because I don’t think Mr Tuvok wants to let it go,” the hologram snapped sarcastically.
A loud howl ripped through the Sickbay as though Tuvok was agreeing with him.
“Will he die?” Chakotay asked.
“I don’t know, Captain. Although the symptoms are the same, it’s not actually a real Ponn Farr, so it’s not necessarily life threatening by itself. The way he is struggling within his restraints is causing me concern, however, and no amount of tranquilizers seem to be working. He hasn’t stopped struggling or screaming for over twenty hours.”
“What’s your diagnosis though? What do you think went wrong?” Chakotay demanded.
“He attempted an unauthorized and highly irresponsible joining with an unknown alien species,” the Doctor snapped. “That’s what went wrong.”
Chakotay took a shuddering deep breath and willed himself not to bite back at the Doctor’s sarcasm.
“I mean specifically with Tuvok. None of the other thirty-seven hosts have had these side-effects. Is it due to his Vulcan physiology?”
“It’s due to his Vulcan psychology in my opinion,” the Doctor sniffed. “The symbiont seems to have ripped away his mental control. Just as the ‘blood fever’ of the Ponn Farr rips away a Vulcan’s carefully constructed barrier against emotions, so this symbiont has seemed to have the same effect on him. Mr. Tuvok is suffering from a dose of raw emotion, I think, and he’s not equipped to deal with it. His emotions are literally driving him insane.”
“You said you thought I might be able to help him,” Chakotay reminded the Doctor.
“Somehow we need to break through his madness long enough for him to regain enough rationality to release the symbiont from his body. In my opinion you are the only person who might be able to do that. You understand meditation, Captain. If you could calm him down for long enough, you might be able to make a connection with him.”
Chakotay looked uncertainly at the threshing Vulcan.
“How do you suggest I calm him down?” he asked. “I can’t imagine him listening to me in this state.”
“In view of the striking similarity between his current condition and a Vulcan Ponn Farr, I would suggest that a sexual connection would be most appropriate,” the Doctor replied casually.
Chakotay blanched as he struggled for a reply.
“Your sense of humor leaves a lot to be desired,” he finally managed.
“I fail to see any humor in this situation, Captain,” the Doctor replied, in his most affronted voice. “A member of *your* crew is in severe physical and mental distress and it is logical, given the similarities with Ponn Farr, that a sexual liaison between yourself and Mr. Tuvok may save his life.”
“Why me?” Chakotay asked quietly.
“Because, as I said, you have the mental control not to exacerbate his condition. You can possibly use the post-coital moment to help Mr. Tuvok release the symbiont. You are physically strong enough to withstand a Vulcan rut, and you are homosexual so it will not be distressingly distasteful to you to partake in the necessary act.”
“Tuvok isn’t homosexual,” Chakotay reminded him.
“The only female member of the Crew who is physically strong enough to mate with him in this condition is B’Elanna Torres. Since she is a Host, I believe her presence will simply increase Mr. Tuvok’s distress.”
Chakotay shuddered.
“I can’t do it,” he admitted. “I can’t just do something like that to someone who has never even expressed physical interest in me. The idea feels like rape to me.”
But that wasn’t really his problem with the idea, and he knew it. He hadn’t touched another man for 7 years. He had been celibate since the first time he had seen Tom Paris, and even in accepting that Tom would never be his, he had decided that no one else would ever take Tom’s place in his heart. He would rather have nothing than accept a pale substitute.
“If it were genuine Ponn Farr, and you were the only person who could save his life, would you do it?” the Doctor asked pointedly. “Mr. Tuvok is either dying, or very much wishing he were, at the moment. You have the ability to take his pain away. Are your morals or *feelings* more important than his life, Captain?”
Chakotay conceded the point by closing his eyes and taking a deep, steadying breath.
He stepped forward towards Tuvok’s bio-bed. The Vulcan was straining against his restraints, his dark skin sheened with perspiration, his usually immobile face contorted with agony.
/Forgive me, Tom/ Chakotay whispered to himself, as he stepped forwards and ran a gentle, comforting hand through Tuvok’s short, damp hair.
Tuvok’s writhing stilled abruptly, his wild, rolling eyes seeming to focus on Chakotay’s face.
“Com- commander?” he gasped from a throat hoarse with screaming.
“Can I help? Can I take your pain away?” Chakotay asked softly.
“Need, need,” Tuvok mumbled.
“What do you need?” Chakotay asked, trailing his fingers gently down the side of Tuvok’s right cheekbone then snatching them away as Tuvok’s head twisted, but not before Tuvok’s teeth had gouged his palm.
“Need YOU,” Tuvok growled, arching his back against his restraints.
Chakotay drew deep within himself for strength.
“Doctor, erect a forcefield, release the bio-bed restraints, lock down sickbay and then deactivate yourself.”
Then he turned to look into Tuvok’s alien, hungry eyes and a shiver of combined fear and lust ran through his body. It had been too long, too damned long since he had allowed himself to touch or be touched by another person, and years more than that since he had engaged in the kind of wild, dangerous sex that Tuvok’s need promised.
He was going to get hurt, there was no doubt in his mind about that. So was Tuvok. As soon as the restraints came off the Vulcan was going to launch 6 foot of solid muscle against him in an animalistic rage and if they both came out of it with less than a few broken bones, they were going to be lucky.
And maybe, when it was all over, Tuvok would be sane again.
Or maybe not.
And what would he be?
He’d be betraying Tom, wouldn’t he? Betraying his love for Tom, for a wild sexual tussle with a mad Vulcan.
To save Tuvok’s life, he reminded himself. To save Tuvok’s sanity. To save a member of the crew. His crew.
He had no choice.
It was only as the restraining bands released Tuvok, and the dark muscular body leapt off the bed to knock Chakotay to the floor in a tangle of thrashing limbs, that he remembered the symbiont and realised that every one of the other thirty-seven Hosts would experience this too.