Cruel and Unusual Punishment

By mizvoy

Part 8: The Crash

March 2379 (moments later)

Chakotay lay face down on the splintered remains of the old wooden dock with pieces of boat debris pressing down on his back and something soft under his head. He groaned and pushed himself up on his elbows, wincing as several chunks of wreckage slid off of his body and splashed into the water.

Beneath his face, he saw that the striped fabric seat cushion and another dark orange pad had cushioned his head, keeping it from sustaining injury when he’d been thrown from the boat. He could feel the dock swaying under him as he shifted his weight, which told him that it had been knocked off of its pilings and was now just a free-floating raft bumping against the shore.

The storm continued to saturate him with rain as he studied the orange object, trying to understand what he was seeing. He shook the rain out of his eyes again and then noticed the black strap that was looped around the seat cushion.

The he knew it was a life jacket, but not his own, which was still fastened securely over his chest. This was the second jacket, the one that he’d crammed into the seat so that Kathryn could put it on as soon as she returned from below deck. The jacket and the seat cushion had somehow landed between his head and the worn, splintered boards of the dock, probably saving his life in the process. He grinned, imagining the quip that Kathryn would make on his good luck.

“How many different ways can a person be saved by a life jacket?” she’d chuckle and then move on to tease him about his ability to crash both boats and shuttles with equal efficiency.

Then his grin faded.

It was Kathryn’s life jacket.

Kathryn’s. Life. Jacket.

Panic surged through him as he sat up on his knees and looked back toward the dying sailboat. The entire port side had been torn open by the collision, and the vessel was now settling steadily into its watery grave, pushed away from the dock and toward deeper water by the wind that had somehow increased in its ferocity. The deck was drifting with it, slowly inching away from the shore, and he needed to escape as soon as possible or find himself too far from shore. But first, he need to find Kathryn.

He struggled to keep his balance on the shifting surface as he turned on his hands and knees to look behind him. She had been on the aft deck when the boat had crashed-near the stern, tangled in the lines that she’d cut away from the mast. Like him, she would have been probably been thrown clear, unless she was still caught in the debris that littered the deck. In any event, she was behind him, either still on the boat or in the cold water.

“Kathryn,” he muttered, grappling to keep his balance on the unstable, tilted dock. He scrabbled around to face in the opposite direction and shouted her name, but he knew that his voice was swallowed up in the fury of the wind. He would have to look for her in person, for she would never hear his voice over the storm’s winds.

Still feeling dizzy, he forced himself to think things through a second time. He had last seen her on the smooth surface of the deck behind the cabin. She would have been thrown back when the boat was freed of the mast and sail, maybe completely off of the boat. If so, she was behind him in the cove, perhaps swimming to shore, but, in any event, beyond his ability to help her.

He tried to remember whether he had seen her or had heard her voice after the boat shot forward. He shook his head and decided that he would assume that she was still on the boat when they hit the dock, and probably thrown forward, as he had been, by the force of the collision. Without the good luck of landing on a solid deck cushioned by a life jacket, she might have been knocked unconscious and was probably in the water. He felt physically sick with fear.

“KATHRYN!”

Chakotay crawled to the edge of the shattered dock, hoping to find her still on the boat, entangled in the lines or wreckage, but everything on the deck had been dumped into the water. He peered into the inky waters around him, seeing all sorts of floating and submerged debris spreading slowly away from the accident site, pushed by the wind.

The rain pummeled him as he closed his eyes, imagining the angle of the impact and remembering where he’d been on the dock in relation to his location on the boat. He opened his eyes and followed a parallel line from the stern to the cove, searching through the wisps of fog at a large object that was floating in a tangled web of lines. At first he thought it was a fragment of the shattered cabin roof or the half opened sail, but then he saw a slender arm break the surface, and then a face surrounded by a fan of dark hair.

“Oh, my God. Kathryn!”

Without thinking, he jumped into the middle of the wreckage. Janeway’s body was floating in a tangled mass of rope, the left side of her head occasionally dipping below the surface in the gentle undulation of the waves. He worked his way through the wreckage to her side and lifted her head fully above the water, stuffing the life jacket under her shoulder to keep her head from submerging. He noticed that her lips were turning blue with cold and perhaps a lack of oxygen. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing, but he felt a faint and erratic pulse in her neck.

“Kathryn,” he shook her hard and then began to untangle her body from the web of ropes that held her near the water’s surface. He tried not to panic at the alabaster white of her skin, telling himself that her blood had rushed from the surface to protect her vital organs from the cold water, clinging to the hope that she hadn’t been deprived of oxygen for long.

He shook her again, shouting to her over the storm, “Kathryn, can you hear me?”

He finally stopped trying to untangle her from the ropes and simply pulled the entire tangle of ropes toward the sandy shore beside the dock. The trees were close enough to protect them from the wind. His teeth were chattering as the cold water and the aftereffects of the crash quickly sapped his strength.

Behind him, he heard the boat creak as it settled deeper into its watery grave. He wondered how much time had passed since the crash, how long the water had been washing over her head and face. She was as limp as a rag doll as he lifted her out of the water and laid her on the sand, nearly panicking when he turned her onto her side and saw water pouring from her nose and mouth.

“Kathryn! Breathe!”

He rolled her onto her back and knelt beside her head. After checking her mouth for obstructions, he breathed air into her lungs and then positioned his hands over her breastbone and performed five compressions before he breathed into her lungs again. Memories of another accident, another near-death experience, made him frantic with fear. He sent up a silent prayer.

“Kathryn! Breathe!”

“Ungggh.” She moaned, turning her head and then coughing up more water, her eyes fluttering against the rain that poured down on them. “What . . . happened?”

Chakotay was so relieved that he pulled her into a fierce embrace, tears filling his eyes as he rocked her in his arms, shielding her from the wind and rain.

“Thank God you’re all right.”

“Did we crash?” she wondered as she burrowed into his warmth, grateful for the protection his body offered her from the icy rain. “Where are we?”

“We hit the dock. I’m afraid the boat’s a total loss.”

“Were you hurt?” She looked up at him with fear in her eyes. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, but freezing. We need to get out of this wind.” As if to prove the validity of his words, a tree near the shore splintered and crashed into the cove, sending a spray of icy water over them.

“I can get us into the cabin,” she said, pulling away from him and looking up the bank toward the dark building. “Let’s go before we’re struck by lightning or crushed by a falling tree.”

Chakotay nodded and, together, they untangled her legs from the ropes and struggled to their feet.

“Regeneration cycle complete.”
It was late afternoon in San Francisco when Seven of Nine stepped down from her alcove. When she had begun her regeneration cycle, her plan had been to make use of her alcove, now installed at Starfleet headquarters, in order to minimize her need for the portable regeneration device during her stay at Jupiter station. As she gradually became aware of her surroundings, she gave her alcove a look of revulsion, wishing she could put it aside forever.

Then, as she gathered her belongings, she remembered the argument she and Chakotay had had that morning regarding the timing of her absence. It was unfortunate that her trip coincided with their first wedding anniversary, for Chakotay was disappointed that she put so little importance on the event. She didn’t understand why the recurrence of such dates should necessitate a celebration, but she now realized that it was a typical human practice that she should accept and tolerate.

The truth was that the marriage had not brought her the security and happiness she had hoped for a year earlier, and she had come close to telling him that there probably wouldn’t be a second anniversary. She had found it impossible to “work things out,” as the EMH had suggested, and she was sure that the fault was her own. She did not make Chakotay happy, and she wondered if there was any way she could rectify the problem.

If they had married in the Admiral’s timeline, and Seven had begun to wonder if they had, they must have worked through these issues during their courtship, long before they made a commitment to each other. Or perhaps they had reached some sort of agreement over their conflicted feelings for each other, realizing that their choices were limited among the crew. Their courtship would have been much different while living in Voyager’s relatively small, insulated world, more unified, less solitary.

She had concluded that they had been mistaken to marry so soon after their return and so early in their relationship, and she was becoming more and more certain that it was a mistake to continue. What steps they should take to terminate the marriage was a matter she needed to discuss with him, and with Admiral Janeway, and sooner rather than later.

She paused and mentally checked her schedule. She could arrive at the conference as late as the next day without missing any important meetings, which meant that she could spend the evening discussing these issues with her husband and begin to sort through the direction their lives should take.

She made an impulsive decision to delay her trip to Jupiter Station, changing her transport destination so that she arrived at Chakotay’s quarters at about the same time he usually came home from work.

They were, of course, the quarters that they’d shared since the wedding, yet Seven thought of them as his, since she seldom slept there. As on Voyager, she was tied to her alcove, located in a large, echoing chamber, as her home.

She let herself in and waited for his arrival, trying to think of a way to broach the subject of divorce. When his usual time of return came and went, Seven accessed her communication logs and found a message informing her that he and the admiral had gone to Lake George for a sail “to celebrate the end of their half-semester Academy course.”

“Sailing,” she muttered with impatience, making a face. “Another frivolous activity if ever I heard of one.” Yet, if she was honest with herself, she was also a little hurt that her two mentors had not included her in their outing. “I’ll surprise them,” she decided. “And I’ll discuss this situation with both of them at once.”

She returned to the transport station and was in the process of booking the next available beam-out to the east coast when she heard a familiar voice behind her.

“It really is a small world.” B’Elanna Torres sat on the bench just inside the door of the facility with a PADD in hand. “You’re the second person from Voyager that I’ve seen today.”

“Lieutenant Commander Torres,” Seven answered, turning to face her.

“Oh, come on, Seven. Call me B’Elanna.” She patted the empty seat beside her. “Come sit and we’ll compare notes on married life.”

Since the transport booking console was busy, Seven sat down beside her. “I’m afraid that we will not have much in common when it comes to our marriages.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m afraid my marriage to Chakotay is not as happy as yours and Tom’s.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” B’Elanna gave the former drone a sympathetic look and remembered how much she’d worried about this particular pairing. “Maybe you should’ve waited awhile.”

“Perhaps.”

“You’ve been married a year, right?”

“A year tomorrow.”

“What are you doing to celebrate?”

“I’m afraid I underestimated the significance of the date and made arrangements to be off-planet on business.”

“Usually it’s the husband who forgets,” B’Elanna chuckled. “Take my advice on this—you really shouldn’t set the precedent of overlooking an anniversary. If you forget this year, how will you be able to make him feel guilty for forgetting it as time goes by?”

“Anniversaries are irrelevant.”

B’Elanna laughed. “If you say so.”

Seven watched as her friend shut down the PADD of engineering schematics and reached for a new one. While the silence was comfortable, Seven was suddenly anxious to discuss her situation with a friend who seemed to be happily married. “I’m afraid that neither of us is happy with our marriage.”

B’Elanna looked up at her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t want to interrupt your work.”

“Actually, I could use an interruption about now.” B’Elanna shut down the newly-activated PADD and stuffed it into her bag, shifting to face her friend. “Talk to me.”

“I think your initial assessment was correct, that Chakotay and I hurried into this marriage without sufficient forethought.”

“I always wondered what the hurry was. Many of us thought you might want to start a family right away.”

Seven shook her head. “I’m unable to have children.”

“I’m sorry; I didn’t know,” B’Elanna answered, putting a hand on the former drone’s shoulder. “Is that a problem between you?”

“Chakotay has not expressed any disappointment about it.”

“Well, that’s good. So, what was the rush?”

“The Admiral Janeway from the future stated that Chakotay and I were married in her timeline, and so we assumed that we were compatible. Since neither of us had any close family on Earth and were losing our Voyager collective, we decided to go ahead with the ceremony in order to have a ‘family.'”

B’Elanna rolled her eyes. “You didn’t have to get married to do that. Friends can be just as important, sometimes less complicated, than family. And you do have relatives on Earth.”

“I prefer not to associate with my father’s family.”

“I remember hearing that you’d had a falling out.” B’Elanna grew thoughtful. “Where’s Chakotay now? If you delay your trip just one day, you could celebrate your anniversary now.”

“That occurred to me as well, but he and Admiral Janeway finished their grading and went sailing at Lake George to celebrate.”

“So he’s out sailing with Janeway on your first wedding anniversary?” B’Elanna shook her head in dismay. “They still spend a lot of time together, don’t they?”

“They’re teaching a class together.”

“Right. And they still have some on-going debriefings from Voyager, too, I bet.” At Seven’s nod, B’Elanna sat back and studied the woman, letting her imagination run wild, remembering all the rumors and speculation about the command team’s intimate friendship. “Curious.”

“In what way?”

“Well, marriage usually undermines the couples’ previous friendships, not the other way around. I know that Tom’s friendship with Harry suffered when we got married. But, Janeway and Chakotay are as close as ever.”

“I am not sorry that they have remained close,” Seven replied. “I want to be with both of them, and I feel certain that the admiral makes up for my deficiencies with Chakotay.”

“Your deficiencies?”

“I’m not human enough for him.” Seven gave her a steady gaze. “The admiral supplies that human touch that I lack.”

“Not human enough? In what way?”

“In many ways.” When it became clear that B’Elanna was waiting for specifics, Seven continued, “I don’t often eat, and I dislike his cooking. I prefer not to touch others and avoid even casual contact. I can easily remain awake and working for thirty-six hour stretches without fatigue. When I need rest, I regenerate in my alcove, which means we don’t sleep together. I do not have hobbies, like sailing, that we can share and have no interest in developing any. And I find most intimate human activities a waste of time.”

B’Elanna raised a brow and wondered if Seven’s term “intimate human activity” was sex, but decided that asking her that question in a public location would be an invasion of privacy even to a former drone. “No hobbies? Don’t you play velocity?”

“Velocity is physical activity, which is important for one’s health.”

“You mean unimportant hobbies, then.”

“Exactly. Sailing, for example, is a purely inconsequential activity. You go nowhere and do nothing.”

“Sailing is a method of relaxation.” When Seven scowled, B’Elanna continued, “I discovered that doing activities with Tom, joining him for his hobbies, made our marriage better. You could be a sailor, you know.”

“I wasn’t invited.”

B’Elanna sighed. “Only because they thought you were leaving for your conference, right? I can’t imagine that those two would object to your presence at anything they’re doing.”

Seven looked doubtful. “I had considered surprising them. In fact, I was thinking of transporting to the lake now.”

“You’re his wife, Seven. You have every right to join them.”

“Perhaps I will.” She smiled at the engineer, and then reached for her bag. “If you have time, I wonder if you would look at my research into the elimination of my remaining Borg implants.”

B’Elanna took the PADD and activated it, scanning quickly over the many pages of research. “I thought the doctor explored that issue already and that you need what’s left in order to regulate your cortical node.”

“I hope to eliminate all of my implants, including the node.”

B’Elanna looked up at her in alarm. “Seven, it’s too dangerous to try. I thought you’d accepted the fact that you aren’t now and never will be fully human.”

“I was reconciled to that fact on Voyager, but I can never feel at home on Earth as long as I have these implants and must regenerate. Icheb has been able to forego regeneration in recent months.”

“Because his assimilation was incomplete.” B’Elanna studied the PADD in silence, frowning at some of the procedures. “I can see a glimmer of hope here, but don’t rush into it, Seven. It looks extensive, and I would want to be sure that the doctor approves every step.” She studied the former drone, suddenly feeling sorry for her. “If you’re thinking that doing this will in some way solve your marital problems with Chakotay, then you’re wrong. He knew the truth about you from the first. You just need to spend more time together, without Janeway underfoot all the time.”

“I would never deprive him of her friendship. He needs her more than he does me, and I need her as well.”

“That can change.” B’Elanna returned the PADD to her. “In fact, it should change. Be honest with Chakotay about your feelings. Work through this together.”

“I’ll consider your advice.”

B’Elanna sat up as her transport was announced, and then gathered her things. She gave her former crewmate one last sympathetic look, realizing that the relationship between Janeway and Chakotay defied definition-more than a friendship, less than a marriage-and yet was a reality that Seven seemed to accept.

“Good luck, Seven, whatever you decide to do. If you need someone to talk to, give me a call.”

“Thank you, B’Elanna.” Seven watched her friend walk away and considered her advice, glad that her decision to delay her trip and join Chakotay and the admiral had met with her approval.

With a nod, she approached the transport clerk and made arrangements to beam to the Lake George area.

“The weather there is pretty bad,” the clerk informed her. “I’ll have to beam you to the closest transport station instead of to an exact location.”

“That is acceptable,” she answered. “I have plenty of time.”