NOTE: So people asked, and I thought maybe there was merit to the request. You really need to have read "Joyride" before this. I promise it won't stay this angsty for long. This is just where Chakotay wanted to begin his story, so after some hedging I finally gave in and let him tell it his way.

Road Trip

Part 1

The late-evening mist gathers on your shoulders like a lead weight.

Six weeks removed from Voyager, it shouldn't feel like this. Six weeks removed from Voyager, you should be accustomed to the feel of Earth's gravity holding you close to her blue and green surface, but every strike of your feet against the pavement lances up your calves and into your knees, every push-off yanks at your hamstrings and settles into your lower back.

You blamed Voyager at first. You worked out in the Holodeck whenever you could, but even when set at Earth Normal, a ship's artificial gravity always feels a little different from actual terrestrial gravity. But you've been living on the Terran surface for six weeks, more than enough time to adjust to the pull of the planet.

You looked for another excuse. Closer now to fifty than to forty – hell, closer to fifty than to forty-five – maybe you're just not a morning runner anymore. Maybe the difficulty of getting out of bed after hours of fitful sleep makes it impossible for a dawn workout to be anything but slow and sluggish.

You switched to evening runs along the Pacific coast, but now, gasping for breath with every lumbering step, you have to admit once again that it isn't just the gravity that's holding you down, it isn't your age, and it isn't the time of day.

It is all of these things, and so many more.

You lurch to a halt and lean over, hands on your bent knees, and you feel…heavy. Not in a literal body mass way, but weighted. Pushed down. Restrained.

Your debriefing was a tense affair. Seated before the Review Board and the lead counselor assigned to the Voyager crew, you relived every mission you led and every decision you made out there. You tried to stay detached and keep things as clinical as possible because you knew the more emotionally involved and defensive you became, the more they'd question your stability, and things went well enough for a while. But then the family celebration happened, the night you and Seven ground against each other on the dance floor and shoved each other up against walls and wound up in a musty room in a seedy hotel far away from Starfleet Headquarters. You should have known then that it was over. The fact that you both wanted to get away from all those prying eyes should have told you that it was wrong, at least as much as your urge – and Seven's – to get out of that dingy hotel room and away from each other at the first light of day.

You felt the beginnings of it then, the heaviness, the knot in the pit of your stomach that didn't go away even after B'Elanna found you in the gym at HQ and shook her bat'leth at you, even after Seven coolly informed you that she wished to dissolve your pair bond.

You tried to talk her out of it.

You have thanked every spirit that ever was that she didn't listen to you.

The rest of your debriefing… You shake your head and close your eyes against the sun setting over the ocean. "Contentious" doesn't even begin to cover what happened in those windowless little rooms after Seven strolled out of your life. Something inside you broke wide open and all the anger and resentment and shame you'd kept at bay since Kolopak's death came pouring out of you. You can't even remember what you said. When you think about it, all you remember is a long, animal howl of despair, dredged up from the depths of your spirit and directed at anyone and everyone that dared to cross your path.

You finished your debriefing spent and anguished. Back in your Starfleet-assigned apartment, you paced and muttered to yourself long into the night, avoiding the too-soft bed and the hours of introspection that awaited you there, until you finally couldn't take it anymore and bluffed your way onto Voyager. You walked the halls with heavy, measured steps, and fell into your own bed alone, where you managed the first restful sleep you'd had in a month.

When you beamed off the ship, the lead counselor, Lieutenant Commander Moe Crall, met you in the transporter room at HQ. You followed him back to his office and talked for a long time – and unlike the debriefing, you can remember exactly what you said in Moe's sunny office overlooking the Golden Gate.

You went over it all again. Admiral Janeway's dire warnings. Rudy Ransom's impossible choices. The Hirogen. Kashyk. Jaffen. Riley Frazier. The Hirogen. Fair Haven. The Vori and the Kradin. The Void. Gul Evek. Kolopak. After your own stories, the others came forth. Joe Carey's death. Samantha Wildman's powerful loneliness. Pablo Baytart's confusion and anguish. Kurt Bandera's unfocused rage. Lon Suder's depthless madness. With the telling of every story, the burden of seven lost years settled on you. "It wasn't easy," Moe said, "to carry all of that with you. Was it?"

"No. It wasn't."

"And who did you go to when you needed to vent, Commander?"

You reopen your eyes and gaze over the now-dark ocean. Your refusal to answer Moe's question probably delayed your reinstatement by a day or two, but there was no way in hell you were going to admit to the string of holocharacters you programmed and used and cast aside, the ones who started out as convenient listeners but became so much more – and so much less – in those last years, the ones who probably led directly to that night on the dance floor with a woman barely half your age.

When Owen Paris called you into his office at HQ the next day and pressed full Commander's pips into your palm and started outlining your reassignment choices, you scarcely heard a word he said. For the first time in a month, your thoughts were clear and focused, and centered on one thing only: The notion that while your debriefing was difficult, Kathryn's must have been a thousand times worse…but your relationship with her is now so damaged that she will never seek you out to talk about it.

With that thought, the weight you'd been trying to shake off settled over you completely.

It's been with you ever since.

You know exactly what it is.

It isn't just middle age and unfamiliar gravity and time past and days lost.

It's opportunities missed, dreams unfulfilled, words left unspoken.

It's parameters, regulations, rules.

It's sorrow, betrayal, guilt.

You asked Moe Crall to let you know when Kathryn tries to board Voyager, because you know she will.

You know, too, that the only way she's ever going to allow you to get close to her is if you take her by surprise. Arranging a chance meeting on the HQ grounds would be simpler and less emotionally fraught, but somehow you know that this discussion needs to happen on her turf, and no turf belongs to her more completely than Voyager.

With one last look at the ocean, you turn and make your way back to your sterile little apartment near HQ, where you sprawl across the sofa in your dank running clothes. You ask the computer to play your messages. There's another one from Sonia Greentree at the University of Washington, there's the obligatory invitation from Tom and B'Elanna, there's a quick and concerned message from your sister. There are others, but neither of the ones you were hoping for, the one you're certain will come soon and the one that never will. The weight of seven years sinks into your bones.

Kathryn's debriefing has been over for a little more than six hours.

You pour yourself the first of many drinks, and settle in to wait.

-End of Part 1-