ALL THAT SHE CAN GIVE
Chapter 1
They had been sitting in the cell for what seemed like hours when two guards threw open the door and seized Tuvok, dragging him from the room before its other occupants could react. B'Elanna looked over at the Captain, who hadn't moved the entire time they'd been there. She had a blank look on her face, but B'Elanna could tell she was thinking, trying to figure out a way to escape. Her auburn head jerked up at the sound of a scream, and B'Elanna realized with a start that it was Tuvok. When she looked back at the Captain, she was shocked at the sight that met her eyes. A lone tear was meandering its way down her cheek, and more filled her eyes. Her expression, however, remained the same.
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About two hours later, the guards opened the door and threw an obviously exhausted Tuvok to the floor. They then reached for her, and, as she struggled, the Captain leapt in front of her.
"Take me, and leave her be," she said. The two men exchanged glances, but didn't release the half-Klingon. B'Elanna glanced back and forth between Janeway and the pair of guards.
"Captain—" Janeway held up a hand, and the engineer fell silent.
"I said, take me and leave her be." After a moment, they thrust her to the floor and grasped Janeway by the arms, wrenching her towards them and twisting the slender limbs painfully behind her back. Her face remained stony, but B'Elanna could see the pain in her clear blue eyes.
As they led the Captain from the room, one turned to her and said, "She will pay the price for your insolence, as well as her own." B'Elanna fought the urge to haul off and deck him, and sank down beside Tuvok and examined him more closely. His uniform jacket had been ripped off, and there were cuts and bruises on his face and arms, evidence of a beating. She tried to make him comfortable as the first cries rang out. B'Elanna listened to the screams of her Captain with a heavy heart, wincing as they were cut off, only to continue several seconds later, louder than before. She heard the distinct sound of someone being hit, and another cry rang out. A moment later, she heard a low humming sound, as if someone had turned on something electric, then a zap and a shriek. The half-Klingon could now identify the sounds of a severe beating taking place, and barely suppressed the urge to hit something herself.
"Tuvok, what did they do to you when you were out there? How bad was it?" Her voice was quiet.
"If you are looking for words of comfort at this time, I cannot give them. She is most likely receiving much worse treatment than I myself did." As he finished, a cracking sound resounded throughout the corridor, followed by a blood-curdling scream. The scream seemed to go on forever, B'Elanna's ears ringing with the sound of it long after it stopped. Moments later, there were footsteps out in the passage, and the door flew open to reveal the two guards dragging the body of Kathryn Janeway between them. They threw her inside and left. Horrified, B'Elanna crouched down beside her, rolling her over onto her back. She gasped when she saw her captain's bloody face. Bruises covered every visible part of her body, and there were burn marks on her face and neck. Inhaling the nauseating stench of fresh blood and burnt skin, B'Elanna pressed two fingers to the inside of her neck, and was immensely relieved to find weak, but steady, pulse. The battered woman moaned softly, and B'Elanna waited patiently for her to regain consciousness. She groaned again, and her face twisted into a grimace as she murmured something. B'Elanna's eyes widened, but she said nothing. Kathryn's eyes fluttered open, and she winced as she tried to sit up, this time crying out in pain. Seeing this, B'Elanna gently pushed her back down into a prone position, carefully feeling around for internal injuries. When she reached Kathryn's ribs, another cry escaped her lips. Kathryn took short, shallow breaths, trying to ease the pain in her chest. She looked down at her arm, and B'Elanna followed her gaze. The limb was bent at an unnatural angle, and, unseen by the engineer, a small bit of bone protruded from a break in the skin caused by the force of the deviating bone, the white of the bone barely contrasting to the pale flesh around it.
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Sometime later, two new guards entered, took a cursory glance of the occupants of the room, and reached for B'Elanna. Once again, Kathryn jumped in front of her, teeth clenched and Captain's Mask securely in place. She demanded that they take her instead, and this time both of her officers objected.
"Captain, it would not be wise for you to—" Kathryn, scarcely staying on her feet, held up a commanding hand as she had done earlier, nearly collapsing as a result.
"Captain—" B'Elanna got no further as the guards shrugged and took hold of her, removing her from the room.
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They very nearly had to carry her down the corridor to the room where they inflicted their torture. This time, however, they did not tie her to a chair, but left her free to move about the room. They left her alone, and a moment later, a different man entered, one who obviously held a place of high power here. He examined her with his eyes, moving towards her, and she remained motionless, her mask still in place. Abruptly, he advanced on her, a gleam in his eye. Seeing this, she backed away, cradling her broken arm. He leapt at her, tearing her clothes off and forcing himself upon her.
She screamed, no longer able to hold back her emotion behind the mask.
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B'Elanna paced the cell, unable to stay still. She froze when she heard the scream, different from the ones she'd heard before. This one held pain, yes, but it also held fear. The color drained from her face as she sank down on the bench beside Tuvok, whose face remained stony, though she could see a muscle twitching in his cheek, and the way his temples rippled, ever so slightly, as he worked his jaw. There came the sound of footsteps in the passageway, and B'Elanna moved towards the door slowly, afraid of what she would see when it opened. It swung open, and at first all she saw was one of the guards from earlier, but then she saw that he was dragging a sheet of some sort behind him. He got it to the doorway, then gave it a sharp kick to get it the rest of the way inside. The door slammed shut as B'Elanna hunkered down beside the body of her captain. She wasn't moving, and there was blood on the sheet. The engineer took a deep breath and lifted a corner of the blanket. What she saw was enough to make her sick to both stomachs. She closed her eyes, the picture of her captain swimming through her mind. She turned to Tuvok, but before she could speak, the ground moved beneath her, shaking violently. As the lights flickered, then went dark as their power supply was severed, the three occupants of the cell were surrounded in a cloud of blue.
The moment they appeared on the transporter pad, B'Elanna yelled, "Beam us all to sickbay now!"
They materialized a half a second a later in Voyager's sickbay, where the Doctor waited, Tom at his side and Chakotay pacing the floor behind them. The moment the medic saw his wife, he ran to her, pulling her into a great bear hug. She pushed him away a second later, and they could see Chakotay frozen in mid-step across the medical bay, staring at the bloody bundle of blankets that lay unmoving at B'Elanna's feet. He moved quickly to kneel beside his captain, pulling a corner of the sheet aside with a trembling hand. Seeing her pretty face marred so horribly made him turn away, covering his mouth with both hands. B'Elanna crouched and encircled him in her arms as Tom and the Doctor carefully lifted Kathryn to the biobed in the nearby surgical area. They went to work immediately, healing her numerous injuries.
Chakotay huddled in his half-Klingon friend's arms as she rocked him gently, whispering over and over, "It'll be all right. She'll be all right, Chakotay." He cried softly, his tears soaking the shoulder of her gray uniform t-shirt.
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