See the first chapter for disclaimer and notes.

Chapter 12

As they all materialised in Sickbay, Chakotay quickly picked up Kathryn and moved her onto the main biobed. The doctor immediately began his work and Tom moved Chakotay back from the surgical bay.

"You know she's in good hands," Tom stated. At Chakotay's nod, he continued, "Now are you injured?"

Chakotay glanced at his hands and shook his head while he wiped his hands in his uniform.

"Alright, well Sam will still check you over," Tom replied before moving to assist the doctor.

Chakotay glanced over to the other two biobeds and saw Sam was currently attending to Ayala's shoulder, who was in turn talking to a now-conscious Meyer.

When Chakotay walked over, he caught the end of their conversation.

"...so, essentially, you did miss the entire thing," Ayala concluded.

"How are you doing, Ensign?" Chakotay asked.

"Better now, sir. Ensign Wildman has given me an analgesic until the doctor can give me a full check-up just to be sure. Lieutenant Ayala tells me I started regaining consciousness when the forcefields went up, but I don't remember much. I'm sorry I wasn't of any more help down there."

"Don't worry about it. We made it back." Chakotay turned to Ayala. "Mike, how's the shoulder?"

"Fine - call it the wonder of painkillers. How's the captain?"

Chakotay glanced over to the surgical bay. There were now several medical devices attached to Kathryn. The doctor worked frantically over her while calling out a series of commands to Tom.

"She lost a lot of blood down there..." he replied. He then looked back to them. "But you know the captain. She won't give up without a fight."

Chakotay awoke some hours later feeling rather uncomfortable. When he looked around, he realised he was in Sickbay on one of the biobeds and the doctor was headed towards him.

"The captain?" Chakotay said and he tried to sit up, still feeling quite groggy.

The doctor gently pushed him back down on the biobed.

"Take it easy. She's going to be fine. In fact, she should regain consciousness within the hour."

Chakotay's mind began to clear as he thought back to the previous night while the doctor began scanning him with a tricorder. He stayed in Sickbay during the several hours it took to complete the operation and had only left briefly to get cleaned up. He wanted to erase as much of what had happened down on Exoran as possible. During the operation, he felt tired and on the verge of sleep, but he forced himself to stay awake. He had to make sure Kathryn was going to be okay. The moment the doctor finished, he assured them she would make a full recovery before attending to the rest of the team and ordering them to take the next twenty-four hours off duty. He vaguely remembered a hypospray.

"There was something more in that hypospray than just a nutritional supplement, wasn't there?"

"A light sedative. You looked like you needed it, and I had to keep you here to perform some tests. There were anomalous readings showing up during a brain scan, but they decreased and ceased to exist earlier in the night. They are no longer present in you, and I can't explain them since there's nothing conclusive for me to examine. At this moment, you are completely fine. I would, however, like to monitor you for the next forty-eight hours with a cortical monitor just to be sure."

Chakotay simply nodded and rubbed his eyes. He slowly sat up and saw Ayala and Meyer were no longer in Sickbay.

"I released Lieutenant Ayala last night and Ensign Meyer around 0900 this morning, which was just over an hour ago. Both are fully recovered."

"Good to hear. Doctor, about those scans..."

Chakotay then decided to tell to doctor everything that had happened.

"So that's it. I would say it was triggered by the incident with the nebula this morning. In a previous loop, you told me there was a connection between the readings you found in me and the signals the planet was emitting."

"Did the Exorans remember the loops?"

"Yes, definitely. It seems like they would try scenario after scenario until they got what they wanted. It's frightening to think how long they could have held us captive without us knowing about it."

"It would appear we lost about a week. We received our monthly transmission from Starfleet this morning dated six days from our previous time, if that makes sense."

Just then, a few beeps sounded on a monitor next to where Kathryn was resting.

"It sounds like our captain will be back with us shortly," the doctor announced.

They both moved over towards the biobed and the doctor began taking scans. Chakotay took the time to observe Kathryn slowly made her way back to the living. While he watched and he could see her breathing change as she became more aware. The rise and fall of her chest was happening more frequently, and her eyes were shifting under her eyelids. He leaned in towards her ear.

"Captain?" he called gently to her.

She frowned and turned her head away.

"Kathryn?" he tried again.

She slowly opened her eyes and turned her head back to focus on him. Her grimace showed she was still suffering from her experience.

"Captain, welcome back," the doctor said cheerfully while he injected a hypospray into her neck. "That should help alleviate any discomfort you're feeling. I shouldn't have to tell you about the consequences of getting yourself into dangerous situations, but I'll reserve my lecture for when you're better rested. Commander, please keep it brief."

The Doctor then moved into his office to analyse the readings he'd taken.

"Care to bail me out before then?" Kathryn asked.

"I'm afraid not. I can't order him around, either," Chakotay responded lightly before changing to a more serious tone. "How are you?"

"About as you might expect from someone who 'got herself into a dangerous situation'."

At his look, she continued with a sigh. "Alright, I'm sore and I don't want to try sitting up anytime soon. How's everyone else?"

"The rest of the team are fine but have the day off, and the captain has three days from the moment she can seriously order the doctor to release her from her cell."

"I don't need three days..." she began.

"Yes, you do," he said, immediately cutting her off. "You were more seriously injured than the rest of us. To make up for it, I will treat you to dinner on all three days, provided you take it easy. I'll be checking to make sure you don't try and sneak any reports and believe me, I have my sources. If I hear you did manage to read one word of any report, I will leave Neelix to be your personal chef, and I hear he has plenty of leola root."

She was grinning at him at this stage. "I'll be good, I promise."

She reached out for his hand, and he took it in his. She paused and took a few moments before continuing.

"If I hadn't listened to you, we'd still be stuck in that loop. I would have led you all to death over and over again."

He squeezed her hand reassuringly. "I just pointed you in the right direction. You got us out of there in the end."

"I'd like to know what happened in the other loops."

He nodded. "I'll tell you over dinner."

End Notes:

- So that's it :) I'd like to thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoyed the story.

- I'd like to thank quantumsilver again for continuing to do beta duties for me while the story was being published. She really put up with a lot lol

- I'll also say thanks to my friends, MiloFoxburr and Satoho, for doing an inital read and pointing out parts that didn't work. They were changed before being beta'ed. Satoho also gave me Zelam's name by translating the word 'darkness' to Arabic for me ;)