Compos Mentis

Chapter 5

"She's not here."

Chakotay turned towards the musical voice of Deanna Troi. He had been sitting in the gardens across from Troi's office, a fresh cup of coffee in hand ready for his caffeine addicted captain.

"Who?" Chakotay tried to play dumb, then mentally slapped himself when he realised who he was talking to. Troi, thankfully, merely gave him a patient smile and asked if he minded her sitting with him.

"Please," he replied and held out his hand in invitation to the seat next to him.

"Did I miss her?" Chakotay asked, all pretence forgotten.

"Well, sort of."

"Sort of?"

"She left early and took a site-to-site transport to her mother's house."

Chakotay was alarmed, Kathryn rarely abused the site-to-site privilege, choosing to take the short walk to the transport station instead. It's where, if he timed it right, he normally caught her after her counselling sessions. Coffee in hand. She never questioned how he happened to be there, day after day. Which, Chakotay thought, should have worried him more than it did.

"Was something wrong? Is Gretchen OK?" Chakotay asked, trying to not let his concern morph into panic. Damn woman. Always made him go to red alert quicker than he could blink.

Troi huffed, "Gretchen's fine. Kathryn decided to end the session rather abruptly. I may have touched a nerve."

Now this did concern him. She had been doing so well, he thought. He knew she had a lot of respect for Deanna Troi and was very fond of her. He had been relieved she was finally opening up to someone. Despite the Admiralty doing all they could to reassure the crew during the debriefings, it still could be pretty harrowing. Kathryn was right, there were some things they should have left the memory of 70,000 light years away. So the fact she seemed comfortable discussing the briefings with Deanna, despite her initial concerns, was a huge relief. Which was why the fact that she had now, to all intents and purposes, run away was a little disconcerting.

"Tell me Chakotay, just how did you put up with her for all those years?" Deanna asked, there was slight amusement to her tone but Chakotay could tell she was concerned.

"I used to get her drunk on Antarian cider."

Deanna threw her head back and laughed, "Perhaps I should try that next time."

"Can you tell me....?"

"No." Troi interrupted. "I shouldn't be speaking to you about her at all."

"So why are you?"

"I'm trying to understand her."

Chakotay nodded thoughtfully. "There are times when Kathryn is the most open and honest Captain I have ever had the pleasure of serving."

"But?" Deanna encouraged and as she turned to look at him, he suddenly wondered how Kathryn had put up with Deanna at all. It felt as if she could look into your very soul and for such a private person as Kathryn was, that had to be exposing in the most violent way.

"But she is a little too good at perfecting the Captain's mask."

Deanna nodded in obvious agreement before Chakotay continued.

"She had to be really. There wasn't much option. We were 70,000 light years away from Starfleet. From any support. We had to merge two crews who weren't particularly fond of each other. We had nasty locals making life hell for us. We were chartering the unknown and the idea of taking time off was a luxury we couldn't afford.