PART THREE
Shauneez stared at the message with amazement, a smile forming on her lips. She should have known Carina would try something like this. She sat down on the edge of Chakotay's bed, a tear rolling down her cheek as she read the message again.
Dear Aunt Shauneez
Please do not be alarmed. I know you’ll be worried and that I haven’t said goodbye to you. I thought you might want to hold me back from the path I’ve chosen, and that is to take my father to Earth. I love him, Aunt Shauneez and cannot bear to see him like this. Even though he lashes out at me at times, I know that I am not the object of all his misery. My mother did little to make him happy; I do not think she ever tried to make him happy or if she could make him happy.
I have taken our shuttle and will let you know when we arrive on Earth. You know my father is dead set against medical assistance, but this time the decision is not his to make. He might want to kill me for it. What I know is that his deliverance from all his ills is there, on Earth, in the person of Admiral Kathryn Greaves.
Yes, I know now about her.
Keep us in your thoughts, always.
Carina.
P.S: I hope you're not too angry that I've enlisted Tomaso's help.
No, she wasn't surprised at all that Carina had enlisted Tomaso's help. All the years they had lived on Dorvan, those two had been like brother and sister. Most of the time, Shauneez knew, because Carina had grown up as an only child with a father who tried to do his best by her and a mother too impassive to understand how a little girl needed a mother who was not only a mother but a counsellor, a friend, a buddy. Carina hungered for company, to be loved, to be accepted and in her own children, especially Tomaso, she had found it. In her own home, Carina had missed that, missed the connection with Annika, however inadequate that connection was; she missed it even more now.
Tomaso and Carina, always arguing, always fighting, always trying to outdo one another, always looking out for each other. Tomaso who was more protective of Carina than he was of Nina and Remy. Tomaso who once told her that Carina was nothing like her mother, but rather like someone else he knew.
"Who, Tomaso?" she had asked her firstborn son. He was only about nine or ten at the time and already destined for Starfleet Academy. It was all he dreamed of. He had looked at her with his dark eyes so like Chakotay's, eyes in which the eagerness always lay on the surface whenever he spoke of Starfleet and Voyager.
"Admiral Janeway. It's a pity Aunt Annika won't let Carina study Voyager's exploits, or learn of Captain Kathryn Janeway, Mama."
Sighing, Shauneez put the PADD down on the bed again. Annika had struggled with another woman's memory, always struggled, always felt she was second best in Chakotay's affections. That much was clear to her, Shauneez, living so close to her brother and sister-in-law. And after Annika's death, Chakotay had become a haunted, hunted man, driven by unknown demons. None of them knew what troubled him and Chakotay, always, always so private, never spoke of his sorrows, never shared his innermost tribulations with anyone. But she guessed that it had to do with Kathryn Janeway.
It was time to clean the house and lock it up, to arrange for someone to keep an eye on it. It was time she headed back to Dorvan. Carina had taken any decision she might have wanted to make herself out of her hands. There was nothing for her to do now, except wait for news of her brother's recovery.
Still, if Carina had romantic notions about her father and Kathryn Janeway… Carina who must have found out something if she was desperate enough to make a mercy dash to Earth. It worried her somewhat. She didn't want her niece to be disappointed. She had been disappointed enough in her life. Admiral Janeway had married Admiral Greaves. Shauneez was certain that was what emphasized her brother's bitterness and regrets. He was now a free man. Admiral Janeway was happily married with a little girl of her own. That information had been told her one day privately by Tomaso. She wondered idly if Chakotay knew. Perhaps. It was why he was so driven. Janeway was lost to him forever.
By the time she left Polarya, her worry had increased ten-fold. She prayed that her young niece was not on a forlorn mission of hope where that was concerned.
*****
"He sleeping now, Carina," Tomaso said, his hand on her shoulder. She nodded, keeping her eyes on the viewscreen. She placed her hand over her cousin's, grateful that he was with her to help.
Tomaso took the co-pilot's seat, giving a click of the tongue as he looked back towards the bunk where her father lay sleeping peacefully now. Carina stole a glance at Tomaso and for the umpteenth time she was glad that she asked him to accompany her. Tomaso looked like her father, a lot like her father.
Thinking of her father brought on the heartache again. She touched her face, glad the swelling was now gone, but there was still a dark smudge under her eye where Chakotay's hard fist had made contact. She felt the tears coming on again and began to sob softly, her vision blurring as she looked at the stars.
"Next time, I'll make sure he can't surprise us, okay?" Tomaso assured.
"I - I'm glad you are with me," she sniffed, wiping away the tears. "Papa hates me, you know."
"Come on, Carina. Uncle is the best man in the universe. He's ill, for crying out loud. He can't help it. He will tell you how much he loves you, just you wait and see."
Tomaso's voice was gruff, barely concealing the tenderness she could hear in his voice. They had been practically raised together in the beginning. There had been times Aunt Shauneez dumped both of them in a tub of water and scrubbed them down after they had been playing all day in the sandy dunes five kilometres from their home. Those were the happiest days of her life.
"Deep down, I suppose, he must love me…" she said, unable to keep a resigned sigh from escaping.
"He does. We'll get him to Starfleet Medical and Voyager's EMH."
She looked back at the bunk again.
"How long will he be sedated this time?"
"No more than twelve hours, Carina. But when he wakes up, I'll be waiting for him," Tomaso said, his words sounding more like a threat than a promise.
"Thank you, Tomaso."
"You're welcome. Anything for the most beautiful cousin anyone could have."
Carina smiled wanly. She was tired; their journey was going to take a week travelling at maximum warp. She felt the dread lessen. It was good to have Tomaso with her.
It had been such a mission to co-ordinate her father's transport, from his bedroom via site-to-site transporter and then to get him settled in on the bunk. Chakotay still had some hours before he would wake and she had used the time to race towards Dorvan V. It wasn't far from her own homeworld, but by the time Tomaso had come on board, her father had woken up.
That was when the trouble started. Real, big trouble. Carina flinched again at the memory.
"What-where am I?" Chakotay had asked as he tried to lift his head from the pillow.
"Papa…"
Chakotay had frowned heavily when he saw them, then glanced around him.
"Carina? Tomaso…?"
Tomaso had been standing just behind her, but moved next to her when her father had spoken.
"Uncle Chakotay, you're in your shuttle. Carina and I…we're taking you to Earth…"
The words were hardly out of Tomaso's mouth when her father exploded. He screamed, a long keening scream that filled the shuttle with its wildness. Carina knew the demons had returned. It was as if mentioning Earth, mentioning his shuttle, the realisation that he had been brought to it without his knowledge unleashed those demons.
"Let me go! Go away!" he shouted at them. "Don’t come near me!"
Carina had promised herself she wouldn't be afraid of her father, that she would brave his displeasure. It had been so hard to look at him, too feel his eyes burn into hers, to feel his hatred. That was what she believed. That he hated her. At the back of her mind she sensed he didn't mean to feel that way or to express himself so foully to her. Looking at him brought back the fear and repressed her love for him. She pressed on, tried hard to bank the fear that he would strike her in his irrational, hate-filled state.
"Papa, you need help. Only on Earth will you get help. The doctor who was your physician on - on V-Voyager," she had started to stammer, her eyes filling with tears at the same time, "h-he will help you again and c-cure you."
"Damn you, Carina. Why did you do this? To torment me like your mother did?"
"Papa!"
"Uncle!"
Tomaso had shouted his outrage as she had cried hers at the unfairness of his accusation.
"Take me back. You are not taking me anywhere - "
"I love you, Papa. I only want to help you, to see you get better - "
"I told you, get away from me!"
The tears spilled from her eyes as she recalled how her father had actually managed to lift himself off the bunk and flew at her. She was certain he didn't mean to. She was certain he only wanted her out of the way where he couldn't see her, see her likeness to her mother that made him so mad. It wasn't fair. She had loved her mother even as she was perplexed by her mother's behaviour, even as memories of Annika had faded faster than she had wanted them to.
Chakotay had pulled himself up and staggered towards her, pushing her away. Carina was flung to the floor of the shuttle, reeling from the sting of his fist against her cheek. For a few moments she was dazed, shaking her head, tears spilling from her eyes from the heavy blow she received. By the time she got up, Tomaso had managed to fling her father back on the bunk.
"Uncle, if you strike Carina again, and I don't care if it's the demons in you and not you who did it, I will kill you."
"You? Go to hell. I'll beat you to a pulp!"
"Get this, Uncle Chakotay. I'm fifteen and still growing. I'm already taller than you and bigger and stronger. If you try anything, I'll beat you up, sick or not."
Then her father tried to wrestle free from Tomaso's vice grip, but his depleted strength, his sick body made him ineffectual against Tomaso's superior strength. When she knelt next to the bunk and took her father's hand in hers, he looked at her for a very long time. Then, only then, his eyes filled with recognition and remorse.
"Oh, spirits, Carina…" he croaked, his eyes bloodshot from unshed tears. "Forgive me…" His hand touched the darkening bruise on her cheek, wiped the tears that kept rolling down. "Forgive me…"
"It's alright, Papa," she sobbed. "But please, let me help you, okay? Please?"
Tomaso had prepared the sedative and seconds later her father sighed as his eyes closed, her hand still held in his. Later Tomaso tended to her, cursing angrily as he touched the dark bruise against her cheek very lightly.
"You'll be okay, Carina. Next time I'll be ready for him."
"Don't kill him…"
"I will if he threatens you again. He is irrational and will strike out again, Carina. I'm glad you asked me to accompany you…"
*
"Hey…"
"I'm okay now, Tomaso," Carina replied.
"Look, I'll take the conn. You need to rest. We'll take turns, okay?"
She rose from her seat and on an impulse hugged him. Tomaso gave a sheepish grin, then slapped the side of his face in such a comical gesture that she had to smile.
"Gee, I'm someone's favourite cousin at last," he exclaimed in a very feeble voice, emulating his own grandmother on his father's side.
"I won't tell Grandmamma you're making fun of her," she told him as she made her way to the rear of the shuttle.
Sighing, she looked at her sleeping father. She caressed his long hair, damp from the perspiration. Tomorrow she'd get Tomaso to help him into the small sonic shower that was housed in the tiny lower deck.
Although she was exhausted and had a slight headache from the blow Chakotay had accidentally given her, she didn't want to sleep yet. Her backpack was under the bunk and the leather-bound journal of Kathryn Janeway was inside it, wrapped with great care in a dark blue silken scarf that Grandmamma had given her as a gift on her eleventh birthday.
She had not read the rest of the entries and was going to savour each entry, taking time to reflect on it. Tomaso was busy and her father was asleep. There was nothing to do now except study or reading. She and Tomaso were both missing classes for a long period of time but they were both advanced students and would catch up anyway. Besides, she was in no hurry and her most pressing mission now was to get her father to Earth and familiar surroundings. She knew that he had lived on Dorvan until his fifteenth year and then left to become one of the youngest cadets at Starfleet Academy.
It was quiet in the shuttle and she lay on her side, propped on her elbow, the journal of Kathryn open at the second entry. She began to read, her eyes caressing each word, her fingers lightly brushing over the letters.
My dearest…
I couldn't forget the way you looked at me the whole day. Did I sense a return to thoughts of home and your family? No, it couldn't be. Your eyes were warm with love and affection. Your thoughts were of me, of us.
Today I so enjoyed the ride in the gondola. Wasn't it so wonderful that we have Federico every year to be our gondolier? He smiled so knowingly, yet always so respectful. Lovers on a tryst ride the gondolas, you once told me. I'm sure he knows ours is an illicit affair. Sometimes he has that look. But leave it to the Federicos of this world to be discreet. He's having a wonderful time, I'm sure.
Your arm rested on my shoulder and we sat close together, not wanting the ride to end, or the moment to burst. We sail away, away, away from all our cares.
"Where shall I take you today, signore?" asked Federico.
It made me laugh the way you told him, "All four hundred bridges along the canalways of the city."
"But it will take hours!"
"We want hours. We'll stop by the Café Sylviano for lunch. Wait for us. After lunch I wish to show this beautiful lady something wondrous…"
Imagine my insane curiosity after those words! I tried to get it out of you, but you teased me mercilessly. Did I taste the warm, freshly baked bread? Did I taste the wonderful wine you insisted I try because you said it was pure heaven? Was I ever aware that filet of sole tasted like soft magic in my mouth? All I could do was stare at your beloved face and believe that all was well with the world.
"Show me?" I asked when we boarded our gondola - the same one we've used for seven summers. And how did I know that?
Federico blustered furiously after that first year, remember? Because you had gone and carved our names on the wood aft of the starboard side? After that it became our gondola…
I'm writing with my hand still trembling. You showed me the replica of a fifteenth century cathedral - built after it had been destroyed in the Great Flood in 2170. Even as I am writing, I have tears in my eyes.
How could I ever thank you or forget the experience?
"It's a special cathedral, sweetheart," you said.
"And why is it special?" I asked as we disembarked just after the Ponte Del Regio and stepped practically into the anteroom of the cathedral. It was dark, with dim light thrown off the walls where illumination was only above each of the myriad of wall panels. I slipped my hand into yours, for my heart was pounding and my anticipation great and my curiosity intense as you escorted me across the floor to stop in front of a painting - a mural.
My face. Looking directly at me. A face that looked as if butterflies and angels had just touched it. It looked precisely like a Renaissance painting. Later I couldn't see my face for the tears in my eyes. You pulled me closer to you and I felt your lips on my hair.
"Who did this, Chakotay?"
"An artist I commissioned a year ago and who works like Tintoretto…"
*****
Carina lay on her back clutching the journal to her bosom. Her eyes were closed but they burned with tears. It was not difficult to wonder why her father never spoke of this woman with hair like golden sparks, a voice with mellow tones, a skin like alabaster.
She thought of her mother whom she knew now could never reach the depths in her father in the way the words of love sprang from the pages of the journal. He loved Kathryn Janeway passionately; Kathryn loved him. Somehow, Seven of Nine came between them. Somehow, she, Carina, was the reason her father could never again find rest.
She didn't feel any rancour. Papa loved her, she was sure of that. In her own way, Annika Hansen, her mother, loved her too. But now, looking back, she could see how hard her mother had tried to make her father happy.
Sighing again, Carina shifted on her side, still holding the book against her, her eyes drooping as she thought of one of the things Kathryn Janeway wrote.
"I shall always associate Venice with the happiest times of my life…"
As Carina drifted into sleep, her last waking thought was that she would visit the cathedral where the mural was of Kathryn Janeway… It wasn't another artist who had been Tintoretto. It was her father who had done the mural. The evidence of it was in the box, something she knew was not there when Kathryn gave the box to her father, but was placed there afterwards. She was convinced of that…
****
Tomaso turned when he heard a soft thump of something falling on the floor. After putting the shuttle on autopilot, he got up and moved to the rear, noticing the book that had slipped from the sleeping Carina's grasp. He smiled. When they were children, he had often seen her like this, sleeping, the PADD still clutched in her hands or lying somewhere on the floor where it had fallen.
It was a beautiful, leather-bound book. Also on the floor was the soft dark blue scarf Grandmamma had given her. Very carefully he wrapped the book in the scarf and stuck it under the pillow.
He gazed long at his sleeping cousin. They had practically been raised together, and people were always struck by the difference in their appearance. He had always been told how he looked exactly like his uncle, with jet black hair, tanned skin, even sometimes displayed anger like Uncle Chakotay. Carina was the complete opposite. Very fair, with hair the colour of ripe corn and eyes blue as the sky. Her hair was very long, almost to her waist.
Sighing, he smoothed back her flaxen hair, strands of silk more likely, away from her face. Her cheeks were tear stained. He had never seen her cry much and it had unsettled him deeply when her father struck her, even if it happened accidentally. He brushed his finger lightly over her cheek, felt it was still damp. Did she weep again, but softly?
On an impulse, he leaned forward and kissed her forehead in a gentle caress. Carina was suffering from total exhaustion. He'd let her sleep until she woke naturally. She needed it more than he did. Taking the soft cover that had slipped away from her body, he tucked her in, smiling when he heard her give a contented sigh as she shifted.
Tomaso moved back to the conn and made himself comfortable in the deep chair. Once or twice he turned to look at the two sleeping people.
He didn't want to tell Carina that her father was regressing. The signs were there. It was imperative they reach Earth in record time.
*************
END PART THREE