Recovery By Morticia 1/1 (Sequel to " Rage") C/P Rating: NC-17     Disclaimer: Tom, Chak et al belong to Paramount. I am only playing with them and promise to put them back relatively unscathed.     When Chakotay materialised into Sickbay, his arms wrapped protectively around Tom’s shivering body, he immediately ordered a security lockout on the door. The Doctor rushed out of his office in consternation as he looked at the injured pilot. Tom’s face was white, his teeth chattering beneath a bleeding, broken nose, his eyes were dilated with shock. He was swaying in Chakotay’s arms in evident pain. "Help him onto the bed" The Doctor snapped impatiently as he reached for his tricorder With painful tenderness Chakotay assisted Tom onto the biobed and began to strip him for the doctor’s examination. Other than the occasional whimper, Tom made no effort to prevent the Commander’s ministrations. "What happened?" The Doctor asked, and then noticing the blood revealed as Tom’s jeans were removed he amended his question "Who did this?" "Ayala" Chakotay snarled "Ahh" The Doctor replied, "and is Mr. Ayala ALSO in need of my attentions?" he queried as he looked at Chakotay’s bruised knuckles. "Eventually." Chakotay snapped grimly. The Doctor noticed the dangerous look in Chakotay’s eyes and reluctantly nodded his agreement. Then, fetching warm water and cloths, the Doctor began to carefully clean Tom’s thighs so that he could inspect the damage beneath. "I need you to turn over, Tom" The Doctor said in a voice so gentle that Chakotay hardly recognised it. Tom made no move to comply. He gave no indication that he had even heard the request. Chakotay sighed sadly. Moving slowly so as not to startle the injured man, he rolled Tom onto his front. The Doctor ran his tricorder over Tom’s rear and hissed. "He’s bleeding internally. I have to operate before he gets infected." He touched Tom’s torn anus experimentally and the pilot howled in fear and began to struggle to get off the bed. Chakotay grasped Tom’s shoulders and held him in place. Tom responded to the entrapment with another wail of terror. "Can’t you wait a little? Give him a chance to calm down?" Chakotay begged "If I don’t operate now he could die!" The Doctor replied firmly. "I will sedate him, Commander, he won’t feel a thing." "Do it now, I don’t want to hold him down like this, it is terrifying him." The Doctor nodded his agreement and quickly prepared a hypospray, which he then pressed against Tom’s bruised neck. As Tom sank thankfully into unconsciousness, the Doctor quickly prepared for surgery. "Will he be alright?" "Only if you go away and let me get on with my job" The Doctor snapped, "I need to concentrate." Chakotay hovered uncertainly. He understood that there was nothing more he could do at the moment, but the idea of leaving was unbearable. Besides, he was bewildered by the Doctor’s evident lack of curiosity. "I don’t understand. Why aren’t you insisting on reporting the rape?" The Doctor blinked at Chakotay in astonishment "What rape?" Chakotay’s mouth gaped open in complete disbelief. "What the fuck do you mean ‘what rape?’ look at the state of him, Ayala nearly killed him!" "Whilst I concur with your horror over his injuries, the damage to Mr. Paris is not evidence of rape in my opinion." "So what the fuck IS evidence of rape?" "It is only rape if it is not consensual." "CONSENSUAL?" Chakotay screeched "He’s been ripped apart" The Doctor didn’t reply, he just looked at the Commander sadly as he continued to work. "It’s not the first time then, is it?" Chakotay guessed "No" The Doctor confessed, "And he’s always said the damage was consensual. I can’t report it as rape if Tom denies it!" "So he HAS been badly hurt before?" "Never THIS badly, but yes, some of his sexual encounters have resulted in considerable damage to himself, particularly those with Alien species. On all of those occasions, no matter how injured and shocked he was on his arrival, he always quickly regained his equilibrium and then laughed at my concern." "I doubt he will be laughing today!" Chakotay snapped angrily The Doctor looked at the Commander with a wry smile "I think you will be unpleasantly surprised then." Chakotay decided that it wasn’t worth replying. The Doctor wasn’t being deliberately aggravating. The gentle way he was handling Tom’s unconscious form was evidence that he cared for the pilot. But the Doctor’s assumption filled Chakotay with anger. If even the Doctor saw Ayala’s rape as something that Tom "had asked for" then certainly no one else would give a damn. He had been right to keep the attack secret. Tom was too badly damaged psychologically to help himself out of the hole he had dug himself, and now Chakotay understood the reasons for Tom’s inability to function normally, he was more determined than ever to protect the younger man. That being said, unless he did something about Ayala, the story of Tom’s humiliation and Chakotay’s subsequent vengeance would spread like wildfire. So reluctantly he left Tom in the Doctor’s hands and transported back to Holodec 2. Ayala was still in Sandrines, groaning and whimpering in fear and pain. Resisting the urge to shut the bastard up for good, Chakotay transported them both to Ayala’s quarters and dumped the agonised crewmember unceremoniously on his bed. Then, to the terrified Crewman’s surprise, Chakotay briefly ran a regenerator over the worst of Ayala’s injuries and gave him a shot of painkiller so that he was sure that the bastard would hear him clearly. "If you, or anyone else EVER touches Tom again, I will KILL you" Chakotay promised with a feral growl. Ayala shivered in terror. He had served with Chakotay in the Maquis and had often seen the big man act in outrage, but he had never imagined that Chakotay could exude such deadly menace as he was witnessing today. "I – " "Shut up." Chakotay snarled. He knew that if the fucker spoke to him he would completely lose control. Ayala snapped his mouth closed "Tom is MINE!" Chakotay growled "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" Ayala nodded furiously. "Spread the word – oh, and I wouldn’t mention tonight if I were you. Tom is MY property. If I thought anyone was going to find out that you had survived touching something of MINE, I would have to shut you up permanently." Ayala shook his head in terror "No, Sir, never sir, I’m sorry sir" Ayala whimpered Chakotay swiped Ayala across the face with his open palm. The terrified man’s head snapped back painfully and blood trickled from the side of his mouth. "I told you to fucking shut up." Chakotay hissed as Ayala quivered in abject terror. Then, satisfied he had put his message across; Chakotay transported back to Sickbay. Tom was awake and sitting up in bed, listening to the Doctor’s angry reading of the riot act with a cocky grin. His smile faltered considerably as he saw Chakotay arrive, but with considerable aplomb he recovered and flashed Chakotay a wide smirk. "If it isn’t Captain Proton himself." He drawled sarcastically. Chakotay nearly fell over in astonishment, he had expected to find a tearful quivering wreck, not Tom "FLYBOY" Paris in full swing. "What did I tell you?" The Doctor griped angrily, his previous concern for Tom clearly worn away by the Pilot’s obnoxious attitude. Forcing himself to speak calmly, Chakotay ignored Tom’s barb "How are you feeling, Tom?" "Never better, or at least I will be when I get out of HERE" Tom replied with a nonchalant smile that sat incongruously under his haunted eyes. And it was seeing the bleak hopelessness in those blue eyes that reminded Chakotay that Tom’s behavior was just a bizarre mask. "Did the Doctor tell you that you nearly died?" Chakotay asked softly "SO? I didn’t" Tom shrugged and swung his feet off the bed to stand up. He flinched and staggered a little as he stood, his face paling as a wave of pain flowed through his abused body, and then he regained his equilibrium and began to walk to the door. Chakotay stepped in his path, planting his feet immovably in the doorway. "Where do you think you are going, Tom?" "Back to my quarters, I’m expecting visitors tonight and I need to clean up." Tom purred nastily with a smirk but when his eyes caught Chakotay’s he faltered and looked away in distress. Chakotay had to physically stop himself from grabbing Tom and shaking some sense into him. "You won’t be having any visitors tonight, Tom, in fact you won’t be having any visitors at all from now on." Tom stiffened in fury "Stop butting into my life, Commander!" he hissed "What I do is MY business not yours." "I’m making it mine. I’ve spread the word Tom. No-one is going to come near you again!" Tom’s smirk slid off his face and his face paled as Chakotay’s words sank in. He couldn’t stop a tiny whimper of distress from escaping as he considered the endless lonely nights ahead. "Why?" he whispered desperately "Why are you doing this to me?" Chakotay struggled for an appropriate reply. "I love you" hadn’t had the desired effect before and was unlikely to improve the situation now either. Before Chakotay could formulate an answer that wouldn’t spook Tom, the pilot’s terrified face was masked by a new grin "You want me for yourself." Tom declared victoriously "That’s all this is about, isn’t it? You got mad because I let Ayala have my ass." Chakotay stiffened in horror and fresh anger at the whole bloody crew flushed his face a deep red. Tom genuinely seemed to have forgotten that Ayala had forced him. Obviously the only way the poor bastard could deal with the rape was to pretend that it hadn’t happened. The whole crew had been taking advantage of Tom’s vulnerability for years. Unable to stop the abuse, Tom had dealt with it in the only way he knew how; he had convinced himself that it was what he wanted. Tom saw Chakotay’s flush and mistook it for embarrassment. "Hey, it’s okay. If you wanted me to be your personal whore, you only had to say!" Tom smirked as he contemplated the advantages of sleeping exclusively with the First Officer. Chakotay had to clench his fists to stop himself from wiping the smirk off Tom’s face. He had to remind himself that Tom wasn’t responsible for the way he behaved. Despite his words to Ayala, the idea of Tom being his ‘property’ made him physically sick. Although he was quite happy to give the rest of the crew the impression that he wanted Tom as his own personal whore if it protected the Pilot from their attentions, he had never intended it to be true. There was no way he could ever treat ANYONE that way, let alone someone he loved, and there was no point in denying to himself that his fierce urge to protect Tom was anything other than love. But he had seen how Tom had reacted to his declaration of love. For some reason it had terrified the younger man. Tom could apparently cope with the idea that Chakotay wanted to use him but not that Chakotay loved him. The words of his spirit guide came back to him "Perhaps he doesn’t understand the concept." Very well, he would let Tom believe whatever he was comfortable with. Eventually, when Tom discovered that Chakotay wanted nothing, demanded nothing, treated him with respect and care, the younger man would begin to understand the concept after all. "That’s right Tom, you’re mine now." Chakotay agreed and tried not to flinch at the unhealthy glee in Tom’s eyes at Chakotay’s possessive words. TBC