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Chapter Text

Chapter One

Sneaking Out

“MADI! MADI!” Ten-year-old Lwaxana shouted in Betazoid into her mother’s mind late in the evening when she and Taya were supposed to be sleeping. “WAKE UP!”

She was not yet at the age for puberty, but she used the bond she had with her mother to reach her as Taya planned to slip out the window at 2300.  “MADI!”

“SHUT UP!” Taya screamed into their minds, still unable to control where her telepathy went. “You’ll wake everyone with that noise.”

“That’s the idea, you brat!”

Taya pushed Lwaxana down to the floor causing her to scream. “AH!”

“I’m going!” And out the window Taya slipped to go to a late-night rave party in the woods somewhere. It was said to be the Rave that would put past centuries Raves to shame. She was determined to go and this time she would stay until she felt like returning home, even if slipping out without permission would get her in trouble with her parents.

What she did not know, was it could be her last outdoor rave party.

Rhianna and Chakotay were having a sultry bedtime love session when she heard Lwaxana’s panicky mental cries for her.

“Chakotay,” Rhianna sent to his mind as she moaned, not wanting him to stop giving her personal attention before they fell asleep, but given it was Lwaxana urgently calling for her, she knew there was a problem. “Lwaxana is calling me.”

“Must you?” He groaned pausing his ministrations to her as he rolled onto his back.

“Chakotay, you know there has to be something wrong if Lwaxana is calling me,” Rhianna sent as she got out of bed and put on a robe. She knew it had something to do with Taya, but she did not want to say anything to upset Chakotay until she knew for sure what the problem was. “If Taya were acting up, you’d go immediately to get her to behave herself. Lwaxana calls for me, you know there’s a problem.”

“AH!” Lwaxana’s scream came from the room across the hall and at that moment, even Chakotay knew there was a problem.

“Maybe I should go.” Chakotay thought to Rhianna, suddenly becoming alarmed.

“I can handle it,” she insisted. “Lwaxana called for me.”

“Lwaxana screamed,” Chakotay stated. “If Taya is…”

“I can deal with it,” Rhianna insisted.

“OK, but hurry back,” he pleaded as she walked out of the room. He had a feeling it had something to do with Taya, especially since Lwaxana screamed, but he did not want to say anything until Rhianna returned. No sense in getting upset about something until he knew for sure.

Rhianna entered her two older girls’ room and Lwaxana signed, “Mother, look.”

Rhianna looked in the direction Lwaxana’s two fingers pointed after she moved them from her eyes in the direction of the window. Taya was not in the room. The open window told her everything. She walked over to the window and looked out of it, feeling Betazed’s equivalent to Earth’s autumn night air.

“I’ll be damned!” Rhianna thought as she looked into the cool night in all directions, hoping to get a glimpse of a form moving in any direction to somewhere. “The girl is as sneaky as I was at her age. Fast too.”

Rhianna knew Taya did something to keep the alarm from going off, but she did not know what.

“Alarm she turned off,” Lwaxana signed. Then she sent, “We argued, but she went out of the room as though she were going to the bathroom anyway. She didn’t go to the bathroom though. I tried to stop her from going out the window, but she pushed me down!”

“We’ll take care of it,” Rhianna declared to her younger daughter as she shut and locked the window, forcing Taya to enter via the front door.

“How will she get in again?” Lwaxana thought to her mother.

“Let your father and me worry about that,” Rhianna insisted as she started to leave the room wondering how they were going to outsmart the sneak. Then she paused to ask, “Do you know where she went?”

“No,” Lwaxana shook her head. “Some stupid rave is all I know, but she didn’t say where it was or who was there. Something bad could happen to her, Madi.”

“Let your father and me worry about that,” Rhianna insisted again. “For now, you go back to sleep. I have a feeling it’s going to be a rough night for sleeping, but get as much as you can.”

“Ok, Madi,” she sent as she crawled back into her bed. Rhianna walked over to tuck her into bed.

As Rhianna kissed her daughter on the forehead, she sent, “I love you and I hope you never do what your big sister does.”

“I won’t, Madi. I love you.”

With that, Rhianna left the room and went back to hers.

When she stepped into hers and Chakotay’s room, he sent, “What’s wrong?  You look upset.”

“How do I say this?” She wondered. “Taya is as slippery as I was at her age.”

He suddenly sat up in bed and demanded, “What happened?”

“She managed to turn off the alarm and slip out her window,” Rhianna sent to him. He looked alarmed as he started to jump out of bed to go look for his daughter. “Oh, don’t bother! I’ll take care of this. She will have to come in through the front door when decides to return home.”

“Not if I turn the alarm on again!”

“Chakotay, NO!” Rhianna ordered. He looked at her questioningly, “I want her to come through the front door with one of us to greet her and it will be me.”

“If you don’t mind,” Chakotay began. “I will stay close by in case you need me. As well as check that she didn’t damage anything on her way out or for that matter when she returns.”

“That’s fine,” Rhianna replied. “But I want the first face she sees to be the queen of slipping off into the night.”

Chakotay smiled, “There is that story of you stowing away on a Federation ship.”

“I was hearing then,” Rhianna replied. “I maybe older too, but I haven’t forgotten the tricks. We just need to outsmart the sneak, somehow.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Two

Outdoor Rave Party

Thirty minutes later, she was at the site of the rave, and she visually scanned for her friends.

“TAYA!” Carlina, who was with two girls and three guys, called to her as the music blared. As they got closer to her, Carlina continued. “TAYA! So, glad you could make it. Did you have a hard time getting out of the house?”

“Not really,” Taya told them. “I just had to time it. There’s advantages to have a deaf mom. It was Dad I had to get past. That was the hardest part. That and waiting to sneak out of the house.”

“Let’s get something to drink,” one of the others suggested as the music blasted and the kids drank, passed around a bong, and even some pills.

They went to where drinks were be served. Taya never had alcohol before. She never had synthehol for that matter, but this was real alcohol. She was a little nervous about the scene, but then she thought, “Mother went wild as a teen, but she allegedly never went this wild. Meh. Might be fun.”

She followed her friends where drinks were being served.

“I’ve never…” Taya began to say.

“You’ve never drank before?” One of the guys asked.

“No.”

“Well…” Carlina began to suggest. “There is ale and then someone can make you a screwdriver, which makes the alcohol go down easier or even… Well, there is a Sumerian sunset and a Tequila Sunrise, but I don’t think they make them good at a rave. Then there is the hard stuff.”

“Mother and Aunt Deanna talked about Sumerian Sunsets,” Taya stated. “I’ll try that anyway.”

“Suit yourself,” Carlina said. “I’m having a screwdriver, which is Vodka and orange juice.”

She watched the person make the sunset. Alcohol, juice, red stuff and a tap on the side. “Sounds about right,” she thought as the music roared, and people danced away. Some were dancing strangely, like they were spaced out, but still enjoying the music. Others were laughing and giggling as they took turns hitting a bong.

Taya was not too sure of the scene, but she stayed anyway. How often did she get to have fun in the woods during a full a moon?

“By the way,” the guy who asked if she never drank before said. “I’m Dimon, spelled D-I-M-O-N, and I’d be careful with that. Too much can dim your abilities.”

“Really?” Taya asked after the person who made her drink handed it to her. “I assure you, I would love that. I’ve spent a lifetime… Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” he said. “I take it you were born with yours turned on?”

“Yeah.”

“You seemed a bit… different.”

“Well, at least you didn’t say I was odd or strange,” she said as she nursed her drink.

“Why would I do that?” He asked.

The night raged on, the trance and rave music continued to blast in the middle of the woods late into the night. She danced with everyone, especially Dimon. Taya lost count of how many drinks she had and it was going on 0200 hours, when Carlina handed her small white pill.

“What is it?” Taya asked as the music continued.

“Try it!” Carlina said. “It will make the music intense.

She did, without question, and a few minutes later the music was beyond words. She could feel it intensely and wondered if her mother felt music like this. The colours of nature became more vivid, despite there only being the moonlight.

Dimon brought her another drink as she danced. Her telepathy was muted before, but after taking the pill Carlina gave her, it seemed she barely sensed other people’s emotions, much less their thoughts. She felt she was in tune with her mind and body for the first time in her life, with no one else’s thoughts except her own.

“Thank you.”

“Whoa!” Dimon said as she almost lost her balance. “You alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said as her words slurred. “Better than I’f effer been. This music is awesome!”

“It’s going on 0200,” Chakotay sent to Rhianna. He mind filled with worry.

“I know.”

“I should go after her.”

“Where would you look?” Rhianna asked looking at his face and seeing his puzzled look. “That’s what I thought. You have no idea where to begin. Besides, I have a feeling you won’t like what you see, if you do find her. That and…”

“And what?”

“I sense…” Rhianna shook her head.

“What?”

“I get the feeling she’s doing even more than I ever did at her age,” Rhianna informed him. “Trying things, I never tried. Things not good.”

“Even more reason to go get her!”

“No, she will only throw a fit and she’s with a lot of people,” Rhianna insisted. “Besides, as I asked you before, where would you look?”

“Rhianna, I really should go get her.”

“No, call the authorities,” Rhianna insisted.

“There’s caption,” Chakotay insisted. “And this is Betazed. You can ask for another Betazoid to communicate telepathically, while I go look for her.”

“It’s not that simple!” Rhianna insisted. “I need to be sure, that whoever answers my communique, understands me. It’s far easier if her hearing father does that, telepathic or not. I need your help, Chakotay.”

“I need to look for her and hopefully I can find her.”

“If you do that, she’ll just leave again,” Rhianna insisted. “That is, IF you find her. We will have a better chance if she returns on her own or the authorities find her.”

“Did Lwaxana tell you where it was?”

“No, Taya didn’t tell her where she was going,” Rhianna informed him. “All she said was she was going to a rave.”

Chakotay sighed, wanting to go look for his daughter, but he knew his wife was right. He had no clue as to where he should look.

Taya’s telepathy was greatly muted at 0300, but her other senses were greatly heightened. She stumbled as she went to get another drink, but she still got another, not paying attention to how she was feeling. The only thing she cared about was not sensing anything or anyone.

“We should go home,” Carlina yelled over the music which seemed even louder to her too.

“Oh no!” Taya slurred as she swayed to the music. “I’m hafing too mush fun! De music’s way cool.”

“Yeah,” Carlina agreed as she spaced out again.

She saw Dimon again, who brought her another drink and another guy with him. “You want to go find some place to sit down?”

“I’m enjoying de music too mush,” she slurred. “Who’z he?”

“He’za new friend,” Dimon slurred. “I forgot yer name.”

“I never said,” he said with a sly grin. He looked older than high school, but all the kids were too drunk to notice. Besides, some of the oldest high schoolers did not look as young as the youngest high schoolers.

They talked for a bit and drunkenly swayed to the music, as they enjoyed their drinks. When Taya almost stumbled, the new guy grabbed her and her drink.

“Thains,” she slurred.

“You want another?” He asked her, after her drink spilled out of the glass.

“Yeah.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Three

Drugged, Paralyzed, and Horrified

“We can enjoy our drinks,” he said and then kissed Taya after getting her another drink. The others went back to dancing to the music in their drunken haze, leaving the two of them alone. The new guy was also lost in the music as his telepathy was also dim and other senses heightened. Yet his telepathy was still working well enough to sense emotions.

“I furgot your name,” Taya drunkenly stated as she continued to drink.

“I didn’t give it,” he said again.

“So, wha’sit?” She slurred her words.

“What’s the point of names when we might not see each other again?”

“I hafta call ya sumthin’.”

“Can’t you read my thoughts?”

“I can’t even see straight, right now,” she admitted with a drunken grin on her face and then starred into the darkness. “Whoa, I feel… Weird. I mean… I’m so numb.”

After a few seconds she stopped talking, becoming almost limp, and just stared out into space as the new guy braced her so she wouldn’t hit her head. With two less drugs in his system than she had, he dragged her limp body, without resistance, away from the crowd and into the even darker woods where there was no bonfire to give them light. He kissed her as her body seemed limp and easily manipulated, but her nerves were still very receptive from the other drugs in her system. Pleased with the results of the added drug to her drink, he lowered her to the ground.

Greedily, he tore off her clothes forcefully once he got her to the spot he wanted her and soon, they had skin against skin, as every nerve in their bodies was reacting intensely to sound, touch, and sight. With a stripped of her destroyed clothing, he gagged her in case she could scream. Then he manipulated her body the way he wanted, enjoying her young budding breasts as he sensed her fear, relishing the pleasure he felt from her blossoming young body.

“Mmmm, yes,” he drooled as he suckled one of her breasts and felt her inner core. “Perfectly pristine. Ready to pop and pop it will. You’ll give me emotions to sense and feelings to have.”

Taya was scared, hoping this was just a bad trip, not wanting to face the nightmare that begun.

Every touch she felt from him was intense, but she was sure it was not pleasurable and knew she did not wanted it. Yet she could not respond back to him or push him away. She was not sure what she wanted, because she could not think and she could not move. She was paralyzed in more ways than one and the good trip suddenly turned horrid. Fear suddenly hit her hard, but she could not fight back and stop him. She was helpless to fight back. All she wanted this horror to end as she hoped her father found her at the last minute and rescued her.

Suddenly, she gasped, unable to get a sound out of her mouth as intense pain shot through her body and mind as he suddenly slammed his hard male member into her, ripping tender virgin flesh. There was nothing she could do, not even move nor was she sure what she was feeling, except pain. Intense pain. No, excruciating torture and agony! She could not decide as she laid like a motionless corpse unable to breathe or even scream as he pounded himself into her. Her drug-induced trip turned from pleasure to pure horror. Was it real or a bad trip?

“Oo! So, tight!” He was elated as he snatched her virginity from her, causing her bleed, but he was not done. “Oh, yes! You’re so perfect. Ripe!”

He was her first, as he shredded and split apart her feminine insides whether she wanted him or not, but she would not easily recall everything in her drugged state of being. Maybe it was for the best, because his timing was wrong as her inner being ruptured. She was too high and drunk to know if she felt agony or torture, but her mind definitely registered it as agonizing torture. She could not defend herself and she did not know why she was paralyzed, unable to defend herself or even scream as he pounded into her hard, with only her blood to lubricate, but it was not enough to stop the trauma.

Regardless, the signs were there to remind her later of what happened. The unbearable pain would haunt her for a while, as her mother sensed from afar her daughter’s tortured nightmare. Rhianna knew something was very wrong and there was nothing she could do to help her daughter at the moment.

However, Taya’s mind screamed in terror as he drilled into her, bruising and tearing inner femininity. Tears flowed from her eyes as muffled cries of pain came from the muzzled mouth.

“Yes, enjoy it with every emotion you have!” He foamed, savouring her every horrified emotion like a vampire as he slammed as hard as he could into her.

He was in more control of Taya’s body than she was, as her telepathic sense seemed to disappear for the first time in her life. Unable to stand or push him away, they were on the ground as he hammered her to pleasure himself at her expense. He got more out of it than she did with every agonizing sadistic thrust.

The only telepathy she had was screams of torturous destructive pain, which her mother sensed greatly from afar.

He barbarically slammed into her again as he let out a primitive howl of satisfaction. Once he finished, he grinned with pure satisfaction as he pulled out of her, dripping with left over come and her blood. Looking around he grabbed his clothes and put them on again, after wiping off his penis with the rags he made of her clothing. After that, he grabbed the rest of her shredded clothes and tossed them in the nearest bonfire for his last act of sadism.

Then he returned to see she had rolled over onto stomach from the pain. He lowered himself onto her again. This time he was fully clothed but still hellishly sadistic.

“Thanks for the ride,” he whispered evilly into her ear and cackled. “That virgin flesh was so tight, squeezing hard on my swollen dick, and your emotions... Oh! Yes! Giving me feelings… It was great. Most intense feelings I’ve felt since the last virgin. You were the best one yet. Your horror and agony.  Oo! It was so good! I may return for more, despite the fact you exploded... No erupted as that ripe cherry popped. It was so juicy.”

Before getting off her back, he said, “Humm… I guess I could remove the gag, especially since I sucked all the emotions from you I possibly can for now.”

Uncontrolled tears rolled down Taya’s face, as he rose and left her there to either live or die. She had no idea how long she laid there before she was sure he was gone. All she wanted was to go home and never recall what happened in her drunken and drugged stupor. She hoped to forget it completely by the time she sobered up, wishing it was nothing more than a very bad trip. Deep down, she knew it was not, because the pain between her legs and in her stomach lingered. She could barely move for the pain and each move made it worse. More intense. She felt sure she would die in the woods alone.

After she was sure he left, she tried to crawl back to her friends, naked, in pain, alone, confused, and scared. Each move sent intense fire and pain through her body despite all the drugs and alcohol in her system. She did not know what just happened, but her mind registered that something happened. Something bad happened and it was not a bad trip, as she struggled to even slither her way back to the crowd. Each move shot intense inflamed nerves throughout her body and she cried hard, hoping the nightmare would end.

She dropped her face into the dewy leaves and cried harder. Her brain was too clouded by the drugs and alcohol in her system as she struggled to move. Her trip that started out good turned into a nightmare she could not recall fully, much less differentiate it from the drug induced trip. Was it real or a bad trip. It felt like an illusion, but yet what happened was real, because the pain said it was. Still, she was too paralyzed, physically and mentally, to decipher anything. Her mind just could not clarify it at the moment, but physically, she knew something happened to her and it was not just a bad trip. Her mind was fighting the reality of what happened and the drugs helped, at least for the moment, but she knew something evil hurt her badly.

Carlina finally found her faced down in a pile of leaves and tried to help her get home. Carlina wondered where her friend’s clothes were, despite being drunk and high too, but she did not receive the same cocktail as her friend, so she was not quite as inebriated nor had she been raped. Carlina was very careful in knowing what she imbibed during the rave, unlike Taya.

“You’re bleeding,” Carlina stated with horror. Despite the obvious, she asked, “And why are you naked? Where are your clothes?”

“Uh,” Taya moaned with discomfort and excruciating pain, as she knew something happened, but she could not speak. As her friend tried to lift her out of the leaves, Taya moaned, “Home.”

Pleading for help Carlina found someone with a shuttle to ride them home. Another friend grabbed the blanket in the shuttle and threw it on Taya to cover her as the two girls tried to get her into the shuttle. With her crying and screaming from every move, stumbling, unable to stand, they finally got her into the shuttle.

“Where to?” The girl with the shuttle asked.

“She’s from the Troi estate.”

“I think I know where that is,” the girl said.

“Oh, I know,” said a third girl. “I can get you there.”

“OK!” Exclaimed the girl with the shuttle. “Hold on to your seats!”

Once they arrived at the Troi estate, a few minutes later and a painfully rough ride, Taya still could not stand and struggled to speak. The drugs were still in her system, but most of the blood had cease for the moment, despite the pain still prevalent. The grass and leaves on the way to the shuttle had wiped most of it off her external flesh. Even though she had help getting to the shuttle, the kids had no idea how to get her there, so even that was a struggle. They succeeded and now they had to at least get her to the door of her home somehow.

Rhianna gasped hard as tears rolled down her face. She sensed something was very wrong with her daughter, but she could not get a good grasp on her daughter’s thoughts and feelings. She did sense intense pain from her daughter. It was unbearable and unspeakable pain, but Taya’s mind was too muddle to communicate what was happening. Or was her mind blocking what was happening to her? Rhianna did not know for sure what was happening to her daughter, but she knew it was horrifying. She could only make assumptions, as she realized her daughter may have made a mistake she never made and her worst nightmare for her daughter was happening.

“Walela, what’s wrong?”

Rhianna shook her head as tears continued streaming down her cheeks, “Something’s wrong, but… I can’t get a clear sense of her. Pain. No. Yes, intense pain. Torturous agony. I don’t know. I don’t think she even knows. Her mind is too muddled, maybe even blocking it. She can’t move. I can’t get a clear sense, but it seems to be very intense unthinkable pain.”

“You know where she is?”

“No, I don’t,” Rhianna told him telepathically as tears continued to roll down her face. “But I think… She’s in trouble, unable to articulate what is happening, but we’re helpless to help her. You could run all over Betazed and it will be too late, if you found her.”

“Are you sure you don’t know?” He asked as he wrapped a comforting arm around her.

“No, I don’t,” she sent as she buried her face into his chest and cried. “But it is a hellish nightmare.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Four

Home Finally

At 0430 hours, Taya stumbled to the house, with no clothes on, but stumbled was not quite the right word. Maybe crawled, as her friends had dumped at the front door after clumsily carrying her out of the shuttle to the door. She still could not stand, as the drugs were still in her system but the pain from her injuries was still intense.

Sensing Taya and her pain, Rhianna opened the door. Taya’s propped up body fell forward into the house, almost knocking her mother backwards.

“What the hell!” Chakotay exclaimed as he rushed to the door to help his wife.

Rhianna held him back as best he could when he jumped in Taya’s direction. Sensing his anger, she glared at him, “I’ll handled this!”

“Where are her clothes?” Chakotay inquired mentally, with shocked anger as Rhianna pulled her daughter through the threshold. “She can’t even stand! How the hell did she get home?”

Looking out the door, Rhianna saw a small shuttle filled with kids departing. She tried to hold Taya up, but she quickly gave up, trying not to let her daughter hit the floor, and then she shut the door, “I think I know how she got home.”

After closing the door, Rhianna struggled to help Taya stand, but the two were almost the same size with Taya too drunk and stoned to hold her own.  The pain she was having did not help either. How she managed to get to the door, Rhianna could only guess, knowing she had to had help.

“Ma,” Taya tried to send as tears fell from her eyes. “Dee!”

“Let me,” Chakotay insisted mentally as he saw Rhianna struggling to help Taya.

“I can,” Rhianna stumbled.

“No, you can’t,” he sent to her as she and Taya stumbled to the floor together. Helping Rhianna up, he continued, “It’s not like I haven’t changed her diaper before. Let me help get her to bed.”

“A hospital would be better,” Rhianna stated as Chakotay took over getting his daughter to bed.

“She needs to sleep it off,” Chakotay insisted. “She can see a doctor in a few hours when the clinic opens.”

“Dad,” Taya groaned, with a dirty wet face, slurring her words as he took her from her mother. “I... Pain…”

“All the more reason to go to bed!” Chakotay insisted angrily as he picked her up off the floor and carried her to her room, with Rhianna in tow. “You can’t even stand up, but we’ll deal with this after you slept some of this off! Then you will be in big trouble!”

“Chakotay,” Rhianna said telepathically. “She can’t sense you or me! She’s drunk so much and taken something that her telepathy is mute. She’s not sensing our anger or even our thoughts and concerns. That and she’s hurt! Worse than hurt!”

“Too bad,” Chakotay stated as Rhianna opened the door to the girls’ room. “Because right now, I want to hurt someone, and you didn’t want me to go get her. Saying she would just run off again! I could have done something.”

“She would have run off again and we might still be dealing with this!” She sent as she turned down Taya’s bed. “She needs a doctor!”

“Dad?” Lwaxana asked sleepily. “What’s wrong with Taya?”

“She’s in BIG trouble!” Chakotay growled as he laid Taya on her bed. “Just go back to sleep.”

“You wouldn’t!”  Rhianna exclaimed as she covered Taya. “Eggs for breakfast after this?”

“I would!” Chakotay insisted. “I still want to know what happened to her clothes! Who’s the boy?”

“UH!” Rhianna groaned as they started to leave the room. Shouting at Chakotay she said with a heavy accent, “ARE YOU SO ANGRY YOU’RE BLIND? OR YOU IN DENIAL OF THE OBVIOUS? SHE NEEDS A DOCTOR!”

“Are you and Dad fighting?” Lwaxana sent to her mother.

Rhianna sighed as she replied before shutting the door, “Don’t worry. It will be fine. At least between your father and me. It always is.”

“I’m going to kick that boy’s ass!” Chakotay thought to Rhianna.

“We don’t even know who she had sex with!” Rhianna insisted as they crossed the hall to their room. “Correction! This was not sex!”

“Then what was it?”

“To be honest, I don’t believe for a minute it was consensual,” Rhianna informed him. “She’s been raped, but right now, the bigger problem is that she is obviously drunk and high! Where the hell did she get the drugs? That’s what I want to know. So, high and drunk she can’t even sense my thoughts! Or yours either! Much less walk. That’s not good, because not only can I not get her to the doctor by myself, knowing her…”

“She might want more.”

“YES!” Rhianna shouted into his mind as he followed her into the room. “At least that is what I’m afraid of, especially since she’s wished for years not to have the ability. Not only that, what are the drugs doing to her? That’s not even talking about the obvious, which is who did this to her? She needs a doctor, Chakotay and I can’t do this by myself in her condition.”

“Maybe that is the bigger problem,” Chakotay thought. “I don’t disagree that she needs a doctor, but… Well, we’ll deal with all of this in a few hours, when the clinic opens. Maybe she can tell us more then, but there’s one thing I don’t understand.”

“Why she’d like suppressing her abilities?”

“No, we no longer had problems with drugs before the Dominion War,” Chakotay said. “Now… It’s made a resurgence. Even Raffi was addicted to drugs for a time, but has since quit. It’s like… I don’t know.”

“UH!” She screamed. Then sent, “Is that all you want to know?”

“No, but it’s the only question I can get answered for now.”

“I don’t know either,” Rhianna shook her head as the two of them crawled into bed. “She was fine until her telepathic sense went mute and then she ended up in trouble. I still think we should take her to the hospital.”

“She’s too drunk and high to talk to any doctor,” Chakotay insisted. “What are they going to do since she can’t talk?”

“REALLY? She’s hurt!”

“I know that!”

“You’re in denial!”

“I am not!”

“Yes, you are!” She insisted. “Personally, I want to take her to the doctor now! But I can’t without your help!”

“And I say let her sober up and then we’ll take her in a couple hours!”

“And I say you’re wrong!”

“Fine!” Chakotay looked at her angrily. “We’ll find out in a few hours if I’m wrong, but I’m not taking her anywhere if I have to carry her in the condition she is now!”

“And if she’s suffering from an overdose? Too much alcohol? Both? Or rape?” She questioned. “Chakotay, can’t you see she’s injured and in pain? Or you blind? She needs a damn doctor! Even if she is drunk and stoned off her ass!”

He became quiet mentally as he stared at her, not wanting to discuss what he knew in his head most likely happened. Yet, if it was true, Rhianna had every right to be angry with him, because he did not want to face the possibility.

“I’m sorry I took this out on you,” Chakotay apologized as he wrapped his arms around her. “You’re right. If I had found her and dragged her back, she would find another way to slip out, probably again tonight. She is a determined child.”

“A very sly child,” Rhianna replied telepathically, enjoying his comforting embrace. “I ran off at her age, more than once before I was eighteen. I ran to clubs, spent the night with friends, even stowed away on a ship, but I never did this and no boy did this to me. I ran to something and when I stowed away, I was running to Deanna. I don’t know. This one might be beyond me, but she needs a doctor and I need your help to do it.”

“You ran to clubs but didn’t drink?”

“It was a club for teens and the one time I managed to get into an adult club,” she began to admit. “I didn’t even start the one drink before the bouncer saw me and threw me out.”

“How did you get the drink?”

“A young college kid thought I was another college student and bought me a drink,” Rhianna told him. “When the waitress brought it over to me, the bouncer was there. She’s not running to anything or anyone. She just left and muted her telepathic sense with drugs, which only got her in serious trouble and now she needs more help than we can give her.”

“Yeah,” Chakotay agreed tiredly. “Maybe we should bring it up with her school counselor.”

“Maybe or maybe she needs more than a school counselor, teachers to help her learn to control her abilities, and alike.” Rhianna sent, still angry. “Like a doctor as soon as we can get her there.”

“Well, it’s 0500,” Chakotay sent. “While everyone is off today, we still need some sleep. Even if I was wanting to have some fun with you.”

“Yeah… That’s passed,” she yawned with anger. “I really think we should take her to see a doctor now, instead of waiting until we’ve had two or three hours of sleep.”

“Let’s get a few hours of sleep, so we have clearer heads,” Chakotay kissed her, unable to stay awake, and argue about when to take Taya to the doctor.

“For the record,” Rhianna sent to his mind. “I think waiting for medical care is wrong, but I can’t get her help alone. I need you or someone to help me.”

“I’ll help you after I get some sleep and calm down a little.”

“It might be too late!”

“For what?”

“UH!” Rhianna growled. “MEN!”

“Go to sleep!”

While Chakotay caught a couple hours of sleep, Rhianna did not, as she sensed Taya’s pain and silent wept as she wished she did not need a hearing person with her for medical situations. Rhianna just wanted to take her daughter to the doctor, but she could not do it without help. It was one of the times she wished she was not a deaf parent. If she wasn’t deaf, needing someone to interpret, she would just take Taya alone, even if she struggled to get her on the shuttle.

She could drag either Celesta or Deanna out of bed, but Taya was not their responsibility. Not in the middle of the night at least, especially with her father right there beside her. This should be hers and Chakotay’s responsibility, but he was refusing to face obvious facts for some reason. Seething with anger toward Chakotay and sensing her daughter’s pain and anguish while too drugged to move, Rhianna did not sleep.

“Too drugged to move?” Rhianna thought to herself. “Chakotay?”

Suddenly, he gave a loud snore and Rhianna angrily rolled over to her side as she tried to figure out how best to get Taya to a doctor, while making sure communication was not hindered. No ideas came to mind, because she was too angry with her husband, the father of her child who needed help.

Chapter Text

Chapter Five

Unreasonable Father

“Stop it!” Lwaxana yelled when Taya threw a holo-picture from her bedside stand at her three hours later. “I didn’t do anything! I just need the bathroom!”

“Stop making noise!” Taya whined, covering her face from the early morning sun shining through the curtains. “My head hurts.”

“I’m NOT making noise!”

“Lwaxana, just go to the bathroom,” Chakotay said after opening the door. “And you, Taya, get up, get dressed… I have a special breakfast for you.”

“I don’t feel like getting up, Dad,” she whined as her head pounded, her body hurt, and her stomach felt nauseous. Not only that, she felt raw and sore as though several knives had bore into her inner core, cutting her the inner parts of her female anatomy. It throbbed inside, as though the hammer was still pounding her. It was far worse than period cramps and definitely nothing like she ever felt in her life.

What was worse, she could not clearly remember what happened during the night, no matter how hard she tried. She only remembered excruciating pain and a dark image of a monster, who tortured the inside of her private area with a sharp hammer. She was not really sure it was a razor-sharp hammer, but it felt like it was, as it tore and pounded her. All she knew was the bad trip she had really did happen, but the drugs and alcohol distorted things or so she assumed, because there was no such thing as monsters and razor hammers. Or was there?

“Oh, you’re getting up!” Chakotay insisted. “You kept us up all night and now you are going to pay the Piper.”

“Chaw-kow-tay!” Rhianna shouted. Then telepathically she angrily sent, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m getting our daughter out of bed.”

Taya laid down again crying into her pillow.

“If I don’t see you for breakfast in fifteen minutes,” Chakotay stated, before leaving the room. “I’m coming in to drag you out!”

Sensing he was being cruel and unreasonable, punishing their daughter for the night before, Rhianna glared angrily at Chakotay and then spoke telepathically to her daughter, “What the hell do you think you were doing when you went out last night?”

“Head hurt, Mother,” crying, Taya signed after she rolled over to face her. “Feel bad. Telepathy hurt head more. My body hurts. Leave me alone, please!”

“Well, you’re going to hurt a lot more if you don’t start talking,” Rhianna sent as she pulled her daughter into a sitting position and dragged a shirt over her daughter’s head. “Especially to a doctor.”

Taya’s lips moved as she avoided thinking anything because her head hurt so badly.

“Smartass!” Rhianna sent as she made her daughter put her arms through the sleeves, while thinking she needed ask Celesta to come with them, since Chakotay was useless. “OK, if you don’t want to talk to me, you will talk to a doctor and to your father. He won’t give you a choice. Drugs? Please! I suppose you thought it great not to sense anything and now you are sensing everything again, wishing you could shut it down again. It won’t happen, if I can help it. You can’t even block out the pain you have right now and lying in that bed won’t make it any better. You are going to the doctor, if I have anything to say about it.”

“OW!” Taya cried as her mother pulled underwear onto her. “MOM!”

“I really need to know what happened,” Rhianna sent while sensing her daughter’s pain as she pulled a pair of lose fitting soft pants on her reluctant daughter.

“I can dress myself!” Taya shouted angrily. “Just let me lay down!”

Rhianna sighed as she looked at her daughter’s moving lips, not knowing her words, but sensing her pain, “I only hope it’s not what I think happened, even though I know it is. I can’t be in denial, like your father is.”

“I…” Taya began to say, becoming suddenly confused and uncertain, instead of resistant. She looked at her mother wide eyed and shook her head as tears ran down her face. Placing a hand on the side of her forehead, she turned her palm forward, “Don’t know. I don’t want to think now. Monster, with sharp hammer all I remember.”

“You’re father is expecting you in the kitchen,” Rhianna told her daughter. I can’t promise he will be any nicer or reasonable, but I need to get dressed to take you to the doctor and talk to Celesta. Your father is useless to us right now.”

With Taya finally presentable, Rhianna left the room, but Taya laid down again. She felt so nauseated and her head pounded. The more her mother sent to her mind, the more it pounded. Not to mention how much moving her legs caused her pain in her female area. She was so glad her mother left the room, ceasing to communicate with her for the moment. She did not even want to move, but that did not mean her mother did not notice the spots of blood on the sheets. Some spots worse than others. Taya did not even try to sense her mother’s anger and if she had, she would not know who exactly her mother was angry with, because her mother was angry with several people currently, but she did not blame Taya for what happened to her.

Chapter Text

Chapter Six

Mother’s Intervention

A few minutes later, Chakotay returned to his daughter’s room and dragged her out of bed. Rhianna had helped her daughter dress, under protest moments earlier, but Taya laid down again, knowing her mother wanted to take her to the doctor. The only problem was that her mother needed help from someone to do that and Taya was not interested in her father’s ‘special breakfast’. In fact, she was not hungry at all.

“HEY!” Taya screamed as Chakotay grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the bed. “I don’t feel good!”

“You’re about to feel even better,” Chakotay growled after she hit the floor.

“You and Mom planned this!” Taya accused with tears and pain in her eyes. “She put clothes on me, just so you could pull me out of bed!”

“Get up!”

“NO!” Taya’s face twisted with anger and tears.

Chakotay grabbed her by both arms and pulled her up, “You will stand and get into the kitchen now!”

“NO!” She shouted again as her head pounded and her body ached. Her father had no idea the agony she was feeling and she was not about to tell him. “My head hurts and I feel as though I’m going to puke! I want to stay in bed.”

“Breakfast is ready,” Chakotay informed her as he wrapped his arms around her and dragged her through the dining room and into the kitchen. Everyone watched, including the Rikers, who were very well aware of what happened. As well as what was happening now, thanks to communication between Deanna and Rhianna. They even knew that Rhianna believed Chakotay was being unreasonable and in denial.

“LET GO OF ME!” Taya screamed and cried. “LET GO OF ME!”

He sat her down at the breakfast bar where a plate of runny eggs, greasy bacon, greasy hash browns, and buttery toast sat waiting for her.

“MEAT?” Taya whined. “You know we don’t eat meat!”

“You are this morning!”

“MADI!” She sent holding her head as she telepathically called Rhianna.

“And don’t call for your mother!” Chakotay ordered as he nursed some orange juice and ate a piece of toast. “I told her not to come in here.”

“Chakotay, you’re being cruel!” Rhianna sent from the bedroom where she was dressing to take Taya to the doctor. “I know you’re upset with her, but she just needs get ready to go to the doctor, not be tortured more.”

“No wonder Aunt Kathy calls her a submissive,” Taya angrily stated.

“Eat your breakfast,” Chakotay demanded.

She tried to eat, but as fast as she dipped the toast into the runny eggs and placed them in her mouth, she had to run to the bathroom. Unfortunately, she didn’t make it two steps after she painfully slid off the stool.

“UH BLUP!” Her body betrayed her as smelly alcohol vomit came up from her stomach and landed on the floor.

“YUK!” The peanut gallery from the other room exclaimed.

Chakotay walked over and closed the wide double sliding doors to the kitchen.

“Clean up your mess and get back to your breakfast.”

“Dad!” She whined with tears streaming down her face. “I don’t feel good!”

“You are reaping your consequences this morning,” Chakotay stated. “And this is only the beginning. You have more coming.”

“DAD!” Taya cried.

“Chakotay, she needs to get to the doctor,” Rhianna pleaded from the other room. “Not more torture.”

“Clean it up!” He growled as he tried to ignore Rhianna’s telepathic communication.

“I’m sick!”

“It’s not contagious,” Chakotay roared back.

“I’m talking to Celesta,” Rhianna sent, sensing what was happening the kitchen. “Judging by your thoughts and emotions, as well as how you’re treating our daughter, you are utterly incapable of helping us with this. You’re not coming with us!”

As a tearful Taya cleaned her vomit off the floor, Chakotay continued, ignoring his daughter’s tears from pain and his wife’s anger with him, “In a week, I have a three-month mission. You’re coming with me.”

“Why can’t I stay with Mother?”

“She will be on Deanna’s ship for a diplomatic mission,” Chakotay told her. “Lwaxana and Kolopak will be with her. Tiana and Aiyana will stay with Kamini and Kimaya.”

“I don’t see why I can’t be on Aunt De’s ship,” she whined as she got the last of her vomit off the floor, feeling as though she were going to be sick again, as her insides ripped more.

“No, you are not on a ship to have fun in Ten-Forward,” Chakotay told her. “You will stay with me on the White Dove.”

“Dad, I have school!” She exclaimed, despite the nausea and pain.

“There’s school on board,” he informed her. “Plus, since the teachers are mostly Betazoid, you’ll still get your training and therapy.”

“My friends…”

“You call that friends?” Chakotay asked as he pointed in the direction of the front entry way. “They dumped you off like a sack of potatoes.”

“I got home!”

“What else did they give you?” He asked as she washed her hands. “Besides alcohol? And who was the boy?”

“Chakotay stop it!” Rhianna angrily sent again, sensing what was happening in the kitchen as she talked to Celesta about helping her with Taya. “Stop denying the obvious! She needs help, not denial and interrogation!”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Some pill. It blocked my telepathy and heightened my other senses. It was great! I couldn’t sense a thing telepathically! It was so cool! Until it wasn’t…”

“Enough to disrespect your mother?” He asked her as she dried her hands and then slowly went back to sit down at the breakfast bar. “Yes, she told me what you did to her this morning. The drug is still affecting your senses, but not half as bad as it was last night. How dare you speak to her without communicating with her! You managed to keep from talking to her telepathically or with signs when she asked you about last night. She could send to you, but you refused to even try to communicate with her!”

“So?” Taya asked as she tried to eat the food given her. “What difference does it make? As long as I don’t think any thoughts, I can get around her easier than you!”

“You have disrespecting your mother down to a science, do you?” Chakotay stated. “She asked you a question and you refused to answer her in a way that communicated with her. That is disrespectful. You’ve had the opportunity to tell us what happened last night and you’ve refused to do so.”

“CHAKOTAY!” Rhianna telepathically shouted into his mind, sensing his anger and knowing he was berating their daughter, instead of letting her get her shoes on and get to a doctor. She was on her way to the kitchen to inform him personally he could just stay home, because he was no help.

“After you finish eating, no matter how many times you puke, barf, or whatever kids call it these days,” Chakotay continued. “I’m taking you to the doctor and we’ll find out what your alleged friend gave you.”

“Da….” She vomited again.

“Clean it up!”

“I really don’t feel good,” she cried. “This is unreasonable…”

“I know, but you’re still going to clean it up again.”

She cried and groaned, not from rebellion, but because her body hurt, her head hurt, and her stomach was a mess. All she wanted to do was return to her room and lie down again.

“We’ll be transporting Raffi,” Chakotay informed her as she cleaned up vomit again. “A Starfleet officer and a friend of ours. I’ll have her talk to you about this behaviour. She’s been through a lot herself.”

“Mother drinks!”

“She drinks wine,” he stated. “Most of the time, within limits, because she doesn’t like having her telepathic sense muted, especially like yours were, but I suspect it was the other drug you took that did the most muting, because it was bad last night. So bad, your mother couldn’t sense your thoughts. You couldn’t even stand for that matter! I had to carry you!”

“I don’t know what Carlina gave me!” Taya insisted, still crying.

“You admit you took something that you didn’t know what it was?”

“Yes,” Taya admitted as tears ran down her face.

“Though this is your mother’s prevue,” Chakotay told her. “But she says something sexual happened and we need to find you birth control, as well as… Other womanly stuff.”

“She’s talking to you right now!” Taya accused. “I knew it! You two almost always do that!”

“Your mother has every right to put her two cents in!” Chakotay told his daughter. “You had no clothes when you arrived home! It doesn’t take a telepath to figure out that much of what happened…”

“I don’t remember what happened,” she replied forlornly as her head pounded. “I don’t even know what happened to my clothes. I honestly don’t remember anything shortly after I arrived at the party. I did meet a boy, several boys, but I can’t remember any of their names. I do recall horrible pain. Intolerable and excruciating pain. I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT! ESPECIALLY NOT WITH YOU!”

“And that is why you should never drink as you did!” Chakotay growled. “Much less do drugs. Do you have any idea why I don’t drink?”

“Chakotay, this is over the top,” Rhianna sent to his mind, sensing just how hard he was being on Taya. “Celesta and I are almost ready. I’ll be in there in a minute!”

“No,” Taya said as she washed her hands again.

“Long ago, our people had issues with what they called “firewater”,” he explained. “The white man called it alcohol or whiskey. It was bad and ruined many a young warrior’s life. They lost control of themselves and I like to stay in control of myself, not end up like you did, coming home without your clothes.”

“This isn’t the twentieth century, Dad.”

“It was happening longer than that.”

“I’m fine, Dad,” Taya insisted as she continued to cry. “Or I will be when my stomach quits puking and head stops pounding. I don’t even want to think about what happened to my clothes! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!”

About that time Rhianna, dressed in a long skirt, blouse, boots, and no make-up with her hair flowing aimlessly, burst into the kitchen and glared angrily at Chakotay with her arms crossed in front of her. She could sense that Taya knew what happened, but did not want to articulate it any more than Chakotay wanted to face it. Yet Chakotay’s berating Taya made her feel worse, like it was her fault. Then with a very heavy and angry accent Rhianna shouted, “STOP IT!”

“Discipline for her actions, she needs!” Chakotay signed.

“You asshole! She doesn’t need to feel guilty, like it was her fault!” Rhianna sent to him, still obviously irate because he was making his daughter feel worse, like being raped was her fault. Rhianna embraced Taya in an effort to comfort her.

“If she had stayed home…” Chakotay signed and said.

“FUCK YOU! IT WAS NOT HER FAULT!” Rhianna said aloud for her daughter to hear with her ears and not just her mind. “SO, JUST STOP IT!” Then she sent to Chakotay, “It doesn’t matter what she did! What that boy did to her is on him! Not her! Her leaving the house, drinking, and getting high are on her, but not what the boy did to her. Actually, I don’t believe it was a boy for that matter! I think it was a sick, demented, grown man who raped her!”

“I can still hear you!” Taya signed after pushing her mother away, her face wet with tears as obvious mental anguish went through Chakotay’s mind, but quickly returned to anger. “Telepathically inept I not!”

There was a pause in the tirades between her parents, as they glared at each other in anger. Her mother scolding her father and her father yelling at both of them. The only thing Taya knew was at the moment, her mother was on her side, wanting her father to stop making her feel worse about the night before.

Finally, Chakotay broke the silence and told Taya with more controlled calm in his voice than previously, “There’s nothing wrong with the music. You could go to one of those teen clubs that has music, dancing, and drinks appropriate for your age, as well as adult supervision.”

“Dad, please.”

“No, I’m serious,” he told her. “You’d be safer and I can guarantee you’ll come home with your clothes on your body, as well as remember what all you did.”

“Can I go lie down?” She pleaded with tears still rolling down her face, not wanting to listen to her father any longer. “I really don’t feel good.”

“No, you are going to see the doctor to find out what the pill was you took last night.”

“I don’t want you talking to the doctor about birth control for me!”

“Celesta and I will take her,” Rhianna contemptuously sent to his mind. “You are NOT coming! Right now, she needs her father, not an authoritarian disciplinarian, and I need a husband willing to make sure there is no misunderstanding with communication at the doctor’s office, but you obviously can’t do that.”

“No, your mother just telepathically told me she would take you,” he informed Taya as he scowled at Rhianna. Then as he signed he added, “And report the results of the toxicology test after you two return.”

“Mother’s more concerned about me physically,” Taya noted and could now sense that much concerning her parents. “You’re so damn determined to know what drug I took!”

“Damn right I am!” Chakotay exclaimed. “If you had your senses about you, this might not have happened!”

“FUCK YOU!” Rhianna angrily signed to her husband.

“Do you even care that I’m sick?” She pleaded with him. “Do you even care about the pain I’m suffering? Why do I have to go with you on this mission? You don’t even care why I’m in pain!”

“I DO CARE!”

“NO, YOU DON’T!” She started to leave the room, but her mother stopped her by grabbing her arm.

“Shoes!” Rhianna ordered telepathically. “Or you can go barefooted to the doctor.”

“I don’t want your mother worrying about you while she’s on a diplomatic mission,” Chakotay angrily stated, forgetting to sign. “She’ll have her hands full with Lwaxana and Kolopak. And yes, I do care, that’s why you’re seeing a doctor.”

“You had too many damn kids!” Taya shouted hatefully. “All you care about is making babies!  You don’t care what happens to us!”

“Go get ready to see the doctor!” Chakotay ordered as he seethed with anger. “You have just enough time put on your socks and shoes.”

“Mom takes longer than that!” Taya exclaimed. “I need a shower!”

“She’s had a head start,” he stated angrily. “And your mother said that you need to just go to the doctor. No shower, just clothes, in the hopes there is still evidence. Now get your shoes!”

“I don’t want you taking me!” Taya cried. “You don’t care!”

“Change of plans,” Chakotay informed her. “Your mother and Celesta are taking you. I’m not going with you at all.”

“Good!” Taya shouted at him with more tears running down her face, despite feeling she could lose her cookies again. “I don’t want you! I hate you!”

Rhianna looked at Chakotay with disgust as she again signed, “Fuck you! You asshole!” and then followed her daughter out of the room.

“Fuck you!” Chakotay translated for himself. Then he realized as he continued without signing, “Fuck me? You’re my wife! How dare you call me an asshole?”

“If looks could kill!” Will said to Chakotay. “You’re married to her and you’re talking to her back? Nice job, Chakotay. You’re batting a thousand.”

“Shut up, Will!”

Will looked at him with shock, because he never heard Chakotay say that to anyone before. Then he watched Chakotay head to his office to escape from what happened to his family.

“I’ll talk to him,” Kathryn stated. “Odin, excuse me. I’ll be back.”

He nodded his understanding, but was really wanting to spend the whole day with Kathryn. Yet, he knew this was unexpected and very much a family matter, which Kathryn was definitely a member.

Chapter Text

Chapter Seven

A Father’s Denial

As Chakotay headed to his office to escape the reality of the situation, Taya’s last words echoed in his head. The look on his wife’s face before she left with Taya was ingrained in his mind as she cursed him in sign language.

“Maybe Rhianna’s right,” he thought to himself. “Maybe I am handling this all wrong and I need to stop denying the obvious. I don’t want to face that it happened though.”

Taya did not actually hate her father, but she was so angry at what she deemed to be Maquis style discipline and with her father for using it on her. She was also angry that he could not quite comprehend what happened, even if she struggled to articulate what happened, beyond the physical evidence. Unfortunately, the injuries she suffered began to seep blood again, but Rhianna insisted she really needed to go straight to the doctor, despite the residual bleeding.

At the same time, Chakotay was relieved about not taking her, because Rhianna brought up medical needs a father didn’t want to think about concerning his daughter. If he had and if what they believed happened was confirmed, he knew he would want to hunt down the boy and hurt him. He did not even want to think about what the boy did to his daughter. He did not even want to admit what the evidence upon her arrival home said, much less say the word. He could not even bare to hear the words when his wife said it.

The only thing he felt right now was relief that he did not have to go with them. He was grateful Celesta was going to assist Rhianna at the medical facility, because he truly did not want to feel any more anguish concerning his daughter at the moment. If Celesta did not have the training necessary to assist Rhianna, which was far more than he had, he feared he would have to face the truth of what happened to Taya in the middle of the night. He could just return to his office and bury himself in his students’ assignments, taking his mind off his daughter and the evidence that she was raped.

Then again, if the doctor couldn’t find any evidence, except physical evidence, he knew he would blame himself. Another thought he did not wish to think about or even acknowledge. He knew, due to anger, he made mistakes and should have listened to his wife, who he knew needed help taking their daughter. Not because Taya was drugged out her mind, though it did not help, but because his wife was deaf and needed someone with her to make sure there as no miscommunication. If he ruined any chance of convicting the man or boy who did this, he would only blame himself.

“Madi,” Lwaxana sent to Rhianna in Betazoid as her sister, mother, and Aunt Celesta were leaving. “Is everything going to be alright? Will Taya be alright and will you and Adta be alright?”

“It will be fine,” Rhianna assured her other daughter. “Just eat your breakfast and listen to Kamini and your Aunt De.”

“OK,” Lwaxana sent sadly. “Can’t I come with? Atda is monstrously furious.”

“No, you stay here with everyone else,” Rhianna insisted. “Aunt De will take care of you.”

“Lwaxana,” Deanna gently said. “Why don’t you come with me and let your mother take care of your sister. She really needs to see the doctor.”

“OK,” Lwaxana reluctantly agreed. “Why is Daddy’s anger making him seem like a monster?”

“Come on,” Deanna replied, as she guided Lwaxana to her mother’s study. “We’ll talk.” Then before entering Rhianna’s study, she sent to Rhianna, “I’ll take care of her while you take care of Taya. Maybe Will can get through to Chakotay somehow. I don’t know.”

With that, Celesta, Rhianna and Taya, who was in a lot of pain, left to see a doctor.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eight

Hiding Out

Kathryn knocked and upon getting no answer, she peeked into the room and around the door, “Chakotay,” she gently. “May I come in.”

He tossed the PADD he was reading on the desk and sighed, “If you are going to degrade me like Rhianna has done…”

“I hope to talk to you, but if you like, I can do that.”

“No, come in.”

Kathryn entered and took a chair in front of his desk, “Chakotay, Rhianna is upset because you refused to help get Taya to the doctor when she arrived home early this morning. She needed your help. They both needed your help.”

“If she felt that way, why didn’t she do it herself?” He asked. “She’s capable to doing things like other mothers.”

“You’re still not listening,” Kathryn insisted. “She can do what other mothers do, but she’s also deaf and she knows this is a medical situation in which communication could break down because she is deaf. It doesn’t matter if the doctor is Betazoid or Human and she is telepathic. It could still happen.”

“OK continue.”

“She needed your help early this morning to get Taya on the shuttle and to the doctor,” Kathryn insisted. “When Taya needed the doctor most. She still needs a doctor badly, but more so early this morning when she first arrived home.”

“If she felt that way, she’s resourceful,” Chakotay stated. “If she couldn’t take Taya by herself, she could have woke Celesta or Deanna or both.”

“Or she could have done it herself,” Kathryn stated. “But she couldn’t get Taya to the shuttle.”

“Well, we’re back to Deanna and Celesta.”

“You’re the father!” Kathryn stated with frustration. “What if it were Shannon?”

“She’s only nine,” Chakotay stated. “Not a teenager.”

“Would you have forced her to wait if she were and did the same things Taya did?”

“We still needed to wait for her to sober up a little to receive her punishment.”

“Excuse me?” Kathryn sounded angry now. “For what? Seems to me, she already received her consequences for sneaking out at night, getting drunk and high that she lost track of her drink. Yet you would treat our daughter the same way as you just did Taya, your alleged ‘Bonding Child’ you say you love so dearly?”

“That’s what she needed discipline for,” Chakotay stated. “Because if she had not done any of that, it might not have happened.”

“MEN!”

“Oh, now you’re doing it.”

“Rightly so!” Kathryn rebutted. “Do you think Deanna, Rhianna, Celesta, or myself would have made it as far as we have if accepted the blame for the action of others, especially men? Probably not. What that boy did to Taya was on him, but her running off, getting drunk, and high, did not cause her to be raped. It may have caused her to let her guard down, but the rape was not her fault.”

“Now you sound like Rhianna.”

“She needs you, just as Taya does,” Kathryn insisted. “Celesta can interpret, but she shouldn’t have to.”

“Why?” Chakotay asked. “She’s a better skilled interpreter than I’ll ever be.”

“That’s not the point, Chakotay.”

“Then what is?”

“Damn it, Chakotay! You’re the father!” Kathryn reminded him. “Taya is your responsibility, not Celesta’s or Deanna’s. As captain of Voyager, I was responsible for every crew member on my ship. Including when they ran off, did something stupid, and something happened to them. This is no different.”

“I really want to block all of this out of my mind, Kathryn,” Chakotay insisted as he picked up a PADD.

“And pretend it didn’t happen?”

He looked up from the PADD, then sighed. As he lowered it to the desk he said, “Alright, if Rhianna comes home and shows Taya was raped, I’ll face it then. Until then, I’d like to get some work done before I go on my away mission.”

“Speaking of which, why don’t you take some family leave?” Kathryn asked. “Rhianna is taking family leave.”

“Who will do the mission?”

“My ship and my crew.”

“Kathryn.”

“We can do that job just as well as the White Dove’s crew can,” Kathryn insisted. “What is it? Taking one group of people to Earth?”

“It’s a little more than that in three months,” Chakotay insisted. “It’s vaccinating the colonists, making sure they are all healthy, and then after that, getting the Excelsior ready to be towed back, especially if we can’t repair it out there. If it needs to be towed all the way back, we’ll have another crew on board, going back and forth to repair what we can while getting back to Earth.”

“So, you’re helping colonists, who were attacked by Breen,” Kathryn stated. “Repairing a ship that was badly damaged by the Breen and getting said Starfleet ship back to Earth.”

“Pretty much,” Chakotay stated. “A Betazoid ship helping Starfleet and the Federation. It’s what Betazed stayed in the Federation to do.”

“Are the colonists to blame for the attack by the Breen?”

“Oh Spirits! No!”

“Then why are you blaming Taya for someone attacking her?”

Chakotay sighed again, “As I said, if Rhianna brings home confirmation, I’ll consider it.”

“Until then, you want to just deny any possibility that she came home without clothes and was injured due to rape?”

“I never saw any injury,” he denied.

“You didn’t want to see it.”

“Kathryn, please!” Chakotay growled. “I have work to do.”

“Fine, but if Rhianna’s right and the doctor…”

“I’ll consider everything you said,” Chakotay stated. “Now please, let me get some of these reports read and graded.”

“Chakotay, take some time off to help Rhianna take care of your daughter.”

“I said, if there is evidence…”

“There is!”

“I’ll consider it!”

Kathryn nodded, “If you want to talk…”

“I know who I can go to,” he continued staring at a PADD.

Kathryn sighed with frustration as she rose and then left the room.

Chapter Text

Chapter Nine

Facing Reality

Rhianna brought Taya into his office after they returned from the doctor’s and angrily handed him a PADD with the toxicology report. She still had the look on face that she had when she called him an “asshole” as she gave him the report.

Without saying a word, he looked it over and frowned heavily. His face was almost red with anger as he read, but he never once asked how Taya was and what happened at the doctor’s office.

“The doctor found evidence of flunitrazepam, ketamine, and LSD in your system,” Chakotay stated to Taya. Then he exclaimed as he continued to berate his daughter, “No wonder you couldn’t walk! Much less sense anything or think anything! It’s a wonder you’re moving much now! You couldn’t, not even when you arrived home, and still appear to have difficulty!”

“That’s not why!” Taya tearfully shouted.

“And of course, the music would seem more vivid to you!” Chakotay exclaimed refusing to talk about the evidence of rape. “You could have killed yourself! Four different drugs at once! That’s deadly dangerous!”

“Four?” Taya asked with shock. “The pill was only two. What are the other two?”

“Alcohol is a drug and someone could have put the flunitrazepam in one of your drinks,” Chakotay told her as he tried to push out of his mind what was confirmed. “So, no. You did not have just that pill and alcohol.”

“No, alcohol isn’t a drug,” Taya insisted.

He scoffed, “It is, Taya, and it doesn’t always mix well with other drugs and this combo... Are you sure it was one pill?”

“Yes.”

“Did they create it in a lab?” Chakotay stated.

“I DON’T KNOW!” Taya cried loudly.

Rhianna groaned, as she was not only left out of their conversation, but she sensed he was doing exactly what she was afraid he would do, without thinking about the flunitrazepam. She knew what happened and that drug was not Taya’s fault, given the situation.

“It’s no wonder you were nauseous and had a headache!” Chakotay exclaimed. “I’m with the doctor on this. It was not just one pill and someone might have spiked your drink. All the more reason you shouldn’t go to such parties.”

“Chakotay,” Rhianna tried to caution telepathically. “Getting this angry with her isn’t helping. And to be honest, the boy…”

“That’s the problem,” Chakotay sent back to her. “You’re too lenient sometimes!”

“WHAT?” Rhianna sent back with shock and irritation. “In this case, you’re being a bit harsh without thinking any of it through! Should I spell it out for you?”

“Well, you sent me to the doctor and she gave me three more drugs,” Taya informed him, ignoring the silent dispute brewing again between her parents.

He looked at Rhianna for a moment and then he said to Taya, “Yes, the Morning After Pill, flumazenil to counteract the flunitrazepam, and something to counteract that pill you swallowed, even though most of it was probably out of your system by the time you saw her. I’m not worried about what the doctor gave you. I’m more worried about the cocktail you had last night.”

“Chakotay, there’s a reason her clothes were missing!” Rhianna tried to tell him. “I know you know what flunitrazepam is. She didn’t voluntarily take that one and it confirms what I feared to begin with. Along with the doctor’s assessment.”

“I’m alright and besides Doctor Dika already lectured me about taking drinks from others, as well as taking other drugs,” Taya told them both telepathically. “She even told me what the drugs in my system were, but I don’t remember anything from last night, except a monster hurt me. I don’t even know where my clothes went.”

“Well, you’re getting another lecture from…” Chakotay stopped in midsentence as he realized not only did his daughter have no memory of half the night, but she also lost her clothes somewhere, and… He couldn’t bare to think about it and now he was feeling ill because he had to think about it again.

“Chakotay! Stop!” Rhianna telepathically yelled into his mind. “I really need to talk to you and you need to face what happened to our daughter!”

“Dad, I don’t remember anything!” Taya yelled as tears rolled down her face. “I don’t know why you’re so upset. I don’t know what happened a couple hours after I got there. I really don’t. All I know is, A monster hurt me with what felt like a hammer with a blade. I really hurt and I feel very sick.”

“What was the boy’s name?”

“I told you I can’t remember!” She insisted as she cried harder. “I had just met him and others at the party and… I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything, except excruciating pain! It doesn’t matter, because there were other boys there too. I talked and danced with several. I’m fine or will be.”

“I want to talk to you, Chakotay,” Rhianna insisted telepathically. “NOW!”

“I think you’d better talk to Mother,” Taya sent to her father. “She believes it’s important, though I don’t know why. I don’t remember anything except hammering pain. I really don’t, but the doctor tried to give me a whole woman’s exam, but I didn’t want it. I don’t even want to talk about it!”

“Taya, would you excuse your mother and me?” Chakotay asked more gently than he did his other questions. “But don’t think this means you get out of going with me on my mission. Is that understood?”

Taya was too exhausted and hurting to argue about a trip to Earth and back again, making stops along the way. “Yeah, Dad. It might be fun.”

“I’ll call Celesta to make sure you stay here,” Chakotay told her.

“Dad, I don’t feel good,” Taya told him. “Despite seeing the doctor. All I want to do is lie down.”

“I just…”

“Chakotay, she’s telling the truth,” Rhianna sent to him. “Just let her go lie down. Celesta knows to make sure she doesn’t try to slip out again and I doubt she will, because she’s still in pain. She wouldn’t let the doctor treat her after the DNA samples were acquired.”

“I still say you coddle her, but alright,” he thought to his wife. Then he addressed Taya, “Go lie down, but if you go anywhere…”

“I know,” she grumbled with a sigh. “I’ll be under constant guard. I assure you, while I’m better than I was, I still don’t feel good. I hurt and if I told you, I don’t know why, you’ll just keep yelling at me.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Ten

Father’s Regret

After Taya left the room, Rhianna sent to his mind, “Chakotay, the doctor examined her and found reason to get a DNA sample. She did and a report was filed, but it’s going to take time to find who raped her. However, after the DNA, she crying she hurt so bad and refused treatment for the internal wounds.”

“Raped her?” The words confirmed his nauseating feelings he had moments ago. He really did not want confirmation, but there it was and he had to face it, whether he wanted to or not.

“Yes, and even worse, she truly doesn’t remember it clearly and may never remember it clearly,” Rhianna continued. “At least not coherently. She was too drunk and high to know. The rape drug topped everything else off and she probably won’t feel well for the rest of the day, even though the drugs should be completely out of her system now. We’re lucky she’s not worse off than she was. It could have been worse, but all she remembers is a monster who used a sharp hammer on her.”

“Reading this toxicology report,” Chakotay thought to her. “She could have died.”

“Well, maybe we should have thrown clothes on her last night and taken her to the doctor then!” She replied angrily.

“Maybe if you let me look for her this might not have happened!”

“That’s was NOT the right approach,” Rhianna sent angrily, as she began to cry. “Maybe if you sent a communique to the authorities, doing the things I can’t do efficiently under such circumstances… You failed me and most of all you failed your own daughter!”

“I didn’t…” Suddenly, he realized that while he was in denial of what happened to his daughter, he had failed his daughter and his deaf wife. He could have done better by both of him, but he did not want to face the fact his daughter was raped and his wife could not handle the situation alone.

“My point is, I’m glad she did not take a shower before I took her to the doctor,” Rhianna sent. “But I needed help, especially last night when she could not walk on her own. Deanna isn’t strong enough and to drag Celesta out of bed too… It would have taken all three of us to help Taya, when it’s your responsibility to help Taya and me.”

“You helped with her not taking a shower,” Chakotay told her. “I would have let her take one, if you had not said anything. How did you know?”

Rhianna tried not to cry as she shook her head, “I felt her pain, but it didn’t register as to what exactly was happening, because her mind was too messed with drugs and alcohol to receive any of her thoughts clearly. I only had a feeling, with no confirmation until after I saw her. Something you refused to admit to yourself until now.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t think of taking her to the doctor sooner,” Chakotay apologized. “I didn’t want to face it and to be fair, you didn’t push as hard last night. You pushed harder this morning.”

“Only because I couldn’t carry her myself,” Rhianna retorted telepathically. “Celesta might have been able to help me, but she’s her aunt, not her father. My point is, maybe we shouldn’t be trying to get her to remember who it was, much less what happened to her. The pressure to get her to remember could acerbate things, especially since she’s still recovering physically and needs our support emotionally. It could even cause her to give a false report if we push too hard.”

“The doctor gave her something to counteract the drugs that remained in her system,” Chakotay stated.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean she’s suddenly well,” Rhianna sent. “She’s still physically hurting and she can’t clearly remember what happened. She’s even in denial. Thus, why she says she doesn’t know why she hurts. She knows. She has some memory of it, but she’s not ready to talk about it, despite the physical pain and injuries.”

“Surely the doctor ran a dermo-regenerator over…”

“Chakotay, she didn’t want the doctor anywhere near her after the DNA sample,” Rhianna told him. “She shrieked with pain during the DNA culture. Taya doesn’t know or understand why, but she had a panic attack after the doctor got some DNA. Still, the doctor found a lot of injuries indicative of forced…”

Chakotay sighed and sat down in a chair, as he raised a hand to stop her from continuing. “What do I do to discipline my daughter and at the same time help her?”

“Between the drugs, alcohol, and possibly her mind refusing to acknowledge what happened,” Rhianna told him. “She’s not going to be able to recall what happened for a while, if ever. At least not clearly and not for a while. Given she had a panic attack, her mind did register something of the rape, even though it was clouded from everything in her system. She won’t recall anything for a while, which means the man could continue to run free, unless he can be found with the DNA. For all we know, he could be much older than she is. We know nothing about him at this point.”

“So, she is suffering psychologically from the rape, but doesn’t remember it?”

“Yes, it seems so,” Rhianna shook her head. “Judging from the panic attack, there was deep seeded mental trauma that her drug muddle mind has buried. It could come back to haunt her or this could be the end of it, but we can’t push her to remember what happened or we’ll just make it worse. In time, maybe she will recall it or maybe she won’t. She does have her first therapy appointment tomorrow.”

“Then how do I discipline her for running off and yet help her at the same time?”

“You can maybe still take her with you on your mission,” Rhianna told him. “But focus only on the running off and the substance use. Don’t even try to talk about the rape or anything that related to it, unless she says something.”

“That’s going to be hard,” Chakotay admitted. “Because I want to ring the boy’s neck.”

“We don’t even know for sure it was this Dimon boy,” Rhianna stated. “But do me one favour, especially if she starts to recall anything or becomes moody.”

“How would I know that she’s moody,” Chakotay asked mentally. “She’s always in a mood.”

“It will be different,” Rhianna said. “Crying one moment, angry the next, though anger seems to be a perpetual state with her. Still, I want her to speak with one of the psychologist on board the White Dove, if that happens.”

“Not a problem,” Chakotay agreed. “In the meantime, she’s grounded, the security code is changed, and then we’ll go from there with some restrictions, and rewards for good behaviour.”

“And what about that comment concerning me being too lenient?”

“I’m not going to hear the end about that, am I?”

“No.”

“Does it help that I love you and the children?”

“That’s the only thing that’s helping you.”

“I’m sorry I failed you last night,” he apologized. “I was too anger with her to think and then she came home, drunk, high, and naked. I… I lost it. I just didn’t want to believe… If I acknowledged what happened, I would have tried to find and kill the boy.”

“I truly do not believe,” Rhianna sent to him. “This was the damage of a boy.”

“Whatever the case,” Chakotay persisted. “I would have failed you more if I allowed myself to believe the possibility last night. I’m truly sorry for not helping as a father and husband better.”

“You may have to apologize to your daughter too… Eventually.”

“I’m thinking of going on family leave too,” Chakotay informed her. “I’m thinking I need to stay here instead of go on the mission.”

“Your classes?”

“Well, I still have the three months off that were for the mission,” Chakotay told her. “I can finish the paper I still need to grade and spend the rest of the time here.”

“Are you sure?”

“If I’m ever going to find a way to make this up to you two,” he began. “I need to take family leave.”

“It’s a start.”

“I still don’t want to think about it,” Chakotay told her. “But if they catch the guy, I need to be here for her when and if it goes to trial. You probably still need me to help you with this too.”

“You really are regretful, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am,” Chakotay stated. “Judging by this report and the doctor confirming it, you were right to call me an asshole. Although… we could kiss and make up with make-up sex.”

“We’ll see,” Rhianna told him as he tried to kiss her. “I may sense your sincerity, but you still have a lot to do before we just make up.”

He sighed heavily, knowing he really screwed up this time.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eleven

The Nightmares

Taya woke in the middle of the night screaming. Chakotay grabbed his pants, quickly pulled them on, and rushed into the girls’ room to see what was wrong. Rhianna sensing Taya’s fear also woke up and followed Chakotay.

“I think she’s having a nightmare,” Lwaxana told her father. “Will she be alright, Dad?”

Chakotay wasn’t ignoring Lwaxana, despite her stating the obvious, but he wanted to calm Taya before she woke up the whole house.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” She screamed at her father, as she pushed him away. “DON’T TOUCH ME!”

Her loud cries were more like screeching rather than actual screams. She was having complete terror, but her pushing her father away, kicking, hitting, and screaming caused her internal wounds to bleed again as she continued to cry and scream, causing her parents to wish she had not refused the doctor’s treatment of them.

“Taya, what’s wrong?” Rhianna sent with concern, causing Taya to realize she was safe at home in her bed. “Just breathe. It’s alright. You are safe. No one is going to hurt you.”

Taya’s face was red and drenched with tears as she tried to breathe and recover her emotions, “Nothing. It was just a bad dream.”

“May I sit beside you?” Rhianna asked.

“I guess,” Taya replied as she continued to catch her breath.

“Do you mind telling me about the dream?” Rhianna said after she sat down on the bed beside Taya.

“I’m not sure,” Taya insisted. “It was a just a dark figure smothering me and pain. I felt intense, sharp, pain.”

“You think you can go back to sleep?”

“I don’t know,” Taya sent as she shook her head. “I’ll try though.”

“Do you want a hug?”

Taya had to think about whether or not she wanted a hug from her mother at the moment and then she nodded.

Rhianna hugged her daughter and assured her she was safe, wanting her to go back to sleep, but she wondered if Taya should change first. Instead, she reassured her daughter, feeling it was more important, “Nothing is going to happen to you. It’s alright. Lay back down.”

Then Rhianna tucked Taya into bed again and kissed her on the forehead, “Try to get some sleep.”

“OK Mother,” Taya sent, still tearful. Then she said, “Dad, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hit and kick you.”

“It’s alright,” he replied. “I don’t think you were quite awake. Try to get some sleep.”

“OK, but I’m scared.”

“You’re safe,” he told his daughter and they left the room, in the hopes Taya would go back to sleep.

“How am I to deal with that?” Chakotay asked mentally after they returned to their room. “I mean, if it continues? Especially on my ship when I have her. It just confirms that I need to take family leave, but dealing with that?”

“Just talk to her,” Rhianna stated. “Get her aware of her surroundings, but always ask her if it’s alright to approach her and touch her, because what she is feeling is pure terror.”

“You didn’t ask to kiss her on her forehead?”

“She was aware of me by that time,” Rhianna stated. “And I wasn’t giving the feeling of smothering her or restraining her.”

“I see.”

“She will begin seeing a counselor tomorrow,” Rhianna insisted. “That will hopefully help… Eventually. That and she really needs to let the doctor treat her physical wounds or this will keep happening until they heal, which may take a long while at this rate, interfering with psychological progress..”

“When will we see improvement?” Chakotay asked.

“I don’t know,” Rhianna stated. “It’s going to take some time, especially when she doesn’t want to talk about what happened. She can’t talk about it, because her memories aren’t clear to her. The drugs in her system made it more difficult to store short term memories, though they are there, just distorted.”

“Distorted?”

“She sees her attacker as a monster,” Rhianna explained. “A male monster, from what I sense, but nonetheless a monster with a razor-sharp hammer attached to him, as he sucked her emotions out of her.”

Chakotay cringed and looked as though he was going to be sick.

“I’m starting to wish you could counsel her,” Chakotay stated. “But I know you can’t counsel family. I’m not just considering family leave, I’m seriously taking it into consideration. I seriously feel I should state that we have a family emergency and request family leave.”

“It’s up to you,” Rhianna told him. “I already requested family leave, so I can take her to the therapist, especially if you leave her with me. Deanna was thinking about staying too, but if you are staying, she probably won’t, but regardless, I will have Celesta to help me too.”

“No, I’ve made too many mistakes already,” Chakotay insisted. “I can’t leave all of you for three months, making it worse. Not now. Not after what happened to Taya. Especially after I already screwed up as a father and a husband.”

Rhianna didn’t say anything. She knew if she didn’t need anyone to make sure there was no medical misunderstanding due to hampered communication, she might have been able to help Taya by herself in those early morning hours. If the doctor they got during the emergency was human, communication would have been more impeded, even though she was telepathic. That did not make her feel as though she were mother of the year, in this case. She felt she was as helpless as Taya with getting them help that morning and it angered her, just as much as Chakotay’s denial and bad approach angered her. She did not want her deafness to be an excuse, but truth was, it did impair communication, despite the fact she had telepathy to help her, especially during a medical emergency. She still needed an interpreter, even as a telepath, because there was no guarantee they would receive a Betazoid doctor. Even with a Betazoid doctor, communication is not always perfect in traumatic emergencies.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twelve

Counseling Session

“I really fucked up,” Taya moaned to her counselor the next morning. “If I hadn’t ran off like I did, none of this would have happened and Mother would not be saying I have to talk to you.”

“You’re remembering what happened?” The counselor asked.

“I don’t know exactly, but I know it was a nightmare,” Taya admitted. “a real-life nightmare, that was really living. I thought it was a bad trip, but when everything wore off and I was treated for what was left in my system… I physically hurt. Down there. I wasn’t allowed to take a shower and… I was bleeding again. I don’t think it was my period, but it hurt. I have bruises. So, I know Mother and the doctor are right. I was raped, but all I see is a monster. A dark emotion sucking monster with a razor hammer for his man part. The more horror he gave me, the more emotion he sucked from me.”

“You haven’t let the doctor treat the injuries?”

“Pain…” Taya wept as she flashed back to what her mind saw at the time of the rape. “I can’t breathe. Hammer. A razor hammer.”

“What hammer?”

“He had a hammer on his body,” Taya cried recalling her drug muddled memory. “A hammer that could cut too. It was part of him, like his arm was, except it replaced man stuff. He used it on me… Down there… As he smothered me… With his whole body. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. Nothing came out of my mouth. Just tears and pain. Excruciating pain.”

Tears flowed out of her eyes, as she began to cry and sob.

The counselor walked over and wrapped an arm around her, hugging her sideways. “I know it’s hard and to be honest, I don’t know how to help you decide what drugs twisted the reality, except I do know he was a mentally ill Betazoid college student and not a real monster.”

“It’s obvious I was raped though,” Taya finally realized and acknowledge as she cried profusely. “The bruising. The bleeding. The continued pain. I was raped! By an emotional vampire! He took my emotions and my very being!”

“Let the doctor treat your physical injuries,” the counselor insisted. “The bruises and wounds… Most of your wounds will heal faster. After that the psychological wounds will heal easier too.”

“NO!” Taya insisted. “I deserve this pain and suffering. If I had not ran off into the night. If I had been a good girl…”

“Taya!” The counselor exclaimed trying to get her to return to the present. “You being raped was NOT your fault. The young man who did this to you is at fault! He did not have to do that to you.”

“Maybe, but I do know if I can identify him…” Taya stated. “I can’t recall his face, except teeth. It was dark and I was too high and drunk… But I remember teeth. Monstrous evil teeth.”

“Taya, if he had not given you that date rape drug,” the counselor explained. “You might not have been too high to identify him. That drug was the last straw for you mind, because it did not mix well with the alcohol, the LSD, and the Ketamine. Actually, none of those drugs mixed well, but when he spiked your drink that was more than your brain could deal with. In reality, despite it being after 0500, your father should have helped your mother take you to the hospital and not wait until the clinic opened. To be fair though, he did not know for sure that you weren’t ‘falling down drunk’ and had hurt yourself, but that did not explain the missing clothing. He refused to think about the possibility of your being raped. You were honestly paralyzed with the drug your rapist spiked your drink with. It was good your father insisted on a toxicology report though and while it was a few hours later, those drugs were still in your system to some extent. The report, along with the DNA, will help to prosecute the man, despite your father’s mistakes.”

“I was puking so much I’m surprised they were,” she said still crying. “It was painful to move and still difficult to move. Dad treated me as though I had just a hangover and he was so mean!”

“In a way you did have a hangover,” the counselor said. “Drugs can give one a form of a hangover, but if I recall, your mother said she and Celesta got you to the clinic at 0830, so it was only a few hours later.”

“I was so sick and in so much pain,” Taya stated. “He didn’t care!”

“Well, I think you need to stop punishing yourself and let the doctor attend to your physical injuries,” the counselor insisted. “Not only that, and we’ll work on this too, but it may help you to try to understand and forgive your father for not wanting to face the fact you were raped. He made mistakes because he did not want to think about it. He is in pain too from what happened. Emotional pain, as is your mother too.”

“The bleeding keeps happening,” Taya admitted. “It stops and then happens again, like the scabs fall off when I move.”

“Something is wrong and the doctor needs to treat you,” the counselor insisted. “Not just get DNA of your rapist. Stop punishing yourself.”

“I just feel it’s my punishment for running off,” Taya insisted. “Because I ran off, a vampire got me. Dad hates me now for it.”

“What the monster did to you shouldn’t be a punishment,” the counselor insisted. “You’re not the one who needs to be punished for the rape. He is and as for your father, he does love you, he’s just very upset right now.”

“Maybe,” Taya replied. “It hurts though. I don’t want anyone near me even if it is to treat my wounds. I especially don’t want to even talk to my father.  He’s such an asshole!”

“It may hurt to treat your wounds,” the counselor agreed. “But after the doctor is finished, it won’t hurt like it does now and you’ll begin to feel better physically. You’ll be able to focus on your mental wounds and deal with your father better. We can work on all of this in counseling.”

“Why can’t Mother do my counseling?” Taya asked angrily. “She’s always having others care for us, especially if they can hear.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” the counselor stated. “But she’s right to have the doctor care for you medically and have another psychologist counsel you, because she’s too close to do therapy with you. I’m not sure what you sense, but I sense that she is very angry and upset because of what this man did you and with your father too for how he reacted to this. Besides, who took you to the doctor and brought you here today?”

“Mother and Aunt Celesta took me to the doctor,” Taya stated. “She had to convince Dad that it would be better if she and Celesta took me the doctor, because he was being an asshole, but he’s here, with Mother, this morning. I’m not sure why. He blames me for what happened.”

“Well, there you go,” the counselor stated. “Seems to me she’s doing the best she can to take care of you, even if she can’t hear you. She may need a little help sometimes, but I think she does well, especially dealing with five of you. She knows when she needs help too.”

“You really think I need to have her take me back to the doctor and let the doctor treat me?” Taya asked. “Even if it does hurt?”

“I think the sooner you get complete medical care the better,” the counselor stated. “Not just the morning after medication and birth control, but treatment to your physical wounds too. The faster you will heal physically and the faster you’ll begin to heal mentally. The less physical pain you have, the easier therapy will be. Therapy won’t be easy, but it will be easier if you physically feel better and you might not be mentally bouncing all over the place. You’ll be able to focus better.”

“OK, I’ll talk to Mother,” Taya conceded. “But I hurt so bad.”

“I think she knows,” the counselor stated. “If she is telepathic, she surely knows. I know and I’m just an empath, like your Aunt Deanna. Your mother is waiting for you to cooperate with the doctor and not fight her. So, right now, you have two choices.”

“What are they?”

“Suffer in pain until nature heals you,” the counselor stated. “Hoping you don’t get an infection, if you don’t have one already, or let the doctor treat you, which means an exam and more medication, maybe even an antibiotic. Unfortunately, she can’t just scan you, diagnosis you, give you a hypo-spray, and that will be it. It will be very much like when she collected DNA samples, because an external regenerator won’t be enough from what it sounds like, but she will know more if she can examine you closer. She will be able to treat you better.”

“That was so painful,” Taya started to cry again. “All this technology and women still have to be naked at least from the waist down to give birth and some exams still involve more than just a triquarter. Not to mention some surgeries! It doesn’t seem right.”

“A lot of things don’t seem right,” the counselor stated. “But would you go to the dentist and expect him to just run a scanner and regenerator over a rotten tooth? Or a heart surgeon for heart surgery and expect them to not open you up for a new heart or fix what is wrong with your heart.”

“No, I expect her to fix it and fix it right.”

“Well, in order to treat the wounds inside you,” the counselor began, “She has to be able to get a regenerator near your vaginal area and maybe even inside you to repair the damage further inside. There’s no other way to repair the damage from the outside, especially the damage he apparently gave you. He hurt you badly by forcing his way in you, abusing your body. It's no different than if he punched you in the mouth repeatedly and caused a lot of damage.”

“It’ll hurt!” Taya cried.

“Yes, but that time you experience a little more pain as the doctor treats you,” the counselor stated. “Will shorten your healing time and the bleeding will stop. To say the least, you’ll know if it’s just sores making you bleed or worse injury. Not only that, but it’s also only been… What? Two or three days since the rape.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you don’t have to be this miserable with pain,” the counselor told her. “It is possible she can give you a local anesthetic so it’s not as painful for her treat you. I don’t know how she’ll treat you, but I’m sure she won’t allow you to feel more pain as she treats you and be traumatized more. She’ll do everything she can to make you as comfortable as possible.”

Taya continued to shed tears as she said, “I was a really bad girl, wasn’t I?”

“You made some mistakes, but the rape itself was not your fault.”

“Can I go home now?”

“Yes, your time is up, and your mother and father are waiting for you in the waiting room,” the counselor stated. “Do talk to your mother about going back to the doctor though. You will feel better sooner for it. I assure you, she is waiting for you to decide this, not forcing you because she doesn’t want to make things worse for you.”

“OK, I guess.”

“I promise you,” the counselor assured. “You will feel better for it.”

Taya slowly rose, trying to bare the discomfort she still felt as she started to leave the office to meet her mother and father in the waiting area.

The counselor also rose to follow her out so she could speak with her parents.

“Well, Taya needs to talk to you,” the counselor stated telepathically to Rhianna. “That is her assignment until I see her again in two days.”

“She wants me to go back to the doctor and get treatment for my pain and continued bleeding,” Taya informed her.

“She’s partly right,” the counselor stated. “I want her to talk to you and go back to the doctor, if she wants to heal faster.”

Rhianna nodded her head. “I understand. I’ve been concerned that if I force her to let the doctor treat her, I’ll make her emotional trauma worse.”

“Rightly so,” the counselor agreed. “You know as well as I do, forcing someone to get medically treated for rape, especially a child, could make things worse, but to get treatment can be healing in other ways too..”

“I’m NOT a child!” Taya exclaimed defensively.

“A young woman,” the counselor corrected herself. “I want her to get better as much as anyone else. She knows something happened, but her mind, due to the drugs or the trauma or both is blocking the details, but if she gets medical treatment, it should help make therapy easier. Maybe he’s only sentenced to hospitalized treatment for a long while, but the more we hear from her, the better the chances he is sentence for what he did.”

“I agree,” Rhianna replied.

Chakotay cleared his throat, “Um…”

“Oh, yes,” the counselor realized he was left out of the conversation. “Taya, why don’t you sit and play a holo game or read something while I speak to your parents in my office.”

“You leaving me alone?” Taya questioned with alarm in her face.

“You’re safe,” the counselor insisted. “My receptionist is here and will call if anything happens.”

“OK,” Taya forlornly replied, obviously nervous about not having her parents close while in public.

“Taya, it’s alright,” Chakotay assured her. “This won’t take too long.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirteen

Parental Update

Rhianna and Chakotay were talking to the counselor concerning Taya. She was having a rough time of it, but according to the Betazoid therapist, Taya was definitely having nightmares over what happened. Her brain was trying hard to process what happened during her drug induced stupor.

“She admits that she feels paralyzed during her nightmares,” the counselor informed them. “With extreme pain, as though something is ripping inside her, just she did when she was being raped. She can’t breathe during these times either. Though she admits she was having a pleasant trip at the rave until she was raped. Yet at the same time, she could not tell if the drugs caused a bad trip or if the extreme pain was real at the time of the rape. In my opinion, the drugs distorted the experience, because she saw the man as an emotional vampire, even a monster with razor hammer for his male organ and teeth to suck her emotions.”

“So, she could remember everything eventually?” Chakotay asked as he signed, though he struggled to interpret everything for Rhianna.

The counselor shook her head, “Her brain is trying to process what happened, but like Rhianna, I don’t know if we’ll ever get any actual details from her, except that. On another note, they found the young man whose DNA profile matches the sample the doctor retrieved. He’s a first-year college student at the University of Betazed… With a history of sexual assault. He’s also nineteen, at the end of his first year at the University.”

“What was he doing at a high school…” Chakotay stopped. “It obviously wasn’t just high schoolers.”

“No,” the counselor agreed. “He is Betazoid, but struggles with his abilities. Unlike most Betazoids, he may sense something, but he doesn’t feel anything and is prone to violence, just so he can feel something, which is probably why Taya believes he was an emotional vampire. Maybe she felt him in her mind savouring her terror. I don’t know.”

“He sounds like Lon Suder,” Chakotay said. “He died while trying to help the Doctor save Voyager and her crew from the Kazons, but he insisted he felt nothing, thus why he was prone to violence, even murder.”

“I’ve not looked into that case,” she admitted. “But they have Taya’s alleged perp for questioning and he admitted that he spiked a young girl’s drink and quote, “fucked her hard” just to feel something. He was vulgar concerning the whole incident.”

Chakotay looked as though he was going to be sick and struggled to interpret for Rhianna. He wanted so badly to retaliate against the man, but he knew he could not.

“You say she’s telepathic?” The counselor asked.

“Yes,” Rhianna signed as Chakotay translated. “She has Early Onset and due to an injury prior to birth, she had some form since birth.”

“I see,” the counselor replied. “That maybe why she felt he was sucking her emotions or that is, while she was high she actually sensed something by way of emotions from him, but her mind translated it into sucking her emotions.”

“Maybe,” Rhianna signed.

“He’s being held for statutory rape of a minor,” the counselor informed the two of them, returning to the subject of the rapist. “Between the DNA and his admission… He might be charged with that, especially since Taya is only fourteen.”

“She says she doesn’t remember clearly,” Rhianna insisted in sign language, as Chakotay tried to interpret. “Yet she’s having nightmares over it. Talks about a monster.”

“The drug he admitted putting in her drink,” the counselor told them. “Is enough to hinder short term memory and make victims immobile. Add the LSD and Ketamine, her brain might have registered the assault against her, but not the actual details of event itself. That said, given the dreams and various reactions during waking hours, her mind does remember something. It’s just not recalling it clearly enough for her to articulate it. She knows something bad happened to her, but she can’t describe it in comprehensible words for the court.”

“So, how can we prosecute the perpetrator?” Chakotay asked.

“DNA is all we have,” the counselor stated. “Along with an admission of guilt and Betazoids usually don’t lie. Keep in mind, I’m getting this information from the doctor who examined her and the authorities, but the Betazoids involved with the interview say they do not sense any deception from him. There’s a one hundred percent match with the DNA, but in this case, the most we can hope for is in-patient treatment, because at this point, Taya doesn’t seem able to testify. All we have is her session and nightmares, which isn’t much. It’s the same with his other victims. They are older, but he also drugged them too.”

“She’s fourteen,” Chakotay stated, as he signed. “Why couldn’t her description of her experience be admissible in court or at least to the judge?”

“You honestly think an emotion sucking monster with a razor hammer is going to help in court?” The counselor asked.

“So, what?” Chakotay inquired. “He goes free after a few weeks of hospitalization?”

The counselor sighed. “Unfortunately, he might, but there might be a way to access that memory. Rhianna, I sense, is reluctant to agree without discussing it with you.”

“Why?” Chakotay asked while signing and looking at Rhianna. “If it helps Taya…”

“Mind meld for Taya she wants,” Rhianna signed, referring to the counselor.

“Calling in a well-trained Vulcan,” the counselor stated. “For a mind meld, not just any Vulcan.”

Chakotay appeared disturbed by the thought of his daughter needing a mind meld to recall the rape everyone knew happened and the perpetrator admitted to doing.

“I’m…” He hesitated for a moment. “Also reluctant.”

“Well, you two can discuss it and let me know what you decide.”

“Thank you,” Chakotay told her as they rose to leave. “We’ll get back with you on that the next time Taya comes in to see you.”

“Oh, and Chakotay,” the counselor added. “Stop trying to discipline her for that night. She not only thinks you blame her for being raped, but she blames herself too.”

“Then how do I correct her behaviour?”

“In my honest opinion,” she stated. “I doubt she will sneak out again like she did. At least not for a long while. Right now, I feel relationship mending is what is needed, reassuring her that it was not her fault that she was raped.”

“Yet, if she had not snuck out of the house…” Chakotay began.

“Captain Chakotay, with all due respect, that has nothing to do with it!” The counselor insisted. “It could have happened at any other time. It was NOT her fault. The blame for the rape falls completely on the rapist. Not the victim, which I’m sure your wife has tried to tell you.”

“Yes, she has,” Chakotay admitted.

“Then stop trying to discipline her for that night,” the counselor stated. “Talk to her about how she can keep herself safe, not make her feels as though she was at fault.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, with irritation and then they left with Taya until the next session.

Rhianna got Taya into the doctor again that day and while Taya cried due to treatment, it was not just because of pain, but also because of feeling exposed. Still, she got through it, with local anesthesia, returned home, and went back to her room.

“Well?” Chakotay thought to Rhianna.

“She got through it, allowing the doctor to treat her,” Rhianna sent in reply. “The bruising is gone and the off and on-again bleeding should subside, if it hasn’t already.”

“Then why the silence and continuing to hide in her room?”

“It’s most likely psychological now,” Rhianna informed him. “As she begins to feel better physically, she will hopefully feel better psychologically… eventually. Give her time.”

“Let’s hope so,” Chakotay stated, not wanting to inquire as to how bad it was. He did not want to know, because he knew it would not only sicken him, but anger him too.

Chapter Text

Chapter Fourteen

The Perp and Another Session

“His name is Jon Suder, a second cousin of Lon Suder with the same disorder,” Chakotay read Rellexi Seit report, with Rhianna looking over his shoulder. Seit was a court psychologist connected with the Betazed Mental Health part of the regional hospital. The report, which the families of the victims received, stated, “He’s twenty years old.  Apparently, he feels nothing and commits heinous crimes just to feel something. He senses the emotions and thoughts of others, but unless they are intense….”

He shook his head before he continued reading the report in respect to Taya Troi, which was hard to read.

He thought Lon Suder was bad, with his murderous tendencies, but this guy… Jon Suder could have killed Taya that night by drugging and raping her, leaving her to live or die. Maybe her friends were not so bad after all, but they were not kids he wanted his daughter to hang out with again either.

“Taya was not his only victim that night,” Chakotay informed Rhianna. “There were two others who were injured worse than Taya from that night. Prior to that, DNA from several victims within three months’ time, also matched his. Those capable of fighting back gave him not only a fight, but even more intense emotions, along with DNA under their nails. Still, it was not enough and he had not been caught before he raped Taya.

“According to medical reports, a few victims were minors, all virgins, who were injured by forced entry, even rectally, giving him extreme telepathic sensations from the torturous pain and emotions they felt during his attack.”

The more Chakotay read, the more anger he felt, as well as sick to his stomach, “I want this man behind bars! For life!”

“Chakotay, I know this is serious,” Rhianna sent. “But he needs intense treatment. Not that it will cure him, but…”

“All the more reason for him to spend life in prison!” Chakotay exclaimed.

He and Rhianna continued to read the report, “There were a total of three victims the night Taya was raped. All female and all minors, giving him eight counts of statutory rape and ten counts of raping women over the course of three months.”

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Chakotay continued to mentally rant to Rhianna. “Three? In one night? How the hell does any man… He must be on Viagra or something! He needs to be locked up for a long time and the attorney representing us will hear my opinion.”

“Viagra?”

Chakotay shook his head, “An old Earth drug to help men with E.D.”

“E.D.?”

“Erectile Disfunction.”

“Oh. Where are you going?”

“To talk to the attorney!” Chakotay exclaimed. “She’s going to get a piece of my mind about prosecuting him to the fullest!”

As Chakotay walked out of the house and headed to the attorney representing the girls, who were raped, and their families, with the PADD in hand, Rhianna sent, “I know she will, but Taya’s appointment...”

She finally got to read the rest of the report after he returned, which stated that every effort would be made to bring justice to the young girls and their families. Which meant the psychologists and the physicians were on the side of the families, presenting the information they have concerning the girls.

“I still don’t know what he looked like,” Taya told her therapist. “It was dark and I couldn’t see, all I remember is a monster.”

“That’s alright.”

“I remember the horrid pain,” Taya admitted. “It felt like he ripped me wide open. Like I was split and torn.  It felt like a hammer banging my insides.”

The counselor closed her eyes as her mouth twisted to keep from losing the contents of her stomach, “You do know that’s not how it’s supposed to be, don’t you?”

“I guess,” Taya replied. “I mean… Mother and Dad love each other dearly and I guess Mother enjoys whatever Dad does to her, because there’s five of us and they’ve been together for fifteen years now. In order to have children two people have to have sex and Mother loves Dad very much and Dad loves Mother. Dad would never hurt Mother… So, I guess that means it doesn’t have to hurt. I don’t know.”

“I think you reason very well,” her counselor told her. “And you do know.”

“But having a baby is painful,” Taya said. “At least according to Mother, yet she’s had seven. Two sets of twins. She can’t have any more, but yet she and Dad are always kissing. Sometimes passionately. Like they are about to make out.”

The counselor smiled as she tried to keep from chuckling, “Well, having a baby isn’t easy. It’s why they call it labour, but if someone cares about you very much, it doesn’t feel the same way as someone who doesn’t care about you. Which is why your parents love each other very much. They care about each other very deeply.”

“They have a bond too,” Taya told her. “A very special bond called Imzadi.”

“Yes, I can tell they are Imzadi,” the counselor stated. “That doesn’t happen in cases like what you experienced. Imzadi is gentle and patient, yet very passionate. It feels completely different.”

“I don’t know about that,” Taya said. “Sometimes Dad gets frustrated with Mother. Sometimes they argue, but they always end up making up and loving each other.”

“That’s what married couples sometimes do,” the counselor stated. “Because the love doesn’t disappear just because they argue or get frustrated.”

“Lwaxy said Mother and Dad were arguing the night I came home and Dad carried me to bed,” Taya told her. “She wondered where my clothes were, but then she was worried because Mother and Dad were arguing, even if she didn’t catch it all. I think Mother won… After Dad got a few hours of sleep.”

The counselor could not help but chuckle, “Taya, no one wins or loses between two people who love each other. Your father was probably too tired and angry to think straight, but when he slept for a couple hours, he finally agreed with your mother.”

“No, he was still angry,” Taya informed her. “With me. He dragged me out of my room and made me eat running eggs with a hangover. I puked.”

The counselor was still smiling, trying hard not to laugh, because to Taya, none of it was funny.

“More than once,” Taya continued. “He made me clean it up each time, even though I felt horrible. Then he made me put my shoes on without even a shower, because Mother and Aunt Celesta were ready to take me to the clinic to see a doctor. I felt so nasty and dirty, but he insisted that Mother said I could not have a shower, not even a sonic shower.”

“He got a couple hours of sleep,” the counselor said. “Not enough, but a couple and by then he overcame some of his anger in which to know your mother was right and it wasn’t just a hangover you were suffering from, despite his anger.”

“He made her get a toxi…” she struggled to remember the word. “A toxi…”

“Toxicology report.”

“Yeah that.”

“Well, it worked in your favour.”

“How? He’s still angry.”

“Not with you,” the counselor insisted. “The report showed there was a date rape drug in your drink. It was probably one of the last drugs in your system. That and your injuries confirmed you needed a doctor, because something bad did happen. His was still angry you snuck out of the house, but he is angrier with the man who raped you.”

“He couldn’t trust Mother’s telepathy?”

“Well, that kind of takes two,” the counselor told her. “Since you were drunk and drugged, it made it more difficult for her to be certain of what she was sensing, until she saw you. However, your father, according to your mother, was in denial.”

“They saw me!” She screamed. “I was hurt!”

“Well, they have seen you,” the counselor said. “But sometimes one or both parents can be so angry they make mistakes due to not thinking clearly. Add no sleep… It’s not an excuse, but your father’s anger was short lived as your mother continued to talk to him about taking you to the doctor. She knew you weren’t just drunk and high, but drugged with something else. Thus, why he insisted to know for sure someone criminally hurt you at that party. That was not your fault.”

“He’s still angry!”

“He might be angry that you snuck out of the house at night,” the counselor stated. “But he’s angrier with the young man who hurt you. What that man did was a crime and that’s not your fault.”

“If I hadn’t snuck out of the house it wouldn’t have happened.”

“This may be true,” the counselor stated. “Or it could have happened walking to school or hanging out with friends.”

Taya shook her head, “I don’t think so. It’s usually daylight.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the counselor told her. “Such crimes can happen anytime. Usually, it’s not a stranger, but in your case, it was and while it’s rare, it does happen. In this case, the man is ill. He can sense things, but it takes a lot for him to feel anything. He has no empathy.”

“He can’t feel that he hurts people?”

“No, not unless it is severe,” the counselor stated. “But he is very telepathic.”

“I don’t know how one can be telepathic and not empathic.”

“It happens.”

“I remember one more thing,” Taya realized. “His voice was deep. Deeper than Dad’s. He thanked me for the ride and talked about how ripe and tight I was. I don’t know what that means.”

“It’s rather crude in this case.”

“Crude?”

“Vulgar.”

“Oh, like the word ‘fuck’?” Taya asked.

“Well, yes,” the therapist nearly choked. “In this case, I guess you could substitute that word and get an idea.”

“I didn’t want it.”

“And you are a minor,” the counselor stated. “Thus, he’s in a lot of trouble.”

“Because I’m one of his victims?”

“Well, yes, but you can be a survivor,” the counselor told her. “You are one now, because you’re here talking about it and completing the assignments. You’ve done the first one already.”

“Ugh! What’s the next one? Will it be as painful?”

“No, I want you to write,” the counselor told her. “Write how you felt at the time you said it felt like a hammer. Try to think about what you were feeling emotionally, if you can.”

“I wanted Mother,” Taya admitted. “I couldn’t tell if it was real or part of the LSD I took. I also wanted Dad to rescue me, but that didn’t happen.”

“Write that if you want,” the counselor told her.

“How come I couldn’t move and fight back?”

“The date rape drug mixed with alcohol can do that,” the counselor told her. “If you have feelings about not being able to move and fight back, then write about that. Then we can talk about it next time. If you want, you can also write about how the little girl inside you felt because your bigger self couldn’t fight back and protect her. No one was there to protect her.”

“That was my fault because I snuck out of the house.”

“That’s your assignment,” the counselor said. “Write how it felt not to be able to move and fight back, adding how your little felt because there was no one to protect her.”

“Will it help to lock him up?”

“It will help you.”

“I thought I was supposed to do this to get him locked up.”

“If you remember anything about him during that moment,” the counselor stated. “Maybe, but this is actually to help you get over what happened. To heal mentally. You’ve done what you needed to do get better physically. Now it’s time to get better emotionally and mentally.”

“Why can’t you just do what the doctor did over my brain?”

The counselor smiled again. She did enjoy working with children, even if there was tragedy involved, “Unfortunately, emotional and mental trauma doesn’t quite work that way. We still have to work at it.”

“Oh,” Taya said with disappointment. “So, I have homework.”

“Yes, but this homework isn’t like schoolwork or the work you do at home for your early onset therapy,” the counselor told her. “The writing helps to get the horrible feelings out of you.”

“I don’t know how that works.”

“I does work,” the counselor insisted. “And I’ll make your mother aware that I assigned it to you.”

“She and Dad will want to see it!” Taya exclaimed. “They always want to go over my homework!”

“Not this time,” the counselor told her. “This is not the same as schoolwork and is between you and me. You write and next session, we can talk about it, but they won’t read it. They aren’t supposed to anyway and I think your mother knows this.”

“OK, but what if I can’t write much?”

“If you write two sentences, it’s better than not writing at all.”

“Our time’s up?”

“Yes, it is,” the counselor said. “We went over a little bit, but it is up.”

“Two days?”

“No, you see me next week,” the counselor stated. “Twice a week for a little while and soon we will do once a week, but the goal is to get you well enough in case the judge wants to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to do to…” Taya began. “What is it when a lawyer asks questions in court?”

“Testify.”

“I don’t want to do that.”

“No one is saying you have to or you will,” the counselor stated. “At most, the judge may have you testify in his office.”

“Maybe I could do that,” Taya said. “Eventually.”

“And we need to prepare for that judge wanting to do that,” the counselor told her. “But right now, let’s not worry about that. Let’s just worry about writing your feelings and talking to your little.”

“OK,” Taya said as she stood to meet her mother and Celesta, who was filling for Chakotay while he was at the attorney’s office.

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifteen

An Irate Father

“I want this man sent to prison for life!” Chakotay, who was in his uniform, angrily insisted to the prosecuting attorney.

“Captain…” the attorney began. “I’m sorry, what is your last name?”

“Chakotay. My daughter’s name is Taya Troi,” he stated. “I did not take on the Fifth House name.”

“That’s fine,” the attorney replied as she looked up the name. “I see, the rape cases, I’m representing. Sir, I assure you, given that most of his victims that night were minors, we are doing our best to prosecute this man to the fullest. This is not his first time as an adult, he’s done this. I don’t have access to his juvenile records, but according to relatives… Well, his teen years were turbulent, to say the least, with many hospitalizations due to his behaviours. He hasn’t been hospitalized when he was eighteen… yet.”

“I hear hospitalization for a few years is the most he will get,” Chakotay said angrily.

“I assure you,” the attorney stated. “We are going for more than that, but with only DNA samples from the multiple victims, some who might not have stepped forward, we’re limited on what we can do. The drug these girls were given, along with the darkness, makes identification difficult, but the DNA is a big help. Still, the defense is insisting mistakes can still be made.”

“What if we can manage to get my daughter to testify?”

“How is she to identify him?”

“His voice.”

“Not enough confirming evidence.”

“Not to sound like my wife when she gets angry, but fuck this shit!” Chakotay exclaimed. “This was my daughter! I didn’t want to face the fact she was raped at first, though I knew in my heart she had been. It took confirmation from a doctor, despite the obvious. I had to face it, whether I wanted to or not. I have to do something and since I can’t beat the shit out of the man, I want him locked up forever!”

“Sir, he’s nineteen,” the attorney informed him.

“I don’t give a damn! His ass needs to be locked up for life!”

“Sir, you really need to calm down.”

“This is my daughter we’re talking about! God damn it!”

“OK, I sense you are very irate and I don’t blame you,” the attorney began. “If the counselor, who is working with these girls, can get even one of them to give confirming evidence, then I’ll have them speak with the judge, but I’m not letting any of these minors on the bench to face this man. It could be too intimidating.”

“We have his fucking DNA!” Chakotay exclaimed. “Which matched the fucking DNA on all the girls! How much more fucking evidence do we need to convict this asshole!”

“You really need to calm down, Sir,” the attorney insisted again. “But in answer to your questions, a victim who can identify him in some manner. From all accounts though, they aren’t ready and can’t handle testifying, not even in the judge’s chambers.”

“And I say my daughter can handle it!” Chakotay insisted. “That is, if the counselor can help her remember and gain the courage needed to face him.”

“I’ll talk to the counselor and inquire about the progress these girls are making,” the attorney stated. “But I must remind you, it’s only been a couple weeks since the night they were raped.”

“That was enough time to get confirming DNA samples! A LOT of DNA samples,” he continued. “Multiple DNA samples from multiple victims! Yet you sit there and tell me the most he will get if hospitalization for a few years? What the fuck? I thought this was Betazed! Where women are practically queens, even goddesses!”

“I can say, prior to that night,” the attorney continued to look through her information. “He has other rape charges against him. All still pending or dismissed due to insufficient evidence.”

“DNA isn’t enough evidence?”

“On Betazed, you’d think it would be enough,” the attorney stated. “But even they want more than just DNA, due to the potential chance of having the wrong family member.”

“Fuck this!” Chakotay stated as he started to walk out of the office. “He will serve time and not just hospital time. Even if I have to get Starfleet involved.”

The attorney shook her head as she sent to his mind, “I don’t think Starfleet will help you with this case, but I do understand your anger and frustration. I’m doing the best I can.”

Then she sighed as she wondered how many more angry Human fathers she would have to deal with concerning this case. She often found it amazing that while Betazoids were very emotional, especially those from the Houses, who thought they were entitled, Human males were often the worst. She attributed it to the male Human need to protect their families, while the burden of protection for Betazoids, often fell to the matriarchs. Of course, while the male Betazoids often backed the women, they were not necessarily the protectors, which made her wonder how marriages between Betazoid women and Human males ever succeeded.

Chapter Text

Chapter Sixteen

How Bad Was It?

After she arrived home with Taya from the therapist’s office, Chakotay stopped her, wanting to talk after seeing the attorney.

“You bailed on her appointment and now you want to talk?” A Rhianna sent to his mind.

“At the risk of becoming even more irate and disturbed,” Chakotay began to ask Rhianna through their bond, trying to ignore her comment. “How bad were Taya’s injuries?”

Rhianna’s thoughts fell silent. She did not reply telepathically and blocked her thoughts as she tried hard to decide how best to honestly answer him, without upsetting more. She could sense he was more than just irate now, he was venomously enraged.

“That bad?” Chakotay pressed.

“Besides the external bruising, which was worse by the time she arrived at the clinic,” Rhianna carefully answered. “There was extreme tearing to her vaginal area, her hymen, and internally, as well as bruising inside, including the cervix. When she moved it was enough to cause the bleeding to begin again.”

“Her cervix?”

“Apparently, he was huge or at least bigger than she is.”

“Her rectum?”

“None,” Rhianna stated, giving him some relief. “He didn’t get that far with her. He um… Well, internally was the vast majority of the DNA collected.”

“I don’t want to know!” He closed his eyes trying not to think how much damaged he caused by not helping Rhianna get her to the doctor sooner. How much more damage he caused by being a total ass that morning.

“She will get better physically and she already is feeling better, even though she is still spending a lot of time in her room.”

“Thank the Spirits!” Chakotay exclaimed. “He didn’t do so much damage that she can’t give us grandchildren when she’s older, if she wants?”

“No,” Rhianna replied. “She will heal and she’ll still be able to make her own choices about children. He didn’t take that from her, as far as the doctor can tell. She was treated for all possibilities that can be treated. Infection, pregnancy, and finally, even her injuries, which weren’t bad enough to cause permanent damage, even if she had not allowed the doctor to treat the bruising and open tears. It was bad, but not that bad and I made sure she was treated for everything possible, even if Taya did resist treatment at first.”

Chakotay breathed a sigh of relief.

“However…”

“Yes?”

“What is the saying male humans have?”

“I’m not sure which one?”

“The one that applies to sex with a virgin?”

“Oh, do tell,” he groaned, wondering what saying she was thinking about in order to shock him even more into the reality of the situation.

“He popped her cherry…” Rhianna sent. “Very badly, leaving a lot of internal injury, which also caused a struggle to heal as she tried to walk or function. Tore everything severely as if he were a stud in a Chinese shop.”

“I think you mean ‘a bull in China shop’,” he corrected, not laughing concerning her error, but he also knew she was purposely trying to make him cringe and force his fatherly feelings emerge more. The situation was not funny, but any other time, Rhianna’s grasp of Human sayings to describe a situation would have been humourous, despite the attempt at a reality shock.

“Yes, that.”

“I’d beat the shit out him, but given where he is, I’d get in trouble too.”

“Yes, you would,” she agreed. “I prefer you free and with me. We still need you, no matter how angry we are with you.”

Later after dinner, Chakotay caught Taya before she returned to her room.

“I want to talk to you,” Chakotay told her.

“Dad, I know you want me to talk to the judge,” she stated. “I sense that.”

“But?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t believe he threatened me. I can’t remember if he did, but I’m still scared, because he did say he might come back for me. I don’t know how powerful his abilities are, but they scare me.”

“If he had to drug his victims,” Chakotay began thoughtfully and carefully. “I would surmise they aren’t that strong. I would think, since you’re sober, yours might be stronger, but then again, I don’t know anything about abilities, especially those with a disorder attached. Yours being the exception.”

“I’m as strong or almost as strong as Mother, despite being mostly Human,” Taya stated. “Even though I’m not full Betazoid, but it is only because everything is turned on and getting stronger as I get older. I just want it to stop.”

“They say it will.”

“I don’t want it,” Taya insisted. “I wish I could be more like my sisters and brother.”

“That’s neither here nor there,” Chakotay told her. “But you could be stronger emotionally, if you testified.”

“With what memory?”

“I don’t know,” Chakotay told her. “Whatever you do remember could be helpful. Don’t discount what you recall, because it could be important to putting this man away for a long time.”

“I’ll think about it, Dad,” Taya replied. “Right now, I just want to go to my room.”

“OK,” he said to her.  As she started to head to her room, Chakotay stopped her, “Taya.”

“Yes?”

“It’s good to see you coming out for meals again,” he told her.

“Mother says I’ll need to return to school soon,” she told him. “Especially since I’m feeling better physically.”

“I agree,” Chakotay told her. “It could help to get out of the house again and not just for counseling.”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll let you get some rest.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Seventeen

Night Terrors

That night, Rhianna and Chakotay finally made up, reconciling their parenting differences, with a sincere apology from Chakotay, becoming passionately involved, and very naked. As Chakotay moved back up her body with intimidate kisses and tongue caresses, he reached her neck and nibbled on it as his hand continued to massage and probe her womanhood. He was completely lined up, ready to enter her and fill her warm moist depths with his manhood.

“AH!” Taya screamed after sensing the moment her parents were having in her sleep. “AH! He’s hurting her!”

Chakotay stopped, with his penis inside his wife, and laid his head on Rhianna’s chest.

“Taya,” Rhianna sent knowingly to Chakotay after sensing her daughter’s nightmare panic attack.

Chakotay nodded as he groaned, slowly removing himself, wanting to love on his wife, not take care of a hysterical telepathic child having a night terror. “Sometimes I hate being a parent of a telepathic child. Telepathic from birth.”

“Chakotay! Seriously?”

“No, not seriously,” He replied after he forgot to block his thought as she taught him, as their daughter continued to scream in the other room. Softening his tone of thought he remorsefully sent, “It’s just…”

“I don’t think this is telepathy,” Rhianna informed him. “I think it’s a night terror.”

“She screamed, ‘He’s hurting her’,” Chakotay informed her. “And she’s still screaming!”

“It could be just a coincidence or it could not be,” Rhianna stated. “Either way, I’ll find out.”

Chakotay was still erect even though the screams had not yet brought it down. He knew there was no way he could help with his daughter until it did go down again.

“I’ll take care of her,” Rhianna replied as she put on her robe. “I might not hear her, but I can read her mind to know what’s happening with her or at least have an idea. She’s not actually awake.”

“I’ll be in when I… Um…”

“It’s alright,” she replied. “I’d say hold that thought, but I don’t know how long this will take.”

“She may take longer than it takes me to deflate.”

“I think you have a head start, my dear,” she sent as she started to leave the room, running her hand across his swollen staff. Clasping and massaging it as she kissed him when she passed him.

“Mmm…” he moaned as she massaged. “That’s not helping.”

She smiled at him as she released her hold on him and then opened the door to head to the girls’ room across the hall.

“MADI!” Lwaxana yelled, with relief, into her mother’s mind. She continued to speak in Betazoid as she sent, “You’re alright. Taya won’t stop screaming and saying he’s hurting her.”

“I think it’s a night terror,” Rhianna sent to her younger daughter as Taya thrashed around in the bed, seemingly fighting something or someone. Then she sent to her older daughter’s mind, “Taya, it’s alright. Nothing is hurting anyone. Taya!”

Taya’s eyes were wide open as she sat up in bed, causing Lwaxana to scream, “AH! SHE’S POSSESSED!”

“Taya,” Rhianna continued to send to her older daughter, thinking that she was a bit old for night terrors, but she was recently traumatized. Unable to touch her due her swinging and kicking her arms and legs, Rhianna continued to send, “Taya, it’s alright. Wake up!”

“Madi?” Taya finally awoke seemingly confused as to what happened.

“You… You were having a bad dream.”

“You were… I was… Someone was being attacked by a monster or Dad,” Taya said with confusion.

“Who?” Now Rhianna was confused.

“The monster,” she replied telepathically in Betazoid. “The same monster who… Or was it Dad.  I don’t know, but he was doing the same thing…”

“Oh, Taya,” Rhianna sent sympathetically as her daughter started to cry. “No one was hurting anyone. It was a night terror.”

“He was doing the same thing as the monster did to me…”

“No, darling,” she told her daughter. “He wasn’t. It wasn’t exactly a nightmare, but it was terror in your sleep, most likely due to your recent trauma.”

“He wasn’t?” Taya was still confused. “It was the first time I… I didn’t want… I had not control.” She knew about sex, but she did not know how it should be and she really thought what she just saw in her sleep was real and it was all happening again, either to her or someone else. She didn’t know.

“No,” Rhianna sent. “The rape was real, but this was not. I assure you.”

“But… I don’t know who it was, but at first I thought it was the monster hurting me again,” Taya said.  “Then I thought the monster was hurting you. I thought it was Dad, but then it was the monster.”

“Taya, the monster was not hurting you again,” Rhianna insisted. “As for me…”

“I sensed you and Dad…” Taya admitted and then looked confused. “I think I did, but the monster was there. He’s not Dad, but he was the monster. I sensed Dad… You… No, it was the monster attacking me or you. I don’t know.”

“Oh, Taya,” Rhianna sent sympathetically, knowing her daughter might have sensed the two of them and incorporated it into her night terror. It would not have been the first time, but her daughter was not supposed to eavesdrop. Still, in her sleep, it would be difficult not to do so and at the same time very confusing, especially after what she went through the other night. “I thought you knew, when two people love each other, it’s not the same as…”

“What happened to me.”

“No, it’s not,” Rhianna stated. “In fact, it feels beyond wonderful and not painful at all if the man really cares about you.”

“But the monster was there!” Taya cried.

“In your night terror, but he wasn’t real this time.”

“I’m here,” Chakotay sent, even though he knew Rhianna sensed him. He had a pair of pants on, but no shirt.

“She had a night terror, but also seemed to have the idea that you were hurting me,” Rhianna informed him. “Due to apparently sensing us in her sleep. I’m guessing her mind mixed the two, because it was somehow similar.”

“Oh, no honey,” Chakotay insisted, as he signed for Rhianna’s benefit. He hated Taya could not block well, especially while she slept. “I could never hurt your mother. Not on purpose at least.”

“Wait!” Chakotay paused his speech as he sent to Rhianna. “How did she know we were…”

“She sensed our thoughts in relationship to what we were doing while she was sleeping,” Rhianna sent to him. “Not our actions, but somehow her unconscious knew or figured out what we were doing and incorporated it in her dream.”

“I’m being stupid,” Taya criticized herself, without signing. “I know how babies are made and all, but my nightmare had the monster, yet had you in it... It seemed real again and yet… You… Mother… It’s all so confusing.”

“And she’s possessed!” Lwaxana insisted. “Sitting up asleep with her eyes wide open!”

Chakotay was confused too, “Um… No, we aren’t trying to make another baby and Lwaxana, your sister is not possessed.”

“You’re not?” Taya asked, confused again. “Then…”

“I’ll let you handle this,” Chakotay thought to Rhianna as he pointed to her nervously. “Now, after berating herself for her stupidity, she thinks we were trying to make another baby.”

“Where are you going?” Taya said with alarm as he tried to leave the room.

“I’m going to let your mother deal with this one.”

“She’s been doing that a lot lately,” Taya stated as she began to accuse her father. “You’re afraid to deal with this.”

Chakotay turned back around, “Taya, I think right now, you really need your mother more than me.”

“I NEED YOU TOO!” Taya shouted.

“Dad, I want to sleep,” Lwaxana interrupted sleepily. “She’s not letting me sleep and she’s acting weird. Even possessed. I can’t sleep with all of this. She’s scary.”

Chakotay sighed, as he shook his head.

“You don’t feel comfortable!” Taya accused.

“If I stay, you need to sign for your mother,” Chakotay signed. “Not just talk to me.”

“OK, I’ll sign,” she sighed.

“I really want to go back to sleep,” a sleepy ten-year-old Lwaxana whined. “I don’t want to hear this conversation.”

“Lwaxana’s right,” Chakotay signed and said. “Maybe we should take this conversation elsewhere, so she can sleep.”

“If I can sleep now!” Lwaxana exclaimed. “She was scary!”

“Warm milk I make and breakfast bar we sit and talk,” Rhianna signed.

“Sounds good,” Chakotay said and signed. “Let’s go and if you, Lwaxana, still can’t go back to sleep, let us know. I’ll read you a story or something to take your mind off what happened.”

“OK, Dad,” Lwaxana replied as she laid back down and he tucked her back into bed.

Thirty minutes later, after explaining to Taya that everything was alright, there was no monster attacking anyone, and sometimes a couple does physically show their love without hurting each other or making a baby, she was ready to return to bed. However, neither of them were in the mood after their own child seemed to telepathically eavesdropped on their lovemaking session in her sleep.

“Maybe one day we can laugh about this,” Chakotay thought to Rhianna.

“Maybe,” Rhianna replied telepathically.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eighteen

Talk To Your Mother

As Taya continued to progress in therapy and the trial date neared, she began to develop a little courage.

“I’ve been told if I felt like testifying, it would be in the judge’s chambers and not in front of the bad man who raped me?”

“Yes, as far as I know that is the case.”

“I think I want to try, but all I can remember about him is the sound of his voice and his words,” Taya stated. “And the pain he inflicted on me.”

“Maybe that’s all the judge needs,” the counselor replied.

“You sure?”

“I don’t actually know,” she told Taya. “I know she wants more evidence.”

“HIS DNA off several girls isn’t enough?”

“I think she wanting someone to identify him too,” the counselor stated.

“The best I can do is his voice,” Taya insisted. “If that. I’m not sure.”

“Well, it’s up to you if you want to tell the judge your story and identify him as best you can,” the counselor stated. “However, in order to know if it’s the same voice, you would need to be in the court room or something, but you would be safe as you hear his voice. No danger would come to you.”

“Dad said it will make me stronger,” Taya told her. “I don’t know.”

“It could,” the counselor agreed. “Or it might not, but it’s not up to him if you testify, even in the judge’s chambers.”

I don’t know…” Taya began. “I’m scared. What if I can’t talk because he finds I told the judge about him?”

“That’s not going to happen,” the counselor assured her. “He can’t retaliate against you or if he does try, it will only make his sentence worse.”

“I guess I could try and make my father happy.”

“No, you have to this for yourself.”

“I don’t know if I know how.”

“Well, let’s start with the assignment I gave you.”

“OK,” she said. “You want me to read it or do you just want to read it?”

“You can read it to me, if you like.”

Taya sighed, but as she began to read she started to shake with nervousness.

“I was a very bad girl, because I slipped out of the house,” she began to read. “If I hadn’t of done that or drank alcohol or did the drugs, it might not have happened. I’d still be my daddy’s little girl.”

“Stop.”

“What?”

“Did you talk to your little at all?” The counselor asked. “Or did you just criticized yourself?”

Taya looked at what she wrote, “Sort of. I mean, I said, because I didn’t follow the rules, I put myself in danger.”

“That’s not quite what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“I mean, you could have said something like, ‘Little Taya, I’m sorry I didn’t follow the rules and put you in danger,” the counselor stated. “There isn’t anything wrong with what you wrote, but I wanted you to talk to the little girl inside you.”

“It feels weird to do that.”

“It can at first, but it actually does help.”

“I just want to hug my dad and tell him how sorry I am for sneaking out that night,” Taya insisted. “I want to tell him I’m sorry that I said I hated him. I really don’t.”

“And you can tell him that,” the counselor stated.

“But I’m… I don’t know… What’s the word?”

“Scared?”

“Maybe.”

“What about your mother?”

“She knows I’m sorry,” Taya replied. “She can sense it and knows my thoughts.”

“Yes, but have you actually told her?” The counselor asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Have you actually communicated that to her either in sign or telepathically?”

“No, because she knows.”

“Taya, have you ever thought,” the counselor began. “Not talking to your parents is part of the reason you keep getting into trouble?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Maybe, if you had talked to your mother or father,” the counselor explained. “You might understand why they don’t want you going to certain parties. This being one of them. They make the rules to keep you safe.”

“I get tired of signing and sending my thoughts to Mother,” Taya insisted. “I hear so many people’s thoughts, I just want it to stop. Not encourage receiving thoughts. Dad and Aunt De are easier to speak with, even if Dad does try to make me sign when both of them are talking to me about something. I really hate signing and telepathy can give me a headache, because I have to decipher and focus on the person telepathically talking to me. It’s hard.”

“Which is easier?” The counselor asked. “Signing or telepathy?”

“They are both a pain in the ass to me,” Taya insisted. “I feel like I’m the only Betazoid with a deaf mother.”

“Given that the Dominion war prisoners were finally returned to Betazed she’s not the only deaf person on Betazed.”

“No, but she’s the only deaf mother we know of.”

“What if I told you,” the counselor began. In Iscandar there is another woman, with children, who is also deaf and lives very much like your mother does.”

“That’s over on the next continent,” Taya stated. “Why would we bother to deal with her and her children?”

“That’s not my point,” the counselor stated. “My point is you are not the only CODA on Betazed and they also have to communicate to their mother in a way that works, much like you do your mother.”

“Were they also born with Early Onset Abilities?”

“I don’t know that much, but I don’t think so.”

“Well, then,” Taya began defiantly. “They have no idea how painful it is, not to mention the other condition I have that causes me pain.”

“Oh, yes the Empathic Synaesthesia the doctors recently discovered you have,” the counselor said. “Yet you did all the things you did and expected not to trigger that, which you probably did, but we won’t know because of the hang over and the drugs.”

“Hey! One drug was NOT my fault!”

“So, your mother has to accommodate you and your needs,” the counselor surmised. “But you don’t have to accommodate her and her needs? Seems to me, other people not helping with the two of yours needs is precisely what did not help this situation.”

“Well…” Taya said. “She would have said ‘no’, if I asked her to go. So, would Dad for that matter. Why bother communicating?”

“What if I told you, that if you had talked to her, she might have known of another party, that was earlier, safer, even supervised so that you didn’t get into the trouble you did?”

“Did she know of one?”

“I don’t know,” the counselor stated. “But if you had talked to her, she might have known.”

“Right,” Taya said angrily. “And the bitch ran off many times while she was a teen. How many times did she get into trouble?”

“That’s not the point, Taya,” the counselor insisted. “And as far as we know, she never got into trouble like this.”

“But she knew what to do.”

“Did she?”

“She took me to the doctor,” Taya told her. “Finally, after she found someone who would help her with communication and me, without Dad’s attitude.”

“Standard procedure, especially with your injuries,” the counselor replied. “That and she had a feeling you were raped. That wasn’t telepathy. That was mother’s intuition.”

“Dad’s still easier to talk to,” Taya insisted. “Even if he was an asshole the next morning. He doesn’t give me a headache often and well… I don’t know. I don’t have to sign with him either.”

“What’s wrong with signing?”

“Everyone looks at us,” Taya insisted. “Except when we’re at home.”

“You’re at home and you still don’t sign.”

“She’d rather talk to Lwaxana.”

“If that were true, then why did she take you to the doctor, talked to you about what happened, and of course, there was that incident last night.”

“What incident?”

“Taya, you know,” the counselor began. “You were shouting that your dad was hurting her.”

“Oh that.”

“Yes, and we went over that last session,” the counselor reminded her. “I thought you understood the difference.”

“To be fair,” Taya explained. “Their thoughts and emotions woke me up and I wasn’t quite… With it. But yeah. I did get upset, thinking he or someone was hurting her and me. I didn’t try to decipher it. I was remembering what happened to me, but what I saw in a bad dream last night… It was confusing.”

“A flashback?”

“I guess,” Taya replied. “Mother said it was probably a night terror.”

“Yet, your mother took the time to talk to you.”

“I insisted Dad stay.”

“Still, even if he had not stayed, she till would have talk to you, right?”

“Yes, because Dad was too uncomfortable to talk to me about sex.”

“Fathers generally are uncomfortable to talk to their daughters about sex.”

“Why?” Taya asked. “I need him. He hears and we don’t need others for anything.”

“You need your mother too, even if she needs someone to interpret for your medical needs.”

“I know, but I prefer him,” Taya insisted.

“Why?”

“Because he wants to kick that man’s ass!”

“Oh, I see,” the counselor realized. “You want revenge and since you can’t do it, you feel your father will?”

“Yes,” Taya said. “He’s strong. Always protecting us… Until he couldn’t, because I snuck out of the house and they didn’t know exactly where I was.”

“So, he takes the law into his own hands,” the counselor stated. “And gets in trouble too. How is that going to help you? Not to mention your family?”

“You mean, he would get arrested?”

“He might if he did that.”

“Mother relies on him.”

“If he’s locked up like the man who raped you,” the counselor began to ask. “Who would your mother rely on then?”

“Well, she does have Aunt De and Uncle Will, as well as Aunt Celesta.”

“Is it the same?”

“Probably not,” Taya stated. “She sometimes smiles when she talks to my aunts, saying, ‘He got me through the Phase.’ Which, I guess means she does enjoy… um… his attention.”

“Do you think your aunts and uncle could take his place?”

“No,” Taya shook her head. “Not in that way. She adores him and enjoys the attention he gives her.”

“So, when you slipped out, he could no longer protect you,” the counselor stated. “He’s now helpless and is doing the best he can, even though he’s made some serious mistakes as a father, but right now, I think he’s right. You need your mother more and really need to communicate with her so she can also help get you through this.”

“So, you’re saying I need to endure telepathically talking to her or at least sign?”

“Yes, if you want her help,” the counselor stated. “In fact, besides doing some more writing, I also want to talk to your mother by signing, if not telepathically.”

“Do I have to?” Taya whined. “Can’t I talk to her like anyone else?”

“To what end?” The counselor asked. “She can’t read lips that well and one-sided telepathy isn’t the best way to have a conversation with the hearing, Betazoid or not.”

“Alright,” Taya conceded. “I’ll talk to her.”

“You may find you become closer,” the counselor told her.

“Like her and Lwaxy?”

“That’s a different relationship, but you might develop something similar.”

“So, talk to Mother about girl stuff and Dad about all other stuff.”

“Not just girl stuff,” the counselor said. “I’m sure she’d like it if you talked to her about other things too, but mostly talk to her about what happened to you, how you feel concerning that, and maybe tell her you appreciate that she was with you when you saw the doctor.”

“Well, it was better than Dad going with me.”

“OK, your assignments…”

“Two?” Taya whined.

“Yes, two,” the counselor insisted. “Write to your little and actually talk, communicate with your mother.”

“Do I have to?”

“If you want to get better and move past this.”

“Why not Dad?”

“Has he dealt with women issues?”

“No, and he’s never been raped,” Taya stated. “But neither has Mother. That I know of. She has been assaulted badly, more than once since she went deaf.”

“She still maybe able to help you recover, regardless.”

“Aunt Deanna has been telepathically raped more than once though.”

“I want you to talk to your mother.”

“OK,” Taya reluctantly agreed.

“Until next week.”

“You’re not going to tell my mother my assignments?”

“No, you are.”

“ME?”

“Yes, you,” the counselor stated. “It is part of communicating with her.”

Taya sighed, “OK, maybe it won’t be so bad.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Nineteen

The Verdict

Taya did begin communicating with her mother. She talked to her about what happened and what her actual intentions were when she snuck out of the house. She just wanted to go to a party and try new things, but it didn’t work the way she had hoped and she wasn’t runaway from or to anything. She just wanted to party and have fun with her friends.

Rhianna listened to her daughter closely, both as she signed and spoke telepathically. Even agreed that the counselor was right in that she could have given her direction in which to stay safe, like a party both her parents knew about, as well as knew where she was, in order to get her if she needed to leave the party for any reason.

Taya also talked to the judge about what she heard and if she thought the voice matched, even though she was scared. She added what happened to her also when the judge asked, which made her shake, with not only fear, but nervousness too.

As for Jon Suder, he plead guilty to all the rapes. In the end, he received a sentence of twenty years for each victim that night, starting with a year of treatment in a high security hospital. Then he would be transported to a high security penal colony, where he would still receive counseling for the rest of his time in prison. The four counts of statutory rape the night of the party gave him eighty years, not congruent, and he was to be tried for the others in a separate hearing. For good behaviour, he would be lucky if he served only twenty years in prison and the rest on parole with more therapy and counseling. A lot depended on him and how well he did in treatment and prison.

Chakotay was happy with the verdict, knowing the man would spend a long time at a penal colony, unable to rape another girl. He apologized to Taya for making her feel so guilty for what happened to her that night. Her forgiveness made him happy, but he still regretted not listening to his wife, yet was glad that did not keep the man from being locked up away form raping other girls.

Taya felt like she survived the worst of the ordeal and began to move on from it with a better relationship with her mother, though still reluctant to communicate all the time with her. Most of the time she refused to communicate was when she was angry with her mother and chose to be rebellious, but things began to improve slowly, despite the times she refused to sign or use telepathy. Still, she had a couple more rough times during her teen years, especially in relationship to her early onset and other issues, but as far as the rape, she felt like a survivor, which her family, including her aunts, helped through it.

Eventually, she began to date and had a couple of boyfriends, one of which her cousin Kestra married, but that’s another story. As she matured, she decided being a CODA was not so bad and that there were just some things that were best going to her mother about, rather than her father. She also learned how to keep herself safe, as well as how to defend herself, but that took time.