October 2012
Author's Note: My "Timeless" fixer-upper. Takes place sometime while the Delta Flyer is trying to make contact with Voyager. Regarding Chakotay- let's be honest, you don't spend fifteen years of your life and then die for someone who was just your commanding officer, am I right?! Please leave a review:)
Tick, tock, tick, tock…
Harry and Tessa talked quietly in front of the monitors in a corner of the faithful little ship; the doctor poured over the remnants of the ruined Seven of Nine. Chakotay tried to sit still and meditate a little, focus himself for the goal towards which he had run and tripped and crawled to for fifteen never-ending years, but tranquility would not come to his turbulent mind.
Chakotay stood up and stretched, glancing out the window. The stars zoomed by, algid and unreachable as always. Would Voyager ever see these stars again? If all went according to plan, then yes.
But as Chakotay had learned all too well, things don't always go according to plan.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver pocket watch. When he had found it in the top drawer of the captain's desk, the chain was rusted and decaying, but the silver-metal alloy was gleaming as ever. Chakotay had almost broken down then, standing in the frozen ruins of Janeway's office, feeling the comforting weight of a forgotten gift in his hand. But then Harry had comm'd to say he had activated the EMH. It was time to go to work.
Time.
Ticking, racing, ever-pushing forward time.
Tick, tock, tick, tock…
Fifteen years. Had he ever been free of this hated countdown, once, in fifteen years?
Tick, tock, tick, tock…
Chakotay did not know if his plan would work.
Tick…
He did not know that Tessa would give her life for a crew she never met and a man who didn't love her.
Tock…
He did not know that the only peace Harry would get in fifteen years would happen in the second before his death.
Tick…
Chakotay did not, could not, know that in the very last second before the warpcore explosion tore his body apart atom by atom, his lips would form her name. He was unaware that the last thing he would ever feel is the cool metal of a silver pocket watch clutched in his fist.
Tock…
The only thing Chakotay could be certain of is that he would have just one chance- just a single moment in time.
I'd luuurve to know what you think, so please leave a review!:)