Notes/Background: This story concept came into my mind a couple days ago, and I haven't been able to shake it. Posting this first chapter because I need to know if I'm crazy and I should stop, or if this is actually a good idea. (Still at it with "Lifeline", but I had to get this out of my system :))

First off, pretend with me that C/7 didn't come out nowhere in season 7. I know, I know...but go with me for a minute here...

Seven was basically brought back into the "fold" of humanity by Kathryn, and Kathryn's imprint is there, in a lot of Seven's personality. And let's face it - Kathryn loves Seven. Given that, let's say Seven is desirable to Chakotay, not only because of her "obvious attributes", but because she is "of" Kathryn, in some ways. And let's say that he does "fall in love" with Seven. Not that he's stopped loving Kathryn - he hasn't. The heart can be a roomy place...and to my thinking, there's a lot there - between all three of them, really. Maybe this is just what happens to me when I read too much Anaïs Nin - and I'm not sure that I will be going down that kind of road, of if I'm even capable of capturing those themes (or if anyone will want to read it!). But regardless, I am going with a more expansive take on "love" here, if that makes sense.

The setup is this - They are back on Earth. Seven has died, tragically, and it did not put Chakotay in a grave, but it did produce a horrible, painful, heartbreaking rift between C and J. Regardless of later exploration, this is the story of their "coming back to each other", sharing in the loss of Seven, and finding solace and love, in each other.

Title inspired by the Mumford & Sons song, "Ghosts that we knew".

And I swear I won't be posting a story-length note at the beginning of every chapter. ;)

Summary: Post-Endgame. Driven apart by a tragic loss and struggling to adjust to life back on Earth, J and C find their way back to each other. C's POV.

"The struggle, to emerge out of the past, clean of memories; the inadequacy of our hearts to cut life into separate and final portions; the pain of this constant ambivalence and interrelation of emotions; the hunger for frontiers against which we might learn as upon closed doors before we proceed forward; the struggle against diffusion, new beginnings, against finality in acts without finality or end, in our cursedly repercussive being…" ~ Anaïs Nin (Diary Vol. 1: 1931-1934)

"Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live." ~ Anaïs Nin

South From That Place

One

It rained last night.

I'm still not used to the sound.

It kept me awake - not because it was loud or disruptive to sleep, but because I couldn't stop listening to it. Thinking about it.

All of the strange, wonderful, and frightening things I encountered over the last many years - the new species, the unfamiliar interstellar phenomenon, the cosmic wonders no other humans have seen, save for our 150 displaced souls - and I am captivated by the simple rain. Earth's rain. Molecules billions of years old, composed of elements produced by distant stars, cycling from ocean to land, over and over. An endless refrain, touching all that lives on this planet - all that has ever lived here.

The grass is still wet, and there's a light fog over the city, but it's burning off quickly. The spring sun is shining diffusely through the haze and in an hour or so, it will be clear and bright.

I started my walk when the morning light was new and the thick, moist air cold against my skin. I've come to know this route even though the city still feels foreign.

They say it will take time.

My walk is a meditation. My movement across the landscape clears my head, brings an equanimity rare these days.

It is a bitter, unapologetic reality that waits (always - forever - waits, now) at the top of the hill, and my walk prepares me to face it. I guess that's why I go, why I walk. Because it's too easy to forget, to imagine that the absence I feel every day is temporary.

I go to honor her, too, of course. To mourn, and to say goodbye.

I'm still working on the latter.

What's hard is that it's not goodbye to a life lived fully or completely - instead, it is farewell to a thousand things that might have been. That could have been.

The ground is soft beneath my feet, the grass a lush green, glistening in the strengthening sunlight. I'm no longer chilled, and I strip off my jacket, drape it over my arm.

Somehow, the hill I am climbing never feels tough enough - as if I should have to endure something to reach my destination. (As if we did not endure enough already.)

Presidio is waking behind me, the familiar (yet odd) buildings crisping into view as the fog continues to lift, and I turn briefly to look over the place that has shaped so much in my life - for better or for worse, I cannot discern.

I resume my course, and soon I'm walking near a row of cypress trees. I could map their pattern and spread with my eyes closed, because I'm getting close, and early on this is where I always stopped. Hesitated.

There's the eucalyptus tree, and the edge of the fence.

Eight months, to the day.

The well-manicured landscape secludes and softens the meaning of the place, and I am appreciative of whomever it is that tends these grounds. Always orderly, always beautiful - exactly as she was.

Colorful flowers line the walkway, and I stoop to pick a bright purple dahlia.

I pass between the iron posts that mark the entrance to the cemetery, and when I glance over to my destination in the third row, the flower slips from my hand and my body is frozen in place.

Moments later, I'm retreating back behind the gate, and once I feel a safe distance, I breathe again - attempt to collect myself.

It's not that I'm surprised to see her here - and honestly, it's a wonder I haven't run into her before. But I haven't seen her since that day, when we all gathered here, anger and sadness mixing with obligation and duty, and we didn't exactly speak to each other then.

That flash of auburn I glanced, that I'd recognize anywhere, was a shock to my system, and I'm reeling from the turbulent mix of feelings her presence has unearthed.

I've always planned to see her again, but I haven't been able to think about it - haven't been able to feel what seeing her makes me feel, because I just haven't had the room. And now, reunion is literally a few meters away, and I'm shaken to my core as everything rushes in at once.

But I also feel foolish, as I think about it, and the fact that part of me is considering vanishing right back down the hill. I could tell myself it's out of respect - to give her privacy. And sure, that's valid, but the truth of it is that I just don't know if I can face her.

Not all that long ago, she was my best friend and I could hardly fathom a day without her.

I've not truly faced the break of our friendship because I can only cope with so much loss at once. But more than that - I just...can't. Maybe it's the "denial" phase of grief, maybe it's guilt, but something in me, through all of this, is unable to let go. And in my mind, when I think of the future, it is hard to imagine she will not someday be there again, in my life.

There is a rocky path between here and there, more difficult to traverse, perhaps, than the Delta Quadrant.

I realize I have a decision to make, and it's frustrating to feel this uncertain of myself, to feel this destabilized.

Then again, Kathryn's always had a way of throwing me off balance.

Deep breaths.

I will my pulse to slow, and as I breathe in and out, I decide - I'm won't be that guy. I'm not going to cower away, when - if I'm being honest with myself - pretty much everything in the universe that matters to me is a just few meters away. The lifeless form beneath the earth, and the grief-stricken woman above her - they were, they are, my heart.

And she loved us both.

We do her no honor, no kindness, by avoiding each other - and in fact (I am suddenly struck), it is rather selfish of us, considering that we still breathe, still pulse with life - still possess that which was taken from her...

So I walk back into the cemetery, resolved to let fate play out as it will.

Row three, 15 plots down, to the right. It's newer graves I pass as I make my way there - officers, all. Except for the one.

This section's almost full, and while that's not unexpected, given our line of work, it still gets to me, the reality, the finality of it all. And knowing that many of the graves are empty, the bodies having been jettisoned into space in some distant sector, or lost completely in the circumstances of death. The headstones, most of them, are mere markers - tokens of honor for service performed.

Hers is a simple, flat headstone. Marble. I can see from the end of the row that the projection's not activated.

I don't ever turn it on, either. I'm not sure why.

Kathryn is at the grave, kneeling and sitting back on her feet. Her right hand is pressed to the earth, below the headstone - her eyes are closed and she looks lost in some memory. I wonder if by now she's able to recall the good ones, or if images from that fateful day still dominate. If the choices, the twists of fate, still haunt her days and nights.

As I stare at her small, motionless frame from my short distance away, I realize I already know the answer.

I drag my feet a bit, rustling the grass so that I won't startle her. She tilts her head at the sound, and a moment later she opens her eyes and looks right at me.

I halt my approach, and I've too many thoughts and feelings upon catching her gaze to think or feel anything clearly. She's staring at me (into me), but her eyes are distant at the same time, and it's as if she's trying to decide if I'm real.

Or if she wants me to be.

I'm a couple of meters away, and I can only wait, watching her face as she considers me.

The wind plays at her hair - it's at least an inch or two longer than when I last saw her, and it reminds me of years long past. Those days feel a lifetime ago.

I realize suddenly that I'm worried - terrified, actually - that she hates me, wants nothing to do with me. Some part of me wishes I'd gone back down the hill, never let her see me, because I don't know if I'm ready to know...

She pulls her hand off the ground, places it in her lap, and I see her let out a long breath. She looks back at the headstone for a moment, and I think my fears confirmed until she stands and turns to face me. Her eyes are glassy as they meet mine again, and I almost laugh with elation when she says, simply - "hello."

My relief must be obvious because she presses her lips together in a tight smile - not a real smile, but an acknowledgment, I think, of how difficult this is.

Though my pulse is still wild, and I am almost shaking from the torrent of emotion running through my veins, I assume her greeting and her posture an invitation, and I take the last steps toward her.

"Kathryn... It's good to see you."

She looks at me, her eyes scanning, searching mine. I can't read her and so I'm waiting again, for her to react, to give me some indication that it's really okay that I'm here. I'm not sure if it's seconds or minutes that pass as I stand facing her.

I don't recoil or fall from her gaze, and standing this close distance, breathing her presence, I find very suddenly that I am open - that I am here, in this moment. That I am ready. Whatever comes next, I know, with all of my being, that I have nothing but love for her. It calms me.

Suddenly I see her lower lip tremble, and a tear slides down her cheek. She turns her gaze down, and I can tell she's trying very hard to steel herself up, to keep it all in, but this is us. There's too much here for this moment to be still and unfeeling, and my own eyes are watering as I feel my love for her coursing through my body - the relief of it, the strength of it, fills me.

When she speaks, her voice is not that of the firm, steadfast captain I remember so well - it is the voice of the Kathryn I saw precious few times in our years together. The Kathryn who feels things so deeply, so profoundly, so thoroughly, it breaks my heart in half and pulls my soul from the depths of my body, so desperately does it seek to wrap itself around her.

"I've... missed you."

A weight I didn't realize was so large, and so heavy, lifts from my body at her simple words. I spring forward and embrace her tightly, my tears mixing with hers.

As we hold on to each other, the distance, the angry, hurt feelings, fall away - not for good, I know. That rocky, troubled path is still before us, and there is much to contend with. But right now, all that matters is the whole, real presence in my arms - that she is not completely lost to me.

And that the rocky path - littered with everything that pulled us apart and took what we were - might not be impossible to tread, might not be out-of-reach, anymore...