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infringement intended.
Summary: There are a lot of Janeway and Chakotay POV post-Endgame vignettes
around. I tried for the third wheel.
---
Mine is a fickle happiness.
I would be a fool to not notice it. Perhaps I am a fool for expecting anything
else.
A human failing.
My human failing.
I sometimes drink. It is not a wholly unpleasant sensation, in truth. The
colors are much brighter, and the
details a great deal more abstract. What before was a taunt silence and forced
camaraderie seems
almost...peaceful.
He does not drink, but disapproves. Amusing. He refuses to drown doubt.
Something to the effect of
refusing to fall into cultural stereotype. I believe who he is, what he is,
frightens him.
It is his human failing.
My failing. His failing. Her fault.
He often argues otherwise. My lack of self-confidence drives me stress, and
then to drink, and my Borg
physiology then to increased stupor. My fault, somehow.
I sometimes wish he would leave, make this existence easier on both of us. He
never does. Stupid
sobriety.
I am not a drunkard. I rarely indulge. The effects merely seem to linger
emotionally.
We are happy, a majority of the time.
There is an archaeological ship, the Sparrow. We travel to distant worlds,
recover the past, preserve it.
He is always happy with this.
There is Starfleet. Her. I am civilian Borg liaison, occasionally pulled
abruptly from a dig or our Terran
home to a Starfleet bridge, a ready room, typically her own. She intimidates me
on those occasions, with
the grim determination she evidences. Her eyes rarely glint with anything more
personal than tolerance,
even as we work side by side, breath mingling, hands restlessly touching. My
designation is now Annika
Chakotay. She prefers Seven. Perhaps I read too much into the wording.
Perhaps it is her human failing.
There are the reunions. We are the Voyagers, and nothing will alter the fact.
For one standard day a year,
we pour into Starfleet Command. These gatherings are always led by the Captain
and Chakotay. For one
standard day a year, she is once again in control, and he at her side. I do not
begrudge her the pleasure.
It does not escape me how empty it must be in the end.
He does not look back as we leave. Perhaps selfishly, this grants me pleasure.
I am loved.
I do not believe that she fully hates me. She has fought for me, for my
independence, for my respect.
On the day I nearly died giving birth to Chakotay's stillborn child, I did not
awaken to see pleasure in her
eyes, as expected. Only pain. Sorrow. Love. I wept, and she held me. I believe
we all aged in that day.
She assured me that there would be other children. I did not tell her that the
Doctor found me unlikely to
conceive again. I did not tell her that I could no longer give Chakotay family,
the one thing she would not.
We are on equal footing now. I do not tell her this. Pride. The most
destructive of human failings. Our
greatest.
infringement intended.
Summary: There are a lot of Janeway and Chakotay POV post-Endgame vignettes
around. I tried for the third wheel.
---
Mine is a fickle happiness.
I would be a fool to not notice it. Perhaps I am a fool for expecting anything
else.
A human failing.
My human failing.
I sometimes drink. It is not a wholly unpleasant sensation, in truth. The
colors are much brighter, and the
details a great deal more abstract. What before was a taunt silence and forced
camaraderie seems
almost...peaceful.
He does not drink, but disapproves. Amusing. He refuses to drown doubt.
Something to the effect of
refusing to fall into cultural stereotype. I believe who he is, what he is,
frightens him.
It is his human failing.
My failing. His failing. Her fault.
He often argues otherwise. My lack of self-confidence drives me stress, and
then to drink, and my Borg
physiology then to increased stupor. My fault, somehow.
I sometimes wish he would leave, make this existence easier on both of us. He
never does. Stupid
sobriety.
I am not a drunkard. I rarely indulge. The effects merely seem to linger
emotionally.
We are happy, a majority of the time.
There is an archaeological ship, the Sparrow. We travel to distant worlds,
recover the past, preserve it.
He is always happy with this.
There is Starfleet. Her. I am civilian Borg liaison, occasionally pulled
abruptly from a dig or our Terran
home to a Starfleet bridge, a ready room, typically her own. She intimidates me
on those occasions, with
the grim determination she evidences. Her eyes rarely glint with anything more
personal than tolerance,
even as we work side by side, breath mingling, hands restlessly touching. My
designation is now Annika
Chakotay. She prefers Seven. Perhaps I read too much into the wording.
Perhaps it is her human failing.
There are the reunions. We are the Voyagers, and nothing will alter the fact.
For one standard day a year,
we pour into Starfleet Command. These gatherings are always led by the Captain
and Chakotay. For one
standard day a year, she is once again in control, and he at her side. I do not
begrudge her the pleasure.
It does not escape me how empty it must be in the end.
He does not look back as we leave. Perhaps selfishly, this grants me pleasure.
I am loved.
I do not believe that she fully hates me. She has fought for me, for my
independence, for my respect.
On the day I nearly died giving birth to Chakotay's stillborn child, I did not
awaken to see pleasure in her
eyes, as expected. Only pain. Sorrow. Love. I wept, and she held me. I believe
we all aged in that day.
She assured me that there would be other children. I did not tell her that the
Doctor found me unlikely to
conceive again. I did not tell her that I could no longer give Chakotay family,
the one thing she would not.
We are on equal footing now. I do not tell her this. Pride. The most
destructive of human failings. Our
greatest.