DISCLAIMER: I don't own them, and I never will. In fact, I don't even want the characters in this story...

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My breath rattles in my lungs, and I wince with the pain that the deep breath has caused me. I make one more stretching, futile grasp for the tricorder that remains stubbornly just beyond my reach, and this time the pain causes me to cry out into the dimness of the crashed shuttle. I know that guttering sound, and I realise I do not need a tricorder to tell me what is wrong. I have broken ribs and a punctured lung, and more than likely a concussion if the throbbing in my head is anything to go by. I am having trouble feeling my legs, they are tingling, which I suppose is a good sign, but at this moment in time I am having trouble looking on the bright side. It is difficult to think at all beyond the pain at my ribs and the dead weight of - something - pressing down on my hips. Difficult to think.... what happened.... why did we crash? Where are we? We? Who was I with?
"Chakotay?" I croak into the darkness, my throat dry and hot. It's hot in here. The core hasn't breached, or I wouldn't be here now, but if environmental controls are down then it's going to get a whole lot hotter.
"Chakotay?!" I repeat. I want to shout your name, but it hurts too much. Still I have no answer. Where the hell are you? You were there right next to me when.... my eyes slam shut at the broken flashes of images that suddenly come to me. Inertial dampers went offline, we took a battering... an ion storm... I try to chase away the vision of you being thrown against the ceiling of the shuttle like a ragdoll, as if you weighed nothing, but it stays with me. A great wave of despair races through me and I fight it, I fight it as hard as I can. What will I do if you die? Somehow I am trying to chastise myself for thinking like this, telling myself this is weak and pointless, but the possibilities are too real: the pain I feel is real, the blood dripping into my eyes is real, and the silence answering my calls is all too real.

What will I do? I'll go on as before, I'll shore myself up and I'll carry on, I tell myself. But the resolution rings hollowly inside my mind. Yesterday I felt so strong, but now it is all I can do to fight the despair that I have been incredibly stupid. We had taken the flight in silence, we'd just had a row. Which I'd won, or so it seemed at the time. What a pathetic victory that seems now. It had all started on my last birthday, when you'd blindfolded me, against my better judgement, and taken me to the holodeck where you'd written a beautiful new program for me, of my Indiana. We'd sat beneath the stars and they seemed so big, so close, and we drank real wine. And later we lay side by side on the blanket, the grass was sticking in me and I was ready to go back to my quarters, but then you leaned over and kissed me, and you tasted of wine and you were so warm and I was so relaxed by the wine.... I knew you'd want more but I thought we could deal with that later, and I only felt a little guilty when you came to an emotional, shattering orgasm, and I cried out with you, not wanting you to be alone.

You didn't speak to me for days, I remember, but then you came to me, pale and tired. I felt strong that day, the confusion and fear at what I'd done melted away. You agreed with everything I said, you prostrated yourself before me, said you'd accept whatever I was able to give you, no matter how little. I blink back stinging tears as I think of you, forlorn, sitting on my couch while I dictated terms to you from the viewport. You just nodded slowly. I didn't see it then, but by god I see it now. I would come to you, I said, or we would not come together at all, they were my terms. I thought them sensible, easy, simple.... who did I think I was? I thought I could prevent a regression into love and needing. We would be there for one another physically, help one another out, but there would be no complications, none of that blurring of boundaries that I was so afraid of. And I thought you felt the same, after all you agreed to it all. But lying here now in the dark, quiet shuttle, I realise how badly I need you to be alive, how badly I need you. I realised months ago that I had it horribly wrong. All wrong, it was all disgustingly wrong. I went to you that night, and you welcomed me into your bed. You didn't suspect anything was different, didn't see me unable to squeeze the tears back and bite my lip from telling you I loved you. Could you tell that the emotion was real that time? Did you believe me?

I was always taught to be nice. That's one of the things my mother would insist, that if nothing else I should just be nice to people. Was I nice to you Chakotay? I think not. It began to destroy me, taking what should have been sacred between us and turning it into a quick fix, using it as a way to escape from what was between us, while we should have used it to cement us together forever. A sob races up my gullet and the intake of air sets the pulsing pain off again under my ribs, but I am perversely glad of it. The mental image of you afraid to kiss me after we...finished...is wiped from my mind. And then I can't stop myself, not even the pain will stop me this time, I am sobbing, loud, like a child. I release wail after wail into the hot darkness, but the liberation is short-lived. I cannot release the hate I feel towards myself for the way I acted, cannot undo the stupid things I said and did, cannot tell you now.... My sobs fade to whimpers, and I think I might never stop. Is this my penance? To know I have been so utterly wrong, I Kathryn Janeway the infallible, have been the stupidest woman ever to have breathed? It is humbling but useless to me, for I am beginning to believe that I will die here, and all that will be left is a few personal logs for people to wonder over and be astonished.

I suck in a breath, try to stop my laboured breathing, the pain is threatening to make me black out. Kathryn. My vision becomes hazy, and the dimness seems to be getting dimmer. Kathryn. This is such torture, I almost hear you. I try to hold my breath, see if I can suppress the pain. I take one deep breath and hold it... And in that silence I hear you.
"Kathryn!" Your voice is weak.
"Chakotay!" Your name explodes from my lips, and I am weeping again. "Chakotay, where are you?" I am crying.
"I'm.... I don't know," Is that an edge of humour in your voice? It stems my tears. "Please don't cry Kathryn."
"I thought-" my shaky voice trails off.
"I know."

And I think you do.


~FIN~

This story now has a companion/sequel : Burn