Cloud Watching
by Bil!
K – General, Humour? – J, C – Complete
Summary: Even after a year on her ship, Chakotay's not sure he'll ever understand Kathryn Janeway.
Season: Early 2.
Disclaimer: Not mine. If Paramount wants to take them back, I wouldn't mind. It'd be nice to have my head to myself again.
A/N: This story is not my fault. There was a title, I wrote to it. Now it's out of my head and on paper, so with any luck it'll leave me alone. (Un-betaed.)
Chakotay has known Kathryn Janeway about ten minutes when he realises that she is one of the most remarkable people of his acquaintance. After a week he finds that she is a captain to beat all captains, and he settles down and accepts her command. A month later he realises that she is in fact nothing less than a force of nature, wrapped up within the skin of a woman who barely reaches his chin but is all the more powerful for her lack of size.
When he's known her for a year – fought beside her, argued with her, laughed with her, supported her, been supported by her – he's given up being surprised by her, because Kathryn Janeway is nothing but surprises. In his time with Starfleet and the Marquis, Chakotay learnt patience, discipline, calm, and (most importantly) the ability to roll with the punches and adapt. Now, on a starship on the wrong side of the galaxy at the side of this dynamo of a woman with as many faces as a hundred-headed hydra, he finally understands why.
And yet she still manages to catch him off-guard.
Chakotay wouldn't say he panicked when the computer refused to locate his captain. After all, it had said "Captain Janeway is unavailable", in that calm, unemotional voice that never failed to irk him, and not "Captain Janeway is not on board." Had it said the latter, he would have panicked (though hopefully in a dignified and productive fashion), so it was probably better for his self-esteem that it hadn't. Instead, he put his not-inconsiderable tracking skills into practise and went hunting.
It didn't occur to him until later, long after he'd spent an hour asking innocent questions of crewmen and tracking her movements, that if she was 'unavailable' then there was probably a reason. And said reason was not to pique his curiosity and test his ability to follow a trail. In fact, this didn't occur to him until much later that night, when it was all over and he was once again lying in bed contemplating the enigma that was Kathryn Janeway.
Sometimes he had to wonder if his mother had been right all along and he really did have a log of wood for a brain.
Some hours before he underwent the ritual of mental chastisement that his captain seemed to bring him to on far too regular a basis, however, Chakotay was strolling down a little-used corridor on Deck Two and wondering why the captain had last been seen heading in this direction. There simply wasn't anything down this corridor, especially not anything of interest to the vibrant and active woman who ruled the ship by sheer personality alone.
There being no more crewmembers to question here, he resorted to looking in the rooms as he passed – and even the Jeffries Tubes, since he'd learnt long ago not to put anything past her. By now Chakotay had completely forgotten his original reason for seeking her, intent instead on completing his hunt and satisfying his curiosity. He'd never gotten a 'not available' response from a computer before.
It turned out, much to Chakotay's bemusement, that some confused Starfleet designer had put in a private Jeffries Tube link from Deck Two to the briefing room, unconnected (most unusually) to any other Jeffries Tube. Pausing in his search to explore this strange phenomenon, Chakotay clambered up the ladder and opened the panel that he'd always thought (if he'd ever thought about it at all, which was unlikely) merely hid some circuitry of interest to no one but a maintenance engineer.
He hesitated there, his stomach resting against the base of the panel opening and his feet on the ladder, to stare, nonplussed, at the empty briefing room. "Why would anyone put in such a small Jeffries Tube?" he inquired of the world at large.
It was a rhetorical question, naturally, so when he got a reply his feet slipped on the ladder rungs and he squashed the breath out of himself: "Why not?"
"Oof!" Chakotay hastily regained his footing and rubbed ruefully at his stomach. "Captain?"
"The one and only. What can I do for you, Commander?"
He squinted suspiciously around the room. "I can't see you."
"If you can't see the wind, does that mean it doesn't exist?" asked an amused, if disembodied, voice.
"Now you sound like my father," Chakotay said reproachfully.
"Well, I can safely say that this is the first time I've ever been accused of that particular failing," she retorted.
Chuckling, Chakotay pulled himself up and into the room. It was a slightly tricky manoeuvre thanks to the positioning of the Jeffries Tube, and he slipped and tumbled out into the room, sprawling on the floor. He sighed into the carpet.
"You do appear to be very clumsy today, Commander," commented the disembodied voice.
Chakotay looked sideways, under the table and past the chairs, to see Captain Janeway lying on her back with her arms behind her head and propped up on a couple of cushions, with a cup of steaming liquid (assuredly coffee) beside her. He blinked. The scene didn't change. "May I ask why you're on the floor?"
"Not, I can assure you, for the same reason you are."
He tried out a mock glare, though he knew his deathglare wasn't nearly as effective as hers, especially not when he was spread-eagled on the floor. As expected, she didn't even notice. He sighed again and pushed himself up into a sitting position, shoulders hunched so that he could still see her.
"So why are you on the floor?" he asked. She couldn't be hurt, not if she'd provided herself with cushions and coffee, which meant... Which meant he was out of ideas.
She seemed to consider his question seriously, but answered: "Everything, Commander, has to be somewhere."
That made her sound even more like his father, which was frankly disturbing. Also, this position was making his neck ache. Deciding that he'd been uncomfortable quite long enough in this search, he stood and walked around the table so that he could look down at her.
She smiled up at him as if there was nothing unusual about a Starfleet captain taking a nap on her briefing room floor in the middle of the day. "Did you want something, Chakotay?"
"Something about ship's business..." He dismissed this with a slight shrug. "But I'd settle for knowing what it is you're doing."
"Cloud watching," she said simply.
"That explains... nothing. Captain, we're in space."
She rolled her eyes cheerfully and it occurred to him that she was more relaxed than perhaps he'd ever seen her. "Sit down, Chakotay, you're blocking the view." He frowned at her and she patted the floor beside her. "Come on. I'll even give you one of my cushions." Reluctantly he sat cross-legged by her knees and she pulled one of the grey Starfleet cushions out from under her head. "No, up here, Chakotay; we're looking out the window. It will be coming back around soon."
"What will?" he asked, obediently shuffling up beside her and mimicking her position, almost knocking her coffee over before she snatched it up in a protective hand. He tried not to think about what Tom Paris would say if he found his commanding officers in this position.
"Don't you remember Harry—No, that's right; you weren't on the bridge, you were dealing with Patil and Thoritt. We've dropped out of warp so that Harry can take some scans of the area. Just now it's out of view, so I'm stargazing instead. There, doesn't that look just like Voyager?"
He followed her pointing finger to look out the windows at the starscape. "I beg your pardon?"
"That cluster of stars there, just dropping down to the bottom of the window—Never mind, it's gone now. What about that one, it looks like Bear." Chakotay watched in bemusement as she sketched out the shape of a dog in the air. "Ah, here it comes."
A nebula swirled into view, a frozen stretch of coloured cloud that snaked its way across the window. The roll of the ship settled and the nebula drifted slowly across the windows as Voyager passed it by.
Chakotay eyed his captain, who ignored him in favour of studying the nebula. "There, that piece looks like an elephant. It has ears and a trunk and even a front leg. There's an eagle too." She named half a dozen shapes, which he didn't even try to find, before looking at him innocently. "Is there a problem, Chakotay?"
"Are you trying to make me believe that Captain Kathryn Janeway, scourge of the Kazon, feared by misbehaving ensigns and commanders alike... is lying on the briefing room floor making shapes in the clouds?"
"And the stars," she reminded him.
"In the clouds and the stars," he corrected with a sigh.
"You're welcome to believe whatever you wish to, Chakotay."
"I—You—" He gave up and sighed again. It seemed a reasonable reaction. Also, he hated lying on the floor. Starfleet carpeting did nothing to make the deck comfortable and no matter how he wriggled he couldn't quite find a comfy spot.
The captain elbowed him in the side and he stopped squirming. "You're too tense, Chakotay."
That sounded familiar, but usually he was the one saying it. "I'm too—"
"You need to take the time to relax. Sit back and smell the coffee. Enjoy the view."
He looked sideways at her. "Who are you and what have you done with Captain Janeway?"
"Captain Janeway is taking a short break," she said, and smiled at him. "Kathryn is taking a moment to herself."
"You can do that?" he asked with genuine surprise.
She laughed. "I, Chakotay, can do anything. Oh, look over there. It looks just like a Klingon Bird of Prey."
Chakotay surrendered to the madness and followed her finger. "So it does. And just above it is a Tyrannosaurus rex."
"Where? Oh, yes, I see it. Well spotted." She gave him an approving smile that made him feel ridiculously proud of himself.
Chakotay spends an hour lying on the floor with his Starfleet-to-the-bone captain, laughing over cloud shapes. It gives him a sore back but he thinks it's worth it and he learns something new about Kathryn Janeway along the way: Even when you think there is nothing left that she can do to surprise you, she'll find a way.
Before, he believed she could get them back to the Alpha Quadrant. Now he knows.
Kathryn Janeway can do anything. And she'll always find a way to surprise him while she does it.
Fin.
Copyright 2007