A/N: Voyager is the first series I ever wrote for (some of those fairly horrible stories are still on this site, even). Watching it again with adult eyes, I felt the need to render these characters in a somewhat more mature way, with a subtlety that strives to honor the depth of the original. Please enjoy.

Note: Tag to Season 2 Episode 8, Persistence of Vision. Janeway and Chakotay talk after hours. Light/pre-JC.

Paramnesia

The replicator in his quarters had lost the ability to distinguish between herbal tea and very bitter Ktarian coffee. It had been acting up for weeks, ever since a conduit blew in the wall during another dogfight with another alien race, the details of which he had already forgotten. He'd patched it back together himself with an erratic isolinear spanner and his equally unreliable memories of the Introduction to Engineering course he'd taken at Starfleet Academy a lifetime ago, one of those required courses he wished he'd paid more attention to, and had been meaning to ask B'Elanna to take a look at it since the day it went on strike and produced nothing but fiery hasperat for thirty-eight hours. But he hadn't gotten around to it—one of just so many things that never made it to the top of his list. After the second cup came out sharp and murky and practically boiling over the sides, he gave up on solitude and stepped out into the hallway, opting to walk down to the mess hall instead. Neelix almost always had something brewing down there, for better or worse, and if that had a good chance of being just as acrid as the Ktarian coffee, well…at least he wouldn't have to be alone with his restless thoughts.

Chakotay had spent enough of his life in space to know by now that ships, like crews, could have moods. His ship, the Val Jean, had been almost as temperamental as the people who depended on it, and he'd found Voyager to be a reflection of the woman who captained her: staid, determined, and perhaps a little more prone to sudden flare-ups than she'd like to admit. But the ship seemed quieter tonight, the background hum of the engines almost brooding, preoccupied. She wasn't the only one—for gamma shift, there were a lot of people wandering the halls, but they all still seemed a little dazed, barely nodding to him as they passed. The mess hall was emptier than he'd predicted, just a few crewmembers sitting around the scattered tables and keeping their conversations low—but there was one figure who caught his attention, seated in the corner with her eyes raised to the rush of stars and her thumb tracing an absent arc along the rim of her coffee cup. He moved to join her without bothering to pour a mug of whatever Neelix had left steaming in a carafe on the counter.

"You're going to be up all night."

Kathryn Janeway looked up at him with unfocused eyes, caught off guard by his presence or his question, he wasn't sure which. He slid into the seat beside her and motioned to the cup in her hands.

"Little late for a nightcap. After the day we had, I thought you would've turned in hours ago."

Kathryn looked down, tipped her hand so the black coffee rippled in the cup. For a moment he wondered if he'd crossed the line, if she wasn't in the mood to be teased tonight—then her eyes lifted back to his and he realized she was smiling, the little smile that twisted up from the corner of her lips like he'd pulled it out of her against her will. She set the cup down and pushed it away from her across the table, resting on her elbows in a way that made her lean forward, toward him. It made the moment feel conspiratorial, and that was a good feeling, even if he wasn't sure why.

"To tell you the truth, I'm not ready to confront my dreams just yet," she said, her expression turning thoughtful once again. She glanced at the window once more as if she could see the afterimage of her visions reflected in the dark glass. Chakotay laced his fingers on the table, tried to see what she saw in the fleeting passage of stars.

"You're not the only one." She raised an eyebrow and he offered a small smile in return, tipping his head toward where the last members of their crew were straggling up from their table and heading out of the mess hall, bidding each other subdued goodnights. Chakotay shrugged. "I think we're all struggling to find meaning in this."

Kathryn studied him for a long moment without speaking, those sharp blue eyes taking his face apart feature by feature. He wasn't sure what he'd said to earn that kind of scrutiny—it seemed as if he was always surprising her in some way, as if she could not quite comprehend the shape of him, get the measure of who he was. It was a feeling he could relate to. He could never really figure out where he stood with her, either. At last she let out a soft breath and shifted to brace her chin on the hollow of her hand, regarding him with just the hint of a smile playing at her lips.

"So, Commander…how did they get you?"

Chakotay blinked. "I'm sorry?"

She shifted in her seat, just enough to bump her knee against his thigh. "Come on, Chakotay. We were both standing in that turbolift when Kes managed to take down the Botha. I was just as out of it as you were. I'm just curious about your Achilles' heel."

"Oh." All of a sudden it was hard to hold her gaze. Chakotay looked down at his hands instead, traced one callused thumb over the ridges of his knuckles, feeling the soft shift of bones beneath his tanned skin.

From the beginning it had seemed wrong: the turbolift just starting to move under his feet, and then the abrupt shudder as it lurched to a stop, the hiss of the doors and that voice ringing out from the bridge he'd just left. Hold the lift! It hadn't made sense for it to be her, though he could hear her agitated breathing, feel the warmth radiating from her body as she leaned back against the turbolift wall beside him.

Captain?

I'll be more use in Engineering with you. There's nothing I can do from up here. Deck eleven. The pulsing lights brought out the red in her hair as the lift began to move again, and she tipped her head back against the wall, those pale blue eyes slipping closed in exhaustion. Can we go one day out here without something trying to rip my ship apart?

He didn't understand how this could be real, didn't understand why this was the vision the alien would give him. He tried to focus on his mission, her orders to get to Engineering and…but the details were already fading, his mind foggy and unfocused as the vibration of the lift got into his bones. He lost the last shreds of his concentration when a soft hand settled on his shoulder. She rested her forehead against the back of her hand, her eyelashes dark against the pale skin of her face, leaning into him just enough for both of them to feel it. Somehow that alone was overwhelming. His mouth felt dry, but he couldn't summon the strength to swallow.

Captain?

He couldn't even decide what he was trying to ask. She shook her head, the slight movement echoing like a tremor in his lungs.

Just for a moment. Just let me catch my breath.

He knew for certain, then, that it was a vision he was caught in, because this was something she would never allow herself—she guarded her vulnerability too closely, even from him, even though sometimes he couldn't stop himself from thinking a shoulder was exactly what she needed. And if she ever did decide to lean on someone, he couldn't hide from the knowledge that it wouldn't be him, because in spite of all that they'd been through together in nearly the year since he'd stood at her side for the first time, she didn't trust him in this way, didn't trust herself to be small in front of him. Still, he couldn't move, didn't even have the will to try. Maybe it was because this was what he had come to want to be to her, as a first officer or a friend, or whatever he needed to become to be trusted to hold her up. Maybe it was because if that faith was finally being placed in him, he couldn't violate it, even if it wasn't real.

It was what had left him so preoccupied, all these hours later, fascinated by the hold that one moment of inaction, of suspended potential, had exerted over him. He wasn't quite as fascinated anymore, searching himself for the strength to meet her waiting eyes. Now he was just embarrassed.

"You first," he finally replied, testing himself and her, asking without words how much they were going to bare to each other. Kathryn leaned back in her chair and then dragged the coffee cup to her with one crooked finger, taking a lukewarm sip that made her grimace.

"Touché. Mm. I can barely tolerate Neelix's coffee substitutes when they're scalding—anything less and I might as well go down to the aeroponics bay and scoop up a cup of dirt." He chuckled along with her, wondering if their quiet laughter in the deserted mess hall was the sound of her walls going up again, if that was the only answer he was going to get. But she surprised him a moment later when she confessed in a murmur, "There were some things I thought I'd put behind me a long time ago. I guess they weren't as far from my mind as I let myself believe."

Chakotay took a shallow breath. "Honestly…it was the last person I expected to see." She caught his eye, intrigued, but he couldn't bring himself to say anything more except to add, "I think that's what made it so powerful."

In the moments after Kes broke the trance that had held them all in thrall, when he shook himself loose to find her standing next to him in the turbolift, equally dazed, he couldn't help wondering if maybe it hadn't all been a hallucination—if she might have brushed a hand across his shoulder when she stepped inside, leaned into him for just a moment as they hurtled down…in the moment of companionable silence as they sat there under the stars streaked against the dark window, a soft smile caressing her shadowed face, he wished he could find the words to tell her that he could be those things to her if she needed them, and that he thought she did. That he would be honored to carry her burdens for her sometimes, if she would only let him. He was no closer to it by the time she stood with a long, languid stretch, her coffee cup rocking from the crook of one bent finger.

"Well. It's awfully late already. We should probably turn in before it gets any later. If I'm not mistaken, you're on the early shift with me tomorrow. Can't have the senior officers asleep at their posts."

He acknowledged her statement with a short nod, but before she stepped away from the table he cleared his throat, drawing those striking blue eyes back to him as he stood, too. "Captain. I just want you to know…if you ever need someone to talk to, to chase the ghosts out again…" He left the offer hanging, not sure how to finish it, but she seemed to understand—Kathryn dipped her head, not quickly enough to hide the broadening smile tugging at her lips as she rocked back on her heels.

"You're number one on my list," she promised, bringing her eyes back to his. "Goodnight, Chakotay." Then she turned and made to move away into the shadows of the deserted mess hall—but just before she did, her hand flitted up to rest against the breadth of his shoulder, the warmth of her fingers tattooed against his skin, and it held him there long after she had left him to the stars.

Note: "Paramnesia" is the term in psychiatry for the inability to distinguish between fact and fantasy.