THE OLD FAMILIAR PLACES
SONGFIC
JANEWAY/CHAKOTAY
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters Janeway and Chakotay.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: MARY
SUMMARY:
Kathryn: Will you wait for me?
Chakotay: I will wait for you, Kathryn, until we reach home.
Kathryn : And when we are home, Chakotay, I would like you to court me, a real romantic courting. That is my commitment to you…
Song: "I'll be seeing you"
NOTE: Written for the VAMB Song Challenge 2019. I went freestyle and chose a song "I'll be seeing you" from the 1938 musical "Right this way". The song has been covered by a number of singers, but my favourite recording is that of JIMMY DURANTE.
Here's a link to that song: watch?v=uSzmuWImK7Q
THE OLD FAMILIAR PLACES
The desk in her ready room was always Kathryn's safe haven. He thought he'd approach her here, in her domain from where she exuded strength, leadership, the master and commander of her vessel - untouchable, aloof, separated. Yet to him, the allure of the woman was undeniable.
His question - confident, undaunted - was posed and it flew to her, settled in her fortress, spearing her defences and forcing her to acknowledge his overture. He had loved her from the early days on Voyager. She was not unaware of his feelings for her. He'd allowed her to see deep into his heart. There was no other for himexcept Kathryn Janeway,whose hair seemed to flame with life, whose eyes never wavered as they looked at him.
Somehow, he'd known her response before the words fellfrom her lips.
"We have a long way to go, Chakotay. Years…"
It pleased him that she referred to him by name and not designation. At least, she was not negating his proposal outright. It gave him hope that he could be more to her than what their positions on the ship determined.
Best friend, moral compass, mentor, sometimes saving her from herself, those were the parameters. But last night… Last night's kiss in her quarters during their weekly dinner all but gave him an indication how she toofelt about him, that friendship could be the last of the barriers that would fall. He'd felt her body succumb to the heady exploration of his lips on hers, seeking, seeking, establishing his need and discovering hers. She desired the connection as much as he did.
He was certain that she loved him. Kathryn did not play games or tease, for that she was too refined, too caring of his person. Those little intimacies they had shared over the years were real and had to lead to something more substantial. He gave her space, let her determine the rules while accepting her touches, the odd kiss on his cheek, her inviting smile. In a sense she felt safe.
"I know," he replied, sighing. "I know and accept that you place your duty to the ship first, as it should be. That has always been your goal."
"You sound bitter."
"I am not bitter, Kathryn. I have always abided by your rules and respected your position as captain of this vessel. You love me. I sense that within my being. And I love you. It is a feeling that has not changed in all these years on Voyager. But I have to ask, here and now, what chance is there for me?"
He watched as a dark gleam full of mystery and promise settled in her eyes, her mouth curving in the appealing way that he loved so much. A smile, a gentle smile formed. Hope flared in him. She would never hurt him unnecessarily. His heart thudded as he waited for her to speak. She was not going to back down.
"I cannot deny what I feel for you, Chakotay," Kathryn started. "I love you, yes."
There was a pause during which he felt his hopes dashed, despair taking hold of him.
"You know my primary mission," Kathryn continued. "I have never wavered from my duty to this crew, to get you all home." Her eyes filled with tears, the regret so clear on the surface, yet Kathryn was fearless in her resolve.
"I understand - "
"But will you wait for me?" Kathryn asked. "Until we reach home? Please?"
In his heart settled peace and a giant sigh of relief. She loved him. That was enough for him, for now. He stepped behind her desk and pulled her gently into his embrace, planting a soft kiss into her hair. Then he gazed down at her.
"I will wait for you, Kathryn, until we reach home. I'm a very patient man."
"And when we are home, I would like you to court me - a real romantic courting before we marry. That is my commitment to you…"
Chakotay rejoiced. Kathryn would not renege on a promise to him. He would wait, for he felt in his bones that they were almost home.
He drifted in and out of consciousness, in a world of the here and now and of dreamscapes, where once he had felt the fullness of his being - real, pulsating with life. And in that world, he desired to languish. Figures danced by like woodland sprites, each familiar, each pausing to glance at him. Some were gone in the mists of time, others alive only by the rush of blood to their skins. Faces smiled and greeted and beckoned that he join them, their hands outstretched in welcome. Sometimes he could touch them.
They embraced with joy, laughed without resistance, breathless in their reunion, a freedom that sprang from the lifeblood that demanded they live. He saw them all. He saw her… But like a sprite she vanished into the gloom.
Once a clown danced, merrily juggling colourful balls, tossing them high above his head, each ball miraculously returning to confident hands before being pitched high again, one after the other. On and on he went, his eyes bright with merriment. Only once he missed a cue and a red ball bounced on the floor, rolling away into the darkness. The clown was momentarily saddened, his mouth pulled downwards, like an old sad-face drawing. Then he shrugged as all the balls rained down around him. He turned away with his drooping mouth, turning once to wave goodbye.
Chakotay gave an involuntary chuckle, his chest heaving with mirth.
"O, Papa, look! Grandpa is smiling. Is he getting better? What is he thinking?"
"Dad? Dad!" A hurried whisper on which a thousand desperate heartbeats travelled, a concerned son leaning forward. "What causes such joy?" he asked, more to himself than to those in the quiet room. "Where are you dwelling?'
A voice drifted to him and Chakotay emerged briefly from his dreamscape where once life was real. Glazed eyes connected with the owner of the voice. Edward. Firstborn. Kathryn's humour, Kathryn's hair, Kathryn's eyes, her mouth, a tattoo drawn across his left brow. Once his own voice had sounded so concerned too, in a time long gone..
"Why are you sad, Edward? I dwell where I see your mother," Chakotay breathed in a thready, tired voice.
Then he sank once more into his dreamworld.
"You look happy, Kathryn," he said. She sat opposite him, a cheerful looking red and white check cloth covering the table. Unhurried movement around them, a young server deftly negotiating the tables. They werehardly aware of movement about them.
"I love this café," she said. "Look, even the pretty curtains are smiling!"
Simple café curtains that fluttered in the breeze that wafted through the open window. How could they smile?
"Nonsense," he countered. "How can curtains smile?"
"And I thought you were the creative one! Look, I can see the park across the road!"
Kathryn's smile turned his insides to mush. So different from her smiles on a starship. Now her face looked relaxed, animated, expressive. She had made good on her promise. The day they stepped off Voyager forever, she'd reminded him. "Now, Chakotay, I expect to be courted in the most romantic manner."
They'd visited their little café before. They loved the ambience, loved the food, loved the community.
He sighed a deep, happy sigh as the owner approached them.
"Admiral, Captain! It is good to see you here again. Shall I bring you your usual drinks?"
"That will be wonderful, Joseph. We'll place our orders later," he replied, his hand reaching across the table, covering Kathryn's dainty hand in his. Chakotay murmured "Thank you", his attention not on the retreating café owner, but on Kathryn.
Another happy sigh as he watched her stare out the window. He followed her gaze - the park across the walkway. Swings and see-saws and colourful climbing apparatus and children and mommies and daddies and baby strollers. Their bright laughter filled the air, joyful, as yet untrammelled by life's vicissitudes.
Then Kathryn pulled her gaze away from the happy scene, her eyes watery.
"I want that, Chakotay. All of it."
His heart overflowed.
"Then you shall have it, my love."
Edward Kolopak Janeway's heart felt heavy as he cupped his father's gnarled hand, caressing soft strokes like one in deep thought, perhaps absent or vacant. Yet his mind whirled with memories of his childhood, his youth, his first years at Starfleet Academy and weaving through all those years, the love of his parents. Even those events that evoked pain, like the time he pitched off the carousel when he was five, were a treasured memory. He told his father the wooden horse bucked under him. He had been unconscious for hours after hitting his head so hard. For months he'd insisted that the scar against his left temple stay because it looked like his father's. Boy, how they loved those trophy scars!
After that his father trained him to ride real horses, "So that you enjoy the real thing and learn how to fall, son," Chakotay blustered, his anger short-lived, his pride shining in his eyes. His sister Bethany and all the grandkids rode horses in Mexico. Young Kolopak, Bethany's son, seemed born to the saddle. But no-one dared ride Oberon and Thaïs. Dad and Mom rode them until both horses became too old and were settled in safe havens.
Now his father was ready to join the sky spirits. The mighty Chakotay, standing tall like a giant redwood tree, unbreakable strength against which they all leaned. Edward glanced briefly at the others around the old man's bed. They looked sad, yet imbued with an air of inevitability, of acceptance, of pride.
Still. He was Chakotay. Chakotay of Voyager. Living legend of the Delta Quadrant.
Always there. Always available. Always a loving pillar. Chakotay, hair white with age, gravely ill, gently easing towards his afterlife with the same dignity he'd lived in this life.
Edward glanced again at the others. They were all here. His dear wife Catherine. He had married a Catherine after all. "Mother must be the only Kathryn I want to know," he'd always said as a child growing up. Then he went and married his Catherine, a Starfleet CMO, who'd served on his vessel, the USS Pearston, who took care of their father. Catherine, mother of young Chakotay, Jaime and Elizabeth. Young Chakotay, a Starfleet cadet, held his grandfather's other hand and also appeared deep in thought.
Bethany wept quietly, tears streaming down her cheeks, her hair raven black, just like her father. Her children stood by silently, witnessing the great warrior entering into his dreamscape. Kolopak and Katya, who were also Starfleet cadets, following in the footsteps of their parents and grandparents.
But they knew a sad truth, and it was a truth admired.
Young Kolopak remembered the day he took the tattoo of the Rubber Tree People, the words of his grandfather always with him.
"I was granted the gift of one life, young Kolopak. Not to waste it, but to accept it with humility and I have lived it to the fullest. Live, son, and regret nothing."
Kolopak remembered that day, when his grandfather's eyes had clouded. He knew the story of the young contrary Chakotay who shunned the ways of his people. Kolopak bent his head as if in prayer as his grandfather drifted again into his own world…
"I haven't been to the Smithsonian since I was a little girl!" Kathryn exclaimed.
Chakotay held her hand, unwilling to let go as Kathryn pulled him towards the entrance, her enthusiasm infectious. He had been anxious about being so openly demonstrative. They were not young teens anymore, he'd told her. She'd told him she was not ashamed to walk hand in hand with the man she had loved forever and he shouldn't be either. So he gleefully endured the hugs, the kisses, the open affection. He loved this Kathryn, whose face no longer looked so pinched, so strained, so burdened.
She'd turned to him, so small a figure against his great frame. "Why are we here?" she asked, ignoring the stares of curious onlookers and rabid reporters recording their every move..
"You'll see," he said, smiling.
"I love your dimples. Have I ever told you that?"
"At least two hundred times!"
"Liar."
The turbolift hastened down, perhaps fifteen levels below the surface of Earth's greatest historical institution. She hardly noticed for he held her close and did not stop kissing her until they halted and he reluctantly released her. They were breathless with delight.
"Tom Paris told me I'd find something really interesting in the cultural relics of early twentieth century Earth on this level."
"Tom, he of the ancient TV set B'Elanna gave him?"
"The very one."
They walked along passages, glancing into kiosks until Chakotay stopped.
"Here it is."
"Here is what?"
"You'll see. Now curb your curiosity and follow me," he ordered.
He led her to a small glass-panelled alcove. In the middle, on a table stood a strange instrument. Kathryn gawked, frowned, reached for it but he gently steered her away from touching the device. A box-like disc with a funnel, looking very, very ancient. Kathryn read the information - a device developed in 1877 by Thomas Edison that recorded and produced sound.
"Can we play it?" she asked with a frown.
"This device is real but the alcove is holographic, Kathryn. It does require additional 24h century technology to play it."
"Okay. Now I'm curious. It plays music, I take it?".
Chakotay nodded. "Computer, load recording 'I'll be seeing you,' by Jimmy Durante."
And suddenly a disc with a red label in the centre appeared and gently landed on the rotation area of the box, turning slowly on the table. The music sounded rusty, creaky, but it could just have been the singer's voice.
I'll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day and through
In that small cafe
The park across the way
The children's carousel
The chestnut trees, the wishing well
I'll be seeing you
In every lovely summer's day
In everything that's light and gay
I'll always think of you that way
I'll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you
Chakotay played the song a second time. By the end of it,Kathryn was in tears. She threw herself into his embrace and wept, sobbing, "It's so beautiful! Chakotay, I want to see all those things!"
And so he vowed to take her everywhere, because he could not deny her anything. She lifted tear-stained eyes to him and blurted, "I love you, Chakotay!"
Chakotay opened his eyes very slowly. A collective sigh went up from his children and grandchildren.
"You brought me here," he wheezed, as he tried to turn his head to look around him, connecting with every worried face. Everything was familiar, beloved to him. It was Bethany who spoke, her voice soft, loving, like her mother.
"In your own bed, here in Indiana, Dad," Bethany whispered.
"Thank you. Your mother would have wanted it. Never liked hospitals…"
His voice was wheezy, heavy, pain-filled as he struggled to utter each word.
And Katya remembered how she and Kolopak used to jump up and down on the great bed where their grandparents slept, always playing with them, their childish, excited voices sounding through the whole house. They followed their Grandpa and Grandma everywhere, like little puppy dogs. "Are we to get no rest?" Grandma would ask, but there was always a twinkle in her eyes like she didn't mind at all. On Sunday mornings they used to rush to the master bedroom, jump on the bed and worm their way between two beloved figures, demanding Chakotay tell them stories of warriors and eagles and Grandma Kathryn tell them stories of their exploits on Voyager. It was always so much better hearing them from the Captain of Voyager and her first officer Commander Chakotay.
Katya looked at her twin brother. Grandma always said that they would have been identical twins if they had both been boys or girls, so alike they looked. Even today some professors at the Academy still mistook them despite Kolopak's tattoo. They had both inherited their grandfather's black hair, his colouring, dark eyes and had taken to adopting the same hairstyles. Yesterday when Grandpa could still hear her, she told him she was going to get her tattoo…
"Remember me to the Rubber Tree People," he whispered. She vowed she would.
"Kolopak," Katya whispered, "what was the best story you remember that Grandpa used to tell us?"
They were not saddened at his coming passing, but celebrating the life of their father and grandfather. Katya wanted to feel joy, even as her beloved Grandpa lay breathing his last. Did he not always tell them that whatever the quality of his life was, whatever pain and joy he and Grandma experienced together, he wouldn't change a minute of it? Like Grandma, she loved poetry and Grandpa taught her to appreciate Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat. He always quoted the one rubaiyat,
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
Yesterday she read him the poem which he loved so… She imagined from the way his lips moved that he was reciting the lines with her.
"When he courted Grandma," Kolopak replied. "Grandma asked him to wait. He promised to wait for Voyager to reach home and Grandma promised she would never change her mind. That was the best…"
"Yes, then they visited all the places in their favourite song!" Katya looked at her uncle Edward who had fallen off the carousel when he was five and how her mom laughed her head off. Now all of them were crack horsemen…
"I hear you," Chakotay breathed, turning his head weakly towards Kolopak.
"It was so romantic!"
"The best story, Grandpa," Kolopak said half on a sob.
Chakotay guided her carefully across the small piazza in Italy. She'd insisted he take her there again. They had replicated three coins.
"I want the Agrippina coins," Kathryn insisted. "She was such a tragically horrible figure."
Once replicated, he remarked how beautiful they were, too precious to throw away, that the originals were housed in the British Museum.
"Nonsense, my love," she said, "the fountain won't mind, neither will Agrippina."
Kathryn glared at him, daring him to defy her. She had been gravely ill and was recovering from a rare strain of flu she'd contracted while on a diplomatic mission to Idera IV in deep space. She'd been kept in a coma while her vessel hurried back to the Federation. He had died a thousand times for fear of losing her, especially when Edward and Bethany had been so young at the time and she had taken them with her on the mission. They had been frantic with fear.
"You've been so ill, my love. You're not fully recovered."
"Honey, just being there will make me feel tons better. I need this, please."
They neared the ancient well, lovingly protected by the Nations Heritage Foundation. Below flowed an underground stream in timeless wonder. Over the centuries, many who hoped for a better life threw a coin in the well, watching it plunge into the depths, imagining magic would work for them, that their wishes would come true. In fact, most came here because it was a romantic gesture with no real desire to have their fortunes realised.
Kathryn was breathing heavily by the time they stood next to the stone structure. He worried about her, knew how she could fight him tooth and nail about him being so protective.
"It doesn't hurt to wish," Kathryn had said that first time, just before they married. "I can be romantic, you know."
And he'd silently wished that Kathryn never again succumb to the illness that debilitated her so severely the children were afraid they'd lose their mother. Edward had taken her illness very hard.
"I love this well, Chakotay. We must come here again."
"Don't worry. I'll bring you to all the places we've been happy…"
"All the places in the song, my love. It's our favourite."
It sounded like an order, but he didn't mind at all.
"Yes, dear."
It seemed to them that Chakotay's breathing became laboured, as if he agitated over the last few hurdles of his life. He had sunk back into his dreamscape. They could only surmise where he dwelled, what demons or angels or sky spirits communicated with him. From time to time his mouth would draw into a smile. It appeared like a soft chuckle. They wanted to believe their father perhaps was seeing those who had gone before, perhaps old grandfather Kolopak or even old Edward Janeway. Could Chakotay see those who still dwelled among the living?
Doctor Catherine Janeway, Edward's wife, had counselled them about their father's last hours, his last minutes. She smiled inwardly, thinking how Chakotay and Admiral Kathryn Janeway had gently grilled her about marrying their son, Edward. She had loved her in-laws passionately. While they were tough, no nonsense, they were also fair and just. So when their son was born, they named him for Chakotay, who was the rock of the family. She glanced at young Chakotay, senior cadet and top of his class, who looked like his grandfather. She placed her hand spontaneously over her son's, giving it a gentle squeeze.
"Mama, is Grandpa going now?" twelve year old Elizabeth asked. She didn't know her grandfather as well as her older brother and sister and cousins knew him. He was already quite old when she was a little girl and she had missed some of the grand stories her grandparents told them. She loved them passionately. Many times, she'd sit next to her grandmother on the white porch swing, singing a very old song Grandma taught her. Sometimes Grandpa, hearing their singing, would amble outside and join in, always saying how it was Grandma's favourite song.
And so, Elizabeth rose and stood next to the bed, quite close to her grandfather. Kolopak released the old man's hand and let her cup his hand in her small ones. Then she began singing softly the old song her Grandma Kathryn had taught her.
"I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places…"
"You brought me all the way to Derbyshire here in England? What for,my love?" Kathryn asked, hooking her arm through his as they scaled a small hill.
"Just thought I'd bring you to your favourite literary setting, Mr Darcy of Pride and Prejudice. It's a glorious summer's day, perfect for walking and enjoying the outdoors. We missed this so much on Voyager!"
"I never thought summer days could be so beautiful, winter days remind us of resting and moonlit nights when we make love…"
Kathryn was winded by the time they reached the solitary tree at the top of the rise. She turned to look about her. At the bottom of the hill she saw people also making their way up. She frowned.
"I thought we could be alone here, Chakotay."
But as the group neared, Kathryn exclaimed softly.
"Tom, B'Elanna, Tuvok, members of our crew, even old Admiral Paris…" Kathryn turned to him, a question clearly in her eyes. "Chakotay, what is going on?"
But Chakotay had taken one of the husks off the tree, smiling as he proceeded to break it open. Kathryn, undecided where to fix her gaze, shifted from the crowd tothe object in his hand.
"Kathryn, honey, you asked me to wait 'til we got home, and you asked me to court you. You made a magnificent commitment to stick to your decision. It has been an incredible few months - "
"Chakotay, what - ?"
Just as the group arrived at the top, Chakotay broke open the husk, revealing not two chestnuts, but two gleaming gold rings. Kathryn's eyes grew wide with wonder as she stared at the rings, then turned her gaze to their visitors.
"They love you, Kathryn," Chakotay said softly. " I didn't want to do this without them."
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she turned to him.
"Kathryn Elizabeth Janeway, will you do me the great honour of marrying me?"
"I'm sorry I asked you to wait - "
"Hey, no regrets, okay? Besides, it was worth it," he said, kissing her to the delight of the small crowd.
"How can I refuse? You brought all your witnesses along! Of course, I'll marry you," Kathryn breathed happily, her eyes full of tears. "I love you, Chakotay."
So they married under the chestnut tree, with Admiral Paris presiding over proceedings.
Elizabeth's song rose softly in the room, the words filling every corner, touching every ornament, Grandpa's medicine wheel, Grandma's sand painting, even the streaks of sunlight that kissed the floor. And where there were shadows on the warm summer's day, even those lit up in joy.
In that small cafe
The park across the way
The children's carousel
The chestnut trees, the wishing well…
Edward pictured the carousel from which he once fell and hit his head. That day his father had taken Mother there as he promised. How could he help it if he told a wooden horse to giddyup and all it did was buck and threw him off? He was unconscious but later Mama told him Daddy swore high and low never to take them there again, while Bethany laughed her head off when he regained consciousness.
He pictured the chestnut trees in England where his father proposed to his mother. What a wonderful story it was. The crew of Voyager had found it wildly romantic. They told the story to strangers who would listen, how the First Officer of Voyager, after waiting a little more than seven years, proposed to the Captain of Voyager. It was, they all said, a love story for the ages. Then Edward had taken his Catherine to the same tree many years later to propose to her.
In his office at Headquarters, in the tradition of his admiral parents, Admiral Edward Janeway had a glass encased Agrippina the Younger coin, had visited the same fountain his parents had visited so often and had prayed a thousand prayers that he be imbued with the same qualities of Kathryn and Chakotay.
Sighing, he stroked his father's white hair that had grown long in his age. A tear fell on his hand as he tried to stifle a sob.
Bethany imagined the charming little park built in the old twenty first century style, just across from the café her parents frequented. She remembered how their mother told them she knew she wanted children just by gazing at the swings and see-saws and the little babies and toddlers indulgingly pushed by their mommies and daddies. Beth pictured her father, so strong, so invincible as she shouted in her childish voice "Higher, Daddy, higher!"
Her father had told them how he courted Kathryn Janeway, that the café had become their favourite spot whenever they were back on Earth after missions. Ben Sisko's dad, Joseph, always personally served them. They loved the café with its quaint red and white plaid curtains, its ambience and warmth.
I'll be seeing you
In every lovely summer's day…
I'll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you
Elizabeth's voice wavered a little as she came to the end of the song, her eyes swimming with tears. There was no doubt where their beloved grandfather dwelled, places they too had seen, of warm summer's days, of embracing one another with the joy of pure living. He dwelled where the morning sun rose starkly cool on a clear winter's day in the east. They all pictured Chakotay and Kathryn walking hand in hand, their silhouettes growing longer and longer in the shadows of the dying sun.
They heard Chakotay give one last heave, releasing a surge of air.
Elizabeth Janeway was convinced that another sound accompanied his last breath. She could hear it clearly, just one word, one name.
Kathryn…
END
Author's Note:
We cannot all determine the time or the manner of our demise.