Beth6787
March 2018
The First Circle
Chakotay finds himself in the hell of limbo once again...
He sits looking at her for what feels like an eternity. Here they are again : he's lost count of how many times this scenario has played out over the past seven years. He's certainly long since run out of fingers and toes to count them on.
Another pointless skirmish with a xenophobic race, paranoid about a lone starship skirting the edges of their precious territory. A fuzzy boundary at best and presumably Paris came just a little too close for comfort. So here they are once again, limping through the Delta Quadrant, frantically making essential repairs around the clock. He should, of course, be anywhere but here. All hands to the deck in a desperate bid to ensure that there is a tomorrow to wake up to for those who have been relieved through sheer exhaustion at the insistence of their EMH. But after twenty nine hours without reprieve, he is more of a burden than a blessing to Torres and her team. So, he has been ordered to his quarters for eight hours sleep but, of course, he has found himself drawn here.
So, he tells himself, he will sit with her for just a few minutes then head... home...whatever that now means. Who is he kidding? Certainly not the Doctor or himself. He knows that he will wake with a crick in his neck and legs that he can no longer feel, after sitting on this chair until he is dragged back to the land of the living by Tuvok's call to the Bridge. He doubts that will be as long as eight hours away.
He looks down to the frayed edges of the dust jacket covering the too oft thumbed copy of Kathryn's last gift from her former fiancé, Mark. Dante's Inferno. He really should return it to her but the only times it is ever read are when she is unconscious, lying prostrate - on what he now considers as her - biobed, here in sickbay. And it is now established as one of his First Officer 'duties' to read to her and attempt to guide her mind up through the depths to break the surface of consciousness once again. Return her to the land of the living until...the next time they are back here : in limbo.
As he opens the book on the page where he last finished orating the irony registers : Dante & Virgil alight from their boat, their life raft, their ship...to find themselves entering the first circle once again. Isn't that all that Chakotay and Kathryn ever do? Go around and around in circles, forever in limbo? Getting nowhere fast and condemned to repeat this scenario for...?
His minds refuses to contemplate completing that particular thought. He remembers that Kathryn once told him that Mark was a professional philosopher, working for something called the Questor Foundation. He often thinks that perhaps the man had the ability to foresee the future too. After all, Dante's Inferno was hardly a romantic gesture, but perhaps it was a forewarning of what was to come. In the last seven years they had all travelled through the nine circles of hell more than once. After surviving the Delta Quadrant whatever the afterlife could throw at them would pale in comparison. The only thing that he fears is being left here whilst Kathryn strides ahead into the next adventure...
So here he is, willing his Captain, his best friend and his...his one true love...to come back to them, just this one last time. Because this is not going to happen again. He will not let it. There is only so much limbo any soul can endure before all sanity is forever extinguished. He looks down at the book in his hands, tears out the next page and crumples it until his knuckles turn first white then blue. Grimacing, he throws it, skittering, across the floor. Within minutes the rest of the book had followed suit.
Walking over to the replicator he returns with a newly minted tome. Dante's Paradiso. He opens on the first page and takes Kathryn's hand in his own, squeezing gently. Then he begins to read...
THE END.
3 of 3 3