disclaimer: not mine, and never will be.
rating/warnings: teen, for some suggested adult activities.
notes: This is my submission for Taslsi's J/C Cutthroat Competition, Round 2. The prompt was: "Tell the tale of the J/C romance from another character's perspective."
in stars and stardust
It was an eventuality—a predetermined conclusion written in star and stardust—from the moment they met. He stood toe to toe with her on my bridge, and though he would not know it for three months, seven days, fifteen minutes, and seventeen seconds, he was already lost. He was a stray comet caught by the sun's gravity; he was night following day; he was a river running to the sea. There was one end to this story—one end alone—and it had been written in the blood of the earth and sky and sea—in my blood, my circuits, the plating of my hull—from the very beginning.
I knew it before either of them did. I knew it from the first moment I saw them standing facing each other, shoulder against shoulder and soul against soul, anger and resentment and uncertainty crackling between them.
Theirs is to be a love befitting the stars I sail, was my first thought. They're going to drive my crew to insanity before the end, was my second.
I wasn't wrong. Even before Chakotay realized he was lost, there was a betting pool six months of replicator rations deep. Tom Paris—bright, brilliant, and sometimes stupid Tom Paris, who knew how to make me soar like none other but whose mouth landed him in my brig more than once—was the one who started it.
"Did you see the way they looked at each other?" he asked Harry Kim one night at dinner. "I'm telling you, Harry, when the two of them look at each other, it's like a star's gone supernova. I'd bet you a week's worth of replicator rations that they'll be boning before the year is out."
"I'll take you up on that offer," Harry said, putting his knife down on the table and stabbing a piece of meat with his fork. The meat was an unsettling shade of black that was only befitting of oil or grease. "But put me down for six months."
"Six months, huh?" Tom asked. He pulled a face at the meat on his own fork. "I would have expected Mr. Perfect Starfleet Officer wouldn't be on board with this."
"I have eyes," Harry retorted. "And I'm not blind."
Tom laughed.
Two days later, Crewman Ordallis overheard the two of them talking about it in the hall on the way to my turbolift. As soon as the turbolift doors closed on them, Crewman Ordallis turned to Harry and Tom and said, "Count me in. Except I'm betting they'll hold out for two years. Lieutenant Cora thinks it'll be two weeks—though maybe you should talk to her before putting her down. I doubt she'd thank me for betting her rations without her knowledge."
"Great," Tom said, grinning and crossing his arms. "I guess I'll start keeping a book."
"Just make sure the captain and commander don't find it. I'd rather not face their wrath."
Tom laughed. "I can see it now." Adopting a high falsetto that sounded nothing like my captain, he said, "Tom Paris, Harry Kim, and Jeremy Ordallis—you're all sentenced to a lifetime of scrubbing plasma coils with toothbrushes."
"Don't even joke about it," Harry said, elbowing Tom in the ribs.
Watching the two of them was like listening to a symphony unfold—like sailing through a nebula, the promise of future stars and planets swirling in eddies of blues and greens and golds. It was a tapestry woven of stolen glances, of hidden touches, of furtive smiles. It was written in the light of candles and the taste of dinners, born in the moments of fear and adrenaline when I shuddered beneath fire and flame and fought, with every rivet and seam, to keep my crew safe.
Their love could heal the stars, I thought, every time one awoke in the infirmary to find the other hovering close by.
It was a secret all the crew knew. A secret, I think, my crew knew better than them. For they would turn away from the other's hidden smiles before they were full-grown, would pull back from their furtive touches. They would hide their faces from the other when they were in pain, even when they reached out with heart and hand for the other in desperation. They walled off their hearts, and walled off their love, even as it blossomed every day.
It was a burden and a blessing—a burden and a blessing not even they fully understood.
"What are you doing here?" my captain asked Chakotay. There was still blood on her face and on her hands, and the Doctor had yet to treat the burns on her cheek and shoulder. But all the same, she propped herself up on one elbow, and leveled a withering look on her first officer, who was seated in a chair by her bedside. "Why aren't you looking after my ship."
"B'Elanna has it well in hand," Chakotay said. "In fact, honestly, between you and me, I think she's about two inches from skinning me alive."
My captain frowned. "Why?"
Adopting a voice not entirely unlike B'Elanna's, Chakotay said, "I know what I'm doing, Chakotay. Now get out from under my crew's feet."
My captain rolled her eyes. "I see," she said.
"I mean, she's not exactly wrong," Chakotay said. "I don't know this ship like she does. Or even like you do. Though that's not," he said quickly, as my captain stiffened and made as if to rise, "an invitation for you to get out of bed. I heard the Doctor say at least 48 hours of rest for you. He had to partially reconstruct your skull, after all."
A frown followed that pronouncement. "That bad?" my captain asked.
"That bad." There was a pause, in which a hundred emotions flashed across Chakotay's face. Finally he reached out and grasped my captain's hands with his. "I'm glad you're okay," he said at last, voice thick with emotion. "For a minute there, on the bridge, when you were unconscious, I thought…"
"I'm okay, Chakotay," my captain said. She freed one hand and placed it against Chakotay's cheek. She smiled. "I'm okay."
Chakotay tightened his hands around my captain's and nodded, swallowing thickly. "You are," he said.
Another long moment followed, in which a thousand words were left unsaid. Chakotay looked at my captain, and my captain avoided Chakotay's eyes.
At last, Chakotay nodded. "I'll let you get some rest," he said, and stood. He hesitated, then pulled his hands free from my captain's. "Rest well," he said. And with that he left.
"So where do we stand?" Harry asked, leaning across the table to try to take a look at the padd sitting in front of Tom.
"53 members of the crew have made a bet. 29 think it'll happen in the next six months. 14 think within the next year. The last 10 say it won't happen so long as we're in the Delta Quadrant."
"Only 53?" Harry asked. "Huh. I would have thought it was more by now. Especially after what they called "New Earth"."
"I'm just not sure who else we could trust to take part in it. I really, really don't want to end up scrubbing plasma manifolds with toothbrushes for the rest of my life."
"Seriously, Tom," Harry said. "You've gotta stop mentioning that. You keep it up, and the universe may decide you want to."
"The more important question," said Tom, ignoring Harry, "is are we sure they didn't hook up on New Earth?"
"If they did, they're not telling anyone about it."
Tom snorted. "Of course not. They're both very private people."
"So what do you think?" Harry asked.
"I'd prefer not to speculate."
"Bullshit," Harry said. "You like speculating more than anyone I've ever met."
Tom grinned. "Okay, you're right," he said. "And personally, I think you did. Did you notice the tension on the bridge those first few days after they got back? It was thick enough to cut with a scalpel."
"Trust me, I did notice," Harry said. "But that could have just been because they were getting used to being on the ship again."
"Maybe," Tom said, clearly not convinced. "Or maybe it was because three days earlier they'd been making some sweet, sweet love to each other, and now they were back to just being captain and commander."
"Ew," Harry said. "Never say that again. Ever."
Tom laughed again. "Fine," he said. "But you have to admit, they were acting pretty strange."
"They were," Harry admitted.
"Unfortunately," Tom said with a sigh, "I doubt we'll ever know."
There was emptiness between them—a vast, yawning emptiness as hungry and wanting as the expanses of space. It lay between their fingers, between their words, between their hearts and souls, linked together since their very first meeting. It hungered for their warmth, for their light, for the fullness of the other in their arms with the inescapable power of a dead star.
I noticed it first those early days after they were rescued from New Earth. They sat in their chairs, mere inches away from one another, yet between them existed an eternity. When they touched each other, on the shoulder or the hand or the back, there was a darkness between them—a needy, desperate darkness. And that darkness only grew in the days that followed.
They fought more, after that. And it was after that that the first betrayal came. The Borg, I thought, would rip the two apart. The darkness frayed at the edges, expanding too far, too fast, until I feared that it would swallow them both whole.
But it did not destroy them. They stitched the hole rent between their souls back together, pieced them back together inch by inch, fragment by fragment, until they were almost whole. But even so, it was never quite the same. The darkness always lurked, etched in the stitches and lurking on the periphery, gnawing at their backs and at their minds.
It would not be the last such betrayal. There was Riley Frazier. There was Kashyk. There was Seven. And with every betrayal, the darkness grew between them, until it seemed to follow in every step, echo with every touch.
"What have we become?" my captain asked, the last night they spent together before transporting down to Earth.
"What do you mean?" Chakotay asked.
"You and I. Are we even still friends?"
"Of course we are," Chakotay said. "Why wouldn't we be?"
"So much has happened," my captain said. She fiddled with the wine glass in her hands, and would not meet Chakotay's eyes. "Promise me," she said, "we'll stay friends. No matter—no matter what."
"Of course we'll stay friends," Chakotay promised. He reached across the table and took one of her hands. "I will never have a friend like you, Kathryn," he said. "Ever."
My captain smiled, and squeezed his hand. "I haven't either," she said, looking up at last. "I couldn't imagine having gone through the last seven years without you. Or the next seven."
"And you won't," Chakotay said. "No matter what, you'll always have me."
"So now that we aren't on replicator rations anymore," Harry said, leaning close to Tom, "what are we going to give to the winners of the betting pool?"
"That, my friend," Tom said, "is a very good question."
They stood in my mess hall, clad in freshly pressed dress uniforms. Each held a flute of champagne, and both were grinning. They were surrounded by half of my crew, as well as no small number of Starfleet admirals, all of whom were happily mingling.
"How many won?" Harry asked.
"Four," Tom said. "Though no one bet that Chakotay would end up with Seven. So maybe none."
Harry shook his head. "No, the bet was that Chakotay and the captain would get together. They didn't. So anyone who bet that they wouldn't get together in the Delta Quadrant won."
"I'm just glad that most of them changed their bet before the end," Tom said. "Otherwise we'd have a lot more of...something to give people."
"Maybe they'll be cool and let it drop?" Harry suggested.
But Tom shook his head. "Do you know Samantha Wildman? She's probably the most competitive person I've ever met. Though you wouldn't think it just by meeting her."
Harry snorted. He had played Samantha in Parrises Squares before. "Trust me," he said. "I know."
"So what do we do?"
"Take them out to dinner?"
Tom took a sip of champagne. "Maybe," he said. "It isn't replicator rations, but it might be a good substitute."
"How many of them would have spent their replicator rations on a good meal anyway?"
"There was a lot more than one meal's worth of replicator rations in the pot."
"Okay," Harry said. "So we take them out like five times."
Tom snorted. "Maybe," he said again. "Or we could just let each winner decide what they want. Within reason, of course."
Harry grinned. "Sounds good to me. And we can get the rest of the betters to chip in for whatever they want. How many people was it, in the end?"
"129," Tom said. "I counted last night."
"Damn," Harry said. "We got most of the crew."
"I'm not sure if that's something I should be proud of," said Tom.
"But you are, aren't you?" Harry said.
Tom grinned. "Absolutely."
Despite the darkness—despite the betrayals, and the holes rent and lopsidedly stitched together in their souls—their end was, ultimately, as it had been written in the stars of the Delta Quadrant.
They visited me twice, once on the one year anniversary of their return to the Alpha Quadrant, and again three years later, when I was in dock above Earth.
The first time there was only the darkness between them. It ate at them both, and at the space left between them. There was only the faintest of stitches still linking their hearts and souls, time and temper and pride having eaten away at the bond that had withstood the test of the Delta Quadrant. They were civil, and kind enough, but it seemed even to me that their final conversation, that last night before they left for Earth, was all for naught.
They were barely better than strangers.
The second time was as different as a star is from death.
My captain was now an admiral. Chakotay was a professor at Starfleet Academy. Mostly, though, I noticed that they were happy.
They walked my halls hand in hand, reminiscing about the years they had spent on me traversing the Delta Quadrant. They laughed, and they kissed, and once my old captain cried.
"We had some good times on Voyager," my old captain said, when they at last reached the mess hall.
"And some bad," Chakotay said.
"Do you regret it?" my old captain asked.
"Not at all," Chakotay replied. "It brought us together." And, leaning down, he kissed her.
When at last she pulled away, my old captain said, "It did." She was smiling.
Taking her hands, Chakotay knelt in front of her. "I know we've already talked about this," he said, looking up into her eyes. "But I wanted to do this properly."
My old captain laughed. "Chakotay," she said, "what are you doing?"
"Asking you to marry me," Chakotay said. He cleared his throat. "Kathryn?"
"Yes Chakotay?"
"You make me happier than anyone has made me in my life. You make me want to be a better person. You make me a better person. You're my sun and stars. So will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"
My old captain smiled so brightly I almost didn't notice her tears. "Yes, Chakotay," she said, and pulled him to his feet. "Of course I will." She sealed the promise with a kiss.
And though I had known of their end from the beginning—had read it written in the stars and the stardust—I rejoiced.
end notes: I hope you enjoyed it! I'd love to hear your thoughts.