Title: Coping
Rating: T
Author: Singing Violin
Series: Star Trek: Voyager
Summary: Chakotay suspects something terrible has happened to the captain, and he wants to help, but when he tries, he only makes things worse. Very dark, but not graphic.
Disclaimer: The Star Trek characters and universe are not mine.
Feedback and Author's Note: Thank you to Lia Harkness for the feedback on the beginning of this. She hasn't seen the rest, though, so any mistakes are mine. See end of Chapter 1 for more notes.
=/\=
The first thing he noticed was that she'd stopped touching the crew.
No...not all the crew. Just him.
He missed her reassuring fingers on his shoulder, and the way she snuggled into his side as they stood, an allied mass. She kept her distance now, and while it was only a few centimeters, it felt like light years.
No wait, it wasn't just him. It was all the men, and only the men.
An outside observer wouldn't have seen anything out of the ordinary, especially if said observer came from a gender-segregated race. Most captains weren't so familiar with their crew, and most sexed races allowed more contact between same-gender members than different-gender ones. So, to someone who didn't know any better, it wasn't so strange that she would only touch the women.
Only it was. For her. Plus, he'd attempted a few times to reach out to her—as he had hundreds of times, and been received graciously, if not gratefully—but each time recently, she'd subtly moved away. He found himself frequently now with hand in midair, awkwardly floating towards nothingness.
Then there was her pallor. Admittedly, she hadn't been in proper sunlight planetside in months, but she seemed paler than usual. Thinner, too, and it occurred to him he hadn't seen her eat: not in her ready room, and not in the mess hall. Not for quite some time.
He contemplated contacting the EMH with his concerns, but he wasn't exactly sure what to be concerned about. Her personal habits were, technically, none of his business, until they started interfering with her duties. And while he missed her physical contact, that was his problem, not hers; she was still attending to her responsibilities as captain admirably.
No, this was something he needed to approach her about directly. Well, perhaps indirectly. But he needed to talk to her in order to figure out what was going on. He only hoped that she would be honest with him. While whatever it was wasn't interfering with her duties yet, he had no doubt that, should it continue unchecked, there would be consequences, and he didn't want to let it go that far. He couldn't.
He entered her ready room fully expecting to be ignored, dismissed, or even reprimanded. What he did not expect was that his presence would invoke fear. The signs were subtle: the way she turned slightly from him and failed to meet his eyes, the way she startled when he first entered, despite the fact that she had invited him in, and the way she shook, ever-so-slightly, as she raised her coffee cup to her lips. She was definitely afraid. Of him.
He racked his brain trying to figure out what he'd done to threaten her, and came up empty.
"Chakotay!" she admonished. "Was there a reason you came here to see me? I'm very busy, so please make it quick."
He could feel the heat in his cheeks as he realized he must have been silent for nearly a minute while he assessed her. Of course she would have noticed. "Sorry, Captain, I was just..."
His feet went cold. He had no idea how to approach the subject, let alone treat it. The chill quickly traveled up his body and froze his mouth.
"You were just what? Is there a problem of which I should be aware?" Her impatient tone might have him believing her palsy was merely a byproduct of her eagerness to get rid of him so that she could return to her work—if he were not looking for something else, some clue as to the cause of her change of behavior of late.
He sighed and redoubled his resolve. "I was wondering if you were okay," he managed to get out.
She looked genuinely puzzled. "I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"
"You haven't touched me," he admitted directly. "I..." I miss you, he wanted to say, but he held his tongue. "I was worried. You used to touch me more."
Now it was her turn to sigh. "I suppose I was being unprofessional," she conceded. "I shouldn't have been so tactile, and I'm sorry."
He shook his head. "You're also not eating."
She looked up from her padd, meeting his eyes for the first time since he'd entered the room, then looking quickly away again. "Just because I'm not eating with you doesn't mean I'm not eating. I've been busy."
The commander attempted to quell his exasperation. "You wouldn't be losing weight if you were eating properly. You're thin, Kathryn, and you can't get much thinner before you'll disappear entirely, and that might be a problem for the crew."
He hoped to get a smile of amusement for his efforts towards light humor, but got no reaction at all.
"I'm fine," she repeated unconvincingly. She looked up at him once again, opened her mouth as if to speak, and then closed it, quickly glancing back to her padd. "If that's all," she continued, seeming to talk directly to her desk.
"Kathryn," he tried, hoping to break through her barriers with familiarity, "something's happened to you, and as your first officer and your friend, I think it's important that I know."
She raised an eyebrow but did not look up. "If you need to know something, Chakotay, I will tell you. Now, if that's all..."
"No," he insisted. "That's not good enough. I do need to know, because..." His voice trailed off as he realized that she could have said there was nothing to know, but instead, she'd practically admitted she was hiding something from him. He desperately sought the origin of her strange behavior, and immediately his mind traveled back to the last away mission she'd been on. "Something happened on that planet, didn't it? Something happened to you?"
As he spoke, he stepped closer, and when he was near enough, he lightly touched her arm. Since she wasn't looking, she didn't have time to dodge him.
Instead, she flinched and pulled away after the touch, and he noticed her shaking increase considerably in the moments following.
Possibly realizing she had been caught, she slowly looked up at him, and her eyes revealed more than he could ever have imagined.
"You didn't...oh my god, Kathryn, were you...?" he stammered, not knowing exactly how to ask what he was thinking.
She took another deep breath, visibly steeling herself, and then made a point to look directly into his eyes, boring a hole into his soul as she spoke her next words. "If something happened — and I'm not saying it did — we're trained for the scenario."
Suddenly he felt as if he were going to be sick. "Trained?" he repeated weakly.
"Yes," she nodded. "Trained. It's always a possibility, and we need to be prepared to handle it."
He appeared confused now. "But I didn't...I mean, I never got..."
She looked askance at him for a moment as she realized what he was trying to say. "Chakotay, please tell me you have realized the fundamental difference between you and me."
He swallowed harshly, knowing exactly to what she was referring. "You mean only women get this...training?"
"That's correct," she answered coolly, looking back down at her padd, seemingly having reached the limit of her capacity to maintain eye contact.
"How...why?" he stammered, rage boiling within him.
She glanced up at him, but didn't meet his eyes, choosing instead to focus past him on the ready room doors. "You know why."
He clenched his fists, wanting desperately to send one of them through a bulkhead. "That's wrong," he finally got out.
She raised her eyebrows, still looking past him. "You'll get no argument from me. I would have required it for everyone. But I didn't have the authority, and I still don't, especially here."
He gulped yet again, attempting to channel his anger into something productive. "Well, whatever this training, it doesn't seem to have been very effective."
Now her eyes burned with indignant fire. "What makes you say that?"
"You're jumpy," he explained, not caring anymore whether he was overstepping his bounds. He had nobody to direct his wrath towards, and his captain was the only one present. "You're not eating, not touching me...not touching any of the men. You're clearly not coping."
She narrowed his eyes towards him. "If something happened, I would cope exactly as I was taught, and it would take time, and I wouldn't expect you to understand. I realize there have been some changes lately, but let me ask you this: am I, in your opinion, unfit for duty?"
I'm not sure, he thought, but once again, he had no solid basis on which to doubt it. "No," he admitted reluctantly. Not yet, but if this keeps up...
"Have I been neglecting my duties, according to regulations?" she prodded carefully.
"No," he repeated quickly. "You haven't."
"So, while you may not be comfortable with the changes, you admit they are not a cause for concern, in any official way. And in fact, I believe Starfleet command would consider this to be an improvement, if they had the opportunity to observe us. Now," she paused a moment, and he wondered whether she was fighting tears as she put the padd down on her desk. She softened her voice, "will that be all? Please?"
That last word undid his resolve, and he shrank before her. "I suppose so," he answered meekly, not knowing what else to say. For the moment, he thought to himself. At least now I have something to present to the Doctor. Though perhaps, he realized as he turned to leave, the Doctor already knows, and has endorsed this 'coping' as taught. He shivered slightly as he exited.
=/\=
Feedback policy and Author's Note (please read before reviewing if you intend to criticize): Reviews are welcome, and *constructive* criticism is encouraged. The following is what I consider constructive criticism. I abide by the following guidelines myself when reviewing a story; I know there are things being said about me otherwise - thanks mean-girl VAMBies; I left VAMB with the hope you'd leave me alone rather than continue spreading lies about me, sigh - and yet I continue to be blocked randomly and trolled (I'm looking at you, Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway) because of "things I've done in the past" which isn't actually what I've done in the past but rather rumors that were spread about me by one complete nutcase (anyone remember Innocent Pen?) and a bunch of naive girls who believed the crazy troll and bullied me because they thought I deserved it. To those who were duped and participated in the attacks: I forgive you, though I hope you will never do that to anyone else again. Nobody "deserves" to be bullied. Ever. No matter what they've done. But especially when they haven't actually done what you think they have. And bullying won't make them go away if they are actually a mean person: it'll just make them fight back or bully someone else. And if they're not a mean person, bullying can literally kill, as they'll turn their anger and hurt on themselves rather than hurt someone else. In any case, the following is honestly what I try to do, if I'm criticizing at all, which most of the time I'm not (unless I'm beta'ing):
1) Point out errors (misspellings, grammar, etc.) that can be fixed easily and quickly (and will be). Lia Harkness beta'ed the beginning of this (thank you!) but hasn't seen most of it and although I'm pretty meticulous, I may have missed something, so please let me know if I did, and I'll fix it ASAP. Error fixes do not need to be accompanied by any other comments; they're objective and helpful. (However, I personally will not even point out errors without also including praise for the story, because I know some people are discouraged by error fixes because they take them personally. I do think it's important to point out especially endemic errors, because the more we all see them wrong, the more we'll be confused about what's actually right, and then when it actually matters - like a graded paper or a job application - we could make mistakes we're totally unaware of and suffer the consequences.)
OR
2) Include BOTH of the following:
a) Tell me something you liked about the story and why. If you have nothing nice to say, then you shouldn't be reading it in the first place. (Except if the author specifically asked you to read it, and yes, I have been asked to read stories I hated, and I read them because I was asked to do so, AND tried to find some nice things to say about them even though I hated them. However, I don't typically ask people to read my stories - even as betas - unless I honestly think they'll enjoy them.)
b) Tell me what you didn't like, and be SPECIFIC. "More description would make it flow better" (a recent anonymous flame I got, and no, that's not out of context - that was the entire review) is not helpful. Description of what? Where in the story? "Flow" is subjective and vague. And, before you make a request, ask yourself if I could meet the request without changing the overall character of the story, which is maybe what I was going for? If not, then you're not being helpful. Specifics, specifics, specifics. And keep in mind that while I take requests into account, I will not necessarily agree with them, or I may not feel they reflect the preferences of the majority of the people reading. If the story goes in a direction you don't like, feel free to tell me, but I may not comply, and if I don't, feel free to stop reading.
Note: Questions about the plot or characters (that can be addressed in later chapters or follow-up stories), emotional reactions (positive or negative) to what's going on in the story, and suggestions for future chapters or stories are not criticism, constructive or otherwise. They are wonderful and inspiring, so please share. :)