But he had changed that.
It was just an experiment, initially. She never honestly believed he would see her in that light. When she overcame her initial misgivings, she asked him to dinner expecting an answer in the negative.
But he smiled in answer. "I thought you'd never ask."
Two years passed from that first moment, the few seconds she thought perhaps life as not so cruel after all. The worst—the hardest and the cruelest years were all behind her. He loved her, she felt the exotic bliss of loving him, and the day they married it seemed there was something great in the universe smiling upon her.
And then there was the accident.
The anxiety clutched at her throat for three days as they labored over his broken body. The Doctor's grim, dark eyes and strained expression offered no consolation.
"Even if he survives this," he confessed quietly as she waited anxiously by the sick bed, "I can't guarantee he'll be the Chakotay you knew. The brain damage—it's very severe."
If he survives. She didn't hear the rest. The next several days found her wilting by the foot of his bed, keeping a silent vigil, instinctively knowing the moment rest claimed her something permanent would steal his life away.
When her eyes finally dropped closed like leaden weights, she quickly was awoken by the frantic movement of the Doctor, working frenetically by Chakotay's side.
"What is it?" she cried, lancing to her feet. He was going to die; she just knew it.
The Doctor turned to her, a compassionate softness lingering on his lips. "He's out of the danger zone, but..."
"But what?"
"His cognitive functions are severely impaired."
She reached out to gently grasp her husband's large hand, her eyes tearing in relief. "Thank you, doctor. For saving him."
He watched her sadly for a long moment; as he turned to leave her, she could hear him say quietly, "I haven't."
Chakotay had not died, not in the strictest sense. But everything that was her husband had. He stared at her blankly, spoke incoherently, seemed to have difficulty grasping the most basic concepts.
He remained in his bedroom most days, gazing listlessly out at the stars as they crept by. Sometimes she'd come in to find him doing a child's craft project one of his friends brought over—coloring a picture, doing pottery.
"Is my baby hot stuff!" he would greet her with a goofy grin, showing a picture of a distorted female form. "See—jumbalayas—big like you's."
"Indeed," she would reply patiently, despite the fact that each day slowly eroded her hope, her trust, her endurance.
"Hee!" he'd cry, reaching out to grab her breasts. "So big! Like moons!"
She'd pry him off, force him back into his chair, and wipe the drool from his lips with her thumb. "I enjoy your drawing," she'd say, trying to change the subject. "It is aesthetically pleasing."
Chakotay smiled with guileless pleasure, and returned to his coloring. She watched her husband completing this child's task with such pleasure, and briefly their nights of making love flashed through her mind—their quiet conversations, their stolen moments. If she just gazed at his powerful shoulders and ignored the simple expression on his face, she could almost pretend it was still him. Those fleeting moments she had not taken the time to relish—how her heart wrenched at the thought of them now.
"I miss you," she whispered to the air.
But she had lost him. He was gone forever.