You might want to read Mutual Understanding first at s/12536730/1/Mutual-Understanding .
My greatest thanks to Devovere. Who made me re-write the end. Again.
Three in a line
He tugs at her shoulder. She gasps without waking, her lungs sucking in air as if it was such a scarce commodity that she can afford to suffocate for a couple of minutes at a time. Her chest rises, the gurgling sound settling into a faint wheeze. The captain is breathing for now.
Tuvok keeps his grip on her.
###
Three people in a straight line. There is no time for them to react except to brace themselves as the shuttle is pummelled by a storm coming from nowhere. The tiny craft does not stand a chance. It skids and bounces against the mountain slopes of the planet they'd been surveying. The cliff it dives into nose first brings their careering tumble to a thunderous halt.
Three people, tossed about amidst shouts and grunts and metal shrieking against unyielding rocks. Then stillness and silence on the desolate world.
The one at the back of the shuttle comes to his senses first. He is unharmed, but the thick safety bulkhead has done its job too well, isolating him in the rear of the small spacecraft. It takes him an hour to escape, using a phaser against the external bay door. He is shouting all the while, pleading for somebody to answer him.
In the mid-section of the shuttle, Tuvok discovers he is wedged under a buckled console when he regains consciousness. He pushes against the pain and replies to Chakotay. He can't see anything in the dimness of the cabin. There are no other signs of life. He refuses to speculate whether the two men are the only survivors.
Tearing himself from the twisted metal, he finds he's suffered a broken leg, some lacerations and a head wound that threatens dizziness and confusion. Chakotay hammers on the hull, shouting. He can't force his way in, his phaser's dead, the cabin emergency door locks inoperable. He is angry, demanding. Find her, he orders, find her.
The third one, the captain, was at the front of the shuttle.
###
"Tuvok, it is not necessary for you to come with us. Chakotay proved quite capable of handling himself on Garro. We make a good team."
The commander contemplated his feet with intent, reinforcing Tuvok's intention to accompany them.
"A continuous scan of the planet necessitates a minimum of three people as per regulation, captain. The shuttles scanning the other systems have already a full complement," the Vulcan man said.
Janeway rolled her eyes with a smile. "Fine. I wouldn't want to stray from Starfleet away mission protocols too often." She stood up from her bridge chair. "Tom, I leave Voyager in your capable hands. We will rendezvous back here in twenty-four hours. Hopefully, we'll gather good data on those dilithium deposits while Lieutenant Torres repairs the ship sensor array."
###
Tuvok finds the captain trapped in the wreckage of the helm crushed inwards by a boulder the size of an escape pod. He tries to drag her out, but his injured leg allows little leverage. The shattered spacecraft has claimed her and isn't letting go.
He crawls among the chaos of overturned seats and crumbled consoles, searching for the medkit. The tricorder readings are dire—the immovable pressure on her pelvis and lower body is keeping her alive and killing her at the same time. He injects her with painkillers and fluids, drapes an emergency blanket over her, then sees to his own injuries. There is nothing else that can be done, except watch over her, making sure she keeps breathing.
Silence oozes around him. Chakotay has left to try and contact Voyager, taking the portable comms pack with him. The shuttle is stuck in a ravine, and it will take the commander hours to clear the vertical walls that cast a deep signal shadow. Help will be slow to come.
Keeping his bandaged leg straight, Tuvok remains immobile, listening to the woman lying beside him, thinking of past missions and a captain who trusts her instincts. Tuvok is not prone to do the same.
He can pinpoint the start of his disquiet to the command team's first away mission together on Garro three weeks before. The captain's debriefing report had been incomplete to the point of obfuscation despite evidence of a phaser strike inside the cargo bay. The local inhabitants only used antiquated firearms and had never boarded the shuttle. He questioned her, but she refused to elaborate on what had happened on the surface of the planet.
He pictures Chakotay, phaser in hand, taking aim at the captain, missing, apologising later, and planning another attempt when conditions are right. The shift from feared Maquis captain to loyal first officer has been too smooth, too fast. There are consequences to melding the two crews the captain has closed her eyes to, in Tuvok's opinion. His job is to analyse all outcomes, draw logical conclusions from his knowledge of the Maquis leader and his own stint on the Val Jean.
Vengeance and anger have been the commander's companions for many years, he knows. He has seen Chakotay in action against the Cardassians and witnessed his idea of discipline against his own crew, putting fear in the men and women under him to keep them in line. On Voyager, the commander has kept a firm lid on those violent tendencies of his, but Tuvok thinks of scenarios in which the Maquis take the advantage and the ship, and Chakotay claims the captain's chair.
Scenarios where Kathryn Janeway is no more.
Darkness has leached into the cabin from the night outside. So far, he has been able to regulate his own pain without the need for medication, his back propped against the solid bulkhead behind him. The blanket slowly rising and ebbing is the only indication the captain is still alive.
The commander's last words before he set off were not, however, that of a man who wants to mutiny, Tuvok reflects. It was illogical to beg the captain's forgiveness for a crash that was in no way his fault. Nor did it seem wise to promise he wouldn't leave her to die, when her death was clearly a possibility, though a regrettable one.
It worries him that he doesn't understand the reason behind what he realises now was an emotional outburst from the angry man.
He has noticed the depth of feelings Chakotay showed to the comrades of those who died under his command on the Val Jean, and now on Voyager since the two ships have combined their crews. He's often observed that death is harder on those humans who stay behind, the witnesses to those who are dying. The commander's reaction is not unexpected, he concedes.
But there is something more at stake here. Something more personal, Tuvok senses.
Something about the captain.
The cold settles. He stretches his arm, hitching the edge of the blanket under Janeway's chin, and binds the last of the slow release electrolyte pouches left in the medkit onto her arm. His leg throbs under the dressing, but he ignores it.
His thoughts return to the same conclusion as if on a tight coil. Chakotay is Starfleet-trained, but a traitor to Federation principles. A man with a lofty purpose, whose morals have led to war. At ease among starships and battles, and a follower of ancient beliefs. A man of paradoxes, a dangerous man–and yet Janeway has seen fit to bring him to her side.
Tuvok bowed to the necessity of promoting the Maquis leader to become the ship's first officer, but the captain's disregard of standard procedures is reminiscent of past circumstances when he was tasked to advise her. Does the captain think an alliance with the Maquis leader is necessary to placate the ambitions and desires of a man who has betrayed Starfleet once already? Or has she compromised Starfleet fraternisation protocols to give her goal of getting the crew home a greater chance of success?
The hull reverberates under a small avalanche of rocks, the noise wrenching him from his daze. He checks the time on the tricorder: three hours since the commander left. His body shudders as he keeps watch over the woman.
He should have been more attentive to the bond that has emerged between the captain and her first officer since Voyager has been flung to the other side of the galaxy. What he considered to be normal interactions to help strengthen the working relationship between two sworn enemies might have transformed into a relationship of a quite different nature, not altogether appropriate between the members of a command team.
It is his close observations over many decades in Starfleet that captains must stand alone. In the particularly sensitive and unpredictable conditions in which Voyager's crew has found itself, the captain must maintain that aura of strength and an unwavering focus on getting her ship safely home. He wants to offer her his advice as he has done in previous times, but he is no longer sure if she will seek him out and avail herself of his counsel.
The thought pulls at him.
A piece of metal snaps in the depths of the shuttle, and he jerks his head up, his vision swimming. He suspects he's been insentient for a few minutes, his injuries and the chilling air slowly sapping his energy. But he can't afford to meditate the pain and disorientation away. Not yet.
She has a fiancé back on Earth, he knows. The making of a family. He wonders if she might have already given up on that future. For short-lived humans, seventy-five years apart is too long a stretch to retain a bond that was not formalised before ship and crew found themselves torn apart from kin and home. Recreating such a relationship onboard Voyager, however, goes against the most basic of Starfleet protocols, and one between captain and first officer is highly irregular. One between a Starfleet officer and a renegade is unthinkable.
While occasional dalliances on shore leave are to be expected given the length of their journey, a ship lost so far from Federation space is not the place to experiment. He will need to talk to her, remind her of her duty to regulations once again. His logic is unassailable.
He thinks of the words he will use, the reasons he will provide. Time stretches around him and tugs at his mind.
The tricorder chimes. There's only one hypospray left, and he rations the sedatives, injecting a small dose into Janeway's neck. The medical device tells him her condition is deteriorating. She is alive, but he does not care to speculate for how long.
While he has served under many captains, some already legends among Starfleet, he's never worked alongside one quite like her. She is not without faults or frailties, and yet she fascinates him. A rare combination of adherence to duty and compassion, of scientific precision and unbound curiosity, of sheer recklessness about her own safety and thoughtfulness towards others. Two halves of the same woman.
A paradox. Another one.
Kathryn Janeway is the only one on board Voyager he calls a friend, an unusual relationship between a human and a Vulcan, born from circumstances which he knew she resented at first. But she came to understand the logic of his motives, and he is grateful that where most only see a Vulcan, she sees a friend too in him. He values their friendship.
He values her.
She whispers indistinct words, bringing him back to awareness once again. Her eyes flutter behind pale closed eyelids, and his gaze flows over her still form, the sharp line of her lips, the high cheekbones and strong chin. She is usually always in motion, her hands dancing about to emphasise a thought, an idea. Occasionally, they rest on his shoulder or arm, and even as he does not reciprocate, he does not shy away either. Her touch embodies her trust in him, and that is important to him. He will miss that contact.
He will miss her.
He brings two fingers against hers, and let them slide against the back of her hand. T'Pel's thoughts too are as sharp as a crystal, her control like a steel foil. She completes him, drives him and baffles him.
His chest tightens, physical evidence of feelings he recognises from his long association with humans—grief, longing, sadness. He can no longer sense her. She's too far away, too far gone. He is pulled in the enfolding darkness.
Drowning.
Surrendering.
###
"Tuvok," she repeats.
She is talking to him, calls him back.
"Captain." His breath rises in the frigid air when he speaks. It takes him a few heartbeats to bring himself back to the reality of their predicament.
Blue eyes scan him, worried. "Are you all right?"
"A momentary lapse in concentration. Vulcans do not like the cold," he gives in lieu of an explanation. He applies the barest pressure on her hand before withdrawing.
A smile lingers on her lips, then a frown replaces it. "Chakotay? He was at the back," she says, her voice rising. She strains to look around, the blanket sliding off her chest.
"It would be inadvisable for you to move. The commander managed to free himself and went to signal Voyager."
"How long ago?"
The figures on the tricorder skip and hop, out of focus. "I am not certain. Several hours." Exhaustion settles on his shoulders and neck.
"He'll get help," Janeway says confidently, her cold fingers clasping Tuvok's. "He will. I know him," she repeats.
Dressed in a flowing robe, T'Pel walks towards Tuvok. She is smiling and her hand reaches for his. He does not find that odd.
###
He would much prefer to contemplate the ceiling, but the Doctor is at his side, tricorder in one hand and osteoregenerator in the other.
"Mr Tuvok, I am glad to see you are back among us."
The EMH must have seen him frown because he launches into one of his monologues. He, Tuvok, suffered from hypothermia, concussion and a double break of the left femur, while Commander Chakotay was lucky to have been found in time too, and—.
"The captain?"
"Out of immediate danger, thanks to you," the EMH says, his face grave. "The sudden release of the pressure on her lower body during transport would have been fatal if you had not kept her fluids up. The smiling death, they used to call those crushing injuries. The patients thought they were saved only to die soon after being rescuing."
The commander is standing near the captain's biobed, arm in a makeshift sling. He is bloodied from head to toe, and a faint sway reveals how exhausted he is. Kes brings a chair for him and he collapses on it.
"Another hour and we would have lost the captain, and most probably you too," the EMH adds. He puts the osteoregenerator away. "I've reset your leg, but I want to keep you under observation until the morning."
Tuvok observes the way the commander's body loosens as the EMH treats his injuries quickly and efficiently. Kes persuades him to change his tattered clothes in the sickbay bathroom. When he comes back, he glances at the captain then makes a beeline to Tuvok's bed.
"I wanted to thank you," the large man says. "The Doctor told me the captain owes you her life."
The man leans against the biobed, his body facing where the captain lay sedated. Neither men take their eyes away from her for long, as if they own her.
"Your gratitude is quite unnecessary. But if you feel it is required, then I will need to express my thanks in return for bringing back help."
"Were you so worried I wouldn't make it?" Chakotay asks in a tone that Tuvok knows holds some measure of amusement. He's heard it often enough in Janeway's voice.
"I was not questioning your physical abilities, Commander, but more the choice that was opened to you while you found yourself outside the shuttle."
Chakotay gives him a quizzical look. "What choice?"
"To do nothing."
Understanding comes to the man; his jaw sets hard and his voice dips. "And let her die? Is that what you believe I would have done, Tuvok?"
"A logical speculation, given the situation."
The man looks down at his hands. They clench and open again. "I see," is all that passes his tight lips. Then he looks up. "And what does your logic tell you now?"
"That I might have been…mistaken."
Chakotay turns his gaze back on the captain for a few seconds. Tuvok expects the man to explain himself, or lie, as many humans do when faced with a truth they do not seek to explore. But Chakotay surprises him.
"Good." The commander straightens his back and steps away from the biobed. "We have a ship to look after while the captain recovers. I'll see you on the bridge when the Doctor releases you, Lieutenant."
With a curt nod, Chakotay moves away. He spends a few seconds at Janeway's side, his touch light against her arm, and then he leaves without glancing back.
Sickbay falls silent. Tuvok closes his eyes.
He dreams of T'Pel.