Irresistible
AU, a riff on B'Elanna's Pon Farr and Tom's gentlemanly refusal to take advantage until the very end. If roles were reversed, would Janeway put Chakotay out of his misery?
The rock fall came within inches of both of them, Chakotay pulling Kathryn with him as they backed frantically out of the dust cloud.
"Wonderful," she said, coughing the debris out of her lungs. "Now we're cut off from the rest of the away team."
He shone his light down the passage ahead of them. "Maybe these tunnels will connect at some point. We might as well keep going. Does it seem hotter to you?" he asked, pulling at his turtleneck.
She glanced askance at him. "Not at all. Colder, if anything. You're warm?"
"Roasting," he said as he unzipped his uniform jacket and peeled it off. He tied the cloth arms around his waist as he followed her down the dark corridor, ducking as they passed a large rock outcropping. The tunnels wound on and on, crossing themselves, seemingly in every direction, but their sensors turned up no signs of other crewmembers. Every attempt to communicate with the surface met with dead air. The next time Kathryn looked back, Chakotay had shed the turtleneck and was sweating through his undershirt. "Are you feeling okay?" she inquired. "I don't know how you can be warm down here."
He paused with a hand on the rock wall to steady himself. "No, I'm not okay. I feel feverish and – there's no other word but restless, like I can't hold still. This sense of desperate need." He rubbed his face with his hand. As she stepped closer to examine him with her tricorder, she realized that he was trembling.
"Chakotay," Kathryn said, moving to his side and resting her hand on his arm.
"No!" he cried, jerking away. "Don't touch me!"
"Why?" she asked, eyes wide. The only readings she could obtain with a basic tricorder were vital life signs. His vitals were irregular and his behavior alarmed her.
"I can't take it. I don't know what's wrong with me. The only explanation I can come up with is my mindmeld with Tuvok yesterday. He was helping me develop my meditation technique. Since then, more and more I've felt like I was jumping out of my skin."
Kathryn gasped. "You had a meld with Tuvok yesterday? But Chakotay, his Pon Farr would have begun already. He went to the Doctor this morning. You – you've been affected by the blood fever." Her face grew horrified. "We have to get you back to the ship!"
"That would be a good idea, if we weren't trapped under tons of rock," he agreed, rubbing sweat from his forehead.
She stepped back and stared at him. "Then we have to keep moving. Keep your mind off it, try to find a way out."
"I'm right behind you, Captain," he said, but his voice was weary and strained.
#
It was only twenty minutes or so, but it felt like hours to Chakotay when Kathryn called a halt to their march and passed him her canteen.
He took it, careful not to touch her hand, drank, and set it against the wall to avoid coming closer to her. She was leaning against the rock beside him, and he backed away several steps. "You don't know how strong – how hard it is to fight this urge." He was panting, bracing himself against the wall.
"Are you telling me I'm irresistible?" she asked with a little smile.
He shut his eyes. "You always have been, to me," he answered. "I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin. I need to do something."
"I know this isn't really you," Kathryn said. "It's only biological."
He turned toward her with wild eyes. "I wouldn't force you. I would never do that, no matter – oh, Spirits, no matter how much it hurts. But Kathryn, I've wanted this for so long. You've wanted it, I know you have. Can't we just let it happen?" He was trying not to look at her, but when he glanced briefly toward her, she saw the same hunger that had flickered in his eyes over and over when they'd come too close. This time, however, he couldn't bank the flame. They couldn't back apart. They were trapped together, and he was literally dying of need.
Kathryn ran the tricorder sensor over him once more, while he held still with visible effort. "Damnit!" she cried. "Of all the times to be trapped without a medical tricorder. I'm concerned about the rapid progression of your symptoms, Chakotay. If you don't resolve your Pon Farr, you will die. I see no prospect of getting out of here any time soon."
He bent over, crying out: "Just phaser me, Kathryn. I can't take it anymore!"
She stepped up to him. From his bent over position, fists clenched in front of his face, he saw something hit the floor. Blinking through the sweat in his eyes, he saw red and black swim before him. Her jacket. Slowly, he raised his head to meet her eyes burning down. "We have to resolve your Pon Farr, Chakotay," she announced in the same decisive tone of command he'd heard so many times in a moment of crisis on the bridge. She had made up her mind. "Stand up."
In a daze, he unfolded until he stood looking down at her, small and fierce and oh, so close. He shut his eyes and pressed his back against the rough, cold rock. "Kathryn, you don't – I can't – if we start this, I won't be able to stop. You don't understand."
"I understand that unless I act now, my irreplaceable first officer will die," she said, chin up, staring him down. She reached behind her to unfasten her turtleneck and stripped it off. "Now go on and do what you need to do before I freeze."
He stood still for a moment, looking at her eyes, her lips, her skin, searching for some shred of control, but it was gone. Everything in his pounding blood told him to throw himself on the woman before him. His hands reached for her as if moving entirely on their own. When they touched her, she shivered and dropped her head with a loud sigh. His chest heaved as he yanked her against him, the impact of their bodies drawing a short exclamation from both of them. Then his lips slammed down and she forgot all about the absurdity of their situation, the impropriety of his bare skin against hers – she forgot everything in the world but the poetry of his powerful movement, claiming her, and in the midst of it, his tears and cries: "I love you, Kathryn. I'm sorry. I love you so much. Forgive me." She responded in kind, clawing at him, clutching his hair, calling his name in a guttural tone she had never heard from her own throat, as he pushed her down onto their scattered garments and she pulled him to her.
Afterward, he lost consciousness, falling into a calm sleep in which she felt his fever dropping. She dressed herself, then with great care, slid his clothes back onto his limbs to keep the chill of the cave off him, and cushioned his head on her lap. The sound of rock falling under the phasers of their rescuers woke him. His panicked eyes met hers, but there was no time for words before the shouts of triumph reached them and transporters carried them both away.
#
"We need to talk about this," she said, from the door, in the direction of the shadow in the corner of the couch. In spite of being processed through Sickbay together, they had not spoken since the incident two days ago, while he sat out his recovery leave in his quarters, refusing to talk to anyone.
"I'm too humiliated," he responded, his voice low and sullen.
She stepped inside far enough to let the doors close. "It was to save your life, Chakotay. Nothing more."
"You know that's not true." He didn't move. His voice came out of darkness.
"You would have done the same for me," she ventured.
He scoffed. "That's not true either. If it had been you I would have had to say no, because I would have known you'd hate me afterward. Like you probably hate me now."
"So you wish I'd said no?" She stopped her slow progress toward him.
"Don't mock me, Kathryn. To you, it was medical treatment, but I haven't forgotten the words I said." There was a catch in his voice that made him sound as he'd been crying, or wanted to.
"I said some words too, as I recall," she reminded him.
"My name, that's all." He dismissed her attempt to console him.
"Yes, your name. Do you understand? We're trained, in extremis, to go inside our heads so that we can do what needs to be done. To separate our minds from our bodies." She took a few steps closer, to where she could pick out the line of his profile. "I didn't do that. I didn't go anywhere. I was right there with you, the whole time." She brushed her cheek with the back of her own hand, as if remembering his touch.
His breathing was loud in the silence. One of his shoes scuffed angrily against the carpet. "I hurt you," he said in a desperate tone, half turning away from her.
"Yes," she told him, without a flinch, a simple affirmation. "Nothing the Doctor couldn't heal in an instant."
His head came up at that, his eyes visible to her now, full of pain and shame. "How can you even look at me? I wanted" – and he dropped his head again. "It doesn't matter now what I wanted. None of it can ever happen."
She came right up to him then, where he sat slumped over at the end of the couch, trying to curl away from her, and knelt in front of him without touching him. "What did you want, Chakotay?" she asked in that same gentle, persistent voice that was tearing him apart.
How could she be here? How could she bear to come near him after the monster he had been with her? What did you want? He had wanted so much. He had dreamed of her, not just her hair and skin and smell, but the way she walked away waving a finger when he'd let her win an argument, how she teased and poked him when they were alone, and the animation of her hands in front of her face when she got excited about a discovery. Every little gesture of hers was dear to him, and now he would never see these things again, because from now on she would be very careful to keep her distance, and he wouldn't be able to bear looking at her, knowing what he'd done. The thought suddenly crushed him and with a cry he slammed his head against the bulkhead that bookended the couch.
"Easy, easy," she said, jumping up and smoothing a hand along the side of his head where he'd just abused it.
He started and recoiled at her touch. "No, Kathryn, please …" he begged, putting up his hands to fend her off as he twisted away on the couch.
She pulled her hands away and rested them on her hips, still kneeling before him. With a determined nod, she asked, "Do you think our relationship is like some delicate crystal vase that can be shattered, just like that? Do you think we're that fragile, you and I?"
This new thought made him sit up and consider, without meeting her eyes. "No."
"Well then, pull yourself together, Chakotay. It certainly wasn't a normal day at work, but it's nothing I regret."
"No?" he said in a small, uncertain voice.
"No." A Cheshire cat grin began to play on her face as she tried to catch his reluctant eyes. "In fact, in spite of the lack of foreplay, I'd have to call it some of the best cave sex I've ever had."
The smile was irresistible. He fought an answering smile. It seemed too soon after his utter devastation of a moment ago. "Cave sex? You've had a lot of … cave sex?"
She played with her sleeve but smiled even more broadly. "Well, I don't like to brag, but …." Then as if a sudden thought had occurred to her, she asked, "Why, didn't you enjoy it?"
His smile wouldn't be restrained any longer. "Definitely the best cave sex I've ever had – although I wish I'd been able to make it last longer."
She sat down next to him and propped her head on an arm resting on the back cushion. She surveyed him with a thoughtful, mischievous gaze. "I hypothesize that you'd do much better if you weren't consumed by blood fever," she speculated in her best science officer tone.
He finally raised his eyes to hers as he asked, "Is that an invitation?"
She ran a light finger down his arm to the delicate skin on the back of his hand as she said, "Go on and do what you need to do, Commander."