Disclaimer: Every so often, we find ourselves hit with a reality that is often one we do not want to face. In this case, Voyager is owned by Paramount.


Words

By Manda


I could never bring myself to look at him once his bloodied body had been transported back on board. I had been on the bridge, waiting with scans of the surface at my fingertips- atmospheric conditions, geographical analysis. My focus alone was on the ship and crew aboard...not on the away team who so valiantly risked their lives without a question. For a simple survey. Not worth a single life.

Certainly not worth his.

When Tom sent his distress signal through the atmospheric disturbance, I felt a sense of intense panic--a stone lodged disruptingly in the pit of my stomach. Refusing to dissapate under any circumstances. I turned to Chakotay's chair, certainly out of habit, wanting to send him to Sickbay to check the status of this injured crewman. That injured crewman, however, was Chakotay himself, and the emptiness that met me informed me of that fact, making Tom's hurried testimony all too clear. And suddenly the fact became as real to me as my faithful Starfleet oaths.

Chakotay was dead. Or dying, perhaps, and here I sat comfortably awaiting a status report. I recieved this report, only to the expence of my closest, dearest friend. And this report contained nothing that I desperately wanted to hear. Nothing.

"What's his status?" When I arrived in Sickbay mere moments after I realized the message, Tom Paris and The Doctor hovered over the diagnostic bed, thankfully blocking Chakotay's body from my sight. I moved forward, yet still distancing myself by avoiding the option to look. To look apon the face of death in the eyes of the dearest individual in my life.

"I'm sorry, Captain."

To this day, I'm not entirely certain who aimed that comment at me. Sorry, however, is not a word I have ever understood, nor accepted. I couldn't hear the sorrow behind it. Chakotay's soul was still there. It could be saved.

"Ten CC's of cordrazine." I snapped, thrusting past The Doctor and Paris in sheer determination. My fingers had closed tightly around a hypospray, eyes watering and intent apon the target of his neck. For the first time I could really see him, the disaster that had forsaken him--and my 'weapon' with which I could banish his evil...fell to the floor.

I could never save him.

For with the extent of this damage...he was already dead.

I couldn't stand there any longer, and turned away to ignore the abandoned hypospray and retreat to my cabin. Alone. To compose an epitaph more fitting than any I had ever written. To convey how very close I had considered him...and how very important he truly was.


"Words should paint the color of a sound, the aroma of a star; they should capture the very soul of things.."

-Rubén Dario...a spanish poet. (Thanks to everyone who sent in the name to me! I /really/ appreciate it!



~Fin

Back to J/C!

Home
var yviContents='http://us.toto.geo.yahoo.com/toto?s=76001089yviR='us';yfiEA(0);geovisit();