~f&i
Disclaimer: these characters and settings aren't mine; I'm just borrowing them for my own amusement.
AN: I've been working on this sporadically for the past 6 months or so and have reached a point where my muse decided to skip town. I'm assuming/hoping this is only a vacation rather than a fleeing the country kind of thing, but I have no clue when she might get back. Fortunately before that happened I did reach a resting point in the story, so when I realized that we were coming up on the international day of femslash I decided to start posting what I have written. I'm planning on doling it out in pieces cause darn it, if I had to suffer through six months to get this much of the story you people are going to appreciate it for more than 60 minutes (don't worry, I won't stretch it out for six months).
Warning/advertisement: clearly, since I'm posting this for the international day of femslash this will contain relationships between women. However, there isn't any on screen sex and probably (maybe) won't be ever (sorry).
~~f&i~~
Fire and Ice and Everything In-Between
~~f&i~~
B'Elanna woke with a start. The half Klingon took stock of her unfamiliar surroundings as a vague sense of urgency slowly overcame the muddled fuzziness of sleep. The strange room and bed were a little worrisome, but it was the revelation of the soft, warm body in her arms that catapulted B'Elanna into consciousness.
She was in Captain Janeway's bed.
Sitting up as quickly as possible without disturbing her sleeping partner, B'Elanna tried to reign in her panic. Klingon's don't panic!
She was in Kathryn Janeway's bed.
Kathryn Janeway who had recently celebrated her three-month anniversary with a certain blonde Borg. Stifling a groan that was equal parts confusion, anxiety, anger and mild hangover, the fiery engineer silently cursed her hormones and Klingon temperament for getting her into this mess.
B'Elanna had loved Kathryn for a long time; first as a challenge, then as a mentor and friend, and finally, when it was too late, with her whole heart. When the Borg was brought into the crew, B'Elanna was jealous of the time the Captain spent with her. When the Borg began pursuing Janeway, B'Elanna had scoffed, but secretly felt a chill of fear. When they were married a few months later, B'Elanna felt the beginnings of a fiery jealousy, despair over what she had lost, and anger for having taken too long to recognize and act on her own feelings.
The jealousy grew and sparked an even greater ire for the already irritating icy blonde, who the B'Elanna felt couldn't possibly be a match for the feisty Captain. A few weeks ago, a Borg and Klingon altercation in engineering had almost come to blows and Captain Janeway had called B'Elanna to her office.
B'Elanna doesn't really remember that confrontation very clearly, her blood running hot and her temper running hotter. What she does remember is the way the Captain's tightly controlled anger shifted to shocked silence when the fiery Klingon kissed her. And the way the shocked silence gave way to a broken apology and fumbling list of reasons it could never happen again.
What she remembers most though, is the way Kathryn kissed her back before coming to her senses, and the look of longing regret in the Captain's eyes as she sent her away.
The memory of that kiss and the guilty, longing glances B'Elanna caught the captain sending her in the following weeks, fermented in the back of the engineer's mind. Silent pressure, building up, making her drunk with the possibility of Kathryn returning her feelings. But there was still the Borg to consider; Seven of Nine, her nemesis and rival. B'Elanna was determined to wrest the Captain's heart from the Borg but had no idea where to start, mainly because she couldn't understand why the Captain had given it to the Ice Princess in the first place.
Last night, frustrated, angry, and fueled by a bit too much bloodwine, B'Elanna confronted Kathryn in her quarters. The Borg wasn't there; it was one of the days she was required to regenerate so she'd be spending the night in the Cargo Bay. At first, Kathryn was angry at the Klingon's intrusion, but as B'Elanna drunkenly poured her heart out that turned to desperate sadness and guilty desire. And when the Lieutenant made more physical advances, hungry kisses and firm but gentle touches quickly silenced the Captain's halfhearted, watery protests.
Now B'Elanna sat in the aftermath of twisted sheets and held her head in despair.
It wasn't supposed to be like this, the Klingon thought frantically, The Barbie Borg may not deserve the captain but you still should have challenged her face to face, not snuck in behind her back like an honorless Targ.
Kathryn deserved better.
At that thought, B'Elanna paused in her self-recriminations; conflicted eyes turning to study the older woman sprawled beside her.
Beautiful.
B'Elanna knew she could never bring herself to truly regret her time with the Captain, only the circumstances in which it had taken place. Struck by a sudden thought, the Klingon's previous anxiety returned as she checked the time and realized Seven's regeneration would be ending soon. While B'Elanna had no qualms about confronting the Borg over chain of command or social faux pas, she had no desire to confront Seven in her own home, especially when the Klingon hybrid was so firmly in the wrong.
With that in mind, the engineer quickly and quietly gathered her clothes and fled with one last apologetic kiss to Kathryn's sleeping brow. Wondering, as she slunk through the dimmed halls, how they would deal with this in the artificial light of day.
~~f&i~~
Kathryn woke to the feeling of something missing. Propping herself up on one hand, the other brushing back sleep tousled hair, she took in the state of the room and froze.
"Oh god, what have I done."
The hand in her hair quickly moved to cover her mouth as blue-grey eyes slammed shut, two escaped tears leaving wet trails down her cheeks. With a choked sob the Captain pulled herself together and took stock of the situation. A quick glance at the clock told her Seven would be back in less than half an hour.
This will kill Seven if she finds out.
Quickly reigning in her panic with iron willed resolve, Kathryn set about doing damage control, recycling sheets and remaking the bed on autopilot. It wasn't until she stepped into the hydro shower that she allowed herself to feel the guilt and sorrow pounding down on her like the streams of scalding water. And she cried.
She cried for her beautiful, sweet Annika, and she cried for her proud, angry B'Elanna, but mostly she cried for the confusion in herself and an impossible choice.
Kathryn Janeway always had loved a challenge. When the fiery Klingon engineer joined her crew they had sparked and clashed, and Kathryn had loved it. Then they had grown closer and the love had changed, gentled and grown. But there had always been reasons not to pursue it, Mark or Tom or Starfleet regulations, so she had set it aside as something she wasn't meant to have. And then there had been Seven, with that same spark and clash that gentled and grew. And there had been no more Mark and no Tom and Seven routinely ignored regulations to get the result she desired, overwhelming the captain's token protests with Borg determination.
And Kathryn had been blissfully happy until a few weeks ago when B'Elanna decided to rekindle their spark. After that unexpected but not unwelcome kiss, the conflicted starship captain had been unable to stomp out the renewed flame; seductive thoughts of her Chief Engineer creeping in at inopportune moments. The following weeks were filled with guilty confusion as Kathryn tried to reconcile this magnetic pull towards B'Elanna with the silk strings of love and desire still tying her to Seven. And then last night…
I should have sent her away Kathryn thought bitterly
"Then why didn't you?" she muttered aloud with no little venom, the answer coming before the completion of the sentence Because I couldn't bear to see B'Elanna in pain.
Yes, and now you have to see Seven in pain instead, came the bitter riposte.
Seven.
God, what was she going to tell Annika? The thought briefly crossed her mind not to tell her spouse anything, but was immediately quashed by a renewed swell of guilt.
Besides Katie, how often can we hide anything from Annika anyway? The bitter voice filled in darkly.
After several more minutes of soul searching under the scathing water the Captain still had no idea what to say to her wife, however, a tentative "Kathryn?" from the bedroom informed her that she had run out of time.
Kathryn swallowed past the lump in her throat and took a second to calm her suddenly pounding heart before answering.
"I'll be right out."
The response had sounded strangled to her ears, Kathryn thought as she shut off the water and dripped for a long moment before succumbing to the inevitable. Steeling herself she reached for a towel.
Upon entering the bedroom she found it vacant, and her nerves wavered for a moment. I can't very well have this conversation in a towel, Janeway reasoned pulling out her uniform and trying to convince herself she wasn't stalling. As she fastened the last of her pips, a sense of determination filled her.
You have to fix this Katie. I don't know how but find a way.
With that last thought she stepped out into the living area.
~f&i