Chapter Four: In All The Wrong Places

It's quiet now. The wind has finally begun to die down and the flashing overhead has grown less in its frequency. The silence is eerie.

Taking advantage of the silence, Kathryn moves off somewhere, muttering about looking for things to salvage from the wreck of the Flyer. I joke lamely that we need to install protocols to ensure MedKits are beamed out with the occupants in the emergency transports.

Only I know that I will not live to see that happen.

I groan, shifting myself on the hard, rocky ground and she's by my side in an instant. Her hands work insistently checking the make-shift bandage of her grey undershirt. For the first time, I realise she is clad in nothing more than her tank top, and the fine hairs of her arms are raised in silent protest to the cold.

I can't recall what happened to her jacket, although I have a feeling that it was part of the rags she threw aside earlier, caked through with blood.

"What do you need, Chakotay?" she asks me.

My answer is off my tongue before I can even stop myself. "You."

I expect her to reprimand me again, to grow angry and push me away. Only she doesn't, and she leans further down into my field of vision with wide, terrified and sad eyes and a mouth open just enough to be a tantalising invitation.

My breath hitches as her hand touches my cheek again, an elegant thumb sweeping along my face and resting at the corner of my lips. Her own lips press down, and open against my mouth.

She tastes just like I remember, warm and soft but lacking the hope and light she once held. The metallic taste of blood is strong, and I realise in that short moment that it's probably because she's been biting her lips for so long in a futile effort to hold it together.

It's going to be the last time I hold her so near.

She's close enough to me now that I can hear the pounding of her heartbeat against my forearm, folded neatly between us both so that she doesn't press down on my chest. The way it's racing reminds me of a sparrow.

With a shuddering breath, she pulls back just enough so that our lips part, but she doesn't move away.

"You asked me what I needed," I whisper into her mouth.

"Yes," she breathes. "I did."

I'm struck by another time she'd asked me the same question.

I hesitated, flittering outside her quarters and unable to bring myself to ring the chime on her door.

It was late, and we have been avoiding each other off-duty for months. Our last friendly exchange, unforced and genuine over a dinner in her quarters was the last time I had spent time with her. I could recall the Stardate, the hour, the minutes and even the seconds.

It was the night I had approached her to tell her I'd begun to date Seven of Nine.

She'd smiled, taken it in with her usual grace and poise. But the smile was forced, and I could see the tension gathering in the corner of her mouth.

I'd not been in her quarters since that evening.

Reaching forward, I gathered myself together and rang the chime. The doors slid open only a fraction later. She sat on her couch, gazing thoughtfully out at the stars that passed us by.

A lone candle stood on her coffee table.

She turned toward me, gathering the edges of a well-worn pink robe and pulling it a little tighter over the sharp lines of her collarbones. If she was surprised to see me, it didn't show.

"Commander?"

The use of my title had lost the sting over the previous months. Any feigned friendship between us was purely there for the sake of the crew, and in closed quarters that friendship vanished entirely.

She stood up, and walked a little way toward me. Cautiously avoiding looking directly at her, I found the candlelight flickering and dancing light off the walls fascinating.

"Something wrong?"

I swallowed, feeling the pounding of my heart in my chest. My hands clenched by my side.

"I came to ask you to marry me."

The words left my mouth in a rush. My eyes found hers across the darkened room. Whatever colour was in her face disappeared.

"I beg your pardon?"

Her words were stronger than I thought possible, without the faintest hint of a waiver. When her eyebrows raised in silent question, I realised suddenly just how my statement could have been interpreted.

"I mean, I'd like you to marry me."

She folded her arms over her chest, fingers fiddling with the tie on her robe. Still, she did not move toward me, but merely stared at me. I had the feeling she was trying to work out if I had been drinking, or lost my mind completely.

When I looked back, months later, I realised that I probably had lost my mind, at least a little.

"Marry you?" she echoed back at me. She chewed the inside of her lip thoughtfully. "Marry you to someone, Commander?"

I fumbled over the words. "Yes. To Seven."

The second I said them, uttered those three words, all hope vanished from her face entirely. I didn't even realise it had been there to begin with, not until I saw it leave. It had been so long since she had looked at me with anything other than the eyes of a Captain that I had forgotten how she looked underneath it all.

"I see."

The silence was almost deafening. The gentle thrum of Voyager's engines had never seemed so quiet as they did in that moment.

"Please?" I added, lamely and stupidly.

"You've both agree this is what you wanted?" she implored, standing ramrod straight despite her bare feet and delicate dress.

I cleared my throat, and tugged on my ear. The gesture was painfully familiar and I remembered another time, years ago when Q had offered the Captain a similar proposition. Only, I knew she could never be serious in her considerations, and it had given me small comfort to know she was never going to have a child with him.

Now the roles were reversed, the Captain didn't have that luxury. Because she knew that without a doubt, I would never make this declaration of love toward someone if I wasn't serious. It wasn't in my nature.

"This is a small ship, Commander. We can't have any public disagreements that will affect the operations of Voyager."

I wondered if she was talking about Seven and myself. A part of me hoped that she was referring to something else entirely.

"I know, Captain. And yes, this is what we want. Although I haven't asked Seven yet."

Her eyebrows creased, and she narrowed her eyes at me. "Then why -"

I cut over her. "Because, I needed to make sure you'd do it."

She stepped toward me, chin pointed up in defiance as she challenged me on my logic. It was only as she stepped closer that I could see the hurt on her face, poorly hidden behind a look of anger and frustration.

"You don't need me," she said.

And, I knew she wasn't referring to her ability as Captain to perform marriages. I needed her for that. But, she was challenging me on something else entirely and I realised that I needed her on a completely different level.

I always had.

"I'm not asking for your approval as the Captain."

Her eyes closed for a moment. She took a deep, stabilising breath. "Then, what do you want, Chakotay? What do you need?"

Maybe it was the way she said my name, the sound so foreign from her mouth. Maybe it was the way, after all those months – years – that she finally looked up at me with such an unguarded expression of both hurt and want.

Maybe it was just our time.

Or, maybe it was the knowledge, that realisation that with all the time in the universe, we would never have our time.

But, I finally answered her with the utmost honesty.

"You."

"Chakotay?"

She calls me back, and I blink rapidly. She's still so close, blue eyes imploring me to come back to her from my memories. Those memories have never been clearer.

"I need to ask you something," I say.

She stalls and pulls back a fraction more, swallowing roughly and closing her eyes. I have no doubt that her thoughts are morbid, and she's preparing herself to hear my final wishes. I don't envy her right now, because I've imagined myself in the same situation for years. Only it's me begging her not to die and leave me behind.

I have never told her that on my person terminal, listed under a file with her name on it, is the last video she'll ever see of me. Amongst those words, those final whispered goodbyes through a computer screen, will be my final wishes. But this, what I have to ask her next, has to be said in person.

Giving a short, curt nod, she allows me to continue.

"I want you to let this go. Don't let this death consume you."

I don't point out that it's my death that she needs to let go. I can't even bring myself to say the words to her.

"How can I not?" she almost yells. Her despair is frightening. "It's you, Chakotay. It's you."

And I know how hard it will be for her, I really do. Because, I've imagined it too.

On some small level, I am grateful that it is not me watching her die. I've done it before, years ago on another alien world with bright flashes and howling wind and I promised myself that I wouldn't ever do that again.

I also know that whilst she still captains Voyager, she will solider on each day and I know that she will get this crew home.

It's when she gets home, when she finally makes it, that scares me.

Because she will never get up to fight again. I send a silent wish to the universe, begging someone, something, anything to watch over her and make sure she doesn't let this bury her.

She doesn't deserve to lose herself like this, to die out here among the stars on a journey she would not have chosen for herself. She deserves love, and peace surrounded by a family filled with happiness as she finally slips away to another place.

Only, I realise, that she has already done so. And she has already lost too much of herself out here so that she will never be whole again. It began years ago, when she first stood face-to-face with a member for the Devore Imperium and it ended the night I asked her to marry me to someone else.

I'd failed to see it, until now. Maybe it was because I didn't want to see it.

My death will be the final catalyst, taking that final part of Kathryn with me when I leave this world.