Again, I don't own the poem, but please go and read it: Celestial Flight by Elizabeth MacKeathan Magid.
Thank you to all for your positive comments.
To Chakotay, the day passed much in the way he expected it to. After emerging from her bath, it wasn't long before the violent turmoil of Kathryn's emotions began to take hold again, throwing her from one moment to the next with scarcely any pause for consideration in between, and the internal strain was etched across her face. She barely ate anything for breakfast or lunch, despite his insistence. The chances for a coherent conversation were few, and short lived. Only on the occasions when her barriers collapsed, and her haunted eyes glazed over slightly, did he manage to make some headway.
In one of her quieter moments, he spied an old fashioned, paper poetry book on the table with a coloured marker poking from between the pages. He reached out for it and settled back into the cushions of the couch, pulling her towards him. She resisted initially, but submitted, resting her head against his chest.
"War Poetry?" He murmured, glancing from the cover of the book to her small form curled beside him. He noted that her nervous twitch had returned, as her fingers balled to a fist and stretched out again, following an erratic, nonsensical rhythm. She nodded slowly.
"I find it comforting."
"What's this one?" He asked, flicking through the pages to the marker.
"No!" She bolted upright, snatching the paperback from his hand. In an instant, she was on the other side of the room, huddled defensively in a corner, hugging it to her chest.
"Kathryn, what is it?" He stood up slowly and padded gently towards her. As he knelt before her, he stroked the top of her knees gently with his thumbs, holding her steady in an attempt to stop her trembling.
"Kathryn, please?" He reached out to brush the tears from her cheeks, but she jerked her face, and the book, away from his touch. With a soft sigh, he persisted in his task, gently smoothing his hands across her knees, and eventually across her face, hoping to comfort her. As her breathing steadied and her muscles relaxed, he shifted her gently so that they could sit side-by-side, backs against the wall. Capturing her left hand in both of his, he held her trembling fingers close to his chest. "Is this the poem that you keep saying? At the end of the timeline? Your nightmare last night?"
Tears still falling, she gazed across the floor, not daring to meet his eye. He waited, stroking and intertwining her restless fingers with his own stronger, calmer ones.
"First time back in San Francisco," her voice cracked, causing her to take a ragged breath to steady herself. He squeezed the hand he held in encouragement, grazing his thumbs across her palm. "Somehow, I ended up sat on this bench. Then there was someone standing there. With a rose. The same sort of rose that this same someone used to give me, every day at the Academy. The same someone who taught you to throw punches."
"Boothby."
"Do you know what I did?" She started to her feet, anger blazing again "I destroyed the rose. I tore it into tiny little shreds, and threw the petals at his face. I screamed and I shouted. I lashed out at him. And he just sat there and took it. Just. Like. You. Are. Now!" The last few words were each punctuated with a slap against his chest or his arms as he approached her. He ignored them. Chakotay gathered Kathryn into his arms, rocking her back and forth, crooning softly into her ear. He felt her knees buckle and her arms snake around his neck, grasping at the fabric of his shirt, and he was suddenly supporting her weight fully.
"Boothby must have had a reason." He bent down, lifting her knees to carry her back towards the couch, setting her down gently. Before he could move beside her, she grasped hold of his arm. Chakotay sat instead on the floor, facing her. Her expression still uneasy, Kathryn leant forward until their faces were level. Her eyes flickered across his features seeming both to see, and see through him, as though the internal war being waged in her mind was flickering between the present and something distant.
"I saw so much - pain, hopelessness, fear - on Tau Ceti Prime. The two men I had loved and believed in, so vulnerable in their last moments. Dead because I couldn't save them. Boothby knew it was affecting me. So after I wore myself out, it was his turn to shout at me."
"Now, I don't believe that." His heart leapt at the small smile that his disbelief had caused to flicker across her lips.
"Well, you should. He told me everything that I needed to hear, but everyone else was too afraid to say. Time and moping wasn't going to bring them back; Starfleet wouldn't wait for me forever. One thing stuck firm though - I can still hear him saying it - just as he was walking away. 'They wouldn't want to be remembered that way, and neither would you. How will you be remembered, Kathryn?' I haven't seen him since." She shrugged dismissively, but the sadness clung to her voice in spite of herself. Then she locked her eyes with his and it was as though he was drowning in their deep, blue, mournful sea. She slid to straddle his lap, handing him the paperback and placing her palms on either side of his face.
"This is how I want to be remembered, Chakotay," voice quiet to silence his protests, allowing her fingers to dance and tangle in his hair; to trace the tattoo she loved so much, but so secretly, across his brow. "It's practically guaranteed that I will die for Starfleet, yet in spite of it, I love space. I love the thrill of the travel, and the science behind it. And this poem, it says it all." She withdrew her hands and leant back away from him.
"It's me."
Chakotay turned to the marked page, the dark lines of text swarming across the page and through his mind. Glancing at the dedication, he saw it had been written for another female pilot; he understood. She was right. Everything from its mentions of fuel range's and comets, to its tone of complete selflessness, it was as though it was written for Kathryn Janeway.
"Chakotay, remember me like that?"
"Like courage, love and hope," he quoted. With tears in her eyes and a smile on her face, she leant forwards to kiss him. As before, though, his heart shattered as he forced himself to push her away. Unable to meet her eye, he ran his hands softly up and down her arms. "That still doesn't explain why you say it in your dreams."
He closed his eyes as her words struck him like daggers.
"How can you push me away, when for years you have waited for just this?"
"Kathryn, as I've told you, I will not take advantage of you." He brushed the hair from her face, still unfamiliar with the short strands. "Yes, I want that, I want you to tell me, to show me the feelings you keep hidden. But to do so in a way that you would later regret would be unfair, and I would hate even more for you to regret what you had said or done."
"Not even a kiss?" She breathed, her brow furrowed as she did when her headaches set in. He leant forward, meeting her forehead with his, not breaking her gaze. The knowledge that she was so close to being his felt like it was burning him alive, but at this point in time, with her so vulnerable, Chakotay knew he could not succumb to his senses. He had to do what Kathryn needed him to, not what he, or she, wanted.
"I will hold you, I will comfort you, and I will even sleep by your side if it helps keep your nightmares at bay. But I will not kiss you until I know that you won't regret it when you're well again." His voice soft, but stern, he held her a safe distance from him until she acknowledged him with a nod. Then he drew her closer to him, rubbing a hand across the small of her back.
"Why do you repeat the poem?" Curiosity still danced in his mind. Her explanation was drowsy as he felt her muscles relax, tension knots unwinding as they sat there. He pulled the two of them back up onto the couch where it would be more comfortable if she chose to sleep.
"It's a comfort to me, Chakotay. I've used it ever since I first read it, clung to it whenever I felt I was close to dying. Here in the Delta Quadrant, I've used it more times than I care to count to try and keep control. But in the," she paused shifting to lay her head in his lap as the exhaustion crept over her. He placed a hand on her shoulder and she sighed, a single tear rolling down her cheek. "In the timeline, just saying it in my head didn't work anymore. The nightmares were more frequent, each worse than the one before. I..." Her breath hitched in the back of her throat. "They were eating me alive. And, to an extent, they still are."
"What are they, Kathryn?" She shook her head, drained from lack of sleep and lack of food, voice small.
"Promise me that you'll remember me as in that poem?" He sighed sadly, but nodded his head.
"I promise. But you're not dying for a long time yet. I won't allow it. But, if you do," he gazed down at her head resting on his legs and ran his fingers across her hairline. Her breathing was regular as she drifted into sleep, "I will remember the Captain who was a Scientist first, and had her crew in her heart. The Captain pursuing fearlessly the aim to get her people home, which we will, Kathryn, we will get them home. I will remember the stubborn, determined tactics, your blunt diplomacy. But I will remember Kathryn, too. Beautiful, brave, headstrong Kathryn, every bit the Captain, and more. Kathryn, distant but ever-present; I will remember every time you let me see behind those walls you have built. And I will hope beyond hope that whatever conflict that rages in your beautiful mind right now, will be settled, and you will be at peace."