AN: Sorry for the delay in posting—there is a story involving a gorgeous, drunken Irishman and a pint of whiskey (and alack, nae, Maegan, but that's yet another story ) but I'm already telling you one ::grins:: About the headache, now… yeah, that was bad. Ah, here is the chapter where I fully expect half of you to jump ship… but i hope not. Truly, this is going to be a wild ride, Mr. Toad. And everybody wish my mom a happy birthday! Onward!
Kathryn floated in a sea of pain: a livid, vicious green, but she felt nothing of pain herself. It was all around her, this ocean, stretching as far as she could see. Immediately against her, however, the ocean cooled to a soothing wash of liquid light. She reached out, spreading her healing touch outward, and over the lapping waves heard her name, a whisper that first caressed and then enveloped her. There was not thought except of belonging.
This is your place, he agreed. He stood before her, in the ocean, naked and hip-deep in the cool blue waves, his broad chest both unfamiliar and intimately known to her, crossed with scars that she had never seen and that she could trace even when her eyes were closed. She smiled up at his long, delicately braided hair, now unbound and flowing down his back and across his shoulders, and stroked through it with both hands, and in return felt his hands slip around her narrow back and pull her close to him, pressing her abdomen against his in a manner at once so unthreatening and breathtakingly intimate that tears sprang to her eyes.
For a long moment, they stood basking in the companionship of one another. To Kathryn Janeway, who had been alone for the entire time she had been in the Delta Quadrant, and who considered this man… she struggled with the dichotomy… who considered Tuvok as a dear friend, who loved him, who desired him as a lover in theory without ever having even kissed him, much less this richly tactile embrace… she did what she had always considered unthinkable, and pressed herself against him completely, her head tucking neatly beneath his chin, his arms enfolding her protectively, one hand with fingers splayed across her hip underneath the waves. The sensation of his skin against hers, even within the meld, was electric. This luxury, up to this moment unimaginable, was now nearly unfathomable.
You belong not to me, but to my… brother, he whispered, and his mouth brushed against her forehead.
"Tuvok has no claims on me yet," she reminded him gently. But her Vulcan lover laughed, a rich and beautiful sound, and spoke the next aloud, his dark eyes gentle on her.
"Do you think you could do this if you did not love him with the deepest, the most dedicated love, Kathryn?" He looked around him in wonder. "I am dead twice now… once for T'Pel and once for my Kathryn, for she is indeed dead in my reality."
She swallowed, the captain reasserting herself for a moment. "Is that why you were dying?" But before he could answer, she felt a cold wash stinging through her veins, and looked up at him in alarm. He squinted at her, his brow furrowed in a way that was so perfectly familiar, she wondered for a moment when he had had time to grow his hair so long.
"They are forcing you out of the meld. They are concerned for your safety."
"Are you alright, Tuvok? Are you well?"
He sighed, and nodded tiredly. "I will live." But he did not elaborate, and she did not ask why. The reason was readily apparent in his dark, sorrowful eyes. And then the bright lights of sickbay replaced the cool blue seascape of the meld, and Chakotay's concerned gaze replaced that of Tuvok's loving one. She smiled wanly at her first officer, fighting the urge to demote him. She would have done the same thing, had she found him in such a position. Command decisions were like that.
"Kathryn, are you alright? We found you in some sort of involuntary meld, and the Doctor said he could bring you out without harming you." Chakotay sounded pained, and she hastened to reassure him.
"You did the right thing. Doctor, how is Tuvok?" The Doctor was scanning the Vulcan, who looked considerably more fragile outside the meld than in it. He was wearing what might have been a uniform of some kind, once, but was torn as if he had fought for his life. Considering that he had been separated from his… his wife, and that she had been murdered and he had been left to die, she thought that he had likely taken more than a few with him. Then she reexamined those thoughts with a heavy sigh. Who would that have been? Paris? Chakotay himself? B'Elanna? She needed answers. "Is he awake?"
The Doctor turned to her and frowned in his own, special way. Janeway sometimes wondered if he practiced in front of a mirror to get that particular sarcastic edge without having to speak. "Is it safe to wake him?" She knew what he was thinking, though. "He has similar emotional control. The differences only seem to be aesthetic."
The Doctor raised a perfect Vulcan eyebrow. "Then care to explain how you made him well when I couldn't, Captain?"
She fixed him with a stare that would have made blood freeze. It was fortunate that the Doctor was holographic. "Not really."
"Very well. I'll wake him." The Doctor turned huffily to a medtray, but was halted mid-reach by an unexpected voice.
"No need. I am awake." Tuvok's rich baritone thrilled through her as it never had before. She reached for his arm and grasped it to help him sit, all the while aware that Chakotay was frowning. So she reached and took his hand as well, attempting to bridge this gap before it became too large.
"On this ship, Chakotay is my first officer. Tuvok is my second, and my chief of security." She turned to Chakotay. "In this Tuvok's reality, I was murdered, Chakotay."
Chakotay involuntarily squeezed her hand, horror filling his eyes. "In a mutiny? But the Doctor said you weren't injured, Tuvok." His dark, intelligent eyes squinted as he pieced together the facts that he had and identified the gaps missing. "Not physically." Comprehension dawned, and his fingers loosened in Kathryn's grip.
"That is correct. In my reality, Kathryn and I were bonded. My own bond with my wife T'Pel was broken when we came here to the Delta Quadrant. Initially, I bonded with Kathryn for her protection, after the mutiny." Tuvok's toneless recital belied the emotional intensity she felt from him, radiating in waves from where her hand held his.
"Wait—when did the mutiny happen?" Chakotay crossed his arms over his chest, placing distance between himself and the story he didn't want to hear.
"At Sikaris." Tuvok sighed, and backpedaled a little. "In this reality, your captain made the correct choice in making you the first officer. In my reality, I fear she did not, in that she followed Starfleet protocol, and gave me that position. The Maquis component of the crew rebelled in less than a year."
They were all silent for a moment, and then Chakotay took a deep breath. "Alright, let's have the rest."
"My wife was planning to retake the ship, along with myself, Harry Kim, Lieutenant Stadi, Neelix, and a few others. However, their plans were betrayed before fruition, and I was taken captive and put off the ship. With the bond in place, when they murdered her, I would also die." He stared at the floor, and then rubbed his palm against hers, very gently. "I nearly did."
"Who damped the probe that we sent?"
"Harry. He didn't want our Voyager to know that you were here. He, of course, knew you were here very shortly after your arrival. Harry has been invaluable on the bridge, working to keep valuable information away from hands that might make it dangerous. He is brilliant. I fervently hope that he is also safe. Without him, we have no hope."
The unasked question hung in the air, until even the Doctor walked away, unable to bear the tension. Finally, Chakotay shook his head. "I don't want to know, but I must. Who murdered her?"
Tuvok looked at him calmly. "You did it yourself. For that I give you credit, for you have always loved her."
In the blinding silence that followed, the Doctor set down his tricorder. "Computer, deactivate Emergency Medical Holographic program." There were some things his programming just wasn't meant to witness.