After her duty shift had ended, Kathryn found her group of friends and colleagues at lunch, sitting at a table in the middle of the mess hall. She was glad to get to join them for a change. In the last six months she'd been so desperate to keep up with the tasks Justin gave her that she'd often worked through her mid-day meal.
She took her lunch from the replicator and headed for her friends' table, nearly missing the other friend in the room, the one who sat alone in a corner with his back to the crowd. Justin's mop of dark hair was unmistakable.
Her heart ached to see him so isolated. Why does he do this to himself?, she wondered in frustration. The urge to invite him to join her group called to her like a catnip to a kitten.
Kathryn pulled her eyes away from him. Avoiding a brushfire of gossip was more important than welcoming him into her social circle.
"Kathryn, are you going to keep staring out that window or join us?"
She whipped her head around. The voice came from Rek, the young Bolian Ensign in their group. Without a glance back at Justin, she went and sat down.
Rek clapped Darren Ditillo on the shoulder. "So how's our esteemed companion here as a boss, Kathryn?"
She made a face of mock disgust. "Terrible. Has me working day and night, writing four papers at once. He's just cracking the whip." She smiled broadly. Darren laughed.
"And Janeway's just impossible. Never does her work, leaves everything for me…" he was grinning madly and the sarcasm was evident. Chuckles came from her friends, who knew of the long hours she put in to her work.
Sally Rhoades chimed in. "You seem happier, Kathryn."
"Hm?" Kathryn asked, not sure what Sally thought she seemed happier about.
Sally gestured at Darren with her spoon. "Being his direct report," she explained. And not Justin's, were the words left unsaid.
Kathryn raised a forkful of salad to her mouth, thinking how she could best dodge Sally's loaded question. "It's just a different management style." She picked up her mug and took a swallow of coffee.
Sally paused for a thoughtful moment before chiming in with her own comment. "I think he likes you, Kathryn."
Kathryn nearly spat her drink across the table. "Excuse me?"
All eyes at the table were on Kathryn now. Sally continued to prod. "I think Lieutenant Tighe's got a crush on you."
Kathryn leaned in and whispered, conscious of the very busy room around her. "Are we in middle school?" she hissed.
Rek shrugged. "We do a good impression of it sometimes." He suddenly seemed too interested in the new and juicy topic of conversation.
"No, seriously," Sally continued. "I think the reason you avoid each other like the plague is that he's interested in you. And now that you're not in his chain of command and we're headed home…"
Kathryn glared at her. "Stop this," she warned Sally. "Stop this now."
"Oh, Kathryn, it's worse than that," chimed in Rek. "We think you've got a thing for him too."
Kathryn looked around at the whole group. "Have you all lost your minds?" How had they gotten this idea? She'd tried so hard to make everything appear professional over the last few months…
Darren, who had sat silently through the entire exchange, stood up and pushed in his chair. Kathryn wasn't sure what he was doing until it was too late. She turned around and watched, horrified, as he crossed the mess hall and began talking to Justin.
Kathryn looked back at the others at the table, no longer having to feign how completely mortified she felt. With slitted eyes and gritted teeth, she chastised her friends. "You all planned this, didn't you."
"Yup," said Rek. "Sally made the case, and I had to admit…the evidence was there." Kathryn's mouth fell open.
"What evidence?" Kathryn whispered angrily.
Suddenly Kathryn heard a new voice at the table. "So, Darren. This is the lunch club you keep inviting me to." Justin sounded almost amused.
"Glad you could finally join us," Darren said. "Have a seat." He pulled out the chair he'd been sitting in and offered it to Justin. Justin sat down.
Right next to Kathryn.
She turned her head, trying to keep an emotionless tone as she greeted him. "Lieutenant."
He nodded formally at her. "Ensign Janeway."
Darren pulled up a chair, took a seat, and addressed the group. "As the ranking officer at this table, I feel it's my duty to say…"-he looked pointedly at Kathryn and Justin—"Spit it out, you two." A conniving smile was plastered on his face.
Kathryn's jaw fell open. She fought the urge to look over at Justin to see his reaction.
"Spit what out, exactly?" asked Justin, back to his usual calm, cool and collected. After spending a week with him, though, she knew now that he sounded too calm, cool and collected.
Darren leaned in, steepled his hands and spoke quietly. "You're together."
Kathryn and Justin stayed silent, eyes forward. Kathryn felt like she was on trial.
"Stop trying to hide it," Sally said seriously. "We know what's going on. It's a tiny ship." She glanced at the other members of the group and then back at Kathryn and Justin and lowered her voice. "And we're all happy for you. It's about time."
Kathryn and Justin spoke at once.
"This isn't—"
"We're not discussing—"
They cut themselves off and looked at each other in surprise.
Darren crossed his arms and smiled with self-satisfaction. "I believe we have our answer."
Kathryn wasn't having this. No one on the ship needed to know what was going on between them. She knew of other clandestine couples onboard and not everyone viewed mid-mission couplings positively. She opened her mouth to chastise the group—
"Yes. We're together."
Kathryn whipped her head around to look at Justin. There was no way to hide the look on her face, which she knew screamed What the hell have you done?!
He ignored her and turned back to the group. Her temper flared at the choice he'd just made for her, but surrounded as she was by a half dozen evidently gossip-prone colleagues she quickly extinguished it. An outburst wouldn't help their situation; she'd deal with Justin later.
Sally elbowed Darren. "Looks like you owe me a half day of holodeck time," she said, grinning.
"You took bets on whether Lieutenant Tighe and I were seeing each other?" Kathryn said in disbelief.
Justin folded his arms. "How many people beyond this table know?" He asked, glancing around disapprovingly at the very full mess hall.
Sally ticked off names on her fingers. "Maybe 20?"
Justin frowned. Kathryn slumped in her seat.
He looked at her. "I think we're past being able to hide this, Kathryn."
"Oh, first names!" Rek cried, clapping his hands together. Kathryn and Justin glowered at him. "What? I'm thrilled for you."
"What I think Rek means is—" Darren interjected, reaching a hand out to calm Rek's excitement, "You two can stop pretending to hate each other. We know you'll both be professional about it."
Kathryn shot Justin a wordless glance that said, You're okay with this?
Justin leaned back in his chair and offered an upturned palm and a sardonic half-smile. "Well played, Ditillo. Well played."
It took her by surprise to see Justin not only at a disadvantage but seemingly unperturbed by it. The bigger surprise was realizing that she had just watched Justin with a friend.
This from quiet, anti-social Justin Tighe? How much else didn't she know about him?
"Now that that's cleared up," Darren asked the group, "Whose arm can I twist to play with me in next week's Parrisses' Squares tournament?"
Kathryn watched in amazement as Justin volunteered for the game.
#
She and Justin walked out of the mess hall, striding side by side through the corridor.
"Twenty people," Kathryn grumbled as they walked, "Twenty. How in less than a week did almost a quarter of the ship figure out that we're seeing each other?"
"Does it matter?" he asked. "The cat's out of the bag now."
Kathryn bristled at the thought and stopped in the middle of the hallway. Frustration laced her voice as she responded, "Yes, but I wish you hadn't helped it out of the bag."
He looked surprised at her comment.
Here we go again, she thought. Let's check today's argument off the to-do list, shall we?
Justin stopped and put his hands on his hips, clearly ready to dig in for the day's bout. "I wanted the gossip and rumors to end. People won't talk if we're just another one of the couples on board. If they think we're hiding something, then we're fodder for conversation."
That's not why I'm angry, she thought bitterly. "That's all true, but the point is that yet again you made the decision for me. For us," she retorted.
His voice was quieter when he spoke and it betrayed his rising anger. "How do you propose we would've hashed out that decision in front of five people?" he said slowly, gesturing to thin air. "Hold on everybody, Ensign Janeway and I are going to debate whether we've been sleeping together for the last week and we'll let you know what we decide?"
Kathryn gritted her teeth against the humiliation of being mocked. And how was it that he always became more quiet, more controlled when he was mad? That alone made her furious.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the shadow of another crewman approaching. Justin caught this as well and they both relaxed their stances and stepped out of the way as Commander T'Por passed by.
"Ensign. Lieutenant," the tall Vulcan woman greeted, nodding at them both, then continuing on her way.
The embarrassment from nearly getting caught mid-argument made Kathryn's cheeks flush. She wanted to grab Justin by the collar and shake some sense into him. Instead she turned back to him and lowered her voice to match his.
"Enough," she hissed. "Go grab whatever you need for tennis and meet me at my quarters. We'll finish this there. I want this argument over before our holodeck time."
His fierce navy gaze bored into hers. "Agreed." They turned on their heels and went opposite ways.
Kathryn stormed back to her quarters. The anger that simmered while she opened her closet had come out of nowhere. It felt fueled by a peculiar, out-of-proportion sense of betrayal that she wanted to shake but couldn't. Since when did someone who wanted everyone to leave him alone start spouting his business to a table of half a dozen people?
She yanked out the two racquets and hopper of tennis balls she'd replicated that morning. She pulled the sleeveless athletic dress off a closet hanger and began unzipping her uniform, with so much force she was surprised the zipper didn't break. The door chimed a few minutes later while she was still wrestling with her hair.
"Come in," she called tersely, still yanking at her tangled locks with a brush. The doors parted and she stepped out of her bedroom to join him in the less suggestive space of her living room. She watched his eyes dart down the length of her, taking in the new and unusual way she was dressed. But they quickly found her face again.
"We don't need to do this, Kathryn," he suggested. "Just this morning you said you were tired of hiding. You got your wish."
A forceful breath escaped her lungs. "My problem isn't that people know," she began, "It's that I didn't have a say in how we told them. I wanted to tell them that it wasn't their business. Let them talk! At the very least, it would've given us an evening to decide together if we wanted to tell people what's going on."
In frustration he reached up and ran his fingers through his hair. "They already knew. It was over, Kathryn. Sometimes you have to know when to surrender."
"So now you're telling me again that you know better than I do. Goddammit, Justin, would you follow my lead, just once!?"
"Kathryn, we're not telepathic. How was I supposed to know what you wanted me to do?"
She gestured frantically at the air. "I don't know, maybe you could try talking to me first, or thinking about what I might want?" Now she was getting sarcastic. This wasn't good.
He stepped closer to her. "But I did. Yes, I want us to be left alone. But I thought you weren't the only one who'd had enough of hiding." Their eyes were locked and his chest rose and fell visibly with tension. A moment passed, and then he spoke, quietly, somberly. "I was wrong."
Kathryn was floored. Did Justin Tighe just apologize?
He stepped closer to her, his hands resting on her upper arms in an uncertain embrace. She stared at him, stunned silent as he kept speaking. "But you are the best thing that's ever happened to me and I want everyone to know that. So if you think I was going to turn down the chance to let the whole ship know that I'd finally won you over, you're wrong."
God, how she'd longed to be wanted the way he was describing. Over the years she'd listened enviously to friends talking about their partners with admiration and awe. Now it was finally her turn, and for an instant she forgave him for everything.
Then the anger came rushing back, its hold over her weaker this time.
No, he hadn't won her over, not yet, maybe not ever. That held no appeal for her. Why did she always have to be his subordinate? "I don't want to be won over, Justin," she corrected, still desperately trying to make her case.
His expression changed to one of confusion and it took him a moment to respond. "If you don't want to be won over," he asked slowly, "then what do you want?"
How could she explain this? How did two people become equals? "I know you're used to doing things on your own. But we're not living in a world of unilateral decisions anymore. What you do affects me. What I do affects you. We're a unit now."
But it was more than that. She needed more.
"I know you trust me, Justin. But I need you to trust me with us."
He stayed silent for a long moment, making her worry that he hadn't understood, or that she was asking too much.
Finally, he nodded. "I'll try."
"Do better than try. Succeed, dammit," she added, pleading. Her voice had fallen to a whisper. "I think you can."
He searched her eyes for a moment and it seemed as if he doubted the words she'd spoken. But he nodded and pulled her in to an embrace. The fight had gone from her, the wind taken out of her sails, and she rested her head on his chest. "I'm so tired of arguing with you," she whispered.
"Then let's not." He paused for a moment, the expression on his face now one of a man who knew exactly what he was doing. "How many hours do we have the holodeck for?" he asked.
This confused her and she looked up at him. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Just tell me," he said softly.
"Four," she answered. He looked down at her.
"Does a tennis lesson take four hours?"
"Maybe two. Why does it matter?" she asked, confused.
He tilted his head down and kissed her, her body rising against his, before he pulled back just far enough to speak. Without a hint of possessiveness in his voice, he answered her.
"Because I'm going to show you just how much I want to tell everyone you're mine." With that, he reached up for the zipper on her collar.
Five minutes later their argument and her dress lay forgotten in the living room.
