a/n: Many, many thanks to the charming mylittleredgirl, who is a truly fantastic beta.
AU: what if Chakotay really had ended up her prisoner?
Kathryn wakes up and immediately regrets it.
She hurts.
It takes a moment to process everything. She's on her back, looking up at a stone ceiling. Her right knee aches. Her right ankle throbs. And her chest burns, a searing, sharp pain that radiates through her torso every time she breathes.
What happened? Her mind is still playing catch-up, and so far, it's just fractured images. She was in a shuttle. Kenning was flying. Their prisoner was secured in the back. It was a quick recon mission to investigate reported Maquis camps.
She remembers the rattle of atmospheric turbulence, warnings blaring, bracing for impact
It hurts too much to sit up, so she just breathes through the pain, as slow and careful as possible, in through her nose, out through her mouth. She can hear wind whistling outside, the spatter of raindrops on the rocks.
She needs to make a plan. She needs to figure something out. She has to—
Through the rain, she suddenly hears the crunching of footsteps outside the mouth of the cave, and her heart ratchets up in her chest.
A moment later, there's a figure outside the cave. But instead of the clean lines of a Starfleet uniform, she sees a rumpled woven shirt. An oversized jacket. Worn boots.
"Captain?"
He walks inside, and she can see, clear as day, that it's her prisoner. Chakotay. Walking around, free and easy.
Holding a phaser.
"You're awake." He kneels beside her, and she has to stop herself from flinching. "What do you remember?"
She takes as deep a breath as she can, grimacing at the pain in her ribs. "Crash. We crashed, right?" He nods. "Where's Lieutenant Kenning?"
"The pilot? I'm sorry, Captain. He died in the crash."
So that's it. This diversion to search for a Maquis outpost was only supposed to take an extra day. And no one is expecting them to rendezvous in the next system for at least twenty-four hours, possibly more.
It's just her and her prisoner now.
She looks around. "Where are we?"
"A cave. We crashed out on the mountainside."
"How'd I get here?"
"I pulled you out."
"Oh." She licks her lips, trying to figure out what's going on. He's still holding a phaser. She's unarmed. "Am I your prisoner now?"
He blinks at her for a moment, like he doesn't understand the question, and then—she could swear his mouth quirks up at the corners, like he's amused. "Prisoner? No."
She's in pain.
She doesn't say it. She's not complaining or groaning. But he catches the slight wince when she tries to move. And her face is pale, the sickly kind of pale he knows is bad news.
He remembers how much blood had pooled around her when he grabbed her limp body and hauled her out of the shuttle.
He decides to offer an olive branch. "You're hurt."
That earns a grim sort of almost-smile. "I agree."
"I need to take a look." He reaches for her jacket, but pauses. "Is that okay?"
"You know what you're doing?"
"More or less." She's eyeing him warily, and he sighs. "Look, Captain. We may not be the most likely allies, but right now I'm your only option."
It might have been a little too blunt, but she seems to take it in stride. She nods, and he folds back the sides of her jacket, tugging her bloody grey tank free and rolling it up. Sure enough, the pale, smooth skin of her abdomen is a mess of sticky blood and livid bruising.
"Does this hurt?"
He sets one hand very gently on her abdomen, avoiding the worst of the bruises, and applies the very lightest pressure he can. Even with this light touch, he can feel something give under her skin, something shifting that he's pretty sure shouldn't be. She sucks in a sharp breath; he sees her fists clench.
"A little."
A little.
Chakotay sits back on his heels, fixing her with a stern look. "Captain, this is going to work better for both of us if you just tell me the truth."
For a long moment she looks like she's going to argue, but maybe she realizes there's just no point, and she lets out a breath. "It hurts a lot."
"Thank you." Stubborn woman.
He flattens his palm on her abdomen again, careful to avoid putting any more pressure on her than necessary. "I can't tell for sure, but it feels like you've got some ribs damaged."
The fabric is stiff and heavy, so soaked through with blood that he can hardly see any grey left. He pushes her shirt and tank up further, just under the swell of her chest, and he sees it: singed edges on the fabric, and an open wound that's still oozing blood.
His stomach drops.
Maquis learn very quickly how to compartmentalize, to work under pressure, and it's not like they're used to having lots of resources. He's seen plenty of injuries, done plenty of field medical work.
He may not be a doctor, but he knows: this is bad.
"I need to stop the bleeding," he tells her distractedly, looking around at his options. There aren't any. "I'm going to go check the wreckage, okay? Maybe some of the medkit survived. Here."
He rolls her shirt and tank top back down, then takes her pale hands and presses them to the wound on her chest; she grimaces, but nods, keeping pressure on it.
"I'll be quick," he promises, and runs back out into the rain.
By the time he gets back, she's lost more color, but she's still conscious.
He moves her sticky, red-stained hands off her stomach, and immediately the blood wells up again. Damn.
"The regenerator's not functioning," he tells her as he peels the bloody fabric off her skin, "so this is going to be a little low-tech."
"Wonderful."
"I've got bandages. And a little bit of clotting polymer. Not much, but it'll have to do."
"Any anesthetic?"
He hates the fact that he has to answer this. "No. I'm sorry, believe me, I looked."
"All right." She swallows hard, and he sees the flash of fear in her eyes before she can lock down her expression to something more stoic. "Well, no other way."
Her bloody turtleneck is already ragged, so it's not hard to rip it up the center and peel it apart.
It's going to hurt. They both know it. Pressure is needed to stop bleeding, and her ribs are damaged. The best thing he can do is work quickly and hope she doesn't go into shock.
"Ready?"
She nods, and he can see her take a breath. "Do it."
He rips a strip of fabric off the bottom of his own shirt—it's clean enough—and dabs carefully at her abdomen, doing his best to wipe away the blood. It's not so bad. Until he gets closer to the open wound, anyway. He can see her tense up, even as he feels a pattern of ribs under her skin that feels wrong.
She grits her teeth, clenches her fists, turns her head, but she can't quite muffle the cry of pain as he presses down on the bleeding wound in her chest.
"I'm sorry," he murmurs, "I'm so sorry, I promise I'll be quick."
She doesn't say anything; he can see her teeth digging into her bottom lip as he hurriedly cleans the wound as best he can and reaches for the clotting polymer.
He can see her eyelashes fluttering dizzily. Say something. Take her mind off it. "So, uh, do you—have a family? Someone back home?"
She swallows thickly, wincing as his fingers press inadvertently on her bruised stomach. "Uh—yes. Fiancé."
"Ah." She's talking. That's a good sign. "What's his name?"
It takes her a few seconds to get the name out. "Mark."
By the time he presses the edges of the bandage down and feels them adhere to her bruised skin, she's trembling under his hands, her face ashen, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Captain?" She's still shaking. He cups her cheek with one hand, turning her face towards his. "I'm done, I promise. I'm sorry. I know it hurt."
She moans, low and pained, and finally he sees her eyes focus on him again as she takes slow breaths. There's blood on her lip, and he realizes, with a start—that's how hard she was biting it.
"You still with me?"
"Yes." Her voice is shaky; she swallows before speaking again. "Still here."
"Good." Chakotay lets himself brush his fingertips over the line of her cheek before pulling back. "You should rest, okay? I'm going to go look for something to build a fire."
She nods weakly. She still looks wiped out, and the air is chilly around them, so after a moment's deliberation, Chakotay pulls off his jacket and lays it carefully over her. "I'll be back soon. Call if you need something."
"All right." Her eyes flutter.
He finds some wood that's only a little damp; if he can keep it out of the misty rain, it might dry out enough to burn. So he loads up as much as he can carry and climbs back up to their little cave.
She's fallen into an exhausted sleep, so he goes back for another armful, then a third. Might as well.