by Avalon (avalon99@telusplanet.net)
http://members.dencity.com/avalon_online
J/C, R, 1/7
THE WATER IS WIDE I
"Regrets"
TWO MONTHS LATER:
Janeway stared blindly up at the ceiling. Sleep eluded her, as it had for the last two months and six days. And, she knew, when she finally did fall asleep from sheer exhaustion, the dreams would come. Dreams of the man she had left behind.
She could have gone to the Doctor to get something to help her sleep. But something had made her hesitate. Even though the dreams caused her nothing but pain, they were still better than nothing...better than the emptiness of the days...
Chakotay.
The man she loved.
Janeway turned on her side and pounded her pillow once in frustration. Damn it, anyway. Damn him. And damn her.
It had taken her precisely thirty-two hours and eight minutes to realize she loved her First Officer...former First Officer...and had done so for a very long time. As the ship had passed out of communicator range, the sense of loss that had crashed down upon her had left her shaking in its wake and she had had to leave the Bridge hastily. Alone in her cabin, tears forming in her eyes, it had hit her like a tidal wave.
She loved him.
And it was too late.
She should have turned the ship around then, gone back and told him the truth, dragged him kicking and screaming back to the ship if necessary...but something had stopped her. Perhaps it was some leftover sense of pride, or perhaps it was fear...fear that if she did go back he would refuse her, would tell her that it was too late...and would send her away again. And so she had returned to the Bridge and had sat in stony silence while they sailed farther and farther away from the man they had left behind. The man she loved.
Janeway twisted impatiently in her bed, the covers tangling around her legs. She closed her eyes tightly, trying to ignore the emotions roiling within her.
He had loved her. Once. Perhaps it had been only for a moment, there on New Earth, but there had been more than friendship in his eyes. And there had been so many times afterwards, when she had thought he was...waiting. Waiting for her to accept his feelings...to reveal her own. She never had. And now it was too late. Despair welled up inside her and she had to fight the urge to cry. No. She had shed more than enough tears over him these past months.
Perhaps he had grown tired of waiting. What did it take to kill love? Had it been her overwhelming need to see Voyager safely home, no matter what stood in her way? Was it the ever-deepening gulf between them, the rift that had begun as they prepared to cross Borg space? Or was it her inability to understand his apparent willingness to settle somewhere in the Delta Quadrant if necessary, a willingness she would not, could not, share? Or a combination of all these? What did it take to kill love?
Janeway had spent the last two months kicking herself mentally and the crew figuratively. She had been impossible to live with, she knew. Crewmembers had taken to diving down adjacent corridors when they saw her approaching. One young Ensign she had snapped at the day before had even flung himself into a Jeffries tube rather than face her. She had rounded a corner in time to see a pair of feet disappearing down the shaft while the rest of the crew had scattered before her. It was a wonder they hadn't mutinied, she thought unhappily. She rolled onto her back, rubbing her eyes tiredly as the truth clawed at her. There was another reason she hadn't turned the ship around, she knew, another reason why she was terrorizing her crew.
Aliyda.
Janeway couldn't quite throttle the wave of pure...it had to be hatred...that swept over her. The alien woman and her rag-tag band of colonists were the reason she was lying here, alone and unhappy. Damn her to hell. And damn Chakotay for wanting to stay with her.
She was being unreasonable, Janeway decided, but at this point, she didn't care. Her thoughts wandered back to their first meeting with the people of Calasha'an...and Aliyda.
The small, elfin alien, who had reminded Janeway of Kes, had obviously harboured feelings for her First Officer. At first Janeway had been amused and a little sorry for her, knowing it would hurt Aliyda when Chakotay left. The amusement and pity had quickly died though, when Chakotay had come to her ready room and told her he was staying with the colonists. A wave of disbelief had washed over her at his words. How could he leave the ship? How could he leave her?
Then again, how could he not? She had never given him reason to hope, never given him any real proof that she returned his affections... How could she blame him for giving up on her? For growing weary with waiting...? Even Chakotays' patience wasn't endless.
Her thoughts turned back to the colonists? Why this planet? And why now? True, he had seemed more at ease in the foggy, waterlogged planet than she had thought humanly possible. But he had given no indication that he returned Aliyda's feelings, no indication that he was planning to give up the stars for this one world... Still...perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps he had felt something for the alien woman. Heaven knows, she had been wrong about him often enough in the past...
Her throat tightened and more tears gathered at the corners of Janeway's eyes. She blinked them back furiously. She would not cry. She would not. Gritting her teeth, she firmly began to list all of his faults.
It wasn't working. She couldn't think of a single one. A lone tear escaped and ran down her cheek. Damn. Damn, damn, damn. Janeway closed her eyes briefly, took a deep, steadying breath and resolutely emptied her mind. "Sleep, Kathryn," she told herself. "Go to sleep... And don't dream..."
* * *
Janeway moved through the corridors like a small thunderstorm, the crew dispersing before her. She rounded the corner without slowing and hurtled into the transporter room, barely giving the doors time to open for her. Inside, Neelix and Tom hurriedly turned toward her, twin expressions of trepidation on their faces. She shouldered past them without speaking and stepped onto a transporter pad. The two men glanced at each other, but didn't move to join her.
"Well?" Janeway snapped. "Are you coming?"
Neelix shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat while Tom fumbled with his tricorder, staring down at it as if it held all the secrets of the universe.
"Well...Captain...that is...we..." Neelix' voice cracked slightly.
"What is it, Mr Neelix?" Impatience coloured her voice.
The Talaxian was close to wringing his hands. "We... uh...perhaps Mr Paris and I could complete the negotiations with the Therians for you. I mean...there's no reason for you to...er...that is, I know how busy you are, running the ship and everything, so we thought we could..."
"That's very considerate of you, Mr Neelix." Her tone was glacial. "But I am quite capable of continuing these negotiations and running the ship. Now get on this transporter pad or stay behind. It's up to you."
They flinched then moved forward reluctantly, neither one meeting her eyes.
Janeway fought down the sense of guilt that was rising within her as they gave her sidelong looks. They were right. She had come this close to throwing a left hook at the obstreperous Therian Ambassador yesterday. As it was, she had barely managed to leave the room with her temper -- and the fragile peace between the two races -- intact. Neelix and Tom probably thought she would start a war if she beamed back down to the surface. And they could be right...
No. No wars. Just a nice, peaceful negotiation for supplies. No problem. She was still the Captain. She could do this. Janeway took a deep, calming breath and tried to massage away the tension in her neck with one hand. It didn't work. Sighing gustily, she turned and nodded to the Ensign at the controls. "Beam us down." Her voice was flat and held more than a trace of exhaustion.
Janeway sighed again as the transporter beam enfolded her, familiar grey fog beginning to creep across her vision...
...and something went suddenly, violently wrong. She was seized and shaken like a rag while pain coursed through her, tracing fiery trails along every nerve in her body. She screamed silently...
...and the world wrenched sideways. The agony became overwhelming. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't even see. There was nothing but pain, fear, and darkness...
...and then, finally, whatever it was released her. With a gasp, she crumpled bonelessly to the deck, feeling the impact only distantly as the world continued to spin in several directions at once. Finally, after another lifetime or two, the spinning faded and stopped altogether. Janeway took a deep, shuddering gasp, and listened distantly to her lungs gasping for air. She was shaking, she realized.
Slowly, hesitantly, braced against the return of the pain, the Captain opened her eyes and lifted her head slightly. It hurt, but nothing like what she had just experienced. Blinking, she tried to focus.
The first thing she saw were two pairs of feet, standing across the room near the transporter console. Janeway frowned and lifted her gaze still further. Ensign...Ensign Grainger...that was it. But something about his uniform was subtly different. She couldn't quite place it, but...
And then her gaze flickered to the second person, and all thought of uniforms vanished. Chakotay. Janeway blinked and shut her eyes again briefly, suddenly convinced that she must be hallucinating or mad, or both. But no. He was still there when she opened them again, moving toward her with an expression of stunned disbelief on his face.
"Kathryn?" And then his hands were on her arms, pulling her to her feet. Janeway reeled dizzily, leaning heavily against him, unable to stand on her own...and unable to comprehend what was happening. What had happened? And how could he be here?
Then even these incoherent thoughts vanished altogether as Chakotay pulled her into his arms and kissed her with a desperate passion, holding her tightly against his body, his heart hammering against her own.
Janeway froze. She was dreaming. None of this was real. Chakotay was kissing her. Chakotay was kissing her. And suddenly, she didn't care if it was a dream -- she wanted nothing more than to hold him, to feel his lips on hers. Her eyes flickered shut and she leaned into his chest, feeling his warmth, the pressure of his lips, the corded muscles of his body. If this was a dream, it certainly got top marks for sensory input.
Abruptly, Chakotay broke the kiss and stepped back a pace. She swayed slightly then opened her eyes. It took several moments before she could focus -- her eyes still weren't working properly. Finally, though, the man before her swam back into view. Janeway frowned.
He looked...shattered. Like he had just seen a ghost... or found something once thought irretrievably lost. Dark shadows lined his eyes which held twin expressions of sorrow and loss, mingled now with stark disbelief. Slowly, diffidently, as if he were afraid she would vanish at his touch, he raised a hand to her cheek. "Kathryn," he said again, wonderingly.
Janeway swallowed and nodded wordlessly, fighting the increasing weakness in her limbs as well as the confusion in her mind. The room was beginning to spin again and she took a deep breath. It didn't help. Her legs were beginning to buckle.
"You can't be here," he was saying hoarsely. "This is a dream..."
"Chakotay..." Her own voice was weak and unsteady. A rushing noise filled her ears and swirling red and grey tendrils of fog were creeping steadily across her vision. "Chakotay," she managed to say again just before the fog engulfed her. She was vaguely aware that she was falling, and that someone had moved forward to catch her, and then she knew nothing at all.
TO BE CONTINUED