by Avalon (avalon99@telusplanet.net)
http://members.dencity.com/avalon_online
J/C, R, 7/7
THE WATER IS WIDE VII
"Regrets"
He had called her Kathryn. That was promising. It meant something. Janeway wasn't sure what it meant, but it definitely meant something. She drew a deep, calming breath and began.
"It started when you left. Actually it probably started a long time before that, but I refused to acknowledge it, so it really..." She was rambling. Already. Ruthlessly she forced herself back on track.
"After you left Voyager, I realized that I shouldn't have let you go, at least not...not without telling you...that I loved you."
There. She had said it. It felt like she had just scaled a mountain and she had to pause to regain her breath as her heart hammered painfully inside her chest...but she had said it. She sensed, rather than saw, the quick aborted movement he made, but continued hastily.
"You promised not to say anything," she reminded him, daring another glance at him. Chakotay's blank, expressionless mask was gone. Now he just looked shell-shocked. Good. Maybe she could get through this if she kept him off-balanced enough to remain silent while she said what she needed to say. Janeway looked away and resumed her pacing.
"I realized then that I had probably been in love with you for a long time but just didn't have to nerve to admit it, not even to myself. I'm...I'm not very proud of that and I...don't really have any excuses. I think I was probably afraid of a lot of things...the crew's reaction, Starfleet's, Mark's for a while, and...and yours." She paused to lick her lips which had gone dry, then sailed gallantly on.
"There were so many other things to consider...the promise I had made to get the crew home...worries at first about how the Maquis would blend with the Starfleet crew, and...and other things." She gave herself an inward shake. "Anyway, these are all just excuses. In the end, I believe I've loved you for a very long time but didn't have the...courage, I suppose...to act on it...until you left. And not even then."
"I probably wouldn't even be here now, telling you all this, if something hadn't happened to me. I'd be on Voyager, travelling farther and farther away from you, terrorizing the crew, and convincing myself that I was doing fine."
"But I wasn't doing fine. I didn't...I don't know how to go on without you." Another slight movement from Chakotay. "Oh, I don't mean that I'm going to throw myself out an airlock or anything..." She swallowed once then continued.
"I just couldn't go on without having told you how I feel. At least this way I'll know. I'll know that I didn't throw something away that I should have fought to keep. I know I've made mistakes...we both have...But I need to know if it's too late. I need to know if..." Her voice failed her and she closed her eyes briefly.
"Kathryn..." It came out as a throttled moan.
She opened her eyes...to see him moving towards her rapidly. Janeway froze. She couldn't move, couldn't even think...and then his arms were around her, pulling her close and he was kissing her.
It wasn't a gentle kiss. Janeway had somehow always imagined (when she had allowed herself such fantasies) that it would be gentle...like spring rain. This wasn't rain, it was a typhoon. His arms tightened around her, pulling her body close to his, his tongue forcing her mouth apart and plunging into its depths. Janeway gasped then found herself kissing him back, frantically, passionately, fire growing within her.
For an instant, just an instant, Chakotay pulled back and she stared dazedly at him. Faint tears gleamed in his own eyes but there was the beginning of a smile hovering around his lips. "I was a fool. We both were." And then he was kissing her again, pulling her even closer than before, the hard planes of his body melding with her own. Janeway reached up, both arms coiling around his neck, her breasts crushing against his chest. Her mind was shutting down in stages as he kissed her, his hands roaming freely over her body and his tongue plummeting deeply into her mouth. As his hands moved to the neck of her tunic, to wrench it apart, all thought fled. She was here, with him. The man she loved. And nothing else mattered.
* * *
Janeway lay gasping, thought and sensation slowly returning to her. She was naked, she realized distantly, pieces of clothing tangled around her and a heavy weight on her body. Dazedly she opened her eyes...and met two stunned brown ones. Oh yes. Chakotay. Lying on top of her. Also naked. Memory returned.
"Wow." Was that really her voice? It sounded weak and exhausted...and thoroughly sated. She was lying on something hard, she realized -- the cabin floor -- and above her, Chakotay was wet and trembling, the muscles beneath her hands soaked with sweat. She was quivering too, she realized, like a leaf in the aftermath of a storm. He was still inside her and, even as she stared up into his eyes, she could feel him begin to harden again. He moved slightly, purposefully, and she gasped, clutching at his shoulders, her legs tightening around him.
"Chakotay..." It was either a plea or a prayer.
"I love you, Kathryn," he said shakily. And then he was moving again in earnest and there was no more need for words.
* * *
"Are you all right?"
"What?"
"Are you all right?"
Janeway paused, taking stock. "I think I'm lying on a shoe." Dull exhaustion coloured her voice.
"We could move." Chakotay sounded just as tired, and she turned her head to look at him. He was lying on his side beside her on the floor, one hand flat across her stomach. She reached an unsteady hand out to touch his forehead, tracing the patterns of his tattoo.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
He gave her a familiar grin and her heart lurched within her. "I'm freezing and I'm going to have some strange bruises...but there's nowhere else I'd rather be right now."
Janeway found herself smiling back, exultation rising within her. She leaned closer. "Well that was unexpected."
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Was it?"
"No, not really." Slowly, sensually she pressed her lips to his, flicking her tongue out to touch them briefly.
He groaned. "Are you trying to kill me?"
"There are worse ways to die." And then she rolled over, off the shoe and on top of him...and proceeded to prove it.
* * *
Somehow, over the course of the last few hours they had finally made their way to the bed, warding off the chill of the room after the fire had died, with several thick blankets. Janeway lay unmoving in Chakotay's arms, her legs tangled with his and her head on his chest. Slowly he raised his hand and ran his fingers through her hair, gently separating the tangles. A comfortable silence hovered between them. Then, finally:
"Chakotay?"
"Yes?"
"I forgot to ask my question."
"Go on then."
"Why did you leave?"
His hand stilled and she raised her head to look up at him. He was staring at the ceiling, an expression of regret on his face. "It wasn't because of Aliyda, if that's what you're thinking," he said slowly.
"I know that."
He frowned and gave her a quizzical look.
Janeway smiled slightly. "Oh, I might have believed it for a while -- but at some point I realized that you were using Aliyda and the colonists as an excuse. Now I want to know your real reason for leaving."
Chakotay sighed and, if anything, looked even more unhappy. "You said you had made mistakes, Kathryn. Well, so did I. Only I think mine were a lot worse than yours."
"What do you mean?" She levered herself up on one elbow so she could look into his face.
"I mean that I should never have left Voyager...you. It was a mistake. I...I've never thought of myself as a quitter before, but that's what I did. I left when I should have stayed and fought for what I wanted. I took the easy way out...and it was a mistake."
"So why did you?"
He sighed, his chest rising and falling beneath her hand. "There were many reasons. I was tired, I suppose. Tired and angry. Tired of the stress and tensions, tired of the endless crises, tired of waiting..."
"Waiting for me to come to my senses?" Regret coloured her voice.
"That too." He smiled slightly and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, then continued. "But mostly it seemed like we were drifting apart. You were so determined to get the crew home at all costs, so driven. It was like I didn't really know you anymore...had never known you. And it suddenly seemed as if we were too different, that whatever my hopes and dreams, they weren't your hopes and dreams." A pause. "Do you remember the argument we had before crossing Borg space?"
Janeway looked down, a brief expression of pain flitting over her face. "Yes."
"Do you still think you were right?"
She hesitated, then replied truthfully. "I don't know anymore. I thought I was, at the time. And things worked out in the end...but now...I just don't know." Tentatively she looked back up, suddenly reluctant to meet his eyes. There was warmth in them and the faint knot of tension within her receded.
"You wouldn't have admitted that before," he said, his arm tightening around her. "You couldn't admit that you might be wrong, that there were paths other than the ones you wanted to take...and I'm not just referring to the course we were charting through space. All I ever wanted was for you to admit...to other possibilities. With the ship, the crew, our journey...and us. And I thought that was something you could never do. So I left. I'm sorry, Kathryn. I should never have left you."
There was a long silence while Janeway mulled this over. She could feel the tension within him now, the muscles bunching and cording beneath her hands. Finally she looked back at him and asked carefully: "Was I really so difficult?"
He looked at her warily. "Let's just say that... flexibility was not one of your better skills."
Janeway smiled widely. "Then you'll just have to come back with me and keep me flexible, won't you Commander?" She moved one leg up and over him, her knee brushing a part of his anatomy that made him groan. She grinned at his reaction. Then the smile faded as a thought struck her. "You are coming back with me, aren't you?" Worry etched her words.
"If I can still walk. I feel like I've been dragged through a warp plasma conduit."
"Good." She raked her fingernails lightly over his chest.
"Good that I'm coming back, or good that I feel like I've been dragged through a...?"
"Both." She silenced him with a kiss, which deepened as his arms went around her. There was a long silence then Chakotay reluctantly broke away. He gazed up at her, still holding her close.
"All right, Kathryn," he said. "I've answered your question. Now you answer one of mine."
"All right."
He brushed his fingers across her lips. "You said that you wouldn't be here now if something hadn't happened to you," he said. "What was it?"
Janeway stilled and looked away, a shaft of sadness going through her. She would probably always feel this sorrow, she realized, for the man she had met once and left behind, in another place...another reality. He would be alone now, not knowing the joy he had given her the courage to find. She owed him so much and it was a debt she could never repay...
"Kathryn?"
She jumped a little and blinked a few times rapidly. "Sorry. I...it's difficult." She pulled away, out of his arms, and sat up, the blanket wrapped around her. For a long moment she stared blankly at the cold ashes in the fireplace.
Chakotay reached out a hand and ran his palm down her back. "Tell me," he said softly, persuasively. Janeway glanced over her shoulder at him.
"All right. I...I met you."
"Excuse me?"
She looked away. "Another you. In an alternate universe. There was a transporter accident and I found myself on another Voyager. With another Chakotay. He...he told me things about himself...you...and me, things I had never known, things I had only guessed at. He had loved his version of Kathryn Janeway and had lost her. And, because of him I realised what I had given up when I left you behind. It was too late for him to find his happiness. It wasn't too late for me. And so I came back."
His hand had stilled on her back. Janeway sat unmoving.
"You could have stayed."
"Yes. I could have. But I didn't. He wasn't you." She turned then, her eyes shining with unshed tears. "Chakotay..."
He reached for her, pulling her back down to him. "Shh, Kathryn. Don't cry."
She twisted, coming to rest so she was laying on his chest. "I wasn't going to cry," she said tremulously. "I was going to give you an order."
He froze beneath her, surprise rippling through him. "What?"
Janeway bent her head and kissed him once, passionately. "I'm ordering you never to leave me again, Chakotay," she said, coming up for air. "My First Officer is supposed to stop me from making stupid decisions, not compound them. Is that understood, Commander?" She stared down at him, her hands on his shoulders and her weight pinning him down. She could feel his arousal pressing against her and she twitched her hips slightly, leaning even closer. "Understood?" she repeated, a smile beginning to curl at the edges of her lips.
"Yes, ma'am," he managed to say faintly, a glazed look coming into his eyes.
"Good," she whispered, moving even nearer until her lips were mere inches from his, her breasts brushing against his chest. "And now I have a request."
"Yes?"
"Kiss me."
"Yes, ma'am."
* * *
Later...much later...Janeway stood at the window of the cabin, a blanket around her, staring out at the falling rain. A footstep sounded behind her.
"Kathryn?"
She didn't turn around. "I was thinking about...him."
"The other me?"
She nodded. "Do you...do you think he'll find happiness? Some day?"
Chakotay's arms went around her and she leaned back against his chest. He hesitated. "I...don't know."
"I hope so." Her voice was wistful. For a moment, there was silence then Janeway pulled herself gently free. She reached up to touch his face.
"Come on Chakotay," she said softly. "Voyager will be contacting us soon. It's time to go."
He hesitated, his gaze wandering once, briefly, around the cabin before returning to meet her eyes. Slowly, deliberately, he reached for her hand, his fingers intertwining with hers. When he spoke, there was no hesitation in his voice.
"Yes. Let's go home." And then, very gently, he kissed her again.
THE END