Disclaimer: How can I honestly say no infringement intended when I did intend to infringe? What I'm not intending is to claim this as my own. You own it Paramount (even if you do mangle it all the time. AHEM@Human Error?! ACK!!)
All this time off did have its upside. She got a lot of reading done, and had commandeered the Doctor's work console in order to start the outline of her holodeck program. It was easier when she didn't have to dictate the whole thing to the computer, which would only give her a headache.
The Doctor often extolled the virtues of modern medicine -he himself being a product of that- but for all that refinement, no one had as yet come up with a painkiller that worked when you needed it to without putting you to sleep. She squeezed the back of her own neck, hoping to ward off the tightness that was slowly forming there from bending over padds and low consoles all day. That was another thing. What had ever happened to Star Fleet standard ergonomics? What was it about the Delta Quadrant that made the ancient work ailments of carpal tunnel syndrom, tendonitis, tenosynovitis et al crop up? It was maddening.
She didn't like being cooped up in Sickbay, no matter how reasonable the Doctor's motives were. She wanted to go to the bridge, Astrometrics and Engineering and make sure everything was all right. And she wanted to find that anomaly and see if there was a pattern to the damn thing's vagrancy. If there was, she was going to drop landing buoys all over the sector so that no one else had to deal with it.
Chakotay on the other hand was taking it much slower. It drove her crazy. He read a few reports, maybe did a little work himself then either downloaded a book onto a padd or retreated into a corner for some meditation. He also seemed to get a big kick out of her fights with the Doctor over her uniform. She did not like Sickbay gowns, and her recovery would hardly be hindered by a change of outfit . . .
"I thought I asked you to stay off my console," came a crisp, annoyed voice.
The EMH was back from whatever house call he had been engaged in. It was a fact that he had told her to follow Chakotay's good example and take it easy, but she was not in the mood for that, and whatever sedative the Doctor had slipped her that last night had made her sleep so long that she felt she had to make up for it. That, and she'd had three cups of coffee . . . only in that afternoon. Tom Paris would have described her condition as "wired."
"Yes, you did," she replied, still tapping away at the touch panel.
His holographic eyebrows climbed. "And?" he prompted her.
"And I'm not leaving. This isn't straining me, Doctor, I'm fine. In fact, this is recreation," she said, gesturing at the screen.
The Doctor was looking at the replicator opposite to them. She couldn't see it from there, but the hologram had good eyes. "I see someone has been using the medical replicator for coffee."
"Yes, and it was rather good."
"Commander," the Doctor said plaintively, turning his head to where Chakotay was sitting, reading yet another book, "why didn't you say anything to her?"
"Because I'm smarter than that," came the oh-so-rational reply. "Never talk to her about coffee in the morning. Only after lunch."
Kathryn glared at both of them from the desk chair. "Don't give away too many secrets, Commander," she cautioned. "I can only bear so much."
"Oh, I'm not, don't worry."
The Doctor continued to direct a reprimanding gaze at her until she gave up and vacated her -or rather his- place. They were right, she supposed . . . though she felt absolutely fine. In fact, she rarely felt better.
Staying in the Sickbay was not her idea of a good way to apply such energy. Seven would have agreed, and called it "inefficient." High support from that particular party, and the ex-drone's opinion held some sway with the Doctor, too. But that was underhanded. A bored, machinating Captain should not take advantage of her crew's biases.
But she'd been in there all day!
"You're a lot of help," she said to Chakotay as she passed him where he sat. They had at least procured some chairs for their day-long stay. That was something.
"The Doctor did ask you to stay off that console," he murmured.
"Partisan politics, Chakotay-"
He smiled his disarming smile. "Kathryn, I've been a shifting partisan of one sort or another all my life, what's to stop me now?"
"Your unfailing loyalty to one Captain Janeway?" she said in a wheedling tone.
He snorted. "My unfailing loyalty is to keep you from making bad decisions and getting yourself in trouble. Nowhere in that does it say I can't disagree with you."
"Turncoat."
"Thank you."
She scowled at him a bit more, and then burst out laughing. "I'm going to get you for that."
"May I live to see the day."
The Doctor looked up at them from the office, through the transparent partition. "Am I going to have to separate you two?" he demanded.
They both turned a bit sheepish, he wincing, she blushing. Idle banter of course, but it always turned somehow, didn't it? That was the problem with the ready room. "Idle banter" occurred in there, and there was rarely someone to break into it before they had to themselves.
She couldn't very well run the ship from Sickbay, as much as she might like to do just that, and the Doctor -when in a sour mood- was probably not above declaring her unfit and having her restrained. And knowing the shrewd EMH, he'd even get Tuvok to agree with him. Certainly Chakotay would add his own two cents. Nosy.
Running the ship was exactly what she wanted to be doing. Of course, Tuvok and whoever else he got to help him oversee the ship could do the job and do it well . . . yet she wanted to put this behind her. The anomaly and the shaking . . . both that of the ship and her personal protocols for that entire day-long stretch she had been stranded with Chakotay. Stranded in the relative comfort of the ship to be sure, but stranded all the same.
It bothered her. Was some solitude all it took to make her seriously consider discarding a set of rules -"parameters"- that she had held steadfastly to for years? The space faring traditions of centuries were ingrained into Star Fleet as a matter of course. In the very old days, room on spacecraft had been scarce . . . and with mixed crews, the basic motto of those space-faring people had been "check your libido at the door." When the ships got bigger, it was a matter of professional decorum, and still was, to some degree. It was easy enough to make excuses when she had that and someone waiting on Earth, but now she only had the former . . . And as for libido, that was not entirely it, now was it?
Complicated.
She collected a rather large pile of padds and dragged the light chair across the floor to sit between the two beds. If she couldn't have a real desk, she would improvise. She sat, scanning over the padd in her hand . . . though not really focussing while her thoughts ran in different directions, entirely. She fidgeted slightly, a habit she had only procured between six and seven years ago. Even now, she rarely caught herself doing it. It only happened when she thought too fixedly about one ever-smiling First Officer in her acquaintance. . . .
She looked up from the report she had been trying to read, fixing an exasperated glare on the opposite wall that was really meant for herself. This happened far too often. It accounted for most of the time she spent in the late hours trying to finish her work, such unwanted daydreaming.
Ah . . . daydream?
She shook herself slightly, and looked back down at her work. Astrometrics report with Seven's terse, pithy style practically jumping off the small screen. No anomaly to be seen within range, temporal or otherwise. An errant asteroid that wasn't due to crash into anything of note for a few hundred cycles through that M-class system . . . and one very odd eccentric planet that had been thrown out of its system some millennia ago. There was the requisite hydrogen and helium as well as small puffs of cooled solar plasma that was escaping the aforementioned star system. All in all, preferable to many things she had seen in the past. Empty space rarely attacked one's ship, after all . . . though with her luck, it would happen eventually.
"Something wrong?"
She jumped slightly, putting the padd down on the biobed beside her with a resounding thump. Just when she was finally getting focussed, he had to talk again. It was like the ready room, only without a door. "Pardon me, Chakotay?" she asked, slightly annoyed, though more with herself than with him.
He looked at her from where he was sitting, his expression just on the edge of a frown. "I asked if something was wrong. You looked uncomfortable. Is the headache coming back?"
She schooled her expression. "No, I'm all right. My neck's a little stiff."
He eyed her warily. "Anything I can do?"
She really had to school her expression. They both knew what happened when he tried to help with tense muscles, though a shoulder rub would have been nice- "No, I'm fine. It's not too bad."
Chakotay looked somewhat relieved. Relieved? "All right, then."
His tone, however, was disappointed.
She picked up another data padd, and glanced at it, realizing she had read the same report before. It was an Engineering report . . . judiciously laced with comments to the effect that with more time, one B'Elanna Torres could have made more progress. She snorted. B'Elanna . . . she knew Chakotay wouldn't budge about her shortened shifts, so why did she think that her Captain would? Here sat the hard-assed Star Fleeter, after all. She picked up the next report in the stack, and turned her eyes to it as she put the other in the "read" pile.
As it happened, it wasn't a report at all.
It was a twentieth century romance novel.
She looked askance at Chakotay, pursing her lips. How had he contrived this? It had to be him, or else he was putting B'Elanna up to things again, taking advantage of her natural need to meddle. She was happy that data padds were made to be so lightweight.
The data padd hit her First Officer in the back of the head with a resounding and satisfying thwack. He jumped, looking back at her in surprise and then reaching down to collect her weapon.
"What was that for?" he demanded.
She merely looked at him with a stiff expression that belied her inner amusement.
Frowning, he looked down at the padd in his hand. His puzzled expression rapidly turned neutral, the corners of his lips starting to tug up in a smile.
"Do you have anything to do with that?" she asked, gesturing.
He put on a studiously innocent expression. "Not a thing. I've been here the whole time."
"Uh-huh, so who's your assistant?"
He held up his hands. "No one, I swear."
One eyebrow twitched upward skeptically. "I see. I'll find out eventually. I always do. So why did you choose this inauspicious time to bother me about my tastes in reading material?"
"Why is it inauspicious?" he asked.
She grinned wickedly. He had an imagination, let him think of something. "Oh, I think you can come up with things much worse than anything I can."
"Oh?"
"Don't provoke me, Commander. I know where you live."
He waved the padd in her direction, eyes gleaming. "Are you sure you won't read to me?"
She blushed slightly. "Read it yourself," she retorted. "That's torture enough, I should think." Did she really just say that? Her vocal cords were on some kind of mission to bereave her of any last shred of dignity she had left after this ordeal.
Thankfully, he didn't reply, merely settling in his chair again and going back to reading whatever it was that he had been reading before. He smiled that infuriating smile of his the whole time, and she wondered for a moment what exactly he was thinking about.
No! She didn't want to know.
She didn't.
"Computer, what time is it?" she demanded.
"The time is 1900 hours."
Chakotay looked at her from his chair once again. "High time for some dinner, I think."
She rolled her eyes. "Dinner? I'm not hungry. You go right ahead without me."
"I don't think so. You're going to eat something."
"I told you, I'm not-"
"I'll call Neelix," he threatened, "and the Doctor. They'll get you to eat."
She held up her hands. "Truce! All right, I give up. I'm still not hungry though. Just get me a salad or something. You have the rations, right? I don't want to put you out for meals. . . ."
"It's all right," he said, rising from his chair.
Unfortunately, he was intercepted by the Doctor who bore towards him with a tricorder. Chakotay was forced to sit back down and submit to the scan, which the Doctor frowned at a few times. In the end, the hologram just shrugged.
"I'm releasing you, Commander, under the condition that you stay off-duty until tomorrow morning."
Chakotay looked inordinately pleased with that, and thanked the Doctor quietly as he rose to collect his things.
"Hey, what about me?" she asked. No way was she going to stay in here any longer than she had to, even if it meant she couldn't go to work until the next day. She didn't refute the sense of keeping patients for observation, and had submitted to it before, but she was not in the mood to be cooped up at that moment.
The Doctor directed a long, admonishing gaze at her, then shook his head ruefully, scanning her with the tricorder slowly and deliberately. He flipped the instrument shut with a fell practised flip of his wrist. "You also, Captain, are fine. But rest tonight. I'm sure I'll hear if you do otherwise, from one source or another."
She barely heard his censure as she sprang up to collect her things and leave.
It was somewhat later when she found herself straightening up her quarters once again. She'd never really gotten around to that. Hell, she'd never even made the bed. After thankfully putting on something other than the Sickbay gown, she sorted out which clothes could be recycled and which would have to be washed. The large stacks of padds she collected into piles, deleting their dated contents as she went. She recycled all her empty coffee mugs.
These tasks completed, she sat heavily on her couch, glad to have everything back the way it was supposed to be.
Well, maybe not everything.
What had happened three days ago? It was like New Earth, only every feeling condensed into one rather disconcerting day. At least on her side of things. Protocol was such a malleable thing under certain circumstances . . . Unfortunate, since she found her footing unsteady so often with him. With the whole damned thing. She was a Star Fleet Captain, and she had to uphold the principles of that organization, be they written or merely taken as a matter of course.
She was Kathryn Janeway, and she was stranded out there in more ways than one.
Was she just being delusional? Letting his smile and awkward moments make her read things into their "idle banter" that just did not exist? Were they both fooling themselves? He by believing she would eventually make her choice, and she by believing that he would always wait for that? Was she ever going to own up to it all?
She would own up to it right now, if only to herself. She loved him, it was quite simple, yet so complex that it could be accounted for more than half of her frequent headaches. How long had she known that?
And when had she decided to keep it to herself?
Oh, they all knew. Maybe they didn't know that it was anything beyond physical attraction, which was there as well. Perhaps they did. B'Elanna and Tom, while annoying, were astute enough to figure it all out.
She was letting her thoughts run away with her again. Constant, constant trouble, that.
The door chimed politely.
She rallied herself out of her slight daze. "Come in."
And sure enough, there he was, dressed in some loose casual outfit that showed just enough of his golden-toned chest to keep her on an edge the whole time . . . trying to keep her eyes where they ought to be. He smiled at her. "Dinner, Kathryn?" he inquired.
She rose from her seat. "All right, but I'm paying this time."
He shrugged. "Have it your way. How's that holoprogram coming?"
"Umm? Oh, fine," she said, heading towards the replicator. "I won't be finished for a while though, so don't get too anxious."
He let out a breath. "I'm not," he murmured.
She opted for the salad he had mentioned earlier, punching at the controls. "Did you read B'Elanna's report?" she asked.
"That one to you? Yes." He guffawed slightly. "She's not very subtle, is she?"
"I haven't known her as long as you, Chakotay, but I don't think delicate suggestion is one of her strong points. Her sense of diplomacy can be likened to the spanners you insist she's so fond of. That's why you and I make the first contacts, not B'Elanna."
There was a pause in the expanse of room behind her. "Kathryn . . ."
She abandoned the replicator for a moment, turning to look at him. Whatever amusement he had felt seconds before was now replaced by a serious, almost reverent look on his face as he gazed at her. "Kathryn, if you don't mind, we need to talk."
"About what?" she asked just as seriously.
"You know what."
"You're the one who wants to speak. Don't avoid it."
"All right," he said, appearing to steel himself. "I want to talk about what happened that morning with you, and I want to know what you meant when you told me . . . what you told me. You may not even remember."
She resisted the urge to wring her hands nervously. She hated being nervous. "I remember," she said quietly. "And I meant exactly what I seemed to mean. However, I didn't say-"
"I love you, Kathryn," he blurted suddenly, interrupting her.
The inner workings of her mind almost ground to a halt. He . . . loved . . . her. He did. That was something, but should she- could she- She couldn't just brush that off, not when it was so important. So important. And she loved him. But could she tell him without making him expect that she could-
Her slow, somewhat shocked thoughts were interrupted by his desolate expression. Had she been staring and thinking too long.
She let her breath out in a long sigh, and met his eyes carefully. "Chakotay, please don't take this to mean anything more than it does right now-"
He turned his eyes away from her.
"-but I love you too, Chakotay."
Chakotay stared at her in astonishment, shaking his head slightly.
She reached out a cautioning hand. "But, Chakotay . . . Chakotay that doesn't mean we can-"
His kiss pulled no punches, and she knew the second part of what she had said had not reached him. In point of fact she didn't care at that moment, willingly submitting to his lips and his hands as they drew across every tight nerve like a harp . . . until it got a little too far, and she had to push him away. She gulped air, having to hold onto his arms to stay upright. She was smugly pleased to note that he was a little out of breath as well.
"Cha-kotay," she breathed, "not that I don't appreciate that, but now is not . . . it just doesn't . . . I have to work myself up to this, Chakotay. I can't just go rushing headlong into-"
"Why not?" he asked.
"I may be an unpredictable Captain . . . but where these things are concerned I have to get used to things. I'm used to being your friend, Chakotay. I'm even used to all the tension you so liberally demonstrated there . . . but I need time."
He muttered something under his breath, dropping his head to rest his forehead in her hair. He wrapped her in his arms. In no uncertain terms she could tell he did not like her reluctance not to just forget everything and head backwards into the room beyond . . .
But Chakotay was her constant, and she wanted him to stay that way as long as possible. Nothing else stayed the same, but that didn't mean it had to happen all at once. Like looking for a piece of home on Voyager, she needed to find some constancy amongst the tumultuous life that initially, she had chosen. What she did not choose were anomalies.
She rested her head against his chest, unlike him just content to be held.
"Just make sure you stick around, all right?"
The End
***
Review! Review! Review! Please! And thanks so much to those who already have. I'm glad I got this all done before anything else drastic could happen on the show . . . I have this dreadful awful feeling that the last episode is going to have *gulp* some C/7 to it. At that point, I am going to give up on Paramount. J/C forever! Even if there is so little time left, fan fiction is the J/Cer's salvation . . .
