This is a sequel to Crash
DISCLAIMER: Again, don't own them, never will.

***
"Hold still please Commander!"
The doctor's tone is exasperated, and I can't blame him, but whoever said that dermal regenerators were painless needs to have one pointed at the side of their head for ten minutes. I wince again and instinctively shy away, the doctor grits his teeth and takes me by the jaw holding my head still. I wish he would turn down the lights. It is too bright in here, especially after being in pitch blackness for almost seven hours, and I feel like I am under the proverbial spotlight. In my peripheral vision I can see you casting furtive glances my way and it is all I can do not to grin from ear to ear, but I am in no position to anger the doctor right now....

I remember lying in that shuttle, lucid just after the crash, before I succumbed to the encroaching concussed oblivion, and not caring either way if it were to become my coffin. I hadn't realised I was so depressed, I was just tired as far as I knew. Immensely tired. I was tired not with you, although you were a big part of it, but I was tired of myself. I was disgusted with what we had become, but I could not say no. I tried desperately to find something beautiful, something worthy in what we were doing but I just ended up feeling more pathetic. And the worst thing was that although we had become closer, physically, than ever before, we were drifting further apart, steadily, day by day. At times it was as if I didn't know the woman in my bed, and it was always my bed. I kept to my part of the bargain and waited for you. Sometimes you came and sometimes you didn't. If it weren't for how I felt, those times when I was convinced you were coming, and then you didn't, if it weren't for how it made me feel, I could have convinced myself that I was playing the game as well as you.

And I thought you were, I honestly thought that you were happy with the arrangements. They were your idea, who was I to argue? If I'd just had that little bit more backbone where you were concerned this may not have gone on as long as it did, and we both may have emerged a little less jaded, a little less ashamed. But my days of arguing with you were long gone, or at least my drive to. There were times when I'd love to argue with you, catch some of that fire, but I didn't want to any more. Didn't want to see that which had drawn me to you in the first place, a moth to his death. If only I'd seen it, I'd think. And then yesterday we had that fight. I can't even remember what it was about, but I remember you. I remember you, eyes like flint, I thought you might impale me with your glare. Your hair seemed redder, your skin paler, and I caught a glimpse of the woman warrior you once were. I remember I blanched, unable to argue any longer, the strength of mind sapped from me. And I saw you crowing to yourself, just an arrogant edge on your smile, self-satisfaction in your eyes. And then I did as you told me.

But then came the trouble in the shuttle. At first when the storm struck I was glad of something to do. The silence had become stifling and I was afraid I might accede to keep the peace, but when we began losing altitude and the inertial dampers failed, and I realised we were in trouble, I shocked myself by being ambivalent. I worked the controls calmly and when all hell broke loose I just gave in. The next thing I remember is being woken up by you crying. At first when you called my name I didn't answer, I wanted you to think I was dead, I wanted to be dead. But then I heard something in your voice that jarred me. Your calls became quieter, weaker, until you were barely whispering, and then you suddenly started sobbing. I'd never even seen you cry before, and I didn't quite know what to do. It sounded alien to me; I'd just spent the last months convincing myself that you actually had no heart, and yet here you were sobbing, weeping my absence - I could hardly believe it - so hard you made my eyes fill up too. How could I go on trying to hate you - and trying was as far as I got, I could never hate you Kathryn - when here was all the evidence I needed that you were in as much pain as I?

Some part of me, a deeply injured, scarred part of me railed against the idea and choked back my voice even as I wanted to call out to you that I was here and always would be. I struggled with myself, past injustices wrestled with present truths, the all too human preoccupation with self-preservation came up against my self-professed bond to you. And, I like to think, the real me won out. And I called out to you. Kathryn. You didn't hear me, and I tried again louder, loud as I could from my smoke-burned lungs.
"Please don't cry Kathryn." All I wanted to do was make you stop, I wanted to rush to you and hold you close and make you forget the past six months, but I could no sooner have moved than I could have spirited us both out of there.
"I thought you were-"
"I know." I cut off your words before they came. I know what you thought and I heard what it did to you. Awful as it may be, it took the sickening suggestion of a death to shake us both to our senses. I knew, just from those few minutes listening to you, that we had both allowed ourselves to become the victims of our own fears. I also knew, that I wasn't going to let it continue a moment longer. What that meant, I didn't quite know, but whatever it was it couldn't be worse than that which we had already been going through.

I squint again, partly at sickbay's bright lights, and partly at the moisture in my eyes. The doctor sighs but finally releases my jaw. For a hologram that man has a grip like iron.
"A visit from both of you, must be my luck day," he says, droll. "This should help with the headache," he says, pressing a hypo to my neck and then crossing to administer to you. "But I want you both here overnight, and restricted to light duty for at least ten days."
I steal a glance your way. You are sitting up, legs dangling over the side of the biobed, and you are carefully studying the floor.
"What?" the doctor says, "No smart remarks? No pithy comebacks?"
You raise your head and send him scuttling into his office, then you turn your eyes to me. They immediately soften and you sigh. My heart goes pitter-pat as you slide off the bed and float over to me. I can't trust myself to speak as you lay a hand on my chest and smile shyly, your eyes just a little too bright. I smile back and see you choke down a gentle sob, but it's too late, the tears escape your eyes and your face contorts. It's too much, I push myself up and wrap my arms around you. You throw yourself into the embrace, gripping me tightly. I try to hush you, but it seems to be the day for tears because it's not long before I join you.
"I'm sorry!" We both speak at the same time, then laugh weakly. I lean back and tip your face up, I need to look into those eyes. And I find I am drowning. You gulp noisily, trying to stop crying and I need to kiss you. I bend to press my lips to yours and you relax just a little. I close my eyes and give in to that dizzying stupor that I haven't felt for so long. I feel your hand on my thigh, your fingers digging in as you gasp and part your lips to mine. I feel your hand at my cheek, you seem afraid to touch me, but only for a moment. We both shudder and break the kiss. I reach out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear and we lean into one another, out foreheads just touching. You slump against the biobed, and I suddenly feel the tiredness upon me like a lead weight. I move a little on the tall bed, and turn you and tug you and somehow manage to get you up there with me. I pull you close, your back to me, and wrap myself around you. You clasp my hands in your own and kiss my fingers. I kiss the back of your head and tighten my grip on you, I don't ever want to let you go. I smile as I have a vision of the doctor trying to pry us apart in the morning.
"Chakotay?"
"Yes?" The lights go down at last, it seems to doctor has at least some idea.
"We can work this out can't we?"
"We can do anything." And I feel you grow heavy in my arms, and your breathing slows and I can feel your heartbeat under my hands. I am already dreaming about you, and wonder if you feel anywhere near as happy as I do right now. And you lift my hand to your lips and kiss the knuckles and smile against it.

And I think you do.


~FIN~