86. "I'll wait." (J/C)

(Author's Note: This story is set after "Resolutions".

To any J/C shippers - this is not going to go the way you think. Depending on how serious you are about your ship, you may want to skip this chapter.

The references to Mark, Justin and Edward Janeway are taken from "Mosaic" by Jeri Taylor.)

/

Kathryn's quarters were exactly as she had left them.

This didn't surprise her. Tuvok, if she asked him, would no doubt give her a perfectly logical explanation for why he'd never moved in or put her things into storage, but she knew better. As she wrapped her pink dressing gown around her, sipped coffee from a porcelain cup and snuggled down in her favourite armchair, she didn't know whether to smile or cry at this Vulcan demonstration of friendship. He'd done everything he could to make sure she would still feel at home here.

It wasn't his fault there was no garden outside her window.

The door chimed.

"Come in."

Her visitor was Chakotay. He was in civilian clothes, the same kind of plain shirt and pants he used to wear around their shelter in New Earth, and he was carrying a potted plant. She recognized the small green shoot at once. This morning - was it just this morning? - she'd been tending several rows of them, with earth under her hands and sunlight on her face.

"A tomato plant," she breathed. "Oh, Chakotay … "

It was so like him; first the bathtub and the headboard for her bed, now this. He had a way of giving her gifts that were almost too thoughtful, too intimate. It worried her that she never knew what to give him in return.

"I knew you'd miss our vegetable patch." He smiled. "Even if you did hate gardening as a child."

He held it out to her. The fresh smell cut right through the recycled, faintly metallic starship air she still wasn't used to. She was tempted to close her eyes and bury her face in the leaves.

"I'm sorry," she made herself say instead, backing away, unconsciously adjusting her robe to cover more of her neckline. "I can't take this."

"Why not?" Hurt flickered in Chakotay's dark eyes.

"Because … because I'm busy. You know how it is." She pointed to the screen with its half-finished report on her coffee table as evidence. "Now that I'm Captain again, I just won't have time. It would die on my watch, and I don't want to be responsible for that."

This was about more than a tomato plant and they both knew it. She meant to speak casually, but that last sentence came out weighted with meaning.

"You don't have time because you don't make time." His voice was soft, but nonetheless less determined. "Kathryn … "

"Don't - "

She held up a hand to stop him, but he continued. "Kathryn, please, just let me say this once. You were right. We really do need to define parameters."

She blushed. The last time they'd tried to talk about their feelings, she'd made such an effort to be precise that she'd resorted to military terms, and he'd gone to the opposite extreme by telling her a fable. It had been beautiful, but she still wasn't entirely sure what he'd meant by it. They were both adults. You'd think this would be easier.

"Okay." She lifted her chin, unfolded her arms and clasped them in front of her instead, bracing herself for the talk she could no longer avoid. "Go ahead."

"What I feel for you goes beyond friendship. I think you know that." He didn't touch her, as he was still holding the pot in both arms, but the look in his eyes was like a caress. "But every time I try to show it, you put up a level-ten force field. Now, if that's because you don't feel the same way, I … I can accept that. But if you're denying yourself because you think you owe it to Starfleet, then please, think twice. For both our sakes."

Kathryn's heart ached for him, but at the same time, some distant part of her was standing back and shaking its head. Of course he'd see it like that. They might be only a few steps apart, but the distance between them hadn't felt this deep since they'd been literal strangers. To him, Starfleet was just an institution. To her, it was her life.

"It's not like that," she said, struggling to be both considerate and honest. "Look … I'd be lying if I said I wasn't attracted to you sometimes. You challenge me, and I like that. Mark is the same way, we used to have the greatest arguments … but then again, he's a civilian, so none of our arguments had the lives of my crew at stake."

"You don't think I could stay professional in a crisis?"

Kathryn bit her lip, determined not to mention Seska. It would be the verbal equivalent of setting off an Omega reaction; she might win the battle, but the space between them would never be navigable again.

"I think what I need from a partner and what a captain needs from a first officer are very different things. It's not fair to expect you to be both."

She had learned this the hard way after Dad and Justin's shuttle crash. If anything could teach you how to keep your personal and professional lives separate, it was freezing up in a life-or-death situation because your fellow officers were also your father and fiancé. It had taken years of therapy, Mark's patience and her family's tough love for her to stop hating herself for that.

"Why not," he retorted, "If I'm willing to take the risk?"

"Because I listened to that story you told me. "Her needs would come first," you said, but what about your needs? You're important too." He shook his head, but she went on: "You deserve someone who will put you first in return, and I'm so sorry, but I can't. Not while we're in the Delta Quadrant with a hundred and fifty people to protect."

"I'll wait," he said. "I'll wait until we get home, if I have to."

"For God's sake, Chakotay, don't do that!" Kathryn burst out, surprising them both with her vehemence. "You could spend your whole life waiting. I still believe we'll get home, of course I do, but none of us knows how long it's going to take. The uncertainty would grind us down, one slow day at a time. I care about our friendship too much to put us through that."

Romantic as he was, he had to know by now that the human heart couldn't keep up unrequited love forever. He was a great friend and a handsome man, but it had never occurred to her to do anything for him on a level with his carving that bathtub or saving that tomato plant for her. Sooner or later they'd come to resent each other, one of their disagreements about command ethics would get ugly, and they'd say or do things they could never take back.

That possibility frightened her more than she could say.

Chakotay said nothing for what felt like a long time. He set down the pot on her coffee table, walked past her to the viewport, and stood with his back to her, one arm propped against the frame. He watched the stars streak by at warp, bright white lines against the darkness of space. From the set of his shoulders, it looked like he was taking several deep, meditative breaths.

He'd done that on New Earth too, she realized. As much as she missed the sunlight, green growing things and lack of hostile aliens, it had been quarantine, not shore leave. The strain of isolation had gotten to them both; he was just better at hiding it. Who knew how many silent frustrations he'd channelled into his carpentry while she'd been out chasing a cure for the virus and talking to monkeys? They were lucky it had turned out to be only six weeks.

When he turned back around, all she could see on his face was a dimpled, somewhat ironic smile. Sometimes she thought he could teach Tuvok a thing or two about controlling his emotions.

"You're probably right," he said. "Even though it's hard to hear."

"I'm sorry." She put a hand on his arm.

"Don't be." He put his hand over hers and patted it lightly. "You wouldn't be you without your convictions."

"Thank you for understanding. Oh, and by the way … I think this little one should go back to Aeroponics." She picked up the potted plant from the table and smiled down at it. "You don't want to be a desk plant, do you? You want to sit under a nice warm lamp and grow tomatoes for everyone."

"First the monkey, now this," said Chakotay, deadpan. "Being your roommate was certainly an adventure."

"Dismissed, Commander," she mock-grumbled, making sure to smile up at him so he knew that she was joking. (Mostly.) "I'll see you in the morning."

"Good night, Captain."

He took the plant from her matter-of-factly, neither avoiding nor lingering on her hands as they touched, and nodded to her before heading out the door.

Kathryn picked up her coffee cup, made a face when she found out it had gone tepid, and shuttled over to the refresher to brush her teeth and wash her face. She didn't know if it was a side effect of the Vidiians' cure, going back on duty again or just the emotions of that conversation, but her bed had never looked this cozy to her before, even without someone to share it. She shrugged out of her dressing gown, burrowed under a pile of blankets, and closed her eyes. There were no night insects chirping and no wind whispering outside, but her ship hummed as if to welcome her back.

"Computer, lights off."

The lights dimmed. She closed her eyes. She thought of the colour red - red fruit on a picnic blanket, red wine in a glass in Chakotay's hand, red lipstick on the face of a woman she didn't know. If he had to wait, she hoped he'd find someone worth waiting for. As for herself, who knew what the coming years would bring?

She wondered if she was going to regret her choice someday, but if she had any regrets, they didn't stop her from falling fast asleep.