"It's not heavy. I'm stronger than I look." (J&C)

Author's Note: This story takes place during "Resolutions".

/

Kathryn only heard the chainsaw because she had forgotten her bag.

It was unlike her to forget, but then she'd slept badly the night before. Chakotay's legend still preoccupied her, as did the moment they'd held hands across the kitchen table. She'd been carried away by the beauty of the story, but had it meant more than that to him? Should she try to speak to him again, or was one awkward attempt to "define parameters" enough?

She hurried back through the woods to their shelter, shaking her head and calling herself several kinds of idiot. Her experiments were their only hope of ever catching up to Voyager again, plasma storms be damned. How was she supposed to accomplish that if she couldn't even remember to take her equipment with her?

The closer she came to the shelter, however, the clearer she heard it: Chakotay wielding a chainsaw, not regularly as he did when felling a tree or cutting logs, but erratically, with grunts of effort in between. By the time Kathryn reached the clearing beside the shelter where he worked on his carpentry projects, she was almost running.

"My God," she gasped when she saw him. "Chakotay, what's going on?"

He powered down the saw and spun around to face her. His linen shirt was streaked with sweat, his chest heaving, his face eerily blank behind the safety goggles. Around him was a scattering of wood chips and the splintered wreckage of what had once been a nearly-finished boat.

"How did you get here?" he asked, in a tone more wooden than the debris around him.

"I forgot my … Never mind. What did these logs ever do to you?" She knew it was a silly question even as she asked it. This obviously had nothing to do with the logs.

He staggered over to the nearest stump, lowered the chainsaw to the ground, and sat there with his head bowed.

"You weren't supposed to see this," he muttered, barely audible over the buzzing insects and whispering wind.

"See what? That you're unhappy? You could have told me." Anger and empathy made a volatile mix as she stood in front of him, hands on hips, silently willing him to look up. "I thought I was the only one who struggled with being quarantined here. I thought you were so, so calm about it all - "

"You thought I was a wise old Indian at one with the woods who's never had a moment of doubt? You thought I didn't care if I never see Sekaya again, or B'Elanna or any of the others?" The sarcastic edge in his voice stung, but at least it was better than indifference.

"I never thought so, but what if I did? You've been playing that role ever since we got here. Headboards, bathtubs, this damn boat that you just shredded … until now, you've been acting like this is shore leave, while I've been panicking about thunderstorms and crying over failed experiments." That really hurt, remembering how he'd seen her at her most vulnerable, held her and comforted her, but never let her do the same for him.

"I know I should have been paying more attention, and I'm sorry for that," she added more quietly, crouching down to his eye level, hardly noticing the grass and wood chips that stuck to her skirt. "But I'm here now. I'm listening. You've had my trust for a long time now, Chakotay. Can't you at least try to give me yours?"

"I trust you with my life, Kathryn." For the first time all day, his eyes flickered up to meet hers, and the pain in them worried her more than any amount of splintered wood. "This … this is something different. The way I've coped with this … the virus, being left behind, everything … was to put you first and myself second. It kept me together, until … "

" … Until last night."

Until he'd bared his soul to her and received nothing in return but an ironic remark and a handshake. Oh, God.

This was exactly why humans shouldn't live in isolation, not even an isolation of two. How was she supposed to support him through a heartache that she herself had caused? She fell to her knees in front of him, lost for words. If she could have ordered herself to fall in love the way she gave orders on the bridge, she might have done it then, but she couldn't. For all their closeness, there was a fundamental disconnect between them, and recent events had only made it clearer.

"Don't blame yourself," said Chakotay gently. He'd always been much better at reading her than the other way around. "The way I feel is my responsibility. I can handle it."

Of course he could. Stereotypes aside, he was one of the wisest people she knew.

"It's just … sometimes I need to let things out."

"With a chainsaw?"

"If necessary." The slightest hint of a smile on his face was enough to take a weight off her mind, as it meant he wasn't angry either with her or with himself.

"Fair enough," she said. "If you need space - or anything - let me know."

He nodded.

"And in the meantime … " She picked up the chainsaw and scrambled to her feet, brushing off wood chips with her free hand as she did so. "How about we start over on building that boat?"

"You don't have to - " He jumped up and made a motion to take the tool away, but she was already heading off to the edge of the clearing.

"It's not heavy," she said over her shoulder, hefting the saw in both hands. "I'm stronger than I look, you know."

"You certainly are," he said wryly.

Let me make your burden lighter, she thought, remembering that story he had told her. Like you do for me. That way, eventually, maybe both of us will know peace.