III
Janeway
Standing in the center of her ready room, one hand over her mouth, she holds herself very, very still. She sifts, appalled, through her recent memories, attempts to account for the signs she'd missed even as she'd been forewarned by her embittered future self.
And she lands on Chakotay, ostensibly guileless, standing about where she is now and rejecting her lunch invitation: I'd love to, but I've already made plans. Rain check? And she'd chirped, Absolutely,like a complete idiot. She'd been in a wonderful mood that morning, energized, missing Neelix but excitedly anticipating the birth of Tom and B'Elanna's daughter. They'd laughed together. She'd smiled widely at him as he turned to go, and he'd smiled back – had it reached his eyes? –, like he wasn't on his way to a clandestine lunch date with Seven of Nine.
What a joke; a colossal, cosmic joke at her expense. Bile rises in her throat as she admits in the privacy of her own mind that she had indeed thought Chakotay would wait for her. Hadn't he seemed dismayed by her relationship with Jaffen? Uncertain, after restoring her memories, whether she'd be glad to remember him? Hadn't she reassured him for all the Bridge crew to hear? Hadn't sheforgiven him for Riley, for Kellin?
Why does he look at her the way he does if he doesn't –
Chakotay had always been able to hear the things she couldn't say beneath the things she could. She counted on it, clutched at this truth like her foundation stone all through their long journey. When had he stopped listening? Or had they stopped speaking the same language altogether?
How had she not noticed it happening?
She turns on the spot, takes a few steps, stops again. At a total loss, she buries her face in her hands. She thinks back to the Ledosians, Seven and Chakotay stranded together with the Ventu. A couple of days – would it have been enough? She doesn't recall whether they'd seemed… different, after, but maybe the idea of the two of themtogether is so preposterous she simply wouldn't have noticed. Have they been concealing this from her for thatlong? Longer? And this, she thinks, is not the worst part, but it's up there: the lying by omission. Both of them, right to her face. After everything.
A hollow laugh escapes without her permission. Once upon a time, Chakotay hadn't even wanted Seven on board.
Wildly, she wishes for Q, for a temporal anomaly, for Admiral Janeway to pop back into view and begin again. Anything. Anything. Then she starts – the Admiral – and at long last the ruinous truth clicks into place: the Admiral's sacrifice was twofold. She didn't only get the crew home; she gave Chakotay and Seven, them specifically, a fighting chance to have a future, together, without her.
Her legs give out abruptly and she has to reach for the edge of her desk to remain upright. She thinks again that she might be sick and wills her body to submit. She counts, ten, nine, eight, and when she reaches one she breathes again and stands and moves smoothly around to her computer terminal so she can begin her report to Starfleet.
Her hands are like ice, palms down atop her desk, fingers spread apart, grounding. She stares at them, unseeing. Releases a slow, shuttering breath. And, wasted, she gets on with her work.