The Admiral grants him entry without a sound, and he waits for his eyes to adjust to the dark of the starlit rooms before seeking her out. He finds her silhouetted in profile against the viewport, half-full glass in hand, staring out at the emptiness and he stops breathing. Like this, she is his Kathryn, shoulder blades pressed together, chin raised to those stars in defiance. Her own archetype. He wants to remember her like this forever.
In her presence and with his purpose he feels lighter and more sure than he has in years.
He clears his throat.
"Chakotay," she says without turning, in his Kathryn's voice, softer than he has heard the Admiral speak before, his name falling from her lips like a verse known by life.
He moves across the room to her and in the half-light she turns to face him, her mouth upturning in that rare, wide smile, that radiance. Other than when she had dazzled it on him on the bridge, he hadn't seen it for a long time; he's forgotten what it's like to be under that sun.
There is no surprise in her eyes at his visit; any surprise is clearly his to feel, for he is certain now that she's been expecting him, and it makes his tired heart surge with stretching hope.
She does not let him linger in his study, returning her attention to the stars almost immediately, one arm braced across her chest, the hand of it fixed tight to the inside of her elbow, gripping with knuckles white.
"Help yourself to a drink," she says to fill the air, not looking at him, her voice dissembling. She gestures with her glass to somewhere across the room and he doesn't follow her movement.
"I'm fine," he responds, the words dry and loose in his mouth, unimportant. He reaches out with a shaky hand and gently raises her head so he can look into her eyes.
He is not being audacious. She knows why he is here; he sees it written on her face.
She gazes back into him, in that remembered way that is all pain and pining but comforting because they both know this place, these feelings, what they meant then and clearly still mean now. Standing here, still nearly as death, she discerns the energy between them as a living thing. Then it was, as now it remains, nothing as mundane as physical attraction or as simple as love. She used to believe she could sense him even if he was on the other side of the ship, separated from her by metres, bulkheads. A constant, flexing burden – one he could never take from her – hunting her everywhere, inescapable.
She never wanted to be free of it then.
But now, this weight is far more than the echo she needs it to be, and she is aware that the hurt ripping from her is bared, laid out in front of him.
She never told her Chakotay what she felt about him. And here, so distant from the only home she ever knew and yet so tantalisingly close to it, she wants so much to tell him, but after everything, wanting this more than anything, in this time, she cannot let him, anyone, in.
So much already lost. So much left yet to lose.
When she first saw him again in this timeline, she had expected the frisson, had been unable to not leap at it, but she had forgotten its strength, and she'd had to call on long-unused parts of herself to keep it tightly controlled. She had been only partly successful. But he'd been as unnerved by her as she'd been by him, and she'd used that to her advantage, pushing Kathryn down and setting the Admiral to the effort.
She'd forgotten what maddening, energy-sapping work all of that was. She is amazed at how successful she had been back in this time at convincing herself that this was just another mindless routine. Such a thankless task, but how foolishly proud of herself she'd been at shutting him out. Believing she took strength from pushing him away.
Oh, and I'm so very out of practice, she thinks as his palm moves lightly beneath her chin, his thumb drawing against the bone of her jaw, and she flails, finally, at the look he is giving her, her heart clamouring to betray her reason once again, as it almost did on the bridge.
She knows she must try to engage those creaking old cogs of muscle memory, to pull back, to run from him as she has always done. But she can't; they won't; and she cannot hide from him.
He watches that same old battle of fight or flight rage and spark through her. Instead of quickly hiding it, as she always does, secreting herself behind veils of command and protocol, he sees it all work through her, her eyes latching on to his with a desperation. Whether she is being brave or is simply unable to hold back, he is uncertain.
"Kathryn," he murmurs, "I won't let you go."
She makes a soft, choked noise at his concern, at the sound of her name in his mouth, her lids fluttering shut, and his chest flames with that same old wild need to hold her, save her from her free fall.
He moves his hand slightly and she rests the weight of her head down into his palm because ... because it belongs there.
His other hand moves to take her glass, setting it on the top of the sofa before pressing his fingers lightly to the top of the arm she still has imprisoned against her chest.
His Kathryn, always. Of this he is sure. The certainty rustles through him like a breeze, surprising him with its quiet, complete profundity: there is no universe, no dimension, no timeline, in which she is not his, he not hers.
How could he ever have doubted it?
"It was always you," she says with a sigh, the truth pushing past her barriers, lilting her cheek against his hand.
"It will always be you," he completes, his voice breaking, recognising her vulnerability and answering it with his own.
She lifts her head and looks at him once more, her gaze sombre but unguarded. "I thought that ..." She hesitates, swallowing, muscles of her jaw stiffening under his touch. "... if I could leave you behind, that that would be the hardest thing I would ever have to do, and if I could do that, then I could do anything." Her voice has petered out to almost nothing and he finds himself leaning in to her. "But ... I never could."
He shakes his head. "Oh Kathryn ..."
One hand drifts to her waist, his other reaching to brush invisible hair from her face just to keep touching her.
He lets his fingers pass around the wrist of the arm between them, grazing her breast as he does so, feeling even through the thick fabric a tightening and the quiet gust of her gasp at the near contact, notes the almost imperceptible sway of her body towards him that she can no longer control. He feels her let him lift her arm gently away from her body, let him slip one arm further around her waist. Draw her to him as if he has done it a thousand times, bring his lips to hers for the first and the millionth time. Once there, he has a split second of awareness to wonder if the all-too-obvious desire in him is too much, will scare her away again, before she answers with her breath and soul and time becomes theirs, senses and bodies overwhelmed.
The way she tastes ... His scattered reason tries to grasp the intangible. Must be what clarity and light taste like ... a ghost of honey, the merest trace of coffee behind that of her more recent red wine. It is like coming home ...
Those lips she has savoured in her dreams for so long, had lost for so long and now here and real once more, beneath hers. The tip of her tongue hesitantly grazes the fullness of his lower lip, delving inside his mouth to seek his own, and she feels his groan move through him. Like the sea ... something like rain ... he tastes like ... and trees, cinnamon or something near it, she thinks, like coming home ...
Her hand finds its way to its place on his chest and he discerns the shadow of her grief in her touch, not understanding all of it but aching for her, for whatever she carries, always. He draws back a little with difficulty, thought returning to him, conscious of needing to check she is all right, hands sliding to hold her elbows. "Is this ... Are you okay?"
"Yes," she assures, breath catching, eyes full, her smile once more filling his every sense, the confidence of her reply belied just a little by a quaver in her voice. But she sees the concern on his face and reaches for him once more to pull his wonderful lips to hers, avoiding the uncertainty, one hand curving around the back of his head, fingers skimming a line down his nape, delighting in the reality of him in more ways than he will ever know, her other hand returning to his chest.
And then he finds he must learn properly of her neck, soft and brilliant in the starlight. The warm dampness of his breath there, passing from her ear and down the cord of her neck muscle, along the line of the subtle V-neck of her jacket, the sharp edge of the seam and his softness against her skin a deeply contrasting pleasure. He stalls at the hollow at the base of her neck, just tantalisingly bared to him. This place just hidden beneath her turtleneck for all these years, he claimed from her the day they met and has desired every moment since. His finger traces its edge before his tongue dips in, and she utters a sound so fluid and low that he finds himself barely able to support her as she lists in response.
He is flooded with the need to close every possible space between them, and it is more urgent and necessary than anything he has ever felt. He drags himself from her, seeking her heart, her eyes. Seeing the desire in his own reflected there, her lips swollen, parted, longing colouring her cheeks pink, his inchoate mind takes over. He tucks his mouth back into her neck, beneath her ear, nips and rubs her skin with his lips as if to anchor himself to her.
"Bed ..." he growls softly, and although he should be, he is not surprised at the word that has rolled out of him; at the rawness in his voice; at his sudden inability to form a linear, comprehensible thought beyond this desire to be one with her. She tenses at his voice, even as he feels her light at the low vibration against her skin.
And then, he knows it was the wrong thing to say, wrong thing to think. But he can't take it back.
He hears her sharply inhale, as if coming to from a daze.
The palm still on his chest pushes him away and he cannot stop from making a sound of loss and pain as air sucks in to fill the space between them. But the fingers of one hand reach for and interlink securely with his, as if extending through all the years to stay with him, even as she fights to pull away, and they are two arm lengths apart, the darkness suddenly deeper than before.
"We can't." She is shaking her head, her eyes wide, and his heart constricts.