The days may not be fair, always
Yeah but that's when I'll be there, always
Not for just a second, or a minute, or an hour,
Not for just a weekend and a shake down in the shower,
Not for just the summer and the winter going sour,
But always, always, always
— from "Always", Leonard Cohen
"A scorpion was walking along the bank of a river, wondering how to get to the other side. Suddenly he saw a fox. He asked the fox to take him on his back across the river. The fox said no. If I do that you'll sting me, and I'll drown. The scorpion assured him. If I did that, we'd both drown …"
— Chakotay, "Scorpion", Pt1
"… one day it would divide us and destroy us. And here we are, proving her point."
"It was the moment we turned away from each other. We don't have to stop being individuals to get through this, we just have to stop fighting each other."
The conversation burns through Kathryn's mind as she returns to her quarters bone tired, and angrier the further she gets from the bridge. And I don't care that we stopped fighting long enough to get through this crisis, her mind rails. "Not about trust" he says! How is it not about trust if you undermine me the first chance you get? But the anger won't bend and fit the shape of her righteousness the way she wants it to, won't feed her sense of the higher ground, even though she presses and pokes at it, tries to stoke the blaze.
She steps inside her quarters and as soon as the doors shut, she is throwing her curse into the empty space, somehow emptier now than it was before all this happened. "Damn you, Chakotay!"
She rolls her shoulders, flexes her head on her neck but the weight of the day will not budge. The last few ordinary hours on the bridge with him at her side were intolerable, infuriating. Sleep would be good, but there will be no rest tonight. Sleep is a luxury not afforded lonely captains who have been betrayed.
At the sideboard, she wrestles with the lid of a bottle of whiskey, almost her last, sloshing a good few drinks' worth into a tumbler and throwing the whole lot down in one go. A surge goes down the wrong way and sets her into a fit of coughing. Fuck! The warmth of the alcohol doesn't even touch the tight ball of tension inside, and she growls in frustration through her spluttering, her eyes stinging and watering. Is there nothing that will take the goddamn edge off?
Thumping the glass down, she haphazardly moves across the room. Her uniform jacket is the first to be cast aside, flung on the coffee table, then she shrugs off her undershirt and tank, hops around pulling her boots off, pants following, leaving the trail of her command in her wake on her way to the bathroom. Pulls out the clip in her hair. Perhaps using all her rations on a real water shower will get rid of the bitterness, the aching, the exhaustion. Perhaps she can scrub him away. Regulation grey underwear and bra off – God, one day, I swear I will burn all this goddamn regulation underwear! – then under the blessed hot water.
This is better. But better still would be …
She angles herself so the water runs between her breasts, runs in warm rivulets down over her stomach, between her thighs, and closes her eyes, passes a hand over a breast, squeezing it hard and shivering at the pierce of pleasure. Lower her hand slips, slick over her hot wet skin. Oh yes, Commander, what I wouldn't give to have you to myself right now. How dare you undermine me! Her fingers slide into her folds, roughly play around her clit, and she imagines bending him to her will, making him beg, swear his allegiance between her legs. "Chakotay …" she moans softly.
Fallen further into the sweet sensations and her imagination, the rush of the water just beginning to soothe, she didn't hear him come in.
But she does hear him clear his throat.
Kathryn shrieks, her head snapping up, hands flapping to cover herself. "What the hell, Chakotay?!"
He's hovering in the doorway, full eyes wide and very dark, lips parted. Only when she catches his glance does he avert his head, but he makes no move to leave. Time is passing, yet she hasn't asked him to go either. In fact, she's just standing stupefied under the water as her now slightly drunk mind tries to make sense of this scene.
A red blush starts at her chest and flares upwards as she recovers from the shock, her brain reactivating a little and realising what he must have seen, heard.
"What are you doing here? How did you get in?" Still, she doesn't ask him to leave.
"Sorry," he says. "I wanted to speak with you – I commed you three times, but you didn't respond." Remaining turned away, he grabs a towel from the stand and holds it out towards her. "I was worried when you didn't answer, so I used my command override."
"What were you thinking?! What did you possibly think I was up to?" – her breath stutters – "Don't answer that!"
She takes a step out of the shower and reaches for the towel, but wobbles in her newly inebriated state, her hand curling into his fingers instead, leaning on his strong arm for balance. He braces, holding her steady. Then he is looking at her. Gamely keeping his eyes on her face, but his hand is shaking in hers. Or is that hers shaking in his? He lifts up the towel and she grabs it, wrenching it around herself and up under her armpits.
"I wanted to talk to you. We can't leave things like that," he says.
"Like what? What else is there to say? We got through it. We agreed to disagree."
"I know you're still angry with me."
How does he know? How does he always know? She glares at him, wishing she hadn't had that drink now, because she can't think straight, not with him so near and her reason swimming. The strung tension she's had in the pit of her stomach all day expands, irritates, and she's had enough.
"You want to do this? Fine, let's do it. Since you're here and you've 'broken in' under whatever pretence, I'll tell you. You're right, I'm still angry." She steps towards him, into their customary too-close-for-comfort space, chin jerking up to look at him. Except it's different now. The stakes are infinitely higher, and not just because she is in a towel. "The first time we've ever fought. In all this time," she says, aiming for controlled calm but hitting instead the uncomfortable lump that's suddenly lodging in her throat. She swallows it down, instead fanning her ire, letting it rise to full mettle, and then there's no need to worry whether he heard the earlier waver in her voice. "You betrayed me today!"
"Betrayed you?" His eyes widen momentarily, then he stiffens.
Her heart thuds. Shit. Definitely drunk, but dammit, it's the truth. He deserves to feel as hurt as she does. Only yesterday he had promised her she'd never be alone, and she had said … Her anger seethes again. What was I thinking? "Can't imagine a day without you?" Foolish, she berates herself, weak.
Dangerous.
They're so close she can feel his body heat, reminding her of just what she had been doing when he'd baldly interrupted her.
Small muscles at his jaw flex. "I told you," he continues tightly, "it was a tactical decision. Made in the best interests of the ship."
"I implored you to stick to the alliance! I thought I might die, Chakotay!" – oh, that hits home – "I needed you to trust me. And you didn't. Do you have any idea what that felt like?"
"It wasn't about trust – I've already told you; it wasn't personal." His eyes have narrowed now and that look descended on him once more – that one he wore in the meeting room at the end, when she knew he'd left her. Disappointment? Contempt? She's not sure, doesn't want to be sure. She doesn't want to listen to him any more, she wants—
"—I was doing my job," he says, rudely interrupting her thinking. There's a distinct grit to his voice now, a threatened end to his restraint that is making her itch. "I wouldn't have been a very good first officer if I hadn't presented you with alternatives or let you know what I truly thought. And I wouldn't have been a very good captain if I had only followed your orders without taking into consideration the changed circumstances."
"Oh, but it was personal!" she hisses.
"No, Kathryn. It wasn't. I don't know how be any clearer. This was about Voyager. Nothing else. And despite what you might think, I never left you." She can hear the anger just escaping now, shimmering along the horizon of his words. "Just because I disagree with you about something, doesn't mean I am abandoning you! As a first officer or …"
"Or what? Or what?"
He doesn't answer. Won't answer. He presses his lips together and his eyes darken and flash.
She's squirming then, prickling all over, not certain why she picked at this point because it's really the last place she wanted to go. "Well, it certainly felt like I was alone!" she snaps instead, and her mind is churning – the day, the alcohol, his body, this bizarre game they're suddenly playing wrapping around and around inside – all of it threatening to engulf her.
The unnerving itching reaches a crescendo. She has to scratch at this anger.
Scratch at his anger.
At him.
She pushes up into his space, into his body, her towel falling open at the back.
"Kathryn, what are you doing?" He grasps at her upper arms, holding their bodies just apart. She's vaguely aware that he's helping keep the towel in place with his clamped-down hands.
"It is personal. To me. It always has been," she says, snaking an arm provocatively around his waist. "It is to you too. That's why you're here, isn't it? In my bathroom?" She tries to press herself more fully into him, using her arm for leverage, and his grip relents a little, his words and mind not matching his body's reactions. And she can feel all of him – all of him – crushed to her.
"No. That's not why I'm here," he says, but his voice is far too collected.
She tips her head up to look at him. "Isn't it? Are you sure?" The corner of her mouth crooks and she drops her chin just a fraction, shooting a sultry glare at him from beneath her lashes. Yes, she knows exactly what that will do to him. She pulls against him, far enough back so she can reach down and run her hand firmly down the front of his pants. His breath catches sharply, his fingers near gouging her arms. She grasps his hardness through the tough fabric, and feels him jerk under her palm. Gives a harsh chuckle. "Well, it seems you're disagreeing with yourself, as well as me again."
She releases him, crawls her fingers up his chest, grabs a fistful of his jacket and uses it to balance on as she stretches up on her toes to sniff him brazenly, almost swooning at the scent of him as it fills her. And then when she reaches his mouth she's assailed by a strong whiff of Aldebaran whiskey. She smirks, her mouth centimetres from his. "It seems we're more alike tonight than I thought. Drunk, angry, and horny as hell."
"Kathryn!" He seizes at her wrist but doesn't pull her away, and a tremor passes through her at this enticing sharp edge to him coming into tangible focus. She flickers her eyelashes at him coquettishly, and his bottom lip thins and quivers all at the same time, his grip on her tightening. "You're making this about something it's not," he says tersely, a conflicted desperation flitting across his features as he attempts to circumvent her baiting. "Trying to push me away."
"Push you away?" she wonders at him. "You think that's what I want?" She rubs herself on him, pressing her hips into his. "You don't seem to be going anywhere." Adjusting her angle slightly, his thigh comes between hers. He fails to stifle a gasp and then she sees the flame in him catch and blaze. His eyes are all at once tortured and filled with with desire and other emotions she's really not interested in thinking about. The towel is now only held up by the weight of their bodies leaning into each other.
He rumbles in absolute exasperation. "No. Truly, I have no idea what you want. I'm not sure you know what you want! But not this. Not now, and not like this."
"Yes, Chakotay, right now! Exactly like this!" She thrusts her body at him, using her hold on his uniform to close every last scrap of space between them. And then her lips are on his, pushing, livid. She feels his taut growl beneath her and then he opens his mouth, his tongue darting out roughly, plunging into her. The kiss is ferocious, wild. She rages at him, and he meets her aggression with his own, beating at her lips, her teeth, her tongue. He bites down hard on her bottom lip and she cries out into him, tasting blood, the sharp nerve dilating like lightning all the way to the gathering moisture at her centre. He runs his tongue over the injury, abrading, sucking with vehemence, and the sensation destroys her, her body arching, reaching for him. But he shoves back at her, forcing her to step back and back again, until she is hard up against the bulkhead, the cold of it a shock against her naked back, pinning her there with his weight. She can feel him through the roughness of his uniform, hot and unyielding against her thigh. His large hand gropes between their bodies, ripping the towel finally out of the way, and palms her breast, twists a nipple fiercely.
Then she's not sure whether they're both moaning or whether it's just her, or even if the sound is simply the rushing of blood in her ears. She's grinding onto him, his leg is pushing back into her, her fingers are pulling, rending at his clothing. She catches and rips a nail on his jacket zipper, yelping, and the pain is in his mouth in a moment, his heat and the salt-sugar coarseness of his tongue sucking that hurt and blood away too.
She squeezes herself around him, rubbing and rutting, and he groans, the sound filled with such hunger that this alone nearly undoes her.
He pinches her nipple again, hard between his fingers, then leaves his hand there for a moment, pressing, her pointed nub keening into his touch, while he drags his mouth down her throat, nipping and scraping with his teeth, fingers now running down over her ribs, digging into the spaces between bone, to grab her hips. Her body wants to writhe, but he doesn't allow it, instead moulding his form to her with such pressure that she almost can't breathe against the strength of him. He rasps his tongue across her collarbone, then clamps down and latches hard, and she feels the stinging instant that the bruise flares.
Finished marking her, he flings his head up. "Fine," he says harshly. "You want this? Get back in the shower before all your rations are down the drain." He lets her go and takes a step back and she feels his absence too strongly, every bereft inch of her rippling with humiliation and outrage, eyes smarting.
Just whose bathroom does he think he's in? She juts her head. "You're ordering me?"
He leans into her, a hand flat on the wall by her head. Brings his mouth within millimetres of hers, and she finds herself panting, tries to hate what he's doing to her, but his closeness is all consuming and she wants to be, has to be, consumed. His eyes are like black iron. "If you want this, get in the shower."
Each word hauls her to clarity.
She can't breathe, she starts to shake and her world tilts, begins to reel.
But not from his dark desire. No. She wants him and his twilight and all of him more than anything she has ever wanted before. The need is so visceral now she can feel the crazed itch twitching under her skin, clawing through her veins, burning for him to touch her, to fix this nightmare between them that is ripping her apart.
But the need is too much. Feels far, far too much.
This is what she fears and has always feared.
Hardly knowing what she is doing, she reaches out and places a palm on his chest. Everything stops spinning. She locks her eyes on her hand, watching the slowing rise and fall of his chest beneath her fingers, the only part of him that is now still moving. Finds she can breathe again.
Moments pass. The inconsequent sound of the pelting shower drives into her awareness.
Eventually, he dips his head in towards her, speaks so quietly, so softly, that it takes her a second to register his voice against the receding maelstrom inside.
"We can stop right now."
The pounding in her chest echoes in her ears.
"I don't want to stop," she says, her attention fixed on the problem and solution alive under her hand.
He draws a finger along her cheek, under her chin. Her breath fractures. Bending in to her, he brings his mouth to hers, tracing her bottom lip with his tongue, gently nudges her lips apart with his and kisses her fully.
Under his delicate care, her mind quiets. Her fingers come to touch their joining, feel their mouths moving against each other in this strange, new tenderness. A silent pool in the current.
Then she pulls back, raises her eyes to his, and she sees him understand the look she gives him, lets him try to draw the safety of anger back over them like a blanket.
But the rawness has been replaced with something bolder, something stronger.
He runs his hand from beneath her ear down across the front of her neck, and then his mouth is on her once more, rustling and nibbling. She lets their desire sweep her up. "I want you to fuck me, Chakotay," she whispers, the words coarse in her mouth but lingering in the air as the naked truth, and he makes a deep, low noise that reverberates through them both and into her core. Then they struggle with his clothing, both quaking, peeling it off in fits and starts between ever more urgent kisses and questing caresses, together tumbling under the steaming hot water.
He pushes her up against the shower wall, licks at her mouth, chases his tongue down her wet chest, runs his fists underneath her breasts and then sucks hard on a nipple, while a hand squeezes the other. And she's aware of nothing but the heat of the water and of them, the glorious peaking pain his mouth is eliciting from her, his tongue as it chafes and frays over and around her aching bud.
"Yes. You like that," he says roughly, between bites and licks. "What else do you need?"
"Everything …"
He lifts from her breasts to look at her, his large hand curving loosely around her neck, and she cries out in surprise at the claiming touch. Then he leans in to kiss her, possess her, his lips and tongue insistent and demanding.
Parts of her she didn't know existed begin to unlock and move.
His mouth, his hot velvet skin, his hard muscles, his erection pressing into her belly. The sensation of his hand at her throat is making her insane with want. Her hands strive to take over every part of him, clasping, raking, squeezing his flesh and gripping him to her. She wants to climb inside him, these first seconds together like flying into a star, all heat and light and anticipation of a merciless, perfect oblivion, if only she can get him close enough.
He breaks their kiss, releases his hand, places one each side of her head so she can't look away. "Tell me what you need, Kathryn," he says, drawing out her name, stroking it with his mouth like it is another bodily part of her. "I saw you before. I heard you. You know what you want. So tell me."
"I want you …"
"That much is clear."
She shuts her eyes.
"Uh-uh. Look at me."
Why is he pushing? "Damn you, Chakotay! Just fuck me already!"
"Nope."
"What the hell is this?"
"Open your eyes. Tell me what you need."
She almost howls with everything she's been repressing all day, and the more complicated, shadowed turmoil that she's been holding onto for much, much longer than that. Her lids lift almost of their own accord and she meets the dusk of his look and the terrifying, vast truth of his want there, bared for her like a wound, so raw, so vulnerable.
He trusts me.
Her lips part.
"On your knees," she says hoarsely.
His mouth curls dangerously, eyes flashing. He runs his hands over every part of her as he descends, skimming, feathering, exploring, and she has to lean both arms back against the shower wall for support. Then he is kneeling before her, hands on the top of her feet, head down under the onslaught of water, so much of it running over her and onto him, as if they are stones in the river. As if they are the river.
She reaches for him with a trembling hand, tips his head up and just out of reach of the main flow, letting the water sweep his crown. Then, an electrical shock, that barely acknowledged part of her awakens. That part of her that knows and accepts how she really feels. And she smoothes back the hair plastered to his forehead, off his face, the wet strands slipping between her fingers, and is almost overwhelmed by the gesture, the surprise as visible suddenly in his own eyes as it must be in hers, and fought back just as quickly, his gaze deliberately hardening.
"Make me come. With your mouth," she manages, wrenching it all back down. Fighting the thoughts swirling again in her head.
Oh this is fire. Wilder than fire. What are they doing?
Her eyes close when she feels his hot breath at the apex of her thighs. She's almost euphoric, her nerves vibrating like taut steel strings, her body swaying.
"Hang on," he whispers in warning, then his tongue touches her labia, skirting, dancing just the tip inside.
She mews. She's never mewed in her life.
"Spread your legs for me."
Oh, there's a moan. Not even a moan – a full on wail.
He holds her securely as she widens her stance, then his tongue is in her, deft and strong. Too much, far too much, like everything else about him. Devastating.
She's compelled to open her eyes, look down at him. And meets his looking straight up at her. The sight of him there, kneeling beneath her, his mouth moving against her as he laps and suckles and gives himself to her in this way, on top of the exquisite feelings his manoeuvres are wringing from her and the hot water playing around them, is beyond anything she has ever experienced, or imagined – and she's imagined them plenty. Never has she felt this way, so quickly lost in someone else, in herself, so entirely, wonderfully—
She shuts her eyes.
But she feels his hand reach for hers and hold on, and with that security, her climax starts to rise, from under the slim focus of her world – his tongue stroking her with sure, slightly too much but oh just exactly right pressure – and subsume her, tendrils of pleasure pinging all those nerves and making them sing and cry. And then she's broken by how gentle he is, how he saves her as she floats back down, his tongue still soothing her lightly, prolonging her bliss, both hands back at her waist doing more than holding her upright – keeping her from dissolving into her rudimentary atoms.
"Chakotay …" she breathes, and it's almost a sob too. She looks down at him.
"All right?"
"Yes … better than …"
"More?"
"Oh … I …"
And then his tongue is back on her, swirling and coursing, firm and direct on her tender and fluttering flesh, and she is bucking against him at the sensitivity.
"No, wait … too … much …" One hand is tightly grasping him, thumb pressing above his collarbone, the other is in his hair.
He tilts his head away from her. "I want to do this for you. Will you let me?" he says. "Please?"
Did he just … beg?
Unable to find words or even sounds, she simply nods.
He's less gentle this time. His rough tongue and lips work at her and she's in some kind of agony. She wills herself to let go, but can only manage to when she opens her eyes and seeks his reassuring gaze. He carefully takes a hand from her side and touches a finger alongside his moving tongue, drawing it through her fluids, then slickly and forcefully pushes inside her, firming his remaining grasp at her hip to hold her as she roils and cries out, overtaken immediately by an orgasm she didn't even know was nearly upon her, violent and glittering.
And still he presses on. Everywhere at once. He's relentless. She's sure she's still upright only because his strong hand is fixing her in place; her legs certainly aren't doing the job.
She's whimpering as he brings her to her third edge, this time leading her there and releasing, again and again, curving another finger inside her along the way, until she's absolutely senseless and shaking and she's the one doing the begging.
"Please … please …"
He brings his head away from her. "Please what?"
"Please, Chakotay, please … let me come, please."
"You only had to ask." And she can hear the smile in his voice before his divine mouth is on her again. Now he is soft and subtle, languid, winding her up into a slow-motion blur of ecstasy. She has no strength left to resist this kindness, this reverence. And some small, still functioning echo of her brain tells her that this was exactly his intention.
Just after the point of no return, as she breaks, she feels him slide his fingers from her and stand to steady her before she can crumble completely. He brings her into him, resting his forehead against hers as she catches her breath, her senses, the rapid bounding in her chest. She lets him turn them to warm her up under the water, and she gasps at the heat, retracting from it a little into his arms.
But his solid, hard body against hers is no respite. He's hot in every way, and doing nothing to help her regain her composure. His hands slip to her back and caress, too soft for comfort. It is too easy to lift her head and sweep his lips and tongue into her again, the taste of her and him that she finds there not easing the two different aches, the one between her legs and that threatening a much deeper place.
"I want you," she whispers, breaking their kiss for a moment, her need brimming, and she wills him not to hear the thought yearning into the great unknown expanse of their lives yet to come.
"And I want you," he answers, taking her hand as if to bring her back to him, urging her fingers to follow the water trickling down his chest, across a hardened nipple, his stomach and lower, guiding her to find just how much he wants her, right now, in the security and presence of this minute. His hand is gentle around hers, and he wraps them together around his cock. She gasps at his size, only realised when her fine hand is unable to fully enclose his girth. Lust glides through her like soughing layers of silk as she begins to move their hands up and down his shaft, sliding his skin and feeling him harden further. The simple placement of his hand over hers so deeply erotic. Their fingers singe each other.
She can't resist reaching in to taste that nipple just touched, to feel its shape and beauty with her mouth, sucking and licking. She closes her teeth around the hard point and nips soundly, and he hisses, ragged.
He releases her fingers, grazes all his down her back and beyond. Barely splayed, his broad hands easily encompass her behind, fingertips tantalisingly tracing her cleft. He steps his feet a little further apart to bear them, and then he's lifting her up, taking all her weight, and she's thrilling to the wonderful shock of this pleasure she didn't know she craved. Her arms come about his neck, legs wrapping around him, and then he undulates his hips, sliding his cock back and forth through her wetness until he is soaked with her arousal.
A spark of heady trepidation courses through her when she feels him press at her entrance; it's been so long and he's so large, and oh how she must have him, and have him now.
"Chakotay …" she whimpers.
He leans in to kiss her briefly, biting at her abused lip again, and the spark changes impulsion and direction, hits her right where his hot hardness is moving through her and against her swollen clit. His lips scatter from her chin along her jaw, and her pelvis hunts him, aching to pull him into her.
"I'll look after you," he says into her ear, just audible over the susurration of the shower spray. She feels his tongue flick at her lobe. "But Kathryn," he continues, his voice impossibly lower and sweeter, "I'm going to fuck you into next week."
Some incomprehensible sound, basic and animal, comes from her throat. Then he sinks his teeth into her shoulder, starting to surge into her at the same time. As promised, he's careful and considerate but does not retreat when she cries out from his unfathomable strain to fill her, simply silences her with his tongue and lips, spinning her lust fiercely so that the bliss is one and the same with the beautiful pain. Once fully inside her, he begins to rock her gently against him, letting her body stretch and remember what this is like.
Except it's never been like this before. He's filling every part of her. Unbearable. Dazzling bright clarity. She's overwhelmed again by wanting to be under his skin, but this time deeper than that – part of his bone, his soul. And she knows she could drown in him.
Oh … this is … this is …
His mouth moves from hers to rest against her neck, lips shifting with his short breaths and groans. "Be here, Kathryn," he murmurs, paring her thoughts. "Be here."
And then he proceeds to make good on the other half of his promise. He's navigated them so she's hard up against the wall once more, her fingers clutching his shoulders. Bracing, he draws his cock nearly fully out before thrusting back in so fast, so hard all the air is pushed from her lungs. He does it again and then sets a pace. Her head taps the wall with every plunge, but she doesn't care. Guttural gasps rush from her, and the noises seem to be driving him to distraction, driving him into her with more and more power, and it's everything real, everything honest.
As hard and fast and primal as this savage collision is, she does drown, for together they are astonishing, and as right as the river that they are more than part of.
"Can you reach yourself?" he pants, urgent and drawn. "I've got you. Make yourself come."
She threads a hand down between them. His body is, then isn't, against hers, and there's no room but it's perfect, their flesh soft and hard, firm and melting. Her fingers slip through her folds to find him, explore how they move together as one. She doesn't really need to do more than this, it wouldn't take long, but she knows he is just hanging on, every part of his body demanding to let go, and so her fingers drift up slightly and she brings herself to climax, her muscles gripping him as she careens into the incomprehensible flawlessness of their star. Instantly, his body tightens around hers, his nails grooving low half circles into her flesh, and with a final deep thrust he too falls with a bellow, his head dropping against her shoulder.
For a moment that is theirs, there is nothing else. Slowing breaths; juddering, overwrought muscles; his chest ebbing and flowing against hers. Arms still firm around each other. And the water all around.
Then his hold on her relents and he slips out of her, untangling from their embrace and setting her down on unstable legs.
It doesn't mean anything, she tells herself, this dark emptiness that unrolls to greet their separation. It is too well known to her to mean anything.
She lets him gently guide her out of the shower, willing herself to hold on to this dream, surrender to the surreal. She leans into his side, exhausted, hearing him order the computer to shut the water off.
He leads her to the bed and moves to leave as she lies down. "Don't go," she says, from instinct not mind, not even bothering to challenge herself.
"I'm just getting a towel." He leans in as if to kiss her but doesn't, turning back to the bathroom. She rolls onto her back with a sigh, her head lolling to watch him. Listless and spent, she sucks deep down inside every precious instant of this full first decent view of his naked body, and then too the wholly different vantage when he returns dried off, storing the vision away as she waits for reality to reach her.
He half sits on the side of the bed, a leg bent underneath him, and offers her the towel he's brought back, and reluctantly she sits up to dry herself and meet the aftermath.
"This can't happen again." Her voice is a stranger, brisk and oppressive. She gestures vaguely between them, avoiding his gaze, her other hand a fist around a crumple of towel. What else can she say?
His hand slides into her field of view searching for hers, enfolding gently. Broad fingers entwine with hers, rest on her thigh, soft copper and pale together, light dappling water.
"It's fine. I know how it has to be."
It's not fine. She heard the unevenness in his voice, a wraith of hope first taunting, then dissolving.
The decision always has to be the same, over and over. Every single day. Tonight doesn't make a blind bit of difference.
Eventually, the diffuse hum of the ship becomes louder than everything else. She looks up at him – the first time they've looked at each other properly since his head was between her legs, and the stark image catches her square. Already past, already a memory and never again.
The small, black chuckle she gives is empty and certain. "Did we just manage to fail at angry sex? We can't even get that right."
He dips his head in that way of his and when he lifts his eyes to meet hers again, it is with an answering tip of his mouth, genuine and familiar. "I think maybe yes. But … that was better. I feel better."
She realises it's a question, and when she thinks about it, she finds she feels the same. "Me too," she says, and this time the smile she gives to him is true.
Then her chest closes up and she has to look away.
He gives her hand a quick squeeze. "I do have something very important to ask you," he says, shifting a little on the bed. She looks up at him again. His face has become unreadable. "And I want you to consider it seriously. Take your time and answer honestly."
"Chakotay—"
"—I know we're unlikely to be in this situation again." He clears his throat. "So, I want to take this opportunity we have now to ask you …" A furrow appears between his eyes, and her heart instantly catches.
Oh please no. I thought he understood? "I'm not sure—"
"No, wait. I've been thinking about this all evening. It concerns something I saw."
"You saw?" She is suddenly not clear what he is getting at.
"Yes."
"All right."
He takes a deep breath. "In the shower."
"What?" Her look is through narrowed eyes now.
"On the shelf. Your vibrator. It seems an interesting choice. I was just wondering—?"
"—Chakotay!" she cries, letting out a rush of laughter.
"Well, I've seen – used – all sorts –" he continues, matter of fact.
"Of course," she says dryly.
Then the lines at his eyes just crinkle, his mouth becoming only very slightly stronger with the effort of suppressing his own amusement. "– but never a corn cob."
"That's your question?"
"Yes. Now, I want total honesty."
She slips her hand out of his and starts dabbing at her hair with the towel, arching a brow. "It was a ridiculous, tongue-in-cheek gift from my sister!" she says, playing at being as affronted as she can, grateful once again for that skill he seems to have at negotiating the rapids. He purses his lips and raises his own eyebrows, looking at her questioningly. "Well, there's a lot of corn in Indiana!" she says with a huff.
He laughs then, eyes twinkling. "Ah! Well, thank you for clearing that up for me." Before she can somehow sabotage the moment, he gets up off the bed and sets about retrieving his clothes.
She rummages under her pillow for her nightgown and slips it on, then when he's dressed he follows her out to the living area.
And just like that, they're at her door.
"Hell of a first fight," he says, his eyes gently inquiring, reading her own. Standing there, all first officer, hands behind his back, feet just so.
"Hell of a first time," her reply escapes. And she wishes immediately she could take it back.
His eyes widen a little in surprise, but he manages to remain otherwise inscrutable, carefully guarded now their bodies are not locked together and one of them is in uniform. She didn't want to give him hope exactly; now she's not even sure what she did intend. Another slip up in this night of error and misstep. And this, on top of yesterday's conversation and today's fight. All of this is too, too much … Her fingers touch her throat. She can't get enough air in her lungs.
"We made it across, Kathryn," he says firmly, as if he can see all the machinations of her uneasy mind.
But which of us is the scorpion, which the fox? she wonders. And which of us managed to fight down our nature long enough to keep us safe — if we are, in fact, safe?
He steps toward her and takes her hands, and his calm swifts around her. "I think we both needed this. To make sense of today, what happened between us."
The thought settles her. He's right, she realises. And she's thankful for all this careful structuring of the truth, the rebuilding of their distance, the avoidance of her latest mistake – all her mistakes.
"Today wasn't personal," he says. "Tonight was. I came here as your friend. I wanted to check you were okay. I wanted to see if we were okay." He pauses for a moment, soothes his thumbs over her wrists, as if comforting her against his next words, as if gathering courage too. "The line between us – is not easy for me either. I understand and respect the line. I will keep to it – I don't want you to worry that I won't." He tips his head a little closer. "But, I want you to understand, none of this matters to me. Either way, I'll always be here for you. You'll never be alone. Whether you think you are or not. It'll be true whether you believe it or not." He lets her go and takes a step back.
Whether it is the leftover alcohol in her system, the force of his words giving her strength, or her own recklessness once more she's not sure, but she lets herself look at him, really look at him, study his features, try to see beneath his composure.
He's not as good at hiding as he thinks. The love in his eyes, his heart obviously in his mouth as he waits for her response. Everything is there. She's just never let herself see it before.
And somehow, then, as this small, considerate space he's placed between them begins to loom, she realises that this night has made the years stretching ahead of them a little easier to bear. In acknowledging some of what is between them, in acknowledging the difficulty –
She chooses not to complete the thought, instead looking up into him with a final, open smile. "Thank you, Chakotay," she says softly. The words are thin, trite. But she means so much with them and they are exactly right. She hopes he understands.
They stand together on the bank.
"Goodnight, Kathryn."
"Goodnight."
We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah, well! we may conjecture many things.
— John Wesley Powell