When You Are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
—William Butler Yeats
Although life always ends in death, it still seems impossible that Admiral Kathryn Janeway should be subject to this law. B'Elanna reaches out and lifts her former commanding officer's hand from the bed gently. It won't be long now.
"I hope you know how much we love you, Captain," she says softly, not sure if this is one of those times when she will hear. In snatched, elusive moments over these last few days, her former captain has been more lucid and shrewd than B'Elanna has ever known her to be, before sinking again into the place of pain and dissonance she occupies with more and more certainty.
Janeway smiles beneath closed lids. It has been a long, long time since anyone called her "Captain".
It is a clear moment, and B'Elanna seeks to make the most of it. "You gave up so much. Thank you. We love you ... We love you."
Janeway nods tiredly, dismissively. "If I had the time again, I would do it all the same ..."
The older woman's laboured breathing becomes the only sound for a while, and B'Elanna lets her memories claim her. So many, many years ago now, but so much of that time in the Delta Quadrant is still present, having shaped her and the rest of the crew, her family, into the people they are now.
"Our lives are so brief," Janeway says suddenly, "so brief ..." Her voice trails off, and her friend wonders if she has drifted away again, but then she speaks once more, with a sudden urgency, grabbing at B'Elanna's hand. "Is he happy? Was he happy? Do you know?"
B'Elanna doesn't need to ask who she means, although she has never brought up the subject with her before, not once in all the years following their return. She nods before remembering Janeway can't see her answer. "Yes," she replies. "At least I think so. I haven't seen him for a few years."
"Good. He deserves happiness. I was cruel to him."
B'Elanna demurs, soothes. "You weren't."
Janeway opens her eyes. Once so, so blue, they are now clouded and grey, simultaneously still and shifting, like the many nebulae they once gazed upon. She turns them B'Elanna's way as if to look at her and scoffs lightly.
"You don't know. It was a mess. And I was cruel; it doesn't matter why I had to ... or chose to ... it was a terrible thing." She raises her hand and swishes it through the air with a terse chuckle, scorning herself. "And now here I am selfish again — luxuriating in this wallowing." She nods, deciding and convincing herself of something. "It is enough to know he is happy. That you all have been."
The engineer can't stop a sob from escaping her. Selfish is not a word she would ever use to describe this incredible, resilient woman who lies dying before her.
The woman who was Kathryn surfaces.
She remembers the last time she and he spoke; the first and only time they met in full honesty. It was a breath in time, seconds in a lifetime, but the memory is indelible.
Of course, she saw him after that, usually at distance, occasionally exchanged cool pleasantries with him when some official occasion necessitated it, but they never talked again.
She lets herself go to meet the memory, this one last time. It is as sharp and painful as it has always been, but its topography is so well known to her, its undulations and plains so familiar, that she finds in it now, as she has for some time, a discordant comfort.
She remembers their return to the Alpha Quadrant, and the ensuing weeks that were a storm of debriefings, hearings, reports, psychological assessments, reassignments, promotions; a whirlwind of the media; an intensity of reunions with friends and family. Then the wild weather died, almost as violently as it had burst into life, and, one day, she found herself walking a near-empty ship, escorting her former first officer to the transporter room for the last time. It was a walk as familiar as her own skin, and something that she hadn't let herself know she would miss: his presence at her side; his steps unconsciously measured to match her own shorter ones; the companionable silence of understanding.
Other than a smattering of technical crew overseeing the refit, they were the only people left on board. She had requested to remain for as long as she could, seeking calm in the known and resisting meeting the disquieting feeling that had been coiling in her, just out of reach, ever since they had got back to the Alpha Quadrant. It's opacity not withstanding, that feeling that she couldn't quite contact, didn't want to examine, had accompanied her everywhere, undermining her triumph at making it home, her jubilance at reuniting with her family, her pride in their crew.
She risked a glance at him as they walked. His face appeared impassive, but for a moment she allowed herself to seek the subtle lines at the corners of his mouth, at the corners of his eyes that betrayed something ... something. She dropped her gaze lest he become aware of her attention, rubbed at the back of her neck in some kind of irritation.
Once he had been her best friend. And for a time, almost more.
Over the years, the dimensions of what they were to each other altered. Distance eventually grew between them as she suspected it would. Their friendship had always been hard to navigate, a constant flowing, ebbing course that had brought them up hard against the frustrating obstacle of mutual desire, and the promise of so much more, time and time again. Despite his assertion on that planet so long ago, she had known even then he could not be her burden carrier forever. He lived in the moment, not in anticipation; he couldn't balance himself on that precipice indefinitely.
So when it had come, the distance, she had chosen to embrace it, assured herself it was better this way.
And it had been better ... right up until ... She fought back a surge of emotion that pricked her eyes.
He was leaving now to meet a different life, to prepare for his wedding to Seven. Her mind still recoiled from the shock of this fact even though she had known it for some time.
She wondered again what he was thinking, whether he thought of her at all anymore in any way other than as she had always commanded he should, and, bleakly, whether this last moment meant anything to him at all.
They would have made that walk in complete silence, all the way from the bridge to the transporter room — god, even now she still wished they had — but they ran into a crewmember who had wanted to talk to them about ... whatever it was; that part is gone now. The woman passed a PADD to her; except Chakotay thought it was being passed to him, and their hands collided as they reached for it at the same time. Janeway can still feel exactly where and how their skin had touched. They looked at each other and she felt the weight of his desire, as well as something altogether more terrifying, as a direct blow.
She doesn't recall how they ended up there, but the next thing she remembers is being in a dark empty cargo bay, pressed up against a bulkhead, his hand pulling at her turtleneck, the plink of her pips hitting the floor; his lips at her throat; a strange, low rasping sound that she was only vaguely aware was her own moaning; her hands crazed with crushing him to her; his fingers everywhere at once; their breath igniting. Home, she remembers thinking, both comforted and frightened at the same time. Finally.
But her rational mind fevered. "Seven ... Seven ..." she gasped, the words coming out in a strangled graze.
Abruptly, he broke away, shaking. She dragged at her mouth with the back of her hand, leaning against the wall for support, and maddeningly heard herself start to cry, the tears coming from the well she had for so long pretended was not there. She couldn't bear the look on his face, so clear even in the sooty cargo bay.
"Damn you, Kathryn!" he roared, the sound feral and loose, grinding into her bones, destroying her.
She understood and knew his anger, knew it had been there all along; it was another thing she had chosen to simply not see. He had once said she'd brought him peace, in that place she had buried her dreams. But there was no peace in this moment, no control, no calm, nor, she realised, had there been for a long time. Her heart pumped in her ears and she felt her body threaten in its support of her.
"I ... I'm sorry," she managed, stricken.
"I know. I know." He paced in the shadowy light, his hands raking his hair. "I'm sorry too. I'm so damned sorry. You care about everyone — everyone except yourself and me. We are home. But we will never be home." A raw sound escaped him that left her bleeding. "I'm broken, you know that? I'm done ..."
But then he wheeled on her, a last desperate plea, took her hands in his, his eyes frantic, wretched but filled with a final shred of hope despite what he had just said, full of love absolutely laid bare. He started to say something, but she pulled back, hitting the back of her head on the bulkhead with a dusky, painful crack.
"Don't say it," she said, shaking her head, her head fizzing from the impact and him both, tears biting her eyes. "Don't you dare!"
A hand had been raised to touch her head, check her injury. At her words he dropped it and his face hardened so quickly that it took her breath away. He let her go and stepped back.
"It's done then." And this time his voice came from a place she had no knowledge of.
She felt herself shrink to the size of a pinhead, the universe spiral to her heart and die there, and the fall begin.
"It's done ..." she heard herself repeat flatly from the chasm, already miles apart from him, the rushing air roaring in her ears.
That single glassy, horrific moment is settled and tucked in around her now as she lies here in the dark, waiting for the end.
Until that moment, she had not faced the extent of her feelings for him. And after ... well, that was the cut of it. It was like nothing she had ever experienced before or would again. She had not known ... she had not known how strongly one could feel love and then the desolation of the absolute loss of that love. And then, knowing the truth, moving on, going forward with that knowledge ... But she did. For she was Kathryn Janeway. Space beckoned, the stars called.
She wishes ... she wishes ...
But wishes are not worth the dust they are traced in.
With a small gasp B'Elanna wakes in the late afternoon to the sound of knocking, realises she has been dreaming, having fallen asleep slumped in a chair beside the older woman's bed, her head flung back awkwardly. She presses the top of her spine, flexing her neck and grimacing at the pain, pulling up then releasing the quilt that roughly covers her. What woke her?
The knocking comes again. With a glance at Janeway to make sure she is safe and settled, B'Elanna gets up to go to the door.
It is her former commander. B'Elanna gives him a sad smile as they take in what the time has done to them both and find, as is always the case between family, that no time has passed at all. She reaches for his hands and gives them a squeeze.
"Chakotay. It's good to see you."
"It's good to see you too."
"I wish it was under better circumstances." Her inflection is pointed and he doesn't fail to notice it.
He nods, a flick of grey hair, which he wears longer now, coming across an eye. He releases her hands to push it back off his face and she steps aside in the doorway, inviting him into the small lakehouse.
"B'Elanna ... I should have come sooner. I know I should have."
She glances at him reproachfully. "There's no point in asking you why you didn't, is there?" She gives a small harrumph, steps further into the room and motions for him to pass her his coat and sit on the small couch but he shakes his head and remains standing, his body not really knowing what to do with itself.
She makes a noise of exasperation and a ripple of anger passes through her as she holds out a hand again for his jacket. "The number of times I wanted to bang your stupid heads together – on the ship, and after we got back!"
He stiffens at her outburst as he shrugs off the item of clothing and hands it to her, but she notes with a twinge of grim satisfaction that he at least has the decency to not look surprised. She watches him absently bite the inside of the corner of his mouth. He looks chastened, yes, but sad, so very sad. The greyness of his skin, the stoop in his shoulders; neither is due entirely to gathering age. Her heart surges for him as she hangs his coat on the stand.
Turning to him again, her voice softens. "But would it have made any difference if I had?"
"No ... I ... she ..." He takes a rough breath.
Watching him struggle, she relents a little, reaching out and pulling him to her in a hug. She feels his arms wrap around her tightly. "I'm so sorry, Chakotay ... so very sorry for you ... for you both," she whispers before pulling back, roughly swiping at an errant tear with a thumb.
"Go see her." She motions with her head to the door at the back of the small sitting room. His eyes lift, reluctantly, to look where she is indicating. "She's through there. I ... don't think there's much time left."
"Thank you, B'Elanna." He pauses, seems to be grasping for words. "I know it's not my place to say, but thank you for taking care of her."
She nods, and he gives her a shoulder a squeeze as he passes, heading to the room ahead and the memories behind.
He expects her to be smaller. Isn't that what they always say? That death shrinks life? But there is that familiar jolt that always used to accompany his laying eyes on her, and she fills the room to bursting, just as she always has.
He looks at her as he never had the opportunity to before. It is a strange feeling, and he is uncomfortable looking at her this way without having her permission to do so – old habits die hard. Her eyes are closed. Time should have softened her, but it hasn't. The line of her shoulders, the sharpness of her cheekbones, vividness of her hair, long once more and spread out around her head like a halo, are all as he remembers them – although her hair is white now rather than auburn; it does not age her. Her pale skin is radiant, luminescent and almost transparent. He thinks what he has always thought when snatching gazes of her – beautiful – feels what he has always felt: the privilege of being near her. The other feelings ... those he pushes aside with practised proficiency.
He reaches for the chair that B'Elanna recently vacated, and picks up the homespun quilt she has flung over its back as he sits, spreading it across his knees, letting himself be distracted by the intricate patterns in the cloth. The glint of his wedding ring catches his eye, and he takes it off and pockets it with a sigh. He does not know why he does so – she must know he married again – but it feels so very wrong somehow to wear it here, next to Kathryn.
"Chakotay ..."
His head jerks up in surprise to find her unseeing eyes trained upon him. His name on her lips remains the most unsettling thing he has ever known.
"I thought you were asleep. Did I disturb you?"
Her breathing is loud, but roughly even, and he realises she does not hear him, is either asleep or moving with the shadows between worlds. It hadn't been an acknowledgement of his presence; it had been a question – she had been calling for him. His heart moves in a way it hasn't for a long time, stirs those feelings that he hasn't let himself experience for what seems like eternity. He remembers the past as if it were yesterday, fresh and present like rain.
"Kathryn, I'm here."
He reaches out and takes her hand, slowly so as not to frighten her, lets his fingers interlock with hers.
He feels her fingers press his.
"Chakotay?" This is different, earnest.
"It's me."
She gives a half sob, half laugh.
"Oh ... Chakotay," her voice a caress of sadness. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
He decides to take up the responsibility again, the one he never should have shrugged off so easily. He broke his promise to her, and has never forgotten his error. He doesn't feel himself start to cry.
He thinks about what she needs to hear, to allow her to go freely and unburdened into the last great expanse.
"I love you, Kathryn Janeway," he says at last, slowly, clearly, so he can be as sure as he can that she will hear him and not mistake him. "I forgive you; although there is nothing to forgive. I have been as much at fault as you, even more."
She is crying, soundlessly, small tears, as if they are all she has left, tracing her cheeks.
He bends his head close to hers and, as she had once given him hers, in that cargo bay so long ago, he gives her his truth, the ache of his life.
"I miss you," he says. "I have missed you since the day we met."
A small moan leaves her and she grasps more tightly at his hand, twisting, locking their palms closer together, and he grips hers back, whispering all the words he always wanted to say but she never allowed, over and over and over, stroking her cheek until she seems to fall asleep. As night unwinds into the room, he lies down beside her on the narrow bed and closes his eyes.
He becomes slowly aware of the black becoming grey and then the light of dawn approaching, white and clear. He opens his eyes, for the first time waking up to her beside him, his arm protectively on her stomach, her head next to his. She is so beautiful, always so beautiful. So fierce and intelligent, wild and brave. He smiles. The first of the sun's rays filter into the room and touch her face. Her features are still now, her chest's cycle of rise and fall ended. It is the first time he has ever seen her look at peace.