Usual disclaimers.

chp. 3

They would be in orbit in six hours.

Tuvok contacted Chakotay yesterday on the dusty combadge he had pulled from beneath a pile of junk. In six hours, they would be here to help him pack up the last seven years of his life. He had already started to, but it was difficult. He had packed away most of Katherine's things a long time ago, and having to unearth them was depressing, and brought back too many memories. Some were good, but some, like the memory of her death, were excruciating. The two years they had spent with each other hadn't been without its pitfalls, but for the most part, they had been very happy. And that was the hardest thing to remember of all.

Just an hour ago, he had put the twins to bed, and given them each a little memento of their mother to fall asleep with. It was just a few little things he had found while he was sorting through one of the storage closets, but he thought Kathryn would have liked the children to have them. He had actually forgotten all about them.

To his daughter, he had given a small porcelain ballerina figurine that Kathryn had brought with her from Voyager. It was a delicate little thing, dressed in pink with long blonde hair. Kathryn had once confessed to him that she had always had a secret urge to be blonde, especially as a child.

"I had an awful time in ballet when I was little," she laughed. "Generally, tutus were pink."

"Tutus?"

"Yes, those are what the puffy skirts on ballerinas are called. Little girls in ballet class tend to wear pink tutus. But my hair was such an awful shade of red when I was a child that it clashed horribly. I drove my mother insane with my fits about it, I begged her to let me dye it, but of course I was so little that she wouldn't let me. I wanted to have long, beautiful blonde hair, like one of the girls in class, Tammy. She had such beautiful hair, and the pink tutus always looked so good with it. But I had to suffer with the color I was born with," she said ruefully.

"I think it's a lovely color."

"Now, maybe. You wouldn't have thought so then. I was so obsessed; I wouldn't have any doll unless it was blonde. My mother, of course, thought it was encouraging a negative self image, but my father didn't see the harm in it, and eventually, I lost my interest in ballet and blondes." She smirked. "I never even liked blonde men. But I did keep a few of my blonde dolls, just to remind myself how silly I was once."

Now the little blonde ballerina was firmly enclosed in the warm hand of his five year old daughter. She had never been in a ballet class, or worn a pink tutu, so she didn't understand the significance behind it. She didn't even have red hair; her hair was a deep chocolate color, with a hint of auburn to it. But she did know it belonged to her mother, and that made it worth everything to her.

Edward now had in his possession an object which had belonged first to his grandfather, then his father. It was actually a family heirloom.

A long time ago, pilots used to wear these on their uniforms. Not so much shuttle pilots. It was in the days before shuttles, when commercial transportation involved airplanes. The airplane pilots would wear these as a symbol of what they were doing." She had smiled softly as she handed him the little gold wings to look at. "My father told me they were meant to represent the fact that the pilots could fly, like birds. But I always thought of them as angel's wings. The pilots were responsible for flying hundreds of people across large distances, and at the time, it was a fairly new method of transport. So I always saw the pilots as angels, since they were responsible for all those lives. Of course, that was when I was very little, but I always kept the wings close to me. They belonged to an ancestor of my father's."

After she died, he had been too distraught to keep her things out, and had packed most of it away. He had forgotten about these things until he found them today, and he felt a pang of guilt that he hadn't given them to the kids by now. Although they were only five, but still. So he was glad they were tucked into their beds, their little hands wrapped around a piece of their mother.

And now he was outside again, staring at the stars like he did every night, wondering how his life ended up like this. Sometimes he wondered if he would trade the twins to have Kathryn back again. Would he? It scared him that he didn't know the answer. After all, he had known them longer than he had known Kathryn. He couldn't even know how he and Kathryn's relationship would have progressed had she lived, even though they would have been the only two adults on the planet. Hell, he didn't know how it would have ended up between them if they had never been stranded here. For all he knew, they would have gone through the rest of their time on Voyager as polite strangers, or at best, good friends. All the variables and unknowns ate away at him.

The Angry Warrior was out tonight, reminding him even more of Kathryn. There wasn't a day that went by that didn't remind him of her. But every time this constellation was out, it was a sharp twist in his gut, hitting home yet again that she was gone forever. But he would stand here anyway, staring up at it, torturing himself. Thinking of her, of the way it was, of the way it started, and the way it ended.

He woke up one morning to the smell of something faintly burning. Once, that might have alarmed him, but after six months with Kathryn, he had gotten used to it. It usually just meant she was making breakfast.

He stared up at the ceiling of the shelter, listening to her moving around in the kitchen. Six months. Had it been six months already? It felt like just yesterday he stood next to her as she delivered her heartfelt good-bye speech to her crew. After that, they had attempted to get through their time on New Earth together. She had been convinced that they probably wouldn't be there that long, and he had decided not to bank on a 'probably'. After the plasma storm had destroyed all her work and equipment, she had finally started to let go of their old life. It had been difficult, but little by little, she was letting go of her life as a captain and embracing this new world they now lived in.

And little by little, she was letting down the walls she had raised against him.

He got out of bed and made his way to the small sonic shower which stood in the corner of his room. He couldn't wait form the additions to the shelter to be finished. He had added two nice, spacious bathrooms to the new design, and it would be a relief to not have to squeeze into this tiny space every morning,

Once he was dressed, he left his room and entered the kitchen. Kathryn was sitting at the table, her eyes on a PADD and her hand wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee. She was still in her bathrobe, and her long hair was in a messy ponytail. He smiled. Over the last few months, he had seen a new side to Kathryn, a lazy side. She loved to stay in her nightclothes, just lounging, for as long as possible in the morning.

The table was covered with food – some of it burnt – and he realized how hungry he was. He took a seat at the table, and without looking up, she handed him a mug of tea.

"Thanks." He took a sip. "What are you reading?"

"Catcher in the Rye," she mumbled. Then she looked up, and grinned. "Sorry, I barely heard you come in!" She jumped up and grabbed a towel covered plate from off the stove. "Happy six months!" she exclaimed, then whipped the towel off the plate.

"Well, now that looks like a mushroom omelet!" he said happily. "I didn't see any mushrooms around here."

"There aren't any, as far as I know. I used the replicator for the mushrooms. But I made the omelet." She gestured to the muffins on the table, next to the burnt toast and the raw looking pancakes. "I made all that, too."

He smiled as he appraised the food. "The muffins look good."

"Oh, you!" she threw the towel at him. He laughed.

"Why do I feel like you're always throwing something at me?"

"Why do I feel like you're always giving me cause to throw things at you?" she retorted.

They sat at the table together, enjoying the omelets and muffins and tacitly agreeing to recycle the toast and pancakes. They engaged in their usually morning banter, and Chakotay couldn't help be a little grateful for it. They had never talked like this on Voyager. Hell, on Voyager, they rarely talked about anything that didn't concern ships business.

"I'm surprised you remembered what today was."

She quirked an eyebrow. "Why? Because I'm not you?"

"Touché." He shook his head. "No, I just didn't think anniversaries were your thing. And it is only six months."

"Six months we survived…without killing each other."

"I never thought we would." He held her gaze as he took a bite of his omelet. "You know, this is pretty good."

"Thanks." She idly twirled a spoon around her coffee mug. "What are your plans for today?"

"I actually thought we might take a day off. I know you want to work more on your crops, and we both know I still have a lot to do on the house, but I thought maybe we could just relax. Maybe we could go take a swim."

"Well, the warm season is ending soon. It might be out last chance to do that for a while."

"Do you have an idea of how long winter is going to last?"

She sat back and rubbed her eyes with a sigh. "Well, spring was just starting when we arrived. This planet follows a three hundred day rotation, twenty-six hour days. That averages to roughly eleven Earth months. We had three months of spring and three months of summer, so I'm going to hazard a guess and say fall and winter will probably be about that. It's a good thing the rotations and revolutions of this planet aren't very dissimilar from Earth." She grinned. "I sure do hope you're done with the house by the time winter arrives."

"We can always huddle together for warmth," he teased. She blushed.

"Maybe we shouldn't take that swim. I would hate to keep you from your work." She said sweetly.

"Don't you worry about my work. You go on and get ready, and I'll clean up breakfast. We'll see if all those stories of you about being a good swimmer are true."

"Hey!" she yelped. "I'll have you know I used to swim in the underground caverns-"

"Yes, yes, the underground caverns of Mars, so you've told me." He raised an eyebrow. 'Pity I don't have evidence to corroborate that."

She glared and stood up. "Eat up, Chakotay. You'll need your strength.

The walked the short distance to the lake, and piled their things close to the shoreline. He blinked as she pulled her t-shirt over her head to reveal a two piece swimsuit. Her t-shirt had been long, and had disguised exactly how short her shorts were. She kept the shorts on, and kicked off her sandals as she made her way to the water's edge. She dipped a toe in.

"It feels pretty warm." She turned around and looked at him. "What?" Is something wrong?"

He shook himself out of his daze and grinned at her. "Been working out?" He gestured to her flat, slightly defined stomach.

She curled her lip at him in disgust. "Men. You all only think with one organ."

"Now that's just not true. I think with my stomach, too."

"Of course." She rolled her eyes. "Actually, I think I may be in the best shape of my life. All the manual labor we've been doing here, and the walking, it's all toned me up. I guess sitting in that chair for hours on end made me a little paunchy."

"Hardly. But I know what you mean. I definitely feel like I've dropped a few pounds." He pulled his short over his head, and this time it was Kathryn's turn to stare appreciatively. He busied himself with finding the sunscreen hypo while she took in his chest and shoulders. He pretended not to notice, but inwardly, he was smiling.

"Here, you should take the sunscreen hypo. With your complexion, you'll burn pretty quick." He approached her and she tilted her heads to allow him access to her neck. He pressed the hypo to her neck, and then to his own. "There, we're all set. So it's warm, huh?"

"Yeah, it's really nice, I really though it might be…"Her sentence was cut off by her own shriek as Chakotay lifted her into his arms and ran into the lake with her. He laughed as he lost his footing and they both toppled into the water. Kathryn resurfaced, sputtering. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and glared at him while he continued to laugh.

"That was not funny!" she exclaimed. He just kept laughing. "Chakotay, it isn't funny!" she frowned when he didn't stop, and in retaliation, pushed a large wave at him. No it was his turn to sputter and her turn to laugh.

"Oh, you terrible woman!" he headed towards her, and she evaded him, still laughing.

They spent a large portion of the day in the lake, alternating between water fights and actual swimming. Every now and then they would lay in the sun for a bit, but they were having too much fun to stay out of the water for long. The sun started to set, and they were still in the lake. Chakotay resurfaced to find Kathryn in the shallow part of the lake, where she could stand with the water only up to her shoulders. She was gazing at the sky, a look of sadness on her face.

"Kathryn?" he swam over to her, and she looked over at him, chagrined. "You look upset."

"Oh, I was just thinking. I'm fine, though."

"Want to talk about it?"

She continued to stare at the sunset. "It's just…it's odd, sometimes, you know? Six months ago, I was the captain of a starship. I was heading home. I was…I don't know. I guess I was someone else. I'm not her anymore, am I?"

"No," he said softly. "No, you're not. But I think you might be who you were back home, whenever you weren't the captain. I never met her, but I can imagine that she would be like you are now."

"They really are different, aren't they?" she laughed. "The captain and Kathryn. Two completely different women. And the captain doesn't really exist anymore, does she?"

"I wouldn't say that. If anything, she's adapted to the new life she has. No, actually, that's not true." He said. "I think that the captain, and Kathryn, are finally able to be one person." He grinned. "And I am very thankful for that. I was getting a terrible headache keeping track of you two."

She smiled softly. "It's just so strange. I'll never see Earth again. I'll never see my family."

"You don't know that, Kathryn. We can't know what the future might bring. We can only live for today."

She laughed. "Well, that sounds familiar."

"I do feel like I have to reiterate that to you a lot!" he laughed too, moving closer to her. "I know this isn't what either of us expected out of life. We made lives for ourselves, such as they were, on Voyager. And that was an adjustment to being with. Now it's just you and me, alone together for the rest of the foreseeable future. I'm surprised you aren't heading for the hills in horror."

"Oh please, you're not that bad."

"Gee, thanks." He inched his way even closer. "I do have to say, though, that you've been very pleasant to be marooned with. I doubt Tom Paris or Tuvok would have been as much fun." He pushed a lock of hair back out of her face. "Or as attractive." He said, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

Kathryn regarded him for a moment. "Chakotay, may I ask you something?"

He rested his hand on her shoulder. "Of course."

"If we were stranded here, with other people, other women…would you still be about to kiss me?"

He stared at her, silently, for a moment. "It would only ever be you I would be about to kiss," he said, just as he pulled her towards him and pressed his lips to hers.

It was more than he had expected it to be. As spiritual as he could be, Chakotay had never been one of those people who bought into the whole 'power of a kiss' romanticism so many others did, but this kiss was about to change his mind on that. They wrapped their arms around each other, pressed against each other so tightly it was as though they were trying to become one. He ran his hands through her long hair and she dug her fingers into his back, and it was an explosion of every glance and every smile and every laugh that had gone unanswered over the past six months, and even over the last two and half years. Ever since that day their eyes met over the view screen and a fire was started right then and there, and it had been building into an inferno until this moment.

"Finally," he thought.

Finally, they broke the kiss, still clinging to each other in the morning, breathing heavily. They stared into each other's eyes solemnly. "We can't ever go back no, can we?" she asked quietly.

"No, we can't."

"Everything will change now, won't it?"

"Everything changed six months ago, Kathryn."

She ran a hand down his jaw line. "We belong to each other now, don't we?" she whispered.

"We belong to each other." He confirmed. "Forever."

She smiled sadly. "Forever is a long time."

"Not for us. I promise." He rested his chin on her hair and she buried her face in his neck. "We can only go forward from here, Kathryn. But wasn't it inevitable anyway?"

"It was," she said, her voice muffled. "If we had stayed on Voyager, this wouldn't have happened. Not until we got home."

Surprised, he leaned back to look at her. "When we got home? You had planned on that?"

She grinned. "Once I had your name cleared of all charges, I would have seen if maybe you would have liked to have dinner."

He laughed. "And I would have said yes."

"Oh, out of gratitude, I suppose," she said sarcastically. "For keeping you out of prison."

"Well, you did that when you destroyed the array." He smiled. "That definitely kept me out of prison."

"Well, what am I even saying? By the time we got home, you may have found someone."

"No," he whispered. "Remember what I told you, all those months ago? I only want to ease your burden. My life has belonged to you, been intertwined with yours since the day I beamed onto your bridge. I would not have found someone else."

She leaned her forehead against his. "Forever?"

"Forever."

But, he reflected sadly as he watched the sky, it had been just as she said. Forever was a long time. And she wasn't here to spend it with him.

He supposed nothing could last forever, not really.

TBC