As they entered the fifth year of their journey, if they wanted to continue on towards the Alpha Quadrant they had no choice other than to cross a vast expanse of space, stretching 250,000 light years; a space that appeared to be completely devoid of all stellar phenomena. It could take them two years to cross it, so, they stockpiled resources and devised ways to conserve energy. The crew nicknamed it 'the void.'
"This could be as big a challenge in its own way as anything we've come up against," Chakotay mused as they sat on the sofa in her quarters, nursing their respective drinks.
She sighed, then fixed her gaze on him and said, "It'll be hard, I know. But I'll be damned if I'm going to let it beat us, Chakotay."
He could see she was already psyching herself up for the briefing the following morning.
"After everything we've been through – the Borg, species 8472, the Hirogen," she went on, "I'm not going to be beaten by a big expanse of nothing, for God's sake! We'll find ways to cope, we have to."
He put down his cup and rolled his shoulders to release a little of the day's tension. He was less worried now than he had been earlier when they'd seen the first long-range sensor readings. The briefing would be fine. She would carry the crew through this somehow, come hell, high water or two years of blackness. Failure simply was not an option.
"We will," he said, as he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her towards him so that her back was resting up against his chest. He leant in to press a kiss to her temple. She managed to juggle her coffee successfully and shifted slightly in his embrace whilst continuing to sip it. He felt a surge of love for this extraordinary woman as she settled against him.
"No overblown desert of nothingness is going to beat my Kathryn, that's for sure; no matter how big it might be," he observed quietly into her ear.
"Damn right," she said into her coffee.
Even as the possessive had slipped from his lips he wondered if she thought of herself as 'his'. It seemed unlikely somehow, despite everything he believed she felt for him. She didn't comment though, and rested her head back against him, so he decided it wasn't important and dismissed it more or less instantly.
They tossed ideas back and forth for hours about how best to counter the inevitable effects of the void on the crew.
Chakotay was pleased to see that she understood immediately that it was essential she make herself more accessible now to the wider crew. He didn't even have to work on persuading her, she just seemed to accept that it would be necessary for both of them to put their considerable morale boosting skills into action immediately and do all they could to keep the crew positive. When they worked in tandem on any task, they were a force to be reckoned with, and this was no exception. Within hours they had come up with a plethora of ideas to present to the senior staff.
The following morning in the briefing, Kathryn and Chakotay took turns introducing their plans. The role of social secretary she split between Tom Paris and Neelix, charging them with the planning and organisation of a variety of regular social events, and she gave Harry Kim and Seven the job of organising competitive sporting events on the holodeck. Chakotay explained that he and Tuvok would take on the task of putting together a series of lectures and tutorials on any subject they could offer, and of drumming up volunteers to staff a timetable of additional educational and recreational courses. All courses were to be open to anyone who wished to enrol. Kathryn offered to lead a course herself, and managed to cajole B'Elanna into agreeing to devise one for anyone who wished to extend or brush up on their engineering skills. Within hours of the idea being floated the Doctor had presented them with an extensive curriculum, encompassing a wide range of subjects, by no means limited to medicine, and Neelix offered to step aside for anyone who had culinary skills they were willing to share.
The first few days in the void were surprisingly busy. Neelix's idea of rotating duty stations proved popular, and scores of the crew volunteered to swap to gain experience of other roles. Some days, Chakotay came on duty to find the most unlikely people manning bridge stations. Given that they were travelling at unvarying warp through absolutely nothing, and absolutely nothing seemed likely to happen for months, he was quite comfortable with the arrangement; it was actually quite refreshing to have different voices and views filling the bridge for a change.
He embraced the idea himself and, a week or so in, the role he'd assigned himself on the bridge one morning afforded him probably the most entertainment he'd had so far on duty in the void.
He walked off the turbo lift onto the bridge to find it staffed exclusively by crewmembers from his Maquis ship.
B'Elanna looked completely at home in the big chair, and would clearly make quite an impact one day if she chose to pursue that career path. At tactical, Chakotay took in Dalby who was lounging on the stool that Tuvok never sat down on, and who seemed to be looking so intently at his monitor that Chakotay wondered if he was actually playing a game on it with Ayala, who was at operations, looking similarly transfixed. The real surprise of the morning though was Chell, humming loudly at the helm.
Chakotay had assigned himself to the helm for the start of this shift, to keep his much-maligned piloting skills up to scratch, and was expecting to be taking over from Tom Paris.
Dalby looked up and smirked as he took in Chakotay, descending the steps, on his way to take up a seat next to B'Elanna. Dalby called down to him, "Morning Boss. You're late, the mutiny started five minutes ago."
Chakotay couldn't help but throw back a grin, as he could almost smell the leather and the fumes from smouldering consoles, overloaded by Cardassian weapons' fire. "Good morning," he replied. "Care to explain why Chell is flying the ship, B'Elanna? And it'd better be good."
B'Elanna had the good grace to look a little sheepish. "He's not, I promise. Tom tied helm control into the command console before he left. Chell's just sitting there….for the view."
"The view…"
"He said he was bored, Chakotay, and I know how you want us to do all we can to keep up crew morale. I just thought it'd keep him out of trouble…"
"Do I even want to know what he was doing up here in the first place?"
B'Elanna's face told him that was going to be a 'No'. "He was just delivering a late breakfast someone ordered up," she replied, her eyes flickering for a split second to the right towards tactical, "and he said Neelix was giving him a hard time, so…."
"May I remind everyone this is supposed to be a duty station rotation programme? Rotations arranged with my approval, it's not a chance to swap toys." He walked up to the helm to slap Chell on the shoulder. "Move it, Chell. Relief's here. B'Elanna, transfer back helm control."
"That was fun!" remarked Chell as he picked up a tray that had been balancing on top of helm and he ambled back up the steps towards the turbo lift.
"You're back in business." B'Elanna replied.
Chakotay flexed his fingers in front of him before settling in at the helm and checking to make sure the Bolian hadn't actually managed to fiddle with anything.
He twisted round to address Ayala. "Any sign of elevated neutrino emissions, Mike?"
"No."
"Well, if you get an indication that we might be approaching a giant wormhole that'll dump us on Starfleet Command's doorstep, you might want to warn me so I can fly past it until we get some other people up here; this could really take some explaining."
"No way, Boss," Dalby threw in, "It might give us a bit of bargaining power!"
"Can it, Ken," shot back Chakotay, suppressing a chuckle.
Chakotay also put in some hours in engineering to get his skills back up to speed. It was good to get his hands dirty again, and he secretly quite enjoyed the novelty of B'Elanna bossing him about rather than Kathryn.
Kathryn spent a considerable amount of time in the science lab tutoring the large number of crewmembers who had expressed interest in the seminars she had agreed to lead. She had to set up a waiting list as her sessions were all over-subscribed.
Tuvok took advantage of the situation to put together a command-level training course, taught by himself and the command team. They had long been aware of the lack of officers with sufficient command-level training or experience, and it was high time they began to plan for the future.
Kathryn did more than just profess her willingness to concede some of the distance of command she had been brought up to believe was essential. She could be found chatting with crewmembers in the mess hall on occasion, and she played regular games of velocity with Seven, as well as with Samantha Wildman now. On the few occasions when Chakotay played her he was a little taken a back and slightly threatened by how much her game had improved. His ego was also a little dented after the third, consecutive defeat. Hoverball was more his sort of game anyway, not so damned precise and a lot more physical.
He took full advantage of the extra leisure time they all had to improve his fitness levels. Despite the Doctor's very vocal, public outrage, Chakotay organised a small boxing competition and enjoyed training crewmembers who expressed an interest in the sport. Harry's skill at Parrises Squares became the talk of the ship when the competition he set up saw him collect the main prize himself, much to his own embarrassment. He swiftly opted out of all subsequent rounds. Seven failed to embrace the concept of voluntary sporting events. Chakotay had to intervene more than once when reports made their way to him of Seven press-ganging members of the crew into her velocity tournaments.
They realised social activity would need to increase considerably to provide stimulation to compensate for the lack of external distractions, so the crew was allocated more leisure time. Chakotay and Kathryn also gained a few hours each day. He was conscious of the fact that there were some crewmembers who were struggling with nihiliphobia, because the Doctor reported there was a steady flow of new cases each week to sickbay, but, all in all, the first few weeks went remarkably smoothly.
The increase in the amount of leisure time and in the frequency of social occasions saw a directly related increase in the number of relationships starting up between crewmembers.
Harry Kim's interest in Seven intensified. Chakotay put a friendly hand on the ensign's shoulder and told him as tactfully as he could that he would need to be a bit more direct with her. Chakotay could clearly see what Harry could not. Despite spending hours in his company, Seven was so focussed on their tasks as co-ordinators of sporting activities that she simply failed notice Harry's far too subtle attempts to engage her on a personal level. Harry was adamant he didn't want to be pushy. Seven had told Chakotay she found Harry to be adequately efficient as co-organiser, which Chakotay took to be as good enough a basis as any for optimism concerning Harry's chances with her, if only Harry would accept some advice regarding his tactics. Harry was unmoved though so Chakotay despaired of them ever finding their way to each other.
As far as his own relationship was concerned, the first two months in the void with predictable routines, no threat of attack, no worry over supplies, and no chance of him being abducted, brainwashed or critically injured in a shuttle crash, afforded him precious time to get used to being with Kathryn in a more 'normal' and predictable situation, crazy as that might seem, given where they were.
The unsustainable, lust-heightened intensity of his desire for her during the first year of the liaison transformed gradually into a more profound and enduring sort of love; the result of a deeper, more intimate exploration of the full range, shape and flavour of her needs and wants and of all that they could be together. In many ways, this felt like his first really adult relationship. There was no question about it, no woman had ever known him the way she did now, and he had never felt love even remotely like this for anyone before.
He grew gradually more hopeful that there would come a day when she would no longer feel the need to keep their involvement secret. As time had gone by, he'd become more and more convinced that it just wasn't necessary. If they were to openly acknowledge their relationship he honestly didn't think it would impact much on how either of them was perceived by the crew.
He resolved to broach the subject with her again soon.