As they entered the sixth year of their journey, they answered a distress call from another Starfleet vessel and all hell broke loose.
Kathryn and Chakotay completely failed to keep their difference of opinion professional. Within hours, just like with the Borg alliance, it had become deeply personal. Except this time it was worse. Much worse. One of the differences this time around was that neither of them had the time to pause for much-needed reflection while the other lay incapacitated or vulnerable on a biobed. They were both fighting fit and fighting each other every step of the way.
He tried and tried to get through to her, but Captain Ransom's fall from grace seemed to tap into some of her most deep-seated fears and she refused to listen, to anyone, not even Tuvok. In turn, Chakotay refused to sit back and watch her cross the line to the moral swamp he'd already found himself wading through as a Maquis cell leader; so she relieved him of duty.
"Yes, I'll say it again if I have to, you almost killed that man today," he all but shouted.
"And I told you, it was a calculated risk, and I was prepared to take it." No shouting here, she was all control, to his lack of it.
"No, you weren't." He lowered his volume. He wouldn't have his opinion dismissed just because she was more skilled at keeping her cool.
"Yes, I was. You can't tell me what I was or wasn't prepared to do! You aren't the only one who can do what they shouldn't when it's necessary."
"What do you mean?"
"You know," her steel blue gaze cut through him.
"Oh, I see. So now I'm a hypocrite, because I don't agree with you?"
"Well, we both know…"
She stopped and turned away from him. He felt the heat rise up through his chest to his face. He knew he was fast losing it again, but she shouldn't go there. She wouldn't, would she? Really? Is that how low they'd sunk here?
"We both know what? What do we both know, Kathryn?" Now he was shouting. "We both know I've done worse. Is that it?"
She turned back and met his gaze, defiant.
But he wasn't done. "Would you have done that in front of Tuvok? No, in front of Harry?"
They both knew the answer to that already.
"No, because you wouldn't have wanted to compromise his moral integrity, would you? But it's okay to expect me to tie a man down and just stand by while he's murdered, isn't it. Because we both know my moral integrity's been compromised to hell and back already, don't we?"
"I shouldn't have said that, and I'm sorry." She took a step away from him, but she wasn't backing down, "What I meant is that there are times in Starfleet when the regulations can have too much of a stranglehold if you let them, and get in the way of what needs to be done. And I had the bigger picture in mind."
"You needed me to stop you."
"No, I didn't. I could've handled it."
He sat down and forced himself to wait for the swell of the anger he'd felt to subside a little, before he replied. "No. You couldn't. Not the fallout afterwards. You're forgetting here that I know you, Kathryn. If you'd let those creatures kill Lessing, the guilt would've destroyed you. Maybe not today, but soon."
"Not if it was in the interest of the ship, of our crew. You just can't see that bigger picture sometimes, Chakotay. You're stuck in the here and now, in the minutia, in each tiny detail!" She seemed exasperated with him, as if he were a recalcitrant child.
He was on his feet again before he knew it, but at least he wasn't shouting. His reply, through gritted teeth, was actually so low it was only just audible. "A man's life isn't a detail."
That seemed to get through. She pinched the bridge of her nose and looked down to the floor, then back up at him. She took a deep breath before replying. "No, it isn't, but that's not what I meant. Look…I'm sorry if I disappointed you, but that's really not my problem."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't know...perhaps it was a bad call, but you always want me to be a shining example of all that's...right, incorruptible, uncompromised, and I can't always live up to that."
"Don't be so childish, Kathryn, I have no such illusions. I don't know whose expectations you're talking about, but they sure as hell aren't mine. I don't expect you to be anything other than human."
Could this woman be more frustrating? Why couldn't she see he just wanted to save her from the inevitable anguish that would have resulted from certain choices?
When it was over he tried to make tentative moves back towards normality, whatever that was.
She apologised, sort of, and he accepted her apology and apologised too, sort of, but everything between them was beyond strained.
There were extensive repairs to be done. For days they were both effectively on duty all the time, and there would have been no time to talk things through at length even if they'd tried. And they didn't.
At first, he couldn't forget the way she'd used what he'd told her about his past, nor the way she'd dismissed his judgment as being poor, near-sighted. Her words kept reverberating around his head. He felt useless to her professionally and in every other way.
The first evening they had to themselves, he went to her quarters, hoping they could make a start on moving past all this, but she sent him away, saying she was exhausted and had a headache. He suspected he knew exactly what she was doing and there was no way he was going to let her do it without a fight. No, not another fight, he'd find another way.
Another two days passed, and he'd long since forgiven her for everything that had happened, but as she wouldn't talk to him, he had to presume she still hadn't forgiven him. Perhaps she still wasn't done punishing herself yet either?
His feelings about what had happened had evolved. He was a lot less angry with her and a lot more so with himself for failing to find a way to help her see that the course of action she was contemplating was misguided. He should have found a way to talk to her without getting himself relieved of duty. He picked the wrong time to sound off, after the event like that, it was bad judgement on his part and he'd failed her as her first officer. He should've hung in there somehow. They were both to blame.
She had to give him a minimum of direction as to what to do with the Equinox five, and when she did, she seemed intent on adhering to every single Starfleet protocol in the book, as if to prove to herself, to them, to him? that she could never be like Ransom. The new crewmembers could be in absolutely no doubt they were now aboard a very Starfleet vessel, serving under a captain who was Starfleet through and through. One who lived and breathed regulations and protocol and wasn't about to make any allowances for anything or anybody just because they were a long way from headquarters.
When Kathryn finally let Chakotay into her quarters the following evening they had docked at the Markonian outpost.
It had been one long day. They had been busy meeting representatives of the space station's administration and some of the traders they had selected as possible suppliers for a wide range of resources they would do well to stock up on while they could.
They both had a full schedule of meetings ahead of them for the following day as well, and so he didn't intend to start some lengthy, draining debate with her now. He just wanted to spend some time in her company to make it clear that he was more than ready for them to put the whole Equinox disaster behind them, and to start finding their way back to one another.
Almost immediately they'd seated themselves on her sofa, she launched into it.
She told him it'd been a mistake for them to ever think they could combine a relationship with command. They'd been lucky for the first three years, but their luck had run out. It was time they faced that and accepted it. It was just too much to deal with. She should never have ignored protocol, just because it was inconvenient. The protocols were there for a reason, and the two of them had just lived through some of the dire consequences of ignoring them.
It was nothing if not predictable. She might as well have added "And I don't want to end up like Ransom." But that wasn't to say it wasn't heartfelt. Clearly it was.
As she finished speaking, he reached for her hand and he witnessed her tense. He ignored it and took her hand between his, regardless. His voice was low and level, doing all he could to make this conversation as different as possible from the last one they'd had.
"I think you're seeing a connection where there isn't one. I don't think what's happened means our being together is a mistake."
"How can you say that, after everything?" Her expression held no antagonism this time. She really seemed genuinely bewildered that he could see things so differently.
"Because whether we were together or not, we probably would've clashed about how to proceed." They held each other's gaze and he could see that this was a real conversation. She really was open to hearing what he had to say.
"Yes, but the things we said… I used things you've told me. Things I would never have known, if we weren't...intimate."
"And I can't promise we won't ever do that again, but I'm guessing both of us will be more careful next time."
"I might have listened more carefully to your point of view, if we weren't so close. The increased distance might've meant I'd have accorded you more respect. I just felt like I already knew what you were going to say, and it's easier to dismiss what seems familiar. The things I said… I hurt you."
"And I hurt you. I know that and I'm sorry, we're both sorry. That's what matters. It's impossible to know whether our being involved made things worse than they would've been anyway, Kathryn. We just can't know that for sure. "
She listened in silence, eyes full. He so wished she could see things a little less... compartmentalised, less clear cut sometimes. He went on, determined. "I can see you still need time, time to make your peace with it, and that's your right, but I'm telling you, we're not done here. Not by a long way. So when you're ready, I'll still be here, and we'll talk."
She still didn't reply, but she hadn't withdrawn her hand. Finally her voice came, uneven, raw. "I'm so sorry, Chakotay. I don't know what else to say at the moment. I feel like I've failed you too. I just need time to think this through, on my own. I've lost some of my sense of certainty about how much I can cope with out here. I warned you at the beginning that I might not be able to give you enough of what you need from someone, and right now, I feel stretched... so thin. Right now, I'm struggling to feel up to the job of captaining this ship indefinitely through so many unknowns. I don't feel like there's space or time for anything else sometimes. I'm sorry, I just don't know if I can do...both... anymore."
He'd been half expecting something like this and he already knew what he wanted to say.
First, he leant in and pressed the gentlest of kisses to her lips. She didn't pull away, but she closed her eyes. As she did so, tears were forced out beneath her eyelids and made their way slowly down her cheeks.
It really was absurd sometimes, how much he loved this impossible woman.
"We can work this out, Kathryn. You need to resist the impulse to give up because it's been difficult. You need to have a little faith in us. We aren't another problem you're responsible for, that's looking for a decision or a solution. You need to just let us be."
He kissed the tears away from one of her cheeks and then the other. He couldn't help himself, it just felt so good to touch her again. Then he took both her hands and held them between his.
"I need..." She wouldn't look at him.
"Tell me. What do you need?"
"I need... to be sure about this again, before I can face anyone judging me right now - judging me for giving in to this, judging us for being together."
He really only heard the 'giving in' part of what she said and he sighed. "I'm sorry you see it that way."
Her eyes were suddenly on him, desperately searching his face. "Look, I don't mean that I... God, I can't bear this, Chakotay! I can't bear it if you think I don't..."
He held her gaze, looking for what he needed to see there and found it. "I don't. Think that."
She hesitated for a split second, then she took his face in her hands and brought her lips to his and kissed him. He knew what was real, and this woman still loved him. But then again, that wasn't the problem, never really had been. The only time he'd doubted that had been as a result of his own insecurities.
She drew back just enough to rest her forehead against his for a moment, eyes closed. When she seemed to have collected herself again, she sat back. He just hoped she wasn't steeling herself for some sort of ending. So he started immediately.
"I know what's happening here, Kathryn, so, like I said, if you need time to think, then you've got it. But that means that you don't decide now that this is over. Take time. First. Before decisions are made."
"Okay." She looked a little less wretched.
He pulled her to him, and she let him envelop her in his embrace. He could feel her trying to suppress a sob, as she turned into him and buried her face in his chest.
He despaired at how damn hard she could be on herself sometimes. He would give her time, but there was no way he was going to just sit back and watch her push him away and isolate herself again. Not after everything. Not anymore.
[TBC]... Thank you to everyone who's sticking with this... still a few more chapters to come.