How disconnected I can feel on the ground
It's like I'm shining all alone
and I don't want to be, so
before I go to bed tonight
I'll signal up to the passing flights
Hit the lights
the lights
the lights
Six
But he couldn't make it work.
He was coiled so tightly, so aware of their every touch and so busy trying not to notice her in any way – not how very pale and smooth the skin of her neck was, not how the sheer black hosiery made the perfectly toned muscles of her legs look almost sculpted, not how her faint perfume seemed determined to fill every inch of him – that Chakotay kept missing their steps. Twenty-five minutes in, he was still stumbling over a sequence he himself had created. When he did manage to work his way through, it was only by making his movements dull and leaden.
He could sense Janeway's growing frustration. It only served to increase his own, which was already running high in the wake of everything else he'd had to deal with during the course of the day. Every time they were forced to stop because of a mistake of his, he felt the knot in his stomach twist a little tighter. The more they tried – and the more body heat Kathryn generated – the harder it was to block her out and the more he had to work at keeping himself in check. The endeavour simply wasn't conducive to dancing with any semblance of spirit or rhythm at all.
"Stop!" she said at last, after he'd bungled yet another step and almost tripped her. "Chakotay, just stop."
He stepped away from her, turning his back and putting his hands on his hips, breathing hard.
"This isn't working at all," Janeway said. "You're so tense."
"We just need more practice, that's all," he said, keeping his back to her as he tried to tamp down on his own frustration.
"That's not all!" she said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "We've gone backwards since yesterday. At this rate we'll never be ready for Saturday night."
"Well then, perhaps we should just admit defeat," he suggested.
"Why?" she argued, her chagrin obvious. "We can do this! I know we can. You just need to loosen up, Chakotay. I feel as if I'm trying to dance with a rock tonight."
He swung around to face her. "A rock?"
She blinked at his tone. "I just mean – you need to let go. Stop thinking so much-"
"A rock?" he repeated again, feeling the fury that punctuated his words.
Janeway held up her hands, trying to placate him. "I'm sorry, it was just a figure of-"
"Computer," he called, cutting her off, feeling everything he'd been holding in since the session had started suddenly come surging up through his core. "Chakotay music programme four, track two. Play."
He reached out and grasped Kathryn's wrist, tugging her towards him as a far faster rhythm than the one they had been practicing with filled the air.
"Chakotay," Janeway began, "what are you-"
He moved in and pressed his hip against hers, feeling her quake as his free hand slid down from her shoulder to the base of her spine to hold her firmly against him. "You want me to dance? Fine. Then I'll dance." Grasping her hands he moved quickly, spinning her out into a turn and then pulling her back in. He heard Kathryn gasp briefly but he didn't give her a chance to break away, trapping her hands in his and taking them instead into a coca cola con dile que no.
"Chakotay," she said, trying to make herself heard over the music as she spun. "I think-"
He pulled her to him and let go of her fingers, stepping even closer and running his hands up her bare arms, up over her shoulders and that perfect, naked length of her neck until her face was cupped between his palms. She was pressed so tightly against him he could feel the swift rise and fall of her chest against his. He bent his head until his face was close to hers, their lips just millimetres apart. He could feel her hands searching for balance at his hips. "Either you want me to let go or you don't, Kathryn. Which is it?"
Chakotay paused just a second to see if she'd push him away, but she didn't. So he danced and he took her with him, holding on to her, keeping her close enough to feel every muscle, every curve, every undulation of her body. Within ten seconds they were moving as one, the passion and abandon his fury had inspired entirely shared as Kathryn gave as good as she got. Chakotay twisted and turned, then curled her back into him until her back was against his chest and her arms were crossed over herself, hands still in his. Kathryn tipped her head back against him, eyes closed. It lasted only a beat before she spun again, freeing herself and her hands. As she pivoted away he grasped her waist instead and turned them, spinning, spinning - her hands reached for his biceps, half pulling him in, half pushing him away. T'was ever thus, he might have thought, had he been thinking at all. Then her fingers found his chest, right over his heart, the heat of them searing through his thin t-shirt. She'd touched him that way before, but right now the spark he always felt under the brief contact only added to the conflagration that had overtaken him.
He grasped her fingers in his own and held her hip harder in his other hand, rotating her around him before taking both her hands again and holding her arms high. He hooked one leg behind hers, transforming her ensuing stumble into a dip as he bent her backwards, her arms as well as his behind her back as the arch of her spine brought his lips almost close enough to brush her neck. She was breathing hard as he pulled her back up but the glint in her eye - half anger, half rank passion - said she wasn't done yet and right then he'd be damned if he this was a fight he was walking away from.
He felt every move she made as she kept up with every step he demanded from her and still he wanted more. As the music came to a crescendo he pulled her even closer. Chakotay hitched her hard against him, then reached down to grasp her calf, lifting her thigh against his hip and gliding his hand up the hot silk of her leg to the crook of her knee. The music faded, leaving only the ragged rasp of their breathing as he let her leg slide slowly back to the floor, his hand travelling up her thigh and over the soft fabric of her dress to her waist, instead.
"I am not," he said, in a whisper made hoarse around his lost breath, "made of stone."
Eyes wide, lips parted and breathing hard, her gaze dropped to his mouth. At that moment it was all the invitation he required. Chakotay kissed her, hard, parting her lips further as his tongue found hers. Kathryn moaned against his mouth and he felt a deep, helpless shudder pass through her. Her hands bunched themselves into his t-shirt, pulling him closer still. Arms full of her, Chakotay pushed her backwards until he found one of the bulkheads and pinned her there with his hips, dragging her hands from his shirt and twining his fingers through hers to trap them against the bulkhead. Her mouth was hot, her lips were soft and the feel of her pressing herself against him undid any remaining good sense he might otherwise have summoned. He needed more. He needed her. Releasing her fingers but not her lips, Chakotay stroked his hands firmly down her sides. Kathryn arched against him, trembling, dragging her fingers through his hair as the kiss deepened even further. He brushed the curves of her full breasts, running his hands down behind her to cup her backside as his lips tore away from hers to trail kisses down her neck. He dragged at the neckline of her dress with his teeth, pulling it open until his lips connected with the strap of her bra. Breathing her in he flicked out his tongue, felt as well as heard her gasp as his mouth followed the delicate filigree of decidedly non-regulation black lace – lower, lower, revelling in a softness he had guiltily imagined but doubted would ever be his to experience. His hands searched for the tie of her dress as her fingers found their way beneath his t-shirt, raking it up and-
"Occupants have requested a fifteen minute alert. Fifteen minutes remain in this holodeck session."
The computer's voice may as well have been a bucket of ice-cold water. They both stilled, drenched in sudden and horrifying realisation. Then Chakotay wrenched himself away from her, turning abruptly, his hands balled into tight fists.
No sound. No sound at all except for their breathing, so loud in that small room.
What have you done? His mind roared at him. What have you DONE?
"Oh god," Kathryn said shakily, a moment later, her breath still heaving. "Chakotay – I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
He spun to look at her. "You're sorry?" he said, "I'm the one who should be apologising. Kathryn, that was – inexcusable. I just – I'm sorry."
She looked at him from where she stood, still backed up against the bulkhead, her fingers spread out against it behind her as if she needed it to keep her upright. Her lips were swollen and her cheeks were flushed, her hair beginning to tumble from the pins she'd secured it with. Janeway clenched her hands. "I pushed you. I knew you weren't comfortable, and I still pushed you. This is my fault," she grated. "I should never have-"
"No," he told her, still trying to catch his breath. "I should never have. I knew this entire thing was a bad idea, and I still went ahead with it. And whatever the circumstances, I should have been in better control of myself. I'm sorry."
Kathryn made a sound in her throat and tipped her head back against the bulkhead. "I don't think you were the only one lacking in control just then, do you?" She shook her head. "And as your Captain-"
Chakotay, the adrenaline of the past few moments leaching from his body, felt suddenly exhausted. He walked to her and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her. "Stop. Please, Kathryn. Just… don't. We both know what this was about. We were both there in that moment. This is about us. This is between us. Let's not make it any greater or lesser than that. Please."
She released a shuddering breath and then rested her forehead against his chest. For a few minutes they stood still, calming themselves in the aftermath.
"We can't dance this in front of the crew," she muttered, her voice muffled against his shirt.
He laughed a little, lips pressed against her hair, arms still tight around her. "No. No, I don't think we can."
Kathryn sighed, leaning back to look at him. "You know, I'd been thinking that if I'd known that you could dance on New Earth, I could have got you to teach me then," she said. "Probably just as well that I didn't…"
Chakotay smiled down at her. "Probably…"
She shook her head, then raised one hand to touch his temple, where the lines of his ancestors lay. "I am truly sorry," she said, quietly. "I've been kidding myself. I told myself that what you said, back then – that it was just about friendship. Because to think it was anything else was just too difficult when I am not free to pursue anything more between us. That's how I told myself that dancing with you would be fine. I wanted to dance, and I wanted to dance with you. I told myself that whatever I felt for you, I could hold it in check – for the sake of my engagement, for the sake of the ship. That if there were any suffering to be done, it'd just be mine and if nothing else, I could at least have this dance. But I should have been less selfish. I should have-"
"Ssh," he said, stroking her cheek. "It's all right."
"It's not all right," she said.
"Well, OK," he conceded. "No, in a perfect world, perhaps it's not all right. But this isn't a perfect world, is it? And these are the circumstances we are in. We both understand that, and we understand each other. Perhaps even a little better now than we did before?"
She watched his face steadily for a moment. Then she nodded.
"Selfish or not," she said, softly, "I hope that I get to dance with you again one day."
He smiled. "I hope so, too."
They looked at each other for another moment, and he saw Kathryn's gaze stray again to his mouth. Chakotay leaned in and she met him half way. They kissed once more, gently, warmly, knowing it would signal the end of the evening. Knowing that for now at least, this particular dance had come to an end.
[TBC]