The next morning Janeway could not for the life of her stop thinking about the night before. She kept thinking about the feel of hitting the punching bag, she had enjoyed the dull throb of her hands and the gratification of releasing pent up frustration in an aggressive way. The stinging in her hands and arms told her it had indeed been a good workout, and much preferable to running.
She pulled on her uniform and began to fuss with her hair. It was so ridiculous that women in Starfleet were expected to either have their hair short or up in some sort of decorative bun at all times.
After twisting it repetitively and angrily shoving bobby pins in she left her hair and began applying her usual minimalistic makeup. The only thing she ever changed about her makeup was the lipstick, it was always very close to her usual color, but she liked to have some variation, being the
Captain at all times made her look so boring.
As she worked she thought about Chakotay, he was a very attractive man, but more than that, she had come to rely on him in the past two years.
Of course she relied on him as a First Officer, but he was more to her than that. He was her best friend out here, other than Tuvok of course, but he was always there for her.
She couldn't count the number of times she had sat with him late into the hours of the night discussing not only what was best for the crew, but all manner of other things.
They shared literature, poems, music, culture, Chakotay had even taken it upon himself to teach her how to cook a few simple meals. She had managed to mess them up somehow but the effort to guide her was what really mattered.
Sometimes she feared that her attraction to him was more than physical, but really she didn't have time to entertain such thoughts. In the end she was the Captain, and he her First Officer.
Still… she shook her head and stepped back from the mirror.
After giving herself a once-over, she decided she wanted to switch up her hair too. Maybe it was because she had extra time, or maybe it was because she wanted to see Chakotay look at her like he had last night, but she wanted to look nice today.
She let her hair down and parted it to the side, she swept her hair across so it looked like a slight wave, then pulled the rest back into a french twist.
She gave herself another once over and headed for the bridge.
Chakotay stood in front of his mirror and fussed over his uniform. He couldn't wait to see Kathryn again, he always did, but today he needed to get the image of her in skin-tight clothes out of his mind.
He had become good at restraining himself when she was in uniform, and hopefully seeing her that way would help him keep his emotions… and other things, down.
She was easily the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He had always had a thing for redheads, but never had he imagined he would actually find one that had any interest in him.
Not to say that the Captain did of course, he could only hope, but her flirtations gave him a small ray of hope that he chose to cling to.
She complimented him in a way that no other woman had before, their ideas, likes and dislikes all melded together seamlessly. Each had their own interests but they were always willing to learn more about each other.
He took it upon himself to be there for her whenever she would let him, as more than a First Officer. He knew she was technically engaged, but as the months had turned to years he could tell she no longer held to her fiance the way she used to.
All of this fueled his fantasies about the woman he called his Captain.
Realizing he was going to be late for duty if he didn't hurry, he tugged at his uniform once more and headed to the bridge.
Janeway walked onto her bridge and nodded to Harry and Tuvok as she made her way to the stairs.
"Report."
"All system normal, we had a quiet night Captain." Replied Harry Kim.
"Good, I am glad nothing decided to attack us for now, I will be in my ready room." She looked back and saw Harry give a small chuckle and Tom crack a smile. It really was weird when nothing was attacking them.
Immediately she headed to the replicator, "Coffee, Black."
The magic drink appeared before her, and she reached out and took a long gulp. The hot drink helped calm her nerves and she was able to focus her mind on the ship instead of on Chakotay, for now. With another long drink she was ready to look over the reports waiting for her on her desk.
Chakotay walked onto the bridge and immediately looked for Kathryn, not seeing her in her chair, he figured she had gotten here early as usual and already went to her ready room.
He gave a nod to Kim and Tuvok before going to his seat, trying not to look to disappointed.
He looked at his console and began looking through reports.
"Report," he said distractedly, assuming nothing major happened since he hadn't been called to the bridge in the middle of the night.
"As Mr. Kim put it, we had a, quiet, night." Tuvok said, looking at Harry.
"Hey like the Captain said, at least we aren't being attacked for once."
Chakotay gave a half smile, glad to hear Kathryn was at least in a good enough mood to crack small jokes.
Done skimming reports, he fixed his eyes on the viewscreen. He kept glancing at her ready room, trying to do so subtly but failing horribly, he was fairly certain Tom had glanced back at him and smirked several times at this point, and Harry was doing a very good job of avoiding eye contact with him.
Chakotay once again concentrated on the screen, at this point resorting to making patterns in the passing blurs of light.
There was a feather, and a rose, that one looked like boxing gloves.
Seriously, he huffed and stood up.
"Tuvok, you have the bridge."
Tuvok nodded and responded with "Yes sir." but looked at him with one eyebrow raised.
She went to take a sip of coffee, only to find that the damn thing was empty, again.
She angrily stood and went to the replicator.
"Coffee, Black!" She ordered. Her relaxed morning had turned sour and she had all but forgotten her early morning distractions.
As it appeared she heard her door chime.
She picked up her coffee, took a sip, then called for them to enter. And when she turned to face the visitor she really wished she hadn't answered.
Chakotay walked to her, and immediately could tell she was not having a good morning. But he tried to start off nice and said "Good Morning Captain."
"Well it is morning Commander, I don't know about good. What can I do for you?"
She walked back to her desk and his eyes followed her, hands clasped behind his back as usual.
She sat and looked up at him, expecting an answer.
He stumbled across his words, why was he in here again?
"I wanted to discuss the engineering reports with you."
"Oh God not those, did you see Be'lanna's last report? She sent it about 10 minutes ago."
He tugged at his ear, he hadn't actually, he had been too focused on keeping his mind off other things.
"No I haven't, I was uh, working with Harry on clearing up some sensor readings."
She seemed to buy it and sat back in her chair, tossing a PADD in his general direction.
He sat and scooped it off the desk.
As he read, Kathryn leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Too many things going on and her personal feelings had to get mixed into her ever growing list of things to stress about.
She opened her eyes and saw Chakotay's furrowed brow, he had been stressed about something before reading this report, that she had been able to tell, but his concern was growing as he read on.
He sat back in his own chair and threw the PADD back on the desk.
"Well there goes our uneventful day."
Kathryn stood and began to pace, holding her coffee in a vice-like grip. "How could there possibly still be activity in the machine?! There is no brain hooked up to it, it shouldn't have anything to work on."
Chakotay turned to watch her pace, "I'm not sure, is it possible the hologram of you we sent in there is still running somehow?"
She paused briefly but then kept pacing. "No, we cut power to the systems we were routing the hologram through and then scrubbed it, there shouldn't even be a record of that hologram being sent."
"How did Be'lanna know when to take you off the connection? Did you time it or, how did that work?"
"She was watching the machine power output, and when it started to dip she disconnected me. We figured at that point the manifestation would have given up, realizing he had been tricked."
"Is there anyway the machine could have scanned your brain and the holoprograms structure in the time that you were on it?"
"I don't know, but if I am thinking what you are thinking the machine could have transitioned itself onto a holographic brain, using mine as the model and the hologram as a vessel."
She stopped abruptly and tapped her combadge "All senior officers report to the bridge."
She walked out of the room ahead of him, and her angry struts made her hips move all that much more.