Nine

Even in her weakened state, Janeway knew the instant it gripped her that the transporter wasn't Voyager's. The dematerialisation was too rough – it gripped too low in the belly and held on too long there before spreading to her extremities. In the instant before it took her mind she registered nausea, an intense wave washing up from her gut to her throat.

But it worked. It worked.

She rematerialised with Chakotay's weight full across her and was unable to bite back the scream of pain as he pressed down on her crushed legs. He wasn't moving – he'd finally lost consciousness from bearing his own agony on her behalf. She dragged his head up, cupping it in both hands as the sound of running feet approached.

"Chakotay? Chakotay! Someone help me!"

Tuvok was the first to appear, dropping to a crouch beside her as other figures – ones she didn't recognise, dressed in unfamiliar clothing – moved to surround them. They began to lift her first officer away, turning him over.

"No," she said, urgently, "he's burned – he must be burned, you have to-"

Tuvok reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. For a confused second she thought he was going to use a neck pinch to subdue her and started to twist away. Then she realised he was offering comfort in the way only a touch telepath could. The confusion changed its tone. Would Tuvok do that? Would he ever willingly touch her? Was this Tuvok, or another trick? Nevertheless, a faint sense of calm washed over her. She felt light-headed, but turned to look toward Chakotay's body, now lying face down on what seemed to be a gurney.

"Chakotay," she said again, hoarsely, trying to turn towards him.

"He will be looked after, Captain," Tuvok told her, gripping her shoulder harder in an effort to keep her still. "You are more of a concern at this juncture. Your injuries are severe. Please do not move."

Janeway suddenly realised that she, too, was surrounded by figures. This time, however, they were recognisable. Their powerful shoulders and cranial superstructures gave them away, even if their pale robes disguised their warlike natures.

"The Pyrie," she gasped. "Tuvok, they-"

"No," said the Vulcan said, firmly. "These are not the Pyrie."

"But-"

"Captain, you must relax. You are losing blood at an extreme rate. If you do not allow the Styx physicians to attend to you immediately, you may still die."

Janeway felt the fight go out of her, flowing from her veins as quickly as the blood from her injured legs. "Voyager?" she whispered. "Where is she?"

"Safe," came Tuvok's reply, though it echoed from a great distance, as if he was at one end of a tunnel and she was straining to hear from the other.

After that, nothing.

Janeway opened her eyes to birdsong and sunlight. Blinking into the brightness, it took her a moment of staring at the white canopy above her before she came to her senses. When she did, she sat bolt upright in a soft bed in a pale room with no recollection of how she got there.

"Captain!"

The familiar voice was accompanied by quick footsteps as B'Elanna appeared at her side. She was out of uniform, in a white shirt and pale linen trousers.

For a second, Janeway thought she was dreaming.

"B'Elanna? What's happening? Where am I?"

"At the Styx's closest colony. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine. The Styx?"

"The race that came to our assistance. After we'd been attacked by the Pyrie. You're not in any pain?"

Janeway blinked, raising one hand to her forehead. Pain? She remembered being in pain – intense, almost unbearable agony – but now it was completely gone.

"No," she said, "No – I'm fine."

B'Elanna was visibly relieved. "That's good. The Doctor will be back in a moment. He had to go and check on Chakotay."

Janeway froze in the process of shuffling to the edge of the bed. "Chakotay," she whispered. "How is he?"

Her chief engineer smiled. "He's going to be fine, Captain. You're both going to be fine."

Janeway swallowed hard. There was so much confusion in her brain – such a large chunk of memory missing – that she didn't know where to start.

"Tom?" She asked, "B'Elanna – is Tom all right? And Neelix? And what about Vorik?"

The younger woman looked puzzled. "They're all fine. All three are helping with the repairs to Voyager…"

Janeway bit back an exclamation. "Voyager? Where is she?"

B'Elanna smiled again. "Why don't you come and see for yourself, Captain?" She held out an arm in case Janeway needed support

Janeway let her feet fall to the ground, tentatively putting pressure on them. There was no pain as she stood, though her back and left hip were a little stiff. She took a step and reached for B'Elanna's arm. Torres helped her across the room – large, Kathryn noted, decorated in simple, calming colours of oat and wheat – to where a large curtain hung from floor to ceiling.

B'Elanna pulled back the curtain and sunlight flooded in. Janeway threw up one hand to shield her eyes from the glare as B'Elanna led her out onto a wide balcony. The building in which they stood had been built into the side of a cliff, overhanging a wide escarpment crowded with the spires and roofs of a large city. As Janeway looked out she saw hovercars and small space-capable flying ships zipping between the streets, a hive of advanced industry.

"There, you see?" B'Elanna asked, pointing. "Voyager's safe, Captain. We're all safe."

Janeway followed the line of B'Elanna's finger and saw a spacedock hanging low in the atmosphere. In fact, there were several, each occupied by a type of spacecraft she did not recognise.

All except the closest one. Voyager hung within it like a damaged pearl, suspended from a series of pylons and surrounded by scaffold supports. One nacelle was clearly badly damaged, and there were chunks of her hull missing.

But she was there.

At first, Janeway did not believe that any of it could possibly be real. After all, she had been tricked once and what was the saying? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…

It wasn't until she'd seen every member of her crew and heard the entire story – and after explaining her own to the Doctor – that she began to relax, just a little.

The first Pyrie ship had attacked, just as she remembered. Voyager had managed to shoot her down, causing the damage to the nacelle, also just as she remembered. But that was the point where truth diverged completely from her recollections of events. After that, Captain Janeway had been out of action, lost somewhere in the wreckage of her dying ship as another Pyrie vessel appeared to take up where its colleague had left off. Tuvok, injured himself, had taken command, but it was clearly a losing battle.

Thankfully, allowing Chakotay and Nicoletti to take the shuttle had been Voyager's salvation. Two days into their journey, the first officer had met up with a Styx vessel that had scanned the shuttle and determined it was low on power. The Styx's first act was to offer assistance. Chakotay, having determined that this race had dilithium to spare, wasted no time in taking these new allies back to Voyager, at which point they had intercepted the Pyrie attack.

The Pyrie and the Styx, it was not hard to see, had a history that went back far longer than the brief battle that ensued.

"Wait," said Janeway, who had been listening carefully as B'Elanna filled her in. "When was this, exactly? How long – how long since that first Pyrie attack?"

"Three days, Captain."

"Three days? Is that all? But…" she looked away, trying to get a grip on the passage of time.

"What is it, Captain?" The Doctor asked.

Janeway shook her head. "I thought it had been weeks. The entity… led me to believe that it had been weeks. So the fire-"

"You were trapped for about an hour, Captain," B'Elanna supplied. "We managed to find you, but couldn't reach you, and the Styx transporters were having trouble isolating your lifesigns."

"Another few moments, and there would not have been enough of either you or Commander Chakotay to lock on to," the Doctor offered. "You were both extremely lucky. And in the Commander's case, I might add extremely foolhardy."

Janeway gave a wan smile. "Oh, don't worry, Doctor. I'll be having words with the Commander myself just as soon as he's well enough to hear them."

"It was the height of stupidity."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"'Ma'am'?"

Chakotay raised an eyebrow at her. "I had a sense it was crunch time, Captain."

Janeway sighed, looking down at her sandaled feet. Her uniform had been cut to ribbons and Voyager's replicators were still offline, so she had reluctantly resorted to the Styx's style of clothing. They had given her a wardrobe to choose from, and that morning she'd picked a long cream shirt and even longer beige skirt, cinched together with the Styx equivalent of a leather belt. It was comfortable given the stiffness that persisted in her hip, and also somewhat attractive, but didn't particularly lend itself to command. Tomorrow, she thought to herself, she'd wear trousers and a closer-cut top. Chakotay was also dressed in their hosts' style – a loose white shirt, open at the collar, paired with oat-coloured linen pants. He looked good. It suited him.

"You could have been killed, Chakotay," she said, looking up at him again. "We both could have been killed. Voyager could have lost its command team in one go – and unnecessarily."

They were sitting at a small table in his room, which looked much the same as hers. Pale, calming colours, large windows, plenty of air drifting in. Chakotay looked out towards the balcony, a slight frown on his face.

"I can't apologise for something I'd do again in a heartbeat," he said, softly. "And if you think the crew would be less damaged by knowing I'd willingly left you there to die alone than if I'd died in an attempt to save their Captain, I suspect you are sorely mistaken. Do you imagine they would trust me with their lives if they knew you hadn't been able to do the same with yours?"

Kathryn took a shallow breath. Something was changing between them in the wake of Voyager's almost-destruction. The hard edge that had separated them for so long seemed to have eroded.

He turned to her. "When we were trapped there, you said something about not wanting to watch it happen again. You seemed to be talking about my death. What did you mean?"

She looked away, uncomfortable. "Just something the entity showed me."

Chakotay nodded. "I'm sorry that you had to go through that again. I know how difficult it was to see your father in that way the first time. To see him again like that must have been awful."

Kathryn swallowed, still gazing out at the landscape beyond his balcony. She hadn't told anyone the truth about how the entity had appeared to her this time. It hadn't seemed relevant and she'd dreaded the knowing looks and the rumours, if the truth had been known. But with him…

"The entity didn't appear to me as my father. Or at least, that's not how he first appeared," she said, quietly.

She could feel Chakotay's eyes on her. "Oh?"

Janeway clasped her hands in her lap and looked down at them, twisting her fingers together. "He came to me as you, Chakotay. First he convinced me that I had ordered you to your death to save Voyager. He made me watch it happen – a warp core overload in the shuttle. Then he began to appear to me as your ghost."

There was a brief silence. She knew he was still watching her and wondered what she would see on his face if she'd had the courage to raise her eyes to his.

"I'm sorry," he said again, softly.

She smiled, though she still didn't look at him. "What on earth do you have to be sorry for? He wasn't you." She sighed. "I should have known it. I should have realised it sooner. But I suppose…" Janeway stopped.

"You suppose what?"

She took a breath and looked up at him. "I found it easier to believe that you still existed in some form rather than accept that you were gone forever because of an order I had given."

Chakotay's eyes were fixed on her face. "You know that if that ever happened, I would understand. It's a risk we face every day out here and I accept it willingly. You know that."

"Yes," she agreed. "But do you really think that would make it any easier? It didn't, Chakotay. Especially not after the way we parted that day."

It was his turn to look away.

"Anyway, I should have known he wasn't you the first time he came to me. Something he said. He said you'd always had blind faith in me, which isn't true."

Chakotay looked stricken for a moment. "Kathryn, no matter what disagreements we've had - I've always had faith in you. I always will. Never doubt that."

She smiled. "But that has never blinded you, Chakotay. You've never followed where I've led without due consideration and you've never hesitated to tell me when I'm wrong. That's what makes you so valuable to me as first officer."

He looked down for a moment, silently acknowledging the point. "So," he asked, after a moment. "What did make you realise that it wasn't me?"

She cleared her throat, willing herself not to colour at the memory of her fingers stroking 'his' skin. "Once I'd accepted that it was you in ghost form – which for me, in that state, was over days – he appeared all the time. I got used to it. Then one morning, I woke up to find you – it – in my quarters." She looked down with a sigh. "Something about the way you were dressed reminded me of something that happened on New Earth." She shook her head, correcting herself. "No, not even something that happened. Just – an incident. And then, a few minutes later, he said something. He made a mistake about the fundamental nature of our relationship. He covered it well, but it gave me pause. Now, I realise he thought what he'd seen in my mind was a memory." She brushed a hand over her face, hoping he wouldn't ask more questions. "But it wasn't."

Chakotay let the silence hang between them for a moment, and then asked the one thing she had been hoping he wouldn't. "What was it that he said?"

She sighed. "I don't think you really need to know that."

"Yes," he said, in a tone of voice that made her look up at him. "I really do. If it involved me, then don't I have a right to know?"

Janeway pushed out her chair and stood up, agitated and embarrassed. "It didn't involve you," she said. "It was just in my head. It never involved you."

Chakotay stood too, facing her with the chair between them. "But it was about me. Wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was about you."

"Then tell me what he said."

Kathryn put one hand up to her temple, knowing she was cornered. "He said, 'I miss making love to you in the rain.' But that never happened. It was just… just a moment on New Earth, when I…" she trailed off, cheeks burning with humiliation.

They stood looking at each other. Chakotay was watching her with an intensity that burned. Janeway had nothing left to say. She felt hollowed out, empty. She dropped her hand. "Look, I just came here to-"

"You'd been up late, working on those damn insect samples again," he said, his voice as soft as memory itself. "I woke up even earlier than usual. You were still asleep in your alcove, and I wanted you to sleep in, so I went for a run."

"Chakotay…"

"I must have run for ten kilometres that day. It was just so beautiful. The morning was warm even before the sun was fully up. It was only just tipping the horizon when I got back. It started to rain – one of those showers that used to come out of nowhere, do you remember? Warm, summer rain. I assumed you were still asleep."

Janeway's heart was pounding as she watched him. She tried to swallow, but couldn't. How could he pinpoint this so easily? How did he know-

"I took my running vest off and stood there, in the rain, and I heard a sound behind me. I turned around, and there you were, standing in the doorway. You were still in your nightgown, just looking at me. Staring at me as if you'd never seen me before. It's the only time in seven years that-" he stopped, smiled slightly, and went on. "Kathryn, it's the only time in all the years we've known each other that I was reasonably sure that if I'd made a move then, you would have gone with it."

At some point while he'd been talking, her eyes had filled with tears.

"I wanted to," Chakotay added. "I thought about grabbing your hand there and then and pulling you down into that wet grass."

Kathryn heard a sound from her own throat, something like a sigh, but more painful. "Maybe you should have."

He smiled. "Yes. Maybe I should have."

"That's what he saw," she whispered. "What I wanted to do in that moment. What I… imagined that we did." She shook her head, blinking away tears. "But that never happened. It was just a daydream I had years ago that he pulled out again, thinking it was a memory."

"I envy him," Chakotay murmured.

"What?"

He smiled. "Getting to see Kathryn Janeway's most secret thoughts. Especially that one."

She sighed. "What happened to us, Chakotay? Sometimes I'm not even sure we're friends any more. How did we go from… that… to where we are now?"

Chakotay said nothing, taking a step towards her, pushing the chair out of the way with one hand and catching her fingers in his with the other.

"It's my fault," she whispered. "I thought that being any closer to you was dangerous. I thought… I thought that letting myself… feel more for you than I should… would compromise me." She shook her head, feeling the tears slide down her face and doing nothing to wipe them away. "But when it came down to it… it turned out it was too late anyway. I can't tell you how much it hurt. I can't tell you how awful it was to watch you die, Chakotay. I would have died myself a thousand times over if it had meant-"

"I'm not dead," he told her, softly, tugging gently on the hand he held to pull her closer. "I'm right here. I've always been right here. Life out here is hard, that's all. It's always going to be hard."

She nodded. "Something had to give?"

"Yes. Just… next time, let's make sure it's not us."

"Is there an 'us'?"

He smiled. "I think there's been an 'us' since I first set foot on Voyager's bridge, Kathryn. It's the fact that it's taken seven years for us to admit it that's the problem."

"Me," she corrected him. "It's taken me seven years."

Chakotay laughed softly. "Look at it this way," he suggested. "If what the entity gave you was the chance to see that you could give me the worst possible order and still survive it, despite what you feel for me – well, I for one am grateful."

Kathryn had nothing to say to that. Instead, she fixed her gaze on the buttons on his shirt. Reaching out in silence, she began to undo them, one by one.

"Wait," Chakotay said, catching her wrists and stilling her hands. "If you're going to do that, you should probably know that it's been a while since I looked the way I did on New Earth…"

"I just… need to touch you," she said, barely able to meet his eye. "The other you – the phantom you – he…"

She trailed off, but he understood. Chakotay let go of her wrists, resting his hands on her hips instead, watching her face as she undid the rest of the buttons and opened his shirt. His torso was fuller than she remembered – less honed, perhaps, but it could not have mattered to her less. Kathryn reached out, touching her fingers to his skin – his warm, intensely alive skin – and traced them along the shadow of his left pectoral, down over his upper abdominals. She followed the route she had traced over his ghostly self, replacing the memory with a new one – a real one, a true one.

Behind him, it began to rain. She heard the sound of drops bouncing off the white marble of the balcony, smelled the petrichor as it drifted on the balmy breeze.

"I'd like to think," Chakotay whispered, leaning very close, "that this planet is trying to tell us something about missed opportunities." He pulled her with him, moving backwards through the open doors and out into the rain, stopping when they reached "the centre of the balcony. Chakotay left a few paces between them as they looked up into the rain. It fell on their faces, upturned towards the stars they would return to, upturned towards the future.

They looked at each other for a moment, as if suddenly aware of what they were about to do. She wondered if he was expecting her to run – to back away as she had so many times before. He was looking at her steadily, waiting for her to make the decision, as if it were hers alone to make. But then, she realised, it always had been. He'd always held back. She'd always expected him to.

Janeway took a step forward and saw a flicker cross his face. They drifted closer, a mutual drawing together, a long-awaited moment finally reaching its apex. Kathryn lifted a hand and wiped away the rain from his tattoo as Chakotay's reached out and slipped his arms around her, drawing her against him.

"I've missed you," she said, quietly. "I've missed you for a long time."

Chakotay bent his head and kissed her forehead, and then her temple, and then her cheek. She wondered if he could tell that there were tears mixed with the rain on her face as she realised how different it felt to have him, rather than his ghostly counterpart, touch her this way. He drew back, just for a moment, looking into her eyes with a slow smile that made her heart turn over and begin to thump anew.

"What's that saying about good things coming to those who wait?" he said, into her ear.

"Frankly," she said, voice low and rasping, "in my experience, waiting is vastly overrated."

His lips closed over hers. Instantly she felt the passion building between them, the energy from seven years of thwarted chances unfurling from the ball of tension that had slowly wound between them with every interaction since the first moment they had met. He pulled her so tightly against him that Kathryn found herself on tiptoe as his hands stroked firmly down her back. Chakotay surged forwards, pressing her back against the cool marble, the sensation a sharply erotic contrast to the heat of his body. She lifted her hands and cupped his face before running them down his torso and beneath the vee of his open shirt.

Chakotay moved to her neck, trailing kisses along her jaw and down. For a fraction of a second, Kathryn opened her eyes and saw, over his shoulder, the long-suffering shape of Voyager patiently awaiting repairs. She looked away, stroking Chakotay's jaw with her fingers before pulling his face back to meet hers for another searing kiss.

Because just for now - just for once - nothing else in the universe could matter as much as this.

[END]