~~C~~
Talking about my feelings is something I was never good at. It's hard. Ironically, listening to others do it, giving them advice is something that comes naturally. I blame my father, and his example, for that. The man always had plenty to say to everyone else's problems…and ignored his own.
Telling her I've long grown used to her company, her humor and even her Irish temper is something that's hard. Telling her I've come to appreciate her, to wonder what we could be together isn't easy. For one thing it would probably shock the hell out of her, given how we started out. It shocks me too, when I stop to think about it.
I can't quite find the words to tell her that there was no one I could have been stranded with that I think I could make a whole, complete life with but her.
So I make her a bathtub because she misses hers, hoping it feels more like home. The tub is big enough for two, but that's just so she can stretch out in it, unwind as much as possible. It'll be extra work drawing water over to fill it, but if she can relax, be still for one hour out of the day that she isn't spending with those blasted insect traps of hers, I'll take it. Her delight is well worth the work.
Finding projects to work on inside the cabin so she can have her privacy, I listen for her voice calling to me at night. Sometimes, she passes the entire hour in silence. But lately, she'll draw me into her thoughts more and more, call out for my input on her latest theories.
She doesn't want the input; she just needs to hear that she's right, that she should follow her instincts, whatever they happen to be today.
I don't know how to tell her that the sound of her voice is something that matters to me, that I've come to crave. I would listen to her for hours if she wanted to talk that long. Now, I can't imagine how I ever hated it in those early days but…I was an angrier, more short-sighted man in general back then. Before her. Before I knew her – really knew her.
I'm not sure how to tell her these truths, never seem to find the right moment, the right words. So I whittle things meant to make her smile, to pull her from her obsessive pursuit of a cure we may never find. Ridiculous things. Carvings of dogs that look nothing like the real things. Awkward dreamcatchers, crude bookmarks, and once, a little Neelix bust that looked more like the dog I'd tried to make the week before than the dog did.
I'm good with sturdy, useful objects when I can refer to computer-stored designs to create them, but not so much the figurines that are supposed to resemble real, animated things. But I keep trying, keep making them. Little things, whimsical things that make her stop moving, make her face soften, make her blue eyes dance and her warm, husky laughter fill our cabin, the clearing we now call home.
That I now call home.
It shouldn't be so hard to tell her that it's not just a home I'm making, trying to get her to settle into. I'm not- I can't find the right way to say that it's a home for us that I'm creating here. That if she wasn't in the equation, I'd find it hard to accept our circumstances too.
I want her to know that the first time my spirit guide actually spoke to me in years was the day I tried to help her find hers. I'd like to say to her how that was the day something changed for me, made me realize my place, for as long as she's beside me, is next to her. That I've never regretted slowly changing my allegiances over to her.
I don't know how to ask her if she really sees no chance for a future together, now that there's almost no probability she'll ever get back to Earth and her fiancé. Okay – as my spirit guide kicks me, grumbles reprovingly – I admit that's a lie. Maybe I do know. I'm just afraid I won't like her answer. It's too hard to put myself on the line when she could so easily throw it all right back at me.
So I make her a headboard she can comfortably read against, and when she finally calls me out on it, on my reasons for doing it, I try. I stare at the hair she stills wear bound, a barrier, a symbol of the distance she maintains between us, try not to imagine how easy it would be to reach out and remove them, to watch her come unraveled for me.
I try to tell her that we're wasting time, that I just don't see how she's going to succeed at finding this cure without some sort of a medical degree. I think I halfway succeed.
She tells me she's not ready, and I have to respect that. I let her keep trying, won't take her safety net out from under her until she's ready to let it go. It's not easy, but I do it for her. And when the storm comes that wipes out all her equipment, takes every last chance of success out of her hands, I have no more excuses. Especially when she tells me after an…awkward moment…that we need to define the parameters of us.
To hell with parameters; I'm well past that. Yet I can't even find the words to explain why anywhere in me. I'm too afraid to tell her outright and have her tell me that it's me she can't see building a future with – even if she lets Mark, Voyager, go.
So I tell her an "ancient legend" – a made up concoction about an angry warrior, no peace, something, anything that comes into my head that's a rough approximation of how I feel for her. What she's become to me.
When I'm done, I know I'm caught. I can see the tears in her shining eyes as she says, "Is that really…an ancient legend?"
It was that bad, then. Damn.
"No," I admit, smiling in embarrassment at being called out on it. "But that made it easier to say."
She smiles but makes no worded response. Puts her hand up on the table, indicating for me to join it with mine. I do, feeling electric charge coursing through the physical connection. When she still says nothing, I take her silent tears, her smile and soulful eyes locked deep with mine for the hope that I've gotten through to her. That she understands exactly what it is I've been trying to say to her all this time. That there's a chance she can grow to feel the same way about me.
She isn't Seska, thank the spirits: she's nothing like her. She doesn't toy with peoples' emotions unnecessarily and especially not to spare their feelings. If there was no chance, she would tell me that now. It's not "yes", but it's sure as hell not "no", either.
There's hope.
When Tuvok returns for us less than a month later, and we beam back to Voyager, to captain and first officer and clear divided lines, it's not easy. I cling to the certainty that we'd been making progress, that we're closer now than we've ever been and that there's a chance for us…eventually. I still don't know for sure. She never said. Not outright.
One thing she never said was no.
To remind her how I feel, still feel – she has to realize it's how I still feel – I make her things from time to time. Or at the very least, bring her things. Little things. Stupid things.
Things that make her laugh, that draw out her smile.
~~J~~
The cavern surrounding us could be dark and ominous if I let it be. Instead, I hold fast to the newly-gained knowledge that it's exactly where we need to be, now that Chakotay's beamed down with the unconscious Kes.
"Captain, this isn't like you," Chakotay tries after I tell him my plan. He's deeply concerned, and I want to smile at him.
No. It's more like you – and for the first time, I think I understand you. Your faith and your convictions. The way you could throw away the pursuit of scientific answers because you don't always need them with faith like this.
Neelix protests in the background. He doesn't understand. Chakotay does…or will if I can find the right words for this. He loves me, doesn't want to lose me, and I understand that even if I can't acknowledge or return it, but he will let me do this. He trusts me, trusts my judgment.
If I can convince him I'm not being influenced by anything but my own beliefs, that is.
"He's right," Chakotay agrees with Neelix, remains unconvinced. "It's my responsibility to keep you safe, for the crew's sake if not for your own."
I hear what he's really saying to me. We've grown that close. Please. This is dangerous. You know how I feel about you. I don't want to lose you to some mind-altering process that's not letting you think straight. If you walk into that field with Kes, you'll die.
It doesn't surprise me in the slightest when he pulls out the trump card I've been expecting when I say nothing. "I'd rather not have to relieve you of duty, but if your judgment's been impaired in any way…"
It won't stop me, my eyes tell him in return.
The guide asks if he can really do that, and I can only smile. "Yes, he can," I assure her.
She tells me I'm not crazy, and I know that. And I know he knows that, even through his obvious, heart-warming worry for me.
Even if I am crazy and this kills me, there's no alternative. There's no other way to bring Kes back, and I trust Chakotay with my life – with my ship and with our crew. He'll get them home for me, I believe that. As close as we are now, a single look from me is all that's needed to convey every bit of this to him.
When did that happen? That it was so easy to say so much without a word? I don't remember it being that easy before.
It doesn't matter. I know what I have to do. Neelix is still protesting that it's too dangerous, that I can't trust these people so blindly. But it isn't him I have to convince. Chakotay will stop me if he doesn't believe I'm sane. The guide admits she doesn't know the answers to their questions about my potential safety, but says that I do.
She's right. I do. I understand what I have to do to save Kes, and I refuse to not try and admit that we've lost her. Not when I believe, to the core of my being, that walking into that energy matrix with her will be what saves her.
Chakotay still looks terrified. "Captain, I don't understand this…"
It would be so easy to back down. To listen to him, to let his worry overwhelm me or even to try and lie, to say that I understand it any better than he does. But he will understand the truth, I know he will.
"Neither do I. That's the challenge."
It's hard for him. It's hard not to stop me, to reach out and physically hold me back from moving forward with her, but he won't. His eyes flicker: an entire conversation in one tiny gesture. You'd better make it through this, Kathryn. But I'm trusting you. I believe in you, and in your judgment. I'm not going to stop you. Do what you feel you have to do. I'll be standing right behind you.
He trusts me, and because of it, I trust myself.
It works. Kes is restored to us, and I'm left shaking with over-exhaustion and a spinning mind from a three day ordeal that in no way shape or form is going to allow me to sleep peacefully tonight. Not if I don't find a way to unwind, to get some of this off my chest.
Once it all settles, my core beliefs have been shaken. I don't feel like myself. My foundation feels a little unsteady, a bit beaten. I could use some Vulcan clarity right about now, some guided meditation to help me sleep. But I've had more than enough mediation to last a lifetime and the thought of stopping by for more of it holds no appeal.
It's not the wisest course, but after wandering in a daze out of sickbay, it's to Chakotay's quarters that I migrate. It's his soothing presence I seek out, his caustic humor that I let draw me out of my funk.
He lets me in without a word, without judgment. Never presses me to talk about anything I don't want to. He offers me a stiff drink and tells me amusing anecdotes, tidbits about the crew I've missed the past few days.
It was a chance I took, coming to him when I'm this raw and open, but we manage to keep the lines where they've always been: friendly, neutral, safe. He has to sense that he could push for something more, that his chances of success might be greater tonight but he doesn't – for which I'm thankful, appreciative.
For a few fleeting moments, though, it's me that threatens to weaken. To stray from the beaten, well-crafted path I've laid out for myself to follow with him. In dim lighting, with his warm dark eyes crinkling in laughter, that smile tugging at parts of me I can't acknowledge, I find my own tired eyes drawn to his tribal tattoo. To the elegant lines of ink that call out to my hands, that seem to dare me to trace its curved and pointed paths alike with my fingertips. It would be easy to do, I think, after a drink or two. So easy…but I restrain the impulse. Fight it back.
And when he tugs at his ear, looking self-conscious before handing me the small carved monkey that looks a little bit like Tuvok with rounded ears…if you squint right after a glass of real whiskey…it's easier to laugh so freely with him than I imagined it would have been.
Too easy.
~~JC~~