Twenty-Three

"What do you know of my heart?"

Elinor to Marianne, Sense & Sensibility

When Kathryn finally got to bed, she was so tired she fell asleep in seconds, even though it was barely eight o'clock on Sunday night. She woke hours later to darkness and the sound of her cell beeping. She sat up and reached for it, wondering whether it was an update from the hospital. Annika Hansen had promised to keep her apprised of Chakotay's condition. He'd been lucky, Annika had explained, in that although one bullet had collapsed his lung, the other two had missed his vital organs by millimetres. She was refusing to give up hope.

"Fighting is what he does," she'd pointed out. "He's tough. He won't give up easily. I want him to know that there'll be someone here when he wakes up. Sekaya is trying to get here but she has things to arrange. I'll stay, for as long as it takes. I want to."

Kathryn had to admire her for that.

But it wasn't news about Chakotay. It was a text from Mark.

Tried to call but no answer. Hope all OK. I'm at the airport. Last two lectures dropped so I'm on my way home. See you tomorrow. Can't wait. Love you.

She lay down again, one hand bunching her pillow beneath her cheek as she looked at the message. Then she typed a reply.

Sorry I missed your call. So glad you're coming home. Safe journey. Love you.

She sent the message into the ether, then put down the phone and curled her knees up into her chest. Kathryn lay there for a few minutes, wondering whether Mark would try to FaceTime her now that he knew she was awake, but no such call came. Perhaps he'd already been at the gate.

She turned on her back, stretched out her legs and stared up at the ceiling. The past 24 hours seemed like a blur. So much had happened and so quickly, an explosion for which she'd been standing right at Ground Zero. Now it was time to acknowledge the fallout and work out how to survive it. Sleep had cleared her head a little, at least. Mentally she took stock of the situation.

Chakotay was alive and in as good a place as there was for him at this moment. There was nothing she could-

She crashed to her knees by his side, hands searching for the source of the blood, his face white and growing whiter, scarlet on his lips-

-lips that just moments earlier had been on her neck, on her mouth, so alive-

-as he aspirated between them, dark eyes fastened on her as if he wanted to say something but

Kathryn tried to shut out the flash of memory but it came anyway, smashing into her like a closed fist cracking into her jaw. All she could do was let it bludgeon its way through her, let the fraction of a second where she was back there take control until it loosened its grip again and she was returned to the present, staring up at her ceiling, fingers clenched around handfuls of her white sheets.

She took a deep breath. She knew how this worked. She'd been here before. The trick was to acknowledge, but not to feel. She couldn't let herself feel it, or it would drown her as surely as the ocean had drowned Justin and her father, as surely as the blood in Chakotay's pierced lung had almost drowned him and still might.

Kathryn's heart was so thoroughly flensed that it felt light, empty. What had happened with Chakotay would mark her indelibly, she knew that, but so had a million other things that had happened in her life and so would a million more before her hair turned grey with age. That was life, after all, and now it was time to get on with the rest of it.

Life always went on.

Mark was coming home. She had to decide how honest she was going to be about what had happened in his absence. She had kissed another man – in truth, she had been willing to do more than kiss him - six weeks before she was due to become Mark's wife. The most honest part of her felt duty bound to tell Mark this, however much the idea of doing so appalled her.

She wondered how different that evening would have been if she hadn't been the one to drive Chakotay home. What if it had been B'Elanna instead? Would they both be dead or dying now?

What if you hadn't run? whispered a voice inside her. What if you hadn't pulled away and let him follow you to the door, out to where the wolves were waiting?

What if you had stayed? What if you had stayed there with him?

She got up, leaving that thought behind her where it belonged. It would have made no difference in the long run, of course, other than leaving her with something else to regret. If they hadn't gotten to him that night, they would have found another opportunity.

There were a million ways to torture oneself with how life might have been different and none of them were worth a damn because none of them could change a thing.

She knew this, too.

Kathryn went into the bathroom. The first thing she did was pick up her dress, still lying cold and saturated on the white shower tiles. She shoved it into the trashcan and then realised that she didn't want Mark to see the bloodstained mess of it. She took it out again and carried it downstairs. She wrapped it in newsprint and put it in a bag, then stuffed it into the larger trashcan in the kitchen.

Kathryn looked at the date on the calendar on the kitchen wall. Six weeks until her wedding, and there was so much she should already have done that she'd been putting off. Why was that? She couldn't remember now.

She'd kissed another man. So what? It was just a kiss. It didn't mean anything more than a lapse in judgement, a lonely moment while Mark had been away that would never be repeated.

Kathryn put on coffee and while it brewed she got out her laptop. Then she sat down and started making notes and writing emails. If anyone could organise a good wedding in six weeks flat, it was her.

The house phone rang about an hour later.

"I get an email from you at 3am on Monday to ask me to help you pick out a wedding dress on Tuesday?" said Phoebe's voice. "Seriously?"

"I didn't think you'd see it until you got up."

"Well, I did. What gives?"

"Nothing 'gives'. I just realised I have a huge amount to do for this wedding that I really should have already organised. So, can you make Tuesday?"

There was a pause. Kathryn wondered whether Phoebe was lying in bed next to Karl, or if she was sitting in her kitchen, as Kathryn was.

"Why are you doing this at 3am the day after your storming success of a charity gala?" Phoebe asked.

"The two things aren't mutually exclusive, Phoebe. I've got six weeks to organise everything. When do you suggest I do it?"

Another pause. "So how did dropping Coach Chakotay home go?"

Kathryn was on the verge of uttering a short, reflexive 'fine' when she realised she couldn't. Not this time.

"Kathryn?"

She didn't know how to start. Dead air floated down the line.

"I'm coming over," Phoebe said. "Right now."

Phoebe knew something was badly wrong the minute she saw her sister, although it was likely that to everyone else Kathryn Janeway looked perfectly fine. On the surface she was projecting the same air of calm collectedness she always did. To Phoebe's knowing eye it was just a little too calm, a little too collected, delineated by a form of absence that lurked just out of sight to anyone not paying attention or who didn't know Kathryn well enough. Search just a little deeper and there it was; a void, hard to define yet clear enough to set alarm bells ringing in Phoebe's head as soon as she looked into her sister's eyes.

"What happened? Tell me."

Phoebe listened in silence as Kathryn spoke. For once she made no comment, not even when Kathryn, staring resolutely at the dark surface of her coffee, told her about the kiss.

Once she was done, Phoebe reached out and gripped one of Kathryn's hands in hers. "Why didn't you call me?" she asked. "I would have come to the hospital and waited with you, you know I would."

Kathryn shook her head. "I didn't think."

"You were in shock."

"I suppose I was. Anyway, I'm fine now. He's being taken care of and he's got his girlfriend with him. She'll call when she has news."

Ex-girlfriend, Phoebe thought, but did not say. "And Mark's coming home."

"Yes," Kathryn said, with a faint smile.

Phoebe nodded, still holding on to her sister's hand. "Look. I'm not saying this for any other reason than that I genuinely think it's the right thing to do. Don't you think it would be a good idea to postpone the wedding? Even just for a few weeks?"

Her sister frowned. "Why on earth would I do that? I wasn't the one who was hurt, Phoebe. I'm fine."

"Kathryn, you know as well as I do that you've just been through a hugely traumatic experience. Hell, the shooting would have been shocking enough. It'd be traumatic for anyone, but for you-"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He could have died in your arms in that hallway. Do I have to spell it out to you? Are you suppressing that much? Really?"

Kathryn's face grew taut. "If you're equating what happened with Justin and Dad to a man I barely know-"

"Kathryn, five minutes earlier you were ready to go to bed with him. And that might be nothing for a lot of people, but not for you."

"I might have wanted to," Kathryn said, her voice sharp, "yes, for a split second I might have wanted to, but I didn't, and that was because of Mark, Phoebe. I didn't because of Mark."

"Was it love that stopped you?" Phoebe asked. "Or was it guilt? Because they're not the same thing, Kathryn, and that matters. Now of all times, it matters."

Kathryn shook her head, her face hardening. "I'm so tired of this old argument. Just once I'd like to be able to rely on you for support in this. Just once. I am not postponing this wedding, and I have a lot to do. So either you help me, or you stay out of my way."

"Are you going to tell Mark what you've told me? All of it?"

Kathryn folded her hands together on the table in front of her. "Yes," she said. "Why? Hoping he'll call it off himself?"

Phoebe shook her head. "No. Mark won't do that. Not for the sake of a single kiss. It'll hurt him like hell, but he loves you too much."

She saw the flicker of guilt pass through Kathryn's eyes.

"Tell me just one thing," Phoebe said, into the ensuing silence. "When Chakotay kissed you, how did it feel?"

Her sister's jaw set hard and fast, but not quickly enough to stop Phoebe from seeing a flash of something Kathryn couldn't quite crush sparking across her face.

It looked a lot like joy.

[TBC]