A/N: Thanks, as always, to MissyHissy3, for fitting me in despite always having far too many things to do. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed throughout this absurdly long story, I really do appreciate it! xx

Thirty Eight

From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd
Thus much I at least may recall,
It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd
Deserved to be dearest of all:
In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude is singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

Stanzas for Augusta – Lord Byron

There was colour everywhere, vibrant yet out of focus, as if she had stepped into a Monet painting. Shades of green swirled in knots and whorls: emerald and celadon, jade and myrtle – from dark iron-rich to pale peridot frosted with silver there was an entire virescent backdrop painted with the garden's leaves alone. Bursting between them, over them, through them came star-bright spatters constellating in hues of yellow and cerise, vermillion and iris, indigo and incarnadine as the eager plants threw open their blooms to the bright Californian sky. Their collective scent rose as thick as morning mist over high ground and the deceptively lazy drone of insects hard at work was somehow louder than the ever-present hum of traffic encroaching from the surrounding blocks.

For a moment Kathryn stopped inside the entrance, overwhelmed by the sight. She'd had no idea that the garden had progressed so quickly in the short weeks since she'd busied herself elsewhere. From the main gate a path had been left clear of plants and scattered with bark chippings. Slowly she followed where it led between the vegetable patches on one side and the flowers on the other. Here and there were tools stuck in the ground next to small piles of weeds: evidence of the ongoing industry that had transformed this former wasteland into its current verdant state.

Kathryn remembered what Tom had said about Neelix thinking the replacement persimmon were in bud and went to see for herself. He was right. In the next day or so the young trees would be covered in the small white flowers that would surely provide fruit later in the season. In front of each of the trees stood one of Franco's benches, earthed into the turf that had settled around their small trunks. Though at the moment they dwarfed the saplings, it was clear to see that the seating had been built with the tree's future maturity in mind. Semi-circular, when the trees were fully-grown anyone sitting on them would be able to lean back against the trunk itself for support, as well as resting against the elegant, wave-like curls that constituted the turned arms at either end. The wood had been buffed smooth to bring out the grain, knots and all. Kathryn could imagine it weathering decade by decade, ageing along with the garden until it would be possible to believe that the creation of Franco's skilled hands had in fact sprouted from the earth along with the plants surrounding them.

There was a fluttering above her head and a lark sparrow alighted on the persimmon's flimsy highest branch. It sat there for a moment, tilting its head this way and that, regarding her with curious eyes. Then it began to sing. Kathryn shut her eyes and listened.

"Kathryn."

His quiet voice made her jump. She spun on her heel, the bark beneath her feet crunching with the sudden movement.

"Chakotay!"

He was leaning on the last post of the fence that Tom and Franco had put in place to fill the gap left by the one Kathryn and Chakotay had built on the morning of that fateful day. He was wearing a white shirt, open at the neck and faded blue jeans. For a moment it was possible for Kathryn to believe that what he had endured that evening had merely been a nightmare of her own making. He looked the same way he always had. He looked good.

They watched each other for a moment, as if neither was sure that the other was actually there at all.

"I thought you'd gone," Kathryn said, eventually. "To New Mexico. B'Elanna and Tom said-"

Chakotay glanced down at his feet. "Yes. I'm supposed to be on the road now. But…" he looked up at her again. "I couldn't leave without saying goodbye. Not after what B'Elanna told me."

Kathryn twined her fingers together. "What did B'Elanna tell you?"

He said nothing for a moment, just watched her. She well remembered what it felt like to have those dark eyes of his entirely focused on her. Guilt shivered in her gut, along with something else she couldn't – wouldn't – name.

"That you're going away. To Japan."

She nodded, relieved. "That's right."

"Kathryn, I-" he stopped. He gripped the fencepost, hard. His face set into a frown. "I'm… sorry - I need to sit down."

"Oh!" His admission set her moving. "Of course – I'm sorry. Can I help?"

Chakotay shook his head as he made for the bench and sank down onto one end of it, leaning on the carved arm. He looked up at her with a faint self-deprecating smile. "Not quite the man I used to be."

"Don't say that," she said. "What you survived, Chakotay – it's remarkable you're walking so soon at all."

He contemplated the garden as Kathryn moved to sit at the other end of the bench. "Look at this place. Look at what you did. It's amazing."

Kathryn smiled. "It wasn't me."

Chakotay turned to her. "It was you, Kathryn."

She watched as a butterfly wound a lazy, fluttering path towards a late-flowering hyacinth. She wondered if she'd ever forget the way her name sounded in his voice. "It was everyone coming together to work for a common purpose. It was a collective decision to make something good out of something that was going to waste. That's what did it. That's what will always do it: the desire to find and give hope where it seems as if there can be none. It's always there, that good part of human nature, it just needs something to inspire it." Kathryn looked at him. "It's what you do with those kids. What you did for B'Elanna."

He smiled at her, softly, then looked out at the garden again. "I still can't believe that this has all been re-planted and grown again since that night."

"Well, actually, not everything had to be re-planted after all." She pointed to the hyacinth, moving slightly as the butterfly mined its nectar. "That's from a bulb we planted before the vandals trashed the place. Tom and I had forgotten about them until they started coming up. They were under the surface the whole time and now they're all in full flower. It's the same with the potatoes and the carrots. The gang destroyed what was on the surface, but they missed what was buried, just waiting to grow when it had a chance."

Chakotay smiled again. "Seems like a good metaphor."

Kathryn laughed slightly. "I suppose it is. For a lot of things."

"And now you're going to do the same thing in Japan."

She tipped one shoulder in a half-shrug. "Well. I'll try, anyway."

Chakotay looked down, one thumb tracing the lifeline of his other hand as he frowned. "Kathryn. I don't really know how to say this… but if this – any of this - is my fault…"

Kathryn swallowed. "If any of what is your fault?"

Chakotay looked at her and her heart constricted. She wondered if she'd ever before known anyone who could say so much so silently. He shook his head and when he spoke next, his voice was low.

"B'Elanna told me about your split with Mark. And… if it was because of what happened between us that night…"

"It wasn't," Kathryn said, quickly, her heart turning over on itself in a sick rollercoaster flip. "And if it had been, then… well. A relationship that can be overturned by one momentary mistake-"

She saw a flash of something cross his face and stopped. For a split second Kathryn thought that his chest must have gone into spasm. Then she realised that the pain had been caused by something else. She looked away, her heartbeat quickening.

"A mistake?" he asked. "That's how you see it?"

She looked down at her hands. "Don't you?"

Chakotay was silent for a moment. She glanced up to find his gaze tracing the contours of her face. He met her eyes and shook his head. "No. If you do, then I regret that. But do I regret that we had that moment? No. I don't know how I ever could, Kathryn. I don't know how I could regret anything about knowing you other than having to say goodbye without knowing you better."

She swallowed, all her nerves fizzing and hating herself for it. How could it be that after everything that had happened since they first met, after how much damage this frisson between them had caused, her inner self could still react to him so viscerally, and at a time like this?

"Chakotay…" she began, painfully, tied up in his gaze and drowning. "I can't do this. It's not-"

He looked away. "I'm sorry." He sighed. "This was why I didn't want to come. I know this isn't the right time. Please believe me when I say I had every intention of not coming here at all. But… you're leaving. And a near-death experience tends to throw a few things into perspective. The idea of never seeing you again… We only have one life, Kathryn. I feel like I've had you in mine for far too short a time." Chakotay shook his head. "I had to at least… tell you that."

Kathryn gripped the edge of the bench, staring at the bark chippings under her feet and willing her heart to stop thumping as her eyes blurred. We get one life, Kathryn, just one, and once it's gone, it's gone, echoed Mark's voice in her head. She knew both men were right. She knew it. But taking that leap-

She looked at Chakotay's face, at its strong angles and planes, at its lines and creases that seemed, at that moment, to be the map to a land she had been trying to navigate blind for too long. She remembered how it felt to have his lips on her skin, a sensation all at once completely new and utterly commonplace, as if he had touched her in that way for years. But overlaying that was the memory of him crumpled in the entranceway to his apartment, of him gasping for a breath that just wouldn't come as she tried to hold his chest together, screaming for help. And the terror that accompanied that recollection lurked like a towering demon over what joy there had been, dark and huge and so suffocating that she knew the only way to escape it would be to close off what had summoned it completely.

"I think I know you," she whispered, her voice fraying at the edges and breaking in the middle. "I think I knew everything I needed to know about you the moment that we met."

Chakotay watched her for a moment and then reached out and gently took her hand, cradling it in both of his. "I'm going to take a leap here and assume that what you know is good, not bad?"

She laughed a little, painfully – the feeling of his warm fingers around hers –

"In that case, I'm going to make a suggestion," he said, quietly.

Kathryn lifted her chin and tried to square her jaw. "Chakotay-"

"I know that Tom will be leaving Maywood. I can manage it for you. After all, I'm going to be looking for something less active. That'll free you up to do whatever it is you need to do, wherever you need to do it. But… don't go to Japan, Kathryn, or at least if you do, don't go indefinitely. Please. Stay here. Let me get to know you. Let yourself find out if what you think you know about me is right. Don't go."

She shook her head, uselessly, but couldn't speak.

"I think," Chakotay went on softly, "that you've had enough heartbreak to fill too many lifetimes. And I can tell you now that that's something I understand, perhaps better than you realise. These are things we can learn about each other – slowly. I will be here for whatever you need, whenever you need it. Because you came here and you built this place and you took all of us with you and you would have done it alone if you'd had to. If your way of surviving heartbreak is to try to make everyone else's lives better, then I think you deserve to have one person behind you no matter what, every step of the way. And from now on, that's going to be me."

Kathryn felt tears sliding down her cheeks. "That's already been you," she said. "Ever since I got here. Even since that first night, you've been here for me."

He smiled slightly. "You made it easy to be."

She made a harsh sound in her throat. "Easy is the last thing I am, Chakotay. There is so much about me that is difficult. And I don't know if I'll ever be ready to…" she lifted her free hand to his face, running her fingers from his temple down to his jaw. "Do you know what Mark said, about that night in your apartment? He said 'You wanted it enough that it outweighed your fear of ever wanting anything that much again.' And he's right. Chakotay, I wanted you so much that it made me forget what could happen. And then… then you were dying, right there under my hands, and I-" she took a sharp, painful breath. "I don't know that I'll ever get past that. I don't know that I can. Not again."

He nodded. "I understand that. I do. And I can't promise that something else terrible won't happen to either of us. It would be foolish to even try to pretend that in this world. But one life, Kathryn. That's all we have. One. And having you in mine, even if the worst were to happen to either of us – I have to believe that would be better than never having that at all." He dipped his head and squeezed her hand slightly. "I don't want to pry and I don't want to bring up old hurts where it's unnecessary. But if you had the power to erase the memory of your first fiancé entirely – and with it, the pain – would you?"

Kathryn turned to stare out at the garden. She had spent so long trying not to think about how Justin and her father had met their end that the effort had subsumed everything else. What happy memories did surface she routinely squashed for fear of what would follow. But deep in her mind there was a glint of sunlight on waves, a bright flash of laughter that echoed with an accompanying fragment of joy... For the first time, Kathryn wondered what would happen if she let herself follow that thread instead of snapping it off the moment it began to spin.

"For a long time I think I probably would have said yes," she said, quietly. "But now… I'm not so sure."

Chakotay pulled her gently around to face him, studying her face. "If you ever want to talk about it, I'm here."

She smiled slightly. "I'm not sure I ever will. I'm not sure I'll ever be ready for a lot of things."

Chakotay's gaze dropped to her lips for a moment before meeting hers again. Despite everything, her heart still fluttered. He reached out and cupped her face with one hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb. He watched her for a moment and then slowly leaned in. He stopped when their lips were a hair's breadth apart and her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that Kathryn thought it might crack a rib. Chakotay paused, the warmth from his mouth so close that she could feel it. He held himself there for a beat, for two, giving her a chance to push him away or protest. But she didn't. She couldn't. An echo of the helpless want from that night returned, a flush that caressed her skin as surely as could his fingers if she gave him the chance.

Chakotay closed the last fraction of space between them, kissing her softly. Kathryn could feel the hunger of their previous such union simmering, but he didn't give into it. Chakotay drew back and then kissed her again, then again, briefly drawing her bottom lip between his. It was slow and careful and heated and it turned the deepest part of her into something molten, something with a burning fire all its own. Chakotay pulled her closer, sliding the hand that had rested on her cheek down over her shoulder and her back. He kissed her one last time and then drew back to look at her through eyes that seemed even darker than usual.

One day I think you will be, they said. And I'll be here when you are.

[TBC]