A/N: Can't give enough thanks to MissyHissy3 for putting up with betaing for me. Her input has been invaluable. Thanks to everyone who has stuck with this to the end.

Chapter 17

Her door closed behind him. Chakotay stopped for a second, taking in a deep breath and with it the last vestiges of her perfume. It had brought him up short, walking into her quarters to find it so sweetly fragranced. Janeway never wore scent on duty and so for him, it had been deeply sensual to enter her rooms and experience something that felt like such a private part of her life. When he'd discovered that he'd also caught Kathryn in the bath, Chakotay had been eager to beat a swift retreat. But she'd seemed so relaxed about him being there – happy, even, to see him – that it hadn't been difficult to accept her invitation to stay, especially given how beautiful she'd looked at that moment. Flushed, tousled, laughing – it was a sight so different to the deathly pale woman who had been in so much pain that she'd crashed out of consciousness and into his arms a day ago.

Chakotay pinched a thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose and began the short walk to his own quarters. Of course he'd been lying to her when he'd said that kiss was already forgotten. He didn't think he'd ever forget it, as brief as it had been. And, when he had told her that his sleep had been interrupted by the absence of her breathing, what Chakotay had elected to omit was how, in those waking moments, he had also missed feeling the weight of her tangled against him. They had slept like that for less than a full night, but that was the sensation that had remained with him – the feel of her head under his chin, of her legs tucked between his, her arms around him – the feeling that they were two pieces of a puzzle that had been turned around too many times to count and finally found the correct way to fit together. But what would be the point in telling her that?

He entered his quarters, somewhat exasperated to find himself in a situation he had experienced before and that Chakotay had thought he'd left behind so many years ago. This felt like their return from New Earth, when he'd realised two fatal things: one, that in those lost weeks he had let himself fall in love with her and two, that even if she felt the same, she would never dream of crossing that line with her second in command once back on board. It had taken him a long time to get past that, but he'd managed it. Or at least, he thought he had. The three weeks of their captivity had reawakened something he'd long buried and half-forgotten.

"Computer, lights at 50%."

Chakotay shrugged off his uniform jacket. He was tired, but wound too tightly to sleep immediately. He kept feeling the brush of her hair beneath his fingers, the softness of her skin under the stroke of his thumb. He sighed. What he needed was activity, not sleep. He'd been sitting still for weeks, it was no wonder he was jumping out of his skin.

"Computer, what is the location of B'Elanna Torres?"

"B'Elanna Torres is in the mess hall."

"Chakotay to Torres."

"Torres here. Everything all right, Chakotay?"

"Fine, I just… wondered if you were up for a game of hoverball. I need to get these old bones of mine working again."

There was a pause. "I'm sorry, Chakotay – I would, but… I've got plans. Maybe tomorrow?"

Chakotay rubbed over the back of his neck and nodded to himself. "Tom?"

"Yeah," B'Elanna admitted. "He's got some new holodeck programme he's working on, wants me to check it out. But – maybe I can cancel…"

"No, don't worry. It was just a spur of the moment idea, that's all. Enjoy your evening – I'll see you tomorrow."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure. Chakotay out."

Still preoccupied by the need to simply be on the move, Chakotay headed for his door. He'd call by Ayala's quarters, see what he was up to. Even if his old second in command was busy, the walk to crew deck would give him a chance to stretch his legs and-

He stopped short as the door opened. Kathryn was standing on the other side of it, back in her uniform, hair still tangled and damp, her hand raised in the act of activating his door chime.

They stared at each other for a second, and then she said:

"It wasn't nothing. And it isn't forgotten."

Chakotay was momentarily lost for words. "Captain?"

He saw her swallow, the only indication that she might be nervous. Then her eyes flashed from his down to his chest and back up again as her jaw set. It was a motion he'd seen her make a million times when steeling herself in the middle of an argument.

"What happened in that cell wasn't nothing. I'm not being irrational. We have to talk about this."

He glanced over her head, down the corridor towards the turbolift and then back along the other way. As usual, their little corner of the ship was mercifully empty. "Come in."

She followed him inside and stood, her arms crossed over herself.

"I didn't mean to imply that I thought you were being irrational by worrying about it," he told her. "I understand why you would be concerned. But there's no need."

"Isn't there?"

He frowned, a fizz of frustration dancing in his bloodstream. He didn't want to talk about this. He just wanted to find a way to get past it. "No. What exactly do you think is going to happen, Kathryn? This command team has got past far worse crises than a kiss in the dark that lasted less than a second."

"It's not the kiss," she said, and Chakotay was shocked to hear the slight tremor in her voice. "It's what was behind it."

They stared at each other. He experienced, suddenly, an echo of what he'd felt when he had drawn her bottom lip between his. A throb in his heart, a crackle of electricity tracing his spine. The feeling that he was touching the very tip of something vast, something only encapsulated by a word so short and yet of such magnitude that-

She looked away and took a breath.

"I don't know what you want me to say," he told her, taking a step back to put some distance between them. "It was a kiss. That's all."

"That's not all, and you know it."

He threw up his hands, the exasperation that had tied his muscles in knots finally bursting out in a rush of words he would usually keep in check. "Then what? If I say, 'Yes, Kathryn, it was more than just a kiss' – if I say, 'Yes, you're right, of course there was something – everything – behind it, because there was always going to be, with us – because there has always been something behind everything where we're concerned, no matter how desperately you try to ignore it and there's nothing I can do about that' - what then? If I say that - what then, Kathryn? What do we do then? What do I do then?"

Janeway shook her head, silently, her eyes squeezed shut and her face pained.

"Talking about this only has two outcomes," he told her. "Either it was just a kiss, and we forget about it, or it's something else, and it does the very thing that I know you are most afraid of, Captain, so here I am, telling you the only thing I can, which is what you want to hear, and the only thing that we can do about it, which I am trying my hardest to do. It was just a kiss. That's all. Let it go."

"This… is going to make things awkward between us," she said. "For a while, at least. We have to work out how to deal with it. Or it will become the thing I am most afraid of Chakotay, and that's losing you as my first officer. If not physically, then in spirit."

He turned away with a short laugh that bore a sharp edge. "It hasn't happened yet."

"I can't do this without you, Chakotay," she said, softly, the quiet, desperate honesty in her voice cutting through his frustration. "I can't get this ship home without you."

He exhaled, slowly, hands on his hips, and then turned to face her. "I will always be here for you. You know that."

"So what do we do?"

Chakotay smiled wryly. "If I could do something about this, Kathryn, don't you think I would have long ago? We wait it out. It'll pass. With time."

Kathryn shook her head. "You risked your life to pull me back over that precipice. You let me go when you knew it meant you'd be left behind. You kept me sane in that cell. Three weeks in darkness, Chakotay, and the only thing that kept me going was you."

"I don't know what-"

"It's not going to pass. It's not going to pass. It never has, no matter what I've tried to do to make it. And the worst thing is that…" she shut her eyes, clenching her fists. "The worst thing is that I don't want it to."

The silence that followed her pronouncement was as absolute as the darkness that had permeated their cell. Chakotay stared at her, thinking that perhaps he hadn't heard her correctly. Kathryn shifted uncomfortably under his penetrating gaze, looking away into the shadows that sat at the dim edges of his quarters. He could see the pulse pounding in her neck, read her discomfort in her still-clenched fists.

"I don't know what to do," Janeway said, and he could see how painful the words were to her. "If we were in the Alpha Quadrant, we could request reassignment. We could get away from each other. It's what the regulations would have us do. But out here… I've tried to ignore it. I've tried to cut you out. But all it took was one touch, and-" she swallowed, hard, and then looked at him. "And you're right. There's nothing we can do about that. I can't order you to stop feeling the way you do. I know I can't, because I haven't even been able to obey the same order myself. So here I am, asking you what we do, Chakotay. Because I don't know how I go on standing on that bridge with you right there, remembering how it was to feel so completely-" She stopped.

Chakotay took a step forward, just as she turned away.

"So completely – what?" he asked, to her back.

She shook her head, her next words spoken mainly to herself. "What am I doing here? What am I doing?"

He caught her arm before she could bolt for the door, pulling her to a stop and making her face him, though she avoided his gaze. "Kathryn, don't go."

"I have to. I should never have come. I'm sorry-"

"Loved?" he said, still holding her tightly, the tension in his stomach wound so tight he felt sick. "Is that what you were going to say? So completely – loved?"

Janeway's eyes flashed to his, shock reverberating through them like the ripples on the surface of water. Then she blinked, a sheen of tears softening her gaze. "I was going to say 'wanted'," she whispered. "But 'loved' works, too."

The tension broke, splitting in two like a tree struck by lighting cast from the storm that ends a drought. They stood, inches apart, feeling the spark and blaze of something in equal parts destructive and renewing.

"You want to know what we do?" Chakotay said softly, pulling her closer. "We do our best, Kathryn. Just as we always have. We do our best for our crew. We do our best for each other. We do our best for ourselves. And we just stop assuming that the latter means we are neglecting the former."

She shook her head. "I don't know how to do that. This isn't-"

Kathryn trailed off as he touched the fingers of his free hand to her face, tracing along her jaw and then up over her cheekbone. Chakotay could feel her holding her breath as he brushed his fingers through her hair, smoothing it behind her ear and briefly caressing the lobe of her ear. He dropped his hand to her shoulder and pulled her gently toward him, dipping his head until his lips touched her cheek in a feather-light kiss and then lingering there, not moving away. The scent of her perfume washed over again and he had to force himself to stay still. He wanted her to turn toward him. He wanted her to be the one to kiss him this time – to give in to this thing that pulled between them, stronger than anything he'd ever felt before. Chakotay felt a brief sigh escape her lips. Her hands came to rest on his chest.

She pushed him away.

He felt the pressure - gentle, demanding - and his heart plummeted, the anticipation in his gut turning into a sour wave of disappointment. He looked away. He would have moved, too, but she beat him to it. Kathryn lifted her hands to his face, one on each cheek, turning him back to face her so that she could look into his eyes, her fingers stroking over his skin. Then, in one fluid movement, she raised herself up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his.

It was a sweet kiss – simple, really, and yet it detonated something in his heart – a sudden charge sparking a rushing flame that tore down through his core and exploded somewhere in a part of himself he hadn't realised even existed. Chakotay wrapped both arms around her and pulled her flush against him. Kathryn made a sound in her throat and opened her mouth under his with such a passionate lack of restraint that he lost the ability to think. Kathryn's hands moved to his shoulders, bunching his turtleneck into her fists as she clutched him closer. When they parted, breathless, they moved only far enough apart to stare at each other.

"Chakotay," Kathryn said, quietly, "I don't think there's any way back from this."

He let out a breath of laughter. "I think you're probably right."

She blinked, eyes still fixed on his. He could feel her heart, hammering against his. "Feels a little like falling off a cliff."

Chakotay smiled. "I'm game if you are."

Kathryn nodded. "Don't let go," she whispered, leaning into him.

He didn't.

[END]