Three
Missing him crept up on her, like a habit one swears one does not have. She didn't realise it was happening until, a week into their brief, inconsequential nightly conversations, Chakotay skipped his turn to call. She lay curled on her side, looking at the chronometer, but it ticked off the minutes after three with no word from him. Turning on her back, Janeway studied the seams of the bulkheads above her and wondered where he was, what he was doing. She hoped he was asleep – the possibility that he could be prevented her from getting up and crossing to her terminal to call him herself. Instead, she cycled through the possibilities that could account for his absence from her night. As she did so, it occurred to her that she couldn't even pinpoint the last time they had been so physically distant from each other for this long. Yet at the same time it seemed as if the conversations they had been conducting via subspace – as trivial as they always turned out to be – were the first time they had really spoken in months. In years, even.
Kathryn Janeway sat up and drew her knees to her chest, looking across the small space between her regulation Starfleet bed and the window that gave her a vista to more time and distance than any person could ever reasonably be expected to confront. She had been out here for six years and instead of getting easier, the journey had only become more difficult. So many things had broken during Voyager's passage that she had come to accept the widening fissures in their relationship as just another inevitable victim of wear and tear: they were, after all, both under immense and constant strain, like every other component of the ship: moving parts that had been forced to operate far beyond their working lifespan. When she thought of it at all, she saw the new, bitter style of their alliance, the one that had emerged following the events surrounding their meeting with the Equinox – as merely a reflection of a natural evolution in their relationship. They were so different, after all, at heart. Weren't they?
Poles apart.
Light years, in fact.
Yet there had been something else, once. Hadn't there? She still remembered, vividly, the first time he had shown concern for her wellbeing, and how much it had taken her by surprise. It had happened early in the first year of Voyager's exile, when the true weight of the burden she had put upon herself and her make-do-and-mend crew had still been settling. Those first months had been an agony of light and darkness: for weeks she had lived a half-dream of hope that some quick miracle would take her little ship back home, an expectation that diminished with every passing shift. She felt as if she were holding Voyager together with her fingernails, arms outstretched to breach a gap she had herself blown in her own ship's hull. She hadn't known Lieutenant Commander Cavit well – his posting to Voyager was the first time they had served together – but he'd been Starfleet and as such would have at least been quantifiable entity as her first officer. Had he been there, she could have shared the burden equally: she would have expected to do so, without question or doubt. It had been mere political expediency that had made her assign the same position to Chakotay, nothing more. She had no doubt that he was capable, but all she really knew about him came from the records that detailed his history with the Maquis. He was a deserter, a rebel, a terrorist, a criminal she had been sent to quell and capture: the very model of unreliability. He had joined her because he'd had no other practical option and she supposed he would work to keep his place for the sake of his own crew, but beyond that she neither knew nor expected anything.
Commanding a ship is a lonely business, and no ship's command had ever been lonelier. As the weeks had lengthened, hope for a quick way home had faded and the shadow of despair had reached its fingers out to her, haunting her every moment, none more so than when she was supposed to be off duty. The idea that she could have downtime in such a situation seemed absurd – perverse even. Besides, she was constantly wired – a bundle of fizzing, spinning nerves, her mind occupied with so many day-to-day concerns. She was barely sleeping, often working until she passed out with her face on her desk instead of bothering to return to her quarters. She would wake an hour or two later, a crick in her neck and an ache in her shoulder, to continue working on whatever report on which she'd rested her cheek.
That was where he found her, one night in a string where she'd returned to her quarters only to shower and change her uniform. The warmth of his broad hand on her shoulder had roused her and she'd pushed herself up to find him leaning against her desk, a steaming mug in one hand. She'd sat up, one hand against her face, and looked around, faintly confused.
"Captain," he'd said, softly.
She'd rubbed her eyes, mind still blurred. "Commander? What is it? Is there a problem?"
Chakotay had smiled, a small gesture she hadn't yet seen but that over the years would become more important to her than she could possibly have understood at that moment. He'd held out the mug, which smelled distinctly lacking in coffee.
"If you keep this up, there will be."
She'd frowned at the mug. "I prefer coffee."
"I know you do," he said, "which is part of the problem. Drink it."
She straightened up, sleep giving way as she bristled. "Commander…"
"Listen to me," he said. "You will not do our crew any favours by working yourself into an early grave. You have to sleep, Captain. You have to eat. You have to see something other than these four walls and the bridge, or you will not survive to see this ship reach home. Do you understand?"
She'd pushed away from him, standing up with her fists clenched. "Commander, I don't know who you think-"
He'd stood too, then, hands loosely clasped behind his back, stance easy. He was head and shoulders over her but in that moment, in a flash of clarity so visceral it nearly made her stagger, she saw that he was trying to limit his size. Moreover, that he must have been doing it since the moment he'd stepped on board. She'd gaped at him, thinking Why? For me? For my benefit? although even as the questions echoed away amid the tumult of her mind she'd already known the answer. She'd watched his face as this knowledge settled around her, shocked twice over: that he was the kind of man who would trouble himself to do such a thing and that she hadn't once noticed.
"Who do I think I am?" he'd asked, voice still quiet as he watched her carefully. "I know who I am, Captain. I'm your first officer. I think the more important question is, who do you think I am? Because as far as I'm concerned, as first officer it is in my purview to assess the health and well being of my Captain, and I am telling you, if you keep this up – if you try to do this alone – you will not make it. Drink the tea. It will help you sleep, which you are now going to do for at least six hours even if I have get Tuvok to fit restraints to your bunk to make sure you stay in it."
She'd taken the tea, still reeling from her recent epiphany. "I can't sleep," she said. "There's no time. I have so much to do."
"What have you got to do?"
She'd waved a hand at the stack of PADDs on her desk. "Those are just for starters."
Chakotay had nodded. "Well, I'll take a first pass at them. That would help take a lot of the chaff off your desk. I'm sure there's plenty I can deal with myself. Obviously, I'll keep you updated with any decisions that you need to make. Perhaps we should implement a daily morning meeting, just between ourselves before senior staff?"
She was already shaking her head by this point, "No, that's not-"
"That's not what?" he'd asked, still studying her carefully. "Not a first officer's job?"
She'd blinked at him. He'd smiled again. She'd found herself a little mesmerised by the gesture – she was so tired – and averted her gaze to the tea, instead.
"Let me help you, Captain," he'd said, softly. "Trust me to do the job you've given me. You don't have to do this alone. You can't do this alone."
She'd looked up from the mug, squaring her shoulders. She'd nodded. Then, after another moment, she'd tried to say something else. "Chakotay… I think, perhaps, that I… have not been fair to you."
His smile had widened. "Captain," he said, "you need to worry far more about being fair to yourself. I suggest that we discuss my role further at our morning briefing. For now… please allow me to escort you to your quarters."
He had. Chakotay had walked her to her door, a quiet presence just behind her, apparently comfortable with the silence that she could not find the words to break. She'd turned in the open doorway of her quarters and offered him a pale smile.
"Thank you," she told him, and then added, deliberately, "Commander."
Another smile. "You're welcome, Captain. Please promise me that you will try to sleep."
She'd felt herself smile back, perhaps the first genuine example she'd used since their arrival in the Delta Quadrant, and as she did an expression had passed across Chakotay's face. It was so fleeting that she'd barely even had a chance to see it, let alone interpret what it meant.
"I will," she'd said, softly. "Goodnight."
Janeway had kept that promise that night, though it wasn't the last time in the past six years that Chakotay had found her asleep in the ready room. It had been the first, however, and it had taught her more about the man she'd chosen as her first officer than any Starfleet manual ever could.
Rolling on to her side again, Janeway looked at the time. It was past four now. She shut her eyes, willing herself to drift off to sleep the way she had that night, when the burden she carried had suddenly seemed so much lighter.
She was just surfing the edge of sleep when a beeping pulled her back to consciousness. It wasn't the beep of a commline requesting an open channel, but of a message. Janeway got up. A light was blinking on hers screen. She sat at her desk, smiling at the name attached to the short recording. It was barely ten seconds long.
"Computer," she said, quietly. "Play message."
Chakotay's face appeared, his dark eyes smiling at her from the screen, and with a jolt she realised how long it was since she had seen his face. He was in uniform. You look tired, she thought. And that's usually your line, Commander.
"I hope this doesn't wake you," he said. "I just wanted to apologise for not being in contact this evening. The day ran late. We're making good progress, though. We'll update you properly in the next report." Chakotay paused and then smiled. "Goodnight, Kathryn. Sleep well."
She sat for a moment, looking at her reflection in the blank screen left by the absence of his face. It had been a long time since he'd called her Kathryn.
[TBC]
