Four
Distance brought her back to him across the gulf that time had wrought. He thought about her in a way he had not for years. Not salaciously, but simply in the manner of one rediscovering something not even realised to be misplaced. During the day Chakotay worked, reviewing reports, poring over B'Elanna's suggestions of how to fuse Ellenial technology to aging Fleet systems, smiling and talking and smoothing the way for the crew he'd brought with him, and all the time she was there, at the back of his mind. How he'd explain this to her, or that, or formulating a description of a native bird he'd caught sight of, or the taste of one of the cakes they had been served at their evening meal and that he was fairly sure she'd be in raptures over.
This far out of sight, she had begun to come back into focus.
Six years they had been cocooned inside Voyager, woven tightly in tandem by an invisible strand that separated even as it bound. There was rarely a movement either could make that was not known by the other, an enforced closeness that few relationships could bear, let alone one borne of such onerous circumstances. Before they had even had time to know each other they had been fastened together in a partnership on which the lives of a whole isolated community depended: a microcosmic world they were responsible for in its entirety. It was a responsibility he never would have sought and might not have accepted, had he been any less sure of her. Kathryn Janeway had confronted him, a small woman standing upright despite the niggling fear that must have lurked somewhere in her diminutive frame. She had spoken, not with bluster and condescension, not with a false aggrandizement of their relative powers and positions, but with a frank honesty that most others would have hidden out of a terror of confessing weakness before an enemy with whom they were seeking a truce. I need you, she had said, and you need me. It was a tactic few men would have had the courage to employ and it gave him more respect for her than any blunt show of force could have at that moment. It had made her more of a Captain than most he had served with, and more than that it had made him willing to put his own crew under her command.
Chakotay had come close to forgetting, over the dull course of years, how intrigued he had been by her in those early days, and how instantly. He had known plenty of strong women – had acknowledged early, in fact, that women were warriors all, with the capacity for an everyday strength that few men would ever understand or be able to quantify – but Kathryn Janeway's strength was of a different magnitude altogether. What had fused that iron around her elegant backbone, what had given her the shielding she hefted around with her every single day? He'd found himself wondering about it, watching her as she moved around the bridge and the ready room and as she spoke. She'd never let it drop, that shield, even in those early days of tumult when the pain of separation from everything they knew and loved was still so raw and open it was in danger of suppurating. At least, she never let it drop in front of him. Perhaps, when she was alone in her quarters, she fell apart. Perhaps, behind the closed doors that framed the only private space she had, she crumbled. The sympathy he already felt for her position doubled anew as he considered this possibility, yet he didn't think it was so. He thought it unlikely Kathryn Janeway would ever let herself collapse, not even if she wanted to, not even if only she was there to see it happen. But he had no way of knowing for sure. It was this last unknown, the one just next door, through a bulkhead not quite thick enough to filter out the sound of her sonic shower, that he had absently pondered the most. What was behind that shield? What was she like, underneath it all?
Now, here on the Ellenial home world, separated from the place it had happened by too many light years to name, Chakotay remembered the night he had found out.
He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. Why am I thinking of such things? He wondered. Why have I gone back there, now? although in fact the answer was as clear to him as the stars constellating the night above his head. It was late and the day had been long. He was leaning on the balcony of his room, waiting to see if Kathryn was going to call. She was in his thoughts in a way she hadn't been for a long time, and distance had somehow removed the atrophied layers of their later relationship, memory taking him further back. He did not remember her as he had left her a week before. He was remembering how she had been in those early days, those early years, working herself to the bone yet still not inured to joy. Her smile: the way it had taken him so completely by surprise, made him wonder, anew, what was beneath that uniform (metaphorically, of course: only metaphorically).
"Why won't you work?" he heard her scream, "Why won't you just WORK?"
The sound of something heavy splintering as it connected with the wall, then sharp silence.
Chakotay leant on the balcony, harder, leaning down to press his hands over his face. The memory broke over him like one of the waves far below, rolling him in its wake. It had been a long time since he'd revived those early days and years. Back then, hope had been something real and alive, bitterness kept at bay by constant occupation and a soldier's mentality: we're all in this together, make do and mend, we're stronger together, triumph over adversity. More than that, though, his days had been spiced with something else, a silent electricity that flickered in his mind around the thought of her, the sight of her. It had given him a palpable a shock when he'd recognised it, when he'd realised that sympathy and fascination had comingled to become something else, something unexpected, unasked for and wholly inadvisable. Something that needed curbing, as if he hadn't known, the moment he'd acknowledged it, that it was already too late. He wondered if she knew: he wondered, in the long years since, whether she had pinpointed that night in the same way he did.
It had happened early in the second year of their journey. Chakotay had become used to hearing her shower – barely even noticed, anymore, the vibrating timbre of the sonic beams. Besides that, he had never heard any noise from her quarters at all. This evening, though, was different. He'd finished his shift weary and aching and retired straight to his rooms rather than seeking out Tom's latest holodeck diversion. Chakotay had made a simple supper and then sat down to read, but before long he had become aware of something: a disturbance from next door, a dull thump. He'd listened for a moment, but heard nothing more, and so continued in his recreation, until another sound had reached him, then another. He'd keyed his combadge.
"Computer, what is the location of Captain Janeway?"
"Captain Janeway is in her quarters."
"Is she alone?"
"Affirmative."
"Are her lifesigns within normal parameters?"
"Affirmative."
The sounds had stopped again. Chakotay hesitated. The computer would have noted if anything was wrong with the Captain physically. He was reluctant to intrude on the Captain's precious personal time. Whatever she was doing, she was safe. Beyond that was none of his business. He'd looked at the ship's time and, realising that it was late and he was really too tired to read anyway, had gone into his bathroom to wash before bed.
That was when he'd heard it.
"Why won't you work? Why won't you just WORK?" Then came the sound of something crashing against the bulkhead between them, something heavy and brittle enough to splinter as it smashed to the deck.
He'd been out of his quarters and in front of her door in less than ten seconds. It wasn't the words that had driven him, or even the sound of whatever it was breaking against the wall. It was the sound of utter despair that had been in her banshee scream and the utter silence that had reigned after it.
"Captain?" he'd called, pressing the intercom on her door. There had been no answer so he overrode it, striding into the darkened room beyond.
His eyes had steered automatically towards whatever it was that had broken. The bulkhead was smeared with something dark that seemed to have exploded on impact, then streaked the wall as it fell the floor. The deck beneath the impact point was littered by what looked like a broken glass dish, the remaining contents spilling out over the regulation grey of Starfleet carpet.
"Captain?"
A figure had appeared in the bathroom doorway, backlit by the glow from the smaller room, and for a moment Chakotay didn't even recognise her. That was the first time he'd seen her with her hair completely loose. It flowed, long and unfettered over her shoulders, so completely contradictory to the tight bun she furled it into during shift hours that it changed her face completely. She was dressed in a pink satin nightgown that hung from narrow straps over her otherwise bare shoulders, dropping to skim the floor around her bare toes. He had managed to register that she carried a wet cloth in her hands.
They stared at each other for a moment, and even though her face was partly in shadow, he could see the tears that had streaked it before being dashed away.
"Commander," she'd said, as if he'd just walked into her ready room. "My apologies if I disturbed you."
"Captain - are you all right?"
"I'm fine. Please… go." She'd moved to the mess on the floor and knelt beside it.
Instead he had crossed the floor, dropping to a crouch beside her. "What happened?"
Janeway looked up at him. "I believe I just gave you an order."
"Then court martial me," he'd answered her, bluntly. "But do it after you tell me what happened. I heard you shout."
She'd looked away, spreading her hands out on the floor amid the ruins of whatever it was she'd thrown. This close, he could tell it was made, in large part at least, of chocolate.
"It was just a fight with the replicator," she told him. "Damn thing never does what I want it to."
He'd surveyed the mess. "Brownies?"
The word had shivered an emotion across her face. Then she'd nodded. "Yes. Caramel ones, actually. My mother's recipe." Janeway had sat back, dropping the cloth with a resigned sigh. "I could never make them properly at home. I don't know why I thought 75,000 light years and a machine would somehow make a difference."
Chakotay remembered holding out a hand to her. Janeway had looked at it for a moment, then had taken it and allowed him to help her to her feet. She let go of his fingers and they stood looking at each other. It was only then that he realised how much height her regulation boots gave her. In that moment her blue eyes had been brightly defiant, which he recognised was in the face of her own perceived frailty.
She is small and she is fierce and she is in pain and goddamn it, he'd thought, goddamn it, but if I touched her now she would feel as soft as she is beautiful.
"Everyone has to meet their match sometime," was all he had said, as mildly as he was able. "For Kathryn Janeway, it looks like it might have come in the form of a replicator."
She laughed then, briefly, looking down at her hands. Her hair fell over her face and she pushed it back. "It's my mother's birthday today," she'd confessed, quietly. "I just… wanted to feel close to her. Ridiculous, I know. As if a tray of brownies could do that, even if they had been perfect."
"That's not ridiculous," he had told her, equally quietly. "I understand."
She'd looked up at him again, blue eyes clear as they searched his. "It's not really… about the replicator."
"I understand that, too."
Janeway had smiled then, a gesture sharp and painful beneath a furrowed brow. Still her eyes had studied his. Then she'd raised one hand and placed it flush against his chest, right over his heart. The warmth of her fingers reached through his t-shirt to deliver a shock straight onto his skin. And when she dropped her hand, they both knew he needed to leave.
Chakotay wondered if she'd ever realised just how close he'd come to pulling her closer instead of stepping away.
The shape of his memory was shattered by the sound of beeping that signalled an incoming message on the PADD. He left the balcony to retrieve it, calling for it to open a channel before he'd even picked it up.
Her face on the screen took him by surprise. Every other call they had made had been audio only. But here she was, Kathryn Janeway, older but still as beautiful as the one in his memory. There was a small, private smile on her face.
"Hello, Commander."
"Captain," he said. "It's good to see you."
And it was the truth.
[TBC]
