They lay, side by side, in the bottom of the little boat, shoulders and upper arms touching, looking up at the holographic night sky. The bottle was empty and so were their glasses.
The hours had passed too quickly she thought. Couldn't believe it was past 01.00 already.
She'd told him stories of coming to this place on Earth. He'd listened and laughed with her freely when she'd vividly described some of her family's exploits there.
She wanted to tell him she'd take him there when they got back, but the words stuck in her throat. She could imagine being there with him very easily, but she couldn't fit Mark into this picture at all. There was only space for one man whose presence in her life resonated like both Mark and Chakotay's did. She had to be honest with herself about this.
What was unsettling, now, was that she couldn't honestly say anymore that her fiancé was the one she saw, or more accurately felt, at her side, in day-dreams that put her back on earth rediscovering wonderful places like this.
She felt alive again now – next to this man, who grew more dear to her as the days turned into weeks, turned into months, turned into years for God's sake! The scenarios that alien had projected for her, constructed from her own mind, had forced her to acknowledge the ambiguities of her feelings now, and the different directions in which she felt her heart being pulled.
She knew how she thought her death would affect Chakotay. She'd seen it. He'd broken down, but he'd put himself back together and carried on. Carried on leading their crew home. He would honour her like that. He was no stranger to dealing with loss. He wouldn't let it cripple him. He was a man of considerable resourcefulness and enormous strength.
Just how she'd feel if the situation were reversed, and he'd lain dying in her arms, she didn't know. Couldn't think about that now.
They'd talked a little about how she was feeling since the shuttle crash, but he hadn't pushed her and neither of them had wanted to dwell for long on their shared nightmare.
Earlier in the evening, when they'd been sitting up talking and sharing the champagne, in her peripheral vision she'd been aware of him watching her more than once. When she'd turned and caught his dark eyes one time, she'd been unprepared for the depth of feelings there.
The moment had felt suddenly electric and time had stalled somehow. It felt for a heartbeat like he was about to close the small distance between them and kiss her. But he didn't. When she realised he wasn't going to, even if the intention and the desire to do so had been there in the look she'd caught just moments before, she tried to suppress her awareness of a shadow of regret deep inside her somewhere.
He was following the rules she herself had laid down for him, for God's sake! What more did she want from him? She felt uncomfortable even thinking about that question.
Later, as they walked back from the shore of the lake to the holodeck exit, instead of taking his arm as before, she took his hand and entwined her fingers in his. It was a far more intimate gesture and she knew it. Yet she didn't care. That connection she knew they still had, she needed to feel it. It made her sure she was really still alive – sure that alien hadn't succeeded in killing off any parts of her heart.
His warm, familiar hand felt so good, and she suddenly felt so grateful for so much.
At the exit, she had then taken his arm instead as they moved through Voyager's empty corridors together.
When they said goodnight at the door to her quarters, he'd reached up and gently traced his fingers across the regenerated skin on her forehead where the deep red gash had been, in a gesture that made her feel so cherished that she'd struggled to hold herself together.
It'd been a wonderful evening, and she felt sure for the first time since the crash that she would soon find her way back to the self she needed to inhabit in order to do what was required of her here.
He would help her.