The walk back to their respective quarters was passed in silence, welcome enough after the din of the party they left behind them. Voyager's corridors were empty and dark, owing equally to the late hour and the absence of personnel still celebrating on Holodeck 2. The familiar thrum of the ship's engines and their own soft footfalls were the only sounds to accompany their progress.
Arriving first at her door, Janeway keyed in her code then turned to her companion, lounging against the doorframe as she gave him an appraising look. "I'd invite you in for a nightcap, but it's technically morning now. Even so, I'd be glad of your company for just a bit longer."
Chakotay's mischievous grin was achingly familiar, for all its recent scarcity. "Why not? It's not a school night. Lead the way, Captain."
"The Captain is officially off duty until alpha shift on Monday, as is the Commander," she stated firmly, moving within and calling for a slight increase in lighting. He trailed in behind her, heading for her recalcitrant replicator and effortlessly producing two Antarian ciders. She reached for one but he held it out of her reach, breaking into an even wider smile even as her eyes narrowed.
"Not yet. First you have to tell me what the Admiral told you." He danced backward as she lunged for the glass, keeping it above his head. She scowled impressively.
"You know I can't tell you that. The Temporal – "
" – Prime Directive has already been blown out the airlock thanks to your older self, so you can't use that excuse. She was very cagey with me, and I couldn't pry anything out of Seven – " He stopped, seeing a stricken look pass over her face. "What? Did she tell you something about Seven? Kathryn, what is it?"
She pressed a hand hard against the tabletop, steadying herself. Though that timeline had been eradicated as surely as the Borg sphere they'd exploded through, the memory of the Admiral's revelation had yet to fade. As though from outside herself, Kathryn heard her own voice begin speaking.
"In her timeline, you and Seven married – presumably she performed the ceremony herself." Not even noticing his shocked look, or the cider sloshing as he started at her words, she continued. "Seven died in an away mission gone wrong, three years later, and according to her, you were never the same afterward, and neither was she. I think – " Here she paused, swallowing the ever-growing lump in her throat, and pushed on. "I think she wanted to save the two of you even more than she wanted to get the ship home sooner."
Chakotay downed one of the ciders and was about to do the same to the second before remembering it belonged to her. Passing it over, he headed back to the replicator and this time produced an entire bottle, carrying it with him to the sofa under the viewport. She joined him when he patted the seat beside him, but kept her gaze away from his, not trusting the tenuous grasp she still held over her emotions. They drank in silence for a time before he at last cleared his throat and spoke.
"I cannot imagine marrying Seven in any timeline."
"Why not? She is highly intelligent, undeniably beautiful, and growing in her humanity day by day."
"Yes she is, all of those things, and I have come over time to respect and care for her more than I ever thought possible – " He stopped abruptly when he saw her shudder, gulping down her drink and holding out her hand for a refill. "Kathryn, what is it? Tell me."
"It's – it's nothing. Even in our enlightened age, every woman at one time or another finds herself standing in the shadow of a younger model." Laughing at her own folly, she put her glass down on the table and slapped her open palms against her thighs. "So. Did she get here in time, or has it already begun?"
"Has what begun? You mean Seven and I?" The slight flush to his cheeks could have been either alcohol or embarrassment. Kathryn took this as confirmation.
"That would explain the sudden decrease in our lunch and dinner da—meetings," she murmured. "When were you going to tell me? When you announced your engagement?" She heard, and hated, the bitterness in her tone, but couldn't quite manage to hide it. His flush deepened, along with his irritation.
"Seven has been exploring her humanity, as you already know, and trying to deepen her understanding of social behavior and situations. She approached me about spending time together in a social context and I saw no harm in assenting. I was pleasantly surprised at how much progress she was making, and how enjoyable her company could be. Why am I telling you this?"
"I don't know," she retorted, her annoyance rising along with his. "You certainly don't owe me any justification. You've never asked my permission or my blessing on any of your entanglements in the past – "
"Nor have you ever asked for mine, though I've tried to be encouraging of you breaking out of your monastic shell on occasion. I was supportive of your dalliance with Michael Sullivan – "
"He was a hologram," she hissed, rising. He rose too, glaring down at her furious upturned face.
"He was real enough in all the ways that mattered," Chakotay shot back, and Kathryn stared at him, agape. "Seven and I have been on five dates, if you must know, and I have kissed her exactly twice, which is exactly two more times than I have kissed you, as if any of this was any of your business, which it is not. She has also now tried to break it off with me since speaking with the Admiral, which is why I asked you tonight what she told you. If she asks me again I think I'll take her up on it!" He was pacing now, his inebriated agitation creating a knot of mixed pronouns that Kathryn was finding harder and harder to untangle. Deeply regretting her offer of a nightcap, she was casting about in her benumbed brain for a way out of the whole situation when he came around the table and back into her personal space once more.
"Did it ever occur to you," he asked, clearly fighting for control, "that the Admiral might have been lying?"
It actually had not, and she said as much, adding "You've always told me I was a terrible liar."
"You are, to everyone except yourself."
Kathryn slumped back down into her seat, anger draining away to leave only desolation behind. "I've never lied to you – only omitted certain things when necessary." He snorted and dropped back beside her, scrubbing a hand through his hair.
"Certain omissions have had long-range effects."
"Such as?" She took a pull straight from the bottle and passed it over to him.
"I know nearly everything about you except for how you truly feel about me," he stated flatly. "Your behavior suggests that you've omitted something fairly major."
"My feelings were irrelevant when it was impossible for me to act upon them. You know that; you've known that for years."
"I have, you're right. But everything changed the minute we found ourselves back in the Alpha Quadrant."
"Did it?" She angled her body to face him, retrieving the cider from his lax grip. "Because now someone else has entered the equation, and that complicates things, doesn't it?
"It might have in the Admiral's timeline, but in this one there's only ever been you."
Suddenly the room was too warm, the space between them too small, things moving too fast. Kathryn shot up from her seat and headed for the replicator, needing distance and something with which to occupy herself. Predictably the machine defied her and she slammed her palm against the bulkhead beside it with a profane exclamation, somewhere between laughter and a sob. He was by her side in seconds, turning her around and letting her sag against him as he reached behind her for more bottles of what was turning out to be a kind of truth serum. The replicator behaved flawlessly for him, as it always did. Holding the bottles he steered her back to the sofa, gently nudging her back into her seat. She clutched the bottle and peered into it as though it contained the secrets of the universe that was now spinning out of her control. Chakotay, sitting now a little too close for her comfort, held silence for her next gambit.
"Your behavior doesn't exactly support your words," she muttered at last. "Seven wasn't the first of your – "
"I seem to recall you've had a few of your own," he replied tightly. "And we were looking at the possibility of spending the rest of our lives out there. I had no idea rejoining Starfleet, even on a provisional basis, came with a vow of celibacy."
Her head snapped up, eyes wide. "Obviously it didn't for you!"
"So, what? Do you expect me to believe you were – were saving yourself for me in some grand romantic gesture? Spare me, Kathryn. I've seen you with more than one man over the years. You were certainly cozy with Jaffen – Hell, you were going to bring him aboard Voyager!"
"First of all, he refused my offer. Second of all, if he had joined us, I would have terminated my relationship with him for reasons of which you are all too aware. And third of all, his species doesn't have – goddammit Chakotay, I could've married him and still saved myself for you, as you so disgustingly put it." Her face was flaming. His mental processes were slowed by drink, but her meaning eventually dawned on him; and when it did, he burst out laughing so hard he nearly choked. Kathryn, seething, really hoped he would.
"They don't have what? Sex? Genitalia? Oh, Kathryn!"
"Theirs is a parthenogenetic species," she replied primly, wishing she could load herself into a torpedo tube and launch herself out of the entire situation. The bane of her existence sitting beside her was literally rolling with laughter. She sulked alongside him, her mood darkening even as he fought to bring his hilarity under rein. It wasn't funny! It was ironic and ridiculous and maybe even a little tragic, but it certainly wasn't funny.
Seven years. Seven years stuck in uncharted space, looking for resources and allies and any assistance whatsoever in finding their way back home. Seven years for their own unexpected and sometimes uneasy alliance to grow and strengthen and deepen, to crack apart and knit back together in a relentless rhythm of push and pull, advance and retreat, until the weight of the unspoken was enough to crush them both when the lengthening span of the journey began to seem insurmountable. And then –
And then, just like that, they were back in Federation space. Getting drunk in her quarters after an impromptu homecoming party on the holodeck, all sorts of secrets spilling out of them both as they found themselves in yet another absurd, impossible-to-navigate situation. All sorts of connections with stealth Cardassians and sundry ex-Borg and seductive inspectors and photonic bartenders doing nothing to sever the bond that ran between them like a subterranean river, no matter how hard they fought to deny it.
She looked at Chakotay in the starlit gloom, his snorts of smothered laughter threatening to provoke a similar response from her, and felt a wave of affection so strong it nearly pulled her under completely. His hand came to rest on her knee and she automatically slid hers beneath it, interlacing their fingers. Their eyes met and she couldn't help it; a giggle escaped, then another, and she was lost.
Fine. Maybe it was a little funny, at that.
Hey, lay your burden down
Turn around, turn around
Fate written in the stars
Arm in arm,
Arm in arm we are forever
-Foo Fighters, But Here We Are