More lines before I read the next one and try not to scream over this: - "He’s not talking about the Maquis anymore. Not completely. He’s talking about how seeing the damage of a year miraculously undone is ripping him apart. He’s wondering how he ever let it all develop the force of raging wildfire, until the ground was razed and nothing either of them could have done would have saved the scorched earth left behind.
And he’s sitting here seeing just one more example of everywhere they went wrong. After they got those letters, about Mark and the Maquis, he wishes they had leaned on each other more. Been painfully honest even if it had been ugly and difficult. He wishes he had shared not just his own loss, but the feelings her letter had stirred in him. That hopeful possibility and wonderment of maybe, maybe, this was their time. Even if it was selfish and impossible." - "“I wish I had told you that I had been thinking about how nothing in life is certain, and how we have to grab the chances we have. Because we could die tomorrow, or today. Being here on Voyager, knowing all the people I fought with had died, felt like a chance I shouldn’t waste- “
“You were a chance I shouldn’t have wasted, Kathryn.”" - "She’s quiet for another moment then lowers her voice, her eyes flicking to B’Elanna who is still wholly engrossed in her calculations. “You didn’t waste it.”
His heart beats once. Twice.
“What?”
“You said I was a chance you shouldn’t have wasted, before. I can’t pretend to know if that’s in reference to something I haven’t lived yet, and I know you can’t tell me, but these last four years, Chakotay…nothing has kept me putting on this uniform each morning and staring down every trial we’ve faced more than knowing you’d be the one facing it with me. Don’t doubt what that’s meant to me. Having you beside me, that means more than you know." - "Would it have really been this simple? If he’d just taken a step, would she have taken the next one? And would they have somehow walked a path toward each other instead of being flung apart?
The angry, resentful part of him wishes she had taken that step. He wonders why it had to be him, why it always had to be him. But that part of him is fading, losing its razor-claw grip with each passage through time. Even now, it roars through his blood, but then vanishes, eclipsed by the scent of lavender, and blue eyes that are still looking at him as if the two of them can burn the universe down together if they strike the first match with her hand in his.
“I never wanted more than you could give, Kathryn. I just wanted to know that you might want to give it. Someday.”"
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parmaviolcts on Chapter 5 Wed 08 Nov 2023 10:39AM UTC
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