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Earth spun imperceptibly outside her window.
Earth.
Against all odds, and thanks to a version of herself which had frightened the hell out of her, they had made it back to the Alpha Quadrant. But home? Not yet. Starfleet Command had sent a joyful public greeting, then privately asked her to keep her crew aboard Voyager that night. No time to prepare a proper welcome or quarters, they'd said. Oh, and could she let everyone know to report for a routine security debriefing in the morning?
So she was in her quarters, still in her uniform. She never took it off until she was ready for bed these days. After seven years, “Kathryn” had been almost entirely subsumed by “Captain Janeway”. If they hadn't made it back, Kathryn would have eventually disappeared entirely, she knew. Until she met Admiral Janeway, she hadn't cared to stop it either.
Her door chimed, and she immediately knew who it was. There was only one person on this ship who would dare to seek her out after the day they'd had.
She went to the door, steeling herself to send him away. It hissed open at her triggering wave.
“What do you want, Commander?” It was all she could manage.
Chakotay stood outside, hands behind his back, clearly having expected her to keep him in the corridor. Once, she had loved that he knew her so well. Now, she could barely bite back her irritation.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
“Talk?” she repeated. “In case you haven't realized it yet, we all have a busy day of being interrogated tomorrow. I have no interest in starting that tonight too.”
She watched his shoulders tense. “The one thing they want to know from the Starfleet crew is that you're still the same people who left seven years ago,” he scoffed. “The Maquis? They want to make damn certain we're not those people anymore.”
“Of course we're not the same people who left,” she replied sourly. “How could we be?”
There was a moment of shared disquiet, as they both recognized no one would ever truly understand their experiences except other Voyager crew. Then Kathryn straightened her spine. She was ready to shoulder this new burden alone too, as she had been forced to do for so long now. A firm goodnight rose to her lips.
But her comment seemed to have simply galvanized his resolve. “Please, Kathryn.” His voice was pitched low, trying to keep it from the ears of anyone who might pass by. “I would like to talk. Will you listen? Maybe not for me now, but for who we once were?”
Kathryn stared at him, warring with herself. Finally, reluctantly, she stepped back, allowing him to enter. She directed him to the chair she'd privately dubbed his exile seat.
She sat on the couch. “If you're here to tell me about Seven, I already know. Congratulations. I'm very happy for you both.” A white lie for an old friend wouldn’t even rank in her list of sins.
“Bullshit,” he snapped, leaning forward. “You're pissed as hell.”
Chakotay rarely swore in front of her, so she knew he'd bristled for a confrontation. Fine. She was happy to oblige. Maybe he'd leave. “You are dangerously close to insubordination, mister.”
“Oh, drop it, Kathryn. This isn't about the chain of command, and you know it,” he growled back.
She was in no mood to go the full twelve rounds with him. Letting him in had been a mistake. She opened her mouth to dismiss him, then saw him draw a long breath. His eyes closed and that maddening calm of his descended.
Suddenly, the fight went out of her too. “What happened to us, Chakotay?” she asked quietly. “We can barely have a civil conversation these days.”
“We were stranded on the other side of the galaxy for seven years, and the only things we had were each other and some rules that told us we couldn't even have that.”
A harsh laugh escaped her. She had thrown a glittery lie down at his feet, and he had tossed back a truth so plain they had never dared give it voice before.
They stared at each other, cautious and tired.
“Can we start this conversation over?” he asked softly.
She nodded. “Would you like some tea?” she said as a peace offering.
His tea appeared in the replicator without issue. Today was a day of all manner of miracles, it seemed, she thought with an involuntary, tiny smile.
He toyed with the handle of the mug briefly, twisting it back and forth on the coaster. The maneuvers seemed to be granting him some measure of courage, so she watched in silence.
“I have a lot to explain, but this shouldn't wait,” he began. “I want you to know I spoke with Seven before I came here. We agreed that our recent … exploration was ill-judged and needed to end.”
She gaped at him. “But Admiral Janeway said --,” she broke off.
He looked as though a puzzle piece had been slotted into place for him. “I'm not sure what she said to you, but that timeline no longer exists. What does exist is the fact that you and I have been out of step with each other for a long time.”
She had inured herself for the Seven conversation, but they were rapidly drifting into waters she was terrified to charter.
His own tension hadn't lessened after that bombshell.
“Before we start, I need to tell you, Captain, that I am about to violate Starfleet policy to have this conversation. If that's unacceptable, please tell me now, and I will leave. But I can't do this without it.”
“What policy?” she asked, curious despite her misgivings of what was to come.
“The Temporal Prime Directive.”
She threw up her hands. “Apparently, I’m going to care a lot less about that one day, so why not start now?”
“I see,” he said with a flash of amusement.
“This is about that day a few months ago, when you were jumping around the timeline,” she guessed. “We got more even more distant after that. I couldn’t imagine what had happened.”
“That was the best day I'd had in years,” he said unexpectedly. “Because I got to spend it with you. Or, at least, a Kathryn Janeway who was yet to see the Delta Quadrant.”
He gave her a wry smile. “You didn't trust me at all. But then you did and we saved the day and it felt exactly like old times.”
She watched him stare into the distance, a Chakotay remembering a Kathryn who both was and was not her. It was heartbreaking.
“I’d forgotten how radiant you were in those days,” he continued, still lost in the past. “And how intoxicating it was simply to be around that. I couldn't wait to get to the Bridge every day. I wanted to see what you'd do.”
“And I'm not radiant anymore?” She'd tried to make it come out flippantly, but her voice was abruptly sharp again.
Finally, his eyes met hers, and his voice was gentle. “I think that radiance has gotten obscured by loss, and pain, and loneliness. Seven years is a long time to be alone.”
He hadn't meant it to be cruel, she knew that, but being compared with her past self and made to feel wanting was more than she could take right now.
Kathryn half rose, her voice and body tight with the icy calm of her absolute fury. “So help me, Commander, if you're about to tell me I need a man to … that I ever needed you …”
Chakotay realized what had happened and held out a staying hand. “I would never say that. One thing I know with utter certainty, Kathryn Janeway doesn't need anyone.” He gave her a smile, but his eyes were pleading. “Maybe a reliable source of coffee, but that's it.”
She sat down again slowly, still wary.
“You don't need anyone, Kathryn,” he repeated. “I've always known that. But I allowed myself to hope for a time that you might want someone. Want me. I made you a promise, a long time ago, to lighten your burdens. But I didn't, did I? I challenged you and argued with you. I made it harder for you to make decisions. Of course you pushed me away. So after seeing you again, being reminded of how you were before I mucked it up, I ultimately decided to let you go. I knew I'd never find peace like that with anyone else, but maybe you could. And watching that would be all I deserved.”
Chakotay seldom made speeches, but when he did, he had the unerring ability to make the universe constrict to just them, that moment.
He held her gaze, a man for whom confession was an act of mitigation. They had always been completely honest with each other, except about this one thing. And maybe he was right. Perhaps it was time.
“I think you need to come sit over here, Chakotay, so we can finally talk through this together.”
She turned toward him as he settled beside her on the couch.
“First things first,” she said. “I wouldn't have survived at all without you. I did need you, to keep me in line. I may have resented the hell out of it while it was happening, but that's on me, not you. I had no idea you felt like you'd failed me. I never saw it that way.” The next part was what hurt. “I thought …” Really hurt. “I thought I had eventually gone too far, that I had made myself unlovable, and that's why you turned away.”
His hand sought hers. “Kathryn, I never stopped loving you. I did stop feeling worthy to love you, but like you said, that was on me, not you.”
There it was, after all this time. Plainly stated, and as messed up as only two highly intelligent people could make it.
She thought back on their disagreements and their anger. They had seemed overwhelming even an hour ago. But what would be the point in dragging them out now? Picking at a succession of still-open wounds? No. Perhaps someday, when they had become scars and could be viewed dispassionately, but not during tonight's unexpected and still tenuous cease fire.
In the end, there was merely one thing they still needed to discuss now.
“Chakotay, why Seven? Of all of the people you could have chosen, why her?”
He shifted uncomfortably, but did not drop his eyes. “Honestly? Because she was the first to ask. There was no hidden message, no intent to hurt you. I was merely … running away from you, and she happened to step into my path.”
Kathryn glared at him. “Accident or not, you couldn't have made it hurt worse if you'd tried.”
He bowed his head for a second, then met her gaze again. “It was incredibly thoughtless of me, and I'm sorry, Kathryn.” The utter simplicity of his words spoke volumes of the weight behind them. “I've apologized to Seven too, for having hazarded someone else in our private war.”
She studied him for a long moment, assessing his sincerity. She was satisfied he was speaking the truth. But what to do about it? He had come here tonight, prepared to risk everything on the possibly, the improbability, that one plus one could equal one. Was she, at last, prepared to do the same?
Kathryn took a breath.
She thought of the barriers they had never crossed.
She curled her feet up beside her and laid her head against his chest.
She felt his arm come to rest around her shoulder.
“You are wise in everything but matters of your own heart, dear Commander,” she said gently.
She felt him incline his head in acknowledgement. “And you are bold in everything but the risks of love, my Captain,” he returned, kissing the top of her head.
“Yet we are somehow surprised we've never really spoken like this before.”
His chest rumbled with laughter. “I could tell you an ancient legend, if you'd like.”
She felt light for the first time in years. She laughed and leaned up to kiss him.
She suddenly thought of another question. “Chakotay, if you were so convinced I blamed you, why did you decide to speak up tonight?”
“Because of Admiral Janeway, actually. There she was, as stubborn and self-assured and beautiful as ever. I realized that she was still someone I would have wanted to grow old with. And I thought, I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe she felt the same way.”
How on Earth (Earth) was she supposed to respond to something like that?
As herself, of course. “So what you’ve been saying is you want me at any age.” Ah, there were those dimples. “I feel like this is the time when we're supposed to blissfully fall into each other's arms and make love, but I have to be honest. I'm too tired for that.”
“We have plenty of time,” he said. “But will you let me stay? And be with you tonight?”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
As she lay sleepily beside him in bed, head on his chest, she asked, “What do we do now, Chakotay?”
“I think we do what we've always done. We take it one day at a time. Except now, we truly do that together.”
“They won't let us serve together.”
“Then maybe one of us doesn't serve anymore.”
She jolted up. The horror that ran through her was instinctive, abject.
He pulled her back to his side. “I said maybe. We don't know what options we'll be given. But we need to be open to them. Maybe I'll teach at the Academy again.”
“Maybe I’ll run a ballet studio.”
“I would come to every performance.”
“I know you would. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Rest.
--
She woke early and snuggled slightly out of the cocoon of his arms. He lay sleeping. She delicately traced a finger along his jawline, his cheek, his nose.
“That tickles,” he said without opening his eyes.
She retraced the path with her lips. “Sorry. Any better?”
“Not sure. Can you try again?”
She captured his lips with hers, rapacious and sure. Her hand skimmed down his chest and slipped into his undershorts. He gasped into her mouth.
Releasing his lips, she whispered, “Good morning.”
He thrust into her hand. “Morning. Guess you’re feeling less tired.”
“A little. I slept well for some reason, I guess.” The rhythm of their movements was lazy and slow, but she knew it wouldn’t stay that way for long. “We should stop. Somehow, I feel like showing up to a security debriefing sated and basking in the afterglow is a bad idea.”
“True. Turned on, frustrated, and barely able to concentrate is a much better frame of mind.”
“Exactly.”
She gave him one last kiss, full of promise, and they reluctantly rolled out of bed to start the day.
--
They stood in the transporter room, hand in hand, having agreed to personally see everyone off as they reported for their debriefings.
As crewmembers filed in, they each took note of those hands, some immediately, others when it was not-so-subtly pointed out to them. Not a single person seemed put out by the sudden change in their command team. Kathryn accepted smiles, smirks, and even a few tears as their crew transported away. Through it all, Chakotay's hand was warm in hers. Home at last.