Chapter Text
“I think that love is stronger than habits or circumstances. I think it is possible to keep yourself for someone for a long time, and still remember why you were waiting when she comes at last.... I would enter your sleep if I could, and guard you there, and slay the thing that hounds you, as I would if it had the courage to face me in fair daylight. But I cannot come in unless you dream of me.”
- Peter S. Beagle
Kathryn
For a long time, she hadn’t experienced nightmares. Some unsettling dreams within the slithers of sleep she managed, but not gasping, sweating, weeping nightmares. Not for a very long time
Voyager and the Delta Quadrant had robbed her, even, of that.
Her sleep, when insomnia finally exhausted itself, was hard and dreamless.
Sometimes she had wondered if she had passed the point of nightmares, if the line between dreams and the reality of her relentless painful day to day was so blurred that it was now indiscernible.
But then they were assimilated.
And the nightmares returned with a vengeance, tinged violent green and grinding tritanium, and the reminder – the visceral recollection – in her very bones, of the searing pain as the nano-probes coursed through her blood, was enough to make her scream out of her sleep in terror.
And a stark reminder of everything it felt to be stripped of an identity she wasn’t entirely sure she fitted anyway.
An identity that had grown to be something she was repulsed by.
To be reminded of all of the things she had sacrificed in pursuit of home, when home no longer felt like it could be defined.
And it was taking its toll.
The events involving Unimatrix Zero had been almost 2 months previously, and the little sleep she had been accustomed to prior to her assimilation was all but a distant memory.
And it was starting to fray at the very last fragments of her temper. She could see it in her crew, the way they swerved her, hesitated to approach her. Truth be told, she could see it in her body; skeletal, paper-thin skin, purple shadows under dull eyes.
“I am…” she twisted her fingers, knowing what she had to say but thoroughly resenting the need to say it. “I am struggling to sleep.”
The smug delight on the Doctor’s face was proof that her resentment wasn’t unfounded.
She squeezed her fingers into the soft flesh of her thighs, feeling like a petulant child as she perched on the bio-bed.
“Years of neglecting your health will do that,” the doctor tapped something into his tricorder.
So many responses presented themselves to her, but none were appropriate enough for a commanding officer to say to one of her subordinates. And some of them were downright vile.
So she bit her tongue as he nodded superciliously, then listened patiently as he cycled through all of the sleep medication he had prescribed her with in the recent past, to no avail.
All of them. The endless list of sedatives and holistic methodologies and trials that the Doctor had fruitlessly attempted.
“I…” she shook her head. “Is it exhaustive?”
“No,” he answered, “but the next suggested course of treatment would be drastic...and can have tricky side-effects.”
He paused for a moment, looked at her, and then there was a change in his demeanour.
“I could prescribe you different things, and I could keep sermonising,” he said softly. “The reality is you’re suffering trauma, and have no space to deal with it. You need a break.”
Her reaction was instantaneous, sudden tears forming in her eyes.
“I will send a heavier dose of your current sedative to your replicator, but what you really need is time, and someone to talk to. I know I am not the ideal candidate for you, that everyone here is your subordinate and it’s tricky. I know that’s difficult, but might I suggest you seek out Com-”
She held out a hand, not ready to hear his inevitable suggestion.
Down that road lay further pain, a fragile scar she wasn’t ready – wouldn’t ever be – to examine. If anything, going to him and asking for help, showing her hand as vulnerable, would elicit further agony. They were past that point now and there was no gain to be found in subjecting herself to that.
She nodded, swiping a hand across her eyes to rid herself of the last vestige of her tears, and jumped from the bio-bed.
“Thank you,” she brushed down her uniform.
“I mean what I say,” The Doctor reached out a hand to grasp her shoulder and though it was uninvited, the warmth of it wasn’t unwelcome. “You can’t go on like this.”
She nodded, fully in agreement, completely convinced that she was slowly descending into a hole that felt inescapable.
The weight of it all; of this endless command, of this vast responsibility, of this stark, white loneliness, was starting to become unbearable. Was already unbearable.
But she dressed her face in a smile as the doors of Sickbay hissed open, and made her way back to the Bridge, because it was all she knew how to do.
-0-
It was 3 a.m. ship’s time when she woke from the worst nightmare yet, in spite of the sedative.
In spite of the three glasses of real whiskey.
She was imprisoned in the sweat-damp sheets, and ripped them from her body with a howl of rage that tore through the silence of the ship as she kicked at them with her feet and they slid feebly off the bed. Tears of horror came then, forcing her to bite into her pillow with so much force she thought her jaw might split apart.
She couldn’t imagine surviving another one of these nights, which always ended with her weeping her absolute misery into a cold pillow, or wishing for anything that didn’t feel like drowning. There had to be a limit to this.
“Are you alright?”
She startled, barely recognising the voice as she scuttled to her knees and reached for her phaser on the bedside table.
“Whoa, Kathryn it’s just-”
“Commander, what are you doing in here?”
If it hadn’t been so invasive, it would have been comical, but the very audacity of it felt horribly violating. The fact he must have used his override, the fact he thought it was alright just to appear in her bedroom, felt more aggressive a violation than the dreams she had been suffering.
“I have listened to you sobbing, and screaming, night after night and I-”
“Get out!” She said, her fury heightening her words to roaring. “Get out before I throw you in the Brig! How dare you?”
His face was suddenly blank, void of any emotion and he said nothing, turning on his heels and disappearing into the darkness and leaving her entirely alone again.
And the loneliness of it all felt like the right punishment, the right atonement for her varied and many mistakes out here.
The loss of him – of their intense, sometimes parameter-pushing friendship – had been incremental and slow, so slow she didn’t notice that they had stopped talking, that they had stopped eating together, that they had stopped making time to check-in on each other, until it all became glaringly apparent to her as she had wished him farewell on the Bridge.
When she had said ‘surprise me’, and taken his hand in hers, it was because she hadn’t known what else to say to fill the void. Hadn’t had the words, the bravery, the gumption to say ‘I am scared’ or ‘What have I done?’
Or, indeed, to show him what she felt. To tell him.
To tell him the truth.
And now she had driven him further away, had put yet another parameter in place when he had – because she knew him well enough to know his intentions in coming here – tried to help her, to readdress the imbalance between them.
But she couldn’t have permitted such stark vulnerability on her own part, and such genuine care on his.
-0-
“May I speak with you?”
As much as she had anticipated this conversation, she still dreaded it. Chakotay never could let anything lie, most especially when he felt there were amends to be made, so there was no way he would have let the night before slide.
And she owed him more of an apology than he owed her for having entered her quarters where, once, she had allowed it rather liberally.
But at 6 a.m. when she had just donned her uniform and was on her third coffee of the day, it was hardly a welcome intrusion.
“It would seem neither of us got back to sleep,” she murmured. “At ease Chakotay. Take a seat.”
He took her instruction silently as he followed her into her quarters, and sat across from her. Distant enough to make it seem like he never used to sit right at her hip, and hold her sometimes when it became too much.
“I don’t know what happened last night-”
Just last night? She wanted to ask. What’s happened to us? What have we become?
She held up a hand, “I should never had reacted like that, and I am sorry.”
it was easier to apologise than listen to him try to make amends for crimes he hadn’t committed, and for offences she perceived rather than ones he had perpetrated. And for all of the other things he hadn’t done wrong, but took responsibility for.
He seemed on the backfoot for a minute, shocked by the ease with which she capitulated.
“I shouldn’t have used my override,” he said, an invitation for castigation.
She shrugged, “You did. It’s done now. See you on the Bridge.”
He looked, for a split-second, like he’d been punched in the stomach. And for a second, when she saw the truth of it, a deep sadness at his response flooded her.
What was she doing? And why couldn’t she stop herself?
Seeing it for the dismissal it was, he stood to go.
And she breathed silent relief as he made his exit.
It was short-lived, however, when he spoke without turning back to her.
“I hear what you scream. My bed presses against the very same bulkhead yours does. I hear every word, and every apology, and every sob. I hear my own name, plain as day, and it kills me every time.”
It took its time to truly hit her, as if all of it was on a split-second time delay. As if she could have prevented the horror if only she had put her hands over her ears and refused to hear the truth.
She watched the broad expanse of his uniformed back, the way it slumped in defeat just a little more as all she offered in return was silence.
And her nightmares were as real to her in that moment as they were when she slept; the loss of him, the loss of hope or happiness or home.
The last and final loss of self that was slowly, but inevitably, happening within her.
“Wait.”
She said it so quietly, she was surprised he heard it at all.
“I…” she gripped her coffee cup with such force, she thought it might shatter in her hands. “I…”
He turned then, and the anger she expected to see was gone and in its place there was something not quite hopeful, but not hopeless either.
And it was so unusual to see, so welcome and warm to her, that she felt the words pouring out.
“I can’t sleep. I am in agony and I can’t sleep. And it’s worse because all I keep thinking about are the mistakes, all the mistakes. They feel worse than being assimilated. And I am craving something I can’t have. No one, no one has held me in so long. I am so afraid. I am so afraid.”
And as the words tumbled out they merged into a litany of her deepest pains, a collection of all of the horrors she had been carrying.
Suddenly he was beside her, pulling her against his chest as the sobs and the words and the rolling monologue of all of the things she was terrified of spilled out of her, ending on the word she so hated to admit.
Lonely. Loneliness.
It tasted bitter on her tongue, uninvited and sharp and exposed as she said it to him, and he held her as if he understood.
“You’re not alone,” he said softly, cutting through her lethargic weeping. “You don’t have to be lonely.”
“I don’t know how…” she shook her head, rested her forehead in the warm, safe crook of his neck.
The words would not come, and the truth was she knew he didn’t expect them. Perhaps that was why it had been so easy to admit her fears to him, after so long keeping them to herself.
Even after all of the space between then, after all of the horrible things she had let grow and fester, he was still able to traverse that, to pretend she hadn’t held him at such a distance for so long that it unsettled her to have him reaching out to her.
And she admired him for it, and wanted to tell him to run. To tell him that, as soon as she was able to, she would put distance between them again – because she had no other choice.
He rubbed her back, refrained from whispering the things she wanted him to, held her tight and solidly – the implication she might just leave never far from the periphery of the embrace – and she felt herself sliding into comfort, into a safety she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
-0-
The heavy, warm shackles of sleep were slow to loosen themselves from her and she curled closer to his warmth before she realised who the warmth belonged to. And even when she did realise – realised the indecorous nature of it, the horrible implications it might have – she couldn’t bring herself to move anyway.
It should have alarmed her but the overwhelming peace, the overriding sense of rightness, was too much not to give in to.
“You fell asleep,” he explained, as if it required an explanation, rubbing her upper arm where he held her. “Just an hour, but better than nothing.”
“Alpha shift?”
He flicked his commbadge, “Tuvok has the bridge. I explained we had annual reports to compile. Which, Captain, I have to talk to you about.”
He loosened his hold of her then, seamlessly transitioning them back to their astonishingly distant roles. Then he stood and brushed down his jacket, smoothing out the crumples where her fingers had dug into his uniform.
And she was grateful for his politeness, while desperately trying to ignore the lingering ache of what she had just managed to let slip through her grasp again.
She nodded her head, ignoring this new, yet entirely familiar pain, and stood to move to the replicator.
“We could meet here, tonight, for the annuals? I know you have a busy day ahead.”
Still wrapped in sleep, still trying to ignore how awful it felt to have him so detached from her again, she struggled to understand him at first.
But she swallowed, cleared her throat and took a sip of her coffee.
“Yes, yes of course...they need to be done.”
And she watched him go, not entirely sure of what had just happened and perplexed by his ability to simply pretend.
Though it was she who had set down that gauntlet, who had insisted on parameters that drove a wedge between them, who had refused to acknowledge their evident attraction towards each other. And in ignoring it, it was starting to curdle, to morph into something they were both starting to loathe.
“See you tonight then? I will bring some dinner?”
She nodded in agreement without really thinking about what she was agreeing to, and she had little time to think on it across the course of the day. Because her day was grindingly busy, and she was an hour behind – an hour she was still entirely grateful for – and it felt good to be able to function without fear of her temper bursting through the surface.
When she returned to her quarters she had no time to cancel, barely time to push the necessary meeting for annual reports into the working day where it was safe and appropriate.
And, she was starving; ravenous in fact. Having not eaten, and knowing that his cooking was better than good, it was too delicious a temptation to resist.
The chime sounded and she sucked in a breath, knowing she had to get through it, knowing that it was both necessary and going to be undoubtedly uncomfortable.
“Good evening,” he smiled as she answered the door, handing her a dish covered with a red-chequered cheese-cloth that reminded her viscerally of Indiana.
She took the warm dish and set it on the table, mouth practically watering, and watched as he busied himself with setting the table quickly, familiarly, and she was reminded that this had once been their routine, billions of stars ago.
“It smells delicious,” she said, not sure what she should say and picking up the padds he’d set down, trying to find something to do with herself.
“I’ve divided the departments between us – tried to hedge towards our areas of expertise.”
She smiled wryly and watched his hands move quickly, with precision, to serve first the chicken then the rice, and she wondered where he learned to be such an accomplished cook, where he learned that this was how you showed you cared for someone.
Even when they were extremely hard to care for.
“So I have engineering, you have tactical, please tell me you’ve taken morale…” she said dryly, and then looked up at him as she sat. “Thank you.”
“That’s what we always do,” he said, pulling out his own chair.
She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, “I don’t mean the annual reviews. Well, of course I am grateful for that. But just...for all of this.”
He was quiet for a moment as he poured water from the carafe into their glasses, seeming, in that moment, unshakeable and defiant and perplexingly determined to pretend there had never been a pause in this interaction.
That Kashyk, and the Borg, and all of the other awful things that had pressed upon them hadn’t forced them into an unbearable silence.
“What else am I supposed to do?” he said simply. “Seeing you, hearing you, in pain. I can’t stand it.”
She looked at him them, into the depth of eyes she wished she could get lost in. The sincerity in them was breath-taking and it made her feel even more trapped, even more incapable of meeting his expectations. And to see the ease with which he made such proclamations startled her; he kept his emotions so close to the surface, so ready and honest.
“I don’t want anything from you,” he added, too quickly.
He always could read her, and it had become unbearable, she suddenly remembered. And that, amongst innumerable other intimacies that she risked breaching, was why she had had to close him out.
It had been a choice: him, or home. She couldn’t have both.
She nodded, but she knew it was a lie. Because she was living the very same lie.
She wanted everything from him.
They ate in a silence which was neither companionable nor uncomfortable, it simply was, and completed the reviews in studious quiet and when it was finally finished, he stood to go and he lingered for a while as if he wanted to say something, but it only emerged as:
“Sleep well, please.”
And with a full belly and a tired mind, she thought she might be able to.
-0-
She was wrong, of course. Her nightmare returned, this time mutated; he was watching as the two prongs sliced into her artery, as the blood spurted out, and he was howling and trying to wrench himself away from the black figures holding him, and she cried and cried until her own sobs woke her from the nightmare only to remind her she was living one just as difficult.
It took her body only seconds – because her body was commanding her now, her mind incapable of dispute – to pull on her dressing gown and make her way out into the silent corridor and ring the chime belonging to the quarters beside her own.
He must have been awake, because he was quick to the door and she was grateful of it, her mind trying to tell her that her body – her shaking, exhausted, infuriated body – wanted something she should not give it.
But she had known relief, and she couldn't deny herself that.
“I..”
She barely had the words to make this request, and then the panic was so sudden, so profound that she turned and almost set up to a run when she felt his hand lock around her bicep, and the touch nearly floored her, pulling every sensation to that small portion of her skin. He guided her into his quarters and hit the button to lock the door.
“Sleep here.”
Soft, commanding. Permitting.
She was powerless to deny that was what she had wanted him to say, and humiliated he understood it too.
She followed him into the silent, dark-quiet of his bedroom – and realised she had never once been in here, and had she been less stricken she would have been curious, but she couldn’t permit that.
He tugged at her hand, pulling back the sheets on the smooth, uninterrupted side.
And she knew what she had to do, and she knew what line she was crossing so acutely.
And yet she couldn’t do anything to fight it, to resist the last remaining sensation of happiness, or safety, or indeed humanity, that she felt.
“Chakotay I…”
She tried to explain, tried to set some rules or boundaries that would make it clear to him – more so to herself – what this was.
But what was it?
“It doesn’t have to be complicated,” he said, and she could see he thought that was true.
And that made her pity him; any scrap, no matter how small.
Plenty of time, he had said, once.
And she, like a fool, had believed him.
Why, then, did it feel like time was draining from her, along with the last of what it had been to be good and happy?
He tugged at her hand again, and she realised he had been holding it all that time, and the pull of him – of the security she knew he offered – was so profound that she couldn’t resist it, couldn’t possibly pretend she was strong enough to deny it.
So she found herself sinking into the smell of him, of the rough and warm cotton of his bed and his pillows and of him. She found herself barely surprised when his hand found her hip and his frame curled around hers, only mildly shocked to find she wound her fingers with his own on her abdomen.
Even less surprised that when she awoke the next morning, she awoke from a dreamless, deep sleep. But alone.
And to the smell of real, unfettered coffee.
He came into the room, donned in uniform already, and set the coffee in her hands as she sat up, then settled on the edge of the bed.
“That’s the best night’s sleep I’ve had for a very long time.” She said slowly.
She swallowed, and then took a sip of the coffee.
“How many of your rations did you use for this?” she asked, because she didn’t know what else to ask.
“A few,” he smiled, so disarmingly, and she wondered – for a fleeting and treacherous moment – what this could have been in any other context.
If he had been her lover, in another life, in another time, would it have been like this?
Because he was, and always would be, the man she had loved the most and lost too.
“But worth it, always worth it.”
He smiled again, and stood.
“Chakotay I...what do we do about this…”
“We don’t have to do anything. You have the privilege of having the most control of this ship, and of her systems. You can beam back to your quarters and erase the logs. And you can do that as many times as you wish. You are always welcome here.” He shook his head. “You always were. And the awful, really difficult truth of it is you always will be.”
He shook his head again and squeezed his eyes closed, as if a headache was suddenly availing itself on him. She should have pitied him in that moment; pitied the tiny intimations of how much she had hurt him, how close she had come to losing him, but she couldn’t.
Because relief, and calm, and something akin to happiness had taken root in her.
“I never asked anything of you, I never have. I learned a long time ago that I shouldn’t. But I will ask you not to do this to yourself. Because I can’t get back to Earth without you, and nor can this crew. You’ve always been selfish, but this is a level of selfishness I can’t permit you because...because it might rob me of my last hope. And I don’t think even you want to hurt me like that.”
She felt his words like a blow; the truth of them, the hatred and hardness and love wrapped in such complicated fashion that she couldn’t discern one from the other in them.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said, emphatically, desperately needing him to know.
He nodded, and left his quarters.
-0-
She curled herself into his bed later that night, while he worked Beta-shift testing the latest additions to the Delta-Flyer with Tom. And it was a strange comfort, a place she felt she belonged amongst a sea of strangeness.
And he said nothing when he found her there, but a small smile and a nod, and then went about his routine and she watched him without hiding it.
She had seen his body so many times, so many scars and injuries, but she’d never seen it like this; at peace, comfortable within its routine of stripping and stretching, and reaching his back and his arms up to the ceiling and rolling his neck. Of brushing his fingers through his hair as he examined himself in the mirror.
And it took her by surprise to see him so at ease and so human and so achingly, viscerally desirable.
It had been a long time since she had felt attraction and desire, and neither were a welcome addition to this complicated mix.
Her tiredness was abating, the residual fog that she had been living with for so long, and she felt she had to find the words to explain it.
“I don’t mean to be selfish,” she said suddenly, into the silence as she placed her book to the side and he stripped his uniform trousers away.
“I know, and you’re not, not really. Not in the ways that count, out here.” He sighed. “But in the ways that count for you, personally, and for me…”
He let the words, and the implication, linger.
She nodded.
“What if it wasn’t selfishness, but fear?”
“Then I would say fuck the Delta Quadrant for that too.”
In spite of herself, in spite of wanting to be furious and irritated at his flippant answer, she found herself laughing and it was so enjoyable, so rare, that it felt like a new experience. When she looked up to watch him, watch his beautiful smile and his mirth in the face of her own it felt so personal, so connected, so right.
He came towards her, pulling back the sheets and she watched as he settled beside her.
“You like this?” he said softly, gripping her hip and encouraging her to move backwards, to come flush with his chest and his thighs and his hips and his groin and to feel the warmth of him and the absolute strength in his body. He had a power in him, a pull in his words, that she’d almost forgotten.
She swallowed as his hand clamped, large, around her waist.
“I do.”
She’d be a liar to deny it.
“If it helps, if it helps us both to find a bit of humanity on this Godforsaken journey…” he said into her hair, into the skin of her neck, “then I won’t allow us to deny ourselves this. Now sleep.”
She did exactly as she was told, barely counting to ten before she slid into dreamless oblivion.
And that was how their routine went as the weeks drew on. She would beam into his quarters before bed, ready to sleep, and curl into his bed and into his arms and into the deep, peaceful sleep that being held provided. And she was, undeniably, a better leader for it.
Maybe even a better friend.
And definitely happier. Definitely less alone.
There were things she had to ignore, of course. Things they were both ignoring. The current between them that was inevitably there, growing more intense, the hot hard press of him in the morning, the way she had to resist trailing her fingers over the gorgeous skin at the base of his hips, in the contours of his chest and curling into the thick black of his hair.
Her fingers itched to touch him.
Even as those hands danced over their shared console on the Bridge, she couldn’t help but let her mind comfortably drift.
“You’re quiet today Captain,” he commented.
She smiled, “Just calm.”
He grinned and stretched out, “An uneventful sector of the DQ.”
“Don’t tempt fate. Plus, I don’t like too quiet. That way lies...too much time.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that too much, I am sure the Delta Quadrant will deliver soon enough.”
-0-
She picked up another brownie from the plate, guiltily noting this was her third and swiftly deciding she didn’t care.
“These are….” she grinned. “These are so good.”
“My sister’s recipe, I fancied one. I am glad I made extra,” he laughed, setting down another coffee for her on her Ready Room desk. “Harry’s picked up life forms 375 light years from now, should be within hailing distance within the next twenty-four hours.”
“Good,” she shrugged. “I have enough energy to want that now.”
He took a sip of his own coffee, and they fell into companionable silence for a while.
“I want to say thank you,” she said after a while, “for everything.”
He smiled softly, “You think it hasn’t been mutually beneficial? That I haven’t benefited from it?”
She looked at him for a moment, smiling, knowing full well it was dangerous territory to traverse. Knowing he meant it fully, and with absolute commitment; he enjoyed whatever part of her she was willing to give him.
“I never thought about it like that, no.”
“I get to spend time with you, however little it might be. We used to spend so much time together and then…” he shrugged. “I enjoy it. I would be a liar to deny it. And you do too, even if you won’t admit it.”
“Who says I won’t?” she asked, trying to keep the teasing from her voice. And failing. And then loathing herself for it.
“Maybe just an erroneous assumption on my part?”
She smiled, “Maybe. Maybe you just know me well...too well. And maybe that frightens me.”
He lifted his eyes, his face betraying his momentary shock at her honesty, before it vanished again and he stood, scooping his padd and coffee up.
“You have nothing to be frightened of,” he said simply. “But the only person who can convince you of that is yourself.”
She watched him go, the weight of his words heavy upon her.
That was, of course, the crux of the issue; fear, absolute fear of losing him, of losing anything she valued beyond surviving the loss of it, was so visceral to her that she had done everything to keep him at arm’s length, to make it clear to him there was no future for them while they were out here.
But in doing that she had stopped functioning properly, so afraid to move in any direction that she had stopped moving at all.