Work Text:
tracing the way through the constellation
As days go by, Voyager’s former first officer finds himself drifting, anchor-less and unearthed.
The shock of being thrown halfway across the galaxy, albeit not the first one he’d experienced, is rather overwhelming. He’s read somewhere that navigators of old used a magnetic needle to point them in the right direction while at sea—right now, he feels as if his personal navigational equipment lost all of its magnetic properties and left him alone and adrift, no particular place to go from here on.
He watches the others drift away as well—further and further from him, to some secretive places he cannot begin to imagine. Tom and B’Elanna are the first to go, the baby sleeping peacefully in her mother’s arms: Admiral Paris and his wife have offered them a place to stay and a chance to renew (or establish) their bond with the family. Harry Kim is whisked away by his parents, laughing and crying and terribly proud of their son’s accomplishments—especially given than his promotion to full Lieutenant is already in the works, to be granted as soon as the debriefings are over. The Doctor leaves for Starfleet Medical, trying to charm his way into Beverly Crusher’s heart, and—from what Chakotay can say—making excellent progress. He watches them go, exchanges firm handshakes and pats on the back, and one firm, friendly hug with B’Elanna: but the more important goodbyes are still before him.
She comes to him a day after the docking, uncharacteristically quiet and subdued as she touches his arm and avoids his eyes. “I believe it would be beneficial if we discontinued our association at this point.” A clean cut, no place for half-truths, an unpleasant, yet not unexpected way of disassembling a construct that’s hardly had the time to function properly. He wishes her all the best, and even accompanies her to the transporter room when she leaves, alongside Tuvok. The Vulcan is the only member of the senior staff granted a pass off-world before the debriefings, given his fragile state and the need for imminent medical help. He accepts the company with his normal stoicism, and offers Chakotay a short nod of his head: the sign of respect neither could have fathomed at the beginning of their journey all those years ago.
A swish of blue, and they’re gone, leaving Chakotay in the company of a slightly jumpy transporter chief, and the other person he still needs to bid farewell to. Not right now, it would seem—the Ensign steps around and console and stands at attention, her eyes unfocused, glazed over with images she’s yet to see. “Permission to disembark, ma’am.”
“Granted.” Kathryn takes the younger woman’s place, squeezing her shoulder briefly as she goes, and taps in a sequence of coordinates. “Give my best to your family, Carla.”
“Thank you, Captain. For… everything.” Chakotay returns a shaky smile directed at him, and watches as yet another person drifts away, the tiny ripples on the fabric of reality coming to a halt gradually.
“It’s hard to see them go. Every single crewman.”
He nods, immediately soothed by her voice. “I thought it was just me.”
“Well, now you know.”
“Yes.” He turns and looks at her, noticing the way she’s leaning on her forearms, quite exhausted. “Will you be alright?”
“Of course,” she dismisses his concerns breezily, and frowns as an unwelcome thought resurfaces in her brain. “As soon as I’m done approving a desk-load of reports I’ve got waiting.”
“Want some help?” he offers, holding his breath in anticipation—paperwork is not on top of his favorite pastimes, but it sure beats sitting alone in his empty quarters and wondering what to do next. Yes, there’s always Trebus and Sekaya and even his cousin in Ohio, but all these destinations seem somewhat lacking: there is no spark, no excitement within himself when he thinks about them. He wishes to find a path he could follow, but his spirit guide has been most unhelpful for the past few weeks; perhaps turning to his captain for advice one last time will bring the resolution he craves. “I’ll take over the security logs if you let me pick your brain about something later.”
Kathryn raises an eyebrow (he knows the request, although perfectly natural for the kind of a relationship they’d had in the first few years of their journey, seems rather out-of-character for the most recent “him”), but doesn’t question his motives any further. “Have I ever said no to such a generous offer? Lead on, Commander.”
The ready room is a mess, a chaos of things both personal and ship-related: he wonders whether Kathryn’s been spending most of her time in here ever since they arrived to AQ, or if she’s emptied her quarters already, preparing to follow her inner compass to wherever. He expects to hear all about her meticulously laid out plans during the course of the afternoon, so he doesn’t ask about them, choosing to concentrate on the work instead.
Despite having recently grown so far apart, they still function like a well-oiled mechanism, going through PADD after PADD with swift efficiency, hardly needing to ask the other’s opinion to proceed. Kathryn replicates lunch somewhere along the way, and they bicker over how she must have surely terrorized all replicators on board, given how her culinary ‘prowess’ began to show only after returning home. She pouts and looks down into her salad, jabbing at it with a plastic fork and looking quite forlorn all of a sudden. Chakotay wonders whether his remarks was too much: he should have realized he’s not the only one feeling fragile at this time. And although Kathryn wishes to bury herself under the captain’s persona, she’s very much a human being, with all the residual fears and distresses. Who’s to tell what would it take to break her, tip the scales from carefully maintained balance to emotional uproar?
“Hey,” he says, nudging her knee with his in an informal manner that feels out of place given the recent quality of their relationship, “I hope you do know how much I’ve enjoyed our dinners.”
“Thank you,” she answers, quickly and politely—which is how he knows something is wrong. “Here’s to hoping your future company consists of a better cook than myself.”
She doesn’t know about Seven’s decision to leave his life, and although it’s clearly not the best moment to bring it up, he feels he should clear the air. “My dance card is quite empty at the moment.” A mouthful of wine to ease the sudden dryness. “Would you care to add to it, at your leisure?”
Kathryn raises her glass in mock salute and switches to another PADD, scrolling through its contents with an unhappy frown. “Let me know when you’re free—perhaps we could test your theory on replicator performance being closely connected to their spatial location.”
“For you, I’ll always—“ he pauses, unsure why he would blab at this particular moment, and rephrases the thought, “I was thinking you’d be the one with a tight and demanding schedule. I can’t say I’ve got much in the way of plans.”
“Neither have I,” Kathryn shrugs, pushing the PADD away and turning to sit in the corner of her sofa, facing him. “Well, there’s all the red tape to cut through, and visiting my family—but other than that, I have absolutely no idea where to go. It’s as if I’d—lost my footing. No course to lay in.”
He nods eagerly, putting his PADD and emptied glass away and mimicking her posture. “I was thinking the same thing, actually. There’s nowhere I’d want to go right now. Nowhere I need to be. It’s as if—“
“—all the strings were cut loose.”
“The anchor’s adrift.”
“Any counselor would tell you it’s a perfectly normal feeling,” Kathryn smiles, pulling at a loose thread by the cuff of her uniform jacket. “We’ve accomplished so much, so suddenly—it’s bound to leave a gaping hole where purpose used to be.”
“You may have accomplished it. I mostly hung on for dear life, and—“
“I couldn’t have done any of it without you.”
He blinks, unsure why she would admit it at this particular time. “I haven’t been much of a help to you recently, Kathryn,” he admits, the worm of guilt nipping at his heart. “Not a very good friend, either.”
“But you were always there. A constant. I needed you—needed to know you were there to straighten my path when I went off course.” She looks at him thoughtfully, and there’s something in her eyes he hasn’t seen for the longest time. “Perhaps you were my anchor all along.”
“As you were mine,” he replies, the words becoming true as he speaks them. “My navigator. A star to look up to in the sky.”
She reaches out and takes his hand, flipping the balance of power within the room and charging it with poignancy. “I’m not a star, Chakotay. Nowhere near it.”
“And I’m afraid I don’t make a very good anchor,” he admits, testing the new limits and pulling her to him, thrilled when she goes along willingly and wraps herself around him.
“That’s alright,” she says into his skin. “Striving for perfection is futile, anyway.”
–
PADDs long forgotten, they replace reporting on things past with exploration of a possible future.
It’s yet another quest on which they embark without a guide or a map—at least not until Chakotay peels the last layer of fabric off Kathryn’s body, and grins like a little boy on Harvest Day. “You’re a star chart, did you know that?”
She rolls her eyes at him, her fingers combing through his hair at a leisurely pace. “It’s only improper distribution of pigmentation, Chakotay—nothing as romantic as you make it sound.”
“To me, it is,” he claims, propping himself up on an elbow and tracing a shape along the freckles over her heart, noticing with glee how certain parts of Kathryn’s anatomy he hasn’t even touched yet react to the caress. “This here—it looks like a seagull in flight. And here,” he moves his hand higher and to the left, over her collarbone, “a stealthy fox, hunting. This,” this time he kisses the spot, right under her last rib, “looks like a diamond.” Kathryn sighs happily as he touches each freckle with the tip of his tongue, drawing the form. “You’re covered in constellations. Skin-stars, that’s what they are.” He pushes himself further up her body, and kisses the bridge of her nose, the cluster on her forehead. “So beautiful, Kathryn. So radiant.”
“You’re clearly biased,” she tells him, reaching up for a long, soft kiss that leaves both of them breathless and tingling with anticipation. “I wouldn’t recommend navigating by them, you know.”
“I’d like to take my chances, if you let me,” he declares in a quiet, solemn voice, searching her face for approval or dismissal, his insides fluttering madly.
“At least we’ll be lost together,” she smiles, and he has to kiss her again, reaching down to blindly find the diamond-shaped cluster on her skin.
“Together we won’t be lost at all.”
After that, he finds a group of strategically positioned freckles that looks exactly like the Virgo, and words lose some of their relevance.
If they find a way around the treacherous shallows, there’ll be plenty more time to talk. Priorities, priorities—he thinks, and sets a course for home.
/end