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The moon, as always, is beautiful. The two of them agreed silently to program it to pre-warp specs: no colonies, just the vast lunar craters to fit in with the vintage atmosphere the rest of the program has to it. In his youth, Chakotay thought of holoprograms like these as something as natural as humans coming from Earth, but nowadays it feels like there’s a kind of magic to them.
Somehow, it mostly feels like that when he’s enjoying some holodeck time with one Kathryn Janeway.
She insisted on getting changed like she usually does before they went to the holodeck, causing quite some curiosity to stir in Chakotay because he’s noticed over the years that Kathryn’s outfit of choice often seems to represent her mood. Light and bright colours appropriately imply a lightheartedness and the more elaborate an outfit is, the more excited she’s feeling.
This evening, her simple and therefore thoughtful dress matches the night sky. Chakotay recognised this as soon as Kathryn left her quarters with the sort of shy smile she always has out of uniform, and replicated her a necklace with a moon pendant. The smile turned as radiant as the sun which is why Chakotay thinks that the sun, too, is always beautiful.
He’s waiting for her to set the pace. As energetic and enthusiastic as she’d been in her ready room, Kathryn must still have some feelings to sort out and her choice of clothes all but confirms his theory. He won’t get the champagne out until she does; it seems to him she needs the clarity of mind to think about everything that’s happened to her.
With a sigh, Kathryn throws herself onto a chair next to him. Must’ve gotten tired of standing behind the railing and just looking, though Chakotay rather enjoyed the view of the breeze playing with her hair. Now, it appears, she’s ready to talk.
“I keep thinking about my memorial service,” she tells him, cryptic as ever. In one of the hallucinations, he assumes, and she nods her head when he asks.
“B’Elanna and Harry were so emotional. Everybody was, well, devastated, but they were the ones who walked up in front of everyone and told their stories. But it wasn’t real.”
“What did they say?” He’s not sure it’s the right thing to ask, but he doesn’t know what else to say. Besides, just having a listening ear seems to do wonders for Kathryn.
“B’Elanna said that I gave you all a gift. How did she put it? ‘The knowledge that we’re better and stronger than we think we are.’ Something like that.” A smile tugs at her lips, but it’s a sad one.
“And you feel like those feelings aren’t real?”
Back on New Earth, the two of them developed a shared affinity for physical contact. Kathryn was always a tactile woman, but on the Bridge she would never have held Chakotay’s hand as tightly as she did when she took him with her to show him a flower she found. Now, Chakotay casually turns over his hand so that his palm faces upwards.
Kathryn takes it. The hope that springs up inside of Chakotay reminds him of the feeling he got when Kathryn gave him the flower and he made a promise to himself to take care of it for as long as they had to stay there. He kept the promise, but the flower must be dead by now. Chakotay is so, so happy Kathryn didn’t have the same fate, despite what she momentarily thought.
“That’s exactly it,” she says, her gaze directed at the stars. “I took something away from all of you when we got stranded. Your homes, your friends, your family, you name it. And to know that I’d given you something back alleviated that guilt somehow. But it’s what my mind and the alien fabricated together. It’s not real.” Her voice sounds something like the diminuendo at the end of Harry’s clarinet piece: a mere whisper.
It’s only then that Chakotay notices how tight her grip on his hand has become; he was too distracted by the way the light from the moon and the stars hits her face and loose hair and her necklace. He squeezes back in return.
“While I can’t say for certain, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that’s what B’Elanna and the rest of us think about you. And…as I’ve told you before, you’ve given me the gift of peace. Nothing could be better than that.” He desperately hopes she’s getting the message: I still love you. No matter what happens, I still love you.
She turns to look at him now and he feels like that look directed at him is going to melt him into a puddle, because he thinks it’s the way in which she was looking at the sky just now and the way she looked at the Voyager the first time she saw it and at her dog and at everything she loves. He keeps it together, though, because she needs him to right now. And he’ll do anything for the woman who gave him peace and so much more.
“I haven’t felt more at peace than this in a long time,” she admits. “Despite everything that happened, despite everything I thought was real. I feel…peaceful.”
Chakotay’s heart again jumps and now it’s like she didn’t give him a single rare flower, but a whole bouquet overflowing with them like he is overflowing with joy. He knows rationally that this doesn’t necessarily mean anything, they’ve got to be a strong command team, all that jazz, but if she got the message then she just said to him: I love you too.
He’s ruminating on the implications of what she said so much that he somehow doesn’t notice Kathryn crowding over him and gently taking his other hand. He does notice Kathryn kissing him; how could he not?
It’s brief and it certainly doesn’t convey all the pent-up feelings both of them must have a huge collection of by now, but it’s soft and caring and most of all, it’s a sign, a way of letting him know: I got your message.
It probably won’t affect their relationship much in the long term, but Chakotay vows to himself that he’s going to use this newfound albeit possibly temporary closeness to take care of Kathryn, to help her process what she’s been through, like he took care of the flower. The difference is that he won’t leave her and he won’t let her wither away.
With Kathryn looking back at the stars, a subtle smile playing at the lips that touched his, Chakotay promises himself that when they return to Earth, his Captain will be thriving.