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First Officer’s personal log, Stardate 52028.9. Entered a weird region of space today. Nothing here, really. Seven estimates it will take two years to cross.
Chakotay absently traces a zigzag line in the margins. He started doing his personal logs on pen and paper a few months ago when he woke up in the mess hall, a pen in his hand, a cold cup of coffee on one side of the table, and a stack of scribbled notes on the other. They’d been disorganized, contradictory, punctuated by direct addresses like Try eating pudding at the table in the mess hall closest to the window and I WISH YOU COULD REMEMBER. And they were unmistakably in his handwriting. Something that could be faked pretty easily with the right software, but for what possible purpose?
Not sure why I’m still using paper for my personal logs. Guess I don’t like the thought of someone snooping around my journal.
Partially true. It had been liberating at first, the idea of an unhackable personal log. A place to record his truest thoughts. But then it had seemed to him that paper - absorbent, biodegradable, flammable - was the most permanent part of the ship. The computer could be wiped with a few lines of code, and crew members were infinitely more destructible. Next to that, this physical proof of the challenges Voyager was facing, the things they’d endured - the things he’d endured - had seemed almost holy.
Guess I’ll have a lot of time to write.
Stardate 52035.1. One week down, two years to go.
Stardate 52037.5. There really is just nothing here, is there? Been meaning to make a longer entry; just don’t have a lot to say. Suggested we reduce the standing bridge crew to one person. No sense having a full staff to watch a black viewscreen.
Stardate 52040.8. Kathryn didn’t come to the senior staff meeting today. Said I could handle it. Kind of a relief to have something to do, to be honest.
Stardate 52042.3. Middle of bridge duty. Kathryn asked me to take her off the bridge duty roster, so I swapped some things around and now I have the morning shift. Not sure I like it.
Chakotay taps his pen against the side of the chair. It’s not as if there’s anything to like or dislike about one shift more than another. It’s sitting, staring into black space in total silence. He’s already regretting reducing the bridge staff - now there’s not even anyone to talk to, and it’s not like it’s freed up time to work on anything more important.
Neelix put too much pepper in the leola root casserole last night. I told him our pepper supply needs to last two years.
He’s beating around the bush, and he knows it. He stares at the black screen, not letting himself blink, until his eyes unfocus and he sees bright spots he can almost pretend are stars. He looks back down at his paper as they swim away.
Kind of worried about Kathryn. She seems to be taking this harder than the rest of the crew.
Stardate 52044.7. Had dinner with Kathryn today. Was hoping she’d meet me in the mess hall, but she insisted on her quarters. Had a good time, I guess.
Chakotay bites back disappointment at this. Some days, he and Kathryn seem to click - swapping stories, setting up each other’s punchlines, each building off the other in a way that doesn’t require conscious thought. This had not been one of those days. Their conversation had been casual, overshadowed by the gaping void outside the window, motionless, infinite. His movements had felt stilted; each time he’d refilled their water glasses (during the frequent lulls in conversation) had seemed less graceful than the last. Of course, they’d had days like that even before this new kind of emptiness.
Ready to just give up on today.
Stardate 52049.8. This has been the longest week of my life, and it’s only Wednesday. Trying to remember what I've even been doing. Overheard Tom telling Harry at dinner that he hasn’t laid eyes on the captain in three weeks. Thought that couldn’t be true, but then… I’m not sure I’ve seen her outside her quarters. Maybe I’ll ask Neelix to plan another luau. We could all use a change of scenery.
Stardate 52051.9. Luau was a partial success.
Inaccurate. It had been half partial success, half abject failure.
Most of the crew seemed like they were having a good time. Kathryn stood us up, though.
Chakotay was never a first officer before Voyager; he’d skipped straight from minor lieutenant to captain, and only then as a matter of necessity. He never had his eye on the first officer job, never had XO friends; he’s never been entirely sure what the job description even is.
I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong.
He scribbles it down quickly, like he’s sneaking up on the words before he can take them back. It would be different in the Alpha Quadrant - he’d have high-ranking connections and command conferences and the chance of promotion. But a lot of things would be different in the Alpha Quadrant. As it is, he has two responsibilities, and he’s decided to split them equally: half to the crew, and half to Kathryn. The crew is holding up as well as he could have hoped, and Kathryn isn’t, and he doesn’t understand why.
Guess all I can do for now is give it time.
Stardate 52057.7. Kathryn called me to her quarters today. Said she wanted an update. Wish she’d just come to a staff meeting. Didn’t realize until I got there that I hadn’t been in a week; she’s just been comm-ing me. I don’t know what it was, but she seemed a little off.
Off doesn’t really do justice to the queasiness he’d felt when he’d stepped over the threshold, eyes blinking, trying to adjust to the half-light in her quarters. It was the smell that hit him - not bad, but… lived-in. Human and stale coffee. And then she’d greeted him and smiled, but that feeling had lingered - the sense that he was missing something important.
I never believed in instinct until the Maquis.
Personal code, meaning anything from since my father died to when I reclaimed my heritage to the day I resigned my commission, and with it, everything I’d worked for my whole life to back when I was so convinced of my own righteousness that I killed over it. But now that he’s found it, that sixth sense, he can’t afford to ignore it.
Maybe I can get her onto the holodeck. She’s got that look she gets when she needs to shoot something.
Stardate 52064.8. Seven came by today; said she’d been trying to find a time to show Kathryn the new warp efficiency reports. Said she’d finally gone to her quarters, and Kathryn refused to let her in.
It had been an uncomfortable feeling, looking Seven in the eyes and telling her this was protocol, this was the chain of command, that the captain still cared as much for the crew as she always had, that this so-called abdication was all in Seven’s head, all the while feeling an uncontrollable surge of adrenaline at the thought that Kathryn would only talk to him, trusted him above all others, and knowing that Seven could see right through him, would notice the increase in his heart rate and the dilation of his pupils. What she'd made of all that, he had no idea.
I brought Kathryn the report. She was impressed. I told Seven as much.
These past weeks are the closest Kathryn has ever brought him, the most of herself she’s ever shown. Even when they’d been the only two people on a planet she hadn’t been this open with him. It’s the deepest sense of wrongness he’s felt in his life.
Makes me think about those same questions again. I don’t know where I’m going with this.
But no journal could ever be secure enough to write those questions down. One question, really: Am I in love? He loves her, he can own that, but he’s been in love before, and this feels different. She, the idea of her, casts a shadow longer than his past lovers or Starfleet or even the Maquis. He loves her like he loves a desert thunderstorm or a distant supernova - part awe, part fear. A greeting from her can turn his whole day around, the wrong look can send him to despair, and that aligns with what he remembers of romance, back before Seska inverted everything he thought he knew about happiness and love and himself. But she also clears his vision, shows him his place in the universe, justifies every choice and trauma and stroke of bad luck that brought him to her side, and that’s less like a lover and more like a god.
The crew needs its captain, and that’s not me.
He has two responsibilities, and they’re tearing him in half.
Stardate 52073.0. Invited Kathryn to the holodeck again today. Not even sure how much time I have saved up at this point. She turned me down, though.
She won’t leave her quarters. She won’t see anyone but him. It’s not right. There are whispers that she’s sick, that she’s dead, that he’s pulled off a coup, and at this point they sound credible even to him. But what’s he supposed to do; sedate her and drag her back on the bridge?
We’re not even a tenth of the way through the Void. This is unsustainable. If I suggested turning around, I’d have a revolt on my hands. But I’m not sure the crew can make it another week if we keep going forward.
Everything he is, every atom, is telling him it’s time to act. It’s happened before. It’s a dance they do, a push and pull; Kathryn a meteor screaming through the night sky, Chakotay adjusting course to follow her until he reaches his limit, takes in his sails, and drops anchor. Sometimes, then, on a clear night, the meteor slows, imperceptibly alters course; and it’s then that Chakotay knows true peace.
But now it’s a battle just to keep the meteor above the horizon and the dinghy from breaking apart, and if he lets his guard down for even one wave, he’ll lose everything.
Stardate 52081.6. Kathryn finally told me what all of this is about.
He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised. She’s always taken full blame and full credit for anything that happens on the ship, like she really is its patron deity. Like she’s the force of nature that demanded this seventy-year penance, immutable by any mere human.
I’d like to think I’m past assigning responsibility for being here, but maybe I’m only trying to absolve myself.
So it’s all her fault, that they’re stuck here. Not Chakotay, who piloted the Val Jean into the Badlands, who brought a Starfleet spy onto his own ship, who decided to join the Maquis in the first place, who regretted cutting himself off from his people and from his father only after it was too late. Her fault, and her choice, and no one who could possibly understand. And now he’s stuck between the ship and its god, and the pieces just don’t fit together like they used to.
I’ve always heard it was lonely at the top.
Some days, he thinks he’s the most alone of any of them.
Stardate 52083.2. Kathryn came out of her quarters yesterday.
Of course she had. Of course a threat to Voyager had pulled her to Engineering with a phaser rifle in her hands, had called her back in the way that no amount of begging or bribing from Chakotay ever could have. The threat he’s spent a month agonizing over, Kathryn would never be able to see, but power outages and attacking aliens - that, she can understand. He’s not hurt because he’s not surprised; he’d have engineered something like this weeks ago if he’d thought he had a chance of getting away with it. Kathryn loves the crew just as the crew loves Kathryn, and Chakotay loves them both enough to not expect anything in return, but to simply accept the gifts that are given him.
It’s just good to have her back.
Stardate 52088.5. Today Kathryn asked if I was ready to captain Voyager.
Chakotay stops there, inscribes the same short line over and over in the left margin, the ink building up, the pen wearing down the paper, until he breaks through and starts tracing the same line into the next sheet.
I told her yes.
He could do it; he knows it in the core of himself. He would be a steady hand at the helm; he would maneuver Voyager closer to home, one meter at a time, because that’s all Kathryn had ever wanted. But he thinks, given the option, that he’d rather die. It would be a kind of death, anyway, to pack up these past four years, put them somewhere in the back of his mind, next to his years with the Maquis, perhaps; to steer Voyager through a lightless universe, without his mercurial north star.
Didn’t tell her that what it is she’s planning, I could do. Got the sense that wasn’t the point. And hell, I wish I knew what the point of any of this was.
He flips back through the pages he’s written since entering the Void and realizes there’s practically nothing. The words are lifeless, like someone recalling a years-old holonovel; two months, and there’s barely enough for a memo.
Can’t go forward, can’t go back, can’t stay here, can’t get out and leave her here, not and keep the crew in one piece.
He feels himself on the edge of panic. He’s never been able to change Kathryn’s mind, not really. To divert, absorb, postpone; this is the extent of his power. It’s too much to bear, this paralysis; to watch his comet dim and his skiff founder and to know even throwing himself over the side wouldn’t be enough to save either of them.
Sometimes I wonder if I spend more time lying to myself than to everyone else combined.
There it is, finally. A kernel of truth cast down amidst the bullshit and banality. It’s small, but it’s something to build on, and he grabs for it like a drowning man.
Of course, the only possible penance for casting the ship into the Delta Quadrant would be marooning herself in a lightless void. Naturally.
He goes back to scribbling at the tear in the page for a minute, and he feels suddenly on the edge of composure, his pen tapping into the violence he sees within himself like a quartz vein in a rock face.
I’m capable of anything. I’ve proven that to myself, at least. And now that nothing’s out of bounds, the solution’s obvious. Easy, even. She won’t stay for me. She won’t stay as long as I’m the one who’s asking.
How many times has he petitioned Kathryn on behalf of the crew? And why has it never occurred to him to try it the other way around?
So the best I can do for my crew and my captain, the way to show my loyalty, is mutiny. Huh. Never learned that in the Academy.