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Chapter Text

He’s one of the last to be released from medical.

Though he supposes it shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the number of times over the last seven years that he’s been nearly dismembered, mindwiped, tossed through time and temporarily killed. The doctor who does his examination is an older, stoic looking man, Dr. Rockwall, one of those doctors who have seen it all. But even his eyebrows arch toward his hairline a few times as he scans Chakotay’s file.

Believe it, Chakotay wants to tell the other man, it's all real.

He still can’t quite believe they survived it, that somehow the journey of seventy years became seven and now he’s standing in McKinley Station less than a day away from his feet touching the ground on Earth.

They’re home.

Finally.

After hours of prodding, scanning, and a rather unpleasant tissue procurement procedure, the doctor seems satisfied that he’s alive and relatively intact, and tells him he’s free to go.

Free.

When was the last time he felt free?

The memory that threatens to bubble forth is one he slams a lid on so fast he feels the adrenaline surge through his chest. He tastes the iron tinge of bitterness on his tongue, feels a phantom warm breeze on his face.

When he hops down from the cold exam table, his hands aren’t quite steady.

Chakotay pulls on the sweatpants and t-shirt offered up by the medical team and is issued an assignment for his temporary quarters. They aren’t allowed back to Voyager until the ship has been scanned and examined, all systems thoroughly checked. No one wants a strange alien from the Delta Quadrant hitchhiking back to Earth and causing a raucous. Or the annihilation of their entire planet.

McKinley Station is just as he remembers it from well over a decade ago, back when he’d still been just Starfleet, and not an officer-turned-traitor-turned-begrudingly-accepted-hero. It's a sparse, utilitarian space station, and the corridors are constantly echoing with conversations carried around the circular design. He can make out Tom’s voice, then B’Elanna’s, but he never runs into them as he makes his way down the curved hallway.

Chakotay gets more than one inquisitive glance as he walks down the cooridoor, checking room labels for the one he’s been assigned. Their unexpected return has, rightfully so, attracted a flurry of attention. He’s thankful that no one stops to talk to him, however. Right now he’s exhausted, sore, and smells like a hospital. He just wants to find the damn room and take a shower.

A hot, real shower. Maybe a glass of whiskey-

“Command- Chakotay. Did everything go well in medical?” Seven’s voice startles him. She’s standing in a doorway to his right, her posture ramrod straight and expression tense. Seeing her makes a pang of guilt strike against his breastbone. There’s been no time to talk to her since disembarkment, and she clearly needs support. He can’t even imagine how shocking this all must be for her, to suddenly be around so many new people and staring down the idea of building an entirely new life on Earth. Seven is most comfortable with order and routine, and the last few hours have blown any semblance of that all to hell.

“I’m fine. The doctor decided I pass.'' He gives her a half smile and reaches out to stroke her cheek in a gesture he hopes reassures her. She doesn’t like too much physical contact when she’s upset, so he's mindful to keep his distance.

“You need rest,” she says matter of factly, her eyes searching his face with a practiced efficiency. She’s good at reading people now, maybe better than most humans. It's almost unnerving how quickly she sees through his attempts to hide exhaustion or worry.

“I do,” he admits, because she knows that she’s right as much as he does, and there’s no point in arguing. “How are you?”

“I am…nervous. But I will adjust. We will talk more after you have rested. I have an appointment now that I need to attend.” She steps forward haltingly and brushes a kiss over his cheek. It's a friendly gesture, more than an intimate one. He debates returning it with a kiss on the mouth, but decides against it.

To be honest, he’s not quite sure where they stand now. Even though she agreed not to end things when they were still on Voyager, he can tell she’s still feeling conflicted. Anger stirs in his gut again as he remembers how Seven confessed that the Admiral spoke to her, interfered in their relationship. They need to talk more, to sort this out, once they both have the time.

“Comm me if you need anything. Don’t worry about bothering me.” He offers, but she’s already walking briskly down the corridor. It occurs to him that she never told him where she was going.

Then again, it probably wouldn’t occur to her to do so.

It's a familiar feeling, watching a woman he cares about walk away without a second look back.

By the time he finds his door to his temporary quarters he’s so tired he’s nearly swaying on his feet. Thank god, because he was becoming half afraid he would spend the next hour walking in circles. As he tries to punch in the code for the second time, a hand touches his arm. Assuming it's Seven, he covers it with his own before he turns.

That’s when he realizes the feminine hand he’s holding is far too warm for a Borg.

“Kathryn.”

She’s tired, but radiant as she offers him a warm smile. It's infectious, and he finds himself offering a bleary smile in return. There’s a spark in her eyes he hasn’t seen in years, a joy leavened by victory. There haven’t been many moments like this between them lately. Only disagreements and distance.

Which makes this one all the more precious.

It's been a long, difficult journey, and the last year tested every fiber of their strength and their resolve. More than once he thought the travails of the Delta Quadrant would sever their last ties to the pledge they made on a ship flung far from home. One crew, one ship, one family, traveling under the banner of Starfleet on a voyage home.

They’re exhausted, dirty, emotionally overcome…but they did it. Together.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing. I heard medical put you through the ringer.” Her eyes look him up and down, as if to appraise that he’s still actually in one piece.

The irony is that he feels suddenly like all the seams holding him together are pulled too tight, all the patches and mends threatening to tear again under the gravity of her gaze.

“I’m tougher than that.” He jokes, and gives her hand a gentle squeeze.

“Damn right you are.” She hesitates for a moment, as if she wanted to ask him something, but then decides against it. “We need to review some reports, when you’re up to it. Take your time to get some rest first.”

She releases his hand and takes a step back, as if she’s about to leave. For a brief, fatigue-fueled moment, he doesn’t want this moment to end. He wants to bask in the relief of their victory, to celebrate the homecoming that they both worked tirelessly toward for years.

And he wants to remember how it used to feel. How they used to be before this last year proved to be almost too much for them to bear. Back when it seemed that the gallows of space would never be able to contend with the strength they had together.

“Do you want to come in?”

He has no idea why he says it, but it shocks them both. Kathryn’s eyes widen just a little, surprise crossing her face as she processes the question. It's clearly not what she expected to hear, but it's also not what he expected to say.

Her answer is quiet, but certain.

“I think it's too late, Chakotay.”

He knows she means the time, that they only have a few hours until those reports will go from “soon” to “urgent” and they’ll need to debrief with the team that is currently combing through Voyager’s logs and databases. They’ll have endless meetings and interviews, not to mention finding out how they’re going to pick up their lives after seven years.

But he knows there’s another meaning there, and he doesn’t expect the sting of pain that comes with it. After all, they’d closed that door a long time ago. So much time has passed now, so many missteps and so much distance forged in betrayal and doubt, that he’s honestly not sure the door was ever open to begin with. Maybe it was all just an illusion made by the shadows of candlelight and the loneliness of an unselttled heart.

Whatever it was, it's gone now.

He wishes she’d look accusing or angry, but that isn’t in her nature. There’s only a gentle acceptance, almost an admonishment. As if she’s reminding him that this is the path they chose. The one they needed to choose.

And now there’s no going back.

“Rest up, Commander. I’ll see you soon.”

Part of him hates that she still has this hold over him. That sometimes, in a weak moment, he’ll remember the easy trust and the friendship that flowed between them. In a weak moment, he’ll forget that they’ve both moved on.

He’s still rattled as he walks through the small, simple quarters. There’s a bed, a replicator, and a desk, with a small door leading to the bathroom. It's a fraction of the size of his quarters on Voyager, but he’s not picky. All he really wants now is a shower with real water to get the scent of sickbay off his skin, another look at Earth out his window, and some sleep.

The warm water feels so good he nearly drifts off in the shower, his hands braced against the wall and his head hanging down between his shoulders. God, he’s forgotten how healing a hot shower can be, how the movement of the water makes him feel centered and refreshed. He’ll take on the whole damn Alpha Quadrant after a shower and a nap.

That feeling of unease has mostly drifted away by the time he sinks into the simple bed. The sheets are rougher than his on Voyager, and the mattress not as soft. It takes a few tosses and turns for him to get comfortable, and even then it’s not perfect. He expects there will be many changes to get used to now that they’re home.

So many changes.

The unsettled feeling threatens to come back again, but he ignores it in favor of burying his head in the pillow. Earth is bright outside the window, a blue green haze through his fatigue-blurred eyes.

He’s asleep within moments.

**************

It feels like he’s only been out for a moment when the shrill sound of a klaxon screams through the silence. Chakotay shoots upright and then scrambles out of bed, his feet tangling in the sheets and landing him on the floor with a loud thump.

What the hell?

His mind is spinning, adrenaline racing so strong he can feel the blood pumping through his veins. What could possibly be happening on the space station? Has some alien presence really followed them back from the Delta Quadrant? Are they under attack?

As he disentangles himself and manages to get to his feet, he freezes.

There’s a red and black tapestry on the wall.

A chair with Starfleet uniform neatly draped over it. A set of boots right beside it on the floor.

This isn’t the small temporary quarters he was in just moments before.

He’s in his quarters on Voyager.

How-?

He doesn’t understand how this happened. Was he transported here? Are they all being quarrantined?

It's nearly impossible to think through the din. The klaxon is still screaming, and garbled voices are coming from the combadge on the bedside table. He scoops it up in his hand and tries to decipher what they’re saying.

Seven. Harry. Tuvok.

Kathryn.

They’re on the bridge. There are orders being shouted. Alerts.

And they sound eerily familiar.

Horror and disbelief twist together in his stomach, and he lurches toward the viewport. He yanks back the curtain, praying harder than he ever has in his life that he’ll see a shimmering planet of blue and green.

But there’s nothing there.

Instead, it's the mocking stars of the Delta Quadrant that shine back at him.

Chapter Text

He hasn’t felt real panic many times in his life. Certainly not panic like that. Not the kind that makes his hands shake as he yanks on his uniform pants, the kind that makes a cold sweat break out all over his body as the fabric clings to his skin. He can hear the drumbeat of his pulse in his ears, and its drowning out the words still come from the combadge.

“There a Borg cube on sensors-”

“How far-”

Then Kathryn’s voice, “Go to warp immediately.”

“On my way.” He manages, driven more by instinct than any actual ability to react consciously.

As he pulls on the rest of his uniform his eyes dart around the familiar space. Everything is just as it should be. Paintings on the walls, a cold teacup on the table, a stack of PADDS on the desk. In fact, there’s a half-eaten sandwich that looks just like the he one had right before-

“We’ve got this Commander, it doesn’t seem they’re pursuing us.”

A Borg cube. His quarters. It’s just like right before -

“Seven of Nine to Commander Chakotay. I wonder if you’re free for our meeting?”

Their meeting. The dinner date.

“Our meeting. Yes.”

He’s halfway to a full blown panic attack now, watching as history repeats itself all around him. This time though, he doesn’t begin to set up the table for a romantic dinner. He just stands in the middle of his quarters, looking around as if he’s never seen them before.

When she materializes in his quarters he must look wide-eyed and wary, because she doesn’t hand him the flowers in her hands.

“What is the matter? Have you changed your mind?”

“No. Yes. Seven…something’s wrong-”

He knows why Kathryn is calling them as soon as her voice comes through the comm. Tachyon emissions. A temporal rift.

She’s not even finished talking when he runs out the door.

******

He sprints down the corridor, nearly taking out two ensigns who seem puzzled as to why their commander is running like a crazed lunatic with his jacket hanging open and his undershirt untucked. Each footstep that echoes in the metal corridor makes his head ache, and he has to grit his teeth together to keep from throwing up. It's not until he reaches the turbo lift and the doors woosh closed that he takes a moment to catch his breath. He bends over, hands resting on his knees, and pulls in the recycled air that’s flowed through his lungs for seven years.

It's not for a full minute that realizes he’s left Seven behind him without so much as a look back.

Calm down, he thinks, figure out what’s happening here.

He’s not positive yet, of course. There are about a million explanations, each one more bizarre than the last. It's deja vu meets time travel meets what the hell is happening.

There’s no way to know for sure until he reaches the bridge however. Right now he straightens up, feeling his breathing going from gasping to settled.

When the lift opens, he thinks he almost looks put-together.

This time, as he enters the bridge, he knows better than to ask if the ship is Klingon. He knows it’s Starfleet.

And the face that flashes on the viewscreen is no longer a shock.

Maybe that’s the moment the Admiral suspects something. Her eyes hold his for a long moment, and a question flickers there. She knows he’s not the man she expected to see, though she can’t possibly know why.

Can she?

At this moment he’s honestly not sure of anything.

They head to the transport room, and If Kathryn notices his lack of surprise she doesn’t say anything. She walks beside Tuvok, speaking quickly in a tone as sharp as her heels on the metal floor. Chakotay follows them because he simply doesn’t know what else to do.

When they reach the transport room they stand exactly as they were. Tuvok. Kathryn. Himself.

And a moment later, when another form shimmers into existence in front of them, he barely has to glance at her to see who it is.

It's Admiral Janeway.

She’s here to bring them home, of course. Just like she did a few days ago.

Somehow, he’s gone back in time. To the day she came on board Voyager.

Or he never made it home at all.

*************************************

He can't do much more than stare as the two women exchange greetings. It's literally exactly the same. There’s no way he dreamed an identical homecoming, no way it was made up by a holodeck scenario or alien mindmeld. The only explanation is some sort of temporal…something. If that even counts as an explanation.

It's the Admiral who reaches out to touch his arm, “Chakotay, are you alright? You look pale.”

The concern in her voice shakes his already tenuous grip on his composure, “No. I don’t think so. Something is wrong…”

He can’t find the words to tell them that this has all happened before. That he knows next they’ll go have coffee and by the end of the day they’ll have hatched a nearly unbelievable plan to cripple the Borg and bring them all home.

“What’s wrong, Chakotay?” The Admiral searches his face, ducking her head to catch his gaze. He notices that it makes Kathryn look from one of them to the other, her head cocked as if she’s trying to decipher the meaning of something she doesn’t quite understand.

“I - we already made it home. I think. Or we will.” He rubs his forehead, trying to figure out how to approach the situation. It's already clear he’s the only one who’s experiencing this time travel nightmare. How does he explain himself?

“What do you mean, you already made it home?” Kathryn asks incredulously.

He does his best to explain it to them, or what he knows of it. Besides waking up in the past there’s honestly not much to say. He’s here…and he’s supposed to be…somewhere else. Some time else.

“I don’t know what’s happening here, Chakotay, but I think you’d better see the Doctor. There’s entirely too much time travel going on today, so I’m not ruling anything out completely. Let’s just be sure there isn’t something else going on.” Kathryn says, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. She taps her combadge to alert the EMH, but the Admiral’s eyes stay fixed on him.

“How far in the future are you from?” she asks quietly.

“Just a few days. We were home, at McKinley Station.” He winces as his head throbs again, and hears a sharp intake of breath from the Admiral.

“You were home. You made it home,” she murmurs quietly, a softer look entering her eyes. She glances over to make sure Kathryn’s back is turned, her attention fixed on speaking through her combadge. “It's good to see you, Chakotay.”

The way she says it sets his senses on alert. It's the way you speak to someone you haven’t seen for a very long time. Someone you've lost. There’s pain reflecting in those blue eyes as the Admiral studies him, as if she’s forgotten what he looks like.

What the hell happened in her future?

He never really talked to Kathryn about it. He’d meant to ask more questions, but they’d never had the time.

He’d never taken the time. And neither had she.

Because that’s who they are now. Two people who ran out of time.

“What-” he starts, but he hears Kathryn tell the EMH they’ll be along shortly, and he Admiral interrupts him.

“Maybe you’re here for the same reason I am. There’s something you need to change,” she says, touching his cheek with her palm.

He can’t begin to imagine what she means, and there’s really no time to ask. A second later Kathryn is beside him again, motioning toward the door to lead him to sickbay. It's not a suggestion, it's an order.

“The Doctor is ready for you. We’ll get this figured out, Chakotay,” she says firmly. He can tell she’s trying to mask her own stunned disbelief.

Kathryn has him ushered off to sickbay in short order. Not that he blames her, he’d think he was out of his mind too. Part of him wonders just that.

She doesn’t stay with him, leaving with a few words to the EMH and a still puzzled backwards look. Logically he knows she has to attend to the Admiral. She has to go and be the captain.

Unbidden, memories come back of all the times he woke up in sickbay, aching and confused, to find worried blue eyes staring down at him. Times they’d stand together in front of the doctor, ready to face whatever news he was about to give about one or the other.

These days though, they’re more apt to just face it alone.

The entire time the EMH is clucking and fussing over him, he tries to calm his scattered thoughts. The constant chatting does nothing to quell his nerves, and he thinks that they really need to work with the doctor more on putting patients at ease. He’s about to crawl out of his damn skin.

“You’re in perfect health, Commander.” The EMH says in his chipper tone, waving a tricorder in the air. “Though your blood pressure and heart rate are quite high. Perhaps stress…”

No kidding.

“I’m back in the Delta Quadrant, Doctor. I’m a little stressed.”

“Hm, yes. Well I’m not detecting anything to make me believe you’ve left us for any length of time, no sign of chronoton flux. Perhaps a dream? A vision? I’ll run a few more tests just to rule out any viruses.”

Chakotay nearly bites through his tongue in an effort not to shout at the patronizing tone the EMH is using on him. He’s not hallucinating, and he doesn’t feel sick.

Regardless, he’s dismissed with a clean bill of health and a prescription to get some rest. He doesn't try to press his case with the EMH. The doctor doesn’t believe anything that isn’t backed by science, and right now this all seems pretty inexplicable.

He needs to talk to Kathryn.

She’s harder to reach than he expects. There’s a do not disturb setting on her quarters while she meets with the Admiral, and even Tuvok isn’t sure when they will be finished. It occurs to him that, a year ago, he would have been with her. A year ago, she might have set her quarters to allow him entry.

Why isn’t that true now?

One of the answers to that question comes striding around the corner soon after, as Seven inquires about how he’s feeling and asks if she did something wrong on their date. Their date? He’s having either a mental or temporal crisis here, the last thing he can focus on is a date.

He tries to reassure her that he’s fine, that he’ll see her later, but he knows he does a poor job. She’s still watching him quizzically as he walks away, feeling frazzled and guilty as hell.

It never occurs to him to try and explain his situation to her.

He spends a solid hour walking the ship in a daze, discovering that everything really does seem just as it was the day the Admiral appeared. B’Elanna’s still pregnant, and he walks into engineering to find her swearing and reaching for a hypospanner over the inhibiting swell of her stomach. She asks him a few times what he’s staring at, hasn’t he ever seen a woman as large as a bloated targ? He’s so frazzled he just shakes his head and mumbles out an apology before leaving.

Kathryn’s voice finally comes through his combadge a few hours later, “Chakotay, I should be done here in a couple hours. The Doctor says he ordered you to rest, but I’m guessing you’re not doing that.”

How is he supposed to rest? He nearly snaps at her but holds back the urge. No one is going to listen to him if he isn’t calm and rational. An unhinged time traveler does not exactly inspire trust.

Then again, trust is something that's been in sort order between them lately. 

In truth, he is exhausted. His eyes feel gritty and there’s a persistent ache in his neck from tension. There’s no way he’s going to sleep, but he can at least take some time to write down what he knows so far and try and deduce a few sound explanations.

“I’ll be in my quarters, Captain. Comm me when you’re ready.”

It's strange to him that, when he arrives back in his quarters, they still look the same. He glances out the viewport with a half-hearted wish that Earth will be spinning out the window, and this will all be some kind of mistake.

It's not.

How does he approach this logically? Guilt creeps over him at the way he dismissed Seven in the hallway. She should have been the first person he confided in, and it's not as though he doesn’t trust her. Maybe he’ll comm her in a bit and try to explain. Maybe get her opinion on a course of action. Logical thinking is, after all, her forte.

Of course his first thoughts were to tell Kathryn, he reassures himself, she’s the captain. That’s why he would seek her out.

That’s the reason.

It's not the years he spent where she was the first thing he thought of each morning, and the last each night. Not the habit of seeking out one another to share the brilliance of victory or the devastation of loss. Not the way they became so attuned to one another’s movements and thoughts, breaths and heartbeats, that he assumed they’d always be a part of one another’s lives.

It can’t be that.

Because it hasn’t been that way in a long time.

He settles on the couch with a glass of brandy to settle his nerves, and picks up a PADD to begin taking notes.

Within a few minutes he can’t keep his eyes open, and soon feels his head fall back against the cushions as sleep takes him.

Chapter Text

“Nodding off on me, Chakotay?”

Kathryn’s voice jerks him awake, and he has to blink to clear the blurriness from his vision.

At first he assumes she’s come to find him, that perhaps he was so tired he missed her calling him to her quarters. Embarrassed, he straightens up in his seat-

And nearly dumps the flute of Antarian cider in his hand.

“Wha- where’s the Admiral?” he stammers, eyes darting around the room. There are candles on the table, dinner plates with the last remnants of what he instantly knows is a slightly burned briyani.

Kathryn leans forward and studies him, concern evident on her face, “Chakotay, what are you talking about? Maybe we should have the Doctor take another look at you. We have no idea how the travel through that rift might have affected you.”

The rift. He’s gone back to the day he visited the other splintered timelines on Voyager.

He’s even further away from the time he’s supposed to be in. A few days was one thing, time he could easily contemplate living over again. But now he’s lost months. Months he’d rather not experience a second time

And he has no idea if, the next time he closes his eyes, he’ll have lost years.

“Chakotay?”

Kathryn touches his hand, and the contact zings through him like a spark. Her eyes are soft, warm, and there’s candlelight dancing on her cheeks. All those lines of worry in her face have smoothed out for the moment, the weight of command falling away.

Suddenly he’s not thinking about his temporal predicament anymore.

He’s thinking she’s beautiful.

And for a brief, reckless moment he doesn’t care if gets thrown back five days or five years, he just wants to see her look at him this way again. Nothing else matters as her eyes search his, the irises catching the light and shimmering like the Gulf at sunrise. He used to get lost in those eyes.

A deep, longing part of him doesn’t want to ruin his moment by bursting forth with an explanation of time travel and temporal displacement that’s sure to send her back into captain mode with a blazing ferocity.

Right now, she’s just Kathryn.

“You’re beautiful.”

He says it because he can’t think of a reason not to, and as soon as he does, he’s foolishly glad he did. A surprised smile curves on her face and a slight flush booms on her cheeks. Then she laughs and reaches out to pat his leg, shaking head.

“Chakotay,” she sounds only a little admonishing, and there’s no real bluster behind it.

“You are. I should have told you more.”

“I think you’re drunk.”

She thinks he’s teasing, he realizes, just some harmless flirtation between friends.

“I’m fine, Kathryn. Just a little tired I think” He tips up the glass in his hand and eyes it, the liquid swimming just a bit in his vision, “And maybe a little drunk.”

He does feel drunk. His head is swimming just a little, and there’s a lightness in his chest he barely recognizes. It's a delicious, intoxicating feeling that he doesn’t want to let go. Maybe he should have gotten drunk more often.

In wine, lies the truth.

Or, in this case, in cider.

Some rational part of his mind is screaming that he is stuck in another time, and here he is grinning and drinking like it's just another Thursday night. He should be making a plan. Plotting a course. Not sitting here, indulging in flirtations with a woman he can’t have, a woman he’s never had.

Shouldn’t he?

“Well, you’re in good company. I probably shouldn’t have anymore.” Kathryn squints at her glass and chuckles, her head falling back on the chair as her eyes drift closed. “God, what a day.”

He stares at her, feeling the warring emotions in his chest, inhibited by the constraints of sobriety. Was this the last night they’d laughed together like this? The last dinner they had?

He can’t even remember.

“I should put away those dishes before I can’t move.” Kathryn says ruefully, pushing herself to stand. “You’re welcome to stay a while though, if you’re not ready to turn in yet.”

Stay. He could stay. He tries to keep his wandering mind from assuming she’s offering something that, in his time, was never put on the table. It's probably just an invitation for coffee, but…

But there’s something different in the way she’s looking at him right now. Something exhilarating and foreign.

And he grabs it.

“Sure. I’d like that.”

She stretches, arching her back like a cat, and the movement is nearly hypnotic. Taking a step toward him, she reaches out a hand, “Here, let me take your glass.”

He stands quickly and the room tilts under his feet. A stumbling step, a gentle hand under his elbow, and they’re suddenly too close.

It's not a moment he’s prepared for, because it's not one he’s lived before. Kathryn’s a whisper breath away from him, and, for once, she doesn’t take a step back. Starlight reflects in her blue eyes until they’re like crystals, shining and deep. She reaches out to take his glass and their fingers touch, his breath catching in his throat.

He could kiss her, he thinks. Just once.

And he almost does.

Almost.

Bitterness, sharp and acidic, rises in his throat. This was what he kept trying to forget, to push aside. These moments that taunted him like the light on the end of the dock calling a boat home, even though he knew it would flicker and vanish long before he crossed the waves.

The cold wash of reality and regret pull him back to the very real, and very bizarre, situation he was facing.

“Kathryn. I have to tell you something…”

**********

Ten minutes later he’s seated at the table in Kathryn’s quarters, dinner dishes cleared away and a handful of PADD’s tossed in the middle. She deposits a cup of steaming black coffee in front of him a little too vigorously, and the liquid splashes over the side.

She’s rattled, he realizes. Something about this entire situation has worn through her composed exterior, but he can’t be sure what.

As he expected, he first response had been to slap her combadge and call for the EMH, but he’d managed to catch her wrist mid-air and beg her to stop. He wasn’t sure he could undergo another examination without snapping the man’s holographic neck.

Honestly, she surprised him when she conceded. It had taken some convincing on his part, but she’d eventually believed him. Eventually, Instead of calling in the doctor, Kathryn produced two hyposprays to counteract the alcohol and rallied the forces of caffeine and data for a deep dive into their current temporal predicament.

“There’s got to be an explanation. A black hole, a spatial anomaly, a-” Kathryn taps her fingers on the table in gentle drumbeat. It's the rhythm he knows means she’s thinking deeply, sorting out possibilities in that brilliant mind of hers.

“I’m pretty sure it’s not any of that. I was in the-” he stops himself before he says it.

Her head snaps up. “You were where?”

It hadn’t occurred to him the first time, but now that he’s on his second temporal trip he feels less frantic and more cautious. What damage is he doing to the future? Is whatever he says reshaping their journey in ways he can’t imagine? He watches Kathryn’s lips purse together as she studies him.

“You shouldn’t tell me, you’re right,” she nods in agreement, “just the stardate, so we can figure out how to get you back.”

As she begins to type feverishly on a PADD, she’s completely the captain again. In charge, driven, pursuing an answer with a single-minded drive he most admires and despises. Just twenty minutes ago she was laughing with him, a softness around her eyes and a lightness in her tone.

Now, it's gone.

There’s a bitterness that edges its way into his heart, reminding him. This is who they are. This is what the future holds for them.

And he’s found happiness somewhere else.

But it's easier to focus now on the task at hand, to slip back into his own practiced role of steady first officer. He runs a hand through his hair and sighs, staring at his own PADD. It's not even the same length of time as the first jump. Not the same location on the ship.

The only pattern seems to be that he keeps going backward.

Which begs the question, will it happen again?

“It's happened twice. The time travel,” he tells her, watching her expression turn even more astounded. “First it was just a few days back, now this is much farther. Nothing about it seems to be the same, except it's in the past.”

“Like a temporal loop? A reverse time flux? I’ve never encountered anything like that…” she trails off.

“And that's saying something.” He’s grateful when she huffs out a laugh and he smiles in return. This feels familiar, comfortable. They’ve worked together on problems for seven years, defying the odds more times than he can count.

And it's far less dangerous than the moments before.

They spend nearly two hours amassing data and researching every temporal situation ever documented by Starfleet. As far as Chakotay can tell, he’s the first one to land himself in this predicament. Not that he’s any stranger to the new and bizarre.

“I think we need to call B’Elanna.” Kathryn finally says as she drains her 3rd cup of coffee. “I just want to take some tricorder readings first.”

She motions for him to stay seated and comes over beside his chair. There’s the quiet beep of the tricorder and she runs it carefully over his head, his shoulders.

“Anything exciting?”

“Nothing I can see, but there’s more sophisticated equipment in sickbay. Your vitals are fine, no sign of chromosomal mutations…and you’re not an alien,” she squeezes his bicep gently at the joke.

He knows that they need to go see B’Elanna and the Doctor. It's the next logical step. As Kathryn goes to take a step away from him he reaches up and catches her hand in his. There’s a jolt of awareness that jolts up his arm, and he’s sure it shows in his face as he catches her eye.

“Let me finish this cup of coffee?”

She gives a skeptical glance, but nods. Honestly, he’s not sure why he’s hesitating, not entirely.

The room wavers in his vision for just a moment, and his grip on her wrist tightens in response. An instant later he feels the guiding pressure of her hands on his shoulders, the dull contact of a chair connecting with the back of his knees.

“Sit down, you’ve gone sheet white,” Kathryn says, worry clouding her voice. “I’m going to get the doctor.”

“Wait, Kathryn.”

By the time she hits her combadge he can’t keep his eyes open anymore, and slowly the shaking pressure of her hands on him fades into nothing.

Chapter Text

He feels warm, warmer than he should on a climate controlled ship. And a red glow through his eyelids that doesn’t feel like artificial light. He hears the clatter of wheels, the indignant squawk of a chicken.

Even before his eyes snap open Chakotay knows where he is.

It's Fair Haven.

His first thought is why the hell, of all times and all places, he ended up back here.

He’s sitting on a bench, his uniform pressing rough wood from hand-hewn boards. The familiar town green is in front of him, shadows stretching tall as the artificial sun sinks low on the horizon.

“You want to come have a drink?” Tom’s voice calls out. He’s standing across the green, waving in a slightly unsteady way that makes Chakotay think he's likely already been imbibing in some Irish liquor.

“Not right now. Have you seen the Captain?” Chakotay calls out, even though the very real possibility that she’s with a certain hologram feels like hot spikes in his chest.

“Probably at the rings tournament at the pub. You coming? Ayala was looking for a partner.”

Chakotay realizes not only where he is, but when. It's the evening of the rings tournament in Fair Haven. The final rings tournament that became a brawl led by a love-crazed hologram and resulted in the shutting down of the whole program.

He and Kathryn had spoken earlier, about Michael Sullivan. When he’d lied and grinned at her, his face feeling tight and pained, telling her of course, go ahead and indulge in an affair with that Irishman.

And he’d pretended he wasn’t so shredded by jealousy he wanted to punch every panel of the holodeck to shards.

He knows she’s not at the rings tournament. She’s in her quarters, and she’ll come down to see the aftermath of the fight that’s about to break out. Fairhaven will be shut down, whatever liaison she had with Sullivan ended.

But for weeks she won’t quite meet his eyes. She’ll be quieter, more withdrawn, and he’ll assume it's because she misses a man who was made of photons and perfected by her own hand.

And he’ll feel so betrayed, so bitterly jealous, it will be weeks longer before he doesn’t flinch from her touch.

This isn’t a day he wants to relive. It's one he’d rather erase.

Or change.

The hot breath of temptation blows past his cheek at the idea that, this time, he could do things differently. He could kick the shit out of that smug, Irish-tongued barman and tell Kathryn that if she wants a man in her bed that badly, there’s one right here.

He can’t do that though. He shouldn’t. These choices are already cast, the mortar dried and bricks weathered by time.

But he doesn’t make the choice this time.

This time, he doesn’t go to the rings tournament and watch from a corner as the chaos unfolds. He doesn’t throw back shot after shot of liquor and wish he could bury his right hook in Sullivan’s jaw. Instead, this time he waves Tom off and watches as the other man heads unsteadily toward the pub.

This time, he turns around and takes a step in the other direction.

Though god only knows if it's the right direction.

He takes a step toward Kathryn.

************

When he arrives at her quarters he has to chime twice before she answers. There’s a hesitation in her voice when she allows him entry, a guarded reluctance.

How many times after all this did he feel like he was the last person she wanted to see?

“What can I do for you Chakotay?” she asks as he walks in. She’s seated on the couch, legs crossed and a PADD discarded on the cushion beside her.

He opens his mouth, then closes it. There are dark circles under her eyes, and a weariness about the way she runs her hand over her forehead, as if to soothe an ache.

“Just seeing how you are doing.”

It's a lie, an enormous one, but he says it anyway. Because he can’t help the way his chest tightens when he sees her this way, burdened and hurting. The familiar prick of guilt stings in his gut, as he remembers he never asked her. Not once in the weeks that followed Fair Haven. He never asked how she was.

Maybe he should have.

But that would have meant swallowing his pride and the pain that keeps scraping open the wounds he’s trying desperately to heal. There are few things he wouldn’t do for Kathryn. He’d die for her, probably kill for her too. But he can’t hold her in his arms while she cries over another man.

“I’ll be fine. Just sitting here and feeling like a fool. But I’m guessing you’re not here about that.” Her tone is self-deprecating, filled with regret.

And it confuses him.

He knows that Fair Haven hasn’t ended yet. She’s still with Michael. Sort of.

So why is she so upset?

His eyes fall on a volume of Irish literature on the floor near the recycler. The cover is gilded blue, the title written in a flourishing script. He walks over and crouches to pick up the volume, offering it to her with an extended hand.

She stops him with a raised palm he can nearly feel the visceral force of. “Just throw it in the recycler. I must have dropped that one.”

“Replicating new ones?”

“Not hardly.” She shakes her head, her jaw hard.

He doesn’t understand why she’s already scrubbing away the connection she has to Fair Haven. Back then, he’d assumed it had all happened after the fight. A sign of grief.

“Want to talk about it?” He’s bolder than he was then, and he sees the faint surprise in her face. But this time he wants to know, and there’s nothing to stop him from pushing. Surely his learning about the past can’t violate any protocols, right?

“It's embarrassing, Chakotay,” she says wryly, her fingernail scraping absently over her pant leg. She picks softly at the fabric, eyes fixed on the movement.

It's not a yes, but it's not a no either.

He lowers himself into the chair opposite her and waits. It's clear to him, knowing her like he does, that she wants to tell him something. Something he never took the time to hear before.

Because he was too busy. Too hurt. Too blind.

And maybe that’s why he waits. Why he doesn’t tell her that he’s actually from a future where neither of them take the time anymore to ask the hard questions, to be there in the difficult moments.

Maybe, at least, he wants to set that right.

“How do you do it? You said it never stopped you, the hologram part…” she pauses, sighs, “It's not real.”

“No, it's not.” he says slowly, “But it's better than being alone sometimes.”

“Is it?” Kathryn counters quietly, “I thought so, but right now I’m not sure. I’m not- I don’t know who I am with him. I changed him to be perfect, Chakotay, nearly everything about him. And I know I’ll just keep doing it anytime he annoys me or bores me. Is that right?”

She is so unexpectedly vulnerable in that moment he feels words die in his throat. It feels like a gift, this chance to be so unguarded and honest with her. He’s nearly forgotten what it was like.

“There’s nothing wrong with that. He’s a fantasy.”

Maybe that’s all she wants, he reasons. Perfection. A fantasy. Who is he to cast judgement on that? Of all the things he can offer her, perfection certainly isn’t one of them.

He tucks away that anger that keeps trying to creep to the surface at the idea that she thinks him too flawed, too complicated. Not worthy of the risk that would come with letting him into her life, and her heart.

But then why does she look so conflicted?

“I don’t want a fantasy. I just want-”

She stops and lifts her eyes to his, and his heart goes still in his chest. It's then he realizes the gravity of the mistake he made back then. It's catastrophic. He was an idiot, drawing on assumptions cast in guilt and soldered by regret.

She’s not sitting here mourning Sullivan. She’s longing for something else entirely. It's something he understands because he’s felt it a million times before, every time he left another perfect holographic woman tangled in the sheets of a bed of electrons and silk, a hollowness filling his chest as he pulled his uniform back over sweat-slick limbs. The release, the escape, was never enough for him. He sees now, it's not enough for her either.

She wants something imperfect. Something real.

And a hope he hasn’t felt in years stirs in his chest. Even though she hasn’t said it, and she may not even mean it. But he’s not foolish or brave enough to push too hard, and the fragile hope is more than he’s had in so long he’s not willing to let it snuff out. More than anything, right now, he just wants to be near her.

“How about a few real moments with a friend?”

She eyes him quizzically as he shifts, rising from the chair and settling beside her on the couch. He waits before sliding over, pressing close until their thighs touch, and places his open hand on his knee, palm up. It's an invitation, an offering.

He’s never been more shocked in his life than when she takes it.

Kathryn lowers her hand to his and interlaces their fingers, giving his hand a tight squeeze. The breath he’s been holding comes out in a long, slow exhale as she shifts closer, her head falling to his shoulder. They’re two wounded souls leaning on each other, holding each other up against the battering waves of the Delta Quadrant. For the first time, he sees he’s not the only one who’s felt alone these last few years.

“I know I’ve told you before, but you’re never alone out here. Ever. You always have me.”

Her breath hitches a little and he can feel her tense with an effort to hold back emotion. Still, he doesn’t turn to look in her face, protecting her privacy by keeping his cheek against the crown of her head. Maybe if they had done this more, simply been there for each other. No judgment, no grappling need for answers. Maybe then things would have been different.

Maybe they’d be different.

It's that thought that brings him back to reality. He’s not even supposed to be here, and now he’s just recklessly screwing up the past and indulging in a conversation he was never supposed to have.

Shit.

He sighs, terribly reluctant to allow her to shift away, even though he knows he has to.

“Kathryn…I need to tell you something…”

**********

By the time he’s explained his situation, again, Kathryn is staring at him with stunned disbelief, her face just inches away as she studies him. It's as if she needs to somehow see for herself he’s not the man she spoke to just a few hours ago.

“Are you saying you’ve swapped consciousnesses? Or….”

He hasn’t even thought of that. If he’d been thrown back ten years, his body would feel different. But less than a year…

He’s not sure.

“I - I’m not. Wait.” He steadies himself with a hand braced on the back of the sofa and leans down, pulling up the leg of his uniform pants to the knee.

It only takes a few seconds for him to find the scar.

The one from that planet where he and Seven crashed the shuttle. The doctor had healed the wound, but it had been too deep to not leave a scar. He could have gone back for additional treatments with a dermal regenerator, but he’d never had the time.

It's the first time he’s realized that, somehow, his entire body has traveled back in time and not just his consciousness. Somehow, that makes everything feel different. As if his choices, his actions, are his own, and not the longings of a past self who missed too many chances.

He’s not the man he was a year ago. Not the man this Kathryn knows.

He’s the one that held her hand on the bridge before she left for Unimatrix zero. The one that found her in Quarra, in love with another man. The one who accepted a date with another woman because he couldn’t spend another decade wanting her.

In her eyes, he sees that she knows he’s different.

“An away mission a year from now. Seven and I went down to a planet with primitive healing technology. I never bothered to have the Doctor fix it completely.” he says quietly.

They’re both quiet, Kathryn’s eyes fixed on the white line marring tan skin. She reaches out and touches it gently, seeming lost in thought.

“If you’re here…does that mean this Chakotay is there? You’ve swapped?” Kathryn wonders aloud. She’s thinking, strategizing.

“I don’t know. Maybe? I haven’t run into another version of myself yet.”

He hasn’t even thought of that. What if another version of himself is suddenly in the Alpha Quadrant?

God, he hates time travel.

Kathryn slaps his thigh suddenly, blue lightning sparking through her eyes. He can’t help but smile at the determination that radiates from her as she works through whatever thought has just entered her head. An idea that will probably take him twice as long to even understand. Her brilliance has never been anything short of astounding to him.

“I might have an idea, but we’re going to need help.”

******************

They’re smarter this time.

Instead of spending hours pouring over information and retracing steps he’s already taken with another version of Kathryn, they try to find a way to stop repeating the same process. B’Elanna is summoned in short order, and both she and Kathryn are bent over her dining table with a jumble of equipment around them. It would be easier to try and build this device in engineering, but Kathryn is determined to involve as few of the crew as possible. To preserve the timeline.

He doesn’t tell her he’s pretty sure he’s mostly shot it all to hell at this point.

“Let’s do a quick test, then we can transfer any data-”

“Here, hand me that hyperspanner-”

B’Elanna mutters a few curses in Klingon as she fixes her eyes on the tiny metal object in front of her, but Kathryn is silent, focused on the work. A moment later she looks up with a triumphant gleam in her blue eyes.

“We got it.”

The item that’s now resting in Kathryn’s hand looks like a combadge, but with a bonding agent on the back. They’re going to secure it to his skin to ensure it travels with him. So far he hasn’t materialized naked anywhere, but he’s not ruling it out as a future possibility. Past possibility. Something like that.

“Just adhere to his skin, then run the tricorder over it to activate the bonding agent. Should be good. I’m going to take a look at some temporal maps, star charts, see if I can figure out a pattern.” B’Elanna says. She gives a wry smile and shakes her head. “If you’ve come from the future, I'm guessing we won't die tomorrow. Which is good."

Chakotay laughs and gives her a squeeze on her shoulder. “Not hardly.”

B’Elanna stares at him for a moment, and he knows she’s wanting answers. With her captain nearby she won’t ask, but that won’t keep her from trying to read his face. They’ve known each other a long time, and he’s rarely kept anything from her.

This time, he has to.

“Take off your jacket.” Kathryn says briskly as B’Elanna leaves. He blinks at her for a moment, then flushes as he realizes her meaning. They’re likely living on borrowed time already if his time travel so far is an indicator. He hasn’t stayed in one place more than several hours, and already a few have passed here.

Seconds later he’s stripped down to his undershirt, one sleeve rolled up as Kathryn inspects the bulk of muscle of his shoulder. Her fingers dance over his deltoid, and he can’t hold back the shiver that ripples along his spine.

“Sorry, cold hands.” she gives him a half smile and shrugs.

He doesn’t tell her his response has nothing to do with a chill.

There's a lingering awkwardness between them he knows stems from the moments of closeness before he confessed who he was. He feels fumbling, unsure, as he watches her eyes squint and focus on her work, wishing he could say something to make her understand that he’s somehow glad he ended up here. So many things are becoming clearer now, and the light cast on them shines a little too sharply on his own mistakes.

Kathryn presses the small piece of metal against his arm, holding it steady as she sweeps the tricorder over with the other hand. It takes a few moments, a burning sensation that travels down to his fingertips making him grit his teeth against the urge to flinch.

When it's done, however, the modified combadge is nearly flush with his skin, tightly adhered. The device already contains data on the starsdates he’s traveled to so far, along with a few theories of temporal rifts the previous Kathryn unearthed. If it stays with him, he’ll be able to keep adding to it until, hopefully, he finds a way home.

Kathryn lays a hand over his arm, her palm soothing away some of the sting, and studies him. It reminds him of another time they stood like this, on a planet where she no longer knew his name, and he wondered if they’d ever find their way back to the trust they once had.

He finds himself wondering the same thing now.

Right now, as he watches her, he can see that trust hasn’t left her completely yet. They haven’t fallen so far as to not be able to come back together. When he offers her his hand, she still takes it.

For now.

“Something happens to us, doesn’t it? In the future- we fall apart somehow.” She says it quietly, her eyes fixed on her hand instead of his face. “I can see it in your face, Chakotay.” The painful certainty in her voice nearly makes his knees buckle.

He can’t tell her. He shouldn’t.

“We make mistakes. There are some hard times,” he admits. It's more than he should. Less than he wants to. “But we’re friends.”

“Are we?”

He looks away, feeling too raw to answer. He’s not even sure what the answer is.

Kathryn squares her shoulders, resignation written in every nuance of the movement. She accepts it, that somehow they’ve started on a road that will take them away from one another. He’s gutted by how easily she seems to believe it's true.

When did it even become possible?

Kathryn’s combadge begins shouting a moment later. There’s a cacophony of sounds, including a frantic voice from Tom begging her to come to the holodeck. Things have gotten out of control, there’s a brawl breaking out.

Chakotay knows this is the end of Fair Haven.

“I have to go, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.” her tone is apologetic. “Try not to disappear on me.”

For whatever reason, the last thing she says strikes a chord in him, a vibration that shudders through his ribs to his lungs and makes it hard for him to draw the full breath he needs.

Did he disappear on her? Or did she do it to him? He used to think he knew, that she was the one who closed herself off, who barreled on ahead without him beside her. But right now, the way she’s looking at him…

Maybe the blame is his to share.

She’s nearly out the door before he speaks, choosing his words carefully, mindful how reckless his tongue can be when it comes to her.

“You have something real, Kathryn. Don’t ever doubt that.”

Her head jerks around to stare at him. He knows he’s crossed a line here, toed over the temporal prime directive in a way that would make Starfleet shake their fists at him.

He doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care because there’s something soft and hopeful in her eyes as she gazes across her quarters, something besides the grim resignation that was there a few moments ago.

“I know.”

Then she’s gone, and he knows he won’t be here when she gets back. He’s already so tired he nearly staggers to the sofa, collapsing into the familiar give of the cushions. His arm is aching, and he shifts to sling it over his body.

It's the first time he’s not sure when he hopes he’ll wake up, back in the future he’s traveled from, or further into the past.

Chapter Text

The first thing he’s aware of is the smell of death.

The sound of bodies hitting the dirt.

Chakotay’s eyes fly open, panic already coiling his muscles into readiness. At first he can’t believe what he’s seeing. He’s surrounded by familiar faces, but they aren't the faces of his crew on Voyager.

The people dying around him are Maquis.

Frozen, he watches as another one falls, eyes glazed in death. How far back in time has he gone? What battle was this? He struggles to remember, memories of war and death and loss are bleeding together until he finally unroots his feet from the spot and takes a step into the fray.

That’s when he sees B’Elanna.

And that’s when he knows where he is. Just to be sure he touches his bicep, feeling the small bit of metal through the fabric of his shirt.

They’re not on a planet in the Federation, fighting for their freedom against the Cardassians. And the Bajorian bleeding out to his left isn't the young man who raised arms alongside him. They’re in the holodeck, in B’Elanna’s program. And these deaths are just a manifestation of grief turned self-loathing.

Because they lived. And everyone else is dead.

“B’Elanna!”

She reacts just as she did back then. Furious. Resistant. Her dark eyes filled with agony consumed by hellfire. She shouts at him that she doesn’t feel anything anymore, just emptiness. At least the fighting, the pain, makes her feel something.

The grief that crawls up from a dark place inside him is no less excruciating than it was back then.

But this time, instead of telling him about all the times she’s been left behind, all the losses that have slowly given way to a crippling fear that she’s meant to lose everyone she loves, she stops. She takes a step closer, her head tilted, still breathing heavily from her outpouring. There's sweat glistening on her skin, dirt and blood smudged on her cheek.

And murder in her eyes as she bares her teeth at him.

“Who are you?”

Shit. He has no idea how to handle this, what he should tell her.

“You’re not Chakotay.” Alarm flashes through her face and she spins, grabbing a weapon from the ground and turning on him again.

How does she know?

It occurs to him then that he’s changed in the years since this B'Elanna last saw him. He’s not the man he was back then, certainly not physically, and not in many other less tangible aspects as well. B’Elanna is part Klingon, her senses far more acute than humans, and she can probably see changes most other crew members would miss. The lines around his eyes worn deeper by time, those extra ten pounds he hasn’t had time to work off.

So he can either tell her or risk getting speared through the neck by the lance she's holding.

It’s an easy choice.

“B’Elanna, I’m Chakotay…just not the one you know…”

Her eyes go wide as she takes in the impact of everything he’s saying. He explains the time travel, even shows her the recorder that’s still implanted on his arm, a device another version of herself made for him.

“We have to get the captain,” she finally says, still eyeing him warily as her weapon lowers.

"Yes."

He can already see those wheels turning in her head in response to his temporal plight. She’s doing what she always does, avoiding emotion by throwing herself into something else. This time it’s her work. Another time, it might be a dangerous holodeck situation. Or an away mission that risks her life.

It occurs to him that the last thought wasn't even about B'Elanna.

"I suppose you're going to lecture me now. I doubt you've outgrown that in the future." She tosses the weapon and brushes her dirty hands over her thighs. "You'll tell me it's not my fault. Everything will be fine."

Will it? Will everything truly ever be without loss and anger and bitterness?

It's too late, Chakotay.

If this experience is teaching him anything, it's that holding back only leads to regret. He wishes desperately they had all leaned on each other more, seen the strength in being imperfect. He doesn’t want to leave the holodeck now without making sure B'Elanna knows a few things.

“This crew, B’Elanna. They’re our family. I can promise you that doesn’t change. Even when things are bad, even when we think it's finally our last stand, we never waver in that.” There’s a tightness in his throat as he says it, “I can’t tell you everything the future holds for you, but I will tell you that.”

She watches him and her posture relaxes just a little for the first time since they’ve been standing here together.

“Do we ever really make it back, Chakotay? Do you think there will ever be peace for people like you and me?” The fight has gone out of her voice now, replaced by a longing he feels echoing in his bones.

“For you, yes.”

He thinks of her beaming smile as she held Miral, the devotion in Tom’s eyes. No one deserves happiness more than her.

“Not for you?”

He hesitates, then forces a smile to his face. “You know me, I can always get by.”

The call from the bridge comes a split second later. They’re under attack. He knows B’Elanna is needed in engineering if they’re going to get through this alive.

“Let’s go, I’ll talk to the captain later.”

*****

By the time the smoke clears and klaxons fade, he still hasn’t had time to talk to Kathryn. It’s been more important to make sure that B’Elanna is okay, or at least as okay as she can be.

He goes to Kathryn’s ready room, fully intending to confess immediately that he’s a time traveler who’s possibly flirted with the temporal prime directive a half dozen times.

Instead, he’s caught off guard again.

The smile she gives him when he enters is tired but openly affectionate, with no hint of censor or stiltedness. She welcomes him in, her body relaxing into the sofa with an air of absolute comfort. As if they're good friends. Perhaps a bit more.

And he remembers.

This is before Ransom. Before Kashyk. Before Quarra.

Before Fair Haven.

“How is B’Elanna? Did you talk to her?” Kathryn’s forehead crinkles with worry as she asks, gesturing to the chair across from her. “Your tea’s on the table.”

This is how they used to work together, at the peak of their partnership. She trusted him implicitly, valued his opinions as highly as her own. He offered what he thought freely, and didn’t bite back his words to keep from saying something he’d regret.

Remembering, seeing it, is brutal.

“She’ll be alright, I think. She needs time,” he says. He automatically picks up the cup as he sits and inhales. It's his favorite blend, ginger and orange, the one she used to make for him almost daily when they’d review reports and make plans.

He stopped drinking it over the last year. It reminded him too much of her.

“I don’t want you to violate either of your trust, but what was it about?”

“The end of the Maquis.”

Compassion flickers across her features, and she leans forward to touch his knee. Her hand stays there as she dips her head to look in his eyes. “Are you all right?”

He hasn't talked to her about it much, the massacre. After the letter, he’d told her what happened, but he’d avoided her attempts to draw him out. It was too raw, too excruciating to imagine. And part of him was afraid that if he let his guard down about this with Kathryn, he’d let it down about other things too. Once the feelings poured out, there’d be no damming up the ones he’s held at bay for years.

Maybe he should have told her. Maybe he should have told her a lot of things.

“No,” he says quietly, resting his hand on hers. He sets his mug back on the table and takes a steadying breath. “And I'm tired of pretending I am.”

There’s surprise in Kathryn’s expression, but she doesn’t move away. She stays right with him, waiting. Supporting him in this moment.

They used to do that for each other. Unconditionally.

“The guilt that B’Elanna feels, that probably all of us feel, is suffocating. We weren’t there, fighting with them. Dying with them. Standing beside them in their darkest moments. Now we just look back and see everywhere we failed. We see all the chances we missed-.” He swallows, taken aback by the intensity of the emotion that rolls through him. “All the times we should have been there. All the words we didn’t say…”

He’s not talking about the Maquis anymore. Not completely. He’s talking about how seeing the damage of a year miraculously undone is ripping him apart. He’s wondering how he ever let it all develop the force of raging wildfire, until the ground was razed and nothing either of them could have done would have saved the scorched earth left behind.

And he’s sitting here seeing just one more example of everywhere they went wrong. After they got those letters, about Mark and the Maquis, he wishes they had leaned on each other more. Been painfully honest even if it had been ugly and difficult. He wishes he had shared not just his own loss, but the feelings her letter had stirred in him. That hopeful possibility and wonderment of maybe, maybe, this was their time. Even if it was selfish and impossible.

“You can’t blame yourself for everything, Chakotay. We’d all love to live our lives with a crystal ball, but we can’t. We just have to live knowing we did the best we could,” she says quietly, her thumb stroking over his kneecap. “We try to live with no regrets.”

No regrets.

“We should have talked to each other more. You and me. About those letters, what they meant, what they didn’t mean. I should have told you then how I feel - felt- about you.” He can’t stop staring at her, drinking her in.

Felt? Feel? Which one is it? Which one can it still be?

“Do you want to talk about it now?” she gives him a half smile, the question coming on an uncertain laugh.

“If I do, I think it’d be breaking about twenty Starfleet protocols.”

She holds his gaze, her voice steady.

“If it makes your hands stop shaking, I think we can sacrifice one or two.”

His hands don’t stop shaking.

“I wish I had told you that I had been thinking about how nothing in life is certain, and how we have to grab the chances we have. Because we could die tomorrow, or today. Being here on Voyager, knowing all the people I fought with had died, felt like a chance I shouldn’t waste- “

“You were a chance I shouldn’t have wasted, Kathryn.”

He’s rambling, his adrenaline spiked from the encounter with B’Elanna, the fight on the bridge, and now the war that rages in his chest. Kathryn looks both worried as hell and extremely confused as to why her first officer is talking in circles and fighting for his composure in the middle of the day. He can tell she wants to understand what’s tormenting him, to set this right.

“Chakotay-” she reaches out and touches his cheek, “we’re fine. We have plenty of time, right?”

They don’t though.

He has to tell her.

Time’s up.

*************

“Backwards temporal mapping. With more data points we might be able to plot your trajectory, even predict where you’ll end up next.” B’Elanna says, hands on her hips.

“And reverse it?”

She doesn’t answer that.

They’re standing in the briefing room, Kathryn, B’Elanna and himself, with a diagram of his journey through time pulled up on the screen. As soon as he confessed his identity, Kathryn had called them together. They needed to work quickly.

He can tell B’Elanna’s still rattled, but she’s trying like hell to concentrate for his sake. How often has she done this, have they all done this? Pushed aside the gnawing ache of loss and regret simply because they have to. Because someone’s life hangs in the balance, maybe dozens of lives.

How much damage has it done?

Kathryn is standing close at his side, one hand resting gently on the sensor adhered to his skin, the other carefully uploading data with a tricorder she’s hovering over it. Occasionally she looks up, studies the diagram, then refocuses on her work.

She curses quietly under her breath, “I wish we knew how much time we had. I don’t want to waste it on a medical evaluation since you’ve already had one. Or two.”

Chakotay finds himself smiling in spite of himself. “I’m pretty sure all the important parts are here. We just have to make the best of the time we have, right?”

Her eyes meet his, “We do.”

She’s quiet for another moment then lowers her voice, her eyes flicking to B’Elanna who is still wholly engrossed in her calculations. “You didn’t waste it.”

His heart beats once. Twice.

“What?”

“You said I was a chance you shouldn’t have wasted, before. I can’t pretend to know if that’s in reference to something I haven’t lived yet, and I know you can’t tell me, but these last four years, Chakotay…nothing has kept me putting on this uniform each morning and staring down every trial we’ve faced more than knowing you’d be the one facing it with me. Don’t doubt what that’s meant to me. Having you beside me, that means more than you know.”

He’s choking. Suffocating. Not sure if it's shame or guilt or sheer disbelief that brings a crushing weight to his chest and tries to bear him down toward the floor.

Would it have really been this simple? If he’d just taken a step, would she have taken the next one? And would they have somehow walked a path toward each other instead of being flung apart?

The angry, resentful part of him wishes she had taken that step. He wonders why it had to be him, why it always had to be him. But that part of him is fading, losing its razor-claw grip with each passage through time. Even now, it roars through his blood, but then vanishes, eclipsed by the scent of lavender, and blue eyes that are still looking at him as if the two of them can burn the universe down together if they strike the first match with her hand in his.

“I never wanted more than you could give, Kathryn. I just wanted to know that you might want to give it. Someday.”

“Someday.” There’s a wistful quality to her voice that shatters his heart. As if she still believes in hope. In the future.

“All right, as far as I can tell you’ll probably end up here-” B’Elanna gestures to a wide area of the temporal projection, ending the line with a series of dashes to signify his next path. “Just over a year in the past.”

“So now we know when. Do we know why?”

B’Elanna runs a hand through her hair in agitation, “No idea. Could be a temporal flux on a cellular level, linked to his DNA. Or maybe he’s happened on some kind of wormhole that’s the exact size of his body…fused to his skin?”

He’s not completely sure what that means, but it doesn’t sound good.

“Okay, so if I jump back in time again, and it's when you think, at least we’ll know that, right? What do we work on next?” Chakotay asks, all too mindful that a gentle ringing has started in his ears, a fatigue entering his limbs.

Damn it.

He needs more time.

“Have the doctor do a deep level cellular analysis. Check for chronoton displacement, mutations in -”

Kathryn stops talking because he sways on his feet, and she barely manages to catch him.

“I have to lay down,” he manages.

From far away he hears Kathryn reassure him she’s got him, and feels B’Elanna take hold of his other arm.

“It's like a tractor beam-”

“Particle displacement-”

Then nothing.

Chapter Text

He’s angry.

This is the first time he’s somehow swept into an emotion, and he feels it come over him in waves. Hurt. Betrayal. Rage.

As if he’s been thrown into a windstorm and he’s battered by the twisting, gusting complexity of thoughts and feelings. He’s spinning even though he’s standing still.

But he’s not standing still. In fact he’s not standing at all. He can feel that cool press of the biobed against the length of his back, the crisp material of a sheet over his bare chest.

When his eyes snap open he already knows he’s in sickbay. He’s woken up here so many times he knows the look of the ceiling by heart, and each time it brings the same wave of relief that he’s still alive. Somehow, despite the odds, the Delta Quadrant hasn’t helped themselves to another pound of flesh.

He’s aware of the lyrical humming of the EMH from somewhere to his left, but it's a different, soft voice that catches his attention. It's a voice he hasn’t heard in years, one that’s sent a piercing sadness through his chest more than once since he last heard it tell him goodbye.

Kes.

“Commander, are you all right?” She’s standing right over him then, a warm smile on her face and her small hand resting on his shoulder.

As delighted as he is to see her face, it brings back a realization he had at this moment, all those years ago.

It was the first time he’d woken up in sickbay and not immediately seen Kathryn.

“I - what happened?”

“You’ve been unconscious for over 24 hours. The doctor says there are no lingering effects, however. You’re going to be just fine.” Kes’s voice is soothing, and he knows she’s trying to reassure him, to quell what must be a noticeable confusion on his face.

What he doesn’t understand is why his heart is still hammering in his chest, the blood pumping as if he’s just done a few rounds in the ring. There’s a dull ache in the back of his neck, a pull that turns to a stabbing pain when he tries to twist his head. He can feel energy flowing from the biobed to the top of his spine. It's the Borg implant.

But this can’t be when he first received it. He was only supposed to go back a year…

Oh, God.

Scorpion.

***********************

There’s no doubt now that it doesn’t take Klingon senses to see he’s a different man. Kes’s eyes go wide, a soft gasp coming from her lips. He wonders if she can feel the punishing beat of his emotions. He wonders if she can see all the mistakes he’s made.

“You’re not…” She closes her eyes tightly, her forehead furrowed in concentration or pain.

There’s a silence that feels like it's filled with seven years of judgment.

“Let me get the Captain. And the Doctor,” she says quietly, a determination settling over her. He remembers that, despite being one of the most gentle souls he had ever known, Kes was pure steel. It reminds him of another woman he knows.

“Wait. Wait.”

He winces as he sits, feeling the magnetic field on the biobed release the implant . He knows it was a device that fully severed the link to Seven and the collective, and made sure the implant returned to a dormant state. He supposes Kes knows that his has been dormant for years now.

“Don’t comm the Captain yet. Please.” Now that he’s upright he feels a little more steady, with connection to the biobed device gone and his equilibrium returning. “Some things need to be said face to face.”

Some memories fade into the blurred hubris of the past, but some stay razor edged and clear, despite how he tries to round their edges. The one of Kathryn, standing in the muted candlelight of Davinci’s workshop, looking at him like she’s never seen him before, like he’s suddenly taken something from her that she’ll never get back, is one that’s etched its image in his soul. He knows she’s as angry as he feels, and he wants to be standing in front of her when they speak.

He waits for Kes’s response, the fact that she hasn’t already hit her combadge giving him hope. The conflict twists in his gut and reflects back at him in her eyes. She feels it. Of course she does.

The EMH’s back is to them, and he’s standing over another clearly occupied biobed. It only takes Chakotay a second to know who it is.

It's Seven.

Or the person would be Seven. She’s currently more Borg than human, metal limbs and blinking lights where her skin would eventually regenerate. It seeks a chill down his spine, seeing her this way again, his hatred for the Borg swelling in his chest.

Kes studies him, worry marking her face. He wonders if she is trying to discern his motives. Good luck, because he’s not even sure he knows what they are at this point.

“Here, take a few tricorder readings, see if you can figure anything out. If you run your tricorder over my arm, here-” he pauses, and sees her eyes flick to the sensor that had been covered by the sheet a moment ago, “you’ll see what we have so far.”

They’ve always trusted each other, he and Kes. She reminded him of his own sister, strong but steady, with a depth of kindness that knew no bounds. After she left, he missed her more than he’d realized. Now, looking into her eyes again, he wonders how their journey would have been different if he’d had a few more years of quiet talks in aeroponics while he helped her garden.

And, even more than that, he wonders how Kathryn would be different.

“All right. Let me call the Doctor over. But then we need to get you to the Captain.”

“Agreed.”

********************
It's irritatingly familiar, the way the Doctor moves from indignant disbelief to curiosity. It's easier, in this case, to succumb to the process and let the holographic man take all the readings and samples he wants.

“You’ve done this in other timelines already, Doc. There’s no answer yet.” Chakotay shrugs on a shirt. For the first time he’s materialized without his uniform…or not into his uniform, and he’s thankful for B’Elanna and Kathryn’s quick thinking with attaching the data storage to his skin.

“Well at least you seem to be in relatively good health for a man who’s traveling back in time and several years older than when I last saw you. Apparently my future self is taking excellent care of you,” the EMH boasts as he presses a device against Chakotay’s bicep to take a blood sample.

“Let’s upload the readings we have, and examine your stored data. Maybe we can find some differences. A pattern,” Kes suggests pursing her lips. She keeps absently touching her head, her eyes lingering on his, and Chakotay wonders if the depth of the emotional storm he’s been in these past several days is weighing on her.

The time is ticking by, and Chakotay swears he can feel it crawling along his skin with each passing moment. Finally enough is enough, and he reaches for the pants folded neatly beside him on the biobed.

“I need to find the Captain.”

“Very well. I’ll locate-”

Chakotay grips the Doctor’s wrist mid-air before he can tap his chest.

“I know where she is.”

**************************

He takes the steps to the holodeck more assuredly than he did years ago, but not without the memories. The last time he did this he was genuinely wondering if this was the end, the moment when the first crack in their ivory tower would lead to another, and another still, and the ship bravely touting to be a united crew flying under a banner of humanity would fall into the darkness.

This was their reckoning.

And even though he knows that they make it, he also knows something changed that day. He held back from saying what he truly wanted to say. She took her first step away from him. One choice, one ripple in the pond that turned into two and then three and then he was standing in the Alpha Quadrant staring into the blue eyes he thought he’d gaze into forever, and she tells him it's too late.

Too late.

The holodeck doors allow him to enter, just as they did before, and it's the same muted candlelight that greets him.

He’s not sure if he’s more nervous this time, or less.

Kathryn’s in front of him, eyes full of fire. She’s mad as all hell, and he wonders if maybe everything he felt when he first woke up was somehow emanating from her. There’s no softness there. No trust.

She’s looking at him as if he’s just cut her down with a blade.

It's tempting to wield it. The anger, the stubborn pride are simmering just below the surface, and some part of him wants to lash out at her.

“Yes, Commander?”

Her tone is clipped, biting into him just as surely as a knife over the skin. He feels the slice, the pain, all the way down to the bone.

“We need to talk.”

“Yes, I suppose we do.”

He pauses a moment and realizes she doesn’t know it isn’t him. Or isn’t the same him. The lighting is low here, and they’re far enough apart that she probably can’t see the nuances of his face, or the way his body has changed with time.

What if…?

He’s certainly not brave, perhaps he’s even selfish, but part of him as to know. If he undid this one moment, mended this one tear, what would they have woven together?

“You’re not alone out here, Kathryn. I know you said you are, because we disagreed. Because we were both mad as hell and we’re stubborn as mules too sometimes. You can rage at me all you want, confine me to my quarters, toss me in the brig. That doesn’t change anything. Because when it comes right down to it, when it's truly our last hour, I’m going to be right beside you until the very end.” He says it like a man who’s already seen the end, not like a first officer addressing his captain. By the end his voice is raspy, and he feels a sting in his throat that forces him to stare into one of the candle flames to compose himself.

It's gut wrenching, the way her shoulders drop and the glaring fury leaves her eyes. Maybe that was all she needed to hear. Maybe it was all he needed to say.

No matter what comes. No matter how far.

They’ll face it together.

“I’m sorry, Chakotay. I’m sorry that I said that to you, implied you weren’t with me. I was angry, and I reacted before I could really think about the impossibility of the situation you were thrust into.”

He dares to look at her face, her gaze averted as she talks as much to herself as to him.

“Do you think we’re getting too close? That we can’t be impartial when we disagree?”

It's as if someone has finally given him the last clue to a puzzle he’s long not understood. The distance. The disagreements. The near misses where he didn’t see her for days.

Maybe this wasn’t the moment where she decided where they were too close, maybe that came later. But something tells him this is the first time she considered it.

“I think it will be harder, sometimes. Times when I’m thinking that I might have to lead this ship without you because of a choice you’re making and, even though it's the right call, it nearly brings me to my knees on the bridge. We’ll hurt each other. Deeply. Because with this much trust, you leave yourself open to hurt.”

“So we just take a step back? Try to be more impartial for the sake of the crew?”

“Kathryn, there’s no taking a step back for me. Even when we’re lightyears away from each other, I’m still walking toward you. I always will be.”

She closes the gap, and he’s shocked when her hand comes to rest on his chest, right over his thundering heart. Her face tips up, and her eyes search his, looking for answers he doesn’t have to give. He wonders if she knows then, that something is different, but he doesn't have time to finish the thought.

Because, just as he opens his mouth to confess-

She kisses him.

**************

He’s imagined kissing her hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. Over the years there have been no shortage of daydreams on the bridge or fantasies during briefings about what the mouth of hers would feel like against his.

It's not an intimate kiss, not the hungry unleashing of passion he craved between them. Instead its whisper-soft, filled with gratitude and tenderness and completely agonizing how much it utterly wrecks him. It strips away all the years, all the mistakes, all the times he cursed god for bringing her into his life, until he’s nothing but muscle and bone and the unshakable feeling that this woman in front of him is everything he’s ever wanted.

The kiss lasts a few seconds, just a brushing of lips, and when Kathryn pulls back her cheeks flame bright red.

“Chakotay, I-”

“Don’t. I’ll never forgive myself if I let you say anything else. Hell, I’ve already done enough damage.”

That’s when she looks at him, really looks at him, and alarm registers in every angle of her face. Shadows only hide so much, and the truth always catches the light in the end.

Doesn’t it?

*************

He knows she’s pissed at him. Royally pissed in fact.

Not that he has any right to blame her. He asked the Doctor and Kes not to alert her to his presence, lied through omission about his identity, and then kissed her in the middle of an emotionally charged moment that wasn’t even supposed to happen.

Great job.

They’re back in sickbay now, and Kathryn is speaking quietly to Kes as he sits on a biobed feeling wretched and elated at once. It's a confusing thing, kissing a woman you dreamed about for years, thinking she might have had feelings for you.

And realizing that you both lost your chance years ago.

“Are you sure you want us to use the Borg technology to analyze the samples?” the EMH asks, his tone rife with judgment.

“Just do it.” Kathryn’s not about to let the outlandish pride of the Doctor get in the way of her finding some answers. She and Kes lean over the doctor’s shoulder, eyes fixed on the console in front of him as it beeps and blinks with an influx of data.

“What’s that?” Kathryn asks, nodding at the screen. From this angle he can’t see what they’re looking at, and it's all a bit unnerving.

“His DNA, the cellular structure is unstable. There’s a chronoton signature, one from the past, embedded in his cells. It could be that date was the start, or in this case the end, of his time travel journey. Something happened to him years ago that changed the structure of his DNA, and linked it to that point in time. Now it's drawing him back. There’s no way of knowing for sure what the precipitating event was though. It could be a black hole. A radiation exposure. A-”

“I know what it is, Doctor. We don’t have to guess.” Kathryn interrupts.

Whatever it is wipes all the irritation from her posture, the relatively minor issue of their kiss forgotten.

They’re quiet for a moment and Chakotay clears his throat. “What is it?”

“It's the moment we arrived in the Delta Quadrant.” Kathryn says quietly.

The Caretaker.

Oh.

There was so much that happened that year. The array. The Kazon. Everyday was a fight for survival.

And one of the things he knows about Kathryn, a secret he’s always known, is that she blames herself for it all.

“So I’m being thrown back to that time? And then what?”

The EMH shrugs in that way he has when he is completely oblivious to someone experiencing a personal catastrophe in front of him. “We don’t know that yet.”

“But we know more than we did. You came here with a projected path. Now we have an end point. Hopefully we’ll know more before you leave,” Kes points out.

“Do I dare ask where - when - I’m headed next?” Part of him hopes they'll just say the array, that he’ll be spared the realizations and the explanation of doing this a few more times.

“Right here.” Kathryn says, motioning for him to come look at the screen for himself. He starts at the arched line, moving backward from the date he left McKinley Station, the dotted projections halting at the day they destroyed Caretaker.

He has at least one more stop. He knows the next date. Has it cemented into his memory.

It's one where his personal logs are conspicuously missing. First they were too personal. Then, just too painful. Still, he kept them for years, until the last vestiges of hope faded against a backdrop of loss and betrayal and distance.

Kathryn recognizes it too, and she’s not as quick to hide the pain that flashes through her face as she is in future years. She still lets her emotions bleed through, her words come more easily.

He’s dizzy, and he’s not sure if it's from the thought of where he’s headed next or the onset of the next temporal jump. Kes notices it and steadies him with a hand on his arm. There’s a warmth, a calm, that flows from her palm and evens out the vibrations of panic he’s feeling. Kathryn doesn’t notice though, she’s turned her attention to the EMH, who is speaking at length about possibilities for genetic manipulations that could impact time travel.

“Are you all right?” Kes asks quietly.

“I feel like you already know the answer to that.”

She hums softly in her throat, her eyes drift to the time travel diagram in front of them. “I’ll still listen if there’s anything you want to talk about.”

“I’d forgotten. I just- I’d forgotten.” he says helplessly, nearly choking on the sheer magnitude of words that come to mind.

He’s forgotten a million little things. Or maybe he’s forced himself not to remember them. Like the way, right now, Kathryn's hand is resting on her hip and her eyes are fixed on a console, her focus somehow divided between that and the continued prattling of the doctor. She’s like satin and steel, exquisite but strong in ways he can barely understand. Or the way she used to laugh and nearly spit coffee in her lap, slapping a hand over her mouth in a desperate attempt not to. Or the way they used to look for each other in a room. Her laugh, when she let the day slip away. Her smile, the soft one that felt like it was just for him.

He’d forgotten. Or maybe he’d forced himself to forget. Because living with the beauty of what they had feels suddenly like a burden and a gift in one, and he’s not sure he’s capable of carrying it with him for the rest of his life.

He'd almost forgotten the way he loved her.

The way he still loves her.

The feeling bursts from his chest with such shattering intensity he feels his entire body shudder with the magnitude of it. It's like an electical current, running along his nerves and his muscles and somehow, he feels the reverberations within Kes and she gasps beside him.

“I always wondered,” she says, her eyes glistening as she looks up at him. “About the two of you.”

“It doesn’t matter.” His voice sounds raspy, hollow, and he wonders if it's because he suddenly feels so utterly empty.

“Oh, Commander Chakotay, you're wrong. It matters so much. Can’t you feel it?” Kes’s voice is filled with wonder.

He feels it, or the echoes of it, as he stands in sickbay and the only thing that seems to be grounding him to this world is Kes’s hand on his arm and the sight of Kathryn standing a few meters away. There’s too much to take in, too much to let go, and part of him wonders if the reason he’s never fully let himself fall for her, truly fall, is because he fears he’ll never survive the spiraling, breathless descent.

And maybe that’s why, in a future that seems less real by the moment, he found himself standing beside someone else. Because something this powerful can’t be sustained by two people who aren’t able to give themselves over to it with all that they are.

Maybe Kathryn wasn’t the only one who was too afraid of who they’d become if they gave in.

At this moment, he’s terrified.

Terrified he loved her this hard. That he loves her still.

And, even if he somehow makes it out of this mess, it's too late anyway.

As if she can feel the waves of desperation rolling off him, Kathryn pauses mid- sentence and diverts her attention from the EMH to him. Alarm fills her face immediately, and he’s certain he must look like absolute hell.

“Chakotay, you’re shaking.”

She’s on him in a few strides, her hands warm on his arms as she eases him to the nearest biobed. By the time his back hits the table his teeth are chattering with the force of the shudders rolling over his body, and the bright lights of sickbay are fading.

“I can’t-” he rasps, fists clenching with an effort to stay awake. He sees Kathryn grab a tricorder, holding it over his bicep in what he guesses is a last data transfer. Her other hand slides down his arm to take his, and he holds on to her like a lifeline.

Kes is on the other side of him, her hand resting on his shoulder, her eyes tightly shut. A strange sensation settles over him as his gaze lands on her face. A connection, a pull tethering him to this time while every molecule in his body is being dragged into another.

She’s giving him a gift, he realizes. Time.

“Kathryn. I’m sorry - I didn’t tell you.”

Despite her focus on the tricorder, Kathryn smiles and shakes her head. “Don’t worry about the kiss. Let’s just get you through this.”

“I’m not sorry about that. I’m sorry- “ Pain rolls through his muscles, as if he’s being torn slowly apart. He gasps, lacing his fingers more tightly through Kathryn’s, and steadies himself. “I’m sorry I never did it before.”

“Hang on, hang on. It's okay, Chakotay.” She gives his hand another squeeze and he hears the tricorder beep. Transfer complete. “There.”

He feels Kes’s hand leave him, and is vaguely aware of her stepping back, her hand holding her head. Kathryn calls for the EMH, ordering him to see to Kes immediately.

The room starts to tunnel then, the only clear thing in his visions is her face above him, blue eyes staring down at him with a force greater than gravity. She leans down close, her face nearly brushes his.

“I’m sorry too, Chakotay.”

Her lips brush his cheek.

“Take a swim in the river for me.”

Chapter Text

Birds. He can hear birds. And the screech of a monkey in the distance.

There’s no hum of a starship, no vibration from the warp engines. He’s really here.

On New Earth.

It must be morning. He can tell by the way the sun is slanting in through the viewport in the shelter. Kathryn’s probably already up, maybe out in the garden.

He feels like he’s in a dream, even after his feet touch the cool floor and he dresses in brown pants and a cream work shirt. It doesn't feel right to leave on the uniform he’s come here in. The shirt strains a bit across his middle, and the pants don’t quite button. He smiles ruefully and leaves them undone, threading a belt through the material. It's a reminder that some things do change, even if others don’t.

He walks into the main room of the shelter and has to stop to take it all in.

It's as if all the desperate, dark times when he wished he could just have one more moment here have suddenly thrust him into a situation he never thought he’d see again. Time has given him one more glimpse of something that’s both heaven and hell.

And, maybe, one chance to do it a little differently this time.

Already this is different from the other time jumps. There’s a strange sense of rightness that settles over him as his eyes fall on partly finished sketches at the table, an empty cup and plate beside them. There’s no equipment, no massive data system, no transporters. He can’t hope to create any kind of device to somehow right this temporal wrong or even, in all likelihood, discover much more of the reason behind its existence.

There’s no rush. No frantic race to a solution.

Instead, there’s replicated coffee in a cup near the stove. Black. And he can hear soft humming coming from the slightly open door.

A quick glance at the makeshift calendar they have on the wall tells him the stardate, and his stomach flips. In just a matter of days, they’ll get the call that Voyager is coming for them. Everything they’ve built here will be torn down, and he’s not talking about the walls surrounding him. For now, though, they were both blissfully unaware that their crew was fighting for their lives. Instead, he was still fighting for her heart.

Too late.

He needs to find Kathryn, tell her who he is before he shocks the hell out of her by having aged several years overnight. With all the strange things this planet did to them, she’d probably believe it was some new effect of the virus.

Walking to the door, he opens it the rest of the way and lets his eyes scan the clearing in front of the shelter. It's just as he remembered it, lush and green, fragrant as the sun warms the dirt and forest. His axe is wedged in a woodpile to the right, just beyond that sits the smooth form of a bathtub carved by hand.

What he sees next as him sagging against the doorframe, letting the steel take his weight as coffee sloshes unheeded from his cup.

God.

Kathryn’s on her knees in the garden, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, wearing a green summer dress he’s dreamed about for years. Now he remembers this exact morning. They worked in the garden most of the day, then she’d gone off into the forest to gather some fruit for dinner while he reinforced a small section of the roof. They’d had dinner outside on the grass in front of the shelter.

And he’d wished like hell he’d been brave enough to kiss her.

She’s achingly beautiful, her skin tanned and freckled, her face somehow relaxed despite being intent on her work. He doesn’t know the song she’s humming, but it's lilting and sweet, a lightness he feels in his bones.

He’s so swamped with love for her he can barely stay upright.

Kathryn wipes her hands on her thighs and looks up then, a smile breaking out on her face. She has to shield her eyes from the sun, and it buys him some time.

“Good morning! It's such a beautiful day. Come see how the tomatoes are growing-”

“Kathryn, I need to tell you-” He’s stepped toward her, changing the angle of the sun in her eyes. It only takes an instant for her expression to change. 

She’s on her feet in a second, alarm written all over her face. “Oh God, Chakotay. The virus -”

He shakes his head, taking a step toward her and holding up a hand.

“No, it's not that. I’m fine. Just let me explain something.”

**************************

He can almost predict the emotions that will pass over her expression as he tells his impossible story. Shock, disbelief, resolve. This time though, there’s dismay too, as they both know they’re ill-equipped to launch any kind of investigative effort while marooned on a planet with relatively rudimentary supplies.

“So you’ve traveled 6 years back in time? And we don’t know why?” she asks slowly, her gaze sweeping up and down his body. She’s still a few feet away, hugging her arms and shock radiating from her posture.

“Do you have a tricorder?” he asks. He knows she usually keeps one with her, just in case she encounters an interesting plant or animal.

Kathryn nods and goes to get one from a small satchel near where she was working in the garden. Wordlessly, she hands it to him.

He clears his throat and unbuttons his shirt, sliding it down over his shoulder to reveal the combadge. A small gasp escapes Kathryn’s throat, and her fingers immediately fly to the small piece of metal.

“Is this a data storage device?”

“Yes. It has all the information on it we’ve gathered so far, if you’d like to see it. Honestly it probably does a better job explaining it than I am right now.”

She nods and soon they’re both seated at the table in the shelter, huddled over a PADD as he shows the impossible journey to her. After weeks of being unable to research, he can tell Kathryn is hungry for a problem to solve. Her eyes are bright and acutely focused, her lips moving as she reads. But he sees the moment her entire body seems to tense, her breath coming on a sharp inhale.

“We make it back to Voyager?” she murmurs, nearly disbelieving. “How?”

Of course, she doesn’t know that yet.

And he hates that he has to to tell her.

“We do. In a week Tuvok will call, saying they’re coming for us. They found a cure.”

Kathryn runs her fingers over her forehead, seeming even more stunned by this realization than the idea of a time traveler standing in front of her.

“I thought - I had almost stopped thinking we would ever leave.”

It's the sorrow laced through her voice that slays him. She’s trying to hide it, trying to act as though she’s simply shocked but also grateful. He remembers how it felt, to paint the same facade. How his face felt grotesque as it twisted into a smile, the screaming denial that rolled through his body as she took a step away from him, squaring her shoulders as she told him they needed to prepare.

It was over.

“I know. It came as a surprise to us both.”

He watches her absorb the news, knowing what she must be feeling. The urge to gather her in his arms is nearly unbearable. He remembers fisting his hands at his sides, fighting back the urge to hold her and tell her everything that had been growing in his heart. All the things he never told her.

Just as she was then, she’s strong as hell.

“I need a minute.” She pushes up from the table and stands, turning her back to him as she makes another cup of coffee. There are so many things he wants to say, but he gives her the privacy she craves. He always has, even when it costs him terribly.

After a few minutes he can tell she’s shifting gears. This is all the time they’ve ever had to grieve a loss. You feel it, then stuff it down into the twisted, wretched part of you that can’t be seen with 150 pairs of eyes watching your every move.

Kathryn slaps a hand on the counter in frustration, “I can’t believe there’s nothing I can do to help you. If I had a chromaton calibrator or a hypo-”

She stops, and Chakotay can feel the helplessness coming off her in waves, partly a reaction to his predicament, but likely also a defense against her own emotions. Kathryn likes to act. To rush forward into the fire. Sitting by and waiting has never been her strong point.

“I know.”

She huffs and pats her palm on the counter a few times. “Well, I suppose we can at least brainstorm a little. Maybe try a different line of thinking.”

He pushes back from the table and goes to stand across from her, watching as she takes a sip of her mug. She’s already planning, thinking. He could go along with it, spend his hours here pouring over plans and datalogs, but he decides to be reckless. And honest. “We can. Or we can just enjoy the day.”

All these temporal leaps have made him realize so many things, but one more than most: that each moment should be taken as its own gift, and the only words he regrets are the ones he’s left unsaid.

He’s here. He’s alive. And for right now, the future is not where he most wants to be.

He just wants to be here. With her. Right now.

She gives him a small, crooked smile. “You haven’t changed, have you?”

The question hits him square in the gut. It brings up layers of guilt and doubt and a realization that, as much as he hates to admit it, he changed in ways he’s not proud of. She changed too, there’s no denying that. It was seven long, trying years. Years that took the best of them and gave the worst back.

But he let it change him.

And now, seeing the way she looks at him, clear-eyed and honest, with no walls built to protect them from one another, he hates himself for it. If he could have just held this moment in his hands, drawn from it in the dark times when they stared down each other just as surely as they stared down the Borg and the Kazon and Viidians, maybe it would have been different.

If he’d remembered.

Maybe it wouldn’t be too late.

“I definitely have.” He looks down at the gaping buttons of his shirt and watches as Kathryn stifles a laugh. “But some things never change. You might think they do, or you might try to forget them. But they’re still there, if they’re real.”

“Your eyes are the same. The same ones I saw on the bridge that day at Caretaker. That’s how I knew I could trust you then, and it's how I know now,” she says quietly.

There’s a question brewing between them. He’s not sure he’s brave enough to answer it.

He can see her mind working over a hundred different things. Offering reassurance, he runs his hand down her arm, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. She looks up at him, her cheeks coloring suddenly, and clears her throat.

“In your time, before Tuvok called, did we -?” She gestures between the two of them, and the meaning is evident.

He can’t believe he blushes in return, but he does. “No. We never even kissed.”

Not in that timeline anyway, he thinks, remembering the way her mouth felt pressed against his in the shadows of DaVinci’s study.

“You don’t seem disappointed by that.” There’s a teasing glint in her blue eyes, a crooked smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. Kathryn on New Earth, he remembered, was as bold as she was vulnerable.

And he adores this version of her just as much as all the others.

“Kathryn, I spent seven years disappointed by every minute I wasn’t kissing you.”

“Flatterer.” She laughs, low and husky.

He sees now, it didn’t really end here. What they were. The desire to be more. He’s seen flashes of it in her eyes as he’s made these trips into their past. Want and desire. Tenderness and love. It's humbling to realize the hope endured far longer than he imagined. Sometimes, it was just too painful to recognize it.

But right now it's easy. Breathlessly easy, to see the way her eyes turn softer when she talks to him, the way sparks seem to arch between their bodies when she brushes by. Emotion uninhibited by the tangled bonds of command. He’d forgotten how freely he loved her here.

And, he sees now, how she loved him back.

Slowly, quietly, with tentative steps and hesitant touches that grew to a steady affection and attraction. Warmth and friendship spun with trust and woven into love.

Just because they’d never shared a bed, just because they’d never said the words, doesn't mean it wasn’t real.

It's real.

Something inside him breaks down, tumbling and falling and spinning until all he can feel is the deep, desperate love he has for this woman. She loved him back. He sees it just as surely as the walls of the shelter, the still steaming mug on the counter beside her hand.

How was he so blind?

This time he leans in first, because he’ll be damned if he spends the next seven years wishing he’d kissed her here. Loved her here. She tastes like coffee, and smells like sunshine and dirt, and when her arms slide around his neck, she feels like everything he’s ever dreamed of.

This is different from the shadowed kiss in Davinci’s study. Even though he started it, she leads, her lips parting and her tongue gently seeking his. She presses the front of her body against his, and he fills his hands with the curve of her hips. The want, the desire, roars through him and makes the shelter tilt under his feet.

He’s kissing Kathryn. And she’s kissing him back, with her hands on his body and her tongue in his mouth.

If this is the last thing he ever does, he’ll die happy.

He wants to take her to bed. He wants to lay her beneath him and kiss every part of her, love her with his mouth and his hands and his body until they’re both breathless and sated, and he’s cast away every trace of the mistakes they make in the future. To rewrite their story, and tear away the pages of their end.

He wants the impossible.

She eases back, one hand still cupping the back of his neck, the other splayed across his chest. The sight of her like this, flushed and aroused, blue eyes gone stormy with desire, is nearly enough to make him fall to his knees.

“I can see-” she runs her tongue over her lips, and his head spins, “I can see your point.”

He laughs and she joins him, the sound filling the small space and turning the mood from electric to joyful and then, for him, to contemplative.

What is he doing? And what will it mean for them?

He still doesn’t know how each of these visits is impacting the future. Where would Voyager be if each of these moments were a pebble that caused a ripple, then a wave, then a storm?

If they sleep together now, if they crash through the barriers they swore they’d never cross, is there really a happy ending waiting on the other side?

Or would this be the gateway to their end?

And, if he's thinking logically, he just doesn’t have time. As much as it kills him to think of giving up this chance with her, it kills him more to think of taking it and then walking away. Or, worse yet, going back to a future of almost after knowing what he nearly had.

“How much time do you have here?” she asks.

His heart answers before his mouth. Not enough.

“A few hours probably. Maybe less.” Because he can’t stop touching her, he shifts his hands and trails his fingers along her upper arms, pleased with the way it makes her shiver.

“Tell me what I can do to help.”

He pauses, cocks his head. For the first time in this journey he’s not desperately trying to get home. He’s not planning and analyzing and explaining, no urgent task begging for his attention.

He decides to live in this moment. Just once.

“Let’s take a swim in the river.”

****************

He’s warm and drowsy, the afternoon sun beating on his bare chest and the grass tickling his back. There’s the sound of the river flowing over the rocks, and the trees creaking as the wind blows the high branches. And a sense of contentment he hasn’t felt in years.

Maybe since the last time he was here.

They’d raced across the river, then floated for a few moments in the calm shallows near the bank. Kathryn was taking one more lap while he headed to shore. She’d teased him, saying he was too afraid she’d win if he raced again, but he’d laugh and just waved her on.

Instead he’s flopped down on the bank, limbs stretched out and his muscles liquid. The lingering thought is that one of the best days of his life is now one he never truly lived.

He opens one eye as water droplets rain down on his face. Kathryn sits beside him, ringing out her wet hair and beginning to twist it into a braid. She’s wearing a simple black bathing suit, and she looks utterly stunning.

“How was your swim? Was it everything you remembered?” she asks, smiling down at him. There’s sunlight around her head as he stares up at her, her hair glowing like fire. She looks like an earth goddess, all strength and power and vibrant beauty that makes his heart beat harder in his chest.

“Even better. I didn’t usually have company.”

Kathryn deftly ties off the end of her braid, then gives him a slightly chagrined look, “It has taken me a while to let go. I know.”

“You had to do it on your terms, and in your time. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

He almost tells her he’ll wait for her. Until she’s ready. Until they can be more than this.

But…he didn’t.

He didn’t wait. Didn’t ask. Didn’t tell her. Didn’t do or say or let her see a hundred things that all could have turned their tide. He hopes to god he’s turning it now.

Because now that he’s set it free, there’s no tucking this love away anymore.

Unaware of his thoughts, Kathryn sits beside him and draws her knees up to her chest, folding her arms over them as her gaze turns pensive. “You know, I’ve been thinking about the data you showed me.”

“Oh?” He’s caught off guard by the change in topic, and tries to refocus on something besides the way the water droplets are sparkling with sunlight on her skin.

“I wonder if each time jump alters the future, essentially erasing the one before it.” She squints, her eyes fixed on the river as her mind works. “My guess is it's that, or you’re in a fragmenting temporal vortex.”

“A what?”

That definitely does not sound good.

Kathryn holds out her hand, palm facing him and fingers splayed. “Each time you go back, you create a new future, a fork in the road. Now there are probably a dozen possible futures. Alternate timelines, but the original one remains unchanged.”

“So, which one will I go back to?”

“I don’t know. My hope is B’Elanna and I can figure that out whenever you end up next, “ she sighs, frustrated, “Damn it, I hate not being able to do anything to help.”

His mind is reeling. Multiple timelines. Dozens of potential futures by the time he stands on the bridge in front of Caretaker. How will he ever make it back?

Then the darker, more lingering question.

Which future does he want to go to?

It already feels as if he doesn’t belong in the one he left. The man he was when he stood at McKinley station and watched Kathryn walk away from him is disappearing, the armor built by years of bitterness and disappointment cracked and falling away, until he feels raw and open. Until he just feels. Things that he tried not to, things that were too painful or too fueled by anger.

But now, laying in the sun, he feels a flowing, warm hope that he thought dried up long ago. He used to be a different man. He could be that man again.

And there’s no urgency to get back. No panicked explanations. There’s just the sun and the wind and the river.

And Kathryn.

He reaches over and takes her hand, tangling their fingers languidly together. Surprise flashes through her eyes as she looks at him, then a tender smile he feels in his bones.

This moment, right now, he doesn’t want to change at all.

“Come here.”

She pauses, crooking an eyebrow at him in question. As much as he’d love to roll her beneath him on the warm grass, that’s not what he’s asking. He’s already tired. Time is running out.

“I’m warm and sleepy, and I’d like to have you next to me.” He grins and her laughter echoes in the open space.

“Alright.”

There’s some shifting, a rock that needs to move from his back, a stick she kicks away from her legs, but soon her head is resting on his shoulder, their joined hands on his chest. He loves her so much it feels like a living, breathing thing. It's in the air. The water. The sun.

But he’s so tired…

“Kathryn. I’m not going to be here much longer.”

“I know. Do you know where you’re heading next?”

He knows the approximate date. If they had the equipment they could add this point to the timeline and get a more exact estimate. He really doesn’t care right now. So he doesn’t answer.

They’re quiet together for a long time, until he feels as if his body is heavy, brimming with water, sinking into the soil.

And the last thing he feels is the weight of her head on his shoulder, and their hands over his beating heart.

Chapter Text

He’s lucky he materializes in his quarters this time, since appearing on the bridge in his swimsuit doesn’t exactly seem like it would inspire confidence in a crew he’s barely known a year. He’s on the couch, a PADD resting on the coffee table in front of him, and the combadge in the bedroom is calling his name. When he jumps up to answer it he sways a little on his feet, his head still fuzzy as if he’s just spent an hour lazing in the sun on a riverbank.

Blue eyes. The weight of her head on his shoulder. Love.

Too late.

Chakotay shakes his head to clear it, trying to focus on where, and when, he’s ended up.

“Computer, what’s the stardate?”

Before the monotone voice answers, however, he realizes that the room feels oddly bright, and not just from artificial lighting. His eyes go to the window, and he sees a gleaming city on a planet it takes him a moment to recognize.

He’s come back to the home of the 37s.

The computer announces the stardate and Chakotay has to close his eyes to think for a moment. What day is this exactly? Has the crew already been asked to stay? Are they leaving?

The combadge calls again. It's Kathryn, and she sounds tense.

Get it together, he thinks. He needs a plan.

First, answer the combadge. Second, figure out exactly what the hell day it is.

Third, find pants.

He picks up the small bit of metal and clears his throat, hoping she can’t tell by his voice he’s 6 years older than the last time she saw him, and still remembering the feeling of her mouth pressed against his. “Chakotay here.”

“Commander, please meet me at the cargo bay in fifteen minutes. ”

The cargo bay. It's the day, nearly the moment, that defined the rest of their journey. The moment that 150 people decided that Voyager was their family, and this mission was their purpose. On their worst days he remembers how Kathryn and he would look at each other, and he would remind her, “we all chose to stay.”

And they’d choose it all over again.

“Yes, Captain. Be right there”

He replicates a new uniform, hopping on one foot as he pulls on the pants. His mind is sharpening slowly, the fog clearing as he moves. Kathryn would be in her ready room now, and he wants to reach her before she leaves for the cargo bay, keeping his shocking revelation as discreet as possible. He’s not entirely sure she won’t phaser his ass in the middle of the corridor if he doesn’t.

There’s a few strange looks as he jogs down the hallway, keeping his head down as much as possible. A pair of ensigns whispers as he hurries past, and he’s pretty sure he hears them say something about “he looks like hell” and “must be the mother of all hangovers.” Well, he thinks, Kathryn did always say temporal problems gave her a headache.

By the time he reaches Kathryn’s door he’s breathing harder than he would have been after making this run six years ago. Ruefully, he thinks if he manages to survive this mess he needs to spend some time at the gym. There’s no time for self-flagellation though; she calls for entry as soon as he rings the chime.

Kathryn is standing at the viewport, arms crossed, staring out at the landscape below them. Land that could be their home, their fresh start. Or their chance to finally admit defeat after undertaking a journey most would say is impossible.

The look on her face is utterly vulnerable, and breathtakingly strong. No matter what, she’s ready to let this crew choose their own future, even if it means giving up her own.

He realizes then, that it’s the moment he started loving her.

He’d never known anyone like her. Flawed and stubborn, with a depth of caring and compassion he’d never seen in any person. She was everything he ever wanted, and he never even knew it until he was stranded on her ship a lifetime from home.

“Kathryn.”

Her eyes snap to him, shimmering with emotion and a conflict that twists something inside him. She’s worried, and she hasn’t quite learned how to hide it from him yet.

In his own time, he’d simply met her in the corridor to the cargo bay, too caught up in his own worries with what might happen if most of his crew left. He sees now she had been gathering herself, trying to find a way to prepare for whatever it was she might need to face. Alone.

Alone, and now clearly shocked as her face registers his appearance. There’s no phaser on her hip since they’re on a friendly planet, but her eyes dart to where he knows she keeps it in her desk.

If he were a betting man, he wouldn’t like his odds if she goes for it.

Before she can speak he raises both his hands, and tries a different tactic this time. “Before you shoot me, I can prove it’s me. Chakotay.” He watches her shift just a little, her body turning toward the desk. She doesn’t lunge just yet though, so he plows ahead.

“Your middle name is Elizabeth, and your dog is named Mollie. You were raised in Indiana, a small farmhouse where your bedroom overlooked the meadow-”

Her eyes narrow, and he can tell she’s not convinced. “Anyone could find that information in my file, probably in most public records.”

Chakotay takes a deep breath, digs deeper into a multitude of memories from which he could fill volumes. “Last month you shorted out your replicator making brownies, that’s when you first hid a dermal regenerator in your room. You listen to classical music when you read, jazz when you review reports and anything you can sing to when you take a bath. Your favorite author is Bronte. You drink 5 cups of coffee a day, but lie and tell the doctor its 3. And right now, you’re about to walk down the cargo bay and see how many of your crew are choosing to abandon the journey home. You're terrified because you see this as a vote of confidence in your decisions as a leader; in your order to destroy the array."”

Those are just the things he says out loud. The others, he only hears in his heart.

When you laugh your eyes light up and turn the exact color of sapphires. You chew your lip when you're nervous, and it drives me to distraction every time. You have more compassion, more bravery, and more stubborn pride than any woman I’ve ever known.

And I love you.

The last part echoes only in the quiet of his mind, but he knows she sees the reflection in his face. A thousand other little details rise to the surface, like bubbles in a champagne flute. How she tilts her head and taps her fingers when she thinks. How she snores just a little when she’s exhausted.

How she tasted like coffee and chocolate when he kissed her.

Kathryn’s mouth opens, then closes again, her eyes searching his face as if she’s witnessing a slight of hand she can’t figure out.

“Who are you?” She sounds a little dazed, some of the alarm leaving her posture.

“I’m still Chakotay, from 6 years in the future. I’m caught in some kind of temporal…something. I’ve already explained this to a half dozen versions of you from the future, and we’re trying to figure out how to send me back.”

A simplified summary seems best at this point.

“We are?” she asks skeptically, “Who is we?”

“You and B’Elanna and the Doc.” He presses into the fabric of his uniform on his upper arm, “I have data I can show you. Most of it provided by future you.”

“You’re serious. I can’t - I don’t- “ she rests her chin on her hand, staring at him, “Damn. This Quadrant is a strange place.”

They both break into a grin at that, but are interrupted by a monotone voice coming from the computer.

“Captain. The time is now 1400 hours.”

“Oh. I need to get to the cargo bay. But you-”

He supposes he could just tell her what awaits her there, but it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do. Some parts of the past are best left untouched. This is one of them.

“I’m still your first officer. We’ll go together. Then I’ll explain everything.”

************

They both pause when they reach the door, a repeat of the moment all those years before. Even though he’s not experiencing it for the first time, he can feel the reverberations of Kathryn’s nerves in his own body.

“You must already know what’s behind this door,” she says quietly, turning to look at him.

“I do, but it's important you see it for yourself. And Kathryn -” he does something he didn’t the first time. He reaches down and takes her hand, cold and shaking in his. “No matter what happens, we’ll make it.”

“We will?” her voice wavers. It's a the only sign of uncertainty as she stands there, shoulders square and jaw set.

And god he wants to paint a different future than the canvas hung on the stars of his present. He wants to tell her that they always made the right choice, they always stand together even when everything around them is tearing them apart, they never waver in their commitment to each other as leaders of this ship and partners in so much more than that.

But he decides right now, right here, that he’s not about to screw this up again. There have already been too many lies between them, too many half-truths wrapped in silence. If the only thing he can give her is his honesty, well then he’ll at least do that.

“I’ll be here for you, even if you don’t know it. And I know now that you’re there for me. We are stubborn and flawed, Kathryn, and we’re going to make a galaxy's worth of mistakes, but I will always have your back in this storm. Always.”

It's honest and a little ugly, but it's them. The mistakes and the wrong turns, the fight to come back only to fly apart.

And he knows in his heart that, even in a future where she walks away, he’d be on the first transport to her if she ever needed him.

He’d choose her.

It hits him then that maybe that was what she needed. Loving her wasn’t enough, not out here. She needed him to choose her. In the good times and the bad ones. When the journey seemed endless, and when hope shone like a beacon in the starless sky. When she told him that this was all she could give…he should have told her.

No matter how far, how long, how rutted the road.

He’d choose her.

Because love comes easily, but commitment takes strength.

And a lifetime of possible with her was better than a certainty with anyone else. 

Her eyes search his, just like they did all those years ago, and he sees the determination that fills them. She trusts him, believes in him. She believes absolutely that he's with her, come what may. He believes in her too.

At that moment, he believes in them.

They go into the cargo bay, still hand in hand, and he watches the storm of emotions roll over her as she sees that enemies have become allies and now have become family. And he feels the connection between two captains who pledged themselves to this ship, and to each other. It’s the first time he truly chose her, he realizes. Not just in order to survive, not just because it was the only choice.

As much as he told her his desire was to swim in the gulf and see the sunrise on Earth again, that was never truly why he stayed.

He stayed because when he imagined those days in the bright sun and the warm breeze, there was a woman with vibrant blue eyes and auburn hair beside him. This was just the first step on a new path. One that would end with her.

Or so he thought back then.

But standing there in that cargo hold, he suddenly wonders if he can change the fates. If there are truly alternate timelines, endless possibilities…

Can he draw a new future from the tattered remains of the old one?

Kathryn lets out a shaky exhale and squeezes his hand. “I was wondering if you had somehow come back here to convince me to stay. Or convince the crew to leave. But we just keep on going, don’t we?”

“Damn right we do.”

Her laugh is brilliant, filled with utter relief. “Thank god. All right now, so tell me what we need to do next to get you home.”

********************

“A fragmenting temporal vortex…shit.” B’Elanna mutters, hands on her hips as they stand in the briefing room. In front of them, the screen now bears a web-like diagram of timelines, each one splintering off from the points in time where Chakotay has stopped. Each stop has made a new future.

In some universe, his actions truly have changed the course of all their lives.

“Now what?” Kathryn asks.

Glances are exchanged among the three of them, and there’s no immediate answer. Finally, B’Elanna shakes her head, “I think I have an idea, but it might sound a little crazy.”

“Crazy is what we do, right?” Chakotay jokes, though his lighthearted comment falls flat on the two women. Can they blame him for a little gallows humor? He’s been tossed through a temporal vortex so many times at this point he barely knows where he is anymore. Or who he is.

“The Doc must have DNA samples from our Chakotay, right? It’s part of all our regular physicals.” B’Elanna states, foot tapping on the floor as she thinks. “What if there’s a way to imprint a new timestamp on that DNA, then do a swap? We could use a modified genetic transport beam, like a transfusion.”

“If we co-modulate that with a temporal rift-” Kathryn’s eyebrows raise as she begins to understand.

Thank god someone knows what’s happening, because he has absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.

“We might be able to send him back, and keep him there.” B’Elanna finishes, a triumphant gleam in her eyes.

Kathryn grins and shakes her head, as if even she can’t quite believe they’ve solved this one. “Let’s do it.”

**********

Two hours later he’s back in Kathryn’s ready room, a fresh set of data uploaded to the device that’s rubbing against the sleeve of his uniform in a way he’s still not quite used to. He’s leaning his hip on her desk, too edgy to sit and hoping the contact will keep him from pacing. Watching B’Elanna and Kathryn solve a particularly mind-bending problem is an experience in itself, and this was no exception. Right now, he knows B’Elanna is moving about engineering at lightning speed, working with new ideas and information they’ve devised. He feels tingly with the adrenaline of the discovery, and he didn’t even do anything.

Kathryn, meanwhile, is riding high on both their temporal discovery and the unity of their crew. She’s standing near the window, coffee in one hand. Her gestures are so animated there’s a sprinkle of brown specks at her feet, where the unsuspected coffee is sloshing out of the mug. She looks ready to take on the Delta Quadrant. The galaxy.

He wonders if she truly knows that’s exactly what she’s about to do.

They’re going to stare down the Borg. Escape the Vidiians. Outwit the Kazon. They’ll tread on ground that no one from Earth has ever laid eyes on.

They’ll make a path through uncharted space. Complete the impossible journey of a lifetime.

And when they stand with Earth luminous in the viewport again, he won’t feel the same happiness he felt 70 years from home, with blue eyes full of eagerness and fire fixed on him.

He spent all these years, all this time, trying to find a sense of peace. Trying to build a life.

Maybe all he needed to do was realize he’d already done it.

He didn’t need to swim in the gulf, or watch a sunrise on earth again.

All he needed was a cup of coffee, a moonlight sail, a candlelit dinner usually interrupted by blaring klaxons.

He was already home.

“Chakotay?” Kathryn tips her head, looking quizzical as she catches him lost in his daydream.

“Sorry. Just thinking.”

“I know the waiting must be terribly difficult. I wish we could send you back now, but B’Elanna says it's essential to be close to the temporal imprint to avoid non congruent displacement. It's safer if you wait until you’ve gone back to Caretaker.”

He nods. “I know. It's not that. This whole experience…it just makes a person think.”

She waits a beat, then gently asks, “Think about what?”

“The choices we make. The mistakes. How our entire lives can change so dramatically in a single instant.” So many moments. So many near misses.

It can’t be too late.

“It's probably best we don’t generally know our future. Can you imagine knowing how every choice you make would impact your lives for years to come? We’d never be able to be spontaneous, to feel free. That’s a heavy burden. And so many of the greatest things in life are a result of something unexpected.”

Like this woman, he thinks. Sent to capture him, destined to save him.

“You’re right. I feel that way about Voyager. We didn’t ask to be stranded years from home, but the experience isn’t one I would trade.”

This version of Kathryn probably thinks he’s out of his mind for saying it. Back then, they still hoped daily that they might make it home. There was an urgency, a single-minded belief that they would, of course, set foot on Earth again.

This Kathryn doesn’t know that, the day she gave the order to destroy the array, she bound a ship full of souls together for life. They became allies, then friends, then a family.

She gives him a crooked smile, one he remembers so well it shakes him. “You know, I believe you. The look in your eyes right now, I can see the love you have for these people.”

“It's not just for them.”

It's out of his mouth so fast he wonders how he’s never said it before. Now, looking at her. Feeling too much. He can’t possibly hold it back.

“Chakotay…'' She breathes his name as much as says it, the edges softened and lingering. He’s lightheaded again, and this time it's not just from adrenaline.

God damn it.

The next time he sees her, she will barely know his name. She won’t know that they’re about to become everything, and nothing, to one another.

He can’t bear to leave some things unsaid anymore.

“There are going to be times in the next 6 years where you wonder if you made me stay out of guilt or duty. If you ruined all our lives by stranding us here-” he sees the flicker of self-reproach in her eyes, and it makes his voice ring louder, more certain. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Everyday. If I’m too damn stupid to see it sometimes, don’t you ever, ever doubt it. I chose this, Kathryn. And I'd choose it, I'd choose you, all over again.”

She’s speechless, staring at him. And he feels like an idiot because he’s never had the courage to just say a handful of words to her that would have made all the difference.

You're all I need.
What we have is enough.
I choose you.
I love you.
Always.

Maybe he justified his silence over the years by telling himself she’d never sleep with him, never allow herself a relationship with him.

But maybe just saying the words would have been enough. Just so that she would know with absolute certainty of what she meant, still means to him.

Maybe then they wouldn’t have lost their way.

At least the words wouldn’t have festered in his chest, fueled the anger and the bitterness that turned him inside out and then, eventually, turned him against her. The truth would have been enough.

The love was already there anyway.

It's more intense this time, the sensation that seems to explode in his chest. His knees hit the carpet, and Kathryn’s beside him in an instant. He’s fighting to stay conscious, it's all happening so much faster this time.

He feels Kathryn pull his head to her shoulder, his weight sagging against her small frame as she wraps her arms around him. She’s so slight beside him, but so strong.

“Thank you, for staying with this crew. For staying with me.” she says quietly, her fingers stroking his hair.

“Easiest choice I’ve ever made."

He’s drowning in her scent and the darkness. There’s a part of him that knows that this next time jump will be not only the last, but the hardest. Not just because that Kathryn will hardly know him, and certainly won’t trust him.

It's because it could be the last time he feels this breath of hope. The chance that not all futures are carved in stone.

He’s not sure he’s ready to face it.

Chapter Text

He feels the shimmer of a transport beam around him this time, then the familiar landscape of Voyager’s bridge fills his vision. He catches a glimpse of Harry, then Tom.

But judging by the way they are looking at him, his presence is not just unexpected. It's unwelcome.

Then he sees Tuvok on one side of him. Ayala to the other.

And he knows exactly when he is.

It's the first moment, the first time, his feet touched Voyager. The first step on a journey that he thought would be his damnation, and instead it saved him in every possible way. He didn’t know it then, couldn’t possibly have.

The only thing he knew for sure was that suddenly, inexplicably, everything had shifted.

He doesn’t raise a weapon to Tom Paris this time, though he does take a moment to notice the other man’s quizzical expression. Tom’s eyes flick up and down his body, appraising. Chakotay swears internally when he realizes why.

He’s just beamed aboard an enemy ship dressed in a dirty, worn Starfleet command uniform.

Oh, and he’s aged seven years.

And standing in front of him, with blue eyes filled with absolute fury despite her calm exterior, is a woman he’d know anywhere.

Kathryn.

“Planning to take over my ship, Mr. Chakotay? I can assure you that you’re outmanned and outgunned.” Her voice is deadly quiet. “I thought I made it clear we were only to discuss finding our missing people.”

He knows how this must look. The audacity of coming here dressed in command red after agreeing to work together, especially given his history, makes him cringe. Could he look like any more of a traitor?

This Kathryn is younger, less seasoned, but she still doesn’t suffer any fools.

He figures he has about twenty seconds before she blasts him.

He’s exhausted, desperate, worn thin from a constant battering of realizations after being tossed through time and space. This Kathryn only knows him as a traitor to the federation, a wanted man. There’s no history of friendship and camaraderie to fall back on. She has absolutely no reason to believe a single thing he says.

And he has a handful of hours to convince her that he needs her help.

Again.

There isn’t really even a conscious decision, only a reaction. With the eyes of the crew on him, he falls to his knees, hands raised, his eyes still steady on hers.

“I put this uniform back on the day you handed it to me. The day you asked me to follow your command on Voyager,” There’s a gasp from somewhere on the bridge, but he doesn’t look around to see where.

“Cap-” Ayala’s quiet objection sounds in his ears. He imagines Mike is confused as hell about what’s going on here too.

Chakotay doesn’t hear the rest of it because he’s suddenly only aware of the invisible current traveling between himself and the woman who is staring him down with an intensity that, if he weren’t already on his knees, would have brought him there. It's as if the very air around them turns alive and humming with an electricity only they can feel.

Kathryn must feel it too, he realizes. Her lips part and he sees her eyes widen slightly. Something like shock passes through her face, and he sees the effort it takes her to remain steady.

“If I may, Captain, this is not the Chakotay who left the Val Jean with us.” It's Tuvok’s voice that cuts through the depth of the moment. Chakotay blinks as if he’s coming out of a dream, focusing on the Vulcan’s voice.

Shaking his head, he recovers. “He’s right, Captain. I’m the same man, but not the one they left the ship with.” He glances down at his uniform, then back at Kathryn. “It's a long story, but it starts here. And it ends seven years from now.”

“Seven years?” she asks, her tone filled with skepticism. “I suppose you’re a time traveler?”

Clearly this Kathryn has no idea what the Delta Quadrant has in store for them, and the wealth to temporal headaches that are to follow. That thought nearly makes him smile despite the tension of the moment.

He lowers his hands slowly, “Yes. Seven years from now something happens that brings me back here. To Caretaker. Tom and Tuvok can certainly vouch for the fact that I’m clearly physically older.”

Tom seems startled that he’s being met with words instead of his fist, and stammers a bit on his response, “You do seem to have put on a little weight.”

He stops himself from telling this Tom that he too is carrying a few extra pounds by the time they dock at McKinley Station. Smart ass.

Kathryn doesn’t look convinced, but some of the anger has faded from her face, replaced with a curiosity that gives him hope. She’s never met a puzzle she wasn’t desperate to solve. This one, he hopes, won’t outwit them all.

Chakotay pulls in a deep breath, “You trusted me enough once to give me this uniform. To ask me to follow you. Trust me again.”

Please.

She cocks her head at him, rocking back on her heels. God, he thinks, she’s so damn strong. Hours ago this woman realized she lost a significant portion of her crew after having her ship pulled into the far reaches of space. Now she’s attempting a rescue mission on an unknown planet, and trying to find a way to get them all home.

Is it any wonder he knew from the start he’d walk through fire for her?

“Lieutenant Tuvok. Escort Mr. Chakotay to my ready room.”

He lets out the breath he’s been holding in and braces a hand on his knee to rise to his feet.

“We’re going to need an engineer, and mine is currently unavailable.” Chakotay knows B’Elanna is on Occampa now, and there’s no chance they will get her and Harry back in time.

Kathryn nods. “Get Carey too.”

*************************

Carey’s no Torres, but he’s a fine engineer. He squints at the PADD in his hand, periodically shooting a suspicious glance in Chakotay’s direction. Not that Chakotay blames him.

“These calibrations are extremely detailed, Captain. I’ll need to reroute power, circumvent the gel packs and tap into the transport modulator.” Carey shakes his head slowly, “It's going to take time.”

“Take anyone you need who isn’t currently working on locating Ensign Kim. I’ll join you shortly.” Even as she dismisses Carey, she makes no move to leave herself. Instead, she shifts her hip and folds her arms in a way that means she's settling in for a verbal siege.

Clearly, there are things she intends to say.

Carey exits the ready room in short order, eyes still fixed PADD he carries. It's difficult to watch him walk away. Chakotay keeps remembering seeing him, still and pale, after his body came back from the Friendship One mission. Despite their rocky start, Carey had become a good friend, and he was an outstanding officer. They’d lost people, but his death had hit the hardest. Especially for Kathryn.

He wonders if it was the moment they both truly gave up. On getting home. On surviving.

On each other.

Now that they’re alone, Kathryn turns her full attention to him, and the intensity of her gaze feels like it burns his skin. He can’t even begin to imagine all the questions she has, or the concerns about aiding a possible terrorist. Even after sharing the data from the combadge with her, he’s not completely sure she believes all of his story.

He's not even sure he believes it himself.

“So…you serve under me? You and the entire crew of the Val Jean? That’s hard to believe having read your file.”

“At first it was out of necessity. Then loyalty. Then by choice. Not one of us regretted it,” he says simply. They’d become a united front. A family.

Her next words hit straight to the heart of what he’s been most afraid of.

“If Carey can’t make this work, you’ll have to relive it all. All these years. The plan you brought, the idea, is sound, but you said there’s not much time.”

Live it all again. Seven years.

“That seems to be a theme for me. There’s never enough time,” he murmurs half to himself. His heart clenches at the memory of her walking away from him that day at McKinley.

Not enough time.

Too much time.

Kathryn gives him a quizzical look.

“Nevermind.”

“I need to help Carey, but I wanted to talk to you first. For some reason I have a feeling we do that a lot.”

“We do." He nearly smiles at that, warmed by the memories. 

“So we spend seven years traveling through hostile, uncharted space. We merge our crews. We become allies and, according to you, friends. Then we make it home. Do I have that right?”

It's so much more than that, he wants to tell her. Its dinners and laughter and dancing on the holodeck and drinking too much at Sandrine’s. It's the smell of battle on the bridge, the jolt of an attack and the sound of the klaxons. It's the thrill of being alive, the friendships, the bonds that grow deeper with every passing year. It's looking into her eyes one day and seeing his future reflected back at him.

Then it's one mistake. Then another. The fights and the yelling and the cursing when he storms out of her ready room mad as all hell. And the silence of his quarters as she refuses to follow him. The betrayal. The losses.

Seven years.

“I think you know it's more than that," he lays his emotions bare in the timbre of his voice, the look in his eyes.

“I do. I’m not sure how. It doesn’t make any sense," she murmurs, her arms uncrossing slowly as she stares at him.

That connection, that feeling, flows between them again. As if seven years have gone by in a heartbeat, and yet no time has passed at all.

“Do you have any regrets? Anything we should have done?” she asks.

It's such an intrinsically Kathryn thing to ask. She has fewer laugh lines around her eyes, and more emotion flitting across her face. She's idealistic and stubborn, reckless and a little unsure. He used to remember her like this, how she was during the early years of their journey. He used to wish for this.

But as he looks at her, really looks, he realizes the truth.

He doesn’t want this Kathryn, who’s younger and bright-eyed, who wears her emotions more plainly, sees everything in black and white, and has a confidence unfettered by the punishing weight of the Delta Quadrant. He cares about her, loves her even.

But he doesn’t want to build a life with her.

He wants the woman who laid her hand on his arm on McKinley station, both of them weary and drained, wearing the blemishes of their mistakes and their decisions like scars on their skin. Like scars on their hearts. He wants to untangle the mess they’ve made of the present, and weave their future from what remains.

Because each pebble in the stream makes a ripple, each moment leaves a mark on our souls.

And we are all a product of all the days we’ve lived before.

He can’t rewrite those days, or wish them away. In truth, he wouldn't want to. Whether it ends in the two of them falling together or falling apart, he supposes he’ll find out soon enough.

“Not one.”

Something in her face wavers between hope and fear, but her combadge sounds a moment later, breaking the spell between them.

“I’ll need Mr. Chakotay to sickbay immediately. The procedure requires information I am to obtain directly from him.”

Kathryn nods as she presses her commbadge to answer. “He’ll be on his way.” She pauses, “I’ll meet you in the transporter room?”

“See you then.”

*********************

He doesn’t know if he’s ready for any of this. The past. The future.

An EMH who hasn’t yet begun to discover some semblance of humility and tact.

“I’m going to check DNA for molecular stability. Then I’ll need a stardate to imprint at the mitochondrial level. If all goes well you won’t be vaporized into infinitesimal particles.” The EMH states cheerfully.

“Great. Go ahead.”

The scans are quick and painless. Data from the device in his arm, a quick blood draw. He hops off the biobed and has his shirt half over his head with the hologram speaks

"The stardate, Mr. Chakotay?" The EMH prompts, tapping on a screen with lightning precision.

For a moment he's confused.

"A stardate?"

"To imprint on the DNA."

With all the data sent back, how would Kathryn have missed including that? It doesn't seem possible. "You don’t have it?"

A long, irritated sigh. "No. These instructions specifically say to obtain it from you."

He has to choose.

And Kathryn made sure he was given that choice.

Is it some kind of message? A sign that she thinks he might be happier in another life? That she would be happier?

He knows that the timelines have splintered. Regardless of what he chooses, other lives are rushing forward without any regard for what he does in the next several minutes. He’s probably already changed dozens of lives, maybe hundreds. Some for the better. Some likely for the worse.

Which one does he want for himself?

He knows the answer. Or at least, he thinks he does. It's not the easiest one, and it's probably not the one that will come with the happiest ending. But it's the one he needs to see through.

There’s one thing though. One debt he won’t leave here without repaying.

“Hey Doc, could I ask you for one favor…?”

**************

As much as he wants to be of some help, Kathryn orders him to stand in the middle of the transport pad while she and Carey set to work. He’s honestly not sure if it's because she’s not sure they will be able to control the timing of the beam, or because she doesn’t want him messing this up. Both seem likely.

Even after being a personal witness to technological feats they’ve managed on Voyager, this one feels like a stretch. It might just be that, for once, it's not B’Elanna who’s leaning over the console in the transport room, putting in some final calibrations. Or it might just be that this really seems crazy.

Then again, what choice does he have?

If he’s honest, there’s an element of morbid curiosity to the concept of living these years over with the knowledge he has now. Similar to a chance to play god. To control the fates.

Maybe, a chance to get it right.

Kathryn’s standing nearby, periodically calling out numbers to Carey as she twists a hyperspanner in an open panel on the transporter. There’s a light sheen of sweat on her forehead, and a few stray pieces of hair have drifted out of her updo and curl around her cheeks. Because he can, he takes a moment just to stare at her.

She must feel his eyes because she looks up, and he doesn’t miss the color that stains her cheeks.

“We’re nearly done. Lieutenant Carey is just checking the frequency of the beam, making sure it will target the mitochondria within each of your cells without doing any other damage during the transplant. Someone should be here soon with the transplant plasma.”

Of course he already knows the plan, Kathryn doesn’t need to say it out loud. Maybe she’s nervous. He certainly is.

“So then we move close to the rift created by Caretaker, right? You hit the transporter and I’m out of here. Hopefully seven years in the future.” Because she seems to need reassurance, he spells out the rest of the process. Saying it makes it feel as though this might actually work.

Ensign Wildman arrives a moment later, carrying a bag of gelatinous looking clear liquid. She gives him a wary glance when he smiles at her. Part of him wishes he could offer her a word of comfort for the fear he knows lays just ahead of her. He wants to tell her that her daughter will be just fine, and will grow into an exceptional young woman. Somehow, Samantha will navigate motherhood with a steadiness that will amaze all of them, in spite of their circumstances.

“Here, Captain. The EMH says he’s a marvel of modern technology to produce this on such short notice, but also wants me to tell you the data was impeccable. He’d like to meet the person who did the research.”

Chakotay chuckles quietly to himself. Oh, he’ll meet B’Elanna all right. And will go toe to toe with her more times than he can count.

“Thank you, “ Kathryn goes back to the panel and begins hooking up various tubing to the liquid, “The beam will swap out the suspended DNA in here for yours. Hopefully. How much do you trust this research?”

“With my life. B’Elanna’s the best engineer I’ve ever known, and you helped considerably. If I had to pick two people to entrust with my life, it would be the two of you.”

There’s a brief pause while she tugs deftly on the tubing, seeming satisfied with the results. Kathryn braces both hands on her knees and pushes to stand, then turns to face him. “Ready?”

Now, standing on the transport pad and counting down the seconds until he’s sent hurtling through time and space again, the answer terrifies him. What if he’s wrong? What if this choice becomes the greatest mistake he’s ever made?

What if he's already made it?

“Are you alright?” There’s a gentle hand on his shoulder, a touch that shakes him to his core. Kathryn’s looking at him with concern and a little confusion.

“I - There are so many things I wish I could tell you.” He wants to reach for her, but keeps his hands at his sides. “But I have to believe you’re going to find them out anyway. Eventually. I have to believe I’ll tell you.”

Before it's too late.

“Ready, Captain. The ship is approaching the Caretaker.” Carey doesn’t look as confident as Chakotay would like, but there’s no going back.

“Looks like that’s my cue to go.”

Kathryn’s hand slips from his shoulder and he can’t help but grab it in his one last time. If he ends up as a pile of space dust after all this he at least wants her to know one thing.

“That first moment on the bridge, I knew something had changed. I just looked at you and that was it. That was all it took.” He swallows hard, strokes his thumb over the soft inside of her wrist.

All those years ago, this was what he felt in his heart. Every beat, every breath, every stumbling step on the path he had been walking with unsteady feet suddenly turned toward a pair of blue eyes and a sense of purpose he’d never known before. Maybe he should have told her from the first moment.

He was hers.

She steps back and he lets her go, but the way she’s holding his gaze makes his pulse beat wildly in his ears. There’s no mistaking that she feels it too.

The ship slows, and he hears the confirmation from the bridge that they’re in line with the rift. It's now or never.

“On my mark. Ten seconds to transport.” Kathryn looks at Carey and he gives her a confirming nod.

Whatever this journey has been, it's about to be over. He's on the precipice of the beginning or the end, and suddenly it feels just like that first moment on the bridge. He looks at Kathryn, his throat too tight to say the words he knows this version of her isn’t ready to hear, even though he knows she can read it all on his face. To his surprise, she doesn’t look away.

“Two seconds, Captain.”

“What changed?’ she asks him quietly. There’s only one way to answer her, and the words fall from his lips just as she gives the command for transport.

“Everything.”

Chapter Text

It feels as if he’s splitting apart, pain swelling in his chest and shattering outward through his limbs. There’s no darkness this time. No feeling of slipping into a gentle void.

Instead there are blinding lights that remind him of a meteor shower, flaring and brilliant and too quick to focus on any one spot for more than a second. He can’t really see anything, and he feels as if he’s falling…until a moment later it's as if all gravity stops and everything around him goes utterly still.

He’s aware of every thumping beat of his own heart, the ragged sound of his breath in his ears. For a moment, he wonders if this is what the instant before death feels like, this hyper-awareness. Maybe he hasn’t survived after all.

Then, the images begin to play out in front of him. Blurry and slow at first. Then faster and faster, until they’re flashing by so quickly he can hardly absorb each one before the next wrenches its way to his vision.

They’re the futures. The timelines he left behind.

There’s a moonlit sail that ends with a kiss under a starry sky, instead of a hesitant embrace and wish for more.

On the last day on New Earth, they make a different choice. In one year, if they feel the same way, they’ll try this. And then they do.

After the shadows of Davinci’s study, they make a promise to each other not to let anything divide them again. A few months later they make another promise, surrounded by the people who have become their family.

After Sullivan, Kathryn doesn’t seek out Fair Haven again. Instead, they build their own holodeck program, one of Rome in the spring, and he takes her there the first time they make love.

After he returns from the shattered timelines, and they work through that last bottle of cider, he offers her his heart and his hand. And she takes them both.

But not every path ends in happiness. Not even a second chance means a paradise found.

In some timelines, there’s no joyous return home. They don’t deal with Borg, there’s no Admiral to return to save them. People die. Wars are waged. In one, they fight so fiercely their friendship withers and dies. In another, Kathryn sends his casket into space while the stars of the Beta Quadrant shine around her, and her hair is streaked with gray.

There’s no guarantee, he realizes, of a perfect ending. Not even when you know the future.

You have to make your own.

It's never too late.

****************

There’s a feeling of coming back together, then falling…then a bone-rattling thud as his body meets with something hard and solid.

It's the floor.

His eyes pop open and he sees utilitarian gray walls. A pile of discarded clothes on the floor.

And the stars of the Alpha Quadrant shining through the window.

Chakotay twists and scrambles up to sitting, looking rapidly around the room to assure himself of what he already knows. Somehow, despite the odds and the sheer impossibility of what happened, B’Elanna and Carey and Kathryn have pulled off a miracle.

He’s back.

For a solid minute he just sits on the floor, bracing his back against the bedframe and drawing air into his lungs. His heart is still hammering in his chest, adrenaline rushing fast and hot through his body as he remembers one image after another. Lives he nearly lived. Chances he almost took.

And now…

What?

“Computer, what day is it?” he calls out in a voice that’s still not steady.

The answer shocks him. He hasn’t lost any time. Not a week. Not even a day. It's as if he just fell into bed after Kathryn left him in the hallway. The realization that roars through him makes him leap to his feet, galvanized.

It's not too late.

Not for what he wants to do, what he needs to do. If he’s learned one thing from this journey through time and trial it's that the words kept inside are the ones that somehow hurt the most. Even if it doesn’t change a thing between them, he can still give her the truth. Just the way he should have done all those times before.

He hits the hallway at a sprint, and crashes directly into Seven.

“Shit, Seven. I’m sorry-”

Her expression is part shock and part confusion as she steadies herself and takes a step away from him. That’s when he remembers the sight that he must be.

His uniform is filthy and torn, and a quick hand through his hair confirms his belief in its unruliness. He’s certain the desperation shows on his face, and he’s probably giving off an air of being slightly unhinged. It's the look of a man who’s been to hell and back.

“What has happened to you?” Seven asks, eyebrows arched in shock.

How does he begin to explain it all to her? He’s speechless, swaying slightly on his feet as all words seem to escape him. Days wouldn’t be enough to say it all. Maybe weeks.

But it all comes down to one thing.

The truth.

“You were right. This -” he gestures from himself to her, “isn’t going to work.”

For the first time in days, he sees relief light up her eyes, and he can’t escape how guilty it makes him feel. This woman is relieved he’s ending things. God, how self-absorbed has he been? He’s refused to listen to her very real concerns, and stormed ahead under the mantle of this relationship because…

He doesn’t even really know why.

Maybe because he wanted to move on. Maybe because he does care for Seven, just not the same way he cares for Kathryn. Maybe because, for the first time in his adult life, he was faced with the actual reality of a relationship that had some weight to it, some depth. Something beyond sex and fun and a way to pass his time between missions. And it was terrifying both in the prospect of having it, and of never getting the chance. Nothing between him and Kathryn had ever been simple.

But maybe that's what makes it worth fighting for.

“No, it isn’t. But we can still be friends, correct? I would find that a much better alternative.”

She’s hopeful and so earnest. There are so many things he wants for Seven, and one of them is a partner who sees her as more than a lifeline in a turbulent sea. He knows now that’s what she was for him, a last chance at some kind of happiness. It was less than either of them deserved.

He manages a smile and nods his head. “Yes, we can. I’d like that.”

They make a promise to meet over lunch the next day. Seven has some questions about the options she’s exploring for research or service in Starfleet, and he’s grateful she trusts him enough to seek his advice. Hopefully, she finds hers footing quickly and smoothly here. No one deserves it more than she does.

The moment Seven walks away he feels the thumping rhythm of his heart beneath his ribs again. He’s not sure he’s ever been this nervous in his life. There haven’t been many things over the years that have truly terrified him.

But the moment he rings Kathryn’s chime he’s very nearly shaking.

“Come in.”

He counts to 10. Takes a deep breath. Prays that somehow he hasn’t escaped the past just to watch his future crumble under the weight of missed chances.

He’s not ready for how Kathryn looks as she rises from the sofa to greet him. For the last year he’s rarely seen her out of uniform, occasionally with her jacket discarded. It was as if she needed that armor, that strength, as the journey grew longer and home grew dimmer. There had been no time for all the other parts of her.

But here, now, it's as if everything has changed.

And, just like seven years ago, the ground seems to move under his unsteady feet.

She’s wearing simple academy sweats, probably replicated since all their possessions are still aboard Voyager, and her hair is still damp from the shower or, he bets, a bath. Her face is free of makeup, and despite the shadows under eyes, she’s more beautiful than he’s ever seen her.

She quite literally takes his breath away.

Until the alarm registers in her face.

“What in the hell happened to you?!”

Kathryn’s on him in a flash, her hands running over his torn uniform. It's a quick, efficient appraisal of injury, one she’s done a hundred times before. But in his current state just the feeling of her hands makes his head spin.

“Are you hurt? Chakotay answer me.” She gives his shoulders a shake, ducking her head to peer up into his face. When he wavers a little she widens her stance, bracing to keep him upright.

“I’m fine. I think.” he pauses, gathering his courage. “Nervous.”

“Nervous? Chakotay I don’t understand-” He can see her debating if she should call for help. But this time of confessions and truths needs to be between just the two of them, so he presses ahead while trying to reassure her.

“Just call it a little dose of reality. After I saw you earlier, in the hallway, I realized some things. Important things."

“About what?” There’s a wariness now in her face that tugs at his heart.

How many times has he missed how vulnerable she can be under all the steel? It's often the strongest hearts that feel the deepest, and hurt the most.

He’s not sure when his hands found her waist, or her palms stilled against his chest, but there they are. It's as close to holding her this way as he’s ever been.

And it makes him gloriously brave.

“About you. And how stupid I’ve been. How much I missed,” he sighs, “I don’t want to miss anything else.”

There’s a flicker of something in her eyes. Hope? God he wants it to be hope. The same hope that’s beating against his ribs, twisting his gut.

“I wanted to tell you on New Earth how I felt about you, but I was too nervous. Too afraid,” he murmurs, and he sees the shock register on her face. Shock, but not dismay, and she doesn’t make an effort to step away. “I should have gone after you that night in Fair Haven, told you that there was a flesh and blood man right here who wanted to give you everything you wanted.”

He hears the sharp intake of breath. “That was a long time ago.”

Was it? He can still see the sunlight in her hair. Smell the scent of the earth. Feel her hand tight in his on the riverbank. The past and the future run together…and the only constant is how desperately he still loves her.

“It was, but it hasn’t changed. Some things just never change. You remember that night we drank the last of the cider? I wanted to kiss you then. You were so gorgeous, I was having a hard time breathing around you,” In truth, he’s having a bit of a hard time with that now.

He can feel the tremble that races through her, then echoes in his own body.

“It's not too late, Kathryn.”

She gives her head a quick shake, and he sees her try to reign in the emotion that’s swirling in her eyes. “What are you talking about? Too late for what? Jesus, you’re bleeding-”

“I’m fine. Better than I’ve been in a long time.”

He draws his arms around her waist, and eases her close. At first he feels her flustered surprise, her confusion at what he’s trying to do. Then her eyes go wide and fix on his, and her body stills in his arms.

“What are you doing?”

“What I’ve wanted to do with you for seven years. If you’ll have me. Something I still want to do, very much.” She feels so right in his arms, like she fits there. The front of their bodies brush as he pulls her closer, one hand stroking up her back. “Can I hold you?”

“I didn’t think-” there’s a small hitch in her breath that cuts off her words, and it sends a ripple of excitement through his body. “We can’t-”

“We can. If you want to.” He brushes his nose across hers , and feels her body relax against him. “I’ve loved you for so long, Kathryn, and I never said it. I thought you knew. It was such a big part of me I didn’t know how you couldn’t. But now, I realize I should have given you the words.”

“Chakotay-” Her fingers are inching up his chest to his shoulders, and he desperately hopes she’ll link them behind his neck. She settles a little more of her weight against him, leaning in. It feels deliriously good, intoxicating, and god he wants her. He wants to make her knees go weak, her eyes drift closed. He wants to give her everything he has. All that he is.

He’s always been hers anyway.

“I love you. Only you.”

“But Seven-”

“I’m not. We’re not.” He shakes his head. “We never could be.”

“What happened to you?” she asks again. She sounds dazed, but her arms are around his neck now, and he can feel her breath on his mouth. He wishes he could pull her inside him, wrap himself up in her scent and her nearness until the slate between them is wiped clean. He never wants to be any farther from her than this.

“It's a long story, and I’m happy to tell you. But, can I kiss you first?” He’s so close when he says the words their mouths are nearly touching. She breathes in, and he doesn’t dare to breathe at all.

It's not too late. This is their time. Their moment.

And then, after seven years of almosts and not enoughs and too much…

She kisses him.

And, god, he’s so damn thankful.

When he falls into her kiss this time, it feels different than before. There’s no limit to the joy rushing through him, no hesitance in the way his mouth opens for hers. They surrender to each other in turn, and the beauty of it wrecks him.

Maybe this is why they needed to have this future. To make it to this moment.

And he can’t possibly imagine wanting anything other than this.

He keeps her body anchored to his, but moves one hand up to cup her cheek. He wants to savor this, savor her. Her taste, the delicious sighs she’s making, the way she fits against him like she was always meant to be there. He wants to live in this moment that they almost didn’t have, and make it last until there’s no doubt it won’t be their last one.

She angles her head back, and he can’t help but steal one more soft kiss before meeting her eyes. There’s a softness to her face he hasn’t seen in years, a happiness that bounces from her eyes to the smile that slowly grows her lips.

“I love you too.”

He’s waited so long to hear her say it. Seven years. Maybe a lifetime. He pulls her in again, embarrassingly close to tears from both the declaration and the sheer exhaustion brought on by his ordeal.

It's not too late.

It's just the beginning.

She pulls back again, cupping his face in her hands and giving him that scrutinizing look that means she won’t be satisfied until she has an answer.

“Now. What happened?”

***************

He shares the story with her, and then follows Kathryn to her bedroom to share much more than words. There’s a part of him that still can’t quite believe it's Kathryn who’s curled on his chest. He feels more relaxed, more content, than he can ever remember being, watching the slow rise and fall of her body as it moves with his breath.

He’d live seven years again, if it meant getting to this moment.

Even though he’s floating in a haze of satisfaction, he can feel the pensive tension in her body. After a few moments, she asks him.

“You had the chance to change your entire future. Make it whatever you wanted. And you still chose this one.” Kathryn shifts to face him, her body draped over his as she folds her arms over his chest and rests her chin on them. “Why?”

Looking at her now, he sees the glimmer of uncertainty in her eyes. It reminds him that they still have a long way to go before they reach the life that’s been forming in the back of his mind. Still, he’s confident they’ll get there.

Chakotay reaches up, brushes a thumb over her cheek, “Because everytime I went back, every time I saw a different version of you, I just wanted to get back to this one,” he sighs, feeling the weight of the memories, “It was hard, seeing everything I could have done. Should have done. I’m sorry for that.”

“We both have things to be sorry for.”

“I just knew that if this was ever going to work, it had to be here. We can’t run from our mistakes, and I couldn’t just pretend I’d had no part in where we ended up. And-” he leans up to touch his mouth to hers, “If you love someone, it's never too late to tell them.”

“You seem pretty sure I’d fall into your arms.” A smile quirks on her lips, one that brings a ripple of delight to his belly. He hopes he has years, decades even, of making her smile during lazy mornings in bed.

“I hoped.”

Her blue eyes turn serious, “I love you. And thank you…for choosing this.”

There will be time for words. For choices. Now, suddenly, there’s an open horizon of possibilities between the two of them, and for the first time he doesn’t fear what it holds. The feeling of rightness is overwhelming as he lies here, with the woman he loves in his arms. And he’s thankful for every moment that led to this one.

He wraps his arms around her securely, and brings her in tight against his heart.

It's never too late.

*************

In another visitor’s quarters down the hall a message comes through for another weary crew member on Voyager.

It's that ripple in the stream, the one pebble Chakotay tossed to repay a debt that had led him back home. One life saved.

And Joe Carey has tears in his eyes when he tells his wife he’s finally coming home.