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A clear night was not a common occurrence this time of year. The stars from the vantage of their small cabin were an incredible sight and not one to be missed, when the opportunity presented itself.
Some nights, like tonight, a brilliant nebula of red and gold brightened the sky to the south east. Chakotay had nicknamed it the ‘roaring lion’, though it didn’t look so much like its namesake. Still it was a breathtaking sight, one they enjoyed whenever it was available.
After their first four months here, once Kathryn had finally realised their hope for cure or rescue was slim at best, they began their stargazing. They would pull a couple of chairs from the cabin and sit together, watching the clear night sky.
At first they merely enjoyed the view and were content to sit in silence watching various chunks of spatial debris shoot across their vision like drops of paint on the ocean.
The minerals making their ‘shooting stars’ varied wildly, causing wonderful colour combinations; copper, various silicates and magnesium created green, reds and blues. Sometimes the same debris would contain numerous minerals, all of which burned at different temperatures and created a wonderful display, like their own personal fireworks.
When there was no debris they would watch the stars themselves.
After a time they began to name the constellations. Each time Chakotay would craft a story about the cluster’s origin and why it was named thus.
Some stories became an epic tale of adventure and romance and boundless possibility. Others were terribly sad stories of love and loss, or light-hearted fancies, designed to lift her spirits.
Chakotay’s penchant for story-telling knew no bounds. Kathryn quickly became convinced that he’d missed his calling.
Their friendship grew as time wore on. All the while Kathryn tried desperately to convince herself that she hadn’t fallen for him.
She’d thought her affections nothing more than her need for companionship. He was, after all, the last man on New Earth. But she learned, eventually, that he’d taken root in her heart long before they became trapped here.
Her affections had little to do with the fact that they had so much in common. Well, that wasn’t exactly true; they had a great deal in common: their taste in literature and hobbies to name a couple of things. Even their courses at the Academy had been almost exactly the same - had they not been two years apart they’d likely have been in all the same classes. Her affections ran deeper than all of that. It was the way he cared, not just about her, but about the Voyager crew, when they’d been with the ship. It was his cheeky sense of humour and the way he was more than willing to take as much as he received. It was the way he’d consoled her once she’d made the heart-breaking realisation that they wouldn’t be leaving the planet. And it was the way he smiled at her, like no one else in the universe existed.
She still didn’t jump headfirst into a relationship, though. She took her time, returning kindnesses he’d showed to her in the beginning. For one, she learned to cook and surprised him one afternoon with a marvellous mushroom and feta risotto. He’d been thoroughly impressed, even more so once he tasted the dish.
She also found seeds from a wild flower he’d taken a liking to and planted them all around the area. He’d had no idea until the flowers bloomed later in the month. Red, white and grey flowers sprouted up like tiny tiger faces. They were a spectacular sight, until Kathryn realised that, en mass as they were, they spread a dusting of strange grey pollen that got into everything. Eventually they’d had to remove them, though Chakotay appreciated the gesture nonetheless.
Her last surprise, a gift more akin to his talents, came after she watched him using a small hand-held spyglass to look at the sky. They only had a standard replicator, so creating anything larger would not be feasible. So Kathryn found plans for a telescope in the shuttle’s database, improved them and spent three months crafting the thing by hand – though she replicated the glass.
The gift was ready for his first birthday on New Earth. When she’d presented it to him he’d taken her in his arms and kissed her. The tenderness of his embrace, the softness of his lips and the warmth of his body combined to create one of the most wonderful moments of her life.
At first she’d been stunned and he’d been apologetic and embarrassed, but then she pulled him to her and returned his kiss with as much love as she could convey with lips and tongue and hands.
They’d been here for little over eight years since she gave him the telescope and they hadn’t spent a night alone.
Tonight they watched the stars as they often did, alone in their own thoughts, but comfortable in their silence. They’d been out here for two hours together, reclining in two foldout chairs, sipping wine and watching the clouds pass by.
Kathryn’s thoughts wandered, as they often did, to Voyager and their progress. She never meant to speak of them, but her mouth seemed to have a mind of its own. “What do you think they’re doing?”
Chakotay knew exactly who she was talking about, from the thoughtful look that passed his features. He glanced to her before returning his gaze to the stars, seemingly pondering the question. “They’re home,” he answered, sounding certain.
She smiled at that, at the thought that her crew had finally made it to Earth.
Chakotay wasn’t finished of course. He took a sip of his drink before continuing to embellish their story for her. “Yes, they discovered a wormhole in their – fifth year.”
“Their fifth year,” she gasped. “That’s a long time alone out here. How’d they fair?” She’d always done this when he’d told his stories; given him more to feed off or asked questions to prompt him further.
“They had their losses, of course,” he said sadly.
She knew it to be true; it’d be a miracle if they made it home with no further casualties. That didn’t lesson the sting of his words though. She closed her eyes allowing herself a commiserating moment’s silence for anyone who might have fallen during Voyager’s journey.
“But they also had a rich and wonderful life. Couples started forming among the crew,” he went on. “Others broke up. Some members of the crew stayed behind on planets, having fallen in love with a local, and inversely some aliens joined their crew, to be with someone they’d fallen for.”
“Sounds romantic,” Kathryn gushed.
He gave a short laugh.
“Tell me specifics, what happened to Harry?” she pressed.
He leaned back in his chair taking another sip of his drink thoughtfully before giving a wonderful smile. “He found love,” Chakotay began. “A woman from a culture who has no music; she heard Harry play his clarinet during the first contact reception and fell head over heels for him.”
Kathryn liked the sounds of that, poetic and wonderful and just what she hoped for the young man.
“He was promoted to Lieutenant and has two children,” Chakotay added.
“I’m happy for him,” Kathryn said with a smile. “What about Neelix and Kes?”
Chakotay cleared his throat. “Unfortunately they didn’t remain together,” he explained.
Kathryn nodded forlornly, she’d expected as much, to be honest.
“Neelix left the ship to pursue a career as a chef at a major trade port, four years into Voyager’s journey.”
“Oh, well. Good for him!” Kathryn exclaimed brightly. She could actually visualise the events as Chakotay described them.
“Kes declined to come with him, desiring to finish her medical degree and become a doctor, which the EMH helped her complete.”
“She’d make a wonderful doctor.” She could see Neelix expressing his desire to stay behind and Kes explaining that her new life was on Voyager.
“And Tuvok?” Kathryn questioned.
“Well, Tuvok was a sturdy leader. He pulled Voyager through some of the toughest scrapes imaginable and was even highly decorated when he returned home,” Chakotay continued. “He was promoted to Captain and Voyager is now officially his.”
“Good, I couldn’t imagine her in anybody else’s hands.”
Chakotay smirked at her reaction before pressing on. He didn’t seem to need more prompting, continuing to describe the lives of the remainder of the senior-staff.
“Tom was promoted to first officer, begrudgingly of course.”
Kathryn snorted a laugh at that.
“But he did a great job, growing up just enough to lead Voyager well – though not so much that he shut down his ration-betting scheme.
“He never gave up the pilot’s chair, though. He didn’t trust anyone to fly half as well as he did – and a good thing too. He saved the ship dozens of times with his swift reactions.”
“That sounds like Tom.” She could almost see the argument between Tom and Tuvok about needing to replace him at conn and Tom’s insistence that he could perform the duties of first officer and fly.
“He also settled down,” Chakotay remarked with a sly grin.
“Tom? I don’t believe it,” Kathryn joked.
He chuckled at her denial. “It’s true. He began dating –” Chakotay tapped his lip as he pondered and then gave a brilliant smile. “Jenny Delaney, a short time after Voyager left us behind.”
Kathryn raised a brow. “Jenny Delaney?”
“Yes, Jenny. She has the same sort of – spirit, you know?”
Kathryn understood. Jenny Delaney seemed to enjoy a party as much as Tom. She was likely one of the few people who could really keep up with him.
“As for B’Elanna.” Chakotay tapped his glass against his lip as though considering what had happened to their fiery chief engineer. “She became one of most highly decorated engineers in Starfleet for her breakthroughs in –” he tugged his ear – “transwarp theory. If Voyager hadn’t returned via the wormhole, she was close to a breakthrough. They’d have made it home with the use of transwarp technology.”
Kathryn nodded as she thought about B’Elanna working diligently on her pet project.
“Well,” Kathryn said wistfully, “I’m glad they made it home.”
Kathryn reclined further into her chair, listening to the sounds around them. Small insects buzzing in the woods nearby almost made her think she was home again. Or perhaps, more accurately, they had become the sound of home.
A comfortable silence fell over them as their thoughts wondered to the lives they’d had before New Earth. Though Kathryn was happy here she missed her family terribly. She missed Voyager and the crew almost as much.
Her eyes flicked to Chakotay whose eyes were fixed on the stars overhead, a sadness lying deep in within. Once upon a time she might not have noticed, but she’d grown to know him so very well.
“What about us?” she asked in an effort to draw him away from his maudlin thoughts. “What would have happened to us if we’d remained aboard Voyager?”
He took another drink before a cheeky smile returned to his lips. Oh how she loved that smile. “Oh, we’d have ended up together.”
“You sound so confident,” she teased lightly
“I was head over heels for you the moment I met you,” he explained.
She ducked her head to hide her delighted smile. “But I was the Captain - professional distance and all,” she reminded him.
He chuckled and turned to face her, taking her hand in his over their arm rests. He brought his lips down to brush her fingers lightly. “And I’m sure –” he said between kisses, “you’d have kept that distance.” He placed her hand back on the rest. “For a while, anyway.”
She sniffed in amusement, but feigned indifference.
“After years –” he frowned. “Months,” he corrected. “Of courting, I’d have won you over.”
“Wow,” she gasped. “You really are confident.”
“And charming,” he added with a blasé flick of his wrist.
She snorted a laugh. “That you are. I’m sure I’d have been eating out of the palm of your hand in no time.”
“Or at least my replicator,” he joked.
She didn’t need to feign affront as she flicked his arm with her fingers. “My cooking is easily as good as yours now.”
He gave a conciliatory nod. “Yes – now.”
Perhaps, had she remained board Voyager, she’d have been less inclined to learn how to cook, but her cooking hadn’t been that bad. “Alright, if you’re so sure of yourself, tell me how it happened?”
He drew a long breath as he considered his next tale. “It was a dangerous away mission, of course,” he told her.
“Of course,” she conceded. When hadn’t their away missions been dangerous?
“I led the first team to – retrieve something stolen from us.”
“A shuttle,” she helped him.
“Right, a shuttle. So, the mission was going well, but just as we were about to reach the alien’s shuttle bay we were caught.”
She sat up, throwing a hand over her mouth and gave a dramatic gasp. “No!”
His eyes narrowed a little, though he was clearly amused by her outburst. “Now you see, Kathryn, I’d already been wooing you.”
She rolled her eyes and snorted at his terminology.
“You’d fallen for me by this stage,” he continued confidently. “Or at the very least you couldn’t live without my cooking.”
She frowned thoughtfully and gave nod of acquiescence which provoked a light chuckle.
“When they threatened to kill the away team members all you could think about was me and how you couldn’t possibly go on, aboard Voyager, without me.”
“That definitely sounds like me, without you I’m like a ship with only one nacelle.”
He gave a genuine smile, baring his beautiful dimples and setting her heart racing. She couldn’t believe that after all these years he could still do that to her.
Clearing his throat he pressed on. “So you threatened to rain down hell upon their planet if I, my team and the shuttle, weren’t returned unharmed.”
She frowned at the callousness with which he’d painted her and he noticed immediately.
“Alright – instead,” he took a sip of his wine again as he pondered re-writing that last bit. “You, against the wishes of Tuvok, headed another away team to rescue us.”
She gave a short nod to indicate that he was on the right track.
“Your skill and determination led you to our team. But we still had to find the shuttle and get out of there.”
“Well of course, we couldn’t very well allow our enemies keep it,” she agreed.
“So we fought our way through the – palace.”
“Palace?” she questioned.
“Yes, didn’t I mention? Evil emperor, palace,” he made a sweeping gesture with his hand as he described the setting, “grand hall rooms and broad wooden doors – the whole palace deal.”
Kathryn grinned at the imagery, but let him continue.
“So, we fought our way through the palace, to the docking platform in the grand courtyard,” he spread his arms for emphasis. “There was our shuttle, seemingly untouched and unguarded. We made our move but –” he paused for effect. “Just before we reached the shuttle we were ambushed. Shot at – I was hit.”
Her eyes widened; though she knew it was a story the prospect of Chakotay being injured was not one she wanted to face – ever.
“The away team dragged me aboard and you ordered – Tom, he was with us, by the way – to take us into the air.”
He held his chest as though in pain and slumped back into his chair. “My wound was severe, I mightn’t have made it,” he continued. “In fact, with no medical staff aboard, you weren’t sure that I would. You cradled me in your arms as the shuttle avoided fire from the surface.” He cleared his throat and gave an impression of her, well; she assumed it was meant to be her. “‘No, Chakotay, please don’t leave me!’ you cried.”
“Well now this is getting sad,” Kathryn objected. The thought of losing him to anything, to anyone, was heart-breaking at best.
He reached out and took her hand as though to comfort her. “You held your hand to my wound and whispered to me, ‘I can’t lose you. I love you.’” His hand squeezed hers gently. “And I heard you – and I held on for you.”
Her throat constricted as the visual image of the scenario played through her mind - cradling him in her arms as she thought he might be dying. She imagined her tears, her pain and her fear in that moment, a moment she truly never wanted to face.
“But Voyager made it to us, they beamed us aboard – and thanks to the Doctor and Kes’ expertise, I was saved.”
She nodded, only vaguely listening to the end of his story. She couldn’t get the image of clutching him out of her mind. But in her imagining he wasn’t young, they were both old – and they were both here, on New Earth.
He noticed her distance and squeezed her hand again. “Then we lived happily ever after,” he added in a much lighter tone.
“That’s what’s going to happen to us,” she realised aloud.
He drew a deep breath and leaned closer to her, brushing her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Kathryn, that’s a long way off yet. You never know, by then we might have found a cure, we might be able to leave.”
She shook her head. She’d searched almost every day for their cure and was no closer now to the day they’d been infected. What happened if he died? He wasn’t exactly careful when he went wandering; he’d injured himself a dozen times in those woods. What would she do if suddenly, one day, he didn’t return?
“It’ll take you a long time to get rid of me,” he joked.
She met his eyes feeling their warmth again and felt terribly disappointed in herself for ruining their moment. Perhaps he was right. They did have a long time before they really needed to worry about any of that – though she made a mental note to ensure he was taking better care of himself on his walks.
“Good,” she responded. “So, then what happened?” she forced herself to ask.
He blinked and exhaled a long breath, seemingly considering his response. “Well – you tried to deny your admission,” he watched her reaction carefully. “No, you came to my quarters when I was released from sickbay,” he amended.
“Before I could say a word you moved up to me, cupped my cheeks in your hands and pulled me into the most wonderful kiss I’d ever experienced.”
She liked the imagery, being the one to instigate the kiss this time.
“I was shocked when you pulled away,” he said with a grin. “But then I took you in my arms, kissed you passionately and we made love for the first time.”
The thought was certainly more positive than her last and she held onto it, reminding herself what it had been like in real life – the kiss and the love making. He was a giving lover, enthusiastic and caring. He made every moment they spent together even better than the last.
She couldn’t imagine a world where they were not in a relationship. The idea was as foreign to her as drinking something other than coffee – or Chakotay eating meat.
“Then, once we reached Earth,” he pressed on. “I asked you to marry me – we were on the bridge, Earth on the viewscreen – it was rather romantic.”
She couldn’t help but laugh at his self-assurance.
“The crew were ecstatic, Tom won his betting pool.”
“A betting pool about us?”
“Oh yes, there actually was one before we got trapped here,” he informed her casually.
She sat up, meeting his eyes, trying to decide whether he was being serious. He was. “Really?”
He seemed amused that she hadn’t known.
“We got married almost immediately,” Chakotay continued in his story. “It wasn’t long before you were pregnant with our first child, a little boy named –” he proffered a considering glance. “Named Edward Kolopak,” he finished.
Long ago they’d discussed the possibility of having children, but there was no way to prevent them from being bitten by the same insect that had infected them. They’d be condemning any children they had to living alone here. So they made the devastating decision to live childless. Kathryn had always wanted children, so had Chakotay, he revealed; the decision had not been an easy one.
But she wasn’t upset by the child in Chakotay’s story. She smiled as she imagined the tan-skinned, dimpled charmer he would have been.
“Then, two years later, we welcomed our little girl,” he gave a small, distant smile. “Lyana Gretchen.”
It had taken Chakotay a long time to speak about his family. When he did, however, he told her so many wonderful stories about his mother, Lyana. She had been a beautiful, compassionate woman. She’d taught him everything he knew about cooking, and presumably she was the reason for his serene temperament, though he still maintained that before Voyager he’d been bitter and angry.
The names were perfect; their parents would have loved the honour, she was certain.
“Our son grew with a passion for science, just like his mother, but our daughter was thirsty for command. She pursued the Captain’s chair with dogged determination and thanks to that, and in part her mother’s great fame, she became the – second youngest Captain in Starfleet history.”
“Only the second youngest?” Kathryn questioned.
“Yes, well, she was severely disappointed. Though she only missed out by two months,” he added with a chuckle.
“As for us,” Chakotay said thoughtfully. “We lived long, happy and healthy lives together.”
They shared a smile before tapping their glasses and taking a sip. A quiet passed over them again. Kathryn began to feel considerably less anguished by their future, trying to focus on the positives. Maybe she could find a cure one day. Maybe they’d be able to leave and find a nearby colony – and if that day was soon they may still be able to have a part of that; they might still have children.
For now, she would focus on him and on their love for one another.
Chakotay made her happier than she’d ever imagined possible and she wanted desperately to do the same for him.
He took her glass and stood, placing both on the outdoor table he’d crafted about three years earlier. He then offered her his hands and when she took them, pulled her to her feet, planting a delicate kiss on her palms.
“Kathryn Janeway, I love you,” he told her. He’d made sure to say the same every night since their first together.
She smiled and placed her hand above his heart, feeling the steady beat through his soft, silk nightshirt. “And Chakotay,” she answered. “I’ll love you as long as I live.”
And she did.