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Kathryn isn’t sure why she didn’t notice straight away that the Chakotay who came back to her was quite different to the one who she had lost.
She knew intellectually, of course, that he’d been through some harrowing experiences, losing his crew in a bid to keep the Protostar from the wrong hands. He’d given his all for Starfleet, again, and she wasn’t about to let anyone back at headquarters forget how much they owed him.
No, she was too busy looking him over, assessing him for physical damage, to notice that there was much more written on his face.
It’s been a day since he and the cadets arrived back on Voyager. A day since her knees went weak at the sight of him, relief making her muscles into jelly. A day since the Doctor, bless his holographic heart, herded the kids from the room to give them a moment alone. A day since she embraced him, and felt his chin rest on her shoulder.
They never did that much, before. She used to touch him, but he was careful, always careful, as though any misstep would be his fault and his alone.
In the whirlwind of debriefing and reports, they haven’t had much more time together than what the Doctor wrangled for them in those first minutes.
That’s why she hasn’t noticed.
At least that’s what she is telling herself.
She potters in her quarters, waiting for the replicator to do its job and produce something edible that isn’t somehow burned or otherwise ruined. This machine is no more cooperative that the one that she had before on old Voyager, and she’ll be damned if she knows or understands why she is the only person in the galaxy who can’t get a replicator to work for her.
It's late, but there are candles on the table and a bottle of wine breathing on the counter. It was a spur of the moment thing, to ask Chakotay to eat with her, but the way his face split into a real smile at the idea made it worth the asking.
This shouldn’t feel any different to any other time that she invited him to her quarters for dinner, but to even think that is lying to herself, and Kathryn is done lying. She’s done with every regulation and every rule, and she’s done with waiting.
She wonders if Chakotay knows it too.
Gods, she hopes that he does.
She goes to the bedroom and steps out of her pants, then pulls off her jacket and undershirt. There isn’t time to shower – just too much happening – but she’s been in worse states and Chakotay has never minded.
Instead, she pulls out a dress so ancient that it probably once had dinner with Jonathan Archer. She’s had it since her academy days, and by some miracle, the thing still fits her. Chakotay’s seen it before; she took it with her on Voyager’s maiden mission, a comfortable and cosy alternative for those long nights of reports. It’s woollen, real wool, and soft with age.
It isn’t a sexy dress, by any means. It invokes no romantic notions. But it does make her feel safe and relaxed, and that’s what Chakotay needs right now, more than anything. A safe harbour where he can let himself go.
When he rings at the door, she’s just coaxing the replicator into making her a cup of coffee. She needs something to take the edge off, and wine isn’t going to help. Tea is all well and good, but this is serious. Only one thing will do.
“Come in,” she calls, her back to the door as she watches the infernal machine do its work.
“Hi,” Chakotay says, his voice warm. “Now this is a familiar sight.”
She chuckles and grabs the mug the second it’s done.
“This replicator hates me just as much as the old one.”
Her breath catches just a little bit as she turns to look at him. He’s casual too, very casual. He somehow understood the assignment without her even telling him. His clothes must be replicated – he came home with nothing – but they look so like the ones he had on Voyager. His pants are loose, and his shirt fitted, stretched across his broad shoulders.
It's as though time stopped in the Delta Quadrant and nothing that has happened to them since even occurred.
“I thought that you had sworn off the coffee,” Chakotay says, sitting on the couch.
“I have – mostly,” she says. “It’s been a long couple of days, I think you will agree. You can’t blame me for needing a little pick me up.”
“If you’re really that tired, Kathryn, we don’t have to do this now,” he says. “I could –”
She doesn’t know exactly what he means by ‘this’, although she is hoping his idea of ‘this’ is the same as her idea of ‘this’. Either way, she’d rather fight a targ than give up any time with him – not when she’s just got him back.
“I invited you,” she says, instead of pouring her heart out onto the coffee table for him to inspect. “I can’t promise a better meal than what I used to feed you, but it will be better than fruit and fish eggs. Maybe. If you close your eyes.”
He chuckles, the sound deep and rich, and it goes right through her, from head to toe. He’s pale, clearly fighting exhaustion himself, but it’s a good sign that he can laugh about what happened to him. Or he can laugh about it on the surface level anyway. She is sure that many sessions with the counsellor are in his future, and not a moment too soon. He needed someone out in the Delta Quadrant, a member of personnel that their little jaunt to the Badlands had been without. Chakotay had ended up as de facto counsellor to many people on Voyager, including her. She’d always wondered who it was that he went to when he needed someone.
She suspects that, for the most part, he never had done.
“Make yourself comfortable,” she says. “Can I get you some tea?”
“That would be good.”
She doesn’t need to ask him which tea he would prefer. It’s even still got the same replicator code as it had on Voyager, and punching it in is just another indication that nothing much has changed between them.
She hands him the tea and doesn’t miss how he cradles it between his hands, palms pressed tight against the sides of the hot mug. Grounding himself. She used to do the same thing with her coffee, using the heat to remind herself that she was present in a time and place.
It's no surprise that Chakotay is doing the same thing here; this must be as much of a time warp for him as it is for her. Possibly even more of one, with all the time and inter-dimensional travel he’s wracked up since he took on the Protostar. Kathryn always hated time travel. It boggles her mind to think what he’s been through.
Dinner is a quiet but very lovely affair. Chakotay is affectionately polite about her cooking, and she curses the replicator with some choice words. They talk about the kids, and how much of a miracle they have turned out to be. Chakotay always liked kids; Kathryn used to watch him with Naomi and later the Borg children, and just knew that he’d be a great father, if he ever got the chance. He’d been quietly devastated when Seska’s baby hadn’t turned out to be his, in the end. Kathryn had only been relieved.
And now he talks so enthusiastically about the young crew that rescued him, and Kathryn can see the same glow around him as when he used to tell her all about the archaeology and history programs he’d written for Naomi.
“Those kids don’t know how lucky they are,” she says, picking up the bottle of wine to top up his glass. “They’ve found themselves the most loyal mentor, huh?”
Chakotay flushes, just a little.
“It didn’t start out like that. When they found me – I wasn’t very kind to them. I’m embarrassed to look back on it.”
“What happened?” Kathryn asks, with interest. Dal, Gwen and the others made a full report to her earlier in the day. They hadn’t mentioned any issues.
“I” – Chakotay’s eyes are on his hands on his lap – “I shut them outside in an ion storm. Wouldn’t let them on the ship. Your hologram made me open the doors.”
He looks so miserable, as though Kathryn will cast him from her table at the mere mention of his sin.
And it does sound bad. There’s no denying that. An ion storm is a terrifying thing to experience even within the walls of a starship, let alone out in the open. Kathryn allows her mind to linger for a moment on Rok, sweet, gentle Rok, and the idea that anyone could shut the door in her face.
And not just anyone. Chakotay.
He glances up at her when she doesn’t speak.
Her first instinct, the one to ask him what the hell he could have been thinking, is tempered as she imagines the sort of circumstances that might push Chakotay, the gentlest and kindest man she has ever known, to behave in such a way.
She knows him, better than she knows anyone.
The circumstances were dire. He lost his crew. He lost his first officer, someone he clearly had great affection for. By the time the kids found him, he’d been ten years on the planet, many of them alone.
She suspected that in such a bind, she herself would have lost her mind long before he did. They’d been stranded together once, hadn’t they, and she’d been the restless one, she’d been the one fighting and fighting and refusing to accept the truth. He’d been calm, as always, a port in a storm, and she wondered how long he’d managed to remain so trapped with the Protostar.
Eventually, even the strongest branch would bow to the wind.
“Thank you for telling me,” she says. “The kids left that out of their reports. And you haven’t written yours yet.”
“I will mention –”
“I don’t think you will,” she says, reaching for her glass of wine. His is almost finished, and she should have known something was wrong – he never used to outpace her with the alcohol, always one glass behind.
“Kathryn –”
“If they didn’t see fit to mention it, you don’t need to either. Don’t punish yourself for the sake of punishment.”
His face is flushed, a dull, throbbing red, and she wants to reach out and lay a hand on his cheek, press cool fingers to his burning forehead. He’s so ashamed, he can hardly speak.
And, as she really looks at him for the first time, she sees the truth.
He looks old.
He looks like all the hard years of his life have finally caught up with him, and she has to suddenly sit back, shaken, because yes. Yes, he is ten years older now than he was the last time she saw him. He’s aged one more hard decade in the same time she’s passed one year, and of course, of course, that’s not insignificant.
“Chakotay, I’m so sorry.”
He glances up at her, then drops his eyes again. Penitent, like she can grant him absolution.
“What are you sorry for?” he asks.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t see until now, how hard it was for you to be isolated all of that time. I didn’t want to imagine you so alone, so I pretended that you’d weathered it. But you haven’t really, have you?”
His hand is trembling as he puts the wineglass back on the table, and Kathryn reaches out before she can stop herself. She covers his hand with hers, and that touch seems to be the thing that, in the end, breaks him entirely.
“Oh Kathryn,” he breathes, and the tremble is in his voice too. “I –”
She gets to her feet and hurries around the table to him, drawing him close. He hesitates, then wraps his arms around her waist and buries his face against the wool of her dress. She loses track of the time, brushing gentle fingers through his hair – grey hair, how did she not notice? – and when finally he pulls away from her, her dress is damp where his face was pressed.
She puts her hand under his chin and gently tips his head back. His face is blotchy, red against the pale skin, and he still won’t make eye contact with her.
“Chakotay,” she says. “I forgive you.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Well, too late. And I promise you, Chakotay –”
Her breath catches, but he has been brave - so brave – and now she must be brave too.
“I promise you that you will never be alone again.”
He isn’t expecting the kiss and, in many ways, neither is she. But it seems just right, when for so long without him things have been wrong, and she holds his face between her hands, and kisses him.
Kissing Chakotay – finally, finally – feels like that moment, a million years ago, when Voyager burst into the Alpha Quadrant in a blaze of glory. It’s heat, and light behind her eyes, warmth on her skin, an emptiness in her belly that feels like hunger, and it feels like home.
It feels like home.
He doesn’t fight her. She’s known all this time that he never would, that she was the one holding them back, waiting, looking for the right time.
If now isn’t right, she’ll never find it.
He clings to her, large hands pressed to her back, holding her close, his fingers twisted in the wool of her dress. His mouth is sweet, and sour from the wine, and she takes from him, takes and takes, and he gives, allows her to lead him, as he always has.
“Kathryn,” he whispers, brokenly, when she threads her fingers through his hair. “Kathryn.”
“It’s okay,” she says. “Let me take care of you.”
She hardly recognises the woman who draws him to his feet, who takes his hand and leads him into her bedroom with no second, third, fourth thoughts.
There’s been so much time wasted, and she will never waste time again.
In the bedroom he is shy, hardly daring to look at her, and she knows the feeling. She knows what it is to dream of this moment and wake up too soon, grasping at nothing. He can’t believe it’s finally happening.
She shows him that this isn’t a dream.
She helps him sit on the bed, her hands resting on his shoulders. He used to be broader; ten years of a spartan diet has eaten away some of his strength. She will have to feed him up, and the thought is so sweet, that it might be her job to care for him from now on, that she kisses him until he is breathless, and there is a hint of that beloved, knowing smile on his face as she pulls away.
“Shirt,” she says, and he raises his arms obediently, lets her draw it over his head. His chest is covered in the hair that he used to remove, thick and greying, another remnant of that lonely decade, and she makes a note to later bury her fingers in the curls.
His skin is warm beneath her hands as she runs soothing palms over his shoulders and sweeps them up his neck, then back down, squeezing his arms gently. He may have starved away some of his strength, but there is still the ghost of the old Chakotay here. She could count on one hand the number of times that these arms wrapped around her, but she cherishes the memory of each and every one. No one had ever made her feel quite so safe, quite so precious, as Chakotay had done on Voyager.
“Still so handsome,” she says, and watches a flush bloom in the middle of his chest and creep up his neck to his cheeks.
“Pretty old and worn down now,” he says, self-deprecating as always.
“A little older, perhaps,” she says, because she won’t lie to him. “But you are far from worn down.”
She squeezes his biceps to make her point, and the flush gets darker, but he smiles, and this time there is more of the old Chakotay in the expression than there has been all night.
“Flatterer,” he says, his hands bunching in the sides of her dress. “You don’t need to charm me to get me where you want me.”
“I’ve already got you there,” Kathryn replies, daringly. “Just don’t go anywhere.”
“Never again,” he breathes.
“Stay with me.”
“I will.”