Kathryn
pulled herself away from him abruptly. Her eyes had suddenly deep shadows in
them and she tried to avert his gaze. Chakotay let her be, watching her as she
got up from the bed and pulled her robe around her. He sighed. No doubt the
satin robe had been something he had replicated for her but couldn't remember.
He felt again the old resentment and frustration rise in him and he tried to
suppress it. He wanted to get a hold on himself, and to wallow in his
frustrations was not helping. Kathryn padded to the bathroom, and when he heard
the shower run, he got up too.
He gathered
his fawn terry robe and walked to their dining area, pulling on the robe as he
did so. They had not had dinner and it was already past 2200. Perhaps a light
snack would restore the ambiance of earlier when, just before they resumed
their lovemaking on their bed, Kathryn had been buoyant, teasing, and there had
been an easy banter between them that he knew they had had before his accident.
He wanted to kick himself for disturbing the mood, for finding his adjustment
into her life less than smooth. She was clearly uneasy answering some of his
questions that had become nagging little stabs during the day, and the
headaches that resulted trying to find an opening into his damnable brain that
refused to comply time after time. He didn't want her to be unhappy, but at the
same time he realised that whatever he demanded of her to fill him in, could be
painful memories for her too. It was important, though, that they experienced
this catharsis. It served to clear some things and cleansed him and her.
He ordered
a salad for them, knowing that Kathryn liked hers with croutons. He ordered
some white wine as well. Or an impulse he replicated a single stemmed yellow
rose and put in into a long flute-like vase that always remained on the small
dining table. He looked up when Kathryn appeared. He hadn't heard her; she had
padded again barefoot and he smiled. It was something he had to get accustomed
to: Kathryn barefoot in their quarters. After tonight, most
likely barefoot and naked.
"Is
your mind in the gutter right now, Chakotay?"
"However
did you know, Kathryn?"
"You
get that glow in your eyes and I know we'll not get through the night without
making love."
"Kathryn,
you have the advantage over me."
She sat
down and spread a napkin on her lap, picking up her fork and digging it into a
crouton. She raised her fork; just before she popped it into her mouth, she
replied:
"Nonsense,
Chakotay. You know exactly when I'm ready for you."
"If
you want to finish dinner, sweetheart, then get that smoky look out of your
eyes."
Chakotay
was glad when Kathryn smiled and they continued their dinner in silence. They
had just finished, when Kathryn looked at him contemplatively. Chakotay drew in
his breath. Kathryn was so beautiful, deceptively fragile, sometimes fey...
"You
destroyed all references to New Earth from your personal logs, Chakotay,"
she said softly.
He nodded,
had some sense that he had probably done that. Kathryn was ready to talk, ready
to fill in another piece of the puzzle.
"Why,
Kathryn? Why did I do it?" He gripped the stem of his glass a little
tighter, feeling the tension rise in him again.
"Chakotay,
what I'm going to say now, I want you to remember, to - to understand," she
stammered slightly, "that I loved you." She gave a deep sigh, and he
was alarmed suddenly when a tear rolled down her cheek. She rubbed it
ineffectually away with the back of her hand, and sniffed. When he nodded, she
gave a teary half smile. "Yes, I love you."
"What
happened, Kathryn?" he asked softly, afraid to push her too much lest she
bolt again.
"We
made love for the first time on Breakfast Rock. I had been reserved, too aware
still of being on Voyager, even though she was light years away. Three nights
before we had a terrible storm and you - you took care of m-me..." She was quiet a long time, staring unseeingly
at some point past Chakotay's head. Then she looked at him again. "After
that, you were so protective over me, so attentive to every need although I
still fought it like mad... I didn't need protection and you - you just went
ahead and...protected..."
"I
guess I'm like that still?"
Kathryn
nodded, her tears falling freely, but she smiled through them. She didn't
bother to wipe her tears. "Yes...you have no idea." Then she shook
her head. "There are some things about you that didn't change, Chakotay.
You - you have no idea how familiar to me they are. I - I wanted do die when
you c-called me 'Danaë'. You always called me that, especially whenever we were
on Breakfast Rock, and most of the time I would lie there -
"
"Naked...
Like Danaë in her bronze tower. I was Jupiter, coming to you in a shower of
gold..."
She
laughed. "Yes. Exactly like that."
"How -
how did you decide you wanted to change the -the parameters, Kathryn?"
"One
night, you had a dream, and you called my name. There was a lost, forlorn sound
about the way you called me. It was the first time that I had sensed how
vulnerable you still were, how, in your dreams, it revealed itself. It was...a
revelation. You said something like 'I can't anymore, Kathryn...' I
couldn't get it out of my mind. It had been more than a year since you had
asked me to marry you, when you said that you loved me."
"I still call out your name..."
She nodded,
continued.
"The
next morning you were gone and I knew you had gone to Breakfast Rock. I
followed you there, and when I arrived, saw you sitting there, with your
cushion and blanket, and you were staring over the water that lay glistening in
the sun. You didn't see me. Then.... I don't know,
Chakotay, exactly how I came to it, but I knew that if you saw me, it had to be
crystal clear I wanted you to know my feelings for you never changed, and that
I was ready to commit myself - mind, body and soul..."
"So
you stripped naked. That's how I saw you when I looked up?"
"It
certainly caught your attention, sweetheart. I walked to you and - and then I
kissed you. We made love..."
Kathryn had
again that faraway look in her eyes. Chakotay had taken the last sip from his
glass. He reached over the table to touch her hand. She smiled.
"After
that, we almost never made love in our shelter, except at night, when we
retired for bed."
"It
was an idyll."
Her eyes
filled with tears.
"Then
one day, you were showing me the designs for a boat you were going to build for
me."
"We
received a hail, that Voyager returned for us?"
Kathryn
nodded, swallowed at a lump in her throat. She remained silent a long time,
both hands on the table. Chakotay could see how her fingers trembled. He
covered one hand again; he wanted to reassure her. Kathryn pulled her hands
away and got up. He scraped his chair as he too, rose, following her to the
bedroom again. She sat down on the edge of the bed and when he sat down next to
her, she buried her face against his chest. He touched her cheek. It felt
feverish. He pressed his lips to her hair.
"It's
okay, Kathryn...you don't have to say anything..."
"Everything
changed, the minute I knew Voyager was back for us, with a cure. You - you
don't know how - how happy I was, Chakotay...when I realised I had my ship
back..."
"What
happened to us?" he asked quietly,
"I
broke your heart, Chakotay. That's what happened. I broke your heart.... I
broke your heart..." Kathryn started sobbing and Chakotay waited till it
subsided, caressing her hair all the time she took to becoming calm. When she
composed herself again, she moved so that she could look at him. "Your
face, your eyes, Chakotay, the way the sun broke into a thousand pieces and -
and lay shattered at my feet..." Kathryn gave a sob. "Your eyes were
what haunted me, even now."
"You
said we couldn't continue?"
"I
told you I didn't love you...that it was the setting that created the illusion
of love. I was carried away by our magical idyll, and that was all it was. An idyll, a brief aberration that was over as soon as Voyager came
within hailing range."
Chakotay
held her shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes.
"You
were afraid. The minute Voyager assimilated you again, you became an extension
no longer of New Earth, but of a vessel you referred to every time as 'my
ship'. You felt you lost control for a while and that I was a good
bed-warmer substitute while you were in that state?"
Kathryn
nodded, tried to look away again, but he made her look at him.
"I
made myself vulnerable for you, Kathryn. When we left New Earth, everything we
shared drifted away into a bank of mist I couldn't see in my dreams. I woke up
feeling sorrow because we didn't leave New Earth, but in your heart, you left
me. That was the emptiness I felt, the deep feeling of bereftness I couldn't
understand. You turned me down once, and then, you left me again. Every time it
seemed, you left..."
"You
never spoke about it afterwards. Never made yourself
vulnerable again, except - except when we crashed the Sacajawea and I was dead
for a few minutes."
"And
so I destroyed all my logs because I wanted no reminder of the most beautiful
and peaceful period of my life?"
"I
only found that out after we married and I - I
mentioned one day how - how sorry I was that I hurt you and let you down. You
were bitter, said you didn't want to be reminded of that time. And I couldn't
forget how shattered you looked when I told you I couldn't continue what he
had. You were right, Chakotay. I was afraid, afraid of letting go like I did on
New Earth, afraid of losing control, afraid of being seen as a Captain with a
lover, afraid to let my heart rule and allowed duty and command and discipline
to reign. I knew in order to do that, that I - I had
to sever my ties with you as ruthlessly as I could." Kathryn looked away
from him again, deeply pensive for a moment. "I hurt you, Chakotay. I hurt
you deeply. You'll never know how much I regretted that, how much I regretted
not following my heart..."
Chakotay
pulled her closer again and kissed her tenderly, her lips parting instinctively
under his. When he broke off the kiss, her eyes shone again and she smiled.
"Listen
to me, Kathryn. I guess we never did speak much of our traumas, did we?"
Her hand rested against his chest, and when she pushed it inside his robe, she
caressed him. Sighing deeply, she nodded.
"Especially after we married, right?"
She nodded again. "And I was more guilty of that..."
"Don't
- don't punish yourself, Chakotay."
"No,
it's just that now, Kathryn, it's different, somehow. I'm not hopeful that I'll
regain my memory. Maybe it will never happen - "
"Chakotay - ?"
"Please,
hear me out, sweetheart. When I regained consciousness after the accident, I
didn't know who you were. I only knew the Maquis on board. I had to get to know
them all over again." He smiled. "I fell in love with you again. But
Kathryn, now I need all those memories you can tell me of. I need them if I am
to have a semblance of normalcy in my life again. I want everything, Kathryn; I
want to gather together all the dreams, the good memories, the bad ones,
especially the bad memories, all of it, to make me whole again."
"I'll
tell you, Chakotay, every time you ask, I'll tell you."
"Because,"
he continued as if he didn't hear her, "those bad memories belong to my
memory bank because they too, helped to shape the man you say I became on board
this vessel..."
"I
love you, Chakotay," Kathryn breathed softly.
"Love
of my life..." he replied. He kissed her again, then
pulled her down on the bed. "The evening isn't over," he said gruffly
as he removed her robe from her.
***
They were
on the bridge the next morning, and Chakotay had been a little reflective about
the previous night's revelations from her. He had been staring at the main
viewscreen for endless minutes, and he was drumming his fingers on the console
between them.
Chakotay
was right, Kathryn thought. He needed all his memories, good and bad, to be all
of the man she wanted back in her life. Leave out all the bad remembrances,
there'd be something lacking in him. Depth, perhaps.
The Chakotay of the past had loved her deeply, with all his traumas as part of
his recollections and experiences, and that was what she loved about him to
distraction. He loved her not in spite of what she had done to him, but because
of her regrettable and shabby treatment of his feelings. The Chakotay of the
present loved her as deeply, she believed. It was new, thrilling, but she
needed both of them. She had been reading Keats in the holodeck last night when
Chakotay came in, and sonnet 19 stood out so like a beacon of what she desired
of her Chakotay as she thought of the lines:
"Yourself - your soul - in pity give me all,
Withhold no
atom's atom or I die..."
As her
husband he could be complete if she had all of him, and she needed to fill
those dark chambers for him so that he could achieve fullness. Her old Chakotay
had understood, or tried to, the reason for her own fears, that she had fears;
he tried to come to terms with the fact that they made it to a marriage bed
only two years ago, more than a year after they were back on Voyager. He had
been terrible after New Earth. He closed all feeling off so absolutely and
succeeded so devastatingly that it shattered her. But it was her fault, and
with grief she's had to live, come to terms with, even. Still, the look of
desolation in his eyes haunted her all these years, even now, and she never wished
to see him look like that again, not by her hand.
No more did
Chakotay walk the corridors, giving her a friendly greeting whenever he passed
her. In fact, those were the times when her heart sprang alive at the sight of
him, and he would greet tersely, always, always being excessively polite and
deferential, always calling her by her rank. That, more than
anything else, settled the chasm between them, and established the manner in
which Captain and First Officer conducted themselves away from the prying eyes
of the crew. Chakotay's face became drawn, austere, and no more did he
come to her quarters for dinner when she invited him, always thinking up some
excuse.
On New
Earth, after the first day, she had told him to drop the rank and call her
Kathryn. She had become so accustomed to that, because no one called her by her
name. To live on board a vessel for three years without ever hearing her
name.... From Chakotay's lips it rolled like music. She missed that. Oh, how
she missed that. The only time he showed emotion after New Earth was when she
appeared on the bridge one morning, with a new hairstyle. She had her hair cut
shoulder length. Gone were the long tresses she favoured in the first years.
Chakotay had taken one look, his eyes flashed with anger, and an instant later
she saw the pain. He had quickly recovered, said nothing and continued looking
at the main viewscreen. On New Earth he loved her long hair... He loved to run
his fingers through it.
The crew
noticed. Tom Paris was the first to ask: 'What's up with the Commander,
Captain?"
What could
she tell them? How could she reveal her deepest joy and her deepest sorrow all
at once to a member of her crew? She had given Chakotay entitlement. She had
been his in every way: mind, body and soul. She had thrown all of it away in a
mindless, juvenile display of fear that she'd lose something of herself on
Voyager. For months afterwards she had dreamed of Breakfast Rock, woken up in a
sweat because she thought he was in her bed with her, making love to her in the
sweetest, most elemental way.
Kathryn
smiled inwardly. She had always preferred walking around naked in the shelter
on warm days. They had stripped to
This
morning she had woken up in his arms. "I know now why you made arrangements
to have
"And
good morning to you too, Kathryn Janeway," Chakotay had said and her heart
flipped again when the dimples formed in his cheeks when he smiled.
She crawled
quickly on top of him, rubbed her hips against his crotch and showed no
surprise at how quickly he had become aroused. More than an hour later, they
rose in delicious lethargic aftermath of sex in the morning and prepared to
come on duty.
Now
Chakotay was pensive again and she wondered what was going on in his mind. She
clasped his fingers.
"Are
you okay, Chakotay?" she asked, the concern immediately in her voice.
He frowned
when he looked at her, his face drawn. Kathryn frowned, and hit her commbadge
while still keeping her eyes on him.
"Janeway to sickbay."
"What
can I do for you, Captain?" the Doctor asked.
"Commander
Chakotay is on his way to you, Doctor. I suspect he's suffering from a severe
headache. Janeway out."
"It
seems I have no choice," Chakotay said as he tried to smile, but for the
first time he rubbed his fingers against his temples, closing his eyes as he
did so.
"You've
been having these headaches since the accident, Chakotay. I wasn't going to
intervene, thinking you'd actually go see the EMH yourself. I am concerned,
Commander, when one of my crew behaves in such an irresponsible manner - "
"Thank
you very much, Captain Janeway. I'll see the Doctor."
Kathryn sat
back in her chair, smiled at Chakotay's belligerence. He had never liked seeing
the doctor.
"I
hope the Commander is alright, Captain," Tom Paris said at the conn, not
turning round to face the Captain when he spoke.
"He
will be after Doctor's seen him."
"Jeez,
I'd like to be a fly on the wall there..."
Half an
hour later, her commbadge beeped.
"Sickbay to Janeway."
"Go
ahead, Doctor."
"Captain,
Commander Chakotay is fine. I've told him to go to the nursery and play with
the babies for an hour or so. Could you come to the ready room? There's
something I must discuss with you."
Kathryn was
immediately on her guard, but she nodded reassuringly to Harry and Tom and
Tuvok when they looked pointedly at her.
"He's
probably tried to beat up the doctor," she said, her smile not reaching
her eyes. "Tuvok, you have the bridge..."
In her
ready room she switched on her computer.
"Captain,
Commander Chakotay had a small, but benign tumor that was responsible for his
headaches. I've cleared it, I'm happy to say."
Kathryn
closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.
"There's
more, Captain."
"Doctor?"
"Commander
Chakotay may not regain his memory, as I've indicated before."
"I'm
filling in the blanks for him, Doctor. It may not be ideal, but it's helping a
great deal."
"I have
no doubt that some of those are traumatic, Captain," the Doctor ventured.
"Yes -
yes, you're right. But it has to be done. Commander Chakotay is already aware
that he may never regain his memory, so he relies on what details I can fill in
- the personal ones. The rest he studies thhrough the ship's logs and
database."
"Ah,
yes, that's what I was coming to, Captain. I believe the Commander has
repressed some of his memories. They are ones he may not have wanted to
remember before the accident. But Captain, there will be occasions when there
will be minor triggers that will necessitate you coming in the open with
it."
"What
are you saying Doctor?"
"Tara,
Captain. Your infant. She was born a month
prematurely."
Kathryn
turned cold at the doctor's words. She drew in her breath sharply, and before
she could prevent it, her hand had gone to cover her mouth. When she collected
herself, she said:
"Commander
Chakotay knows
"Captain,"
came the Doctor's terse rejoinder, "most babies born a month prematurely
are born healthy, they weigh the average weight for babies, they don't go into
incubators, they don't have problems breathing."
"
"Captain,
how much have you told your husband?"
"He
understands that
"Commander
Chakotay is going to ask, Captain. Depend upon it."
"What
do you want me to say, Doctor? That she suffered fetal distress?"
"No,
but have you told him, Captain, that you suffered complications during your
pregnancy? Are you going to tell him that you kept quiet about it throughout
your pregnancy?"
With that
the doctor abruptly closed communication and Kathryn Janeway stared for a few
seconds in stunned silence at the Federation insignia on the screen.
****