Last summer in Venice
a novella by
vanhunks
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns Janeway and Chakotay
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story was written for the Secret Summer Shower on the VAMB board, and my recipient was Kate04.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Mary Stark, once again, for her time and patience in betareading this story.
SUMMARY: Janeway and Chakotay part as lovers near the end of their seven year long journey.
vanhunks
July 2006
*
LAST SUMMER IN VENICE
PROLOGUE
Standing at the door of Captain Janeway's quarters, Seven of Nine drew in a deep breath. She suppressed a mild feeling of trepidation as her hand reached for the chime. The captain had cloistered herself in her cabin for the last forty eight hours. During that time, Chakotay had assumed bridge duty; anyone wishing to speak with the captain had to come to her quarters.
It was inevitable, even understandable under the circumstances, that Chakotay's news had unsettled the captain. He had insisted on seeing Captain Janeway first to tell her what had happened and then inform her of his new plans, plans which had changed dramatically in the last week and which had led to the captain's seclusion in her cabin. If the crew noticed a shift in Janeway's equilibrium, they ascribed it to the anticipation of seeing Earth again.
In a few days, they would be home and their proposed arrangements could be set into motion. Seven had allowed Chakotay to take the lead since her own experiences were too new, and the social protocols appropriate for this particular situation as yet too exact for her. She had had no idea what to do except to tell Chakotay. And Chakotay, ever the warrior, had closed his heart and his love for Janeway that had lain close to the surface, quietly suppressed it to make way for the new and totally unexpected dimension that had come into his life.
Sighing, Seven pressed the chime, hesitating a few moments after she heard the captain's command to enter. Captain Janeway's voice sounded firm, controlled as always, with not a hint of distress in it.
Yes, Seven conceded, no sign perhaps that the captain's world had tilted with sudden force, like the ominous rumbling underneath the earth sounding the coming quake, or the ocean grumbling deep in its depths only to destroy everything in its path minutes later. Not even the strongest would survive such an onslaught. One would die instantly buried under metres of rubble or lie like a bloated fish on a wasted shore.
If the man Seven of Nine loved had dealt her such an earth shattering blow, she knew that was how she would have felt. She wanted it differently, but Chakotay wanted to stand by her side.
The doors slid open with a silence that underscored what she sensed to be the mood inside. Her eyes connected instantly with the woman who stood barely metres away from her, as if her stance blocked any further progress. Precisely as if Captain Janeway had, through her body language established new ground rules for Seven of Nine and Chakotay. It was as palpable a barrier she had ever seen anyone erect, this physical demonstration of emotional detachment and message - breach my defenses this far and no farther.
Yet Seven of Nine, with an equally impassive intent, decided that she needed to impart her own feelings to the captain. She would never rest if she didn't at least try to make peace. Her kind of peace.
The captain didn't move from her position. Her hands were at her sides, fingers lightly brushing against her thighs. No sign of a disturbance in her equilibrium. Squared shoulders, lips pressed together, though not forced, no light flush of her cheeks to indicate a deep emotion or evidence that her world had slipped away from her and left her without an anchor. Even so, Seven of Nine could sense the pain - hidden, suppressed, yet there underneath all the control which in reality remained so normal that no one looking at the captain would notice her distress.
It was what Janeway did best.
It was what gave Seven of Nine courage.
"Is there anything I can do for you, Seven of Nine?" Janeway asked.
"No."
"Then…I should remind you that Chakotay has already told me."
Could Chakotay have loved this woman? This impassive being standing before her speaking in such calm tones? Could Janeway have loved Chakotay? Chakotay who had been so unbridled in his passion three weeks ago… Chakotay who had told her of his argument with Janeway, of her refusal to marry him… Chakotay who had been drinking when he came to her bed…
"I am carrying his child, yes."
Seven's words were firm, defensive.
"I know, Seven. He intends to marry you."
"He was engaged to you, Captain."
"The situation has changed. I relieved him of his duty to me."
Only then did the captain's eyes reveal her pain. A sliver, a small aperture that closed as quickly as it opened.
"Thank you, Captain."
"Then there is nothing to say, is there?"
"Captain, I…I love him. I did not think it ever possible that I could feel like this. But I love him."
"I understand. Chakotay wishes to do the honourable thing and marry the mother of his child."
There was a slight tremble in Janeway's voice when she spoke the last words. It was, with the pain that settled in her eyes again, the only other sign that Chakotay's betrayal of their love had turned her world upside down. But Chakotay had promised her, Annika Hansen, that he would stand by her, and be the father who would be there to help raise their daughter. Captain Janeway took a step forward. Seven closed her eyes as a palm, light and caring, touched her cheek. A sigh followed as the hand dropped again.
For the second time since she entered the captain's quarters, Janeway looked unsettled, her lips quivering slightly.
"Now please, will you leave my quarters?"
The words were soft, hollow, a world of loneliness contained in them
Seven of Nine, outside the cabin once more, and hearing the doors slide as quietly closed again, contained her sympathy that had threatened to rise to the surface, covering it with a smile. Captain Janeway would survive like she had survived a thousand times before during the last seven years.
Captain Janeway would take her pain and her disappointment and her sorrow and package them as neatly as she had stood there in her uniform and get on with her life again.
It was what Captain Janeway did best.
For her, Seven of Nine, life was just beginning with the man who promised to the honourable thing. He had assured her over and over that he wanted to be part of the process and wanted their child to have a mother and father who would remain a constant in her life.
Seven of Nine smiled again as she reached Chakotay's quarters.
She had her man.
***************
end Prologue
PART ONE:
Fifteen years later
"Leave me alone!" Chakotay barked, his voice hoarse and thready and angry. If he gave in to the next wave of pain and fever, he was going to sink into oblivion again. Like a band of warriors the pain engaged him and stripped every nerve in his body, an offensive which sought not to imprison him, but to humiliate, to kill. He wanted to die and wanted to do so without the interference of friend, family or foe.
With honour.
For him there was no honour in the road to his end.
His body was on fire; he was going crazy.
He tried to remember when he had begun to feel sick. The details were hazy, although he knew that he had been on a freight run to Diatorath. He had been in contact with many of their people. He had heard of the illness that had gripped the inhabitants of the first city, his first port of call. Later, was it a day or two days? He couldn't remember. He just knew that he had begun to feel sick. He had vomited several times, then every muscle in his body protesting as it ached, the headaches, the dizzy spells. He had put it down to working too hard, the stress of working eighteen hour days, with too little sleep in between.
He kept as far away from doctors. He had flu; it would pass. That was what he thought. Then he began to see strange images - grotesque, persistent, haunting. They were in his sleep, in his dreams, in his delirium. The virulent strain of the flu brought on the madness too. The madness of his forefathers.
He even thought he saw her…
Yes, he was crazy. He was convinced of that. He was going to his ignominious end like his grandfather before him. Like his grandfather, he rejected all aid, all signs for cures. He knew what was happening, yet, deep in his conscious he sensed the old Chakotay, the man of honour, of great valour, warrior gentle and warrior angry, with always the one thing that kept him going - memories of a bygone time. Another wave and his body convulsed, then contracted so that his legs, of their own volition, pulled up against his stomach. He cried out, long moans punctuated by the ugliness of his cursing.
"Go to hell! Leave me alone!"
Once he tried to open his eyes, a strategy to fool the enemy warriors of pain. They intensified their onslaught. His eyeballs became searing flames that burned from the outside, coursing behind his eyes to spread rapidly through his body. He had contracted a virus, the details, the memory of the illness as murky now as the shadows dancing before his eyes in the dark.
A voice. A voice breaking through the mist. A moment of unimagined joy. A familiar voice from his past. But the colour of it was not there, the humour entrenched in the tone, not there. The mellowed huskiness not there… Someone else. His joy died, and his body suffused with disappointment.
"Damn you!"
"You need help, Chakotay. Only a physician can offer you relief - "
"Go to hell! Let me die here…" he bit out as the wave of pain subsided and he could stretch his body full out on the bed again.
The covers had been thrown off eons ago. He was naked, he knew. His skin was sallow and damp. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he knew that the mattress was wet, that he was lying in his own urine. His rational thought wanted to deny the squalor into which he had sunk, but the senses - smell and touch - kept him firmly in the present where his nostrils itched from the dank, murky smell in the room. Once his hand reached towards his crotch, searched, found, stroked. He gave a groan. Even there the pain ravaged him, reducing his manhood to nothing but a shriveled organ.
He was nothing.
The voices came and went in his waking moments, in his moments of delirium, his demented state. Now, the voice of a woman. If he weren't ill and crazy, the voice would have soothed him. It had that quality, a soft, melodious timbre to it, but not hers…. Never hers… Never. He gave another unbridled groan, a long keening moan of anger and need.
"Who are you?" he asked again.
"I am Shauneez. You know me."
His sister.
"Shauneez…what are you doing here?"
"Carina asked me to come. She's worried about you. I arrived from Dorvan yesterday."
"Dorvan? Damn Dorvan! Go away."
"Chakotay," Shauneez chided softly, "this is not like you, or the brother I remember."
"I'm crazy, that's what. Crazy like my grandfather. Leave me alone."
He tried to look at the owner of the voice, admitted with a sigh that the soft, cool sponge that washed his raging body soothed the fever. The smell in the room was no longer so dank and pissy, though still there. Another wave of pain and again, his knees drawing up high almost to his chest. His hands gripped his knees, knuckles protruding as if they had broken through his skin. Did blood seep from his brow? When he felt her wiping his forehead, he gave a low cry of relief. His body shuddered once or twice before it stilled again, the warriors of his angst leaving him, if only temporarily. His legs straightened out slowly.
The bed was dry, he realized. Dry and comfortable. A thin sheet covered him this time. Before he hadn't cared how he looked, too crazed to care anyway. He refused food, sucked on a wet cloth, swore into the silence, tense, crude words. Sometimes he heard soft crying.
"Think about Carina, Chakotay. She is a very frightened, unsettled young girl who needs you to be there for her."
Chakotay's eyes opened, the upper lids forcing away from the lower lids. The room tilted, spun like a mad vortex, creating nausea in his stomach. He held his breath, then bit his lips until he tasted blood, until the nausea subsided.
Be there for her…
He knew those words like the damning of the evil spirits that had plagued him for years. He had spoken those words to his eternal joy once on a world so far away he couldn't see it in his mind's eye anymore. He had spoken those words to his eternal damnation, this time every detail, every tiny scrape against the wall that he could see, every nerve that pulsed in the other person's face - all too clear for him.
"I said those words once, twice…long ago."
"And?" Shauneez asked, keeping up the cool soothing of his body.
But it seemed the demons - crazy, grotesque images - attacked him again, long tentacles reaching for him, sticking like leeches before they carried him to the unknown depths of darkness. His mouth opened and he screamed like a mad man, possessed of all the evil that wouldn't leave his body. When silence filled the room again, he focused, to see Shauneez, her eyes filling with tears.
"Do you know what joy is?" he asked, fixing his gaze on her, his hand clamping around hers, forcing the continuous washing of his body to stop.
"If you mean being happy, then yes, I know."
Beads of perspiration formed on his brow. He felt them because they seemed to roll off and into his eyes, causing them to burn. He blinked, felt the cloth wiping his eyes dry.
"I knew it once. Long ago."
"And now?"
"I have been robbed of it - "
Shauneez knew he hadn't been happy in the last years with Seven of Nine, and since her death three years ago, he had been like a haunted man. Haunted and angry and driven. Not even Carina could still the savage beast in him. But Carina was alive and Carina needed him.
"Carina?"
"Carina reminds me of her."
"Seven of Nine."
"Leave me alone!" Chakotay wailed again, thrashing and flinging his sister's hand away from him. "Go! I'm crazy, can't you see?"
"The doctor…" Shauneez persisted, "I must send for one - "
"You do that and I swear by the spirits I'll get up here and squeeze the life out of you…"
"Chakotay…"
"Didn't you hear me? Get the hell away from me!"
"Carina needs you!" Shauneez retorted with sudden fire.
"Carina…"
"Yes, my brother. You're leaving her to fend for herself and tend to you. She doesn't deserve - "
"Carina reminds me of her mother!"
A silhouetted figure, silent, brooding, stood in the entrance to the room. The shoulders slumped; dejected, she turned away again. Shauneez had seen Carina standing there, only to slink away as she heard Chakotay's words.
"That's not fair, Chakotay, and you know it. You're alienating your own daughter. You must fight this, my brother, or you will lose her too."
Chakotay lifted his head from the pillow and stared at his sister. He had seen Carina, her figure shadowy with the light behind her. He tasted something bitter in his mouth. Shauneez was right. He had to think of Carina. But Carina… His nostrils felt like tunnels through which a gush of acid had been blown. His eyes became bleary. He knew his nose was running. Sighing, he closed his eyes as Shauneez wiped his face. He sagged back against the pillow. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand.
"It's summer now," he said quietly.
"It's always dry here on Polarya," she responded.
"On Earth."
"Are you reminded of something during summer? On Earth?"
Chakotay's eyes became wild again. His breathing stopped for a few seconds. When he could hold his breath no longer, he gasped, allowing the dry air to rush into his lungs. Then he lifted himself up, grabbed Shauneez by her shoulders and shook her. She fought him off and pushed him back. Flung against the pillows, he lay exhausted, but the fire was still in his eyes, his nostrils still flared.
"Leave me alone, Shauneez. Just go."
Shauneez remained, stroking his ravaged cheek. He slapped her hand away. Old memories assaulted him. Memories of summer on Earth. He wanted to kill the memories, but they kept coming, bright summer, sunshine, laughter in a face that was loved, golden hair that waved in the breeze.
Chakotay screamed. Loud, anguished, then hollow, empty, finally nothing as he slipped into the oblivion of darkness again.
*
After searching in the house and outside the immediate area, Shauneez eventually found Carina in a cave that hid a subterranean stream. A man who stood not far from Chakotay's abode simply pointed in the direction of the mountain. It was a long walk, but she wasn't tired. She needed the time to think about her brother, his descent into total degradation, the real possibility of him dying. He had not taken water for days, according to his daughter, and hadn't eaten for a week.
Shauneez had tried to mask her shock at seeing her brother, once a proud man - a proud, honourable warrior, healthy and strong. A strange 'flu virus, contracted during his last freight run had triggered the illness of their grandfather. There was a cure, but Chakotay refused to be treated. He had been treated once, years ago on Voyager. Now total negligence of his person, his health and well-being after the virus he had picked up during his visit to Diatorath two weeks ago had jump-started it once more. This time Chakotay was ill in body and in spirit. It didn't have to be that way, but since Seven of Nine's death he had been inconsolable.
Her brother was on self-destruct and he seemed to want it that way, not caring about anything, including his fourteen year old daughter who loved him and who missed her mother, missed having a mother. But mostly, a young daughter who missed having her father. Chakotay was Carina's life. If only he could be brought to realise that.
Carina, Shauneez knew, was nothing like her mother in personality and emotional disposition. Her only sin, if Chakotay's deranged reactions to seeing Carina every time could be believed, was that she resembled Annika Hansen. All the signs were there that Carina's youthful face would develop into the same aloof beauty of her mother one day. It was not right of Chakotay to hold it against his only child.
There was no response when Shauneez called out the young girl's name, but she knew Carina was there. Walking in further, she could hear the soft rush of the stream. When the roof of the cave became low, Shauneez crouch-walked before she could straighten up again. She found herself in a large cavern and at the furthest end she saw Carina sitting on a flat rock, her feet in the water. The light in the cavern was given off by two torches, one of them quite close to where Carina was sitting.
"Carina…"
The young girl looked up. Shauneez felt her heart contract. A world of unhappiness lay exposed in the girl's features. Shauneez sat down next to her and placed her hand around Carina's shoulder in a comforting embrace. Carina offered no resistance as she lay her head against the older woman's bosom.
"Your father is very ill, Carina. He doesn't mean the things he said…"
Carina started sobbing quietly.
"He hates me, Aunt Shauneez."
"No, sweetheart. He doesn't hate you but I sense a deep unhappiness in him. A very deep unhappiness. When your mother died - "
"It's not my mother, Aunt Shauneez. It's not because of her. He - he…"
The sobbing that had subsided once Shauneez had stroked Carina's cheek gently, started again and she clung desperately to the older woman. Shauneez waited until Carina had calmed again.
"What is it, Carina? What about your mother?"
A long sigh escaped Carina before she looked directly in Shauneez's eyes. Again Shauneez was struck by Carina's resemblance to Seven of Nine.
"My father did not love my mother…"
"I'm sure you don't mean that, honey - "
"It's true. I have eyes to see!" Carina said with sudden force. "He never loved her. I think he - he…punished her."
"For what, Carina? Why would he punish the mother of his beautiful little girl?" Shauneez asked, smiling gently as she placed her palm against the unhappy girl's cheek again.
"Because my mother didn't love me…" came the soft admission, an admission that didn't shock Shauneez.
Seven of Nine, or Annika as she desired to be called when they lived on Dorvan, had been too impassive, too aloof and unloved herself to shower her daughter with unconditional love. Sometimes it seemed to them that she was incapable of loving Carina as she deserved.
And Carina had a frame of reference. She saw how her young cousins loved their mother and father, how open and honest Shauneez's relationship was with her own children. They were happy and Carina yearned for that like any young child would yearn if they sensed that they were withheld something precious. Many times she allowed Carina to spend the night or the weekend them. Carina was so eager, so unspoilt, so ready to be loved.
Shauneez gave a soft sigh. When her brother and his family lived on Dorvan, they had become aware of the strained relations between husband and wife. They never talked about it, but people noticed. Yet Chakotay had always cared, tried to love Seven as the mother of his daughter and he gave to them in full measure everything of himself. It was the way he was - an honourable man.
But it wore him down and for Carina it was not enough. And when they thought that Annika's death brought some relief, it had done the opposite. Chakotay became a man possessed of something deep, darkly hidden, something about which he kept a brooding silence.
"Aunt Shauneez," Carina asked, "do you think my father could have loved someone else? Before he met my mother?"
Shauneez thought of Svetlana, of Seska and a few other women Chakotay had known before he vanished into the Badlands. She had often berated her brother for using those women, for basing his relationships with them on lust. She had heard that he had been engaged to the Captain of Voyager, but that had been mainly gossip. They had never made their feelings public, never announced their engagement, never, according to B'Elanna Torres, worn rings to validate their feelings. The crew had all been surprised when Chakotay and Seven of Nine announced that they would marry and that Seven was pregnant. Shauneez wasn't certain how deeply Chakotay felt for Voyager's former captain who was now Admiral Kathryn Janeway-Greaves, married to Horatio Greaves, another admiral in Starfleet. She shook her head, as baffled as Carina was about Chakotay's personal life on Voyager.
"I don't know, Carina," Shauneez replied. "There was talk that he had been engaged once before. But that was a long time ago."
Carina looked at her rather strangely, a frown marring her smooth forehead.
"He never talks of her."
"Who?"
"The captain of Voyager."
"They were good friends who lost touch, that's all." There was a pause. Carina didn't look too convinced. In any case, thoughts of a very sick man were now uppermost in Shauneez's mind. "Look, Carina, could we go home? We need to talk about getting your father off this planet and back to Dorvan or better still, Earth - "
"Earth?"
Carina's face lit up with such anticipation that Shauneez felt again the constriction in her bosom. Didn't they ever take the child anywhere?
"Perhaps. A doctor, Voyager's EMH, treated your father before. I know very little, I must confess. We should contact him. Right now your father is too headstrong to accept aid from our own physicians here."
The joy left the young face, replaced by gloom again.
"We cannot do so without my father's permission, Aunt Shauneez. No matter how ill and how - how much he - he hates me…"
"I know, sweetheart, but sometimes we need to take matters in our own hands."
Carina burst into tears again. Once more Shauneez pulled her close and offered comfort. They remained like that until she became calm again. Eventually they got up and slowly made their way out of the cave. It was impossible to lift Carina's spirits. She was still so young, too young to be burdened with taking charge of a man who should have taken charge of his own life. For a moment Shauneez felt a bitterness rise in her. It disappeared again the moment she admitted that Chakotay was a very sick man who needed intervention, even if it meant he would kill them both.
Somehow they had to coax him to agree to get help. How that was going to happen, Shauneez had no clue. Chakotay was becoming more and more deranged.
Shauneez suspected he was driven by another force, something that neither she nor Carina knew anything about.
*****
END PART ONE