AFTER
For what seemed like a very long time, the two remained leaning against the face of the boulder, bodies entwined, arms around one another, Janeway's head buried in Chakotay's neck, both breathing hard, neither speaking, feeling the glow of what they had just shared.
Janeway finally broke the silence. "Whatever you do, Chakotay," she breathed quietly into the hollow of his throat, "Don't move, because if you do, I will surely fall down."
He sighed deeply, rubbing his chin gently across the top of her head. "Actually, I don't think I CAN move."
But finally and with visible effort he did move, gently, gathering her into his arms and reversing their positions so that his back was braced against the rock. Then he slowly slid both of them down the rock onto the soft grass, Janeway leaning against his chest with her eyes shut tight, her hands tucked under her chin. Chakotay looked down at Janeway with a tender glance. She looks just like a little girl, he thought, who's ready for bed after a hard day of play...
He looked up at the still-lingering twilight - surely the longest on record!, and grinned softly. "Kathryn, shall we allow the sun to get on with setting?"
She smiled against his chest and giggled. "Oh! But of course! I quite forgot! Computer, complete Janeway Sunset One... and add lots of stars afterwards..."
"And computer, one roaring campfire three feet in front of us, and replicate two soft warm blankets..."
As Chakotay wrapped her blanket around her, Janeway touched his face with her fingers and smiled sweetly, her eyes unfocused. "I need to - sleep..." And she did, still leaning against him. He tucked his arms around her, listening to her soft breathing, and looked up at the twinkling stars. Lots of stars, as ordered by Captain Kathryn Janeway, creator of this particular universe, and not to be disobeyed... His long graceful fingers smoothed her tangled hair and stroked the soft skin on her cheeks. His lips followed his fingers.
Then his head fell back against the rock and he too surrendered to sleep.
ENDGAME
Chakotay awoke abruptly, momentarily unable to remember where he was or why his muscles ached so much. He looked over at the crackling campfire, and the rock beyond, their clothing still strewn around it. Then he realized that he was flat on his back, that the pile of blankets on his chest contained a tousled Janeway lost in sleep, and that his right arm was numb and the pain had awakened him. He gingerly attempted to slide his arm out from under her, and as he moved she too was instantly awake.
"What's the matter? Chakotay?" she said, looking up at him, a similar moment of confusion crossing her face.
"Not a thing, Kathryn - stand down red alert - my arm's gone to sleep, that's all."
She looked at him again, blinked a few times, propped her chin on her hand, and smiled a huge contented smile. "How nice it was to wake up and see you here with me."
"I'll bet you say that to all your First Officers," he teased. Janeway made an indignant noise, poked his solar plexus with her small fist, and satisfied at his repentant grunt and grin, sat up in her blanket cucoon and stretched like a cat.
"Computer, what is the current time?"
"The current time is 0345," said the electronic voice.
"How about some tea?", she asked Chakotay.
"Mmmm. Something herbal for me."
"Yes, you should, something with loads of ginseng and all those manly virility ingredients...", she said with a provocative grin.
"Kathryn!" Chakotay said in a wounded tone of voice. "Do you really think I need them?"
"You will before I'm finished with you!!..."
Seeing the expression of great expectation her bold statement had put on his face, Janeway attempted to rise quickly in her blanket to evade Chakotay, but he launched himself at her and tackled her around the waist before she could get fully to her feet. They crashed back to the grass in a tangle of arms and legs and blanket; mid-lunge, Chakotay attempted to flip her around so that he cushioned her fall, and her weight on him as he hit the ground knocked the breath out of him in a rush. "Ooof!"
"Chakotay, are you all right?" she laughed as she moved to let him breathe.
"Warp engines are off line, Captain, switching to impulse power..." He wheezed, holding his ribs, and then he laughed too, and stilled her laughter with his lips. As he finally pulled back from the kiss, his eyes had gone serious, and he scanned her face with a look she couldn't interpret. He rose and walked back to the fire, sat down on his blanket and wrapped it around his knees, ordering the computer to replicate the mugs of tea. She dropped down in front of her cup and circled it with her hands, feeling its comforting warmth, knowing what was coming, waiting for him to speak.
"You did an incredible job recreating New Earth here, Kathryn. It must have taken a long time."
Taking a deep breath, she thought: This is going to work, he'll understand. It has to work.
"Not as long as the original one took us, Chakotay, and it was fun to do, so it didn't feel like work. And I could see us here so clearly, so it became doubly a pleasure."
She took a sip of her tea, and looked over the rim of her cup at him. His eyes were on his cup, then swung up to meet hers, eyebrows raised, and again she was not able to read his face. How good he is at being inscrutible, she thought, and I know him better than anyone!
"Chakotay, I'm not sure I can explain to you... what's in my mind and my heart at this moment... and I don't have an ancient legend or a parable handy to ease into the subject..." He made a wry face as her reference hit home. "But I do know this. Since the time I first realized that you had entered my life and my consciousness in a way no other person ever has, I've been struggling with what to do about it..." "Your - beautiful - words to me on New Earth, and your... patient understanding of me, only deepened my struggle. The struggle has been so evenly matched... between my desire to let our relationship evolve and grow and my need to keep a professional distance due to the responsibilities I have as leader of the Voyager crew... that it has become a - frustrating standoff that I can never quite let go of no matter how I try." "The minute I awake, you're there again, and as I go to sleep, it's your face I see in my mind. You're as close to me every day as breath and heartbeat..."
Chakotay watched her face as she spoke, knowing how hard it was for her to say each word. A strange sense of peace was in him. She had come this far, had reached out so strongly to him. Her words held no fear for him. She looked so beautiful in her intensity!
"Well... that battle just raged on and on, until that day in Sickbay when something in me just - snapped, and I kissed you. I'd been so - worried - scared - that you'd been killed - you take risks that you don't need to take sometimes, out of some incredible sense of duty that only makes sense to YOU, you maniac..."
She stopped herself, knowing her emotions were still very close to the surface. "I'm sorry. You take risks because you believe you must. I know that.
"But - out there, in our daily lives on Voyager, I send you into danger almost every day...facing possible injury or even death. With my heart in my throat! And I must be so many things to so many people! I don't even belong to myself, really, but to the crew, this group of people that has evolved into a family with all the crises a family always has, who are here in the Delta Quadrant because of a decision I had to make, who need me to help them get back home..."
She held her hands out in his direction, palms upward. "I can't escape this, you know... it's as much a part of me now as your sense of duty is of you, your values, your belief system, your integrity... I can't put it aside to concentrate on a relationship with you in the middle of all that need, no matter how enticing it might seem..."
"Out there, I've GOT to maintain the status quo, the professional distance, or quite honestly, I will lose my grip on my sanity! I've trained my entire life to be a leader, Chakotay, it's the only way I know to live..."
As she gathered her thoughts, Janeway pulled her knees up and laid her arms on them, looking sideways at her First Officer. He returned her gaze, knowing that his love for her was there for her to see. And she saw, and it gave her the strength to finish what she knew was basically an emotional rationalization, untypical of anything she had ever done in her life.
"I did a lot of thinking about New Earth after we returned. I knew that a life there was ultimately beyond my capabilities, and I think you knew it too." "But some elements about New Earth stayed with me, haunted me, brought me to places I'd never been to, within myself. The essence of New Earth, and what it offered... Like rendering a complicated piece of chemistry down to its simplest ingredients. And I knew that one of those base ingredients was you, Chakotay. I wanted so much for that ingredient to remain!"
"But not out there - where there's chaos and danger and sadness and pain and responsibility and complication. So how to do it? How to keep the essence intact? Almost the minute I kissed you in Sickbay, the idea came into my mind... To recreate New Earth as an - alternative - to all the rest..."
"Where we could be exactly as we want, with no other ingredients to mess up the mix?" said Chakotay drily.
Janeway frowned slightly. "That's put rather simplisticly, but - yes."
A hiss of air escaped Chakotay's parted lips. "I see."
Oh, Kathryn, he thought. It's the defining parameters again. Boundaries. Conditions. You seem to feel so much safer that way! But I... have no need to draw lines in the sand... to define things... to make things have a certain height and width and depth so that I can fit them neatly into my life...
"Chakotay, do you remember in Sickbay when I said that I would ask more of you than any Captain ever asked of a First Officer?" He nodded assent.
"Well, I was right! And what I ask of you now, as unreasonable and illogical and silly as it may seem at the moment, is that you become TWO people, for me. One Chakotay out there, who is as he has always been, my reliable strong right arm, with integrity and wisdom and calm courage, but - at arm's length." "And one Chakotay in here, in our New Earth, my - lover - and companion battleship with guns as big as mine, and - with ideas and joy and exploration and whatever else he wants, as long as I can tag along close behind. Very close. As close as we dare to be..."
"And please know this," she continued, choosing her words slowly and with great care. "If you are not able to do this - and I would understand completely if you cannot, because it does defy reason, I know that - if you choose NOT to agree to this - arrangement? - then at least we will have had this one night together. I will have this amazing night, to remember." Her eyes were very bright as she finished, and shiny as tears crept into them. She blinked them back, swallowing hard.
Chakotay, his mind reeling, couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry. He stared fixedly into the campfire, and the only sound for a long time was the crackling of the firewood as it fed the fire.
(How does the wood feel, he wondered, as it gives in to that irresistable force that finally consumes and destroys it?... Does it go to its end with joy, welcoming the kiss of the hot flames? Help me, my brother logs - am I seasoned enough to burn as willingly as you???)
Janeway stood up in her blanket and walked over to the seat rock to retrieve her sundress. As the blanket fell to the ground, Chakotay's eyes lingered on her slim body in the starlight as she slipped the dress over her head and stood looking at the waterfall, her back to him. Finally she picked up the blanket and nuzzled her face into its softness. She looked back at him with huge eyes and a wan smile, and hugged the blanket to her. "It smells like you..."
He hung his head and closed his eyes, sighing softly, then uncoiled his lean body and stood up, unconscious of his nakedness. Chakotay walked over to Janeway, took the blanket from her and gathered her into his arms, planting his feet wide and holding her very tightly, burying his face in her hair, eyes closed, his hands caressing her back and neck and bottom, wanting to feel her all around him as he had earlier. Though she made no sound, he felt wetness drop to his chest, and turned to kiss the tears from her cheek. "Kathryn, my sweet Kathryn..."
"...I've had a crazy life... full of danger and risk and struggles and hard decisions. Three years ago, my life turned even crazier the minute you walked into it, and that doesn't seem likely to change as long as you are still in it. And I WANT you in it..."
Pulling back and looking into her eyes, he continued. "I am only a man, an imperfect man, in the process of learning what makes me tick and what life is all about. I may never grow up or slow down. I can't promise that I will always be as - consistent - as a holodeck program would be. I very likely may stray outside the conditions you try to set for me, and you may not like that."
"But God knows I have been willing to follow you into the jaws of hell thus far. Why should I balk at following you into a parallel universe... that may even turn out to be a paradise?..."
Her entire face lit up as he finished his sentence. "Chakotay! You'll try it! You really will?" She laughed delightedly, then took his face in her hands and kissed him deeply, nearly knocking him over in her urgency. "Oh! We'll have such wonderful adventures here! Anything we want! Anywhere we want! We can go on those archeological digs you're always talking about! And I'll introduce you to Da Vinci, wait til you see his drawings, you won't believe your eyes! And you can show me your ancestors and their customs! And, and..."
"And... now you must sleep, Kathryn, you have a starship to run."
Chakotay caressed her face once more, looked at her with that blazing look, and let his arms fall away from her. Janeway's expression changed, slowly, as she felt for the first time what the transition from "New Earth" back to "out there" would feel like. It was painful, poignant, bittersweet. She looked into his dark eyes, knowing that he meant her to feel it, that he understood that she felt it, that he felt it along with her. This is the price, she thought, of where they had just been and would go again, if it worked. EYES OPEN.
She turned and silently walked out of the holodeck.
Chakotay discreetly waited a few minutes, looking at the fire as it began to dwindle to bright embers. A soft light began to appear on the far horizon. Kathryn's first sunrise here in her New Earth, and she missed it, he thought... smiling ironically.
He pulled on his climbing shorts, his shoes, and his shirt.
"Computer... end program."
As he too strode out the holodeck door, Chakotay sighed, and found himself saying to no one in particular: "It will work. It has to work..."
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