Disclaimer: Star Trek and its characters are the property of Paramount. I’m just borrowing them.

Night and Day will be a series of episode additions (not in chronological order) that lets us see the Kathryn/Captain differences from Chakotay’s perspective.

Summary: This is an episode addition to “Resolutions” and takes place three weeks after Janeway and Chakotay return to the ship from their 6-week exile to New Earth.

Night and Day 4

by mizvoy

“Resolutions”

Stardate 49699.6 (Three weeks or so after the episode “Resolutions”)

“Keep your arms up, Chakotay! Watch his right hand. Move, man! Move!”

Chakotay nodded and ducked to his left, his body drenched in sweat as his sparring partner continued a relentless attack of quick left jabs. He was well into the second hour of his holodeck boxing program and was exhausted by the grueling pace of the workout that was twice the length of his normal regimen. He had lifted weights, skipped rope, jogged, and punched the heavy bag and speed bag before he began an extended sparring session with an opponent of sufficient skill to test his proficiency. As the program came to a close, he was losing his strength. A well-placed left jab landed on his temple, making him see stars and fall back a few steps.

“You’re dropping your right!” The voice came from the darkness beneath the ring, where his craggy manager sat watching the fight and shouting advice. “Chakotay! Your right!”

His arms were so tired that he could barely hold them up, and his knees felt like they were made out of rubber. He was too punch-drunk and weary to understand his coach’s words, much less follow them. In spite of the headgear he wore and the safety protocols that he had lowered only slightly, the constant battering from his opponent and his increasing fatigue had a cumulative affect on his brain. Soon he would be unconscious on the mat because of an especially well-placed right cross or left uppercut, and the program would automatically shut down.

He looked forward to it.

This was how he’d spent every third night since he and Kathryn Janeway had returned from their idyllic exile on New Earth. He told himself that he needed this exercise to counteract the inactivity of shipboard life, especially after the hard manual labor he’d experienced on the planet, and that was the excuse he gave the EMH when he had his minor injuries treated after each workout session. Inactivity was only an excuse, however.

The truth was that the serving as Voyager’s first officer brought with it an overwhelming pressure and loneliness that threatened to smother him. The work was so constant and repetitive that he could make out the crew’s work schedules in his sleep and predict personnel problems by incredibly subtle signs, such as which crew members avoided each other in the mess hall each morning. He could see only two possible outcomes to his life–to be bored stiff for the time it would take for the ship to get home, or become victim to an injury or illness on the way. Live or die. There were times when death seemed like the preferable option.

“Taking your exercise program to this extreme is not rational,” the doctorargued each time he’d treated his minor injuries. “Why are you punishing yourself?”

“It’s not punishment. I find it hard to sleep when I’m not physically tired, and boxing makes me tired. It’s also an excellent outlet for my emotions.”

“And what emotions would those be, Commander?” The EMH looked at him with a thinly masked curiosity that he’d seen on the face of every single crew member since he and the captain had beamed back on board, a curiosity based on one question: how close had he and Kathryn Janeway been on that planet, anyway?

Chakotay resisted the urge to deactivate the doctor’s program out of sheer spite. “Right now, doctor, the emotion I’m feeling is profound annoyance.”

The EMH sniffed. “Well, whatever your reason is for this activity, I’ll have to report these injuries to the captain.” He’d snapped the medical tricorder closed with a loud click. “Again.”

“Do what you have to do, Doc.”

If the doctor had challenged him, Chakotay might have admitted that he wanted the captain to check up on him. He wanted her to pay some attention to him, even if it was to chew him out. The other reason for his depression, the one he couldn’t even admit to himself, was the sudden and complete absence of Kathryn Janeway from his daily life. On New Earth he’d had Kathryn to himself, all day, every day. But, here? Here he saw her briefly once or twice a day, usually in group meetings where they exchanged a few formal words of greeting and then focused on the business at hand. He had gone from feast to famine, and he felt as if he were starving to death.

Two years earlier, his initial attraction to Kathryn had been an intense desire to possess her–the lust that Seska had so accurately diagnosed in him when they first blended the crews. But in the intervening months, that desire had gradually turned to friendship while they worked together on Voyager, and then to love on New Earth. And he’d had reason to believe that she might come to love him, too. When the ship had retrieved them and ended their growing intimacy, he had found that giving up that fragile hope for a relationship with her was more than he could bear.

He missed her. She had retreated to her ready room or her quarters for every free moment since their return, claiming that she had over two months of reports to catch up on in her off duty time. Whenever he asked her to join him for lunch, or for dinner, or even for a cup of coffee, she would just shake her head and say, “Later, Commander. Not today.”

As if it wasn’tbad enough that their closeness on New Earth had been ruined, they seemed to have trouble withprofessional relationship, as well. If he was having trouble adjusting to these drastic changes in his personal life, then she must be, as well. But, he wasn’t sure how she was coping because she dealt with him only when their positions required it and avoided him, and everyone else, the rest of the time.

“Chakotay! Wake up!” his coach pleaded. “Hang on just a few seconds more!”

Perhaps it was a combination of worry and exhaustion that made him drop his right hand again, but, whatever the cause, his opponent took advantage of it. Chakotay was stunned by a perfectly timed left jab and stumbled back against the ropes to keep his balance, shaking his head in a futile attempt to clear his vision.

“Get your hand up, Chakotay!” his manager growled. “Get your mind off of your woman troubles and keep your head in the ring.”

Woman troubles? Chakotay was so surprised by the old man’s words that he dropped both arms and stared into the dim shadows of his corner. He never saw the right cross that decked him. He didn’t hear the referee’s eight-count. Flat on his back, his arms spread wide on either side of him, he slipped into blessed oblivion as the holodeck automatically deleted the rest of the characters in the gym. He would slide from unconsciousness into sleep for the final minutes of his holodeck time, and then he would trudge unsteadily to sickbay before returning to his quarters for some much needed sleep. It was part of his routine.

He hadn’t noticed the captain when she’dslipped into a dark corner of the gym a few minutes earlier. He hadn’t seen her eyes widen in horror when he seemed toallow his opponent free access to hit him with a powerful blow. He didn’t hear her cry out in horror as his head snapped back nor did he know that she hid her face as he wheeled slowly and gracefully in his fall, crashing with a groan to the mat where he lay silent and unmoving during the eight count, a slow thread of blood oozing from his nose and down his cheek. He didn’t see her panicked race to the ring to check on his condition or the tears she brushed away as she reached his side.

Some moments later, he became aware of a cool towel bathing his face and opened his eyes, squinting up at the silhouette of a woman who blocked the glaring lights that illuminated the ring. His realized that his head gear had been removed and a rolled towel had been placed under his head. A low sound buzzed in his head. A voice.

“Can you hear me? Chakotay?”

“Kathryn?” he mumbled, blinking his eyes as her face came into focus. She knelt over him, a look of distress on her face. “You’re here?”

“The doctor told me about what you’ve been doing, but I thought he must be exaggerating. I had to come see for myself.”

Chakotay struggled to sit up, and she helped him, slipping an arm behind his shoulders and keeping a hand on his shoulder to steady him. “You had no right to intrude on my privacy without my permission,” he complained, burying his face in the cool, damp towel she handed him. “I’m not really hurting anyone, not even myself.”

“How can you say that? I saw what happened here.” She paused, and then looked away as she remembered how his body had crashed, unconscious, onto the mat. “I’m sorry, Chakotay. We’re both suffering, but it’s my fault that we haven’t talked about . . . our readjustment to the ship. I wish we had a counselor on board.”

He closed his eyes, considering what he would say to a counselor, how he would characterize his struggle. “I wish we had a counselor, too. I feel more alone on Voyager, more isolated and depressed, than I did when I shared an entire planet with just one other person.”

“So do I,” she whispered. She crossed her legs and sat next to him. “Why is that?”

He gave her a level look. “It’s more than the usual separation you feel between the captain and crew, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

“Maybe it’s because the crew is watching our every move. They think . . . they imagine that we . . . .” He stopped, unable to put into words the intimacy that the crew assumed had occurred between them—a man and a woman supposedly stranded alone on a planet for the rest of their lives.

She blushed slightly. “They do, don’t they?”

“Being the command team 24/7 is enough of a burden without this added scrutiny. And our avoidance of each other is just adding to their speculation.”

“You’ve heard about Tom’s betting pool?”

He nodded, miserable. “I don’t know whether to ignore it or order him to stop it.”

“And round and round it goes. It’s a no-win situation.” She sighed, looking around at the deserted gym. “This helps you cope?”

“It helps me sleep. I miss the hard physical work, and I get rid of a lot of physical tension this way.” He dabbed the towel at the blood oozing slowly from his nose. “They say that physical exertion is a good way to deal with depression.”

“Depression.” She nodded. “Of course, that’s what it is.”

He glanced at her. “What do you do all those hours when you’re alone, Kathryn? Are you really reading reports twenty four hours a day?”

“Not every minute, no,” she admitted. “I also sleep . . . for hours and hours at a time . . . and then I wake up tired and fight exhaustion all day.”

“Sleeping that much is a sign of depression, Kathryn.” A wave of dizziness hit him and for a moment he thought he might throw up. He fell back on the mat with a groan.

“You need to see the doctor. Computer, two to beam to sickbay.”

She stood in the background as the doctor treated his injuries, but she never looked Chakotay in the eye, never cracked a smile at the doctor’s banter. Once his injuries were treated, she accompanied him to his quarters, ordered him to sit down on the sofa, and brought them both a hot beverage from the replicator.

“How long did you watch?” he asked as he took a tentative sip of the steaming tea, his newly healed lip still sensitive to heat.

“Ten minutes.” She studied him over the rim of her mug. “You removed the safety protocols.”

“I didn’t ‘remove’ them, I just relaxed them a little.” He shrugged. “I always do that when I’m boxing. Sparring is a waste of time if you can’t feel the opponent’s punch.”

“Feel his punch? He knocked you out.”

“It wasn’t that bad. It isn’t a concussion. I lost consciousness briefly because of a combination of exhaustion and the cumulative affects of a few decent blows, that’s all.”

“Sparring until you pass out can’t possibly be therapeutic.” She frowned and picked up a PADD she’d brought with them from sickbay. “The doctor says this has become a habit with you. He calls it ‘a pattern of self-abuse in which the patient pursues physical exertion and bodily punishment until he is rendered briefly unconscious.'”

Chakotay smiled. “That’s not what my mom would call ‘self abuse.'”

Kathryn narrowed her eyes, her temper barely under control even though she knew his comment was meant to be a joke. “I’m worried about you, Chakotay. This is the fifth time you’ve done this since . . . .”

“Since we returned to the ship.” He finished the sentence for her, surprised to hear the resentment in his voice. “Look at me, Kathryn. Except for being tired enough to sleep, I’m no worse for the wear. A little dizzy, maybe, but not injured.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think there’s a counselor in the Federation that would tell you to box until you pass out in order to relieve depression.”

“At least I’m willing to admit that I’m depressed and am trying to do something to deal with it. At least I’m trying to resume the full range of my responsibilities. I’m not hiding in my office or my quarters day after day. ”

Kathryn stared at him, her eyes flashing. “Are you implying that I’m not dealing with it? How I handle the stress of our returning to the ship is no one’s business but my own, Commander.”

“I wish that were true. Yourattitude affects every single member of the crew. I’m just afraid you aren’t dealing with it at all, Captain. Any decent counselor would tell you that you need to accept your problems and then work through them.”

“And that’s what this . . . this beating you endure every third day is doing for you? Helping you work through this problem?”

“Physical release is a recognized way to vent one’s frustrations. But withdrawal and isolation? Hours and hours of sleep?” He wanted to shake her. “Haven’t you seen a counselor before?”

“Whether I’ve received counseling or not is none of your damned business.” She slammed her coffee mug down with such force that it fell over, spilling coffee across the table’s smooth surface. They both ignored it. “I do quite well by simply putting things behind me, Chakotay–disastrous away missions, bad command decisions, needless deaths, stupid, careless mistakes. It does no good to drag them out in the light of day and get upset all over again.” She took a deep breath. “Just keep going forward, that’s what works for me. Don’t look back.”

He realized what she said was true, that she habitually tried to put disasters “behind her,” as she’d said, and that she did so with varying degrees of success. She’d dealt with many of their crises in the last two years by simply forging ahead relentlessly, and he’d worried from day one about what would happen when that habit caught up with her.

He took some comfort in knowing, however, that she was just as conflicted at their return to the ship as he was. “So you’re upset at leaving New Earth?”

“Of course, I am. Who would want to leave an idyllic planet and step back into this god-forsaken job?” She stood up and began to pace. “I was just beginning to relax for the first time in two years when the ship returns and I was thrust back into the toughest job in the universe–for the next seventy years!” She shook her head and began to mop up the spilled coffee with a napkin. “For me it works best to pretend New Earth never happened, to simply close that door and move on with my life. Once I get through this period of adjustment, I’ll be my old self again. Just let me follow the process that works for me.”

“I will on one condition–allow me to continue my boxing regimen.”

She glared at him a moment and then chuckled. “You aren’t going to let me get away with this, are you?”

“Nope.”

Shaking her head in resignation, she knelt down and began cleaning the table in earnest. Chakotay replicated some cleaning supplies, and for the next few minutes they worked together to wipe up the spill. When the table was clean, Kathryn squeezed the coffee from her rag back into her mug, looking up at him with a twinkle in her eye. “It’s a sin to waste good coffee.”

Chakotay laughed, and soon Kathryn was laughing along with him. The ridiculousness of her gesture seemed to get them past their disagreement, because they were soon in tears, and the tension evaporated from the room.

“Oh, Chakotay, I needed that,” Kathryn said, sitting down on the sofa beside him and drying her eyes. “You know, I’ve missed your sense of humor these last few weeks.”

“I’m still here, Kathryn. I haven’t gone anywhere.”

“But it isn’t the same.” She leaned against the cushions, tears of sorrow glistening in her yes. “They’re watching us every minute, as you say.”

“But, Kathryn, we have nothing to hide. Nothing happened down there that they can’t know about.” He took her hand. “I’ve missed you, too. We can be friends, even if we are captain and first officer. We can salvage that much, if we try.”

Her voice was a whisper. “Yes. Friends. I’d like to save at least that much from our weeks together.”

At least that much. Her words confirmed for him that they had, indeed, been headed toward an intimate and loving partnership on New Earth, but he quickly pushed the idea aside. It was hard enough to lose their solitude and privacy; he wasn’t sure either of them could bear knowing that they could have been lovers. “Kathryn, maybe we can find a way to help each other survive. Instead of my boxing program, we can play velocity, and that way we’d both get some exercise.”

“True. As you say, the exercise would be therapeutic.” She thought a minute. “I could start eating in the mess hall a few times a week.”

“And I could start making personal reports to you at the end of alpha shift, the way I did . . . .before.”

She relaxed and looked down at their hands, the fingers laced together. “We can do it, Chakotay. We have no choice.”

“The crew needs to see you as much as I do. They went through hell to get us back, and they think you’re sorry they did.”

“Oh, it’s not returning to Voyager that I regret.” She took her hand from his and stood, walking to his desk where she toyed with a stack of PADDs, idly sorting through them. “Eventually, I would’ve grown restless on New Earth, Chakotay. I really can’t see myself stuck on a single planet for the rest of my days. But those six weeks of ‘camping’ with you?” She turned to face him. “I feel like I’ve really come to know you and trust you as I have few people in my life, and I regret that as your captain I have to distance myself from you again.” She held her breath, and then seemed to deflate slightly as she exhaled. “I hope you understand.”

This had been difficult for her to say, and he sensed that she’d be hurt if he didn’t reply with equal sincerity. He had a feeling that there would be few times when she wouldwillingly discuss their time on New Earth with him, and so he said the one thing he wanted her to remember most. “I plan to do all I can to help you, Kathryn, from here on. I told you that before we returned to the ship and I meant every word.”

She nodded, typically unwilling to revisit their last hours on the planet. “So, no more boxing matches until you’re unconscious?”

“No more. And you agree to get out more, to let the crew see you?”

“Yes. I’ll do that.”

He decided to press his luck. “Will you eat lunch with me tomorrow in the mess hall?”

“All right. And when you’re feeling better, we’ll play a few games of velocity.” She gave him a weak smile, and he knew she was about to retreat to her quarters again. “I’m glad we had this talk. But. . . .” She took a step toward the door. “Even though you claim it would help to talk about New Earth, I can’t dwell on it, Chakotay. I have to put it behind me and forget about it. Right or wrong, that’s my way.”

“All right. But if you ever decide that you need to talk this over, this or anything else, I’m here for you.”

She paused just short of triggering the automatic door opening. “I apologize for invading your privacy on the holodeck. Truth be told, I think I was looking for a reason to approach you about this.”

“Apology accepted. I think my actions were a call for help.”

“Right now, both of us need some sleep.” She took another step, and the door opened. “I’ll see you at the morning briefing, and I look forward to lunch.”

“So do I, Captain. Good night.”

He heard her reply as the door closed behind her. He sat motionless, staring at the door. He wondered how long she could bury these hurts and disappointments before they overwhelmed her. She carried so much responsibility on her shoulders, bearing it all on her own because she believed that was what the captain had to do. The captain has to be the one constant on the ship–like the north star, visible and unchanging.

He buried his face in his hands. Despite her brave words to the contrary, she hadn’t put her worries behind her. She fretted about the dangers they faced in the Delta Quadrant, about the need to return the crew to their families, about injuries, illnesses, and deaths, about finding a shortcut home, and about keeping the ship in one piece without the help of proper maintenance and overhaul facilities. When potential solutions to their exile were cruelly torn from them, she reacted with little more than a sigh and an order to resume course. Such emotional stoicism might work in the short term or in the Alpha Quadrant, where she had other avenues of psychological relief, but here, in the Delta Quadrant, it was just a matter of time before those repressed emotions brought her to her knees.

He wished they had a counselor on board to help her. The repression of volatile emotions could, like an infection, fester and spread until they suddenly immobilized a person, often at the worst possible moment. When, and if, that happened to Kathryn, he would have to help her work through it any way he could, any way she would let him. If she would let him.

The end