Disclaimer: Star Trek: Voyager and all things Starfleet belong to Paramount. No infringement intended.
Summary: Another take on the future following Endgame.
Safe Harbor
by Mizvoy
Chapter 8: Exile
Chakotay spent his afternoons in the study working on cataloging the artifacts from the dig or reviewing John Kelly’s logs from the Mars mission while Kathryn did her second set of rehabilitation exercises in the kitchen and then collapsed on the sofa to recuperate until dinner. She’d needed his help when she’d first left the camp’s tiny sickbay, but had managed well on her own following that, and Chakotay knew she needed to feel self- sufficient. He’d even stopped peeking in on her as she worked out.
As always, Chakotay was amazed by her determination and her single- minded dedication to her recovery. He’d seen her break into a sweat with pain as she’d stretched the ligaments in her injured knee or flexed the muscles in her broken arm, and he was fairly certain that she still had headaches from her concussion, but she never complained and never gave herself time off. She was just as dedicated to this as she had been to getting Voyager home.
“I’m not going to get better by sitting around, Chakotay,” she’d said when he’d suggested she take things slower. “Besides, it hurts less every day.”
Right.
He sat back in his desk chair, listening to her breathe as she walked on the portable treadmill. He still had nightmares about those first frightening moments following the avalanche. He’d burst from his building almost before the avalanche had ended, pulling behind him the body cage filled with first aid equipment, a back board and neck brace, and a tricorder especially calibrated to find bodies in the snow. His first look at the hill, which had been transformed into a lunar-like landscape, had almost made him lose hope. He knew that if she had been on the path beneath the snowfield, she would’ve been killed instantly by the impact of the avalanche or smothered beneath tons of snow.
He’d decided to start scanning at the bottom of the hill and work his way up. When he’d opened the tricorder to calibrate it, he’d found that she was in the snow banks beneath the cliffs on the west side of the hill, just a few yards from his front door.
It hadn’t occurred to him to wonder how she’d gotten there until a few days later. He’d asked her when she’d recovered consciousness, but she couldn’t remember anything after landing the shuttle, a typical loss of short-term memory after a concussion. At first, Chakotay thought the force of the avalanche might have pushed her body off of the cliff, but a more careful study of the hill made him realize that something completely different had happened.
Kathryn had jumped off of the cliff. The location of her body indicated that she’d probably taken a running start down the path and had jumped without any idea of the cliff’s height or of the depth of the snowdrifts beneath it. He was still amazed at the courage and the sheer nerve such an action represented, yet he’d seen her make dozens of similarly risky decisions on Voyager’s bridge. He admired her ability to think on her feet and survive what seemed to be impossible predicaments.
“I think you jumped off the cliff,” he said one day, as he helped her walk around the sickbay. “You counted on the snow banks cushioning your fall, didn’t you?”
She’d frowned and shrugged her shoulders, squeezing his arm as she leaned into him heavily. “I might have, I don’t remember. Whatever I did, I also counted on you being there to put me back together again.”
He shook his head, still flattered by the faith she’d had in him. It was typical of Kathryn Janeway to credit him with her rescue, while he blamed himself for her injury.
“You wouldn’t have been injured at all if I hadn’t insisted that you leave almost as soon as you’d arrived. If I’d just let you finish eating the bowl of mushroom soup, you’d be in perfect shape right now.”
She chuckled at that. “Oh, no, you don’t. You didn’t physically throw me out, did you? And you didn’t know the avalanche was about to happen. Except for an accident of nature, I’d have left without any problems. End of story.”
He snapped out of his reverie, realizing that while he no longer heard her exercising, he did hear the unmistakable sound of the treadmill being pushed back toward the storage room.
“You shouldn’t be doing that, Kathryn,” he said, getting up from his chair. He was just stepping into the kitchen when she lost her balance and fell with a crash to the floor. He was there in time to keep the treadmill from crushing her. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Damn!” she said, rolling onto her back and giving him a look of complete frustration. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
“I want you to bother me.” He leaned the treadmill against the wall. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. My knee gave out and I lost my balance, that’s all.”
Before she could move, he scooped her up and deposited her on the sofa in the lounge on the opposite side of the room. “Stay put until I can check you out with the medical tricorder.”
“Yes, sir.” She watched his face as he studied the readouts and was relieved when he looked up and smiled at her. “I guess I’m no worse for the wear?”
“No, but, next time, don’t tax yourself. Your leg is weak after exercising. Let me put the kitchen back together.”
“All right.” She wasn’t a patient person. In fact, she almost always erred by taking action rather than by standing by doing too little. She’d often left Chakotay on the bridge to wait for repair reports while she’d gone out into the ship to “show the flag,” as she put it, to the crew. In reality, she couldn’t bear the inactivity. “I guess I just expected to recover more quickly, that’s all.”
“Next time you jump off of a cliff,” he chided her, “do it in San Francisco or Switzerland. Someplace with doctors and a real hospital.”
“I’m not complaining,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “You’ve done wonderfully with limited resources. I couldn’t ask for a better nurse.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“Imagine how long it took to recover from injuries before we had modern medicine.” She rubbed her aching knee and gave him a crooked smile. “It used to take bones up to six weeks to heal.”
“Yeah. We’re lucky.” He watched her lean back against the pillows and shivered slightly as he remembered finding her in the snow.
He didn’t tell her that she probably wouldn’t have survived in those earlier days. She’d been crumpled. That was the best word for it. The left side of her body had taken most of the punishment—a broken arm, three broken ribs, a severely damaged knee, and bruises on her head and face that almost turned his stomach. There’d also been internal injuries, of course, but the biobed had been equipped with a state-of-the-art diagnostic program that told him what he’d needed to do to help her, step-by-step. He’d have to remember to thank the doctor (Edward?) for that.
“Are you ready for some dinner?” he asked.
“I’ll help you.” She started to sit up, but he put a hand on her shoulder.
“Oh, no you won’t. You get some rest. If you’re good, I’ll let you clean up.”
“You’re getting awfully bossy, Chakotay,” she smiled, her eyes twinkling. “Have you forgotten who’s the admiral here?”
“Have you forgotten who isn’t in Starfleet anymore?”
When she gave up with just a feeble joke, he knew she must really be exhausted. He decided to take his time and give her a chance to take a much-needed nap. He put on some restful music, methodically cleaned up his desk, rearranged the kitchen, and then fixed their dinner–pasta marinara, salad, and bread. He even programmed the replicator with pecan pie, hoping to entice Kathryn into eating some dessert.
When he returned to the sofa, he found her fast asleep, curled up around one of the throw pillows. He knelt beside the bed and studied her face, trying to decide whether he should just let her sleep through the night on the sofa or if he should wake her up, feed her, and then pour her into bed. She looked beautiful as she slept, a far cry from the battered woman he’d rescued from the snow, and he knew that she needed rest more than she needed food. He pulled the blanket off of the back of the sofa and draped it over her.
He paused, reminded of another night when he’d covered her with a blanket, the night before he and the rest of the Maquis had left earth for Dorvan IV. He’d carried her to her office sofa and had given her a farewell kiss, but she’d been too sound asleep to remember it. He smiled at her and cupped her cheek in his hand, gently running his thumb across her lips.
“’Night,” she mumbled, groggy. She snuggled into the pillow with a sigh, not even bothering to open her eyes.
“Goodnight.”
Hours later, Kathryn woke up disoriented and tried to figure out where she was. In the weeks since the accident, there were times when she thought she was back on Voyager, times when she thought she was in Indiana, even times when she thought she was on an academy field trip. She sat up and looked around the strange room, trying to place the locations of the lights, the unusual sounds, the unique smells.
Of course. She was on the sofa of the cabin where she’d fallen asleep that evening—before dinner—and now she was starving. Should she replicate some soup to quiet her growling stomach? Should she lie back down on the sofa for the remainder of the night? If she crept back into the sleeping alcove, would she wake up Chakotay? After a quick trip to the bathroom, she stood in front of the replicator trying to decide what to eat when she heard a groan from the sleeping alcove.
“Chakotay?” she said into the darkness. “Are you all right?”
She realized that he was thrashing in his bed, obviously in the grips of a terrible nightmare and she hurried to him, sitting down on the side of the bed, reaching out to gently shake his shoulder. “Wake up, Chakotay. You’re having a nightmare.”
He shot up in bed, gripping her shoulders tightly, his body drenched in sweat, his face a mask of fear as he looked her up and down. “Kathryn! You’re all right? You aren’t . . . hurt?”
“I’m fine. See? Thanks to you, I’m getting better every day.”
Through all the days and weeks of her treatment and recuperation, Chakotay had never become emotional, never let her see the panic he’d felt when he’d realized the extent of her injuries. He knew she needed him to be steady, calm, and supportive, just as he’d always been during a crisis, and so he’d cried quietly in the shower or run on the treadmill until he was ready to drop rather than burden her with his feelings. But tonight, after a long, tense month, he’d dreamt of finding her broken body in the snow, he’d seen again her terrible injuries, and the emotional reaction could no longer be contained.
“Oh, Kathryn,” he sobbed, pulling her into an embrace, burying his face in her hair. “What would I have done without you? How could I have gone on without you?”
She put her arms around him and rubbed his back, trying to soothe him. “It didn’t happen, Chakotay. I’m here. I’m fine. You had a bad dream. It was just a dream.”
Eventually, he calmed down and followed her into the kitchen where she fixed him a cup of tea to help him relax. “You’ve had these nightmares before, haven’t you?” she asked, sitting down across from him. She remembered several mornings when she’d awakened to find that he’d been up for hours. She’d always found him in the study, nearly exhausted, his eyes haunted when he’d looked up to greet her. “I’ve always slept through it.”
He studied his cup, and then nodded. “More than once, I was sure I’d lose you. I relive those moments in my dreams.”
She patted his hand. “Time. With time, the nightmare will gradually stop.”
He looked up at her, studying her face, deciding that the time was right to brooch a sensitive subject that had bothered him for weeks. “Why did you come here? Not that I’d enjoy being stuck here with Mike Ayala. The guy snores like a band saw. But, why, Kathryn? Why take the chance?”
She shrugged. “I wanted to see you.”
“Sorry, too easy. We’ve gone years without seeing each other, and we were together for several weeks earlier this year. I deserve the truth.”
She blushed and looked away. “I wanted to apologize for my behavior at Martin’s pond.”
“Martin’s pond?”
“In Indiana. The rock skipping?”
“Ah, yes.” He felt his heart begin to race. “What did you do?”
“You’re kidding. After the way I behaved that day, you withdrew from me. I’d had such fun working with you on the holodeck scenarios. I loved having you around again, this time without all the bother of Voyager, but you seemed avoid me after that day. And then suddenly you decided to leave. I knew it was my fault.”
“Your fault?” He couldn’t believe his ears. “What did you do?”
She narrowed her eyes. “You were there, weren’t you? I crossed the line.” When she saw the confusion in his face, she continued. “We’ve always had limits and barriers in our relationship, Chakotay, and those are what helped us survive seven years in a command relationship. But I ignored them that day when I was teaching you how to skip rocks.”
“You did? How?”
“I don’t believe this! I put my arm around you. I stood too close to you, pressed my body against yours, held your hand.” She stood up, putting her mug in the sink, keeping her back to him. “When you turned and looked at me, I saw panic in your eyes and I knew I’d gone too far. You pulled away and started to avoid me.”
He was silent, unable to think of a thing to say.
She turned to face him. “So, I apologize. I won’t do it again. I need you to be my friend, Chakotay. I had to make sure we were okay, and I had to do it in person. So I came, and, in spite of everything, I’m glad I did.”
He still sat immobile, staring at her incredulously.
“Chakotay?” She sat down across from him again. “Say something.”
“You did that on purpose? With the rock? You were flirting with me?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
He nodded. “Yes. I thought that was behind us.”
“It is. From now on, it’s behind us, I promise. We’re best friends. Period.”
He frowned. “I did panic that day.”
She blushed again. “I know. I’m so sorry.”
“But not because of anything you did, Kathryn. It never occurred to me that you were flirting.” He swallowed, and then decided to throw caution to the wind. It was so quiet in the room he knew she could hear his heart hammering against his chest. “I panicked because I wanted to kiss you. Can you imagine crossing that line? I was afraid of what’d you’d do to me if I did. I wasn’t sure I could live within those parameters any more, so I ran away rather than face it.”
Her eyes were wide with surprise, but now she was the one who was speechless. Was it possible that after all these years he still loved her?
“I did avoid you afterwards, Kathryn, but not because of anything you did. I came here to think about what was to become of me, how I could regain control over my emotions and continue to be your friend the same as always in spite of the sparks we always seem to strike off of each other.”
A tear fell down her check. “I would have kissed you back,” she whispered.
He leaned forward, unsure of what he’d heard her say. “You what?”
She closed the space between them over the table until their foreheads nearly touched. “I would have kissed you back.” Her eyes locked on his, she leaned toward him. “Like this,” she whispered, gently brushing his lips with her own.