Disclaimer: All characters belong to Paramount, the order of the words belongs to me.
Rated R
Epilogue: Gathering Twilight
Kathryn moved slowly around the room, smoothing down the fresh bed linens. The soft green sheets were faded with age, but Chakotay wouldn't let her recycle them. He loved to see her surrounded by the colors of nature. She plumped the pillows, setting them back against the headboard. As she always did, she let her fingers trace a part of the pattern, a different piece everyday. Today, her fingers lingered over the familiar lines of the curling pattern of Talaxian tomato vines.
The headboard had aged well, acquiring a patina from its constant use. Whether they were on board the Nobel, their research ship, or at home, here in the high desert of New Mexico, for the last twenty-nine years the headboard had come too. Kathryn closed her eyes, and let her fingers once again absorb the memories. There, in the top left corner she knew she'd find the carving of Joe Carey, below that, set in stark relief was a profile of Seven, alongside the small, pointed Ktarian horns of the child, Naomi.
The headboard took pride of place in their house. The low adobe building flowed from the earth of the desert floor, set alone, high on a mesa, fringed by scraggly pines. From a distance it was difficult to determine where the earth stopped and the house began. Chakotay had designed it, a large open space, full of light and air, which blended the openness of the sky with the solidness of the earth. Kathryn had planted the garden, her hands instinctively knowing how to plant, to sow, to reap, to nurture. The house was a symphony of natural materials; clay and wood, cloth and stone. A contrast to their other home, the small modern quarters onboard the Nobel; there, Kathryn's tastes predominated - replicator technology, shiny metal alloys and minimalist design. And together, they had compromised, blended their tastes and their needs, and molded their Earth and their space homes to fit their life.
A noise behind her, told her she was no longer alone. Turning, she saw him, and her heart swelled with love as it always did for that suspended instant when she saw him after an absence.
"I missed you," she murmured, extending a hand.
He moved slowly towards her; older now, her Chakotay, gaunter, leaner, his once thick dark hair now streaked badger-gray. But the expression in his eyes was the same; it hadn't changed or wavered during their years together. He reached her, and cupped her chin, turning her face up to greet his kiss. Soft, his lips, still so gentle, an outward expression of his soul.
"I was gone for less than an hour," he replied.
She let him maneuver her closer to the bed, and press her down into the soft covers. Her hands mapped the familiar contours of his body, much as her fingers had mapped the headboard.
"Don't," he said, the word shuddering out of him.
"Don't?" She arched an eyebrow at him quizzically, even as her hands unfastened his pants. "Why not?"
He rolled over, on top of her, and pushed his hands into her hair, shorter now, falling in soft waves around her face. "Because you're a distraction." He put his mouth to her breast, over the tunic she wore. "The puppies have been shut in for two hours, and if I don't let them out they pee everywhere."
She wiggled her hips, pressing into the start of his swell. "So?"
Chakotay smiled. "That's why we have a stone floor, right?" His fingers started undoing the buttons on her tunic.
A chirp in the main room of the house startled her. "Chakotay..." She pushed at his shoulders, even as his face nuzzled between her breasts. "Go and get that."
"Why?" he asked, the word swallowed up in her flesh.
"It could be Tom or B'Elanna..."
For a moment longer, his mouth worked over her breasts, teasing, wet kisses, then he moved away from her. "Don't go away."
Kathryn could hear the murmur of his voice in the main room of the house. She let the puppies out, Perdita's great-grandchildren, soft fuzzy balls, as exuberant as Perdita had been serene. Their mother, a rangy hound of indeterminate breeding, carried Perdita's looks. It was too soon to know what the puppies would grow into - like Perdita, their mother had disappeared wraith-like into the night to choose her own mate, and the father was unknown. Part coyote maybe? Part wolf?.
Instead of returning to the bedroom, Kathryn followed Chakotay to the main room and stood beside him, her hand on his shoulder as he stared at the comm. He was talking to B'Elanna. She looked happy, her face--older now with laughter lines cutting deep--was relaxed and animated.
"We estimate eight months for this contract," she was saying. "The energy readings from the dark matter nebula are already fluctuating and they want a scientific team close by to study them as soon as possible." She hesitated slightly. "I know eight months is a longer time away than you normally like, but the Sinlahekin government specifically asked for the two of you to lead the team."
Chakotay reached up, and took Kathryn's hand. "We were talking about this the other night," he said. "Not the specifics of this contract--we didn't know them at the time--but our feelings generally. We'll do this one. We both want to, don't we love?" He squeezed Kathryn's hand as he spoke.
"We do," she replied. "But, B'Elanna, this will be our last one."
There was a silence from the other end of the comm. Then B'Elanna reached out a hand, and touched her screen. "We expected this, Tom and I," she said. "We'll miss you."
"We'll miss you too, of course. But we expect you to visit often." Chakotay reached out and touched the screen, fingertip to fingertip with B'Elanna.
Her voice was gruff. "Count on it. Between visiting you, and visiting Miral on DS9 I don't think Tom and I will be home much." Lowering her hand, she said, "we can talk later about who is best to promote into your shoes."
"That won't be hard." Kathryn smiled at her former engineer. "The Nobel's science team is now considered a very prestigious place to be."
"We'll need a new captain. It won't be the same though, without Captain Chakotay."
"Twenty-nine years ago you said it wouldn't be the same without Captain Janeway," Kathryn reminded her. "We adapted. We grew. We appreciated the differences."
"We did that." The comm link fell silent.
"I'd better go." B'Elanna swayed forward and touched the screen once more, her still-dark hair falling forward over her face. "Can I pass on your news to Tom, or do you want to tell him?"
"You can do the honors. And send our love to Starfleet's Finest Ensign for us." Chakotay smiled at the private joke.
"I will," B'Elanna smiled, a wobbly smile. "Our daughter is all grown up. She'll be Starfleet's Finest Lieutenant Junior Grade soon."
The link went dead. B'Elanna was never one for prolonged farewells. Chakotay rose, and turned to face his lover. "Still happy with our decision?"
Kathryn slid her arms around his waist, and leaned her cheek on his chest. The strong beat of his heart was her constant reassurance and the drumbeat of her life. "Yes. We've done enough. We have to stop while we still can."
Briefly, she felt the tug of unknown, unfamiliar star systems pulling on her resolve, but it dissipated as soon as the thought was formed. They had seen enough, she and Chakotay. Now were the twilight years, time for reflection, and love. Time to draw the net of their love for each other close around them again. Her eyes were drawn outside, through the window, to the sky.
Chakotay sighed into her hair. "We've seen so much. So many new things. How can we give all that away?"
"We've talked about it," she reminded him. "It's now time to stay here, in New Mexico. Time to see the puppies grow up, time to spend the entire day in bed making love, if we want."
He took her mouth with a neediness and hunger that belied his age. "Yes."
She pressed back against him. "The puppies are outside, digging up the vegetable garden."
"So?"
"So, we have time now to do whatever we want to do."
"Which is?" His hand crept up her side to cup her breast.
In answer, Kathryn took his hand and led him into the bedroom, running gentle hands over his body, removing his clothing piece by piece until he stood proudly naked before her. He was still as beautiful as the images in her memory, older now, the sharply defined planes of the younger man gone, replaced with a crepey softness of skin, his muscles now blurred with age. But he was still her Chakotay, still the man she'd fallen in love with thirty-five years ago. Still the man she wanted to wake with every morning, and fall asleep with every night, wrapped tightly in his arms, pillowing her head on his chest.
He waited, still as the desert night, as she gently mapped his body with careful hands, tracing the contours and imperfections much as she had traced the lines of his carving earlier. When she feathered questing fingers over his belly to the jutting sex beneath, he reacted, drawing her close to him, pulling the clothes away from her body, so that she was as naked as he.
The loving was good. They had never been lovers in their youth, neither had been the first for the other, but maturity and experience had more than made up for that. They still coupled, frequently and well, sometimes with the urgency of the young, more often with the slow, skating movements that allowed for stiffer joints and decreased stamina.
This time, the euphoria of a difficult decision made permeated into their union, and they loved with a joyous abandon. Kathryn guided Chakotay's head between her thighs, swinging herself around to take him in her mouth and complete the circle, so that each tasted the essence of the other. And then he moved above her, pushing into her body and nestling into the cradle of her hips, rocking with her to completion. They lay together, afterwards, as they always did, sexes joined, sticky and sated.
Kathryn touched the side of his mouth, rubbing a thumb over his full lips, savoring the touch of skin and the connection between them. It was still there, that connection, that intangible thing called love, as shapeless and shifting as the desert wind.
Outside the wide open windows, twilight stole over landscape and the evening star rose above the valley, Venus lighting the way for the others to follow. Kathryn turned her head, and saw Chakotay was watching too. She had known he would be; this was just one more small, shared ritual in their lives, little things that bound them and cemented their love.
Her hip twinged from the prolonged stretching. Chakotay noticed and shifted so that they disconnected. Propping himself against the headboard, he reached out and she moved in his arms. Her fingers outlined Voyager's carved shape, half hidden by his hair.
"So it comes to this," she mused. "The end of our space-faring."
It was Chakotay's choice, she knew, although he had never said it aloud, never asked her to give it up for him. But so many of the decisions over the years had been hers. His life, orbiting hers, his choices limited by her judgement. The balance had been somewhat redressed when Chakotay became the Nobel's captain... Ah, how hard that had been, to give up what she secretly felt was her right. But she had done it, for him.
And now it was the captain's decision, his to make.
"It's been good," Chakotay murmured, and fell silent.
She imagined he was letting the images of distant systems, planets, and people run through his head, just as she was. Briefly, she thought of the time long ago when they'd had only stolen shore leave nights to love. Such a pivotal decision, to take his hand over the table, and let him lead her into a new phase of their lives.
And it had been good. Theirs had been a rare happiness, a contentment with their lives that she seldom saw in others. The Nobel had indeed been B'Elanna's valiant and true ship. It had been Tom's responsive ship to soar among the stars, and it had been Chakotay's home among them. And for herself, the Nobel had been exploration and science, freedom and love.
It had been a good life.
"It's not over yet," Chakotay murmured into her hair.
Once again, his uncanny ability to sense her thoughts. "I know," she said.
And from her home on his chest, against his heart, she turned her head to see the sky.
((FIN))
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