VARIATIONS ON A THEME

Disclaimer: See Part 1

Rated NC-17

PART 4: CODA - LOSS

Author's note: Children, don't try this one at home. It's not a good idea and can be dangerous.

All the time in the world and no time at all. Life slipped through your fingers when your back was turned, evaporated into the ether, and suddenly you were old and gray. Or dead.

Kathryn remembered vividly crouching behind Chakotay, her lover, and watching her hand pass through his shoulder, as if he had no more substance than coffee steam. Oh, to return, to claim one last chance to lie with him, feel the solid realness of him inside her one more time. And to say goodbye.

Now she had that chance. Their lovemaking that first night back had a desperation and a finality about it. If this were the last time, if she would be snatched away come the morn, then at least they would have had this. Kathryn kept her eyes wide open, fastened on his face, refusing to let herself be spiraled into her own world where sensation and feelings turned inward, building her own pleasure. Instead, she encompassed him with her gaze, binding him close with stroking hands, as she relearned the body she had thought lost to her.

He seemed as desperate as she and there was a gentle tussle to their loving, as each tried to be the one to provide pleasure, demonstrate how full was the love they shared. Hands stroked, glided over skin, remapping the familiar. Chakotay's fingers circled her nipple, a prelude to the fat, wet strokes of tongue and gentle suckling that she knew would send frissons of heat rippling through her. In turn, she curled her fingers around his buttocks, teasing gently between the cheeks, enough to make him gasp and lengthen against her belly.

He took her mouth with shaking urgency, as if he feared she were lost again, and Kathryn wondered, amid the deep spiral of passion, if he was remembering that earlier time his mouth had been on hers in a deep dead kiss of resuscitation. Had her lips been cold then, unresponsive, slack with the abruptness of death, all form and feeling dissipated into the alien air? She couldn't remember the feeling, but wondered again, as his mouth closed on hers, sealing so tightly that her breath was stolen, if that was what he was reliving.

He broke the seal and she took a deep, gulping breath, and let him push her over, onto her back.

He raised up onto hands and knees to crouch above her. "Trust me, Kathryn," he whispered, and tilted her chin, fitting his lips to hers and pinching her nose with strong fingers.

The recollection jolted her, and for a moment she struggled before his words permeated. "Trust me," he had whispered, and she understood his need for the reenactment. She went limp, let her eyes drift shut and fought the urge to push him away, to breathe, to control her very life.

He exhaled forcefully into her, inflating her chest. So strange it felt, the reversal of the unconscious act. He lifted his mouth, and she concentrated on not gulping air; his artificial breath had felt insufficient, barely enough to assuage the panic of impending suffocation.

Then his mouth returned, another forced inhale, and the tightness eased. Another, and her limbs relaxed. She loved him, trusted him with her life, and if this exorcised his ghosts of failed resuscitation, then it was a small price, and one she would willingly pay. But the breaths were insufficient and the spinning of her head told its own tale. Lights danced behind her closed eyelids, circling points of white. And her focus changed, shattered into a million gleaming fragments, when the hand that had been cupping her chin drifted down her body, settled briefly on her taut belly, then dropped lower, touched her pubic hair before curling its way up and pushing inside for a moment. She clenched around his thick finger, and the instant spasms would have stolen her breath if he had left her any.

Another shuddering push of his breath into her. Her head spun; not enough oxygen, her scientist's mind informed her impartially. Not enough, but the whirling in her head was matched by the spasms in her sex, as he circled her clit with a gentle finger. Her orgasm was sharp, intense, and the dancing white lights that spun behind her eyelids exploded into a cataclysm of feeling, centering down, down there, hard enough that she would have cried out if there was breath enough to form the sound.

Her body shuddered, so intense, so strong, the fierceness of it tightened her belly like a drum, bearing down into the pleasure. And just when she thought she couldn't take any more, when the edge of her mind began to blur, and the white light was encompassing her, stealing her consciousness, his mouth lifted again, and his fingers shifted from her nose to her cheek.

"Breathe, Kathryn," he whispered. "Breathe deeply." Shifting away, he moved with dizzying swiftness, laying his big body over hers, nudging her thighs further apart with his legs.

She gulped air, feeling her lungs burn; more air, drag it in deeper. And when he pushed into her body, her breathing shuddered again with the twin wonders of life in her lungs and joy in her sex. Chakotay lay still for long moments, stroking her damp hair away from her face. He kissed each eyelid once, a tender gesture.

"I did that before," he said.

She didn't need to ask what he was talking about.

"It signifies goodbye. But now it means 'welcome back'."

He started to move within her, pounding her body hard and fast. The ripples of before, which she had thought gone, once more moved out, encompassing her, until with a joyful shout, she came again, pulling him into her so that they lay close. So close, that not even death could separate them.