VARIATIONS ON A THEME

Disclaimer: See Part 1

Rated NC-17

PART 7: WORKFORCE - BETRAYAL

Kathryn knew that he was suffering. Chakotay tried hard to hide the hurt in his eyes, but she caught glimpses of it in his unguarded moments. The first night back on board Voyager, after returning from Quarra, had been spent in sickbay. She had seen Chakotay only briefly; in his uniform he looked very different from the man she'd met at the power plant. He had appeared at her bedside and touched her hand, outwardly the caring gesture of a colleague, but the tremble had told her otherwise. Then he had moved away to converse with the Doctor.

Later, she'd asked the Doctor what the relationship was between her and the commander, but the hologram had evaded any direct answer.

"Your memories will return in full with my treatment, Captain," he'd said. "If you have any questions after that, then I want you to feel free to ask me."

She spent the night on one of the biobeds, her heart so heavy with Jaffen's absence that she could scarcely draw breath. Jaffen, her gentle lover, the man who made her body soar free with his loving. Jaffen, whom she'd fallen in love with so swiftly. Their second date had ended in his bed. A week later she moved her burnt-out power relays into his apartment, and herself into his life. Or so she'd thought.

In the here and now of Voyager's sickbay, Kathryn, powerhouse worker, wanted nothing more than to return to Quarra and her lover's arms.

Yet, Chakotay's hand had trembled when he touched her arm, and there was something buried deep behind his guarded eyes, something that had made her stomach twist momentarily, in instinctive sympathy. Something she didn't understand.

The memories had returned to her by the next morning, and the Doctor had held her in his arms as she cried out her confusion on his shoulder. Then, he released her to her quarters and Chakotay's care.

Kathryn found she didn't know what to say to him. Chakotay was solicitous, tending to her needs with the impartiality of a caring stranger, but something was holding him in check. She wanted to turn to him, howl and scream about the interference in their lives, but his dark eyes sheltered his own pain, and so she did nothing.

That night, she lay in their bed staring at the ceiling, listening to him breathe mere inches away. When she glanced in his direction, he was staring at her. Their eyes clung, locked together, and she sensed that if this moment slipped away, it would be one more crumbling bridge between them. Memories of Teero still lingered, a shadowy wisp of control that sometimes stilled the words of love on her tongue. She had forgiven him for that; he would forgive her this. He had to.

Turning on her side, she traced his cheek, feathering over his lips with gentle fingers.

"Chakotay, I'm..." The word stuck, for the duality of her heart betrayed her and the word wouldn't allow itself to be spoken.

He said nothing, merely gathered her onto his chest, so that her cheek rested over his heart. "Sshhh, love," he murmured, and she felt the brush of his lips through her hair. "It's all right. I understand, and I love you."

Lifting her chin, he pressed a gentle kiss on her forehead, before dropping his head to claim her lips. She forced herself to relax, knowing they needed to rebuild their physical connection. The familiar warmth, the press of soft lips, the flicker of his tongue on the corners of her mouth all served as tantalizing reminders of what had been between them. When his tongue dipped inside, a coil of arousal spiraled down in her belly, and she gave herself up to the feeling, raising the memories of their earlier lovemaking. Before Quarra. Before Jaffen.

Chakotay did nothing but kiss her for long minutes. His hand rested on her ribcage, splaying over the silky nightgown, and the heat of his hand was familiar, but alien after Jaffen's cooler body temperature. Chakotay's lips were soft, silky, a light, but insistent pressure, and Kathryn let herself sink into his kiss, relearning what she loved. She ran her hands up his chest, feeling for his nipples, splaying her fingers over his skin, absorbing his heartbeat through her palm.

This was the man she loved, she told herself fiercely. This one. No other. And thrust away the memory of Jaffen's dear countenance when it threatened her resolve.

Despite that, when Chakotay's hand meandered down from her shoulder to her breast, she couldn't help the instinctive recoil. How she wanted to fall back into their deep and loving intimacy, when she and Chakotay were everything to each other. She wanted it with a deep and stabbing need - if they were to survive as a couple, then she had to recapture that loving exclusiveness. And she wished with all her heart that Quarra had never happened. But still she flinched slightly, as Chakotay's hand, soft, questing, and somewhat foreign, cupped her breast, a careful thumb rubbing the nipple.

He noticed. How could he not, when he knew her so well? Lifting his mouth from hers, he studied her in the half-light of the cabin. Starlight painted his cheeks with silver, giving him a faerie aura, so strange in one so solid, so grounded. His expression was melancholy.

"Do you still love me, Kathryn?" he asked in a whisper. "And, for spirits' sake, please be truthful."

She nodded wordlessly.

"No. Not good enough." Taking her chin in his hand, he raised it so that she had to meet his eyes. "Tell me."

She would speak the truth, even if it drove a further wedge in the half-healed crack that Teero had made. "I love you, Chakotay. But," she hesitated, unsure how to phrase the jumbled feelings, "I still feel something for Jaffen too. On Quarra, I loved him. But I didn't know about us then. The mind wipe was nearly total; I knew my name, that I was from Earth... but relationships, emotions, were severed."

She wouldn't let herself look away, much as she wanted to. "I should have known you, Chakotay. When we met on Quarra, when you introduced yourself, I should have felt some connection. But I didn't, and that's what hurts the most. Now I can recognize the look in your eyes for what it was."

It was desperation. Now, she knew what he must have been thinking, seeing not only his captain, but also his lover, so altered.

Chakotay was silent, then he moved forward to kiss her again. "Let me help you," he whispered. "We can regain what we had. If we can survive Teero, then this should be easy."

She met his kiss fervently. How she wanted this. How she loved him. He hadn't spoken a single word of blame, or regret. As it should be, but seldom was. When Riley Fraser and her collective had seduced him, Kathryn had spoken more than a few harsh words of blame to him.

"Let me love you," he whispered. "Let me replace your memories of him with ones of me."

She sighed into his mouth, a shudder of acceptance, and a surrender to his touch. His fingers moved steadily down her body, curving over a hip, raising the nightgown, and splaying over her belly to rest on the clutch of hair between her legs.

He raised his head to study her again. "I want you to come apart in my arms, Kathryn. Like you used to, calling my name, shouting your pleasure. I want to taste your climax, salty hot on my tongue, and I want you to taste mine. I'm going to make you forget him so completely that it will be another mind wipe."

"Yes," she murmured, even as her fingers pushed down his boxers and sought his rigid cock, massaging up its stiffened length. "Oh, yes."

He kissed her so deeply that she felt consumed by his love. Then his fingers started crawling, moving slowly. He removed her nightgown swiftly, and his fingers feathered over her cheek, stroking over the bones, across her eyelids, down to her chin. With gentle, gliding caresses, they slid over her neck, down to the jutting collarbones, along the tops of her shoulders.

Kathryn shuddered as they crawled down her arms, their light touch a tantalizing stimulation, even as she realized his intent. He would cover every inch of her body, leaving no place untouched where the memory of Jaffen's caress might linger. She shifted slightly, raising her arm so that he could map the veins of her wrist, up her forearm, up the soft underarm. When he finally touched her breast, she gasped. Jaffen's touch had been sure, firm, his hands drier, rougher. But Chakotay's fingers knew her body intimately, and he was already circling her breast, closing slowly on her nipple.

His fingers strummed on her nipple for a few moments, then moved on, as if determined to leave no inch of her skin untouched. The slight roundness of belly, the paper-soft skin of her hips, down he moved, along each leg, tracing veins, lines, gliding over skin and hair. Even the space between her toes was not ignored, and he moved with a single-minded intent, that told her this was as much for him as it was for her.

In turn, she let her hands drift over his body, relearning his solidness, smoothing small hands over his golden skin, imprinting him--and only him--back into her memory. Her Chakotay; and once more the fierce pain surged - how could she have forgotten him? How was it possible? So, she redoubled her efforts, single-mindedly stroking his thighs, his chest, his cock, until he shuddered, and stilled her hand.

"Turn over," he whispered finally, as his fingers met once more at the apex of her thighs, dipping between the lips of her sex to feel her wetness. "Let me relearn the rest of you."

So she rolled over, and lay limply, letting him stroke and soothe along her shoulders, her back, the ridge of her spine, down to her buttocks. On down the backs of her legs to her feet, and then, joyously, his hands eased their way along her inner thighs to, once again, edge into the folds of her sex.

Rolling her over once again, he put his mouth where his fingers had been. His tongue lapped, then pushed, driving into her, so that the first spasms of climax rolled through her body, a long glorious wave curling into the shore. He didn't pause, merely shifted his mouth so that the stimulation was less direct, and continued to suckle her, lapping her sex until the pressure built to unbearable levels, and the red-gold wash of orgasm consumed her once more.

He lifted his mouth, wet with her juices, and pushed a finger into her. "Say it, Kathryn. Tell me you love me. Shout my name to the stars." And he lowered his lips to her again.

She was incoherent with the exquisite pleasure-pain of over-stimulation. Her whole body focused down, centering on the constant ripples and aftershocks he was producing. And the words bubbled up, through the layers of confusion and conflict, and she mumbled his name. The familiar syllables rolled off her tongue, strengthening the love, the feelings, the intimacy, the years and depths of love between them, and she repeated it, again and again, louder, stronger, as his mouth continued to work its magic between her legs.

He lifted his mouth again, and his eyes glittered in the half-light. "Louder," he demanded, and putting his hands under her thighs, raised them, so that she was totally exposed and open to him.

So she shouted his name, screamed her love, vowed her dedication, her commitment, to him, only him, for as long as forever.

When finally he moved up over her body to claim her mouth once more, she was nearly delirious with pleasure. But there was more that needed to be done, and she willingly pushed him back, rested her head on his belly for a brief moment, before taking him in her mouth.

His genitals were as beautiful as the rest of him, smooth, silk-soft and golden, darker than his body, a smooth curve of steel, the uncircumcised tip wet with his leaking pleasure. Gently she rolled his foreskin back, teasing around the exposed ridge with her tongue. His familiar salt-sour taste burst onto her tongue, and she suckled him harder, taking him as deep as she could.

Chakotay undulated his hips gently, watching her through half-slitted eyes. She redoubled her efforts, teasing under his scrotum with a careful finger. His taste was addictive, and she buried her nose in the wiry curls on his groin, smelling his familiar warm, male scent.

"I'm going to come..." He gasped, and his hands came down to bury in her hair and hold her close. "Taste me, Kathryn, as I did you."

She added more suction, and relaxed as he spurted into her mouth. There was the salty thick taste she remembered so well, so different from Jaffen. She relished his seed, letting it pool on her tongue before swallowing. Rising up, she kissed him to mingle the tastes in every way.

Pulling her down onto his chest, Chakotay's hand stroked down over her hair. "I love you," he said, and the words rumbled through his chest, under her cheek. "And before the night is over, I'll be inside you, where I belong."

She sighed gently, turning to kiss his chest, sheened with a film of sweat. "My Chakotay. I love you too." And Jaffen's dear face receded to a far corner of her mind, a treasured place for ex-lovers and those she had loved and lost. She would think of him sometimes, she knew, with a wistful remembrance of what might have been: Jaffen, Justin, Mark, other fleeting lovers from her youth.

But her place was here, with Chakotay. Together they would renew the ties that bound them. Their love would survive.

It had to.