PHOENIX

Disclaimer: Paramounts. All Paramounts. Only the order of the words is mine.

Rated NC-17

Chakotay reflects on their first night together.

I always knew she would come to me one day. Come to me finally, ready to offer me her heart, her body, and her soul. I knew it would take time, although I hadn't expected it to take nearly seven years.

After a week on her ship I knew I desired her. After a month, I knew I would serve her. The attraction that sparked and fluttered between us grew, and evolved into caring and I knew I loved her. Loved her, the captain but most of all loved her, the woman, Kathryn Janeway. I waited. Waited for her to acknowledge me as more than her friend. To allow me to take the place in her heart that I knew was mine alone.

Seven years is a long time to wait, and at times I wondered why I was. I made feeble attempts to move on, but every time I managed to move past her, like a child throwing off the apron strings and running to climb the fence in the back yard, I would get only as far as the top of the fence, and a glimpse at the possibilities beyond. Then the invisible chain would pull me back and I would return willingly to her side.

Although we never spoke the words aloud, both of us knew that when Voyager returned to the Alpha Quadrant, we would be lovers. But seventy years is a long time to wait. Seventy years is a long time to keep the flame of unrequited love burning bright. I am glad she finally couldn't wait until the Alpha Quadrant.

She came to me when I least expected it. In the seven years of our journey, there were many times, traumatic times and moments of joy, when I thought she would turn to me. Near death experiences, assimilation, failed shortcuts home. I comforted her, but as a friend. Kathryn my lover never rose as a phoenix from the ashes of disaster. And when we were flushed with our successes--parties on the holodeck, joyous celebratory occasions like Tom and B'Elanna's marriage--she never turned to me spontaneously and kissed me. She would flirt with me, hold my eyes a charged second longer then the parameter of friendship allowed, but she would never wrap a hand around the back of my neck and bring my lips to hers in a celebration of joy, of life, or of simple friendship.

No. Kathryn finally came to me in the quiet of the night, in a region of space where nothing was happening. Merrily we roll along. And we were, rocking and swaying our way through the Delta Quadrant, passing nebulas, starbursts, light shows, and desert asteroids that we saw as a cinemascope through the viewscreen.

On a quiet night such as this, I was in my quarters. Alone. A light supper, a glass of wine. Early to bed and early to rise makes Chakotay a dull boy.

I was asleep. The light sleep of one who has gone to bed to pass the time, not one who has gone to fall into the comatose sleep of the truly exhausted. So in the half-light of stars, and the half-waking state of a cloudy mind, I sensed a presence in my quarters. I knew I was being watched.

I lay still, feigning sleep and she, I knew it was a she, crept closer on silent feet. When a weight depressed one side of the mattress, I shot a hand out and caught a fragile, slender wrist in my grasp. In that instant of touch, I knew it was Kathryn, and I knew, god knows how, what she had come for. I reared up in the rumpled nest that was my bed, she moved towards me in that same arc of motion and our lips met.

I will never forget that first moment of true touch. That moment of connection. There were no sparks, no fevered tearing of clothes, but in that single moment, I knew that finally, she was truly mine; she would not, could not deny me any longer and that before the night was over, I would have possessed her in every possible way. She was branded as mine.

That touch was tentative for both of us. The embers of our desire, long damped down had to be coaxed and nurtured into life. My lips moved over hers, feeling their dry softness, feeling the slight tremor as she succumbed to the inevitable. The phoenix fluttered and stirred, turning slow circles in its nest of ashes. We did not touch; only the fusion of mouths and then tongues signaled our slow spiral into passion. I knew that I did not need to persuade her; her decision was made when she entered my quarters, but I wanted to take it slowly, to show her what it could be like, what I was like.

I pushed my tongue into her mouth, tasting her. She gasped, a breathy little moan and started to kiss me back, harder and more urgent. I ran my hand up her neck into her hair, feeling the soft weight of it, as I massaged her scalp. It seemed like we kissed for an eternity. I let my feelings for her, long suppressed uncoil and rise in the soft darkness of my quarters. The only sound was the thrum of the engines at warp and the sound of her breathing and mine. Intermingled gasps and sighs. Mine or hers, I didn't know.

I truly do not know who started to remove her clothes first. I think she might have pulled her top over her head and then I reached behind her to unclasp her bra. Her clothes disappeared somehow and all I know is that she was naked underneath me, and for the first time I was able to feast my eyes on her body. I remember how the shadows in my quarters danced across her skin, giving me glimpses of the curve of her breast, the dusky pink tip, the length of a creamy leg, and the forest triangle between her thighs. I remember that she was initially shy, then bold, as if she had decided that this was the way she was, take it or leave it. Of course I took.

I sleep naked, so all she had to do to see me was pull aside the sheets and pull me down to her, to align our bodies together in the inky blackness, in the rustle and slip of the bedclothes and in the silence of the night.

I went slowly. Oh, so slow. I wanted to remember this, to burn this first transcendental time into my memory. I also knew it had been a long time for both of us. Sex is something that needs practice. And we were both out of that. I didn't want our first time together to be an awkward fitting together of disparate body parts, of people who were clumsy, who did not know how to please. I wanted her aroused and writhing underneath me, and after such a long period of celibacy I expected her passion to be slow to rouse. And I didn't want to hurt her. She is a small woman and I am a big man. There was the fact that we just might not be good together. But oh, I wanted our lovemaking to be as complete, as satisfying, as much of a partnership as our command and our friendship.

I moved my mouth over her, learning her, storing away the things that made her gasp in my mind, so that I could reproduce them later. I moved my hands over that delicate body, thinner and more insubstantial then I had imagined. Naked in the starlight, she had an ethereal translucent quality to her, one that dissipated in daylight under the armor of her uniform.

She was learning my skin too. Her fingertips lingered on the crescent shaped scar on my belly from an exploding console in the Maquis. Her lips dipped into the hollow of my collarbone, lapping at the pooled sweat there. She circled my nipple with a careful finger, even as my own lips suckled hers. She ran questing lips over my belly as I dipped my fingers lower into the dark tangle of hair. She was not passive, not assertive. It was just the two of us, giving and receiving, just another extension of our life together.

When I stroked a careful finger up inside her I knew she was ready for me. She was exploring my cock with her hand, spreading the leaking moisture she found in circles over the tip. I moved her hand away from me, I was going to come if she kept doing that, and I wanted to be inside her when I came for the first time, more than I wanted my next breath. I think she understood, as she stopped and moved her legs apart in silent invitation.

I moved over on top of her and positioned myself at her opening. I kissed her deeply as I slid slowly inside, feeling her clench and then relax around me. One of her hands was on my buttock, pulling me to her, the other was on the side of my face, stroking my cheekbone. It wasn't until I kissed her fingertips and tasted the salt that I realized I had been silently crying.

I knew I wouldn't last long enough for her. The emotion of the moment, and the long time that had elapsed since I had last lain with a woman had me teetering on the brink of orgasm. I thrust once, twice, and then I was coming, silently pushing myself into her as far as I could go, as I shuddered and groaned in release. She was still tight around me, clenched in the tension of unfulfillment. I lay on top of her for a brief moment longer wetting her neck with my tears.

I wanted to apologize for my lack of control, but neither of us had uttered a word since she entered my quarters, and I didn't want my first words to her to be ones of apology. No, I wanted my first words to speak of love, devotion, our shared future and everything I held close and dear, so I remained silent.

I felt myself softening and slipping out of her. I pulled back, seeing the look of frustration in her eyes, then I bent and put my mouth to her, hearing her surprised exclamation. I took my time, parting those damp auburn curls with a gentle finger, licking and sucking on her, tasting myself and her mingled together. She started to breathe faster and her hands came down and held me in place as she rode the wave up higher, even higher, tightening around my fingers, rigid under my mouth, until finally I felt the spasms of her release.

I was hard again, so I moved up over her and pushed into her feeling the aftershocks of her orgasm tighten around me. Her eyes opened wide and she pulled my head down to hers and we kissed, a sweet tender kiss, our tongues and sexes joined, our lives and hearts intermingled.

And this time as I moved inside her, it was everything I wanted my memories to be made of. We were slow and tender, we were frantic and urgent, I pounded and thrust, and then lay still, barely moving inside her. She met me thrust for thrust; she clenched tight around me, sheathing me deep within her body. We tumbled over the edge together, as close as two people can be and this time there were tears on her cheeks as well as mine.

I wondered how I had ever tamped down the flames of desire for so long. I wondered how she had. She lay in my arms, tears trickling unheeded down her cheeks, fingertips brushing my face, my hair, my neck. There was so much love in her eyes.

We slept together that night, skin to skin, arms and legs entwined, her head on my chest, my face in her hair.

We still hadn't said a word.

When I awoke in the darkness she was gone. I turned my head slowly searching for a trace of her in the room but there was nothing. I lay still and cursed myself for every sort of fool. What sort of half-wit doesn't tell his woman that he loves her? Doesn't wheedle words of love from her in return. The night before I was so sure, so certain that she was mine to hold until the Alpha Quadrant and beyond that I hadn't looked for the reassurance and commitment that only words can bring. I lay still, feeling the loss of her seeping into my heart.

Then the bathroom door opened and she came out and sat beside me on the bed. She must have seen the loss on my face, for she put a gentle hand on my chest.

"I hadn't left you Chakotay." The whispered words were soothing balm. "I'm here for you, for as long as you want me."

I turned to her and buried my face in her belly.

"I thought you had gone," I mumbled. "Before I could tell you how much I love you."

She stroked my hair. "You never needed to say it. I've always known. I love you too."

My arms enclosed her and I raised my face to kiss her.

Nearly a year has passed since our first night together. Our quarters and our lives are joined and every night she sleeps close to me in our bed. Together we explore physical and spiritual expressions of our love. She is quick to rouse in passion, expressive in her words of love, tender in her concern for me and unswerving in her command.

Every morning before we rise, every time we leave this bed, even in the frantic scurry of the red alert klaxon, I tell her that I love her.

The phoenix has risen and flies free and I intend for it to stay that way.

Feedback? Please. Shayenne

© Shayenne, November 2000 Please email me to post/distribute elsewhere.