Disclaimer: Paramount owns everything.
Rated NC-17
This story was inspired by a small section of Penny Proctor's (E.J. Andrews) beautiful story Revisionist History, and is written with her permission. It is not a sequel, more of a companion piece, and assumes the J/C relationship that Tom Paris outlined in that story. Part of that story alluded to the happenings of the night before Janeway, Tuvok and Torres were intentionally assimilated by the Borg. This story takes up that thread. It can be read alone, but E.J.'s excellent story (rated PG 13) can be found here. This story does not necessarily follow the plot that TPTB presented us with in UZ2.
Feedback? Please. Shayenne
Tomorrow Kathryn, B'Elanna and Tuvok would be Borg. Deliberately assimilating themselves into the collective. Resistance is futile. The thought made him shudder and he had to fight the wave of panic and hopelessness the idea produced. His stomach churned and cramped, his breathing grew shallow with terror, and the sharp, metallic taste of fear permeated his mouth. If this was how it was for him, what was it like for her? For all of them.
He had turned the bridge over to Harry and left with Tom. He knew where Tom was going, Tom's face had a closed, shuttered look that he suspected he wore too. They stepped into the turbolift together. Tom leaned his head on the wall and closed his eyes.
Chakotay watched as his lips tightened and he took a shuddering breath. "It's hard." He offered the words to the younger man in the confines of the quiet lift.
"Hard doesn't begin to describe it." Tom's eyes opened and he looked directly at Chakotay, his conflicting feelings showing in the clear blue eyes. "I think she's walking into hell and I'm not sure she's going to walk out. I'm terrified for her, Chakotay, some one has to be as she won't let herself feel fear. I thought about sabotaging the Delta Flyer so they never make it out of the space doors. I would if I thought it would stop her. You can't begin to understand..." he tailed off. "What am I saying, of course you understand." He studied Chakotay's face. "Go to her, Chak. Don't miss this chance. Tell her everything you've always wanted to say."
Chakotay didn't reply.
The lift reached their deck and they went their separate ways.
There was never any doubt in his mind as to where he was going, but he went to his own quarters first to change. He wanted to go as her friend, not as the commander in uniform. He checked her location with the computer. Her quarters. Alone. Awake. He left his quarters and walked the few paces down the quiet corridor to her door and rang the chime. She answered quickly.
"Chakotay," she said quietly. Her mouth twisted up at one side. "Come in. I was expecting you."
He walked in. The quarters were brightly lit and the toppling stack of PADDs on the coffee table and the three discarded mugs of coffee told him what she had been doing. She was dressed casually, sloppily for her, in a pair of baggy gray sweatpants that had seen better days and a loose T shirt with some sort of purple stain on the front. Her feet were bare and her hair looked disarrayed, as if she had repeatedly run her hand through it. Outwardly she appeared calm. She swept a pile of PADDs from the couch and sat gesturing for him to join her.
She studied his face. "Come to talk me out of it?"
"No. I just thought you might like some company this evening."
She smiled at him. "Is this for me or you?"
His mouth twisted slightly to match her lopsided smile. "Am I so obvious?"
"Only to me." She hesitated. "I'm glad you're here. I was feeling... " She seemed to weigh her choice of words, discarding alternatives until she came up with , "... unsettled."
"That's to be expected. I shared the 'lift with Tom. He's... unsettled too."
Her eyes crinkled at the corners at the description, then sobered. "I think he feels helpless. B'Elanna is determined to do this. We all are." She looked him in the eyes. "I feel very... steadied... that I have your support, Chakotay."
Since when had she picked her words so carefully around him? He studied her, trying to see past her carefully constructed aura of calm. He was sure that she was deliberately maintaining her control. He knew she didn't want to let the facade crack, probably not in his presence, but he knew she had to be apprehensive underneath. He wanted to provide her with reassurance and support that this would work. He didn't want her to doubt herself, or let insidious thoughts of failure creep in. But he knew that this time there was a real danger that she might not come back. Or might return a broken shell of her former self.
"What are you doing?" He gestured at the piles of PADDs.
She hesitated before answering. "Cleaning house. In case..." her voice tailed off.
"Kathryn." He took her face between his hands and made her look at him. "You are cleaning house as you do every night before you go to bed, as you do before every shore leave."
She seemed to be concentrating on the dimple in his chin to avoid meeting his eyes. "Shore leave with the Borg. That's a little different than most." She raised her eyes so she could see him clearly. "Chakotay, you don't have to pretend. This is the most difficult, dangerous away mission I think Voyager has ever knowingly attempted. I'm scared. B'Elanna is scared. Tuvok would be scared if he wasn't so damned controlled. You don't have to reassure me that everything will be alright. I have to believe it will, and I do."
She looked away. "Just that sometimes it's harder to believe than others."
Chakotay looked down at her, seeing the emotions flit across her face. He took her hand, stroking a thumb across the back of it. "Believe it, Kathryn. You'll be back. I won't let it be otherwise."
She looked down at their joined hands. "I know you won't. You are the most dependable person in my life. I know I can always count on your... on you." She was choosing her words carefully again.
"My love, Kathryn? Is that what you were going to say?"
She was still picking cautiously through her vocabulary. "No, I can't ask that of you anymore."
"Yes you can. It has always been yours for the taking."
"Once maybe, after New Earth, when..."
He interrupted her. "When we were lovers, when we loved? We still do, Kathryn. At least I do."
"We agreed that we couldn't allow ourselves to love like this." She whispered the words, not looking at his face.
"We did. But I can't turn off my feelings to order."
She was silent for a moment. "It's been three years, Chakotay. It took us three years to make the transition from lovers to friends. It wasn't easy. We can't change that now."
"Why not?"
She tore her hands away from him and got up off the couch and moved away. "Don't ask me, Chakotay. Don't ask me to change things. Especially not now, when I'm vulnerable. When the easiest thing in the world would be to fall into your arms and forget about tomorrow. Let myself love you and say that it's just for tonight. Can't you see I would be using you - I'd sleep with you to hide from the Borg."
He stood too and walked over to her. "And I'd be using you too. Using this as a reason, as an excuse to have one night in your arms. If I make love with you I can push the Borg deep enough into my mind that I can forget they are there. I have to say this, Kathryn. I'm sorry if it's not what you want to hear, or if now is not the time, but I love you still. And I want you in my arms tonight. Please. For me. "
"And... when I return?"
"I don't know. I don't want you to go. I won't stop you, but this night will make it easier to take."
She stepped half a pace closer to him. "I'm scared." A whisper.
"You're the bravest person I know."
"I don't want to do this to B'Elanna and Tuvok."
"They don't want you to go alone."
"I need you."
"I've always needed you."
"I love you."
"I've never stopped loving you."
She completed the pace towards him and slid her arms around his waist, resting her head on his chest.
His arms closed around her. They stood together quietly. He felt the rise and fall of her breath, felt the tension leave her as she relaxed into his arms.
"Let me love you, Kathryn. For both of us."
"Yes..." She breathed the word into the silence and raised her mouth to his. He knew that the need was scrawled openly over his face. He met her halfway and their mouths met and fused after three long years of denial. She opened her lips to him and he kissed her hard, hot and urgent, the taste of her mouth and the feel of her in his arms spinning him instantly back to their year as lovers, when the passion between them had threatened to consume them both. Then his love for her had scared him in its intensity.
He gathered her to him, anchoring her head with a hand tangled in her hair as he sucked gently on her tongue, tugging it rhythmically, lightly pressing his hips into hers. He was hard already -- how this woman affected him -- and the soft swell of her belly against his erection sent ripples through his pelvis. He wanted to go slowly, make this night last, but it had been so long since they made love that he doubted he could wait. In the days of their loving they were never able to take it slowly after even a few days abstinence. Slow was always for the second time, and he doubted this would be any different. She was equally aggressive, pulling his hips into her, sliding her pelvis from side to side on his erection. Her tongue dueled with his hotly and urgently.
She moved one hand up to the neck of his shirt, clasping it in her hand, sliding a thumb under the collar to feel his skin. He burned for her, and the slight friction of her thumb excited him to unbearable levels. Pulling back slightly, he hooked his fingers under the loose shapeless T shirt and dragged it over her head. He flicked the catch on her bra. She shrugged out of them and returned to his chest, pulling his shirt apart to slip her hands underneath, sliding over his skin. He covered her breasts with his hands, the way he knew she liked, rubbing his thumbs over her nipples as his mouth left hers and moved to her neck, first nibbling then sucking hard and biting gently.
Her hands went to the clasp of his pants and impatiently pushed them down. She reached a hand into his briefs and grasped his penis, rubbing its rigid length.
He stifled a moan against her neck. Kathryn the impatient. She hadn't slowed down any in the intervening years.
His own hands went to the baggy sweatpants and pushed them down. She kicked them and her panties aside, and pushed him down on the couch so that he lay on his back. She straddled him and grasped his penis, shuffling so that she was directly over him. He moved his hand down to the juncture of her thighs, working one finger up inside her as his thumb rubbed gentle circles over her nerve center. She was already wet, and the tremors of her inner muscles around his fingers told him she was as close to peaking as he was.
She pushed his hand out of the way, and brought herself down so that the swollen helmet of his penis slipped into her. Her thighs trembled for a brief moment as she hovered over him, then with groan she sank down, taking his full length in one smooth movement. She gasped and both of them stilled for a brief moment, adjusting to the feel of one another, after so long apart. Chakotay pulsed quietly inside her, feeling the smooth, slick walls gripping him. He looked up over Kathryn's body, seeing her milky white thighs stretched over his sturdier bronze body, over the joining of their sexes, up over the flat white stomach, over the rosy tipped breasts to her face, flushed, partly covered by her disarrayed hair. He met her eyes, trying to fathom her expression, seeing her mouth tremble slightly as she tried to smile for him. He let his feelings for her, hidden these last few years, show openly in his face, and he watched her reciprocating expression. Yes, it was there still, they both still loved. How could they not?
She broke the eye contact and started to move, rising and falling on him like waves, as she gasped and cried his name as each of his counter thrusts buried him even more deeply in her body. He raised himself up on one arm and with the other reached for her, grasping her free hand. Their hands met and linked, fingers clutching each other as their bodies rose and fell.
He increased the pace, and she stilled, unable to match his harder, faster thrusts. He rose up, pushing her back, rolling over so that now he was on top, controlling their joining. He supported himself on his hands, arching above her, pounding into her, faster and harder, until he felt her clenching around him, tremors and quakes vibrating her inner muscles as she screamed his name. He stilled briefly, letting her return to earth, before he started to move again, not as frantically as before, letting his orgasm build inexorably, slowly, intensely, the excitement in his mind that they were together again, matching and fueling his physical release.
When he came, he fell forward on top of her, sobbing her name as she murmured his, holding him close. She surrounded him, her arms clasping him, her hair in disarray covering his face, which was buried in her neck. She had raised her legs to clasp them around his hips, and her inner chamber held his penis tightly as he pulsed and throbbed and emptied himself deep within her, feeling the heat and moisture from both of them.
They lay together for a few minutes, letting heart rate and breathing return to normal, then she pushed at him as he lay almost completely covering her.
"Chakotay, we're going to stain the couch."
"Who cares," he said into her hair.
She chuckled. "It's not your couch. What do you think Tuvok will think the next time he sits on it. Because, tomorrow he'll know what we've been doing, so will B'Elanna, when ... we're linked in the collective."
He smiled, relieved that she could make even a weak joke about it. "You'll know what B'Elanna's been doing tonight. You could learn far more then you ever wanted to know."
She mock death-glared him. "Are you saying I'm not creative enough?"
"Never. Never never never never...." he tailed off, rubbing his face into her hair, her neck, her breast.
She pushed at his shoulders. "Come to bed."
They rose and made their way into the bedroom, leaving the lights dim. He propped the pillows so that he was half sitting, half reclining, and held out his arms to her. She crawled in next to him, settling into his arms as if she had never left him. She pressed her cheek to his smooth chest as they watched the stars out of the viewport.
"I never get tired of this," she said.
He chuckled. "Me or the stars?"
He felt her lips curve against his skin. "I meant the stars. But I never get tired of you either. I love you, Chakotay. Please don't ever forget it, or doubt it, no matter... what happens to us."
"I love you too, Kathryn. I never stopped."
She raised her head so she could see his face. "You give me strength," she whispered. "Thoughts of you will help me tomorrow. Knowing you're here, knowing you support me, knowing I can come back to you."
"Yes..."
He kissed her, feeling the slight tremble of her lips as she returned his gentle caress. Her hand reached up and wound itself in his hair as she deepened his gentle kiss, became more demanding and insistent. He responded to her initiative, wanting her again as much as she seemed to want him. If his stamina allowed it, he would make love to her again and again, all night long, until they both fell into sticky, dreamless oblivion, thoughts of the next day banished in the face of love. He knew she had to sleep, but not just yet.
She was running her hands over his chest, rubbing his nipples and gliding her thigh over his legs. He moved his hands to her breasts, fondling her nipples, trailing his mouth down her neck, down, lower, slower until his breath was moist on her nipple.
"Chakotay... please..." She tried to push her breast into his mouth.
He breathed over her for a few heartbeats, before giving her what she wanted, kissing, nibbling and laving her nipple with his mouth. They were facing each other, he slid slowly down her body, worshipping, gliding his hands over her skin, feeling the delicate tremors pass through her, feeling the firm muscles under the silken covering. Feeling her humanity, feeling her alive and throbbing under his caressing hands.
Dark thoughts of the morrow crowded into his mind, but with a mental twist, he banished them. There would be plenty of time to think of that later, when she was gone, and the waiting would gnaw at him from inside. The worrying, the wondering, the hoping, the praying. Tonight was for them, for the affirmation of life and love.
He slid lower on her body, his mouth lapping her belly, lower to the damp curls, lower still, parting her legs and sliding between with his body between her thighs, his head between her legs.
She raised up slightly to look at him, her face flushed, her eyes glittering.
"Relax," he murmured, "relax and enjoy."
He put his face to her, working her with lips and tongue, parting her with careful fingers and dragging a tongue over delicate flesh, slightly reddened from their previous joining. He caressed and stroked her, scraping delicately at her with his teeth, with his tongue and upper lip, tasting her unique strong taste, mingled with the fluid of his own release. He watched her rise up from her languorous state to convulse quietly against his mouth, her moisture increasing, spreading across her thighs, mingled with his semen and saliva. He stayed there, between her legs, soothing and stroking, watching her face as she mumbled and sighed her way through a series of small orgasms, murmuring his name and words of love, until eventually she was limp and totally relaxed under his hands and mouth.
His own need could wait no longer. Watching her pleasure had made him rock hard and eager again. He moved up her body, kissing her nipples in passing until he was stretched out on top of her again. She was boneless in his grasp, but her hands reached for his head, and she brought his lips down to hers. His face was sticky wet with their passion, and she added the taste of her mouth to the fusion of sweet, sour, salt and bitter in his mouth.
He placed himself at her entrance, she parted her thighs further to give him access and he slid slowly home with one smooth, long stroke. Slowly and rhythmically they moved together in the motion and speed they knew so well. She came again and her silent spasms triggered his own.
They lay together, unmoving, until eventually he went to roll away.
"Stay, here inside me." she whispered.
So he stayed, and they lay together in the dim light, whispering words of love, words of hope, words of the future, building a world that stretched beyond the horrors of the morrow.
They slept, still twined together, woke, made love, slept and woke to silent passion yet again.
Chakotay woke before the alarm and knew immediately she had already gone. He was not really surprised, he already knew about her insomnia, worse before any critical mission. He wished she had woken him, there were things he would have liked to have said privately, to her alone. But it was not the time to ask her to try their relationship again. He would ask her when she returned.
He showered and went to the bridge.
The Delta Flyer was checked and ready. B'Elanna and Tuvok were on board, they were waiting for her. She seemed to hesitate, displaying an unusual reluctance to move from the captain's chair. He watched her. There had been no opportunity to speak to her alone, to kiss her one last time and see how she felt about last night. This morning she had been all business, crisp and efficient, as she ran over their plan one last time at the staff meeting. She was not allowing fear or doubt into her tone, she was encouraging and practical, as if it was just another routine away mission.
At the meeting, Chakotay had watched her, as well as Tom and B'Elanna. Tom's eyes were shadowed. B'Elanna seemed fired up and determined. Tuvok was as stoic as ever.
Selfishly he still wished for a moment with her, Kathryn. Some small sign that when they returned she would let him back in.
Still she hesitated, looking small and fragile in the deep chair.
"Anything you'd like done whilst you're away?" He turned to her and joked to ease the tension now that the moment was upon them. "Gravity plating on the hull replaced? Carpets cleaned?" He waited a beat then said, "Couch reupholstered?"
She smiled her lopsided smile at him. "You can do the carpets if you want, but leave the couch alone. I like it the way it is."
She reached a hand out over the console towards him. He took it without hesitation. They stayed like that for a moment, gazing at each other, then they both stood, still clasping hands.
"I better go."
She let go his hand and went to the turbolift. Their eyes met and clung as the lift doors closed, taking her away.
Chakotay sighed. He had his sign. He hoped it was enough.
© Shayenne, August 2000 Please email me to post/distribute elsewhere.