PART TEN
For Chakotay, life without Kathryn was becoming an unending river of loneliness. He missed her desperately; their weekly communication was becoming unbearable because every time it drained so much from him. He never slept properly these days. Kathryn had been sharp to notice that he was tired, and it was getting worse as the weeks went by.
It was Wednesday and he couldn't wait to get home. He'd have a quick bite to eat, then wait around until it was 1900 before opening a communication link to her. Last week, when he saw her face on his monitor he wanted to kiss the screen right then. Kathryn looked...like she had never looked before. His heart had given a flip. There was a calm about her, something beautiful and intangible, as if she had just seen the mystery of life.
"You look very well, Kathryn," he had said.
"And you still look tired. I know, I know! You're going to tell me I should stay and continue my holiday."
Her eyes were alive with a new sheen in them. It made him happy to see her like that. It made him happy knowing that their agreement and plan that she stay there seemed to be working. Kathryn's face had been animated.
"I could always join you," he suggested.
"Oh no! No..." she said quickly. "You said this time is mine, right? I've collected some shells for you."
"Great. I can use them in my sand paintings..."
"Thanks. I thought you could. I've bought you a few gifts. Hey, I've been up Mount Fengari. It's - "
"I know! The highest elevation point in the Aegean on the island of Samothraki. The great god of the sea Poseidon watched the battle of Troy from there."
Kathryn's eyes glowed. He had done his homework, thinking she might have gone there, as well as to Lesbos. The islands all had their unique histories.
"Kathryn, I - "
"What is it, Chakotay?"
He wanted her to come home, he wanted her in his arms. He wanted to tell her he loved her. He didn't want to hear her say his words were "false testimony" like she had the week before she left. She still didn't believe him.
"I love you..." he blurted.
Kathryn's eyes had closed, remaining like that for a long time. He thought she might end communication.
"Chakotay, please... I will come home, okay? I promised."
She didn't believe him. Who could blame her? But she was Kathryn, his wife. He knew that her commitment to return home was also one in which she would remain married to him. That lifted his spirits. When she returned, he would do everything in his power to court her the way shed deserved in the first place, without the shadow of a Borg thrown over them. He had given a sigh and closed communication without saying goodbye.
He missed her. He wanted her home with him and in his arms. He wanted to make love to her like he knew he could, making her feel good and special. It was pointless rehashing the old agonies into why they had become so cold and mechanical. He shook his head as he walked from the Academy to the transport to go home. Everything he tried, didn't work. Normal foreplay, a gentle slow build up of passion and heat - nothing worked. Then his fingers would leave her centre, he'd sigh deeply and enfold himself in the warmth of Kathryn's sex. At other times she would writhe impatiently and tell him to "get on with it". Right at the beginning, Kathryn had simply opened her legs and told him "It's for you, Chakotay. Don't worry. You need this..." He had been alarmed at this kind of sacrificial generosity, but the alarm had been fleeting, supplanted quickly by his trauma over Seven's heartless and cruel defection.
How long had he done that? How long had she allowed it? He didn't know anymore. Sometimes, he could feel her reach the edge only to stiffen and grow cold and by that time he was so far gone that it was impossible to withdraw.
He wanted to give her pleasure. It rocked his pride that he couldn't. Any thought of counselling was out of the question. It was something they both thought they could handle, even though Kathryn had become so despondent that she wanted to leave him. Her face on his vid-screen was such a welcome sight, as if he were seeing life-giving water after being lost in the desert. She looked good, and had a healthy tan. He thought that she was softening her mood towards him. Last week, she had touched the screen. He had been feeling down, tired and afraid that she would return from her vacation and tell him there was no hope for them, that it was over. He had told her that he loved her. He had difficulty breathing, and couldn't sleep properly. She didn't believe he loved her and he couldn't blame her. He had given her pathetic little reason to believe it. The times that he said it had been the worst, Kathryn telling him he lied.
I want to make you happy, my Kathryn. You mean the world to me.
He didn't know how he could tell her that her mother had stripped the skin off his face yesterday. She had been agitated, after arriving from her university where she taught Theoretical Mathematics. He didn't know how she sensed that he had a two hour break, which he was spending in his office reading up on his notes.
His door had opened without warning; Gretchen had strode in and leaned on his desk, her fists planted like a wrestler preparing to throw him somewhere into oblivion.
"What have you done to my daughter, Professor?"
"My name is Chakotay."
"Professor," she had insisted. "What is it this time?"
"I don't think it's any of your business, Mrs Janeway."
"When the happiness of my daughter is at stake, it is my business. She's not happy, Professor. I haven’t seen her laugh properly in three years."
"As I said, Kathryn wouldn't appreciate anyone med - "
Gretchen had snorted, fuming for a few seconds more, then stood upright.
"One day you were on the point of marrying that Borg woman and the next, you marry my daughter. From that point on, I've never seen her eyes without shadows. And as the good Lord is my witness, I swear my daughter was in love with you. So why isn't she happy? I've been trying to see her, but you keep getting in my way. Why?"
"You know she's on vacation and doesn't wish to be disturbed."
Why hadn’t he just grabbed the older woman by her shoulders and urged her out of his office?
She pounced on his words. "Vacation? Without her husband? Why aren't you by her side?"
"It's her holiday. She wanted to be - "
"Alone? That's it? Did you lie to her? Have you been seeing that Borg woman again? There are rumours you're seeing her while your wife is on vacation."
He felt the blood draining from his face. What did they know? Say? It wasn't true.
"That is not true!."
"Did you wait for her to be gone ? Seems to me you were in a great hurry to get rid of Kathryn. Some say you've been bedding the Borg woman again."
"Mrs Janeway, that is simply not true. It's beneath me to be disloyal to my wife. Kathryn wanted to go alone. What's wrong with that?"
"Because I know that you have the same amount of accumulated leave due, maybe even more, Chakotay. Why didn't you go with her? What else are you doing with your time besides going to Indiana and running the dogs?"
"I go to Mars. I have friends living on the moon. I visit old Doctor Zimmerman at Jupiter Station. I visit Grey Eagle in Mexico. I have regular communication with Kathryn. Every Wednesday, in fact. I'm due to speak with her tonight. It's the way we arranged it. It should be respected."
Gretchen Janeway's stance softened a little. Even if he never loved Kathryn, if he remained married to her, there would be fidelity from him. He recoiled at the idea of being unfaithful. Sighing deeply, he looked at the belligerent woman. Kathryn looked like her and when they had returned home from the Delta Quadrant he had been impressed by this strong-willed woman. He loved Gretchen Janeway; he loved Admiral Ponsonby as his father-in-law. How could he tell Gretchen his marriage was failing? How could he tell her that it was destroying him, knowing his wife wasn't happy with him?
"Yes, I have two months leave," he continued. "I could have been with Kathryn. Kathryn and I - " He paused, took in a deep breath. "You're right, Mrs Janeway. It is my fault. She's deeply unhappy. We should never have married - "
"No, you should have, because your destiny is woven with hers and you are meant for each other. Did you know your entire crew rejoiced when you married my Kathryn? They had been as unhappy as my little girl, Professor, when you took on that Borg. You didn't make waves, they said. Yes, don't look so surprised. They weren't very flattering about your liaison with that woman.
And so they crucified Kathryn Janeway because they couldn't deal with their disappointment that he’d taken up with Seven.
"I know that. I chose Seven, yes. I was in love with her. When she left... Well, I had to come to terms with that, with getting over my feelings for her."
"And that has sent Kathryn scurrying off to who knows where to get away from her trials and tribulations, and because she believes her husband, whom she loves beyond her own life, is still in love with that woman. I've never known my daughter to quit anything, Chakotay, and you have turned her into a quivering mass of insecurity and made her lose her self-esteem and confidence. Don't look at me like that. I'm her mother. I have eyes to see."
He knew he must have lost all colour at her damning accusation. He stood up and rounded the desk, facing her. He had to look down because she was as small as Kathryn.
"Kathryn is in the Aegean. We discussed it, Mrs Janeway. Yes, there's something wrong with our marriage, something fundamental. Yes, she's unhappy. It hurts me that I can't make her happy. She believes she can't make me happy. It's not her fault. The breakdown is of a very personal nature. It's our last ditch effort to save our marriage, Mrs Janeway. If it doesn't work, God help me, I'll shoot myself."
The older woman's eyes changed, became less fiery, more compassionate.
"Adam and I have known for a long time how you and Kathryn have struggled. Whatever it is, you're both adults, you're not stupid. I can see you love Kathryn and she loves you deeply. I'm sorry I barged in on you like this. It's just that I heard these stories and I'm as afraid as my daughter that you might once again choose the wrong woman. I was seeing my dear friend Elizabeth Paris at Starfleet Medical and we got talking. You know how it is when old biddies get talking. Now, son, Kathryn will come home and you will be happy."
"A moment ago you were going to fling me out the window, Gretchen."
"What, and make my little girl lose the best thing that ever happened to her?"
He had given a relieved smile, the tension broken between them. But it still rankled that their woes, however much they tried to mask them, were so visible to the outside world. Who better to see any change in the equilibrium of Kathryn Janeway than her own mother?
Now, as he made his way home, he felt loath to be in the apartment. Kathryn's absence was so palpable, he even missed the way she folded her clothing so neatly. He was going to sit down alone to dinner again for the sixth week in a row. He couldn't work on his new sand painting and felt listless most of the time. He could smell her in the pillows, see her face opposite him at the breakfast table, the way she held her book when she read. Hell, he missed her most in their bed, feeling her in his arms, the way she snuggled against him. He missed the way she sometimes kissed him on his lips, or caressed his cheek when she thought he didn't know. They had never shared a passionate kiss and he had so badly wanted to kiss her to feel how her mouth opened under his and experience ecstasy.
Inside the apartment it was warm. Kathryn had told him the sun shone every day on Naxos and that the temperatures were always averaged around 28°C. He took off his jacket. He wore a captain's rank pips but had declined taking command of Voyager, preferring to teach, especially when he thought that they needed time together after they married.
He frowned when the front door chimed. He wasn't expecting anybody as he made his way to the small lobby.
Opening the door, his eyes widened in surprise, followed by a heavy frown when he saw the person standing there.
"Hello, Chakotay."
"Annika."
********************
"What are you doing here?" he asked, gesturing that she come inside.
"I will not keep you long," Annika Hansen said as she stood in the lounge. She was wearing a smart pants suit, the cat suit of the old days gone. Her face looked...strained.
"Is there anything you wish to say, Annika?"
"Where is Admiral Janeway?"
He laughed, a low mirthless laugh. "You could scan the Federation database and know that she's on vacation."
"That is good."
He didn't want Seven here. He remembered Gretchen Janeway's words the previous day. People were talking. Who was spreading rumours?
"Seven, you walked out on me three years ago. That was your choice, not mine."
"I became Meghan's lover, and I believed myself in love with her."
"Rumour has it that you left when she became demented, the result of a virus she contracted on Kantare IV. That doesn't say much for your loyalty to her."
"I should not ask how you know, but I did leave her. yes."
"Why, because she was imperfect? Good God, Annika! Her sister and mother are caring for her when she counted on your loyalty!"
He shook his head in dismay. The stories had come back to him, of a sick and dying Meghan Delaney deserted by her Borg lover, a Meghan whom Harry Kim had liked, a gentle, smart woman who didn't deserve Annika's betrayal.
"I stopped loving her. I realised that I was still in love with you. You had given me everything and more and I threw it in your face. For that I apologise."
"Apologise? Annika, you destroyed my life, then you calmly walk in here three years later, expecting to pick up where we left off. Not to mention walking away from a sick woman who needed you!"
Seven of Nine. Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01.
Annika Hansen, carefully introduced and trained in human behaviour, who left out one very important factor of her betrayal. People change. He believed that he had changed for the better because with Kathryn he had what he'd never had with Annika - constancy and inner peace. Kathryn gave him that, despite the problems they had. It was why he couldn't bear losing her now.
Seven of Nine had some effrontery, waltzing into his home and demanding him back when her lover was deemed by her to be flawed. He closed his eyes, the revelation blinding. He would never have been happy with Seven. Never. It was a realisation come late on the wings of Seven's appearance in his home. They’d had barely three months together. What would he have been like three years later with Seven? He shook his head. He had robbed Kathryn of three years of her happiness because of this woman standing in front of him. Seven looked a little more thickset than he remembered her, the narrowness of her waist less pronounced, the extremely flat planes of her stomach now with the tell-tale bulge of eating excess. Her once firm bosom sagged and her hair that had fallen in flaxen tresses about her face, now appeared limp. She had taken great care to hide the bags under her eyes. Seven of Nine was only thirty three.
We all age...
"I know you are still in love with me, Chakotay, and you and Admiral Janeway will do well to dissolve your marriage and take me back. I was your first love."
His stepped back as Seven advanced on him, the wall behind him halting his path. She placed her hands on his shoulders and pressed her lips to his. For a moment, Chakotay thought of their days on Voyager, when he would have thrown her to the floor with such a touch. The moment was fleeting as he realised nothing was happening; he felt nothing. Her lips were cold, the touch was without affection. He pressed her away from him and she stumbled back. There was confusion in her eyes.
Chakotay shook his head. He felt like up-ending Seven of Nine, marching her to a bridge and pitching her over the railings. She had a colossal nerve, assuming he would take her back, yet now she looked uncertain, a far cry from her assertiveness. Did her hands shake? Was she waiting for him to tell him it was okay that she move into his bedroom and take off her clothes? The same bedroom where she had infiltrated so many times? What had happened to the woman who had been so open with him, so willing to learn, so ready to love him with her whole heart? Seven had learned human behaviour alright. She had learned the vagaries of humans too, and like humans, knew where to hurt. He wanted to laugh at the sick irony.
"And you think I'll take you to my bed and then we'll know beyond doubt that I should leave my wife of three years because our sex was good?"
"Isn't that how it should be?"
"Hell, no! I think I've entertained you long enough in my home. Get this - I loved you once, but you took that love and trampled heartlessly on it, destroying me in the process. I recovered, Seven, with the most noble person at my side, a woman who had given you so much. I do not love you anymore. I can look at you and think - Spirits, my mind is clear now. I can see you for what you are, for what you've done to me. What we had was good, Seven, but you didn't just destroy me. You destroyed what we had. It's gone, forever. I can look at you and say: Thank God you led me back to my real and true love."
There was disbelief in Seven's eyes.
"Chakotay? You will send me away?"
He shook his head. Seven still had a lot to learn. She had taken the worst of human nature and turned it against him. He couldn't feel sorry for her. Like many humans, she’d made a major mistake - she assumed his feelings for her remained unchanged. He knew through Marla Gilmore that Angelo Tassoni had made it his life's mission to help Meghan recover.
Freedom rushed like a torrent through his body. His mind was clear. From the moment Seven of Nine entered, he saw her as nothing else but the woman who had once been Borg and whom Kathryn, of all dear sweet people, guided to her humanity. She was no longer the ghost of his dreams and dark nights. He smiled, a smile that turned to a bright laugh.
"Yes, Annika. I am sending you away. I don't love you. You are no longer a part of me. My wife is on vacation only. I'm joining her tonight. Please..." He showed Seven the door. Her lips that had once curled in a taunt when she walked away with Meghan Delaney's arm round her waist, now trembled as if she were going to burst into tears. It didn't touch him. He looked at her tantrum with detachment.
"I thought you would take me back instantly. I was wrong," she said as she moved to the door.
"Yes. The biggest mistake you made, Seven, was to assume that people can't change for the better. I find that ironic about your own life, which should have been your frame of reference. Didn't Kathryn Janeway once tell you how a single act of compassion can bring you in touch with your humanity? She took a lonely Borg drone into her heart and changed her life. That should have taught you something. Here's my advice to you - people change. I did. I fell in love witth my wife all over again, deeper than ever before and it has made me a better man."
He stood just outside the door and watched Seven walk towards the lifts. When she entered the lift, he gave a sigh of relief and went inside. As soon as Kathryn returned home, he'd suggest they visit Meghan.
How right Kathryn was. Seven of Nine was the kind of warrior who would withhold the antidote to the poisoned tea.
********
Chakotay was still trembling from the aftermath of Seven's visit, but was glad she was gone permanently from his life and his heart. He couldn't wipe away his short relationship with her for he had cared enough to want to make her his wife. Her betrayal had not been just in her nature of some human failings, but as a Borg. He had told Kathryn once how they didn't change their nature. Like scorpions. Seven considered his part in her life as irrelevant.
Kathryn...
He was as important to her as she was to him. Despite her deepest misery, she had been heartbreakingly honest about her feelings for him. She stayed with him, and now it was her intention to come home and be with him still. That, he thought, was the essential Janeway and he loved her now more than ever.
He checked the chronometer. Still a few minutes. Kathryn was very punctual and he knew that he'd see her face at exactly 1900. He thought that he'd ask her tonight to come home and if she said it was okay, he'd be in his shuttle within fifteen minutes and on his way to Naxos. Now he missed her so fiercely. In retrospect, Seven's appearance provided the catharsis that was necessary for him to find closure. A boulder that had weighed him down for three years had rolled away and into the darkness where it could stay forever. Seven just intensified his desire to have Kathryn home with him now. Who knew, with three weeks still to go, he could join her on Naxos and they could stay the rest of the time in the Aegean?
His heart hammered in his throat as he initiated a commlink to Kathryn's cottage on Naxos. He waited the few seconds before the screen lit up.
Please, will you come home, Kathryn? You are the breath of my life. It's worth nothing without you...
Fifteen minutes later, Chakotay tried the commlink again. He’d frowned the first time when Kathryn didn't respond. Now, he waited again anxiously. The minutes ticked by.
He tried again an hour later. No response. Something was wrong. Kathryn would never miss a call from him. She was too punctual. In fact, every time he called on Naxos, she had been waiting for him.
He remembered how on Voyager they had always prepared for medical emergencies whenever an away team didn't report on time… Not letting his anxiety get the better of him, he put a comm link through to Starfleet Medical.
He remembered Kathryn's words just before she left.
I will be the picture of health and sunshine and you will have no option but to send me back to Naxos
********
End Part 10