DISCLAIMER: The characters and Voyager belong to Paramount. The story belongs to me.

Harry Kim looked at a version of himself in fifteen year's time. He felt the rush of tears so acute, he closed his eyes for a second before he dared to look again.

The last twenty four hours had been the most harrowing of his life. He had come to hide here in the darkness, wallowing in the pity and guilt he just could not shake off. How right Tom was, he thought. Right all the time.

"We built a lemon, Harry. A disaster waiting to happen."

He wouldn't believe Tom, even after twenty three simulations. His closest and best friend warned him, but he refused to give up. He had a vision and he just couldn't let go of it.

Now, his heart burned every time he thought that the phase corrections he sent Voyager were wrong after all. The result? Voyager destroyed and everyone on board killed. He looked at the Harry of the future, saw the terrible guilt and remorse that sat on his face. It was an unhappy face, a face on which he could see no peace, no inner rest, a face such as he had never seen. It was a Harry who believed that his mistake killed the crew of Voyager.

It was little comfort to him that his future counterpart corrected the mistake he made. That he made one in the first place, and the terrible consequences of it... He could have killed them all. Had killed them all…

Yet, it was the Captain who just now came to him and consoled him, her own countenance sad, he thought. Sad.

He thought of Chakotay, who, when at the moment they thought they left Voyager in the slip stream, called out her name: Kathryn. What was Chakotay thinking? Harry sensed, and most senior crew, that something was wrong. Between the Captain and first officer everything happening was always extremely subtle. He gave a grim smile, not a smile really, just a pained curl of his lips. The Captain and Chakotay imagined they were always subtle, discreet. He doubted that they even intended whatever it was most on the ship felt was between them, to be given substance. Yet they picked it up. It was vague, faint. But there. They weren't talking; it was as though they were angry at each other. It disturbed him, thinking he himself to be the cause of it. He needed to talk to someone. Tom...

**

"Harry, Harry... at least we cut ten years off our journey home. Be glad of that," Tom told him.

"I still can't get over the fact that I sent the wrong phase corrections, Tom."

"Nonsense, Harry. It worked out for the best, didn't it? What was it you said? Your guardian angel came through for you - "

"Tom - " Harry looked at him where they were sitting in Sandrine's. "You're not going to believe this. But you know..." He sighed, looking at Tom with earnest appeal in his eyes.

"What...?"

"You know, for - for a few milliseconds I saw something... It's hard to explain. But I...saw the - the dead bodies of the crew..."

"Do you think that's abnormal, Harry? People have been known to have these visions - "

"But they seemed so real - "

"It didn't happen Harry," he tried to placate his friend. "But listen, my friend, just keep talking to me about it, okay? It's stacks better than bottling it up."

"Like - like - "

"Chakotay?"

"Yeah. Those few seconds...it was... Tom, you know Chakotay. Always calm, strong. In those few seconds I saw something - like extreme despair or distress..."

"Maybe he had those same visions."

"Could be..."

"He's not coping, Harry. We can all see that."

"It's not that, and you know it, Tom. Something happened between Chakotay and the Captain. Didn't you notice how strained they are? He's hurting, I can see that. It's my fault," Harry said morosely, sinking into his gloomy state again.

Tom Paris looked at his friend and saw the emotions fliiting across his features. Harry took his mistake very hard. It wasn't something Tom wanted to raise himself, but Harry...He knew Harry felt a lot of guilt still, even if the captain... He sighed. Something was wrong, he knew that the minute the Flyer and Voyager dropped out of the slipstream. The Captain's voice had sounded different, almost panicky. Then he dismissed that thought. Kathryn Janeway never panicked, nor showed any signs of it even if the situation was dire as it had been yesterday. But it was strange. Before yesterday the Captain and Chakotay had always been on the most friendly terms. There was a teasing repartee between them, and especially on the bridge the officers could see how well they worked together.

Now, relations were strained. Chakotay looked drawn, not smiling, while the Captain. There was something that haunted her. Her eyes had that look about her that no one had seen there before.

"Isn't there anything that can be done?" Harry asked.

"Like what? Short of having to knock their heads together and demand they get on with their lives?"

"They're in love, you know."

"Yeah...and hurting each other, as always..." Tom replied.

"We should do something..."

"Harry, they're adults... you want to lock them in a turbolift?"

Harry smiled for the first time. Tom was relieved. He hated to see his friend punish himself so. He didn't want to tell Harry of that strange image he had when things were going rough in the slipstream. Of him standing on the shore of a lake with another boy, throwing flat stones on the water to see how many times it could bounce. Why such an image from his boyhood days stole upon him in those moments...he didn't know. All he knew now was that they were alive and well, and ten years closer to home.

****************

A week later.

He was suffering from insomnia. He never had trouble before falling asleep. But the past week had taken its toll on him. So many things happened. So many things. They almost made it home. Had the quantum slipstream drive been successful, they would have been home by now. All of them and with it, his new found sense of self, of completeness.

Even now he still remembered promises whispered in a night of almost desperate lovemaking. He could still feel her lips on his skin, burning him up. Still hear the fevered words of love.

"This is our beginning," she said.

"Never leave me," her desperate plea.

"We'll always be together now," she breathed into his neck.

"Always."

He had given her his very soul that night. His very soul. He believed all through that night and into the early hours of the morning that her soul joined his. Believed it passionately.

"I love you, Kathryn," he at last voiced what he had felt for so long. So long.

"Four years is a long time for a man to go hungry, Kathryn," he whispered to her.

How he rejoiced in the freedom of loving her. How he rejoiced in her response, returning his feelings with such unbounded freedom, giving herself so totally, so completely to him.

"I love you, Chakotay," she breathed often during that night.

He closed his eys remembering the feel of her, her skin so soft, silky to his touch. Everywhere he touched her, he was constantly aware of the texture of her skin, how warm it felt and how she would writhe beneath him...

"Love me..." she whispered often during the night. And oh, how he complied. Touching every centimetre of her, and in a truly spiritual and biblical sense, knowing her. By the morning he had been convinced that she loved him, as much, as deeply, as wholly and completely as he loved her.

When he left her that morning, kissing her awake - how he exalted in his new liberties! - she had thrown herself in his arms, wanting to prolong the moments of togetherness.

"I'll see you in the Alpha Quadrant," were his last words to her that morning.

"Home," she whispered against his neck.

He groaned in pain. It was 0300, and he was sitting in crew's lounge in one of the deep chairs. Who was he kidding? He wanted to believe that everything that happened between him and Kathryn had been real. Honest to goodness real. So why was he feeling this acute and searing feeling of pain? Of feeling let down. Betrayed?

How many times over the past years hadn't he been teased, teased to the point of frustraton and to the brink of madness? Of being thrown crumbs which, in the beginning he was happy enough to scoop up? But later, refused to be taken in by promises?

Once again, once again...how much more painful now - he was led by promises. Let up a beautiful garden path, and then left gaping. He felt raw inside. So raw he wondered how long this time it would take for the wound to heal. Because this time, he gave all of himself. All.

Once again, Kathryn Janeway, captain of this starship, his friend, lover! made a fool of him and trampled his love underfoot.

He blanched again as he thought of her words after their aborted slipstream drive attempt.

"There is no more us, Chakotay."

He had been in her ready room, saw her distress and wanting to grab her into his arms and kiss away her worry, when she turned on him.

"Please see it as an aberration," she said softly.

"Kathryn? Our wonderful love, your promises. Nothing?"

She didn't look him in the eye when she shook her head, so imperceptibly, but he knew... whatever it was that happened between them that night was...a figment.

He stalked out of the ready room, and went straight to holodeck two, where he engaged their old boat ride, sat in the boat, and screamed and screamed until he spent himself.

"Not again, Kathryn. Not again. You can't do this to me..." he almost wailed.

Sighing, he rose from his seat and returned to his quarters where he tried to get some sleep before he had to start duty again at 0700.

************** 

In the early hours of the morning she sat on her couch in her quarters and felt the old, old feeling of loneliness overpower her. A hundred times she wanted to retract what she said to him in her ready room. A hundred times. Why did she do it?

She pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. She felt the onset of another headache. They'd been plagueing her the past week. Ever since... It registered as a dull throbbing at her temples. She rubbed her neck. It wasn't working. An image suddenly came to her, how he massaged her aching muscles on New Earth. But that was when...she sighed. An opporunity she let slip by. Just as she did now. She cringed at the way Chakotay's eyes changed. The brightness in them became dark pools of disbelief, unhappiness, grief.

She let him down, she knew it. Once again. What was to have been their last night in the Delta Quadrant was like something magic. Something that the bright light of day seemed to have dissipated.

She let once again such things as command and duty stand in the way of her complete and total happiness. No, she corrected herself. It was more than simply command. Of keeping a safe distance. It was within herself. The old fear surfaced again. The fear of letting go and wondering what the crew might think.

She was just being plain afraid. It was fleeting. Only fleeting. It surfaced at precisely the wrong moment. When looking at him there in the ready room, she knew he badly just wanted to scoop her into his arms and comfort her.

It was at a moment she was frowning. She had been thinking of those seconds Voyager had been in the slipstream, and things looked like going wrong. She thought she saw him in a blinding flash of light and she held her hand to him. It was as though he was reaching for her from death's realm, as though they had all died. She was afraid then. Of having him and just discovering their love and then losing him again. She shook her head to dispel that image. That was when he stepped forward, his arms open to embrace her, and she...she backed away...

How it came out.

"There is no 'us'."

"An aberration, Chakotay."

God. That fear was over the moment she voiced it. But too late. She saw his black eyes break into a thousand pieces. She saw his incredible dimples that was just ready to form as he smiled, turned to stone. His expression... He looked at her, turned on his heels and left.

She felt the tears. She did not want to spoil the magic of that night. She knew she should have voiced her fears. She knew he would have wanted to comfort her. She kne he would have given a hundred reassurances which she knew he would never renege on. But it was her old old habit of seeing the obstacles first, thinking always that they could never be surmounted. Force of habit. How she cursed it! Her mind, her whole being, her subconscious - every particle and cell which made up Kathryn Janeway knew that she loved Chakotay. She responded in ways to him that she'd only imagined and fantasized about.

She lay down on the couch, her head throbbing. She tried to think of their night together. She was not ashamed of what happened between them. Not ashamed of her own responses to what she discovered a week ago: Chakotay was a passionate, virile, yet tender lover.

His hands and mouth had touched her everywhere. Even now she could feel her body tingle with sensuous delight. And she had with equal boldness explored his body, her mouth and hands claiming every inch of him for her.

"I want you Chakotay," she murmured into his neck.

"Aye..."

She had given all of herself to him. Held nothing back. Except her fear.

She wanted him. Now. Always. As they promised one another. But she pictured his eyes again. Something in him died, and she wondered whether they would ever regain what they had lost. No, she corrected herself: what she threw away so carelessly, once again.

So Kathryn Janeway in that moment when she decided to put action to words, meant to find Chakotay and try to convince him that she made a mistake. She was going to tell him that she wanted to have something beautiful with him, something she was certain would have the blessing of the crew. She wanted to tell him that what she wanted with him would be open, and not hidden, clandestine. She felt anew the rush of blood to her head, her heart thudding wildly as she thought this.

She rose, stumbled as she stepped forward and wondered why for a minute the room was spinning at an alarming rate around her. She cried out as the floor came up to her and before she could hit her commbadge, she slumped down in a heap on the floor.

Some time later, Kathryn Janeway groaned as she tried to lift her head. Why was she lying on the floor? Her body ached. Her head throbbed. She felt an intense nausea. Standing up and gingerly feeling her head, trying to plant her feet square on the floor, it took her several seconds to focus at last. She stumbled across the floor to her bed, welcoming, soft, and fell down on it, seeing an image of Chakotay before losing consciousness again.

************** 

Chakotay had been on the bridge even before his duty shift officially started. Tom and Harry had just entered the bridge and settled themselves at their stations. It was quiet, save for their quick greetings before they took their positions. Now that they cut ten years off their journey, they seemed to have been filled with a greater sense of purpose. Therefore such things as boredom and idleness were temporarily forgotten as they traveled through the dark expanses, accompanied by thousands of streaking stars.

Tom felt once again the old feeling of being at home at the helm, feeling the ship listen as he talked to it. They were travelling at a sedate warp seven. He wished for a moment he could just let Voyager kick into high warp, push her to the limits.

He was in such a congennial mood as to be heard whistling some old twentieth century tune. Asked Harry: "what is it?"

"Beatles, but you wouldn't know..."

"I suggest Mr Paris, you listen to the voice of the ship thrumming through warp. That is music enough for you at this point," Tuvok said.

"Freakasaurus," Tom muttered under his breath.

Chakotay watched this interplay and smiled. They were happy. Now. Again. He thought of Kathryn. She had to be on duty only at 0900. A few minutes earlier he had an uncanny feeling of dejavu. Something he couldn't explain or put into words. But for a moment he felt that same feeling he had in the Delta Flyer. In those few critical seconds when Harry's phase corrections didn't have the desired result. He felt a cold hand grip his heart, and for a few seconds he saw himself bending over the body of Kathryn.

Now, again, he saw that flash. He closed his eyes in alarm. Then felt something like a giant hand squeezed his heart. He groaned and grabbed his chest. He started breathing rapidly.

Tom, busy working the conn, turned round quickly, in time to see Chakotay doubling over. His face creased with pain. But it was Tuvok who was there first.

"Commander?"

"I - I'll be fine, Tuvok. I'm all right," he gasped as he steadied himself again in his chair. Then he did something else. He hit his commbadge.

"Chakotay to the Captain."

No response.

"Computer, locate Captain Janeway."

"Captain Janeway is in her quarters," came the tinny voice of the computer.

"Chakotay to Captain Janeway."

No response.

"Tuvok, you have the bridge," he said quickly as he rose from the chair. Stumbled somewhat again. He was still gasping and seemed to be hyperventilating. He left the bridge in haste, leaving the rest of the officers wondering what was happening. They hoped nothing was wrong with the Captain. But then Tom, Harry and Tuvok had seen Chakotay's distress he was unable to hide as he exited the bridge. He looked like he was getting an attack of some kind, and strangely enough, was not concerned about himself...

**

The moment he overrode the codes to her quarters and stepped inside, he knew something was wrong. He went to her bedroom, saw her lie on her back, hardly breathing.

"Kathryn - !"

He scooped her into his arms and he almost sobbed as he hit his commbadge:

"Chakotay to transporter room 2. Lock on my commbadge and beam me and Captain Janeway directly to sick - ."

They vanished in the familiar shimmer of blue even as he spoke.

The next second they were in sickbay, Kathryn in Chakotay's arms. He placed her tenderly on the biobed. Before he could say anything, he slumped to the floor. When he came to, he was lying on the adjacent bed with a concerned Tom Paris looking on.

"Wha-what happened?" he asked, with some confusion.

"Your heart skipped a few beats Commander. You went into cardiac arrest. You're fine now," Tom assured him, as he scanned Chakotay, then replaced the bioscanner.

Chakotay frowned. "Thank you..."

"Well, I'll be leaving now, Commander. I think the good Captain would appreciate your company. And oh, message from Tuvok: You're off duty for the next twenty four hours. You and the Captain."

Tom smiled saying that. He left sickbay with a certain spring in his step, and Chakotay wondered whether there had been some sort of conspiracy.

He turned at last to the other bed. Kathryn was still lying but she was just coming to. With the ever attendant Doctor running a bioscan, a cortical stimulator secured on her brow.

"Don't move," Doctor said with mild irritation. But Kathryn had seen that Chakotay was lying on the other bed.

"Chakotay?"

He got off the bed and went over to her. He took her hand in his. His other hand stroked her hair, then rested against her cheek. She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, not daring to hope as he saw the look in her eyes. The tears sat very close. "Doctor?"

"She had a headache, a very, very bad one, attributed mostly to tension." He looked at the Captain. "I don't need to tell you Captain, to take it easy over the next few days."

She nodded, brought her hand to her temple and rubbed it as if the pain were still there. Surprised to find she could turn her head, her eyes fized on Chakotay.

The EMH clipped the little scanner back in the medical tricorder, removed the cortical stimulator then took himself offline.

"Kathryn - "

"Chakotay - "

Kathryn tried to lift herself to a sitting position. He helped her, wondering what was going to happen now. Then he spoke softly, something he needed to explain to her, because it scared him no end.

"I - I was sitting on the bridge, when - when I suddenly saw something I felt when Harry and I were in the Delta Flyer. It was just after he sent the wrong phase corrections. I...thought for a second...for a second - "

"What did you see, Chakotay," she asked, holding her breath.

"Me, stooping over - " he paused, then said in a stammer, "standing over your - your body...lying there, near your command chair on the floor..."

"Chakotay?"

"Forgive me, Kathryn..." He tried to look away. It scared him, thinking he might have lost her forever.

"Look at me...please..." she begged him. When he did, his heart was in his eyes. She raised her hand and touched his cheek.

"I saw in those same moments a blinding light, and you - you were standing there, holding out your hand to me...I took your hand, Chakotay. The image, it was very fleeting... It...scared me."

Chakotay stroked her hair, away from her face. He couldn't help himself. He had to touch her. This once only. This once. He could feast on it for days, weeks, even.

"It made me think..." she said softly, "about not throwing away chances...like I have..." That was when her tears started flowing, almost quietly running down her cheeks.

"Forgive me..."

"Kathryn?"

"I love you Chakotay. I need you, so much my heart wants to break."

"No turning back this time, Kathryn?"

"Never," she sobbed into his chest.

"Why did you say it, Kathryn, and let us both suffer?"

"I - was scared, scared of myself. I should have told you that night, but I - I..."

"What, sweetheart?" he asked softly, already sensing what she was going to say.

"I was so happy...so happy..."

"Kathryn, talk to me, always, will you?"

"Teach me that, Chakotay. I need to believe I can tell you anything."

"It's a beginning, now," he said as he hugged her closely, his lips agasint her hair.

"I need you..."

"Lean then on me, sweet Kathryn. Lean on me..." he said as he finally lifted her off the bed, and carried her right out of sickbay all the way to her quarters, stopping from time to time to kiss her. Those crew who happened to see their Captain and First officer rushed off to tell their friends, and they told others. Before the Captain and Chakotay had reached her quarters the whole ship knew that things were going to turn out fine.

It was going to be alright.

**************

Although it was still only after ten in the morning, two figures were sleeping on the bed, arms and limbs entwined in a tangle of sheets. Her face nestled in his neck, his arms possessively around her.

He was dreaming again. He was lying on his bed in his quarters. Kathryn was with him, but in the next moment, she was gone. He reached out his hand and felt the empty space where she had been moments before. He looked around him, starting to breathe raggedly. She's gone, he thought with agony. She's gone!

"Don't leave me Kathryn, please," he whimpered.

"Shhh...my love, I'm right here, with you," he heard her voice.

Waking up suddenly, Chakotay saw a concerned Kathryn watching him. He gave a huge sigh, hauled her into his arms and held her tightly.

"I thought you were gone, my love..." he murmured into her hair.

"I'm here, always."

"Always."

*

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