SCENES
FROM AN UNWRITTEN STORY (2)
by
vanhunks
a sequel to "Scenes from an unwritten story"
(1)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Paramount owns Voyager, Janeway and Chakotay.
Summary: A blizzard. A cave. A dying fire. Two broken humans.
Help me make it through the night. This time, from Kathryn's POV.
Warning: Deep angst, but there's light at the
end of the tunnel; a satisfactory ending.
*
SCENES FROM AN UNWRITTEN STORY (2)
Her mind was numb. Numb from the cold and numb
from the pain... She tried to close herself off from seeing their faces - ugly,
snarling, grunting faces. The images kept coming. Although her eyes were
closed, she could see them fighting, tearing in sickly, naked aggression at her
clothes, her hair, her breasts. Somehow she felt displaced, lifted to a plain
where she could watch with detachment the body that was hers, yet not hers and
the men who took turns to ravage it. The assault was too extreme to feel
anything anymore, to scream or weep. So shock, the first merciful release that
would protect her from feeling or being too aware of the horrific reality, set
in.
Somewhere, Chakotay was beaten to death. She
had seen the first blows strike him even as she was pulled from the cave. She
had heard him scream her name, the echo of it following her where she was led
away. Fighting back... What was that against the overpowering might of men who
were already blinded by their own
instinct to plunder her body?
Now, she lay close to him. She didn't know when
they had brought her back to the cave or why they didn't just kill her. Too
weak to move, too sick and paralysed, she had lain in the cold. Only from a
great distance could she hear the howling of the wind, as if it cried with
terrible grief the tears that should have come from her.
She had woken dazedly to the sensation that
someone was pulling her up. A small cry escaped her, then Chakotay's
voice...deep, calm, with only a tinge of anger that made her sag against him.
She had not spoken again, and allowed him to dress her. Once, in the light of
the fire, as he pulled the turtleneck over her, she had seen his eyes.
Look away, Kathryn... Look away from his
compassion...
Understanding was
in the gentleness of his touch, his hands on her body as he pulled on her
clothes with the greatest care. Flashes of other hands on her body, pulling and
tearing, invading, came to her, made her give shamed little cries. But
Chakotay's soft "shhh..." was enough to settle her again, even if
only briefly.
She was cold,
had been unclothed all through her ordeal. Her face sought his body warmth,
nuzzling against his chest even though she knew he hurt from the pressure.
"Will they
come?" she had asked. Maybe she asked that more than once...many times.
She couldn't remember. She was dazed, her body hurting so much that crying out
was a luxury, because it hurt even more. So she tried to settle into a
comfortable position where she didn't have to move much. Still, she shivered at
times uncontrollably against Chakotay's hard, reassuring body.
"It's
cold," she said.
Later,
"They were animals..."
Chakotay's
voice above the howl of the wind, "I will make you whole again."
Did she doze
off? Did she fall into a nightmare-filled slumber?
"Here,"
he whispered, gently pressing her down next to the dying embers. She had cried
out, the movement causing pain and discomfort. But it was only briefly, for she
felt how he cursed himself for causing her more pain than was necessary. He
struggled with her limp body. She knew she wasn't helping much, but Chakotay
didn't mind. Her had pressed something against her stomach, for she had given a
little whimper from the brief assault of cold air. But very soon it was over and
she gave a little moan. Why did he dress her again? she wondered, too
disoriented and dazed to wonder. Her face relaxed against his chest again. She
welcomed the cosiness of the new warmth and his skin, drifted gently into
slumber.
Then they came.
The men whose faces were wild and
savage as they started tearing, breaking. Violent, rough hands and long teeth
that found their marks, left their marks. Invasion crude and bestial.
No more crying there...
"No more...no more..." But the men
kept coming. Chakotay's voice above the howling wind and the screams of the
men.
"Shhh... I'm here, Kathryn..."
Still, they came. Long nails dug into soft skin
and tore at her flesh. Heaving bodies. Their laughs grating, untamed, their tongues alien.
Pain. Pain. Pain. Sudden release as one is pulled out of her body, long past protest. Another body falling on her in brutal entry. A lone, unnoticed, ignored sob...maybe a tear...
Only in her dream could she protest. Only in her
dream she could fight her attackers, ward them off with her hands...
"Please...stop..."
"I'm here, Kathryn. Just listen to my
voice. Shhh..."
His voice, urgent yet calm...beloved voice. The
images receded. The ugly laughing went away slowly. She slumped against him in
blessed reassurance.
"C-Chakotay?"
"No...I will not hurt you, Kathryn; I will
never hurt you."
Why were her cheeks so wet? Did she weep? At
last? She must have, because the sounds of sobbing she heard were her own. She
heard Chakotay's sobbing. Their tears mingled. She cried a long time. Arms
enfolded her, holding her so close.
Warm...
Warm.
Did she fall asleep again? Yet, there were no
images of wild, untamed faces this time. She was cocooned in warmth, a strange
warmth.
They were lying down, her body spooned to
Chakotay. It felt good, this warmth, but why were they lying down? She
remembered sitting up and being held by him.
"Chakotay...?"
He didn't move. The wind had stopped. It was
freezing cold, but her hands were warm, for they were tucked under the layers
of clothing. It was quiet. Chakotay's body remained lifeless.
"Chakotay?"
She raised herself on her elbow to peer at him
in the darkness. She couldn't see his face, only a dark outline of his rigid
body.
Touch his face.
Touch his hands.
Touch his chest.
Ice cold. Stiff. Naked. Cold. Cold. Hands too
terrified to learn a new truth skimmed over his bare torso, felt the rim of his
boxers. New cold. Her heart tightened painfully at the knowledge of a new and
terrible reality. The maelstrom spun madly, madly, until it stopped.
"Chakotay! Wake up. Come back...come back
to me..."
Desperate hands slapping the cold, prone,
unmoving man. Fear.
"You can't go... You can't leave me now,
Chakotay..."
Did the tears spring to her eyes again?
She thought absently of rain in Indiana, of
Chakotay standing in the rain and his face breaking into laughter. Why did it
feel like rain? Then she felt for the first time his turtleneck over hers, his
jacket over her jacket, trousers over hers. Her hands beat on his body, willing
him to wake up. She heard noises in the
distance, noises that became louder. Then guttural laughter.
They were coming.
"God, help me!" she cried into the
darkness as she hit the commbadge. A crackling sound.
Then, disembodied, she heard, "Voyager to
Janeway."
She gasped, swallowed a sob. Did God play
tricks with her? Did her hand hit the commbadge again in the incredulous belief
that Voyager had come for them at last?
"Janeway to Voyager."
"Voyager here, Captain."
The EMH...
"Doctor, beam us directly to sickbay.
Attend to Commander Chakotay first..."
Then she collapsed, not feeling the slight
displacement as they were beamed to Voyager's sickbay.
*
Sickbay...
She raised herself to a sitting position on the
biobed, ignoring the doctor's order to stay in bed. Her body was repaired.
Outwardly, at least, she could function again. The numbness was gone, and in
its place was a tired acceptance that her life had changed forever. She could
deal with that, learn to live with what happened to her. She had no idea how
long it would take, but her resilience to repair her mind as well as her body
was already in progress.
It was necessary. If she were to run her
vessel, her crew, though knowing of her ordeal, still needed to see a captain
who could run Voyager as effectively and as disciplined as she had always done.
It would never leave her, the things that happened. There was no shame, for the
eyes of her crew were fixed on her with compassion. She didn't see pity in
their eyes. Perhaps the one thing she did see, was their own recovery from
shock, a quiet emergence from the cauldron of terror their captain and first
officer had been thrown in. If anything, they experienced guilt. Guilt that
Voyager had been ambushed, sent on a wild goose chase, its Captain and First
Officer in a shuttle on their way to a planet that had sent out distress
signals. Guilt at what they discovered had happened to their command team. Yes,
the crew suffered too, but their recovery from the ordeal was also only
dependant upon her own. Their glances she would bear, because she would see
their concern, more than anything else.
They took their lead from her. She had not been
more proud of them than in the last few days they had hesitantly stepped up to
her bed and greeted her. She had been awake, not too tired to listen to them,
hear their halting expressions of commiseration. The EMH had tried to shoo them
out of sickbay, but she had gripped his hand tightly and told him firmly that
she needed them, for their presence marked something sane and immediate and
blessedly real. And though she couldn't speak to any of them about the details
of what happened, they hadn't needed to hear it, for they had imaginations and
portents of the horror of such events.
She had cried once. The crewman had looked at
her with his doe-like liquid brown eyes that always made her think he was
perpetually sad. He had looked at her a very long time, and when his eyes
filled with tears and rolled unchecked down his cheeks, she had taken his hand
in hers and wept with him.
One day, when she felt ready, she would tell
Noah Lessing how his tears helped to heal her.
She would have nightmares; she would relive the
terror again and again and again. There would be times that the terror would
corrode her resolve, eat away at her defences, mock at the manner of
regeneration of heart, body and soul. Those times she knew, the crew would
understand.
Kathryn wrapped her arms round her, the
softness of the hospital gown welcome and warm. When she braced herself to get
off the bed, the EMH clucked like a mother hen the moment she stumbled.
"Now, Captain, you've not adjusted to life
off the bed You've been here - "
"I know, Doctor. Four days and three
nights. Long enough. I'm drunk from too much sleep."
"It was so your body could regenerate in
peace."
"I'm feeling much better, Doctor."
"Captain! You need the rest. I can't tell
you - "
"Don't worry. I'll feel better resting in
the comfort of my quarters. You can post Tuvok at my door to make sure I take
my rest and my medicine."
The EMH shadowed her elbow closely as she
walked across the floor to the other side of the sickbay. She stopped next to
the main biobed. Her eyes went soft as she looked at the sleeping man. His
colour was so much better. When they had been beamed back, his body was blue
and stiff. She had been frantic with worry the moment she had opened her eyes
in sickbay.
Her first concern had been for Chakotay and her own injuries shifted to the
background as she became frantic because she thought he was dead. There was a
cold deep inside her, colder than the blizzard and the horror on the
planet.
Cold fear that terrified her more than her
ordeal...
Chakotay was dead.
"Help him, Doctor."
She had resisted Tom Paris, fighting
ineffectually to stay near Chakotay. But Tom had simply lifted her in his arms
and laid her down on the bed at the far side. He had given her a sedative, and
her body relaxed slowly, became limp.
"He's still alive..." she heard the
doctor say.
She closed her eyes at that discovery.
"His life signs are faint," she heard
their voices as they stabilised Chakotay. Then everything faded to darkness.
Now, Chakotay lay sleeping.
She caressed his warm cheek. Was there a sigh
that escaped him? He must have sensed her touch. She let her hands run over his
shoulder, tracing the outline of his collarbone. She remembered the doctor's
words as he gave her a report of Chakotay's injuries.
"Five broken ribs, and a broken
collarbone, Captain. Did you know his leg was fractured? I've repaired his
broken teeth, reset and repaired the cracked jaw. His upper cheekbone was
shattered. Did you notice that blood seeped from his eyes? He has sustained
some concussion.."
How then had he managed to stand at the mouth
of the cave and try constantly to hail Voyager? How had he managed to cradle
her body against him? She had had no idea of the extent of Chakotay's injuries,
primarily because he had not told her of it. She had been mostly semi-conscious
those first hours, but they had talked, soft, fragmented conversations. It was
enough for her to have been made aware that he was struggling to breathe, that
her movements against him caused him excruciating pain too.
He had not only kept her warm with a fire...
"Oh, Chakotay..."
She thought he heard her. She could see the
movement of his eyes under the closed lids. Her heart thundered. He was about
to wake up. His eyelids were heavy, but they lifted slowly until his eyes were
open. He lay staring at the ceiling, the source of the bright light.
What went through his mind, staring so long at
the ceiling like that? His lips moved, but no sound issued from them. Finally,
the silent prayer stopped. Chakotay turned slowly until his gaze connected with
hers.
In his eyes she saw their last hours on that
planet. She saw how he fought to defend her. She saw their bodies lying
spooned, hers warm, his ice-cold. She saw Chakotay drifting from her. Strange
how she could also see herself desperately calling his name.
Kathryn had hardly noticed that the EMH had
lowered the dome and moved away again silently. Chakotay's hand sought hers
instinctively and found refuge. His lips moved.
"I saw my father..."
"I was afraid to be alone."
"But I heard you call my name and I knew I
was not ready for my father's home."
It was quiet again; her heart was filled with
the import of his words. She squeezed his hand.
"You saved my life," she said softly.
He wanted to shake his head, look away, but her hands had steadied his head,
imploring him to look at her. "I wore two turtlenecks, and two pairs of
uniforms - mine and yours... You kept
me alive."
"Alive..."
Chakotay, agitated, tried to raise himself, and
when she helped him up he fell against her and wept again. It made her own eyes
well with tears.
She knew that there would be times during the
rest of their journey home that they were going to take turns comforting one
another. Now was Chakotay's moment. He clung to her, his frame shuddering. No
words were needed to express her understanding. She had seen the eyes of the
crew. They too had the same look. She held his head to her bosom, pressed her
lips into his hair. She knew that soon, when the nightmares came for her, she
would turn in her bed, her hands reaching for him.
He would be there. He would always be there.
When Chakotay finally calmed, there was a great
silence in the sickbay. She pressed him gently back on the bed. He wouldn't let
go of her hand.
"We're in this together, Chakotay. It is
inescapable. You're going to need me and I'm going to need you..."
Her words hung in the air. She hoped he
understood. He lifted her hand and pressed his lips against the back of it.
"You called me back. I shall gladly walk
this road with you. We didn't choose it, Kathryn, but if you want me there
always - "
"Didn't you know, Chakotay, when you held
me and kept me warm and clothed me with your clothes..." Her heart was full. She closed her eyes,
absorbing the new truth. A hand reached up and fingers touched her cheek. Her
eyes flew open.
"Kathryn?"
"Didn't you know, Chakotay? Didn't you
know?"
"Know what?"
"My life belongs to you. Forever."
****
END