This story won't make much sense unless you've read As Allies
AS FRIENDS
The lights flickered unevenly within the darkened cargobay.
A hushed stillness hung in the air, broken only by the inaudible whispering of the two
young men. The third figure, a young
woman with long blond hair and full red lips, was silently lounging on her back on top of a
cargo container, her thoughts distant as she dangled her long, slender legs over the edge of
the surface. Her ocean blue eyes stared vacantly up at the ceiling. She was always so
*bored* when Tommy had to have meetings with Harry! The
least he could do was leave her out of it, but Tommy never liked to leave her alone. He
was so possessive!
Her full lips curled up into a lascivious smile as her eyes
scanned his person- his wild golden hair and his boyish blue eyes. She remembered how
his eyes always used to look so naugthy...
Used to. Not anymore. She was getting bored with Tommy. He
wasn’t the same anymore, at least not the same as he was the day he helped her earn the
nickname “Seven”... She chuckled silently at the memory of Tommy and the other six
men. She’d never been in
such ecstacy before in her life!
Now Harry, he was different. Her eyes drifted over his
rippling muscles and powerful chest. Deep scars were etched along his face. Her gaze ran
over them. He was rough, he was
dangerous. What she’d give for one night with him! But of course, he was just about the
only man on the ship who’d never paid her a visit. He was always so grim, so serious. It
titillated her. Annika Hansen knew from experience that the quiet, withdrawn type were
the most passionate lovers.
Feeling a tingle of arousal, Annika rolled onto her stomach,
brushing the hair that came tumbling down into her eyes out of the way, and complained, “
Tommy, can we go soon? I’m so bored.”
“ Not yet, Seven. We’re almost done here,” Tom Paris
assured her briefly before he turned back to Kim. “What were you saying?”
Shooting Annika an irritated scowl, Harry Kim demanded,
“ Why do you always bring her? Are you trying to get us all killed? I’m telling you, she’d
rat us out for a good fuck.”
Paris’s eyes burned, the ugly scar that ran down his cheek
blazing red. “ You talk like that about my girlfriend again and I will kill you,” His voice
was a dangerously low growl.
Kim’s eyes narrowed angrily at him, but he said nothing.
He cast Annika one last flash of contempt before he turned his back to her and furitively
whispered, “ To sum up, Lieutenant Tarmok is prepared to feed us any important
information about intellegence Seska and Chakotay might happen to come by. If they have
so
much as a hint about our activities, we’ll know within an hour,”
“ That’s great,” Paris said, trying to forget about the
hateful words they had just exchanged. “ And what about
Janeway?”
Kim sighed. “ That’s the hard part. We thought she’d jump
at the opportunity, but she hasn’t said a word on the matter. No one’s quite sure what her
feelings are.”
“ Is anyone ever sure what her feelings are?” Paris said with
a smirk.
“ This is different, Tom,” Kim said, his face grave and
voice serious. “ Without her support, I don’t see how any of this will work. It’s *her*
we’re trying to put in the Captain’s chair! If we do this against her will, then.... then her
first act as captain might just be to throw us out the nearest airlock.”
“ Oh, give me a break!” Paris exclaimed. “ Janeway and
Chakotay hate each other! Janeway would kill him herself if there was no Alliance
retaliation!”
“ She’s had the opportunity before. Look at this last week--
with that other Chakotay on board, she could easily have twisted the situation to her
advantage!” Kim pointed out. “ I don’t know about you, but I think there’s something
more there. She seems
almost, and I know it sounds crazy, but she seems loyal to him.”
“ Oh, please, Harry,” Tom said scornfully. “ You and I
both know that’s just a ruse.”
Kim cast him a doubtful glance. “ Let’s hope you’re right,
Tom.”
“ I am,” Tom attested. “ You just wait and see.”
* * *
Janeway was staring out the viewport long after Chakotay
had been called away. She mulled silently through her thoughts as the stars streaked by
out the window. The recent change of
events-- the *drastic* change of events-- still left her stunned, and only able to think about
one thing: The other Chakotay had been right. Her Chakotay *could* change his
perspective about things if he was presented with the truth; he wasn’t entirely locked in his
ways.
And, she looked down at her hand, the one he had grasped
as they committed themselves to the end to their hatred, she wasn’t entirely locked in hers
either.
Her eyes drifted back up to the space outside the ship.
*What will this bring about?* She wondered. * How will things
change?* They certainly never could become *friends*, not after all that had happened.
But then again, Janeway had never really had a friend in her life. She never could bring
herself to trust someone with her life, never could bring herself to care what
happened to another person. Somewhere, walking down the long
path of hatred that had eventually enveloped her, she had ceased to realize just how far she
had strayed from everything that made her human.
Kathryn felt a twinge of some emotion. Her brow furrowed
as she considered it. What could it be? Regret? She could never tell when these things
happened to her. She’d heard certain
emotions described by other people, but she never understood them through her own
experiences. She was a killer. She had killed
thousands of people over the years. Some would say ‘good
riddance’, for they usually weren’t innocent people-- government officials, pirates,
Cardassian soldiers, fellow ‘terrorists’, even some of her own crew when they got out of
line. Of course, there had been a few innocent people. She had been dismayed when one of
their attacks ended up destroying a Bajoran monastery instead of the intended weapons
storehouse of one of her rivals, and had been displeased when a Romulan tourist transport
stumbled upon one of their mines instead of an Alliance warship, but she’d never felt guilt,
or regret, for those actions.
The only things she’d ever felt guilty for, the only way she
could know just what that emotion was, was the death of
Chakotay’s father-- a death that was the malicious work of another person, a death that
she was to blame for merely because of her
childish naivety. She had been innocent when it happened. That one death had dictated the
course of her life, had eventually twisted her into a monster.
She glanced down at her hands again, her long, thin fingers
and sharp nails, like claws. She could feel the blood on them. Perhaps Kolopak’s death
was something more than just her first. Perhaps he represented all of them, the one death
that would lead into what was to come, into what she was now.
Kathryn realized that her hands were trembling and quickly
retracted her digits, unconsciously balling them into tight fists. Her temples throbbed
behind her eyes, and for a moment, she felt light headed.
Kathryn reached a hand out to steady herself on the window
pane. God knows what would happen to her if she passed out right here where any
crewman could come along and murder her in her
sleep.
* This is the life I earned for myself, the one I promised
myself after I escaped the camp.* She thought in irony. * Here’s the great future I
managed to chisel out for myself, a future where I have to constantly look behind me to
make sure someone’s not
going to creep out of the darkness and stab me in the back.*
She vaguely became aware of her shadowy reflection staring
back at her from the window. Kathryn focused on it and studied it silently, recalling the
other Janeway staring back at her from the viewscreen. She had been mildly surprised,
somewhere in the back of her mind, at her counterpart’s appearance. Her counterpart had
her reddish-brown hair cut right above her shoulders. Her skin was glowing with color,
and she had soft, feminine features. Kathryn was surprised at the fact that her counterpart
was attractive.
Glancing at her own reflection, she contrasted the two. She
knew she wasn’t an attractive person. Years of hardship and
neglect had sharpened her features, hardening them. Her mouth
was set in a thin line, with harsh, suspicious eyes and a pale, almost sickly white skin tone.
Her long, fiery red hair was tangled and limp, and only helped make her own face look
paler in contrast. Her eyes were brighter, but not in a positive way. They weren’t bright
out of happiness, but were two embers glowing in the wake of a firestorm.
Sometimes when she caught a passing glance of her
reflection, she’d see herself staring out of those eyes, a grim, souless gaze that told
nothing yet revealed everything. Other times, she’d see someone else staring out of them--
her shadow, that small vein of twisted darkness that had slowly grown stronger and
stronger as the years passed. It was always there, lurking, waiting. It was a presence at the
back of her mind, one that made even her shudder.
She had a thin and wiry body with sinewy muscles twisted
down bony arms. Her hands had long, thin fingers with prominent knuckles pushing at
pale, vein-lined skin. Had any other person been looking through her eyes, she would be
thoroughly
unimpressive in appearance. But her disposition, her countenance gave her an fiery spark
which electrified every muscle, every
movement, every flicker of her eyes, even when she sat perfectly still, alive with an
unnatural energy, one that would make her stand out in a room for the rest of her life, one
that would draw all eyes to her when she entered the room for as long as she lived. She
both fascinated and repelled, both intrigued and intimidated people-- one trait
contradicting another until she was a walking enigma. Beyond understanding, not even
known by herself.
She tore her eyes off of the viewport window and whirled
around to leave the room. Kathryn instinctively knew she had been here nearly three
hours, and she had far more important things to take care of at the moment; she was only
wasting time lost in
thought by the window. In accordance to Alliance regulations, she had a report to do
about the most recent incident, documenting her own experiences and filling in her
analysis of the events that had transpired, judging crew reactions and the expediency with
which the situation was rectified.
As she stepped out into the darkened corridor, Paris, who
had been plowing down the hall in a swift jog, crashed into her. She neatly caught her fall
and was already steady by the time he regained his balance.
“ Excuse me, Commander,” Paris said, flustered. “ I
wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“ That much is apparent,” Janeway said blandly as she
began to glide past him down the corridor. She heard a slight
shuffling on Paris’s part, and heard him intake breath as if he was about to speak. When he
said nothing, she glanced back at him, a single eyebrow raising over an icy blue eye. “
What is it, Paris?”
“ Well, you looked tense. I was wondering if you’d like my
assistance to unwind,” Paris offered.
Janeway considered it for a moment. She had engaged in
casual sex with Paris before. It never meant anything to her; it just was an expedient way
to unwind.
“ Maybe later,” She replied vaguely. “ I might drop by
later.”
“ You don’t mind if Seven’s in my quarters at the time,” It
wasn’t a question.
Janeway shrugged indifferently. “ Doesn’t matter,” She
turned and dissapeared in the shadows of the corridor.
* * *
Chakotay rubbed the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes
against the headache throbbing in his temples. The stresses of the last few days were
finally manifesting themselves, physically if not mentally.
He dropped the reports down onto the marble desk,
exhasperated. He couldn’t concentrate on this right now.
He paced over to the viewport in the readyroom and
watched the stars for a few moments. His thoughts were
wandering back to the other Voyager, to the Captain. Kathryn
Janeway. It was hard to believe that was her name. It was hard to believe she shared that
name with his Kathryn Janeway.
His thoughts switched from one to the other. He knew
something significant had happened today, something he hadn’t
even realized the implications of yet, the impact it would have. Where would they go
now? What would happen next? He had
initiated the change, she had finalized it, but what would become of it? How could he have
for her anything other than hate? She
wasn’t the other Janeway. She wasn’t the same gentle, beautiful woman he had fallen in
love with there.
His head shot up. Where had that come from? Fallen in
love with her..? A shadow of a smile crossed his lips at the irony. He hadn’t consciously
even known it. Yes, he had fallen in love with her, the woman who, in his universe, was
his arch enemy.
How would it be, sitting next to her on the bridge
tomorrow? The next day? Sitting next to the woman he had hated for so long, the woman
he had finally just established an uneasy truce with, the woman who, under different
circumstances, he
would fall madly in love with?
She and her counterpart had some things in common. They
both had strength, the grit of a survivor. They both had inborn pride, dignity. But it
seemed to him that the similarity ended there. While one had been nurtured and had grown
up knowing hapiness,
the other had descended into darkness, into a deep pit of hatred, the same one in which he
had fallen.
Was it the goodness of the other Janeway that had attracted
him? Could she have drawn him up out of the darkness, been his
preserver? Could she have saved him?
Somehow, he knew it wasn’t just that that had attracted
him. Something about her, her spark, her vibrance, had drawn him to her. To some
degree, his Janeway had that as well, but it was in a different form. It was no spark in her,
it was a blaze, an inferno. She radiated with energy, but it was no comfort to him.
It terrified him.
Vaguely, Chakotay wondered just what impression his
counterpart had made on her. A kinder, gentler version of himself. He tried to think about
this other Chakotay, the one who had never experienced a vendetta that had torn him
apart to his very soul. It would have been so easy for Janeway to take advantage of his
counterpart... as naive as he was.
Physically, they were identical, which explained why he was
able to fit in with the other crew so easily, and the other Chakotay with his. In both cases,
Janeway had been the one who had noticed the difference. He could understand the other
Janeway being the one who sensed the wrongness with him, but he couldn’t
understand how his Janeway had noticed what was wrong with his
counterpart. She was sharp, he knew. After twenty years of
tracking her, twenty years of her cunningly eluding him, he knew just how sharp she was.
But he never could tell if she had an
accurate impression of him, or any at all. Did she hate him as much as he had hated her?
Or was she as indifferent, even mildly amused by him like she had always seemed to be?
By God, she *did* have a right to hate him as much if not
more than he had hated her. Her father had been killed as a result of his orders, she had
spent eleven years in an internment camp
because of his orders, and she had not known a moment of peace
for the twenty years he hunted her. While his own vendetta had
consumed his life, it had destroyed hers. Was she really out for peace with him or was that
just a ruse to gain his trust before she stabbed him in the back?
* No.* He quickly banished the thought from his mind.
Janeway was many things, but she was not a liar. She did not
deceive anyone. While she didn’t openly show malice, if she
disliked you, she never led you to believe otherwise. She wasn’t wily... that was Seska.
Seska. He wondered why it wasn’t her who had noticed the
differences in him and the other Chakotay. She was about as sharp as Janeway, though not
as subtle. He knew he couldn’t trust her, but listened to her advice anyway. Somehow, he
understood her
far better than he’d ever understand Janeway. Seska was deceptive and shrewd, but she
had a one track way of thinking. It was easy to know she was devious-- she never hid that.
He heard the door to his readyroom chime, and he called
absently for it to slide open. He noticed in the window’s reflection that Seska had
sauntered in, and was approaching him with that
swing of hers in her walk. *Speak of the devil,*
“Chakotay,” She cooed softly, her arms draping around his
broad chest. “ It’s good to have you back.” He felt her soft breasts pressed into his back,
but he didn’t turn.
“ Missed me?” He asked absently.
“ More than you know.” Her lips were right next to his ear
and her breath hot against his skin for a few moments before they slid down his neck. “
I’ve been aching for you.”
“ Don’t bullshit me, Seska.”
“ The other Chakotay was so unresponsive,” She
murmered, her hands slipping to the seams of his uniform.
“ You and he didn’t--” Chakotay turned around towards
her, not out of jealousy, but wondering just what that Chakotay
would see in Seska after his Janeway.
“ No,” Seska said with a lascivious smile, her voice
carrying a note of regret. “ I told you, he was unresponsive. Of course, it’s my own fault. I
should have known something was
wrong after he saved Janeway’s life.”
“ I hadn’t heard about that,” Chakotay murmered.
“ Yes, it’s a shame, isn’t it?” Seska smiled. “ Would have
been the perfect opportunity to get rid of her. She was nearly killed by the Umarians.”
“ Why?”
Seska was busying herself with tearing off his uniform top,
lacking the usual finesse. She must have been out of practice for a few days, he mused. “
Oh, the Umarians tried to cheat us out of our goods. She insisted on retrieving them. It
was sucide. There were hundreds of them in that compound,” His chest was now
bared to her now, and she shoved him backwards into his chair
while she worked with his pants. She licked her lips, then lowered her head to take him
into her mouth.
“ Did she get them?” Chakotay asked as she began her
work, his question cut off by a sharp intake of breath.
Her head lolled up. “ In the end, yes. But it was such a
waste of resources to send down an away mission to save *her*
ass. Do you like this?” She purred, wrapping her lips around him again.
Panting, he gestured for her to continue, and inquired in a
husky voice, “ Why do you think she risked her life just to get some foodstuffs?”
Glancing up briefly, she slurred, “ Because she’s a fool.”
“ I mean really. Why do you think she did that?”
Seska snapped up, bristling in irritation. “ Chakotay, if you
want to talk about Janeway, we’ll talk about Janeway. If you want to fuck, we’ll fuck. I
won’t talk about Janeway while I’m--”
He held up his hands in surrender. “ You win,” She smiled
in satisfaction, a smile that dissolved when he continued, “ We’ll talk about Janeway.”
Seska’s eyes were flashing daggars at him in intense anger.
“ Fine. Janeway.” Her voice was sharp. “ She did what she did because she’s a crazy bitch.
There is no further reason, there need not be any further reason. Why does she ever do
what she does? That woman’s unpredictable. She’s
deranged. The two factors go hand in hand.” A pause. “ Now that
we’ve taken care of the unpleasantries,” She smiled lasciviously. “Let’s continue what we
started.”
*What -you- started.* Chakotay mentally corrected her,
but he had no problem with her continuing it.
* * *
Later, Chakotay lay on the bed, staring distantly up at the
ceiling with cloudy eyes. Seska lay besides him, her damp hair
matted beneath her on his chest, her body nestled within the arm he had carelessly draped
over her. Neither had said a word for a
number of minutes. The silence was thick around them, but he
didn’t seem to notice. He was preoccupied with his ghosts, which Seska just couldn’t
understand.
She was content to lie still for only a short time. Although
she was exhausted from their intense lovemaking a few minutes
earlier, she felt a slight twinge of longing for the easy conversation, absent of innuendo,
that they usually had after their sessions, where they were both still bathed in the afterglow
of their intimacy.
“What’s bothering you?” She whispered.
His dark eyes met her brown ones, and he said nothing. He
almost thought she was sincere. He remained silent, but his eyes reflected some emotion
she couldn’t quite comprehend.
“ What happened over there?” Her voice was still quiet.
He smiled, a cold smile, but said nothing. He couldn’t say
anything, and she knew it. He had lost the ability to confide in someone long, long
ago.
She reached up a hand and brushed his cheek lightly with
her graceful fingers, running them over the prickly stubble of his incoming beard. With her
feather light touch, a single finger ran down his neck to the dark hair matted on his chest,
and combed
through it vaguely. Putting in an amount of strength she didn’t know her tired body had,
she leaned up and brushed her lips lightly against his. She understood. Cold bitch that she
was, Seska was capable of some compassion every once in a while.
When she rested her head on his chest again, he stroked her
hair with his big fingers. It was damp still, but it was beautiful hair. He always loved
women with long hair. Seska kept it well
groomed. She always was meticulous about her appearance, and
incredibly fastidious. He wondered vaguely about Janeway, just
how her hair would feel running through his fingers if she ever took the time to look after
it.
In a way, he thought neutrally, glancing down at Seska’s
smooth face, he could relate to Janeway. Though he’d never
understand that psyche, she was born of the same tough material
that he was. She lived off of neccessity, and she manifested exactly who she was. She
didn’t dabble in deception or put a false front in place of the true one. She was almost kin
with him, as the prey is to the hunter, the white whale to Captain Ahab. They were of the
same flesh and the same sympathies. She understood him, he
thought, far better than Seska ever would. She alone could
understand the shadow in his mind, for she had that same shadow in hers. If they didn’t
have animosity, maybe they’d make an
interesting conversation.
His skin prickled, and he felt a real, sudden interest spring
up in him. He had never, not in all the time he’d been pursuing her, or been associated
with her, had a conversation with her. He had never really talked to her, nor she to him.
There were depths and layers about each other that they’d never know, even about
themselves that they’d never know until they were with the other. What would it be like,
he wondered. If he could just have one
conversation with her, would that put his mind at rest? Could he ever look his long time
object of unwavering hatred in the eye and really speak casually to her?
Who was she?
Perhaps he could know. Maybe if he found out just who
she was, then maybe, just maybe, he’d have some idea about just
who *he* was.
* * *
Janeway had left Paris’s quarters right after they had sated
themselves. She wordlessly slipped on her garmets, with his eyes following her from the
bed. In the next room, Seven was taking a nap on the couch. Her long, fair hair was
unbound and fanned
gracefully around her pale face.
Janeway passed her on the way out. Her muscles had been
relieved of their tension, but her mind was still on the edge. It wasn’t relieved until she
entered her own dark quarters and saw a single message blinking on the viewer
She blinked, then glanced back at the viewer to double
check the message again. She couldn’t read it, but she recognized the name of the sender.
She had halted midstep, poised to enter her quarters further,
when the message had caught her eye. She hadn’t moved a muscle
since except the flicker of her eye. The message glared at her in the darkness, and seemed
to blur before her eyes before she forced
herself to focus them.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, rooted in place,
but finally, she took the steps necessary to get in front of the terminal and slide into the
chair in front of her. The message still blinked at her, unwaveringly solid and bold in front
of her. She reached out a hand and pressed the necessary buttons. In the
computer’s monotone voice, she heard,
Do you ever think about who you might have been?
She didn’t remember dictating the reply until it was staring
back at her, in letters just as bold and glaring through the darkness. Letters, an unknown
code of jumbled nonsense. But she knew just what she had said.
Not until this week.
She pressed the send button, and leaned back in her chair.
She hadn’t turned on the light in her quarters, so the message was the only light cutting
through the dimness surrounding her. The light from the stars provided a bit of
illumination, enough for her to make out the shadows on the far wall. When she sent her
reply, the message blinked out briefly, and a few minutes passed, minutes of silence while
she sat in the darkness. Then, the console beeped briefly, and another message was staring
at her, and the computer read,
Has it all been for nothing?
She had a pretty good idea what ‘it’ was reffering to, but
she found it difficult to really comprehend the full spectrum of what he was saying. She
had never been fully educated, and the ability to think about meaning, to comprehend the
multiple layers of life and existence, had never quite been one she acquired.
She gazed at the stars, rushng past the window, for a few
minutes before she replied. Her quarters were dark and empty
around her, as still as death. They had always been this still. She finally dictated to the
computer,
I don’t know.
She waited a few moments, then another question arrived,
Are you happy?
It was a curious question for him to ask, and an even more
curious question for him to expect her to answer. Somehow,
though, she found staring at it with a clouded mind. It was as
difficult a question to answer as it probably had been for him to ask. She dictated,
I don’t know.
Nearly ten minutes passed before the last message was on
her monitor.
Neither do I.
* * *
Their eyes met only briefly as she entered the bridge, the
first time they had come face to face since he had beamed back
from the ship. A hidden knowledge was reflected in both of them, a little something more
that they knew about the other, in that brief flash of mutual recognition. Then, their eyes
ripped away from the contact and it was business as usual.
The shift moved slowly. It was quiet and uneventful
compared to the rapid events of the past week. The bridge was
silent, with occasional hushed whispers and formal status reports barely penetrating the
silence.
In truth, it was unusually silent. Janeway and Chakotay
were both preoccupied with their thoughts. Though Janeway didn’t speak much anyway,
every once in a while one of them usually
would make a comment. Something, though, seemed to be
shadowed in their minds, something was troubling them both.
Midway through his shift, Chakotay rose and handed the
bridge over to Janeway. He walked out of the bridge past staring eyes while Janeway
smoothly rose and claimed his seat. She was
coordinated and fluidic in her movements, like the ripples over
water, as she always had been. Her eyes betrayed nothing, and the bridge officers could
tell nothing, so they gave up. Some people speculated about the nature of their
relationship. Some speculated that their enmity was due to the fact that they were
estranged
lovers, a theory Seska battled furiously. Others thought Janeway and the other Chakotay
had been lovers, or maybe even Chakotay
and the other Janeway, or both. No one could tell. Somehow
though, looking at the glacier cold heart possessed by their first officer, and the dry,
callous attitude of their captain, they doubted either was capable of an emotion as deep as
that.
* * *
Cadarann watched the visitors on the monitor as they
entered the complex. He’d join then within twenty minutes, but he wanted to wait to get
an impression of them first. There were three of them-- a large, dark haired male, a
reptillian, tall female, and another, smaller female with long, fiery hair. He watched in
silence as they interacted, surmizing that the male was the one in charge. He frequently
spoke, and mostly the reptillian female replied. The other female said nothing, but
appearantly was paying more
attention than she seemed to be, for she never seemed to be caught off guard when she
was directly addressed.
The aliens were escorted to the lounge to await him. After
about five minutes of uneasily waiting about, the male and the
reptillian female both sat down in the lounge chairs. The third crossed her arms and
stepped back a few paces, never taking her
sight off of the other two or the door to the room. While the male and the reptillian female
became engaged in a discussion, the red haired female simply stood as still as if she was a
statue and waited.
Cadarann wondered if this meant she was a sentinel of some
kind, watching with as much vigilance as she did, or if she was
merely a subordinate of the other two. Somehow, though, he
suspected the former. She carried herself with a natural air of authority that made him
question his assumption that the male was in charge. Perhaps she was. Maybe with her
race it was considered a dishonor to speak to a subordinate, which explained the minimal
interaction between her and the others.
After a few more minutes of watching them, Cadarann
decided he’d let them wait long enough and proceeded to the
lounge himself. Upon his entrance, the red haired female shifted her stance slightly, and the
male and reptillian female both sprang to their feet.
“ Monar Cadarann, it’s a pleasure to *finally* meet you,”
The male said wryly, his annoyed impatience radiated in his
demeanor.
Cadarann was slightly taken aback by the rude reception,
and began to apologize profusely, but the dark haired male waved him off with a careless
gesture. *He’s obviously not learned in the art of diplomacy.* Cadarann
surmized.
“ Please, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Captain
Chakotay of the Alliance vessel Voyager. This is my first officer, Commander Janeway,”
The red haired female didn’t step up at the gesture he made with his hand, but nodded at
Candarann with
controlled iciness. “ And this,” He spoke with gritted teeth, as if unruffled by Janeway not
stepping forward when he introduced her, “ Is my tactical officer, Lieutenant Seska.”
The reptillian female swaggered up and flashed him a
bittersweet smile. “Charmed,” She said sourly as she inclined her head. Cadarann nodded
back towards her. He glanced over the
Captain’s rugged person, his half shaven face, unruffled hair, and the powerful
coordination he seemed to possess.
“ It is a genuine pleasure to have visitors such as yourselves
to our world. We don’t normally have guests that travel from such distances as you have,”
Cadarann elegantly gestured for them to proceed past him out the door, where other
members of the
ministry were waiting to assist in hosting the aliens. “ You must tell us more of your
travels.”
“ We’d be happy to do that,” Chakotay’s voice had tamed
down to a more diplomatic softness, “ As soon as we conclude
negotiations.”
“ Is there a hurry, Captain?”
“ Unfortunately, we don’t a lot of time to fully enjoy your
hospitality. While there are materials on your world we require, we also must make our
rendezvous at another stop that has other
materials we require. Time is, after all, of the essence,” Chakotay explained. Cadarann
smiled, showing two rows of perfect, white
teeth.
“ Then we must endeavor to make your short stay as
pleasurable as possible. Come,” He beckoned them into a dining chamber.
Throughout the dinner, Cadarann struggled to form an
impression of these people. Chakotay and Seska did all of the
talking, while Janeway simply watched. She barely touched the
food, but seemed to have no qualms about heartily enjoying the
alcohol. In fact, all three of them were unusually heavy drinkers. The waiters were at the
table every few seconds refilling their
glasses. And none of them showed the effects, either. They
seemed as sober and as level headed as they had at the beginning.
After enough alcohol, the red haired female began to answer
questions with more than one word. She didn’t become receptive
though; far from it. Though she didn’t actually appear to be trying to say it, the unspoken
about her discouraged any conversation.
Chakotay was a fascinating character. He was at once
accommodating and hostile; he gave one moment, took away the
next. His eyes were dark and sharp, and his gaze seemed to bore straight into one’s mind.
His lips pricked up at jokes, and as he drank more alcohol, he bellowed a hearty laugh
occasionally.
Seska put Cadarann on the edge. Something about her was
bothering him, although he had no idea what. She had crafty eyes and a sly smile, with a
sweet voice and polished words. She was more clean cut than the other two, well put
together. She sipped her drinks delicately and used subtle flattery constantly. Talking to
her, Cadarann could suddenly find himself wrapped around her
finger, but then a gleam of... something... would spark in her eyes that would immediately
set him on the edge again.
He invouluntarily found himself the most intrigued by the
third one, the quiet one. He studied her person carefully. Just looking at her impersonally,
she wasn’t much. She was too thin, with only a semi-presentable appearance. Her face
wasn’t lined, but it wasn’t young. She had no beauty, but she wasn’t ugly either. He could
see from her basic features that she definately had the potential to be attractive, but
appearantly didn’t care enough about her appearance to bother keeping herself well
kempt. It wasn’t her looks that drew him to her.
No, it was something else about her, something indefinable.
Her eyes were glowing like blue fire. They reminded him of the
iciest of winters, and the fiercest of storms. When she directed them at him, he could feel
them burning into him like a thousand knives. Her eyebrows were arched sharply over
them, too sharply to be fashionable, but only helped her general disposition. There was
something about her that he couldn’t grasp. When she spoke, she spoke directly and to the
point with a voice like a razor edge. He felt the weight of her gaze, her presence even
when he was
turned away.
Something about her communicated itself to him without
her even speaking. It tittillated him. He was frequently intimate with visiting female
diplomats, and wondered just how to approach that purpose with this one. What would
those eyes look like as she made love?
Throughout the dinner, he made an effort to get her to
speak. She flashed him an knowing look before she replied briefly with carefully
orchestrated answers.
Chakotay unconsciously stiffened. He had seen this happen
before, on the majority of the negotiations that he attended with her, in fact. He knew
Janeway seemed to attract people naturally, not due to beauty, but something else. Even
Chakotay wasn’t
immune to whatever hold she could get over people, though his
immense hatred had always held it at bay. She seemed to know the motive of the
ambassador’s attentions, too, because amusement
pulled at her features. She looked almost as if she was going to laugh, but knew the better
of it.
It disturbed him to no end during this negotiation. It was
the same thing that usually happened, but this time it bothered him. Why?
He grimaced when he realized he must have been thinking
of her, briefly, in terms of the other one that he had loved. He checked himself, and tried
to shut out the bantering that was going on besides him.
* * *
Later on, during the formal reception, Cadarann had
managed to manuever Janeway to a private spot where he could
speak with her on his own. After trying his hand at a little subtle flattery (which she
received with a knowing smirk and a cold eye), he asked her bluntly, (with a line he
frequently used on the tougher ones), “ Do you believe in love at first sight, Kathryn?”
She didn’t look surprised, but the question had taken her
aback. She glanced at him squarely with a calculating gaze, and replied bluntly, “ No. I
don’t believe in love at first sight. I don’t believe in love, Ambassador.”
His line was completely destroyed by her response, and he
spent a few moments mutely opening and closing his mouth, staring in dismay at her,
before he finally echoed flatly, “You don’t.”
“ No, I don’t,” She replied as if the subject was already
beginning to bore her. “ I believe you can acquire an attachment to a certain person, but
it’ll soon get old and wear away as time
passes. Why did you bring this subject up, if I might ask,
Ambassador?” She asked innocently.
“ I-- uh, no reason...” He floundered. Janeway frowned.
“ If you want to fuck me, Ambassador, you could just come
out and ask instead of trying to get there through flattery,” She said bluntly.
He laughed uncomfortably. “ You’re very direct, aren’t
you?”
She shurgged noncommittally. “ I’ve always believed in
frankness.”
Cadarann shifted akwardly from one foot to the other. “
So... will you?” He asked quietly, as if the words were difficult for him to say.
“ Will I what?” Janeway coaxed innocently, deriding
indecent pleasure out of his discomfort.
He paused a long moment, scanning her eyes for any hint of
mockery. Unable to read through her shielded expression, he
finally asked quietly, “ Would you like to... sleep with me?”
She gave him a venomous smile, her eyes glinting with a
sadistic glee. “ No way in hell, Ambassador.”
With that, she turned and left him without a second glance.
He was still standing in the middle of the garden in open-mouthed shock as he stared after
her.
* * *
She must have done something to get on his bad side. The
first thing Cadarann did after he and Janeway came back from their privacy was walk over
to Chakotay and demand that he leave
Janeway on the ship in the future. The next day, he concluded the talks with almost
undecent haste, bundling Voyager up with her
goods and shooing her off on her own way as quickly as possible. His hospitality had all
but vanished, replaced by a careful shield of perfunctory professionalism.
Chakotay was displeased with the undue relief he felt at
Cadarann’s reaction.
As they left orbit, Janeway must have sensed Chakotay’s
questioning gaze on her. Without taking her eyes off the
viewscreen in front of them, she spoke sideways to him, “He
wasn’t my type.” She glanced out of the corner of her eye at him, to gauge his reaction to
her words. She couldn’t read just what crossed his face, but a hint of amusement played at
his features. She invouluntarily felt her own lip twitch up at the side.
He had a sense of humor, she mused. Or maybe not a sense
of humor, just a sense of cynicism towards people that equalled her own.
Or did he?
His dark eyes met her blue ones, and it wasn’t until that
moment that she realized she had been staring at him. So why
didn’t she look away now?
He didn’t break his gaze from her either, as if the moment
of time had frozen to a halt. Gone was the quiet bridge chatter, the beeping of panels, and
the pacing of restless officers around them. Gone was the bridge, gone was Voyager, gone
was the entire
universe. It was just the two of them. As it always had been.
*As it always has been.* Janeway thought.
For one moment, there was a complete frankness between
them, the first real, eye to eye look they had taken of one another. She felt his eyes on her
as her own eyes scanned his rugged
features, his dark eyes, his muscular build. She noticed, for the first time, a bit of a jagged,
red scar creeping out from underneath his shirt and running up his neck. She noticed, for
the first time, how much power was contained in his muscles, in his arms and chest, as if
he could grind bones to dust in one of his palms. She noticed, for the first time, how deep
and absorbing his chocolate eyes were, as if one could drown in their depths...
* No.* The thought rushed through her head in an instant,
like a flash of lightning. Even she couldn’t comprehend just what the thought meant, why
it had come and vanished so quickly, but it ripped her gaze away from him, with a
breathtaking force, caging her eyes to the grey floor of the impersonal bridge. They stayed
there for about five minutes, her cheeks burning crimson, though she couldn’t compehend
why. What was wrong with her?
She looked back up again, chanced a glance back at him,
and saw his eyes impersonal and cold again, focused absently on the viewscreen, ignoring
the stars that were rushing by in the dark void of space.
* * *
As soon as her shift was over, Janeway arrived back at her
dark quarters and scooped up a data padd. Guided by some strange compulsion, she
turned on the computer panel and scanned through the computer archives, commanding
the computer to dictate any
hilights of Chakotay’s personal character that she had taken notes of in her logs over the
years. She had found it necessary to
familiarize herself with him to effectively elude him.
As she listened, she took in with a sort of relieved
satisfaction the fact that he was a heavy drinker, was known to use illegal narcotics upon
occasion, and had been established as a
chronic womanizer. A ‘grade-A scumbag’, no better than anyone
else, worse than some. He was smart, but not brilliant on aptitude tests, was regarded as
flexible in his morals, and questionable in his methods. He was an asshole, to put it briefly.
An asshole and as much of a killer as she had ever been...
Well, nearly so.
Janeway knew that she, of all people, couldn’t presume to
chastise anyone for their crimes in the past. That would be
hypocrisy to the extreme. But she could hold in against him,
privately, if she allowed herself to. Flexible in his morals,
questionable in his methods...
A womanizer.
It was common knowledge among the crew that he and
Seska were lovers. However, that didn’t stop him from fucking
every female alien that happened to cross Voyager’s path, or from sleeping with every
availble woman in the crew. Paris was
especially displeased when he realized one of these women was
Annika.
Paris hated Chakotay, more than anyone. His hatred of
Chakotay exceeded his loyalty to Janeway. Kathryn wondered if it was all due to the fact
that Chakotay frequently found ways to visit Seven, or if it was because of something else.
She had heard hints, here and there, about Paris and Kim working to incite a mutiny
against Chakotay. Taking the safe course, Janeway refrained from taking any action either
way. The instinct to hesitate before acting impulsively, possibly fatally, had saved her a
dozen times before, and she was following it now. She wouldn’t actively, even
furitively support a mutiny.
In fact, she didn’t support a mutiny.
It wasn’t that she had no desire to command a ship again.
Quite the contrary. Her natural inclination had always been to
command others. No, it was something else.
Dear God, she had already killed Kolopak. She didn’t want
to kill his son, too.
She stood up and paced to the viewport, hugging her arms
tightly to her chest and staring out at the dark expanse of space. It reached out forever,
the dark void of nothingness. It was an infinite universe, and she was so small. It was easy
to be lost, as she had been before. She never wanted to be lost again. She shuddered
and hugged herself tighter. What if she was forced to make a
choice? How could she make a choice, between her people and the man whose life she had
destroyed?
She remembered vaguely some seven years back. A
colleague of hers, Jean-Luc Picard, had reminded her, in that
infuriatingly smooth voice of his, that her life had been destroyed as well by Chakotay, and
to a greater degree. Janeway said nothing, scarcely gave it a second thought until now.
But as she looked out into the void of space, standing within her darkened quarters, a
spark of anger flickered through her. Not at Chakotay, at Picard-- at Picard because he
never would be able to understand just what she was, what Chakotay was. How could
anyone understand that
didn’t know?
“ You were born nothing, you will die nothing.” The
Cardassian guard at the internment camp had hissed that in her ear a few years into her
imprisonment. And she believed it, because she had already known it. In a universe so
large, what is anyone but nothing?
*We’re all nothing,* She reflected grimly, the stars
streaming past the viewport. *Some are just better at being nothing than others.*
The ship was slowing down, she noticed. The stars were
moving by more sluggishly, as if some force was dragging them
back, if any force could be stronger than the stars.
Black holes. Black holes were stronger than stars. They
were stronger than a million stars. No star could defeat a black hole. In the end, the black
hole will always tow you in, then crush you. The black hole always prevails. And it grows
stronger and stronger with each star it devours.
Stellar phenomena also held a sort of interest for her. She
never spoke of it to anyone, but when Voyager stopped to
investigate spacial anomalies, she always felt this small desire for them to stay longer, to
thoroughly investigate it instead of just checking to make sure it won’t impede their flight
path. She
wanted to understand them. They were fascinating, giants in
space.... unmovable, untouchable. One wrong move and you die.
They were hazardous, and they were incredible. Absolutely
spectacular. Fascinating.
* *
Chakotay frowned as he tried to decipher Janeway’s report. He had thought things were
improving between them, but this
somehow told him otherwise. Why were they always so poorly
done? He knew she was articulate when she actually did speak, so why were these reports
written with numerous, completely
misspelled words, grammar mistakes, shifting of cases, and so many errors that were so
simple to catch, even if you didn’t know what to look for?
The only time he’d ever written this bad was when he was
six years old, and was barely literate.
Maybe it was some sort of rebellion on her part, a way for
her to buck against his authority. He restrained the overwhelming urge to yell at her, as he
always did, for handing him in a report that was as good as not giving him anything. They
never seemed to tell him what he wanted to know, and always wasted his time. He
usually didn’t even bother reading them, but he had ventured a try this time to find out
more about her experience with the other
Chakotay.
He called her into his office. Chakotay resolved that he
wouldn’t yell at her this time, like he usually did, but he would ask her why. Talk things
out. God, he’d never had more than five
sentences exchanged with her. He couldn’t expect to talk things out. But, maybe he could
get a little clearer about why this was.
The chime sounded, and he called for her to enter. He
heard the door slide open, and her soft footsteps across the rug to his chair. When he
judged she was standing before the desk, like an inquisitor, he turned around in his chair,
report in hand, and glanced up at her. She had her eyes locked coldly on him, her face
expressionless, no doubt already knowing what he was going to
say. He surprised her by asking, “Why do you write your reports so poorly, Commander?”
She glanced at him, her face registering surprise. She
paused a split beat, her expression carefully guarded, before she replied neutrally, “ I don’t
write them.”
Chakotay took a breath and let it out. Not one of the
answers he expected, for sure, but it was enough for her to
elaborate on. “ Who does write them?”
“ Crewman Jvarak, Captain,” Janeway replied, her eyes
scanning his expression intently, for any sign of what he might say.
*Of course, Jvarak,* Chakotay suddenly remembered the
context of the one report Seska had shown him by Jvarak. They
had been up late drinking and playing cards one night when she
began to complain about how one of the crewmen who reported to
her put no effort into his job. She showed him a report, and
Chakotay decided that he should be demoted from his lack of
effort. He couldn’t spell or write to save his life.
“ Why do you have Jvarak write your reports,
Commander?”
“ Because after you demoted him, he has enough time on his
hands to do it,” She paused a beat before adding, “And not many of my other
crewmembers are literate.”
“ Why don’t you write them yourself?” Chakotay
demanded impatiently, trying to strike at the heart of the issue.
“ I can’t read,” Janeway replied, not missing a beat. The
answer took Chakotay aback. He wouldn’t expect Janeway, of all
people, to be illiterate. But suddenly, he was filled with
understanding. It made perfect sense.
“ I see,” He replied neutrally, processing this new
information. He paused a few seconds, in silence, before he asked, “ Why haven’t you
tried to learn?”
“ I don’t have any time on this ship, nor did I have any on
my old one.”
“ And before?” He pursued, “ Why didn’t you learn before
hand?”
Something flashed across her expression, an inensity of
emotions that he couldn’t sort out. Her eyes snapped straight to his, glowing as fierce as
embers. Her voice was sharp and bitter when she snapped, “ You didn’t send me to the
interment camp to learn, you sent me there to die.”
Chakotay lapsed into a stunned silence, and Janeway
seemed more surprised than him at the bitterness in her words. For a moment, her
expression was completely unguarded, a myriad of
dismay and embarassment washing across her features. She whirled away from him, fists
clenched at her sides as she tried to collect herself. He could hear her breathing. It was
heavy and shaking, as if she was fighting some demon. Earlier he might have come up
with a quick rejoinder, something like, “ Damn right I sent you there to die, and I wish to
God you had!” But nothing came to him now. It was at this moment that he first realized
that he didn’t hate her anymore, that he wasn’t capable of hating her anymore. He
could never hate her again, he realized, eyes on her back, her
clenched fists and tense muscles. He couldn’t hate her for a crime she didn’t really
commit, a crime that she’d been punished for
unjustly her whole life. He couldn’t hate her for the person
injustice had shaped her into, the tormented monster she had
become after all these harsh years.
The monster of his life, his own personal devil... She was a
devil of his own making. The people who had been truly
responsible for his life of hatred had escaped long ago. They were somewhere out there,
free men or dead. And here he was with her, two souls, two people who had been
children, their lives destroyed forever by the machinations of people who escaped
judgement.
And even now, after they’d acknowledged the truth, they continued to make war upon
one another.
He felt anger puslate through him at those people, those
faceless ones who had done this to them. Somewhere out there,
they were lounging around in their own victory, having already
deemed their plot from three decades before a success. They had destroyed their nemesis,
Kolopak as well as his child, and a little terran girl had been the one to pay for their
crimes. He wished more than anything that somewhere out there those people had
suffered slow and terrible deaths... By God, he wished that they were suffering now.
He realized that he hadn’t taken his eyes off of her. He
probably should have done so when she was trying to get collected, for courtesy’s sake,
but he didn’t. And now, before she had fully recovered, he said quietly, “ I’m sorry.”
He could no longer hear her breathing. His statement was
greeted with silence and stillness on her part, as if she was trying to wait to see if this had
really passed, if he had actually said the impossible. He watched as she slowly turned
around to face him, no mask on her face anymore, only a look of utter confusion and
disbelieving.
Her eyes flickered rapidly across his expression to try to
read any deception or mocking in it, were shocked to find none. Her mouth hung slightly
open in a stupified expression he had never seen her wear. Finally, she breathed, “ What?”
“ I am sorry,” He said again, the words tumbling out of him
quickly, so certain and absolute, like nothing he had ever spoken before, “ I destroyed
your family, your home, I destroyed you. I’m sorry about the wrongs I’ve done you, and
I’m sorry I condemned
you for a crime you didn’t commit. I’m sorry I never left you in peace, that I never let you
return to a normal life. I’m sorry I forced you to become what you hate. And,” He took a
deep
breath, “ I’m sorry that, for so long, I thought you were someone you weren’t.”
A number of moments passed in silence, their eyes locked
together. Finally, Janeway drew a ragged breath, and said quietly, “ I wouldn’t have been
any different in your place.”
“ You might have been,” He said thoughtfully, eyes distant.
She smiled, without mirth or any other emotion than quiet
irony. “ I don’t think I would have. Look at me, look at my
lifestyle. Were our positions reversed, you probably wouldn’t have become... this,” She
gestured helplessly to herself. “... You might have deserved more sympathy than I ever
could.”
“ I don’t know what I would have done in your place,” He
replied quietly.
“ But you know more than anyone else in this universe,”
She said it so quietly it was almost inaudible to him.
His eyes were on her, soft and deep. “ I know what it is to
be alone... To be trapped within myself for eternity...”
Her eyes met his. “ And so you know, more than anyone
else, what you would be in my place.”
“ I guess I do,” He said quietly, frankly. “ I don’t think I
would have been much different than I am now. And I don’t like
that.”
She was looking at the carpet of the readyroom, her
expression unreadable. There was a long silence, both their
thoughts distant as the stars streaked by against the dark canopy of space. Kathryn
ventured a vague glance up at Chakotay. The
readyroom was dim, and he was silhouetted by the bright stars.
*He’s beautiful.* She suddenly realized, her eyes scanning his
dark, rugged features. * How could a human possibly be
constructed so perfectly?*
“ What was she like?” Kathryn asked quietly, breaking the
silence.
Chakotay’s eyes were cloudy, directed towards the dark
stars. His arms were crossed across his powerful chest, and he
stood in front of the window as if he could gaze at the entire
universe to find the meaning that eluded him only from that spot. Her voice did not disturb
him in the least when it broke the silence. Without looking away from the stars, he replied
in a silky voice, “She was like no one I’ve ever met before. She was so strong, and so sure
about just who she was-- yet she so gentle, and kind. She had so much power... not in the
physical sense... but she
commanded so much power within herself, and yet she controlled
it. She seemed larger than life, like someone from another
universe... and yet she was vulnerable and passionate. She was
human, Kathryn,” Absorbed in Chakotay’s recounting of her alter
ego, she didn’t have a chance to be shocked at his use of her first name, “ More human
than I’ve ever been. More human than
anyone in *this* universe. Of course, being human is derogeratory in our universe. But in
theirs, it’s a complement.”
Kathryn did not say anything.
Chakotay, rousing back to awareness, cautioned a glance at
her. Her arms were hugging tightly across her chest, and her
expression was pale and unreadable. Her clothing hung loosely
from her gaunt form, and even her arms looked spindly, her muscles strangely out of
place, as if they had been formed not through being built up, but by something cruel and
forced. Like the muscles of a slave...
*She was a slave.* He remembered suddenly. * For eleven
years she was a slave, a prisoner... because of my decree.*
“ Do you want to go get something to eat?” He blurted
tactlessly. Staring at her gaunt form, all he could think about was that she needed to eat
something. It had been at the back of his mind for the past few minutes, without him
realizing it, and now the silence had provided him with an opportunity to correct that
problem. She looked akward, he realized, when she didn’t have her spark. When she was
in this state, unruffled and baffled, her
electricity seemed to fade off, and she looked unnatural. She had well toned muscle but so
little flesh that she looked as if she would topple over any minute now. Her skin was
deathly pale, as if she was stricken with some dire illness. If he could, he’d get her
something to eat, then haul her down to sickbay. God knows what she had that made her
so pale-- some ailment that she hadn’t gone to sickbay about, perhaps. She never had been
fond of sickbay. He vaguely recalled her collapsing on the bridge once after a hostile away
mission. She had neglected to report to sickbay afterwards, and her injuries had caused
internal bleeding. She had spent nearly five hours in surgery before her condition was no
longer life
threatening. Even after being sternly dressed down by Doctor
Fitzgerald, she refused to go to sickbay unless it was absolutely necessary.
“ Get something to eat?” She echoed tonelessy, staring
incredulously at him.
“ That’s right. At the dining hall. I think Crewman Bates
cooked tonight, and he’s the most skilled chef we have. I don’t know about you, but I’m
starving.” He paused his pointless
rambling for a moment. She was still rooted in place, gazing
expressionlessly at him. Chakotay hopelessly broke off his first approach, and, with a sigh,
offered, “We can see, if, just for one meal, we can forget the past. Everything that has
transpired in the last thirty two years... just forget it for one day. We can start with a clean
slate, if only for a short time.”
Her gaze was still hesitant, skeptical, but he could tell from
her foggy eyes that the idea was taking root in her mind. After a prolonged second, a small
smirk tugged at one side of her lips. “ If anything, the crew’s reaction to our eating
together might be worth it.”
Chakotay grinned to himself, thinking about the scene when
they entered together. He suddenly glanced up. His wondering
gaze met Kathryn’s for a moment. He hadn’t quite expected her to have a sense of humor.
As she walked out the ready room door, another grin
threatened to break out across his face. Of course, he should have expected a sense of
humor from her. He had known that the other Janeway had a sense of humor, so the
potential had obviously been there.
Part II