The following story is a direct response to Michele Masterson's "Belated",
which got my Inner Chakotay all riled up. Don't blame me, I didn't write
this; he just started narrating, even though it's not even his POV.
Warning: sap levels could cause diabetic coma. Paramount owns Starfleet.
Michele owns the setup and her story is a lot more plausible than this
one.

BETTER LATE THAN
by YCD

There was a message waiting on her terminal when she returned to her
rooms at Starfleet. A written notice, not in his voice. "Kathryn. I need
to talk to you as soon as you get back. C."

The other shoe, she thought. Whatever he hadn't felt he could tell her
this morning--probably that he'd met someone else while he was away. Or
that those rumors she'd heard about him and Megan Delaney, implausible
as they had seemed during the last days of their journey through the
Delta Quadrant, were true. He hadn't wanted to hurt her any more this
morning by telling her, but knowing him he felt guilty for misleading
her, and didn't want her to hear it anywhere else first.

The easiest thing would have been to ignore the message, but if she
started avoiding him, she'd be hiding from her best friend. The only one
she had left. She decided to reply before she became too paralyzed to
talk to him and lost even that. She made the connection audio-only.

"Kathryn? Where are you?" he demanded when the commlink was established.

"I'm at home."

"I can't see you. Is your viewscreen on?"

"No, it isn't. What is it, Chakotay?"

She heard his sigh of exasperation. "I have to...Kathryn, where have you
been all day? I was worried about you...can I come see you?"

That much she was certain she could not stand. "I'm sorry, Chakotay,
I...this isn't a good time, I have, I have to be somewhere, and..."

"Kathryn, please. At least turn on your viewscreen. It's important."

Captain Kathryn Janeway recalled facing down Vidiians, being
experimented on by advanced aliens, negotiating with the Borg
Collective. Negotiating with the Borg collective over the fierce
objections of her first officer, who had told her a story calculated to
sting her and then left her alone with her choices. If she could get
through what she'd been through for the past few years, she could get
through whatever Chakotay had to say to her now. Taking a deep breath,
she assembled her features into the expression she reserved for such
experiences, ran a hand through her damp, tangled hair, and touched a
control.

Chakotay looked worse than she imagined that she did, but his voice was
steady. "Kathryn, I need to tell you that I'm a liar."

"About what?" She kept her voice even and neutral. Here is was--whatever
he'd held back from her earlier. He ran his hands over his face and
stared imploringly into her eyes.

"I couldn't stand the idea of getting hurt again. And I was sure that
was what would happen if I had any hopes for when we got home. So I made
myself stop hoping, the whole last couple of years--I wouldn't let
myself think about where I'd go, or who I'd want to be with. Then we did
get back, and I went away, but I really had nowhere to go. There was
noplace I wanted to be. Last night I was afraid to look at you--you were
so jumpy, and you didn't seem all that interested in my travels, and
we've both lost so much. And we were alone and there was nothing to stop
me..." His eyes broke contact with hers on the viewscreen, gazing
upward, then dropping. "I spent the last few years convincing myself it
would never work. I left you last night telling myself that, and this
morning...for so long I've been telling myself what I told you this
morning that I actually convinced myself I believed it. Until you left.
It isn't true, Kathryn..."

He fell silent because she had both hands pressed against the monitor
where his mouth was, trying to stop him. She wanted to interrupt him, to
apologize or even to contradict him, but tears blocked her throat, and
she knew that if she tried to say anything only sobs would come out.
Chakotay lifted one of his hands to where hers were on the monitor,
swiping at his face with the other.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm a coward, but I guess you
knew that already from things I've done the past couple of years. I
panicked, because I don't know whether I can live up to whatever you
expect after all this time. I don't know if we really want the same
things anymore, or if we ever did, and I'm afraid to find out..."

"Oh, so am I, Chakotay, but..."

"Let me finish. I don't know what I want anymore, and I don't know what
you want. All I know is that after you walked out this morning, I
couldn't think of a single thing I did want, no place I wanted to be or
person I wanted to see, except you. I sat around for awhile thinking
about what it used to be like--crying about it. I wish we could go back.
But since we can't...

She found her voice when he lost his. "Just say it's not too late," she
begged. "Just tell me I didn't lose you somewhere back in the Delta
Quadrant..." Crying messily, using one hand to wipe her nose and the
other to drag her sodden hair out of her eyes, following Chakotay's
fingers on the monitor where they appeared to be trying to stroke her
face. "Come over now," she managed to say. "No, give me a few minutes to
clean--never mind. Just come now."

Though both the hotel and Starfleet's residences had transporters, he
walked across the grounds through the storm, so that when he arrived he
was soaking wet and chilled. She hadn't lit the fireplace, hadn't wanted
to presume, but when he came through her door and began to pile drenched
clothes on the mat, she stopped him, and pulled him with his muddy boots
through her living room to the hearth.

"It's out," he said, and sneezed.

"No, it isn't." She waved her hand over the controls and burning logs
suddenly appeared, filling the room with the scent of smoke. "It's
holographic," she explained with the first smile she'd managed in hours.
"You didn't think Starfleet would permit real fireplaces in their
precious barracks?"

"I guess I can't tell what's real and what's not anymore." His own smile
faded as she reached for his hand. He turned his palm up, pulling her
beside him, and they stared together into the blaze which existed in
permanent memory.