The Instant Made Eternity
by Michele Masterson
Author’s note: Okay, so I just wanted to get this off my computer. Long, rambling and generally pointless – boy, is this the last time I ever try to do a “canon” piece. The only thing I really like about this story is the title, and I ripped that off, if that tells you anything. Anyway, this started out much differently than it ended up, in that Janeway and Chakotay end up having a huge fight and say some pretty nasty things to each other. But I figure after all they’ve been through (or haven’t been through) this season, they’ve got an argument coming. So if you don’t like that idea, you might not like this story.
Send all comments to Libra471@aol.com
Disclaimer: “Star Trek” and all characters therein property of Paramount Television. Thanks to Robert Browning and his poem “The Last Ride Together” for the title.
Rating: NC-17 just to be safe, but nothing terrifically graphic. Sex. Language. The usual suspects. My first attempt at such a story, so go easy on me.
*****
Part One
A bullet. A bullet in the fucking leg. This was how she was going to die. Centuries of progress toward more fantastic and elaborate means of destruction, and Captain Kathryn Janeway goes out with a piece of metal and gunpowder in her leg. If she weren’t in so much bloody pain, she’d laugh.
Someone tromped by, weaponry jingling. Hirogen, hunting for her, hunting for the crew. She was hidden for now, having used the last of her strength to drag herself into an access panel in sickbay. That would be the other funny thing. She’d die a half a meter away from the medical equipment that could easily save her. She fought to remain conscious, pressing her hand onto the wound on her left leg, trying to keep applying pressure, hearing the sucking noise of the wet material. Her pantleg soaked in blood. The wound she could feel beneath the material, deep, jagged. And the floor beneath her was soaked. Literally dying in a pool of her own blood.
The pain was not so bad, though. Initially it was incredible. She’d never felt anything like it. Oh, she’d been shot before. Phaser blasts and disrupter hits while fighting the Cardassians, knifed in the arm once. But this felt... primitive. No quick and clean vaporization, no cauterization that comes with a phaser blast. This was pain. This was death. This was a hot piece of metal ripping through your skin, burning and slashing and taking every piece of tissue it can with it. And then staying there, festering.
But now, it felt just sort of numb. Throbbing with each beat of her pulse. And she was getting tired.
She’d been there five minutes. Waiting to see if the men she could hear outside would leave. Someone had obviously diffused the bomb. She hadn’t been able to deactivate the neural implants, and was sure now that the Hirogen had changed the codes. Harry would have to find another way. It didn’t really matter though, because in another minute she was going to break out herself, one way or another. She wasn’t going to do the crew any good if she was killed, but this was ridiculous. If she were going to go, she’d take a few of these bastards with her.
She adjusted her position slightly, a shooting pain sending fire straight up her leg, into her gut. Clamping her left hand over her mouth, biting back a cry of agony. Dammit, dammit, dammit. And then a clamor outside. They were yelling. Getting closer to her. She steeled herself, prepared to open the door.
Gunshots. Shouts. Hirogen weapons discharge. A bullet ricocheting off a nearby console. She sat still a moment, then cracked open the panel. A glimpse of a Hirogen, prone on the ground. Then a shadow coming around the corner. She let the panel close, but it made a loud scraping sound. Dammit. This was it. If she could move quick enough, she might be able to get to the Hirogen and take his weapon before she was killed...
“Katrine?” someone whispered. Chakotay. Or... what the hell was his name..?
“Miller...” she called, pushing open the panel and tumbling out, the pain back now, real, sickening.
“Come here,” he said, pulling her out, getting covered in her own blood. “Jesus, you’re wounded. Let me see it.”
“Miller, forget it. Listen to me, you’ve got to...”
But he was over her, pulling out a hunting knife and cutting open the top of her pantleg. Blood everywhere. He gingerly touched the wound, trying to ascertain the severity. Janeway sucked in air through her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Shit,” she hissed, and caught his rather shocked look. Probably the girls back home didn’t talk like that. He went back to the wounded leg, which began to bleed anew.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “Bullet’s still in. No time. We’ve gotta go now. I’ll carry you.”
“Miller, we need to complete our mission here. Nothing else matters...”
He was protesting when Janeway saw the doctor materialize behind him. Chakotay was instantly on his feet, pistol at the ready, but the doctor just rolled his eyes and pushed him aside.
“I’m on your side, flyboy,” the doctor said, on his knees examining Janeway’s leg. Chakotay... Miller... trained the pistol on the doctor still.
“I’m no flyboy, Jack.”
“Who’s Jack?” the doctor sneered, clucking his tongue at Janeway’s wound. When he got up to retrieve some instruments, and Miller cocked the hammer on his pistol.
“Cha... Miller,” Janeway said. “He’s with us. An ally.”
The doctor came back with a hypo and other instruments, extracting the bullet with such speed that Miller’s jaw dropped. And when he brought out the dermal regenerator and the wound disappeared, Miller looked from the doctor to Janeway with incredulity, bordering on fear.
“What is this?” he said, his voice rising. “What the hell is this?”
Janeway got up, just an echo of the pain in her leg now. “Captain Miller, this is the Nazi technology I told you about.” He looked unconvinced, but there was no time for discussion. “Doctor, can we access the neural implants from here?”
“I’m afraid not, Captain,” the doctor sighed. “All controls have been rerouted to the bridge.”
She shook her head. This was just getting worse. “Well, we’ve got to get word to Harry. He’s our only shot.”
“I’ve already done so Captain. Ensign Kim is just waiting for an opportune moment.”
Which could mean now or three weeks from now. This was her weak point -- waiting. Yet as she ran dozens of alternate solutions through her mind, more shouts were heard from the corridor outside. She jumped and immediately grabbed the rifle from the dead Hirogen’s hands, crouching low with her back to the wall.
The doctor walked swiftly around the corner, and there were shouts, Hirogen demanding something, medical assistance most likely. She could hear the doctor attempting to reason with them, attempting to prevent them from finding her and Chakotay. He was next to her, his shoulder touching hers, scrutinizing the rip in her pantleg.
“You all right?”
She nodded absently. It sounded like there were half a dozen Hirogen in the other room. Not good. She tried calculating their odds, but the odds were too depressing to contemplate.
“We could go back to the town,” he said. “At least we’d have a chance. Maybe take out a few more of their installations.”
She was not fond of returning to the simulation, but when the fray in the next room got louder, she nodded again and lead him into the tube behind another panel, back to the holodeck.
******
They couldn’t get to the bar. Enemy fire was all around, driving them into a cellar beneath a restaurant close by. She’d found another holodeck control panel inside a closet, tried in vain to access any type of systems control. But it was out of her hands. Now the wait. Miller -- it was getting easier to call him that, think of him as someone completely different, another reality -- watched out the high window of the cellar, but reported only seeing tracers flying through the streets.
Janeway paced. “I can’t stand this,” she finally said, heading for the stairs. “We’ll never get anything done if we’re just sitting here.”
He grabbed her upper arm and pulled her back. Close, his breath hot on her face. “You’re not going to do anyone any good if you’re dead. I’ve been in a lot of combat...”
“Miller, you don’t need to tell me about combat...”
“I’ve been in enough to know that sometime the best strategy is to wait it out. You’ve got your men inside, right? You’re waiting for their signal. So as soon as you get it, we go. You say you’d do anything for your people? Okay. So be patient. That’s the best you can do.”
They stayed close together for several moments, his hand still closed around her arm. Janeway was aware when the moment went from tense to... charged. Miller started a bit then, releasing her quickly.
“Forgive me, Katrine. I’m being... I’m out of line.”
He backed away then and turned, looking everywhere but at her. Janeway watched him. For just a moment... for a second she was sure, absolutely positive, that he was going to kiss her. He was so close to her, closer than he’d been in months now, more passionate than she’d seen him in a while. Of course it wasn’t him -- it was someone else entirely. A stranger.
Her musings were interrupted by a quiet, high-pitched noise. She looked out toward the street, the noise getting louder. Miller looked too.
“Miller, what is...”
“GET DOWN!” he yelled, running toward her. The high pitched noise was screaming closer now, and Miller dove at her as something huge slammed into the side of the building, a thunderous explosion. A blast of light, the world lurching and shuddering around her, her ears ringing from the noise.
And then nothing. All around them dust and debris rained. But they were alive. The cellar still intact.
“That was close,” he said. She noticed now that she was on her back, he was fully on top of her. Breathing hard, both of them. And she was... this was crazy. As if she was still playing the game, still pretending she was part of the simulation. He looked into her eyes for a long moment, and some part of her -- the part she usually chose to ignore -- decided that if he leaned over to kiss her, she’d let him. Until a dark line appeared just at his left temple, trickling slowly down until some of it dropped on her face.
“Miller, you’re bleeding.” She pushed him off her as he raised his hand to his head.
“Must’ve gotten hit by shrapnel,” he said and sat up.
“Let me see it.” She moved and knelt behind him, finding a small grazing wound near the back of his head. Not too bad; a lot of blood but that was typical with head wounds. She took off her jacket and pressed the arm of it against the wound, reaching around to his forehead to keep the pressure on. He leaned against her, and she tried to ignore the sensation of his back pressed against her chest.
“Too bad you don’t have that thing the doc used on you,” he quipped after a while, shrugging off her ministrations. He turned around to face her, an amused, gentle look on his face.
“You’ve got some of me on you,” he said, and raised his hand to her face, gently brushing his thumb over her cheek, wiping away his own blood.
“There’s a lot I’m not telling you,” she admitted, absently touching the spot on her face where he had just touched her.
“I know. You can’t. I think I’d rather not know.”
She smiled. “Probably right.”
“This is going to sound like a line,” he said sheepishly, “but do I know you? Have we met before?”
Not knowing how to answer, not wanting to lie, not wanting to disregard the connection he could still feel, she simply shrugged.
“That sounds like a line,” he said, a wry smile on his lips as he turned away. Very much like Chakotay. But not him. Not him. She tried to convince herself that anything she was thinking or feeling was wrong, would be taking advantage of him. But it was getting harder and harder.
“It doesn’t sound like a line,” she said softly. “I feel the same way.”
Oh, she shouldn’t have said that. Because the look of joy that crossed his face, no matter how beautiful, no matter what it did to her, wasn’t right. But her body was apparently not listening to her. She could feel herself moving toward him, her breath coming hard, her body vibrating with arousal. She licked her lips.
“Look,” he said suddenly, sitting back as he released his grip on her hands, though she had no recollection of when she had first started to hold onto him. “I don’t... I can’t get into this. And I want to. But I’ve got my men to think about. I’ve gotta get my guys to safety and get the hell out of here. If I start... whatever this is, it’ll cloud my judgment. Yours too. And we can’t afford that. Not now.”
He stood, but she remained sitting, staring at the space he had just occupied. So. This was how it felt. Her words, or at least her principles, thrown back at her. And how could she argue that? He was right. She knew it. She just didn’t realize how much it would hurt to hear them. From him.
But this wasn’t him. It wasn’t.
She had no idea what she would’ve done or said if they hadn’t heard footfalls in the restaurant above them. Miller started and Janeway shot to her feet. Someone was trying the door at the top of the stairs. Without thinking, she grabbed his hand and pulled him deeper into the cellar, looking for a way out, a hiding place.
“Here,” Miller hissed, and pulled her over to a massive, old wooden door, practically invisible in the pitch of the cellar. Trying the ancient iron handle and putting his weight into it, the door groaned and shifted but did not open. He threw a shoulder into it. Nothing. Janeway moved to help, but the door wouldn’t budge.
“On three,” she whispered, and he nodded. Mouthing a silent count, they both lurched into the door which resisted a moment, and then popped open with a splintering of wood. They stumbled, holding each other up, hearing the soldiers just behind them. Miller shut the door.
And it was absolutely black. Janeway heard the clicking of metal, and a moment later there was a faint orange glow of a flame coming from a small mechanism in Miller’s hand.
“Never go anywhere without my Zippo,” he said, looking around. They were inside some sort of catacombs that seemed to go on forever underneath the town.
“Did you guys do this?” he asked, and Janeway could only shrug. They moved carefully down one of the corridors, hugging the walls, staying close together.
But they didn’t get far. The wooden door burst open behind them, and Janeway and Miller began running, the flame from his Zippo blowing out, casting them in darkness again. She tried to keep track of him, she could feel his hands reaching out for her, but the Hirogen were right behind them, their weapons fire blazing past them and exploding down the corridor. They lost each other almost immediately in the maze of tunnels.
She was running now, alone, trying to feel her way along the damp, slimy stone walls. Thinking too late that she’d left her cumbersome Hirogen rifle behind in the commotion. Her hand came upon a crack in the wall -- just large enough for her to fit through. Sucking in her breath and squeezing between the wall, ignoring the unfamiliar claustrophobic feeling this caused, she pushed through into the next corridor just as the Hirogen blazed by, shouting, shooting.
And then a hand clamped over her mouth. Pulling her roughly the rest of the way through the opening in the wall. She was about to bite or kick or punch, when she heard Chakotay’s voice.
“Shhh,” his lips were right at her ear, the fear and the relief and the physical proximity of him sending an electric current through her. They stood perfectly still, barely allowing a breath, as the Hirogen raged, so close to them that they could be found at any moment, dead the moment after that. And while half her mind concentrated on trying to determine where the Hirogen were, how close they were to finding them, the other half was intensely aware of Chakotay’s body pressed flush against her back, his arm squeezing tight around her waist, his hand still over her mouth, his chin digging into her shoulder.
The noises in the adjacent corridor died down as the Hirogen continued on, away from them, and he finally loosened his grip on her mouth, though every other part of him remained close. Without thinking, almost without her control, she found herself brushing against the side his face, closing her eyes a moment. She opened them and turned to look at his face, before remembering how ludicrous that was -- it was pitch black, she couldn’t see him if she tried. But she could feel him, feel his chest as it heaved with ragged breath, his hand on her abdomen beginning to move, his thumb stroking her ribcage.
And that was all it took. She turned in his arms and kissed him, lightly, on the lips. Two seconds later they were both frantic; she was pushing him hard against the wall, causing him to grunt. And then she was kissing him, savagely, open-mouthed, drawing his tongue into her mouth, chasing it back into his mouth. Trying not to moan -- the Hirogen could be anywhere -- panting hard. His thigh between her legs now, she was grinding into him, his hands pulling her tight against his body. Then his mouth moving to her throat, she throwing her head back with a quiet groan. He was biting, sucking, and she could hear herself whispering, rasping. The wrong name. The wrong name.
“Chakotay,” she hissed as his hands found her breasts, and she was pushing her hands up his shirt, crazed to feel him. Insane. This was insane.
She wasn’t immediately aware of his own raging whispers, but as he yanked her head back up and kissed her hungrily he was saying her name. Her name.
“Kathryn,” he was saying. “God, Kathryn...”
“Chakotay...” she was saying against his mouth, even as realization was dawning on her, on him. They kept going for several moments, pulling each other closer still, repeating the names against each others mouths, each whispered word bringing them back to their heated, muddled senses.
She stopped suddenly. Couldn’t stop herself from a shuddering sigh, a whispered, “Oh, god.” He had stopped too, still breathing fiercely. His hand still firmly on her breast, hers tangled under his shirt on his chest.
“K-- Kathryn?” His voice... she wanted to clap her hands over her ears so she wouldn’t have to hear the confusion, hurt. Betrayal. “What..? Kathryn..?”
“Chakotay... I’m... we’ve got to get out of here. Harry must have deactivated the neural implants.”
“The... what? Kathryn, I can’t... what are we...?”
Shouts from far down the corridor, and she could see the beacon lights the Hirogen had bouncing and refracting off the walls. She pulled away from him, but he seemed ready to collapse. She gripped the front of his shirt firmly, both to steady him and get his attention.
“Commander, the ship has been taken over by the Hirogen. We’re on the holodeck. They’re coming this way. Now MOVE!”
She dragged him with her, and they ran down the hall, back through the wooden door, into the dim light of the cellar. And then they stopped. Looking at each other, for the first time since this whole thing started. And she wanted to take back everything, she wanted to tell him she was under some foreign influence, she wanted to kiss him and run away with him forever.
But she found she had nothing to say, no explanation, and when weapons fire behind them startled them into a run, they leapt up the stairs. Back through occupied France, back to the ship, back to the life that had been permanently, irrevocably altered.
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