Giving Up the Fight

By The Purple Goddess

Rated R

Somehow, when the doors open, I find that I am not surprised at the scene before me. Familiar and yet from a different lifetime. I take two steps before the scents and sounds flood my senses and I have close my eyes before it overwhelms me.

She’s here somewhere just like she should be; like we both should be.

"Kathryn?"

"I’m here. In the garden."

I follow her voice and the familiar path to find her bent over some tomato plants that have become overgrown with weeds.

"I haven’t been here in a while," She confesses to the obvious. She sets down her tools and pats the ground next to her in invitation. I don’t hesitate to join her. "When we first got back I created this program so I wouldn’t forget. We’ve been so busy and now it seems like I have forgotten everything that it meant to me." With a sweeping motion of her hands, she indicates the overgrown tomatoes and weeds. "I set the computer to keep aging the program even if I didn’t use it." I nod in understanding.

"Did you recreate your…" I hesitate; unsure of how to ask such a personal question.

"My bathtub?" She asks with a sly smile.

I smile back.

She rises up and holds her hand out to me. I take it and walk with her to the copy of her tub. "It looks good." I manage.

"It looked better with people in it." She offers casually although I can feel her palm getting hot in my hand.

I can almost see her here: Kathryn, the woman I love standing before me within the Captain I see too often. I know she struggles everyday to find a piece of herself; while everyday I lose some of what I am.

"I can’t go back to what we used to be when we lived here." I say slowly. "I’d want it all and I don’t think you can give me that."

"No."

The silence is deafening and I drop her hand and turn to leave.

"I wish I could, Chakotay." She is looking away from me but I can hear the tears in her voice.

"I know, Kathryn."

The door opens and closes and for the second time I leave another life behind me.

-^-^-^-

My quarters are dark and I leave them that way. I don’t want to see anything around me as I sit and think about her. I rarely let myself think back to the times when I held her in my arms and made passionate love to her, but tonight, tonight I cannot fight the memories that come flooding back. Being on the holodeck, on ‘New Earth’ again, has brought all my old feelings rushing forward. Back from the past they almost seem surreal. I once held the woman I love, and somehow, through a cruel twist of fate: I lost her.

-^-^-^-

"Janeway to Chakotay."

--

"Chakotay, this is Kathryn, Please respond."

--

"Commander Chakotay this is Captain Janeway. Respond."

--

"Computer, location of Commander Chakotay?"

"Commander Chakotay is on holodeck 2."

She tapped her combadge again. When she started heading for the lower deck she’d unsuccessfully hailed him seven times.

-^-^-^-

New Earth’s smells and sounds engulfed her as she walked into her own holodeck program. "Chakotay?"

She walked along all of the familiar paths and looked everywhere she thought he might be, calling his name the whole way. She was respecting him by not shutting the whole damn thing down in order to find him, but her patience was thinning. Around the next bend on the path she found him. He was in the middle of a vision quest and didn’t notice her approach. Kathryn sat down and listened to him talk.

"I can’t do it any more, Father."

------

"Yes, I know that, but I know that my mind, if not my soul, will find another mate, and if it doesn’t, well, I’d rather be without a soulmate than to have one who doesn’t want me."

Kathryn’s eyes welled with tears and she realized she wanted to leave but couldn’t move.

From somewhere deep inside she found the courage to speak. "I never said I didn’t want you." She whispered from behind him.

Chakotay heard her, but decided to stay in his dreamstate a little longer. He turned to his father who only nodded and walked away. Chakotay fell away from the dream realm and turned to face the woman he knew was behind him.

"You never said you did want me."

She looked at the ground and wiped the tears from her cheeks. "What I want and what I can have are two different things, Chakotay. It wouldn’t be fair to you if I told you that you’re all I want – all I’ve ever wanted – if I had to turn around and tell you it just couldn’t be."

He turned back around and looked to the sky. The bluest of blues stared back at him and he sighed. "I wish we were never rescued from New Earth. I could have lived with you forever there. I would have been a good husband…and a good father there."

"You’ll still be a good husband and father someday, Chakotay."

"No, not if I can’t have you, Kathryn. I don’t want those things with anyone else." He turned slightly and caught her eyes. "I’ve seen our children, Kathryn." He smiled at her confused look. "I wasn’t supposed to see, but on a quest, I snuck up on my father playing in a field with three children." He turned back around and stared into the sky again. "They’re so beautiful, Kathryn."

She didn’t want to believe what she was hearing. "What will happen to them if we never…"

He was silent for a long time and she almost thought he didn’t hear her when he finally took a deep breath and answered. "Their souls will be given to someone else."

Kathryn wiped her eyes with her hands and thought about having Chakotay’s children. Or rather, not having them. To lose something that you did not yet have went against her scientific mind. But she did not doubt Chakotay for once second. She knew she didn’t want to face her life not seeing the children that Chakotay had given to her already in his heart.

"I don’t want to lose them."

"You don’t have to." He stood and took her hand pulling her up and into his embrace. "Don’t deny them life, Kathryn. Don’t deny yourself one, either."

All thought left her mind as his lips slowly descended to hers. Their first kiss in so long should have been slow but it wasn’t. They knew each other too well. Chakotay knew that when his tongue entered her soft, warm mouth she would moan softly and open up to him. Kathryn felt her knees go weak the moment before Chakotay lifted her into his arms.

She pulled back and looked into his eyes. "I love you." She whispered. "And I do want your babies."

"Are you sure? I’m not willing to go through all this again. I don’t want another broken heart."

His eyes conveyed the deepest emotions to her: his love, his fear, and his hopefulness. "Believe me, Chakotay," she whispered. "Now take me down this hill to our house and make love to me on our bed."

"Yes, Ma’am." Chakotay teased.

-^-^-^-

"Kathryn?"

"Mmm?"

"Why did you change your mind about us? It seems sudden."

Kathryn rolled over and stroked his bare chest with her hand. "It’s not sudden. You’ve never left my heart. Everyday I could feel you with me. Everyday I knew that eventually I wouldn’t be able to say ‘No’ anymore. I guess today was ‘eventually’. I just decided to give up fighting when I knew I would never win."

He caressed her face with his hand and looked into her blue eyes. The same blue eyes he had seen on a little red-haired girl playing in a field.

"I’m glad you didn’t win."

She leaned over and kissed him softly on his lips.

"So am I."

---END

Loved It? Hated it? Let ME know!