Contrition (Part I)
By Michele Masterson
Author's Note: Inspired by Sue Love's piece, "Period of Mourning", which detailed Tom Paris' observations of Chakotay after a shuttle accident claims Janeway's life. I decided to turn the tables, and look at Janeway's reactions after Chakotay's pattern disappears from the transporter. Told from B'Elanna's point of view.
Disclaimer:Rated PG-13 for some language. "Star Trek" and all characters within property of Paramount Television.
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She cried when Kes left us. And that was rare, because she never allows us to see that side of her. Maybe a tear or two in the eye, but I’d never seen her weep. But after Kes, she did. Openly, unabashed. She was losing someone she’d grown to love; we all were. And that was okay -- in fact, we all would’ve thought she was strange if she hadn’t shown her grief.
But after him, for a long while, there was nothing. Months passed without a tear, without a quaver in her voice that would indicate the magnitude of her loss. Our loss. Harry didn’t understand it, never would. How could she...? How could she lose someone like him, someone she trusted, someone who had meant so much to so many -- and not waver? Harry was, for a long time, crushed. Not only by the death, but by his shock that the captain could be, in his eyes, so detached.
But I knew what it was. I saw what it did. Kathryn Janeway no longer existed after Chakotay’s pattern vanished from the transporter. Ten days we worked on it while orbiting the planet, and then a month scouring the transporter memory after she decided that we had to leave, had to continue with our journey. The needs of the many. During that entire month I don’t even know when she slept, when she ate, because when she wasn’t on duty on the bridge she never left engineering or the transporter room. I would leave her there for a few hours of shut-eye; when I returned, she was still there. I would go to the mess hall to eat; I never saw her there.
But I knew because of other things, subtle things that Harry didn’t see, maybe couldn’t see for lack of life experience, whatever. She changed, physically, very quickly. She had always been pretty strong for a human; she had that combination of brute strength and honed elegance that I was always jealous of. But in a matter of weeks, all that remained was a hardness. Her cheeks seemed to sink in, further emphasizing the severe, pointed bones of her face. The sudden definition of her eye sockets made her look vaguely skeletal. But not weak. Never weak. She looked like she would kill you as soon as look at you. They’d love her on the Klingon homeworld.
No one blamed her for delaying the ten days, nor working on it furiously afterwards. No one even thought for a moment that we were wasting time better spent getting home. Because really, what is ten days compared to sixty-something years? But more than that, no one wanted to leave him. The goal of “getting home” seemed to fade away; it was more important to get home together. And if it came to the choice of staying together OR getting home, we’d probably rather stay together. These events proved that.
I don’t think she blamed me for the accident. Which is fine, because I blamed myself enough for both of us. It was stupid. Stupid. Thinking of it, even now, I’m ashamed. I wasn’t even near the transporter room, wasn’t even aware of the variations in the atmospheric conditions around the planet we’d been investigating. But I should’ve been there. I should’ve known the possibility. I should’ve been able to find him afterwards.
“Janeway to Torres. Meet me in Transporter Room One immediately.”
Her voice was urgent, but not particularly unusual. Nothing about the accident in the first few hours seemed to be very calamitous -- the import of what occurred was very slow in developing. We just didn’t want to believe it.
I walked in and she was already there, grilling the transporter operator, who looked like she was about to be sick. Before I even asked, Janeway briefed me.
“We lost Chakotay mid-transport,” she said simply. She didn’t seem worried, as if it were a foregone conclusion that we’d just find him, get him back, and get on with it. “An away team is searching the surface of the planet. Take the goddamn transporter apart if you have to. I want to find out what happened.”
She left. I called in some help from engineering and we set to tracing the transport. From the surface, everything seemed fine -- the transporter readings were all normal, and by all counts, he had been transported away from the beam-out site. This was not necessarily good news. Because we had no idea where he rematerialized.
We were able to pinpoint the exact moment the transporter malfunctioned; it was concurrent with an unforeseen spike in the electro-magnetic charge in the planet’s atmosphere -- a spike that, had we known was a possibility, we would have never considered transporting anywhere near this planet.
I should’ve known. I should’ve checked for it.
Days into our search, Janeway approached me in engineering and we sat in a corner, reviewing all available information. I had to admit that we weren’t any closer to figuring out what had happened. The only thing I did know was that we didn’t have his pattern in the transporter anymore. The transport was completed. The destination was anyone’s guess.
Janeway digested this information for several moments. Her face was hard, unreadable. I guessed she was thinking what I was trying not to think about -- what did he feel? Did it hurt him? Was he transported to open space, his lungs collapsing from the pressure? Her voice interrupted my rising panic.
“Irretrievable?”
“Captain?”
“The pattern. With the data we have, the commander’s pattern is irretrievable, correct?” Her voice was strained, tight.
“I think so, Captain.”
“Think so or know so, Lieutenant?” she asked, not accusingly. “This isn’t something we should be guessing about.”
I opened my mouth, but my voice seemed to be gone. She was asking me to make the call, as well I should. And I couldn’t. Signing the death warrant. I tried to formulate what to say, but after several moments she raised a hand and turned away.
“Never mind, Lieutenant,” she said. “I know.” She walked away, saying over her shoulder, “Compile your information, Lieutenant, and transfer all the data to my ready room. ” I knew then that this was it. The last ditch effort.
The next day, the tenth day, I entered the transporter room. As usual, she was there, evidently had been there all night. But this time I noticed a difference, mostly that she wasn’t working, wasn’t tangled in a mass of circuitry or wedged underneath a console. She was standing before the transporter pads, as one would when awaiting another’s arrival. Just staring, hands clasped behind her back. I cleared my throat, and she turned her head slowly toward me.
“We’re leaving today, B’Elanna.” Simple. Unemotional. Statement of fact.
I alternately wanted to cry, kill her, or just collapse in relief. “What happened?” I asked as neutrally as I could. She shook her head. Nothing had happened, and I knew it. It was just time.
“We’ve tried. We’ve spent every waking hour looking. At this point, our continued efforts would be futile, and only serve to prolong our...” She swallowed hard and left the sentence unfinished. “It’s time to continue our journey home.”
I nodded, feeling the same feeling I get at high altitudes, when the air is so thin that you feel each breath is a struggle, where the pressure in your head makes the world around you seem slightly off-center.
She continued, walking to the transporter console and running a hand along it. “We’ll continue our analysis of the data we have, and I’d like to initiate a level-5 diagnostic of the transporter memory. You never know...”
Then she sighed, and walked toward the door, pausing beside me but not looking at me, not placing the customary assuring hand on my arm that I had come to expect.
“I’m sorry, B’Elanna.” And she left, walking out the door.
I stayed in there for a while. I don’t know how long. Listening to the hum of the air recyclers. Letting my eyes travel over the gentle lines of the transporter platform, the tasteful hues of the recessed lighting. Innocuous. Innocent. At some point I sat down on the ground, cross-legged, and thought about the first time I met Chakotay. We were angry. We were rebels. We were outsiders. At the time, I never thought I’d find anyone more like me, more suited for me.
I heard the door behind me slide open, and knew who it was. Tom said nothing, just sat down behind me and put his arms around me, his chin on my shoulder. I closed my eyes, and we cried together. Not the kind of crying that makes you feel better afterward. We were bitter, regretful, and helpless to do anything about it. Nonetheless, I was glad to have him with me. Actually, that is an understatement. I don’t know what I would have done if he weren’t with me. I knew then, if I hadn’t known before, how much I could depend on him. How dependent I had become on him, in fact. How much I could trust him. I love him so much, it almost made Chakotay’s death even more horrible. The stark contrast of it all.
Chakotay’s death. I hadn’t thought about it in those terms until that point. I knew it, knew it before anyone else knew it. But the words... they were powerful. They hurt.
******
Neelix and Tom arranged for the services. I couldn’t. I should have, but I couldn’t. Tom knew enough, though, knew enough to research the customs of Chakotay’s people, knew that Janeway would not, could not be involved in the preparations. But she would lead the service.
Tom and I entered the cargo bay, which had been filled with all the flowers Neelix could get his hands on from the hydroponics bay. It was lovely, tasteful. Everyone was there. Many had replicated dress uniforms, including Janeway, who looked beautiful, powerful. And alone. No one approached her, no one knew what to say. The only person near her was Tuvok, who stood in silent solidarity. I inwardly thanked him.
There was no casket, obviously. No body to say good-bye to. This bothered a lot of people, I know, but I myself was glad for it. I just couldn’t bear the thought of his body trapped in a small metallic tube for eternity. Better that he be scattered through the universe.
Janeway faced the quiet crowd. Several people were crying. Tom squeezed my hand and I leaned into him. She looked around at us, took a breath, and her voice rang through the bay as she spoke.
“Today, we must bid good bye to our dear friend, our colleague, our leader in many ways. As members of Starfleet, we are all aware that these days are inevitable. There are dangers here, unknown in the Alpha Quadrant, that make death a distinct possibility. But we are never prepared. We think we can cheat death, because we have cheated it so many times before. And yet we are reminded, as we have been reminded before, and will likely be reminded again, that our lives are fragile. We are not invincible. We are mortal.
“Commander Chakotay came to us, as many of our crew did, a renegade. When we were stranded in the Delta Quadrant, our fates were cast together in a way that none of us could have imagined. It is a tribute to both the commander and all of you that we have united in such a way, and I cannot imagine serving with a more dedicated crew, a more compassionate, intelligent, and determined group of individuals. Commander Chakotay left us as a hero, an unmitigated leader, exhibiting the finest qualities of any Starfleet officer, and the rarest qualities of any person I have ever had the privilege to know.
“I know we feel regret. I know we feel anger. I know his death seems pointless. Avoidable. But death never holds meaning. It is life that we seek to define, it is life we seek to make meaningful. And Commander Chakotay’s life was made meaningful because of the meaning he brought to other’s lives. He made us... complete. In a way that no other could complete us. Our greatest tribute to his life would be to endeavor to fill the place that Commander Chakotay once occupied in our lives, and in the lives of others -- with love, with compassion, with insatiable curiosity, with dedication to morality and the desire to make ourselves better.
“You have joined the Great Spirit, Chakotay. We shall strive to see you again one day.”
The room was silent for several moments as Janeway stepped down and took her place next to Tuvok. Others spoke, Ensign Gutierez sang a Navajo mourning song that he learned for the occasion, something Neelix found in the data base, a song for the dead in a language now dead. But after Janeway’s speech, I sort of drifted away. I knew the crew, most of them, would take comfort from Janeway’s address -- it was full of respect, grace, honor. But I felt confused. Isn't she going to say how she felt about him? Isn't she going to say how she is grieving? Is she going to shed a tear? Unreasonably, I felt angry. Seethingly angry. Tom didn’t feel that way, making me all the more mad.
“What was that speech? Who is she trying to be strong for?” I raged in his quarters later. “What does she think, she’s the only one who can take this in the chin and just go on like nothing’s happened?”
“I don’t think she’s doing that B'Elanna..."
"No? No? I think she is. I think she's so goddamn wrapped up in Starfleet protocol, so bloody concerned with how she appears, wanting to be strong, wanting to be a fucking android! You know how she felt about him. You know it, don't you? I mean, it was so obvious! Everyone knew it!"
"I knew it, B'Elanna."
"Everyone knew it!" I was storming around his quarters now, pounding the bulkhead, kicking the furniture. "Why can't she admit it? Why can't she admit that she feels as badly as we do?"
I was shocked when he grabbed me. Jerked my shoulders from behind and spun me around. Still holding my shoulders, he looked at me with as much grief as I'd ever seen in him.
"Because she probably feels worse, B'Elanna." Sudden tears spilled from his eyes, unnoticed by him. "She probably feels so much pain that she can't allow herself to feel it anymore because it would kill her. Kill her. This is probably the only way she can function. Get up in the morning. Put on a uniform."
We were silent for several moments. Just staring. I had, at some point, started crying too, leaning on his still-gripping hands for support.
"Like how I would feel if I ever lost you..." I whispered. Tom closed his eyes and nodded. We held each other then, my rage forgotten. Clutched each other tightly all night, not wanting to let go. Never, ever wanting to let go.
******
The second month after the accident. I remember running a warp core diagnostic right around then and suddenly wondering when I’d stop marking time by the accident. We called it that now. The accident. Some shrink-wanna-be in astrophysics made the annoyingly astute observation that, by not identifying it as “the day Chakotay died”, we were trying to distance ourselves from it, trying not to feel the pain. How unhealthy of us. Well, fuck it. I didn’t want to feel the pain. I liked distance. Distance was A-OK with me.
I walked into the mess hall alone for a late dinner one night. There were a few people there, choking down Neelix’s latest disaster. This one was a weird mustard-yellow thing that had the consistency of sand, but didn’t taste as good. I sat alone facing away from the door, as Tom was on duty and I didn’t much feel like small talk these days. But when I heard a sudden quiet clamor behind me, I turned around.
It was Janeway, but it took me a minute to realize it. She was walking past the buffet of food, pointedly ignoring the whispers around her -- and pointedly disregarding the fact that she had just cut off all her hair. It was now just above her shoulders, loose around her face, a kind of wavy bob, maybe even shorter than mine. I think I stared for a full minute. And she didn’t say a word, didn’t look at anyone. When she finally turned around with a tray of food, she met my eyes and walked over to me. I remembered to clamp my mouth shut, blink my eyes.
“Captain.”
“Good evening, Lieutenant. May I join you?”
I just gulped and nodded. She took the seat across from me and settled, as if this was perfectly normal, as if she hadn’t been taking all of her meals in her cabin or in her ready room. And as if she hadn’t just hacked off two feet of her hair. Once the stun wore off, I decided I wasn’t going to let her get away with it. And at the time I didn’t know why. It certainly wasn’t my place. I was suddenly angry with her again, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.
“Are you gonna talk about it, or do I need to pry it out of you?” I was immediately regretful of my tone, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. She, of course, was indignant, looking at me with raised eyebrows and daring me to continue.
“Excuse me, Lieutenant?”
“Your hair.”
“What about it?”
“You cut it off!” My voice squeaked. Why was I getting upset about this? I should’ve left. I should’ve ran out of there.
“Very observant of you. Actually, Tuvok cut it.”
That stopped me short, and I almost laughed. “Tuvok?! You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She busied herself with her napkin, arranging her silverware, before looking up frankly. “I wouldn’t have anyone else do it. Wouldn’t you want a perfectionist Vulcan to cut your hair?”
That was true. For I moment I tried visualizing what that scene looked like. Janeway sitting in front of a mirror with her long, strikingly beautiful hair down around her shoulders, Tuvok standing behind her, probably combing it out, brushing his fingers along her neck to catch the stray wisps of hair, and then carefully taking the scissors and bending down, his face very close to hers, concentrating intently, snipping the strands away. Probably not allowing them to fall to the floor, but instead placing them carefully on a table, maybe in front of her, and she could see just how much she was... losing? That was the first word that popped in my head. But it was just hair, right? She wasn’t losing anything. Right?
I suddenly realized why I was so angry. And right then I was hit by a wave of sadness, true grief, that I hadn’t allowed myself to feel for a while. It was hard to keep my voice steady.
“Why’d you do it?”
She didn’t look at me then, instead took her fork pushed around the yellow sand concoction for a moment before looking around the room.
“Easier. Not so much trouble.”
She still refused to meet my gaze, and I was beginning to feel the burning of tears in my eyes. For once, I didn’t really care if people saw me crying.
He loved her hair. I mean, it had become somewhat of a joke because he was so obvious about it, but he loved her hair. And this was like... I don’t know what it was like. Like giving up? Except there was nothing to give up on, he was gone. It was like she was destroying something, like getting rid of him, every part of her that was him. I didn’t know. I couldn’t figure out what I was trying to say. She was the only one who could.
My voice was shaky now. But it forced her gaze upon me. “Why did you do it?”
She looked confused for a moment at my repeated question, then angry. Like a trapped animal. And her voice was nothing other than a threat. “Don’t.”
“Captain...”
“Don’t.”
I shut up. This was a plea. She was begging me not to pursue it. She got up slowly and walked out, trying not to cause a scene but her hair was causing a scene anyway, no matter what she did.
In that moment, I understood why I was angry. Why this brought up so many painful feelings. It wasn’t because I thought she was betraying his memory. It wasn’t because I thought she was trying to forget him, or trying to get rid of whatever she felt for him. It was because she was doing this to remember. She was doing this as a way to brand herself, a reminder forever that she could’ve had something, and lost it. So she would never allow herself to have anything that he loved. This was her penance. This was the price.
I never felt more sorry in my life for how I behaved. I never wanted more to take back my words, take back the unfair anger I expressed to her.
I remember once that Chakotay told me how he’d wanted to make the captain’s job easier, how he expected all of us Maquis to follow him in that pursuit. Easing her burden, he called it. She was in the worst possible position, he said, even though at the time I didn’t believe it.
Sitting there in the mess hall that night, the second month after the accident, I vowed to myself, and to his spirit, that I would continue his pursuit.
And I was going to start now. I left the mess hall, not quite sure what I was going to do or say, but knowing that I didn’t want to let my words sit with the captain. I found myself at her door a few minutes later, my hand paused by the door chime. This was ridiculous. This was a joke. I was being insane. But right when I was going to turn around and leave, the door swished open, and Janeway was there, looking surprised, a little gasp escaping at finding a Klingon standing right in front of her.
“Captain.” I stammered and backed up a bit. She regained her senses and stood in the doorway. “Sorry, Captain. Were you going somewhere?”
She relaxed a bit. “Actually, I was just going to look for you, Lieutenant.”
“You were?”
She stood aside and gestured to her quarters. “Won’t you come in, Lieutenant? I think we should talk about our last conversation.”
I suddenly felt like a bad kid at the principal’s office. I recognized this Kathryn Janeway. This was the stern-but-understanding Kathryn Janeway, the one who can reprimand her officers while accepting their behavior as normal, the one who doesn’t walk away from a conflict for too long. The great communicator. All our cards out on the table.
I sat down on the couch inside and tried to blurt out a quick apology. “Listen, Captain Janeway, I’m really sorry.... I don’t know what... I can’t say enough...”
From the corner of my eye I saw her raise a hand at me. “You don’t need to apologize, Lieutenant. I should apologize for you. It was rude of me to walk away from you. I’m sorry I did that.”
“No, I’m sorry, Captain. I shouldn’t have pried. I should just keep my mouth shut. It’s none of my business.”
She looked a bit incredulous at me. “Your business? Lieutenant, first of all, don’t ever keep your mouth shut. I mean it. That’s why you’re chief engineer. You keep your mouth shut and I get nervous. Second of all, it is only hair. A hairstyle. You can ask me about it all you like. If I want it long again, I just grow it out. My god, I never would have done it if I’d known it would cause such a stir.”
She shook her head in exasperation. Part of me wanted to drop it right there, as she evidently wanted to. But another part of me just wanted to let her know that I thought I understood. And that it was okay.
“Can I ask you a question?” I said, and watched as she seemed to stop breathing for a moment, as if she already anticipated what I was going to say. She simply nodded in assent. “Did you do it because of him?”
Her mouth slowly dropped open as she shook her head, perplexed. She didn’t ask me what I was talking about, and for that I was grateful. Instead she just whispered, “I... I don’t know.”
I nodded this time. “Yeah. I just thought that could’ve been the reason. He really loved your hair, you know.”
She looked down then, at her folded hands. Swallowed. Sighed.
“He did, didn’t he?”
Quiet. A bit amused. A bit sad. I was suddenly very tired. Ready to leave, and somewhat satisfied that I’d at least gotten my stumbling apology out, but her voice stopped me.
“You must miss him terribly.”
I looked back at her, but she was just looking down at the coffee table in front of us, hands loosely clasped on her lap. Not crying. But lost. I understood that she wanted to hear my story, my grief -- not her own. Part of me didn’t want to pursue this, didn’t want to talk about it with her. I barely spoke of him, even to Tom. But I had just made that vow a few moments ago.
“I miss him. All the time. I think, though, that I missed him even before he was gone.” She looked questioningly at me, and I explained. “I guess it’s a Maquis thing. After a while you pretty much take it for granted that the people around you might not be around you for very long. I think that’s stayed with me, even now. Probably it’ll always stay with me.”
She nodded. “Not a very pleasant way to live your life.”
“Maybe not. But I think it makes you more... aware of the moment, I guess. You take the good things when they come, accept the bad things when they happen. You live.”
She inhaled slowly and closed her eyes. I hadn’t meant that as a criticism of her, but it sure as hell sounded like one. I was doing a pretty bad job of making her feel better -- instead it seemed like I was making her feel guilty. I scrambled for something to say.
“I thought I was in love with him once.”
That got her to look at me. Her eyes wide with surprise. I wasn’t even sure where I was going with this.
“A long time ago, way before we came to Voyager. I mean, I do love him. Did love him. But not like that. Not like... “ I almost said, Not like the way he loves you. But I didn’t. “It’s not like I was pining away for him. I knew we loved each other. We were, for a while, the only family either of us had. And that’s all we needed from each other.”
Her look softened. “He cared about you so much, B’Elanna.”
I nodded. “You must miss him too.”
I was almost sorry I said that because her expression immediately froze and she looked away. But she sat up straight then, looking me square in the eye. I vaguely thought that she’d probably learned this stance in some command class.
“I do. I do. Every day. But, we all miss people. This entire crew misses a legion of family, friends, lovers, husbands, wives, children. I sometimes think of the magnitude, the sheer accumulation of people we have left behind, and I know what I have to do. What I must do. Above everything else.”
The worst possible position, he had said. That point driven home here, in her cabin, as I realized what she thought she was obligated to do. She was responsible for us, so she couldn’t dwell on her own sorrows. Because her sorrows, compared to the accumulated sorrows of the rest of us, were nothing. Insignificant.
I wished I could have explained to her the fault in her logic. But I couldn’t. I knew she was wrong, but I didn’t know how to fix it. She was justified because there seemed to be no other way to do things.
I left her cabin feeling worse than when I had arrived, and wishing more than ever that Chakotay had been there. Not for me. Not for her. For all of us.
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