The song is from "West Side Story." I don't think Janeway and Chakotay are going
to get as much resolution as Maria and Tony did.

THERE'S A PLACE FOR US
by Your Cruise Director

The next morning she took a long walk by herself, so that she could think.

She needed to figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life. Now
that there was no point in pretending her destiny lay anywhere other than here--
with him. It felt strange to wake up with no sense of urgency, no rush to check
the insect traps or devise new methods of calculating genetic variance in virus
proliferation; she could have stayed in bed all morning if she wanted to.
Chakotay was cooking something that smelled good, though, so she rose, left her
hair tangled about her shoulders and went out to greet him.

They'd said little after he poured his heart out to her the night before. He
understood that she wasn't ready to make any declarations in kind, and released
her hand after a few minutes, rising to proclaim that he was pretty tired himself
from all the work, maybe they should get some sleep. If he'd wanted to kiss her
goodnight, she would have kissed him back, though her stomach and pelvic muscles
tightened painfully for the instant he stood by her before he smiled and turned
to the alcove which held his bed. She lay down in the warm, dark cocoon of the
room listening to his snoring and the soft noises of night insects, expecting to
be awake for quite some time mulling over what he'd said and what her response
should be...over the next few days and forever after that. So she was surprised
to wake up with the sun already well over the horizon, to find that she had
fallen sound asleep almost immediately.

There were decisions to be made before she could come to any conclusions about
how their relationship would change. Without her research, it was obvious that
she should take over some of the chores he'd been doing for them both--cooking,
housework, everything but her personal laundry, which he probably would have done
gladly but she had never considered letting him. She was going to want new
projects to keep from being bored, but there were many things she could envision:
new ways of composting and recycling to save energy and resources, natural
pesticides to protect their crops from the myriad insects on the planet. Perhaps
even building a dam to generate power from the river, he could help her with the
technical aspects of that. She wouldn't lack for interesting things to do. Nor
for someone to work with. It was too soon to think about sharing everything, but
he would welcome the opportunity to work with her again, the way they had on the
ship. Now, as equals.

Walking briskly in the warm morning air, she knew there were also practical
matters to be considered before she could fully explore her response to
Chakotay's declaration. They didn't really know anything about one another's
romantic lives: she knew a couple of names from his past, he knew one from hers,
but they'd never discussed the relationships, certainly not their sexual
experiences, desires, fantasies. It was important they understand one another's
drives, so that they wouldn't trigger emotional conflicts based on nothing more
than uneven libidinal cravings. It was also critical they make certain that
children were never a possibility. She wasn't even sure how important sex was to
him, anyway: he'd been sharing quarters with her for weeks now, and only on a
couple of occasions had he shown her anything like lust. He'd been badly scarred
by Seska; it was possible that he would feel threatened by a sudden show of
desire on her own part.

Well, so would she. They both needed time--but time was the one resource they had
in abundance. Well, that, and water and air...and lumber, she could hear Chakotay
working on something in the distance, the high whine of a phaser-driven saw. Must
be a big project if he was using artificial energy sources... She wondered what.
Hard to believe he'd built the bathtub entirely without attracting her attention,
using mostly hand tools, counting on her distraction with her own research to
keep his secret. She'd had no idea he was so handy, nor so artistic--he was adept
at sculpture and painting, skilled in both abstract and representative modeling.
His talents were really far more valuable in their situation than her own. At
least she knew something about gardening, and working with cloth--maybe she could
help him with whatever he was working on now, and learn from him. She heard a new
sound over the sound of the machinery, and followed the noise until she could see
him.

He was singing. Loudly, a bit off-key, rather flamboyantly as if he were
performing in an operetta. She didn't know the tune and couldn't quite catch the
words, but it was clearly a love song. His back blocked much of her view, but she
could see him warbling to his equipment as he severed wood, lifting one of the
logs before his face so he could direct a particularly passionate line to it.

At first it was hard not to giggle, watching his profile as he crooned adoringly
to the objects around him. It was also hard not to stare. She hadn't noticed how
his hair had been growing out during their exile, and how his skin had darkened
under the alien sun. He was relaxed now, emotions playing over his face as he
lost himself in the song. A grimace of suffering, an easy grin--a sharp tingle
shot through her at the sudden, renewed realization of just how attractive she
found him, especially with his hair falling unevenly across his forehead, shirt
streaked with sweat, muscles rippling beneath his clothing as he lifted the
equipment.

The man was magnetic. It was something she rarely let herself notice, certainly
not now when she was alone with him. On the ship, at occasional moments when
she'd seen him off-duty, trouncing Paris at pool, flirting halfheartedly with
Torres or Henley, she'd been aware of it, but she'd always watched at a distance.
He'd known better than to turn that charm on his captain. His intensity
occasionally took her breath away: the way he'd grabbed her wrist when she told
him of her plan to go down with the ship in pursuit of Dreadnought, the sound of
her title from his lips as he exhorted her--no, begged her--to get off the bridge
when the duplicate Voyager had almost destroyed them with its energy bursts--but
she could dismiss those as the bond between captain and first officer, or between
friends.

No more. He'd made that clear the day before, that what she'd tried to dismiss as
just sexual tension stemmed from something much deeper. Even if he hid behind a
story, even if he'd carefully chosen terms which would allow her to pretend that
his was a statement of loyalty rather than love. Perhaps he thought she wasn't
attracted to him, or wouldn't be if he were anything other than the last man in
the world. He didn't seem to want casual erotic favors from her any more than she
wanted them from him. It was all or nothing: so here he was, pouring out his
passion to inanimate objects, waiting to see what she would decide.

He glanced up, and saw her looking.

* * * *

She stepped back quickly, as though he'd caught her watching him do something far
more personal than singing--which, in a way, she had. He knew he was blushing,
wondering whether she'd heard the words. Of course she was the real subject of
his song, but seeing her there listening made it frighteningly real, in a way
that it had not felt even the night before, when he'd sat ready for a rejection
which never came. He didn't want to pressure her, had no intention of staking any
kind of claim to her; if she'd told him flatly that a physical relationship might
destroy their ability to be everything else to one another, friends and
companions forever, he would have accepted that. He had her all to himself for
the rest of his life. The intimacy he craved most from her was not of the flesh.

Still, she looked beautiful with the sunlight gleaming on her hair, as she'd
looked beautiful the night before with the soft artificial light of the shelter
shining on it; her cheeks were flushed now from his gaze, but she was smiling,
eyes alight with warmth and--was that affection? She took a step towards him,
looking a little bit ashamed. Quickly he turned off the saw, put it on the ground
beside the stack of wood.

"I didn't mean to interrupt."

"Not at all. I was going to take a break anyway. Do you want some lunch,
Kathryn..." His voice trailed off as she took another step, until she was close
enough that she had to turn her head up to look into his eyes, and he had to
lower his chin. Close enough to hug. Close enough to kiss. Was that the
idea...that had to be the idea. He looked at her again and realized what he was
seeing.

Not just affection. Arousal. He'd been afraid to call it that, the few times he'd
seen it on her face before--thinking it might be superficial. He was aware that
certain women were attracted to him in a purely physical sense, because he'd
inherited big shoulders and dark hair, and his uneven nose apparently charmed
some people. He would honestly rather have had her as a chaste soulmate than an
indifferent lover, and until the night before he had not dared hope for more,
except in very private fantasy. Sometimes he feared being overwhelmed if she ever
returned his feelings. The emotional committment seemed to be what scared her
most, too--especially now, when they couldn't get away from each other. It was
probably easier for her to deal with the base instinctive level of attraction,
which could be classified and analyzed. Defined parameters.

She was standing mere centimeters in front of him, looking a little unsure of
herself but determined to follow through--to demonstrate what she was feeling, to
show him that she'd understood what he was trying to express in the song, she
accepted it and wanted it. Nervous, but smiling, feeding off the warmth in his
eyes the way he was feeding off her shining blue gaze on him. He could smell her
shampoo and soap in her sweat, feel the stickiness of her skin from the heat when
his fingers touched her arm, a shock passing between them like static
electricity. She jumped, looking directly up at him, and the motion put her face
so close to his own that their chins almost collided. They both laughed a little
at the awkwardness--like any first kiss, their noses bumping before he tilted his
head a fraction and felt her eyelashes brush his cheek. Such a short space, yet
such great distance between his mouth and hers, and once crossed there was no
going back, ever. A bridge which burned the first time it was traveled so that
they could never pass the same way again.

When her lips met his, barely making contact those first seconds, he wanted to
melt against her, dissolve in the feeling, he felt it burning all the way through
his body, as if she'd kissed his chest and the backs of his knees and his pelvis
all at once while whispering his name adoringly in both his ears. "Oh," she
breathed, while he murmured a startled "Mmm." They pulled apart to glance at one
another before trying it again. This time it was a little less clumsy, her head
angled to avoid crashing. He traced his nose down her cheek and moved his mouth
in from the side, fitting the rise of his lower lip beneath hers while his upper
lip probed, pushing hers apart. Their tongues met for a tantalizing instant. His
pulled back, returned less cautiously, his head dipping more sharply, while her
arm locked around his neck, trapping him there.

"Kathryn," he said quietly, with some surprise because she was moaning, gripping
his shoulders just to stay standing. He slipped his arms the rest of the way
around her so that she could rest against him. She smelled so good, he was trying
not to press his nose in her hair too obviously. So strong, seductive in the most
pure sense of the word--no games, no flirting, just the irresistible lure of one
body for another, like gravity. One of the greatest of mysteries. What sparked
it? Not simply their physical appeal for each other, not just the emotional bond
they had formed as colleagues and friends--they were communicating something far
more profound.

Abruptly he found himself laughing. Practically swooning over one kiss--they were
both experienced adults, it was really silly, and terrifically sexy. She had
pressed up against him, hip to belly, thigh to groin, evidently accepting of his
obvious excitement. He let dreams roll through his mind as he kissed her again--
sliding his lips down her throat, over her neck. It was too soon to think
seriously of his fingers opening her top, of taking her nipples in his mouth,
pulling the rest of her clothes down, nibbling his way across her belly and
thighs before pressing his face between her legs, letting his tongue find the hot
bubble of moisture while he kissed and kissed her, his chin getting slick as he
held her thighs apart until she opened up and kissed him back with all of her.

She was delicious now, wrapped in his arms and meeting him fully with her mouth,
sharing his laughter without having to know the source, the way she would share
his home and his life from now on. It was all he could have dreamed of, a joy so
deep that physical expression seemed secondary to the feeling which triggered it.
"Hungry?" he whispered when they had stopped kissing and were merely rubbing
noses to cheekbones, holding one another gently to contain the desire between
them without igniting it, and she nodded. Ravenous, but unwilling to give up the
chance to savor the great delicacy over many days and nights. She took his hand,
fingers linked together as they had been the night before, and let him lead her
back home for the rest of their lives.