We try to forget.  Usually we succeed.

***

Lying in bed at night, when the rain beats down on the roof and the wind howls like a living being, it is more difficult.

The noise of the storm wakes me.  Even after twelve years of humanity, I am unaccustomed to sleep. I am restless, I wake easily.

Chakotay is standing before the window, staring out at the sky.  The wind pushes the clouds over the moon.  Its glow can be seen for a moment before disappearing behind the clouds.

"Chakotay."

He turns and offers me a smile.  I once overheard a woman saying that since middle age set in, his only real physical assets were his dimples.  She had never studied his eyes, the gleams which indicated humour, the flashes of anger, the tenderness.

His eyes are melancholy tonight, although there is a warm glow which I understand is only for me.  His smile is tinged with sadness.

"Did I wake you?" he asks.

"No.  It was the noise of the storm."

He takes another look at the clouds.  "It'll pass soon."

"I know."

I join him at the window.  This is merely an atmospheric phenomenon, the result of shifts in air pressure and static electricity.  It shouldn't have the power to affect us like this.  It should be irrelevant, and yet it changes our moods.  Our lives.

***

We let go of her on a night like this.

She had called the crew of Voyager to her home for a dinner party.  It was a beautiful, impersonal place, decorated in the understated Starfleet style.  I believe it was privately owned.  This seems more significant to me now than it did then.  The only ornamentation was a model of Voyager and a picture of the senior staff painted by her sister.

Again, this means more now than it did then.

She served us a meal: wine, soup, vegetables.  She exchanged a look I did not fully understand with Chakotay as she presented us with a perfectly cooked pot roast.

While the storm howled outside, she announced that she had been assigned command of an armada of ships.  She was to return to the delta quadrant, now only a months' travel away since we had perfected transwarp.  The Federation Council wanted to cement alliances, forge treaties.  Placate the enemies Voyager had left in its wake.

I do not believe it was meant as a punishment, but she probably interpreted it as such.

She asked all of us to come with her.  One by one, we said no.  Her voice became softer with each rejection.  I observed Lieutenants Paris, Torres and Kim exchanging awkward looks, but they didn’t change their answers.

Chakotay and I were the last to be asked to accompany her in her exile. She was close to tears by the time she asked us.

We refused.  Chakotay cited a burgeoning academic career.  I told her that I wished to be with Icheb for his first years on Earth.  And, having accepted this home, and – more surprising to me – being accepted in turn, I didn’t want to leave immediately.

Neither of us told her that there was a glitter in her eye which scared us.  Perhaps we should have been more honest.  Or perhaps we should have joined her.  Such speculations are irrelevant and inefficient, yet I have spent many hours contemplating them.

***

She didn't leave Earth for another four months, but that was the last time we saw her that I care to remember.  The launch party was an awkward affair, and her sense of betrayal was palpable.  She touched my arm and kissed Chakotay's cheek, but it was out of habit, nothing more.

For a second, I'd thought she wanted to say something more to me, but the moment passed.

***

Starfleet lost contact with the armada after two and a half years. Driven by some emotion which I couldn't name, a mixture of guilt, grief and anger, Chakotay and I joined the rescue team.  We spent two years searching for her.  We spent our days seeking a sign of her, and our nights remembering her.

***

The day after we became lovers, we resigned from the rescue team.  Perhaps this was more guilt.  Perhaps we had simply found what we sought in each other, rather than in a memory and an obsession.

We married.  We moved on with our lives.  We try to forget.  Usually we succeed.

***

Last week, we received word that the USS Ophelia was found drifting near the Malon homeworld. The crew was missing.  The logs spoke of a Hirogen attack.  They also said that Commodore Janeway and the flagship had been lost some months before.  The records are garbled.

I have been offered a position reconstructing the Ophelia's computer core.

Watching the storm, I wonder where she is.  I wonder if I want to know.

I imagine speaking to her. I imagine composing a message.  I would tell her that she did not deserve her exile.  I would tell her that she has been missed.

I might tell her that she once dominated my thoughts and feelings in a way no one else, not even Chakotay, has since.  I might tell her that we cannot experience a storm without thinking of her, even when we try to bury each other in blankets and warm sex.

I might tell her that we are sorry we didn't go with her, but the thought of lying to her sickens me.

The lightening and thunder dominate the sky and I lean against my husband.  He holds me in his warm arms, and I realise that I don't want to reconstruct the Ophelia's logs.  I don't want to know that she buried herself in her guilt, or was killed, or captured.  Perhaps I am afraid to know.  Perhaps I am afraid that knowing will disrupt the comfortable, happy life I have built with Chakotay.

She had little talent for happiness, a trait which I thought I shared. Chakotay taught me differently, and if it was a lesson he had wanted to teach her, I needed it just as desperately.

He holds me tightly, and I know that his thoughts are turning in the same useless circles as mine.  I turn to face him and return the embrace, drawing his attention away from the storm and the past.  He kisses me, and we are able to let go for a while.

We try to forget, but we don't always succeed.

END
 

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Copyright © 2001 Elizabeth M. Barr

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