A BEGINNING, A MIDDLE, AND A PROPER END

Joining

When the doorbell chimed, Janeway groaned aloud, hoping it wasn't the neighbors again, insisting she come over to watch the parisi squares championships on their new holovid; she'd already turned them down twice. They seemed to be pleasant people and she was sorry she didn't know them better, but she wasn't in the mood for company or conversation. She had spent the day completely alone, a rare luxury for a starship captain, and intended to remain alone until it was time to leave for her mother's in the morning. She considered not answering, but ship captains were hard-wired to respond to any electronic signal--like Pavlov's dogs. Emerging from underneath the spread Aunt Martha had crocheted, she put down the Denillian sonnets she had returned to when she was unable to concentrate on anything longer and started toward the door--only to halt abruptly when through the plastiglass she saw Chakotay pacing under the light.

Automatically she surveyed the room. She hadn't been home long enough to make much of a mess, but all the books she had started and abandoned that day littered the table, along with the remains of her dinner. She quickly removed the plates to the recycler, and felt foolish when she caught herself checking her reflection in the panel. Chakotay had seen her looking as if she'd been sucked into a micro-singularity and spat out the other side--he'd seen her as a Borg drone, for God's sake!--he would hardly be repulsed by straying hair and smudged make-up. Nevertheless she was relieved when she didn't discover any, and she checked for coffee splatters on her blouse before she opened the door.

She caught him in mid-stride; he turned quickly, a little off-balance. "Hi."

"Hi yourself." She thought he seemed tense, perhaps uncertain, hardly a characteristic mood for him. "You came back early," she added, and immediately felt ridiculous for stating the obvious. His bags were on the chair to one side of the door; he had just as obviously come straight from the station.

"If it hadn't been for the fair I'd have been on the next shuttle after you."

Ritanay, bustling about that morning helping Cusi and Manco load computer display boards and scale models into the groundcar, had announced in passing, "I like her. You two are good together."

"We aren't 'together'--" he'd drawn breath to say, but she had left the room before he could say it--and in the next breath he'd realized that he no longer had any idea how to clarify exactly what he and Kathryn Janeway were, and also that he could not wait another year to find out.

His declaration had prompted no response from her. "May I come in?"

She gave a little start. "I'm sorry--I didn't mean to strand you on the porch. Please--" She stepped back, and he picked up his bags and came inside.

Retrieving a parcel from the outer pocket of the duffel, he said, "Before I forget--Cusi and Manco sent you some cookies. They've got chips of coffee beans baked into them."

She hesitated before taking the parcel from his outstretched hand, bracing herself against the brush of his fingers across her palm. "That's very sweet. Wait--this isn't part of their science project, is it?"

His smile was quick but short-lived. "No, you can indulge without fear."

"How was the fair?"

"It was fine. Nothing blew up or shorted out the Lima power grid."

"Sounds pretty dull to me--" Even to her own ears the joke seemed forced. After a moment, she gestured him to a seat, but he shook his head, and her tension increased. "I was about to make some of Amaru's coffee. Will you have a cup? Or I've got some wine and cheese--"

"No thanks--not just now." He stepped closer to her. "Kathryn--" He took a breath, let it out. "I think it's time we talked about New Earth."

His manner wasn't casual now. She held his gaze for a moment, her own becoming desolate, then turned away from him to sit on the sofa, her back very straight.

It seemed to surprise her that he sat down beside her. When she spoke it was in that flat, inflectionless tone that somehow expressed more than most people did when they shouted or whispered or wept. "What is there to say? That we were moving toward a deeper relationship? Of course we were. Alone together in a perilous Eden--we had a choice between Adam and Eve or Cain and Abel. After we were rescued--Mark was waiting, or might have been. And even if Mark hadn't still been in the picture--I couldn't get involved with my first officer. And so we moved on. What else is there?"

She had the impression that he had been holding his breath. "Nothing. I just wanted it to be said, wanted you to say it before we--take another step."

She stared at him, desolation giving way to amazement. And then she gave a little rueful laugh. "I thought," she said, "that you'd come here to be sympathetic--to close a door, not--open one."

Why had she so completely misinterpreted his comment about remaining her first officer? He hadn't meant at all that he would choose to return to that necessary emotional distance; rather he had meant that a part of him would be willing to accept it if that was the only way he could be with her. Why had she assumed his invitation the day before had stemmed from nothing more than his usual thoughtfulness? No matter for whom he had secured the reservations he had shared them with her, and he had made it plain he would have shared them with no one else. Perhaps she had leaped to pessimistic conclusions because she was afraid of the change in their relationship he was now proposing. It wasn't so unusual, human nature being fundamentally baffling, to want something very much and be wary of it at the same time. But she did want it, and at some level he had sensed that wanting or he would not now be here seeking resolution.

Some of the tension drained from her shoulders and back. "But I don't know that we should--take another step."

"I don't know that we shouldn't."

She regarded him curiously. "You used to talk about some things in metaphor and fable."

"I've learned that I get my way with you more often when I'm really blunt."

Her eyes widened. "Is that so? Are you sure you should be giving away your methods?"

"Call it a tactical risk. Kathryn, I didn't come here to badger you--or to beg. At times during these last few days, you've seemed a little--different--less at ease with me, and I wondered if--" He gave a tight exhale of mild frustration. "I just need to know--where we stand."

"That's--really blunt, all right." Her eyes did not leave his face. "You sound as if you believe people can decide whether or not to fall in love."

He tried not to attach too much significance to her choice of words. "I believe that reasonable, mature people can decide not to act upon what they feel, and that unexpressed feelings can fade away, or change into something less--urgent, that those imposed restraints can become natural. I believe that's what happened to us. I also believe that coming home has changed things. It has for me. If it hasn't for you, please just say so--before I let go of those restraints any more than I already have."

There was a long pause in which she said nothing of the kind. "I've got a confession to make. I've let go of them a little, too." With a quick release of breath he moved nearer; sensing her hesitation, however, he did not touch her. "But we know each other--awfully well."

His smile flashed again, and this time lingered. "Warts and all."

"Maybe too many warts."

His brow furrowed. "I don't-- Oh--are you afraid there isn't any mystery left?"

"Maybe. It's possible, don't you think, for people to know each other too well?"

"It's possible you're over-analyzing."

"Me? I would never over-analyze. I would charge right in, wouldn't I?--be decisive and reckless? Is that what you want?"

His breath caught and his blood was a sudden roar in his ears. "In this case--I would have to say yes."

"But Chakotay, we've watched each other fall in love with other people--several times!"

"That's true--" He cast about for a counter-argument. "But one of yours was a hologram and another was a con man. One of mine assimilated me and one I can't even remember--"

Succumbing to a fit of giggles, she was girlish and utterly luminous. "B'Elanna's right--you do have a twisted sense of humor!"

He was laughing too, but soon his laughter faded, and his eyes seemed very deep and dark. "I don't mean to make light of feelings that were very real at the time, even if they didn't last. And a time or two they did. But just because it was real for us with other people doesn't mean it can't be real for us with each other now--the same way it almost was before. We're different people now, in a different relation to each other."

"But don't you think we might have too much--baggage, they used to call it." So many bitter quarrels, so much pain; so much giving on his part, so much taking on hers-- That's the way it was between a captain and a first officer, but it couldn't be that way between lovers. At this late date, did they even know how to be equals? Did she?

"Now you're the one speaking metaphorically. --All right-- I also believe that reasonable, mature people know when to discard baggage that's more a burden on a journey than it is an aid."

"Do they? Leave it at the station and start the journey over feeling lighter and freer, hmm? Or in our case, leave it in the Delta Quadrant--"

"Something like that."

"But is that possible? It probably is for you. I don't know if I can."

At last his hands closed around hers. "Try--if that's what you want."

They were sitting sideways on the sofa, facing each other, and her gaze fixed on their clasped hands. He had clasped her hands before. It had never felt like this. So much pain--but at the same time so much pleasure and fun and love. Yes, love--if of a different kind than what she was feeling now, beginning to feel now, again-- If they'd proven anything over the past nine years, it was that they were flexible, adaptable. They'd learned to be friends, hadn't they, and then more than friends?

"Oh, it's what I want--" She raised her eyes to his. "But what I want isn't always what's best."

"Kathryn. You're over-analyzing again. Look, I'm not a romantic. I don't believe in one right person and no other--and I'm not sure I believe in happily ever after. I won't be devastated if you don't want to give this--us--a try, and I won't be devastated if you do but it doesn't work out. But I do believe in joy and peace with the right person in the moment, and in the possibility of linking those moments together across distance and years and might-have-been, maybe even for a lifetime. And I don't believe in too late."

Only once before had he opened up so much of himself to her. He'd made her cry then, too. "I don't know--" she said, wiping at her eyes and reading in his face that he was remembering, too, "--that sounds a lot like happily ever after to me."

His sudden smile was self-conscious, almost shy. Only once before had she seen that smile. "Well--maybe I'm a bit of a romantic after all."

"And maybe I'm not as romantic as I was. Mark and I thought we were going to have happily ever after, you know." And then she leaned back into the cushions, shaking her head in amused disbelief. "This is an extraordinary conversation."

Her shifts of position had loosed their hands; when his now came to rest on her drawn-up knee, she made no objection, spoken or unspoken, to his touch. "Ours has been an extraordinary relationship. It's gone through a lot of changes already--what's one more? I've missed you, Kathryn. And I'm not your first officer now."

Her hands reached for his, caressed the backs, his wrists. His breathing deepened. Never before had her touch been sensual; he had touched her in such a fashion only once. "No. You aren't. And I've missed you, too." Her breast rose and fell. We'll learn. I'll learn. For him, I'll learn. When she spoke again her voice quavered--with building excitement but also with laughter. "We'll probably fight all the time--Mt. Vesuvius to Tom and B'Elanna's little boiling mud pots--"

His gaze was intent on her face, and she knew that he had seen the instant she made up her mind, knew because she saw the sudden kindling of joy in his eyes. "I give us a year--tops--" His own voice was unsteady, his hands taut on her knee.

"I'll take it--" she sighed, and came into his arms.

At first their kisses were slow, tentative, exploratory, their lips meeting, drawing apart, meeting again, tongues questing hesitantly, then with growing assurance. Her trembling fingers traced the pattern of his tattoo, the strong lines of his jaw, his lips. It was odd, in a way, to be kissing him, to be kissing him, to feel his tongue trace her lips, part them, dart inside her mouth--but sweet, so sweet-- He freed her hair from its clasp and let it flow over his hands and through his fingers, all the while gently tasting her, tasting--and the barrier hummed and crackled all around and then inside them, and then dissolved.

After a time he murmured, "Kathryn?"

"Yes?"

"I was wondering--how decisive and reckless you're feeling right now--"

"I think," she said, boldly, breathlessly, "that I might be able to handle two steps in one day--"

--and she barely got the words out before his mouth claimed hers again, at once sensitive and demanding, amused and exultant, before his ardent hands began their own explorations--and she responded in kind and did not feel confused at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Much later she murmured drowsily against his chest, "It's been a while since anyone's made me feel half my age. It's a nice feeling."

His lips tugged gently at her earlobe. "Same here."

Their intertwined limbs were nut-brown and cream against the dark rose of the bedclothes; his body was warm against hers. "We're really going to cause some talk at Vortex Three, you know."

"Let 'em talk."

"Do you think they'll be shocked?"

"Some will be. Some will only have their suspicions confirmed."

"I wonder if there really was much speculation about us."

"Not much. Only every day or so. I always suspected Paris and Dalby of running a betting pool all along."

She propped up on an elbow. "Did anybody ever say anything to you?"

His gaze traveled appreciatively over her uncovered shoulders and breasts. "No, but in their place I would have speculated. Wouldn't you?"

"I would if I'd ever seen the first officer look at the captain like that," she said with a laugh, and added, her voice softly wry, "I wonder what odds they were giving after New Earth."

"I'm guessing even money." A faraway look came into his eyes. "That time hardly seems real to me anymore--it was so unlike anything in my life before or since. But it was always there between us, something I shared with you and no one else, that no one else could ever understand, and in the last few months I've found myself thinking about it quite a lot. All I needed was a day alone with you to--turn back the clock."

"Same here," she whispered. Was it harder, she wondered, in a long-standing relationship than it was in a new one to sense the progression from friendship to love? Their interaction with each other had not changed, had for many years been attentive and affectionately teasing; it was their responses that had altered, as one by one the obstacles to that progression had fallen away. "What you said yesterday about my hair, how you'd always liked it long--was that a signal?"

He smiled. "Not a conscious one, but in hindsight--probably."

"I wish I'd been more receptive when you brought up New Earth months ago. We could have had this then, if I hadn't been so blind, or deaf, or obtuse, or something."

"I don't know. That might have been on the rebound. I don't want you on the rebound--I want you on the bound."

"That is a romantic sentiment if ever I heard one, worthy of Byron himself."

"Glad you liked it." His fingers combed slowly through her hair. "We made it past almost this time."

"Not to mention if only. Oh Chakotay, I wish we could have done this years ago. I never dreamed we'd get a second chance."

"Neither did I. But--it's possible, you know, that we're just seeking closure on a lot of emotional confusion. The next Vortex is a whole year away--we might not make it."

He was half serious, half in jest, and she replied in the same light tone. "No, I have to stay at least a year with any man I'm about to introduce to my mother." Her lips traced lingering kisses along his collarbone, his chest, his stomach; his skin glowed in the warm golden light of the accent panels on the wall above the bed. "We might even be good for the next two Vortexes--"

He tightened his arms around her with a sigh of contentment, pleasure, relief. "My brave, wise, beautiful warrior woman--" Easing her onto her back, he settled his weight against her, his lips and hands teasing and insistent on her mouth, shoulders, breasts, thighs. "Mine."

This time he said the words not with tender admiration but in a voice husky with desire and welcome possessiveness. Later she would consider how in leaving her he had freed them from former roles, how they had had to break apart before they could come together. Later she would anticipate discovering new layers in a friendship already intimate, and reflect that their course would very likely be smoother without the ever-present threat of professional strife. And only when she had to would she think about how seldom they would know moments like these, how wrenching it would be to say good-bye to him at the end of this unexpectedly joyous week, how many obstacles they would face in trying to build a home together if that was the path they decided to take--

But not now. If over the years she had taught him to be really blunt, he had taught her something about living in the moment, and just now she was content simply to give herself into his strangely familiar embrace.

"Yours."

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© 2002 by Karen A. Beckwith

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