Chapter Text
It only takes him five minutes to be worried about her. Harry, Tom, even Seven could be gone for at least ten before he started to wonder where they were, but Kathryn?
She's special.
Not that he doesn't trust her not to get lost, or that he thinks somehow, he'll lose her on this little planet with the weak gravity Tom's been calling 'Planet of the Mushroom People" even though neither fungi nor people seem to be in abundance.
He doesn't ask with Tom. It's better just to smile and appreciate that the pilot puts so much effort into making his shipmates laugh.
Chakotay leaves his survey group packing supply containers by the light of their wrist beacons and checks his tricorder. Kathryn's signal is just over the ridge. She must have found something. He plays twenty questions with himself: will her incredible discovery be animal, vegetable or mineral? He's leaning towards animal; she has a flair for furry things.
He's about to call her name when he nearly trips over her. The great Kathryn Janeway, captain of [i]Voyager[/i] is lying in the grass on the hillside, smiling up at him.
"Don't scare them."
"Them?" He looks up, following her outstretched hand and there they are: a dancing swarm of phosphorescent insects. Swaying in the evening air, they pay no heed to either of them.
"Lie down." Her suggestion is in no way an order, but he joins her as if it were.
Kathryn sighs, returning her hand to rest on her stomach. There's somehing more than wistful in her sigh and he tilts his head towards her.
"Remind you of home?"
She chuckles. "A little. I wasn't-" she pauses and rolls her head towards him. "For once I wasn't hinking about Indiana."
"That's a new one."
That makes her laugh a second or two longer and to his great surprise, she reaches across and touches his arm.
"I need to confess something."
"It's all right, Captain, we all hate leola root."
All he gets that time is a tiny smile and he knows something wrong. Maybe it's in her wording. Confessions are not something that come easily to Kathryn Janeway.
He pats the hand on his arm and then her small hand creeps down to take his.
"I thought-" she pauses, clears her throat, and continues sadly. Her tone is grey and sombre, absolutely nothing like the swirling beauty of the lights overhead.
"Mark and I wanted to have children. Did I ever?"
He shakes his head, but it's so dark she can probably only hear the noise against the grass.
"You'd be a great mom."
"If I ever found the time."
There's that sigh again, and the fireflies are forgotten. His eyes are only for her.
"It was a three week mission. Track down Tuvok, find the Maquis rebels and go home. We could have done it inside of two. I thought I had pre-flight jitters, or the stabiliers weren't adjusted quite right. I even made an appointment to see the doctor, back when he was human and I thought I'd be home before it mattered."
His heart skips in his chest. When she used confession, she meant it. Chakotay squeezes the hand in his.
"It's all right."
"It's not." Her body rolls towards him but her gaze stays fixed on the fireflies. Sighing again, she falters but continues. "I couldn't...I just couldn't. I'd trapped us all in the Delta Quadrant. I didn't know you, I couldn't ask Tuvok..."
She dances around the subject as neatly as the fireflies overhead. Should he ask? Should he leave it alone until she finds the right words?
He strokes her knee, wishing he could have taken the choice away then that left her so raw now. Chakotay can't blame her; he'd never judge, but he can guess how much it hurt her.
"How did you?"
"Overrode the medical lockouts in sickbay and spent one of my precious days off curled up in bed with that book you lent me."
"The poetry of Bajoran travelling vedics? Not--" he stops himself. Of course she couldn't read Dante, not when she was loosing Mark's... "You told me you didn't find the time."
"Once true and mighty trunk lies twisted, wet with shattered hopes and dreams laid bare. Sweet wood of sunlit hill and iron born of warm mountain stone are desolate, lost and cold. The seas tend to all; the great ship Bodrea, will never sail again."
That's it, word for word, the poem he told her he'd always favoured. Not only did she read it, but she committed it to memory.
"Kathryn-"
It's not her fault. No one will blame her. She made the best of a difficult situation. All of it feels hollow, and would sound it if he could voice any of the words.
"When his letter came...I was relieved. He was happy. He had a wife and maybe they'd have children. Mark could let me go without any entanglements. Even though- I- I was the one who wanted them."
When her voice cracks, shattering like the ship in the poem on the rocks, he breaks all of their rules and holds her. The fireflies don't know what their seeing and he doesn't care if anyone else joins them.
No one he loves would bear this alone. Not B'Elanna, not Sekaya, not Kes or Seven of Nine.
Chakotay can't say it's all right because from the way she trembles it is not. He can hold her, and he does.
When the fireflies disappear and the darkness holds them both, he dries her tears.
"In my traditions, we say that souls make a choice to live what they do. I chose my parents, just as you chose yours."
Her hand splays out on his chest, searching for answers.
"Who would chose...?"
"Someone who wasn't ready. Maybe someone who only wanted to dip their toes into this reality. When they're ready, they'll come back. Not necessarily to-"
"You can say it." She sits up and wraps her arms around her knees. "Not to me."
"Kathryn--" Chakotay sits behind her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close between his own legs. "If you give yourself the time for children, you will be an exceptional mother. If you do not...no one will blame you. You couldn't have known you'd be here. You couldn't have anticipated that your first officer would be a criminal and you wouldn't have anywhere to turn."
He leans closer, resting his chin next to her ear. "There's no blame here. Just you and me and the fireflies, and none of us can judge. There are some things in life that just are, and we can't make them more or less than that."
Her head rests on his arms. No one would look for them once a tricorder showed them together. The night is young. The second of the moons is rising slowly and far overhead, fireflies find patterns in the sky.