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It didn’t feel like it could possibly be real. It was just a fragment of the oh-so-frequent dreams that had haunted her since the chime of a comm waking her up, since Jellico had called her in with a message long since burnt into her brain.
Janeway, it’s Chakotay. The Protostar’s gone missing in the Delta Quadrant. We need you to come in.
Since that night, she’d dreamt of him returning so frequently it was normal to wake up with tears pressed in the creases of her eyes, a burning in the back of her throat from holding back sobs.
She’d dreamt of him walking through the door of their farmhouse with an apology for dropping off the grid and a daring tale to make up for it.
She’d dreamt of finding a body, or a skeleton, or someone holding out a broken comm badge and the words he died bravely ma’am. It haunted her, echoing loss through dream after dream after dream.
She’d dreamt of being in a battle, of finding him on a planet outgunned and racing to join him only to watch him fall just before she could reach him, collapsing to his side as phaser fire rained down around them.
She’d dreamt of finding him on the bridge, in sick bay, in the holodeck, the mess – just walking into the transporter room to find him standing their alive and whole.
She just hadn’t dreamt that he would be surrounded by the Protostar cadets she’d picked up and decided were theirs. She hadn’t dreamt of him in bright red with his (incredibly impressive and certainly bigger than she remembered) biceps on full display, with a truly terrible something on his face (some kind of oil, he’d tell her softly later, so he could come home through the mirrorverse).
And despite all her dreams, of all the reaching for him she’d done while sleeping, she’d never been able to touch him. Any apparition her subconscious conjured vanishing in a shower of light as she moved to embrace him, to lay her hand over his heart, leaving her distraught all over again.
But this was different.
He was there, looking as stunned as she was feeling. Her heart pounded, her breath hitched and
“Chakotay?”
“Is it…really you?” he asked, stepping forward, looking at her like she might vanish in a puff of smoke if he got too close. Like he had been dreaming of seeing her again as painfully as she had been.
So she made a joke, a way of deviating from any narrative her subconscious could have made, her attention snagging on the peculiar shiny goatee, the block of grey in his hair. She couldn’t look away from his face (if she did he’d vanish).
“What’s that on your face?”
She watched as he lifted his hand to his chin in surprise, laughing at the black smearing on his fingers and the hope in his eyes brightening. That this was real. They were both there – in the transporter room. Not that they could see it. Every cell of her body was focused entirely on him, on the hope that this time, this time she would reach for him and he would reach back and she would be allowed to touch him again. The borg could have invaded and she wasn’t sure she’d have noticed. Not if it meant she could touch him.
She stepped forward and he did too, hesitantly and then all at once.
He didn’t vanish. Instead, when she stepped forward, he did too. When she gripped his chest as tight as she could, he gripped back, burying his face in her neck and splaying his hands across her back like he was scared she’d vanish too. She’d felt his exhale of relief, had matched it with one of her own. He smelt wrong, but that would be rectified by a shower and his own uniforms.
And he didn’t vanish.
He was real.
He was alive.
He was standing right in front of her, as reluctant to let go as she was. Even when the Doctor began to insist on moving the debrief to the sickbay to run a proper check on the cadets and on Chakotay (he was real, he was here), Chakotay’s hand didn’t leave her back, his palm a brand of heat through her heavy uniform.
Through the walk to sickbay, listening to Dal explain something with great abandon, arms flailing and Gwyn correcting him occasionally with a laugh and through it all she had to check – she had to see – and she would glance up to see that wonderful smile, that incredible jaw, those eyes already wandering back to check she was real too.
Ten years, they had said. He’d spent ten years in the past, marooned by choice with only Ardreek and her hologram. She wanted to hold him close and never let go. She’d had over two years just hoping to see him again and to find out he’d been gone for ten? It wasn’t fair.
But duty had sustained them for twelve years before he’d vanished, it could sustain them another few hours. They knew their parts.
Captain and first officer. Admiral and Captain. Always their roles first, never who they were when the pips had been removed and titles discarded like Starfleet jackets.
Kathryn wasn’t expecting the blind panic to set in when he finally stepped away from her in sickbay, moving to a biobed as instructed and joking with one of the cadets as he went, accepting a cloth to wipe the muck from his face. The fear that he would vanish if he moved too far away irrational and all encompassing. Two and a half years she’d been searching for him, she had to forcibly remind herself that he wouldn’t vanish now she’d found him – not immediately at least.
She stepped after him, a hand on his arm to help him up – and the panic subsided. He hadn’t vanished. He was here. He was alive.
“Admiral, I really do need you to step aside,” the Doctor arrived with a tricorder, before glancing at them both and then quickly around before dropping his voice, “But I imagine the other side of the biobed is quite far enough, I just need this side Kathryn, I’m sorry.”
It had been Chakotay’s turn for his hand to move after her as she wound round the bed, reaching for her in the scant moments of separation. She’d taken it as soon as he had laid down, tucking her hand into his as it laid at his side, another hand on his shoulder – anchoring them both to this reality.
A full debrief of the ten years on his side, and two years on hers, that they were apart would have to wait – both the formal and informal one.
In the chaotic run down that followed, she found herself unable to stop touching him, from reassuring herself that he was there.
Even hours later, attached as she has been, through all the stories she’d heard from the kids and from Chakotay himself it didn’t feel real. At any moment, she could open her eyes and find it had all been a torturous dream. That tomorrow would be another day of losing another lead, a little more hope vanishing.
It didn’t feel real to have him standing next to her again, falling into step with barely a handspan between her shoulder and his; to hear his voice without the crackle of comms or a corrupted video; to be able to see his face, his smile and know they wouldn’t freeze as the video cut out. The warmth of his body next to hers – back where it should be.
Tell Kathryn I’m sorry.
A whisper of guilt flitted through the relief, reminding her that no matter how hard it had been for her thinking she’d lost him forever, he’d spent ten years marooned. But losing Chakotay so many times on this mission, of losing one way of getting him back after another, of hope vanishing like time that she’d ever see him again – well, she was only human and her mind had played too many tricks for her to be content with what her eyes could see.
It's Chakotay. The Protostar’s gone missing in the Delta Quadrant
Admiral Janeway may have appeared generally unfazed by much, but Kathryn was certain she wasn’t fooling a single person about how hard it was to let Chakotay out of her sight, out of touching distance. Then again, she wasn’t trying to hide it - not this time. If this journey had taught her anything, it was to never take his presence for granted again.
But then, if the warm hand that just gently and briefly clasped her wrist while enthusiastically disagreeing with Dal; a hand on her waist as he leant back to pass Rok a roll; a hand on her arm just because and squishing up on the bench so he was pressed against her side were anything to go by then Chakotay didn’t want to let her go either. He needed the reassurance as much, if not more, than she did. Ten years - she couldn’t imagine how he’d done it. Ten years with a hologram of a younger version of him might have destroyed her. But he was back. He was home. He was here.
He’d insisted on escorting the exhausted cadets back to their bunks, the adrenaline of the extended mission wearing off in a flood, giving them soft words of advice and a pat on the shoulder. He always had been the most wonderful people person, and she thought fondly of years watching him smooth tensions, build relationships, establish confidence. She recalled him teaching Miral how to climb a fence, hands supporting and guiding but not doing it for her. It was like that now, as each of the children disappeared into their bunks and Chakotay returned, as if magnetized, to her side, a warm smile and dimple, a hand brushing the back of hers.
“And if you’ll come this way Captain,” Commander Tyress turned and started walking down the corridor towards the turbolift, “I can show you to your quarters as well. They are on deck three, with the senior staff.”
Any soft and fuzzy feelings Kathryn most certainly had not been feeling screeched to a halt. Quarters? His own? Oh, that would not do. They hadn’t been more than an armlength apart for more than a minute since he’d beamed back on board and she didn’t want to even think of the nightmares she’d likely have if they separated now.
“Oh, no need for that,” Kathryn interrupted quickly, glancing up to check Chakotay agreed and seeing only mild panic as his hand pressed into her back, followed by a flicker of relief as he glanced down to check on her at the same time. His tired and oh so real face. “I don’t want to let him out of my sight quite yet, and there’s no point fussing with an extra room. He can stay with me tonight, and we fuss with all the rest in the morning.”
Commander Tysess, the marvellous Number One he was, at least attempted to suppress his knowing smirk as he tucked his padd under his arm and inclined his head.
Kathryn ignored him in favour of curling into Chakotay and placing her hand on his chest to peer up at him in concern, feeling the thud, thud, thud of his heart against her palm in reassuring rhythm. He’s here. He’s here.
“Is that ok?” she asked gently, worried she’d managed to overstep so soon in the strange dance that had always been their personal vs command relationship. Personally, Kathryn wanted Chakotay in her bed to be able to sleep soundly, preferably with her hand over his heart. Professionally, he needed his own quarters. It was a dance they were used to, but the pattern had been disrupted and she didn’t want to put it back in place quite yet.
“If you think I can stand to be more than a foot away from you, then you’re in for quite the surprise Kathryn,” Chakotay said so earnestly that is knocked the breath from her lungs and she had to force herself not to sway even closer towards him and his open, expressive eyes, the surety in his voice.
Tysess cleared his throat behind them and Kathrn looked across in time to see he’d pulled his Padd out and was pretending to study something on the screen intently. Kathryn wanted to laugh at the absurdity of his pose – this being the man who regularly and boldly called her out for being too emotional about finding Chakotay.
“I have a assigned a room regardless,” he intoned, head tilted as he looked down at them both. “I had assigned it when we accepted the mission on Voyager, so Captain Chakotay would have comfortable quarters when he returned.”
A wave of gratitude swept over her at how convinced he’d been they’d find Chakotay, that they’d get him back. Even when she’d doubted, when he’d followed orders – he’d kept a room aside for when Chakotay got back. Even if it was an unnecessary room.
“Thank you, Commander,” she said intently, hoping to convey all the thanks she needed to in that single phrase – thank you for supporting my search, thank you for keeping me level, thank you for believing we would succeed, thank you for understanding. Thank you.
“Not at all, Admiral,” he smiled thinly and stepped back, lifting his padd at them, “I trust you know the way back to your own quarters. Goodnight to you both.”
He started to walk away and then stopped, turning back and not quite looking at them, “Admiral, I took you off the duty roster in the morning, we don’t expect you on the Bridge until 12 noon at the earliest.”
Then, before she had the chance to formulate a reply beyond a look of surprise, he’d vanished around a corner and to safety.
The second he was out of sight, Chakotay’s arm snaked around her waist, hugging her close again just because for a few minutes.
“I always like Tysess,” he muttered into her hair before releasing her and stepping back. “So, quarters? I don’t know about you Kathryn, but I’m exhausted.”
“Me too,” she agreed softly, staring up at his face for a long moment before tucking her arm through his and pulling him against her side as she walked down the corridor, ensuring he was in step with her and not just behind for once. “We can get you some food and then think about rest, maybe find you a sweater.”
And other things, like talking and reassuring each other they were together again. They lapsed into comfortable silence as they crossed to her quarters and she was grateful that no-one else seemed to be on their path.
“My quarters,” Kathryn announced unnecessarily, casting a sweeping gesture to the room as the door slid shut behind them. “Computer, lights at -oof!”
If Chakotay had hugged her tightly before, it was nothing compared to the almost frantic way he was gripping her now and Kathryn didn’t hesitate before returning the embrace, squeezing him as tightly as she could, her fists twisted in the back of his mirror uniform to pull him impossibly closer.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” he whispered into her shoulder and buried his face in her neck. “I can’t tell you how many times I’d dreamt of being able to just hold you again.”
“I may not have as many years, but I certainly have the dreams,” she whispered back, her chest tight and letting go of the iron-cast grip on her emotions as she felt his tears slide down her neck. “I thought I’d never see you alive. I thought I’d never get-” she swallowed the rest of the words, unable to say them and pressed her forehead against his collarbone.
For a long time they stood there, a tangled mess of limbs and tears and softly-whispered assurances that they were there, together, that it was real.
“You’re home,” Kathryn reassured him, and loosened her grip as she tried to step back just enough to look up at him. He resisted. “Chakotay, you need to let me go enough to breathe or we’ll be spending your first night back in the same quadrant and time period in sickbay. Puts a dampener on this reunion if we do that.”
Chakotay chuckled, stepping back far enough to allow her to slide her hands down his chest, his own hands splayed across her back in support. She smiled at him, eyes tracing the new lines on his face she hadn’t had chance to learn yet, the new, almost desperate look in his eyes.
“I don’t want to let go,” he admitted, “I’m scared if I do-“
“You’ll vanish?” Kathryn finished for him, tracing the pattern of his tattoo. He turned his slightly damp face into her palm and closed his eyes in relief. “We’re here, together, home. It’s real, though stars know it doesn’t feel like it. But for now – I… I need to pee, and you are not coming into the restroom with me.”
It worked, and he laughed wetly before reluctantly unwinding his arms from her body, leaving his hands gently on her waist instead.
“In fact,” she continued gently, “You replicate yourself some pyjamas. I’ll go get mine on and we can sit here with a cup of tea and not let go all night. Does that sound like a plan?”
“Sounds doable.”
It sounded more than doable. It sounded like it would be hard to let a door close between them but the outcome would be worth it, and hadn’t they had enough of those kinds of things over the years?
“Replicator is over there, I’ll be out in a moment,” Kathryn patted his shoulder and slipped into her room, moving quickly and breathing evenly, her mind a cantrip reminding her that Chakotay was alive, he was here, that it wasn’t a dream. She used the restroom as swiftly as she could, splashing water on her face and hesitating only a moment before slipping into one of Chakotay’s old t-shirts. It would hardly be the first time he’d seen her in one, and her silky nightdresses were not the most appropriate for that evening. Maybe another night. Soon.
When she came out though, Chakotay was sitting on the couch, his shoulders slumped and dejected and twisting the mirror-verse uniform in his hands. She approached cautiously, pulling her hand back at the last moment before she touched him in case he startled, sliding into view instead and sinking down in front of him to take his hands. He started anyway, looking up at her with unfocused eyes.
“Kathryn?”
“I’m here,” Kathryn smiled, waiting for his hesitant smile in return before laying her hand on his cheek, her fingers automatically tracing the curve at his temple. Scarcely a few minutes had been too long to be away.
To her surprise, he flinched away.
“I’m sorry,” she pulled her hand back quickly, returning them to his hands which seemed safe. “I won’t do that again. Hands and hugs only where you initiate from now on, I promise.” It would be hard, but she knew all too well how touch could bring back bad memories.
“No, no,” Chakotay huffed, pulling a hand free to hover it against her own cheek. “Just, while you were gone, I realised how old I’d gotten. Look at you, you’re beautiful and I was older than you before I left. I guess I didn’t want you seeing how age had affected me during my extended stay with a dud ship. The elements weren’t exactly kind.”
He laughed a cold, self-deprecating laugh that dug into her very heart.
“Computer, lights at 100%,” she called, rising from her crouch to sit on the couch next to him. He looked at her, bemused.
Never one to be cowed, Kathryn lifted a hand slowly, deliberately and raised an eyebrow at Chakotay in challenge. He met her gaze for a moment before a dimple appeared in his cheek. He ducked his head and nodded, seemingly to himself before he looked up, raised his (thankfully non-oiled) chin and guided her hand to the side of his face.
In silence, Kathryn let her fingers run over the ridges of his face, gently mapping new creases around his eyes and cataloguing each change with a soft smile. He, in return, closed his eyes, breathing carefully. Ten years was a long time to have no deliberate touch, and here she was showering him with it. Two years had been hard enough without being able to reach for him, she didn’t think she’d have survived ten.
“I’m hardly a spring chicken,” she teased at last, lifting her hands away at last. But he didn’t smile in response, the troubled look stealing back over his exhausted features. “Chakotay,” she said earnestly, leaning forward again with a hand back against his cheek, guiding him to look at her. “You may think that you got old. But I don’t care that you’re sitting here ten years older than when I said goodbye to you two years, four months and eighteen days ago. I care that I didn’t get to map each of these new frown lines, tease you for each new gray hair and your ridiculous insistence on dying it, for you to do the same to me. I care that we didn’t get to spend those ten years together. That we didn’t get to grow old together, but I wouldn’t care if you’d returned to me an hour or century older, only that you came back. You came home.”
“Home,” he repeated softly, his cheek curving under her hand and staring at her so intently she felt her soul on display. But then, he’d always been able to see her like that - like she was real. “All I wanted, all that time, was to find a way to just talk to you one last time. To be able to … just look at you. The real you. Having your hologram looking so young just reminded me of how far we’ve come and … even with the kids I didn’t hope I’d get to see you again - let alone be able to do this…”
He lifted his hand slowly and rested it on her elbow, running it slowly and deliberately up her bare arm to her covered shoulder, and then to her neck, before retreating to her shoulder blade. She exhaled slowly, revelling in the contact, as he leant towards her and rested his forehead gently against hers, eyes fluttering closed. Her hand slipped to the back of his neck, holding him in place and it was like she could breathe again.
Two years since anyone had touched her with intent and it was … it was dizzying.
He was dizzying. Like water after a drought. For the first time in years she felt entirely and completely safe.
Home.
She’d learnt that home wasn’t a place she could set a course to, a direct line from A to B. Home, as she’d found when she got back to Earth, home could be the people who became your family. Home could be a man with the stars in his heart just like her. A man who made her feel safe and warm and secure and wanted.
She felt the tears welling up, the pressure relieved on emotions she’d kept so firmly under control for so long.
“Oh god,” she muttered, frustrated with herself and drawing back onto to find his hand on her shoulder pulling her forward, towards him. “No, stop, or I’ll cry.”
“Good,” he smiled, and she let him pull her the rest of the way towards him, towards his shoulder as he rested back against the couch, head falling towards hers as they went. “Means I can have a good old cry too. I get the feeling we both need it.”
She laughed - a choking, wet laugh but a laugh nevertheless.
“I missed you so much,” she confessed, turning her face into his shoulder and gripping tightly, even as she felt his grip tighten on her, his face pressing against the top of her head.
“Every day,” he cleared his throat and started again, and Kathryn’s hand crept up to his heart to feel the reassuring thud, thud, thud. “Every day I would go sit on the hull and look out at the horizon and, and think of all the things I wanted to talk to you about. All the things you’d have loved and all the things you’d have hated. Even when I hated myself the most, I’d go and sit and look at the cloud-sea and just allow myself to miss you.”
She could picture it - picture him doing the same thing day after day, whether as punishment or reward no one would be able to tell. She’ll ask him, one day. But not now. Not when she was still staring constantly over the fact he was alive, he was here, he was home.
“I’m glad you weren’t entirely alone,” she whispered softly, tracing the pattern of the shirt with her forefinger and feeling his body twitch slightly. Her hand stilled, “Sorry.”
“I forgot you did that,” he chuckled, his hand scratching the area before twisting their fingers together, a familiar gesture, “Well, no, I didn’t forget. I remembered everything - but I tried not to remember what it felt like to curl up like this with you. It … it hurt too much.”
She could understand that. Admiral Janeway had created her own aura and distance and while she was still the tactile person she always had been, the circle of people she trusted near enough to truly touch her was small, and losing him had taken a huge part of that circle away. She didn’t like to think of the lazy circles he would draw on her hip - as he was doing now - or the sound of his heart under her head.
They were the familiar comforts of home, and she was trying so hard not to be homesick.
“We have a lot to talk about,” she yawned, drawing their hands up to cover her mouth briefly. She could feel him smile, even as she couldn’t see his face. There was something in the way his whole body smiled at her. “Oh, hush.”
His chuckle reverberated through her chest and she smiled widely at the familiar feel.
“We do have a lot to talk about,” he agreed, shifting her closer to his side, holding her a little tighter. “But the only thing I care about right now is whether I have access over the lights or if we’re talking in this brightness.”
“Fine, computer, lights to 30%,” she laughed, and wriggled closer, twisting her hand out of his to lay her palm flat against his chest again, for the comfort of his heart beating as he shifted his grip to hold her hand there. “So, what do you want to talk about first?”
“Shhhhh,” he murmured into her hair, “Go to sleep Kathryn, we can talk tomorrow.”
And they could. They could talk tomorrow because this wasn’t a dream, or a nightmare, or a whimsical turn of her imagination. She could feel the warmth of his hand on her hip, his body against hers. She could feel the thrum of his heart, and the rough pads of his work-worn hands. She could look up and see his face in the dark, if she twisted enough.
After all the dreams, all the time he’d vanished as she’d reached for him, she was able to curl up tighter against his side, and drape a leg over his, tangling them up even more. She felt his contented sigh against her hair, his grip adjusting to hold her closer as well, always moving in tandem with each other.
Now, if the dreams wanted to try separating them, they’d have a helluva time doing so.
Because he was real.
He was home, and so was she.
And she wasn’t letting go of him again. Not if she had anything to say about it.