The BLTS Archive - Restoration
by monkee (wiecek@earthlink.net)

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Author's Notes and SPOILER ALERT: This story is based on the spoilers
for Equinox 2, which I'm STILL hoping are a fabrication.  But if they
aren't, I'm ready.  This story proves that with time, I can reconcile
myself to almost anything.

Disclaimers: Paramount owns Star Trek Voyager and Captain Janeway, who
they seem hell-bent on destroying.

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My door chimes and I know who it is before I call for admittance.  She
stands uncertainly at the door until I invite her in. It's the first
time we've spoken alone since she allowed me back on duty.

I recognize her stance – I've seen it before.  She's a little stiffer
than usual, a little more guarded.  She's looking at my face, but not
my eyes. It's as close as she ever comes to looking guilty.  She'll
start off with some casual, official query. Her lightness will be
forced, but it won't LOOK like it's forced.  The whole thing makes me
weary.  I'm so tired of all this.

"So, how are our newest crewmembers doing?" she asks.  I suppress a
derisive snort.

"They're settling in, Captain," I report, formally.  "But I think
they're going to have a difficult time with the transition."

She nods and wanders around my quarters absently.  I hate the
awkwardness between us, which is why I usually try to avoid it. But
sometimes I just can't. I have a job to do.  But the last time this
happened, when we disagreed about the Borg, it took us almost a year
to regain our equilibrium.  I'm dreading having to go through that
again.

But this time it's different right from the start.  She stops and
looks directly at me, at my eyes, and says, quietly, "I owe you an
apology, Chakotay. I'm sorry."

I'm surprised enough to sit down on the couch.  I thought I knew the
whole script, but she's not following it.

She sits down slowly on the chair across from me and looks down at the
floor.  From here, I can see that her hands are shaking. My anger at
her dissolves faster than usual.  She bites her lip and takes a deep
breath, then says, "I don't even know if I can explain it, even to
myself."

Her hesitation and her soft voice set off warning alarms in my head. 
I have absolutely never seen her like this.  I wonder if this is how
she would have looked if she had trusted me enough to help her while
she was struggling with her demons in the void.  She has come here to
confide in me in a way that she never has before.  I need to be
careful, and I need to be patient.

I wait while she gathers her thoughts.

"I've been trying to figure out why I was so enraged," she says,
finally. "I mean, naturally I should have been angry, but I was...I
was..."

"Irrational."  I supply the word that she's looking for.

"Yes! I was completely irrational, you're right," she says. She gets
up out of the chair as if she needs to MOVE.  She paces the floor in
front of me.

"And it's not the first time I've been irrational," she says, pointing
at me. "You don't have to tell me that, I know that.  You've told me
before that sometimes I don't know when to step back, and I know it's
true, Chakotay.  Some of my decisions out here...the Borg alliance,
going after Seven when the Borg Queen took her...some of my decisions
have not been sound. And I guess I wonder how bad it could get.  I'm
so determined to get this crew home, what would I do...I can almost
imagine myself getting desperate enough to..."

She stops pacing and stands in the shadows by the viewport, looking at
me. Looking at my face with tears in her eyes.  Her voice shakes. 
"Maybe I'm no better than Ransom was...maybe I'm just a step or two
away from doing something so...monstrous..."

I'm in front of her in a heartbeat, gathering her in my arms without a
second thought.  And she lets me.  She clutches me like I'm her
lifeline.

"I know you, Kathryn.  You would NEVER do anything like that.  You
aren't like that.  You aren't going to BE like that – it's not you. 
You wouldn't kill innocent lifeforms to get this crew home.  Your
decisions, even the irrational ones, have made that clear."  The words
of assurance pour out of me easily.  They're all true.

"From the very beginning, with the Ocampa, you've put the sanctity of
life before the needs of the crew.  It's why you have everyone's
respect. Kathryn, you could never be like Ransom.  Never."

It's not the first time that I have seen her cry, but it is the first
time that she has trusted me enough to see her this vulnerable.  She
sobs into my chest once, then struggles to breathe deeply and evenly. 
I know that she hates this – that she wants to be invincible, that she
thinks that captains shouldn't cry on their XO's shoulders, but I wish
she'd done it years ago. It's healthy.  I stroke her hair like I would
comfort a child.

As she begins to calm down, I smile and add,  "Besides, you have a
much better first officer than Ransom did."

"That's for damned sure," she says, her voice muffled into my tunic. 
If there's anyone that either of us despises more than Ransom, it's
Maxwell.

She pulls away from me then, angrily brushing tears from her eyes.  I
can see that she is still deeply disturbed.

"I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't stepped in," she
whispers.  "It scares me."

"But I did step in, Kathryn.  Don't you see?  It worked the way it was
supposed to.  That's one of the jobs of a first officer – to intervene
when the captain is not thinking straight.  It's a system of checks
and balances."  I lead her back to the couch and sit her down beside
me.

"It's not the first time in Fleet history that it's happened,
Kathryn," I continue.  "And you're under more pressure out here than
most.  You need me more than most captains need their XO's."

"Yet look at how I treated you," she says, guiltily.

"It's all right. Well, it's NOT all right, but you won't do it again,
right?"  I nudge her and she gives me an embarrassed smile, and a
little laugh.

"What matters is that, in the end, it worked.  I stopped you.  You
stepped back, even though you hated me for it.  We got it right, even
if it wasn't pretty."

She bites her lip and shakes her head, looking at me from the corner
of her eye.  "I relieved you of duty.  I was awful."

"And now you've apologized.  We're okay, Kathryn.  Everything is going
to be all right."

She reaches across and touches my face as a tear trickles down her
cheek.  I wipe it away, and she takes my hand and holds it to her
lips.  "I'm sorry," she whispers.  I move my hand over to cup her
chin, then lean over and kiss her, gently. Her mouth is soft and warm
against mine, but we pull apart and sit there quietly, touching
foreheads.  I never imagined that when I finally kissed Kathryn, it
would be a kiss of reassurance and friendship.  And I never thought
that when she looked back at me with tears in her eyes, it would be
gratitude that I saw there rather than love, or passion.  But perhaps
it's better this way.

I've never felt closer to her than I do at this moment, and maybe it's
this level of intimacy that I've wanted all along.  For the first
time, I begin to think that perhaps she is right.  We should not be
romantically involved. But if we can stay this connected, I'll be a
happy man anyway.    As we settle back on the couch, her head on my
shoulder, our feet on the coffee table, what I feel, finally...

...is peace.

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