The BLTS Archive- Sunlight without Warmth
by monkee (wiecek@earthlink.net)

---

This story is a sequel to Kelly's 'Push,' which was a sequel
to Boadicea's 'Safer.' I wanted to give this Janeway and this Chakotay
a happy ending, but found that it just wasn't possible, so I had to
settle for just a little bit of a connection, and maybe just a hint of
hope...

Disclaimers: Paramount owns Star Trek Voyager and all its characters.

---

The problem of what to do about Chakotay seemed to have resolved
itself, she found, when she went downstairs the next morning. Several
of his satchels were sitting by the front door.

She wandered into the kitchen, where she could hear him moving about. 
Sun was pouring through the large windows onto the oak table, the only
piece of furniture in the house that Chakotay had chosen. The air was
cool -- the windows were designed not to let in too much heat in the
summer.

He turned from the counter when she walked in. Neither of them spoke
at first. The events of the last night seemed surreal in the light of
day, but she knew they'd been real enough. She looked closely at his
eyes, but the hatred was gone, at least at the moment. He just looked
resigned. And tired. Turning back to the counter, he poured a cup of
coffee and handed it to her. Their fingers touched briefly in the
exchange. The contact startled her, a little.

"Where will you go?" she asked, turning from him to sit down at the
table.

"Back to Dorvan," he replied.

She nodded, blew gently on her coffee, and took a small sip. She
regarded him over the rim of the cup. He was wearing a pair of simple
beige pants that she didn't recognize, and a cotton shirt with
buttons. He looked good -- better than he looked in the stylized
clothes he'd adopted for special occasions back on Voyager and had
been wearing since they got back. He sat down at the table, adjacent
to her, and she could see the muscles of his thigh shifting beneath
the soft fabric of the pants. She would miss the sex, she thought. It
had almost been enough. Almost.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She stared at him, blankly. "Why?" she asked, after a moment. Perhaps
it should have been obvious, but she thought it unlikely that he was
sorry about last night. He had to be as relieved as she was that
something had happened to put an end to their status quo.

He spoke quietly, without malice.  His hands rested on the table on
either side of his untouched coffee. "For never really knowing you,"
he said. "All those years, and I never bothered to find out who you
were. I made you into what I wanted you to be." He looked down at his
hands. "Or what I thought I wanted you to be," he added.

She shook her head. "You don't even know who you are, Chakotay," she
said.

He raised his eyebrows, but nodded in agreement. He had to know that
was true. He'd played so many roles with her -- Maquis outlaw, freedom
fighter, steadfast XO, devil's advocate, supportive best friend,
spurned would-be lover -- and finally, last night, betrayed husband.
He never had managed to combine all of the roles into one consistent,
coherent whole. Maybe he'd be able to now, without her.

"Why did you marry me, Kathryn?" he asked.

She sighed, and absently shifted her coffee cup on the table. "Getting
home was such an upheaval," she said, "I guess I assumed it would
change everything. Change you. Change me, maybe. But it didn't. Or if
it did, you...you didn't change in ways that I expected. I misread
you, and I'm sorry. We should never have married so quickly."

"What did you expect of me?" he asked, in disbelief. "Did think I
would act like your holograms?"

She sat back in her chair, prepared to leave the room if this was
going to turn into an argument. But he seemed genuinely interested in
her answer.

"Maybe," she admitted. "Don't get me wrong, Chakotay, you're...you're
fine. I just need something else."

"Why didn't you ever tell me?" he asked, a hint of bitterness creeping
into his voice.

She snorted. "That should be fairly obvious, I think. Look at the way
you reacted." She softened her expression and her voice when he
winced. "I know what I like, Chakotay. And I know it isn't for
everyone. I thought that you...but I was wrong. I don't want to make
you uncomfortable. And I certainly don't want you to be disgusted by
me, or to hate me. So it's better this way. You should go back to
Dorvan. Find out who you are and what you want. Find some beautiful
dark-haired woman who can give you what you need."

---

Chakotay said nothing for a while, just absorbing everything she'd
told him. He traced the grain of the oak with his fingers. He'd picked
out this table soon after they'd moved in, but they hardly ever sat in
here. The surface was cool beneath his fingertips, despite the sun
beating down on it. Sunlight without warmth. He hated this house. He'd
never felt quite right here. Just being here had always given him a
cold knot in his chest, and now it was worse.

He considered what she'd just said. He had been disgusted, and hurt,
by what he'd seen on the data chip. And last night he'd found that he
was more than capable of hating Kathryn, and perhaps harming her as
well. But why? Was he so surprised by what he'd seen? In retrospect,
her sexual tastes fit in quite neatly with other aspects of her
personality. He really should have known.

He thought, perhaps, that he didn't hate her at all. He hated himself
when he was with her. He hated what he'd become for her, and,
ironically, she did too.

He didn't like to think about Seska, but now he allowed himself to
recall the sex. Kathryn's data chip had brought it all back to him. He
had been rough with Seska -- had bruised her, marked her skin. He
remembered how she'd arched beneath him, and how her sated cries had
made him feel. Powerful. Satisfied, but also satisfied in knowing that
he'd given her pleasure as well. But then it all blew up in his face,
and he came to believe that the feeling was as wrong as the
relationship had been.

When he'd fallen in love with Kathryn, he wanted to be different.
Noble. When he made love to her, he wanted it to be sacred. Wanted her
to know the depth of his feelings. But perhaps he'd missed something.
Maybe there was a way to have it all -- a compromise that would have
been both exciting and spiritual.  It was probably too late now.

He glanced at her. She was calmly sipping her coffee, watching him,
waiting.

"Do you want a divorce?" he asked.

She blinked in surprise. It was certainly the next logical step -- she
probably hadn't expected him to even ask. She opened her mouth to
reply, then closed it. She looked down at the table, but her eyes were
unfocused. When she spoke, she spoke quietly.

"No," she said. "Unless you...I assumed that you would want..."

He shook his head. "No," he said. "Not yet. We don't have to decide
right away. Right?"

"Right," she replied, sounding uncertain for the first time since all
this had begun.  He thought he understood how she was feeling. A clean
break would have been much simpler, but something in both of them was
unwilling to do it just yet.

He had to go. He had to get away. He had to decide what he was going
to be from now on. And she...she believed that she had all the answers
for herself, but he wasn't so sure. What they'd been through in the
Delta Quadrant had been trauma, pure and simple, and she'd only begun
to come to terms with it. She'd be facing it without having him around
as a buffer now. He worried for her, briefly -- mired in bureaucracy
in her office at HQ, sitting alone in this sterile house, feeling only
what her holograms made her feel a few hours a week. It wasn't
healthy. She may not realize it yet, but she needed more in her life
if she was ever to be whole again. She needed the spirituality and the
connection that he'd wanted to give her.

Someday, perhaps.

He scraped his chair back and got to his feet. "Well," he said, "my
transport leaves at 0800 from headquarters. I'd better get going."

He didn't expect her to get up, but she did. She moved to stand
directly in front of him. The corners of her mouth turned up in a
familiar half grin that made him ache, but there was sadness in her
eyes. She started to reach out to him tentatively, then pulled back
briefly before finally resting her hand on his chest.  "Goodbye,
Chakotay," she said, softly.

He exhaled sharply, then rested his forehead on hers. They stood that
way together, motionless, for several moments. He breathed evenly and
deeply to keep from crying, and to memorize how it felt to be close to
her. This wasn't over. Their lives were too inexorably linked. He
reached up slowly to stroke her hair. She remained still, and he knew
that they were both aware of the contrast between the gesture now, and
the violent way he'd grabbed her last night. She reached up, took his
hand, and kissed it gently before releasing him.

"Goodbye, Kathryn," he whispered. He turned to leave, but stopped at
the doorway.  "Take care of yourself," he added, softly.

"I always do," she replied.

He took one last glance at her before turning away. He couldn't help
thinking that, standing in the middle of the sun-drenched room, she
looked cool, and small. And very much alone.

---

The End