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It’s been 48 hours since Kashyk left the ship and she still hasn’t come.
He’s seen her, of course, as the daily rhythms of Voyager have begun to reassert themselves. Briefings. The mess hall. The cadence of their days falling back into well-established routines. He resolved to give her time and space, but is acutely aware how too much of such things will push Kathryn Janeway to isolation and self-recrimination. How quickly she can convince herself that grace is not something that she is allowed to avail herself of. As he chops the vegetables in front of him, he resolves that he will give her one more day, and then go to her.
When the door chimes, Chakotay doesn’t open the door like it’s a moment. He opens it like it’s the Tuesday that it is, and like she’s a person who gets to exist here without being examined, evaluated, boarded, or outgunned.
He gestures her into the room with a quiet tilt of his head. No comments about being glad to see her. No questions. No “are you okay?”, forcing her to pick a shape for whatever’s inside her.
She enters, and he steps out of the door’s sensor range and it swishes quietly behind him, shutting out the corridor, and he hopes, the insistent need of the ship on her shoulders, at least for a short while.
She’s still in her uniform, and he can tell that her hair has been subject to whatever emotions are roiling around in her psyche. She once told him the reason she wore it so tightly marshalled when it was longer was, in part, to deter her from tearing it out in a crisis. Since she has begun wearing it shorter, he will often come upon her in her ready room, head supported and hands tangled as she sorts through the crisis-du-jour.
“I’m making dinner,” he says, voice low. “Neelix put aside some fresh vegetables from tonight’s aeroponics rations. I replicated the rest of the raw materials. Vegetable risotto.”
Janeway’s gaze flicks towards the kitchenette, taking in the cutting board and steam rising from the cooktop.
“Smells like someone is intending to attempt peace in the quadrant using arborio rice,” she murmurs.
Chakotay’s mouth quirks. “I’m trying diplomacy.”
She stands there another second, still carrying the posture of someone who can’t afford to have their hands empty or their mind stilled as he moves back toward the small kitchenette. He hears her as she exhales, and crosses to the small island opposite the two-burner cooktop. She goes to the stool that is, habitually, pulled out awaiting her presence.
Without asking, he pours a heavy portion of wine into a stemless glass and sets it down where her hand will find it without reaching. Janeway takes it without looking at him.
She sits.
Chakotay moves back to the cooktop, stirring slowly, back half-turned so she can decide if she wants to be seen, and for a while, the only sound is the soft scrape of the wooden spoon, and the quiet hiss as stock meets heat.
When she finally speaks, her voice is dead and heavy.
“I hate him,” she says.
Chakotay doesn’t react like it’s unexpected. He just keeps stirring. “Mm.”
“I hate that I—” She stops and takes a generous slug of wine.“I hate that it worked.”
Chakotay sets the spoon down.
He turns slightly, enough that she can see his face if she wants to, but not so much that it feels like an interrogation.
“It worked because you’re good at your job,” he says.
Janeway’s laugh is short and sharp and doesn’t reach her eyes. “No. It worked because he knew how to look for the seams. And because… I played my part. Maybe too well.”
Chakotay nods once, slow. “We all played our part, Kathryn.”
At the sound of her name, her eyes lift to his, and for the first time since she came in, there’s something fully unguarded there.
“I didn’t have time to warn you,” she says. “Not the way I wanted. And the worst part is, I knew you’d read me anyway. I knew you’d track every beat of it. And I still—” She swallows. “I still let it happen.”
Chakotay leans a hip against the counter across from her. “Kathryn. We weren’t helpless, or clueless.”
She looks down and worries the wine glass in her hands.
He continues gently. “Tuvok and I knew what we were doing. We knew what you were doing. We set the board together. And then we played a game where the rules changed every thirty seconds.”
Janeway’s knuckles whiten around the glass as she takes another deep draw from its contents.
“He kissed me.”
Chakotay’s face doesn’t change, but something in him tightens and it feels as visceral as bracing for impact during a red alert. Janeway, for her part, rushes, as if she needs to get it out before she loses her nerve..
“I let him. And I—” her voice catches, then hardens, “—I kissed him back.”
Silence expands between them. He’s surprised by the open confession. But, he lets the silence breathe. He doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t ask for details. He doesn’t demand reassurance. He forces himself to relax and wait, hoping he is signalling safety for her, and not mirroring the judgement she is so obviously placing on herself.
Finally, “You did what you had to do, Kathryn. We all did. And, it kept those people alive.”
Janeway’s jaw tenses. “I know. Intellectually, I know…” She looks down at the dark red in the glass like it might offer a verdict. “But it’s not the act. In the moment, I was so sure, Chakotay. It’s the aftermath.”
He reaches to her, in a bolder move than what is typical between them, and gently lifts her chin so she will look at him.
She blinks, eyes swimming.
“What concerns you about the aftermath?” He asks gently.
She gestures vaguely, her voice quiet, smaller. “I don’t know. You. The crew. The way I behaved with him so openly on practically every deck of this ship.”
She doesn’t tell him about the hot baths and endless showers. How nothing seems to make her feel clean, again.
“About what we think of you?”
She nods once, looks down to her wine again, unable to hold his gaze.
The pan on the stove begins to pop and sizzle in warning. Chakotay pushes off the counter and returns to tend it.
“In part.”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Don’t I?” She huffs derisively, “I keep replaying the moments where I thought I had him,” she admits. “And the moments where he most certainly had me— then the moments where I nearly forgot the game we were playing and I can’t—” She shakes her head once, frustrated. “I can’t reconcile what I felt for him in those moments when he…” she trails off.
Chakotay glances at her. “The moments when he lied well?”
Janeway’s eyes flash. “The moments when I liked it. Enjoyed the give and take. The kiss—“ she stops, considering her next words “—it wasn’t completely without sincerity.”
The confession hangs there. The disgust she aims at herself is palpable. As if liking any part of it means she’s accepting of all Kashyk is.
Chakotay turns the heat down a fraction, then faces her more fully.
“That doesn’t make you complicit,” he says. “It makes you human.”
Janeway scoffs. “That’s a generous assessment.”
“It’s accurate.”
She stares at his back, as he turns to tend their dinner, marveling at how sure he is of her. How steadfast his faith in her continues to be, even still. It bolsters her to push forward.
“I knew he was studying me,” she says quietly. “My music. My coffee. My history. He was building an internal model, like a predator. And I still—” She swallows. “There were moments where I forgot to be angry or even on guard.” She drains her glass. “Moments I craved it.”
He turns back to her, voice calm. “Because he wasn’t only a predator. He was also intelligent. Curious. Charming.” He raises a hand slightly, preempting her protest. “And he used that charm like a tool. That’s what made it effective. And, as distasteful as you may find it now, you countered just as effectively.”
Janeway’s shoulders drop a millimeter, like he’s just lifted something off her that she didn’t know she’d been holding alone.
“I hate that he got close,” she whispers.
Chakotay nods. “Of course you do.”
Then, more softly, because despite not wanting to wring anything else from her, he needs a modicum of reassurance for himself, “Do you hate that you couldn’t talk with me about it as much as I hated not being able to talk to you?”
Janeway’s gaze flicks to his, her eyes sharp and fierce like he’s twisted a knife into a wound she hardly realized she had.
“Yes,” she says. Thinking about the nights where her fingers itched to hit her combadge and call him to her. Her voice is gravel. “I couldn’t even give you a look without risking—”
“Without risking him knowing the depth of your act.” Chakotay finishes as he refills her glass.
Janeway nods once, hard. Barely letting herself consider how much Kashyk would have seen had she faltered for so much as a nano-second where her first officer was concerned.
Chakotay’s expression shifts, something firm beneath the gentleness.
“You don’t have to earn your way back into the crew,” he says. “Or back to me.”
She looks away again, trying to keep the emotion from spilling over.
“I know,” she says, “But I still feel like I should have—” She stops, frustration biting. “I don’t know. Prevented it. Seen it earlier. Controlled it better.”
Chakotay busies himself with turning off the heat and spooning portions of risotto into bowls. He sets one in front of her without ceremony, and puts a spoon down on the right like he’s done it a hundred times.
Then he sits—not across from her, but beside, angled, sharing the same side of the world.
“Kathryn,” he says, low, “you didn’t lose.”
“Tell that to the part of me that still feels his mouth on mine.”
Chakotay doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t look away.
“That part isn’t shame,” he says. “It’s your body remembering a boundary that was crossed in the middle of a crisis that you had to indulge instead of hold.”
Kathryn’s eyes finally spill over. She hates it. She hates being seen. She wants him to be as angry at her as she is at herself, and she is eternally grateful that he is the man he has always been, lifting the weight of this burden so she can just let herself breathe.
Chakotay keeps his hands on the table, not reaching. Not assuming.
“You need a safe space?” he asks quietly. “This is one. As always. No report. No analysis. No ‘lessons learned.’ Just a room where you don’t have to be the Captain for ten minutes.”
Kathryn stares at her bowl, examining it like a specimen to be dissected, and finally releases her wine glass. Flexing her fingers.
“I don’t want the crew to see me,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t stand the way they’ll look– Either like I’m dirty or, worse, like I’m some sort of hero. And I’m neither.”
Chakotay’s answer is immediate. “Then don’t. Not tonight.”
Her throat bobs as she wipes at her eyes..
“I just—” she starts, then stops. Her breath shakes once. “I needed somewhere to put it.”
Chakotay nods, slow and steady. “Put it here.”
He nudges his own bowl a little closer, a wordless we’re sharing the table; you’re not alone.
She picks up her spoon like she’s relearning how to be a person who eats food. She takes one bite. Chews. Swallows.
“It’s good,” she says, and the fact that she can say anything normal feels like a victory.
Chakotay exhales, almost amused. “Thank you.”
A moment passes. The ship hums around them, distant and comforting.
Kathryn’s voice, softer now: “Did you ever doubt me?”
Chakotay turns his head just enough to meet her eyes.
“No,” he says. “I worried about you. I watched. I tracked the patterns as much as I could. I hated that you had to do it.” His gaze holds. “But, I didn’t doubt you.”
“Ok.” She accepts, then, “I’m so tired, Chakotay.”
“Then eat. And sit. And let the universe run without you for a few hours.” He offers.
She nods once, and for the first time in days, she doesn’t look like someone bracing for the next boarding party.
They eat slowly, trading the occasional comment about the risotto—too much stock, not enough salt, Neelix would argue either way—and then fall into a quiet that isn’t empty. It’s the kind that stretches because neither of them wants to be the first to stand up and signal that the evening is over.
Kathryn is the one who finally kicks her boots off.
It isn’t deliberate. One heel catches the edge of the stool, and she gives it a small, impatient shove with her other toe. The boot slides away and thumps softly against the wall of the island. She freezes for half a second, like she’s broken an unspoken rule. Then kicks off the other, letting it thump unceremoniously next to its partner.
Chakotay doesn’t comment—just reaches down with his own foot and nudges both boots far enough away to not be a hazard, and refills both of their wine glasses.
She shrugs out of her uniform jacket next. The fabric slides from her shoulders, and she folds it with more care than strictly necessary, setting it over the back of the chair instead of dropping it, as if she needs the reminder that she can still be orderly. Still herself.
She wraps her fingers back around her wine glass.
“Couch?” he offers, nodding toward it. Picking up his own glass and leading the way.
She hesitates, then nods once and slides down from the stool.
The couch is close enough that she doesn’t have to cross the room, but the distance still feels significant. She glances at the shelf built into the wall, grateful that he shares her desire to hold ink on paper and scans the spines without really seeing them, pulling one free at random. A book she’s read before. One she doesn’t need to concentrate on. When she sits, she chooses the corner.
Chakotay doesn’t crowd her. He sits at the other end, angled toward her, one arm resting along the back.
She opens the book and lets it rest on her lap, eyes scanning pages she doesn’t read, her thumb pressed between them like a placeholder for a moment she’s not ready to move past.
Chakotay watches her, then says quietly, “You don’t have to perform normal for me.”
She swallows, but doesn’t look up. “I’m not.” Then, softer: “I just… don’t want to ask.”
“For what?”
She finally lifts her eyes to his. There’s a flicker of uncertainty there that rarely survives long enough to be seen.
“To stay.”
Chakotay doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he puts his glass on the low table and shifts closer to her, then reaches out.
“May I?”
Her gaze drops to his hand. She nods.
He reaches for the collar of her roll neck, fingers brushing the fabric near her throat. One pip comes free with a soft click. Then two. Three. Four. He sets them reverently on the table, side by side.
Kathryn exhales.
“Just tonight,” she says, as if she needs to qualify it.
“Of course,” Chakotay says easily. “Just tonight.”
She closes the book and sets it aside, admitting that she never meant to read it. She props her feet on the table, leaning back into the couch.
Chakotay shifts closer. Not much. Enough that his shoulder is there if she needs it. She does. Just a gradual tilt, like gravity finally has permission to do its job and her head rests against his shoulder. Her eyes close.
Neither of them speaks.
Outside the viewport, the stars slide past. Inside Kathryn Janeway lets herself be still.
Morning comes quietly.
Not with a red alert, not with a chime from the comm, just the slow rise of automated lights and another day setting into motion.
Kathryn wakes first.
For a moment, she doesn’t remember where she is. There’s warmth at her back, steady and human and the weight of an arm wrapped securely around her waist, ensuring she doesn’t fall from the narrow couch.
Then memory slides back into place.
Chakotay accepting her like she had nothing to atone for. Risotto and wine. Silence she didn’t have to fill.
She stays still. Momentarily fretting over her presumption in asking to stay. Then she listens to his breathing, slow and even, and lets herself enjoy the stolen moment of peace as Voyager hums quietly around them. Eventually, she shifts, rises.
Her boots are still where she kicked them off last night. She slips her feet into them silently. Reaches for her uniform jacket from the chair and shrugs it on. She turns back toward Chakotay on the couch, and catches the glimmer of metal resting on the coffee table.
Her pips.
She crosses back over, picking them up one at a time. The weight of them feels different this morning—not heavier, not lighter. Just, familiar again. She pins them back on with precise movements, the ritual grounding her.
When she straightens, she’s Captain Janeway again. She looks back toward the couch
Chakotay is awake now. He must have been for a minute or two—watching the quiet way she moves, reading the shift in the room without intruding on it.
“Morning,” he says softly.
“Morning.”
Her voice is steady. Warm, but measured.
She picks up the abandoned book and sets it back on the shelf, aligning it carefully with the others.
“Thank you,” she says, finally. No qualifiers. No elaboration.
Chakotay nods once. “Anytime.”
There’s a pause—one last opening where the night could reach forward and tug.
Janeway doesn’t let it.
She meets his eyes instead, so much unspoken passing between them.
“I should get to the bridge,” she says.
He stands as she heads for the door, stopping just out of the sensor range, shoulders squared but not rigid, she turns.
“Commander?”
He meets her eyes.
“I couldn’t have done any of it without you,” she says, “Not the strategy. Not the aftermath.”
“You’ll never have to, Captain.” He says, softly renewing an old promise.
She smiles gently, steps toward the door, and it swishes open. The corridor greets her with familiar efficiency— Janeway steps back into it. The door closes behind her with a quiet, ordinary sound
Inside, Chakotay gives himself the opportunity to digest the evening. He straightens the cushions. Clears the dishes. Resets the space without erasing it.
Another day in the Delta Quadrant awaits.