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In the end, the only difficult thing about the whole situation, was that he had, actually, been in love with Leigh.
Unfortunately, the only thing worse than breaking her heart would have been breaking Kathryn’s.
=/\=
Being on the same planet with his long-lost older sister had its perks, but for Chakotay, Sekaya’s nonstop interest in his love life wasn’t one of them. Her opinion of Seven had been particularly harsh, and even after he ended that short lived relationship, Sekaya consistently pestered him about setting him up with someone.
Finally, he caved. He had to go to yet another formal Starfleet event, and didn’t relish going on his own. “Fine.”
“What kind of woman do you want?” Sekaya asked.
“I don’t know. Something different,” he said.
“Different than Seven?” Sekaya clarified.
“Yes,” he said. Although that wasn’t actually the face that had been in his mind.
“In what way?” Sekaya pressed.
“I don’t know,” he said frustrated. “Just different.”
He suffered through a date with a stunning but silly holoactress, and then another with a shy preschool teacher who could only talk about the medical issues of her 12 pet iguanas. In both cases he wanted to leave after 10 minutes.
“Did you really think either of those women would suit me?” he challenged Sekaya.
“How can I know what you want if you don’t tell me?” she said, and her question was so overly innocent he had a suspicion the bad matches had been deliberate.
“Fine,” he said with a sigh. “I want someone not in Starfleet, someone with some emotional maturity, and someone I don’t have to guess with. That’s what I mean by different. But yes, smart and beautiful would be nice too.”
“Finally!” Sekaya said triumphantly. She went quiet for a moment and then said with absolute confidence. “You need Leigh. I think she might be perfect for you.”
And his sister had been right. He met Leigh Kutila for the first time at an art exhibit of work inspired by Voyager’s mission. Leigh was a designer of educational holoprograms and a sculptor. She had the most beautiful mouth Chakotay had ever seen and a mass of ink-dark curls. Objectively speaking, her nose was a little large and there might have been a bit too much sand in her hourglass figure, but somehow those qualities just added to her appeal – abundance seemed an apt descriptor of so much about her. And after years of fighting to survive – emotionally and physically - abundance was a particularly appealing quality in a woman.
She walked right up to him and wrapped her arm around his, beaming up at him with a sparkle in her heavy lashed dark eyes. “You are just as delicious in person! I’m so happy you agreed to come.”
She was enthusiastic about the art, and was generous in her evaluation of it, even in critique. She asked thoughtful questions about his time in the Delta Quadrant and the Maquis, but seemed to know how to back off of any subject that made him unsettled. Forty minutes in he cracked a joke and she laughed – the sound was so luscious that that it turned several heads, and Chakotay felt a heady mix of pride and pleasure that such an interesting woman was on his arm.
He kissed her that night, but they didn’t actually sleep together until much later. “I don’t share my body unless I share my heart,” she’d warned him on their third date, clearly worried it would send him running. When, in fact, her ability to have emotionally intelligent conversations about her expectations only served to make her more attractive.
After six months, because she was a genuinely good listener, he finally told her, just a little bit, about Kathryn. About promises not quite made, and not quite kept, and having to keep their emotions in check for years.
“I could never have done that,” Leigh said, looking thoughtful. “I guess I’m not as tough as your Captain Janeway.”
“I doubt anyone is,” he responded, imagining Kathryn staring down the Kazon on the bridge of Voyager. When his attention came back to the woman in front of him, Leigh’s face held a sad, worried expression. Chakotay brushed his knuckles over the curve of her cheek, reveled in the way her expression softened at his touch. “But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
When, after nine months, he mentioned he was planning to move out of his sterile Starfleet issued quarters, Leigh offered to let him move in. He agreed – having no good reason why he shouldn’t - and found it easy to slip into the soft, warm, comfortable house, and life, she offered him. They went to museums, read poetry, cooked together, and spent hours curled up on the couch of her sunny front porch.
She was the perfect woman for him.
Well, almost.
Almost.
=/\=
Kathryn had thought watching him with Seven was the worst that it could get.
She’d been wrong.
Despite the older version of herself claiming that Chakotay and Seven married someday, the versions of them in this timeline had never quite seemed to fit. At the few events they’d all attended together, there had been an awkwardness to their regard for each other, and Kathryn had been relieved, but not surprised, when she heard it had ended after only a few months in the Alpha Quadrant.
She should have acted then. But she was nervous, and didn’t want to swoop in prematurely. Then the diplomatic mission to Romulus had come along, and by the time she’d returned and finally saw Chakotay at a reception hosted by Admiral Paris, he had someone new in his life.
A woman that B’Elanna claimed had been really good for him.
A woman who whispered in his ear and made him laugh.
A woman whom he pulled close when they danced, setting his head against her glossy dark curls.
A woman he stayed beside for the entire first half of the reception – always somehow on the other side of the room from his former captain.
Kathryn was the one who had to put herself in front of him.
“Hello, Chakotay.”
“Hello, Admiral.” he said. His expression was carefully neutral, and he didn’t really look at her. “I didn’t know you were back.”
“Just yesterday,” she said. Her eyes slid to his companion, and she heard him sigh.
“Kathryn this is Leigh Kutila. Leigh this is Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway.” His voice was pleasant, but she could hear the tension in it. But that wasn’t what really bothered Kathryn, what bothered her was that this other woman put a gentle hand on his shoulder at hearing that tension.
“I’m happy to meet you, Admiral,” the woman said, and, if her smile was careful, it was also genuine. “Chakotay has told me about what a wonderful captain you were.”
Kathryn raised an eyebrow. Was that true? Did he talk about her so freely and easily with this lovely new girlfriend of his? “That’s good to hear,” she lied. The idea made her stomach turn – even if she’d found someone new, she doubted she could have ever been blasé about Chakotay.
As if reading Kathryn’s mind, Leigh added, “When I can get him to talk about you at all.” And there was something knowing in the way she said it, and in the way she met Kathryn’s appraisal with her own.
Add “irritatingly perceptive” to the qualities of this other woman.
Damnit.
Yes, watching him with what could very well be the right woman was far worse than watching him with the wrong one had been.
And when, from across the room, Kathryn saw him smile that beautiful smile of his and drop a kiss to Leigh’s perfect mouth, she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
She wanted to run from the room sobbing, and maybe throw a few things for good measure. But she was Kathryn Janeway, so she made polite goodbyes and calmly strolled out – and if a tear, or two, or ten, made its way down her face as she left the room and walked down the front steps of the building in her uncomfortable heels, well, there was no one there to see it.
At least she thought there wasn’t.
“Kathryn!”
=/\=
When he’d looked up from kissing Leigh, he’d seen Kathryn’s expression. She’d turned her eyes away, but he swore that what he saw there was devastation.
He was half convinced he’d imagined it, but then she’d walked past them without saying goodbye, and he watched her pinch the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. It was how she wiped her eyes when she was trying to pretend she wasn’t crying.
Chakotay froze, unable to tear his gaze away from his former captain as she disappeared from the room.
“Chakotay?”
He pulled his eyes back to Leigh, registering the unease, the grief, in her usually buoyant voice. Closing his eyes, his chin dropped to his chest. This was the woman he’d just kissed, the woman he lived with, the woman who’d been making him smile and laugh and, yes, even love, for months now.
“If you want to go after her, I’ll understand,” Leigh said, taking a step back from him. She took a deep shaking breath. “But we will be done.”
He hesitated for a moment.
Later on, he wished he could go back and explain to Leigh just how much even that brief window of reluctance had been a testament to how amazing she was. How, even in those first heady weeks of loving Kathryn Janeway, there were still moments when he missed Leigh – and there was no greater compliment than that.
He put a hand to Leigh’s face. “You don’t deserve this.”
She gave a sad smile. “But you do – which is why I’ll forgive you someday.”
He took one more second to kiss her forehead, and murmur, “I’m sorry,” before he turned and headed for the door.
Kathryn was almost at the bottom of the stairs when he called her name, and when she turned, he saw that her face was wet with tears.
Tilting her head, she stared up at him as he reached her. She looked tired, sad, but there was also a sort of …fondness, maybe... in her expression. “What are you doing, Chakotay?”
He didn’t answer her question, and he had to catch his breath as he returned a question of his own. “Why are you crying?”
She cleared her throat. “You don’t have to babysit me anymore. You should go back to...”
Babysit her? She certainly hadn’t gotten any less frustrating in the Alpha Quadrant. Grabbing her shoulders he said, “Kathryn, two minutes ago I walked out on one of the kindest, loveliest women I’ve ever known, just because she isn’t you. So, please, answer my question.”
“You walked out on her?” Kathryn asked. He might have shaken her in exasperation if the question hadn’t also come with her putting a hand on his chest.
“Yes,” Chakotay said, and decided that if he was expecting her to be honest about her feelings he could do the same. “Leigh and I have been together over a year – she’s amazing. And I left her standing back there in that ridiculous ballroom on the off chance that you might be crying over me. So, are you?”
She clenched her jaw, took a deep breath, and with a little wrinkle between her eyebrows said, “Yes.”
He blinked. “Yes?”
Rolling her eyes slightly, she said, “I’ve loved you for years, and missed you every single day for the last 18 months, then had to watch you kiss some woman who looks like she came out of a holonovel. Of course I was crying over you.”
She’d missed him every day? “You could have said something.”
Her wry smile, the one he’d loved for years appeared. “I think I just did.”
“You’re going to kill me,” he muttered, right before his lips crashed into hers with as much exasperation as desire. He tasted her tears and gentled his mouth, marveling that he was finally kissing, if not the perfect woman, then the right one.