Chapter Text
Set sometime in Season 2
“Love, which absolves no one beloved from loving, seized me so strongly with his charm that, as you see, it has not left me yet.
“Kathryn, in anticipation of our marriage and a lifetime together… Justin.”
Chakotay, who began reading the hand-written passage from Dante's Inferno aloud, finds himself trailing off towards the end, his smile faltering.
He looks up to find Kathryn is now watching him closely. Carefully. He doesn't need to ask who Justin is… was . He can see it in her eyes.
“I'm sorry,” he closes the book carefully, “I shouldn't have been going through your things.”
“It's alright,” she says softly, and he knows it's the truth.
“You were engaged,” he surmises, “Before Mark?”
Kathryn crosses her quarters slowly, without any rush, delicately taking the book from Chakotay's hands, and glancing down at the inscription. Her fingers trace along the ink penned words. “Sometimes it feels like another life,” her voice is barely a whisper. “I met Justin in my early twenties, during my first long-distance posting.”
“Did you end up marrying him?” he can't help but ask.
“No,” she rasps, and he can tell from the sad smile which she manages that it didn't end well. “He died in the same shuttle crash which claimed my father.”
The surprise must show on his face. He knew his captain was strong and resilient; compassionate. He hadn't considered that a personal tragedy might have contributed to shaping her this way. “That must have been devastating,” he empathizes.
Kathryn takes a breath in reverence of a long ago memory, and then she closes the book. In an instant the moment has passed. She replaces the binding on her shelf and pats his forearm, “We all have our tragedies, Chakotay. Experiences in life which shake us. Mold us. Where it doesn't break us, we come back stronger.”
“And the places which do tear and break?” he asks, but he knows loss, knows devastation; he already knows her answer.
She glances over at him. “I suppose they callus over time. Heal over… but it's never the same, is it?”
“I suppose,” he echoes, his eyes following after her as she makes her way back to the dining area.
There was a time where he would have agreed with her wholeheartedly. There was a time when he was a torn and broken man himself, his wounds wrapped in a protective armor of fury and hatred. But something has changed in him over time. Since Voyager. Since her .
His wounds have scarred and the tissue softened. His chest doesn't feel so tight, and it's been getting easier to breathe.
Before Kathryn he didn't think it was possible to feel anything good again. With her, he now believes anything is possible.
Could it be that the same woman who has made him whole and at peace, still hasn't found it for herself?
Kathryn doesn't give him a chance to dwell on the thought. She distracts him with dinner and wine and deep, thoughtful conversation. It's the first time she's invited him to dine in her quarters, but from the ease in which they talk and interact, he doesn't think this will be the last time. He hopes not at least.
Later, when he's readying to leave, he hangs back a moment in the doorway. “Thank you for dinner, Captain,” he says politely, formally, and then, leaning in slightly he adds, “And thank you for sharing your story with me, at least part of it. I hope you'll tell me about both of them someday. Your father. And Justin.”
She smiles softly, holding his gaze. “Someday,” she promises.
Someday.