ugly bag of mostly voyager

VII. The Freckles In Our Eyes

 

Seven opened an overhead storage locker, found a blanket and came over to wrap it around Kathryn’s shoulders. Kathryn looked up at her gratefully, squeezing her hand for a moment. “Thank you, Seven,” she said, then smiled around at the others. “Thank you all.”

 

“Anything for you, Admiral,” Tom returned, finding it a lot easier to look at her now that she’d covered up. Not that he hadn’t preferred the view before.

 

“Seven, help me get Chakotay into the aft section,” Kathryn ordered. “I need to take care of his phaser wound.”

 

“I’m fine,” Chakotay protested.

 

Kathryn sent him an even look. “You need medical attention. And besides, I think it’s time we had a little chat, don’t you?”

 

“Yes, ma’am,” he said resignedly. Seven offered her arm and he took it, limping into the Flyer’s rear compartment. She deposited him on one of the narrow bunks, handed Kathryn a medkit and disappeared back into the forward section.

 

Chakotay stretched his leg out and Kathryn crouched on the floor in front of him, prodding at the edges of his wound none too gently. He tried not to flinch, and distracted himself from the pain by wondering how long it would take the blanket to slip from her shoulders. The hasty knot she’d tied was already losing structural cohesion.

 

Eventually she decided he’d suffered enough – at least physically – and took out a dermal regenerator, running it over the burn. Chakotay waited for her to start tearing strips off him. But she remained silent, and finally he couldn’t stand it.

 

“Go ahead and say it.”

 

She glanced up at him briefly. “Say what?”

 

“Whatever it is you’ve been wanting to say to me ever since you remembered who you are.”

 

She switched settings to begin the deep-tissue regeneration. “Oh, it’s nothing really.”

 

“Kathryn…”

 

“I was just wondering if all that down there on Stameris was enough for you.”

 

He looked at her blankly. “Enough?”

 

“Yes. Enough revenge. Enough payback.”

 

“I’m sorry, Kathryn, I’m not understanding you.”

 

“For all the wrongs I’ve done you.” She dialled the regenerator to the epidermal setting. “How did you put it? Oh, that’s right. For doing exactly as I please, and to hell with anybody who gets hurt in the process. For playing with your feelings for the sake of my ego.” She finished healing his skin and placed the instrument precisely in its slot in the medkit, rising to her feet. He looked up at her and realised she was trembling with anger. “Well played, Chakotay. I concede this round decisively to you.”

 

He stared at her. “Are you serious?”

 

She shot him an unreadable look and turned away to pack the medkit in a storage locker.

 

“You are serious,” he marvelled. Flexing his leg, he got to his feet carefully; she’d done a thorough job and only a twinge of pain remained. “Do you honestly believe I came out here, involved three of our friends in a dangerous mission, risked a conflict with the goddamned Orion Syndicate, just so I could take some kind of personal revenge on you?” His voice was rising with each word. “You really are a piece of work, Kathryn.”

 

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” she shot back heatedly, beginning to pace.

 

“Then for pity’s sake, would you please enlighten me?”

 

She stopped pacing in front of him, her body taut with tension, hands clenched at her sides. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. I’m talking about you renting me. What the hell was that, Chakotay?”

 

“You’d gone missing,” he retorted. “I had to make contact with you, and booking a – a session with you was the only way.”

 

“Not that!” she yelled directly in his face. “I’m not talking about that! I’m talking about what you did to me!”

 

To her surprise, Chakotay’s eyes slid away from hers and a flush worked its way up from his collar. “What I did was wrong,” he said to his feet.

 

“And now you regret it?” There was a tremor in her voice that she hadn’t intended to be there, a tightness in her chest. Kathryn swallowed hard. I will not cry, she berated herself.

 

He was silent.

 

“Well?” she demanded. There, better. Anger is much better than tears.

 

“No,” he said quietly. “I don’t regret it.”

 

“Because you won.”

 

“I won?” It wasn’t the first time Chakotay had felt a little lost and bewildered while in conversation with Kathryn, but this was particularly disorienting. “What did I win?”

 

“The contest. The battle. Whatever you want to call this game we’ve been playing for three years, or I guess for ten years, although I admit I wasn’t actually aware we were in competition in the Delta quadrant. I had a few other things on my mind.”

 

She turned back to him and Chakotay realised that her cheekbones were flushed, her eyes suspiciously bright, her lips trembling. And suddenly he understood. “You think I made you orgasm so I could hold it over you somehow? So I could feel like I’d beaten you?”

 

She said nothing, just lifted her chin higher, and he watched her throat work as she swallowed.

 

“You are unbelievable,” he said softly. “I’ve been feeling guilty for taking advantage of you when you weren’t yourself, and you’re telling me you think I played you?”

 

He stepped closer and took her hands in his. She snatched them away. “Oh no, I’m not falling for it again, Chakotay.”

 

Chakotay shook his head. “I’m not playing with you, Kathryn.”

 

“Oh, really?” She glared at him. “What was all that kissing and touching about in the waiting area after the auction, then? What did you think you were doing with me in that storage room?” She folded her arms and her makeshift cloak came perilously close to slipping off completely. “You took advantage of the fact that I find you physically attractive.”

 

“You do?” A smile twitched at his lips. “Well, Kathryn, I happen to find you physically attractive, too.”

 

The glare became steely. “Just because we have some kind of chemistry didn’t give you the right to – to …”

 

“To make you come so hard your whole body was shaking?” he offered, unsuccessfully hiding a smirk. “Twice?”

 

“Oh, shut up!” she cried. “Yes! Okay, you want to know if I wanted you? Yes, I did. I do. You want me too. So what? It doesn’t mean anything.”

 

“Didn’t you hear what I said to you last night?” Chakotay raked a hand through his hair in frustration. “You asked me – I mean, Róisín asked me - if Kathryn was someone I loved. I said yes.”

 

She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

 

“I didn’t just want your body, Kathryn, although I admit I’ve dreamed about making love to you in every conceivable position and location, virtually every day since we met. I love you.”

 

He reached for her hands again, and this time she let him take them. His voice was gentle when he spoke again. “I love you, Kathryn,” he repeated, tugging her toward him. When she didn’t resist, he placed a finger under her chin and tipped her face up to his. “I love you,” he said again, and her lips parted and he kissed her.

 

The blanket finally slipped from her shoulders, but he didn’t take advantage of her sudden exposure. He kept one hand on her face and the other looped around her waist as he kissed her slowly, lightly, tenderly. When he eventually pulled back, she kept her eyes closed for a moment, her lips still parted and her face upturned as though in her mind she was still kissing him. Her eyes, when she opened them, were darker than he’d ever seen them. Chakotay brushed a thumb across her lower lip and her mouth curved into a smile. “Hey,” he said, answering her smile with one of his own.

 

“Hi,” she said in a voice so low and throaty that he felt it throughout his body, in all the places he wanted her to touch him.

 

“Are you still angry?”

 

She shook her head.

 

“Do you forgive me?”

 

She bit her lip as though hesitating, then grinned at him. “Yes.”

 

He kissed her again, letting his fingers trace the bones of her shoulders, the lines of her arms, and this time when they broke apart she was a little out of breath. “Do you forgive me?” she asked.

 

“For what?”

 

“For seven years of holding you at arms’ length.”

 

“I was never really angry with you, Kathryn,” he said softly. “Angry at fate, maybe. There were times when it felt incredibly unfair that I was in love with you.”

 

Her eyes lowered. “I happen to have a pretty good understanding of the unfairness of the universe myself.”

 

Chakotay looked at her quizzically, and she tried to explain. “I think the real reason I was so mad at you for, uh, doing the things you did with Róisín is because I was jealous.”

 

“Kathryn Janeway, that makes absolutely no sense at all.”

 

She smacked his chest, lightly, then sobered. “Róisín got to be with you in a way I’ve thought and dreamed about for years. I mean, I’ve fantasised about you for so long that I can’t even remember what it was like to be with anyone else, and there hasn’t been any point in trying to meet someone new because I never could get you out of my mind.”

 

“You fantasised about me?” Chakotay was looking at her with an expression that was a cross between affection and amazement.

 

“In every conceivable position and location, virtually every day since we met.”

 

He kissed her again. This time his hands were bolder, roaming over her breasts, her hips, the inside of her thigh, and she was squirming in his arms and gasping for breath when he raised his head.

 

“So you see,” she managed when she’d gulped enough air to speak, “why I was jealous of Róisín. You knew you were really with me when you were touching me and driving me crazy with that mouth of yours, but I didn’t. The one time I got to make my fantasies come true, I didn’t even know it.”

 

“Well, there’s only one way to fix that,” Chakotay murmured, tugging her down onto the bunk and rolling her under him. “Let’s act out a few of your fantasies we didn’t have time for yesterday.”

 

=/\=

​

All had fallen quiet in the aft section.

 

“Do you think they’ve murdered each other?” Tom whispered.

 

There was a muffled giggle, then a feminine moan echoed clearly through the open doorway. B’Elanna exchanged a raised eyebrow with her husband.

 

“Oh God,” they heard Kathryn gasp, and Seven got up and pressed the panel beside the door, letting it slide shut.

 

“I believe the Admiral and the Captain have elected not to engage in grievous bodily harm,” she said calmly, then added, “They may be saving that part for later.”

 

B’Elanna burst out laughing, and Tom turned back to the helm with a wide, satisfied grin.

 

=/\=

​

Her bra was more off than on, dangling from one shoulder, her panties kicked into a far corner, and Chakotay was nipping and licking down the length of her torso.

 

“Do you remember – oh – what you called me – ah – at the homecoming ball?”

 

He curved his arm under the small of her back to bring her closer. “What?” he mumbled, circling his tongue in the hollow of her navel.

 

“You called me –” she gasped as his mouth edged lower – “a cold, hard bitch.”

 

“Did I say that?” His words were muffled against the flat stretch of her abdomen.

 

“Ye-es,” her reply trailed off on a moan.

 

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he smiled against her skin. “You’re so warm” – he rubbed his cheek against the creamy skin of her inner thigh – “and soft” – his tongue travelled into her sodden depths and he stopped talking to suck her clit into his mouth.

 

Kathryn threw her head back and gritted her teeth against a groan. “But I’m still a bitch?” she managed.

 

He mumbled something around a mouthful of Kathryn, and she shivered at the sensation. “Maybe a little,” he said more clearly. She smacked him on the shoulder. Laughing, he laid tiny bites and licks all the way back up to her nipple, which he captured none-too-gently between his teeth. “You’re a beautiful, sensual, fascinating, infuriating woman, and I love you beyond reason,” he whispered, letting his lips trail up to the line of her jaw. “Now can we please stop talking?”

 

“I just have one more thing to say,” she murmured, her own hands busy shoving his pants down over his hips.

 

Chakotay pulled back and looked at her in exasperation.

 

Kathryn flipped him onto his back and straddled him, then placed her palms either side of his face, gazed into his eyes and smiled. “I love you, too.”

 

She sank down onto him, taking him fully inside her for the first time, both of them groaning at the fulfilment of ten long years of wanting, and there was no more talking after that.