Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It happened slowly. Slow enough for him to not notice, not recognise the signs, to think that, perhaps, it was something else. Respect. Like. Like? Like! She is his commanding officer, how lucky he is to also... like her. She is a friend. A friend whose eye he keeps catching after someone says a daft joke on the bridge. A friend who touches him casually, and a warmth dark and bitter like the coffee she keeps drinking spreads through his entire body. A very good friend.

And then it happened all at once. The desire. Controlled, when awake, when on duty, then painful, and raw, at night. Dreams that made him ashamed to face her in the morning, yet looking forward to it for all that. Just to be around her.

He tells himself it'll pass. She's the captain. She's made it clear, back when it didn't yet hurt to hear it, although it does now, that she won't. Not just him, anyone. That's a comfort, perhaps. He won't have to see her, know she...

If he could rip out his heart and hand it to her to do with as she pleased, he would.

——

She shouldn't!

She isn't. Not really, anyway.

At first she thinks it's gratitude. Because he made it easier for her than it had any right to be, considering. Then, perhaps, a slight sort of fascination. He was unlike anyone she's met before, after all, arcane beliefs and animal guides and all that. Their shared love of books, the Cardassian war, fathers lost too soon. They bonded. That was good! He was her XO! She needed to know she could trust him. Again, considering...

But then, he'd look at her a certain way, or smile, and she'd wonder. Not out loud, at first not even consciously. It would be a terrible idea. She'd nipped it in the bud -- she hopes -- before he got any ideas. Not because she didn't trust him, rather, she didn't trust herself. Oh but then, did he really? At times it felt like yes, really. Other times, more like he was just being friendly. A good officer. A good first officer.

It isn't quite the l-word. She can't allow that. And if she can't control her heart, she sure as hell can't ever admit to it. Least of all to him.

Chapter Text

He's been watching her for days.

Her people are few, mostly women, children, some elders. Survivors of some sort, he cannot tell from the distance, although he understands their speech. It had been a wayward child, noisy under the bushes, that alerted him to their group. He'd been alone and angry for so long he followed the boy just to see another human being, hoping, though he knew not for what.

She's down by the river now, he can see her through the leaves of the bushes he's hidden himself among. She's tall for a woman, her hair long and dark and shining in the speckled light of the morning sun. He hasn't made up his mind if she's pretty, there's something in her gaze at times, when she looks up, that scares him, that seems to find him somehow, hidden as he keeps staying, yet he's drawn to her.

Bow strapped across her back, spear in hand, she's standing very still in the ankle-deep water, waiting. She thrusts a few times, but comes up empty. She's not very good at it, something in the angle of her wrist, and it makes him smile.

"It's in the wrist..." He says and steps out of the greenery, hands wide apart to show her he means no harm.

She turns, eyes narrow, spear lifted high, aimed squarely at his chest.

She cannot fish, but he's certain she could shoot him straight through the heart if she wished it.

Chapter Text

"They're sooooo in love!"

Seven of Nine takes a quick sip of the overly sweet sparkling drink Neelix had been way too generous with, and looks down at Naomi, eyebrow raised.

"In love?"

"Oh yes," Naomi insists before blowing bubbles into her own drink through an absurd, rainbow-coloured straw. "Everybody says so, even my mom. She said not to tell, because," her voice lowers, hand comes up around her lips, and she mouths "it's against Starfleet Regulations."

"I believe you are mistaken, Naomi Wildman. They are professionals, and colleagues."

Naomi shrugs, then takes a slow slurpy sip before blowing more bubbles. She's very small, yet the look in her eyes makes her seem in the know. Like she's privy to information that is not only inaccessible to Seven, but also incomprehensible.

"Just watch," she says, and Seven tries to find them in the crowd, amid the noise of the birthday party and the clattering of plates and cutlery, Tom Paris running around serving more of Neelix's unholy drink to the unsuspecting crew, and the milling of bodies, too many for such a small space.

They're by the window, seemingly facing it but halfway turned towards each other. He's leaning in, whispering something and she laughs, head thrown back, swaying against him, gently, yet unmistakably. One hand is holding a drink, the other is on his arm, and he smiles, his gaze seems to shift between her face, and her lingering hand. She doesn't remove it.

Her face is flushed slightly, his pupils dilated, Seven can notice the increase in his core body temperature and her quickening heartbeat. It pulses against the side of her neck, exposed by the low cut dress, imperceptible to anyone without enhanced Borg implants. Her hand leaves his arm and lands on his chest for a moment, he leans into it and towards her, and she pulls back, suddenly. His heartbeat is accelerating, she turns towards the window, he follows her.

Everything has shifted. Her shoulders are tense, head squarely turned away from him, and there is something in the tilt of her eyebrows Seven can barely pick up from where she is standing in the corner, but seems like grief. She bites her lip, his hand is on her shoulder now, she doesn't turn.

She had researched human mating rituals. Now that she is forced to live among them, to accept her own humanity, it seemed appropriate. She had even read books. Not the scientific kind, rather, the kind the Doctor had recommended, sentimental, illogical, even. Romances. She had also seen the couples on the ship, like Ensign Paris and Lieutenant Torres, and noticed some of the more informal and temporary liasons between crew, but what she witnessed now seemed more intimate. More in line with the nonsensical stories the Doctor had been telling.

He says something, and if Seven really wanted to, she could eavesdrop, but that seems cruel and voyeuristic. She turns and looks up at him, and takes his hand in hers, the saddest of smiles on her face. It seems out of place, unfamiliar, a violation of sorts to witness, and Seven looks away, embarrassment, and a strange sort of pity she never knew she had in herself to feel coiling somewhere around her chest, where she knows her heart to be.

Naomi keeps alternating the bubbles and slurping at her side, and she can feel her grow impatient, her weight shifting from one leg to the other, before she rises on her toes a few times. The mouths of babes indeed.

"Your mother is right, Naomi Wildman. You shouldn't tell."

Chapter Text

His fingers are tugging gently at the loose knot holding her silk robe in place.

It's her fault, she knows that much, and owns it. Asking him to give her time, yet suggesting they go nightswimming. Then, wearing this. And so obviously nothing else. This, of all things, when there were other, far chaster options even among her meager castaway wardrobe. He's human. He's in love, by his own admission, and she, she likes to tease.

She’s resting against the wall where he's backed her, slowly, one inch at a time, while his hand had toyed with the fastening of the robe. Not yet pulling at it, not yet touching her, but close enough she can feel his warm breath mingle with hers.

"Say something," she whispers, but he's silent, yet fixed so intently on her it scares her.

It's terrible and exciting all at once to feel him so close, closer than she'd ever allowed him to be before. With the knot untied, he can now see what he’d probably suspected, and what she had so deliberately done. His breath, already fast, quickens. His fingers are brushing against the skin of her stomach, lightly, barely there, his thumb grazes the underside of her breast. It's unbearable. His silence, the electricity between them, his other hand cupping her cheek, tracing her lips. The air itself, trying to find its way into her lungs.

"Why?"

His fingers are so light against her skin they're barely there. He could have pushed her against that wall. She'd have let him. She wants him to. But he teases, payback for the painfully chaste kisses she'd allowed him to steal in the weeks since his confession, and her insistence on needing more time. She’d wanted a courtship, she’d said. To wait. Because this would be their last first time, before forever.

"Why what?"

She tilts her head up at him now, almost defiantly. He is still running his slow circles on her skin, brushing against her breast ever so accidentally. His other hand grips her face, and it's all she can do to keep her hands by her side, where they've been, flat against the wall.

"This... Do you still want to wait?"

"You've got me against the wall, doesn't look like I have any choice in the matter."

His face is so close to hers now she can see his eyes, usually a warm brown, now almost perfectly black. There's something around his mouth, a smile held back, laughter, even, and she realises he isn't angry, rather, amused.

"This is the last time, you know."

He lets go of her face, and he's pulling her robe close, his eyes on the flushed patch of skin still visible just under her collarbone. He ties the knot again and steps back, leaving her confused and flustered.

"What do you mean?"

"The last time I'll fall in love. You're right to want to take it slow."

She pushes herself from the wall, and moves in to close the space he's left between them.

"I thought I was a tease."

Chapter Text

Ironic, ironic and cruel, that the most terrifying enemy she ever encountered isn't out there, waiting in the darkness, rather her own heart.

He'd gone for the night, the only trace of him ever having been in her quarters an empty wine glass on the side table by the couch, next to hers, and a bottle she hasn't yet recycled. He'd cleared away the remains of their dinner after leading her to the couch and pouring her a glass of wine. She watched him move between the table and the replicator, occasionally looking up at her, smiling. He'd thrown his uniform jacket on the armchair earlier in the evening, and in the half-light of the candles his hands looked dark and graceful, picking up each plate, each fork. They sat, later, talking, with long lapses of silence, and it's only now that he is gone that she recognises each of these evenings for what it is: danger!

It's easy to still her heart on the bridge. In her ready room. On away missions and in the mess hall. That long practiced mask falls into place, whatever cracks are in it for her to mend out of sight each night. She has a job to do, so does he. But when she's alone with him, like this, when he isn't "the commander" and she is, on certain evenings, "Kathryn", she wonders. Why him? Why now? Does he even feel... No!

As she lies down between the cold sheets, her mind circles between the impossibility of anything happening, the way his eyes linger on her sometimes, before he averts his gaze, and then the rules, all the rules and the guilt, and, also, also the emptiness of her quarters, of her bed, the sinking suspicion that if it wasn't him, perhaps it would be someone else. Enticing enough to remind her she still has a heart, a body, a soul.

How cruel, how infinitely cruel, to know all you have to do is reach out, and to know, with the same certainty, that you never will.

Chapter Text

Thursdays hadn't always been like this.

He’s pulling his undershirt over his head, trying to remember where he'd kicked his shoes, resolving to forget about the socks. A lost cause, if there ever was one, in the dimly lit bedroom, and he doesn't want to wake her.

It started with the dinners, years ago. Long talks over food about ship's business. But then, he'd brought the wine, she'd started lighting candles, and the topics shifted to their families, academy years, favourite books and hopes and dreams for when they finally, finally, made it back home. The usual. The things that always came before a relationship, if he was lucky enough to get that far. Dating, Tom Paris would have called it, nodding knowingly and winking.

Except, of course, there could be no relationship. And if asked, she'd deny these were dates. She wouldn't, and couldn't, being the Captain and all that. She'd said that much, from the start, and back then he both didn't care enough to mind, and didn't really believe her anyway. She had laughed at his inappropriate jokes, in public, made some of her own, clearly, clearly, she didn't mean it.

Except, again, she did.

And also didn't!

Hadn't!

Not when one absolutely random Thursday evening, without any apparent reason, and in spite of the vaguely off-putting story he'd told her about an away mission gone terribly wrong back when he'd been a cadet, she'd kissed him. She hadn't been drunk, couldn't have been after only half a bottle of cider, shared, and he, well, he let her. More than that, he kissed her back. Fiercely. A bit too fiercely, he had thought at the time, but, looking back on all the Thursdays since then, nowhere near as fiercely as she liked to be kissed.

He'd been in love with her for years. Still was, if he was being honest with himself, although, since that planet with the dumb monkey, he never told her in so many words. She knew, she must have known, he'd never been particularly good at hiding his feelings, and, well, he didn't have to, now. At least not on Thursdays.

Except — another except, since everything seemed to be an exception of some sort with her, especially Thursday evenings — this hadn't turned out to be what he'd expected. It hadn't turned out to be what he'd wanted either, rather, what she needed.

Sex, just sex, she'd said, a half-smile on her bruised lips, as she watched him put on his uniform trousers in the middle of the night, her head resting on an elbow, unashamedly naked among the tangled sheets. She'd told him he had to go, and when he'd asked why, that was all she had said, before making it clear that although it had been wonderful, it hadn't really happened, but it could continue not happening each Thursday, if he was up for it.

And it kept not happening each Thursday night, except that one time he'd been in sickbay, a phaser burn the size of a grown man's fist in his side, where one of his kidneys had been. She came to visit him though, he does give her that.

He stops his search for the second shoe when he remembers he'd kicked it off early on in the other room, and turns to watch her sleep for a moment, half covered by a sheet, her breathing steady and soft. She's usually asleep when he leaves, he imagines so she can continue pretending in the morning, when she wakes alone, that they hadn't spent half the night taking full advantage of her quarters being soundproof. What story she tells herself about the messy sheets and the occasional bruises she carefully heals before showing up on the bridge, pristine as usual, he doesn't know. What she feels, what she truly feels, is even more of a mystery, and, some nights, like tonight, he admits he loves her too much to ever ask.

Anything you need, he'd promised in a fit of romantic delusion, and if what she needs is to pretend they aren't what they clearly are, well, he could do that.

For how long, it was anyone's guess.

Chapter Text

I want to trust he’ll do right by my people.

He is standing by the window of his ready room, hands behind his back, his uniform clean and crisp, hair perfectly trimmed and combed, like we haven’t just come out of the battle that effectively stranded us here.

“Can I get you anything to drink, Captain?”

His tone is cordial, and it’s only when he gestures to the couch that I realise I’d been standing at near attention close to the door, in my dirty clothes, my hair a messy braid covered in grime. The sterile room, his uniform, the way he is standing strategically on higher ground, as if he didn’t already tower over me, make me feel self-conscious about my appearance in a way I haven’t been since my Academy days.

“Coffee, black,” I say and join him by the window. I am almost afraid to sit down for fear of staining his pristine couch, but he wouldn’t have asked had he worried about it, I suppose, so I sit, and although I hate to admit it, it’s a relief to finally sink into the cushions.

He hands me a hot cup of coffee, and I watch him wrap his fingers around his own mug before sitting down at a slight angle, almost across from me. He’s drinking tea, I think; there’s a soft smell of bergamot wafting around the room, and it reminds me of early mornings, of sneaking into my father’s office as a child.

“I hope you don’t mind my asking you here right away, but I feel it would be best we discuss this sooner rather than later.”

Of course! The battle’s done, my ship destroyed, our temporary truce has ended. B’Elanna had said that much as soon as she heard I’d been summoned to the Captain’s ready room, and made vague suggestions of taking charge of the situation before they threw us in the brig, but we’re too few. What his losses are I do not know. But I do know Tuvok, the traitorous bastard, and if he is the chief of security, we don’t stand a chance.

Since I haven’t made a reply, he takes a slow sip of his tea and continues, his eyes on me while he speaks, something strangely soft in them for a man who is about to tell me he’s planning on throwing me in the brig for the next seventy-five years.

“We’re in a fix, Captain, I’m not going to lie to you. We’re stuck out here, and while I won’t make excuses for the part I’ve played in that, it is, as they say, what it is, and we need to move on. You’re out of a ship, I’ve lost crew, and I can’t lock you in the brig for seventy-five years, so…”

He pauses, his eyes still intently on me, and he puts the mug down on the low table to his left. I place my coffee down as well; my back straightens. There’s something in his tone that makes me think this isn’t going to go the way I thought it would, but, as he just said, it is what it is.

“…so?”

“So I would like us to integrate our crews. Work together to get home.”

I bite my lip to stop myself from laughing. He needs us. How ironic.

“This is a Starfleet ship, run according to Starfleet rules and regulations, and I understand that might be difficult to accept…”

“Difficult?” It had been funny a moment before, but it certainly isn’t now. “To some of my people the Federation is just as much an enemy as the Cardassians were. You left us to die, hunted those of us who dared fight back, and now you want us to fall in line, wear your uniforms, salute the flag?”

I know his history, I know what happened on Trebus, and how he chose to stay in Starfleet, when any other man would have left to seek vengeance. I had! He’d been betrayed, just like so many of us had been, by the same Starfleet the virtues of which he exalts now, however subtly.

“Not exactly, no! But this is a Starfleet vessel. Compromises will have to be reached.”

“Such as?”

“For one, I would like you to be my XO. Commander Cavit was killed in action, and since I am asking you to bring your people in it only makes sense that…”

“Won’t your pet Tuvok mind?” The words come out unbidden, and I bite my lip again, eyebrows knit, and hope he hasn’t noticed, but he’s focused on the tea he’s picked up again, and is slowly sipping.

“Commander Tuvok agrees with me!”

That’s a surprise. Tuvok is, as far as I knew him, reasonable, but I hadn’t expected him to agree to such an unorthodox arrangement.

“Besides,” he says, looking up again, a faint smile on his face, “I know you’re qualified. You were a Commander—exemplary record—before you quit.”

“Deserted!” I correct him, and he laughs this time, first just a chuckle, then fully.

None of it is funny: not the people he’s lost, not those I did, nor my ship, or the fact that likely none of us will see our families and friends again. But he laughs, as heartily as I’d seen anyone else laugh in my life, and somehow, I trust him. In that moment he is human; he is someone who has lost just as much, if not more, at the hands of the Cardassians, and simply made a different choice from mine. Yeah, sure he says Starfleet, but the impersonal behemoth that allowed my father to be murdered by Cardassians in the name of plausible deniability, and left countless worlds at their non-existing mercy, is over 70,000 light-years away. What he’s talking about is good old discipline, and a uniform I can get used to wearing again.

“Alright! I’ll be your first officer.”

He smiles now, his professional mask back in place, and extends his hand. I take it, and we shake, and I almost ask him if we shouldn’t have spit, too, for good luck, but I don’t want to push it. My people are free, we can start making our way home, and I’ll deal with what happens when we get there, when we get there.

He rises and it’s my cue to leave, but as I make my way to the door, I realise there is something else. Something I need to do.

“I have one condition!”

He stops by the desk and leans against it with arms crossed, and there it is again, that smile, the intent gaze.

“Can I stay a rebel Maquis captain for about an hour longer?”

“May I ask why?”

I mean it, and I don’t, and am not sure how he’ll take it, but if we are to work together I need to know I can be honest with him, however messy it’ll get.

“I need to punch Tom Paris in the jaw before you turn me into his XO!”

Chapter Text

I’m not exactly sure how we ended up here.

It started innocently enough, it always does. My arm through yours as we walked in together, matching leis, too many of Neelix’s dubious cocktails. I think this time it was me, though. It was me kicking off a sandal and reaching out under the table, finding your leg, running my toes along your calf, then higher and higher. Harry was explaining something next to you, and I was talking to B’Elanna about… plasma distribution flow, perhaps? You shifted slightly, just enough for me to reach where I needed to, and glanced at me, a vaguely panicked look in your eyes.

We’re terrible. I told you as much the first time it happened, although then it was you, you and your roving hands, at the most boring post-trade negotiation dinner I ever had the misfortune of attending. It had been worth it, though: the speeches, the horrendously bland food. Your hand on my inner thigh, your fingers circling slowly, slowly, then faster, until… We never made it back to the ship. And if any of the attending delegation ever wondered about human mating rituals, well, all they had to do was step out onto the terrace.

I’m backed against the wall now. One of your hands pulls at the strap of my dress; the other pushes the hem higher. Your mouth trails the length of my collarbone, and over your shoulder, between the greenery and the lanterns, I can see Harry and Tom chatting, Neelix serving more drinks.

“Oh God, you’re not wearing any—”

“Always come prepared.”

You laugh. We both do. And I hope the music and the noise of the party are loud enough to drown it out. Loud enough to drown out whatever’s going to happen next, because we’ve never been silent either, and you’re already doing unspeakable things to me.

It’s become a ritual of sorts. A game. To see how far we can go, how much we can get away with. If you were to ask me why, I don’t know what I’d tell you. Perhaps all the years of goddamn propriety and restraint have finally gotten to me. Or maybe just the sheer thrill of it.

It doesn’t matter. And besides, you never ask.

Chapter Text

At the time, I hadn’t asked his name, nor did I tell him mine.

It’s only now, looking at the file of the man I am being sent to hunt down, recognizing his eyes, the square cut of his jaw, the dimples, that I can finally put a name to the face of all the “what ifs” haunting me for the past three years. I had often wondered how my life would have changed had he met me under the arch of the Rotunda at the Presidio like he’d promised he would. Now, at least, I know why he hadn’t.

San Francisco had been particularly cold that September. The fog kept rolling over the bay, heavy and thick, well into the late mornings. The leaves had started to turn early, and there was something in the air that made it smell the way late autumn used to smell back home in Indiana, just before it started to snow. Except it rarely, if ever, snowed in San Francisco.

I had been running late that morning. A long chain of seemingly absurd things had gone terribly wrong, from a broken replicator to a fussy Molly who’d spilled her food, and all I wanted was to get to Headquarters in time to review the mission reports I’d failed to finish last night before my afternoon briefing. And coffee. I needed coffee.

Because terrible mornings have a habit of turning into terrible days, I found the Night Owl packed, a throng of frazzled officers and cadets waiting to order their drinks, or pick them up, or just standing deliberately between me and the cup of coffee that might, just might, turn this day around.

It was then that it all went wrong. Or right, depending on which version of me is telling the story. Past me, the me who had had a nightmare of a morning, had thought it only got worse. She changed her mind later on, of course, but looking back on it, wrong had been the correct evaluation.

So yes, that’s when it all went wrong. I turned, annoyed, resolved to give up on coffee and try my chances with the equally stubborn replicator in my office at Headquarters, and bumped straight into him and his wonderful, black as sin coffee, splashing it across his uniform.

From bad to worse, to potentially catastrophic, depending on the temperature of his beverage, the thickness of his uniform jacket, and how disposed he was that morning towards tolerating fools. Pretty disposed, as it turned out. Apologetic, even, as I tried in vain to wipe down the mess I’d made with a fistful of paper napkins I’d grabbed in a panic.

I don’t remember what I’d said. Or what he’d said, for that matter. You’d think I would, but I don’t. I suppose I apologized, and he must have said it’s all right. It clearly wasn’t. He had seemed amused, I do remember that, and I also remember noticing we carried the same rank, and he was tall, taller than me, but that’s not saying much.

I had been resolved to leave, but by the time I’d finished making a fool of myself, and we’d exhausted all conceivable versions of “I am so sorry” and “it really is fine,” the crowd had thinned, and I offered to get him a coffee, to replace the one now decorating his jacket. He accepted.

There had been something in his eyes, warm and familiar somehow, that made me keep looking up at him. I don’t believe in fate, although since receiving his file I am starting to reconsider that, nor past lives. Or really, anything I can’t measure and understand rationally. But I felt like I knew him from somewhere, from before. I remember I’d asked if he thought we might have met. He shrugged and said no, he didn’t think so, but perhaps we might have crossed paths somewhere. Maybe here, at the Night Owl. Maybe.

He asked for a macchiato, and I got my usual black. By then I was aware I was late. Not for my briefing, that wouldn’t start until the late afternoon, but late if I still wanted to finish reading all those reports. Somehow it didn’t seem to matter, and when he asked me to sit down, to keep him company while we drank our coffees, I accepted.

The café had been quieting down, but it was almost completely empty by the time we sat. He picked a table close to the windows facing the street. Said he liked to watch people go by, wonder about their days, their lives. I thought it charming, but strange, that he’d spend his mornings like this. I couldn’t imagine myself just sitting.

The fog had started to disperse. We could see to the other side of Market Street now, the transports flying over. He pointed to a bright yellow one, probably private. It disappeared behind a tower, out of view. I found myself wondering what kind of person would paint their personal transport such a color, creating a story in my head about who they might have been. He laughed when I told him. A rich, warm laughter, like cocoa on a cold autumn day.

He was handsome, I’d decided as we got up to leave. Dark skin and jet-black hair, broad shoulders, and those warm eyes I’d noticed earlier. I realized I hadn’t introduced myself, or asked his name, yet we’d spent over an hour together, chatting about things that now, I realize, had been in some ways more personal than the things I spoke to Mark about.

Yes, Mark. I suppose he had been part of why I had been so behind with the reports, and, if I was being honest with myself, why my morning had started horribly even before anything had had the chance to happen. He’d asked me to marry him, again, and I’d said no. Again. Big, wonderful dinner last night, when all I had wanted was a quick meal and a blanket under which to curl up with my stack of PADDS. I was shipping out in two days. I didn’t need this, I didn’t want this, and, well, it had turned into an argument. And now I was only thinking about him because whatever this stranger had made me feel had been what I needed from Mark, and at times, much as I loved him, I felt like he couldn’t read the room.

I had thought leaving the café would be the end of it. We’d walk out, he’d turn right, I’d turn left, and I’d never see him again. Or at best, we’d run into each other around Headquarters and nod politely until one day, one of us wouldn’t anymore, for reasons unexplained, and that would be it. Except he turned left too, and I found myself walking beside him. He’d matched my pace, casually, as if we’d known each other for years, as if we were the closest and best of friends.

I could, I suppose, pretend to remember what each of us had said. We’d talked about people, the fog, Charles Dickens’ opening to Bleak House, and countless harmless and banal things, for what seemed both like hours and minutes at the same time. Our topics would flow from one to the other, from fog to Dickens to Tolstoy and so on, until we were nearly at the Presidio, and the sun was now shining, the sky a steely sharp blue I couldn’t remember having seen in days.

At the time I couldn’t tell what made the air feel warmer: the brisk walk we’d taken, the sun, or, I remember thinking, the gentle way he had turned to look at me. I’d felt it, his gaze, and turned towards him, both of us stopping for a moment by a bench close to the Rotunda, smiling at each other for no good reason, it seemed. I’d guessed this would be where we must part ways, and that it was likely he was affiliated with the Academy, since I still had some way to go until I reached Headquarters, but I didn’t want to ask. Asking anything, even his name, made me think I’d break some spell and he’d combust or disappear. So I didn’t.

I remember the way he’d asked if he could see me again. Hesitantly, like a schoolboy, in spite of his likely age and rank. Almost like he was afraid of being told no. And my heart broke. Mark. Mark, but most of all, I was shipping out the next day, on a six-month mission.

I told him about the mission. I didn’t tell him about Mark. I’d refused Mark enough times to assume I’d be coming home to find him gone. I hadn’t, of course, but I couldn’t have known at the time, and after the previous night it had seemed like a reasonable assumption.

He seemed disappointed, but smiled, and suggested we meet here, under the arch, at noon, after I got back. I offered up the 11th of March, two days after my scheduled return. He promised to bring coffee. I promised not to spill it on him.

Until then, except for the incident that started all of this, we hadn’t touched. It had felt strange and unnecessary. But when he extended his hand, I took it, and something shifted. It hadn’t been electric as such, more like home. My hand was small in his, and cold against his warm fingers, but it felt like it belonged there, like he’d held it before, and knew how.

When we parted, it felt less like leaving and more like tearing myself away. I watched him walk slowly toward the Academy complex, his back straight, hair catching the noon sun. I was an adult, with a career, an almost fiancé, I had been coldly pragmatic my entire life, and yet. And yet.

Once I started walking, I refused to turn around, and kept going, trying to focus on the rest of the day ahead, mentally prioritizing which reports I could skim and which to skip to make up for the lost time. I couldn’t put him out of my mind entirely. He lingered, in the corners of my mind, and, over the coming months, often in the taste of my morning coffee.

That day, March 11, I had waited until nearly midnight for him. It had rained the whole time. I thought, as I was slowly making my way back to my apartment, soaking wet and teary eyed, that I had never lingered in his mind the way he’d lingered in mine. It was to be expected. I must have felt something he hadn’t, and that was fair. In the coming days and weeks I did my best to stop thinking about him, to still my mind from running absurd scenarios that would never come to pass. I accepted Mark’s proposal.

And in time, I started to forget. Not completely, not altogether, but his memory started to fade. A little like the fog that September morning. It had made no sense to begin with, to hurt over someone I’d spent only a few hours with. Whose name I didn’t know. Who left me waiting in the rain all day.

Except now I know why he hadn’t been there. It’s there, in his file: the date he resigned his commission, the day he propelled himself on a trajectory that means we can, most likely, never finish whatever it is we so accidentally started. 3rd of March, 2368.

I close the file and turn towards the window of my new ready room. I’d never believed in fate, but there’s a quote from Dante that keeps slowly circling around in my mind, much like his memory had in the days after our meeting: our passage has been willed above, where One can do what He has willed; and ask no more.

Chapter Text

“Daisy,” he says, and throws another log on the fire before returning to the couch.

There’s a snowstorm outside, something gone amiss with one of the weather satellites, he’s heard. It’s still early in the evening, but night falls quickly in Indiana in December, as he’s learned these past years. They’d spent the day putting up Christmas decorations, and he’d cooked a two-course dinner Gretchen Janeway could not make it to anymore, being just as snowed under in the neighbouring farm as they were. He didn’t mind, not really. Not after being away for a full week, on a scouting mission he had only accepted because he knew it would be his last for a while. When she suggested he start a fire while she made hot chocolate, he’d never been happier.

Kathryn smiles now, head tilted slightly to the side. She’s huddled under a soft blanket, fingers wrapped around her mug of spiced hot chocolate; watching her curled up like that, happy, safe, and, he imagines, exceedingly warm, makes him wonder why they’d waited this long.

“I think she approves! Feel this!”

She puts the mug down on the table and grabs his hand, her fingers warm from it, pulling him close enough to press against her side under the blanket. A kick, a foot, perhaps, a shift, another kick. Even though it’s been happening for a few weeks now, he can’t get used to these strange meetings, mediated by Kathryn, who is just as much in awe as he. He can’t imagine what it must feel like for her, sensing this new human they’d made together.

“She likes it. I like it. Although, I thought you wanted to choose something closer to your family, your tribe. She’ll have my last name anyway.”

Her head is still tilted as she watches him, eyebrows knit together ever so lightly. In the semi-darkness she looks younger, almost like she had back when they first met, her hair in a loose braid across her shoulder. He can't remember not having loved her, in some way, and he smiles, shifting to pull her closer.

“It was my mother’s favourite flower,” he says simply, although the truth is more complicated.

“Alright. Daisy…” she replies, just as simply, and leans into him fully, her head on his shoulder, legs curled up under the blanket that’s now halfway covering him as well. She’ll soon be asleep; he knows her well enough to sense it in the way her breathing softens. It had been one of the only things that’s changed, really, how sleepy she would get early in the evenings, such a contrast to the woman he had to blackmail into taking a nap all those years ago.

He’s watching the fire, its flames casting flickering shadows over their living room. The movement of the light makes everything come alive: the cushions thrown on the floor, the remains of their dinner he hasn’t cleared away; and further back, in the kitchen area, the pile of pots and pans he is yet to wash. The Christmas tree, only half decorated, looms like a dark yet friendly shape in the corner, the baubles catching the light occasionally and reflecting it back, little sparks in the darkness, here then gone. She’d stopped putting decorations up to take a nap in the afternoon, he remembers now. He had just taken the brownies out of the oven, and she’d stolen one, holding it gingerly in her fingers, blowing to cool it down as she walked up the stairs to their bedroom.

Her hair seems darker in the firelight, contrasting with the streaks of white and grey, a fairly recent occurrence she hasn’t bothered to change. He liked it, he’d told her, and she’d said she was glad, because she wasn’t going to do a damned thing about it. It hadn’t really mattered either, except as a signpost of how difficult it might be, as time passed, to ever start a family. But then she decided to retire; and as it turned out, it hadn’t been as difficult as they’d expected.

“Do you miss it?” he asks now, and he knows she knows what he means.

“Sometimes. Some of it.” She sounds sleepy, her words slurred, and he turns his head just enough to see her eyes open and close a few times. She settles even deeper against him, and soon he hears her snore softly, like a cat’s purr.

He knows the storm will ease, and in the morning everything will be covered by a perfectly unbroken layer of white, stretching across the whole of their farm, Gretchen’s farm, and those beyond, for miles. The sky will be baby blue and clear, or perhaps still leaden and grey, and he’ll stand in his pyjamas looking out at it, warm tea in hand, until she’ll come and press herself against his side, wordlessly, like she does most mornings when he is home.

And then next year. Next year, he’ll stand by the same window, holding Daisy, and tell her about the great snowstorm that preceded her birth and covered the land in a blanket as white as the petals of the flower she’s named after.

Chapter Text

“May I?” she asks, her fingers hovering above his temple.

They’re lying on a blanket in the grass; she’s propped on her elbow, facing him, while he’s on his back, watching the clouds shapeshift in the sky. A gentle breeze stirs the leaves into a soft rustling that mingles with the sounds of the river nearby. Between the branches of the tree they’re laid under, the sun is casting speckled flecks of light that dance on her face and hair, and on the green summer dress he loves so much on her.

“Yes,” he replies, turning to face her, to meet her touch.

She’s tracing the lines of his tattoo lightly, eyes narrow, searching his face.

No one had asked permission before. Women had touched him, some had asked about it — not so much because they’d cared, rather, it seemed just as good a question as any other would have been. But there was something like reverence in her voice, tenderness, even.

“You can’t tell, but it's a larger pattern.”

Her eyes widen, and she smiles. Her hand moves through his hair, fingernails grazing his scalp, circling the lines she cannot see, all the way back.

“Must have hurt,” she says, softly.

“It was meant to.”

She leans closer, and pulls him towards her. Their lips are nearly touching, her breath warm, mingling with his.

“Then let me kiss it better.”

Chapter Text

Throughout the whole of the briefing, she pretends it doesn’t linger between them.

Usually they sit on the couch. She serves him coffee, or he gets himself a tea, depending on the time of day. It’s casual; they slip into ship gossip, nostalgia, the occasional banter. Today, he is sitting stiffly on a chair in front of the desk she is using as a barrier between them. It makes her feel guilty, sitting so far, punishing him for something she had done, and he dutifully pretends didn’t happen, just like she is.

She had kissed him.

Before she pushed him into the escape pod, she grabbed his uniform jacket and kissed him.

He kissed her back.

He kissed her back and pleaded with her to get into the pod, his fingers digging into the flesh of her arms. She still has the bruises, a day after disaster had been averted, and the pods returned.

They’re done now. He rises to leave, but then turns slowly, something in the angle of his shoulders, the knit of his eyebrows, telling her to brace herself.

“About what happened…”

“I apologise. It was inappropriate; I shouldn’t have…”

She rises and circles the desk, not knowing why it feels wrong to have this conversation with it between them. He steps toward her, far enough for safety but close enough that she has to tilt her head to look him in the eye.

It’s almost impossible to tell him how scared she had been. Not of death—death was easy—but of having to go knowing she’d failed them, and knowing she had missed so much. Somehow she had believed then it was the end, and it felt like she’d earned this one breach in protocol. And he had deserved to know that yes, she felt it too. She shakes her head, and he smiles.

“I didn’t mind. I wanted to do it so often… you don’t know.”

“I do know.”

“I understand why you can’t. I still wish you would.”

She’s smiling now at him, head still slightly tilted. He chuckles, but it makes her sad. How understanding he is. Easy to be with, uncomplicated yet complex. How much she wishes she had the courage to risk everything and kiss him again, here in her Ready Room.

“Perhaps the next time the world is ending.”

Chapter Text

You don’t remember me at all.

We crashed two days ago on an L-class moon, after being shot down. I don’t remember much about the crash—smoke and light, a hull breach, and then pain, pain, and more pain—but I know who I am, who you are, and where we belong. I know my own history. You… you seem stuck in a past I only know from your Maquis file, and it took me hours to convince you to put down your phaser and let me treat your wounds.

We’re sitting in silence now, in the semi-darkness of the shuttle and the raging wind outside. I’ve treated you as best I could, but the head wound is a worry. The culprit for your memory loss, I assume. I kept hoping it was temporary, and it very well might be, but we’ve been here for two days, and you’re just as confused as before, although you seem to trust me a little more.

“You like to take baths, is that right?” you ask from the back of the shuttle, and I look up from the beacon I’d set up the other day and keep monitoring.

“Yes. Do you…?”

“No, just, an image of you in a towel…” you laugh lightly, and I smile. Out of all the things to remember.

I am still not sure if you believe me. With nearly all systems shot, I have no way of proving anything to you. I am also not sure how I would go about it anyway. Show you logs, photographs of the crew together, holo-recordings—all easy to fake if I wanted to deceive you. My best chance is still to get us back to Voyager, to get proper treatment. I can see you wince sometimes when you rise to move, the way your eyes glaze over. You’re still coherent, still there, still mostly you, except for the missing years.

You come to sit next to me on the floor, legs crossed, and inspect the beacon. It’s beeping away steadily, but without the comms, all I can do is hope. I’d told Tuvok to pick us up in five days; he has no reason to return until then. But just in case he does, I am keeping it on.

“You should eat something. I don’t think you’ve had anything since yesterday.”

It’s my turn to laugh, although it’s bitter. Strange, how even like this, you like to make sure I take care of myself. I want to tell you about how you always do this, drag me to the mess hall, surprise me with soup on late evenings when I am drowning in reports, or, lately, how you’ve started to cook dinner. Not just on Thursdays. But if I did, I am not sure what you’d think. And if you never remembered, I wouldn’t want you burdened with a sense of responsibility for me. Not when I have given so little in return.

“I am not hungry.”

“Are you ever?”

“Sometimes. I mostly live on coffee.”

“Black, no milk, no sugar, right?”

“Right.”

We smile, and I lean back against the bulkhead, next to you. Our shoulders are brushing lightly, and although you are so close, I miss you. Before I fell asleep the day before, I tried to imagine what it would be like if you never remembered. You’d have B’Elanna, and Ayala, and the rest of the Maquis. They’d be there for you. But we… you have no memories of us, and it hurts like hell.

Your hand reaches out and brushes a strand of hair out of my face. I hadn’t realized I was such a mess, probably dirty, my hands certainly are.

“It used to be longer…”

“Yes.”

“I liked it long…”

Your fingers linger in my hair, and I am too tired and too scared of losing you to tell you it’s inappropriate.

“Are we…? Were we…? I remember how it feels to be with you…”

No, and no, and yes. I remember too, how it feels to imagine being with you. To pretend in the evenings that you’ll stay after dinner, after the drinks on the couch. I let myself dream of that sometimes, and now I wish I could tell you that yes, we are. And take back all the years of denial, because it’s so easy to lose everything before you even had it. But I can’t lie.

“No, we’re just friends.”

“Okay…” you say, your gaze averted, your hand falling back into your lap, fingers interlaced.

I wonder if you believe me.

⸻

It takes a few weeks for my memories to return.

At first it’s glimpses, feelings. B’Elanna fills in a lot, she has stories. Everybody does. And then there are my own logs. It’s so strange to wear the uniform, to be here. To be so far. To trust that I have a life this ship.

But most of all, it’s you. It’s memories of you that are returning. White satin ballet shoes. A red summer dress and your hair in a braid. Pink roses on your desk, and a sailing trip on a lake the name of which I can’t recall.

I want to believe we are nothing, but you have been the only thing I could truly remember for so long.

Chapter Text

She knows she should be grateful, but the grief is still too near, crowding out nearly every other emotion. The grief and the anger. At herself, and no one else. At her treacherous heart. And most of all, at what she is about to do to him.

“Dessert,” she had said, looking at him almost sultrily. He knew what she had meant. He must have known what she meant earlier as well, when she nearly ordered him to her quarters. He’d been running his hands through her hair, picking out the confetti. She brushed against him, closer than usual, longer, deeper. After so many nos, she wasn’t saying yes. She was screaming it. Now, now, now, because they’d be home soon, and they’d earned this.

They never got to dessert. The real one still sat forgotten on her dinner table, beside the remains of their meal and a nearly empty bottle of wine. In those quarters she hasn’t set foot in since the morning she died, but didn’t. The quarters with the goddamned unmade bed that probably still smells like him. Like them.

Them.

There had been a them.

First times with anyone are awkward. She almost expected it to be uncomfortable. It had been so long. Too long. And she was done. Done waiting. Done with this quadrant, the loneliness, the fear, the sheer white fear of what giving in might do to her ability to do her job. But tomorrow, starting tomorrow, the buck wouldn’t stop with her anymore. She’d be free.

It had been raw, hungry. So hungry. But his body against hers, his hands in her hair and against her skin, had felt like coming home. After all these years together, a glance had been enough to let him know what she needed. And after, later, he’d asked what she liked, what she wanted. True to his word, even in this.

They lay together in her bed afterward, in silence. Her hands kept tracing slow circles through his hair as he drifted asleep, head on her stomach, breathing softly. She stayed awake, running his numbers through her mind, running Harry’s numbers, Tom’s. There was no regret, just hope. Hope, even as she wondered if she was driving them all to their deaths because she had wanted this. Because she couldn’t wait any longer.

Turns out, she had, and he'd spent half a lifetime, however undone now, trying to fix what her weakness had wrought.

The corridors are empty and dim at this time of night. She stops in front of his door and presses the button. His quarters are dark, and she can see his silhouette against the window, broad-shouldered, head unturned.

“It’s over, isn’t it?”

“It never really started.”

“I understand. I won’t make things even more difficult than they need to be.”

“I am so sorry.”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

Chapter Text

They’re sitting at one of the tables in the mess hall, close to the window, eating breakfast. Tom and Harry on one side, he and B’Elanna on the other. He’s pushing around a green mass of something that Neelix insisted was eggs, but there’s nothing remotely egg-like about it, so he’s been focusing on the bread, fresh for once, and the lukewarm cup of tea.

“I can’t on Thursday,” he says, shaking his head.

“Why not, what’s on Thursday?”

Tom leans over slightly across his half-finished breakfast. He’d made the wiser choice and picked the oatmeal.

“Weekly dinner with Kath… Captain Janeway.”

He catches himself before he uses her first name, thankfully easy to fix, and none of them seem to notice. B’Elanna had suggested hoverball, and they’ve been trying to get him to come.

“Okay, Friday?” B’Elanna asks, turning toward him, fork midair. She’s made the same eggy mistake but seems less bothered by it, and he has half a mind to ask if she wants his portion. He’ll trade for a slice of bread.

“We’re going sailing,” he says absently, still thinking about the bread.

“Monday?”

“She said she’s baking something and—”

“Baking?”

It’s only when Harry interrupts that he notices the pattern.

“It’s a long story. She’s… getting better.”

Tom is now leaning back in his chair, arms crossed, a smirk on his face that never bodes well. He’s figured something out, or thinks he has, which means he’ll be impossible for the rest of the morning.

“So, you’re dating the Captain then?”

“What? No!”

He drops his fork into the middle of the eggs, sending bits of green goo flying halfway across the table. It’s worse than he thought. If Tom thinks this, it’ll spread like wildfire. The last thing he needs is to be quelling rumors of some sort of tryst.

“Dinner, sailing, baking together… Sounds like dating to me. That’s dating. Right, Harry?”

“Not that I’ve been on one of those in a while, but yes. Textbook definition.”

Harry shrugs, takes a slow sip of his coffee, and looks at him with a deadpan expression that worries him even more than Tom’s smirk.

“She’s the Captain. My… our superior officer.”

“Oh, he’s defending her honor now. Classic.”

He wants to get up and punch Tom in the face, an impulse he hasn’t felt this strongly in a long time, but he realizes it would only make things worse. Dating? If only. Not for lack of trying on his part either, but she insists on professionalism at all times.

“This really isn’t…” he starts, but it feels useless.

“Your dinners,” B’Elanna interrupts, using air quotes, eyebrows knit but with a smile tugging at her mouth, almost as smug as Tom’s. “Any candles? Wine? Soft music?”

“Yes, but—”

“And he dares deny it!”

She’s impossible. He had at least expected loyalty from her, if nothing else. Tom, he suspects, has some ulterior motive for yanking his chain. Harry just looks crestfallen, probably too traumatized by the idea of his Captain being anything other, or more, than his Captain. But B’Elanna—he had expected more from her.

Tom uncrosses his arms now and resumes eating his oatmeal. Harry’s eyes widen and he lowers his gaze, blushing slightly.

“What are you all talking about?”

She stops behind his chair, and her hand rests lightly on the back of his neck, fingers running through his hair.

“Dating!” B’Elanna says, and he nearly chokes.

“How fun!”

“Yeah,” Tom adds, “the Commander was just giving us some tips.”

Her fingers are still in his hair, and normally he wouldn’t have minded, wouldn’t have even thought about it twice, not when she touches him so often when they’re alone, casually, simply. But Tom has managed to make him hyperaware of her every gesture.

“Well, I’m sorry, but the Commander and I have a mid-morning coffee date to run over the new crew rotation in engineering. Commander?”

He rises slowly, taking a long final sip of the tea that’s now decidedly cold.

“If you’ll excuse me.”

She takes his arm as she leads him out of the mess hall, and the last thing he hears before the doors close behind them is Tom’s voice.

“Definitely dating!”

Chapter Text

At the time, I hadn’t asked her name, nor did I tell her mine.

It’s only now, looking at the woman on the screen in front of me, recognizing the steely blue of her eyes, the soft gold of her hair, that I can finally put a name to the face of all the what ifs haunting me for the past three years. I had often wondered how my life would have changed had I met her under the arch of the Rotunda at the Presidio like I promised I would. Now, at least, she knew why I hadn’t.

San Francisco had been particularly rainy that March. The fog kept rolling over the bay, heavy and thick, well into the late mornings. I had quit my commission at the beginning of the month. I couldn’t face the pain without drowning in guilt, so I’d chosen anger instead. My excuse was that I was still trying to figure out what to do with the rage, waiting for a friend of a friend to get in touch about a transport out to the Demilitarized Zone, but in truth, I was waiting for her.

I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. That half day I’d spent with her had shifted something. It felt strange, buoying, but at the same time wonderfully irrational, and I was glad I hadn’t asked her name, because I wouldn’t have been able to wait until the evening to call her up and ask if she wanted to get another coffee, or go for a walk. Talk... For as long as we both shall live…

So I waited, her memory lingering in my morning cups of coffee, my mind eagerly conjuring up our meeting in six months’ time, then five, two. Eventually, three weeks. And then Trebus happened.

I had gone to meet her that day, like I promised. It was raining, a sad sort of drizzly rain, which felt fitting. In all those fantasies I had, it had always been sunny, her hair shining in the golden light, and I’d walk up casually with the promised coffees. She stood outside in the rain instead, her hair damp, and it looked like she was shivering.

I couldn’t make myself walk up to her, so I stayed — far enough for her not to notice, close enough to see her shoulders slump deeper as another hour passed. The coffees I’d brought had gone cold a long time ago, and I just stood there, paralyzed.

I hadn’t realized then, although I think I understand now, why I couldn’t move. Her uniform. A reminder of everything I’d just given up, everything I felt had betrayed me. I’d left my family to pursue it, and now I had nothing. I had guessed it mattered to her, a lot, and all I had to offer was uncertainty. Perhaps death.

I watched her pace in the rain for as long as I dared. My own clothes had soaked through, my hair was wet through the hood of my jacket. I kept praying to the spirits I had been so sure I didn’t believe in that she’d leave. Give up.

Eventually, I did.

I took that transport. Found Sveta. I did my best to make the sacrifice of giving up my life, my career, all I’d ever dreamed about, worth it. I still kept thinking about her sometimes, the officer with the coffee addiction and penchant for the classics.

Kathryn Janeway. Now Captain.

Kathryn, who had been sent to hunt me down. I’d never believed in fate, but there’s a quote from Hugo that keeps slowly circling around in my mind, much like her memory had in the days after our meeting: the black vein of destiny always reappears.