Notes:

This is my response to the Prixin Prompt Comp 2017.I chose two prompts:

"You always do this. You always try to be the one who loses, who sacrifices. I'd have waited the whole seventy years for you, if you'd asked me to."
"I already asked so much of you. I couldn't do that."

and

"I'm fine."
"You're always fine! Just for once give me a real answer!"

Many, many thanks to my wonderful beta, Helen8462! Without her this would be a blubbering mess of repetitions and horrible grammar. She edited this on super short notice with an overwhelmingly helpful amount of suggestions. You are awesome, Helen!

Craning his neck and pulling the stifling collar, Chakotay rounded the corner just outside of the ballroom. In the absence of his company for this evening, and in an attempt to flee from any other potential dance partners, he was on his way outside trying to get some fresh air. Considering that they had been home for a couple of weeks now, he was astounded as to how little actual fresh air he had gotten in that time.

He had almost reached the large patio doors leading to the gardens behind the embassy, when he stopped dead in his tracks. He would recognize that voice anywhere, but it wasn't just the voice itself that made him pause. The tone clearly told him that the speaker had no desire whatsoever to be part of the conversation. He thought he heard pieces of the conversation that sounded suspiciously like "intimate knowledge" and "selfish". He slowly moved further forward to see who she was talking to.

"Seven, this is clearly none of my business."

"Captain, surely you can't-"

"Seven," Kathryn barked, the sharp tone indicated that no comeback was tolerated, "I do not wish to have any part in your liaison with Commander Chakotay. If you wish to gain intimate insight, you'll have to get to know him yourself."

Chakotay's head had snapped up at Kathryn's words. He finally dared to look around the corner just in time to see Kathryn resolutely turn away from Seven. It was a clear signal that she was done with the conversation. Seven straightened her back and opened her mouth again, but then seemed to think better of it and stalked off.

Staying out of sight where he was, Chakotay watched Kathryn take a few steps further into the garden Then she turned around and looked at the patio doors as if trying to decide if she should go back inside. She was clearly troubled and Chakotay almost laughed when she huffed, put her hands on her hips and flexed her jaw. He had seen the gesture often enough to know that Kathryn was bubbling with barely contained anger.

For a few second she just stood there and tapped her foot as if trying to decide what to do before she wrapped one of her arms around her midsection and lifted the other hand to her mouth. From his vantage point Chakotay couldn't see her expression but for a few seconds she was still enough to make him wonder if she was even breathing.

When he was just about to step forward, she uncurled her arms, lowered her head, wiped her hands across her cheeks and used them to fan air into her face. Only when Kathryn lifted her head slightly and looked upwards, blinking rapidly, did Chakotay understand what she was doing. Whatever the conversation with Seven had been about, it had upset Kathryn enough to bring tears to her eyes and she was having trouble getting her emotions under control. Enough is enough, Chakotay decided and finally stepped towards Kathryn.

Just at that moment Kathryn turned and moved to go back inside, and - not noticing Chakotay - walked straight into him. She was startled and started to lose her balance, but Chakotay quickly grabbed her shoulders to steady her.

"Kathryn," he began but when he heard laughter emanating from the patio doors he moved them to the side so they wouldn't be in full view.

He stopped when they were hidden from plain sight, close by a gazebo. "Kathryn, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," she huffed and stepped away from him. Then she straightened her dress and smoothed her hair back.

Chakotay let her take a breath and collect herself before he asked again. "You can tell me-" He tilted his head towards her- "what's bothering you?"

"I'm fine, Chakotay." The wavering of her voice and the darting of her eyes towards the ball room belied her words. "Can't you just drop it?"

"No, for once I can't." He took a step closer. "You're always fine, dammit! Just-" he paused, closed his eyes and swallowed, then continued, his voice lower and softer,- "for once give me a real answer! You are clearly not fine and you obviously don't want to go back inside. But I'm not leaving you here like this, so we can stand around in silence or you can just tell me what's going on."

The indecision was evident in every little detail of her posture. She balled her hands into fists and opened them again, moving her fingers nervously. Chakotay could clearly see her thoughts turning in her head by the way her jaw was tense and she moved her tongue against the inside of her teeth. But his gaze didn't stray from her face. He would not leave her in this state.

"Dammit, why don't you know when to stop, Chakotay?" She was angry and was trying desperately to move the conversation away from herself.

"I've known when to stop for seven years and maybe it's time I push a little." He took another step closer.

"I tried to be happy for you," she finally blurted out. "I truly believed that I wanted to see you happy more than anything. And I do want you to be happy, but I can't do this, Chakotay. Please don't ask me to do this." The words just rushed out of her mouth without her control.

"Do what?"

"Watch you be happy with someone else."

"Why would I ask you to do that?" She didn't grace him with a verbal reply, but gave him a glare that told him the answer should be obvious.

"Look Chakotay, I never truly expected you to wait forever, no matter what was implied. I had to let you go for both our sakes."

Chakotay felt like she was talking in riddles. He was aware that she had distanced herself from him more and more towards the end of their journey and he had always assumed it was to protect herself. But now he was starting to believe she had also done it for him; so he would move on. Didn't she know that he couldn't do that even if he wanted to?

"I never wanted you to let me go."

"But I had to. I couldn't keep latching on to you and keep you from living your life."

For a few moments Chakotay looked at Kathryn. He observed as she lowered her gaze to her hands and picked imaginary dirt from under her fingernails - the exact same way she had done it on New Earth whenever she was nervous and avoided his gaze. Only then, it was real dirt.

Realization struck him. She thought of herself as a hurdle in his life, an object to be overcome so that he could be happy. He wondered just how long she had thought of him in this way.

He felt the anger swell up inside him. Anger at himself for not seeing the signs, for not noticing that she felt that way. Anger that their situation had not allowed them to be close enough to notice these things. But more than anything, anger at her for misjudging him, for forgetting his words. She was not an obstacle to be overcome. She was his peace and whether or not she had ever admitted her feelings for him, she brought him comfort and in her presence he had always felt his spirit safe. It made him angry that she saw herself this way, when he saw so much more in her.

"You always do this. You always try to be the one who loses, who sacrifices. I'd have waited the whole seventy years for you, if you'd asked me to." Chakotay blurted the words out before he was able to stop himself.

Her head shot up and she frowned as she recognized the truth in his words. Her eyes searched his face as she realized that she had known this all along. Even when she wasn't able to admit it to herself, a part of her had always known what kind of power she held over the man standing before her - who had signed his fate over to her and had laid his gentle heart into the palms of her hands so many years ago.

"I already asked so much of you. I couldn't do that."

"Maybe I wanted you to."

"You want me to believe that you wanted me to ask you to wait for me, when I couldn't give you anything? You'll have to excuse me, but I find that hard to believe."

There it was.

Her arms were crossed again. Eyebrow raised, head tilted slightly downward, she fixed on him with an unbelieving glare. Her hips were slightly jutted out. She was giving a perfect display of all her well-known signs indicating she had closed her mind to his arguments. There was no point in skirting around the true issue, no point in avoiding crystal clear words any longer.

"Kathryn Janeway, you are the most stubborn woman I have ever met." Chakotay exhaled heavily, then took a deep breath. "Consider just for a moment that I want to make you happy, will you? Bringing you joy makes me happy and even when you don't show it - for whatever reason - I know that you appreciate it."

"You can't possibly…" she started but was interrupted.

"Dammit Kathryn," he threw up his hands in exasperation, "I'm just trying to love you, in any kind of way that I can; in any way you'll let me. Why is that so hard to accept?"

Pleased, Chakotay noticed that his outburst had done the trick. Kathryn Janeway didn't have a comeback for him. For the first time since he had met her, she was at a loss for words. He saw her struggling for an appropriate response - for any response, but he wouldn't give her the chance.

"I'm trying to tell you that I love you. For seven years you didn't allow yourself to hear it, but I'm saying it now: I love you, Kathryn Janeway!"

"But you married her!" It came out louder than she meant to and a startled Kathryn looked around to see if anyone was close by. When she looked back at Chakotay his mouth hung slightly open.

"Married whom?"

"Seven," she shook her head and frowned, obviously he should know this. "You married Seven."

"Why the hell would I marry Seven? And wait, what do you mean 'married'? I'm….what are you even talking about?" This conversation had just taken a very confusing turn.

"I know you've been dating. The admiral told me." Kathryn rolled her eyes, obviously annoyed that he didn't get it.

"I was NOT dating SEVEN!" Chakotay felt his anger rise again. Why on Earth would the Admiral say something like that? "I was helping her practice her damned lessons."

"Then why would she come to me for advice on your relationship?" Kathryn's look spoke volumes. She didn't believe him. And why would she when it was her own future self who had told her a different story?

"Because I rejected her." It finally dawned on him. "The moment I realized she was serious and the lessons meant more to her than just practice, I broke it off."

"You did?" Kathryn no longer tried to hide her surprise. "Then why would she need my intimate knowledge of you?"

The pieces finally dropped into place and Chakotay could make sense of the snippets of conversation he had overheard earlier. Seven had assumed Kathryn's intimate knowledge of him could be used to her own advantage, to convince him that a relationship could work.

"Seven told me that I couldn't possibly know that I wouldn't grow to love her. So, I let her know I was already in love with someone else."

"Oh…"

Kathryn realized that Seven must have thought that by acquiring the same knowledge of Chakotay that Kathryn had the young woman could make him love her instead of Kathryn. It was a very immature approach, but also typically Seven. Kathryn had to smile at former drone's logic, but when she looked at him again, he was everything but amused.

"You would have let me walk away with Seven?" His face showed the disbelief and anger.

"What did you expect me to do?" Kathryn defended herself. "For all I knew you were walking off into a perfect future now that we are home."

"And it was impossible for you to swallow your damn pride for once and be honest with me? To think of yourself for a moment?" Chakotay was trying not to let his anger show but she was making it incredibly difficult. "Dammit Kathryn, did you forget everything? I made you a promise and I didn't make it lightly. I meant it."

"I pushed you away for seven years. I made you accept MY parameters and limits for such a long time, how could I jeopardize your happiness for a moment of indulgence?"

"Enough with your senseless and selfish self-sacrificing. Can't you just consider for a second that maybe my happiness is tangled up with yours? That maybe YOU make me happy? That I WANT you to make me happy?"

"But the Admiral…"

"KATHRYN," Chakotay almost lost it when she mentioned her older self again. "enough with the Admiral already. Did she even say I would be happy with Seven? In all the things she told you, did she ever even remotely mention that I was happy with my choices in her timeline?"

Kathryn didn't reply. Come to think of it, the Admiral had mentioned no one's happiness. All she ever talked about was death and unhappiness, all the horrible events and how they had destroyed their little family. No, she had not said Chakotay was happy. And Kathryn had never considered that maybe there was not a single thing about her timeline that the Admiral would have even wanted to preserve.

All of a sudden Kathryn became aware of just how close Chakotay was to her and when he moved even closer, she tried to take another step back, but was stopped by the feel of one of the gazebo's pillars against her back. Her eyes jumped to his chest and back up to his eyes. Despite her inherent desire to flee - to get away from the intimate moment before she could say or do something that she would regret later - Kathryn found that she couldn't move.

Without her noticing, Chakotay had inched closer and closer into her personal space. When she finally realized just how close he had gotten, she was cornered - trapped through her own making - in more ways than one.

The ferality in his eyes paralyzed her and although his fierce body towered well above her, she knew he would let her go if she pushed him. But she found that, for once, she didn't want to be the one if control.

Chakotay was right. It had been a selfish decision to uphold her parameters. She had made that decision because she knew she needed it. But now that they were home there was no more reason to hang on to those invisible lines she had drawn. She had sacrificed Kathryn for seven long years in favor of Captain Janeway. She was free to take a leap of faith and cross the boundaries she had set for both of them.

Looking at Chakotay now made her realize that they had become such integral part of one another that she had unwittingly sacrificed huge chunks of him along with herself - because she had needed her First Officer and friend. It had been selfish and not once had she stopped to ask if he was even willing to make those sacrifices. Not once had she considered that it wasn't her right to make those decisions for him. Until he had taken himself out of her carefully calculated equations.

"It was so easy to rationalize my decisions out there and holding on to the voice of reason was what kept me going. It kept me sane. But here…back home, I'm…" she trailed off and just stared past him into the distance.

Kathryn felt a tear roll down her cheek but found that she didn't care enough to wipe it away. She felt foolish. After all the years of striving and finally achieving her one and only goal, she had felt no sense of accomplishment. Instead she was utterly lonely and displaced. She had just closed her eyes when she felt his warm hand slide under hers and his finger interlace with hers, fitting themselves into the old familiar place they had been forced to vacate for too long..

"You're not alone, Kathryn."

She almost snorted at the laugh that tried to escape her. After all this time, he still he knew her. After all this time, he was still with her. And after all this time, it was more than she had dared hope for.

With the look of utter devotion in his features she wanted nothing more than to lean in and kiss him. But she didn't dare tempt fate and ask for more than what he would give.

"So, I'm going to use my intimate knowledge of you to my advantage now," Chakotay said in a low voice as he saw her eyes drop to his lips, "and just assume that this is okay."

And with that he closed the distance between them and pressed his lips against hers.