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A Winter's Tale

Chapter Three

2379

Chakotay turned away from the window, and from the memories of yesterday, to look once more at the dance floor. That woman who had captivated his senses all those years ago was dancing before him now, and although she had aged by almost three decades, she was just as beautiful to him now as she had been then. For a long time after that eventful night of 2350 he had looked out for her at the academy, but he had never seen her. It was not until he was 75,000 light years away from the Academy that he finally did. She was standing before him on the bridge of her ship, telling him their two stranded crews should work together. The irony of the situation was overwhelming, but if he recognized her, she didn't seem to recognize him. If she did, she didn't mention that night, and as she never mentioned it, he didn't either. Often he thought about bringing it up, thinking it might be best to have things out in the open, but his better judgment told him to let sleeping dogs lie. The Kathryn Janeway he'd saved from an icy death all those years ago was pregnant and this Kathryn Janeway had no children. Voyager was not the place to drag up painful events from her past. Besides, he had a good idea what had happened to the baby and, if he was right, Kathryn had enough to deal with. So he'd said nothing about that night, nothing about what he knew, just let it lie between them unspoken.

In a corner of the room, watching the dancing, was a tall young woman with short brown hair and Chakotay's attention fixed on her now. Her name was Jessica Lucas and she'd been one of the first members of his Maquis crew. She was from a Federation colony near his and like him had seen the destruction of her homeworld at the hands of the Cardassians. Almost everyone she'd ever loved had lost their lives and she'd vowed to avenge their deaths by joining the Maquis. During the time they worked together she had proved to be a fine warrior, clever and brave, but sometimes overzealous and he'd had to reign her in. There was no doubt in his mind that she could really have distinguished herself on Voyager, but she was one of the few members of his crew who resented to the core being on a Starfleet ship, and she'd never acknowledged anyone but him as her leader. She'd even refused to wear a Starfleet uniform, as had several others, and the only way he'd managed to get them to do it was by designing a modified one with an M for Maquis inside. This appeased the rebels and kept the peace. At first he thought Jessica's problem with Kathryn was just political, but as time went by he began to think it went deeper than that. Much deeper. Jessica had once told him the story of her life, one cold stormy night on a desolate planet, and that story, combined with her smile and Kathryn's toleration of her indignation, helped him figure things out.

Slowly, Chakotay made his way through the partying crowd to where Jessica stood. The young woman's eyes were fixed on Kathryn and there was so much sadness in them.

"Hi, Jessica," he said. "How are you doing?"

His words brought her out of her trance and she turned to him.

"I'm fine, thank you, Commander."

"It's hard to believe we're finally home, isn't it?"

"Yes, but Earth isn't my homeworld. Neither is it yours."

"No, but it's the homeworld of our ancestors, that makes it special."

"Not to me. I can't wait to leave. I don't even know why I'm here. I don't want to be."

"Maybe on some level you do," he said gently. "Anger can be a good thing, it can stir us up to fight for a right cause, but it can also be a bad thing because it can make us bitter and cynical. We have to aim our anger at the right place, and that right place is at the Cardassians. Yes, the federation let us down, but it wasn't the federation that destroyed our homeworlds, it was the Cardassians. We can't hold one civilization to blame for the atrocities of another. And if we start to lay blame by default, where does it end? The Cardassians killed our people and the Cardassians alone we must blame. What happened to our loved ones isn't the fault of anyone in this room and it isn't fair to hold them accountable."

Tears filled Jessica's eyes. "I wish I could think like that, Commander, you don't know how much I wish it, but I can't."

"You can," he said, "if you let yourself. Wanting to is half the battle. All these years you've been hostile to the captain because she's starfleet and was on a mission to capture us, but if you could put aside your hostility long enough to get to know her, to listen to why she accepted that mission, then maybe you'd find a bond. It's not too late, Jessica. It's never too late."

The dance finished and Chakotay saw Kathryn look around for him. Gently, he put his hand on Jessica's shoulder. "Think about what I've said."

He then left her and joined Kathryn on the dance floor.

The party lasted until the early hours of the morning and it was almost 5am by the time Kathryn got to bed. Unusually for her, she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, and didn't wake until she was disturbed five hours later by the door chime. Groggily, she got out of bed, put on a night robe, and called out. "Come in!"

The doors opened and Jessica came in.

"I'm sorry," she said when she saw Kathryn undressed and ungroomed, "is this a bad time?"

"Not at all," Kathryn replied. "Please, sit down."

Jessica sat on a velour chair and fiddled uncomfortably with her fingers.

"Can I get you a coffee?" Kathryn asked. "I'm having one myself."

"Yes, thank you," Jessica said. "Black, no sugar."

"Just how I like mine," Kathryn smiled. She then went over to the replicator and replicated two mugs of black coffee. "I need at least three cups before I come to in the morning, so forgive me if I'm not fully with it."

Jessica made no reply, just continued to stare at her hands. Kathryn placed the coffee on a table before her and then sat opposite her. For a long moment Kathryn just gazed at her, sadness and affection in her eyes, and then she spoke.

"What brings you here?"

"I don't know," Jessica said quietly. "I just...I'm not the same person I was seven years ago. The things I said to you then, when we got stranded, are not what I think now. At least, they're not what I want to think now. I hated you then for what you represented, for you being on a mission to capture us, but I don't hate you now. Chakotay's always said you had good reasons for what you did and if Chakotay says it then it must be true. I just wish I could understand them. Because how could you do it? How could you try to capture us when we were only fighting for the freedom of our people?"

"Because if I hadn't of accepted the mission," Kathryn said, "Captain Willis would have been given it instead and his hatred towards the Maquis was no secret. If he'd have found you, he wouldn't have captured you, he'd have killed you. Many in Starfleet Command were of his persuasion, and the blowing up of a Maquis ship while trying to capture it would have been written off as an unfortunate incident. I can say this now because Captain Willis is dead and because I want you to know the truth. I didn't take the mission out of political conviction, I took it out of personal compassion. An Admiral who I won't name fought hard to get me the post because like me he was a sympathizer. By that I don't mean I agreed with what you were doing, but I agreed that your cause was just. If Earth had been handed over to the Cardassians I'd have been the first to fight for freedom. I knew there were a lot of good people in the Maquis, people like Chakotay who would lay down their lives for what is moral and just, and unlike some Starfleet officers I had no desire to get involved in the Maquis quarrel. I just wanted to captain an exploration vessel. But when the said Admiral called me into his office and laid everything on the line, how could I refuse the mission? I couldn't, so I didn't."

A tear ran down Jessica's cheek and with a trembling hand she wiped it away. "I've been so wrong, haven't I? You must hate me."

"I could never hate you," Kathryn said softly.

Jessica looked up at her, tears in her pretty blue eyes. "I'm sorry...for all the things I've said, for the way I've always been with you. I just...I was hurting so much inside."

"I understand. You've been through hell and I can't even begin to imagine what it was like. The last thing you needed was our situation to complicate things and I'm so sorry for that. I'm sorry for a lot of things. None of this...the pain, the suffering...was what I wanted for you. It's everything that I didn't want for you. So don't feel guilty for blaming me, Jessica. I am to blame because I made the choices."

"The right ones," Jessica said. "I wouldn't change them. I've always understand why you made the choice you did, and I've never regretted that you did it. That was never a problem, never an issue, my issue was always what you were. I loved my family so much and just being on a Starfleet ship felt like a betrayal. So much so that it made me feel physically sick. It was a long time before that sickness went away. But even when it did, I couldn't think of Voyager as a home, not like the others could. I hated it there so much sometimes that I thought about leaving, but I knew that if I did I'd never see the Alpha Quadrant again. So I got on with things and made the best of it." A tear ran down her cheek. "I just don't know where home is now. My family is dead and my homeworld is uninhabitable. Where do I go? Where do I belong?"

"Here," Kathryn said, "on Earth. Your family were from here and it's here they'd want you to be, I'm sure of it. When I was about your age I lost my father and fiancé in a shuttle crash. I was with them when it happened, but instead of dying with them, I survived. For a long time afterwards I hated myself for living, for not being able to save them, but slowly I came to see that my crime was not in living, but in being unhappy. When they lived, my father and fiancé took joy in my happiness, and nothing would have hurt them more than to see me unhappy. The best way I could honor them was by living my life to the full. And the same goes for you. You won't betray your family by living in the land of their ancestors, a land that was to them a second home, you'll betray them by being unhappy."

"You're right," she said. "Chakotay's right. Earth is home now. I just...I need home to be more than an ancestral place. I need...."

Kathryn finished the sentence she couldn't. "Love there."

Jessica nodded tearfully. "Do you think we could...I mean...is it to late...for us?"

"No," Kathryn said, taking her trembling hand in hers. "There's nothing I'd like more."

Jessica smiled now, laughing almost in joy, and Kathryn squeezed her hand tight.

Silver stars and a pearl white moon glistened over Hotel Rosalere. From a bench beneath a black tree, Chakotay gazed at the clear night sky for a while, then turned his attention back to the happy people skating on a frozen lake.

"Want to take a turn?"

The voice was Kathryn's and Chakotay looked up at her.

"Me?" he smiled, "I don't think so. Take a tumble would be more like it."

Kathryn laughed. "You know what they say, practise makes perfect."

"Not in this instance. I tried to skate once and busted my ankle. Never again."

"Then can I persuade you to take a walk with me?"

"Yes," Chakotay said, getting to his feet. "That you can do."

Arm in arm, Kathryn and Chakotay walked around the lake, through the hotel's beautiful winter garden, and onto the path that lead to the entrance.

"When we talked on Voyager about getting home," Kathryn said as they walked down the stony path, "you never once asked me why I wanted the celebrations anywhere but here. I thought, maybe, you'd forgotten I said that. It was a long time ago. But you remembered."

Chakotay said nothing, just let her direct the conversation like she was the walk.

"The mind, the memory, is a strange thing," she went on. "Some things it forgets, others it never does. Some things we can remember vividly, even to the finest detail, other things are shrouded in a haze."

They reached the turn off for the cabins and Kathryn led him down it.

"The night that made this beautiful place a terrible one to me is like that. I can barely remember it, everything is lost in a fog, but through that haze I can see some things clearly." She stopped outside a cabin, let go of Chakotay's arm, and turned to him. "This cabin is one of them."

Chakotay flinched. This was the cabin he had stayed in that fateful night, the cabin he had brought her to. Did she remember him? Had she remembered him all these years?

Kathryn pressed a button next to the door and it slid open.

"I need to face some ghosts," she said. "Coming in?"

Chakotay nodded and followed her inside. As they stepped into the living room, cozy golden lights came on and an amber fire lip up in the hearth. The door shut behind them and closed out the icy night air.

"I see two ghosts here," she said. "One of them is a young girl, a despairing young girl who thought her life was over, and the other is a kind young man who ensured that it wasn't." She turned slowly to face Chakotay and looked deep into his eyes. "The man is you and the girl...the girl you've always known to be me."

"Yes," he said, holding her gaze. "I've known since our first meeting on Voyager. I saw that young girl in the woman before me on the bridge."

"Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"Why didn't you?"

"Because I wasn't sure until now that he was you. For a long time I didn't even suspect it, even though you were strangely familiar to me, but then little by little I did. You seemed to know things, understand things, that you couldn't possibly know or understand. A part of me wanted to ask you, to have things out in the open, but another part of me didn't. And that part was the stronger part. So long as we didn't talk about it, didn't address it, then it didn't have to be real. A suspicion unconfirmed is better sometimes than a fact proved."

"I felt the same," Chakotay said. "Even though I knew she was you, I didn't know if you knew he was me. I didn't call myself Chakotay then, called myself Kay. I thought Chakotay was too tribal and I resented all things tribal." He paused. "Sometimes I felt sure that you knew he was me, but most of the time I was convinced that you didn't. You were very upset that night and an upset mind doesn't register much."

"I was. I thought my world had come to an end, but just like you said, it went on spinning and I had worse nights. But my world only went on because of you. You saved my life that night and I never thanked you. So I thank you now."

"I never expected thanks," he said. "I just wanted to help you."

"And you did. More than you can know."

"I looked for you. For weeks, even months, I tried to find you, but I couldn't."

"And I'm glad. Because I was so afraid that you would. I was afraid you'd find out who I really was and let out my secret."

"I'd never have done that."

"I know that now but I didn't then. And I can't tell you how relieved I was when you didn't find me."

Gently, Chakotay put his hand on her shoulder. "What happened? How did your parents react?"

Tears filled Kathryn's eyes and she looked down. "I never told them. I gave the baby up for fetal adoption and got on with my life as though it had never happened." She paused. "But you know that, don't you? You figured it out. You know that Jessica's my daughter."

"I do now," he said. "Before I only suspected it. Her life history, your life history, they were a perfect match. And the way you acted around her, the way you let her get away with things that no one else would have, seemed to confirm it." He paused. "How did you find out she was your daughter?"

"The Doctor told me. He found out from studying our medical files and thought it was best that we both knew. Of course, Jessica already knew that I was her biological mother as I was registered as such. I could hardly believe it when the Doctor told me. For so long I'd wondered about her, missed her even, and then she turns up on my ship in the middle of the Delta Quadrant. I had no idea she was in the Maquis, had no idea that her family had relocated to a colony in the demilitarized zone when she was just a baby. But if the Doctor was hoping for an emotional reunion, he was disappointed. Jessica didn't want anything to do with me. She said it was because I was Starfleet, but I wondered if the real reason was because I gave her up." She paused. "I didn't want to, Chakotay. I wanted to keep her. I wanted to so much, but I was afraid. I was terrified of what my father would do if he found out and I was scared of Max. He told me that night at the party that he would ruin me if I said anything to his wife about us and he meant it. So I decided on adoption and got an adoption agency in New York City to sort everything out. They gave me a brochure of people waiting to adopt and I picked out a couple with two kids. I thought that would be nice...for my baby to have a brother and a sister. The fetal transplant was performed the next day and as soon as it was done I returned to San Francisco. I never told Max and he died not knowing." She paused. "It hurt like hell afterwards. Every time I saw a baby I died inside and wished with all my heart that I could undo things, but I know I did the right thing because Jessica needed so much more than I could give her. I just wish her family hadn't relocated so she wouldn't have lost them the way she did."

"Them not relocating wouldn't have been security against that happening," Chakotay said. "Her family could easily have been caught up in a conflict while traveling. Lots of people have. And even if they hadn't died at the Cardassians hands, they could have died sme other way. We can't possibly know these things. Because even if we go to the future to find out, there's every chance that future has changed by the time we get back to the present. Who's to say what would have happened if they'd stayed? Or even if you'd kept her? You made the decision that was right at the time and you can't reproach yourself for that."

"No," she said. "And I don't. At least, not anymore. I finally feel at peace with everything. Talking with Jessica today helped. She came to see me this morning and I really think things are going to work out between us."

"I'm glad," Chakotay smiled. "People come in and out of our lives for a reason, and there's a reason why Jessica came back into yours. I don't believe in coincidence. Some things are beyond chance."

"It certainly seems that way. The odds of you and Jessica both ending up on my ship have to be billions to one. The irony of it all made me doubt that you were really the man who saved me. It seemed too ironic to be true." She broke away from Chakotay and looked around the cabin. "And the fates have brought us here again. How the great wheel turns."

"Always," Chakotay said. "And no matter how many times it has to roll, it always brings us to the right place at the right time."

"Yes," Kathryn said, turning back to him. "And that right place for us is right here, right now. I once told Seven that sometimes we have to look back to go forward and I think that's what we've done. So let's move forward. Let's put the ghosts of yesterday to rest and embrace tomorrow. There's a whole new life waiting for us and I'd like....I'd like us to live it together."

Chakotay closed the small gap between them, standing so close that their bodies touched. "Are you saying what I think you are?"

Kathryn nodded. "I could never say it on Voyager, there were too many obstacles, but there are none now and I can. I love you, Chakotay. I love you with all that I am."

Tears filled Chakotay's eyes and he gathered her close. "Oh Kathryn. I love you too, I've always loved you."

Kathryn held him in return and they held each other tight, held each other long. Then they drew away and gazed at each other in joy and in awe.

"I fell in love with you that night," Chakotay said. "When you walked into the hall, your hair loose over your shoulders, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen." Tenderly, he brushed his fingers against her cheek. "I still think you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

Kathryn smiled. "Careful, mister. Flattery might get you everywhere."

Chakotay laughed softly and then they gazed into each other's eyes again.

"I've longed so much for your love," he said. "Longed so much it's hurt."

"Me too," she confessed. "Keeping a distance between us on Voyager was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do." A tear ran down her cheek. "It feels like a dream to finally be able to touch you. I've ached too, more than you know."

"I know," he said. "I have too." Softly, he ran his fingers over her lips. "And to kiss you."

Kathryn could hardly breathe at his caress, and when he lowered his lips to hers and kissed her, he took her breath away.

"This cabin is mine for the night," she said when they finally drew away. "Shall we stay?"

"On one condition," Chakotay teased. "There are no goodbye notes on the mirror in the morning."

"No notes," Kathryn laughed, "I promise."

Chakotay smiled and then they kissed again in the amber glow of dancing flames.

THE END