Disclaimer and warnings: I don't own these lovely characters — just borrowed them for a bit, for my own selfish enjoyment. No copyright infringement intended. Warning: Contains semi-graphic sex and adult language.

While taking a break from a longer, multi-chapter story I'm working on, this emerged after I spent some time contemplating darker-S5-Kathryn and how damn lonely it is for her, in general. Counterpoint is one of my favorite episodes, and I think it was inevitable that I'd end up writing something connected to it. Never imagined I'd go in this direction, but, uh, sometimes the imagination does strange things.;) This started out as a rather harsh, dark story, but in the end, I couldn't quite leave it that way. :)

Summary: It's been a lonely few years, and let's face it, long enough is long enough. Written from C's point-of-view. Takes place after the S5 episode "Counterpoint". Please see disclaimer and warnings.

At the Midnight Hour

I know I'm probably making a mistake as I walk down the corridor, but my steps continue under their own power, ignorant of the reservations playing in my head — or, at the very least, unwilling to pay them any heed.

This route is familiar — I've traversed it many times on happier, lighter occasions, and I can almost convince myself that it's no different now. But as I get nearer my destination, I feel my heart thumping in my chest, and there's no pretending this is purely a social call.

Moments later, I'm standing outside Kathryn's quarters, staring dumbly at her door. I've not prepared what I'll say, and my anxiety flares as I fixate on the fact that I'm running on impulse here. Bad impulse, at that.

I finally ring the chime (that part of me refusing to do otherwise wins out, of course).

An eternity passes, and there's no answer.

(I know she's here — I checked.)

I hazard another ring, and when it, too, goes unanswered, relief fills me. I'm thinking, I tried, and I turn on my heel, preparing a hasty retreat, when the doors suddenly hiss open. And there's Kathryn, standing there, her arms folded across her chest — and she's in her robe. I struggle briefly for speech, feeling awkward and regretful for having disturbed her.

"Captain...I'm sorry to bother you. I'll come back another time." I make to leave again, certain that she'll let me go, when she unfolds her arms and invites me in.

"I was in the bath," she says as I step into her space. "Just give me a minute, okay?"

I watch her retreat into the bedroom, and as I do, I'm struck by how small she looks, wrapped in the pale robe, her feet bare. It's a little hard for me to fathom that, just hours ago, she was leading Voyager through an elaborate struggle, playing both defense and offense in what I can only describe now as a battle of wits in which heart and mind were weapon and victim the same. The price of failure had been high, but thanks to her cunning plan, our telepath refugees escaped to safety and Voyager and her crew were ultimately spared.

The Captain, perhaps not so much.

I'm not sure if it's good or bad, that as I wait for her I have time to ruminate over all of this. And of course my thoughts threaten to push me into dangerous territory, where I am also wounded, and feel entitled to ask her to explain herself to me. Even as I fight against it, I can taste those feelings, and I'm wondering now if I should head straight for the holodeck and the boxing ring before I really mess things up with her.

I realize I'm pacing when she emerges from her room — I stop and turn when I hear her. She looks more casual than I've seen her in a while (well, not counting the robe), wearing tight black pants and a simple gray t-shirt, and I try not to fixate on how lovely she is.

She looks at me with eyes that are puzzled and...something else I can't quite discern.

Whatever it is, it melts away my thoughts of fleeing, and instead plants me firmly here. (Possibly forever.)

"Commander," she says in greeting, and something inside of me retreats a little bit at hearing her use my rank instead of my name.

Then again, I guess I did the same thing only moments ago.

Despite the formality, she doesn't seem disturbed by my presence — in fact, as she crosses to her replicator and orders a coffee, turns to ask me if I'd like something (not at the moment, thanks), I'm wondering if she might have expected me.

She sits down on the couch by the window, and although she tries to appear otherwise, her posture betrays that she is not relaxed, her casual attire in conflict with her mood.

She waves a hand, gesturing me to the couch, as she inquires: "What can I do for you?"

At least she didn't follow it with Commander, but as I move to sit, I sense the barrier between us. She's deliberately positioning me at arm's length, anything below her carefully-masked exterior rendered inaccessible — at least for now.

I am not fooled — I can see that she is hurting — and I know I face a battle, if I'm to try to reach her. But I've spent five years with this woman — I've shared our roller coaster ride through the Delta Quadrant as her friend and confidant, and though she may not realize it, I see her fully, flaws and all, light and dark.

And I love her still.

I sit a couple of feet away from her, and even though my train of thought has bolstered my confidence somewhat, I'm sure I look just about as relaxed as she does.

I shrug lightly before I speak, and I'm not sure whom I'm trying to convince that my visit is of an entirely casual, shrug-worthy nature.

"I wanted to stop by...see how you're doing."

And that's true — that's why I'm here — because she's been through something and I care about her and she's my friend. I need to make sure she's okay. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I'm also here because I need to know what she's feeling — what's not in her report — and most of all, I need to know where we stand. Maybe it's too soon for that. I know I might not like the answer right now, and that we'd probably both be better off if I left her alone. But she invited him to stay on the ship, for God's sake, and I think I have a right to know what it was that would have seen him my shipmate and colleague, had things gone differently. (There I go again, thinking I have a *right* to anything...)

She doesn't respond immediately — instead, she's staring off at some invisible point on the other side of the room, her thoughts drifting to who-knows-where. In the silence I change my mind about the coffee and replicate myself a cup, welcoming it as a distraction more than a beverage as I retake my seat.

I've drawn her gaze with my movements, and she turns to face me. I meet her eyes cautiously — some part of me fearing what I will see there — and my stomach tightens as I register the sadness emanating from their blue depths, unmistakable and heartbreakingly profound. I can see her wrestling with herself as she decides how much she should say, how much she can say, and I know that there's much more here than even my active imagination has conjured.

"I'm doing okay, Chakotay," she says finally, and her gaze falls from me to the couch cushion — a slight surrendering in her attempt to remain impassive... or a realization that she's can't.

"It's been a difficult week," I say, testing the water, knowing that I can't push just yet. The business with the Devore Imperium had in fact lasted well over a month, with inspection after inspection as we traversed their vast space, but it's these past few days, when the elaborate game in which we'd been entrenched intensified and escalated to its final climax, that will have the lasting impact — at least for her.

She sips at her coffee, and I think she's gathering her thoughts — probably carefully selecting the ones she is okay with speaking. I wonder if she will outright change the subject, block my obvious, if subtle, attempt to reach her, but then she shifts slightly in her seat and voices softly —

"I didn't imagine it would end the way it did."

I'm briefly taken aback by her statement. I was not expecting such an admission, let alone what stands to be an opening into the depths of her feelings.

Focusing on her words as they play on repeat in my head, I think, it's an odd statement she's made — because she'd obviously prepared for, and in fact, rather orchestrated, the ending of our recent crisis.

I force myself to take a calming breath, and push away what surfaces when I realize what she means — that she didn't want it to end the way it did.

Which... I already knew.

I'd seen it from across the room as I watched her interact with him — our Devore "guest." It was there, so clear to me most of all, in the intensity of her gaze, her focus... acute, singular — the rest of us reduced to mere background characters.

I saw it in the tug of her smile and the unmistakable spark in her eyes, both drawn just for him. By him...

I saw it in the corridor, as she walked at his side, her steps light, her senses heightened within the confines of their exclusive space. I couldn't remember when I'd last seen her so vibrant and alive.

I guess some foolish part of me had hoped otherwise, but I knew — I know she wanted him to stay.

...I also know how rare it is, for her to want something for herself...

"I'm sorry, Kathryn," I say — and I mean it. No matter what kind of person Kashyk turned out to be, no matter how easily he rendered me invisible, he moved her, somewhere in the depths of her. She may not have trusted him, but she fell for him, and she'd allowed herself to hope, even while she laid our final plans, that he would not betray her.

She sighs and settles back on the couch, but she's delaying rather than making herself more comfortable, as she might have me believe. I give her time, my patience coming easily and thoroughly, well-honed as it is with Kathryn in particular.

She shifts again and clears her throat, and I almost miss the hand that rises to her cheek, and the subtle brush at the corner of her eye. I want to reach out to her, comfort her, but I decide against it, allowing her to believe she's hidden what I wasn't supposed to see.

"At least we got through it unharmed," she says after a moment — and this of course is an attempt to distance herself from her feelings, and to drive our conversation in another direction, which I fully expected but cannot allow.

"Mostly," I say simply, and as I glance at her, I can tell my meaning is not lost.

Her expression changes suddenly, and I can see her jaw working now, clenching tightly beneath her cheeks. She's unhappy that I've not allowed her to change the subject.

"I'm not sure what you want me to say, Chakotay," she says, shaking her head. I can see her tension building, and I have to remind myself that I'm not the one she's angry with. At least, I don't think so...

"You don't have to say anything, Kathryn. I just thought... maybe you'd want to talk things through."

She turns to me with a sudden, humorless smirk, and I brace myself for whatever she's about to unleash. I'm used to her mercurial nature by now, but I am not immune to it.

"Talk." She says the word with disgust, as if I'd suggested she phaser herself in the foot instead of, you know, working through a difficult experience with her closest friend — and that's me, or so she has said. "What shall we talk about — my foolishness? My humanity? The way I came *this close* to giving myself to someone I knew was playing me?"

She rises from couch and begins pacing about the immediate vicinity, looking rather like a caged animal, with me at the focal point (like waiting prey, some part of me realizes), and her voice is raised and angry when she speaks next —

"Or how about the fact that part of me didn't care?! That if he'd stayed another day, I would have had him every which way." My stomach knots at those words, and the particular emphasis with which she speaks them. I can only stare at her moving form as she continues, not missing a beat. "And don't think for a minute that my place on this ship has left me frigid and indifferent, because it's been a lonely few years out here, Chakotay. And sometimes —sometimes I can't remember what it's all for."

I stare at her, wordless. It's not as if I didn't already know these things, on some level. But it feels different when she puts it all out there like this.

She stops pacing suddenly, and squares herself in front of me, meeting my eyes fearlessly, and I think my heart's stopped beating.

"I. Wanted. Him," she says with a bitter finality, and each word feels like a dagger she's driving into my side — the long, pointed emphasis with which she speaks ensuring that I feel the full impact of her meaning. But even in her anger (or maybe especially in her anger), I can see how much she's hurting, and so I accept these wounds, and any others she cares to deal. In truth, I doubt there's really anything that could make me love her less, or deter my willingness to be her sounding board (or her punching bag). And let's face it — there's some twisted part of me that welcomes — wants — her daggers. I guess when it comes down to it, I am a mess with feelings for her — sharp, gut-wrenching, but utterly unwavering feelings.

"What does that say about me, Chakotay? That I would have had him, right there on my desk, even after he revealed his betrayal, had he asked me to?!"

She takes a step closer to the couch, and I search her face, completely dumb as to what she's intending and where this is heading. I'm not sure if she is actually asking me, 'what it says about her', but I decide to hazard speech, if only because it might give me some purchase, allow me to regain some control here —

"It says you're human, Kathryn."

She softens somewhat at my words, and I do mean what I say. I'm not blind to Kathryn the woman — I know her loneliness, I've seen it all too well and too often, and there have been moments in our time together when I have been inches away from tearing down the walls between us and showing her how things could be so much better.

She lets out a deep breath, and I'm thinking maybe we're getting off this train — that any second she's going to sit back down and we'll converse about other things, with less intensity. Maybe have some dinner.

But then she steps around the coffee table, and suddenly she's right there, standing over me with an air of dominance that is both familiar and not. Whatever softness I saw moments ago evaporated with her steps, fire and edge now searing in its place.

"Human," she says, and her voice is throaty and deep. I race to read her, to get at what she's thinking, but she's two steps ahead of me. I feel vulnerable and I want to stand, but she's not left me enough room. Her eyes are piercing mine with an intensity I can't name, and I think I'm going to end up blind or dead or worse beneath her gaze.

I can hear her breathing, see her chest rising with every intake of air, and, without permission, my body is responding to everything I perceive. As she stands in my personal space, mere inches away, she radiates angry lust and a raw, primal need, and I am suddenly and quite achingly captured by her heat, her ferocity...

I'm completely certain I shouldn't be here, that I should be anywhere. But. Here. But as she towers over me, her back arched, chest pushed distinctly forward, challenging, and I see her utterly aching and unfulfilled desire, unmasked, there are exactly zero things in the universe that could draw me away.

I'm not an idiot, and yeah, it hurts, that the wanting I see in her now is not because of me, and that it's not for me. Not really. But Kashyk is gone and I am here and I'm having a hard time right now, giving a shit whom she wants or why. Not when she's looking at me like she's about two seconds away from ripping me to pieces, the very embodiment of a fantasy that's played in my head on more occasions than I will admit...

I swear that I can see her heart pounding against her chest — or perhaps that's my own light-headedness at work. She is her familiar scent, the one that feels like home, somehow — draws me to her — but mixed in is a deep, musky aroma, emanating from a depth she's not exposed to me before. It's intoxicating, and I know as we linger here, suspended between moments, I am long gone. That I will willingly give her what she wants, even if it breaks my heart in the end. I wonder if she knows, that I love her so completely, and am, in fact, incapable of regarding her as anything casual or temporary, even as she holds me here in that light.

Not that it would matter.

Her eyes search mine greedily, and I think she's waiting to see if I'm going to draw away, leave her hanging just as Kashyk did. I can't help but to wonder if I will be every bit her equal here, as he would have been (and I know that was so much of his appeal). Time slows and I'm not moving, and, moments later, she inches forward — the sensation of her body rushes over me and consequences and my ego hastily exit stage left.

I look up at her and allow my own, desire to wash over me fully — it's like a tsunami I'd been holding back with my bare hands, and it's both overwhelming and a relief to let it overtake me. Above a whisper, I ask her if we can really do this. She searches my face — her lips are parted, hungry, and maybe it's my simple acknowledgement that I know what, exactly, she wants right now that's sealed the deal. Or maybe it's that I so clearly want her as she wants...well, someone — because she closes the space between us and kisses me fully in answer, unleashing a torrent of lust that I eagerly drink in, poison as it may turn out to be. She settles down onto my lap, straddling me, and there is no question now where this is going. I toss aside the last of my reservations, knowing full well that nothing easy or simple can come from this, that it holds no promises, no future...and that my heart will likely be the casualty of the evening.

She presses into me, and I can feel the heat between her legs. She moans low in her throat as she rubs against my erection, and I draw her closer, then loosen my arms around her back so that she can move more freely in the exact right way, and for a second I think she's going to come from this alone. I draw one hand away from her back and onto her breast, capturing its fullness in my palm and teasing at her nipple, which I can feel through the thin material of her shirt. She is fearless and beautiful and almost unrecognizable as she accepts every wave of pleasure, her years of confinement having brought her need to an almost cruel and inhuman level. I take her lips fiercely, my tongue claiming her mouth, and she meets my every move, countering against me with her hunger, driving me for more.

She pulls away and throws her shirt up over her head, tosses it aside, and I reach to remove her bra. But I'm not fast enough, and she pushes my hands away and completes the task herself. I close immediately on the flesh now revealed to me, pulling her closer and taking a swollen nipple in my mouth. I would normally be inclined to tenderness here, and generally it's how I always imagined our first time, but I sense and feel in her body that slow and tender is not what she wants. And so, I ravage each breast, reveling in the way her back is arched against me, and her head tilted back. Then I abruptly pick her up, turn and lay her flat on her back, pinning her beneath me on the couch. I am rougher than I would normally be, but I can see in her face that it's the right choice. She pulls at my shirt, attempting to slide it up between our bodies pressed together. I push myself up and remove it easily, and her hands roam eagerly over my flesh.

I slide lower and begin to peel away her pants — they readily give way and I pull them from her legs, toss them to the floor. Then I work to remove the last of her barriers and when I'm done, I can't help but to pause and drink her in completely - every curve of her pale flesh beneath me, and her face, so hauntingly raw with lust and desire. This may mean something more to me than it does to her, but I will never forget this image. She is beautiful (Gods, so beautiful), and I long to claim her like this, as mine in body, mind, and soul.

This is really going to hurt tomorrow.

I forget that thought easily when I see her hand trail down her stomach and then sink between her legs. She looks up at me as I watch, and her delight at my voyeurism is plain.

I am entranced as her fingers press into her sex. She is swollen and open and I can see the very apex of her desire, engorged and red - her low alto pulses deep in her throat as her fingers rub against it, and I watch, transfixed. I feel a bit drunk as my brain steals a second of leverage and I think about the fact that exactly no part of me imagined I'd be spending my evening like this...

Moments later, I pull her hand away — her fingers covered in her slick wetness — and replace it with my mouth. I tease her with my tongue and suck at her tender flesh. She rewards my efforts with velvety cries of pleasure, and she arches her back, pushing her hips toward me and urging me on.

I slide a finger into her, and another, and curve them upward, on the other side from where my tongue is working. I know when I've hit my mark because she lets out a sharp moan and her hips rise further into me, shifting against the intensity of the new sensation as much as pushing into it.

I'm driven at my task, and it is not much longer before her body begins to tremble with orgasm. She contracts against my fingers in waves, and I take her hard with my mouth as she comes. She seems to crumble beneath me, and I'm pretty sure the entire deck (if not the ship) can hear her earth-shattering cascade of ecstasy.

I've not let up, and she squirms beneath me now, her sensitivity at my every touch increased ten-fold. I grab her hips and hold them to me, fighting against her attempts to pull away as she struggles to regain control. I continue at her sex like it's the only thing I know how to do, and if her first orgasm rang throughout this deck, the second one would probably register as something worthy of a red alert. I hold her hips tightly as she writhes against me, coming wildly and hard.

When her trembling slows, she is flushed and effulgent and limp beneath me, utterly rocked to her core, and I'll be honest — I feel about a hundred meters tall having put her there. I can't help but to stare at her spent form, looking, I am sure, rather pleased with myself.

After a time, she regains some control of her body and pushes herself up, using her arms for leverage. Then, with more strength than I was expecting, she pushes at my chest, and forces me to my feet beside the couch. Her hands find the front of my pants and she quickly pushes them off me, and then the rest, and seconds later, I stand before her, painfully aroused but waiting and willing to let her to decide what comes next (and more than a little relieved that this won't be a one-way exchange).

She stands in front of me, presses her breasts against my chest, and reaches up to kiss me. I instantly fantasize about making her come a third time. I draw her up against my hardness — she is on her toes, and I crouch down slightly so that I can slide between her legs, my throbbing erection brushing against her silky, heated center.

My world blurs just a bit as she slides down my body to kneel in front of me, and a deep groan of pleasure and relief escapes me as she takes my length eagerly into her mouth. I am at her mercy as she ravishes me, and she quickly drives my arousal to near breaking.

She releases me and stands before the deed is done, and with her hands on my chest, she pushes me backwards. Her eyes are lit with mischievous delight, and I realize that she is driving me toward her desk, and of course I know why.

Sure enough, we're soon next to her workspace, and she turns us and eases herself onto the smooth surface, shoving a couple of PADDs away without care. She wraps her legs around me and uses them to draw me in. Her hands roam across my back, and she kisses a trail from my chest, to my neck, to my ear.

I ache at this point, and a rather primal-sounding...sob, really...escapes from my core when she finally guides me to enter her. Her fingers dig into my back, and she pulls me against her hard, taking all of my length into her body in a rush of intensity.

She leans back on her arms, bracing herself against the desk, and she arches her spine, throws her head back — she is a beautiful, powerful sight before me, and I drink her in as I work into her. I can see the muscles of her arms and shoulders firing as she steadies herself against me, and I can feel her pelvic muscles squeeze around me as I glide through her.

She draws her legs up, bending them, and this new angle invites me into her more deeply. She urges me into harder thrusts, and she cries out — it sounds like a cry of pain at first, but then it is clearly not just pain, and it's this that she has so been craving.

I feel like a dam about to burst, and when I come it is earth-quaking and I think I might be blind and deaf and completely shattered when it's all over. She watches me as I explode into her — dominant, powerful — still holding her body firmly against me as I lose my control.

When my convulsions cease, I find my legs weak — trembling — so I pull out of her and lean into the desk, bracing myself with my arms. She sits up, pulls her legs together, and when I glance at her she is regarding me, looking rather satisfied.

"You know, we can't make a habit of this," she says with an lopsided grin, to which I laugh lightly, trying to intone some humor that I don't exactly feel.

She suddenly shifts and embraces me tightly. I've no idea what she's thinking, but I'm grateful for the gesture. I hug her back, and I feel her sigh at my shoulder.

After a few moments, she releases me, draws back and slides off the desk. I watch her as she walks to her room, and I think — I guess this is it. I remind myself that I knew what I was getting into. I knew this moment would follow everything else, and so there's nothing to do except swallow my feelings, gather my things, and leave this experience where it is.

I stare briefly at the spot on her desk, where a bit of our aftermath seeped from her body. I wipe it away, and then move to collect my clothes, erasing my traces.

I'm nearly dressed when Kathryn reappears — she's pulled on a sweatshirt and pants (the clothes from earlier are still strewn about the floor), and she looks lovely in her afterglow. I realize — that's what I should take with me from all this.

I smile lightly at her, trying to convey in my expression that there are no hard feelings — I was a well-informed and very willing participant this evening.

She looks as though she's on the verge of saying something, and I'm just hoping it isn't "thank you", because I really don't want that to be the last thought as I leave her quarters and our one evening of passion behind.

She doesn't speak, and so I offer her "good night", and, to really show that she needn't fret about rough feelings, I kiss her on the cheek before making my way to the door.

"Don't go," she says suddenly, barely above a whisper. I stop dead in my tracks and turn back to face her.

"I, um...there are a lot of reasons why we can't..." she's unable to finish the sentence, and she lets it die away before taking up anew. "I just don't want you to think..."

She's decidedly bad at speech right now, and maybe it's her uneasiness or the fact that she's not simply seeing me out the door, but I suddenly find myself feeling rather articulate. I take a couple of steps closer to her before I speak.

"I came into this with my eyes open, Kathryn. I know what you went through, and I understand how we ended up here." She shaking her head at me, and I take another step forward. "I enjoyed what we just shared, very much. And even though — yes — there's some pain in it for me, because our feelings for each other are not the same, I'm okay with what's happened. Two adults, in a particular place, at a particular time."

She's searching my eyes for something more, but I don't think she'll find it, because I feel the power of my words as they solidify as truth in me.

"I appreciate that," she says softly. "I know the circumstances here are...challenging. I can understand, if you want to leave. But...please don't think this was meaningless for me." She takes a step in my direction, looking as if she's going to say more, but she doesn't.

I nod, understanding both what she's said and at least some of what she hasn't.

Part of me is eager to leave, to work this through solitarily, in my own space. And honestly, if she starts apologizing or feeling sorry for me, the equanimity I've somehow managed to find will surely slip away, and I can't have that now.

But, she's too important to me to leave when she's asked me to stay. And I think — maybe it would be better for us to ease back into our friendship now, rather than morning duty on the bridge marking our first encounter "after."

So I swallow my awkwardness, and to some extent, my pride, and ask her if she's hungry. She smiles, her relief palpable.

She's overly eager to prepare dinner for us, and I watch her flutter about, replicating this and that and setting the table. I offer to help, knowing that preparing a meal is never a simple undertaking for her, but she declines. So I settle onto the couch (which I will surely never look at in the same way again), and decide to peruse the book sitting on her end table — it's a collection of poems by Goethe. I've not read much of his work, and I'm happy to have something to concentrate on while Kathryn does battle with dinner.

I'm not surprised the book is part of her collection — the writing is quite eloquent and interesting, the product of an individual who was poet, politician, scientist, and philosopher the same.

I'm drawn to the poem "At Midnight Hour", for whatever reason, and I read it several times, slowly. I'm engrossed in the passage, and I think I've discerned some of its meaning, when I suddenly notice Kathryn standing nearby, staring at me.

She flashes a smile when I look up. "I've always found his work quite fascinating. And so much emerged from its influence — classical music, epic plays, scientific theories... You can find Goethe in almost everything creative that emerged in Earth's nineteenth century, and beyond that, even."

I nod, closing the book with my finger still in it. "I've really not read him much before. The poetry is lovely."

She reaches for the book and takes it from my hands, preserving my bookmark. Then she opens to what I was just reading. "At Midnight Hour...mm-hmm. I like this one."

She pauses for a moment, and then she reads it out loud, her cadence and careful emphasis reflecting her familiarity with the piece —

"At midnight hour I went, not willingly,
A little, little boy, yon churchyard past,
To Father Vicar's house; the stars on high
On all around their beauteous radiance cast,
At midnight hour.

"And when, in journeying o'er the path of life,
My love I followed, as she onward moved,
With stars and northern lights o'er head in strife,
Going and coming, perfect bliss I proved
At midnight hour.

"Until at length the full moon, lustre-fraught,
Burst thro' the gloom wherein she was enshrined;
And then the willing, active, rapid thought
Around the past, as round the future twined,
At midnight hour."

She smiles and closes the book, puts it back on the end table. "Even in the darkness, there's hope, and beauty to behold." She shrugs and gestures at the dining area. "Anyway — dinner's ready."

I'd concluded something similar in my interpretation, although I think the piece also speaks some of loneliness and the inherent struggle of existence (shades of the coming existential movement, I suppose). Regardless, I appreciate the poem even more after her reading, and I'm oddly and suddenly struck in this moment, how there really hasn't been anyone else on my radar these past years. I've had relationships (if you'd call them that), but it's been filler more than anything, and at no point has Kathryn ever left my heart.

Maybe that's a little sad, and maybe I will never be more to her than I am right now, but as I look at her, I know, more than I've known anything in my life, that my love for her is full and complete and...a part of me. It just is. I couldn't erase it if I wanted to.

I rise from the couch and make my way to the table, the poem in her voice echoing in my head. The short, simple passage is somehow fitting for today.

We sit across from each other like we always do. She pours water into our glasses and I cut the bread.

I watch her as she dishes salad onto our plates (extra olives for me), my eyes shifting from her face to her hands. The awkwardness hasn't fully left us, but the familiarity of our ritual is comforting.

This day has certainly been fraught with turmoil, but what I realize as I sit here, sharing this time, this space, and this food, with the woman I love, is that it's not a hopeless darkness where we find ourselves now.

I stir the dressing. One spoonful for her, two for me. She smiles as I remember.

We eat our salads, and she mentions a couple of books I might like. I talk about a new holo-program, say we should go. It's like any other dinner.

Darkness, light — for better or for worse — loving her is part of who I am.

She serves up the main course — it's a stew of some kind — and I grab her hand when she's done, squeeze it lightly.

Because...I forgive her. I think I always will.

Some kind of recognition flashes in her eyes as they meet mine, and she smiles, though there's a hint of melancholy in it.

We eat, and after that, I stay.

We read together, we talk. And later, she falls asleep in my arms, on the couch. I know that even in this, there are no promises — that for now, we exist in the day-by-day. And it will be filled with ups and downs, with the ultimate outcome uncertain. But that's life, and as she sleeps against my chest, relaxed at last, I realize that I wouldn't trade any of it. Darkness, light, and everything in between, I will meet and endure it with her, for as long as the fates allow.

It's with these thoughts that I, too, drift off.

Peaceful at last, no more or less than we are. That's where we find ourselves, at the midnight hour.