Chapter Text
Chakotay,
I know it's been months since we've spoken. Four months and two days, in fact. Are you surprised I know the exact number?
I know because it took two months for me to stop reaching for a comm badge on my nightstand each morning to ask you how gamma shift went. Another to not turn to ask your opinion on every issue at headquarters. One more to stop expecting to see your face everytime the door to my office slides open.
Time is a curious thing. The way it can erode parts of the past like a soft clay stream bed. Until it's worn a new path so different you can scarcely believe the old one existed. And the water flows on anyway, no matter what might try to hold it back.
There's something holding me back, Chakotay. From fully embracing this life and this future we fought so tirelessly for. And that's why I'm writing to you now.
After four months and two days.
You know, I’m not one for words. Reading them, yes, but not speaking them aloud. Not the type of words that matter anyway. The difficult ones, the jagged edge words that close off your throat, that echo in your chest in the dark.
I’m better with orders, directions, facts. There’s no risk in stating those.
It's too dangerous, too real if I say these honest things, these terrifying things, so that other people can hear them. Easier, instead, to keep them tucked away, like a brand I wear that no one else sees.
I’m not like you, in that way. I can’t wear my heart on my sleeve and not lose it completely.
You know that’s one of the first things I admired about you? Your transparency, your honesty. Right or wrong, you always lay your cards on the table. I always hold mine close to the chest.
Not anymore.
I’m going to write those words down for you now. The frightening, truthful ones. Because otherwise they’re going to keep devouring all the good that we were out there. Until there’s nothing left between us but regret. I admit, there’s a selfishness in what I’m doing, a need to break the trammels that have forced my lips to stay silent, my hands to keep from reaching for you. We both know I’ve always been just a little bit selfish.
And because you deserve to know. You deserved to know a long time ago.
But I've never been as brave as you are.
You know I can actually hear you objecting? Telling me I’m fearless. How I’ve always been able to make the tough choices. To shoulder the burden of this journey for the crew. That you’ve never seen anyone as fierce or as strong as I am.
Chakotay, I’m not.
I’m terrified, paralyzingly so, by emotions. Feelings that are so big I can’t see where they end and the edge of reason begins. That try to pull me under and sweep me away on a wave I can’t possibly surface from.
Because if I had let myself feel everything that existed between you and I, there’s no question in my mind I would have drowned.
And out there, where every day brought a new threat, a new impossible choice between what was morally sound and essential for survival, I couldn’t afford to stand still. To hesitate. Or to be less than completely in control of myself.
You make me feel undone.
It's not even just the attraction. We’re both adults, we know what that is. That pheromones, the chemicals, the lack of physical intimacy after years in space. If it were only a question of having sex with you, I’d have probably found myself in your bed long before we made it home. That’s easy to explain away, to control.
Not this.
You probably can’t understand why I would even tell you all this, even in my overly-analytical, convoluted way. After all these years, all these almosts. After every time you lingered in my doorway late at night, with that look in your eyes that was so open and tender and offered me everything while expecting nothing. And then every time I forced a smile and told you to leave, when all I really wanted was to ask you to stay.
But I never asked you, did I?
Not in the way I wanted.
There were times we both fell asleep in my quarters. Me curled on the couch, you with your feet propped on the coffee table. I’m not sure you know this, but once I woke up with my head on your shoulder, your arm wrapped around me. I could hear your heart beating. Steady. Strong.
That was the moment I almost broke.
Looking up at your face, watching you sleep. I had the reckless, impossible urge to kiss you and damn all the parameters and protocols to hell.
Of course, we both know that I didn’t. I slipped away, putting some distance between us.
I was always putting distance between us.
But, god, I was tempted. It was never easy, never. I know it probably looked that way; I’m a hell of an actress. I can bury my own emotions so deep even I don’t know they’re really there. Until they’re just a gnarled knot in the pit of my stomach that doesn’t allow me to eat or rest or do much besides drink coffee and try to forget.
You need to know that I hated it, that distance. Every day.
How many times did I expect you to hold out a hand to me, only for me to pull away? How many chances did I think I could let disappear like fireflies at dawn? Was I really that arrogant? That foolish? To think the next time they’d still be there, even if I couldn’t see them?
Really, Chakotay, I was just afraid.
I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I was afraid of all the things you moved in me, the way you made me think and feel and react. You shook something inside, something I had no hope of quelling if I kept moving closer to you. I would have given in to the warmth of your smile, the kindness in your eyes, the strength of your hands.
But you know what I’m more afraid of now? What keeps me from finding sleep in the comfort of the bed at my mother’s home in Indiana? What sometimes steals over me in a quiet moment and clutches at me like a strangle hold?
I’m afraid that I’m going to lose you.
Not the way I was afraid of out there. It's not death that’s gnashing its teeth at our heels this time, reaching to snatch you away and leave me breathless and lost in its wake.
It's life.
We’ll drift apart. Like dandelion seeds twirling in the wind, twisting and floating until they’re blown apart. And when they land, they grow new roots, forge a new life on fresh soil.
And they never have that time to dance on the air again.
I won’t keep that from you though, that distance, if it's what you need to be happy. Put down those new roots, grow and reach and find all the joy in this world. God knows you deserve it.
I’ve never met anyone quite like you, Chakotay. You're so steady, with such an open heart. With that endless well of compassion and patience for everyone around you. Even when I felt depleted, ragged, with nothing left but the clinging desperation forged in guilt that made me keep moving, you were right there with me. Beside me.
I’m not sure you’ll ever know just how much it was you, not me, that carried this crew across the stars.
You should finally have time for your own happiness. Wherever and whatever that is . I want that for you, pray for it for you. And we all know there isn’t much in this world I pray for.
I actually started this letter a few months ago. Right after we got home. I needed a way to take the thoughts that were screaming around in my head, rattling against my ribs and twisting in my throat, and put them somewhere so that I could begin to move on.
Here’s the truth, Chakotay.
I never really moved on.
That’s not to say I’m unhappy. I won’t lay the burden of my happiness, my well-being, on your shoulders anymore. I have a lovely apartment, good friends, and being an Admiral isn’t nearly as stuffy and mundane as I expected it to be. It's a decent life, a contented life.
But I miss you.
There are still days when I come home, bursting with news from Starfleet, and the only person I want to tell is you. Moments when I go to replicate a cup of coffee, and nearly order up a mug of tea as well. There are so many things I want to share with you, so many I took for granted.
So a few nights ago I pulled this letter out, poured a cup of coffee (only my 3rd that day, I swear) and sat down to say my piece. I’m sure you’re bewildered, and possibly furious, that I waited so long.
Four months and two days.
You understand that, as long as you were with Seven, I could never send this to you. I love her too much, love both of you too much. I would have walked through hell to make sure the two of you were happy, if it was what you both wanted.
Seven commed a few days ago, told me that you had ended things, and gone home to Dorvan. I honestly didn’t know what to say. I’m still not quite sure I’m saying it right.
But I’m trying.
Even now, I don’t expect anything from you. You don’t need to rush in here and save me from my own mistakes again, to soothe the wounds I’ve inflicted with my own stubborn pride. You did enough of that for seven years, I can do it for myself now.
So now it's time for what my mother calls a “difficult truth.” A truth that might hurt as much as it heals. But if you don’t say them, these difficult truths, they become the lies you tell yourself when you’re old and bitter about all the chances you missed.
All these words, these impossible, difficult, fumbling words that I’ve written, really all just mean one thing.
I love you.
For a long time I thought you knew. Hoped you knew. Even if I couldn’t say the words to you, I thought I spoke them with my heart. Isn’t that a foolish, romantic notion?
See? You’re not the only romantic here.
I think now that I was likely wrong, that perhaps you never really knew how I felt. I’m better at that now, admitting I’m wrong. I hope that admission, at least, makes you laugh. The laugh where you shake your head at me, but the joy still reaches your eyes.
I loved you on New Earth, in Venice, on Voyager. When I looked across the table over dinner and you were smiling back at me. When we fought and I yelled and you held your ground. When I let you walk away without ever telling you.
I love you now, as I’m sitting here at my kitchen table and telling myself I’m not destroying any chance we have of being anything to one another, even if it's just friends, with this rambling, belated admission.
But I want more than that with you. And the promise of a future is worth this risk.
I want so much more.
I want the home that’s filled with laughter, the trips to all the places we dreamed about when we watched the stars and wondered if we’d ever find our way home from them, the silly arguments and the difficult ones. I want the life we started to build five years ago, on another planet in a small grey shelter.
I’ll always be flawed, Chakotay. Stubborn and willful and rash. I work too hard, rest too little, and my pride will always be my downfall. But you’re the only man I’ve ever met who’s taken me for just what I am, at my best and my worst. And you’ve never been afraid of all the cracks, all the blemishes that I’ll never erase.
Know that I want you just as you are, too. With your endless teasing, your kind heart, your love of the earth and the sky and the people you fill your life with.
Of all the men I’ve met, served with, loved, there’s never been anyone as extraordinary as you. You’ve taught me things about myself, about how to love people selflessly, how to have faith in the good and just.
You’re all I’ve ever wanted. More than I likely deserve.
I suppose that’s all I wanted to say. I love you, I miss you, and I hope you’re happy. Maybe, if you can find room in your life and your heart for our friendship, we could have coffee soon. Or tea. I do drink that on occasion now, you know. Trying to be better about my health.
And if you think, for some reason, there’s room for more than that…you know where to find me.
Be good to yourself.
Kathryn.