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Part 1
He wakes with a start in a grey room, the darkness of space above him, stars streaking past, reflecting in his eyes.
He knows it's morning, although there is no clear evidence of it, except his alarm. He pulls himself up, feet touching the carpet, hands gripping the edge of the mattress, knuckles turning white. After almost a month, his body still hasn't readjusted to the humming of the engines and gentle throbbing of the ship. It'll come, it always does.
He is on his way to have breakfast in the mess hall, the walls around his heart fortified. They crumble away on nights when he dreams of the house, of her, unravelled like Penelope's shroud, but he rebuilds them again and again for the same reason Penelope tore her work apart: hope and memory, the captain of a ship that travels through the dark waters of the unknown, trying to return home. The sea and the night are not so different when one is navigating without a map, against faithless winds.
B'Elanna, across the table from him, makes a joke, and he smiles. He feels like his old self with her, his heart as it's always been. Neelix is pouring him some kind of tea, terrible smell, but, he assures him, a lovely aftertaste. B'Elanna smirks, and prepares to launch into her second "you can't believe what that idiot Tom Paris did" story of the morning.
The tale is in full swing as the doors open, and she walks in. She is holding a coffee mug and padds and stops by Samantha Wildman's table to say hello to baby Naomi. She smiles in his direction, asking how the tea is. Strong aftertaste, he replies, smiling back.
He'll mend the new hairline cracks by the time he makes it to the bridge, she'll be in her Ready Room anyway; she spends more time in there than usual since they've returned. She told him, yesterday morning when he asked during their daily briefing, that she's catching up on paperwork and reports from their months away, but as the words left her mouth she looked away from him, at the stars, and took a slow sip of the coffee he's poured her earlier. There was a wistful look in her eyes he knew she didn't want him to catch, and he obliged by pretending he hadn't.
B'Elanna is still talking but stops midsentence as she notices his gaze, cup of tea halfway to his lips. She turns around to look at the Captain leaving the mess hall, then back at him.
"Chakotay, what the hell happened between the two of you on that planet?"
Her question, whispered over their empty plates as she leans over, doesn't surprise him, if anything, he expected her to ask sooner, and was grateful she didn't. He can't answer, it isn't a sentence he can find the right words for, or a story. Not like her stories about Tom Paris anyway, a bit ridiculous and tinged with something she's not ready to admit to herself. It's a labyrinth of happiness and sadness he hasn't yet discovered the exit to, and some days finds himself in the middle of, having to start all over again. The walls move, his maps useless.
He looks at B'Elanna, and, placing his cup on the table, gets up, leaving her with the only word he can think of that might begin to express the truth.
“Everything."
Part 2
Him
“Maybe you should call me Kathryn."
He likes to turn the name on his lips as he works, a foreign language he's learning the new sounds of. The sandpaper moves slowly, in circles, over the edge of the bathtub, until the surface is perfectly smooth, and he says it again, although whether out loud or not, escapes him.
He can't think of ever hearing anyone else call her by her name. It's always an honorific, rank, or last name, never this. The loneliness of never hearing one's name spoken out loud...
There are moments when he wishes he had a secret name of his own to gift her, but then, he realises -- and each time the thought crosses and recrosses his mind it's a shock -- they are the only two people in the world, and if she called any name, only he could answer.
His hands run over the surface again. It took days to choose and cut the wood, then a few more to dry it, test how it would react to the sealant he replicated, how it allowed itself to be shaped. He'd thought about building this for her since their first day here, but wood takes time. He is happy with his choice, it's suple, fine-grained, the seal holds.
Sometimes he calls for her for no real reason, there's something in the way she turns around, her hair flowing over her shoulders now that she'd chosen to wear it loose, a question in her eyebrows and a vague half-smile he can't remember seeing all that often before. He might not have a different name to gift to her, but there's a new softness in the way she says it that warms his heart.
Who are they now to each other? The question keeps circling in his mind each time they share breakfast in the morning, or when she leans against him laughing at a half-baked joke; the other day, when they ran back to the house together, huddled under his jacket to stay out of the rain? The realities of what he thinks he's always wanted, what she might be willing to give, and what the universe will allow do not always overlap.
It will do! He says to himself as he smooths the inside of the frame with his fingertips, then puts his tools and remaining sealant in the bag. It needs more time to set. Meanwhile, he can enjoy teasing her as she tries to trick him into revealing his secret.
He walks home slowly through the dusk descending on the woods, his mind filled with her hair and the way she says the last syllable of his name.
Her
“Well, excuse me."
His gaze, as he says the words, unbalances her. She's lying in bed, in the darkness, a whole other conversation later, but it's the memory of his eyes on her that keeps bouncing off the mental barriers of whatever she has decided must be appropriate, like a stupid Velocity disk.
It's her duty to draw the line, and all she's done is blur it with each passing day. Much as she's protested his kindnesses, it has always been, she finally admits to herself, out of fear, the terror of what would happen if she gave in, truly gave in, only to end up back on the ship after they'd found a cure, trying to pretend none of it had ever happened. What "it" entails she isn't quite certain yet, but she knows it would decidedly cross her line.
She squeezes her eyes shut. "The eagle must know when to sleep". Damn his eagle, and damn sleep, she must work harder, to give them back their real lives before they inevitably pass a point of no return. The solution is there, she can almost feel it.
She's done it twice now, torn everything asunder, like a blind Ulysses trying to find a way home, running aground on every island but his own.
But then, amid the thoughts of proteins, amino acids, primates, endless useless bugs and guilt guilt guilt, there's the gentleness of him. Making dinner, pouring coffee, calling her name in the woods, even though there is no one else here who could possibly reply. Building her a bathtub. He does all of that so she can work. She never bothered to ask what he needed. Or wanted.
There was only a towel and darkness between them tonight.
Him
The woods have started to grow quiet in the darkness of twilight. He adjusts the straps of his bag and quickens the pace. The stars are already out, a sense of urgency gathering in his chest, a need to get back.
He'd left the previous day, early in the morning, before she woke up. This time he didn't have to ask, she wasn't his captain anymore, not officially, but he'd talked it over with her the night before, and told her he needed time to go on a vision quest, alone. His reasons were left unsaid.
At times he feels they are standing on opposite banks of the same river, trying to talk over the roar of the water, the distance insurmountable. It was easier on the ship, hiding behind protocol, duty, and the absolute certainty that she could, would, never, and if he tried, he'd hurt her. So he didn't. But out here, without the uniform, their duties, there are moments when he thinks he sees something in her eyes, the way her hand lingers on his arm just a little too long, or how she leans over his shoulder while he works, her hair brushing the side of his face. He wants to define what he feels as love, but the sentiment, beautiful as it is, reduces the sense of what resides close to his heart, at times choking him. There's already too much they've shared to limit it to a word spoken in Federation Standard. So he stands on his side of the bank.
His spirit guide is silent. She doesn't say much as a rule, it's always a sense, a feeling with her, when she does show up, often circling, listening to him ask his questions, waiting for him to answer them himself. The only word that filled him before they parted was "home".
There is light in front of him, through the undergrowth. In the near darkness, he spots her, hanging lanterns on the branches of one of the larger trees close to the shelter. She's moved the table outside.
"Is that you, Chakotay?" she calls behind her, perching precariously on the edge of a chair.
"I think it's me," he answers and she jumps down and turns to him, hands on hips, smiling.
"Just in time, dinner is ready. Help me bring it out!" His eyebrows raise quizzically, he'd half expected to find her at her terminal, empty mugs of coffee everywhere, a half-eaten salad in a bowl. "I've made mushroom soup, it's your recipe. I think I managed the bread to go with it too, but we'll see."
He drops his bag on the ground next to the table, and as he follows her inside it dawns on him that perhaps it's been easier to edit his own soul, refuse to love unreasonably and illogically, because he's always believed he had all the time in the world. They'd get home, and be safe, the knot of duty and protocol finally untied between them. But time has run out, the world ended taking all its rules with it.
She made him mushroom soup.
Her
"Someday I may have to let go. But not today, okay?"
As she walks away, leaving him to his woodwork, it strikes her that on a planet, walking away from someone only brings you back to them the long way around.
Him
“Well, that's one way of letting go."
Her voice is soft as she says the words, and he wants to comfort her, tell her that it's going to be all right, somehow, but doesn't know how.
The damage to the shelter is not as bad as he'd thought but will take them the day to clean up. Looking at her now, picking up traps, then letting them fall to the ground again, he's glad of it. She can use the distraction. He recognises the hurt in the slump of her shoulders, the way she moves her hair out of her face as she crouches down to survey another piece of damaged equipment.
He takes her hand to help her up and doesn't let go as he finally tells her he is sorry. Her grip is stronger than he'd expected, as if holding on to him could stem the tide of the grief he sees gathering at the corners of her eyes, in place of tears.
He wishes their life could be enough for her. Not everything, but enough.
Her
There's something unexpected in the way he gathers her hair between his fingers, moving it over. His movements are deliberate and gentle, there is a softness spreading through her chest as he places his hands on her shoulders. They feel warm, and the pain increases then subsides as he pushes and pulls at the injured muscles, untying knots, his thumbs grazing the back of her neck.
“Oh, that feels good," she almost moans under his touch, and unbidden images of his hands flood her mind. Her eyes flutter open as she realises the danger of where she'd imagined them roving, of what she's been saying as she finds herself leaning into him.
He's telling her about his mother, it should be innocuous, but it isn't, it almost never is with him lately, yet she cannot fault him for being kind. She rises suddenly and turns to him, hoping to find a hint of impropriety so she can blame him for what she can't admit she wants, but he's standing there, soft and silent, his arms by his side. What is it she's expecting of him, they're the only two people left in the world, and she's noticed, much as she always pretended not to, how he has been looking at her, long before this planet, this life.
“I'm going to go to bed now. I'll see you in the morning."
"Sleep well, Kathryn," he calls after her, and the sound of her own name nearly unravels her.
Him
“Is that really an ancient legend?"
“No. But that made it easier to tell you."
Part of him knew this had to happen, the reckoning, the bearing of souls. He recognised its advent in the way her shoulder tensed under his fingers earlier, her eyes narrowed and pupils dilated when she turned towards him, her voice breaking as she thanked him before walking to her bedroom, in silence. And here they are, his heart bleeding before her in his open chest.
He hadn't expected the tears, the half-smile, her hand reaching out to meet his, fingers intertwining. It isn't the first time she's taken his hand, nor the first time they've touched, yet something has shifted irrevocably, a bridge crossed and set ablaze.
Her hand is still in his and she moves towards him. He rises to meet her, not sure what to expect, knowing what he hopes. She stands looking up at him for a moment and lifts her mouth to his. Their fingers untangle, and he puts his arms around her pulling her as close as he can without crushing her, diving deeper into the kiss. She matches his urgency, her hands on the back of his head, running through his hair. Neither let go until they have to come up for air, his forehead resting against hers, savouring the faint aftertaste of that first kiss.
She turns and takes his hand, her fingers slipping into the spaces between his once more, and he finds himself being led to the same bedroom that earlier had served her as a refuge.
He wishes he could remap the whole of time to match the new geography of his heart. Before her, and after her, this is the only way he knows how to measure his days.
Her
Her universe pivots and pivots and pivots again. All the choices she's ever made, all the mistakes, and all her sins, have conspired to bring her here. She'd thought herself lost at sea, when all the while time itself, twisting and turning its strands, was guiding her to this place, to this morning, to stand barefoot in the dewey grass, wearing a shirt that isn't hers, cradling a mug of coffee.
The sun rises slowly between the mountain peaks, and her eyes narrow to match it. The light is falling on the trees, filtering through the leaves. The bugs she's been so obsessed with catching are moving languidly in it, their wings reflecting the sun, making the air shimmer and drawing lazy patterns in their wake. They're beautiful now that she finally sees them, and the infinity of the small world she is confined to nearly overwhelms her, but not with dread, as before, rather with a strange unexpected joy.
The coffee is still hot as she takes a sip, her toes move against the grass, feeling it under her feet, damp, sharp, fresh. He calls her name and she turns around to see him walk out into the morning sun. The light must have woken him to find her missing, and he's squinting against it now, blanket wrapped around his shoulders, feet as bare as hers under it.
"Am here, Chakotay," she answers, continuing their never-ending game of call and response.
His hair is dishevelled in a way she can't remember ever seeing before, sleep lingers around his eyes as he's walking towards her. She hopes he doesn't ask anything stupid like how she's feeling, or if she regrets obliterating any and all respectable parameters last night. She's fine, and she doesn't, but seeing him vulnerable under a blanket, she realises that between the guilt, the grief, and everything else that has passed between them, a strand of happiness is coiling itself around the empty chambers of her heart where yesterday morning, after the storm, there was nothing but hopelessness.
"Can I grab some of that?" He takes the mug to have a sip, then, handing it back to her, wraps the blanket around both of them.
"We need to define some parameters," she says lightly, and leans onto him, "regarding my coffee."
He bursts into laughter and pulls her closer. The sun is still rising, gently, inexorably, and will rise tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, irrespective of them, governed by the same laws of physics and time that have brought her here.
Each moment is a fork toward innumerable universes, eternally branching into an infinity that comprises time and space and somehow the human heart.
Him
"If I let you borrow it, you'll have to read it out loud to me."
He is leaning against one of the trees by the river, in the shade. Her head is resting in his lap, eyes closed, hair in a loose braid. She's extracted the promise from him in the morning, after breakfast, and he picks up the book now, fingers running along the edges and the spine.
He knows who had gifted it to her. There is no dedication on the pages, but there's a note stuck inside it, which she hasn't bothered to hide or remove. It's a leather-bound edition, dark green, slightly worn, the letters still crisp on the yellowed paper. He turns the pages slowly, pausing to look at the black and white etchings. There's a quality to them he can't quite place, at once evocative and otherworldly. The year on the frontispiece tells him the book must have been printed in the time of movable type, each illustration etched into metal, then pressed into the paper by techniques he's only obliquely familiar with and finds arcane. He stops after a page marked Canto XXVI. He has no context yet for the image, but the name of Ulysses catches his eye and he starts reading, from the beginning of the canto, in silence.
Her eyes open slowly, as one of his hands keeps running through her hair between page turns.
"You can't cheat, you promised."
He smiles and takes her hand, fingers intertwining in the familiar gesture that started everything mere days before. Their hands remain clasped as he clears his throat and starts reading.
"...When I escap'd
From Circe, who beyond a circling year
Has held me near Caieta, by her charms,
Ere thus Aeneas yet had nam'd the shore,
Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence
Of my old father, nor return of love,
That should have crown'd Penelope with joy,
Could overcome in me the zeal I had
T' explore the world, and search the ways of life,
Man's evil and his virtue. Forth I sail'd
Into the deep illimitable main,
With but one bark, and the small faithful band
That yet cleav'd to me."
She doesn't seem to mind he's reading from the middle of the book, she probably knows it by heart. Her eyes close again as he keeps going, and she pulls their joined hands closer. He can feel her heart beating under the fabric of her summer dress.
It seems fitting to him, starting in the middle, with the story of an explorer lost at sea, when being with her like this bleeds into his past and future equally, as ink spilt onto paper, blotting out everything else in all directions from his centre.
Her
She has long lost the count of days.
He's asleep next to her, his chest rising and falling under the covers, an arm draped over his eyes as if to shield them from the sun starting to creep in through the skylight. She likes to watch him sleep in the mornings when she wakes before he does, feel the shelter fill with light.
Sometimes they make it to breakfast, other days they lie together and talk about the day ahead, until hunger compels them to rise and have lunch instead. Their planning almost never goes beyond a few days, except when it comes to the house itself, which he insists they need to expand, and reinforce if the plasma storms turn out to be a regular occurrence. She promises to tend to the garden.
More often than not they end up making love. It's unspoken and intense, raw, almost, driven by a need that is beyond the mere physical, to be as close as possible, at all times, as if to make up for the fundamental and permanent lack of other people around them. They're still learning each other's bodies, how they fit together, and there is a wonderful awkwardness that she knows will wear off in time, but for now delights her. It doesn't seem possible that she'll ever stop wanting him, but to know that also means to know, just as surely, that this couldn't -- and wouldn't -- have had the space it needed on the ship, not with her being, quintessentially, herself. It'd have torn them asunder.
She adjusts her head on the pillow, and places a hand on his chest, to feel his heartbeat. She'll never feel anyone else's, she'll never touch anyone else. The thought is fearful and comforting at the same time, and there is a part of her that wonders if she'd have felt this way about anyone else she could have been shipwrecked with. The thought is unbidden, absurd, and gives rise to another one, just as strange, namely that if there are gods anywhere, they must have a terrible sense of humour, yet also tremendous knowledge of the human heart.
His eyes open slowly, and she smiles at him as she props herself on one elbow, her other hand still on his chest.
"We should have called his planet Ithaca," he says instead of 'Good morning', placing his hand over hers.
Him
The stars are still and clear, the moons have already set and the Milky Way stretches above, splitting their line of sight down the middle through the trees, a river of light flowing against the darkness of the night. They lie in the bathtub together, his shirt clinging to him soaked after she'd pulled him in fully clothed. Her arms are wrapped around his chest, almost cradling him, fingers tracing a random pattern in circular motions, her chin on his shoulder. He can hear her breathing softly next to his ear, her heartbeat against his back, between his shoulder blades, as they stare up at the sky.
"That one to the right, just above the trees, looks like Orion," she points, and his eyes follow the line of the trees to spot the imaginary shape she's decided to identify. In the vastness of this new world, they could find names for everything that had existed for aeons, happily unnamed. There is an unspoken dichotomy in the way he cherishes her name, yet is reluctant to give anything else one.
"The one over there can be the Great Bear then," he can't see the pattern clearly, but it comes to him unbidden, a half-remembered memory of a line from Homer.
"...that round doth move about Orion, and keeps still above the billowy ocean," she quotes, pulling him even closer, and his head turns to meet her lips.
There is nothing but light between them.
Her
They're walking to the river, through the woods. It's further north than the usual part of the bank they visit, but he says he's spotted some animals that remind him of deer, close to the waterfall, and she wants to see them. It's a crisp day, still warm, but with an unusual autumn-y tinge to it that makes her think of Earth in a way this planet hasn't before.
"Do you think about them often?" he asks, his hand pushing away a branch to make way for them through the undergrowth.
He doesn't say who, but he must have sensed something in her, to ask a question so specific and well aimed. To be known so thoroughly is both comforting and unsettling.
"Some days. I hope they make it home. I hope they're safe."
"Me too," he replies, his voice soft and although she wants to reach out to comfort him, and be comforted in return, she finds she cannot.
It dawns on her, not for the first time, but for the first time in a long time, that they've both failed in the duty to return their people home. They didn't wish to be shipwrecked here, but when she's with him, whispering his name against his lips, willing him so close his body melds into her completely, it's easy to forget there were ever more than two people in the universe.
The sounds of the waterfall are starting to come through the trees, gentle at first, then thunderous as they get closer, drowning out the birds, the sound of their footsteps, and most of her thoughts, for which she is grateful.
Their steps quicken, and when they emerge from among the trees, it's everything he said it would be. The noise of the waterfall is deafening now, it cascades down from what can only be hundreds of meters above. The water pools, foams, explodes in a rainbow of colours, then continues on zig-zagging among the rocks, until, a few kilometres south, it reaches the calmer waters she knows from their usual walks.
"It's beautiful," is all she can manage, though her heart is full.
"I have an idea I know you'll like. Am still working it out, I'll tell you once I do," he says then turns back to look at the waterfall, but she's watching him framed against it instead, happiness and guilt mingling in her heart as she takes his hand in hers.
"There they are!" he points suddenly to the other shore, then pulls her down into a crouch. There are a few animals grazing between the trees, of an indistinct brown colour that she can tell helps them blend into their environment. There is a deer-like quality to them, but they're larger, sleeker. One of them raises their head, and for a split second their eyes meet across the waters.
This might be paradise, but on some days, like today, she's terrified of the price they'll both pay when they're finally cast out.
Him
"We plan to be in orbit within thirty hours."
He steps away from her slowly, as Tuvok's voice breaks away once more, leaving them in silence. He'd expected to be hit harder, he'd expected the world to end, but, somehow, it doesn't. She stands there, stunned, quiet, and he knows, just by looking at her, that it's over.
"I'll start packing up our gear right away, Captain." He can hear himself use her title for the first time in months, and it's harsh and deliberate in a way he hasn't intended. He turns to leave, being in the same room with her now almost unbearable, but she catches his hand, fingers pushing themselves between his.
"It's Kathryn, please."
"It wouldn't be appropriate."
He wants her to let go of his hand, to let him leave, before he breaks his composure and pulls her into his arms, but she is holding on and he doesn't have the heart to forcibly tear his hand from hers.
"My name, you can keep it."
"That, and nothing else."
"It's the only thing I have to give right now."
Her breathing is shallow, shoulders tense, and he can feel the strain she must be putting on her hand holding on to him with enough force to turn her knuckles white.
"I swore that I would stay by your side, doing whatever I could to make your burden lighter. Your needs come first, and if this is what you need, I will see it done."
Her fingers let go now, an agreement almost reached.
She has undone him, she's Circe, Calypso, Penelope and all the sirens rolled into one, but he knows, for her sake, for both their sakes, he'll fortify his heart. He's just lost his lover, he cannot lose his best friend.
As he leaves the shelter it strikes him he'd been wrong earlier, this planet was never Ithaca, but Ææa.
Her
He walks into the shelter and starts packing his personal effects early in the morning, already wearing his uniform. He'd spent the night somewhere outside, she assumes in the woods, probably as sleepless as she'd been. She'd made coffee and he took the offered mug, thanking her, but there was only silence between them, thick and heavy.
She's put on the uniform earlier, hair up, coiled a little too tight, as if she needs the discomfort to remind her she isn't to have what she wants anymore. She wonders which is the mask, the uniform or the red dress she's just folded away. While she was here, with him, the Captain had been the dream. Now that she is awake once more, Kathryn will become it.
He picks up the Dante from what had been his bedside table and moves to hand it to her.
"You can still finish it," she tells him softly, her voice a near whisper.
"I will one day, but not yet."
She looks at him and reaches for the book, their fingers touching, accidentally on purpose, the book still between them, tying them together.
"There is an ancient legend among my people", she starts, tentatively. "It's about an explorer who gets lost on treacherous seas with her crew, trying to get home. They're cursed to wander for years to atone for the sins of their captain, who vows to get them home to their loved ones, no matter the cost. But she too, hopes, selfishly, that when they reach home, there will be someone still waiting for her..."
"Is that really an ancient legend?" he interrupts, and his fingers move over hers, their hands closed together over the book.
"Yes, but it also made it easier to say."
When they finally part, she knows they aren't leaving each other, they're tearing themselves away, jagged edges and all.
Part 3
"You are willing to obliterate an entire timeline for him?"
Knowing what she now knows of the future, and recognising the pain of loss in her older counterpart's eyes, the question is dialectic, but she has to ask because she still hopes that time and homecoming could heal the scars left in her heart every time she broke his.
"No, you are! I just hope that, unlike me, you'll turn out to be Homer's Ulysses, not Dante's. You never needed to reach Earth to find home, he was always your Ithaca."
Her fingers curl into fists as she walks out of the shuttle, leaving the Admiral behind. Nails are digging into the palms of her hand, the pain a faint echo of what her heart is feeling as it tears itself apart one final time.
The greatest distances could never be measured in light years.