themusemanor | PSL - Kathryn Janeway | Chakotay ---> And use my head alongside my heart

She used her command codes to override the lock on his door and let herself in without bothering to hit the chime. Whether that was because she doubted he would let her in or she felt the need to exercise her superior command presence in that moment was up in the air. Kathryn didn't quite know herself, but she kept that captain's mask firmly in place when she strolled across the floor and held a PADD out to him.

"I need your input on this, Commander."

Rank, even though he was out of uniform and off duty. It was clear she'd used this as an excuse for coming here, unable to pay a simple friendly visit to her first officer in the wake of all their bickering and staunch disagreement. His opinion on what they should and shouldn't keep of the Borg technology fused to Voyager's hull and various other parts of the ship wasn't something that had to be done right this second, and they both knew there were other things she should be tending to instead of sending someone else to overlook them in her place while she came here.

That peace was shattered almost as soon as it had begun to creep into his mind, destroyed by the one person he didn't want to see just yet. Chakotay slowly glanced up at Kathryn, keeping his face as even and impassable as he could as he took the PADD from her and glanced at it.

"You already know my stance on this, Captain," he told her, holding the PADD back out to her as though it barely mattered. It didn't in the long run. He could guess as to why she'd come and wished she would at least have the decency to put it to him straight right away instead of beating around the issue like she was afraid of his response or trying to deflect it. "If they'll help Voyager's systems, I see no reason why we can't keep them as long as we don't take on any more Borg."

There, a perfect segue into the real topic if she would be bold enough to take it. He wondered if she would.

"Annika Hansen is staying."

Kathryn dropped down to his level, squatting on the floor before him. Her small stature was deceiving, for mere days ago, this petite woman had stared the entirety of the Borg Collective in the face and ordered them around as if they were underlings in her own crew. She was bolder than her body gave her credit for, and only when dealing with the damaged relationship between herself and her First Officer would she show any signs of apprehension.

She thrust the PADD back at him. "Keep reading. I took that name you got out of her head and cross-referenced it with the Federation database." If he scrolled down on the PADD, he'd see a picture of a girl about four or five. "Our drone. Her parents were exobiologists, and quite the radical pair if any of these reports are anything to go by. It seems she was a victim of her parents' ambitious students. I want to help her, give her back the life the Borg stole from her."

"And you think it's possible to do that?" he questioned immediately, opting to go for brutal honesty than paint his words with color to make them easier to hear. He met her gaze evenly, holding the PADD in his hands for a moment before he did glance back at her.

It was difficult for him to express how he felt about this subject. On the one hand, he wanted to give Seven of Nine the benefit of the doubt. But on the other, his mind was stuck in the story he'd told Kathryn about the scorpion and the fox before all of this happened. A part of him couldn't get over what the other unassimilated drones on that planet had done to him and he doubted he ever would. He had given them the benefit of the doubt and they had taken advantage of his kind nature. One of his crew members had been lost in that and then not only had they taken advantage of his kindness and taken away his individuality, but they'd also forced him to directly violate his Captain's orders. The one person he respected and trusted more than anything in the universe and they had made him go against her orders and wishes. It aggravated him to no end.

The scorpion had stung him because it didn't know any better; that was part of its very nature and it knew nothing else. The nagging question now was if Seven would be the same way. Part of him didn't want to find out.

"Victim or not, the question is whether or not she's capable of understanding morals, right from wrong." How could someone who had been Borg all her life understand that it was inherently wrong to trick someone else and force them to do something for her, even if it was done to save her life? Taking away free will, risking so much just for one desire... How could Kathryn expect him to just accept this after what he'd gone through?

Part of him was hurt that she wasn't giving any signs that she even understood where he was coming from and he hated the idea that they might not be the united front they needed and wanted to be.

Edited 2012-12-24 03:04 (UTC)

"Would you rather the crew of the Enterprise had left Captain Jean-Luc Picard behind?" Yes, Seven had been a drone for much longer than Picard had, but in Kathryn's mind, it was the same principal. "Or for that matter, would you have had Starfleet rule Data property instead of a sentient being capable of recognizing right from wrong? If an android can do it, I don't see how an ex-drone who was an innocent child when she had her life taken away from her can't. She just needs guidance, Chakotay. The Borg you encountered on that planet had each other to feed off of, examples set only by those who were in the same situation as they were. Seven -- Annika has us."

Kathryn frowned, then stood back up and looked down at him. "Or at least, she has me. If you're so willing to throw in the towel on this, then fine. I won't ask you to do anything that goes beyond your duties as First Officer. And I expect you to keep your personal bias out of it when you have to interact with her while on duty. Am I making myself clear?"

She did understand where he was coming from and on a personal level, she could respect that. But she couldn't address the issue of their drone as Kathryn just yet. In order to make this work, she needed to enforce her stance as Captain Janeway without any of her ties to him or any one else on this ship interfering with her decisions. Perhaps it had her coming off as cold and distant, as someone who refused to take the experiences of others into account, but a captain didn't have the luxury of being able to please everyone.

Chakotay understood where she was coming from as well. As a captain, she had her own rules and ideas to adhere to and as her first officer, he would and did respect them. As an officer, he could respect Seven as a member of their crew and so he nodded in response.

"I didn't intend to press that bias onto her at any time," he answered evenly. "I will treat her as one of the crew, as a person, as long as she acts like one. Maybe she's the scorpion and you're the fox. But maybe she's not. She might be just a cub needing a mother to carry her across the water. Only time will tell if she bites."

He knew he wouldn't need to tell Kathryn which animal he expected Seven to turn out to be, but he also didn't need to say that he would give her as much of the benefit of the doubt as he could. He might not be able to fully trust her -- now or ever -- but he would do his best to help her integrate into the crew, help the crew to accept her, and teach her how to live by Starfleet rules. One of his eyes would be on her moves just in case, but in this he had no choice but to trust Kathryn.

His only hope was that she knew what she was doing.

Kathryn's response to that was to lean down again, and there was something feral in the way she looked at him, like a great mother bear ready to tear apart her mate in the name of protecting her cubs. "Maybe I'm the scorpion."

And then she stood and left him in his quarters, off to tend to duties she had ditched in order to speak with him. A conversation aimed at solving things had only created more problems, but she didn't have the time to sort through them at that moment. A ship didn't stop running because its captain was having ~~marital~~ a disagreement with her first officer.

He didn't follow her, barely even responded visually to her words. For once, Chakotay allowed her to stand and leave. What he needed was time to sort through things. And time was what he got. A few days later, after he'd come to terms with having a former Borg drone aboard their ship, he knew it was time to seek Kathryn again. Borg drone aboard or not, they needed to repair the fracture that had split them up in the first place.

So, he asked the computer for her whereabouts and headed there, prepared to talk civilly about this and help repair their relationship. Voyager couldn't handle having her command team split up in any way and he wasn't sure he could manage it, either.

Kathryn was currently somewhere within the ship's internal maze of Jeffrey's tubes, close to engineering. Some of the EPS relays had been blown out in their latest excursion of the week, and given that the engineering detail was currently prioritizing getting the shields back up to full strength and seeing to the damage sustained to the deflector dish, as well as whatever the hell was going on with the environmental controls, she'd taken it upon herself to crawl through there and fix it up herself. Good thing, too, for she'd found a sickly neurogel pack in the process, and it was the act of crawling all the way back out to hand the ill one to the doctor and get a replacement from storage that made her call it quits with her hair.

Maybe the incident a few days ago with those godawful scientists and the experiments they ran on the crew was a large part of it, as it had felt like the sheer weight of her hair, although not much, was causing her neverending headache to intensify simply by pulling on her scalp. The heat, however, was the last straw.

The Doctor had been confused when she'd instructed him to do it, suggesting she see a stylist on the holodeck or one of the crew who was more skilled in the air of hair, but he was convenient and had a steady hand. Kathryn was well past the point of giving a damn about her hair. She'd stopped around the point they'd been tossed back to the 1990s, ceasing the effort needed to toss it up every morning, and was now hellbent on chopping it off. All she wanted was it gone, and the EMH had done just that: cropped it just below the ears to give her a refreshing bob that felt so cool on her shoulders, especially after she ditched her jacket and the top shirt.

Which is how Chakotay will find her: elbow deep in wiring and circuitry, top layers of her uniform tossed aside in a careless heap, tank top partially soaked in sweat, with her hair inexplicably short.

The removal of pieces of her uniform was one thing. Chakotay couldn't blame her for that when she was working so hard to fix a part of the ship that was having issues. Sweat-soaked clothes did no one any favors and were he in her shoes, he might have done the same thing. What surprised him was her hair. It was so shocking, in fact, that it caused him to do something he'd never done before in her presence: he tripped over which name to call her by.

"Capthryn...?" Wait, that wasn't right. "Captain?" he tried again, as though the first attempt hadn't actually happened. Their personal talk about Seven of Nine could happen later, once she was through patching up her ship.

"Capthryn," she echoed back, a laugh hanging on to the tail end of the mash of first name and rank. "That's certainly a new one. What can I do for you, Commander?"

Although she'd spoken to him, and lightheartedly at that, she hadn't yet turned around to face him. Her eyes were still fixed on the display as her hands rooted around in the belly of her ship, trying to move a necessary component into position without having to pull more of the ship apart. She could see the blueprints in her head, had memorized Voyager's schematics before she'd even left dry dock, and yet couldn't manage to get this damned piece to lock into place.

"Come on. Don't fight me now," Kathryn whispered to the hull, as if verbally coaxing the ship into cooperation would do any good.

It did, though not without a price. With a loud click, everything locked into place, but she caught the bare underside of her arm on the edge of part of it, swearing in a moment of raw uncharacteristic display of uncaptainliness (leftover from being pushed to the edge by those scientists, no doubt) as she withdrew her hands. She pressed her mouth the wound, tasting blood.

Oh, wonderful. That was a beautiful highlight to her day.

He ignored the slight dig at his fumble, having expected as much and not seeing the need to take it personally. However, as much as he had intended to come to talk about a personal matter, he didn't see the need to have that conversation right here.

"Now might not be the best time for that," he admitted, frowning slightly as she muttered something he probably didn't want to hear. "I think it might be time to get you to sick bay to have that wound looked at." If he'd had medical supplies with him at the moment, he would have at least patched her up enough himself. Instead, they needed to get her to sick bay to let the Doctor do it himself. Perhaps there they could have their conversation.

Knowing Kathryn, though, Chakotay was fully expecting to have to drag her there himself.

She made a face at him, immediately dismissing his suggestion that she go to sickbay. Not until she had the bowels of her ship back in order. Ignoring Chakotay, Kathryn reached for her uniform and in breech of several (minor) Starfleet regulations (especially while actually on a Federation starship), tore a strip of fabric off the bottom of her jacket and wrapped it around the gash on her arm.

"Good as new," Kathryn said to herself more than Chakotay.

He gave her an even expression in return, clearly saying he would personally drag her down there after this was all over if she didn't get it looked at. Instead, he continued ignoring the real reason he'd come looking for her and instead focused on something more pressing. "What needs to be done?"

She pointed to her left with her bandaged arm to a pile of hull plating tangled in a mess of wiring. With her right, she reached for a cup of coffee that had no doubt gone cold by now. How she managed to get a cup of coffee down here without spilling a drop of it was anyone's guess, but it was unsurprising, to say the least, that she had it at the ready. Kathryn Janeway and coffee were a packaged deal.

Once she'd taken a long sip, she said, "That needs to be put back. I had a hypospanner around here somewhere..."

Kathryn twisted around, looking for where the damned thing could've rolled off to.

Chakotay wasn't surprised that she'd managed to get a cup of coffee down here without spilling it. Kathryn shouldn't have been surprised when he pulled out the hypospanner and passed it to her, having picked it up on his way down to find her. "You mean this?" he questioned, as though they were speaking of nail care or something equally mundane.

"The rest looks like a two-person job. Guess I'm here to help."

A small smile crossed his face as he spoke, gently teasing in an effort to get the both of them to relax a little more and to bridge the rather large gap that had sprung up between them since their encounter with the Borg.

She really shouldn't, though she wondered if he'd brought one of his own or managed to locate the one she misplaced. For all she knew, in her determination not to spill one precious drop of coffee, the hyperspanner had fallen without her noticing. It was entirely possible, her mind hadn't exactly been clear and focused since those blasted scientists had drilled needles into her skull.

"Guess it is, though you might be doing a little more of the grunt work unless we want the Doctor to make an even sourer face at me for not seeing him immediately."

That would likely be something he would never tell her, more because they didn't have time or energy to spare for questions like that at the moment and by the time they did, it wouldn't be important to question.

"That's all right with me," he answered easily, offering a gentle smile as he stood there and waited for instructions. "I'd rather not have the Doctor down here lecturing us on how to take care of ourselves." And the stubborn Captain herself.

Or there was a small part of himself that enjoyed driving her crazy, which she suspected existed on more that one occasion, but it wasn't until after their big blow up over the Borg and Seven of Nine's presence on the ship that she ever considered that it may be in any way malicious. Not that she entertained that thought for more than a few nanoseconds, but it creeped in, reminding her of the disagreement and how she felt justified in some way by how well Seven had settled into the crew and how they'd likely wouldn't have survived the encounter with those scientists if not for their resident drone and her Borg enhancements. She was proud of Seven, as for Chakotay--

She couldn't say. Was she disappointed? Upset? Angry at him? Herself? Perhaps all of the above. They'd disagreed before, but it was always on a professional level. Somehow, they'd struck personal blows below rank without meaning to in the heat of the moment. Blows that still stung, especially right now when they were pretending like there wasn't a rift as wide as the DMZ between them.

"Perhaps I should I scramble our combadge signals to make double sure he doesn't."

It had never been malicious on his part, not even after their blow-up, and it was that rift now resting persistently between them that had brought him to her side today. Chakotay wanted to repair what could be repaired, to swallow his pride and admit that maybe he'd been wrong and tell Kathryn that he was willing to give the ex-drone, Seven of Nine, a fair chance.

"Or anyone else. It's certainly easier to talk without anyone interrupting," was his response to her comment after a moment's pause as he began to examine what else needed to be done. It was his way of saying that he had something to talk to her about once they had a spare moment. "As long as you'll let me take you down to sick bay once we're done." However long that would be was up for debate and he would be more than willing to take the heat of the Doctor's wrath once he found out they'd delayed taking the Captain down as soon as the injury had happened.

Talk. Kathryn stopped working on the paneling, lowering her hand to her lap and turning to face him with her lips pursed in thought. So, that's what this was about. He'd come down here, down into the bowels of the ship where it would be difficult for her to run and shut him down without issuing a site to site transport -- something that was rather impossible at the moment, seeing as transporters were still offline.

"If you have something to say, Commander, say it."

In his defense, Chakotay hadn't come down here to corner her and she had done the same to him last time they'd spoken of this subject. Still, he paused for only a moment before he answered, his voice firm and even, but gentle in its delivery.

"I wanted to apologize for how I responded about Seven of Nine," he finally began, taking his time with his words so as not to choose the wrong ones. "We may not agree with everything the other did, and I can't apologize fully for my position, only for my reaction. I should have been more of a support for you than I was. The moment we stopped supporting each other was the moment we broke apart. As a command team --" That wasn't even quite right. He wasn't entirely sure how to phrase this in the appropriate way. "-- as your friend, Kathryn, I don't want that to happen again."

She hadn't been anticipating an apology of any kind. Chakotay was a proud man and never stood against something unless he had ample reason and as his friend, and the woman who was just Kathryn and wasn't the captain of a starship, bound to duty and the rules she'd sworn to uphold when she was given her own vessel, she understood. Kathryn saw his side of things, knew where he was coming from and didn't blame him. But as a Captain, she would be lying if she said she wasn't disappointed in his inability to put his personal thoughts aside and see things in a strictly professional manner.

Yet, in some way, that also endeared him to her as much as it infuriated her. Why? Because it meant that he was still himself, still the man he was before she offered him a spot as her First Officer after he sacrificed his ship when they found themselves stranded here. He hadn't lost himself to the command position he held. Not like her. And she didn't want him to become like her.

She didn't want any of them to.

"I don't think I'm the one you need to be apologizing to, but it may be a little early for me to ask you to start spending some quality time with someone who desperately needs the guidance of everyone on board. Or B'Elanna, as I hear she's not too found of our drone, either."

He still had ample reason to stand against it and they both knew what that reasoning was, but the execution of that position bothered him on hindsight. He didn't regret what he'd done, only how it had been handled and what it had done to their friendship. Strictly professional manner or not, in the matter of the Borg, he would never be completely free of that one particular experience.

"I owe one to you both," he contradicted, "and if you'd rather I spent quality time with her, I'll do it." Much as it would make him twitch, he was sure. Still, it wasn't yet the end of the world and he knew he needed to at least attempt to see things through a slightly less colored lens. "Let's keep B'Elanna away from Seven for the moment, at least until they can get used to each other a little more." Otherwise, they may have more than one problem to deal with.

"You and I didn't have the best previous encounter and I wanted to be sure that wasn't the last one."

She shook her head, declining his offer. "No, not yet. She's extremely perceptive and can tell when people are spending time in her presence who would rather not be anywhere near her. At this stage in her post-Collective development, I'd like to surround her with people who want her company, who can better impart pieces of humanity and what it means to be an individual on her. Positive things - no offense, of course."

And there was no offense meant, because while she knew that Chakotay could suck it up and be as professional as a four star admiral, Seven would still pick up on his discomfort, the underlying reluctance. Remarkably, Seven of Nine could read people almost as well as a Betazoid - and that was without the empathic assistance that made them great ship's counselors.

"I'd have to agree with you on that one. I'd rather not have B'Elanna end up in sickbay." Which wasn't an insult to B'Elenna, who usually put people in sickbay, merely another statement of fact. Seven was stronger than a half-Klingon and could easily put B'Elanna down if provoked. She could put any of them down, could take over this ship in a mere matter of seconds if she wanted to - yet she hadn't. Because Kathryn knew, that on some level, Seven wanted to be here and wanted to follow the rules of their society, their Starfleet hierarchy.

She tilted her head to the side, feigning curiosity and confusion. "What makes you think it would've been the last?" Because she was stubborn, and she shut people out on a personal level. Professionally, she was as open as her rank allowed her to be, but otherwise... She might as well have been a human Fort Knox.

"None taken."

It made sense to him that a former Borg drone could sense emotions and feelings, read them in someone, even if she didn't know what to do with them herself. Kathryn was right. If Chakotay went to see Seven too early, before he had a chance to get used to her and accept her as a person rather than an ex-Borg, Seven would know and it would likely do more harm than good for both of them.

As for B'Elanna, they couldn't afford to have their chief engineer sleeping in sick bay for any longer than necessary and they both knew Seven would have her down for a very long time if provoked. As for Kathryn...

"I know how proud we both are," he answered honestly, taking the time to bare his feelings to her once again. This wouldn't get resolved otherwise and he just hoped she would be able to give him the same in return. "I know that neither of us wants to be having this conversation but both of us know it's necessary. If given half the chance, we both would just leave it alone. You wouldn't talk about how it's affected you and I would simply give you space until it became a problem in our Captain / Commander relationship."

Which clearly meant that he'd seen a problem between them and thought it was high time they fixed it. He'd given her space, enough that he thought they both might have calmed down from things, but it was long enough that the rift felt threatening to him. It threatened them on a personal level and that just wouldn't do at all.

"Then why aren't you?" Perhaps it wasn't the question she should of asked, but she couldn't help but indulge that curious note, given that was exactly how she was expecting things to play out between them after that squabble - yet, he was here. Wanting to talk things out sooner rather that waiting for things to settle back into their usual routines later. Why?

She couldn't read him, and that annoyed her to no end.

"Because I know you." It was a simple answer to a simple question, both with complicated undertones. He knew her, knew that if they avoided the issue, it would keep building between them until something forced them to work together and even then, the wedge between them would still be there. He didn't want that and he was fairly sure she didn't, either.

"And I know myself. I don't want that wedge between us to grow any larger and it would have if I'd just left it alone."

When he said things like that, it made her feel restless in her own skin, like she was going to jump out of it at any moment. Perhaps it was because any other person would be able to react in tune with their instincts instead of going to war with them as she did, for she didn't have the luxury of being able to cave to whims and impulses, to let herself and her body respond to those undertones she had caught and knew that he knew she had caught too, regardless of whether or not either of them would show it. And she couldn't show it.

The best she could do was pick up that hypospanner and fiddle with it in a futile attempt at giving her mind something else to focus on. And she recalibrated it's harmonic resonance three times before she finally lifted her gaze up to meet his.

"Maybe a wedge wouldn't be so bad." Bold, but when was Kathryn Janeway anything but?

Ouch. A split second passed where the hurt her statement caused him flashed across his face, but it was gone in an instant, covered by a certain stiffness he carried when something bothered him. A small wedge was likely for the best -- and he would never fool himself into believing it would go away entirely -- but he hadn't expected for her to insinuate that she might have preferred the larger wedge between them.

"If that's what you want."

It hurt in ways that he could never admit to, but if she just wanted them to be separate aside from when they absolutely had to work together, then he would honor that request. His eyes dropped to the hypospanner and then the rest of what needed to be done. He would give her time to respond before he just assumed they were going back to work, but at this rate, it wouldn't be long.

She caught the hurt that crossed his features and instantly felt guilt pool inside of her, her thoughts already hard at work berating her for her poor choice of words and considerable lack of tact. Kathryn had spoken down to him like he were a lowly crewman still trying to work his way up the ranks, but he wasn't anything close to that. She had always treated him like an equal, and now she was asserting her dominance over him as captain of this starship, as the one person on board who held any sense of authority over him.

A grimace set in. "That's not what I meant."

He made a move towards the hull plating and the wiring that needed to be put back, in an effort to distract them both and perhaps make it easier to have this talk. "That's exactly what you meant. There's always been a wedge between us, Kathryn. That will never change." Their forever separate personal lives were the wedge. "What I didn't want was an even bigger one because of a misunderstanding."

But that seemed to be what would happen regardless and he focused on the plating rather than her expression. "We need to get this patched up."

Whether he meant the plating or their relationship was up in the air and he wasn't clarifying.

He was right. She did mean it that way, but that was Captain Janeway speaking out of necessity, a desire to keep at arm's reach and not let him get closer than he already was. She'd slipped a bit when she was suffering from pain and blood loss, when she'd reached out and fisted his uniform in her hand and strained her voice to tell him to get this crew home. Kathryn had been almost certain she was going to die on that bio bed, or slip into some sort of irreversible coma with the way The Doctor had been talking, but she'd made it through and somehow, surviving had only seemed to make things worse between them.

How insufferably ironic.

"The bulkhead can wait. If we're going to have this conversation, we're going to have it now."

After a moment's silence, he finally looked back up at her, uncertainty and wariness most prominent across his face. He was trying to read her, trying to figure out ahead of time how this conversation might go. It didn't seem to be going the way he had hoped, just as the last one hadn't seemed to go the way she had wanted. Somehow knowing each other too well was hurting them instead of helping.

"What else do you expect to hear from me? Yes, there's space between us, but I had hoped you wouldn't want it to be any worse than it was to begin with. I'm starting to think you like being alone."

Did being alone make it easier for her, he sometimes wondered. Focusing his attention on the damaged bulkhead, he continued without giving her much room to interrupt.

"This piece of plating is nothing without the rest of the ship and the ship is much less without it. Even if they've been damaged -- by each other or something else -- they still need each other to survive. They can't do it alone."

Just as the command team needed each other to survive their time in the Delta Quadrant. Chakotay just hoped Kathryn would see reason.

"That's not why I need space, Chakotay, and you know it." She sat back on her heels, then eventually caved to sit with her legs crossed like a child perched on the rug in their pre-school classroom. "We've never... addressed it out loud, but maybe it's time we do. Everything in regards to... that has always been unspoken, silently agreed upon. Perhaps it's time for us to lay out some verbal parameters."

As for her liking being alone, well, that wasn't going to be addressed right now. Trying to get Kathryn Janeway to talk about something she didn't want to was like trying to get the Borg to give up their quest for perfection. It just wasn't going to happen.

"Verbal parameters." Those were likely needed, likely had been needed for years, but he wasn't so sure he liked her tone. "I was only suggesting that we be a team, a command team. But we can talk about parameters."

Parameters they'd never set before because they'd never even addressed what happened between them so long ago. He'd assumed they never would, that things would simply continue as they always had. She knew where he stood and he knew she had difficulty with emotions and fiance in the way. In a way, he'd never really cared. As long as she was happy and healthy, little else mattered.

Now she was speaking as though she wanted to erect an absolute wall between them, something that would never be removed, and he wasn't sure he liked that. But she was his captain and protocol demanded it anyway. All he wanted was for them to stop fighting and start actually relaxing around each other again. Apparently it was too much to ask for. Bracing himself, he waited.

Kathryn didn't know if she wanted to put up an impassible wall between them, so much as have a conversation they frankly should've had years ago when they got back from the tiny planet they'd dubbed New Earth. To her, it seemed like the personal side of their relationship was starting to butt heads with the professional one, and she wouldn't allow herself those personal comforts if it meant sacrificing part of her professional integrity. The crew needed her, she could - she could deal with letting go of a few things if it meant keeping herself in tip-top captainly shape for them.

"You're still in love with me." It was a quiet admission, a statement rather than a question. And boldly, she looked up at him to see his reaction instead of looking away, abashed and unsure.

The truth of her statement -- and his shock that she would be so bold as to make it -- flashed across his face for a moment. She was right, of course, and it was plain to see. Previously she hadn't wanted to have this conversation and he was surprised she'd made such a bold, confining statement, but if they were going for truth and honesty, he supposed he owed it to her to respond in kind.

"That will likely never change, but that isn't what's under fire here."

Meaning that his feelings for her weren't the entire issue and they both knew it. He'd long ago accepted that whatever they'd had down on that planet would never happen again and he'd come to terms with it. Now he was beginning to wonder if she had ever done the same.

That will likely never change. It sounded cliché, like some sort of pre-written line in personalized wedding vows, but so very him at the same time. Kathryn knew that while she was technically still engaged to Mark and still carried a torch for the man, she had no way of knowing if he was holding out hope for her - and in many ways, she hoped that he hadn't. She loved Mark enough to want him to live a life that wasn't defined by looking up at the stars and hoping for something that might never happen. That was her fate, her lot in life while she strived to get this crew home.

But, she also still loved Mark enough to feel guilty for having feelings - well concealed feelings, as far as she was concerned - for someone else. And yet she was the one who had initiated this conversation despite insisting upon keeping them as concealed as possible. Go figure.

"Then what is?"

"How you feel about it and what we're going to do about it."

Blunt as always when certain talks were initiated between them. Now Chakotay had hit on a large part of their issues: Kathryn's unwillingness to talk about anything personal relating to the two of them. Now that she had initiated a conversation about something she'd kept at bay for so long, he was mildly curious to see where it would go.

Were it a less tense situation, he might have made a crack about how the bulkhead needed the bulk of their attention, but now was not the time.

PSL - Kathryn Janeway | Chakotay ---> And use my head alongside my heart

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