Summary: A week after Workforce Part 2. Kathryn's POV. ** WARNING: Contains spoilers for part 2.
Copyright February 2001 Cassatt
To Force the Truth
Chakotay, I've been thinking. About everything I went through last week, all of my memories of my non-life, how I felt at the time. Maybe you will be willing to hear me out. I hope so. I know you don't want to hear any more about Jaffen, and after our last conversation I don't want to upset you again. But I never did get to finish telling you what happened after I burnt the dinner, after he kissed me and I kissed him back.
I made him some coffee, the only thing his kitchen would cooperate with. I relaxed on the couch with him and wrapped myself up in a very cozy blanket. I felt chilled. To the bone. I wasn't sure why at the time, but now I believe I understand.
I told Jaffen the blanket was wonderful. He asked me if I was uncomfortable being there, with him. I told him I couldn't remember being more comfortable in my whole life. The chill returned at that exact moment.
Then he asked me to move in with him, the very next day. So soon. So terribly soon. At the time I told him I thought I was crazy but I wanted to. I wanted to share my world with someone, someone who made me feel alive. And comfortable. And warm. Someone strong, who helped me find perspective, or what I took for perspective on that god awful planet.
Do you understand? The chill I felt was my life on Voyager. After we got back, you and I. From New Earth. I wanted to return there. I wanted to live with the man who made me feel alive, forced me to find Kathryn again, whom I was comfortable with, who kept me warm. I wanted you. In Jaffen I searched for you. I didn't find you. I found someone else.
I believe my memories are accurate, for the time. I believe I can see what I was feeling underneath the drugs, the brainwashing, the constant talk of how lucky I was to be living there and working there. I believe that I am telling the truth to you now. Why else would I help you when I shouldn't have? Why else would I defend you against the man I supposedly loved? Why else would I trust you? You are my life, Chakotay. You are what I continue to search for, you are what I long for. To live with you again, together, as one.
I no longer feel the chill that I did in that first year back. Though
sometimes, late at night, when I am drifting off to sleep and hear you
moving around your quarters preparing for bed it creeps back into my bones.
I stare at the wall that separates us, as it did in our shelter, and wish
against hope that time will bring us to each other. That your love for
me is still there, in your heart, waiting, as mine is for you. And I hope
you can forgive me for hurting you, again. I'll have to trust that you
understand how this experience has forced me to look at the truth. The
truth of my love for you. The truth of my dreams for us. The truth. The
truth.
Can it really set us free?
End.
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