Author’s Note: This was one of many fan stories inspired by "Resolutions," the episode that gave J/Cers false hope that TPTB were ready to portray an honest adult relationship. Maybe if Jeri Taylor had stuck around it might have happened, but we knew that Brannon Braga was not likely to show any interest. (After all, Janeway and Chakotay were OLD, and who wants to see old people getting it on?) If this episode proved nothing else, it definitely showed the world of fandom that there were writers who were not afraid to take that risk with these well-loved characters.

Resolve
by Maquis Mom

I wanted to take her in my arms after we heard from Tuvok, but she wouldn’t let me. She stiffened, then pulled away, eyes averted. Before I could speak she was turning toward the shelter. "There's so much to do," she muttered. "Things to sort out, things to pack..."

"He won't leave us behind if we're not standing on the corner with our bundles in our arms, Kathryn," I said to her back. I wondered privately about that, though. Tuvok had been looking for an excuse to get rid of me for months, and when he found out how much matters had changed between his captain and me I had no doubt that he'd be more ready than ever to abandon me on some pretext.

"No, of course not, but our journey has already had so many delays. It's not fair to the crew." Her voice sounded tired suddenly, although it was still early morning and we'd slept in. "Chakotay, I--I need some time to think. I can do it best if you'll just let me go inside and organize things. Alone." She glanced back over her shoulder at me then, and I saw that she had tears in her eyes.

So I let her go. I took a walk down to the river where the boat I hadn't had a chance to build would never sail. I heard that damn monkey screeching from the upper branches of the big tree that reminded me of a willow, and I darted quickly to my left. A few seconds later a piece of soft mushy fruit dropped down, right where I had been standing. I was getting better at avoiding the barrages of food and less pleasant things it always greeted me with. It seemed to like Kathryn well enough but obviously it was not partial to me. Must have been a male monkey.

A few hours later I was still hanging around outside. The industrious packing noises from inside the shelter had continued unabated for most of that time, and I was beginning to wonder if she was taking the place apart piece by piece, from the inside out. I sat with my back to the house, in the middle of the clearing where the monkey couldn't reach me with its missiles, and listened to the bumping and dragging and occasional soft curses issuing from inside, and I thought back to the night, just two nights ago, when I first told Kathryn I loved her.

We had been "defining parameters" about our relationship. Her words, of course, her suggestion. I said that I didn't think I could do that, and then I told her an ancient legend that I made up on the spot about an angry warrior who meets a woman, joins her tribe, and finds peace. A five year old child could have seen through it, of course, and Kathryn had very little difficulty figuring out what I was trying to tell her without saying the words. She couldn't hide her smile, and for a second I felt my heart sink because she was so obviously amused, but then I saw something in her eyes that hit me square in the chest and made it literally impossible to breathe. Acknowledgement, acceptance--I'm not sure what to call it, but I could see that she understood and that she was pleased. After a moment she raised her hand and reached out to me, her movements tentative but her eyes full of tenderness. I remembered to breathe, then, and I lifted my hand to hers, letting our fingers mesh. I'm not sure how long we sat like that, holding hands, watching each other. A single tear made its way down her cheek and part of me wanted to lean forward and follow that shining path with my mouth, but I couldn't seem to move or to speak. It felt like an enchantment was holding us there, motionless, perhaps for all eternity. The thought crossed my mind that this was exactly the way I wanted to die, with Kathryn Janeway's eyes on me and her fingers touching mine.

Finally she moved, giving a little shiver and glancing down at our clasped hands. A rosy blush came creeping up her neck from the top of the puritanical pajamas she'd taken to wearing around at night, as if covering her body from chin to toes would make me less aware of her. Her hand jerked as if she meant to break contact, and I heard my own voice, sounding breathless like I'd been running for miles, saying the words I never thought I'd have the chance to speak to her, words I had never even allowed myself to utter in my dreams.

"I love you, Kathryn. I love you. I love you." By the fourth or fifth repetition she figured out that I couldn't stop, and she pulled her hand away, reached up and caught me by the head, and shut me up with a kiss.

Things get a little hazy then. I remember thinking that she tasted of peaches. I remember her fingers tracing the pattern of my tattoo, and then sliding into my hair. I think that she cried some more. I know that I did. It wasn't like I would have imagined it--if I had ever dared to imagine it--a scene full of passion. It was beyond that. I wanted her and I knew she wanted me, but somehow it was enough just to know, as if taking our time--we had the rest of our lives, didn't we?--would make each moment, each small step forward more precious. We ended that night standing in the doorway of the shelter that had become our home, looking out into the darkness with our arms around each other. After a few minutes we kissed goodnight, then turned to our separate corners of the house and went to bed, not really apart, but not really together, not yet. I slept better that night than I had in weeks.

I awoke to the feel of something tickling my face--the end of Kathryn's braid, which she was drawing gently across my cheek. I opened my eyes to see her sitting on the edge of my bed, fully dressed. Sunlight was streaming in the open door.

"Rise and shine, sleepyhead," she said playfully, letting the braid fall and reaching down to tweak my nose.

I felt myself grinning, and I couldn't resist taunting her. "What's wrong, Lady Kathryn, did you forget how to replicate your own breakfast? I've spoiled you with my cooking, admit it."

"Hmmph. You know that as long as I get my coffee I could care less about food in the morning," she said, trying for a note of petulance but completely failing to reach it. She sounded girlishly happy, almost excited, and she was pulling me up and out of bed before I even had a chance to think of a clever reply. "Come outside, there's something I want you to see."

"Can I get dressed?" I asked. I was wearing my oldest pair of shorts and a t-shirt, which was more than I normally wear to bed but still didn't leave much to the imagination. She just gave a tug on my hand and led me outside. We had set up one of the storage boxes as a table and we sometimes ate out there when the weather was nice. Glancing ahead, I saw that she had been busy. There was a pot of coffee, steaming hot, and breakfast for two, replicated pancakes and fresh fruit. Between the two plates was a beaker, salvaged from the scientific equipment and miraculously whole, holding flowers that looked a little bit like daisies, only smaller and bright pink. She must have done all this while I slept. I was absurdly touched at her gesture, and I knew if I said anything at all it would come out as it had the night before, so I just raised her hand and kissed it, then sat down to the first breakfast on New Earth that I hadn't cooked myself, knowing that it was going to be a very good day.

It was. We puttered around all morning, going through our usual solitary routines, but with a difference. I sometimes would wander far from the shelter, looking for foodstuffs, getting to know the territory, but that day I stayed nearby, close enough so that she could call if she needed me, close enough so that I could hear her humming as she mucked in her garden and could catch a glimpse of her from time to time as she moved around. I found some mushrooms that had sprouted overnight and a fresh patch of the watercress-like greens which were her favorites. I watched the birds for a while--this planet had yet to show us much wildlife except for Kathryn's little primate friend and of course the insects that got us stranded here in the first place, but there were several species of birds. I added several shiny blue-black feathers to my collection of treasures. With a length of twine and a few beads which I could carve, they would make a nice hair ornament, I thought. Another surprise, not as good as the bathtub, maybe, but I thought that she would like it.

I never got to make that hair ornament.

We spent the afternoon down at the river. It had turned hot, and although we pretended that we were going to do some fishing, we knew that we wouldn't catch anything that day. It was a good excuse to loaf on the mossy riverbank and tell each other tall tales about our adventures at the Academy, each one more incredible than the last. I hadn't laughed that much in years. I would catch Kathryn studying my face, and finally I asked her what she was doing. She said that she was basking in my smiles, which were usually so rare as to be almost mythological, but which suddenly seemed to be very much a reality. She even added something silly about investigating them as a possible alternate power source to the solar batteries. I told her that I could also make her garden grow just by peeing on it, and she hit me. It was a great afternoon.

We both fell asleep at some point, then woke up hot and sweating. Without thinking twice about it I started peeling off my shirt.

"Chakotay, what are you doing?" she asked in some alarm.

"Skinny dipping. Come on." I left my clothes on the bank and plunged into the river, swimming out a little ways before turning back to see what she would do. She was standing there with her hands on her hips, in a stance I'd seen a thousand times before on Voyager's bridge. She looked really warm in her form-fitting jumpsuit. I watched and waited, treading water. "It feels great, Kathryn, you should try it," I added helpfully.

Finally, with what looked like total indifference but which I suspect actually took considerable resolve, her hands raised to the fastenings of the jumpsuit and she slipped it off. She glanced down at my underwear on the riverbank next to her foot, then reached behind and undid her bra, letting it fall on the grass. She removed her panties next, with an economy of movement that awed me, and slowly stepped down into the water, wading toward me with the grace of a queen.

We spent most of the rest of the afternoon in the water, sometimes swimming together or playing childish ducking games, sometimes idling in the shallows under the shade of the willow tree whose branches hung down nearly to the water. I tried to catch a fish in my hands to impress her. I couldn't do it, but she did, and then she laughed so hard that she dropped it. We stayed there for hours, so long that the early evening shadows were lengthening by the time we walked back to the shelter, half-dressed and with wrinkled skin, holding hands.

I suppose that we had supper, but I don't remember what I cooked or what we ate, only that we managed to do it without breaking eye contact. Her hair had dried in wild disarray, her cheeks were pink with sunburn, and she was radiant, in spite of the fact that the dress she had hastily and heedlessly changed into as I started dinner had a big smear of dirt on the hem and was missing several buttons. We barely spoke, nothing more than the courtesies of the table, but the silence was comfortable. I found myself trying to read her face, knowing somehow that her quick grimace while eating dessert came from the one sour berry that always manages to hide among the sweet ones, and that the big smile she couldn't hide as she watched me putting the remains of the meal away meant that she was looking forward to another dessert, perhaps sweeter than the berries.

I had thought that it might still be too soon. In all of the splashing around that afternoon we'd done a lot of touching, some of it accidental, some of it not. Once when I was behind her peeling her water-slicked hair away from her neck, my fingers had slipped down and come to rest on the sensitive skin below her collarbone. She had caught her breath, then leaned back into me, forcing my hand to continue its downward path until it cupped her breast. I could feel her nipple instantly harden against my palm, and I could not resist the urge to let my lips trail along the top of her shoulder or my other hand lightly caress her hip. She obviously liked what I did, but after a moment or two, she had pulled away and waded upstream, her attention caught by a brilliantly-colored butterfly. It felt not like teasing, but more like savoring. I understood, because I wanted to make those moments last forever, too.

I could have waited. I thought I might have to wait forever, after all, so somehow just knowing that Kathryn wanted me was enough for me.

But if we had waited...

...would it matter, that we hadn't?

She was inside now, dismantling our home and my dreams.

Would I go back to Voyager thinking "well, at least I had her once?" Once, and never again. That had a frightening ring of truth. and the fear struck me to the core as I listened to her thumping and banging away. I wanted to go in there and tell her that what we had found was too precious to waste. I wanted to beg her not to turn away from me. I wanted not to talk at all, but just to touch her hair, to bury my face in it, and to feel her hands on the back of my neck, pressing me closer. I wanted to hold her, and be held.

I didn't go inside. I went into the woods, revisiting familiar spots. There, that was where I built her bathtub. The leftover scraps of wood were still there, sweet smelling piles of shavings. I had invested so much energy in that bathtub, and so much love, and I never even got to use it. Farther on, that was where I'd found her the afternoon of the plasma storm, grimly clutching her bugs to her chest and trying to forge ahead, to make her way back to me. That day she had leaned on me, literally, for the first time. In the aftermath of the storm, after she had wept for her losses and for all that had happened to us, I think she leaned on me figuratively, too. My words about acceptance, about living each day to the fullest, seemed to inspire her, and she never looked back or bemoaned our fate. "That's one way of letting go," she had said, and there was no trace of bitterness in her voice, just determination, the kind of grit I'd come to expect from her no matter how dire the circumstances...

She never quits.

Never gives up.

Never turns her back on a challenge.

So, why am I so sure that she's inside, packing our future away?

I sat down then, or maybe my legs gave out. As if I were not miserable enough, I deliberately remembered the night before, the night that my unspoken hopes became reality. She hadn't said a word, just smiled at me, but I knew that she was ready. We made no pretence of doing other things; she didn't pick up a padd and begin to read, and I didn't go back to the boat design I'd been tinkering with. We came together in the center of the room, my arms enfolding her tightly. She breathed a sigh into my ear, and then I was kissing her and she was kissing me and there was no turning back. After a full day of smiles and touches, of hours spent in the river while we played innocent courting games and studied each other's nude bodies unselfconsciously, knowing that the fire was there but keeping it banked, suddenly we ignited. We undressed each other with criminal haste, in a blur of hands and lips and touches. When her fingers wouldn't cooperate as she tried to unbutton my shirt, she simply tore it away, then grinned cheekily at me when I stared at her in surprise. I felt huge and graceless, my hands suddenly too big, too rough on the impossibly smooth skin of her breasts, except that I knew from her throaty moans that she didn't find them so. I wanted to taste all of her, her elbows and her knees, the hollow of her throat, the small of her back, and I did. We sank onto the floor, right there by the table, unable to walk the few steps that would take us to her bed or to mine. Her hands found my penis, clung there, an exquisite torture. I pushed her back and rose up over her, mindless, wanting only to plunge into her. I could not wait, and her fingers grasping my buttocks, nails digging deeply, urged me forward. I sank deep, coming home. She moaned, her head tossing heedlessly and her hips bucking against mine. I tried to control it, but some forces are too strong, too elemental, for mere control. She stared up at me and I read her orgasm on her face at the same moment it spasmed around me. I felt the gush of my seed and the rolling waves of pleasure engulfed me, engulfed us both. There on the hard floor, clothes piled around us, I looked into Kathryn Janeway's eyes and saw eternity.

Afterwards, we untangled our arms and legs and unpeeled the parts that had stuck together, and I tried to apologize to her. She wouldn't let me. "I wanted you that way," she said. "Strong and hard and unbridled. Next time will be time enough for soft words and seductive touches. I wanted the storm, I wanted to feel the fire."

I didn't accept that, not at first. We had been readying ourselves for love all that long day, and maybe for much longer than that. She was the woman of my dreams, of my soul, and I had taken her on the floor like a rutting animal.

"Like a warrior," she corrected me. I remembered the story I had told her the night before and I saw that she was thinking of it, too. She smiled and touched my face, her fingers raising to trace the curving lines on my forehead, and suddenly I understood. Under her softness, the warrior that lived within her had waited, sensing a kindred spirit, wanting to feel the shared power. After we had soared to that height and stared into the abyss together would come the time for softness, for gentleness. She would come into my hands and let me show her the love I had never revealed to another, never known I could feel, but only after we had burned together in the fires of a sudden cleansing passion.

And so it was. We moved from the hard floor over to her bed. It was too small, too cramped for us, but somehow we managed to fit. There where she had slept alone, where night after night I had watched her shadow moving restlessly behind the privacy wall, we lay together and listened to each other breathe, we talked and touched and kissed. This time we came together in peace. There was no more urgency, no driving need spurring us on. It was the river again, when we had all the time in the world and the mutual resolve to make it perfect.

It was. I think it was. I can't remember the details because when Kathryn touches me, when I hear her voice murmuring my name with that inflection that only she gives it, as if saying it gives her some secret pleasure, I find that for those precious moments I can forget everything but her. I wonder now, where was this woman during the years when my thoughts burned holes in my soul, when I believed nothing and cared about less than nothing? She could have healed me with a smile, a whisper. But had I not gone through what I had, had I not been that angry warrior, would she have given me her smiles or her whispers? Perhaps not. Perhaps what made this night so perfect was the paths we had taken to get there.

I sat in the woods and thought about that. I made myself remember Voyager, and all we had been through since the day she chased me into the Badlands and we ended up in the Delta Quadrant. We had lived with so much adversity, so much doubt. From the moment that she chose me I had tried to be the kind of first officer I might have been had the Cardassians and my own guilt not come between me and my career in Starfleet. I believed from the very first that she deserved my best, and that I came to her with a clean slate. And yet, so many of our troubles with the Kazon, with Seska, seemed directly caused by things I had done, decisions I had made. I tried to make them right but sometimes I only succeeded in making them worse. I felt for a time that I had lost my captain's trust. I know that it wavered, and I know that she was right to doubt me, but that just strengthened my resolve to prove to her that she had made the correct choice, the only possible choice, the choice that would best enable us to get home.

Home. The idea that keeps us all sane, that convinces us to get out of bed every day. How ironic that for me this tiny shelter on a nameless planet we called New Earth had felt more like home than my war torn home world ever had. I had honored the need my shipmates felt to return to the Alpha Quadrant, back to loved ones, families, careers. I had given my utmost effort to see to it that in fact we would someday make it back home. But although I gave it lip service, I had never shared that dream. For me, home was not an option, not until an insect bite had changed the course of my life and that of the woman who had been my commanding officer. The woman who in a little more than a day would resume that role, and take my home away from me...

How was it going to happen? Would she tell me that sacrifices must be made, that good officers put the needs of their crews first? Would she tell me anything at all? As captain, it was her right not to have to explain her decisions to me, even a decision such as this one which involved me so directly and so intimately. As her first officer it was my duty to obey her, not to question, not to doubt. She would do the right thing, and unless she asked me for my opinion I had no right to give it. And yet--as her first officer I had certain responsibilities, to show her the possibilities, the alternatives, the differing perspectives. I could not insist, but I could suggest. Only, suggest what?

I didn't know. I could not see any clear solution to this problem we faced. To continue our relationship and somehow make it bend to fit the command structure seemed, if not impossible, certainly daunting--but to go on without it seemed even more impossible. She can't order me not to love her, and as good a captain as she is, I don't believe that she can stop loving me either. We had come so far together. We had begun as enemies, become uneasy allies, then moved through successive stages of doubt, acceptance, and approval. We were partners, a unit which we both knew was stronger than either of us could possibly be individually--and all of that happened before either of us so much as admitted to ourselves that our professional relationship was becoming personal. We might have acknowledged friendship, back on Voyager. We might have talked about how we were becoming a family, and conveniently overlooked the heat that sometimes radiated between us. Maybe we would have agreed that the teasing remarks and shared glances were a flirtation of sorts, but nothing more. Nothing serious. Nothing that could interfere with our duties to our cause and our crew. And what of our duties to ourselves? To each other? Didn't we have the right, even the responsibility to see this through? What we had shared, not just the passion but the gradual growing together, the birth of love, was surely something good, something positive, an unlooked-for gift that had blessed us both. I could not--can never--turn my back on it, and I believe that it is the same for her.

I looked around me, seeing that the morning had passed while I sat and bemoaned my fate and did nothing to assure that it would turn out the way I knew in my soul that it was meant to. I couldn't wait until it was tomorrow and I was once again in uniform to offer counsel to my captain. I would have to do it today, as her lover and her friend, but also as her first officer. I stood up and strode off toward the shelter, filled with resolution. I would make her listen to me and she would see the sense in my words. From above I heard the shriek of my impish rival and I heard the splat of something nameless hit the ground behind me, but my steps never faltered. I had thought so much about home, and I was just beginning to realize that the physical dimensions of that place didn't matter. Whether in a tasteful grey and beige box on a planet we called New Earth or on a battle-scarred but still beautiful starship en route to the Alpha Quadrant, my home would be wherever Kathryn Janeway was.

"Kathryn, we have to talk about this," I said. I stood in the doorway, feeling uneasy. The interior of the house looked mostly the same to me, though I could see that she had packed a few of her personal belongings. All that crashing and banging--what had she been doing for the past four hours?

She glanced up at me from her seat at the table, her expression grave. I saw that she held something in her hands--the flat rock I had found on our first full day here, the one I had been carving away at for months, that when finished would be a blessing for this house and for our union. She smoothed her fingertips across the symbols, then set it carefully down on the table, folding her hands and looking fully at me. "I know," she said.

"You know?"

"I know that we have to talk. We have so many decisions to make, and they must be made together." She smiled. "I--I don't share command easily, not even after all these weeks when we've been so much more to each other than captain and first officer." Her smile faltered. "But I realize that I can't do this alone, not now."

I let the breath I didn't even know I'd been holding out in one explosive exhalation and felt my rigidly-held body relax suddenly against the doorframe, understanding that her simple words--"I can't do this alone"--referred to so much more than the discussion we were to have and the decisions we were to make. She smiled again, possibly in amusement at my reaction to her words, then deliberately, slowly, she held her hand out to me.