Disclaimer: Star Trek Voyager and all of its characters are the property of Paramount. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Note: Just because.

Thanks to Seema for the beta.
The Light Of The Setting Sun
By Rocky

She wasn't really surprised when he showed up at her office at HQ in the late afternoon, grinning like a schoolboy.

Although relations between them had been strained during the many years following Voyager's return to Earth, recently they had begun a tentative rapprochement, attempting to rebuild the friendship they'd once enjoyed. It had started back in June when they bumped into each other--literally--in the hallways of Starfleet Command. He was teaching a summer seminar at the Academy on Delta Quadrant species and artifacts, and she was working in Fleet Operations, where she'd settled fifteen years ago after a stint in the Diplomatic Corps. They'd met again the following day--this time by design--for coffee, and soon it had become a regular habit for them to get together a few times a week: dinner, a concert or just to sit and talk. She'd missed him, a lot more than she'd realized, and was grateful to have him back in her life once more. Despite her fears, enough time had passed that the two of them were able to slip easily into their new roles, of friends and confidants, without any of the old resentments and bitterness intruding.

And now, two months later, he obviously felt comfortable enough to drop by unannounced. The outer office was empty; her aide had already left for the day. Her only inkling that she was no longer alone in the room was the sense she had of another presence. He'd slipped in so quietly she hadn't even heard him, absorbed as she was in the view from her window. She had to hand it to Starfleet--they had never given her another ship after Voyager, had instead promoted her and kicked her upstairs--but at least she had a corner office with a magnificent view. It faced west, toward the Bay, and rarely was she so caught up in work that she couldn't snatch a few minutes at this time of day to gaze out as the sky turned a crimson hue and the sun sank slowly into the sea.

She turned away from the window, blinking; a golden glow filled the room and for a moment her eyes were too dazzled to see clearly. With difficulty, she focused on the figure before her. "Chakotay," she said, his wide smile drawing one from her in turn as she came around the desk to greet him, her hands outstretched. "This is an unexpected pleasure."

If possible, his smile grew even larger as he took her hands in his and squeezed gently. She'd always found the warm pressure comforting but now it was as though a jolt of electricity jumped from him to her. "I knew I'd find you here, Kathryn. Still hard at work, even this late in the day."

"Where else would I be?" she asked teasingly. "You know me, always the dedicated Starfleet officer."

"Yes, I do," he said and stepped closer. The bright sunlight played on his dark hair, drawing out heretofore hidden highlights of red and gold. She wondered why she'd never noticed how little gray he had. She herself had stopped dyeing her hair around the time of her seventieth birthday and it had gone entirely silver. But to her eyes, at that moment he looked almost as young as he had that fateful day, decades ago, when he'd beamed aboard the bridge of Voyager for the first time. "All your life you've been that way." He paused. "When's the last time you did something fun, something impulsive?"

"Impulsive? Me?" She shook her head. "I'm surprised at you, Chakotay. You know better than to ask me that." She recalled that he was to have taken a group of students  to Cygnus IV earlier in the week; he had joked about having a chance to sit in the pilot's seat again, even if it was only an antiquated 'bus', as he referred to the old Flyer class shuttles. She supposed the trip must have been  delayed for some reason, leaving him with unexpected leisure. But that didn't mean she was free as well. "I have my duties--"

He leaned forward, the last rays of the sunset reflected in his eyes. "Even duties are put aside when the time is right. Particularly at the end of the day."

It was an old argument, one he'd often made back on Voyager, but for some reason she didn't feel the swift hot tide of impatience rising within as she always had before. "You make it sound so simple," she said, echoing the words she'd spoken long ago.

Following the script, he said, with just a hint of exasperated fondness, "It is simple, Kathryn."

She opened her mouth to protest but closed it almost immediately. Feeling suddenly reckless, she said instead, "What did you have in mind?"

The pressure of his hands tightened on hers. "Come away with me in the night," he said softly.

She could not have heard him correctly. "What did you say?"

"Come away with me," he repeated, his gaze locked with her own. There was no trace of his previous joking manner.

She stared at him in disbelief.  That tone of voice, the look in his eyes--it had been so long since he'd expressed anything like this to her. More years than she cared to remember. Not since Voyager--and then only in the early years of the journey. When was the last time he'd bared his heart and soul to her like this, not holding back for fear of her disapproval for violating their agreement that the intimacy they'd shared on New Earth had to be put aside once they were back on the ship. New Earth...suddenly she remembered sitting across a table from him, their hands entwined, listening to him tell her--

"And you'll tell me another ancient legend," she whispered.

"And I will write you a song," he corrected her, with a hint of a smile.

"To tell me what you could never say outright?" Even as she spoke, she knew it was not true. He had told her exactly how he felt from the very beginning.  She had just chosen not to understand.

"Come away with me," he said, quietly insistent.

"I can't just drop everything and leave," she said, gesturing at her desk, piled high with work. The padds cast long shadows in the fading light. "People are depending on me." But it was a half-hearted protest at best and she knew it. His eyes--dark as the nighttime sky--were too compelling. "Though I suppose after all this time I am entitled to a little vacation." She moved away from him, back toward the window,  trying to collect her thoughts. "Where did you have in mind for us to go?" She added flippantly, "If it's somewhere off-planet, you'll have to give me a chance to pack first."

He might have sighed as he joined her at the window. The light had faded to dusky twilight; soon the first stars would begin to appear.  She studied his profile in silence. "This isn't just some jaunt halfway around the world, is it?" she said slowly, as realization dawned. "You really mean to leave--for us to leave--Earth?"

He nodded, managing to look serious and playful at the same time. "On a 'bus."

"With you in the pilot seat, I supp--" she started to say, and then stopped. It was so like Chakotay to make a grand gesture like this, after all the years of being at cross-purposes--of never being in the same place emotionally at the same time, all the fear and confusion and bitterness and tears--to suddenly sweep past all the barriers and carry off the woman he loved.

The last thought made her knees go weak. This was no casual proposal on his part. "You mean --"

He nodded, and she read the desire--and love--in his eyes. Even so, she couldn't help but say, "After all this time, after everything we let come between us." She closed her eyes. Everything that she had allowed to come between them, hiding behind Starfleet regulations to cover her own fears of letting him get too close to her.

He clearly understood what she hadn't the courage to say out loud. His hand sought hers once more. "Come away where they can't tempt us, with their lies."

"I don't know if just leaving this all behind is the answer..." her voice trailed off as she considered the possibility. She thought once more of New Earth, the last time they'd truly been so unfettered, where rank and the past were meaningless.

She glanced down in confusion, and saw their clasped hands. He turned over the hand he held tightly in his and raised it to his lips. She gasped at the sudden sensation. "I want to walk with you on a cloudy day," he said, his voice rich and warm with memory.  "In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high."

"Oh, yes," she whispered, remembering the long summer days on a planet thousands of light years away. Those precious, wonderful days that had felt as though they'd go on forever, but in reality had been all too few in number.

He gazed at her for a long moment, and she knew the moment of truth was at hand. "So won't you try to come?"

With no further hesitation, almost as if he had willed it, she said simply, "Yes."

She leaned into his embrace and sighed with contentment as his arms tightened around her. "Come away with me and we'll kiss on a mountaintop," he said softly. "Come away with me and I'll never stop loving you."

Blinking to hold back the sudden onrush of tears, she said, "Oh, Chakotay--neither will I."

He reached over and wiped away the single tear which traced its way down her cheek. "And I want to wake up with the rain falling on a tin roof--"

Just like the morning after the plasma storm. "I remember," she breathed.

"While I'm safe there in your arms," he finished with a tender look. "So all I ask is for you to come away with me in the night." He buried his lips in her hair. "Come away with me..."

The Doctor drew the sheet quietly over the body and straightened up. His voice carried more than a tinge of sadness as he said, "If it's any comfort, she went easily."

Harry Kim rubbed his hand over his eyes and nodded. "It's still such a shock--she always seemed so indestructible to me, like she'd go on forever."

The Doctor smiled, despite the obvious grief they both felt at the moment. "She always seemed to give that impression, yes. But you have to remember that Admiral Janeway was well into her 80's--not ancient by today's standards, but considering all she went through during her lifetime, I'm amazed she lasted this long."

Harry sighed heavily. "I know. She survived so much that would have killed anyone else." He turned away from the still silent form on the stretcher and went to close the drape over the large picture window. The early evening stars were twinkling in the sky, reminding him of different stars and constellations on the other side of the galaxy. "I normally wouldn't have been at HQ, but I was coming to tell her the news in person, you know, so she wouldn't hear it over the holovids--"

The Doctor put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Yes, I know. And then to find her like this--" He hesitated. "We'll have to contact the others."

 Harry nodded, and felt suddenly exhausted as he contemplated what needed to be done. "I'll call Tom and B'Elanna." He bit back the word "again" and shivered at the sense of deja vu. "You know who this is going to be hardest on," he said softly.

"Poor Seven," the Doctor agreed. "She'll be devastated to hear the news, especially after losing Chakotay barely two days ago." He was silent for a moment. "It's a strange coincidence, isn't it? That Admiral Janeway and Commander Chakotay died within just a few days of each other?"

Harry smiled grimly. "I don't think it's a coincidence at all."
FINIS

End Note: As many of you have likely already guessed, this is another response to Lori's Evil Challenge (TM) in which the lyrics of a song comprise the dialogue of a character in the story. The song I used was Norah Jones' "Come Away With Me"; the lyrics can be found here http://www.lyricsdomain.com/lyrics/26599/

Back to Rocky's Road

email the author