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From: hannah1971@aol.com (Hannah1971)
Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative
Subject: NEW: "An Apology" (VOY: J/C, post-"Investigations")
Date: 16 Mar 1996 00:26:53 -0500
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This one is in the formidable spirit of the "Apology" genre 
on a.t.x.c. (i.e., the follow-up stories after Scully and Mulder fight), 
and follows the "Star Trek: Voyager" episode 
"Investigations." It's not *entirely* an apology, and it's not 
*exactly* in the same universe as "Investigations," but it's 
Chakotay and Janeway as I know they should be. 

I dedicate it to Mitch Pileggi, who is giving my 
premenstrual hormone surge a good focus. <sigh> And to 
Christine and Stephanie, who demanded that I post it even 
though I wrote it solely for their prurient entertainment. 
If others enjoy it--well, that's a bonus!

Rated PG-13 for (what I consider) mild sexual content. 
Characters and Delta Quadrant ship, et. al., belong to 
Paramount, and no copyright infringement is intended. 
Regarding formatting--well, I've tried and failed in the
past to get good formatting. If this is screwed up, so be 
it. Any interested parties can e-mail me and I'll gladly 
send the story to them ...



"Investigations ... An Apology"
by Hannah R. Henriksson
hannah1971@aol.com

She knew how she looked when the buzzer requesting entry to 
her quarters sounded. Sitting up in her bed against the 
wall, hair messed around her shoulders after two hours of 
unsuccessful sleep, covers rumpled around her. She felt the 
lines permanently forming between her eyebrows, and knew 
that the last week of sleep deprivation had left her looking 
anything but charmingly disheveled.

If it were going to be anyone else on the other side of that 
door, she would have purposefully vacated the bed, wrapped a 
standard-issue drab robe around herself, and been standing 
with feigned but convincing assurance before the doors slid 
open.

But she knew who it was going to be. And to put on that 
front for him would have been ludicrous.

"Come," she responded to the repeated buzzer, and when the 
doors slid open Kathryn Janeway's suspicions were confirmed. 
"Hello, Commander."

"Captain," Chakotay responded, and took a carefully placed, 
single step into the darkened room. "May I come in?" Kathryn 
nodded her response. 

She noted that he was wearing his Sandrine's civvies--the 
loose, cotton pullover of the same brown shade as the 
hardwood floors in Tom's bar, and pants of a color so 
nondescript it was an indistinguishable shade between brown 
and gray. Chakotay didn't know that Janeway recognized them 
as his Maquis clothes--so unremarkable, they were safe for 
any terrorist activity, from buying information off a wary 
barkeep to crawling through the underbrush on a Cardassian 
prison planet. They were the clothes Chakotay wore when he 
wanted to feel most comfortable--safest.

"Is there something I can do for you, Commander?" Janeway 
asked quietly when the doors had closed behind her second. 
She leaned forward in the bed, wrapping her arms around her 
knees and motioning him to a chair. She wondered, 
momentarily, why she was continuing with the formalities in 
language while everything else in the room was cockeyed. 

He sat in the chair, facing his captain but distant enough 
from the bed that his face was barely discipherable. Janeway 
mentally railed against herself for not turning on the 
lights before he entered--what was she doing, sitting here 
in her nightgown, covers pooled around her feet, with 
darkness as an electric conduit between them? 

"Permission to speak freely, Captain?" 

Here it comes, she thought. Finally, here it comes. 

"Granted ... Chakotay." 

He began with a voice so low she had to strain to hear him. 
"I want to talk to you about what happened last week with 
Tom Paris. About what you and Tuvok did--and why I was left 
out of your plans. I want ..."

"Chakotay," she interrupted before he could get any further. 
"I explained to you why we made the decision that we made--"

"'We,'" he snorted. "'We.' That would be you and Tuvok, 
Captain." His voice was rising, and Kathryn drew in a deep 
breath. "You and your third-in-command. That is what I 
wanted to talk to you about. You and Tuvok decided to do 
this, and you decided to leave me out. I want to hear you 
tell me why, without that damned Vulcan standing behind your 
shoulder."

She bristled a bit at the hostile reference to her old 
friend.

"Commander, I told you why." She stood up and walked between 
the bed and his chair--carefully leaving two meters of 
neutral zone between her body and his. If she moved any 
closer, she would be sucked in with the power of a black 
hole. Stopping at the porthole, she crossed her arms again, 
watching the passing stars. She sighed resignedly. "We 
wanted as authentic a performance as possible from a key 
senior officer. We didn't want you to feel torn in your 
loyalties to us"--to me, she thought--"and to your former 
comrades in the Maquis." 

She heard him stand up, and felt the composition of the air 
change. It grew denser, and she felt every centimeter that 
he breached in his approach. "Do you mean that you doubted 
where my loyalties lay, Kathryn?" He was standing just 
behind her now, a little to the side, and she remembered the 
last time he had used her given name.

// Weeks ago. A whisper, then, after his hands had been on 
her shoulders, and there was no turning back. His lips 
pressed against hers--her mind reeling--she felt the fingers 
moving down the front of her uniform, seeking--and quickly 
finding--the seam that held the unwanted barrier together. 
His hands had been hot and quick on her flesh, and his 
breath was warm against her ear when he whispered her name. 

"Kathryn ..." 

She had been overjoyed to hear it come from him ... a single 
response to her return to humanity, a first and single 
claiming of her after the horror of her transformation into 
another life form ... an answer to the fact that--for a 
brief time, anyway--she had actually been Tom Paris' mate.

It--he--had swept over her in her quarters the evening 
before she was set to return to command, and two days after
Tuvok had informed her that she had a spy on the ship. She 
hadn't encouraged him since. //

"Commander," she replied now, soaking in the heat from his 
body. "I knew where your loyalties lay."

In a brief, searing surge, she wished he would get it over 
with. To make his move, to stop toying with her. She had 
seen the briefest of glints in his eye when he entered her 
quarters, and she knew that the anger masked a more violent 
need. She wanted to feel him swoop down over her again. She 
wanted thoughts of Voyager and Tuvok, Mark and Starfleet to 
be crushed under the weight of his body--she knew he wanted 
it, too, and by the expression he wore when she risked a 
glance at him, she realized he knew what he was doing when 
he came to her at 02:00 hours. 

He didn't answer, so she continued with another deep sigh, 
accepting that she was going to be toyed with for now. There 
was something that needed to be gotten out of the way, 
first. 

"What I couldn't tell you in front of Tuvok--what I've 
wanted to tell you for the last week--is that we planned 
this ruse with Tom's cooperation ... before." There was no 
doubt he understood the significance of the word. "And I 
couldn't call off the plan. Tuvok would have wanted to know 
why ... And how could I have explained it? It would've 
looked like ... " She paused, knowing with dread the effect 
her words would have on him. " ... you were seducing me to 
cloud my judgment." 

She glanced at him again, and saw the hard line his mouth 
became. "And even if Tuvok hadn't been involved," she blazed 
forward, "I couldn't have called off the plan based on ... 
what happened. I think that, from your own experience as a 
captain, you know that."

He released his breath, and she heard the coldness melting 
in his voice. "Because you have to do what's best for the 
ship, right?" He gave a rueful chuckle.

Kathryn knew the worst had just passed, and the dance was 
about to begin. She gave him one of her patented Janeway 
half-smiles, and was secretly thrilled to see him return it. 
Turning to face him, she felt the lines smooth from her 
forehead as the tension left her body, to be replaced by ... 
a different, more delicious kind of tension. She watched his 
hand move up to catch the single lock of hair that fell in 
front of her left shoulder.

Twisting the golden-brown strands around his thumb and 
forefinger, Chakotay continued, "It was a good idea, 
however, to tell the crew that I knew about the plan, 
Kathryn--I have to give Tuvok credit for that." He rubbed 
his thumb and finger together, and Kathryn heard her own 
hair crinkling in the caress.

"Yes, it ... umm ... was." The heat from his body was 
migrating into hers, and she leaned in towards him, watching 
him with wide eyes. "A good idea. We wouldn't want you to 
... mmm ... seem out of the loop, after all."

"No, we wouldn't." He released the lock of hair and watched 
it fall back down her shoulder, then reached around to 
thread his fingers into the mass of hair down her back. "I 
want to ask you one more question, Kathryn." Leaning down so 
that his face was mere centimeters from hers, he brought a 
second hand up to twine in her hair. 

Too much time went by, and Kathryn finally tried to speak. 
"Wha--what?"

A single thumb traced the outline of her cheekbone. When he 
asked the next question, he breathed into her open mouth.

"Do you now know where my loyalties lie?" 

His intense brown eyes stared down into hers, and she would 
have laughed in relief if it wouldn't have been so 
inappropriate.

"Oh, gods, Chakotay," she sighed. "Yes. ... Yes."

When his mouth finally covered hers, and his hands moved 
from her hair to her shoulders, Kathryn knew that her life 
on Voyager had changed irrevocably. She brought her arms 
around his back, and--very, very briefly--didn't rue the day 
that they had encountered the Caretaker.

***

Kathryn watched the sleeping form of her first officer--now 
her lover. She hadn't thought it could get better than the 
first time he had ... come to her, but somehow, it had been. 
In her quarters, out of their uniforms, they had forged a 
deeper understanding of what their connection meant. 

Captain and first officer. Lovers. If it hadn't been in such 
dire opposition to everything Starfleet prescribed, it would 
have seemed laughable in its simple logic. 

A captain and her first officer, lovers.

She brought a hand up to her face when she realized she was 
blushing, and cringed a little when the echoes of some of 
the more crazed things she had said--and godawful sounds she 
had made--returned to her. She wondered all over again at 
his ability to drive her into insanity while maintaining 
almost rigid control over himself, waiting for her. 

As if his telepathic ears were burning, Chakotay's eyes 
opened, meeting hers instantly. "What are you thinking 
about?"

She gave in to the joy again, chuckled, and gave him his 
answer.

"The same thing I was thinking about last week. Commander," 
she intoned seriously, "you performed ... wonderfully."

Laughing, he pulled her back down to him, and Kathryn again 
took the opportunity to marvel at his blissful self-control.

THE END



NOTE: Yes, I know this goes against several aspects of 
canon--namely that Janeway and Chakotay aren't lovers (to 
our knowledge), and--more seriously--that everyone on the 
ship knows that Chakotay was out of the loop. I changed it 
b/c I think TPTB made a serious mistake--now Chakotay 
appears weak to Starfleet and Maquis alike. As far as I'm 
concerned, hell--it didn't happen! ;-)

As the country song goes, that's my story and I'm stickin' 
to it!