Timeless – part 3

ricepips:

(I drop a few foul words in this one! I apologise – no offence intended.)

The medical officer -a stout man with a large mass of greying hair- sits behind an imposing desk and gazes across at Chakotay, offering further therapy with a sympathetic smile.

“No!” Chakotay snaps. Frustration evident in the way he’s sat and the tone of his voice. “I don’t want therapy! Don’t you see? I need the hypospray.”

“I’m sorry, Chakotay. You’ve had enough in the last few months. I can’t give you anymore,” the Doctor answers, shaking his head.

“I can’t sleep without it!” Chakotay explodes, slamming his hands onto the desk.

The Doctor doesn’t flinch, he sighs and sits back in his chair. “How much are you drinking, Chakotay?”

Chakotay rubs at his hair in frustration, “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?” he spits.

“I’m worried about you. You’re drinking too much. Relying on medication. It’s been 6 months, you need to try and move on. Bereavement therapy will help.”

Chakotay almost launches himself across the table to strangle the life out of the judgemental bastard.

“Move on?” he roars. “Move on? They died! 150 people died! And I survived! Why? Why am I alive and she isn’t?”

“Survivor’s guilt,” the doctor nods as if it’s the most obvious and simple thing in the whole universe. “It’s common. Therapy will help.”

Chakotay stands up so quickly, his chair tips over. “Therapy will never help me,” he shouts. “Don’t you understand? She’s dead? They all are!”

He stumbles towards the door and ignores the doctor calling after him. He bursts out into the waiting room. Blindly, he looks about, sees the looks from the waiting patients. And then, there she is. Waiting, sitting, hands clasped on her lap. She raises an eyebrow.

“And you can fuck off too!” he yells at an empty chair where he’s certain he saw her sitting. “Fuck you, Kathryn!” he yells.

An older lady tuts at him and shakes her head. The receptionist stands up, ready to try and calm him. He storms away, but he can feel Kathryn following behind him.

“Chakotay…” she calls.

“Leave me alone!” he shouts, people staring at him in alarm as he storms by. “Just leave me alone, Kathryn!”

She’s there at his side, invading his personal space. “Is that what you really want? Do you want me to disappear and you never see me again? Is that what you want, Chakotay?”

He stops. “No….” he moans. He leans against the nearest wall, pressing his forehead against the cool metal hospital sign. “Kathryn….”

He feels her hand on his shoulder, “I’m here…”

“Why? Kathryn, why?” he moans into the wall, rolling his head side to side, his hands clenching into fists at his side.

“Don’t make me leave,” she whispers, her voice rough in his ears. “Don’t make me leave you.”

“Stay,” he pleads, turning his head to look for her. She’s at the far end of the corridor, looking at him, hands by her side.

“Always,” she answers.

The next few weeks pass, Chakotay doesn’t sleep unless he’s downed a bottle of whiskey. He barely eats and only washes when the smell of himself makes him feel sick. He ignores all messages and remains hidden inside his darkened bedroom. He sits up each night, drinking himself into oblivion, fighting to keep her at bay. He fails each time and finally falls into a stupor, Kathryn before him, lost in his distorted memories of her.

His sister visits him unannounced, and after letting herself in, she is instantly concerned. She looks around in disgust at the mess that is his apartment. She grimaces at the smell and gasps when she stumbles over the pile of empty whiskey bottles. She walks in to his bedroom to find him talking to an empty chair.

“Chakotay?” she asks. “Who are you talking to?”

He spins around, eyes wild. “Leave me alone!”

Sekaya’s eyes widen. She gazes at her brother, her heart breaking for him. Devastated isn’t even an adjective that comes close to how her brother looks.

“Chakotay, I’m worried about you,” she says softly. “Let me help you.”

“I need a drink,” Chakotay snaps, storming towards the door. Sekaya steps in front of him.

“No, Chakotay, you don’t,” she says, shaking her head. She places her hands onto his chest.

“Get out of my way,” Chakotay barks. He shoves her away, but she grabs at his arm. “Let go of me!” he yells.

“It won’t bring her back!” Sekaya cries, her grip tightening on his arm. “It won’t bring any of them back!”

All the fight leaves his body and he crumbles into his sister’s arms.

“Help me,” he pleads. “I can’t….”

Sekaya holds him close and whispers words of comfort as he cries into her shoulder. She sits him down and tells him she will help him and true to her word, she does.

She takes him back to Trebus and surrounds him with love. He speaks to the Elders of the village where he stays, takes part in some of the ceremonies he had forgotten during his time away. He reconnects with family and old friends, they talk of loss and love and he finds the wounds to his heart and soul, slowly starting to heal. Chakotay even finds himself opening up to Sekaya about Kathryn. He sleeps, sometimes for days at a time, his body needing the recovery. He eats good food, avoids alcohol, plays games with the youngsters of the village. For a while, it works. For the first time since it all happened, he begins to feel like his old self, his mind is clearer, his appearance less haunted and the ghost of Kathryn, whilst never leaving, is now just a blur on the periphery of his vision.

He dreams of her each night though, it’s the only time he truly lets her in. They are on New Earth, she’s digging about in the tomato beds, laughing at the monkey, sitting across a table from him. In his dreams, she doesn’t define parameters, they end up in her bed and he is granted more time loving her.

Each time he wakes with a smile on his lips and the memory of her in his arms. And even though that smile quickly fades, the pain of waking gradually eases. It no longer makes him choke on each breath. It no longer tears at his heart. Instead, it’s just a dull ache, forever there, but slowly more manageable.

Then, one day, weeks before the twelve month anniversary, he receives notification telling him Gretchen Janeway has passed away. The news knocks him sideways and before Sekaya can reason with him, he’s on the next shuttle back to Earth.

His mind has no time to catch up before he’s stood in a graveyard at the back of a large congregation, paying his respects. He’s lost in his own thoughts when a hand rests upon his arm, he turns and gasps audibly. The woman before him is Kathryn, only slightly different. Her hair is longer, darker, curlier. Her clothing is more loose and floaty than Kathryn would ever wear, her eyes a deeper shade of blue, but the expressions and mannerisms are all Kathryn. She offers him a smile and says, “Commander Chakotay?”

It takes a few seconds for his brain to kick into gear, “You must be, Phoebe, Kathryn’s sister?” The woman nods. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Phoebe’s eyes fill with tears, “Mom never recovered after Katie,” she says. “It killed her. She couldn’t get past losing her.”

Chakotay nods his understanding, though it feels odd hearing Kathryn referred to by her family pet name. He bites back the urge to enforce the name of Kathryn, but he knows he has no right. She’s not his. Not in the living world anyway.

“My mother spoke of you,” Phoebe adds. “I think you gave her some comfort.”

Chakotay dips his head to look at the floor.

“I hope someday you find your own comfort.” Phoebe’s voice is soft. “Katie would have wanted that.”

Chakotay cannot speak. What can he say? He gives Phoebe a brief nod and watches her move away, back towards her husband and remaining family.

He turns to walk away and there she is. It’s been a while since he has seen her so clearly in the waking world, but there she is. She’s sat on top of a gravestone, legs crossed and smiling at him, her head on one side. She looks like she’s about to make some big decision, one he probably won’t like. She slips down from the gravestone and saunters away, her figure slowly disappearing.

He groans. He feels that fragile grip on his life begin to slip. He no longer feels clear of mind. He feels the hazy fog of despair gathering around the edges.

Arriving back at his apartment, he sees the unread messages blinking on his screen. Many from his sister and one from an Admiral Paris. His heart pounds as he opens the message. It’s an invite to a 12 month remembrance service. He feels sick.

He ignores the message and heads towards his punchbag hanging by the window. He begins to rain punches onto the unforgiving leather. He cares not that he isn’t wearing his gloves, or that he isn’t dressed for boxing. He just keeps punching until he feels the skin on his knuckles crack and break. He continues to pound the bag until
he hears a different pounding on his door. The continual beeping of his door chime seeps into his mind and he offers one final, brutal blow to the bag before spinning round.

“Come!” he yells.

The door opens and an angry, disheveled Harry Kim stumbles through the door. He looks like hell. His hair is unkempt, a beard grows wildly around his mouth and down his neck and his clothes look like he’s lived in them for God knows how long.

“Are you going?” Harry wastes no time on pleasantries.

Chakotay needs no further explanation. He is fully aware of what he’s talking about. It’s been in his head since he saw the message.

“I think we are the star attraction,” Chakotay replies grimly.

“I’m not going.” Harry shakes his head. “I can’t! How can I stand there knowing that I killed them?”

He pulls at his hair and the anguish is evident. Chakotay recognises it all too well.

Something inside brings forth the former Commander Chakotay, the man who knew how to calm such a situation, the man he thought he’d lost, but until a few hours ago, had started to recover.

“Harry, it was not your fault. It was a mistake. The odds of success were against us, yet we still went ahead. We all agreed. You know that. It was an accident. You can’t keep blaming yourself.”

“Can’t I?” Harry roars, he lunges towards Chakotay until he’s in his face.

“150 people, Chakotay. I made a mistake and killed them all! They trusted me. Tom. B’Elanna. Tuvok…..Naomi…” his words turn into a moan and he stumbles backwards, the sheer weight of the guilt making his knees buckle.

Chakotay swallows hard, the image of the little girl, born on Voyager, vivid in his mind. The only home she ever knew, now her grave.

“Neelix. The Captain. Dead because of me! Because I got it wrong! All for a .42 fucking phase variant!” Harry’s voice cracks and he chokes back a sob.

Chakotay grimaces as the image of Kathryn flashes through his mind. He hasn’t the strength to hold it back. He feels his grip on reality slip further.

“How did you die, Kathryn?” he wonders. “Did you think of me?”

“Yes….”

His ears are filled with screams, crunching metal. His stomach lurches, dampeners failing, a free-fall into oblivion and then the sensation of every bone in his body being shattered. It’s horrific. He clutches his head….“No!” he whimpers, praying for the images to cease. But they don’t. Bodies tossed about like tiny boats on a raging sea. Lights and conduits exploding, the burning of flesh and uniform. Life support failing. The cracking of a skull as it connects with the floor. The boiling of blood as they descend through an atmosphere too quickly.

He tries to push it away, but then he sees movement in the doorway of his bedroom, and there she is. Walking slowly along the perimeter of the room, arms folded, a pensive look upon her face.

“I killed them,” Harry moans. He spins and kicks out at the table, sending it tipping over. He slumps to the floor, hands grabbing at his hair and pulling, his face twisted into an agonised scream that fails to come. “I can’t do this. I can’t go on living with what I’ve done.”

Chakotay watches Kathryn stop, she looks across at Harry and there’s no mistaking the tears in her eyes. She rolls her head from side to side as if easing out tension from her shoulders. Slowly, she moves towards the window.

“Help him,” her voice whispers through his mind. “He needs you.”

Chakotay looks down at the young man whose future had been so bright. Just a boy, he had begun to blossom on Voyager into a man. Where did it all go wrong? The haze in his mind grows thicker, reality and fantasy merging into one.

“I blame myself,” Kathryn’s voice rolls through his mind. “I put too much pressure on him. Help him, Chakotay.”

Harry is rocking on the floor, huge sobs wracking through his frame, which Chakotay notices, is frighteningly frail. He turns away from the sight, he can’t bring himself to help him.

“I don’t know how!” he mutters. Kathryn moves closer with a soft smile.

“You will work it out,” she says softly. “Help each other.”

“I only need you. He can’t help me!”

“Yes, he can.”

“I need you, Kathryn, I can’t do it without you!” he murmurs.

Kathryn offers a sympathetic smile. “You can. You must. Live for the living, not for me.”

“Don’t….don’t go,” he begs softly. “I’m not ready to let you go!”

“Chakotay,” she sighs, she moves closer, her mouth to his ear, “I’m here. Always. You just need to look. But, for now, help him. Do it for me.”

He closes his eyes and nods, he feels the ghost of a kiss upon his cheek and when he opens his eyes, she’s gone. His mind is suddenly much clearer.

He turns back to Harry and pulls his shoulders back. From deep within, he summons up all the strength he’s ever had.

“Right, enough of this shit, Ensign! Get up, get washed, we’re going to sort out this whole bastard mess, once and for all!”