Work Text:
It was the silence that told me something was wrong.
Even at all-stop there is hardly ever such a thing as true silence on the Bridge if someone is working there. Every keystroke on Voyager’s consoles produced a soft beep unless the user turned the sound off, and Tom had been tapping away at the helm for the past five minutes. Tom never turned off the sound. He said that he liked knowing that his commands were input, that the sounds and the haptics made him feel more like one with the ship. But the beeps and chirps from the console to my left had ceased, and silence had fallen over the Bridge.
“Tom?” When I looked over at him, he was facing the science station, staring intently at nothing in particular. “Tom?” I slowly circled behind him, careful not to scare him if he was just daydreaming. But when I stepped in front of him, it was clear that he had been caught by whatever hallucination the alien had forced him to see.
I sighed. Damn. I had been counting on Tom’s animosity towards his father to keep him from interacting with the alien. Now I could only hope that Torres had the resonance burst ready.
“Janeway to Engineering.” I got no response. “Janeway to Torres. Are you there? Engineering respond.” I started for the turbolift without waiting for a response. If I hadn’t gotten one by now, I wasn’t getting one. “If anyone in Engineering can hear me, I'm on my way. Computer, put the Bridge controls on security lockout.”
I was so focused on getting to Engineering that I didn’t notice Chakotay until after the ‘lift doors closed. When I turned around, he was standing to my right, stock-still and glassy-eyed like everyone on the Bridge.
Damnit!
This psionic field was strong. One-by-one, it had taken my crew in a matter of minutes. The key seemed to be not interacting with the hallucinations, but this thing appeared to adapt and grow stronger— if Tom’s succumbing to his father was any indication.
I sighed and wondered who or what Chakotay had seen. Something powerful indeed if it had taken him in the time it took to get to Engineering. He was pressed back against the ‘lift wall as if he’d been trying to get away from whatever it was he saw. Though it was impossible to tell if he had been trying to escape the apparition itself, or the form it had taken.
At that thought, I hardened my jaw. “Deck eleven,” I told the computer. The only way to save him, to save them all, was to get to Engineering and activate the resonance burst.
“Now, maybe you have time to talk to me.”
I froze at the sound of Mark’s voice in the turbolift next to me. The alien wearing Mark’s form was easier to ignore when he was on the viewscreen. But now he was here, on the ship, standing right next to me and I could feel the warmth of him, smell the woodsy spice of Mark’s aftershave. It was a hard thing, to keep my eyes on the door, to not reach for the illusion like a drowning woman.
I clenched my fists at my sides.
Don’t look, I told myself. He’s not real. Don’t look don’t look don’t look…
As if he could sense my thoughts, the alien said, “You're so strong, Kath. That's one of the things I always loved in you.” He leaned closer, his arm snaking around my waist as he made to kiss my neck.
I jerked my head away and swatted at him as if he were an incessant insect.
He pulled back. “What's the matter?” I could hear the confusion in his voice, but it was mocking, taunting. “You used to love it when I kissed you there.”
Still not looking at him, I spat back, “I don't know who you are, what you are, but I won't let you touch me.”
“What about the man on the holodeck?”
Lord Burleigh? How—
“You didn't seem to mind him touching you, did you?” the alien taunted and I had to remind myself that he was not Mark because he sounded so much like Mark that it hurt. “In fact, I think you liked it,” he spat accusingly.
The sight of Mark—sweet understanding Mark—throwing my sin in my face with such deliberate cruelty was so unexpected, so out of character that I couldn’t form a defense. I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. All I could do was listen to him condemn and berate me for betraying him.
No, I hadn’t minded Burleigh touching me, though I had not exactly asked for it. In truth, it had only been after the fact that I realized that I liked it, and I had surprised myself with just how much I did. It had been so long since anyone had touched me with any sort of romantic interest that even the touch of a hologram had set my body unwittingly on fire.
Burleigh was handsome, in a classic sort of way. He smelled like ink and leather, and it made me think of Mark—Mark who smelled like coffee and the yellowed pages of the old books he loved so much. He was shy, like Mark, but where Mark was sweet and kind, Burleigh was coarse and tactless, like calloused hands snagging on silk.
But Burleigh was a holodeck character, a mindless fantasy programmed to progress the innocent romance between himself and the protagonist forward. It was just a fun and fanciful story, a romantic fantasy. And yes, I had enjoyed it. I had enjoyed another man’s kiss, a man who was not my fiancé. So perhaps I was deserving of Mark’s scorn for what I had done, though I wished I could take it back. I hadn’t meant to hurt Mark. I had just wanted to enjoy the story. I had just wanted a bit of frivolous entertainment, a place where I didn’t have to be captain, where the responsibility didn’t weigh so much.
So why did I feel as if I had painted a scarlet letter on my chest?
“Now I ask you, Kath,” the alien in Mark’s form continued, “is that fair to me? I've stayed faithful to you. I've vowed to wait for you no matter how long it takes.”
The note of dejection in his voice leached its way into my heart and reminded me of our last conversation before the Badlands when I had ignored him for status reports, when I had forgotten to say “I love you.” Tears stung my eyes but I didn’t blink them away. I had hurt him then by letting him feel unimportant, and I hurt him with Burleigh.
What must he think of me…
And then he asked, “Shouldn't you do the same?” and I… broke.
I turned to him slowly. I needed him to know, I needed Mark to know that nothing had happened between Burleigh and me, that nothing would have ever happened. That I would wait for him, too, no matter how long it took. “I haven’t been unfaithful,” I whispered.
“Oh, Kath.”
Suddenly, we were kissing, his arms wrapped around my waist, mine twined around his neck, fingers threaded into the hair at his nape. It was deep and passionate, until it was desperate and urgent. My fingers clawed in his hair, tugging, pulling, demanding, and he answered in kind, one hand holding my head in place the other gripping my hip.
I tried to move closer but he held my head immobile, keeping my face at the angle he wanted while he plundered my mouth. It was almost too much: his lips, his mouth, his taste. It was too much and not nearly enough. He kissed me like he was starving, like he would devour me, and I whimpered because I needed more.
I didn’t care that we were in a turbolift. I wanted him. Here. Now.
My hands moved to his shoulders, sliding over the coarse materials of his tunic, feeling the muscles of his back beneath. I pressed myself to him, wanting, needing to be as close as possible. I would have climbed inside him if I could.
I felt his hands through my uniform, hot and hungry on my body, in places I’d been missing his touch for months.
My jacket was gone and my back was roughly pushed against the wall of the lift, the metal hard and unforgiving against the knobs of my spine. I gasped, the slight pain a goad to my pleasure. Mark grinned salaciously and pressed his hips harder into mine, leaning in to bite my neck and causing me to gasp in pleasure once more. He knew I liked it when he couldn’t hold back.
He lifted me from the ground and I wrapped my legs around his waist, his hips anchoring me in place against the wall. I was a bit taller than him in this position and it put my neck at the perfect height for his mouth. His tongue laved over the sharp wound his teeth had left, lips clamping down to suck greedily. My wanton moans filling the ‘lift only spurred him on.
He groaned, a low and guttural sound against my neck and left a trail of open-mouth kisses along my neck and chest, his breath hot and wet through my shirt. But I needed his mouth on mine again. I needed it like I needed water. I needed him to kiss away even the memory of Burleigh’s lips on mine. I needed to show him that only he could make me feel this way. That I wanted him and only him.
With a hand on either side of his face, I pulled his head up and kissed him deeply, plundering, devouring his mouth as he had mine. When I pulled back for air, I held his face in my hands, staring down into his gray eyes darkened with lust. The look he gave me twisted something low in my body, sending a rush of want to my core.
Mark pushed my shirt up over my breasts and I shivered at the touch of cool air on my bare flesh. But then he touched the skin he had bared, his hands large and warm, and I moaned and shivered for a whole other reason entirely. With gentle pressure, I directed his head down where I wanted him most, and, smirking, he bent his head to my breast. I gasped but it turned into a moan.
I gripped him tighter with my legs, trying to pull him closer, ever closer despite the layers between us. Desperate for him, I tried to move my hips but he held me immobile. Panting, my hands clenched and tugged at his clothes, wanting the layers between us gone.
“Mark.” I sounded needy and wanton and I could not have cared less. If I didn’t have him now, I was going to combust.
Somehow, I’d lost a shoe, and my pants were inside out over one leg, though I don’t remember Mark removing my clothes. But with his hands sliding up my bare thighs I didn’t care. He was touching me; finally, he was touching me and it had been so damn long I could have wept for the feeling of his hands on my bare skin.
His hands were everywhere all at once, playing my body like an instrument made for him alone. And like an instrument, I sang. All breathy sighs and pleasured moans.
The pleasure was almost too much. It built and built with each caress, rising like a tidal wave I could not stop and I knew that in a moment it would crash into me and I would drown in the pleasure. I felt Mark’s hand slip between our bodies and one stroke of his expert fingers was all it took. I threw my head back against the wall and screamed.
***
I came back to myself in the turbolift, a crashing free fall into reality that had my knees buckling with the force of it.
I caught a glimpse of Chakotay to my right. We locked eyes for a moment of startled recognition before he turned sharply away, hands on his hips, head bowed, and I fell back into the wall to keep myself from crumbling to the deck, flushed and breathing hard.
I squeezed my eyes shut in an attempt to escape the lingering feeling of Mark’s hands on my body. Because it wasn’t Mark. No matter how much he had looked, felt, and sounded like Mark, it hadn’t been him.
It wasn’t real.
But it was no use. I wanted him. Needed him. I yearned for him in my soul, and my heart didn’t want to let go of the dream.
My body still thrummed with pleasure. I could feel the evidence of it on my thighs; the heady smell of it invaded my nostrils and I knew there was no way Chakotay couldn’t smell it too. My cheeks flamed.
I didn’t have to look to know that I was dressed (again? Still?). I could feel the rub and weight of every piece of my uniform back in place as if I hadn’t been naked in the turbolift five minutes ago. Because I hadn’t been. That wasn’t real.
It seemed unfair, that I should be thrust so abruptly back into reality, coifed and pressed once more, when I could still feel Mark’s hands sliding over my skin, when I could still feel his body moving against me, within me.
I clenched my fists, hard enough to bend my nails against my palms.
“Captain.”
The sound of Chakotay’s uneven voice drew me back. I felt the vibrations of it along my skin, tingling not unpleasantly. He sounded about as rough as I felt. But it was enough. Enough to chase away the phantom hands on my breasts, the illusory fingers between my legs.
I opened my eyes, vision blurred by unshed tears, and I felt my chin wobble in an effort not to cry. Through the tears I saw him take a step towards me and I shook my head, the movement messy and uncoordinated against the wall and I knew I would have to fix my hair later. I could not bear to have him any closer. Not when I was this raw, this undone. I felt naked and eviscerated. Everything I was, every secret I held, every emotion in my heart was on display for him. If he came any closer, I would shatter.
I closed my eyes against the blurry sight of him and with deep breaths, pushed away thoughts of Mark and Burleigh and my guilt. Slowly, I unclenched my fists and opened my eyes, vision now clear, and I straightened.
Across the ‘lift, Chakotay watched me with an expression only slightly more controlled than my own. Whatever he had seen had clearly left him just as unraveled as me. I could see the tension in his neck and the stiff way he held his back. His fingers were curled at his sides, not quite clenched into fists but I knew that if I peeled back his shirt sleeves, his forearms would be corded with tension. For all that, his mouth was soft, jaw set with careful neutrality, like he was pretending that he didn’t feel like he was coming apart at the seams. But his eyes were as lost as mine.
We stared at one another, both of us trying to pick our way back to reality, both of us leading and following the other. The blind leading the blind.
“Are you—I mean…what…” Chakotay was never one to fumble for words. He paused, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and tried again. “What happened?” His roughened voice raised the hairs on my arms. It played pleasantly over my skin and in my chest like a familiar song.
“I don’t know.” My own voice was thick and gravely. “Torres must have activated the resonance burst.” As soon as I said it, I remembered that Torres had been incapacitated. Either someone else had activated it or the alien had deactivated the psionic field.
Chakotay nodded solemnly. “I saw—”
“It’s okay,” I interrupted. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what he saw, wasn’t sure I could handle it.
“What did you…” He didn’t finish, but I knew what he was asking.
I considered evading the question—he had certainly left me the opportunity to avoid it—but he was looking at me so openly, so hopefully, that I found I could not refuse him. But nor could I admit to the whole of it. I wasn’t ready to admit my shame out loud. And I wasn’t ready to let go—of the vision who had accused me or of the dream that I knew would one day fade as all dreams do. The dream that I would make it back to Mark; that he would wait for me and I for him, no matter how long it took.
The smile I mustered was small and shaky, and my voice was a trembling whisper. “Only such things as dreams are made on.”
Everything about Chakotay softened. His hands released and the tension in him went out on an exhale as he looked at me with gentle sympathy.
I do not know if Chakotay understood the reference, or my meaning even if he did. If he was going to ask me about it, he never got the chance; anything more we might have said to one another was cut off by Kes’s voice through the comm.
“Kes to the captain. If you can hear me, please report to Engineering.”
I didn’t respond. I don’t think I could have. I cleared my throat and with a hoarse voice told Chakotay to get back to the bridge while I made my way to Engineering.
I would have given anything for a fresh uniform, but I didn’t have time to change. And as I stepped awkwardly out of the ‘lift, my wet trousers rubbing uncomfortably against my legs, I was grateful, not for the first time, that our uniform pants were black.
I would deal with this alien intruder. I would get him off my ship and then I would wash the stain of him from my body. Then I would go to the holodeck and I would delete Lord Burleigh and his mysterious house from the database, and I would take great pleasure in recycling that ridiculous dress into a million energy particles and using them for something far more productive than my romantic fantasies.
So I did.