Disclaimer: Not mine, all Paramount's.
Summary: Kathryn and Chakotay learn some things about their relationship. After watching "Resolutions" (yes, again!) this idea popped into my head, although I'm not sure where it came from. It was late, I was tired, is that a good enough excuse?! Almost all dialogue - I hope you can tell who's saying what, maybe it'll help if I say that generally Kathryn talks more than Chakotay.
Meant To Be
She reached a hand tentatively towards his face, lightly stroking his cheek. Then, winding it around his neck to the back of his head, she slowly pulled him down into the gentlest but at the same time the most passionate of kisses, and everything around them melted into insignificance…
"Halla-bloody-lullah!"
If there was a prize for 'breaking the mood', that would have been the hands-down winner. Kathryn and Chakotay broke apart faster than you could say 'photon torpedo', and reality once more came crashing down around them. As though one, they turned in the direction of the unmistakable voice.
"Q! What the HELL do you think you're doing here?"
"Now, now, Kathy, I would have thought that much at least was obvious. I've been watching your progress for years now, you think I'd miss out on that definitive moment?"
"If you had to be here you could at least have kept both quiet and out of sight. And what do you mean you've been watching our 'progress' for years? As I recall, if I'd have let you have things your way two years ago I'd have a child with you right now. I dare say that if that had happened, this wouldn't have."
"Kathy, you've got me all wrong. That was part of a little plan of mine to help you along, but as it turned out it backfired a little. I ended up with a child, and I do so adore him, but I also ended up with that, that…oh, I think you know who I mean."
"Miss Q I presume, but what has all this got to do with anything anyhow, you still haven't answered my original question. What has either mine or Chakotay's love life got to do with the almighty Q continuum?"
"Oh, don't let it worry you. It's nothing for you to be concerned about, not anymore."
"I'm not going to be fobbed off that easily. I want an explanation, now."
"I really don’t want to - I don't think you'd like it, not all of it anyway."
"All of what?!"
"Would I be saying enough if I just said you two were meant to be together?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Chuckles, come on, help me here! You were meant to be together, and you know it, can't you just tell her so we can all get back to what we were doing?"
"I don't think so. I want to know what you were doing here as much as Kathryn."
"And his name's Chakotay!"
"Alright, alright. Where do you want me to start?"
"The beginning."
"Right at the beginning?"
"Yes."
"You're sure about this?"
"Just get the hell on with it!"
"You'd better take a seat then, this could take a while."
The three of them moved over to sit down, with Kathryn and Chakotay sharing the sofa. As they settled down Chakotay reached out to take Kathryn's hand in order to maintain some form of contact. Q took a seat opposite them, and started to talk.
"Across the universe there are a few couples who really are, as you human's would put it, 'meant to be'. They are spread across both space and time, and their being together is important to the continued existence of…I'm not sure how to put this. The reasons behind it are…well, they're beyond your comprehension. Don't challenge me on that, just accept it. To say that they achieve far more and touch more people's lives together than apart doesn't really begin to describe it, but it's a start. The Q are aware of this, so we keep an eye on these couples, make sure that one way or another they do eventually end up together. Unless you haven't worked it out by now, you are one of those couples."
"Assuming this is true, and I've not yet made up my mind whether I should believe you, why us?"
"Kathy…Kathryn, that I can't answer. Even the Q can only identify the couples in question, we sometimes never find out the complete reasons why."
"Alright, if you can't tell us why, if we are one of these couples, why didn't we find each other years ago?"
"Actually, you've been one of the more difficult cases. Some we don't have to lift a finger to help, others require a little more 'looking after'. The number of near misses you two have had for meeting each other has sometimes had the Q almost throwing things across the galaxy in frustration. You remember that date with Wil Riker when you were at the academy?"
"If you could call it that, I didn't exactly stay for long."
"And that was the problem. If you'd have stayed just fifteen minutes more, you would have seen Chakotay here walk through the door. Similar near misses occurred throughout your academy careers, largely due to your association with Admiral Paris I have to say. That man has no idea what his slave-driving did to us all."
"If this was proving so frustrating to you, why didn't you just use your 'powers' to throw us together."
"I've told you before that we're not supposed to interfere with human lives, or any other lives. You were both still young, we thought you had plenty of time so we just rode it out for a while. Then when you were both assigned to the same ship early in your careers, we couldn't believe our luck."
"But Kathryn and I never served together before."
"I know, Chakotay. Once again it all went wrong. You never knew this because the admiralty changed their minds before they'd got around to telling you about your new assignment, but you were originally assigned to the Icarus like Kathryn here."
"My first deep space mission."
"Yes, it would have been perfect. The Icarus wasn't a particularly large ship as you know, and the two of you would have been serving on it together for a year. We were sure that would bring you together."
"But Justin was on that ship."
"I think you realised long ago that if you'd met Chakotay back then you would never have gotten engaged to Lieutenant Tighe."
"You're right, I have known that for a while now."
"But as you know you, Chakotay, were never on the Icarus. So our Justin Tighe became a bit of an obstacle."
On hearing this Kathryn suddenly paled, and when she spoke it was in a quiet, strained voice.
"Please tell me you weren't responsible for Justin's death, for…for my father's death."
"Kathryn, no, of course not. I'm sorry, that didn't come out quite how I meant it to. All I meant was that things were getting a bit more difficult. The minute you agreed to marry Justin the eyes of the whole Q continuum were upon you. We still didn't interfere though. We were trying to decide what if anything we could do when the accident happened. I promise you though that it was an accident. I'm hurt that you could even think we were responsible for their deaths."
"Come on Q, Kathryn and I both know that you're normally up to something when you appear, and somehow I wouldn't put it past you to do something like that if you thought it would benefit you."
"I'm trying to be honest with you here, can't you accept that this time all I want to do is tell you the truth?"
"Chakotay, he's right. Go on, Q, we're listening again. Once Justin was gone, if it's so important for Chakotay and I to be together, why did I end up with Mark?"
"Honestly? We didn't expect you to take the accident so badly. You'd always been a strong woman, finding a way to overcome anything thrown in your way. You had survived your ordeal with the Cardassians remarkably well, we thought you'd be able to put the accident behind you and get on with your life. When it didn't happen that way we were caught off guard, and we floundered. By now we knew we'd have to try a little more to get you to meet, but nothing we tried worked. At first it was little things, that all backfired. Actually, the day you met Mark again, Chakotay was in the park as well. We had it all planned, how you would start talking to him and everything, but the details aren't important. Your dog, Petunia, had other ideas."
"Yes, it was thanks to her that I met Mark again."
"And so thanks to her that our plans were completely messed up. After that we had to rethink yet again. I suspect that the last influence Mark had on your relationship was a positive one, but back then he was a problem. So was your career. You'd switched to command, and as you recall you had that six-month mission into the Beta Quadrant. That was a whole six months where there was nothing we could do. Little did we know an even bigger obstacle was heading our way, and this one was all down to you, Chakotay."
"When I joined the maquis."
"Yes, that was not at all convenient."
"I'm so sorry if fighting for what I believed in, for what my family believed in, was a problem for you."
"Chakotay…"
"Kathryn, it's not that I wouldn't have loved to have met you earlier in our lives, you know I would, but he's making something that was extremely important to me sound like an insignificant annoyance that only served to get in his way."
"That's not the impression I wanted to give, I'm just trying to tell you all this in the best way I can. How about I skip to your being brought to the Delta Quadrant. Now that really was a problem. Kathryn, when you received your orders to take Voyager and retrieve Chakotay and his crew, we couldn't believe our luck - Starfleet were literally throwing you together. And then Chakotay, you were brought out here. Separated by tens of thousands of light years - what were we going to do about that? What we had previously perceived as a challenge had now turned itself into a problem. A large one. The Caretaker, as you people called him, was the cause of no end of headaches in the continuum. The number of meetings we held concerning nothing but the two of you was unprecedented. Maybe this helps to show the scale of things that this affects. In the end we decided we had to do something, something big, to intervene."
"I have a really bad feeling about this."
"And unfortunately I can't take that away."
"Voyager was brought out here just so that I would be near Chakotay, wasn't it. The whole crew ripped from their partners, their families, people died…"
"It was necessary."
"How can I live with that? For years I've blamed myself for stranding us out here, wondered about the decision I made, but managed to live with it because in staying out here we helped the Ocampa to live. Now you're telling me that it really is all down to me. And Chakotay. If it wasn't for us, none of Voyager's crew would be here now."
"Not Voyager's original crew, no, but the maquis would have been. What we did, by directing the tetryon beam into Voyager's path, actually helped far more people than the two of you. Not to put your little ship down, Chakotay, but it was unlikely to have lasted very long out here on its own, in unfamiliar territory. Voyager's arrival meant that your people had a chance for survival. Most of them are doing more than just survive, they're flourishing. Take B'Elanna, for example. If you weren't out here would she be serving on a Starfleet ship as Chief Engineer? Would she have met and married Tom Paris? She's turned into a remarkable young woman, you should be proud of what you've helped her to achieve."
"That's all very well, but like Kathryn said, what about those who lost their families, their lives?"
"Kathryn, how many people on Voyager were either married or in a serious relationship when you were first brought out here?"
"I'm not sure, about five I suppose, including me."
"I'm not including you and Mark, because that couldn't have worked anyway - we wouldn't have let it. But even including you and Mark it's not a very large percentage."
"That may be true, but there were some with children - Tuvok, for example."
"And Samantha had Naomi since you've been here. The children will see their parents again, as the rest of the crew will see their families."
"You know that?"
"Yes. You don't have to feel so guilty. It was decided when we intervened that if you didn't get back 'under your own steam' by a certain time limit, we'd help you along. So far, we haven't had to do that. You're already over half-way, don't stop trying now. I won't disclose what that time limit was, as it is it looks like we won't have to worry about it."
"You're saying that we will get home?"
"Yes."
"But what about those that died?"
"I wish I could do something about them, truly I do, but I can't. Just don't blame yourselves. Blame the Q if you have to, but not yourselves."
"Easier said than done."
"Try. To get the conversation back to a slightly lighter note, you do realise that you still managed to drive us up the proverbial wall even after you were landed on the same ship, with nowhere else to go, and no-one else to turn to. After all the trouble we'd had, we even had to watch you and try to help you along when you were on New Earth. Stranded on a beautiful planet with only each other for company, each of you already aware of your attraction towards the other and fast on the way to becoming the best of friends, and still we felt we couldn't leave you to it. I spent most of that time there with you, making sure you didn't mess up completely."
"You what?"
"Remember the monkey?"
"You are kidding me. That little primate that I kept reaching out to…"
"It was me. Someone had to stop you from doing stupid things like say…oh, getting caught in plasma storms. You could have been killed!"
"I can't believe that was you."
"And I can't believe that you were still resisting the inevitable after that ancient legend!"
"Neither can I."
"Well that makes three of us."
It was getting late by now, which was promptly emphasised by Kathryn stifling a yawn.
"You're getting tired."
"No Q, please carry on, I want to hear what else you did."
"Well, there isn't much else to say. I've done what you wanted me to do, which was explain to you why I'd been watching you. From New Earth to now you could probably work out for yourselves where the Q may have been involved, but actually we didn't do too much. After Mark contacted you we had a pretty good idea we wouldn't need to do a lot more. I think it's high time I left you alone, but first, can you promise me something?"
"Depends what it is."
"Stay together?"
"I think we can handle that one, don't you Chakotay?"
"Nothing would make me happier."
With that, Q snapped his fingers and left. Kathryn and Chakotay sat silently on the sofa for a few minutes before Chakotay slowly got up.
"Where are you going?"
"Back to my quarters. Like Q says, it's getting late, and I think we both need some sleep."
"Don't go."
"What?"
"Stay, just to sleep. I'd like to know that you're there tonight."
"Are you sure?"
"Never been more so."
"OK."
So the two of them slowly made their way over and into Kathryn's bed, and held each other tight from that day forward.
THE END
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