Title: Concerning Flight
Author: Abbey, abbey@repunk.com
Fandom: VOY
Part: 1/1
Archive: Yes
Rating: PG
Codes: J/C, C
Disclaimer: Paramount. Not me.
Summary: Janeway and Chakotay take a trip to the beach. Complete and utter happyfic. For my awesome beta Djinn, who asked for "J/C that isn't mean to Chuckles." I think this qualifies. Also written for Signe's Metamorphosis episode title challenge.

When I wake, it is still dark. It has been nearly a year, but I still can't shake the amazement I feel upon waking up next to Kathryn's sleeping form. The screen rattles with the sea's distant thunder. I shake sand from the sheets, stumble to the kitchen.

I take an orange from the bowl of fruit on the table, peel it lazily. Waves break outside the window, just visible in the approaching dawn. I hear a crash from the next room, and Kathryn's emphatic swearing. Her toes hit the kitchen floor; she stifles a laugh and straightens up to full height. Which isn't much, as I am wont to remind her.

"Stub a toe?"

"Something along those lines." She kisses me slowly, pulls back with sparkling eyes. "Starting another juice kick, Chakotay?"

"With more evidence of your approval, it could be arranged."

We laugh now, and she sits on the stool next to me, yawning slightly. The map that brought us here is laid out on the counter in front of us, and she traces the span of the island from inlet to cape.

When she was promoted to admiral, Tom Paris gave his captain a set of maps from Earth's history. Because she was an explorer, he said. And so last week, when Starfleet Headquarters became too much, she pulled out the maps and pointed to a broken spit of land on the east coast. Barrier islands. "Let's leave the fish bowl for the actual fishes," she declared.

She was due vacation, and I'm on break. I located a house to rent, and we left. We've been here for a few days, mostly laying on the beach and sleeping. Kathryn says she wants to explore the area, but she hasn't gotten very far yet.

"The frogs woke me up," I yawn, stretching my arm across her shoulders.

"Yesterday, I located the colony in the pond near the waste disposal. They're fascinating. But our friend mister bullfrog is rather insistent, isn't he?" She folds up the map, looks at me sideways.

"Think he finally got his girl?"

"I think we'll find out tonight." She whacks my arm with the map. "I'm getting dressed."

I love her most like this, I decide, watching her retreat to the bedroom. She is mischievous, always exploring the surroundings. How we got to this place, I don't know. Our relationship seemed so far gone. I had dinner with her shortly after her promotion. Mostly out of courtesy. Because it seemed like the right thing to do. I had no intention of dating her. Of living with her. Of becoming her husband. But, I should have remembered that Kathryn never does anything halfway.

*****

We lug our newly purchased kayak toward the water. The tide is out, and Kathryn plops her end of the boat into the low water, motions for me to jump in. I do, laughing as she shoves the craft further into the water, and then scrambles over the edge to join me.

The water is slightly choppy, almost green. Kathryn paddles hard, pushing us up and over a miniature breaker. "Starboard or port, Admiral?" I ask, leaning back, not fighting the direction she wishes to take, paddling lightly.

"Actually, I was thinking you could command the maiden voyage of the...umm...sea kayak. Where to, Chakotay?"

"How about toward the wildlife refuge? We'll paddle left, then." Beyond us, seagulls swoop into the water, cry on the horizon.

"On New Earth, you said you were going to build a boat," she says softly, sluicing a swell of water that rocks us slightly sideways.

"Is this good enough?"

The sun is bright and rising quickly, her bare shoulders twist as she looks back at me. "It is for me."

*****

Kathryn went in for lunch a few minutes ago. I play with the pale sand at my feet, remember how the sand in the refuge was a darker color, a coarser grain. There is sand everywhere, and Kathryn has told me to work at keeping sand out of the house. I grasp the kayak, and start to pull it up the dune. The sand is hot, but my soles are calloused, thick. I pick a small red and gold flower off the dune, look at our house.

It's built on stilts, to withstand the storms that hit at the end of each summer. The stairs are narrow, the wooden decking slightly uneven. Apparently, twenty-fourth century technology has yet to reach some places. That doesn't bother me, but I was surprised at Kathryn's willingness to slum it.

I leave the kayak under the house, explore the exposed plumbing with my eyes. The outdoor shower is running, water trickling onto the pavement. I've seen Kathryn all day, but her bare calves, visible in the stall, affect me more than anything else has. Her toes point and flex, she spins a leg sideways, walks a step. I approach the stall door, carefully stepping under the wall her toes point away from. I am stealthy, some creature of the desert. Her wet back is pale, the vertebrae easily visible.

Her head is bent, she sighs. Her shorts and suit lie bunched up on the bench. She turns around slowly, hands up in her hair, posture relaxed.

"Chakotay!" She jumps half a foot, nearly dropping the sand pricked bar of soap.

I extend the flower toward her.

*****

The first flight was made on a ridge north of us, and Kathryn wants to visit the site. We walk north to the hovercraft station. I see the sea to my right, the sound to my left. The island is narrow. Waves pound the shore; the salt eats away at human trappings. It is a barrier island, and takes the full force of the ocean, protects the shore. Two hundred or so years ago, the entire island chain disappeared into the water, consumed in its task. Houses, shops--even memorials commemorating that first flight were lost. And then, the sea built the island up again. And it emerged.

I know that Kathryn does not always appreciate my abstract way of thinking--that I declare love in symbols and mythology. But I cannot help thinking that we are like this island. Time and other powerful forces made a ruin of our friendship. But it could only remain submerged for so long.

As we walk, I tell her that I missed her. She knows what time period I am speaking of. She takes my hand, plays with my thumb lazily.

"I know. I didn't like it either. But we had a very satisfying courtship."

After I saw her after the promotion, I realized that I did not want to be away from her again. She had told me that she wanted to see more of me, that it was good to keep in touch. So I took her to coffee. I took her on walks around the bay. And slowly, we began to understand where we had left off, and why.

They were casual, our outings. We talked about work, about current events in the Federation. About the crew, about what had happened along the journey. We were at an outdoor café when she sized me up from across the table, as if calculating how quickly I could sprint into the street.

"Chakotay. Would you be willing to go back to how things were?"

"Borg spheres, hostile aliens, Kathryn? I don't think--"

"I'm sorry. I'm making a mess of this. To how things were between us."

I had the momentary urge to play dumb, to comment that we now communicated much better than we had during the last years of our journey. But I suppressed the thought quickly, stunned at what I was hearing.

Instead, I ran through the past several months. I had discovered that I loved Kathryn. That I always had. And that, despite my best efforts, I always would. And I now knew that I did not like being away from her, and that she did not like our separation. And that now, she was asking for another chance.

She must have taken my silence for rejection, because she stood, nearly tipping her chair over in the process. "I'm sorry. That was...brash of me. I'll forward B'Elanna's message to you, like you asked."

I caught her arm quickly, drew up to her as she began to tread the sidewalk. "Kathryn, wait. I'm not--"

"Chakotay, we don't have to discuss this. I won't bring it up again."

Kathryn has always been very good at disguising her feelings. Too good. But I could tell through the poker face that she was very pained. It was terrifying, having the power to begin a relationship that I knew would spiral quickly beyond my control. With her. I had always wanted her, had always felt that we were supposed to be together. That there was something special, something epic about our story, our feelings. I had grieved that loss, and now she asked me to reopen that chapter. But I knew that there was nothing stopping us. Nothing we couldn't handle.

"Don't be sorry. I want exactly what you do."

She seemed surprised, relaxed her jaw, which had quickly clamped upon my silence.

I stepped forward, and opened my arms.

It was crazy, and was followed in short order by a frantic consummation of nine years worth of repression. I don't think we've been truly apart since then.

*****

There is a large white monument before us, commemorating Earth's first flight. It was constructed centuries ago, and exhumed when the island rose again, and after the wars on Earth were over. The dune is nearly the same as it was those years ago, a sign assures us.

"I wonder what it felt like," Kathryn murmurs, staring out into the horizon. Frightening, certainly. But it must have been so thrilling. Flight, for the first time."

She is so alive like this, thinking on what she loves. Flying, and the history of Earth.

"Do you think they imagined this, Chakotay? That the entire history of terran space exploration would start with jerry-rigged bicycle fittings, on this mound of sand?"

"They must have had some idea. We learn to recognize what is special, I've found." I rest my hand on her side, watch the seagulls overhead. "Do you want to take that picnic over here?"

As we eat, Kathryn describes her first flight. I take a scrap of bread and throw it to a bird, which earns me a groan from her.

"It wants food, Kathryn!"

"And now we'll have the whole flock circling our blanket. Oh, Chakotay." She sighs deeply, draws her legs up to her chest. "Sometimes I think you're too nice to be my husband."

Kathryn is right about the birds. They've circled around us, and one daring sucker has landed and begun to stake out our basket. I grab Kathryn's arm, race around in a lopsided circle, pulling her after me. The gulls scream and disperse, and I can't tell what's made me dizzier--running in the sand, or Kathryn's fingers playing their way up my arm.

*****

"We're not catching any, Chakotay. Have you thought about changing the bait?"

I try to tell Kathryn that the fun of crabbing is lying sprawled on a rickety dock for hours, and conversing quietly while the sun beats down on your back. But she wants results.

"The chicken necks. Is there some way we could have the wrong kind? Because they told us that crabs *do* live in the sound."

"I don't think so. But, that's not the point. Even if we caught a crab, what would we do with it?"

Her laugh is low, languorous. "Eat it."

"And I suppose you'd do the cooking, as you profess to be much meaner than I am."

"Well. If we *had* crabs, I'd be willing."

"You'd put a defenseless animal through the agony of being steamed alive, just for a few morsels of salty, yet otherwise tasteless meat?"

"Chakotay, we wouldn't have to steam it. We could boil it, or phaser it on a low setting before steaming."

She laughs out loud at her own suggestion, pulls an arm around me, thus further entangling us in crab-line.

*****

We don't catch a single crab. But dinner is still excellent. We carry our dishes off the deck, and when our table is clear, watch the sun set.

"There's a storm coming in, Chakotay."

And indeed there is. Dark clouds swirl in the sky, and the waves break with more fury than I've previously observed. We have to leave for San Francisco tomorrow afternoon, and I worry that the storm could delay our departure. But Kathryn isn't disturbed.

"Come on." She pulls me up a row of stairs, leads me to the crow's nest on the top of the house. "It's a lookout, like on an ancient seafaring ship," she drawls, eyes bright. "We can watch the storm from here."

"Is that really a good idea?" The wind swirls, and I swear I just saw lightning strike over the ocean.

"Chakotay, unpurified water conducts electricity. That giant bathtub out there is chock full of minerals. We'll be fine."

I am a little uncomfortable, and Kathryn understands this. We sit close on the high bench, see the storm gather power. I never thought that my life would reach this point. That I would be with Kathryn, and we could live together, unencumbered by duty or whatever else changed us.

I remember vividly the morning I realized just how lucky I was. San Francisco was waking around my apartment, and Kathryn slept, or rather, snored, at my side. In a fit of thankfulness, I jumped from bed, grabbed my medicine bundle, and spread it open.

I must have disturbed Kathryn, because when I came out of my trance, she was crouched beside me.

"Is something wrong, Chakotay?"

"No, I just had a prayer to say. I told the spirits that I love you, and promised to be faithful to you, and do whatever it takes to stay with you. That was about it."

She fingered the material of my pouch, and looked me over slowly.

"If you were going to marry me, couldn't you have waited until I got out of bed?"

The Starfleet ceremony didn't matter to me. But it did to her, and that was important. She arranged for Tuvok to witness it. Kathryn didn't want a big fuss, so it was probably better that Seven, B'Elanna, Tom, and the rest of the senior staff were off-world at the time. Seven and I had parted amicably, long before Kathryn and I started going out. Seven wanted a more ambitious mate, I think. But the ceremony Kathryn and I settled on was the best for all of us.

We got a house outside the city, and I watched Kathryn throw herself into her new job. As an admiral, she can oversee studies in diplomacy, warp technology, and biology. That power is something she enjoys. She says that Starfleet is a large organization, and that she would be a fool if she couldn't find something worthwhile to do in it other than captaining ships. Some days, she misses space. But mostly, there is interesting work.

The horizon explodes in light, and I wonder if millions of fish go to a watery grave with the shocks to their water. The thunder is intense, begins quickly after each strike. I want to flinch, but I remain seated, watch Kathryn's rapt expression. Love can make me crazy like that. We leave tomorrow, and a work week threatens, but the wind catches me, carries Kathryn's laugh forward, and I approach flying.

END