Disclaimer: TPTB don't deserve such great characters. They should give them to us!
Warning: Contains character deaths.
=^=
They had fought day and night for a week to protect their shelter. But still the fire had blazed. It seemed nothing would put it out. What they needed was rain, but there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and now the whole forest was ablaze, their shelter surrounded by a wall of flames. The smoke was edging its way into the room where they sat on the bed, huddled next to each other, waiting, past the seals they had placed around the doorways and windows, filling the room and slowly stealing their oxygen.
"Chakotay?" Kathryn's voice echoed through the darkness.
"Hmmm?"
"Do you think they'll make it home?"
"I'd like to think so. They are in good hands."
The only sounds they could hear was the crackling of the fire outside as it took down trees, and the roar of the wind as it fuelled the flames. There was nothing they could do to save themselves.
"We're going to die aren't we Chakotay?"
"Yes Kathryn, we are."
"Will it hurt?" Chakotay didn't answer as he reached for the hypospray beside him. The only thing he had grabbed as the fire took hold of the front room. He would use it, to spare her the intense pain of a death by fire. It would kill him to do what he was about to do, but he couldn't stand the thought of her hurting for even a second.
Flames started to flick under the door, reaching up towards the ceiling that caught a moment later. He felt her hand reach for his.
"Hold me Chakotay?"
"For eternity Kathryn" He wound his arms around her, silent tears running down his face as he injected her with the hypospray. It was filled with something that would kill her painlessly. She would be asleep in seconds. He held her to him as the life drained from her body, whispering words of love in her ear, all the things he had wanted to say to her, but never found the courage, and then she was gone.
Pulling her closer, he injected himself, and then pulled the covers up around them. As the flames reached the bed and he started to fade, his body started to burn, and he was grateful he had spared her this pain.
And then he was gone too.
~ fin ~
