And feel the promise is not vain

a coda on "Pathfinder"

by

vanhunks

Summary: Chakotay observes Kathryn the evening of the day they received news from Starfleet Command. From Chakotay's POV. 

Disclaimer - Paramount is Chief. One wishes that the scene playing out in the Captain's ready room could have layed out for real...

Rating: G

AND FEEL THE PROMISE IS NOT VAIN

It was a day to be remembered for a long time. I watched Kathryn where she stood in her ready room staring, as she had done for so many years, at the stars.

Throughout the centuries man revered the stars in song, in literature, in poems, in legends and in myths. They  became gods to ancient cultures, were known by al manner of ingenious names... Once, in ancient myth, they called it the gateway to the heavens. 

I wished in these moments I could hold one of those stars right in my hand and name it for Kathryn. I wished I could, like a poet, feel these words,

"You are to me like that shining star,

quiet and distant and pure;

and my soul the deep, deep waters

where your image forever can endure..."

Yes, today was a day to remember. For Kathryn to stand there at her viewport again, and for me? For me, to watch her. 

The excitement had died down, the toasts made, and a formerly unknown person somewhere at Starfleet Command inducted as an honorary member of our crew. Most had gone on to continue their duties with a new and greater sense of purpose and urgency. Some had gone to bed. Tomorrow, they would talk again of two men who made their new hopes and dreams something tangible. They would discuss new methods of using the  technology sent to us; they would open up and speak about family and friends once again, as if they were to be home the very next day. 

Kathryn?

On days such as these, Kathryn's ready room became her sanctum, a place where she could reflect on the things that happened, things that plunged her into despair or things that gave her new reasons to hope again. 

Most of the time, Kathryn allowed me into her sanctum... 

Most of the time Kathryn allowed me to be a part of her, so private, so intimate,that I was always awed by her generosity.

Like now.

I watched her. When have I not done so in the last five odd years? I watched her earlier this evening with the crew. We were happy, our mood as effervescent as the celebratory champagne we drank. Nothing, not even 32000 light-years from home, could dim our enthusiasm, diminish the deep feeling of peace and sense of home and homecoming that had settled on every crewmember of Voyager.

How could it not be?

We have not heard from home - home! - in two years. Home had become for us this ship, this vessel charting a lonely course across unknown sectors of the Delta Quadrant. No one had dared speak of home being the russet morning sun over the hills of Indiana, of quiet midwinter evenings spent reading poetry, or the way the leaves of August drifted lazily to the ground. No one dared speak of deep, warm sand of the burning afternoons of the desert land of Mexico. Who dared mention the great mountains that appeared like temples against the blue skies of Vulcan, or the underground lava caverns of Kronos? 

Who dared do so, and not let another see the pain and longing in their eyes?

No, we dared not think of home in that context. It was a wish, a fervent desideratum to possess and clutch foolishly to our hearts that which was out of our reach. Therefore, most of us on this vessel tucked away the blessed memories and yearning for home deep into a corner of our hearts. There had been times I felt the pull so strong that I retreated to my quarters and remained in my abode hugging the darkness close to me. I let no one in, let no one see my own pain, let no one witness my own hunger to belong.

Those dark nights I allowed visions of my own star to wash over me, and just thinking of Kathryn would drive away my own loneliness.

Home...

There was nothing, nothing that could compare to standing on a beach on Earth and letting the sand run through your fingers. There was nothing compared to feeling the warmth of Earth's sun, letting its healing rays soak away the tiredness that sat in the very marrow of our bones.

Nothing.

Even I, homeless Maquis renegade who has lost everything dear to me, longed for a corner of Earth I wanted to call home, a place where I could belong.

What were we in the Delta Quadrant but a shipwrecked community who made this ship our home?

Now, Kathryn's hope flared again. 

Every time, as I watched her, my heart bled for her. Every occasion that there had been even hints of hearing from home, Kathryn went through a period of deep depression afterwards whenever we were disappointed. Hearing the Romulan scientist Telek R'mor speak of the promise to relay our messages to our people; hearing through the Doctor of Starfleet's pledge to find us, the prospect of traveling two years in the void and then sinking afterwards into despondency...it sapped at her reserves and drained her.

Most of the time I could sense the moment Kathryn broke.

Unlike children who might scream and kick to release their frustration, we cope with our disappointments differently. We immure ourselves to mask our hurt; and those walls become impenetrable to those wanting a look inside.  

Very few on board this ship know how Kathryn longed for her home. Very few know how she missed seeing the sun rise and set on Earth. What they saw was their Captain keeping their hopes up and high; what they saw was Kathryn Janeway always encouraging, always making sure that this lieutenant or that ensign didn't feel the loneliness and isolation too keenly. Kathryn Janeway was everyone's mother, older sister, friend; she was everyone's confidant. I saw the heartache, the brave attempts to hold back tears, the desolation. In a way I am privileged that I can absorb some of it, for even as Kathryn Janeway never quite voiced it, that was her desire, her need: I'm with her to share her loneliness and take some of that burden off her shoulders and carry it gladly on my own. 

The disappointment on every occasion had always been so acute, so devastating, it was always difficult for her to regain her composure quickly enough. I watched how she would hurry about her remaining duty time in fevered haste, knowing she wanted to be alone.

Then she escaped to her ready room.

Sanctum sanctorum.

*

She had been standing at her viewport, staring for hours at the nothingness.

Had this latest communication been the same? One that forecast only disappointment for her? Word from home, but no getting there; word from home, but only that? A tease, then nothing?

I heard the soft little sob in her voice on the bridge this afternoon, and I wondered how many of the others were aware of it. I heard and knew that the thought, the wish and constant yearning that she wasn't leading us on a lonely and fruitless odyssey, sprang alive in her once again.

I wondered idly how many more of this Kathryn could absorb.

This time, she actually spoke with Starfleet Command, to the man responsible for the message in the first place, and...the man who spearheaded the project to find Voyager. This time, hope flared so high that I prayed, prayed hard that it was not just another sick trick of the mind to send Kathryn again into the oblivion of lost memories and hopeless dreams.

"Kathryn."

She had been standing there so deep in thought that I wondered whether she actually heard me calling her name. I watched as she turned to look at me. There was that sheen in her eyes again, the one I've seen so many times over the years whenever we heard something, whenever we were able to effect some way to get us home sooner. Her lips quivered slightly.

Kes...

The slipstream drive...

The catapult...

The ordinary slogging day after day after day as we cut through space at high warp. How easy it had been to fall into quiet lethargy because we were in the right direction, yet were still so far...so far...

"Are you okay?"

There was a smile that hovered gently, a smile I hadn't seen for a long time. I think I know what she will tell me.

"I'm alright, Chakotay. I suppose I shouldn't ask you not to worry."

"No."

"It's your job, right?" she said as her smile broadened.

My heart leapt.

"Always, Captain."

"Captain? What happened to - "

"Kathryn? Oh, she's here, I'm talking to her right now."

"And does Chakotay know what she's thinking?"

"Kathryn can always tell him," I told her, unable to keep myself from being lifted, my heart's heaviness dissolving like mist in the sun.

"What do you think, Chakotay?" she asked as she beckoned me to join her. 

I had been standing in front of her desk, and she was standing next to her sofa. I closed the distance between us, and I saw her eyes clearly. It had a lightness, a welling that brought such a softness there that my heart wanted to leap, ache, break, everything at once.

"I don't want our hopes dashed, Kathryn," I said quietly.

I moved so that I stood next to her. She turned her gaze again at the viewport, and watched the stars streak by in brilliant splashes of colour. Suddenly, it seemed not so desolate anymore. Each star we passed brought us closer to...home. My hand touched hers lightly, and I felt the slight trembling in hers. I held my breath, for I knew that she was ready to speak.

She would speak her heart, here...now...

*

"Chakotay..."

"Yes?"

"I... wish you'd known my grandmother."

The words came out of the blue, as if it were not related to the present discussion, which I knew would inevitably embrace the current feeling of euphoria still evident in the crew, and plain on Kathryn's face. It was in her very stance, the almost nervous energy that generated from her, in her still trembling fingers. It was a slight vibration that touched me, touched my heart.

"If she was anything like you, Kathryn, then I have an idea what she had been like."

"Really?" Kathryn asked and stole a quick glance at me before she studied the stars again. There was still a smile there, mysterious and beautiful.

"Really. You loved her."

"Yes...yes, I did. Very much."

"And...?"

"She was very spiritual, you know."

"And probably very tough, with your indomitable spirit - "

"I...I wish sometimes I had been more like her..."

I gave a sigh. Kathryn's face was somber as a memory of her grandmother cast a shadow there. Then I saw how her face gradually lost the sadness. Kathryn looked at me again, although I was certain that she could not see me for the tears that welled in her eyes. My heart contracted painfully.

"There was...there was this hymn she always sang. You know how it is... snatches of it stick in your memory for years. It never goes away, strangely. At - at odd times it comes back, like a haunting refrain..."

"Kathryn, these are the things that make us who we are, give our lives a sense of purpose, give us a history and - and a future..."

"Yes...yes," came Kathryn's answer. Then she looked at me again.

"Today, when - when Tom's father spoke with us... Chakotay, I - I..." 

She struggled, then looked away that I didn't see her distress.

"It's alright, Kathryn," I told her very softly, and my hand clasped hers in a soothing gesture. "I know how you must feel..." She turned to face me again, and I pressed her down gently so that she could sit on her sofa. I sat down next to her. There was something on her mind. "What is it?"

She was quiet for a long time before she finally broke the silence. Her voice was soft, low and melodious when she spoke.

"Always I felt this cloud hanging over us - me... It was there, even when there were occasions that I knew we were supposed to be happy, when we've shaved off yet another few years off our journey, when we've managed to 'save the crew' once more..."

I remained still in the room in which the silence sifted down on us in quiet contentment. I waited for her to speak again. But Kathryn rose to assume her original position she had been in when I came into the ready room. Hands behind her back, and looking at the black night. She still had that energy in her, a restless wakefulness, a need to burst into bright and glorious laughter for being happy. But I knew she was curbing herself...

Her voice was thready, as if she wanted to weep.

"I trace the rainbow through the rain,

And feel the promise is not vain..."

"Kathryn...? 

"My grandmother. She used to sing those words. Somehow today, I thought of her and I remembered the words..."

"It's beautiful," I told her softly.

"Yes...yes, it is."

"The clouds, the rain, Kathryn. All our journeys and dreams so far, here, just that..."

"I know," she whispered hoarsely. "There has always been the rain, even though there had to be sunny days... But the rain...

"It prevented us from seeing the brightness of new dawns, the sunshine, new dreams and daring to hope again..."

The look in her eyes as she turned to me filled my heart with renewed joy. I joined her at the viewport.

"You know what I noticed out there on the bridge today, Kathryn?"

There is a look in her eyes that said, "Tell me." 

"For the first time in more than five years, Kathryn, you spoke to a ranking officer and called him "Sir."

"Chakotay!"

"Yes. I realised we had been isolated so long from Starfleet, the Federation, that you - you had no one, Kathryn, no one who was your senior in rank to whom you could go and - "

"It's tangible isn't it, Chakotay? The closeness to Starfleet now, the knowledge that they will not give up on us..."

"Aye..."

There was another long pause.

"When I was a little girl..." Kathryn started again softly, "I used to imagine my grandmother's words, then I would try to trace the rainbow..."

"Did you see it?"

Kathryn smiled. "Not always! But the imagination is a strange thing, Chakotay. Anything is possible."

"Kathryn," I rejoined quickly, "what happened today, was very real."

"It's scary..."

"I know."

"I want to believe...believe - "

"Your grandmother's words."

"More than anything.  Today I saw the rain move away, Chakotay. I saw the rainbow."

"And what Admiral Paris said?"

"The promise is not vain. I can look to tomorrow, feel the morning mist on my face, look at the sky and see the rainbow."

"They won't let you down, Kathryn." My voice was suddenly thick, hoarse. I found words difficult to say.

"I know...now..."

"The hope has been there in you, Kathryn. Every second of every day of every year we have been on our quest to reach home. It has been there with you all the time, even when it seemed that all was lost, that everything we fought for, was never in vain - "

"Chakotay..."

"Hmmm...?"

"No one knows that better than you."

"I'm here, Kathryn..."

"Yes..."

I felt Kathryn's hand creep into mine again. Like a child lost in a storm, she reached for me, and my hand became her anchor. I could feel, really feel how, through my own strength, she found solace in my touch. 

"Know what?" I asked her.

Kathryn turned to me.

"What?"

"One day very soon, Kathryn, I would like to stand next to you when you watch the moon rise over Indiana."

Only her eyes showed her gratitude. My heart wanted to burst; my head filled with dizzying pleasure at the knowledge that she did not pull away from me. In this quadrant so far from home, yet so near now; in this quadrant where I am just a first officer and friend to a lonely woman in need of comfort, even I could hope.

Kathryn's hand in mine spoke of a promise - a golden promise like the rainbow parting the curtain of rain on a morning of mists.

Even I, Chakotay, could dare to hope.

"I trace the rainbow through the rain,

and feel the promise is not vain..."

*********

END

The words from the immortal George Matheson poem, "O Love that wilt not let me go."

"O Joy, that seekest me through pain,

I cannot close my heart to Thee;

I trace the rainbow through the rain,

And feel the promise is not vain

That morn shall tearless be."

The words, "you are to me like that shining star,"  I translated from the Afrikaans language, from a poem by N.P.van Wyk Louw.