Breakfast Rock

 

A vignette by

 

vanhunks

 

 

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Paramount owns Voyager, Janeway and Chakotay. I believe I own Breakfast Rock.

 

NOTE: Breakfast Rock featured in my story "And gather dreams that never fade away", and this little vignette is a filler of sorts for that story. Breakfast Rock is in fact a large flat rock halfway up a certain hiking route to the top of Table Mountain [Cape Town] and many hikers use it as a stopping point to rest and eat.

 

SUMMARY: Relations are strained between Kathryn and Chakotay on New Earth, and Kathryn knows only one way in which to remedy the situation.

 

 

BREAKFAST ROCK

 

After the storm and after the insects, my mind was finally made up. I told him acceptance of living out our lives on an alien planet many years from home came sooner than I wanted to admit. From the first day, denial and refusal to give up drove me relentlessly to finding a cure and get us off  this godforsaken world. It was a deeply embedded desire that made me refuse to succumb to New Earth. Acceptance was less of an option than it was a vile, foul entity I wanted to purge from my mind and soul. I hate losing control, I hated not having my ship, I hated the thought that I'd never get home.

 

This world was not my destiny. If destiny meant having some idea, even vaguely of what would comprise my happiness, then my road ahead was destination Earth, and getting there my destiny. That was not a vague wish, but a clear sense and absolute conviction that getting home was my salvation and ultimate joy. It was not this planet we nicknamed New Earth in a rush of premature naiveté.

 

Like children we burned our excitement in discovering our area, in setting up camp with the notion that camping out equated with the modern conveniences of a modern shelter and all the accoutrements designed for living in relatively luxury. I was going to set up experiments and Chakotay was going to make my life easier. He started building headboards, additional shelter, an outside table, a tub. All for me. Here on New Earth, all his protective instincts and the desire do to things for me  were exaggerated. He was happiest if he could make me happy. It was a simple as that. He was more attuned with his new surroundings than I was. Chakotay just accepted the inevitable - New Earth as a new permanent home away from home. Maybe it was his spirituality, an innate respect and admiration for all things that went beyond the boundaries of science and absolutes that made it easier for him to adjust.

 

He was in his element; I was trying to find my elements.

 

I caught his eyes on me many times; many nights I just listened to his restless breathing. It was the only sign - a subconscious revelation of hidden feelings - that he was unhappy. At least, I thought he was. Though to see him during the day, to witness his profound industry, anyone who didn't know Chakotay as well as I did, would be forgiven for thinking that my angry warrior was a peaceful man, at peace with his life and his surroundings. There was never a cry, a frown or a single utterance of displeasure or impatience. He hid it well.

 

I knew why.

 

I got very good at turning down proposals. My life on starships, the negotiating end of life as a Starfleet officer made me somewhat experienced at weighing options before accepting one blindly, without any careful consideration of parameters, or consequences and benefits.  Did I anticipate that Chakotay would ask me to marry him? Perhaps. Perhaps not. If so, then my response had been instinctive, because all the factors, options and consequences had been thought out in sleepless nights, in times sitting next to him on the bridge, in a friendly chat over coffee. I had not anticipated the darkening of those eyes in deep disappointment, or the way his shoulders sagged in defeat. Defeat. It was the second time I turned him down. The first time had been just after Seska broadcast shipwide that he was to father her child. I always wondered why Chakotay persisted and dared to ask me again. Did he think that a friendly chat over coffee, a smile and a light, flirtatious kiss would break down my resistance?

 

He was seething inside with unsolved energy of  which I was the cause. I knew it. He knew it. Yet, it simmered under the surface of our civility and courtesy and adjustments to living on New Earth. We were stranded, and no matter how civil and friendly we were, we knew it was inevitable that we had to confront it again. How neatly we couched the pending confrontation in open conversations, happy laughter, the simple joy of sitting on a flat rock having breakfast! It was impossible to forget that he asked me to marry him, that those questions still hovered too close to the surface.

 

He loved me and I? I thought of too many options and parameters and consequences which obliterated any desire I might have had in making a reciprocal admission.

 

Yes, I love him.

 

It makes it easy to say when he's not within hearing range. I whisper the words as a mantra all the time I walk to Breakfast Rock. He's there, I know it. A few days after the storm, Chakotay went walking, returning in the late afternoon to tell me about a large flat rock he discovered in a bend in the river.

 

"We can dive in the water from there," he told me, his eyes alight with excitement.

 

I shared his excitement. "Or we could have breakfast there," I retorted. We were friends again.

 

"I think we should call it Breakfast Rock."

 

"Don't forget, the idea was mine," I replied.

 

The night before he found the rock he had told me the legend of the Angry Warrior. By that time I had resigned myself to remaining on New Earth. My contentment was tempered by occasional longing, yes. The hope - a vague wish - of getting home was just a thought or a dream away. I could close my eyes and dream of Indiana. It was the next best thing, a bitter recognition of my imaginings as a poor substitute. Chakotay didn't have to know that. All that he needed then, was that I show him I cared, that even though we were in an unusual situation, we not cross certain boundaries. We made a pact on that. I don't think it made him entirely happy, those parameters, but he accepted it with the grace of the defeated.

 

Then last night happened. Or what Chakotay anticipated, didn't happen. Last happened. Last night didn't happen. It's a matter of perspective. I have come to hate my own perspective in the space of twenty four hours. My decision this morning to do the two hour trek to Breakfast Rock was inspired by my own need to be instrumental in making a change, by the latent dreams of Chakotay and showing him once and for all, unequivocally, that I needed him like my very breath. Was it always like that? An admission made after long suppression, denials, the fight against losing control, the surrender of all fear to love unconditionally could make peace so blissful that I just wept unendingly this morning?  The tears had been, like our first storm, a catharsis.

 

But last night... Chakotay lost faith. How could I blame him? I couldn't bear to see him unhappy, or just knowing it was there even if he didn't show it. 

 

What conversation there was last night, endorsed more than what I thought in a flash of enlightened truth, my own apprehension to connect.

 

Call it fear. Call it anything under the sun of New Earth. All I knew was that in the great King Nebuchadnezzar's dream his golden statue had feet of clay, and that the sudden vision of the king's dream came to me too in those moments Chakotay's eyes turned dark and his shoulders sagged. The knowledge that I would be making my life here on this planet living in the shame shelter with a man whom I shut out once again gave me my feet of clay. Perhaps the analogy is all wrong, but the vision persisted. It was not how Chakotay saw me; it was how I saw myself. 

 

Now I'm walking the path Chakotay trod on most days to Breakfast Rock. This area of New Earth was characterized by lush, rainforest-like, verdant undergrowth and green ferns. If it weren't for the plasma storms, I'd say we were in paradise. The need to see to see him is pressing, for Chakotay's eyes last night remained a constant reminder of his pain. We had been sitting like two contented, married people, each occupied with something. I, at my now favourite place at the table and he  opposite me.

 

What a strange irony.

 

Chakotay looked up. My heart lurched suddenly. I felt a buzz in my ears as I anticipated his words, and considered my options.

 

"Kathryn, you know how I feel..."  I could see his eyes burn with hope.

 

"Yes...but Chakotay, I don't think - "

 

"We're alone here...for the rest of our lives..."

 

"N-no..." Why did I stammer?

 

"I need you, Kathryn."

 

Oh, God...

 

Chakotay left the sand painting he had been working on, walked round the table to my side and gripped my shoulders. It was more a tender grasp, though I decided the touch was too threatening for the fragile walls I built round me.

 

"I know we're alone. I know you - you need me. But one day Voyager might - "

 

"Voyager..."

 

The tender grasp turned into a tight grip as he swung me round to face him. Pursed lips, a muscle that twitched in his jaw, nostrils that flared a little... Chakotay was suddenly angry. Funny thing as I walk here through the forest thinking about that anger. He was not angry at me, but it was directed at himself for losing control. The previous time he said something - I remember only distantly the actual words - about making a fool of himself over me.

 

"When will that happen? Next week? Next year? When?" he bit out.

 

"I don't know! Maybe never, I suppose. I'm resigned to remaining here. That ought to make you happy."

 

Chakotay's anger was palpable. I was on my feet, still feeling his bruising hold on me as he pulled me up. For one  mad, unthinkable moment I thought he'd kiss me. He drew me closer. I felt his hard breathing as his chest heaved, the way his nostrils flared and his eyes gleamed with madness or love. I was unable to define which was which. Did his lips touch mine? Did my eyes close for a breathless, giddying instant? Could his fury have been so great that he couldn't see how I wanted his kisses? How I waited? Was the instant over too soon?

 

What Chakotay knew, was that I was saying no to him. Again.

 

He let go of me, turned swiftly to his side of the partitioned quarters. He didn't come out again. I was left stunned, unable to move, unable to run after him, hold him close and offer him solace.

 

So I left him alone. I'm a coward when the moment calls for it. I shrugged, walked round to where he had been working on his painting. I smiled bitterly. A picture didn't need to depict reality or realism to create a mood; it could just give an impression or hint of it. It teased the viewer and engaged him to look deeper than the lines in the sand suggested. So it was that I saw Chakotay's very heart in his painting. I saw his vision of me as a golden bird with beautiful golden feet flying towards him.

 

It was a long time later that I retired for bed. The sheets felt cool as I slid under the covers. My head rested against the headboard he made for me. I lay awake, listening to the sounds of New Earth. From very far off, I could hear the primate calling, the rustle of leaves in the breeze, and I listened to Chakotay's breathing.

 

I listened a long time, straining my ears to hear him. I've always accepted that the mind and the body can sometimes operate discordantly. Amidst strictest injunctions that the body obey the mind, it often out of sheer exhaustion collapsed. Unable to keep awake and listen, I fell asleep and in the mists of dark dreams a voice called me. Dragging myself to the surface, my waking moments were spent in dire wonder at whether I really heard the voice or whether my dream manifested the voice too strongly.

 

I heard it as I sat up in bed coming from Chakotay's side of the sleeping quarters. I didn't imagine or dream the calling of my name. Chakotay had lately been a restless sleeper, and this was no exception. I got up quietly, walked to where I could see him in the half dark. He was thrashing around, and his eyes were open, though I knew he wasn't aware of me or could see me. His words were uttered in pain and sounded profoundly sad. It was the sadness that remained with me.

 

"I can't anymore, Kathryn... I can't live like this... Tired now. Can't fight..."

 

The words were halting, his head tossing. I was in his dream, and I was hurting him. I caught fragments, for my mind whirled alarmingly.

 

"It - is - hopeless... can't pretend... Alive and dead... Can't touch you anymore..."

 

Again, I stood rooted to the spot. I heard a sob escape him, and in the dim light I could see the beads of perspiration on his face. Then suddenly he lapsed again into a restless slumber.

 

I awoke to a grey dawn, to total silence. I only looked at Chakotay's side of the partition for confirmation that he was gone. I had already sensed it the moment I opened my eyes. He was gone. In all the time we had been here, I haven't known him to go on a single vision quest. I looked on the table, saw the sand painting still pristinely beautiful, untouched, aloof. I didn't have to wonder where he was. Lately he had taken to going alone to Breakfast Rock, our rock that had become our meeting place, where we could leave the shelter behind, soak up the sunshine, swim in the river and have breakfast.

 

He was there. Whether he sensed that I might come after him, didn’t matter to me.  I had looked at that sand painting and come to one blinding decision. Whatever I was going to do, Chakotay deserved my attention, he deserved my commitment, he deserved my love. Two hours ago in our lonely shelter my admission that I needed him as much as he need me, the final acceptance of love without fear led to burning tears.

 

Now I wished only to make Chakotay happy.

 

The leaves that had dried out from the morning dew crunched beneath my feet as I walked. My heart thundered as I neared Breakfast Rock, situated in a beautiful little clearing. The gods must have designed the place just for us as a reward for being stranded and alone. I wore my flat pumps, my hair was tied in a ponytail with a blue ribbon and the skirt of my blue dress that he liked lapped at my ankles as I walked.

 

I reached the clearing, stood quietly as I saw Chakotay sitting on the rock, facing away from me, staring into the distance.

 

One step forward...

 

A twig snapped. Chakotay turned very slowly in my direction. There was no smile, no welcoming outstretched hand, not even scepticism or wonder.  Just a look.

 

My thundering heartbeats slowed down to normal rhythm as I breathed in deeply to make me calm. I remained where I was standing and slipped off my pumps. Then I untied the ribbon from my hair - a lazy, deliberate action. My hair dropped from its restraint and fell about my shoulders. I lifted the skirt of my dress and slipped that over my head and dropped it at my side. I saw Chakotay's jaw twitch, even at the distance I stood from him. Fingers that lost their tremble unclipped the bra and that joined the dress and the shoes. Then very slowly I removed the final barrier and dropped that too.

 

I walked towards Chakotay with measured steps, my feet stinging from broken twigs and crisp leaves. I didn't care much about that.

 

I knew that Chakotay needed to see an unequivocal action from me that would forever in his mind dispel his uncertainties and quell his old anger. He needed to see me come to him, stripped. There were no strings now, no boundaries, no special conditions or impediments. His eyes awakened to what he saw, assimilated my intent.

 

Maybe someday, I thought as I stepped onto Breakfast Rock and into Chakotay's outstretched arms, Voyager would come back. Maybe our crew contravened my direct order and found a cure and came to get us I thought as Chakotay pressed me down on Breakfast Rock. Maybe they found a race like the Vidiians and fought them hard just get to us I thought, as I watched him slip his clothes off his body. My mind closed slowly. I had a thought that one day, when Voyager came back, I would be assimilated into her bulkheads, her ready room, her bridge and her command chair and I would touch the commemorative plaque and declare that I'm glad to be back.

 

But for now on New Earth, this earth was ours and this time, Chakotay's.

 

For now as our bodies joined in the celebration of love, the only ones existing in our universe were Kathryn Janeway and Chakotay.

 

*** 

 

END

 

 

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