Storm
by
vanhunks
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Paramount owns New Earth, Janeway and Chakotay. I borrowed them. No copyright infringement is intended.
Note: A fiftteen minute ficlet inspired by a challenge on a discussion board.
Summary: A storm. Freedom. Warning: imminent catastrophe.
*
STORM
Rage
into the darkness; lightning bolts hurled from the heavens uprooting trees,
ruthlessly tearing at branches, felling them with accustomed ease. The heavens
howl, baying to release their awesome power. No one should be outside in the
murderous conditions, Chakotay thought, his mind in a whirl.
Kathryn had been gone since the afternoon. Amidst the
crackling lightning and drums of thunder, howling, blustering gusts that twisted
around branches and heaved them mercilessly like coiled springs, releasing them
suddenly only to thump hard against his face. He staggered towards the clearing
he had seen her the previous day, calling her, screaming her name when his first
cries were drowned by the turbulence and rousing noise of the rolling thunder.
Twice he fell down, only to lift himself instantly, bent low and bearing against
the force that kept pushing him back...back...
"Kathryn!"
He found her, clinging to her equipment as she lay on
the ground, her face filled with abject fear. He noticed absently how she
wouldn't let go of the equipment she used for her experiments. The force of the
wind kept her down as he watched how she tried to lift herself. She was soaked,
limp from struggling as he lifted her into his arms. The instruments fell to the
ground. He paused, but the way Kathryn turned her face into him, burrowing as
deeply as she could, made him turn and run with her towards the shelter which
now seemed ten thousand miles away. His legs buckled, the force and howling rage
bringing him to his knees. But he couldn't let her go as he clamped her to him,
rose heavily to his feet and plodded on through the forest. Limbs of trees
reached for them, the howling becoming a song that sounded like, "give
up...give up..." It tore at them, cut into his wet shirt, like icicles
pierced his skin. The cold burned. He thought of the irony, then kept on,
shielding Kathryn as best he could.
She made no sound that he could hear, but her face
buried against his soaked chest was affirmation of her need. He felt her
shudders, the instinctive clinging every time her body wracked; the occasional
sob that escaped her, hardly heard, but felt mostly.
He experienced a strangeness. She, in her driving need
to be rescued, her arms clasped tightly around his neck, desiring to be saved
from the elements; he, assailed by the glorious feeling of freedom as he held
her. For he knew this was no more a plaintive clinging of the helpless. This was
Kathryn, self-assured, almost never indicating any need except that he support
her in her decision making. This was Kathryn who kept a brave face when a
crewman died, who showed little emotion at something that ought to have moved
her deeply because she didn't want others to see her lose control. Never had she
been in his arms like this, awake and aware; never had she looked at him with
eyes that implored him to understand this thrilling need in her.
In the eye of the storm, in the middle of the compound,
he paused for a moment as he shifted to hold her more comfortably. Another bolt
from the heavens which appeared low, dark, ominously moving terror clouds that
roiled like a wild snake above their heads. Were they to be swallowed by the
storm? Another blinding crack, then the thunderous dark drums that beat out all
resistance, all freedom. His chest burned and heaved, but he wouldn't let
Kathryn out of his arms that had grown stiff and unmoving.
In that moment Kathryn moved her head away from him, to
lock her eyes with his just as another flare of light encircled them.
"Kathryn..."
In the eye of the storm, the eye grew larger, swelled
ever outward, lit them in brilliant firelight, centring on the two figures
locked together as one. Kathryn's eyes burned, glowed deeply with new energy.
"I love you, Chakotay... I always have...I love
you..."
"I love you too, Kathryn, no matter what
happens..."
Freedom was lightning descending, Zeus in his fury
obliterating the two figures who clung together as one.
Then the crackling sounds moved away into the distance;
the thunderous, beating drums stopped as suddenly as the storm was born in the
late afternoon. Silence descended on the compound and soft gentle light filled
the spot where seconds before, Chakotay and Kathryn had been.
On the ground there was a burn mark in the shape of a
heart.
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