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Bored Slash
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Teens & Up

Title: Bored Slash
Author: Ky (venom69)
Fandom: Star Trek: Voyager
Rating: Teens & Up
Summary: A cabin crazy Captain was never a pretty sight.
Character/Pairing: Janeway/Chakotay
Spoilers: None… the shows ended!
Warnings: Language.
Prompt Number for fic101: 2 - Feel
Author’s Notes: Song belongs to Helmet
Disclaimer: Usual guff. Not mine, promise to put them back where I found them.
Date: 21/12/06

***

If I'm half informed
Sympathize because its easy to get bored
I dont have time to waste
I'm busy cultivating useless good taste

***

Some days, she just didn't feel like getting out of bed.

It's not tiredness - she was actually sleeping reasonably well for the first time in years - it was just that the apathy towards another day doing the same thing that she had done the day before made it almost impossible for her to muster any enthusiasm towards rising from her mattress.

Kathryn knew that there was nothing waiting for her but reports, complaints, reports, staff meetings, reports, her nagging mother of a first officer, reports, smart ass remarks from her helmsman, reports, disapprovingly raised eyebrows from their resident Vulcan and a few more reports. And probably a lecture from the Doctor before he presented her with another report.

Throughout the day there would, no doubt, be a crisis. They would, no doubt, save the day with seconds to spare, but it just wasn't what it used to be, not for her.

Where, she asked herself, did the fun go?

It used to be exciting.

It used to make the blood rush through her system at warp ten.

It used to make her heart - and her head, on more than one occasion - pound.

She used to feel alive.

Well, okay, at first it was terrifying - 70 years, alone, lost and fighting to get home? Yeah, pass - but then that feeling wore off as they found their feet and suddenly they were doing more than just surviving; they were exploring.

They were meeting people that didn't want to shoot them and didn't want to steal their ship and didn't want to harvest their organs and, surprisingly, some of them even wanted to be their friends.

It went from being a crew of mistrusting strangers to a large community that just happened to be nomadic.

The lines between Starfleet and Maquis had stopped being something that divided them and, rather, had become something to unite them. B'Elanna and Harry had started that, Kathryn thinks, with their nicknames for each other. All that she knows for sure is that, one day, that initial division wasn't seen anymore.

The crew had honed in their individual skills until they were working together as a well-oiled machine, practiced and ready for anything that the Quadrant wanted to throw at them.

They weren't two crews joined together, they were just the Voyager Crew.

Plain and simple.

And that worked.

For a few years, it worked.

But then it got boring.

The people that they met - both those that did and those that did not want to shoot them/steal the ship/eat the crew/be their friends - became all the same.

One dreary Delta Quadrant species after another.

It was always the same spiel when they opened communications.

"This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager" She'd say. It would depend on her mood as to whether or not she'd be standing in a formal pose or slouched in her chair at the time that communications commenced.

"I am so-and-so of the what-ya-call-thems." They would reply. "And I would like to shoot you/steal your ship/kill your crew and eat them on bread/be your friends/welcome you into our home."

She would glare or nod and smile. "I don't respond well to threats/we'd be delighted, Mr So-and-so."

One of these days she was going to totally zone out on them and say something on the wrong side of the slash.

What was it her father had used to say?

Same shit, different day.

It wasn't that she didn't like being Captain; she loved it.

She's seen and done things that no human had dreamt of before.

In a way, she was almost like Kirk - aside from the young, attractive, conquest pining for her on every planet - in that she was truly exploring the unknown.

When they had started, her crew green and she herself a little wide-eyed and innocent, nothing about the Quadrant had been known.

They were the first humans exploring, cataloguing and learning.

But did it have to be so damn dull all of the time?

In the beginning, some time after terror had worn off and excitement had settled in, she used to sit on the Bridge and daydream.

Mostly, she admits, about her first officer.

But even that has gotten old after nigh on a decade.

Oh, he's still nice to look at - more so with the grey starting in around his temples, she thinks - and she still loves him.

It just that they've been dancing around it for so long now that Kathryn is pretty sure that the real thing could never live up to ten years worth of fantasies. She's got a pretty damn good imagination and expecting him to be able to fill Imaginary!Chakotay's shoes is a lot to ask of anyone. (Though, if he can do it, she's more than willing to sit back and enjoy the ride... so to speak.)

There's too much history, too much water under the bridge - atmosphere under the ship? - for them to ever be anything more than friends, now.

She's OK with that.

Kathryn misses the daydreams, but she's Ok with it.

If anything ever did come of their attraction, she imagines that it would probably start with some sort of knock-down, drag-out, no-holds barred fight about all of the mistakes that they have both made.

Lovers, partners, command decisions, friendships.

It would all be out there.

When she thinks about it, she doesn't really have that much to fault him for.

Not really.

As far as the damage that their friendship has suffered over the years, well, it takes two to tango. He only ever makes a bad general decision to counteract one of her worse ones. He's not had a partner for any length of time, not really.

Lovers? That would be about the only thing... He's had lovers in his time.

She knows that he and Seven even dated for a while.

But there were another three blondes, to Kathryn's knowledge, after her. Not that she rolls her eyes at his tendency to chase after young blondes. Not at all.

Kathryn can't really fault him - much - though.

After all, she took a lover herself, in their eighth year.

They had assisted a small group of travelers whose shuttle had crashed.

Their home world was several weeks away and Kathryn - who had, thankfully, been wide awake for that particular First Contact - had agreed to give them a lift.

Tom Paris and some of the other engineers had spent a lot of time trying to repair and re-stock their shuttle, in the event that they could get away on their own. With their faster warp drive, Kathryn had been all too happy to loose her helmsman and a few of B'Elanna's team for a while.

The crew had played the gracious hosts to perfection.

And the Captain had spent a lot of those three weeks in her cabin with the leader of the party, sharing a 'cultural exchange', as it were.

Chakotay knew, of course, but the rest of the crew had seemed relatively oblivious at the time and Kathryn saw no reason to disclose her sex life to them.

Despite that fact, even after all this time, the Command Couple Betting Pool was still going strong.

She knew that Paris was the brains behind the operation, he had been from the start.

While it didn't really bother her that the crew speculated on their thrice weekly dinners or on her tactile nature, Kathryn had to admit that she had expected that Paris - a husband and father of two, now - would have gotten bored with it.

Perhaps he'd just gotten used to skimming the "house's" rations.

Her alarm sounded, loudly and intrusively, interrupting her thoughts with the promise of yet another boring day ahead.

She rose from the bed and tapped her comm. badge, beginning the morning routine that had been in place for far too many years. One day she was going to shake things up and set the computer to page him at the command of 'Redhead to Tattoo Boy' or something. Just for kicks. "Janeway to Chakotay."

He started an hour earlier than she did. There was no apparent reason for it, given that his shift officially 'ended' when hers did - which meant they both left the Bridge at roughly the same time, no less than an hour passed their end of shift. "Chakotay here. Nothing to report, Captain."

So, no chance of an interesting day today then. "Excellent. I'll be there soon."

"Aye Captain."

She replicated herself a coffee and wandered into the bathroom, debating whether to have a sonic or real water shower.

Yep, she thought grudgingly, this is going to be the highlight of my day. The choice of shower. Maybe I'll make things really interesting and have a quick bath.

Sighing, she sculled the coffee - her first cup was always programmed to come out lukewarm - and stripped off her nightgown.

"Computer, begin sonic shower."

Kathryn moved into the cubical and stood as the beams passed over her body, removing dirt that she hadn't had a chance to get on her skin anyway.

Ain't life grand?

***

Stepping onto the Bridge and moving to sit in her chair, Kathryn is painfully aware that everything is - shockingly - exactly as she had expected.

Tom Paris faced the view screen, making course adjustments when necessary and, no doubt, exchanging messages with Harry and/or B'Elanna and/or little Miral.

Tuvok continued doing... whatever it was that he was doing - diagnostic, she thinks - and didn't look up as she entered.

Harry, who was probably on the receiving end of Tom's messages, was scanning the area. Voyager's sensors had been locked onto a permanent search for dilithum for the last four years.

They're pretty well stocked, in general, but they learnt - the hard way, of course - to never pass up the chance to 'fill her up', as Tom once said.

Chakotay punched what she called 'busy work' up on the console between their chairs. Reports that they've both already read and signed off on. Messages that he's probably already read and dealt with.

She wanted to ask him if he could install a game or something into the program files, but then she'd have to admit that she's as bored as everyone else.

Sigh...

They weren't in a void, she wasn't depressed, the crew was stable and happy, no one wanted to shoot them/steal the ship/eat their organs... So why was she just about ready to give her left leg for a bit of action?

Something, anything, needed to happen or she was going to go cabin crazy.

And a cabin crazy Captain was never a pretty sight.

"Restless?"

After ten years, if she could say one thing for her first officer, it was that he certainly knew how to read her moods. "Yes."

"Fancy a game of velocity after shift?"

Kathryn had to admit that the idea of getting sweaty and breathless around him still made her belly feel like it was full of butterflies. I'm too old for this! "Sounds like a plan."

"Good. I'll meet you outside holodeck two then."

She nodded and smiled a little.

Now I just need to keep myself entertained for the next nine or ten hours.... She slid her gaze across the Bridge.

"Chakotay?" She whispered.

"Captain?"

Her face was a little red when she turned to look at him. "What do I do until then?"

"You have nothing to do?"

She could see the incredulity on his face. Clearly the captain wasn't supposed to admit to that.

Kathryn frowned. "I'm sure I could find something..." Perhaps a blunt object to gauge what's left of my brain out?

"You could take the day off, you know."

"No I couldn't."

"You're the Captain., I'm pretty sure that you could."

She sighed again. "Why does this part of space have to be so boring?"

"Boring?"

"Yes, boring. I feel like we're always doing the same thing, day in, day out."

"Kathryn," Chakotay leant forward in his seat a little, angling his body towards hers. "As long as no one wants to shoot us/steal the ship/eat our organs, I really don't think we should be complaining, do you?"

"I'm not complaining," She so was. "I just wish that it hadn't become so mundane."

Life had only really settled down after Admiral Janeway's failed attempt to bring them home. Kathryn assumes that they will have to go another sixteen - now thirteen - years before they reach Earth.

She wonders if the Admiral became so bitter and twisted from the sheer boredom of the journey.

"Exactly why you should take the day off."

"And what would I do then?"

"You could go to the holodeck. Treat yourself to a nice, long bath. Walk around the Ship." He was making a list using his fingers.

"Chakotay!" She hissed. "I'm bored."

He raised his eyebrow, laughter clearly displayed on his features. "I got that, Kathryn."

"Entertain me."

"You mean 'dance, monkey, dance'?"

She grinned.

Now that was an entertaining mental image.

"Kathryn!"

"What?"

"Take the day off."

"Yes mom."

"And don't drink too much coffee."

"Yes mom."

"And don't run with hypo spanners."

Oh, he's in fine form today. "Of course not, mom."

"Kathryn?"

She smiled. "Yes, Chakotay?"

"If you get bored, call me."

"You mean if I get even more bored, right?" He nodded. "Are you offering to be my towel boy?"

Chakotay raised his eyebrows at her.

Kathryn stood. "I'll see you tonight, Chakotay."

As she made her way back to the turbolift, she couldn't help but smile to herself - no doubt the Bridge crew that could see her had thought she was completely cracked.

Well. At least that killed half an hour. She ordered the turbolift to take her back to her Quarters. But what do I do now?

Sigh.

Back to square one.

***

End

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