Title: Eternity
Author: Ky (venom69)
Fandom: Star Trek: Voyager
Rating: ADULT
Summary: Kathryn had known Tom Paris for a long time but, lizard babies aside, she'd never actively considered having sex with him.
Character/Pairing: Janeway/Paris, Janeway/Chakotay
Spoilers: None… the show’s ended!
Warnings: None, really.
Prompt Number for fic101: 78 - Leave
Author’s Notes: Song belongs to Elton John. Written for Char.
Disclaimer: Usual guff. Not mine, promise to put them back where I found them.
Date: 31/03/07

***

And it feels so good
To hurt so bad
And suffer just enough
To sing the blues

***

Kathryn had known Tom Paris for a long time but, lizard babies aside, she'd never actively considered having sex with him.

He was attractive, certainly, in a boyishly handsome kind of way, but he was younger than she was and, though the spark of attraction had fluttered in her belly once or twice - a spark that she had always attributed to ovulation and nothing more - but she had never really entertained the thought in any sort of in-depth manner.

Aside from the fact that she had met him while he was, as he often said, 'in the slammer', Kathryn had never been able to reconcile sleeping with the son of her former mentor.

Not that she'd ever had any reason to before.

***

Sighing, Kathryn recycled the cold, uneaten, food that had been intended as her dinner.

It wasn't so much that she wasn't hungry - her body was probably crying out in protest at the lack of being given anything without caffeine in it for god only knew how long - more so that the normally mechanical action of eating seemed to be too much effort to bother with.

Though it hadn't been a particularly bad week - no deaths and not getting shot at was all that consisted of a good week, these days - she had been left alone with her thoughts too often and their latest trade negotiations had only reiterated the true loneliness of their journey.

Her journey.

Moving into her bedroom, she stripped off her uniform, brushed her hair out and pulled on the pink silk nightgown that lay on the end of her bed. Though it had been a gift from Mark, years ago now, she had never quite been able to convince herself to get rid of it.

Perhaps it was the memories. Perhaps some sentimental part of her wanted to cling to the chapter in her life when she’d had something - and someone - to go home to at the end of each day. Perhaps there was a part of her that clung to futile hope.

She thought it more likely that she just didn’t have the rations to spare to replicate a new one.

As she pulled the matching gown over her shoulders, her chime sounded in the other room.

Briefly, she considered pulling her uniform back on, but she just didn't have the energy for it and, in any case, chances were that is was Chakotay - no doubt coming to offer more pats to her head - and it was more than clear that he wasn't looking anymore, so what did it really matter?

She walked back into her living room and called for entry, surprised when Tom Paris stepped over the threshold, frowning and wringing his hands nervously as he took in her appearance; seeing, but not really.

Kathryn took one look at his face and knew that something was terribly wrong. "Sit down."

"I'm not sure why I came here." Tom admitted.

With a hand on his arm, she guided him to the sofa under the view port. "All the more reason for you to sit down."

***

She liked to think that there was a good excuse.

Better yet, she liked to think that the 'good excuse' was simply lurking in the back of her mind, buried under a pile of reports, and that she just had to tap into it and she would be able to ease the nausea that plagued her.

Kathryn had known that Voyager’s most turbulent couple had been fighting. Even as he'd entered her Quarters, she had known that something was wrong and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that it was probably women troubles - it usually was with him.

She had known that he had been upset and simply looking for someone to ask him what was wrong without getting the 'So what have you done this time?' look in their eye.

Though she normally wouldn’t be his first port of call for a comforting shoulder, she had always told them that her door was open and she hadn’t been prepared to turn him away last night.

Did that make it OK?

Kathryn wondered if she was allowed to justify it to herself simply because Tom had been in a fight with his girlfriend.

***

"We had another fight." He finally admitted, after she'd forced him to drink the second shot of Whiskey.

"You'll work it out." She was placating him and they both knew it.

He swirled the remaining liquid in his glass absently, watching as the last few drops spun rings around the bottom. "It's not supposed to be this hard."

Kathryn shrugged.

She was probably the worst person to be giving relationship advice. "Love is rarely easy."

"You and Chakotay seem to manage OK."

She choked on the mouthful of liquid, coughing as it went down her windpipe and blocked her lungs.

Automatically, Tom reached out to pat her back firmly until she stopped struggling to catch a breath.

After she'd cleared her throat and stopped wheezing, she frowned at him. "Chakotay and I aren't..."

"I wont tell anyone." He promised, cutting her off. "The betting pools were closed years ago."

She'd known that.

For as much as she had pretended not to know, Kathryn wasn’t stupid.

Though, in the beginning, she had objected to the betting ring he’d set up, it hadn’t taken long for her to realize that the crew needed something to focus on aside from thoughts of how their loved ones were moving on with their lives.

While she wasn’t exactly thrilled that the crew had speculated on her sex life for three years - and there’d never been anything to speculate on, anyway - she wasn’t going to begrudge them their harmless fun.

The fact that the pools had simply dried up had almost hurt, in a strange sort of way, but she’d never made mention of her knowledge and simply let them move on to speculating about something else.

Kathryn tried to keep her voice neutral. "There's nothing to tell. We're friends."

"Are you sure about that?"

It had been on the tip of her tongue to say 'no', but what was the point? "Yes."

"You deserve more."

"So do you." She admitted, and then wondered if the two shots of whiskey that she'd done - no one wanted to drown their sorrows alone - were going straight to her head.

It was only then that Kathryn finally realized that his hand hadn't move from her back.

His thumb was tickling the base of her spine and, when she shuddered, she met his eyes and saw something that she had either been ignoring or simply missing all of those years; desire.

***

Comfort sex.

That was what they called it, right?

Two people, getting naked and sweaty together, in a desperate attempt to forget their troubles and fuck the world away.

It didn’t seem dirty to think of it as comfort sex. It didn’t seem quite as wrong, either.

***

Her clothes were disappearing quickly as they stumbled in the general direction of her bedroom.

The silk of her nightgown slid down her body, pooling at her feet as they tried to work around the obstacle.

His shirt was gone and she clung to his shoulders as he kissed her.

***

Kathryn knew that Tom was in love with B'Elanna.

The way she heard it, he had been since their days in the Maquis, back when the fiery half-Klingon wouldn't even look at him. It seemed that being on Voyager together had forced them into a friendship before they’d crossed the line, much to the surprise of no one.

Hell, Kathryn had seen them together and she knew that they were, if nothing else, well suited for each other.

She also knew, without doubt, that they would make up, fix whatever damage their fight had done. Their relationship would be back to something akin to 'normal' within the week.

Her relationship with Chakotay, on the other hand, was simply crumbling away, piece by piece.

A part of their bond was chipped away every time he took a new lover. Every time she did something he didn't like. Every time either one of them took the other for granted and assumed that the bond - the spark, the desire - was still there lurking beneath the surface.

Kathryn wondered exactly how long they had before they simply wouldn't be able to look at each other anymore.

It wasn't really much of an excuse on her part - nor on Tom’s, really - but it was the best she could do.

***

Soft hands danced across her heated skin, tickling and tormenting all at once.

The pads of his fingertips whispered against the inside of her thigh, the small of her back, the curve of her breast, the swell of her belly, the arc of her buttocks.

She was wet, aroused, and Tom smiled when his hand moved to the apex of her thighs, teasing through her curls and the dampness that attested to her desire.

Kathryn pushed her hips against him, inviting him to fill her with whatever happened to be available first - fingers, tongue, dick; it didn’t matter. She needed him and she needed him now.

As his thumb flicked against her clit, she gasped and pushed herself against his hand with more force.

Tom grinned. "Patience."

It wasn't a self-satisfied I'm-fucking-the-Captain type of grin, though. It wasn’t even a smugly male grin, really. It was the grin of a man that was taking satisfaction from pleasuring a woman.

And she felt like a woman with him, not the sexless Captain lacking needs and wants.

She felt alive and, as an orgasm clutched at her insides, she stopped caring about what had brought him there.

***

Kathryn nursed a cup of coffee in her hands, sighing as she eyed the stack of reports in front of her.

Did it really absolve her of guilt because B’Elanna had ‘broken up’ - again - with him in a fit of anger?

Tom hadn’t told her the finer details and she hadn’t wanted to ask. He’d said only that they were fighting and B’Elanna had told him that it was over.

It had hit him harder than he’d expected though, which had brought him to her door in search of a friendly ear and a little bit of comfort.

Kathryn suspected that Tom hadn’t been aware of just how deep his feelings ran where the Chief Engineer was concerned.

***

Tom watched her come with heated eyes. “You’re beautiful.”

His voice resounded surprise but Kathryn couldn’t bring herself to question why.

She knew why; years of playing the Ice Maiden Captain has left the crew with the impression that she was some sexless authority figure.

As the edges of bliss faded from her, Tom’s hands ran over her damp skin, stimulating and arousing, bringing her down and building her up all at once.

Kathryn didn’t feel the bed dip as he shifted, but she felt him slide a thigh between hers, spreading her legs wider, opening her to his eyes and his hands. Fingers held the lips of her cunt open as he looked at her, examining the wet flesh and the evidence of her pleasure.

When he moved to lie between her spread thighs, she automatically shook her head. “No,”

Tom kissed the inside of her thigh tenderly. “Don’t like it?”

“No, I… you don’t have to…” She fumbled for a sentence and gasped when his tongue traced the indent of her hip.

“I want to.” His breath blew across the wet curls between her thighs, wet with her own fluids, wet because of his hands.

She cried out loudly when his tongue touched her, nerve endings still tingling from her last orgasm, even as he tried to build her to a second.

When she raised her head slightly and looked down her body, she could see his eyes clenched tightly shut as he worked her over with his teeth, lips and tongue.

Dimly, through the haze of her returning fever, Kathryn closed her eyes and wondered if he was upset to the point that she was just a warm body offering comfort. She wondered if he were imagining that she was someone else. She wondered if he was comparing their tastes.

She wondered if she should really care at all.

***

As much as she wanted to point the finger in Tom’s direction and cite that he was hurt and angry and confused and she was just helping a friend out, in all fairness, she knew that she had been upset, too.

It was hard not to be when your best friend was making it with the blonde of the week and lying to you about it.

Kathryn had no real plans to analyze why she'd been so upset when Chakotay was nothing more than a friend, but she wasn't daft enough - or good enough at lying to herself - to pretend that it hadn't impacted on her night with Voyager’s helmsman.

***

Though she had never really imagined making love with Tom, when she had given it a fleeting though - it was the ovulation thing, she was sure of it - Kathryn had imagined that he would be a cocky lover.

She had imagined that he would be arrogant and maybe a little obnoxious in the pleasure that he was able to give. She’d had visions of his self-satisfied eyes looking down at her as he used her body for his pleasure.

The reality was nothing like that, she quickly learned.

As he worked to make her lose her mind again, she bucked against his mouth, pushing, showing him without words where she needed his attention to burst the bubble of need that swelled within her again.

Tom brought her to the brink of orgasm - so close that she could almost feel the sweet relief that he kept her from - and rose, moving to cover her sweaty body with his own.

His hardness nudged at her wetness, collecting some of the leaking moisture.

Kathryn grasped his hips, pulling him to her as he looked down at her.

She could only imagine what she looked like - hair mussed from the movement of her head, breasts heavy and swollen with arousal, nipples erect, thighs spread around his hips, skin flushed from orgasm and frustration - but the baby blue eyes held hers and she couldn’t force herself to look away for all the coffee in the universe.

“He’s an idiot.”

Instead of letting her reply, he kissed her, his tongue teasing and tasting, her own scent being shared, and then, oh god, he thrust into her with one easy movement.

***

She sighed again.

Though Kathryn had always imagined an orgasm brought on by someone else’s hand would leave her sated and happy - oh, and it has last night - she hadn’t anticipated the overwhelming sense of guilt that would swell within her, causing nausea.

Of course, she’d never really imagined - ovulation officially didn’t count, she decided - that it would be Tom’s hands making her cry out.

While nothing of their night together had been bad - except, perhaps, what had brought them together in the first place - she couldn’t help but wish that it hadn’t happened, under the circumstances.

But, by the same token, she couldn’t really bring herself to regret it.

Regardless of the nausea and the guilt and the thoughts of what was to happen now, she just couldn’t regret it, no matter how hard she tried.

***

His thrusts were short and quick, but they were filling her, stretching her, pulling her apart only to put her back together again, piece by agonizing piece with his mark.

Her several year abstinence hadn’t seemed to matter all that much after her first and almost-second orgasm, and Kathryn hadn’t felt anything but the sheer joy at being so close to someone when he had entered her.

With his hands resting beside her head, she turned her face and nuzzled at the soft skin when a particularly hard thrust hit all of the right spots.

“God…” Her breath hitched when Tom touched her clit.

It wasn’t a particularly good angle and he wouldn’t be able to support his own weight on one hand, so Kathryn moved her own hand down to meet his and rubbed at her clit in time to his thrusts.

She let out another loud cry as her second orgasm finally hit, making her lose her rhythm, and her clenching muscles pulled him into oblivion with her with an equally loud cry.

***

In the light of day - a rather relative term considering that Starships didn’t technically have a night or day - Kathryn felt like she had used him as much as he had used her.

She wasn’t sure that mutual using was an appropriate defense, but it was all she could muster while the ‘good excuse’ she knew to be lurking in her mind refused to spring forth and alleviate the sick feeling she’d carried all morning.

Though, in reality, she expected that their tender parting was the end of it all.

Tom hadn’t said anything beyond ‘Morning Captain’ when she’d entered the Bridge.

Kathryn didn’t know what she’d been expecting - a wink? A shared smile? A cocky grin? - but she didn’t think she had a right to wish for anything beyond strict professionalism.

Chakotay had greeted her too, but his words had held thinly veiled anger and she had quickly excused herself under the guise of reading reports in the Ready Room when his accusing gaze had just been too much to take.

The chime on her door rang, startling Kathryn out of her thoughts and she suspect that may have been a good thing with the circles she was sending herself in.

She forced her thoughts away from the previous evening, as well as the look on her First Officer’s face, and shook her head a little, as if the physical action would wipe the memories and the concerns from her mind.

Putting her coffee down, she positioned herself in front of the portable terminal on her desk and pulled up the reports she had said she was going to be reading.

“Come in.”

***

"Do you really think we're going to get home?"

"Yes." She answered without hesitation because, if she didn't, then it meant that she'd had her head jammed up her ass for years and she just couldn't bring herself to deal with that potential reality.

He frowned. "Is there anything there for us?"

Kathryn didn't have all the answers, she only had the feeling in her gut and even that had been wrong on occasion, so she wasn’t quite sure what to tell him or what he wanted/needed to hear.

She shrugged one shoulder, holding the sheet to her chest, and tried to muster an encouraging, but tiredly sated, smile. "I like to believe."

"You were engaged, weren't you?" He flushed quickly. "I'm sorry, I had no right to ask."

"It's OK." And it was, because she hadn't thought of Mark as more than her long-time friend in quite a while. "I was engaged when we left, yes."

"Was?"

"I don't expect him to wait." The only thing she expected for her return to Earth was to be wrapped in her mother's arms once she'd seen her crew to safety.

Anything beyond that would be a welcome bonus.

“Is that why you and Chakotay aren’t together?” Tom asked quietly. “You’re hoping that maybe your fiancé will still be there?”

There were a lot of reasons why she’d never succumbed to her desire for her First Officer, but Mark had stopped being one of them a long time ago.

“No, that’s not the reason.”

"Aren't you lonely?" The flush that had tainted his skin darkened and he opened his mouth to retract the statement again before she cut him off.

"Yes, I am."

"You shouldn't be."

She shrugged again, because she knew that she was technically only allowed to take a lover if it was an alien - and she needed the Doctor's clearance for that, which was enough to turn her off the idea - or a fictitious holodeck character. "Starfleet would disagree with you on that one, I fear."

Tom smiled softly and pulled her tighter into his embrace, offering comfort instead of the arousal that his touch had produced moments ago.

Using his fingers to tilt her head, their lips met once, lightly, sweetly, almost innocently, if it were possible after what they had done together. It was likely that their kiss couldn’t be innocent when his semen was leaking from between her legs, but she didn’t much care.

He pulled back and smiled. "I've always thought that Starfleet were idiots."

Kathryn thought that this was probably the strangest post-coital conversation she’d ever had with a man, but she let him hold her anyway.

***

Chakotay stared at her as he stood before the desk. "The bulkheads are quite thin."

Kathryn had watched him enter with a PADD in hand and expected another report to add to her never-ending pile.

She hadn’t expected those to be his greeting words.

“I’m sorry?”

“The bulkheads between out Quarters are thin.”

Blinking, she raised an eyebrow. "What's your point?"

"You're not a quiet woman."

She refused the let herself blush because, really, what right did he have to say a damn thing? "Again, your point?"

"You screwed Paris."

Kathryn rolled her eyes and forced indifference into her voice, despite her automatic desire to correct his terminology.

She hadn’t screwed anyone; she and Tom had made love or had sex or whatever else it could be called that didn’t make either of them sound like selfish whores. "I'm still not seeing your point."

"I don't like it."

"And?"

He raised an eyebrow. "And what?"

Apparently that was the only explanation he was prepared to offer.

"Let me get this straight. You can sleep with whomever you like but I can't, is that right?" She snorted. "Tell me something; if I was a male Captain, would that change the rules?"

Though she hadn’t actually voiced her disapproval at his latest bed-warmer, Kathryn didn’t think him stupid enough to miss the hurt that had flashed in her eyes when she’d seen him with her.

"Yes."

Wasn’t it funny how double standards worked? "Why?"

"Because if you were a male captain, I wouldn't want you."

***

"I should go." Tom looked around her bedroom, suddenly uncomfortable now that morning had dawned.

Kathryn nodded. "I know."

"I don't feel like I should just walk out..." He scratched at the back of his neck - had she left a mark there with her short nails? - and winced. "You deserve more than just me walking out as though you were just a-"

He didn’t finish the sentence, but she could imagine. "Tom, go back to her and make up."

Nodding, Tom slipped out of the bed and began pulled his clothes on.

“Last night wasn’t just sex.” He told her quietly.

“I know.” Kathryn did know; it hadn’t been just sex for her, either. “But you should be with B’Elanna.”

"What about you?"

She wondered the very same thing, but she refused to guilt him into anything beyond what he had offered last night. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

Once more, she wanted to say 'no.'

"Yes." Kathryn forced a tender smile onto her face and leant over to kiss his cheek lightly. "Now go and get ready for your shift so the Captain doesn't have to put you on report."

He offered her a small smile and she knew that it was the best that either of them could do right now. "Goodbye, Kathryn."

"Goodbye, Thomas."

***

Kathryn sighed when Chakotay showed no signs of leaving. “Why are you here?”

“I just told you.” He looked confused. “There has always been something between us, Kathryn.”

“Does your girlfriend know that?”

“What girlfriend?”

“Do you really think I’m that stupid?”

She had seen him with the Ensign from Science on their last shore leave, walking hand in hand through a local market.

Kathryn had just finished wrapping up the trade negotiations and the local minister had been showing her some of the crystals sold in the market when she had looked up, smiling, and seen the familiar dark eyes staring back at her, wide with surprise and, she imagined, embarrassment.

Chakotay had met and held her gaze, smiling gently, as he had casually moved his body to block the view of their entwined fingers.

There had been a time - though it seemed a lifetime ago - when Kathryn had imagined that the only small palm that would be fitted against his would be her own, after they’d - she’d - finally let go and taken that last step forward.

From friends to lovers.

Coworkers to eternity.

She had imagined that once they - she - had gotten past whatever kept them apart, it would be easy to just shift the nature of their relationship and the rest would work itself out.

Apparently, he couldn’t keep it in his pants long enough for them - her - to get past those remaining barriers.

“She and I are friends.” Chakotay defended.

“Do you always hold hands with your friends, then?”

He didn’t have an answer for that and Kathryn watched him sigh. “So you fucked Paris as punishment to me? Tell me, was it actually that good or were you just turning the volume up for my benefit?”

She would have hit him had the desk not been in her way.

As it was, she seriously considered throwing the computer at his head - or his groin. “You have no right.”

“Do you not even care about B’Elanna?”

“Of course I do.” Kathryn suppressed the growl of frustration lurking in the back of her throat. “You’re being unfair.”

He rolled his eyes. “And I’m sure she’d think it’s super that you screwed her boyfriend.”

“I don’t think any of this is your business.”

“I think you’re wrong about that.” The edge to his voice melted away and he held her gaze evenly. “Since we seem to always be getting this wrong, I’ll spell it out for you. I love you, Kathryn, and I know you love me too.”

She gasped in surprise, she couldn’t help it.

Part of her had always imagined that those feelings had simply fluttered away - and his ridiculously active, not to mention insanely public, sex life had always supported her theory - and hearing him say it outright, no ‘ancient legend’ covering the words, hit her right between the eyes.

“You’re sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

He shrugged. “You’re not denying it.”

Of course she wasn’t.

Kathryn Janeway was many things, but a liar was not on that list. He could be as cocky as he liked about it, but they both knew the truth.

“So… what?” She watched him intently as he frowned at her. “What happens now?”

“Are you and Paris going to make last night a regular thing?”

“No.”

He nodded. “Then have dinner with me.”

“What?”

“Have dinner with me.” Chakotay repeated. “A date.”

Kathryn wondered if it was a good or bad thing that he’d felt the need to clarify. “That’s it?”

“You expected more?”

She had.

Or maybe she was just looking for a reason to say no.

Tom’s words from the previous night fluttered through her mind - ”You deserve more." - and Kathryn found herself nodding slowly, wondering when, exactly, she had lost her mind. “OK.”

***

End