(By Penny A. Proctor. Paramount owns Star Trek: Voyager and its characters. A companion piece to season 7's "Shattered.")
"You've been smiling all night," you say to me as you set down your glass. The cider is gone, and that is the signal for the evening to end. "Whatever happened today – and I'm not going to ask again - it certainly left you in a good mood."
I feel my smile broaden of its own volition. It's true, I am in a good mood. I found something today that I feared was lost, and I feel renewed.
"There are some barriers we never cross," I told you - the younger you, the Kathryn who hadn't yet left the Alpha quadrant. What I didn't tell you was how many times over the years we almost did. What I didn't tell you was how we worked to erect those barriers and how hard it was to do. What I didn't tell you was how easy it would have been, time and again, to forget about our responsibilities and about our duty to the crew and simply lose ourselves in one another.
It was only a few days ago that I realized how thoroughly the barriers have been integrated into our relationship. You walked behind me during a staff meeting, and your hand brushed against my shoulder. You didn’t seem to notice. I did. You rarely touch me any more; it's part of the barrier. We don't touch, we don't allow eye contact to linger, we don't stand closer than we must. We had to practice this, it didn't come naturally. But I began to wonder if practice made perfect, if the barriers were no longer barriers at all but only the natural way of things.
Your friendship is important to me, but I grieved to think that we had lost the reason that required the barriers in the first place.
That's why today was so remarkable. I walked onto the bridge and found you – the younger you, the you with long hair and an air of optimism that has now eroded, the you who put yourself between me and Paris when I first set foot on Voyager. Kathryn without barriers. At first I thought I could handle it, but without your resolution to bolster it, my own shattered.
And it was there, again. The spark. The attraction. The paradox of hoping and fearing at the same time that this was something unique, something overwhelming. You sensed it. I saw it in your eyes – when I told you that you loaned me the Dante, when you asked if I would lecture you for seven years, when you asked how close we are. I felt it in your touch, when you clasped my hand. You knew it then, just like I did.
"I found something today," I tell you now, as I rise to leave. "Something I thought I'd lost."
"What was that?" you ask, unsuspecting, walking beside me.
Maybe it's unwise, but I want to see. I want to see if it would happen for us now. With surprisingly little effort, I lower my emotional shields.
I stand in front of you, blocking your way, and you look up at me with a question in your eyes. The question fades almost immediately as you sense the difference in me, the lack of defenses. And I see it happen. Without my resolution to bolster it, yours shatters.
The air suddenly seems thicker, harder to breathe. Your eyes become smoky, the blue darkening to nearly gray. I cup my hand against your face and half expect you to pull back, but you don't. I think you want to test this as much as I do.
Your gaze does not waver as I run my thumb across your lips and look at you. You are older yet more attractive than before; if this quadrant has diminished your optimism it has also honed your strength. Yes, the pull between us is sexual, but it's more than that, somehow. It's something elemental and inevitable, and my spirit responds to it, seeks it hungrily.
The feeling is even stronger than it was just hours ago, with the younger Kathryn. Perhaps this is because, here and now, we know each other so well. Back then, we only suspected the possibilities between us. Now we know what will happen, when we let it.
Your mouth has opened slightly beneath my touch, and you are waiting - not moving, barely breathing, just waiting.
The barriers are down but we know the boundaries. It's not the right time, not yet. I step back, my hand falling to my side. You do the same, but you are smiling, a small and secretive smile, and I think you are as pleased as I am to find that we do indeed still need some protection from our own desires.
"Good night," is all I say.
"Good night," you answer, and I leave.
I found something today I thought I had lost. I found hope again.