Oasis

By Penny A. Proctor.   This is a response to Djinn's "Crossing the Desert" Challenge. It might not be what she had in mind; it wasn't what I had in mind, but the characters overruled me. Thanks to Rocky for a valuable beta read.

"Kathryn, wake up! Kathryn! Admiral Janeway!"

With an effort, Kathryn forced herself back to consciousness. It took a moment to realize that she was lying face down in sand, and as she pushed herself up she tried to spit the grit out of her mouth. When she found her mouth so dry that she had nothing to spit with, she settled for wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "What happened?" she asked Chakotay.

He was hunkered down beside her, studying her with concern. "How much do you remember?"

She considered. "We were on our way to the designated spot to mediate the Meleledrex dispute."

"And?"

"The shuttle … someone shot down the shuttle." There hadn't been any choice after that – either try to cross the desert or wait for the Meleledrex terrorist sect to arrive. A Starfleet Admiral as a hostage would have given them a great advantage. "How long?" she asked. Her throat was so raw that the words came only as a croak.

"Since leaving the shuttle? About twelve hours. Since you passed out? About forty-five minutes." He helped her sit upright. "If you can walk, there's an oasis about half a kilometer ahead. You almost made it on your own."

"I can walk," she said, but when she tried to stand, her knees gave out and she collapsed to the sand.

He came behind her and supported her as she tried again. "There. Let me help you."

"I can walk."

"Dammit, Kathryn, stop being stubborn and let me help you."

She glared at him, but he didn't blink. Finally she nodded once. He slipped an arm around her waist and shifted a great deal of her weight to him as they walked awkwardly over the dune.

"That's no way to talk to an Admiral," she said.

He huffed out a chuckle. "I wasn't talking to an admiral, I was talking to a friend."

If she hadn't felt so awful she might have smiled. But she did feel awful. Her throat was parched, her lips were painfully cracked and she could tell she was badly sunburned. That's what happens when shuttles go up in flames, she thought. There wasn't time to grab anything more than a single container of water, and that had been emptied hours ago. Most of all, she was hot. So very hot. At least she seemed to have stopped sweating.

Time no longer had any meaning. Her existence had narrowed to one sentence – take another step. Take another step. It became a chant as they walked in silence. The only extraneous thought to interrupt the mantra was that she couldn't have done this alone. Her eyes focused on the sand beneath her feet, not looking up.

Then they stopped. She tried to take yet another step, but he held her still. "It's all right, Kathryn. We made it."

She looked up to see a single palm-like tree blocking her path. Then she looked at its base and saw a small pond edged with green plants. Desperate for water, she pulled away from Chakotay and stumbled to the edge of the pond and fell to her knees. With no thought of dignity, she put her face in the water and drank. The water was warm and had a slight coppery taste, but she had never tasted anything so wonderful.

"Not too much," Chakotay said, laying a hand on her shoulder.

He was right, she knew. Reluctantly, she straightened, wiping her mouth. She removed the flimsy scarf that had been covering her head and immersed it, then wrung it out and wrapped it around her neck. It felt cool against the heat of her skin. "Better. You?"

"I'm good. Come sit in the shade," he said, pointing a small shadow at the base of the tree. "If I know Harry Kim, he's convinced the government to drop their jamming shield so he can scan the planet. It won't be long now."

She dipped her hand in the water one more time and wet her lips before settling on the ground. He sat beside her, their shoulders touching. "I knew this mission was a mistake," she said to him. "When the Meleledrex prime minister told me they regard dogs as the emissary of evil, I knew I was wrong for the job."

"Oh, I don't know. Who better than Kathryn Janeway, who melded Starfleet and Maquis, who negotiated with the Hirogen, who out-thought the Think Tank, to mediate a dispute that has lasted five hundred years?" He smiled. "Admit it. It was like old times."

"Old times," she repeated softly. The years on Voyager seemed a lifetime ago, almost as if they had happened to a different person, and yet not a day went by without something happening to remind her of them. A pungent aroma that summoned memories of Neelix's cooking. A sound like the music of the Sikarians. A cadet who looked like a Delaney twin. "You know," she said slowly, "if I could do it all over again, I think I might agree to have Q's baby. It would have saved an awful lot of trouble."

He laughed. "Maybe. Or maybe Junior would have imploded the universe in the middle of a temper tantrum."

She smiled weakly, still too tired to muster a laugh. "There is so much I wish I could change. I made so many mistakes."

"You did what you had to. And you got us home. That was a tremendous accomplishment."

"Sometimes I think we made it back in spite of me, not because of me." She leaned her head back against the tree and focused on the horizon. Her list of regrets, as long and as heavy as the chain of Marley's ghost, paraded through her mind. There were so many things she would change if she could. So many unanswered questions.

She realized suddenly that she had a chance to get one of them answered - possibly her last chance. The only thing she to lose was her pride, and at the moment that didn't seem important. Without looking at him she asked, "Do you ever wish things could have been different? For us, I mean."

Even though she had never broached this topic with him, he didn't look surprised. "I stopped kicking myself over that a long time ago. The time and the place were always wrong for us."

True enough, she thought. Another time, another place and things might have been different. No, they would have been different; she was certain of that. She turned to him and found him looking at her expectantly, waiting for her next words. Something about his expression caused her last defenses to crumble. Almost shyly, she said, "Can I tell you something? When you and Seven fell in love, there was a part of me that was glad for you. You were so happy. It was like you had stepped out of the shadows into the sunshine. And part of me shriveled up in a ball of jealousy because someone else had done that for you."

"I know." His hand closed over hers and she looked at him in surprise. "I've always known, Kathryn. How could I not?"

She bit her lip and turned away. "I'm sorry."

"I don't know how I would have handled it if you hadn't been there when she died. You kept me going."

"I was so worried about you. You seemed … broken. Lost."

"I was numb for a long time." He squeezed her hand. "It took me a long time to accept that you and I were never going to be together on Voyager. When I finally let go of that, there was a void in my life and Seven filled it. Losing her, and knowing that nothing could change for you and me … that was hard."

"I know," she whispered.

"But you were there." He smiled ruefully. "And you kicked my butt until I was functional again. It's almost ironic. When you asked me to be your first officer, I promised myself that I would do everything I could to make your job easier. Just look at all the trouble I gave you."

"That's all right. I got used to having you around." His hand still held hers, and she tightened her fingers. "I'm glad you're here."

"Wouldn't have missed it." After a moment, he added, "I can say I loved and was loved by two remarkable women. Annika Hansen and Kathryn Janeway. Not many men are so lucky."

Her eyes burned, and she knew she would have been crying if she had enough moisture for tears. His words had a sense of finality, as if he did not expect to have another chance to say them. And, she realized, he was probably right. If Harry didn't find them very soon, survival was unlikely. "We were lucky, weren't we? Maybe it wasn't what it could have been, but it was special."

Then she shivered, and leaned back against his shoulder. "I'm getting cold. Odd, isn't it? The sun is still high."

"It's all right." He wrapped both arms around her. "Why don't you shut your eyes and relax for a while. Harry will be here soon."

"You won't leave me?" She closed her eyes and snuggled closer. He felt solid and safe.

"I'll be right here."

Fatigue took control, and she began to sink into sleep almost at once. As her consciousness faded, she heard him say, "Love abides, Kathryn. I'll always be right here."

***

She woke with a start and found herself staring up at the anxious face of the Doctor. "Ah, good," he said. "How do you feel, Admiral?"

A quick internal inventory produced an answer. "Sore. Itchy. But better."

"The itchiness will pass soon. You were badly sunburned and the skin is healing. Not to mention the fact that you were in early stages of heat stroke. It's lucky you found that water hole when you did." He checked the readings on the biobed and nodded. "All in all, you've come through your ordeal very well."

She looked around Sickbay. She was the only patient in the ICU alcove, but she couldn't see the main ward. A feeling of foreboding began to grow in her. "Where is he?"

The Doctor's face changed and became frozen in his expression of professional detachment. She had seen it often enough to know it meant bad news For the first time, she noticed Harry standing behind him. There were dark circles under his eyes, as if he were operating on too little sleep. The foreboding turned to dread. "Harry, where is he?"

He looked unspeakably sad. "I'm sorry, Admiral. Ensign Romero was killed in the crash."

Romero? Her mind tried to focus. The name was familiar, but she couldn't quite place it.

The Doctor must have seen her confusion. "The shuttle pilot. How much do you remember?"

"I remember we were hit by a missile barrage from the surface. The shuttle went down in the desert and caught fire." She frowned. "It's a little fuzzy after that. I remember walking through the desert. We found an oasis."

"'We'?" Harry asked, frowning. "Who do you mean?"

"Chakotay and me." She knew she sounded impatient but she couldn't believe he was being so dense. "How is he?"

Her two old comrades exchanged a troubled look but neither of them answered her. "What?" she demanded. "What is wrong?"

"Admiral," Harry said, and then, to her surprise, he took one of her hands in both of his. "Kathryn. Don't you remember? Chakotay died nine years ago."

She stared at him, but once the words were spoken, she remembered. It was true. Chakotay had died within weeks of their return to the Alpha Quadrant. Nine years ago. Nine years.

Finally she looked away. "Of course. I'm sorry, I was confused."

"That's completely understandable," the Doctor assured her.

"If it's any consolation," Harry added, "Ensign Romero didn't suffer. You dragged his body clear of the shuttle, but he died on impact. There was nothing you could have done."

"I don't remember that." She tried to think, and came up with a clear memory of the attack and of the shuttle falling, out of control. Then everything was blank until she woke up on the dune.

"But you do remember something?" the Doctor asked, his eyes narrowing slightly. He knew her so well, she thought. "Heat stroke can do funny things to the mind. Hallucinations are common."

"No, I wasn't hallucinating." She knew with complete conviction that was the truth; Chakotay had been there with her. And she knew she would never be able to convince them or anyone else of it. "I was just disoriented when I woke up. Would you mind if I rested awhile?"

"Of course." With a slight squeeze of her hand, Harry surprised her by leaning forward and kissing her forehead. Then he and the Doctor left, she heard him say quietly, "Is she all right?"

"She will be," the Doctor replied, just as quietly. "Let her rest now, but I don't think she should be alone for too long when she wakes up again. This experience has obviously revived some old traumas, and you know how depressed she can get when she isolates herself."

Kathryn lay back and closed her eyes. The poor, dear men. They were worried about her. They thought she shouldn't be alone.

Of course, she wasn't really alone at all.