Weathering the Storm
Whumptober No. 25: Storm
Fandom: Star Trek Voyager
Ship: J/C
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The destruction of her lab equipment and research had been devastating. But somehow, this was worse.
As they had lain there, sheltering under that little metal table, Kathryn came to a realization. Even though the world crumbled all around them, she felt safe.
The storm had raged on for hours – long after the glass had all shattered and her pages of notes had been swept away by the swirling air currents. There was a strange sort of quiet, once there was nothing left to break. Plasma storms aren’t loud, only violent. At that point, Kathryn had stopped struggling against Chakotay’s arms and instead turned into them, burying her face in his strong chest as if that might hide her tears. Of course it didn’t. When she finally lifted her head, his shirt was soaked.
She felt embarrassed for crying over something as silly as insect traps, but then Chakotay had moved one hand from her back to her face. He had smoothed down the wild flyaway hairs and tucked them behind her ear before wiping the tears from her cheeks. He had kissed her, softly, on the forehead, and said “We’ll be ok, Kathryn. We’ll build a beautiful life here, until someday that brilliant mind of yours will come up with a way for us to return to the stars.”
Something in his words, the warmth of his voice, the strength of his arms, made Kathryn believe it would be true. More than that, she wanted it to be true. She wanted that beautiful life and as she looked into his warm brown eyes, she wasn’t sure if she even needed to return to the stars after all.
She thought about the lengths he had always gone to to make her comfortable - not just on New Earth, but back on Voyager too. She thought about the countless cups of coffee he brought her, about the unwavering support she always felt at her back, about the times he made sure she ate or slept or socialized.
And she thought of the bathtub he had built for her, and she suddenly understood that it had been more than practicality or keeping his captain happy that inspired Chakotay to build it. She saw it in his eyes, pouring forth and surrounding her like the warm waters of her bath. She was drowning in his eyes but it felt safe and warm and she had no desire to swim up towards the surface.
Instead, she kissed him. Not on the forehead, but squarely on the lips. She hadn’t planned for it to be more than chaste – hell, she hadn’t really planned it all! But when their lips touched, the energy that crackled between them had put the electrical storm outside to shame. He gasped in surprise and she took the opportunity to capture his bottom lip between her own and then there was no turning back.
The storm inside raged longer than the storm outside, and when they finally emerged from their shelter, hand in hand, the sun was shining as if nothing had happened.
Except that everything had happened.
They walked around the shelter slowly, cataloging the damage. There wasn’t much to speak of - a few large branches newly severed from their trees, the remains of one of the insect traps ground into the soil - until they rounded the back of their shelter.
When it came into view, Kathryn gasped, separating from Chakotay without thinking as both hands flew up to cover her mouth. Chakotay pulled her to his chest and she sobbed into his shirt for the second time that day while he whispered soothingly “I’ll fix it. Or better yet, I’ll make you a new one, big enough for two.” Kathryn let out a noise that was half sob and half laugh as she looked up to see his teasing smile. She nodded and managed a weak smile in return. But she couldn’t shake the feeling of dread she had felt since they first saw it.
The bathtub, the very thing that had told Kathryn everything she needed to know, when she most needed to know it, was now cracked clear down the middle.
If it was trying to tell her something now, she didn’t want to hear it.
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