Dreams
By Dany
PG-13

Summary: Angst-ficlet, and my addition to “Maneuvers”. After his rescue from the Kazon ship, Chakotay needs some comforting…

The fist was coming towards his face seemingly at the speed of light. Barely time to close his eyes…The impact sent a shockwave through his entire jaw, rattling his teeth.
Pain…No way of telling anymore where one particular pain ended and another one began. His head, his face, his entire body had coalesced into one big lump of agony. It could have been minutes or hours since they had begun questioning him. He didn’t know, had lost track of time a while ago.
The voice again, rough and condescending, asking the same questions it had dozens of times already, ceaselessly grilling him for the command codes. He would die before he revealed them, and he had said so equally numerous times. Now the hand grabbed his hair, brutally yanking at his head and slamming it into the back of the chair he was tied to. The voice was yelling at him again, but through the thick cloud of pain it was strangely muffled, the words becoming unintelligible. His body was trying to spare him more agony by slipping into unconsciousness, but before he could do so, he felt a new pain at his neck, sharp and piercing. He cried out, feeling the effects of the drug just moments later. They were going to break him, make him tell through whatever it was they had just pumped into him…
No, he would die first! He would die…

Chakotay jerked awake with a gasp, his body sitting up in bed before his brain even realized he had done so. His hands automatically went to his face and the side of his head, but there was nothing there except sweat-damp hair.
The body next to him twitched, and an instant later a slender hand was at his shoulder.
“Just a dream. A dream, love.” Kathryn sounded much more awake than she should have been at… three o’clock in the morning, according to her bedside chronometer.
Chakotay nodded, not trusting his voice yet. His heart was still hammering wildly in his chest and he shook his head slightly in a vain attempt to rid himself of the last remnants of the nightmare.
Kathryn’s hand moved up and down his back, gently caressing the bare skin there while she waited wordlessly, giving him time to compose himself.
After a few moments breathing became easier, the warm hand on his back helping to soothe him and anchor him in reality. Chakotay was not embarrassed about the nightmare; just about every one of Voyager’s crew members had them in one form or another, after all. They had acquired them in many ways: on away missions that had turned awry, on Voyager during battles with hostile aliens, - and some of them had been brought on board even before Voyager was pulled into the Delta Quadrant.
Diverse dreams for countless reasons, but the one thing the entire crew shared was that the past few years in the Delta Quadrant had had long-term psychological effects on all of them.
Now Kathryn’s other hand came up, gently pulling on Chakotay’s shoulders. Closing his eyes, he leaned backwards into the embrace, feeling her bare arms come around him. For a long moment the two figures just sat silently, Kathryn holding Chakotay - the way Chakotay had held Kathryn less than two weeks ago, after her latest nightmare had left her shaking.
While in uniform, they were the USS Voyager’s Command Team, Starfleet officers, and responsible for the safety and well-being of 150 other Starfleet personnel, but in the privacy of his and her quarters, they were free to be just two human beings, ready to give and receive love and comfort whenever needed.
It was a huge comfort to know that someone was there for him, but the same was true for the rest of the Voyager team; in other cabins beyond Kathryn’s door, maybe not tonight, but perhaps tomorrow or yesterday, B’Elanna was holding Tom, someone was holding Harry (at least that’s what Chakotay was hoping), and vice versa. They might be alone in unchartered territory, but they were a team; some friends, some lovers - and always there for each other.
“Where were you?” Kathryn’s voice was close to his ear, and Chakotay sighed.
“Mahj Culluh’s ship.” That was all he needed to say. Kathryn’s arms tightened around him. No words of comfort needed to be relayed; for now, her quiet presence was solace enough. Nevertheless, she lightly kissed the side of Chakotay’s neck; probably more for her own sake than for his, he presumed.
The ghost of a smile came to Chakotay’s face when he felt the warm lips brush his skin, but was soon wiped away as another thought invaded his mind: If B’Elanna and the rest of the team had taken a minute longer to beam him out of there…who knows what other torture methods  the Kazon would have used.
Involuntarily, Chakotay shivered, and Kathryn took that as the perfect opportunity to tug him back into the warmth of the bed, pulling the comforter over them at the same time. “Come on, love, it’s cold tonight.”
However, the temperature in Kathryn’s quarters had nothing to do with Chakotay’s shivers. He knew Kathryn knew this – and he was also fairly sure that she knew that he knew that she knew that.
They both let it slide and instead worked on re-fitting themselves together under the covers the way they had been before the dream had set in.
“Ready to go back to sleep?” he heard her ask.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “Guess it’s your turn to mother-hen tonight.”
“My pleasure,” Kathryn replied, a smile in her voice. Her hand found his and held on, fingers interlaced.
Chakotay exhaled; safe and warm again, with the familiar contours of Kathryn’s body pressed against him, he felt the strings of fatigue drawing him back into the realms of sleep.

It was good to be loved.

 THE END