A FLEETING MOMENT
My first Janeway/Tuvok story
an episode addition to
"The Year of Hell"
vanhunks
Disclaimer: Paramount owns all. Paramount is Chief.
Rating: R
Summary: Kathryn Janeway is a lonely woman, and Tuvok is the one officer who offers her refuge during the days of their "Year of Hell".
*
A FLEETING MOMENT
The darkness was around me and it was in me. It was a fact which cannot be disputed. I am blind. I can only visualise light, form, colour, distance. I suppose that humans experienced the loss of a primary sense as sight with such emotions as rage, disbelief, denial.
Acceptance when it came to them, would settle in them after conflict, a long struggle from which they emerged, and finally adjusted to loss of vision.
I accepted it. There were no accompanying feelings that could render me human-like. It was naturally, an inconvenience. In my quarters I knew my way around intimately, a situation that had perhaps been a matter of routine when I had been able to see where everything was. Nothing had changed. No furniture shifted, and the distance from the door of my quarters to the head-end of the left side of my bed, was still 4.78m. I have become accustomed to the second darkness. It did not hinder me, nor did it intrude upon the execution of my actions.
In that respect, little has changed.
Yet, everything has changed.
She came to my quarters the third night of my sightless eyes. Were I able to see her, I accepted that it would have influenced my decision on whether I would have allowed her to stay, or to asked her to leave. Were I able to look into her eyes, I would have been able to determine what particular need drove her to seek out my company. Always, as long as I have known her, as long as we have been friends, I have been able to observe her and note the changes in her. To a very great degree, her eyes spoke to me.
Guilt has been her constant companion. A decision she made has stranded us here, and she was filled with the obsession of getting us out and...home... She will never relinquish her ship to the enemy. We were her family, and she would do everything to protect that family. As a team, we were always stronger.
Ex unitate vires.
Always stronger when we were united.
Yes, her eyes would tell me. Now, that vital aspect of my observation of her was no longer there, and every other sense in me heightened, attuned and sharpened. When she entered upon my call that night, I heard her footsteps as they came closer. I stood in the small foyer of my cabin. One of the few on the ship still habitable.
"Tuvok..."
It was her voice, and the heat on my arm where her hand touched me, that told me of her need.
She did not consider that her touch on my arm would disturb me. It was what I concluded to be her own degree of familiarity with which she viewed our association. The times in the past that she touched my arm, or stood too close to me, were what I deemed negligible. Always, she respected that aspect of my being as a Vulcan. That moment I did not flinch at her proximity to me. Yet, I knew her to be quite close, mere centimetres away.
"What can I do for you...?" was the question I had asked, yet the knowledge was before me. The question was merely to allow her time in which she could reply in a manner different from what her original intention had been. In short, it was a way for her to change her mind.
Her hand dropped from my arm. I could hear her breathing. It was low, and the way she said my name, her voice trembled. It was different from any other time when she had ever addressed me. There was a softness, a gentle kind of fluttering that made my name sound like water running over river stones. I am Vulcan. When I made such a comparison it was merely a direct juxtaposing of the two sounds and concluding that they were similar. I did remember however, a line from a Vulcan poem:
"The traveling water was her voice, the cooling shower was her breath."
It was the voice of someone in need.
"The comfort of your company," she said. I was able to feel the coldness of the air as her hand rose up to touch my cheek. The action caused a flutter that reached me first before I felt the touch of her fingers.
She needed more than that. It was what she knew. I was what I knew.
"Captain..."
"Kathryn..."
"It is not wise, Captain."
"I ask that you think, Tuvok. I ask that..."
Her voice had become low, the running water softer, slower over the river stones, as if its source had been cut off. Humans would have termed it seductive.
I would concur.
"Help me..."
"Captain - "
"Kathryn..."
There sounded an order.
"Yes, Kathryn - "
Her fingers pressed into my skin. There was heat. A blinding flash came upon me. Could it have been remembering the moment of the bright explosion? I do not recall upon reflection of that moment three days previously, that it had been so hot, so burning into my skin.
I needed for one moment only, to see her eyes. Then I would not have deemed it necessary to consider the logic of my actions...or decision. My answer would simply have been a direct one.
Leave now...
I could not say those words, for her fingers brushed my lips. Soft, like a tingling feather it teased across my skin. She knew what she wanted. She knew what she needed. I did not need logic to tell me that.
It became lighter in me. I wanted to close myself from unwanted, unwilling thoughts and reactions. I needed to tighten my control, and be as always, dispassionate.
"Leave your logic," she whispered.
"You need me..."
"I seek rest."
"What you seek...Kathryn, is a need I may not serve."
"You have known me long, Tuvok, and now, in this space, this temporal state in which we find ourselves, those parameters may not exist."
"I concur."
"Then if you agree..."
I smelled her. The smell of flowers of Earth. To humans, it would be opiate, inducing the need to bond. She stood closer to me.
"You should leave, Kathryn."
'I felt again the flutter of a breeze as she moved away from me.
I did not know. I could not understand. It was not logical.
Not logical.
I was bereft.
I knew then that I did not want her to leave.
Taking two steps in her direction, I touched her arm and pulled her closer. My hand touched her cheek. The scar felt rough under my fingers.
"Let me stay..."
It was a plea.
"Kathryn..."
**
That first night, on this vessel, in these quarters, in this sector of space we call Krenim, where we have lost half the ship, lost two officers, where Kathryn Janeway finally asked the crew to leave the vessel and we witnessed the pain with which she did so, that first night I sat on my couch and I let a lonely woman rest her head against my shoulder.
I did not consider consequences; there were no weighing of options and letting ethics and protocol dictate our actions. She needed me. That was the fact before me. There was no other officer on board whom she could ask to share her loneliness and lighten her burden for her. She came to me. That was logical.
I found that her head resting against my shoulder was not repulsive.
Not repulsive at all.
*
And so, on nights when Voyager was lost, caught in a continuum of time where there was no history, no past, no future, where all became one and time breathed, Kathryn became my T'resa.
Some nights it was just to hold her in my arms. Then her body shivered for long moments as the tiredness of the day's events, the pressure of commanding what little there was to command, the indefatigable spirit of keeping her remaining crew fighting, began to flag and all she needed was to feel my arms around her.
The first night we bonded...
"Tuvok..."
It was in her voice. My fingers had long stopped fumbling to find her cheek, her lips, the lobe of her ear. I turned to her. My hand found the scar unerringly. There was a dampness there.
"You are crying, T'resa."
"I need you."
I could not deny the veracity of her words. Yet, I knew, understood even, the totality of her request. Her hand encircled my waist. I did not turn away from the suddenness of the impulses that came upon me. I knew control, and could control it. It was within my power to exercise it rigidly, or relinquish some of it.
There was a vacuum in which only T'resa and I existed. In that vacuum, I could feel... It was what I wanted to feel. I could be Vulcan, and I could be...myself.
There was no right, no wrong, no protocol, no behavioural ethics. There was only this: it was a knowledge, an acceptance of fact, completely and - not unlike the reality of the flaring flames that rushed at me in the Jefferies tube that day- totally, irrevocably correct.
There was no demure, no fighting against odds, no considering consequences as I lifted T'resa in my arms. Her own arms wound round my neck, and I felt the warmth of her breath against my skin. Her lips touched me; there was too much trust. Too much of herself she gave me, even in those moments.
And I wanted to give. That was the only thing that was...logical.
Our movements were unhurried, the removing of our clothing quiet, dignified, mostly a benediction as she guided me to remove her clothing from her. She let my hands roam her body.
I saw - yes, in my mind's eye I saw - the white snow capped peaks on Earth, I felt the velvet of her skin.
"T'resa..."
"This is right, Tuvok," I heard her murmur as her hands touched my body.
"Yes...for you, T'resa, this moment will be ours," I replied as I eased her down on the bed, and I followed, lying down beside her.
"Ours..." she whispered as she shifted herself and pulled me with her so that she lay beneath me. My control relinquished, my body answered to hers. "Ours..." she said again before my fingers found her temple.
"Yes..."
I let my T'resa see my heart, I let her feel the thunderous beat of it. I let her see, feel, experience the fire that raged in me, the passion that needed her sustenance, her kindling to keep it flaming; the glory of joining and being one. I let her witness my own need. My body was hers. My passion became hers, and hers became mine as I lifted myself and prepared for the all-consuming joining. I felt her hand reach between our bodies and touch me. Her cool hand that itself felt like a fire, guided me into another realm, another furnace of intense fervour that welcomed me. Her heat surrounded me, and for a moment I paused so that I could, in these moments when control was a veneer quickly dispensed, feel her receiving me.
"T'resa..."
Did her name fall from my lips as a helpless cry? Did her name release from my lips the last of my order, my logic, my constraint and reserve? Did her name just fall from my lips as I, Tuvok, Vulcan, lost myself in her and begged her not to release me?
My lips found hers and my tongue tasted the nectar on hers; our fingers were entwined and her legs held on to me, rose high around my hips so that her ankles dug themselves into my flesh. Everywhere our skin touched. There was no point where we were separated...or separate.
She moved beneath me. I cried her name again as I complied and reached deep into her. One body synchronised as time, space, past, present and now, became one single movement.
There was a time, when time stood still... A moment in which we hovered, we strained, we arched, we screamed... Then we floated.
Down...
Down...
Down...
"Tuvok."
Her voice sounded...exhausted...happy...
"T'resa..."
I felt her move and she snuggled against me until she breathed evenly again. I knew that it was the comfortable position that she sought. Her hand rested on my chest, and my own hand came up to cover hers. We were naked. It was right.
"We were one," I heard her say.
She must have felt the beat of my heart where her hand lay flat against my chest.
"Yes," I answered. "We were one, indeed."
She laughed. It was low, throaty.
"Indeed," she repeated my words.
**
We stood on the bridge. All the remaining senior officers of Voyager. Seven stood next to me. Her presence was just that: a presence.
Kathryn - my T'resa in the nights she lay in my arms and we were joined - issued the last instructions before we were to make our final attempt to destroy the weapon ship. I would be with Neelix and Seven on the Nahidarin vessel. Kathryn's voice was firm, it was fired with an old passion: her drive, her duty and need to protect and succeed and...sacrifice.
It was what I accepted.
I heard her tell B'Elanna:
"You know the adage: The Captain goes down with the ship..."
That was Kathryn Janeway. My nostrils picked up her scent as she stood close to me. I could even feel the warmth of her breath on my skin. She was Kathryn and she was...T'resa...
"I feel as close to Voyager as I do to my crew, Tuvok," she said softly.
I nod as I concur finally: the marriage of Kathryn Janeway to her ship. I do so in the knowledge that T'resa had been mine, once.
As always, the little flutter of a breeze indicates her hands coming up to touch me. I feel her palms cup my cheeks.
It is the touch of T'resa. It is the knowledge privy to me only. For one last moment I let my control slip, just a moment, a fleeting moment when Kathryn Janeway became mine.
T'resa.
For the last time.
"Old friend..." she whispered
I felt her arms around my neck, felt her close to me and her softness which I claimed for me, the voice, her care and compassion again as I perceived once before:
"The traveling water was her voice, the cooling shower was her breath."
She held on to me, and for the last time my own hands came up and I pressed her closer. I raised my hand in salute.
"Live long and prosper, Captain."
*
Very soon history will be restored, and the causality paradox uncorrupted by men like Annorax. There will be a beginning, there will be a past, a present and a future. Kathryn Janeway will go down with her ship if she cannot succeed in her quest. I know she will. The determination was there in her voice. The new resolve was there, in the nights she had been mine and she could find a measure of peace in my arms. Those were nights when I was Tuvok, mostly human-like in my responses to my T'resa. Yes, I provided for her that which I know, we both needed: each other.
Perhaps my T'resa needed me more.
When the weapon ship is destroyed, time will be restored. We will have our lost officers back and we will have our crew back. We will be at a point where none of us will have any recollection of this year of hell. This year of hell would not have happened. I will be Tuvok, a man, married. Kathryn Janeway will be Captain Janeway, married to her ship and crew and duty. We will have no memory of what we shared. It would be as if it never happened. There will be parameters. I will be her Security Officer, her friend and sometimes counsellor. She will be my commanding officer, my friend and sometimes comforter. There will be rules, regulations and protocol will underline each one's roles anew.
I knew this: in the entire scope of the time-space continuum, where time and space and past and present and future breathed as one and none of it could be measured in any quantifiable fragments except perhaps that somewhere there was a beginning: in all of this, what Kathryn Janeway and I shared would be simply, if measured, be a fleeting moment.
As I prepared to leave, I carried with me this knowledge alone: no matter what happened from this point on, this moment belonged to me. I experienced with my T'resa something priceless, an immeasurable, precious sharing.
We may die. We may live. But I will have had...
A fleeting moment of joy.
**
END