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I’m coming, Chakotay.
Her heart beats the words like a manta, a vow.
She’s standing on the bridge of a starship for the first time in over a year, her back ramrod straight, her chin tilted up as she watches the stars fly by. As if she's never left.
They don’t often let Admiral’s take missions into deep space, but she didn’t give them a choice. It's her fault he’s out here.
She’ll damn well bring him back.
I’m coming.
It's her fault, after all. She sent him out here. He was the most qualified, the perfect captain to lead what was heralded to be a groundbreaking flight on their newest ship. There was so little risk of danger. So little likelihood that he wouldn’t come back to her.
And then he didn’t.
She wonders briefly if this is some kind of horrific karmic retribution. That she had to lose the man she loved to the Delta Quadrant the same way she’d torn 150 souls from their lives 12 years ago. Was this her atonement? Her penance?
God, why did it have to be him?
Its been weeks of looking for him. Weeks of searching. Worrying. Of waking at night drenched in a cold sweat with his name being ripped from her lips. She dreams of him captured. Tortured. Dead on a wasteland of an unknown planet where she’ll never see him again.
When she wakes, shaking and terrified, she settles herself on the couch in her quarters with a cup of coffee, wrapped in the blanket she brought from home. The one that, if she presses it to her face, still smells like him.
She doesn't sleep much anymore.
It's eerily like those final days on Voyager.
It's not as if she’s never been faced with the possibility of his death. But not since she’s been with him this way. Not since she’s learned that he snores softly in his sleep, that he whistles each morning when he shaves, that his breath catches in his chest when she kisses him in the dark.
If it was difficult to face before, it's excruciating now.
So, she's here. Searching.
She nearly smiles at the memory of the shocked faces of the Admiralty when she said she would lead the search mission. She’d left no room for argument, her voice laced with steel as she told them to give her a ship or she’d simply find her own. And that wouldn't be the outcome they wanted.
A rogue Admiral traipsing through the stars on a renegade ship. Not the type of image Starfleet likes to project.
She’ll hand it to Headquarters, however, they’ve given her a damn fine crew. Young but fearless, talented beyond measure. There's an ensign with the devotion of Harry Kim, a junior engineer with a spark that reminds her of B'Elanna.
And the Dauntless II is an exceptional ship. Fast and sleek, far beyond anything Voyager was capable of. Despite that, it doesn’t quite feel like home. Not the way Voyager did. Not without him here at her shoulder, his steady presence at her back.
Even without him, she draws her strength from his memory. The tenderness she remembers in his brown eyes, the steady beat of his heart under her ear.
Love makes you stronger, better. That’s what she’s always heard. That’s what he’s done for her.
I’m coming, Chakotay.
She remembers all the times he came for her. Pulling her from that burning shuttle, the plasma storm on New Earth, that factory in Quarra.
He’d never leave her behind.
She’d die before she stopped looking for him.
It's just who they are.
She’ll always come for him.
She repeats all the words he’s said to her over the years. The ones that brought her back from the brink of hopelessness, that wrapped her in his love and his warmth when the pressing darkness of the Delta Quadrant made her lose her way. She sends them out from her heart now, hoping he hears them. Praying he knows.
He’s never alone.
She takes another swig from the metal mug in her hand. She’d nearly given up coffee before this, no longer needing it. Just that one glorious cup in the morning, strong and aromatic as she readied herself for the day.
Now, she craves it again.
It helps her remember, to put on the mantle she carried for years. Search relentlessly, drive yourself harder than anyone else, never let it show that you have a shadow of a doubt. The hot liquid pours through her veins like iron, hardening her against whatever perils the journey might bring.
It's different this time though. DIfferent than ever before. And not just because she's older, grayer, and wears an Admiral’s rank bar on her collar.
This time, she searches the stars for him.
I’m coming, Chakotay. No matter what happens.
She gives the crew credit for their discretion. Her relationship with Chakotay is hardly a secret, despite the fact they aren’t married. They’re too high profile to remain unnoticed, and they haven’t bothered to hide their affection in years.
No one says anything about the dark circles under her eyes, the way she doesn’t eat or sleep enough, the feverish intensity that she searches with that’s just beyond the point of duty. Just past the boundary of professional dedication.
She’ll find him.
Through the exhaustion and the worry and the soul crushing guilt, however, there’s a flicker of hope. He’s alive. She’s certain of that much.
Don’t ask her why, it's inexplicable even to her. Maybe it's the many years of him echoing her footsteps, finishing her thoughts, predicting her movements. So many years of her life being so intrinsically linked to his. Somehow, she knows she'd feel a cataclysmic shift in the universe if he were no longer a part of it. The entirety of her world would somehow be darker, more bleak. She would know.
He’s out there.
I’m coming.
And finally. Finally. After weeks of searching. She gets the validation she knew was there.
Her heart is thudding her chest, and she can’t let the young officer at the helm see how much she’s been affected by the simple beep on the screen.
It's the Protostar.
Chakotay.
She’s out of her chair in an instant, the adrenaline so intense she can hear the blood pounding in her ears. Years of training have her answering the young woman who gives her the information, calmly setting a course for the Protostar. She’s battered by hope and relief and a flint edged determination to rain absolute hell on whatever, whoever, took that ship.
She squares her shoulders, looks out into the stars, and tells him one more time.
I'm coming, Chakotay.