Chapter Text
The problem with really good sex, in Kathryn’s experience, is that the more you have it, the more you want it. Chakotay still whispers things like “One of the EPS conduits is malfunctioning, so I’ve sent B’Elanna and Seven to work on it” so that she can laugh and whisper back, “I hope at least one of the three of them survives.” But sometimes instead he whispers different things, much dirtier things, including something that poor Harry Kim once overhears and then can’t meet her eyes all day. It’s a good thing they’re traveling through a relatively quiet area of space, because she spends far too much of her time with her mind on things other than the Delta quadrant.
They’re a little more subtle than some of the crew, though she has to admit not by much. It’s impossible to crawl into a Jefferies tube these days without finding two ensigns in a passionate embrace. She performs a hasty marriage between two Bolians who feel that, having been caught, they’re obliged to marry, despite her many assurances to the contrary. Chakotay watches steadily as she does it and it’s terrible how just his gaze now makes her heart turn over a little. No. Not her heart. Her heart isn’t supposed to be involved.
To put it in the Doctor’s horrifying phrasing, she and Chakotay are too discreet to engage in intercourse outside of her quarters, but apparently not too discreet to kiss in the turbolift, hands wandering like teenagers instead of the sensible adults they’re supposed to be. She watches him box on the holodeck and then licks the sweat from his skin, which makes him gasp in a way that she wants to hear for the rest of her li—in a way that she likes.
“It is inefficient for you and Commander Chakotay to continue to reside in separate quarters,” Seven tells her one day. “I have noted similar inefficiencies throughout the crew. Given the frequency with which the Commander sleeps in your quarters—”
“Seven!” She takes a deep breath. “I appreciate your—observation. But you’ve overlooked some variables in determining efficiency.”
“Oh?” Seven sounds as annoyed as she always does when someone tells her she’s wrong. “What are the variables?”
“It’s also inefficient for two people to move in together and then have to move out when they separate. Moving in together is—a big step.”
“Explain.”
How is she supposed to explain it? “Romantic relationships don’t always last.”
“Yes. People die.”
“Not just that. People—grow apart. They want different things. They don’t fit well together. Relationships end even when the people are still alive.”
Seven tilts her head to one side. “It is inefficient to pursue sequential relationships if there is no reason to terminate the original one. You and Commander Chakotay appear to be sexually fulfilled by your relationship. I see no reason that your relationship would terminate other than the fact of your death, in which case there is no additional inefficiency created by sharing living quarters.”
It would probably be good for Seven’s understanding humanity to see—at a distance—a healthy adult relationship. God knows Tom and B’Elanna aren’t modeling it. Kathryn doesn’t want Seven to get invested, if that’s the right word, in the success of Kathryn and Chakotay’s relationship. “There are other variables,” she says. Like the fact that she and Chakotay aren’t actually in a relationship. When Seven starts to speak, she adds, “Seven. Enough.”
Kathryn tells Chakotay about it that night as they’re getting ready for bed. “This morning in the astrometrics lab, Seven told me that we should move in together.”
Chakotay laughs at that, and it sounds strangely discordant. “What ever gave her that idea?” He sees her rub her shoulder and says, “Here, lie down, I’ll give you a massage.”
She lies flat on her stomach, head half-buried in her pillow. “She said it was inefficient to live separately.” He chuckles a little at that. The mattress dips as he settles above her, one knee on either side of her hips, and begins to move his hands over her shoulders. She can’t hold in a groan. “Because you—sleep here—so often—ahhh.” He digs his knuckles gently into a knot in her back.
“And what did you tell her?” Chakotay seems almost cautious.
“That it’s also inefficient for people to live together if one of them eventually has to move out.” Her words are half-muffled in the pillow.
Chakotay’s hands still. “Yes. I suppose that’s true.”
Kathryn rolls over with some effort between his legs to look up at him. What else was she supposed to say? “I was thinking of Tom and B’Elanna,” she lies. “Though it might be better for those two to live separately even if they do get married eventually.”
His smile returns, somewhat diminished. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to massage your back if you’re lying like that,” he says. She laughs, bucks a little in the cradle of his hips—he’s half-hard already, she can see it through his sleep pants, just as he always is after a massage, and she reaches to touch him. He slides his hands down from her shoulders to her breasts, rubs one nipple through the silk of her nightgown until she hisses, and leans down to kiss her.
There’s something a little strange, a little more intense than usual, about it tonight. They both like it best when she’s on top, but this time when she pins his wrists briefly to the mattress, he leaves them there as though restrained until she tells him “You can touch me, Chakotay.” Then it seems like he’s trying to memorize her entire body with his hands, with his eyes, as though this is the last time he’ll ever see her. Kathryn doesn’t like it and she kisses him roughly, bites his lip a little, anything to break that patient gaze that makes her skin prickle.
When they’re finished, he rolls away from her and she feels chilly despite the climate controls.