i wait staring at the northern star

[1701]

Who: Jim Kirk (1701) & Kathryn Janeway (directives)
What: The Talk
When: nowish
Where: Wyver
Warning(s): probably nothing unless you're very sensitive about Star Trek spoilers from 2009


Jim's not stupid - and because he's not stupid, he knows Kathryn, in turn, isn't stupid. He doesn't believe that the soft semi-revelation of yeah something's up with this was a shock to her; they're both keeping quiet about too much, they've both seen and experienced too many indescribable things out in deep space.

It's still on the table to lie about it. He could. He's manipulative enough, he's done it plenty of times. But he just doesn't want to.

The bar he picked is low-energy, for Wyver, geared to the 'fuck off and leave me alone' kind of privacy versus any kind of manufactured intimacy, because that's just how the city is. Even now in the somber aftermath of near-apocalypse. Recognizable by some natives despite no longer carrying the ring he was given (not that he'd wear it anyway), he's given space, exchanging nods or low-toned greetings. It's been a rough few weeks, for these people. Longer for the refugees. He could easily slip away to Olympia, with its lesser damage and better weather, but it's another one of those things he just doesn't want to do.

"Walking around, doesn't seem so unbelievable that a giant dragon rolled through, huh?" he says to Kathryn once they're settling into a curved wooden booth.

Comments

[directives]

So much more, especially in Kathryn's case. She's had to play a number of roles that she was both prepared for and not. There's been so much weight resting on her shoulders that having someone else to share the burden of captaincy with is a welcomed, selfish relief.

As is someone telling her that what she did was incredible and not foolish, too risky, dangerous, stupid— Deciding to propose an alliance to the Borg had been one of the loneliest decisions she's ever had to make. Chakotay always had her back, until he didn't. She understood where he was coming from, she really did, but a captain doesn't have the luxury of taking personal opinion (or preference) into consideration. If she had to be alone in her choices, so be it.

Sometimes, out in the black, a commanding officer had no choice but to be alone.

The shrug she gives him in response is a humble one; a slight lift of her shoulders that seems to say this miraculous, brazen feat she pulled off was nothing to marvel at.

"I did what I had to do, what no one else would dare to. I wouldn't have us be another Wolf 359. When I took Voyager into the heart of Borg Space, I intended to come out on the other side of it without losing the ship or getting half my crew assimilated. And I did."

[1701]

"Don't shrug that off." Quiet, but dead serious. "You don't have to tell me how unpopular the decision was, even if it was the decision to save everyone. The decision that had to happen, because that's Starfleet. We don't get to say we want peace if there's anyone, anyone we won't make peace with."

In any universe, history will make note of James Kirk and his wrestling matches - with the Prime Directive, with the Kobayashi Maru, with diplomatic relations between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, and so on, and so on. Always shoving his elbow in somewhere and saying look again at the harder choice, even if it's unconventional, or terrifying, or taboo. But this Jim in particular understands how vital it is to confront every choice with total honesty, and the nerve it takes to make them, even when you're crippling a part of yourself.

"You moved a mountain. You don't have to take credit for it, but I'm going to acknowledge it."

[directives]

"Everyone was against it," she finds herself saying, perhaps because it needed to be said to an actual, living and breathing person instead of the stale air of her ready room as she recorded her logs in the best neutral, professional tone she could muster at the time. "Everyone. Not even my first officer had my back in that decision, and he went against the alliance I forged first chance he got."

That still stung. They may have set that disagreement over his supposed insubordination (supposed, because Chakotay had technically been in command at the time while she was injured and out of commission) in order to turn things back around and sever Seven's ties to the Hive Mind, but he still went against her. Still went and did the exact opposite of what she told — no, asked him to do.

It stung as both a captain and a friend, but she couldn't allow the latter to get to her. So like many things, from Mark's engagement ring to whatever now lost connection she and Chakotay had, it was set aside. To be touched upon later, perhaps never to be touched upon at all.

"I've had to make a lot of tough decisions since we found ourselves in the Delta Quadrant, but I always had Chakotay's support. Not in that instance."

Not when she had needed his support the most.

[1701]

Jim shakes his head, keenly sympathetic to getting backstabbed by a first officer - granted, his own incident was over something genuinely against the rules, and Spock later (finally) understood the gravity of the betrayal. Her XO is human, he thinks, based on how she's spoken of him. No Vulcan principles to contend with, just grudges that captains don't have the luxury of indulging in.

"I'm gonna say something wildly unprofessional," is a great opener, "but that's unbelievably shitty of him. I understand - and I mean, I really understand, I had to drag members of my crew and civilians and children out of a Borg ship, still attached to their tubes and wires - but that's your exec."

That's basically mutiny, implies a guy who was once put in an escape pod and abandoned on a giant ice cube for inciting mutiny. It just makes him an expert on the subject.

"I'm-- sorry, is all." And kinda pissed on her behalf.

[directives]

That implication, although unspoken, is read loud and clear. Kathryn, however, doesn't necessarily agree with it. She appreciates him saying what she cannot bring herself to — that was unbelievably shitty of him (and it was) — but nevertheless rises to Chakotay's defense.

It's impulse at this point, defending her crew. Defending the ex-Maquis. She may or may not have a solid defense already built up to present to Starfleet Intelligence in hopes of preventing them all from being whisked away to a penal colony the moment Voyager crosses Federations borders. (She absolutely does.)

"Perhaps, but he was in command at the time." It's here that she withdraws her hands, laying them on top of one another on the table before her. Shields up, defense mechanisms in place. Closing off as much as she's opening up, always a constant contradiction of herself. "As much as I hate that he disobeyed orders, he had every right to make that decision while I was out of commission."

[1701]

"I understand closing ranks." She pulls away, she closes herself off; Jim sees it, reads it as easy as everything else. He knows precisely why. "You're all you have out there, and as far as you know, there's no end in sight. You'd go nuts and your crew would dissolve if you didn't absorb the hit. I respect that."

But your exec was still a dick.

Minding his manners - somewhat - Jim doesn't say it out loud. But it doesn't take a telepath, etc. He also technically disagrees that if orders were in place, he didn't actually have a right to contradict them, but that's a fiddly, pointless thing to say, and he'll never know all the nuance or details. He just knows his own experiences, which are ... all weird, all nuts.

"I'm in your corner. There's not another one for me to be in." They're friends. They're peers.

[directives]

A defense mechanism at its finest, constructed out of necessity. She wasn't always so closed off, so distant, but Kathryn realized early on in their journey that she was going to have to set boundaries if she was going to play this pivotal role in keeping her crew together. Being impartial was a necessity, and she could not afford to make decisions based on her personal attachments or views.

Chakotay did the opposite. He allowed his personal feelings towards the Borg and what Riley Frazier did to him to cloud his judgement. He was against the alliance from the start, and it hadn't taken much to convince him that tossing the drones aboard Voyager out the literal airlock was in the best interest of the crew. She fully believed that he thought he was doing everyone a favor, that he was protecting the ship (and her), but it hadn't been the correct choice to make.

The right Maquis choice, perhaps, but not the Starfleet one. As much as that betrayal stung, and still throbs from time to time like a dull ache in her chest, it only reinforced her way of thinking. Her self-imposed distance.

A distance she doesn't have to maintain while here.

Her shoulders sag, some of the tension bleeding out of her as she wills herself to relax.

"I know you are, and I appreciate that more than you know."

[1701]

"Being here puts a whole slew of unique, awful things on our shoulders," he says, "whether I mean 'our' as in Starfleet captains or 'our' as in everyone. But if we've got breathing room from other shit, at least there's that. We've got to accept what silver linings we can, or we'll all go crazy."

Psychology tips he's probably had drilled into his head over whiskey with Bones at one point or another; what Jim hasn't self-diagnosed in his efforts to suck less since Chris's death, he's had laid out and shoved into his face by his best friend. It's easier to think of him - of everyone - mechanically, in lessons, instead of emotions.

"Thank you for telling me. And thank you for listening."

[directives]

Both the EMH and Chakotay — hell, even Tom on occasion — have tried to address some of those psychological points to her to varying degrees of success. It's not that she doesn't absorb what they say or is unwilling to hear them out so much as she cannot afford to. Her armor has to remain in place; it can't crack or weaken, can't warp around the edges. She's well aware that regular sessions with a counselor would do her a lot of good, but that's one of the many things that Voyager left Deep Space 9 without.

She knows what her faults are, knows what labeling would likely be applied. She knows her coping methods aren't always the best, and that she's far from being a picture image of the ideal captaining model. Quite frankly, she doesn't much care at this point. If Starfleet wants to take her to task for keeping Voyager a Starfleet vessel with a crew that was alive and thriving, who hasn't had to outright break the Prime Directive in order to survive, then so be it.

"Shouldn't I be the one thanking you for listening?"