Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be. I just like to torture these poor souls for mine and others' enjoyment.

Notes: This was written in like thirty minutes, and hasn't been edited, so I apologize for any grammatical errors. Also, hopefully it's good - I didn't really take the time to stand back and reassess, so I'm just kind of...hoping for the best. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

turn and turn and turn again

She still dreams of New Earth.

The sky is always blue in her dreams, the breeze always blowing. The earth is rich and cool beneath her fingers, beneath her feet, and the colors are always the jeweled tones of memory in amber. She tastes water, and trees, and hears the lilt of birdsong in the foliage, the symphony of a thousand insects when day wanes toward evening.

Sometimes she even hears and sees again the black-and-white primate she had nearly befriended.

But worse—worse are the dreams of him, when she feels again his hand in hers, feels again the warmth of his breath on her lips, the gentle caress of his fingers on her bare skin. She feels again the stolidity of his body within hers, feels again the cadence of their passion, feels again the rush of emotion that she had not felt in too many years try to choke and drown her.

When she wakes, she does so with the taste of salt on her lips. She rolls out of bed, stress-numbed feet hitting hard and cold ground, and she pulls on pants and a tank with shaking fingers. The gym is nearly always empty in that grey hour of ship's night, and so Kathryn can beat the feel and memory of him out of her skin without anyone present to bear witness. When she returns to her quarters an hour later, it is to run a regenerator over bruised and bloodied knuckles, and to sink into a warm bath to soothe the trembling ache of muscles pushed too far.

The mornings after are always hell. She sees him sitting in his chair on the bridge, easy smiles and warm voice, and she cannot help the ache that grows in her belly, the yearning that pines in her fingers to reach for him, to touch him, to bring him back to her.

She remembers the first weeks after their return to the ship, and she remembers the pain of that parting, and she wants to scream—with injustice, with agony, and though she will never admit it, even to herself, anger. Anger with Tuvok for coming back for them. Anger with him for trying to love her. But mostly anger with herself for allowing her own walls, adamantine and reasoned, to crumble in his wake.

Yes; she is angry. It was that anger which proved to be her saving grace in those first days. Without it, she doubts that she could have pushed him away, erected again the walls between them that Captain and Commander required.

And on those mornings, after she dreams of him coming to her in the sweet shadows of that distant, fairytale world, it is her anger which proves to be her saving grace again.

He notices—he always notices—when it happens. He comes to her, in her ready room, or in the mess hall, or later, once the ship has quieted for the night and she is trapped in her own quarters with nothing but a book and a dozen ghostly memories for company. He comes to her, and in his quiet and gentle voice asks her what is wrong, offers to shoulder the burden that has made her cold and distant and testy that day.

The irony makes her laugh, sometimes. When that happens, he stares at her with confusion that borders on pain. She cannot tell him, though, no matter how much she might want to, that he is the cause of her ire—that this burden she must bear alone, and that when he seeks to ease it, he will only make it all the harder.

For worst—worst are the nights that she dreams of him sitting across from her at their small table, and tells her of an angry warrior. Worst are the nights when she dreams of him lying beside her, warm and real and infinite, when he pulled her to him and whispered softly in her hair. Worst are the nights when she dreams of him cradling her face between his hands and telling her, You are beautiful. Worst of all are the nights when she remembers him saying, I love you.

Because she had believed him—or had, at least, begun to believe him. Those gentle days and gentler nights amid the jeweled tones of paradise had softened her, had begun the slow weakening of the cruel walls that had stood around her heart since stone floor and hard hands had broken it, since it had frozen alongside the two men she had loved more than life itself.

She hates herself, those nights that she wakes from such dreams, and finds herself empty and aching and lost. She hates her weakness, hates her hypocrisy, hates him for what he has done to her. Her weakness, for it brought and brings only pain, birthed by what she had and knew she might lose. Her hypocrisy, for she had loathed Mark in those moments when he had thought she was broken, when he had tried to heal her of the wounds Chakotay began to heal without even knowing. Him, for the promise of a future he had unwittingly made, and that had been taken from her by the love of her crew, and the honor of her duty.

"Kathryn," he said, and says, and will say for as long as she will let him, her name on his tongue is a plea, a promise, a future. "Kathryn…"

And she will turn, and turn, and turn from him, and she wonders for how long he will follow.

She wonders, in the dark nights when she is at her weakest, if she will break when the day comes that he does not follow her.

She thinks, with the taste of salt on her lips and the sting of blood and bruise on her knuckles, that she will.

And still she dreams of New Earth, with its jeweled memories and ghostly phantoms. And though she wishes that she could, that she would, she cannot make herself wish to stop.

end notes: What did you think? Was it actually okay? I'd love to hear from you