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He dreams it almost every night now.
It never happened, but it happens to him now, again and again.
The first time was the night after her funeral. He hadn’t thought he would sleep, but he woke up screaming her name.
He's started drinking. A lot. He’s not sure if he drinks to suppress the dream or to seek it out. It doesn’t seem to matter.
He’s forgotten he has friends, a sister, a counselor, an animal guide.
Even the war recedes in the face of the dream.
Always the same. Venice, the bridge of bare feet, the deserted café.
The mirror with the ribbon, symbol of his love, his undying love. The faith that she will come.
The footsteps behind him. Mark’s voice. The dread, the roaring in his ears.
“Just tell me she’s not dead.”
“She is.”
The sound of breaking glass is what wakes him every time. He can neither rouse himself before he drops the mirror nor stay asleep after it crashes to the cobblestones.
Waking, he imagines using a shard from the jeweled frame to slash his wrists, gouge out his eyes, attack Mark -- as if murder or self-mutilation could end this somehow, could change what happened. Even though this much, this scene, did not in fact take place.
Two officers in black armbands had met Voyager upon docking. He hadn’t been surprised; someone on his crew must have lost someone in the battle with the Borg cube. He’d received them in the conference room, expecting to help them break the news to some ensign, planning his words of condolence and assistance in arranging bereavement leave.
They weren’t just officers. They were admirals: Paris and Montgomery. Counselor Cambridge had led them in, looking unusually somber. Tom Paris had followed, looking bewildered, darting worried glances at his father.
“Captain Chakotay. We regret to inform you …”
Memory glitches there. Tom is weeping, Owen’s hand on his son’s shoulder. Ken Montgomery says, “Captain?” with the tone of someone repeating himself. Cambridge leans against the wall by the doorway, arms folded.
Chakotay hears himself speak. “Thank you, Admiral. I’ll inform the crew. Funeral arrangements?” Then he is walking away, crossing the bridge, entering his ready room.
Her ready room. The whole ship still, always, felt like hers. Like her. Even though it was his. As she, now, would never be.
A black hole of rage and despair had opened in his chest then. The dream came from it and returned him to it, every night. It was steadily swallowing everything he was or had ever been.
Soon he would no longer exist ...
Except to drink,
to sleep,
to dream the dream,
to wake up screaming
Kathryn
to the sound of shattering glass.