3. If Only...

Rating: T
Pairing: J/C, J/M
Summary: What lengths will Janeway go to...
Disclaimer: The premise of Voyager, I don't own, but the story is mine.
Date: October 2001
Length: 1004 words

You want commitment
Take a look into these eyes
They burn with a fire, just for you now
Until the end of time
I would do anything
I'd beg, I'd steal, I'd die
To have you in these arms tonight
Baby I want you like the roses
Want the rain
You know I need you
Like a poet needs the pain
I would give anything
My blood my love my life

I remember five years ago, hearing that Chakotay had finally gotten over me. I wasn't relieved, I was anything but...I remember wondering, what if. All he needed to do was wait a little longer.

I couldn't ask that of him though; I'd asked him to wait long enough. We'd been in the Delta Quadrant for Seven years and I couldn't ask him to wait any longer. So I let him go. As much as I thought we knew each other, when I looked into his eyes, I no longer saw the all consuming devotion and love that had once lain dormant just below the surface. It had dulled to an ache and a pain.

I never wanted to hurt you. You were my best friend and my confidant, and my love, and all you had to do was look a little harder into my eyes, and realize.

The day we were back, you were mine. I had to get this crew home, then I wanted to get out of Starfleet and love you like I knew you loved me and like I knew, deep in my soul I loved you.

We could be together, start a family, love as we'd only dreamed of before.

But you'd moved on, and I wish, every night I stare at my fiancé Mike, that I'd let you look just a little deeper, or that I'd studied those deep dark, chocolate eyes of yours just a little harder.

But hard they got. As they years went by it was harder for me to see what you were thinking. It was harder to know just how you'd react and as the void got larger and the chasm widened, I knew...you no longer loved me.

If you were in these arms tonight
I'd hold you
I'd need you
I'd get down on my knees for you
And make everything alright

If you were in these arms
I'd love you
I'd please you
I'd tell you that I'd never leave you

And love you till the end of time
If you were in these arms tonight
We stared at the sun
And we made a promise

A promise this world would never blind us
These are my words
Our words were our songs
Our songs are our prayers

These prayers keep me strong
It's what I believe
If you were in these arms tonight

I learned today that I am going to be 'auntie' and godmother to your child, Chakotay. I already know her name, as you told me on your last communiqué I I still love you more than life itself and I will love this child. You have no idea, for I never told you.

I saw Seven last week, almost five months pregnant with your child. My protégée, my 'daughter' is all grown up, and will become a parent before I ever will. I suppose in ways only you understand Chakotay, I was a 'mother' to our crew, and you a father, making us a natural pair.

Alas, in this life it was not meant to be, and I can only hope that in the next we get ourselves together.

If you were in these arms tonight
I'd hold you
I'd need you
I'd get down on my knees for you
And make everything alright

If you were in these arms
I'd love you
I'd please you
I'd tell you that I'd never leave you

And love you till the end of time
If you were in these arms tonight
Your clothes are still scattered
All over our room
This old place still smells like

Your cheap cologne
Everything here reminds me of you
And there's nothing that I
Wouldn't do to be in your arms

I wonder sometimes if you think of that one night that we spent together. I knew at the time that you were married, and yet I had to know how you felt. I had to for one day, dream that it was real, that you were mine, though you had been claimed by another.

I have loved you I think since day one, but I know you now belong to another, and I respect you too much to let myself admit this now that you have finally let yourself go on.

I can't wait for your daughter to get here so I can spoil her as I would my own child.

I need to believe that you have found happiness even if it is my pupil the woman who found her 'perfection' in my image and in my teachings.

I love you as I hope I will one day love Mike, and I love Seven as I would love a daughter, and I promise, I will love your child as a godmother should.

I only hope one day I can reach the happiness you have found.

And these were our words
They keep me strong

I'd hold you
I'd need you
I'd get down on my knees for you
And make everything alright

If you were in these arms
I'd love you
I'd please you
I'd tell you that I'd never leave you

And love you till the end of time
If you were in these arms tonight

*~*~*~*
The Song is 'If You Were In These Arms Tonight' by Bon Jovi
*~*~*~*

END PART III TBC in Part IV: A Bed of Roses