HO! HO! HO!
© September 10, 2000
Disclaimer: Voyager belongs to Paramount Pictures. No infringement intended.
HO! HO! HO!
"And how do you suppose we pull *that* one off?" Harry asked, Neelix smiled and B'Elanna slunk lower into her chair as Tom gazed at her knowingly.
"Oh no," she shook her head and warded off their gazes with frantic hand gestures of 'absolutely not.'
Tom smiled at B'Elanna and poured her some more wine. They had taken their planned, group discussion to the privacy of the Sandrine's simulation. The light piano music, the glow of candles and the calming clicks of poolballs being scattered did little to ease the edginess of the four people gathered there. "Come on, B'Elanna, think of it as an adventure . . . an adventure where we *won't* get caught!"
"I will *not* put a red-nosed reindeer on Voyager's Hull, Tom," she glared.
"How about a Christmas Tree, then?" Neelix asked.
"What's with decorating the hull?" Harry was still confused from lack of sleep.
"Well, we've decided if we can't have decorations in the most important of places on the inside, then why not the outside?" Neelix offered.
"Neelix? You're in on this?" Harry asked, scratching his head.
"Just don't tell my sweeting," he referred to Kes.
"Come on, it's not only Friday night but it's getting near *Christmas*! We're running out of time! Now," Tom smacked his hands together and rubbed them against one another for added enthusiasm, "What about the good ole gift exchange."
"I'm not putting a reindeer on Voyager's Hull, Tom," B'Elanna stated.
"We could do the secret Santa?" Neelix suggested.
Harry paused, pointing at the Talaxian, "How does he know so much about *our* holiday?"
"What once was 'yours' is now 'ours', Ensign Kim!" Neelix replied cheerfully, a little too cheerfully.
"What if we all pitched in and got one good gift for both the Captain and the Commander? A union of gifts to signify the union of crews on the ship!" B'Elanna suggested, no longer thinking about the reindeer.
"That sounds good," Harry perked up at the suggestion, but covered a remaining yawn with his hand. "But what would they both want and like that they could share?" Neelix asked.
The group was silent.
"We'll just have to do some investigative work," Tom smiled. "You know," he added, "ask lots of questions, throw out some hints . . . we see them both enough in one day, by Christmas Eve . . . we should know one way or another what they'd want."
Harry shrugged, Neelix beamed, B'Elanna sighed and Tom smirked.
"But first," Tom's eyes glinted, "we decorate."
Stripping out of the cool white T-Shirt he had planned to originally sleep in, Chakotay tossed his body onto the springy mattress of his bed and listened, quite audibly, to the much softer music that played in his room. He knew he wasn't sweating because he was hot but rather because he was . . . well . . . riled.
"Why do I always fall for the one I can't have," he asked allowed. "Computer, lights off," he stated and was greeted with a chime and, a moment later, darkness. Tossing onto his right side, he pulled the pillow close against his head, holding onto it for a bit of escaped sanity. Kathryn Janeway? Surely not. No, not possibly. But . . . yes. No.
He clenched his eyes shut and pushed two of his fingers to the bridge of his nose to massage at the headache he had just been passed on by Captain Kathryn Janeway.
"I know how to have fun, still," Kathryn battled the argument ensuing in her mind aloud, in bed, in the dark. "I can enjoy a Friday night with the best of them."
No one answered in the silence of the night. She just couldn't understand it . . . why did she feel like such a . . . 'party-pooper', as her mother used to call it when Kathryn had been a child, for making the Commander turn down his music?
"Because it was interfering in my life!" she stated aloud hoping that hadn't carried through anyone elses wall. ". . . my life," she stated suddenly. What had happened to her life? How had she been picked, by fate, to have no choice in who she would spend the rest of it with? The next seventy years were going to be spent with work, and nothing but work, "So help me God!" she exclaimed. And, come to think of it, why was she spending so much time thinking of Chakotay and herself when she should be thinking about Voyager? She'd have to definitely rethink her priorities . . . oh definitely.
HO! HO! HO!
HO! HO! HO!
HO! HO! HO!