'A Certain Distance'.
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Disclaimer: ST: VOY and all related characters owned by Paramount Studios. No
copyright infringement intended.
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Friendship is a miracle by which a person consents to view from a certain
distance, and without coming any nearer, the very being who is as necessary to
him as food. (Simone Weil)
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You want me to talk to you about Chakotay.
Fine. He saved me from a rape, murdered the Cardassian on the spot. Of course
he became my hero, but it would be months before I realized it was the last
thing he wanted. Chakotay was a gentle man, still is. Blood on his hands is as
deep as blood from his heart. He carries guilt, deeply, whether most see it or
not.
But that day I was still naive and young, and he my hero. The Liberty, home in
a universe of chaos. He led me there, introduced me to Seska, fit me into his
crew, gave me worth. I fell more deeply every day, but never found the words to
tell him. After all, he wore Seska's scent and I admired Seska in my own way
back then. Between the two of them I felt like a lost child, being lead to and
fro by the hand. They overwhelmed me, he the more, and as my feelings grew, so
did my dissatisfaction.
So we became friends. I reached out to him, in the only way I could, and he
took the time to care, to notice things no one had noticed since my father had
left me. He watched my back with a hawk's eye and my heart with double.
Once, despite my efforts, my more Klingon urges rose to the forefront, and
again he rose to the challenge, sweeping over the invisible boundary I had put
between myself and everyone else, squatting before my pitiful attempt at a fire
and watching me with those obsidian eyes. He unnerved me, and I jerked in
unease, barely restraining a hiss as he halted my angry cooking, swiftly
grasping my hands. I damned those puppy-dog eyes. "Chakotay, you're
repulsive, you know that? Mooning, it's all you do. Mooning over that
tight-lipped, wound-up excuse for a..."
He hit me. All right, it wasn't exactly a 'hit'...just a brawny push onto my
rear. I guess I should have expected it. Moonie was sensitive.
"Torres..."
"I have a given name." I hoped my glare was half as effective as the
shove.
"You hate your given name." His lips twitched, even if his eyes were
still solid black with annoyance.
"Time lends new beauty to it." Involuntarily, I felt my jaw clench.
Ah, hell, no, Klingons don't cry...
"Oh, spirits." The stoic warrior moved forward almost desperately,
grasping my arms. "Lanna, don't you..."
"Damn it." Somehow, a small laugh overrode the sniffle, and he
grinned as well, settling back. "I'm sorry, it has to be the
hormones."
He tensed, the way he always did when it looked like a little inconvenience was
about to screw his plans up. "Torres, not a baby?"
"No. The other type of Klingon hormones." Gods, I was tired.
"Blood fever." He nodded recognition, a hand gripping my arm.
"How bad is it?"
"I'll be fine."
"Even under these circumstances?" He drew back, hesitated, then
spoke. "Even if I offered?"
I couldn't help but glare. "I can't, Chakotay. You..."
"Torres, look at you. Do you really think I'd mind..." A swift
amendment. "Circumstances considered, do you really want to put up
barriers?"
I didn't know, but I did know..."I'd hold it against me. I'll be fine,
Chakotay. I just need to tough it out."
"Well." He pushed up to stand, looking for all the universe like he
hadn't just made the most humiliating proposition either of us had never wanted
to face. "I'm here, Torres."
I knew, and cursed him for his timing.
I didn't sleep well that night...the camp noises seemed louder than ever, Ayala
and Chell bickering over food stores, Seska nagging at Chakotay over some
thwarted flight path, Chakotay alternately appeasing and yelling at them all.
when things finally simmered down to the silent unease a Maquis night camp
always was, he parked his bedding outside the doorway of the little cave I had
claimed. I was grateful. I didn't think the fever was THAT bad yet, but if I
had decided to go sleep stalking, it was nice to know a big burly Indian would
be around to halt me. Eventually, I woke up in the middle of the night, and
caught snatches of an argument.
"She needs me." His voice, tense, rationalizing, half-annoyed,
half-pleading, as he always was with Seska. "It's the Blood Fever."
A nearby fire flickered, and her face caught in the light, jaw clenched, but
the eyes stayed steady, face a near perfect mask. "Of course. She requires
your assistance."
"It's...Seska. You need to talk to her. She NEEDS to mate, but she's
stubborn enough to want to refuse. It could kill her."
She didn't respond, but I imagined her eyes penetrated my enshrouding darkness,
drilling a hole through my chest. They quieted, and I turned back away, and
slept restlessly.
By the next afternoon, I was hypersensitive, terrified. The feeling was
strange, to say the least, and disconcerting. She spoke to me, in the glade, as
close to sisterhood as Seska ever ventured, hands crossed behind her back, eyes
burning a steady hole through my nose. We reached a one-sided understanding of
sorts, that I needed him and he needed someone and she was quite used to the
inconveniences of inferior emotional frailties, and that he would come to me
that night, I needn't say a word. She understood, and wouldn't begrudge me my
temporary satisfaction.
Kahless, how I despised her for that moment, though it would only be much
later, on Voyager, that I truly realized she was no friend.
I retired early like the previous night, unusual, usually she was the one to
slip out gracefully and give us privacy for conversation or cards or anything
friendly. I think it was through her early bedtimes that I came to love him.
So that night I retired early, and through the partition saw him approach the
cave, saw her signal, the barely perceptible nod in my direction, firelight
heightening the severity of her always displeased face. He hesitated, touched
her shoulders, but she pulled away, heading off, and he came into my alcove,
smelling of sweat and frustrated desire. He had wanted her, let himself want
her, worked himself up into a lather, so that he could accomplish the duty of
the evening and bed me. My anger burned, and the tears more so, but...how could
I have hoped for anything else?
Maybe he sensed the emotional withdrawal, his eyes registered shift in emotion,
that little softening to pity I hate even now. Stepping from his clothes, he
stretched out alongside, kissing my forehead in soothing, pushing my nightshirt
off. His touch was firm, but gentle, he recognized the needs and how to quench
them, and didn't seem to mind the scratches and bites. We came, loudly, in the
same moment, and I wondered if she heard. He did not leave immediately, as
expected, but instead rolled onto his side, cradling me on his chest, awkward
comfort. Giving in, I buried my face in his shoulder and sobbed. Human tear
ducts. Worthless anatomy.
I knew it wouldn't happen again, of course. Chakotay saw me as a little sister,
if not in that moment, in every other moment. He was either blind to less
fraternal feelings or managed to ignore them with a poker face Tom would envy.
And so I went to sleep in his arms, and woke up alone, and until Tom came
along, I stayed that way. I didn't want anyone else. Truthfully, I'm not
totally certain I ever have. That's why I'm spewing out my life's torment to
you.
I'm afraid.
You keep asking me about this baby I had doubts about bringing into the
universe, about my childhood. Yeah, that's part of it, but not the bigger part.
You have access to my medical files. You ought to know. I shouldn't have to
tell you...but then again, maybe you want that too. Some sort of psychoanalysis
they teach in the latter Academy years, or special training?
This baby isn't a firstborn to her mother.
Hybrid conception isn't easy, or painless, or without cost. The infamous Spock
was little more than a highly priced lab rat. I've heard that Ambassador Worf
and the late Jadzia Dax were having profound difficulty conceiving before her
death cut the dream off completely. Miral...Kahless knows, Miral was a
surprise, and she had her defects, thankfully fixable.
Three months or so after that night with Chakotay, I began noticing things.
Nausea. Increased irritability. Unsteadiness, less agility. I suspected, but
wasn't ready to admit, so when Chakotay offered me a mission away from the
Liberty, I took it. I was four months along by the time I left, and almost
beyond explaining the belly roll away as fat. We didn't eat enough to have
muscle, much less fat.
Four months later I collapsed on an alien street and woke up hours later in a
neutral medical facility. Shabby place, but serviceable, I was given my
medications, informed that the 'infant hybrid' had been removed via surgery,
and left alone, free to walk out at any time. They didn't volunteer vitals. I
was too much a young, angry coward to ask.
I returned to the Liberty, and Chakotay, and his empty-minded affection, and I
hated every moment of it.
Voyager. When Janeway destroyed that array, she took a whole lot more than the
Alpha Quadrant from me. I was about to contact my father. I had begun to
imagine confronting Chakotay with my little secret, demanding that he help me
find our little baby, dead or alive. I was ready to wipe that smug smirk off
Seska's face, stand up for my longings and my sacrifices and my mistakes.
After the Caretaker, though, what use was it? I knew Chakotay, and knew his
principles. He wanted to make me Chief Engineer, wanted to show his fraternal
pride, wanted to have a friend to confide in amongst the upper ranks. Revealing
the truth, confronting him with my feelings...he would have felt honor-bound to
tell Janeway, and Janeway would have felt Starfleet-bound to thumb me a
crewman's position, far away from polluting distance of those high and mighty
command protocols she was already trying to impress upon Chakotay.
So I didn't tell. Seska still got the Indian. I got a whole lot of nightmares
and guilty, sleepless nights. I suppose Miral was a revisitation. The Doctor
knew of my previous pregnancy, of course, no self-respecting holographic
program could miss such a thing. No, I didn't alter his program to keep it a
secret. I talked to him. I cried on his photonic shoulder. He had a soft spot,
all the way back to the beginning, and maybe I did use that, while mistreating
him. He never told the captain, or showed Tom any in depth scans. My secret was
kept.
Until now.
I found the child. Nearly eight years old, happy, well-adjusted, adopted by a
human family. I won't instigate contact. I won't tell Chakotay. He'll have his
own Borglets someday, and that little accident of ours doesn't need the
disruption, and there would be disruption. It's Chakotay's nature, to protect
his own, even if the protection is the harm. No, I won't let Chakotay in on
this weakness.
You do have a gift at prying things out of people, you know. You've been
sitting there an hour, smiling that funny little smile of yours, and I've
spilled all without so much as a word from you, Counselor. You'd probably like
to pass this on to a higher power, edge around the confidentiality clause. I
guess that's why I came to you...this you, the holographic you...instead of
flesh and blood Counselor Troi. And I suppose that's why the flesh and blood
Troi directed me to this program. She seems to be a kindred spirit. She seems
to understand, in either form, but this one is better. It can be erased.
If only the past were so easy.