AUTHOR: Sally
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: a forgotten birthday present brings back memories and regret
DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to Paramount, the song lyrics belong to Jon V., this story belongs to me. Are we straight on that?
NOTES: Oh, how I love to look for ways to break up the canonical C/7 pairing! This is not another songfic, but I thought Kathy Mattea’s song, “Time Passes By” was appropriate to this piece and it was in my mind while I wrote most of this. The chorus is at the end. It was written by Jon Vezner and Susan Longacre.
He stared at it in amazement, wondering how he had forgotten about it so easily in his desire to pack. "Of course you could forget," he thought bitterly. "You were concerned with one thing."
His mind turned back to the young woman he'd held close to him until their arrival back in the Alpha Quadrant. There, on a hundred to one chance, she had met up with someone who could be described as a former boyfriend - Axum. And for a time he wanted to forget that they had ever liberated the young man from the Borg.
But now, holding this replicated antique in his hands, all his hopes and dreams came flooding back to him. And those dreams did not contain the young blond; instead they were of the woman he had been proud to call his friend, his captain. The woman he had loved almost more than his life.
No matter how he played it out in his mind he could only come to one conclusion. They had suffered because of his actions. Throughout most of their time in the Delta Quadrant he had been the one promising that she would never be alone. Throughout all the times when command had divided them he had been the one to come back to stand by her side. He had told her that he might not agree with her, but that he would always support her. And yet he had been the one to walk away.
Strange, he thought. No, on second thoughts, not strange. Ironic, that was a better word for what he had in mind. Ironic, that it would be him to walk away after all the years given in devotion to her. She had stuck by him, fully aware of the intensity of his feelings toward her, and they had been intense. Not once had she walked away from him on a personal level.
He looked at the watch in his hand again. “Can you say mid-life crisis?” he asked himself bitterly. “This close to home and you blew it.” He had lost all that had mattered to him; his home, his family and now Kathryn.
Why had he formed a relationship with Seven? He shook his head. He couldn’t even recall the reasons why now. Yes, she was stunning. Yes, she was available. Yes, it had been she who had asked him to dinner at a time when he was at an emotional low, drained after a heated debate with Kathryn. Why had he even accepted, he asked himself.
But it was in the past. There was nothing he could do about it. Not unless he found a way in the next decade to access the technology that Admiral Janeway had used, because nothing short of meddling in temporal mechanics was going to change all that happened.
He bounced the timepiece in his hand. All he could do now was look to the future. Just as the hands of the watch moved ever forward, never backward unless forced, all he could do was go on.
He finally saw her a week later, as he was heading home after class one day. Her head was down, her hair in a lose ponytail. It had grown longer in recent months and he realised with regret that he had missed its growth.
“Kathryn?”
She looked up. “Well, hello, Chakotay. How are you?”
“I’m well. Yourself?”
“Fairly good actually.” She sighed. “I’d love to stay and chat but I have a meeting to attend.”
“Here?” He was surprised. She wasn’t actually affiliated to the Academy, not that he’d heard anyway.
“Yes. Something to do with the ever changing curriculum.”
“So, I’ll probably end up reading a report by you, then?”
“Perhaps.” She smiled. “Chakotay, I really must go. It was good to see you though.” She began to walk quickly away.
Watching her back he suddenly became aware of the weight in his pocket. “Kathryn,” he called. “Wait a minute.”
She stopped and turned, her faced crunched up in impatience. “What is it, Chakotay?” she sighed. “I really don’t have the time.”
Recognising her tone, he felt his temper begin to burn. “I was going to wish you a happy birthday. After all, it is May twentieth.” He pulled the object out and forced it into her hand. “I’ve been carrying this for a while, wondering if our paths might cross. There’s a story to go with it, but I guess you probably don’t want to hear it.” He turned away. “Happy birthday, Captain.”
A few hours later he was still furious with the events of the day. Could he have changed that meeting? Should he have recognised that she was on her way somewhere, perhaps running late?
A knock at the door finally put a halt to his second-guessing. Slowly he stood up from the couch on which he had been lying and made his way to greet his visitor.
“Hello.” She stood there awkwardly. “I came to say thank you for the gift. Its beautiful.”
He stared blankly at her for seconds before shaking his head, blinking. “Oh, right. Yes.” He stood back, holding the door. “Please, come in.”
“Thank you.” She followed him back into the living room. “Nice place you’ve got here.”
He gestured for her to sit down. “How did you find out where I live?”
“I know everything,” she said plainly, then added, “Captain Jack.”
He stopped his passage through to the kitchen and shook his head, groaning. “I’m on Voyager for seven years and don’t get nicknamed.”
“That’s what you think,” she interrupted.
He chose to ignore it. “Then I go for one short command and get branded for life.” He began walking again. “What are you drinking?” he called back as he entered the other room. “Coffee?”
“Of course.”
He laughed. “For a moment I thought you were going to say tea.”
She laughed with him. “I have absolutely no idea how the Admiral picked up that one trait.” She followed him and leaned against the doorframe. “Anyway, I like your nickname. Reminds me of a pirate.”
“That’s how I got it,” he said, grimacing in remembrance. “Someone likened the Maquis to a bunch of pirates and then decided to butcher my name to add to the insult.”
“Well, Chakotay isn’t exactly a common name.”
“Well, where I come from Kathryn is a fairly uncommon name as well.”
“I’m an uncommon woman,” she said darkly. “Or at least so I’m told.”
“You are that.” He handed her a mug of hot liquid. “And I’m probably the fool who told you. Come on, we’ll be better off sitting down.”
“So, how’s the teaching going?” she asked him as she curled up in a corner of the couch. “What?”
He shook his head, chuckling as he took the easy chair that sat at the other end of her rest. “Oh, nothing.”
She narrowed her eyes. “It’s not nothing, Chakotay. It’s never nothing. So what is it?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Sure you want to know?” he teased.
“Have I ever run from knowledge or information, Commander?”
He waved a finger at her. “You can’t call me that now. I have the same rank as you, remember.”
She groaned. “Well, there goes my chance for superiority in this conversation. So what were you grinning over just then?”
“I was just thinking,” he began. “That as usual, Kathryn Janeway has come in and acted like she owned the place. And I was thinking how much I missed that.”
“Oh, Chakotay,” she said softly. Then she raised her head. “I did not act like I ever owned the place.”
“Yes, you did,” he replied, knowing that now they were talking about Voyager.
She shrugged. “Well, it was my ship.”
“Our ship.”
She glared at him briefly before breaking into a grin. “Okay, our ship. Our crew. Our problems.”
“They weren’t all problems, Kathryn, not always. We had some fun as well.”
“Well, you might have.”
“What would you call Fair Haven, da Vinci’s studio, Sandrine’s, then?”
“Holoprograms,” she sniffed.
“And you loved them.” He laughed. “Especially Sandrines, when you could beat Tom at pool.”
She took a sip of her drink and swallowed. “About the only thing I could beat Tom in.”
“Yeah, he did make a better pilot than you.”
“Better than anyone. And especially you. You had one bad track record there, mister. Tom had quite the betting pool going on when you’d crash the next shuttle.”
“Wasn’t the only bet in that pool that had my name on it,” he muttered without thinking. Upon realising what he’d said he threw his head back and groaned. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have brought that one up.”
Slowly she sat up and placed her mug on the low table in front of her. She then turned to face him in his seat at right angles to her. “Strange,” she began slowly, “That we should meet again on my birthday. I didn’t think I’d run into you like that.”
“It still is your birthday, Kathryn. You should be out celebrating.”
“You know me, Chakotay. I’ve never been one to celebrate. No, this is exactly where I should be.”
“Kathryn?” She had confused him.
She smiled at him. “When was your birthday? A couple of months ago wasn’t it.”
He nodded. It had not been a good day. He’d just begun his mission when Seven had contacted him that day, telling him of Axum’s return. “I didn’t care to celebrate.”
She took his hand. “I heard about Seven breaking up with you. I’m sorry.” She noted his surprised his expression. “Remember, I know everything.” Then she laughed. “Look, you mentioned it to B’Elanna who told Tom, who mentioned it to his father and he told me. I swear, gossip is a Paris thing, not that you’d know it to look at them all.”
“Gossip is what made Tom’s pools so successful," he said morosely. “Wonder what he had on that one?”
“I don’t know. But that was one bet I wouldn’t have made.”
“Really?”
“Really.” She sighed. “I did have grand plans to clear up on the one pool though. It was going to be your birthday present.”
He closed his eyes and swallowed. “Which pool was that?” he eventually managed to ask.
“The other one with your name in it.” She looked at him. “I had it all worked out. I was going to clear Tom out, make you happy, and enjoy myself for once.”
“Kathryn, I…” He was lost for words.
She grasped his hand tighter. “Please, Chakotay. There’s no need to say a word. It was just an idea. And I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m sorry. The time’s gone.” She managed to smile a little. “The watch was indeed a suitable gift. Thank you.” She made a movement to stand up. “I really did just come to say thank you. Perhaps I should leave now.”
“No, Kathryn.” He jumped out of his chair to grasp by the shoulder. “Don’t. Don’t go.” The words began to come out in a rush. “The time’s not gone. I, its funny, I was thinking that perhaps it had. I meant to give that watch to you a few years back but for some reason I didn’t. I found it just last week and it made me think. I blew it, Kathryn. I blew it big time when I began seeing Seven. I don’t even know why I began seeing her.” He gently pulled her back to the couch and sat down beside her on it. He then took a deep breath. “Kathryn, if we both think the time’s gone, and we’re both regretting that, then, then perhaps it hasn’t. Time didn’t pass us by, Kathryn. It’s here, it’s now.” He turned to face her, gripping her upper arms tightly. “Kathryn, I love you. I’m not going to keep hiding it anymore. I’ve always loved you.”
“Chakotay… do you really we’ve a chance?” she asked quietly.
“If you can find it your heart to forgive me, then I think so, yes.”
She leaned forward into his arms. “Then let’s make this our time, Chakotay. Let’s make it always our time.”
He looked down at her. “You mean it?”
She leaned back slightly and punched him lightly on the chest. “Yes, I mean it. I think I can forgive you, if you forgive me for holding out all these years. We both blew it Chakotay. It wasn’t just your relationship with Seven you know. I could have had this resolved years ago, but I couldn’t.”
“Typical Starfleeter,” he grinned. “I’m glad I’m back to teaching. You lot just hide behind that uniform and hope no one will challenge you to have personal feelings.”
“We do not,” she retorted. Then her nose wrinkled. “I suppose we do. Well, okay, mister you’ve challenged me. What do you want me to do?”
He set his jaw. “Tell me you love me.”
“I love you,” she promptly repeated. “I do, you know.”
He lifted her face up to him and looked into her eyes. “Happy birthday, Kathryn,” he murmured and then leaned in to kiss her.
FINIS
Time Passes By
People pass on
At the drop of a tear they’re gone.
Let’s do what we dare
Do what we like
And love while we’re here
Before time passes by