Just So You Know
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Star Trek: Voyager
Copyright: Paramount
At first glance, the Chez Sandrine simulation in Holodeck One looked perfectly ordinary. There were the wood-paneled walls, the electric lamps, the bar with its high stools and shelf full of shining bottles behind. There was the pool table, the balls still scattered as if from the last game.
A close onlooker, however, would notice the way the walls were beginning to bulge and flicker, like plastic getting warped in a hot oven – the distortion ring inexorably closing in. They would also notice that the patrons were eerily silent and spoke, when they had to, in whispers.
=/\=
Chakotay was sitting alone at a table, staring at a single lit candle. B'Elanna Torres came to stand in front of him, hesitantly, as he had never seen B'Elanna move.
"Hi," she whispered.
"Hi."
"What are you doing?"
Chakotay looked up. "I'm trying to contact my spirit guide."
Of course. They might all die within minutes. B'Elanna had one wistful moment of wishing she still believed in the Kahless of her mother's stories, the protective hero-god who would welcome her to Stovokor. But how honorable of a death was this, anyhow – waiting to be crushed?
"Yeah, well," she said, with a shivery little smile. "I could use a little … spiritual guidance myself right now."
She sat down and laced her trembling fingers through his.
It was amazing what one touch could do. His hand was sweaty too, reflecting his fear, but it was still as warm and strong and sure as Chakotay himself.
She looked into his face, memorizing every line of his tattoo, every curve of his lips, nose and cheekbones, as she had done so often before. He was her best friend, her anchor in the storm; the first man who had looked at her, an ex-Starfleet bundle of complexes, and seen her as someone worthwhile. He was the song she sang to herself at night, the picture she kept in the darkest corner of her heart.
But B'Elanna Torres was damned if she was going to die without letting him know.
With her other hand, she placed a finger under his chin, turned his face around, and kissed him on the lips.
"B'Elanna … ?"
"Shh. Always wanted to do that," she whispered, meeting his startled black eyes with her tear-wet hazel ones. "Just so you know. In case we don't make it."
=/\=
Kes sat next to the Doctor, digging her fingers into the golden locket at her throat – a gift for her second birthday that very day – with Tom Paris and Harry Kim next to her.
"Kes?"
"Yes, Tom?"
He glanced at Harry and the Doctor to either side of them, but took a deep breath and plunged in anyway. "There's an old Earth tradition," he said rapidly. "It's called confession. Before you die, you confess your sins to a priest so they can absolve you. Now, I know there's no priest handy at the moment," the Doctor rolled his eyes at the joke, "But I got something to confess.
"I'm in love with you, Kes," he said, his eyes shining into hers like the skies of his homeworld. "That's why I gave you that locket. Two weeks of replicator rations? Hell, I'd have blown the whole month if you asked it. Oh, go ahead and stare," to harry and the Doctor. "I know it's wrong. I can't help it. But whatever happens, don't tell Neelix, okay? If the distortion ring doesn't get me today, he will."
Kes was worried sick about Neelix, roaming the ship all by himself. Part of her wanted to shake Tom for springing this on her so suddenly – in front of her superior, too!
The rest of her couldn't help but notice that Tom, in spite of his characteristic flippancy, was tremendously in earnest. Love? It was radiating out of him like sunlight; to her empathic senses, it illuminated the whole bar.
She glanced down at her locket, remembering Captain Janeway's explanation. You can put pictures in, you see? To keep your loved ones close to your heart.
If only Neelix were here and she could think this through in peace! If only the distortion ring weren't moving so fast, because the silent appeal in Tom's eyes was more than she could stand, and she needed just one minute to think of something to say –
And all of a sudden her thoughts ran backwards, upside down and inside out, and they were wax melting down a hot candle, cheese strings falling down a slice of pizza, twisted and warped and whirled around by a fist that squeezed them like so many rubber toys –
And then it was over, and the holodeck was just as it had always been.
Tuvok, who had placed his hand on the unconscious Captain's pillow (not quite on her hair), wore a look on his face that was the Vulcan equivalent of I told you so.
"I'm all right," said the Captain, pulling herself to a sitting position as the crew flocked around her like chicks around their mother hen. "What happened?"
=/\=
Later that day, at 2000 hours, a red-faced B'Elanna rang the chime to Chakotay's quarters.
"Come in," he said, looking up from a leather-bound book as she entered. "Please, have a seat."
B'Elanna could see right through him; his attempt at nonchalance was just an act, if a very good one. He was just as uncertain, if not more so, than she was.
She smoothed her glossy cap of brown hair, rubbed her ridged forehead and, as was her habit, cut to the chase.
"We need to talk about what happened today," she said, biting off every syllable. "I thought we were dying. I – I did something I never would've done under normal circumstances – you're my best friend, Chakotay, and a superior officer. I never meant to cause any trouble … "
"B'Elanna."
Nobody could say her name like he did – gently, but firmly, with the faintest hint of an exotic intonation which might be a trace of his own native language. He sat on the sofa next to her and took her hand, just as before, catching her eyes.
His own black eyes, always steady and serene even in the middle of a firefight, were like the hottest embers in the heart of a fire.
"There's only one thing I need to know," he said, in a voice like steel and velvet. "Do you really care for me … as a lover?"
B'Elanna's blood was pounding in her ears, drumming out an ancient Klingon song of courtship. His warm, musky scent was driving her wild.
All she could do was nod, her hair falling awkwardly into her face.
He brushed it back with infinitely tender hands.
"Then stay with me," he half-purred. "Here, tonight."
The last words either of them spoke were to dim the lighting.
=/\=
Kes was curiously relieved when, working in the mess hall one morning, she saw Chakotay and B'Elanna walking arm in arm. There had been some rumors lately about B'Elanna and Tom – but then again, Tom flirted with every pretty woman he saw.
That brought her heart into her toes again, until she saw Chakotay and B'Elanna head for Tom and Harry's table. Tom wished them luck in a hearty, and completely sincere voice – Kes suspected that Tuvok would not approve of putting her empathic powers to such a use, but really, what else were they good for?
A blue funk in the kitchen behind her made her reach for her mental shields in instinctive, guilty defense. Neelix had been walking in a fog for the last three weeks, ever since she'd asked him to go their separate ways. She had been doing a lot of thinking lately, occasioned by her second birthday; by Ocampa standards, she had been a legal adult for a whole year now. And she had come to the conclusion that, out of all the different flavors of love on Voyager, the feelings she had for Neelix were not the ones of a mate.
She liked him, certainly. She enjoyed his jokes, his goofy dancing, his sometimes delicious and always inventive culinary experiments. She was deeply grateful for his rescuing her from the Kazon. But that was all.
The sight of him did not make her heart beat faster. Kissing him and touching him was all right, but nothing like the glorious sensations that humans seemed to feel. His pet names and compliments were cloying at times – she had to bite her lip so as not to remind him that her name was Kes, not Sweetie. As for his constant jealousy, it got on her last nerve. Couldn't she accept a birthday present from a male colleague without Neelix hissing and spitting like an antiquated teakettle?
All in all, she had decided they were much better off as friends. That way, he might stop behaving as if he owned her.
Kes, meanwhile, would try to approach the one man on Voyager who did make her heart beat faster.
"Hi, Tom," she said, slightly out of breath as she handed out their drinks.
"Hello, Kes."
His smile was the same friendly smile he had given her before, but there was an extra layer of meaning to it now – a new look in his clear blue eyes. Or had it been there all along?
"You free tonight?" he asked, taking a sip of his synthale and looking up at her hopefully.
"Ye-es … "
"Would you meet me at Holodeck Two?" he asked.
"Not Sandrine's, please," said Kes with an automatic shdder, making them both laugh. The senior crew had been noticeably avoiding the pub since the incident; Kes didn't think she could bear the reminder of that nightmarish state of flux, other memories aside.
"No, no. This is a new one, a surprise. I designed it for you, actually. If you'd like to come … ?"
"Oh, yes!" Kes beamed. "Yes, I'd love to."
Something golden bubbled up within her, like champagne; the same thing sparkling in the air between herself and Tom, B'Elanna and Chakotay.
Kes, whose parents had died when she was very small, had always wanted a big, loving family. On Voyager, that was exactly what she had.