All The Good Things We Never Did
A/N: I've debated (am still debating, tbh) whether I should post this or not. I suspect that it will be of very little interest to anybody, since the only thing it has to do with ST:V is as allegory. I've never written modern AU before, but this setting has just lodged itself in my head. If people think I should not bother carrying on, let me know and I'll abandon it forthwith. Thank you to MissyHissy3 for reading this first chapter regardless of all of the above.
Summary: An abandoned patch of land in a broken-down LA suburb becomes the unlikely site for a meeting of very different worlds. Modern AU. Angst/drama.
Chapter One
And though she be but little, she is fierce
~ A Midsummer Night's Dream
"Keep your arm up, Torres," Chakotay said, his voice raised against the noise of the other sparring couples and the perpetual echo of the gym.
"I am keeping my arm up!"
"You're not. Look-" he lifted one of the ropes and slid through the gap onto the ragged surface of the tired boxing ring. "You're still dropping your elbow. It makes your hook weak; gives you no strength for follow-through."
B'El Torres made a hawking sound in her throat as Chakotay tapped the offending arm. "Yeah, whatever."
"No, not 'whatever'," the teacher told her, with practiced patience. "I've told you before. If you're going to come here and if you expect me to give you my time, then you give this your all. That was the deal. Right?"
"I am giving my all!" the girl burst out, exasperated. "I just don't need all this fancy footwork shit to beat a boy down. I can already pummel him into the ground and you know it."
"Yeah, right," said the boy she'd been paired with. He was bouncing from one foot to another in what would look like nervousness in any other arena but here denoted eagerness. "Like to see you try, Torres."
"Oh yeah?" said Torres. "Bring it, white boy. Take off that helmet and those pussy gloves and let's see how tough you are then."
"All right, all right," Chakotay stood between them, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was five to eight – club time was almost over anyway. He raised his voice to the rest of the room. "OK, everybody, that's it for today. Good job. See you tomorrow. No - not you," he said to B'Elanna, before she could bolt for it. He waited until her sparring partner had made it out of the ring. "B'Elanna. It's not about 'beating a boy down' and you know it. It's about learning control, it's about reining in that temper and it's about honing a skill. I know you can do it. So why don't you do us both a favour and give yourself a chance?"
"What's the point?" Torres asked sulkily. "It's not like I'm going to get a job in Denny's because I've got a great left hook, is it?"
Chakotay couldn't help but smile. "You want a job in Denny's?"
Torres rolled her eyes. "No."
"All right then. How about a place in the next state youth tournament instead?"
Her dark eyes shot up to his. "What?"
"I think you're good, Torres. Really good. So good that in time, I reckon I could put you up against any kid from any high school in the state. So here's the deal. From now on, you don't cut school. Not even one day. You keep your grades up. You don't skip a training session. You don't fight unless it's in this ring and I'm here to watch you. You don't smoke. You don't drink. You work your ass off and then you work your ass off some more. I see you do that for six months solid and I'll make sure you get your first bout. Deal?"
She narrowed her eyes at him.
He shrugged. "It's up to you, B'Elanna. You had any better offers lately?"
The girl bit her lip. "You really think I can win a bout? Against some rich kid from county?"
"I know you can. But you've got to learn discipline. So? How about it?"
He held out a hand. Torres stared, then grasped it and shook, hard. He grinned. The kid was strong, for sure. "Good," he said. "Tomorrow. You be in school. Got it?"
She skipped away from him, ducking between the ropes as if they weren't even there. "Got it, coach."
"I'll be checking," he called after her, as she ran for the showers.
"I said I got it, coach!"
Chakotay sighed, although there was a slight smile with it. These kids were hard work, but they were worth it. Some of them, anyway. Others were already too far gone by the time they landed on his worn old doorstep. He climbed out of the ring, noting yet another place where the canvas was fraying away from the edges badly enough for the foam beneath to show through. It needed replacing, but then so did everything else in this bare-bones gym. There was, of course, no money. Less than none, in fact. He'd hadn't yet figured out how to cover the rental for the space next month or the electricity for the month after that, let alone the tournament entrance fee he'd have to raise if he was going to keep his side of his bargain with Torres. This place was becoming another monthly drain on his already put-upon high school salary, but the idea of dropping this club – of letting these kids down – was unthinkable to him. They'd already been let down too many times to count and the next time it happened the only organisations likely to pick up the pieces were the gangs that ruled outside the gym's battered double doors.
There was raucous laughter and singing coming from the direction of the two locker rooms. He went into the hallway between them and yelled over the racket.
"Come on, you lot, get out of here. I've got an evening to get on with!"
Chakotay's bellow was met with much good-natured jeering as the two doors opened and his charges poured out in their street clothes. Apparently he was fooling none of them with the idea that he had a life anywhere that wasn't on a direct line that connected school to gym.
Outside, the evening was wearing on into night but the city heat was still oppressive. It radiated from the concrete, washing up over his calves like dust as he locked the door behind him. The kids began to disperse in knots and whorls of the friendship groups that, despite his best efforts inside the gym, still tended to coalesce according to skin colour rather than interest. The saddest thing for him was to know that it was conscious, this separation, yet generated not by genuine racial bias but by inherited, enforced feudalism and basic self-preservation. They were kids. They didn't want to be provocateurs. They shouldn't have to be just to form a public friendship with a peer of a different colour. Yet Maywood was a front line, the downtrodden field of a battle that most people thought already lost and would prefer to leave to sink beneath the mire of defeat. Chakotay, though, was not prepared to surrender, even if all he had left to defend was this small, abandoned corner and these difficult children who thought they were already adults. It had to be worth the fight. It had to be, didn't it, or what was the future for?
"See you all tomorrow," he called, and their sporadic answers of 'See you, coach!' were lost beneath the familiar litany of passing boomboxes and the several, distant wails of police sirens.
He headed for his car, parked against the curb beside the tangle of old galvanised fence that separated the patch of wasteland that had once been slated for a now-defunct development from the cracked sidewalk. A movement in the shadowy dusk across the weed-ridden concrete caught his eye. He slowed, unsure for a moment what he was seeing. The silence fooled him, as did the flash of white amid the grey dust: two figures on the far side of the expanse, dancing. A second later they seemed to drop to the floor, and-
No.
Not dancing , but–
"Hey! Hey!"
In a second he was running, legs stretching flat out as his sneakers pounded the two sides of a square, kicking up dry dirt. He passed two of his kids, who had thought his yell was for them and turned. Chakotay charged between them, still yelling, getting closer but still too far away.
"Hey! Leave her!" he shouted, because he could see now that the flash of white was a woman trying to fight off an attacker: a large man in black whose lower face was hidden by a red bandana.
Chakotay made it to the old wire gates and sent them clanging as he forced his way through. He was vaguely aware that behind him there were more running footsteps, more shouts – the boxing club, excited by something out of the ordinary, following him. He lunged at the assailant, grabbing him by the shoulders and flinging him around, which succeeded in forcing him to let go of the woman, but not her bag. Chakotay turned, keeping her behind him. A second later he saw a bright flash of silver – a knife, pointed at his chest. Chakotay was too quick for the lunge, side-stepping swiftly before cracking his attacker across the jaw with the back of his knuckle, fast, just hard enough to make the guy's head ring. He stepped back and held up his hands, palms open, before the knife came at him again.
"There's no need for that," Chakotay said, breathing hard as the kids eddied around, keeping their distance. "Look, the cops are coming. You've got her bag. That's what you wanted, right? We won't stop you. Just go."
"No!"
The protest came from the woman. Before Chakotay realised what was happening she'd stepped out from behind him with something in her hand – a can of mace. She sprayed it right in her attacker's face. He roared in pain, dropping the bag and the knife and putting his hands up to his eyes. Chakotay grabbed her by the hips, yanking her back out of his reach, but the guy knew he was beaten. He fled, crashing through the gates and out into the streets beyond.
Chakotay bent double, spent and breathing hard.
"Wow, coach," said one of the kids, into the ensuing silence. "That was fat. Ain't never seen you move like that before."
There were other murmurs of assent as Chakotay straightened up. "Go home," he told them. "Right now, all of you. Go home."
Some of them started to move, but Torres stood her ground, arms crossed. "Red bandana," she said. "You know what that means, right?"
"Yes, B'Elanna, I know what that means."
"Could be trouble."
"That's why I don't want you here. Go. Now."
She eyed the woman beside him with the kind of deep suspicion a cat reserves for a collar, then shrugged. "Gone."
Chakotay turned. The woman barely came up to his shoulder, hair with a hint of auburn pulled up in a French pleat made wispy and undefined by her ordeal. Pale skin dappled with faint freckles, eyes bluer than a summer sky: definitely not from this neighbourhood. She was shaking, but only slightly and he thought it was more a result of spent adrenaline than fear. There was a cut across her cheekbone that was bleeding badly and would bruise even worse. He reached out to catch her chin with his thumb and forefinger but she reared back, eyes flashing.
"Whoa!" he said, holding his hands up. "I just want to help. I've got a first aid kit in the gym. I can clean that up."
"I'm fine."
He glanced her over, taking in the tailored white jacket over black fitted top, the white trousers with streaks of dirt from her tussle and the rip that was rapidly developing a scarlet plume from the scrape beneath. The petite ankle boots that perfectly matched the bag she'd been willing to risk her life for. "Pretty sure you've got a long way to go to get home. You really want to bleed all over your car?"
She put her hands on her hips and tilted her chin into the last glance of sunlight, sharp and defiant, all angle and edge. He opened his mouth to say something else but whatever it was sputtered into nothing. He was a browser at a flea market, flipping through paintings and struck dumb to find an old master concealed between the Banksy rip-offs. A second later consternation at himself swiftly translated into annoyance with her.
"For the record, lady," he said, "around here, if a guy like that wants your bag, you give him your damn bag. I don't care what label it's got on it or how much it cost on Rodeo Drive, it's not worth a life. Not yours and definitely not mine or one of my kids."
"I don't-" she began, raising her hand to brush away something from her cheek. Her fingers came away bloody and she looked at them in surprise. "Oh."
Chakotay shook his head. "Come on," he said. "Let me sort that out for you. Keep hold of the mace if it makes you feel any better."
He started walking. After a moment or two he heard her footsteps behind him.
[TBC]
