Author's notes:

- This is my first J/C story.

- Beware of the FLUFF!

- I wrote it as a companion piece to an AU post I tried to pull off on Tumblr. You can see it on my blog under the jcfic tag.

- Yeah, sorry, I can't come up with good titles. I almost named this after a song, "Autumn Leaves", just to keep up with my P/C tradition of naming stories after songs. But then "Autumn Leaves" is just so sad.

- Reviews are love, as usual. :D

Edit: The reviews and PMs are lovely! Thank you so much for the feedback! Several people were wondering why KJ's family wasn't there. I came up with the idea for this fic because I was talking to a friend about "Sacred Ground". I told her I thought they'd have two different ceremonies, one on Trebus and the other on Earth, with all their family (including his sister) and friends. I should have specified that in the story. :)

The Bond

They took each other's hands and walked the pebbled pathway that led to the center of the glade. The stones on the ground, arranged in beautiful circular shapes, were glistening with colorful droplets of the rain that had fallen earlier. It was a warm Autumn day, and the air was swarming with Monarch butterflies, recently immigrated from the colder regions of the planet.

Chakotay could see several faces from his past, as the people there, his people, gathered in a crescent, facing them. Still, there wasn't an inch of anxiety in him, nor fear. Instead, his heart was swelling with gratitude and peace.

She'd always given him peace, but this was a sense of belonging he'd never experienced before, much less on the planet from which he'd spent so many years trying to escape.

As his sister spoke the first words, giving thanks and asking for blessings, he looked at Kathryn. The sun was beginning to set over the lake, and her skin and hair reflected its golden color. She looked so young with her hair down like that, and her simple blue wedding gown brought out her eyes. They were like a source of light on their own, bright and shiny with emotion. He thought she'd never seemed more beautiful to him than right then, with her face delicately painted like that. And he couldn't help but to beam with pride. He was proud that she had chosen him, and he was proud that she embraced his culture so freely.

They had spent the entire day together, much to his sister's dismay. Granted, Sekaya was younger than him, but she was certainly much more of a traditionalist. Regardless, it just hadn't made sense to either him or Kathryn that they should be separated on that day, of all others.

And so he took her to the other side of the lake, away from the noise of the generators and from the other more obvious signs of human activity.

"Remember when we planned on going sailing on New Earth?" he asked, sure that she was thinking back to the same period.

"We did go sailing... on Lake George, a few times," she smiled.

"No, that was different," he said, staying on all fours so that he could crawl towards her without capsizing the boat. "As much as I wanted to, I couldn't really do this back on the ship." And he kissed her, straddling her bare legs while she held his face with both her hands.

"There were many times, more than I care to remember, when I felt I would have been powerless to stop you, if you had," she said, whispering, before renewing the kiss.

When they got to their destination, they went into the water. She laughed whenever a small fish nibbled her skin. Kathryn was radiant, and completely at ease. She didn't look like an admiral then, throwing her arms around his neck in the water, hugging his waist with her legs and holding her breath, as he submerged the two of them for a few seconds. He supposed he didn't look like a captain either, smiling all the time, holding her close and shaking his pleasantly cool head to keep the water from falling into his eyes.

After a while, they sat on the dry grass and had iced coffee and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. She was delighted that he remembered that those were her favorite camping treats as a child.

As he lay on the grass next to her, holding her hand and feeling the sun on his skin, he realized he couldn't pinpoint the last time he'd felt so untroubled. They spent those few hours they still had for themselves just enjoying each other's company. They talked and laughed and told stories; he showed her a small purple indigenous fruit, whose name she couldn't pronounce correctly, no matter how many times he tried to teach her; they had some, and then licked the juice off of each other's fingers and lips; they picked dried leaves out of one another's hair after making love and, finally, it was time to head back to the village.

"You're going to be my wife," he said, on the way back.

"Not unless we hurry, I won't. Sekaya is more anxious than the two of us together. She designed the ritual herself. If we are late, she might just refuse to preside over our wedding."

Her words were meant to tease him, but she stroked the side of his face at the same time, appeasingly He pressed his cheek further into her palm and kissed it.

Two hours later, they were holding hands before his family and friends, who had all welcomed her as one of their own. They were gathered under the protective shadow of an old tree, decorated with jars that had lit candles in them. The tree was further embellished by a Bougainvillea plant that had grown around it, and so the floor was covered in the magenta leaves that protected the flowers of that genus.

"For 7 years, you were cut off from everything that had been familiar to you, and from everyone you'd loved before," Sekaya was saying. "Still, you managed to grow and to accomplish. You reached out and you forged a bond between you, which you are here today to perpetuate before your ancestors."

With a nod from Sekaya, a young woman, hers and Chakotay's cousin, approached the three of them. She had a bowl full of blood-red Sandalwood seeds on her hands.

"This bond you share has allowed you to come back to the ones you'd left behind as more complete human beings. Your qualities, as well as your flaws, are mingled with traits of each other's personalities. Kathryn's drive is now seasoned with compassion, and Chakotay's zeal has been tempered with judgment."

Chakotay smiled. When had his little sister become so wise? Kathryn's single-mindedness, as well as his tendency to blind loyalty could both be considered their best quality and their worst flaw.

"These seeds represent the bond between you," Sekaya continued. "You must plant them, and let them grow and provide."

A few paces away from the old tree, Kathryn put both knees on the ground and sat back. Chakotay joined her, standing on one knee. She took his hand in hers and sank his fingers in the damp soil, creating four evenly spaced small holes. With his other hand, he took a few seeds from the bowl and let them fall on the ground, tucking them in afterwards. She then brushed the dirt off his hand and they looked at each other.

Chakotay was trying to memorize everything about that moment. With each passing minute, the clouds turned into deeper shades of pink. Everything was silent, except for the distant notes of wind chimes and the sounds of the birds and the insects. He could smell the damp earth and the vanilla scented candles that adorned the tree. And when he tucked her hair behind her ear and leaned in, he could also smell apricots. Chakotay then whispered something that only Kathryn could hear, while he touched her fingers to his chest a few times, where his heart was. In response, she smiled, her eyes brimming with tears, and kissed him.

And just like that, with a sense of sheer delight at how right and natural it felt, they were finally married.

the end