DISCLAIMER: Star Trek: Voyager and all its characters belong to Paramount Pictures; no infringement of copyright is intended. The story however belongs to me.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is actually a sequel to my "Stolen Moments", but it also works as a standalone story.
Written November 2012.
Nothing Like the Real Thing
by Hester (hester4418)
When B'Elanna Torres entered Chakotay's office, he noticed at once that she looked decidedly uncomfortable. True to form, however, she plunged right in.
"I found it."
"Found what?"
She shot him an exasperated look. "The doctor's mobile emitter."
Chakotay smiled. "That's great. He must be very happy now."
"He doesn't know yet."
"Why not?"
"I only said I found it. That does not mean that I could retrieve it yet." If possible she looked even more uncomfortable than before.
Chakotay sat back in his chair and fixed the chief engineer with a piercing look. "Out with it, B'Elanna. Where is that emitter?"
Torres fidgeted, then sighed while she settled in a chair across from Chakotay. "Remember how we tried scanning for the emitter's quantum signature?" At his silent nod she went on. "Well, since the first sweep was unsuccessful, I decided to try again with a higher resolution and established a deck by deck search grid. On the third pass it finally showed something."
"Why not before?"
She shrugged. "My best guess is that the emitter was turned on in the meantime, which somehow boosted the signal – or something like that."
Chakotay nodded thoughtfully. After years of examination they did have a pretty good grasp of the futuristic technology, but there were still a few surprises every now and then. He waited for B'Elanna to continue and finally prompted, "And?"
With another sigh, Torres reluctantly slid a padd across Chakotay's desk. "This is where I found it."
The first officer looked at the deck schematic displayed on the small screen. 'Deck 3' was indicated at the top. It took Chakotay a moment to identify the specific section, then his eyes grew wide and his head snapped up. "How many people know about this?"
"Only you and me," Torres was quick to assure him. "I called off the search immediately."
"Good." Chakotay ran a hand through his hair, wondering how he was going to act on this information. "Thanks, B'Elanna, I'll handle the... retrieval. You can tell the doctor that he'll get his emitter back by 0800 hours tomorrow morning."
"Will do." Her relief was obvious. "Good luck, I guess."
Chakotay had to smile at the challenge in her tone. "Yes, I imagine I'll definitely need that."
Torres turned to leave but stopped at the door. "By the way, you may want to wait a while. Last I checked, it was still switched on..."
He forcibly clamped down on the image her words involuntarily conjured up. "I'll keep it in mind."
-==/\==-
After debating with himself for all of three minutes, Chakotay decided to meet the confrontation head-on. He knew he would be catching her off-guard, violating her privacy, but stealing the doctor's mobile emitter was a crime that deserved no mercy.
He waited until he arrived at her door, then hit his communicator with a little more force than necessary. "Chakotay to Janeway."
There was a noticeable pause. He was about to repeat the hail when she finally replied, "Yes?"
Even from that short syllable Chakotay could tell that she was out of breath and more than a little annoyed. He cut right to the chase. "If you don't open your door within the next ten seconds, I'll be forced to come in uninvited."
"Commander!"
"I mean it, Captain." He sensed her hesitation, her attempt at gauging whether he was there for the reason she suspected.
Then he heard a hard slap, followed by the rustle of fabric. A muttered, "Oh, this had better be good," drifted through the still open commlink. At last the door opened and he quickly stepped inside her quarters.
The lighting was low, cozy and intimate. As soon as the door closed behind him, Chakotay turned to Janeway – and promptly forgot to breathe. She was dressed in a pale peach robe which she had obviously pulled on in a hurry, because she was busy trying to untangle the belt and force it into a knot. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair in disarray, and her breathing still uneven. It didn't take much to imagine what he had walked in on.
Doing his best to act as if he wasn't at all affected by the sight, Chakotay frowned at her. "Give it back, Kathryn."
She gave up on the belt and defiantly crossed her arms in front of her, holding the robe closed with one hand. "What are you talking about?"
Instead of an answer, he held out the padd Torres had given him. Kathryn only needed one quick glance at the display to know she was sunk: A bright red 'x' clearly marked the spot of the doctor's 'lost' mobile holographic emitter, and that spot happened to be situated right in the middle of her bedroom.
"Why did you have to steal it? You could have gone to the holodeck." Chakotay's low voice told her that he knew exactly what she had been up to.
Kathryn gave a short laugh. It was too late to save her dignity, so she might as well be honest. "I tried that. Do you know what it feels like to walk home afterwards?"
Chakotay nodded, surprising himself with his candidness. "As if everyone you meet in the corridor knows exactly what you've been doing, and who you've been doing it with."
"Right..."
Her breathing was back to normal now and she studied him closely. Too closely. Chakotay desperately tried to avoid thinking of his own holoprograms, and of one holo-character in particular. The one that would probably earn him a court-martial if she ever found out about it.
He needed to get the conversation back on track, and to steer her attention away from him. "Please give it to me."
"I can't. Not yet." At his look of disbelief, she forced herself to elaborate. "I'll have to purge the program first."
"Of course." He debated whether to say more, then risked the dive head-first. "I trust you and Michael had a good time."
It was a cheap trick, he knew, but she fell for it anyway, opening her mouth before her brain had a chance to censor what she was going to say.
"Michael? Oh no, I don't think he'd be very comfortable in these surroundings." Then she realized her slip-up and abruptly turned away.
Chakotay stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm. "Mark?" he asked quietly.
Kathryn hesitated, visibly struggling with herself. At length she shook her head, then slowly looked up again. With some curiosity he observed how she blushed a lovely shade of crimson, but it wasn't until her smoldering eyes met his that he finally understood. The padd clattered to the deck.
"Oh."
She took a small step forward and licked her lips. "Since you purposely ruined my evening... how were you planning on making it up to me?" Her voice was decidedly on the sultry side now, and with a shake of her head she tossed her hair back. The movement caused her robe to slip slightly, exposing one naked shoulder.
Chakotay swallowed hard. "If I didn't know better, I would say you were trying to seduce me."
"What makes you think you know better?"
Time stood still as their gazes locked. The memory of his last visit to the holodeck came crashing back full force; how a holographic Kathryn Janeway, clad in nothing but a flimsy nightgown, had slowly walked toward him, seducing him by that sensual movement alone. How he had pushed the gown's straps off her shoulders, how she in turn had unzipped his uniform and helped him discard the different pieces...
The memory was shattered by the touch of her hands on his bare skin. He had been so lost in his daydream that he had failed to notice the real Kathryn's approach, and how she had worked her way under his uniform top. He sucked in a breath and barely managed a croak. "Kathryn..."
"What?" she practically purred in his ear.
Chakotay cast his eyes downward. Big mistake. Her still untied robe had fallen open, leaving nothing to the imagination. His body's treacherous response was almost painful in its intensity, and from the way she pressed herself up against him he knew that she was acutely aware of it as well. Dropping all pretense of restraint, he slid his hands inside her robe and reveled in the feel of her soft curves beneath his fingertips.
Then she started kissing him, and he realized that his holographic fantasies had in no way prepared him for what was about to follow.
-==/\==-
A trail of red, gray and black littered the short way from the outer door to the bedroom, with a touch of peach thrown in for good measure.
A tangle of sheets spilled from the bed onto the floor, flowing over wayward pillows which had not withstood the passionate storm that had raged in the inner sanctum of Voyager's captain's quarters. The nightstand was bare, having been swept clean by a stray limb trying in vain to gain purchase on something solid.
Eventually the storm had passed, leaving an exhausted but thoroughly sated command team in its wake. Kathryn was languidly draped over Chakotay's body, head on his chest, legs still entwined with his, one hand drawing lazy circles over every centimeter of exposed skin that she could reach. His eyelids were drooping but snapped back up when she playfully pinched a particularly sensitive spot.
He sluggishly tried to catch her wandering hand. Instead, his groping fingers unexpectedly found a flat, roughly triangular object, and eagerly seized their prize.
"There you are." Chakotay's grin nearly split his face as he inspected the culprit responsible for the night's happenings.
Kathryn's head shot up and she weakly tried to wrench the mobile emitter from his grasp. Chakotay could tell that she feared he would turn it on, and although he had no plans to do so he enjoyed making her squirm.
"Give it back," she pleaded, but he only shook his head and kept her firmly grounded with a strong arm around her waist.
"I'll need to examine it for possible damage."
"Not before I purge the program!" She fruitlessly pounded his chest, then abruptly reached lower.
Chakotay yelped and dropped the emitter. Kathryn eagerly caught it up. Before he could react, she had already reset the device and tossed it back onto her nightstand with a sigh of relief.
"That was a low blow," he complained, pushing her and rolling them both over.
Despite being trapped now, she grinned up at him victoriously. "Sometimes the end does justify the means."
His mouth closed in on hers. "I'm going to demand retribution."
"You're most welcome to do so." Kathryn sighed contentedly as words once again became superfluous.
But after a few moments the kiss broke and Chakotay pulled away, causing her eyes to open in alarm. "What?"
He looked down at her, and she could see his inner struggle. The question tore at his mind, yet he could not bring himself to ask it. Ultimately however, curiosity won out.
"Was it worth it? Stealing the emitter, risking detection, all for a bit of..." He searched for the right word, "...'relaxation'?"
Kathryn chuckled at his choice of expression. "Oh, it was definitely worth it. It was... quite addictive." Catching the faintly worried look on his face, she wound her arms around his neck. "But nothing like the real thing!" she added emphatically before pulling him down for another passionate kiss.
-==/ The End \==-