A/N: In case anyone doesn't know, Chakotay's tattoo has no basis in any actual Native American tribe, nor do those spiraly-symbols on his rock and on his office wall. For a few years now, I've had a vague idea of what they might mean, but this is the first time I'm actually going to try to make sense out of it. Basically, this is just speculation.
For the record, I'm white as Hank Hill, and am not a Native American expert. Just a Trekkie trying really, really hard to make sense of some very deep plot holes. "Grasping," I believe is the term.
I don't own "Star Trek: Voyager."
The sky above the village was like a scattered parody of the Omega molecule Seven had once longed so desperately to witness. The stars were never the same, when viewed through the window of a moving ship, or observed from a densely populated city. The home of Chakotay's tribe was rural, man-made lights minimal after dark. Downtown, the sky no doubt would have been more obscured. But where they lay out in the wet grassy field, a healthy walk from his sister's house, there was almost no artificial interference. Seven recalled how she'd viewed the Omega molecules, in such sharp clarity and intense brightness, forming the geometric shape the Borg considered to be the symbol of perfection. Seven, having changed a lifetime in four years, had now had her fill of perfection. Gazing at the sky, she fancied the sight a symbol of her own liberation from the Borg, her human imperfection exploding freely from the confines of the Omega.
"Enjoying our three-mission anniversary so far?"
The starlight was powerful enough for her to make out his dimples, his eyes, even the lines of the tattoo on his forehead. He was jokingly referring to the occasion that had brought them here. After Voyager's return to Earth, she and Chakotay had served two other missions together. The first had been with Admiral Janeway, back on Voyager, in a mission to rescue some Romulan allies from the Remans. The second time, they'd both been summoned by Captain Picard, to help defeat a certain insane Bajoran, now been trying to use Borg technology to rejuvenate the Maquis. After a long and tiresome adventure, Chakotay and Seven had decided on a little vacation.
Quietly, Seven corrected, "My research indicated that an 'anniversary' celebrates an amount of time that a relationship has endured. The amount of missions served together is not- "
Laughing, he rolled over in the grass and gently put his hand on her face. "Kiss me."
Their kisses were long and soft, as they usually were. The relationship was moving slowly, but Seven felt they were at the proverbial "second base." Chakotay's fingers went through her hair, currently worn down, and she returned the favor. Her hand moved from his hair to his cheek, then crept up to the tattoo. She began to trace its lines with her forefinger, realizing she'd been anticipating the chance to do so for a very long time. He didn't seem to mind. In fact, he seemed to be falling asleep.
"It's beautiful," she said, uncertain whether he was still awake to hear.
After a moment, Chakotay replied, "Thank you."
His eyes were closed, but he appeared still conscious.
"What does it mean."
He mumbled, "I'm too tired to explain it."
"Then summarize."
His eyes still closed, he took a moment, perhaps to find the right wording. "The spiral's a symbol for change." As he spoke, barely above a whisper, he seemed to be reciting a legend as it had been told to him, adding footnotes of his own. "We came from someplace else- Earth. Our tribes, our lines, were different, but we traveled the same path. We met the same change." His tone shifted slightly. "Colonization. And...everything that followed."
Seven's fingers traced the straight lines that jetted out from his hairline, ending at the spiral behind his eye. "These lines, they stand for every First Nations tribe?"
"No. Just the ones my tribe was based on. My father's tribe, I should say. My mother was an Indian of the traditional sense. Mayan, Ojibwe, Hopi, all her tribes have been going strong, since the beginning. My father's is more of a...recreation, of cultures that were lost. Beaten out of us, by the Conquistadors."
Seven was tracing the spiral. "And after the change?"
"We left." Her finger began to move up the highest line, but he corrected her: "Lower. First three." Her finger moved to the there lowest lines, curving over his eye. "That's us. We left, into the skies. And the spirits went with us. The spirits," he shifted in the grass, to point to the uppermost section of the design, where the shape forked off into two sections. "always come in twos. One male," he pointed to the lower branch, "one female," the upper.
Seven felt the barest hint of a smile touch her lips. "The female is higher?"
"A healthy dose of matriarchy never hurt a society," he joked, rolling back over.
He put his arm around her, and she nuzzled against him.
"The symbols on your rock," she realized, "and on the ornament in your office on Voyager, they represented change?"
"Change," his eyes were resting shut again, "and differences, in general. The spiral, in that case, is our galaxy. The lines cutting through it are the journeys we've traveled, the trails we've blazed."
She kissed him once again, this time on the tattoo. He breathed a small laugh, half asleep already.
Seven lay awake for a long time, watching the still stars, while Chakotay began to snore against her. She could wake him, she thought, and they could go back to the house and get to bed (they weren't sharing a bedroom yet). But, she recalled, her mobile regenerator was right here, in her pocket. It was a coin-sized chip she need only apply to the back of her skull, and it would stick in place, like a cortical monitor. Deciding to let Chakotay snore, Seven applied the regenerator, and activated it. She instantly joined him in sleep, and dreamed of chasing Omega molecules as they cut never-ending trails of light through infinity.
A/N: The idea of the spirals on Chakotay's rock being the galaxy is something I've had in my mind for years, with him being a "space Indian" (for lack of a better term). I figured the lines in his tattoo had something to do with lineage. I also took inspiration from Robert Beltran's joke, that the tattoo is a map back to Earth. But most of these details, I made up on the spot. I Googled common meanings for the spiral, and found it often signifies change; then filled in the rest.
Can't say which of my "Voyager" stories will be updated next, or when. I might be teetering back into "Voyager," but it's also highly likely I'll teeter back into William Gibson. The first and last sentences of this story felt very Gibson-esque to me, as I wrote them. If you love sci-fi of the "Matrix," "Blade Runner," and "Ghost in the Shell" variety, and you don't know who William Gibson is...check him out. Like, right now.