Chapter Two
Maria Ayala stood at the sink, running water over the salad and looking out into the sunlit backyard. In truth, she'd already rinsed the leaves once, but standing where she was gave her a chance to take a proper look at their unexpected extra guest.
Maria had met Kathryn Janeway just once before and then very briefly. It had been at the painfully stiff event that Starfleet described as Voyager's homecoming ball. That had been a whirlwind of new faces punctuated by seemingly endless formal speeches from people who, as far as Maria had been able to see, had absolutely nothing to do with getting the ship home. Voyager's return had become a boondoggle for power-hungry Starfleet personnel whose only interest in the ship and her crew was what fame and promotional good fortune the association with them could bring. Their speeches had rambled and aggrandised but not enlightened. Each had covered similar ground until they seemed to blend into one.
Janeway's own speech, by contrast, had been brief: she must have been on the podium for less than five minutes. Yet in her short words she had managed to convey perfectly the only sentiment that seemed to matter to her. "We've been away for a long time," she'd said. "But we're home now. We're with our families. We are back where we belong, at last. Every one of you helped to return us here. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your sacrifice and your patience. I will never forget any of you – not your faces, not your names, not your unerring dedication. Now enjoy being with your loved ones."
After that, Janeway had disappeared from view, swarmed by well-wishers, press and the Starfleet brass. There hadn't been much time to observe her, this woman who had crossed an unknown galaxy to bring her crew home. In the weeks and months that followed, Maria had often asked Chakotay about her, intrigued by the strength and nature implied both by the act that had stranded them in the Delta Quadrant, and the long years spent defending her ship and crew against all comers.
Chakotay never said much in his answers. Somehow though, Maria suspected this was not because he felt there was nothing to say, but rather that the subject of Kathryn Janeway was too vast for him to encapsulate in conversation.
"I will never know another person like her," he'd said, once. "There is no one like her."
"Did they have a relationship?" Maria had asked Mike later that same night, once they'd seen the kids to bed. "Chakotay and Kathryn Janeway, I mean?"
Mike had given her a strange look. "What makes you ask that?"
"He doesn't say much, but when I ask about her I see a look in his eye that makes me think… I don't know, that he spends a lot of time thinking about her. So much that he can't talk about it. Does that make sense?"
Mike had leaned over and kissed her. "No. But then, you never did, beloved wife of mine. Seven years hasn't changed that."
She'd hit him, a punch on the arm accompanied by a half-annoyed laugh. "I'm serious! Did they?"
"No. They were in command together, Maria. They had other things to worry about."
She hadn't been able to get anymore out of Mike. Maybe there had been nothing to get, though those two had always been as thick as thieves and loyal with it. Maria had continued to ask Chakotay about Janeway, but his mild awkwardness and evasion had continued and as the months had gone by, Maria had realised that even if there had been something between them, resolved or otherwise, to keep digging at it if it had been deliberately buried wasn't fair to him. So she'd let it go and gradually forgotten her idle theories, though she'd not completely abandoned her personal fascination. Maria couldn't imagine commanding a Starship, spending every day in uniform, giving and obeying orders in the strict formation of life Starfleet commanded. She'd read somewhere recently that Janeway was about to take off on another deep-space expedition. Perhaps the woman had just been born under a wandering star and had iron in her backbone. Anyway, since Chakotay had chosen to take up a teaching position that would keep his feet firmly on Earth, Maria had stopped any contemplation of what may or may not have once been between them. It seemed possible that they may never meet again.
But now, out of the blue, here she was. Kathryn Janeway herself, in their backyard. She was smaller than Maria remembered, petite in flat pumps. More surprising was the apprehension Maria sensed from her guest when she'd arrived with Chakotay. Nervous was not a word she would ever think of in association with the famed Starship captain that had defeated the Borg, but here at this family barbecue Janeway seemed wrong-footed, unsure of herself. This had eased a little in the hour or two since she had arrived, mainly, Maria believed, because of Chakotay's careful attention.
He'd given her space, introducing her to their other friends and then stepping back a little, but Chakotay had always remained within speaking distance, no matter whom he happened to be chatting to. His glance was often cast in Janeway's direction, though Maria found it difficult to read anything more in his expression than a friendly smile. He was watching out for her, though, making sure she was all right, and moreover Chakotay was doing it as if it were second nature to him, a reflex as natural as breathing.
Maria looked down at the half-drowned salad and turned off the faucet before dumping it all into a drainer. When she looked up again, Chakotay had disappeared.
"Maria?" A voice asked, unexpectedly. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
She was so startled she dropped the salad back in the sink. Spinning around, Maria found Chakotay standing behind her. "By all that's good," she exclaimed, "what are you doing sneaking up on people like that?"
"I don't think I was," Chakotay said, looking over her head and out of the window beyond. "You were just miles away."
Maria followed his gaze. It had been drawn once again to Janeway, who was standing in a shaft of sunlight beside the barbecue, laughing lightly at something Mike had said as he tended the food.
"I don't think I realised until now how beautiful she is, your Kathryn Janeway," Maria said. "I suppose it's pretty irrelevant alongside everything else. But she is… isn't she?"
Chakotay smiled at the question and turned away from the window with the smallest nod, which he used to indicate the thoroughly washed salad. "Shall I find a bowl for that and take it outside?" He bent down to open one of the kitchen cupboards, reaching for a serving bowl.
"Wait just a minute," Maria said. "Now that I've got you on your own, you can tell me everything."
Chakotay straightened to put the bowl on the kitchen surface beside the sink, a frown on his face. "Everything?" Maria nodded surreptitiously towards Janeway, and then pointedly raised her eyebrows. He sighed. "There's nothing to say, Maria. I bumped into her this morning. I knew you'd like to meet her properly, and I thought Mike would probably like to see her again. I knew you wouldn't mind, so I invited her along, that's all."
"She just happened to be in your neighbourhood?"
"Yes."
"With a bowl of homemade potato salad in the back of her car?"
Chakotay frowned. "Sorry?"
"She arrived with a bowl of homemade potato salad, less than two hours after you'd called to ask if it was OK to bring her."
"Kathryn asked Mike what she should bring, and he suggested it. It made her laugh, I think it was some sort of joke between them. They were stuck in a turbolift together once and on comms I teased him about that incident years ago, with the potato salad, do you remember? They must have-"
"Where did she make it, Chakotay? Unless she lives near here, which as far as I know she doesn't, that's a bit of a mystery to me."
Chakotay blinked. "Kathryn used my kitchen at the apartment. I had to make the tomato salad anyway, so I told her to come back with me and make it there."
There was a moment of silence as they looked at each other. "Right," said Maria. "OK. So you bump into your old superior officer completely by chance in a supermarket, ask her to join you at a family barbecue, and take her back to yours so the two of you can make salad together for the occasion."
"Yes."
Maria narrowed her eyes. "Am I missing something?"
"What do you mean?"
She sighed. "Never mind. Have you talked to Cherry at all since you got here?"
"Cherry?"
"Yes, Cherry. The extremely attractive lecturer in Earth archaeology I invited along specifically to meet you this afternoon."
Chakotay looked out of the window. Cherry was deep in conversation with their neighbour, a sprightly grandfather in his 70s. They were both sitting by the pool, and the young woman had rolled up her jeans to dangle her slim legs in the water. "Oh, Doctor Weinstraub. Yes, I have. She's very nice. We had an interesting discussion about a dig down in Baja she's planning to visit during the summer vacation this year. I think they'll uncover some fascinating artefacts, if the preliminary scans are anything to go by. She might be able to offer a guest lecture to my students in the Fall."
Maria saw his gaze slip back to Janeway, as surely as a metal pin is drawn to a magnet. Kathryn had moved away from Mike and was standing alone, a drink held between both hands, apparently contemplating the sway of the old apple tree in the slight breeze.
"Her mother died a few weeks ago," Chakotay said, softly. "She wasn't here, and she feels so guilty about it – as if she didn't already have enough guilt to deal with."
Maria frowned. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"She has a habit of thinking that she has to deal with everything alone," Chakotay went on, just as quietly. "Kathryn Janeway is more comfortable with caring for than with being cared for."
Maria watched his face for a moment. "And that was your job, was it?" she asked. "Out there, in the Delta Quadrant? Caring for Kathryn Janeway?"
Chakotay smiled, but didn't look at her. "It wasn't a job, Maria."
She nodded. "You've missed her. Haven't you?"
There was a brief pause, and then he nodded. "It's not what you think," he added.
"I don't think it matters what I think," Maria told him. "What matters is what you think. And I suspect that whatever those thoughts are, they are quite often about her."
Chakotay laughed at that, somewhat abashed. "You always were too smart for your own good," he said. "How did you end up with a clown like Mike?"
Maria put a hand on his arm. "I nearly didn't. From what I remember, it took the intervention of someone else to make us see sense. Funny how that works sometimes, isn't it?"
He shook his head, still smiling. "It's not the right time, Maria," he said. "She just needs a friend, that's all."
Maria dropped her arm. "If there's one thing I know for certain in this life, Chakotay, it's that there's never a right time. Keep waiting for one, and there never will be. Come on," she added, nodding out of the window. "Before our favourite clown completely incinerates your aubergine."
Later that night, curled in a quiet bed, Maria watched the moonlight make lace on her wall as Mike's fingers traced patterns on her bare shoulder. Seven years without him was bad enough, she thought to herself. But seven years beside him, without this?
"Penny for them?" Mike whispered in her ear.
She turned over, her face against his chest. "A penny? Gee, wowzers! What shall I buy myself with the smallest possible denomination of an obsolete currency?"
"Fine. A replicator ration for your thoughts?"
"One lousy replicator ration? What am I going to make with that, half a cup of coffee?"
Mike made the sound of a long-suffering sigh. "All right, all right. One bar of gold-pressed latinum for your thoughts?"
"Better." Maria pressed a kiss to his skin. "What I am thinking is that he loves her. Doesn't he? Chakotay, I mean, and Kathryn."
Mike shifted to look at her better. "You got that from one afternoon with them?"
"Why, how long did it take you?"
"About four years."
"I've always said you were an idiot, Michael Ayala."
"Yeah, well."
"Does she love him?"
Mike sighed and rolled over so that she was beneath him. "I'm not sure," he said, "that love was ever the problem."
"Ooh," said Maria. "That's deep."
"I thought so."
"We should do something."
"I was thinking exactly the same thing," Mike murmured, kissing her neck.
"That's not what I meant."
"I know it's not what you meant," Mike said, kissing her again, "and the answer to the other thing is absolutely, definitely not."
"Yes, but-"
And that was the end of that particular conversation.
[TBC]
