Thank you all very much for reading and reviewing. As always, all good things don't belong to me.
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"It's cold outside," Chakotay remarked needlessly. The chill wind that blew him and a smattering of dead leaves into the doorway was proof enough to Kathryn that it was, indeed, quite cold outside.
She looked up from the book she was reading to see Chakotay with a bundle of firewood in his arms, and muddy boots on his feet. "Wait, I'll take those," she offered, coming to him and letting him shift the bulky logs into her arms. They seemed heavier in her arms than previous winters. "You make sure you leave those shoes on the rug, mister."
He chuckled. "I spent three days refinishing this floor last summer Kathryn, I'm not about to muddy it."
Kathryn maneuvered the logs into their box beside the fireplace.
"Do you want to take a walk?"
She turned to look back at Chakotay, surprised. "I thought you were just complaining that it was cold."
He shrugged, cheeks reddened with wind. "It is. It's miserable. But it's sunny, which it hasn't been in nearly a week, and I heard geese on the pond. I thought we could go throw the last of the bread to them."
Kathryn rolled her eyes. "Fine, but you are waiting right there for me to get my coat and the bread."
"Consider me a statue."
A few minutes later, suitably coated and mittened, with bag of bread and old croutons stuffed in Kathryn's pocket, the two of them left the house and started slowly up the walkway towards the street. It was almost half a mile from their house to the main road, and another ten minute walk from there to the nearest transport station. But if you left the walkway halfway to the road, there was a path leading into the woods, and a short walk brought you to an icy pond. In the summer, local kids fished and swam in it while their city-dwelling cousins watched in dismay. In the winter it was mostly deserted, as the ice fishing was bad, and the skating a perilous idea. But a flock of geese and a few ducks sheltered there over the winter, relying on locals to supplement their meager winter diet.
Half an hour later, Chakotay and Kathryn reached the pond and gingerly sat down on the frozen log bench near the muddy bank. Kathryn pulled the bag from her pocket and passed it to Chakotay, who began breaking the bread into pieces and tossing it on the ground. It took less than twenty seconds for the news to spread that there was food, and they were surrounded by snowy white geese.
Kathryn had told Chakotay years ago, the first time they came, to always throw the bread well away from them, because geese were mean and would bite. Now, the flock had fairly well adjusted to the system, and both of them were amused that the geese would keep a respectful distance from them, but other would-be geese feeders were not so lucky.
"You're right, the sun is nice," Kathryn told him.
He smiled over at her. "It brings out the red in your hair."
She laughed. "You mean what's left of it. I'm afraid you and I are more the salt and pepper variety these days."
"You wear it very well."
"It makes you look distinguished. You finally look like what I always imagined a Federation ambassador to look like."
He laughed and crumpled up the empty bag. "Did you also imagine yourself married to one?"
"No, that hadn't occurred to me."
"Surprise."
"Did you ever envision yourself married to an admiral?"
"Never. I would have avoided it."
"Surprise."
There was a few minutes of lull as the geese finished their meal and the couple on the bench ventured glances upwards into the sun. Finally, Chakotay nudged his wife. "Do you want to get back inside? I don't want you to get sick over Christmas vacation."
Kathryn slipped her mittened hand into his. "I used to take snow walks all the time."
"You were twenty-something at that time, Kathryn. Not sixty-something."
She elbowed him hard. "Don't mention it. No, lets walk around the pond. Maybe we'll see a deer."
With a collective groan they got up, knees clicking and backs aching.
"Are we really this old, Kathryn?"
"It certainly feels like it today. Hot bath when we get back?"
"Oh yes," he said with feeling. "And chocolate."
"Quite the splurge."
"If the Doctor has ruled out alcohol for me, then I'm going to supplement it with whatever I want. And I want hot chocolate."
"All right. When we get back, I'll run the bath and you make the chocolate."
"Aye, captain."
Arm in arm, they ambled around the pond together. They didn't see any deer, but several late squirrels were scampering around, digging through wet leaves for the last of the fall's offerings. Chakotay said he wished they had left a few pieces of bread for them.
The sun was reddening in the southwest sky, signaling the daylight's imminent departure, when they reached their front door. Twenty minutes later, there was a snug fire in the fireplace, and its warm light was reaching out to the bathroom doorway while chamomile bubble bath and hot chocolate wafted out until they touched.