Prompt 90: "You can tell me anything." (Chakotay & Sekaya)

Episode: Post-"Endgame"

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Kolopak used to say you could never step into the same river twice. Standing with his sister Sekaya on Sunset Hill, looking down at the curves of the White Snake River as it wound its way past the village where he had grown up, Chakotay had to confess he finally saw the old man's point.

The river they had swum in when they were young, held canoe races in with their friends and took long walks by the bank to cool down after fighting with their father, had been much wider, cleaner, and livelier than this. He could remember leaning over and seeing all the way down to the bottom, pebbles and fish scales glinting in the sun, but this brown, sluggish little stream didn't look safe to touch, let alone swim in.

It was the same with the rest of the colony. The Cardassians, whose planet had never recovered from a severe climate shift centuries ago, were always eager to colonize planets as rich in natural resources as this one, and notoriously greedy and short-sighted in using them. The forests Chakotay remembered had been decimated to make way for huge tracts of monocultural farms, the river dammed up, the humans forced to give up their own land and killed if they resisted, like Kolopak … The worst part was, it was all so damn familiar. The history of his people had been like this for at least eight hundred years.

At least it was over now, he reminded himself grimly. Since the Dominion had turned against the Cardassians at the end of the war, the latter had withdrawn from Dorvan V along with most of their other new colonies, leaving them to rebuild as best they could.

Chakotay was grateful to the humanitarian aid missions like No Sectors for their help, he really was, but he couldn't help grieving for how they had homogenized the place. Where beautiful wooden cottages had once stood, each decorated with carvings as unique as the families who lived there, his village – named Journey's End by the 22nd-century settlers, but mostly just called "home" – was now a collection of small gray replicated houses, almost identical, not unlike the one he and Kathryn had built on New Earth. They were easy to build and mostly weatherproof, but … they weren't home.

"It is pretty different, isn't it?" asked Sekaya, standing quietly beside him.

She looked more like their late mother than ever, he thought. Tall and strong, with dark eyes like his, her brown skin darkened by years of sunlight and her hair almost completely gray. She wore it in a long braid that wrapped around her head like a crown, and her long brown homespun dress had a dignity to it no uniform could match.

"It's like the soul of the place is gone," said Chakotay without thinking.

She gave him a sharp look, and he knew at once he had made a mistake. He knew she loved him and was glad to have him back, but they had been awkward around each other ever since he had arrived.

Bringing Seven and Icheb with him hadn't helped, he supposed, although both logic and his heart told him it was the right thing to do. In a peculiar coincidence (although Kolopak would have said it was their guardian spirits at work), Seven's aunt, Irene Hansen, was Dorvan's local administrator for No Sectors, and since Sekaya was a leader in the village, the two women often worked together. Icheb had come along because Seven was his guardian and the new Starfleet Academy term hadn't begun yet; he was down in the village at the moment.

Glancing down at the trail that led up the hill, Chakotay could see Seven and Irene walking slowly, the older woman leaning on her niece's arm. From her rubber-soled walking shoes to her white blouse and chinos, to the layer of sunscreen on her face, even the floppy wide-brimmed hat that threatened to keep blowing away in the wind, Seven would have looked obviously foreign even without the Borg implants. Chakotay loved how hard she was trying, but he worried that Sekaya wouldn't see it that way.

"What's wrong?" he asked his sister, who was still frowning.

"Nothing."

"Come on, you can tell me anything."

He bumped her shoulder in the teasing way he used to when they were children, but instead of bumping his in return, she backed away.

"All right, I will," she snapped. "Please don't talk to me about the soul of this place. You weren't there while we were struggling to keep it alive. You couldn't wait to get out of here when we were younger, so don't act like you care now."

She was right, but it still stung. He thought of his Maquis comrades, all dead or imprisoned except those on Voyager, and his anger rose on their behalf as well as his own.

"Of course I care! I never stopped. Why do you think I joined the Maquis? Wefought the Cardassians with everything we had - "

"And what good did that do?" She folded her arms and narrowed her eyes. "All it did was antagonize them even further. While you and your friends were off playing rebel heroes, I was trying to talk Gul Evek out of cutting our water rations!"

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, subdued by the reminder of the horrors she had lived through. "You know I would have come back sooner if I could."

"You. Weren't. There," she repeated stubbornly, but he could see a glimmer of pain in her eyes.

She used to look at him just like this when they were little, and he'd run off to play with the big kids instead of her: arms folded, chin high, pretending with all her might that she wasn't hurt by her big brother leaving her behind.

He could have argued back that he wasn't cut out for a traditional lifestyle, that he belonged in Starfleet, that it was hardly his fault he'd been stranded in the Delta Quadrant, or that his crew had literally flown through an armada of Borg cubes just to get home early, but all of that was beside the point.

"You're right," he said. "I wasn't there, so I shouldn't complain."

She sighed and lowered her eyes, releasing her anger with what looked like deliberate effort. She'd matured so much since he'd been gone. He supposed he had as well, though it was hard to remember that sometimes.

"You know what I thought when the news got out about the Maquis massacre?" she said. "I thought, At least my stupid big brother wasn't around for that. If you'd been here, they'd have most likely rounded you up as a sympathizer. So, to be fair, I suppose you going off-planet wasn't the worst thing that could've happened."

"I guess so."

"I'm still angry with you."

"I'd expect nothing less."

He slung an arm around her shoulders. She shook him off and gave him a shove that would have knocked a smaller man over, but she was smiling.

That was when Seven and Irene reached the top of the hill, Irene looking amused, Seven mildly concerned.

"Is this behavior common among siblings?"

"Oh, yes. When Magnus and I were children, we used to fight all the time."

Chakotay smiled at his girlfriend's characteristic bluntness, but when he glanced over at Sekaya, he saw that she didn't share his reaction. That was understandable; it had taken himthree years to warm up to Seven, after all. Still, they might be family someday. He couldn't help wishing they would learn to get along.

"What a lovely view," said Irene warmly. "You were right, Sekaya dear. You really can see everything from up here."

"Agreed," said Seven. "The layout of the town is very efficient."

Chakotay knew she meant that as a compliment, but Sekaya – who must have missed the old, less efficient Journey's End as much as he did – winced.

"Shall we get back?" his little sister asked politely. "You must still be tired and hungry after your trip. I hope I haven't worn you out."

"I do not wear out easily," said Seven. "Chakotay can confirm that."

Irene let out a startled little laugh. Sekaya's eyebrows shot up. Seven, who clearly didn't understand what was so funny, tilted her head in confusion before suddenly blushing deep pink.