TITLE: Chakotay's Holidays: Birthday Past, Birthday Present
AUTHOR: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
RATING: PG
CODES: C/T
PART: 16/20 (Yeah, I added a part since the last chapter.)
DISCLAIMER: (tune of 'C'est Moi,' from "Camelot")
Paramount, Paramount
I can't resist your siren call
Paramount, Paramount
I play with them, you own them all
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Thanks to Kathy Speck for being a great person to bounce ideas off. Also, my beta is on vacation, so any mistakes? Totally mine.
SUMMARY: It's B'Elanna's birthday, and Chakotay offers her some very special gifts.

As a girl, B'Elanna Torres had never had a birthday party. As her mother had explained firmly, Klingons knew there was no honor in merely surviving a simple biological function, much less honor of such degree as to merit the award of gifts. Instead, a true Klingon celebrated the Day of Honor -- and when one proved one's honor, what greater gift could there be?

Needless to say, that explanation had not increased young B'Elanna's love of her Klingon heritage.

John Torres, most likely trying to avoid more fights with his tempestuous wife, had never pressed her to allow B'Elanna a birthday party. But B'Elanna had noticed that on her birthday, her father had always contrived an excuse to transport B'Elanna to school himself. He had made sure there was time enough to stop at a little cafe and share a special breakfast with her, before pressing the cafe's baker to sell him a few dozen cookies for B'Elanna to take to school. (She still remembered the baker, a round, smiling, grandmotherly woman called Imelda.) And for that one day each year, "Miss Turtlehead" enjoyed an unusual popularity amongst her classmates, at least until the treats were dispensed.

Pulling her hovercar neatly into a parking spot, B'Elanna smiled. She and her father had revisited those pleasant memories this morning, when he'd invited her to her first father-daughter birthday breakfast in decades. He, she, and Miral had dined at a pleasant little restaurant right here in San Francisco. Though it bore absolutely no physical resemblance to the rough and ready place she remembered back on Kessik, the food had been remarkably like. So too had been John Torres's shy, diffident willingness to please, his concern that everything should be just as she liked. And before she left, he had pressed a paper box into her hands. She untied the string and opened the box to discover two dozen cookies, which her coworkers would enjoy just as much as her schoolmates ever had.

She stepped out of the hover, patting her hair more-or-less into place before walking toward the Ristorante Italiano della Diana. John had done her one more birthday favor: he'd agreed to watch Miral so that B'Elanna could have a quiet dinner with Chakotay.

She wondered if she should have dressed up a little, maybe brought a change of clothes so she could spruce up before leaving work. No, she thought, that was silly. This wasn't a date. It was dinner with an old friend, and if she looked as if she were thinking of it as anything more -- much less as if she WISHED it were something more -- she would only make her old friend uncomfortable. Her charming old friend. Her funny old friend. Her broad-shouldered, powerfully-built, unquestionably virile old--

This was NOT turning out to be a productive line of thought, even if the tingle it sent along her nerves was fairly memorable. Okay, ESPECIALLY because the tingle was turning out to be one for the books. With a little shake, and a firm inner admonishment to control herself, she pushed open the restaurant door and went in.

She saw Chakotay almost as soon as she entered; it wasn't a large restaurant and he had chosen a table near the door. To her unvoiced and (mostly) unthought relief, he wasn't particularly dressed up either, though the rust-orange, cross-tied shirt and fitted brown pants he wore did seem to suit him very well. If he hadn't been looking right at her, she would have brought a hand to her collar to loosen it, because the temperature in the restaurant suddenly seemed rather warm. But the gesture would have been too revealing, so she waited until she got to the table to shed her jacket. "Hi, Chakotay," she said, hating the way the words sounded forced, awkward. "You see I made it."

It took him a second to answer. "Oh. Yes, I see you did. Did you have any trouble finding this place?"

"No." She sketched a smile. "I didn't even need to engage the guidance system."

"No? Well, ah, that's great."

She looked around as she sat. To her relief, the place looked nothing like the kind of place one might have a romantic assignation: it was bright and cheerful, with tables decked out in red checked cloth and the sounds of merry music and cheerful conversation. Black-garbed, red-aproned waitstaff bustled from table to table, taking orders away and returning with improbably large and well-balanced trays packed with a wide array of foods. The casual atmosphere helped B'Elanna turn her mind away from romantic fantasies, though admittedly she would have had yet more success in that had not Chakotay looked so downright edible himself. //Damn the man!// But that wasn't fair; she could hardly blame him for what she was thinking.

"So how do you like it?"

She blinked, realizing it was the second time he'd asked her that. But after a deep inhalation, she could answer truthfully, "It smells wonderful."

A pretty waitress, with the blue skin and glossy white hair of an Andorian, stepped up to the table and offered each of them a menu. "Buonasera, signore, signora. My name is Liira, and I'll be your server this evening. What would you like to drink?" She offered them a professional smile. "Can I interest you in a sample of one of the house wines?"

"Just coffee for me, thanks," Chakotay said. "B'Elanna?"

"Do you have raktajino?"

"Of course." The waitress made notes on a small PADD. "I'll be right back."

Studying the menu, with its colorful holophotos of assorted unknown edibles, allowed B'Elanna to mask her unsettled state of mind for a few minutes. Finally she settled on a promising-looking selection of braised short ribs.

The waitress returned bearing their drinks. She took their food orders then, and swept away gracefully, leaving B'Elanna with nothing to do but look at, and try to make conversation with, the man who had once been no more to her than a friend. The man, she reminded herself, who was STILL no more than a friend.

Chakotay interrupted her reverie. "I have a few birthday presents for you," he said, his dark eyes searching her face (for what?).

"Oh. Oh, Chakotay, you didn't have to do that." Though of course, she was pleased that he had.

"Of course I did." He reached over to the chair beside his own, and picked up a sizable box, which he set before her.

She pulled off the colored paper, and unwrapped a holoimager. The GanyTech 5000, to be precise, the latest upgrade of a tool that every design engineer in the Federation either used or coveted. B'Elanna herself had long been wanting to get one to replace her old 4701 model, but it was an expensive device, and nowadays it seemed there were always more pressing uses for her credits. How in Kahless's name a college instructor and doctoral candidate had even been able to afford something like this--

"Chakotay, you REALLY shouldn't have." It was half an admonishment, but she couldn't stop smiling. "But it's great."

His answering smile seemed oddly shy. "I'm glad you like it. I, ah, I have another present too."

"Chakotay--!" He set another, smaller package beside the first. She unwrapped it, and found-she wasn't sure what, exactly. It looked like a pendant, small colorful stones laid out in an intricate pattern on a hammered-metal disk that fit neatly into her palm. A long, thin leather strap served as the necklace. The style of the piece suggested it was something he might have made himself. "Chakotay, what is this?" The small hairs prickled at the back of her neck, with an irrational certainty that, whatever it was, it was important.

He looked right at her, and there was something soft and vulnerable in his brown eyes that she had never seen there before. "It's an old custom of my people."

"What custom?" she asked, disconcerted (but somehow not disturbed) by the look.

He hesitated a moment, but when he answered his words, though low, were clear. "It's a courtship necklace."

Her hearts thundered against her ribs. "What did you say?" She could not be hearing this. She could not be this close to having her dreams come true.

"It's a courtship--" His eyes fell. "Of course, if you don't want it...you know I'll always be your friend, B'Elanna, no matter what. It's just that over these last few months...I started wondering if we weren't meant to be more. You are an extremely -- look, B'Elanna, if this was a bad idea, you don't have to accept the necklace. I'll always be your--"

Oh, gods, she HAD heard him right. The tingle along her nerves was back, fueled by the thrumming of her thrilled and disbelieving hearts.

"Chakotay," she interrupted, "will you SHUT UP!" While he gaped, she put the necklace on over her head, feeling the pendant nestle between her breasts. Then she leaned over the table, heedless of the holoimager, their drinks, or the stares of the other patrons, and she kissed him soundly on the lips.

Next: "Back to Back" (Day of Honor)