A/N: It's annoying that reviews aren't showing up on this story. I am getting them, though, and thank you very much to those of you who have expressed an interest in giving this a go. Very much appreciated, hope I won't let you down. Thank you to MissyHissy3 for beta reading.

Chapter Two

How shall I know you when we meet?

Your voice will run over me like honey

enter through the pores of my skin

til each cell opens

a sweet-scented flower

but that is not the sign.

from In the Skin House ~ Jeni Couzyn

She followed him into a space whose musty interior reminded her of her own high school gym. It was the smell of old rolled rubber mats, a messy stack of which she could see in one corner. She stood in the doorway, half still in the hallway that would lead to escape through the peeling double doors, half inside the room he'd entered. It was low-ceilinged, utilitarian – whitewashed concrete walls above a wide, almost straight stripe of blue paint, vents and piping out for all to see. There was a boxing ring at one end, punch bags and weights dotted around elsewhere. She wasn't sure what she'd expected when he'd strode ahead of her across the street towards the half-derelict building that was barely any different to all the others on the block. She hadn't really been thinking straight at all: otherwise she surely wouldn't have followed a complete stranger, alone, into a building to which he held the keys. Especially after he'd proven himself strong enough to go head-to-head with a knife-wielding man her well-maintained self-defence skills had utterly failed to repel.

But then, she did have the mace.

Mark had insisted she brought it with her. If you're really going to do this, I'm not always going to have time to play bodyguard. Make sure you keep this to hand, all right? She'd taken no notice and left it to sink to the bottom of her bag, annoyed by the suggestion she'd ever need a man's protection to be safe and wanting to believe her fiancé's other concerns were based merely on snobbery. It was galling that he'd been right, especially since, from the stinging ache in her cheek and the smear of blood still on her fingers, she had a feeling she wasn't going to be able to hide it from him.

Ahead of her, the man who had come to her aid had reached a desk set against one of the walls. Two plastic chairs had been pushed under it and he dragged them out, their rubber feet juddering against the scuffed floor. Then he turned to look at her, abruptly indicating one of them before pulling a medical case from its anchor on the uneven wall. He was clearly used to issuing instructions that he expected to be followed. Teacher, she surmised, adding his manner to the gaggle of teens that had surrounded them minutes earlier and coming up with only one answer.

She looked him over as she walked – limped, really – towards him. He was big and broad, muscular but not obtrusively so, as if his physique was incidental to his lifestyle instead of the purpose of it. He wore a crisp white T-shirt over long orange shorts. Beneath the knee his legs were bare, calf muscles thicker than her upper arms and several tones darker, hued the kind of bronze she'd prayed to be as a teenager.

When she reached his side she glanced up, taking in the strong planes of his face, the full lips, the fine laughter lines that spun out from the corner of his dark eyes, the thick dark hair that held just a flash of grey. He was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome and it perplexed her, this acknowledgement: that it was true and that she had noticed so instantly, she, who never noticed such things. He was in the process of opening a packet of sterile wipes and felt her watching him. He looked up.

"Sit down," he said.

"I don't even know your name," she pointed out, feeling that this was relevant and then realising that actually, she just wanted to know.

"Chakotay."

"Just… Chakotay?" It was a word so unusual that she felt it as a tangible shape in her mouth. She would have been happy to hold it there for a while, mapping its unexpected contours with her tongue.

"Just Chakotay," he affirmed. He reached out, gently pressing his fingers to her shoulder, encouraging her to sit. He couldn't know it but the light touch fell upon the spot where her muscles always ended up sore no matter how many office chairs she tried. As light as his touch was it sent a spark of relief skittering across her skin and she had the fleeting desire to tell him to press harder. She bit her lip and sat instead. He sat down in front of her so that she found herself knee to knee with him.

This time when he reached out to grasp her chin, she didn't stop him. He took a wipe and leaned forward. "This will sting…"

She ignored the bite of the antiseptic, still occupied by his name. "But – what do your kids call you?"

His gaze deviated from her cut to find hers. "My kids?"

"Students, I mean," she corrected. "You're a teacher."

Chakotay almost smiled, apparently amused by her confident deduction. She watched the lines at the corner of his eyes. "Coach," he said. "They generally call me coach. And you? What's your name, lady from out of town who values her bag more than her life?"

She bristled. "Kathryn Janeway," she said, tartly. "And it's not the bag I care about, Mr Chakotay."

Chakotay's eyes met hers again. For some reason she was suddenly forced to take a breath. Sitting this close, what she breathed was him, cedar and warm skin and then wishing she hadn't, not because it wasn't pleasant but because it really was. For a split second she imagined leaning forward across the five inches that separated them and brushing her lips against his, just to see whether they tasted and felt as good as she suddenly imagined they might. You're losing your mind, she told herself, appalled because she never thought of unknown men in this blatant sexual way, hadn't ever since-

She forced herself not to move, not to look anywhere but his eyes for fear of giving herself away as the utter lunatic she had apparently lately become.

"It's just Chakotay," he said, still holding her gaze as his fingers smoothed the band-aid down across her broken cheek. "Show me your leg."

She blinked. "Excuse me?"

He'd already turned away to pick up a tube of antiseptic. He looked back at her. "Your leg. It's still bleeding. I need to clean and dress it."

Kathryn looked down at the cut, just above her knee. "I don't think I'm going to let you do that."

"Trust me," he said, quietly and with the kind of voice that could trickle into the smallest fissures in the coldest of glaciers. "I'm a boxing coach. First aid is a pretty key part of my skillset. I'm not propositioning you, Ms Janeway."

She could feel a blush building and cursed herself for it. What the hell was wrong with her? She never blushed. She never did a lot of the things that she seemed to have done in the last five minutes. Shock, that must be it. "I didn't think you were. And it's just Kathryn. If you're going to handle more bits of me I think we should probably be on first name terms, don't you?"

He laughed, a deep sound that made her realise that this inexplicable tension must just be in her own mind. She leaned down and rolled up her torn pant leg, inordinately glad that she had shaved her legs that morning. When he touched her, his fingers were as warm as his voice. He slipped his left hand under her knee and lifted it slightly. She could feel his long fingers, splayed against the back of her lower thigh. She gripped the chair on which she sat with both hands and tried not to notice how good his skin felt against hers.

"What is it then?" he asked. "In the bag? What didn't you want to lose?"

She shook her head. "Nothing anyone else would find valuable. Notes. Plans. Ideas. That's all. But to me – irreplaceable."

His head was turned down towards her knee, but she caught the frown. "Notes for what?"

"Work. I-" she stopped. All of her fight had brought her here. Up until now her enthusiasm hadn't waned at all, but it had been a long road just to get to the beginning. She had finally arrived and her first introduction had been a violent one. For the first time she doubted herself, and it made her hesitate. She looked across the room, focusing on one of the sagging red punch bags suspended from the ceiling.

Chakotay looked up, pausing with his fingers against her knee. "Kathryn?"

She looked back at him. Something about him engenders trust, she thought. He must be a great teacher.

"I'm a landscape architect," she began. "I've worked on all sorts of projects, big and small, but I've always been interested in urban renewal."

"Urban renewal," Chakotay repeated, although it wasn't a question. He turned to pick up another band-aid.

"Yes. Taking failing or abandoned urban areas and regenerating them. Think of the High Line in New York City."

He turned back to her. "That was a project of yours?"

She laughed. "I wish it had been, but no, although it was an unintentional help. I've been trying to raise money for years, chasing government grants, tapping rich donors. The success there was almost a proof of concept." She watched as Chakotay pressed down lightly on her dressing. "I learned a couple of days ago that I've got the money I need to break ground on the first project. It's a small one, but if I can prove I can make it work, more will follow. And I know it can work."

Chakotay had dropped his hands from her leg, but hadn't leaned back. They were still sitting knee to knee as he listened. "Does that explain why you're here?"

She nodded slightly. "That parcel of wasteland outside. That's the first site I'm going to develop."

Kathryn watched a frown crease his brow and felt a flutter of misgiving in her gut. It was the same expression she'd seen elsewhere too many times to count.

"Why?" he asked.

"Why what?"

"Why here? Why Maywood, why that plot?"

"It was available. And it's ripe for it, don't you agree?"

He did lean back then, crossing his arms. "It depends on what you mean by 'urban renewal'."

"That's what I'm working on now," she told him. "Hence the notes and plans. That's why I'm here, I was surveying the location."

Chakotay was silent, still watching her. "You don't think it might be a good idea to ask what the local people want and need? You know, the people who actually live here?"

She felt the barb in his voice a little more keenly than she should have. "I have asked," she said. "I tried to get the city council to participate in a consultation, but no one seems to be interested."

He nodded. "So you're just going ahead anyway?"

"It's private land," she said. "We bought it. I don't need the city council's permission to build a garden."

"That's what you're planning here? A garden?"

Kathryn tilted her head. "In the most basic sense, yes. A space that will be of use to all the residents in the area. A space that can help build a community."

Chakotay watched her silently for a moment.

"I know what you're thinking," she said. "That I'm naive. That I haven't got a clue what I'm talking about. That there's no chance of making it work, and even if I do it won't last a year."

He shifted in his chair. "What makes you think that's what I'm thinking?"

Kathryn twined her hands together in her lap, then realised her pant leg was still rolled up and began to roll it down again. "Because that's what everyone keeps telling me. It's everyone's first reaction. I'm used to it."

Chakotay waited until she'd straightened up again. "It wasn't my first reaction," he told her.

"Oh?"

He smiled. "Maybe with anyone else it would have been. But you – there's something about you that makes me think you can probably do anything you set your mind to."

The spark of encouragement his words put into her heart raised the first genuine smile on her face for days. "Thank you."

"It's not going to be easy," he told her.

"Things worth doing often aren't."

Chakotay nodded and got to his feet. "Funny. That's often what I tell my kids. Well, I wish you luck. That's one thing you're going to need in spades, Kathryn Janeway."

She stood up. "I know."

"And this really isn't the safest of neighbourhoods to be hanging around alone in at night."

She touched her sore cheek. "I know that, too."

He nodded and then she saw his eyes stray to the clock on the wall. "Oh, no."

It was past 8.30pm. "You're late for something," she realised.

He winced. "Yes. My girlfriend is going to skin me alive. I'm sorry, but-"

She held up a hand, shouldering her bag. "I'm the one who should be apologising, Chakotay. Thank you – for everything – and I'm sorry I've spoiled your evening."

"You haven't," he told her. "Believe me, I'm more than capable of doing that myself. Wait while I lock the door and I'll walk you to your car."

[TBC]