A/N: FF net seems to be doing that extremely annoying thing where it's not posting reviews. I am getting them, though, so thank you! Big thanks, too, to MissyHissy3 for betaing…

Seventeen

Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand,
As epitaph:
He chucked up everything
And just cleared off,
And always the voice will sound
Certain you approve
This audacious, purifying,
Elemental move.

from Poetry of Departures – Philip Larkin

B'Elanna had been so caught up in preparing her presentation that the biggest issue involved with her attendance didn't actually occur to her until the day before.

The gala was being held in the ballroom of some insanely huge mansion in Montecito. It was due to start at 7pm on Saturday evening, with the guests being given drinks and canapés while they listened to the presentations. Kathryn had told her that with these things, dinner usually came first to ensure that the guests were sufficiently lubricated, but in this case she had convinced Owen Paris to swap the order of events, as she wanted everyone in attendance to have all their wits about them. Dinner, then, would be served at around eight. After that there would be an auction of promises. The rest of the evening would be made up of whatever constituted a good time for the sort of people who knew what to do with themselves in a mansion in Montecito. Santa Barbara was at least two hours away from Maywood. Even if B'Elanna only stuck around long enough to deliver her talk and eat something before jumping straight in her car to drive back home, she'd be cutting it fine to get back to the neighbourhood much before 10pm.

She was supposed to be on her assigned corner by then.

Over the past weeks, the reality that existed at the sharpest edges of her life had softened, become indistinct. Somehow they had become the dream and this idea of hers –one that seemed to keep growing with her every thought - had become her true waking life. For the first time in her life, school was no longer a fight to be fought – Coach had prompted several of her other teachers to ask her about her ideas, and that interest had parsed, unexpectedly, into genuine interest and encouragement, not to mention the promise of extra credit if she could properly document her progress. Graduation seemed attainable for the first time, and not only that, a graduation with honours if only she could pull all of her grades up as well as in the sciences, technology and phys. ed. Her daily online sessions with Professor Tuvok – which often became debates about theory – were opening B'Elanna's mind, both to what was within her and the possibilities of the world at large. The future no longer seemed an amorphous mass of unhappy inevitabilities. There was positive possibility in her life where before there had been none.

B'Elanna was beginning to believe in herself and her abilities. Was that because people were listening to her? Because they were. Tuvok, despite their differences in age and experience, always focused completely on what she had to say and only offered opinions and suggestions once she was done. Or was this newly-found self-belief, this confidence that her ideas and what she had to say were not, in fact, a waste of time, instrumental in persuading people of exactly that?

Either way, B'Elanna felt herself clawing her way out of the hole she had found herself in. She certainly had no desire to go back down to its murky bottom, and would prefer to believe she was already no longer in it at all. She hadn't seen her cousin Emilio for weeks. Her brothers had told her several times that he'd called around to see her, but she was so rarely home that by the time she got the messages whatever he'd wanted was surely obsolete anyway. She'd gotten into the habit of switching off her phone when she wanted to study, which was constantly, and although she'd missed several calls that could have been from her cousin, he disposed of his phone so regularly that she never recognised the numbers. Text messages with the brief slogan of 'Call me' appeared once or twice. Sometimes she didn't feel like obeying such bald commands. Others she did as she was told only to find that the phone had already been burned.

The Crims, too, had been quiet of late. There had been a spate of inter-gang murders to the west of the county, rumours of rivals encroaching on their patch. The gang was busy elsewhere, it seemed, and perhaps they'd decided that worrying about a vegetable patch on their territory really wasn't worth the hassle when they had bigger, more violent fish to fry.

Anyway, B'Elanna had never actually missed dealing her stash, and she always made sure that the bike boys got every last cent when they came to collect for the gang. It seemed to B'Elanna that the Crims either didn't know about the time she'd taken back from them, or more likely just didn't care. They were still getting their money, after all. She was such small fry. Too small to bother with, surely.

B'Elanna couldn't get out of the gala, and anyway she didn't want to, not any more. She didn't want to waste all that work. And if there really was someone there who could make her idea a reality…

She'd be on her corner, she told herself. She'd just be a little later than usual, that's all. No biggie.

"Who?"

"Chakotay. I've told you about him before. He runs the boxing club here and he's been so much help in getting the garden going."

"And you're taking him to Owen's gala?"

Kathryn tried not to read any undertone into that question.

"He's going to be there with me as one of my guests, along with B'Elanna. Actually, if you want to talk literally, I think B'Elanna will be taking him. They're going to carpool for the evening. He's persuaded her to drive them both – I think it's a strategy to make sure she can't duck out at the last minute. He's got a knack for tactics like that."

Kathryn was sitting at the kitchen table in their home, having wolfed down a belated sandwich in anticipation of Mark's Skype call. The sun had set in California, the single light she'd left on over the workbench leaving the rest of the room in near darkness, though there was still enough to glint off the glass of ruby red Puglia she'd poured for herself. On Mark's side of the world, however, the day was in full swing. He was sitting in the window of his hotel room, a sunlit blue sky framing his head and shoulders as a bright breeze played with the muslin curtains behind him. She could hear distant waves breaking against the unseen beach.

"It's good of him to invest so much of his spare time."

"It is. It would have been so much harder without him. Although it's wonderful – more and more of the community are getting involved every day. This morning a woman who is originally from Mexico brought in six passion flowers as a gift, because she said she'd love to be able to see them growing as she did when she was a girl. On Saturday morning Chakotay and I are going to build a fence beside the vegetable patch to train them against. And Franco's sketches for the benches are just beautiful, I can't wait to see them in place. Tom's found some reclaimed white oak for him to use."

Mark smiled. "I'm glad it's going so well, Kath. I should never have doubted you. You're a wonder."

Kathryn smiled back. "Well, there's a long way to go yet. But I think the people are beginning to understand now. Word is spreading. Now we just have to get some investment and support for B'Elanna's invention, which makes the gala doubly important. To tell you the truth I don't feel as if I'm ready for it at all. I've spent so much time helping B'Elanna put her presentation together that I haven't even thought about what I'm going to say myself."

"Well, at least you've got this Chakotay to help."

"Yes – although I get the impression he's pretty reluctant, really. I think, if it were just up to him, he'd rather not attend at all."

Mark raised an eyebrow. "Who is it up to, then? If it's not up to him?"

"Well, I-" Kathryn began, and then stopped. "It is up to him, of course. But he wants to make sure he's there for B'Elanna and I asked him to speak, so he said yes."

Mark smiled again, although the gesture was small and he wasn't looking at her.

"Did you have a chance to look at the design for the table placements I sent you?" Kathryn asked, feeling suddenly compelled to change the subject. "I need to get them ordered in the next week or so. Let me know if you'd like something different."

Mark nodded. "They're lovely. If you're happy with them then I am too. I'm sorry you're having to do all this on your own," he added. "I promise that as soon as I'm back, I'll pitch in properly and pull my weight. And actually, that might be sooner than we thought."

Kathryn reached for her glass. "Oh?"

"Two of the lectures are looking a little iffy," he told her. "Security issues, I think. Anyway, if they cut the tour short I'll be able to come home sooner."

She smiled, resting her chin on the heel of one hand. "That would be nice. I miss you."

Mark smiled. "Do you? "

Kathryn paused with her glass at her lips. "Of course I do!"

"That's a relief." He shook his head. "I know I'm being pathetic, but it always seems as if you're so busy you might not have noticed I've even been gone. I hate to admit it, but it makes me irrationally nervous when you suddenly announce that you're taking suspiciously helpful men to evenings where I know you'll be the most stunning woman in the room."

Kathryn put her glass down. "Mark, trust me. You would find that evening as deathly boring as every other one I've dragged you along to, and the only person who could possibly think I look 'stunning' – you – is on the other side of the planet. Phoebe's been nagging me to buy a new dress, but I'll be damned if I'm spending money that can go towards the wedding."

"Ahh, Phoebe." Mark sighed. "How am I ever going to win your sister over? She doesn't like me, you know. She never has."

"Just ignore her," Kathryn advised. "And it isn't that she doesn't like you, it's just that she-"

"- doesn't think I'm good enough for her sister," Mark finished for her.

"Maybe something like that," she admitted with a smile. "But we both know that's just absurd. If anything, it's the other way around."

Mark smiled at her again. She felt his affection radiating through the screen, as if he were just across the table instead of three thousand miles and several continents away.

"I wish that were true."

"It is true!"

"Do me a favour, would you?" Mark asked, still smiling.

"Anything, as long as it's legal."

"This Chakotay of yours… Tell me he's happily married with a whole brood of children. Or better yet, tell me he's gay."

She felt something uncomfortable skate beneath her ribcage. "Mark-"

"I'm sorry," he said. "It's not that I don't trust you. Of course I do. I've never met anyone more trustworthy in my life. Ignore me. I'm just thousands of miles away and wishing that I wasn't."

[TBC]