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Way The Wind Blows

Chapter Three

A delicious aroma greeted Chakotay when he stepped into the living room after a quick shower and change of clothes. He was now wearing fawn pants, a brown shirt, and comfortable black shoes. His previous outfit had been soiled by grass and he wanted to be clean for dinner.

"Smells good," he said to Kathryn, who was carrying a bottle of water and two glasses over to the table she had meticulously set.

Kathryn looked up at him and he saw her eyes wander over his body before returning again to his face. "I see you had no trouble with the replicator."

"None at all," he smiled.

"And I trust you found everything to be satisfactory?"

"Absolutely. It's a wonderful cabin you have here. And I'm grateful for all the trouble you've gone to."

"Well," Kathryn replied, a teasing glint in her eye, "I figured that if you're here on Starfleet business, you're going to make a report when you get back. I don't want my hospitality skills called into question."

Chakotay had to laugh at that. "Tell me. Do you regard all men with the same suspicion as you regard me?"

"When they appear out of no where and give dubious excuses, you bet." She boldly held his gaze. "Besides, every good Starfleet Officer knows that trust is a privilege that has to be earned. I trust no one until they prove to me they deserve it."

"And how do I rank on your ladder of trust?"

"At the moment, somewhere in the middle." She then turned to the table before her and gestured to silver dishes upon it. "Vegetable casserole, rice and bread. All ready to eat. I didn't know what you would like to drink, so I replicated a bottle of still water. But I can replicate something else if you want."

"No," Chakotay replied. "Water will be fine."

Kathryn sat down and gestured for Chakotay to do so also. "Please, sit."

Chakotay sat down and Kathryn began to help herself to casserole and rice. "I've got some lemon meringue pie left over from yesterday," she said. "If you like it, we can have that for desert."

"One of my favorites," he smiled.

Kathryn finished dishing herself food so Chakotay began. As he did so, he felt Kathryn's eyes upon him, watching him, studying him, still trying to make him out.

"I've been thinking," she said. "It's a funny kind of mission that would send you to this place, at this time, playing my guest. Are you really on a mission or is something else going on here?"

Chakotay looked up at her. "Such as?"

"You tell me."

"I've already told you," he said, putting the ladle back in the casserole dish. "All this, me staying here, it wasn't meant to happen. What happens next, I don't know. I'm as much in the dark as you. I'm hoping I'll be transported out of here, but I might be trapped in this time-frame. If I am, I'll have to try and find my own way back."

"How will you do that?"

"I don't know," he replied. He looked deep into her eyes. "But I promise you that everything I've told you is the truth."

Kathryn held his gaze and then her eyes smiled. "I believe you."

"You do?"

She nodded. "All other scenarios I can think of don't make much sense. If you were here to stop some impending disaster happening to this region... alien invasion or whatever...you would hardly be sent alone. And if this calamity had happened, you couldn't know me in your future because I would be dead. You can't be here to obtain information from me because I have no classified information to give. If you were here to kill me, you would have done it by now. You could be an alien in disguise, trying to deceive me, but I don't think so." She paused. "All the evidence suggests that you really are from the future. My conclusion, based on the nature of events and your injuries, is that you really were on a mission of some kind, but have been displaced in time somehow, some kind of temporal anomaly that deposited you here, in this time-frame, instead of another one." She paused again. "Am I right?"

Chakotay smiled. "Very close."

Kathryn picked up her fork and began to eat. As she did so, Petunia, who was standing close by, walked over to her, sat in a begging position, and whined.

"Someone's hungry," Chakotay said, amused.

"More like someone's greedy," Kathryn replied. "I've just given her a large bowl of food." She looked down at the dog. "You've had your feed, honey. Besides, I don't have anything you would like tonight."

The dog whined again and looked at Kathryn with such bright hopeful eyes, that she couldn't refuse her. "Oh, alright," she said. "You can have some bread."

She picked up a crusty bread roll, broke it in two, dipped it some casserole sauce, and then handed it to Petunia. The dog took it gratefully and lay down to chew it.

"She's a fine dog," Chakotay said. "How old is she?"

"Almost eighteen months. I found her abandoned in the snow as a pup. It was touch and go for a while whether she would make it, but thankfully she did. She stays with my mother when I'm in space, but I try to spend as much time with her as possible when I'm home. I only go on short missions. Since the accident, I..." She paused, visibly uncomfortable. "You said that in this future you're from, you and I know each other."

It was more of a question than a statement.

"Yes," Chakotay replied.

"But you haven't told me how well." She paused. "I could tell you things that I wouldn't..." She stopped in mid sentence and infinite suspicion returned to her eyes as her face paled. "I never thought of that."

"Of what?"

Kathryn got to her feet, leaving the table. "That you might be my enemy in the future. You could be here befriending me now to learn things about me to use against me. Just because you're in Starfleet now, doesn't mean you always will be...or me for that matter. Perhaps I'm not. Perhaps I'm something else...You don't want to kill me, you want something else, to apprehend me."

For a moment Chakotay said nothing. There was so much suspicion in Kathryn's mind, so much mistrust. She came up with scenarios that he would never have imagined. It was only a transporter that brought him here, nothing more, but she had imagined all kinds of situations... But then, that was what made her such a good captain. She took nothing at face value, analyzed and questioned everything. It made him feel even more privileged that in the future he had earned this woman's complete trust.

"Certainly a possibility," Chakotay replied at last, "but likely? It's incredibly risky to deliberately interfere with history. There are always consequences, and there is no way of knowing what they will be. They can just as easily work to someone's disadvantage as they can to their good. And if I was here now for that purpose, you would remember everything you had told me. If I was your enemy, there would be less dangerous ways of finding out things about you...in more ways than one. The temporal jump almost killed me."

"Good point," Kathryn said, relaxing again. Then she laughed softly.

"What is it?"

"I was just thinking how temporal mechanics always gives me headache. In your case, it was quite literal."

Chakotay laughed softly at this too. "I guess you could say that."

Kathryn sat down again and reached for the bottle of water on the table. As Chakotay continued to eat his meal, she opened the bottle and poured herself a glass of water.

"Admiral Bond once said that imagining motive and move was my greatest strength. He said I would do well in command. Admiral Paris thinks so too. I'm not too sure, though. Command comes with a lot of responsibility and I just don't know if I'm up to that. I only ever wanted to be a science officer and explorer. Being in command would also take me away from home a lot and if I have children then..." A sadness filled her eyes as her words dissipated. "Do you know of it? The accident?"

Chakotay nodded. "I'm sorry."

Kathryn closed the lid on the bottle and put it back on the table.

"I read all your Stafleet profile while I was making dinner," she said, changing the subject. "You have an impressive academic record."

"Thank you," Chakotay replied.

"It must have been difficult, adjusting to our way of life when you were raised in a tribe."

"I think it would have been had I been forced to leave the tribe, but as it was my choice, it wasn't hard. For so long I'd wanted to be a part of the technological world I'd heard about, and for so long I'd wanted to be in Starfleet, so for a while it felt as though I was living a dream. They were good years."

"With your record, you must be a captain by now or at least a First Officer." She paused and then hesitated with the next words. "Is that how you know me? Do I serve on your ship?"

Chakotay looked into her eyes and saw more than just inquisitiveness. There was a longing in them, even a desperation, that he didn't understand. "You know I can't tell you about the future," he said sadly.

"It's not exactly telling to just answer yes or no to a question," she replied. "It's not like you would be telling me what ship, when."

"No. But anything I tell you about the future could change it."

"Not if you were meant to tell me. Perhaps that's why you're here."

"Perhaps," Chakotay replied. "I don't know why I'm here. But I do know it wouldn't be right to tell you what course your life is going to take. You need to discover that for yourself. If we all knew what was going to happen to us, we'd have no use for hopes or dreams, and instead of anticipation we would have only expectation."

"Not necessarily," Kathryn replied. "If we knew that good things were going to happen, then we could live in anticipation of those. Knowing they would happen would help us to enjoy life, to feel we have something to look forward too."

"I think it would depend," Chakotay said, "on whether we felt there was no future to look forward too." He looked at her in concern. "Is that how you feel, Kathryn? That there is nothing to look forward too?"

Kathryn made no reply.

"Kathryn?"

"Sometimes," she said quietly. "Since I lost my father and fiancé, life has been so..." She paused, tears welling in her eyes. "It's been so meaningless. One moment I had everything to look forward too, and the next it was all gone... a whole future dead like them. It didn't seem right, somehow, me being alive and them dead. I didn't want to be alive and face what seemed to be a future of nothingless...it still feels that way sometimes...like there is nothing to look forward too. If someone told me there was, that I would be happy again someday, then it might help to make the present easier to bear..." She looked at him with infinte longing. "Please, tell me if I'll be happy."

There was so much pain in those words, so much pain in her expression, that they brought a lump to Chakotay's throat.

"There's a lot waiting for you in the future," he said encouragingly. "You're going to touch so many lives."

Tears welled in Kathryn's eyes. "That didn't answer my question." She got to her feet, visibly trembling. "Or perhaps it did." She turned away from him. "Excuse me."

With that, she left the table and then left the cabin. Petunia followed, leaving Chakotay alone.

It was twilight outside and everything was a silhouette against a dusk sky. In the fading light, Chakotay looked around, looking for Kathryn, and it took him a moment to spot her. She was sitting on a bench beneath a tree, her head bowed, her arms at her side, and Petunia at her feet. Chakotay slowly walked over to her, walking across the moist grass that bounced beneath his feet. As he got closer, he saw that she was crying.

His shadow fell over her and as soon as it touched her, Kathryn looked towards him. There were tears on her cheek and so much anguish in her eyes.

"Leave me alone," she said tearfully. "I just want to be alone."

"I never meant to hurt you," Chakotay said gently. "Or to give you the impression that the future is bad. I'm sorry."

Kathryn turned away from him and gazed out vacantly at the scenery ahead. "No. You've only told me what I've known since the accident...that I'll never be happy again."

Chakotay slowly sat on the bench beside her. "You will," he said kindly, "of course you will."

Kathryn shook her head. "You're just saying that now because you want to make me feel better. But the truth is, there is nothing in the future for me. I should have died with my father and Justin. I don't want this life."

"I think you do," Chakotay replied. "You were quite defensive earlier. A woman who didn't care for her life would never have responded to me the way you did."

Kathryn said nothing, just looked at her hands.

"You have a lot to look forward to in the future, Kathryn. I'm not saying that to make you feel better, but because it's true."

Kathryn looked up at him, fresh tears in her eyes. "But will I love and be loved? Will I have a child? Those are the only things that matter to me. I don't want to live if I will be alone."

Chakotay gazed at Kathryn sadly. He had never heard her talk like this before and had no idea she had ever felt this way. She had always seemed so strong, so independent. And yet...and yet he had always sensed a vulnerability about her too, a vulnerablity that had always made him want to protect her.

"And I see on your face that I'm not going to have those things," she said. "And if I'm not, what is the point? All I want is to be happy, for all the pain to go away. It never does. It just weighs on me, crushing me, suffocating me... Some days I don't think I can take it any more. I don't want a future of this." She lowered her head as a tear ran down her cheek. "I don't even know what I want anymore, don't even know if I want to be in Starfleet. That's why I'm here, in this cabin. I've taken a break from Starfleet to work out what I want. I just don't know." She paused. "And I don't even know why I'm telling you this. I don't even know you."

"Sometimes it's easier to talk to a stranger," Chakotay said softly.

"Perhaps," she answered. "But I don't expect you to understand. You probably look at me and think I'm weak and selfish, that I should just pull myself together and stop feeling sorry for myself."

"You're the least selfish person I've ever known," Chakotay said sincerely. "And you're the strongest person I've ever known. I would never think you are weak, or selfish. You've been through a horrendous ordeal. You need to grieve, need to work through your feelings. You've lost two people you loved most in the world. There's no pain greater than that. You're hurting, very much. It would be unnatural if you didn't."

Kathryn looked up at him and another tear ran down her cheek. "It hurts so much that sometimes I can't breathe."

"I know," he said quietly.

Kathryn shook her head at that and got to her feet. "How can you know? How can you possibly know?"

"Because I've lost people too...almost everyone I ever loved."

Kathryn swallowed. "You have?"

Chakotay nodded. "I lost my family in tragic circumstances. The pain was unbearable. It almost destroyed me. I was so riddled with anger and guilt and grief that I didn't care what happened to me anymore. Life or death, it was all the same. Nothing mattered. Even now when I think of what happened to them it hurts, like someone has plunged a thousand daggers into my heart."

"I'm sorry," Kathryn said quietly.

Chakotay bridged the gap between them and stood before her. "But the pain does ease. These days I find myself remembering the good times I had with them. I remember the laughter and the love. It will be the same for you." He put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "You will know happiness again, Kathryn, and you will love again. I promise."

Kathryn looked into his eyes and the terrible pain he saw in them began to fade now and was replaced with a new found hope. "Thank you," she said, her lips breaking into a soft smile. "That's all I wanted to know."

Chakotay smiled, but a sadness welled inside. He had spoken the truth, she would be happy again and she would love again, but she would love only to lose again, and would probably never have a child.

"Now, I think we should finish our dinner," she said, drawing away from him, "although I bet it's gone cold now."

"First burnt and now cold," Chakotay teased. "What next?"

"Inedible," she smiled. "Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm the Federation's worst cook."

"I wouldn't say you're that bad."

Kathryn stilled at that comment, and then laughed softly. "Of course, if you know me then you know..."

"That you once made Admiral Jones almost choke to death by not removing all bones from a fish you cooked."

Kathryn laughed. "Now I know the real reason why you offered to cook tonight." She then sobered and averted her eyes. "You won't tell anyone, will you? I mean, all the things I just said? You won't put it in a report?"

"Of course not," he replied. "Whatever you tell me, it stays strictly between us."

Kathryn looked up at him and smiled warmly. "Thank you." She then looked in the direction of the cabin. "Dinner?"

"Dinner," Chakotay replied.

Kathryn then turned around and they slowly walked back to the cabin, Petunia behind them.

END OF CHAPTER THREE