Fan Fiction
TITLE: On the Day of All Saints
AUTHOR: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
RATING: PG
CODES: C/T
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This story is a direct sequel to Kate's two-part story "Halloween on the Holodeck," and is written with her permission. To understand the title, you should be aware that, in the Catholic liturgical calendar, All Saints Day is November 1, the day after Halloween.
DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns all, but I'm pretty sure they'd be surprised to see the characters in *this* situation...
SUMMARY: The morning after the Halloween party where Janeway learned that Chakotay and Torres are a couple, the first officer is summoned to the captain's ready room.
Chakotay had not thought the confrontation would be long in coming, and it was not. Morning shift had not passed its first half-hour when the call came from Janeway's ready room. "Commander, a word with you, please."
He pushed himself up out of his seat in the command well, mentally bracing himself for what lay ahead. The captain's calm tone had fooled approximately no one; the entire bridge crew appeared to know that the commander was, as Tom Paris would have put it, "up to his ears in shit." That selfsame Paris sent Chakotay a look that combined guilt and sympathy; the first officer, a bit surprised, acknowledged it with a nod. (Though Paris had every reason to look guilty. If his breakup with B'Elanna Torres had been even remotely circumspect, the captain would never have had reason to conceive the policy that Chakotay was going to be accused of contravening.)
Harry Kim's look of sympathy was friendly, and more overt. Of course, Harry was newly in love himself, and could certainly empathize with another man choosing to follow his heart. Chakotay answered with a sketchy smile -- and his head snapped up, in something close to amazement, when he realized that Tuvok was subtly but definitely trying to catch his eye. Human and Vulcan gazes met and held, just for a moment, and the first officer walked on, strengthened more than he would have guessed by that unexpected support.
The doors parted to admit him, then closed behind as if to seal him into the situation. No, that wasn't true. His own choices had sealed him into the situation, and not only did he not regret those choices, he was prepared to fight for his right to make them. While he did not especially want to fight Janeway -- had never wanted to fight his captain and his friend -- if he were honest he had to admit to himself that from the moment he'd started seeing B'Elanna he'd known this day would come.
B'Elanna was worth it. What he had with B'Elanna was worth it. //Let it begin, then.// "Captain," he said.
"Commander." Captain Kathryn Janeway set her coffee cup down on the glassy black desktop before her, and interlaced her slender fingers. "Please come in." He complied, coming to the front of her desk and assuming an "at ease" posture that belied his true feelings.
"I raised a subject last night that you suggested, quite correctly, was more suited to a briefing room than a party," she said quietly, reminding him of their exchange at last night's Halloween party, when she had referenced the operating protocols about relationships. "Well, as you may have noticed, we're in a briefing room now." The quick smile didn't reach her eyes. "So I'll ask you again: you are aware of this ship's operating protocols about romantic relationships among colleagues?"
"Yes, I am." No one on Voyager could claim ignorance of those protocols, which had been presented with some emphasis after B'Elanna's spectacular, destructive break-up with Tom a few months back. Seeking to avoid future problems of the same nature, Janeway had drawn up operating protocols which stopped just short of forbidding crewmembers who worked together from forming romantic ties. Chakotay understood why she'd done it, but he hadn't agreed with her then, and he certainly didn't agree with her now.
"And you're aware that your -- relationship --" Janeway stumbled, almost imperceptibly, over the word -- "with Lieutenant Torres flouts those protocols."
"Yes, I am." Evenly.
Her eyes hardened. "And you believe it's appropriate for the first officer to violate ship's policy in front of the entire crew."
Though he kept his voice mild, he had no more intention of being conciliatory than did she. "Do *you* think it's appropriate for a captain to draw up protocols that could be construed as violating Starfleet regulations?"
She sat up straighter. "Excuse me?"
"You know what I mean." He straightened as well. "If I remember correctly, Captain, it was *you* who pointed out to *me* that Starfleet has no regulations against fraternization." He snorted a little, shaking his head. "Well, I thought that as your first officer I needed to know more about that policy, so I looked it up. Actually, the regulations go a little further than that." He held her gaze. "According to Article 47, Subparagraph Eight, officers may not interfere with the interpersonal relationships of their subordinates unless they have reason to believe that said relationship constitutes a danger to one or both of the individuals involved, to other crewmembers, or to the ship itself."
"After what happened with Tom and B'Elanna," she said coolly, "I think we have all the reasons we need. Or have you forgotten why the Alimen away mission failed?"
"Of course not." He had, after all, been its commander. The mission had failed because the couple, recently broken up, couldn't resist bickering; to be more precise, because Tom couldn't resist sniping and B'Elanna couldn't resist rising to the bait. To say that the away team's hosts had been offended was to understate the case dramatically. All of Chakotay's own efforts had been insufficient to smooth their ruffled feathers, and Voyager had been turned away without a trade agreement -- also without some much-needed supplies.
"Surely you agree that we can't risk that kind of failure again." Janeway picked up the coffee cup and took a sip, looking at him levelly over the rim as if to say she had made her point.
"What makes you think we would be?" he answered quietly.
She snorted then, humorlessly, setting her cup down. "I'm sure Tom and B'Elanna didn't think *they* would be, either."
"I'm sure." He felt a frown trying to form on his features, and let it happen. "So from now on the entire crew will pay for Tom and B'Elanna's indiscretion."
"Most of them don't seem to find the protocols as difficult to abide by as you do, Commander." The words were stiff, but it was her use of his title that betrayed her anger. "And even if you don't think the crew should be affected by that debacle with Tom and B'Elanna, surely you can't argue that *B'Elanna* shouldn't be affected by it."
She had a point, but it was one he'd anticipated a long time ago. "She has been. If you recall, you disciplined both of them when it happened." Each had drawn extra half-shifts for weeks, Tom's with the EMH and B'Elanna's doing the kind of boring, repetitive cataloguing that she hated.
"I've disciplined her for her temper before this, but the problem hasn't gone away, has it? What makes you think this time will be the charm?" She bared her teeth in what wasn't a smile. "Or do you see yourself as the solution to her problems?"
"Not entirely, no." Though he had some hopes that his love for B'Elanna would help to soothe her insecurity -- insecurity which Paris had only managed to exacerbate -- he didn't see himself as her savior. "She's been studying anger management with Tuvok."
Janeway blinked. "She what?"
"She's been studying anger management with Tuvok."
"He didn't mention that to me."
"He wouldn't." Though neither Tuvok nor Chakotay himself had ever trained as counselors, when they'd taken on counseling duties both of them had adopted counselors' ethics, including confidentiality about any matter that didn't affect the safety of the ship.
"No, I suppose he wouldn't," the captain admitted, grudgingly.
"Though I'm sure B'Elanna would give him permission to verify it if you asked." //Especially since I know she already has.// B'Elanna knew as well as Chakotay that, if she couldn't prove she was learning to control her anger, the captain would have indisputable grounds to accuse her -- accuse them both -- of fraternization that could present hazard to the ship.
"No doubt. And I'll require a progress report, as well." Janeway looked away for a moment, clearly gathering herself before turning her attention back to him. "Though I should point out that none of this answers the question I asked you earlier, Commander." His title again. "Do you think it's wise for the first officer to flout established operating protocols?"
If she insisted on putting it on that level, then he would respond to her on that level. "If you'll recall, Captain," he said quietly, "I advised you against initiating those protocols in the first place. When I attended Command School," and he knew it was a none-too-subtle reminder of the fact that he was the one other person on Voyager who *had*, in fact, attended Command School, "they warned us that it was a bad idea to implement policies that flesh and bone couldn't live up to."
"I hardly think this falls into that category."
"Really." He let his voice show his disbelief. "You really don't think that, in a closed community, restricting relationships might be a bit much to sustain over 40 years?"
"I don't accept that we'll be out here for another 40 years," she said adamantly.
"Maybe we won't." He would be first to concede that Voyager had been spectacularly lucky in the first five years of its journey, accomplishing 30 years' travel in one-sixth that time. But luck was a fickle ally. "But you don't *know* that, and neither do any of us. What we do know is that humans and Klingons, like most intelligent species, were never meant to live alone indefinitely."
She dismissed that. "Amongst over 140 people? And you're not without friends, either. I'd hardly say you were alone."
He looked at her in astonishment. Did she really not understand? Did she have no idea how lonely he had been, until he had taken B'Elanna into his arms, into his life?
But she was continuing. "No more alone than I am."
Then *he* understood.
Janeway truly asked no more of him, or of B'Elanna, than she asked of herself. *She* had not fraternized, she had not formed romantic relationships with her colleagues //with *me*// -- or with anyone, at least not in any lasting sense. Not since the mission had begun.
And she did not see what that choice had done to her. She did not see that she had hardened, grown rigid, in her isolation. Absent any awareness that she *had* a choice, she didn't even seem to realize that the bleakness in her eyes was loneliness.
His heart ached for her, for what she did not see -- what he had not seen -- but he did not know what he could have done to help her. And now, it was too late. "You have to do what you think is best, Captain," he said quietly. "But I can't live like that. It's not enough for me, to be one of 140. It's not enough to be part of a group of friends. Not any longer." Not when he finally knew what it was like, to love and be loved in return.
She regarded him steadily, thinned lips pressed together. "So you refuse to give up this -- relationship -- of yours for the good of the ship."
"I don't think sacrificing my relationship with B'Elanna is necessary for the good of the ship." His voice was low and firm. "But yes. I refuse."
"Very well." She folded her arms, looking up at him. "You know that under Starfleet regulations, I can't force you to. And I can't penalize you for staying together. But I'll tell you this, Commander: if your ties with B'Elanna end up being detrimental to this ship in any way whatsoever, there'll be hell to pay. And if you break up, there had better not be a repeat of what happened on Alimen. Do I make myself clear?"
"Crystal. But I don't think you have to worry about me, Captain. I'm used to being disappointed in love, remember?"
Somewhere behind the anger in her eyes, he saw something small and sad, something he knew she did not want to be there. Before he could see more, he turned and walked away.
He thought, suddenly, that he would invite B'Elanna to lunch in his cabin today. He needed the support and the solace of her strong Klingon arms.
