Fan Fiction
TITLE: Chakotay's Holidays: Paranoia Will Destroy Ya
AUTHOR: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
RATING: PG
CODES: T, with C mostly implied. Future chapters will be C/T.
PART: 7/?
DISCLAIMER: Paramount will little note, nor long remember, what I do here. But
they still own the VOY copyrights, so they get a shout-out anyway.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Thanks to Diane Bellomo for betaing, and to Chuck, my favorite Evil Genius.
SUMMARY: A few weeks ago, B'Elanna successfully pranked Chakotay. On April
Fool's Day, she just knows he's going to make her pay for that.
When B'Elanna's alarm sounded a wake-up call that April 1, she checked the time against the display on her newsnet connection. It looked as if the time was correct.
She had set the alarm early so that she'd have plenty of time to check the hardware and software on her apartment replicator. She didn't think Chakotay would have had time or opportunity to fiddle with the device, but best to play it safe. The replicator checked out fine, and produced a cup of raktajino just the way B'Elanna liked it.
She stood well back when she activated the mechanism to open her apartment door. Nothing happened. Cautiously, she poked her head out the door and looked up, down, and side-to-side. Still nothing. She took Miral's hand and went to the lift. She figured it was pretty unlikely that he'd have set a trap in the building's public areas, where it might take out innocent bystanders. She was right; he hadn't.
Taking the lift to her building's garage area, she walked quickly toward her hovercar. Hmm. Nothing in the area around it, above it, or below it. She stepped back as she activated the door-opening mechanism, but nothing happened other than the door opening, just as programmed. Setting Miral into the child seat, B'Elanna activated the toddler's safety restraints, and got into the car herself. The drive to work, like all else so far, was uneventful.
It occurred to her that Chakotay might have worked some mischief at the child-care center, such as telling them that Miral wouldn't be in today. But David, the center manager, welcomed little Miss Paris in with his customary good humor, and said nothing to suggest that.
B'Elanna took the lift to her workroom. Again, she was pretty sure the common area would be safe enough, and it was. So was the workroom itself, where her assistants were already hard at work on her latest design. Her own office, she thought, might be another matter.
She said nothing of her suspicions to her subordinates, of course. They would only have assured her that the building's security was so good it would have been impossible for Chakotay to even make it all the way to her office, let alone to set up some prank for her there. As far as B'Elanna was concerned, that would only have proven how little they knew him. Wishing for a tricorder, she triggered her door cautiously, swinging around to direct an instruction to a subordinate just at the moment that it opened. Nothing happened, and she turned back and went in.
Once the door was closed, she made a thorough search of the office. Nothing on or under or above her worktable. Nothing on or under or above her desk. Her tools were undisturbed, still lined up in the gleaming array in which she'd left them yesterday. Her computer -- ? Remembering some of the unexpected talents he had shown in their old days with the Maquis, she ran a diagnostic. Best not to take any chances.
Still nothing. Reassured for the moment, she sat down and got to work.
Only to jump half a meter when her door signal sounded. "Package for you, Ms. Torres."
The words set her warrior's senses on alert. "Bring it in, Paul."
Her most junior assistant carried in a parcel of about half-a-meter by a quarter-meter, neatly wrapped and bearing the "GanyTech" logo. Well, she *had* been expecting something from GanyTech and the logo *did* look authentic, but still... "Want me to open it, Ms. Torres?" Paul asked, oblivious to her speculations.
"What? Oh, no, no. I'll get it."
If this *was* from Chakotay, she was sure -- well, pretty sure -- that it wouldn't contain anything that would actually harm an innocent bystander. Even so, she didn't want to be pranked in front of her staff. Paul exited, and she donned protective gloves and goggles before activating her small package-opening laser. No, wait, she always used the laser. What if the package's contents were laser-triggered? She deactivated the device and set it aside. After a few minutes of rummaging in her drawer, she found a little metal cutter. Wrappings neatly parted, and fell aside to reveal...
Scale models of her latest hovercar design, which were just what she had ordered from GanyTech. She cautiously activated one, and it performed exactly as she had meant it to. This really was her GanyTech order, then. She watched the little model and its twin fly for a few minutes, making performance notes. Then she deactivated them and began to work on a preliminary report.
Distracted, she corrected some typos, then, on more careful consideration, rewrote most of a paragraph. Dammit, what's he got planned? When's the other shoe going to drop? But nothing else arrived, nothing else happened, until lunchtime.
When the lunch order arrived, she took her portion into her office and examined it minutely. Chakotay did know her office's favorite eatery to order from, after all, and he would have had a pretty good guess as to which of the several entrees was hers. Dissected grain-by-grain and chunk-by-chunk, however, her General Tso's chicken turned out to be no more than it seemed. It was still pretty good eating, though.
She knew something was going to happen. She just knew it. But what? When?
When the flowers arrived for her, she was sure that was it. Hell, Chakotay's name was even on the card. "Hope you're having a wonderful springtime," the card read. Yeah. Right. A few minutes after that, stems, leaves, and petals lay in a tidy pile on B'Elanna's desk. But aside from a handful of tissue paper, there was nothing else to be found.
Paul came in, carrying a glass vase. "Thought you might have some use for this," he said, then goggled in astonishment at the dissected flowers, and fled her office without a word. Oh, swell. Now they're going to think I've cracked.
Work ended. Nothing outside her office door, nothing in the hallways or the lifts. Nothing at child care. She checked around, over, and under her hovercar, ignoring Miral's querulous "Mommy?" Still nothing. There was nothing inside it, either -- not on the dash nor in the seats nor under the hood nor in the tiny trunk.
Okay then. Back to her apartment building, where she carefully examined the wiring on the replicator yet again. Chakotay had significant time gaps between some of his classes, after all, and she knew from the old days that he was certainly capable of finding a way into her apartment, whether or not it was locked. When the hardware looked good, she ran another diagnostic. Still good. So she programmed herself and Miral some dinner, checking the chairs (seat and legs) at the table before she sat down. Then she parked Miral in the living room with a holostorybook, and investigated the rest of the apartment. Nothing in any of the windows, cupboards, or drawers. Nothing in, on or under the furniture. Nothing on the ceilings, nothing in the corners, nothing under the carpets. Nothing in the sinks, or the shower stall, or the beds. (She checked the pillows and under the blankets and mattresses, just to be sure.)
It wasn't until after she had put Miral to bed that an idea suddenly struck her.
He hadn't done *anything*, had he? Well, anything other than to make her paranoid, with his promise of retaliation for her St. Patrick's Day prank. "Why, that son of a bitch," she murmured, chuckling with unwilling admiration. She should have known that was just the sort of tactic to which someone with his cracked sense of humor would resort. He just sat back and put his feet up, and let me spend the whole day sweating.
She was still chuckling when she called him up on the commlink. "Chakotay, you're really a jerk, do you know that?"
He put on his most innocent butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-Maquis-mouth expression.
"I don't know what you're talking about, B'Elanna."
"Sure you don't. You set me up to spend the whole day being paranoid for nothing, didn't you?"
The innocent expression held for another moment, and then he smirked. "Worked well, didn't it?"
"And you knew it would, too, didn't you?" He only chuckled. Damn, it was impossible to stay mad at him when he did that. He probably knew it, too. "Oh, all right, you got me. Oh, and thanks for the flowers, even if they *were* part of your stupid joke."
"I don't suppose they survived the day," he teased.
"Nope. But they did make my office smell nice. Well, catch you later, Chakotay."
"Catch you later, B'Elanna."
She headed for the bathroom then. After the day she'd had, she really needed a hot, steamy, relaxing shower. Shedding clothes as she went, she shook her head over the ease with which he'd taken her in. I really should be more suspicious of him. She stepped into the shower stall, and pushed the activation button. Seconds later, she slapped the activation button off, swearing and shivering. Dammit, she really *should* be more suspicious of him.
He had reset her default water temperature to ice water.
