Chapter 4

In the end they went back to Wolf Raider, Chakotay's momentary 
break in control an unmentioned barrier.  Dinner was something 
simple from the replicator, but it hardly mattered what they ate.  It 
hardly mattered what they talked about when they did try to speak.  
Chakotay kept coming back to the image of the wolf and the hawk, 
and wondered if they would ever truly meet.  By the end of the meal 
it still wasn't clear. 

He rose and cleared the dishes.  Without thinking he ordered a 
bourbon from the replicator, this time synthehol.  He felt Tom's eyes 
on him, but he covered by asking, "Anything for you?"

"No, thanks."  

Chakotay felt the continued glare as he sat down across from Tom, 
who asked, "Chak, when did you start drinking?"

"A while ago.  You still doing Violet?"  Chakotay's question about the 
drug was a deliberate defense, just as Tom's use of an unwelcome 
nickname was a deliberate attack. 

Tom backed down.  "Not since my father was killed."

Chakotay carefully set his glass aside, untouched.  "Do you want to 
talk about that?"

Tom shook his head, but he spoke anyway.  "I...  The thing that got to 
me, really got to me, was that he never apologized and he died 
before I could make him."

"Apologize for disowning you.  And that's why you nearly killed 
yourself to take revenge on the Founders?  Not because they killed 
him, but because they killed him too soon?  Before he would admit 
that you'd proven yourself to him?"

"Not very pretty, is it?"

Chakotay got up and walked around behind him, resting his hands on 
Tom's shoulders and brushing the ponytail aside with one thumb.  He 
let the warmth flow into Tom's muscles, hoping Tom would permit 
the touch.  When there was no objection, he began a slow massage, 
thumbs tracing a firm line up the neck.  It was something he was 
good at, and a neck rub was something Tom used to enjoy. 

"You're tense."

"Yeah, well." The sandy head bent forward, accepting and 
encouraging.

"How long since you've had a massage?"

Tom grunted under his fingers when he dug them into the tense 
muscles.  "Too long."

Chakotay took a deep breath.  "Would you like one?"

"You trying to get me naked again?"  He heard humor, but no 
sarcasm in Tom's voice.

"Maybe," Chakotay joked back.  Tom's tone augered well, so he tried 
to broach the subject again.  "Tom, was that why the big revenge 
quest?  This whole 'not good enough' issue?"

Tom reached up to take the brown hands in his own, turning his face 
to nuzzle one of Chakotay's palms.  "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't counsel me."

"What do you want?"

"I heard the word massage."

Massage was the excuse, but it was a night of small revelations and 
reminders.  Chakotay found and worked every nerve of Tom's that 
would respond, from the lightest touch receptor to the deepest 
kinesthetic sensor.  For the first time since the Jem'Hadar weapon, 
Tom told him softly, he felt fully alive.  

They were both partly dressed, with Tom in the compression pants 
and Chakotay wearing his uniform trousers.  The touches turned to 
caresses, and Tom must have aware of the arousal that Chakotay was 
trying to hide.  He seemed to respect Chakotay's unspoken wish, and 
dutifully ignored it.  The touching, the presence, that was enough.  It 
was more than enough. 

Eventually Chakotay rose and went into the bathroom.  After a few 
long moments he returned, undressed, and pulled the covers back.  
He lay down next to Tom's shoulder and pulled up the bedding, 
willing his body to relax. as he splayed his fingers over Tom's chest.  

What had happened?  What did it mean to have given his heart that 
way?  It felt like both a stupid romantic gesture and a complete act 
of trust.  His thought from the afternoon, that he was something less 
than Tom, had not been shaken.  But this was Tom.  The smell of him, 
the feel of him under his fingers -- all of these things woke his 
memories of long nights in the Delta Quadrant.  The memories had 
almost been written over in the years since their return.

It was good just to touch him.

"Cha."  Tom always stretched the syllable so that it took longer to say 
than the consonants of his full name.  He did not say it often.  There 
was forgiveness in the sound, and satisfaction, but the lingering 
disquiet in Chakotay gathered force. 

His fingers flexed against Tom's chest, drawing a question.  "You 
okay?" 

"Sure."  Tom probably knew it for the lie it was.  

"Chakotay."  A mock threat. 

Chakotay couldn't answer.  In the past few years their rare couplings 
had been tinged with frantic passion, competition even, ending 
usually with Tom beneath him.  This was a connection just as 
physical, but entirely different.  Chakotay thought again of the 
sessions they had shared on Voyager when they had the time.  
Remembering Voyager brought a thought that made him laugh.

"What?"

"I was just thinking that I missed the safe, predictable routine of the 
Delta Quadrant."

Tom coughed at the absurdity of the statement, then laughed with 
him.  "Well, I wouldn't have put it that way when we were there, but 
you've got a point."

"The Jem'Hadar make the Kazon look like pushovers."

"Yeah, but I'll bet the Hirogen could give them a good fight."

"'Worthy prey.'"  Chakotay imitated the hunting species' pedantic 
tones.

They laughed together, more than the joke was worth.  Finally Tom 
said, "Chakotay?"

"Mmm?"

"Back then it seemed like your rituals anchored your life, but you 
always kept them pretty much to yourself.  I know what that cost 
you, back in the bar.  I was still pissed-off, but I want to tell you --"  
Tom broke off, then took a breath.  "I don't think I really understand 
it, but thank you."

Chakotay debated a moment before saying, "Remember how I said I 
owed you my life?"

"What, on the Ocampa home world?  We've been through this, Chief, 
and that debt's been repaid how many times?."  Tom's voice 
tightened with suspicion.

"This isn't a debt.  It's a gift."

Tom sighed and reached to run his fingers through the brush cut.  
"It's a hell of a responsibility, y'know."

Chakotay kissed the shoulder beneath his head.  "I trust you."

*

Tom lay silent, feeling the slowing rise and fall of breath as the body 
beside him slipped into sleep.  He turned over the three words.  
Chakotay had never said them before, and they meant more to Tom 
than any declaration, any act of love.

But he did love this man.  There had been those few years on 
Voyager where they had slept together like this almost every night, 
and only now did Tom admit how much he had missed it.

*--*

Chakotay woke slowly, and it took him several minutes to remember 
who was in his bed.  Harry Kim wasn't the only one who'd taken up 
casual affairs.  Oh, Chakotay said no to the men, but often enough 
when a woman showed interest it was easy to take the comfort 
offered.  But this was Tom.  It was Tom, and all of yesterday was real 
and not comfortable at all.

He'd been pulled from a dream he couldn't recall, hearing Tom's 
voice repeating, "Your rituals anchor you."

That was the problem, though.  Except for the impromptu gestures 
with Tom in the bar he hadn't kept up his practice of meditation, of 
Visions.  He felt adrift, to stretch the anchor metaphor, although his 
direction and purpose had long been guided by the winds of Starfleet 
orders and the tides of war.  He left the bed quietly and pulled on a 
robe.  It took him a few seconds to even remember where it was, and 
when he pulled it out, he paused.  The Akoonah.

It had been modified to suit Starfleet, which had official objections to 
an 'hallucinogenic device' in the first place.  A black attachment 
connected with the ship's computer system, programmed to safely 
bring him out of a trance when an alarm sounded.  Or when the brass 
simply wanted to talk to him.  He resented the imposition, but sitting 
there looking at it, he realized the resentment had been 
mischanneled toward the Akoonah itself.  He hadn't placed his 
fingers on it for over a year.  He wasn't sure why it called him now, 
but the tug was unrelenting.  He sat for a moment trying to center 
himself.  He breathed the words to begin, and reached down toward 
the amber light.

*--*

Tom woke to coffee waved under his nose.  He squinted up at the
offering, blearily tracing the path from hand to arm, and finally to
the face.  It was unacceptably smiling.

"Mmph," he mumbled.  "You're 'way too cheery.  What time is it?"

"Oh-seven-thirty.  I've been up working for an hour."  Chakotay 
nudged the prone form.  "Don't you meet Bashir at nine?"

"Let me smell that coffee again."

"I think drinking it would work better.  Breakfast?"

"Put that thing away and let me feast on you," Tom answered 
dramatically.  Chakotay took him at his word, bending down as if to 
kiss, then barely brushing his lips over Tom's.  A second pass, then 
he licked softly across the mouth.  With that, Tom grabbed his head 
in frustration and kissed him deeply.

When the kiss broke, Chakotay stood and grinned down at Tom, who 
glared at him.  "You are one crazy Indian."

"Who you calling crazy, White Boy?  I just accepted an invitation to 
feast on you and was sampling the menu."  Chakotay held up the 
mug.  "You want this or not?"

Tom wanted to know what had lightened the mood, but he didn't ask.  
It was easier just to accept.  Tom couldn't remember the last time 
he'd seen Chakotay in the mood he called 'Crazy Indian', and he 
wondered what had prompted it.  He reached for the coffee.  "Give."

Chakotay handed him the mug and fetched the brace.  He grunted at 
the weight as he brought it over.  "Last time for this beast, eh?"

"I am not going to miss it."

*

Tom declined Chakotay's help, strapped himself into the machine, 
and dealt with the morning necessities.  It took a while, but they 
made it to the station infirmary with plenty of time.  Bashir was 
waiting, but Seven had not yet arrived.

After a round of greetings, the doctor began to examine Tom.  He 
looked at the readings on the medical tricorder with evident 
suspicion, and performed the scan again.

"Something wrong?" asked Tom.

Bashir hesitated.  "I... I don't think your injury was quite as severe as 
you thought."  The doctor pursed his lips.  "Most of your paralysis is 
from spinal shock, which I can easily remedy."

Tom looked surprised.  "Just spinal shock?  And the rest?"

"Oh, there is some degeneration, and much of it is work I can do here.  
But perhaps not all of it.  I, uh, need to check something in the 
medical banks."

Tom interrupted before he could turn away.  "May I borrow your 
comm system?"  His voice was neutral, even solicitous.  It was a tone 
that always made Chakotay nervous.

The doctor covered his confusion at the non sequitur.  "Of course."  He 
gestured toward a screen.

Tom stood up from the biobed where he'd been sitting, and moved to 
stand in front of the panel.  Chakotay heard him contact the Logan 
and asked for Ba'ruq.

"Paris!"  The Klingon voice said.  "What's your trouble?"  The phrase 
seemed to be their usual greeting.

Tom's tone still held that solicitous politeness.

"My trouble, Ba'ruq, is much less than I thought it was."

Apparently the Klingon knew the tone as well as Chakotay did.  The 
voice was immediately cautious.  "How do you mean?"

"I mean you're going to come down to the station infirmary and 
explain why you and Treyn Dahl lied to me."

"About what?"  The voice continued quickly, "And you know I can't 
go on that station."

"Sure you can," Tom answered smoothly.  "It'll be much worse if you 
don't get your sorry Klingon ass over here.  Bring the Betazoid."  

"I can't do that."

"Sure you can," Tom repeated, and the cajoling tones carried threat.

Chakotay heard a deep sigh over the comm link.  "We'll be there," 
Ba'ruq said, resigned.  "I'll see you in ten minutes if I don't get killed 
on the way."

Tom broke the connection and leaned over the control panel.   
Chakotay came to stand next to him and put his hand on the bent 
back.  "What was that all about?"

"Near as I can tell, they lied to me about my injury."  

Tom stood, and Chakotay dropped his hand, asking, "Why would they 
do that?"

"That's what I'm going to find out."

They returned to the main room, and before Chakotay could ask why 
Ba'ruq was worried he'd be killed, Seven of Nine strode in.

"Tom Paris.  Captain Chakotay," she greeted them.  "I apologize for 
arriving late."

"Were you up all night with that Ferengi?" Tom asked, innuendo in 
his voice.

Her forehead implant moved up like an eyebrow.  "No.  I was 
running some simulations based on one of his suggestions."

"Well, whatever you were doing, we may not need you here 
anyway."

"Explain."

Bashir's voice answered as he rejoined them, "He's not half as bad off 
as he thought he was, but he's got enough problems that I want to 
send him on to Starfleet medical."

Chakotay furrowed his brow.  "All the way to Earth?"

"I'm afraid so.  They have some equipment that hasn't quite, uh, 
reached the frontier."  Bashir visibly brightened as he continued, "But 
we can still get you into much better shape.  You'll only need the 
prosthetic conductors for your more distal parts."

Tom seemed to have followed, but Chakotay asked, "What does that 
mean?"

"I can fix him basically to his knees, but the, uh, offered Borg 
technology would still be useful."  The doctor smiled.  "I'll go prepare 
the surgery and we can get those old implants removed."

Tom watched Bashir leave, then asked Seven, "What time is it?"

"Nine twenty-three."

"They've got one minute," he grumbled.

"They?" Seven asked.

"My so solicitous caretakers."  Tom stared toward the entrance, face a 
bland mask that belied his tones.

Seven looked at Chakotay for explanation, but he could only shrug.  
Not many seconds later a cloaked figure entered, and Tom looked at 
it, saying, "Ba'ruq, you're alone."

The hood of the cloak was tossed back as the figure inside growled, 
"Dahl is gone."

Chakotay didn't hear the next part of the conversation.  The man 
Tom named as Ba'ruq sounded Klingon, but he looked like no Klingon 
he'd ever seen.  For one thing the face was rounded, and the body 
thick in a way that spoke more of sitting than of action.  He was 
dressed in black, not as a warrior, with a long vest similar to Tom's, 
but dark.  His hair was cut in shoulder-length layers, and he was a 
bit shorter than most Klingon warriors.  The most surprising feature, 
though, was the lack of skull ridges.  The coarse dark hair swept over 
a decidedly smooth forehead.

Chakotay picked up the conversation again.  Ba'ruq was saying, "He 
thought it was the only way to convince you to come to a station run 
by Starfleet."

"But technically Bajoran, so I wouldn't refuse outright."  Tom's 
posture conveyed contained fury, but his voice still held that 
dangerously controlled tone.  "*You* should try spending two weeks 
in this contraption you built.  I ought to make you go back to the ship 
without your damn cloak."

The Klingon looked away.  "We thought we were doing the right thing 
for you."

"You didn't ask me."

"You would have said no."  He scowled beneath his beard, a standard 
warrior goatee.  "You are more stubborn than my bone-headed 
brethren."

"You lied to me."  Chakotay watched Tom from behind, seeing the 
tension in the shoulders belie the smooth voice.

"Paris, it was the only way to slow you down.  You were going to let 
yourself die, and if he'd healed you outright what would you have 
done?"  Ba'ruq was challenging and pleading all at once.

"It was a good day to die," Tom quoted, unmoved.

Ba'ruq drew back.  "Do not use those words with me!"

"Why not?  You denied me a warrior's death."

A growl rose in the Klingon's chest, and Chakotay looked from one to 
the other.  He marveled at Tom's manipulations.  The Klingon, if 
Klingon he was, was being pushed, but had checked his anger.  "Dahl 
convinced me it was the right thing to do."

"Of course," Tom answered evenly, perhaps dismissively.  "Dahl's a 
telepath and would have known my intentions."

"He told me you wanted to die."

As Ba'ruq gained control, Tom lost it.  "No!  And better to die than 
this!"  He lifted one leg, pulling up the pants to show the brace.  "I 
thought I was going to spend the next few *years* in this thing!  And 
now I find out he should have been able to do more, that I shouldn't 
have needed this at all."

"Better that than you dead.  He told me you would get better 
treatment here, and he's the one who suggested we contact Seven of 
Nine.  And we got you out of Dominion territory."

Chakotay leaned over to Seven.  She was staring at Tom's companion, 
and he whispered, "What's going on?  You ever seen a Klingon like 
that?"

Her eyes shifted to Chakotay's, and she did not whisper.  "His kind 
were exterminated by the Klingons you know.  I was surprised to see 
one of his race alive when I met him yesterday." 

Ba'ruq heard her, and looked over to answer.  "There are a few 
thousand of us left.  It's a good thing that General Martok is off 
station with most of his warriors, or I might not have made it here."  
He glanced back to Tom briefly.  "Only for you, Paris,"  he said, 
glowering.  "Seven, the all-knowing.  Who's your friend?"

Tom gestured his them closer.  "Ba'ruq, meet Chakotay." 

Ba'ruq drew himself up into a formal stance.  "My friend names you 
as his friend, and I have heard him sing your praises many a long 
night."  He raised his hand to his chest in traditional Klingon salute.  

Eyes beneath fierce brows rested on Chakotay for a moment, a 
moment long enough for him to think that the eyes at least were 
certainly Klingon.  The intensity of the gaze left no doubt that the 
soft features belonged to a strong-willed being.  Chakotay had no 
sense of what the man was thinking, and he was surprised when the 
head jerked sideways to indicate Tom, and the gruff voice said, "Was 
he always this insufferable?"

Chakotay laughed out loud.  He didn't know what he'd been 
expecting, but the question caught him off guard.  He shook his head 
to answer and said, "He used to be worse."  Ba'ruq coughed in 
disbelief.

Bashir declared his presence with an answering noise deep in his 
throat as he emerged from an inner room.  He had changed to red 
surgery garb, and he walked up to Tom.  "We're almost ready.  It's 
time to get you prepared."  He turned to the Borg.  "Seven -- may I 
call you that?"

Her answer was dry.  "That is my designation."

Bashir blinked, clearly flustered by her.  Tom watched, amused, 
remembering the man's enthusiasm the night before.  "I'm, uh, Dr. 
Bashir, but you probably know that.  Perhaps you'd like to get your... 
things, uh, ready?"

"I will need the medical data you collected and an outline of your 
intended procedures before I can make final adjustments."

"Yes, of course."  Bashir picked up a padd and the medical tricorder.  
"Just let me download the data into this," he said, indicating the 
recorder and the data device in turn.  He turned away and went to a 
console.

Chakotay leaned into Tom.  "I guess I'll go.  Call me when you're 
done, if she leaves you with any will of your own," he joked.

Tom pulled back and looked at him cooly.  "I'm not sure who 
upgraded your drivers, Chief,  but believe me you're in big trouble 
when I get better."

The answer was a husky whisper.  "I certainly hope so."  He meant it.  
Chakotay turned to Ba'ruq.  It was only then that he noticed that the 
Klingon had faded into the background.  The doctor hadn't even 
appeared to notice him.  "Can I walk with you back to the Logan?"

A sardonic growl answered, "If you don't mind risking your life."

The tattooed head jerked to indicate Tom, imitating the Klingon's 
earlier gesture.  "For the friend of my friend, I'll risk a bit of 
something."