Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [100]
“You don’t think B’Elanna would mind?” Chakotay asked.
“I can handle it,” Tom smiled. “The holodeck is a great way to set the proper mood, but it isn’t the only way.”
“Thanks, Tom,” Chakotay said.
“My pleasure, Commander.”
Tom didn’t have much time the next day to reflect on his conversation with Chakotay. He’d spent most of the day focusing on the helm’s responsiveness to the warp core modifications and reporting hourly to B’Elanna. He was on his way to engineering to present his final analysis to her when he stopped short, dropping several padds to the floor at the sight of Chakotay standing at the entrance to holodeck three pausing to allow Captain Janeway to enter before him.
“Well, call me Ishmael,” he said under his breath, as he bent to retrieve the padds, and then added, “Good luck, my friend.”
To his credit, he didn’t say a word about what he had observed, even to B’Elanna as they lay nestled in each other’s arms later that night, pleasantly spent and spinning their own hopes for the future in soft breathless whispers.
Chakotay hadn’t seen much of Kathryn that day either. Their “date” had been agreed upon in a brief discussion that morning in the mess. Otherwise, it had been a day of normal duties. Apart from a slight twinge of nervous anticipation when she met him at the entrance to the holodeck, Chakotay found that he was finally at ease.
Because he had finally made a decision.
It wasn’t just what Tom had said, although his words had helped focus Chakotay’s thoughts. It was simply that despite the fact that he was Voyager’s first officer and Kathryn was the captain, he had finally accepted that this didn’t mean they were required to abdicate any right they had to a personal life. Certainly, it would be difficult at times to separate their personal and professional needs. That would have been true in the Alpha Quadrant as well. And yes, the crew might take some time to adjust. But he had never walked away from a challenge out of fear, and he wasn’t about to start now. He had asked the spirits for more, and they had answered him. He knew what he wanted, so let them do their worst.
Tom’s Venice program had needed relatively few adjustments, mostly involving the deletion of several superfluous characters meant to give the simulation a little more authenticity than Chakotay required for the evening.
There was a cafe with a private table for two on a secluded patio, a violin playing softly in the background, a half-moon to give the warm spring night a serene glow, and the gentle lapping of the canal not too far in the distance.
Dinner was what it always was between the two of them, a calm space of time to let their minds and thoughts roam freely through the events of the day. They shared a laugh as Kathryn recounted B’Elanna’s reaction to a few last minute alterations in the warp-field that Ensign Vorik had made, almost destroying the past three days of work. They gave careful consideration to a few personal requests made by the crew for duty transfers or schedule changes. In short, apart from the decidedly more romantic nature of their surroundings, it was just a normal dinner.
Kathryn seemed relaxed, enjoying the synthetic merlot Chakotay had chosen to accompany the eggplant parmesan. She had even complimented Chakotay on his outfit, certain she’d never seen it before, though he insisted it was nothing new. For his part, he had noticed a new perfume she was wearing, a gift she had received shortly before leaving Earth from her sister, and one she admitted to using sparingly.
Things were going so well, Chakotay almost hesitated to risk spoiling the mood. But finally, during a peaceful lull in the conversation as they were both enjoying a cappuccino, he decided the time had come. They had exhausted every topic of conversation imaginable, except the one that had weighed so heavily on his mind for the past three days, and it seemed she was determined to continue avoiding it. He had already considered this eventuality, and knew exactly how he wanted to play the ball that she was leaving in his court.