Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [89]
- The Rule of Four
It was definitely one of Neelix’s more successful parties. There was plenty to eat and drink, though afterward Chakotay couldn’t remember the name or taste of even one of the dozens of fragrant and inviting dishes that were placed before him throughout the course of the evening.
Three hours earlier, he’d been wearing a hole in the floor of his cabin waiting for Neelix’s emergency call to reverberate through the comm system, asking him to hurry to the mess hall. He already knew the “emergency” was a ruse. For the first time in five years, Voyager’s crew was throwing a surprise, no-holds-barred bash to celebrate their first officer’s birthday.
He should have been looking forward to it.
He wasn’t.
But life had a way of flipping expectations on their head in the space of a heartbeat. Five years ago he’d been staring down the business end of a Cardassian torpedo tube one minute, and the next, found himself staring in disbelief at a sensor scan indicating that his ship had traveled seventy thousand light-years from its previous position. Three hours ago he had been filled with anxiety as he pondered the passage of time, only to feel that anxiety released in a breathless moment when he had unwrapped her birthday present.
Though the shock of the moment he had first laid eyes on the gift had begun to fade, what came next was not the calm, steady flow of thought that Chakotay usually associated with his brain function. His mind danced erratically about from one barely coherent fragment to the next until he caught her eye, or heard her voice rising above the din, and it would hit him again like a sharp blow to the gut.
She loves me.
Not that this was a bad thing.
He was actually enjoying the sensation, perhaps because he couldn’t remember the last time a feeling of such intensity had knocked him so far off his pins.
The evening’s entertainment had been planned by Tom Paris and Harry Kim, an old Earth tradition called a “roast” wherein several of his fellow officers and crewmates would publicly relate the most embarrassing and painful moments of his past for everyone’s amusement.
Chakotay said a silent prayer of thanks when he discovered that Tuvok had been selected as master of ceremonies for the event, knowing full well that whatever his personal, albeit suppressed, feelings about Chakotay, the Vulcan would keep a tight rein on the proceedings. But even when Tom was recounting the infamous, oft-repeated, and mostly apocryphal story of the transporter malfunction that had left Chakotay facing Admiral Nimembeh wearing nothing but his combadge, which definitely got the biggest laugh of the night, Chakotay could barely force his mind to stay focused on the present moment.
He wanted to take her hand and lead her back to his cabin. He wanted to hear her relate every thought that had entered her head from the moment she had realized that she wanted to take this step until the moment she had given him her gift. He wanted to apologize for not taking her in his arms then and there and showing her exactly how much he appreciated the courage of her gesture. He wanted to see and know and cherish every part of her that she so carefully guarded from others, and assure her with words and gentle caresses that she had chosen well. He was a man, standing at the gates of a fiery paradise, anxious to be consumed.
Standing completely unengaged in conversation with the Doctor, he watched, fascinated, as across the room, she took her first bite of the Jibelian fudge cake that Neelix had prepared as the culmination of the evening’s feast. When she licked her lips appreciatively he couldn’t stop himself from imagining equally delicious and far more tantalizing places her tongue might soon be exploring….
“Commander Chakotay, are you unwell?” the Doctor’s voice knifed into his head, scattering the image and demanding his attention.
“I beg your pardon,” he heard himself say. “I’m fine. Just a little distracted.