Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [93]
He should have remembered his father’s gentle admonishment when Chakotay had expressed similar sentiments on more than one occasion as a child.
Do not ask the spirits to bless you with more… for they surely will.
The sound that halted his paces a few moments later was not, in fact, the emergency call he was expecting. Instead, it was a chiming at his door.
“Come in,” he called curiously. He knew where everyone on board was supposed to be right now, and it wasn’t his quarters.
“I hope this isn’t a bad time, Commander,” she said as she entered with a slight smile on her face.
As the door closed behind her, he noticed that her hands remained clasped behind her back, though she stood before him very much at ease.
“Why aren’t you in the mess hall helping Neelix and the others prepare for my party?” he asked smiling.
She decided to play along. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Why would the crew plan a party for you? Is this some sort of… special day?”
“Is that humor I’m hearing?” he asked.
“It is,” she replied.
As he gestured for her to take a seat with him along the low bench that ran beneath the windows of his cabin he said, “What can I do for you?”
She seemed to struggle for a moment, looking for just the right words. “I have something for you,” she finally stated simply. She continued as she pulled a small wrapped package from behind her back, “But I didn’t want to give it to you in front of everyone.”
Chakotay felt his face flush ever so slightly as he said, “You didn’t have to…”
“I know,” she cut him off. “But… you always seem to find a way to… I just wanted to you to know…” She was searching for words that simply wouldn’t come. Finally she handed him the package and settled for “I think you’ll understand when you open it. Happy birthday, Chakotay.”
The package was only slightly larger than the palm of Chakotay’s hand. Maybe it was her sudden uncharacteristic self-consciousness, or the way she was absentmindedly fiddling with her combadge, never a good sign, but part of him was reluctant to open it. He decided he was being ridiculous.
“Thank you,” he said sincerely, finally tearing into the gift wrapping.
He couldn’t help but notice that she leaned slightly forward once the paper was removed, probably searching his face for a reaction.
And he was certain that unless total shock was the reaction she had anticipated, what she was reading on his face right now probably wasn’t what she wanted to see.
His stomach was simply no longer where it should have been. It had plunged toward the general vicinity of his ankles, headed rapidly for the lower decks. The space in his chest that his heart had once occupied was now filled with a strangely pleasant burning sensation, which crept up his neck and continued all the way to the top of his head. Also unexpected was the faint buzzing in his ears that only grew louder as he tried to make out whatever she was saying.
He finally heard her words: “Do you know what it is?”
Of course he did.
But just to be absolutely certain, he gently grasped it around its edges and turned it slowly, committing to memory in an instant each of the symbols carved on its edges.
Eternity.
Commitment.
Fidelity.
Two spirits joined as one.
And above them all, the symbol his forefathers had used to identify love.
But not just any love. This symbol of three connected circles was reserved for the kind of love shared between two people who had made the irrevocable choice to bind their lives together in a permanent committed relationship.
The gift that she had given him, the indescribably beautiful treasure that he now placed firmly on his palm as he struggled to remember how to breathe, was a Bonding Box.
The Bonding Box was traditionally given by a man to the woman he intended to marry, during the ceremony in which their new relationship was announced to the tribe. Although it was not unheard of in modern times, a woman rarely made this