The Gift
By Ralkana

=/\= =/\= =/\=

Kathryn awoke to an unfamiliar sound in her quarters. She glanced at the chronometer: 0130 hours. What the hell is that noise? Rolling out of bed, she grabbed the phaser on her nightstand with one hand and her robe with the other. Shrugging into her robe, she edged cautiously forward to the door between her bedroom and her living area, phaser aimed at center-mass level, at least for a human. The sight that greeted her as she poked her head around the doorframe made her gasp and drop the phaser.

Chakotay was asleep on her couch, clad only in black boxers, with a big, shiny, red bow on his chest. One arm was thrown over his eyes, and the other hung carelessly off the edge of the couch.

"What the hell?!"

Her exclamation was loud and should have awakened him—she remembered from a time long ago that he was a fairly light sleeper—but he continued to snore unevenly, and that worried her. She retreated briefly into her bedroom, grabbed a tricorder, and approached him. Scanning him, she noted that he seemed to be in perfect health, although there were traces of a mild sedative in his system. His leg twitched, and she realized he was slowly coming around. She stepped back quickly, kicking a padd she hadn’t seen. Hurriedly tying her bathrobe around her, she picked up the padd, afraid to read it—she just had a feeling she knew what it would say, and she had no idea what she was going to do about it.

And this cheery message was followed by the signatures of her entire crew.

Kathryn groaned, sinking down to her knees next to her insensible first officer. What the hell was she going to do about this?! She barely resisted the irrational urge to sucker punch Chakotay right in his beautiful, bronze stomach. This wasn’t his fault—she would have known, even without her crew’s stating it, that he never would have gone along with this. This wasn’t his style of seduction—but it seemed to be working anyway, judging from her racing pulse and fluttery stomach. He moved and shifted his arm, exposing his tattooed profile to her. My God, the man is gorgeous! She tried to tear her eyes away from him, but she couldn’t help herself, and she could feel her stomach tightening as she stared.

His hair was tousled, swept down and forward in the way that always made her pulse race. His face was unlined and relaxed in his pharmaceutically-aided sleep, so unlike the tense mask he usually wore around her these days. His body was large and golden and practically hairless, with just a slight arrow of fuzz leading into the boxers that she could now see were black silk. Mmmmm… Her hand swept forward to stroke the material, and she caught her wrist with the other hand. No! I will not touch him; this is so wrong! I can’t believe I’m contemplating doing so!

Kathryn stood and gently shook his shoulder, her emotions warring within her. She knew that she should wake him and end this fiasco, but she desperately wanted to study him; he was so at peace, and she didn’t know if she’d ever get an opportunity like this—just to watch him sleep—again. She knew he would be mortified when he awoke, whether it was due to her urging, or on his own. She sighed and shook him again, but he merely grunted and shifted, and at the rippling movement of his hard muscles under her hand she had to jump back to keep from climbing onto him and kissing him out of his torpor. Well, she’d got her wish; she’d just have to wait for him to come around on his own.

Telling herself that she was merely watching him to make sure that the sedative wasn’t having any harmful effects, she settled into the chair opposite, fiddling with her Christmas card. As she watched the streaking starlight play over his bronze flesh, she mused over her crew and this ridiculous predicament.

Tom Paris. She would bet her rations for the rest of the journey that he was behind this. And Harry. And B’Elanna. And probably Neelix, and they had probably roped Seven into helping as well. And everyone else on the entire ship, she realized with a sigh. Well, she couldn’t throw them all in the brig. And did they really deserve to be there, anyway? This was just a harmless prank, and it wasn’t like anything was going to come of it anyway. The crew knew that she could beam him back to his quarters as soon as she saw him, and they probably figured she would do so. This hadn’t been done out of malice; this was her mischievous and melodramatic—but loving—crew’s way of letting her know that they would all be happy for the command team if something did happen between them. And if it didn’t, especially after this stunt, there was going to be a huge drop in shipboard morale.

She smiled sadly, thinking—as always—of protocol and of her ship. Voyager, once gleaming and new, was slowly losing her luster, so far from home. She had taken such a beating over the last seven and a half years, and so had her captain. Sometimes it was hard for Kathryn to tell where Voyager left off and where she began, and she was sick and tired of that feeling.

She watched him sleep, and she thought of his dark, dangerous eyes. She thought of them, gazing at her from across a table, so much love in them, the only time he’d acknowledged to her his feelings for her. She thought of other days since then, so many days, when they shone with love, anger, longing, grief, hope, disappointment, everything. Did he know how much those obsidian pools gave away? He tried so hard to hide his emotions from her, and yet they were all there, in those eyes. How often had she had to close her own, just to keep from kissing away the pain she saw in those eyes?

He twitched again, drawing her mind back to the present moment. And suddenly, she realized. The pull of those eyes was much stronger in her now than the pull of protocol. She’d denied herself this for so many reasons—the two chief ones being her fear, and the safety and sake of her crew. Well, her crew obviously approved, and at this point, she could honestly say she no longer cared what the Admiralty thought about this situation. The Admiralty was presently tens of thousands of light years away, and those eyes… those eyes were only three meters away. Now all she had to do was deal with the fear… and she knew that was something with which he would be only too willing to help.

She let out a nervous laugh, and Chakotay’s eyes shot open. They both jumped up at the same time, but neither moved. Kathryn watched in horrified fascination as the flush of anger and humiliation rose all the way up her first officer’s body.

"Goddamn Paris! I’ll kill him, I swear I will!" he exclaimed, quivering in rage and embarrassment, his fists clenched at his sides.

Kathryn couldn’t help herself; she burst out laughing.

"I’m glad you’re so amused at my expense, Captain," he said, and his voice was tight and bitter.

She sobered immediately. "Oh, Chakotay, I’m so sorry. I just couldn’t help… the bow!" And she gestured at his chest and snickered again, quite involuntarily.

He looked down at his chest, where the red bow was still attached, waving and shimmering jauntily as his chest heaved. He ripped it off, wincing as the adhesive took off some skin as well. He flung it away, cursing colorfully at the situation as he grabbed a blanket from the end of the couch. He wrapped the blanket around himself, still spitting invective, in Standard and what sounded like Klingon, Bajoran, and his native language as well.

She was somewhat shocked at his anger; Chakotay rarely cursed, and she’d never heard him like this before. Trying to calm him down, she said lightly, "Why, Commander, I didn’t even know you knew those kinds of words!"

He glared at her—doing a more-than-passable impression of her death glare—and those eyes were only angry now. No love in sight. He turned away, striding to the opposite end of her living area, snarling his words to the wall.

"This isn’t funny, dammit. Do you have any idea how humiliated I am?! Computer, site-to-site transport to my quar—"

"Computer, belay that order!"

He froze but didn’t turn around. Walking up behind him, she slid her arms around his waist.

"Where do you think you’re going, mister? I’ve been given a very lovely Christmas present, and I fully intend to enjoy it…"

He stiffened, then whirled around in her arms. His elbow accidentally caught her breast, and she fell back with a gasp.

"Well, Captain, I’m glad that I at least qualify for a Christmas fuck now. Tell me, is that a step up or down in my status?" His voice was shaking with barely controlled emotion, but it was hard as stone.

She slapped him. Hard. Kathryn was not a hitter, but there was a lot of anger in that blow. His head snapped to the side, and when he snapped it back, he was astonished to see her eyes filling with tears. She raised a shaky hand to her mouth and then turned and ran across her quarters.

"Kathryn!"

She stopped running but didn’t face him.

"What the hell is going on here?!"

"Don’t you think, Chakotay, that if I just wanted to fuck you, I would have done so a long time ago?! Do you think I was waiting for you to magically appear nearly naked in my quarters?! Go to hell! Merry fucking Christmas!" And he didn’t see the padd she’d flung until it hit him in the chest. Her aim was apparently very good tonight; he thanked the Spirits that she hadn’t been aiming lower. She ran into her bedroom and he heard her lock the door. He sank to the floor, rubbing his bruised chest with one hand and his swollen cheek with the other.

He picked up the padd and read it, shaking his head as he did so. Damned devious, meddling crew. What the hell did they think they were doing? This could have been a disaster. He looked up as he heard her sobbing. This was a disaster. Dammit! They’d just ruined everything he’d been patiently working toward for five years. He thought back to what she’d said when she came up behind him… she seemed like she had been planning to… accept the gift. But now… he sighed and stood, deciding to see what he could salvage. If nothing else came of this, they still had to work together tomorrow.

He knocked on her bedroom door.

"Goddammit, I said go away!" she yelled.

"Kathryn, I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have said what I did. But I didn’t know what was going on! I still don’t know what’s going on! How would you react if you awoke disoriented and half-naked in the quarters of the man you loved to find him laughing at you one moment and propositioning you the next? Please, open the door so we can talk about this."

The door opened, and she was standing there, centimeters away from him. Her eyes were puffy and red, her cheeks were flushed and damp, her nose was running, and her hair was all over the place. She was still the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen, and his breath caught at her proximity. He took the edge of the blanket he was holding and gently wiped her face, removing all traces of tears. When he finished, he simply cradled her face in his hands, thrilled when she didn’t pull away. She spoke, and her voice was so soft that he had to strain to catch her words.

"I’m sorry too, Chakotay. I didn’t react in the best way either. I shouldn’t have laughed at you, I shouldn’t have… propositioned you, and I shouldn’t have yelled at you. God, this is such an absurd situation," she added, chuckling nervously.

He took a deep breath. Might as well see…

"Kathryn?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you mean what you said about planning to enjoy your gift?"

"Oh yes…"

"Are you planning to…" Gods, this is hard! "Are you planning to keep your gift after you play with it?"

"Oh yes, absolutely. It’s the best gift I’ve ever received—with the exception of one, and that was a gift given long ago in love; I've never told the giver how much I appreciated that gift, how much it really meant to me," she said, staring solemnly into his eyes. There was suddenly an image in his mind's eye of a lonely wooden bathtub in an overgrown clearing. He stroked her cheek and smiled, and she sighed wistfully. "As for the gift I've just been given, I love it. I love you. I’m so sorry it took so long—"

"Shh…" He pulled her to him, burying his face in her hair, breathing in the intoxicating scent of her perfume and shampoo. He felt her tears as they fell on his bare chest, and that—with the heat of her body—made him dizzy.

They simply held each other for a while, reveling in the contact at last. Eventually, Kathryn ran her hand up the side of his thigh. The friction of silk against skin made him hiss, and she looked up into those eyes, dark with desire. With the little half-smile she knew drove him wild, she asked, "Do I get to unwrap my present now? I love the wrapping job, although there doesn’t seem to be much of it…"

With a growl, he pushed her back into her bedroom. Just before the doors closed behind him, a padd came flying through them to land on the floor next to a big, shiny, red bow.

=/\= =/\= =/\=

Chakotay started awake, disoriented in the unfamiliar surroundings. As his memory kicked in, he rolled over, groaning at the ache in his chest. He looked down, amazed to see the large bruise forming there, over the angry red mark left by the bow’s adhesive. Oh, that’s right… her Christmas card. He touched his cheek gingerly. Yep, still swollen. He gazed down at her, sprawled across her bed, a sated smile on her face even in her slumber. But, oh Gods, it was worth it. He continued watching her, feeling his heart sing with the joy of having her so close.

Sensing his scrutiny, she opened one eye to stare back at him.

"Good morning, Kathryn. Merry Christmas."

She smiled, still half-asleep. "Morning, Gift. Merry Christmas."

He laughed. "You’re never going to let me live this down, are you?"

"Nope," she replied happily.

He chuckled, reaching over to tousle her hair. The movement made his bruise ache, and he winced. "Kathryn, you were the kind of child who always broke her toys before Christmas morning was over, weren’t you?"

Her other eye opened and she stared at him in puzzlement. "What makes you say that?"

He took her hand, placing it on his swollen cheek, and she gasped. Then, once he had her attention, he looked down at his chest. Her eyes followed his, and she gasped again.

"Oh my God, Chakotay, I’m so sorry!"

He smiled. "It’s okay… nothing a quick session with a dermal regenerator can’t fix. Good shot though, Captain. Tuvok would be proud. It’s a good thing you weren’t aiming lower," he quipped, repeating his thought from the previous night.

She grew pensive. "I was…"

He paled.

She laughed at his stricken expression. "I’m just kidding, love! Believe me, if I’d aimed for it, I would have hit it. I have excellent aim," she said proudly, aiming a kiss at his lips to prove her point.

He crushed her to him, and they both winced, looking down at their respective chests. Kathryn was amazed to see a matching bruise on her chest. A sympathy bruise? Then she remembered him catching her with his elbow right after he’d tried to beam out of her quarters.

"Apparently you’re not too careful with your toys either, Chakotay. You sure do have bony elbows, mister."

"Oh Gods, Kathryn, I… you do know that I didn’t do it on purpose, don’t you? I would never—"

"Shh… I’m fine, honest." She grinned wickedly. "My mother always said that a kiss would make all the pain go away…"

"Yes, ma’am!"

=/\= =/\= =/\=

All day long, as the crew of Voyager turned on their comm terminals, they got the following message, along with an image of a lump of coal.