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He escapes the stuffiness of HQ’s second largest reception hall in search of a bit of peace and quiet—and, yes, some non-synthetic alcohol if at all possible. This is not how he’d envisaged this evening.
This is a bloody disaster.
Has he misunderstood her? Did she mean something else by ‘we need to talk, really talk’?
He didn’t think so, at least not until a few minutes ago.
If she really did mean what he thinks she did—that they should reestablish the parameters, now that Seven broke things off between them with grandeur and left him banging his head against all sorts of walls, bemoaning his own idiocy—then why did she attend the party with that stupid, old, wrinkly man?!
He has been waiting. He’s given them both ample time. He knew she was angry with him—about Seven, about the way he acted upon their return to Earth, about how he’d distanced himself from all the crew, even (especially) B’Elanna—but hasn’t he repented enough by now? It’s been three months since Seven walked out on him and joined a Beta Quadrant expedition alongside a somber-looking lieutenant serving as Chief Science Officer on the Minnesota. Three months of carefully worded conversations over comm, sometimes audio-only (when she’d walk around her flat as she talked to him, getting ready for some official function or other, and he’d be left wondering what grooming rituals she was performing as her voice dropped and took on that throaty quality he loves), sometimes not (when they would stare at one another in silence, and cover more ground towards forgiveness and mutual understanding than they ever could by using words); three months of random messages sent to private PADDs during excessively boring meetings; three months of waiting for a proper time to finally put aside all professional arrangements and duties and protocols, and talk about what’s really important to both of them.
It was supposed to be tonight; they would meet at the party and leave together as soon as it was polite to do so; he would take her somewhere more private (he didn’t dare imagine the particularities), and they would talk. Perhaps—hopefully—more than talk. Things would change for the better, no doubt about that.
So why did she appear in that grandiose doorway on the arm of a sixty-something admiral, balding and pouty and freckled? (The thing about Chakotay is this: he doesn’t appreciate freckles, on almost any person he knows—with one notable exception.) And why did she wear a dress in that particular shade of blue? (If your tomatoes could spare you for a minute—he should have waited a little longer, sitting in the grass next to her; two, three minutes would have been all it took to miss the call: and thirty hour could mean an eternity in terms of that time, that place.)
He doesn’t understand. He’s hurt, and jealous, and raging mad, his mouth dry and palms sweaty, longing for something, anything, to quench his thirst for…
Light steps behind him, the clicking of heels he’s unaccustomed to, but he recognizes the gait nevertheless. “There you are. I was looking all over—“
He turns on the spot and his vision darkens, seeing her like this; smiling and relaxed, with eyes reflecting the soft blue of her dress and sparkling like precious gems they’d seen on some planet halfway across the galaxy. She walks closer to him, closer still, and he stops caring about the freckled admiral in the other room, about anyone who might want to put their claim on her.
She’s here with him now, and he’s not giving her up, not again.
His hands fall to her waist seemingly without a conscious thought on his part, and she sways a little, surprised, but not protesting—not even as he bends his head and kisses her, hard. From the way her fingers curls around the lapels of his evening jacket, he knows he’s not hurting her: still, the kiss is much more forceful and demanding than the gentle, quiet welcome he’d imagined for them long ago. He doesn’t let up, tracing the curve of her upper lip with his tongue as she nibbles at his own lips, similarly hungry. He thinks of the man she came with—of aliens and holograms and hyper-evolved pilots—and his teeth sink into delicate skin, just a little, but more than enough to make her gasp. She retaliates immediately—former protégées, half-Borg, women he couldn’t even remember—and he groans, pressing her closer to his body, shoulder to hip, her hands rising up to pull at his hair.
So much time gone by. He resents every second they’ve been forced to spend apart.
No more.
“For the record,” she says, tracing quick, biting kisses across his jaw and up, to catch the earlobe he usually pulls at in times of confusion, “Admiral Bartleby is my father’s old friend. His wife got sick this afternoon; we met in the lobby, both arriving alone, and went in together. End of story.”
“I’m not going to apologize,” he informs her, although he already is, with the tone of his voice and the way his hands smoothen the fabric of her dress down her back, to rest comfortably at her hips. They rock into one another and gasp contently. Chakotay risks an experimental lick up Kathryn’s neck, and feels her smile against his throat.
“I’m not asking you to. If I know you, it would require doing more than is appropriate in a hallway outside of Starfleet brass’ favorite party venue.” A pause, followed by a chuckle as she presses one last kiss under his ear and pulls back a fraction, eyes dancing with mirth. “A hallway, I might add, full of security cameras.”
“Oh, bother,” he rolls his eyes half-mockingly, hands still resting on her hips, thumbs tracing circles against the cool, blue fabric. “I hope you weren’t planning on keeping it quiet and private.”
“Not for long,” she muses, readjusting the collar of his pristine white shirt. “Maybe a week or so.”
“Why a week?” he frowns, just before a proverbial light flashes in his head. “It takes two days to get to Risa on a standard shuttlecraft, doesn’t it?”
“It does indeed.”
“Well,” he cannot help but grin, and leans down to kiss her again—this time in promise, not in jealous rage, “what are we still doing here, wasting precious time like that?…”
(They come back after a little longer than a week, tanned and relaxed and ready to tackle all the questions from their collective friends and family. First and foremost: when are they planning the second wedding for?…)
/end