Star Trek Voyager: Here I Stand

Here I Stand, Part 6

Part 6

                “Have we resorted to matchmaking, Commander?”

                “You’re the one who delivered him,” Chakotay teased. They watched the Starfleet groundcar bump down the shadowy lane and out of sight.

                “Then let’s call it...facilitating.”

                He shrugged. “I just want to see her happy.”

                “Tell me about her.”

                Chakotay glanced down at her. Kathryn was nothing if not perceptive. “What do you want to know?”

                “Have the two of you always been so close?”

                He nodded and turned back to the house, one hand unconsciously drifting to Kathryn’s lower back to guide her ahead of him. “She was born when I was twenty-three, just back from my first deep-space assignment. I couldn’t go back to Trebus, so I stayed with Tohopa and Ixche when I had leave time.”

                “Ish-chay?”

                 He smiled at the way she mangled the unfamiliar arrangement of consonants. “Tohopa’s husband.”

                “You’ve never mentioned him.”

                Chakotay shook his head. “He died in the slaughter on Tevlik’s moon.”

                Kathryn gasped. “He was in the Maquis?”

                “No.” He felt the old anger crawling up his spine and turned away from her so she wouldn’t see it. “He heard there were refugees there who needed medical attention, so he went.”

                “He was a physician,” Kathryn guessed correctly, “on an errand of mercy.”

                “Yes. The Cardassians killed him anyway.”

                She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Chakotay. For everything your family has suffered. Everything.”

                He shook off her hand and ducked into the kitchen for a bottle of wine. He had a feeling they’d need it before the evening was over. “Kayma wanted to be a physician like her father. She’s had a difficult time since Ixche died.”

                “I’m sure.”

                “Tohopa thought maybe new surroundings would help her feel the sting of his passing a little less.”

                Kathryn accepted the glass of wine he offered her. “New surroundings…and you.”

                He sipped at his own wine. “Maybe.”

                “Is it working?”

                “I think so. I can never be a substitute for Ixche, and I don’t want to be. But I hope I’m at least helping.” He gestured out to the deck. “Shall we?”

                She led the way outside and seated herself in a lounge chair. “She said at the wedding she has two brothers?”

                Chakotay gave a quiet laugh and perched on the edge of the deck where he could see her face and look out over the water at the same time. “Abeke and Neka. Seventeen-year-old twin Tricksters.”