Star Trek Voyager: Here I Stand

Here I Stand, Part 10

Part 10

                He’d let himself get soft.

                Sitting on the end of his bed and staring out the window into the stormy darkness, Chakotay suspected that these many months of standing in front of classrooms had caused him to lose his edge.

                Standing in front of classrooms…and something else.

                Rain pounded on the roof of his house, a harsh percussion accompaniment to his troubling thoughts. He’d driven home from San Francisco in a happy haze, overflowing with hopes of starting a new life, finally, with Kathryn. She hadn’t promised him anything specific, and that was so typical of her that he’d let it pass. “Our timing was never right before,” she’d said, and even though it wasn’t much, it was the first time she’d ever admitted that there was something between them which might suffer from bad timing.

                He’d received her words like a schoolboy learning that the prettiest girl in class had finally noticed his existence. He didn’t think he’d ever felt so giddy. Kathryn would have laughed at his sudden glee. She would probably have said he simply wasn’t used to her coffee anymore, so strong it could almost get up and dance on its own.

                By the time The Falcon reached the end of the lane from the highway to his house, he’d convinced himself he was the happiest man alive. Even though it was nearly 0100, he’d bounded up the porch steps and into the house intending to find Kayma and tell her everything about Kathryn. Everything. He’d offer the talk he’d put off a week before, get her opinion, let her forthrightness and dry sense of humor bring him back to reality so that when Kathryn finally summoned him for the promised lunch, he’d be ready with a clear head and an open heart.

                But the house was dark, and Kayma wasn’t home.

                He made himself a cup of calming chamomile tea and sat down on the sofa to wait for her, Kathryn’s copy of Dante’s Inferno open on his knees.

                When the first raindrops began to fall, he’d built a small fire to ward off the dampness and moved to his favorite chair near the cheerful little flame.

                At 0215, when the storm really began to rage, he’d crept into her room to make sure he hadn’t missed her in the dark. He hadn’t. He paced the length of the hallway from her room to his and back to the kitchen twice, comm in hand, arguing with himself. She was young, but an adult nevertheless. At her age, he’d already been on his own for almost eleven years, had completed two deep-space tours and was deciding whether or not to stay in space or go back to the Academy for another degree. Kayma had led a far more sheltered childhood than he, but she was smart and observant and just as competent in her own way. He had no reason to check up on her. She could take care of herself.

                Furthermore, she was with Harry, one of the most upstanding and trustworthy men Chakotay had ever known. They were probably just having fun and had lost track of the time. He’d been young once himself. He could remember—barely—what it was like to be out on his own with a beautiful girl, away from his responsibilities, away from nosy elders who might disapprove if he tried to…

                He ground his teeth and activated the comm. “Chakotay to Kayma.”

                Nothing.

                He began to pace again, scowling at the little device in the palm of his hand as if it could reveal Kayma’s whereabouts, if only he stared at it hard enough. It didn’t. He sighed and closed the channel.