The BLTS Archive - Overcast
companion piece to 'Cloudy'
by Your Cruise Director (cruisedirector@livejournal.com)

---

August said, "Write a vignette of the scene that first got you hooked
on J/C. Bonus points if you can tie this scene in with the current
canon." I didn't know I had this lurking in me until I started it, but
it is clearly a sequel to my story "Cloudy" of two years ago. This is
for August, and for Roses who asked for a quote from "Parallax" a few
days ago and got me thinking about it.

---

I'm in trouble.

I'm supposed to be on the bridge, but I'm taking a stroll through the
lower decks, checking up on crew morale and trying to get a sense of
whether we have any Starfleet/Maquis conflict brewing. I don't think
so. Despite the concerns which Tuvok expresses to me daily, I've seen
no evidence of hostility along those lines. In fact, given our
circumstances, I've seen remarkably little evidence of hostility at
all.

Not even from him.

"If things had happened differently and we were on the Maquis ship,
would you have served under me?" I almost answered him, even with the
double entendre which I'm not sure he recognized until the moment the
words were out and that split-second grin lit his eyes. I'd been
anticipating the question, and would have answered it honestly if it
weren't for that - his smile, and how I reacted to it. I'm not sure
I'd seen him smile before, other than for a brief moment when I
acknowledged that he'd been right about B'Elanna Torres. That was
business.

This is something else.

Kes stopped in my ready room yesterday with flowers she had managed to
grow from cuttings we had in cold storage. I had just come from the
bridge, where we'd been...all right, he and I been flirting, though
ostensibly we were arguing about how much replicator energy we could
spare for nonessentials like coffee and chocolate. I argued for
keeping the crew's spirits up, but he knew perfectly well it was my
own need for coffee that motivated me. I have to remember to be
careful how much we say on the bridge - Tom Paris kept glancing back
at us suspiciously. I wrote that off as just his legendary dirty mind
at work until the Ocampa gave me the same look when we were alone.

"I brought these to brighten your room, but you seem very happy,
Captain," she told me.

I am happy. Considering that I'm in the Delta Quadrant, with no idea
how to get this ship home and no one from Starfleet to advise me, it's
almost frightening how happy I am. I like being out here, I like being
in charge.

I like him.

Chakotay.

I wish he had another name. Since there's only one, it feels too
private - not appropriate for use in front of the entire crew, though
most of the Maquis call him that. I feel unduly formal when I call him
"Commander" during private conversations, but sometimes my voice
sounds too husky to me when I say his name. I wish I had told him to
call me by my first name before I made him my first officer; now it
would seem like a breach of protocol to do so, and I feel shaky enough
about protocol when I'm with him. This is the man I was sent to
arrest. A terrorist. He knows all of Starfleet's systems, and could
use them against me if he chose.

Looking at his smile, it is impossible for me to believe that he
would.

Is it just for me, that smile? Sometimes I think it is, then I think I
must be flattering myself. I'm a Starfleet captain. I represent the
institution he blames large part for what happened in the DMZ. I don't
know him well enough to tell him that I understand his pain - I've had
my share of suffering at the hands of the Cardassians, I lost my
father in the same war. Sometimes, though, I feel as if he must know.
I sense no resentment from him, not since I put Torres in charge of
engineering and freed Tuvok from his obligation to report on Maquis
activities he observed during surveillance. I know Chakotay agreed
with my decision to destroy the Array and save the Ocampa even if it
meant stranding us all out here, but that doesn't explain his
allegiance. Not completely, at least.

I wish he were just a little less attractive.

Does the crew notice? I don't mean what he looks like - I know they
notice that, I've heard them talking. I only worry that someone has
noticed me noticing. Under normal circumstances it wouldn't
necessarily be a terrible thing for a captain to fraternize with the
first officer, but these are anything but normal circumstances. He and
I barely know each other, there's no end to this mission in sight, no
Starfleet backup, and there's the not-insignificant matter of his
criminal record. Also, there are rumors about him and one of the
Bajoran engineers, and about him and Torres, though I find the latter
hard to believe - he treats her more like a junior officer than a
friend. Of course, it's possible to treat someone one way in public
yet completely differently in private. I'm sure Tom Paris is thinking
that when he spies on us on the bridge. I have to remember to be
careful.

I can't even explain my decision to trust him. I could have made Tuvok
my first officer; the Maquis don't trust him and the Starfleet crew
barely knows him, since he was on Chakotay's ship, but it's certainly
the choice Starfleet would have recommended. There are more Academy
graduates on this vessel than there are Maquis, and I'm sure I've
upset many of them by promoting two renegades to top positions. It
might have been more politically expedient to move the Maquis up
slowly, but Chakotay convinced me they deserved better than that, and
he was right - at least, so far. He's not planning a mutiny.

Who is he?

And why am I obsessing about it?

I wish I had someone to talk to. I miss Stadi - despite out difference
in rank, we were friendly, and it was difficult for me to hide
anything from her because she was a Betazoid. She always asked, never
told - right now I can picture her cocking her head to the side and
saying, "Do you have a little bit of a crush on him?" And me giving
her the death glare, before rolling my eyes and smiling. Yes, I have a
little bit of a crush on him. A very little bit. Not my usual type at
all. Mark would laugh at me if he were here.

Mark's not here. I wish I felt something stronger than vague
loneliness about that.

Mark has been my best friend for years. He understands me better than
anyone I have ever known. I miss that so much - I miss him telling me
I'm being too hard on myself. Mark's interests are not very
fashionable among Starfleet officers - philosophers spend too much
time debating ethics instead of making choices. I suppose Chakotay's
spirituality reminds me of that...not that I really know anything
about his spirituality, just what little he's shown me, but I like to
think he's like Mark in that regard. He certainly isn't what I
expected from a rash, impulsive, rebellious Maquis terrorist. In fact,
the longer I know him, the harder it is for me to make that label fit.

I'm thinking about him instead of Mark again. I'm refusing to let
myself fantasize about him, but I'm not sure how long I'll be able to
keep that up.

This is too dangerous. I could be wrong, for one thing, about whether
the way he looks at me means anything - maybe he just likes to look at
women, or maybe he has a thing for senior officers. If he is involved
with Seska, or Torres, it could have serious consequences if someone
thought I was interested in him. And even if he's not involved with
anyone, the risk of harassment is too high...as well as the risk that
any relationship between us could compromise the ship's safety.
Captains and first officers have to make life-or-death decisions about
one another. I suppose I had it in the back of my mind that forming a
personal attachment with him might stop him from rebelling, but I
don't want him to go along with my decisions for the wrong reasons,
either. At least I don't think I do. If we run into the Borg out here,
I'll take support any way I can get it.

I'm trying to feel ashamed for thinking about my first officer like
this, but I'm just getting flushed and fidgeting. I can't even muster
the appropriate guilt when I catch myself stealing glances at his
mouth, or his hands. Because it's not lust, really - his physical
presence is only one aspect of what draws me to him. Part of it is the
way he's kept his crew in line. Part of it is the way he's repressed
his dislike of Tuvok and Paris, the two people he has to work with
most often in his new position. I like the way he argues; he's
forceful, he doesn't back down unless he's honestly been won over, but
there's nothing petty, no grudges, no bitterness. When I think about
it, Chakotay has questioned very few of my decisions. When we were
trying to integrate the crews, he might have chosen not just to look
like he supported me, but for me to feel that he really did. I tried
something similar: I knew it would show if I trusted him, and the crew
would respond accordingly with confidence in him and the rest of the
Maquis. In those first days, his support was a great relief to me - he
joked with me, he flirted a little, he made me feel like life on this
ship would become natural for all of us.

Now I'm starting to depend on his friendship, which should worry me.
But it doesn't. When I catch myself thinking about him, I smile - when
I enter a room I find myself looking for him. It makes the work
easier, it gives me something to look forward to. I know there are
things he can teach me about his culture and his traditions -
something I never had with Cavit, who was an efficient officer but
boring as a bulkhead. And there's something archetypal about myself
and Chakotay, as I realized the last time I went to the holodeck to
run my Western holonovel and realized instead that I'd better delete
the damn thing before someone found it. I don't think being kidnapped
by an Indian is a good role to play right now. I also deleted the one
about the legal officer who helped her handsome prisoner escape. I
can't afford to turn into a romantic idiot.

I dreamed about him the other night. Nothing unsettling, we were
standing on the side of a hill overlooking a valley full of people. He
said, "It's a big responsibility," and I said, "We can do this." Then
we walked down the hill and a huge bird flew over our heads, which
turned out to be Voyager, so we jumped onto the landing struts and
climbed inside the ship even though we knew it meant we would never
see the planet again. When we got inside, I told him I was glad he
came. He smiled at me and I knew it was the right decision.

I'm not sure what it means. I could probably ask Chakotay, but that
might be more dangerous than the dream.

I'm roaming the ship now because of what happened this morning. Just
an accident--I'm sure he thought nothing of it. We were in the
turbolift when the power grid failed and we stopped abruptly. I fell
on top of him against the side of the lift, and for a minute we were
stuck like that - holding on to one another, staring at each other, It
would have been all right if I'd been able to look away. I got a
glimpse of whatever it is that I see in his smile, only this time he
wasn't smiling, he looked very serious, whatever it was he was going
to say. For a minute I had trouble breathing. Whatever was making him
so earnest, I wanted to diffuse it. So I did the only thing I could
think to do - I smiled at him.

And he smiled back like I'd given him the sun. It should have scared
me - I've barely begun to define parameters about our relationship to
one another, and to the crew, it hasn't really sunk in yet that I may
never see my home or family or Mark again, I'm used to being away for
long stretches. I'm sure this morning was a momentary aberration, not
really inappropriate because it doesn't mean a damn thing.

But here I am, pacing my ship, wishing I wasn't thinking about how his
arms felt around me for those few seconds, and hoping I don't forget.
I can't decide whether to go back to the bridge where maybe he'll
smile at me, or continue to hide down here where it won't matter if
I'm blushing. I know it's hopeless, I'm the captain, and I'm not sure
I'm really interested. Still, much better to have a crush on my first
officer than on someone down in the ranks whom I don't have any excuse
for seeking out.

Starfleet protocol, Mark, Seska, Voyager's unique circumstances,
captaincy be damned. I'm not ready to try to put labels on my
feelings.

I'm just enjoying them.

--

The End