The BLTS Archive- Points of View: Don't Take The Girl by Joanne Collins (luchenbackoutlaw@gmail.com) --- Disclaimer: Everything Trek belongs to Paramount/Viacom. The song Don't Take The Girl in it's unaltered format belongs to Tim McGraw. All changes to the song are mine, and made to fit the story. This is another of my "what if x characters had had a relationship?" stories. There just aren't (IMO) enough Tasha stories out there, and I find this pairing quite intriguing (I've always thought Chakotay had a thing for blue-eyed blondes). As always, I try to keep close to canon with when things happened. And yes, I am going to write about Tasha's time on the Enterprise, and how it ended. I believe that is enough of a warning, but if you're not familiar with TNG's first season, I apologise for any disturbance caused. The events in this story take place a few weeks after the events in For My Broken Heart. Although this is an m/f story, there are extremely brief references to an m/m relationship. I highly doubt that anyone but the most sensitive to such issues will be offended by the references. This story is part of my Points Of View series. The other stories in the series, For My Broken Heart, The Fear Of Being Alone and What If It's You are available on my web page: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Metro/4859/Joanne.html I am presuming that Chakotay entered Starfleet Academy at the age of sixteen (he applied for acceptance at the age of fifteen according to canonical evidence), and that Tasha was sent to live on Chakotay's home world after she escaped from Turkana IV. Please do not distribute, archive, etc, without my permission. May be archived on the ASC archive, R'Rain's archive and the CPSG archive only. Posting to BLTS, CPSG and ASC/EM only. Anything else, please ask first. I will probably say yes, but I'd prefer to know about it. --- I should have seen it coming. I really should have. Tom had told me about his former significant relationships only a few nights ago (and I must admit, he had had fewer than I would have expected), going into rather intimate detail over one or two of them, but he appeared completely unconcerned about telling me such things. Then again, that doesn't surprise me, considering how uninhibited he is with me, his being uninhibited in telling me this seemed...right. Then again, a lot of things seem right with Tom. Especially making love. It is just after one of those times, a beautiful, tender experience, and he has asked me for the same trust he showed in me. No, I don't think that he was asking me in a weak moment. I do think he knows me well enough to know when I'd be receptive to the question, though. So, about an hour ago, he asked me to tell him about my significant relationships. I've covered Seska, of course, the brief affair with B'Elanna, my two relationships with men, and now I'm getting ready to tell him about my most significant relationship before him. It's more difficult than I would have thought to do it, but I do want to. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Tom is saying. I look into those trusting, loving blue eyes, and I remember how haunted they were when he was telling me about Auckland, and how I was so grateful that even what happened there did not stop him from being able to love me. Then I remember another pair of blue eyes, also haunted, for similar reasons, and I feel her presence, as I always do when I think of her, and I know I can tell Tom about the relationship that, more than any other, shaped the man I am today. The man who loves him more than life itself. "I was sixteen when I went to the Academy, and for the first year I was so excited to be there at last, that I didn't even *think* of dating anyone. Oh, I'd had casual dates with girls and boys on my homeworld, but that's all. I kept pretty much to the same pattern of casual dating for the second year. I hadn't even thought about going home, because I didn't want to face the tension my father and I had built between us. But I also wanted to go home. For a large part of the second year, whenever I wasn't working, I was missing home. So when I was asked to escort two refugees from Turkana IV to my home planet, I leapt at the chance. I wasn't even surprised to hear that one of them was to live with my family. Knowing my mother, and even my father, I would have been surprised to hear differently." "When I reported to Head Office to meet them, I wasn't really paying attention. Then I saw her. Skinny, tall, no more than sixteen, but beautiful. With the most amazing inner fire in her eyes." "I must have stared at her a little too long, because she asked me what I was staring at. I looked away, and mumbled some excuse. We were introduced, and I found out that her name was Natasha Yar, but she preferred to be called Tasha." "After a thankfully uneventful shuttle flight, I delivered the boy to the family who was taking him in, and made my way home with Tasha. Mother fussed over her from the start, and Father and I made a graceful exit. We talked for over an hour, and got some of the bad feelings out. I'd just decided to call a friend, Bo, when Father suggested a fishing trip the next day. I liked the idea of going fishing, just the two of us, and I said yes." "The next morning, I got ready really early. I couldn't wait to get out on the river and talk to Father. Then I saw some movement near the gate, and Father was beside me, smiling gently." Chakotay's daddy was taking him fishin' when he was eighteen years old... --- A beautiful girl came through the front gate, holding a fishing pole... His dad looked down and smiled, said we can't leave her behind... Son, I know you don't want her to go, but someday you'll change your mind.... --- "I wasn't happy. At all. If Father had *had* to ask someone, it could have been one of the other boys in the settlement, or Bo." And Chakotay said:... --- Take Jimmy Johnson, take Tommy Thompson, take my best friend Bo... Take anybody that you want, as long as she don't go... Take any boy in the world, Daddy. Please don't take the girl... --- "I went, with bad grace, and much to my surprise, it turned out to be fun. Tasha was surprisingly sweet and vulnerable when she lost that mask of toughness. I should have realised then that it was an act. I didn't know, then. I talked a lot to her that day, about what she'd gone through on Turkana, not pretty stuff at all. She didn't say so in so many words, but I knew she'd been raped. It was obvious from her stories of the rape gangs. Her biggest regret, though, was that she'd been able to get away, but not her sister. I said that if I could, I'd help her find her sister later. She told me then that she wanted to go to the Academy, and become someone who helped people like she was." "I coached her, and helped her gain entrance to the Academy. I was so proud when she decided to enter Security Training, because she was so good at the things you need to be good at for Security. Then one day we were running a martial arts program, and about halfway through, she fell on top of me. We looked at each other, and it was like this...spark lit. Almost without realising it, we were kissing. Then we were interrupted by her combadge going off. She had to report to Head Office. I asked her to meet me at the place that showed old movies, and she agreed." --- Same old boy, same sweet girl, five years down the road... He held her tight and kissed her lips in front of the picture show... Stranger came and pulled a gun, grabbed her by the arm... Said "if you do what I tell you to, there won't be any harm"... --- "She was slightly late, but that didn't matter. I held her in my arms and kissed her, and she responded. So warm...always my thoughts of her involve warmth... Then someone came up and held a phaser to her head." And Chakotay said:... --- Take my money, take my wallet, take my credits... Here's the watch that my grandpa gave me, here's the code to my shuttle... Mister, give it a whirl... But please don't take the girl... --- "Gods, I would have given every credit I possessed, all the gifts I've ever received, and definitely the shuttle I had worked so hard to earn, just as long as Tasha was all right. I knew then that I loved her. I hadn't realised it before, but I knew it then. Luckily Tasha was able to get away from him, disabling him with a kick I didn't think was possible. All I wanted to do was take her home and make love to her, but she had news for me. So we went to a coffee shop, and that was when she told me that she'd been assigned to the Enterprise. Of all ships, to be assigned to the flagship, under Picard...well, you know what that means. And one of my classmates, Will Riker was to be the First Officer, and he promised to 'keep an eye on her' for me. Not that Tasha needed it. I think she was more likely to need protection from Will." "I worked at my position on the Miranda-S, hoping to work up to Lieutenant Commander. I wanted to ask her to marry me when I made it. We met when we could, exchanged letters and comm-calls. I got so lonely sometimes, and I worried about her.. Then, gods, *then*..." --- Same old boy, same sweet girl, five years down the road... She was in danger, but in a friend's hands... He couldn't be there.. Chakotay was told she was fading fast, then... Chakotay hit his knees... --- "Gods, I've never been so terrified in my *life* as I was when I heard that she was negotiating, or trying to, with such a force of evil. I prayed to every spirit and god that I knew that she'd be okay. Then I found out that she was injured..." --- And there he prayed:... Take the very breath you gave me, take the heart from my chest... I'll gladly take her place if you'll let me, make this my last request... Take me out of this world... God please don't take the girl... --- "I prayed for the spirits to take me instead. I didn't want her to be killed, not after everything awful that had happened to her, but it wasn't meant to be. She died later that day." --- Chakotay's daddy was taking him fishing when he was eighteen years old.... --- I'm crying, as I always do when I remember...but this time I'm not alone. Tom's holding me, stroking my back, kissing my cheek, my forehead, my nose. But he's just holding me, and that's what I need most of all. Even now, the loneliness I feel when I think of her. It's funny, I just realised, I never did tell Kathryn about Tasha. --- The End