The BLTS Archive - Splinter
by Evil Shall Giggle (evil_shall_giggle@hotmail.com)

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Published: 12-30-07

Updated: 12-30-07

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Captain Kathryn Janeway's foot hurt. A lot.

She leaned back in her chair, gritting her teeth and wishing for her
ready room, but going there would mean walking there, and walking
there would mean more pain.

She wasn't quite sure what was wrong with it. It had just been a bit
annoying this morning when she'd reported for duty, but it had grown
consistently worse as the day had progressed. Now, she gazed as
secretively as she could at the clock on the flip-up consol between
her and Chakotay and wished for the final two minutes of torture to be
over.

It hadn't been a very busy shift. Engineering had had a few problems
with incorporating the new dilithium stores they'd gathered the day
before, causing several other problems with computer systems that had
cropped up repeatedly over the hours. Even now, a couple of techs were
wrestling with Ops, trying to stop it from switching to Omega Alert
mode.

At last! She turned around happily as the turbolift doors hissed open,
emitting the delta-shift crew. She stood, grimacing internally, and
handed over command, then did her best not to limp her escape. Tuvok
and Tom managed to get inside the lift before the doors closed, and
she mentally cursed. With them here, she couldn't order the computer
to take her to sickbay without being questioned on her health and, in
all likelihood, lectured on taking care of herself.

So, she called out her quarter's deck and sighed softly, shifting her
weight to her left leg and staring distractedly at the bottom of the
doors. Tom rocked back on his heels and puffed out his cheeks. "Long
shift, huh?" he commented. Janeway could practically sense Tuvok's
long-suffering raised eyebrow as he bit back a logical retort with
practiced ease. "Captain?" Tom questioned.

She looked up at him. "Hm? Oh, yes, long shift." The lift came to a
stop and the doors opened. "Ah, my stop. See you tomorrow."

"Good night," they said in unison, and she had to smile at the
dissonance between their tones.

Finally, safe in her quarters, she sagged onto the couch, pulling her
boot and sock off and twisting her foot around to see just what it was
that had made her day so miserable. There was a large red area
surrounding a black center, that, when prodded experimentally, made
her hiss in surprised pain. It looked like an insect bite, and that it
hurt so much was worrisome.

Gingerly slipping her boot back on, she stood and started off toward
sickbay, but before she'd gotten more than two steps, her combadge
chirped. "Captain Janeway to the bridge."

She stopped in the middle of the hallway and groaned, earning a
strange look from a passing crewmember. "Captain?" he questioned.

She waved him off. "Long day, Ensign," she said, turning around and
heading for the turbolift, "Long day."

---

When she arrived on the bridge, she was greeted with the intensely
unwelcome sight of a snooty-looking alien on the viewscreen. Harry
Kim, standing in the middle of the bridge and apparently trying to
reason with him, looked around thankfully when Janeway stepped out of
the  lift.

"Captain!" he exclaimed, sounding just a little /too/ overjoyed to see
her.

"Yes, Ensign," she said, coming down to stand beside him.

He spoke quietly so that the alien wouldn't be able to overhear.
"Captain, this is Magistrate Pul. He's a representative of the Nomoan
Government, which owns the system we passed through yesterday."

"Where we got the dilitium," she guessed.

Harry nodded. "They've noticed that we took it, and they want to be
compensated."

/Great/, Janeway thought. "We need that dilithium," she muttered, more
to herself than Harry, then addressed the alien. "Magistrate Pul?" He
looked down at her, glands on his temples flaring. "I'm Captain
Kathryn Janeway. Ensign Kim tells me there was a misunderstanding
regarding some dilithium crystals?"

"Misnderstanding?" Pul echoed huffily, the glands flaring again.
"Misunderstanding? No misunderstanding. You are /thieves/! You came,
visited /our/ worlds, stole /our /crystals!"

"We weren't aware the world was owned by anyone," Janeway said,
raising her hands slightly in a gesture of placation. "If there's
anything we could offer you as compensation... "

Pul cocked his head and Janeway had to stop herself from smiling
triumphantly. "Compensation? Perhaps you have...  a store of
chromium?"

Janeway grinned; /chromium? Now /that/ I can do./ "Say, twenty grams?"

Pul's eyes widened. "Twenty grams!" He cleared his throat and put on
what she could only guess was a miffed expression, "Twenty grams? Is
that all you can offer us?"

"Well," she said slowly, "I suppose we could up it to twenty-five, but
that's our final offer."

Pul's head bobbed on its long neck. "Deal. You transport it aboard in
ten minutes, and we leave."

She motioned to Crewman White at Ops. "Already done. Nice doing
business with you."

"Good journey," Pul wished her, and then cut the communication off.

Janeway looked around at her bridge crew, bade them goodnight, and
disappeared back into the lift, leaning with a long sigh of relief
against one of the walls.

Chakotay surprised her several decks down, and she snapped back to
standing straight, praying he hadn't noticed. He had. "Are you
alright, Kathryn?" he inquired.

"Fine," she said, smiling for credibility. He would be even more
certain than Tom and Tuvok to lecture her on taking care of herself.
/Go away, just go away...  let me go to sickbay in peace...  /As
subtly as she could, she put her weight solely on her left leg. "Where
are you going?" she asked, changing the topic and, hopefully,
distracting him.

"Back to my quarters, actually," he said, and she nearly laughed.
/Just gets better and better,/ she thought bitterly. "What about you?"

"My quarters," she sighed. /Sickbay after, then./

The doors slid open and they both stepped out, headed for their
neighbouring quarters. "Are you sure you're alright?" he persisted.

She looked up at him. "Yes, of course. Why?"

"You're limping," he pointed out. She slowed and sighed for the
umpteenth time. "What happened?"

"I'm not sure," she admitted, "I think it's an insect bite of some
kind. I was actually on my way to sickbay to get it checked out."

"An insect bite?" he questioned, "How would you get an insect bite
here?"

"Remember that planet we visited a few days ago to do some trading
with the locals?" He nodded. "It's my best guess that I picked it up
there. Remembering last time I had any contact with insect bites, I
think it's best I let the Doctor have a look."

"The Doctor's offline," he told her. "He has been all afternoon. I
just came back from talking to Vorik about it. Apparently it has
something to do with the problems they've been having with the
dilithium."

"Great," she muttered, "I don't suppose you have a medical tricorder
on you that I could borrow?"

He held up his hands, "Sorry. But I could have a look at it for you,
if you want. I've had my share of experience with bug bites."

"No, it's alright," she said, pressing a finger against the door panel
for identification. "I'll get him to look at it tomorrow."

"As you said, though," he insisted, "remember what happened last time
we got bitten by insects?"

Of course she did. She'd almost ended up spending the rest of her life
on some backwater planet with him. She also remembered what he'd told
her on that backwater planet, and what she'd come so painfully close
to allowing to happen. But, he had a point, and she was sure that he
knew more about insect bites than she did, and so, still with some
reluctance, she held out her arm for him to precede her into her
quarters.

"You might as well stay for supper, if you dare," she said, going over
to the replicator for a cup of coffee. She held it up after taking a
sip. "But don't worry, I'll replicate it, I promise. Want anything to
drink?"

"Water, please," he requested.

She brought it over to him and sat on the couch, patting the seat next
to her. "Alright, let's get this over with, shall we?" she quipped,
feeling, as she began to carefully remove her boot, suddenly absurdly
/shy/ about the whole thing. She gave herself a firm mental slap and
told herself to grow up, and propped her complaining foot up on her
other knee so Chakotay could see the bite.

He set his now half-empty water on the table and turned his attention
to her wounded foot, taking it gently with one hand and running his
thumb over the reddened area. She flinched despite herself. "It's that
sensitive?" he questioned. She quirked her lips a bit and nodded. "You
know, I think that's a splinter, not a bite."

"A splinter?" she raised her eyebrows. "I haven't had a splinter since
I was ten years old!"

He shrugged, "You could've picked one up on the boardwalk on that
planet. They did insist that we all be barefoot."

"Splinters don't hurt as much as that thing does," she pointed out.

"It looks infected," he told her, "And considering that that planet
was almost a week ago, it's been in there a while. If you have
tweezers I can take it out for you."

Despite her childhood self that stubbornly told her to just wait and
it would come out by itself, she made to get up to fetch the tweezers
from the bathroom, but he caught her arm and pulled her back down.
"I'll get them," he said firmly. "Where are they?"

"Second drawer under the sink," she said, relaxing back onto the
couch, "in the grey bag."

He vanished for a moment and she heard the contents of a drawer being
shifted about, and then he returned with a slight glint of metal in
his hand. Her childhood self grimaced.

"Let's see... " he said to himself as he sat back down, taking her
foot again. She clenched her teeth together, but it was more painful
than she'd anticipated. A small gasp escaped her and he apologized. "I
think that's all of it. Feel any better?"

"No," she said honestly, "But thank you. Now, dinner?" She stood,
perhaps a little too quickly, and her poor foot refused to take any
further abuse. It shot pain up to her knee, which gave out as if it'd
been kicked from behind. Off-balance, she would've toppled backwards
but for the strong form just rising from the couch that provided an
unintentional buffer.

She ended up seated on his lap, surprised and uncharacteristically
flushed. She looked up at him to apologize, already disentangling
herself from him, but he caught her before she could get anywhere and
she found herself trapped. "I... " she trailed off, struggling to
remember how to speak. She was leaning toward him as though
magnetized, unable to escape as she'd done every other time they'd
come close to moving beyond friendship, and his hands had crept to her
upper arms, holding her gently.

At last, she managed to squeak out a 'dinner', and the spell broke. He
released her and she stepped quickly, if delicately, to the kitchen
replicator. "What would you like?" she asked, putting a hand to her
face to see if her cheeks were as hot as they felt. They were. "Salad?
Soup? Ah, that's it. How about cream of mushroom?"

He nodded mutely, getting up slowly from the couch to stand beside the
table as she ordered two bowls and two small glasses of wine to go
with it. Her voice hesitated on the wine, wondering if, given the
circumstances, wine might carry certain unwanted implications.
Deciding that it didn't -they had it at each of their weekly dinners,
after  all, and it had never been an issue -she brought the food to
the table  and sat down.

The meal was a predominately silent affair. Janeway tried once or
twice to make conversation, but the attempts died after being hit back
and forth a few times. Finally, as she finished and set her spoon
down, she began with a straightforward address of what had just
happened.

"Chakotay-" she started.

"Kathryn-" he began at the same time. They both stopped and looked at
each other. She smiled slowly and he chuckled.

"We need to put this behind us," she said gently, her hand finding his
on the table.

He nodded. "Exactly what I was going to say." She nodded as well and
smiled again. He stood, "I'll take the dishes, save you having to
stand."

"Thank you," she said, leaning back in her chair to let him pick up
her bowl. As the replicator whirred to recycle the bowls, she finished
the rest of her wine and handed the glass to him as well.

That done, he made his way back into the main area of her quarters,
picking up his uniform jacket from where he'd put it down and tucking
it under his arm. She realized with a start that she hadn't seen him
take it off, nor had she noticed that she'd also removed hers. She
caught sight of it lying draped over the back of a chair. "I'd better
go," he said, "I have some reports to go over."

She stood as well, using her counter to take some of the weight off
her foot as she joined him in the main room. She perched on the arm of
a chair and nodded. "So do I. I'll see you tomorrow, then." The
awkwardness was returning- she could practically feel the air
thickening with it.

He gave her another smile. "Good night," he said, and turned,
vanishing out the door. She deflated a little once the doors slid
closed and the familiar emptiness pressed on her, glancing around the
room. Her gaze fell on something small and silver poking out from
between the cushions of the couch. She frowned, curious, and went over
to pull it out. It was a combadge. Hers? She checked her uniform
jacket. No, hers was still attached to it. It must've fallen off
Chakotay's when he took it off.

She would have to return it, wouldn't she? That was the proper thing
to do. She ran her fingers over it absently, then tucked it into her
pocket and pulled her boots on, reasoning with her foot that this was
the last journey it would have to make today and then it could rest,
so there was really no reason to hurt anymore, was there? And besides,
it was only a few steps to Chakotay's quarters.

Her foot disagreed, but she did her best, as always, not to limp.
She'd had worse. She could deal.

Chakotay looked surprised to see her standing outside as the door slid
open, but he invited her in nonetheless. Her heart thudded as she
realized what this seemed like, so she lost no time in digging into
her pocket and pulling his combadge out. She handed it to him. "It was
in the couch," she said by way of explanation, and left again before
they felt they had to start another horribly uncomfortable
conversation.

Once back in her quarters, she paused, just inside the door, staring
blankly out the window. Why had everything suddenly become so...  so
different? They'd had close calls before. They'd /lived together/ for
three months, for Pete's sake! But their friendship had never felt so
on edge as it did now.

When the door chime sounded, she nearly jumped out of her skin. "Come
in," she called, turning around to greet whoever it was. Her bet was
on Seven, looking for some late night advice on humanity and the
nature of individuality.

It was Chakotay. "Don't tell me I forgot my combadge too," she said
dryly.

And, before she had time to think, much less react, he was kissing
her. He took the short step between them and pulled her to him in one
swift movement, catching her head and bringing her lips to his.

Surprised didn't even begin to cover it. Still tingling from the
adrenaline triggered by the door bell, her body was suddenly pressed
against him, all the walls and borders she'd built up between them
shattered, and the sensation shot little fireworks of joy out her
fingertips.

It took her a heartbeat to manage to think straight enough to respond,
to bring her hands up and grab the back of his neck, to stagger
backwards into her quarters, away from the still-open door, to press
one hand low against his cheek. Somewhere in a far corner of her mind
she was aware that her back had made contact hard with a wall and that
one of her legs and curled around his, but as he pulled back just half
an inch to let them both breathe, the only thing she knew was that
she'd finally come home.

She smiled breathlessly up at him, leaning her forehead against his.
"Remind me again why we didn't do this sooner?"

"Protocol," he told her, sliding his fingers into her hair.

"Damn protocol," she whispered against his lips, grinning.

As they backed in the general direction of her bedroom, she reflected
that her foot had finally stopped hurting.

---

The End