The BLTS Archive- Shell Fragment
by monkee (wiecek@earthlink.net)

---

Disclaimers: Paramount owns Star Trek Voyager and all of its
characters, but never lets them talk about the important stuff.

---

Chakotay ambled slowly through the surf, alone. The water felt warm in
contrast to the cooler night air of the planet. One of the planet's
moons was already high overhead. The other was just rising over the
ocean, its glittering reflection making a path which lead from the
horizon to where he stood. It was beautiful and serene.

He knew that Kathryn had spent the day just a few kilometers north of
him on this same beach. He was really making a concerted effort not to
think of her at all, but his mind just kept turning back to her, no
matter what, or who, he tried to concentrate on instead. It was always
like that. It would, he realized, always be like that.

He'd asked her to spend the day with him, but had been enormously
relieved when she turned him down. She claimed that she was feeling
too stressed to be good company. He believed it, too. The last few
months had been difficult, and they were both suffering from a bit of
burnout. He honestly just wanted to be alone, and understood her
feeling the same way. And truthfully, it was just too difficult to
spend off-duty time with her anymore.  He was tired of trying so hard
to suppress his feelings and fit himself into her parameters.

Something brushed against his foot and he reached down and grabbed it
as it skittered end over end in the rushing foam. After rinsing it
off, he saw that it was only a shell fragment. He was about to toss it
back into the waves when he stopped and looked at it again. It was
roughly triangular in shape, worn smooth along the edges. Buff-colored
with darker, nearly pink ridges. He smiled as he realized that there
was only one logical thing to do with a shell fragment of this shape
and size.

He padded a short distance up the slope of the beach, slightly beyond
where the waves were washing up. Then he stooped down and, using the
point of the fragment, began to write in the damp sand.

It was ridiculous. It was totally self-indulgent and sentimental, but
absolutely no one would find out. There was a certain appropriate
irony in that – no one would ever see it and it would be wiped clean
by the next big wave. It was morbidly satisfying somehow. If only the
words could be so easily removed from his heart.

---

He continued up the beach to a stand of scruffy pine trees just beyond
the dunes. He'd noticed them earlier in the day and something about
them had drawn him back tonight with his medicine bundle. He wanted to
meditate there.

He sat cross-legged on a blanket of pine needles and spread out his
bundle carefully, reverently fingering all of his sacred objects. He
placed his hand gently on the akoonah, closed his eyes and inhaled
deeply. The smell of pine mingled with the salt air and gradually,
muscle by muscle, he began to relax. "Akoo-chee-moya," he chanted
softly, "We are far from the sacred places of our grandfathers. . ."

---

Slowly, awareness returned to him. It was his first successful vision
quest in months. His spirit guide had appeared to him and offered
words of wisdom and comfort. He felt rejuvenated and restored. Keeping
his eyes closed, he concentrated on the sounds and sensations that
surrounded him – the eerie cries of the sea birds, the crashing of the
waves, the feel of the cool, moist breeze on his skin.

It may have been a snapping twig, or a subtle change in the air, but
he suddenly knew that he was being watched. He opened his eyes and saw
Kathryn standing on the dune beside the trees, looking
uncharacteristically tentative and uncertain. He startled her when he
spoke, "How long have you been here?"

"Not long," she replied. "I was actually about to leave. I didn't want
to disturb you – you looked so peaceful."  She sounded wistful.

"You didn't disturb me," he told her as he placed his objects back
into his bundle. "I was finished.  It was a good vision quest."  He
rose to his feet with ease, despite the long period of time he'd been
sitting in one position.  His body felt relaxed and whole, his mind
clear.  Kathryn's spirit guide could do the same for her, but he was
sure she no longer spoke to it.  Or perhaps she tried but couldn't
contact her guide.  It required a stillness and a devotion that he
didn't think she had anymore.  Even he had difficulty sometimes.

"Well," she said, rather awkwardly.  She was absently fingering
something small in her hand - a seashell, perhaps.  "I was just
walking by, and I saw you sitting up here, so I wanted to say hello,
that's all."

He smiled at her.  "I'm glad that you did.  Why don't we walk together
for a while?"

"No," she said, quickly. "I. . .I have to get back now anyway. Tuvok
is actually taking leave this time."

"I think my time is probably about up, too," he said. "I'll beam up
with you."

"Why don't you stay?" she suggested.  "We don't both have to be up
there, and you really seem to be getting a lot out of your time down
here."

"But I'm on call tonight," he protested.

"Well, we're in a quiet sector, orbiting an uninhabited planet. I
doubt they'll need to wake me up for anything. You should stay." Her
earlier discomfort with him had changed back into friendly concern and
sincerity.

"Well. . ." The offer was tempting.  He hadn't felt this content in
quite a while.  "All right. I will.  And thank you."

"Good!" she said, happily. She touched his arm, a natural enough
gesture for her, only this time she pulled away abruptly as soon as
she realized what she was doing.  "I. . .I have to go."

Looking away, she tapped her commbadge and called for transport. "I'll
see you tomorrow," she said, still not meeting his eyes.  He smiled at
her, confused, and nodded.  Then he watched as she shimmered away.

It took him a moment to adjust to her absence.  The encounter had left
him just a little unsettled.  She'd been jumpy, and he wasn't sure
that she'd ever looked directly at his face.  She's seemed a bit
bemused, too, or embarrassed. . .something.  He didn't understand it.
Finally, he just shrugged and shook it off.  It was probably nothing.
She'd once told him that shore leave always made her feel disjointed
and muddled.

He took a last look around at the dunes and the pines, then headed
back down to the surf and began walking along the shoreline, the way
he'd come earlier.

---

The planet's second moon had risen completely now, and the sky was far
brighter than he was used to at night.  The moons were casting
strange, strong shadows on the sand. The ground before him was clearly
lit, and he could still see some of his footprints from an hour
earlier. The tide must be ebbing, he realized.  He was surprised to
see another smaller set of footprints alongside his.  Kathryn.  He'd
assumed that she had come from the other direction.

Everything clicked into place at once – the telltale footprints, the
shell fragment that she'd been holding, her awkwardness and the
bemused expression on her face.  He stopped dead in his tracks and
groaned.  "Oh God!" He'd almost forgotten all about it.  Surely it
wasn't still there.  He walked swiftly until he found the spot where
he'd knelt down earlier to write in the sand.

Naturally, it was still there.  As big as day and extremely well
illuminated. 'Chakotay loves Kathryn.'  He rubbed his forehead
vigorously with his hand and groaned again. He wondered aloud if
anyone in the universe was as quite as pathetic as he was.

She'd seen it; there was no doubt about it.  Her footprints completely
encircled his sandy confession.  He sighed, resigned.  It wasn't like
she didn't already know anyway, but still. . .The sense of peace that
he'd found in his vision quest had vanished.  Now he just felt
aggravated and exposed. And now he understood her awkwardness, and
their odd, disjointed conversation.  Damn.

He was about to walk away when he realized something.  There was a
heart surrounding the words he'd written.

He hadn't put it there.

Without thinking at all, he slapped his commbadge.  "Chakotay to
Janeway."

She responded immediately, "Janeway here."

Now that he had contact, however, he couldn't think of a single thing
to say to her.  There was nothing to say – nothing had changed.  He
knew their feelings for each other would continue to be unresolved,
acknowledged only briefly in the shifting sands of a nameless planet.

The silence stretched between them, and he knew that she knew why he'd
called.  He was about to apologize for disturbing her, and make an
honest effort to keep the bitterness out of his voice, when she spoke,
quietly, "You forgot the heart."

He sat down heavily on the ground, overwhelmed that she had actually
addressed the issue. The tears that sprang to his eyes surprised him.
After a long moment, he regained enough composure to speak. "It's
funny that I would forget the heart," he said, with forced lightness.
"I usually wear mine right here on my sleeve."

He actually heard her smile.  "I guess that's true," she said.

"But not you," he continued, tracing random patterns in the sand with
his index finger.  "You keep your heart pretty closely guarded."

She didn't respond immediately, and he thought that maybe he was
pushing too hard, too soon. Then she said, softly,  "That really isn't
fair to you, is it?"  It sounded like a rhetorical question – she 
knew damned well it wasn't fair to him – so he said nothing.

"Oh Chakotay," she sighed, "I can't tell you how I feel, because I
know you. If I do, you'll never move on. And you have to. Can't you
see that?"

"I think I have a right to know how you feel, Kathryn.  We don't have
to do anything about it, but I'd like to know."

"Do we have to have this conversation over a comm-line, Chakotay?" she
asked, agitated. "Why don't we talk about this tomorrow?"

"No," he said, vehemently.  "We've been avoiding this conversation for
four years.  If we break contact now, I know we'll never talk about it
again."

She was silent, and he knew she was thinking, considering, weighing
the consequences.

"Just tell me, Kathryn," he prompted, gently.  "Tell me."

"I love you, Chakotay," she said finally, her voice thick with
emotion.

He couldn't have stopped the short sob that escaped him even if he
wanted to, but he knew it didn't matter.  He let the tears run down
his face impeded.  He could hear her struggling to control her
breathing on the other end and knew that she was crying too.

"Thank you for telling me," he said, simply.  She didn't respond, and
he imagined that she was probably nodding her head and biting her lip,
still not trusting herself to speak.

He couldn't believe that after all these years they'd finally had this
conversation over a comm-line, tens of thousands of kilometers away
from each other.  He wished that she was here – he wanted so badly to
touch her.

She must have read his mind, somehow. "If you were here right now,
what would you do?"

"I would kiss you, Kathryn," he laughed.  "And you would let me."

"I think I would," she said, and again he could tell that she was
smiling. "And then what do you think would happen?"

He grew more serious.  "Then we'd make love," he told her.  He looked
up at the moons and imagined how it would be.  "I would move inside
you, and with every breath I would make you see how I feel.  It would
be sacred, and beautiful, and neither of us would ever be the same."

She was crying so he could hear her now.  Eventually she said,
carefully, "That's why we can't do it, you know."

He smiled.  "Oh, we COULD do it.  I could beam up right now and walk
to your quarters and we could be making love on the bed you're sitting
on within five minutes."

Exasperated laughter mingled with her crying.  "God, Chakotay.  How am
I ever going to get to sleep now?"

He chuckled.  "Sorry.  Listen, Kathryn, I know that we can't do it,
and I really do understand.  I'm just happy that you told me.  And
someday, somehow, I know our circumstances will change and I really
will make love to you like that."

"I hope so," she said, after a moment. He smiled, pleasantly surprised
that she wasn't going to launch into her 'you need to move on' speech
again. For right now he was content to know that she shared his
feelings.  If one of them needed to move on at some point, well, they
would cross that bridge when they came to it.

"Breakfast tomorrow?" he asked.  It was a regular Monday morning
ritual.  He hoped that she wouldn't feel awkward about it now.

"I'll see you at 0700," she said. Good.

"Goodnight, Kathryn," he said, warmly.  "Sleep well," he added, with a
slight smirk.

He heard an amused snort, then she replied, "I'll try. Goodnight,
Chakotay. I. . .Goodnight. Janeway out."

With the connection closed, he flopped backwards exuberantly and lay
on the sand. He looked up at the stars and tried to see if he could
spot Voyager, but he couldn't.  He couldn't stop smiling, even though
he was alone.  He sat up again, and grinned at the words in the sand
that had precipitated this turn of events in his life. Shaking his
head affectionately, he called up to engineering and had them beam
down a holo-imager.  He would create a holo-program of this place –
someday, he and Kathryn could show it to their grandchildren.

---

The End