Disclaimer: Voyager and her crew are the property of Paramount.
Spoiler for The Equinox. Characteristics of one of the characters and part of the storyline have been altered.
As I lie in Chakotay's arms, I feel a sense of joy and pleasure fill me. He called me his golden boy. That's what I feel at this moment, golden. I want to feel worthy of his affection, because I know he wouldn't waste his time on just anybody. I feel full of confidence about the future, confident about us. All I want is for us to be together. Through my own stupidity I had nearly lost him. I pull him to me and hold him close. As my hands caress his body, I fall asleep thinking of ways I can make it up to him.
Next morning he's already up, dressed and gone when I come round. I feel disappointed and jump to the wrong conclusion, that he's playing my game but then as I head to the bridge and the red alert sounds I realise it's just business and I quickly make my way to the helm. The Captain soon fills me in. Voyager has received a distress call from another Fleet vessel and they are under a vicious attack. Harry ascertains that the call has come from a Science ship, The Equinox. We can only assume that, like us, they are in the Delta quadrant because of the Caretaker.
A large away team transports over and the damage we see is devastating. The crew are either dead or badly injured; no one is left unscathed. The dead bodies we find tell a story of desolation. We cannot begin to imagine what has caused this destruction. We rescue everybody and after we transport back to Voyager, Chakotay disappears to his office. He seems shaken, off kilter some how and that in its self unnerves me.
He comes back onto the bridge and the Captain asks if everything is all right and he just says a soft 'fine' and sits quietly for the rest of the shift. On the odd occasions I can get a glimpse of him, he looks dazed. I don't manage more than a couple of words with him over the next few days as we work in shifts on the Equinox.
The first order of business is the rites for the dead. The doctor quickly has the injured on their feet and all Voyager's senior staff gather with the remaining crew of the Equinox in the mess hall, for Captain Ransome to give his speech. Since our meeting with the Equinox Chakotay has been quiet, withdrawn and now as we stand listening to Ransome his face is an inscrutable mask. We have all been busy but I get the feeling that Chakotay is using this as an excuse not to see me and I am beginning to get worried. It makes it worse because I haven't had a chance to speak to him, to find out what is bothering him. At the end of the speech Harry, Chakotay, B'Elanna and myself stand talking over what has to be undertaken on the other ship. I watch as the First Officer of the Equinox moves away from Tuvok and Seven and makes his way over to us. I can see some of the Voyager crew eyeing him up. If I weren't with Chakotay I'd probably be doing it myself. He's my height, blonde hair, and blue eyes, darker than mine. He's got the most appealing smile and the longest legs. Yes, I'd definitely be going after him, if I was free and single.
"Chakotay it's good to see you again. I thought you would have at least come over to say hello." His smile, his voice, excludes everyone but Chakotay. The first stabs of jealousy erupt in my chest.
"Max. I came to see you in sickbay but you were out of it. It's good, unexpected but good to see you again." Chakotay is focused on the man in front of him.
I watch them both, Lieutenant Max Burke looking as pleased as punch and Chakotay looking uncomfortable.
Burke gives a big smile and then pulls Chakotay into his arms for a hug.
I watch as his hands roam over my lover's back, the jealousy coursing through my body.
Equinox's First Officer turns to us, still with his arm around Chakotay. "You know this guy is the craziest person I have ever met. We got into more scrapes and more laughs than anyone in our year at the Academy. I never thought I'd see you again Tayo, but the sight of you is like water to a thirsty man. How about getting together for dinner. We have so much to catch up on. So much."
"I'd like that Max, but not tonight, I have some things to take care of. How about tomorrow?" Chakotay moves away from Burke and towards me.
"I'd like that, but you can drop the Max, I'm still Goldie. To you anyway." He looks directly at Chakotay, some unknown message passing between them.
Chakotay turns to me. "Could I have a word, Mr Paris?"
So it's Mr Paris now. I want more that a word. Chakotay has never mentioned this Max guy, come to think of it, he has never mentioned anyone from his past. We move out of the range of the others.
"What's with the Tayo business and what did he mean water to a thirsty man." I shrug his hand off me.
"It’s just a nickname he uses for me and I suppose he means he is just glad to see a friendly face. Tom, can we meet for dinner, my place?"
I answer a terse yes, something about this situation, about Max is making me feel uncomfortable. Their conversation had seemed intimate, too intimate and the shared pet names didn’t make me feel any better.
Chakotay walks back to the bridge. I walk back to join the others. Burke is regaling the others with a tale of their breaking into a lockup and getting drunk. I cannot reconcile this image with the steadfast Chakotay I know. Nothing he is saying reminds me of the man that I call my lover.
Harry looks at me, knowing instinctively that I am finding this uncomfortable. He turns to Max, "it sounds like you were a pretty good friend of our First Officer?" I know Harry is fishing for information on my account.
"Oh we were more than good friends, a lot more." Max walks away to join his captain in some discussion.
I stand and watch him, feeling sick to my stomach. I need to talk to Chakotay, clear things up, find some answers. But what with one thing and another I am unable to see him until it is time to go to his quarters for dinner. I dress as appealingly as I can, not too suggestive but enough to show him. Show him what, I don't know? But I want him to see me in the most attractive light possible. My mind is in a whirl. To my knowledge I am Chakotay's only man and now this Max had come on board and thrown me off track.
The doors open as soon as I get there and I sit down, unsettled, grumpy. I watch Chakotay, I am not the only one to be unnerved.
"Are we still together?" I have to ask, I have to know.
He turns quickly and looks at me with haunted eyes. He doesn't say anything just looks at me. The longer the silence the more scared I get. I can feel the first tendrils of fear, the fear of losing the best thing in my life, begin to take hold.
"Yes we're still together." He sits down next to me. "It's just seeing Goldie as unnerved me a little. I never thought I would see him again. You just don't expect to come face to face with your past in the Delta quadrant."
"Close friend, Uh?" I could see the tension in him.
"Yeah you could say that."
I swallowed, I didn't want to ask the next question but for my own peace of mind I needed to. "How close, exactly?"
Chakotay turned away and I knew the answer before he said it, then he turned back around and took hold of my hands.
"We were lovers."
He had said it, I didn't want to hear it but he had said it. I flung his hand off me and stood up.
"You said you were straight, that you'd never been with a man. You lied to me. You made me feel special and all along I was just one of many." I was marching up and down like a man possessed. Everything we had was a lie. He called me his golden boy but before me he had Goldie, a truly golden boy. Max had everything going for him, looks, winning personality. If it came down to him and me, he would win every time. Then the thought hit me, what if Max wanted to join Voyager, to be with Chakotay. I wouldn’t stand a chance. How could I stand up to any comparison to this man when all I had done was mess Chakotay about.
"Tom I never said I was straight or that I had never been with a man. You just assumed that, I never lied to you. We never discussed it and you are not one of many and you are special."
"No I suppose you didn't lie to me, just let me believe I was the first." I gloried in the fact that I was his one and only man. It made me feel unique.
"Were you with him a long time?" It isn't logical but I want to hit him for his deception. I want to hit him for the jealousy building up in me.
"Two years."
Two fucking years. We've been together a matter of weeks. How am I going to compete with that?
"Did you love him?"
"Yes. In the end he hurt be badly. That's why I didn’t bother with men, that's why you thought I was straight."
"Do you still love him?" I may as well give him a knife to inflict the pain that I know is coming.
"Tom, it’s not quite as simple as that."
"As I see it Chakotay, it's very simple, do you still love him or not?"
"The truth is, I just don't know. He's stirred up emotions I thought were long gone."
I look at him for a moment, not sure what to do then the Paris survival instinct kicks in.
"Well let me know when you've decided. I may be available or maybe not."
"Tom, please just give me time to sort my thoughts out."
I give him one last look and then I just walk out unable to trust myself to say the right thing. I make my way to the mess hall hoping to talk it out with Harry. I know it isn't logical, I've had plenty of lovers so why I should be getting riled about Chakotay's past doesn’t make sense. But it's not the fact of past loves but that he never mentioned someone who was obviously so important to him. Harry would straighten my thoughts out for me. He is always good at putting the right perspective on things but when I get there he is talking with Burke. The man seems to be everywhere. I am just going to avoid them when Harry calls me over. I listen to their aimless chitchat, my mind elsewhere when Max asks me how long I have been in a relationship with Chakotay. Seems word has got to him pretty quick. Is he just interested or is he putting out feelers?
"A while." I have no intentions of giving anything away.
"Harry was telling me they thought Tayo was straight. That it came as a surprise when you two got it together. I hurt him badly when we split up. I bet anything he hadn't been with another man between me and you. He was the same when he broke up with Ivan, only went out with women until me.
I don't know what his game is, but I need to get away. First Max, now Ivan. How many more little secrets as my lover got hidden. I run back to Chakotay's, I need to know who the fuck Ivan was. This is turning out to be one hell of a lousy day. The man I thought I knew and was falling in love with, had a secret past, one I knew nothing about.
I dash back in, breathless from the run from the mess hall. Chakotay looks up startled.
"Whose Ivan?"
He looks shocked. Turning away and walking towards the window he seems to be playing for time.
" Tom I don’t want to talk about it, it's in the past."
"Well I do want to talk about it. At the risk of repeating myself, did you love him too?"
"Who, Ivan?"
"Yes, of course Ivan."
"Yes, I was in love with him."
"Tell me who he was or is?"
Chakotay began speaking, reluctantly. "He was a married lover. He was the first person I slept with and he stopped seeing me because he said his wife had found out but really it was because he had his eye on another cadet. I swore I wouldn't get hurt again but I did with Max.
I look at him, "I thought I knew you, but I don't know you at all. I don’t know anything about you."
I turn and leave, again. He'd been in love with two men and he'd never mentioned it, never mentioned he'd been in love at all.
I couldn't stop thinking about it. One day you think you know someone and next they seem like a complete stranger to you and everything you've known with them appears to be a falsehood.
All that night and the next day I sit in my room, thinking things through. Luckily I am off duty, I cannot face him, not till I've got it straight in my head. Harry calls a couple of times but I won't open the door. I don't need him to see my tear stained face. Chakotay comms me half a dozen times, I just ignore him. If it is an emergency they will come for me.
It had felt so good to think I was the only man in Chakotay's life and now to find I am in a crowd and know I am the least important person in that crowd. One thing he has never said is he loves me. If I dig any deeper will I find a few more men to join the team. He could have slept with half the men in Star Fleet and I wouldn’t know until they turned up. He hadn't trusted me enough to tell me about these people who had been so important to him and that's what hurts the most. All we have is sex, I realise now we haven't shared anything deeper. All I have been is a convenient fuck.
By the time shift comes round I've come to a decision. If Chakotay wants Max then I will step back. As he has said, he had loved Max, maybe still does. He doesn't love me. In the scheme of things I am nothing.
I arrive onto the bridge and all hell has just broken loose. While I have been sulking like a spoilt brat in my quarters, the rest of the bridge crew have found out that the The Equinox has been conducting experiments on aliens and using them to power their ship. Now they have disabled Voyager and have just gone to warp. But that's not the only problem, Chakotay's gone with them. We do not know if he has gone willingly or if he's been coerced. Instead of skulking in my quarters I should have been fighting for Chakotay's affection. Now I have lost him, probably for good.
There is some disagreement on the bridge, Tuvok and the Captain cannot agree on the action to be taken. Tuvok wants to find ways to either fight or communicate with the aliens. The Captain wants to go after the Equinox. I'm with her on this one.
I have to keep busy. I can’t let my mind wander to what may be happening on the other ship. I don't want to think about what Chakotay could be doing. The Equinox takes some finding, but eventually we catch up with them hiding on a planet. The scanners pick up some of the crew wandering about the surface and transporters manage to bring them aboard.
Captain Janeway seems to have lost all reason. Her only aim seems to be to make Ransome pay for going against regulations. I know she's lost it when she locks one of the Equinox crew up and lets in one of the aliens to attack him. Just in time I drag the man out. I manage to get a word with him before he is put in the brig.
"How's Chakotay?"
"I'd forget about your First Officer. He's with Burke now. He won’t be coming back."
When we engage the Equinox they get some good shots in. For a brief moment I consider that Chakotay has given them inside information. But I dismiss this. However much he is in love, and that thought hurts more than I care to admit, he wouldn’t betray Voyager. We later find out their holodoc was transferred over to us and was sending them information.
Amidst all the exchange fire the Captain gets a message from Ransome. Burke has taken over the ship but it is in a bad shape. The only way out of it is to destroy the The Equinox and to that end he requests that everybody be transported across.
"Transporter Room One, is everyone across?"
"We've got everyone except Captain Ransome, Lieutenant Burke and Commander Chakotay. We're having trouble locating the Commander."
"Open communications Harry."
"I've got Captain Ransome for you Captain."
"Captain we can't get a lock on you, your First Officer or Commander Chakotay. Can you help us? We need to get everyone across, your ship is not going to last much longer."
"Captain I've set the self destruct. You've got 90 seconds to find your First Officer. Please take care of my crew. Despite everything, they are a fine set of people."
"Get a lock on Chakotay now." The Captain shouts.
I watch in morbid fascination as the Equinox self-destructs and then the reality hits me. Chakotay is dead.
I come round in sick bay. Confused why I am here but as I try to rise the memory hits me.
"He's alive Tom, we got him just in time."
That's when I let it all out. The tears seem endless and by the time I am finished the Captain needs a change of uniform.
"Where is he? I need to see him."
"He's resting. He'll be off duty for a couple of days. He's requested no visitors."
"I don’t think he means me Captain." I begin to get off the bed, ready to go and try to mend bridges.
"He said especially you." I can tell with the Captain's face that he means it.
I comm him, knock on his door. Everything I do is just ignored. Then on the third day he answers my call.
"You'd best come to my quarters."
That is all he says. I make my way there not knowing what to expect but just knowing I will be glad to see him.
I wait impatiently as he lets me in. I want to rush into his arms but I am not sure how he will react. I have realised this, I can put his past behind me. In my shock I had acted foolishly. It doesn't matter who he has loved I still want him.
I look around. There's a box on the table, with my things in, just like before.
"You're finishing it?" I want to be wrong.
"Yes."
That is all he says, no explanation. No emotion in his voice.
"Chakotay," before I manage to say anything else, he stops me.
"Tom, it's over. Please go."
I stare at him, willing him to say he's only joking, that everything is all right. But he turns away from me and I know everything is far from all right.
I grab my things and march out. I had managed before him, I'll manage after him.
Three months on and we have hardly spoken a word. He directs me on the bridge, in the minimum fashion possible. There is no hand on my shoulder, no words of praise. His voice is professional, with no trace of friendliness. I would even welcome the reprimands but I don’t even get them from him any more. If there is anything to say regarding ship's business then Tuvok deals with me.
Getting over him is harder than I thought. I watch him in the mess hall, sometimes on the bridge and occasionally in Sandrine's and wonder how we ended up like this. I'm still not over him even though since he finished it I've fucked half of Gamma shift. These encounters are enjoyable but meaningless. The experience is nothing like making love to Chakotay. But then again there is nobody like Chakotay.
TBC
Pursuing Chakotay by Darksusie
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