Disclaimer: As always, our beloved PTB own the universe; Bill Gates just overruled them for a short time and allowed me to type this out using his software. No profit will *ever* come of it!

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For the second time in one day, B’Elanna risked rising the ire of one of her superiors. Having escaped from Janeway’s wrath – at least, for the time being -- she now headed to the quarters of her second-in-command. Moments earlier, she had buzzed Chakotay and asked to see him; she knew she must act before she lost her courage. Now, she stood in front of the door of his quarters, hesitant in following through with her plan. *Oh, what the hell,* she thought. *Janeway ‘said’ she wouldn’t demote me… and I can handle Seven…"

*Buzz*. The doors whooshed open.

"Come in, B’Elanna," Chakotay smiled, as he walked to the door to greet her. "You sounded a little bit anxious when you contacted me. Everything okay?" he continued, escorting her into the dimmed light of his quarters and over to the sofa bathed in starlight.

She sat down, but in an alert position, balanced on the edge of the cushioned seat. Damn… she shouldn’t be here; whatever possessed her to follow through with her idea?

"Want something to drink?" she heard his voice say through the miasma of her deliberations.

"Uh… yes; that would be fine," she nodded. "Uh… just some water, thanks." She shifted nervously in her precarious position.

Chakotay walked over to his desk where there was a carafe of water and poured two glasses. "So… what’s on your mind?" he asked, strolling back to the sofa and handing her one of the tumblers. He slowly sipped from his glass, waiting for her response.

She took a hefty gulp of the clear liquid, suddenly wishing it were Romulan ale; she was going to need some help to get through this. "Um… we’ve… you and I… we’ve been pretty close over the years, right?" she finally asked.

"Yes," he replied, looking her firmly in the eye, silently asking her to continue.

Her head bobbed up and down in agreement with his answer. "Yes…yes… that’s what I’ve always thought, too." Her eyes still refused to make locked contact with his.

"And you agree that we understand each other pretty well and can tell each other what’s bothering each other, right?"

"Yes," he said softly again. He leaned into the space between them. "What…"

With the same excitable enthusiasm she had shown when she went into Janeway’s ready room, the words began tumbling out of her mouth.

"Chakotay, when are you and the captain going to finally admit what every person on this ship has known for years… when are you two going to own up to the fact that you love each other?"

There. It was out. She sank back into the sofa with a load sigh of relief, her eyes rolling back into her head. Okay, now the Ha’DIbaH was really going to hit the ‘oy’naQ; maybe the captain wasn’t going to demote her, but Chakotay would!

Silence. She opened one eye. Through the narrow slit of an opening, she saw his eyes wide with disbelief, his face full of incredulity.

"What… what do you mean, B’Elanna?" he finally mustered, his words full of flustering, silent denial.

"I mean just what I said." She got up and began pacing the area in front of the sofa, her nervous energy needing a sudden outlet. Her arms swung wide with each of her words, her hands adding their punctuation, as she continued. "Chakotay, do you know what happened down there on that planet?" He shook his head negatively in answer to her query as she continued. "Well, let me tell you." She stopped to face him, her thick hair flying in the wake of sudden stilled motion. "The poet down there… Kelis… just by listening to the two of you speak on the recorded logs of the Delta Flyer… even *he* could tell what you were really saying… behind all the ‘proper’ words…"

Chakotay was totally confused; she was way ahead of him in her thoughts. He rose and walked over to her. "B’Elanna… what the hell are you talking about? What did this Kelis say?"

"Not what he said; what he wrote," she said as he came closer. "He wrote things… about you and Captain Janeway… about how both of you hide your real feelings for each other behind masks of Starfleet directives and protocol, not once letting those masks slip out of place…"

Chakotay spun around in a tight circle, wanting to conceal the shock of the secret truth of which she now spoke so openly… his mind spinning with sudden memories of so many encounters when he and Kathryn did just this. Their words… their simple words now betraying them to an alien poet, who had never seen them nor knew anything of their private turmoils… revealing the anguish of their covert emotions… their unsatisfied hunger and yearnings.

B’Elanna’s steps matched his, in her emotion-driven frenzy. Her head swung constantly, as her nervous twitter became a crazy chortle. "When I saw the actors portraying you and the captain… speaking the lines… and then actually kissing, I…"

"What?" shouted Chakotay. "They kissed? Oh, come on, B’Elanna; where did they ever…"

"My feelings exactly," she interrupted vehemently. "And that’s exactly what I told Kelis! I *never* told him anything about you, Chakotay… never! But then, after this… this… idiotic little scene that he wrote… I told him that on a ship such as ours, with constant battles with enemies and just trying to survive, well, that there just wasn’t any time for… kissing and romance and all that… that stuff; that we had to work all the time just to exist…"

Chakotay watched her, her body language betraying every word she spoke. B’Elanna… the warrior; B’Elanna… the fiery romanticist – did she… could she… ever separate the two? Her actions told him the whole story, just as he was now certain how Kelis had gotten his inspiration. You’re quite the muse, all right, Torres! A smile crept across his face as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

"What?" she barked at him, her hands defiantly on her hips. "Why are you looking at me that way?"

Chakotay laughed softly. "B’Elanna, never play poker."

"What does that stupid card game have to do with what I’m telling you?" she continued, her voice now trembling with emotion.

"Everything," Chakotay said simply as he walked closer to her, taking her arms and calming her. "Every move you make magnifies the words that you speak," he smiled at her. "There’s no doubt in my mind as to how Kelis interpreted untold tales between the stories you gave him."

"Chakotay, I told him nothing! Why… why… I’ve never even spoken of anything of this nature, even to Tom!" she moaned.

"But… you knew just the same, didn’t you?" he asked her, his voice calm and soothing.

Her outburst was past. She sighed deeply, "Yes, I guess I knew. There are just… well, just certain ways that…"

He led her back to the sofa and refilled their glasses, this time with a sparkling nectar.

"Is it really that evident?" he asked.

"Oh, come on, Chakotay," she snorted, her nostrils flaring. "You tell me I can’t hide my feelings. But I’ve… no, just about *everyone*… has seen the way you look at her… and the off-moments when she gazes at your head bowed over the monitor… or how her hand remains just a second too long on your shoulder or chest; it’s hardly a secret! There are times when I have just ached to yell at you two to admit it and get on with it." She looked up and chortled. "I’ll bet if you asked Tuvok point blank, even he would agree."

He leaned back on the sofa, his head resting on its back. He closed his eyes and sighed as the import of her statement sank in. "Once upon a time, that might have been true. But that day has long passed. We… we’ve both… moved on. So much has happened… and been said…"

"That’s bullshit, Chakotay, and you know it!" she continued, her words taking on spirit again. "I saw the way you looked at her this afternoon when you came into her ready room today; I saw how *she* looked and reacted, then and after you left. Why, she actually blushed when you came in --- like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar! And when she choked on her coffee? I had… I had just used a word that had been in Janeway’s line in the play, when she propositioned…"

Chakotay suddenly sat up, his body and mind alert and primed. "Line? Propositioned? What did she say?"

"Well, it was from behind a mask; the actor-Janeway said ( B’Elanna sat up straight as she transformed herself into the planetside actress), ‘Why must I be denied what every other female officer on this ship has?’ "

"And?" Chakotay prompted.

B’Elanna stumbled a moment. "Well…er… then it was ‘your’ line…"

"And?" he asked more forcefully.

"Um… ‘you’ just asked ‘Captain?’ "

"AND?" he almost yelled.

"And then, she pushed your mask away with hers and said, ‘The privilege of your touch.’ "

Chakotay let out another groan and fell back onto the sofa back again. "Oh, gods…" he murmured. "How…"

"…and then that’s when they kissed," B’Elanna blurted out, wanting to tell the whole story while she was on a roll. Now that it all had been told, she became uncharacteristically silent.

"Does the captain know this story?" he finally asked.

"Yes," she mumbled. "I told her this afternoon, just before you came in…" He took in a deep breath. "So that’s why she…"

"Yes," B’Elanna answered. "And she… she…"

"What?"

"She said that she’d assign Seven permanently to engineering if I dared say anything about this to anyone," she tattled to him.

"She can’t do that, I’m in charge of crew assignments!" he retorted, looking for any means of changing the subject.

"You’ve got to remember… she’s the captain; she can overrule you, you know," B’Elanna said, playing him along. Damn the consequences; god, this felt good! Like retribution for all those times she and Tom had been chastised for their overt displays of affection…

"Over my dead body," he muttered.

B’Elanna couldn’t pass up the opportunity. "I don’t think she’d want your body dead," she chuckled.

Chakotay’s face twitched as he jumped up. "That’s about enough… Lieutenant. I think there’s been enough said already."

She looked at him. He was trying desperately to assume a professional demeanor, but she could see the unrestrained gleam behind his eyes… a look of hope that had long been absent in his bearing.

"Yes sir," she answered decorously.

"And not a word of this to Kathr… I mean, the captain."

"No, sir," she responded again. "Um… and this *will* be kept between us, won’t it… um… sir? Sort of a… a… ‘need to know’ piece of information?" Her question was plaintive and almost pitiful.

He smiled at her, his smile wide enough to exhibit his deep dimples. "Ours and ours alone, Lieutenant. After all, it’s information that only I will need to know in order to… disarm my adversary."

"What?" she shouted at him. "Chakotay, please don’t…"

"I think it’s time for us to throw down our weapons… and masks, don’t you B’Elanna? To negotiate and tear down the barriers that have separated us for far too long…"

She quickly understood his analogy. "And replace fighting for kisses?" she asked, smiling knowingly.

"One can only hope," he smiled back. "We’ve had enough fighting around here."

B’Elanna laughed, as she eased her way towards the door to make her exit. "Yeah, and besides… making up after a fight is almost as much fun as… well, you’ll find out."

He laughed heartily as the doors opened. B’Elanna looked back, a sudden look of horror on her face.

"Chakotay… if the captain *does* assign Seven to engineering…"

"…I’ll ask her to supervise crewman Harren’s extensive theoretical work in the catacombs of deck 15," he answered her. The doors swiftly hid B’Elanna’s laughing face.

He walked back over to his replicator. "Computer, one chilled bottle of Chateau Picard, brut sec, 2361." The dark bottle sparkled into existence. He unconsciously began whistling a long forgotten song from earlier years as his sudden decision brought a new lightness of life to him. He hit his comm badge.

"Chakotay to Captain Janeway," he smiled.

"Janeway here. What is it, Commander?"

"Where are you?" he asked.

"In my quarters; why?" she asked.

"Could you stand some company?" he continued.

"Well, I guess. What’s on your mind?"

He smiled, a deliberate beat of a pause before answering. "Kathryn, I think it’s time to lower the shields."

"Wha… what?" she asked.

"Our battles are over, Kathryn; it’s time for us to make some new rules," he said as he exited through his door and took his place in front of hers next door, his hands filled with the wine and glasses.

Her door opened. She stood before him, waiting for him, her hair loose and flowing over the soft blue of her robe; a border of pale. bare toes rimmed its hem. Her face showed remnants of weariness, but she managed a promising smile, allowing her silence to speak for her.

It was time for the war to end and the reconciling to begin. Gods…they both knew how long these treaty negotiations could take -- hell, sometimes they went on forever, through both day and night -- and this one could take a very long time… oh, yes; it certainly could!

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