Overcast

August said, "Write a vignette of the scene that first got you hooked on
J/C. Bonus points if you can tie this scene in with the current canon."
I didn't know I had this lurking in me until I started it, but it is
clearly a sequel to my story "Cloudy" of two years ago. This is for
August, and for Roses who asked for a quote from "Parallax" a few days
ago and got me thinking about it.

OVERCAST
by Your Cruise Director

I'm in trouble.

I'm supposed to be on the bridge, but I'm taking a stroll through the
lower decks, checking up on crew morale and trying to get a sense of
whether we have any Starfleet/Maquis conflict brewing. I don't think so.
Despite the concerns which Tuvok expresses to me daily, I've seen no
evidence of hostility along those lines. In fact, given our
circumstances, I've seen remarkably little evidence of hostility at all.

Not even from him.

"If things had happened differently and we were on the Maquis ship,
would you have served under me?" I almost answered him, even with the
double entendre which I'm not sure he recognized until the moment the
words were out and that split-second grin lit his eyes. I'd been
anticipating the question, and would have answered it honestly if it
weren't for that - his smile, and how I reacted to it. I'm not sure I'd
seen him smile before, other than for a brief moment when I acknowledged
that he'd been right about B'Elanna Torres. That was business.

This is something else.

Kes stopped in my ready room yesterday with flowers she had managed to
grow from cuttings we had in cold storage. I had just come from the
bridge, where we'd been...all right, he and I been flirting, though
ostensibly we were arguing about how much replicator energy we could
spare for nonessentials like coffee and chocolate. I argued for keeping
the crew's spirits up, but he knew perfectly well it was my own need for
coffee that motivated me. I have to remember to be careful how much we
say on the bridge - Tom Paris kept glancing back at us suspiciously. I
wrote that off as just his legendary dirty mind at work until the Ocampa
gave me the same look when we were alone.

"I brought these to brighten your room, but you seem very happy,
Captain," she told me.

I am happy. Considering that I'm in the Delta Quadrant, with no idea how
to get this ship home and no one from Starfleet to advise me, it's
almost frightening how happy I am. I like being out here, I like being
in charge.

I like him.

Chakotay.

I wish he had another name. Since there's only one, it feels too private
- not appropriate for use in front of the entire crew, though most of
the Maquis call him that. I feel unduly formal when I call him
"Commander" during private conversations, but sometimes my voice sounds
too husky to me when I say his name. I wish I had told him to call me by
my first name before I made him my first officer; now it would seem like
a breach of protocol to do so, and I feel shaky enough about protocol
when I'm with him. This is the man I was sent to arrest. A terrorist. He
knows all of Starfleet's systems, and could use them against me if he
chose.

Looking at his smile, it is impossible for me to believe that he would.

Is it just for me, that smile? Sometimes I think it is, then I think I
must be flattering myself. I'm a Starfleet captain. I represent the
institution he blames large part for what happened in the DMZ. I don't
know him well enough to tell him that I understand his pain - I've had
my share of suffering at the hands of the Cardassians, I lost my father
in the same war. Sometimes, though, I feel as if he must know. I sense
no resentment from him, not since I put Torres in charge of engineering
and freed Tuvok from his obligation to report on Maquis activities he
observed during surveillance. I know Chakotay agreed with my decision to
destroy the Array and save the Ocampa even if it meant stranding us all
out here, but that doesn't explain his allegiance. Not completely, at
least.

I wish he were just a little less attractive.

Does the crew notice? I don't mean what he looks like - I know they
notice that, I've heard them talking. I only worry that someone has
noticed me noticing. Under normal circumstances it wouldn't necessarily
be a terrible thing for a captain to fraternize with the first officer,
but these are anything but normal circumstances. He and I barely know
each other, there's no end to this mission in sight, no Starfleet
backup, and there's the not-insignificant matter of his criminal record.
Also, there are rumors about him and one of the Bajoran engineers, and
about him and Torres, though I find the latter hard to believe - he
treats her more like a junior officer than a friend. Of course, it's
possible to treat someone one way in public yet completely differently
in private. I'm sure Tom Paris is thinking that when he spies on us on
the bridge. I have to remember to be careful.

I can't even explain my decision to trust him. I could have made Tuvok
my first officer; the Maquis don't trust him and the Starfleet crew
barely knows him, since he was on Chakotay's ship, but it's certainly
the choice Starfleet would have recommended. There are more Academy
graduates on this vessel than there are Maquis, and I'm sure I've upset
many of them by promoting two renegades to top positions. It might have
been more politically expedient to move the Maquis up slowly, but
Chakotay convinced me they deserved better than that, and he was right -
at least, so far. He's not planning a mutiny.

Who is he?

And why am I obsessing about it?

I wish I had someone to talk to. I miss Stadi - despite out difference
in rank, we were friendly, and it was difficult for me to hide anything
from her because she was a Betazoid. She always asked, never told -
right now I can picture her cocking her head to the side and saying, "Do
you have a little bit of a crush on him?" And me giving her the death
glare, before rolling my eyes and smiling. Yes, I have a little bit of a
crush on him. A very little bit. Not my usual type at all. Mark would
laugh at me if he were here.

Mark's not here. I wish I felt something stronger than vague loneliness
about that.

Mark has been my best friend for years. He understands me better than
anyone I have ever known. I miss that so much - I miss him telling me
I'm being too hard on myself. Mark's interests are not very fashionable
among Starfleet officers - philosophers spend too much time debating
ethics instead of making choices. I suppose Chakotay's spirituality
reminds me of that...not that I really know anything about his
spirituality, just what little he's shown me, but I like to think he's
like Mark in that regard. He certainly isn't what I expected from a
rash, impulsive, rebellious Maquis terrorist. In fact, the longer I know
him, the harder it is for me to make that label fit.

I'm thinking about him instead of Mark again. I'm refusing to let myself
fantasize about him, but I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep that
up.

This is too dangerous. I could be wrong, for one thing, about whether
the way he looks at me means anything - maybe he just likes to look at
women, or maybe he has a thing for senior officers. If he is involved
with Seska, or Torres, it could have serious consequences if someone
thought I was interested in him. And even if he's not involved with
anyone, the risk of harrassment is too high...as well as the risk that
any relationship between us could compromise the ship's safety. Captains
and first officers have to make life-or-death decisions about one
another. I suppose I had it in the back of my mind that forming a
personal attachment with him might stop him from rebelling, but I don't
want him to go along with my decisions for the wrong reasons, either. At
least I don't think I do. If we run into the Borg out here, I'll take
support any way I can get it.

I'm trying to feel ashamed for thinking about my first officer like
this, but I'm just getting flushed and fidgeting. I can't even muster
the appropriate guilt when I catch myself stealing glances at his mouth,
or his hands. Because it's not lust, really - his physical presence is
only one aspect of what draws me to him. Part of it is the way he's kept
his crew in line. Part of it is the way he's repressed his dislike of
Tuvok and Paris, the two people he has to work with most often in his
new position. I like the way he argues; he's forceful, he doesn't back
down unless he's honestly been won over, but there's nothing petty, no
grudges, no bitterness. When I think about it, Chakotay has questioned
very few of my decisions. When we were trying to integrate the crews, he
might have chosen not just to look like he supported me, but for me to
feel that he really did. I tried something similar: I knew it would show
if I trusted him, and the crew would respond accordingly with confidence
in him and the rest of the Maquis. In those first days, his support was
a great relief to me - he joked with me, he flirted a little, he made me
feel like life on this ship would become natural for all of us.

Now I'm starting to depend on his friendship, which should worry me. But
it doesn't. When I catch myself thinking about him, I smile - when I
enter a room I find myself looking for him. It makes the work easier, it
gives me something to look forward to. I know there are things he can
teach me about his culture and his traditions - something I never had
with Cavit, who was an efficient officer but boring as a bulkhead. And
there's something archetypal about myself and Chakotay, as I realized
the last time I went to the holodeck to run my Western holonovel and
realized instead that I'd better delete the damn thing before someone
found it. I don't think being kidnapped by an Indian is a good role to
play right now. I also deleted the one about the legal officer who
helped her handsome prisoner escape. I can't afford to turn into a
romantic idiot.

I dreamed about him the other night. Nothing unsettling, we were
standing on the side of a hill overlooking a valley full of people. He
said, "It's a big responsibility," and I said, "We can do this." Then we
walked down the hill and a huge bird flew over our heads, which turned
out to be Voyager, so we jumped onto the landing struts and climbed
inside the ship even though we knew it meant we would never see the
planet again. When we got inside, I told him I was glad he came. He
smiled at me and I knew it was the right decision.

I'm not sure what it means. I could probably ask Chakotay, but that
might be more dangerous than the dream.

I'm roaming the ship now because of what happened this morning. Just an
accident--I'm sure he thought nothing of it. We were in the turbolift
when the power grid failed and we stopped abruptly. I fell on top of him
against the side of the lift, and for a minute we were stuck like that -
holding on to one another, staring at each other, It would have been all
right if I'd been able to look away. I got a glimpse of whatever it is
that I see in his smile, only this time he wasn't smiling, he looked
very serious, whatever it was he was going to say. For a minute I had
trouble breathing. Whatever was making him so earnest, I wanted to
diffuse it. So I did the only thing I could think to do - I smiled at
him.

And he smiled back like I'd given him the sun. It should have scared me
- I've barely begun to define parameters about our relationship to one
another, and to the crew, it hasn't really sunk in yet that I may never
see my home or family or Mark again, I'm used to being away for long
stretches. I'm sure this morning was a momentary aberration, not really
inappropriate because it doesn't mean a damn thing.

But here I am, pacing my ship, wishing I wasn't thinking about how his
arms felt around me for those few seconds, and hoping I don't forget. I
can't decide whether to go back to the bridge where maybe he'll smile at
me, or continue to hide down here where it won't matter if I'm blushing.
I know it's hopeless, I'm the captain, and I'm not sure I'm really
interested. Still, much better to have a crush on my first officer than
on someone down in the ranks whom I don't have any excuse for seeking
out.

Starfleet protocol, Mark, Seska, Voyager's unique circumstances,
captaincy be damned. I'm not ready to try to put labels on my feelings.

I'm just enjoying them.