Fan Fiction
TITLE: Chakotay's Holidays: My Father's Eyes
AUTHOR: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
RATING: PG
CODES: C/T
PART: 15/?
DISCLAIMER: Paramount, baa baa woof woof. (It's Chapter 15, so by now you know
the drill!)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Thanks to Kathy Speck for "dialoguing" with me, and for
providing a copy of "Initiations" so that I could re-watch the pakra ritual.
Thanks to Diane Bellomo for betaing.
SUMMARY: On the anniversary of Kolopak's death, Chakotay performs the pakra so
that he can speak with his father, only to find that the older man is as apt to
meddle in Chakotay's life as he ever was. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
The desert was hot and quiet where Chakotay had landed, sun shimmering off nearby dunes and illuminating the far-off mountains to brilliant color. Setting a blanket beneath himself to shield from the heat of the sand, Chakotay dropped into a crossed-legged sit and composed himself to begin the pakra.
Of course, the area was not truly isolated; in an age of hovercrafts and transporters, no region on Earth was truly isolated. But it had the dual advantages of being peaceful and of having been preserved in something close to its natural state, both of which were helpful to performing the ritual that honored the anniversary of his father's death.
Now that he had renewed his ties with the members of the Rubber Tree People who still lived in the ancient lands of the tribe, Chakotay knew he would have been welcome to perform the pakra there. So early in the new school term, though, he didn't feel he could take the time to walk to that place, and it would have dishonored the wishes of the tribe if he had traveled there any other way. No matter. This place had sufficed for several years now, and he thought it would again.
Chakotay lay his medicine bundle before him and tenderly unfolded, first the cloth, then the piece of skin, that held his most sacred treasures: the river stone, the raven's wing, the akoonah. He cradled the stone in his palm for a moment. Then, wrapping both hands around it until it seemed almost as if he could feel the spirit beating within the talisman, he closed his eyes and began. "Akoocheemoya," he murmured. "I pray on this day of memories to speak to my father, the one whom the wind called Kolopak. Though I am far from his bones, perhaps there is a spirit in the skies of my ancestors' world who will find him and honor him with my song. Akoocheemoya." He focused inward then, inward where some remnant of Kolopak's spirit lived in the soul and the body of his son, and waited.
With a greater than accustomed ease, he found himself, suddenly, in a different place.
All around him were the earthy scents and the abundant sounds and the brilliant greens and dazzling colors of the rainforest. He stood at the edge of a clearing, where a flowing creek gurgled and the first smoke of a newborn fire teased at his nostrils. When he blinked, he saw the familiar spirit he had sought, kneeling there feeding small strips of bark to the fire. Kolopak looked as he always did in Chakotay's vision quests: a tall and broadly-built older man with long gray hair, farseeing brown eyes, and a mouth that hinted at humor. As usual at these times, he wore what he had, in life, dubbed his "explorer's clothes": a shapeless white shirt, dusty brown pants, vest, and boots, and of course his broad-brimmed explorer's hat. Chakotay looked down at himself, and saw that his own garments had changed, to denims and a bright shirt, the latter patterned with the chamoozee and other sacred symbols.
Kolopak smiled, a warm and inviting expression. "My son," he said. "I'm glad to see you. Come, sit by the fire and we'll talk." Gladdened himself, Chakotay went, hunkering down on the trunk of a fallen tree.
"Your year has been busy," Kolopak observed, and Chakotay blinked again. Kolopak usually began with questions, not with assured statements of fact. His father chuckled. "You're wondering how I already know something about your year, aren't you? While I might enjoy teasing you with stories of my mystical omniscience, the truth is much simpler: you're not the first child of mine to perform the pakra today! And just as when you were children telling tales on one another, your sister was eager to tell me what she knew of your doings." His grin was wide and delighted. "Never fear, my son. I know she couldn't tell -- doesn't know -- all you have to say. And I'm glad that the two of you have finally closed the gap between you."
He lay a hand on Chakotay's shoulder, in the fatherly benediction he so rarely bestowed. "I should say, I'm glad that you went to her to close that gap. You gave her a greater measure of peace, and you made your mother and me very proud, my son. Thank you."
Chakotay himself didn't see his visits to Lukaya as a matter for pride; in fact, he thought he had delayed too long in his reconciliation with his sister. But, glad to know he had added to her inner peace, he accepted their father's compliments with a grateful heart and a smile. "She gave me a greater measure of peace, too," he acknowledged softly.
"As it should be." Kolopak withdrew his hand, his face still crinkled benevolently. "So tell me, Chakotay, how are the other important matters in your life going?"
"Well, if I can keep up the pace on my dissertation, I should be able to get my doctorate sometime early next year."
"Good, good. Do you continue to study the ways of the Sky Spirits?"
"Yes, I do." It was a difficult task, to explain how his peoples' belief in the Sky Spirits as a part of their faith could be reconciled with his own discovery of living, breathing Sky Spirits. He thought he was managing it well, though; his own faith had actually been strengthened by his studies. "And I'm starting to teach them to others."
"Teaching them to others? Are you sure you're not a shaman at heart, Chakotay?" Kolopak teased.
The younger man laughed. "I'm sure, Father."
Kolopak chuckled for a moment, clearly amused at the notion himself. "And is there anything else you wish to tell me? Wish to ask me?"
One thing did come to mind, but Chakotay hesitated to mention it. "Such as?"
"Such as this woman your sister tells me has come to play such a large part in your life?" Kolopak asked slyly.
Silently, Chakotay sent an unkind thought in Lukaya's direction. "B'Elanna?" he asked, as if he were unsure.
"I believe that was the name, yes," Kolopak said, and Chakotay hoped his own pretense of uncertainty had been a little more convincing than was his father's.
"B'Elanna...is a very dear friend of mine," he answered, and realized with chagrin that the pause was a little too apparent.
"Ah, a friend." Kolopak's eyes twinkled. "So tell me, Chakotay, is this FRIEND of yours a pretty woman, by any chance?"
"She..." He floundered for a moment, then went on more firmly, "Yes. A very pretty woman." He needed no psychic gifts to know what his father would make of THAT.
The expression on his father's face told Chakotay he'd been quite right. "And a very dear friend?" Kolopak pressed cheerfully, further confirming his son's prediction.
"Very," Chakotay admitted quietly. Should he tell his father what troubled him about his own feelings for B'Elanna?
"Ah." Kolopak sat back, as if he were considering the matter. "And would I be correct in guessing that you haven't yet told this B'Elanna that you would like to be more than a friend?"
Chakotay's jaw dropped.
"My son, if I recall, it's not the first time you've been a laggard in such matters." Ah, yes. Chakotay had forgotten he'd told his father about the silent affection he had cherished for Kathryn Janeway through much of their Delta Quadrant journey. "But I still don't understand why a man who's proven his courage in so many other respects is so timorous in matters of the heart."
"Timorous?" Chakotay was stung.
His father wasn't easily cowed. "Timorous. Is there a reason you fear to speak?"
"It's not a matter of courage." Chakotay tried not to sound defensive. "It's just that she really IS my friend, and she's at a vulnerable place in her life right now. If I offer her my love and she doesn't want it, then there won't be anything else I can do to help her."
"You don't offer her your love because you fear to leave her bereft?" Kolopak said skeptically.
Put that way, it sounded ridiculous, yet it was true enough. "Yes."
Kolopak shook his head. "Chakotay, Chakotay. Is your friendship with this woman so weak?"
Chakotay blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Chakotay. Do you truly think that if you told this woman you loved her, and she did not share the sentiment, that she wouldn't want anything to do with you?"
"I...no, I suppose not. But it would...change things."
"Yes," his father agreed. "It would. But tell me, Chakotay: are you so happy with things as they are now?"
"I...in some ways, yes. I enjoy spending time with her; I enjoy being able to talk to her. I enjoy being part of her day." And that was true, though it left out the burning her presence sparked in his body, and the fire he felt at the dreams of her in the night.
"And in some ways no?"
Given what he'd just been thinking, he could hardly deny it. "In some ways, no."
"So. Let me see if I understand. If you tell her of your feelings, and she doesn't love you in the way you love her, it would create an awkwardness between you for a time." Chakotay nodded, cautiously; his father had the sound of building up to something. "There is that risk," Kolopak conceded. He leaned closer to his son. "But Chakotay, what would happen if you tell her of your feelings, and you find that she shares them?"
The fire, this time, was a blaze of joy in Chakotay's heart, prompting an involuntary smile that was, in itself, the answer to Kolopak's question. Kolopak chuckled softly.
"Why must you always make everything so complicated, Chakotay? My poor contrary boy."
"I should talk to her," Chakotay said, almost to himself, and for the first time the words were a statement of intent rather than a wistful hope for the future.
"Yes, you should." Kolopak squeezed his shoulder encouragingly, and began to fade away. Before the older man had quite vanished, another sentence came from his lips, sounding like a whisper on the wind. "You've put off giving me grandchildren for too long now, my son...."
Chakotay snorted, and the remnants of his vision quest vanished in a blink. Once again he sat alone in the desert, sun and sand burning until shimmering waves of heat arose from the dunes. Looking down at his still-clasped hands, he murmured the ritual end to a successful pakra: "I thank you, my father, for sharing your spirit and guidance with me on this day. Akoocheemoya."
Yes, the desert around him was blazing hot. But beyond the desert waited an oasis.
