Chakotay had no problem with that, so he continued.

Chakotay flipped down several sections and read;

Chakotay sighed and leaned back in the chair while the Vulcan sat expressionless behind his desk.

“I take it then that this was not the news you were desiring to hear.”

“Not really,” Chakotay blurted out before he could stop himself. He cringed. “I’d like to see all regulations, addendums and wavers pertaining to this Protocol, Tuvok, including any amendments . . .if there are any.”

He then left for his own office to read them all. He found nothing that would alter anything.

His marriage to B’Elanna was neither sanctioned nor recognised by Star Fleet, or even the Federation, since neither of them, strictly speaking, were Federation citizens. But, as stated in the next regulation: -

Chakotay flicked through the P.A.D.D. Tuvok had given him. “Special wavers . . .special wavers . . .where the hell is . . .ah, here it is . . .”

He furiously read through it, hoping . . .

Chakotay sighed. He was hemmed in on all sides. Was there no way at all? He closed his eyes willing his heart to stop hurting. He could feel the lump in his throat. Weren’t there special wavers for cultures like his, which had no such ‘official’ marriages? Evidently not. And what about circumstances like the one they found themselves in now?

Chakotay read the Special Wavers again, this time including those he had read in Tuvok’s office. Damn. Voyager was not in ‘times of war’, just under attack most of the time, not the same thing. They weren’t out here answering a call of distress after a natural disaster either. They were stranded here because of a malicious, if well-intentioned, act of an alien entity. He was out of ideas.

The chime to his office sounded and he tossed the P.A.D.D. down on the desk.

“Come in?”

The doors parted and the captain entered.

“Good afternoon, Commander. I haven’t seen you on the Bridge today.”

There was a question in those words.

“Ah, no. Sorry, Captain. I had some unfinished business to catch up on . . .”

“Well, if you’re stuck down here with some errant duty roster or report, maybe I can help,” she offered.

He watched her pick up the P.A.D.D. that lay discarded on his desk. He reached out, but drew back and cringed inwardly.

“Marital concessions for commissioned, non-commissioned and field-commissioned officers from non-federation worlds?” Janeway’s eyes moved to his. “Are you considering getting married, Commander?”

“No,” he replied truthfully.

She lowered the P.A.D.D. to waist height, as she always did when in deep thought, and regarded him with a steady gaze. “Are you, by any chance, already married?”

Chakotay held her gaze for only a moment before he dropped it.

“I see,” she said slowly.

“It’s not important since I cannot, under any clause or dictate, have her with me . . .even if she were aboard,” he added as an after thought. He hoped that would allay any further questions on the subject.

He was wrong.

“Commander, your records state that at the time of your resignation, you were unmarried. Were you married since that time?”

Chakotay debated whether or not to lie, or just not answer her. “Yes,” he said softly. He saw her sigh, almost with resignation, or was it disappointment. “I’ve read all the entries, Captain. If I had actually reached Dorvan 5 before the Cardassian attack and rescued her, and still been stranded out here, I would still not be permitted to share my quarters with her.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because marriages among my tribe are based on an unwritten agreement between two people, not requiring legal, or religious representatives to be present. It’s an ancient law, passed down through the centuries, and Star Fleet directives do not cover it. So if I had had the fortune of rescuing my wife before she was killed, and brought her aboard this ship, she and I would have had to live apart for the next seventy-five years, solely because Star Fleet does not recognise or cater for my tribal law.”

“You can’t grouse about Star Fleet and Federation law simply because of one oversight, Commander. You are, after all, the first person from your tribe ever to join Star Fleet. Had you been married during your tour of duty, amendments may have been added to that effect, but you weren‘t. But, as you say, if your wife were aboard I would not have separated you from your family simply because of an oversight.” She sighed. “Commander, I know I require you to adhere to all protocols concerning your position and rank, but we’re thousands of light years from home. I’m not immune to the needs and feelings of my crew. If you had concerns, you should have come to me.”

“What if I had my second wife aboard?” he asked suddenly.

Janeway looked as stunned as she had ever looked in the short time he had known her. “Your tribe practises plural marriage?”

“Yes.”

He saw her throat constrict as she swallowed.

“That would be a problem, Commander. As you are well aware, Federation law only allows one spouse for Federation citizens . . .”

“I’m not a Federation citizen, Captain.”

“But you are a Star Fleet officer, that duty overrules all else. Even Bolians are required to abide by that regulation unless they are on their home world or colonies, and their species requires quadral marriage. Of course, since your first wife is dead, it means you have one wife . . .is that correct?”

He nodded.

“If she were aboard, I would extend the same to her, allow you to live together, if you could prove beyond reasonable doubt that you were indeed married under your tribal law, and that it did not impede on Protocol 01 . . .”

“Addendum 14 alpha sub-paragraph iv, ‘spouses and dependants are not permitted to join said officers for reasons of safety and security’. We are in a dangerous situation here, Captain. So regardless my wife’s location, recognised or not, we would still be required to live apart . . .and I will have to tell her that . . .somehow,” he added quietly.

Janeway regarded him silently for a moment. “Commander - Chakotay, if she is aboard, then you have been living apart for over seven months. I am not a hard-hearted woman. That must have been horrible for you both, to have to pretend that you were nothing but colleagues. I can’t imagine the strain that must have put on you both. Eventually that strain would have affected your duties. Our primary mission is to get home, but I would rather have a happy, contented crew, than a miserable one. My crew is miserable enough being away from their families. You and your wife don’t have to be among them. I don’t have the power to amend regulations, or make additions to the law, but I can amend your records, perform ceremonies, and the such . . .”

“But not for me. No matter which angle you look at it, I am bound by Command Protocol 01.”

“Not if you were married before you were promoted . . .”

“You reactivated my commission, captain. You did not field-commission me, other than the promotion from Lieutenant to full Commander. I checked with Tuvok. My records show that, even though I resigned my commission, my tour of duty began upon my enrolment and will end when I retire or die, whichever comes first, thus making my marriage null and void under Star Fleet regulations.” He allowed a second for the information sink in. “If I may be excused, Captain?”

Without a word she nodded, and Chakotay left the office, leaving the captain standing alone feeling bewildered and defeated. She wondered whom he had been talking about. He had not behaved any differently towards anyone among his original crew. There were no clues at all as to whom he had married. They had been covert, loving in the shadows, hidden from view, hiding any traces of their bond - and all for what?

For all intents and purposes, she had divorced them. She felt awful. Chakotay was right, and there was nothing she could do to change that. She did not have the authority to change her oversight. She had summarily divorced two people without their consent, or even their knowledge.

She sighed deeply.

“I don’t want to release you, Chakotay. I love you. But if it would make it easier . . .”

“Please, don’t, B’Elanna. I love you. You are my life’s breath, my being, my heart, and my soul mate. I need you.”

“I love you so much it hurts, but if she’s divorced us . . .she can’t do that can she? I mean, not without our consent?”

“She can, and she has, but our bond is from within; that she cannot break.” He heard her shuddering breath over the com-link, she was crying, just as he was. “I love you, B‘Elanna. I always will.”

“And you’ll still come and be with me?”

“And make love?”

“Yes, make love to me?”

“Now?”

“Right now.”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

Seska was gone. Whatever he had once thought of her, whatever he had felt, had come crashing down like glass through his very being, cutting him down to the size of an ant, bleeding, torn and emotionally shattered.

Chakotay walked slowly into his wife’s quarters and stood feeling empty and sick.

B’Elanna looked up at him standing there. “What’s wrong?”

“Seska is . . .Cardassian.”

B’Elanna’s jaw dropped.

“It’s going to be all over the ship in a few minutes, I expect,” he added blandly.

“What will the rest of the crew feel around her . . .? They won’t to work with a . . .the Bajoran‘s . . .Chakotay . . .”

“They won’t need to work with her,” he responded quietly once her stream of half-sentences had ceased. “She jumped ship. She defected to the Kazon.”

B’Elanna jumped to her feet, “She what!” She hesitated trying to control the rage that boiled through her blood stream. A stream of oaths and insults flooded her mind, but she rejected the impulse to utter a single one of them. “Chakotay,” she called softly. “I know you’ll think so many bad things about yourself right now, but none of them are true. You’re a good man, you hear me? You are a good man.”

Chakotay started to shake his head. “I feel so . . .dirty. They killed my mother, the most dignified gentle soul that ever walked. And my father, the poet, the mediator, the lover, the man who won my mother’s heart, they murdered him. And killed my wife . . .the woman who captured mine, an artist, whose eyes were like the onyx stone, whose thoughts were good . . .and they took my children . . .they took . . .my heart and ripped it out . . .and she is one of them!”

Sinking to his knees he lowered his head to the floor and cried out his torment. B’Elanna fought the tears that welled up in her own eyes and knelt beside him, laying a hesitant hand on his shoulder.

A week past and another alien encounter went by, and Chakotay and Tuvok left on a shuttle to map a dark nebula. The shuttle came back, with Tuvok gravely injured and Chakotay brain dead.

In sickbay, more out of desperation than any real belief that it would work, B’Elanna performed a healing ritual over him. As predicted, it did not work. But much later after she had realised the full truth of what had happened she had rushed to sickbay to be with her husband, only to find the captain ogling over his naked chest.

She found herself smiling a little, the straight-laced, ultra-stiff Captain had a crush on her husband . . .a totally ludicrous thought, but the older woman’s actions suggested loud and clear that it was so. She was attracted to Chakotay - almost as much as Chakotay was attracted to her. B’Elanna was not blind to that fact, in fact it amused her.

B’Elanna hid the grin behind a hand and composed herself, making busy work taking down the medicine wheel and folding it carefully before putting it away. Once the captain and everyone else had left she smiled at him.

“Glad to hear you’re ok, Commander.”

He smiled tiredly.

“But, next time you get in my head, I’ll cut out your heart and eat it raw.”

He laughed nervously, not sure if she meant it figuratively, or not.

“Thanks.”

“For what?” he asked.

“For saving our lives. If you really had been dead, I would gone after you in the spirit world and not given you a moment’s peace.”

He grinned and chuckled softly.

“I’ll see you in morning briefing tomorrow. Apparently the Captain has an away mission for me that will take a few days. I leave in the morning.”

“I won’t see you there . . .unless the Doctor lets me out of here. I’m hoping he does, I owe you dinner if I recall. I lost a bet.”

B’Elanna giggled softly. She remembered the bet they had made, that being alone with Tuvok would end in them coming to blows with at least one or other of them injured and in sickbay. Chakotay had wagered dinner that she would be wrong.

He lost.

Later that evening, after the doctor had released him, he had gone to his office to check on a few details for the meeting the following morning. I tapped his communicator.

“Chakotay to Torres, please report to my office.”

“Aye, sir. I’ll be right there,” was her reply.

When she arrived she asked, “What did you want to see me about?”

Chakotay allowed the doors to close before rushing to her and crushing her in his embrace, lips on hers, nipping and sucking, bruising her mouth with his. “We have to be quick,” he warmed her. “Got a meeting with the captain in twenty . . .”

He moved her against the desk and pressed his body to hers, dry humping her through their clothes as he dropped his pants.

She reached for her fastenings and pushed them down. “Dinner when we get back . . .”

Their breaths puffed heavily against their skin, as his fingers groped her hair testing her. She was already wet. She loved rough, she was always instantly hot, although taking their time produced bigger more explosive orgasms quick and rough was good for those ’have to, right now’ moments - such as this one.

He rubbed her nub, feeling it harden like his member that thrust impatiently between her thighs. “Oh spirits,” he rasped.

He sank into her to the hilt and held her against him. Her loud sigh filled his ears, and he began to move in rapid desperate moves pounding her, bayoneting her with his shaft, causing specks of white to form in front of their eyes.

He grunted, keeping his impassioned huffs as quiet as he could. They were both well practiced at keeping quiet when necessary. He could feel it, her body shuddered in response; his muscles twitching as he thrust ever deeper, harder, faster.

“Hoah . . .I’m gonna cum . . .oh B’E . . .”

He clamped his mouth over hers and drank in the sounds of her release as he growled into her throat, shooting his hot ejaculate up into her body. Panting they stayed locked together for a moment.

He lifted his eyes and looked at her. He kissed her tenderly. “See you in a few days, my love. Keep safe, and come back to me.”

B’Elanna accepted another kiss. “Always, my husband, always.”

She came back - as a Human.

He stood there staring at her, unable to reconcile the warring feelings within his heart. She was still beautiful, she still remembered him, but she was not the woman he had fallen in love with. Words escaped him, he had no idea how he was going to cope with this.

The Doctor assured them that she would be reintegrated within a few weeks, but what of their love until then? He wanted her back whole, now. Of course as he left sickbay he realised just how selfish that line of thinking was. Stopping outside the closed doors he quickly turned and walked back to her bedside, doing what he should have done the first time - hugged her.

B’Elanna was grateful, if a little surprised, at his turn around. Hadn’t he said ’not in front of the crew’? The Doctor stood nearby, noting the embrace, which, now that she thought of it, was purely professional. She, as a member of the crew, needed comforting. A part of her had died in that laboratory. She needed this.

“I’m sorry, B’Elanna. I’m sorry,” he whispered as he held her.

He didn’t care that the doctor was watching, he kept the hug strictly professional, but vowed that the next one he gave her would be personal, passionate and long into the night.

Chakotay patted her shoulder and smiled a little. “Better?”

B’Elanna sniffed and nodded. “Thanks,” she accorded.

“I’ll stop by later and see how you’re doing, ok?”

She nodded.

Chakotay returned at the end of his shift to find B’Elanna asleep. He left a P.A.D.D. for her to read. B’Elanna woke several hours later and found the P.A.D.D. and activated it. It was a report from Engineering, at least it started out that way. The further down she scrolled she began to notice that the odd word had been written in larger letters than others.

She reached the end of the report and a pre-programmed code on the P.A.D.D. activated a second message - the one imbedded in the first. The larger words became a different message, which read . . .

B’Elanna chuckled softly. Fit snugly, eh? She would have to see about that. She sat in sickbay and twitched in anticipation. When she was finally released she was positively buzzing, almost to the point of orgasm just thinking about getting to her husband.

The moment the Doctor released her she moved quickly along the corridors and pressed the buzzer. She heard his voice activate the doors and she rushed in before they had opened to their widest.

He had barely registered that she was in the room when she landed him on the deck. Taken by surprise Chakotay found himself flat on his back, with the wind knocked out of him, before he could react. She opened his pants and grasped him in her mouth, sucking, poking the tip of her tongue into his slit

He gasped, his hips thrust upward of their own accord. “Ahh, B‘Elanna . . .slow down.” He closed his eyes for barely a second before raising himself on his elbows and looking down at her, moaning at her ministrations. “B’E . . .oah . . .you’re gonna . . .mmmmake . . .mee . . .cgaaahh nhagh!”

He clenched, but a little too late and spewed forth his seed into her mouth. He sank back onto the deck eyes closed, waiting for the stars to stop flashing. She was not going to let him rest, her fingers were stroking him already getting a reaction. He heard shifting and moving cloth. He opened his eyes to see her kneeling next to him, without ever breaking contact.

She was naked.

Her breath dusted over his cock, the rest of her was over him. He reached up taking an already hard nipple in his palm, tweaking the point with his finger and thumb. His other hand rose to her apex, cupping her fuzzed mound and feeling her wet lower lips. A finger slipped between the slightly parted labia and he could feel her hard nub throbbing against his finger. He rubbed it, hearing her groan in response.

Chakotay pulled her closer and lay her down beside him, lowering his mouth to her, tasting her. His tongue flicked across the tight bundle of nerves, faster, then slower. She moaned loudly so close to climax that she had stopped stroking him. A second later she howled, shuddering violently.

Panting she lay still, gently shaking as the orgasm rolled through her for more than a minute after. Chakotay raised his head and shifted beside her, pushing his pants off and pulling the tee-shirt off his body. With tender kisses he took her slowly, one long smooth move in to the hilt.

“Need to slow this right down, sweet woman of mine. I had plans to love you all night. Dinner, then making love. Now I shall have to alter those plans slightly. We’ll make love first, and then eat later.”

“Sounds like a plan?”

“Oh, good,” he whispered and kissed her, tongues duelling tasting each other and themselves.

Neither had heard the communicator still on Chakotay’s shirt bleep from where it lay discarded under the sofa. Not more than fifteen seconds later the door chime sounded, also muffled by the sounds of their love.

The doors opened, affording a clear view of Chakotay’s ass cheeks clenching and relaxing, surrounded by two slim womanly legs, the identity of their owner was obscured by the armchairs. The onlooker took a moment more to watch the sight of his strong, muscled body driving into the woman beneath him at an increasingly frenetic pace.

The watcher simply smiled, going slightly flushed in the face, and silently left.

“Dismissed.”

Everyone rose and had reached the door, before he voice rose again. “Mr Tuvok, would you remain for a moment, please?”

Tuvok turned and tucked both hands behind his back, waiting for the Captain to begin speaking. Once the rest of the senior staff had left the briefing room, she would do so. He could tell from the creased brow of his CO that the burden on her shoulders had kept her awake long into the night, for several nights, if not several weeks.

“Mr Tuvok, when you rejoined Star Fleet, what rank did you begin at?”

“I began as Lieutenant,” he replied, neglecting to remind his captain that she knew this already. He was a patient man, he knew she would get to the point when she felt ready to. If she ever did reach that point, which was less than 50% of the time, he thought silently.

“Did the Admiralty not offer you a higher rank?” she asked.

“Indeed they did,” he replied.

There was a momentary silence forcing Janeway to pose the question.

“What rank did they offer?”

“Full Commander,” he admitted.

“Why didn’t you take it?”

“I felt it prudent for me to further my experience before taking on such a responsibility, even though, regardless of my fifty year absence, I was more than experience for that role. I did not feel ready.”

“So, given our circumstances I could, in effect, reinstate you to the rank of Commander, as a field-commission.”

“You could,” he agreed.

“Hypothetically speaking, Tuvok, if I had had T’Pel with me on our outward journey to apprehend the Maquis, and then been stranded out here in the Delta Quadrant, where would the two of you live?”

“We would occupy my quarters on Deck 9,” he responded instantly.

Janeway rose and slowly walked around the conference table towards him. “Supposing, for argument sake, that T’Pel were simply your common-law spouse, where would she be quartered?”

“If that relationship had begun before my rise to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, she would still be considered my life-mate, under Star Fleet regulations.”

Janeway came to a stop, still several metres away from him. “Supposing, for the sake of argument, you were Katarian.”

“In that particular instance, I would find myself in the same quandary as Ensign Wildman, whose husband is Katarian. She and I would both be separated unless her duties were assigned to the same ship. For my wife, that would not be so, since she is not an officer within the ranks of Star Fleet, nor is she a non-commissioned officer.”

“Alright,” she conceded slowly. “What if I were to tell you that among the originally non-Star Fleet crew there are families?”

“Kes and Neelix occupy separate quarters,” Tuvok pointed out. “I have not observed any familial relationships among the former Maquis. Kes and Neelix, on the other hand, are what most would consider a family, despite Star Fleet regulations and wavers to the contrary.” He observed the Captain’s disappointed, resigned sigh. Tuvok frowned slightly, if you could call it a frown. “I have to inform you, Captain, you are not the first to come to me with this dilemma.”

“I’m not?”

“No. Commander Chakotay also questioned me on this subject three months ago. Needless to say, he was as disappointed in not finding a satisfactory outcome as you appear to be.” He pause a beat. “However, I made an error in my analysis of the matter.”

“Tuvok?” She was astonished that he would admit to making a mistake, let alone make one in the first place. “What did you do?”

“I did not release all the information on the subject requested by Commander Chakotay. I believe he now has the impression that you have summarily divorced him and his wife, when in fact you have not, and had no authority to do so.”

Janeway was stunned. “How so?”

“When the Caretaker pulled us into the Delta Quadrant, and you made the decision to destroy the Array upon his death, you unwittingly promoted yourself Acting-Diplomat Red Star status.”

Janeway stared at him, open mouthed. “Which means?” she managed to croak.

“It means that your status as Captain was rescinded from that time, and a rather different set of regulations come into play. I believe you are aware of the regulations I am speaking of?”

She nodded dumbly. “Long Term Assignment, Amendment Protocols.” She hesitated for a long time before speaking again. “Tuvok, they have not been either cited, used or enforced since the time of Captain Kirk. Are they even valid?”

“I would put it to you, Captain, that given Voyager’s position and circumstances you should have implemented said Protocols immediately upon the onset of our journey home. That you chose not to was, in essence, a dereliction of your duty to your crew.”

Janeway’s knees suddenly gave way and she landed in one of the seats. That was the last thing she wanted to hear. She had not only stranded them all 75,000 light years from their loved-ones, but now she had abandoned her duty to them as well. Just a swell journey this was turning out to be, and it had barely begun. “Download the entire file on Long Term Assignment Protocols, and the amendments and wavers into my ready room console. I will review them immediately.”

Tuvok nodded once, tipped his head and left.

“This is stifling us, Chakotay. I can’t take any more. I . . .”

“Please, B’Elanna, please, don’t say it.”

“I release you, Chakotay.”

“Noo,” he moaned, in tears. “Please, say you don’t mean it. I love you. I can’t be without you.”

“And I love you, Chakotay, but all this skulking around, hiding from everyone, it’s wearing me down. I want the whole ship to know who much I love you. I want the whole quadrant to know, but it’s just not going to happen. I can’t take any more. The old saying is ‘all or nothing‘. This isn‘t even nothing.”

Chakotay drew her closer, holding her as if his life depended on it, which it did in a way. Resting his head on her shoulder he allowed his tears to roll down her skin, anointing her. He rubbed them into her skin and kissed the area before looking up at her.

“A blessing to the man who wins your heart, to let him know that you were and are loved by another. If he does wrong by you, he will answer to me.”

They shared an tender kiss before parting for the last time.

She read it, and reread it several times before she came to a decision. She then sent the entire file to Chakotay’s office. He would read it once he left the Bridge in about five minutes. She would give him ten minutes to read and absorb the enormity of what he was reading and then go down and find out what his reaction would be.

Chakotay did not read the message. He did not even go to his office. For several days he worked in his quarters or on the bridge, maintaining an air of outward calm. No one knew of the pain within. He still flirted shamelessly with the captain, and she reciprocated - willingly.

Nothing had changed very much, outwardly everyone continued on as before, except that, to Neelix’s delight, he now shared quarters with Kes. The Captain still maintained a course for home, as captain, and no one mentioned the Amendment Protocols, which confused Janeway no end. Other than the fact that the junior officers had probably never heard of them, she expected to hear something from Tuvok or Chakotay. So she waited. Nothing happened.

Until that day when they came across the strange space-dwelling creatures that had accelerated Kes’s reproductive cycle. Chakotay was shocked when Janeway had described the state she was in. Poor child. Having to make a decision like that three years before she should have.

For Chakotay it only made him long, all the more, to see the faces of his children, but he had accepted that they were most likely dead, and hoping would just kill him little by little. He wished B’Elanna would come back to him, so that he could try for a child with her, but he knew the odds for Klingon-Human fertilisation were next to nothing. And it wasn’t as if they had even tried to prevent it happening, he realised suddenly, his face darkening slightly.

He sent a furtive glance at the captain who sat beside him. What was she saying? Oh yes, compatible. Kes and Neelix.

“I wasn’t even thinking of children,” he lied. “But it is an inevitable progression.”

“Who would have thought, when we started out, that we would be considering turning Voyager into a generational ship?”

“Maybe we should. We are going to need replacement crew at some point,” he stated lightly. Oh, please say yes to that one, he thought silently. I’m free if you want me.

Kes decided not to conceive, which disappointed not only Neelix, but almost everyone else on board.

“I think we should take a shuttle and leave. There were two Class ‘M’ planets we passed two days ago. We could reach them in a week.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. You’re not Chakotay!”

“I’m the Chakotay you want me to be, the one who loves you - loves you like a husband should.”

He kissed her softly, tenderly, as he had never kissed her before, as if melting away the long months of loneliness to the point where they had not existed. He had made love to her and she to him, loved each other, promised the galaxy - but she found it all to be an illusion.

The alien had given her husband back to her, for only a while, for his amusement. It left her feeling used and hurt, and unsure if she should tell the Captain. Or even Chakotay.

Finally she did.

“I’m sorry, Chakotay. I feel like I committed adultery, and I can’t shake the feeling that I wronged you, even though we are no longer married.”

“Hush, my love. You had no way of knowing that it wasn’t me. Besides . . .” Chakotay hesitated. He saw the question in her eyes. So he released the breath he had been holding. “Besides, I had just as much fun with a certain red-head in the turbo-lift.”

B’Elanna’s mouth dropped open.

“Of course I was deeply hurt when I realised that she knew nothing about it, and that we were both still dressed, whereas a moment before I had been filling her . . .well, the details are better left unsaid.”

“You need to tell her, Chakotay. This love you hide for her will eventually take over.”

“I know, my love. I know. And one day, perhaps I will.”

Chakotay was tired the morning he found a message he had overlooked on his console in the office. Frowning he opened it. And read . . .

Chakotay could not believe his eyes. “Computer, what time and stardate was this message sent?”

“Stardate 49159.1, 0900 hours.

Too late. Five minutes too late. Or was it . . .

“Computer, forward a copy to console 5583, Deck 9, section 3!”

He almost ran down the corridor into the turbo-lift. He fidgeted until it finally opened on Deck 9. He pressed the buzzer. B’Elanna opened the door.

“Did you get it?”

“Yes,” she said, hardly daring to allow the smile to erupt across her face.

Chakotay was breathless as he stood there looking over her hungrily. “Would you marry me again?”

B’Elanna half-giggled, half-shrieked as she launched herself into his arms. “Yes! Oh, yes!”

Chakotay held her close breathing in her aroma. He closed his eyes, “Oh baby, I’ve missed you. I love you so much.”

B’Elanna looked into his eyes, and said, “Have you said that to Janeway yet?”

“Later,” Chakotay responded and kissed her long and deeply as he propelled her back towards the bedroom. “Right now I have pressing duties to perform.”

And so the journey continued on.

Part Three

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