Summary:  C/P    Response to Cha_Club's anniversary challenge #1. What I used, after the initial "musts" of Chakotay's anniversary, his POV, his animal guide, his boxing hobby, someone writing something that's not a report, someone different eating vegetarian, the numbers 141 and 844 -- I picked a child, a cat, a misplaced or missing object, and the line "And I care, why?"
Author's Note:  Angst alert, but...
Copyright December 2001 Cassatt

Chakotay poured boiling water over the loose tea blend and placed the top back on the pot. The kettle was put back on the stove. He briefly considered using the tea cozy, but it seemed like too much effort. It wasn't because of the memories the quilted cover evoked. No, that wasn't it at all. It was simply too much trouble, for one person. He only had time for one cup anyway.

Rain was spattering the kitchen window. The sound of it was soothing. He could hear it on their roof, too, and for just a moment, just a brief moment, he thought about staying home that day. Sitting on the couch, lighting a fire, maybe reading a book.

Il pleur dans mon coeur, comme il pleur sur la ville... For some reason this obscure French poem flew across his brain and settled.  It cries in my heart, like it cries on the city...

"Big surprise there, sir," he said out loud. After pouring his cup of tea, he continued to stand at the sink and look out on the blurry landscape that was their backyard. There was no view of the ocean right then, with the clouds, and rain, and fog blanketing the city.

"Br-r-rup." The white, long-haired cat landed gracefully on the countertop and rubbed his elbow, almost causing him to spill his tea. After a few gentle head-butts, he switched hands and stroked the silky fur.

"Q, I know you think you can get away with anything now," he said, "and, actually, you can. But you just wait until he comes home. You're going to be in for re-learning everything he taught you." He bent and rubbed his face on the cat's head. Their 'discussion' was one hundred forty-one days old, and familiar, and all too true. This cat had appeared on their doorstep, exactly one year ago, in a similar rainstorm, sodden, and looking wafer thin with its fur plastered against an emaciated frame. Tom had taken it in without hesitation and the two had bonded in that one moment. Blue eyes met gold and hearts were set. Chakotay and Tom both really had thought for a few hours that this might be the omnipotent one, testing them, playing with them as he'd done the year before. Even seeing the cat was female hadn't changed their minds. After a day or two, the name stuck. So had Q. She was there for good.

"Come on, get down," he said halfheartedly. He turned and went to the table, to sit and work on his letter. He looked up after getting comfortable. Q was still perched on the counter, front paws demurely together, gazing at him. He did the one thing he knew would still get a response. He snapped his fingers. Q floated to the floor, then jumped up onto the table and lay down on her side, near him but, thankfully, not on his writing paper. "You are incorrigible," he said with affection. "He is  coming home and you will  be retrained." But his throat closed at some point during the declaration and he was driven to force his composure to return. He needed it. He didn't need to fall apart. Not this morning.

Opening the old-fashioned pen that Tom had given him for his birthday, he reread what he'd written the night before, took a deep breath and started a new entry.

"Dearest Tom,

Happy anniversary, love. It's raining today, just like it did last year. And I know I keep telling you this, but you're going to have your hands full with Q. I think she may be living up to her namesake. It's raining. I got a message from Ken Dalby last night, can you believe it. He'd just returned from a trip to sector fourteen eighty-eight and he heard what happened. He wanted to know if he could do anything. I'm not proud to say I was shocked. But there you have it. I still can't find my blue shirt and I'm beginning to suspect that I threw it away without realizing it. I've looked in your drawers, I've looked in mine, under the bed, in the back of the closet, even under the couch. I just can't remember where it ended up. So when you get home, if you would take a look around here..."

He stopped writing. Q started to purr, seeing his pen put down. She rolled over onto her back and he obliged, rubbing her belly.

"Just don't know, just don't," he said quietly.

One hundred forty-one days. Almost five months. But who was counting? He was. The coma was actually only one hundred forty days long. But who was counting. The doctors were calling it the curse of the Delta Quadrant. They'd been back on Earth for almost three years when the dormant virus struck Tom, and Tom only. No other member of the crew was affected, so by process of elimination, everyone had come to the conclusion that it was a Monean virus. Tom's close contact for the extended period of time had left him infected. Though how it had passed through the biofilters upon transport and why the virus became active again were mysteries. Over eight hundred different combinations of various drugs and treatments had been tried. The miracles of twenty-fourth century medicine had been useless in helping the man Chakotay loved. He was alive, his muscles were being kept healthy, but he hadn't opened his eyes or said anything for almost five months. Four months and nineteen days.

The irony of the whole situation hadn't been lost on Chakotay. The Monean experience. That's what he and Tom had called it. He'd known, in the nanosecond after the captain gave the order to shoot Tom's ship out of the water, that he loved this man, that if he ever saw him alive again, he would tell him so. Just tell him. Just so Tom would know. He did. And here they were years later, living together, blissfully happy. Up until one hundred forty-one days ago. His animal guide had tried to convince him that fate and destiny were not forces that were intrinsically negative. He'd always believed that. Up until one hundred forty-one days ago.

He wasn't sure how much longer he himself would survive. He'd taken an extended leave from his teaching post at the Academy and he knew his job was secure no matter how long he'd be gone. Tom's as well. But he was beginning to seriously lose it. Nights alone, though he'd had years of that before Tom, had become routinely excruciating.

He sighed loudly. Folded up his letter, his never ending letter that he read to Tom each and every day, so he was sure not to forget to tell him something. Some small detail of his life, such as it was, the extension of their life together.

The vidphone signal sounded loud in the quiet of the house. He went to answer it, with Q on his heels. She stuck to him like glue most times. Hitting the interface, he wasn't surprised to see B'Elanna.

"Chakotay, are you on your way?" The roundness of her cheeks was the first apparent change in her body this time, too. She was pregnant again, her second child was due in six months.

"Was just leaving."

She gave him that look, that only she could. "I'll stay through lunch today, okay?" she said softly. "And don't argue with me, either."

His throat closed again, so he merely nodded. Q jumped up on his lap and he picked her up, hugging her almost fiercely.

"Good," B'Elanna said. "I'll see you there in about thirty."

He could still just nod, she smiled, and the transmission was ended.

Because of the rain, and time he'd spent wandering the house with Q, Chakotay took the hovercar and was at the medical center within five minutes. He was able to park on the rooftop lot because he not only had status due his Starfleet rank, but he was considered a "long term" user of the facility. He hated that designation and fought it at every turn. Most members of the staff knew not to ask him for his long-term identifier, but occasionally a fill in clerk made the mistake. He tried to be as cordial and as calm as he could, but after those encounters he normally went straight into Tom's bathroom and closed the door, letting his tears fall in private. Pulling his soul back to the center before facing his beloved.

On this morning, their anniversary, he particularly did not want to be bothered by any member of the support staff. B'Elanna, he could be with. Tom, he very definitely could, feeling more and more certain of that as he walked through the building. Getting off the lift on Tom's floor, his blood ran cold. He recognized the voice at the nurse's station, even raised in pitch and volume. Admiral Paris was demanding to see Tom's doctor. This was the last person he wanted to deal with, but he didn't hesitate and approached the fracas, steeling himself as best he could.

What he didn't count on was B'Elanna being there as well. She was silent, but he saw the fire burning in her eyes as she stood, hands on her hips, staring at Tom's father.

"Admiral," he said, making eye contact with her before looking at the man.

Admiral Paris turned quickly. "Captain," he replied curtly. "I am not going to have this discussion with you again. You have no right to keep information from me. I am Tom's father."

"You?" B'Elanna spat out. "You..."

Chakotay stepped in front of her before she could say another word. "B'Elanna, please, he's been through as much..."

She interrupted him. "And I care, why ?"

"Because I need you to. Because it's December 1, and I need... I need," he said the words, but found himself groping for some way to finish the thought. He knew that if he tried to tell her what he needed, he would collapse, right there, on the floor.

She gently grasped his forearm. "I'm sorry, Chakotay, I forgot the date," she said quietly. "You go in and see Tom, why don't you."

But the admiral had been silent long enough. "I don't care what date it is, I demand you remove the restriction from my son's medical information!"

He snapped. He spun around. "You do not get to demand anything.  I have the legal right to determine who knows what. And if you hadn't been trying to interfere with my decisions, you wouldn't be locked out now. So unless you swear on a stack of whatever is holy to you, Starfleet manual, whatever, that you will NOT take action to undermine ME, you will continue to know nothing of importance!" He knew he was glaring, he knew he was looking quite the Maquis right then, he could not have cared less. He was more than ready to practice some of his boxing techniques on the Admiral's face. He didn't give a flying fuck. All of his pleading to B'Elanna for calm... He spun again and walked quickly into Tom's room, closing the door behind him.

This time he went straight to his chair by Tom's bedside, his heart reverberating in his ears, his entire body shaking. He sat heavily and looked at the face he had woken up to for so long, seemingly so peaceful, so serene. He picked up Tom's hand and the dead weight of it tore his fragile composure into a million pieces. A soul wracking sob came up from deep inside. He lay his head down gently on Tom's chest and cried.

He felt a hand stroking his shoulders, back and forth, and some sort of soothing words that he couldn't make out. Then he realized he'd dozed off, the rhythm of Tom's breathing was still rocking him as he tried to wake up. He cleared his throat and sat up.

"Good morning," B'Elanna said. "Don't worry, you only slept for about ten minutes."

His brain and his mouth had not quite engaged. Rubbing his eyes and head helped. He looked to the bedside table, at the water bottle there.

"It's fresh, go ahead, I just replicated it," she said.

He drank fully a third of it all at once. "Thank you." He kept his eyes firmly locked on Tom's face, and smoothed some hair off his forehead.

"In case you're wondering, Chakotay, the admiral is sitting outside. I think you shocked the shit out of him. He's completely subdued. Just sitting, looking out the window."

He had no idea how to feel about that. "I'd like to talk to Tom for a few minutes, if you don't mind. Just catch him up on some things..." He tried to remember if it was time for a new pair of pajamas, when he'd brought the last one. The pattern on these was faded, and Tom hated that. He liked to wear colors that were fresh.

She squeezed his shoulder. "Okay," she said softly, "I'll be outside, too. Maybe Tom's father and I can have a little chat."

He nodded and a half-minute later heard the doors open and close. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the letter, unfolding it, taking another drink of water. "I didn't write very much this morning, I'm afraid, love, but last night..." He cleared his throat and began to read.

"Dearest Tom, I had a wonderful visit with Naomi this evening. Sam dropped her off for her usual dinner with us, and you can't imagine what's gotten into that girl's head. I don't know where she gets these ideas, but she's decided to become a vegetarian. I'm sure Sam will think that I talked her into it, after all this time, but really that was only a part of it. She's been studying biological sciences in more detail this year, in preparation for junior grades, and has determined that it is unsound policy to eat animal flesh. You would have loved to have seen her explain all of the very logical reasons why she came to this conclusion. I could almost hear Icheb as she talked. As you've always said, Sam must have the patience of a saint. Naomi says that Icheb is still enjoying the Academy, but misses both of us. He's put off taking Advanced Flight 402 until next quarter so that he can take it from you."

He put the paper down on his lap. He reached for the water bottle, but this time, when he tried to swallow, he had some difficulty. Breathing deeply and slowly, his throat opened again. Then something caught his eye, on the wall behind Tom's head. The monitors. The panel for brain activity. There was a change.

He barely had time to register it before the door swooshed open and four people came running in, Tom's doctor, another woman he didn't recognize and two nurses. He didn't move, however, his eyes were drawn to Tom's face where they stayed, irrelevant of the activity surrounding them. He watched as Tom's eyelids quivered, knowing this had happened too many times to count for it to be meaningful. The very slight quiver turned to near fluttering and Chakotay's heart began to thunder in his chest.  Please...  And without any further warning, Tom opened his eyes and looked directly into his. Really, truly, looked into his. His heart stopped beating for merely a moment. The longest moment in his entire life.

It was treatment-drug attempt number eight hundred forty-four, imagined by the woman Chakotay had not recognized. A consulting physician from the Mars colony, in San Francisco for a conference. Tom's doctor hadn't said anything the day before because he just didn't have the heart to get the captain's hopes up, not after eight hundred forty-three other tries had failed. He had blanket authority, within certain agreed upon guidelines, to try whatever he thought might possibly work.

Chakotay didn't move from his seat next to Tom's bed for hours, feeling Tom's hand clutching his, weakly, off and on. Asking him yes or no questions so he wouldn't try and use his vocal chords. Drowning in those blue eyes, willingly. Seeing a smile grace his face enough times so that he knew, he knew the man he loved was back. And after Tom had been encouraged to sleep, he'd motioned for Chakotay to rest his head on Tom's chest. He did, gently, again, but this time he felt the touch he'd longed for, caressing his head, and neck. Tears flowed, unbidden. He heard a soft "Shhh" and stayed, listening to Tom's breathing slow down and deepen.

It was still raining. Chakotay and B'Elanna flew the hovercar to Ocean Beach, leaving the admiral sitting by Tom's bedside as the younger man slept. They ate the food that Chakotay had haphazardly collected that morning, had tossed unceremoniously on the back seat. It was a meal fit for royalty, and was the most delicious thing either of them had ever eaten.

They were going to be away from Tom for only an hour. Chakotay got out of the car, leaving his friend behind, warm and dry. He walked down the steps and crossed the wet sand to the ocean's edge, watching the waves roll in, green and brown with foaming white caps. He pulled off his hood and tilted his face to the sky. The cold rain pricked his forehead, and eyes, and cheeks. The sound of the surf beat rhythmically in his heart. Gulls cried.

He raised his head again, but left his hood off. Tom loved the coast. He'd take him on a trip up north, maybe to Humboldt, maybe to Trinity. He'd let Tom decide. "Happy anniversary, my love," he said into the wind. "Happy anniversary, Tom!" he shouted. He laughed, out loud, for the first time in one hundred forty-one days.
 

Fin.

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