Just a Date
Just a Date

TITLE: Just a Date
AUTHOR: Matteabrit, April 2002
SUMMARY: Why is a simple date causing problems onboard Voyager
RATING: PG
DISCLAIMER: TPTB may own Voyager but I got the tale, nyah, nyah

***

The first year nothing happened as Neelix felt awkward about putting on such an event; the second year Voyager was in the middle of a battle with the Kazon and he didn’t want to remind the crew just how it came to be that they were fighting in the first place. But the third year seemed to be a good time.

And so it was that one morning a very irate B’Elanna Torres barged into Commander Chakotay’s office and threw a padd down on his desk, narrowly missing his cup of herbal tea. He slowly moved his drink to the other side of the desk before glancing up at his friend and Voyager’s chief engineer.

“Good morning to you too, B’Elanna,” he said cheerfully.

“Have you seen this?” she growled.

“It’s a padd,” he deadpanned. “Quite unusual to see one, isn’t it.”

She glared at him. “I don’t have time for your smart comments, Chakotay.” She pushed the padd closer to him. “Read it.”

Gingerly, Chakotay picked it up, wondering what it was that had irked B’Elanna so much. Scanning through it he couldn’t immediately see where the problem lay. “So Neelix wants to have a party? I don’t see…”

“Check the date,” she advised him.

Chakotay sighed and looked again. When he found the date in question he looked back up at B’Elanna, trying to cover the shock he had immediately felt. “Well, I’ll admit its not the date I’d have wanted but are you sure you’re not making something out of nothing.”

“No,” the engineer all but shouted as she began to pace the floor. “Half the maquis are up in arms about it.”

“And the other half?”

“Don’t know about it yet,” she muttered, still pacing.

Sensing that his carpet might need replacing if his friend kept up her exercise he demanded that she sit down. “Frankly, I’m wondering how you know about this to begin with. This the first I’ve heard of it and I can pretty much promise that the Captain’s not heard about it either.”

“Well, you must be the last to do so,” B’Elanna said as she sunk into the chair in front of his desk. “He announced it in the mess hall. As soon as he announced the date I thought there’d be a war. Oh don’t worry,” she continued, seeing Chakotay’s jaw set. “It didn’t happen, but there’s a lot of rumbling over it.”

Chakotay sighed and placed the padd back down on the desk. “I’ll talk to the captain about it,” he assured B’Elanna, rubbing his forehead in a combination of frustration. “But if anyone so much as mutters about it, I want to know.”

“Chakotay!” B’Elanna exploded. “How can you be so calm about it?”

Chakotay stood up and came around to the front of the desk, leaning against it to face his friend. “Trust me, B’Elanna. I am far from calm. I just would like to sort this out before this united crew falls apart and I have to explain to the captain just why half my former crew are in the brig.” He nodded towards the door. “Anyway, get out and let me contact the captain.”

B’Elanna grinned as she stood up and prepared to leave. “Good luck, Chakotay.” Seeing his half smile her expression turned serious. “You’re gonna need it.”

***

“A party?” Kathryn looked incredulously at her first officer. “To celebrate our being here?”

Chakotay had gone to seek her out after B’Elanna had left him. He found her, unsurprisingly, in her ready room, staring out of the window while pretending to find his latest staff report completely fascinating. He’d taken that padd out of her hands and replaced it with the one he had recently been given. “Check the date,” he told her, repeating B’Elanna’s earlier suggestion.

The captain scanned down the page quickly before glancing back up at her first officer. She looked blankly at him.

“It’s the wrong date,” he told her, seeing that she wasn’t going to get the problem unless he pointed it out to her. “At least by Maquis reckoning.”

Janeway continued to stare at him. “What on earth do you mean?”

“I mean, Captain,” Chakotay emphasised her title. “That the maquis arrived in the delta quadrant at least two days before you did. When you hailed us we had been back from the array for a day or two and were finishing off repairs. Another couple of hours and we’d have been gone. You’d never have known where to find us.” Something about the complacent attitude his captain had adopted was beginning to make Chakotay a little mad.

“Until you ran into the Kazon,” she replied dryly.

“We would have had no argument with the Kazon,” he told her. “That was your fight. We wouldn’t have had the resources the Kazon wanted, we wouldn’t have been the ones destroying the array with the technology the Kazon wanted.”

Her anger now was beginning to rise and she stood up in an attempt to push past him and head to her desk. He stopped her with a grasp of the arm. “You might not have brought us here but you made damned sure we were stuck here.”

“Yes,” she spat back. “I did, didn’t I? And I’ve been wrestling with that the past three years. But I suppose you’d have preferred to be in a prison somewhere in Cardassian territory, wouldn’t you, than being stuck out here. With me.”

He tightened his grip on her arm. “That’s damn well not true and you know it.”

“Really? You surprise me, Commander.” She wrenched her arm back and pushed past him to her desk.

He followed her back and sat down limply in the chair opposite her. “Damn it, Kathryn,” he sighed. “This date already has the two of us fighting. Can you imagine the rest of the crew being like this? It’s not the party itself that’s the problem, it’s just the date. If we can just get the date fixed then we should be okay. But I just don’t want to see this crew torn apart over something so small and I’m sure you don’t want that either.”

Kathryn looked down at her desk. Nothing was said for a long time. Finally she looked back up at her friend and first officer. “I’ll speak with Neelix,” she told him.

***

But even before she was able to speak with the ship’s morale officer Chakotay had received a call from B’Elanna. When he got to the brig he found Dalby and Carlson sharing a cell. “Wonderful,” he muttered furiously to himself before looking across at Ayala, the security officer in attendance. “I’m presuming they weren’t in a fight with each other?”

Ayala shook his head. “Commander Tuvok has confined the other two to quarters. He suggested that it might be better for everyone if…”

The young main trailed off but it was enough that Chakotay got the message. The commander sighed and looked around at the rest of the former maquis who had come at B’Elanna’s call. He had a job on his hands and he wasn’t sure he liked the idea. “Okay, you lot,” he began. “I take it there was a reason for why a fight broke out between you two and two others?” he asked of the two in the cell.

They nodded and he sighed, trying to conceal the anger he felt. “I’ve had it. I have finally had it. Since when do you all start to act before you think? If you’d done that on the Liberty you’d have had us all killed by now.” There was a shuffling among the people in the room. “All this because Neelix has planned a party?”

“Oh come on, Chakotay,” Dalby muttered. “Not just any party. A Starfleet party. Do you know what date he wants it held on?”

“Yes, I saw the date,” Chakotay snapped back. “But Neelix is a person who acts first and then thinks. You lot aren’t. Don’t any of you remember that Neelix came onboard Voyager after we all found ourselves here?” He shook his head. “And I never want to hear talk about “Starfleet” and “maquis” ever again, you hear? We’ve been together for three years now. And I wouldn’t say it’s been all bad, would you?”

There were a few mutters, which Chakotay decided meant that the times weren’t all as bad as they were making out to be. He took a deep breath and continued, this time in a quieter tone. “We’re supposed to be celebrating the good things in life, the good things that have happened to us since we found ourselves on Voyager.” He turned to face Ensign Barnes. “Take your relationship with Ensign Sorensen, Emma.” She nodded and he looked at B’Elanna. “And your friendships with Tom and Harry.”

The engineer acknowledged his comment with a smile. Beginning to be a little more reassured Chakotay turned to face his former crew. “Five days into this journey two of you came to me and said that if I wanted to form a mutiny then they’d be right behind me. I’ll tell you as I told them, one more word like that and you’ll be in the brig which may, or may not, have a hull breach.” He took note of their astounded faces. “We’ll figure something out I assure it but it will not take a mutiny to do it. Okay?”

“You better, Chakotay,” Gerron muttered. “Because I have no intention of celebrating anything that doesn’t consider all of us.”

“And you won’t have to,” the first officer assured him. “In fact, I know for a fact that the Captain intends to speak with Neelix to find a solution to all of this. But I tell you this: the party will go ahead. I think we need it.” He decided to put an end to the meeting. “Okay, that’s it. If I hear more one more complaint you’ll have me to answer to. You two,” he said to Dalby and Carlson. “Can stay in here until you’ve cooled down.”

He turned and strode out of the brig, wondering how he’d explain the impromptu meeting to the captain. Technically it hadn’t been the best way to handle the situation and it wasn’t a very Starfleet solution either but he’d learned long ago that the best way to deal with any “maquis issues” was to take a “maquis approach.”

“Hull breaches in the brig, Commander?” a voice from just behind him asked.

He swung round and came face to face with the captain who had just stepped out from a small alcove in the corridor. “What did you hear?” he asked cautiously.

“All of it,” she replied calmly. “Tuvok informed me about the fight and that your former crew members were all headed to the brig of their own volition. I figured something had to be up so I decided to see for myself.” They began to walk down the corridor towards the turbolift. “I’d say you handled it pretty well.”

“They’re cooling,” Chakotay admitted. “If this had happened two years ago it would have been a lot worse.”

“Well, pointing out the good things that have happened since we all came together has certainly helped,” Kathryn replied.

“You think?”

“Absolutely. We’ve had a lot of good things happen to us, haven’t we?” She smiled at him.

They reached the turbolift and stepped inside the waiting car. “We have.” There was a brief moment of silence before Chakotay spoke again. “I really do prefer to be here with you, you know.”

Kathryn reached out and placed a hand against his shoulder. “I know. And I’m sorry. I never should have made such an accusation.”

“I shouldn’t have said what I did either.” He smiled down at her, attempting to ignore the temptation to grasp her hand. “But we are going to have to come up with a solution to this mess,” he continued, trying to regain a sense of control.

She nodded. “I know. And I won’t tell Neelix to cancel it. He’ll be heartbroken.”

“So we choose another date.”

“But which one?”

***

“Good morning, good morning,” Neelix began his morning briefing. “Well, have I got a lot of exciting things for you this morning. We have Ensign Barker doing his magic act and crewmen Bradshaw and Kennedy revealing their secret cookie recipes.” He paused then leaned forward, closer to the camera. “But first a word about our upcoming celebrations of the anniversary of us all being here together. Now, as some of you know, I had planned to hold it on a certain date but Commander Tuvok tells me that it will not be logical to have a party in the middle of the war games scenario he’s planned for that time. So I had to adjust a little. The party will now be on…”

Chakotay leaned back in his chair in the captain’s ready room and chuckled. “See you managed to persuade Neelix then?”

“Hmm?” Kathryn was now engrossed in watching the cooking section. “I must get these recipes,” she commented. “They look really good.”

“And I thought you were a brownie girl,” her first officer replied. “Perhaps I should get those recipes as well then.”

She barely drew her eyes from the screen. “Why?”

“Kathryn, I don’t trust you with your cooking. I’d rather cook them myself so that I know I won’t be poisoned when you offer me one.”

She stared at him. “Just you remember who’s the captain round here, mister. Or it’ll be yourself in the brig with a hull breach.”

He laughed quietly and the room went back to silence. A few seconds later he looked up from the padd he was reviewing. “War games?” he queried. “That’s a good one.”

“I thought so.”

Silence.

“But, Kathryn. I thought Vulcans didn’t lie.”

The look he received was enough to make him worry.

***

Ten days later at the party B’Elanna finally asked Neelix why he had changed the date to that particular one.

Neelix smiled. “Well, since there was the issue that the two crews arrived in the Delta Quadrant at different times I chose a different date.”

“And why did you chose this one?” B’Elanna repeated her question.

The Talaxian now positively beamed. “Why, it was the very date that I met all of you lovely people of course.”

And with that the ship’s morale officer walked off with a plate of leola canapés in the direction of an unsuspecting crewmember leaving an open-mouthed chief engineer in his wake.

FINIS

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