Chakotay stared helplessly down at the girl sitting on her cot, her eyes sparking; they told Chakotay that she was as stubborn as anything if her mind was made up. He could have well been talking to a bulkhead, for all the difference he saw there.
Those eyes…those damn eyes.
If he sent her away, took her back to Earth himself, even if he dropped her at the nearest sympathetic colony, or Bajor (which he wouldn’t do, it just wasn’t an option)…those eyes would haunt him for the rest of his life. Electric-cobalt-azure blue didn’t even describe them, huge, doe-like, and he could have sworn there were flecks of silver in the two orbs. They weren’t silver-blue, but they definitely looked backlit in some way. But the shadows were what intrigued him. Not the hollows from lack of sleep, but the haunted way her eyes were so dispassionate. They weren’t icy, like those of Suder, but they sure did not look happy.
What had happened to her?
Never mind. Sara said that she didn't remember, couldn't remember, and if that was the case, it was most likely traumatic enough that a mind would choose not to call and conjure up images to fill in the blanks. Or did she really know, and was simply putting off telling him?
Perhaps.
On impulse, she lifted her hand to touch the tattoo on his forehead, tracing the pattern with a slight curiosity in her eyes. He held utterly still, smiling faintly to let her know he didn't mind. Her hands were small – hell, her whole body was small, and her touch incredibly light. She was small, she was a girl, and she was a child.
Three strikes against her.
Whatever had happened to Sara in the past, it was in the past – hopefully. He knew by the shadows surrounding eyes that it was terrible, even if she couldn't tell him exactly what. Chakotay didn’t question her about it. They didn’t need a resume to use her telepathy, after all. It would come in handy, in more ways than one. No one ever suspected humans of being telepaths, that was for sure. They weren’t the best family he could think of, but they were a family of sorts, and if he tried hard enough she wouldn’t grow up too warped – if she survived. He didn’t truthfully expect it to be for long, but she would serve him well enough for as long as she did.
“All right Sara.” He relented, surprising himself by saying it. “You can stay.”
No joyful outburst. No smile, even. Just a flicker behind her blue eyes before the passive mask returned. “Thank you.” She said simply. Her hand dropped from his forehead.
“You will behave.” It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even an expectation; it was a demand. “You’ll do whatever we tell you to do, when we tell you to do it. You will listen to the members of this crew as you listen to me. Our business is dangerous; we don’t play with dolls. I don’t even know if you’ll be alive 10 minutes from now, so I’m going to bide my time. I’m warning you here and now, if you’re looking for a surrogate family, you haven’t found it, and you should move on. I’m not going to be a parent.”
Sara looked at him with an expression that suggested she doubted his sanity. A clear look that said she didn’t need parents. They would see about that.
“This will be where you sleep.” He indicated the cot she was sitting on. “You have the space underneath for your personal items. I noticed you pack light, which is a good idea. Make sure you have everything secured in the footlockers; I don’t need someone getting hit in the head with your hairbrush – if you even have one – when the Cardassians decide they want us for hull ornaments. This ship is our home, we’re extending it to you. You don’t have my trust, and you’ll have to earn it, but I suspect you’re no stranger to that. The same goes for any member of this crew. They won’t be happy with you, because you’re here, just because you’re a child. It’s up to you to convince then that you’re not. I’d order you not to tell anyone you’re a telepath, but as long as you don’t start and keep finishing people’s sentences for them you’ll be fine. I won’t lie to you; it’s not my nature. I’m not going to lilypadd for you. You have a long, hard road ahead of you, and I advise you to fight your own battles.
“But,” he continued, “if anyone on this crew mistreats you – hurts you, strikes you, or…” he hesistated, clearly uncomfortable, “touches you inappropriately, then you report it to me. These are good people. We’re outlaws, every last one of us, and you just became one too. But the choice was yours, not mine. You have my permission to stay, and that’s all you need. Now, do you have any other questions for me?”
Sara shook her head, hugging her knees to her chest. “Fine.” Chakotay rose. “I’m going to the bridge, there’s things that need doing. I’ll be back for you in a little while. You’re free to explore the ship, but when I, or anyone else gives you something to do, you’re to attend to it immediately.”
Sara nodded, watching Chakotay exit the door, and looked around the little room he said was to be hers. Except for the one cot in it, it looked like some sort of storage facility. Oh well, as long as it didn’t have a torpedo tube bay inside it, she could live. She could have lived even if it had.
She would not think that good could come from this. After all, one or the other, or all, could die the very next day, even with the most careful of cautions and circumstances. The Maquis did not provide for that. Chakotay had told her as much with his words. He would not be a parent, a substitute parent, a babysitter, or a nanny. He would not coddle or concede, and he would not treat her any differently than another member of his crew.
Sara stretched out on her cot, wondering. She hadn’t known what kind of a ship she was getting herself on to, or what kind of situation she would find herself in, when she stowed away on board the small shuttle that took her from Bajor. She had expected him to at least be halfway angry that she had invaded his ship. When he had healed her injuries, Sara expected him to inflict more. Either that, or he would claim her for his own and rape her, keep her with him, at his side as a trophy and servant.
But he wasn’t like that. In fact he was quite the opposite, while he kept himself shrouded in layers of mystery that even telepathy had to delve beneath, at his very core he was a seemingly gentle man.
Chakotay intrigued Sara.
In her own way, and she knew it, she intrigued him as well. After all, she was a telepath, guaranteed always to know falsehood from honesty, coverups from truth, and so it would be for the rest of her life. She knew that he had a quiet, restrained ‘soft spot’, for lack of other words, for her, even though he never said a word about it.
In time, everyone warmed up to her. Of course, there was always Seska, but Seska didn’t seem to like anyone. Yes, she was a child, and yes, she was a runt, but Sara could, after all, squeeze into spaces smaller then just about anything, and Chakotay had turned her into something of a smuggler. Her pick pocketing had been her own vice. Sara didn’t like to steal, but when the going got tough, she got light fingered. She looked so ordinary no one, Cardassian or StarFleet, suspected her of being a Maquis. Storeowners refused to believe that someone as cute as she was (and she could be when she wanted to) would steal from them. Even Cardassians, as primitive as they were, were trying to strengthen their position in the negotiations, and were never into harming children. The most she could expect would be a few knocks around as they shoved her from person to person, toying with her. Even her abilities, as Chakotay chose to call them, were useful. Being able to make food skitter across the floor unnoticed was the hard part.
Sara was anything but ordinary.
For hours she could sit, silent and still, and go unnoticed by the crew. If she had any regrets about becoming a Maquis, she didn’t voice them, not even when B’Elanna or even Chakotay was forced to ask her for dangerous events because she was the only one small enough to accomplish them. Sara could play kal-toh with Setonak (after he started teaching her, the game took years to master) without difficulty. He found in her a certain quiet and discipline that, according to him, was rarely seen in even Vulcan children. His smooth eyebrows arched upward in his tinged skin, speaking to Chakotay about her.
B’Elanna taught her the tricks of being a Maquis, how to mask a warp signature, and how to cobble together spare parts with ingenuity and prayer. She earned her way into the tough half-Klingon’s heart, after a fashion, by keeping her mouth shut and doing what was asked sometimes before it was even out of B’Elanna’s lips, though she did her best to keep those actions to a minimum.
Perhaps the most surprising were the other members of the crew. Dalby and Suder, self-proclaimed mercenaries that had joined the Maquis for their own reasons, mainly a hatred of Cardassians, actually enjoyed Sara's presence, even if they didn't let on that they felt that way. Dalby's arrogant, hating attitude softened around her, his large, strong hands lifting her to be eye-to-eye (he was taller than Chakotay), speaking softly and sometimes eliciting a lopsided smile. Suder's icy-cold eyes, while not growing warm and friendly, eased a bit, his natural-worn grimace becoming at least an expression of passivity. He was perhaps the only one that Sara was actually drawn to outside of B'Elanna and Chakotay, for some reason allowing her the privelege of crawling all over him (unusual since she wasn't a tactile girl), and even carrying her piggyback around the ship, though in time it wasn't such an unusual sight -- Dalby and Chakotay, and even others such as Chell, Gerron and Jarvin could do it, when they felt like it.
True to her word, Sara followed orders to the letter, whether they came from Chakotay or from anyone else – even Seska. She found that the Bajoran had a particular philosophy for berating her, and took it limply if not numbly. Chakotay's thoughtful eyes squinted suspiciously at her lack of defense, but only once did he intervene -- when Seska's fist would have smashed into Sara's face had he not stepped up from behind and caught it firmly.
His eyes betrayed his anger.
The nickname of "runt" saw no end, though it did evolve after a while into “Tommy,” something B’Elanna had unconsciously started because Sara tucked her hair up under either a cap or scarf, to keep it out of the way. With her boyish high-necked T-shirts and pants, along with her boots, she didn’t look much like a girl, flat-chested and small that she was.
It made life easier.
The climax of acceptance came once and for all months after her arrival, when Chakotay was forced away on a supply mission, one not of choice but of necessity. Several shuttles had been found disengaged, abandoned and drifting in the confines of the DMZ, and word was brought that parts could still be salvaged, parts useful and in fact vital to the running of the Liberty. Chakotay hadn't hesitated, had taken B'Elanna and, leaving Seska in charge of the ship, hastily departed, not knowing when he would be back.
If the fact that Seska was now, for the time being, in command of everyone worried Sara, she didn't show it. As quiet as usual if not more so, she went about her business, preparing the storage units for whatever parts were received from the mission and then completing her usual list of chores in Engineering. During her time on board, she had evolved into somewhat of a daily routine, and unless told by Chakotay, never deviated from it.
She was performing diagnostics along the corridor when she felt rather than heard Seska approach, felt the tendrils snaking into her mind that came along with telepathy and closer contact with a person nearby. They stayed present until, finally, she looked up to find the woman with a halfway menacing look standing over her.
"Get up." The Bajoran woman's voice was sharper than usual, as it always was when her...whatever...wasn't around to temper her.
Sara obeyed, if slowly and finishing up the last tendril of business first. She stood as tall as possible, though didn't meet Seska's eyes.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" The woman reached out and stopped short of taking the girl's chin in hand, half because Sara flinched away and half because she remembered in time not to. Instead a cold smile spread across her lips, more of a glare and snarl combination than anything.
"You've fulfilled your usefulness on this ship as of right now," Seska's voice was calm. Too calm. Almost deadly.
In fact, Sara was beginning to realize, it was. Too late, she turned to run, before Seska's hand on her arm, gripping it like a vise, caused her to be dragged along the passageway. The one corridor that unfortunately led to a destination Sara had hoped never to see -- at least not from the inside.
"You shouldn't have run," Seska was not being gracious -- but then again, as with most other things, Chakotay wasn't there. "You shouldn't have even come here. Of all the shuttles on Bajor, of all the stupid things to do, you had to choose one that would bring you here. You had to choose the one that would take you to this ship. Don't worry, I'm not doing anything that any other captain wouldn't have done upon finding you. I'm only doing what's right."
"And that would be?" Sara panted, struggling a bit harder, trying to push back with her feet in order to slow Seska's stride.
"I'm protecting the rest of us. The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few -- or the one. Sorry, honey, but you're the one."
"Somehow I doubt Chakotay's going to believe that," Sara offered her last comment, still trying to get away. The woman was incredibly strong.
"Telepaths," Seska spat. "Always have to have their nose in anyone's business. Always have to read thoughts, can't keep away from what doesn't concern them."
She tightened her grip even more, pinning an arm behind her back quite painfully. Sara flinched but didn't cry out. Seska dragged her around to be face to face with her as she bent, her face inches from widened blue eyes, breath hot and scalding (and horribly bad smelling). "I don't like telepaths," she brutally stated, releasing her only long enough to palm the controls. One swift, solid kick, and Sara was inside the ship's airlock.
Before she could recover the door was dropped, and it was with horrifying fascination that she realized that her life was going to be over in only as long as it took Seska to activate the controls. She glanced around: bare, smooth walls, the door to the other side revealing a starry expanse beyond the clear, thick window embedded in it.
The stars. She stared at the stars, memorizing every detail in them, the small dots that seemed bigger, surrounding her as well as the ship, and shut her eyes. Eerily enough, she felt calm, though she had to force herself to block out every presence around her, which fortunately was limited to that of Seska, mostly. The voices dwindled down to a quiet murmur that was soothing, a chanting undertone of her daily life, rather than brackish and noisy.
Some part of her believed that whatever awaited her on the other side of that door, was better than what she was leaving. Why, she didn't know.
But she would soon find out.
A sudden rush of air popped her eardrums, the same rush causing her to fall backwards, falling endlessly through tunnels of time and space, falling through the stars that would wrap and sheath her body the same way that they did the ship...
"Sara?" She jerked visibly at her name being called, eyes popping open to come face to face with Chakotay, standing over her with concern etched into his features. A siren blared through her ears, causing her to flinch once more, though he held her steady.
"Sara, can you hear me?" he tried again, his eyes never leaving hers.
Numbly, she nodded, looking around to reveal B'Elanna standing a short distance away. Next to her stood Seska, who though trying to achieve the part of concerned shipmate was feeling like the cat that ate the canary before being caught himself.
"You're coming with me." He scooped her into his arms, one hand under her knees and one hand around her shoulders. "See to the unloading," he told B'Elanna. "And for god's sake someone shut off that damn noise!"
Sara was aware of the two women scurrying like rabbits to do as he asked, rather quickly, and before he had stepped into the turbolift the shriek had stopped, leaving her ears ringing with silence. It continued until they reached the same compartment he had healed her in months ago, and she found herself set on the same table.
Sara said nothing. Telling him would serve little purpose. He would be angry with Seska and the heavens only knew what he would do to her. Chakotay didn't kill people, at least not anyone who wasn't a Cardassian. Seska would be no exception. He would make life hard for her, and she in turn would take it out on Sara.
The best course of action was silence.
Her plan finally reached Chakotay as he finished scanning her, putting down the tricorder to stare at her intently. "I don't suppose you'd care to tell me what happened," he was quiet.
Sara shook her head mutely.
He looked down at the floor, then back up at her. "Is it something that I need to get involved in?"
Again, she shook her head.
Chakotay sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, and pursed his lips before speaking again. "If you don't want to tell me, I won't make you." Sara deliberately kept her face expressionless. "But I want you to answer one question for me. Being a telepath, I'd venture to say you already know what it is. Do you?"
Sara nodded. "You want to know if I put myself in the airlock."
"And did you?"
Sara debated a lie. Her silence told him as much. Chakotay's expression changed. She immediately swallowed and told him the truth. "No."
He sighed, scratched his chin, and put his hands on either side of her legs, effectively trapping her. "Sara, I don't know what your life was like before you showed up here. I know you don't either. But I will tell you this -- you're one of us now. We'll take care of you. If you need to talk about something, you come to me. You get in trouble -- you come to me. Anything you can't handle -- you come to me. Understood?"
Sara nodded. He lifted her down from the table with grace and gentleness, setting her on her feet and squeezing her shoulder. "Report to the shuttle bay. Help B'Elanna with the unloading."
"Yes sir." She set out, looking back at him as he looked at her.
