Tom’s voice rang out through the corridors, causing him to turn somewhat in annoyance from his padd. “Tom,” he acknowledged.
“You got a minute?” Tom asked.
“Yeah, just come with me to my office.” Two minutes later, inside the room with the door closed, Chakotay turned on him again. “Well?”
“It’s about Sara.” Tom’s voice gave no room for consideration.
“Sara? What about Sara?” Chakotay was bewildered.
“Don’t you think you’ve been treating her a little…unusually?”
“No. No, I don’t, not at all.”
“A standing order not to allow her on the bridge?” Tom cited examples. “Only one or two duty shifts a week, and yet B’Elanna’s able to yank her from whatever she happens to be doing and drag her down to Engineering?”
“Orders are orders. I’m sure if Sara felt that she was being treated badly, she would tell me,” Chakotay was politely dismissive. “Now, if that’s all…”
“No, it’s not.” For once, he wasn’t backing down, not that he ever did. “How often have you talked to her, since she came on board.”
“Other than the first three weeks that no one noticed she was even missing, including you, I might add?” Voyager’s first officer shot back. This was rapidly escalating into something he didn’t have time for.
“Don’t push that off on me. At least I’ve tried to make her feel welcome here.”
“Did Sara put you up to this?” Chakotay finally asked.
“There you go again! If you know her so well, how could you think she would?” Tom leaned forward, planting both hands on his senior officer’s desk. “But you know what? She wouldn’t even if she wanted to. Dammit, Chakotay, she’s a child!”
“If she were, she wouldn’t be where she is,” Chakotay growled, his voice dangerously low.“She knows that. She knew the tradeoff for the Maquis, and she knows the rules now.”
“Do the rules include cancelling your friendship? Assuming you had one, that is.”
“Of course not. And yes, we did.”
“Then tell that to her, because right now I can safely say she doesn’t know it.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked slowly.
“I’m talking about the fact that somewhere inside of her is just that – a child. A girl that wants things that a child wants. Someone to take her to the holodeck. Someone that will listen to her, spend time with her, regardless of what she is. Someone to hold her hand, to tuck her in at night. Someone to share hot chocolate and stories with. Chakotay, she’s lonely, and she’s scared, even if she won’t admit it -- she’s scared.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Chakotay snorted.
“Is it?” Tom asked. “She heard you and B’Elanna talking. Now what you said, I don’t know… but she ran to the doctor and asked him if he could somehow, by some miracle, remove her telepathy.”
Now he really had his attention. Sara, wishing she weren’t a telepath? “Is this just some first-rate rumor you heard, or…”
“Kes told me,” he interrupted quietly. “She was there when it happened. Look,” Tom sat down, eye to eye with the older man, “I know you think that she’s a lot older than she seems. Even I think she’s older than what she is. Hell, Sara would like to think a lot of things, but they aren’t true. She gave up what you wanted her to give up, because otherwise she couldn’t have stayed with you. She had nowhere else to go. She’s grateful to you because you took her in, you gave her a home, even if it was just a cobbled-together old ship, and all of you were considered wanted, armed and dangerous.
“She wonders now if it was just a lie, Chakotay. The friendship you shared, in the Maquis. She’s not dumb, she knows the situation is different now because of where we are, but she’s still confused. And it hurts me to look at her, because I see the way you talk to her, and the way B’Elanna treats her. It’s as though you both want the skills but not the person they came with.”
Chakotay stared out the window, at the stars streaking past, the arrays of light. “She told you this? What she wants?”
“Yeah, she did.” Tom got up. “A couple of days ago. She said that she wishes you could just talk to her, because she thought you understood what she was, even if no one else did, or could. She said that she just had to try harder, that if she did, you’d like her again one day.”
“I never said I didn’t like her.” Chakotay said softly, almost to himself.
“You didn’t have to.” Tom headed for the door. “Sticks and stones can break your bones. It’s the words that break your heart. And if that fails...” the door opened. “The silence’ll get you faster.”
