Chapter Text
1.
Chakotay was deep in his thoughts after reading the latest missive from Diplomatic when someone gently jostled his elbow.
"Captain Chakotay, we're ready to transport you." A lieutenant from the shuttle crew began to get his bags out of the overhead cabinet.
He realized the shuttle had stopped and he could see Titan through the viewscreen. "Sorry, got caught up."
"That's why you're so good at what you do." He backed away to let Chakotay out. "You're kind of a hero of mine, sir."
"Old Maquis me? Less-old Voyager me? Or this version--the ambassador?"
"Okay, mostly the Starfleet you." The lieutenant laughed. "My mentors keep telling me to pick a career path and instead I just do what feels right. Like this, on the personnel shuttle--the opportunity to go all over, see new places, meet new people. Get people and things where they need to be as efficiently as possible. Be the last person a newbie talks to before they report--make them feel good about their choices, ready to dive in. I love it but it drives them nuts--they wanted me to take a position at headquarters that would be 'good for me.'"
"If you care more about doing what's right for you--and hopefully what makes a difference--than you'll never be unhappy. But you might stay un-promoted." He laughed in a knowing way. He could have been an admiral now like B'Elanna, but much like Tom, who couldn't be pried away from being Kathryn's exec and was topped out at captain until he moved to a flag-rank position, Chakotay was happy doing what he was doing. He'd even turned down an offer to be head of diplomatic and getting those stars on his collar some found so important.
He was enjoying himself. After the years on the run and the years trying to get home, he thought he was due some personal happiness.
He sure as shit wasn't getting it with Kathryn, despite her having broken up with her latest long-term lover.
She was never cold to him. She just wouldn't let him in.
He swung his backpack onto his shoulder and stepped onto the shuttle's small transporter padd. Hitting his combadge, he said, "Chakotay to Titan, ready to beam over."
"Energizing," came back and he smiled at the voice. Smiled more at the person who stood at the transporter room doors.
"Commander Seven." He saw the surprise on the transporter officer's face. Screw Shaw and his stupid insistence on calling her Hansen, the name she'd registered as when she joined Starfleet...finally. Then again Seven did tend to go back and forth on what name she was using, including when in the Rangers, so even he was sometimes confused what she wanted to be called. He was going to default to how he'd always known her. "Permission to come aboard?" He was grinning like an idiot.
She laughed. A less subdued laugh than he'd known when they served together but not the near-cackle she gave when she was truly amused. A good sound, a comfortable sound. She was a different woman than the Borg they'd rescued, and he liked this Seven a lot. "Permission granted."
As they walked to guest quarters he dug into his backpack and handed her a small bag. She peeked into it and her smile widened. "The good stuff."
"The best stuff." She hadn't drunk bourbon when he'd known her. Just one more change.
"Thank you." She followed him into his quarters. "Shaw wants to see you."
"Why?"
"No idea. You know how he is." She'd turned away as she often did when she was talking about her captain. Probably because she didn't want him reading her expression--what it unmistakably said. To him, anyway. He'd known the Seven first in love with him--it wasn't hard to tell she was there again. Even if they'd never talked about it.
"When? Dinner?"
"No. Now. I'll take you up."
"Amazingly, I can find a bridge on my own. Especially considering how often I ride this boat." He grinned at her and she rolled her eyes. "But I'd love the company."
She nodded. "Unpack first. I know you like to do that."
He'd have two days on the ship. So he did as she said because she was right. He liked to make a room his own. She didn't even scoff at his more mystical items. "Just to manage my own expectations, are we...?"
"Do you want us to?"
"I didn't want to assume. Also, are you and Raffi still over?"
"Yes." She didn't sound as sad about it as previous times, as lost. "She's sort of gone underground. We haven't talked in a long time. Some new assignment. I think she's back in intel."
He knew she was. She'd been Kathryn's stalker, and he might not have a place in Kathryn's heart anymore, but he could still look out for her, make her burdens lighter the way he'd promised he would. Making sure Musiker was doing well in her career and staying far away from Kathryn was the least he could do.
"Look, you know I expect nothing." She was heading to the door, clearly mistaking his silence for disinterest. "The exes with benefits clause probably expires eventually."
He hurried to cut her off. "Do you want it to expire?"
"No." She didn't sound the way she might have on Voyager, tentative and childlike--God he hated to say it, but she really had been so young emotionally. In his more depressed days, he worried that he'd overreached. But then he looked at her on days like this, her smile easy, her answer uncomplicated, her eyes...serene. He knew what she'd become in the Rangers. He knew how dangerous she could be.
Not unlike him, after the Maquis.
But they were different people now, Starfleet people. Not lovers, but people who had sex together occasionally--a nice connection, a chance to catch up, the regard still there even if they couldn't make it as a couple.
Brushing back her hair, the waves that he loved and had first seen on their mission to Ledos, he pulled her close. "I don't want it to expire either."
She closed the rest of the distance, her lips on his, nothing frantic or even really romantic in the way they touched. Just comfort and friendship and the fact they both enjoyed touching this way--especially with each other. "Perhaps we can enjoy the bourbon later?"
"I'd love that." He stuffed his backpack in the closet and said, "I believe your captain awaits?"
"I believe he does." With a really dramatic eye roll, she led him to the bridge.
He liked how she interacted with crew, the easy smiles, almost shorthand with some. She was a good first officer and she'd had only him to see in action so it wasn't like her role models were vast. And he'd been...imperfect. In an imperfect situation.
He'd been the one to argue not to give her a regular uniform, not to let her blend into the crew. Kathryn had wanted to, had thought a hive creature would find that kind of benign "assimilation" comforting. But he hadn't trusted Seven to not revert. He hadn't wanted her to disappear into the crew; he wanted the crew to always remember she was different. Until too much time had passed and Kathryn seemed to let go of the idea. Especially when Seven was more than capable of making demands and hadn't on the uniform issue.
He watched her now and felt regret for all of it. But then he let it wash over and out of him. What had happened happened. It was the only way he got through a lot of what they'd done in the Delta Quadrant.
As he followed Seven off the lift and onto the bridge, he couldn't help but be struck by the easy way the bridge crew worked together. The way they didn't straighten up or pretend to be busy when Seven appeared.
Her smile for them was the one he'd come to treasure when they were together. Not the slow, close-lipped curl but a full grin as she passed the big chairs and bounded up the steps to what Starfleet was now calling "Observation," but he still called a ready room in his mind.
He wondered if Seven did too.
"Sir, our visitor as you tersely demanded." Her tone was more teasing than Chakotay expected.
He didn't expect the short guffaw coming from Shaw. "Never change, Hansen."
Seven flinched a little at the name. He glared at Shaw, who was watching him with a strange look on his face and no trace of satisfaction at having hurt her.
"Commander, you have the conn."
Seven didn't move. "If this is about--"
Shaw reached over to his terminal, hit a combo of keys, and music began playing.
Chakotay recognized it. Seven's favorite piece: Chopin's Nocturne in E flat major, Op. 9 No. 2. The music she'd always woken up to when they were together.
And she seemed to relax, her eyes never leaving Shaw's.
"You have the conn, Commander."
"Aye, sir." She leaned in to Chakotay and in a stage whisper said, "He's most dangerous when he's friendly."
Chakotay smiled. "I'll remember that."
And then she was gone, the doors closing after her, and Shaw gestured to the chairs in front of his desk. "Please. Take a load off, Captain Chakotay." His tone was friendly.
Great.
He sat and decided to go on the attack. "Why pick her as your first officer if her name bothers you so much?"
"Seven of Nine's name doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that it's how she's registered in the Starfleet database. Seems her mentor--I believe you know her well--told her to use her human name. Make it easier to...assimilate." His voice was easy, as if he was just shooting the shit. And he hadn't stumbled over Seven's full name.
Chakotay was confused.
Shaw leaned in, clasping his hands on the desk, staring down for a moment then meeting his eyes. "My crew is one of the most diverse in Starfleet. I like it that way. Admin people, they don't like names with five hundred apostrophes or weird diacriticals--they try to standardize them, shorten them, whatever. Ends up being hard for the person forced to use the new name or remember standardized spelling. I'm aces at getting that changed back to their preferred name. Know all the right forms, and have my own POCs in Personnel who get things fast-tracked."
"Okay." He wasn't sure where Shaw was going with this. He did have to admit, though, that the crew was extraordinarily diverse.
"I did the same for Hansen. Things were going swimmingly. I checked--wanted to give that to her. Or hell, just to stop hurting her every time I called her by a name she doesn't use and seems to hate. But I guess she would after Bjayzl."
Chakotay froze. "She told you about her?"
"Tons of things get shared under an engineering panel. Her work on the Delta Flyer was one of the reasons I picked her. I like having spare engineers around."
"The safest ship in the Fleet. I see why. I'm just surprised she told you about her--about how that monster killed Icheb."
Shaw frowned but nodded.
Chakotay felt off balance. "What?"
"Nothing."
"No, what do you have to say about Icheb? He was like a son to me."
"I know. I'm truly sorry for your loss." But there was a weird look in his eyes, something that said Chakotay was missing something. "Anyway, moving on. I never could give her that gift--her name, Commander Seven of Nine. Can you guess why?"
"No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me." He tried to moderate his tone, sound reasonable. The zen guy, the diplomat. Not a man who felt like he was being played with by a giant cat.
"Well... I called my POC and she said the name change was 'under review.' You familiar with how Admin works?"
"Not really."
"No, I guess not. You didn't have Admin support in the DQ. Well, under review usually means something is irregular. But nothing is because I dot my I's and cross my T's." He frowned. "Even though there's no T in either of her names. Anyway, the other reason is that someone up the chain has taken an interest in stopping something. Indefinitely in this case. I put the request in a week after she reported--wanted to let her settle in and see if she could live with the name but she couldn't. It's been 'under review' all this time, Captain."
"So someone in Personnel doesn't like Borgs. She's faced prejudice before."
Shaw laughed, in the way friends do when they're just shooting the shit. "See, that's what I thought too. I mean I have my share of Borg trauma so I checked. Head of Fleet Ops was the originator of the stop order. You know her, right? Served with her for--oh yeah, seven heroic years. Lots of fun stories, I bet."
Chakotay laughed, a bitter puff of air. "You're not interested in those at all."
"You are not wrong." Shaw stood and gestured for him to follow him to the data table. "After Frontier Day, I'll be cycling off as we captains do. Hopefully going back to my one true love."
"Engineering?"
"Bingo." He brought up a weird graph. "This top line that starts here and then dips into oblivion is the status of her request. This other line is when you began using my ship like I'm running Titan Taxi Service."
The intersection of the two was when the hold order was noted.
"Your booty calls seem to be making more of an impression on the woman you're not fucking than on the one you are."
"How dare you--"
"How dare I? I'll tell you how. If there's a God, Seven of Nine will be captain after me. And I want it to be under the name she goddamn prefers. I even put it in my officer eval--that the record was inaccurate on her name. I don't do that. I play by the rules."
"Except for her."
"Maybe. Yeah." He took a deep breath. "Look, if you two love each other and are getting back together, then okay. Keep pissing off Admiral Janeway. But if not, go make peace with your ex, and let me get Hansen's name changed before I leave."
"Seven's my ex. Kathryn and I never--"
"Whatever."
"She really cares enough about me to track where I am?"
"That's your fucking takeaway?" Shaw wiped the screen. "Do not tell Hansen about this. She thinks Janeway is in her corner. Finding out she's the reason I hurt her every time I do roll call would break her heart."
"And you care about her heart."
"She's my crew." But he wasn't meeting his eyes the same way he had as he was laying down unpleasant truths.
"And you care about her heart." He let his smile be a bit softer.
"Like I said. I'm cycling off soon. Won't be in her chain of command."
Chakotay crossed his arms over his chest--purposely giving this man the idea that he felt he needed to protect himself from him. "I'm assuming you'd also prefer me to take some other mode of transportation?"
"It's not like we're the most direct. You've gotta know I've checked that over the years. You're going out of your way to be with her. Your admiral is a smart cookie--bet she's figured that out too."
"Way to evade the question." He sighed. "But point taken."