#32 – Cooking together
“Your message said it was an emergency?” Chakotay questions, walking into Kathryn’s and finding her covered in flour.
“Oh thank goodness you’re here!” she exclaims, emerging from the kitchen to embrace him, “I have this VIP I’m supposed to charm coming over and the replicator is down.”
He swallows the pang of resentment and jealousy and the questions about why she’s wining and dining some diplomat in her home instead of a fancy restaurant. She needs help. She needs help and she reached out to him, and after the last year he needs to just appreciate that.
“Just the one?” He can’t help himself. “It could be two dozen and then we’d really be in trouble.”
“So you’ll help?” she genuinely asks, and he hates that they’ve come to this, that she isn’t sure she can count on him to have her back.
“Of course,” he says, “Did you have a particular menu in mind?”
“I was trying to make that corn and squash soup you showed me, the one your mother used to make you when you were-”
“Is this VIP vegetarian then?” he can’t resist asking and regrets as she replies.
“He is.”
He it is then. He wonders if she knows how cruel she’s being, dragging him over here, using his family recipe to entice this mystery man of hers.
It doesn’t matter. Trust is easy to break but hard to re-earn.
“And the flour?” he gestures to her appearance.
“Peach cobbler. There’s supposed to be a salad too.”
“We’d better get started then,” he feigns feeling more lighthearted than he feels, taking off his jacket and setting it on the couch before heading into the kitchen.
Despite himself, Chakotay finds comfort in working side by side with Kathryn again. He’s missed her terribly since their return, and within a quarter of an hour he finds they slide back into old habits, teasing and laughing.
He wipes sauce from her cheek as he adds the corn to the pot while she stirs.
She playfully shoves his chest as he teases her about her slow vegetable chopping.
He remembers just how radiant her smile is.
This is what matters, he remembers, as much as there might be other things he wishes for, this closeness and comfort is everything.
“Why don’t you go get cleaned up for dinner. I’ll wash up and make sure the cobbler doesn’t burn.”
“What would I do without you?” she sighs softly, and he wonders if she actually has missed this almost as much as him.
He cleans up the dishes, puts the salad in the cooler and the soup in the warmer and wipes down the counter. He pulls the cobbler out of the over to cool. He sets the table, hesitating as he finds candles in the drawer and remembers countless evenings aboard Voyager lit only by such candles.
He puts them out on the table, but he cannot bear to light them. With a heavy heart he turns and grabs his jacket as he heads towards the door.
“Where you going?”
He turns to see her standing by the table, not in even a dress uniform but in an actual dress, sleeveless and and soft looking, hair down, and he thinks his heart might fail.
“Just clearing out before your important guest arrives,” he manages.
“Oh Chakotay…” she tilts her head slightly, looking at him intently, “You are my very important guest. Who could be more important?”
The universe turns on its axis abruptly.
“Wait… what?”
What kind of game is Kathryn playing here, pretending to need his help preparing for a date with someone else and now she’s saying…?
“I know… it was a bit silly of me. I just wasn’t sure how to ask… or that you’d want to come so I thought if I could get you here then it would sort itself out but I panicked and I don’t know-”
“The replicator isn’t even down is it?” he stalls for time, trying to take in her import.
“No,” she admits with a guilty look, “Please don’t be angry.”
“How could I be?” he confesses, “This has been the best afternoon I’ve had since we got back. I’ve missed…” he hesitates regarding how to frame it and settles for waving his hands wildly and finishing with “this.”
“I’ll admit I didn’t lure you here under false pretenses just to resume our usual weekly dinners,” she tells him slyly, all the while lighting the candles so that her hair shines in their light.
“Is that so?” he hardly dares to guess her meaning, despite the dress, despite the implication. For all he knows she has some ulterior professional motive.
“We’re not on Voyager anymore,” she states the blatantly obvious, “Not lost in the Delta Quadrant. I’m not your captain and you’re not my first officer. We aren’t stuck with each other any longer.”
“True,” he responds, waiting for her to get to her point, barely breathing.
“ I miss being stuck with you. I miss…” she hesitates, visibly anxious, “Do you think you can miss something you’ve never actually had?”
“Kathryn,” he barely contains the urge to beg, “Please just tell me what you are trying to say. You’re killing me with suspense.”
“How did you feel when you thought I was having this intimate dinner with another man?”
“Jealous,” he replies flatly.
“Good,” she says softly, lips pursing together softly, “I had to be sure.”
She sets down the lighter she used on the candles and walks towards him with purpose, taking the jacket out of his hands and tossing it back on the couch before stepping into his personal space and reaching up to his face with both hands.
Her kiss is possessive, demanding in a way he’s more than willing to meet the requirements of.
“Let’s never have been to be jealous or unsure when it comes to one another again,” she proposes when they finally break apart.
He’s never been more eager to agree to anything in his life.
I love this idea so much😍
bekjaneway 