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Chakotay is heading for his second-year xenoanthropology lecture, gym bag slung over his shoulder, when the temporal alarms begin echoing through the dorm hall. Temporal emergency, says a mechanical voice after the first few seconds of sirens. The alarm shrills for another minute, then someone in command must hit another button because the voice adds, Shelter in place. Doubling back down the hall, Chakotay heads for his dorm room. If he were anywhere on Academy grounds other than the second floor of Cochrane Hall, he would immediately duck into the nearest room, but only twenty meters from his own, it seems to make just as much sense to return rather than knock on the nearest door.Besides, the events of last week are still hanging over his head like a cloud, and he isn’t keen to share a small space with a fellow student for the hours--or days--it might take the real Starfleet personnel to resolve this mess. Not for the first time, gratitude shoots through him that second year students aren’t assigned roommates. Temporal emergency. Screech. Screech. Shelter in place. As Chakotay covers the last few steps toward his door, something shimmers in the corner of his eye. Glancing back, he sees that, while the doors on his side of the hall are the same finished wood they were before, the doors on the other side are now metal with a chipping coat of beige paint.Hurriedly keying in his access code, he shoves his own door open, preparing to throw his bag onto the chair by the door, then freezes.A dark-haired girl in an unfamiliar blue uniform is leaning over his sink, spitting blood into the white porcelain. As he stands in the doorway, she raises her head and pivots toward him, staring.Chakotay drops his gym bag at his feet. “What are you doing in my room?”“Your room? This is my room--” They freeze at the same time, glancing up at the blinking temporal alarm panel.“I have to guess this is--was--will be both of our rooms,” Chakotay says more quietly, as the girl grins sheepishly.“Just another thrilling day at Starfleet Academy, huh?”“No kidding,” he chuckles, leaning against the wall and letting the door shut behind him. “I guess we’re both restricted to my...your...our quarters until this is over.”She nods, glancing around the room. “You seem to have retained your room decor. Whatever is going on out there, I guess this pocket of time is yours.” She hesitates. “When...are we?”“2347.”“All Starfleet personnel shall immediately identify degree of temporal displacement and act to preserve the integrity of the timeline accordingly,” she murmurs to herself, then looks back up at him, boggling slightly. “I’m in...I’m from 2220. You’re from over a hundred years in the future.”“You lived more than a century before me,” he echoes. They stare at each other for a moment. Blood is still dripping from Chakotay’s visitor’s mouth and nose, and she leans over to spit some more of it into the sink, taking her eyes off of him only for an instant. Straightening, she wipes her hand across her lips, smearing red across her face.“What do we do?” she asks quietly. “Is it best if we don’t interact with each other at all?”“I guess.” Chakotay tries to think over the Starfleet standing orders he’s studied, along with the Academy student handbook. The passage his visitor quoted sounds like a precursor to the Temporal Prime Directive, although he hasn’t memorized the wording of the standing orders of his own century as closely as she seems to have memorized those of hers. “I mean, I definitely can’t talk about anything that happened after 2220. I guess you get a free pass talking about stuff from your time,” he finishes.She nods, then glances at the red-stained sink. “Sorry for being such an untidy guest,” she tells him, a rueful smile quirking her lip. Now that the immediate panic of the situation is over, Chakotay is beginning to enjoy the sound of her voice, melodic and slightly rough.“Don’t worry about it,” he assures her. “You’re not in, uh--there’s not an attack going on where you came from, is there?” he asks, concerned. Although if there is, there isn’t much he can do to help. Give her a weapon before she returns to her own time? That would be intervention of the highest order, wouldn’t it?But his guest is shaking her head, looking slightly embarrassed. “No, no, nothing like that. This was just. You know. Academy problems. Maybe all Starfleet cadets comport themselves more befittingly in your time,” she adds, looking at him sidelong.He grins. “Not always.”She grins at him shyly in return, then a realization hits her eyes. “Oops. It’s so easy to accidentally ask you things about the future. Not that that is all that much information, but…” She sighs, shrugging slightly. “Maybe we just shouldn’t talk. I’ll get cleaned up and then I’ll just hang out on one side of the room, and you can study or whatever.”“Sounds good,” he says. They’re two cadets and the temporal alarms are still sounding and they don’t know exactly what they’re doing, but they’re doing the right thing, right? Doing this by the book. Yeah. “I’ll just stay out of your way, and I’m sure they’ll have...whatever this is...fixed soon.”“Great.” She nods. “We’ve got this.”“Absolutely.”“Yes.”Chakotay’s visitor turns back to the sink, gathering water into cupped hands and trying to wipe some of the dried-on blood from her mouth and nose. The stack of clean, newly-replicated disposable towels is on an eye-level shelf to the left of the sink, and she reaches up to grab one, only to cry out in pain and curl into herself, wrapping her arms around her chest.Chakotay is at her side in an instant. “Hey. What’s wrong?”The girl uncrumples slightly, taking a shaky breath and raising a hand to touch the side of her chest. “Sonuvabitch motherfucker broke my fucking rib.” More blood dribbles out of her mouth as she spits the words, and although Chakotay is fairly certain the blood is coming from a split lip or lost tooth--if her rib had punctured her lung, that would have been obvious long before now--the sight is discomfiting.“There’s a medkit in here,” he tells her gently. “Let me get it.”The medical tricorder shows three fractured ribs, and Chakotay winces as he remembers his similar injury last year. Absentmindedly, he reaches down to the floor, where a Sol System Tourism Bureau stress ball came to rest earlier today after rolling off his desk, and sets the squishy logo-emblazoned Earth in her hand. “Hold that if you need it. Bad news is Mx. ‘Sonuvabitch Motherfucker’ broke three ribs, not one. Good news is they’re just fractured. No bone chips.” He pulls the osteoregenerator and an anti-inflammatory hypo out of the medkit, thinking back to his training. “Uh, any medication allergies?”She shakes her head, and he presses the hypo to her neck. “That should be a general help for the pain and swelling. With your permission, I can fix your ribs now. I don’t know exactly what medical technology was doing in your time,” he adds, “but, uh, the osteoregenerator in this medkit is built to be foolproof. You don’t have to worry about a second-year science cadet trying anything he’s not qualified for. It’s your choice, though,” he adds, “if you would rather wait for a doctor.”She smiles slightly. “We might be stuck here a while. I trust you.” Her voice is soft; her chest must really be hurting since twisting to reach the towels.“All right.” He smiles back at her. “This will only take a minute. Can you unzip your jacket?”She does so.“May I roll up your shirt?”She nods. Chakotay carefully rolls her undershirt to the level of her bra, then points the osteoregenerator at her ribcage. The sensor whirrs for several seconds, mapping the fractured bone beneath her skin, then the blue light on the back of the tool comes on as it begins to regenerate the break. He is careful to hold the tool steady, not that it matters; once the regeneration process has begun, both jostling outside the body and unexpected complications within it are inherently accounted for by the tool’s sensor map. Finally, the light switches off, and Chakotay picks up the tricorder again, scanning.“The bones are fully mended.”His guest smiles. “Thank you.” She twists back and forth, touching her ribcage again and taking a deep breath. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. Thanks.”She looks somewhat shaken, however, as she leans back against the wall beside his sink. Chakotay can recognize the dazed exhaustion that sets in after the adrenaline of a fight, along with something else he can’t quite read.He decides to pause the medical procedures for a moment. “Let me get you some water, then I’ll mend your nose.”As his guest zips up her uniform jacket, he fills a clean cup with lukewarm water, which she uses to rinse more blood from her mouth. “Thanks,” she says again.Chakotay picks his way through the medkit until he finds the all-purpose regenerator. He holds it up. “Ready?”She smiles slightly and leans into him for a moment, bumping her hip against his. Her eyes look a little clearer. “You’re very Starfleet, aren’t you?” “Huh?” The question surprises him so much that he laughs aloud. “Well, I’m on disciplinary probation, so no, I’m really not.”“For that?” she asks, peeling away from his side to point around at his left shoulder.He raises his eyebrows. “Yeah. How did you…”She smirks. “You winced when you dropped your gym bag, though it can’t have been that heavy, and you’ve been favoring your shoulder ever since you walked in. Did you even go to Medical?”“I was sent there after being written up, yes.”“And the swelling was just beginning, so it didn’t show up on any readings. And you didn’t go back later because you’re so tough.”“Says the girl who ran home to her dorm for do-it-yourself nose repair. Did you think you could avoid getting written up if you patched everything up yourself? Speaking of which…” He waves the all-purpose regenerator.She tilts her face toward his. “Well, I really didn’t know about the ribs. And if I was so afraid of getting written up again, I wouldn’t have started the fight.” As the regenerator finishes scanning and begins its work, she closes her eyes. “Starfleet cadets will comply with all relevant local and planetary laws and regulations, and conduct themselves according to the highest standards of duty and responsibility. Not much ambiguity there.”She hesitates for a moment, eyes still closed. “I don’t like doctors.” A sigh. “I wanted a few minutes to myself before going off to Medical and dealing with them.”Chakotay frowns, concerned, as the regenerator light flicks off. “You have a thing about medical treatment? You could’ve said something.”The girl shakes her head. “I don’t mind medical treatment. I don’t like doctors.” She opens her eyes, smiling at him with bloody lips. “They slice you open and you can’t punch ‘em back. Not a fair fight.”He thinks for a minute about how to respond, replacing the tools in the medkit and setting it on top of his desk. “Fair enough.”“Anyway, someone will say something, back in my time, and…” She sighs. “We’ll see what happens from there. I’m not the first cadet to start a fight while on probation.” She grins, rapping on the wall. “And evidently I won’t be the last. You think this room gives off some kind of energy signature that guarantees disciplinary probation?”Chakotay rolls his eyes at that. “Who did you even ‘start a fight’ with? Sasquatch? Great move.”She shrugs, smirking. “Three of them, one of me.”“Which seemed like a great idea on what planet?”“I was the only cadet on security track. It seemed fair.”“I’m sure fair is a great comfort to your busted ribs.”“And who did you rumble with, Mr. Scientist?”“Four of them, three of me. Get some friends if you’re going to be dumb.”“That’s a crowd. Did you all even make an effort to go at it somewhere without cameras, or was this a spur of the moment thing?”“Pretty sure previous generations ruined it for us as far as shadowy corners without cameras go. Thanks for that, by the way.”She grins. “Some things never change, huh?”He shrugs. “Not yet.”“Maybe someday the Academy’ll figure out how to fix the problems instead of stamp out the fights.” She keeps her voice light, as though such a silly idealistic concept is nothing more than a passing joke, but her words speak for themselves.He raises his eyebrows. “This is Starfleet Academy. That sounds like a very Starfleet idea.”She is silent. “If you don’t mind me asking,” he says hesitantly, “does it make sense that I’m surprised to hear you’re on probation for fighting when it sounds like you’ve swallowed the rulebook?”She shrugs tiredly, turning back to the sink. “People suck.” Wetting one of the towels, she dabs away the remaining dried blood, then holds the dirty towel up by one corner. “Me included. Where does this go?” After Chakotay’s guest has finished cleaning up and pulled her hair into a fresh ponytail, and both of them have cautiously jumped in and out of the adjoining shared bathroom, which to Chakotay’s relief seems to be grounded in his own time as well, his stomach is reminding him that it’s time for lunch.“You hungry?” he asks, waving a hand in the direction of the replicator.“You have a food synthesizer in your room?” His guest’s eyes widen. “Jealous.”“Something like that.” Chakotay crosses over to it, replicating himself a grilled cheese sandwich, which he sets on the desk. “Want anything?”She glances at the door to the hall, where the incessant background noise of the alarm is still blaring, and eyes his grilled cheese with interest. “I’ll have what you’re having. And some blackberry protein cubes. Thanks.”The protein cubes are stored as a historical program. He grins to himself as they appear in the replicator. “Here you go.”“Thanks.”Chakotay hops up onto his bed, shoving a few PADDs out of the way and sitting back against the wall. His visitor takes the desk chair, sitting crosslegged and resting her plates on her knees.“So, what are you studying? You said you were science track, right?”Chakotay brightens. “Archeology. It’s been pretty great, actually. We have guest lecturers from all over the quadrant. You?”His guest bites into a blackberry cube, looking sheepish. “Interstellar diplomacy.”“How is it?”“The classes are great. It’s just--”“The people,” he finishes.“Yeah.” He thinks of his first year anthropology professor’s sugary smile at the offworld students as she explained that Antarctica is a continent on Earth... “I thought things were going to be different here, that it was going to be bright and shiny and Starfleet. I memorized everything they sent me after I was accepted--”He nods. “And then you get here and the sun is shining and everything looks perfect--”“And you feel like you’re constantly being told you’re not a real cadet, that you’re not really part of it--”“--like you’re looking at the Academy from behind an invisible wall.” She is leaning forward in her chair, the words tumbling from her mouth as they complete each other’s thoughts.“I used to think of myself as a pacifist,” Chakotay confesses. “I don’t think I would have even come here if I hadn’t, you know, if that hadn’t been how I thought of myself, and how I saw Starfleet, all peaceful and hopeful. And it’s not like things aren’t good, like I don’t have any friends, but some shit you just can’t let go without doing something about it. You just-- can’t. ” He thinks of the words from last week. Colony trash. Charity case. Go enlist. His guest sets her empty plate on his desk, drawing her knees to her chest. “And every cadet has been screened--that’s what they say, screened--so thoroughly that they can’t possibly have done anything wrong once they’re here. Especially not from a good Starfleet family.” She smiles sweetly. “Starfleet is about second chances! Starfleet is about acceptance! And the staff, well. They’re experts in their fields! They’ve had long and illustrious careers! They always do the right thing, and they always know what they’re talking about.”Leaning forward, he lobs his cup into the recycling slot. “If they feel your fist, at least they feel something instead of nothing at all.”“They’re all so sure they have it all right. I have a counselor and she keeps telling me I need to get used to the Academy not being perfect.” She scrubs her face with her hand, flopping back in the chair. “I wasn’t expecting motherfucking perfect. I was expecting something other than this and…” She hesitates, looking over at Chakotay. “I waited so long to come here. I believed in what Starfleet can be. Now I just feel stupid for buying it.” She sighs. “I know I should just leave, instead of fucking around getting into fights. Or if I stay, I need to grow up and follow the rules. I know.”Fiddling with the end of her ponytail, she adds in a smaller voice, “I feel like there’s some tiny part of me screaming at me to stop, but I’m too tired to listen to that part of me anymore. Starfleet was--was supposed to be the finish line. I thought things were finally going to be okay. And now they’re not, and I don’t know what to do, and I--maybe I just don’t care. Maybe they’re right. I’m not good enough to care. Not Starfleet enough,” she says sourly, leaning back in the chair and closing her eyes.Chakotay nods. “I box. At the gym, I mean. And after I spend a few hours there and I’m in the shower, I think, I can do this. I can do the right thing. I feel all...centered. Good. Right. But then I’m walking through the halls and someone says something and…” He sighs, scrubbing his face. “They say something. The kind of thing you can’t ignore. And maybe if I were Starfleet I’d be better than hitting back, but they remind me every day, I’m not really Starfleet. ” He can hear the bitterness in his own voice, and for once, he doesn’t care.“People suck,” his visitor says succinctly. She stands up from her chair. “We should practice.”“Huh?”She stands. “We should fight.”“Here? Now?”She giggles as she gets into an exaggerated boxing stance against the wall. “Come on. Square up.”He slides off the bed. “A fight in a dorm room during a temporal anomaly?”“One for the books. Ready or not?”This is a terrible idea. Chakotay grins. “Ready.”Before she can move, he throws the first punch, sparring speed, and she dodges, crashing into his desk and knocking a pencil cup off the edge with her elbow. Feinting at his right side, she lobs a punch at his head, which he bends backwards to avoid, sending three PADDs flying off the bookshelf. Grabbing her, he shoves her into his inflatable lounge chair, and she bounces back up like a rubber band, seizing his arm and sending him spinning into the edge of the bed. He grabs his pillow and the stress ball, throwing them at her one after another as she pulls back into a dramatic stance in the corner of the room.Leaping forward, she sends a slow, showy high kick toward his chin, and he spins away again, pressing his back to the wall by the sink.“Hey, no kicking in boxing!” He lobs a slow kick back at her, but his visitor grabs his foot, sending them both crashing onto the bed, where they lie facing each other, breathing hard.She grins at him, making no movement to get up, and he reaches forward, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m glad you live in a different century. You fight dirty.”“I fight fair. One of you and one of me.”“You kicked me.”“I never said we were boxing.”“No. You didn’t.” He stares at her for a while. She looks tired, an edge of despair touching the corners of her eyes even as she smiles, and something inside him releases as he sees the loneliness and shame of the last week finally reflected in someone else’s eyes. “None of it feels like a fair fight, does it?” he says quietly.“I thought it would,” she whispers. “I waited so long. I stayed alive. I thought when I got here, life would finally start to make sense.”“Yeah. Me too.”Silence.“You’re so good.” Her voice is fierce. “I can’t believe they haven’t got their shit together by now. For someone as kind as you.”“Hey. For all we know, there’s someone in this building who could tell us that someday they do.”“Someone from a perfect future?”“Maybe.”“I doubt it.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I don’t even care anymore.”“I doubt that.”She opens her eyes. “That’s because you belong in Starfleet.”Her voice is so matter-of-fact that she might be stating the most obvious truth in the world. Chakotay feels his throat constrict with emotion.“Starfleet as it really is,” she continues. “What we thought it was before we got here and tangled ourselves in Academy problems. What it can be.” She smiles at him. “That’s you.”It takes him a moment before he can speak. “You think so, huh?”“I know so.”Silence.“And that doesn’t apply to you?”“If I wasn’t so...so angry all the time. ” She shakes her head. “But I am. I’m done. I’m not kidding when I say I don’t care. I’m done.”“You’re still at the Academy.”“Fuck the Academy.” He is so close to her that he can feel the heat of her body beside his. She smells like blood and lilacs, her anger radiating off her like perfume.“You don’t really mean that.”“No.” A single tear rolls down the side of her face into her hair. “Not any more than you do.”She reaches out to stroke his face, and he closes the distance between them, pressing his lips against hers. Some time later, the light from the window outside--still for all the world appearing as though the whole building is in the same century at the same time, though Chakotay knows better--is finally beginning to dim.“I wonder how long it will take them to fix this,” he murmurs.His guest pulls away slightly, peering around the room. “How long has it been?”He points her to the clock. “Well, from in here, seven hours since the anomaly began. Who knows how much time will have passed for either of us when we get back to our own, uh, times.”“You think they’ll be able to strain everyone back where they belong?”“Strain us? You make it sound like we’re noodles.”She giggles, propping herself up on one elbow. “Strain, sift, sort…”“Starfleet’s pretty good with anomalies, and we’re right in the center of Starfleet.” He shrugs. “They’re sure taking their time, though. Ready for dinner?”They split a pizza and a bowl of assorted protein cubes, which wobble suspiciously as Chakotay eats them, but which his guest seems to genuinely enjoy.“These are a staple of starship life,” she tells him, holding up an electric blue cube between thumb and forefinger.“Maybe there are reasons to be glad I was born in the twenty-fourth century.”She chucks the cube at his head. Finishing the last bite of pizza, Chakotay glances out the window again. “Want to borrow some pajamas?”“Thanks.”She retreats behind the open closet door to change, and Chakotay swears to himself as he attempts to yank on his own t-shirt.“Is your shoulder bothering you?” His guest’s voice floats over from behind him, muffled by the shirt over his ears.“It’s fine.” He pulls the shirt down, wincing.“Want me to take a look at it? Security track probably has even more medical training that you do,” she teases.Chakotay opens his mouth, then hesitates. “You probably shouldn’t look at any of the twenty-fourth century medkit stuff. I mean, unless we have a real emergency.” Is the safety of a Starfleet officer considered more important than the sanctity of the timeline in a real emergency? Well, if it were up to him, it would be.She sighs, conceding the point, then her voice brightens again. “Ask the synthesizer for arnica.”“What?”“Arnica. Old remedy. Helps with bruising. No medkit required.”The replicator wants to know if he wants arnica cream, lotion, oil, or gel.“Oh, god, anything but oil. I made that mistake once, somewhere where things cost money. Any suspension formulation, or it’ll just run all over the place.”He selects the lotion--his visitor isn’t wrong about the surface area of the bruise--and sets the bottle on his desk.“Now you have something you won’t be too stubborn to go back to Medical for.” The closet door shuts, revealing the sight of Chakotay’s visitor wearing his pajamas. “Tada!”“Ohmph--” Chakotay laughs helplessly as his much smaller roommate waves her hands in his sleeves, the ends of the cuffs flapping back and forth. When he finishes chuckling, he volunteers, “I can help you roll those up.”He holds her slender wrist longer than he strictly needs to after the pajamas are neatly cuffed, rubbing one finger over her pulse point, and she curls her fingers into his, stepping forward to kiss him again. It’s strangely exhilarating to make out with this diminutive girl from another time as she stands in front of him barefoot and wearing his pajamas, and it’s several minutes and some unexpected travel across the room before they finally pull apart.“I’ll go replic--synthesize you some toiletries,” he tells her, catching his breath.“How romantic.” She stands on her toes to give him another light kiss.“Anything for a mysterious stranger from another era,” he tells her, and is rewarded with a snort of laughter.They pull apart again and she steps over to the sink, picking up his face wash and examining the bottle. “I can use your face wash.”Chakotay keys in a pre-pasted toothbrush. “Do you need, like, moisturizer or something?”“If that can synthesize a facial moisturizer with peony extract, that would be perfect,” she says hopefully.The replicator can, of course, replicate it. He hands her the bottle and the toothbrush, and she pads back over to the sink, tapping the bottle of arnica lotion on her way. “Let me know if you’d like me to help apply that,” she says over her shoulder, running the toothbrush under the tap.Chakotay is a little surprised by the lowkey offer--he had expected that she would expect to help apply the lotion, after suggesting it as an alternative to the medkit--and finds himself surprisingly gratified that she did not assume.“I’d like that very much,” he tells her, reaching for his own toothbrush.“Tell me when you’re ready,” she says with a soft smile, wandering off to apply her moisturizer.A few minutes later, Chakotay grabs the arnica off the desk as he crosses the room again to get a glass of water. “You sure? It’s not bothering me that much, and it’s a pretty ugly bruise,” he warns.“I showed you mine, you show me yours,” she jokes, waggling her eyebrows, and Chakotay chokes on his water.Hopping up on the bed, his guest holds out a hand, and Chakotay, still grinning, tosses the bottle to her. She pats the mattress in front of her, and he settles on the edge of the bed, pulling off his shirt.He hears her sharp intake of breath as she sees the bruise. Her fingers are incredibly gentle against his skin as she smooths on the lotion, and Chakotay grits his teeth against the emotion that rises in his chest at being this close to another person, getting fussed over and cared for.When she finishes, she presses her lips lightly to the top edge of the bruise.“Will that help it heal?” he asks, smiling.“Of course it will.” His guest wraps her legs around his waist and leans against his bare back, carefully avoiding the bruised area as she rests her cheek against the nape of his neck.“Thanks for applying the necessary final touch, then.”“It’s an activating kiss. The lotion would never work as well without it.”“Naturally.” Chakotay can feel her breasts pressed against him through her pajamas, one layer of fabric away from his skin, and he’s grateful that her position pressed against his back means she can’t feel anything happening in front of him.“Thank you,” she whispers back. “You...you’re kind of amazing. I’m glad I got the chance to meet you, Chakotay.”He freezes.“Sorry,” she says sheepishly. “It’s on half of your stuff.”“Right. Well, once you go back, it’s just the name of some random cadet who won’t exist for a long, long time.” He can’t help but feel a swoop of delight at the sound of his name on her lips. “I guess the important thing is me not knowing yours, so I don’t accidentally spill anything I’ve somehow heard about you.”“Yeah, as if you would’ve heard anything about a random cadet from over a century ago,” she laughs, then sobers. “A situation like this...being in the position I’m in, talking to a boy from the future, with twenty-fourth century PADDs all around us...I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t made me think about it. If it weren’t for the safety of the timeline, if it weren’t for regulations--would I want to know details about my own future? And...I wouldn’t. I don’t think anyone would. No matter what it is. Going through life knowing, waiting...that would be a special kind of hell, don’t you think?”Chakotay, who has not been in that position for the past day and a half, finds himself thinking it over. “Yeah. I get that.” He nods. “I think you’re right. Banking on the assumption that you can’t change things, or that you wouldn’t even wanna try to change the timeline in case you make things even worse...I think most people wouldn’t want to know.”“I thought you’d get it.” With a smile in her voice, she amends, “I thought you’d get it, Chakotay.”They sit in silence for a moment.“Am I pronouncing it okay?”“Beautifully.”He can feel her smile against his skin.The temporal alarms are only sounding every few minutes now. Chakotay assumes that whoever is in command wants to ensure that anyone injured, or unconscious, or with any type of short term memory loss knows what’s going on, but also sees the value in giving the quarantined student body the chance to get some sleep.As if reading his thoughts, his guest yawns. Her body is resting more heavily against his, a warm, sleepy weight. He can feel her slow, even breathing.“Computer, lights.” Carefully, Chakotay lowers himself until he is lying on his right side, and his visitor drowsily rearranges her legs so that she is curled comfortably around him, her arm still draped over his shoulder and her breath warm against the back of his neck.“Goodnight,” she whispers. “Chakotay.”All across the Academy campus, are other current, prior, and future students navigating these same conversations? Has the Temporal Prime Directive been royally, significantly violated yet? Are any cadets sneaking around outside their rooms, risking it all to get a closer look at the anomaly?Or maybe every other cadet at Starfleet Academy has been good as gold, and lying in the dark entangled with a girl from another century is the height of temporal rebellion.Chakotay wonders for a moment, head swimming, how the two of them went from their plan for non-intervention to this.“Goodnight,” he whispers.A few seconds pass, and he is just starting to think his companion has fallen asleep when her voice floats out of the darkness. “If they fix this before we wake up...goodbye. And thank you.”Chakotay roots around in the blankets for her hand and squeezes it. “Thank you. I’m glad we got this chance.” He swallows. “That we had a chance to know each other.”She squeezes back. “Me too.”There is another moment of silence, then she murmurs, voice jovial and a little more awake, “Makes all those Academy problems worth it, huh? Occasionally getting to make out with a dashing stranger from the future?”“Or an enchanting stranger from the past.”She giggles, nudging him.Sobering, he adds, “The Academy...I do feel like I’m lucky to be here. In a lot of ways. It’s just...complicated.”She makes a soft sound of acknowledgement.“I mean, things were...not easy before I came here. Now I have different problems, and, you know, different good things, too.”“Like what?” She sounds genuinely curious. And happy; pleased on his behalf.“My classes,” he admits, half laughing. “Writing. Talking. Learning. When I read about archeology, when I put together information, talk about it with other people who care just as much as I do...it’s like how I feel after boxing. Good. Full.”She kisses the back of his neck. “I’m glad.” A pause. “Half the time, in my anthro and strategy and diplomacy classes, I feel kind of like that. The other half, I’m just…” She trails off. “Just...you know...angry. But I came here because I want to help people,” she finishes quietly. “I need to remember that.”He is silent for a moment. “If I wanted to help people, to help my family, help others--if that was my whole mission in applying and getting accepted--I could have gone into medical or security. Science track...It’s something I did for myself.”She nudges him. “Scientists help people a lot.”“You know what I mean.” He sighs. “It’s been nice, getting to fill my brain, not having any of the, the responsibilities from home.”She makes a sympathetic noise, and he suddenly worries he’s misrepresenting his home life. “My family is--is great. They’re good people,” he says. “I miss them. I just...stuff wasn’t always easy where I come from, that’s all.”“Like what?” she asks, voice gentle in the dark.Chakotay closes his eyes. He hasn’t told anyone about this, not anyone on Earth. But the girl’s question is calm and soft and genuine, and he gets the sense she’s neither prying nor asking just to be polite.“My grandad got sick,” he says. “I had to take care of him. I was a kid, I was scared… But I don’t blame my parents. They were doing what they could.” Chakotay swallows. “Being here...there's things that are fucked up, but sometimes it’s nice not to have to be that afraid all the time,” he admits quietly.She presses her face against his back, hugging him tightly.“There’s stuff going on in my time,” he adds. “Federation...stuff. I wasn’t sure if I should leave my--” He almost says planet, correcting at the last minute to something that gives less information. “--home, and come here. But I did. And now, I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing, studying at the Academy when my family needs me. I told myself I was helping them by making it here, but maybe I was just selfish. But if I stayed at home and didn’t apply, that felt selfish too. I don’t know where what I want ends and what my family needs begins, even if I was able to figure out what my family and my pla--community do need and whether Starfleet is really going to give me what I need to help them with it.”After a few seconds of silence, his visitor murmurs gently, “That sounds like a lot of stuff.”Chakotay exhales. “Yeah.”“I think it would take most people a lot of time to figure all that out.”“Thanks.”They lie in silence for a few minutes. He thinks she might be falling asleep, but then she says, still sounding wide awake, “I hope the Academy can give you some of what you’re looking for. Despite the, you know, problems.”“Thanks,” he says simply. “If you choose to stay, I hope it does for you, too.”Another long silence.“I’ve been thinking,” she whispers, “of trying again. What I did my first year. Reporting them.” He can feel her swallow. “Not the people I get in stupid fights with, not all of them, anyway. Them, the people who do things that are really wrong.”He is silent, rubbing his thumb over their entwined hands to let her know he is listening.“I told one of my friends in judicial track that the Academy wasn’t doing enough to hold us all, you know, accountable to duty. Students and staff. That I wanted to change that.” He can hear the hurt twisting through her voice. “And she laughed. She was nice about it, she was kind, but...that was the first thing she did, she laughed. She didn’t think the real problems at the Academy could be fixed any time soon. It would take something extraordinary, she said.”Pulling her face away from Chakotay’s back, she makes a sad huh noise. “I believed her. I mean, it’s the truth. It would take a lot, more than one person--even if they were the right person, which I’m not. I’m...me. Stupid and fucked up and definitely not extraordinary.”They are silent for a long moment, Chakotay stroking his thumb over her hand.“I lost enough before I even got here. Why should I have to deal with this bullshit now?”Another moment of silence. Finally, Chakotay says, “Whatever you do, take care.”“I’m going to do it.”“I know.”She sighs. “It’s impossible.”“Maybe so.”Another long silence. “I’m going to fail.”Chakotay is silent for a moment, trying to think back, sorting through dates. “Does the name Kobayashi Maru mean anything to you?”His guest sounds puzzled at the apparent change of subject. “A ship?”“Yeah.” He hesitates. “But it has...another meaning, in my Starfleet. It has to do with what Starfleet wants in their officers.” He squeezes her hand. “They want people like you.”She is silent for a long moment. “I’ll take your word for it,” she says quietly.“Just take care,” he tells her again, “whatever you do.”“I’m probably going to get kicked out of the Academy for this. Those people know what they’re doing.”“Then take care,” he tells her, “after that happens.”“Thanks, Chakotay,” she whispers.Another long pause.“What are you going to do?”“I don’t know,” he tells her honestly.She presses another kiss to the back of his neck. “You’ll figure it out.”“Because I’m Starfleet?”“Yeah,” she says, curling back against him with a small sigh of contentment. “Because you’re Starfleet.” San Francisco sunlight creeps across Chakotay’s pillow, and he slowly opens his eyes. Each time he roused in the night, he wondered if the girl from the past might have vanished, and each time, she was still there, tangled against him. Now, he can feel the weight of her head on his chest even before he peers down at her. Her dark hair is spread across the blankets, her left cheek smushed against his bare chest and the collar of her borrowed pajamas gaping to reveal one slender shoulder.He gazes at her, watching her sleep as the sun rises in the sky. Finally, she stirs, smiling at him through sleepy eyes.“Good morning, Chakotay.”“Good morning, stranger.”She laughs, peeling herself off of him and sitting up. “You’re still here.”“So are you. How’re your ribs?”She stretches. “Fine.”“How’d you sleep?”“Good. How’d you sleep?”“Great.” He smiles. “Starfleet’re taking their sweet time with the repairs, that’s for sure.”“Suits me.” She flops back down onto the bed, then laughs again. “You make it sound like they’re fixing the plumbing or something.”“You made it sound like they were filtering centuries apart like noodles.”“Maybe they are.”“Maybe so.” She closes her eyes, stretching against the pillow. “It’s not all bad, Starfleet Academy. Never a boring week.”He chuckles. “You can say that again.”“Never a boring--”Chakotay dives beneath the pillow before she can finish. "Why is that your sense of humor?” he asks, groaning.She smirks. “You wouldn’t have me any other way.”“No,” he agrees, tugging her back down into the blankets and pulling her against his chest until they rest in the inverse of the position they fell asleep in last night. “I wouldn’t.”She is quiet for a moment, then asks suspiciously. “Are you smelling my hair?”“No!”“You were. I heard you sniff.”“Well, your hair is in my face.”“It does that,” she deadpans.Silence.“I’ll miss this,” he says softly. “I’ll miss you.”In his arms, he can feel her exhale. “I’ll miss you too, Chakotay.”For several minutes, they lay in silence, breathing together in the growing sunlight.“I think,” she murmurs, “I’d like to tell you my name.”Chakotay nods absently. “You are from my past. It’s not like I’ll hurt the timeline, as long as I don’t immediately go search you on the network and read your life story out loud to you.”She chuckles. “I certainly doubt you’ll know anything about me without looking me up. I mean, how many Starfleet officers from the twenty-third century have you even heard of? Much less enough to recognize them by only their first name?”Chakotay thinks of his first-year Federation History lecture. A few dozen familiar names--and how many officers served over the course of the century? Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. How many of those names does he know? A miniscule fraction of a percentage point. “I’m willing to play the odds,” he tells her, pressing a kiss into her hair.“Just don’t tell me anything, even if you know it,” she orders jokingly.“Of course not,” he laughs. She shifts slightly in his arms, getting more comfortable, and he lets himself lean back on the mattress before her tumbling hair can make him sneeze.“There are probably plenty of officers with my first name, anyway.” He can hear the smile in her voice. “My name is Philippa.”Chakotay feels as though he has been dropped in burning liquid, then in ice.“Nice to meet you,” Philippa says cheerfully, but Chakotay barely hears her, his mind spinning through dates and timelines and holoimages, footage in history texts.Maybe this is a different Philippa. Anything is possible. There are probably plenty of officers with my first name... The holoimage from his history lecture haunts him. Wavy hair. Bright eyes. The bone structure of her face, the same in middle age as it is now.A nineteen-year-old cadet, in 2220.It’s her.He realizes that he has completely frozen, his body tensing.“Chakotay?” Philippa’s voice is strained and quiet.Chakotay opens his mouth, then closes it. What can he say?“You know me,” she whispers. Not a question.He gulps, a million responses running through his head only to be rejected one by one.There are so many things he could say.He can’t say anything.Emotions are flooding him, and he forces himself not to cry, not to cry, do not do that to her! She! Will! Hear! You! Chakotay pulls her to him, wrapping both arms around her so tightly that he can feel her spine pressing against his ribcage. She’s so small, tense in his arms and hyperventilating slightly, but she curls into him, grabbing his hand with hers as they cling to each other in silence.Finally, Philippa’s breathing starts to calm, and she smooths her fingers over his left hand. “Thanks,” she says shakily.Why is she thanking him?“Thanks for not saying anything. Whatever it is you know.” Her voice grows steadier as she continues speaking, until he can even hear a glimmer of a smile. He marvels at her composure.“I don’t think I’ll be able to keep myself from reading as much as I can into the intense snuggling,” she tells him. “I don’t know if it’s pity snuggling or congratulatory snuggling or both, but I guess I don’t end up a particularly horrible person, or you’d be on the other side of the room by now.” The ghost of a laugh. “Beyond that...well, like I said. I shouldn’t know. And I really don’t want to.”Chakotay eases his hold on her slightly, sighing into her hair and considering several responses before rejecting all of them. What she says is true on all counts, and any reassurance he can give would itself be information.He wonders what it will be like to look her in the face again, knowing how she is going to die. Maybe it’s good, in a way, that he’s seen as much death as he has, living at the edge of the Federation. If he had grown up on Earth, Philippa’s death would seem terribly anomalous, a violent end to only half a life. As it is, between his own childhood--not to mention the last few years surrounded by current, future, and former Starfleet personnel--the revelation of Philippa’s identity doesn’t feel solely tragic. This angry, confused girl became a legendary captain, after all, and lived longer than many of her peers in a dangerous profession.He finds his voice. “Well, I might as well continue the telltale snuggling, seeing as you’ve already gleaned all the information you can from it.”She squeezes his hand again. He squeezes back.For several minutes, they doze, gradually relaxing into the mattress together. As the knowledge of his visitor’s identity sinks in, Chakotay has time to mull over feelings beyond his initial shock.He’s holding Philippa Georgiou.He kissed Philippa Georgiou.Philippa Georgiou is wearing his pajamas.He tries not to giggle.Memories of the past night and day wash over him. He, Chakotay, fixed Philippa Georgiou’s fractured ribs. She, Philippa Georgiou, is on disciplinary probation. They, Chakotay and Philippa, knocked half the contents of his desk onto the floor during the world’s most impulsive sparring match.Philippa Georgiou rubbed arnica onto his shoulder.Philippa Georgiou eats horrible neon protein cubes. Philippa Georgiou told him he was ‘very Starfleet.’Chakotay can feel his eyes watering again. Many Starfleet officers have died in brave and horrible ways over the centuries, and there’s just one part of Philippa’s story that ever stuck out to him, one detail among the handful of facts he knows about the end of her life. It wasn’t anything the professor mentioned when lecturing about the war, an implication at best, but he remembers reading it, later, in the text. One ship confronted by dozens, not fleeing to safety because there were people to protect behind them, out on the edge of space.Chakotay wonders if he will be able to resist the urge to read about Philippa, when this crisis ends. To drink in every detail of her life. Probably not.He curls more tightly around her. This seems oddly unfair, in a very specific way--as soon as the Academy goes back to normal, he’ll be able to know the entire course of this girl’s life, while she’ll have to slowly live it.As if reading his thoughts, Philippa says softly, “I’m going to miss you, Chakotay. It’s strange to think that you can read information about me, but back in my time, you just...don’t exist. At all. Yet.”He tries to imagine what that would be like. The idea is disconcerting--sharing more than a day with someone you will never again be able to meet or see or even hear about.“Hang on.”Ignoring Philippa’s discontented grumble as he slides out from under the covers, Chakotay pads over to his desk, rummaging through the bottom drawer. Triumphantly, he yanks out a camera and, tugging a t-shirt over his bare chest, he climbs back onto the bed.“Say cheese, Philippa.”“Pippa.” She leans against his shoulder, snaking her arm around him as he wraps his around her lower back, holding the camera out in front of him.He grins. “Pippa.”The camera clicks.He pulls it back into their laps, pressing the button in the corner. “Hang on, it’ll print.”Philippa takes the photo from him, smiling, as he prints a second copy for himself.“It might look like an old-fashioned photo, but that’s elasticine printing. Waterproof and nearly impossible to tear. Scan it in--I mean, if you want--when you get back, but that should be tough enough to stick with you until then.”“It’s perfect.” She tucks the photo into the front pajama pocket. “Don’t let me forget it when I change back into my uniform.” Glancing at the door, she adds, “It’s probably safer to keep it on my person, whatever I’m wearing.”“Well, I hope on your behalf that this anomaly clears up only once you’re back in your nice dignified twenty-third century uniform.”“Mmm.” She turns her face into his chest, snuggling into his t-shirt. “I don’t know if that uniform will happen for a while…”The alarm, which has been sounding even more infrequently since the later part of the night, suddenly picks up again, with a different pitch and tone. Temporal realignment in progress. Move to a clear area. Screech. Screech. Temporal realignment in progress. Move to a clear area. Philippa makes a surprised noise, slipping off the bed and padding to the center of the room. “I’ll miss you, Chakotay,” she says in a rush.It’s happening. All of a sudden it’s happening. Chakotay slides to the floor to stand in front of her, daring to grab her for one final hug. She holds him tightly, pressing her cheek against his chest, then they step away from each other, standing only centimeters apart.“I’ll miss you, Philippa,” he tells her, trying to compress everything he feels into those few words.“Your future is still in my future. I’m allowed to tell you to do something,” she says fiercely. “I can tell you to stay safe. Take care, Chakotay. Please.”“I will,” he tells her. “I promise.”She smiles at him, eyes wet with tears, so young and angry and beautiful.He can’t tell her to stay safe. He can’t tell her to do anything.What can he say?“Thank you,” he says. “Thank you.”They stare into each others’ eyes, and Chakotay can’t resist adding, “You’re extraordinary, Philippa,” and after all, he’s not giving anything away about her life, is he, because he’s not talking about the hero he knows from the history books. He’s talking about the girl in front of him.“You’re wonderful, Chakotay,” Philippa says. “You’re Starfleet --”And all at once, she’s gone.Chakotay stands for several moments, staring at the empty space. The temporal anomaly has been eliminated at this time, comes a voice over the PA system--a real person, this time, not an automated alarm system. All cadets and personnel, please report to your primary indoor emergency meeting point for check-in... Chakotay makes his way to B Cafeteria in a daze. It hurts like hell to close the door to his empty room, knowing that Philippa will still be gone when he returns, the sound of her voice and the warmth of her arms around him only a memory.But he’s been bracing for this for more than a day.At least they had a chance to say goodbye.In the cafeteria, cadets and staff sit at tables as medical personnel and administration confirm everyone’s presence, identity and health. Chakotay rests his chin on his hand, listening to the babble of voices around him. Some cadets are chattering about their experiences, others are reading or studying, and still others are staring solemnly into space.He wonders who they talked to, and what they saw.It’s late afternoon when Chakotay walks slowly back to his room on the second floor of Cochrane. He has a physics lab in an hour, and he knows just who he’ll have to see in it. But as he packs his gym bag for a trip to the ring after the lab, he recognizes, with surprise, a familiar feeling, not unlike the calm, centered feeling he has after boxing or when out doing fieldwork. Or while talking to his friends back home.His shared confession with the bloody girl from the past feels like it’s left him lighter, somehow, and a little less alone.He imagines telling someone, someday, about meeting one of Starfleet’s heroes as a cadet. What was she like, Chakotay?
Young. Angry. Not what you’d think.
Not yet.
Slinging his gym bag over his shoulder and stepping out into the hall, Chakotay wonders what Philippa might say about him when telling someone about their meeting, back in her own time, which in turn gets him pondering another question. What, if anything, might someone from a hundred years in his future have had to hide from him, once they found out who he was?Well.Only one way to find out.