Title: The Bodyguard 4/?
Author: Maxine
See introduction for pairings, disclaimers
and author
notes.
Frustrations
Seven days, it's been seven days
and this shit is
still going on. Tom sighed in exasperation.
He looked
around to find himself once again
surrounded by
people, people who worked for and
with Chakotay. They
were turning his house into a fortress
and it was
getting quite annoying. The constant
banging, the
sounds of laser drills boring holes
into the stone of
his home. As he laid on a lounge
chair by the pool,
trying desperately to concentrate
on an up and coming
benefit concert, suddenly a loud
'kabang' made him
jump. Miral, who was in the pool,
screamed. Tom had
reached the end of his last tattered
nerve.
"THAT'S IT," he screamed! Pulling
himself out of the
chair, "Chakotay! I'm done!" Storming
into the house,
he continued to bellow for his 'bodyguard'.
Finally the object of his immense
displeasure
appeared.
"Get them the hell out of here now,
Chakotay," Tom
roared. "I can't even hear myself
think with all this
noise."
"Tom...." Chakotay stopped himself
from telling the
younger man to take his whining
elsewhere. "Look,
they're almost done. All the work
will be finished
this afternoon." He remained calm,
and spoke quietly.
Tom listened to the tone, not the
words. He felt a
bit calmer." They're done today,
Chakotay. Whether you
say they are or not. I can't concentrate,
I need quiet
for that."
"Obviously you do all your thinking
when you're not
on stage," Chakotay chuckled, unable
to help himself.
"Ha! Ha! Very funny," Tom smirked.
"I know my music
doesn't appeal to you but if you
want to keep getting
paid, I have to appeal to the masses."
"Not to worry, Tom. I have found
a way to get through
each ear splitting moment."
"Oh, and just how do you do that?"
"I bought earplugs," Chakotay smiled,
flashing
dimples, then walked away.
"Smart ass!" Tom yelled after him.
Unable to hold
back a smile himself, Tom chuckled
at the older man's
solution. Tension between the two
of them seemed to
have eased over the past week. Tom
noticed that
Chakotay seemed to open up a bit.
He was willing to
joke a bit, and take some of Tom's
teasing. The blond
felt good about the relationship
at this point.
Hopefully he could eventually get
his former lover to
talk about his loss.
Tom was troubled by the amount of
times, during the
past week, he found the other man
in his bungalow,
deep in thought while listening
to recordings of
Rose's. Seeing the clear evidence
of pain and sadness
on his friend's face, made Tom wish
he could wipe all
of away with just one word or action.
Remembering when
they were lovers, Tom had always
been able to drag
Chakotay back from the edges of
regret with an
antidote or two about whatever current,
nail-biting
situation they were in at the time.
Even though that
changed dramatically, when he turned
tail and ran at
the first twinge of seriousness
between the two of
them, Tom knew that once Chakotay
forgave him, he
could still do it. Obviously, he's
finally forgiven
him.
Was it time to admit to the bronze
man how scared he
had been all those years ago? Could
Tom open *himself*
up like that? Maybe, if he told
Chakotay of his
complete sense of loss over what
he ruined, Chakotay
espress his feelings over the loss
of Rose. Tom
wouldn't kid himself into believing
that there was any
comparison between the two losses,
but still. If he
could be honest enough with his
former lover, maybe,
just maybe the older man would be
honest with him.
Snorting to himself, {Get real, Paris.
Chakotay would
never open up to you, not even on
his deathbed.}
Shrugging off the depressing thought,
he turned and
went out to find Miral. They had
a 'date' this
afternoon with a couple of dolls
and a tea set. Once
he was outside, the noise hit him
again. Shivering,
Tom looked around, but Miral was
no where to be found.
"Miral," he called out, as he walked
towards her
playhouse. No answer. "Miral, daddy's
ready for the
party." When he got to the front
door, he knocked.
This was her private place, he showed
her respect for
that by never just walking in. "Honey?"
When there was
no answer, Tom decided it was time
to ignore that
respect, if she was going to play
games with him all
bets were off.
Opening the door of the playhouse
revealed it empty.
Shocked for a moment, he turned
and left. He started
to think about where else she could
be, as he headed
for the house. He walked in through
the kitchen, many
a times he would find her sitting
there watching and
talking to Neelix. The Talaxian
was there, but alone.
"Neelix, has Miral been through
here in the past few
minutes?"
"Looking up from his task, "No, Tom.
I haven't seen
her since she went out to join you
by the pool an hour
ago. She hiding again?" Neelix smiled.
"I guess so, if she comes through
here, tell her that
I'll be in the play house waiting,"
he requested as he
continued his walk through the kitchen.
Up the stairs
to her room, maybe she decided to
bring 'Pooh" with
her this time. Knocking on her bedroom
door. "Miral,
tea time," he announced as he opened
the door. When he
found she wasn't there either, a
sense of panic
started to take hold. {Where in
hell is she?} He
wondered as he went back down the
stairs quickly.
"Miral," he yelled! "It's time to
stop the game, where
are you?"
He could hear the panic in his voice,
although he
wasn't sure why he felt it. She
was in the house
somewhere.
Chakotay suddenly appeared around
a corner, startling
the blond. "Jesus, Chakotay don't
do that," he barked.
"Have you seen Miral?"
"No. Not in the past hour or so,"
he stated. "Wasn't
she by the pool with you?"
"She was, but we're suppose to have
our weekly tea
party. I thought she went to the
playhouse to get
ready. She's not there, or in her
room." Tom's voice
betrayed him, he was suddenly very
worried.
Chakotay picked up the panic in the
younger man's
voice. "We'll find her, she's probably
just hiding
out. I noticed she likes playing
hide and seek," he
smiled. "I think she got that concept
from her mother.
B'Elanna always loved a good search
and conquer
problem."
Tom couldn't help but laugh, Chakotay
was right.
B'Elanna thrived on the thrill of
digging through a
computer to find a problem and coming
out triumphant.
The two men began a search and conquer
game of their
own. Tom resolved to give his wayward
daughter a
lesson she wouldn't soon forget
for scaring the crap
out of him.
Within fifteen minutes the entire
staff was involved,
Tom's sense of panic had returned
tenfold. "Miral!
This isn't funny, anymore. The game
is over! Come out
now or else." Tom's voice was shaky,
his body near
trembling.
As he paced through the kitchen,
the sound of the
comm system buzzing startled him.
Punching the receive
button, an audio transmission came
through.
"Hello." A distorted voice
shrilled. "Tell Mr.
Superstar, I have his precious Miral."
Tom shuddered.
"You bastard," he bellowed
into the phone!
"Oh, it's you, Mr. Superstar. Surprised
you answered
the phone yourself. Well, you can
meet me in an hour
and we'll talk about you getting
your brat back."
"You son of a bitch. Hurt her and
you're a dead man!"
Chakotay appeared in front of Tom
suddenly. He
motioned for Tom to keep talking.
"Now, now, Mr. Superstar, I think
it would be unwise
for you to threaten me at this point
in our
relationship. Unless of course you
don't care about
your daughter. " The menacing voice
seemed to sneer at
him. "Besides, it isn't her I truly
want. But she is
an means to the end."
"Let me talk to her. I want to know
she's all right,"
Tom pleaded.
"Daddy, come and get me please."
Miral's voice begged
through the comm.
"I'm coming honey. Just sit tight."
"Very touching, Mr. Superstar. Want
to see her again?
Go to the armory. Be there in an
hour. Oh, and tell
your bodyguard you come alone or
Miral's dead." The
comm link was cut.
Tom let out a wail. "Damn, son of
a bitch! I'll break
every bone in his body." He then
turned to Chakotay.
"How the fuck did he get passed
you wonderful security
system, huh? You've been preaching
to me that you're
the best. Well guess what. YOU SUCK,"
he raged.
"Tom... stop," Chakotay said in a
quiet tone.
"Stop! Stop! My fucking kid is in
the hands of some
lunatic and you want me to stop?"
"TOM! Enough! We've got to go and
get Miral back. You
have to calm down," Chakotay ordered.
"You're not going anyway. I am,"
he roared as he
pushed passed the older man.
Reaching out to stop him, Chakotay
grabbed his arm.
"No! This is *my* job. This is what
you've been paying
*me* for."
"Didn't you hear him Chakotay? He
said *I* go alone
or she's dead. That's exactly what
I intend to do."
"That's exactly how you'll get yourself
killed, you
idiot! Think first! Then act." Chakotay
had lost all
sense of patience. "You want to
make Miral an orphan?
Is that your goal? Because that's
exactly what you'll
be doing if you walk in there blind
and without me."
Tom was trembling, but he heard what
Chakotay said.
"No. I don't want that."
"All right then," Chakotay said.
He turned to Nick
and nodded. The other security man
took off in a run.
"Where is he going?" Tom whispered.
"He's going to do his job," Chakotay
answered calmly.
He then hit the intercom. "Bob,
did you get it?"
"The transmission was sent through
masked signals but
I have the general location. Three
more minutes and
it'll be exact"
"Good. When you have it. Send it
through to Paul on
the hover-car's comm, we're on our
way." Chakotay
turned back to Tom. "Let's go."
"Where are we going?"
"To catch a mouse without any cheese,"
Chakotay
stated cryptically.
Tom couldn't do anything but follow
as the
professional left the house. By
the time they reached
the car, Paul had the information.
Chakotay looked it
over and frown. "This can't be right."
"What?" Tom asked.
"The transmission came from The Delaney
sisters'
house," he said as he got in the
car.
"No way," Tom said stunned, joining
the older man in
the back.
"According to this readout, it came
from 8473 Queens
Street."
"That's their address, but why in
hell would either
of them kidnap Miral?"
"I don't know. Unless, they're in
trouble also."
Chakotay thought for a minute, then
he turned back to
the comm unit and punched in a few
things.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm double checking to make sure
Bob got it right.
*And* checking to see if the ladies
are even at home."
"Oh," Tom whispered. His mind was
running through a
series of conversations, trying
to remember if either
Megan or Jenny mentioned that they
would be gone over
the weekend. He couldn't remember,
the only thought
that kept coming forward was Miral
was alone with some
manic and she was scared to death.
Chakotay broke his train of thought,
"The
transmission did originate from
their home, but they
aren't there. Or at least sensors
indicate they
aren't,"
Chakotay spoke in a measured, cold
voice. "Unless this
bastard has found a way override
my commands."
"How could he do that? I mean not
even Tuvok could do
that when we were on Voyager," Tom
asked in
puzzlement.
"It's not possible. Not even my own
people *now* know
my codes," Chakotay answered.
Tom watched as the dark haired man
processed any
possibilities. He knew that Chakotay's
mind worked
much different from anyone else,
when it came to his
command codes. When they were in
the Delta Quadrant,
no one but no one ever knew all
the different
overrides the former Maquis captain
had hidden in the
computer. Tom remembered one time;
Chakotay told him
that when he first accepted the
First Officer's
position, he spent an entire night
hiding all sorts of
commands. He said it was just in
case he found that
the captain wasn't as truthful as
she seemed when
talking about integrating the two
crews. 'A
contingency plan' he had called
it.
While Tom reflected on his past relationship
with the
big Maquis protector, Chakotay was
signaling all
parties in each position. Nick was
already at the
armory, with three others, at a
safe distance. They
could see everything that moved
in and around the
place but they would go undetected.
Ken Dalby and
Gerron Tem were at the Delaney's
place awaiting
instructions.
In his mind, Tom came back to the
problem at hand.
Something was bothering him about
the location. He
knew someone else lived not too
far from Jenny and
Megan. Someone, who worked for him,
it just wouldn't
come to him. Damn it, he knew he
should have spent the
week going over Ray's files.
"That's it! It's Ray not the Delaney
sisters," Tom
shouted.
"What? How do you know?" Chakotay
asked, anger raised
quickly at hearing the little weasel's
name.
"He lives on the same street. Four
houses up from
them on the other side of the street."
The information
rushed back too quickly. "I remember
when Jenny
brought me to their house the first
time, she
commented that Ray was the one who
suggested the area.
Then she pointed to his house. It's
a one-story
structure, flagstone and yellow
pine. Oh and there is
a small bird bath in the front,
it has a carving of a
music cleft as a base."
Chakotay punched the information
into the computer as
Tom spoke, his anger growing with
each passing second.
Twice now, Tom had stopped him from
breaking the
fucker's neck, *this* time Chakotay
would do it. "I'm
going to rip that bastard's arm
off and shove it down
his throat, *then* I'm going to
break his neck," he
grumbled, he thought to himself
but when he heard Tom
mumble an agreement, he realized
he was wrong.
"Can I break every finger *before*
you rip the arm
off? How about letting me make the
path easier for the
arm, I'll knock every fucking tooth
out of his mouth
first. I can't believe he'd do this."
Suddenly another
thought came to him. "Chakotay,
I'm sorry I flipped on
your back at the house. This wasn't
your fault. Miral
knows Ray, but she doesn't know
that he's not working
for me anymore. Of course she would
let him in the
yard if she saw him outside the
gate. And she would go
with him, if he told her I said
it was all right," Tom
sighed as he ran his hand through
his hair. "Even
though she doesn't particularly
like him, I've taught
her that she should respect her
elders and always
listen to those she knows."
"I did and do understand Tom. It's
my job to make
sure shit like this doesn't happen.
I slacked off.
Again, I have to say that it could
be a very large
mistake having me in this position."
"No. This wasn't your fault, Chakotay.
I should have
told Miral that Ray wasn't one of
the adults she had
to listen to anymore."
"I should've been walking the perimeter,"
Chakotay
said in a self-incrementing tone.
"Chakotay, don't beat yourself up
over this. I know
you are doing everything you can.
Miral probably
walked out of the yard on her own.
She knows she isn't
supposed to do that, but if she
saw Ray she may have.
And he counted on it." Tom stopped
speaking when the
hover-car pulled to a halt. He looked
out the front
window, to watch, as Ray's own hover-car
pulled out of
the driveway. He could see the top
of Miral's head
peaking out the back window. He
let out a gasp.
"There! She's in the back," he cried
out.
"Now," Chakotay yelled, as he jumped
out of the car.
Tom watched in sick fascination
as Ken, Gerron,
Chakotay and John Tripper descended
on the hover-car
still in his former manager's drive.
Paul pulled up to
stop the car from going any further.
Tom pulled himself together and leapt
out of the
backseat. He stormed over to the
waiting car, ripped
open the door and pulled the offending
bastard out by
his forearm. "You fucking
son of a bitch," Tom
bellowed as he slammed Ray against
the frame of the
car. Then with every ounce of hatred
and disgust he
could muster, Tom punched Ray in
the face. As he did,
he let go of the smaller man, allowing
the full impact
of the blow to throw him against
the car. All five men
watched as Ray slid to the ground.
Tom shook out his hand, looked at
Chakotay and said,
"Sorry to steal your thunder." His
tone flat, almost
dead. His eyes caught movement in
the back of the car.
"Miral," he cried! He opened the
door and dragged his
daughter to him. Enveloping her
in his arms, "You
okay, honey?"
"Yeah, daddy. I'm fine," she answered
quietly. Her
voice betrayed her as it cracked.
"I was so scared,
daddy. He was so mean to me."
"Did he hit you? Hurt you in any
way," Tom asked?
She shook her head 'no' then hugged
her father again.
Both Paris' watched as Ken hauled
Ray off the ground
and tossed him in the back of Gerron's
hover-car.
"He's going to have a chat with the
local law
enforcement agency," Ken snapped.
"I want to know what else he's involved
with. If it's
him who has been sending the letters
and torched Tom's
house," Chakotay demanded. He hadn't
moved from his
spot on the opposite side of the
car. He knew himself,
if he got much closer to Ray, there
wouldn't be any
investigation. The little shit would
be dead. A sense
of déjà vu came over
him; he felt this before, when
they found Neil Forman. He was *now*
positive that he
had to get out, get away. His feelings
for Tom came
back with avengence; he felt himself
stagger at the
admission.
Chakotay looked at the blond and
his daughter, his
heart constricted. {No! Not again,}
he screamed to
himself. {I will *not* lose another
one.} He had to
leave, Chakotay turned away and
began walked down the
road, passed the hover-cars parked
there. Walking off
into the afternoon, away from the
one person who could
cause him to lose his self-control,
lose himself. He
would contact Greg as soon as he
was able to speak
again.
He heard Tom call after him but ignored
the voice. He
blocked out all the cries for him
to come back. There
was no going back, not anymore.
He couldn't stay and
watch Tom die, watch Miral lose
her only parent. He
couldn't stay and be sucked back
into the place that
caused far too much pain. He would
rather die himself
then go through that again. Later
he would hand over
every piece of information he had
gathered this week
to Greg. Then he'd be gone.
As Chakotay walked away from the
others, he failed to
notice the dead eyes that followed
him at a distance.
Eyes focused on his every step,
eyes that hid the rage
and hatred for the former Maquis
Captain. Eyes
belonging to the person who was
bent on taking
everything from him.
TBC