Disclaimer: I own the idea. Paramount owns the characters. I got the story by seeing a wedding set of rings at an antique store yesterday.
The old woman looked up at the bell ringing. Like the rest of the store, which dealt with antiques, the door had never been modernized. The old woman wanted the store to have a feel of stepping back in time. She felt this was important. The old shop had been there more then three hundred years, huddled on a back street near the Academy.
The old woman smiled at the younger woman who had walked in. She could tell the younger one commanded authority, but had an eye for beauty. Long reddish brown hair pulled into a braid which went down her back, blue-gray eyes, freckles spotting her nose.
"May I help you?"
"I hope so. My mother's birthday is coming up and I want to find something that is unique, but is something she'd like."
"I'm sure we can find something," the old woman smiled again.
"Thank you, Mrs. . ."
"Holden. Louise Holden. But you can call may Louise. And you?"
"Kathryn. Kathryn Janeway," she said.
"Pretty name. Are you in Starfleet?" Louise said, directing Kathryn to one of the displays.
"Yes. In fact, I was just promoted to commander. We ship out at the end of the week and I need to get the present and sent before I go."
"Oh, I understand. If you don't mind me saying, you look awfully young to be a full blown commander."
Kathryn smiled. "Actually, I'll take that as a compliment." The two made small talk as Louise led Kathryn around the shop. Eventually, Kathryn decided on some copper pans, which when shined up, would look beautiful hanging in her mother's kitchen. She was about to pay for the pans when she spied a ring in the display case.
"That's a lovely ring."
"Which one?" Louise said, looking down into the glass.
"That one. The one that looks like it's carved. The small one," Kathryn said, pointing.
Louise pulled the ring from the case and put on the top, where Kathryn's slender finger picked it up. She brought it close to her face to look at it. It was basically a simple gold band, but it was crisscrossed with brass and inlaid with a delicate emerald.
"It's so beautiful," Kathryn said.
"Beautiful, yet very sad," Louise said, taking it from Kathryn and looking at it. "It used to be part of a set."
"What happened to the other one?"
"A young man came in here not long ago was looking for a ring for his mother. He saw the mate to this one and had to buy it as well. He liked the story that came with the ring."
"Story?" Kathryn asked.
"Years ago, there was this couple very much in love. He didn't have much more then the clothes on his back. He was an apprentice of a jeweler, learning the ropes, but he mainly wanted to design jewelry. He had an eye for it.
"The young woman he was in love with was from a family with wealth, but she didn't wear it like a badge. She was down to earth and generous. They met and fell in love and planned on marrying. He even designed the rings.
"The just before the wedding, he drowned while trying to save a young boy from a river. The current was too strong for the man. When they recovered him, they found in his grasp, the two bands. His beloved took them and held onto them forever. Eventually, she found another love and married him, but still, she held onto the rings. Then one day, her daughter went upstairs and found the woman had died, the rings held in her hand, over her heart."
"That is so sad," Kathryn said. "It's unfortunate that they couldn't be sold as a pair. It somehow makes the story all the sadder."
"The old woman wrote in her journal the night before she died that if true love had any meaning in life, then one day the ring would bring the two back together, as husband and wife as they should have been."
Kathryn again scrutinized the ring. "Since the mate has already been purchased and they've been split apart, could I buy this one. It's a shame to leave it there by itself."
Louise took the ring and slipped over Kathryn's right hand ring finger. "Of course I'll let you buy it. Besides, it seems to fit you, more then anyone else who's ever inquired about it. It's as if it were made for you."
Kathryn thanked Louise and left the shop. Louise followed her and watched the woman disappear from sight.
"If true love has any meaning, then the rings will bring the two back together as they should have been for life. . ."
**
"You don't need to replicate a ring, Chakotay. I have one that will work," Kathryn said, watching him scurry around the room, looking for the PADD which contained the drawings for the wedding rings he was going to make for them.
"But I want these to be special," Chakotay said, pulling up one of the cushions of the couch and looking under it.
"It is a special ring. It even has a story behind it," Kathryn said, coming up behind him and putting a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. "Look."
In her palm, Kathryn held the ring that she had bought, years before at a small antique shop near the Academy. Chakotay looked at it, then picked it up, examining it.
"I'll be damned," Chakotay said, giving the ring quickly back to Kathryn and scurrying into his room.
Kathryn sighed and rolled her eyes. A moment later, Chakotay re-emerged, holding a velvet pouch. "You're not going to believe it."
"What?"
"Well, take a look at this." Chakotay held out the pouch to Kathryn, who took it and opened it. Shaking it gently, a ring fell out into Kathryn's palm. The mate to her own, the only difference was that instead of a small emerald in the ring, it was a tiny opal. Ironically, both of their birthstones.
"I bought it years ago. . ."
". . .at a little antique store near the Academy. . ."
". . .ran by a woman. . ."
". . .named Louise Holden," Kathryn finished, looking up at Chakotay.
"She told you the legend?" Chakotay asked.
"And she told me that a young man had been in before and had bought a ring for his mother and bought the mate to mine."
"If true love has any meaning, then the rings will bring the two back together as they should have been for life," Chakotay repeated.
"Chakotay, how ironic can this be? We bought the rings at the same place, rings meant for two people who never got to be together. Even the gemstones match our birth months."
"Strange." Kathryn began looking at the rings closely. She noticed writing on the inside of Chakotay's ring. She held it in the light to see it better. She gasped and looked at her ring. "Well, I'll be damned."
"What?" Chakotay asked.
"Read the inside."
Chakotay took the rings and looked on the inside. "Well, I'll be."
"Is that a coincidence or what?" Kathryn asked.
"I don't know what to make of it," Chakotay said, placing the two rings together in the velvet pouch.
"Don't you? Chakotay, how strange is it to have a our names engraved on the opposite ring? Without the other even knowing they possessed the mate?"
It was true, for on the inside of Kathryn's ring, Chakotay's name was engraved and on the inside of Chakotay's, Kathryn's name appeared.
And beside the two names on the rings, was one simple word.
Forever.
**Finish**