Bound as our lives are to the tyranny of time, it is through what we know of history that we are delivered from our bonds and escape--into time. A.L. Rowse
--oOo--
From the observation deck, they stared out at familiar stars. Finally, familiar stars.
"So I guess she's staying." He did not turn to look at her, but he caught the movement of a shrug in his peripheral vision.
"I'm half-surprised we've made it here ourselves," Janeway replied.
He huffed at the bald-faced lie. Her monomaniacal belief in their return was the sharp, unbendable spear she risked their lives with repeatedly. If their destiny had been in his nomadic hands, they would have put down stakes in half a dozen habitable planets. Hell, at this moment, the two of them would be playing Adam and Eve on New Earth instead of celebrating with cocktails, here, on the edge of the Alpha Quadrant.
She sipped her wine and regarded the stars. To be accurate, she regarded the glints of light that left those stars millions of years ago, a jewel case of history stretching through blackness to guide wayward travelers. A fragment of something she read long ago came to her: "Take from the altars of the past the fire--not the ashes." Her own history swiveled around her, smiling, drinking, and making small talk.
--oOo--
Janeway knew the possibility she might not return home. The ship, with its new bioneural technologies, could be damaged in ways not yet imagined. Voyager's defenses could be breached and she could be killed or captured and never returned. Life support systems could fail before help arrived. Previously unknown and therefore undetected disease could wipe out her entire crew after the casual handshake of some friendly First Contact.
More than once, she awoke from a dream of a small, isolated craft severed from its mothership and she its luckless inhabitant. A panic would encircle her chest as she drifted between dim stars in a black chasm, void of light or hope. Her dream self raged while fear and sweat trickled from her back and soaked the bed sheets.
--oOo--
Chakotay sat motionless in the holosuite. His nature wasn't natural. He slowly breathed in what smelled and felt like warm desert air. An artificial breeze skimmed his short bristle of hair. Cut-off from his tribe, he wanted desperately to practice their rituals. Feet tucked under his haunches, back straight, shoulders relaxed, hands open and waiting, he tried. He threw himself open to the cosmos and listened with all his senses for guidance. He meditated to the texture and rhythm of machine-made nature.
And so it was with her. He buried his face in auburn salvation and pressed the sharpness of her curves into soft, wet grass. She strained against him and then coiled her limbs around his. Lost, he wanted her to find him now, to direct his actions and bring him home. When he kissed her, he tasted Starfleet and the ship hummed beneath the golden surface of her skin.
--oOo--
She was without self-doubt, infuriatingly certain of her role. He challenged her with the confidence that she'd dismiss his opinions casually--as if the attention required of her to do so were mere inconvenience, a pause between orders. Assured of this, he could openly throw words at her he'd never speak otherwise: reckless, rash, wrong.
"An unnecessary risk," he'd charge. She'd shrug and give her orders.
"Are you trying to get us killed?" he'd accuse this self-appointed savior. Afterward, she didn't always spare him I-told-you-sos. It wasn't his ship.
--oOo--
Almost there. She can't breathe anymore so she closes her throat tight against the pounding current. Her fingers and toes tingle from adrenaline and lack of oxygen. Through half-closed eyes she can see the barricade inches away. Almost there! Suddenly, large hands crush her shoulders and lift her from the water before she reaches her goal. Her burning lungs fill with air as she screams her outrage.
"Katie! Katie, what the hell were you doing?" he shakes his daughter roughly and carries her to the beachfront.
"I was going to win," she protests angrily between ragged coughs. The barricade's image floats more clearly in her mind's eye than her father's face.
"You were going to drown!" Exasperation and concern battle in his voice. Onlookers watch as his skin shifts from white to red to white again. "Katie," he whispers into her wet hair, "what were you thinking?"
She presses her fingernails deep into the heels of her waterlogged palms, her eyes as gray as the waves colliding across the barricade. "I was going to win."
--oOo--
"Maybe you see spirits and guides because of the hallucinogens in the roots," he grumbled. Kolopak grew quiet and sat down across from his son, who waited for the lecture.
"Did you know," he began, "our ancestors saw no difference between science and religion? Study and discovery were spiritual acts, sacred if not ritual. By the time ancient Europeans arrived on Mayan land, our ancestors had documented the most accurate solar calendar on earth--based on advanced astronomy and mathematics." He paused to consider his words and direction as his son considered running away. His son did not look convinced. "Did you ever think, Chakotay, that the hallucinogens merely reveal answers that were already written in the minds and hearts of those who quest? Could we find our truths in other ways? Perhaps, but this is how we do it, son. It's our tradition."
"It's backward. Like everything else here."
--oOo--
Screw the admiral and her self-sacrifice, she thought as she stood and charged her way across the mess hall. I'll take the fire, her target now a hands-breadth away.
--oOo--
At the Academy, they looked at his skin, heard his name, and made assumptions. They had whitewashed their subcultures and regional differences in the noble attempt to overcome bias by embracing The Other, adopting it, co-opting it, until it belonged to no one at all and everyone at once. Just a teenager, he was an outsider seeking entrance and acceptance. So who cared if they looked to him for some kind of mystical insight while looking down on that insight as superstition? If he exploited their vestigial prejudices for his own purposes, if they believed him to be more spiritual, wiser and attuned to mystical forces which excluded them, and if he let them--if he half believed it himself--what of that?
--oOo--
He ran to the Maquis with the fervency of an Indian who knows what genocide is and with the relief of a nomad who knows exile.
--oOo--
If there was one thing both his tribe and Starfleet agreed on, it was that no one could lead a fractious and disaffected people, and that no one would follow a leader without passion and probity. When the Federation abandoned Dorvan V to the Cardassians, the faith he'd held in his new tribe wavered. The death of his father was both unimaginable and inevitable. Of course his people would be sacrificed to a treaty signed by others for the benefit of others.
And so he joined a ferocious and futile war as history repeated itself. Unknowingly dutiful to his father's teachings, he listened to the voice that told him to leave Dorvan for Starfleet, to study and teach wartime strategy. He listened again when that voice told him to leave Starfleet for the Maquis, to use his expertise to defend and avenge what he had abandoned. Called late, called circuitously, but called.
So many battles passed, lives lost, and here he was aboard Voyager, his own ship destroyed, holding his outraged engineer by the shoulders. Torres demanded to know who Janeway was to order the destruction of the Array, to cut them off from hope of homecoming, to condemn them to a lifetime (or more) of exile. "She's the captain!" he growled.
--oOo--
Kes was her tour guide through aeroponics, describing the status of recent acquisitions and experimental hybrids. As she chirruped and nearly danced with excitement between the rows of plants, Janeway regarded the young woman--girl. No, woman. She wasn't sure anymore.
"This one, Captain, this one bears a delicious pink fruit. But if it isn't harvested as soon as it ripens, the roots begin to rot. So we're tending to it carefully, checking it every day. If we pluck the fruit just at the peak of ripeness..."
At one time it might have been the tenderness of an unexercised maternal instinct that warmed the captain's smile. She'd put marriage and motherhood on hold for one more mission that could be one more lifetime. It might also have grown from the affection of friendship, as unconditional as her love for the sister she watched grow up but might not watch grow old. Or perhaps, she thought as Kes reached a delicate hand between the green of the leaves, it was the vernal patience of an unconsidered lover.
"Oh, look. It's ready." Kes snapped the fruit from its stem, turned the soft globe over in her hands, then offered it up to Kathryn's lips. "Here, taste this."
--oOo--
"Captain, report to Astrometrics," Seven's voice sounded across the Bridge. He and Janeway exchanged wary expressions.
"I rarely enjoy what I learn in these impromptu meetings she calls," Janeway smirked and waved command to him, and Chakotay accepted the bridge with a nod and a smile. She then left her crew for whatever concern the Borg had that day.
The stars on the screen drew his eyes forward, the most distant of them seeming to stand still while the closest streamed past the ship in Doppler streaks. He reminded himself to talk with Seven about certain protocols. One did not summon the captain of a starship as if issuing orders to an ensign. He shifted in his seat for a better view of his command console.
That was all Seven had to say, of course, 'Captain, report,' and she goes. Just like that.
--oOo--
It happened long after people assumed it began (yes, even captains hear rumors). Back then, she was concerned about crew morale. After all, if the crew thought she would betray her fiancé with Chakotay, they must also believe that she'd given up hope of returning home to him. Eventually she turned her worry inside out. Maybe the crew just thought she was the kind of woman who coaxed opportunity from adversity. If only she liked lemonade.
It ended almost immediately.
--oOo--
She let the heat from the coffee cup warm her hands. She hadn't imagined the craft would be Voyager inhabited by over one hundred luckless crew, all of whom depended on her to lead them through that void. Nor had she imagined her own hubris would strand them here.
For months afterward, she assumed a solution would be found, a miracle to bless their trip home. They'd been dragged out here, and who was to say they wouldn't be thrust back? The Delta Quadrant was an unknown: perhaps some benevolent species with advanced technology would grace them with help, perhaps a wormhole whose end points were fixed and verifiable, perhaps Starfleet itself would be able.... She brought the cup to her lips and invited the earthy, bitter, and cold drink across her tongue. Anything could happen.
Years passed.
--oOo--
They were alone in her Ready Room when he finally spoke. "Sure it worked, Kathryn, but your success doesn't diminish the recklessness of your choices. You risked too much--your life, our lives, the ship--to get her back." There was an edge of accusation under the comment.
--oOo--
Seduction, rejection, reclamation. The soft pink yields to her fingertips. Each caress is a request for absolution, gliding along sweat-slick skin in circles of begging: forgiveme, forgiveme, forgiveme.
Forgiving but not forgetting, Seven bites down on her yesses and holds them between teeth clenched against an oncoming orgasm that crashes and whorls over her body and leaves her gasping for breath. Wet, red marks glisten on her skin in the shape of a nibble, of a kiss, of a promise. What the captain wants, the captain gets. Again. Please, again.
--oOo--
This was what he'd been waiting for, a chance to be baptized into a new life and no one to tell him how to live it. His muscles ached with fresh purpose as he raised a shelter to protect her and a bath to soothe her. There were no regulations here compelling conformity or distance. While she hung traps for insects, he hung a Home Sweet Home sign. I didn't know you were so sentimental, she'd said, not unkindly. And maybe he was. He was also a pragmatist, and he could adapt to new situations as readily as the Borg, and with more pleasant results. He needed her only to see it.
Bathwater gilded her skin under the moonlight as he revealed himself in half-lie. Even here he could not tell her his feelings directly. He did not say, "Put down your work, your attempts to go home. We're here in a place as close to paradise as I've seen. Put down your work and be home."
Instead he costumed himself as a warrior, her as a goddess, New Earth his peace. The warm, soapy water swirled around her legs, and he told her a story that was more offering than challenge, an open hand she chose not to hold.
--oOo--
I am not your mother to know what is and isn't best for you, but I am the captain of this ship and I do know what's best for my crew, she stormed down the empty corridor.
--oOo--
"You refuse to engage in romantic or sexual interactions out of an allegiance to Starfleet's protocols against fraternization; however, I am not a member of Starfleet, and we both require...," Seven wasn't confident in her word choice, but a quick glance at Janeway's face assured her she needn't worry about misunderstandings. "It seems an acceptable solution." She leveled her gaze just beyond the captain's head.
Janeway opened her mouth to speak and then closed it. She looked away from the curves of the dark gray biosuit and its occupant. Then she forced amusement into her voice, "Logical, yes, quite so. But it seems to me, Seven, like a rationalization of--"
"It seems to me, Kathryn, rationalization is what you require."
--oOo--
"His ship was hit by a typhoon in the Pacific. Everyone back in England thought they were killed but eight months later Cray sailed his ship into London harbor. There wasn't much left of it--a few planks, half a sail--but he got his crew home." The story was intended to inspire her and to demonstrate his faith in her abilities to captain them to safety. The watch was intended to reassure her and to demonstrate his ability to put friendship above jealousy.
He palmed the replica and accepted her rejection. Again. The silver disc flashed between his fingers like lost hope.
--oOo--
He'd been rewarded for his... sacrifice. He had position, authority, her favor, and he'd enjoyed it. But Frankenstein's monster threatened what he prized. He imagined her nimble, malevolent hands disabling Voyager, her gleaming, disdainful misanthropy ending their individual lives. He had argued with Kathryn, warned her, lain out every scenario of treason and assimilation for her, and she set his arguments aside. What did she see in the Borg?
What had she seen in him those years ago that would allow her to choose a Maquis commander--considered a terrorist by many--to be her second in command? Keep your friends close, your enemies closer? Maybe. But he liked to think he'd washed off the label of enemy. No, he knew the answer to his question as perfectly as he knew why he was no longer in her favor: Seven was the new lost soul, the unredeemed, whom Kathryn was determined to find and restore.
--oOo--
Janeway tugged absentmindedly at the sleeve of her uniform. The accuracy of the statement and the use of her first name pushed her off balance, and she reached for the most convenient handhold. "Seven, I rely on the protocols not because they are orders but because of the wisdom behind them. Adhering to them helps maintain the integrity of the chain of comm--"
"That is a rationalization," Seven challenged. Her cheeks pinked over a tightly set jaw, and Janeway tugged again at her sleeve. "You have no logical reason to reject the proposal--unless you find me an unacceptable partner for aesthetic or other reasons, in which case I would like to hear those reasons, Captain."
She let her eyes rest again on the woman before her, more human than Borg, more woman than human. "There is nothing unacceptable about you."
--oOo--
The storm destroyed her makeshift lab, washed away her hope for a cure, and gave his goddess to him. For one night and half a morning. Then Voyager broached the planet's orbit and rescued one of its inhabitants.
--oOo--
"How do you know?" Seven's clear but quiet voice reproached her. She pulled her hand from the shelter of Seven's own, freeing Janeway to return to her uniform.
"What?" She turned to check herself in the mirror. In the dim light, laugh lines she used to have flattened across the taut surface skin.
"How do you know what is best for me? You have not reintegrated a Borg into humanity before. You cannot know what is best for me!" Seven began her point slowly and built it to sharpness. She circled Kathryn's warm wrist with her own flesh and metal hand. "You cannot know that this is not best for me."
"I--" Kathryn stopped. She'd been watching those pale, full lips form hurt and anger into sound, remembering their other shapes and pleasurable echoes, and she began to speak without an answer. Her eyes, finding no neutral object for harbor, looked at the woman glowering in front of her. "No. I guess I don't know what is best for you. So let's just say this is best for me."
--oOo--
Janeway, one day's travel from home, watches her crew, a chain of... lives. B'Elanna cradles her child with more tenderness than she knew she was capable of, while Tom broadcasts his pride in pose and face-splitting grin. Chakotay glances across the room toward Seven who is staring at--Janeway looks away quickly and picks up her wine. An elated Harry concedes the floor to the Doctor, who toasts the happy couple, the child, the extended family of crew and finally, but not briefly, himself.
"If we'd known we would be home so soon, we might have reconsidered the mobile emitter," Tuvok's eyebrows knit a band of disapproval across his forehead. Janeway buries her smirk on the rim of her glass. The Doctor continues his speech with renewed vigor while the others busy themselves with food and side conversation.
--oOo--
"What's this?" They tried to be light with each other, new.
"A picnic," Seven practiced her smile. She loosened her shoulders as she poured him a glass of wine. "According to my research, this is an appropriate third date."
They tried to be new with each other, light. They flirted bubbles of sunshine across the checkered blanket, maintaining eye contact in an effort to assure openness, sincerity. Later, fingertips, joined by bone, tendon and circuitry to malevolent and empty hands, traced his tattoo with a delicate precision. They were free now, the both of them, willing prisoners released by a disciplined captor. Free to love and be loved, as if the friction between their bodies could erase the memory of her from their flesh.
--oOo--
Sharing a companionable silence with her friend, she considers a paradox. The tea-drinking Admiral Janeway had risked everything to keep her family whole. At arm's length, of course, but whole. In that other timeline, she'd brushed off one lover and then another until the rejected friends turned to each other. And then she brushed off her own life to give them happiness together. No one would doubt Janeway's willingness to endanger herself, but no one had ever called her altruistic before. Slowly, sparks of understanding pool together into a map, charting her voyage from point A to point B.
Chakotay stands next to Seven now, laughing easily. There is something in the way she angles her tall, lean body against the wall and forces casual glances around the deck without resting her eyes on the captain. In an instant, Janeway knows she can win the woman back. And perhaps risk losing two friends in the process.
She weighs one against the other, fire against ashes, and plots a course.
FIN