I think I had come, by the end of our trip, by the end of my third year on Voyager, to realize that I loved her. Yes, I know I knew, because I remember reading a line in a book the doctor gave me, something about love itself being good, and I felt reassured. Because I had thought I wasn't supposed to love her.

I loved her, and there was an erotic component to that love. I remember looking at her, and thinking she was beautiful, and not knowing why I thought that. I remember wondering about her and Chakotay, and trying to imagine, as I fell asleep . . . I never imagined us as lovers. There was so much that I didn't know. I did know that she cared about me.

We were friends after we returned to Earth, and that meant a great deal to me. It was a hard time, and I often sought her advice. She had a house, a private house far from the city, and sometimes, if she was between missions and I could get away, I would visit her. I treasured those times, her attention, her interest in me, the discussions we had late into the night.

It was, I believe, because of her that I had gone into Starfleet. Perhaps I thought I would win over my professors, as I had won her over. Perhaps some part of me imagined following in her footsteps, having my own ship. But I soon realized that this was unrealistic. I wasn't good with hierarchies, I loved research, and I loved Earth with the passion of a new convert. We talked about this. I thought she would be disappointed that I wouldn't be going into space, but if she was, she never said.

It was on one of those trips to her house in the country that it changed. She was different towards me. Something was gone, some level of interest that I had loved. She spoke of someone she had met, a trading ship captain named Aryn. Nothing dramatic happened. It was just a feeling.

After that we were still friends, but we communicated less frequently. When we did get together, she talked a lot about Aryn. I wish I could say I knew all along that they were lovers, but I didn't. I just knew she cared a great deal about Aryn and that I was, well, less important than I had been.

I've told you that I thought she was beautiful, but that doesn't say what it felt like. She was different from anyone else. Sometimes I felt I needed to see her, the way one needs food or water. Everything about her was beautiful; the perfect things were perfect and the imperfect ones were even more so.

It was the summer after my graduation. I was going to be moving to a research facility on the East Coast. I hadn't heard from her for a long time. And then there was a communication from her. She was going to be on Earth in three weeks. And Aryn had left.

By this time I knew they were lovers; someone--I can't remember who--had made a point of letting me know. The letter said it had been a painful break-up. And that she was coming to visit me.

She looked awful. Her fingers shook slightly, and I don't think she had been sleeping well. We sat in the larger of my rooms, and she drank whiskey, and I drank wine, and she told me all about Aryn, and how it had ended. She'd never told me anything like this before. It was suddenly as if we were equals, and part of me was flattered. I listened, and I said little. I had had a couple of relationships, but nothing so important.

It was very late. I made up a bed for her in the room where we had been sitting, went to wash, and then went to my sleeping room. It was an old house, and I remember I could hear water running. It was oddly intimate. She had never stayed with me before.

And then she came into my room, and sat at the end of my bed. She was wearing an old robe, white, with a tiny pattern in red and black. I wondered if she always wore red and black. She smelled clean. And then she kissed me.

I can still remember the feel of her body against my body, her lips on mine. I felt . . . anxious, sorry. Not aroused. Maybe it was the result of sitting through the story of her great love.

Maybe that had done something. Or maybe I was just scared. Certainly I was that.

I didn't kiss her back. I hugged her. She understood.

"I loved you as a sister, and sometimes more fiercely," she said, and then she got up and went back to the other room.

***

We stayed in contact, on and off, for years after that, and several times I tried to get her back, tried to court her. Once I sent her a book of love poetry. I loved her always. But when she spoke of us, it was always in the past tense.

"I was your Captain," she said on one of her increasingly rare visits. She was drinking red wine, staring out the window. "I couldn't . . ."

"You aren't my Captain now," I said softly, but she didn't seem to hear.

She had loved me, had been in love with me, had desired me, and I hadn't known. And I couldn't get it back. I had changed, I was no longer superhuman, I was no longer certain about everything, but I felt I was so much more than the lonely young woman I had been then. But I wasn't what she wanted. Eventually she avoided me completely. I don't think I will ever really know why.

The End