Scene: Janeway alone in her quarters. Records her personal log. Topic: Seven’s acceptance of marriage to another.

“What did you expect? Why did you believe she would wait? Did she even know she had the option to wait? Wait for what?…For more of your distance! More of your silence!! You’re a fool!! You’ve lost what you most hold dear…all because you were afraid!! You the almighty Starship Captain…the Great Janeway…You are a coward!! A coward of the worse kind!! You didn’t even try!! You sicken me!!”

Kathryn’s face fell to her hands. She was overwhelmed. Surely her pain would overtake her… would leave her but a shell of her former self. She was taken, she was used, she was abused…All by a love she had never really known. Or had she? Was it real? She searched her heart! She surveyed her soul! In the guttural gasp that released its truth from somewhere deep inside her…She knew! Yes she loved! She loves!!! She could tell herself it was the Captain’s fault. It was the Captain who had brought her to this destruction. But the truth was clearly written in her conscience. Kathryn was to blame. It was the woman, who held domain to this part of her. Kathryn was her own worse enemy! She had no one to blame but herself!!

“I sicken me!! I’ve lost her!! Yet I’ve never really had her. I’ll never know the taste of her lips or the feel of her skin against mine. I’ll never know the look in her eyes as she releases her love to me…only me!! I let it slip through my hands. I let the chance for love…real love…soul love to pass me by. I don’t deserve her!! I’m an emotional crippled!!…How could I ever love her, the way she needs to be loved? Someone else is going to kiss her lips, caress her skin and see her love reflected back to them in those beautiful blue eyes. Blue eyes! The windows to her soul!! Everything of her is written in those eyes. I’ve lost everything that I hold dear. I’ve lost her!!”

Kathryn cried! She let herself feel what she had truly lost. She cried for every missed kiss…for every missed touch. She cried for the life she would never have with the woman she loved. The woman she would always love!! Kathryn cried for the loss of their children. For the family they would never create. She cried for the loss of her dreams. Secret dreams…that if only she had shared…then maybe this would be different. Maybe today she would be celebrating her engagement to Seven. Maybe she would be the one planning a future with her love. Kathryn had lost too much!!

Then…for the first time since she entered space. Since she had taken the mantle of the strong, fearless and unmatched figure of Starfleet values…Captain Janeway cried. She cried for Kathryn, she cried for herself. She cried for herself! These two parts of her being, always kept so divided…were now joined. Transfused!! As two became one…a single thought was clear…“We…I will never be the same.” She had lost this battle. She had lost this Indiana girl’s dream. Captain Kathryn Janeway was but one. She was alone!