Chapter Text
They’d gotten home.
Captain Kathryn Janeway gave Tom the order to set the course for the last time. She and the rest of the bridge crew had for a moment remained still, trying to grasp the enormity of it all and coming down from the adrenaline high of what they had just experienced.
For a moment, Kathryn had allowed herself to just sit there in her chair, trying to let it all sink in. Waiting for joy to fill her heart.
It didn’t come.
Instead, she got up and started busying herself. She had tasks to get to, calls to make and things to prepare.
She did feel warmth as she walked the halls of her ship. Crew members grinning, crying, congratulating her and themselves and each other. In the corridors of Voyager, she could feel something - pride, happiness, anticipation.
Yet as soon as she was alone… she didn’t feel much. Luckily, bursting out in the Alpha Quadrant through a Borg conduit meant a lot of work, many tasks to distract herself.. So she busied herself.
But now, here in her apartment in San Francisco, she still feels numb. The glass of water sits on the coffee table in front of her. The room is dark. Outside she can see the San Francisco night sky.
She sips the water. At least she can feel it in her body - her physical senses are still functioning.
And , she shakes her head, admonishing herself, you work just fine during the days. Of course coming home will be quiet, you haven’t been allowed to rest peacefully in seven years.
She's just being silly.
They’ve been home for three months now. They got their grand party, just the other week the last of the Maquis crew members received their pardons and they have all been physically and mentally cleared for duty. Well, apart from her. She has to rest, apparently.
Currently, Kathryn Janeway - after seven years of constantly being ready for the next attack, red alert or crisis - is being more or less forced to stay off full duty for at least six more months.
She has to be within transporter range to Starfleet Headquarters to be ready to answer questions as they go through her logs, and she has been made an Admiral. The formal ceremony is in about two weeks and that’s when she’ll get to wear her new rank. Therefore she is also busying herself by being involved in the preparations for the day, and the dinner Starfleet is hosting to celebrate in the evening.
And she also spends time thinking about what position she’s going to fill. She considers teaching. Or some scientific work, if there’s a project interesting enough.
Sighing, she puts down her glass. She should answer Harry’s message before she goes to bed. She’s been in regular contact with him, and she likes hearing about his life. He has settled in well back home, his parents all too happy to have him back and he has told her he’s reconnecting with Libby, his old girlfriend.
Kathryn has been in contact with Tuvok as well, and she hopes to be able to visit him soon.
She gets weekly updates on how Tom and B’Elanna are doing, as she often meets Admiral Paris when she goes to HQ for her briefings.
The Doctor sends her little updates, and she sometimes replies.
She has heard that Seven has left for Sweden. She doesn’t know more than that.
And that leaves her former first officer.
She has no idea how he’s doing.
-
Getting back home hasn’t been easy for him, Chakotay can admit that.
First the initial confusion of it all. Standing there, on the bridge and seeing the Starfleet vessels around them.
Starfleet . He knew he wore their uniform, but to him it had meant that he served on Voyager . He didn’t long for the ’fleet. Hadn’t for a long time believed in their ideals, but he had always believed in that crew and that ship.
He thinks he has done fairly well, once back on Earth. Managed to get the Maquis crew pardoned and allowed to go home. To whatever homes they still had.
His own family wonders when he will move back to Trebus, but he can’t really seem to leave San Francisco. He has been allowed an apartment here, and offered a job at the Academy.
He sighs. Pours some milk in a glass and sits down by his dinner table. The apartment is quite small, but enough for him.
Seven had initially lived here. Her homecoming had been difficult, a former Borg-drone wasn’t something people would easily accept. He’d helped her, coached her to get through the difficulties she faced, tried to be there for her. He knew that the reports on her progress from her former Captain, and the words of her aunt who had communicated with Seven while they were in the Delta Quadrant had helped. Yet it was uncertain what Seven would, or even could, do now back on Earth.
And they had both realized that whatever they had had back then, as much as they both had appreciated it as she worded it, wasn’t what they needed right now. Now, they both needed to focus on themselves. Should she miss him, she would call, she stated before she left for her shuttle to reconnect with her family.
It was probably very much the right thing, but it left him so lonely. Hollow. Lost.
Pretty much back to where he had been a year ago. Or was it eight months? He can’t really remember.
But somewhere there, a dread had settled in him. That he was forever doomed to be the Commander to Kathryn’s Captain. That as much as she trusted him, he would never be fully in charge of anything else again. And that they, as friends, had slowly spent less and less time together. Sure, they had their dinners now and then, but even then they’d either mainly talked about ship’s business or even invited other crew members to avoid the silence that had begun to stretch out between them.
He had felt that somehow life just happened to him - and that he couldn't see what he wanted or how to get it.
Somehow void of a future he could create himself.
Back in the Delta Quadrant, Seven had been a chance at that. A new path. Something to focus on, beyond crew rosters and daily reports. Or all the dangerous situations they constantly seemed to face.
Chakotay finishes the milk. He should probably eat something, but doesn’t feel like cooking. Milk will have to do.
And yes, maybe he had jumped into the relationship with Seven a bit too quickly, too eager. Made it into more than it ever was.
And now, he's just back at the same place. Just in another quadrant.
Sighing, he gets up. Time to turn off the last lights and get to bed.
He rinses his glass and sets it on the counter. It doesn’t get fully clean, and the water mixes with the leftover milk creating a pale, white liquid.
It looks like water fit for a ghost.