DISCLAIMER: The Star Trek characters
are the property of Paramount Studios, Inc and Viacom. The story contents are the
creation and property of Djinn and are copyright (c) 2005 by Djinn. This story
is Rated PG-13.
Never There
by Djinn
I lived the last seven years
with one goal in mind: to get my ship home, to let my crew finally see the
Alpha Quadrant again. If we could just get home, we'd be all right. If I could
just get us home, I'd be all right.
I never faltered. I never
bowed. I fought, I schemed, and more than once I made deals that caused
Chakotay to cringe, protest, or just back away slowly.
I did it all for them...for
us. To get home.
And now we're there. And it
feels...off somehow—a holographic program with all the safeties turned down,
but still a hologram. I guess I thought home would feel bigger.
I guess I thought home would
feel more welcoming.
I was prepared for the
stares. Dark gazes and lighter smiles as I walk down the corridors of Starfleet
Command. Some know what I've done, some even avoid me. They've read the reports,
apparently; although I'm not always sure how they got access to them. I can see
it in their eyes though—the judgment. Equinox. The Borg. All the things
I've done.
All the questionable things
I've done.
But there's welcome too. Owen
smiles at me still, and he's read seven-years worth of logs, knows all my sins.
I think he's just happy I gave him another chance with his son. And now with
his granddaughter and daughter-in-law.
I know that my own mother and
sister are thrilled to have me back, even if I don't feel quite as comfortable
as they seem to think I should. "Relax, Kathryn." "Quit pacing,
Kathryn."
I'm still disappointing
people by my inability to stop moving. By my need to keep going, to keep
pushing.
I miss my Voyager
family. For them, at least, the disappointment in me was old and familiar. Worn
down like a driftwood log on the beach. My shortcomings didn't cut them, didn't
wound them. But my Voyager family's gone, swallowed up by their own
families and the friends and lovers they left behind.
The friends I left behind
seem few. The lovers I left behind have moved on.
And Command watches me
warily, as if I will make trouble for them before too long. We were probably
lucky we came home so soon after the end of the Dominion War. No one had any
stomach for prosecuting my Maquis crew or for looking too hard at what I'd done
to get us home. They were happier arranging parades and fireworks and public
appearances. They were happier thinking of me as a hero.
But I'm not sure they do think
of me as a hero. Not the ones who make decisions that matter. Like who gets a
ship. And who doesn't.
I'll probably be stuck at
this desk, steering padds full of administrative
directives across wood and metal and plasticene, not sitting in a big chair
changing destinies.
And I'll hate it. I'll hate
every damn minute of it.
I could take leave. I could
take seven-years worth of earned leave. Go away,
maybe to visit Chakotay on New Caledonia where he's working at the settlements
for those who were displaced by the war. But I'm still not very comfortable
with him and Seven as a couple, even if I let go of the idea of either of them
as potential mates long ago.
Or I could go to Vulcan to
see Tuvok, but he's just reacquainting himself with his wife and children—and
maybe I should wait until we're well past seven years. Seven is such a serious
number for a Vulcan male.
I thought of that sometimes. What
I would have done if Tuvok's time had come. He was
closer to me than he was to anyone else, except for Kes, and later Seven. I
would have done it to save his life. To get him home. I'd have done anything. I
think I proved that over and over—that I'd do anything for any of them.
To get us all home.
We didn't all get home
though. I see them sometimes, the ones who didn't make it. I don't mean I see
them in my memories. I mean I see them in my way when I walk down the hall to
get to the kitchen or when I'm hurrying down the corridor to the mess. Just
standing there, staring at me with mournful, disappointed looks in their eyes. My
demons. My judges.
Needless to say, I didn't
tell the counselors that I have spectral roommates. I never saw them on the
ship, but I see them now far too often. I think they're manifestations of my
own disappointment in how this has gone.
Actually, I just think
they're ghosts. The Doctor thinks they're manifestations of my own
disappointment in how this has gone.
I spend a lot of time with
the Doctor. More than I probably should. He tells me that occasionally. "Make
some flesh and blood friends. Live a little." But he never sounds very
energized around those directives. He's lonely too.
He misses Seven, I think. Even
if she's back at Command quite often, she never stops in to see him. Or to see
me. She's busy, has her work. which she can do on New Caledonia or here. Independent
work, the kind she seems to love best. Interesting that for someone who lived
in a hive society, she seems most comfortable working alone. Or maybe we made
her that way after we pulled her out of the hive. We're to blame—everyone who ever stared at
her, who ever made her uncomfortable. Even I was uneasy around her at first,
and I was her greatest champion.
I think the Doctor was in
love with Seven, but he won't tell me, and I haven't felt like pressing him
directly. We talk around it though. And he tries to get me to admit that I miss
Chakotay, that I loved Chakotay.
I'm not sure I did. Or if I
did at one time, I'm not sure I can ever be that woman again. I've changed. I
know it.
The Doctor tries to get me to
open up. And sometimes he's successful. Sometimes I tell him what I'm feeling. But
usually it's only once he's exhausted me in bed, when I lie sweaty and
breathing hard on a holo-bed in his holo-arms, and he uses his holo-psychology
on me.
I think he may love me. That
should concern me. That should make me nervous. It's no doubt a bad sign that
it doesn't. I go to him more often than I should. I tell him I only come for
the counseling sessions, but there's something safe in being with him. Something
that's the same as what I left behind. His disapproval is familiar and far
gentler than that of the other people I've hurt—and less raw than the
disappointment of my mother and sister as they watch me pace in my Terran cage.
I don't love him. I'm just
using him. The fact that I'll take him with me if I do manage to convince the
right people to give me a ship does not mean I love him.
It just means I'm willing to
use him. To get home. To get back to where I was.
He tells me I may never get
back to where I was. I'll never be the old Kathryn Janeway—I can't be. Time has
passed; she's gone. He says it's the nature of things—he's timeless and he's
lecturing me on the nature of things.
I love that he understands
me, but I hate that he uses that understanding to needle me, to get under my
skin and try to turn me inside out. His understanding is like grasping a
handful of stinging nettles. When his insight burns the most, I give him
honesty, tell him I am just using him. He never seems to get angry with me when
I use the truth as a stick, when I prod him to see if he'll bleed. I've seen hurt on his face. I've seen the same
mournful sadness that Chakotay used to wear when I'd hurt him. But I never see
anger.
Where do I find these passive
men? Why won't they get angry with me? Why do they let me use them?
Or do I find them because
they'll let me use them?
The Doctor pointed out that
he wasn't my first hologram. But he said he thought I was making progress,
since he was the first hologram I couldn't control.
He may be right. Small steps—baby
steps even—but I'm making progress. And meanwhile everyone else is racing in
all directions while I'm toddling along.
He says I shouldn't worry
about being left behind. My mother tells me that the race is over and I won. My
sister hugs me and pulls me out to her porch with the lights turned off,
pointing up to the stars and telling me to "Enjoy the view from here for a
while."
The view from here isn't the
view I want.
Here isn't what I want.
I guess I just expected more
oomph to being here. We made it back.
So what?
I've been reading old
biographies of Starfleet captains. It became a hobby when I first started my
research to prepare for the Borg. I've gone through my own era, have moved back
in time and hit Kirk. Oh, not for the first time, everyone in Starfleet knows
the name—knows more than the name. But I was struck by something. Watching the
interviews with him taken during the times he'd been behind a desk, I realized this man could be me. His eyes never quite
settled, as if he were praying for a new crisis to hit so he could jump away
from his desk and be the man he wanted to be. That's how I feel when I look in
the mirror. It's how I feel when I anticipate a life in a chair that isn't
bolted to a large, powerful ship.
Kirk got his ship back. Time
and time again. He got the Enterprise back, the flagship. I don't need
the flagship. I don't even need a starship. Give me a mail frigate, I don't
care. I'll skipper it to the edges of the universe and back.
Just don't strand me here. Like
a beached whale waiting to die while well-wishers ladle water over me to keep
me alive.
Let me go. Before I don't
know how to swim anymore.
Before I don't know how to
pilot the stars anymore.
Before I can touch the ghosts who stand waiting for me now as I head for the
holodeck and the Doctor.
I'll find it this time. If
you let me go, I'll find home and safety. Because I've figured out that it's
not here. It's not on dry land. It's in space. I need to be out there. I have
to be out there.
If I can just get out there,
I'll be all right.
FIN