Captain Kathryn Janeway continued down the corridor, leaving behind the sickbay, leaving behind Neelix celebrating with Kes and the doctor running tests on Tuvok, leaving behind the task that she had just been forced to perform. And rejoicing that no one in the hallway had been there to witness her reaction.
The guilt washed over her again. She would miss Tuvix; miss his sense of humor, his cooking, his way of dealing with problems. Truly, he was Tuvok and Neelix combined, the sum of their parts placed into one body, one being, carrying all of their identities and memories. Briefly she debated holding a memorial for him, but could not see how to justify such an action. As it was, she didn’t know how to put it into her log, let alone speak about it.
It was at times such as this that the fact of being in the Delta Quadrant, so many light-years from home and Starfleet, weighed the most heavily on her mind. For those light-years represented things that were all but unknown in these regions: safety, comfort…someone else to advise her, someone else there to rely on and if not make the toughest decisions than at least to offer a second opinion. What she had told Kes was true: there were times when she was optimistic, times when the solutions seemed within her reach and her grasp, times when home seemed not so very far away at all.
And then there were times that it could not have been farther.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she walked the halls, aimlessly staring at the stars from the collective outer viewports of the ship. Thankfully, it was Alpha shift, most crewmembers at their stations, Beta shift still enjoying off-duty pleasures and Gamma shift still asleep. There were not many that would question the Captain’s desire to simply stop and stare out at the stars, as if they held the answers she sought.
But was there an answer at all?
A reflection caught her eye; she turned to stare at the small form of Sara Thompson staring back at her, the radiant cerulean blue of her eyes dispassionate, contrasting against the dusky charcoal of the uniform she had adopted as her own aboard Voyager. Atop her smooth, pale, unlined face her braids, as was usual when she was in uniform, were pulled up to wind around her head, the thick dark mass adding only the barest hint of height to her, as she still shunned the platform boots most women, including the Captain herself, chose to wear. She was still small, only measuring below five feet despite the fact she was nearing her sixteenth birthday. Janeway halfway wondered if there wasn’t something, anything, that could be done about her size.
She stepped forward and extended the steaming mug that was in her hands wordlessly, the expression in her eyes never changing. Janeway took and sniffed the liquid, then sipped it gratefully.
Coffee.
The girl really was a telepath.
“How long have you been there?” Janeway finally asked.
Nothing more than a shrug. Time, as were many other things, was simply relative to Sara. The passage of one day meant no more than that of the next, seemingly blending into each other.
Janeway knew how she felt.
No questions from Sara. No asking if she was all right, something she was grateful for. No comforting, something oddly enough she was also grateful for. Janeway didn’t know if she could stand having her resolve break down for that as well. She had enough to deal with.
Her small hand reached out and grasped the Captain’s wrist. For a split second Janeway didn’t know whether to pull away or simply be outraged; then it subsided and she allowed Sara to lead her down the corridor and into the turbolift.
“Should I ask where you’re taking me?” her voice was wry, eyebrows arched.
“I thought…you might like to see something, Captain,” the girl’s voice was measured, soft, calm. “On the holodeck.”
“I’m still on duty…”
“It won’t take long,” Sara assured her. “It might…it might help the way you’re feeling.”
Of all the things Captain Kathryn Janeway expected on the holodeck, it was not a program that replicated autumn on Earth so completely that it made her heart ache. The leaves on the trees turned colors from gold to red to purple and even some brown, dried oak and maple that skittered across hardened dirt paths. The haze in the sky, the slant of the sun that was neither warm nor cold as clouds drifted across its zenith. And the crisp air that carried scents of smoke and freshness, making her nose tickle and eyes water.
She glanced at Sara. Her cheeks had turned pink from the drop in temperature, her blue eyes were made bluer in the light, and hair that was dark brown in the artificial light of the ship was actually a copper-auburn color, with strands of gold flecked through it.
Perhaps the biggest surprise was the dog.
Large in size, though not huge, shaggy with a homely look, gentle brown eyes stared out at her from the midst of rusty red fur. A pink tongue lolled from her mouth as she panted. The Captain’s breath caught.
“I didn’t know you liked dogs,” she breathed in amazement as she started towards the creature, then stopped “Is she…safe?”
“Yes. Dixie, sit.” Sara commanded, and the dog obeyed instantly, her tail wagging and thumping against the ground, almost getting up impatiently to go towards the new stranger. Kathryn advanced and knelt on one knee, petting the sweet head and smiling at the licking she received.
“Is that her name? Dixie?”
“Dixie,” Sara confirmed kneeling down as well and smiling slightly. The Irish Setter promptly laid down and demanded a belly rub, which Kathryn gave.
“She’s beautiful,” was all that could come from her mouth, in the utter shock at finding one of her youngest crew members having an animal for a holodeck program. “How old?” the strands of gray around the loving, blinking eyes betrayed something of age, though not infirmity.
“I don’t know.” Sara stroked the dog.
Something clicked in Kathryn’s mind. Something that wasn’t right before, was now. “You remember,” she said, as though she couldn’t believe it herself.
A gentle smile from Sara. “No,” she wistfully shook her head. “At least, not in the way you think I do.”
“Then how?”
“Things…feel familiar.” Was all Sara could, or would, tell her. “Things that weren’t there before are now. Images, feelings, sights, sounds. Touches of objects…or animals. Even the uniforms feel familiar, have felt familiar.”
“How long has it been this way?” Kathryn asked softly.
“A while,” she shrugged carelessly. “Maybe a few months, if that.”
They were silent for some moments. Dixie sat up and began to lick at Kathryn’s face, causing a smile to form on the features, something that was rare in the Delta Quadrant. With gentle rubs and petting, Sara induced her to sit down again.
“I figured you liked dogs…I saw the picture in your ready room.” Sara was quiet, even somewhat shy.
“I’ve had a dog since I could remember,” Kathryn said wistfully, scratching the shaggy ears.
“She likes to play fetch. There’s a ball around here somewhere…you can play with her, if you’d like,” Sara offered.
“What?” Kathryn looked at her.
“You can use this whenever you want to.” she clarified. “I know it must be hard on you…having so much back on Earth that you were accustomed to, taken away…and now with what you have to deal with here.”
Kathryn was silent.
“The matter of Tuvix has been resolved?” It was a question, something surprising coming from a telepath.
“They were separated. We have both Neelix and Tuvok alive, unharmed. Whether there’s a resolution in that…” her voice trailed off.
“In a way, Tuvix and I are not all that dissimilar,” Sara commented quietly. Janeway jerked visibly, as though jolted.
“What are you saying?” she asked the young girl, suspiciously.
“Two lives. Two people that were different. My problem, though, won’t be separation. My problem will come when, and if, I ever remember exactly what happened in the ‘past life’ I seem to have lived. Integration to this one, things of that nature.”
“You seem to assume it’s bad.”
“If it wasn’t, I would have remembered, don’t you think?” she gave Janeway a lopsided smile.
“I suppose so, but…”
“It’s strange, in a way,” Sara sat down fully on the ground, still petting the dog, “that when I found Chakotay, and the Maquis…if someone would have been able to wave a magic wand and give me back what I had lost, give me back the years that I couldn’t seem to put together, I would have probably jumped at the chance. Now…I don’t know as it matters.”
Janeway stared at her. Sara wanted to just give up?
“I don’t want to give up,” she was startled to hear the quiet happiness, the hum that escaped through the inflections in her voice. “I just wonder if the time has come to accept what I have, instead of looking for what’s unchangeable 70,000 light-years away.”
“I’ll tell you what I told Kes,” Janeway stood. “I won’t tell you or anyone else on this crew to give up their hopes, or their dreams of what is right for them.”
“You can’t give something up that wasn’t there to begin with, Captain,” Sara stood as well, looking her commanding officer steadily in the eyes, unflinching, though the azure had turned to a flinty-marble hardness, inset in her face.
“You…you have no hope?” How did anyone live without hope?
“I have hope for you.” The quiet, steady hum of Sara’s voice entered into Kathryn’s ears. “I hope for the entire crew, Maquis and Starfleet alike. I hope that one day the crew achieves its dreams of seeing Earth again…and I hold the hope that one day you will as well.”
