Disclaimer: Star Trek
Voyager and all of its characters are the property of Paramount. No
copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: The title says it all
Auld Lang
Syne
By Rocky
Admiral Janeway reached for another PADD and then stopped, glancing
guiltily at the holo on her desk. His dark eyes seemed to bore right
into her; she could hear him say, as he had so often, "Give it a rest,
Kathryn. You don't have to single-handedly save the world tonight; it
can wait till morning."
As usual, he was right. Especially considering it was their
anniversary.
"Okay, Chakotay, you win," she muttered under her breath. Aloud, she
called to her aide, "I'm going home now, Thantos. Why don't you call it
a day as well?"
"Very good, Admiral," replied the young Andorian. "Enjoy your evening."
"Thank you, I will," she said.
Janeway glanced around the room and nodded with approval. The
candlelight, the champagne bucket, the music playing softly in the
background. Everything was perfect. And of course, the sight of him
smiling at her was the crowning touch.
She slipped off her silk robe and stepped into the already filled bath,
sighing with contentment. "You have no idea how good this feels," she
said. "Especially after a long day." She held up her hand. "And don't
tell me I work too hard. I know I do. But at my age, you can hardly
expect me to change."
She stretched out luxuriously in the warm water, inhaled the scent of
the expensive Denebian bath crystals, and closed her eyes.
"So hard to believe it's been twenty years since Voyager's return, isn't it,
Chakotay?" she murmured. "It seems like just yesterday. I can still see
it all--the parades, the speeches, the commendations…after all our
struggles and privations, everything we ever wanted was in our grasp.
Everything...like Fate herself was trying to make amends." She fell
silent for a moment, lost in memory. "But Fate is a fickle mistress.
Always was, always will be. Only a fool would forget that."
She shook her head impatiently. Tonight of all nights was no time to be
maudlin. She carefully lifted the champagne flute from the edge of the
tub. "Here's to us, Chakotay. To you, and me, and all we were to each
other--and could have been."
She picked up the holo--a twin of the one that adorned her office at
Starfleet Command, taken just a few a weeks before he died--and gently
ran her finger down the side of the frame. "My love. Always and
forever, my dearest love."
She drank her solitary toast and then leaned back, the steam in the air
mingling with the dampness on her cheeks.
FINIS
"We'll drink a cup of kindness yet for times gone by."
Robert Burns, Auld Lang Syne
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