Part three of my Musical Voyage trilogy. Parts one and two are "Perfect" and "Taking the Risk." You don't have to read them to understand this, but it might clear up a few points. Also, this definitely DOES have spoilers for the final episode of Voyager, "Endgame." AU version of Endgame intended to closely follow the original, but with some different reasoning behind it all.
Old Admiral Janeway stood before her late husband's grave, her final stop after a tour of visits. She'd had the Doctor - Joe, that is - give her a physical. She'd visited Tuvok one last time. She'd visited with all the crew at the reunion, of course. She'd talked to Reginald Barclay, and she'd talked to Miral about the top-secret mission.
Now all that remained was to say goodbye to Chakotay. Just in case she was wrong. Just in case it didn't work. Just in case she never came back.
"Any final words of advice for your old wife?" she asked wryly. "Wait, don't tell me. I'm being impulsive. I haven't considered all the consequences. It's too risky." She knelt to brush leaves away that had gathered on top of the name plate. "Thanks for the input. But I have to do what I think is right. I know it wasn't easy living all these years without her, Chakotay." She looked up to the sky. "But when I'm through, things might be better. For all of us." She laid a hand on the grave, wishing desperately that she could lay it on his chest just one last time. "Trust me."
=/\=
Captain Kathryn Janeway sat on the couch of her ready room, turned sideways to gaze out at the stars, one arm resting across the back while the other hand absently stroked her stomach. A soft smile played over her face.
Gradually, she became aware that her ready room door was chiming, and had done so several times before she fully keyed into it. She quickly shook herself and opened her mouth to admit entrance. Before she could, her comm badge sounded. "Chakotay to Janeway."
She smiled as she tapped the badge. "Janeway here. Come on in, Commander."
He entered looking extremely anxious, but before he could inquire, she rose to greet him with the words, "I'm so sorry, you caught me daydreaming. I didn't even register that the chime was sounding until you were calling my comm badge."
His eyebrows rose. "You were daydreaming? So thoroughly that you didn't hear the door chime? Now I know something's wrong!" He pretended to hit his comm badge. "Security alert! The captain has been replaced by an alien entity!"
She laughed. "Did you come for a specific reason or just to pester me?"
He grinned back, showing those adorable dimples she loved so much. "Well, B'Elanna had yet another false labor at 0400. She and Tom are quite tired and irritated. And crewman Chell has requested the opportunity to take over for Neelix. I even have a sample menu from him." She reached for the PADD but he tossed it onto her desk instead. "But that can wait until later. Does a husband really need a reason to come visit his wife?" He pulled her into his arms and gave her a quick kiss, which she broke off almost immediately.
"No," she said, with mock sternness. "But a first officer might need a reason to come visit his captain when they're both on duty."
"Not anymore," he replied, gesturing to the chronometer. "Our duty shifts ended five minutes ago. We're on lunch break now, and I wondered if you might want to go get some with me."
She gasped. "I really must've been in a daze. Daydreaming, I mean," she quickly amended. "I didn't even notice the time!"
He grabbed her and started waltzing her around the ready room. "Tell me about it?" he requested.
She laughed again. She had already been in a dazed-but-delighted mood, and he could only make her happier right now. "Chakotay, we don't even have music!"
"Easily remedied. Computer, Janeway Chakotay Dance Blend One."
Soft music started playing and he gave her a little twirl. "Now. Tell me about your daydream. Please?"
She smiled up at him. "Well . . . It was about you, of course." She leaned in to kiss him briefly, then again a little longer, before continuing. "I was looking out at a rosey-hued star . . . thinking how many suns there are out there, and how many skies from how many different planets. And I was thinking that you and I could build a castle in the sky."
He gave a soft laugh. "Isn't Voyager our castle in the sky?"
"Absolutely. But this was my daydream and I get to tell it how I want. So I was dreaming about getting back to Earth, and we love each other so much we could just walk on air, and build a castle in the sky that no one else could get to without a hovercar or shuttle, but we could because our love gives such buoyancy." She would never express such thoughts to anyone else, couldn't do so without feeling utterly foolish. Not even either of her past fiances would have understood. But Chakotay understood, and even seemed to relish her seemingly out-of-character flights of fancy. "And . . . ." She swallowed, eager to share the next bit, but a little nervous as well. "And I was thinking that in that castle, we could have -"
"Tuvok to Janeway."
She sighed. "Then again, the captain is never really off duty, is she?" She hit her comm badge so hard she hurt her chest. "Yes, Tuvok, what is it?"
She must have come across more brusquely than she'd intended because Tuvok actually paused briefly before answering. "Apologies, Captain. But it seems Seven of Nine and Ensign Kim have discovered something in astrometrics that they wish to show you as immediately as possible."
She touched her fingertips to the bridge of her nose. "Understood. And sorry if I sounded a bit terse. It was not my intention."
"There is no cause for concern, Captain."
"Good. Janeway out."
She gazed up at Chakotay, and briefly considered taking the time to continue, but if Tuvok was calling her after she was technically off duty, there was probably more urgency to it than he'd let on. So instead, she gave her husband one more quick kiss and said, "I'm sorry, love, there's more I want to tell you but I suppose it'll have to wait."
"Duty calls," he agreed understandingly as he followed her out the door.
She quirked an apologetic smile at him over her shoulder. "Doesn't it always?"
=/\=
Seven, they learned upon arrival, had discovered an unusual concentration of nutrino emissions. "The emissions are occurring at the center of the nebula," she explained. "There appear to be hundreds of distinct sources."
"Which could translate to hundreds of wormhomles," Harry added with ill-concealed enthusiasm.
"The radiation is interfering with our sensors," Seven quickly amended. She gave Harry a slightly amused look, something Chakotay didn't really remember seeing from her before. Her attempts at regaining her humanity must be working. "But if Ensign Kim's enthusiasm turns out to be justified, it would be the most concentrated occurrence of wormholes ever recorded."
"Any idea where they lead?" Janeway asked.
"Not yet," Harry replied, "but if just one of them leads to the Alpha quadrant . . . ."
"Who knows, Harry?" Tom quipped. "It might take us right into your parents' living room." His arms were crossed over his chest, and that plus the quip instantly keyed Chakotay into Tom's tension, but whether his tension was over his wife's impending labor (and their repeated false-labor trips to sickbay) or an unwillingness to get his hopes up, Chakotay couldn't say for sure. Maybe both.
Kathryn, for her part, was doing a poor job not laughing at the joke. "Alter course, Mr. Paris," she said, managing to keep it down to a smirk. Then, regaining her composure and speaking in a very serious tone, she added to Harry, "Ensign, when you speak to your mother, tell her we may need her to move the sofa." She succeeded in retaining her straight face at least until she'd turned away to walk off, which was more than Seven managed to do. Chakotay, chuckling as he followed his wife out, glanced back to them to see the still-smiling Seven looking at Harry, and Harry's chagrined expression turning into a reciprocated smile as he looked back at Seven.
Could those two be . . . ? He quickly shook his head. No. Not likely. There was hardly a less likely match on the ship.
=/\=
"Another tritanium signature! Right on top of us!" Ensign Kim called from his station on the bridge.
After leaving astrometrics, they had all been busy preparing to enter the nebula to find what was going on inside it. Several times, Kathryn had considered calling her husband to her ready room so she could finish what she'd started to tell him, but she decided against it every time. Her place right now was on the bridge, and she was the one who so thoroughly insisted on keeping their work lives and personal lives distinct. Besides, if this turned out to be what they thought, the captain and first officer would both need to be able to focus. She was having a hard enough time not slipping into more daydreams as it was, whenever there was a lull in the reports and nothing for her to work on. She didn't need him having the same problem.
But now, daydreams were far from her mind. Tom was evading the tritanium signatures to the best of his extremely skilled abilities, but the captain had to stay alert too.
And she was plenty alert when a Borg cube appeared almost on top of them.
"Tom!" she cried out. "Get us out of here now."
=/\=
There were not one, but at least 47 Borg cubes within the nebula, by Seven's estimations. Despite all Ensign Kim's arguments, the captain had had to say no to possibly reentering.
From that point on, the day was fairly quiet, but somehow Kathryn couldn't seem to get a chance to talk to Chakotay again. Even a quiet day on Voyager was always busy. Just as the shift was nearly over and she was planning to drag her husband back to their quarters - by force if necessary - Tuvok announced the appearance of a rift in the space in front of them, followed shortly by, "I'm detecting nadion discharges on the other side of the rift."
Oh, what now? Kathryn thought irritably. She was aware that it was entirely illogical to blame anything at all for these repeated interruptions, but she couldn't seem to help it.
"Weapons fire?" Chakotay asked from his seat to her left.
"It's possible," Tuvok replied. "The signature appears to be Klingon."
"Red alert," Kathryn said immediately. Somehow, she felt she should be surprised to hear of Klingon signature weapons fire in the Delta Quadrant, but by now very little surprised her there.
"There's a vessel coming through the rift," Tuvok announced.
"Klingon?" Chakotay asked.
"No. Federation."
She turned to her security officer, eyes wide. Turned out it was still possible to surprise the captain after all.
"We're being hailed," Ensign Kim said nervously.
"On screen."
A very familiar older face, above a redesigned admiral's uniform, appeared on the screen, ordering, "Recalibrate your deflector to emit an anti-tachyon pulse. You have to seal that rift."
She could almost swear it was her mother she was looking at on that screen . . . except that the voice of command and the bearing were far too much like her father. But the former was not in Starfleet and the latter had died many years earlier. She carefully kept her voice steady as she said, "It's usually considered polite to introduce yourself before you start giving orders."
"Captain," Tuvok interjected, "a Klingon vessel is coming through."
"Close the rift!" demanded the admiral on the screen. "In case you didn't notice, I outrank you, Captain. Now do it!"
They did, but now Kathryn was absolutely glaring at the screen. "I did what you asked. Now tell me what is going on."
The face on the viewscreen softened, almost smiled even. "I've come to bring Voyager home."
=/\=
Chakotay stood in the transporter room between his wife and her best friend, heart thumping against his chest. Kathryn was wary of this person who'd appeared. Tuvok was, as always, reviewing everything logically. But Chakotay knew her. He knew that woman inside and out, and though there was a haggard look and a bitterness to her, and though her face held lines he'd not yet seen made, and though her hair was grey, nearly white, he still knew her. This was his Kathryn. Come from the future somehow, or . . . duplicated in an anomaly and weirdly aged? It didn't matter. He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was his Kathryn.
But he couldn't tell his actual Kathryn, the one standing by his side. She'd argue the point. Better to let the newcomer explain herself. So they watched as she transported in.
"Welcome aboard," Kathryn said in a dry and rather unwelcoming voice.
"It's good to be back," the older woman replied cheerfully.
=/\=
The moment the newcomer stepped down from the transporter pad, Kathryn knew for certain who she was. She'd seen this woman a million times in the mirror. She'd seen the lines starting to appear. Sure, this woman had a good many more lines than she had herself right now. But she knew beyond any doubt, this woman was her. Her from the future, apparently. But this was her.
So she didn't ask as they headed to the ready room. She simply escorted her, to the double-takes of nearly everyone in the corridors, and certainly everyone on the bridge. In her ready room, they exchanged pleasantries about coffee, and Kathryn learned that she could still be surprised when her older self announced that she'd given up coffee years earlier in favor of tea. That was nearly enough to make her reconsider her belief in this woman's identity!
Voyager was a museum, she learned. They did, in fact, make it back, but without her favorite cup, which the older woman took from her hands apparently for the sole purpose of breathing in the scent of the coffee she'd given up. According to her counterpart, the cup had taken a beating in a battle with the Fen Domar, an alien race she hadn't met yet.
That information was enough to satiate her curiosity and snap her back to her duties. "You know what? I shouldn't be listening to details about the future."
The admiral rolled her eyes, and Kathryn had to fight not to laugh in recognition. She was entirely unaware of how often she did that until Chakotay had pointed it out to her. "Ohhh, the almighty Temporal Prime Directive," the elder Kathryn sighed. "Take my advice: it's less of a headache if you just ignore it."
Kathryn knitted her brows. This could not be the woman she would age into. She believed firmly in the Prime Directive, and in the Temporal Prime Directive. "You've obviously decided to," she accused, "or you wouldn't be here."
Her older self tilted her head. "A lot's happened to me since I was you."
It didn't matter. Kathryn refused to take the bait and insisted on absolutely no information about the future. Her older self relented and settled down to the real reason she'd come. She had, she claimed, technology to get them past the Borg, if they would just return to the nebula and go seek the way home.
"For the sake of argument, let's say you're telling the truth," Kathryn said. "The future you come from sounds pretty good. Voyager gets home, I'm an admiral, there's technology to defend against the Borg. My ready room even gets preserved for posterity."
"So why would you want to tamper with such a rosey timeline? To answer that, I'd have to tell you more than you want to know. But suffice it to say, if you don't do what I'm telling you, it's going to take you another sixteen years to get this ship home. And there are going to be casualties along the way."
Kathryn involuntarily put her hand to her stomach. The admiral stared at her for a moment, then gave a single, brisk nod. Kathryn drew in a deep breath, which then came back out as a glare.
"I know what you're thinking," the Admiral announced before she could speak.
She arched an eyebrow. "Did you also become a telepath?"
"I used to be you, remember? You're wondering how you can know that I'm really you, or that I'm telling the truth. For all you know, I could be a member of species 4872."
So she suggested exactly what Kathryn knew she would - that her people examine the futuristic shuttle, and the Doctor examine the futuristic woman.
=/\=
She wasn't really surprised when the Doctor confirmed the woman's identity. She also wasn't surprised when Seven came in and confirmed the validity of the shuttle's technology. Honestly, these precautions were more for show and to avoid second-guesses. She knew, deep in her heart, that this woman was exactly who she said she was - that is, that this woman was who she would become.
So she gave Seven the order to apply the technology to Voyager.
After Seven left, just as the Captain and Admiral were preparing to leave sickbay, the Doctor caught her and asked softly, "Have you told the Commander yet?"
The Captain stiffened, widened her eyes at the Doctor, and jerked her head toward the Admiral, who had already revealed herself capable of eavesdropping on even soft conversations.
The Admiral smiled, though. "What, you think I don't already know?"
Kathryn sighed. "Of course you would." She turned back to the Doctor. "Not yet. Every time I try, it seems, we get interrupted. I'll tell him just as soon as I get the chance."
"I wouldn't," the Admiral put in.
She turned and glared. "Really? Well I would, so perhaps you don't know me quite as well as you think."
"Or perhaps you haven't quite thought through all the . . . ramifications. For instance, if our plan works -"
"Your plan to which I have not yet agreed."
"You have them applying the shielding to the ship don't you? If our plan works, do you really think Chakotay will let his wife go through with it, knowing she was carrying his child? Unfortunately, none of you know what I know, and what I know is . . . it has to be now, while she's still safe inside of you."
=/\=
She considered it. She considered telling him a million times during the day while crews were working to refit Voyager with the Admiral's technology. She considered it while she watched the Admiral laughing with him, which gave a very strange sense of jealousy, given that he was laughing with . . . her. She considered it as they climbed into bed that night, and again as they ate breakfast together the next morning.
She was on the verge of telling him every moment she was with him, and even a few moments she wasn't, when her hand actually hovered over her comm badge to summon him to her, just so she could tell him.
But she couldn't do it. She knew herself, and though there was a good bit about this woman who no longer resembled the self she knew, she was all too aware of the haunted expression in the older woman's eyes when she'd told her not to tell Chakotay about the baby yet. The pain, the extreme pain that this woman had endured . . . it wasn't general. It wasn't just more losses of her crew, though she knew keenly just how painful those losses were. But it was definitely something more.
So she couldn't bring herself to tell him.
Then, all too soon, she and the Admiral found themselves back in sick bay, along with Seven who had been contacted by the Borg queen to relay a message: "She said she'd assimilate Voyager if we attempted to reenter the nebula."
They debated it. Kathryn didn't want to go, not when it was no longer a secret. Not when the Borg knew they were coming. But the Admiral - who, apparently, had had even more run-ins with the Borg queen, much to Kathryn's dismay - insisted. And she made some persuasive arguments, not the least of which being that, despite her repeated run-ins with the Borg, she'd made it home.
So they pressed on.
=/\=
Kathryn was livid. There were no wormholes, it was a Borg intergalactic hub. This brought whole new meaning to lying to oneself. Once they'd left the nebula again - on her orders, despite the Admiral's attempts to countermand it - and were discussing possibilities for how to destroy the hub, she was absolutely seeing red. In fact, she was seeing a red admiral's uniform stuffed with a woman who looked less and less like the person she knew herself to be.
After a multitude of the Admiral's objections about destroying it rather than using it, she barked out, "Let's take a walk," and escorted the Admiral out, leaving everyone else to discuss more options without either Kathryn.
"I want to know why you didn't tell me about this," she demanded as soon as they were out of everyone else's earshot, walking along the corridor at a clip usually reserved for walking by herself - though technically, she was.
"Because I remember how stubborn and self-righteous I used to be," the Admiral replied glibly. "I figured you might try to do something stupid."
"We have an opportunity to deal a crippling blow to the Borg. It could save millions of lives."
"I didn't spend the last ten years looking for a way to get this crew home earlier so you could throw it all away on some intergalactic goodwill mission."
"Maybe we should go back to sickbay."
"Why, so you can have me sedated?"
She finally stopped walking, and the Admiral stopped beside her. She turned to face her squarely and said with as much emphasis as she could, "So I can have the Doctor reconfirm your identity. I refuse to believe I'll ever become as cynical as you."
The admiral was unaffected. "Am I the only one experiencing deja vu here?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Seven years ago, you had the chance to use the Caretaker's array to get Voyager home. Instead you destroyed it."
"I did what I knew was right."
"You chose to put the lives of strangers ahead of the lives of your crew. You can't make the same mistake again."
Now she leaned forward into her face. "You got Voyager home. Which means I will too. If it takes a few more years, then that's -"
"Your daughter is going to die."
That stopped her cold. She searched the older eyes for some clue of lying or . . . or something. Anything. But it wasn't there, and she knew it wouldn't be. She'd suspected this what what the Admiral had been hinting at since their first conversation in the ready room. She just managed to squeak out a soft, "What?"
"Three years from now. She'll be only two and a half years old, and you'll take every precaution you can, but a race you've never even met yet will attack unprovoked and cause her death. Seven of Nine will be there. She'll try to save her, and be injured in the process. She'll make it to sick bay . . . and die in the arms of her husband."
Kathryn's head was reeling from so much information. "Her husband?"
"Harry Kim. None of you three will ever be the same after losing those two people, but it will absolutely break Chakotay. Your relationship will suffer as a result. You'll stay together, you'll be his rock, but he'll never be the same, from then to . . . to the day he dies, back in the Alpha Quadrant, only a couple years after you arrive. The Doctor will tell you his death was also senseless, a result of not taking care of himself properly in the intervening years because he just doesn't care to anymore, despite your best efforts. And you'll never have more children. Neither of you can even face the thought, not while you're still living on Voyager. By the time you get back it will be too late."
After a few moments of silence, Kathryn realized three things: she wasn't breathing, so she took a big gasp of air; she had her hand on her belly as though she could somehow shield this tiny speck of life from any future harm; and tears were coursing down her cheeks.
She hesitated, then stepped away, turning from this harbinger out of time. "If I know what's going to happen," she choked out, "I can avoid it."
"They aren't the only ones. Between this day and the day I finally got Voyager home, I lost 22 crew members, and my only child. And then, of course, there's Tuvok."
"What about him?"
Snark was dripping from the Admiral's voice when she responded. "You're forgetting the Temporal Prime Directive, Captain."
It didn't matter. If it meant losing her baby and, in essence, her husband, it didn't matter. "Forget it."
"Fine. Tuvok has a degenerative neurological condition that he hasn't told you about. There's a cure in the Alpha Quadrant, but if he doesn't get it in time . . . ."
Kathryn turned her head away, running alternative scenarios through her mind. But of course, the Admiral knew that, and responded before she could voice any of them. "Even if you alter Voyager's route and minimize contact with alien species, you're going to lose people, but I'm offering you a chance to get all of them home, today. I'm offering you the chance to have your daughter in a safe location and live a long, happy life with your husband. Are you really going to walk away from all that?"
She hesitated. But instead of answering, she just turned back and said, "It's a girl?"
The Admiral nodded.
Through her tears, she gave a slight laugh. "Wildman, Torres, now me. Is no one on this ship capable of conceiving a boy?"
=/\=
She couldn't do it.
She'd talked to Tuvok. She'd talked to everyone else . . . except Chakotay. Oh, she talked to him along with everyone else, but not about the most important information. Until they made a decision for sure, she just couldn't risk telling him, must less asking his opinion. She felt that she should, that it should be his choice too, but she just couldn't even find the words to give him the hope and joy of knowing he was a father, and take all that hope and joy away in the next breath.
But even knowing everything she knew, even with the walking-on-air bliss of a few days ago having now turned to lead, she simply couldn't willingly alter the timeline.
Nor could she order her crew to destroy the transwarp network hub. She'd done that once. She'd made that decision for them seven years ago. She couldn't make it for them again.
So she left it up to them - the heads of each department, her inner circle. A vote, instead of a hierarchy. And she was both thrilled and, much to her surprise, horribly disappointed when they voted unanimously to destroy the hub rather than use it.
But mostly, she was proud. So proud.
=/\=
Her older self was drinking coffee again. Her older self was remembering how being young and idealistic might, in fact, be a good thing. And together, idealistically, they formulated a plan, a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too plan.
A have-your-baby-and-love-her-too plan.
A perfect, risky, daydream of a plan.
When they sat in the shuttle, preparing the Admiral, the younger Kathryn couldn't let her go without a final check.
"You're sure you want to do this?"
The elder woman gave her younger self an are-you-kidding look and said slowly, "Nooooo. But it's clear that ship's not big enough for both of us." She smiled then. "Besides, she's worth it. They all are, of course, but that little girl… she's so worth it, Kathryn. So worth it."
Kathryn covered her belly with her hand once more, something that apparently was becoming a standing habit for the months to come. "Tell me about her?"
The Admiral closed her eyes, remembering. "She's the most perfect combination of us and her father. Auburn hair, tan skin with dark freckles. A study in contradiction, physically and in personality. A stubborn little spitfire of a child if ever there was one. Feisty, so smart, loving and gentle. Born for command, with the soul of a poet." She opened her eyes finally, to see tears on her younger self's cheeks once again. "Remember sitting in the ready room daydreaming about her, before you were going to tell Chakotay the first time?"
The younger woman nodded.
"She never stopped being my daydream. Take care of her, Kathryn. Don't hold her too close or she'd resent it, but just… just bring back my daydream. Bring back my love to me."
She nodded again. Then the elder Kathryn pulled herself together and said, "But! That can't happen unless we get going on this plan. I believe you're supposed to be using that hypospray to infect me."
=/\=
She wished she could have heard the conversation Admiral Janeway had with the Borg Queen. It must have been spectacular.
She could imagine some of the things she would have said. But if Admiral Janeway of the now-altered timeline had become cynical and jaded from all the pain she'd experienced, it had only sharpened her snarky tongue. Even Captain Janeway had been taken by surprise from a few verbal assaults in their time together. She could only imagine what that woman could manage when busily distracting the Borg Queen, pretending she didn't want the ship assimilated, trying not to be assimilated herself, and then somehow just . . . letting it happen. Being the catalyst to infect the Borg queen herself, and all the Borg.
But she couldn't think about that now. Right now, she had to get this crew home. She had to stay focused. She had to keep Tom focused on the helm, not on his wife in labor in sick bay. She had to . . . .
She had to have her own baby at home. She had to get home. She just had to get them all home.
So she watched the viewscreen intently, occasionally snapping commands that she meant as encouragement, as they traveled through the transwarp intergalactic corridor. And when the Borg sphere came on them as the shock wave from the destroyed hub was rapidly approaching from behind, she ordered Tom to alter heading. Just slightly. Just enough to enter the sphere. And no one argued. They knew they were all tempting and cheating death, all at once.
Finally, they stopped moving forward. She paused, waited . . . then asked, "Tom, where are we?"
He checked his readout, and apparently couldn't even bring himself to say it. It was all too surreal. So all he said was, "Right where we expected to be."
She looked over to Tuvok and nodded. He fired the new torpedoes, destroying the sphere around them, and Tom flew them out.
Unsurprisingly, they faced a veritable wall of Starfleet vessels, clearly all ready for a fight. A tone sounded. "We're being hailed," Harry announced rather unnecessarily.
"On screen."
The faces of Admiral Owen Paris and Lieutenant Reginald Barclay greeted them, with a few other members of the Pathfinder Project peering in from the background. Nothing had ever looked so beautiful, and she was sure nothing would until she actually saw Earth on that viewscreen.
"Sorry to surprise you," she said, trying not to appear as shell-shocked by the whole situation as she felt. "Next time we'll call ahead."
Admiral Paris nodded. "Welcome back."
"It's good to be here."
"How did you-?"
"It'll all be in my report, sir."
"I look forward to it."
The screen reverted to the view of the ships. Kathryn placed a hand on her belly again, and a single tear ran down her face. "Thanks for all the help, Admiral Janeway," she whispered. She wished she could name her baby after the woman, but that would mean naming the baby after herself, and that just wasn't her style.
"Sickbay to the bridge," the Doctor's voice interrupted. Then gurgling and soft crying could be heard. Everyone smiled.
"You'd better get down there, Tom," she said with a smile.
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, and was almost halfway across the bridge before he'd finished saying it.
Without even turning, she reached back for Chakotay's hand. She needed him with her. Right now, more than ever, she needed her husband right where she could feel him.
=/\=
Chakotay stood behind his wife on the bridge. He wanted to reach forward and take her hand, but he didn't. As captain, she deserved this moment, this chance to review what had happened, to bask in the spotlight of having finally gotten their crew home. Especially after the sacrifice the older Kathryn from a now completely diverged timeline had made to allow that divergence.
Then, without turning to look at him, she reached back and took his hand, pulling him forward to her side.
Slowly, she turned to him, gazing up in a way she had never previously allowed herself to in the presence of the crew. "Chakotay," she said, and just the way she said his name made his throat constrict. "I have to tell you something."
Now? But he nodded. "Do you want to go to your ready room?"
"No. No, I think everyone here on the bridge should hear it. I think . . . I was going to tell you before, when we were talking about daydreams, but I think I should say it here, for everyone to hear."
"Okay."
She turned to everyone else, keeping her hand in his. "A couple days ago, the Commander and I were talking about daydreams. I'll admit, I was in a . . . well, a bit of a reverie. Staring out at the stars, a billion different suns shining on a billion different worlds while I was mooning and daydreaming."
She didn't talk about the castle in the sky, and he didn't expect her to. She reserved such flights of fancy for him, and he loved that in so many ways.
She turned back to him. "But it's time to break the reverie . . . and to tell you that . . . that Admiral Janeway made her sacrifice for us, for all of us." She waved one hand, to indicate the bridge and, by default, the entire ship. "But she also did it -" Now she drew his hand to her belly, resting it flat against her abdomen while placing her other hand on his cheek. "- for the three of us."
He stared at her, drinking in the love and concern and apprehension and excitement and expectation -
Expectation. Expecting. The three of us? Tears sprang to his eyes. "You - you're - really? Kathryn, really?"
She grinned and nodded, her own eyes certainly not dry either. He wasn't sure any eye on the bridge was, except probably Commander Tuvok's. But he also wasn't checking. He was busy leaning down to kiss his wife, standing in the one place she'd insisted they could never kiss - the bridge. But apparently, that rule was out the airlock now, because she happily reciprocated.
And everyone on the bridge cheered.
When she finally pulled away, she whispered, "And . . . Admiral Janeway was not quiet about this baby. I'd asked the Doctor not to tell me, but the Admiral did, and I don't think it's fair not to tell you since I know."
"Know what?"
"It's a girl."
"A daughter?"
"Our daughter."
He didn't think he could smile any wider, but his face kept trying to find a way. "It doesn't matter. I love this baby no matter what. But . . . it's good to know."
She grinned. "I agree." Pulling away from him a little and straightening her uniform, she said in a louder voice, "Now, Commander Chakotay. The helm, if you please."
He nodded crisply, unable to wipe the grin from his own face, and sat down at the controls Tom had vacated to go see his own newborn daughter.
Behind him, his wife's voice came through crisp and commanding as usual, though he did hear a slight catch as she said, "Set a course . . . for home."
Daydream
as performed by Ella Fitzgerald
Daydream, why do you haunt me so
Deep in a rosy glow
The face of my love you show
Daydream, I walk along on air
Building a castle there
For me and my love to share
Don't know the time, lordy
I'm in a daze
Sun in the sky, while I moon around, feeling, hazy
Daydream, don't break my reverie
Until I find that he,
Is daydreaming just like me
Daydreams, why do you haunt me so
While I'm in this rosy glow
Bring back my love
Bring back my love
Bring back my love
To me