The Greatest Gift
San Francisco, December 23, 2418
It didn't feel like Christmas. Tinsel and lights lined all the shop windows and holiday greenery hung from the street lamps. Carols played in all the stores, restaurants and shopping malls. Bustling customers laden with shopping bags hurried down the sidewalks. Decorated trees glimmered from apartment windows. But it still didn't feel like Christmas.
Keala Janeway removed the four pips from her collar and placed them on her bedside table. She unzipped her red, black and grey Starfleet jacket, letting it gap open to revel her grey tank. She slipped off her black high heeled boots and went to the replicator. "Coffee, black." The steaming beverage materialized and she inhaled its scent before taking her first sip. Then she walked over to the kitchen table that sat in the center of her small apartment and opened the box that sat on top of it. "Are you ready for this?" she murmured to herself. She was surprised to find that the box was not full of PADDs, as she had expected, but instead, contained a stack of leather-bound notebooks. "She wrote on paper?" she wondered. But as she examined the notebooks, she could tell that they were indeed in her mother's hand. She wondered if she should read them, or put them back in the box and wait for another day.
"It's been three months," she said to the empty room. "If you're not going to do it now, when are you? It's time to go through these things and move on." But in spite of her admonishments to herself, there was still a voice in the back of her mind that told her maybe she didn't want to look into her mother's life. Maybe she didn't want to learn the details of her mother's past. Maybe dead things were dead for a reason, because it was time to move on and let go of them. But then she remembered the strong, passionate woman that her mother had been. She closed her eyes and remembered her mother's voice, the way her arms had felt around her when she hugged her little girl. She remembered how, even though they'd been alone, just the two of them, her mother had always made Christmas special for her. She remembered that there had always been a sadness in her mother's eyes, and she remembered that her mother would never talk about why. For years, she had asked questions and received no answers. Now, her mother was gone forever, but she might finally have the opportunity to know the answers to the questions she'd asked for so long.
Steeling her resolve, she opened each notebook to the first page, and found the first journal, chronologically. Her mother had used civilian dates, not stardates, in her journals, and the entry was dated June 2379. As she started to read, Keala could hear her mother's voice through the words she had written.
"Here begins a new life." I shared this quote with the Doctor, once, to help him on his journey. Now, I feel perhaps that it applies to my own life. I wonder, every day, what I am doing. Am I making a terrible mistake? Am I acting on feelings that I have no right to have, much less express? I've been waiting for so long for something that would change my life; now it's here and I'm afraid to accept it. But when we are alone and he stands next to me and whispers in my ear, his hot breath sends shivers down my spine and all the way to my core. And his hands. How I love his hands when they cover mine. Lately, we've been laughing and talking and flirting, and it feels like old times, like the past eight years never happened, like all the burdens we have carried for so long melt away. And yet, what we are doing is forbidden. If it is so wrong, why does it feel so right?
Keala sat back in her chair, puzzled, and looked again at the date on the entry. Her mother couldn't be talking about her father. This was three years before her mother had met her father, the leader of a Delta Quadrant world called Agrovar. Who was her mother writing about? Keala turned the page.
"What are we doing?" I ask him. "I'm going to make love to you," he replies. "It's going to happen." The words excite me beyond what I can describe, but I am afraid. I tell him so. He laughs. "Kathryn Janeway, who's not afraid of the Borg, the Hirogen, or Species 8472, is afraid?" I don't know what to say to him. This is different. Those are enemies I know how to face. This is something vulnerable, dangerous. This is opening up my heart in a way I haven't done since… Well, since Justin, really. I know I'm opening myself up to a terrible risk. "Why now?" I ask him. He shrugs. "I don't know," he says, and I can see that he is telling the truth. I wonder, why now, when he has other obligations, when our relationship can never be more than what it is. I wonder why I am even willing to consider this… this affair… when I would never consider a relationship with him before. Is it because he is not fully available? Have I simply been alone too long? Am I starting to give up on the idea of ever getting home? Is that why I am willing to consider this now, when I never would have before? Have my expectations about my own life sunk so low that even the smallest spark of joy amazes me? The brief private moments we have together are the greatest moments I have ever experienced. I am so filled with joy when we are together now that nothing else seems to matter, not even the risk we are taking. I cannot count all the conversations we have had over the past eight years, and yet, now, I feel we have more to talk about than we ever did before. The brief moments before our shift in my quarters are never enough. He drinks his tea; I have my coffee. We share breakfast. We share conversation. We share our souls. Sometimes I feel that we share the same soul. This morning, he almost kissed me. His lips were so close to mine that I could feel his breath. I trembled in his arms. I think he could sense that this time I might not stop him. At the last moment, he pulled back and my head fell against his chest, both of us breathing heavily. He holds me so close, and his arms feel so safe and strong around me. I try to blot out of my mind that tonight, after our shifts, he will go home with her.
Keala looked up from the journal and took a sip of her coffee. This was crazy. She'd always known there were things her mother had kept from her, but she had never expected to discover something like this. Before she'd met her father, it seemed her mother had had an affair with someone on Voyager. But who? So far, she had not mentioned his name. Everyone knew about the infamous Voyager rumor mill. To this day, it ran strong among the former Voyager crew and their descendants. But Keala had never heard anyone breathe a word about the captain having an affair. Was it possible that no one knew, that it had remained a secret for all these years? That Keala was the only one to discover the truth, and only now, after her mother was gone forever? She turned the page.
He kissed me today. I already knew that the next time he tried I would not want to stop him. I don't think I would have been able to even if I had wanted to. We had our usual morning meeting before shift. He took me in his arms, and then his mouth was on mine, his tongue demanding entrance, plundering my mouth. His kiss was almost rough, demanding, uncompromising, needy, passionate. I could feel it through my whole body. It's not like he forced himself on me; I wanted it. I needed it. I enjoyed it. I found myself grasping his shoulders, my lips responding to his. When he finally broke the kiss, I wanted more. I wanted to feel the softness of his lips on mine again, to taste him, again. I never wanted to let him go. But then, of course, we had to straighten ourselves up, and walk out of my quarters as if nothing had happened. We sit next to each other all day, and it's business as usual. And then when he sees her in the messhall at night, I have to pretend I feel nothing while he kisses her good evening and invites me to join them for dinner. I feel that he's right. We are going to make love. It's going to happen; it's just a question of when. I have never been able to deny our connection. I have pushed it away, I have forced it to the back of my mind, but I have never been able to deny it. And now I feel that this is the most natural progression in the world. At the same time, I remain desperately afraid. What if we're caught? What if we're discovered? I can only see it leading to pain and suffering for all three of us.
"We sit next to each other all day…" Keala read the line over again another three times. Was her mother being literal? Or was it figurative? On her nearby datapad, she called up Voyager's original crew assignments and looked at the bridge crew. Whoever it was her mother had had the affair with was obviously in a relationship on Voyager. Of the bridge crew, that left only two options. Tom Paris, who had already been married to B'Elanna Torres at the time of her mother's writing, or… Keala stared at the bridge crew assignments. We sit next to each other all day. Commander Chakotay, her mother's first officer. He had been married to Seven of Nine.
Chakotay had been a myth in Keala's mind for her entire life. He had been killed during Voyager's return to the Alpha Quadrant. The space-folding technology that Keala's father had given to Kathryn Janeway to get her crew home had not integrated smoothly with Voyager's systems. B'Elanna Torres had done her best, but the journey home, while quick, had been dangerous and bloody. Voyager had lost nearly fifty crew members in the forty-six hours it had taken them to travel the final forty light-years of their journey. The most devastating of those losses for Kathryn Janeway had been her first officer, Chakotay. Keala had grown up hearing about Chakotay's brave deeds and kind spirit from everyone who had been on Voyager, especially her closest friend, Miral Paris, who had just enough memories of Chakotay to tell Keala about him. Miral was four years older than Keala and had always been like an older sister to her. Miral's father, Keala's "Uncle" Tom, as she called him, had often taken on a fatherly role since Keala had never known her own father. She couldn't believe that her mother had had an affair with her Uncle Tom. He had stayed too much a part of their lives, and she had never seemed jealous or resentful of Aunt B'Elanna in any way. No, it had to be Chakotay, Chakotay whose name had often brought tears to her mother's eyes, Chakotay who had become a myth in their household, Chakotay who had only been spoken of as a hero. She turned to the next page of the journal.
We made love today for the first time. He left the bridge before his shift was done, using an excuse about a project he had to work on. I left the bridge a few minutes later. We met secretly in my quarters. He suggested we share a bottle of wine. We drank slowly, savoring every sip. "You're wonderful," I told him, and he turned back to me and said, "You're wonderful!" It was romantic and sensitive and beautiful and also passionate and wild. It was amazing. It was worth the wait, worth all these years of celibacy. I lost count of how many times he made me come before he finally emptied himself into me. It's as if the rest of the world, the rest of the ship, the rest of reality, melts away when we are together. I don't know how long this will last. I don't know if he will come to me tomorrow and tell me it's over, but even if he does, it's been worth it for a few short, stolen moments of perfection.
Keala settled her chin into her hand. Her mother, one of the most decorated captains in Starfleet history, had had an affair with her first officer.
"Hey, Lala, you okay?" Miral Paris entered her best friend's apartment after getting an urgent call from her. She had the door key code, so she hadn't needed to ring the bell. "Lala?" she tried again, using the pet name she had adopted when the two girls were small children.
"I'm in here, Mira, I'm okay."
Miral followed the sound of her friend's voice through the entryway and into the living room of the apartment, where she found Keala sitting on the couch, her legs curled up under her, a steaming cup of coffee on the end table, and a leather-bound book in her hand. "Your call sounded urgent."
"Get yourself something to drink if you want and come sit by me," Keala said.
Miral ordered herself a hot chocolate from the replicator and went to join her friend. She immediately noticed Keala's tearstained face. "You are not okay. Now tell me what's going on."
"No, I am okay. Really. I'm just… feeling emotional."
"Does it have something to do with whatever it is you're reading?"
Keala took a deep breath. "I finally went to my mom's apartment and cleaned out her things. The furniture and clothes and everything all got donated or recycled, but there were a few of her personal things left. One was a box marked "personal." I thought it might be full of PADDs, her personal logs, or something, but it turns out she kept a journal. Like, an actual, physical, handwritten journal."
"Why would she do that? Who does that anymore?"
"I don't think she wanted a digital record of these things. I don't think she wanted anything searchable or permanent, that could be reconstructed by a computer and then read by just anyone. I don't know, maybe she intended to destroy these journals someday."
"Or maybe she intended for you to read them."
"Maybe she did," Keala said thoughtfully. "I hope she did. I don't think my mother wanted me to live my whole life without knowing the truth."
"The truth?" Miral asked.
Keala nodded. "You think you know your parents, right? You think you know there are some things they would never do. You think you know who they are."
"I guess so," said Miral. "Maybe some kids do. Us, I don't know. Our parents went through so much before we were even born. It's hard to imagine what their lives were like, stranded in the Delta Quadrant. To this day, I'm still finding out stories that I never heard before."
"Stories about adventures or crazy aliens or space battles are one thing. We're both Starfleet officers. We may not have experienced those things in the Delta Quadrant, but we've experienced them. I'm talking about something more personal."
"Lala, will you just spit it out? You're driving me crazy here. What did you find out?"
"My mother… my mother had an affair." She passed the journal to her friend. "Look."
It's not easy, knowing that every night he will go home to her, knowing that she will always be his first priority, knowing that her schedule and demands will always dictate his time before mine do. But I have already asked so much of him, over the years, as his captain and as his friend, that I cannot ask any more of him. What he gives me as a lover must be given freely and without demands. Sometimes that means that weeks go by with no physical contact between us. Sometimes it means that our plans to make love must be put on hold. And it always means that whatever we are allowed to share can only be shared in stolen moments, secretly, in a locked holodeck or in my locked quarters, under guises of lies or half-truths. Sometimes I think that she will always be special to him, and that I am just a convenience, a tool that he uses for sexual release. I don't know if he makes love to her when he gets home. We've never discussed it; I have no right to ask him. After all, she's the one he married. In spite of my doubts and my questions, at the bottom of my soul I know that he and I have something special. We need each other. I know that at the end of the day, he's not fulfilled by her. If he was, he wouldn't come to me every morning. He wouldn't hold me so desperately. He wouldn't risk everything to be with me. Yet I have given up all hope that he will ever leave her for me. If we get home, there's a chance. There's a chance that things could be different. But here, on the ship, he feels responsible for her. It's a matter of honor, loyalty and duty. He feels that if he left her, it would hurt her too much. I don't want to see her hurt any more than he does, so I am willing to bear the burden of secrecy, the burden of always being second. All I want for him is the best life he can have. I feel I've already stolen so much of that away from him, by refusing to explore a relationship for so many years, by stranding us in the Delta Quadrant in the first place… Sometimes I wonder what the point is, whether I should call the whole thing off and tell him to go home to her if she's who he really wants. I wonder if I am being selfish, if I should end it for his sake and hers, because I do not want to see either of them hurt because of this. But then we have an amazing morning conversation, or he makes love to me, and I realize that of all the things I could give up, this is the one I do not want to let go of. How can I give up the best and most joyful moments of my life? As frustrating and as painful as our relationship can sometimes be, I know it is also the greatest relationship of my life, and I feel like the luckiest woman in the world to be a part of his life and to share mine with him, even in this unconventional way.
After reading the entry, Miral looked up, surprise and curiosity dancing across her face. "She doesn't mention a name. Do you know who…"
"It's Chakotay," Keala interrupted her. "And there's more." Keala picked up the next journal and opened it. She held it close to her heart for a moment. "Miral, you have to swear that you will never tell anybody what I'm about to tell you. No matter what. Not your parents, not anyone."
"Lala, what…"
"Swear it."
"Okay. I swear. Your secret is safe with me."
"President Ala of Agrovar isn't my father."
"Keala, are you sure?"
Solemnly, Keala nodded and handed Miral the journal.
I'm pregnant. The Doctor confirmed it today. Something in the wine we drank on Talias III counteracted our boosters, I guess. The Doctor didn't know what to think. I think that on one level he's disappointed in me. But he said to me, "I have no right to judge what a person can bear." I know he was nearly as heartbroken as I was when the two of them got married, so we share a bond in that sense. I swore him to secrecy and told him I need some time to make my decision. I couldn't have asked for a more compassionate doctor or friend, and I am grateful for that. I know what I have to do. I cannot be pregnant and be captain of a starship. I cannot have my first officer's child, especially not when he's married to someone else on the ship. I'll have to end the pregnancy. I'll have to end it and I can never tell Chakotay. I chose to take this risk, and I must bear the burden of this knowledge alone. I cannot impose that burden on him. I will not. He swore long ago that he would make my burdens lighter; now it is my turn to do the same for him. I know this. But then I place my hand over my abdomen, where I know our child is growing, and I think, this is our baby. Our child. Conceived from the depth of the love that we share, from the strength of our connection. I think that somewhere, there is another place and another time where we had a life together. Maybe we met much earlier, before Justin, before Mark, before the Maquis. Maybe we met much later, and had a quiet life together on Earth as two old people. Maybe we stayed on New Earth longer, and became lovers all those years ago. I want to believe that there is a timeline where we are happy together, on Earth, on Voyager, on Trebus, or somewhere else that I can't even imagine. I want to believe that there is a timeline where we share a life openly and freely, where our connection does not have to be forged in secret, where our lovemaking does not have to be hidden as though it is shameful. I want to believe that there is a world where Chakotay and Kathryn and this child have a happy, wonderful life together. I want to believe that timeline exists, because it will never exist for me.
When Miral looked up from the journal, there were tears in her eyes, tears that mirrored Keala's own. "Oh my god," she whispered.
"I know," Keala replied.
"It's so sad. To think Aunt Kathryn endured that, that she carried that secret with her for her entire life." Miral paused. "But what happened? She obviously didn't go through with the abortion."
"My mother had set up the appointment with the Doctor, but she put it off when a trader they passed told her about the Agrovarians and their space-folding technology. Two weeks later, Voyager arrived at Agrovar. She met my fa… She met President Ala, and convinced him to share their space-folding technology with Voyager." Keala paused, swallowing hard. "My mother had always believed that if Voyager got home, maybe she and Chakotay would have a chance at a real relationship. I don't know if that's true or not. She writes a lot about Chakotay's sense of duty and responsibility to Seven of Nine, and I don't know if that would have changed if they had gotten home, but she thought that it might."
"That's why she pushed my mother so hard to integrate the space-folding technology into Voyager's systems," Miral realized. "My mother always said that if she'd had more time, months, maybe, that she might have been able to integrate the technology more successfully. Fewer lives would have been lost."
"But my mother didn't have months. In months, the entire ship would have known she was pregnant, or she would have had the abortion, so she pushed for everything to happen faster."
"Voyager got home, and Chakotay died in the process." Miral paused. "But what about the lie, that President Ala was your father? How did she pull it off for all those years? Wouldn't any DNA test reveal that you're entirely human?"
"The Doctor altered my DNA when I was still in her womb. I saw him this morning at Starfleet Medical. He had been under orders from my mother never to reveal the truth to me unless my life was in danger as a result of the lie, or unless I somehow discovered the truth myself." Keala's conversation with the Doctor had been an emotion one, for both of them. The EMH had teared up, remembering the circumstances of Keala's birth and the conversations he'd had with Kathryn Janeway at the time. "Chakotay was dead. My mother didn't want to dishonor his memory by revealing that they'd had an affair. Seven of Nine already blamed my mother for her husband's death. She thought Captain Janeway's use of the space-folding technology was impulsive and dangerous, that she needlessly risked the lives of her crew to appease her own selfish desire to get home. My mother didn't want to hurt Seven any more than she already had."
"So she concocted the lie that President Ala was your father."
"Yes, and the Doctor helped her make it appear true. He altered my DNA so that no one would ever know that Chakotay was my father. President Ala was in the Delta Quadrant; he'd never be able to confirm or deny the story."
Miral shook her head in amazement. "To think that all those years Voyager's crew speculated that Captain Janeway slept with President Ala in order to secure the space-folding technology."
"At least that's one myth we can debunk."
Miral scooted closer to her friend and put her arm around her. "Are you okay?"
"I don't know what to think or feel, Mira. Mostly I just feel so sad for my mother. She was so beautiful and strong, and she deserved so much better than the life she got."
"Don't say that. She had you."
"Yes, but she deserved so much more. She deserved that life she dreamed about, the happy one. I read her journals about those last four years on Voyager, when Chakotay was with Seven, and the whole thing just sounds so messed up. Chakotay got together with Seven because he was convinced whatever he and my mother had shared could never be. He was lonely, and he wanted someone. She was attractive and available. But then, once he was with her, I think he discovered his feelings for my mother would never change. She had pushed him away for all those years, but she was so hurt by his marriage that it forced her to realize she still had feelings for him. Their only moments of happiness and fulfillment were with each other, but they had to live a lie to steal those few moments for themselves. I feel so sad for my mother. And I also feel angry at her for not telling the truth, and sad for myself that I never got to meet my own father. I didn't even know who he was until I was thirty-six years old!" Keala swiped at angry tears that had welled up in her eyes. She opened one more page of her mother's final journal. "Here," she said, handing it to Miral. "This is the last handwritten entry."
I always suspected that the day would come when I would have to live out the rest of my life without him. I just didn't know it would come so soon. I keep expecting my door to open and to see him standing there, that impish grin on his face, and I keep having to remind myself that will never happen again. I do not know how I can go on without him. I have a shirt of his that he left in my quarters. I keep smelling it, but I know that eventually the scent will fade. I can hardly bear the thought of even one day without him. Now, I have to live the rest of my life knowing he is no longer a part of this world. Even though he was never entirely mine, just knowing that he was alive made my life a little better and a little easier. I ask myself whether I was reckless and impulsive, as Seven says. Is it my fault that Chakotay is dead? Starfleet wants to give me a medal; I think I deserve a court martial. There is only one thing that is keeping me going now, and that is the life inside me. Chakotay's daughter. The Doctor told me today that it's a girl. He's promised to help me so that no one will ever know her true origins. I guess in that way, Chakotay is not entirely gone. Some small part of him will live on in her, in our daughter, even though only I will ever know the truth about who she is. I began these journals thinking that this was the beginning of my new life. Of my life with him. In spite of what we did, I do not regret a single moment that we spent together. He was, and always shall be, the greatest love of my life. If there is such a thing as a soulmate, Chakotay was mine. Chakotay, I will always love you with all that I am, body, heart and soul. I will carry your memory with me through every waking hour and every sleepless night, through every dream and every moment of the rest of my life. I will do my best to honor you by raising our daughter in the best way I can, in the love that should have been ours to share.
"Wow," said Miral under her breath.
"I know. It's a lot."
"What are you going to do now?"
"I don't know," Keala admitted. "Go on with my life, I guess. Pretend nothing has changed. The Voyager B is due to leave orbit in a few days. I'll go back out there and keep being Captain Keala Janeway, my mother's daughter."
Miral was silent for a long time, and Keala was about to ask her if there was anything wrong when she suddenly said, "Keala, what if you could change what happened to your parents?"
"Change what happened? What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about rewriting history. What if you could?"
"First of all, I couldn't. Second of all, it's against the Temporal Prime Directive."
"Forget about the Temporal Prime Directive for a minute. If you had the power to go back and change history, give your parents that happy life, would you?"
"Of course."
"Even if it meant you and I wouldn't be here having this conversation?"
Keala understood what Miral meant. Even if it meant she would never be born. Still, she didn't need to think very long about it. Maybe it meant that she would be born differently, that her life would be happier, and that she would grow up with both of her parents. Her mother's words echoed in her mind. I want to believe that there is a world where Chakotay and Kathryn and this child have a happy, wonderful life together. I want to believe that timeline exists, because it will never exist for me. "Yes."
"All right." Miral took a deep breath. "You've told me a secret, and now I'm going to tell you one. You know that my mom is the Federation liaison to Qo'nos."
"Yes."
"Have you heard of a Klingon named Korath?"
"The name sounds familiar."
"He has a device that uses a nadion discharge to create a temporal rift. I've seen it. It works."
"Are you suggesting…"
"I think we could get our hands on it, Keala. You're a captain; you have a certain amount of discretion over the Voyager B's mission. With my engineering expertise and connections on Qo'nos, we could use it to modify a shuttle. I think we could go back in time and change history."
"Who's to say that things would turn out any better? Who are we to mess with the entire timeline?"
"Just think about it. What if Voyager could have been brought home earlier, and safer?"
"Yes," Keala said slowly. "I could bring the Agravarian space-folding technology back to them, but I could perfect the integration process, make it less dangerous."
"We could save your father's life, get Tuvok treatment for his illness before his condition deteriorates and give your mother a chance at the happiness she wanted so badly. Think about it, what better Christmas present could you give to your mother than that?"
"You know, if Starfleet finds out about this, we're going to be in big trouble. We'd face a court martial, or maybe even prison time."
"No one is going to find out. Think about your mother. If she were still alive and had this opportunity, don't you think she'd take it?"
Keala took a deep breath and looked Miral in the eye. She wondered whether she was making the worst or the best decision of her life. "Yes."
The Delta Quadrant, December 20, 2378
Captain Kathryn Janeway drummed her fingers along the arm of the captain's chair. She was preoccupied. Two days earlier, she'd invited Chakotay to have lunch with her, and he'd asked for a rain check, a rain check which he had still not redeemed. In fact, it had been several weeks since they'd last spent any real time alone together. It seemed every time she invited him to share a meal or a cup of coffee, he begged off with some excuse. She was beginning to wonder if there was something going on that she should know about. Granted, their relationship had been strained over the past year. She wasn't sure if their trust had really recovered after the incident with Captain Ransom and the Equinox. She had tried her best to make it up to Chakotay, but she felt she was constantly failing. On top of that, threats of conspiracy from Seven and the incident with Teero had taken a toll on them. In spite of the strain, though, Kathryn had faith that her relationship with Chakotay would endure, and that their deep connection would carry them through whatever hardships they had to face.
She was jolted from her musings by an alarmed Harry Kim. "Captain, I'm detecting tachyon emissions off the port bough."
"Coming from where?"
"I'm not sure, Captain."
"Senior officers report to the bridge," she said.
Two minutes later, when Chakotay and Seven entered the bridge together, they were no closer to understanding what was going on.
"What is it?" Chakotay asked.
"Judging from the tachyon emissions, some sort of temporal rift," said Janeway.
"How's it being generated?" asked Seven.
"That's what we're trying to figure out," the captain replied.
"I'm detecting nadion discharges on the other side of the rift," Tuvok reported.
Chakotay glanced down at his computer terminal. "Weapons fire?"
"It's possible," Tuvok replied. "The signature appears to be Klingon."
Janeway felt a small thrill go through her at the thought. Klingon. That meant a ship from the Alpha Quadrant. "Red alert."
"There's a vessel coming through the rift," Tuvok said
"Klingon?" Chakotay asked.
"No, Federation."
A Starfleet shuttle emerged in a burst of light, but it was unlike any shuttle Janeway had ever seen.
"We're being hailed," said Kim.
"On screen," the captain ordered. On the view screen, a female Starfleet captain appeared. She looked familiar, somehow, but Janeway couldn't place her.
"Recalibrate your deflector to emit an anti-tachyon pulse," the woman exclaimed. "You have to seal that rift."
Janeway crossed her arms over her chest. "It's usually considered polite to introduce yourself before you start giving orders."
"Captain," said Tuvok, "a Klingon vessel is coming through."
"I'm Captain Keala Janeway," the woman said. "Now please, close the rift. If you don't, that Klingon ship is going to destroy me, and maybe Voyager, too."
Janeway glanced at Chakotay and he gave a small nod. Maybe he, too, saw something familiar in the woman's eyes, something that made him want to trust her. She turned back to Tuvok and nodded at him. "Emit the pulse."
The tachyon pulse burst from Voyager, sealing the rift and stopping the Klingon vessel. Janeway saw the other woman breathe a sigh of relief.
"I did what you asked," Kathryn said to the other woman. "Now tell me what the hell is going on."
"I've come to bring Voyager home."
As Keala stepped off of Voyager's transporter pad, she looked around in wonder. She had never been aboard the ship that had played such a significant role in her mother's life. By the time she'd been old enough to remember, Voyager had long been decommissioned. She'd spent several years of her childhood aboard her mother's second ship, the Voyager A, and now she herself commanded the Voyager B (or she had, before she'd gone on this insane mission), but she'd never seen the original ship that had started it all.
She stepped off the transporter pad and smiled at the transporter operator, a junior officer who she didn't recognize. He must be one of those who was killed before they reached home, she thought. The thought was sobering, and she turned her attention to her mother and Commander Tuvok. "Hello, Captain," she said, trying to hold back tears. She didn't remember her mother ever looking this young, this vibrant. She was beautiful. It had only been three months since her mother's death, but she felt like it had been a lifetime. She wanted to run into her mother's arms, but she restrained herself. "Hello, Commander Tuvok."
"You know my name," he observed.
"Yes." She looked back at her mother. "You're wondering who I am and why I'm really here. Perhaps we should talk in private."
Voyager's captain nodded. "In my ready room."
As Keala followed her mother and Tuvok through Voyager's corridors and into the turbolift, she smiled at everyone they passed. Some of them she recognized, although she knew them as old men and women, almost forty years into the future from this day. She just hoped she had arrived in time. She hoped she wasn't too late. She hoped that the past year spent perfecting the space-folding technology would be worth it. She clutched the data chip in her pocket as she followed her mother onto the bridge.
Her mother walked briskly through the bridge to her ready room, but Keala froze when she stepped out of the turbolift doors. Here it was, Voyager's bridge. She had only seen it in holo-images. She looked around, seeing the familiar faces of her Uncle Tom and Harry Kim. Her eyes traversed the bridge to find Seven of Nine, a woman she had never met, but had heard her mother speak of with sadness and regret. And then her eyes fell on him, the man she had never met but always admired. She wanted to run into his arms and say, "Daddy, Daddy, it's me!" But when he turned to look at her, she just smiled as she would greet any stranger.
"Captain?" her mother called from the door of her ready room, and Keala realized she had been standing, frozen, outside the turbolift for several seconds.
"Of course," she said, finding her command tone, and following her mother into her ready room.
Once they were alone, Kathryn Janeway approached her replicator. "Coffee, black," she ordered.
"Make that two, please," said Keala.
Janeway raised an eyebrow, but ordered a second cup of coffee and handed it to the other captain without comment. She sat down at her desk and offered the other woman a seat across from her. "Who are you?" she asked. "You're obviously from the future; the design of your shuttle is unlike any I've ever seen. Are you my niece? The child of some cousin? Did Starfleet send you."
Keala looked at the floor and then back at Captain Janeway. "You're right, I am from the future. Starfleet didn't send me. I stole a device from the Klingons that produces tachyo-kinetic energy and creates a temporal rift with a tachyon pulse. I've come from forty years in the future, from the year 2418." She produced the data chip from her pocket. "This data chip contains space-folding technology that can get Voyager home in a matter of days. I've spent the last year perfecting the integration of the technology with Voyager's systems. You should be home in time for Christmas, Captain."
"You still haven't answered my question, Captain Janeway," Kathryn said pointedly. "Who are you?"
Keala gave her mother a wry half smile. "I'm your daughter."
Kathryn looked at the other woman in disbelief. She didn't have a daughter. In fact, she had given up completely on the possibility of ever having a child. Yet, here she was, and the genetic relationship would certainly explain the familiarity she felt with this woman. "How old are you?" she asked.
"Thirty-six."
Janeway thought about this. That meant she would conceive a child just under four years from now. "Why have you come back?" she asked. "Voyager obviously gets home. You've come from Starfleet, in the Alpha Quadrant. And we must get home soon, because I can't imagine that I would ever be willing to have a child in the Delta Quadrant."
"You weren't," Keala said flatly.
Kathryn shook herself. "You know what? I shouldn't be listening to details about the future."
"The Temporal Prime Directive?" Keala asked. "I thought about that. I thought about it a lot, in fact. But I decided it wasn't relevant in this case."
"Not relevant?"
Keala shook her head. "Too many lives are at stake."
"For the sake of argument, let's say I believe everything you're telling me. The future you come from sounds pretty good. Voyager's home, and soon. I have a daughter who becomes a Starfleet captain."
"So why would you want to tamper with such a great timeline? To answer that, I'd have to tell you more about the future, Mother. Suffice it to say, if you don't do what I'm suggesting, a lot of lives are going to be lost, including yours."
"Mine?" Kathryn asked. "Then how do you come to be?"
"There are more ways to lose a life than physical death," Keala said, thinking of the years of heartache and pain that her mother had endured. "I know you're asking yourself if I'm really who I say I am, or if this is some kind of deception. For all you know, I could be a member of Species 8472 in disguise. Yes, you told me all about them. Have your crew examine my shuttle and look at the information on this data chip. In the meantime, the Doctor can confirm that I am your daughter."
Keala sat in her temporary quarters on Voyager and fidgeted. The Doctor had indeed confirmed that she was Kathryn Janeway's biological daughter, and she had somehow managed to dissuade any further questions about the other half of her parentage. Her mother still seemed strangely reticent to hear any more about the future, and equally hesitant about following Keala's plan to change it. B'Elanna and Seven were running some simulations on the space-folding technology, but Keala was afraid that her plan was going to fail. The tachyo-kinetic energy had burned out her tachyon generator, and she knew that even if she wanted to, she would not be able to return to her own timeline. She wondered if she had made a terrible mistake. Miral would be so upset with her. Miral was the only one who knew where she had gone, and had only stayed behind because Keala had been forced to pull rank and order her to do so. She thought about her last tearful goodbye with her closest friend. Well, she thought, I guess if I get stuck here I can be an aunt to Miral. How messed up is that? She stood up and started to pace back and forth, as if it would make the time go faster.
The door buzzer rang. "Come in."
She froze when she saw the man standing in the doorway. "May I come in, Captain?" he asked.
"Of course. Please come in, Commander Chakotay."
"Thank you." He entered the quarters awkwardly, as if he didn't quite know what to say or do.
Keala gestured to one of the chairs. "Can I get you something to drink? Cinnamon tea perhaps?"
"That's my favorite. How did you know?" he asked as he sat down. His eyes never left her, and Keala tugged at the collar of her tank, feeling warm.
"My mother wrote about how you used to sit together in the mornings and talk, how she'd drink her black coffee, and you'd have cinnamon tea." She ordered the drink from the replicator and handed it to him.
Chakotay smiled as he took the mug. "Your mother," he mused. "Kathryn. You've thrown her for quite a loop, you know," he said. "She may not admit it, but she's been thrown off balance. Actually, I've never seen her quite like this in seven years."
"I just hope she follows through with my plan."
"Why?" Chakotay asked. "Why is it so important to you that Voyager get home now?"
"My mother… uh, Kathryn told you what I told her?"
"She told me you said that lives are at stake. She says you're convinced that it's worth breaking the Temporal Prime Directive."
"To hell with the Temporal Prime Directive!" Keala exploded. "Maybe if you can explain to us why it's so important that we do this now…"
"She doesn't want to know about the future, so how the hell can I explain it to her?" Keala asked. "I came here because she deserves happiness. She deserves a good life, with the family she always wanted. I came back because you deserve a good life, not to settle, not to compromise, but to have the passion you so desperately need. I came back because my entire life, my mother was sad and broken, and today I saw her in the transporter room and she was alive, and it made me realize that I never really knew her when she was alive, because by the time I was born half of her was already dead."
Keala started to shake as she spoke. Her voice rose and trembled, and finally, she burst into tears, collapsing onto the couch and burying her head in her hands. It took her a moment to realize that strong arms had enveloped her and pulled her close, that big hands were stroking her back, and that a gentle voice was whispering in her ear, "It's okay. It's going to be okay."
Keala allowed her father to hold her and comfort her for the first time in her life. Thinking about that only made her want to cry harder, but instead, she reigned in her emotions and wiped her tears. "Thank you," she said, looking up at him with a shy smile. "I'm sorry. I don't usually lose control like that."
He tenderly reached out and brushed a lock of auburn hair back from her face. "You're so much like your mother," he said softly. Then he pulled his hand back abruptly. "I'm sorry, Captain, I don't know what came over me. I was out of line."
"No," she said, placing her hand over his. "Not at all. And please don't call me captain. I'm not a captain here. Just call me Keala." She saw Chakotay studying her carefully and looking into her eyes as if he wanted to ask a question, but he held himself back.
"Okay, Keala," he said instead. "If you need anything at all, just let me know."
"Thanks," she said. "I will."
Chakotay left, and Keala was once again alone in her quarters. She tapped her comm badge. "Janeway to Janeway."
"Janeway here," her mother's voice came back over the comm. She sounded annoyed.
"How are the tests coming?"
"B'Elanna and Seven think they can successfully integrate the technology into our systems, but I'm still not sure that we should…"
"Captain, may I see you at your earliest convenience?"
Keala heard her mother's familiar annoyed sigh. "All right. I'm on my way."
It was ten minutes later when the door chimed. "Come in," Keala said.
A very annoyed Captain Janeway entered. "I don't have time for this, Captain. If this is another attempt to convince me that I'm supposed to help you change the future…"
"Chakotay is going to die," Keala interrupted her.
It worked. Kathryn froze. "What?"
"Four years from now, Voyager will hear from a traveling merchant about a planet called Agravar that has space-folding technology. The same technology I've brought you. President Ala, the leader of Agravar, agrees to share their technology with you, but you don't have a year to integrate it into Voyager's systems. You push B'Elanna and Seven to integrate the technology within weeks. They warn you that the integration isn't perfect. They tell you they need more time, but you don't have more time. You want to get home; you don't want to wait another three or six or nine months. They run some tests; the results are imperfect but they show that the technology will work. It does. You get home. And in the process, you lose almost fifty crew members, including Chakotay. He will die in sickbay, in the arms of his wife."
She saw the shock register on her mother's face. "His wife?"
Keala nodded. "Seven of Nine. His death destroys your relationship with her forever; she will blame you for it for the rest of your lives."
Kathryn felt like she'd been punched in the gut. "And you've come back in time to prevent that from happening."
"I've spent the last year of my life perfecting the integration process to save those lives, yes."
"But if we get home now, all of your past will change. Your life might be erased, Keala. You might not ever be born."
"I know that."
Kathryn took Keala's hand and led her over to the sofa. "Keala, who is your father?"
Keala looked away from her mother's penetrating gaze. "If you have the Doctor test my DNA, it will show that I am part Agravarian."
Janeway furrowed her brow. "I have sex with the Agravarian leader to obtain the space-folding technology?"
Keala smiled sadly. "That was one of the rumors that circulated over the years."
"You still haven't answered my question. Keala, who is your father?"
"I think you know," she said softly.
"No," Kathryn whispered. "It can't be. You said he died on the journey home, and I would never…"
Silently, Keala stood and went to the small duffel bag she had brought with her. She took the few pages she had torn out of her mother's journal and handed them to her. "If you want to know how important it is that you follow through on my plan, it's all here. If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe yourself."
Kathryn sat in Keala's quarters and drank three cups of coffee by the time she had finished reading the pages written in her own hand half a dozen times. It was hard for her to believe that she would ever commit the actions described in these pages, and yet she had to believe herself. In less than six months, Chakotay and Seven would be married. About six months after that, he would begin spending more and more time alone with her, time that would eventually turn into a passionate secret affair. She could see, not only in the pages she had written, but in Keala's eyes, how much sadness this would eventually cause for her, for Chakotay and for Seven. She read the other Kathryn's own musings on her decision whether to use the space-folding technology, even though it was dangerous. And it was her pregnancy and her hope for a chance at happiness with Chakotay that had driven her decision. If she used the same technology now, would she not be repeating the same mistake? But when she voiced this concern to Keala, her daughter became upset.
"I'm offering you a chance to get them all home now, today. You can have your chance at happiness with Chakotay, or with someone else, if that's what you want. Are you really going to turn that down?"
"It was my own selfishness that cost so many lives in your timeline. How do you know the same thing won't happen again?"
"Because I've spent the last year of my life working to prevent it. I know my work is good, Mom. I can map out a safe trajectory if I go ahead of Voyager in a shuttle. I know that it will work."
Kathryn considered her daughter for a long moment before tapping her comm badge. "Janeway to Torres."
"Torres here, Captain."
"Go ahead and integrate the space-folding technology, B'Elanna. Use whatever resources you need. We're going to try Keala's plan."
Keala grinned and threw her arms around her mother in a big hug. "We'll make this work, Mom. I know we will." She pulled back and held her mother at arm's length. "This is going to be the best Christmas present I ever gave you."
"Oh, my back hurts," B'Elanna Torres moaned as she gripped the back of the shuttle's chair to help herself stand up.
"It'll all be over soon," Keala assured her. "I'm ready to have this baby now!"
Keala grinned, knowing that today, December 22, was Miral's birthday, and that B'Elanna was likely in the early stages of labor at this very moment.
"I think everything's ready to go, Captain," said Torres, running one last check on the shuttle's systems.
"Thank you," Keala replied. "I'll run a few more final checks. Why don't you rest for a while."
"All right," said B'Elanna. "I'm going to stop by engineering and make sure everything is ready to go there."
Keala nodded, and was so absorbed in her work that she didn't hear the shuttle bay doors open again several minutes later. She wasn't aware of another presence in the room until she heard a knock on the shuttle wall. "Keala?"
She turned around to see Chakotay. "Hello."
He sat down next to her in the co-pilot's chair. "Are you sure you want to fly the shuttle alone?" he asked. "It's dangerous. I've read up on the space-folding technology. It's much more risky to navigate in a shuttle than a starship."
"I know," Keala said softly, "but in all my simulations it's clear that if a shuttle goes ahead of Voyager to chart the proper course, the risk of injury to the crew or damage to the ship is significantly less."
Chakotay studied her for a long moment. "You don't expect to get back to the Alpha Quadrant, do you?"
"I always knew that this would be a one-way trip for me."
"Your existence will be erased by this mission of yours, won't it?"
Keala nodded.
"And you're willing to do that so that your mother can be happy?"
"Not only for that. But, yes."
Chakotay reached out tentatively and caressed her cheek, as he had in her quarters the other day when she'd been so upset. "Keala," he started hesitantly.
"Yes?"
"I'm your father, aren't I?"
Wordlessly, she nodded.
"You look just like my sister."
"Did you tell Mom that you know?"
Chakotay shook his head.
"Don't. It's probably better for all involved." Keala paused, regretting the bitterness of her tone. "Can I ask you a question?" she said after a moment.
"Sure."
"Why do you marry Seven of Nine and not my mother?"
Chakotay's eyes widened for a moment, and he looked away from her before looking back. "Keala, I don't know what happened in your timeline. I don't know how you came to be. Part of me wants to know, and part of me doesn't, to be honest. And I don't know how to answer your question because I haven't married Seven of Nine. We've been on a few dates. I like her. I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone. She needs me; she appreciates me."
"You don't think my mother needs you?"
"Your mother and I have a very deep connection. We always have, but we decided long ago that we could never be together on Voyager. Seven and I have fun together. I guess I could see a future where I choose to spend my life with her."
"But would you ever be fulfilled by that? Do you really think that you could ever have as deep a connection with Seven as you have with my mom?"
"I don't know, Keala. Obviously, something happened between your mother and me in your past, because you're here. Maybe Seven wasn't enough for me. Maybe she never could be. I don't know."
"You're wrong about one thing."
"Oh? What's that?"
"My mother does need you. She just won't tell you. She feels she's already asked you for too much. Whatever you give to her from this point forward must be freely given."
"Did she tell you that?" Chakotay asked.
"No," Keala replied. "But I know."
Chakotay nodded, then reached out and cupped Keala's face between her hands. "I'm sorry I didn't get to know you better. As strange as it sounds, I'm sorry I missed your childhood. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. Even though that Chakotay wasn't me, I still feel like I missed out."
Keala smiled through the tears that were streaming down her face. "Maybe you won't have to."
Chakotay pulled his daughter into a hug. "I'm proud of you, Keala. I love you."
"I love you, too, Daddy. I love you, too."
Kathryn Janeway's heart was beating hard as she glanced to her left at her first officer. "You ready for this?" she asked.
"As ready as I'll ever be," he said, offering her a reassuring smile.
"Janeway to Janeway."
"Janeway here," Keala's voice came back over the comm, sounding strong and confident. "Ready for launch."
"Launch the shuttle," Kathryn ordered.
"Shuttle launching from shuttle bay two, Captain," said Kim.
"I'm engaging the space-folding drive," Keala said. "Transmitting coordinates to Voyager now."
"Engage the space-folding technology, Lieutenant Paris," Janeway ordered. "Be prepared to receive coordinates from the shuttle."
"Aye, Captain," Paris replied. A moment later, he added, "Receiving coordinates from the shuttle."
"Engage," Janeway said.
"The first fold is complete, Captain," Seven said a moment later.
"Our position?" Janeway asked.
"Ten thousand light-years from where we were," Kim replied. "It's working, Captain."
"Save the excitement for later, Ensign," Janeway warned.
"Receiving the next coordinates," said Paris.
"Our shields are holding," Tuvok reported.
"What about the shuttle?" asked Chakotay.
"The shuttle's shields are down to eighty percent," said Tuvok.
Janeway and Chakotay exchanged a glance. There were three more jumps to go.
"Second fold is complete," said Seven.
"Shields down to ninety-two percent," reported Tuvok. "The shuttle's shields are at sixty-three percent."
"Receiving coordinates for the third fold," said Paris.
"Is there a way we can help reinforce the shuttle's shields?" Chakotay asked.
"Not and complete the jump at the same time," said Harry.
"We have completed the third fold," Seven said.
"Our shields are holding at eighty percent. The shuttle's shields are down to thirty percent."
"The shuttle's structural integrity is failing," reported Kim urgently.
"Transporter room, can you get a lock?" Janeway asked.
"We're having trouble establishing a lock," the transporter operator's voice came back over the comm. "There's too much interference."
"Captain, we're being hailed," said Kim.
"On screen."
Keala's face appeared on the view screen. There was smoke behind her, and sparks were flying in the shuttle. "I need another thirty seconds to transmit the final coordinates to you," she said. "Don't try to beam me out." She was working frantically.
"But Keala," Janeway started, standing from her chair.
"Transmitting coordinates now," Keala said, her fingers flying over the controls. "Get Voyager home," she implored amidst the smoke and the sparks. "Live your lives and be happy. That's all I ever wanted for you. Merry Christmas, Mother."
In a blast of light, the shuttle was gone, and Janeway stood still in the center of the bridge, stunned.
Tom Paris turned around and said gently, "I have the coordinates for the final jump, Captain. She transmitted them before she… before the explosion."
Kathryn knew that she was supposed to say something, give an order, take command, but she found that was speechless. My daughter, the words kept echoing over and over in her mind. My daughter… Then she felt a strong hand on her shoulder and a warm, safe presence at her back.
"Engage, Lieutenant," Chakotay's voice rumbled in her ear, and she realized those were the words she had been supposed to say.
A moment later, she heard Seven's voice say, "The fourth jump has been completed."
Chakotay's hand had not left her shoulder. She leaned into his grip as she asked, "What are our coordinates?"
"We're… we're in the Alpha Quadrant, Captain," said Harry Kim in undisguised excitement. "We're in hailing range of Starfleet Command."
"Hail Starfleet Command," she said, trying desperately to keep her voice from shaking.
"Hailing frequencies open, Captain," said Kim.
"This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager. Starfleet Command, do you read me?" There was a moment's pause, and she repeated the message again.
"It would seem they are not expecting us, Captain," said Tuvok.
"We're receiving a response to our hail," said Harry.
"On screen."
When Kathryn saw the faces of Admiral Owen Paris and Commander Barclay appear on the view screen in front of her, she had to swallow hard to hold back her emotions. "Admiral, Commander," she greeted them. "It's good to see your faces."
"And yours, Captain," said Owen Paris. "We weren't exactly expecting you. How did you…"
"It will all be in my report, Admiral."
"Understood. I'll have a crew standing by at Utopia Planetia to receive you."
"Thank you, sir."
"I'll be there personally to meet you when you debark," said Paris. "Oh, and Captain Janeway? Welcome home."
The admiral's image was replaced by the Starfleet emblem, but before Janeway could give the order to Paris to set a course, another call came over the comm. "Sickbay to Paris."
"Paris here."
"Lieutenant, I think you better get down here. Your wife is in labor."
"Oh my god! B'Elanna!" Paris exclaimed, jumping out of his chair. Then he realized he had broken protocol and hastily added, "Permission to leave the bridge, Captain."
"Permission granted. Get down to sickbay, Tom."
Janeway had never seen Tom Paris bolt so fast, and she turned to smile up at Chakotay, who remained at her side. "Chakotay," she said, gesturing to Paris' vacant post, "please take the conn."
"Aye, Captain," he said, grinning widely. He sat down at the conn, and she moved forward to stand behind him.
"Set a course for Utopia Planetia," she said, placing her hand on his shoulder. "Bring us into spacedock. We're going home."
Kathryn Janeway collapsed into the chair in her quarters, too tired to even walk to the replicator and order a cup of coffee. She had just submitted her final report to Starfleet. The crew would have two days of leave, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and then return to begin the debriefing process. She couldn't remember the last time she had slept. It had definitely been before their arrival in the Alpha Quadrant, which meant it had been over twenty-four hours since she'd last seen the inside of her quarters, much less the inside of a bed.
The paperwork associated with Voyager's homecoming seemed endless, but she was grateful that none of her worst fears about their homecoming would be realized. None of the former Maquis would be charged with crimes or forced to endure prison sentences. Seven would not have to undergo trial for crimes committed as a Borg. These were the worries that had kept her up at night for years, and she was relieved to discover that they had been unnecessary. There would be a long debriefing process, of course, and she didn't know what Starfleet would make of their homecoming. It was strange not to feel the constant motion of the ship, but instead to know that she was docked. It was strange to think that the very next evening she would be in her mother's house celebrating Christmas Eve just like old times, before Voyager, before the Delta Quadrant. Sometimes, she couldn't even remember what her life had been like before Voyager and the Delta Quadrant. She closed her eyes, but they snapped open again when she saw the image of her daughter's shuttle exploding behind her closed eyelids. Keala. Her daughter. It was all still so hard to understand. She couldn't believe she had met a daughter she'd never conceived, only to lose her within a few days. Her daughter had been beautiful and strong-willed, and smart and competent. She'd had within her her mother's fire and her father's gift for telling stories and making herself understood. Although she'd only known her for a few short days, Kathryn couldn't believe she was gone.
She pulled out the pages from the other Kathryn's journal that Keala had given her and sat down at the table to read them. She had already read them several times, but she studied them again in an attempt to better understand what the other Kathryn Janeway had gone through. She had never thought of herself as a person capable of having an affair. It was not a possibility she had ever considered. Yet apparently, she had, or some version of her had done just that. For three years, that Kathryn Janeway had lived a lie to everyone around her, a lie that had perpetuated the rest of her life in the identity of her daughter. She felt a wave of compassion for that other Kathryn Janeway, and then she wondered, now that the future had been changed, what would become of her.
The door chimed, startling her from her thoughts. "Come in."
It was Chakotay. "Hello, Kathryn," he said as he stepped into her quarters, the door sliding closed behind him.
"What can I do for you?" she asked, folding the papers and putting them aside.
"Nothing," he replied, coming over to the table to sit down next to her. "I just wanted to talk with you."
"Can I get you anything?"
"You can answer a question for me."
"I'll try my best."
He took a deep breath, his eyes going from the stack of papers on the table back to her. "Do I want to know how Keala came to be our child?"
She sighed. "So you did know."
"It was pretty obvious, Kathryn. She was the spitting image of my sister."
"One thing I can tell you, Chakotay, is that Keala was a child born of a very deep love."
Chakotay reached across the table and covered Kathryn's hand with his. "Keala asked me why I married Seven of Nine and not you. She didn't tell me the full story, but I think I know enough to put together the pieces. I was never part of her life because I married Seven, not you."
"In her timeline, you died, Chakotay," Kathryn said, squeezing his fingers, feeling her counterpart's grief rise in her own throat. "You never even knew that Kathryn was pregnant."
"We have a chance now to change that. We have a chance to change everything."
"You're still with Seven," Kathryn countered, pulling her hand away from his. "I would never ask you to leave her for me…"
"You don't have to ask, Kathryn," Chakotay said gently. "I've already talked with Seven, and we've agreed that now that we're home, we should both be free to explore other options. And I…" He paused, looking deep into her eyes. "I want to be free to explore us. That is, if you want that, too."
The tears that had been threatening began to spill over, and Kathryn's shoulders shook with the force of her sobs.
Chakotay was mortified. His last intention had been to make Kathryn cry. He stood up and gathered her into his arms, leading her from the table to the sofa, where he held her against his chest and let her cry. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."
When she had regained enough self control to speak she said, "No, no it's not that. You didn't upset me. I just… I can't believe this is all happening. We're home." She sat up and grasped both of his hands in hers. "We're home Chakotay. We're home. And at the same time, I find out that some other version of me had a three-year affair with some other version of you, and in another timeline we had a daughter— a beautiful, wonderful daughter who I only just started to know, but now she's gone. I find out you're going to marry Seven only to find out that you broke up with Seven. On top of that I haven't slept in days and I've spent the last fourteen hours writing reports to Starfleet Command. So, you didn't upset me. I'm just feeling a little bit overwhelmed at the moment."
"We don't need to decide anything right now, Kathryn. If you want me to go away and leave you alone for a while, that's what I'll do. If you want me to stay right here and hold you, I'd like nothing more. If you want me to kiss you, that could be arranged, too. If you want me to put on a Santa suit and dance through the corridors to make you laugh, I'll replicate one right now."
At that, Kathryn did laugh. "Oh, Chakotay," she sighed. "You're wonderful."
"You're wonderful, Kathryn Janeway," he said, pulling her against him and wrapping his arms tightly around her. She breathed him in, savoring the feeling of his strong arms around her.
"Keala gave us an amazing gift," she finally said. "Her mother dreamed of having the chance we have now."
"Keala was an amazing girl," Chakotay said, "because she had an amazing mother."
"And father," Kathryn added with a smile. "I'm just sad that she's gone."
"She'll always be a part of both of us."
"Yes. I'm glad I got the chance to know her."
"Me, too."
They stayed like that, wrapped in each other's arms, for a long time. When Chakotay finally looked at the chronometer again, it was after midnight. "Kathryn," he said, "it's Christmas Eve."
"Hmm," she murmured sleepily against his chest. "My mother is expecting me." She paused. "Chakotay, I'm going to see my mother. Isn't that amazing?"
He smiled. "I'm happy for you."
"What are you going to do?"
He shrugged. "Stay here, I guess."
"No, you're not. You're coming to the Janeway house for Christmas." She paused. "That is, if you want to."
He smiled. "Kathryn Janeway, there is nothing I'd like better than to spend Christmas with you." He leaned forward, and she could feel his breath on her face. With the touch of his soft lips against hers, she felt a shiver go down her spine.
San Francisco, December 25, 2379
Chakotay awoke to the sunshine streaming into the bedroom through the blinds. He gathered his wife's still sleeping form against him and let his hands begin to wander over her body. They were both still naked from the previous night's lovemaking, a late-night, passionate moment after their return home from the annual Janeway Christmas Eve party. He leaned over and planted a succession of kisses on Kathryn's face, jaw and neck, and then began to work his way lower. As his mouth reached her breasts, Kathryn moaned and stirred. His hand had strayed between her thighs when she opened her eyes. "Good morning."
"Good morning. Merry Christmas, my darling."
"Merry Christmas to you." She wrapped her arms around him and rolled them over, so she was lying on top of him. "I have a special Christmas present for you this year," she teased as she kissed and nipped at his neck and earlobe. His hands strayed down her back to cover her buttocks.
"Mmm," he said. "I think you already gave me that gift last night."
She stopped the motion of her mouth and pulled back to look at him, a serious expression on her face. "That's not the gift I was talking about."
"Kathryn?"
"Chakotay," she said, finding that there were unexpected tears in her eyes. She had specifically waited until this moment to tell him, and now she found herself feeling overwhelmed by emotion.
"Kathryn, baby, what is it?" he asked, moving his hands to her face to cup her cheeks and brush away her tears.
"It's the best gift ever. Chakotay, I'm… we're…" In that moment, all of the other Kathryn Janeway's words came rushing back to her. She thought about how much that other Kathryn had longed to have this moment, safe in her lover's arms, knowing that they belonged only to each other, knowing that the joy, comfort and connection they shared would be theirs for as long as they both would live. Her tears fell onto Chakotay's face as she said, "I'm pregnant."
Chakotay's expression went from shock to amazement to joy, and soon the tears were rolling down his cheeks as well. "Really?"
She nodded, brushing his tears away as he had hers. "Really."
"That is the best gift ever." He pulled her to him for a passionate kiss. "Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?"
She shook her head. "Not yet. But I think it's a girl."
He smiled. "Then I know exactly what we should name her."
Kathryn nodded, and they spoke at exactly the same time when they said, "Keala."
I do not know how I came to be so lucky. Sometimes I think about that other Kathryn Janeway and what she endured so that I could be here. I think about her desire to know that somewhere, somehow, she and Chakotay were happy and shared the life that she had always dreamed they could. If I could speak to her, if I could tell her that it is possible, that life, that it is real, she would be overjoyed to know it. Keala gave everything, so that Chakotay and I would have a chance at this life. For so long, I lived without hopee. Now something I thought was impossible is my reality. Every day that I awaken in his arms, every moment that I feel this baby moving within me, I know that this life is the greatest gift I could have been given, and I am determined to never take a single second for granted, but instead, to recognize each moment for the priceless gift that it is.