a/n: Alternate Realities are a favourite fan-fic, JC trope of mine. I felt like it was high-time I wrote one. One-shot.
Please give Helen 8462 copious amounts of cyber-cookies for her beta work.
The Dreams We Left Behind
There are better things ahead, than anything we leave behind – C.S. Lewis
My eyes keep drifting back to her left hand, fascinated by the three rings of gold that sit elegantly on her finger. She's so different from me, even though we are the same person. Her universe is the complete opposite of mine.
We are the same height, but her hair is longer. More feminine. She's softer around the edges. She hasn't had the burden of command for the full seven years like I have. She tells me that she stepped down as captain in the third year of their journey for a period of time. After her circumstances changed.
They didn't change the same way mine did.
She's talking with her commander, a happy and relaxed smile gracing her features. She looks at him in the way I wish I could. Her right hand comes around to absently twist the bands on her slim finger.
This woman hasn't made the tough decisions that I have. She had a buffer, a lifesaver to shoulder her burdens; her commander, an acting captain whilst she tended to more personal circumstances that her conscious decisions allowed.
It is not a choice I would have made.
But now, faced with another version of myself in a reality so startling different from my own, I cannot help my own gaze as it roams over this woman who stands mere feet from me. She has a rapport with her crew that's more familiar, friendly and less formal.
She looks less like a Starfleet captain than I.
The rings on her hand are an astonishing difference between the woman I want to be, and the captain that I am.
The first band, sitting close to the base of her finger is plain. It's a little dulled, like it's seen many years pass by and when I peer a little closer, I can see the faint nicks and scratches in the metal. If I had to guess, I would say that she never takes it off.
Idly, I wonder when – why - she decided to get married.
I think I know.
By my rough calculations, our universes began to diverge at a point somewhere toward the end of our second year. I chose duty. I chose Starfleet, and I chose regulations. I hid behind parameters.
She chose something else entirely.
The second band is fitted neatly to the first. They're obviously a set, given probably at the same time though perhaps worn months apart. A beautiful diamond sits high above the rest.
An engagement ring.
The design is something that looks familiar to me. Echoes of the individual who gifted it are woven within the elegant architecture. Patterns that speak of wood work and intricate detail, worn to represent lifelong commitment over a marriage of convenience.
The ring is such an unusual contrast to the two I have received on previous occasions. Tied in together, the set is utterly hypnotic to me.
My own thumb brushes lightly against the empty spot of my left hand.
Perhaps in another life…
It's the third band, closest to her fingertip that I can't quite place.
Slightly thicker than the other two, it stands out and doesn't match. Obviously, it wasn't part of the original set. The shine on the gold tells me immediately that it's much newer than the first two. The diamonds, channel set in the band shine brightly, with a solitary blue stone positioned a little to one side.
It's so unusual that my eyes rest there a fraction too long. It's not a design I would have chosen for myself, nor does it speak to the tastes of the man talking with such a loving tone directed at the woman who looks just like me.
An etch in the band, near the single blue stone draws my eye and I squint. I can just make out two initials that look like my own.
KJ
But it makes no sense to me; to have our initials engraved on a ring so unlike our tastes.
She catches me looking, and quirks her mouth at the corner with such familiarity that it takes me a moment to register she's asked me a question. I meet recognisable blue eyes, and it's like looking into a mirror with frightening clarity.
I flick my own gaze back toward her commander. He has moved away to speak to other members of a crew who look identical to my own, but they lack the nuances that speak of home.
I can't shake the feeling that Chakotay has been keeping a vigilant watch on us both since I first fell through that rift, and into their world. In another time, in another life, two of us in the same reality is a fantasy I'd often thought of, but rarely allowed myself to indulge in.
As it was, I'd avoided speaking too much to anyone here.
"Captain?"
My rank spoken with my own voice is something I don't think I'll ever adjust to hearing, no matter how many spatial rifts I'm bound to fall through in the coming years.
"I was just curious about your ring," I finally ask as she comes a little closer. I flick my chin in the direction of her left hand, and she knows it's something akin to instinct that it isn't her wedding rings that have piqued my interest.
"It was a gift."
My eyebrow quirks. It's not the answer I had expected.
Her mouth tightens slightly, and it's so faint that had I not known the face so well, I would have missed it. The ring is a painful reminder for her.
But the pain is from something I have not experienced in my own world.
Aside from the bands on her finger, this where our two universes differ.
It is at this point where our decisions have defined us. I have always chosen my duty.
And I have repeated those words to myself immeasurable times in the vastness of space that has separated me – and my crew – from our home.
The decision to side with duty over personal matters has been an element of my life that I have convinced myself I am comfortable with. Doubt has faded away with each passing year.
It's only now - confronted with what could have been - in a universe where everything seems so perfect, that I am beginning to question those choices. Doubt is starting to creep back in, and settle in a way I am unaccustomed to.
She glances away, and I follow the blue gaze back down to the rings on her left hand. An elegant nail traces the azure stone, and then rests over the two initials engraved underneath the gem.
"A gift?" I ask.
She sighs, only slightly, and flicks her eyes back toward the commander. He is still talking animatedly with B'Elanna and Joe Carey about how to send me back. Joe is another person in this universe who highlights the differences in our realities. I'd never admit it to anyone, but it hurts my heart to see Mr. Carey here.
His death is still so raw. And it is the focal point for my failure as his captain.
The other Janeway meets my eye. "It is to remind me of the life I lost."
I find it difficult to believe that in their seven-year journey, they have only lost one life. Surely our realities are not so different that they have survived nearly a decade in the Delta Quadrant with a full complement of crew.
She seems to read my mind, and sad eyes cast a downward glance to the deck beneath our feet. Voyager's engines thrum steadily. It's reassuring in a situation that's so unfamiliar.
"The one life I lost, was one that I couldn't justify as a casualty in the line of duty."
The words, uttered so sadly, remind me of something I had once told myself: that the senseless loss of lives outside the line of duty was something I would never be able to comprehend. And whilst I have lost people in the line of duty, the life this woman speaks of hits a note of pain far greater.
The innocent life of a child.
It is an inevitability of command – to lose those under your command – and it's a silent acceptance of responsibility when you sit in that chair for the first time.
But to lose a life you created…
When I had taken command of Voyager, Mark and I had seriously discussed the possibility of children. I had told him then that I couldn't be a captain, and a mother. The very real probability of missing out on the lives of my children whilst I explored the universe was something I was unwilling to contemplate.
Bringing children aboard was a risk I would not take, even in the Alpha Quadrant, for I could never justify endangering innocent lives.
Suddenly, the third ring on the finger of my counterpart makes a lot more sense. A wave of sorrow hits me, and their world seems a little less perfect now. Our choices are what make us who we are; and peering a little closer at the woman who stands as my equal, her softer face bears the lines of grief that are absent from my own.
"What was his name?"
The commander glances in our direction, and I hear his conversation with the two engineers cease abruptly. It seems that they have found a way to send me home. Even in just a few hours, I am amazed at how much I miss the familiar faces of my own crew.
They say that no reality is quite like your own.
"Kolopak," she says eventually, eyes tracing the initials on the band. "Kolopak Janeway."
I want to ask her when it happened, but the rawness of her grief tells me that it is still too recent. It explains why the gold has not yet dulled.
The commander clears his throat and steps a little bit forward, effectively putting an end to the conversation myself and the other captain. Even though she wears the same four rank pips as I, from the moment I saw those rings on her finger, I failed to see her as a captain.
And that has always been my biggest fear. That sacrificing my Starfleet duty for personal gain would erase more than just the power of command. I would forever be seen as a wife, and not as an equal in the eyes of my crew.
The woman in front of me turns just a fraction, but doesn't meet the gaze of her husband. It's a silent acknowledgement of his presence near hers, but the grief runs evident between them.
Despite this though, their love holds strong. He is her support structure, and she is his. Together, they have made it through these years and I spare a fleeting thought for my own Chakotay. Disagreements flash through my mind. The Borg. Fair Haven. Quarra. Ransom.
All moments from my own world which forced the fragile fractures in our friendship ever wider.
I sigh a little as her Chakotay informs me that it will be a few hours until B'Elanna and Joe Carey are ready to open the rift again. He looks at me with thinly-veiled intrigue, and as I study his features, dark eyes dart to my empty fingers. His brow creases, but he says nothing more and joins his wife.
The crew bustles about Engineering, and stuck for something to do, I take a seat out of the way. My gaze drifts back constantly to the signs of commitment on her hand. Commitment that I have twice not been able to make.
From my corner, I watch the way they interact with familiarity. But something else is there, something only I can see and it makes their actions seems a little stilted and basic. He holds his grief a little better than she, and I think it's probably because she shed the command mask early on. She's known grief, like me, many times before.
But this is something different.
The loss of a child is something you cannot empathise with until you've experienced it yourself. In those moments, I am suddenly and surprisingly grateful for the decision I made almost five years ago.
It's a moment, frozen in time that I've played over in my mind on countless occasions. A short glimpse into a world of what could have been and I know that the moment I turned away from Chakotay, and ordered Tuvok to beam us back from New Earth, that I made the right decision.
Duty should always come first.
Command is an armour.
And it will always protect you from more intense, personal pain.
Hours later, as I finally step through the temporal rift and back to my own world, I avoid looking at either of the command team again, but I cannot help the way my thumb traces my own empty finger. It evokes a feeling I still cannot describe.
I move through the rift and my vision clears, I glance up into the waiting face of my own Commander Chakotay. His face is so wonderfully devoid of grief that I am grateful once again for the choices I made if only to spare him the heartache of the world I had just visited.
He opens his mouth and my eyes close briefly at the welcome sound of his voice. "Welcome back, Captain."
I offer him a tentative smile, still reeling a little from the experience of the last few hours.
"Would you like to fill us in on your trip?"
"One day," I reply, stepping down off the transporter pad. A day, when we are far away from the Delta Quadrant, lying under the familiar stars of an Indiana summer, I'll tell him about the decisions I've made.
I'll tell him of my contentment. And I'll tell him about my regret.
One day, I might even tell him about grief.
But for now, the secrets of another world will stay hidden.
I can see him about to protest, but one look at my face and his line of question stops. We walk mostly in silence back to my quarters, his solid presence always beside me.
They teach us in command school that you will learn from the first mistake you make as a captain. That it teaches you a lesson, and that you won't make the same mistake twice. I have always hoped that the decisions I've made, the choice I made to hold duty over anything else, was the right one.
Until today, I had always doubted my judgement. A part of me thinks that I always will have lingering uncertainty. Their world had seemed so… perfect. Though I will forever use the death of their child to justify my path. That turning away from Chakotay – holding him at arm's length – was the right thing to do.
I cannot survive any other way.
Even if it means I will lose him to another.
As I wish the Commander goodnight, my hand rests briefly on his chest. His own larger hand comes up to grasp at mine, enclosing warmly around cold joints and squeezing slightly. My empty fingers crush against the other, and once again I am reminded of my counterpart.
My digits flex in his grasp and as he smiles down at me, I catch a glimpse of something more. A longing in his gaze that I haven't seen for some time. A flicker of something more than just platonic respect born from a working command relationship.
But that is not something to explore right now.
He inclines his head, offering me a gentle let down as my hand pushes lightly into the muscles of his chest.
"Goodnight, Kathryn."
The sound of my name rolling off his tongue is something I have also not heard for what feels like eons. It is a small step toward repairing the fractures of many years past on a journey that's had more challenges than triumphs. I watch him as he walks away, and down the hall without a backward glance for he too has his own decisions to live with. Without a doubt, I am one of them.
But, it is the choices we have both made in the end that have led us to this point in our journey. It is our ability to hold duty above all else that has defined us, and our complex relationship. It is fraught with so many splinters of emotions, cracks of betrayal and fissures of love that I don't even know how to define us anymore.
It doesn't matter how hard it was, or how difficult those choices are for Chakotay to understand; I know with absolute certainty that I would never want to live in their world. I caught a glimpse today of a what-if that I've often pondered, and dwelled on for far too long.
It took mere hours for me to realise that it isn't a world for either of us to live in, and I hope one day he will understand.
In the end, as the doors to my darkened quarters slid shut, I realise that it doesn't matter what decisions I've made, it only matters that I've made them.
It is how I find my solace, and it is something that the commander and I must accept as an inevitability of surviving in our reality.
a/n: I am sad to say that this will most likely be my last fic for some time. It bugs me when writers just vanish from the cyber-world, so I am giving fair warning.
Thank you to everyone who has R&R'd, left Kudos or sent PM's in relation to fics published. They are highly appreciated!