Written for elem in the 2015 VAMB Secret Drabble exchange.

Home is Where the Heart Is

What the hell was I thinking when I sent that message?!

Kathryn glared at the lump of burnt out circuits squatting on her desk. Not surprisingly, the spent plasma relay didn't answer. That did nothing to allay her irritation. The unassuming lump was, in a way, the reason for her present mood.

When Kathryn extended her invitation to Jaffen, it was with fond memories of their time together on Quarra. She thought it only right to invite him to meet her on Voyager. Their parting on Quarra had been too sudden, too abrupt. He deserved more of a good-bye than to watch her dissolve in Voyager's transporter beam.

She'd first met Jaffen at the power distribution plant where she been assigned to work after her engramatic resequencing. He came to her rescue when the alarm signaled an input error at her workstation. From the beginning he felt oddly familiar. His teasing mood was infectious. Being with him was so easy. She remembered how she felt, curled up on the couch in his apartment. She couldn't imagine wanting to be anywhere else.

This final meeting was supposed to be an opportunity to share memories. They would exchange regrets and then have a gentle good-bye. She certainly didn't expect Jaffen to present her with a spent plasma relay that she'd used to decorate their apartment. The burnt out relay was so obviously out of place in her ready room. It was unlike anything that she'd ever want to have here. His gesture almost screamed to her how little they really had in common. She covered her discomfort with a rather glib, "I won't need souvenirs to remember you."

After that there was little more for them to say. She wasn't the Kathryn that Jaffen knew. That Kathryn disappeared into nothingness in the subatomic particles of the transporter beam.

A quick hug and Jaffen went back to his life on Quarra.

Kathryn frowned again at the offending plasma relay. She felt robbed of her fond memories. More than that, the awkwardness of her meeting with Jaffen dredged up other less comforting ones.

She remembered how he took it upon himself to override her friendly invitation to Chakotay to join them when he was in his Amal Kotay disguise. At the time, she only commented that Jaffen was being rude. How did she miss how jealous he was of any attention given to others? Surely that should have become clear when he later berated her for risking what they had to help the injured Chakotay?

Jaffen was protective. He shielded her from others. He responded to the curfew officer's questions on behalf of both of them. He lied to the criminal Investigations officers when he claimed that he, not Kathryn, was the one who helped the injured fugitive.

Kathryn Janeway didn't want to be kept in a cage like that. Her father's 'Goldenbird' was always meant to fly. She didn't want to be coddled.

Supported? Yes. She would never have made it this far without Chakotay's strong presence at her side, both on duty and in their evenings of shared confidences, usually over yet another one of her culinary catastrophes.

Pampered? That was fine too. Kathryn wouldn't say 'no' to the luxury of a long soak in a bubble bath or reject the gift of a man who devoted hours of his time to make a bathtub for her in a forested wilderness.

Chakotay never coddled her. He challenged. He pushed. "I have no intention of being your token Maquis officer" and "With all due respect, maybe that's because your imagination is limited by Starfleet protocols."

Chakotay respected her strength even when he barely knew her. He stopped B'Elanna's angry tirade at Kathryn with a truth spoken with quiet conviction. "She's the Captain."

In contrast, Kathryn remembered the disparagement in Jaffen's voice when she raised the possibility that Chakotay's claim about her real identity was true. His incredulity jarred. "Right, and you're the captain."

Today's meeting with Jaffen was the final straw, the most damning of all. He was so blasted reasonable about leaving her!

Of course she would want to stay on this wonderful ship. Of course it wouldn't work if he joined her. He didn't even try to get her to come back to Quarra with him. He simply let her go.

Chakotay would never let her go that easily. When Kathryn almost died in a shuttle crash in that magnetic storm, Chakotay fought. He yelled. He shook the life back into her. "Don't you die on me, Kathryn. Start breathing! Breathe, dammit it! Breathe!"

Kathryn didn't want bland reasonableness. She wanted passion with her reason.

Jaffen deserved his promotion to shift supervisor at the power plant. He deserved a good life on Quarra, just not with her.

Kathryn picked up the useless plasma relay and dropped it into her recycling unit. She washed her hands and prepared to rejoin her bridge crew.

Tuvok and Tom were both back on duty, their stolen memories now fully restored. Harry was at his station too. Chakotay sat in his First Officer's chair, waiting for her to take her seat beside him. When he turned to face her Kathryn could see the familiar play of light and dark made by the tattoo on the side of his forehead. She realized that the shadow cast by the ridge on the side of Jaffen's forehead made a pattern reminiscent of Chakotay's tattoo when seen from this angle. Maybe somewhere in her mind-altered state she had remembered this and so thought Jaffen familiar.

Kathryn leaned closer to talk privately. "It may not have been real, Chakotay, but it felt like home."

"Are you sorry I showed up?" he asked with concern.

She smiled. Her compatibility with Jaffen was an illusion. Chakotay was real.

"Not for a second!"

Kathryn sat back in her command chair with her First Officer beside her. She was home. Quarra had only felt like home. This was where she belonged.