In a Moment

I can't believe it. Earth. We've done it. She's kept her promise.

I turn my head toward Seven, and there she is, with a soft smile on her face, looking at me. But I have to look back at the view screen – and back at Kathryn. There is some talk going on between the Captain and Starfleet, but I can't make out the words: I am too mesmerized with her.

Not with Earth, not with Seven, but with her.

I am aware that Seven continues to watch me, aware as she too finally looks forward, but she watches Admiral Paris on the screen, not the Captain, and listens to the words, not the pounding of my heart.

I am shocked. How did this happen? How had I allowed this to happen? There had been so many disagreements over the years, but, together, we had somehow always managed to recover. Even her early manipulation of me in order to find a Maquis traitor. "A good performance?" "…and you did a damn good job?" That was it? That distrust after almost a year and a half into the journey had made me physically ill, made me feel as if the journey was doomed if this was where we were. And never another word from her. I was appalled, not only at her actions but also at her apparently total lack of understanding of how I felt. How did we ever forge a command relationship after that? How did I ever even think we had a command relationship?

And yet… Ah, I remember: we were stranded, long enough for her to adjust and then to grow Talaxian tomatos. Several months, was it? It was like we'd just met. And there we became friends. For the first time I called her Kathryn. For the first time we truly laughed together, just the two of us. And I began to fall in love. The ship arriving back was a blessing, a chance to get home, but still, I knew her well enough by then and knew there would be no future for us aboard ship, no resolution of my burgeoning feelings. A reasonable plan, I think, for the ship. Maybe that look she gave me as we left the planet was filled with the same resignation that I felt. Maybe…

But then we got hounded by Seska and the Kazon again. Maybe it was a delayed reaction to that earlier incident, trying still to prove myself worthy of the Captain's trust, but I disregarded her authority and inadvertently damaged her command credibility and, ironically, her trust in me. And then, an arduous adventure - if you can call the loss of two crewmembers an adventure - the reason of which Kathryn understood better than I did: the meaning of a son and the risks worth taking. In fact, the entire crew understood more than I, as they immediately supported my effort while I had to "think" about it, go on a vision quest to learn my truth. Kathryn knew me and gave me the time to sort out my feelings and the ability to follow through. Even though the child wasn't mine, I think it was then that the crew began to forge the concept of family. Kathryn's concept of family.

This "concept" was sealed – at least as far as I was concerned – when she told me of the hallucinations that that alien had created when she had been so badly hurt in the shuttle crash. They had to have come from her, and she clearly saw the crew as loved and loving, and she clearly saw Tuvok and me as dear and trusted friends, and – and I might have missed this - she knew, if only subconsciously, how much I cared. Yet she didn't fear staying friends. Should I have interpreted that as feigned ignorance on her part? Or maybe she just didn't want to get too far away, and this was as close as we could be? Maybe I should have considered this more.

And then the "assimilation" of Seven into the crew. What hurt me the most was Kathryn's interpretation of my scorpion analogy as, "Well, I guess I am alone after all." We had disagreed dozens, maybe hundreds, of times on the journey, and each time I followed her and supported her in the eyes of the crew even if I felt to the core the wrongness of our actions. And for her to suggest that I would do anything else? What was different? Why, this time, make an issue of our different points of view? Hell, I disagreed with her more over the trespass into Swarm space and over her decision to enter the energy field with Kes! Maybe so soon after Riley, after my embarrassingly misplaced trust, it was important for her to see me as trusting her, that she, Kathryn, had at least as much credibility, deserved as vocal a support, as an almost-Borg. That she was cared about at least that much. What a fool I was. What a fool we both were.

So Seven came aboard, and so much of Kathryn's time was spent with her. I understood: her guilt was consuming her for she had separated Seven from the only family she could remember. Redemption was in making it work. But we lost so much of our time together: fewer private dinners and working breakfasts in the mess hall. Even our late nights working on crew evaluations or wading through reports from department after department was derailed and meant less of her time on the bridge because she had to stay in her ready room to catch up, and one of us needed to spend the majority of our – my – time on the bridge. I missed her company but did nothing to stop it. Well, that is probably one reason why this happened, how I let this happen.

And then, of course, our first contact with Starfleet. Three and a half years in, and we finally made contact.: our families learned which of us were alive, and our crew learned something of the lives – or deaths – of family and friends and relationships. This was one of the most horrendous moments of the entire trip for me: my cause, my friends, all dead. Even though Kathryn's loss was great as well, her apparent indifference to mine added weight to my pain. I couldn't imagine how – maybe the disappearance of Mark from her life? - but that lingering love that I held for her, buried for the sake of expediency, surfaced for a moment anyway, only to be dashed by "It's not like I would have had a chance to pursue a relationship even if I had realized I was alone." My heart sank; there was no regret there at all, only indifference, at least for me I thought. And then she confirmed it, "Plenty of time." Maybe the true meaning was that there was plenty of time for us. I was so wrapped up in my own misery that I assumed she was talking about only our continuing friendship and tried to support that rather than pursue the possible alternative.

And the Equinox: she condemned Ransom's crew for following their captain. Yet we have followed her in the intrusion of the Mokra home planet, into Swarm space, into the conduit from which we arrived into the Alpha Quadrant. All these and others, just to further our quest to get home. We followed her wrongness of actions. And each act cost the lives of innocents, protected by the Prime Directive. Dozens, hundreds, billions: what makes this crew so different from Ransom's? And to relieve me and threaten to do the same to Tuvok? Well, actually, I understand that. I understood her fear of what she could become, what, on occasion, her decisions had become, if only for a moment in time. Yet her aspirations for this crew, her desire to make her decision to strand us here right, and her need to rationalize her own positions are all part of a fallible human being, and seeing her in this light – unlike much of the crew who viewed her as some kind of superhero – made me see her vulnerability and love her more. Yes, when she brought me back to duty after the Equinox incident, I only felt compassion and empathy. She didn't need me "turning the knife." She needed her friend.

I hear the doctor's voice in the background and then a baby crying. But, still, I look at Kathryn.

There was the reminder I did not heed. Thrown back in time, I experienced the Kathryn of those early years all over again. We quickly fell into our comfortable relationship, our teasing, even flirting relationship. We shared pain, hardship, and humor. And at the end, she asked, "Just how close do we get?" She had felt it too, at least back then. How could I have experienced that connection between us again and not see the truth? How could I?

Then, through my confused and by now detached mind, I saw how quickly Kathryn connected with Jaffen. I think I might have been jealous if I'd been honest with myself. As it was, I was glad to see her so relaxed, and I envied the two of them their ease with each other. But - Kathryn Janeway relaxed in the Delta Quadrant? Ha! I couldn't imagine her content while the crew remained there. Only a manipulation of her memory engrams would allow that.

And then there was Seven. Except for three conversations, one about the perfection of the Omega particle, one about the significance of individuality when she was deciding the future of three of her comrades from the Collective, and a short conversation on our return from the Ventu, we had had no meaningful contacts. Was Seven, having been mentored by Kathryn, so like her in many of her behaviors, that I failed to examine the differences? Differences that had Kathryn as an experienced, warm, educated, and independent person while Seven was still inexperienced, needy for emotional explanations, educated by the Collective assimilating - not reading, doing, and learning - and still dependent in every way that mattered to me. I needed some intimate human contact. Were the physical aspects so important as to drown out the true intimacy I had with Kathryn? What was I thinking? How did I let this happen?

It doesn't matter. I know right now what I must seek. I know right now which direction I will go. Whether feelings are hurt, either mine or Seven's, whether there is rejection, either mine or Seven's, I must follow this path that's been clear for five years - if only I had seen through my defenses, if only I had seen through my pain. But soon I will be a civilian again - and then, as if she was reading that thought, she broke through my haze and said, "Mr. Chakotay, the helm."

I ran, I think. I may even have jumped over the rail. I had peace now, no matter the consequences.