Title: When I Fall
Author: Saavikam
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek. I got the background for this fic from Mosaic by Jeri Taylor
A/N- This is my first Star Trek fanfic despite having loved and grown up in the Star Trek universe. Thanks to Miss B as always for beta. I love you! This story is for you because you have always believed in me even when I don't.
When I Fall
Kathryn Janeway glanced up from the endless piles of paperwork that cluttered her normally immaculate desk and sighed. Lately it seemed like she never had the time for anything, not even the cup of coffee that she usually found comfort in. Life, once so peaceful, was now uncertain and hopeless. There was nothing to look forward to. She had failed the Federation, her crew, herself, and her father. Most of all her father. What would he think if he knew that she had failed like this? Life wasn't worth living anymore.
"NO!" she bitterly accused herself. "It is NOT hopeless! I can't fail! I've never given up before; I can't give up now. I'm stronger than that. I have to be." But in spite of her brave words, she felt the carefully hidden tears begin to well up in her eyes. Shoving her chair across the room, she fled past the astonished bridge crew and ran for the safety of the observation lounge which should be deserted at 0100 hours.
As the doors hissed open to admit her, she fell, sobbing, into the room and dragged herself to the window seat where she collapsed. Lost and far from the home she loved, she felt as if everything she was had been stripped away to reveal the cold, shivering soul that she had kept buried for so long. Dignified, in control, perfect-those were words people would have used to describe her, but not weak. Never weak. She had never showed any of the raw emotions that constantly swirled beneath the calm front she portrayed. For all anyone knew, she was perfectly and totally content with who she was. No one knew how awkward she felt, how she was still trying to find her place in a universe that grew ever larger and more confusing. All the dark thoughts that she had tried desperately to suppress came flooding back no matter what she did. What had she done wrong to make this happen? It was all her fault. The entire crew had trusted her, and it was because of her that they would never see their families again. Their children would grow old without ever knowing them. Their fiances would move on, giving them up for dead.
"Mark...my Mark...," she bitterly thought. "My life that could have been. My future that wasn't meant to be." Another failure to add to an ever growing list. Searching for the missing comfort of a simpler life, she gazed out the window at the stars that had captivated her for so long.
As she stared, unseeingly, out into the vast emptiness of space, she felt as if someone was behind her. She whirled around, chestnut hair falling in her eyes, to see who had discovered her in one of the weakest moments of her life.
"Seven? What are YOU doing here?"
"I-Captain? Are you alright? Should I call The Doctor? You appear to be ill."
"No thank you, Seven. That won't be necessary. I'm fine," quickly assured Janeway as she dabbed her eyes with her sleeve. "By the way, what are you doing in here at this time of night? You're not on duty anymore."
"I heard that there was going to be a 'meteor shower', and I was interested in experiencing a phenomena that I have never witnessed before."
"Oh, of course," Janeway absently concurred. "I hadn't realized that we would be viewing a shower anytime soon. I used to watch them when I was a little girl on Earth."
"Someone once told me that you are supposed to wish each time you see a meteor fall. What is the purpose of this? It does not affect the outcome of any event no matter how hard you 'wish', so why wish?"
"Some things we do aren't meant to be logical, Seven. There's a part of all of us that irrationally believes that wishing can make anything happen. It isn't supposed to make sense."
"Have YOU ever wished on a shooting star?"
Katherine felt time melting away until she could picture it as if it were yesterday. She could see herself begging to be allowed to stay up late. Craning her neck to look up at the heavens, her father by her side, back when they were inseparable. The first silver streak across the darkened sky was pure magic. She could still remember that first wish, "Let me go to the Academy."
She remembered another night when she was 16, hiding in the comfort of her favorite tree, looking to the heavens for a sign that she was going to make it in the universe. Her father was fast becoming a stranger, and the patience and support that he had used to give her was wasted on the Cardassians. They had taken a part of her father from her. He was always gone, trying to prevent war with Cardassia; too busy for his own daughter. She had tried not to hold it against him; he couldn't help what happened, but it still stung. "I wish that he would have time for me again," she had begged that night as the sky became alive with light.
One night, when she was older, she had sat by a lake, her fiance, Justin, at her side, feeling so complete and perfect. He loved her; she loved him. They were going to get married. Her father still cared about her. Life was more perfect and wonderful than she had ever known it to be. As the sky burst forth in light, she whispered to herself, "I wish that this feeling would never end."
One week later, she was huddled in the depths of her tree, frantically trying to piece together a world that seemed totally, and irrevocably broken. Justin and her father were both dead: victims of a tragic accident. She had lived, but for what? Her heart had died with them, was buried at their side beneath a cold sheet of ice. Lost forever. Dead. Killed in one senseless moment that played itself over and over in her mind.
The stars that night seemed cold and foreign. The comfort she sought didn't exist in this world of pain. A star streaked across the sky, illuminating her tears for a brief moment, cutting through the pain. Shuddering, Katherine found the breath to sob out, "Make it stop hurting."
Memories fading back into the depths of her mind, she came back to Voyager and the present to see Seven of Nine still waiting patiently for an answer to her question.
"Yes, I've wished on the stars, Seven. Many, many times," Kathryn murmured in a tear-filled voice.
"Perhaps we could wish together tonight?"
"I would love to, Seven. That would be perfect. Maybe it's not too late for dreams to come true."
Together the former Borg and the haunted captain turned their eyes to the sky to wait for the miracle of the stars. As the sky burst into flame, Kathryn made yet another wish on the fates, "I wish for the strength to face life one day at a time, and the gift of a best friend to catch me when I fall."
END