It had been years, but the homesickness still ached within her. It probably did for the entire crew . . . with the notable exception of Seven and Naomi. Possibly Tuvok and Vorik, as well, but even they expressed a desire for home in their own detached way. She wasn't sure if the holoprogam helped or hurt. It had been created so long ago that she barely had to think before entering the command.
Sometimes she haunted the holodeck like a ghost. The setting of the program was always at night, in the summertime with a gorgeous full moon, and for some reason she always wanted to wear a white nightgown like she had as a child. A ghost indeed.
It was her house, the one she had grown up in. It had creaky hardwood floors, sloping ceilings in the upper story and a huge stone fireplace in the living room. Oh, how she loved that house. They had moved out of it when she was only fourteen years old, and she had cried off and on for months before and afterward . . . she still considered it her home.
She remembered times when she had climbed out of her bedroom window to sit in the ancient oak tree outside and just gaze up at the stars and long to be there. At certain times it had the added purpose of a childish attempt to see with her own eyes where her father was. But then Star Fleet had asked him to take a job with the Admiralty at Headquarters, and thus grounded him. Her mother had liked the arrangement, but she had always known that her father loved space, and hated to be "dirtside" as he had always termed it. And she herself had felt the same way. Dirtside, grounded . . . it all had held negative meaning for her.
And here she was, Captain of a starship with the exploration opportunities of whole lifetimes before her . . . and she longed to place her feet on terra firma again. What a mere change of address could do to a person.
She had always had a penchant for walking barefoot on the grass as a child. She had given it up willingly in favour of space, but now she was in space and tramping through her holographic lawn in an attempt to gain something of home. Hypocrisy at its finest. Fate was like that sometimes.
The holodeck door opened. She never put locks on it -well, almost never- but she was unused to being disturbed. As it happened, the archway shimmered into view, opening to reveal an apologetic-looking Chakotay. Apology turned to slight surprise to see her standing barefoot with nothing but a white nightgown on . . . not to mention the fact that the full holographic moon was providing him with quite a silhouette. She made an effort to stand in the oak tree's shadow.
"I hope I'm not disturbing you, Captain," he said politely after a moment.
Kathryn Janeway smiled a small smile at him, hoping to diffuse the brief discomfort they both felt. "Don't worry, Chakotay. Sometimes I need disturbing. I can turn a little gloomy in here after a while. Was there something you needed?"
He smiled back. "I was going to ask you if you were up to Neelix's cooking this evening, or if you wanted to join me for something a little less suspect. If you don't mind my asking, what is this program?"
"I made it a long time ago. Six years almost. It's the house I lived in as a child. Sometimes it helps to come here when I'm homesick . . . and sometimes it just makes it worse. As for your question, I'm never really up to Neelix's cooking, so invitation accepted. Just let me change, all right?"
He nodded. "Certainly."
She left him standing on her lawn and went into the house to retrieve her clothes. She forced herself to take a deep breath. He'd never know it, but those little looks he often gave had a strange effect on her. That, and the idea of him catching her in her nightgown. . . .
With practised speed, she donned her outfit. When serving in Star Fleet, one had to learn how to dress quickly in the event of midnight red alerts and such. In this case, she merely didn't want to keep him waiting out there getting curious. She folded the nightgown up and tucked it under her arm, making her way out of the house.
"Computer, end program," she said as she exited, and the grass disappeared from beneath her feet and was replaced by the somewhat austere gray floor of the holodeck. "Why don't we have dinner in my quarters, since I have to drop this off anyhow?" she asked.
"All right," he said, "but I'm still paying for it."
She grinned crookedly at him. "Well that's good. I've spent all my rations this week."
"Just don't tell me it was all on coffee," he said mock-seriously as they left the holodeck.
"I'll tell you what I'd tell anyone else, none of your business. When did you get to be such a nosy First Officer?"
"Since I noticed my Captain has a caffeine addiction. And you're just noticing?"
She laughed at him. "Just what I need after discouraging holodeck programs."
"Caffeine?"
"Well, that goes without saying," she admitted, "but I meant you actually."
He rolled his eyes. "Well, at least someone appreciates me."
Always. "Trouble?" she inquired.
"B'Elanna. Being hardheaded about her reduced work shifts."
She nodded sagely as they entered the turbolift. "She's stubborn."
"Almost as stubborn as other people I know."
She looked at him askance as he gave the command to the turbolift. "Is that supposed to mean something?"
"Yes."
"Does it have to do with my coffee?"
"Always."
She frowned at him. "The Doctor went to you, didn't he?"
"Well you wouldn't listen to him. . . ."
The Doctor had been after her to cut down her coffee intake, among other things. The Captain and the hologram had their differences, and decaf was one of them. As far as she was concerned, the stuff wasn't coffee . . . but he insisted that if she got more sleep, took more time off and drank less coffee she would feel a lot better. She wasn't out here to feel good. She was trying to get home . . . trying to get some peace.
"The both of you are getting worked up over nothing. I'm hardly that unhealthy, and coffee's the only thing that keeps me sane. I'm not even sure if it does that anymore, actually. And I would get more sleep and take more breaks if I could, but I have a ship to run."
The turbolift stopped, and she stepped out into the corridor, Chakotay following on her heels like he always did. She made her way quickly to her door, and punched in the access code. The door opened, and she looked back at him as she entered.
"And I'm taking time off right now . . . as much as I can before we run into the next anomaly or hostile species or . . . Oh! Oh no," she said with a slight laugh. "I'm not sure if I should turn the lights on or not."
"Why not?" he asked, glancing over her shoulder into the dark room beyond.
"Because I haven't been here in a while and it's in marginal need of tidying."
He placed a hand on her back and gently shoved her in the rest of the way. "No time like the present," he stated. "Computer, lights."
Her quarters had more than a marginal need of tidying. It wasn't that it was messy, it was just cluttered. Stacks of padds could be seen on every surface in the room, as well as a few books. There were the obligatory collections of empty coffee mugs sitting around as well as a considerable amount of clothing. She immediately began collecting the latter. She was usually a fairly neat person, but sometimes there was just no time for straightening up.
Chakotay merely smiled at her and began picking up padds, reading some as he went. "I never realized there were so many of these on the ship," he commented.
"Oh, leave it, Chakotay. It's my mess. You replicate dinner."
He began clearing the dining table. "I need somewhere to put it first."
"Touché," she muttered, moving into her bedroom with an armful of clothes. The Captain dumped it all on the bed. She'd sort it all out later. When she came back out, he was reading one of the padds, a wide grin on his face . . . the sort that said he'd just discovered something amusing about her habits or some such.
"What?" she demanded, approaching him.
He held up the padd, still grinning. "I never knew you liked twentieth century romance novels, Kathryn."
She snatched it away from him, putting on her best disgruntled expression. "I read what I read, and for your information, I like classical literature better."
"I know," he said, "but I have to wonder what you see in these. . . ."
She turned on her heel. "Are you insinuating something, Commander?" she asked primly, flinging the offending padd with a well aimed flip of her wrist to join the pile of clothes on her bed.
"I wasn't insinuating anything," he replied, moving around the table towards the replicator. "I was merely wondering why you liked them."
He was a bad liar. "Are you sure you really want to know?" she asked innocently, clearing some remaining objects from her couch as he operated the replicator.
It had its intended effect, and he glanced over his shoulder in surprise. He was ready and willing to hint at things himself, but when she did, he always seemed somewhat taken aback. She liked it that way, it gave her an edge over him. She always liked to have the edge.
Kathryn grinned at him. "I read them for the same reasons any other woman does. It's up to you to figure out what those are. Classical literature can be pretty stuffy sometimes. . . ."
This time he winced as he placed their meal on the table. There was wine, and the main dish looked something like ravioli, but it also looked slightly suspect.
"Chakotay, it's green," she stated.
He laughed. "It's pesto. Don't worry, it's harmless . . . unless you're allergic to pine nuts."
She sat down. It smelled good, at any rate, but various run-ins with Neelix's cuisine had taught her that "smells good" rarely meant "edible." For the Talaxian's benefit, she smiled through every meal, but rarely felt so enthused. Pesto was more approachable, at least.
"So what happened while I was in the holodeck?" she asked, preparing to taste her meal.
Chakotay shrugged. "Nothing special, except for terse notes to the command console from B'Elanna. She's convinced that we're all treating her like an invalid, but she can hardly expect anyone to let her go crawling through every Jeffery's tube on the ship when she's almost seven months pregnant. I can hardly believe she thinks she can do it. Everyone has to keep talking her out of heavy work, especially Tom. It's pretty odd when Paris is being the responsible one."
She had since pronounced the pesto more than edible. If one liked basil and garlic -and she did- it was quite good. "You should give him more credit than that. He's the one who has to deal with her up close."
He made a face. "Honestly, the only people on this ship who don't risk serious injury right now are you and Naomi. The Engineering crew is getting absolute hell from her."
"More than usual?"
"I guess. They don't complain too much, but I think that's because they're afraid that if they do they'll get hit in the head with a spanner while they're not looking."
She frowned. "Maybe I should speak with her."
"Just make sure you invite either me or Tuvok to speak with you."
"Why?" she asked, lifting her fork to her mouth.
"Because at that point she'll probably consider taking a spanner to you. The Doctor said she's having an unusually tough week. He wouldn't be specific, but I gather her hormone levels are through the roof . . . that doesn't mean she can go disobeying me though."
"Did she?" the Captain asked around a mouthful.
"No, but she's ready to."
"'Ready to' isn't really an offense you can punish, Chakotay."
"I'm not punishing anyone," he objected. "I'm just not going to let her get away with anything. How do you like it?"
She started slightly. "What?"
"The pesto."
She smiled slightly. "Oh, yes. It's very good. Chakotay, how come you never take much time off yourself? You're always after me, but you rarely seem to take a shift off either."
He shrugged. "I get enough time, and when you finally do take off, I need to cover for you, right? Don't worry about me, Kathryn."
God, she loved how he said her name. It was just the inflection, but there was something behind it that almost made her blush sometimes. At first, she had tried to convince herself that she didn't like it, but she had eventually given in. She didn't know what that meant, though.
"I worry about everyone, Chakotay. That's why I don't take much time off. It's my job to worry about everything."
"And it's my job to worry about you, so I suppose we should both stop trying to talk each other out of it," he said with a dimpled smile.
"Like you'd ever stop, even if I ordered you to get off my case." She took a sip of her wine.
"True," he admitted, sipping his own drink.
"Which is why I never have."
"Sometimes I wonder if you get some kind of backwards pleasure out of driving us all up the wall."
"You were avoiding the word perverse, weren't you?"
"Well, there's really no point in insulting you, is there?"
"No, there is not, and I know where to find spanners as well as B'Elanna does."
He smiled still. She had observed him smiling in her direction for what seemed like hours on end sometimes, and at the most inordinate of moments. Often, it seemed like there was no reason for it at all, but for some reason it comforted her that no matter how bad things got, he would always have a smile for her.
"Area scans picked up anything interesting?" she asked after a moment.
He shook his head. "It's mostly dead space out there. A comet, an asteroid that got knocked out of its orbit, a nice little yellow star with no M-class planets and a whole lot of hydrogen. Nothing exciting at all."
"How are we for supplies?"
"Well, Neelix hasn't lodged a complaint yet, so I'd say we're in decent shape."
"As anyone managed to kill the leola root in airponics yet?" she asked with complete innocence. It was an ongoing war to kill that dreaded vegetable. She never knew why she had approved growing it on the ship. She and the crew would have happily left it behind seven years ago, but had not yet been able to get rid of. Unfortunately, Neelix was aware of their little scheme, and always seemed to have a supply of the things ready to plant in the event one crop failed.
He shrugged. "They try, but Neelix always has more . . . and if he catches them shorting the nutrients he makes them eat it for a week. His scare tactics work pretty well."
"It scares me," she muttered. "That is exactly why I don't go there to eat. He always seems to be serving something involving leola root lately. I must say that I like pesto better."
"That goes without saying."
"Seven of Nine to the Captain."
Ah, interruptions. "Yes, Seven?"
"I thought I should inform you of what appears to be a temporal anomaly in our path."
"Can we go around it? I don't fancy taking any side trips this evening."
"The anomaly is highly erratic . . . which is the reason we did not see it on long-range scans. It seems to be moving to various points across the entire sector every few minutes."
"And at the moment it's in front of us," she stated. Damned ephemeral anomalies. Why couldn't anything out here stay the same for any appreciable amount of time?
"That is correct. How shall I inform the bridge to proceed?"
"It'll move out of our way in a bit, won't it?"
"I believe so."
"Just tell them to wait it out, though I'm sure Tuvok could have come up with that on his own. Thanks for notifying me, Seven."
"You are welcome. Seven out."
She made a face. "Even when I'm off duty I'm on duty. This is why I get no time off, Chakotay. I have to tell everyone what to do no matter what I'm really supposed to be doing."
"Complaint noted. I'll tell them to start thinking for themselves more often."
She took another sip of her wine. "Good. They're certainly comfortable enough on this ship to run it without me on occasion, so why don't they ever try it?"
He shrugged. "Because you won't let them. Seven only called in because she knew you'd get worked up later if she didn't tell you and ask you what you thought."
"Vicious cycle," she murmured.
They ate in companionable silence for a moment. Temporal anomalies aside, she found it peaceful for once on the ship. It was so often tense that it was second nature for her to be wound for battle all the time. She often gave herself headaches. She supposed it was like some muted paranoia on her part, always anticipating the next fight or the next lost shuttle craft . . . It was a hard habit to shake, but for the moment she relaxed. To hell with temporal phenomena.
Of course she couldn't ignore the thing. Apparently, she was the villain of the temporal tampering scene to some, so she tried to steer clear of time problems and obeyed the temporal prime directive as closely as possible. As long as she didn't end up fifty millennia as well as fifty years away from home, she was happy.
As long as she had a ship under her and a crew behind her, she was fine. There was always that chance of never seeing home again, but if nothing untoward happened she stood a good chance of getting there. She'd be rather elderly, but Earth was Earth, no matter how long you'd been around, and the Doctor was a walking text book on geriatrics. Provided nothing untoward happened. She wasn't quite sure about that condition as yet.
"What are you thinking about?" Chakotay asked quietly, breaking through her reverie.
"Temporal anomalies and how old I'm going to be when we get home," she replied quickly. "I hope the Doctor has as much data stored about geriatric medicine as he claims to, because we're going to be an old bunch after a while."
He shrugged. "I plan on not worrying about it until I start showing signs of arthritis."
She laughed. "That's a little short-sighted, don't you think?"
"Well, think of it this way, we once had a seventy-five-year trip, and in seven it's been pared down to about fifty. We might just get lucky again and end up with a thirty-year trip. You never know."
"No you never do, and that's what's wrong with this place. Nothing ever just stays the same anymore."
"Except for your coffee fixation."
"Will you leave that alone already?"
Suddenly the ship gave a lateral heave, causing the wine to spill and nearly unseating them. She gripped the edges of the table as the ship shuddered, and when she was satisfied that she wasn't going to fall out of her chair, she tapped her comm badge.
"Janeway to the bridge, what happened?"
The comm was silent. There wasn't even any static to be heard.
"Bridge? Lieutenant Tuvok?" she demanded again, shooting a slightly confused look at Chakotay. "Computer, is the comm system operational?"
"All ship systems functioning within normal parameters."
"Janeway to Engineering . . . anyone?"
Silence.
Chakotay looked as confused as she, and tapped his own badge. "Chakotay to the bridge. Chakotay to anyone, can you hear me?"
"Computer, who's on the bridge?" she asked, standing and trying to wipe up the spilled wine with her serviette.
"There are no crew members on the bridge."
"Then where the hell are they?"
"Unknown."
"Unknown?" she repeated, not quite believing the answer. The ship took a hit, and there was suddenly no one on the bridge?
"Affirmative."
"Who is on the ship?" she asked with exasperation. Had the bridge crew been transported out? Killed? Why wasn't Engineering responding? This had better not be another wholesale abduction of her crew, or there was going to be hell to pay. . . .
"Captain Janeway and Commander Chakotay."
She opened her mouth to protest that. Just them? That was impossible! Her whole crew could not have disappeared in one second . . . but maybe they had been gone before that. What had hit the ship? Did that even have anything to do with it? They had to.
"That's it?" Chakotay demanded.
"Affirmative."
She looked at him solemnly. "We had better get up there."
To be continued?
***