Note: Work was boring today, so this happened. There are three sections in all; I am editing the other two and hope to have them ready over the next couple of days. This one is a little bit...different. Enjoy.

Joyride

Some days, you wake up…and you know.

You yawn and stretch and feel the hum of the deck below your bed, the powerful pulse of your ship's heart far below in engineering. There's no hesitation or hitch, no telltale sign of damage or distress. You open your eyes and look outside the viewport and the stars are streaking by, brilliant arcs against the backdrop of deep space. Your ship is cruising along at warp 6, same as it was eight hours ago when you retired for the night, you're in a tranquil part of the quadrant and all is well with your personal Universe – or as well as it can be under these circumstances, you think, and you smile because you feel in your bones today will be a good day, a calm day, a commodity of some rarity here in the Delta Quadrant.

Some days, you wake up and your comm badge chirps and your smile turns to a crooked grin. "Chakotay to Janeway," he says in his soft, early-morning voice, and you wonder if he's programmed the computer to tell him when you stir every morning. Early on, you thought maybe he had convinced the replicator to alert him when it conjured up your first cup of coffee. A year or two later you wondered if he'd put motion detectors around your bed, because he usually called as soon as your feet hit the deck. Now, four years into your journey, you suspect he's conspired with the Doc to put medical sensors in your room because he seems to know the instant you wake up in the morning, and even when he's off the ship he calls to check in and check up and chat about everything and nothing at all.

Without leaving the bed, you reach out and tap your comm on the bedside table. "Janeway here," you say, as you do every morning, but today it is different. It is right and good to be talking to him so early in the morning. It always is, but today you let yourself feel it, you let the sense of peace flow through you. "How are you on this fine morning, Commander?"

You hear the smile and when you close your eyes, you can see it as if he were right beside you, not separated from you in his own rooms. "Very well, thank you. You sound rested, Kathryn."

"Benefit of a clear conscience," you respond.

"First time for everything."

You gasp in mock outrage. "Horrible man."

He chuckles. "Just making an observation. I know it's your day off, but would you like come over for breakfast before I go relieve Baytart?"

You hesitate. As tempted as you are to join him in his cramped but comfortable quarters and let his honey-sweet voice work its magic on you, it is your day off, and what you'd really like to do is linger in the bathtub for most of the morning. "How about lunch instead?" you offer.

"I have a working lunch with Joe Carey."

You frown. "Working lunch" is Chakotay's occasional euphemism for "counseling session." You haven't spent much time with Carey lately; you know he misses his family but you wonder if something else is on the engineer's mind. "Everything all right?"

"Today is his younger son's tenth birthday."

A little of your good mood dissipates. "I see."

Chakotay is quick to reassure you. "Joe's fine," he says. "He sent birthday wishes in the last data stream. He just wants to commemorate the occasion with a few friends."

You smile again. Marking these milestones was Chakotay's idea, his way of making sure the crew understands that, even as time is marching by in the Delta Quadrant, their families back home are changing and evolving, too, and that none of you will be returning to the same people you left behind. He's been preparing you all for the differences, should you get the ship home soon. At first, these occasions were melancholy. Now they are sincere but usually glad, and you will not soon forget the rollicking 40th anniversary party the Delaney sisters threw for their faraway parents. "Cake and ice cream?"

"Courtesy of Naomi and Sam. Join us?"

"Maybe. I'll have to see where the day takes me."

"I'm shocked, Kathryn, that you don't have your time planned to the last nanosecond."

"I can be spontaneous when I want to be," you protest.

"When you plan for it, you mean."

"You really are a horrible man."

He laughs. "I'd ask you to come over for dinner, but I'd hate to impose on this new, Freewheeling Kathryn."

You laugh, too. "I'll let you know if I'm going to be available."

"Enjoy your day, Captain."

"Try not to blow up my ship, Commander."

"No promises," he says. "I'll see you later. Chakotay out."

Some days you wake up and you feel his voice, still sleep-warm and raspy, creep past your parameters and sneak inside your skin and you think, someday. Someday.

You yawn and stretch again and slip from the bed without bothering to pull the comforter back into place. It is your day off, and here of all places you allow yourself to slide just a little. You shrug into your robe and ask the replicator — politely, sweetly — for a cup of hot, black coffee, then you pad into the little bathroom and tell the computer to start filling your tub. At the bathroom mirror you stop and peer at your reflection. Usually you have to force yourself not to focus on the dark circles under your eyes and the lines around your mouth. But some days you wake up and look in the mirror and you see you there, not just fortysomething you, not just Captain you, but young officer you, Cadet you, teenager you, pigtail you. You see a round face with freckles and missing front teeth. You look hard and see Admiral Janeway's daughter and Justin's fiancée, and Mark's. You look even deeper and you see someone else, too, some future you who is happy and healthy and home, finally home. At home, maybe, and maybe not alone. Someday. Someday.

You turn away from the mirror and go collect your coffee. The first hot, delicious sip sends a tingle along your every nerve ending and you sigh in satisfaction. While keeping an ear open for the tub to finish, you amble over to your desk, coffee in hand, and activate your desktop console. There are crew evaluations to review and reports to read, and Neelix would like to meet with you to talk about the state of the cooktop in his galley at your earliest convenience, but it is your day off. You shunt the evaluations and reports to Chakotay's console even though you're certain they'll be back on your desk in padd form in the morning, probably with a note attached — Nice try. C. — and you tell Neelix to take his concerns to…to Vorik. Yes. Then you grab a book, refill your coffee cup, and shed your nightclothes.

The bathwater is perfect. The book — Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, a slim volume presented to you for you last birthday — is perfect. The cup of coffee balanced on the edge of the tub is perfect. The day is perfect, at least so far, and you feel that it will stay that way, even though the Delta Quadrant has a tendency to upend your plans without warning.

An hour later you are back in your robe, standing in front of your closet. You contemplate the uniforms for a moment and then brush them aside in favor of the small selection of civilian clothes behind them. There was no need to bring more than a few pieces along on what was supposed to be a three-week mission, and so most of the pantsuits and skirts and dresses are things you replicated on the ship or picked up on alien worlds. You don't get to wear them very often, but today…today seems like a good day to banish the red and black in favor of something brighter. Today you want something happier. Today you want something…blue.

You flick aside one last pantsuit and there's the dress, the one with the short sleeves and the loose, low neck. It's been years since you last wore it, and never on the ship. You wonder if it even still fits. These years have taken their toll, so much so that you've toyed with the idea of lessening the ship's artificial gravity just to compensate. But when you pull the dress on you're pleased that it still flatters you as much as it did two years ago, if in a different way. Two years ago it showed off your slimness. Now it accentuates your figure, your still-small waist and fuller hips and breasts.

You look good in it.

You always did.

You wonder if he noticed.

You know he did.

For a long moment, you contemplate yourself in the full-length mirror. The dress might not be appropriate for wandering around the ship and maybe reading a book in the Airponics Bay, which are your only firm plans thus far, but later? Perhaps. Carefully, you shinny the dress over your head and hang it in the closet. Then you pull on casual pants and a dark-blue blouse — it's still a good day for blue — tuck your hair behind your ears, slip on a pair of comfortable flats and head out into the corridor with the volume of poetry tucked under your arm.

Alpha Shift personnel, the chronically late ones, hurry to their posts. Most of them slow down and make a half-hearted attempt to greet you, but you smile and wave them on. As much as you appreciate their attempts at courtesy, they have places to be and some of your Alpha Shift team leaders can be sticklers for punctuality.

At the same time, the last stragglers of Gamma Shift stroll through the corridors in twos and threes, on their way to the Mess Hall or the Holodecks or back to quarters. They smile and stop to talk, and you indulge them for once. When a young crewman tells you about his little sister back home who just applied to the Academy and is nervous about the entrance exam, you pass along a few words of wisdom for him to include in the next data stream. Watching him stroll down the corridor with a spring in his step, you are glad that you took the time to get to know them, all of them, better. You're grateful that they feel comfortable sharing their lives with you in spite of the command distance you must maintain.

You check in on an experiment that's been running in the xenobiology lab for the last two weeks. Xenobiology isn't one of your specialties, but you're intrigued by the hybridization technique Lieutenant Branly has developed. It might help you further your fresh food output, thereby lessening your dependence on replicated food and, therefore, the resources dedicated to keeping the replicators running at current capacity. You compliment Branly's ingenuity, tell her to keep you posted about her results, and move on to the Airponics Bay, nodding at smiling at the crew as you go.

The flowers in Airponics remind you of Kes, and for just a moment you allow yourself to feel the melancholy at her absence. Gently, you rub leaves and petals between your fingertips as you move among the bays. You reach into a kadera berry plant and pluck a handful of berries, then another. Chakotay's been coveting these berries for fresh pies, but they're just starting to ripen and you love them best at this sweet-tart stage. You haven't had breakfast yet, and surely Chakotay wouldn't begrudge you two handfuls of berries.

Three handfuls.

And a few more for good measure.

Then you find the comfortable chair Kes always left here for quiet moments of reflection and sit down to read more of Sonnets from the Portuguese. An immensely personal work, intended originally by the author as a private gift from wife to husband. When Chakotay gave it to you on the eve of Prixin, you almost didn't accept it, knowing what it contained. The earnest, vulnerable expression on his face swayed you and you thanked him for it honestly. Usually it rests on your bookshelf untouched. But some days you wake up and know the day ahead will be peaceful enough to contemplate the poetess' tender, measured words.

You skip over the first few sad and lonely sonnets in favor of the middle of the cycle, in which the poetess begins to accept her future husband's affection and praises his "vindicating grace." She chronicles the joys and frustrations of their love. Toward the end of the cycle, you stop reading. You've never turned to the final pages of this particular volume. You know, too, what they contain, and it is too soon. Instead, you press you fingertips to your lips and touch the opening lines of Sonnet XXXVIII, and you close the book.

Someday. Someday.

The warmth and humidity and scents of fertile earth and growing things soothe you, and you close your eyes.

=/\=

-End of Part 1-