Ghost of Future's Past


"...we both saw something we liked, a willingness to have no walls, or maybe just an unwillingness to keep them standing." – Ian Caldwell, "The Rule of Four"


Venice – 2378

The city streets are nearly silent. Somewhere, not far, a violin plays through a Brahms waltz at alternating tempos, suggesting it's more practice than performance. It echoes through the narrow gaps between buildings, seeking an audience in the maze of century old buildings. Photon lanterns throw light down the channel and pull shadows out at odd angles. They're easy to get lost in, my body pleasantly warm and sated, though skipping dinner may have been an error.

We abandoned our café reservation in favor of more intimate pursuits. Preplanned speeches and long-awaited expressions of love forgone at the transport pad when he slipped his and in mine and began to walk at a dreamlike pace beneath the dapple of familiar stars.

We made it. Through debriefs and disciplinary boards, past the pomp and ceremony. Events of the Admiral's history now niggling possibilities on a vastly irrelevant timeline. Tuvok's descent into madness, Seven's death... Wiped out.

There are worse things to lose to time.

A hand skims freely around my waist. My surprised gasp shifts to a sigh when Chakotay pulls me against his chest and places his mouth against my ear.

"Come back to bed."

"In a while."

Acknowledging murmurs become soft nuzzling moans as his hands make their own assessment on how interested I am in resuming our evening's previous activities. Deft fingers track the length of my arms before slipping beneath the edges of a loose sheet in search of softer skin. He's learned quickly, or he already knew. Hard to say. Alternate universes, fractures in space-time, temporal variations on a theme. We could have been lovers long before this on any timeline, and I have no idea which he has experienced.

His lips go to work on my neck, coaxing me back from the window with the promise of deeper, longer kisses, but when I don't respond, he pulls back. His profile is carved in shadow and light, and for a split second he looks like someone else.

"Regrets?"

Sex changes many things, but nothing quite as irrevocably as friendship. Until tonight we had safe places to retreat should disagreement require distance to mend. Even on a ship as small as Voyager, we could avoid each other if need be, but no longer.

"About this?" I settle a firm hand atop his. "Never."

A reassuring tone goes a long way with this man, but I'd be a fool to think that is the only way he reads me. His lips test the tension in my shoulders, the place a lie would settle, then smile against my throat.

It's startling how well he knows me; how after years in one role he so effortlessly slips into another. No thought given to the precursor hours of tonight where the words "captain" and "admiral" came with a chasm of distance and decorum. If I'm being honest, it has taken me hours to break down those rigid habits, to bend my body toward and not away from his unrestricted touch. He doesn't mind. He understands without saying so. He's adoring and careful, but ultimately deferential to his own desire, which vanishes any lingering conversation we might need to have about preference or technique. He is already my perfect lover.

So then why am I standing at this window instead returning to our bed?

I'm sure he's wondering the same thing, but just when I think to answer his unspoken question with an anxious, "I don't know," he kisses my temple and withdraws, because this, too, he understands.

"Wake me when you come in," he says, and retreats to our bed.

The door closes with a soft click, but he's gone for less than a minute when a familiar face appears at the furthest end of the balcony. I notice she's enhanced her rank to match my own. She's not smiling so much as she is politely sneering with that bemused, omnipotent humor I couldn't possibly comprehend.

"Well, you've got that right," Q says.

I've never been certain as too how much thought her kind can read, or if the tell is simply unbound in my expression.

"He's a virile thing, I'll give you that." Her eyes shift toward the darkened rooms of our suite, presumably in the direction Chakotay has gone. I don't bother to follow them. I've learned looking away from Q – any Q – can be an invitation to disaster.

"I've got to admit," she continues, "I didn't think even you were selfish enough to wipe out twenty-six years of history just to get into bed with your first officer."

"You and I both know I did nothing of the sort."

Though we've been the topic of speculation over the years, and more since we've been home. In the eyes of outside observers, Chakotay and I have always had a more interesting relationship. None of which I bother to explain.

"What can I do for you, Miss Q?"

The Q may be many things, but I suspect what they are not is beyond gender. At least, gender preference. Why else would this being continue to return as female, or her predecessor male? So, the nickname I coined so many years ago goes unmentioned beyond an eyebrow crept up to her hairline.

"You're a Dickens' fan, correct?"

At that I have to, have to, laugh. "And you're what? My ghost of Christmas present?"

What else could she be here for? I've had plenty of time to review the Enterprise's logs. It would not be the first time a Q has shown up with this particular game in mind.

"More like, future-past. Come on. We don't have much time."

"Much time for what?"

She lets out an exasperated sigh. "Not that you've paid much attention over the years, but when the universal constant is altered, the quantum interval of the previous timeline is less than one femtosecond from your normal space time. Now, for every second to stand here arguing with me, the timeline degrades further, making it impossible to reconstruct it in terms your rudimentary mind can comprehend."

Assaults on my intelligence notwithstanding, my curiosity engages at maximum warp. Still, I look back for Chakotay. As much as it hurts to admit, it's the only thing that could pull me away from him now. Science. Discovery. The things hardwired into my psyche as motivating as any trauma.

"You mean, Admiral Janeway's future still exists in some sort of… temporal half-life?"

She nods once, starts forward as if she means for me to follow her over the rail. When I don't, she stops.

"What?" she hisses.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because you, Admiral, cannot leave well enough alone in any timeline, and while you might not be ready to admit it, what you did bothers you. You're asking yourself –" Her tone drops an octave, closer to, if not exactly my own "—did I rob them of a future just to satisfy my own desire to get some of them home safely?"

She not wrong. Although I'm asking a lot more than that. If time and destiny can be altered so easily, who is to say I won't find another reason to repeat the process? How many times have I, already? And for what? For whom? I loved them all, but were the lives of others somehow less than the lives of those I called my friends? Was that version of myself a version, or just a darker constant I've not yet seen? Will I see it, here and now?

"Which is exactly why humans are not meant to meddle in something as fragile as time. It will break your tiny mind." She saddles up a step, darkening her voice to match her expression. "One thing is true though, doubt will drive you mad. Now, far be it from me to take exception and toss pebbles into the galactic pool, but, for some reason I have yet to understand, my husband… cares for you."

"So," I let the word drawl out, giving myself time to reason, "you're here at his request?"

"Well…" She cocks an arm against her waists, finger poised to snap me into oblivion. "I'm not really here at all."