Star Trek Voyager is the Property of Paramount Pictures.

Echoes

Stars twinkled over a distant mountain. Kathryn Janeway stood on the porch of an old broken down wooden house and gazed up at the summit. Above the mountain, a full white moon shone brightly. She wondered how long it would take to climb to the top of the mountain. She imagined the view from there had to be spectacular.

"This really is a beautiful place, Chakotay," she said, turning briefly to glance at her former First Officer who stood beside her. "I'm so glad you talked me into this camping trip."

He smiled softly. "I knew you would like it here."

"I think it's the most beautiful place in the world," she smiled in return. She looked around at the tumbled down house and thought how handsome it must have looked once. It had a pretty doorway and three glassless windows graced it to one side and two to the other. There must also have been a loft as there was the remains of a tiny window high above the doorway. Here and there the roof had caved in, but a stone chimney stood strong at the right hand side of the house. It had been a happy home. Kathryn didn't know how she knew that, but she did.

"I feel so at peace here," Kathryn continued, "feel, somehow, as though I belong here. Isn't that strange? To go to a place you have never been to before and yet feel as though you have lived here always?"

"Not strange at all," Chakotay replied quietly. "Time is a million fractures and we live who knows how many existences. Each existence influences the other and we carry a fragment in our hearts. In another time, you have lived here."

A cold shiver engulfed Kathryn at those words and she looked away from him. "That's impossible."

"No," Chakotay said softly. "You lived here with me."

Kathryn flinched. "With you?"

Chakotay gently put his hand on her shoulder. "There's something I have to tell you, Kathryn, something I've wanted to tell you for a long time, but I couldn't. If I had told you when we were on Voyager, there was no telling what the consequences would be, and it just wasn't the time." He paused. "I come from the future. At least, it was the future. Now it's the past, a past that no longer exists."

Kathryn swallowed and stared nervously at him. "I don't understand."

"I come from a future that was changed," he continued, his voice falling to a whisper. "And in that future, I was your husband."

Kathryn shook her head and stepped away from him.

"No ...You were a Maquis ...We met in the Delta Quadrant ...You couldn't have been my husband..."

"In my timeline it only took us two years to get Voyager home. We met with an advanced species who had the ability to transport us back to the Alpha Quadrant. When we got back, we Maquis were taken into custody, put on trial, and sentenced to three years imprisonment. You and Mark tried to pick up your relationship where you had left it, but in your different ways, you had both moved on. You came to visit me often in prison and campaigned tirelessly to have us all released. It was because of a speech you made that we were set free after a year. You told everyone about what had happened on my homeworld and on many other homeworlds handed over to the Cardassians. You told them what good people we were, how we were only fighting so that our people could live in peace and safety." Tears welled in his eyes. "And you told everyone how much you had come to love me. And I loved you, Kathryn. I loved you so much. We got married, found this house while camping here, and decided to do it up, make it our home."

He paused.

"You were still a captain and were away a lot, but we were so happy here... lived here for almost a year. But then Kes got ill, suffered from some kind of madness, and wanted to return to her people. She got hold of a timeship, I don't know how or who from, and was going to travel back in time to the day when we destroyed the array. She wanted to tell her younger-self to stay on Ocampa and not go with us. We managed to board her ship and tried to stop her, but we were helpless against her powers. She took us back in time with her and we found ourselves right in the middle of the Kazon's attack on Voyager. Thankfully, the ship was cloaked so no one saw it, but Kes was going to transport to Voyager and contaminate the timeline. We couldn't let that happen. We tried to stop her but she fought us. She was going to kill you, but I ... I killed her instead.." Tears brimmed his eyes at the memory. "We thought we could use the time ship to travel back to our own time, to travel to the time just before Kes tried to embark on her mission. But Kes had deliberately sabotaged many of the ship's systems so we couldn't use it. There was no way we could use it to travel back, or rather forward, in time. That left us stranded in the Delta Quadrant in a time that was not our own, knowing that a temporal loop had been created. It would just replay and replay unless we broke the loop by interfering with our original timeline."

He turned away from Kathryn and gazed out at the black wilderness before him.

"But it seemed as though there was nothing we could do. We couldn't risk a miscalculation and have Voyager destroyed by the Kazon. We only had once chance to get this right. The only way we could think to stop it all happening again was for one of us to replace ourselves on Voyager. Then, when Kes tried to travel back in time in the future, we could stop her long before she did. And that one of us had to be me. It would have been impossible for you to do so without anyone noticing, not least because you were pregnant..." He paused. "We planned on intercepting my younger-self as I ... he... was transported from his ship to Voyager, just before ramming his own into the Kazon ship, and putting me in his place. We only had minutes to do it, only had minutes to replicate identical clothes to the ones I ... he ... was wearing ... and fix my hair the same..." A tear ran down his cheek. "We never even had a chance to say good-bye. Before I knew, I was on Voyager, the array was destroyed, and with it you and the timeship..."

He was silent for a long while, remembering.

"We thought it would happen the same ... thought everything would be the same ... But it wasn't. It was all so different, and it was different almost from the start. Just hours into our original journey, Joe Carey was killed in an accident in Engineering. Although you were skeptical, there was no one but B'Elanna who could do the job so you made her Chief Engineer in his place. But this time Joe wasn't killed and B'Elanna wasn't made Chief Engineer. But she had to be if everything was to happen as it needed too ... or at least as close as was possible. So I tried to force the matter. But then when she was made Chief Engineer, things still changed. And I knew it was my fault that things were changing. I wasn't the man I had been five years before, and just small differences in my behavior were having a profound effect upon events. I tried, God knows how I tried to do everything the same, but I couldn't remember everything ... couldn't remember every detail, every word ... and I was grieving ... I had lost my wife ... our baby... and I was missing her so much ... missing you. And yet she was alive in you. I was so confused, conflicted. While you looked like my Kathryn, talked like my Kathryn, you weren't her ... at least not yet... And I even almost resented you for being alive when she was dead."

Another tear ran down his cheek.

"And yet you were her, and I loved you. I tried to be the tough Maquis I was when we first got stranded, but I couldn't. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't. I loved you too much to fight with you, too much to make it real. I thought that if I continued to try to be what I wasn't, I would just blow my cover somehow. No one suspected I was a different me ... not even the Doctor ... And no one ever did. The closest I ever came to being found out was when Tash turned up and Seven began analyzing the destruction of the array. She found what she believed to be a tractor beam, and while it could be mistaken for one from that particular angle, it wasn't. It was fired from the center of the array, not towards it. When we traveled back in time, a temporal rift was generated. Amidst the battle, no one noticed it. And as many of Voyager's systems were damaged, it was never detected. The temporal rift began to collapse almost immediately, and was too small for us to travel back through it, but it would still have been a meter or more in diameter when the array was destroyed. A pin prick in the vastness of space, but still large enough for debris to fall into and appear in the future. Given that future was to be changed, it probably wouldn't have made any difference, but we didn't want to take any chances. Once I was on board Voyager, you were going to move the ship to beneath the array, monitor Voyager, and then seal the rift just as Tuvok fired at the array. That way no one would see the beam amongst the explosion."

He paused.

"When Seven detected the beam, I couldn't tell anyone what it really was, so I just went along with the idea of a conspiracy. I figured that a good First Officer would at least be open to the possibility if he was ignorant of the truth. I played along and, in the meantime, tried to access the database so that the image of the beam could be removed. That's when you found me. As far as I knew, only Seven and I had seen it. But then it turned out that Seven had been malfunctioning and no one gave another thought to the beam."

He paused again.

"But because I wasn't the same man in those early days, everything began to happen differently. And once it had started happening differently, there was no changing it to what it should be ... at least to what it should have been in my existence. After a few weeks, nothing was the same. We had covered twice as much space and I was just as much in the dark about what would happen as everyone else. I never knew Seska was a spy, as we never found that out. We never found the 47s and the planet that could have been a home. We never even got bitten by an insect and got stranded on New Earth. It was all new. All so new. And I was frightened. I knew everything had changed and had no idea what the consequences would be. I just knew deep inside that it was going to be a longer trip than two years. And I knew that if it was, you and I might never get together. But I couldn't bear the thought of that ... had to keep believing, even when it seemed impossible. I thought that all you needed was time... But in the end I had to face up to things, had to face up to the possibility that in this timeline we were not destined to be together. So, I tried to move on, tried to forget... That's why Seven and I... " He turned to Kathryn. " But I couldn't ... And I don't believe that I married her in the Admiral's timeline, because I love you, Kathryn. I love you so much, and I'll always love you."

Kathryn was extremely pale and was trembling violently. She turned away from him and leant wearily on the wooden rail of the porch. She couldn't believe this was happening. It was too much to take in. She had come on this camping trip hoping it would bring them closer, finally bring them together. He couldn't have been her husband already in a different timeline, couldn't have known her so intimately, so completely ... couldn't have memories of their touch, their kiss ... of an existence she knew nothing about... And yet, in a strange way, the thought comforted her too. She had so often felt completely alone out there and yet, all of the time, she had, in some way, belonged to him...

Chakotay lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I know this must be hard to comprehend," he said gently, "but I'm still me, Kathryn, still the same Chakotay you've known all these years. Don't be afraid."

Kathryn turned to him tearfully. "I'm not afraid, Chakotay ... not of you ... It's just frightening to think you knew me all along ... that you had been my husband. And yet ... And yet it's comforting too ... Comforting to think that in some small way I belonged to you."

Chakotay brushed his fingers against her cheek. "As I often said, Kathryn, you weren't alone."

Kathryn looked up at him and a tear ran down her cheek. He gently wiped it away.

"Even the first time around I was protective of you. Just like I told you on New Earth, the angry warrior in me found his peace in you."

Kathryn reached out and touched his face, touched his tattoo.

"I want us to be together in this timeline, Chakotay. I know it may be difficult, given our different histories of each other, but I want us to be together."

Fresh tears welled in Chakotay's eyes. "I want that too, Kathryn. You don't know how much I want that..."

Kathryn smiled and when she looked deep into his eyes, saw the same infinite longing in them as she felt in her soul.

"I think I do," she whispered.

Chakotay drew her close and they held each other tight. Kathryn couldn't imagine how hard it had been for him all those years, carrying this burden alone and being, in many ways, a stranger to the woman who was his wife. She had often seen a haunting sadness in his eyes, a sadness she had wanted to take away by lavishing him with love, but love was not for Starfleet Captains. And in the Delta Quadrant, she could never be anything else. But she could be now. Now her heart was her own to give away.

"And I want to live here," she said, drawing away from him. "I want us to live in this house."

Chakotay smiled and they gazed again into each others eyes. Then Kathryn gently raised her mouth to his and kissed him with infinite tenderness. He kissed her in return and gathered her close again.

THE END