Part One
DISCLAIMER : All things Trek belong to Paramount, this story is mine. I have borrowed some dialogue from "Timeless," and I humbly thank TPTB, although they will never read this anyhow, and I could rip off an entire script and they probably would never know. But seeing as this is fanfiction and there's no profit anyhow, who cares? I also thank Jeri Taylor for Mosaic, which is an invaluable tool for writing Janeway.

A thousand years, you said,
as our hearts melted.
I look at the hand you held,
and the ache is hard to bear.

Admiral Kathryn Janeway sat down at the crest of the dune, pulling her wrap about her as the chill breeze from the ocean caught her. She sighed and looked up at the night sky. Two starships made their way across the field of her vision, and tiny lights on the moon blinked as the people up there got on with their work. It was such a busy sky, not at all like the vastness of the Delta Quadrant where they had journeyed, at times, for weeks without meeting a soul.

It didn't seem like five years since Voyager had returned to the Alpha Quadrant and to Earth. The memories of that time were still fresh in her mind. The hushed expectancy on board, excitement but an added seriousness for the many farewells that were made that day. Kathryn, however, had felt surprisingly little excitement at that time. Instead a hollowness had begun deep within her as she saw her crew, her family, off the ship. Even now, years later, she would wake in the night surprised to find a stationary sky outside her window, and missing the reassuring hum of her ship's engines. A dull ache began in her gut as always did when she dwelled on her time on Voyager.

Their return had been triumphant, but Kathryn had seen through the parties and the official appearances as if from a distance. The Maquis had all been pardoned, and all of her crew highly commended. She had been promoted to Admiral, but it was in numbness that she accepted the distinction, and in numbness she continued her duties. She had been so happy that last night in the Delta Quadrant, feeling as if all of her troubles were about to be lifted clean from her shoulders. Being the Captain for five straight years with no down time had been steadily changing her. She had felt Kathryn slowly fading in the shadow of Captain Janeway and was powerless to do anything about it as long as their journey stretched ahead, the Captain's responsibility. The Captain had been a lonely woman, especially since Kathryn had loved company, loved having her friends close by, but the Captain had to keep everybody far enough away to be sure she could keep a clear focus on the larger goal. She did not want to be content on Voyager, she had to be simply the strongest force driving them home. She owed them all that much after what she had done to them.

These thoughts would dizzy her and chase away sleep every night. Every night for those five long years she had forced down her most basic needs for companionship and domestic happiness in favour of the Captain's distanced clear-sightedness. And then had come Arturis and the Dauntless, which had shaken her hard, but the experience had not been without its merits. They had been able to work on the slipstream modifications that had been made to Voyager, a long and arduous process, but a project with eventual stunning success. And so she had found herself striding down the corridor with Chakotay, confetti in her hair, and an uncontrollable giddiness in her stomach.


She remembered as if it were yesterday, the walk through Engineering. Remembered her shoulder firmly against Chakotay's as they chattered happily. She also remembered the exact moment of her decision.

"Do you have any dinner plans?"
"Nothing special. Date with a replicator."
"Cancel it. That's an order!" If all went as planned, that was the last of the Captain he would see. And she had strode quickly away for fear she would change her mind. He had arrived later in the evening, prepared to talk about the slipstream.

She smiled sadly to herself as she recalled her excitement that night. She had so looked forward to leveling with Chakotay as Kathryn and not as the Captain, that when it had come to it she had felt like a teenager on a first date.

"I didn't know you could cook,"
"Normally I draw the line at a pot of coffee. But tonight is a special occasion." Her hand was almost shaking as she poured the wine.
"Oh?"
"Our last night in the Delta Quadrant. I'd say that's special enough."

The breeze was getting colder, and her wrap seemed to provide little protection now, but lost in thought she remained. When it had come down to it she had been scared at how difficult it was to actually stop being the Captain.

"We launch tomorrow at 0800." She had shied away from the task at hand. "You and Harry will be in the Delta Flyer. Voyager will be right behind you."
"The crew will be pleased."
"What about you Chakotay? What do you think of my decision?" She was desperate to go to him, tell him that the time had come, but the Captain yet stubbornly refused to retreat. For a second she thought he had sensed her purpose, there had been something in his eyes, but he replied,
"I've analyzed Harry's flight plan. The theory is sound, but there are just too many variables. If something goes wrong in that slipstream..." his voice had trailed off.
"It could be our only chance to use the quantum drive."
"True, but if you showed this data to any Starfleet engineer they'd think we were out of our minds. We can find another way home. We've waited this long..."
"Long enough." That had come out sharper than she'd planned. She was saying the right words, but in response to the wrong questions. "We've waited long enough. I know it's a risk...probably our biggest yet...but I'm willing to take it." Oh if only she could say those words at the right time! "Are you with me?"

And that's where it had happened. He had responded to her as Kathryn, not the Captain, always his weakness. He had suspected what was going on, now she couldn't back down.

They had relaxed almost immediately, their friendly, intimate rapport reasserted. Nervously she rose from the table.
"Speaking of risks, " she couldn't believe her lame segue even to this day. "Are you ready to try some home cooking?" She had placed a hand on his shoulder, not an unusual gesture, but tonight she felt charged, and she wondered if he felt it when she touched him.
"I'll alert sickbay." The way he smiled up at her had almost melted her. Instinctively she had reached up and touched his face, unable to drag her eyes from his. She had lingered there when she should have moved, and the fascinated look on her face had finally told him what her words could not.
"Kathryn?" he reached up and covered her hand with his.
"Yes?" Barely a whisper, her eyes did not leave his. They had stayed like that, eyes locked, for an inordinate length of time, the only movement her heaving chest. Chakotay had blinked and broken their trance, and she had gone to move away but found her hand held fast. His arms had gone around her waist from his sitting position and he had clung to her tightly.

Kathryn shivered. She imagined she could still feel the texture of his hair under her palm as she had stroked his head, could still smell him. The wind had picked up, and it whipped her long hair about her face, blinding her. She was dimly aware of the tears in her eyes and the tightening pain in her gut. Chakotay had been so happy, so relieved. He had never really believed her excuses, always held a little resentment for the way she kept pushing him away, but that she had been true to herself and to him in the end had meant far more to him than she could have imagined. She allowed the tears to run freely now. That night they had been buoyant on their high spirits and the excitement of finally being together. Unable to sleep they had talked, touched and kissed and talked until the early hours. They had finally fallen asleep sprawled together on her couch, and it had felt like Christmas morning when they awoke.

A little over a year later she had contacted Starfleet and requested that her commission be made inactive, and she had not returned to duty in the four years since. After just six months on earth they had parted. And it had been all her fault. She couldn't put the Captain of Voyager to rest, even when she found she disliked the person she had become. She had found herself playing a role, as if she were acting every day. It took constant effort to act as she should, to say the right things, to make the right choices. She was constantly melancholy and she could see it was tearing Chakotay up, neither of them knowing why she was so sad. She began to quietly fester, resenting what her time on Voyager had done to her. She barely knew herself any more. So long in the service of those she had stranded out there in the Delta Quadrant, and still she had thought that things would somehow magically be alright, just as long as they got home. A slow resentment had grown within her, and the day she looked at Chakotay over the breakfast table and cursed the fact that he had been the Maquis she had been tracking that day, was the day she left. She had retired to this beach-house alone, leaving Chakotay only a note to ask him please not to look for her. An involuntary sob escaped her but was lost in the noises of the wind through the dune grasses and crash of the ocean. It had been a difficult decision but she had decided it would be best that way. She had gone through her records and amended her details so she could not be found, then simply disappeared.


***
That had been four years ago, four long years of anger, pain and frustration, but of healing and growing also. Her tears were dry now and she smiled to herself that she could once again feel these emotions. She had been desolate when she had left Chakotay, plunged into the deepest depression from which she thought she would never emerge, deeper than when her father had died, feeling nothing but empty. Slowly, however, she had begun to rediscover herself, to rediscover Kathryn. She had begun to paint again, even to write, had kept to herself and learned to like again who she was, and now she felt it was time - time to move onwards and outwards.

To this effect she had placed a call that afternoon. How would he react after all this time? What could she expect from this man, whom she had done both so right and so wrong by? Would he even come at all?? This thought chilled her. He had to come. She had left him a brief message. Hello Chakotay, she'd said, then nothing for an age. Please, I know I have no right, but....I need to see you. She'd left her address here and a time of 2000 hours. Glancing at her chronometer she registered it was not even 1900. She sighed and stood, the thin white dress and shawl she was wearing flapped in the wind as she turned, and came face to face with Chakotay.

On to Part Two

Lines of Poetry : LADY HEGURI, translated from the Japanese by Geoffrey Bowness and Anthony Thwaite.