A/N: This story is set following the events in episode 7x19 – Q2.

Written for the VAMB/AO3 Challenge to create a J/C story from prompts. I used the following two:

#5: Chakotay keeps watch over Kathryn on a hostile planet. She is injured and probably won't make it back to Voyager, but he refuses to leave her side (despite the fact that he might make it out alive if he does so).

#8: "You always do this. You always try to be the one who loses, who sacrifices. I'd have waited the whole seventy years for you, if you'd asked me to."
"I already asked so much of you. I couldn't do that."

A million thank-yous to my hawk-eyed beta, Carlyn Roth. Goodness, this must have taken hours…

"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?"
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

CHAPTER 1 – Tomato Slugs

Kathryn Janeway retired to her quarters after alpha shift, which had been her norm as of late. She sat down with a plate of fruit and a stack of PADD's and continued the work that never really ever ended just because the chronometer said it should.

One PADD of warp core efficiency data trends morphed into another of crew assignments, and then onto supply requisitions and shield modulation recommendations. Before long, she felt her eyelids begin to get heavy.

Kathryn set the tablet in her hand back onto the stack. She stretched in her chair and stared out to the quickly moving stars, wondering what others on the ship were doing at this moment. Those who were not on duty were most likely relaxing in their free time—reading, exercising, getting ready for dinner in the mess hall. She sighed, and was suddenly overcome with a wave of loneliness. Being a captain was a solitary position in and of itself, but to be the only Starfleet captain so very far away from Federation space sometimes made her feel as if she were in a hole so deep she may never find a way out.

Shaking the feeling off, she moved to her bookshelf; a little light reading always did make her feel better. Before she could make her selection, however, Kathryn was suddenly aware of a presence in the room. She froze, took a metered breath and turned very slowly, senses heightened and ready to comm for security should it be required.

Standing about five meters away, was Q.

She let out a sigh, feeling somewhat relieved and yet simultaneously annoyed at was most certainly to come.

"Q."

"Hello, Kathy. I do hope I'm not intruding."

"No more than you usually do," she said, tired annoyance slipping into her voice. "Just please don't tell me you're here to drop off another one of your children. I really don't have the energy right now."

"Au contraire," he said, flopping dramatically into her chair. "I'm here to thank you, again."

"Oh?" she asked, eyeing him skeptically.

"Yes. You did wonders for Junior. He and I have been having a swell time traversing the cosmos since last we met."

"I'm glad to hear that."

"Anyway, Junior suggested that I might not have adequately repaid the favor."

Kathryn held her hand up. "You took two and a half years off of our trip, that's payment enough."

"I came to offer my gratitude in a more personal way."

"No need. You're welcome. Now if you don't mind…"

"Ah yes, you want to get on to a good book. I had something a little different in mind for this evening, and seeing as you have no plans."

Kathryn sighed and summoned composure. "Really Q, it's been a long day and I just—"

"I want to give you something, Kathy. I've decided that, short of sending you straight home, there is only one thing you could really use."

"A cup of coffee, Q. How about you give me a cup of real coffee and we'll call it even?"

Q gave her a familiar smirk that she had come to associate with certain trouble. "Such narrow thinking. You need to be more four-dimensional, my dear. I've come to offer you a glimpse into the realm of what might have been."

As he spoke those words, Kathryn knew she was in for trouble. A hundred different scenarios for Q's supposed generosity, and their outcomes, assailed her, but she didn't get far with her speculations before he began to elaborate. "One night, in the fifth grade, you were reading your father's textbooks on starships and warp engines or some such Starfleet-y nonsense. The next day you had an exam on plant biology, which you failed. It was one of the only things you've ever failed in your life, so I'm sure you remember it."

Kathryn nodded slightly, unsure of what connection this ancient history had to anything of relevance.

"Would you like to know what would have happened had you been studying for that exam instead of filling your head with useless facts about spaceships?"

"I'm not sure how a quiz in the fifth grade—"

"Allow me to enlighten you," he interrupted. "If you had studied for that biology exam, you would have gotten an 'A', the highest grade in the class. Your teacher would have noticed that you had an aptitude for the biological sciences and would have recommended you for a week-long botany program at a local university. There, you would have discovered an interest in making things grow. You would have obsessed about it, actually, as seems to be your tendency. One thing would lead to another, your father's starships would have gone out the airlock, and—Boom!—you're a horticulture professor instead of a Starfleet officer.

Kathryn put her hands on her hips. "I don't believe that."

Q shrugged. "It doesn't matter if you believe it or not, Kathy. It's true. Out there among the vast cosmos is a version of you giving a lecture on slugs of Earth's northern hemisphere and their effect on tomato harvest."

"Why don't you go bother her instead? She could probably use the excitement."

Q ignored her. "Would you like to know how Voyager fared in that timeline? The one where you studied for your biology exam?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Oh, you always have a choice, Kathy; that's what I'm trying to show you. You make choices every day. And you wrestle with them all, don't you? The decisions you've made assail you during the day, and they keep you up at night." Q shook his head. "It's a pity, too, because as I see it, you're the only version of you making the right choices on a regular basis."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence. Now, what happens if I choose to ask you to leave?"

"I'll go. But, I really do wish you'd consider my offer. It's not one you're likely to get again."

"I think I'll pass, but thanks just the same."

"Very well," Q replied as he raised his hand in the air to snap his fingers and go on his way. But, he couldn't leave her hanging without the end of the story. "You're very happy, by the way," he told her.

Kathryn tilted her head. "I beg your pardon?"

"As a biology professor. You have a husband and two children, friends, and a nice home. You're very well respected." Q saw her swallow hard and steel her eyes against a fleeting glimpse of happiness she would never know. "But everyone else you never cared about, they're all dead. Every… Single… One."

At last, he snapped his fingers and disappeared.