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A/N. This story was written in 1997 or so, possibly earlier. I'm trying to archive Voyager stories here that are no longer posted anywhere else. This was the first story I'd ever written, so has a special feel for me.
In this tale, Voyager has gotten back home, but Janeway is wondering about where her place should be now and wondering about how to deal with change.
Chakotay gives her some options after he finds her in a field of corn in her home town in Indiana.
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Kathryn Janeway sat looking up at the stars, her feet on the folding chair in front of her that she'd carefully provided for the purpose. She was in non-regulation dress, a summer cotton thing the precise name of which she'd forgotten; in non-regulation shoes, because she had none on; with the latest of a non-regulation bottle from a non-regulation case of Chateau St. Jean sitting next to her on a table she'd set up two weeks ago.
Her hair was loose, in non-regulation style, and she was completely and unrepentantly alone, sitting in the middle of a cornfield that had lost its green color last month, the dry shucks golden and glistening in the starlight and moonlight. There was nothing except complete and blessed silence, except for the small rustling sounds of the nocturnal animals. She shook her head in amusement. If Chakotay were here, he could tell her the names and habits of the animals she heard. Of course, if Chakotay were here, he wouldn't let her wallow in isolation. She turned the thought aside, suddenly disquieted, and settled down determinedly into casual detachment.
At least she did until she heard what could only be the sounds of a human walking her way. She sighed, and took another sip of wine.
She looked up. "Speak of the devil."
Chakotay smiled at her and deposited another bottle of wine on her makeshift table. "Well, I've been called a lot worse, even by you. How are you, Kathryn?"
She leaned back, closed her eyes against the singular sight of her former first officer standing in a cornfield in civilian clothes and ignored his salutation. "Go away."
He sat down on the ground beside her and smiled. "Sorry, but no. I spent too long trying to find you." He paused and continued. " I would have at least expected an offer of a glass of wine."
She shrugged and gestured towards the table. "Do what you like. I thought you didn't drink."
He grimaced. "So did I."
And then he smiled and poured himself a glass. "But I've always been flexible. And I've never sat in the middle of three miles of cornfields in early fall at midnight before, looking up at the stars, trying to communicate with my former captain who's clearly intent on getting loaded. The possibilities are interesting, to say the least."
She sighed. "They sent you, didn't they? I wondered how long it would take."
He took a sip of the wine he'd poured himself and smiled. "Yes, they sent me. But I was willing, or rather...I wanted to come. It was an opportunity I didn't want to let go."
He paused, and then continued. "You've been hiding for three months, Kathryn. I was beginning to worry."
She smiled and looked up at the display of stars. The mountains on Earth were beautiful, and the canyons spectacular and deep, but the open endless sky in Indiana was what had brought her back home to hide. The stars that shone here every night were beyond description in their beauty and their intensity, so far away from the business of San Francisco or Tokyo or London or Rome.
She left the thought unsaid. Chakotay, of anyone she knew, would understand why she'd left the chaos of the cities to look for peace in the countryside.
Finally, she commented, "I've always been good at hiding when I felt inclined. Check my record. I'm sure they did before they sent you. There was the three months' leave after my father and Justin's death, and two months in the dead part of the Delta Quadrant. You must remember that one; and now, I just wanted to get away."
He said nothing, taking in the calm and serenity of the scene around him. "It's beautiful here."
She smiled. "I know."
His voice took on a mock accusatory tone. "You never told me, never described it once during five years of my telling you about the wilderness that I loved and the places I'd been to. You never told me how beautiful it was here, or how lonely."
She smiled, and shrugged. "It has it's own distinct appeal, but it's subtle."
She finally looked at him and offered a kind of apology, the best she could manage at the moment.
"Chakotay, I never understood any of it until we got back from the Delta Quadrant. I grew up here. I always wanted to get away from the limitations of the place. To tell you the honest to god truth, I never saw the possibilities. It wasn't until I listened to your stories of the mountains and the canyons that I thought there might be anything of interest here, or that there was any potential beauty. It wasn't until I finally came home that I understood why it *was* home."
He smiled and said nothing.
She looked back up at the stars. "They want me to make a decision about the admiralty next month."
He took a sip of wine. "I know."
She grimaced and poured herself another glass. "The paperwork is already amazing. I had 300 applications show up for my review for five open slots for captaincy last week; so I've been trying to hide, for Kahless's sake."
He smiled. "You know as well as I do there's nowhere to hide on Earth anymore. And as for the competition for the slots, well, it was amazing I got a captaincy six months ago when we got back."
She smiled. "That wasn't amazing. Not after the Delta Quadrant, and what we came back to, with the War. That decision was simple. That I can understand. But this... I don't know any of this, anymore. I haven't lived it. We've been gone for so long the candidates all look like children to me. And the paper work..." She smiled ironically. "Even if I spent five minutes apiece looking at each of the candidates, it'd still be a week before I could make a superficial judgment. And what is that worth? Not a lot."
He started to argue, but she stopped him. "Oh, I don't mean I can't make an intellectual decision about what's on the padds. But I haven't been part of the community, not enough to know who's made hard decisions and who's brown- nosing. I just don't know. I've been gone too long, Chakotay. And I don't want, or think I have the energy, to go back."
He smiled. "And so, you're sitting in the middle of a cornfield in early fall drinking wine, looking out at the stars, and avoiding the inevitable."
"Yes." She heard the rustling in the corn again. "What is that?"
He listened carefully and then replied. "Probably fox."
She poured him another glass. "I knew you'd know that. Even though you've never been here."
He shrugged. "I've read a lot about it. It's where you grew up."
She said nothing, looking out at the sky.
Chakotay finally broke the silence. "Kathryn, I turned down the command of the Einstein. It seemed unbelievably silly that they offered it to me, seeing as I never had a grip on the really technical aspects of astroscience, before, during and even and after the Delta Quadrant. I'd be more useful at the front, but the Admiralty seems to think that because we did so much analysis in the Delta Quadrant, we're all science pros."
She shook her head. " Pigeon-holed. I know what you mean. They think we have a 'better understanding' than the best minds in the galaxy because we've been somewhere else. I think because we had five years of carefully documented reports, they're convinced I'm the perfect bureaucrat."
He laughed. "I told you. You should have sloughed off those things while you had the chance."
She sighed, remembering. "You were right. The one I really regret is the day I turned you down to go skiing on Brafa because I wanted to finish the energy consumption reports."
He smiled. " Well, you did miss out that time. Brafa was an amazing planet." He paused and continued. "But now all of that is done; all of it is over. "
She interrupted, disturbed by the thought. "Chakotay, why are you here? I thought they sent you to make their point. I've been waiting."
He looked up at the stars. "No. I came to make *my * point. Kathryn, you don't belong behind a desk anymore than I belong in the captain's chair of a science vessel."
He stood up and took her hands, pulling her out of the chair. "Look around you: the open vistas, the darkness, the stars. This is the closest thing to being in space that you can find on Earth. You're an explorer; so am I. And we ought to be doing it together, not living our lives alone."
When she didn't answer, he continued, "I've taken a year's leave from Starfleet."
She stared at him, surprised. "What are you going to do?"
He looked down at her, his expression serious. "That depends. But I know that whatever it is, I want to let go of the unending responsibilities for a while and build some new connections. I want to explore ... other possibilities, without Starfleet and Alpha Quadrant politics taking precedence. And I want you to share the experience with me."
She turned away suddenly breathless. "To do that, I'd have to take a leave myself and put the admiralty on hold."
She could feel the heat of his body against her back. He continued, "And you'd have to quit hiding. We could stay in Indiana, if you like, I don't care. But you'd have to be willing to let go of the burden, and start living again, away from the reports and paperwork and the politics. The isolation of the Delta Quadrant was enough for us both, Kathryn. Don't choose the same here, a life of nothing more than unending responsibility. I don't want to wake up, old, gray, and tired, wondering what it was like to live. And I don't want that for you, either."
She shook her head, still looking away from him. "My father would turn over in his grave at the thought of a Janeway putting the admiralty on hold."
"And your mother?"
She finally turned and looked at him. "If she was still alive, she'd make you fudge brownies and welcome you to the family."
He searched her expression carefully. "Kathryn?"
She moved closer to him, placing her hands on his chest. "I never thought of you as a farmer, Chakotay. I'm not sure my imagination can stand the strain."
He pulled her closer, and rested his chin in her hair. "I can be a lot of things you've never considered before, Kathryn. Just try to imagine the possibilities. "
She felt contentment and calm wash over her as he held her. And, she felt her depression lift as she considered the endless possibilities of just being, exploring the world again in a new way. Most of all, she felt peaceful anticipation as she considered sharing the joy of living with the one person who could partner her in her exploration. She smiled into his chest. "It's good to be home."
End.