Star Trek Voyager characters are the property of Paramount Pictures.
A very short story that I thought I would share. Sorry it isn't longer and more developed but I don't have much time to write these days!
Crossroads
The sea was black, the moon silver, and Kathryn Janeway admired the midnight beauty of both as she stood on the rugged shore of an Irish beach. Voyager had now been home six months, six amazing months that had flown by like a whirlwind, but now it was time to return to reality and decide what she was going to do with the rest of her life. Starfleet wanted her to be an admiral, to take charge of classified and complex missions, but while Voyager was now a museum, Kathryn wasn't sure that she was ready to be. Working on Earth, chained to the ground, it was only something she could see herself doing if she had a reason to do it, a reason worth sacrificing her love of space exploration for…a reason like love. But she didn't have a reason. Certainly not that reason. She was alone, having lost every man she had ever loved, including Chakotay. He was no longer with Seven, their romance had ended weeks ago when The Doctor had discovered, purely by chance, that their bonding was a side effect of the mind manipulating surgery they had undergone on Quarren. He had repaired the damage and both Chakotay and Seven were themselves again.
But who was Kathryn Janeway? Now she wasn't Voyager's Captain, what was she? What should she be? Her heart, the part that still ached for Chakotay, which was all of it, wanted to captain again. Commanding a ship, millions of miles away in space, would take her away from the mundane, the ordinary, and thrust her into the extraordinary where she wouldn't have time to mope for the man she still loved and missed every day. Space had helped mend her heart before, it could again. And, while there was a loneliness of being a captain, it was a different kind of loneliness to what she felt on Earth. A captain's loneliness was a professional one. Hers was a personal. It was the loneliness of not belonging. Of feeling like an outsider. Of seeing others having lives that were fulfilling on both a personal and professional level, but hers only on the professional. It was a loneliness she could only get away from in space. Or at least, a loneliness she could disguise there, camouflage with a Captain's uniform. But if she returned to captaining, how would her family cope? They had only just had her back. How could she ask them to say goodbye again so soon?
But how could she stay?
Torn between two worlds, just like Chakotay.
Torn between her family and the calling of the stars.
Chakotay.
He was constantly in her thoughts.
Haunting her like a ghost.
But did he even think of her at all?
Then she had her answer.
For suddenly, unexpectedly, he was beside her. Beside her and talking. Saying the words she had only ever imagined he would in a dream. And, like in a dream, she said them back.
Said them and watched him smile.
And, as he did, she knew her decision had been made. She would accept promotion to the admiralty.
The End