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"What should I do?"
Chakotay looked towards the woman who shared the table with him, and away from the lake where the early evening mists were beginning to settle in for the night. His wife's posture was still strong, her hair silver but meticulous, still the way he'd braided it earlier. But her eyes were dull. There was little there he recognized.
"Eat, Kathryn."
She looked down at the food on her plate in confusion. "That?"
"Yes." He watched her for a while and then said encouragingly, "That's right."
A quiet, calm peace settled between them, reflecting the evening serenity of the lake and the mountains.
"Chakotay, she's home." His son's voice echoed through the house to the dining room, breaking the silence.
Chakotay got up from the table and turned to embrace the woman who walked in the door with Kolopac. "Kitten, it's good to have you home."
He smiled, looking carefully at his daughter. "You look more like your mother everyday."
She smiled back at him, her brown eyes twinkling. "I do not. It's just the hair and the height and the hands." He grinned at the old joke. "And that's 'Captain' to you, Captain. I'm too old to be called Kitten."
He laughed. "Aye, Captain. But you still look like your mother."
She was clearly tired. Her ramrod straight posture and her intensity told him that. They made her look even more like Kathryn when he'd first met her. KJ had his eyes and skin color, but the red auburn of her hair was her mother's, as was the sparkle in her eyes.
He looked back at his wife. "Kathryn, Kit's here."
"Who?"
"KJ's home. Kitten, come closer, she doesn't recognize names anymore."
Kathryn looked up at her daughter vaguely and smiled. "Hello."
Chakotay watched KJ choke, her heart in her eyes, and then bend down to hug her mother. "Hi, Mom. I'm back."
"Were you gone?"
KJ looked at him, silent, questioning. He broke in to ease the moment. "She's been gone for six months on that new ship of hers. When did you dock? Today?"
KJ rallied. "A few hours ago. I got here as soon as I could."
"Yes, of course. I can't remember. How nice." There was clear delight in Kathryn's voice, and then the inevitable silence. She looked down at the table.
"Chakotay, what should I do?"
The stricken look in KJ's eyes was enough to stop the reunion. He didn't want her to upset Kathryn. He cleared his throat. "Eat, Kathryn."
He looked at Kolopac, who had put his arm around his sister's shoulder. "Why don't you take KJ out to the lake and update her on things? I'll be there in a while."
As he watched Kolopac lead KJ out the door, he heard her comment, "She's supposed to be the strong one. I've never heard her say that before..."
She'd never heard it before.
He supposed that was true. It wasn't the kind of phrase one associated with Kathryn Janeway, even if you were her daughter. But he'd heard it often enough over the years. He'd heard her say it with fear, with laughter, with passion, with love, with anger, and now with confusion.
"What should I do?"
He remembered it all for both of them now.
The first time she'd said it was nearly fifty years ago to the day. The Delta quadrant had been relentless that year. They were short on food supplies, short on technical resources, short on options, short on friends. The ship had been battered, bruised and rebuilt so many times that he didn't see how she could fly anymore. But she had.
It was during a lull that Kathryn caught him by surprise and took his breath away. They'd been working in her Ready Room, locked into another one of the sixteen-hour days that seemed to stretch to infinity.
He'd been sitting on the couch, with a coffee cup and a padd, when she sat down next to him and asked, "Chakotay, what do you think I should do?"
He looked up, surprised. Her voice was inviting, almost sultry. The smile in her eyes was even more confusing. "I think you should put B'Elanna and Seven on the dilithium problem. That way..."
She interrupted. "I've already done that."
She shook her head, looked out toward the stars, contemplative, and then seemed to come to a decision.
"I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about this."
She took the coffee cup and padd out of his hands and kissed him. After he recovered from the shock of it, he gave what he hoped was a memorable answer and they hadn't made it out of the Ready Room that night.
He smiled to himself. His response definitely must have been acceptable because they'd been together ever since.
"What should I do?"
He'd heard her say it with passion hundreds of times. She'd had the most wonderful habit of teasing him over the years, when he was flat out prone and at his most vulnerable. He could still hear her laughter and see the desire and persuasion in her eyes. "What should I do, Chakotay?"
His answer was nearly always the same. "Anything you want, Kathryn. Just don't stop."
She never had.
Until now.
There hadn't always been joy and peace between them. There were terrible, horrifying moments that needed to be remembered, no matter the cost.
Two years after they'd been together, Tuvok had died. Kathryn had killed him. The Ekotonians were the most vicious, insane race he'd seen in two quadrants; professional torturers, who thought other races were insects to be dissected and squashed for their amusement. Jennings and Kelso had been caught. Tuvok had gone after them to try to bring them back and had broken into the facility.
The description of what he found as he relayed it over the link still gave Chakotay nightmares. There wasn't enough left of the away team to identify the bodies as human. And then the facility had begun to attack Voyager. The attack was strong, relentless and unwavering. Voyager's situation was hopeless unless they destroyed the facility.
They couldn't get Tuvok out of there.
"Captain..."
"Hold on, Tuvok. We're going to get the transporters up shortly. I swear it."
He would never forget the look of calm in Tuvok's eyes as he responded. "Captain, they will be here in a moment. I would prefer not to be captured, even for an hour. You must fire now."
"Damn it, Tuvok, we'll find another way."
"I will be dead by the time you find an alternative. I prefer to know that the Ekotonians died as well. You must do it now, Captain. Live long and prosper. I know you will see home again."
Tuvok cut the link as they heard the Ekotonians break in into the room.
Kathryn looked at him, the horror and fear clear in her eyes, asking silently, praying for another alternative.
His answer was some of the hardest words he'd ever had to say. "He's right, Kathryn. There's no other way, not this time."
She looked away and gave the order.
He didn't think she'd ever come to terms with Tuvok's death and his manner of dying. Time had eventually dulled the pain, but she'd had nightmares for years. He thought a piece of her was still on the planet with Tuvok even now.
"What should I do?"
Chakotay looked back at the woman who'd shared his laughter and pain for years. "Eat, Kathryn. Just eat."
A year later they found the wormhole. Tuvok had been right. She got them home. It'd taken thirty-six hours to get through. They'd spent the entire time on the Bridge watching, expecting disaster that hadn't happened.
Even so, it'd taken the Captain of the Saratoga's simple "Welcome home" to finally make them believe they'd accomplished the impossible. They were some of the sweetest sounds he'd ever heard in his life. The Bridge had erupted, but Kathryn had stayed the quintessential Captain throughout, although he saw her break into a smile.
It wasn't until they finally docked at Deep Space 9 that he saw her finally shaken. She wasn't prepared for the welcoming party that appeared as they left the ship.
All around her were the Voyager crew and what had to have been all of the DS9 personnel, cheering. She looked up at him, laughing, smiling, crying a bit, her voice the sound of victory personified, and whispered to him.
"What the hell do I do now?"
He laughed. "I think they want an encore. You better give a speech." He pushed her to the front. "Go, Captain." She had. He'd remember her words for as long as he lived.
Six months later Kolopac had been born. He smiled at the thought. Kolopac had the distinction of being the only Federation citizen conceived in the Delta quadrant.
He'd been ecstatic, overjoyed, and incredibly overprotective. She'd been annoyed with him for months. The inevitable eruption finally happened late one night, while she was holding a sleeping Kolopac in one arm, and a padd with the other. He'd been trying to take holovid of the scene.
He smiled, distracted from his memories for a moment. He should find that for Kolopac and KJ. It was somewhere in the house.
"Damn it, Chakotay, quit hovering. I need to finish this for tomorrow's briefing. Kolopac's fine, I'm fine. Go away."
"I live here. I don't have to go away. And I want to get this right. Put down the padd and turn towards Kolopac."
She stood up and took Kolopac to his crib in the room, then turned back and glared at him. "Enough. I have had enough of this."
He was suddenly, incredibly, impossibly angry. "Enough of what? Having a family? Are you tired of it so soon, Kathryn? Is the almighty Starfleet that important to you?"
She stared at him, horrified, and then turned away. "Is it that bad?"
He tried to calm down and retrieve some of the situation. "It's not great. You're spending 12 hour days, six days a week at HQ. You already have the Admiralty. What more do you want?"
"I don't care about the Admiralty. But the Cardassian situation..."
He interrupted. "The Cardassian situation will be there tomorrow. You're not on the front line anymore. The Admiralty's about long term strategy, not action."
He pulled her into his arms and turned her around to look at him. "I'm not trying to stop you, and I'm not trying to interfere with your commitments at HQ. But when you're home, I want you to *be* home with us, even if it's only an hour a day. Kathryn, I don't want him growing up like Paris, with a distant but famous parent. It doesn't have to be a lot, but we need you here and paying attention when you do have time."
He paused and then hammered his point home. "I have to leave with the Einstein in two days. I'm commanding, Kathryn. I don't want to worry about my son while I'm gone. I want to know you'll be here for him."
"I- damn." He watched her anger dissipate as she considered his words.
"You're right. I'll find a way to work it out."
He felt an impossible burden lift off his shoulders. "Thank you."
She tried to break the tension, and said ruefully, "You have a hell of a way of simply asking me to put down a padd. What exactly *was* it you wanted me to do right now?"
He laughed. "Get Kolopac. I want a holovid of this, and I want to hover for a while. And then..."
"I think I know how the rest of it goes."
He could never prove it, but he was certain that KJ had been conceived that night.
He was distracted from his thoughts when Harrington, Kathryn's nurse, walked in the room. "Captain, Adrianna Kim's on the comm link, asking about the Admiral."
He looked at Kathryn. She was still trying to eat. "Tell her I'll get back to her later."
"Will do." Harrington left.
Chakotay turned back to his wife. She'd kept her word and done her best. He watched as the years cascaded through his memory.
After five more years, he'd started refusing deep space missions in order to be home. And she'd tried to keep her schedule more rational.
But she was Kathryn Janeway after all; obsessive, fanatic, determined. He loved her for that as well. Their fights had been spectacular; so had the rest . But they'd managed to stay together through it all, although sometimes he'd had his doubts.
He'd never really resolved them until the last time. Somehow, somewhere in the back of his mind, there was always the question of what was important to Kathryn Janeway. He knew he was on the list, but he'd never known where, not in all of their years together.
She'd finally cleared that up for him fifteen years ago. Kolopac was a physician by then, with two sons of his own, and KJ was a Lieutenant Commander. Kathryn and he were in their eighties, both healthy, but he wanted some peace. He was desperately tired of San Francisco, and Federation politics, and cities and noise. He wanted to rest and he wanted her with him. She'd agreed to go with him to the wilderness. He was packing up the San Francisco house when she walked into the living room after responding to a comm link from Admiral T'Hav.
"So what should we do?"
He looked up from packing and paused when he saw her excitement. "What was the link about?"
"T'Hav asked me to reconsider. They offered me the Chief of Staff."
He stopped what he was doing, his heart suddenly pounding, and sat down on the floor, watching his dreams dissipate into the smoke that they were.
"I see. I suppose I should start unpacking."
"What?"
He picked up a sculpture in the box, and began to turn it in his hands, staring at it carefully. "You'll want to take it. I suppose the cabin's going to have to wait."
She sat down next to him, and pulled his hands into hers. "Chakotay, I'm sorry. You misunderstood. I meant what should we do next with packing."
He remembered staring at her, completely confused.
She pulled him closer. "Listen to me. I turned T'Hav down. I promised you this time together years ago. I won't renege now. I thought you knew that."
"I -"
"Don't. I swear. Don't get worried. I won't break my word. I promised you. I got the first thirty-five years, god, I hope we both get the next twenty-five. But whatever happens, we go where you want. I promise." She started laughing, holding him while they were both in tears. "Besides, I couldn't go through another retirement party again. Too many speeches... had enough of them to last a lifetime. I swear. You have to believe me."
He had believed her. They'd spent the last fifteen years in the wilderness in northern Idaho, on a lake where he and Kolopac, and sometimes KJ when she was planetside, had built a cabin for them. Finally, he built Kathryn a boat. She spent hours out on the lake in the early morning as the mists slowly shimmered away, the sun finally rising over the mountains around them.
Their time in Idaho had been beautiful, and peaceful, and all too short. Yet, the common, daily events they'd shared then were the strongest in his memories. He'd reveled in the quiet and simplicity that made up the routine of their lives.
They'd spent mornings, just the two of them alone together, exploring the wilderness that surrounded their home. In summer and fall, they hiked in the lush green rainforest of pines, moss and dense brush that was the Panhandle. They often saw the bears, elk, fox and, of course, the resident raccoon, on their own daily expeditions of exploration. He and Kathryn had tried to pass as silently as they could. In the winter, they snow shoed or skied; all the while breathing in the glistening starkness of the pure white land and the crisp blue skies that contrasted so strongly with the deep greens of the pines all around them.
He'd found it surprising, but Kathryn had always loved the rainstorms of Idaho more than it's clear pleasant days. He couldn't count the number of times she'd lured him out of the house, both of them running for the cover of the dense forest, in order to watch the sheets of rain as they streaked down over the lake. Kathryn had loved the scent and the colors that the rain brought.
Most afternoons, she'd worked in their office at the house. So had he, in a desultory way. They were still consulting for Starfleet, and still famous enough that their opinions mattered to some. But more often than not, as the years went on, they both reneged on the obligation, politely, but sincerely. At first, Kathryn often transported down to San Francisco for meetings and conferences, but eventually, even that diminished. They spent more time out at the lake, reading and talking.
The evenings had always been wonderful yet varied. Kolopac and his family, and KJ, when she was planetside, had been there. Paris, B'Elanna and Harry often made up the group for dinner. One of the pleasures of living in the wilderness was never knowing who, precisely, to expect for dinner. He'd loved that variation from the routine as much as he loved consistency.
After a while, even the years took on a pattern of their own. Each year, Kathryn had insisted on having a garden, which was promptly demolished by pests. Just five months ago, he'd been teasing her about it.
She looked at the plants in disgust. "Chakotay, what in the universe are we going to do about this?"
He ignored her, smiling to himself. "Nothing. Let them eat the tomatoes."
"Not good enough."
"Well, you could phaser them, or, if worse came to worse, you could try a photon torpedo."
"Funny. I'm serious."
He laughed. "So am I. *You* never do anything with them. Every year, you ask me the same question. You know what to do, you just want me to do it. But not this year. You're going to have to pick 'the damned worms' off on your own, Kathryn. It's your garden."
She laughed. But then there was a sudden heart stopping silence.
He vaguely remembered activating the emergency transporter they had in the house. That was five months ago.
He'd finally brought her home last month.
"What should I do?"
He looked back at his wife. She looked exhausted from the effort of staying with him. "Rest, Kathryn. It's alright to rest now." He helped her balance herself as she got up from the table, leaning on his arm.
"I'll take her, Captain." Harrington came into the room and offered his arm to Kathryn.
Chakotay released his wife and looked away. "I'll be there in a few minutes. I want to talk to Kolopac and KJ for a while."
He found his children down on the dock, watching the sun set slowly over the lake and the mountains, the golds and reds reflected in the clouds. He sat down and thought of how to begin.
"I'm sorry, Kitten. It must be a tough homecoming for you."
"Not nearly as tough as it must be for you. I'm sorry, Dad. Kolopac told me. I've just never thought of her as ... fragile before."
He broke in and grabbed her hand. "Kathryn, listen to me. Your mother's as strong as she's always been. It's just in a different way now. She knows she can't remember. But she wants to. Asking... well, it's her way of trying to make things easier for us. To help lighten the burden in whatever way she can. In a way, she's still the Admiral, still trying to solve the problems of the universe, even if the universe is now limited to knowing how to handle a spoon."
KJ looked away from him. He could see her trying to keep control. He looked over helplessly at Kolopac, who just shook his head at him.
"What about you? What can.. what should I do? You shouldn't be alone here."
He smiled at the irony of hearing his wife's words come from his daughter. "I'm not alone. Your mother's here, and Harrington's here to help her when I can't. Kolopac's a transport away. I belong here, Kathryn. It's where I've always belonged, with your mother. I'm not leaving now. The story's not done yet. It's just changed, moved on to the next stage. I wouldn't be anywhere else, not after all we've been through together."
They sat there silently, as he thought over the implications of KJ's inadvertent repetition of Kathryn's question. "She wouldn't want you to be upset. Not about this. It happens to us all, one way or another. She'd want you to live each moment as fully as you could."
He smiled, thoughtfully. "If she could, I know she'd be subtly interrogating you right now about what's been going on in your life. You know how that used to drive you crazy."
KJ laughed, half crying at the same time. "She did that. She never would let me alone about my personal life."
"So…"
"Chakotay, there isn't time for that sort of thing."
He looked over at Kolopac, concerned. His son smiled and shrugged. "Don't look at me. I managed to avoid most of the Janeway genes."
"The hell you did." He smiled. Kolopac was his exact image when he was that age, except for his eyes. They were as clear blue as Kathryn's. His spirit, his love of adventure, scientific curiosity and energy were pure Janeway. But Kolopac had never yearned for anything except a home and family. He had them now.
Kolopac looked slightly sheepish and then smiled, breaking faith with his sister. "Ask her about her XO."
Chakotay looked up, astonished. "Her XO? You can't be serious."
"Deadly."
"I'll be damned. How long have you been sleeping with him?"
KJ looked embarrassed." Chakotay, some things you don't talk about with your father, even at forty-three."
"How long?"
She sighed, exasperated. "About two years. But I have to consider the ship. It's not like that."
"Uhuh, sure it's not. We'll invite him by transport tomorrow. He ought to be here with you. And I want to meet him. Your mother would too. She'd probably get a kick out of it."
"She'd probably be irritated as hell that I've left down my guard like that."
He looked up, suddenly concerned. "It's not like that, Kathryn. It's never been like that between your mother and me. There was no contest, and there was no one in command, even though she was the Captain. Life, a well-lived life, is about compromise, about balance, about sharing control. Kathryn knew that. She knew it very well. It's why it's so easy for her to ask for help now."
He thought about the personal memories that would die with him, unless he passed them on. Kathryn couldn't help him remember any longer. He looked at his daughter who was so determined, and so confused. And then he began, slowly, to tell his children the stories.
End