We move out along the corridors I have walked these past 7 years, we link arms and I feel the peace of our connection. Looking at Kathryn I can see she is in a different world, and not listening to the chattering of Naomi as we walk along. Her eyes are softened, her lips parted and there is a slight wistful smile on her face. The temptation as always is to take her into my arms and kiss the wistfulness away. She misses an answer, and as I tease her and she makes Naomi proud, I realise the thoughts were of children, hers and therefore, maybe, mine? I re-imagine my chubby son now running older after Naomi, and go the full distance, lets make it two or three sons, and a pregnant Kathryn. I smirk as I realise that she has drifted off again, and when she places her hand on my chest, a fire reignites through me. My heart is at peace. The padding in my head settles, my soul is peaceful walking beside her.

I am deceiving myself again, pretending we are nearer the start of our voyage. Somehow, by arriving, the pressure has started to reduce, the Captain is unwinding into Kathryn. I smile and straighten. When Naomi wants us to discuss captains rules, I realise that Kathryn is truly back, into the playful bantering mode that I love, and have seen less frequently have seen less of Kathryn altogether recently. I laugh at her at loud when she has as her first rule that she can keep some things to herself. We all know the three cardinal Janeway rules, shirt tucked in, go down with the ship and don't leave anyone behind. What she doesn't know is that the bridge crew have three different rules – keep the coffee flowing, always trust the captain, just do it. It has kept us safe all these years. Somewhere Tom has a manual he started to write in year 2 or 3, before the Borg anyway, on how to manage the captain. He would know, he has always managed her well, except over the Moneans, where she went completely beyond what I had expected for punishment.

I see you, Kathryn, imagining me in my maquis leathers! I can spot when you lick your lip, or fiddle with your commbadge. I am very dramatic in my retelling to Naomi of the last flight of the Val Jean under the heroic Captain Chakotay. Naomi is caught by every word, as is our captain. Though Kathryn clearly has to outdo me. Spirits, she has the most competitive nature of anyone on Voyager, and that really is saying a lot. All her scuttling stories though are alternate realities and timelines. I hadn't stopped to think how much chaos we have done to the temporal prime directive over our voyage. I think of all the times that supposedly we lost her, and am glad to be here this day, walking our ship together, with our First Daughter on this our last day.

I come out of my reverie to hear Kathryn describe a chronometer from her dreams, and suddenly I am alert. It couldn't be? For years I have had a chronometer ready to give her as a present, initially for a present, and then perhaps for getting home, and finally tucked away forgotten. I pause the walk and race back to my quarters, calling myself a fool all the way. Somehow it is very important to show her, somehow it is vital to me. I grab the chronometer from my quarters and run back, a variety of crewmen look at me in surprise as I craze past. I murmur, captains orders and they all laugh. Out of breath, I really should get fitter again, I show it to Kathryn and she handles the gift of Captain Crays chronograph as I tell her the story. I watch how reverently she holds it, I could swear that she nearly has tears in her eyes, and when she looks up at me, spirits, she loves me. It hits me hard, the tricobalt device in her armamentarium. I cannot replay that look any other way. She loves me. Kathryn, actually loves, me. Spririts. Fuck. She actually loves me. I can hardly think or breathe. She thanks me for keeping the faith, and I have to blurt out I haven't always. I am not talking about getting us home, and I wonder if she realises this.

We get into the turbolift and my brain is in overdrive. That trapped me is no longer padding but leaping, throwing itself against the barriers, barriers which are mine. What on earth have I been thinking, sleepwalking into a doomed relationship begun out of desperation. As I start to admit to myself that what I feel for Seven is caring, a kind of love but never going to light the same fires of passion that even walking voyagers corriders with her makes me feel about Kathryn. Currently I am ready to sweep her into my arms, halt the turbolift and make sure that when we leave it, sh is in no doubt how much I love her, need her. Naomi is our chaperone. Kathryn loves me still. It just repeats round my head, I hardly notice arriving in engineering, and the confetti appears to be celebrating my love. It reminds me of the party for the new drive, and how that night Kathryn admitted that she loved me, if not in so many words, but in her eagerness to get us back here, where there were no protocols and parameters. And here we are, but I have replaced those parameters and protocols with another, greater barrier. I have lost faith. I have dated the one person on this ship that she may neve forgive me for. Spirits! What the fuck have I been thinking!

Prior to the medal giving we have some fun, jumping in the air for images. Kathryn iis grouchy due to her height deficiency. She has always hated being shorter and wears the most outrageous heels, whilst I curl downwards to her height. I offer to throw her in the air so that she is the highest. We giggle. Kathryn loves me! I am falling into her gravitational well. I am pulled by my heart and soul closer and closer, and I no longer can resist. She laughs with me, and in her eyes, and reflected in mine is the love that we have shared since we first met. As we hug each other, and the engineering team, all I can see, smell and feel is her. It is as if the love is all freed a new again. The medals are done, and when we leave I hold her in support and she lets me, leans in. my heart is leaping.

I realise I must speak to Seven, and am trying to work out what is the best way of saying that I was wrong, that I was never free to date her. To apologise and offer to be her friend instead. Fuck, what a mess, she is going to hate me. What if she tells Kathryn? I am going to have to tell Kathryn too. I hope that she can forgive me. She forgave me Riley and Kellin, well eventually. Both were a disaster at a time we were starting to get closer. Spirits, I have to do this. When we finish this walk around. I'll talk to Kathryn and then Seven. Stupid, stupid man.

I send a private message to Seven that we need to talk in between this walk and the party. Kathryn sees my PADD is out, and is so inquisitive, I hide it from me as Seven's answer comes in, though it only says yes. Somehow I don't want Kathryn to see anything, know anything before I have the chance to say. In horror, I notice that it is item number one of scuttlebutt rumour. How did this happen? Fuck, double fuck. OK, so no PADDS for Kathryn until this is over. I don't think she reads the scuttlebutt? Tho as I think this, I know I am wrong, and let out a bit of a sigh. Spirits. No-one with that insatiable desire for knowledge is going to not be reading the scuttlebutt.

Luckilly tom saves my behind, and posts about the party being no ranks no recall after the doctor sings. She surprises me, and that quirky grin as she agrees. The wound up Captain is leaving her, and that fun,quirky Kathryn is starting to come to the front. If the crew love her now as Captain, they are going to adore her more when they see more of Kathryn, I reminisce on the talent shows when she performed, and how much excitement surrounded her performances.

I nearly miss that Naomi is asking about New Earth. How the spirits did that conversation start. Immediately I am picturing Kathryn there, in her many pocket dress, in my arms during the storm, in the tub, wearing that tiny towel… we share a quick glance, and Kathryn gives Naomi the shortest version of our stay imaginable, devoid of any emotion, as if it was an irrelevance. Am I wrong? I cannot bear to think of all we nearly had on New Earth, and have hidden the memory. I can barely answer. I am lost in my reflections, and the harshness of the return to Voyager. Yes, Kathryn has loved me, but that doesn't mean we get to express that love. If that happened again, how would I recover. Just because we are at Earth now, there is no guarantee that she will stay here, and not disappear on mission after mission. Loving Kathryn is not safe or easy and the future is unpredictable. Can I place everything on the line again?

I notice she has snuck a PADD out and is messaging furiously. I hope that she hasn't seen the scuttlebutt. I look cautiously at her, but there is no anger or dismay, and she is fairly bright about her answer. Tactics display is with Tuvok's customary perfection, and I love that Kathryn tries to see the party venue ahead of the surprise. She is truly terrible with surprises, and I allow a slow grin to build on my face, which turns into an outright laugh when Tom teasingly shows her an altogether inappropriate holodeck option! That should teach her. My laugh turns into a cough as a death stare sears its way towards me. No laughing at the captain!

And then, without warning, it happens. Kathryn turns to me and thanks me. her eyes sparkle, and the love in them is unmistakable. She is going to tell me, she is finally going to tell me she loves me. I can tell without any doubt and my heart sings.

Naomi is one inquisitive child. As I look between her and Kathryn, I wonder if some of Kathryns genes somehow snuck into the mix. Maybe it has been due to being with the captain so much, but they share lots of characteristics. I just know Naomi will one day be a captain in starfleet. She was born to it. Currently, though I am as close to angry as i have ever been with a child. She has broken the moment. Kathryn is retreating again. I dont care if she has a present for me. I silently curse Naomi, the spirits, fates and every damn thing that has ever come between kathryn and i. the only present i will ever want or need from Kathryn is the present of her love. I so nearly had this gift of everything, and instead she is withdrawing, disappearing faster than Tom in his warp 10 flight. I am utterly bereft. I start to walk away so that she cant see the despair in my eyes, that we are still playing this game. When she finally describes her present, my heart starts to lift again, something from the time of New Earth, and as she scrabbles around to hedge and disguise what it might be, I am filled with hope again. I cant look round, my emotions are too labile. i grin at myself, the stellar spectroscopy term of spectral shift comes to mind, between the gravitational pull of Kathryn's singularity, and Seven's smaller orbital body, i am indeed trapped between two heavenly bodies, and depending on outcome, I am likely to throw myself into the gravitational well and beyond the event horizon today. I just need that thrust, that impetus. I can' let any of my emotions escape as we enter this turbolift, and roughly accept Kathryn's invitation to talk after the walk concludes.

As we visit science, I start to get nervous about astrometrics. I am sure, mostly sure, that I need to talk to Seven and end things, or at least pause while I adjust to being in the alpha quadrant. As I think pause, I know I am cowardly. How can I think of holding seven in reserve. I need to admit that I love Kathryn beyond all reason, and commit to seeing for one last time whether we can make this work. Seven is beautiful, clever and surpisingly fun, but even on a good day, I can see that we really have no future here in the alpha quadrant. We could have made it work before due to lack of viable alternatives, but here? I need to let her see that too, that my love for Kathryn isn't the huge betrayal that she is sure to see. Spirits, how can one man make such a mess. My mind whispers that there was an intransigent woman at the centre of that mess. It doesn't help to blame Kathryn. My anger just builds up again and the internal pacing starts again. As we get closer to astrometrics, and the possibility of a meeting, an inevitability of a meeting between the woman I admit again that I love, and the woman I am dating, I am nervous. I have to hope that this will all go smoothly, that I can talk to each separately from a clean slate. Spirits, I have made this a disaster. May they both forgive me, but mostly, let Kathryn forgive me.