Naomi Wildman

That was so sad. Thinking of all the people that had died. I am so glad mom had come to the mess. She stood with me as I took the images, and bent down beside me when people I remember were called out. I remember that mom nearly died too. All the way round the captain has remembered me as we met people, and even skipped in the last corridor – that was fun. But here in the mess, she is surrounded by her dead people, the people she has left behind. I can see how sad she is and remember what she said about leaving people behind. She looks so lonely in some of the images that I have taken. It is hard to think of the captain alone, making decisions and losing some of her family.

As we look at the pictures of Kes and Neelix, I put my hand in the captains, and give it a squeeze. She looks at me and smiles. I hope someone has taken an image of the captain with me.

Walking down the corridor with the tickertape falling on my head I twirl around laughing in front of the captain and chakotay, I think they are laughing too as well, and I notice they have linked arms. I jump into the turbolift quickly before the captain tho, as I don't want to shout her the coffee

Reg Barclay

The images have been coming through thick and fast after a pause in astrometrics. It is wonderful, no amazing to see voyager so close. I am hoping that I will be able to visit, and have asked the doctor to ask the captain. I hadn't ever really thought about the losses they had had out there. Watching the images come in of the captain and all voyagers dead is so moving. Naomi has taken wonderful images of each group, and as I send all of these out to pathfinder I know there are going to be tears. I have no idea who that old woman at the end is. She looks like the captain?

The pathfinder battleaxes – the Admirals Women as the pathfinder families call them– are soon asking me questions. I have to keep wtelling them I am just in the middle, but between them they give me no peace. Why can't they just be grateful with what I am sending them. I have to remind them who Icheb is, and no, I hadn't realised he was the captains son, and that is why she is hugging him so tightly. I hadn't noticed, she seems to be hugging everyone.

Phoebe Janeway

'That's my nephew!' I shout when we get the pictures. Mum and I laugh and giggle. We had told the other pathfinders the gossip as soon as we got it through, that Katie was formalising her adoption of a son! I can't really imagine her a mother, but she has missed out the hard bit of it. I give him a good look. He looks happy, I am sure we can ignore the metal work, actually it looks good on him. I notice the other ex Borg, and she is beautiful, stunningly so. She left when she was so young, and so Irene has never shown any adult pictures of her. We all congratulate her. She has struggled with being a pathfinder, at not having a close relationship with Annika, as she calls her. We certainly all gasp though. Stunning! I also notice the arm she places on Chakotay in the formal image. The images peter out and we start to grumble. I know mum will be terrorising poor reg at pathfinder to get some more.

That is better! When they return we see the corridor and the crew lining it cheering on their command team. Sekaya and I smile at each other. We are the luckiest as we see so much of our siblings. The other people are pointing out when their family appear and cheering. Mum has arranged an oceanful of different drinks and a mountain of nibbling food, and we are all gradually getting merry.

The next images come as a complete shock. I should have realised Katie wouldn't let go of anything, and I am so proud of her for giving the dead their time in the celebration. I wish more than Joe's wife and children were here. Looking at mum, she is already busy, and I know those images will find their way to the right homes. Those homes where they still can't bear to hear that voyager has returned, that lost their family years ago and had this loss confirmed when the rest of us had joy. Remembering back to how terrible that day had been for some, instead of all being united in grief they had found themselves a small group of still bereaved whilst we had our hope back. Withdrawing away, it was just the AW's that kept them informed with comms, checking up on them and the children, making sure they had the Starfleet pensions and support. Knowing that their loved ones are still remembered on the Voyager Triumphant will be bittersweet, but will help give that closure. I am sure Kathryn will see them all. I am proud of her.

Irene Hansen

I look at the images of Annika s she appears. I look to see signs of my brother, of the little girl I once knew. It is hard, i just see the metal. I lost her so very long ago, that hearing that she was alive wasn't the joyous upswell of hope that the other pathfinders have had. How are you supposed to feel a connection for a child you only met twice? Annika has only talked to me briefly, finding conversation often irrelevant. It is difficult to hear her true voice in the careful questions she asks almost by wrote, but I wonder whether it is that we need to meet to make that connection. She is clearly struggling with the voyager assumption that we will all be close and overjoyed on our reunion, i wonder whether she is nervous. I am not sure whether she is looking for family here at all. I will do my best to give her a home, and prepare the rest of the family to meet up for our own reunion party from her mothers side as well. She has lots of cousins of her age and older both on Earth and elsewhere in the federation, and we are all agreed that we will welcome her back into our midst.

When I look at her image, I concur that she is classically beautiful, but I cannot see her character, as she clearly holds in her emotions, ties them in as strictly as her hair. She gazes directly at us from the image, challenging my preconceptions, confident in herself. I hold in the shudder at the implants. Sometimes i feel like an imposter at the pathfinder events. I see all the others with worries and tears of joy, gasping at the images of those they are desperate to hold. At most, I feel grief for my long dead brother, a grief that has turned to ashes many years ago and no longer burns hot. For Annika, i feel only duty. We Hansens are good at duty, and as soon as i can i will be taking her back to her family.

Chell

I am besides myself with all the organising i have had to do. When the captain agreed that i could take over Neelix pans, i was surprised, she hadnt even tried anything i had cooked - tho to be fair, by then we had grown used to the majority of neelixes cooking over nearly seven years. But I have had lots of the food ordered via admiral paris, lots and lots of eating whilst dancing, talking food. They called it finger food, and I was relieved to see that it didn't look like fingers. I have made a number of delta quadrant specialities to hide in the mix, I haven't identified them in any way! leola root fancies, talaxian surprises!

I am pleased to be back in the alpha quadrant, pleased to be leaving this ship behind. i need to see some of my own people. There were just too many humans on this ship for me. In the end we rubbed along OK, and i will admire captain janeway from afar, but i am not part of her family. She was right to run this as a starfleet deal, but i hated it, all the timings, the orders, the organisation, the stricture of the structure. I was so envious of Neelix, that when he left, I knew that i needed his role, his job if i was going to survive on this ship much longer. Then we get back so quickly!

I will go back home a starfleet officer, and find some nice cushy number somewhere. There aren't many bolians in starfleet for a reason! so i can use that notoriety. I might open a restaurant somewhere if i cant find anything better, lots would come due to voyager.

I am grateful for the old girl tho, so I make sure that the remembrance ceremony goes well. There are friends of mine in that list too. She does them proud, she does us all proud. I don't mind telling anyone that there were tears dripping down me from that. I am proud of the battleaxe. I make doubly sure that the catering for this evening is perfect, and send some of the best things to her quarters, for her when she comes back to the quiet, to show that after all, I do care, we all care. I know that she will remember me with affection. Ha! I survived the delta quadrant! . Not bad for a Bolian. indeed.

Elizabeth Paris

My boy is coming home a man. bringing a wife and daughter with him. my husband is renewed by this. All through katie janeway. I am going to have to eat humble pie and be grateful to Katie Janeway.

Gretchen and i had to remake our friendship after voyager got lost. we had argued after we failed to cope with the loss of our husbands, mine to the cardassians and guilt, and hers to misadventure. Katie had had a central role in both these losses, but Owen would never talk of her and Gretchen lost patience with me. She was right, i had only been seeing my problems, and at that time, our boy finally broke, had to resit an academy year - would have been out if it weren't for Owen - and i blamed that on Katie too. She seemed to have sailed through the cardassian adventure, tho tying my owen to her, so much so that i stopped using her name. Then somehow she tied tom to her as well, well, i can guess how, but she was supposed to be engaged at the time. I blamed her for so much. Gretchen defended Katie, but i knew she was hiding something then, that I should have known about, that i was shut out from. When gretchen lost edward, and katie drowned in the grief for justin, we started to talk, Gretchen and I. I thought it would lead us back to our friendship, our hardships, our need for support outside the family. It didnt happen like that. We were both to obstinate and opinionated, and i was trapped in my unhappy marriage with a taciturn and sullen husband who had once been the central point of any gathering, and my son was drinking and whoring in france, getting a loud reputation for bad attitude. I was so ashamed of how my family had ended up, and whether i could have made things work out differently. I blamed Katie, and although i tried to hide it, gretchen could see led to arguing and finally a ceasefire and disconnect between us. We who had always been like sisters, were now split apart

When voyager was lost, i was again angry with Katie, having completely taken my son from me. Owen beside himself with worry, knowing that he had all but disinherited Tom the last time they had met. But when I saw Gretchen and Phoebe and Katies new fiancee, Mark, all my anger and hatred just melted. I saw another mother who had lost her child and folded her into a huge embrace. We talked properly, and Gretchen finally told me the full cardassian tale, and i understood why owen hadnt! I forgave Katie, after all, there was nothing there to forgive, I should be asking for her forgiveness. Certainly owen should! I think tho, that somewhere in voyagers travels, he and katie have come to an understanding of that time, it no longer haunts him, and her name springs from his lips all the time without any shadow. Gretchen showed me that i let my feelings about owen dupe me into imagining the same about Tom. Hearing about Katie's devastation after the dual losses, i cant imagine that Tom was anything to her around that time. So we make our friendship anew, Gretchen and I.

We become the Admirals Wives [AW's] and keep in touch with all the lost crew-members family whilst we wait for news. We are the link, messaging, helping financially, bulllying starfleet, making sure the families get the care they need. And then they are declared missing in action, presumed dead after two years, so that the widows and children can receive the starfleet pension, and families and friends can start to move on. Gretchen and I never moved on. We realised we weren't the only ones, so we continued the Voyager support group, for all, either believers they were alive, or pragmatists moving on. All were welcome. So many mothers, some spouses, less children. I never thought Mark would move on from Katie, but Gretchen persuaded him, pushed him into the arms of someone else, and they now have a family, and Gretchen treats them like her own. But the believers of us stood firm, and were eventually proved right. Voyager was out there, in the delta quadrant! katie was going to bring them home, including my son. I forgave katie and now am so grateful for her. My sisterhood with Gretchen was fully restored. She lives in the moment, and would say we were always sisters, just separated for a while, even to herself. I am grateful beyond measure that i have her friendship back.

We lost them again for a bit, but we had a champion now in starfleet, Reg Barclay! an odd man, but a good heart and determined and dogged, and in love with the romance of voyager. Owen sprang to life again and pathfinder was born. My husband came back to me, reg got us news of the voyagers in the end, through the Midas array, and finally, we have Voyager, it is getting closer, and we have had not only reg's images, but the ones come in from starfleet of their arrival, and the ship with its escort. We have views coming in from utopia planetia long range, as voyager is nearly in range of earth. They are nearly here!

Wen Katie goes into the mess and the memorial to those who were lost, we all stand up. they ex and active starfleet amongst us stand to attention. I feel my tears flow. I am so lucky to have both my men back, and some lost theirs to the delta quadrant. Cavit's mother turns to me and we embrace. She whispers that she hadn't thought he would be remembered, lost so soon. She is one of the few family of the initially lost to be with us. for most, it has been seven years since they went, 5 years since they were MIA presumed dead, and 3 years with that confirmed. They don't want to or cant bear to be part of our celebration. Cavit's mother couldn't leave us though, this last link to her only son. I came so close to being her. Thankyou Captain Janeway, for this moment for all the lost ones.

I have loved seeing all the images, and I have a granddaughter. I have a granddaughter! More champagne anyone? let us toast now to the Voyager family, those that have returned to us, and those that were lost. let us toast their brave captain, who never gave in and never gave up.

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I know these chapters are coming through a bit more slowly than i planned, and it is taking longer to get to the party too! however, good news, in that i have determined a crucial scene in a couple of chapters time, so now i just need to race before it. It is feeling surprisingly good putting this story out, it makes me feel more at peace with endgame!