Usual Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek Voyager or anything associated with it, Paramount does!

Never Forget

The Admiral turned away from the window to face her younger counterpart. The Captain's sapphire eyes were so bright, so unlike the ones which had met the Admiral in the mirror each day. Captain Janeway leaned forward in deep thought, those sparkling eyes focused intently on Admiral Janeway as they planned their next move. The Captain exuded hope, something that had long been buried by hard determination in those devastating years the Admiral had lived through.

In the moment she realized this, in the clarity that the nighttime hours so often brought her, the Admiral looked at that picture of beautiful, youthful energy and somehow felt qualities growing in herself that she'd never noticed disappear. The lights were dimmed in the mess hall, but each knew that was the way they both liked it. They continued to discuss what she felt were "safe topics" late into the night, and eventually, the conversation wound down.

They drank their coffee in companionable silence, truly comfortable with each other for the first time since the Admiral had arrived. Both were slipping into deep thought about the plans they had made for the morning and already considering their effect. The Captain was thinking about how she was about to lose the only person who really knew her, and the Admiral was steeling herself for the final sacrifice she would make for Voyager's crew.

At length, the Captain broke the silence. "Can I ask you something?"

"I'm you, remember? You probably know the answer."

"Still."

The Admiral inclined her head.

"You've never told me anything about Jaffen."

"That's not a question."

"You know what I mean. You know how my life – your life – played out in your timeline, and I have to admit, I'm curious about it. I…I need to know. And don't give me that Temporal Prime Directive stuff because we're about the change history tomorrow."

The Admiral agreed, "We threw that thing out the airlock a long time ago. I'm still not going to tell you anything, though. You don't need to know. All I will say is that I lost my husband a short while before I lost Seven. You're not going to lose him the same way, and I hope that you'll discover the depths of love that I was never able to."

"Seven's death would have been bad enough," the Captain gasped. "But Jaffen…"

"You told me once that I was cynical," the Admiral recalled. "Grief does that to a person. You close yourself off from your emotions so that nothing can touch you with hurt again. It killed me, though; I can see that now through you. You're alive, Kathryn. I don't want you to lose that, whatever happens. I don't want you to be alone."

The Captain took another tentative step into the waters. "You said you forgot how much this crew loved being together. How loyal they were…to me. What did you mean?"

The Admiral had never spoken so frankly about herself in so long, and it felt liberating. However, she continued to try and shift the conversation away out of habit, sighing, "You're not going to keep grilling me like this all night, are you?"

"It's not every day that a woman gets wisdom for her life from the future," the Captain replied with her slightly crooked smile. "So yes, I suppose."

The Admiral truly laughed at this, a sound that she hadn't heard from herself in years. "You are something," she said, shaking her head slowly. In that moment, she decided to let complete honesty reign in that large, empty room.

Letting out a breath, she rose to gaze out the window once more. "You know," she murmured, voice laden with fresh emotion, "I would stand at the window to my apartment in San Francisco and long to see this view, but I was so determined to bring Voyager home before tragedy struck you that I somehow forgot what made me want to come back and see it. I forgot the deep feelings that bind you all together as such a strong family because the family I last saw was broken. I forgot that I was coming back to a time when it was still whole. It seems so long ago; I feel like I've just let the years slip by…like I've been blinded to the present while holding on to a past that I didn't truly take the time to fully remember."

After a lengthy silence, she faced the Captain again, and again, those eyes captured her and drew her innermost thoughts to her tongue. "It's strange, isn't it?" she whispered, a thin sheen of tears blurring her view. "That I could be so focused on bringing back the people I lost that I forgot who they actually were? Who and what they valued? Why they loved and were loved in return? Who I used to be?"

"I don't know," the Captain replied softly. "We all lose our way in life at some point."

"But to lose so much of myself…and to only just realize it now, when it's too late?"

The Captain rose from her seat and walked slowly but certainly over to the Admiral. "It's not too late. You never lost me completely." She took the Admiral's hand and ran her own lightly across it, tracing the lines of age affectionately. This woman who she was going to let go of in a few hours still felt as adrift as she did sometimes. She searched the Admiral's gaze and received the unspoken plea.

"I'll never forget," she promised. "Never."