Would a hangover set in after being drunk with joy? Perhaps, but for now they were still buzzing. However, the treatment would be more complicated than hydration.
Where would some of them go? Would Annika's family live with Aunt Irene? For both Tom and Harry, being attracted to women and having one make her intentions clear had been hard to ignore. While Tom and B'Elanna were still all over each other, Harry was disappointed that Annika had been experimenting with him. While she was happy with the results, she did not wish to continue that line of research. Sofia Alighieri and Sarah Miller before they married, had been control groups A and B. She had still been using her Borg designation Seven of Nine at that point. Jenny Delaney upon hearing the gossip had called her Third of Three, which Jenny's twin sister Megan had found highly amusing. They were more interested in the boys, however.
The fear of Don't Forget Your Old Shipmate would not come to pass anytime soon. There she swings, an empty hulk, not a soul below now. USS Voyager would remain in service. If nothing else, Starfleet had been decimated by the Dominion War and needed every working vessel. The ship needed some work, but Torres and company had kept it functioning for seven years with no starbase support, so she was obviously a sturdy ship. As for the new armor and weapons, in a way Janeway was telling the truth in saying she developed them herself.
When called back into action, who would crew it? Many of the 144 would be called back to duty aboard her – after all, they were intimately familiar with the Intrepid class and the quirks of this particular ship, experience that no one else could hope to replicate or want to. Some might be offered promotions to higher roles on other ships. Some were done with Starfleet, at least for the time being. Extended leave was definitely in order. Number seven starboard mess misses Jack and Joe now… The best of friends must part, fair or foul the weather. Hand yer flipper for a shake, now a drink together.
Some of them had simple thoughts. "There are some little things I miss about life on land," Samantha Wildman told Janeway. "Like a nonsonic shower."
"I know the feeling." Chakotay had built her a bathtub on that planet, for her comfort and not to see her in it, but she had eventually been eager to show off for him…and they had done more than sit up and read in those beds…However pleasant such thoughts were, she was digressing.
Kathryn's second fiancé was very much alive but also had moved on while separated by tens of thousands of light years. That would be an awkward reunion, but necessary if only because he had been watching her dog. Mollie had had a litter according to one of the letters from home.
"Real puppies!" young Edward said. He had quite enjoyed Holodeck Program 636. Furry friends were on the long list of things they had missed from home. Kathryn wasn't sure if made sense to confront Mark with such an obvious sign of her new relationship, but she wasn't about to dash her son's hopes.
Mollie moved her ears and wagged her tail, still recognizing her old master after seven years – after what should have been a small quantity of months. The girl was still quite healthy - Kathryn had come home far sooner than Odysseus, well within a dog's lifetime.