A/N: This story was written for a Spring Fanfic Challenge born out of a conversation in VAMB chat with Hester, Indian Summer, Koneia and Hazy. The challenge was to write a short fic inspired by a piece of music. The piece of music does not have to be included in the story, only serve as the author's inspiration. Our original guidelines included a word count of 1-5k words, but I've obviously exceeded that slightly. The song I chose was "The Reason" by Calum Scott. Other stories in the challenge can be found in the collection on A03.


Turn Back the Clock

By KJaneway115


2390, Alpha Quadrant, aboard the Delta Flyer

"Chakotay, I'm giving this one more try," Harry's voice came over the comm.

"Warning," the computer said. "Warp core breach in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two."

Chakotay looked into Tessa's dark eyes and felt her hand grasp his. She gave him a barely perceptible nod. It was the last thing he was aware of.

2390, Alpha Quadrant, USS Challenger

"Captain, the Delta Flyer's shields are failing," LaForge's operations officer reported. "Their warp core is about to breach."

"Transporter room, lock onto Harry, Chakotay and their companion," Geordi ordered. "As soon as the shields drop, beam them out of there!"

"I'm trying, sir, but there's too much interference."

"Their warp core is about to breach," Geordi's tactical officer reported. "In five, four, three, two…"

"Their shields are down!" shouted the transporter operator.

"Energize!" LaForge ordered. The Flyer exploded, the energy from its warp core rocking the Challenger. Geordi gripped the armrests of his captain's chair. "Transporter room!" he shouted, tapping his comm badge. "Did you get them?"

The transporter operator's voice told LaForge all he needed to know. "I'm sorry, sir. I thought I had Commander Chakotay for a moment, but then his signal was just… gone."


2375, Delta Quadrant, Voyager

"We've lost our comm link," Tuvok reported.

"Telemetry's down, too. The slipstream's destabilizing," said Paris, trying desperately to regain control of the conn as the ship shook and rattled.

"Shut down the drive!" Janeway ordered, gripping the arms of her captain's chair.

"I can't!" said Paris. "There's some kind of overload in the quantum matrix. I've lost helm control."

At her station, Seven of Nine felt a strange sensation tingle through her entire body. She looked down at her hands and saw her Borg implants glowing blue. Suddenly, the tubules in her right hand shot out into the computer, but before she could understand what had happened, the implants retreated back into her skin. She leaned onto the console, trying to focus. She looked down at her hand. It appeared normal, but something in her mind was ringing like an alarm bell. "Captain," she said, realizing what it was, "I am receiving a transmission."

"I thought you said the comm link was down," said Janeway, looking at Seven worriedly.

"It is," said Tuvok, looking from his console to Seven and back again with equal concern.

"The signal is being routed through one of my cranial implants," Seven said. "It contains a new set of phase corrections."

"Does Harry know how to access your Borg systems?" the captain asked.

"No," Seven replied, sifting through the data she was receiving in her mind, trying to still her trembling hands.

"He must have figured out a way," said Janeway, not seeing another option. "Enter the corrections."

Seven nodded, and entered the corrections she had received. The ship jolted, and the glowing blue tunnel before them disappeared.

"Captain, the quantum drive just went offline!" Paris exclaimed. "We're dropping to impulse."

"Captain," Tuvok added, "we've lost the slipstream."

In front of them, the Flyer appeared on the view screen. "Delta Flyer to Voyager. What happened?" came Ensign Kim's voice through the comm.

"You miscalculated, Harry," Janeway said with a small sigh, relaxing back into her chair. "We entered the exact phase corrections you sent to Seven of Nine. They shut down the quantum drive."

"Captain, I didn't send any corrections to Seven of Nine."

Janeway felt a chill go down her spine and glanced over her shoulder at Seven, who still seemed a bit dazed and confused. "She received a message through one of her cranial implants. It wasn't you?"

"No, ma'am," Kim replied.

Janeway looked from Seven to Tuvok and back again. "Looks like we have a mystery on our hands," she said."Chakotay, Harry, return to Voyager."

"Aye, Captain," Chakotay replied.

Janeway closed the comm channel and turned her attention to Tom Paris. "Helm, what is our position?"

"We traveled approximately ten thousand light years, Captain."

"Ten years," Janeway said softly to herself, trying to quell her disappointment. Ten years was better than nothing. She then turned to look closely at Seven, who appeared unusually preoccupied. "Seven, are you all right?"

"Something strange happened when I received Ensign Kim's transmission. I experienced a power surge through my Borg implants, and the tubules in my hands connected for a moment with the console."

"This is concerning," said Tuvok. "We should run a full systems analysis to ensure that no Borg programming has been input into the computer system."

"I did not release any Borg nanoprobes or program into the computer."

"We know you weren't intending any harm, Seven," said Janeway, standing from her chair and walking over to Seven's station, "but Tuvok is right. We should check everything just to be sure. And you should go to sickbay and let the Doctor check you out just to make sure that no damage was done to your neural implants or your human physiology."

The ease with which Seven agreed to go to sickbay only furthered Janeway's concern. "Yes, Captain," she replied. "That would be a wise precaution."

"Would you like Lieutenant Tuvok to accompany you?" Janeway asked.

"No, my motor functions do not appear to be impaired."

"All right. You're dismissed. I'll check up on you later."

"I am sure I will be fine, Captain."

"And Seven," Janeway added, "you did well today."

"Thank you, Captain."

As the turbolift doors opened for Seven to enter, B'Elanna Torres stepped out onto the bridge. "The slipstream just collapsed, Captain," she said. "I don't know what happened."

"It wasn't your fault, B'Elanna. Seven of Nine received a new set of course corrections in one of her implants. They dissipated the slipstream completely."

As Janeway filled Torres in, Tuvok examined Seven's station. "There's a file in the computer, Captain," he said. "It appears to be a transporter pattern."

"A transporter pattern?"

B'Elanna joined Tuvok at Seven's station. "Yes," she agreed. "It's human, but it's degrading rapidly."

"Transporter room one," Janeway ordered. "Now." Janeway, Tuvok and Torres hurried into the turbolift and to the transporter room. As they entered the room, the ensign manning the transporter stepped aside.

"Attempting to energize," said Tuvok.

"The pattern is destabilizing," Torres said.

"I will boost the gain on the matter stream," said Tuvok. He attempted to energize, but the transporter whirred and buzzed and then stopped.

"Increasing power to the phase transition coils," said Torres. "Try again."

The transporter whirred again, struggling to make the figure materialize. "Boosting the confinement beam," Tuvok said.

"Reroute emergency power if you have to," Janeway ordered.

"Confinement beam at maximum," said Tuvok.

"There's some kind of phase variance in the matter stream," said Torres. "I'm balancing it manually."

The transporter whirred a third time, and a figure began to materialize on the transporter pad, a figure that Janeway thought she recognized by his stature and posture. But how is it possible? she wondered. How had he gotten into a signal sent into Seven's Borg implants? It didn't make any sense. Next to her, Tuvok pulled out his phaser, aiming it at the materializing figure. But she put her hand out, touching his arm, pressing it down. She knew he wouldn't need a weapon as the being coalesced in front of her. She recognized him immediately, and yet she did not recognize him at all. His hair was streaked with grey, his face weathered with time. She would know his shape anywhere, and yet, his posture was one she would not recognize, did not associate with him. He materialized on the transporter pad and then crumpled immediately to the floor. She rushed to his side, pulling his form against her body. Torres was leaning over them, too. "Chakotay?" Janeway asked, but received no response from his unconscious form. "Chakotay?" She pressed her fingers against his neck. His pulse was weak and thready, but he was alive.

"His molecular pattern is in some kind of temporal flux," Torres said.

Janeway looked up at Torres, and then to Tuvok. "Help me get him to sickbay, now."


He became aware first of the sounds, sounds that were familiar, somehow comforting. There were voices around him, too, but at first, he couldn't distinguish them. "He's coming around." He recognized the voice of the EMH. But how was that possible? Hadn't the Flyer been destroyed, and himself, Harry, Tessa and the EMH along with it? Or had Captain LaForge somehow succeeded in beaming them out? Was he on the Challenger? Then he heard his name in a voice so familiar he had heard it in his dreams for 15 years, yet so strange he had never thought to hear it again. "Chakotay."

He fought to open his eyes. He thought perhaps he had finally entered the spirit realm, and Kathryn's spirit was there to greet him, as he had so often envisioned. Would she absolve him of the wrongs he had done? Forgive his trespasses? He struggled to speak. "Kathryn." It is the only word on his lips, spoken like a sacred prayer. He opened his eyes. The lights were bright, but a familiar visage hovered over him, bathed in a glow of bright, white light. He smiled. It was the spirit world, and he would finally be at peace, with her by his side. But a bolt of pain stabbed through him, and he realized suddenly that he was not in the spirit realm at all, but in a very real world.

"Chakotay?" He struggled to focus, and as his eyes grasped the scene around him, he gasped. He felt that he was looking upon a lost world, and the face that peered over his looked just as she had 15 years ago when she had surprised him with a candlelit dinner and placed her hand on his shoulder. "Ready to try some home cooking?" The words had haunted him for over a decade. Now, her blue eyes peered into his, filled with concern and confusion. Her face was wonderfully full of life, not covered in cold ice as it had been only a few hours earlier. "Where's the shuttle? Where's Harry?" he rasped. "The crash. Ice… You were…" He closed his eyes, not wanting to remember the image of her frozen corpse when her beautiful face was here in front of him, very much alive.

"You're safe," she assured him. "You're on Voyager."

"Voyager?" he asked. "How? The slipstream?"

"It dissipated. We're still in the Delta Quadrant."

"That's good," he said. "That's good. We did it. But then, why am I here?"

"You were transported somehow, through Seven's cranial implant."

Chakotay blinked, trying to put the pieces together. The last thing he remembered was being aboard the Delta Flyer. Captain LaForge had offered to beam them out. He had refused. Harry had said he was going to make one last attempt to transmit the coordinates to Voyager. The computer was counting down to a warp core breach. "The Borg temporal transmitter," he whispered. Somehow, in LaForge's attempt to beam him out of the Flyer, his pattern must've gotten mixed in with Harry's transmission.

"Borg temporal transmitter?" Janeway echoed. "Doctor, what do you know about Borg temporal transmitters?"

But Chakotay couldn't follow the conversation. He could only watch Kathryn as she spoke to the EMH. His eyes feasted on her image as though he were a starving man. He watched the way her mouth moved, the way her eyes sparkled with an idea, the way her hands moved as she talked. He couldn't count the number of times he had imagined she was alive again, that she was beside him. There had been one night in particular, a night he had gone to a comedy show with some colleagues. The whole night, he had imagined that Kathryn was there, too, that she was leaning against his arm, looking at him and laughing when a joke was funny, sipping her drink and entwining her fingers with his. It had been so vivid he had almost been able to convince himself she was really there. That night he had gone home, slightly buzzed on the beer he had drank, and realized it wasn't right to imagine living his life with someone who was gone. The next day, he met Tessa. She was attractive and kind. She was interested in him. He had pursued her and never looked back, determined to live his life in reality, not a fantasy of what might have been.

And yet his whole relationship with Tessa had led him back here, back to Voyager, back to Kathryn. What was it Tessa had said? "Your heart has always been here." It was true. And he had known it was true the moment he had seen Kathryn Janeway's frozen corpse lying on the bridge, the moment he had heard her voice coming from the still active transmission, her final log entry, the moment he had seen the PADD he had left in her quarters that night still sitting on the table, right where he had left it 15 years earlier, forgotten in the surprise and joy of the fact that she had chosen to prepare a romantic dinner for them. Forgotten in the chill her words had sent down his spine, "We've waited long enough." Forgotten in the promise in her eyes, the longing he saw there as he said goodnight to her. "Tomorrow," she had whispered. "Tomorrow we'll be home." She had reached up and touched her fingers softly to his lips as he stood in her doorway. He had almost leaned down to kiss her in that moment, but something on her face told him to wait. He had waited, but the future he was waiting for never came, not for her or the rest of the Voyager crew. Now, here he was, back where it had all begun all those years ago. He was home, staring at the sparkling blue eyes of Kathryn Janeway. He had another chance, and he wasn't going to waste it. He opened his mouth to speak, but felt his chest constrict as black spots began to appear in front of his eyes.

Chakotay's biobed began to beep, and Janeway watched as his eyes began to flutter open and shut. "Doctor!" she said.

"His molecular pattern is unstable," the EMH replied, medical tricorder open. "He's showing clear evidence of temporal displacement."

"Can you stabilize him?"

The Doctor did not respond, but instead filled a hypospray and pressed it to Chakotay's neck. His body seemed to relax, and the beeping stopped.

As the Doctor stepped away to examine the readings on his console, Janeway stepped closer to the biobed. She reached out and touched the line of Chakotay's hair, where a grey streak began above his right temple. The lines on his face were etched in deeper than when she had seen him a few hours earlier, and while his eyes were the familiar soulful eyes she knew, there was a tinge of something in them she had never seen in him before, something haunted and hollow. "Chakotay, what happened to you?" she asked his unconscious form, running her fingers through the streak of grey.

"I think I may be able to shed a light on that, Captain, the Doctor said. "This is Commander Chakotay, but not the Commander Chakotay you and I know. This Commander Chakotay is from approximately fifteen years in the future."

"Fifteen years," Janeway murmured. Succeeded, he had said, because they lost the slipstream. What did it mean? She had no idea. She turned her attention back to the Doctor. "Will he be all right?"

"It's too early to tell, I'm afraid," the EMH replied. "His molecular system appears to be in temporal flux, and he's experiencing acute cellular degradation. I may not be able to stop it."

"Can you wake him again, Doctor? I need to know what happened to him and why he's here."

The Doctor ran his medical tricorder over his patient. "It would not be advisable at this point, Captain. If he is going to survive, he needs to rest, and I need to understand how to stabilize his pattern before I attempt to wake him again."

"I understand, Doctor, but I want you to tell me the moment he wakes up."

"Aye, Captain."

Janeway looked around sickbay, for the first time realizing that it was empty other than the mysterious future Chakotay. "Did Seven come down here?"

"She did. My initial scans didn't reveal anything wrong with her, so I sent her to her alcove to regenerate."

"Understood. I think I'll go see how she's doing." As she turned to leave sickbay, the doors swished open, and she found herself face to face with the Chakotay she knew. He was a startling contrast to the man she'd just seen on the biobed.

"I heard we have a mysterious visitor."

She looked back at the biobed behind her. "I'm not sure if it's a good idea…"

"For me to see him?" Chakotay asked.

She nodded. "We don't know why he's here."

"If he can't tell me, who can he tell?" Chakotay quipped. "Don't worry, Captain. I won't violate the Temporal Prime Directive."

Janeway held back a smile. "He's resting. The Doctor says his molecular structure is destabilizing."

"I see."

"Chakotay…" She reached out as if to touch him, but her hand stopped short of contact.

"I'll be all right," he said, glancing at the strange figure of himself on the biobed. He looked back at her. "If it were an older version of you lying there, wouldn't you want to know who they were and where they came from?"

Janeway couldn't argue with that, and maybe her first officer would be able to get some information out of his older self that she hadn't. She gave a small nod. "Inform me if he regains consciousness."


Janeway didn't know if she would ever, in truth, get used to the hum of the Borg components in cargo bay two. Every time she walked into the cargo bay, she had to force herself to put the discomfort aside. But she did, and as she pressed the panel next to Seven's regeneration chamber, she felt her unease dissipate.

"Captain," Seven of Nine said, opening her eyes and stepping out of the regeneration chamber.

"How are you feeling, Seven?"

"The Doctor ordered me to regenerate. The experience I had on the bridge was unsettling." She paused. "But I feel fine."

"Have you figured out what happened?" Janeway asked.

Seven stepped over to the nearby console. "I've been running a diagnostic." She examined the screen, and Janeway stepped over to join her. "It appears that someone used my Borg temporal transmitter to send a signal from approximately 15 years in the future. They must've had the exact temporal frequency to use. That means…" Seven trailed off.

"Means what?" Janeway asked.

"They had another Seven of Nine to use to calibrate the transmitter, a version of me from the future."

"The signal that was transmitted from your implant was a transporter pattern, a Commander Chakotay from approximately fifteen years in the future." Janeway cocked her head, watching Seven as she tried to process this piece of information. "Strange, isn't it?" she asked.

"What?" Seven asked, continuing to examine the computer's analysis.

"Contemplating another you, a future you know nothing about."

"It is unsettling," Seven admitted after a moment.

"The Commander Chakotay in sickbay seems confused, uncertain about why he's here. Do you think that his transporter pattern was sent into the past purposefully?"

Seven pressed a button on the console as Janeway looked over her shoulder. "It appears that the intended data stream was just the coordinates that were sent to me and one other audio transmission. It seems that Commander Chakotay's pattern was transmitted accidentally."

"One other audio transmission?" Janeway asked.

Seven nodded. "It's encoded, from Harry Kim to Harry Kim. I will download it for you, Captain."


Chakotay stood over his older self, arms crossed over his chest. He wondered what could possibly prompt him to transport himself back in time. Fifteen years, the Doctor had said. What had this man seen in fifteen years that would prompt him to want to change it all?

The figure on the biobed stirred and then opened his eyes. Seeing his younger self peering down at him, his lips turned up in what was almost a smile, but turned out to be more like a sneer. "You."

"What are you doing here?" Chakotay asked. "I'm here by accident," the older Chakotay admitted. "At least, that's what I can figure. Harry sent the coordinates. The Flyer's warp drive was about to blow. Captain LaForge was trying to beam us out. Somehow, the shields must have dropped just as Harry's signal was transmitted through the temporal transmitter. LaForge's transporter signal must've gotten mixed in somehow, and here I am."

"I still don't understand."

"It doesn't matter. You don't have to. Now that we succeeded, you'll never have to."

"Succeeded in what?" Chakotay asked. "Dropping Voyager out of the slipstream? Destroying our chance to get home?"

The older Chakotay turned his face away for a moment, and when he turned back his expression was bitter. "You fool! I didn't destroy your chance to get home. If we hadn't sent you those coordinates and knocked you out of the slipstream, Voyager would have been done for. She'd be making her last log entry right about now and freezing to death on the bridge, where you would find her cold, dead body fifteen years later, preserved in the ice."

Chakotay felt a chill go down his spine. His older self did not have to name a name; he knew exactly who he was talking about.

"I know how you feel," the older man continued. "I know about your dinner last night. I was there, remember? But for me, that was fifteen years ago, and that was the last time I saw her. You know, that PADD you left on her table, in my timeline, it's still there, frozen solid, right where I left it. Right where I left it when I thought that the next night we'd be celebrating together in the Alpha Quadrant. Celebrating that promise she made to you when she said you'd waited long enough. For me, that day never came."

Chakotay, shocked by the older man's frankness, didn't know what to say. He opened his mouth to speak but then closed it again.

The older Chakotay shook his head. "I know all your excuses. Duty. The ship. Having a relationship in a command structure, which didn't work out very well for us with Seska. I know you're afraid that if you finally man up and tell her how you feel, she'll say no and end your hopes forever. But if she doesn't want you, then it isn't what you think it is. Then it isn't what I thought it was all those years ago. And that's worth finding out, don't you think?"

Chakotay remained silent, overwhelmed by the barrage of ideas.

"Harry and I thought we were going to get Voyager home. Instead we destroyed it. And seeing what it did to Harry," the older Chakotay continued, "that was the worst. I could've found a way to live with it on my own, but seeing what it did to Harry, watching him become bitter and angry, watching him hate himself the way he did, that was unbearable. When he came to me with his plan, I knew we had to try. For him, for me, for Kathryn." He reached out grasped his younger self by the arm. "Don't let Harry become that man, Chakotay. Don't let Kathryn die. Don't live the rest of your life wishing you could go back and take the chance instead of waiting."

Chakotay's voice became strained, and the monitor on the biobed began to beep. The Doctor hurried out of his office and began to bustle around his patient. Chakotay backed away, a strange numbness settling over him as he watched the Doctor work.

"Doctor to Janeway," he said. "Our patient appears to be awake, but I'm not sure how much longer I can keep him that way."

"I'm on my way," Janeway replied.


As the turbolift doors closed in front of her, Janeway slumped against the side of the lift, alone for the first time since that morning. That morning, when she'd had high hopes that by now, they'd be home. That morning, she'd looked at the PADD Chakotay had left the night before on her table and briefly allowed herself to imagine a time when he wouldn't have to leave when it got too late. But here she was, her hopes for a return home dashed yet again. Ten thousand light years, she reminded herself, but somehow, ten years seemed insignificant when compared to the decades that lay between Voyager and Earth.

The turbolift doors opened on deck five, and Janeway straightened her posture and stepped out of the lift. As she walked towards sickbay, her feet felt heavy. Who was this Chakotay from the future and why had he come? Pieces of things he had said flitted through her mind. The crash, the ice. We did it… Borg temporal transmitter… She could only surmise that something terrible had happened on their slipstream flight in his timeline and that he had returned to stop it. Would the Doctor be able to save him? And if he was, how would Voyager adjust to having two Chakotays on board? How would she? As she approached sickbay, she saw Chakotay's figure in the corridor, making his way hastily away from the sickbay doors. Had he learned something from his counterpart? "Commander!" she called after him.

He stopped and turned around to look at her, his skin pale, his expression unreadable. "The Doctor wants to see you," he said.

"Did you learn anything from the other Chakotay?"

"No."

Janeway peered down the corridor at her first officer. "Nothing about what brought him here or what his mission was?"

"His mission was to save Voyager," Chakotay replied, his voice sounding strange. "That's all I could find out from him." He paused for a moment. "The Doctor's waiting. It seemed urgent."

Confused by Chakotay's strange behavior, but seeing no other choice, Janeway nodded. "Dismissed." Puzzled, she watched Chakotay go before turning and entering sickbay. "Doctor, report."

The Doctor was hurrying from the nearby console back to the biobed. "I can't stabilize his molecular pattern, Captain. His cell membranes are beginning to break down. I'm going to try a chroniton serum to counteract the effects of temporal flux."

As Janeway stepped closer to the biobed, she could see that Chakotay was in pain. Without thinking, she reached out to grasp his hand. He looked up at her, trying to smile at her through the pain he was feeling. "It seems that your arrival here was an accident," she said. "You didn't intend to transport yourself back in time."

He gave his head a small shake. "Just to save Voyager. To save you."

"It appears you succeeded."

"I'm glad. Now I can go to the spirits peacefully."

She squeezed his hand. "Don't give up so easily, Commander. You saved us. Now, we're going to do our best to save you."

"Not Commander. It's just Chakotay now."

Kathryn's brow furrowed. "What happened?" She paused. "And before you object to telling me, the Temporal Prime Directive doesn't apply. You've already changed the future."

Chakotay began to chuckle, but it ended as a cough. He turned his eyes away as he spoke. "Voyager crashed on a planet just shy of the Alpha Quadrant. Only Harry and I made it home."

"Oh, Chakotay." Janeway felt the pit of her stomach drop into her boots.

"When Starfleet called off the search for Voyager after five years, we decided to keep looking." He turned back to look into her eyes again. "We finally found you."

"It must have been…" She trailed off, unsure what to say. "Fifteen years…"

"I thought about you, Kathryn," he admitted. "I thought about you every day. Even after I realized you were gone and there was nothing I could do that would ever bring you back." His voice caught in his throat as he spoke. "Even after I decided to move on with my life, I never stopped thinking about you."

Kathryn didn't know what to say. She squeezed his hand and looked down at their intertwined fingers.

"I met someone. Her name was Tessa. We had a life together, and we cared about each other a great deal, but she knew that my heart was here, on Voyager. She knew that my heart was always with you. In fact, she's a large part of the reason that I'm here now. A large part of the reason that you're here now, and not dying in the ice on a planet just outside the Alpha Quadrant."

"She sounds like a very brave woman."

Chakotay closed his eyes. "She was."

Janeway swallowed a lump in her throat as the Doctor came over to the biobed. "Excuse me, Captain."

She released Chakotay's hand and stepped away, watching as the Doctor pressed the hypospray to Chakotay's neck.

"This is a chroniton serum," the EMH explained to his patient. "I'm hoping it will counteract the effects of the temporal flux on your molecular pattern."

"You're a good man, Doc," Chakotay replied, "in any timeline."

A moment later, the sensors on the biobed began to beep again. Janeway stepped over to the nearby console as the Doctor picked up his medical tricorder. "The rate of molecular degradation is increasing, not slowing down," she said, watching Chakotay's pattern on the console.

"I know," said the Doctor, frustration evident in his voice. "The temporal stress on his system is too severe."

Janeway tapped her comm badge. "Janeway to Seven."

"Seven here, Captain."

"Is there a way to send Chakotay back to his own timeline? Reverse the process that was used to send him here?"

"We'd need a Borg temporal transmitter, Captain. I might be able to construct one, but it would take time."

Janeway glanced to the Doctor and he shook his head. Chakotay didn't have that kind of time. Her voice was tight as she replied, "Understood. Janeway out."

"It wouldn't work anyway," Chakotay said from the biobed. "The Delta Flyer was destroyed. Even if you could send me back…"

"We could send you back to the moment before the explosion," she argued, stepping up closer to the biobed again. "You said Captain LaForge was trying to beam you out. You could lower your shields and let him beam you out. You could live out the rest of your life."

"Kathryn," he said, his voice strained from the pain, "I never thought I would see you again. I thought I was going to die in the Delta Flyer, never knowing whether or not Harry and I had succeeded. But by some miracle, I ended up here instead. These few hours with you are already more than I ever thought I would have."

"We won't give up," she said. "We have to save you."

He grasped her hand tightly in his and shook his head. "I've done what I was meant to do. Now, you have the chance to live your life. You have the chance to love. You have the chance to experience… everything. If I could give you that, then I've accomplished more than I ever hoped to." He paused. "Harry and I did what we did for the whole Voyager crew, but for me, you were always the reason."

Kathryn felt tears welling up in her eyes. "Chakotay," she began. She never had a chance to finish the sentence. The biobed began to beep. Chakotay's eyes closed, and his whole form shook in a convulsion. The Doctor rushed up with a hypospray. He applied it to Chakotay's neck, but to no avail. The biobed beeped again and then let out a single long pulse.

The Doctor looked up at Janeway. "I'm sorry, Captain. He's dead."

Janeway did not respond. She stared down at the figure on the biobed, his hand still warm in hers, letting the tears run down her cheeks.


Kathryn Janeway walked towards her quarters, her pace slower than her normal clip. She felt as though she was walking through a fog, as though her mind, disembodied, was watching her body make its way down the corridor. After leaving sickbay, she had forced herself to attend to her duties. She had checked in with Tuvok and Seven, who assured her that Seven's merging with the bridge console would have no further ill effects on either her or the ship. She had gone to engineering to check with B'Elanna, who was dismantling the slipstream drive until it could be used safely. She had delivered a bewildered Harry Kim the message from his future self.

She reached the door to her quarters and hesitated, the prospect of stepping into them alone suddenly unbearable. There was only one person she wanted to see, one person she had longed to see ever since she had stepped out of sickbay. She had held herself back on purpose, feeling too fragile and too uncertain to face him. She knew she should enter her quarters, replicate a glass of wine and have a good long cry by herself. That would be the easiest way. If she did that, nothing would change. "You have the chance to live your life. You have the chance to love. If I could give you that, then I've accomplished more than I ever hoped to… For me, you were always the reason." The words echoed in her mind, growing louder and more insistent the longer she stood outside the closed door. She saw the haunted eyes of the older Chakotay, remembered the way he had clutched her hand. In her mind, the shuddering of his last breath seemed to reverberate over and over again. She turned away from her quarters and instead walked down the corridor to another door. Her hand trembled as she rang the door chime.

"Come in."

When she stepped into his quarters, her breath caught in her throat. There were no streaks of grey in his hair, no lines across his brow. He stood in front of her, young and vibrant and very much alive, in uniform pants and t-shirt. She felt frozen in time as she stared at him. I never thought I would see you again. She took in a shuddering breath, wanting to speak but not knowing what to say.

"The Doctor told me what happened," he said softly.

The sound of his voice released something deep within her, and her face crumpled. He stepped towards her, arms outstretched, and she stepped into his arms, grasping him and holding on tight before her knees gave way and she collapsed to the ground. She began to sob into his chest, deep, heart wrenching sobs that tore from the core of her being. He held her close, one hand supporting her back, the other stroking her hair. He leaned his head down so his face was against hers and he could feel her hot tears against his skin. "Shh," he whispered. "It's all right. It's all right, Kathryn. I'm here. Let it out. I'm here."

When her sobs finally subsided, she disengaged from his embrace. "I'm sorry."

"No need to be sorry." His hand caught hers and he led her to the couch to sit beside him.

She sat there looking at him, and he didn't flinch from her gaze, but held it. After a long moment, she reached out and touched his cheek as if to confirm that he was really there.

He captured her hand in his. "Kathryn…"

"Chakotay…" They spoke at the same time and then both laughed, breaking contact with each other.

"You first," he said.

She looked away from him and then at the floor, finding that now that she had the freedom to speak, she didn't know what to say. Or rather, she did knew what she wanted to say but didn't know if she should say it. She shook her head and didn't respond, but Chakotay didn't speak. He just waited. She could feel his eyes on her. Finally, she looked back at him and said, "I'm glad you're here." She paused. "I had to see you, to know you're alive."

"You were there when he died?" Chakotay asked.

She nodded, unable to speak as the tears threatened to well up in her eyes again.

"I'm not dead, Kathryn."

"I know. But I still feel as though I just watched you die."

It was Chakotay's turn to turn away. "It was strange, seeing myself like that." He scooted closer to her on the couch. "He told me some things about what happened in his timeline."

She nodded. "Me, too."

"He gave me some advice." Chakotay took a deep breath. "He thought I should… He thought I should tell you how I feel about you, but, honestly, I don't know if it's a good idea. I think we've found a way to make our relationship work, to make the ship work and to make our friendship work. I'm afraid of saying something that might change that."

Kathryn nodded, looking back at him, surprised to hear him voicing her own thoughts. "I've built my whole life on Voyager around things between us being a certain way. I don't know if I can change all that now."

"I don't know if I can either," Chakotay admitted, "but I do know that I don't want to become him."

In her mind's eye, she saw the haunted look in the older Chakotay's eyes. "Now, you have the chance," he'd said to her. "I wonder," she said tentatively, "what would happen if we decided to change things."

"I don't know. I can't see the future. But if there's one thing my future self showed us, it's that waiting until we get back to the Alpha Quadrant didn't work out very well."

"At least not for him."

"What's the point, Kathryn?" Chakotay asked. "Last night, you said we'd waited long enough. He told me that he thought about those words for the rest of his life, but for him, and for his Kathryn Janeway, that day never came. He found a way to move on with his life and to be with someone else, but I don't want to do that. You're right here. I'm right here. We have this chance right now."

She saw the memory of his last shuddering breath. It was not so hard to imagine the man sitting in front of her with a few grey streaks in his hair, a few more lines on his brow. "He was right," she said softly. "When I said we had waited long enough, I wasn't only talking about the crew getting home. I was talking about us."

He opened his hand, palm up. "I was hoping you were."

Slowly, she placed her palm into his, and their fingers intertwined. She looked up, and their eyes met. "I'm afraid."

His face formed a soft smile. "I don't know if I've ever heard you admit that before."

"Usually, I don't admit it. That doesn't mean it's not true."

"I know." He squeezed her hand. "I don't know what the future holds," he admitted. "And I'm afraid, too. But we have this chance, a chance the other Kathryn and Chakotay never got, and I think we'd be fools not to take it." He leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers.

The touch of his lips was soft and electric at the same time. The smell of him filled her senses. When she broke the kiss, she was smiling through the tears that rolled down her cheeks. "I love you, Chakotay."

"I love you."


2390, Alpha Quadrant

The piercing sound of a child's scream echoed across the park. It was not a scream of pain, but a shout of glee, and Kathryn and Chakotay looked at each other and smiled. Around them, children ran and played. A couple passed with a baby in a carriage. They walked past an older couple sitting on a park bench holding hands. Kathryn gripped Chakotay's hand more tightly and he looked at her, then leaned down to kiss her. It was a beautiful day in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. They stopped at their favorite spot, a cliff overlooking the water. Kathryn leaned on the railing and Chakotay stepped up behind her. She leaned back into his chest, savoring the feeling.

"Today is the day, you know," she said.

"I know." His voice rumbled against her back as he spoke, his cheek pressed close to hers.

"The day he would have come back in time and met us." She turned to look at him, her hands running up his arms and to his cheeks. "You're the same age now that he was then." She grinned. "But much more handsome."

Chakotay laughed. "Thank you. I'm much happier than he was." He caressed her cheek and bent down to kiss her again. "I think about him sometimes, what he went through."

"Me, too. And I think about what he taught us. Without him, I don't know if we'd be standing here today."

Chakotay's hands slid down her arms to capture her hands in his. "I don't like to think about that."

"Me neither. I'm glad we made the choice we did all those years ago."

"Me, too. I wouldn't trade the last fifteen years of my life with you for anything."

She grinned and entwined her arms around his neck. "Only the last fifteen?"

"And the next fifty. Or sixty. Or seventy. Or however long we have."

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him again, then nestled herself against his chest. He enfolded her in his arms and rested his head on top of hers, saying a silent thank you to the Chakotay who had turned back the clock and saved both of them.