Disclaimer: Paramount
owns Voyager, we being mere puppets who type mere fanfiction.
Note: The last quote
is one from Seneca (3 BC
- 65 AD) ---Oh, and think of this as
a/u—they're not home yet, but Chakotay and Seven still married ugh—I'm not a
fan of that idea..trust me, this took a lot of daring*…
Quotations
By Manda
"There are many old proverbs written
by wise men in American history," Kathryn Janeway turned her head and gazed at
the gaggle of children who gathered in a circle about her. They were in the
familiar, warm atmosphere of her quarters, during what she had so proclaimed to
be 'story time', or 'Imagination Class', termed by Neelix. The children were
few- Naomi Wildman, Miral Paris…the newly christened 'Ten', or six-year old
Christopher Chakotay. She gazed at this particular youth, with-holding a deep
sigh. He could have been mine, had I acted… "My father once planned to
write a novel, and I remember when he spoke to my mother about it.
"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." Winston
Churchill was one of his favorite authors..and Daddy always planned to put that
into his first book."
"Did he ever write it?" Naomi spoke
up, reaching to fiddle with a fire-red braid which dangled over her right
shoulder. Janeway watched her for a moment, and shook her head sadly.
"No…" She felt a pang of guilt- it
had been her own actions which had stopped her father from finishing the
anticipated tome- her actions after the tennis match, walking home in the
pouring rain and clashing lightning on an Indiana plain. Summer storms…Daddy
picking her up and taking her home in the hovercraft. He was upset, and she
never blamed him for it.
"It's the Pythagorean theorem,
isn't it, Daddy?"
She chuckled at
the memory, drawing the attention of the children. "Trouble is part of your
life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a
chance to love you enough. That's what Mommy said when he died…he didn't share
his troubles---Cardassians. I remember Cardassians taking up so much of my
childhood, and when Daddy died in the accident…Mommy liked to quote Dinah
Shore, saying that Daddy never shared his trouble enough, and she never felt
that she loved him…" A pause, and her heart constricted as she thought of love
for a moment, and glanced at Christopher, who stared upward appreciatively at
his 'Aunt Kathryn'. "..enough."
"Captain, are you all right?" Naomi
reached upward, a hand resting on the Captains knee. "You don't look well."
"No, I don't suppose that I
do." She didn't feel well, and rose. "All right---ten minutes."
The audience dispersed, and Janeway
found herself standing in the middle of an empty room, the final quote fresh in
her mind.
She was
sick---nauseous with every moment she spent staring into those deep brown eyes-
he looked so much like both of them…his flaxen hair slicked to his scalp in
very much the same way which Seven had styled her own. Chakotay and Seven's
son….Annika's son…Kathryn could recall the day when Seven gave birth…odd, as
she retained enough Borg technology for her nanoprobes to dampen the pain. It
had seemed unfair- not only that this woman so close to her gave birth without
suffering…but that this woman so close had managed to succeed where she herself
had failed. She loved Chakotay, and married Chakotay on board, with Kathryn
Janeway performing the ceremony. Ironic—that the former love of the Commander's
life would be connecting two lives in which she had played such a vital role.
"Aunt Kathryn." A solemn voice broke
her thoughts, and she looked up as Christopher stopped in the entrance to her
living area. "I find it necessary to injest some cow-juice."
"Cow juice." She couldn't hold back
a smile…it was imminent. "Christopher, sweetheart…why aren't you in the corridor
with the others? I bet Naomi and Miral went to the mess hall…Neelix has
cookies, doesn't he?"
"I don't care." The child remained
solemn. "Aunt Kathryn?"
"Yes?" She approached the
replicator, ordering a glass of cool milk, and handing it to the youth without
further thought. He looked troubled, and she suspected she knew what he would
ask before he could say it.
"Did your Papa die as soon as my
Mama did?"
"Your mama…" Seven had died a year
past, one of her implants rupturing on a returning voyage from a nearby
colony…trade negotiations…they'd required her to fix a short-range transwarp
engine…and she'd only gone at the assurance that Christopher would be under the
expert care of Samantha Wildman. Chakotay had been with her…she'd died in his
arms, he whispering promises that Christopher would meet his relatives on
Earth…that he would be raised knowing only the best about his mother…and that
her husband loved her, always. This was conveyed by Chakotay himself…she'd
taken him into the ready room, talked with him for days after. Until she knew
he was going to make it. He would survive with his son in tow. All the way
home.
"Death comes to all. But great
achievements raise a monument which shall endure until the sun grows old." She
whispered.
"What?"
"It's George Fabricius, honey. Your mother read
him…when I lent her the book…a long time ago." It seemed longer, still, than a
mere three or four years. "Before you were born. The Doctor told her to read to
you…I bet she read you the very same thing that your Papa reads to you now."
"Did your papa read to you?"
"Oh, yes." She smiled. "But
your Papa reads you many different stories…he reads you stories from when he
was a little boy…ancient legends from his people. His father told him, and he
tells you."
"The universe is made of stories, not
atoms." Christopher spoke through his milk, smiling softly. "Mama told me that
once. It was…a woman wrote it in one of her books."
"That woman was Muriel Rukeyser, honey.
A very wise woman." Very wise, indeed, she thought. I wish I had been
as wise as that once… "Your mama was special, Christopher…and I think that
you'll grow up to be everything she'd hoped for."
"And
Papa, too?"
"Yes. Everything your Papa
hoped for, too." She wanted terribly to withdraw the subject, moving toward the
door and opening it to reveal a giggling pair of girls dancing in the vast
corridors. "Girls, come on…I have another story to tell you."
As the group rearranged themselves,
Kathryn reached out for Christopher and invited him onto her knee, balancing
the young boy with ease. "Now…this is a story about a woman who managed to
overcome so many challenges…and the luck she encountered….although she became
fond of saying that 'Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.'
And she found the opportunities with the hardest work imaginable…getting past
her Borg existence."
-Fin-
