Out Of The Loop



Disclaimer: The characters, the ship, the technobabble and all things 24th century belong to Paramount. The rest is mine, so hands off.



Note to the hopeful (if you exist): this is not in any way linked to my other story Stopgap Measures. This is yet another post-Voyager story that was rattling around in my brain, and it won't leave me alone until I write it down. Hope you like it anyhow!



Chapter One

"Starfleet Issue"



Kathryn Janeway writes--



I still play the part of the Captain.

Even though so much has changed, even though so much is gone and we are far from where we were, they still look at me with that hope in their eyes - sure in their blind way that I'll take care of everything and that despite this, I still can. I hope they are right, but I don't think that they are.

Chakotay would have me believe that it doesn't matter. His faith is the blindest of anyone's. Sometimes I feel that it's a wonder he's still with me . . . that he didn't give up long ago. He says it doesn't matter, that I did the best I could and that's all we can hope for. Apparently, my best is not good enough, even though we did end up home finally.

It's hard to tell who really misses those days. Chakotay certainly does, Tuvok lacks the capacity to feel it properly, Tom doesn't very much, B'Elanna hops the fence, Harry can't seem to believe it and Seven can't make up her mind - if she has, she hasn't told me about it. I miss it, or at least some parts of it. It was such a short time - we had barely said our hellos - yet maybe it only seems that way.

They think I'll figure everything out. They think that I'll have some brilliant insight sometime soon and it will all come together. I wish I could share that faith, but it's impossible because I know they're wrong. This isn't solvable this instant. Maybe one day it will sort itself out, but not now. Things like this have always given me headaches, and this certainly does. I never even realized until I was told. It seemed so perfect, so real. Was it my fault that it's all ruined? Maybe not. Even he said that he couldn't stop it completely, so how can I think that I had the capacity to change anything?

I am still their Captain, and I'll play the part until it feels right again and I can make this right. And Chakotay insists that it doesn't matter, but he's one of the people who misses it.

Months earlier . . .



They were still Starfleet issue sheets, but it was definitely a whole different thing. Maybe it was the real, bona fide, planetary gravity that made her so pleasantly exhausted, perhaps it was the endless hours of the debriefing process, maybe it was wading through the over-zealous media . . . but a bed had never felt so good. She fell into it gratefully, barely noticing how Spartan her accommodations were as compared to her quarters on the ship. Your standard Earthside Starfleet quarters were not known for their luxury, even if one was a homecoming hero.

Kathryn Janeway rolled over, staring at the ceiling. Hero my ass, she thought sourly. That was the media talking. Hero? Only until the debriefing panel got their well-powdered noses into the deep dirt, then the hero label would suffer a hit. She'd never noticed how very prissy some officials were. Was that just a recent development? Maybe seven-odd years of flying by the seat of her pants had made her forget about the niceties of Headquarters protocol, politics and the general ass-kissing that most captains kept themselves away from out in space.

Not that she minded being welcomed home that much, but the officers she had met lately had been so diffident that she wondered if they'd worked their way up through the same ranks she had. Polite was one thing, but some of these people well nigh grovelled. She didn't like it at all. She'd take their brown-nosing only if it wasn't directed at her. What did she look like, the bloody Council Chair? Despite seven years, by rights she was a newly commissioned captain.

It wasn't like she'd pulled it off all by herself. Weren't there nearly one hundred and fifty other people who deserved praise? They deserved that at least, if not promotion through two ranks. She tried to deflect some of the attention - most notably onto Chakotay - but he had proven himself to be a slippery character where the spotlight was concerned. He had said before that he didn't like getting up in front of crowds.

Turncoat. It shouldn't matter. He was supposed to take the bullet if she told him to.

She allowed that to add to the little seed of resentment that had been growing in her for some time now. The Captain didn't examine it too closely; she knew what it was about. It was about that label of turncoat, and what else a perceived betrayal could mean if viewed in the right light. It was about unspoken promises and silent conversations. It was about guilt, fear and "parameters."

She yawned. It had really been a tiring day. No time for coffee at all. That was the first luxury of home she had indulged in - real, brewed coffee. Not replicated, not made by suspect Talaxians who felt the need to make everything strong enough to stun a blood-frenzied Klingon warrior. Real coffee.

She wondered drowsily how Neelix was faring. She should really check up with Communications and make sure they set up a link. He was probably climbing the walls with worry after losing Voyager's signal. Neelix had always been a phenomenal worrier. Yes, she'd have to attend to that . . .

The door beeped, jolting her out of her semi-asleep state. She made a face. She supposed it was her fault for not putting a do-not-disturb on the door. Wait a minute. She had. Who was ignoring that?

She pulled herself off of the bed with a groan. Her eyelids felt leaden, and her legs seemed to be in a similar state. Exhaustion ceased to be pleasant as she made her way out of the small sleeping area and into the equally small living area. When she was within a metre of the door, she stopped.

"Who is it?" she demanded.

"Chakotay," the reply came through the door.

She scrubbed a hand across her eyes, back-pedalling and sitting heavily in one of the chairs. She was in her nightgown, but what the hell. "All right. Come in then."

The door opened presently to admit him. He looked tired in his own right, and he carried a padd in his hand. If it involved anything she had to look into or work on at that moment, she was going to clock him - whether it was wrong to shoot the messenger or not.

"This had better be good," she warned him, extending her hand as he passed the padd to her.

"Well, I was wondering which was safer," he answered, eyeing her with slight amusement. "Bringing it to you now, and having you kill me for waking you - or bringing it tomorrow morning and having you kill me for not bringing it now. I figured maybe I stood a better chance right now."

She made a small face at him, perusing the padd. It was a letter from Vulcan, more specifically from Tuvok, saying that he was fully cured of his illness and was presently reporting back to Earth for his own debriefing. If she didn't know he would ignore it, she'd send him a note back and tell him to forgo the visit. He wouldn't acknowledge it, and he was more patient than she was anyhow. Let him sit through the interminable process if he was stupid enough to want to.

She yawned openly, forgetting to cover her mouth. "Well, at least it's good news. You get away with it this time, Chakotay. You're lucky it's not debriefing work. I have written and presented enough post factum, post rem reports to fill a library, and I am not in the mood to do any more. It's ridiculous."

He smiled slightly. "So you noticed?"

"Oh, ha, ha, Commander. You have to do as many as I do, so I don't see why you're so chipper."

He made a dubious sound. "Do I look 'chipper' to you?" He didn't, in point of fact. He looked as exhausted as she felt, more lines to his expression than usual. "I'm only in slightly better shape than you are, and that's only because I did get time to grab a coffee today."

"Hmm. Picked up my bad habits, I see."

Chakotay shrugged. "It could be worse. You could have been hard into synthehol or something. Worse yet, the real stuff."

She blinked slowly, knowing she was going to fall asleep right then and there if she didn't move. "How do you know I wasn't? I'm too tired to talk right now, Chakotay. Would you please go away?"

He laughed wearily. "Kicking me out already?"

"Yes. Get lost."

Turning, he took a few steps toward the door. "Good night, Captain."

She was already asleep curled up in the chair, the padd having dropped from her nerveless hand to the floor.

It only took a short moment from then on for her to wake up again, because her dangling arm began to ache. She sat up and blinked, looking about with narrowed eyes, thoughts muzzy with sleep.

Sighing, she arranged herself a little more comfortably on the couch and . . . couch? Wasn't she in a chair? It didn't matter, she was just tired, she supposed.

It dawned on her that Chakotay had left without leading her into an argument about sleeping in the ready room. She really wasn't supposed to fall asleep there, and the couch was uncomfortable. The Captain always woke up with stiff muscles after a night in her ready room, and her First Officer knew it and tried to fend of her bad mood before it occurred. But he hadn't said anything about it. . . .

This time, she did wake up. Of course he hadn't said anything, she wasn't in the ready room. She supposed she must be truly exhausted, her mind wasn't working properly. Maybe it was a caffeine problem, since she hadn't had any.

Looking around, her thoughts ground to an abrupt halt.

She was in her ready room. On the couch by the view port.

No, I'm not, I'm in that barely-upholstered chair in my quarters at Starfleet Residence. I'm dreaming. Voyager's come to haunt me.

But she could have sworn in the same breath that she was there. She could feel the slight roughness of the couch cushions under her hands, see the winking stars outside the view port, smell the stale coffee in the cold cup on the table before her.

It was her ready room. The Captain knew her subconscious imagination wasn't this good. It was never so clear, and dreams - to her knowledge - rarely involved smells. At least hers didn't, and right now she could smell the flowers on the coffee table quite well.

The vision wavered for a moment like she was dizzy, and suddenly seemed almost to shatter. She jumped in surprise and found herself in her dim Residence quarters.

She was unsure if she had just woken up or not. When she woke up from dreams, it was often because she was startled by something therein and had jumped. She was so tired, she must have mistaken herself. She had just woken up from a vivid dream.

A dream in which nothing had happened, but she couldn't have been at it for long, it was only 2300 hours. Only. She had woken - been woken - at 0530 that morning. Only 2300 indeed. Damned debriefing schedule. What was up for tomorrow? Were they still picking Seven's brain? Starfleet Intelligence had an interest in the Borg that was positively unwholesome.

Stiffly, she pulled herself out of the chair and made her way to the darkened bedroom, swearing when she stubbed her toe on the night stand. Falling in with a groan, she realized that when one was truly tired, even Starfleet sheets were comfortable. She'd noticed that often, over the years . . . when she hadn't been plagued by insomnia.

For the present, insomnia escaped her and she slept deeply, unaware that someone was watching her.

To be continued . . .

***