Disclaimer: Characters belong to Paramount.
Author's note: 1st place in the 2nd place in Janeway's got a gun fanfic contest (http://www.voyfan.net/contests/archived/jgg/index.shtml).


Sweet Dreams
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She awoke screaming, almost falling out of her small bed. Though her eyes were wide open, she didn't see much in the half-light. Sitting up, she forced her breathing to calm down. A bad dream, that's all. Then she saw her hand, and for a second she stopped breathing. There it was, the mark she wore as a reminder. And she remembered. How she had burnt her hand in the final fight. She closed her eyes. They were gone. They were all gone. Voyager was gone. Tuvok, Harry, Tom, B'Elanna, Chakotay, and all the others. Gone. She had lost them all. She was the only one left. She opened her eyes and looked around the small shuttle. Captain Kathryn Janeway of the shuttlecraft Sienna. She laughed. A heartless, cold laugh that quickly turned into sobs. She collapsed on the small bunk bed. She could never decide what was worse. The nightmares she awoke screaming from, or the reality that was so unbearable even screaming wasn't enough. Slowly, her sobbing quieted. It always did. She lay on the bed, staring out over the things that were strewn - no thrown - all over the small cabin. Her eyes focused on the phaser on the floor in the far end of the room. She got up, walked across the room, picked it up, and went back to the bed. "Computer," she said to the empty room, her voice raspy and unsteady, "open my personal log." She grew quiet again, while she looked at the phaser. Then she drew in a deep breath. "I never thought I'd say this, I never thought this day would come..." she paused again, to fight off the tears that threatened to spill. "I can't take any more. I can't go on. I live in the same nightmare whether I'm awake or sleeping. They're gone. And it's time I joined them." She drew in another unsteady breath, set the phaser to kill with shaking hands, her tears obscuring her view. "Computer, end log," she said. She sat still, staring at the phaser in her hand, trying to make herself fire. Finally, she screamed in rage and frustration, threw the phaser to the other side of the cabin, and got up from the bed. "Computer," she said, "delete the last log entry." One day, she would probably be desperate enough to fire that phaser. Just not today. Perhaps today was the day she made it home to Earth, to her mother and her sister. There was only one way of finding out.



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