AN: Okay, here goes…
HER Chapter 1 – Empty ShellSummary: Endgame. The crew is home. They split up, the ship is grounded. One person is lost in the chaos, and goes missing, and someone else notices and finds her. Can she be helped? Or is it too late? Inspired by Miranda's "Black Hole" story. Thanks for the inspiration, Miranda! I hope you don't mind me using your idea (sort of)!
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"We did it."
No one heard her soft words among all the chaos on the bridge.
Everything began to flash by, like scenes of a movie playing before her eyes.
She watched her crew split up and leave, watched Tom and B'Elanna walk off the ship with baby Miral, and Chakotay with Seven. She watched her ship be picked apart by Starfleet engineers, no nook or cranny left unchecked.
What had been her only family for so many years was gone. What had been her home for all this time was now a strange, empty place.
She gathered her few things and walked slowly, finally taking her first step on Earth in seven long years.
As her foot touched the ground, she felt her being crumple.
Everything she was, everything she is…all of it in a ship and crew that no longer exist. A week goes by, then two. It takes three weeks before anyone notices that she is gone, so caught up are they in everything.
It is he who realizes that he has not seen her since they arrived here on Earth. It is he who sees what has not yet been seen.
He escapes the latest party in Voyager's honor, making a subtle exit and a hasty retreat. He gains access to the most powerful full-planet sensor array at Starfleet headquarters through his "connections" and sets out on a deep-level scan of the entire surface of Earth, starting in Indiana, North America, her place of birth.
Nothing conclusive catches his attention until several days later. He transports to the station nearest her location and sets out toward her new place of residence.
He arrives to find a tiny cottage tucked away in a dark corner in the middle of nowhere.
He knows she is here, but he cannot feel it. Whenever he has been with her before, he has felt the powerful presence of his Captain, however diminutive her form may be. She exudes an aura of authority, of strength. And yet, he feels nothing here. He feels only as if he is standing in some kind of black hole, where all life has been sucked out of this small place.
He raps his knuckles on the door.
He receives no response.
He knocks harder, and the door pops open, not having been closed properly when last passed through. He pushes it inward, ignoring the squeal of the antique hinges that hold it in place.
He tries, with all his might, to get a sense of where she might be, and finally gets the smallest of sensations that, though it lasts only for a single instant, impresses upon him where he might now look. He glances between the three doors on either side and in front of him, instinctually choosing the one before him. It, too, protests with a muffled squeak as he moves through it.
He sees her immediately, curled into a ball on the bed.
Although her eyes are open and she still breathes, she is but a shell of the woman he has known for so long.
He kneels so that his face is even with hers, but her eyes never move. She stares straight ahead, her gaze fixed on some distant, nonexistent thing.
He touches his combadge.
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Please review and tell me what you think…be gentle! I've not got much experience in writing this kind of fic!