A/N: This story is based on the television series, Star Trek: Voyager, which as far as I know is the property of Paramount Pictures. No infringement is intended. As a friendly reminder, this story should only be read after Command Decisions, Doctor's Orders, Surrender, Finding Rest, and Making Promises in that order. Thank you very much for stopping by. I also want to add that there is some confusion about the true name of Harry Kim's father. One source says his father's name is "John" and another source says his name is "Han," and for the purpose of this J/D series, I'm going with the name "Han." God bless you all and happy reading.
Chapter 1: Being Released
It was the twelfth of December, five days before Miral Paris's first birthday, twenty-six weeks into Ensign Dexa's pregnancy, twenty-one weeks into Lieutenant Wildman's pregnancy, and thirteen days before Christmas. Captain Janeway and Dr. Luke had also been dating for five and a half months now, and Voyager's First Officer, Commander Chakotay, and his girlfriend, Seven of Nine, had been together for just over a year. But while Captain Janeway, Dr. Luke, Lieutenant Wildman, Lieutenant Kim, Ensign Dexa, and Mr. Neelix were all enjoying romantic and familial bliss, Commander Chakotay and Seven of Nine were on the very opposite end of the spectrum. They'd said nothing to anyone else on Voyager, but over the past couple of months or so, Chakotay and Seven had really been struggling in their relationship. They'd been struggling so much, in fact, that they'd started counseling sessions with Counselor Deanna Troi. Once a week for the past seven weeks, Chakotay and Seven went to Astrometrics to speak with Counselor Troi, who, of course, spoke with them at Pathfinder on Earth. When the Pathfinder project was first launched, everyone on Voyager could only speak with their loved ones on Earth briefly once every few weeks, but since then, significant technological advances had been made and now, Voyager was in contact with Pathfinder practically twenty-four-seven, and the crew was able to speak with their loved ones at almost any time of the day or night. And thanks to all the great strides made at Pathfinder, it was now quite easy for Chakotay and Seven to have weekly counseling sessions with Counselor Troi.
Counselor Troi spoke with them for about an hour that day – mostly with Seven – and then just before it was time for their session to end, she politely asked Seven to leave because she wanted to speak with Chakotay alone, and she obliged.
As soon as Seven walked out of Astrometrics, Counselor Troi said, "Commander Chakotay, I've been holding back because I wanted to give you the opportunity to come clean about this on your own during our sessions rather than put you through the embarrassment of having to hear it from me. But it's obvious now that you have no intention of owning up to this, so I'm going to have to address this myself. As you already know, I'm an empath. I can sense other people's emotions and feel what they're feeling. And from day one, I've felt it from you that you were never really in love with Seven; that you've only been using Seven as a distraction. A distraction from someone else that you wanted to make jealous."
Chakotay had known all along that Counselor Troi was an empath, of course, and he'd known all along that this moment was inevitable. With Commander Deanna Troi being both a ship's counselor and an empath, she was definitely going to bring this up sooner or later. But Chakotay so wished that the inevitable would have happened later and not now.
After a long silence, Chakotay nodded and reluctantly admitted, "You're right, Counselor Troi. You're right. I don't know," he sighed as he raked his fingers through his hair. "The Captain and I…we had a very close relationship for a long time. And I think that deep down, we were both trying to cling to the faint hope that we would be able to be together after we got back to Earth and I was no longer serving under her command. But then one day, Seven came up to me, right out of the blue, and she told me that she was interested in starting a relationship with me. And you've seen Seven, of course. Any sane man would be out of his mind to turn down an opportunity to be with her. And all through this past year that we've been together, I kept telling myself that I had a right to enjoy myself with Seven after having been alone for so long. But deep down, I think I was always hoping that if the Captain kept seeing me with Seven over and over again, she'd get jealous and eventually come to me and admit that she wanted to be with me."
"It's obvious that you never went into this relationship with the intention of it being permanent. Seven did. And it is both wrong and cruel for you to continue this façade with Seven. Seven deserves to hear the truth from you, Commander, and you know it."
Chakotay sighed and said, "I know you're right. I know that my behavior has been cruel and inexcusable, especially for a first officer. I know that I've taken advantage of a member of my crew, and I know that for a first officer, that's unforgivable. I know I've been doing Seven wrong all this time."
"Your behavior as a first officer and as a person has been horrible; that much is clear. But I do understand the difficult situation you and the rest of your crew are in, and even though your behavior with Seven of Nine certainly hasn't been commendable, I think you can cut yourself a little slack. Even though I am actually married to a Starfleet captain myself, I'm well aware that captains and first officers don't have many options for romance and companionship when they're serving aboard a starship. And that holds doubly true for you and your crew, stuck all the way out in the Delta Quadrant by yourselves. Although what you did was horribly wrong, it is understandable that you would become very frustrated after having been alone for so many years. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Commander, but I have to be bluntly honest with you. The longer you continue this charade with Seven, the more painful it's going to become for both of you. You have to tell Seven the truth and break up with her so that she can be free to find a man who is interested in giving her the permanent relationship she desires. You're cruelly stringing her along, and she deserves much better than that. You know that."
Again, Chakotay nodded, and he said, "I know, Counselor Troi. I know. I dread doing it. I don't want to hurt Seven's feelings. But I know that in the long run, breaking up with Seven is in fact the kindest thing I can do for her."
"That's right," Counselor Troi agreed.
"She's coming to my quarters for dinner tonight. I'll do it then."
"Let me know how it goes when we have our next counseling session."
"Will do, Counselor. It wasn't easy hearing everything you had to say, but I thank you for it because I know it was for my own good."
"You're welcome, Commander. I'll see you next week," Counselor Troi told Chakotay, and he responded with a nod, and then he ended the connection and left Astrometrics.
About an hour after Seven's and Chakotay's counseling session with Counselor Troi ended, Seven rang the doorbell of Captain Janeway's quarters. A few moments later, the doors to the Captain's quarters opened and Captain Janeway was standing before Seven with a friendly smile.
"Hello, Seven."
"Is this a bad time, Captain?"
"Not at all. Please, come in."
"Thank you," said Seven as she followed Captain Janeway into her quarters.
"What can I do for you, Seven?" the Captain asked her as they stood facing each other in her living room.
"Do you recall the telepathic link that you, Mr. Neelix, Commander Paris, Commander Torres, Commander Tuvok and I entered into with the Sauran aliens when they were on our ship two weeks ago?" asked Seven. Three weeks earlier, the Voyager crew met an alien race of telepaths and empaths called the Saurans, and even though they did have the ability to speak, most of their communication was done telepathically. And since the Saurans were much more comfortable with telepathic communication rather than verbal communication, Captain Janeway allowed them to set up telepathic links with her and her crewmen whenever they had a conversation with them. And there was one time when Captain Janeway, Tom, B'Elanna, Neelix, Tuvok, and Seven of Nine had a telepathic link established between them and the Sauran aliens they were conversing with. The link made it possible for all of them to communicate with each other, but it also gave them all unfettered access to Captain Janeway's mind and memories and experiences. This in turn served as a very unexpected catalyst in all their lives.
"Of course I remember it," said the Captain.
"When all our minds were connected with each other in that telepathic link, and when I began experiencing life from your perspective, your thoughts, your emotions, your memories, it was very enlightening for me. It was also very humbling. And very disturbing."
"What was it that disturbed you?"
"Your belief in Christianity."
Captain Janeway knowingly nodded and said, "I understand. I think most of my crewmen would also be disturbed by my belief in Jesus Christ. In the Bible, Jesus talked about how the world hated Him, and He said that if the world hated Him, it would hate His servants also, and He was absolutely right. No one is more despised than Jesus and His followers, even today. You never hear anyone using Buddha's name as a curse. You never hear anyone yell, 'Muhammad-damn-it!' It's only the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that gets taken in vain as a curse. Did you ever notice that, Seven? Did you ever stop to think about why that is?"
"Before we were in that telepathic link together, no, I did not. I once believed that Christianity was nothing but faulty, primitive beliefs based on silly superstition. And when the Doctor was transformed from a hologram into a human being and he claimed that it happened after he prayed to Jesus, I did not believe that it was Jesus who made him human. I believed he was changed into a human being by a very powerful and advanced alien who couldn't be detected by our sensors. But then when we were in that telepathic link together, when I was able to see into your mind and experience your thoughts and emotions and memories, I began to understand. The Doctor never tried to persuade you to become a Christian. Your faith in Jesus was not something that you were ever talked into."
"You're so right, Seven. No one ever tried to talk me into believing in Jesus. No one ever manipulated me into my faith in Him. No one can ever be manipulated into their faith in Christ, not if their faith is genuine. Coming to faith in Christ and receiving His gift of the Holy Spirit only happened because God, Himself convinced me of His existence. No one could ever talk me out of my faith because it's not something that I was ever talked into in the first place. Like you, I once believed that the Doctor was transformed into a human being by some immensely powerful, technologically advanced alien we couldn't detect. But when I started to see for myself how different he was from the inside out; when I started to see how he was fully at peace with God and with himself for the first time in his life, I knew that I was witnessing the hand of God working within him. And I knew that if I was ever going to experience that special kind of supernatural peace within my own life, I had to have the relationship with Christ that he had."
Seven nodded and said, "I understand, Captain. I now finally know just how heavy your mental and emotional burdens have been all these years; how hard you've been on yourself; how you've unfairly blamed yourself for the difficult command decisions you've had to make through the years. And I know that your faith in Christ is what has released you from those painful burdens."
Captain Janeway then lovingly touched Seven's shoulder and said, "And I know that all the atrocities you suffered and all the atrocities you were forced to participate in at the hands of the Borg have caused you to bear many painful, unfair burdens as well. I know how hard you've been on yourself through the years; how unfair you've been to yourself; how you've been carrying around such unbelievably heavy burdens in your heart for so long. And I know how you long to be released from those burdens. I know how you desperately need to be released from those burdens. And there's only one way to do it. Give those burdens to Jesus, Seven. Accept the free gift of eternal life He died to give you at the cross. Put your trust in Him; put your trust in His death on the cross, burial, and resurrection to pay for the eternal penalty of all your sins. Trust Him to bring something good out of your agonizing past with the Borg. Trust Him with all your pain. Trust Him with your life. Trust Him with everything."
"There is something I still do not understand, Captain."
"What's that, Seven?"
"You say that eternal life from Jesus Christ is a free gift, but I do know that Scripture also records Jesus saying that we should pick up our cross and follow Him. Which is it? Is it a free gift or is it something I must earn by carrying my cross and following Jesus?"
"That's a very common misunderstanding amongst many Christians, even today. Many born-again believers often make the terrible mistake of combining the concepts of salvation and discipleship, when in fact, they are two entirely different things. Salvation is free, but discipleship can literally cost you your life. Salvation, eternal life, is a free, underserved gift from Jesus and not an earned reward. However, after you choose to put your faith in Christ and accept His free gift of eternal life, you have a choice to make. You can choose to spend the rest of your natural life serving Jesus as one of His disciples out of gratitude for what He has done for you, or you can choose not to spend your life serving Jesus as you should and you can choose to waste your life putting yourself first instead. If you choose the latter, you'll lose all eternal rewards you could have earned, but you'll still be saved from hell because, again, salvation is a free, undeserved gift from the Lord and not an earned reward. You see, it's not only unbelievers who will eventually be judged by Christ; believers are judged by Him as well. But believers aren't judged according to the issue of salvation because they're already saved; believers are judged on the basis of eternal rewards. Believers are judged to see if they did anything worthwhile with their lives after salvation. And if, after coming to faith in Christ, you do decide to spend the rest of your life serving Him as one of His disciples, it could be very costly, because then, Christ and others will always have to come before yourself in everything you do. Serving Jesus as a disciple could even cost you your life should you ever have to choose between renouncing Him or losing your physical life, like what happened with the martyrs of the early church."
"I understand, Captain," Seven told her, and then tears began silently streaming down her face. "And I want what you and the Doctor have. I need what you have. I do put my faith in Jesus and His sacrifice at the cross, and I do want to spend the rest of my life serving Him, no matter what it might cost me."
Captain Janeway then started crying with Seven, and she pulled her into her arms and gave her the biggest, tightest, longest hug. And Seven began experiencing the pure joy of finally being released from the great burdens she'd been carrying for so long.