Finite Space
by Liz
chapter 4
in which our heroine retreads old paths, and redemption doesn't come easy
It was weeks later that Amanda balked when she saw the admission price for a self-guided tour of the Voyager replica. They wanted how much? Just to walk around a lousy space ship?
"Ma'am? How many visitors today?" the young woman at the window asked again.
"Don't you have some kind of VIP rate?"
"Members of the media are asked to contact the press office for a special pass. Do you have a special pass?"
Amanda sighed and shook her head, forking over the dough. She supposed she could have talked her way in, but fifteen credits was probably worth the price of anonymity. She just wanted to get in, talk to Chell, get out—not cause a scene. "Which way is the restaurant?"
"Here's a map of Voyager's floor plan. Our museum is an exact replica; restrooms are on deck two aft."
Amanda narrowed her eyes at the clerk, who smiled back impatiently. She pointedly left the map on the counter. "Thanks, I've been here before," she said and walked into the corridor from the mock shuttle bay where the admissions desks had been set up. Exact replica, my ass. I'll find it myself.
The smell was different. That was the first thing she noticed. There had always been the faint hint of engine grease and gel and frayed circuits. This corridor smelled… sterile. She suspected that if she were to knock down any of the panel coverings, there wouldn't be any circuitry whatsoever.
A small herd of school children swarmed past her, all of them wearing identical orange and black shirts with their school name written on it, East Toronto Montessori. The corridor was already kind of full, with tour groups and individual visitors wandering back and forth. The children especially seemed thrilled to be there. "Mom!" a boy shouted nearby, with the same enthusiasm for gadgetry that turns every adolescent male into a six-year-old. "Check it out—the transporter room has the same actual system components as the original vessel. Let's go there first!"
Amanda refrained from pointing out that the only reason why they were the same components was because the engineers on Voyager had had to rewire and repair them so many times that they weren't even remotely regulation anymore. No 'Fleet ground crew would ever send out a ship with such off-spec systems, so they removed them when Voyager was ready for her next mission and dumped the mess in the museum. Amanda knew this to be true of several major engineering components.
She weaved her way through the crowds, feeling a kind of heady confusion at the strangeness of it all. Briefly, she considered touring the crew quarters, just to see what they'd done with her and Jor's place; a communication had gone out in the first few weeks after Voyager's return, asking for volunteers who would be interested in donating items or offering suggestions to personalize the replica. Naturally, Amanda had ignored it, but now, perversely, she really wished she had said something.
She did take her time walking through the corridors, though, as curiosity got the best of her. The holodecks were running continuous simulations of a few of the worlds they'd visited; the display panel outside informed visitors that for an extra fee and with advance reservations, they could host private parties that would adventure through the Nyrian spaceship or the Vidiian mines, at varying levels of difficulty. The Borg regeneration setup was blinking away in the same old cargo bay, and visitors could have their pictures taken as they stood inside and pretended to recharge or something, which Amanda found perfectly macabre. And she purposely didn't go anywhere near engineering, much less her old station in the weapons bay.
Finally, the mess hall. From the noise and the crowd inside, this seemed like one of the replica's main attractions. She caught a peek of Chell behind the counter, cooking away, but he was surrounded by adoring crowds and she couldn't see a way to sneak past them to talk to him. She wanted to give up, but, well… She'd come this far. Amanda got in line.
It didn't seem to take too long, actually—the real fuss seemed to be as folks stuck around to watch Chell actually fix the food. Before she even got close, Amanda could tell he loved, no, adored the attention. A pancake of some kind flipped through the air above the heads of the tourists, who let out a collective ahhh. Unbelievable.
"What can we get for you today?" said the tired-looking guy who was taking orders behind the counter, with a white apron that reached down to his ankles.
"Actually, well, I'm sorry. But I just wanted to talk to the cook. We're old friends."
He looked at her like she was crazy.
"No, really. I do. We are. It won't take long."
His eyes narrowed. "Shall I tell him who wants to speak to him?"
Amanda sighed. "Tell him Amanda Jackson needs some com link info from him, that's all."
"Uh-huh." The waiter clambered his way through a kitchen area that was crowded with far more equipment than Voyager ever had at their disposal so he could talk to Chell. Amanda sighed and leaned with her elbows on the counter. The things I do to for redemption.
"Amanda!" Chell's voice fairly exploded across the room. "Look at you! Ladies and gentleman, let me introduce you to one of my very own former crewmates, Miss Amanda Jackson!"
And her cover was blown. Everyone in the restaurant turned at once to gawk at Amanda. "Look, Jonah, that's one of the crew!" a mother said to her young son. He clapped a hand to his mouth. They seemed to think she was a fireworks display.
"Come here, honey!" Chell emerged from behind the counter. "Get back here with me and help me out before the soufflé burns."
"The soufflé?" she said, baffled.
"Now what on earth do you think you're doing just walking in here like that?" he asked her at the same sing-song volume that he'd been using with the crowds before she arrived. "You are a Very Important Person, Miss Jackson!"
"Well, I wouldn't say that…"
"You should have called and let me know you were coming, really. Come on, come on. Folks, it looks like I have a new sous-chef!"
"Sous-what?"
Chell handed her a spatula. "So what have you been up to, Miss Amanda?" he said, so everyone could hear.
"Oh. Well…" She waved the spatula in the air dismissively. "I've just been around, you know…"
"Honey, that's a spatula, not a baton. Put that thing to work!"
"Doing what? I just came here because I need a com link number for—"
Chell looked at her sternly, and the crowds laughed appreciatively. "Honey, you have to work for your supper. Or, well, for their supper. Come on, I know you can cook something. What about all those lessons I gave you in the Delta Quadrant?"
"Lessons? What? You never… Oh. Okay." She could tell she wasn't getting anything out of him without a fight. "I suppose I could fry an egg…"
"There we go!" he cheered.
She shrugged and wondered what health code violation she was committing as she looked around at all the spectators. The kid she'd seen earlier and his sister were standing right in front. She pointed at the boy, Jonah. "So, you want a fried egg?" She thought she could manage that; Aaron had showed her how once or twice.
He stared at her, wide-eyed. "I'm allergic to eggth," he said, flashing the gap of a recently lost baby tooth.
His older sister scoffed in that older sister way. "I'm not. I'll take an egg!" Okay…
"Mom!" Jonah whined. "I want thomething to eat, too! I want her to cook me thomething!" The mother looked at Amanda expectantly.
"Well, I guess I could work up some bacon…"
"I'm Jewish!" Jonah said at a near-shriek, as if she'd been trying to poison him.
"Okay!" Amanda said helplessly. "Sorry! Chell?"
"Okay, Mister," Chell said. "What about a strawberry shake? Totally kosher."
Jonah grinned, the gap in his teeth like the distance between stars.
"You do kosher?" Amanda said.
"There's a fresh pitcher in the refrigerator to your left," he said under his breath to her. "Just stick it in the blender for a second, he'll think you made it from scratch."
Amanda shrugged and got to work, cracking the egg on the grill and listening to Chell's performance. Apparently, she was now his foil as he recounted several adventures starring himself, in which she seemed to recall him having only the most marginal of roles when they had actually taken place. His audience was enthralled.
"It's just so great to be able to interact with living history," Jonah's mother told Amanda. "And so great for the kids."
"Well, you gotta keep busy somehow." Amanda poured the shake.
"What did you do on Voyager?" the mother asked her, clearly looking for some heroism equal to Chell's.
"Me?" Amanda wasn't sure how to answer. "Just another body in engineering. You know."
"Now, Miss Amanda, you're selling yourself short," Chell interjected. "I don't think that's all you did."
She looked at him fearfully. He wasn't about to tell any stories, was he? Had he already been telling stories about her, and what she'd done all those years?
"Ladies and gentleman, Miss Jackson here is one of Starfleet's foremost experts in artificial environmental reinforcement. Anytime the gravity failed—and boy, did it fail!—Amanda was there in a jiffy to set us all on our feet again. Say, do you remember that time when Tom Paris accidentally caused a malfunction in life support thanks to his James Dean holodeck simulation?"
Now she was sure that had never happened, but Amanda caught his drift. He was protecting her.
She smiled wanly. "You tell that one so well. Go ahead."
Twenty minutes later, they had escaped the kitchen and were strolling through some of the lower decks as Chell took his break.
"Isn't it just fitting?" Chell observed. "Before, we spent all those years trapped in the belly of the ship by ourselves. And now, you can't pay the museum visitors to come down here. They all want to be where the action was. Or where they think it was. This is the only place where I can catch a nanosecond of peace!"
"Yeah, it's quiet, isn't it." Amanda eyed him curiously. He just seemed so different now. "Chell, you're really looking great," she said.
"And that's a euphemism for, 'Hey, blueface, you're not as annoying as you used to be!'" He laughed. "Don't worry, I've heard it from other people, too. See, you weren't the only one who didn't fit in so well on Voyager," Chell said. "The life of action was never for me. I'm finally in my element now!"
Amanda wasn't sure what to say. "I didn't mean to be rude."
"It's okay."
They were quiet for a bit as they wandered. Amanda wasn't really sure what to say. All she needed was a com number and maybe a rec from him, but now, all of a sudden, there seemed to be a lot more ground to cover.
"So really, what have you been up to, Amanda?" he said. "You vanished. Nobody's heard from you. We thought you'd jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge or something!"
Amanda took a moment before answering that one. "I just needed some space. I couldn't go back to it so soon, not like you have."
"Oh, please. You call this going back? If even a tenth of all the garbage I tell people in a given day is true, you can shoot me out an airlock. This isn't where we lived. These folks just want to be entertained."
"You don't feel bad lying to them?"
"If anybody really wants to know the truth, there are books for sale in the gift shop. Which is actually just starboard of engineering." He poked her in the arm in that annoying way he'd always had. "Besides, Amanda. There are a lot of stories I don't want repeated, about me or anyone else."
She finally met his eyes. "Thanks."
He smiled with self-satisfaction. "We have to look out for each other. I can do that better here than in the Delta Quandrant."
Amanda stopped. She realized where they were. "The weapons bay."
He nodded. "Terra familia. Come on."
She hesitated. "I don't think so."
"Oh, come on. I've got something to show you."
"Chell, no. Please. I can't go back."
"Amanda," he said, taking her hand in his—an unromantic yet intimate gesture. "We're not going back. It's different now, I promise."
She still didn't want to, but he opened the hatch and climbed down the ladder. "Besides," he called, "I won't give you B'Elanna's com number until you get in here."
"You know I can kick your ass if you try anything, right?" she called down after him.
He didn't answer. Irritated and a little frightened, Amanda tenderly made her way down the ladder.
The dimensions were the same as with the actual weapons bay, but the similarities stopped there. The lights were dim; there were a few plush floor pillows strewn about the place. Some colorful mobiles hung from the parts of the ceiling that were too low to stand under. "This isn't the same as I remember it, either."
Chell grinned like a little boy and set about rearranging the pillows. "See? It's my sanctuary! I told them this was how we actually set things up, and they actually believed me. After all, it's not like there was anyone—well, anyone but you—who would bother to correct them, and if anybody ever makes it down here? Ha! Pillow fight!" He prepared to throw a bright yellow cushion at her face.
Now he was being his old self. "Chell, I'm not twelve."
"Sure, sure. Everybody's gotta be a grown-up. Look at this!" He pushed a couple buttons and a dissonant recording began playing. "Bolian fiddle music. Humans get so snooty about it, but I think it's just dandy."
"Oh. Yeah, I like it."
"Pants on fire." He opened another hatch, to the same spot—the replica of the same spot—where Amanda had caused so many of her accidents. "And there it is."
"Damn it, Chell, why did you bring me here?" She was having a hard time controlling her breathing. It felt like she might choke or pass out.
He shut it again. "Okay, you don't have to go down there. I just wanted to show you… Well. I just wanted to show you that it won't go off anymore. Okay, this one never did, but you get the point."
"No, I don't!"
"Amanda, no more explosions. That's all. It's done. It's over."
"Everybody's a therapist." Amanda's eyes began burning. "It's never over. The dreams, the flashbacks, the bad memories. How can you just say it's done?"
"Somebody has to."
"Oh, shut up already!" she snapped. "Don't you get it? You and your pillows and your strawberry shakes. You think this heals everything? That's impossible. Here you are, you've built a life for yourself. It's just dandy. But you just don't get it, and you never will. I'll never get home."
Neither of them said anything for a long time. She fought to get her breath back. There were stars across her eyes as her body threatened hyperventilation—but Amanda stayed on her feet.
Finally, Chell started humming along to the fiddle music. When the song ended, he spoke again. "It's strange how when we were in the Delta Quadrant, I missed being around people. I really did. Crowds and crowds of people. Then, now that I'm back in this joke of a ship—I love my job—but sometimes I wish they'd all just go away."
Amanda sighed again. "Yeah."
"I don't think I'll ever get home either," Chell said thoughtfully. "You know. That was taken care of by the Cardassians, same as you."
She felt her face flush. She hadn't thought…
"Even so," he continued. "Bolians have this saying, 'The grass keeps growing.' You can't get back anything that's passed, because the universe never stops changing. So if I still had that house… And what a house that was! You should have seen the viranda. It wouldn't be home. My son would still be dead."
She'd never once thought.
He looked at her, and for the first time ever, she saw who he was. "Every day of my life I miss him," he said calmly. "I know how you feel."
Amanda sat down on the pillows; she suddenly felt exhausted. "Chell, I'm making a mess of my life. Nothing's working. I can't do anything. I… I even drove away this guy I really loved, because I couldn't… I'm out of my mind, and I can't fix it."
"Really? You got a, what do humans call it. A shrink?"
"Not one I go to."
"Huh. Well, I'm no good in a crisis, you know that. I'm not far from the crazy bin myself some days! Nobody is, right?"
"I guess." She wiped away the tears that had spilled out. "I don't know what to do."
"I figure this is the longest conversation we've ever had in our lives, Amanda. That's a good place to start. Talking to people."
"Yeah, I guess I could have talked to you a long time ago. Sorry about that," she said sheepishly.
He shrugged. "No hard feelings. And let me own up, too. I owe you a much bigger apology."
"You do?"
"I'm sorry I didn't try to help you during all those years we were stationed in the same place."
She gritted her teeth. "You mean, tell on me?"
He was unfazed. "I thought it would have been telling on you, but I was wrong. I should have told our Maquis friends what you were going through. I'm sorry, Amanda."
She was about to rebuff his apology when she stopped herself. She realized that he was right. He should have told someone. "Why didn't you?" she asked quietly.
"I was scared."
"Of me?"
"No. I was scared of life on that ship. I didn't know what to do except stand back. You seemed so brave."
"I wasn't," she pointed out. "I was just… numb. Lonely."
He nodded. "I get that now." They stopped talking for a moment. "Do you remember when you saved my life on Gelvis Prime, the one where we raided the Cardassian supply depot?" Chell asked.
Amanda blinked. "I'd totally forgotten."
"I hadn't," he said. "That was the first time you were part of a team that took fire. After, everybody was talking about it."
Amanda did remember, now. There was an unscheduled patrol who met them in a courtyard; Chell got cut off on the far side, where he was setting a timed explosive. Someone had to take point on the defensive line or Chell would have been killed where he crouched. Amanda, who was then seventeen, hadn't waited for Ayala to say anything. She'd aimed her rifle, shot twice, shot again until all but one of the guards went down, and sprinted past the remaining cover fire to where Chell was and guarded him until he finished the job.
"I owe you, Amanda. I let you down," Chell said.
Amanda met his eyes. "Forgiven."
He smiled. "That's good. I built a shrine to my son's memory when we got back. It's at my new home, a cute little house outside Santa Barbara… As I was meditating there one day, I thought that this was something I should do for my journey. I guess the gods agreed, because here you are!"
"Journey?"
"Oh, you know." He smiled then, his old self. "Bolian religious stuff, don't worry about it."
Amanda thought of Aaron then, and she felt a pang of longing for him. Maybe that would fade in time.
"Thank you, Chell," she said, forcing a smile.
His blue lips parted in a generous smile. "You're always welcome to tip the chef. Now, wasn't there a com number you were after?"
It took her one week to work up the nerve and one hour to realize that if she didn't call B'Elanna soon and secure some kind of prospects, she would be completely out of money and the first person in over 150 years to be homeless in San Francisco. Even so, Amanda sent a text message first.
The next day, Amanda spent a few more precious credits to transport to Havanna, where B'Elanna had a teaching and research position at one of the universities in the city. The late spring was humid to the point of stifling, and the breeze from the ocean didn't help much, so by the time she had tracked down B'Elanna's office, her hair was frizzier than she'd ever seen it and her face was shining with sweat.
She was a few minutes early, but the department secretary let her wait in B'Elanna's office. It was a large room with tall windows looking out over the coast, books and computers lining another wall, and a crib tucked into a nearby corner. Apparently Miral wasn't a stranger to her mother's workplace.
Amanda scanned the old built-in shelves on the far wall. Unlike Aaron, B'Elanna seemed to prefer padds to paper and binding; there were boxes and boxes of data crystals and other storage. Amanda was mildly alarmed to see a miniature nuclear reactor on one of the lower shelves, and wondered what on earth B'Elanna did in this office all day. Despite herself, she checked the safety settings, just to make sure the casing would hold.
There were also family pictures, and a lot of them. Not a whole lot of Klingons—big surprise. Most of the frames held shots of what Amanda guess were grinning grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. One picture showed an older, balding man in an admiral's uniform with baby Miral in his arms. Amanda didn't know much about the Paris family, but guessed that B'Elanna didn't share Tom's reluctance about talking to his father.
She wondered for a moment what her father would look like if he were alive today.
"Amanda," said B'Elanna's voice behind her. "Welcome to Havana."
Amanda jumped a bit as B'Elanna charged into the room. "Hi, Lieutenant. Hello. Thanks for seeing me."
B'Elanna smiled, which wasn't something Amanda had seen often. "I'm not 'Lieutenant' anymore, Jackson. Just use my name."
Amanda blushed. "Okay."
"It's good to see you. Now what brings you to Cuba?"
"I… I was wondering if I could ask you for a favor."
B'Elanna didn't look surprised. Amanda felt that this was confirmation of her suspicions: word had gotten around about her latest adventures. The anger at being shunted into the same old role of subordinate youngster, the subject of pity, made Amanda sit up straighter. She'd just ask and get out, and get back to her life. Whatever that was.
"I'm applying for engineering degree programs, and I… well, my education's not very standard, but I've passed a lot of the equivalency exams. I want to get a real degree, though. Could I ask you… Would you be willing to write a letter of recommendation for me?" Amanda forced herself to keep looking B'Elanna in the eye, but she couldn't stop her face from flushing in embarrassment.
"Of course."
Amanda blinked, surprised at how easy that was. "Oh."
"Where are you applying?"
Amanda listed them for her, stammering a bit from nerves. "I won't be able to get started in the fall—it's way past the deadline. But I can apply early to all those schools, which will help my chances, I think."
"Have you thought about Johns Hopkins? They run a great program, and they have a reputation for taking on students with nontraditional backgrounds."
"I didn't know that."
"You could easily cut it there. And don't leave out the University of Moscow. The winters are bad, but they've been leading the field for decades now."
"They're top-notch! You think I could get in?"
"Why not? You're brilliant."
Amanda couldn't have been more astonished. "Okay."
"Is something wrong?"
"No! No, I just… I didn't even know if you'd write the letters for me. This is really great."
B'Elanna smiled again. "I did watch you pretty closely. Maybe it's a good thing you were with me in engineering for a few months after all."
Amanda looked at her hands, ashamed.
"I'm glad to hear that you're taking this step," B'Elanna said. "I think it's a good one for you."
"Thank you."
"What are you going to do until you start school? Do you have work?"
"Some," Amanda admitted. "I've been doing some part-time tutoring, and I have some hours at the civilian port south of Palo Alto."
"That must be boring."
"I don't mind." Not so much boring as slave labor, she thought.
"And how are you?"
Amanda forced a smile. "Fine."
B'Elanna waited.
"What?" Amanda said.
"I was hoping for a real answer."
Amanda felt like this was all the confirmation she needed. It was B'Elanna who had screwed her over on her Academy applications; it had to be. Amanda picked up her bag and started to stand up. "Thanks for your time. I'll be going now."
"Wait, Amanda—"
"You just said you're not my lieutenant. So unless you want to go behind my back and tell all of these schools how unstable I am, then get out of my business. Forget about the apps."
"Amanda, what are you talking about?"
"What, you don't know?"
"Know what?" B'Elanna didn't seem phased by the outburst, just baffled.
"You mean… It wasn't you—You didn't fail me on my psych evaluation?"
B'Elanna blinked. "You applied to the Academy? I didn't know."
Amanda took a deep breath. She'd been so close to getting B'Elanna's help, now she had to ruin it with an unnecessary outburst. "Sorry," she mumbled. "I… I guess I was wrong about that. I'll go."
"Wait a minute," B'Elanna said, exasperated. "I want to know what's going on. Did you apply to the Academy?"
"You didn't know?"
"No, because you didn't ask me for recommendations until today. Did somebody fail you on your psych eval?"
"Yeah," she admitted, feeling herself flushing. "They said it was someone from Voyager. I thought it had to be you, after everything…"
"Hardly," B'Elanna said. She got up, went to the mini-replicator by the door. "Raktajino, iced. Do you want anything?"
"No."
B'Elanna returned, beverage in hand. "Let me tell you something about the 'psychological evaluation,' Amanda. It's very hard to pass. It's also not very accurate, at least not the way I see it. They're looking for a specific kind of personality, the type that they think is most likely to 'withstand the rigors of long-term space travel.' If I took it today, I'd never pass—and that's, what? Ten, eleven years after I passed it the first time as an angry teenager? They let me by because they wanted another Klingon in Starfleet then."
"Really?" Amanda said.
"I'm sure they wouldn't admit it," B'Elanna said matter-of-factly, "but I can't think of any other reason why they would have passed me. Tom says he only got through because his father's an admiral. There are cracks in the system. Not to mention how wrong the test can be. If you're talking about the ability to withstand the rigors of space travel, we're the people who should pass with flying colors, not the up-and-coming Harry Kims of the universe."
Amanda wasn't sure what to say.
"It's possible that whoever failed you was working from my notes on your record," B'Elanna said. "If that's true, I'm sorry it happened. I kept records for Admiral Janeway, not for Starfleet command, but I doubt they were viewed with that in mind."
"How bad was my record?"
"Did you ever read mine? Yours doesn't even come close to being that bad," B'Elanna said. "Listen, I'm sure you're angry. I don't blame you. I don't know who did it, maybe the Doctor or someone who was worried about regulations. But forget it, if you can. You might find a life outside of Starfleet is better for you anyway."
Amanda was getting tired of hearing that. "You don't say."
Her former officer nodded. "We needed that kind of order and regulation just to stay alive on Voyager. I didn't continue in Starfleet because I don't want to spend the rest of my life living with all those restrictions." Amanda also caught B'Elanna glancing inadvertently at the framed picture on the corner of her desk of her daughter, Miral.
"Sorry for, you know. Getting angry like that."
B'Elanna rolled her eyes. "If every person I'd ever yelled at had stopped helping me, how do you think I'd have made it this far? I don't have an agenda, Amanda. I just want to know that you're doing better now that we're away from that ship."
"I'm doing okay."
B'Elanna paused as if waiting for more.
"No, I'm fine. Really," Amanda said. "I… I had a rough spot a couple months ago, but… I'm out of it."
"You are?"
Amanda sighed. "I'm fine. That's all."
"You look different now," B'Elanna observed. "I guess we all do."
"Yeah." Different? Amanda supposed she did look different. She felt about ten years older.
B'Elanna seemed to reach a decision. "Listen, if you're feeling up to it, there's a temporary entry-level research position opening up here in a few weeks. The pay isn't great and you'd have to transport from a few time zones away each day, but I think you'd be a good fit. It would help with your applications, and you'd be up to speed on current research and techniques."
Amanda couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Are you… I'm sorry. Are you offering me a job?"
B'Elanna nodded again, as if there was nothing unusual about this. "When you contacted me, I thought you were going to ask me about a job, not the applications. Not that I mind. But I've already mentioned your name to the department head. Howard's a very progressive administrator, he likes to have a few people around who got their training outside academia. I think you'll like him. That's if you want the job," B'Elanna added, frowning.
Amanda jumped. "No! I mean, yes! Of course I want the job!"
"Excellent. You'll have to interview with Howard, but I'm sure you'll be fine. Ask him about his phaser collection. He'll talk for hours about loading mechanisms."
"Okay…"
"Is there something wrong?" B'Elanna asked.
"No! But, well, I was just wondering," Amanda said.
"Yes?"
"Why? I mean, I know I can do the job. Whatever it is. But why are you helping me? I thought you were about to kick me out of your office."
B'Elanna smiled and looked over at the crib in the corner thoughtfully. "For one thing, because you know you can do it and so do I. For another… Jackson," she said, "where do you think I would be if Chakotay hadn't stuck his neck out for me eight years ago?"
"I don't know."
"And where do you think Tom would be if Admiral Janeway hadn't given him a few breaks?"
"Oh."
"Right. It's too bad you had to wait this long for someone to reach out to you, but at least I have the privilege of doing that now."
Amanda felt herself blushing. She'd never once thought that B'Elanna cared so much. "Lieutenant? I mean, B'Elanna? Can I ask you something else?"
"Shoot."
"On Voyager, when you had your… when you were depressed, and Chakotay helped you out… How did you go back to facing everybody again?"
B'Elanna didn't answer for a minute. "I don't know how, Amanda. I honestly don't." Then, she added, "I do know that once I got back, the people who cared about me were glad I'd come through it."
Amanda laughed shakily. B'Elanna cocked her head, curious. "Sorry," Amanda said. "It's just that things might have been easier if you'd said they wouldn't talk to me. I mean, you. Then I wouldn't have to bother taking the next step. There's this guy…" She shrugged and B'Elanna nodded; it was an exchange that spoke volumes to anyone who'd ever been in love. She stood up, getting ready to leave. "Thank you, B'Elanna. For everything."
B'Elanna also stood. "Of course. And will I see you at the Voyager reunion in July?"
"The what?" Amanda was almost offended, then realized that she hadn't given her contact information to anyone until today. Of course she wouldn't know about it.
"Admiral Paris is hosting a reunion in Marin County," B'Elanna said. "Private, no press. We only started planning it a few weeks ago, but already half the crew has said they'll come."
"I'm not so sure…"
"Why not? I know a lot of people would love to see you."
Amanda didn't believe that. For crying out loud, at least one person from Voyager had told Starfleet she was certifiable. Who knew what the rest of them really thought. "Well, maybe," she said. "I want to get some things settled."
"Like what? I'm sure it's nothing you can't work around."
Amanda looked out the large window, over the bay. "There's some repair work I have to do first."