"I did the dishes." (Janeway/Jaffen)

Author's Note: This story takes place during "Workforce: Part I".

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Kathryn sat with her feet tucked under her on the sofa, staring out at her twelfth-floor view of Quarra City. It looked better at night, the gray apartment blocks and industrial buildings softened by the lights of street lamps and windows, refracted through raindrops on the glass. Still, it was nothing like … She rubbed her forehead and sighed, frustrated with the nagging sense of something missing. She couldn't be homesick, could she? It wasn't as if her home had been any better. Earth was crowded. Polluted. Very little work. She was lucky to be here. That other view she had seen out of a window once, of green grass and old trees rustling under an open sky, where had that come from? A holonovel, most likely. Or a dream.

"I did the dishes." Jaffen's voice behind her startled her out of her thoughts. "Least I could do after you took care of the meal."

She looked up at his silver curls, the chiseled Norvalan bone structure of his face, and the way his brown eyes warned at the sight of her, and she smiled. I'm lucky to be here, she thought again, but this time she meant it.

He settled down on the sofa next to her with a contented sigh. She gave him a sidelong glance and a grateful, self-deprecating smile. "If by 'taking care' you mean ordering takeout, yes. How can both of us be so bad at cooking?"

A charred smell still hung in the room beside the salty fried dumplings they'd had delivered and the astringency of dish soap. The frustration it brought on was familiar - she was a Level Five in thermodynamics, shouldn't she know how to heat up food without burning it? - but so was the amusement, although she couldn't think why. Who had ever sat across from her and teased her for blaming it all on the faulty replicator? A man with a tattooed forehead and a dimpled smile. A younger woman with red hair and a sarcastic attitude. Colleagues? Surely not. The ship on which she'd been stranded in the Delta Quadrant had been such a lonely place. She remembered long hours sitting alone in an office, crunching data, or in her cabin struggling against a black hole of depression. Maybe these colleagues of hers had been put off after that one failed dinner and decided being friends with her wasn't worth the trouble. Maybe that explained the sharp stab of regret that went through her whenever she thought of that redheaded girl.

"I don't know about you," said Jaffen lightly, "But I find it hard to concentrate when you're in the room."

"You're a terrible flirt, you know that?"

He put an arm around her and drew her closer. "Maybe I need more practice. Same with cooking."

"Mmm, maybe you do."

He didn't need any more practice at kissing, that was for sure, although she was only too happy to oblige. Several slow, delicious moments later, curled up in the crook of his arm, she felt safe enough to give words to the thoughts that had been haunting her all evening.

"Jaffen?"

"Mmm?"

"Have you ever … I know this might sound a little crazy, but … have you ever been homesick for a home you never had?"

He was quiet for so long that she was just about to move away when he said, "Actually, no. That doesn't sound crazy at all. I, uh … I've felt that way myself sometimes."

"Really?" She all but melted against him with relief. "So what's yours like?"

"I'm not sure." He looked out at the same glittering urban wasteland she'd been watching earlier and tightened his arm around her. "Something bigger, maybe. An actual house, not just an apartment, with enough room for a circle of friends around the table. A garden with trees. A sky that isn't full of smoke."

Kathryn's voice of reason, the same voice that told her how lucky she was to have found her job at the power plant and live in this nice apartment only a few minutes away, reminded her how impractical this was. How could he envision dinner parties when neither of them could cook?

But she could see it so clearly, that dinner party, whether it took place in a garden or aboard a starship. She would lift a glass of champagne and make a speech, and Jaffen would put his arm around her when she sat back down. Somebody - a charming, easygoing type of guy like that blond waiter at Umali's - would crack a joke that made everybody laugh. A somewhat vain, but good-natured older man would try to make his own speech and be deftly cut off by the others. People would clap their hands and say Hear, hear, except maybe a Vulcan or ex-Borg who would only look up at her with solemn approval …

"What's wrong?" Jaffen cupped her face in his hand to turn her toward him.

"Nothing. Just … that sounds wonderful."

"Then why do you look so sad?"

"I'm fine." He wiped a tear away from her cheek with his thumb. "I'm fine! About time for my next inoculation tomorrow, that's all. Aren't we lucky they take such care of their workers here?"

When her daydreams became this impossibly detailed, she knew it must be her Dysphoria Syndrome acting up again. She snuggled up to Jaffen and closed her eyes.

This, at least, was real.