For fairness and loyalty, however important to the head, were issues that could seldom be squared in the human heart, at the deepest depths of which lay the mystery of affection, of love, which you either felt or you didn't, pure as instinct, which seized you, not the other way around, making a mockery of words like "should" and "ought." The human heart, where compromise could not be struck, not ever. Where transgressions exacted a terrible price. Where tangled black limbs fell. Where the boom got lowered.
Richard Russo, Nobody's Fool
I
Janeway
"We did it," she breathes, and Chakotay is not to her left. A stunned silence descends over the Bridge. She cannot tear her eyes away from the viewscreen but she feels herself acutely, peculiarly alone, center-stage.
Harry stutters, "W-we're being hailed," and, dazed, she tells him to put it on screen.
And Chakotay is not to her left.
Sickbay calls the Bridge. The newborn coos across the comm, and for the first time Kathryn smiles without reservation. She excuses Tom to meet his daughter and then, finally, turns.
And Chakotay is to Seven's left.
The look on Seven's face as Chakotay moves to take the helm – a soft gaze just shy of adoration, the sort of look Janeway has ruthlessly suppressed in herself for years, eons, the sort of look she has never seen cross Seven's stoic features – knocks the wind out of her.
As Chakotay overtakes her, she retreats to her chair. She swallows, tells him, "Set a course… for home," and hopes she alone hears the hitch in her voice as she wonders, for the very first time, whether Tom hasn't been right all along about home being right here on Voyager.
In their moment of triumph, she is gutted.
Belatedly, she realizes she did not notice whether Chakotay returned Seven's look of raw affection. But it hardly matters, because she loves Seven like a surrogate daughter and knows in her soul that she will never act against her interests, even if that means giving up the only thing that's made her feel like a human being for seven godless years.
Chakotay and Seven of Nine. The two people she loves most in the world.
Together, and keeping it from her.
At least this piece of the Admiral's future appears to have been set. She wasn't sure – was too stunned to ask, then urgently sidetracked by Tuvok's condition – whether the relationship had already begun. They made it back to Earth, but they did not make it back to Earth in time to prevent this. She wonders if the Admiral would have returned sooner if she had known for sure when the relationship began. She wonders why she didn't ask when she had the chance.
She waits a reasonable interval, then excuses herself to her ready room. She does not want to know who watches her go.