Note: Uhm, I'm just going to slip in and leave this here.
[Part 4]
i
It was the fifth annual [1] gala celebrating the safe return of Voyager from the Delta Quadrant, and the first annual gala celebrating the safe return of Voyager from the Beta Quadrant. The attendance had nearly doubled since the last gala, held roughly three years prior, as had the number of reporters trying to finagle Starfleet secrets out of its inebriated officers. The hall was filled with the sound of over four hundred people talking at once. Somewhere in a corner a baby was screaming loudly, and overhead nearly thirty dozen twinkling lights had been set to flicker in time with three dozen melodies at once (all blessedly silent). Kathryn had lost sight of just about everyone she was personally familiar with, and was doing her best to avoid a flock of aforementioned Fleet reporters.
It took her fifteen minutes to find Tuvok, who was speaking with Qrlthlmtrly and another twenty minutes for Chakotay and Seven to find them. By the stoic expression on the attractive blonde's face, Kathryn was certain that Tom hadn't gotten around to spiking the punch yet.
"Captain," She greeted Chakotay warmly. It was the first time since their long debriefing had ended that she had been able to see him.
"Admiral," he said seriously, before gracing her with a dimpled grin, "it's still admiral, right?"
"I've been promoted, go figure." She added darkly, "For my dereliction of duty."
"At least one of us has," Qrlthlmtrly interrupted, reaching out to shake Chakotay's hand and then Seven's, "It's good to see you two again."
"It's good to be back in the Alpha Quadrant," said Chakotay, "again."
"I am thankful for your assistance," Seven added.
The heartwarming display was interrupted by the Doctor, who wandered over with a drink in one hand and a date on his other arm, "Who's giving the keynote?"
"Kathryn," said Qrlthlmtrly.
She pulled a face, "They're just punishing me. I wish I could speak Qwghlmian, confuse everyone, and be done with it."
For the first (but not last) time that evening, Seven smiled.
ii
When Voyager reappeared (again), in a display of advanced engineering technology, it was greeted with no fanfare. You must understand, at this point the majority of the Alpha Quadrant, Federation planets and not, were of the same opinion — if they gave that ship any more attention for 'finding its way home' or some other malarkey, then it'd just keep pulling stunts like this. Best to just ignore it, and hope that it grew out of this phase all on its own.
It was only when word began to spread of a Borg civil war winding itself down in the Romulan's back yard, a three-party treaty brokered by Kathryn Janeway from the bridge of a glorified trash scow with a warp core strapped to it, and the medical miracle wrought by a single EMH and his army of freed drones that people began to pay attention. People being: a bemused Jake Sisko, a beleaguered Jean Luc Picard, and a bewildered Lewis Zimmerman. Owen Paris, who had made a point of not paying attention since he realized that literally all of his proteges had decided to violate damn near every Starfleet directive, sent P'ox an 'I told you so' at his earliest convenience.
Slowly, the entire story leaked. And then, like most volatile leaks do, it blew up. Star Fleet could only contain so much of the stories and rumors before the truth disseminated among the feeds. Those responsible were surprisingly forthright — hardly news in itself, since they all worked with Kathryn Janeway, who seemed to be particularly exhausted with subterfuge.
Qrlthlmtrly, the only member of the wayward party that had remained in the Alpha Quadrant, was promptly sacked by the Admiralty for wooling their eyes so spectacularly. This would have been a dramatic set back to his career, if he didn't have an extensive legal history of fighting for the rights of artificial and augmented intelligence and there weren't tens of millions [2] of freed Borg drones petitioning the Federation for amnesty. He was going to be fine. Really.
How the rest were dealt with by Starfleet command was a truly mixed bag. For instance, Vorik (the only person the Federation news feeds had determined too boring to do an expose on when Voyager disappeared again) turned out to be a fairly harmless Romulan spy [3]. Rather than start and interstellar conflict with their newest on-again allies, the Federation let the good-natured espionage slide.
The Doctor successfully engineered a virus that inserted the Unimatrix Zero gene into any drone it infected — reintroducing independence to entire Borg vessels without sentencing the newly freed drones to a needless and cruel death. He was charged and convicted of six different civilian offenses in absentia, then promptly pardoned.
Kathryn, with all the finesse of a sleep deprived mother of 200, brokered a peace treaty between the FBC [4, the Federation [5] and the Romulan senate. It helped that the FBC was the only power in the region capable of squaring off with the Borg, and that the Borg were trying to rip their way through the Romulan Empire in pursuit of destroying the Federation. This won her a few awards, which she'd never personally heard of and didn't particularly care to remember.
The rest just sort of fell into place. Seven became the ambassador to the FBC (or for it? That was still up for debate), providing endless technical and social support to the freed drones trying to play their part in the war. Chakotay, in a rare show of assertive leadership, provided tactical decision-making on the front, shoring up key battle victories for the allied forces. Harry fell in love with a freed Borg drone [6, incorporated more Borg technology into Voyager's systems, and even managed woo'ed an entire tributary planet on the edge of Romulan space.
Tom…he flew really really well.
Kathryn, in her Keynote address to the assembled crowd of 400 partially inebriated participants of the fifth annual gala celebrating the first return of Voyager and the first annual gala celebrating the second return of Voyager, said none of this.
Instead, with a brilliant smile, a curt nod, and a mock toast, she resigned from Starfleet effective immediately.
The hall erupted into cheers, confusion, and more babies crying loudly in corners.
iii
History texts would be written on the only Borg Civil War. In-depth explorations of the socio-political structures that asserted themselves among the FBC in the halcyon years of peace would line actual physical shelfs with actual physical books. Dissertations would be written on the war's impact on the xenophobic nature of the Romulan Empire, and the comparison of treatment of freed drones with survivors of childhood eugenics experimentation. 1300 academy papers were written a month on the role of MA'AM in success of the allied front against the Borg, an entire series of encyclopedias on the Voyager Crew, and a fantastic biography on Kathryn Janeway — interweaving her efforts to get her crew home, with her childhood, and her sensational decision to publicly resign her post at a gala — written by war hero's son.
In every single one of these writings, from cover to cover, footnotes to endnotes, few people tried to answered the single most important questions of the decade. None did so successfully.
Who plucked Voyager from the Alpha Quadrant, where it was doing perfectly useful work in scientific surveys, and plopped it in the Beta Quadrant, where it would play a pivotal role in a pivotal war? And why?
1. Q Jr., obviously.
2. Over a friendly game of chess [7, Icheb asked him to and Q Jr. — having nothing better to do with his next three centuries — thought, "Why not?"
Plenty of people weighed in on the answer to the least important question of the decade. Again, none did so successfully:
Did Kathryn Janeway really have an affair with her EMH while on Voyager?
The correct answer was, and always would be: "What even the actual hell? No!"
iv
Under the rising sun of Buenos Ares, Kathryn Janeway enjoyed her first cup of coffee for the day on the small cafe's veranda. She held in her hands a real book — it's spine cracked and pages stained — lended to her by Tom. It was an uncomplicated and sometimes profane romp that carried her through midmorning and two more cups of coffee, as she waited for her eventual company to arrive. She was truly and utterly, for the first time in nearly twelve years, in no rush.
Elena, the proprietor's daughter, wondered by every so often to lend refills and ask vaguely personal questions. The young woman had grown used to seeing the once-admiral linger in this space, often alone but occasionally with a friend, and was no longer so concerned that she would somehow offend the older woman with these friendly interrogations.
It was when the sun was at high noon — shaded only partially by the overhead awning — and the book was three quarters finished that the first guest appeared.
Kathryn, having perfected her wry smiles these days, carefully dog-eared the book and set it aside, "Hi, Junior."
The young Q, seemingly aged by ten years in the last fave, had lost the petulant expression of his adolescence and gained a shy charm it its place, "Aunt Kathy. Have I surprised you?"
"A little," she confessed, with a small shrug "but I've been expecting a visit. Especially after that phenomenal stunt you pulled with Voyager."
Junior held out his hands, palms up, "More of a friendly favor than a stunt. It all worked out better than I expected, if I'm being honest."
Stifling a laugh, she leaned forward to get a better look at his face. If pressed — and not even particularly hard — she would openly admit that she felt nothing like his aunt. How could any human hope to fill the role of the sage but spirited maternal figure to a species so advanced that their childish behavior was almost always actually wisdom in the end? Certainly, the boy's parents were the worst sort of incorrigible, but she'd gathered that much of the Q were like Quinn— quiet, thoughtful and painfully bored.
That didn't mean she wasn't fond of him though, or that in all of the ways that it counted, he wasn't a part of her tribe or she a part of his. When Q grew fond of someone, that someone remained in their orbit as long as they could keep them there. It wasn't an entirely bad place to be, so long as their worst impulses could be reigned in.
"You've inherited your father's meddlesome behavior," she scrutinized, "but I suppose I can also admit that it worked out better than expected. This time."
He smiled, a brilliant thing, lacking the smugness he'd suffocated her in as a child, "You humans are always so dependable! I've never met another species so capable of meeting any challenge thrown their way."
"Mmm," she hummed, crinkling her nose while taking a sip of her coffee, "I think it's because you haven't looked hard enough."
The smile didn't diminish as he finally got to the point, "So you're not angry with me?"
"Not seriously angry, no. Annoyed that you made me take the long route, when Chakotay got the express lane? Yes, definitely. The Romulans had to tell me where to go, and I've never known a single Romulan to give a straight answer until something blows up."
"They'll learn," the tone was earnest, nearly naive, but not wrong.
"I hope so," she conceded, "I've washed my hands of it, though; last I heard they were Picard's problem. You've met him?"
"Yeah, but I prefer you."
"That's sweet, if a little terrifying."
They shared a laugh, and Kathryn felt that the conversation was naturally coming to a close, "That's all you came here for, wasn't it? To see if I was angry?"
Junior shrugged, bashful, "Is that so wrong?"
"No," Kathryn scooped up her book, signaling that this was nearing its end, "but I'm going to take this opportunity to tell you that I hate being called Aunt Kathy."
"It's too much, isn't it?"
She gave him a pointed glare, before opening the book and picking up where she'd left off.
v
The second of her guests appeared as she was ordering her final cup of the day, twenty pages from the end of the book. Qrlthlmtrly, whose name she had finally grown comfortable thinking of without leaning on the phonetical John, took a seat without asking if one was open. Kathryn didn't mind this. In the years since she brokered an agreement with him in that Romanian bar, he'd become as steadfast a friend as Chakotay and Tuvok. He'd have a chair at any table she sat at.
"I knew I'd find you here," he said by way of greeting, looking around at the few remaining patrons sharing the outdoor space, "You've been haunting this place for weeks now."
It didn't feel like a judgement, just a keen observation from a perceptive man.
"I needed to find a way to make my time on Earth not feel like shore leave," she admitted, "and to avoid contemplating what I plan to do next."
He sat with a plop, "Any luck there?"
"Marginal," she admitted, dog earring the book once more, "but I'm told these things take time."
"Wisdom from your mother?"
"Tuvok," she said, with a tone that suggested the two were comparable.
Qrlthlmtrly smiled, a loose relaxed thing that reached his eyes, "Speaking of Tuvok, have you heard?"
That smile was contagious, "No, does this mean that he's accepted?"
He nodded, "It looks like you and your EMH have started a proper exodus. Once he realized every case we take will be pro bono, Tuvok gave Starfleet his papers and accepted the position. Now, I can brag that we have the only man who every successfully argued a case against the Q on my staff."
Kathryn accepted her latest mug from the passing barista, "Didn't Picard technically argue a successful case?"
He waved his hand as if to say, tomato tomahto, "You sure you don't want to join us?"
It wasn't as though Qrlthlmtrly's offer wasn't worthy — goodness knows she could do a lot of good helping the former drones integrate into the Federation or find their way home again — but she wasn't convinced it was where her passions truly lie. She took a thoughtful sip of her coffee, then gave a small shake of her head, "You know I don't have the head for law. I'd be nothing but a glorified mascot, and those always eventually get in the way."
"Just think of how paranoid we could make P'ox, though"
"I'd just rather not think about her at all."
"Ah," he said sagely, "the best revenge is apathy?"
Kathryn snorted, "Something like that. Also, I know she will forever sit with the shame that I resigned with the same rank as her, and that I might have actually earned it."
"It's a pity," he admitted, "we did really good work together."
"We don't need tormenting a Bolian as an excuse to remain friends."
What she said, or the way she said it, seemed to ease something in him. Perhaps an old worry that he'd had only ever been her politically convenient ally, "I'll hold you to that."
"I'll let you," she smirked, raising her glass in a toast.
vi
Her intended company didn't arrive.
That wasn't unexpected, since she hadn't actually invited him.
End Notes
[1] This was wrong. Someone failed at the math.
[2] This was also wrong. Someone failed so spectacularly at the math that they undercounted by a billion or two.
[3] Not the strangest revelation of the year, given that his Pon Farr had been notoriously contagious and the Romulans had been aware of Voyager's jaunt through the Delta Quandrant twenty years before Voyager did. The young Romulan had only one objective on the mission: not get caught. Really. That was it. All he had to do was be an engineer, collect information on Voyager's interactions with Delta Quadrant natives, and not get caught. The Pon Farr thing was an embarrassing 'almost' that was only ever an 'almost' because the Vulcans were weirdly private about their reproductive rituals.
Tuvok really should have pressed the issue.
[4] Freed Borg Collective, an interim name for a group of people uncertain if they wanted to be politically and economically tied to one another long term but were pretty certain they wanted to be for the next six months or so. Large enough to populate entire systems of planets, kind enough not to forcefully take them from others.
[5] Technically, she wasn't allowed to do this, but frankly she didn't really care.
[6] Not Seven. Remarkably unlike Seven, to be honest.
[7] In which Icheb let Q Jr. win in a bid to coax information about the remaining Borg from his omniscient friend.