Chapter 2 - Birthday

"Oh, Chakotay. It's just so… Every year, you surpass yourself but this is something very special."

He smiled at her obvious delight, feeling her hand squeezing his through the heavy gloves. Only the muffled sounds of their breathing could be heard for a while as they floated away.

"She is magnificent, isn't she?" she whispered.

Voyager was shimmering under the light of two nameless planet-free suns, far enough for their combined radiation not to be a danger to the space farers in their suits. They were hovering underneath the port nacelle on their way for a grand tour of the ship.

"I'll have to give it to Engineering. I can't see where the older Voyager stops and the newest upgrades start," Kathryn mused.

"Tom told me that Naomi fought B'Elanna hard to get her design changes accepted," chuckled Chakotay.

"I heard Naomi said something to the effect that nobody wanted Voyager to look like a half-digested Borg cube. She must have got the Chief Engineer's attention with that comment. But the results are perfect," said Janeway.

She pressed the small joystick on her power pack forward and begun to slide past the night side of the ship. The more recent additions to the underside included four more cargo bays than the original ship had started with, and a couple of large photon canons hidden under burgeoning humps. Voyager did look a bit more plump underneath than when Chakotay had seen it for the first time near the Caretaker array, so long ago. He sympathised. Age did cause him to sag too. Just a little, he thought wryly.
They continued their leisurely flight, moving up along the illuminated decks and watching from afar as small humanoid shapes were touching up the letters and numbers emblazoned on the forward part of the starship. The Federation might still be tens of thousands light years away but the ship matriculation needed to stand proud and clear. Chakotay hoped the cleaning crew did not see their job as a nuisance. He reminded himself that it was not his call anymore.

They halted above the curved stern.
"Thank you for such a beautiful birthday present, Chakotay. You must have had to pull a few strings to allow us to be here. I haven't done an EVA for years. I am surprised I was let out of the cargo bay!"

Chakotay snorted. "I mentioned the idea to the Doctor, who said he couldn't do anything without referring it to the Captain, who sent the request to the Recreation Committee, who decided that I needed to ask the Doctor. You can imagine how long the approval process took. It's good I started the whole thing weeks ago and you had your annual medical check-up in between."

He had started to drift away and he realigned his position next to Janeway with a few thrusts. "Is it just me or does the list of signatures to authorise anything on this ship get longer every day?" he added wistfully.

She suppressed a good-natured laugh. The establishment of various committees had been contentious and many crew members were still wondering what it was all about. "Don't reject their way of doing things. We are still in one piece," Janeway answered, her gold plated helmet visor hiding her face. And if it can help reduce our losses, I am all for it.

Chakotay did not need to see his wife's expression to know what she was thinking. Kathryn's birthday was only two weeks after Remembrance Day and she had been very quiet since the ceremony. He understood the value of honouring fallen crew members for the comfort of those left behind to grow old. After all, it had been his idea but it took a lot out of her. The guilt was still there, ready to rise again at times like these. Long days would pass and her silence would deepen, letting the memories take over her thoughts.
In previous years, something would have happened to stop a complete withdrawal: a sudden attack, a drop in supplies, and the captain would not have the time to dwell on the past until the emergencies were out of the way and new challenges took their place. This year was different and he had been trying to find ways to keep her busy through that period. Even though they were not the command team any longer, he wanted to continue to lighten her burden as he had done for the past twenty-seven years.

It was Tom who had given him the idea to take Kathryn on a spacewalk. Chakotay wondered how many EVA time the elder Paris had accumulated since he'd retired from flying Voyager. He doubted the former helm officer waited for approval when he wanted to don a spacesuit.
Tom had been right though: space walking was indescribable. The sensation of almost touching space, the view unimpeded by screens and sensor arrays, the silence that was never total on Voyager with the environmental controls and the engines always whispering in the background. He had not expected the serenity, the beauty of it all. He was at the centre of the universe, 13 billion light years surrounding him like a vast, immutable cocoon.

He felt Kathryn's hand on his arm. She was pointing to something on the port side of the ship. The installation of the new astrometric array that Icheb had commissioned had caught her eyes. They landed on the hull, their magnetised soles making a dull sound through the spacesuits. Finding Naomi supervising the project, they spent a few minutes looking over the new equipment with the Assistant Chief Engineer.

Leaving the young half-Katarian to her work, Kathryn continued to talk about the scientific breakthrough the new array would bring to the revitalised Science Department. Chakotay was happy to see her buoyed and elated about her work as the self-appointed Department Head.
They fell into a comfortable conversation, waving at the repair crews as they flew slowly past. The ship was immobile, caught at the stable Lagrange point between the two suns. The week-long stay was running into its last day and there was still much to do before heading back towards the Alpha Quadrant.

They came back through the busy cargo bay external door, grateful for the help of the standby crew in getting out of their spacesuits suddenly cumbersome and heavy as the ship's artificial gravity reclaimed them. Walking to their quarters, Kathryn grew silent, earning her an inquisitive look from her husband.

"A coffee for your thoughts?" he asked. She smiled at their long standing joke about her caffeine addiction.

"Seeing Voyager like that, from space, so … ," she started to say, hesitant.

Chakotay watched her unobtrusively, wondering about her change of mood. She had not stopped talking enthusiastically about their trip outside until they had stripped back into their civvies. He liked the cheerfulness that had emerged more fully now that her command mask had started to slip away. He wanted to see more of it. Early days, baby steps, he reminded himself.

He took the lead. "I've always been a bit jealous of Voyager, the way you talk about it in such an intimate fashion, as if it is alive. I still remember how it was to pilot the Val Jean, but it was never more than a ship to me."

"You were a Maquis, a renegade trying to avoid Starfleet captains like me while battling the Cardassian armada. You did not have the time to be sentimental about your ship," she said, threading her hand through his arm.

"As much as I liked the Val Jean, that old ship was more a mean to an end," Chakotay conceded.

Kathryn stopped in front of the door to their quarters, ignoring the crew members passing by. "When I became the captain, I bonded with Voyager, considered her as more than an assemblage of bulkheads, conduits, tritanium. I always felt that she is part of the family, a member of the crew with her own needs and idiosyncrasies."

"What did you see today that changed that?" he asked, entering the entry code to their lodgings.

She waited until the door closed behind them. Then facing him, she put her hand on his chest, pushing slightly against his bulk. "Do you think we'll ever get back to the Alpha Quadrant?" she asked him, looking up, her face close to his.

"Yes, I think we'll get there. Eventually," he answered, confused by the change of subject.

"I don't mean the rest of the crew or the children," she countered, shaking her head. "I mean us, you and me, do you think we'll ever see Earth again?" she asked, her blue eyes searching his face. "I am 65 today, Chakotay. We are still more than 40,000 light years from Earth. I have resigned myself to thinking that I won't see my mother and maybe not even my sister again. Short of a miracle, Voyager has a very long way to go yet."

"Yes I know, love," Chakotay said slowly, covering her small hand with his.
Maybe it had not been such a good idea after all to get her to take the day off for her birthday, he thought. It had only been a few weeks since they had resigned their commissions. There was also the anniversary of the accident coming up soon.
He castigated himself. Spirits, he had not been attentive enough to what this year's milestones would mean to her, not supportive enough to help her through such another monumental transition in her life. Starfleet captains were either promoted, retired or resigned, but they never got to stay on their own ship, seeing a new command team take over. Once again, she had created a new precedent, but it would only help the next captain, not her. Never her. You are the ship's counsellor, Chakotay, and you can't see the person you love has the most need of you.

He brushed a lock of grey hair off her forehead, then took her hands in his, almost enveloping her with his taller body. "Tell me what you saw out there."
She had always tended to keep her innermost feelings at bay, even after she had married him and had let him come closer than ever before. Over the years, he had helped her peel off her emotional layers and make sense of the conflicts intrinsic to her personality, although her merciless self-analysis skills could lay much of his efforts to waste on occasions. He hoped today was not one of those.

"Do you remember on New Earth? I accused you of giving up, of making a home there instead of helping me find a cure so we could leave," she said.

"I do remember. You wanted to get Voyager back to the Alpha Quadrant and being stranded on New Earth was not part of your plan." He had made the best of their forced stay on the planet, contented, at peace. The memory of that place which he had shared with the love of his life had filled his dreams for many long years afterwards.
It had taken her much longer to accept their circumstances. Then the ship's crew had abruptly brought them back on board and she had resumed her job to lead them home, the new bond the two of them had forged on New Earth set aside in the shadows of her promise to the crew.

"I said that I could not wait for a future that might never happen. Is that what you felt today, looking at the ship? That the future was passing you by?" he asked, his heart sinking.

"No," she simply said, smiling one of those rare but magnificent smiles he always hungered for. "Today, I saw Voyager as never before and I realised that I am already truly home".

Dedicated to all those who make their homes in far away lands.