Captain Amelia Janeway marched up the ramp onto Pegasus, the inside was surprisingly spacious for how sleek it had looked from the outside. "Welcome back Captain Janeway, system update, shield power is at fifteen percent, weapon systems are offline, life support systems are functional, warp drive is offline, guidance systems are offline..." A male voice spoke over the intercom system.
"Pegasus, could you please bring up all the data you collected while we were in the time slip?" Amelia walked over to her seat and sat down looking over the control systems to make sure Pegasus wasn't too badly damaged. If Gaveris was still alive then Pegasus was the best bet to destroying him and his ship. Tom sat down in the chair next to her making Amelia smile again. "It's funny, that's where he usually sat before..." Amelia switched through channels looking for the data she needed. "Damn, Pegasus really got beaten up in that time slip." Turning around in her chair she looked at the back. "Tom, can you get the repair kit in the back."
"So..." He spoke up walking to the back to get the repair kit. "Was that uh, his voice?"
"Lieutenant Paris? Yes, he and I worked on Pegasus together, he programmed a lot of her AI. It use to be my voice but after the divorce, before he transferred to another ship he reprogrammed it to his own voice in case I missed him" She smiled a little, he had been right. Their marriage had been over but she still loved him. Unfortunately she was a captain a captain much like her own mother and sometimes you had to give up the people you loved, sacrifice your own happiness to do your duty.
"So, he's a lieutenant. You two have any...well am I a grandpa?" Tom furrowed his brow bringing the repair kit back up to her a little curious.
Amelia laughed checking over a few more of the systems on her shuttle. "Absolutely not." She grabbed the tools from him and dropped down bellow the console opening up one of the panels so she could get inside and make the needed repairs. She certainly was a beautiful woman, props to his future kid for catching himself a looker. "Not that I didn't want to mind you, I thought about it, I think we both did on some level but well, there are just too many complications that could arise from it. You do realize I'm not entirely human don't you? I'm half Q, there was a time before I lost my powers that I was all powerful, I didn't age, I might have lived an eternity like all the other Q's. We just didn't know if the continuum would 'appreciate' me having children. They certainly had their hands full with me. Could you imagine more like me?"
"I can see why, I know you as a baby and you are already pretty powerful."
"Yes, now imagine if you had a grandchild or two with even half the power I have, and trust me Tom you haven't seen anything yet. I felt bad for the Admiral, Captain. After everything she had to deal with or more so going to deal with."
"I can imagine." Paris laughed, two months old and Amelia was already a handful. "Well you don't seem to have your powers now. If you get this Gaveris guy and go back to your timeline what will you do then?"
Amelia stopped what she was doing sliding out from under the consul and propped herself up on her side. "Honestly? I think after everything I have gone through these past fifteen years I am going to march up to Thomas and apologize, for everything. He doesn't have to ever want to be apart of my life again but if he did I would like to live a normal life with him. As normal as a starfleet captains life can be. Who knows Tom, grandchildren could be in your future after all, just don't count on it. Not after what I did to him." She grabbed another tool from her repair kit and went back under.
"So, who's his mother? Thomas's I mean?" He was prying, clearly trying to see how serious his relationship with Torres might become.
"Nope, I can't tell you that. I have already created damage to the timeline enough. Any more than that and I might not even be a captain when I go home, there might not even be a Thomas to make up with. Since he hasn't been born yet I can't risk it. I hope you understand that." She continued to work on her repairs.
"I understand." He went quiet again for a while. As much as Tom wanted to know everything he guessed all his questions would not get an answer. "How did you two meet? Did you grow up together on Voyager?"
"Yes and no, we didn't grow up together on Voyager. I grew up on Voyager for the most part. He came much later." She paused.
"How much later?" Again he was asking questions she couldn't give exact answers to.
Sliding out she looked up at him. "Just...later. I'm fifty two years old."
Tom was rather surprised by her age. "Wow, well, you look great for fifty two. You hardly look thirty."
"Thanks, I guess. As I said I didn't age as a Q, not after a certain point. I only started aging again about thirteen years ago after I lost my powers. As for where I met him, it was here on Falcon, the ship I first captained. I took him under YOUR recommendation. After all you and my mother were good friends, I trusted you. I just didn't know your son had inherited your charm with women. I couldn't stand him at first, honestly I was going to throw him off my ship and leave him stranded in the middle of a black hole. I cursed the day I took him on but things started to change. We started getting along, he earned my trust, my respect, and then we really started to get along. He asked me to marry him at a reunion for everyone who had gotten lost in the delta quadrant. I think my mother Admiral Janeway just about fainted." Amelia started laughing thinking back on her happier memories, before everything went to hell. "Thomas was so nervous he started speaking Klingon." She paused realizing she had let a little too much slip. "That's all behind me now, back when things were better, before I had a target on my back."
"You sound like you really loved him. So why did you leave him?" It was funny, he had asked her that same question only he had been much older when he asked it, and he hadn't been a captain anymore either.
"I did, but after my mothers death, Gaveris wants me dead, he will stop at nothing to break me down, to hurt me. The only way he can get to me is by going through those I love most. I did the only thing I could to protect him. I broke his heart to save his life. I made him hate me so he would stay away from me. I told you the same thing once already after you asked that question. As a captain who loves her crew I have to do everything within my power to keep them all safe, even if it means I break their heart."
"Funny, you sound just like..."
"Your mother." Amelia interrupted. "Yes you said that to me already. I'm told almost every day I am just like her. I live in her shadow trying desperately to become as impossible as she was but I just don't know how. I try every day to be her, to think like her, act like her, look back on the choices she made and measure them up to my own."
"Then you should stop, trust me. I use to be just like you. Tried to live up to my father, to be more like him. The more i tried the more I failed. It wasn't until I stopped trying to be him and started being me that I realized I wasn't living in his shadow anymore. I was becoming my own person."
Amelia smiled again, he didn't know just yet but he had said those words to her as well. Captain Amelia Janeway was NOT Captain Kathryn Janeway nor was she Admiral Janeway. "She's fixed." Rolling out from under the consul she looked back at the data on the screen and moved through it trying to find out what had happened to her shuttle and more importantly if she had destroyed Gaveris. "I figured, the rift he had opened was unstable, it nearly ripped my shuttle apart, with any luck it damaged his ship just as much." Amelia sat back in her chair letting out a sigh.
"What is it?" He asked looking over the data.
"He made it to the other side, he's alive." She put her hand to her forehead and leaned over her seat. "It's never easy, I had him, I had him right there and I missed." Amelia stood up, this wasn't over yet, she could rest until Gaveris was dead. "Tell my mother to put the ships sensors on max rang. He's out there, waiting to strike when we are least expecting."
"Where are you going?"
Amelia spun on her heels looking at him. "Wash up, change into something that doesn't have phaser burns on it, maybe get something to eat. After that. I guess I'm going to say hello to myself." Amelia shrugged. Hopefully her rank as captain still counted on Voyager, she needed this ship to save herself and maybe even her mother.
Captain Janeway sat in her quarters with baby Amelia trying to get her to fall asleep. It was nerve racking knowing someone could be out there looking to kill her. After all, her Amelia had done nothing. There was a buzz at her door, she expected a member of her crew come to give her an update on the current situation. "Come in." She spoke up turning as the door slid open and Captain Amelia stood there. It took her aback a little, the other captain had changed into a captains uniform just like her own. For a moment Janeway felt like she was looking into a mirror, it was a little startling how much Amelia grew up to resemble her. She even had her hair pulled back the same way she use to until realizing they were going to be stuck in the delta quadrant longer than expected and didn't have to follow all the starfleet dress code. "Amelia."
"Hello mother." She smiled back at the woman who really was younger than herself and yet Amelia still looked up to her. "I hope you don't mind I am trying to blend in with your crew a little. My uniform was damaged badly in the battle with Gaveris. Besides it makes me stand out, that's just what he wants."
"No, you look nice. It suites you." Janeway replied looking at her again. If this was who Amelia grew up to become then Kathryn could be proud. Her daughter was every bit the captain she had dreamed she would become.
"Thanks." Her eyes shifted over to the baby in her mothers arms making her want to back out of the room. Even though Amelia knew she was 'here', well and alive she hadn't considered how she would feel to meet her younger self. As a cadet in starfleet she had always considered what it would be like to meet her younger self. Of course she always pictured herself at seven to ten years of age, not as a baby. "So that's...that's me?" She stepped forward looking down at herself and having a strange feeling looking over that face, her face. "I didn't know I was ever that small." She nodded her head not certain what to think, how to feel. Once you became a captain you forgot those days when you were little and frail. You forgot you started out as a baby like everyone else, more than anything it made Amelia feel regret. She was what that baby had to look forward to, a lonely life where she thought all she ever needed was her mother to guide her. A lonely life, a miserable life, a life where she had pushed everyone away, everyone she loved gone.
"You were smaller." Janeway smiled back at her daughter trying to imagine everything Amelia had experienced in her life. She caught her older daughter looking at her again, a little smile crossing her face once more.
"I remember you just like this. Back when you still had long hair, you always put it up like that. I remember looking up at you when I was only a little ankle bitter. You never really changed. Seeing you now like this, after having known you much latter you never really aged. You were still very intimidating, very strong, very vibrant. Your hair went grey certainly, you got wrinkles but you didn't change. After you died, after the continuum took away my powers I started facing my own mortality and it frightened me. I'm not afraid anymore." Amelia looked back down at her smaller self, young Amelia, her whole life ahead of her, all her adventures. Even though she feared destroying her own timeline she hoped at the very least when she left to go home she could change it just enough to save her from going through the hell she had known.
"I can't say the same, you have changed a lot." Janeway smiled at her.
"I did, I got really tall and twice as stubborn." She joked looking around the captains room. "I have a lot of fond memories on this ship, the way it is now. My Voyager looks a lot different, she was upgraded several times to keep up with new technology." Amelia pointed over at the crib and walked over quickly picking up the small stuffed puppy Q had gotten for her after she was born. "Puppy. He looks so...new. I took this stupid thing everywhere with me, if he got left behind anywhere I would cry and cry. I think you wanted to just throw him away after a while he was so dirty and beaten up. Our dog Chicago finally tore him to pieces after I went to the academy. We had a funeral for him since he had been with us for so long." She laughed looking over at Rowley. "Rowley." Amelia called over to the dog and got down on her knees as the dog perked up his ears and looked at her. "Look at you, you are so young." She hugged him as he walked over to her, running her hands through his long red fur. She looked up at Janeway feeling like a little girl again but reminding herself why she was here. Amelia stood back up and straightened out her uniform. "I almost forgot. Gaveris made it, he's here, somewhere." Janeway showed a flicker of fear in her eyes as she held baby Amelia a little closer. "I'm not going to let him hurt her. He's haunted me long enough, I don't want to remember this far back in my life. He's taken away enough years as it is." She nodded at Kathryn.
"I'm sorry." Janeway paused looking at her, still seeing that flicker of pain in Amelia's eyes. it was hard for her daughter to be around her, she could tell. If Janeway had been in her position, if it had been Amelia that had died she would have felt the same way. "I'm sorry you had to see me die like that Amelia." The dark haired captain tried to hide that look of sadness on her face but it wasn't working. "But I'm happy you survived."
Amelia forced a smile on her face. "Whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger."
"No, I'm happy you survived because had it been the other way around I know I wouldn't forgive myself. As a parent you know your children will outlive you, that's the nature of it. It's when your child dies before you that you have truly failed. You are my legacy. Even though your past is my future I know as your mother I would have brought you up to survive this world without me, and I trust that I have done a good job of it. You can do this."
Amelia bit her lip and looked away keeping on her brave face but Janeways words had meant a lot to her. "Thank you mother, I won't disappoint you a second time."
