Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Trek universe, though I wish I did. It's a travesty, I know.
Author's Note: I don't know why my muse enjoys hurting me with these plotlines but she's cruel and I love passing on the feels. Here's the next chapter of Goodbye and I apologize in advance . . . This is unbeta'd so all mistakes are, as always, mine.
Kathryn barely makes it back to her quarters before she completely loses it. She's just given the order to set a course for home, to start the daunting and life-long journey that they face, and she's such an emotional wreck that she's surprised she makes it to the solitude of her quarters in time and the tears, when they come, do nothing to ease the lump in her throat. Standing in the middle of the room, she lets herself grieve. This three week mission, an easy grab-and-bag, is suddenly the voyage of the damned and she's the one responsible for it all. She's the one who made the choice and knowing that destroying the array was the right thing to do doesn't make it any easier to swallow. She sinks to her knees and sobs, great wracking sobs that make her chest tight and her head hurt.
She feels the nausea just before the dry heaving starts. She can't stand - her legs are like jelly and she knows they won't support her - so she crawls through her bedroom into the bathroom, making it to the toilet just as she starts to vomit. The emotional upheaval of the last few days is overwhelming and she doesn't know how to handle it. She can't do this, she doesn't know how to do this; this is her first command and the situation is so unprecedented that nothing like it was ever covered in command school. She has to rules to read, nothing to help her, and she's flying blind.
She lies on the bathroom floor for a long while, shaking and staring at the bulkhead in front of her. She thinks about Mark and about his reaction to the whole situation; Starfleet will, no doubt, inform him that Voyager's been lost. They'll send two officers to the front door of the house and they'll knock. When he answers, he'll know what they're there for. He'll know that they don't have good news and that something's happened to her; he's been around Starfleet for too long to not understand. He'll listen to them tell him that Voyager is gone but that the Fleet Admiral isn't giving up hope and that he's ordered a search team consisting of the finest scientists and investigators that the Federation has to offer, but she knows that he'll recognize the statements for the empty platitudes they are.
The chill of the floor seeps into her consciousness and Kathryn forces herself to move. Her joints are stiff and she realizes that she's been lying on the floor for far longer than she thought. Her body, still sore from being thrown around the bridge when the Caretaker's displacement beam brought her ship across the galaxy, protests as she gets to her feet. Moving slowly, she makes her way into her bedroom and sits heavily on the edge of the bed while she debates whether or not to get undressed. She decides against it and lies back, sprawling on top of her blankets as she stares at the ceiling. Tears blur her vision and she rolls to her side, tucking her legs up; she curls up and cries herself to sleep.
The next few days are among the hardest of her life; she wants nothing more than to lock herself away and grieve for everything she's lost but she's got a responsibility to get her crew home. And she knows, though it's never said in her presence, that everyone is grieving too. She feels the heated stares as she walks through the hallways, she hears the whispered conversations that stop the moment after she enters a room, and she knows that there's animosity from more than just the former Maquis. Not that she blames them, of course.
She meets with Commander Chakotay a week into their journey to discuss crew morale. She's kept a discreet eye on him to make sure he's settling in to his new role aboard the ship and she's been impressed by what she's seen; he's worked hard to help ease the tension between the Maquis and the Starfleet crew, something she appreciates. There've been a few minor skirmishes, petty fights over tables in the mess hall and who gets what bunk in shared quarters. The Commander's always resolved the problems quickly and she only knows about them because of the covert surveillance she's been performing.
"There's a lot of tension, honestly," the Commander says as they sit across from each other in her ready room. "The Maquis feel like they don't fit in and that the Starfleet crew isn't willing to accept them. I keep telling them that it's an adjustment for everyone and that things are going to be hard for a while but that it'll get better."
"I agree," she nods, her expression serious. "It will take time but I worry that the resentment and hostility won't ease without serious intervention."
"I disagree, Captain. They just need time."
They come to a compromise, agreeing to let a few weeks pass before the problem gets addressed by the captain. They talk shop for another few minutes and then he leaves for an appointment in Sickbay to address crew-wide complaints about the brusque attitude from the Emergency Medical Hologram. Kathryn watches him leave and then makes her way up to the upper level of her ready room. She's used almost all of her replicator rations for the day on coffee but she doesn't really care; she'll brave the mess hall if she gets hungry enough, though she knows she has ration bars in her quarters.
The spot in front of the viewport is her "thinking spot" now and she stands there, cradling her coffee as she watches the stars streak by. She's got a meeting with Tuvok in twenty minutes and she needs to gather her thoughts before he comes to the ready room. She knows he's concerned about her, since they've been friends for years and he's eerily well-tuned to her thoughts, and her emotions are so tumultuous still. Tuvok always manages to see through her Captain's Mask; she makes a mental note to work on keeping the facade solid.