Author's Note: Hey everybody! I know it's been a while (nearly, what is it... eight months?) since I've posted or updated anything, and I'm really sorry. I won't go into the reasons why, because, hey, it's boring and you're here to read the next chapter of this story, not me moaning on about how hectic everything is on the home front. I owe the biggest thank-you in the universe to the wonderful scifiromance, who has not only been great to talk to, but who has taken on one of my stories 'The Borg With Butterfly Wings' so that I have more time to focus on this one, and then also taking time out to beta my chapters and convince me that they're not complete rubbish. Also, thank you to all those who are reading this after so long; I haven't exactly done the best job of keeping in contact and reviewing like I've been wanting to, but I'll catch up eventually. Happy reading :D
Twirling the end of his cigarette in between his pinched, chapped lips, Chakotay allowed himself one last drag from his only vice. After over a century's worth of campaigning by evangelical doctors and scientists, cigarettes had been outlawed in the early 2100s, but he hadn't seen the harm in poisoning himself the first time, after some despicably smug Ferengi had pressed a pack into his hands in some gnarly back street bar, and he still didn't. A heavy, pungent cloud of nicotine, tar, and other chemicals filled his leaden lungs, and he found himself transfixed by the ghostly glow of the naked night sky. Several thoughts crossed his mind as he kept himself locked inside his room. The air was crisp, clear with the exception of the fluttering wisps of his exhaled smoke, but he knew that there was an added dimness to it all: a condensed mixture of depression, confusion, and grief. First, there was this whole business of getting over the death of his beloved wife, Seven of Nine. She'd met her untimely demise over twenty years ago, but the pain was still as raw for him as it had been when he had kissed her fragile, lifeless lips for the last time in the far corner of Voyager's Sickbay. The mechanical whirrs and clicks of the biobeds and overheads mixed with the gentle sobbing of B'Elanna, who was just as grief stricken as himself for her own spouse; it was a sound he'd never allowed himself to forget.
For a brief while after her death he'd contemplated moving on, but the thing about moving on was that it was all too cliché, too melodramatic. It all could have been different if he had been alone, because he knew himself, and could easily have become apathetic. But every second, benevolent glances from crew members reminded him that mourning forbade his happiness. Even the earliest steps he took towards moving on after Seven's death: eating in the Mess Hall for the first time, the first shift back on the Bridge, had been interrupted by the obligatory reassurances of undying friendship and support. He'd sought comfort from a select few, and allowed himself to accept their help; but condolences from anybody else, he felt, were the result of 'protocol'.
And there had been his daughter. Their daughter: Nevaeh. The sweet baby, with her honey-blonde hair and sky-blue eyes that would soon melt into a gaudy hazel; she would never know her mother. She should have been his salvation, his reason for living as normal a life as possible, and in an ideal existence she would have been; of course, in an ideal existence Seven wouldn't have died, and there would be no need for comfort. He'd read in countless books over the years that after the death of a spouse, a child often provides the most solid form of comfort, a living homage to the fact that a person can live on forever; but he'd discovered, much to his personal discredit, that being with his daughter, the girl who looked so much like her mother, left him emotionally drained and desperate for a way out. He loved her; there was no doubt about that in anybody's mind, but being the sole parent of a child who came very close to dying at least twice a year whittled away quite substantially at him.
'Acute Nanopathogenal Disorder' had been The Doctor's diagnosis of Neveah's symptoms. He'd had to give the condition a name himself, effectively securing himself a mention in numerous future medical manuals; but for the first time since he'd been given his personality, promises of fame and recognition meant little: she was dead. The woman he'd helped to grow, the most perfect specimen of individuality he had ever felt anything for, was dead; it had affected him more than should be appropriate for a purely doctor-patient relationship, but they'd known each other, they'd been friends. He'd worked very closely with Seven both before and during her pregnancy, and had been constantly checking her blood levels, nanoprobe activity, and the baby itself. Despite the unfamiliar territory he'd been placed into he'd tried his best, and the parents-to-be had both been completely happy to entrust their baby daughter's life to his capable hands. It had shocked and saddened both him and Chakotay when they had found out that the months of intensive treatment and enforced bed-rest had been fruitless, and that Nevaeh would need to take daily medication in order to stop the nanoprobes in her bloodstream from killing her tiny body. It was of some small solace to Chakotay, in the years that had followed his wife's death that they had never told her of Nevaeh's illness; she surely would have blamed herself.
But saving Seven the pain of knowing she had passed on her hazardous bio-makeup to their daughter had not been much comfort to him during the twenty-something times he'd had to sit on the small, uncomfortable bedside chair beside Nevaeh's hospital bed; because if she'd known, at least he would have had someone with whom to share the burden. He mentally cursed himself for that thought every time it came to him, because B'Elanna had always been there, as had Tom, Icheb, and a few others, but there had been times that they couldn't be there, and those were always the worst times. He knew that that was also a selfish thought; everybody else did have their own lives to go back to, and he had oftentimes been overcome with relief at their support. It had gotten tiring after a while, constantly having to be either in a state of insurmountable grief or delirious with relief and gratitude, and the steady, well-placed mask of widowed husband and loving, coping father began to chafe away at him. He'd worn this martyred façade like a comfortable old coat, and slipped in and out of it as the seasons turned until he just couldn't do it anymore.
Admiral Janeway sat at her desk, hands clasped anxiously above a stack of Starfleet PADDs. She'd just had a meeting with the Director, and she was certain that the other higher-ups were suspicious; She'd managed to blow off the long hours and endless documents to her colleagues as a 'research project', but the missing samples of Macenitoa, as well as the vials of Chronexaline and other trial inoculations, had been the thing that had cemented their curiosity. After wringing her hands in thought, she pressed the intercom; "Cleo, please report to my office," she ordered, her voice betraying none of her inner turmoil.
"I'll be right there," came the reply, startling Janeway from her silence. Was she really about to do this? It was one thing to have thought up this plan, but quite another to pass it on to a child. They're not children anymore, her inner voice reminded her; though the thought comforted her none, she'd watched them grow... they may not have been her children, but they were Voyager's babies, and in as much her own as she could ever hope to have. Her hopes of reconciliation with the fiancé she'd left behind after Voyager's launch, Mark, had been dashed with the sudden knowledge that he had, in fact, moved on and had a family with his new wife Georgie. She had always considered Mark to be her 'One', and the mere thought of spending the rest of her life with anybody else, now that the opportunity was there, was a thought she found to be more confining than spending the rest of her life in the empty vacuum of an anti-gravity chamber. "Admiral, is it okay to come in?" Cleo's voice asked, polite as ever.
"Of course," Janeway granted, pressing the release door button and laughing inwardly at the hyped-up security. Cleo walked in, striding into the office as confidently as her mother had done in her Engineering lab, and the similarities did not end there. In recent weeks, Cleo had instructed her hair stylist to cut her long, wavy hair into a short layered bob. How time flies... Janeway thought, noting that the only differences, appearance-wise, between the woman that stood before her expectantly, and her mother, were the slightly less pronounced forehead, and the gentle streaks of blonde through her hair. "Ensign, thank you for coming so quickly."
"Not a problem," Cleo replied, grinning suddenly, the toothy smile bringing about Janeway's own.
"Hey, you've got another six hour shift ahead of you before you can clock off, why are you so happy?" Janeway asked, her teasing tone becoming increasingly natural.
"Just am. What's up?"
"Cleo," Janeway said, the humour in her eyes fading away. Do it, she told herself, wishing that the words she was about to say didn't bring her so much pain. "I have considered it an honour to watch you, your sisters, Naomi, and Nevaeh grow into the people you are today. I couldn't have asked for a better legacy for Voyager, really, I couldn't."
"Admiral?"
"Do you ever think how things could have been if we'd managed to get home sooner?"
"I-" Cleo stammered, unsure of how to react to the Admiral's pensive questioning. Just ten minutes ago she'd been laughing along with Naomi during one of their weekly catch-ups and now she didn't know how to act. "Not really," she admitted, "I can't see how much different our lives would be."
"So you never think of how things would be if we hadn't lost all those people? If you'd had a normal childhood?"
"I don't know what you want me to say, Admiral. I know the journey was hard for the crew, and that we lost many people, but Voyager was my early childhood, I wouldn't change it for the world. Where are you going with this?"
"Look, Cleo." Janeway sighed, realising that she could hedge around the subject no longer. "I've no doubt you've heard the rumours concerning me and the disappearance of the vials of Chronexaline."
"Oh," Cleo murmured, blushing as though she'd been caught out in a secret, "I've heard some things."
"Some pretty damning things, no doubt?"
"Some of the rumours are pretty crazy."
"Care to relay any of them to me?"
"No." Cleo bristled, tired of the verbal rally that was cutting into her lunch break for no apparent reason. "I'm not a snitch," she added, folding her arms defensively.
"You're your mother's daughter," Janeway laughed. Seeing Cleo's exasperated expression, she clasped her hands. "Cleo, sit down."
"Why?"
"Because I asked you to."
"It's not an order?"
"You can continue to stand up if you so wish, but we are about to have a very important conversation that could change the lives of many, many people. I think it would be for the best if you trust me on this one."
"Okay." Cleo replied, a hint of caution creeping into her voice. She sat down in the black leather chair on the opposite side of the desk to Janeway, trying to read the expression on the former Captain's face.
"Cleo, what I am about to tell you is to stay between the two of us until you have come to a decision about whether you'll accept this mission or not. Is that understood?"
Mission... Cleo thought, but I've only been here for half a year! "Yes, o- of course."
"For the past ten years I have been working on a solution to the Voyager problem. We lost too many people on that journey, Cleo, for me to let them go as 'necessary casualties'. I was naive, really, to think that I could bring us all back unharmed. I thought I was being a good Captain, adhering to Starfleet protocols like a new Bible, keeping up the morale of my people, but thanks to a wonderful little thing called hindsight, I can see that I made many mistakes. Mistakes that I'd like to fix."
"Fix?"
"Let's not hedge around this any longer." Janeway said, taking a deep breath. Cleo listened intently as the Admiral outlined the plan to her, everything from why the stolen inoculations were so important to the deal she had made with Korath for his new invention, the Chrono-Deflector. She was fascinated at how even the most minute of details had been decided, and was even more surprised to find out that her elder sister, Miral, was a willing accomplice in the scheme. "... so do you understand, now, why everything has been so 'up in the air'?"
"I guess so," Cleo sighed, in incredulous refrain, "I just...how long have you been planning this?"
"Eight years." Janeway replied. "It was at the reunion, actually, that I started to wonder what things could have been like. Imagine, Cleo, how different things could be."
"Well, depending on how far back you intend to go, there's a very good chance I won't exist, and we both know that would be a major disservice to humanity." Cleo said, her jovial sarcasm reminding Janeway of Tom, who had clearly made up for his lack of dominance in his daughters' looks by way of their personalities. "In all seriousness, I can't fault the plan; it's perfect in its design."
"But..."
"You want me to carry it out?" Cleo questioned, surprising Janeway, although she should have remembered that Cleo, as a result of both heritage and personality, had a very strong intuition.
"Yes." Was her answer. "Despite the precautions I've been taking, Starfleet have been getting increasingly suspicious. The gossip that's been going around the offices hasn't helped any, though I can't blame everybody; it's been so quietly mundane here recently. It seems that this place needs a crisis to function. Cleo, I know that this is a big decision to have to make, so I can give you some time. I need an answer in two weeks."
"I want to talk to Miral about it, see exactly what's going to be happening, Lieutenant Barclay too." Cleo said, beginning her bargaining; her father had always taught her to get the best out of any offer made, and to keep pushing until her demands were met, or it went wrong. This particular set of morals had led the way for a lot of arguments during her teenage years with her teachers and peers, but had been good practise for working at Starfleet Headquarters.
"Of course, I can set up a meeting with your sister tomorrow, and Reg is free this Saturday."
"There is one other thing..."
AN2: Okay, so maybe you're confused, I don't blame you for being so, but all will be explained in future chapters. This may be updated soon, it may not. All I know is that it won't take another eight months. Please review, it'd be great to hear what you all think. :)