Chapter Text
“She said what?!” Kathryn screeched in laughter. “Seven would never!”
Chakotay shook his head with a smile, “She did! I wish I’d seen the look on his face when she told him he should try being assimilated before critiquing her methods of handling issues related to the Borg. Apparently Seven didn’t like the implication that she should be an emotionless robot when dealing with the species that stole her family and assimilated her. It probably didn’t help when he told his assistant that she was only a useful asset because of her Borg knowledge. I guess he didn’t realize part of that ‘Borg knowledge’ is a heightened hearing ability.”
“I think we have you to thank for this new and improved Seven, congratulations. Starfleet certainly doesn’t seem to know what to make of all of the strong-willed women we had running the ship. B’Elanna apparently told the head of the engineering crew stationed on the ship that she could make the needed repairs faster in the Delta Quadrant with no supplies for lightyears than they were in spacedock with all the resources in the quadrant at their fingertips. Of course, I would never cause any trouble like that,” she added with a teasing twinkle in her eye.
“Oh of course, Kathryn Janeway has never been hard-headed about anything! How many times did you insist on going on dangerous away missions after Tuvok and I said you shouldn’t?” he teased back.
“Hard-headed?” she challenged. “I prefer to think of myself as ‘strong willed’ thank you very much.”
Chakotay rolled his eyes, “You’re only strong-willed as long as you’re right. As soon as one of us has to come along and rescue you from hostile aliens or a deserted planet you become hard-headed.”
“Come on now. You only had to rescue me a few times. In fact, I’m pretty sure I spend more time saving you!” Taking a sip of wine, she eyed him innocently over the rim of the glass, “Besides I had to keep your life interesting somehow.”
He laughed, “Yes, life in the Delta Quadrant was too boring facing hostile new species every few lightyears. I definitely needed you to keep me on my toes. Speaking of hostile species, we should probably look over those reports before it gets too late.”
Kathryn sank into the couch with a sigh. The stress of the day had faded into the background after dinner but she had no desire to tackle to mountain of padds looming in front of her. “Alright, but, only if you take the reports about the Hirogen and Quarra. I’ve heard about them enough for one day already.”
Chakotay shot her a questioning look but didn’t press the subject. She had already aptly deflected any questions about her private meeting today. Whatever they had discussed, she clearly wasn’t in the mood to talk about it.
“I think can manage that, but only if you take the Vidiian reports,” he joked, handing her the padd.
Two cups of coffee and a few hours later, the pair set aside their final padds.
Kathryn yawned, “Why does it seem like we got more sleep back in the Delta Quadrant? I swear, I think I slept more during our time through Borg space than I have in the days since we came home.”
“I know what you mean,” Chakotay admitted as he stood and recycled their mugs. “Today one of the admirals asked me how I was enjoying the peace and quiet of being home and I just about told him some of species we encountered were less stress-inducing than these committees have been. For some reason, I don’t think he would have taken that very well.”
“No, I don’t think he would.” Suddenly, they found themselves at a loss of words. The silence hung heavy in the air as Kathryn stood to leave. “Speaking of peace and quiet, I should be going. We could use at least a little sleep tonight. Goodnight, Chakotay.”
Wandering down the halls back to her quarters, Kathryn found Seven staring out one of the viewports facing Earth.
Seven cast a glance of the captain’s shoulder seeing she had just left the commander’s quarters. “I do not need to regenerate and this part of the station is quiet. I wished to think so I came here.”
“Is something bothering you?” the captain asked.
“Not exactly,” she replied. “Starfleet seems to be quite set on adding me to a team organized to streamline de-assimilation of rescued Borg. However, I do not know if I wish to do so.”
Kathryn patted Seven’s arm comfortingly. “That’s understandable, Seven. I’m sure you could do great work on a team like that but you should pursue something that makes you happy. You shouldn’t be relegated to Borg-related topics just because of your past.”
Seven thanked her, her mind still turning over the options given to her, and said her goodbyes. Kathryn continued to her room and promptly collapsed into her bed, exhausted.
Harry smiled when he spotted Tom sitting down to lunch across the busy common area. Hurrying over, he slid into the seat next to the pilot, “Please tell me you have some juicy gossip or something to tell me today! If I have to think about one more red alert situation, I’ll be the cause of a red alert.”
“Hello to you too, Harry. Yes, I’m doing fine thanks for asking. Of course, the baby is doing great.” he replied sarcastically,
“Come on, Tom!” Harry rolled his eyes, “I’m losing my mind in these debriefings. I thought life out there was bad, but sitting around answering mindless questions is much, much worse.”
Taking pity on his friend, Tom leaned in conspiratorially, “If I tell you, you have to swear this doesn’t leave this table.”
Harry nodded, eager for gossip to distract him.
“I think it’s time we restart our betting pool.” Noting his companion’s silence, he continued. “Seven of Nine just told me she saw the Captain leaving Chakotay quarters late last night.”
Harry sighed. He had hoped this would legitimate gossip, or at least interesting. Everyone in the crew knew the rumors about what was actually going on between the command team.
“Okay yeah whatever,” he huffed. “I thought you actually had good gossip.”
“Have some patience, I’m getting to it.” Tom retorted. “Look, I’m not supposed to tell you this; but the night we got to the station, the Commander so much as told me and B’Elanna that he’s in love with Janeway. I’m not saying anything is going on, I just think this might turn out to be a lucrative betting pool.”
Harry laughed, “The Captain would have us court-martialed if she found out. No thanks, Tom. Besides, I thought the Commander and Seven were… well you know what I mean. It’s not like they were particularly subtle on the Bridge when we got through the Hub.”
“I know what you mean, but apparently not. I don’t quite understand all of it but somehow the Admiral was involved. To be honest, time travel makes my head hurt so I’m trying not to think about it.”
The two men quieted when they saw Seven approaching their table. Waving her over, they quickly changed the subject.
“Hey, Seven! I was just about to ask Harry what his plans are once all this is over,” Tom said as she took a seat.
Shooting him a deadpan look, she shook her head. “Lieutenant Paris, surely you do not expect me to believe that. If you wish to continue your gossip, please do. It will be a useful lesson in my socialization skills.”
The two glanced at each other then Harry spoke up, “Oh alright. Tom is convinced something is going on between the Captain and Chakotay. Not only is that an old rumor, but he doesn’t even have anything new to back it up.”
Seven studied the men in front of her, trying to hide a smile behind a practiced stoic persona. Noticing the look, Harry pressed her.
“Seven? What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Theoretically, I should withhold this information until I have more evidence; but, given the current nature of your conversation I suppose it will not matter. Late last night, I saw the Captain leaving the Commander’s quarters.” she said, her voice dropping to almost a whisper.
Tom considered the information for a moment then shook his head. “That’s interesting, sure; but they had dinners together on Voyager too. Let’s just keep an eye out. If we notice anything different between them then we can jump to conclusions.”
Days passed and Kathryn felt like her life was on a constant loop: joint meetings, private meetings, psych analysis, dinner and work with Chakotay, repeat. It wasn’t that she particularly minded the monotony. It was nice to not worry about someone shooting at you during all hours of the day. Even so, by the end of the first week she felt on edge and desperate for some way to let off some steam.
Her stress must have been radiating off of her because the moment she walked in the room, Deanna handed her a coffee and indicated towards the door. “Let’s take a walk.”
The two women had spent the past few dash rehashing crisis situations and Kathryn’s guilt over how she should have handled things. Today, however, Deanna had decided to move on to something new.
“You’re stressed,” the counselor stated matter-of-factly. “What did you do to decompress on Voyager?”
Kathryn laughed sarcastically, “Decompress? There wasn’t much time for it. Early on there was a holonovel I ran, but I lost interest in it pretty quickly. Tom Paris wrote some… unique ones as well during out travels but most of them weren’t to my tastes. Then of course there was always parisses squares with B’Elanna or Chakotay.” She paused for a moment at smiled, “Neelix’s crazy excuses for parties or crew celebrations were my favorite. It was one of the few times I could relax a little with the whole crew.”
“And now?”
“Well there hasn’t really been time. I go between meetings all morning and afternoon, review reports and sign off on crew assessments during lunch, and then incident reports at night in prep for the meetings the next morning.” She shook her head and added ruefully, “I never thought I would get tired of the normalcy around us when we got back. These meetings are making me wish some hostile aliens would show up just to shake things up.”
Deanna nodded, “I’m not surprised. You’ve been at red alert for so long this seems so safe it can’t be real. That was fairly common during early deep space missions too. The crew has been given tomorrow off, what were you planning on doing?”
“I hadn’t thought much about it,” she admitted. “I still need to approve some final crew evaluations and I’ve hardly started on my final mission report for the records…”
“Stop.” Deanna said, abruptly cutting off her train of thought. “You need a break, Kathryn. You have tomorrow off. Do something relaxing. Play parisses squares, read a book, run a holonovel. Anything that isn’t work. That’s an order.”
Raising an eyebrow, Kathryn tried to think of an excuse but came up with nothing. Sighing, she gave in. “Alright. You might be right. I’m too tightly wound. It’s probably a good idea to take some time off and comm my family, get things organized for next week when we’re released.”
“Good. Now I’d suggest you take the next 36 hours off starting now. I’ll see you on Monday.” Deanna waved goodbye and vanished into the hustle of the crowds of the station.
Kathryn smiled to herself and started planning her day off. Maybe taking some down time wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.