Chapter Text
Admiral Kathryn Janeway was bored – one more holo- and hollow- meeting and she would erupt. Sometimes she even regretted the fraught times on Voyager…Oh, who was she kidding? She did regret Voyager and it was why she had isolated herself from her former crew. She just couldn’t bear to see them again. She did check on the younger ones from afar, but otherwise… Sometimes – often – she wondered what had made her other self sacrifice herself to make them come back. Tuvok’s illness? Seven’s death? Chakotay’s despair? Her own? Maybe it was why she was keeping away from the others now. If she was alone, she wouldn’t have anyone to miss.
Everyone had gone on with their lives and she had been stuck at Starfleet Headquarters, in a nice, bland little office. They’d said it was a promotion – it felt more like a punishment. Actually, it may well have been Starfleet’s intent – she had, after all, broken the Prime Directive a few times. She got up from her nice padded desk chair and went to look at the nice view from the window – it was all much, much too nice. Too tidy. Maybe time for another cup of coffee. She would need at least two before the next meeting. A dull ache at the back of her head made her rub her nape. It didn’t help. And suddenly she felt herself fall, grabbed the edge of the desk and everything went black.
****
“Come on, Admiral – this is a little too déjà vu for my taste!”
Janeway opened her eyes a crack, blinked, and closed them again. Too much light. She knew the voice, though, but it had been so long… Was it really? It couldn’t possibly… She drifted back to oblivion. When she opened them again, sometime later, she heard the same voice in the background, she remembered – the last time she had heard it, it was calling her “Kathryn” and murmuring sweet nothings in her ears. But that had been before… Before she had stranded her ship in the Delta Quadrant, transforming a three-week mission into a seven-year odyssey. And before she had started to encase her heart in a sheath of Kevlar. For seven years, she had remained alone – admired, respected, sometimes feared, but never loved. She had been the captain – she hadn’t been allowed love. Mickael Sullivan had been a hologram. Chakotay… A stalwart first officer, a friend – make that a former friend – who had finally married Seven. Their wedded bliss had been too hard to witness, their togetherness excluding her. She moved her fingers and tried to rise from the biobed. The voice came closer. Janeway blinked – her sight was playing up – she couldn’t see.
“Please don’t try to rise just yet, Admiral. You’re in Starfleet Medical – you had a cryptogenic stroke. I repaired most of the damage, but you still need to rest – I know it’s not your favourite thing to do, but please do as I say…”
“Or what?” quipped Janeway wanly.
“Or nothing, Admiral,” replied Beverly Crusher quietly.
Janeway gripped the doctor’s hand and said urgently: “I can’t see – I mean – I see…”
“You have a right homonymous hemoanopia, due to some damage to your left visual cortex, in your occipital lobe, Admiral – I have started to fix it, but it will take a few hours. Meanwhile, you can see only half of things, right?”
Janeway nodded – now she understood, she tried to focus on her surroundings and on the woman standing near the biobed – still in blue, still beautiful. She seemed to have added pips on her collar too – the last time she had seen Doctor Beverley Crusher, she had been a commander. That was… Twelve years previously – or about. When they had met on the Enterprise, Janeway had almost got herself killed by a volcano eruption. Now, she had done nothing to merit the iciness in the doctor’s voice – if she had had any choice in the matter, she wouldn’t have found herself lying on a biobed with a killer headache and half-blind. Or maybe it was just desserts for twelve years ago.
Had she been blind then? Could they have had a lasting relationship? Of course, not many relationships would have survived the seven-year separation, but maybe Beverley would have understood – would not have given hope… If only she, Janeway, had not decided to break things off. When they had met, they had both been recovering from a broken heart, with Beverley Crusher still mourning the death of her husband and Janeway still reeling from the shuttle crash that had killed her father and her fiancée. Maybe their common grief had drawn them together, two women with a more than ten years’ age difference, but very similar. Both driven, both scientists, and both dedicated to the Starfleet ideals of moral and preserving life, while still being bridge officers and sometimes having to take hard decisions. Whatever it was, they had found each other, and for a while, they had clung to this new-found love which had helped them heal. Being with Beverley had fulfilled a previously unknown need and had brought Janeway unadulterated pleasure.
At the time, however, they had both been very committed to their careers, both leaving on more-or-less lengthy missions, but somehow Beverley had taken it all in her stride, while Janeway had resented the separations more and more. She had even got jealous of the time Beverley devoted to Welsey too – now, after so many years, she understood why. Her lover had found time to see her child, while her own father had been too devoted to Starfleet to spend time with her. It was a twisted sense of jealous… And… She had imagined things – imagined she would never be enough for the older, self-possessed red-haired doctor – imagined that Captain Picard would steal her from her…If only they could have served on the same ship… Or maybe it would have been even more complicated – they hadn’t been the same rank for long. By the time she had embarked on Voyager, she had been fielding Beverley’s calls for almost a month – a cowardly thing to do, she knew it now. She had even pretended she was with an old childhood friend, Mark. Her fear of not being adequate, her lack of self-confidence had led her to sever the relationship without explanation. Beverley had every right to be angry at her. But if she was still angry…Was there still hope ?
“Thank you for the explanation,” she murmured, “and… I’m sorry”, and closed her eyes again.
