The BLTS Archive - Who You Love
by aaabbey (aaabbey@gmail.com)

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Archive: Just ask.

Disclaimer: I don't own either of these two.

AN: I've got to acknowledge Kelly's brilliant
Janeway/Nechayev "Exchange" here. If I hadn't read that, I
probably wouldn't be attempting the pairing, and would have
missed out on the fun of writing this thing. Thanks to Kaite
for giving her thoughts on Janeway and snarking with me,
Jessie and Anna for reading early drafts, and especially to
Djinn for the beta.

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Kathryn Janeway came back to the Alpha Quadrant mean. Or
that was what everyone said. The twenty-three years she'd
spent lost in space with Voyager made her crazy, the story
went. She had become a tyrant, a raging egoist. But I wanted
to see that for myself. I've been called those things. I've
been called worse.

So, by the time I got to see Janeway myself, I was pretty
curious. She had come back to Headquarters, and it wasn't
long before I saw her in the hallway. "Admiral Nechayev,"
she greeted me, with a perfunctory nod, as she passed by.

She didn't seem particularly crazy. And that intrigued me.
I'd just finished reading her logs. I wasn't sure how she
could manage to stare me down evenly, just as she had thirty
years ago.

Maybe that's what rank does. It stays and holds us in our
place when everything else goes out the airlock.

I sat on the board that promoted Janeway to rear admiral.
There was debate, among the others, about the legality of
some of her decisions, about the way she'd fought some alien
races, especially in the last five years of her journey. But
they couldn't dispute that she was brilliant. That she was
one of the best captains in history. That she was the best
captain we had. And that we needed her knowledge on the
Borg, on other threats. And so she was promoted.

I spent the next couple of months quietly negotiating with
the Cardassian government for their human intelligence
assets. I've always liked that about being head of
intelligence -- leaving on a stealth shuttle with one or two
assistants, disappearing for weeks at a time, no hard times
to be back by, nobody to question what I'm doing.

The next time I saw Janeway was at a formal dinner back on
Earth. Celebrating the Federation, or something. I wasn't
really aware of whatever the propaganda side of the house
was putting out. I just threw on a dress uniform and went.

There are some rules about how officers, particularly women
officers, dress for Starfleet functions, whether they are
required to wear a uniform or not. Some of these rules are
written, some not. You should look pretty. It should be
obvious that you care about your appearance. To most, it
then follows that you care about other things, and can be
counted on. You should dress modestly. Don't look
threatening. Don't show yourself off. You're too mature for
that. Too trustworthy.

Janeway didn't wear a uniform. She wore a v-cut black dress
that showed every bone in her back and shoulders. Her long,
gray hair was pinned up tightly. She looked severe. She was
fierce, and she didn't care if that was completely obvious
to everyone in the room.

"Admiral Nechayev," she said, when she saw me, "would you be
so generous as to fill me in on how politics have changed
during my absence?" Staring me down again. Taunting me with
the popular perception that I was a talker, that I did
nothing but make deals and break them. That I had no
tactical experience.

"Internal or external?"

"Both." She smiled, a little.

"In that case, we'll have to continue our conversation
outside."

We ducked out of the ballroom and stood under a giant
replica of the galaxy that had been emplaced during Kirk's
time.

I looked her up and down, slowly. I tried to gauge her
mindset.

"I was never afraid of you," she said, voice quiet, eyes
fixed on me.

"I know. I never expected less from Edward's daughter. He
never gave me any of the respect I was due." I took a
breath, remembering. "He was a real son of a bitch."

"So I finally gathered. You lumping me in the same
category?" she asked, cocking her head.

"You bend rules and twist arms for the betterment of those
under you. You'd never catch Edward giving a fuck about the
livelihoods of his subordinates."

She laughed, almost. "I like a few of the organizational
changes I've seen here. I didn't know you did anything but
follow the Fleet Admiral's agenda to the letter, but I've
heard otherwise. It's good to know."

"If I can be made to care enough, I'll do what I can. Are
you asking for something?"

"I might, in time. Right now I'd just like to leave this
party."

And so I took her home. We walked a kilometer and a half
talking about space bases and assignments and who had left
and who had stayed. It was chilly, and she shivered
occasionally. I lent her the regulation cape that went with
my dress uniform. It swished against the top of her ankles
as we walked, her words coming quickly, in an unbroken
stream. She seemed grateful for the chance to talk. At home,
I fed her curried fish with couscous. She was hungry. By the
time we had finished eating, calling her Kathryn was easy,
and touching her was even easier.

I kissed Kathryn as we sat together on my couch. We were
unwilling to turn on the news or have another productive
conversation. It was quiet. The only sounds were the rustle
of our clothes and the tumble of our breaths. She wasn't in
any hurry. I wasn't either. I liked that.

Kathryn spent the night for the next week. Some nights I'd
pretend to sleep and watch her sitting up, staring out at
nothing. Just staring. Sometimes she'd sob when I touched
her. She wouldn't tear; her breath would just rise up until
she couldn't control it. I liked that she leaned on me. She
liked that I didn't press her for answers to questions I
hadn't asked.

"I used to worry so much when I was an ensign," she said one
morning as we passed a nervous young buck carrying so many
boxes he couldn't salute us. "I used to worry about my
future. I used to worry about seeing action. I used to worry
that I'd worry so much that I couldn't operate in a battle.
I wish someone had told me that during battle, everything
but the necessary task falls away. That another, stronger
person inside you takes over. Someone surer and better. And
that in time, you become that person."

"I think you have to grow up for yourself. You can't make
someone understand that."

"God knows I've tried," she said, laughing. She began to
talk about her crew then. She talked for a good hour as we
scared more junior officers by wandering the grounds.

Over the nearly ten years we were together, there were times
when Kathryn needed to talk. She talked about all the people
whose deaths she felt responsible for. Who they had been to
her, to the others around her. The smallest thing would set
her off: an accidental shuttle explosion, the anniversary of
a treaty, the news of somebody's promotion. Hell, I'd done
the same thing after I returned home from captaining a
warship against Cardassia. I just hadn't had a word for it
at the time.

That afternoon in the garden, I wanted to say that part of
becoming that surer, better person under pressure meant that
you lost who you'd been before. But she already knew that.

I had to leave for a conference after that first week. When
I returned, Kathryn met me for coffee at a spot run by a
low-key Bolian couple.

"Alynna, I enjoy being with you," she said. "I'd like to
stay with you. Unless, of course, you think that would cause
too much ire over at Headquarters."

I told her a story. About how I loved a crewman when I was a
lieutenant commander. She was smart as a whip, saw right
through me. We carried on for the duration of a six month
mission, without anyone noticing.

"How the hell did you make admiral?" she asked, her voice
leaking outrage over this blatant case of fraternization.

I explained that intelligence isn't the finding of one
highly-guarded silver bullet, one magical piece of
information that causes everything to make sense. It's the
piecing together of lots of little bits of information into
a coherent, complete picture.

This is something that most people don't realize. That they
aren't good at. And besides, I said, if anyone at
Headquarters figured out our relationship and decided to
make a fuss over it, there were plenty of things I'd pieced
together about them.

Kathryn became the resident Borg expert. Over the next year,
she wrote a few training manuals and case studies. She
lectured and sat on panels. She liked being busy.

"Tell me what you know about time travel," she said one
evening as she sat on what had become our bed, taking off
her boots and stretching.

"Possible and mostly illegal, you know."

"I mean advancements. Time travel for spacecraft, not just
an individual moving from one point to back in the past. And
that individual's internal organs not being irrevocably and
fatally confused about their age."

"Those are all on the drawing board. It takes time. You got
any plans?"

"You know I do, or you're not as smart as I gave you credit
for."

"Wait," I said. "Kathryn, five years from now you'll be able
to go as far back in the past as you want. Not that I'd
recommend it. It would change everything -- you don't know
how much of it could be for the worse. And I like having you
here."

Kathryn rolled her eyes and took down her hair. "I'll let
you know before I try it."

She did that, at least. She was smart enough to know that if
she dug through my files, I would know. And that I wouldn't
be happy. It was easier to ask me than to try and piece
something together herself.

When Janeway was presumed lost, public affairs talked about
what a loss it was -- a smart young captain, cut down just
before she could have the kind of missions she'd always
worked for. She was their poster girl: a good captain --
honest and direct, kind and firm. A humane arbiter with
other races. Tougher than most of the men she worked with,
and still graceful and charming at any public function.

But I'll be honest. Some people were relieved when she was
lost. They were scared by how relentlessly good she seemed
to be. I had never seen a captain marry personal ambition
with gruelingly hard work for the mission and those under
her and still not come across as an opportunist. She was
smart. She was unusually honest. And she had no qualms about
being in it for the long haul. And why should she have
pretended to want something less? Her daddy was an admiral,
and she meant to earn those stripes, too. I admired that
about her. That she wasn't shy about what she wanted. I was
never the shy type.

If the ruling class at Headquarters was relieved when
Janeway was lost, it was even more relieved when Janeway
came back bloodied. When it was known that she had killed,
and tortured, made deals with the Borg, compromised her
ideals, and fought dirty. That she'd been depressed and
irrational, that she'd been alone, that she'd suffered. That
she was human. Never mind that she was still more noble than
most of them had ever been.

Sometimes Kathryn went on my trips. Sometimes I went on
hers. I loved waiting. Staying awake in a hotel room on an
alien planet. Waiting for her to break in. I would give her
hints about the access codes. A digit here and there. She
was the mathematician -- she could figure out the rest. And
she always did, though I never asked her exactly how. She'd
slip in, and I'd pretend I was asleep, and she'd pretend she
believed me, and she would come to me, and we'd move
together for the rest of the early morning. I enjoyed the
secrecy, the charade. How we could pretend to make a romance
of it all.

I wanted to know all of her. Wanted to have all of her. It
sounds oppressive and calculating, but I mean that I wanted
to know all her stories. These were among the things I loved
the most. The memories that stay with me are times of when
she told me about Voyager. In those moments, when she loved
me enough to share with me, I could almost imagine a future
for us. I could imagine that we were made for this peculiar
love.

And I was jealous. I was jealous that I hadn't been there
with her. That I hadn't been part of the great, horrific
adventure that defined her. That even though she loved me, I
would always be some kind of an outsider. That the love she
had for the lowliest crewman on Voyager was stronger than
anything she felt for me.

I knew that love would take her from me.

I would tell myself that this was in her blood, that it
wasn't me. Sometimes that helped.

My parents weren't upset when I joined Starfleet. They were
upset when I made a career of it. It wasn't a twenty, thirty
year job for most people when they were growing up, like
it's become. You traveled. You saw the galaxy. And you came
back, and you helped your planet grow and manage itself.
"Don't you want to be more than someone who fights for a
living?" they asked. "Don't you want to give something to
your home?"

I was trained as a fighter and a scientist. I was trained to
operate ships that kill and defend, and I was trained to
recognize amazing natural phenomena. The intent of my Prime
Directive is to limit my contact with the governments of
alien species, and yet I have made and broken countless
alliances and regularly toy with the governments of other
planets for my own planet's benefit.

Why professional mercenaries like me running the world?
Because everyone else on Earth, whether they'd had a stint
in Starfleet or not, came out of one too many wars too tired
to rebuild a Terran government strong enough to make any
decisions about how they'd relate to any other planet. So,
on every frontier, Starfleet was left to decide what best
served the Federation. What constituted a threat, what
didn't. When to attack, when not. Starfleet tried to train
my generation in this. By the time Kathryn's year group came
along, it was much better at pretending that being fighter,
leader, scientist, cultural interpreter, politician, and
diplomat all in one wasn't completely bewildering.

There are abuses, but then, there are abuses in any system.
Some of my colleagues cavort with demigods. Some of them
seem to think they are demigods. But I didn't ask for this
power. When faced with a strange people, a strange ship,
that may or may not seek your destruction, it's much easier
when someone else tells you to arm the torpedo.

"Tell me why you need to go. What was wrong in the choice
you made?" I asked Kathryn as she pressed for more
information about time travel. She had been back from the
Delta Quadrant for six years. She was open about her desire
to go back to that time, seven years in the journey, when
she had the chance to cripple the Borg or go home.

"It was wrong that many members of my crew died. That I
broke many promises to get people home. That I let those
around me suffer. That I failed."

I tried to imagine those years. I tried to imagine what
could make Kathryn Janeway choose the lives of some of her
crew over those of millions of people. I found I could not.

Sometimes she told me. There were ugly killings by alien
races indigenous to certain segments of the Delta Quadrant.
The way she described them, they seemed more like monsters
than anything else. There was Seven of Nine's death, caused
by a misunderstanding with aliens on an away mission, and
only more painful for being so pointless. There was watching
Tuvok go crazy, and fighting the Borg Queen, who had come
back for Kathryn with a vengeance after the destruction of
the hub.

I was good at listening, and I could talk to her about it
better than most people. Maybe I hoped that if she talked,
she would see that she hadn't failed. That she had done
everything possible, that she had done right, and that she
had succeeded in coming home with those she did. And that
every human failed, in the end.

But I could not convince her. I thought about making her
stay. I could have made her stay -- or at least made it
harder for her to leave. I wondered if pulling some strings
to get her command of an experimental ship would have
tempted her. But I knew she was determined to go back. And
that no matter what I did, she would find a way. It was
easier not to fight each other.

I told her when the time travel drug was released within
certain classified channels for experimentation. I told her
my operatives had learned that the time travel device had
been sold to the Klingons. She would have learned through
other means, in time.

When she knew both these things, she prepared to leave.

The last time we made love, I held her under me and
memorized her face. "What should I do, now that you're
leaving?"

"Fight," she said. "Fight the way you always have, Alynna."

"Fight for what?"

"For the ability to do right, to be just, to gain some
sanity in this galaxy. If that makes any sense, coming from
me." She smiled, laughed wildly. Doing right. Being just.
Saving the universe, one briefing at a time. All that.

She ran her arms down my side. Her mouth was open; she was
trying to say something -- something that would make it
right. In the end, she just kissed me hard.

I don't believe in fate or any of that bullshit. I don't
believe there's any one way the universe turns out. I can
accept the idea that there are multiple universes, multiple
strands where time and accident get mixed in different ways.

I wonder what Kathryn did when she went back. I know she
succeeded in bringing Voyager home; she was willing to go
beyond death to ensure that the plan was carried out. I
wonder about that universe. I wonder what young Janeway saw
in Kathryn's face. Did she see only her hurt and failings?
Could she read the lines of her future's face, some of which
I'd put there? Some with my jokes, some with my arguments.

I wonder if this Janeway, given another chance, changed her
life radically. Did she get out? Did she tell one of those
people she would have lost that she loved them, that she
wanted to be with them for good?

Did she rise to become a well-respected admiral, unfallen,
still an unstoppable force?

Did this Janeway stare me down after her return, make a few
cracks at the bureaucracy, and have me undressed and
screaming by the end of the night?

The risks you take are determined by who you love, and what
you will do for them. I have known the kind of love that
bound Kathryn. I have never tried to break it, even though I
sometimes wished I could. And though it no longer has a hold
on the choices I make, it is still with me. As Kathryn and
the love we had is still with me. And though I watched her
shuttle rise and soar out of the atmosphere beyond my sight,
I know exactly where she went.

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The End