The BLTS Archive - Familiar Paths
by Ananke (aeteananke@gmail.com)

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Published: 02-28-01 - Updated: 02-28-0

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The silence was deafening, the diplomatic uproar of the previous few
weeks gone, the ambassadors long home, the ship docked, her crew
gradually siphoning off into new lives...or the remains of the old.

Kathryn Janeway stood alone.

Staring up at the sweeping curves and angles of Starfleet Command, she
reached up, hand curling absently around her collar, tugging at the
notable absence of pips. She hadn't found the desire to pin them on
since...that first night home. Alone. And so many more would be.
Straightening, she let the fingers fall away, turning to leave.

"You left them on the bathroom sink like always. Luckily, a plugged
drain." The hand reaching out to her, offering the four shining pips,
was familiar...too familiar, and seven years of battened down emotion
burst free. "Mark! I thought..." She cleared her head. "What were you
doing at my place?"

The older, greyer, but no less distinguished man smiled, offering his
arm and nodding towards a walkway. She accepted, staring at him
curiously, noting the conspicous lack of a wedding band on his finger.
"Your Chakotay let me in. He said to tell you...goodbye and good
luck."

She inhaled, recalling the gentle hints her former first officer had
been dropping about 'disappearing'. So he had indeed been serious. She
felt a twinge of sorrow, and irritation. Another walkaway voyager.
Swallowing her sigh, she stared up at her former fiance. "And..." She
waved towards his bare "Your wife?"

A knowing smile. "Moved on to greener pastures, no doubt with gold
walkways. The official excuse is a rather unconquerable distaste for
dogs. And I'm afraid we have a few of those. You're a grandmother,
Kathryn."

She chuckled. "I've missed the old friend..."

"And the old friend's keeper?"

"For the first years, terribly. You gave up on me, Mark."

"You don't expect me to apologize for it, do you?"

A smile. "No, I don't. Perhaps that's why I adore you. I had no right
to indulge in jealousy...we were as good as dead to all we knew, and
only the captain was too arrogant and stubborn to acknowledge it. You
refuse to bow to the illogic that is Kathryn Janeway."

He paused, hooking her shoulders and meeting her eyes. "You cared for
him."

"Out there...you learned to care for many things, and brush them away
just as quickly." Her gaze was distant, lost in a past he dared not
even try to imagine. "He cared too, I believe, as much as he
recognized it was wise to. And he broke away, just as wisely. I miss
the Chakotay, and voyagers, of the Delta Quadrant, Mark, but even I am
not fool enough to miss the Chakotay and voyagers of this quadrant.
We've returned. And changed. I simply want to regain my life as it was
before that mission."

"Could that include a lazy former fiance and lousy dog tender?"

She eyed him. "Are you offering coffee with that proposition?"

He laughed and, hooking arms again, they continued the path in
silence.

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The End