The BLTS Archive - Enchanted Endgame
by The Cat's Whiskers (thecatswhiskers01@hotmail.co.uk)

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Disclaimer: Star Trek: Voyager and all characters therein are the
property of Americans who are not me. No infringement of copyright is
intended.

This is set post-Season 7 and is my 'feel good' ending to the show; I
also try and provide as many plausible reasons for this alternative
future as I can! NB – the 'main segment' of this story is sent ten
years after the crew got back from the Delta Quadrant. Spoilers –
entire series. Rating T/PG13 for odd risquι phrase.

NB –Certain chapters are longer than usual for my postings; however,
to do otherwise would interrupt the flow of the narrative too much, so
apologies.

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Chapter 1
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They ambled along the sidewalk in the cocooning silence of true
companions; San Francisco was warm without being oppressive on this
late summer night and there was no need for speed.

Kathryn paused on the sidewalk as they reached the Paris house, a fine
old building in San Francisco's historic quarter, purchased mainly for
the spacious but enclosed-courtyard back garden wherein fraught
parents could let a hyperactive quarter-Klingon daughter have free
rein. "Maybe we shouldn't tell them? Surely it would be too much like
trying to hog the limelight from Harry's news? Besides, it would
eclipse your own news as well –"

Chakotay smirked and silenced her by the simple expedient of capturing
her hand and raising it to his lips for a gentle kiss across her
knuckles. Ah, his Captain, always thinking of everyone else in their
exclusive club of 'Voyagers'; unsurprising, considering in many ways
Kathryn Janeway had never really stopped being Captain of the USS
Voyager.

What had Neelix said so long ago, to Kes? One of your most endearing
qualities. . . and it was also in this woman. He chuckled softly now,
"Have you forgotten the 'grapevine' already? They'd never forgive us
if they heard it elsewhere first, and if half of them don't already
know, I'll specifically ask Neelix for a bowlful of stewed Leola
root."

She smiled in return, her eyes bright and her face as rosy as a
child's. As he linked his arm through hers again, Chakotay marvelled
again at how his beloved hadn't seemed to age a day, ruefully aware of
the ever-broadening streaks of silver shot through his own formerly
polished-obsidian crop; one more thing for Tom Paris to tease him
about.

"Auntie Captain! Auntie Captain! Uncle Chakotay!" With delighted
squeals, Miral Paris shot out of her front doorway, her healthy trio
of Klingon lungs helping her announce to everyone within a two-block
radius that her beloved 'honorary' aunt and uncle had arrived.

"Miral, speak from the diaphragm, I don't think they got that in
Paraguay," called Tom Paris from the doorway ruefully.

"Huh?" Miral stopped and looked puzzled; daddy was just too weird
sometimes.

"Evening Captain Janeway, Commander Chakotay," came the highly amused
greetings of the family across the street as they got in their own
vehicle for an evening out, having heard Miral's exuberant greeting.
There was, however, no malice – Tom and B'Elanna were loving but firm
parents who did not allow their children to run riot.

Kathryn and Chakotay went straight through to the courtyard, where a
large table groaned under the weight of food; this annual event had
occurred sufficiently now for there to be no need for direction. As
Chakotay went to get drinks for them both, Kathryn greeted those
already present.

Since Harry Kim and his wife, Libby, lived next door, they were always
first. In the ornamental lantern light, Libby's curling chestnut hair
seemed almost polished and she positively glowed, being in the early
stages of her second pregnancy. Nobody had been surprised when she and
Harry had come together again once Voyager made it home; she had
always been Harry's real love.

A sensible and emotionally mature young woman, Libby had come to terms
with Harry's occasional lapses in the Delta Quadrant, but always joked
that she had given in to stop Tom Paris's relentless lobbying of her
on his best friend's behalf. It was true that in those initial days,
Harry Kim had moped around like a lost puppy in Libby's vicinity and
Tom had pulled out all the stops to get the pair together again –
according to him it was either that or strangle Harry if he played
'one more clarinet dirge'. The couple had purchased the house next
door since, in the words of Harry, 'somebody has to keep Paris in
check'. There was only 48 hours age difference between Tom and
B'Elanna's second child and Harry and Libby's currently only child –
Harry Eugene Paris and Thomas Sun Lao Kim were inseparable and
according to B'Elanna twice the wreakers of havoc that their fathers
had been in the entire Delta Quadrant. Having just started first
grade, they were presently trying to harass Miral in between
attempting to filch a few delicacies off the table without attracting
B'Elanna's attention.

Also present was the Doctor; only having to download yourself from
Point A to Point B as a datastream had enormous advantages if you
wanted to always be first in the queue. The Doctor had a position at
Starfleet Academy, teaching Senior Year xeno-medicine; his classes
were massively oversubscribed and as Starfleet Admiral N'Mimbi had
explained, his pithy and unsympathetic demeanour was perfect for
puncturing the egos of those high-flying cadets who were just a little
too over-confident in their abilities after years of being treated,
albeit rightly, as the 'crθme de la crθme' of Starfleet's best and
brightest.

Although the Doctor had embraced an active social life (nowadays most
people forgot he was a hologram) he never brought any of his paramours
to this party, and so was attending alone as usual. He had let slip
that Admiral Janeway had revealed he was married in the alternate
timeline, but on reflection, had decided against this – his
hologramatic status meant that he was relatively immortal and he knew
the profoundly damaging psychological effect of this fact on even the
most understanding wife would probably destroy the marriage. Discreet
liaisons were the order of the day.

As well as this, not requiring food or rest like a biological species
enabled him to lead an active life 24/7. Besides his Starfleet career
he did a lot of fashion modelling, and was even now the picture of
sartorial elegance; the fact that his body-shape never changed made
him an ideal living mannequin. He was a frequent visitor to his close
friend, Commander Reginald Barclay; the deeply shy man had been
profoundly moved and overwhelmed to discover that his tireless efforts
on the 'Pathfinder' project to locate Voyager had elevated him to the
status of 'honorary' crewmember in their eyes. The Doctor also
frequently visited his human creator, the EMH pioneer Lewis Zimmerman;
according to Counsellor Deanna Troi, another friend of Reg Barclay,
the Doctor had given the previously erratic and depressive Zimmerman a
new lease on life. After some deliberation, the Doctor had named
himself 'Barclay Zimmerman' for legal purposes, but had been known as
'the Doctor' for so long he couldn't get used to anything else.

"Seven and Tuvok are going to be late – San Francisco spaceport's
heaving," B'Elanna explained as she came out of the house, still
slender and attractive after having two children and 'riding herd on
Tom Paris' as she put it.

Kathryn smiled and noticed how B'Elanna accepted a glass of wine from
her mate as Tom came and put his arm around her waist; so she wasn't
pregnant again then, although Harry was now over four years old. Time
had not dimmed the love, or the mutual passion between her former Con
Officer and Chief Engineer. Harry Kim had once explained it to her,
after being sent to an alternate timeline where an Ensign Daniel Bird
was on Voyager instead of him and that Tom Paris had ended up a
bar-fly drunk. . . at the most fundamental level, Tom Paris needed to
be needed.

He was in his element when he had someone to look after; with his
wife, his children and his best friend next door, he had never been
happier. B'Elanna, who was still a Practical Engineering Applications
lecturer at the Academy, had voiced her worries to Kathryn – no, to
her Captain – a few years back when Tom had cheerfully abandoned his
redeemed and rejuvenated Starfleet career for a civilian position
flying Earthbound experimental spacecraft prototypes, especially as
the job was a daily commute between 'San Fran' and Perth, Australia.
But Tom had had no difficulties giving up the chance to steer a
starship all over the inhabited galaxy for nine-to-five mundane life;
'been there, done that' was his attitude.

He was still a frequent visitor to Starfleet Academy as a hugely
popular part-time instructor at the Pilots' School; like the Doctor
his lectures were booked solid weeks in advance and on the day were
always standing room only. As the only Federation pilot to ever have
flown a starship over half the completely uncharted Delta Quadrant -
in, out, on, off, through and around interstellar voids of
nothingness, dark nebulas, imploding super-novas, worm holes, black
holes, starship-eating space monsters, Borg space, fluidic space and
Demon-Class planets - it was not as if he had anything left to prove
to the young bucks who could only sit there and aspire.

A commotion at the door heralded by more delighted cries from Miral
proved to be the arrival of Neelix, sweeping the child up in his arms.
She was a queen in his world, and she knew it. After accepting this
due homage of her stature, Miral went happily back to playing, while
Neelix accepted a large glass of dry red wine from Tom Paris. The fact
that he was massively overdressed showed he come straight from his
Ambassadorial Chambers at Starfleet's Diplomatic Section.

"Still no breakthrough, Neelix?" Chakotay enquired.

"They're feisty, but I'm confident," Neelix replied with a cheer that
boded well, before tut-tutting, "Mr Kim you really need to move.
You're blocking the far more lovely view of your wife with your head."

Having heard it all before, Harry just rolled his eyes and obediently
hutched out of the way as Neelix swooped on the chuckling Libby.

"Such radiance; such glow!" Neelix clasped both her hands in his
dramatically.

Everyone chuckled, but as always during Neelix's familiar ritual,
Kathryn felt a poignant pang on behalf of her friend. Back when Neelix
and Kes had pleaded to join the Voyager, she'd not thought much beyond
relief at having a couple of for-once friendly native faces around.
Over the years everyone had become so accustomed to Neelix that it had
never occurred that when they made it back to the Alpha Quadrant,
Neelix would be the one stranded permanently 70,000 light years from
home.

Despite her own personal feelings of loss, she'd been happy that
Neelix had found a new life with Dexa and her son, Brax, in the Delta
Quadrant – and he had for many years, finally putting behind him the
loss of his immediate family in the Metrion Cascade so long before.
But twenty cycles later, Dexa had passed away in her sleep a cycle –
about 14 months in human time - after Brax's marriage had produced her
first grandchild. With his stepson grown and settled, Neelix's
restlessness returned and he had moved on, eventually finding a
relatively stable wormhole he thought would take him to the Alpha
Quadrant.

It had in fact led to the Gamma Quadrant, and like the ancient
microscopic one they discovered in the Delta Quadrant so many decades
before, it was a wormhole through time as well as space. Neelix had
inadvertently sent himself to the Gamma Quadrant over 15 Earth years
in the past – at same time that Admiral Janeway was implementing her
audacious plan to rewrite Voyager's history which, if it worked, would
bring them home 16 years early and save 22 lives. Oblivious to this,
Neelix had encountered the Dominion, and one of the Founders was a
former Deep Space 9 Security Officer named 'Odo', who had filled
Neelix in on the recent end of the Federation-Dominion War, and helped
him to reach the Alpha Quadrant. Granted passage through the stable
wormhole, Neelix had arrived at Deep Space 9 (although he didn't know
it then) just two days before Admiral Janeway indeed pulled off her
plan and Voyager made it home.

Permitted to send a message by Captain Kira when the news of the
ship's dramatic arrival via Borg transwarp corridor spread, Neelix had
been overwhelmed when Admiral Picard aboard the USS Enterprise had
collected him from Deep Space 9 and took him to Earth at maximum warp
in time to witness the USS Voyager's triumphal return and he had been
greeted ecstatically by the crew, who jocularly declared they were now
safe from the culinary dangers of Ensign Chell.

But at first Neelix had been lost too, adrift in that depressive lull
they'd all experienced after the initial euphoria, without direction
and feeling useless. But then he'd managed to very publicly defuse a
standoff between a Klingon Bird-of-Prey and a Romulan Warbird by the
simple expedient of declaring himself the only representative of his
species in the Alpha Quadrant and that if they were representative of
the Alpha Quadrant's higher life-forms, he was going to go all 70,000
light years back home again.

Far more species than humanity found Ambassador Neelix a godsend. As
the only one of his kind around, and native to the Delta Quadrant, he
was the perfect completely impartial negotiator. He had no agenda, no
'side' or vested interest in any one party; Latinum as a currency was
unknown to him, making him essentially impossible to bribe.

He was in constant demand for treaties, business negotiations and
peace talks, etc., and made all the more popular by his refusal to be
intimidated or browbeaten. Once during high-level treaty negotiations,
when a Klingon youth made a derogatory remark about B'Elanna being a
half-breed he had shot him in the leg with a phaser on the spot and as
the youth crumpled in agony Neelix had thrown the Klingons out of the
treaty talks for their 'outrageous slur' against the incomparable
B'Elanna Torres, slayer of the Borg, scourge of the Hirogen and
reigning Chez Sandrine pool champion of the USS Voyager. Having never
mentioned any of this to her parents or her Clan, B'Elanna found
herself regarded with much greater interest by the Klingons.

"When is it due?" Neelix asked, beaming at Libby's abdomen as if he
thought the baby could see him.

"Not for seven months, and it's a she." Libby's cheeks blushed
prettily at his outrageous flattery.

Kathryn raised her glass and took a sip to hide her wry smile; Neelix
was charming and effervescent and believed he had almost a divine
mission to make everyone feel good about themselves, but he was
essentially alone. There were no female Talaxians within 70,000 light
years of Earth and, despite his successful marriage to Dexa and for
all his flirting, she had long ago realised that as far as Neelix was
concerned, Kes had been his 'one and only', in the same manner that
Tom Paris's obsession with B'Elanna Torres still burned as bright
today as it had getting on for – good lord, seventeen years or more! –
since he had first clapped eyes on the obstreperous half-Klingon
Maquis. Incredible to realise that Miral Paris was a decade old.

Still, at least Neelix's people knew he was safe. She had stood in her
Starfleet office and set her datapad to call out "Q!" imperiously
non-stop for a whole hour before the exasperated being had appeared.
He had spluttered when she demanded he inform the Talaxian government
of Neelix's safety and happiness in the Alpha Quadrant, but she had
browbeaten him down. Her message had been delivered, though he had
stopped off on the way back to the Enterprise and spent a solid two
hours bending the ear of Admiral Picard that this was what you got
when you let a woman take the command chair. She still had the message
sent by Admiral Picard, Captain Will Riker and Counsellor Troi that
they hadn't laughed so much in ages.

A polite rat-a-tat-tat came at the door; nobody moved but they
chorused in unison, "Come in, Icheb!" A couple of seconds later, two
young people appeared in the doorway, smiling, Icheb and Naomi
Wildman.

"Ensign on deck!" declared Harry loudly, suddenly standing up.

Everyone rose in auto-reflex before his words registered and they all
looked again at the ruddy-faced Icheb and giggling Naomi. Indeed, the
Crewman tabs on his uniform tunic collar had been replaced by an
Ensign insignia.

Tom Paris made a lazy swipe at laughing Harry's head, which he easily
avoided, as Kathryn stepped forward, "Icheb, congratulations. When
were you promoted?"

"Admiral Picard did it yesterday morning, Captain." Though still
furiously blushing, Icheb answered with his usual composure. "He and
his senior staff send their regards from Enterprise to everyone."

"Thank you," Kathryn cocked a stern look at Naomi. "So how much did
you win, Crewman Wildman?"

"Captain. . . " Naomi attempted her best 'angelic innocence' look, but
couldn't hold it for more than a few seconds under the intimidating
force of their united scepticism. She laughed again. "I cleaned up; by
last week it was up to forty gold-pressed bars of Latinum on what day
before the month was out would Admiral Picard make Itchy an Ensign."

"Please don't call me that, Naomi," Icheb winced.

"Hey, you owe me! I talked Qb out of throwing you an impromptu party
on the Enterprise Bridge complete with Trallian dancing girls and
Ndiisi sex maidens." Naomi said and then frowned, "well, maybe talked
him into postponing it at any rate. He said to say a "'double hello to
Aunt Kathy'" ma'am and that you'd know what he meant."

Kathryn merely nodded, meeting Chakotay's eyes over the girl's head;
aloud she said, "Kewbie?"

"'Qb'," Icheb explained, "I'm afraid that since we have been stationed
on the Enterprise," he indicated himself and Naomi, "Q and his son
have taken to popping in every so often. I feared that Admiral Picard
would have me reassigned because of it, however, he has kindly seemed
to accept it as a necessary evil."

"With the Q, you can't do much else," Chakotay pointed out wryly.

"Well, I hope you enjoy spending all that Latinum," Tom was
congratulating Naomi, passing her the glass of red wine she'd chosen.

"I was thinking of running a double-or-nothing sweepstake," Naomi
teased.

"Thomas Eugene Paris," enunciated B'Elanna with mock sternness, "You
have utterly corrupted this child. I have a good mind to sic Sam
Wildman and her husband on you!"

Tom raised his hands in mock surrender but Chakotay chuckled, "As I
recall, there was a certain Maquis who used to regularly wipe out what
little Latinum most of us poor suckers managed to acquire by running
betting pools on everything from the 'amount of Dilithium in the warp
core' to 'number of Cardassian patrols left eating our space dust'."

"Really?" Tom folded his arms and looked at his flustered wife with
interest; Kathryn, closest, could tell from the subtle gleam in his
eyes that he would pursue the subject much later on this night, when
he and B'Elanna had their own, far more private party.

Sparing B'Elanna's blushes, Naomi assured them, "Actually I'm putting
the Latinum in the Starfleet Academy Prep Account ready for the
fearsome foursome. I think mom and dad are counting the days."

"Some days I can relate," B'Elanna agreed, "and I only have three kids
to look after."

"I resemble that remark," Tom laughed.

Upon their return to the Alpha Quadrant, Ensign Samantha Wildman had
promptly left Starfleet after having endured a seven-year enforced
separation from her Katarian husband. Despite an initial rocky patch,
their marriage had prospered, and they had had four more children, a
set of identical twin girls followed by a set of identical twin boys.
Much older than her siblings, Naomi often acted more like a benevolent
aunt, but she was a responsible young woman who cared deeply for her
parents, especially as Samantha and her husband had taken Icheb under
their wing. Privately, Kathryn was certain that Naomi and Icheb would
pair off together eventually, but for now they were very close
platonic friends only.

Yet again there was noise at the front door as the final members of
the evening arrived, Tuvok and Seven. The latter immediately spotted
Icheb's change of insignia as she entered the courtyard and raised one
eyebrow. Kathryn felt a twinge of relief as Seven warmly praised Icheb
for his achievement. Although Icheb had integrated seamlessly into
human life, his and Seven's mutual Borg past meant she was the closest
thing to a parental figure he had, and that was vitally important to
him.

"Come one everyone, time to eat – Kim and Paris, you pair can get to
the back of the queue as you've been grazing like Bolian heifers on
everything I've made today!" B'Elanna peremptorily shooed them back
from the table.

"I was just smelling, Tom was the one stuffing his face –" Harry tried
to fib.

"Were too!" Tom folded his arms indignantly.

"Ah the scintillating wit and repartee," the Doctor came to join them
since of course as a hologram he did not eat.

The meal progressed as they chatted with the comfortable lack of
ceremony customary amongst old, close friends, exchanging news and
gossip. Tuvok and Seven were on their current visit to Vulcan, Tuvok
had become a grandfather for the sixth time, finally having a
granddaughter after four grandsons. The Doctor had been present at the
birth by permission of Tuvok's second son and his mate, having
transmitted himself there directly from Deep Space 9 after delivering
the first child born to William Telfer and his Bajoran wife, former
Ensign Tal Celes – a marital match that had surprised nobody, since
she negated his hypochondria and he cancelled out her low self-esteem.

Still, Kathryn mused to herself, it was for the best that Tal had left
Starfleet as fast as she could once they returned to the Alpha
Quadrant. Although not as inadequate as her low self-confidence had
her believing, she had been more right than wrong in her conviction
that Starfleet had let her in on the grounds of being Bajoran than any
genuine aptitude. She wasn't cut out for Starfleet life and she was
only too happy to return to being a civilian.

Kathryn tuned back in as the doctor amusingly related how Will Telfer
had transferred his hypochondria from himself to his newborn daughter,
Celia Kathryn Telfer. After he had been summoned three times between
midnight and dawn by Telfer demanding to know "'but should she be
breathing like that?'" the Doctor had threatened to summon Deep Space
9's resident physician Doctor Bashir and have Telfer medically
confined to the remotest Bajoran monastery he could find until the man
calmed down. In contrast, Tuvok's second daughter-in-law had been the
model of Vulcan efficiency with a 45-second labour.

Finally during a lull, Kathryn cleared her throat meaningfully and was
rewarded by the instant and complete attention of the entire group.
Not bad ten years after the fact of being their Captain in any real
sense. "Chakotay and I have an announcement of our own to make..." she
couldn't stop the smile or the happiness bubbling up, "I'm pregnant."

"Well, finally, it's about time!" Tom Paris declared, "We were
beginning to worry -I've been asking the Doc to run a health scan on
Chakotay for the past six months!"

"Watch it, Paris," growled Chakotay, "until Friday I can still have
you thrown in the brig."

"Yes, sir," completely unabashed, Tom raised his glass in salute to
his Captain, an action imitated by all of them, even the Doctor
quickly creating a holographic wineglass for himself.

The doctor brought out his datapad, though he did not really need the
affectation; but it made him seem more human and less intimidating.
"When would you like me to schedule your first antenatal
consultation?"

"We were hoping next week," Chakotay admitted, "but we know you're so
busy. . . "

The Doctor consigned his schedule to oblivion with an airy flick of
his fingers. "Nonsense, I have delivered every child born to the
Voyagers since we returned, and I have no intention of breaking that
tradition with the Captain. I am peerless in the field of midwifery.
In fact, I have more experience in dealing with alien childbirth than
any Starfleet physician. Remind me to write a paper on the subject."

"Yes, doctor." Kathryn acquiesced; collection of light particles or
no, she did love this conceited little man.

"Are you aware of the foetal gender?" Seven enquired, her efficient
mind already moving into Supplies Needed mode.

"Yes, and its genders," Kathryn corrected. "My scan showed we're
having identical twins – girls."

"Qb's message: double hello," murmured Naomi to Icheb in realisation.

"You'd be welcome to any of Miral's things," B'Elanna instantly
offered.

"Thanks," Chakotay accepted, "We are getting a lot of stuff from my
family though; they're ecstatic – these will be the first females born
into my paternal family for ten generations."

"Well, this should get you going," B'Elanna declared mischievously,
holding out a datapad.

Chakotay took it and Kathryn looked at it with him, both puzzled.

"It's a list of all the names I was given when I was pregnant with
Miral," B'Elanna explained.

"You kept it all these years?" Naomi asked.

"I couldn't bring myself to get rid of it," B'Elanna admitted with
rare unselfconscious sentimentalism. "Besides, we were sure Harry was
going to be a girl too."

"The thought is appreciated, but we've already selected their names,"
Kathryn handed back the datapad as it scrolled down to 'Gokwuth', a
traditional Bolian name as suggested by Ensign Chell. She pointed at
her abdomen, "The tadpole on the left is Teya, and the tadpole on the
right. . . is Seven."

Seven's eyes widened in shock, and then she inclined her head. "I am
honoured."

"We'd like you to be a bit more than honoured," Chakotay admitted. "We
were hoping that you and Tuvok would agree to be amongst the
godparents."

Tuvok and Seven didn't even need to exchange glances, "It would be our
pleasure. Thank-you."

"I'd hold on to that sentiment for a while if I were you, Tuvok,"
Kathryn advised dryly. "If the pair of them turn out anything like I
and my sister were as children, you will need every ounce of Vulcan
imperturbability you can muster."

"I look forward to the challenge." Tuvok said with unconcern. "May I
enquire as to your intentions now that you are leaving Starfleet,
Commander?"

"Leaving Starfleet?" Harry repeated as they all regarded Chakotay.

"You stated that you had the power to incarcerate Mr Paris in the brig
until this Friday, implying therefore after that date you would no
longer possess that authority. Such would only be the case if you were
no longer a Starfleet officer." Tuvok reminded Chakotay.

"Absolutely right," Chakotay grinned, not annoyed that as usual he had
not been able to slip anything past the Vulcan. "I've been offered a
full Professorship of Anthropology at Starfleet Academy at the London
base and I've accepted. I start a week Monday."

"At this rate we're going to get toaster's elbow," joked Tom. "That's
wonderful, Chakotay; it's what you've always been interested in."

"Being on the bridge of a starship every day lost its appeal a long
time ago," Chakotay shrugged as he expressed a sentiment common to
them all. "We're only living a street away from campus and Kathryn
will be just down the corridor as a Professor of Astrometrics."

"My sister and her family live in England, too," Kathryn explained,
"so I've transferred from Starfleet HQ campus as of next month."

"How much does the rest of the crew know about everything that's
happening?" Neelix enquired.

"Oh I'm sure the rumours are already multiplying, but we're relying on
you to spread the word, Neelix," Chakotay asked.

"Absolutely," his eyes alight with the joy of so many juicy tidbits to
tell, Neelix practically bounced in his seat.

"But before we go any further, I want to apologise to Harry," Kathryn
said. "We had no wish to spoil your own wonderful news, Harry, but
there's no way we could have kept my condition secret after I fainted
and –"

"Fainted?" The word was chorused unanimously in alarm and the Doctor
made to get out his medical tricorder.

"My own fault," Kathryn waved them down, sheepishly admitting, "I'd
skipped breakfast, I downed two full pots of coffee virtually in one
gulp and I jumped up out of my chair too fast because I was late for
my 9:30am class."

"We discussed the occurrence at length," Chakotay commented sternly,
"and it won't happen again."

"The two pots of coffee certainly won't" the Doctor stated firmly,
"otherwise Teya and Seven will bounce out of your womb on their own;
from tomorrow – one small cup – per day."

Tom Paris had now folded his arms and eyed his friend quizzically.
"Wait a minute, what news, Harry? You haven't said anything to me
about anything."

"It's nothing, really," Harry dismissed, "I wasn't going to announce
it to anyone."

"It is important, Harry," Kathryn contradicted, "and nobody is more
suited."

"Well. . . "

"Harry, don't make me get the Klingon pain-sticks," Tom threatened,
"give."

Libby and Harry clasped hands grinning like loons at each other. "You
know how when I transferred from active duty to Engineering Design at
Starfleet HQ because Tom was born, there was only a two-day lecturer's
position available?" Harry reiterated, drawing out the suspense.

"Haarreee. . . " Tom growled like an impatient child, making Kathryn
smile.

"You have been offered a full-time position?" Icheb guessed.

Harry shook his head, grinning "No; I was going to apply for one when
we knew we were expecting again, but. . . from next month I am going
to be the solo clarinettist for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra -"

". . . And the first piece he's going to play is The Void," Libby
couldn't contain herself any longer.

"Harry, that's wonderful!" B'Elanna exclaimed for them all.

His blush actually spread to his neck, but his eyes were delighted.
Seven also looked pleased. When Voyager came home, none of the crew
gave much thought to the holonovels, poetry, art, sculpture and music
they had created for themselves or collected/exchanged with alien
species on a ship cut off from the latest entertainment. Seven had
decided to keep all of it as part of her ongoing understanding of her
humanity and had ordered the collection with her usual efficiency. One
day someone had heard her playing the music and had asked for a copy.
They had given it to someone else and it had become part of the public
domain. She had lent a copy of her rather grandiloquently entitled
'Insurrection: a Paris-Tuvok Holonovel' to a neighbour whose
journalist friend saw it and ran excerpts with an op-ed piece. It had
earned its authors considerable royalties and even now a decade after
their return had never been out of the Top Ten in the 'Choose Your Own
Adventure' section. Seven had loaned the entire collection to the
Smithsonian, where it had been incorporated into the USS Voyager, the
ship now a permanent exhibit.

"You'll have to let us know when to buy tickets, Harry," Chakotay
urged.

Libby laughed, "Actually that won't be necessary. That was the
condition that Harry insisted upon."

"What do you mean?" Tom looked at his best friend, who was blushing
furiously.

"It's incredibly difficult to get part-time soloists for any orchestra
unless they're of independent means, since most musicians who already
have another job don't have the flexibility. Harry's engineering post
means he sets his own schedule," Libby explained, "and they were
falling over themselves to grab a clarinettist of his calibre, so they
agreed to Harry's condition for accepting the position, namely that
first refusal of the best seats in the house at any performance he is
involved in are given to the Voyagers."

"Nice going, Harry," Tom complimented, tilting his glass towards him.

"I learned from the master," Harry raised his glass to his best friend
in mutual salute.

---
Chapter 2
---

Finally, the dinner table looked like a horde of Desert Locusts had
hit it and everyone was replete with good food and, bar Kathryn,
perhaps a little merry with wine. The three children had fallen asleep
in their playhouse at the bottom of the garden. Kathryn and B'Elanna
poked their heads through the door; little Tom and Harry were curled
around each other like puppies near the bottom of the bed, fast
asleep, Miral was laying on the pillow but as the two women looked in
one eye snapped open to fix on them before losing focus and closing as
Miral identified them as no threat to the two little boys that she
considered equally to be her brothers.

Occasionally someone would take a bit of detritus into the kitchen and
throw it into the vaporiser in the process of making another drink,
but they were largely content to just enjoy each others company as
evening became true night, desultorily conversing in twos and threes,
meandering conversational eddies rippling like droplets in a stream.

"You're really looking forward to the professorship," Tom Paris
commented as he sat with Harry next to Chakotay on one of the
high-backed antique garden benches, the three men sipping large and
liberally laced Irish coffees that warmed them considerably; after
outrageous wheedling at the Doctor, Kathryn had been allowed one small
version of the same.

Even as Chakotay nodded he was whimsically musing that if anyone had
walked up to him seventeen years before and told him that one day he
would count Tom Paris as one of his closest friends, he'd have had
them sectioned to a mental hospital. "Yes. Even with the pardon I was
never going to get higher than Commander, certainly never captaincy of
my own ship as a former Maquis, and most definitely. . . Not After. .
. "

Both Tom and Harry merely gave nods of understanding at the emphasised
code phrase. Even now a decade after the events, the incident was
never mentioned aloud except in the most obtuse of terms, for the
Cardassians had long memories and eternal grudges, and even now there
might be some lone vindictive Cardassian Gul's goon monitoring their
conversations in hope of obtaining the damning proof.

Tom Paris couldn't help but feel a little smug as he contemplated the
sheer joy that radiated from Chakotay and the Captain – impossible to
view her as Janeway and certainly Kathryn – as he had been their
catalyst in a minor way.

"I'd be lying if I said I weren't feeling a certain amount of
trepidation." Kathryn confessed to B'Elanna and Libby. "Motherhood was
something I thought lost to me when the Caretaker stranded us in the
Delta Quadrant and I was never much good at the maternal stuff."

"You can't be any worse than I was, remember my Neurotic Mother from
Hell routine?" B'Elanna reminded her, recalling the time when she had
even reprogrammed the Doctor in her obsessive fears about her
then-unborn daughter's Klingon heritage.

"To be honest, I'm still trying to get my head around it," Libby
confessed, "you've left Starfleet now, so you'll never be Admiral
Janeway, but it was because you became Admiral Janeway that you were
able –"

"Don't even try," Kathryn raised a hand, "Temporal Mechanics will
drive you crazy faster than anything else in the world."

"Chakotay has no regrets," B'Elanna looked at where her husband and
two closest friends were conversing quietly, taking a sip of her own
Irish coffee – one of the better human traditions Tom had introduced
her to – before she asked, "how about you?"

"None whatsoever," Kathryn vetoed firmly. "Officially Starfleet
couldn't blame me because Admiral Janeway and I were two entirely
different people and we managed to deal a death-blow to the Borg in
the process for goodness sake; she violated the Temporal Prime
Directive and once she was gone. . . but it was always going to be
difficult. We weren't a crew on the Voyager, we were a family, and
that has always been an issue in the Alpha Quadrant. I knew when so
many of the Voyagers resigned from Starfleet altogether or swapped
from active service to administrative and Academy positions what the
problem was. . . "

"You are our Captain," B'Elanna shrugged as she made the simple
statement of fact, "You always will be."

"Exactly; but as far as Starfleet is concerned that sort of devotion
is what leads to incidents like Ransom and the Equinox, the cult of
personality." Kathryn pointed out over B'Elanna's derisive snort, "and
even if they had been inclined to ignore all that, they weren't Not
After. . . " T-o-m R-i-k-e-r, she silently mouthed rather than spoke
the words, even now ten years after the fact.

Libby and B'Elanna nodded sagely, that incident having been the
trigger for their Captain and Chakotay finally admitting their real
feelings for each other – though not without help and some serious
arm-twisting from their former senior staff.

"Will Chakotay and the Captain be all right now they're not really in
Starfleet anymore and they're going to be parents?" Naomi mentioned,
she and Icheb looking worried.

"They will adapt," Seven stated calmly.

"There's no need for concern," Neelix reassured confidently, "after
making her way past the Kazon, Vidiians, Malon, Krenim, Hirogen and
the Borg, the Captain and Commander will have no trouble with
parenthood."

"Agreed," Tuvok supported. "I am confident that they will acquit their
roles as parents admirably."

B'Elanna and Libby went into the kitchen to prepare another round of
Irish coffee, while Chakotay, Harry and Tom helped clear away some of
the tableware. Knowing that she would not get another Irish coffee
go-ahead out of the Doctor regardless of the most persuasive
blandishments, Kathryn came over to join them.

"Seven, I haven't asked you how your visit to Vulcan went this time,"
Kathryn apologised.

"The Temple of Ammonak is most impressive," Seven commented, "the
Vulcan High Council has offered me a position as a Professor of
Astrometrics and I intend to accept."

"That's wonderful news, Seven." Kathryn praised.

"I will visit my relatives on Earth for an extended period first,"
Seven said, "with your permission I will inform them of your condition
and investigate the role of. . . godmother."

"Granted," Kathryn said instantly, unable to suppress a smile; Seven's
relationship with her family was pleasant but tentative on both sides;
soon after their return home, she had reassumed her surname of Hanson,
but after consideration, decided that Annika was simply too
unfamiliar, she had known herself as 'Seven' for too long.

"Are you certain you won't miss Starfleet, Captain?" Neelix asked,
seeking reassurance from the horse's mouth even though the change from
military to civilian was only a technicality in many ways.

"Definitely, and I'm certain they won't miss me." Kathryn commented
dryly. "The Voyagers are larger-than-life garish reminders that they
made a very big mistake with the Cardassian Treaty all those years
ago, and of course after. . . events turned out as they did. . . they
just want to be able to forget about it all."

Their faces were knowing, even Naomi, who had been a child at the
time. Now as the others brought out more coffee, Seven took a swift
opportunity to examine Kathryn Janeway at close range, and was pleased
with what she saw. She had seen the woman in all moods and all manner
of situations, but had never seen her look happier than she did right
now. Had Seven harboured any doubts over her decision to terminate her
relationship with Chakotay, they would have been fully extinguished.

It had all been so different back then. Admiral Janeway had succeeded
in her plan to bring the Voyager home, sixteen years earlier than in
the original timeline, early enough to cure Tuvok of the neurological
disorder and prevent the deaths of 22 crewmembers, including Seven.
But to the astonishment of many, while the knowledge of her death had
left Seven unmoved, it was that she had married Chakotay which had
'freaked her out'. Acutely perceptive, though not as articulate in
emotional arenas, Seven had early realised the depth of feeling
between Chakotay and the Captain, and had acknowledged that while his
reciprocation of Seven's tentative overtures was due to an honest
burgeoning attraction, a large part of it was his determination that
he had lived long enough in 'futile hope'.

Already extremely wary about her own increasing emotionalism, Seven
had been completely unprepared to discover something as colossal as
the status of 'wife' looming in her near future, and knew she was not
ready to deal with everything such a role implied. At the time, the
mere thought of engaging in one attempt at full sexual intercourse
with Chakotay was making her come as close to panic as a Borg got,
never mind the whole 'house and children' package.

Thanks to Admiral Janeway, the previous timeline of the Voyagers had
been erased, and their future was. . . what had the Doctor termed it?
Tabula Rasa - a blank slate; Seven had ended the germinating romance
instantly. Their relationship was only in a fledgling state, leaving
Chakotay angry and disappointed rather than devastated and distraught.
Unfortunately because the object of his ire, Admiral Janeway, was
gone, he turned his fury on her younger counterpart, Captain Janeway,
and a bitter argument had left the two apparently permanently
estranged.

At the time, everyone was entangled too much in their own crises to
engineer a rapprochement. The euphoria of the Voyagers' return to
their homes and families had quickly descended into a massive culture
shock. Some of the crew like the Captain had received Dear John/Jane
letters in the Delta Quadrant; others struggled to adjust to adoring
children that were now sullen adolescents; there was the loss of aged
parents in the interim and a thousand other new anxieties daily.
Everyone on both sides of the equation had 'moved on'.

The former Maquis crewmembers had been in the most perilous position,
but there had been no fear of imprisonment for any of them. Two years
after Chakotay had received the terrible news from his friend Sevra
about the massacre, political activists had succeeded in getting all
the surviving Maquis in Federation prisons freed with full pardons if
they agreed to join Starfleet in the new war against the
Cardasso-Dominion alliance.

The Cardassians' treachery in aligning with the Dominion had showed
the folly of the Federation's 'peace at all costs' policy with regard
to the Cardassians in the first place – the policy that had led to the
formation of the Maquis first amongst the abandoned Federation
colonists of the 'demilitarised zone' and the loss to its ranks of
fine Starfleet officers such as Ro Laren, Tom Riker and Chakotay.

Subsequent events had demonstrated explicitly that the Maquis had been
in the right all along; the lobbyists and innumerable op-ed media
broadcasts had pointed out that the Federation's intergalactic
reputation was already damaged enough as it was, without them making
themselves even more contemptible by doggedly continuing to label the
Maquis 'terrorists' in the face of universal public derision and
keeping those they had in prison under that status. Chakotay and the
Voyager's surviving Maquis complement had been fully pardoned in all
but name before they returned to the Alpha Quadrant, and those
formerly Starfleet had had their ranks retroactively restored.

That hadn't applied, however, to the Cardassians. The Maquis they had
captured, such as Tom Riker, remained the subject of debate and myth.
Upon returning to the Alpha Quadrant, those of the Voyagers who hadn't
immediately left Starfleet or requested long-term non-active duty
positions had had the chance to take lengthy administrative leave.
After his estrangement from Captain Janeway, Chakotay had asked for
the maximum period permissible and taken off to the nearest Deep Space
Station. He had been angry and hurt and nursing his sense of
injustice.

In short, spoiling for a fight, half-tempted to restart the Maquis;
Chakotay could have done so, as well. He had been a highly respected
leader amongst them, and many would come at his call. Frustrated and
resentful as he was, he had realised that reforming the Maquis was not
the answer. Most of the Maquis were now free and rebuilding their
lives whilst grieving properly for their friends killed by the
Jem'Hadar in the Cardassian instigated mass-murder.

Most of the Maquis. Chakotay had crossed paths with the crew of the
USS Enterprise on Deep Space 9, including then-Commodore Picard and
Captain William Riker, at a party hosted by Captain Kira. Chakotay had
known Tom in the Maquis, and was thus familiar with the incident that
had created the Captain's 'twin brother'. Tom Riker was one of the MIA
Maquis, rotting somewhere in a Cardassian prison.

Thus had been born his mission; Chakotay had decided to rescue the
Maquis held by the Cardassians and had access to some Delta Quadrant
tricks to help him. The commander had got lucky – all surviving Maquis
prisoners were kept in one Cardassian penitentiary, and were going to
be moved en masse from Cardassia Prime to one of their outer moons due
to increasing seismic activity that probably presaged a volcanic
eruption. If Chakotay could outfit one large shuttle to the specs of
the Delta Flyer, he could pull off his solo ride-to-the-rescue
mission.

It hadn't turned out that way though. Still nursing his wounded pride,
Chakotay had been determined he would take nobody with him, for fear
he himself would be captured or killed. But he needed someone far
better at 'improvisational engineering' than himself, and so had
turned to his oldest, closest friend, B'Elanna Torres Paris.

B'Elanna had been greatly anxious; the estrangement between Janeway
and Chakotay had upset her deeply and she was fighting her own fears
about being back 'home', insecurities about how the famous Admiral
Owen Paris would react to a Klingon half-breed daughter-in-law being
paramount. Her own father had made contact again for the first time
since she was five and she was trying to rebuild her relationship with
her mother. But this was Chakotay, and so B'Elanna had wholeheartedly
worked feverishly to give him a shuttle that could outmanoeuvre,
outrun and out-hide anything the Cardassians could throw at it, but
not outshoot, since all the weapons systems would have to be removed
to fit all the Maquis when Chakotay beamed them aboard.

But Fate had taken a hand. Miral had found the datapad thinking it was
the 'build your own warp core' game her mommy had been designing for
her. In frustration at being unable to play it, she showed it to Uncle
Harry, who was then deeply involved in wooing back Libby. He took one
look and brought it straight to Tom. By the simple expedient of
secreting a tracking device on his wife's person, Tom and Harry had
been present when B'Elanna took the final specs to her friend,
overhearing the simple plan: the specs would enable the shuttle to be
disguised as a Cardassian patrol ship; Chakotay would fly (undetected)
to the outer moon and hide (undetected) in a nearby asteroid belt,
then swoop out and simply beam the Maquis prisoners off the transport.
He would then high-warp it out of there courtesy of B'Elanna's engines
and then use the shields and sensors to 'hop' back to Federation
space, hiding and disguising the shuttle as a patrol ship with her
improvised 'holo-matrix projection' system.

Clearly distraught, B'Elanna had emphasised that she could jury-rig
the shuttle to an extent, but that each system modification would work
for less than two Earth hours and would be burnt out once that time
was gone; there simply wasn't time or power for anything else. Nor
would the doubtless emaciated and stunned Maquis be able to provide
any practical help.

At that point, Tom Paris had stepped out of the shadows and taken
charge. Reminding Chakotay that the man's life still belonged to him,
he had informed the Commander that they would discuss in detail
Chakotay dragging B'Elanna into his crazy scheme later, but "'right
now you need the best pilot in the Alpha Quadrant, and that's me.'"

B'Elanna had returned to Deep Space 9 to look after Miral and monitor
the situation as best she could from there before returning to Earth
to provide alibis, while Harry and Tom had accompanied Chakotay. But
Miral was a very bright little girl who crept out of bed at night and
peeked through the door as her mother paced with silent weeping.
Inaction did not come naturally to a Klingon, and so Miral had turned
to her friend, Naomi Wildman.

Naomi realised that Commander Chakotay was in a lot of danger, and got
hold of Neelix immediately. He in turn contacted the one person he had
absolute faith in: the Captain. Janeway had received Neelix's
communiquι while visiting Tuvok on Vulcan with Seven and Icheb, and it
was clear what was going on.

---
Chapter 3
---

Light years away Chakotay's gamble was executed flawlessly. Ace pilot
Tom Paris glided serenely out of the asteroid cluster over the
unsuspecting transport at deceptive speed and beamed off everyone that
was registered as being behind the containment field aboard the
shuttle, before simply going to maximum warp. The shuttle had
shuddered with the weight of those aboard. The prisoners were
emaciated, starved, battered and filthily stinking. Every Maquis the
Cardassians held had been crammed into the containment field like
sardines and the shocked people hemmed in Harry, Chakotay and Tom on
all sides as there was no room for anyone to move.

While Chakotay yelled to everyone to keep quiet and explained what was
going on, Tom and Harry concentrated on keeping the shuttle going, but
after an hour the enhanced warp drive burnt out, forcing them to go to
impulse. The holomatrix projecting an image of the shuttle as a
Cardassian patrol vessel lasted another hour and a half before it too
failed; when a couple of real patrol vessels located them, the
multi-phasic shielding effortlessly protected them for an hour and a
half before finally failing, and they managed to lose their pursuers
temporarily in a gas giant's atmosphere.

But all had seemed lost just as the boundary of Federation space came
into view; the impulse engines were screaming as Tom pushed them way
beyond capacity in a desperate attempt to outrun the few Cardassian
ships that had been able to dog their route, but one direct hit was
all the Cardassians needed to achieve and their aim was improving. Out
of nowhere a huge ship of unknown configuration had appeared directly
in front of the shuttle, and blown it apart – mere seconds after
beaming everyone off it.

The ship had fled back into Federation territory at high warp, almost
reaching the Badlands near Deep Space 9 before the holomatrix failed
to reveal a Federation Nova-class science survey vessel to any
observer. On board, Chakotay, Harry and Tom had found themselves
beamed directly before the Captain's chair, in which sat a stone-faced
Kathryn Janeway. The Doctor had been brought in on the plan to provide
urgent and off-the-record medical treatment to the freed Maquis, and
he had grimly reported that, as expected, all had obviously been
subject to long-term maltreatment.

Captain Janeway had revealed that B'Elanna was providing cover on
Earth by using her home's holo-emitters to create holo-images, making
it look as if the missing people - Janeway, Chakotay, Tom, Harry,
Seven, Tuvok, Icheb, Neelix and the Doctor - were all enjoying a
week's vacation at the Paris home in San Francisco. But it was a
deception that wouldn't hold up as soon as someone tried to get in
touch with any of the real people, or checked up on why one
insignificant suburban house was drawing more power from the national
grid than the entire city. Tom Riker had declared that they could hide
out and heal in the Badlands for several weeks, since it was the one
place the Jem'Hadar had never been able to pursue the Maquis.

At the same time, Tom Paris had bearded the lion and the lioness in
their den. Understanding Tom's discreet hand signal, Harry had
followed him and kept everyone away from that corridor after Tom had
followed the Captain and Chakotay into one of the research vessel's
cabins and given them both what could only be described as a
rollicking. Everyone knew that they loved each other, everyone knew
that they had sacrificed their own personal desires for the good of
the Voyager crew. . .

"'Now get over it!'" Seven had heard Tom bark in such a tone as to
make her almost jump. "'The pair of you need your heads banged
together! Your pride endangered the safety and life of my wife, a
mistake that few live to regret. Right now B'Elanna is risking arrest
by providing all of us with an alibi we only need because of you! I
don't care what you decide, but you will resolve your situation before
we leave the Badlands in one hour or I will dump you both here with
the Maquis!'"

Hostile, but efficient; the pair had been much chastised. Tom had
managed to sneak everyone back to their original locations en route
back to Earth with nobody being any the wiser. A few weeks later, Tom
Riker and the rest of the Maquis had suddenly arrived on Earth,
dramatically claiming asylum and providing a wealth of evidence by
virtue of their own scarred bodies for their claims of daily torture
and abuse. Cardassia had demanded the return of their 'legitimate
prisoners' but hadn't pushed the issue when they were ignored.

The Maquis had told a fanciful tale of a lucky break and daring flight
that everyone accepted and nobody believed. Chakotay had been seen
around Deep Space 9 several days before the rescue, along with his
Talaxian friend, Neelix. Rumours that the ex-Borg and Kathryn
Janeway's Vulcan Tuvok had also not been on Vulcan as supposed also
swirled around, and when Tom Paris missed a sporting event and a
friend called his home, his wife B'Elanna had claimed he was too ill
to come to the phone, yet there was no record of Lt Paris receiving
any medical treatment or a medical examination as per Starfleet
regulations.

People drew their own conclusions; the former Voyagers knew that
Chakotay had been involved in rescuing the Maquis; they knew that
where the Commander was, Captain Janeway would be; they knew that
where Captain Janeway was involved, her most trusted staff would also
be around. Now, ten years after the event, it was generally accepted
though never uttered that the USS Voyager's senior crew had conspired
to snatch the Maquis from the Cardassians.

The Captain must have known as soon as she left Tom Riker in the
Badlands that the writing was on the wall, Seven mused. The problem
was that she was the Captain.

Once back on Earth after helping Chakotay, Seven had announced her
intention to accompany Tuvok to Vulcan, and indeed had found their
species much less unnerving than humanity. They in turn had been happy
to accommodate a human devoid of that species' usual proclivity for
overexcitement. Being on Vulcan without the pressure to pair off or
'embrace' her humanity had enabled Seven to examine her feelings with
clarity. She had realised that readjusting to being a woman in the
fullest sense of the word would be a slow process, and considered her
decision to break things off with Chakotay the right one. Her frequent
visits to Earth gave her just as much human emotion as she was able to
cope with, while providing her with a ringside seat as Chakotay and
the Captain heeded Tom Paris's orders and finally got their act
together now he was no longer her First Officer.

On paper, that was, though. The Voyagers had been and were a family,
albeit an extremely strange one. Crewmen Jor and Baytart had
transferred to the USS Excelsior along with the Ensigns Ashmore, who
were brother and sister and who, despite being the only children of
their parents, had elected to continue on active service. Others of
the Voyagers who had chosen to remain on active duty, such as Jenny
and Meghan Delaney, Freddie Bristow and Lts Baxter and Kashimuro, had
also transferred to other Starfleet vessels. But while their work was
exemplary, their psyches were not.

The Captain of the Excelsior had pointed out how his officers had
overheard a dozen conversations wherein he was always defined in full:
Captain Lucas, whereas Janeway was simply the Captain. Aboard the USS
Prometheus First Officer Zarok reported that Lt Walter Baxter tended
to call him 'Tuvok' when he wasn't concentrating. On the USS Al-Batani
the ship's medical officer reported that the 'Voyager contingent'
preferred being treated by the EMH rather than the flesh-and-blood
physician. Aboard the USS Valiant the EMH had approached the Captain
worried that he was missing vital subroutines because Lieutenants
(junior grade) Marla Gilmore and Noah Lessing only ever relaxed around
him when he was singing opera like the Doctor. There was also the
issue of rank – not all the brevet ranks had been carried forward, but
the Voyagers tended to act on the Delta Quadrant rank, such as aboard
the USS Scott when the Captain noticed how Vulcan Lieutenant Vorik
accepted orders from Ensign Ayala because on Voyager their ranks had
been the other way around; nor was it an isolated happenstance.

Likewise the Voyagers kept in touch socially, and any occasion ships
bearing a collective of them were at the same Deep Space Station at
the same time, a holodeck would be activated for Chez Sandrine's,
which had become an almost universal program these days; the real
establishment had enjoyed a ten-fold increase in custom since it was
popularised in media documentaries of Voyager's trip home. The
Voyagers bickered and celebrated with each other to the – admittedly
not deliberate – exclusion of others.

Nor had events such as this annual get-together helped matters, though
their development was entirely accidental – but their catalyst had
been extraordinary and impossible to factor into any theory of how the
Voyagers would integrate back into Alpha Quadrant life.

---
Chapter 4
---

Near Starfleet HQ in San Francisco, there was a large municipal garden
of remembrance and honour, but wherein private individuals could
purchase a small square plot of ground for a private memorial to
honour someone. Captain Janeway had from her own funds purchased such
a plot and placed there a stone plinth upon which she had attached a
plaque. In neutral alphabetical order without distinction between
Starfleet, Maquis or Equinox crew – and even Seska and her accomplices
such as Michael Jonas - were listed the names of everyone who had not
survived the Delta Quadrant.

Each year on an October day when the leaves were turning to autumnal
jewels of gold and ruby and ochre and sienna, the Captain would go
alone to her plinth and for a few minutes privately mourn the fallen,
and nobody had ever paid much attention to a woman in a coat by
herself.

But eight years ago, two years after the rescue of the Maquis, it had
been different. Her relationship with Chakotay had been still new and
young, but that wasn't the only reason the Captain had made her
pilgrimage alone. She had been completely unsurprised when the
seemingly endless 'debriefs' gradually turned into something nastily
akin to de facto interrogations.

The Dominion War had been the catalyst for profound changes in the
Federation collective psyche, not all of them for the better.
Increasingly the sessions turned into a point-by-point pressure to
justify every little thing she'd done, including prominently her
decision to make Tom Paris Con Officer, her acceptance of Maquis to
command-level positions, and her 'rescue' of several Borg. Knowing she
had the full support of her crew helped, but Kathryn Janeway had faced
down Species 8472 and the Borg Queen, and mere Federation Admirals
were way out of their depth.

She had neither apologised for nor sought to justify her blunt log
entries as to why she had made those decisions, instead startling and
wrong-footing the pontificating 'panel members' by dishing out some
needed remonstrance and castigation:

"It was clear the rot set in when you cashiered Tom Paris, but at the
time I was too blinded by Starfleet's dazzling ideals to admit it even
to myself, even though it was obvious to a blind amoeba that Tom Paris
was punished for being an Admiral's son rather anything he'd actually
done wrong, which did great public harm to the Federation's reputation
and put off many fine young people from applying to Starfleet for fear
of being. . . what the hell, let's call it what it is – being screwed
over by the brass – in the same way."

"Captain Janeway! You don't seem to be clear as to just who here is –"

"I'm very clear. I've gone over the Caldek Prime accident in miniscule
detail, my fair Admirals, and while pilot error may have been a
contributing factor, that error did not occur until after the accident
began to develop, it did not precipitatethe accident which killed
those three officers. Tom Paris was no more to blame than a super nova
or a black hole is to blame for killing something in its path. You
sacrificed him on the altar of political expediency – and I have told
him as much to ease his mind. You caused him years of unnecessary
mental and emotional suffering due to his entirely misplaced guilt and
I can assure you that you've lost the goodwill and respect of the best
pilot to pass through Starfleet in a century. I hope it was worth it."

They had blustered and flustered and warned her that her command
decisions were being examined because 'serious concerns' had been
raised about her judgement. Things had deteriorated from there until
she'd had enough:

"What are you doing, Captain!"

"I'm leaving. My lover, Chakotay, is meeting me for lunch."

"This is outrageous!"

"Admiral, for the first time in the weeks you've been dragging me here
for this farce, we are in total agreement. Let me make myself clear:
the Maquis were right. Politically, socially and morally, yet the
Federation insisted on appeasement and placating clearly untrustworthy
types at all costs. The Maquis saw the Cardassian-Dominion alliance
coming half a decade before it happened, which is probably why the
Cardassians instigated their genocide of the Maquis –"

"That is –"

"Exactly what it was: Genocide. The extermination of a people!
Following which atrocity the Federation was – quite justly -
humiliated and pilloried by the public and every species with an ounce
of common sense, and just when you hoped it was all going to go away,
Voyager turned up with some of the most highly-respected Maquis
leaders not just alive and well but in trusted command positions."

"Well it's easy to see how Chakotay got his!" The speaker had snarled
and then blanched at the look she turned upon him.

"That statement is precisely why these sessions are finished as of
now. As for those 'serious concerns about my judgement' or should I
say the ruffled feathers of Section 31 –"

The panel Chairwoman began sententiously, "My dear captain,
regurgitating that tired myth will not help you –"

"I don't need any help, certainly not from that organisation. I'm only
going to explain this once, so listen up. We don't live in a perfect
universe, so much as I hate to admit it, we need Section 31 and every
agency like them to tidy up the messes we're too squeamish to look at.
Here's the newsflash: I'm not squeamish. By the time I'd got past the
Vidiians, the Hirogen, Species 8472 and the Borg, I'd exhausted my
quotient."

"Are you daring to threaten -"

Once again she didn't let the blusterer finish a sentence. "I don't
need to threaten. I'm intimidating enough. Let me lay it out for you.
Section 31 didn't just drop the ball they threw it out of the
ballpark. Their job is to protect what the Federation stands for by
any means necessary. They should have seen what the Dominion were in
plenty of time to cancel out the Founders' machinations along with the
Vorta and the Jem'Hadar, but they blew it and humanity nearly didn't
survive their almighty screw-up. They should be damn grateful they're
not Voyagers, because right now they'd all have been demoted to cadet
and put under special measures for woeful underperformance of their
duties, not to say negligence. Even on her worst days, Tal Celes was
more competent!"

"Strong words, Captain!" shot back the panel Chairwoman.

"I'm happy to follow them up with strong actions. If their performance
with the Dominion is anything to go by, Section 31 needs a few months
of KP and emergency rations. They're getting fat and flabby. Here's my
recommendation to you: trim their fat, because loathe though I am to
admit it, we need Section 31, and we need them lean and mean, not
acting as if they'd been stationed on Risa for the last decade!"

In full Captain Janeway mode she had swept out of the room and nobody
had tried to summon her again for a 'briefing' they knew she would not
attend. But aware of the possibility of surveillance and potential
'unpleasantness' on the part of an affronted Section 31, Kathryn had
decided against inviting Chakotay to join her at her Voyager memorial
until the following year, just in case she herself suffered an
'accident' in the process of visiting it.

The wildcard, as Tom Paris would aptly put it, had been Miral Paris,
who had noticed how 'mommy and daddy's Captain was very sad.'
Half-understanding the stories of the Delta Quadrant and even
overhearing a few whispered mutterings about Section 31 from adults
gossiping about Captain Janeway, Miral had perceived it her duty to
protect the Captain, and so had taken a phaser but not a com badge.
The little girl had slipped away unnoticed supposedly en route to
school as she spotted the Captain walking along.

The school had contacted Miral's parents when the little girl failed
to arrive; a quick search of their home, plus Harry and Libby's next
door, had turned up blank. All the places that Miral knew were empty,
all the places that a small girl would find attractive were likewise
empty. Tom called Chakotay to ask if he and the Captain had seen the
girl, and Chakotay, unaware of Kathryn's whereabouts, promptly came to
join the widening search and he discovered the missing phaser. The
Doctor had been contacted and had promptly transmitted himself to the
house, where one of the many mobile emitters kept by Voyager personnel
enabled him determine by a forensic residue scan that Miral had taken
the phaser and armed it before leaving the house.

Naomi Wildman was pulled from school, and denied all knowledge but
admitted Miral had expressed that the Captain was 'different'
recently; Miral had said that the Captain was sad and was worried she
was upset because 'bad people' were trying to get her. The Doctor had
suggested contacting Icheb, which in turn brought Tuvok and Seven into
the matter. Tuvok had sombrely declared that since it was impossible
to ascertain what was fact and what was the misinterpretation of a
small child's limited understanding, they had no choice but to
continue under the assumption that Captain Janeway was in either real
physical danger or experiencing emotional distress that could cause
her to be a danger to herself.

Miral's other favourite person was Neelix, who was also none the wiser
as to her whereabouts and alarmed when Naomi burst into tears and
wailed that bad people were after the Captain and Miral had taken a
phaser to protect her. Neelix had walked into an extremely important
high-level conference and announced to one and all on live broadcast
channels that he was cancelling it because Miral Paris was missing in
possession of a working phaser and there was evidence to suggest the
child believed Captain Kathryn Janeway to be the subject of imminent
harm. Almost snarling he had warned of unspeakable retribution should
"'our Captain or our child be harmed.'"

Like wildfire the news had spread amongst the Voyagers, and within an
hour most of the nearby crew were in San Francisco helping to quarter
the city in search parties, along with Miral's four grandparents and
assorted friends. Captains aboard starships found themselves faced
with frantic, fretting crewmembers offering to work latrine-cleaning
duty for eternity but they had to get to Earth now because their
Captain was in danger. In short order the largest assemblage of
Starfleet vessels in Earth orbit since the Dominion War was underway.

Five hours had gone by with the grieving Captain in the sheltering
arbour of the gardens unaware of the pandemonium that reigned outside,
as was the little girl secreted in the bushes watching her
determinedly despite being bored and cold, both unaware that fate was
yet again about to take a hand. Miral did not know that another pair
of eyes, cold and nasty, were also watching the solitary figure, not a
premeditated evil, only an opportunistic one, but her Klingon blood
whispered a warning that she had been right, that somehow mommy and
daddy's Captain was not safe.

She had spotted her mother passing the Gardens' entrance; Seven had
managed to utilise various sensor arrays with permission of Starfleet
HQ to triangulate Miral's position, even without a com badge, to
somewhere nearby, and the entire crew converged on that location, but
could not find the child. Miral had begun to walk towards the gates,
before noticing a shimmering in the air that was heading towards the
Captain. She had no idea what a personal cloaking device was, but
something told her the shimmering air was bad, so she picked up stone
from the grass, and threw it at the air as hard as she could.

The Ferellian had been viciously attacking people for their valuables
wherever it went, using its personal cloaking device to hide in plain
sight from the authorities, but the device strapped to its chest was
large and delicate. The well-aimed stone hit the device dead centre
and shattered the emitter, rendering it useless. The instant the
creature became visible, Miral ran to the astonished Captain who had
no idea what was going on but knew that the creature bearing down on
them was not friendly. Miral let out a piercing shriek, her three
lungs carrying the sound like a klaxon, even as she tried to shoot the
creature.

Snatching the phaser, Janeway had emptied several 'kill' shots into
the charging thing with no effect, unaware that behind her the
Voyagers were running through the gates and the media broadcast the
image of the woman trying to protect the child from the alien; the
Ferellian lashed at the human woman, throwing her aside and Miral
screamed in fear.

It never stood a chance; B'Elanna and Tom Paris never even slowed down
as they flung themselves bodily at it even as Janeway scrambled to her
feet with her face gashed and grabbed a nearby rock with which she
also began to batter the creature. Madly screeching it was battered at
every turn before finally being subdued and hustled away by law
enforcement officers.

Explanations had followed on both sides, and for the first time since
she had created the plinth, Kathryn Janeway did not stand a lone vigil
for the fallen. The annual get-together had evolved out of that event.
Most years, like this one, it tended to be just the command staff, but
a couple of times the entire crew complement had packed themselves
into the Paris residence. Occasionally if any crewmember was passing
by, they would drop in for an hour, and oftentimes similar parties
would be being held by other Voyager groups of particularly close
friends. All the Voyagers had fallen into the habit of visiting
Captain Janeway's memorial whenever they came back to Earth and
leaving flowers and small tokens or trinkets, to the extent that it
was now commonly referred to as 'the Voyager shrine'.

The Ferellian incident had been the cement as far as Kathryn's
nebulous decision to leave Starfleet was concerned. At the time, in
the back of her mind, there had been a concern that the Ferellian had
been a Section 31 assassination ploy, and even though by the end of
the week she was certain she had been woefully over-imaginative in
that regard, the fact that she had even considered the idea at all had
been proof positive to herself that she could not continue to serve in
an organisation she no longer respected and certainly did not really
trust.

That Christmas – the first she and Chakotay spent living together as a
couple – he had greeted her when she got home with puzzlement because
they had received an anonymous gift. It was a large hamper from a
local health food store, every item of which was guaranteed 'fat
free'. She had understood and been relieved by the de facto message
from Section 31 that there would be no repercussions from her
forthrightness, but the fact was that if she remained in Starfleet,
she and they were going to clash again, and she had far too many
people she cared about that they could threaten for her to win another
confrontation.

Seven watched Captain Janeway and Chakotay preparing to leave this
annual get-together and wondered where the Captain's mind had wandered
for those few moments – no a pleasant remembrance, if the shadows in
the Captain's eyes were any indication. Seven had no regrets about
ending her relationship with Chakotay, and the tenderness that shone
from his eyes as he helped his wife put on her coat only assured her
of the rightness of her decision. Chakotay was a man of strong passion
and he needed a woman with similar strength. Seven felt no inadequacy
within herself, but she knew that her strength was of ice, whereas
Kathryn Janeway's strength was fiery, and the latter was what Chakotay
really needed.

Unnoticed, Seven cast her eyes once more around this gathering of her
friends, and was pleased with what she saw, even though their lives
were all about to undergo major changes – yet again.

"We will adapt," she assured and challenged the universe at large with
total confidence. . .

---
Epilogue
---

". . . the Borg much of a threat," countered Stephanie Riker, grinning
as he flicked shut his locker door.

"That's because luckily for all of you my ancestors were there to kick
Borg butt," retorted Lieutenant Eugenie Thomasina Paris, known by the
self-admittedly highly appropriate nickname of 'Zanie', also grinning
at her long-time friend to take any sting out of her words.

From behind them there came what sounded like a deliberately
not-quite-quiet-enough derisory sniff; 'Phaine and Zanie both turned
and eyeballed the guy ostensibly double-checking his nostrils'
capacity to suck in air.

Unfazed by their dual scrutiny, Rhydian DiMarco drawled, "You're
always talking a good game about your big, bad and scary Klingon side,
Paris."

DiMarco was Earth-born, being mostly human of incredibly mixed
American Indian, Celtic Caucasian and Oriental Nipponese descent, with
a spicy infusion of DNA courtesy of a Ndiisi great-grandmother. He
thus had silken obsidian-hued hair that begged to be stroked, eyes
that were bottomless black-velvet pools of sensual promise, bone
structure to die for, skin a perfect shade of Florentine gold and that
indefinable Ndiisi sexual allure.

And he knew it. Aware of her own limitations in the looks department –
gamine, freckled face, uncontrollably curly brown hair and, like most
of the females in her family, vestigial Klingon forehead ridges –
Zanie was not bothered in the slightest by her lack of conventional
prettiness; instead she eyed him with the tolerant benevolence of a
veteran pilot towards a promising but overconfident young gun. DiMarco
had just been promoted from Lieutenant, junior grade to Lieutenant and
was obviously feeling his pips.

"If you've got it, flaunt it." She loftily declared with an arrogant
shrug.

"But I've never seen it, Paris," DiMarco claimed, ignoring the
chuckles and ribaldry of the other pilots. "All those stories about
not setting off Zanie Paris's Klingon side, but you've never so much
as raised your voice in the past three years. I'm beginning to suspect
that. . . " he paused dramatically, ". . . secretly you're a big
softie."

Stephanie groaned dramatically and raised a hand as if to hold Zanie
back. "Let me give Sick Bay a heads up to expect the body before you
kill him."

Zanie, however, merely laughed, "You want me to hurt you, DiMarco?
That's something you need to take up with your sexual
psychotherapist."

That drew hoots and catcalls anew, but DiMarco curled his lip in a
deliberately I'm-gorgeous-and-I-know-it provocation, "Scared that I
can outfight as well as out-fly a member of the mighty Paris clan of
super-pilots?"

Instead of retorting, Zanie deliberately folded her arms, and slowly
looked DiMarco up and down with a deliberately exaggerated expression
of thoughtful speculation that brought instant hush to the amused
audience of the byplay. "Right now, Klingon honour forbids me from
taking advantage of such an unequal opponent."

His eyes flared at that while several made nyeee-ooww crash-and-burn
sounds. "How convenient," he sneered.

But she wasn't done; she let a slow, wide shark-like smile spread
across her face and carefully dropped her voice into a lower, huskier
register, "But you're pretty good, DiMarco. Keep practising and one
day, you might even be good enough for me to fly you."

Whistles and catcalls erupted; Zanie smirked as DiMarco responded
automatically to the blatant sexual entendre and the sensual
speculation in her eyes, instinctively moving a fraction so he was
closer to her than the other males -

"Try not to damage him too much, Lieutenant, he has potential. In a
very short time he could be almost as good a pilot as you. . . and
he's easy on the eyes." the Admiral added in a deliberately not-quite
sotto voce enough aside to Lt Paris, her eyes dancing with wicked
amusement.

"Admiral on deck!" Everyone instantly came to attention at the
declaration, but Zanie Paris was too irrepressible not to respond.

"Yes, ma'am," as usual for her family, Lt Paris instantly caught on
and as the Admiral walked past she conspicuously eyed Lt DiMarco with
an archly thoughtful gaze, fighting back a smirk at the answering and
heated challenge in Rhydian's eyes; she had the feeling the next few
months were going to be a lot of fun – for one of them at least.

They came to attention as the Admiral finished her impromptu
inspection and congratulated them all warmly on their achievements and
their presentation. Knowing when to make an exit as well as an
entrance, Admiral Janeway left their crew quarters. Once the door had
slid shut behind her to leave her in the empty corridor, she relaxed
into plain old Teya, heartily wishing she could be a fly on the wall
in the room she'd just left.

She started to walk briskly along the corridor but almost immediately
had to slow to what she vainly persisted in terming her 'stately
shuffle'. The doctor, interfering busybody, had demanded that for her
heart she must only 'travel' by site-to-site transport, or else the
consequences could be. . . Well, what did he expect from a
197-year-old, cartwheels and handsprings? Ridiculous, a whippersnapper
two-thirds of her age trying to lecture her on her health – let him
get this old first, then he could dole out trite clichιs, and he
wasn't even the Doctor.

Teya felt a different pang, one of her figurative not literal heart.
She would have loved to have met that physician in the flesh, or
rather holo-matrix as it were. But nearly 350 years after Voyager had
made it home, just two years before Teya herself had been born, the
Doctor had permanently deactivated his program following the death of
an extremely elderly Vulcan woman named T'Ryn.

All through her childhood, Teya had experienced a deep disappointment,
resentful with the typical self-centredness of the young as to why
couldn't the Doctor have waited just a few years longer, until after
she'd met him? It taken the understanding of age to sharpen her
emotional 'sight' even as her physical eyes began to put their feet up
a little!

But the death of T'Ryn had marked the end of an epoch for the Doctor,
something a curious child such as Teya, with no concept of time, was
unable to grasp. T'Ryn had been the last of the First Generation of
children born to the 'Voyagers', the returnee crew. She had been the
last surviving personal link to them, but even then, she had only been
a partial one.

When Tuvok's last son, Turak, had undergone the Pon Farr, Seven had
agreed to be his mate and indeed had coped far better with a serene
Vulcan spouse than she would have done with a human male. T'Ryn had
been the youngest of their children; however, she had been born
essentially as part of the next and therefore removed generation.

Some of the Voyagers she had never known at all. When T'Ryn was just
six weeks old, Tuvok had passed away, by far the biologically oldest
though not the first to die of the Voyagers – earlier deceased
included Neelix, though the after-effects of the Metrion Cascade used
by the Hankorians in the war with the Talaxians had contributed
greatly to his health problems.

When his illness was diagnosed by the Doctor as terminal, Neelix had
begun making plans to go into a hospice, but Captain Janeway and
Chakotay had taken him into their home where their children had given
him a new lease of life, along with his goddaughter Naomi Wildman who
had practically moved in. Incredibly one day a very elderly woman had
just walked straight into the house – Kes.

She ignored all questions as to how she had managed to get to Earth
and her own condition as Ocampans lived only 'nine' years according to
the revolutions of their home world. She had never left Neelix's side
until he died peacefully in his sleep a few days later. Still without
satisfying anyone's curiosity, Kes herself had also passed away a week
later, a peculiarly apropos ending, as Ocampans mated for life and in
a strange way she had always been Neelix's mate.

Previous crewmembers had been granted special dispensation by
Starfleet to be interred around Captain Janeway's plinth at the
'Voyager shrine', Neelix and Kes amongst them, and upon his death,
Tuvok's Will had made the same interment instruction. Even now Teya
sometimes wondered what Tuvok's Vulcan family had made of such
sentimentality. But there again, Tuvok's death had been the end of an
era to those of that period as T'Ryn's had been to the Doctor. Tuvok
had been one of the last living links to heroes of that period, having
in his own youth actually met the legendary Vulcan Spock, Captain
James Kirk, Dr Leonard McCoy, Chief Engineer Scott, Captain Uhura,
Commodore Chekov and Admiral Sulu.

By T'Ryn's childhood, she had missed and therefore could never
appreciate the rich vibrancy of those early years of the Voyagers
return, their private and public struggles to readjust and
reintegrate. When T'Ryn was a girl, many of the Voyagers had been like
Kathryn Janeway and Chakotay, who were aged professors emeritus more
interested in being doting grandparents. Or were like Harry Kim, who
by then was a widower, retired from Engineering Design to become a
full-time classical clarinettist. He more or less continuously toured
the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants, accompanied by his good friends
B'Elanna and Tom Paris who had sold their San Francisco home when
their children were grown to accompany him on the grounds that (as the
history texts quoted Tom Paris) "'I've never let Harry go wandering
the cosmos on his own and I don't intend to start now.'"

The Voyagers' children such as Miral Paris, Teya and Seven Janeway,
Naomi Wildman et al were all grown up by the time T'Ryn was young,
either with families of their own or established in their careers,
like Tom Kim and Harry Paris, 'the two most vexing cadets ever to pass
through Starfleet Academy', both eventual heroes of the
Vidiian-Klingon War, and key players in bringing about peace,
alongside Commodore Ayala, eldest son of Lt Ayala.

T'Ryn's formative years had thus been spent in the autumn and winter
of the Voyagers' lives and there had been much that had passed her by.
Before T'Ryn even reached adolescence, Kathryn Janeway was once again
making her annual pilgrimage to her plinth alone, Chakotay her beloved
mate buried there alongside Tuvok, her most trusted friend, now bereft
of the two stanchions of her life.

The Parises and Harry Kim had all died in the same year; Harry and
B'Elanna Torres Paris had passed away within weeks of each other, and
a few weeks after that, Tom Paris had simply 'stopped'. He was unable
to continue without the two people who had been the bedrock of his
life for so many years, and quite simply he didn't want to. By then
those who mourned at the Voyager shrine were ever fewer; Kathryn
Janeway was of great age by then, jokingly attributing her longevity
to a diet of pure caffeine.

She and Chakotay had moved back to San Francisco when their youngest
child was grown and every October with increasing slowness she would
make her way from her townhouse to the transport shuttle and alight at
the Gardens she could no longer walk to from her home as she had done
with Chakotay for so many years, even though her eyesight was by then
so bad she had no idea that when she handed in her travel chit the
shuttle conductor gave it back without having billed her – she was
Janeway.

Until one October day when no figure was waiting at the shuttle stop.
The shuttle waited and waited, until the passengers checked that the
few Voyagers waiting at the shrine did not have the Captain already
with them. Then the passengers had called at Captain Janeway's home,
and found her in the kitchen rocking chair Chakotay had hand-carved
for their fifth wedding anniversary; bundled up ready for the chill
weather, she had simply sat down for a few minutes and closed her eyes
eternally.

When T'Ryn had herself died of the great age typical of Vulcans, the
Doctor had seemed to himself to be an anachronism. Her death made the
Voyagers as legendary to that generation as Captain Kirk and his
Enterprise had been to Kathryn Janeway's. They were larger-than-life
figures of holonovels and documentaries, analysed historical
personages in school and higher education history texts, but they were
no longer 'real'.

Only one hologram, whose subroutines and memory circuits granted him
perpetual and perfect crystal clear recall, remembered. He alone only
had to close his eyes to relive sharply their eternal hope during
their epic journey across uncharted space; he alone felt that
reminiscent pride in recalling exactly how they had been willing to
turn down Admiral Janeway's plan to return them to the Alpha Quadrant
in favour of destroying the Borg hub even though they would be
stranded in the Delta Quadrant for decades.

The Doctor was the sole being who remembered precisely what his
memoirs had called the 'stomach-twisting, heart-clenching,
blood-pounding, eye-burning indescribably euphoric depth of emotion
that seemed to tremble through the very ship itself' as they destroyed
the Borg sphere from within and surged through the wreckage, out, out,
to see that glorious shimmering blue jewel of a world and the massed
ranks of the ships that became their honour guard.

Voted the Alpha Quadrant's No.1 News Clip in every century since
(which Teya only watched in private so nobody could see her cry) was
the replay of the USS Voyager sweeping into land at San Francisco, the
dusk as bright as day from the fireworks and celebratory crowds
thronging the streets. A massed gasp of awe echoed as the Voyager
finally set down on the landing pad, billions watching as groups of
people began being beamed to appear around the ship. But those people
had ignored the approaching phalanx of Starfleet Admirals and
Federation High Councillors; they had seemed oblivious to their loved
ones crowding the concourses as their fellow crew members beamed onto
the landing pad.

The crowd had cheered when Naomi Wildman solidified into view holding
her mother's hand and cheerfully waved at them, and even more so when
the Doctor, Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres appeared side by side, the
latter holding a baby that gurgled and wafted its hands as if also
trying to wave. Then a single transport beam formed and one final
figure materialised on the landing pad – a slender woman of medium
height.

"Captain on deck!" Tuvok had announced in stentorian tones.

. . . and instantly, every member of the USS Voyager crew came to
attention and saluted their Captain – including the waiting Admirals.

Only the Doctor remembered those Voyagers, and only he grieved for
them with a sense of personal loss their own great-grandchildren and
great-great-grandchildren could not feel.

So he had shut down his program perpetually, transferring it to an
inoperative mobile emitter and ensuring he couldn't be reactivated,
leaving an explanation playing on a repetitive loop on his console for
his assistant to find, as he had no 'estate' as such to bequeath. The
Doctor's closest Alpha Quadrant friends had been Dr Lewis Zimmerman
and Commander Reginald Barclay; the former had created the Doctor, and
the latter had tirelessly devoted his efforts to helping them get
home. By special order of Captain Janeway for these facts, both been
granted 'honorary' crewmember status and buried with everyone else at
the Voyager shrine, but neither had had any immediate biological
family or direct descendants who might inherit.

By special Executive Order of the United Federation of Planets
following his self-deactivation, the Doctor's mobile emitter had been
placed within Kathryn Janeway's grave, the Voyagers finally united
together again, though by that time period their resting place had
long been a tourist attraction rather than a shrine – something that
perhaps only underscored the wisdom of the Doctor's decision.

As she paused yet again to catch her breath, Teya clucked her tongue
in irritation at herself. Daddy used to call her his 'little worrier',
and here she was. She was sure that Zanie Paris and that Rhydian
DiMarco would turn out a fine couple. Her matchmaking instincts had
always been more 'on the nose' than not and she had the proof - T'Ven,
Tuvok's great-great-whatever granddaughter through Seven and Turak,
had actually run a statistical analysis of her 'romance radar' when
they'd attended the Academy together and with (for a Vulcan) impressed
surprise had noted a 90 percent accuracy rate.

Yet here she was second-guessing herself already; even more
ludicrously, she knew her ancestors had made it through and yet she
was worrying about the Voyagers. Her doctor would be calling her a
silly old woman if she let that slip. But then she'd always been too
over-imaginative for her own common sense to control sometimes. When
her father had told his children stories of the Voyagers and their
descendants Teya had listened each time with bated breath and rapid
pulse, even though she knew the generally positive outcome.

Not that the Voyagers had been magically immune to age, illness and
accidents by any means, but considering what they'd managed to survive
in the Delta Quadrant, they were pretty sharp when it came to spotting
trouble brewing long before even the most perceptive people and
equally nimble at 'getting the hell out of the way'. Useful skills
they combined with a tendency to think 'outside the box' and which
they'd taught their children.

That had enabled them to sometimes succeed with a high-risk gamble
where others would fatally hesitate or vacillate. Those qualities had
enabled Captain Tom Kim to win the defining battle of the
Vidiian-Klingon War for the Klingon's Federation allies (using the
multi-attack-vector capable ships based on the Prometheus prototype
that the Romulans had once tried to steal), helped because he had one
of the best pilots in the Alpha Quadrant not only flying his attack
trio but sharing such synchronicity of thought that he anticipated the
Commodore's intentions – Commander Harry Paris.

But the battle had been won at a cost; Commodore Ayala's brother had
been killed outright in the battle, as had one of William and Tal
Telfer's daughters, Ekaterin, and one of Kathryn Janeway and
Chakotay's daughters, Lieutenant Commander Amelia Earhart Janeway. Tom
Kim had been seriously injured in the battle, requiring his left eye,
ear, arm and leg to be replaced – after the Doctor had performed the
most frantic 'field surgery' ever. It was a testament to the man's
character that even from his sick bed, he inveigled his best friend
and assorted Voyager friends and relatives into an audacious plan to
strike a peace accord with the Vidiians whilst they were in disarray.
The plan had worked, and Captain Kim had become one of the youngest
Admirals in Starfleet, but he remained what he self-derisorily termed
a 'desk jockey' for the rest of his life.

"Of course everything turns out fine; never fear, we are here!"

Teya turned at the bombastic declaration to find two men standing side
by side in the previously deserted corridor. Tall, with dark hair and
eyes, they looked like identical twins, and were wearing command-level
style Starfleet uniforms. Or rather, what had been the style about
five hundred years before.

"Q!"

They beamed at her fatuously, utterly impervious as she tried her most
intimidating "I-am-the-Admiral-and-I-rule" glare. Teya knew all about
this pair! One was the Q, life's bane of the great Jean-Luc Picard,
the other was his son, Qb; together they had equally been the bane of
the Janeway-Chakotay clan for the past five centuries.

The spring of the eleventh year after Voyager's return to the Alpha
Quadrant had come uneventfully almost everywhere, an insignificant
season in an unimportant year – until pandemonium had erupted over
London one bright spring morning. The entire city had suddenly turned
bright pink – every brick and tile, every leaf and grass-blade, every
flower and bird and beast, even the River Thames itself. At the same
time fireworks had begun to explode and massed angelic choristers
blasted triple-note heralds on golden trumpets while it began to rain
rose petals and the very stars themselves had seemingly contorted to
spell out: 'HELLO GIRLS!' in the sky.

The cacophony had only been stopped when Kathryn Janeway appeared at
the doorway of her London townhouse and furiously declared that unless
the two Qs desisted immediately, they would not be the godfathers.
That had brought an instant cessation to the extravaganza, but had
forced Teya's ancestress, despite some serious misgivings, to make Q
and Qb godfathers to her newborn twin daughters – whose birth had
caused their antics.

Actually it hadn't been that bad. The original Teya and Seven had
thought the world of their omnipotent godfathers, who had come in very
useful at the "I-want-a-puppy/pony" stage. Kathryn Janeway and
Chakotay had also taught the Q continuum a thing a two by insisting Q
pull his weight in the babysitting dues. They had even made Q's mate,
the female Q, broody again after she declared them 'utterly charming'
and gleefully noted how they drove her mate and her son to
distraction, omnipotence or no.

However, the Qs had for whatever reason not only expanded the role to
encompass all of Kathryn Janeway's children, but seemed to have
decided that 'godchild' was a hereditary position. So for the last
five hundred years, various descendants of the 'indomitable duo', as Q
termed Janeway and Chakotay, had experienced sudden visitations
(according to their recipients always at the worst possible moment) by
Q and his son. The last such unwelcome surprise had occurred just over
120 years ago to a distant cousin of Teya's, a warp drive engineer
named Richard Meygesi. Occasionally other descendants of the Voyagers
had also received unwelcome visitors; Major Paris Torres
HammondammHamm, a great-grandson of Tom & B'Elanna Paris had famously
threatened to shoot them, and the Qs particularly liked to drop in
uninvited on Tuvok's descendants with the express intention of
checking they were 'still depressing and tedious'.

"What are you doing here?" Teya demanded in her most repressive tone.

"How could we pass by when our favourite goddaughter – this century –
was worrying her snowy head about such inconsequentialities!" Q
stepped forward and threw an arm round her shoulder, ignoring her
stiff body to give her a 'matey' hug.

"Relax, Teya Two. . . or is it Three now pops?" the other Q began
uncertainly.

She narrowed her eyes. "I am the fifth Teya Janeway."

"Whatever. . . " Qb dismissed, ". . . anyway, relax. Your romance
radar is still A-OK. Little Zanie – yeeuch how cutesy is that
nickname? – and her testosterone-overloaded friend will live happily
ever after."

"Give or take three years or so." Q amended.

"Three years?" Teya dug in her heels as they shepherded her along the
corridor. "It takes three years for them to get together?"

"Are you kidding, that room was practically drowning in the flash
flood of pheromones," Qb snorted derisively. "She jumps DiMarco's
bones two weeks from now. She decides why not have a fun fling with
the fun guy before she finds the real deal."

"Amazingly Mr Musclehead does have more between his ears than his
skull and he figures out her game plan and decides to make some
modifications." Q grinned. "It'll be fun to watch. . . " he rolled his
eyes at her glowering expression, "tut-tut, what a face! Look, it will
be fine, they procreate like bunnies for the next decade adding ever
more 'Parisian' DNA to the gene pool."

"Eh, Parisian, very good Q." Qb praised.

"Look. . . !"

"We're here to grant your dearest wish!" Q declaimed theatrically.

"You're going to just leave?" Teya blinked in surprise.

He glared, "Second dearest wish. Cinderella – you shall go to the
ball."

She groaned as he snapped his fingers – that was always fatal – and
was forced to take a step back as she was hit in the face by a. . .
climbing rose bloom?

Bringing the wafting frond into focus, Teya looked around her in
alarm. She was certainly no longer in Starfleet HQ, but outside.
Flanked on either side by the Qs, she appeared to be in some sort of
garden. There was a wall immediately behind her and flagged stones
under her feet, while yellow lanterns cast pools of light. But there
didn't seem to be any immediate danger.

Laughter broke into her examination and she saw about six feet away
humanoids – a tall, austere-looking blonde woman was talking to a
youth with a strange ridged nose and. . .

That bald pate and round face was recognisable anywhere – Voyager's
Doctor! With speechless astonishment, Teya feasted her eyes on the
group of people. There was another group at the doorway leading into
the house, including a blond man and a slender, pretty brunette who
bore a strong resemblance to Zanie Paris except that she had fully
developed Klingon brow ridges rather than mere vestigial 'bumps'.

"It's them. . . " she breathed, taking a few steps forward.

"In the flesh!" smirked Q. "Or rather, they are. This is the tenth
anniversary of Voyager's return home. Feel free to browse and ogle,
they can't see us, hear us or detect our presence, not even Miss 'I am
Borg' over there or that irritating Itchy boy."

Teya wasn't paying attention; she looked at her own ancestors as
Chakotay held his wife's coat for her. In the lantern light his rugged
handsomeness and that tattoo gave his face a sinister cast, but
Kathryn Janeway smiled at him as if he were Michelangelo's David. Teya
stood entranced as the group made their goodbyes to their hosts,
finally leaving the house quiet again.

"It's incredible," she breathed, feeling tears prick her eyes. "To
actually be able to see them as they were then. . . "

"Of course, we're the Q, incredible comes as standard." He buffed his
nails on his uniform.

"Where are they all going?" she asked.

"Oh to their homes, that sort of thing. I think at this time they were
all living on Earth. Apart from that hirsute Talaxian at any rate; he
preferred one of Earth's lunar cities, said it reminded him of home.
Good thing, considering how he moulted everywhere."

"We need to get out of here!" declared Qb suddenly.

"What's wrong?" Teya turned sharply, but there was no apparent threat.

"Nothing," retorted Qb and then jerked a thumb in the direction of the
couple passionately embracing a few feet away, "but in six minutes
and. . . 17 seconds – B'Elanna Torres will become pregnant for the
third time, and some sights are more even than a Q can stomach!" he
snapped his fingers –

- and they were suddenly on a main sidewalk in the city itself. A
little further ahead, a familiar group of figures separated, some
heading towards the shuttle port, whilst Kathryn Janeway and Chakotay
began to walk along arm in arm. Instinctively Teya followed her own
ancestors, wishing she could run and accost them and ask them all the
questions bubbling up inside.

"Ah, ah!" Q chided. "Look but don't touch, all breakages must be paid
for! Or do you really want an hour long lecture from your illustrious
forbears on the Temporal Prime Directive. Trust me, Janeway can quote
it verbatim." He pulled a face.

"You just dropped in to show me this?" Teya demanded suspiciously.

"Actually we have a proposition for you." Q admitted.

"Hah-ah!"

"Don't take that tone with me young lady." Q chided sniffily.
"Besides, you'll love it. We'd like to offer you an all-expenses paid
vacation. . . with us."

"I don't understand?" Teya frowned. "You want me to join the
continuum?"

"Hardly," Q rolled his eyes, muttering something about 'minor bipedal
species' under his breath that she didn't catch before going on,
"Isn't it true that you've always been more into your family's history
than most of your relatives? Haven't you always wanted to see their
time for yourself? That's what we're offering. You've dedicated your
life to service of your world and your family. You have no mate or
children to hold you back, why not?"

Teya hesitated. It was tempting. Her battalions of nephews and nieces
had, quite rightly, never loved her more than their own parents and
she had never felt any biological urge to reproduce, happy to
vicariously experience parenthood at a distance through her siblings.

"I'm still a Starfleet Admiral. I still have responsibilities. . . "

"Actually, you don't." Q looked slightly sheepish.

"What do you mean?"

"When we appeared in the corridor behind you we startled you –"

"Yes, you gave me a start," Teya conceded.

Qb stepped up and put his arm round her shoulder with a pained
expression, "Actually we gave you a stop."

There was the sound of clicking fingers, and suddenly Teya was back in
the corridor, but again she wasn't alone. A large gathering of people
were standing over. . . her. Teya looked down at her own form; she was
lying on the corridor carpet, not sprawled but straight, as if she had
decided to lay down for a brief nap. One of the paramedics shook her
head and carefully laid some sort of cloth over Teya's upper torso and
face. At the forefront of those standing Teya saw Zanie Paris, rigid
with her hands clenched and tears swimming in her eyes. Rhydian
DiMarco gently laid his hand on her shoulder and instead of shrugging
it off the young woman instinctively leaned into the support – yes,
they would be fine.

"I'm dead."

"As a dodo," Q said cheerfully.

"So you took my soul out or something?"

"Dear me, how fanciful. . . no." Q rolled his eyes. "You're intact,
body and soul. In the instant before you keeled over – your heart by
the way – we. . . how can your primitive understanding comprehend?
Let's say we yanked your consciousness out."

"Come on, what do you say," urged Qb.

"I've only just found out I'm dead!" she protested.

"Pshaw!" Qb waved that away. "Come on, think of it. Wouldn't you love
to be on the bridge of that ship with Harry Paris and Tom Kim? Don't
you want to have a ringside seat back in the Delta Quadrant and watch
great-great-whatever granny Kathryn go one-on-one with the Borg Queen?
You don't have to stay forever! We're offering you the chance to kick
back and relax a while. Consider it a well-earned vacation."

Teya bit her lip; yes, she would love and yes she did want. . . "Well.
. . "

"It'll be fun!" the Qs assured her in chorus.

And it was.

---

The End