Kathryn sat in the dark corner, turning the glass in her hand, watching the amber liquid swirl and reflect the muted lights. Every night she'd come here, order a whiskey, down it, then line up two, sometimes three more glasses on her table and nurse them till her senses were dulled enough to make it to her apartment without feeling the searing emptiness in her heart. Chakotay was gone, and the hope she'd once carried in her heart for a union with him had vanished without a trace.

After months of tweaking Borg modified slipstream technology, Voyager had made a triumphant return to the Alpha Quadrant, and promptly fell into the midst of a war. Janeway was thrust back into Starfleet's upper echelon almost instantaneously. Despite this, in the beginning Chakotay tried desperately to forge something more than friendship between himself and his Captain, but Janeway became too preoccupied by other circumstances to focus on him. Over the past months she realized that she'd pushed him away for one reason, and one reason only: she was afraid. After spending so many years alone, disconnected from loved ones as well as Starfleet, she'd grown used to solitude. And somehow fear had taken hold of Kathryn so strongly that she simply couldn't bring herself to give up her solitude in exchange for the sublime possibility of a relationship with Chakotay.

Today was the day, she thought. A year ago today. The anniversary of a homecoming for which she'd yearned for five long years.

"Life is lonely Again, and only last year, Everything seemed so sure Now life is awful Again a trough full of hearts could only be a bore"

Three hundred sixty five days, and she'd not spoken with Chakotay for three hundred thirty one of them. He'd left messages, visited her office, bugged her family for information about her. Then, suddenly, nothing. After the tenacity of feeling he'd displayed on Voyager, he gave up much more easily than Kathryn would have imagined. Barely a month into the Alpha Quadrant, Chakotay departed Earth after refusing a commission with Starfleet to serve in the war. She suspected he'd gone to fight in a less than official capacity, but she staunchly denied herself the luxury of finding out the truth.

And so, Kathryn Janeway had no idea where her closest living friend of five years was, and nothing she did could fill the gap he'd created when she rejected him. At the time she didn't realize it would be their last conversation, and the unkindness she remembered in the tone of her voice made her ashamed.

~*~

Chakotay's voice over the link betrayed his cool exterior on the monitor's screen. "Kathryn, for weeks I've been trying to get you to sit down for five minutes so we could talk, and all you can do is babble about the Dominion."

"Babble? You call talk of the Dominion babble?" She stood up from the screen and began to hunt through padds on her desk. "Chakotay, I barely have time to sleep and eat, much less chat about the weather."

"Kathryn, what is wrong with you? Can you not spare a tiny portion of your day to reconnect with a friend?" The hurt began to show in his eyes, but Kathryn kept her Captain's mask firmly in place, habit taking over where instinct should have.

"Chakotay, you should know me well enough by now to understand that Starfleet comes first in situations like these, and at the moment I'm trying to prepare for a conference that starts in less than twelve hours. I realize we haven't had much time lately, but--"

"No, Kathryn," he interrupted. "There will be no more buts, and there will be no more time. I won't call again."

Had she bothered to look up for even a split second, had she opened her heart enough for a moment to really hear his words, things may have turned out very differently. But, as ever, she feared the distraction his eyes encouraged, so she kept her gaze fastened on the PADD she'd finally uncovered from beneath the pile. "Thanks, Chakotay. I'll call you next week." The expected response never came, and when she looked up at the screen a minute later, she was greeted with the federation symbol, with the words "Connection terminated" written across it. Shaking her head, she refocused on work.

~*~

It was the last time they'd spoken.

Initially, she'd lived and breathed for the war, refusing a new ship, but becoming an integral part of the diplomatic corps of the Federation trying desperately to bring an end to the conflict.

And for those first six months, she was busy, living, eating, dreaming work. Not an unfamiliar course of action, but it kept her alive when it seemed nothing else would. Everything had changed, as she'd expected, but there was an unexpected problem that had come up during her time away from home.

She'd changed.

More than she'd ever suspected. Voyager had become her home, and for what seemed like the hundredth time in her forty-four years of existence, her home had been ripped from her grasp. And it was only after she was off the ship, embedded in her new life in Starfleet, that she realized the last time she'd been truly happy was on Voyager. Of course there had been the joys of reunion with family and friends, and she'd even felt a flutter of pleasure when she'd been greeted by Mark, along with his new family. But, she recalled later, Chakotay had been with her then, along with Tom and B'Elanna and Seven. It was one new family greeting another, and the cords that tied her to her crew were apparently considerably more potent than she'd imagined.

Now, she was alone, and she wanted to keep it that way.

Most of the crew had scattered, some in groups, some in pairs, some alone. Like Kathryn. Seven spent time on Vulcan at the institute. Tuvok and Harry resigned from Starfleet. B'Elanna and Tom had married and both taken commissions aboard the Triton, engaging the Jem 'Hadar on more than one occasion. But they had survived the war, and last Kathryn had heard they were in the midst of setting up house somewhere near San Francisco, with a baby on the way. Dozens of other crew members fought with Starfleet, and plenty of those were pardoned Maquis who were welcomed back into the fold without so much as a slap on the wrist. It was a far cry from her expected defense of the Maquis in endless hearings, explaining every battle, every enemy vanquished, every built and rebuilt shuttle lost in combat. But Starfleet was in the thick of a war and needed every willing body available, so there was nothing more than a brief meeting of higher-ups who then pardoned anyone and everyone aboard Voyager.

There had been one glitch regarding Seven. Alynna Necheyev desperately wanted to get her hands on the Borg and take her apart both physically and psychologically. But Kathryn's newfound status as hero and icon put a stop to that instantly. The media swooned over Seven's story, conveniently leaked to the press shortly before Necheyev could take action, and Kathryn was at the shuttlebay when her protege departed for Vulcan two weeks after Voyager's return. It was difficult for her to let the young woman go, and surprisingly, Kathryn suspected the feeling was mutual.

During the war, things were out of control for everyone, and Kathryn's fears of losing everything to the powerful Dominion forces outweighed her desire to spend time catching up with long lost friends. As the days passed, the pain did not diminish, but she refused to allow herself to be distracted from the task at hand.

And here it was, six months after the end of the war, and Kathryn had not spoken to anyone connected with Voyager since she'd abruptly left San Francisco in November. Once things had calmed down in the Federation after the Dominion's defeat, Kathryn had relocated to Paris to continue her research of Slipstream technology. She was emotionally exhausted, and figured a new locale might help regain her perspective on her future. And she'd never lived outside North America while stationed on Earth, so she decided, why not? It was time for a break, a change. A new landscape to help her make her life worth living.

"A week in Paris will ease the bite of it All I care is to smile in spite of it"

It was a mistake. Yet another excuse to hide from what she'd been avoiding for years--the chance of someone's getting too close to her heart. People, relationships had somehow become dangerous since the Caretaker had swept her away from home, even now that she was safely out of the skies. Her research got nowhere, and the depression that began clawing at her psyche during the war was raging. So she descended into that all-too-familiar funk of isolation, each day blending miserably into the next. An expert in the art of wallowing in her sorrows, Kathryn was falling harder and faster into the abyss than ever before, and this time there was nothing and no one who knew enough of what was going on to stop her.

Each day she went to the Institute, fiddling and floundering in her calculations. Mystique surrounded her everywhere she went, and most assumed that after so many years in the Delta Quadrant, this Starfleet Captain was used to working alone. If they'd only known her history, had taken the time and effort to look below the surface when they spoke with her, at least one of them might have noticed the dark circles, the bloodshot eyes, the hollows of cheekbones sharpening day by day. But they knew nothing, and mistakenly assumed that five years of constant trauma in the Delta Quadrant had taken their toll.

So each night, Kathryn wandered down the Seine, stood on ancient bridges, and pondered her life. Her solitary travels inevitably led to a smoky, quiet saloon on the left bank, and it was the one place where Kathryn felt some modicum of comfort. Each night, Sandrine would saunter over with drink, a smile, and a kind word. And each night, she calmly watched as the Captain drowned her sorrows in a glass of whiskey. Even watching Kathryn drink her nights away, Sandrine held out hope for this woman, this lion-hearted figure who could save an entire crew from destruction but couldn't seem to save herself from oblivion.

"I'll forget you, I will While yet, you are Still burning inside my brain"

Tonight, for some reason, Kathryn couldn't make it through her first glass. The other two sat lined up as usual, but her throat was tight and full, and the burn of drink wasn't as soothing as it normally was. Even the faint smell of the whiskey irritated her, and she turned her head away toward the entrance. The warm night air drifted through the open door, and a surprise greeted her: the scent of spring hyacinth. The fragrance crept into her nostrils, and without warning hot tears stung behind her eyes. Funny, she hadn't shed a tear in over six months, and now all it took was the smell of a flower to bring them on. She turned away and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the overpowering scent of the blossoms.

"Romance is mush Stifling those who strive I'll live a lush life In some small dive--"

Pathetic, Kathryn, just pathetic. Crying over a flower. When here you are in Paris, with your whole life to look forward to... Her breath caught. The thought of a whole life wasted, sitting in a bar, musing over a glorious past instead of creating a glorious future suddenly seemed abhorrent and ridiculous. Her heart was pounding, air catching in her throat and choking her for a moment. Confusion crossed her features.

"And there I'll be while I rot--"

What am I doing here?

She looked at the glass in her hand as though she had no idea how it got there. A memory was tickling her brain, but she couldn't seem to put her finger on it. She set her glass down, and once again, her brow furrowed as she looked around at the dusky interior of the bar.

What am I doing?

As she peered into the darkness, she noticed Sandrine behind the bar, pouring a tall glass of red liquid for a slouching figure seated on one of the bar stools. He took the glass without a word and dropped at least half of it in one gulp, and Kathryn's eyes widened.

It might as well have been her sitting there, knocking back shots of whiskey till she couldn't walk, stumbling home to pass out on her bed fully clothed. As she had done more than once in the past two months.

"With the rest of those whose lives are lonely too--"

What am I doing?

The scent of hyacinth crept in again, caressing her senses. And in a burst of clarity there it was, the memory scratching away at her mind: it was of Phoebe bringing fresh flowers to her bedside every few days during the horrible months after the deaths of her father and fiance. As she burrowed under the covers of her bed, Kathryn couldn't ignore the sometime overpowering aroma of hyacinth, and she'd spent more than a few hours wondering where the hell Phoebe was finding the spring flowers in the dead of winter, in Indiana no less.

Oh, Phoebe.

The corner of Kathryn's mouth turned up as she remembered the cold shower her sister had so kindly and unceremoniously dumped over her head, an action motivated by frustration and fear. Horrified at the intrusion, Kathryn recalled smashing the ever-present vase of hyacinth against the wall in a fit of rage, reveling in the loud crash that echoed through the room.

It was only later, when her newly-christened puppy Petunia was snuffling uncertainly about her bedroom that Kathryn found the time and energy to clean up her mess. After a somewhat remorseful Kathryn swept up the broken shards, Phoebe generously brought in a new vase, and Kathryn herself returned the blossoms to her bedside.

Now instead of trying to block the scent, she breathed it in fully, welcoming the breeze as it wafted into the room. Unsteadily she stood, leaving the three nearly full glasses of alcohol untouched on her table. Her gaze fell again on Sandrine, and the older woman nodded to her in acknowledgment.

And Kathryn smiled. For the first time in what felt like ages. She was still breathing, in and out, and the hyacinth just seemed to get stronger with every breath. She turned away, and walked out into the night. As she passed through the door the last time for many years, Sandrine gave a tiny salute, and whispered, "Come back one day, Captain. And next time, bring a friend."

Once outside, the night air slid along Kathryn's skin like a balm. The moon shone overhead, just days away from being full, and the stars that had seduced her so many years before were out in full force. Suddenly she felt as though she had a million things to accomplish in an extremely short period of time--people to find, places to go, problems to solve. And none of those problems had to do with slipstream technology.

Kathryn searched the sky, just making out a bit of Orion's belt peeking over the horizon, and an incredible sense of relief washed through her. Orion was still there; the constellations hadn't lost their places since she'd been away. She couldn't remember the last time she'd taken a moment to glance at the sky for any reason other than wondering what jacket to wear that day, and it had been months since the sight of stars meant anything other than the end of another empty day. But Orion remained, and it occurred to her that in all her time back on earth she hadn't even noticed the passing of seasons, the shift of constellations. Calculating the hunter's position in the sky, she noted that spring was here, and summer would soon follow.

Summer. She'd missed last summer, and five summers before that. How had she let so much time go by? Orion was sinking imperceptibly into the west, and she knew he'd be gone in less than a month. A strange, almost foreign sensation came upon her: excitement. The summer triangle would soon appear: harp, swan and eagle would soon flank the night sky in all their glory, and miraculously she'd be here to see them. Cygnus! A bird in flight, streaking across the blackness in its eternal journey south. Her father's voice whispered into her mind when she thought of the swan; "That will be you one day, Goldenbird, flying." Her father was gone, but on occasion, rarely now, he would still speak to her in that soft voice from her childhood, before so many changes came upon them all. Encouraging, comforting, loving. The pain she expected to follow the thought of her father never came--only the happiness of finally remembering what his voice sounded like.

And there, charging her beloved Orion, was Taurus. The bull. Chakotay. With a start she realized his birthday was only weeks away. Weeks! Ridiculous to let another day go by, really, staying in Paris, when she had so much to do. And at the top of the list that was forming rapidly in her mind was finding Chakotay. A powerful need swept through her, and she felt a pull to him so strongly she was convinced that at that very moment he was gazing up at the sky, thinking of her. Wondering what had happened to the time. So many things she'd forgotten, let fall to the edges of her mind, and now they seemed to be flooding back with a vengeance.

One year had gone by, a year of fear, and pain, and turmoil. After all, it was only a year, and while a lot could happen in a year, even more could happen in one night--in a single moment of understanding. Things change, shift, pass, though some remain, and her heart filled at the thought of Chakotay's eyes. He would have changed too, but she couldn't help believing that some things stayed true. Always.

She'd find him. Put things right. And the time was now.

~fin
3-20-99

Erin

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