Disclaimer Voyager, Starfleet, and all that other stuff belong to Paramount, and I’m not making any money off of this.

This story is told in the first person from Gretchen Janeway’s point of view. It’s set shortly before "Hunters," and it’s pretty much just a big long ramble. No plot, really; I’m going to try to keep this one short.

I leave the house and go out to sit in the tree where she spent so much time growing up. I look up at the stars and wonder, yet again, where she is. Is she dead? I don’t want to think so, but everyone else seems to believe it. But Voyager vanished without a trace. No phaser signatures, no debris, nothing to indicate they’d been destroyed. That’s why I can’t give up hope; I want to believe that they’ve just gone somewhere, through a wormhole perhaps, or some kind of alien transporter, and that they’re trying to get home now.

If Kathryn is alive, though, I hope she’s allowed herself out. It seems sometimes like Kathryn was born Starfleet, and ever since the accident that took the lives of the two men she loved the most, she’s drawn further back into the protective shell that Starfleet regulations and protocol provided for her. Even with Mark, she always kept a thin wall up. Maybe she was more open when they were alone, but I’ve never seen any signs of it.

Maybe, wherever she is, she’s finally allowed herself to let go and love again; maybe, far from Starfleet’s rules, she’s become once again the Kathryn I knew before. She’s tried to harden herself against all pain, and to others it must seem that she’s pretty good at it; her control of her facial expressions rivals that of a Vulcan. But I know my daughter, and I know that she can never be cold and indifferent to suffering, either of herself or of others. She doesn’t understand that by trying to close herself off and ignore the pain, she’s actually making herself more vulnerable to it.

If she is out there somewhere trying to get her ship home, then I fear for her, because I know that she’ll try to take the entire burden on herself. She may be an adult, but it seems she’s never learned that it’s all right to share her burden with someone else. Everything is her responsibility and her load to bear, and I’m afraid, as I’ve always been afraid, that she’ll collapse under the heavy weight on her shoulders.

I can only hope that she’s out there somewhere, and that she’s found someone to help her carry her burdens, even if it’s only as a shoulder to cry on. I can only hope that maybe I’ll see her again someday, or at least hear from her and know that she’s all right. I don’t even know if she’s alive, but I have to believe, because not believing might kill me.

I can only hope.