By:AW

Published in Unicorn Press. Editor: Nancy Border & Pat
Hayden.

You can buy it from Unicorn Press @
http://members.aol.com/UnicrnPrs/press.htm

Disclaimer: You know it, I know it, I don’t own idea
of Star Trek: Voyager. I just own the story.

Date With Destiny I

14. The Beginning of the End

B’Elanna looked at her feet, before meeting Kathryn’s sorrowful eyes. “Yeah Captain, we know.” The slip in ranks versus name showed Kathryn just how disturbed B’Elanna was over this. “We found out the day she was born. It could have been much worse I suppose…with my family history.”

Kathryn heard the words and saw the fears and the acceptance. This little creature perfect in every way would never see a sunset. Never know the beauty she held. Never know her parents proud faces. Windows forever shut to the world.

B’Elanna didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how to react. Then she realized that Kathryn was still there holding the baby. She reached out for the child. Kathryn was almost reluctant to let her go. This must be hard for her too. She would have been a good mother.

Kathryn passed baby Kate to her mother. “She’ll be fine, B’Elanna. Trust me, things work out in the end, and everything, and I mean everything, happens for a reason. This is meant to be and in the master plan, there is a purpose for the pain. You have to believe that. I have to believe that.

Then she heard a beeping. Subconsciously she reached for her combadge; the one she no longer possessed. She looked over at Tom. He pointed to the view screen on the desk near the window. She slowly made her way over, time moved in slow motion as she realized that this could possibly change her life forever.

She clicked on the monitor and saw the face of her mother there. “Kathryn…someone is waiting for you, when should I tell him you’ll be there?”

Kathryn knew this was one of those moments in her life where every second counted and any movement…any motion could and would change one’s life forever. She heard the words escape her mouth before she had the chance to change their outcome. “Put him on mom.”

She saw a shadow cast over the view screen and watched as his face filled the viewing surface before her. She saw the eyes, the hair, yep the smile that
she had missed for so long. She reached up to the screen and touched the outlines of his tattoo. “Chakotay.”

Chakotay heard the words; they were a statement more than a question. He ‘felt’ her trace the outlines of his tattoo; he saw the glimmer of hope and fear in her eyes. He felt the magic work it way from his head to his toes. “It’s been far too long Kathryn.”

She felt herself nod, and knew change was near. She knew that from this moment on, her life would never be the same again. She saw the unspoken question in his eyes and knew he wanted to know when she would return
and claim her place by his side. “I should be home within the hour. Wait for me?”

“Always.”

“Janeway out.” Old habits die hard.

Kathryn returned to the matter at hand. The child, Tom and B’Elanna, the fact that she had missed out, that she would never have a child like the little baby Kate to have and to hold, to love, no matter what. She felt a tear slip past her closely guarded interior and slide down her face. The single lonely tear, which betrayed years of pain, agony and heartache. She felt another one slip by, and another and another, and then the dam broke. She heard a sob escape and realized she was letting out all the missed opportunities, all the
lonely nights, all the career gains and personal losses. For Kathryn had finally reached her breaking point. Like a piece of malleable metal, a certain amount of stress will force it to bend and to warp, but even the strongest metals had their breaking points.

When the bough breaks the cradle will fall and down will come baby cradle and all. The old earth song, sung to children at night. The appropriate analogy for a child who would never be born, and a mother that would never be. For a woman who would never be free.

B’Elanna walked in and saw the great Kathryn Janeway had fallen. And this time Chakotay’s not here to catch her. B’Elanna’s belief in the greater purpose had been thrown to the wind. To see a woman such as Kathryn
Janeway in such pain, was unacceptable and unbearable. She sat down and cried for Kathryn, cried for herself and cried for the child, forever blind to the world. B’Elanna took Kathryn into her embrace and they shared the pain as only friends could. They talked as only one woman could to another, and they cried as was only possible for the love and loss they had suffered, and they knew that life would go on in all its forms no matter what happened. And they knew that no matter what happened they would go on. For it was no longer a
choice, and perhaps it never had been.

/\/\

Chakotay sat with his hand pressed to the screen. Kathryn’s face in his hands. He could almost feel it, in fact he could feel it. He could feel the life force, which had returned after many years of sorrow and pain. He realized that never again would he be incomplete because the circle had completed itself.
The circle of life, in all its forms and in all its venues had bene restored. Thank you Kathryn, thank you for being the beginning and the end of the story. The up and the down of the earth, and the happiness and the sorrow of my soul. Thank you.

And so he waited.

/\/\

Kathryn felt a squeeze on her hand. She realized someone had discovered her state discontentment, and her dismantled being. Kathryn realized she was no
longer the bigger-than-life Captain they had all looked up to, but simply a woman. So the woman was grateful, but the Captain lived in sorrow. The rank
never increasing, the scientific curiosity never fulfilled…the dream never completed. For on that day she realized it was not Kathryn Janeway who had
fallen, but Captain Janeway…and a weight lifted from Kathryn’s shoulders.

And the baby smiled…for the first time, and for the last.

B’Elanna looked at the crestfallen woman beside her. “Kathryn?”

Kathryn looked up from her spot with a smile touching her lips. “Only those who love can ever be free.” She waited for a response from B’Elanna, but all she got was a nod. “I have to go B’Elanna. If you ever need anything, you know where I’ll be.”

And so Kathryn Janeway stood and exited their lives once again. She represented the coming and the going, the ups and downs, which created the bumps in the road of life. It was what made living interesting, but it could also break a person, defeat the strongest, encourage the weakest…and so the end began.

/\/\

Kathryn walked into her home. She had been here just hours ago, but now it was different. The dynamics of the house had changed, the atmosphere was no longer her but theirs. Then she remembered the phrase from a poet of long ago. Chained by her certitudes, she is a slave, she has forfeited her freedom. Only a person who risks is free. These are your chains Kathryn and this is your freedom.

Then she remembered Chakotay’s words of a time since forgotten. “I can’t sacrifice today for a tomorrow that may never happen.”

Kathryn had all these thoughts swirling through her mind. “On my own…pretending he’s beside me. All alone, I walk with him ‘til morning.”

No more, I can’t do it anymore. “To love is to risk being loved in return.” Yes but that risk is worth it. I need it.

/\/\

Kathryn called out for him. “Chakotay?” All of a sudden unsure of herself and her place in this house and in this world she took more unsteady, unsure steps and felt someone approaching her. This wasn’t him, this was another. “Mom? What are you doing here? Where’s Chakotay?”

“This is still my house.” She looked at Kathryn and saw all the pain…all the anguish, all the love long lost and hidden, but never forgotten. She broke out in a smile at her daughter’s flushed skin. “He’s in the kitchen raiding my fridge.”

“Mother.” Kathryn was exasperated. She didn’t realize the one she had missed all these years was approaching from behind. A dark stranger in the night.

He walked up and saw the silky strands of hair he’d know anywhere. It’s her. It’s really her. Finally, my life, my dreams come true. I love you Kathryn. “Boo!”

Kathryn nearly jumped three feet in the air. She whirled around with a speed and energy she didn’t think she possessed any longer. It seemed she did. She
flung herself into his arms. “Is it really you? After all this time, have you finally come for me Chakotay?”

Chakotay looked at her. She had a far off look in her eyes. It was almost as if she didn’t really believe it was true. As if she believed she was imagining the
whole thing. “It’s me…I love you, Kathryn.”

She looked up in his eyes. She searched for the truth only he could give her. She searched for the answer in his liquid pools of obsidian. “I…”

TBC in Chapter 15. Destiny Fulfilled

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