Chapter 6

JANEWAY STOOD LOOKING around at her austere, clean apartment. She was partly amused, partly despairing. This new place was waiting for her in San Francisco, courtesy of Starfleet Command. All the senior staff had been offered that option. Some had declined, others accepted. For the moment, Janeway had said yes, and was now doing her best to decorate it with the furniture and knickknacks her mother had recovered when she had been given up for lost. They had stayed in the attic in the house in Indiana, and now they looked rumpled and pitiful in the gleaming Starfleet-provided apartment. Janeway sighed. The banquet had run late—no one had wanted to leave, to really say good-bye—and she knew she ought to be getting to bed.

The door chimed. “Come,” she said, surprised—who [70] knew she was here, and who would call at this hour?—and turned to greet her first visitor.

The door hissed open, and Mark Johnson stood there.

For a moment, she didn’t breathe. “Hello, Kathryn,” he said gently. “I hope it was all right for me to come. I spoke with your mother and she seemed to think so.”

“Mark,” she said, recovering. “Yes, of course. It’s so good to see you.”

He held out his arms and she went to him. Even as she laid her head on his chest, she saw the light wink against the simple gold band on his left finger. She knew he’d gotten married, and oddly, she felt no pain at the thought. Only pleasure that he had found someone, again, to love. He was a good and gentle man, and deserved it.

“I’m so glad you’re home,” he said, his breath on her hair. They pulled apart, and Janeway saw that his eyes, too, were filled with tears.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, stepping away. “Can I make you some coffee?” she asked, and then had a brief moment of distress when she realized that she didn’t know where the replicator was in this new place.

“No, thanks. Hang on—I’ve got something of yours I need to return to you.”

While he was gone, Janeway took the opportunity to recover. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed him. More correctly, she hadn’t let herself realize how much she had missed him. But now, seeing him after all this time, feeling him warm and strong against her—

“Stop it, Kathryn,” she told herself in a low voice. “No sense wasting energy on could-have-beens.” And yet, it was difficult.

[71] A dog’s bark shattered her thoughts and she turned. Sitting beside Mark in the front room, a little heavier than she remembered and graying around the muzzle, was Molly.

“Oh, Molly!” she called, kneeling and opening her arms to the animal. Molly looked up uncertainly at Mark, then back at Janeway. The Irish setter tilted her head quizzically.

Janeway forced a smile through the pain. Of course Molly wouldn’t remember her. It had been seven years. She straightened and laughed uncomfortably.

“That was a little foolish, I suppose,” she said. “You’ve been her master for most of her life.”

Mark smiled his easy, comfortable smile. “Hey, I’ve only been dog-sitting. She’s always been yours. I can tell you who took the puppies, if you’d like to know. Everyone was so excited about your return. They feel like they own a celebrity dog. They’d be honored if you’d visit.”

“Maybe I will,” she said, though in truth, she thought she probably wouldn’t. She didn’t know those dogs, those people. So much had changed. “Keep her, Mark. You’ve loved her and taken care of her for seven years. She’s your dog, now.”

He seemed about to argue, then took a long look at her and nodded. That, at least, hadn’t changed. He knew her so well. He always had been able to see through her bravado. It was that quality that had made her fall in love with him in the first place.

She sat on the couch that clashed horribly with the surroundings and indicated that he do likewise. Molly, [72] relaxed and calm, began to sniff Janeway’s still-packed things.

They sat, stiffly. There were only a few inches of distance between them, but it might as well have been kilometers. Neither spoke for a while.

Finally, Mark broke the uncomfortable silence. “Kathryn, this is awkward. For both of us. You know that if I believed you were alive and coming home, I’d have waited.”

“Of course I do,” she said swiftly. “You did nothing wrong, Mark. I’d have done the same thing.”

He looked haunted. “Would you? I wonder. It’s just—Kathryn, we were friends long before we were anything else. I have always admired and respected you, and that hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s grown. You’re ... amazing to me. I think about you every day. Carla understands how important a person you were in my life. I’d like for you to continue to be in my life as it is now, with Carla and Kevin.”

“Kevin?”

“Our son.” He laughed. “He’s a petty tyrant, but we love him. I’d like for him to get to know his Aunt Kathryn.” His eyes were somber. “Will he?”

There was no question in her mind, only happiness. She extended her left hand. He took it, squeezed it. “Of course,” she said. “I wouldn’t miss being a part of that for the universe, Mark.”

And for the first time since he’d walked back into her life, the ghost and shadows around his eyes lifted, and he smiled from his heart.

* * *

[73] She had dinner with the Johnsons the following night, and after a few strained minutes, Janeway found herself feeling right at home. The toddler Kevin was indeed a petty tyrant, but all was forgiven when he smiled. Not even Naomi Wildman had been so cute at that tender age.

Mark’s wife Carla was a lovely woman. She was a little younger than Janeway or Mark, with a sharp brain, a cheerful grin, and an easy manner that Janeway responded to immediately. Molly was obviously well loved and looked after, and as the evening progressed she seemed to remember Janeway a little bit more. It felt good.

A brief crisis came when Carla, who had tried to actually bake a soufflé, yelped in the kitchen. She stuck her head out. “Mark, Kathryn ... I’m so sorry. The dessert is a total disaster. I should have replicated it. I’m sorry,” she repeated.

“Carla, it’s all right. I’m so full from your delicious dinner that I probably wouldn’t have done it justice anyway,” Janeway said. It was no lie; her stomach was straining.

Carla seemed unduly distressed by the fallen soufflé. Janeway sensed it was more than just a failed dessert. Mark suggested that they take coffee outside. It was a balmy summer evening, and the Johnsons lived in the country. Janeway eased back in her chair and inhaled the redolent scents of roses and grass. Mark had gone in to get them each a second cup of coffee, and Carla took the opportunity to be blunt.

“I was quite jealous, you know,” she said, cutting to the chase.

Janeway looked over at the younger woman. “Really?”

[74] She nodded her head earnestly. “Really. It was always Kathryn this, Kathryn that. He had such a great relationship with you that it was like you were always present, even when it was just the two of us.”

Janeway put her elbows on the table and regarded the young woman intently. “I’m no threat to you, Carla.”

“Oh!” Carla’s eyes flew wide. “Oh, Kathryn, no, that’s not what I meant! I meant that you seemed like such a wonderful person that I was jealous of Mark for having been so close to you. I wished I’d known you, too. I wished I’d had a Kathryn Janeway to go to with all my problems. And now—well, look at you! You’re a hero, and my house is a mess and my soufflé fell!”

No wonder Mark had fallen in love with this beautiful woman. What a generous spirit she had. On impulse, Janeway rose and embraced her. Carla enthusiastically returned the hug. Mark returned with two steaming mugs of coffee and grinned at the sight.

“You’re a lucky man, Mark Johnson,” said Janeway, pulling apart a little way from Carla. The younger woman’s eyes shone with pleasure.

“Yes,” he said, looking from one of them to the other. “Yes, I certainly am.”

 

She hadn’t wanted to leave, and it was clear that Mark and Carla didn’t want her to, either. They even offered her the guest bedroom as the night grew late and threw in a tempting offer of homemade waffles for breakfast, but she declined. When she transported out, to rematerialize in the strange, unfamiliar apartment, Janeway wished she had accepted their generous [75] invitation. Tonight, with Mark and her new, wonderful friend Carla, was the first time she felt really “at home.”

As she puttered about, delaying getting into the strange bed, she realized what it was that made her so reluctant to claim this space as her own. She missed Voyager. She missed the sounds of the vessel, the feel of the chairs and the bed, the wide starfield that she would often gaze at for a long time before finally drifting off into a restless sleep.

It was late, almost two in the morning. Yet, she sat down and tapped the small viewscreen on the table. The sound would be soft, she knew. If he didn’t want to answer, he wouldn’t have to. No insistent combadges, not anymore.

His face appeared on the screen. Like her, he was fully dressed and seemed wide awake. “Hi,” he said, smiling.

“Hi,” she said feeling her own lips stretch into a grin.

“Couldn’t sleep?” asked Chakotay.

“Nope.”

“Funny, me neither.”

“Too quiet. No Borg attacks at all.”

“Know what you mean. And no starfields to go to sleep by.”

She shook her head.

“Want to come over for some coffee?” he asked.

“The real stuff?”

“But of course. That’s half the reason we came home, isn’t it?” His smile faded slightly.

“What is it?” Janeway asked. Over the last seven years, she had learn to recognize every expression that flitted over that dark, handsome face.

“I’m planning on taking a trip shortly,” he said. “A [76] very important one. I was wondering if you’d like to accompany me.”

 

Seven felt awkward sitting doing nothing in the shuttle. She was more used to piloting them than being a passenger in them, and the nervousness the young ensign displayed only added to her discomfort.

Nearly everyone else aboard Voyager had some relative or friend they were staying with who had been at the banquet. The only contact Seven had was her Aunt Irene, who was ill and unable to attend. When Admiral Paris had learned of this, he had made a gallant show of having one of his protégés formally escort her to her aunt’s home in the country. Seven protested, saying that she could simply use a transporter. Paris would have none of that. And when Chakotay offered her a lift instead, Seven had decided to accept Admiral Paris’s offer. Now she wasn’t so certain.

“It really is an honor to be the one selected to escort you home, ma’am,” said the youth. His voice didn’t quite break, but he was certainly more a boy than a man.

“That is the third time you have said so, Ensign Randolph,” said Seven. She regretted her words as the young man’s face flushed bright red. Even his ears were red.

“I’m sorry if I offended you,” she said genuinely. “I’m not used to being ... idolized. It is not a comfortable sensation.”

Randolph turned to look at her, his blue eyes shining. “Oh, but ma’am, you’ve been with the Borg most of [77] your life, and yet you were able to walk away from their evil without a second look back.”

“Hardly true,” said Seven. “There was a long time indeed where I wanted nothing more than to return to the collective. It was only Captain—Admiral Janeway’s faith in me that kept me among the ranks of humans.”

He looked puzzled. A little of her allure had no doubt just been removed as far as he was concerned. Seven was glad of it. The sooner people stopped thinking she was some kind of goddess, the better she—

“What is that?” she said, looking at a small sea of colors as they began their descent. Quickly, she was able to answer her own question as they drew closer.

Dozens of people had formed a ring around her aunt’s house. A huge banner sported the words bye-bye borg, hello seven of nine! There was a hot-air balloon hovering close to the shuttle.

“Geez,” said Randolph. “Oh, geez.” He looked a little panicky as he thumbed the controls. “Ensign Randolph to Admiral Paris. We have a heck of a welcome-home party here for Miss Seven. What would you like me to do?”

“Damn,” said Paris, and to his credit he sounded rueful. “Someone must have leaked Irene Hansen’s address. Seven, I’m sorry, but you’re just going to have to run the gauntlet here. Randolph, I authorize you to use force if the crowd becomes too much for you to handle.”

“It’s just a welcome-home party, sir. I doubt they’ll become violent.”

But Seven was staring at the huge crush of people, and her breathing grew rapid and shallow. So many of [78] them. She was used to being with hundreds of drones at a time, of course. She had experienced more years of other voices in her head, other beings at her side, than she had years of being alone. But these weren’t Borg drones, comfortable and familiar in their predictability. These were individuals. Without data, their behavior could not be at all predicted, and that made her nervous. She had thought the people who had gathered around her at the banquet had been bad enough, but that had only been about twenty or thirty people at the most. She was looking now at dozens, perhaps hundreds.

My arrival here is not a spectator sport! Anger surged through her. She had done nothing to these people. Why were they denying her a quiet, calm reunion with her aunt?

“We should return,” she stated. “They will disperse once they see I am not disembarking.”

Randolph laughed. “Ma’am, I’m willing to bet some of these people have been camping out here for days, ever since news of Voyager’s arrival was made public. They know you’re going to have to disembark sometime.”

“I will transport in.”

“I don’t think you quite grasp the level of your celebrity, ma’am; Certainly you can transport directly into your aunt’s living room, but this crowd isn’t going to go away until they lay eyes on you in person. It’s you they want.”

Seven’s eyes narrowed. “Then I shall give myself to them,” she said. Something about her tone of voice made Randolph look at her uneasily, but he did not comment.

[79] “Shall I take her down then, ma’am?”

“Proceed, Ensign.”

The nearest place to land the shuttle was several yards from the old farmhouse that Irene Hansen called home. Randolph made straight for it, and Seven watched with revulsion as the tiny figures raced toward the clearing where the shuttle would set down. Ants. They looked like ants, racing along with a sense of purpose that ironically turned them into mindless beings.

Randolph landed the shuttle with great skill, considering the circumstances. He turned to her and started to say, “Let me go out first and—” But it was too late. Seven had already opened the door and jumped lightly to the grass.

A cheer rose up. Seven saw the handmade banners waving, saw the horde of people literally running to her. She stood her ground and tapped a small device on her chest, similar to the communicator she had worn every day on Voyager. The adjustment would magnify her voice.

“Attention!” Seven cried. “I am not here to converse with any of you. Not the press. Not curious onlookers with nothing better to do. Not any of you who claim to be long-lost friends of my parents. Not those of you who have subjected your children to this barbaric gathering in order to let them supposedly have a glimpse of history. I am not your plaything. I don’t belong to you, and neither does my aunt. You are on private property. You will leave this place at once and not return. If you do not comply, I will order this ensign to fire into the crowd with a phaser set on stun. Am I understood?”

Without waiting for a reaction, she strode through [80] the crowd. It didn’t part for her, and she heard the happy cheers mutate into outraged, wordless cries of insult and anger. She pushed. They pushed back. Before she knew what was happening, she was trapped in a tight circle of strangers. Their faces were furious, and they were yelling things at her, grabbing at her. She steeled herself to fight back. She was stronger than anyone here, and she could—

There was the sharp whine of a phaser. One of the biggest men pawing at Seven collapsed.

“Everyone, please!” Randolph’s voice was high, but his young face was resolute. “Seven of Nine has undergone a great deal. I’m certain she didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but she is exhausted and unused to this kind of attention. Please let her return to her home. I have no wish to set this phaser on wide-range. Let Seven alone.”

They backed away from her, but not far. She heard the taunts and jeers as she strode as swiftly as she could toward the beckoning of her aunt’s front porch.

“Didn’t get your heart back when they made you human, huh?”

“Think you’re better than us?”

“You were my hero!”

“We thought you were human again, but you’re still a Borg!”

Her heart was pounding rapidly in her chest and her neck hurt from holding her head so high. She wanted to break into a run but would not give them the satisfaction. Seven tuned out the scathing words shouted by the crowd and then, at last, her feet touched the wooden [81] steps of her aunt’s porch. She ran up them, unable to control herself, opened the door, and escaped inside.

“Oh, this is just great,” said Randolph, who had barely made it in behind Seven before she slammed the door shut and leaned against it. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone alienate a crowd quicker in my life.”

The hero worship that had shone in his eyes was gone. He now looked merely annoyed and a little frightened of the people outside.

“They had no right to be here,” Seven said, a touch defensively. “This is private property. Is it so much to ask that I be allowed to greet my aunt without a swarm of people demanding my attention?”

Randolph sighed. “You just don’t get it, Seven.” No more “ma’am,” Seven noticed. “You’re a celebrity, a hero. You’re a Borg who was liberated from the collective—a symbol of humanity’s triumph over the worst enemy we’ve ever encountered. All you needed to do was say a few polite words, smile and wave, and they’d have gone home happy.”

“You are just like your parents,” came an elderly woman’s voice. Irene Hansen was slowly coming down the stairs. She clutched the railing, but was moving under her own power. “Iconoclasts, both of them. More interested in ruffling feathers than smoothing them, I’m afraid. That’s not the Borg in her irritating those people outside, young man. That’s her mother and father.”

A wave of pleasure rushed over Seven, along with a sense of awkwardness. “Aunt Irene,” she said, her voice sounding stiff and formal in her own ears. “Are you well enough to be walking?”

[82] “I’m over the worst of it,” Irene said. “You come here and give me a hug.”

Even as she heard Randolph speaking to Paris, with words like “situation here” and “could use some security” and “need to issue a statement” sprinkled in his conversation, Seven moved quickly toward her aunt. Irene stood on the last step, her arms extended, her wrinkled face alight. Seven extended her own arms and enfolded the older woman in a tight embrace. She smelled a pleasant floral scent, felt the odd combination of fragility and strength in Irene’s body, and wondered if her parents would have felt this way in her arms. The thought made tears come to her eyes.

“Annika,” said Irene. “Sweet, sweet child. Welcome home.”

 

Three days after the welcome-home banquet, Tuvok materialized in the front hall of his own home. The colors were slightly different. He took a moment to note the changes his wife had made in his absence. Instead of the muted, dark purple hues he remembered, there were now shades of blue and green. The ancient urn that had stood in the hallway alcove had been moved to the top of the stairs. It had been replaced by a landscape painting of the Voroth Sea. It was quite striking. Looking closer, he saw that it bore the name of his youngest child, T’Pev. He raised an eyebrow. T’Pev had always had an eye for fine art, and it was good to see that the child had not squandered her talents.

“They told us that you did not wish us to travel to [83] Earth to greet you, once Sek had completed the fal-tor-voh,” a soft, female voice said.

Despite himself, despite his years of discipline, Tuvok could not suppress a quickening of his pulse. He did not permit himself to turn around immediately.

“That is correct,” he said, keeping his voice modulated. “There was no logic in disrupting the present status of your lives for an excessive and unnecessary human-inspired celebration. Once I was cured, I would then be debriefed and able to return to Vulcan shortly thereafter.”

“I agree, husband,” said T’Pel, stepping into the light as he turned around. “There was no reason to rush this reunion. I have waited seven years for your safe return. A few days more is insignificant. I trust that the fal-tor-voh was successful?”

“Entirely. Sek is a worthy son and performed the mind-meld admirably.”

He moved toward her. They were only inches apart now. Her shining brown eyes, tranquil as a pool on temple grounds, met his evenly. Slowly, Tuvok lifted his right hand and extended the first two fingers. T’Pel hesitated, and then lifted her own hand. Their fingers touched.

He did not wish it, but something stirred within him. Tuvok was still recovering from the effects of the recently cured neurological dysfunction. The mind-meld with Sek had been a balm to an injury. Peace had descended upon Tuvok’s restless, churning mind once more as his son reached and touched his mind, calmly eradicating all hints of the degeneration.

A faint frown rippled across T’Pel’s smooth, lovely [84] face as she sensed the agony and confusion he had undergone ... and something more. Something that was, no doubt, directly caused by the lingering effects of the condition.

“On the other hand,” T’Pel continued smoothly, “it is also illogical to behave as if you had not been gone for so long a time, is it not?”

“Most illogical,” he agreed. Her flesh was warm against his, her mind open to him through the intimate touch of finger against finger.

Although he had, most inconveniently, undergone Pon farr very recently aboard Voyager, where the primal desires thus roused were slaked by a holographic version of the female now standing before him, Tuvok experienced an echo of that powerful desire. Sensing his thoughts, T’Pel lifted an eyebrow in inquiry.

There was no need for words. As he accompanied his wife to their bedchamber, Tuvok reflected on how, under certain extreme circumstances, the descent of Pon farr was not always required to elicit the mating response.