"Poor thing, to have a sister"

Title: Biology

Author: ChristineCGB

Web: http://Appelsini.tripod.com/Christine/

Rating: PG - 13

Category: VOY Phoebe J, J, a little J/C angst

Disclaimer: The characters within belong to Paramount but I not only think they want us to give them personalities, they're relying on it because they're so darn lousy at it themselves.

Summary: Phoebe Janeway contemplates her famous sister after Voyager's return to the Alpha Quadrant.

Notes: Very much inspired by a fic August sent me which she later posted here. The two are not at all similar and really only have the Phoebe element in common.

Thanks to Liz for comments and encouragement.

For my sisters.

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"Poor thing, to have a sister" - Belly.

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When she was ten she told me faeries existed.

"It's true" she insisted, "I've seen them". Still I resisted. I was six. Old enough to know that Faeries were fabrications, imaginings. Old enough to know there was no such thing as monsters under the bed, magic animals that could talk or spirits of the dead that haunted old houses. These things were tales to scare little children like myself and I told her so.

"They want you to think that", she said completely earnest, "seriously, I have seen them".

There was not a note of her voice out of place. Her mouth didn't twitch as she tried not to laugh and her voice didn't crack as she attempted to keep a straight face. In that moment, she truly believed she could see faeries.

"I believe you", I said.

The façade crumbled and a wide gin spread across her face. In seconds she was laughing.

"Oh god, you're so gullible!" she shrieked.

To this day I cannot maintain a deception. I can't exploit people's trust.

It's funny the lessons she taught me. I know that's not the example she wanted to be

----------------------------------

It was the way they looked at her when she descended the stairs that did it. As though they expected her to float. At that point I knew that I no longer had a sister but an icon.

I don't know when she became so gracious. I suspected she always had it in her but it's not how I remember her. I remember her as forthright. Opinionated. Never someone who practically purred under mass scrutinisation. She looks confident. Self assured. Totally at ease as complete strangers mill around her, eager to speak to her, touch her, as if her brilliance might somehow rub off.

It's surprising to think that seven years on the other side of the galaxy might have developed her presence. I find myself wondering, not for the first time, what the hell it was they did out there.

"You must be so happy to have her back". I turn to see a woman at my elbow. I try to remember if I know her. I don't. When the crew's families met them in Deep Space it was all over the Holo-News. My face springing to life in newsrooms everywhere. I'm almost as recognizable as my sister.

And suddenly I'm public property.

"Of course" I murmur as politely as I'm capable of.

It's no use trying to explain that the sight of her fills me with awe and dread and an anxiety I can barely understand and yet when she was gone I felt like someone had isolated me from the rest of world and I was floating in space, abandoned. I had never felt so alone.

I wave at my mother who has found a rapt audience on the other side of the room. She smiles back warmly. She couldn't be happier.

At her left is the man who has become a recurring factor in our family get togethers. She met him when she decided to return to university to take her Doctorate. Apparently they have a similar fascination with Vulcan Philosophy.

I was curious to see how dad's favourite might react to the new man in mother's life and disappointed to see that she warmed to him faster than I did. Something else the Delta Quadrant must have taught her. Ten years ago she would have spat at him for sitting in the chair at the table that daddy once occupied, and now she's calling him 'Frankie' like mom does and inviting him over to experience her notoriously bad cooking.

She has the kind of charm that makes you think food poisoning from her might be an incredible culinary experience you've yet to try.

I didn't bring a date. I'd half a mind to ask Sezni but didn't want to deal with how she might interpret the invitation.

And I didn't want Kathryn to be fixing my ex-girlfriend with the kind of smile she bestowed on Frankie. The last thing I wanted to hear in our infrequent communications was "you're sister is amazing" as though I wasn't actually aware.

The reception is full of Starfleet types. Grey uniforms in every corner. There are of course, the Maquis members of Voyager's crew who are remaining in civilian clothing until the hearings are over. They are indistinguishable from those like myself, whose affiliation to Starfleet is via a family member but I recognize some of them.

And then there are the privileged members of the media who are lucky enough to be invited to attend. No camera's allowed of course but any snippet of conversation could be reported on. Any small and seemingly insignificant action could be Holo-News headlines within the half hour. It's difficult to know where to hide.

I opt for the balcony. We are about ten stories up. I recall that Kathryn enjoyed climbing and I imagine her next to me now daring me to give it a try. Suddenly I'm eight again watching her wide eyed as she swings a leg over the railing.

"Come on!" she'd say and stupidly I'd follow her, always wanting to be where she was going.

"Phoebe Janeway?"

The memory breaks into pieces at the sound of yet another stranger calling my name. I turn around quickly readying a dismissive retort when I notice the tattoo on his forehead.

I couldn't avoid hearing rumours. There wasn't a person on Earth who could avoid hearing rumours. I usually tried not to listen. Rumours are just that after all.

But the consistent reference to a romantic liaison between Kathryn and the First Officer was a nagging piece of information that was difficult to ignore. I couldn't imagine that. I couldn't imagine her interested in anyone as mundane as a Commander even if he was a former terrorist.

"Yes?"

"You're Kathryn's sister?"

"In the flesh".

He surveyed me momentarily and I knew he was looking for her. It's funny how similar and yet how different shared genetic codes can make us. I'm taller than she is. My hair isn't quite so red and my skin is paler and freckled, yet catch us in a certain light and you'll see the same eyes, the same nose, the same hands.

"I'm Chakotay," he says and he holds out his hand for me to shake.

"I know who you are".

He smiles and looks a little embarrassed. He shuffles his feet and I wonder whether if he will ask me what he wants to ask or whether he'll just satisfy himself with a quick summation of the discrepancies between the Janeways.

I'm not so vague myself.

"So, are you and my sister 'intimate'?"

It takes him a moment to confirm that he has heard what he thinks he has heard. I use that moment to eye him sternly. This isn't a joke. I want to know.

He laughs nervously.

"No," he says, "I can't say I've had the honour".

I didn't think so. Although, he evidently wishes the situation were different.

"You're not her type," I say honestly.

" No, I guess not," he says and he shifts his weight slightly to the other foot, "tell me, are you always so direct?"

"I try".

He smiles again. He has a nice smile. I begin to regret having been so impertinent with him.

I decide to change the subject.

"So what do you do with yourself now that you're home? I hear terrorism isn't a fashionable career choice amongst Starfleet Academy graduates anymore?"

"It does seem as if I've been made redundant," he says wryly.

"Will you rejoin Starfleet if they'll have you back?"

He looks inside through large glass windows separating the balcony from the reception room. I follow the direction of his gaze until my focus falls on my sister who is discussing what appears to be an engaging subject with a Bolian wearing the ceremonial dress on the Bolian High Commission. I believe it is the famed Diplomat and arbiter for peace, Ambassador Trejnek. If there were cameras allowed they would descend into frenzy at this photo opportunity. Trejnek is just someone enough for Kathryn. He'll hold her attention until a more intriguing subject arrives and then she'll 'vanish like camphor'.

There are certainly plenty of notables gathered amongst the throng. Captain Picard was rumoured to be attending but I didn't notice his name on the attendance list. She'd of course find Picard stimulating conversation despite the fact that he's only a Captain officially.

Chakotay stares after her wistfully, no doubt feeling like no one and nothing to her at the same time.

"I don't think I will," he says quietly.

We both look at her a little longer until the silence is awkward.

"So," he says in an attempt to restart the conversation "Kathryn says you're an artist?"

An artist! How typical of her to romanticise my occupation. My painting career was fleeting and uneventful and over before Kathryn took her mission into the Badlands. I told her a great deal about my occupation in the correspondence I sent via the Pathfinder project but she obviously did not deem it worthy of mention.

"I studied art at University. I'm a creative consultant for the Terran Diplomatic Corps".

"Oh," he says, not really surprised, "that sounds interesting".

"It is. And don't think I didn't exploit the Janeway name to its capacity in order to get it."

He smiles and laughs and I know what he is thinking "just like her. That's just what Kathryn would have done". Unfortunately it is.

We are alike sometimes. We really are.

He's immensely attractive. She must have liked that. He must have been quite appealing accessorising her Ready Room with his dimples. I find it hard to believe she averted his attentions all those years

"How do you like the party?" I ask him.

"It's fine," he shrugs, "the attention is a bit overwhelming. I find I need to escape from time to time. Kathryn handles it beautifully, of course. She does the limelight rounds for all of us".

I nod.

"You must be very proud of her," he says as an afterthought.

"Actually when I'm not immensely relieved to have her back I'm increasingly intimidated by her".

"Ah," he says and looks quickly at his feet and back up again "I can imagine it would be difficult being Kathryn's younger sister".

"I don't know whether difficult it quite the right word. How about 'challenging'?"

He smiles again. "You know, if it's any help, I know that underneath that Captain's uniform is the heart of a wonderful human being. All that time stuck out there, she really cared about us. She was more than a Captain to us, she was a..." he pauses trying to think of the right word.

"A mother?" I suggest.

"I was thinking more of a big sister" he grins enjoying the irony.

"You think I don't know that?" I say eyeing him directly. We stay like that for a held moment, looking deep inside each other for something we recognize, until a man with a Press PADD interrupts us.

"Excuse me Commander Chakotay I was wondering if I could have a few words with you?"

"it's just Chakotay and I'm busy at the moment," he indicates me with a slight inclination of his head, "maybe later".

"No. Really," I say, "I'd better go see how mom is doing". I smile and head for the glass doors.

I notice he looks a little saddened to see me go but I imagine it's because I've left him to the clutches of a journalist.

---------------------------------------

When she and I were twelve and eight respectively, she tried to teach me to play three-dimensional chess. She was good at it of course. It was just a hobby to her but she played well demonstrating the makings of a clever strategist at a young age.

She showed me how each piece moved and how the King was the most important piece on the Board and had to be protected. I liked the castle piece with its fortress-like walls. It reminded me of a story I'd read about a Princess locked in a tower.

We played and she beat me every time showing no consideration for my lack of years. Eventually I refused to play her.

I never really played 3D Chess again. To this day I'm hazy on the rules.

When I think about it now I realise her faith in my intelligence was unmatched by anyone else I knew. Including my mother and father. She expected me to play until I beat her and she wholly expected that one day I would.

----------------------------------------

When the hearings are over Kathryn and I take time out to stay with mom in Indiana. A real family get together. Mom even manages to ditch the faithful Frank for a week.

I sink into my room as though I have never left. In truth I never really do leave. I came back when Art School finished and I couldn't decide what to do with myself, I came back when Alfred and I broke up, and I came back when I had my first mid-life crisis at the age of thirty.

And I came back when Kathryn went missing.

Kathryn went to Starfleet Academy at the age of 18 and only ever returned home once. Even then it was a surprisingly short stay. She may have been injured but her wounds healed and then she was off again.

Not she shuffles around the kitchen restlessly not really knowing what to do with herself.

"When did we get a replicator?" she asks.

"A couple of years ago" mom says with a shrug "I've been busy". Kathryn flicks through the replicator menu idly and replicates herself coffee.

"Do you want one?" she says to me as an afterthought and I shake my head.

She spends the next few days restlessly wandering from room to room trying to find something to occupy her attention. She even feigns an interest in my report on the Cultural Life of Andorian Adolescents before deciding that even she isn't that desperate.

Dad once rued being a Captain without a ship when the Phoenix was decommissioned. He spun me a woeful lament in mock seriousness about being without his right arm, without a Sun to his Earth. We laughed because he was happy to be home with us.

Kathryn produces no such mockery of her condition. In all fairness to her, it must be the strangest feeling. Like waving goodbye to your children as they leave for their own lives. She must feel like something is really over, that maybe everything is over.

"Do you want to go for a walk?" I ask her on the fourth day.

"Sure" she shrugs she gets out of her seat and looks at me questioningly "Where to?"

"I thought we'd walk around the perimeter". It's quite a distance around the edge of our farm. I expect the walk to take us the better part of a day.

She nods. "I'd better get some boots then," she says.

We take off, Kathryn setting a pace that makes me think she has mistaken me for a cadet in survival training. It's not that I can't keep up but it is far from the leisurely stroll I had in mind. I was never one for pushing myself over the edge the way she did.

---------------------------------------------

When I am sixteen she comes home from the Academy to watch me play in the school Parrises Squares tournament. No doubt mom had said something about her lack of home visits because she was clearly somewhere she didn't want to be throughout the entire visit.

But I'm a good player and our team is good. She finds herself interested in our game in

spite of herself.

"You were great," she tells me later.

"She is," mom agrees. "Some scouts from the Academy wanted to know if she was going to the preparatory school. They think she could easily be on the team there".

Kathryn's eyes go wide.

"Really?"

"I don't want to go to the Academy," I say. Kathryn looks like I have just winded her with a blow to the stomach.

"But you could be on the Academy team! It's the best team in this sector!"

"Sounds great," I say rolling my eyes, "Go to the Academy and become a full time Parrises Squares player. No thank you."

"But everyone want to be on that team!" she shoots mum a 'say something' look. Mum just shrugs.

"I don't," I say.

Kathryn stares at me like I'm an alien as yet undiscovered by the Federation. She shakes her head and walks away.

She never really understood.

--------------------------------------

She talks to me in the way she feels is expected. She asks about my job and my romantic interests. I have nothing new to tell her and nothing I think she'll be interested in so my answers are short and meaningless.

"What happened to that woman...what was her name...?"

"Sezni?"

"Yes that one. What happened to her?"

"We broke up."

"Sezni is an unusual name."

"She was half Selarian."

"Oh, that must have been interesting."

"Not really."

Silence.

"Mum said you went to the Betazed Cultural Festivals."

"I did."

"How was that?"

"Weird."

"In what way?"

"People kept telling me what I was thinking."

"Oh."

Silence.

"You're First Officer is in love with you."

She stops in her tracks and glares at me. I stop too, thankful for the breather.

"What makes you say that?" she says, her tone icy.

"I met him."

"When?"

"At the reception."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing. I worked it out."

She falls contemplatively silent for a while. She stares back at the road we have just come from, deep in thought.

"You didn't like him?"

"It wasn't that," she pauses, searching for the right words, "He just wasn't my type".

"I thought he was nice."

She throws her hands up in the air and begins walking again.

"Fine. You date him."

"The thought had crossed my mind."

She whirls around to face me again.

"Phoebe! What did you say to him?"

"Nothing! For god's sakes Kathryn, it was just a thought. I'm hardly going to date a guy that's hung up on my sister!"

I catch up with her and we recommence our walk in silence.

"Phoebe?" she says eventually.

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you something odd?"

"Sure."

"What was the service like?"

"The what?"

"The service Starfleet held for the Voyager crew when they declared us dead. It sounds morbid I know, but I was wondering..."

God the service!

"It was... it was...," My mind goes blank for a moment as I try to recall memories that I had happily relegated to the back of my mind many years ago.

It was confusing. We went, mother and I, because we knew we had to. We had already lost one family member and we knew too much about regret and grief to let the opportunity to say goodbye pass. We didn't believe it, of course. If only there'd been a body, or a section of debris so that we could know for sure, but the complete lack of evidence that revealed anything was so frustrating. I woke up everyday for a year not being able to decide what to feel.

And then some Admiral whose name and face I still cannot remember, extolled the virtues of my sister saying what a promising career she had and how highly Starfleet thought of her.

And they all talked about her and how great she was, how intelligent and caring, and I kept repeating over and over in my head "but she's not gone! She's not gone!".

There were mornings when I got up, got dressed and fixed myself breakfast and then cried and cried when I realized I could do all these things, that I would continue to do all these things, after she had gone.

"It was awful," I say.

She looks stricken.

"Oh god. Phoebe, I'm sorry." She is too. Really sorry. It shows in every corner of her face. She reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder lightly.

"It's OK," I say shrugging it off.

"You know," she says, "when we got that first communication through I was so relieved. We all were. The thought of you all at home worried about us, thinking we were dead, it was worse than the Kazon or the Borg or whoever was attacking us at the time.

"But then we got used to it. Does that make sense? We never stopped wanting to get home or missing our families, we just didn't think about it as much anymore. I suppose it was inevitable.

"Then when finally found a way home, all I could think about was that I'd done it. I'd made it. I never really expected there to be an afterward, or an epilogue. I never anticipated times like this," she held out her hand to me and smiled wryly, "where I'd have to face up to everything that went on without me.

"Over the past few months I've had to deal with mom's new boyfriend, Starfleet wanting to take the Doctor's programme apart, whatever the hell it is that Chakotay wants from me and a dozen or so crewmembers whose lives did not wait for them and are suffering a condition we are already terming Post Delta Quadrant Depression.

"Sometimes, Phoebe, I just want to go back out there again".

I look at her blankly.

"Out there? You mean in space?"

"No, I mean the Delta Quadrant. I just want to get lost so I can find my way home again. Does that sound weird?"

I frown. "Yes."

"I wish I was better at this," she sighs.

So do I. I wish she were the kind of sister I could depend on. The kind that counsels and listens and shares. I think about all those people on Voyager who trusted her to get them home. She even convinced the Maquis crew to place their faith in her. They all sang her praises to the media. Every last one of them.

When I was young I wondered whether I was just not interesting enough for her, a dull grey in a family of Starfleet crimson. And now that I'm old enough to think our relationship more complicated I still wonder whether, deep down inside, Kathryn Janeway struggles to find something in her sister that captures her imagination.

I think about it while we continue our walk. She brushes a cricket off her leg and sighs again, the world weighing heavy on her shoulders.

It's just biology, I tell myself. It brings us together, makes us spend countless lunch dates and family dinners in each other's company, it keeps us up at night with worry and it fills us with guilt for everything that isn't said or isn't done. It doesn't mean we understand each other. It doesn't mean we're close.

--------------------------------------------

She was lying in bed late. In fact she was lying in late and going to bed early. The situation was at a stage where we brought her meals in bed because we didn't trust her to feed herself if left up to her own devices.

I'd never seen anything like it and I had no idea what to do about it.

Mom was distraught. Her own grief battled with her concern for Kathryn resulting in a tendency to feel too sorry for her.

"Just let her be," she would tell me, and sometimes I would. I'd go back to my apartment and catch up with my communications backlog or I'd visit the bar at the bottom of the building where I lived and caught up with friends.

But I'd be back, if not the next day then the day after, not really trusting either of them to look after themselves let alone each other.

My friend Leiji was a therapist. She advised me to be patient. She said that Kathryn would get over this phase eventually if we just gave her time.

Patience is not a Janeway trait. If the roles were reversed in this matter I could hardly imagine Kathryn indulging my inaction for this long.

People need to grieve. I realize that. But they also need to get up in the morning and feed themselves. I wasn't aware of how hard these things could be. I didn't realize then that the hardest part of losing someone is going on. Knowing that the world won't acknowledge your loss by ceasing to function. It just goes on and ultimately you will do so as well.

I didn't know this then. My ignorance may well have saved her.

The chronometer announced the time as 1230 and she still wasn't up. On an impulse I got up and marched into her room.

"Go away!" she moaned at me.

I picked up the covers and yanked them off the bed.

"Get up!"

"What are you doing? Leave me alone!"

"Get up! Get out! Do something. You're driving mom and me mad."

She looked at me shocked.

"Yeah, remember us? We're your family too. Oh sure, I'm not privy to matters of Starfleet Intelligence and mom's no Admiral but aren't we worth getting out of bed for?"

She rolled over turning her back to me.

"Go away Phoebe. I'm tired."

I walked out heading straight for the water cooler. I don't remember what I thought or when I decided to do what I did. It seemed to come so naturally, that determination, that clear headedness under duress. It made me think there may have been a Captain in me too. Somewhere.

She screamed when I threw water on her. As I recall she spent most of the day screaming at me.

I think it was one of our better days. Weirdly and strangely, it felt like being sisters, joined together by an unwritten law that said we had to do these things to each other, for each other.

Three days later she went out in the snow and came back with a puppy. At the time it didn't seem very significant. It was nice to see her enthused about something and maybe if I'd been more observant I'd have noticed the effort she began to put into living again commenced around about this time.

But perhaps it wasn't as marked a change and she made it out to be. Perhaps it was a steady progression as I remembered.

Mark mentioned the dog some years later. Mark liked to talk and one of his favorite subjects was Kathryn. He had a long-term crush on her developed from a very young age. He liked to tell the story about how she saved his life.

Kathryn had been going frantic making arrangements for the dog's care when she was away on missions. Wasted energy really, because the dog was always cared for by Mom, Mark or myself. It seemed she just liked to have something to fuss over.

"It's understandable," Mark had said, "That dog is so important to her."

Kathryn loved the dog it was true, but she always loved dogs. What was so special about this one?

"How so?" I asked. Mark looked surprised but answered anyway.

"Because of the accident," he said, "the puppy gave her a reason to keep going, to get out of bed in the morning".

In her own mind she probably believed that. That it was the puppy that gave her something to care about, something to feel for.

But I told myself then that she did it for us. That it was myself and my mother that drove her on. That it was me that inspired her to life that day when I threw cold water over her bed.

The story about a puppy suits her better. Makes her seem more like the myth that she had in mind for herself. Perhaps she didn't know it then, but she was working on it.

---------------------------------

Some weeks later the Terran Ambassador to Bajor summons me to a conference. The conference is really a showcase for Bajoran intellectuals who have prospered since the end of the occupation and subsequent war. My presence is hardly necessary so I figure that Aldritch either thinks I need a holiday or someone has decided a Janeway at the proceedings could make the event noteworthy.

I try not to think about it too much.

I spend the age it takes me to get to Bajor writing what I hope will be a sensationalistic reinterpretation of the 22^nd Century artist Nammet's 'Constellations' series. Only days before we reach Bajor I give up and resign myself to staring out the windows of the observation lounge on the Specter. Sometimes on long trips I tell myself I will paint, but there's nothing so uninspiring as the stars zipping by in great white streaks. Instead I amuse myself with the characters that come and go through the lounge doors.

When I head back to my room I find there is a message waiting for me. I open the file to find the face of Kathryn's former Executive Officer staring back at me.

"Hello Phoebe," he says.

"You might remember me from the reception at Starfleet Headquarters a few months back. I'm currently residing on Bajor and working for the Bajoran Provisional Government. I heard you'd be attending the Conference and thought you might like to catch up while you are here...."

He leaves a contact and the name of the residency he's staying in. I ignore it and turn the screen off.

I think I should tell him I'm too busy. That the demands of the Ambassador are gruelling and I will probably be spending my time off planet anyway meeting and greeting the Cultural Ministers of the outlying Bajoran colonies.

But I know that I will probably meet him and we'll talk about Kathryn and how she never really needed either of us and how we'll never meet up to her expectations. He'll continue to look for his lost love in her sibling and maybe he'll see her in the hands or in the eyes or in the way I laugh at his attempts at humour.

And maybe I'll find that he loves her like I do. That he worships her in a way that only I can understand and maybe we'll go to bed together with just the substance of our fascination with her driving our attraction.

But of course, he'll never really understand us. He'll put it down to biology, the differences and the similarities, the fraught emotions, regrets and obligations.

---------------------------------------

We live in interesting times, as dictates the old curse. We live in times of heroes and legends, and great victories against great losses. Kathryn Janeway wanted to be a chapter in the history books and although fortune placed her there, she alone ensured she would not waste the opportunity fortune presented her.

There are some like myself who don't want to be chapters but are never really content to be footnotes either. We struggle along, never really finding a niche or an opportunity to realize our potential and we become frustrated with those around us, particularly those we love, who do.

In the midst of such self-involvement you forget that the person most likely to understand you, is the one who shares more than just similar experience and knowledge. The one you feel most alienated from.

Fini

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