by Christine

Email: luberluber@yahoo.com.au

Disclaimer: I’m sorry Paramount, but you have forced me to make these characters more interesting than you have.

Rating: PG - 13

Thanks to Lin "Cookie" Booth, otherwise known as ‘"the Cookie Monster", otherwise known as "the Reverend Cookie", for the beta and for being inspired enough to write a very poignant prequel. I recommend reading the prequel after this story as they were written in this order. Go HERE..

Clare009 has written a sequel to both these stories. Whilst I can't say I was too keen on giving this story a happy ending (for personal reasons that I won't go into), I think this is a gorgeous story and a fitting ending. Go HERE to read Clare's story.

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"When love breaks down, the things you do, can stop the truth from hurting you" - Prefab Sprout

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It could be her.

The hair is the right colour. The nose peeking out from behind the red cover, it’s the right shape.

Finally she yawns and leans backward and I see that it is her. She is reading from a PADD and it would appear that she is alone.

A solitary mug stands on her table and I know it is either half full or recently emptied of coffee.

She’s dressed as a civilian. Not even a combabge in sight. The last I heard she was still with Starfleet although her missions, if she has them, are not made public.

I heard that she does not have the high profile that she once did and that the last time she spoke as a public figure was at Naomi Wildman’s graduation from the Academy.

That was two years ago. I wanted desperately to attend but Arys was due with our second child and it was impossible to leave.

I would have love to have seen everyone again and I would love to have heard her speak that one more time.

The figure at the table resumes her interest in her PADD. I marvel at the presence she holds although alone and small against the backdrop of such a large and popular restaraunt.

So small and yet so powerful.

So terrifying.

Arys finds a table. It’s too close. She notices my hesitation and looks at me with raised eyebrows. I incline my head towards the solitary woman reading from a PADD only two tables away.

Arys takes a quick glance in the direction I have indicated and then looks back at me with a puzzled expression.

"It’s Captain Janeway" I whisper.

"Ahhh!" she says quietly and sneaks another look, "Don’t you mean Admiral Janeway?"

Of course. Kathryn was promoted almost immediately after we arrived home but she is always the Captain to me. It is difficult to imagine her wearing any other title.

Arys waits expectantly for me to make a move. I put my hand on her shoulder and begin to usher her towards the door.

"Let’s sit outside" I say.

"Aren’t you going to say anything to her?"

I shake my head slowly and Arys accepts this decision, although I can tell she is puzzled. I don’t attempt to explain. For all my prowess as an orator I could not form words to justify my actions at this moment. Instead I propel her towards a table outside that is secluded and hidden from the large windows that would make us visible to patrons inside.

"We can’t hear the music out here" Arys sighs although I know it is not a complaint. She is tired after a long series of lectures and I can tell she just wants to eat and head for our lodgings as soon as is convenient.

So we order.

We eat in an uncomfortable silence. Ordinarily I could expect Arys to question me at length about my unexpected and uncharacteristic behaviour. It is evidence of her exhaustion that she does not.

I appreciate Arys’s stubborness, her refusal to allow issues to remain unexplored, but tonight I find myself grateful that she has turned her attention to her food and not to her neurotic husband.

Eventually I notice Kathryn Janeway at the entrance to the restaraunt obviously waiting for someone. She turns to look back inside and she is joined by a man whom I don’t recognise. He is human and he looks approximately her age, perhaps a little younger.

They go to leave together but before they do, I notice her pause to place her PADD inside the bag she has slung over her shoulder.

As she does so, she looks up and casts a quick glance around the outside seating area. I hold my breath although I am aware that we are well concealed from her sight by a combination of low lighting and a display of hydroponic flora.

But I know, as she turns her attention back to her companion, as she leaves with a slight slump of her shoulders as though resigned to a sad fate, I know that she had seen or heard us when we were inside and I know that she half hoped to spot us once again before she left.

She knew we were there and she ignored us as we had done to her.

And she leaves

She walks out with her shoulder length auburn hair blazing like fire and wafting in a stray draught that has found it’s way into this simulated atmosphere. The exit of her enigmatic presence leaves a charged trail of ions in her wake and causes a table near the entrance to whisper and point.

She walks out and she is gone.

I find I am staring at the space she has vacated as though I expect her to reappear there.

"Chakotay?"

Arys once again captures my attention She stares at me with her eyes asking the questions her mouth won’t, until a waiter interrupts us with the Raktajino we have ordered.

And we sip our Raktajino because it has been a long day and because we have been together long enough to know that some situations are handled better by a warm drink than a good argument.

However, only a few moments have slipped away before my thoughts are once again with Kathryn Janeway.

I remember the first time she touched me, laying her hand on my chest as became her habit. I remember the first time I held her hand, and how I began to tell her in so many different ways how much I cared about her. I remember how we argued and how she glared at me recognising her own obstinacy in her First Officer and being overcome with frustration as a result.

I remember how I kissed her once and she ran away, and then never touched my chest again.

Seven years together and now we pretend we don’t see each other.

Is this what it has come to?

Is this all we have left?

In many ways I am relieved to be so unaffected by her that I can see her in public and not lose my composure. That my feelings are not betrayed by shortened breath and a racing heart beat. I am happy to be married and in love in a way that is supportive and constructive and fulfilling for me as a person.

But I am sorry that it ends like this. Not with an explosion or a catastrophe but with a slow disintegration that takes apart the feelings and the connection almost unnoticed, until you wake up one day and realise it is all gone.

And you have no desire to have it back.

I’m sorry because I wanted something to remember it by. To mark it. To say that it happened and it was there and that it wasn’t perfect and or even desirable but it was important.

Because no matter how much it hurt, I didn’t know I was alive unitl I loved someone that much.

Fini

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