by Starbuck
Rating: PG-13

"Captain, we are approaching the last M-class planet before the wormhole." Harry Kim reported his information to the Captain and tried to keep the conflicting emotions from displaying themselves too obviously on his face and in his voice.

"Thank you, Harry. Tom, adjust course towards the planet and prepare the transporter rooms for mass transport."

"Yes, ma'am."

The communiqués they had received from Starfleet as they approached the wormhole, which was to take them home after seven years in the Delta Quadrant, had caused uproar on the Intrepid-class Starship Voyager. Despite Captain Janeway's objections and complaints, every Maquis crewman was to be arrested and imprisoned upon arrival in the Alpha Quadrant.

So... what to do? The matter had been considered carefully in many exhaustive senior staff meetings and open forums for the crew to express their wishes and thoughts on a possible course of action. Eventually, a conclusion had been reached. The Maquis crew would be deposited, along with anyone who wished to stay with them, on the M-class planet nearest to the wormhole. They would be given supplies, technology, anything which could conceivably help them to build a society there and the rest of the crew would continue through the wormhole with the ship. Captain Janeway knew the risk she was taking. She would probably be court martialed and thrown out of Starfleet for aiding criminals but she actually didn't care.

Many of the Maquis, one especially, were closer to her now than most of the people she had left on Earth. She was going to miss them. No, the hardest part of this plan would not be explaining her decision to Starfleet - it would be watching half of her family leave, knowing she would never see them again.

And Chakotay... How could she leave Chakotay behind in this hostile quadrant without her? They had had but a few short weeks of true relationship before this was thrown at them, almost as if her prediction of doom to every man she let herself love was coming true for a third time. She was broken from her revere by the voice of the Ensign that had taken Harry's post at shift-change. Startled into the realization that she was still on the bridge.

"Thirty minutes to arrival at the planet, Captain."

She thanked the Ensign and then stood, making for the turbolift. Most of the bridge crew assumed that she was going to say goodbye to Chakotay but that was incorrect. She couldn't have handled good-byes then; that had been done last night. A picnic on the Holodeck in their favorite program, New Earth, and then they simply lay in each others arms watching the sun set and the stars come out. They each made a wish on the first star they saw - a superstition that had survived the centuries - and eventually fell asleep. When they awoke to the sight of the sun rising they realized that nobody had come to claim the Holodeck time they had booked. A final goodbye present to the Captain and Commander who had got them back to the ones they love, and who had to sacrifice their own love to keep them all safe. So they came to be watching the sunrise on the planet where they had both been happiest, drinking hot chocolate and eating croissants. Kissing the chocolate and crumbs from each other's mouths through their laughter. There were no tears. Their time in the Delta Quadrant had inspired enough tears and their last night together was going to be a happy memory that they could each hold onto in the time to come.

Kathryn had been heading to her quarters but changed direction abruptly as she remembered the extra Holodeck time they had been given - not the only goodbye present she had received and suddenly the reception of the previous night didn't seem enough to say thank you. Nothing seemed enough to thank her wonderful crew for their dedication, compassion and relentlessness in the pursuit of their goal. No recriminations for her action of destroying the array and stranding them, just infinite courage and belief that she would get them home. And even the fact that she had didn't seem like enough thanks for their support. She was going to go to the transporter room and see off every crewmember that she had brought home to find themselves still wanted as criminals. She owed them good-byes.

Chakotay was there when she arrived. Dressed in his civvies and coordinating the beam-outs in his usual calm and collected manner. Their eyes kissed as they looked at each other and quickly looked away, occupying themselves with the task at hand so that they didn't have to think. Kathryn spoke to each group before they beamed down to their new home; speaking to some people individually, hugging Tom and B'Elanna hard before they stepped onto the platform. They were the last to go before Chakotay, and Kathryn felt tears beading in her eyes as they dematerialized for the last time. What would she tell Tom's father?

That thought was pushed from her mind as she turned to Chakotay, stepping onto the transporter pad. They had agreed that they wouldn't say goodbye to each other that day. It made things too final and would have hurt too much, so Kathryn stood with the group of Starfleet officers that had come to say goodbye to Maquis friends and watched Chakotay standing waiting for the beam-out. She bit her lip to keep from crying and was almost successful. She felt as if her heart was being impaled with a bat'leth but she thought she could keep up her front for the crew. That night in her quarters would be her time to cry, but then something happened.

Chakotay smiled at her and the dam was breached. Her tears flowed in way she could not have expected. She had never cried so hard in her life without making a sound. She was barely shuddering but Chakotay saw it and called for a halt to the beam-out.

He jumped from the pad and crossed the room in a few long strides and Kathryn rushed to meet him halfway. She ran into his arms, ignoring the thought of the crew watching them. The idea of not saying goodbye couldn't have possibly worked she now realized. She needed closure. If she had to lose the man she loved, it had to be after a flood of tears and him holding her in his arms until she was calm and could breath again. He fulfilled his side of her wish and whispered comforting words into her hair as they stood, entangled in each others' embrace in the transporter room in front of almost thirty crewmembers. The irony of the situation was not lost on either of them as they cried together. It had taken them seven years and the ordeal of having to lose their love so soon after admitting it before they could be this open with their crew. Chakotay whispered into Kathryn's ear as they stood, just before pulling apart, and she listened to his sultry voice, husky with crying.

"I left a holoprogram in your quarters. Sitting on the desk beside the fuel consumption report." For some reason this made her giggle. "Please play it as soon as we've gone. It has a special message for you and a nice peaceful setting to listen to it in." Then he stepped back from her arms and took a step away towards the transporter pad. Turning back as he stepped onto the pad he called her.

"Kathryn. I love you." Her tears began again but this time they were controllable. No good-byes, she told herself.

"I love you too, Chakotay. I'll always love you..." and the transporter operator finished the preparations for the beam-out.

"Energize," and he was gone.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

The holoprogram was exactly where he had said it would be and Kathryn immediately took it and headed to the Holodeck - again left empty regardless of reservations. Chakotay's message had filtered though the crew by then and they knew the Captain would be needing a Holodeck.

When she walked through the doors of the Holodeck the program had already been activated and the setting was instantly recognizable. It was the place on New Earth that they had spent their last night together in. The sun was setting and all the plants were blooming, filling the air with the intense cacophony of aromas that would forever bring her mind to this place. But Chakotay had said there was a message for her. She didn't see a padd, or anybody to talk to her until suddenly she became aware of music beginning to play.

There was a strong drumbeat and the music sounded almost tribal. It suited Chakotay, she decided but as of yet there were no words. Then a voice began to sing and Kathryn stopped thinking, she merely lost herself in the words and their meaning.

Kathryn was surprised by the first thought to go through her mind after the music ended. She spoke it aloud. "We never had a song before." It struck her as strange that they hadn't had a song until after Chakotay was gone. They would never dance to their song. They wouldn't have children to tell about the wonderful times they'd had and introduce them to the lyrics that their parents had fallen in love with. They had lost so much. Clichéd as it was - the tragic lovers, Romeo and Juliet and all the others - it was so unfair that it was over when it had barely begun.

Kathryn sank to the ground to sit on the soft grass and she hung her head and wept. Wept for all the time that they had had and all the time that they would never have and she was still sitting in the Holodeck, watching the night sky of New Earth and not daring to make her wish, when Tuvok hailed her to tell her they were approaching the wormhole. It was time to go home, but Earth didn't feel like home anymore - hadn't for a long time - and Kathryn felt more of a sense of loss at returning than she had when she was wrenched away. But still, she returned to the bridge after wiping her eyes and splashing water on her face and she Captained her crew through the wormhole that took them back into Federation space. It felt more hostile to Kathryn than the Delta Quadrant as she whispered a few words, overheard only by Tuvok's superior Vulcan hearing.

"Oh Chakotay, I wish you could have been welcome here..."

finis.