Chapter Text
An icy fist clenches tightly around Kathryn Janeway's heart as she turns her head back just in time for her to see the affectionate touch between Chakotay and Seven. She keeps her face impassive. Another splintered shard of her life lodges up under her skin. Nothing has broken her before and it sure as hell isn't about to happen now.
She's flown all the way through the Delta Quadrant and though she's come close a few times to letting it best her, it has not. This won't either. She straightens her spine and swallows down the bile. The rage. The betrayal. No, there is no time for that with the Earth spinning just within grasp outside of the view port.
“Mr. Chakotay, the helm,” Captain Janeway says, indicating to the head of the ship with her hand. No one else but he would be able to pick up that slight tremor in her voice. Even if they had, they'd chalk it up to the reality hitting home.
“Aye Captain.” He moves from his position beside Seven and takes the seat recently vacated by Tom Paris.
“Set a course for home.” He types in the coordinates, his jaw tight as he watches out the view screen to Earth several light years away.
There should be relief and while it's there, it's overpowered by the palpable tension between the commanding officers. It seems fitting that he be the one to bring them back. He book ended this journey. It was, after all, he who set the whole story in motion so why should he not be the final punctuation point?
She is acutely aware that with Chakotay at the helm she remains alone in her command chair. It makes her mouth dry. She is alone. The desperate need to hide away in her ready room strikes hard but she fights it back as she steps back and settles in and watches the back of his dark head.
When her older counterpart had arrived on the ship, she'd been certain that she'd been using drastic measures to ensure that she just followed her the damn plan like the Admiral had wanted but seeing the reality in front of her makes her realize that it had all been true the whole time.
Then again, she can't say she's surprised given how bitter that older version of her was. Hell, she can feel the beginnings of it in herself even now. The bone-weary weight of carrying the title of Captain. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.