fic: In a Yellow Mood [M] part II - Janeway/Chakotay (VOY)
Title: In a Yellow Mood - chapter two
Author: oparu
Rating: Mature
Pairing: Janeway/Chakotay
Spoilers: none
Summary: After the season two episode "Deadlock", the duplicate Kathryn Janeway survives the destruction of her ship and is rescued by her other crew. Can she adapt to a universe that already has one of her? What does this mean for both of their relationships with Chakotay? Carries through "Resolutions"
Notes: Betaed by the phenomenal Quantumsilver. Written for scifibigbang. Art by yappichick
chapter one || chapter two || chapter three || chapter four || chapter five
Pacing back and forth from one side of the turbolift to the other, Kathryn couldn't look at Chakotay for more than a second or two without her stomach leaping into her throat. He'd seen her, that other her. She'd survived the heroic sacrifice that had taken her ship and crew. Without Voyager, trapped in a universe that already had her- the supposedly-real her- what would she do? What could she do? She already existed, and this Kathryn in sickbay was redundant. How could she possibly cope with that? What was she without her crew?
Kathryn started when the doors hissed open. She hadn't been ready for them and she nearly jumped. Chakotay's hand brushed her shoulder, trying to calm her, but she stiffened even further. "Sorry," she muttered weakly. "I'm a little unsettled."
"She's you." His hand left her shoulder and he followed her out of the turbolift. "I think you're allowed to be unsettled. It's not every day we discover we have a twin."
She didn't have to tell him how complicated it was going to be if the duplicate remained. There was no reason to think Harry Kim or the baby were about to disappear. This Janeway was here to stay and they would have to find a way to get her home, just like the rest of them. Home...and then what? Would they share Mark? Did she have a greater claim to him because he was hers? If they were duplicated at the same moment, and had shared the same path up to that point, who could say who was the original and who was the duplicate? If there was no way of knowing, did it even matter?
Her feet kept walking without her paying attention to the path they took and they had brought her all the way to the doors leading in to sickbay. With Chakotay at her side, she strode through. A few crewmembers were still convalescing and most of them didn't notice her presence. On the bed closest to the door, Ensign Wildman held her baby. The infant seemed to be asleep, and Samantha looked so peaceful. The duplicate ship had given them two incredible gifts in Harry and the baby.
"Oh hello Commander," Kes saw Chakotay first and smiled at him. Her gaze trailed off him onto-- "Captain--" Kes' face went white as she saw her. Kes had seen her own double, even been on the other ship. She understood immediately.
The Doctor took a moment longer to realise what had occurred. He set down his hypospray and looked the captain over before checking his other patient. Lying on the floor next to the biobed was the other her. The Doctor grabbed a dermal regenerator as she approached. "Captain."
"Is she...?" Kathryn could barely finish the thought. "She's from the other ship."
"So it would appear." The Doctor. He grabbed her chin and began unceremoniously treating the cut on her cheek.
Kathryn turned her head away, trying to get a better look at herself. It was her. Her uniform was covered in soot, and blood stained the left shoulder.
"She arrived with a concussion, numerous contusions and five fractured ribs. Mr. Paris treated her injuries adequately and she will recover."
Kathryn knew what she'd want. "Wake her."
Chakotay's eyes were on her. Everyone else in sickbay was starting to look. She crouched down, putting herself between the other Janeway and the eyes of the crew. Kathryn wasn't sure what she felt. Sympathy for the woman who had lost her ship? A sense of violation at being duplicated?
If the Doctor had better social skills, he might have responded to the death glare she gave him. "I'd rather she slept. She had a serious concussion."
"Doctor, unless it will cause lasting brain damage, I want her awake. Now."
The Doctor left the other captain's side and returned with a hypospray. Without a word, he set it against the duplicate's neck and woke her. It took a moment and Kathryn held her breath. The other her, stirred, blinking her eyes slowly. She started lifting her hand towards her head and Kathryn caught it. The fingers that wrapped around hers were completely identical, except for the dirt on her own.
"Captain," the other woman whispered. She blinked again, trying to clear her eyes. It had to be hard to believe what she was seeing. Was her vision blurry?
What was she supposed to say? What would she want to hear? Kathryn had no idea how to calm her duplicate or how the hell she was supposed to explain that she was trapped on the wrong ship.
"You're all right," Kathryn said, no matter what she said, it wouldn't be enough. "You're on my ship."
The other captain swallowed and Kathryn recognised pain in her face.
"Again."
The Doctor began to scan the duplicate, checking her head injury. When he started to speak, Kathryn waved him off. "Give us a moment, please."
"My ship?" the duplicate's eyebrows narrowed in desperation. She started to lift her head and winced in pain. Shutting her eyes, the captain reopened them with tears in the corners. "The Vidiians?"
"The Vidiians were destroyed," Kathryn reassured her, surprised by how much her heart ached for the other woman. "Your crew's sacrifice saved us. We owe you all our lives."
Her head fell to the the side, and her voice was soft enough Kathryn had to lean closer to hear her.
"You would have done the same," the duplicate whispered. "Quite nearly did." She closed her eyes again. "I don't remember how I--"
Kathryn kept the duplicate's hand locked in hers. She'd always been terrible at reassuring herself, but maybe this was different. "We found you on deck fifteen," she began. "We think you were thrown through the rift when a plasma conduit exploded." Smiling a little eased some of the tension in her chest. "I'm afraid things are still pretty chaotic on this side. We had a case of mistaken identity for awhile."
The other her smiled back weakly. "We followed Harry. Chakotay and I...we thought the Vidiians might... I'm not here to take your ship, captain." Her chin trembled a little as she tried to find the humour in the situation. "I think I have an idea what Voyager means to you."
Watching herself struggle on the verge of tears, Kathryn reached down and touched the other woman's cheek. Her fingers left behind a grey smear of dirt, but the contact stilled her duplicate's grief for the moment. She had to get her out of sickbay. The poor woman had just lost her ship and her family. She couldn't be expected to stay in sickbay, exposed to everyone's curiosity.
"I'll be back in a moment," Kathryn promised her duplicate. To her relief, Chakotay knelt down and took her place. She hated thinking of her being alone.
She tracked down the Doctor in his office. He had several things open on his computer but he looked up for her.
"Can she be released?"
"There's nothing wrong with her aside from a nasty headache and some tenderness along her ribs," the Doctor explained, getting to his feet. "There's still a phase shift in her DNA, but it won't cause her any problems that I'm aware of. Medically she's your identical twin and I assume she'll be just as stubborn of a patient."
Putting her hands on her hips, Kathryn didn't bother to defend either of them. Of course they were stubborn. "This phase shift, will it cause any problems over the long term?"
The Doctor circled his desk and attacked the cut on her face with the dermal regenerator again. This time she allowed him and held still as he spoke. "The phase shift will mark the duplicate captain, Harry Kim and the Wildman baby as having come from another universe, but none of the three will suffer for it. A less thorough medical officer would not be able to distinguish them from anyone else on board."
"So you'll release the-" she corrected herself, she, Kathryn was the captain. "My duplicate."
"Someone will need to remain with her, in case there are any complications of the head injury, which is a remote, but potentially life threatening, possibility." When he finished with her cheek, the Doctor picked up a medical tricorder and scanned down her chest. "If you decide you would like your bruises treated, return to sickbay. Otherwise, you're both in good health. You may go."
Kathryn smirked at him, caught somewhere between amusement and the other more difficult emotions lodged in her gut. "Thank you, Doctor."
Chakotay caught her outside the Doctor's office and walked with her silently back towards the medical supply room. "She's you, Captain," he said, keeping his voice low.
"According to the Doctor we're identical." Wrapping her fingers into a fist, she rested her elbow on her hand. "Except I'm covered in bruises and dirt and she's lost her crew. The Doctor's willing to release her from sickbay, but someone has to stay with her. I can't just ask one of the junior officers, or even Kes. If she's anything like me, having someone hover over her is the last thing she'd want but I can't just leave her here."
The warmth of his hand on her shoulder was enough to make her down tears a distinct possibility. "Let me take her to your quarters, or even my own. I've had some experience with her, and I know grief. Maybe I can help her."
"She's lost her entire crew, her ship." Kathryn met his eyes wondered if he could see through her as well as she feared. "She's supposed to be dead." The last statement tumbled out of her mouth, escaping her better judgement.
"Our ship and crew are recovering," he said, squeezing her shoulder in reassurance. "Let me take care of our guest. She'll need someone to talk to and I've become a pretty good listener over the last year we've been out here."
"Chakotay." Kathryn shook her head slowly. "She expected to be dead. She- I would want to be dead. The captain goes down with the ship." Her throat was tight and she was breathing through a sandstorm. Through the walls of the Doctor's glass office she watched Kes help the other Kathryn get to her feet. It was absolutely eerie. The duplicate stood how Kathryn would have stood, even spoke softly to Kes.
"Captain." Chakotay smiled at her, calming her like the sun coming over the hills back home. "Let me take care of her while you take care of the ship. You're both exhausted. She might listen to me and rest, but you won't until Voyager's back in one piece."
Nodding to him, she wished him luck. Kathryn caught his forearm with her hand. "Thank you."
"See you on the bridge," he replied, still smiling. "Such as it is."
From her vantage point, she watched as he approached her duplicate. Chakotay's smile softened and he offered the other her his arm. Would Kathryn have taken it? Her duplicate debated for a moment, then took it. Maybe she was still disoriented or she wanted the comfort of his strength. She might not have allowed herself the perceived weakness of being escorted but her duplicate didn't even put up a fight.
Chakotay held her arm all the way back to her quarters. She'd never allowed herself that much contact with him. Mark had come on a tour, back when Voyager was in spacedock, but he hadn't held her arm. He'd never been terribly fond of the uniform and he kept a respectful distance when she wore it. Mark had no desire to be a Starfleet spouse. He'd put on a good front and attend the banquets but he'd made it clear it was her he wanted, not Captain Janeway, but Kath.
Now it didn't matter. Mark was on the other side of the galaxy and he didn't belong to her. Mark belonged to the other her: the one who belonged here, the one who's quarters Chakotay had just led her into and the one who still had her ship.
Her quarters, the other Kathryn's quarters, looked exactly like her own, right down to the book on the table she'd left out that morning. She lifted the book, traced her finger along the back of the spine
"I was reading this before I went to the bridge." Closing her eyes, she winced as the type on the cover shifted in and out of focus.
"I suggest you wait until tomorrow," Chakotay said gently, leading her to the sofa. "According to Mr. Paris' surprisingly useful medical skills, you hit your head pretty hard."
"I'm a little disoriented." Trying not to hear the quaver in her voice didn't make it go away.
"Concussions are nasty things." Chakotay's smile was entirely sympathetic. "I've had a couple."
"Piloting?" The corner of her mouth twisted upward in amusement. His ill-luck with shuttles was becoming something of an inside joke.
"Boxing." Chakotay took the book from her hand and set it aside. "Have you eaten?"
She started to shake her head and stopped. It was easier just to hold still. "I'm not hungry."
"Rations have that effect on me too." His smile was far too gentle, but it was both what she needed and desperately didn't want to see. Her Chakotay had smiled too, right before he died. Kathryn could still picture the burn mark on his neck and the light draining from his face. Looking at this- this other Chakotay- tore at her heart and she quickly looked away.
He respected that and left the sofa. He stepped out into the hallway and returned with one of the emergency rations packs. "We'll start with something easy," Chakotay said, opening it up and looking through what they had.
He handed her the water pouch, still watching her with that solicitous look.
She took a drink slowly. Her throat was a little scratchy; she must have spent some time in smoke after the plasma explosion. "My ship?"
"Cleanly destroyed and they took the Vidiians with them. This Voyager is safe while we make repairs." He dug through the pack and offered her a pack of dried soup. "Tomato and rice. Not quite vegetable bouillon, but it's better than beef brisket or curry chicken and dried papaya."
The last one was something she remembered and she frowned. "I'll eat the soup."
"Good," Chakotay said, opening the packet and turning on the tiny warmer. "Shouldn't take too long."
"Your ship is safe?"
Watching as he re-hydrated the soup and stirred it slowly, Kathryn took a deep breath and winced. The Doctor had been right, her ribs were going to be sore for awhile and the edges of everything around her were still fuzzy in her vision.
"It's safe. A little beat up, but safe." He handed her the soup and held it until her hands were firmly around the cup. "I know your stomach might be a little upset right now, but you'll feel a lot better in the morning if you eat this."
Sighing, she looked down at the pale red soup and took a sip. It wasn't bad. It certainly wasn't good, but it was warm and it eased her throat. "Thank you."
"Your crew saved everyone on this ship."
Kathryn hadn't been nauseated before, but now her stomach twisted with grief. She could forget about it. She could close her eyes and let this Chakotay be her first officer and these quarters be her quarters.
It wasn't and it could never be. She was an impostor here. A duplicate who didn't belong.
She drank the rest of her soup quickly, hoping the hot liquid would shock her stomach into behaving. "You would have done the same for us."
He saw right through her. Chakotay's compassion was written all over his face. "But you did it."
She laughed bitterly. Her metal cup clanged against the glass coffee table in front of her when she set it down. "You know what they should put in those ration packs? Real alcohol, just in case you end up in the wrong universe, completely out of options." She rocked back and forth where she sat, anxiously moving her hands. Her headache didn't matter so much anymore.
"You're alive." His voice was so damn soft.
"I had no intention of being. Tuvok. Paris. Kes. Torres. My Chakotay-" she nearly spat his name instead of treating it with the respect it deserved. "All of them died. You- I've seen you die. You knocked me back when the Vidiians fired at us. You--"
"Died," he finished. "I died. So did a version of everyone on this ship. I will grieve for him and everyone else on that Voyager. The spirits will take care of them now."
"Everyone but the captain," she snapped, hating the word as much as she loathed the weight of the pips on her collar. Taking off her commbadge, she set it on the table. "This one doesn't match. It has a slight phase variance, even though it works with your system." Peeling the pips from her collar one at a time, she dropped them on the table as well. "Won't be needing those without a ship. Maybe you should ask the other me to contact the Talaxians, see if they need a decent engineer with a scientific background."
Pushing off the sofa, she paced. It didn't matter where she was going, she just desperately needed to be doing something. She couldn't fix the ship because she was injured. She couldn't talk to the crew because they weren't hers. She couldn't bury her own because they weren't dead.
"You belong here," Chakotay interrupted, sitting calmly as she tore back and forth. "If there's anywhere in the universe you belong, it's on this ship."
"This is the wrong ship, Chakotay. She's already here." she threw out her arm, pointing out the doors of this Janeway's quarters towards the other woman. "The only place I belong is floating out in space as loose atoms with the rest of my crew." Her words were venomous but she shivered at the thought. She didn't know which was worse, not being dead or knowing she should be and being unable to die.
Chakotay stood and faced her, hands at his sides. "You're not dead and you'll have to accept that. You're a brilliant officer. This ship could use you."
"No," she snapped, shaking her head and moving away from him. "No. This ship has one captain. It can't have two. It'll destroy the chain of command." All the anger she could put up as a sheild between them couldn't save her from the black knot of fear in her stomach. She'd failed. Her crew was dead and she had no right to ever call herself their captain again.
"Then don't be the captain."
Her Chakotay probably wouldn't have dared take her arms and stop her in her tracks, but this one did. He knew she was a fake, the duplicate, the impostor who didn't belong.
"No, Chakotay!" She broke his grasp and retreated towards the centre of the room.
"Kathryn."
Her given name cut through her shields the way no other word in the galaxy could have. He'd never called her that. Not off duty, not as a joke: it had never happened.
"Don't you see?" Her stomach was ice and her eyes felt like she'd been slogging through a blizzard. Breathing was difficult; her chest was clamping down. "Even that's hers. Captain Kathryn Janeway." Her name sounded foreign and left a bitter taste in her mouth. Her ship. Her title. Her name. "Hell, if we make it home it'll be her mother and her sister who are waiting for her."
His hand released her arm and rose to her shoulder. "Hey."
"I don't belong here," she whispered. Her voice was barely functioning at all and the hand she pointed at the viewport shook. "I belong there. Out there." The first tear made her sinuses ache and the second simply overwhelmed her. "I'm supposed to be dead. Dead with my crew."
The hand on her shoulder moved to her cheek, holding her close. She started to lose count of her tears.
"It wasn't your time."
Pulling back from his hand, she tried to retreat. "Chakotay..."
He embraced her, holding her tightly against her chest. His arms were around her shoulders and just like her father, he held her. He murmured into her hair, comforting her with words she couldn't hear. She opened her hand, pressing it against his chest. Her tears gave way to sobs, and when she sank down to the floor, he sank with her. Chakotay held her as she curled up into a ball of misery. She hadn't cried like that since her father died.
She'd watched him, standing up there while he sank beneath the ice. She'd been unconscious when her ship had sacrificed itself but she felt each of their deaths as acutely as if she was still standing on the ice with the wind howling around her.
Again, she was alone.
Coming home to someone in her quarters was a shock in and of itself. She lived alone. Her quarters were a quiet refuge from everything she had to be outside that door. Alone in the dark, she could sink to the sofa and put her head in her hands. She could cry for the crew, for herself, and everything they'd all left behind. Once that door was shut, it was just her, Voyager and all the ghosts they carried together.
She paused, nearly dropping her facade too early. The bruises on her back from the floor of the bridge ached, and she rolled her neck and winced. Maybe she should have let the Doctor take a look at them, but it was just bruises. They'd heal. She'd be sore tomorrow, maybe even the day after but her ship was being repaired, her crew was safe, and that was what mattered.
Chakotay raised his head, leaving his meditative trance when he heard her come in. "Captain," he whispered.
"She's asleep." Otherwise he wouldn't whisper. "Replicators?" she asked softly.
"Just came online an hour ago," he murmured back, rolling up his medicine bundle. "I recommend some Valerian root tea. Sleep well, captain." He would have left without another word.
Kathryn hung her head, rubbing the aching muscles leading up to her skull. The other her, her duplicate, deserved her privacy. She shouldn't pry, and yet, they were the same person, weren't they?
"Chakotay," she interrupted his exit.
He turned, holding his medicine bundle under one arm. "How would you be, if your positions were reversed?"
Her stomach crept into her throat and she dropped her hands in defeat. "Destroyed. Half-dead. Hollow. I've been thinking about her and her crew all day and I can't even imagine. It ties my stomach up in knots and I haven't had that since I was a child and my father would go off fighting the Cardassians."
"Be kind to her. You are your own worst critic. Right now, she needs you to be your own best supporter. You know what drives you: what keeps you going. You can help her find that again." Chakotay's sincere empathy for, well, for her, softened the knots in her stomach and let the vague sense of nausea that had been following her dissipate. At least her duplicate was in good hands.
"Thank you, Chakotay." Kathryn found just enough energy to smile before she he left her quarters.
Four rank insignia sat on the glass table next to her duplicate's communicator badge. She stared at them, wondering how she'd feel with them gone from her collar. The other her was as gutted as either of them could have been. She'd dealt with losing her father and Justin particularly badly, and this was more than her father and her fiancé. Kathryn couldn't fathom the horror of losing her crew and the terrible injustice of outliving all of them. It was her worst nightmare made flesh and torn from her chest with her still-beating heart.
Leaning against the wall near the replicator, Kathryn ordered the tea Chakotay had suggested. It would be bland and warm; that was she needed. Setting her tea down on the edge of the sink in her bathroom, she pulled the pins from her hair and let it fall loose and filthy over her shoulders. Her uniform too had taken a beating. As she stripped it from her skin, she frowned. The inner layers were bloodstained from the scratches that had gone through the fabric.
"No wonder you're sore." Being tossed around the bridge like one of Molly's chew ropes had taken its toll on her body and her clothing. Leaving all of it in a heap, she decided to deal with it in the morning. Splashing cool water on her face, she gave up shortly afterwards.
She had little need for Chakotay's suggestion of calming tea, but she drank it as she pulled on her oldest and plainest pyjamas. The thin blue-grey fabric was starting to wear out but she kept the pyjamas because she didn't have the pattern in this replicator. No one saw them and she was saving resources. At least, that was what she told herself.
Downing the last of her tea, she left the cup out. Tidying her quarters could wait until the lead was gone from her limbs and her eyes ceased loathing the fact that they were still open. Sitting on the edge of the bed and rubbing the back of her neck, she reached for the computer pad and keyed in her alarm for 0530. She had a ship to repair. Turning her head over her shoulder, Kathryn paused before she climbed into the blankets.
She hadn't shared this bed with anyone. She'd even taken to sleeping in the middle after a few weeks of their journey. In the Alpha Quadrant, when she'd been with Mark, the right had always been her side. He liked being further away from the window as much as she'd liked being closer to the stars. The duplicate was facing her from Mark's side. Kathryn knew her own face enough to recognise the tear stains and the puffiness for what they were. Chakotay's quiet now spoke volumes. She knew herself and if he'd been there when she went to pieces, she would have been safe to let herself shatter.
Kathryn hadn't cried like that for Mark. She hadn't cried like that in just under a decade and the pent up flood must have been enough to destroy her self control. Had sobbing in Chakotay's arm been safe? Did her trust for him extend that far or was crying in front of him just grinding dirt into a wound that might fester for the rest of her life?
After she pulled up the blanket, she snuggled closer, lying on her side and reaching towards the other her. The last time Phoebe had been dumped they'd spent the night together, giggling like little girls again. She found her duplicate's arm and let her hand rest on it. Her duplicate's breath remained slow and even. Emboldened, Kathryn reached for her duplicate's cheek and stroked her hair back out of the way. What could she say? How could she help herself find her inner reserves of strength when she'd poured everything she had into this ship and her crew? Losing Voyager would destroy her, and knowing her crew was dead would take the colour out of the universe.
Her duplicate wanted to be dead. She had every reason to wish that she'd gone with her crew and the only part of her that could feel was most likely wrapped up in hating fate for its cruelty.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered to herself. "I can't, you know I can't begin to...but I'm here. I'm with you. I... hell...I am you and if there's anything I can...I want you to know, I will."
Before moving her hand to rest on the duplicate's upper arm, Kathryn stroked her cheek one more time. "We can get this crew home, you and I. For all of them, your crew and mine. I promised you, and I have no intent of backing out now. We don't give up. We're far too stubborn."
chapter one || chapter two || chapter three || chapter four || chapter five
Author: oparu
Rating: Mature
Pairing: Janeway/Chakotay
Spoilers: none
Summary: After the season two episode "Deadlock", the duplicate Kathryn Janeway survives the destruction of her ship and is rescued by her other crew. Can she adapt to a universe that already has one of her? What does this mean for both of their relationships with Chakotay? Carries through "Resolutions"
Notes: Betaed by the phenomenal Quantumsilver. Written for scifibigbang. Art by yappichick
chapter one || chapter two || chapter three || chapter four || chapter five
Pacing back and forth from one side of the turbolift to the other, Kathryn couldn't look at Chakotay for more than a second or two without her stomach leaping into her throat. He'd seen her, that other her. She'd survived the heroic sacrifice that had taken her ship and crew. Without Voyager, trapped in a universe that already had her- the supposedly-real her- what would she do? What could she do? She already existed, and this Kathryn in sickbay was redundant. How could she possibly cope with that? What was she without her crew?
Kathryn started when the doors hissed open. She hadn't been ready for them and she nearly jumped. Chakotay's hand brushed her shoulder, trying to calm her, but she stiffened even further. "Sorry," she muttered weakly. "I'm a little unsettled."
"She's you." His hand left her shoulder and he followed her out of the turbolift. "I think you're allowed to be unsettled. It's not every day we discover we have a twin."
She didn't have to tell him how complicated it was going to be if the duplicate remained. There was no reason to think Harry Kim or the baby were about to disappear. This Janeway was here to stay and they would have to find a way to get her home, just like the rest of them. Home...and then what? Would they share Mark? Did she have a greater claim to him because he was hers? If they were duplicated at the same moment, and had shared the same path up to that point, who could say who was the original and who was the duplicate? If there was no way of knowing, did it even matter?
Her feet kept walking without her paying attention to the path they took and they had brought her all the way to the doors leading in to sickbay. With Chakotay at her side, she strode through. A few crewmembers were still convalescing and most of them didn't notice her presence. On the bed closest to the door, Ensign Wildman held her baby. The infant seemed to be asleep, and Samantha looked so peaceful. The duplicate ship had given them two incredible gifts in Harry and the baby.
"Oh hello Commander," Kes saw Chakotay first and smiled at him. Her gaze trailed off him onto-- "Captain--" Kes' face went white as she saw her. Kes had seen her own double, even been on the other ship. She understood immediately.
The Doctor took a moment longer to realise what had occurred. He set down his hypospray and looked the captain over before checking his other patient. Lying on the floor next to the biobed was the other her. The Doctor grabbed a dermal regenerator as she approached. "Captain."
"Is she...?" Kathryn could barely finish the thought. "She's from the other ship."
"So it would appear." The Doctor. He grabbed her chin and began unceremoniously treating the cut on her cheek.
Kathryn turned her head away, trying to get a better look at herself. It was her. Her uniform was covered in soot, and blood stained the left shoulder.
"She arrived with a concussion, numerous contusions and five fractured ribs. Mr. Paris treated her injuries adequately and she will recover."
Kathryn knew what she'd want. "Wake her."
Chakotay's eyes were on her. Everyone else in sickbay was starting to look. She crouched down, putting herself between the other Janeway and the eyes of the crew. Kathryn wasn't sure what she felt. Sympathy for the woman who had lost her ship? A sense of violation at being duplicated?
If the Doctor had better social skills, he might have responded to the death glare she gave him. "I'd rather she slept. She had a serious concussion."
"Doctor, unless it will cause lasting brain damage, I want her awake. Now."
The Doctor left the other captain's side and returned with a hypospray. Without a word, he set it against the duplicate's neck and woke her. It took a moment and Kathryn held her breath. The other her, stirred, blinking her eyes slowly. She started lifting her hand towards her head and Kathryn caught it. The fingers that wrapped around hers were completely identical, except for the dirt on her own.
"Captain," the other woman whispered. She blinked again, trying to clear her eyes. It had to be hard to believe what she was seeing. Was her vision blurry?
What was she supposed to say? What would she want to hear? Kathryn had no idea how to calm her duplicate or how the hell she was supposed to explain that she was trapped on the wrong ship.
"You're all right," Kathryn said, no matter what she said, it wouldn't be enough. "You're on my ship."
The other captain swallowed and Kathryn recognised pain in her face.
"Again."
The Doctor began to scan the duplicate, checking her head injury. When he started to speak, Kathryn waved him off. "Give us a moment, please."
"My ship?" the duplicate's eyebrows narrowed in desperation. She started to lift her head and winced in pain. Shutting her eyes, the captain reopened them with tears in the corners. "The Vidiians?"
"The Vidiians were destroyed," Kathryn reassured her, surprised by how much her heart ached for the other woman. "Your crew's sacrifice saved us. We owe you all our lives."
Her head fell to the the side, and her voice was soft enough Kathryn had to lean closer to hear her.
"You would have done the same," the duplicate whispered. "Quite nearly did." She closed her eyes again. "I don't remember how I--"
Kathryn kept the duplicate's hand locked in hers. She'd always been terrible at reassuring herself, but maybe this was different. "We found you on deck fifteen," she began. "We think you were thrown through the rift when a plasma conduit exploded." Smiling a little eased some of the tension in her chest. "I'm afraid things are still pretty chaotic on this side. We had a case of mistaken identity for awhile."
The other her smiled back weakly. "We followed Harry. Chakotay and I...we thought the Vidiians might... I'm not here to take your ship, captain." Her chin trembled a little as she tried to find the humour in the situation. "I think I have an idea what Voyager means to you."
Watching herself struggle on the verge of tears, Kathryn reached down and touched the other woman's cheek. Her fingers left behind a grey smear of dirt, but the contact stilled her duplicate's grief for the moment. She had to get her out of sickbay. The poor woman had just lost her ship and her family. She couldn't be expected to stay in sickbay, exposed to everyone's curiosity.
"I'll be back in a moment," Kathryn promised her duplicate. To her relief, Chakotay knelt down and took her place. She hated thinking of her being alone.
She tracked down the Doctor in his office. He had several things open on his computer but he looked up for her.
"Can she be released?"
"There's nothing wrong with her aside from a nasty headache and some tenderness along her ribs," the Doctor explained, getting to his feet. "There's still a phase shift in her DNA, but it won't cause her any problems that I'm aware of. Medically she's your identical twin and I assume she'll be just as stubborn of a patient."
Putting her hands on her hips, Kathryn didn't bother to defend either of them. Of course they were stubborn. "This phase shift, will it cause any problems over the long term?"
The Doctor circled his desk and attacked the cut on her face with the dermal regenerator again. This time she allowed him and held still as he spoke. "The phase shift will mark the duplicate captain, Harry Kim and the Wildman baby as having come from another universe, but none of the three will suffer for it. A less thorough medical officer would not be able to distinguish them from anyone else on board."
"So you'll release the-" she corrected herself, she, Kathryn was the captain. "My duplicate."
"Someone will need to remain with her, in case there are any complications of the head injury, which is a remote, but potentially life threatening, possibility." When he finished with her cheek, the Doctor picked up a medical tricorder and scanned down her chest. "If you decide you would like your bruises treated, return to sickbay. Otherwise, you're both in good health. You may go."
Kathryn smirked at him, caught somewhere between amusement and the other more difficult emotions lodged in her gut. "Thank you, Doctor."
Chakotay caught her outside the Doctor's office and walked with her silently back towards the medical supply room. "She's you, Captain," he said, keeping his voice low.
"According to the Doctor we're identical." Wrapping her fingers into a fist, she rested her elbow on her hand. "Except I'm covered in bruises and dirt and she's lost her crew. The Doctor's willing to release her from sickbay, but someone has to stay with her. I can't just ask one of the junior officers, or even Kes. If she's anything like me, having someone hover over her is the last thing she'd want but I can't just leave her here."
The warmth of his hand on her shoulder was enough to make her down tears a distinct possibility. "Let me take her to your quarters, or even my own. I've had some experience with her, and I know grief. Maybe I can help her."
"She's lost her entire crew, her ship." Kathryn met his eyes wondered if he could see through her as well as she feared. "She's supposed to be dead." The last statement tumbled out of her mouth, escaping her better judgement.
"Our ship and crew are recovering," he said, squeezing her shoulder in reassurance. "Let me take care of our guest. She'll need someone to talk to and I've become a pretty good listener over the last year we've been out here."
"Chakotay." Kathryn shook her head slowly. "She expected to be dead. She- I would want to be dead. The captain goes down with the ship." Her throat was tight and she was breathing through a sandstorm. Through the walls of the Doctor's glass office she watched Kes help the other Kathryn get to her feet. It was absolutely eerie. The duplicate stood how Kathryn would have stood, even spoke softly to Kes.
"Captain." Chakotay smiled at her, calming her like the sun coming over the hills back home. "Let me take care of her while you take care of the ship. You're both exhausted. She might listen to me and rest, but you won't until Voyager's back in one piece."
Nodding to him, she wished him luck. Kathryn caught his forearm with her hand. "Thank you."
"See you on the bridge," he replied, still smiling. "Such as it is."
From her vantage point, she watched as he approached her duplicate. Chakotay's smile softened and he offered the other her his arm. Would Kathryn have taken it? Her duplicate debated for a moment, then took it. Maybe she was still disoriented or she wanted the comfort of his strength. She might not have allowed herself the perceived weakness of being escorted but her duplicate didn't even put up a fight.
Chakotay held her arm all the way back to her quarters. She'd never allowed herself that much contact with him. Mark had come on a tour, back when Voyager was in spacedock, but he hadn't held her arm. He'd never been terribly fond of the uniform and he kept a respectful distance when she wore it. Mark had no desire to be a Starfleet spouse. He'd put on a good front and attend the banquets but he'd made it clear it was her he wanted, not Captain Janeway, but Kath.
Now it didn't matter. Mark was on the other side of the galaxy and he didn't belong to her. Mark belonged to the other her: the one who belonged here, the one who's quarters Chakotay had just led her into and the one who still had her ship.
Her quarters, the other Kathryn's quarters, looked exactly like her own, right down to the book on the table she'd left out that morning. She lifted the book, traced her finger along the back of the spine
"I was reading this before I went to the bridge." Closing her eyes, she winced as the type on the cover shifted in and out of focus.
"I suggest you wait until tomorrow," Chakotay said gently, leading her to the sofa. "According to Mr. Paris' surprisingly useful medical skills, you hit your head pretty hard."
"I'm a little disoriented." Trying not to hear the quaver in her voice didn't make it go away.
"Concussions are nasty things." Chakotay's smile was entirely sympathetic. "I've had a couple."
"Piloting?" The corner of her mouth twisted upward in amusement. His ill-luck with shuttles was becoming something of an inside joke.
"Boxing." Chakotay took the book from her hand and set it aside. "Have you eaten?"
She started to shake her head and stopped. It was easier just to hold still. "I'm not hungry."
"Rations have that effect on me too." His smile was far too gentle, but it was both what she needed and desperately didn't want to see. Her Chakotay had smiled too, right before he died. Kathryn could still picture the burn mark on his neck and the light draining from his face. Looking at this- this other Chakotay- tore at her heart and she quickly looked away.
He respected that and left the sofa. He stepped out into the hallway and returned with one of the emergency rations packs. "We'll start with something easy," Chakotay said, opening it up and looking through what they had.
He handed her the water pouch, still watching her with that solicitous look.
She took a drink slowly. Her throat was a little scratchy; she must have spent some time in smoke after the plasma explosion. "My ship?"
"Cleanly destroyed and they took the Vidiians with them. This Voyager is safe while we make repairs." He dug through the pack and offered her a pack of dried soup. "Tomato and rice. Not quite vegetable bouillon, but it's better than beef brisket or curry chicken and dried papaya."
The last one was something she remembered and she frowned. "I'll eat the soup."
"Good," Chakotay said, opening the packet and turning on the tiny warmer. "Shouldn't take too long."
"Your ship is safe?"
Watching as he re-hydrated the soup and stirred it slowly, Kathryn took a deep breath and winced. The Doctor had been right, her ribs were going to be sore for awhile and the edges of everything around her were still fuzzy in her vision.
"It's safe. A little beat up, but safe." He handed her the soup and held it until her hands were firmly around the cup. "I know your stomach might be a little upset right now, but you'll feel a lot better in the morning if you eat this."
Sighing, she looked down at the pale red soup and took a sip. It wasn't bad. It certainly wasn't good, but it was warm and it eased her throat. "Thank you."
"Your crew saved everyone on this ship."
Kathryn hadn't been nauseated before, but now her stomach twisted with grief. She could forget about it. She could close her eyes and let this Chakotay be her first officer and these quarters be her quarters.
It wasn't and it could never be. She was an impostor here. A duplicate who didn't belong.
She drank the rest of her soup quickly, hoping the hot liquid would shock her stomach into behaving. "You would have done the same for us."
He saw right through her. Chakotay's compassion was written all over his face. "But you did it."
She laughed bitterly. Her metal cup clanged against the glass coffee table in front of her when she set it down. "You know what they should put in those ration packs? Real alcohol, just in case you end up in the wrong universe, completely out of options." She rocked back and forth where she sat, anxiously moving her hands. Her headache didn't matter so much anymore.
"You're alive." His voice was so damn soft.
"I had no intention of being. Tuvok. Paris. Kes. Torres. My Chakotay-" she nearly spat his name instead of treating it with the respect it deserved. "All of them died. You- I've seen you die. You knocked me back when the Vidiians fired at us. You--"
"Died," he finished. "I died. So did a version of everyone on this ship. I will grieve for him and everyone else on that Voyager. The spirits will take care of them now."
"Everyone but the captain," she snapped, hating the word as much as she loathed the weight of the pips on her collar. Taking off her commbadge, she set it on the table. "This one doesn't match. It has a slight phase variance, even though it works with your system." Peeling the pips from her collar one at a time, she dropped them on the table as well. "Won't be needing those without a ship. Maybe you should ask the other me to contact the Talaxians, see if they need a decent engineer with a scientific background."
Pushing off the sofa, she paced. It didn't matter where she was going, she just desperately needed to be doing something. She couldn't fix the ship because she was injured. She couldn't talk to the crew because they weren't hers. She couldn't bury her own because they weren't dead.
"You belong here," Chakotay interrupted, sitting calmly as she tore back and forth. "If there's anywhere in the universe you belong, it's on this ship."
"This is the wrong ship, Chakotay. She's already here." she threw out her arm, pointing out the doors of this Janeway's quarters towards the other woman. "The only place I belong is floating out in space as loose atoms with the rest of my crew." Her words were venomous but she shivered at the thought. She didn't know which was worse, not being dead or knowing she should be and being unable to die.
Chakotay stood and faced her, hands at his sides. "You're not dead and you'll have to accept that. You're a brilliant officer. This ship could use you."
"No," she snapped, shaking her head and moving away from him. "No. This ship has one captain. It can't have two. It'll destroy the chain of command." All the anger she could put up as a sheild between them couldn't save her from the black knot of fear in her stomach. She'd failed. Her crew was dead and she had no right to ever call herself their captain again.
"Then don't be the captain."
Her Chakotay probably wouldn't have dared take her arms and stop her in her tracks, but this one did. He knew she was a fake, the duplicate, the impostor who didn't belong.
"No, Chakotay!" She broke his grasp and retreated towards the centre of the room.
"Kathryn."
Her given name cut through her shields the way no other word in the galaxy could have. He'd never called her that. Not off duty, not as a joke: it had never happened.
"Don't you see?" Her stomach was ice and her eyes felt like she'd been slogging through a blizzard. Breathing was difficult; her chest was clamping down. "Even that's hers. Captain Kathryn Janeway." Her name sounded foreign and left a bitter taste in her mouth. Her ship. Her title. Her name. "Hell, if we make it home it'll be her mother and her sister who are waiting for her."
His hand released her arm and rose to her shoulder. "Hey."
"I don't belong here," she whispered. Her voice was barely functioning at all and the hand she pointed at the viewport shook. "I belong there. Out there." The first tear made her sinuses ache and the second simply overwhelmed her. "I'm supposed to be dead. Dead with my crew."
The hand on her shoulder moved to her cheek, holding her close. She started to lose count of her tears.
"It wasn't your time."
Pulling back from his hand, she tried to retreat. "Chakotay..."
He embraced her, holding her tightly against her chest. His arms were around her shoulders and just like her father, he held her. He murmured into her hair, comforting her with words she couldn't hear. She opened her hand, pressing it against his chest. Her tears gave way to sobs, and when she sank down to the floor, he sank with her. Chakotay held her as she curled up into a ball of misery. She hadn't cried like that since her father died.
She'd watched him, standing up there while he sank beneath the ice. She'd been unconscious when her ship had sacrificed itself but she felt each of their deaths as acutely as if she was still standing on the ice with the wind howling around her.
Again, she was alone.
Coming home to someone in her quarters was a shock in and of itself. She lived alone. Her quarters were a quiet refuge from everything she had to be outside that door. Alone in the dark, she could sink to the sofa and put her head in her hands. She could cry for the crew, for herself, and everything they'd all left behind. Once that door was shut, it was just her, Voyager and all the ghosts they carried together.
She paused, nearly dropping her facade too early. The bruises on her back from the floor of the bridge ached, and she rolled her neck and winced. Maybe she should have let the Doctor take a look at them, but it was just bruises. They'd heal. She'd be sore tomorrow, maybe even the day after but her ship was being repaired, her crew was safe, and that was what mattered.
Chakotay raised his head, leaving his meditative trance when he heard her come in. "Captain," he whispered.
"She's asleep." Otherwise he wouldn't whisper. "Replicators?" she asked softly.
"Just came online an hour ago," he murmured back, rolling up his medicine bundle. "I recommend some Valerian root tea. Sleep well, captain." He would have left without another word.
Kathryn hung her head, rubbing the aching muscles leading up to her skull. The other her, her duplicate, deserved her privacy. She shouldn't pry, and yet, they were the same person, weren't they?
"Chakotay," she interrupted his exit.
He turned, holding his medicine bundle under one arm. "How would you be, if your positions were reversed?"
Her stomach crept into her throat and she dropped her hands in defeat. "Destroyed. Half-dead. Hollow. I've been thinking about her and her crew all day and I can't even imagine. It ties my stomach up in knots and I haven't had that since I was a child and my father would go off fighting the Cardassians."
"Be kind to her. You are your own worst critic. Right now, she needs you to be your own best supporter. You know what drives you: what keeps you going. You can help her find that again." Chakotay's sincere empathy for, well, for her, softened the knots in her stomach and let the vague sense of nausea that had been following her dissipate. At least her duplicate was in good hands.
"Thank you, Chakotay." Kathryn found just enough energy to smile before she he left her quarters.
Four rank insignia sat on the glass table next to her duplicate's communicator badge. She stared at them, wondering how she'd feel with them gone from her collar. The other her was as gutted as either of them could have been. She'd dealt with losing her father and Justin particularly badly, and this was more than her father and her fiancé. Kathryn couldn't fathom the horror of losing her crew and the terrible injustice of outliving all of them. It was her worst nightmare made flesh and torn from her chest with her still-beating heart.
Leaning against the wall near the replicator, Kathryn ordered the tea Chakotay had suggested. It would be bland and warm; that was she needed. Setting her tea down on the edge of the sink in her bathroom, she pulled the pins from her hair and let it fall loose and filthy over her shoulders. Her uniform too had taken a beating. As she stripped it from her skin, she frowned. The inner layers were bloodstained from the scratches that had gone through the fabric.
"No wonder you're sore." Being tossed around the bridge like one of Molly's chew ropes had taken its toll on her body and her clothing. Leaving all of it in a heap, she decided to deal with it in the morning. Splashing cool water on her face, she gave up shortly afterwards.
She had little need for Chakotay's suggestion of calming tea, but she drank it as she pulled on her oldest and plainest pyjamas. The thin blue-grey fabric was starting to wear out but she kept the pyjamas because she didn't have the pattern in this replicator. No one saw them and she was saving resources. At least, that was what she told herself.
Downing the last of her tea, she left the cup out. Tidying her quarters could wait until the lead was gone from her limbs and her eyes ceased loathing the fact that they were still open. Sitting on the edge of the bed and rubbing the back of her neck, she reached for the computer pad and keyed in her alarm for 0530. She had a ship to repair. Turning her head over her shoulder, Kathryn paused before she climbed into the blankets.
She hadn't shared this bed with anyone. She'd even taken to sleeping in the middle after a few weeks of their journey. In the Alpha Quadrant, when she'd been with Mark, the right had always been her side. He liked being further away from the window as much as she'd liked being closer to the stars. The duplicate was facing her from Mark's side. Kathryn knew her own face enough to recognise the tear stains and the puffiness for what they were. Chakotay's quiet now spoke volumes. She knew herself and if he'd been there when she went to pieces, she would have been safe to let herself shatter.
Kathryn hadn't cried like that for Mark. She hadn't cried like that in just under a decade and the pent up flood must have been enough to destroy her self control. Had sobbing in Chakotay's arm been safe? Did her trust for him extend that far or was crying in front of him just grinding dirt into a wound that might fester for the rest of her life?
After she pulled up the blanket, she snuggled closer, lying on her side and reaching towards the other her. The last time Phoebe had been dumped they'd spent the night together, giggling like little girls again. She found her duplicate's arm and let her hand rest on it. Her duplicate's breath remained slow and even. Emboldened, Kathryn reached for her duplicate's cheek and stroked her hair back out of the way. What could she say? How could she help herself find her inner reserves of strength when she'd poured everything she had into this ship and her crew? Losing Voyager would destroy her, and knowing her crew was dead would take the colour out of the universe.
Her duplicate wanted to be dead. She had every reason to wish that she'd gone with her crew and the only part of her that could feel was most likely wrapped up in hating fate for its cruelty.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered to herself. "I can't, you know I can't begin to...but I'm here. I'm with you. I... hell...I am you and if there's anything I can...I want you to know, I will."
Before moving her hand to rest on the duplicate's upper arm, Kathryn stroked her cheek one more time. "We can get this crew home, you and I. For all of them, your crew and mine. I promised you, and I have no intent of backing out now. We don't give up. We're far too stubborn."
chapter one || chapter two || chapter three || chapter four || chapter five