2. The Rose and the Thorn

Rating: T
Pairing: J/C, J/M
Summary: What lengths will Janeway go to...
Disclaimer: The premise of Voyager, I don't own, but the story is mine.
Date: October 2001
Length: 1091 words

I lay beside my wife. It is our honeymoon. I love Seven, there's no doubt about it, but all I can think about is Kathryn. I feel dirty, I feel as though I've betrayed the woman I've made my wife, my other half. I love her, that's all there is to it.

The only problem is the 'her' isn't Seven, the 'her' is Kathryn, and I love her in a different way, in so many other ways, so many more ways than I could ever love my wife.

And I knew, if given the chance, I'd throw it all away for just one night with Kathryn Janeway. And the problem is...I did just that...

We both lie silently still
in the dead of the night
Although we both lie close together
We feel miles apart inside
Was it something I said or something I did
Did the words not come out right
Though I tried not to hurt you
Though I tried
But I guess that's why they say

Every rose has its thorn
Just like every night has its dawn
Just like every cowboy sings his sad, sad song
Every rose has its thorn

I'm not sure when I think about it, as I watch you lying beside me, sleeping blissfully Kathryn, if the thorn is you or your Starfleet ideals. If I'd never met you, I'd never have married my wife. But if I'd never met you, I'd have missed out on so many things. Our friendship, the days on Voyager, my career as more than a mercenary.

The love I know we both share, but will not allow ourselves to admit to...

I listen to our favorite song
playing on the radio
Hear the DJ say loves a game of easy come and easy go
But I wonder does he know
Has he ever felt like this
And I know that you'd be here somehow
If I could have let you know somehow
I guess

Then I go home, to my wife. That was six months ago now that I lay by your side. When I woke up, you were gone. No doubt getting ready for some classified mission that I was not allowed to know about.

Or maybe, once again, you rethought everything that I meant to you, or that you meant to me, that we'd ever meant to each other.

And that's when I knew, I had to go home. That by your side was no longer home, and that my home was with my wife.

But I'll always, until the day I die, wonder what if...

Though it's been a while now
I can still feel so much pain
Like a knife that cuts you the wound heals
but the scar, that scar remains
I watch my wife, now six months pregnant with our first child. We know it will be a daughter, and the name is already chosen. This child will bear the name of the strongest and toughest woman that I have ever known, the woman that I love.

Kathryn Hansen she will be christened, only hoping she can live up to her namesake.

I think deep down, Annika knows that I will never love her like I loved her mentor, that I in some ways regret not going that extra mile that night. Not consummating it, the relationship, our love.

For both of us it was just sex. Well for her that's what it was, for me it was love, love finally fulfilled.

I wonder, every day. Then I look at my beautiful life, fulfilling dreams I never thought possible and I know that even if Kathryn had tried to live the life I wanted her to, she would never have come close.

Seven gives in, she lets me have a family and she lets me have her as my wife. We make decisions together, she does not make unilateral decisions for both of us, and yet I know...

If Kathryn had given just a little bit, we could have been so happy.

I love her, and I love Seven, but in different ways.

As sick as it may sound, the relationship Seven and I have eventually settled into is more like a brother/sister relationship, its not the kind of deep all consuming love I could have had, but sometimes second best is better than nothing at all, and I can only hope that in our next life...that we all find that happiness I missed in this one.

I know I could have saved a love that night
If I'd known what to say
Instead of makin' love
We both made our separate ways

But now I hear you found somebody new
and that I never meant that much to you
To hear that tears me up inside

And to see you cuts me like a knife
I guess
I heard through the Starfleet communiqué today that you are to be wed Kathryn. You invited me, Seven will be your bridesmaid and I will be your best man.

Little Kathryn, four years old now, will be your little flower girl. You were so happy for me when you heard that you were going to be an 'auntie' to little Katie. I can't bear to call my daughter by her full name, it pains me too much. I thought I could get over you, but it still cuts like a knife. The only 'Kathryn' I will ever really know is you, and this is the reason that Kathryn Hansen has been 'Katie' since the day she was born.

You always hated being called Katie, and so I know I can never compare her.

When I look into my daughter’s clear blue eyes and look at her golden hair, I can't help but think of you.

Kathryn Janeway, my one, my only, my pipe dream never realized.

Maybe in our next life it will happen. For I believe that souls walk together for eternity if they are meant to be together, and I know to the bottom of my soul, that we are meant to forever walk a parallel path. We are one, and yet we are not, well not in this life, but in the next perhaps.

Someday Kathryn, we will find true love...together.

END Part II
TBC in Part III: If Only...