The Fear of Letting Go

by: AW
Rating: K
Pairing: J/C
Summary: Without others she was no one.
Disclaimer: I don't own them, just borrowing them for a while.
Length: 1476 words
Date: February 2000

Kathryn stared out the view port. She had gone a whole week without coffee; this for her was a feat of unimaginable strength of character. She had done if for a reason though. She stood and made her way to the replicator. She commanded the replicator to produce an article of great sentimental value and one that was necessary for her. She needed to do something which she had avoided doing since being in the Delta Quadrant, something which had kept her sane, kept her honest with herself and everyone else. This was something that she had neglected and something, which she needed to pick up where she had left off all those years ago. Despite her scientific curiosity, even she, Kathryn Janeway needed an outlet...and this was it.

It had started when she was a young child. Her search, her quest for perfection. Her father had insisted that she was the bright child. She was the mathematician, she was the scientist. She always had a purpose; not necessarily her own, but she always had one, a goal in life, something for which she had to strive. Without this pressure, without these goals, without the recognition she was nothing. Without the control she so desperately needed, she would whither and die. Without her image, the picture of perfection, someone else's idea of who she was, she would not survive. She was the Captain, she was the pillar of strength and most of all she was the image everyone looked up to and expected to be a certain way. Everyone expected the Captain. Everyone expected the fearless leader. She had to fulfill their ideals and their expectations. She felt inadequate if she could not manage even this small objective. She had stranded them here, seventy thousand light years from home and now it was payback time. She pretended for her crew, she strived for greatness for her father, she did it all for Starfleet. Funny thing was in all her years, she had never thought of doing it for herself. Her happiness was secondary and came with the happiness of others.

Without others she was no one.

When she had been a young child, sitting under her father's desk, waiting for approval, waiting for the game to start, waiting for the chance to prove herself even then she had done it for the greater good. When she looked back, she had done it for him, not for her. It was her survival. All throughout school she had done this as well. She had hated playing tennis, not because she hated tennis, but simple because no one else played tennis, and she had to be good at something for which she could be recognized. Without recognition she was forever hollow, like an empty room devoid of character and personality.

She had been an ensign on the Icarus. She had been captured by the Cardassians...she had rescued a soldier, her future fiancé. When she thought about it...why she had done it...she had not done it because she loved him, she had not done it because she respected him, she had done it because it had gotten her recognition and had leveraged her career.

Then there was Command school...she was the scientist, but what had she pursued? Command. Why? Simple, when she was in command, she was in control, and she needed to be in control, she needed to be able to impact others. Her father and her fiancé had died in that crash...she had been devastated. When she looked back she realized she had never really loved Justin. She had been so hurt by his death and that of her father for one reason, and one reason alone; she had not been able to save them. She was not perfect, she could not do everything, and in the end it had just about destroyed her. On that day a crack had formed in her facade. A crack which leaked every time she failed...she had glued it back together, she had reformed and remolded her facade, her cover up so many times she couldn't even keep count anymore, but she was always the best. She had to be because without that she was nothing.

When she looked upon her inner image, the thought scared her. The possibility of feelings showing through and betraying her interior emotions was an annoyance and a weakness. So she continued the magical act of concealing and consuming. Problem was the consummation was done to her not by her. She was consumed by guilt and fear, and she was afraid that Kathryn would get eaten alive under the guise of the Captain and the Captain's principles.

The great Kathryn Janeway, the woman in charge of countless lives and decisions. The woman who had beaten the Borg, stolen a transwarp conduit, helped invent and test Starfleet's first Quantum Slipstream drive, had yet to figure out who she was. She was a pawn in the hands of whatever authority figure was present at the time, problem was, right now, in the middle of the Delta Quadrant with no support and no one to influence her, she was lost. The numerous times she had told Chakotay that truth be known she was alone, she had meant it. Not in the way he had interpreted it, but in so many other ways. Yet she insisted on letting him think this, letting him accept that there was only one reason she could not go along with his agenda. The simple fact that her first priority was always the crew and although there was some truth in this statement, the concept of fear and failure was the deciding factor.

The silence in her mind, the lack of instructions, they all led to one conclusion, she needed her rules and protocols for one simple reason...she didn't know who she was and she didn't know how to react. It was easy to have everything defined for her, and hard when she had no lines defining her parameters.

Out here, in the middle of no where, with no support and no rules to really follow, she was alone, and she was lost and until she could deal with this loss, she would be nothing...as usual...empty. Cold hands, cool head, frozen heart. Time stands still for no one...and she was sure that in the end, the consequences of her decisions would catch up to her. Her decision to reject Chakotay. She resented him for moving on, yet she was the one who had encouraged him. If you love someone who have to set them free.

Kathryn put down the pen. She had been writing in her journal for over an hour. She rarely got to do anything even remotely close to this anymore. No time, the crew, the ship...her people they all needed her. They took so much out of her, and there were points where she felt so drained, so tired...so not able to give anymore. And yet she did, but only for others. Some days, some things just didn't fall under specific categories and she had no way to deal with them. She had acted on instinct for so long that she felt like a caged animal. She needed to feel...she knew she couldn't just shut off her emotions, she knew it was impossible for anyone to do this, but as Captain, she did.

She was praised by some, chided by others, but it was at the point now where no one cared. No one bothered inviting her to the holodeck. She was no longer in a situation where she could even prove herself at pool. Something so simple yet so essential. Old habits die hard and even here, where she was at the top, she needed to prove she belonged and deserved to stay.

She had always needed to prove that she was tougher than everyone else. She refused to cry; she refused to let people think she was anything less than the best. Anything less than perfect, anything less than what everyone had come to expect and depend on from Captain Kathryn Janeway...leader extraordinaire.

Thing was someone always cared, and if she could force herself to look beyond the shields, beyond the protective layers, she knew she would find the truth, she knew she would find a sort of peace...

If only she didn't have to sacrifice her safety net to do so...

THE END