The Chain
By: AW

Pairing J/C, J/P
Rated: T
Summary: This how the chain of their life started, and this is how it ended.
Disclaimer: Paramount/Viacom owns the rights to the characters, but the story is mine.
Length: 1266 words
Date: November 2000

Chapter Two

I see a red door
And I want it painted black
No colours anymore
I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by
Dressed in their summer cloths
I have to turn my h ead
Until my darkness goes

I see a line of cars
And they’re all painted black
With flowers and my love
Both never to come back
I see people turn their heads
And quickly turn away
Like a newborn baby
It just happens every day

I look inside myself
And see my heart is black
I see my red door
I must have it painted black
Maybe then I’ll fade away
And not have to face the facts
It’s not easy facing up
When your whole world is black

No more will my green sea
Go turn a darker blue
I could not foresee
This thing happening to you
If I look hard enough
Into the setting sun
My love will laugh with me
Before the morning comes

I see a red door
And I want it painted black
No colours anymore
I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by
Dressed in their summer cloths
I have to turn my head
Until my darkness goes

I wanna see it painted
Painted black
Black as night

Black as cold

I want to see the sun
Blotted out from the sky

I wanna see it painted
Painted, painted, painted black

Black. That was Kathryn’s life since she had been whisked away to the far reaches of the Delta Quadrant. Of course it was like that for much if not all of her mottled crew. Misfits, Starfleet, green, experienced. Those condemned gone with the tip of a hand, the flick of switch, the blink of an eye.

Black.

Not her colour of choice, not her life of question. A life in the Alpha Quadrant taken away unjustly and forever revoked. Kathryn’s life no longer as it should be.

It would not be until years later, after the disappearance of Kes, the alliance and complete irradication of the differences that she would realize this mistake was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and her life would never be the same.

But never the same in a good way.

Chakotay had walked into her life.

*~@~*

In the beginning there was nothing, or it felt like nothing anyway. Kathryn looked upon life as something she had had in the past and that could never be again. She looked at her mottled crew full of Starfleet’s finest and Maquis misfits. Lives torn apart by unforeseen circumstances beyond her control. By a life-changing event that was totally, unacceptably beyond her reach.

But it had happened, and for her and her crew, and those members not of her crew, life had changed. In the change and meantime, life changes and relationships began to form. Life would never be the same again.

There were moments when it seemed okay, moments when life was as it should be on a starship, and then there were moments that went beyond anything she could have expected. Moments when one’s life changed forever.

There were moments when everything appeared to be okay, moments when life seemed to be as it should be aboard a Starship. Then there were moments that went beyond anything she could have expected. Moments when one’s life changed forever into something different, something more. And from time to time, something less.

The days passed and Kathryn could see her life return to some semblance of normalcy. She could almost picture her dreams being allowed to flourish, and then the problems began.

Or perhaps they had always been there, just ignored by necessity and the layers of protection she had allowed nothing to penetrate.

Then throughout all of her days of loneliness and torture there had been Seska. Seska, before her death had been like a bad cold. She kept coming back, and just when you thought you had the virus nipped, forever eradicated…she found a way to come back for more.

Kathryn had tried to make herself forget Seska. To make it seem like maybe she had never existed at all. Unfortunately, she was part of history now. Their history, Voyager’s history and therefore part of Kathryn’s history too.

See for Kathryn, as for many Starfleet officers there were people who walked into your life just to make it hell. She had had many a person like that, or it felt like that. Seska was one of those people. When Kathryn had first seen Chakotay on that screen, after she had gotten over the fact that this man was a Maquis Rebel, she had seen the man, the handsome man, the man that gave her that tingly feeling all over.

At the time she had ignored it, and she would continue to ignore it for a long time to come, until life threw her a mighty curve ball and forced her into a decision. That curve ball had of course come at a time in her life, when she thought things couldn’t get better, when she thought life would be good, when she thought…when she thought many things, but not what had actually happened.

When they had been thrown out here, the first few months had been tough. She thought about many things. She remembered pleasuring herself thinking about Mark. Trying to think that one day it would all be good. Then one day, about two years into the journey, shortly after her stay on ‘New Earth’, the face of the man she dreamt of when she fulfilled the needs every woman had changed. On that day, she no longer dreamt of Mark her long-lost love.

It had frightened her, and it had shocked her.

Life and family had taken a different turn.

So many opportunities she had had to let pass. The almighty prime directive. So many people lost because she could not go against her almighty principles…some day, she might have to, but not today…or so she always thought.

Then came the day when she had, and she had paid dearly for it…very dearly.

Some day she would share with Chakotay she always thought, some day she would tell him of her misdeeds, but now he was no more. Perhaps today it was time to take out the medicine bundle and contact his spirit…or maybe this was one secret which was meant to go to the grave with her. Then in a place where there were no secrets, where there was no deception the truth would be told and known.

Perhaps…

So Kathryn had saved the Ocampa destroyed the Array and set into motion many events that would forever be the beginning and ending of her life. Kathryn Janeway, the great Kathryn Janeway defender of the universe…lover…wife…mother…and finally, after years of denial and finally three years of bliss…widow.

She felt the arms of her lover entwine around her still-slim waist. “What are you thinking about?”

Kathryn smiled. “Nothing…life…everything.”

Tom smiled and rubbed her belly. “Honey, Chakotay will live on, if only in namesake in this child, and will live on in all other forms in his daughters. That will never change.”

Kathryn Paris grinned and kissed her new husband, lost permanently in thoughts of the past, and in future dreams.

END CHAPTER 2
TBC IN CHAPTER 3