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Neelix coiled the last cinnamon snail of dough and tucked it into the corner of the pan. With a small grunt, he hefted the heavy tray of rolls into the storage cooler, sliding it onto the top shelf above the five other pans already there. He swung the door closed with his elbow. Placing both hands against the small of his back, he pushed, hoping the pressure would counterbalance the ache that had taken up residence there. He was tired. It had been a long day. But then, everyday was a long day. Unlike most of his colleagues, Neelix worked a split shift. He reported to duty well before the earliest of risers on Alpha shift, setting out coffee with pastries, fruit and cereal before returning to the kitchen to prepare today's offering of eggs or pancakes or baked hoata with gremora sauce. Once those on main shift had straggled out to their posts, he laid out an entree and dessert for the minority who had drawn Gamma shift so they could linger over their dinner and unwind before heading off to their well-deserved rest. Then there were tables to buss and dishes to wash before beginning the lunch preparations. Once those were complete and in the hands of his assistants, Neelix was off duty until mid afternoon when it was time start main shift dinner. Theoretically this time inbetween was his own, except that he also had to inventory supplies, check airponics to see what vegetables and fruits were in season, plan menus to meet the crew's decidely fussy tastes and the doctor's fastidious nutritional requirements, develop and test new recipes, and circulate throughout the ship, checking on attitudes and rumblings in his capacity as morale officer. On a practical level, this meant that Neelix had learned how to nap just about anywhere, anytime, in any position, including standing on his feet---which was exactly what he was going to do unless he made it to his own bed soon. He wiped the flour off his hands with a towel and made a slow turn about the kitchen, checking one last time to see all was in readiness for morning.
He was on his way out of the messhall when he spied a solitary figure sitting at one of the far tables underneath the window. He paused a moment deciding if he ought to send the intruder off to seek the comfort of his own bed or chivvy him into heading down to the crew lounge two decks below when he recognized the shape as that of the only person on Voyager who had a longer duty day than his own.
Silently he stepped back into the darkened kitchen and murmured a order to the replicator. He hooked his left index finger through the handles of two mugs and took the carafe of coffee in the other. Re-entering the messhall, Neelix made sure to walk unquietly so as not to alarm his guest.
"Coffee, Captain?" he asked cheerily, setting a mug on the table.
Captain Janeway looked up slightly startled despite Neelix's carefully noisy footfalls. Her left hand spidered across the screen of the padd she held in front of her, covering the images displayed there.
"Yes, thank you.....You're up late."
Neelix gave an 'it happens' shrug. "I'm making cinnamon buns for breakfast. I needed to get the dough rolled out so they would be ready in the morning."
"Ah," Janeway answered sagely, as if she understood the complexities of feeding 153 individuals from 11 different species, 42 cultures and some two dozen divergent religious traditions on three non-overlapping and mutually exclusive duty shifts.
"Well, that's my excuse for being up. What's yours?" It was an improper question and he knew it, cheeky and too personal, but he asked it anyway.
"Couldn't sleep," she answered. 'Thinking too much."
"Ah." Neelix gave a little nod. He understood. He had nights like that--when thoughts circled endlessly around and around, binding mind and body to reluctant wakefulness. Most nights when sleep eluded him he availed himself of the mild sedative that the doctor had left a standing order for. But some nights he didn't want to sleep. Then he sought out a quiet place, a place of silence and solitude, where he could watch the distant magnificence of the universe roll by. Other nights he craved the noise and distraction that only conversation and companionship could bring.
He waited on impatient, aching feet to see which option Janeway had decided on tonight. When she didn't speak, Neelix assumed she had chosen the former and turned to leave.
"Neelix...." Her voice caught him before he had gone more than three steps. "Have I told you lately what a wonderful job you're doing with the mess?"
Her praised warmed him like the memory of sunshine.
"I mean it," she continued. "If you were Starfleet, I'd put a letter of commendation in your service jacket, but since you're not...." She spread her hands a little helplessly. "...the best I can do is tell you....Thank you, Neelix."
Noticing the mug he still held in his hands, she gestured toward the table. "Join me?"
Neelix sat and poured himself a cup of coffee, wishing he had thought to bring the sugar and the cream. The Captain liked her coffee black, but he didn't. He sipped gingerly at the bitter beverage, trying to hide his grimace of distaste.
Janeway sipped her own coffee and continued, "You've done a remarkable job....especially for someone who has never been a ship's cook before. " She grinned into her cup.
"Wh...wh...how did you know?" Neelix sputtered indignantly.
She chuckled. "I suspected as much before you volunteered for the job--the way you rhapsodized about your culinary creations--and by the third dinner, I was certain."
"You were? Then why did you ever let me come aboard?"
Seven years of bad cooking jokes must have darted through her mind, but her lips didn't so much as twitch. She stared into the inky depths of her cup, seeking either truth or courage. She must have found what she was looking for because she raised her eyes to meet his and spoke with honesty. "I was afraid the Kazon would come back and kill you."
Neelix blinked rapidly several times. That wasn't the answer he'd expected to hear.
"You'd helped us on Ocampa and you'd tricked Maje Cullah into giving you Kes. I didn't think either would endear you to him. I knew that Voyager could take care of herself, but I wasn't sure about your ship, Neelix. I was afraid that when the Kazon found they couldn't take their revenge on us, they would circle back and take their revenge on you. You shouldn't have to pay for my mistakes."
Neelix found himself nodding. It made a kind of horrific sense. The Kazon were like that: jackals who preferred their prey couldn't fight back. He had never even considered that possibility, that his actions on Ocampa had put him into jeopardy. A wave of gratitude squeezed his throat. Even then, while he was still only a friendly stranger, Captain Janeway had been worrying about him, safeguarding him.
"And you, Neelix, why did you ask to join my crew?"
"For Kes." He'd asked for Kes. His beautiful Kes. He'd been content to earn his meager living scavenging from other people's refuse. He nearly always had enough to eat and plenty of water to drink, if not enough to bathe. But Kes had been young, oh so young, and innocent. She had deserved more. Something cleaner and nobler than what he alone could offer. Something like Voyager's hopeless cause. Neelix was surprised to find his vision wavering as tears filled up his eyes. He hadn't cried over Kes in months, in years, if he was honest, though the ache of her loss had never completely gone away. He felt warm fingers surrounding his own and looked up to see Janeway's hand covering his. Tears stood out in her eyes.
"I miss her too."
They sat together in a silence softened only by the mechanical sussuration of the ship's air recycling system and the soundless slide of stars outside the window. When the moment had stretched into awkwardness, Neelix reached across the table for the padd Janeway had been looking at, not so much because he wanted to see what it contained, but because he wanted to see how she would react. To his surprise, she didn't contest his motion.
The padd revealed a middle aged man, with dark hair gone gray at the temple and the beginning of jowls smudging his jawline. His mouth was partly opened, as if he had been speaking when he was entrapped by the electronic amber of the padd. Suddenly, urgently, Neelix hoped that this kind faced stranger would be waiting for Captain Janeway on the docks when Voyager finally returned home. Or if not him, then someone like him. It hurt to think that the enforced solitude she endured aboard the ship might continue even after she had come home.
"Friend or family?" he asked, gesturing at the man's civilian clothing when she raised a questioning eyebrow.
"His name is Mark Johnson. He is...was... my fiancé. We were supposed to be married once Voyager returned from her inaugural mission...."
"Only she didn't...." Neelix supplied.
"No, " Janeway answered slowly. She reached out to repossess the padd and began inputting a search code. "He married someone else." Her voice knelled a finality to the topic and warned against the offering of sympathy. "But here is something Mark sent. That's my dog, Molly, and her daughter, Lady Kate--not named after me, of course...."
Neelix looked at the images of two very hairy, pink tongued beasts with wildly thumping tails. Not the most attractive animals he had ever seen, but they did seem to have a basic enthusiastic charm about them. He listened to her rattle on about her pets, nodding and making unformed sounds of interest whenever her stream of words slowed, prompting her to continue. He had to report for duty in less than four hours, but so long as she was in the mood to talk, he was willing to listen. At times, he thought the Captain must be the loneliest person aboard the ship.
The yawn took him by surprise. Neelix managed to paste his lips together although his ears crackled from the effort of it.
"I'm sorry. It's late. I'm keeping you." Janeway apologized, reaching across the table to take back her padd and thumbing the display off.
"No, no," Neelix insisted, waving his hands in front of him. "I'm fine...." When another yawn made a liar of him, they both laughed. "I guess I could use some sleep after all," he admitted sheepishly. He stood and hesitated for a moment. "Captain, is there anything......?"
"I 'm fine. Thank you." Her face softened with a smile. "You're a good man, Neelix. I'm glad I met you."
"Me too."
"Neelix, can I ask you a question? Are you happy here?"
A thousand glib answers poured into his head and he let several of them flow out through his tongue. "Of course I am. I have a job that has earned me everyone's undying respect. Friends. Spacious, attractively decorated quarters.....How could I not be happy?"
"That's not what I meant....I meant: are you glad for this journey? For its destination? "
He knew what she was asking, had understood it the first time she'd asked, and hadn't wanted to answer. With every pulse of Voyager's engines, the crew drew a step closer to home---and he moved farther away. Neelix studied his hands: the stubby, blunt fingers and the faint calluses on his palms, the blotched skin on the backs of his hands and the ginger haired knuckles. He would never see home again. Never see another of his race. Voyager was going home, but he was going to be a stranger.
"I think....I think it's going to be all right, Captain." He had lost his family a long time ago when the radioactive sleet of the Metron Cascade scoured his homeworld--his father, his mother, his five older sisters, his grandparents, his neighbors, most of his friends. In fact, just about every person he had ever known died that day. And he had lived. Not because he had deserved it, but because he had done something stupid and been sent off-planet until tempers cooled. Only luck had saved his life. Just as luck had brought him to Voyager. And now he had a second chance, a second family. There were days as he hoved into the noisy dinner time crowds that he could swear he heard the chiming laughter of his sisters, that if he turned just so he could spy Melixxa's bobbing crest just behind Ensign Conway's head, but those days were numbered and dwindling. He was going to lose his Voyager family too--only not this time to death, but the inevitable scattering of individuals. He tried not to think about it, but he knew it was inevitable.
"I hope you will be, " Janeway's voice hurried on. "I think you might like the Alpha Quadrant, Neelix. In the Federation alone, there are over a hundred different species." None of them his, but she didn't have to say that. They both knew this for the truth. "I've told anyone who will listen how helpful you've been to Voyager, to me. Admiral Sarnikoff in Alien Relations definitely wants to meet with you after we reach Earth. And Ch'halan. He's the chief aide to Ambassador Sunik, of the Federation Foreign Relations Committee. And Madame Turaine---she's with the High Council's cultural affairs staff. I'm sure it will all work out."
Janeway had been looking down, drawing squares on the table top with her fingertips, and now she looked up, her eyes snapping with the blue fire of her passion for justice and generosity. "If it were up to me, I'd offer you a permanent berth aboard Voyager--there's precedent for it, for a civilian serving aboard a starship--but I can't." Her Captain's mask slammed into place, the one Neelix knew she used to when she wanted to hide her emotions. "I've already been apprised by Starfleet Command that I will not be named to serve another tour as Voyager's captain. I'm being replaced as soon as Voyager docks."
Neelix drew himself up, bristling, ready to be indignant on her behalf, but desisted at the subtle drawing of Janeway's brows.
"I'm being transferred to the Command Staff. It's a promotion really. Or so Admiral Chien insists. But to tell the truth...." She leaned in conspiratorially and whispered. "...I'd rather stay aboard Voyager."
Neelix leaned in too, unconsciously mirroring her posture. "Me too."
Janeway squeezed the Talaxian's arm. "Bless you for that, Neelix. Bless you." She shoved back from the table, rolling her neck from side to side and stretching theatrically. "You're not the only one who could use some sleep tonight." She stood and gathered up her things.
They walked together toward the exit, but before the door's sensors could read them, Janeway stopped. "Neelix, I haven't told anyone about my pending transfer. I'd appreciate....."
"No need, Captain. I won't tell a soul," he assured her.
Janeway smiled. "I knew I could trust you."
They parted company, Janeway striding down the corridor toward her quarters while Neelix paused in the hallway to gather her words and tuck them securely with the hundred or so other secrets he carried wreathed next to his heart.
The End