Three planets left of Risa
Author: august
Spoilers: Consider it all spoilt
Rating: Probably R. Nothing too explicit.
Codes: VOY; J/Neelix, J/C, J/T

Summary: "She is not the same person who left the Alpha Quadrant all those years ago."
 

A few moments of indulgence, please. Skip it, please, if you don't want to hear unmitigated august-rambling TM.

I think I can say that this is the last real 'this came to me while I was walking and won't leave me alone' trekfic I'll be
writing. This story is for, and because of, a bunch of wonderful writers. Look, closely, and you will see nanda's cucumber
soap or Boadicea's Mark who leaves early in the morning. Scratch away and you'll see flecks of Kelly's Gretchen and shades
of monkee's boots. There are pieces of Michele in every song that I sing.

I have learnt more from these writers than I did in any undergraduate writing course I ever took. Of course, I was taught by
hacks and these fine, fine people show me different ways to fall in lust with words every time.

So then. Thank you. Join me, sometime, in the wonderful world of West Wing.

***

She sips her drink and watches him carefully. He is most alive like this, she decides; he holds the entire table captive with his
tales of Talaxian salvage yards.

She watches his hand graze the bottle of scotch as he gestures wildly. She smiles. The scotch burns her throat, a little, and
she thinks maybe she is happy.

*

For the first two weeks she was back on Earth, she tried not to leave her apartment. Starfleet had organised accommodation
for her, and she was entranced with her balcony and the tiny rows of potted plants that rested there.

Her communicator stayed on her night stand and she let holo messages go straight to archive. Nine years on Voyager had
packed neatly into two suitcases and one carry bag, and she had been escorted to her new apartment, as if they didn't trust
her not to head straight back to the Delta Quadrant.

"I'll be fine from here," she told the security officer who watched her like she was a curiosity. She had to shake the
nervousness at not knowing him; she begun to understood what this meant, living in a world that was bigger than a crew
compliment of 160.

"Yes, sir. Welcome home, sir."
"Thank-you, Lieutenant."

She remembered his face, days later, when he was on the newsfeeds, saying that in his time with Kathryn Janeway he found
her to be "sincere and gracious".

*

On her second to last night on Voyager, she had tried again to pack her belongings. She was a Starfleet Officer, she was
used to transience, but around her were seven years of quarters that were never allowed to be home.

It was easier to *think* about packing, in the mess hall, than look at the necklace Callyum had given her four years ago, lying
in the bottom of her drawer.

"What will you do, Neelix?"
He shrugged and poured her another drink. "I try not to think about the future until it gets here, Captain."
"It's my job to think about the future."
"Yes. That's why I'm the one pouring the coffee." He smiled, and pulled at the knot holding his apron together.
"Are you nervous about Earth?" She flicked her finger across a bump on the counter.
"I've been reading about the Gamma Quadrant lately. I might find a ship that's going that way."
"You're not going to stay on Earth?" She looked up, sharply.
"It's always been too big a universe for me to stay on one planet."
"Neelix, it's been so long since I've stayed on one planet, I can't imagine what it would be like."
He rested triangular biscuits on a plate in front of her. "They're going to write songs about you, Captain."

She stretched a smile across her face, but looked away.

Neelix crossed the hall to the viewport, and pulled one of the chairs towards the window. Sitting down, he leaned back and
rested his feet just below the glass.

His tone was reverent. "If I stayed on Earth, I would miss these stars."

She pulled a chair next to his, and smiled to herself. She had shown Kashyk the stars, she had never been able to show them
to Michael. Neither of them had talked about it like this.

He spoke again. "You shouldn't feel bad about being nervous. It's been a long time."
"Yes, it has." She dusted her hand across her face.
"What kind of a person would you be if you weren't nervous? What kind of a Captain, I mean? Nerves are your currency."
"They're going to write songs about me," she chuckled.
He stared at her, underneath the stars. "Someone is."

*

Starfleet held a reunion for the crew, three weeks after their return. She didn't doubt that the crew's counselors had told
them the same thing her counselor had pressed on her in hushed tones. It's important not to lose contact. Resist the urge to
distance yourself. Be wary of getting too close. This alienation will pass.

She had felt that way for seven years, she was not sure she knew anything else.

There were bad decorations in the function hall, red and green crepe paper and Andorian balls that momentarily followed
those who passed under them. She was reminded of so many high school dances, and smiled to herself as she was handed a
glass of lukewarm sumpla. They had put on better receptions at Voyager.

She hugged Seven when she saw her, noticed the faint smell of cucumber soap, noticed how she stayed by Tuvok's side. She
gave a speech, smiled as people congratulated her on her promotion.

No one commented on Neelix's absence.

*

She became regarded as an expert on the Borg. She was surprised, saddened, to learn that Starfleet's best tacticians, the
ones who had lived through Wolf 359, had been killed in the was against the Dominion.

It was strange to live in a world where children had nightmares about shapeshifters, not assimilation.

She met Picard in this capacity, both unintentional ambassadors for the Borg.

"I've read your logs," he said.
"I thought you would," she replied.
"Did you know-", he stopped to pick up a glass of wine, "did you know, what they would do?"
"I had some idea."

He nodded, and she thought that she would have liked to have met him away from this, when they both weren't tempered by a
wariness of what it is to, momentarily, be Borg.

There was a certain comfort in not having to explain to him what it was like, to be on her knees in the cube. Or later, when the
nanoprobes ran through her blood.

*

Her mother was staying with her the day that Neelix's birthday present arrived.

"The Talaxian?" Gretchen asked, studying the glowing pots of paint that were delivered to the doorstep.
"He always remembered my birthday on Voyager," she replied, as she held a pot up to the light and watched it change from
red to purple to royal blue.
"I didn't know you paint."
"I don't, not really."

Her mother watched her. "The Talaxian."

*

She was working for a Gamma Quadrant migrant advocacy programme the next time she heard from him. Starfleet might have
been in her blood, but in the end it hadn't been enough. Too many meetings in too many rooms with decor designed to pacify,
and she walked away with a freelancing pension that left her on retainer to Starfleet for the rest of her life.

He told her that he would find a hotel, that Starfleet had offered to put him up whenever he was in the Alpha Quadrant. She
looked at him across her kitchen table.

"You bring me food from the Gamma Quadrant, wine like I've never tasted before. I think the least I can do, Neelix, is offer
you a room while I'm here."
"You do have enough for a hotel."
"There are three. Please, stay."

He carried plates to the replicator and she watched as he stacked them neatly.

"Why did you come back to Earth?"
"I heard about the programmes you were running when I was in the Gamma Quadrant."
"You did?"
"I'm glad you left Starfleet, you were, where I come from, the military is a thing to be feared."
"I'm not a thing to be feared?" She laughed, and the joke felt stupid.
He picked up the bottle on the table, and glasses, and followed her onto the deck outside.

"No."

"You don't talk about Talax often."
"Ah, stars brighter than the sun, landscape more beautiful than-"
"-Neelix."

"It was a long time ago."

"I thought that you would stay here, on Earth. I was surprised when you left."
"It was different when Kes was here. There was-"
"-something to stay for."
"Mostly. It would have been a different kind of life."

On the street below them, cadets walked by. She would never be used to the constant patrolling of Earth.

As she watched them, she said, "Earth is not how I remember it. It's not how I thought it would be."

*

One night he convinces her to switch off her universal translator. They walk the Federation Central together, he speaks
occasionally and she is transfixed by the real pitch of his voice and the clipped tones of the Talaxian language. She has not
done this since her Academy days, and that was training then. She is surprised by how unfamiliar her surroundings are
without standardised English to guide her.

She finds that she wants to tell him things, like this, when she knows that he can't understand them. They catch a public
transport and as they sit behind two Terrans who are arguing in different languages, she realises, not suddenly, that there is
something like kindness between them.

As he watches the Terrans, she watches him. And when his gaze finally rests on her, she begins to speak. She tells him about
Chakotay. Knowing he can't understand a word, she speaks anyway. Slowly, and for the whole ride home.

He listens. And there are times that her voice catches in her throat, and somehow he is circling her wrist with his fingers.

And when her stop comes up, she takes his hand, she takes him to bed. And they're incompatible, of course, but she sighs
under his mouth and he guides her hands. And she turns under him, into him, and sighs again at the strange language he
whispers against her shoulder, into her skin.

*

She thinks about Chakotay rarely, the transport ride with Neelix was the first time in months. And even then, in her disguised
English, she had spoken of him in shades of disappointment, apathy.

Years ago, when she was not the person she is today, they had slept together. He made her a bath tub and it had seemed
simple enough. Probably, then, it was. Communication on a deserted planet was easier with sex to break up the words.

And then there was no planet, and she was relieved. Because he was making her a boat, because he couldn't make her come,
because he spoke in abstracts, in metaphors and stories where she understood science, had faith in facts.

She didn't suppose he ever forgave her that. Not really.

He had started giving interviews. Her assistant back on Earth, a notion which still struck her as ridiculous when they were
living three planets left of Risa, was "worried", and after his fourth interview, she realised she should be too. She was pretty
sure there were only a handful of them that would understood the veiled comments he made about frontier medicine and the
void of space. That he sometimes dropped Kashyk's name, or Michael's, presented a greater problem. It was never the whole
story, he was careful to never do that, but he always managed to say more than enough.

Six months after they returned to Earth, they had stood in the lobby of a ball room, her synthetically shifting dress glowing
silver and then peach, her glass empty, and he told her that she had ruined his life. His melodrama should not have surprised
her, but there it was.

They had been keynote speakers at a dinner, the one of many invitations that had arrived within weeks of their return. It had
been held in the old Central District and although she can't remember much of the speech, she does remember nervously
practicing the paragraphs she had quoted from the Karaff.

Romulan was open now, it was all open, and phrases from Romulan poets and texts such as the Karaff had fallen into
Standard as easily as Eiltern or T'Pra. Everyone was speaking Romulan these days. Or those who had the time to learn,
anyway.

So he told her that she had ruined his life, and waited. She was never sure what for. An apology, perhaps. For her to step to
him, take his hand and take him to her bed. But she held his gaze, didn't break the gaze and then they were called inside to
speak.

It was the last time she ever spoke to him. She met Neelix, again, two months later.

*

Sometime after they moved three planets left of Risa, she was called back to Earth for a conference. Being back on Earth,
being back in Starfleet was almost an unreality. Everything was muted, there were uniforms everywhere. She missed her
house.

People knew who she was, and it was something that she was never sure she was going to get used to. She was given the best
table at restaurants, people stepped back to let her go through doors first. It reminded her of Voyager, a little, but people on
Voyager never stared after her in the street.

She didn't look up anyone she knew, although Neelix urged her to when she spoke to him. There was no one there, really, that
she wanted to speak to. She felt like a curiosity. She supposed that, in actuality, she was.

"Admiral Janeway!"

The voice rang out, and she didn't turn around at first. She found that she needed to steel herself against the public. It
didn't occur to her that the voice was one she knew, was one she should have known.

"B'Elanna." There was genuine surprise in her voice, and she took a step towards her.
"You look shocked, Admiral."
"It's been -- it's been so long. Captain, I see. It's been a long time, Captain."
"I thought you would have kept tags on the Voyager crew. I would have told you about the Captaincy, otherwise. They threw
me a party..." B'Elanna gestured towards the HQ, looming over the city. "I would have invited you."
"I live off-world now."
"I know. Near Risa."
"Yes."

She wondered, for a moment, why she didn't mention Neelix. It was something she had noticed herself doing, and she tried
not to think too much about what it meant.

There was silence, fleeting, and she was hypnotised by the feet of joggers that passed them in the public park.

"May I walk with you, Admiral?"
"Of course. Please. I want to hear about what's going on."

They began walking, and for the first time she noticed how small the park was, how mechanical the people running in
differing circles seem. B'Elanna looked older, her hair was cropped just above her shoulders and she tucked part of it behind
her ears.

"Are you stationed on Earth, B'Elanna?"
"Yes. Quite near the Central District, actually."
"Are you still teaching?
B'Elanna laughed, sharply, and shook her head. "No."
"It didn't work out?"
"An irony, really, seeing as I think I was possibly a worse teacher than I was a student."

They walked in companionable silence.
"So, what do they have you working on now?" She asked.
"You really don't know any of this?"
"No." She glanced at B'Elanna. "I don't have much contact with Starfleet these days."
"I know. I just thought..." B'Elanna stopped, and then started again. "I'm working on some projects. Looking over the
installation of technology in the new spear ships. That kind of thing."
"You don't sound excited by it."
"I am. It's hard work, different work. From Voyager."
"Everything thing is different from Voyager."
"It certainly is." B'Elanna repeated, quietly.

She listened as B'Elanna told her about the ship, about her work. But there was something, something in her voice and she
realised that she was being performed to. Recited to. She realised, slowly, that this was not what B'Elanna does.

"You work for intelligence, don't you?"
B'Elanna didn't stop, didn't miss a beat. "Yes."
And although no explanation was necessary, "I'm a Janeway, B'Elanna, it's in my blood to know these things."
"Will you join us?"
"Is that what this is about?"
B'Elanna looked away, maybe smiled. "No."
"No. I didn't think so. I used to live with a three-one, that's enough for me."
"How did you know Mark was a three-one?"
"Do you know many philosophers in the world who get emergencies at 3 am?"

B'Elanna didn't answer, and they kept walking.

"Does Tom know?"
"Yes." She replied, closing the conversation.

There were questions, of course, that she wanted to ask. She had thought, once or twice, about 31. But hers was one of the
most recognisable faces in Starfleet. And she wasn't sure whether she cared that much, anymore.

It didn't seem right to ask about Tom, about the children. There were things that were off limits, suddenly, although if she
thought about it, it had been a long time since she had the right to ask B'Elanna anything.

"How's Neelix?" B'Elanna asked, not suddenly, in a practiced tone that meant the entire conversation was prelude to this.
"He's fine. He's good," she replied, slowly.
"Really?"

The path bent around the lake, and the glare of the sun caught her off-guard.
"Really."

It was a crowded section of the park, and they were silent as they navigated their way around the traffic. She noticed things
then, like B'Elanna's sweats still had creases in them and her shoes were new. Her father had once told her that only
Admirals, students and musicians had free time in the middle of the day. Her father had been a liar but he had never been an
idiot.

She turned to B'Elanna. "My assistant told you I was here."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I ordered her to."

She stopped, and bent over as the exercise caught up with her. "No. Why are you here?"
There was hesitation, and stopping and starting before B'Elanna stared her in the eyes and said, "Neelix is..." Her voice
wavered off and she looked away, shielding her eyes from the sun. "He was a friend to me when we first came back to Earth.
A help."
"He cares about you a lot, B'Elanna."
"He's different from you and me, you know. Of course you know."
"B'Elanna..."
"He doesn't have cruelty in him."
"No," she replies, returning the gaze.
"Not the way we -- not the way we know it."

Janeway closed her eyes, crowded with thoughts of ballrooms and prisoner camps and kisses and always, always walking
away.

"You don't have to tell me about Neelix."
"I'm not. I'm telling you that -- I'm not, Captain."
She resisted the urge to correct the rank. "What, then?"
"You have been, that is, I don't know one other Captain that could have gotten us home."
"I'm not sure I know what you're trying to say-"
"-Yes, you do," B'Elanna interrupted. "With Neelix, yes, you do."

"What you must think of me, B'Elanna." She said, not sadly.
"It's what I know of you."

B'Elanna had been four months pregnant and inexplicably beautiful in Janeway's bed. Sometimes, she remembered kissing
her in the darkness and her thighs, warm against the sheets.

Intelligence had trained B'Elanna well, she thought, because she held the gaze as they were both determined not to speak.
Intelligence had trained B'Elanna well, she was sure, because she also knew when to leave.

"I have to go back to work."
"Yes."
"Yes. Next time you and Neelix are in town...."
"Good luck."
"To all of us," she replied.

And there was a moment when B'Elanna moved to her and she held out her hand but then there was a hand on the side of her
face, and lips brushing against her cheek. It was strange, and sad, and everything else. And she thought, momentarily, that
those eyes were flashing with more than anger. She stared at the ground long after B'Elanna left, and supposed that she'd
never know.

*

She left to go back to the Risa system four days later.

Neelix was busy when she got home, was off-world for a while, and she found herself wondering when he would return.
Found herself calling him in the night time, asking him questions about recipes and Kes. Found herself holding her breath when
he answered and telling him, slowly, about B'Elanna in her quarters, all those years ago.

There were other things he said, too, like:
"B'Elanna would have been unhappy in any life she had, Kathryn."
And she said, "I know," even though she didn't, even though she couldn't. Even though she felt responsible, somehow, although
she was never sure whether it was about B'Elanna, or Neelix, or the fact that she was a Janeway living in the Risa system.

*

She sips her drink and watches him carefully. He is most alive like this, she decides; he holds the entire table captive with his
tales of Talaxian salvage yards.

She watches his hand graze the bottle of scotch as he gestures wildly. She smiles. The scotch burns her throat, a little, and
she thinks maybe she is happy.
 

return to fanfic archive