Abandon1

Part 1

~~~ Mist ~~~

	The young man heaved a final box onto the grav unit and turned to the slender woman following him. "This is the final one, Ma'am. Where would you like me to put it?"
	"Crunch time already?"
	"Ma'am?"
	"Private joke, Ensign. Just pile it with the others. Thank you for your assistance." She watched as he set the boxes down. She watched as he turned and left, abandoning her to the empty rooms, but for a small stack of boxes in the middle of the floor. She had nothing left to watch. She was alone.
	"Well, Kathryn. Now what do you do?" Her voice echoed in the empty room. She looked around at the blank walls, everything a regulation beige. "Oh, well. I've always looked better in beige."
	She allowed her eyes to mist over at that remembrance. That crowded little prefab hut on New Earth was the last place that felt homey to her, lived in. The ship had been her home, and she'd loved it passionately, but it had never felt ...homey. Functional, clean, trim...shipshape...but never homey, not even her quarters. Her quarters were always tidy, with a certain elegance, in control. One never knew when a crew member would turn up at her door and one always had to be prepared to show one's best face to the crew after all. Well, it was unlikely any crew would show up at this door. She looked around again. Spacious. It was spacious enough. Rank doth have its privileges and she was an Admiral now. Convenient. It was convenient to her office. Functional. 'Company housing' was always functional. Featureless, standardized, sterile. She hated it. She wandered in and out of each room looking for some sign of personality. Nothing. She glanced into the bathroom mirror. The face looking back at her hardly stood out from the rest of the apartment, Starfleet issue from the womb, featureless, standardized and ...sterile, at least emotionally. The mist turned to tears and the famous Admiral Janeway wandered back to sit upon a packing crate and quietly allowed herself a few moments to cry.
	"It's over. That's that. Move on." But her mind began to drift again. It had been a full year. The de-briefings were done, counseling dodged, re-integration guidance completed and her crew dispersed to continue on with their lives. All in all, a job well done. Kudos given all around, promotions and cushy assignments where warranted.
	B'Elanna, already pregnant with another child, was heading up a special research unit on Utopia Planetia, with Tom as, what else, a test pilot. Relations with his Dad were more relaxed now, not tinged with underlying shame or resentment. Admiral Paris had learned that a living son under any conditions, was far preferable to having one he thought was dead. Tuvok and his wife were somewhere in the wilds of Vulcan, doing meditation and re-establishing the balance between them. The Doctor had been granted a limited autonomy, given a medical upgrade and assigned to the android Data. Starfleet felt that Data, as the only other constructed sentient being, was also the only one truly able to guide the Doctor toward full autonomy. The Doctor, still just 'the Doctor', had decided he would save naming himself until that occasion. Neelix, though rarely heard from, had been recognized as an official ambassador by Starfleet and had established some sort of business ties to Earth. Harry finally had his promotion. Due to his extraordinary service on Voyager, the powers that be had jumped him right to full Lieutenant and assigned him to a research ship. His parents were ecstatic and Harry, the boy next door, finally had to beat the women away from his door. Any unattached person from Voyager was considered prime dating material actually, the lure of the exotic, she supposed.
	Inevitably, her mind drifted to her own two beloved exotics. They had married. She didn't allow herself to dwell on this often. They deserved some happiness and she was happy for them. Chakotay would take care good care of Seven. He would be a tender and devoted lover. She couldn't have chosen better herself.
	She hadn't chosen. It ached. Even after a year, it ached. She had not chosen and he had finally moved on. For him, she was glad. He had given up himself as much as she had. It had never been easy for him to step aside and let her lead, to always...well, at least eventually... defer to her orders, to follow a course he hadn't set, to sublimate his essence to support her command, to remain so long alone himself. Seven was good for him. He could feel again and lead again...and love again. Yes, this was a good thing.. for both of them.
	But not it was not good for her, not for Kathryn. Though she knew she had no right, knew that she had set up the parameters for it to happen, she felt abandoned. To be honest, she felt abandoned by everyone, even her family. Her mother had retreated into senile dementia and didn't even recognize her. Phoebe had married an insufferable, self-involved fellow artist. He and Kathryn couldn't stand to be in the same room together and Phoebe had made the only choice she could make. Mark and his wife were so totally focused on their children that there was no room for anyone else, let alone an old girlfriend. Her crew had been assigned to posts throughout the quadrant and her new staff treated her with all the deference and formality one would expect of a living legend. Her work now was a joke. Just what does one give a living legend to do, other than sit around and look decorative?
	So she sat. She sat there, crying on the closed boxes of her life, staring at the empty walls of a Starfleet apartment, echoing the emptiness within.
	"Enough, Kathryn." She stood up, wiped her tears and looked around for something to do, somewhere to start. She saw the door. She walked out.
	~~~Seeking the Silver Lining~~~

	It was a perfect San Francisco day. It was raining. The rain fell gently, the clouds high and barely holding onto enough water to make the rain. The day should have been dull and gray, but it wasn't. Instead, light filtered through the waning clouds and lit the world in a sodden, silver glow.
	Cadets filled the quad, walking with brisk purpose, seemingly oblivious of the weather. Kathryn had lived aboard ship too long to be able to be oblivious of any weather. She stuck out her tongue, catching a soft drop on the tip, then closed her eyes, concentrating on the sensation of its coolness sliding down her throat.
	"That's one," she murmured.
	Her young Ensign, leaning against a wall, busy chatting up a couple of sweet, young things, hurried up to her side.
	"Admiral, are you all right?"
	"I'm fine, Ensign. I'm just....filling up."
	He gave her a puzzled look, "Another private joke, Ma'am?"
	She chuckled and opened her eyes, "Not yet, Ensign, but it will be."
	"Are you going somewhere, Admiral? I've still got the ground car and can take you anywhere you want."
	She gave him another amused look, "I rather doubt that, Ensign. No, that's very kind, but there are some journeys one really does have make alone." Then she walked off into the rain.
	Starfleet grounds no longer drew her. They had been restored, as had the buildings, after the attack, but without Boothby to care for them, they just looked maintained, managed. The whole place had a kind of a cloned feeling to it. Everything was there, it was just a pale copy of what had been, or what she thought had been, back in the days when she had something to do, somewhere to go. She wandered to the edge of the grounds to a hill she remembered overlooking the Old Town district.
	*"Well, Admiral," she goaded herself, "Where are* you going to go?"**
	In the distance, the clouds gave up the last of their rain and shredded apart. Sunlight lit the white walls of the town with gold, turning the still wet roads between the houses into ribbons of silver.
	"There! I'm going to go there."
	~~~Reweaving~~~

	One of the things Kathryn had come to appreciate about San Francisco in the last year was that it still had a sense of being connected through time. The main city itself was modern, with modern transportation choices, but interwoven throughout the city was a system several centuries old in design connecting each district to the central, enduring core of Old Town along the waterfront. None of this had mattered when Kathryn was a cadet. She'd rarely gone into Old Town, only when her relatives came visiting, and certainly not on anything as archaic as a cable car. She enjoyed it now, though. She enjoyed the car being open and accessible to the weather, not separate from it. She liked the feeling of slowly immersing herself into her new destination, of being able to ease herself into the pattern, a spot of red woven into the tapestry of gold and silver.
	Her new destination. The thought warmed her. It was nice to be able to choose a destination. It seemed to her that she hadn't made one, personal choice since she'd come back to Earth. After seven years of absolute autonomy, she had suddenly had a whole cadre of fleet managers, deciding every part of her day. Initially, all she had felt was relief that she was now among the managed and no longer the primary manager of so many other lives herself. To be honest with herself, although each day was filled with decisions, she had only made one personal choice while she was on her journey home. She had chosen to amputate her emotions, to set them adrift in some far, foggy part of her inner being, cloistered and disconnected, ignored and forgotten until she decided the time was more convenient. So, she had watched as the managers managed her, always the dutiful Starfleet career officer, feeling disassociated and drifting, at a disjunture with reality, insulated, alone and slowly, slowly approaching the door to the cloister she'd locked herself within. She had no more real responsibility for anyone, not even herself and it seemed to her that it was now convenient to take a little personal inventory.
	She stepped from the cable car, took a deep breath, and strode purposely to the building across the street. This was one place she remembered. This place had been serving the best Irish coffee for over three hundred years under a number of names. The name had changed again since she'd last seen this place. Now it was called "The Tangled Web". In she charged, already tasting the bite of Jamison's and the smoothness of the cream. It was the only way she'd ever accept to adulterate coffee. In she charged... to a yarn shop. Gone was the long polished bar with the brass footrails, gone, the polished mirror, gone the surly waitresses and the jovial barkeeps, gone, her coffee, although the scent still lingered.
	Instead, the long narrow room held stacked bins along one side with yarns and threads of all colors and hues, synthetic and natural, from Earth and off world. Chairs and tables for humans and suitable work areas for other species lined the windows. Intergalactic fiber art tools were displayed on the far wall. Real books and pamphlets framed the more ordinary computer displays. An intricate pattern for canvas embroidery was displayed on one of the screens. Kathryn recognized the pattern as a variation on the ancient Irish Book of Kells. It would be gorgeous worked in gold on linen. Right there she'd change the design to add little seeds of French knots. That's two, she thought. She'd forgotten how much she used to enjoy embroidering. Perhaps she would purchase a small kit just to get back into practice. At least she would have something to do in that dull, empty apartment during the equally dull, empty nights.
	She couldn't see anyone in the shop, but a low atonal humming issued from a the far end of the room. Kathryn advanced cautiously, eyeing a round hole in the ceiling. Gossamer filaments stretched from the floor to the ceiling aperture in a conelike web, with small pouches strung like pearls throughout. The sounds were louder and now included a familiar burbling. Kathryn smiled and drew closer, reaching out a finger to gently touch the web. It was so delicate as to almost be invisible, yet acted like a prism, throwing rainbows around the room where the sunlight fell upon it.
	"What click hiss chickety click?" boomed from above.
	Kathryn jumped back, startled, "Oh! Excuse me, I didn't know you were up there. Could you repeat that please?"
	"I said fragity blink click clack tap species?" This was followed by a couple of loud bangs and "Frecking second hand translators not worth the credits to junk them!" A black chitenous face popped over the side of the opening. "Oh, you're human. Good. I speak passable Standard without this useless bit of tin." The creature plucked a rather dented IDIC pin from off its forehead and slapped it against the side of the web, "Aren't you supposed to have one of these things?"
	"I conveniently 'forgot' it in my apartment. I really don't feel like being accessible at the moment."
	"Are you accessible enough to come on up and chat a bit?"
	Kathryn looked about vainly for someway up.
	"Feel free to use my web. It's not as frangible as it looks. I'd wager it would hold a small star ship or I'm not the Web Master of Tholia."
	Kathryn toughed the web gingerly again. It felt vaguely sticky, but when she took her hand away, her fingers weren't sticky at all, just tingled a bit. It was the web that was humming, but Kathryn hadn't been able to spot a power source, nor could she figure out how something that was a focused energy source could be solid enough to act as a prism, nor had she ever met a Tholian. The only thing she did know was the source of that wonderful burbling sound...and it sounded from above. Up she went. The web sagged a bit as she mounted it, but seemed able to hold her weight. Her whole body felt the tingling now, much to her embarrassment.
	The 'Web Master' grinned down at her and said, "Better than a vibrator, isn't it?"
	At that point a strand broke and Kathryn was spared from answering as she floundered.
	"Want a hand?"
	Several were offered actually. Kathryn grabbed the nearest and was hauled through the aperture to the room above.
	"I thought you said that thing could hold a starship."
	"Ah, but then, you're not a starship."
	"And, let me guess, you're not the Web Master of Tholia."
	The creature in front of her rocked from side to side and clicked its mandibles together in what Kathryn hoped was laughter. "No, I'm not...but I used to be 'a' web master. I abdicated."
	Kathryn prompted the creature to keep talking as she studied it, "You...abdicated? Forgive me, for staring, but I didn't expect a Tholian to look quite like you."
	"Oh, no apologies needed. Few people know that Tholia hosts two sentient species. Take a good look." The Tholian tapped around and around, preening. "Aren't I beautiful?"
	It was indeed beautiful, in a spidery sort of way. It was covered with a fine down over a shiny, black chitinish skin. The downy hair, of no particular color, refracted the light in the same way the web did, casting tiny rainbows as the Tholian twirled in a sunbeam. The head area was adorned with a series of mane like crests, rather quaintly braided with ribbons and tiny flowers. It's legs, all eight of them were similarly decorated with ribbons, ending in woven foot coverings in shocking pink. It's mandibles and eye sockets were edged in silver. Kathryn couldn't determine whether the silver was natural or makeup. If the creature didn't tower over Kathryn, it would look for all the world like an exquisite broach. Kathryn had always loved insects as a child and could never resist playing with spiders and bugs, much to her sister Phoebe's dismay. The being in front of her delighted Kathryn enormously as did the whole room, with its looms and spindles and a beautiful bronze contraption burbling over in one corner, giving out the most delicious smell.
	"You are indeed beautiful," Kathryn said, sliding a small longing glance toward the corner, then returning her attention to the person in front of her, "You said you abdicated. Abdicated from what?"
	"From my web sector." The Tholian twirled once more and made a flourishing bit of a squat that Kathryn took for a comic bow. "You are looking at the former Chickclickity Screech Tappity Clack of Tholia Prime."
	Kathryn tried to look politely impressed though what she felt was totally mystified by all the clicking and hisses.
	The Tholian laughed again, if that was what the click/rocking meant. "Translated that gives my rank and web affiliation. The Tholians that you are most familiar with are, in your species nomenclature, Genonerectus Tholia. We are Arachnida Tholia, the true web spinners of Tholia. I was the primary web spinner, the 'queen' of a sector of space around Tholia Prime, until I got so bored I couldn't stand it any longer. I ask you, how often can an artist spin a flergrekin grid, for crying out loud?"
	Kathryn responded to this with a delighted laugh of her own. "Then your name is.."
	"Queen Arachnida Screech Tappity of Tholia Prime," she said, making her little squat bow, "but you can call me Queenie. Your look like the famous Admiral Janeway. At least I think you do, but all you humans look alike to me. Are you all right, dear?"
	The famous Admiral Janeway had collapsed against a pillar, convulsed in gales of laughter. When she finally gained control of herself she immediately apologized to 'Queenie', "Forgive me. I mean no offense. It's just that I have used that name myself, upon occasion. Yes, I'm Admiral Kathryn Janeway. You can call me Kathryn."
	"So, Kat...Ker..Look, I'll brake my mandibles on that name of yours. How about I call you Janey? Now, why were you using my name and what can we get for you in The Tangled Web? Don't tell me a Starfleet Admiral can do more than replicate a uniform."
	"Janey will be fine. As for using your name, that is a long, long story. I actually came in here," Kathryn said, sliding another not so sublte glance at the machine in the corner, "to have a drink. This used to be a bar when I was a cadet. And I'll have you know I'm an accomplished needlewoman! At any rate, I used to be. But I don't want to take up any more of your time. I'll just buy a small sampler kit and be on my way."
	Queenie scuttled over to her, "You are not taking up any time I'm not willing to give." Her voice dropped conspiratorially, "and if you stay and tell me that story, I'll give you...." she twitched her antenna enticingly, "coffee."

	~~~part 2 - A Stitch in Time~~~

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