Part 3 ~~~ Colors ~~~       The warm smell of baking cookies filled the apartment. Sun streamed in the atrium windows. Music issued softly from one of a number of boxes that Bucky and 'the girls' were tinkering with in the center of the floor. They called the set of boxes an 'antique entertainment center'. She called it a collection of old junk. It made the 'girls' happy to help her 'decorate' and Bucky loved to tinker. She loved the sound of their laughter and chatter filling her apartment, so she let them play. Tools and wires and odd looking bits and pieces were scattered around them, looking in her mind like the borders of an electronic playpen.       The 'girls' were rather sensibly dressed this morning. Usually they wore the more or less transparent clothes that were all the rage. Today they had on matching harem style baggy pants and tight midriff length shirts. Sven's outfit was of lemon yellow that made a beautiful contrast to his ebony skin. Raoul's was more a periwinkle blue that enhanced the blue of his eyes and went well with the blond hair. In other ways they were a matched set: equal in height, just under two meters each, and both more rangy than muscled. They could swish and flutter with the best of them, but they were tough and absolutely brutal in a bar fight, as she had seen demonstrated the night before.       Bucky was in Fleet fatigues, his standard uniform when he wasn't wearing his uniform. Bucky had not been involved in the bar fight, thank the stars. He was welcome in her home, even if he had mentioned how she reminded him of his dear, sweet grandmother that he missed so much, but she held the line at dragging along a first year Ensign, still 'wet' from the Academy, into bars of dubious reputation. He was, however, fascinated by her spending an evening in one and had been plying the 'girls' for details.       "Pass me the spanner, will you. So, how did she get the shiner?"       "Oh my sweetums, she was marvelous! The biggest, baddest bitch I ever saw came over to the little Queenie, jr.. here.."       "Raoul!"       He turned to her, "Oh lighten up, Janey. It's a good story."       "It's okay, ma'am. I wouldn't even think of repeating this," Bucky said, grinning, "Even if the bite wasn't worse."       Sven and Raoul looked from one to the other in confusion.       Kathryn and Bucky chimed, "Private joke."       Raoul shrugged and continued, "At any rate, this drunken Brunhilda just comes up behind Janey, wraps an arm around her waist and says that she looks good enough to eat and that she was going to take her home. Our Janey here, still the lady, politely refused the honor and suggested that perhaps Brunhilda might want to remove her hands immediately. Brunhilda didn't comply. Then, calm and sweet as you liked, Janey decked her, just like that. It was like watching a tree being felled by a feather."       "Well warp ten, Janey! Beg your pardon, Admiral. No offense meant."       "None taken. Ow! Queenie, loosen your grip a bit, will you?"       The Tholian had clamped Kathryn's face firmly between her pincers as she ran the dermal regenerator over the technicolor shiner on Kathryn's eye. It hooked from under her eyebrow and around her cheekbone in a swirl of red, plum, yellow, green and blue tinged skin.       "If you'd stop fidgeting, we'd be done already, though personally, I rather like the look."       Raoul continued, "Then, a couple of Brunhilda's friends grabbed Janey and a third guy punched her. That's when we jumped in, along with just about everybody else in the bar. Janey broke free of the guys. You should have seen the look on their faces when one grabbed her hair and it came off in his hand. She grabbed her wig right out of his hand, stuffed it in her bra, decked him and started in on the other two. That was when the Shore Patrol arrived. Naturally, everyone rushed for the doors when those guys came. We took the stairs to the roof. Unfortunately, we could hear the Shore Patrol searching the floors below. Janey ran right to the edge, took a quick look over the side and dove off. When we got to the edge, she'd grabbed hold of a flag pole three stories down and did a couple of loop de loops and launched herself at the next building. She landed on that roof, rolled once and turned to urge us to join her. There was no farlin way we were going to try that stunt so we hid in an access closet for the heating ducts. Isn't that delicious? The police just checked the roof and never even thought to check the ducts. We just waited them out. Janey, how did you get home? The place was crawling with cops."       "They weren't crawling on the rooftops."       Kathryn, her face restored to it's normal color, had gone to check on the cookies. She brought back a plate to the group. Bucky looked up at her, his face ablaze with admiration, "That is so phased! Why were you wearing a wig?"       "I always wear a wig and that information is more privileged than the bar fight. Do I make myself clear?"       "Perfectly, Admiral. So, what does your real hair look like?"       She had just started to hand him a cookie, when Queenie reached over and snatched the wig from Kathryn's head. Bucky was looking up into tumble of white hair, around a pink, flushed face, lips still wet from her coffee and a shoulder suddenly bared as she had leaned down. He squeaked and scuttled backward.       "Queenie! Give that back!" Kathryn snatched at the wig Queenie kept out of reach. Bucky was still looking at her with confused horror. "Sorry to startle you Bucky, I know I look bad but I didn't think I looked horrid enough to frighten children."       "No! It isn't that...it's just that you..you..it's just that my grandmother never looked that...well ... I'm sorry , I mean, you...er..just that... You kind of caught me off guard. I've just never thought of you as..well.. you know."       "No, I don't know. What?"       Queenie chuckled, "Tell her, Bucky."       He shot Queenie a 'do I have to' look and said, "It's just that you look so...sexy."       It was Kathryn's turned to be stunned.       "Beg your pardon, Admiral. No offense meant, really."       "Offense? Bucky, if you were only ten..."       "Twenty!" chorused the 'girls'.       "Thirty," chimed in Queenie.       Kathryn shot them all a dirty look and continued, "...years younger. I'm not offended, Bucky. Surprised, but not offended. Do keep this to yourself, though. I'd hate for Starfleet to see the 'real' me."       "Understood, Admiral. Well, I've got to go." He snagged a cookie off the plate, as he stood to leave. "Hey! These are good! I think you've finally got it with this batch."       Queenie dismissed the other two men to open up the shop and turned to Kathryn, "Let's talk about the hair."   ~~~ A Strand at a Time ~~~             Her hair. Queenie wanted her to talk about her hair. Once Kathryn started she couldn't stop. All of her frustration, anger and denial came pouring out. Her hair had become a metaphor for her life.       Before Voyager, she had just been a pretty woman with pretty hair, not thick and luxurious, but fine and silky with a color that was somewhere between ginger and auburn. She had worn it up in uniform and her hair had become a 'thing' between her and Mark. As he would slowly take the pins out and loosen her hair, she slowly shed her Starfleet persona and became just Kathryn.       That had all changed on Voyager. There was no time she could literally let her hair down. It made her look too soft, too womanly. She'd seen it in the eyes of her crew, especially the men. It confused them, the way Bucky had been confused. After she'd returned from New Earth, it was harder than ever to keep that separation between Kathryn, the woman and Kathryn, Captain Janeway of the Starship Voyager.       So she cut her hair, and in doing so, severed a little bit, the connection between Kathryn and the Captain. As Kathryn retreated more and more into that emotional cloister, the Captain felt the strain of command more and more as well. Each mission added another gray hair. She started taking color treatments. Still, her hair became as dull and lifeless as she felt most of the time. Then, after her 'faux' assimilation by the Borg, her hair grew out white and refused to take any color at all, regardless of what the Doctor tried. She wasn't ready to have white hair. She felt her anger at being stranded too much with white hair. She felt her guilt too much, her despair too much, the limbo to which she'd condemned herself until she could get her crew home, too much with white hair.       So, she replicated a wig and swore the Doctor to secrecy. She learned to prepare herself each morning without even seeing her hair. She never looked into the mirror without the wig. She could deny what that white hair told her this life was doing to her, if she just refused to look at it. She was able to deny it, right until her elder self dropped by for a little visit. Then she was reminded constantly. She saw what she had become: still driven, still dictatorial, still obsessed with her goal, still alone and still wanting what she could not have, a rigid, sarcastic, bitter old woman who could hear no one's opinion but her own. If her future self hadn't assured her that there were more than personal concerns at stake, though, naturally, what they were could not be shared, she would have refused to be a part of the time tampering at all.       "So you are against time tampering?"       Kathryn had to laugh, "I think I've done an awful lot of it. It gives me a headache. I feel something sometimes. It's like a strand at a time is being pulled out of a tapestry and rewoven. The design is still the same, but some little part of it has been adjusted. I know one shouldn't even remember once a time line has been changed, but I swear I....How can I describe this? Every once in awhile I have these echos of images, fading colors of something that used to be. I can't explain it any better."       "So, is that for or against?"       "I think my answer is situational. If the issue is profound enough: survival of my species, preservation of this culture, repairing an anomaly brought about by time travel itself; yes, I'd consider it. Preserving the life of a woman I consider a daughter, ensuring the health of a dear friend, those things would tempt me greatly, but they are not reason enough. Ensuring the happiness of someone I care about deeply? I would want that, but I wouldn't even be tempted. No, the issues would have to be much greater than my personal concerns. Even the survival of my own species and culture would have to be carefully weighed. It's too much like playing God, something that I have done upon occasion, and not well. And my future self hadn't seemed to have changed in that respect. I hate that about myself, yet I know myself enough to know it's part of my strength. She..I.. annoyed the hell out of me, but I have to believe her...me...that it went beyond the personal."       "Why did she annoy you so much? I would think that being able to see one's future self would be fascinating."       "There was something about her that was...well..pathetic. You should have seen her around Chakotay. She was almost flirtateous, sparkling and simpering when he was near her. It was embarrassing." By this time Kathryn had begun pacing the room, picking up the scattered parts still left strewn about the floor, tidying dishes, dusting and generally banging things about.       "Why?"       Kathryn stopped dead in her tracks and turned to look at Queenie. Queenie watched as Kathryn began to retreat within herself, stilling her agitation and putting on a company face.       "Don't. This is the crux of things, isn't it? Don't run from it. Tell me why."       Kathryn stared at Queenie, a deer caught in the light. Her shoulders slumped and she sank to the floor. Queenie lowered herself beside her, brushed a strand of white hair behind Kathryn's ear and raised Kathryn's face to look at her, "Go on. Why?"       "She hadn't changed. She was still in the same place I was. After all that time, she should have gotten on with it, done something with her life, but all she had done was still yearn for him. I mean, if Seven had died either they should have been together or she should have moved on. If nothing was there, if he didn't want her after Seven, she should have done something about it, anything but accept the status quo. Nothing had changed. The great hero, the great Admiral Janeway was this simmpering besotted old woman, with an empty life. That should not be. I won't accept it. If we were strong enough to get this crew home, defeat the Borg and change a few time lines along the way, then dammnit, we ought to be able to fix our own life!"       "You don't see them, Chakotay and Seven, do you?"       "No."       "Why not?"       "There is no room for me there."       "They have acted this way?"       "Honestly? No, they haven't. They used to call occasionally, wanting me to visit, but I'd never go. They stopped asking."       "Why wouldn't you go?"       I won't live on their crumbs. I'd rather starve."       "And?"       "And ...I'm starving. But I'm so tired of running, Queenie. I try and I try but I can't get away."       "There's nothing wrong with running. It's good exercise. You just have to shift your focus a little, from what you are running away from to what you are running toward. Here, have a cookie."                         ~~~part 4 - You've Got Mail~~~                 Home          Stories