The ship had been fractured into different time frames. That wouldn't have been so bad, mused Chakotay, had the bridge not been deserted and Captain Janeway nowhere to be found. He had managed to get to Astrometrics and find where all the fractures were, and was now in the process of putting the ship back together, piece by piece.

Deck 6 was a mess. He couldn't recall when the ship had ever looked so bad, even after Borg attacks, but it was utterly demolished. None of the lights worked, and every conduit on the deck was hanging out of the ceiling, hissing and spewing smoke. The floor was covered in rubble. He desperately hoped this wasn't some future time frame where Voyager was about to be destroyed.

He rounded a corner and bumped into someone. He stumbled back, only to see a very battered Kathryn Janeway staring at him like he was a ghost.

"I've finally lost it, haven't I?" she muttered, scrubbing at her eyes with the palms of her hands. She leaned back against the remnants of the bulkhead.

Chakotay stared at her. She looked awful. Her hair was mussed, the undershirt of her uniform was sweat-stained and dirty, her face and bear arms were covered in scars, and she looked exhausted.

"Kathryn? What happened?" He reached for her shoulders, forcing her to look at him.

" 'What happened?' What happened! Chakotay – I know you've been gone for nearly five months, but this is ridiculous."

"Gone?" he was about to ask more, but shook his head and continued with the operative point. "Listen, Voyager has been shattered into different timeframes. I'm trying to put them back together."

"Different time frames?" she asked faintly, with a hint of skepticism. She seemed lost in thought for a moment before continuing. "The future? You mean I'm going to get out of this mess?"

"What?"

"The stardate is…well, I don't know what it is, actually."

"Kathryn, I don't ever remember the ship –or you- looking like this."

"You mean…"

"It doesn't matter. The point is apparently you'll fix things." Chakotay took her by the arm and started leading her down the hallway.

"Chakotay, I can't leave this deck. I don't know why, but all the rest of the senior staff disappeared when they tried to leave."

He nodded. "It was a temporal barrier. But once I inoculate the gel packs, you can leave."

"And find my crew."

Something about her manner was too terse and single-minded. She had always been stubborn, but this was different. He pulled her around. "How long have you been here alone?"

"I don't know. Several days. I need to leave…there's repairs that need to be finished."

"Kathryn, the rest of the ship doesn't look like this. It's just this deck. How long has it been since you actually slept or ate?"

She looked at him like he was crazy. "I don't have time to sleep! And there's only ration cubes left…in the mess hall."

"You're telling me that in your time frame there's no one left on the ship except the senior staff, minus me, and you're all reduced to eating ration cubes. And by the way, how did you get burned so badly?"

"Yes, and Tom's gone too. You were kidnapped months ago by the Kremin. And as to the burns, I was just doing my job."

"Which just happened to include literally running through fire for your crew. And the Doctor didn't have a dermal regenerator to heal your scars?"

"No. And for your information, the gel packs on this deck are blown to shreds. You can't help me." She said this as though the fact had just occurred to her, yet Chakotay knew she should have brought it up earlier. Janeway pulled away from him and sat down on the deck, staring blindly at the wall.

He crouched down next to her, trying to smile. She was a wreck, emotionally and physically. Gently, he brushed his fingers across her cheek. She looked up at him, her eyes red and threatening tears. "So you think I'd just leave you here?"

"I can't leave. You can't inject the gel packs to bring my time frame back into temporal alignment, so you really should just leave. Help the rest of the ship." Her voice was cracked and weak.

"Forget it." He pulled her to her feet and retrieved a hypospray from his belt and injected her. "You're coming with me."

She looked at him wildly. "I must be dreaming…or dying. Probably dying."

"You're not." He cupped her chin in his hand. "Does it feel like you're dreaming?"

She smiled and took his hand. "No. I've missed you so much…"

He laughed. "Remember, I'm from the future, so you're stuck with me for a while yet." He started to move down the hall. "Come on, I think you need to see what Voyager really looks like." He took her hand and pulled her through the wavering temporal barrier.

Chakotay nodded to the rest of the crew as they left engineering. It had taken several hours for them to retake the ship, and the Kazon hadn't helped any. Now everyone was wandering out the door, and in a few minutes, they would all be back in their correct time frames. All except one.

He looked at Kathryn, who was watching the crew leave, a maternal smile pulling at her lips. "It's so good to see them again." She turned to him. "I wonder what will happen to my time frame now."

Chakotay could hear the fear in her voice, though she was struggling to keep it under control. As far as they could tell, her whole year had been different than the one Chakotay remembered. Somehow, maybe she had found a way to redo it so it never happened. No matter how much he rationalized the thought, he still didn't like abandoning her to whatever fate had in store for her.

She saw the worried expression on his face and slowly smiled. "Don't worry about me, Chakotay. I'll be fine. Everyone else has to go back to their times. You know their futures, some of them, and you wish things wouldn't happen. Some of them you know nothing about. I'll be fine. Like you said, I manage to make things turn out all right. Better than all right. You've got a sparkling clean, working ship waiting for you. Don't worry about me."

He nodded. "I know that wherever I happen to be in your timeframe, I'm wishing I was with you on Voyager instead. I don't care how beat up it is, how bad the food is, I want to be there to support you."

She swallowed and glanced down, touching an ancient silver watch she had slung around her waist. "You are here to support me." She looked back up. "You always find a way to remind me you're with me. You gave me this five months ago. I told you to recycle it. You didn't. I found it in your quarters last week."

He stared at her. She was always so stubborn and unyielding in the face of danger. Here was someone who could literally hope against hope that everything would be all right.

On impulse, he stepped forward and hugged her tightly. To his surprise, she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. "I'm always here, Kathryn," he said.

She took a deep breath and nodded, pulling away from him. "See you in the future," she said, and turned and walked out of Engineering, her head held high. She would be fine.

A half hour Chakotay watched Janeway with amusement as she sat on the couch in front of him, trying to weasel his adventure out of him.

"Oh, come on. What would have happened if you hadn't fried the deflector dish?" she teased.

"You know I can't tell you. Now, anyway."

"Oh, we have progress. When can you tell me?"

"Not when can I tell you, when did I tell you?"

"So you went back in time, and you were talking to me. Anything else you'd like to add?"

He laughed. "Aside from going back in time, which isn't entirely true, nothing's out of the ordinary in your theory."

"Wait. How can you go back and time, and not at the same time? Unless you went to more than one time?" She leaned forward eagerly.

"Hmm…you might get the general picture yet."

"All right. So you visited several time periods in the past, at least one of which I was in."

"Or so you say."

"I'm right, admit it."

He said nothing, but grinned wickedly at her.

"Okay, so what did you tell me?"

"Well, after I reprimanded you for getting yourself into trouble again…"

"What? What was I doing?"

"Being stubborn."

She settled back on the sofa. "Obviously. Was I the one who caused you to go back in time?"

"No. That was the anomaly. You helped get us out, though."

"So my past self helped get "us" back to now. Who's "us"?"

"You know I can't tell you."

"But you want to."

He stared out the window for a moment. "Yes. And no. I found some very disturbing things in your past that you don't know about. But yes, I wish I could tell you everything."

"So tell me." She leaned forward again.

He left the chair and settled himself on the couch beside her.

"I can't tell you everything, but I do need to tell you something."

"What?"

He took her hands and held them in his. "I need to tell you that no matter what happens, I'm here for you. Even if something happens to me and I can't be around, I still need you to know that I'm thinking about you and wishing I could help you."

She gazed into his eyes for a moment, and then nodded. "I know. You always manage to find a way to show your support, no matter what happens. And I appreciate it. You're a godsend. I don't know what I'd do without you." She paused for a moment before continuing. "I don't think it was chance that if I had to get trapped in the Delta Quadrant that I have you with me. I don't know why we get to do this together, but we do."

"Together."