Reaction Shots
by the stylus

The crew reacts to home. And Janeway.

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Hell (Owen)

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She looks almost the same in my doorway as she did in her Academy togs all those years ago. But she doesn't look at me with the same expression. Maybe I'm slipping: even the vice-admirals used to cower a bit. Or she just doesn't care.

I wave her to a chair, smiling gently. We have had our awkward reunion already. It was followed by a barrage of hearings, conferences, charges, defenses, and decisions. Honestly, I was a little bit surprised that she accepted my invitation to lunch; but she never seemed to take any of the panel's questions personally.

She is wearing a scent that is dry and spicy. Her eyes are still that color of a storm over the ocean. I wonder if she ever missed any of us. I used to think of her some days; I told myself it was because she was watching over my son.

We make small talk as I replicate two trays and carry them to my desk- talk about the distant past, though there are some subjects we have always avoided. To broach the gulf of time, I tell her again how proud I am of her for getting her ship home. "You were like the daughter I never had," I say. I have two daughters: one an advocate in the civilian courts, one a chef.

"Don't, Owen." She raises her hand to ward off the implications and the palm has faint scars. No one keeps scars these days. "I don't need another parent."

"No." I try laughing a bit to take the sting out of her quiet reproof. "I should think not. You've proven you can take care of yourself."

"Yes." She smiles faintly at this. "I've always tried to be self-sufficient."

For awhile we eat in silence. I study her as she intently studies her food. She is no longer young: this surprises me more than it should. I had not seen her for several years before Voyager shipped out, almost seven years ago now. Her hair is much shorter, tucked behind her ears; there are lines around her eyes, her mouth, across her forehead; her jaw is tighter than I remember it. There was a time when I had feelings toward her that were less than honest, a time when she (wide-eyed, innocent) tugged at a soft part of me. No longer. Instead my insides twist a bit in the space between desire and fear. Her motions are still graceful, but the gentleness has been honed out of them. There is nothing wasted in her face or her actions.

Discomfited, I ask, "What would you like to do now?"

She looks levelly at me, setting her fork down. "I'd like to get back out into space soon. I'm hoping when assignments come down they'll have me out of dry-dock as quickly as possible."

I smile. "Even after all that bending of the PD?"

She shrugs, neither an admission nor a denial. "They didn't make as much of it in the review as I would have expected. I assume that means they're willing to concede the points."

"You made us proud. Not one captain in a hundred could have gotten that ship home. Don't you think you deserve some time off?"

"Probably." She cocks her head a bit, a gesture I remember from her cadet days. "But what would I do? My mother is dead, and I have no family on Earth to speak of. Phoebe is traveling with her show- impossible to pin down most days." Not a trace of self-pity. "And besides, all my civ clothes are at least ten years out of date, and I was only gone seven years." Her smile does not reassure me.

"I just hope they don't recommend a desk posting for the next rotation. One thing I didn't miss in the Delta Quadrant was the paperwork. No offense," she adds, surveying the massive desk which dominates my office and serves only as a base structure for precarious padd mounds. I almost mistake her expression for amusement.

"None taken. You never were the type to sit back quietly and let others have all the adventures."

"No." Almost pensive. "I don't suppose I was."

We go back to eating. The silence seems to hold more safety. Or less danger. I find myself comparing this to my reunion with Tom, which was easier after I promised my wife I would make an extra effort at it... this time.

I try one last time to find the woman across the table from me. "Oh, Kathryn, when I told Admiral McKinney I was having lunch with you, he sent this by." I hold the padd out to her. "It's your counseling schedule."

She takes it without touching my hand and lays it by her tray, not even glancing at it. It's standard procedure after a deep space mission of any length. We both know how to tell them what they want to hear, even the Betazoids.

Rising, she carries her tray to the replicator to recycle it, then stands, facing me and the large windowed wall of my office which looks out over the Academy grounds. "Thank you for lunch, Owen. I have to make a meeting with the design team to tell them why it's not a good idea to try incorporating slip-stream elements into warp engines. It was... nice to see you again. Take care of yourself, old man." There is a hint of the girl she was in that.

"Kathryn." I stop her in the door, one hand on the frame as she half turns to look at me. "Tell me the truth. What was it like out there?"

Her hesitation is so slight it is almost nonexistent. "It was hell. And sometimes I loved it."

And she is gone.

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End 1/6