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Janeway/Seven Advent Calendar Story 2007
Janeway’s Odyssey
By Gun Brooke
7
Janeway slowly pivoted, her shoulders hunched up as she braced herself for what she was about to see. She hadn’t heard that voice in so long, and she may well be hallucinating. After all, there were times when she thought she’d go insane for all the missing and longing. “Captain!” a young girl gushed and promptly burst into tears. Janeway stared at the group of four people. The tall blond woman with a Borg optical implant, the tall dark haired man with a tribal tattoo on the right side of his forehead and temple, and another blond woman who was comforting the distraught child. “Seven…” Janeway whispered. This was simply not happening. She had actually gone insane from one moment to the next, and her heart had longed so much for this woman in particular that she had finally lost it. Still, they looked so real, and suddenly the images of her imagination moved toward her. “Oh, Gods, Kathryn,” the image of Chakotay said and wrapped her up in a bear hug. “It’s you. It’s really you.” “Chakotay?” Janeway croaked. It sure sounded like him. The same kind, velvet voice. “Yes. It’s me. It’s us. How did you find us?” “I did?” Janeway was dizzy now, but she had to stay lucid and focused to make sure this was real. “I mean, I didn’t know I did.” “Captain? It’s me. Naomi.” The girl tiptoed up to Janeway and Chakotay, looking shy, and still with tears in her eyes. “I saw you before. I made Seven scan for you, because even if you look really different, I knew.” “You knew?” Janeway looked into the eyes of the child she’d assigned as her Captain’s Assistant several years ago. She was now ten years old and as beautiful as her mother. “I wonder how you knew.” “I know you have to leave my office. I don’t have time for this and besides, people are waiting to pay their fees.” The gruff administrator’s voice made Janeway jerk back to reality and she fully expected the four from Voyager to melt away where they stood around her. To her consternation they didn’t. “Let’s get out of here,” Chakotay said. “We have a lot to talk about and this is hardly the place for it. Janeway couldn’t move at first, only when a gentle hand cupped her elbow did she manage to put one foot in front of another and start walking. She looked up at the beloved face of the woman she’d saved from the Borg. “Oh, Seven.” _______________________________________________________________
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