by Katarina Arachnia and Jessica Dax.
Disclaimer: Voyager and its characters all belong to Paramount. Don't sue!!!!!

Kathryn Janeway sat in the cramped Brig, wondering how on earth she had got into this position. In a Brig, in the Delta Quadrant, on a Maquis ship without any means of escape or, when she came to it, anywhere to go if she did escape.

She felt unclean in the dark red Maquis uniform and boots she and her crew had been forced to wear. She longed for the Starfleet jump-suits in their primary colours denoting the status of various departments. The pips she now wore at her throat, were those of a lowly crewman. Her long hair was tied in a simple knot at the base of her neck, the tendrils that had escaped her fingers hung loosely down her back.

She picked at the paltry meal she had been provided - at least they weren't being starved. But she wasn't hungry enough to eat their food.

'Captain, you should eat something.'

Typical Tuvok - he always noticed if she wasn't eating properly.

'I'm not hungry, Tuvok. I just don't feel like eating.'

'Nevertheless you should - a weakened captain will only compound our problems. Perhaps you could imagine it is coffee ice-cream?'

She smiled a little. Tuvok would never admit to having a sense of humour but he certainly knew his captain.

'Thanks, Tuvok. I'm glad you're here.'

And she was. The two of them had been classed as high-risk prisoners and as such were being held in the one small cell on the Maquis ship, along with Harry Kim and a few others. The rest of the crew were being held elsewhere. They had been in the Brig for two days and even with Tuvok's calm consolations and Tom Paris trying to keep the group's spirits up, she kept thinking back to what had happened, the events leading up to her being there.

It had really started when Voyager headed towards the Badlands, in pursuit of Chakotay and his Maquis followers, as well as the undercover Tuvok. Then the curious energy ribbon that had transported them so far from home and the Caretaker who had refused to send them back. Then the battle with the Kazon, working together with the Maquis - something Janeway had never envisioned herself doing. The battle was the part that still brought tears to her eyes - Voyager had been hopelessly damaged and she had had no choice but to send her crew over to the Maquis ship, setting a collision course for the Kazon vessel before beaming over herself at the last moment. Voyager's destruction had won them the battle but she felt the loss of the little ship as keenly as she would the loss of a new friend. And then, to protect the vulnerable Ocampa from the Kazon, Chakotay had destroyed the dead Caretaker's precious array, leaving them all stranded in the Delta Quadrant.

Janeway didn't despise Chakotay for his choice, it was the same choice that she would have made in his position, but some of her crew had resented it deeply. So, six days into their tentative coalition, several of her crew had mutinied, trying to take control of the ship. Harry Kim had been the leader, something that had surprised her only a little. He had been distraught when he found out that he might never see his family again and the Maquis crew's condescending attitude towards the Starfleet crew had been the last straw for the devastated young man. Janeway herself hadn't been involved but the entire Starfleet crew had been locked up anyway.

So here she sat, folded up with her chin on her knees, the pleats of her large Maquis-style tunic around her to keep warm in the chilly cell, listening with half an ear to Tom's tales of life in Marseilles.

'Crewmen Janeway and Tuvok.'

Captain Chakotay was standing outside the cell, flanked by two security guards.

'Yes?' Janeway asked.

'The two of you were not involved in the mutiny. You may leave the Brig. You will be assigned your duties tomorrow morning.'

Janeway hesitated, looking around the cell at Harry, Tom and the other mutineers.

'Unless you'd like to languish in this Brig for the next seventy years or so?' Chakotay asked, his expression neutral.

Janeway hated him in that moment but she had no choice but to rejoin his crew - they had to get along if they were going to spend the next century on the same cramped ship.

'No, thank you.' She said, with as much poise as she could muster. 'Come on, Tuvok.'

She looked at each of the mutineers, promising them with her eyes that she would get them something better than this. She had to get them something better than this. Then Chakotay let the forcefield down and she and Tuvok stepped out of the cell.

* * * * *

Four days later, Janeway sat in a poky Jefferies Tube, performing the latest in a long, long line of menial, mind-numbing tasks assigned to her by Chakotay. This was ridiculous! Earlier that day there had been a serious problem with the long-range sensors - she had known how to fix the problem but they wouldn't let her near, spending three hours fixing it themselves when she could have done it in a few minutes! Similar incidents had been happening all week; they just wouldn't let the Starfleet crew help with anything of any consequence! She had left the cold, cramped Brig - only to find herself in this hot, cramped Jefferies Tube. The unfairness of the whole situation infuriated her. How could he make her perform non-essential maintenance when she was one of the best scientists in the entire Federation? Janeway threw down her coil spanner and began climbing down the ladder to the next deck. She wouldn't let Chakotay do this to her and her crew!

* * * * *

The door blooped politely.

'Come in.' sighed Chakotay.

He was tired from orchestrating the repairs of the ship and sorting out the numerous problems that had surfaced over the past several days and he had asked not to be disturbed. What was the problem now?

He wasn't altogether surprised when Janeway walked in. He hadn't anticipated an easy time with her; she was known to be stubborn and unreasonable. And she looked it - standing hands on her hips in front of his desk with her red, angry tunic and her red, angry hair tied raggedly back into a cross between a bun and a plait. Obviously, she hadn't adapted well to being on a Maquis ship. Good.

'What is it?' he asked in a reasonable, measured voice.

Her eyes flashed. His evenness infuriated her - she wouldn't be satisfied until she could have a proper, out-and-out argument, that was obvious.

'What is it?' she repeated. 'Only that you treat my crew and I like first-year cadets who've never seen a hyperspanner before! And you make it clear that we're not welcome here and that you don't want to be friends - what sort of attitude is that towards the people you'll be sharing a ship with for the next seventy years?'

'Maybe we won't.' said Chakotay calmly. 'We're thinking of putting you all off the ship; leaving you on an M-Class planet and taking our chances alone.'

'You wouldn't?' She gasped. 'But then we'll never get home!'

'That doesn't matter to us.' Chakotay said. 'You would have put us in prison. Why should we give you anything? We've already given you food, clothing, a place to live, work to do and you repay us by being singularly ungrateful!'

'We are grateful!' Janeway cried. 'But we want to help! We have skills that will help us all survive here but you aren't letting us use them because you are too vain and proud to let yourselves be helped by Starfleet!'

'We know the kind of "help" Starfleet have given in the past.' Chakotay said. 'We don't need any more of your particular brand of assistance!'

'Starfleet and Maquis!' Janeway shouted. 'That just isn't the issue any more! What's important is that we are the only people from the Alpha Quadrant here in the Delta Quadrant and if we don't stick together we will never survive! Can't you see that?'

'No, I can't.' said Chakotay. He tapped his commbadge. 'Security, please come to my office and escort Janeway to her quarters where she will be confined until further notice.'

'On our way.' Came the voice on the other end of the communication.

Janeway gazed at him incredulously, her face now as red as her hair and her tunic. She stared right into his eyes - indignant, furious, frustrated and…hurt? Chakotay looked away and soon a security guard arrived to escort Janeway to quarters. Chakotay felt disturbed by the meeting, not least by the fact that she had made him lose control. And the fact that her arguments were making sense to him. What should he do?

* * * * *

The ancient carpet in Janeway's quarters had been worn down until there was a definite path across the centre of the room caused by her incessant pacing. It was a small room, containing only a rickety bed, a small chair and a bathroom alcove in one corner. Not even a replicator! Of course, energy for the replicators was so scarce she wouldn't have been able to use it anyway, not even to replicate clothes. That was why she was wearing this ridiculously long tunic, small waistcoat and (mercifully) a decent size pair of trousers lent to her from the Maquis store-cupboard - apparently she was both the smallest person and tallest person on the ship since there were no clothes that actually fitted her properly apart from her trousers, but even those had to be held up with a belt. It was all very irritating.

So still she paced the little room, getting angrier with every step. What could she do? Stage another mutiny, that was what! At the back of her mind, a little voice was telling her that that wasn't the way to solve things; but she was so frustrated by Chakotay's dismissive treatment of her, tired by all her sleepless nights and upset by the situation in general that her rational side had all but disappeared and she was running on pure fire and emotion.

But, now that she had an idea, how to implement it? First of all she needed to somehow escape from her quarters - she could hardly mutiny from where she was! She knew there was a guard outside her door and she doubted she could beat him in a fight; after all he was a lot bigger than her and he had a phaser. So that was a non-starter. Thinking, she looked around the room for inspiration. Her eyes stopped at the path she had worn into the carpet. She couldn't see anything. She sighed. It was hopeless.
Janeway carried on her pacing, choosing a new path across the room. She dragged her feet a little, across the floor. Suddenly her toes slid into contact with a slightly raised part of the carpet. She hit the ground with a thud, but ignored the groans of her hands and knees, as she climbed to her feet again, her resolve and hope building. Could it be an emergency access port? But if it was, how could she get to it?

Moving to the edge of the room, she tried to dig her fingernails under the edge of the carpet. After a few minutes she could fit a whole hand under it. She tugged at the carpet until it began to peel away from the floor, rolling it back until it revealed what was, indeed, an access port. Once she had found it, it was the work of a moment to get it open and to enter, climbing down the metal ladder to the next level where she found a Jefferies tube. All she had to do was crawl around until she found an access hatch to an empty area of the ship. This might be easier than she had thought!

Suddenly, she ship shook with such violence that Janeway was flung several metres down the tube, her shoulder driving into the floor as she landed. What was going on? Were they under attack? The ship shook a little again and she heard the sound of phasers being fired, she figured she must be somewhere near one of the phaser banks. And if they were firing phasers, this must be a battle! She carried on crawling through the tubes, anxious to find a way out now that they were under attack. The ship was buffeted and tossed in every direction as she crawled through the narrow passages; she opened one access hatch after another, only to find more Jefferies tubes. As she approached the next access hatch, up another metal ladder, she hoped with all her heart that it would lead into a corridor or a room, somewhere she could find out what was going on.

It was another Jefferies tube, but this one was different. There was a huge, tubular structure jutting out of the wall - a photon torpedo! Undetonated, but surely it wouldn't stay that way for long. What could she do? She had no commbadge to contact anyone and let them know about it and no tools to disarm it herself. She had no way of knowing whether the Maquis ship's jury-rigged sensors would detect the torpedo. Agonising, she looked at the torpedo. She was afraid to touch it in case she set it off.

The access hatch opened again. It was Chakotay!

'What are you…' he began, then thought better of it.
'Never mind, just help me disable this thing.'

She nodded, taking the tricorder he gave her and scanning the torpedo, hoping for some clue as to how to deactivate it.

'Have you evacuated the deck?' she asked.

'Of course.' He said. 'But I'd rather disable this thing if I have the chance. I don't want to lose a chunk of my ship.'
'I understand.'
Of course she understood. Her entire ship was nothing more than a cloud of debris now.
'Who's attacking us?' she asked, tapping a few buttons on the tricorder.
'The Kazon.'
'Figures.'
'Yup. I didn't think they'd give up easily.' He said.
Tentatively, he began to fiddle with the torpedo casing.
'It won't work.' She said, frowning at her tricorder readings.
'I'll make it work.'
'No, you won't. We have to get out of here before it explodes.'
'Give me a few more minutes.'
'We don't have a few more minutes! Well, two or three minutes at the most! Come on!'
'No! There's a lot of important stuff on this deck that we can't afford to lose!'
'Like the captain!!' she shouted. Their voices echoed strangely in the confined space. 'You can't just die; they need you! Who's going to lead them if you die a stupid death in this Jefferies tube?!'
'Why don't you do it?' he almost screamed at her. 'You seem to know how to run this ship better than I do!'
'Well, maybe I do!'
She didn't know how it happened, but suddenly the two of them were kissing, a desperate, angry kiss. The torpedo lay forgotten, sticking out of the wall like a deadly fist. As Janeway and Chakotay moved her arm brushed against the casing - she stopped. The spell of an angry moment was broken. Back to reality and the reality that the torpedo could explode, taking them with it.
'The torpedo! We have to go!'
Chakotay only nodded his agreement, already moving towards the access hatch. She followed as swiftly as she could, trying not to look back at the torpedo that would surely detonate any second. She was getting closer to the hatch, closer - she was there! She crawled through and Chakotay pulled the hatch closed just as the torpedo detonated - the Jefferies tube shook violently and she lost her tentative footing on the ladder and fell several feet down to the next deck. Painfully, she sat up so she was leaning against the wall.

'Captain! Are you alright!' Chakotay called, climbing rapidly down the ladder.
She looked up suddenly. He had called her 'captain' again. She was his equal…
'Perhaps under the circumstances you should call me Kathryn.' She said sarcastically, raising her eyebrows as he climbed beside her.
She winced as pain lanced down her side; she had badly grazed it on the ladder as she fell down the tunnel. Putting her hand so her side she felt warm, sticky blood where her tunic was torn. There seemed to be a lot of it.
'Let me see.' Said Chakotay, reaching out to touch her.
She flinched and he snatched his hand away.

'I'm sorry.' He said. 'I didn't mean to…and before. I'm sorry about that, I don't know what I was thinking…It will never happen again.'

Janeway's face fell. She felt two types of pain now. The physical side, where her body ached from lack of energy and the large gash at her side. And the emotional side. She hadn't realised how much she was attracted to Chakotay until their argument.

'It's alright; it was as much my fault as it was yours. And whoever said I wanted an apology?' she grinned for a moment then grimaced as she tried to move.

'Does it hurt very badly?' Chakotay asked tentatively.

'Only as much as if I'd been hit in the side by an errant shuttlecraft.' She winced.

'It's just that, I don't think we'll be getting out of here any time soon. The access hatches seem to have malfunctioned.'

'You mean we can't get out?'

'It looks like we'll just have to wait to be rescued.'

'Great. Just great. What a fabulous day I'm having!' She waved her arm melodramatically but stopped mid-gesture, gritting her teeth with pain. 'Remind me not to do that again.' She said, wryly.

'I will.' Said Chakotay. 'You look really pale; is there anything I can do?'

'I…I think I need to lie down.' She said quietly.

'Okey-dokey.' Chakotay said, trying to keep a light-hearted tone to the conversation even though Janeway's face had turned white and the pool of blood next to her was growing with every second.

Gently, he slid her away from the wall and down until she was lying with her head in his lap. Trying to remember his first-aid training from the academy, he took off his shirt and pressed it to her side to slow the flow of blood. Why hadn't he thought of this before?

After a few moments, Janeway's small, white hand reached up and he held it tight.

'I'm so sorry.' He said. 'This is all my fault.'

'Can I have that in writing?' she joked.

'I'm serious. If I hadn't confined you to quarters you would never have been crawling through these Jefferies tubes.'

'It's okay. You were only doing what you thought was best.'

'But it isn't what I think is best! What if you die today? Then I'll never get the chance to make you my second-in-command!'

'Wow, you know just what to say to cheer a girl up. Don't worry; I'm not going to die. I never do.' She said with a wry grin.

'There's always a first time. But seriously, I haven't been fair to you. You were right all along…'

'That's what I like to hear…'

'I should have let you help. Kim and the others wouldn't have mutinied in the first place if I hadn't treated you like criminals! If I hadn't been…'

'…Did you just say second-in-command?'

'What?…Oh, yes! The only way to make this work is by integrating the two crews, becoming one team. And to do that, both crews have to be equal. I wish I had seen it before…'

'Well, I'm glad you've seen it now. And now, maybe we can be friends.'

'I hope so.' He said, squeezing her hand and feeling a slight pressure back.

As he watched her, her eyes drifted closed. Uh-Oh, was that bad? Why hadn't he had paid more attention during first aid classes?

'Help!' he called. 'We're stuck in here! Help!'

Was it his imagination, or did he hear the clang of an access hatch opening nearby?

'Help!' he called again.

'Chakotay?' came a familiar voice.

'B'Elanna?! Hurry!'

He heard the sound of people crawling through a Jefferies tube, and then some choice Klingon expletives followed by a clicking noise, then the access hatch opened!

'Tricky little pItaQ…' B'Elanna said. 'The Kazon have retreated. Are you two ok?'

'She isn't.' said Chakotay. 'We have to get her to the Medical Bay!'

'I'll help.' Said another voice from behind B'Elanna. Harry Kim poked his head through the hatch.

B'Elanna looked at Chakotay apologetically. 'I'm sorry.' She said. 'But we needed all the help we could get and without you there, I decided to let them help. We can send them back to the Brig if you want, but I'm not sure that's the best idea. We wouldn't have won that battle today without them - maybe we're being unnecessarily harsh. Chakotay?'

'And this coming from you, B'Elanna?'

She blushed a little. 'Well, they're not so bad really. And Starfleet here,' she indicated Harry, 'And I have kind of built up a rapport.'

* * * * *

A few hours later, Kathryn Janeway woke up in the Medical Bay. A Maquis crewmember she didn't recognise was running a dermal regenerator over her wound, which hurt much less now. Chakotay was sitting by the bed, still holding her hand.

'Feeling better?' he asked.

'Much better.' She answered.

She sat up, there was a twinge of pain but she would survive.

'Well enough for a party?'

'A party? What for?'

'To celebrate the union of our crews, of course! Ayala, is she fit to go to the party?'

'Well, Sir, I'm not really a doctor, but I think she should be okay if she takes it easy.'

'Did you hear that?' Chakotay asked her. 'No more crawling through Jefferies tubes!'

'Aye aye, Sir!'

She gave him a little salute and a wink before sliding off the bed.

He offered her his arm and she took it, leaning on him a little as they headed to the party.

* * * * *

Janeway sat at the party, watching Chakotay watching the others having fun. 'Are you checking up on your mutineers?' she asked.

'Observing.'

'And?'

'Two crewmembers have already complained about their being allowed to join the crew and they may be in for a tough period of adjustment, but I think they're going to make a fine addition to this crew.' He looked into her eyes. 'Our crew.'

She beamed at him.

'Can I ask you a question, off the record?' she asked. 'If things had happened differently and we were on Voyager now instead of your ship, would you have served under me?'

'One of the nice things about being Captain is that you can keep some things to yourself.' He smiled.

The two watched their crew interact, Maquis and Starfleet stepping over the barriers that had once set them apart.

They could face whatever the Delta Quadrant had in store, as long as they were together.

Y Diwedd.


Vote for this story in the Love Through the Years Contest