Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame

Borg.”
    She was joking. Or was she?
    Barclay didn't seem to think so. “I made you some fresh tea for the trip. Not the replicated stuff.” He handed her a thermos from under his console desk.
    Wasn't this ridiculous? Grown-ups who had known each other for years upon years, gone through times both terrible and glorious, dealt with forces and peoples unknown to any of their kindred, and all they could talk about to each other was tea and who was getting married and frivolous beatings around the bushes. There was more to be said and everyone knew it. They weren't happy. They were home, but they weren't
at home.
    The fractured excuse for conversation galvanized Janeway's sense of purpose and slayed her last lingering doubt. She had to do something, even if it were something crazy.
    She took the thermos out of Barclay's hand and rewarded him with a gaze of honesty.
    “Thank you,” she said, “for everything. I wouldn't have been able to do this without you.”
    Barclay forced a little smile. “Don't remind me.”
    * * *
    “Any final words of advice for your old captain? Wait—don't tell me. I'm being impulsive. I'm not considering all the consequences. It's too risky.”
    Anything else? There was more, plenty, all of which she would be saying to anyone else about to go off on this wild quest. As Janeway stared down at the reason for her sudden determination, the wind blew across the grass and fluttered it on Chakotay's name, carved over the dates of his birth and death, on a flat polished piece of marble.
    She thought about talking to herself more, using him as an excuse, but instead knelt on the moist grass and touched the stone.
    “Thanks for the input, but I've got to do what I think is right.” Her voice faltered. She fought to get it back. “I know it wasn't easy living all these years without her, Chakotay . . . but when I'm through, things might be better for all of us. Trust me.”
    What kind of officer was she? Choked up, doubtful, troubled, alone . . .
    The sensation of being alone struck her in the chest. Her longtime first officer was gone, her friends either dead or disengaged from each other, and now she was doing what she had always admonished the others never to do—go off alone, unsupported. How easy it would've been to call Paris, Torres, Doc, and just ask them to come with her, to be a crew again, risk their lives for the sake of . . . their own lives.
    No, she couldn't. This was better. This way, if she failed they would still have whatever happiness they had managed to chip out of their return to the Alpha Quadrant.
    When she stood, she was once again absolutely sure. Her pledge hung in the air between her and Chakotay, still possessing of its mystery. If she didn't return, at least she wouldn't have to face another reunion.
    She turned and walked away from the grave, feeling Chakotay's hands gently push at her back.
    * * *
    “Five-three . . . three-one . . . seven . . . one . . . five-three . . .”
    The room was ransacked. The bed was overturned, desk too, papers scattered everywhere, under and above the tumble of sheets and blankets, the splattered candle, a few pathetic personal effects.
    “I'm sorry if I pulled you away from something important, sir, but he won't let anyone near him. I thought you might be able to—”
    “You did the right thing.”
Voyager'
s former ship's doctor gazed down at the crumpled, muttering form of an officer he had once admired for his control and grace under pressure.
    Commander Tuvok had once been the steadiest man in the Doctor's limited universe, a kindred spirit of sense and logic, the closest thing a living creature could come to computer perfection—a Vulcan professional aboard a Starfleet ship.
    Hardly the picture before the Doctor now.
    Tuvok today sat crumpled in a corner of his cubicle here in the Starfleet Medical complex, a sorry echo of his past stability, racked instead by a neurological disease that had simply outpaced the technology to do anything about it.
    Both the Doctor and his young colleague, a Starfleet intern in charge of reviewing records on this wing, gazed sorrowfully at the commander. Tuvok still held his rank, thanks to Admiral Janeway's influence. He had, after all, been stricken with this affliction in the line of duty.
    Until today Tuvok's behavior had been damningly consistent. He slept fitfully, sometimes with medical assistance, and spent his days insisting upon near-darkness, assuaged by only his single