Disclaimer: Paramount owns them we set them free!

This took months to write and Leigh and myself were tearing our hair out by the end of it. I don’t think there is any smut in it (sorry).

Comments good, bad, indifferent to Me

The whole story is around 24 pages long so I have split into 4 installments, to make it easier to read. This was our first attempt at a J/C story, so don’t be too judgmental! This is installment 2

By KittyKat & Leigh Ashgan

Q lowered himself down so that his face was level with Kathryn's.

"To use a quaint human saying, penny for your thoughts." Q pulled a penny out from behind her ear. Kathryn rose from the chair a little quicker than she would have liked but picked up her mug of coffee and took a sip. Feeling refreshed she turned and faced Q who was now sitting on one of her easy chairs below her window.

"You know Kathy, this ship is awful drab at the moment. Maybe you should consider a little red or even blue. I know..."

Kathryn raising her hand and saying in a weary voice cut off Q,

"What do you want Q?" Q looked at her with a pained expression on his face before replying,

"Kathy is that any way to talk to a dear, personal friend such as myself?" Janeway raised her eyebrow at this statement with a cynical look on her face.

"You’re hardly what I’d class a dear, personal friend Q".

"Significant other then". Q replied with a hopeful look on his face.

"Pain in the … more like" Kathryn snorted shaking her head and taking a large gulp of coffee.

"Now Q is there an actual point to this visit or did you get a sudden urge to make my life just a little more difficult?" Q looked deeply offended.

"You humans lead such dull monotonous lives that I thought you might like to have it brightened up a little but if this is your reaction then don’t be expecting any more favours from me in the future!"

Kathryn breathed in deeply and took another sip of her coffee. She then walked over to where Q was sitting and eased herself down.

"Q I am in no mood to guess why you have appeared this time. So why not just save me time and tell me what you want." She fixed him with a steely gaze and for a brief nanosecond she thought she saw him flinch. Q then stood up and turned to her and said,

"Very well Kathy I am here for a special reason. All I need is you and a little of your time." He then grinned and walked over to her desk and perched on the edge.

"I am here to show you what will happen."

Kathryn finished the rest of her coffee, stood up and walked back to her desk. But as she went to sit down Q wrapped his fingers around her forearm.

"Q I don't have time for this!" she exclaimed in an exasperated tone.

"Nonsense Kathy, you are stuck in the Delta Quadrant with about 30 years to go.

You are hardly going to miss much. Besides it won’t take long. Ah the wonders of being a Q. Sometimes I really do feel sorry for you non-omnipotent types." Q clicked his fingers and they disappeared in a flash of light.

Kathryn turned her head towards Q

"What on Earth…?" She suddenly realised that she was no longer in her ready-room but standing on Voyager’s bridge, but something was different. She was standing at the Ops console and she glanced down. The panel resembled Starfleet design and configuration but not the type she was accustomed to. Looking more carefully she noticed that it bore a remarkable resemblance to the schematics that the Doctor had downloaded from his escapade aboard the Prometheus. She turned to Q confused.

"Q! What have you done to my bridge!?" Q shrugged.

"Nothing to do with moi my dear. Take a really good look around." Janeway looked up and noticed the crewmembers walking around the bridge; she didn’t recognise any of them. She turned round in bewilderment; the back panel of the Ops station read USS Voyager. It was the same ship but not quite. She looked down towards her seat and there she was sitting straight back, cross-legged staring at the large view screen. She saw that she had grown her hair again as it was tied up in the tight bun at the back of her head. Kathryn turned back to Q

"This is the future isn’t it?" She hissed

"Well it is a tad obvious, but it’s not the future you think it is. Watch." Q pointed towards the future Janeway. Kathryn’s eyes followed his movement. She glanced across quickly as the tactical officer requested the future Janeway’s attention.

Turning back Kathryn’s eyes widened as she realised that the woman in the Captain’s chair was not her, for a start the hair was black and her skin was a darker colour. Kathryn began to walk down the gangway when Q’s voice piped up behind her.

"I was in a Dickensian mood today Kathy, they can’t see or hear you." She raised her hand in acknowledgement as she approached the young Captain. The Captain turned to face the viewscreen and Janeway saw with surprise that she had a familiar looking tattoo over her left eye. Kathryn turned back to Q; she was about to speak when the young lieutenant at the conn called,

"Captain Janeway." She automatically turned towards him about to answer the call when she realised with deep shock that he was talking to the young Captain. Her mouth dropped as Q came up behind her and said in a congratulatory tone,

"Welcome to Parenthood Kathy!" Kathryn continued to stare the woman in front of her in sheer amazement, oblivious to Q. Q frowned,

"I forget that you humans are not terribly good with surprises" he muttered more to himself than Kathryn.

"I guess that it couldn’t hurt to back up a little I suppose and start from the beginning, rather predictable but that is humans for you, no sense of adventure at all. I sometimes wonder why I bother. Like I said I go to all this trouble to make your drab lives have a little kick to them, but do you value my efforts? No. You stand there like a recently phasered gopher. Jean-Luc didn’t appreciate my efforts either. If I were a human, which thankfully I’m not, I would have a very bruised self-image, but I know I’m wonderful so there is obviously something wrong with you. Kathy close your mouth it really isn’t attractive." Q was still grumbling to himself as he grasped Janeway’s arm and again vanished.

The plasma storm raged above, the purple light crashing across the sky. Kathryn found herself on the ground, panting due to the last lighting strike. As she tried to gauge her surroundings, she felt a throbbing pain across her forehead. Kathryn placed her fingers to the throbbing and when she looked at her fingers discovered a large patch of blood. Her whole body ached and her uniform was torn and filthy. A groan reached her ears and she looked down at the ground.

"Chakotay!" she gasped in alarm and knelt down besides his injured body. Small patches of liquid stained his uniform but Kathryn could not tell if it was blood.

"Chakotay, can you hear me? Can you move? Where the Hell is Q!?"

Chakotay weakly opened his eyes and nodded his head, muttered hoarsely,

"Sh..utt..le." Kathryn lifted her head and scanned the horizon spotting the battered Delta Flyer 100 meters away. She swung his arm around her neck and with a heave pulled him up saying,

"You really need to spend more time on the Hoverball court Commander."

While the storm raged over their heads she dragged herself and Chakotay towards the shuttle. Nearing the shuttle and noting its damage she thought to herself with a wry smile,

"Tom is going to kill me or cry. Probably both."

Finally she was able to drag Chakotay in through the side access door and accessed the controls to close it up.

"Unable to comply." responded the computer. Kathryn resisted an urge to swear and then reached into an equipment locker underneath the engineer’s seat. She produced two suction cups and closed the door manually. Exhausted she gingerly lowered herself to the ground and heard Q say,

"A little tired are we?" She swung her head around and up to where Q was standing above her.

"What’s happened?" Q shrugged and knelt beside her,

"You were right when you deduced that the last location was in the future and this is also the future." Kathryn looked around her and asked,

"So why am I here?" Q grinned and replied,

"Who better to portray your wit, beauty, charm, sophistication..." Kathryn shot him a glance. Q cleared his throat and continued,

"...rather than yourself." Kathryn then looked at Chakotay, who was unconscious at the time and remembered that he was injured. She began looking for the emergency first aid kit, while Q continued to prattle in her ear,

"Kathy why are you bothering with Chuckles when I’m here?" Kathryn passed a medical tricorder over Chakotay's head and didn't bother replying. The tricorder beeped at her and Kathryn repeated what the scans were telling her,

"Only a minor concussion and a few scratches and bruises."

"Oh damn! And here I was hoping that something interesting would have happened to him." Kathryn spun round in a rage,

"Q you were the one who brought us here so you are responsible! I wish you would leave me and my crew alone!"

Q placed a pained expression on his face,

"If that is how you feel then fine!" He snapped his fingers and disappeared in a flash of light. Kathryn gasped with exasperation as well as relief. She ran the tricorder over her own body and discovered nothing worse other than a stretched muscle, then gave Chakotay something to deal with his concussion and climbed into the pilot’s seat as the plasma storm rocked the Delta Flyer from outside.

"Computer, access most recent logs, bring up the star charts of this system, send out an automated distress beacon for Voyager and direct sensor control to the conn." The computer bleeped its acknowledgement.

"Oh computer what is the stardate?" The computer replied,

"The stardate is 53021.3" Kathryn looked up in alarm, it was only four months in the future than when she was in her ready room. The computer accessed the logs in the Delta Flyer and saw

an entry in her name a day earlier.

"Computer access ship log Janeway 17 Beta." Chakotay groaned in his sleep and Kathryn turned in her seat.

"Log accessed." Confident that Chakotay was fine, she returned to the computer screen and

opened the log. The computer screen flickered on and brought up an image of herself. The picture fluctuated and Kathryn could not hear herself speak.

"Computer clear up playback." The computer beeped and she found she could now hear.

"...on a science mission to a new planet. Commander Chakotay and myself are present to conduct surveys and investigate a possible source of Dilithium that our sensors detected just below the planet surface. The last time Dilithium was detected it turned out to be a false hope so we are proceeding cautiously. The sensors have also detected frequent plasma storms on the planet, which could cause a problem, however we are keeping our fingers crossed. So far the plasma storms have been concentrated at least 100 kilometres south of our current position and initial scans of some nearby underground caverns have proved encouraging. As long the storms stay away we should be back on Voyager in time for dinner. End Log." Punching the controls on the panel she found that the plasma currently battering the Flyer had started just after they had began take off from the planet starting quickly and with very little warning. They had been forced back down to planet’s surface with a less than smooth landing. Accessing a more current written log, she found that the emergency rations hadn’t been replaced from the Flyer’s last ‘mishap’. It must have been during a quiet moment of the storm, which had shown no signs of abating; that they had went out to forage and had been caught when the storm had kicked up again with even more ferociousness than before. They were both lucky to be alive thought Kathryn.

Slumping back in the chair she rubbed her temples and grimaced as she pulled the cut skin on her forehead. She still couldn’t believe what Q had shown her before. It couldn’t be possible. Could it? She swivelled around to look at Chakotay on the floor. It was possible that he had shown her a parallel universe future, assuming that it was even real, but after the strange dreams she had been having and the feelings that she had been experienced recently she wasn’t so sure. Janeway shook her trying to dispel her thoughts; right now there were bigger problems to worry about, water and food for one thing. There were a couple of canisters of water at the back of the ship but they wouldn't last long and there was no way of telling how long they would be stuck on this planet. The Delta Flyer had sustained too much damage to be able to get off the planet of its own accord and Voyager wouldn’t be able to attempt a rescue until the plasma storm ended.

"I must remember to thank Q for this little insight into the future when he decides to bestow me with his presence again." She thought wryly to herself. Her headache screamed the need for coffee at her, but she knew that it was nonessential so worked at putting the dull thud to the back of her mind. Chakotay then stirred, she got up out of her seat and knelt beside him.

"Chakotay." she said quietly,

"Are you awake?" Chakotay's eyelids flickered and then opened,

"Captain? What happened?" He tried to get up and Kathryn aided him up into a sitting position. She paused and then replied,

"You were injured when the plasma storm kicked up again." Chakotay struggled to get to his feet, but Kathryn tired to restrain him,

"No don't get up, you have suffered a mild concussion." Chakotay then grinned and joked,

"So much for being someone who can survive in the wild. My father would be proud, first tiny plasma storm and I’m out for the count." Kathryn looked at him and grinned also,

"That tiny plasma storm nearly registered off the sensors, so a concussion is lucky."

The conn then beeped at the both of them and Kathryn quickly got to her feet. She sat down and accessed the automated distress beacon. The computer responded,

"Voyager is 15 light years from your current position." Inside Kathryn let out a little cheer, but instead turned to Chakotay,

"Voyager is about two days at warp 8 from our position, so we are stuck here for a little while." Chakotay got to his feet and said,

"Fine by me, maybe I will be able to redeem my survival skills to you in that short time." Kathryn said in a put on serious tone,

"I don’t doubt that Commander."

Three days later in the darkened cabin of the Delta Flyer Kathryn thought,

"Things could not get worse." She couldn’t afford to tell Chakotay that Q had transported her into the future, as it would endanger the space time continuum. This had been drilled into her in her Academy days and was also against her own personal beliefs. She looked around her in despondency, there was no food left from the meagre amounts that they had collected and the water was running desperately low. The plasma storm showed no signs of abating and on top of that it was getting damned cold. The sheer size of the planet meant that the days and night lasted for four days and so the temperature dropped dramatically. To support this she shivered violently and pulled the emergency blankets tighter around her. Chakotay, who was trying to set up a signal that would penetrate the plasma storm and reach Voyager, noticed her shuddering and approached her. He walked behind her and knelt behind her. His arms encircled her and just as she was about to protest his arms started to move up and down rubbing her forearms and creating a little warmth in her frozen body.

"Better?" he asked quietly as his breath frosted as it hit the outside atmosphere

"We should really stop going on away missions together. We always seem to attract disaster. It may be a message." All Kathryn could do was nod her agreement, her teeth were chattering too much for her to smile. Chakotay moved himself into a more comfortable position and grabbed his emergency blankets and draped them over himself and Kathryn. He reached across their bodies and picked up the last canister of water. He tapped it and then turned his body to face Kathryn.

"I don’t know how long we can keep this up for. The water is frozen." She turned her head slightly and rested it on his shoulder with a sigh of despair. She felt him rest his chin on top of her head and he tightened his arms around her. Unconsciously she snuggled closer to his warmth,

and felt his heart begin to race. She pulled back and looked at him, looking enquiringly into his eyes. He raised his right hand to cradle her face and she whispered,

"Chakotay." He raised his other hand, brought her face towards his and gently touched her lips with his. Something clicked inside her and she rose her hand up behind his head pulling his head towards hers.

The silence woke her and she blinked the sleep away. She stretched her feet, feeling comfortably warm. She sat up clutching the blanket around her and realised with a start that the storm had ceased. Lowering herself down again she whispered silkily in Chakotay’s ear,

"Commander." Then she propped herself up onto her elbow as he stirred. He opened his eyes with a slight smile on his face. He then grew serious and looked studiously into her eyes,

"Do you have any regrets Kathryn?" She didn’t answer but smiled gently and kissed him softly on the forehead. She drew away and then glanced out the main window and said,

"No, but we will have. The storm has stopped and that means Voyager is on its way."

Kathryn had just begun to pull on her vest and Chakotay was still looking for his when Tuvok materialised in front of them.

"Captain. Commander." Tuvok said in greeting. He knelt down to retrieve Chakotay’s vest and handed it to him, raising his eyebrow in what can only be described as Vulcan shock and embarrassment.

"Thanks" he muttered looking rather shamed-faced.

"We were um, just…"

"Saving body heat!" Kathryn leapt in setting her jaw and trying to look solemn. She glanced over at Chakotay.

"The Commander was just proving his survival skills." Chakotay looked up at her failing to stifle a smile.

"Of course captain." replied Tuvok facing her with his usual sober expression. Kathryn didn’t think he was convinced.

"Your communications system is apparently malfunctioning. Voyager has been attempting to make contact for the past hour with no response." He walked over to the conn of the Delta Flyer while they finished dressing. After a few brief taps on the console he turned back to them. It appears that the plasma storm has affected a number of systems aboard the ship irreparably, including communications. I also believe that it has damaged your combadges as well." He walked over to them and touched his combadge.

"Three to beam up." They disappeared in a sparkle.

To be continued…