*          *          *

We’re home. We’ve made it.

I blink. It doesn’t register. I realize I’m gripping the armrests of my chair so hard that my knuckles feel as if they would crack any moment, but I can’t force myself to let go.

I quietly stare at the star chart the ensign at ops had put up on the viewscreen. I see the familiar colorful shapes strewn across the orange grid. Slowly revolving planets. Clusters of asteroids. Brilliant patches dark space filled with nothing but sparkling stars.

At a first glance, the chart looks no different than the thousands of charts I have seen on this screen over the years. But when I looked closer, I can see the difference. Not only does it say in plain, clear white letter in the top right hand corner that this was the Alpha Quadrant, but in the middle of the chart, spinning slowly and glowing in flashes of green and blue, was earth.

Earth. Home. We’re home. We’ve made it.

The lieutenant sitting at the helm in front of me is talking to me. Asking me something. I don’t hear her or see her. I’m still staring at the chart on the screen, amazed that I feel nothing at its presence.

I suppose I would have spent the rest of my life sitting there, gaping and staring, my hands clutching the armrests as if my life depended on it, had Tuvok not pulled me out of my daze.

“Commander? Did you hear me?” he asks. I can hear the concern in his voice. Over the years I’ve discovered to my surprise that Tuvok’s emotions are a lot stronger than some humans’. Of course he keeps that tight Vulcan control on them, but at times, they slipped briefly out of his grasp and betrayed the compassionate, caring man I knew lay beneath that unwavering frown and cold front. A twitch of an eyebrow. A slight curl of his lips. The way he blinked or looked at you.

I only have to glance at him to see the concern in his old eyes. I quickly rip myself out of my daze and clear my throat. I try to grin sheepishly, but the grin fades as soon as it comes.

“No, I’m sorry, Tuvok. I wasn’t paying attention.”

Tuvok nods, his eyes filled with compassion and understanding. It’s only then I realize how old his eyes were. It’s always amazed me that I never noticed it before. Vulcans age so much slower than the rest of us.

But they still age. All the signs were there. His dark, curly hair had turned as grey as mine and his eyebrows were still creased in that permanent frown, but they too, were grey and withered. His hands are more wrinkled now, and they shake slightly. Nobody notices it except me. He tries to hide it. When he’s handing me a padd and his hand starts shaking, he abruptly yanks his hand back, mumbling something over still needing to fix something on it.

He is slowly pushing himself out of his chair, clenching his jaw when he realizes his arms are shaking.

The ensign at ops frowns in concern and hurries forward to help him, but I firmly shake my head in his direction.

Instead, I ask the ensign to run some final diagnostic checks on all of our systems to make sure we got through the wormhole okay. We both know the diagnostics are useless. We’d already run half a dozen checks in the past two hours, but at least it would keep us all occupied while our old, shaking captain attempted to cross the bridge with the same dignity he carried all his life.

Pretending that he wasn’t over 150 years old. Pretending that he was still as young as he used to be.

He pauses slightly before he reaches the end of the bridge. Turning back to me, he looks down at me. He stares at my hands. They’re shaking. I clasp them together, trying to hide it.

“Starfleet will contact us sometime in the next hour. I will be in her readyroom.”

I nod.

‘Her readyroom.’ I wanted to laugh. ‘Her readyroom.’

It had been more than twenty years, yet he still called it her readyroom, not his. He had been our captain for more than twenty years, yet in his heart, she was still here. Everyday.

Her readyroom.

Suddenly, I wanted to cry. But I couldn’t. I stare around the bridge. I ignore the beeps and flashes of light coming from consoles as I quietly look at the people standing behind those consoles.

For the first time, I realize that none of them had ever seen the Alpha Quadrant before. None of them had ever seen earth before. They were the children of the people I had known long ago. People who had either been dead for years, or people who had quietly withered away until they were mere wisps of hope slowly shuffling down the corridors, clutching their uniforms around their shoulders.

If I look hard enough I can even see their parents in them. And if I let my mind wander, I’ll sometimes let time roll backwards, slowly scrolling the years back, and I can see their parents standing there.

The faces of the people who had long been forgotten by most of the crew and the alpha quadrant. Those people who were there back in the day when everybody knew who the caretaker had been, who Kes had been, and who remembered the day two crews merged into one. Starfleet and Maquis.

Again I felt a sharp pain in my heart. Maquis. I smiled sadly. Looking around the bridge, I doubted any of them even knew who the Maquis had been. What they had been fighting for.

Some of them know. They ask.

They ask why I wear a Maquis lieutenant rank pin underneath my own pips. They ask why I’d attached a Maquis commander rank pin to my uniform. They ask why old Joe Carey knows how to swear in Klingon and why old Ayala laughs to himself quietly and shakes his head and mumbles that such and such is ‘so damn Starfleet.’

So I tell them.

They think it’s a fabulous story. Especially the young ones.

A story of Starfleet officers running off in this ship to capture a group of renegade rebels. I tell them how we got sucked into the Delta Quadrant and how the captain had made an agreement with Chakotay to merge our crews.

The captain. Chakotay. To the young ones, these are only names.

They’ve heard enough about both of them to last a lifetime, but none of them had ever seen them, save for the pictures I keep in my quarters and in Tuvok’s—her—readyroom.

*          *          *

We’re home. We’ve made it.

A small tear creeps into my eyes and I blink it back. I can’t break down now. They’d all start fussing over me, demanding that I go see the doctor and get some rest. Then Miral would barge in, worry making the Klingon ridges on her forehead more pronounced. She’d demand to know why I pushed myself and why I didn’t get more rest. Then she’d order me to go to bed.

I shook my head and sat up straighter, ignoring how exhausted just sitting up made me. I was getting old.

*          *          *

We’re home. We’ve made it.

I can almost feel her standing next to me, her hand on my shoulder. I can see that proud smile on her face as she stares out the viewscreen, staring towards home. She never looked anywhere else. Not once. No matter how hard things got and how futile our goal was, she never gave in. Most people thought it was just pride and stubbornness, but I knew better.

She had always blamed herself for the mess we’d landed in and had sworn to herself and to her crew that she’d get us home.

I smiled quietly. Well, you did it, captain. We’re home. It had taken us 47 years, but we were finally home. You kept the promise you made to us so long ago.

47 years.

Again, the small flicker of happiness I had felt drifted away.

I had imagined coming home a million times over the years. Countless different scenarios on where I’d be standing or sitting when we got there. I’d imagine flying Voyager into space dock, the sunlight bouncing off her gleaming hull as if she was built yesterday. I’d imagine Harry grinning from ops, nervously bouncing around, not being able to wait to see his parents. I’d imagine the captain and Chakotay rising from their chairs, both smiling and announcing that we’d arrived.

I’d imagine the laughter. The tears of happiness. The shouts. The hugs. The celebrations.

I forced myself back to the present.

With a lurch, I realized that none of my scenarios were going to work out. Out of the original 150 crewmembers who started out on this mission nearly fifty years ago, only thirty of us remain. The rest of the crew are the children of the people long dead, children who had grown up in the Delta Quadrant among the Kazon, Vidiians, Hirogen, Borg and spacial anomilies. Children to whom Voyager is the only home they had ever known. Would they be crying and laughing with joy when we landed?

I glanced around the bridge. Not even the ship would have the day of glory she had long deserved. Her gleaming bright hull was now scarred with countless fractures and scratches which we hadn’t been able to fix. Two whole decks had been sealed off for more than a decade now after a bad fire fight with Vidiians blew the hull there to pieces. We’d searched for replacement parts for weeks, but at the end, decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and the time, so we just sealed those sections off.

*          *          *

We’re home. We’ve made it.

Somehow, the words still hold no meaning to me. I doubt they hold any meaning to any of the people on the bridge with me.

For years I had been asking myself why we were still doing this. There wasn’t anything waiting for us back in the alpha quadrant.

My parents, along with everybody else’s had died long ago and the lives we had put on hold so long ago had faded and withered away as did the memories of that crew and the ship which had set off on a three week journey and had never returned.

Nobody was waiting for us back home. Nobody remembered us back home. And the exact same situation existed around me here. Only a small handful of people remembered earth and actually cared about this mission we had.

The children had never understood our mission. ‘The children’. I quietly laugh again. I still call them children even though none of them were children any longer. Naomi Wildman was 45 and had three children of her own and my own daughter was nearly 40.

Even though none of them ever understood our obsession with getting home and the light which fired up our old eyes everytime somebody mentioned earth, I have to give them credit that they never complained.

They never rebelled and mutinied against being pulled through the middle of nowhere by old, fading men and women who had a hope in their hearts which their children and grandchildren never understood.

I tried explaining it to them once. I told them that it was really very simple. Earth was home and nothing in the Delta Quadrant would ever be home for us and that no matter how long it took, we would get home.

Even if we didn’t have any lives to return to, we’d still be home.

If they still blankly stared at me, not understanding, I’d tell them that we were doing it to keep a promise we had made a long time ago to a captain they had never known. A promise I had made to her while sitting in prison back home. She’d given me my life back and in return, I promised to fly her to the badlands and back home again. I promised I’d bring her back home.

It didn’t matter that she’d been dead for over twenty years. It didn’t matter that she’d never see the battered remains of her crew fulfilling a promise they had made to her so long ago. But what did matter was that in my heart, I couldn’t let her down.

I couldn’t break the only promise I had ever made to her.

This, the children did understand. This was why they willingly spent their days flying and caring for this ship, pouring over star charts and trying to find the quickest way home. This was why they told hostile aliens that we simply had to pass through their space because we wanted to get home.

I’ll never understand why they put up with us. Why they kept on fulfilling a promise which they had never made to a captain they had never known.

But they had done it. They know they have no lives on earth and they know that they’re throwing themselves into a situation they don’t understand, but they’ll put up with it.

Why?

Because the old, gnarly grouches who order them around and tell them stories about the caretaker will be doing the same. Just like them, we’re throwing ourselves into a situation in which we have no real places anymore.

They trust us. The doctor mused that they all probaby think we’re insane, but nevertheless, they trust us. Seven had countered that by saying that it was irrelevent whether or not they thought we were all deranged, as long as they understood in their hearts why they trusted us.

I smile as I remember that.

I quietly reach up and gently rub the Maquis rank pin beneath my own three pips.

Tears brim my eyelids as I quietly remember B’Elanna. She had always wanted to see earth again. Out of all the Maquis, she had been among the very few who was actually looking forward to getting home.

She wanted to see Starfleet headquarters again. She wanted to see her father again, who had sent her a message years ago that he would meet her once we arrived.

Now both of them were dead.

I swallow hard and force down the wave of sadness which threatens to overwhelm me.

I remember her laugh. Her smile. Her temper. The way she made me feel as if I was really worth something. The way she believed in me.

If I briefly close my eyes, I can feel her standing next to me. Standing there, her arms crossed, narrowing her eyes as she carefully scrutinized the space before us before hitting her combadge and barking at engineering and poor Carey or Vorik to check on her precious engines.

My heart threatens to explode from pain. I force my eyes open, grit my teeth and force the memories back.

B’Elanna. My wife. My love. My life.

*          *          *

She died 28 years ago, yet it still seems like yesterday. Her and Chakotay both in one day. In one stupid accident filled with bad timing and unreasonable, stupid Vidiians.

I remember it so clearly.

A Vidiian fleet had been trailing us for weeks. We didn’t know what they wanted, but since they had never attacked and kept at respectable distance, we weren’t too concerned with them. The captain had been convinced that we could take them if they decided to attack. This was seconded by Seven, and well, who were we to argue with Borg optimism as the Doctor once asked?

We’d come in contact with a planet rich in beryllium. The miners said we were welcome to come down and scrounge around a bit and take whatever we needed. All they asked for was some replicated clothes which would last them through the winter and medical supplies. The deal done, the captain sent Chakotay and B’Elanna down to the surface in a shuttle.

I remember we were sitting on the bridge, and I was at the helm. I watched the shuttle flying away from Voyager, heading towards the planet. Harry was announcing that they had opened a com channel with them in case of emergencies. The captain had sat down in her chair, joking with Chakotay not to take all year flying down there.

His laughter carried back over the comlink and the shuttle sped up. B’Elanna grumbled that Chakotay better take good care of the shuttle’s engines or she’d rip his nose off and stick it onto the shuttle’s hull for decoration.

I called her my wild little ‘Lanna. She retorted back that I was her little flyboy.

We both laughed.

Then it happened.

The Vidiians showed up out of nowhere. Before Harry had finished typing around on his console and frantically yelling out that we were surrounded, the flyers had surrounded the shuttle and were firing.

After ten minutes, we managed to fight off the Vidiians and tractored the badly damaged shuttle into a shuttlebay.

We immediately transported them to sickbay and the Doctor and I worked all night to save them, but at the end, we lost them.

I was with both of them before they slipped away.

Chakotay gave me a weak smile and quietly whispered for me to take care of the captain and the ship and that he trusted me with both of them.

B’Elanna weakly clutched my hand, smiled at me and whispered that she loved me.

Moments later, the machines monitoring their vital signs started beeping loudly, indicating that they were gone.

Then the captain and Miral came running in. Miral immediately broke down, crying hysterically and sobbing with such raw grief that I nearly lost it too. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

I had to be strong for my daughter.

I quietly held her in my arms, stroking her unruly curly hair and letting her cry and scream.

Later that night, I visited the captain’s quarters. I knew she was trying to be strong, but I also knew that she was quietly crying out for a shoulder to cry on.

I spent that night sitting on her couch, letting her cry and sob into my shoulder as I let my own tears quietly slip down my face.

Before we locked their caskets, I quietly removed their rank pins from their uniforms and pinned them to my own.

The captain didn’t say a word when she saw me do it. She just nodded, her eyes filling with tears.

I’d worn those pins everyday since. I put them on every morning and gently put them on my nightstand at night before going to bed. Tuvok has never said a word about it, but I know he understands.

They might be gone, but in my heart, they will always be there.

*          *          *

Harry was the next one to go. I still can’t quite believe it when I remember that my best friend has been dead for 23 years.

Sometimes, I’d forget. I’d be sitting on the bridge and somebody would say something funny and I’d turn to the ops station, wanting to share a secret grin with Harry, only to discover that he wasn’t there.

Then I’d remember.

His death was the only one I can’t really say was senseless.

We’d been fighting with the Hirogens again. They overwhelmed us and a handful of them boarded. One of them had made his way onto the bridge and had demanded to be given control of the ship.

I remember the scene so clearly. If I look over my shoulder, I can still see him standing there, a gun pointed at the captain, who had stood up to face him.

Holding her chin high, her eyes sparking, she quietly told him that they’d take this ship over her dead body.

Years later, when I remembered this, I still can’t believe I didn’t see it. I normally prided myself with my quick reflexes.

But this time, I sat there in my chair, staring at the captain’s straight back and the dark, glaring eyes of the Hirogen as the latter switched off the safety on his gun.

Moments later, Harry launched himself from his station, screaming a warning to the captain and knocking her to the ground while the room filled with the sound of phaser fire.

Tuvok had whipped out his phaser and had shot the Hirogen down after just a few shots. But he hadn’t been quick enough.

After silence had engulfed the bridge again, the captain moaned and slowly got to her feet. Smiling weakly, she tossed a strand of her hair over her shoulder and muttered down to Harry that the next time he felt like launching through the air at her, he should at least try to shoulder check her only, not body check her.

I had hardly heard a word she’d said. I was staring at Harry. I could see from the way his eyes stared blankly at the carpet of the bridge and the blood which was seeping across the grey carpet that he was dead.

I remained frozen in my chair as I stared at the body of my best friend. Even when chaos erupted and the captain realized she’d been wrong and fell to her knees, Tuvok beside her, I didn’t move. I vaguely heard Tuvok asking for an emergency transport and the captain hoarsely telling me to come and help. But I couldn’t move.

Harry was dead. My best friend was dead. The only person in the world who had ever believed in me asides from my wife. He was dead.

*          *          *

It was so unfair. Out of all of us, Harry had been one of the few who deserved to get home. He’d longed for earth and his parents the most and never wasted an opportunity to grin and chatter on and on about what he’d do once he got back and what he’d tell his parents.

How excited he’d been when we were able to get transmissions established between us and home.

I remember I’d given him my three minutes worth of talking time half a dozen times at least. He deserved it.

He didn’t deserve to die. He deserved to make it home, to see this day.

But he wasn’t here. He’d been dead for so long that some of the children had never even known him. Lieutenant Harry Kim.

I quietly smile to myself. She promoted you, Harry. You never knew that and you never will, but I wish you did.

Lieutenant Senior Grade. That’s what she made you. She stuck the gold pip to your uniform before we ejected your casket into space.

She thanked you for saving her life and said your sacrifice would never be forgotten. She’d promised you that, and now, I’ve taken that promise onto my shoulders.

As soon as we get home, I’ll tell Starfleet what you did. What that green, timid young ensign did. The ensign who they all thought would get himself killed in a few days or hide in his quarters from fear or trip over his own feet so much that he’d never get anywhere.

Out of all of us, Harry had grown the most out here. Oh, he’d been scared senseless when he’d first landed here. No textbook or simulation had prepared him for the things he’d do and see out here.

But he still did it. He clenched his jaw, swallowed his fear and shyness and bravely fought for us. He learned how to work under pressure, how to express his opinion without shaking, how to stand up for what he believed in, and most importantly, he learned that being part of a crew didn’t only mean following orders and dreaming of ways to climb the ranks. It was about being part of a family and never letting them down.

I smiled. You’ll get your place in the textbooks, Harry. Don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure of that. I’ll tell the entire world what you did and I’ll tell them that you’d made it out here and had turned into the bravest and most loyal crewmen I had ever seen.

I’ll tell them, Harry. You’ll never be forgotten. I promise you that.

Even if Starfleet and the rest of the world forget about Voyager and about our journey, they’ll never forget you. I won’t let them.

*          *          *

We lost the captain a year and a half after we lost Harry. Just like Harry had died sacrificing his life for his captain, the captain had died sacrificing her life for her crew and ship. Just like I knew they would. If there had to be a way for either one of them to die, then those ways would be it.

Damn it, neither of them deserved it and I’d have gladly killed myself in order to let them live to see home again, but sometimes, the universe has a really twisted, sick sense of humor. Tuvok said that once. Years ago.

*          *          *

I nearly laugh when I remember this. It’s all so blurry and so full of pain that some of the tiny, stupid, irrelevent details have vanished from my memory over the years.

I don’t even remember the name of the aliens who had started the whole mess. All I remember is that I had immediately thought of Andorians when we first contacted them. It wasn’t their physical appearance that reminded me of them. It was the paranoia. The suspicion. The inablity to listen to rational reason when they thought there was something fishy in the air.

They had demanded that they get complete access to our database so they could determine our ‘real’ agenda. Personally, I wanted to just forget about them and go around their space, but that would have added ten months to our journey, and I knew that arguing with the captain about this was useless.

But she knew as well as I did that she couldn’t give them full access to our database. It contained too much information and it was too dangerous to share. Especially with the additions Seven had made to it, adding to it various bits of information she had retained from the assimilations of various species.

So the captain decided to sacrifice herself for her crew and her ship. Oh, that produced some arguments. Neelix and the Doctor were appalled by the idea, Tuvok nearly lost his temper and I flew off in a rage at it. Even Seven’s eyes had flashed and she had declared the Captain was being irrational and her suggestion was out of the question.

But the captain wouldn’t listen. She’d sat there at the head of the briefing room table, quietly looking at the few faces which still surrounded her, her gaze stopping briefly to rest on the many empty chairs.

She’d waited until we had exhausted ourselves in our arguing before she rose up and turned to face the window. She stood there for what seemed like hours. Her back straight, her arms hugging herself. She stared out of the window at the sprinkle of stars which floated past us.

Then she turned around, her jaw set in that determined way that told us that she had made up her mind. Her white hair pinned up without a strand out of place, her jaw set and her back ram rod straight, she quietly told us that she would be leaving within the hour. Slowly, she walked around the table and stopped by Harry’s empty chair and gently rested her hands on it.

She looked at all of us and quietly told us that she was leaving the ship in the hands of people who had become her family and whom she trusted above all else.

Then she dismissed us.

*          *          *

An hour later, we came within visual contact of the alien vessel and one of them beamed onto the bridge to take the captain back to their vessel.

She would accompany the alien to their vessel and from there, she would tell them everything they needed to know. She had a copy of our database in her pocket which she had promised the aliens.

There weren’t any goodbyes. There weren’t any tears. There weren’t any hugs. We couldn’t risk it. The aliens had to believe that nothing was wrong and that we fully expected our captain to be returned to us within a few hours.

She immediately pushed herself up and turned to greet the alien when he had materialized. She gave him a curt nod, her jaw set, her eyes sparking with the determination and dignity which had brought her this far and had never deserted her.

She looked down at Tuvok who was sitting in Chakotay’s chair.

“Commander Tuvok, you have the bridge.” She said quietly. Tuvok nodded. Their eyes were locked, unspoken goodbyes and thank-you’s streaming between them.

Then she pulled herself up to her full height and put the combadge the alien had offered her onto her uniform.

Before giving the alien a nod, she turned and looked at me. I had swung my chair around and was watching her, the strength and dignity she radiated nearly bringing tears to my eyes. I clenched my jaw, determined not to let myself slip.

Her eyes were staring into mine, a sadness but fierce pride clouding them. She clenched her jaw like mine, determined not to cry.

“Set a course, Tom. You know where to go.” She whispered.

I nodded.

Just before she turned, I softly called her back, knowing that I had to say it. She briefly turned back, her eyebrow raised in that half crease of worry and alertness which she always had.

“Yes, Mister Paris?”

I gave her a gentle smile. “Thank you, ma’am. For everything.”

That half smile tugged on her lips as she nodded, understanding what I had meant.

Without another word, she turned around, her back straight, her jaw set and her eyes glowing with that dignity and strength she had always had.

Nodding to the alien, they both tapped their combadges and they were quickly dematerialized and transported over to the alien vessel.

For a moment, I stared at the spot on the floor where she had stood, knowing I would never see her again.

Then I shook myself out of it and prepared to keep up my end of the bargain.

The plan was simple and effective and would succeed as Seven had determined.

The copy of the database which the captain had with her was laced with a virus which would immediately infest the alien vessels database and initialize the ships self-destruct sequence just seconds after being inserted into a data-reader. The ship would explode within seconds, blowing everything within a three light year radius to pieces.

As an added precaution, in case the virus didn’t have the desired effect on the ships database, the captain had taken a small pill with her which the doctor her given her. While she was keeping them preoccupied with the false data from the disk and we were fleeing for our lives, she would take the pill to prevent the aliens from prying any information out of her.

Two minutes after she would take the pill, she would suffer massive cardiac arrest and she would be dead within seconds.

I honestly can’t remember more than that.

I remember Tuvok telling me to jump to high warp and my fingers automatically keyed in the commands. While we were desperately hurling through subspace in our warp bubble, trying to get far enough away from them, we detected the explosion behind us.

The shockwave caught hold of us and threw us violently forward. The ship spun uncontrollably through space and by the time I could control her again, I thought that everything was over. We’d be seized within minutes and everything would have been futile.

But when the ensign at ops grinned and gasped out that the shockwave had thrown us clear of the aliens space, I felt in irresistable urge to laugh.

The captain had died, but doing it, she had once more come through for her ship and crew and had proven to me for the millionth time over the years that one can never lose hope and sight of their final goal. If you try hard enough, you’ll get there.

Strange how it took her death to fully make me understand that.

*          *          *

We lost so many others over the years. Icheb. Jenny Delayney. Samantha Wildman. Sue Nicoletti.

Some deaths were accidental, others were in sacrifice.

Jenny Delayney threw her sister out of the way when a hull breach tore open on the mess deck. Thirty crewmembers were sucked out into space and were lost in minutes due to the solar storm we were in. Megan would have been lost too, had Jenny not thrown her out of the way and given her time to grab onto a table, which Neelix and her clutched for dear life while they watched their friends and family being sucked screaming into space and hot solar flares.

Megan has never been able to get over her sisters death. For a while, she constantly berated herself for having been the one to survive, but I told her that Jenny had always felt that out of the two of them, Megan was worth more in her eyes. We had all always known it wasn’t true, but Jenny had never believed us. But now, I had always believed that she knew her sacrifice proved what we had always known all along. That she was just as strong and just as good of a person as her sister. Probably more.

I have forgotten how each of them had died. Over the years, their deaths had blended together and the details had blurred together until I can’t remember when or how they died. But then, suddenly, out of nowhere, something would happen and I would remember.

I would be sitting on the bridge and the turbolift would hiss open and I’d turn around, my mind flashing back to that Hirogen standing there and then I’d remember Harry.

I would be sitting in the messhall, quietly talking to Neelix when out of the corner of my eye, I’d see Megan sitting somewhere and then I’d remember Jenny.

*          *          *

Over the years, I have lost the ability to grieve. At first, I didn’t have the time. I had to be strong for Miral and the captain. Later on, I had to be strong for the rest of the crew when they looked to me to set the example and looked to me for strength and the motivation to live another day.

I’ll never forget the day when I found Ayala sitting in a Jefferies tube, sobbing with gut wretching sobs for the two captains he had loved and lost. How badly I wanted to crumble and sob out my grief like he was doing. How my heart was being torn to pieces and begged me to tell everyone to go to hell and drown myself in my own grief.

But I couldn’t do that.

So I pulled him into my arms and held him while he cried. It was the same way I had comforted my daughter, the captain, Neelix and even Seven.

At the time, I didn’t realize how ironic the situation was. How a Maquis who used to hate me and shove me against the wall, hissing that I was a traitor and had no right to be on this ship had turned to me for comfort.

But I had stopped thinking about him as a Maquis long ago. The line between the two crews had disappeared so long ago that I sometimes find myself thinking that we had all left earth together as one crew, and had set off to explore the universe. Then I’d remember and I’d laugh at my old withering imagination.

*          *          *

Later on, after we lost the captain, I finally lost it. I completely shut down. The grief and pain I had been suppressing came flooding back and hit me so hard that I was left weezing and gasping for breath.

Their deaths were slowly taking my life. I couldn’t do anything without thinking of them. I couldn’t sit on the bridge without feeling the captain and Chakotay’s presences behind me. I couldn’t eat in the messhall or play pool at Sandrine’s without feeling Harry’s presence standing close to me, laughing with me and joking around. I couldn’t lie in bed at night without feeling B’Elanna’s presence beside me, holding me and telling me she loved me and would never leave me.

Where ever I went, whatever I did, they were there. Out of all of them, I could feel B’Elanna the most. Walking down the corridor, I’d feel her walking beside me. Sitting at the helm or later in Chakotay’s chair, she’d be standing beside me, telling me to be gentle with her engines with that bright smile on her face.

I retreated so much into that world of grief and ghosts and days past that I nearly stopped living. I walked around in a complete daze, not eating or sleeping. Actually doing my job was out of the question. I’d be sitting on the bridge and the ensign at ops would be telling me about detecting something on long range sensors, but I wouldn’t hear him.

I’d be listening to B’Elanna telling me about something, laughing and joking around. Harry would be on my other side. The captain would be behind me, her hand on my shoulder. Chakotay sat on the chair next to me, also laughing over something.

The ensign at ops would have to come over and shake my old shoulders, softly coaxing me back to the real world. It would always frighten the daylights out of the people around me when I zoned out, laughing quietly and nodding in conversation with old faded ghosts who nobody else could see or hear except for me.

It got so bad that the Doctor finally pulled me aside. Although physically he didn’t look a bit different from when we had activated him three decades ago, the concern clouding his eyes and the worry creasing his forehead made him indistinguishable from a human doctor. I had never considered him anything else.

Yelling at me that I had to snap out of it and learn to deal with my grief in better ways, he was fuming when he shoved a padd in my face on which it plainly stated that I had neither ate nor drank anything that wasn’t alcoholic in the past five days and that I hadn’t had more than three hours of sleep over the entire time.

His anger had immediately snapped on that involuntary defensive response within me to match his anger with my own and I spat that it was none of his business and he should back off. Immediately, his anger faded.

His eyes and face softening, he sighed softly and tossed the padd onto a biobed.

Quietly, he told me that he was worried sick about me and he hated to see me wasting away like this. Being his usual blunt self, he told me that if I kept on going like this I was going to die.

I had snapped back that dying seemed way better than keeping on living in that kind of pain and grief.

As always, he was completely undeterred by my anger and calmly waited until my fuming had subsided. Then he quietly said that I had people on this ship who needed me and people who loved me and didn’t want me to stop living. They were my family and not only did they need me, but they were worried sick over me.

Finally, I snapped. I screamed at him that I didn’t have a family anymore. They had been the only family I had ever known and now they were dead.

That outburst seemed to rip the remains of my anger out of me and for the first time in years, my mask fell. That mask of arrogance which radiated the fact that I didn’t have a care in the world and that nothing could touch me and bother me. It came crashing down.

I collapsed on the floor, sobbing bitterly as grief and pain washed over me.

The doctor quietly knelt down beside me and pulled me into his arms, stroking my back and murmuring that I should go ahead and cry my heart out. He said he’d rather have me crying into his uniform any day than have me drinking and wasting my life away.

I have no idea how long we stayed there like that.

I sobbed bitterly, sometimes crying so hard that I couldn’t breath and sometimes muttering small snatches of things which didn’t make any sense. I bitterly swore at them for having left me after they had promised never to desert me. Then the anger evaporated and I went back to sobbing, telling the doctor to bring them back because I couldn’t live without them.

The doctor never complained. He remained there on the floor, holding me in his arms, quieting my outbursts with soothing words and rocking me back and forth while quietly apologizing that he couldn’t bring them back but he’d be here for me whenever I needed him.

*          *          *

After that, I slowly started healing. Neelix, Seven and the doctor all made sure I was eating and sleeping properly, even if it took a shuttle full of sedatives to do the job.

Tuvok forced me to go back to my duties. He always made sure he was close by when I was on the bridge so if I zoned out or dissolved into a grieving mess of tears, he would be there to offer words of comfort and help me back to my quarters where he let me rage and cry while he listening quietly, offering what he could.

Slowly, I got back to my normal life. As if this life could ever truly be considered normal.

The others all gradually recovered and went back to their lives as well, although something was always missing.

Ayala has never been able to address Tuvok as captain. He never has and never will. He can’t bring himself to call him Commander either. Tuvok said he completely understood and that the fact the two of them had known each other for nearly forty years allowed them to be on casual enough levels which allowed Ayala to address him by his first name.

I do the same. I somehow can’t bring myself to call Tuvok ‘captain’ either. It doesn’t have anything to do with disrespect or arrogance. No. It’s just that whenever I call Tuvok ‘captain’, my mind flashes back to someone else. Someone who Tuvok will never be able to replace in my heart or anybody else’s.

Neelix has lost that sparkle and that enthusiam which used to radiate his exuberant love of life. He still tells the best stories out of everyone and he takes the time to talk to everyone and makes it his personal duty to make sure everyone is happy and comfortable, but he’s quieter now. Something in his eyes had faded, like a candle which has nearly burnt out.

It still makes me laugh when I think about the fact that Tuvok and Neelix had become best friends over the past few years.

Their distinctly different personalities and views had been twisted and tweaked over the years until they had managed to find some sort of middle ground at which they met as equals.

Over the years, I know that Tuvok depends on Neelix and trusts him more than anybody else. On the fifth anniversary of the captain’s death, Tuvok locked himself into his room and allowed himself to cry soft tears of grief and remembrance.

Neelix was the only one whom Tuvok allowed into his quarters.

Seven had changed too. Some parts of her will never change. Her outspokenness. Her bluntness. Her inablity to keep her opinions to herself. Her vulnerabilty and the cold mask she immediately pulls on when she is hurt or lost and doesn’t know how to deal with certain situations.

The captain and Chakotay’s death hit her hard. She became more withdrawn and quieter. She cried more. She sat more.

She smiled more. But not amused, joyful smiles. Her smiles were sad and bitter.

It was a human trait which she hadn’t needed to learn from anybody. Her heart had developed it naturally.

Out of all of us—with the exception of the doctor—she had aged the least. Granted, next to Harry she had been the youngest out of all of us, but she still didn’t look her age.

She was in her sixties, but she still looked as young as she did the first day I saw her in her human form. Her hair had turned as white as the rest of ours, but she still kept it pinned up the same way she had always had it. Not a single wrinkle creased her skin and she never let her shoulders sag, always declaring that Borg didn’t slouch.

It’s ironic in a way. All of their deaths had helped Seven become more human than any lesson the doctor could create or explain.

She developed an intuition for understanding and reading people. She understood and respected others feelings and shared our grief, anger and joy without forcing herself to.

It’s come to the point where none of the children know she used to be Borg. Asides from the metallic implants and the occasional abrupt, blunt comment, she is indistinguishable from the rest of us.

The captain would have been proud of her. Hell, I think she’d have been proud of all of us.

Despite everything we’d been through, we’d still stuck together. We were still one crew with one mission. We’d all made a promise to our captain and we had kept it.

*          *          *

I draw in a shaky breath. We’d made it. We were home. That feeling of emptiness is slowly being filled by a deep sense of relief.

Finally. After all these years of pain, heartache and stubborn determination, I’d managed to keep that promise I’d made my captain so long ago.

I can feel the apprehension around me. The kids are all nervous, suddenly having had their lifelong mission coming to an end. I don’t think they had really believed that we’d get here. Although why they stuck with us for this long if they didn’t believe, I will never understand.

As I stare out of the front viewport, straining my fading eyesight, I can catch a glimpse of that beautiful, majestic ball of spinning green and blue which I had spent my whole life flying towards.

I smile quietly.

For a brief moment, I wonder why I don’t feel nervous and apprehensive like the kids do.

But then I shrug. It doesn’t matter.

I no longer care what the future holds. I don’t care what Starfleet thinks. I don’t care if we’re greeted as heroes or traitors. I don’t even care if they throw me back into prison since I’ve breached the terms of my parole by nearly half a century.

All I care about is that we’d made it.

I’d lost nearly everyone I cared about. I’d nearly lost that precious, fragile, wonderful life I had made for myself on this ship. But none of that mattered right now.

All that mattered and all I cared about was that we’d made it.

I’d kept my promise.

We were home. Limping, bruised, aged and battered, but we were home.

I watch as that spinning planet comes closer.

Suddenly, they’re all around me again.

B’Elanna is standing beside me, smiling at me. The captain is on my other side, her hand on my shoulder, smiling proudly with that small half smirk which always seemed to say that she knew I could do it.

The commander is behind me, leaning on the railing, smiling proudly. Harry is beside the captain. He claps me on the shoulder and grins at me.

I smile back.

We did it. We were home.

What the future holds for me, I neither know nor really care. This ship has been the only life I have ever truly had.

But whatever happens, it doesn’t hold any fear or apprehension for me, because all that matters, all that I care about is that I kept my promise.

Tomorrow had finally come.