Janeway: her coffee, insomnia and nocturnal journeys in San Franciso.

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I don't own Janeway, and I'm not making money off of her or this.

AN: Janeway can best be seen in her love for the crew, which is seen in her love for the physical ship. I originally thought about bringing Tuvok into it, but that didn't work. The story was inspired by me thinking to myself in French, and thinking of the subtle demarcation between the way we say we are bereft. "I miss her." Or, in French, "She is missing to me."

Abbey Carter: abbey@repunk.com

She takes comfort in the fact that the city never sleeps. Empty coffee mugs are strewn around her kitchen table, and standing beside it, she can see the lights of San Franciso blinking patiently.

Her pulse quickens as her eyes remember the blue glow in the distance, and the rhythmic throbs of white and red that accompany it.

Voyager is now a museum, and Admiral Janeway doesn't want to sleep. Everything is too quiet, her replicator works too well, and her apartment isn't messy enough-save for the coffee cups. What she wouldn't give for a couple of Borg cubes right now...

The itch twitches at her neck and she snaps her tendons and exits the apartment, entering the locking codes behind her.

The streets of San Franciso are slightly damp as she thinks of Voyager. She is out of uniform in a white blouse and beige slacks that she'd worn to a casual Fleet function that evening.

The lights splay off the skin of her neck and she thinks about her ship, home only four years and grounded. A man seems to take in the curve of her breasts and she thinks that it might be fun to take her out for a spin. She left the stars much too soon.

She doesn't feel the walk to the Presido. But she feels her throat tighten and her scalp itch when the curves of Voyager come into view. There is a small access panel near the starboard side of the port nacelle, and she climbs over the fence that separates her from Voyager, one leg spreading horizontally to glide over the rail.

She runs a hand along Voyager's hull slowly. The handle lifts upwards and she enters a code and crawls into the open hatch.

Voyager's corridors. Her consoles. Her hands grip both sides of a doorway. Her ready room is roped off with a display sign. The doors to her quarters are open too, and a shining coffee mug and silk plants dot the sitting area.

Her eyes flick to the viewport, the black, plain viewport. The stars are displayed in a diagram over her desk.

She has never felt the compulsion to come here before. But she's realized that the Admiral wasn't blanched by the Delta Quadrant, but by Earth. And that she should get a dog and learn to cook and that she is not unattractive, could go out for a spin and come back to a safe apartment with four solid walls and no commbadges. Maybe it is the realization that she has lost those human impulses. Maybe she needs to remember. Maybe she needs evidence that she is right.

The air of use ends when she walks into the bedroom. There are no paintings on the wall, no picture frames on the bureaus. The bureaus and the bed frame are bolted to the floor.

Her virgin bed frame. The mattress is gone, and she stands where it should be, and then sinks her knees to the floor and lets the metal dig into her neck.

She would like to speak to the room, to tell her what she lost, what she gave up. To blame it because she lost the desire to have sex and get a dog. Because she lost the one she had. But she doesn't. Because those things are peripheral and weak and because the shadow of existence, torn and absolute, is one that she carries with her willingly and could not subsist without.

It would be inaccurate to say that she doesn't physically miss Voyager. The walls have that same smell, and she leans against the headboard (which is screwed into the wall) and lets her legs drift aimlessly. But is not only Voyager's physical being that she misses. Misses is even the wrong word. Voyager is missing to her. And searching for the type of existence she had on it would be pointless.

She drags herself up and heads for engineering. The warp core is a holographic representation of swirling blues and greens, and it makes no sound. She puts her hands to the tube, willing it to show her the secret, to share itself with her. Share Voyager. This is fair because Voyager knows she will give whatever is needed. That anything less would be sacrilegious. Her hands press against the polymer, and the hologram presses back.

She doesn't get lost on Deck 15. Seven's domain has been stripped of alcoves. The bridge still appears operational. She grips the railing and imagines the viewscreen filling with Borg Cubes and tilts her head back as if living the thrust of photon torpedoes. She does not sit in the chair.

She does not open anyone else's quarters, either, but imagines them still the same. Doubtless their bed frames are bare and bolted to the floor as well, and there's an odd sense of despair and symmetry that they are all the same; stripped down and still immortalized, unchanging. Forever changed. It is good. Ironically, it is a fitting tribute.

The remains of one. She goes back to her quarters and pushes her arm against the back of a chair, teeth gritting. Home will not be counterfeited. Not by her. For a moment, the ship rushes with energy, into her arms, up to her head. The shadow is alive. She lets her lungs gasp and draws her lips into an upwards line tremulously.

Her lungs grate. The shadow clenches her. It is good. She walks out of the room and crawls into the night.

La Fin.