Title: Mother Crazed
Author: Abbey Carter
E-mail: abbey@repunk.com
Series: VOY
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG
Codes: J
Archive: Sure
Summary: Approaching the end of season six, Janeway muses on what sort of captain she has become. Thanks to Djinn for an excellent beta.
Disclaimer: Don't own these characters, aren't profiting because of them.

Maybe it's the coffee, or perhaps it's the time of year. Janeway stops reading, contemplates Voyager's journey. They are nearing the end of their sixth year in the Delta Quadrant. Memories wrap and smother her mind. She can't get enough air at the end of every year.

Six years. Now she likes the lights in her quarters low. Dante trembles in her hand. She should be grateful. They've made contact with Star fleet, survived numerous contacts with hostile creatures and demonic pieces of technology. Ensign Ballard has a new life.

The stars outside her quarters warp away. She stands, eyes the stack of completed padds on her desk. It seems that Chakotay doesn't think she's crazy anymore. He doesn't like to think of her at all, that much is clear. She doesn't know what he's doing at the moment, and quite frankly, she doesn't want to know. She supposes not much has changed, and doubts she is truly less crazy.

The night before, she dreamt that she was in Indiana. She walked through fields; their dead and trampled cornstalks half disguised by the snow. Icy, cold snow that was clean and fresh. With every step she took, the ice coating the snow broke and her boot plunged into the powder. It didn't help her mood, those images of ice and plunging and cold, cold so deep it could only mean one thing. Twenty years ago. She was supposed to be over that.

She seemed to wake then, wake in a warm room, legs covering her own, many legs, legs thick and thin, a head pressed against the soles of her feet. Outside, it was winter. Chakotay stirred at her side, Tuvok had a palm pressed to the back of her neck. Tom and B'Elanna fought at the foot of the bed as Naomi attempted to sleep. Flotter was wrapped around her side. Seven lay crosswise, eyes clenched shut. Clearly, the chatter of the waking crewmen was irrelevant.

Janeway yawned, brushed hair out of her eyes. The Borg Baby at her breast stirred, ice crystals formed on the window, and Harry Kim rolled in his sleep, nudging her slightly in the hip.

She woke to Tuvok's voice over the comm and the insistent beeping of an ignored alarm. The dream stayed with her all day.

Her quarters are silent and still. She walks to the replicator with memories of warm quilts, snatches of laughter and the sound of pillows hitting assorted limbs. The bed of her dream represented a strong bond, one that seemed nearly animal in its starkness. She should have been embarrassed, but the image of countless crew members piled in her bed didn't repulse her. She is quite willing to be a mother to the crew, if that is what getting home takes. She chastises herself; coffee burns her tongue. A captain isn't supposed to be a mother to the crew. However, she isn't a typical captain. She swirls the coffee around, glances out the view port. When had she stopped being a typical captain? The answer is, of course, irrelevant.

Reluctantly, she pulls down the sheets, wonders what tonight's revelation will be. There is no line between mother and crazed insomniac. Indeed, each is an integral part of the other. She wonders which aspect will be the first to go.

END