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Kathryn Janeway had a smile on her face as she approached her quarters. Neelix's invention of Ancestors’ Eve had been just the thing.
She looked down at the framed photo in her hand—the Janeway family circa 2050—as she stepped through the door. Strange how, even in uneventful space, she could still make discoveries that changed her perception of the world.
The doors closed behind her, which was a noise she expected. An unfortunately-familiar voice greeted her, which was not.
“Happy Ancestors’ Eve!”
Her head snapped up. Q was lounging on the couch, feet propped up on her coffee table.
“Q!” Her hand went straight to her commbadge. “Janeway to Security.” There was no reply. She wasn’t surprised.
“Why, Kathy, you almost don’t seem pleased to see me.”
“Whatever gave you that idea?” She stepped forward and glared, pointedly. “Get your feet off my table.”
Q rolled his eyes but complied, springing up from the couch. He looked smug, but then he always did. He looked... excited. Like a kid at Christmas. One that was a harbinger of doom, or at least extreme danger.
Kathryn put the photo down on the table and straightened, folding her arms.
“So, should I call the red alert now or wait until destruction is imminent?”
“Oh, nothing like that.” Q waved a hand. “I came to celebrate.”
“You missed it. It was in the Mess Hall.”
“Privately.”
“I’m still not interested.” She turned away, heading to the replicator and blessed coffee. “You know the way out.”
“Not like that.” She turned back and found him pouting. “You are my son’s godmother, are you not?”
“Yes?” If this was leading up to leaving her in charge of a baby Q...
“Seeing as you’re the one who introduced me to the joys of family life, I thought I should get you a gift on this auspicious occasion.”
“I already have a gift.” She gestured towards the photo on the table and tried her commbadge again, just to make the point. “Janeway to security.”
“Oh please.” Q rolled his eyes. “It was very resourceful of the furry one, I’m sure, but I can do much better. Give me ten minutes and then you can have as many burly yellowshirts as your heart desires.”
He snapped his fingers and a woman flashed into existence between them. Or the image of her. Her brow was slightly furrowed but she stood silently, not moving or reacting.
“Ta-da! Shannon Janeway, née O’Donnel, April 22nd 2002.”
Kathryn stared. “She looks like me.”
“Doesn’t she just.”
“Did you do that?”
Q snorted. “You didn’t see the resemblance in that photo there? No, don’t blame me for your species’ shallow gene pool. You all descend from about a thousand individuals and the biggest genetic variance between any two humans is 0.1%. It’s no wonder you look like someone you’re actually related to.”
“But it’s fifteen generations. The number of recombination events—”
“According to simple mathematics, you should have more than 32,000 ancestors at such a distance. Most from the same corner of Indiana? Trust me, she’s your ancestor several times over. You just happen to have inherited the bits in the right order. Or bits that are similar enough to hers that it makes no difference.”
Kathryn’s gaze left Shannon’s face. She wore grey pyjamas with a greenish patterned shawl draped over her shoulders that did nothing to disguise—
“She’s pregnant.”
“It was buy one get one free at the ancestor store,” Q quipped. “Or possibly two. Can’t waste time at her age.”
Kathryn barely heard him. It was disconcerting to see an image of herself that definitely wasn’t her. What was Q’s purpose here? Despite his protestations, was he angling to give his son a half-human sibling and this more of his needling about the unlikeliness of the child she’d always imagined in her future? It wouldn’t work. If she were willing to have a child on Voyager, which she wasn’t, it definitely wouldn’t be with him.
“Well, thank you for the gift, Q. Now I can tell Aunt Martha that Shannon O’Donnel might not have worked on the Mars missions, or fought for the Millennium Gate when all were against her, but she looked exactly like me because we’re all a bunch of inbreds.”
Q tutted. “I’m hardly accusing you of being ancient royalty. You can’t possibly tell me you’d care if you and that first officer of yours had a common ancestor eight generations ago.”
“I’d be amazed.”
“Fair, it’s a lot more than that.”
Kathryn took a deep breath. “Are we done, Q? We’re due to reach that Class Y cluster the day after tomorrow and I’d hate to miss it.”
“I thought you’d be more curious.”
“About?”
“Her!” He waved towards Shannon. “You were complaining that the raw material was fragmented and incomplete. Don’t you have questions to ask?”
Kathryn blinked. “You took my ancestor out of her time and brought her here to answer my genealogy questions?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I told you, it’s a gift. For Ancestors’ Eve.” Before Kathryn could object—something about Qs bearing gifts was uppermost in her mind—he continued, “She won’t remember anything. And I can return her in an instant if anything happens here, which it won’t. Your existence is safe.”
“It’s certainly not that,” Kathryn muttered to herself and, addressing Q again, continued, “And why 2002? Why not—” She gestured towards the photo. “She’s not even halfway through her life. The Millennium Gate has only just broken ground. There’s so much she won’t know because it hasn’t happened yet.”
“You’re the same age.”
“And?”
“I thought you’d get along better.” Q snapped his fingers.
Shannon swayed and took a step forward. Q vanished from behind her and reappeared at Kathryn’s shoulder. She took a step away from him as Shannon’s eyes focused upon them.
“Who are you?” She looked right. “Where am I?” Left. The sight of the stars seemed to briefly transfix her.
“Can’t go wrong with the classics!”
Q’s comment brought Shannon’s attention snapping back to them. Kathryn turned her head to glare at him then raised her hands placatingly as Shannon backed away.
“You’re having a very strange dream—”
Shannon shook her head. Her shoulders were hunched, one hand clutching the shawl together, the other curled over her belly, but her voice was firm. “No, I’m not. People in dreams never tell you you’re dreaming.”
“She’s got you there, Kathy!”
“I was on my way back from the bathroom. And then I was here. With you. Why do you look like me? And what’s out there?” She nodded to the window.
Kathryn took a deep breath.
“Go on, tell her.” Q leaned irritatingly on her shoulder. She glanced at him. “Where, when and who you are. Tell her anything she wants to know. No impact to the timeline, I promise. I wouldn’t risk your existence, dearest godmother.”
Was this all leading up to a bout of baby-Q-sitting? Or some kind of lesson for humanity? Kathryn steeled herself and, against every word of Starfleet training on the matter, answered Shannon’s questions.
“My name is Kathryn Janeway.” Shannon’s lips shaped the surname but she remained silent. “The year is 2375 and I’m your 13 times great-granddaughter. We’re onboard the starship Voyager. This omnipotent pest here is called Q. He brought you here to talk to me.”
Shannon clearly struggled to choose which of these statements to address first. Eventually she settled on “Omnipotent?”
Q vanished from Kathryn’s side and reappeared directly in front of Shannon, who jerked back in surprise.
“That’s right! Brains, beauty, charm, absolute mastery of time, space and matter: the complete package, you might say. Cookie?” A paper bag winked into existence in his hand; he held it out to her.
Shannon made no move to take one. “My parents always told me never to accept cookies from a strange man.”
“Ah, but I’m not a man.”
“He is definitely strange, though,” Kathryn volunteered.
Q looked back at her. “This is the thanks I get?”
Shannon looked past him to her. “You said he brought me here to talk to you. Why?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t ask him to. I’ve been doing a little family history around the Millennium Gate.” Kathryn hesitated over her next words. Hadn’t she dreamt of this as a child? Shannon O’Donnel, Amelia Earhart, Junko Tabei: tales of pioneering female explorers in an age before gender equality had lit her imagination as a child and she’d wished for a chance to tell them how much they meant to her. She’d had that chance with Amelia Earhart. The impact stories of Shannon had had on her was none the less, even if the actual woman in front of her had never done the things that were spoken about at Janeway family dinners. As Seven had said, the actual historical details were irrelevant. She could be vague. “You inspired me to do what I do.”
Unsurprisingly, Shannon looked confused at this. ‘You’re an engineer?”
“No, I...” She couldn’t very well say astronaut or explorer or leader. Those had been the qualities she had most admired and tried to emulate but Shannon hadn’t been brought up on stories of her own heroics and knew perfectly well what she was and was not. Kathryn couldn’t tell her, this woman who looked like her but stood so differently, how disappointed she had been to discover the truth of her. “I get by but it’s not my speciality.”
Q rolled his eyes, disappearing and reappearing at Kathryn’s shoulder. “Kathy here is being uncharacteristically modest. See these pips?” He ran his finger along the row: Kathryn turned her head to glare at him and stepped away again. “What she’s neglected to tell you, and I can’t think why since she seems to insist on telling everyone else within a light year, is that she is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager.”
“My great-great-great-great-granddaughter is a starship captain and she wants to hear about me?” Shannon raised her eyebrows, smiling slightly. “I take it back, maybe this is a dream.”
“Coffee?” Kathryn offered.
“Do you have decaf?”
Kathryn nodded. “How do you take it?”
“Black is fine.”
“A woman after my own heart.” Kathryn walked the few steps to the replicator. “Coffee, decaf, black.” If the Doctor was monitoring her replicator use, as he had recently threatened to do, he might well decompile with shock. The coffee cup shimmered into existence and she picked it up. “Coffee, black.” There. Balance in the universe.
She carried the coffees back to Shannon, who looked from the cups to the replicator and back to the cups.
“How does that work?”
Kathryn passed her the decaf and took a sip from her own coffee. “It’s a replicator. It converts energy into matter and vice versa.”
“Not just a coffee machine?”
“No, it can make most material objects, if it’s programmed for it. Food, clothing, toiletries, medicine, machinery...”
Shannon nodded slowly. “That must save on storage space. Are they just on ships?”
“No, most homes have one.”
Shannon looked surprised. “They must be expensive.”
“They don’t cost anything. We eliminated poverty and hunger a long time ago. At least back home.” She smiled. “Here it’s not so much of a sure thing. Coffee is the only edible thing this one will reliably produce for me.”
Shannon gingerly took a sip. “Incredible.”
“I think it holds a grudge against me. Chakotay always says I’d starve if he wasn’t on hand to sweet talk my replicator.”
“Chakotay?”
“My first officer. He’s a good friend.” Back on the couch, Q snorted and Kathryn continued evenly, “He’s wrong, though. Neelix would never let that happen. Neelix is our cook,” she added, anticipating Shannon’s question. “Morale officer, ambassador. He declared today Ancestors’ Eve and Q here thought your presence would make a good gift.”
“You’re welcome!” Q called.
“Feet down!” Kathryn returned.
“He declared today Ancestors’ Eve?” Shannon repeated. “Why?”
“A day for family. Neelix loves to celebrate holidays,” Kathryn deflected. She was hardly going to tell Shannon that Neelix had invented the holiday to cheer her up after discovering her illustrious ancestor Shannon O’Donnel hadn’t been quite that illustrious. “We do Talaxian Prixin, the Klingon Kot'baval Festival, the Bajoran Gratitude Festival, Christmas, First Contact Day—”
“First Contact Day?”
“April 5th, 2063. Zefram Cochrane launched the first warp flight and the Vulcans came to say hello.”
Shannon stared at her for a long moment. “You’re telling me that aliens are real? Intelligent life elsewhere?”
“I’m right here!” Q complained.
Kathryn grinned over at him. “She said what she said.” And to Shannon, “Yes, the galaxy is full of life. Humanoid and otherwise. We’ve encountered new forms of life several times on Voyager. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, as the Vulcans say.”
Shannon turned towards the window, blinking rapidly. “2063. Well. I'm sorry to miss that.”
“Tuvok to the Captain.”
“Speak of the devil.” Kathryn tapped her commbadge. “Go ahead.”
“Scans are picking up unusual activity in your quarters. There seems to be an unregistered human lifesign present.”
“Q is here, Tuvok. And he brought... a friend.”
“Do you require assistance?”
Kathryn hesitated. Q looked smug.
“Not at this moment. Thank you, Commander.”
“Ten minutes on the dot. The moment there was something to see. He’s on the ball, your Vulcan. But monitoring your quarters? Don’t you have any privacy, Kathy?”
Kathryn took a deep breath. “No, Q, I really don’t. So go away.”
“Me?” He affected a look of outraged innocence. “Why me?”
“You brought Shannon here to talk to me. I’m well aware I can’t stop you eavesdropping”—if he thought she had missed him quoting what she’d said to Chakotay, he was very much mistaken—“but I would appreciate at least the illusion of privacy.”
“I’ll be as quiet as a Zyznian church mouse.” Kathryn stared levelly at him and he relented. “Oh, all right. Where should I go?”
“You’re the one with absolute mastery of time and space. Just get off my ship. I don’t want to worry about you terrorising my crew. You can come back at midnight.”
Q rolled his eyes again, snapped his fingers, and was gone.
Kathryn turned back, joining Shannon in gazing at the stars, and they stood in silence for several moments, sipping coffee.
“Where are we?” Shannon asked eventually. “I know it must look different from this perspective but I don’t recognise any of this.”
“We’re in the Delta Quadrant. About thirty-five thousand light years from Earth.”
Shannon took this in. “This must be one hell of a fast ship.”
“Not that fast, unfortunately.”
“Oh, is it generational? Are you—”
Kathryn held up a hand. “No, I’m from Earth. Bloomington, in fact. But we were pulled into the Delta Quadrant by an alien entity. We’ve found some shortcuts and we’ve managed to cover half the distance home in just four years but, without more shortcuts, it'll take us at least another thirty-five years to get back.”
“Thirty-five years,” Shannon echoed quietly, and shook her head. “I love to explore. But I’ve found it’s much better to have somewhere to return to.”
“You love exploring?” She shouldn’t have been surprised, Kathryn realised. Shannon O’Donnel might not have gone to Mars but she had wanted to. She had wanted to be an astronaut and whatever had stopped her completing the training hadn’t necessarily lessened that desire.
“I do. Admittedly it’s not always been entirely by choice, I’ve had to move around a lot, but if you’re making a journey, why not see the sights?”
“Exactly! We’ve seen some amazing stuff here, encountered phenomena the Federation has never seen before. The data we’ve collected should keep a team of scientists busy for years once we get back.”
“I suppose our sights are a little less impressive. Last weekend, Henry and I drove to see Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, recreated entirely in corn.”
Kathryn grinned. “I’d like to see that.”
Shannon laughed. “It was recommended in the guidebook.”
“We could do with one of those for the Delta Quadrant.”
“I guess you’ll have to write it.”
It has been reported that a cure has been found for the Vidiian Phage. If true, incidences of unwilling organ donation should be greatly decreased but caution is still advised. Kathryn shook her head to clear the fancy. “Our mission logs would be a pretty good basis but unfortunately they’re classified.”
“Shame.” Shannon stared at the stars. “You know, I trained to be an astronaut.”
“I know.”
Shannon looked briefly surprised. “Oh, of course. Then I suppose you also know I didn’t make the cut.”
Kathryn nodded. So it hadn’t been her choice.
“At the time I thought it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. But now I wouldn’t change it for the world.” Shannon’s free hand curved over her belly.
“We were talking about this tonight. Without you”—both versions of her, real and imagined—“I wouldn’t do what I do, we wouldn’t be here, and we never would have all known each other. I can’t imagine not knowing—”
“Chakotay to Janeway.”
“Yes.”
“Are you all right, Kathryn?”
Kathryn smiled apologetically at Shannon and took several steps away. “I’m fine, Chakotay. Why do you ask?” Had Tuvok reported his findings and their conversation to Chakotay? She’d told him she didn’t need assistance. And Chakotay was off-duty.
“Q just popped in here. He wished me a happy Ancestors’ Eve and asked me what I got you. Then he said I needn’t bother anyway as no-one could top his gift.”
“I told him to get off the ship till midnight.”
“Gift, Kathryn?”
Kathryn took several more steps and lowered her voice. “Shannon O’Donnel is here. She’s from 2002, she’s heavily pregnant, and she’s drinking decaf coffee from the replicator.”
“Decaf? Are you sure you’re related?”
“She looks exactly like me.”
“Do you want me to come over?”
“No. No, I don’t want to overwhelm the poor woman.”
She realised what she’d said the moment the words were out of her mouth. Chakotay was silent but she could well picture the lift of his mouth, the spark in his eye at the implication she thought of him as overwhelming. Warmth entirely unrelated to the coffee spread through her chest.
“Let me know if Q returns or you hear reports of him elsewhere.”
“Will do. Enjoy your family reunion. Call if you need anything.”
Kathryn turned back to the room and found Shannon standing by the coffee table, looking down at the photo of her future family.
“Is this your family?” she asked as Kathryn reached her side.
“Yes,” Kathryn said truthfully and hoped Shannon hadn’t been able to make out much detail at that distance. She might well not recognise herself—Kathryn hadn’t seen the obvious resemblance behind the extra fifty years of age—but it would surely be unsettling for her if she did. Keen to divert her attention, she added, “The Doctor took a family photo of my senior staff for Ancestors’ Eve. Would you like to see it?”
She led the way to her console, waved Shannon into the chair, and called up the photo the Doctor had sent to them all.
“He said it was fitting to capture the present as we honoured the past. Maybe Tom and B’Elanna”—she tapped their images, Tom’s arms tight around B’Elanna—“will have children or grandchildren who look back at this photo and think of us.”
Shannon gazed at it. “I’d ask who everyone else is but... am I going to remember this?”
“Q said not. It might disrupt the timeline if you did.”
Shannon put her mug down. It clinked against the desk. “So if I ask a question just for myself, right now, will you tell me the truth?”
Kathryn frowned, leaning her hip against the desk, and drained her own cup. “Go ahead. I can’t guarantee I’ll know the answer, though.”
“Why me? I mean, why this specific me? If he wanted to help you with your family history, why not an older me, who’s done more, knows more?”
Kathryn shrugged. “I asked the same question. He said he thought we'd get on better being the same age.”
“Right.” Shannon looked at her searchingly. “And that’s all? Because”—her voice wobbled—“Henry’s first wife Linda died when Jason was young and he barely remembers her and I thought maybe it happens again and that’s why, that there aren’t any much older versions of me...”
“Oh no.” What a thing for her to be thinking. It was a reasonable hypothesis, Kathryn supposed. And no wonder she had asked. From her viewpoint, she could get reassurance in the now, or at worst have her fears confirmed knowing she’d forget about it on her return home. Though had it been the case, Kathryn wasn’t sure she could have told her. It wasn’t. Thankfully it wasn’t. She laid her hand on Shannon’s shoulder. “The ways of the Q are often inexplicable but it wasn’t that, I promise.”
Shannon gazed up at her for several moments more, then turned away and wept. Fear, because she didn’t believe her? Relief, because she did? Kathryn’s hand tightened on her shoulder; her eye fell upon the photo, sitting on the coffee table. She hurried over and brought it back. She had thought it might be unsettling. Maybe instead it could be reassuring.
“Shannon”—‘Mrs Janeway’ sounded like she was addressing her mom, if she was someone her mom didn’t like very much, and who knew if Shannon even used that address— “Shannon, look.”
Shannon took a deep breath and looked up. She took the photo Kathryn held out to her. “Your family?”
“Technically, yes. But more immediately, yours.” Shannon frowned and Kathryn added, “This photo was taken in 2050.”
“2050? But...” Shannon looked at it more closely and touched her finger to a face. “Oh, he looks like Henry. And... is that me?”
Kathryn nodded.
“I look like my grandmother! I must be, what, 91, 92?” She drank it in and looked back at Kathryn. “Thank you.” Setting the photo down, she swiped at her eyes. “I can’t believe you have this, after 300 years. I’m sorry. I cry at everything right now.”
“No need to apologise.” Kathryn touched her shoulder again. “Would you like something to eat?”
Shannon managed a smile. “A midnight snack?”
“It’s not that late.”
“It was the middle of the night for me when he brought me here. Don’t argue with your granny,” Shannon added, with a lift of her eyebrows, and Kathryn had to laugh.
“Fine. Would you like a midnight snack?”
“Are we risking the replicator?”
“It might like you better.”
Shannon looked taken aback. “Oh, I couldn’t...”
“Just walk over and ask for what you want. If it needs more information, it’ll give you options.”
“And where does it go wrong?”
“When you try to get creative,” Kathryn admitted.
“Ah.” Shannon moved towards the replicator and Kathryn took the opportunity to check for new messages. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that looked Q-shaped.
“What did you decide?” she asked, walking over.
Shannon turned from the replicator, plate in hand. “Pecan pie. Plate, pie, fork. All made the same way?”
Kathryn grinned. So the real Shannon O’Donnel hadn’t gone to Mars or courageously faced down opposition to build the Millennium Gate. But she drank black coffee and liked pecan pie and these small similarities across the centuries delighted Kathryn. “All made the same way. I think I’ll join you. Pecan pie.”
Kathryn led the way back to the couch and they settled themselves, Shannon with considerably more difficulty.
Shannon ate several bites of her pie before speaking. “I don’t suppose anyone cooks anymore.”
“Some people do. I don’t.” Kathryn smiled ruefully and took a forkful of pie. “My mom’s a good cook, though. So is Chakotay.”
“I thought Neelix was your cook?”
“Neelix cooks for the crew. Chakotay cooks for me. We usually have dinner together a couple of times a week.”
“Anywhere nice?”
“Our quarters. That is, we take it in turns.”
“Henry likes to set the scene with a book on the table. Art, or photography. We’ve dined all over the world. The first time we had dinner together, we went to Paris.” Shannon smiled.
Kathryn briefly enjoyed the image of propping a book on the dining table and explaining her 13 times great-grandfather’s idea to Chakotay. Like a turn of the millennium holodeck. “Maybe we’ll try that.” Though probably only if Chakotay donated the replicator rations for the book. Her balance was going to be severely depleted after tonight and it was only Tuesday. “How did you meet Henry? When you came to work on the Millennium Gate?”
“It was the other way round, actually. I was on the interstate when my car started making this noise...”
The flash of Q’s appearance was immediately followed by the flash of a holo-imager.
“Say cheese!”
Kathryn blinked and sat up. “What—”
“I thought you’d like another family photo for Ancestors’ Eve. A candid shot!”
“Is it midnight already?”
“One minute past,” Q said.
“Two midnights in one night.” Shannon leant her head against the back of the couch. “No wonder I’m exhausted.”
Kathryn stood and Q passed the camera to her. In the image, she was curled on her side, facing Shannon. Shannon sat straight but her face was turned towards her. She was laughing; Shannon smiling. They looked happy, relaxed. They looked like family enjoying each other’s company, with no sign of the centuries and light years distance between them. Longing stabbed through her. God, I miss home.
She swallowed it down and focused on the holo-imager in her hands. A familiar-looking holo-imager.
“Where did you get this?”
Q shrugged. “Your doctor wasn’t using it.”
Kathryn groaned inwardly. Complete mastery of time, space and matter and he had to resort to petty thievery. She’d be lying if she said she’d never fantasised about doing away with the Doctor’s camera, particularly during hour two of one of his holographic exhibitions, but that would be unworthy of her. Besides, they’d all get an earful while he tried turning the ship upside down to find it and then he would just replicate a new one. “Put it back.”
“Can I see it first?” Shannon asked.
Kathryn handed it over.
“It’s a nice photo.” Shannon smiled wistfully and handed the holo-imager back. “Keep it for me? I don’t have many family photos.”
Kathryn’s console chimed to alert her to a new message, in exactly the way it shouldn’t at this time of night.
“Copy for you, Kathy.”
“Thank you, Q.” Kathryn deleted the original from the camera’s memory. She didn’t want to end up in a conversation with the Doctor along the lines of I’m happy to lend you my holo-imager, of course, Captain, as long as you take good care of it, but really, I would appreciate it if you asked permission in future. “Now put it back exactly where and how it was.”
It vanished from her hand. She hoped he’d done as she asked. She’d soon know if he hadn’t.
“You’ll do the same for me?” Shannon asked Q. “I don’t want anyone to worry.”
“I can return you to the very nanosecond after you left, not a millimetre out of place,” Q reassured her.
“Good. I’ve got plans and I need at least the chance to get some sleep.”
She held out a hand and Kathryn took it, helping to pull her to her feet. Shannon didn’t let go.
“Happy Ancestors’ Eve,” she said, looking straight into identical blue eyes. “Safe journey.”
“Happy Ancestors’ Eve,” Kathryn echoed. “Thank you.”
Their grip on each other briefly tightened, and then she was gone. Kathryn slowly curled her hand closed, still feeling the warmth and pressure of Shannon’s clasp.
“So you had a good time?”
“Yes,” Kathryn admitted. “It was good to meet her. You know, she actually was instrumental in getting the Millennium Gate built. At least in Portage Creek. All Henry Janeway had to do to thwart the development was sit tight in his bookshop. She turned her car around and came back to persuade him in the nick of time, led the way into their future. That’s not in public records. So our family stories aren’t completely wrong. It might not have been the whole town, but she still convinced the opposition, paved the way for it to be built. Who knows what might have happened if the development had had to move to Ohio? Things might have gone wrong. It might never have been built at all.”
Q looked smug.
“So why did you bring her here? Will you tell me now?”
“I already told you, it was a gift.”
Kathryn raised her eyebrows.
“For both of you.”
A chill struck her. “You said she wouldn’t remember anything.”
“Hardly anything.” Q waved a hand. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I promised the timeline and your existence was safe and so it is. She won’t remember being here, or anything you told her. Just some of that sense of hope and optimism. She’s going to need it.”
Kathryn frowned. With a snap of Q’s fingers, Shannon’s family photo reappeared on the coffee table next to them. He gestured to it.
“Your pet Talaxian was mistaken. Or rather misinformed by that Ferengi database. Rule of Acquisition 239: never be afraid to mislabel a product. This wasn’t taken in a park near Portage Creek; it wasn’t to commemorate the anniversary of the Millennium Gate; it wasn’t 2050.”
Kathryn waited. No doubt Q would proceed to enlighten her of the true circumstances.
“It’s 2053. They’re inside the Millennium Gate itself.”
Not a good year. Picking up the photo, Kathryn touched her fingers to Shannon’s face, looked at the bright smiles of her family.
“It’s a self-sustaining city, you see,” Q continued. “A separate biosphere.”
“They’re sheltering.”
“Bingo. Over the first few months of 2053, almost the entire population of Portage Creek moves indoors. The Janeway family are key instigators and organisers, led by their matriarch. This photo was taken on April 22nd 2053. Outside, riots are raging in major cities; in just over a week, the nuclear missiles will fly, governments will crumble and humanity enters a new age. But it’s Shannon’s 95th birthday and they always take a family photo on her birthday, have done for decades, and why should this year be any different?” Q pursed his lips. “As a nostalgic gift item, commemorating the anniversary of the engineering marvel, the blueprint for new ventures, lands rather better than a family hiding from impending nuclear destruction celebrating the birthday of an old woman who won’t live to see the outside world again, don’t you think?”
Kathryn’s heart hurt. “She wanted to explore.”
“And she did. Don’t think the circumstances of her death were reflective of how she lived. She had plenty of stories to tell the grandkids. By the time they leave years later, these little redheads barely remember the outside world. What they do remember is Granny’s stories about all the places she’d been. Oh, she might have got a bit fanciful but Granny’s Adventures with the Friendly Rover Robot on Mars were a big hit.”
“And those stories get passed down for hundreds of years.”
“Inspiring the young Kathryn Janeway to go boldly into Starfleet, following in the footsteps of her father and a long line of Janeway explorers.” Q gestured grandly towards her. “It’s a very sweet story on your end.”
Kathryn took a breath. How fitting a coincidence that Shannon’s birthday should fall around now, around this quiet stretch of travel and the sharing of family stories, on the very day Neelix declared Ancestors’ Eve. No wonder she had plans.
“Here.”
“What’s this?” Kathryn took what Q held out to her. It was a printed photo. In it, Shannon, looking just as she’d met her, stood between Henry Janeway and a dark-haired teenage boy, her arms around them both. That must be Jason, Kathryn surmised. They were all smiling, Henry a little self-consciously. His hair was white rather than the blond she had assumed from his monochrome photo in the newspaper.
“April 22nd 2002. Shannon decides she wants a family photo for her birthday. The first of many. Wonder where she got that idea?”
Kathryn frowned, trying to untangle the causality. Was Q claiming that Shannon's visit here—even forgotten as he’d promised—had inspired her to create a tradition of family portraits on her birthday, coincidentally deemed Ancestors’ Eve nearly four hundred years later? That the family photo the crew had taken for Ancestors’ Eve, inspired by Shannon’s family portrait, had in turn inspired that portrait? Or even that Shannon seeing her own family portrait, simultaneously fifty years before and three hundred years after it was taken, had led to it? Kathryn shook her head. She hated time travel.
She bent to place both photos on the table. “Why are you telling me all this? And don’t say it’s a gift.”
Q affected a wounded look. “What a suspicious mind you have. Can’t a Q do something out of the goodness of his heart?”
“Last time you said you wanted a child because you were lonely. And then it turned out the Continuum was embroiled in a civil war.”
“And now I have a child. You taught me the importance of family. I’m a changed Q. A better Q.”
Kathryn crossed her arms.
“Oh, all right.” Q waved a hand. “It was Junior’s idea. We were taking a tour of early 21st century Earth and who do you think we come across? We have a lovely conversation with her and her husband, which makes it clear that she’s not a temporally embarrassed starship captain, but nothing will satisfy Junior than to learn the whole story and then that I should bring you together. The first duty of a Starfleet officer is to the truth, after all. A gesture of appreciation for his godmother, without whom he would not exist. And a little present for the very pleasant ancestor who is the basis of so many family stories. But really, I’ve done all the work so I don’t see why he should get the credit.”
“It’s a lot of trouble to go to for a godmother he’s met once.”
“Don't be so linear, Kathy. Besides, it’s a mere trifle for, how did you put it, the dashingly omnipotent Q?”
“I believe the word I used was pest.”
“Oh, he’s not such a bad kid.”
Kathryn rolled her eyes. “Would you like me to write a thank you note?” She looked around as a horrible thought occurred to her. “Or is he here?” A Q child loose on her ship? Surely she would have heard something.
“No,” Q said, and Kathryn breathed a sigh of relief. “He’s spending some time in the Continuum.”
“Confined to quarters?”
“He has a friend to stay. And you don’t just abandon your guests to go gallivanting off now, do you?”
“The height of bad manners,” Kathryn agreed.
“No need for a note.” Q flourished and another photo appeared in his hand. He held it out for her to see: it was the candid shot he'd taken of her and Shannon. “A picture is worth a thousand words. Till next time, dearest Kathy.”
Then he was gone. Seemingly. She’d take it at face value: she couldn’t live her life as if Q was looking over her shoulder.
She crossed to the desk, checked her messages again. Still nothing. Did she believe Q? Had it all been nothing more than a gift, just setting her family history straight?
“Janeway to the bridge.”
“Tuvok here.”
“Q’s gone now. I’m... still not sure why he was here. I want to be notified of anything unusual, on and off the ship.”
“Yes, Captain.”
She stared over towards the coffee table and the two photos taken decades apart. What would her family photo look like decades from now? She opened the Doctor’s photo again and imagined her crew older and greying; her hair gone white like Shannon’s, stark against the red and black uniform that would be well out of date. Even Tuvok, well into his second century, would look older. Only the Doctor would be untouched.
She shook her head. Shannon O’Donnel had had no idea what she would find when car troubles diverted her to Portage Creek. Just as the Kathryn Janeway entering the Badlands would have never imagined this as her family photo.
She would get them home, or die trying. She knew that much. Anything beyond that... one day at a time.
She pulled up the holo-image of her and Shannon. Shannon O’Donnel Janeway, who wanted to be an astronaut but never left Earth’s atmosphere. An explorer who found a place to put down roots. A woman who had swallowed her pride, followed her heart, and, in doing so, had, in fact, changed history in more than a personal sense.
“Janeway to Chakotay.”
“Chakotay here.”
“Did I wake you?”
“I wasn’t asleep.”
As she’d expected. They were both on shift in eight hours but there was far too much rattling around her head and heart for her to sleep. “It’s just me here now. Can we talk?”
“I’ll be right over.”
“I’ll make the coffees.”
Henry stirred as Shannon climbed back into bed and started trying to arrange her many pillows to support her bump and aching joints. As she settled, he turned towards her, slipped a hand over her hip.
“Bathroom break?”
“As ever. I knew babies got you up at night but I didn’t realise it started this early.”
Henry tapped her belly in mock reproach, making Shannon smile. “Let your mother sleep now.”
Silence stretched, warm as their blankets.
“What do you think of Kathryn for a girl?”
“Where’s this come from?” Henry sounded sleepy again.
“It just came to me.”
“Are you asking now because you know I can’t deny you anything on your birthday?”
“No,” Shannon denied. Then, “Maybe. Is it working?”
Henry chuckled. “Katherine, hmm? I like it. Let’s discuss it in the morning.”
Shannon stared into the darkness and thought, Kathryn Janeway. It sounded good.