Name : By Her Side Author : Eff - lora_232@yahoo.com Rating : PG Summery: Someone's been watching Kathryn and Chakotay. Disclaimer : They're not mine… if they were, do you really think I'd be writing fanfiction? My thanks to Dawn who saved me with her beta. By Her Side You know, many people want to know what it is we do after we die. I've been dead for a while now, and that’s what people who come here usually ask me. What I do with my time? Well, the answer isn't as simple as you might think. Yes, I watch the living. And no, I am not a guardian angel of any kind. There really isn't such a thing. But a lot of people like watching their loved ones, making sure they're okay. I'm sorry; I should start at the beginning. My name is Justin Tighe, and I've been dead for about 20 years now. I died in a shuttle crash on Tao-Ceti prime. Edward and I both died there together. Of course back then I didn't call him Edward. He was Admiral Janeway, a man to revere and respect since I was only a lieutenant at the time. He was also my fiancé's father; which, come to think of it, was another reason to be anxious around him. I only started calling him Edward when we both ended up here together. We used to watch our families a lot, but the one person we watched together was his daughter, Kathryn. Kathryn was the love of my life. And I'm not saying that just because my life is over, we really were great together. We were very young, very in love, and we thought we had a lifetime to be together. As it turned out, we only had two years, but they were two incredible years. There have been days, though, that I wish those years had never happened. Losing me and Edward hit Kathryn like a ton of bricks and for the longest time, she shut herself away from the world. Some days, when I watched her lying in bed, I wished I could erase our time together if only to wash her pain away. But I couldn't. Things got better for her as time dragged by. Phoebe, her sister, helped her live again and she set out into the world, making it her own. Edward always sounds so proud when he talks about her; his little girl. I hope she knows that. A few years ago, Kathryn met a guy named Mark. I won't say that Mark didn't treat her well, because he did. He treated her like a queen, but it wasn't quite right with those two. Kathryn is very careful about who she gives her heart to, especially after losing someone she loved. And although Mark made her feel safe, he didn't sweep her off her feet like she deserved. Kathryn went through more than her share in life, and when she became a captain and got her own ship, Edward and I celebrated. For us, it was a dream come true. Our sweet little Kathryn, all grown up. I always knew she would be a captain one day, and if lady luck is with her, she will be an admiral. I know she will. And then Voyager happened. Voyager was the best and the worst thing that ever happened to Kathryn. It was the worst because it took her away from her anchor: her family and a few very close friends that helped her through her share of horrors. No one survives time in a Cardassian prison, losing a parent and losing a loved one without a lot of support. Kathryn needed those people. She counted on them through the hard times and suddenly they were taken away from her at the most difficult time of her life. I remember days when her father and I watched her in her quarters on Voyager, just staring out through her view port or looking at a picture of one of them. There were times she let herself cry as her burden and sorrow weighed heavily on her soul. I bet her crew wouldn't believe me if I told them that their captain is really as fragile as any other human in this galaxy. There were times that I was scared she might give up on dealing with everything life had dealt her and join me, but then he came along. *He* is the reason Voyager was good for her. He swept her off her feet again. He made her laugh and helped her out of the more difficult situations she found herself in, both personally and professionally. His name is Chakotay and he's the one man I can tolerate Kathryn loving. However, they grew apart recently. I don't think either of them realized how much they affected each other and how much they needed each other. They both felt the need to move on with their lives since they couldn't really be together. I often wondered why that is; why they could only be friends, and nothing more. I don't think it was protocol. Kathryn was never one to follow the rules blindly. She didn't follow them when I asked her out and she didn't follow them a few other dozen times in her life. She knows when Starfleet rules make no sense and judges every situation as it should be. That's why she made it this far. I think Kathryn was just scared. She lost me, Edward and Mark. She lost every man who ever truly meant everything to her. The more she fell in love with Chakotay, the more she kept her distance from him; at least in her own mind. She almost lost him a few times and it was almost as if I could touch her fear and despair as it was closing in on her. One of my greatest hopes is that she will never lose this man. Chakotay, I think, felt the distance she kept. He felt her inability to give him anything more than friendship and he lived with it. I don't think he resented her for keeping him away. He realized that the scars she bears are part of why he loves her so much. So they tried to move on. Each took their own path with whomever they came across. Kathryn let a hologram ease her out of her loneliness and Chakotay found comfort in spending time with Seven. But neither of them was in love. I know that in an altered future, Chakotay marries Seven and lives happily with her till the day she dies. But you have to see the irony in the fact that the only woman who could give him peace as Kathryn could is a woman Kathryn mentored and nurtured for years. I find that somewhat twisted. As if he came as close as he could to his dream, and then grabbed onto that. Admiral Janeway didn't ease my mind either. She was the woman I always feared my Kathryn could turn into. My Kathryn didn't like her either; my Kathryn has never wanted to live her life regretting the things she never did. Admiral Janeway was a lonely woman who lost the man she loved twice, once to another woman, and once to death. She was a woman who regretted her decisions every day of her life untill she felt she had no other choice but to go back to the past and change it. My Kathryn will never be her. Today, though, I saw the most beautiful thing in the world. I saw the look on Kathryn's face as she looked at Earth for the first time in seven years. I saw the look Chakotay gave her, one of pure love and pride. A look a man would only give to the woman who has done the impossible, got him home from the delta quadrant and captured his heart in a way he never believed was possible. Then I saw the look she gave him and I knew that she will live her life differently now that she's home. She will live it without regrets or doubts. She will live it so that she would never become the admiral she met from the future. She will set out into the world, making it her own once again, and this time, Chakotay will be there with her, every step of the way. The End Please let me know if you liked it at lora_232@yahoo.com