Title: Phantasm
Author: SaRa
Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Denial is futile. Paramount owns Star Trek, but they'll never own my imagination! (Unless, of course, they want to...)
Author's note: If Paramount were to end Voyager like this, I don't know if I'd laugh, cry, or kill them. Still, this idea presented itself and I had to use it. Besides, I've got an hour to kill before "Q2" comes on, so why not write it?



Chakotay was halfway to the turbolift when he heard his captain ask what he thought he was doing. "Getting you and the rest of the crew home!" he yelled over the red alert klaxons.

"You'll be killed! Chakotay, you idiot, it isn't worth it!" Janeway stood facing him with her hands on her hips, blood oozing from a gash on her left cheek and a bruise forming by her eye. Her injuries would no doubt get worse as the ship continued to fight the pull of an anomaly that could lead them home or to their deaths.

"The needs of the many," he reminded her. "Kathryn, you need to get home, the crew needs to get home! I'm going to deck ten to shut down those controls, hazard area or not." With that, he hurriedly stepped into the turbolift.

"Chakotay, wait! Please!" Janeway pleaded. She would never beg anyone for anything on the bridge of her ship, but Chakotay wasn't just anyone. He was her heart, her soul and she didn't think she could live without him.

Sadly, he shook his head as the turbolift doors slid shut.

She'd been tossing and turning for a long while, worrying her lover deeply. Before he was able to awaken her, she opened her eyes and found herself staring into his deep brown eyes. "Chakotay!" she exclaimed as she bolted upright, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him.

"Are you okay?" he asked, concern evident in his voice.

She nodded. "I had the worst dream, though." Kathryn shuddered as it all came back to her.

"Want to tell me about it?" Chakotay asked gently.

Again, she nodded. "It was about this mission that we're currently on. Well, sort of. We were on a mission to get Tuvok back from the Maquis cell he was spying on, but my crew was...different. You weren't on it. Neither were B'Elanna nor a lot of the others. It turned out that you were the Maquis captain whose cell Tuvok had supposedly joined and so were the others who are on this crew. We got into a battle with the ship and somehow ended up in the Delta Quadrant. I took away our one shot at getting home to save another race and we were stranded, seventy years from home. You and I combined our crew to make one Starfleet crew, figuring our chances would be much better if we stuck together.

"To make a long story short, seven years later we found this anomaly that could lead us home or kill us all, depending on whether or not we shut down a system that was on deck ten. Deck ten was declared a hazard area because of all the poisonous gasses released in a previous battle with some really ugly looking aliens. You decided to play a hero and got yourself," Kathryn felt cold shivers run up her back as she finished telling him about her dream, "killed while sending the rest of us home."

Chakotay held her for several minutes while they sat in silence. Clearing his throat, he said, "You have bridge duty in a few minutes."

She nodded, but didn't move to leave the bed they had been sharing for months. "I know."

"We're going to get Tuvok back all right, Kate, I promise. Nothing is going to happen to anyone, least of all me. Who would be around to keep you awake until all hours of the night, making passionate love to you, if I were gone, hmm?" Chakotay hugged her harder for a few seconds before releasing her.

Ten minutes later, they were standing just inside the door to their quarters, ready to become Captain and First Officer until their shifts ended.

"Ready to rescue that Vulcan friend of yours?" Chakotay asked.

Giving her fiance's hand a quick squeeze, she said, "Yes, let's go."

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