Disclaimer: We know the drill; paramount owns all. Good for them
Somewhere—sometime—I ceased being a woman and became this all encompassing, all knowing, better the world Captain. A personality that throws compassion and women’s intuition to the wind and is set by lists of regulations, protocols and how the universe is supposed to run, according to Starfleet command.
Who am I to tell people they can’t have relationships. Who am I to tell someone that that they can’t have children. Who am I to discipline someone, when what they did, they thought was right. Am I so narrow minded and set in my ways that I can’t allow my mind to be open to another’s ways?
I’m beginning to think so.
When this mission began, I used to allow Kathryn to live when I was off duty. I participated in my gothic holonovels. I went to Sandrines and played pool (and I beat Tom Paris). I would plan surprise birthday parties for members of my staff, make blankets for our new arrivals. I would read books, let my hair down literally and I wore satin to bed.
What has happened to me?
I don’t go into the holodecks anymore unless it is absolutely necessary. I never play pool against Tom anymore at Sandrines. Birthday parties seem to have become obsolete. There haven’t been any new arrivals, due to my outlandish demands, since Naomi, with which I could make a new blanket with that personal identification stitched into it. Book reading is left to times when I need to find comfort in something…looking for the elusive answer. Forget letting my hair down—I cut it off. And as for wearing satin to bed anymore…I don’t.
Truth is, I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m not the same bright eyed, busy tailed captain that started this mission. Now, I spend my time reprimanding officers, bringing Sevens humanity to the forefront and withdrawing more into my shell.
And that’s what I’ve become—a shell.
Where did I lose the edge? Where did I stop seeing the needs of my crew and became shortsighted with my own desire to reach home?
Shave some time off here, risk the ship with some new experimental drive there. How much more do I inflict on my crew—and myself?
Would it be easier to just stop, colonize some M-Class world? Study all that we can study along the way? I told Chakotay once that I can’t take a vote every time we have a crisis. I couldn’t then and can’t now. Besides, what good would it do anyway…even a vote would probably end up split.
I’m becoming an embittered old woman. Alone in my thoughts, alone in my life and alone in my bed. I don’t have to be, but I am. I made that choice. Yet another in a long list of “I really should have thought about that choice a little bit more.”
Thing was, I didn’t think. I just did. I made it clear that I wasn’t available, and wouldn’t be as long as this mission lasted. And in the process, I pushed away the potential for anything more then friendship.
I am sad. I don’t see a young woman anymore when I look in the mirror. I see the young woman fighting to break free. I see Kathryn waiting to break free.
Somewhere along the lines, I lost myself. And I don’t know if I’ll ever find her again.
**Finish**