Rated PG
Disclaimer: Sad to say, Paramount owns the whole Trek universe.
Summary: Angst.
The word 'tired' is too small to describe adequately the true depth of how she feels. Exhausted? Yes. Fatigued? That word brings to mind a Victorian heroine having a fit of the vapors. Thanks to her experiences in the Delta Quadrant, her horizons have expanded to the point where she can acknowledge the existence of the soul, and she readily admits to being weary to the depths of hers.
She feels empty - of life, of joy, of interest. Of any ability to give more, yet every day she gets up, and gives again.
The sight of the uniform that was once her pride and joy nearly makes her physically ill, and she laughs mirthlessly at her version of morning sickness. As she meticulously dons each piece of her armor - the tank top, the pants, the turtleneck, the jacket, the four pips - she wonders what idiot designed these uniforms with the bright colors at the shoulders, giving every hostile alien a wonderful target to shoot at. Just like the British centuries ago in their scarlet jackets. Black and red are officially off her list for any piece of clothing, any furnishing, any decoration, any jewelry, even wrapping paper and bows. She's considering insisting that this year's Valentine's party be done in a different color. If she suggests to Tom a theme of purple Valentines to go with purple prose, she might get away with it.
Every week there is something more that they are in desperate, dire need of. If it's not food, it's something in Engineering. B'Elanna's report on Voyager's shortage of dilithium and trilithium has become so regular, it has been nicknamed by the command team as The B'Elithium Report.
At this stage in their journey, the computer alone knows exactly how many battles they have fought and survived, some - actually, a lot - by the skin of their teeth. The list of the dead continues to grow. At some point, every crew member has experienced life-threatening injuries. Some days, when things are at their worst, she wonders if they are the ship of the damned.
More times than she can recall, she has lamented that Lon Suder was their only Betazoid, because she is so very tired of trying to assess accurately which species have hidden agendas. On the other hand, when she considers the acidic nature of her own thoughts, she acknowledges, it's probably just as well that there are no more telepathic beings onboard.
As much as she loves this crew, as much as she would give her life for any of them without second thought - and not simply because she's their captain - she is tired of seeing the same faces, day after day after day. She dreams of walking down the streets of San Francisco and seeing no one she recognizes. She dreams of waking up early in her own apartment - because she can, not because she must - and watching the sunrise. She dreams of sitting in a park, silent and still long enough that the birds and squirrels forget she is there and begin to draw near. She dreams of being alone.
Sometimes she thinks of the young woman she once was, naively assuming that nothing could be as wonderful as being in space, that nothing could be as wonderful as being a part of Starfleet and following in the footsteps of her father and so many of the great names of history. While she envies that long ago young woman her innocence, she is also angered by the arrogance of youth. There are times she oscillates between a willingness to spend her life on an island, occupied with sweeping the beaches free of seaweed, so long as she never has to set foot on a ship again, to the other extreme of overwhelming guilt at her lack of gratitude for the extraordinary life she's been afforded. But at this present time, feeling more drained than B'Elanna's dilithium reserves, she wishes this 'honor' had been bestowed on someone else.
The Doctor no longer nags her to take better care of herself, understanding that she is doing the best she can. Somewhere along the line, she has recognized that her body is only flesh and blood, and if she is going to be of any use to the crew over the long haul, she needs to maintain it adequately. She isn't stupid, so she eats as well as she can, exercises, and goes to bed around midnight whenever possible. Every now and then, she splurges rations on a bacon cheese burger and fries, but she always foregoes dessert in favor of coffee.
It is a compromise; she drinks more coffee than the Doctor would like but less than she would like. Yet she consumes far less than the people around her think. Most of the time when a mug is in her hand, it's plain water to keep herself hydrated. It amuses her it wasn't the doctor's nagging that brought about this change, but rather when she noticed that the reflection in the mirror more and more resembled old Aunt Martha.
When she awakens each morning, she is still tired, and she no longer clearly recalls feeling any other way. Each night, she sleeps like the dead, yet there is little real rest. "No rest for the wicked," she jokes with the Doctor, but he only regards her silently with concern in his holographic eyes. Somewhere around 0300, every night she awakens with a gasp, heart pounding, adrenaline flowing, the sound of a red-alert klaxon ringing in her head. Too many times, it's real, but most of the time it isn't. If they were to get home tomorrow, she wonders how long it would take before that stopped.
There are moments when things feel fine, but they are only that - moments. She attends ship functions, laughs at the right places, but the smile no longer reaches her eyes or stays on her lips for very long. That takes more energy than she possesses. She knows all about post traumatic stress disorder, and she knows all about depression, and can acknowledge she is battling both. It's not the black hole kind of depression from her youth, but more the dragging sense of hopelessness that anything is going to change, that anything will get better. She goes through the motions because she must, for her own sake and the sake of the crew.
She knows precisely when it began. Three months ago, Tom announced that they had just passed the half-way mark of their journey home. A cause to celebrate, he said. Of course, Neelix was quick to agree. For her, that announcement heralded the beginning of the downward slide. When she considers the amount of time, energy, lives, ingenuity, losses, and mental anguish it has cost to get this far, the idea of having to do it all again for the second half of the journey nearly makes her want to space herself.
If it were possible, she would quit, but there is no one to resign to. So she goes to the holodeck periodically, puts the privacy lock on, and screams out her frustration until she is hoarse. She programs lots of crockery that she can throw in order to hear the wonderful sound of it shattering. It helps, for a few minutes at least. That is, until she exits the holodeck and the first person says, "Good evening, Captain." Occasionally, but rarely, she indulges, and wastes a little bit of the ship's energy by having herself beamed directly back to her quarters to avoid that walk.
There is only one thing that makes it bearable to open her eyes each day, and she always sleeps facing the same direction for that reason. At the sound of the alarm, with a sigh she commands it to reset for twenty-four hours.
"Hey," he croaks in his tired morning voice.
"Hey, yourself," she replies, and opens her eyes to the sight of Chakotay rubbing sleep from his eyes. And with that, she has enough to make it through another day.
The End
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© Brianna Thomas, January 2007 Please email me to post/distribute elsewhere.