As a very small child she thought that the universe was something rectangular, a huge black shape with boundaries, like the clearly defined edges of the fields of dark soil that surrounded their house. Even as she grew older, her concept of space was limited on some level by two dimensional representations of the Alpha quadrant, even of the galaxy, on Starfleet computer grids.
She knew, of course, that the universe wasn't really flat and square, that she couldn't fold it up and put it in a box, or slip it into the pocket of an old barn jacket, but sometimes, Kathryn Janeway would have given everything that she held dear to be able to do just that.
She would have given all that she was to be able to return her crew to where they belonged, in the safe confines of their own quadrant, with Earth and help only a subspace message away. Instead, she found herself like Columbus, surveying a map of the world and envisioning the riches of the East just across a short span of blue ocean, only to find that the world was round and vast and dangerous, and that there was no turning back the way they came.
Between her ship and the wealth of home was an unknown continent to be explored and conquered before they could ever dream of clearing its shores.
She turned away with an impatient shake of her head from her absent-minded perusal of the stream of stars washing past her ship's hull. Enough wishing for things she couldn't have.
“Coffee,” she commanded the replicator, her gaze unfocused as her hand reached automatically for the glass mug, the smell of the beverage slipping stealthily up to her in a thin cloud of steam.
Supplies were low and her replicator rations could have been used for more functional things, but Kathryn found that the dark liquid filling the fragile glass beaker was one of the few things that held together her equally fragile state of mind.
Something in the ritual of drinking it, feeling the warmth slip down her throat, seeping into her chest, calmed her, made her feel, however falsely, that the civilization that she knew and loved was not thousands of light years away. In the ordinariness of it, she found a modicum of comfort.
The steady hum of the warp drive through the titanium plates of the deck filtered up into the soles of her feet; to Kathryn, it was like the subtle rhythm of a mother's heartbeat to an infant, soothing and familiar. She wondered at times what it would be like when she was finally home again, with the rich, fragrant soil of Indiana under her boots instead of this uncompromising, unforgiving metal.
She wondered if she would be able to feel, in the delicate bones of her feet, the living heartbeat of the Earth, the rushing of the lifeblood buried deep in the black dirt, just as she did the pulsing rush of the warp core.
For reasons she couldn't quite explain, Kathryn had found that she was having difficulty keeping herself on task of late. More than a few times she had caught herself mentally meandering. Her mind wandered down fruitless, unmarked paths, catching here and there on brambles that tore at her, pulling her up short to contemplate the sharp barbs that pierced the skin, drawing a thin trickle of blood.
Paths that lead to things she no longer possessed. Home. Her mother and sister. A belief in who she was, of what she knew to be true and right. Dreams of acclaim and glory, even dreams of love. All lost to her now.
It was as if Kathryn Janeway had been folded up as neatly as her imaginary map and tucked away safely in trunk somewhere, to be retrieved when, and if, Captain Janeway ever managed to get her ship home.
She despised her moments of maudlin contemplation, of monumental self-pity, but she seemed to have less and less ability to slow their frequent appearances. Keeping busy usually helped, but the past few weeks had been relatively calm and trouble-free and after all, there were only so many reports to be read, only so many orders to be given.
Sitting on the couch that covered one wall of her Ready Room, Kathryn sipped the hot, dark liquid, her taste buds registering again, as always, the discrepancy between replicated coffee and the real thing. Just one more reminder that this wasn't home.
“God, you are pathetic,” she murmured disgustedly to the empty room, an expression of distaste that had nothing to do with the coffee settling on her features.
Her father would be appalled at how she had let herself go, let her self-discipline stumble and falter, let her belief in the teachings of Starfleet crumble like sandstone in the wind. Admiral Janeway's daughter wallowing in self-pity. She could almost see the expression of saddened contempt on her father's face, but it was only her own reflection staring back at her from the mirrored pane of the view port.
Suddenly the harsh blare of the red alert klaxon cut through the quiet of the room, the flashing lights along the walls throwing spotlights of blood red against the reflective glass, giving her face a ghastly glow. Rising quickly, Kathryn Janeway set her mug with a satisfying clank on the low table in front of the couch.
Moving toward the door, she paused a moment, a hand rising automatically to smooth down a few recalcitrant locks of auburn hair. With a swift tug to her uniform top, Kathryn Janeway strode confidently onto her bridge, all of her doubts, all of her fears and regrets left, for the moment at least, in the sanctuary of her Ready Room, on the coffee table beside her abandoned mug.