Disclaimer: I don't own these lovely characters - just borrowed them for a bit, for my own selfish enjoyment. No copyright infringement intended.

Summary: When Janeway is lost under mysterious circumstances, the Voyager crew and its acting Captain relentlessly search, all but tearing the Delta Quadrant apart with their bare hands. But hope fades, time passes, and the crew must move on. Not all of them can...

One

It's warm where she is. There's a steady humming beneath her feet - it's a welcome sound, always comforting, as is the scattered conversation that surrounds her. She glances around the room - it's crowded - and she's filled with calm, steady emotion. Pride, happiness, and something distinctly maternal. She's worried about them - not in the sense of an impending crisis, but in a general, underlying way - and she closes quickly on the feeling that she'd do anything to protect them. She sips at a cup of coffee, its warm, aromatic character fulfilling her in a way that is welcome and expected. Everything is as it should be.

A voice draws her attention, and she looks across the table, smiles. He asks how she slept. She feels a familiar pang, emanating from within her core. She takes a breath and puts it back in place with a practiced ease. It's familiar and it's right.

They converse over their breakfasts - easy chatter that comforts, helps them prepare for the day. Whatever's in store, she is not alone. For not the first time, or the last, she wonders how she will ever repay him for all these years of sharing her burdens and lightening her heart, in all the simple ways he is able.

It's warm and she is not alone and the steady humming beneath her feet is exactly what it should be...

It was wet. Cold.

She awoke, her mind disoriented as she emerged into consciousness.

The moss covering her body was the first thing she registered - her hands streamed over it, seeking a comfort that wasn't there.

Water was slowly leaking in, seeping between the leaves and branches above her. Another spit hit her face, and she sat up, wiped it away.

She realized her hair was soaked, and looking back at the ground that had been her bed she wondered how long she'd been sleeping in a puddle. She said a silent prayer to no one in particular that the sun would shine today, that there would be some warmth.

Fully aware of her surroundings now, she was suddenly stricken with an icy panic. Her breath caught in her chest as she reached out and felt around the floor, searching frantically in the dim light.

She'd fallen asleep clutching it, she was sure.

She flipped up the mats of moss, breaking much of it apart in the process, and then her hand finally closed on the soft material. She brought it up to her face, closed her eyes and breathed in a scent that was no longer there (but that she could still somehow conjure), inhaling deeply and willing her racing heart to slow.

She wrapped the scarf around her neck, looping it twice, and crawled out of the shelter.

The rain had stopped, but the tree above her debris hut still dripped from its branches.

It was fully light but cloudy, which made it hard to guess at the time of day. Then she spotted the sun, the faint sphere shining diffusely about 30-degrees above the horizon. The clouds were thin.

She scanned the landscape out of habit. It had been a while since she'd glanced around with a sense of hope - or with the curiosity once second nature to her.

Standing on slightly unsteady legs, she squeezed the water from her hair then brushed a few stray bugs from her body, the latter more from routine than concern. She'd long since grown used to sharing her shelter with insects of all kinds.

She felt better this morning, but as she went about gathering leaves and moss to repair the roof of her shelter, she fought against the impulse to crawl back inside and sleep the day away. There was no real or compelling reason not to, and the chance to return to the morning's pleasant dreamland was certainly an argument in favor.

Shivering as she stuffed the foliage between the hut's branches, clearing the waterlogged clumps away, she decided that she would stay here for one more night and then continue traveling south. Get away from here before winter took hold. She was well enough now and if she didn't push on soon - well, her fate would be a cold and frozen one, and, although she greeted most things these days with a detached, tired apathy, she knew for certain that that was not the way she wanted to die.

Early on, when she'd still had a bountiful reservoir of energy - when her heart was still full of hope, and the formidable, stubborn strength to survive - she'd managed to learn a great deal about the planet she now roamed. She'd built her own sextant, starting with a circle fashioned from a long, thin stick, which she'd marked off in halves until she had a semi-useful scale from which to approximate angular size. It had taken some time to construct the device itself, and while the end product was rather crude and definitely not exact, she'd been proud of it. Almost as proud as the first night she managed to start a fire from scratch.

She'd watched the stars in those early weeks, charting them on thin strips of bark that she scratched with a stick, then later marked with ink she'd made from plant material. She'd felt such hope looking up at the heavens then, as if they were close, and getting closer. Everything she held dear was up there, and she'd regarded and mapped each star, each nebula she could discern by her naked eyes, with a tender affection that ran straight into her soul. She'd loved those sky objects - they were her connection to everything that she was, and, at that time, all she believed she would be again.

From her charting and measurements, she'd discerned some key things about her environment, including the fact that the planet was tilted approximately 24 degrees relative to its parent star, and thus likely had a seasonality similar to Earth's (though she did not know the planet's average solar distance, the eccentricity or speed of its orbit, or the central star's classification, and therefore could not guess at the exact nature or length of the seasons). And she'd figured her initial latitude - approximately 64 degrees. In exploring the immediate vicinity, she'd found her location to be very continental. In the high-mid-latitudes, and without the influence of a nearby ocean, she knew the region would likely see a harsh winter. It was spring or early summer when she'd...arrived...but it wouldn't last forever. She'd decided to travel south, in search of a more equatorial climate. Back then, she hadn't seriously imagined she would see a winter on this world, but her practical nature had her making choices with survival in mind.

In addition to her sky charting, she'd studied the regional biota, cataloging it in the same fashion - on strips of bark. A scientist and an explorer, it came easily, and it helped to pass the time. She'd found no evidence of any breed of humanoid life, on the ground or in the sky, but there was a rich abundance of flora and fauna. It was comforting early on.

She'd spent the summer learning all she could about the planet and carving out her survival with her bare hands while slowly trekking south. Skills she'd learned but seldom used resurfaced and hardened of necessity. She'd taken pride in all she'd done early on, and knew that, when they arrived for her, they'd be impressed with all she'd accomplished from nothing.

Now, with winter descending and seeming impossible to escape fast enough, and with the thrill of prevailing in her rugged existence long gone, a deep despair was threatening. The sheets of bark that she'd once worked on so dutifully were strewn about the camp haphazardly, forgotten. The many tools she'd built lay scattered, lately unused. Alone - so very alone - she struggled in even her best moments to hold on to her sense of self.

She'd fallen ill several weeks ago, and had been certain, in the darkest throes of fever and pain, that death was imminent. The pounds had slipped from her body, immobile and overcome as it was, and an all-consuming, fervid insanity nearly claimed her completely. There was one thing that helped her hold on, that gave her resource to fight, though there were times when her very clinging to the inanimate object made her feel as if she were slipping. But it was all she had, and, to this day, she was certain that without the dark scarf she now wore around her neck, she would have perished, lost to fever and pain with no memory of the person she had been. A year ago, she would not have considered such a thing plausible - that she would garner so much, body and soul, from something so insignificant. A simple, long rectangle of knitted and weathered wool - but it was everything.

Find some food, Kathryn.

More often than not, the voice in her head was not her own. At times it was her mother, or her sister. Sometimes it was Tuvok. Usually it was Chakotay. "Hearing" her name, the directness with which they "spoke" to her, helped her hold on to what was left of her identity, fragile as it now was. She was not some anonymous, nameless soul, as her isolation threatened, towering over her - she was someone and she had had a life.

Or perhaps she was simply going insane.

The shelter repaired to some degree, she headed for the stream.

Some part of her smiled (somewhere, probably - in the part of her that remembered how) when she imagined him watching her catch a fish with her bare hands. It was a skill that had not come easily - it required patience, a meditation, almost, that she did not naturally possess. After her first, she'd-guessed-flukey success, she was certain she'd never be able to do it again, but something had driven her to try. Hunger, for sure - but it was also the thought that it would impress him.

Earlier, she'd fished with a net made from sinew she'd painstakingly harvested, but it didn't always work. Frustrated after many attempts one day, she'd collapsed onto the bank by the stream, where she remained for hours, staring out at the water and watching the gentle current, the swirling eddies, and the many fish swimming beneath. Then, on sudden impulse (her hunger perhaps having spent her brain somewhat), something drove her to lunge forward sharply, and reach into the water. Her motion was primal and lightning-quick, and when she actually came up with a fish, she had laughed and laughed - a sound she hadn't heard or uttered in what seemed like forever.

Leaning down close to the stream now, she scooped water into cupped hands, drank and then splashed some of the cold liquid on her face. She could not bring herself to bathe in its icy depths. Luckily, she was beyond caring about, and hardly even noticed anymore, her filth. She was of the land, this planet.

She sat back on the bank and watched the fish, swimming circles as they searched for their own food. She wasn't sure if it was a mark of insanity, or the opposite, that she enjoyed (or whatever the correct word was that implied not so much real enjoyment, but more a desperate, twisted experiencing of things not completely unpleasant) catching them this way.

It didn't take long - her hand flew into the water with an energy she wasn't sure how she still possessed, and quickly emerged with a catch. She dug her fingers into the fish's body, gripping as it struggled against asphyxiation, and then slammed it against a rock.

The creatures had become such a regular part of her diet, she wasn't sure how she'd cope without them. Another reason to hasten her trek to the south. This steam was shallow enough to freeze through, should the winter prove deep (which it surely would), and trapping land animals had not proven her strong suit.

She gutted the fish with a pointed stick, ripping out its bones and leaving them beside the stream. She did this without thinking - it was routine. Automatic.

Back up at her camp, she built up a fire, welcoming its warmth. She skewered the fish onto a branch and stuck it above the flame.

Watching the flesh heat up, perspiring as it cooked, her thoughts wandered.

It was always a terrifying prospect, leaving camp. And she would depart almost empty-handed. She'd take a couple of her tools, maybe, but that was really all. She had nothing else of worth and she would reconstruct the other things she needed along her route - shelter, coverings, etc. She was alone with the land.

She'd been stranded before on a planet not entirely unlike this one. But it had been with an arsenal of supplies - literally everything needed to live comfortably. The hikes they took then, away from their home base, they'd filled their packs with food and supplies, and it was exciting to venture out, not terrifying.

The hikes they took...

How different everything was now, in solitude.

She'd lost track of the days somewhere after 100. She no longer kept count, nor cared to. One hundred had done something to her. It was a meaningless number, based on this planet's particular rate of rotation (which she knew was slightly faster than Earth's), but, for whatever reason, once she'd spent 100 days alone on the planet, something in her concluded that rescue was no longer likely. That it was, in fact, rather unlikely. Damn near impossible, really.

She didn't blame them.

Thinking back over the events that brought her here, it was quite likely that they'd concluded her dead. She knew they'd made every effort. That they'd searched for and found leads, followed them (recklessly, even), trying every avenue, every possibility. She knew they had not moved on easily. But, the needs of the many...

She wanted them to move on. It was a truth that emanated from her soul even as loneliness and despair threatened to overtake her.

He would get them home.

Her mind lingered there, and she clutched at the scarf with her free hand. Drawing away from her anguish - the deep, bottomless pool that could so easily pull her under - she pictured him - every turn of his features, his form. Still a crystal-clear image in her mind. Even now, this far away, she drew strength from him, for whatever it was worth anymore.

She wondered, if she known back then that it would someday be all she had - that he would be her lifeline on dark days, which these days were all days - would she have done things differently?

The strips of bark where she had written out her feelings would be left behind tomorrow, to weather and wash away.

But she would carry him with her, and the scarf - a last remaining physical link to her life, to him - until the day that her mind could no longer conjure his image, his voice. Lost to her impending insanity or an aged and weathered mind.

Even if her body lived on after, that would be the day she died.