a/n: Thank you to my RL BFF who got me out of my writing funk, and for giving me permission to torture fictional characters with endless angst.

For KillerManatee who beta'd this fic, and insisted not everything I write is crap.

Bring your love baby, I could bring my shame

Bring the drugs baby, I could bring my pain

- Wicked Games

The Weeknd [Playslist]

"Will it be worth it, in the end?" Chakotay has to fight hard to keep the accusation out of his voice.

He's rarely seen her in the last few days. If he's honest with himself, he has simply avoided being alone with her. He doesn't know this woman; so different, unforgiving and colder than her younger counterpart could ever be, even on the toughest of days.

She sits silently, back to him as she stares unseeing out of the window at the stationary stars that she hasn't seen for twenty-plus years.

The mess hall is deserted this early before the start of shift – eerily empty without Neelix and his mostly interesting concoctions – and it's little wonder the former captain of Voyager has chosen to seclude herself from the crew.

When he thinks back, he can scarce remember her with company since she came aboard.

Her mannerisms are somewhat unsettling, and Chakotay cannot blame the crew at all for giving the woman a wide berth.

"What would you have done?" When she speaks, her words are biting and icy. She shifts in the chair, angling herself so she's almost facing him. Arms folded across her chest, the strange uniform is sagging over bony shoulders, speaking to the weight she has lost in between the years of her homecoming and her journey to the past.

"What would you have done, if it had been me you left behind?" she asks again, chin tilted up in a challenge that the time has failed to dampen. From this distance, he can see the years of pain on the Admiral's face, and the ambition; that spark that she once carried with her however is gone.

It takes him a moment to understand her words; the concept of being left behind taken to mean dead in the cold of space. He can't imagine being in her shoes. He can't answer her, because he has no idea what he would do and she knows that. In the silence, her mouth quirks up a little like she's just scored a point and this is some twisted game that she needs to win.

He swallows his multitude of questions, bravely stepping toward her and choosing to voice only one.

"Will it be worth it? Sacrificing everything to travel into the past?"

As the question leaves his mouth for a second time, he winces and hopes that she isn't about to give him some sarcastic quip about time travel and headaches, or being amongst a crew that died years ago from her perspective, on a ship that never really made it home from the Delta Quadrant.

The Admiral bites her tongue, quelling any sarcasm but instead sighs heavily and he can see the moment she resists rolling her eyes. "If we pull this off, it will all be worth it. Trust me."

She turns back toward the window, effectively cutting off this line of conversation. He catches a glance of some scarring behind her right ear as she moves, wondering briefly why she never had it fixed and what other injuries she's hiding from them all along with her true agenda.

He observes her, mind flittering as the realisation begins to dawn on him.

"You came back for me," he states softly, his words giving the illusion of confidence as he draws closer to her still.

She gives a hollow laugh, throwing her head back and for a fleeting moment he's fascinated by the way the silvery light glints from the grey strands of her hair.

"I came back for my crew, Commander." The word is stressed heavily, and he's suitably silenced as she corrects herself. "Former crew. I am here because I made mistakes, and I lost far too many people," she says into the darkness. Her quiet words are ugly and truthful in a way that he can't even begin to comprehend.

He's seen the mistakes she's capable of. He's seen just how far the darkness can take her, and from her experience, the worst years of their journey have yet to pass. Those twenty-three years have eroded more than just her spirit and he resists the urge to comfort her.

This is not his captain, and he makes a promise to himself right then and there to never lose his Kathryn to the rigours of time and mistakes.

She stands up slowly, and turns to face him with her mouth set in a hard line. "I am here to do what's right. I am here to get this crew home."

"Even if it means sacrificing yourself?" he challenges. Her death is not something he ever wants to contemplate, regardless of whatever space-time anomaly, death-defying situation or version of Kathryn Janeway he's faced with.

"I will not debate this with you," she says calmly. He knows then that her younger self has already been down this road, and despite what would have been one hell of an argument, the Captain has not managed to persuade the Admiral away from this bone-headed idea any more than he can right now.

His jaw clenches tightly. She's stubborn. Too damn stubborn for anyone, but most of all for him.

"You need to let this go, Chakotay," she says, rubbing her temples tiredly. He takes in the dark circles under her eyes - far darker than he's ever seen them on even the most restless of Voyager nights - and doubts she has slept at all since she came through the quantum rift four days ago.

"Why?" he demands. "Why should I let you go?"

Dull eyes that were once a brilliant blue look up into his face, sadness etched within as they stand toe-to-toe. Her hand flinches down by her side, like she's about to rest it on his chest but then thinks better of it.

"Because I'm not yours to hold on to."

Her blunt statement surprises him in the silence of the room, and his response bites out before he can stop himself.

"Were you ever?"

"I used to hope so."

Her answer is honest - brutally so - and his heart clenches with those five words because it's probably the closest he's ever going to get to the truth. He holds back a frustrated sigh, running a hand through his hair as he takes in the resolute woman before him.

The corners of her mouth twitch, and her expression softens for just a moment. He thinks she's about to say something; that she's going to utter a few words that will ease the ache in his chest.

Only she doesn't, and instead her face hardens as she turns away from him.

"Get some rest, Commander."

He stays silent, caught somewhere between sadness and anger. The corridor outside begins to make the sounds of life; early morning risers shuffling about before the start of shift. He should probably leave her now, and head back to his own quarters.

But he doesn't move just yet. Instead he watches the admiral as she takes her place by the window once again, gazing out at the stars that used to mean so much to them both.

[END]