Disclaimer: Guess what? They're not mine! Tell me something I don't know…
Summary: Janeway's musings on her marriage.
The First and The Only
The first. That was a surprise. I don't think either of us expected that. I'm not even sure what it was that made us check, but when we got home we found that Chakotay and I were the very first Captain and First Officer to marry each other. I don't think Chakotay quite believed how much this kind of thing really was looked down upon until he found this out. Score one for me I suppose, but it didn't seem that way. Actually, I was disappointed in my fellow Captains. What was so special about me that I was the only one to throw protocol out of the window in favour of love? I suppose it was that there was no one there to insist we were reassigned as soon as we were married. I know that threat hung over anyone in the alpha quadrant. Well, by the time we got back, after seven years of travelling, it was too late. We were already married. And that's where it all started…
Many couples followed us. If we could do it why couldn't they? Love affairs kept secret for years suddenly came out into the open, and marriages between the two senior officers on a starship were no longer unheard of. In fact, they became more common than you might have expected. Starfleet couldn't do a thing about it. I mean, it was clear to them that either they allowed Chakotay and I to serve together, or they lost us both. Well, they weren't going to lose the infamous Captain Janeway, so they had to give. And we couldn't be a special case - that would have caused a multitude of resignations throughout the fleet. So the unwritten 'policy' was changed, and the marriages were allowed.
The only. I've often wondered about that. If we could do it, why couldn't they? Of all of the marriages that took place, ours was the only one to survive. The only one. That makes the divorce rate for these marriages almost 100%. Score one for Starfleet protocol - the marriages don't happen anymore. After that first wave people decided to wait and see what happened to those that did 'take the plunge'. It was probably a good job that they did. It's not exactly a record that inspires confidence is it. I sometimes wondered what the divorced couples think about us. Do they blame us for their relationship breakdown? Maybe they think they'd still be together if they hadn't got married. If that's true, it sounds like the secrecy was what kept their relationship going. What kind of a life is that? I always thought that once Chakotay and I did finally admit our feelings to one another that I would want to keep it quiet for a while. How wrong could I have been? I felt like making a ship-wide announcement! The only thing that stopped me was that I'd have been pretty embarrassed afterwards. Instead, we just made a point of appearing as a couple when we were off-duty. It didn't take long for everyone to find out, and that's how I wanted it. I wanted the world to know that he was mine. Which brings me back to my point. How could these people keep it quiet for that long if they were really meant to be together? Maybe that's just me trying to ease my conscience, I don't know. I don't know anything about them. I do know this though - I'm not sorry. About any of it. I can't imagine what my life would have been like if I hadn't married Chakotay, and I don't want to either. Let them all live their lives the way they want to. The first and the only. Who cares? It's who we are.
THE END
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