She lingered longer than she should've, enjoying these little moments wherein she felt like just an ordinary woman and not someone with more responsibility sitting on her shoulders than any single person ought to have. In these brief, passing moments she could pretend Voyager had never been lost, that she'd moved on from Mark in ways that didn't involve incredible distances and Dear John letters, that she'd somehow found a balance between command, science, and the personal life that was always waiting in the wings for her to raise the curtain and make room for it on the stage. But that's all it was — a moment.

And it passed, Kathryn drawing back to retrieve the carrier full of tribbles before any of the damned things escaped and started breeding in the streets.

"I'm afraid those types of endings are more fantasy than reality. There's a reason happy endings are the subject of so many holonovels. People like to play them through to the end, because otherwise, they might never achieve one in their actual lives. Chances are, they won't. Very few do. Certainly not I." Or you.