ugly bag of mostly voyager

Epilogue: Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light

 

They’ve been living in Avila Beach for two years now, in a ramshackle weatherboard cottage a few streets back from the beachfront. Kathryn has a vegetable garden that produces tomatoes and spinach, and a swing chair on the front porch where she curls up with paperback novels, and on the weekends she’s learning to surf.

 

Chakotay has opened a handmade furniture store in nearby San Luis Obispo and moonlights for the fire department, and Kathryn teaches engineering students at the Polytechnic. They’d thought long and hard about falsifying the necessary credentials – Chakotay had been against it, believing they should stick to less noticeable professions – but Kathryn couldn’t bear the thought of spending her life as a waitress or receptionist, and in the end Chakotay had given in.

 

There’s a small Native American population here and they’ve welcomed Chakotay with open arms. It’s easy to see that he’s happy, that he feels a sense of belonging he never had with his own family, that he’d previously only ever found on their lost starship.

 

It’s taken Kathryn longer to settle in. Some nights, as they lie entwined in the bed Chakotay built for them, in their little cottage by the sea, she still slips out of his embrace and wanders outside to gaze up at the stars.

 

But he always comes to find her after a little while, wraps his arms around her from behind and presses his face into her neck.

 

“Thinking about home?” he’ll ask her.

 

And she’ll turn to him, cradle his beloved face in her hands, and say, “I am home.”