Title: Comparing Notes
Author: Goddess of Despair
Fandom: Voyager
Paring: Janeway/Erin Hansen (a/u kind of)
Rating: NC-17 (to be on the safe side)
Disclaimer: Don't owe them. So don't sue.
Archiving: The FFF - http://www.svpress.us/femmefuhqfest/
by Goddess of Despair
She's been sitting here for an hour now, barely saying a word. To be honest you're not sure what to think. It's not every day a badly shaken Starfleet Captain turns up on the doorstep of a semi-retired, reclusive, mad scientist and wants to talk.
And that's the thing she hasn't said a word. Oh, she's exchanged pleasantries and enquired after your well being, and she's complemented you on all your achievements in the scientific community, told you that you're a hero…Not too many people say that about you these days.
But you've heard it all before, just over twenty years ago, from kind Starfleet Admirals on Deep Space six, who gently shook your hand while your other one was snared in a vice grip by a near catatonic just-turned-seven year old. Four months after you had wiped your husband's brains from the walls, while trying to calm a screaming six year old.
You shake your head trying to dispel those thoughts. Try to focus on this meek - and Starfleet Captains aren't meek -, ashen faced woman sitting opposite you. It's possible she just asked you a question, but you weren't paying the least bit of attention. You open your mouth to ask her to repeat it, but then you see what she's looking at and your mouth shuts so hard that your teeth rattle.
The shrine. She's staring at the shrine.
A wave of tiredness washes over you and you age ten years within a second. It couldn't have been simple could it? It couldn't have been about the Maquis funding or any other shenanigans real or imagined could it? No. Of course it couldn't.
Of course it fucking couldn't.
You sip your tea, "did you know Annika?"
Your voice sounds tight to your ears. Too formal. Too polite.
Her head snaps up. Her grey eyes glisten with unshed tears and her lower lip trembles. Oh god, she's going to break down. It's Teb, it's Rebecca, it's Zana, it's Rob, and every person she fucked all over again.
"In a way," she mutters, her voice husky, "she was very dear to me."
And in your already exhausted state you bring a thousand curses on your darling girl…
Annika Elisabet Hansen, that little bundle of joy that you held in your arms, and who you Erin, felt nothing towards no matter how hard you tried to…
Annika Elisabet Hansen, the overly sweet four year old who asked for nothing and received even less…
Annika Elisabet Hansen, the hysterical six year old who proclaimed the Borg to be angels out to save us all after beaming back from that cube, and who you Erin, ignored while you tried to get your catatonic husband to talk to you…
Annika Elisabet Hansen, the surely teenager who made it her mission in life to embarrass and humiliate you…
Annika Elisabet Hansen, Ophelia of the science community, darling of the tabloids, crazed bitch who merrily fucked, drank and snorted her way right across the Alpha Quadrant, ripping out the hearts of those who dared to love her and ruining the lives of those of who hated her…
Annika Elisabet Hansen, tragic legendary genius, gone long before her time, a Norse Goddess of science, a woman who was loved by all…
It was all you could do to stop pissing yourself laughing at her funeral.
You regard the red headed captain - Annika adored red heads -, but she isn't paying any attention to you. She's staring into her cup, probably lost in whatever web of lies your daughter had weaved. Maybe if you were in a better mood, you'd probably find this amusing, there's no love lost between you and Starfleet…but the heartbroken expression on this woman's face is enough to prevent any sarcastic and snide remarks escaping from your lips. You're getting soft in your old age.
"It wasn't supposed to be this way," she whispers in her almost trance.
You heartily agree with her, a sympathetic expression already etched on your face, shoulder to cry on at the ready. It's almost as easy as breathing.
"Would you like something stronger to drink?" You ask gently.
She nods distractedly and you smile to yourself, getting up and making your way to the drinks cabinet. They always do. The ones that aren't already seeing double, that is.
You pour yourself one too. You make it a double as well. You glance at the clock and sigh, it's not that you have any thing better to, you don't and you haven't for a long time. Maybe it's because you foolishly thought that after six months you'd seen off the last of them.
Not the reporters or the ones doing research for the groundbreaking biography they plan to write. Oh no, no, no. You'll have them forever. They'll still be ringing the doorbell long after Annika's face has faded from your memory and you have to look at the pictures on the shrine to remind yourself.
Everyone wants to know a little more about Erin Hansen. Everyone loves the villain they love to hate…
Everyone wants to know what Erin Hansen was thinking when she and her husband decided to stalk the Borg, dragging their four year old daughter with them…
Everyone wants to know just what exactly Erin Hansen thinks her husband and daughter saw when they were on that cube…
Everyone wants to know what Erin Hansen was thinking when she let Magnus Hansen take little Annika on that `mission' to begin with…
Because it's always the mother's fault isn't it? It always the mother's fault when their child grows up to be a certifiable lunatic.
No, reporters will come and go and you'll slam the door in their faces like you always do. But the supposed friends she betrayed, the rivals she ruined, the lovers she left heartbroken…they're doesn't seem to be any end of them. They all end up on your doorstep looking for some sort of explanation, some sort of comfort from you.
And you never know what to say to them, because Annika hurt you too. Constantly. No matter how many times you tried to make amends for those early years, for the incident at the cube. For Magnus putting a phaser to his head and killing himself in front of her. For everything. It wasn't enough. Nothing was ever enough for Annika.
You feel a familiar sting in your eyes and you blink, you refuse to cry in front of a perfect stranger. You still have your pride if nothing else. You drink your drink and pour yourself another one. You figure you deserve it.
Two glasses filled to the brim, a bottle under your arm, you make your way back to the living area. The captain has managed to procure a photo from the shrine and is staring at it with an expression you don't recognize.
"Was this taken at Daystrom?" She asks, taking the offered drink from you.
"Yes, it was," you reply, sitting yourself down. "About two months before she was expelled." You pause, letting bitter memories wash over you, "Annika didn't particularly care for authority."
A humourless snort spews from her lips, "no," she agrees. "No, she didn't"
You regard the woman carefully for a moment, trying to place the face. You don't remember seeing her at the funeral and you sure as hell would remember a Starfleet officer being present, unless she was out of uniform, of course.
"Have you been on a deep space mission?" You ask, more for clarification than anything else.
Her mouth twists in a parody of a smile and your feel even more uncomfortable than you already are. You gulp down your drink and reach for the bottle only to find it already in your companion's hand.
"Yes," she says, filling her glass, taking a sip, handing the bottle back to you. "Yes, I was."
"How long did you know her?" You ask, pouring yourself another one.
She sighs, leaning back into her chair and producing a padd. She stares at it morosely, for a second you think she didn't hear you.
"A few years," she says, her eyes never leaving the padd.
You sit back into your chair relaxing somewhat. This definitely wasn't going be another Rebecca episode in that case.
She waves the padd she's holding, "you know, I read this on the way here and do you know I had no idea who this person was…but it wasn't her. Sev…Annika was a good woman. She wasn't capable of any those things…she had a good heart…" She trails off, staring into middle distance.
You watch silently as she tosses the padd on to the coffee table in disgust and glares at it as if it were something putrid.
"She didn't even drink!" She finishes triumphantly, swallowing her drink.
A small smile tugs at your lips, "Captain," You begin.
She shakes her head, "Kathryn."
"Kathryn," you amend, "I don't know what it says or what it doesn't say. I've never had the urge to read any of the biographies," you lean closer, finishing your glass and pouring another. "What I do know is that Annika had a different face for everybody. I don't think anybody truly knew who she was. Not even Annika." You finish quietly.
Kathryn stares at you, her lips pursed, a lonely tear trickles down her face. "Then that cybernetic vampire really did save her, didn't she?"
A confused frown creases your face and you open your mouth to get her to explain, but she's not paying you the slightest bit of attention as she's far too wrapped up in her own unrelenting misery and you can't bring yourself to care enough.
You're too bitter this evening. Too bitter and tired, maybe the drink is starting to affect you as well. So you drink your drink and pour yourself another and watch as she does the same.
You look at your left hand and stare at your wedding band, wondering why you still wear the damn thing, trying to maintain some shred of respectability you suppose. You want to laugh at that. You rue the day you met Magnus Hansen.
There are days when you wish that you'd gone over to that cube with Annika, seen whatever it was that was enough to make the Borg appear as though they were heavenly guardians. You wish you were the one who had gone mad and killed herself and Magnus had been the one left to pick up the pieces.
You would have preferred that legacy.
Erin Hansen, brilliant scientist, doting mother, tragically gone before her time…
Erin Hansen, middle aged has been, awful mother, a footnote in Annika Hansen's turbulent and troubled life.
You realise the bottle's empty and in your fog you stumble to the kitchen to get another, bitter memories eating away at your brain. By the time you return with a new one your companion is weeping openly, her shoulders trembling. You stand and stare drunkenly, a detached part of your brain notes that you must look almost borgish.
"It wasn't supposed to be this way," she wails, her voice grating, her eyes wild, "She was supposed to be in Starfleet, she was supposed to be a good officer…she was supposed to be alive…they all were." Her eyes plead with you, "it was supposed to better…they weren't meant to be dead. They weren't meant to be dead…"
And you stand and stare at her stupidly for a moment, not understanding a word of it, but you go over to her and put your arms around her, mumbling nonsense words.
And suddenly her tongue is your mouth and your body responds. Her hands are pulling at your clothes, still crying, you both fumble. You writhe against her thigh like weasel in heat and it's empty, joyless, and soulless. The sober part of your brain realizes how ridiculous you both must look: two sobbing women, both past their prime going at it on the floor, but you ignore it. It's been so long. And when you come you feel no pleasure whatsoever and you sound like an animal in pain.
You fall to her side, panting, while she sobs quietly to herself.
It wasn't supposed to be this way, you think to yourself before you lose consciousness.