'Damn,' Admiral Janeway thinks, as she feels muscles and skin tear apart to allow pieces of metal and circuitry to sprout forth. Some things certainly don't change. Assimilation still hurts like a bitch.

She would have liked to remain standing, but at 76, arthritis has started to set in, and if you add that to the electrical charge that is currently frying her from the inside, she accepts her shortcoming grudgingly. She leans heavily against the side railing of the hub she's seated in, and concentrates on her breathing.

'Voyager has entered aperture eight two three. Access transwarp corridor zero nine. Redirect vessels to intercept at subjunction—'

An explosion rocks the room, and the computerized voice that sounds through the chamber becomes garbled. The admiral sees the Queen stumble, shock and something akin to dread visible on her pasty face. Sparks fly as more explosions shake the room. The Queen struggles to keep her footing.

Relief fills Janeway. It's started. "Must be something you assimilated," she says to the Queen, annunciating every word as best she can.

"What have you done?" the other woman asks, horrified, clutching a beam to keep standing.

"I thought we didn't need words to understand each other?"

Another explosion causes the admiral's vision to blur. The room pales, and is replaced by another.

"I now pronounce you husband and wife." Forcing a smile, Kathryn's voice never wavered. "You may kiss the bride," she added, just as calmly, and watched as Chakotay and Seven moved as one, sealing their marriage by a lingering kiss.

The unwanted memory forces the breath right out of the admiral's lungs. She gasps, cursing her own subconscious. Surely there are other, less painful, recollections to be had when dying?

"You've infected us with a neurolytic pathogen!" The Queen's words chase the image away, and Janeway returns to the present.

"Just enough to bring chaos to order," she answers, silently praising the Doctor's ingenuity at using the same properties of the virus that nearly killed Kathryn after Unimatrix Zero, to launch this biological attack on the Borg.

True fear glints in the Queen's metallic orbs, and she gasps as the ship lurches violently. The admiral shields her face from the flammable embers of expelled fumes, and the world fades anew.

"We killed her. You sent her there, and I refused to negotiate her return in your absence."

Chakotay was in her face, forcing her to look at him instead of Seven's lifeless body on the biobed. Kathryn couldn't breathe. How had this happened? It was supposed to be just a simple survey mission.

"You shouldn't have sent her!" Chakotay thundered, grief twisting his calm features into a mask she'd only seen a handful of times before. "And you should never have left us!"

"And you should have given them what they asked for!" she yelled back, her own voice shaking.

A grief-filled groan escapes the admiral, and she shakes her head, chasing the memory away.

"Voyager will be destroyed," the Queen grinds out.

Janeway is grateful for the respite from her memories. She forces her attention back onto the Queen, who is grasping at straws.

"They're in front of the shock wave," she says, with little compassion. "They'll survive. Captain Janeway and I made sure of that." Pulling herself into a standing position, she adds. "It's you who underestimated us."

The pathogen has already caused the conduit shielding to destabilise, and Voyager's transphasic torpedoes have obliterated the manifold shielding that protects the transwarp conduits. Still, the Queen refuses to yield. Despite all her enhanced technology, she's blind to what she's seeing. She trembles, her eyes glazing. Another explosion hits, and she whimpers. Her left arm hangs limply by her side, electrical charges crackling around one of the joints. She pulls the ruined machinery off her body, and throws it away with disgust. The ship shakes, and white light temporarily blinds both women.

"I'm sorry, Kathryn," Chakotay coughed, struggling to catch his breath. "For blaming you, when Annika's death always rested on my shoulders."

Kathryn shook her head, but Chakotay kept going; the final confession of a dying man. "I told you, many years ago, that I couldn't be with you." He coughed again, clutching at her as the fit wrecked his weakened body. "I loved Annika," he gasped. "As much as I was able. But to sacrifice Voyager's safety and the Prime Directive was never an option. Not even when her life was at stake. Not like I would have done for you."

Tears burn in Admiral Janeway's eyes as she remembers the night Chakotay died. Whatever happens next, her younger self will have a chance. Maybe this will save Seven and Chakotay alike, and maybe, just maybe, coming home before their time will give Kathryn and Chakotay another chance at a life together.

When they're both free.

"Sphere six three four," the Queen murmurs, sparks coming off the socket where her arm used to be. She's literally falling to pieces, and yet she refuses to give up. On the view screen, a cube changes it's direction. "They can still hear my thoughts," the Queen moans, a misguided sense of hope colouring her words. "I may have assimilated your pathogen, but I also assimilated your armour technology."

Yet another explosion devastates the ship, and in its wake, the Queen's leg detaches and falls off. She flails for balance, a sickening dance of a dying leader. She tries to keep herself upright, but the pathogen is unforgiving, and she falls to the floor, unable to control her remaining limbs any longer.

On the view screen, the sphere continues to chase Voyager, and the Queen smiles brokenly."Captain Janeway is about to die. If she has no future, you will never exist, and nothing you've done here today will happen."

The admiral is too exhausted to answer. 'No,' she thinks, knowing full well the Queen can hear her thoughts, the unrelenting 'beauty' of assimilation. 'It is the Borg who will cease to exist.'

The two women stare at each other, both of them struggling, yet refusing to back down, even as death is closing in on them both. The admiral is still standing through sheer force of will. The distorted voice of the Collective cry in her mind, like a wounded animal fighting for its life. She would pity them if it didn't hurt so damned much.

'You're almost fully integrated into the hive mind. I can see everything you've ever wanted to hide, every dark little secret, and you will soon feel the same joy at your own death as I will,' comes the Queen's silent words, before she jerks, unable to keep her head raised any longer. 'At least I'll have that.'

A memory flickers in to life, and both women experience it.

The doors to the ready room hiss open.

Kathryn stops her pacing, a hand coming up to quell the sob that threatens to escape her as Chakotay walks into the room. She stares at him, her control and poise slipping through the cracks like water dripping through cupped fingers.

He looks shell shocked. "You did it." Laughter bubbles forth and he repeats, "You did it!"

"We did it," comes the muffled reply from behind her hand. Before she can say anything else, he's crossed the room. He pulls her to him when he's close enough, and he hugs her fiercely. She can feel her legs wanting to give out from under her, the shock and elation of having reached the Alpha Quadrant after seven years adrift, too enormous to comprehend. His arms tighten even more as he keeps her upright. The sob she's been trying to keep at bay can't be contained any longer, and she cries and laughs into the crook of his neck, hugging him back just as fiercely.

"We're home," he whispers into her hair, joy and happiness tingeing every word, and she knows with a certainty that's unquestionable, that his dalliance with Seven are over. "We're free."

"We're free," she whispers back.

And then his mouth is on hers.

Admiral Janeway draws a shuddering breath. This is not her memory. This never happened to her.

The only explanation she can think of, is that she's experiencing a temporal anomaly. As one timeline dies, another is created. Time is temporarily suspended in a state of flux, allowing the admiral to experience both her own past, and the future of Captain Janeway.

They are, after all, the same person.

The Queen sees it too. It's in her agonal breathing and fragmented thoughts, and she finally accepts defeat.

Voyager survives, and there's nothing she can do about it.

An onslaught of images hit them.

Voyager's homecoming 16 years before it's time.

Tuvok's recovery from the illness that wrecked his mind in the Admiral's timeline.

Seven's tireless search for Axum, and the couple's wedding when she finally finds him.

Memorials for those that didn't make it back, and glimpses of the lives that were spared by Voyager's premature return.

Not all the images are happy ones, but most of them are, and at Voyager's 26th reunion party, a white haired admiral joyfully celebrates with the rest of her crew.

Along with her husband, Chakotay.

Admiral Janeway slides to the floor, happiness enveloping her in her final moments. She looks at her adversary. The Queen's exoskeleton has disconnected from the organic parts of her body, and the admiral knows it's just a matter of time before they're both dead. Captain Janeway's life plays in both their minds in a string of pictures that leaves a smile on the admiral lips and dulls the Queen's eyes.

The voice of the Collective is dwindling, and the last thing the admiral hears before the Unicomplex explodes, are the Queen's dying words, echoing through her mind.

'Congratulations, Kathryn. You win.'

The End