#small snippet of the tuvok trauma thoughts in my head

[bumblingbabooshka]

Hey. There's something here to me about how Tuvok had not one but two traumatic memories which were repressed for years [one is not technically a "real" memory but his reactions to it WERE real and his body/mind treated it as real and thus I'm counting it as two traumatic memories], we're told that Vulcans react incredibly poorly to repressed memories or in fact any discrepancies between the conscious vs unconscious mind, and then later Tuvok is revealed to have an emerging condition which causes neurological degeneration. + The fact that it's repeatedly stated that for Vulcans, contact with trusted people's minds are crucial, actually medically necessary, to deal with all manner of things from traumatic events to medical disorders and how Tuvok has no one he can go to for that kind of support or treatment except for Janeway and in the end not even she can help him with certain things since it has to be a Vulcan.

[kiradaxx]

Year of Recovery- A J/7 fic

Hello! I’m new to the J/7 fandom, but Voyager has become one of my favorite quarantine watches. I’ve only just watched it for the first time now, and I got sucked right into this ship. I’ve got so many fanfiction ideas swirling around my brain now, and I’ve started writing one of them! This story won’t be complete for a while, but I wanted to put up a couple of snippets of what I’ve written so far to start engaging with the fandom!

This story’s current working title is Year of Recovery, and it is a slightly AU take on the Year of Hell episodes. Janeway crashes Voyager into the Krenim time ship, and successfully prevents the Year of Hell from happening. But what if the timeline wasn’t restored quite as neatly as she had hoped?

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Day 226

This was the moment that would change Kathryn Janeway’s life forever. 

This was the moment that would end Kathryn Janeway's life. Forever. 

She inhaled deeply, staring out the massive tear in the hull of her ship where the forward viewscreen had been just moments ago, watching the ensuing battle that raged around her. Watching her enemy just beyond the gradually weakening emergency force field, the only barrier left to prevent the cold vacuum of space from extending into the bridge. She was already dead on the inside, the empty expression on her face reflecting the weight of the past year’s immense losses and traumas.

So much loss, so much pain, she could scarcely recall it all. Except she could, in terrible, excruciating detail. Every hit Voyager took, every crew member she lost, every friend gravely, even permanently, injured. Every moment of the past year was burned into her brain as indelibly as the scars from the deflector room fire had been seared into the skin of her face, arms, and hands. 

The flames and weapons fire that were both battering and emanating from the time ship, perhaps the worst enemy she’d ever faced, leaped in the glassy mirror of her eyes. For the first time in months, the flames of her own internal fire surged up to meet them, and she had a moment of such pure clarity, she could almost cry at the simplicity of it all.

The voice of her chief security officer crackled in over their comm link. “All our ships have been disabled, Captain. Do you have weapons?”

“Negative, torpedo launchers are down.”

“How do you wish to proceed?”

“I’m setting a collision course.” 

At first there was no response. Tuvok said nothing, but the voice of another came through, strangled by more than just the weak connection. “Kathryn, please, don’t do this.”

She allowed herself one moment, a single breath, to grieve for yet another loss. She didn’t bother arguing, there was no other course left. “I love you,” she whispered, for once not masking the pain or the depth of her emotion. She forced herself to ignore the silence that met her words; she honestly didn’t know if a response would have hurt more anyway. She broke the comm link.

Maybe she could undo this. Maybe not. But she could, and would, end this. Now. 

This would be the moment that ended Kathryn Janeway, forever. She knew this profoundly. And she gave her last words, spoken as a command, enunciated with deadly precision. “Time’s up.” 

So quickly, yet so slowly, Voyager’s bow careened into the hull of the Krenim time vessel, crashing with devastating brute force into the exact coordinates of the temporal core. She thought her death would be louder, scarier. Instead, her final moment was nothing. Nothing but such an abrupt halt to everything, to the momentum of everything her life had ever been building up to. The end was weightlessness and shockwave impact that stopped everything she was and would ever be in an instant so quick, she couldn’t process anything. Flames were swallowing the bridge, swallowing the blackness of space, swallowing her. So much fire filled her vision, the last thing Kathryn Janeway ever saw.

Day 1

“Something’s wrong,” Janeway spoke under her breath, low and muttered, with no real intention to be heard by any other. At a normal volume, she ordered, “Keep looking, M’Kar.”

Chakotay had been gracious with his patient curiosity, was still waiting calmly for Janeway to explain her sudden concern, and she finally attempted to release enough of her internal red alert to offer the explanation she knew she owed him.

“I’ve got a bad feeling, Commander,” she spoke with her eyes fixed to M’Kar and the electrical conduit. Her voice was low once more,; this conversation wouldn’t do to be shouted across the bridge, alarming all those on duty. Chakotay’s brow furrowed in further question, a motion caught from the corner of her eye, and she elaborated, “I don’t know what it is yet, but I can feel something is off.” Louder, she addressed the entire bridge, sitting forward in her chair. “I saw something occurring with that conduit. Some sort of malfunction. If we can’t trace it to the conduit, I want every centimeter of this bridge scanned.” 

                                                                ...

When she stepped back onto the bridge, her face was composed perfectly. She could not say the same for her crew. The staff of the bridge apparently had remained fixed in place when she’d disappeared into her ready room, almost as if she’d paused the characters of a holonovel. They tracked her with their eyes as she crossed the small section of the bridge that separated her from the turbolift, eyes still wide and among a few, even scared. Poor Harry seemed as though he was on the verge of tears. 

One face in particular caught her attention, and she faltered minutely on the small set of steps in front of the tactical station. Seven of Nine, the newest addition to Voyager’s crew. Her stare was piercing as she followed Janeway’s path to the turbolift. Her shock was hidden in the intensity of her gaze, discernible nowhere else in her expression.

Day 3

Her head tipped back and her shoulders slumped in a posture of defeat she’d never let another witness. Staring at the ceiling, she silently asked herself now what? She still had another eleven minutes until she was due in astrometrics, and she’d planned to use those minutes to finish solidifying her composure. Whoever was at her door would simply have to wait until later that evening, she decided. There was no reason she couldn’t already be on her way down to deck 8, in theory, and by ignoring the chime her visitor would hopefully assume this and go looking for her there. She could field their question or request later. 

The door chimed again, and when she still ignored the call, a third chime rang out in her quarters. Zipping up her jacket angrily, Janeway stalked into the main sitting room of her quarters and barked out, “Computer, who is outside my door?”

“Seven of Nine is outside the captain’s quarters.”

She groaned and raked her fingers through her hair. No wonder the chimes continued; Seven wasn’t one to give up easily. .

“Seven of Nine to Captain Janeway.”

                                                            ...

“Seven of Nine to Captain Janeway. Ignoring me is inefficient, Captain. I will not leave this spot until you open the door. Doing so now will save us both time.”

She took a sip of her coffee, lip curling in distaste when the tepid liquid met her tongue. One of these days she’d have to get that damn replicator fixed. “Computer, what time is it?”

“The time is 1753 hours.”

“I can hear your voice, Captain. I am aware you are inside. If necessary, I will continue to aggravate you until you relent.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Janeway rolled her eyes again, twice as viciously and stalked away from the replicator. She slapped her comm badge with more force than necessary, and in a low voice she asked, “What do you want, Seven?”

For a brief moment, there was no response, and she wondered if maybe Seven had not been so confident in her inevitable victory after all. She pinched the bridge of her nose, wishing she had just held out for a little longer, called Seven’s bluff.

“I wish to speak with you, Captain.”

“Can’t this wait?”

“It has waited. For forty-six hours and 32 minutes.”

Perhaps angrier than rational, Janeway took a deep breath in, and remained motionless. She stood with one hand on her hip, and the other clenched at her side, summoning the calm control she relied on to guide her through moments where her temper flared. Finally, she called to allow Seven inside her quarters.