Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Death doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints, it takes and it takes and it takes…” - Wait for It

Voyager’s hum had always been Kathryn’s comfort, her constant — a steady, familiar sound, the beating heart of something she trusted. But now, it… sounded wrong.

Distant.

Hollow.

Like a memory is out of sync with reality. 

Captain Kathryn Janeway lay motionless on the biobed, eyes closed, skin pale under the lights of sickbay. Neural readings blinked on the monitor overhead – stable, sluggish. Fractured.

Chakotay sat beside her bed, hands clasped over hers, gaze fixed on her face. Whispering prayers to any God who would listen to help her.

The Doctor moved silently between the patients, adjusting the stimulators, checking neural patterns. Tuvok unconscious on the adjacent bed, body only moving to breathe. Torres half-propped up, stared at the ceiling with clenched fists and dark eyes. Tom also by her bedside, a reminder they had people that cared. 

Aftermath of assimilation was not loud. 

It was quiet.

Too quiet.

Somewhere deep within Kathryn’s mind, a sound began to rise – gentle, soft, grief. A piano.

Then a voice, faint and aching: “There are moments that the words don’t reach…”

The voice is unfamiliar, female, human – ancient. However, the pain behind it was known to her. The pain of someone who had lost something they could never explain. Never get back.

“There is suffering too terrible to name…”

Kathryn squeezed Chakotay’s hand. The monitors hummed to life. Chakotay shifted to watch her. 

The music faded. Gone.

Kathryn opened her eyes slowly. Squinting when the light hit her. Heart racing, trying to figure out everything.

“Captain?!” The Doctor at her side instantly. “You’re awake.” 

She blinked, trying to focus, “...Where…”

Chakotay answering gently, “Sickbay.” His voice a soft balm to her soul. “We got you out. You’re safe.”

Safe? The why could she still hear them?

Not the Borg, but something else. Something softer. Persistent.

She glanced toward Tuvok, then B’Elanna, then to the ceiling.

“Forgiveness… Can you imagine?”

Kathryn whispered the words without meaning to. So softly Chakotay almost missed it. 

He leaned in closer. “Kathryn? What did you say?”

She flopped her head towards Chakotay, her voice hoarse but clear. “There is music in my head, Chakotay and it’s not mine.”

B’Elanna shifts, noticing her waking up. Kathryn propped herself up however, painfully. The lights flickered. Knowing that’s not normal, “The lights. They flickered.”

Chakotay assured her it was her mind. But she saw the look on his face. He saw it too.

B’Elanna sat upright. Her posture saying she wasn’t in pain, her jaw saying another story. Paris tried to help her as much as he could.

Tuvok remained unconscious. The neural stabiliser wrapped around his head and blinked softly. Peaceful. But too still.

“There are moments that the words don’t reach…”

Kathryn’s other hand twitched. The voice, soft, human. Too tender to be Borg – and too real to be a hallucination.

She shut her eyes trying to focus on the lyrics. The voice lingering.

“There is suffering too terrible to name…”

“Captain?” Chakotay’s voice cut through the haze of the music and the world. His silhouette is outlined by sickbay’s low-alert lighting. “You alright?”

“No.” Kathryn surprised herself by being honest. “I’m hearing the music. Again.”

B’Elanna turned as sharply her recovering body can take. “You’re hearing it too?”

Kathryn looked at B’Elanna, “You are?”

“Only when it’s quiet,” B’Elanna mumbled. “And it’s always quiet here.”

“We had been detecting low-frequency subspace pulses across the ship. Harmonic in structure.”

The lights suddenly flickered. 

Monitors spiked then dimmed. The neural stabiliser on Tuvok beeped erratically.

The deck vibrated. Rhythmic resonance. A deep breath held in musical time.

Kathryn sat up, ignoring all of her protesting muscles. “That’s not the ship. It’s something else.

“Is it a warp field echo?” B’Elanna questioned. Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed against Tom’s protests.

The Doctor looked straight into Kathryn’s face. “No. It’s not mechanical. It’s… biometric. It’s following you.”

Chakotay stepped toward the Doctor. “We need to isolate the field. Move them to–.”

A sudden flash erupted around Kathryn. A second later Torres.

“Forgiveness…Can you imagine?”

They vanished.

No sound. No transporter beam. Just light then—nothing.

Chakotay’s heart dropped. Lunging back to where he was standing vigil. 

The pulse struck again.

This time. Him.

Then Paris.

=/\=

The Doctor stood frozen. Seven’s voice is sharp over the comm. “Bridge to sickbay. We just lost Commander Chakotay and Lieutenant Paris. What is happening down there?”

The Doctor stared at where Paris, Torres, Janeway and Chakotay had been. “They’re gone. All of them. Janeway, Torres, Chakotay…even Paris.”

Seven’s voice was cold over the comm. “Gone where?”

The Doctor finally landed on the biobed the Captain occupied seconds before. “I believe… into history.”

Chapter Text

“We’re finally on the field, we’ve had quite a run. Immigrants: we get the job done.” - Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)

Mud.

It squelched under Janeway’s hand as she pushed herself up, cold squirming between her fingers like it was alive.

She blinked – once hard. The light, different. Too soft. No overhead panels. Just a grey dawn leaking through the leafless branches.

She tried to sit up but was held back – not pain, fabric. Heavy, layered, unfamiliar. She looked down.

A dress.

A corset.

A cloak of thick wool.

1780’s. Colonial. Handmade.

Her Starfleet uniform, gone.

“Chakotay?” She called, breath visible in the air.

He was beside her in the grass. Clothing matching hers. A worn linen shirt, dark waistcoat, tall boots muddied at the heel. His Starfleet pips nowhere in sight.

He sat up with a groan, disoriented. “Where…?”

She touched his shoulder. “Look at me.”

He did—and froze.

Kathryn gave a faint, humourless smile. “Something tells me this isn’t a holodeck malfunction.”

Not far off, B’Elanna coughed. Awake, alive, coated in leaves looking about two seconds away from punching the universe.

“Tom!” she snapped, crawling toward a crumpled figure lying a few feet away. 

Paris groaned, “Okay, seriously… is this what time travel smells like?”

He rolled over and paused.

“What the hell am I wearing?”

Kathryn tucked her head into her shoulder to stop snickering. Straightening herself out Kathryn stood up and helped Chakotay up as B’Elanna helped Tom up.

As they huddled all together Kathryn couldn’t help staring at B’Elanna. 

“Captain? What is it?” She questioned.

“They removed your ridges B’Elanna. I hope to help blend in.”

B’Elanna slowly reached up and gasped at the smooth forehead. She turned away embarrassed.

Kathryn reached out to touch her shoulder. “It’s ok. It’ll help if we end up interacting with anyone.”

Facing the small circle they created. “We seem to be in the late 1800’s. We need to find cover to see when and where we are.” Kathryn said, knowing whatever moves they make can make or break history.

They moved up the hill, staying close to the tree line for cover. 

Their borrowed clothes rustled — a reminder that her dress was not made for movement, nor command or for them. It wasn’t just a disguise but a reminder that their Starfleet uniforms were gone. No phasers. No tricorders. Only their memories.

They reached the top of the hill silently, a secret agreement that they couldn’t give away who they were, when they were from. Below them, they could see the American camp stirred. Blue-coated soldiers carried muskets. Tents in organised rows. Horses whining in the cold. Few campfires still smoked from the night.

No one had spotted them yet.

They had stopped beneath a gnarled tree, catching their breath in the cold air. B’Elanna and Kathryn silently suffer knowing they cannot sit still.

Kathryn pulled her makeshift cloak tighter, fighting the cold. “That’s definitely Yorktown. Late 18th century, judging by the dress, weapons, and…” Kathryn scrunched her nose. “Odor.”

They all crouch close to the cold, wet, muddy grass, resting without resting. Chakotay notes, “I count at least three French flags flying beside American ones.”

Kathryn looked toward him, “Lafayette must already be here with French aid.”

“Which would mean we’re just before the surrender,” Paris added. “This is the final siege.”

“Great,” B’Elanna muttered. “We’re unarmed. In enemy territory. In the middle of a war we’re not supposed to touch.”

“Temporal Prime Directive?” Chakotay asked quietly.

Kathryn’s gaze didn’t move from the camp. “We’ve already violated it. The question now is: why?”

B’Elanna crossed her arms. “And how. Because I don’t know about you, but I didn’t time-travel into a perfectly tailored colonial gown with a musical echo in my brain by accident.”

“The world turned upside down…”

The voice came again. Just a line — slipping through the wind like a memory that hadn’t happened yet.

Kathryn stiffened. Her hand touched where her combadge used to be.

Chakotay noticed. “You hear it again?”

She nodded. “A line this time. ‘The world turned upside down.’ I remember it from somewhere. I can’t quite place it.”

Tom looked at her sharply. “That’s from the musical… uh what is it?” Tom thought deeply for a second. “Hamilton! They sing it after Yorktown — when Cornwallis surrenders.”

B’Elanna groaned. “Are you saying we’re being manipulated by a Broadway show?!”

Tom held his hands up. “Hey! I’m not saying anything. But the last time I heard voices in my head singing show tunes, I hadn’t slept in 36 hours.”

They all stood up brushing the dirt from their knees. Chakotay asked, “What do we know for certain?”

Kathryn spoke first. “We were in sickbay. No sign of transporter activity. No warning. Then the harmonic pulses. We seem to be the only ones affected.”

“Then the flash,” B’Elanna added. "And the clothes."

“And now we’re in 1781, during a key historical moment,” Paris finished. “Possibly being haunted by Lin-Manuel Miranda.”

Kathryn cracked a small smile, despite herself. “I doubt he is responsible. But someone, or something, brought us here.”

Chakotay looked out across the trees. “Could it be a temporal displacement field?... maybe tied to the Collective residue in your neural patterns. Something still clinging to your thoughts?”

Kathryn didn’t answer straight away, then. “If it is, it’s focusing on something human. Emotional. Not the Borg.”

B’Elanna narrowed her eyes. “The song.”

Tom snapped his fingers. “What if the anomaly isn’t random at all? What if it’s… interpretive? Like it’s constructing events around thoughts and feelings.”

Chakotay raised an eyebrow. “You’re saying this is a psychic time loop based on show tunes?”

B’Elanna says drily, “That’s a very you theory.”

Kathryn shook her head, “No. It’s real we are actually in the time itself. It’s definitely not a time loop.”

“We negotiate the terms of surrender…”

Another line. Audible just enough to send chills down Kathryn’s spine. Turning slowly. “It’s coming from somewhere down there. In the encampment.”

Chakotay’s hand rested instinctively at his hip — where his phaser should have been.

“We have to follow it. Down there.” Kathryn continued softly.

They moved quietly from where they had been spying on the camp on the hill. Through the brush until the tree line broke into the encampment. Stretching for what seemed like miles, makeshift encampments of white canvas tents and stacked crates, muskets leaning against poles. Soldiers in blue coats moved about, some adjusting their cocked hats, others hauling barrels. The acrid scent of wood smoke and gunpowder mingled with the faint sweetness of the baking bread. They crouched low, cloaks blending them in the shadows. Scanning the camp with a tactician’s eye. All of their clothes had been smudged with mud from squatting and lying to dull the unnatural cleanliness.

“This is crazy,” Paris whispered. “We’re in the middle of the Revolutionary War. We should be—”

Kathryn threw a sharp look to cut him off and whispered, “Careful. No Technology. No names. No mistakes. The Temporal Prime Directive still applies, even here.”

B’Elanna gave a tight nod, tugging at the hem of her borrowed bodice. “Great. My first unauthorised time jump and I’m stuck in a corset.”

Chakotay’s lips quirked into a ghost of a smile. “You wear it well.”

A passing soldier stopped a few yards away, calling to another about moving the powder stores before dusk. None of them even glanced toward the wooded rise, where they were taking cover.

Tom leaned closer to Kathryn. “We can’t just walk in there. We’ll stick out.”

Kathryn tugged more on the coarse wool of her cloak. “Not necessarily. Whoever or whatever, sent us here dressed us for the part. If we act like we belong, we might pass as civilians or low-ranking aides.”

“Or spies.” B’Elanna muttered.

“Then we’ll be the kind who keep their mouths shut,” Chakotay said firmly.

“The world turned upside down…”

Kathryn’s head tilted slightly, but she didn’t speak. The whisper was fainter now, drifting on the wind like a forgotten hymn. B’Elanna rubbed at her temple and looked away. Tom glanced between the two of them but said nothing.

Kathryn drew a steady breath. “All right. We split up in pairs to reduce any suspicion. Stay close by and don’t draw attention. Blend. Observe and gather information.”

Tom asked, “And if someone asks who we are?”

“We’ll improvise. Quietly.” 

Kathryn quickly gave a nod as they rose together. Four strangers, in borrowed history, stepped from the shadow of the trees, into the chaos of the encampment.

Kathryn and Chakotay moved together past a series of tents, keeping to the edge of the camp. B’Elanna and Tom split off in the other direction, blending into a group of civilians loading crates near a supply cart.

The air was smoky, dense with motion. Horses clopped past. Young men in patched uniforms carried muskets, limping or laughing, or just simply looking exhausted. It was history, alive, breathing and unpolished.

As they turned a corner around a tall stack of crates, Kathryn nearly collided with a young man in a rumpled officer’s coat, barely older than Harry Kim.

“Whoa—” he stepped back quickly, then stopped, eyes shifting and narrowing, “Ma’am?”

Kathryn straightened instantly, lifting her chin. Voice calm, firm, practiced.

“We are with the medical detail,” she said evenly. Even though her heart was thundering under her ribcage. “Quatermaster sent us for casualty counts.”

The officer frowned. “Strange. Didn’t know they were pulling civilians this close to the ridge.”

Chakotay stepped forward smoothly, his voice quiet but confident. “We’re volunteers from the French detachment. Just arrived.”

The man’s expression shifted. French? Although it wasn’t uncommon, Lafayette's troops  were spread thin across the siege line.

Before he could question it further, a shout came from down the hill.

“Take the bullets out your gun!”

“Take the bullets out of your guns!”

The line overlapped  — once a barked order, once a whispered echo.”

Kathryn’s head turned sharply towards the voice. She couldn’t tell which had come first.

The young officer followed her glance. “Colnel Hamilton’s orders. He wants a silent push tonight. Close range. Bayonets and nerves.”

His voice shook as he relayed the orders. Scared of what is to come.

Hamilton.

The name dropped like stone in her stomach.

She exchanged a quick glance with Chakotay. He gave the barest nod. They didn’t speak — too risky. But they both knew what this meant. They were close.

The officer looked between them, still suspicious. “You should get inside the perimeter. Colonel’s due back from briefing with Washington soon. Won’t look good if you're wandering around unsupervised.”

Kathryn dipped her head. “Understood. Thank you, Lieutenant…”

“James Witherspoon,” he offered. “New Jersey line.”

Chakotay extended his hand. “Merci. We’ll be out of your way.”

Witherspoon gave a curt nod and moved on, shouting to someone about cleaning a rifle barrel.

Once he was out of earshot, Kathryn exhaled.

Chakotay leaned in. “Hamilton’s here. Alive. A few hundred metres away.”

“And we’ve just walked into the moment before the final assault,” Janeway said, her voice low. “The turning point.”

“Take the bullets out your gun…”

The whisper came again — quieter, sadder.”

B’Elanna’s voice crackled softly over the distance between them, just loud enough to be heard.

“Captain,” she said, approaching from the left with Tom close behind. “We’ve got wounded being prepped. It’s real. All of it.”

“Did anyone ask any questions at all?” Chakotay asked.

Tom grinned like a Cheshire cat. “Just one guy. He thought I was a Boston printer’s son who’d gone mad. I didn’t correct him.

Kathryn’s eyes were still on the ridge. “Hamilton is nearby. Possibly within reach.”

B’Elanna titled her head. “So what now?”

Kathryn didn’t answer immediately. She was still hearing it — that thread of melody woven into the morning wind.

“The world turned upside down…”

They all stood at the edge of the camp, the early morning mist thinning as the sun climbed.

Looking in, the soldiers prepared for war. Men cleaned bayonets, whispered prayers, or tried not to tremble. Every face they saw was young. Too young. History didn’t record most of their names.

She felt Chakotay’s presence beside her before he spoke.

“This isn’t just time travel,” he said softly. “This feels deliberate.”

Kathryn nodded, watching as an officer strode past shouting orders in French. “Whoever brought us here wanted us to see this. Feel it.”

“We negotiate the terms of surrender…”

A line came again, like a breath in her ear. But when she turned, there was no-one there except for Chakotay, B’Elanna and Tom.

She exhaled slowly and murmured. “If we’re meant to witness this, we need to figure out what happens before the curtain falls.