Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame

ever-changing.
    When she finally looked up, aware that someone had entered, she found not a yeoman or Chakotay or anybody she particularly wanted to see, but Admiral Janeway standing there like a ghost.
    A ghost with a dinner tray.
    “What's this?” Janeway asked.
    “Crewman Chell told me you skipped lunch. I'm not about to let you miss dinner too.”
    Oh, fine. She not only had a double—she had a granny. The absurd solicitousness just made her mad. “Thanks, but I don't have time.”
    “You're going to have to make some. You're too thin.”
    Janeway sat back and regarded the echo of herself over there. “It just hit me . . . I'm going to turn into my mother.”
    The admiral lifted the cover off the tray. “I make a better pot roast than she ever did. I hope you don't mind—I invited a friend to join us.”
    “Good afternoon, ladies.”
    Chakotay.
    Janeway watched him stride into the room. The admiral was gazing at him in that same odd nostalgic way she had addressed Seven. Another clue?
    Her first officer made himself comfortable on the couch beside Admiral Janeway. They looked odd together—so many years apart in age—and yet there was a connection.
    “How are my two favorite ladies this fine day?” he asked merrily.
    “You're such a liar,” the admiral accused. “How much do you think you can put over on me, Chakotay?”
    His cheeks flushed with a touch of color. He crossed his legs and pretended to relax. “It's all a test to reveal your real identity.”
    “You mean to see whether or not I have a cape and a big red ‘J’ under my uniform?”
    “Something like that.”
    “Why don't you just ask me some key questions that only our friend here and I would know?” The admiral gestured to the captain, then almost immediately seemed to think she'd been rude. “Sorry, Captain. I don't mean to speak about you as if you're not here.”
    Janeway came around her desk and accepted a cup of coffee. “Oh, don't mind me. I'm just a fifth wall.”
    “I'll take the bet,” Chakotay said. “Admiral, why don't you tell us some things that only
you
would know?”
    “The captain prefers I don't discuss the future.”
    “Oh, it doesn't matter now, does it?” Janeway stated. “After all, we're about to wipe it out, whatever it is. At least, we
hope
we are. How confident are you that after today none of your memories will have happened at all?”
    The admiral dropped her smug expression. So she wasn't as secure as she sounded, was she?
    “Like what?” she asked.
    * * *
    The odd dinner meeting dissolved rather quickly from information into reminiscence. And bizarre it was indeed, given that the ship was at red alert, emergency status, enemy-in-sight, and under conversion for critical new systems that would never have a chance to be shaken down. Everything could explode in their faces—literally.
    “What about the first contact with the Rotenians?” Chakotay asked, the tenth in a roster of questions. He had been the one to keep the conversation ever moving forward.
    “How could I forget?” the admiral uttered.
    Captain Janeway nodded at the shared memory. “Now, they
were
telepaths.” She glanced at Chakotay. “How many days did it take to negotiate passage through their space?”
    “Twelve,” the admiral answered before Chakotay had the chance—something she'd done several times now, and it tended to relax them all.
    “Whenever I tried to bluff them,” Janeway added, “that annoying little diplomat would say, ‘I know what you're thinking, Captain . . .’”
    Chakotay laughed. “Until the morning you marched into his office and said—”
    “Tell me what I'm thinking
now!”
both women chimed.
    All three laughed, but the two voices, in perfect pitch with each other, inflections, volume, everything, made Chakotay shake his head. “Am I the only one who thinks this is a little strange?”
    The captain reserved her comment and hid her edginess in the mundane. “More tea?”
    Admiral Janeway nodded and said, “Thank you.”
    When the captain got up and left, the admiral watched her go to the other side of the room. She knew the captain was only pretending to be so relaxed, hoping to ply more information out of an admiral less on her guard. They weren't so good at fooling each other, but the older officer had the advantage of time and knowledge. She leaned toward Chakotay and lowered her voice to a whisper.
    “How's your personal life?” she asked