Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame

his right hand and extended the first two fingers. T'Pel hesitated, and then lifted her own hand. Their fingers touched.
    He did not wish it, but something stirred within him. Tuvok was still recovering from the effects of the recently cured neurological dysfunction. The mind-meld with Sek had been a balm to an injury. Peace had descended upon Tuvok's restless, churning mind once more as his son reached and touched his mind, calmly eradicating all hints of the degeneration.
    A faint frown rippled across T'Pel's smooth, lovely face as she sensed the agony and confusion he had undergone . . . and something more. Something that was, no doubt, directly caused by the lingering effects of the condition.
    “On the other hand,” T'Pel continued smoothly, “it is also illogical to behave as if you had not been gone for so long a time, is it not?”
    “Most illogical,” he agreed. Her flesh was warm against his, her mind open to him through the intimate touch of finger against finger.
    Although he had, most inconveniently, undergone
Pon farr
very recently aboard
Voyager,
where the primal desires thus roused were slaked by a holographic version of the female now standing before him, Tuvok experienced an echo of that powerful desire. Sensing his thoughts, T'Pel lifted an eyebrow in inquiry.
    There was no need for words. As he accompanied his wife to their bedchamber, Tuvok reflected on how, under certain extreme circumstances, the descent of
Pon farr
was not always required to elicit the mating response.
    * * *
    Janeway stood looking around at her austere, clean apartment. She was partly amused, partly despairing. This new place was waiting for her in San Francisco, courtesy of Starfleet Command. All the senior staff had been offered that option. Some had declined, others accepted. For the moment, Janeway had said yes, and was now doing her best to decorate it with the furniture and knickknacks her mother had recovered when she had been given up for lost. They had stayed in the attic in the house in Indiana, and now they looked rumpled and pitiful in the gleaming Starfleet-provided apartment. Janeway sighed.
    The door chimed. “Come,” she said, surprised—Who knew she was here?—and turned to greet her first visitor.
    The door hissed open, and Mark Johnson stood there.
    For a moment, she didn't breathe. “Hello, Kathryn,” he said gently. “I hope it was all right for me to come. I spoke with your mother and she seemed to think so.”
    “Mark,” she said, recovering. “Yes, of course. It's so good to see you.”
    He held out his arms and she went to him. Even as she laid her head on his chest, she saw the light wink against the simple gold band on his left finger. She knew he'd gotten married, and oddly, she felt no pain at the thought. Only pleasure that he had found someone, again, to love. He was a good and gentle man, and deserved it.
    “I'm so glad you're home,” he said, his breath on her hair. They pulled apart, and Janeway saw that his eyes, too, were filled with tears.
    “Thank you for coming,” she said, stepping away. “Can I make you some coffee?” she asked, and then had a brief moment of distress when she realized that she didn't know where the replicator was in this new place.
    “No, thanks. Hang on—I've got something of yours I need to return to you.”
    While he was gone, Janeway took the opportunity to recover. She hadn't realized how much she had missed him. More correctly, she hadn't
let
herself realize how much she had missed him. But now, seeing him after all this time, feeling him warm and strong against her—
    “Stop it, Kathryn,” she told herself in a low voice. “No sense wasting energy on could-have-beens.” And yet, it was difficult.
    A dog's bark shattered her thoughts and she turned. Sitting beside Mark in the front room, a little heavier than she remembered and graying around the muzzle, was Molly.
    “Oh, Molly!” she called, kneeling and opening her arms to the animal. Molly looked uncertainly up at Mark, then back at Janeway. The Irish setter tilted her head quizzically.
    Janeway forced a smile through the pain. Of course, Molly wouldn't remember her. It had been seven years. She straightened and laughed uncomfortably.
    “That was a little foolish, I suppose,” she said. “You've been her master for most of her life.”
    Mark smiled his easy, comfortable smile. “Hey, I've only been dog-sitting. She's always been yours. I can tell you who took the puppies,