=/\=

Captain Janeway was a bit amused when she heard that her daughter and best friend snuck out of the watchful eyes of Starfleet and she was even more amused that Starfleet thought they could actually control those two girls. I gave that up years ago, she chuckled to herself. Captain Janeway told Commander Lachayev that she would take care of everything and not to worry. He seemed satisfied that Captain Janeway would enact some sort of punishment.

When she returned to her quarters, she sat in a chair facing Natalie and Naomi, who were sitting on one of the beds.

Natalie and Naomi exchanged glances quickly, before Naomi replied. "We met this guy in the Starfleet gardens. He was some sort of fan or something. He was also a photographer and was taking our picture. Well, we offered to give him an interview. We knew Starfleet wouldn't allow something unauthorized like that, so we snuck out."

"An interview?" Janeway repeated. Natalie nodded.

"Yeah, well, we figured that so many people were going to be asking us the same questions over and over again," Natalie replied. "We thought we'd give this guy an opportunity too. You should have seen the look on his face. He was so funny." Natalie smiled as she remembered the meeting the day before.

Janeway closed her eyes, trying to figure out what she should say. She couldn't exactly ground them. There were going to be event after event for the next few weeks. "All right. No punishment this time. But if you ever pull a stunt like that again, you two will be sent to no man's land, ok?" Natalie and Naomi nodded. "Good".

=/\=

The fireworks were loud and big and bright. After each one exploded, the crowd was bathed in the color. The crowd watched in awe as each one burst and a moan of "Ohhhhhh" and "Ahhhhhh" emanated.

Naomi wanted to scream. She felt patronized. These people didn't want to be here. Most of them were family of admirals who were practically required by law to attend the homecoming ceremony of a ship that had been lost of twenty-five years. Granted people were happy they had returned, but they had been gone so long. Jim had said most of the people in the Alpha Quadrant had forgotten, and if they remembered it was vaguely from reading about it in history books or seeing it on the news for the first few years that Voyager was lost. The communications were great for the families, and at first news stations broadcasted them. But soon people started not to care when every month all they got was a ship status report.

It was cold, too. It was eight o'clock at night and dark as they huddled in one large mass, staring straight into the sky as each firework went off. I want to go home, Naomi thought sadly as she stared into the space of which she had been born and raised.

It was over soon. They went home, sort of. Naomi, her mother, step-father, Joe, and Seth, went to their hotel room in San Francisco. Most of the crew was staying in the hotel until Starfleet said the briefings and presses were finished. Admiral Paris, Blake's grandfather, said it would probably just be another week. Natalie, her mother and father, were staying in the hotel too. Blake, and his sister and brother, Emily and Andy, and his parents were staying with his grandparents in Corte Madera, which was across the bay from San Francisco. Harry had decided he would risk having to transport everyday, and he and his wife, Seven of Nine, and kids, Noah and Anna, went to stay with his parents in Monterey, not far from San Francisco.

Samantha and Joe stayed up all night talking about where they were going to live. Naomi and Seth pretend to be asleep in the next room over, but they could hear through the connecting door that was left ajar what their parents were talking about. Joe had children. Naomi and Seth knew this. He had two sons, both in their twenties. The eldest, Rob, lived on the Terran colony planet of Sa Luca, which was about a light-year from Vulcan, where he worked as a teacher at the Academy of Astro Sciences as a professor in warp physics. The other, Alex, lived on Deep Space Eleven as an assistant engineer. Rob just got married. Finally, as sister, Naomi thought to herself as she laid under the sheets. Joe wanted to move to Sa Luca. It was one of the largest Terran colonies, though it had a diverse population. Only 67% were humans. 25% were Vulcans. The other 8% were a mix of Bajorans, Klingons, Ferengi, Betazeds, and Ktarians and other species. Sa Luca also had a good school system, including the most competitive science school in the Federation, The Academy of Astro Sciences. It is reported that it is more competitive than Starfleet Academy. 96% of all graduates from AAS go on to Starfleet Academy. The biggest city on Sa Luca is Sa Luca City, where the famous 23rd century composer, Brak Devarna, a Betazoid, was born. The city boasted a huge orchestra hall, where Naomi remembers the Doctor saying he wished to perform there someday.

Naomi's mother didn't want to move to Sa Luca. Sa Luca was too far away from Ktarus (almost 20 light-years away). Samantha wanted to make sure Naomi got to know her father. Joe argued that he wanted to get to know his sons. Samantha wanted to move to another Earth colony, called Yalara Prime. Yalara also boasted wonderful features, but was a predominately Ktarian society, mixed with a large portion of humans, with quite of few Betazoids, as Betazed is near the planet of Ktarus. It had the largest xenobiology institute in the quadrant (though it was far from comparable to the Luna Institute of Xenobiology, located on Keractus IV, but that was located in the Beta Quadrant).

"Maybe we should ask the children?" Joe suggested, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I don't know," Sam replied. "It's big decision for them to decide."

"Well, only Seth will be living with us," Joe pointed out. "Naomi will be going to Starfleet in the fall, remember?"

Sam nodded. "That's right. We'll get their opinion in the morning."

Naomi didn't hear the rest of the dialogue as she fell asleep moments later.

=/\=

Natalie lay in her bed, face up, staring at the ceiling. Her parents were talking about where they were going to live, but instead of hiding it, they discussed it straight out.

"Earth," her mom stated simply. "We've moving back to Indiana. Natalie will live with us for the next two years, and then she'll go to Starfleet."

Natalie shot straight up. "What about my early acceptance?" Starfleet had agreed that with her vast knowledge of Starfleet and space, that she would be permitted to attend Starfleet in the fall if she desired.

"No," Janeway answered flatly. "You're going to go to high school just like any normal student. You will finish up this year, attend junior and senior year, and then go to Starfleet. Naomi will still be there." Natalie flopped back. She couldn't believe this. Starfleet was the only good thing about being back on Earth, besides seeing on the relatives she never met. Everything else was a complete waste to her.

"Any other planet would be find, Kathryn," Chakotay added. "I don't see why we have to live in Bloomington, Indiana." Janeway rolled her eyes. Hadn't she explained this already?

"It's where I grew up," she stated. "I want to go home again. I want to live there again, I want Natalie to have the same experiences I did." Natalie rolled her eyes and smacked her forehead in frustration. Janeway pretended not to notice.

"Kathryn, you hated your experiences," Chakotay retorted. "You wanted to go to the Starfleet Institute. Why would you force your daughter to relive things that you wouldn't want to relive? You said so yourself, your a daughter of the 24th century."

"And I'm the daughter of the 25th century!" Natalie exclaimed, sitting up so fast blood rushed to her head.

"Quiet," Janeway and Chakotay both said at the same time. Natalie groaned and flopped back again.

"Fine, where do you want to live, Chakotay?" Janeway asked, and then crossed her arms, waiting for an answer.

"I've heard some wonderful things about Betazed," Chakotay replied. "My sister lived there for years. She loved it." Natalie noticed her father used the past tense.

"Where does Aunt Lakani live now?" Natalie asked.

"She got married," Chakotay answered. "She lives with her husband on Deep Space Seven." Natalie nodded. "Want to live on Deep Space Seven?" Chakotay received a resounding no.

"Where do you want to live, Natalie?" Janeway asked. "Other than Starfleet Academy".

"I guess…" Natalie paused. She didn't really know where she wanted to live. She didn't really care. Well, that's not entirely true. She cared very much, but the place she wanted to live wasn't available. "Betazed or Earth would be fine." Then a thought occurred to Natalie. "Won't you guys be receiving a posting soon?" Natalie hadn't even considered the possibility that she might be going back into space if her parents received another posting. Her parents weren't entirely too old. They were both in their early sixties. Captain Jean-Luc Picard was the Captain of the Enterprise until he was 79 years old. Then he retired. Maybe her parents were thinking of retiring.

"Oh, I don't know," Janeway replied. "I think that Starfleet probably won't be re-posting us. We might be promoted, but I'd hate to think I'd be sitting around a desk for the rest of my life." Natalie frowned. Her parents were thinking of leaving Starfleet. This was a shock to her. Natalie never knew anything to be more important to her parents than Starfleet.

=/\=

Monterey was cold and rainy. Anna didn't like the rain. She decided this immediately upon transporting. Noah didn't like it much either, but he was always much better at adapting to things than she was. The hover-car was waiting for them. Noah and Anna climbed into the back, and Harry flew them to their grandparents home. It was a beautiful home. Tall, elegant, a Mexican inspired design. Harry said it was one of the originals and was centuries old. Of course, the inside was updated and refinished, so it had all the modern amenities a person could want.

The door opened before the Kim family had even reached the door.

"Harry!" Mary Kim shouted. She ran into the rain and gave him a huge hug and then a hug for Noah and Anna. "Oh, you look just like your father." Then she turned and looked squarely in the eye at Seven of Nine. She took a good look at her. The Borg implants were still decorating her face after all these years. After what seemed like eternity, she said, "I finally have a daughter." She gave Seven of Nine a hug and led the family inside, out of the rain.

=/\=

The room was bigger than Blake was expecting. When he first found out he'd be staying in his father's old room, Blake remembered the horror stories he'd heard. Blake half expected the room to be the size of a jail cell, but in reality it was almost the size of the master bedroom. His sister, Emily, was staying in their Aunt Kathleen's room, and his brother, Andy, was staying in their Aunt Moira's room. All the rooms had been redecorated to be more inviting to guests. All of the boyish and girlish fixtures had been removed, and it was now a quaint but certainly not lavish (never lavish in the Paris household) room.

Blake was tired and the bed was very comfortable. His parents, too, were exhausted and they retired to their bedroom, the actual guest bedroom from when Tom was growing up. Blake and his family didn't need to worry about where they were going to live. They already knew. They were staying in San Francisco. Grandpa Owen had already assigned Tom a job as a pilot teacher at Starfleet Academy. Blake's mother, B'Elanna, had also already been assigned a job. She was to be an associate engineer for Starfleet Command. It would require a few week-long trips to various locations all over the quadrant, but mostly she would be required to work on engineering designs and new starship techniques from Earth. Most of the engineers either worked on Earth, the Moon or at Utopia Planetia. Lunar living didn't thrill Tom, so they opted for the Earth locale.

"Besides," Tom's mother had written during a transmission, "we want to get to know our grandchildren."

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