How did it end

5 years ago, Kathryn Janeway made Chakotay a promise: if Voyager reached Earth before their feelings for each other changed, they would explore the potential of a deeper relationship that has always existed between them.Yet their homecoming turns out not to be as liberating as they hoped, and duty continues to keep them apart. It’s only when Chakotay finally receives his well-deserved promotion and volunteers to captain the newly designed USS Protostar back to the Delta Quadrant that he reciprocates with a promise of his own: to meet in Venice once he returns.On the date that they had agreed upon, Kathryn is there, more prepared than ever to take the leap and embrace the depth of her feelings—which she’s been terrified of acknowledging for the past 12 years.. . . Little did she know that fate wouldn’t have it. He wasn’t coming, and their search for each other had only just begun.***A short prelude that takes place just before the events of Prodigy.