The BLTS Archive - The Ninth Alternative
Fifth in the Crisis Team series
by Blue Champagne (rowan-shults@sbcglobal.net)

---

Hi. B.C. here. Merry meet. :)

As always, I don't own the settings or characters;
Paramount does. No one is making any money from this,
unless you count all our Internet service providers.

The gateway to heck, songwise, has been opened. As yet,
heck's hold is limited--I only used a few lines of what I
used to sing. The song--aside from Enya's "Athair ar Nam"--
belongs to U2--copyright--and used without their bloody
permission, thanks a right pile. I spilled a Guinness on
the leopard upholstery in Bono's Jag and now none of them
will answer my phone calls.

---

THE NINTH ALTERNATIVE

Or:

THERE IS ALWAYS YET *ANOTHER* ALTERNATIVE

Or:

B.C. THROWS IN THE TOWEL

---

Miles freed up his mouth enough to say "Julian..."

"Mmh?"

"Put your arms around me."

"Why?" Julian smiled, eyes closed, nuzzling into Miles's
neck. "Isn't enough of me touching you?"

"Just shut up and bloody do it, all right?"

"Whatever you say, milord." Still smiling, Julian slid his
arms under Miles and began a slow, progressive tasting of
the other man's throat and collarbone, and the delicate
spot just under Miles's ear that drove the engineer insane.

Nearly as much so as Julian's quip. "You've a specially
active mouth on you this morning," Miles muttered.

"And where would you be with--" he paused to slowly and
thoroughly kiss the spot under Miles's ear. "--without it?"

"In the shower, going through the soap with a will,
probably. Kiss me. While you're doing that, you can't talk."

"Oh. A challenge."

"NO. I literally can't believe you sometimes. Can't even
shut up long enough

to--blast." The computer alarm had gone off. "Looks like
the shower after all."

"We'll be quick."

"Julian...oh, God..."

"Yes, Miles?"

"You bloody--oh..."

"Do you want me to stop?"

"You'd better not. But I can't keep showing up for duty
looking like I'm in yesterday's...mmh...uniform, which I'm
going to be again, your replicator being the piece of
Cardassian rubbish it is..."

Julian refrained from asking whose fault *that* might be
and instead paused long enough to say "Start keeping some
things here." He returned to business.

"Won't that be a bit of a tipoff?"

"I didn't say to keep them on the tea table."

"Well for you to talk...oh...you always look perfect."

"I've gone rumpled to the infirmary as often as you've
shown to work in an unfresh uniform."

"You'd look perfect in an oh God piece of duranium foil and
a smile. You're beautiful. I'm not so lucky."

Julian moved up Miles's body, facing him and kissing him,
his hand busy between them, to say "I don't want to have
that conversation, Miles. Even if you're not beautiful to
yourself, you are to the people who love you. And I'm not
*always* at my best; I doubt I'd have turned any heads when
I was dead."

"Crikey, don't mention that. But you're right, you looked a
fearsome corpse."

"Still...wasn't all bad," Julian whispered idly, as Miles
began to move beneath him, holding Julian firmly in one
arm, the other hand sliding between their bodies with a
definite goal in sight. Well, not sight, exactly.

"And just what was *good* about your getting blown nearly
into Tir na n'Og and my breaking your ribs to keep you
alive?"

"You said you loved me."

"I do. Now stop oh *God* going on so and kiss me."

Julian did. They moved together, each holding the other now
with both arms, pressing themselves against each other,
sliding in the clear fluid that the pressure squeezed out
of them in a steady rhythm...Julian began to moan softly,
and Miles embraced him with his whole body, whispering his
name--their mouths crushed together, tongues plunging deep,
Julian moving faster, anxious and urgent against Miles's
body, against his mouth, hands clenching Miles's shoulders
with all their supple strength.

They had mastered the art, in many varieties of lovemaking,
of climaxing at the same time; Julian had most of the
responsibility for this, being younger, stronger and
preternaturally sensitive to the signals Miles's body gave
him, but Julian didn't mind the arrangement in the least.
That Miles didn't mind it went without saying.

After they'd done, Julian had slid half off Miles as they
panted with the remaining effects of the sudden, violent
exertion and its results. "Oh," Julian groaned, squeezing
Miles in his arms and rubbing his face catlike against
Miles's shoulder--he didn't know what had prompted him to
start doing that, it'd been spontaneous, but it turned out
Miles loved it, "--I wish we didn't have to be quick."

"Mmm. Me too. But--oh my God."

"What?" Julian opened his eyes and rolled them up toward
Miles's face, but he didn't lift his head or release his
hold.

"Neither of us need worry about puzzling our respective
staffs with our appearance. We've both forgot what day this
is."

"Ahh...our one-month anniversary?"

"Don't be glib. The transport. We're leaving in--" he
craned his neck to see the clock. "--a little less than two
hours for Bajor."

"Oh, my God."

"Like I said."

Julian lifted his head. "How *could* we forget that?"

"Too much preplanning. All our gear was packed and set two
days ago."

"But it's all we've been thinking of for nearly a week.
Until this very morning. We're such idiots, Miles."

"That's what Keiko and the Commander'll both say if we miss
the flight."

"Remind me to personally thank Admiral Juneau for tying up
the last available runabout one day before our departure."

"I will. Especially since even the private cabins were all
booked. Come on, we've got to clean up and have the gear
sent to the lock. Didn't you say you had a crate in the
infirmary that'll need special handling?"

"Yes, I did, it's a live sample case with a special
environment in--oh, I'll tell you on the transport, it'll
give us something to do. Come on, then; shower."

"Not both of us. We'll miss the transport for certain."

"Good point. You go first; I'll call and set up having our
equipment taken to the lock...blast it, I *know* I left a
towel on the floor here last night..."

"Sorry. Threw it into the laundry chute. I'll get you
another, just roll off onto your back...I'll only be a
moment."

---

"Bajor is pinning a lot of hope on the potential refinement
and sale of this mystery commodity your wife has
discovered; so, do enjoy yourselves, gentlemen," Sisko was
saying as the lock rolled open and began disgorging
arrivals. "Just...remember to get your work done, too."

"Don't worry, sir," Julian said. "I'll be alert for any
attempts Miles might make to steal off somewhere with
Keiko."

"Ha." Miles chortled. "More likely I'll have to grab you by
the hair and keep *your* attention focused. Maybe I should
bring someone else, sir. He'll be useless, I'll warrant."

"Your wife asked for him, or I probably wouldn't be parting
with the station CMO for more than a week; although the
reports Starfleet has had from Professor O'Brien's
associates would seem to indicate that this project is
important enough to Bajor and Starfleet both to justify the
extravagance. But losing you is bad enough, Chief. My
coffee will be tasting like spoiled prunes within two days.
Give my love to Keiko and Molly."

"Will do, sir. Come on, Julian, they won't hold the flight
for us--"

"--and if a runabout becomes available," Sisko added
quickly, "I'll send someone to retrieve you for your trip
home. Have a good flight, gentlemen."

Doctor and Chief of Operations thanked the Commander in
unison and stepped into the lock.

As they got situated in the main cabin, Julian leaned over
and muttered "Did you *really* mean that about my hair, or
were you just teas--"

"Sst. Not here; you know the rules."

Julian said nothing, merely smiled and settled back in his
seat, relaxing his long person as far as he was able in the
compartment's confines, as the transport undocked and began
to move away from the station. When Miles glanced over at
him, he saw that Julian was still looking at him, smiling
speculatively, eyes half-lidded.

"Miserable bloody sadist," Miles growled, crossing his arms
and legs and sinking farther down in his seat.

"Insatiable bloody sa--" Julian started to correct him at a
near-whisper, but Miles smacked him in the arm. "Ow!" the
Doctor complained, rubbing the offended shoulder. "Who's a
sadist."

"Shut up, Julian."

---

"Chief. Wake up." People were moving about, collecting
carry-on baggage and lining up in the aisles to disembark.

"Mngh."

"Chief." Julian slid his hand under the back of Miles's
head where it rested on the back of the transport seat and
lifted gently. Miles was going to have a hell of a crick.
Julian's offer of a shoulder had been met with a snort and
a semiaudible remark involving the word "daft".

"Wake up, Miles. We landed a minute ago. If you can call it
a landing." He heaved himself up on his other elbow. The
bumpy arrival had given Julian a new appreciation of
runabout design.

Miles blinked, realized that Julian was holding his head up
and pulled away almost hard enough to cause the strain
Julian had been trying to keep him from. "We're there?"

"We're there. Let's go see who's come to meet us."

"Mm," Miles agreed, hauling his person out of the seat to
collect his share of the luggage. He paused, rubbing his
neck.

"Let me get that," Julian said, appropriating one of the
heavier cases Miles was holding.

"Here, I can take my share."

"I don't have a crick in my neck."

"Why not?" They stepped into the aisle, heading for the
nearest egress. "You weren't awake for the whole trip, were
you?"

"Yes, actually. I spent the time going through the
Starfleet Physician's Desk Reference by memory."

"That kept you *awake*?"

"The fellow across from me was an Andorian surgeon. He
happened to have a copy of it with him, and we made a game
of it."

"Must've been quite a tranquilizer for anyone within
earshot."

"Your snoring stimulated them out of any such reaction.
Those Ferengi traders were laying bets on how many entries
I could manage before my next slip, and how much time, if I
didn't slip, it would take me to actually remember the
entry. I felt a bit like I was playing--good gracious!"

They had stepped out into the day, and the port was
drenched in deep golden morning sunlight. Outside of the
pavement and buildings, hills rose green and inviting, with
a range of blue mountains in the distance, their snow-caps
pink and white in the early light. Groves of heavy-limbed,
thickly-leafed deciduous trees populated the hills, more
slender, white-barked trees waving and trembling in the
breeze. Wildflowers too distant to pick out individually
created swaths of bright and pastel color. Julian could
just see the river that wound into the hills, grey-silver
under the shade of one of the heaped cloudscape mountains
that drifted across the sun, illuminated; then passed, and
let the sun shine on the river, turning it to a lazily
meandering ribbon of gold.

Miles shoved him between the shoulder blades. "I take it
you've never been to Arilavah Province."

Lurching into startled motion, Julian proceeded down the
ramp. "Ah...no, I hadn't been. Quite lovely."

"Isn't it, though? When Keiko first came to work here, she
had me out for a short visit, and we stayed here."

"Have they worked especially hard at restoring this area?"

"No, it was never plundered as badly as most of the planet.
It didn't contain anything the Cardassians wanted--can't
send a nice view back to the homeworld." As they reached
the bottom of the ramp and stepped onto the pavement, Miles
continued "And while the soil's arable, the Bajorans keep
the area as it is for its value as a place to guest
important visitors, send their own military for vacations,
like that."

"Makes sense." Julian looked around and saw a team of
uniformed Bajorans bringing their gear from the cargo hold.
A woman in a blue Starfleet uniform seemed to be directing
its handling and loading onto the antigrav cart. "I wonder
if we should--"

Fortunately, he was no longer directly in front of the ramp
when a small projectile slammed into his legs, causing him
to drop half what he was carrying to retain his balance.
"What--"

"Daddy!" Molly's small face was peering up at him in high
excitement, which quickly metamorphosed into an abashed
expression. "Oops."

"Daddy indeed," Miles laughed, picking her up and squeezing
her. "Hi, sweetie!"

Then Julian was being embraced from the side, rather higher
up, and as he heard Keiko's laughter he set down his
remaining burden and turned to put his arms around her and
lift her off her feet. "Hi, sweetie," he grinned, and
kissed her forehead.
"Hi, David," she replied, and he nearly dropped her in a
convulsion of suppressed laughter. As he set her down, she
added insult to injury by wondering "How's Mike lately?"

Julian contemplated revenge as Miles handed Molly to Julian
and enveloped Keiko. "Darlin' love, how are you?"

"Great," she assured him, patting his back; the looks on
both their faces demonstrated, at least to Julian, how
loaded with subcontext both the question and response had
been.

Molly was hugging Julian's neck. "Hi Jh'lian!"

"Hello, miss Molly, sir!" Julian swung her through the air,
narrowly missing Keiko and Miles, the latter of whom was on
his way to speak to the woman in the Starfleet uniform; the
woman's helpers were approaching with the cargo pallet, on
which they quickly loaded the personal bags and the rest of
the carry-on gear. "How's my favorite commanding officer?"
Julian continued, twirling the girl in a gleefully
thrashing and squealing circle. "You're so *big*! Be
picking *me* up soon, I shouldn't wonder. Come here and
give us a kiss."

Keiko was rolling her eyes as they started toward the
slideway. "Julian, every time she sees you on a visit, she
won't talk about anything else for days. Sometimes I think
Miles and I should just marry you and get it over with.
Miles!" The Chief had emitted a strangled noise and tripped
on the featureless pavement. Keiko caught his arm.

"She was joking, Miles," Julian murmured to the Chief in a
sincere, confidential tone. He couldn't keep the hilarity
completely out of his expression as he noted the effect of
his reassurance--Miles was thinking that in a perfect
world, he could now be taking Julian's head off with one
swing.

"You won't be able to hide behind a little girl forever,"
Miles growled as Keiko held a hand over her mouth to hide
her grin, composing herself as the Starfleet- uniformed
woman came within conversation range. She lowered her hand
and said "Ensign Blaymare, you've met my husband, Miles;
this is our friend Julian Bashir, the station CMO. Julian,
this is Rilla Blaymare. She's one of my graduate
assistants."

The small, dark woman exchanged a cordial nod with him,
then turned to Miles. "Chief O'Brien, the team's Bajoran
engineers are waiting at the Professor's lab. She told me
that you wanted to meet with them and be briefed on the
industrial side of her discovery while she shows Doctor
Bashir the primary site she's using to work with the lichen
we're concerned with."

Miles, obviously rocked, stopped. Julian plopped Molly into
his grasp as a buffer.

"She said that?" Miles wondered in a faint tone, arranging
Molly in one arm, as the cargo continued, on its cart, to
the transport loading platform.

"You did say that's how you wanted to do this, didn't you,
Miles? And then we'll all meet for brunch." Keiko's gaze
was steady, her tone light.

"Oh, yes. Forgot. Brunch. Long flight and all. Well,
then--oh. I see it's being taken care of." The pile of
boxes and containers that were in Miles's jurisdiction were
being loaded onto a separate car.

"I'll be your driver," Ensign Blaymare said, "and your
wife's given me the address at which to drop Molly until
brunch as well."

"I'll see you in just a few hours, Miles," Keiko said, and
yawned. "I know you two have been on that transport for
quite a while, but I'm just barely awake. We'll meet back
at our apartment in...three hours. You DO still remember
the access code--?"

"--of *course* I remember the access code! You go on, Molly
and I'll visit and I'll meet with the project industrial
specialists." He kissed Keiko and squeezed her soundly,
maneuvering Molly around it with the ease of long practice.
He eyed Julian strangely, then followed Blaymare.

"Well? What was all--" Julian was forced to galvanize
himself to catch Keiko as she beelined for a second car,
the one Julian had seen his own contribution to the
equipment pile being placed in. Keiko went around to the
pilot's side and Julian climbed in the near side. The car
was a sturdy and elderly-looking thing, plenty of cargo
space, and reminded Julian of university issue. Or
military. "Nice of them to--" he yanked his legs in as the
door slammed down with emphatic speed and locked with a
screeching hiss. The safety field seized him like an ardent
lover. "Good God."

"Watch out for that door," Keiko said, flicking switches.
The car rose easily into the maglev queue that would take
them out of range of port-controlled airspace; she was
angling for the due south branching.

"I'll bear it in mind. What was that all about?"

"Miles."

"It was about...Miles."

"And his overprotective streak. I do remember you saying
you'd been rappelling, right?"

"As part of the Academy physical training course, yes.
Why?" Julian, as their car bumped through the force field
into the correct tube, maglifted, and began to pick up
speed--greenery and blue sky flashing by on all sides
through the windows and the transparent tube--began to feel
a shred of misgiving. Every time Keiko took charge--and
Keiko *always* took charge, being better at it than Julian
or Miles either one--something radical and unexpected took
place in his life.

"We'll just have time to see the whole site before we have
to meet with Miles and the engineers," Keiko said serenely.

And nothing about rappelling. All right. "Kei...I brought
everything you asked for, including my own notes in four
cases."

She smiled briefly up at him, but was distracted by the
approaching free air. "Hold on one minute, okay?"

Julian gave in and flopped back, bracing one boot on the
blank panel in front of him and folding his fingers across
the uplifted knee. He had to work a bit at it through the
safety field.

They rose smoothly on shooting from the tube, Keiko
following the signals and safeties on her boards. Taking an
old aircar out of high-traffic port space, in the absence
of the automatic functions Julian was used to from Terra,
might give him a bit of a pause; but Keiko seemed right at
home.

They climbed through the sky, jewel tones refracted through
the heavy-but-isolated cumulus heaps they flew around and
sometimes through, Keiko merely assuring herself they were
on her preprogrammed course. Though from what he'd seen, if
the programming failed, Keiko could get them down without
much incident.

"Can we talk now, my Keiko?"

"Of course. I'm sorry to surprise you with all that,
Julian," Keiko said, laying her near hand on his left knee.
"It just didn't occur to me--how to handle this--until
yesterday. And then when it did...I hope you don't take
this badly, but I've taken you into my confidence more than
I've taken my husband on several occasions, and it bothers
me."

"I can see why. Our present sleeping arrangements for
starters."

"I did ask for that."

"I know. But how is Miles's confidence betrayed by your
showing me a botanical research site?"

"You'll recall I mentioned his overprotective streak?"

"Yes."

"I also mentioned rappelling."

"I was wondering about that."

"You're about to have that question answered."

"You *didn't* detail the engineers to distract him, did
you?" Julian said this last in a quiet monotone.

"Of course not. Don't be silly. The engineers, and Miles,
are going to be doing exactly what they do. And you and I
are going to be doing exactly what we do."
"You and I? Are you saying there'll be no one else at this
site?"

"Not for a while yet."

"And we'll be...?"

"Rappelling, at first."

---

"Down *there*?"

"You have been rappelling before."

"It's not that at all. When you said low light, I assumed
something akin to a polar exposure, not caves. This *is* a
plant, it *does* photosynthesize?"

"Yes, it does! That's one thing that's so exciting about
it--here--" she handed him the small pack she'd finished
making up, and helped him buckle it on. "I'm not saying
that there's an astronomical light array growing in a cave
on Bajor, but it gives anything that requires light to
function a run for the title. We won't *need* to go down to
levels where there isn't any light our eyes can see at
all--"

'That'd be a long way for some of us,' Julian mused,
helping her with her harness.

"--but I was sort of hoping you'd want to. It's even green,
chlorophyll-using."

"So this...plant isn't a lichen at all."

"Well, yes it is. I had to call it something, and it does
have attributes in common with thallophytic and saprophytic
plants. But it also makes use of light at levels lower than
can filter to the deepest ocean plants."

"That explains why you wanted the samples and tools I
brought, but why me? I assumed a pharmaceutical
application?"

"I think there is, but I needed you to help me verify it.
My assistants and I are sort of at a standstill there. Are
you ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

"At the first stop, we'll want to take our wristlights off
and put on the goggles. The light from one handlight will
kill every cell of this species--for an area about the size
of the transport you came in."

"That's sensitive, certainly. I'll go first." He attached
his harness to one of the top pitons and began to descend.
There were signs of recent use of the route, handholds
fired into the rock where the smooth black stone didn't
provide any, and of course the pitons. "I assume these
caves are watery?"

"Not very. That's another amazing thing about the plant--"

"What is your team calling it?"

"It's got an official name in Krizhia now--the Bajoran
equivalent of Latin, isn't it?"

Echoes resounded; Julian fancied he felt a pebble bounce
past. "I think of it that way."

"--a Latin name, and a Japanese name, but no name in
standard. My team calls it Keiko's lichen."

"I suppose that's flattering in a way. "

"In a way." He could hear the smile in her voice as she
swung over the lip of rock above him and commenced her
descent. There was little dust, or rubble. "The amazing
thing I was getting around to is that the moisture from the
air--even here--these caves are volcanic--seems to be
sufficient to sustain it. It doesn't need a heavily
saturated atmosphere or direct watering."

"Neither do some cacti."

"Cacti can't grow in the dark, and most of them flower."

"So it can make use of light at a level of only a few
photons per, it needs virtually no water, it grows on
rock...you said it had features in common with fungi,
lichen, et cetera. Watch out for that basalt lip."

"Yes, that one nearly impaled me the first time I came down
here. That's why I wanted to go first, I know the land."

"What things, then? Is it heterotrophic? Reproductive
similarities?"

"It reproduces remarkably like single-celled organisms, or
some hermaphroditic lifeforms. A single bunch of it is a
contiguous plant, and it can bud off from itself. But if it
encounters another plant, they exchange DNA rather like
mammalian egg fertilization is accomplished."

"Keiko, help. I'm getting a mental picture."

"Julian, grow up. They're not puffballs, but they don't
need a liquid environment to reproduce, either; they also
don't scatter seeds. The plants come into physical contact
and cells exchange DNA through what looks like a viral
method--you'll have to tell me if what I'm looking at is,
really, comparable to messenger RNA in a protein shell. If
so, instead of a mutual infection, what occurs is they
simply start producing a third plant that incorporates both
plant's DNA, through a rather unconventional medium."

"For true plants, at any rate."

"Yes. It'd be a...more elaborate, maybe just more
complicated, method of chromosome exchange."

"In terms of 'true' plants and animals, these botanical
wunderkinder wouldn't happen to be in that grey area
between plant and animal, would they?"

"Maybe they are, but if so, it's in a way I've never seen
before and am not prepared to classify. Honestly, Julian!
Did you think I just wanted you here so your staff could
have a chance to mess up your files?"

"Got a copy made with a lockout even Dax won't be able to
crack."

"I should have known. In any case, I needed expert help."

"That could rappel down and climb up several rock faces."

"That's right. Antigrav units of any kind seem to be very
disruptive to the plants. I don't know how--all I know is,
I trucked some gear down on a spare pallet, and my scanners
went crazy. I had to shut off the pallet and have it hauled
out by hand."

"How do your scanners affect the plant?"

"It's all dependent on the frequencies and types of scans.
I'll show you what I've determined is safe, but I'm betting
we'll have to go outside definite safety limits--for the
plant, I mean--when you start your investigations."

"All right. I can see definite food plant and industrial
applications in the offing, though I'm expert at neither.
But what's this pharmaceutical application you were wanting
help with?"

"It wouldn't make much of a food plant, I'm afraid. But one
of my grad students, getting a specialty in pharmaceutical
exobiology, says she believes that's true for the same
reason nightshade doesn't make a good food plant..."

"But did make several excellent antispasmodic drugs. What
application does she see? Why's the plant poisonous?"

"Because if you eat it, you'll immediately contract a
particularly virulent form of an opportunistic cancer that
was cured long ago--but the same substance that causes it
might be used to make a drug that could do, at least in
part, the same thing you can do with your regeneration
chambers."

"That *would* be quite the innovation. Where's this aide of
yours now?"

"She'll be asleep for three or four months."

"Ah. Linsentauran. Is her name pronounceable?"

"No, she goes by Siral. She read it in an old Vulcan fairy
tale and liked the sound of it. She wanted to stay awake,
but I insisted a week ago that we could manage without her.
Her eyestalks could barely move by the time we got her to
bed; she's very dedicated. I've got all her notes and
reports at my lab."

---

When Miles managed to get the full story of the site's
location and depth--the engineers detailed to help Keiko
hadn't known she hadn't told him, and filled him in when he
asked, though not until most of the briefing was over--one
of the engineers, a man named Enlelan Shia, had offered to
accompany him and Blaymare to the site, seeing as how Miles
had drawn the meeting to an abrupt and explosive halt until
he got out there to see if his wife, or Julian, were lying
in the bottom of a rocky crevasse.

Once there, Miles leaped from the aircar under a full head
of steam, followed by Blaymare and Enlelan; when he got
hold of Keiko and Julian, he was going to--

As they rounded the car those two had arrived in, they were
all three nearly run down by Julian, who stampeded through
their quickly-dodging bodies with Keiko in his arms. "Get
back!" he was shouting. "Chief, get back, behind the cars,
get everyone back--"

Blaymare and Enlelan didn't need to be told twice, but
Miles hesitated, briefly stunned, until he heard Keiko
scream "Miles! Come on! It's going to ignite--" he began
moving very quickly indeed then.

There was a muffled boom, the ground shuddered, and then a
roar and a blast of light, apparently from the cave
entrance, sent everyone to the ground, Julian catching
himself nearly flat over Keiko's supine form. Two packs
were strapped to his back, or rather one was strapped on
and the other fell off him as soon as they hit the ground.
"Stay down!" Keiko was screaming over the Doctor's
shoulder. "Everybody stay down! There could be more--"

And right enough, there were--this time the burning gases
(Miles had seen enough different types of combustion to
know what he was looking at, at least that far) flumed out
of the cave entrance and shocked into the side of Keiko and
Julian's car. The old beast jolted and swiveled a bit, but
stayed upright and in one piece.

He elbow-crawled to Julian and Keiko. "Julian, what the
hell--oh damn your eyes, you're not dead *again*, are
you?!" the Doctor's body was prone and inert across
Keiko's, and she wasn't moving, either, eyes closed.

He rolled Julian off Keiko as Blaymare and Enlelan rushed
up with a medical kit procured from its compartment in the
other car. Miles shouted hoarsely over the noise "They're
both out, I don't know why--but he was moving pretty damn
sprightly a moment ago, and we all heard Keiko scream--"

It was a fleet-issue kit. The blue-uniformed woman scanned
Keiko first, then Julian. "Chief, turn the Professor over,
please, carefully."

Miles did, and his heart nearly stopped when he saw the
ripped and bloody condition of the back of her jumpsuit,
jagged cuts and bruising all across her shoulders and arms,
and down one side of her back. "Spinal injury?"

"No, she's badly bruised, and...one rib cracked, not
severely...and her left arm's broken. No mentionable
internal injuries. The arm's a simple fracture. I can
stabilize all that right here, and they can do the touch-up
work at the hospital. Here." She handed him the tricorder
and started working on Keiko with the osteoregenerator.
"Scan Dr. Bashir, find out why he's unconscious, and I'll
see to your wife."

Miles did, starting at the top and working his way down.
"Bloody couple of *idiots* coming out here all alone and
you'd *better* not be dead, y'blasted excuse for an
overeducated pry pole because I *told* you I'll not be--"
he broke off as Julian's eyelids fluttered. "Julian!
Julian, answer me! Open your eyes!"

"Mm...hello, Miles," Julian graveled, his lyrical voice
shattery and rough. There was another rumbling boom from
behind the car in whose wake they sheltered, and bits of
grit and pumice rained down around them. Ash and dust
billowed skyward, bathing them in a storm of dark grey
flakes. Miles protected Julian's face as Blaymare quickly
leaned across Keiko. "Lovely weather for our arrival, isn't
it? Ow."

"Ow what? Where are you hurt?"

"I'm...mgh..." Julian was struggling upright; Miles moved
to assist him. "I'm not. Thanks to Kei."

"What the BLOODY hell happened down there?"

"Did you know your wife can fly, Chief?"

"What?! Julian, if sense doesn't start coming out of you
damn quick, I'm gonna pound some in."

"When the last blast rocked us, Keiko saw a rockfall with
my name on it before I did. With one running jump, she was
three meters from her starting point, with enough momentum
left over to knock me sprawling out of the way."

"So she could take it herself? Doesn't she know by now
you're practically indestructible?"

"I don't think she intended that part. I think, from the
position she landed in, that she'd meant to be beyond
damage range as well--good thing she thought to cover her
head anyway--but she didn't have quite enough mass to knock
us both that far. Only me."

Miles bent his head into one hand, covering his eyes. "Holy
Aine."

"No, I doubt she was involved. I...ah...pulled the rocks
off Keiko, and found her broken arm. I could tell
barehanded that that was her worst injury, so I...ahm..."

"You what, damn all, WHAT!?"

"I slung her over my shoulders and made the last climb out
to the cave entrance. I'm afraid I quite ruined the
climbing harness in the interests of getting it off quickly
so I could run, and here we are as you see us."

"You climbed a rock face with Keiko over your shoulders?"

"Well, I needed my arms."

"How? How far did you have to climb?"

"Only about...thirty meters? There were a lot of handholds,
and there were the pitons in, of course."

"My GOD."

"You've become--ahem (cough) very religious all of a--"
Julian coughed again, then seemed unable to stop, and
Miles, who had been on his way to needing some support
himself, had to calm down and hold Julian up as the spasms
racked him.

"It's the gas," Blaymare was saying. "The same stuff that's
burning back there."

"You were in a cave that contained combustible, toxic
volcanic gases without any breathing or fire gear?" Miles's
voice rose to a near-shriek.

"Not at first," Julian said tentatively, half-gasping.
"We've discovered another property about what Kei's botany
team has styled 'Keiko's Lichen'."

"What? It explodes? The engineers would have noticed any
tendency to that."

"Not necessarily. The tendency has nothing to do with the
industrial applications projected for it so far. It's the
pharmaceutical aspect of it, you see."

"So it'll make a drug that blows up. Fat lot of--"

"No, no. It won't blow up if it's not suddenly subjected to
a combination of--for it--high light levels and certain of
the gases we encountered back there. From what data I
gathered, I think a few simple modifications to the
molecular structure will make it quite safe to handle in
the light, particular combination of gases or no."

"Speaking of those..."

"When the atmosphere composition monitor went off, we
realized a fumarole somewhere farther down from our lowest
position--exactly where we're not sure--had opened up. The
air was coming something nasty--not that we could smell
anything but a little sulfur, but the equipment gave the
lie--and we were removing ourselves from the area with all
possible speed. I felt speed justified the need for extra
light..."

Keiko was coughing suddenly, and Blaymare quickly injected
her with something that made the other woman quiet and
glaze-eyed. "I haven't healed her cracked rib yet. I gave
her tri-ox and a mild sedative," Blaymare explained.

Julian nodded wearily, touching Keiko's dirty cheek, and
continued. "Keiko didn't want to leave her samples, so we
sealed the cases, and I pulled off my goggles and put on my
wristlight--without consulting her--and when I happened to
shine it directly across a patch of the lichen in my path,
well...up it went."

"And you bloody nearly with it."

"Yes, unfortunately. I shut off the light at once--nobody
said I didn't have *that* much sense--but the damage had
been done. We were outrunning a chain reaction of lichen
explosions, fueled by the gas and the light from each last,
nearest explosion, until the last stop--the first stop on
the way down, where we got a little breathing space since
there was none of the lichen near--except, apparently, for
a small patch up near the light from the cave entrance.
Still nearly pitch dark to us, but combined with the gas,
light enough for the little plant to go boom--and knock
loose that rockfall that Keiko, bless her valiant soul,
thought she could save us both from."

"And you're saying a chemical that has pharmaceutical
potential was causing these explosions."

"Until a couple of hundred years ago, an explosive chemical
called nitroglycerin--that's a--"

"I know what nitroglycerin is."

"It was used, in a carefully prepared form, as a medication
in the treatment of some sorts of heart disease. This
chemical in question is also poisonous--so is foxglove, a
plant that yielded the drug digitalis, used for many years
to strengthen the heart--again, properly prepared."

"Well, if this stuff is supposed to be so useful, I hope
your handlight didn't just destroy the entire species."

"Oh, no," Enlelan put in, then paused while another rumble
shook the area. "It grows in lightless areas in many places
on this continent. Speaking of lightless places--Ensign
Blaymare, can we move Mrs. O'Brien now? I hope otherwise,
but it is possible these explosions will trigger
a...volcanic event of some kind. Most likely not, but..."

"But let's not wait to find out," Blaymare agreed; she was
running the tricorder over Keiko again. "Yes, I've got all
the fractures healed, we can pick her up. Chief..?"

Miles gently gathered Keiko in his arms, wincing in
sympathy as her weight rested in his arms across the
bruises and cuts. "Enlelan, would you give Dr. Bright Idea
a hand?"

Julian protested "Keiko won't want what's in the car left
here--"

"We'll see if we can tow it, but I doubt that car's going
anywhere under its own power, and I'm not getting in it
where it's sitting now. You just get yourself in back with
Ensign Blaymare and I'll try to salvage the car--Keiko'll
have my head if I don't at least try."

Julian got in the back of Enlelan's car with Keiko and
Blaymare, taking Keiko face-down half in his lap while
Blaymare healed the worst of the bruises. Enlelan and Miles
fought the car's power supply, the tow field, and the car
containing Keiko's gear and the equipment and samples she'd
asked Julian to bring, not that there was any assurance any
of the latter were in functional shape.

Finally Julian felt them lifting--to an altitude of about
ten meters. "It'll be a near thing," Miles was saying,
fighting the control panel while Enlelan rode herd on the
tow field, "but if we stay low I think we can move this tub
and that one both loaded." Out the window, Julian saw the
other car rise--slowly, and with an uncomforting whine from
their own car's engine--to the same altitude as they'd
attained themselves. "Come on, now....and we're...moving."

And so they were. Julian let his head fall back and his
eyes close. Nothing to see outside but a dirtied landscape
in hazy light, anyway. In moments, he was asleep.

---
"No, sir, Keiko and I are fine, honestly." Julian weaved
before the computer console in Keiko and Molly's apartment.

"You don't look fine, Doctor."

"I haven't had a wash. There was quite a bit of ash, no
more than there was to get burnt. But as I said, we've
discovered important new properties and possible
applications--"

"Excuse me, sir, but I'm laying him down before he falls."

"Be my guest, Chief."

"Miles--! I'm talking to--"

Julian found himself propelled down the hallway and into
Keiko's bedroom, where she was lying on the bed, faceup,
with her eyes closed. She slotted one just open when Miles
dumped Julian next to her, then closed it again.

Miles left the room, returning to the console out front.

"You're getting ash on the bed," Keiko muttered.

"So are you, and dried blood on top of it."
"Better than brains."

"Better that you should have let--" they both silenced
instantly as Miles's voice resumed out front.

"Yes, sir, the Doctor at the hospital said to bring them on
home, that a night's rest will likely put them right, now.
And we did save the data they gathered, after a fashion;
between them, they remembered most of the relevant aspects
and re-entered them on a couple of padds. The gear Julian
brought is all right, though the live samples are dead. The
containment was breached when the gas flume hit the car."

"Can Keiko manage without them?"

"I don't know that, sir, I don't know what she intended
them for. I can ask her, but I think she's asleep."

"Don't disturb her, then. She can call the station tomorrow
if she has any serious problems as a result of their loss.
Do you expect to be gone any extra time as a result of
this...mishap?"

"I don't know that yet, either, sir. Perhaps a day or two
more, but not longer than that. If even that. How's the
coffee holding out?"

"Fine so far, out of the replicator in my quarters. But
Jake says the orange juice isn't right."

"Blast, thought I had that fixed. Tell him to switch to
grape 'til I get back."

"I'll do that. And Chief..."

"Sir?"

"Don't let your wife and the Doctor go off alone together
again. I've found that scientists, as a group, won't notice
Armageddon unless it's interfering with their research.
Just a suggestion."

"Count on it, sir."

"DS9 out."

"Here it comes," Julian barely muttered, and Keiko made a
noise of nauseated concurrence as they heard Miles heading
for them down the hallway. She barely whispered "No. We're
asleep."

"Mm."

Miles stumped in, and, confronted with their apparently
sound-out presences, made a frustrated noise and stumped
out again.

"We can't put it off forever," Julian whispered.

"No, but we can put it off until we feel better."

"There is that."

In a moment, they heard the front door whish open and shut
as Miles left to retrieve Molly from the sitter.

Julian turned his head to Keiko, raising a hand to her
face. "How do you feel? Hit by a pile of rocks?"

"They would have brained you, Julian."

"I have ears. You could have yelled and pointed..."

"Which would have been just enough time for you to look up
and get your face erased. Honestly, they might have broken
your neck. We didn't have time for that sort of thing."

Julian sighed; by Keiko's lights, her reasoning was
perfectly sound. And she had taken that load of basalt for
him; the least he could do was be gracious about it.

But not serious, necessarily. He smiled slowly, stroking
her cheek with a finger. "My hero."

"Flatterer. But I can overlook it, since you're sleeping
with my husband."

"Interesting logic."

"It's a pretty interesting situation, though not at the
moment. I think we ought to get some sleep."

"I can't; I'm filthy and this uniform reeks of sulfur. I'm
having a shower."

"Feel free. Just don't wake me when you come back." Her
eyes closed and, near as Julian could tell, she fell
straight to sleep.

He rose carefully, leaving ashy handprints on the
cream-colored adobe-like walls, and made it to the bathroom
before he injured himself, which he accomplished by
tripping on the heavy braided rug and falling against the
sink. Then the door closed on his boot.

It immediately opened again, but not before leaving bruises
on his ankle. Lying face down in the floor, he reflected
he'd better speak to someone about that door, what with
there being a child in the house.

Eventually he mustered the ambition to start getting
undressed, decided that horizontal suited him just fine,
and started drawing a bath. Not too hot, though; he was
still feeling a bit scorched. Psychological, perhaps, but
scorched nonetheless.

He entered the tub in a controlled fall, getting gently
steaming water all over the floor and his uniform, which
stinking rag was heading for reclamation anyway. 'I'd best
be careful,' he thought, 'or I'll be falling asleep in the
water, and wouldn't Miles just have a field day with
*that*.'

He fell asleep in the water.

He woke up with Miles hauling on his shoulders. "Are you
just DETERMINED to kill yerself today, y'nitbrain?"

"Ow! I'd've woke up if I got a snootful of water, Miles, I
was only asleep, not in coma. And I'm not done washing, so
unless you're planning to help, let go."

"All right, but I'd like to bathe my daughter, so don't be
forever about it." He left, with Julian's discarded
uniform, tossing back the comment "And rinse that grit out
of the tub. Or I will, if you're too weak."

"I can do it." And he did, once he felt he'd got rid of
enough mineral stink. When he emerged from the bathroom,
swathed in a towel, hair still dripping down his neck, he
heard Miles and Molly in the girl's bedroom and skedaddled
to Keiko's room; damned if he was going to flash the poor
child twice, though Keiko still assured him Molly'd thought
nothing of it last time. He wasn't sure how to feel about
that.

His bag was in the bedroom, on a wooden trunk at the foot
of the bed. Keiko had turned onto her uninjured side in her
sleep, and Miles had covered her with a quilt bearing a
distinctively Bajoran geometric motif. The last light was
filtering through the round, thick-glassed windows. He
pulled on some undershorts and a light cotton undershirt
and crawled under Keiko's quilt with her; he folded his
long-fingered hands around Keiko's small, outstretched one
with the dirt ground under the nails and into her callused
little palm, and fell asleep again.

When he woke, it was moonlit and dim in the room, and he
was feeling substantially better, and substantially alone.
There was only an ashy smear where Keiko had been.

Seized with irrational fear that she might've taken a turn
for the worse, he rolled onto his feet and was at the door
when it slid open and he banged into Keiko, who was wet and
naked. She grabbed his shoulders, steadying them both. "Are
you okay, Julian? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I...ah...I was afraid...something might have happened to
you."

"Something did." She sidled past him and let the door
close, and waved her hand across a panel in the wall,
raising the light level slightly to augment the moonlight
streaming through the windows. "I woke up and grossed out.
I *must've* been tired to fall asleep in that condition.
Yuck. Oh, ick, look at the bed. We'd better get under the
sheets. Unless *you* want to lie in that."

"No, the sheets sound like the way to go. Where's Miles?"

"Asleep in the front room. It's a couple of hours past
midnight. Put a hold on the sheets; let me get something on
and we'll raid the kitchen. I could eat a horse."

"Um..." he sat back down while she toweled her hair and got
a robe out of the curtained closet. "Is there any word
about the havoc we wrought at your site?"

"Sort of; the word is no word. There was no significant
seismic disturbance after you blew up my primary site, but
the seismologists at the institute were NOT pleased. They
said we could have set off what they called a 'cold flow',
lava nearest the surface welling up and flowing into the
caves. Wouldn't have been much in itself, but they're
touchy since Mount Heshkein blew in the southern hemisphere
a few months ago. Probably because of one Doctor with an
unauthorized handlight."

"Haven't I already apologized about that?"

"No. You haven't."

"Well, I'm sorry. We *did* save your specimens."

"I was conducting a controlled experiment down there; now
I'll have to set it up again at one of the other sites. I
want natural conditions, not laboratory ones, at least at
first. And I sure could have used those live samples you
brought. Though maybe..." she halted in front of him, tying
her belt, and held her hands out to him; he took them and
stood. "...I should be thanking you for finding out what
might happen in the next volcanic cave, if I'm not careful.
And carrying me up the cliff, that was awfully impressive.
I've only got one question."

"And what would that be?"

"There was a piece of basaltic rock half as big as I am
lying on my arm. You flipped it off me like it was pumice.
How did you *ever* manage that?"

"Heat of the moment. Very common for people to experience
sudden bursts of strength in an emergency. Flipping rocks,
flying a couple of bodylengths through the air to rescue
people from rockfalls..."

"It was just a jump. You make it sound like I levitated."

"You made it look like you did."

"Thank you for getting me out of the cave."

"Thank you for taking that rockfall for me. Are we even?"

"Not quite." She grabbed the back of his neck, pulled him
down to her and kissed him hard. He stumbled slightly as
she released him. "Now we're even. Let's see what there is
in the kitchen."

They tiptoed past Miles, who was on his back on the sofa,
snoring like an avalanche. Fortunately for everyone
concerned, the kitchen was a separate room with its own
door.

"I'm NOT in the mood for Bajoran," Keiko muttered, waving
the lights on. "I feel burned enough. How does sashimi
sound?"

"Delicious. As long as it isn't too spicy."

"I promise you sashimi rolls that'll bore you to tears.
Here, you open this." She reached up into a cabinet over
the stove and pulled down a bottle of wine, handed it to
him, and said "The corkscrew's in that drawer."

"Extravagant, aren't we? This is Earth stock." He took a
second look and said "Claret? With sashimi?"

"Chateau Picard," Keiko further clarified, getting some
wine glasses down. "Captain Picard sent me that when I got
my Doctorate."

"Oh." He started trying to get the bottle open, wound up
having to clench it in his thighs to hold it fast enough to
pull the cork out. "You correspond with the Captain, then?"

"I correspond with Deanna Troi, like I said a while back.
She must have mentioned it to him. He sent it with a little
congratulatory note. After today, I'm in the mood to see if
we can kill it."

"Lovely! Race you to the bottom."
---

An hour later, Keiko was spinning the empty bottle in the
middle of the table, chin resting on her hand, which was
also on the table. Her legs were stretched under said
table, her ankles just reaching Julian's lap. He was
massaging her feet.

"Oh, that's great," she was sighing, still trying to follow
the bottle's gyrations with her eyes. "Can I hire you?"

"Why bother? You have me for free."

"Good point. So. D'you and Miles ever do anything with your
free time but have sex?"

Julian smiled at the blue-and-green fingerpainting
masterpiece he'd been staring dreamily at. "Of course. As
we arranged. Everything looks perfectly normal--holosuite
games, lunches with Garak...Miles and I even try not to
touch each other when we're alone together, if we haven't
arranged the time and privacy to finish anything we might
start. Didn't our last chat satisfy your curiousity?"

"My curiousity, but not the rest of me."

"We'll see what we can do about that while Miles and I are
here."

"Yeah. I've been trying to come up with a good reason for
you to be staying here. Past tonight, I mean, which looks
reasonable. Then again, you're a family friend. Nobody has
to know how much of a family friend, or where you're
sleeping, specifically."

"True...had you already arranged quarters for me?"

"There's a bunkroom at my lab. I've been telling people you
planned to sleep there, cut down on the commute time."

"That'd cut down on a few other things, too."

She made a face. "Tell me about it. Miles gets you all the
time. It's so unfair."

Julian actually felt himself blushing, even through the
heat the wine had brought to his face. "Not as often as
he'd like, he doesn't."

"Julian Subatoi Bashir! All this work and you've been
playing hard to get?"

"No, just hard to get to. Between our work and keeping
everything looking normal...sometimes the only way we can
get any privacy together for any length of time is for
Miles to site-to-site transport into my quarters in the
evening."

Keiko looked up suddenly, her eyes lighting. "You're
kidding!"

"Haven't either of us mentioned that to you yet?"

"No! Oh, you two are evil," she cackled, sliding back in
her chair. The bottle rolled to bump gently against the
wall, but she'd lost interest in it by that time. "Thank
God he's Chief of Operations or you'd never get away with
that! He must be covering his tracks to his own people,
even."

"Actually, Miles had to think fast when Dax asked him what
was up with all the transporting about he'd been doing; she
noted the extra activity in her laboratory when she tried
to site-to-site some components she needed. He told her he
was making sure the emergency systems were all in working
order."

"Dax is pretty smart. Did she buy it?"

"If she didn't, she hasn't said a word to anyone that I
know of."

"Mmm..." Keiko was eyeing him explicitly, and he abruptly
had to move her feet a little farther out toward his knees.

"Let's wake Miles up," she said suddenly.

"Are you sure that's wise?"

"You don't really think he'll mind, do you?"

"Probably not, my little hedonist." He released her feet,
stood, and cocked his arm to her, half-bowing in a courtly
gesture. "If Madame will accompany me...?"

He laid her hand across his arm and they proceeded to the
door, where the effect of their game was ruined by Keiko
taking an unmarked hard left and crashing into the lintel.
"Heavens, Kei," Julian started, grabbing for her, but he
smiled when she broke into giggles. "That looked like a
real buster."

"So what. Come on." She tottered through the door, Julian
behind her trying not to giggle too loudly, but when she
fell full length onto the coffee table and laughed so hard
she had to hold her sides he gave up and plopped down next
to her, lost in the relief of hilarity.

Miles, being only asleep and not dead, had woke up by this
time. "What...good night. What're you two on about, then?"

"We're drunk," Keiko explained reasonably, then collapsed
laughing again when Julian did.

"That's certainly what it looks like," Miles agreed,
sitting up.

"On claret," Julian elaborated.

Keiko sniffed a couple of times, wiping her nose. "Um, that
pottle, um, bottle Captain Phic--pph--the Captain gave me."

"Then you can't be very drunk. A bit tipsy, perhaps. You're
simply in hysterics," Miles surmised. "What's the joke?"

"No joke," Julian said, eyes wide and innocent. "We
wondered--would you be in the mood to join us on some
quilts in the bedroom floor?" Keiko collapsed anew at this.
"Kei, I just thought...your bed's not as large as yours and
Miles's on the station." Julian noted with satisfaction
that as a result of his innocently couched invitation Keiko
was on the verge of falling off the table. (He *did* still
feel rather bad about blowing up her research site.)

Miles smirked. "And whose idea is it, then?"

"Hers," Julian said, pointing. "But it sounds like a lot of
fun to me, too."

"Come on, Miles, let's do it like weasels," Keiko got out,
and gave up, rolling off the table to climb,
hyperventilating, into Miles's lap, with his assistance.

"Well, at least try to calm yerselves. We go to make it at
this point and you'll both suffocate. Not to mention give
me...security issues..." He was trying to stay
straight-faced, but as they laughed even harder Miles lost
it and cracked up, too, enveloping Keiko in his arms. "All
right, now, we've got to quiet ourselves or we'll wake
Molly."

They all sniffed and choked and tried to work their faces
into at least semi-sobriety, succeeding more than they
might have expected to, though they all still had grins
lurking in the corners of their eyes. Miles stood up with
Keiko in his arms and gestured with a toss of his head
toward the bedroom. "After you, Gaston."

Julian grinned and led the way, only having to pause and
regain his balance once. Miles was right--they weren't that
drunk, especially Julian, being larger.

Miles set Keiko on the bed and casually shoved Julian down
next to her, saying "I'll get a couple of quilts that don't
have ash and dried blood on them."

"Good idea," Keiko said, shifted onto her knees and yanked
her robe off in one tug, then pitched it toward the closet
curtain, which it passed through. "Lift your arms." Julian
obediently did so and she pulled his t-shirt off, then slid
her hands into his shorts and with a quick jerk had them
down to his knees, from whence she easily drug them the
rest of the way off.

"Heavens, Kei. Perhaps you should consider more frequent
visits to the station, if this is the state you're
usually--"

"Shut up, Julian," she said, and silenced him with her
mouth.

Miles came back in with a bundle of material in his hands,
which he proceeded to cover the carpet with. "...*had* it
with rug burns...excuse me, could you two slow up?"

Julian, flat on his back on the bed with Keiko lying on him
full length as she kissed him deep and hard, made a
helpless shrugging gesture with one hand, then put the hand
back around Keiko's body, stroking her soft golden skin
from her thick gleaming hair to her small round buttocks.

"Well, well, well. SOMEone looks to be needing a bit of
attention, doesn't she?" Julian heard a rustle of cloth,
then a rush of air flowed over him as Keiko suddenly
ascended off him, in the grip of an external motive force.
Julian nearly got his lips sucked off before she released
them. Miles had her, of course, and he said, laying her on
the quilts as she giggled softly, "Come on, Julian. I think
this is going to take both of us."

"With a will," Julian agreed, sliding off the bed onto his
knees next to them. Keiko reached for him, and he lowered
himself with his elbows to either side of her shoulders to
kiss her again, this time putting as much energy into it as
she was. He felt her knees bump gently into his back and
shoulder, then hold firm there as her whole body shuddered
and she sucked his tongue farther into her mouth, biting at
him gently, moaning. In his peripheral vision, Julian
watched as Miles worked the folds of her sex with his lips
and tongue, gently pushing them farther open with his hands.

Julian was aroused enough now to be shuddering a bit
himself. He shifted his weight off his right arm and began
caressing her small, soft breasts, and her back arched, and
her soft cry released his mouth for a moment; he lowered
his head and took her right nipple into his mouth,
alternately sucking gently and lifting his mouth to blow
soft circles of air around it, over the tip, then back into
his mouth again...

Keiko was panting steadily; as Julian lifted himself to
shift his attentions to her left breast, taking the right
back into his hand, he saw that Miles had at least two
fingers sunk into the warm, wet depths of her body, and
moaned himself as he took as much of Keiko's breast into
his mouth as he could, stroking her hardened nipple with
his tongue. Her fingers pressed desperately into his back,
twined in his hair, ran over him with an urgency that drove
Julian even closer to the state she herself was in.

After only a few more minutes of this, Keiko gasped
"Miles..."

Julian shifted again, out of the way, as Miles moved up
over her, and he watched as Miles entered her, easily, with
a single thrust of his hips that she lifted to meet,
pushing back with a groan.

Julian gazed at them in the dimmed light, his breath coming
hoarsely, as the two settled into a hard, steady rhythm,
Keiko clutching at the quilts, Miles with eyes closed and
mouth slightly open, on his elbows down over her supine
body; he lowered his head and whispered to her, something
that made her moan in response and nod her head, whispering
"Yes..." she nodded again, eagerly. Without a break in
their motion, Miles leaned back, up on his hands, sliding
his knees up so that he could almost sit on his heels;
Keiko turned her head and kissed Julian's shoulder, taking
his arm and tugging at him; he started to move back up over
her, and as he did so she grasped his waist and lifted,
pulling at him firmly until his knees rather than his
elbows straddled her shoulders.

He thought he was prepared for her touch, but when she
reached up and caressed him with both hands--stomach,
thighs, buttocks, groin--slow and firm, stroking in time
with her rhythm with Miles, he was suddenly shaking,
letting his knees slide out farther, lowering him closer to
her. She slid one hand up onto him, between his legs,
encouraging his movement with gentle pressure, and took his
painfully hard member in her other hand, her thumb
spreading the single clear drop of fluid that trembled at
its tip over the delicate skin, then squeezing gently and
stroking once with every panted breath she took--rapidly,
as she and Miles, if anything, had increased their pace.

Julian groaned, his hips moving of their own volition, as
light, shivering spasms racked his overheated body. He was
no longer thinking, only aware, intensely aware of the heat
of Miles's body behind him, the familiar warm smell, and he
seemed almost as conscious of Keiko's and the other man's
feelings and sensations as he was of his own, the love, the
fierce desire--

Keiko took him into her mouth, and a rough cry broke from
him as he collapsed to his elbows and she raised both hands
to his hips, caressing and then gripping him to lower him
further, guiding him.

He bit his lip, hoping the pain would help hold back his
body's insistent demand for release, clutching at the
quilts as Keiko had been. On and on...and on..."Oh, Gods,
Keiko--my Kei--" the words were barely whispered, hardly
audible.

But he knew what the muffled cry he heard Miles emit meant,
and used every ounce of willpower he had to pull out of
Keiko's sucking, caressing mouth and roll to the side, just
as Miles lost the ability to remain upright and fell back
across her, moaning, hips heaving, Keiko matching him shove
for shove as he came, hard, and as long as Julian had ever
seen him do.

He lay exhausted across Keiko for only a moment; as small
as she was, the dead weight of another body on top of her
was oppressive rather than comforting. She was trembling as
he raised his head and moved back, gently pulling out of
her, and looked up. "Julian?"

"Julian," Keiko repeated, with a note of desperation in her
voice, holding her hand up to him as Miles moved out from
between her folded, upraised legs.

Breathing hard, Julian rolled to his hands and knees and
moved down and over Keiko, kissing Miles on his way by, and
fell over onto her, and slid into her with such a sense of
relief and tenderness he felt his throat close, and when
she put her arms up around him and began to rock her hips,
he clutched her tight and moved in rhythm with her; she was
warm and wet and open inside--

Keiko started to shake, ramming one fist against her mouth
to stifle her cries, and the clenching and squeezing of the
muscles inside her, moving and clamping around him, the
feel of her body spasming in his arms, her fingers digging
into his back--it pulled out the last stop and he came too,
both of them shoving against each other almost to the point
of pain, extending the experience as long as they could.

He was weak and trembling as he backed carefully off of
her, kissing his way gently down her body, to find himself
in Miles's arms and without the strength to hold himself
up. Keiko had slid her legs down and was lying on her back
with one knee bent, head turned to the side, where she
still had one hand to her mouth. She looked boneless,
panting for breath, and Julian realized they might have
overexerted themselves a tad just as Miles said "You two
aren't as completely recovered as you thought, I suspect."
He tenderly lifted Julian's head to rest against his
shoulder, kissing his forehead.

"It seems so," Julian whispered. "The gas...we probably
aren't getting as much oxygen with each breath as usual.
But nothing serious...right, Kei?"

She didn't answer. "Keiko?" Julian started trying to move
toward her, but Miles restrained him gently, laying him
down on the quilts and moving to Keiko's side himself. He
took the hand she had to her face, though she foggily tried
to turn her head away to prevent him. He looked at the hand
and her face a brief moment, quickly raised up kneeling to
wave the lights to a slightly higher level, then sat again
on his heels next to Keiko, saying "Julian, did you bite my
wife?"

"What do you..." Julian rolled up onto his elbows. Keiko's
fingers were all blood, and her face was liberally smeared
with it. He quickly hauled himself up to her other side and
turned her face to him, trying to see past the blood to its
source. She had let her hand fall, and smiled slightly with
one side of her mouth. She said thickly "I guess that
buster was worse than I thought."

He carefully pried her upper lip away from her teeth, and
said "It's split. In another few minutes it'll be the size
of an apricot. Why on earth, Kei?"

"I didn't know," she said breathily, shrugging. "It hurt a
little, but I didn't know I'd split it."

"The pain must have been detained for questioning by the
claret," Julian murmured. "And the damage intensified to
this point by our pas de trois. Odd I didn't taste any
blood, though. Miles, would you get the medkit out of my
bag? It's stocked more completely than the usual household
model."

Miles did so, and muttered "It's a good thing for you two
that these things are stashed practically everywhere."

"Although in just the wrong place on the Ypphat."

"That's a point. You *can* fix her up?"

"Oh, easily. And I'll give us both another shot of tri-ox."
He was holding a small instrument over Keiko's face; it was
emitting a barely audible whirr and a beam of soft red
light. "She'll still have a bruise. I can't repair the cell
damage completely with only a medkit. But the split will be
closed, and the swelling minimal, if there's any at all."

"Well *that's* a relief," Keiko slurred through Julian's
ministrations, and he said offhandedly "Shut up, Kei."

"No wonder you couldn't say 'Picard'," Miles mused.

---

Julian sipped his juice, enjoying the shelter of the shade
trees as he watched Molly running across the grass after a
large sky-blue ball; two other children from her day-care
group converged on it at the same time she did, and the
ball, nearly as wide in diameter as any one of the children
were tall, rebounded them all gently in three directions.
They all fell into the thick grass with high-pitched
screams of laughter as the ball took off again in a
different direction. Too large for any single child in the
group to hold, it led them a merry chase, the object of the
game being to gang up on it and trap it, which took at
least three of them to do; this game was about teaching the
value of cooperation, not competition. The ball could be
set for other games, too.

Keiko and Miles hadn't arrived at the Parents Party yet;
Miles had called Keiko and Julian at Keiko's lab to inform
them that he wasn't going to make it until later, and Keiko
had fretted, not wanting Molly to feel the odd one out,
since she wasn't going to be free herself for another hour
at least. Julian had volunteered to stand in until they
could get there, to effusive and rather physical thanks
from Keiko. He'd had to straighten up just a bit in the car
on the way over; he'd taken the back seat and didn't think
that the technician Keiko had asked to drop him at the
center had noticed.

The other adults were all chatting in small groups, and in
one larger group over by the refreshment table. Julian was
content to lounge under his tree and keep an eye on Molly,
though he'd introduced himself to her care providers when
he arrived, tendering the O'Briens' apologies. Molly had
greeted him with a grin and a mute arms-out request for the
requisite swing around. Now the sun was on its way down; a
clear warm day in Arilavah Province.

"She's lovely," came a voice from above and to his left; he
opened his half-closed eyes and looked up. A Bajoran woman
with night-black skin and smooth dark hair clasped at the
nape of her neck was standing next to him, holding, to
judge by the color, a cup of the same sort of juice he was
sipping.

He blinked, trying to get his bearings--he'd been close to
dozing--and when he didn't answer immediately, the woman
continued "How old is she?"

"How old is...oh, Molly, of course--she's getting on for
five now. Five of our years, I mean, not Bajoran." He got
to his feet and the woman held out her hand.

As he took it, she said "I'm Kylir Luma. That's my girl,
there, with the red playsuit on." Julian followed her
pointing arm to spy a small replica of Kylir trying to
dodge in front of the ball. She made it, but there was no
one on the other side to help hold it, and it escaped again.

"Charming. And quite dexterous for the age."

"Thank you." She smiled. "Is your girl's mother coming
today?"

"My--? Keiko will be here later, yes, and her husband,
Chief O'Brien."

"Oh--you *are* Molly's father, though?"

"No, the Chief is. I'm just a family friend. Name's Julian
Bashir."

"You'll have to forgive me, I only recently began bringing
Taelan here for daycare; I don't know all the parents."

"Quite all right. I'm flattered, actually. Molly's a lovely
child, as you said."

"You're not...an uncle or anything?"

Julian laughed. "Only by courtesy, I'm afraid. Why do you
ask?"

"When I saw you with her, I thought there was a family
resemblance, that's all." Kylir sipped her juice. "My
girl's father can't be here; his wife is having surgery."

"Nothing serious, I hope."

"The Doctor doesn't expect any problems. You probably don't
know this, but Bajoran women only carry their children
for...oh, about half the time your people

do--"

"Is she having trouble vascularizing? It can be very
draining for some women."

Kylir blinked, then smiled. "You're a Doctor?"

"Yes, I am. What do you do?" Julian sat back down in the
grass, patting the springy patch next to him, and she
smoothed her simple dark tunic under her and sat down. "I'm
a transport shuttle pilot," she said, and her eyes widened
and she leaned back slightly as Julian made an odd noise
and nearly lost his grip on his juice before managing to
swallow and still himself, stifling laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"Um...It's just the reputation that transport shuttle trips
have with the O'Briens and me."

"A little primitive next to Federation transports, I take
it?" She smiled and waved away his apology. "Don't worry
about it. Even a lot of Bajorans don't care for the trips
out to the belt, or to the space station. We still don't
have the resources to keep the shuttles in top condition.
They're perfectly safe--that's where all the resources
go--but I'll admit they're not very comfortable."

"Ouch," Julian muttered as two children bombed into either
side of the ball only to have it slide out and leave them
to crash into each other. "I'm glad there's a nosebleed kit
under the refreshment stand." The children in question
teetered a moment, then both fell over, looking stunned,
but dry-eyed and unhurt. In a moment they were climbing to
their feet and wobbling off after the ball again.

"They are amazingly resilient, though, aren't they?" Luma
observed fondly.

"They certainly are." His mind wandered back to his own
early childhood and he clamped the usual
shut-up-and-sit-down box around the thought. "I don't have
children myself; the O'Briens are kind enough to loan me
Molly now and again."

They chatted amicably, watching the children, as the sun
continued to descend; Julian suddenly realized it had been
about an hour and the care providers were gathering the
children, fishing out the exhausted ones for delivery to
their adult representative(s), and changing the game to a
Bajoran version of dodgeball, judging by the ensuing
activity. "What exactly are they playing?"

"It's called second chance. After the ball touches you
three times--it'll light up from inside at the third touch
on any one of the children--you're out, and the last one up
running from the ball wins."

The words rang oddly, for some reason, with some obscure
significance, but Julian said only "It sounds fun." he
realized he'd sounded definitely wistful, and kicked the
box in his head, with another order to shut up.

"Missing your childhood? Though you look hardly out of it."

"Missing *their* childhood," he replied, gesturing to the
crowd of raucous sub-meter-high beings scrambling like mad
within the boundaries of the game's ring, and they both
laughed.

Just then Julian spotted Keiko and Miles emerging from the
yard door at the back of the daycare building, and said
"Excuse me, there are Molly's parents now. Wait just a
moment, I'll introduce you. Can I get you another?" He held
his hand out for her empty cup and took it and his own
toward the refreshment table, where the O'Briens were
greeting Molly's caregivers.

"Julian," Keiko smiled, coming around the table to where
Julian was filling two cups with fizzy juice. "Thank you so
much for doing this for us. Are you *too* bored?"

"Not at all." He exchanged a nod with Miles, who was going
to greet Molly; she'd broken out of the main mass and was
heading for him at a gallop. "It's a gorgeous day, isn't
it? I've just been relaxing, watching the children, talking
with Luma."

"Luma?" Looking down, Keiko noticed he had two cups in his
hands. He could have sworn he espied a bit of tension
drawing her brow.

"Yes, Kylir Luma. She's a shuttle transport pilot, believe
it or not."

Keiko smiled briefly, then pointedly looked around; Julian
said "Over there under the trees on that little rise. She's
only been bringing her daughter here since her friend
started a touchy pregnancy. Come on, I said I'd introduce
you."

Keiko nodded, firmly looped one of her arms through
Julian's and they headed back toward the knoll, Julian
shortening his steps a bit for Keiko's shorter legs. As
they approached, Luma saw them and smiled, starting to get
up.

"Oh, no, please," Keiko said in her best social voice.
"Don't get up."

Julian handed Luma one of the cups. "Kylir Luma, mother of
Taelan, meet Keiko O'Brien, mother of Molly."

The two clasped hands as Keiko seated herself next to
Julian, retaining her hold on his arm, saying "It's a
pleasure to meet you."

"Oh, the pleasure's mine. I don't know if Julian has
mentioned it, but Taelan and I are new here, and I don't
know the parents well. When I saw him with Molly, I assumed
he was her father, and I came up to him and started asking
all sorts of questions." Luma laughed.

Julian said "Oh, you weren't nearly so forward. She was
very polite, Keiko. And here comes Miles."

As the Chief reached them, he wondered jovially "Can anyone
join this party?" He gave Keiko and Julian the briefest
puzzled glance--Keiko seemed to be ignoring her own
injunction about public displays of physical affection;
Julian surmised that was what he was wondering at.

Julian introduced Miles as the Chief found a spot a little
farther down on the knoll where he could lean on his elbow
and roughly face both the three other adults and the play
group running itself en masse to exhaustion. "Keiko," he
said, "Chelri, the young fellow I was speaking with there,
he's new; he thought Julian was Molly's father--and he
thought they looked alike. Can you beat it?"

Keiko looked off toward Molly as Luma and Julian chuckled.
Miles smiled and said "What?"

"Luma can beat it," Julian said. "She's new as well; she
thought I was Molly's father, too, for the same reason. Or
at least an uncle or something."

"Really?" Miles pondered this a beat, then said
"You're...sure it's not because he's human, too?" he asked
Luma.

She shook her head, swallowing her current sip of juice.
"No, there's a resemblance--the color and texture of their
hair, and the color of their skin and eyes, mostly. But
looking at the two of you," she added, "I can see she's
just a blend of you. That's my daughter, in the red."

"Cute," Miles offered, though he looked a little uncertain
of what to say next.

"Luma is a shuttle transport pilot, Miles," Keiko said, and
Miles controlled a laugh. "Really now," he said, folding
his left hand with the one attached to his bracing elbow.

"It's all right," Luma sighed, "Julian's already explained
about the history you three have with the space
station-Bajor shuttle."

"You're on that run?"

"Not right at the moment. My friend Erelte Namaera got
pregnant recently, and it's been a difficult one so far."

"Trouble vascularizing," Julian said. "Not that uncommon,
but this sounds like a fairly serious case. Luma says the
Doctor doesn't foresee any problems with surgical
correction, though."

"I'm glad to hear that," Keiko said politely. "You're
staying here to be with her, then?"

"Her husband and I are, yes, for the moment. Suryn--her
husband--he's Taelan's father, and he and I are switching
between staying with Namaera and taking care of Taelan. But
he'll have to be going back to work soon--he flies for the
military, various transports, mostly. Depending on how
Namaera's recovery goes, I'll be leaving Taelan with her
and taking my regular runs again. But we can't say if or
when Nae'll be up to caring for a small child twenty-six
hours a day...I've started bringing Taelan here so she can
get used to it while Suryn and I are both still here.
Taelan loves Namaera, of course, but she's still so
young..."

"I understand," Keiko said in a maternal tone. "I live here
with Molly on Bajor, doing my work, and Miles is Chief of
Operations on the station."

"I see--that explains why you're not enamored of the
Bajor-station shuttle. You must see a great deal of it."

"Oh," Keiko sighed expressively. "And with Molly
along...it's a long trip for a four-year-old. The best I
can hope for is that I can manage to tire her out right
before we leave. I'm lucky if she'll sleep most of the
trip."

"And so is everyone else, right?" Luma grinned. "Taelan has
an I-want-out-of-this-seat repertoire that only begins with
screaming at the top of her lungs."

Laughing, Keiko released Julian's arm to accept Luma's
wordless offer of a sip of juice. "Thanks...Molly's usually
not that loud, she's sort of a proto-intellectual, but oh,
can she *whine*. An ambassador with a frustrated maternal
streak was taking the same shuttle with us once--we're all
acquainted with her grown daughter, Miles and me
personally. I let Ambassador Troi stuff Molly full of
sweets and entertain her--I'll admit she did that
well--just to stop the badgering, and as soon as we walked
through the lock Molly threw up on Miles."

"Not one of my favorite memories of fatherhood," Miles
muttered as everyone else smirked and/or giggled. "Though I
should have been used to it by that time, if you ever do
get used to it. Ambassador Troi made that visit memorable
for us all, didn't she?"

"But that's rather a long story," Julian leapt in as Keiko
appeared about to elaborate. "So, Luma! Tell us about Suryn
and Namaera..."

---

"'Tell us about Suryn and Namaera...'" Miles, rolling his
eyes, squirmed again in patent muscular discomfort.

"I wasn't about to go into everything concerning that visit
just then. And you have to admit, Suryn and Namaera sound
like interesting people."

"The Ambassador's visit...I had hell's headache, Keiko
threatened to leave me--and you and Major Kira got the--"

"I *know* what happened! Now hush or we'll wake Keiko. Hard
enough trying to rub these kinks out of you without
bouncing her off the bed. It's a matter of personal record
that Kira and I nearly shredded each other, and at any
staff party where she might not murder the joker, I'd laugh
as hard as anyone else. But with Luma was not the time to
discuss it and--" he paused, consciously lowering his voice.

"--certainly neither is now." Julian held a prohibitive
hand over Miles's mouth.

Miles squirmed a little closer to Julian on the bed,
jerking his head aside to whisper "We really ought to move."

"I've a better idea. We'll move Keiko."

Miles, it proved, had washed the quilts. He climbed over
Keiko to retrieve them.

Julian slid carefully down the bed from Keiko's somnolent
form, kissing her shoulder with a softness he could have
wished was more infinite, since she yawned and squirmed up,
muttering "I can...ahhhh...." she blocked her yawn with the
pillow. "Sleep on the sofa..." She draped her arm over his
shoulders, still mostly asleep.

"Let's make you a bed in Molly's room."

"Mmm...." Keiko smiled.

It only took Julian a few head-tosses and word-mouthings to
get Miles to build the soft pillow-and-quilt bed in Molly's
floor; the Chief started to carry Keiko there in a few
minutes, but Julian got a shoulder under his and
appropriated the nightwear-clad Keiko, bearing her into her
temporary boudoir.

Back in Keiko's room, Julian sighed in frustration. "You
know better than to lift anything in this condition. And
you're going to have to relax a bit for this to work."

"Oh." Miles snapped his fingers in a "silly me" gesture.
"Of course, 'Doctor'."

Julian leaned down over him and whispered in his ear. "'Why
don't you just call me by my first name?'"

"All right. 'Julian'."

Julian smiled at the old joke. "How many years have you
been calling me that?"

"Too many. Since those idiots in that Bajoran village
thought I was the new messiah or whatever it turned up
being."

"Then don't you think," Julian wondered reasonably, digging
the heel of his hand into Mile's upper shoulder and
eliciting an exclamation from the Chief that Julian muffled
with a pillow, "that you should be relaxed enough by now
not to scream when I rub your back? I saw you come in this
afternoon. You have help out on the site for a reason, and
you've a child to carry about at home. And you haven't been
this tense since our first session with Telnori."

"I'm used to giving massages, not getting them."

"To Keiko, at least."

"And quite a few other pregnant women in my family. S'a
tradition with our menfolk OW--" Julian shoved Miles's head
into the mattress and said "That's it. You're taking a
muscle relaxant."

"D'rather have a shot of Bushmill's."

"I'm sure. But you're taking a muscle relaxant." He
rummaged in his kit. "Pill or injection?"

"Mmm..." Miles growled.

Julian smirked. "Pill it is. Here--Chief--blast it, shall I
hold your head and ram this down your throat like a horse
or will you take it like a civilized being?"

Dourly, O'Brien swallowed the pill and set the glass on the
table. "You're the Doctor."

"And I *told* you to let Keiko be on top."

"That sort of thing isn't under my control. My body knows
what it wants, and then *I* know what it wants."

"And so does everyone else. Lift up, let me slide this
pillow under your stomach."

After a time--he could feel Miles slowly unknotting under
his hands--Julian essayed "*Is* anything wrong, Miles?"

"Beyond the usual?"

"Of course beyond the usual."

Miles sighed. "I suppose...I don't really know. I've just
been feeling a bit odd about the whole thing lately. Our
whole thing, I mean, you and Keiko and I. And there's
Molly..."

"There's Molly...?" Julian prodded gently. He paused, then
added "And are you feeling odd, or bad?"

"Not bad. I suppose I've been feeling a bit queer since the
parent's party. I couldn't really say why. Ordinarily I'd
refer you to Keiko, but I don't think she's paying
attention."

"And that'd be bothering you, as well, wouldn't it?"

"I suppose. Perhaps I take too much advantage of the way
she manages me."

"And me?"

"Of the way she manages you, or the way you manage me?"

Julian laughed softly. "I don't know. Both." He paused,
changing the focus of his therapeutic touch from deep
penetration to a gentle smoothing of the muscles along and
out from the spine preparatory to deeper work.

"You and Keiko are getting on well," Miles offered.

"That tone implies that you didn't expect us to."

"*All* I *meant* is that she's damned pleased to have you
around after having called you...uh..."

"It's all right, you needn't go into detail. She thought
she was losing you. Now she knows she isn't, that she never
will. Of course I don't frighten her now."

"To say the least."

They were quiet for a time, and Julian finally said "Are
you feeling left out of what Kei and I have?"

"Don't be silly. It'd be hypocritical in about sixteen
different directions. I was desperate for you two to get
on, and now you do--with a vengeance--and I'm confused
again. Bloody, Julian, I'm just maundering. Pay me no mind."

"I wouldn't, if I didn't think it were important. Perhaps
you can't describe what it is that's bothering you; that's
just you. But there is something not lying right with
you--beyond, as I said, the usual."

"Aye. You're right, I suppose. Ow. Just a little lower.
Right there. Thanks. Just now I'd like to concentrate on
getting this damned spasm out; I have to be on site in the
morning."

"Your wish is my command." Julian kissed Miles's back
softly and continued carefully stroking the older man into
sleep.

But sleep, as it turned out, took a back seat to what
became uppermost in Miles's mind. He turned under Julian's
body, taking the younger man's shoulders and pulling him
down. Julian let his elbows slide off to either side
willingly enough, and made a soft murmur as their lips met,
then whispered, in the lowest register of his throaty
baritone, "I am definitely on top this time."

"That's the thing with you, though, see. We don't have to
pick one or the other nearly as much."

"Don't exactly *have* to with Kei..."

"No, of course not, but it's simpler sometimes. And
sometimes the only way we can manage, depending on how
tired any of us are."

"Mm..." They were kissing again. "True," Julian whispered.
As he was trailing kisses down Miles's collarbone, he
reached up to the other man's face and stopped. Miles
turned his head abruptly, but it was too late, and the
dampness trailing from his eyes just trickled down the side
of his face over Julian's fingers. Julian pulled himself
back up, trapping Miles's face in his hands. "My..." he
hesitated, then just went ahead and said it. "Miles, my
love. Whatever is wrong?"

There was a long pause, but Julian didn't push further.
There was only so far you *could* push with Miles if you
were looking for a real result. Finally, the Chief
whispered "You...really enjoy this, don't you?"

Julian stopped himself from thundering at the older man
barely in time. Of COURSE he enjoyed this, of course he
hadn't gone to all this trouble all this time and endured a
vicious storm of confusion and neurasthenia to pursue
something he hadn't en--but he bit it back, breathed, and
said softly, into Miles's ear, "I love you. However we
decide to love each other, you're stuck with me from now
on. And yes, I do enjoy this, emphatically I do. Am I
making myself clear?"

Finally Miles whispered "Thanks. I do, too. You, I mean."

Julian was quiet, then said, honestly and with some
surprise, "It means a great deal to hear you say that." He
kissed Miles again.

---

Miles made it to the top of the stairs outside the
apartment, sighing; it'd been a hell of a day. Not
physically exhausting, but nerve-wracking--they'd been
finding what combinations of the pharmaceutical compound,
and the various volcanic gasses, in what concentrations,
would cause explosions under what conditions. "Like a
bloody firefight," he sighed. He hadn't seen Keiko or
Julian; they'd been at Keiko's lab doing much the same
thing as he and his team, but from a different angle of
research.

He waved the door open--he knew they'd be home; they'd been
about to leave to retrieve Molly before he'd been able to
wrap up his own day. They'd left the house late, too;
Keiko'd been feeling a touch queasy and off, and Julian'd
stayed to give her a palliative and take her in to work.

He looked around for Molly as he walked in; she almost
always came to greet him--

He stopped dead, staring around. Sure enough, Molly showed
in a moment, saying "Daddy!"

"Hi sweetie--" he scooped her up, kissing her forehead.
"Where are Mommy and Uncle Julian?" And what the bloody
hell went with our furniture?

"Miles," Keiko greeted him, smiling as she came in from the
hallway. "What do you think? I saw it in a store window on
the way home and it just grabbed me."

"It just...grabbed you?" Miles said weakly, still looking
around. The whole front room had been redone in shades of
seafoam green and sand, with azure accents. The shutters at
the windows were replaced with long, complicated drapes in
a modern Bajoran style. The carpet was gone, and the
apparent-adobe floor was padded here and there with
embroidered rugs featuring ocean and shoreline scenes.

"I've missed the ocean, you know, for a long time,
and--well, isn't it beautiful?"

"Oh, it's that, darlin'. I just...it's a bit of a surprise."

"You're not angry?"

"No, not at--" he realized his throat had been closing up,
gulped, asked "How are you feeling, then? This morning's
crawlies all chased away?"

"Oh, Julian gave me one injection and my stomach settled
right down. I ate more breakfast than he did. I'm still
feeling bloated. Speaking of him--"

"Miles! Gangway!"

Setting Molly down, Miles turned to see Julian standing on
the porch holding a chartreuse loveseat. "Crikey, Julian!
Let me give you a hand with that--"

"Miles, your back--" Julian began, but Miles cut him off
with "How did you get this thing up the stairs? Love, you
sent him to carry this himself?" By main force, he
appropriated one end of the couch.

"*No* I did *not*," Keiko said severely to Julian as both
men staggered in with the piece, "he was just supposed to
call and tell me if it was at the pad and I'd come help him
with it. It goes under the other window--yes, there."

With a final palpable thump, the sofa was placed, and
Julian stood and stretched, blowing like a draft horse and
shaking himself. "That was quite a haul. So, my Kei--"
Julian crossed the room to put an arm around Keiko and
survey their work with her. "Pleased with it?"

"It's beautiful," she grinned, squeezing him back around
the waist. "Thanks for your help, Julian. Miles, you look a
little out of it."

"I am, me darlin'. S'all right, I'll get used to it...just
a bit sudden, as I said." He took an abrupt seat on the
couch he and Julian had just positioned. "Comfy."

"I *did* think about your back when I tested everything,"
Keiko assured him. "But go change, honey, your uniform's so
dirtied and this is all brand new." She lifted Molly as the
girl started running toward the larger sofa.

Chuckling, Julian went to give Miles a yank up from his
all-too-brief resting place. "Come on. I'll give you a
hand."

"You'll give me a hand changing clothes?" Miles gave him a
disturbed look.

"No, idiot, I meant standing up. Come on." But he did
accompany Miles back to the hallway. "I'll get your uniform
in the laundry if you want to take a shower. Supper'll be
ready soon. Keiko and I are making it with minimal help
from the replicator, so it might be a good idea to prepare
yourself as much as possible."

"You're right." Miles was stripping off his uniform,
handing the pieces to Julian as he went, and digging out
fresh clothes. "Keiko's vegetarian cuisine is always..."

"Palatable," Julian supplied, throwing Miles's discarded
underwear across the arm holding the rest of the Chief's
clothes.

"Yes. Thanks. But it took me some getting used to."

"She says the same thing about your potato casserole.
Incidentally, she can't stand capers."

Miles stopped on his way out the door toward the bathroom,
staring. "She never told me that."

"She says she never got around to it. I'll just get these
into the laundry for you."

"Thanks, love," Miles said as the bathroom door closed
behind him. "Not like capers...?" He shook his head and
raised a hand to start the shower.
---

"How long haven't you been able to stand capers?" Miles
wondered, swaying Molly on his knees; he had her prone on
his legs with his feet on the low table, as they watched
and listened to a performance, on holo, of the Bajoran
a'Maira convention--sadly reduced to seventy-eight
barely-qualified members, but those members, with their
musical skills, were still mesmerizing enough. The
performance was nearly hypnotic in quality, especially
judging by Keiko and Molly. The child was asleep, largely;
Keiko was sure to follow soon.

"I've never liked them," Keiko said quietly, her head
rising and falling with the rhythm of Julian's breath.
"They hurt when you bite them."

"You're not supposed to bite them."

"You're supposed to bite little round things in food.
They're berries or seed sacs or beans." Keiko yawned
hugely. "Do you want me to sleep in Molly's room?"

Miles was taken aback. "Do...you expect to?"

"I just wondered. *I* feel like going right to sleep, and
if you two don't, then we should put me in Molly's
room...how long are you going to juggle her, Miles? She's
been asleep for a couple of hours."

"But she likes to sleep out where we are."

"All children do. Put her down."

"I'll be right back," Miles said, rising, and as Molly's
soft cry of "'Night'" was heard by Keiko, she and Julian
roused up enough to kiss Molly's face as Miles lowered the
girl enough for it. Then he took the small comatose human
off for bedding down.

"Miles is worried about something," Keiko yawned again.

"I know. I can't imagine what."

"Me neither. Mm..." Keiko snuggled more deeply against him.
"Though I don't think he liked the riloche et planktonnera."

"He ate enough of it."

"He was hungry. You'll have to learn to notice the
difference, Julian."

"I suppose." He kissed her head and ear, then worked his
smiling way over her nose, through her giggles, to her lips.

They kissed for a bit, listening to the soft harmonics of
the a'Maira convention, until they heard Miles's even
softer voice; "Can anyone join this party?"

"Miles," Keiko was smiling as Julian lifted his head to
smile too.

He said "Hello, my love. Do join us."

"Julian, he lets you ca--?" She was interrupted by another
yawn, one that nearly broke her face, then seemed to pass
out completely.

Miles stared, alarmed. "Julian--?"

"I'm sure she's all right. Probably some remnant from her
feeling ill this morning. And she did say she was going to
pass right out. Did you make the bed in Molly's room?"

"When did that get to be *my* job?"

"When she started falling asleep on *me* such that I can't
get up to do it. Did you?"

Miles hadn't, but it didn't take long, and Julian tucked
her in next to Molly's bed in the womblike, low-ceilinged
room. "Sleep well, my Kei."

"She always seems to, when you put her down."

Julian stepped out far enough for the door to close behind
him and Miles and said "Keiko, or Molly?"

"Either." Miles chuckled softly as they started for the
front room. "You know, the last time I saw Keiko fall
asleep that quick, she was pregnant."

Both men stopped walking.

Miles started to speak and stopped about three times.
Julian's eyes were locked wide in horror, to outside
observation on the laundry chute. Miles muttered "She *was*
sick this morning..."

"Is that what's been bothering you...?"

"No, I--yes. I suppose it has, but the why's only just
occurred to me now."

"She's not," Julian said definitively, and Miles
immediately responded. "No. I mean, yes, no. I mean, we
both...we're *all* sterile reversible at the moment, right?
I mean, Keiko and I are."

"I know. So am I."

"I knew that."

"Of course you did."

"That doesn't ever fail, does it? No, it doesn't. Does it?"

"No. It doesn't."

"Still...with the furniture and all...remember I told you
the last time she--"

"I'll get my tricorder."

"And get it fast, man."

Miles stood in the hall nervously as Julian darted into
Keiko's room, out again with the tricorder, and into
Molly's room.

He was back out less than ten seconds later, leaning on
Miles with a sigh of dead relief. "She's not."

"Thank you, Danu." Miles collapsed against the wall.

"What a fright..." Julian staggered back into Keiko's room,
dropping his tricorder on the medkit, then practically
falling on the bed. "My heart's still racing. Don't SAY
things like that, Miles!"

"I didn't do it a'purpose, y'know. I was just as scared as
you. Worse."

"NOT worse. I think I can say *that* with some assurance."

After a moment, Miles added in disgust "And it blew the
bloody mood out the window, too, didn't it."

"I'm afraid so. And I didn't think *any*thing could--after
the ah, the thing with the...after last night, I mean."

"Me either. We might as well turn in, anyway. Got to be on
site with us, where all the fun is, tomorrow, don't you?"

"And I'm not looking forward to it."

"You'll get used to the explosions."

"Heavens. I certainly hope I won't have to."

---

Sisko's face on the comm, dark and serene, slowly
registered his disbelief through the widening of his eyes.
Finally he blurted in an emaciated falsetto "You WHAT?"

"I know it's...a bit difficult to believe..." Julian bit
his lip, looking anywhere but at the screen.

"How many people are hurt?"

"Um, I am, as you see, but I'll be all right. No one else.
And fortunately Keiko's had the foresight to keep a staffed
trauma unit on site since we began conducting the tests to
determine--"

"How did it happen?"

"Um...I...didn't quite notice that the warning light was on
outside the gas chamber at the field lab...I was thinking
of an experiment I'm running--"

"And you opened the door." Sisko's eyes closed in
frustration.

"And a lot of light got in...there were so many samples...I
*was* aware I was the only one in the building, I'd've been
far more attentive if--"

"Doctor Bashir, *what* am I going to do with you? Enter an
official reprimand into your record for being a nitwit? I'm
not sure regs allow that."

"I don't know," Julian muttered miserably, staring at the
desk, "but I'll wager I'm not going to like whatever it is
you settle on."

"How do you feel? I take it you're no longer in any sort of
danger, or you'd still be at the hospital."

"Physically--have you ever had a radiation burn, Commander?
From a star or anything else?"

"Nothing severe."

"Take the worst you remember, multiply it by two or so and
cover your entire body with it. In other words, I look
worse than I feel. Except for feeling like a spectacular
fool, that is."

Sisko sighed in irritation. "You have a way of making a
superior feel pretty *damn* vulnerable, lieutenant. I don't
know whether to apply the burn salve and tuck you in bed
myself or--"

"Oh, honestly, Commander, I'm not your son."

"For which fact I have recently begun to understand I
should thank God. Besides, Jake knew better when he was
three than to--where are Keiko and the Chief?"

"Miles is out picking Molly up. Keiko is right here."

"Let me speak with her. You're in no condition for what I
feel like saying to you at the moment. Of all the
addlebrained..." Sisko subsided into muttering behind his
hands as Julian, privately agreeing with the Commander
about his condition, looked over at Keiko.

Keiko raised her head from the coffee table, where her brow
had been reposing on her folded arms. She picked up the
large flagon of ale sitting at her elbow and got
laboriously to her feet as Julian vacated the desk chair;
she came over to the comm screen and sat. "Hello,
Commander," she said in a dispirited tone.

"Has our friend the gumbo starter wrecked your second site
as well, Mrs. O'Brien?"

"Only the back of the one building," Keiko said, burped
silently behind her hand, and continued "And like he said,
he's the only one who was hurt."

"Thank God for that, too."

"I have. Several times. Gumbo also says that all he
remembers is reaching for the latch, a shock, then cold,
then he started stinging really bad, and then he passed
out. Several people saw him stagger through the blown-out
wall and fall over like a brick. His head and shoulder hit
something hard when he went flying and it was enough to
have knocked him out, even leaving the burns aside."

Julian thought, 'Well, really, it could have been far
worse, after all'. He considered reiterating this point,
then decided to drop it. He was certainly as content to
have missed the flaming out of the burnt-out nerve endings
and to have succumbed to the knock on the head before the
coming pain of the less-burnt areas could get a serious
hold on him.

"Do you want me to recall him before he blows up your
apartment?"

"I think he's grasped the concept of following instructions
now, Commander. Being burned over eighty-five percent of
his body got his attention. Though I think he's more
worried about trashing yet another set of experiments than
about himself."

"Professor O'Brien, I don't mean to disillusion you, but
we're talking about a man who ignored your husband's
instructions in performing an act of extremely misguided
samaritanism and was actually *killed*. If *that* didn't
focus his attention..."

"I'm assigning him an assistant. A large and perceptive
assistant. Who will never be farther than two steps away
should she be needed."

"An excellent precaution. Is there anything I can do to
speed things up? Send you any more help for a few days? I'd
send you another doctor, but--"

"I know you don't have one available, Commander, but
thanks. If you would, let me extend Miles and the Doctor's
stay here for a week. That should cover at least part of
the delay all this has caused, plus Julian's recuperation
time."

"The least I can do. I hope that assistant you mentioned
has a short temper and an inclination toward overcaution."

Keiko smiled faintly. "She does. Though there doesn't seem
to be any such thing as too cautious where Julian is
concerned."

"An apparently telling point. When the Chief gets home,
please inform him that I would prefer the Doctor not spend
much time unsupervised, particularly not in the kitchen,
for the remainder of his stay."

"I understand, and I'll tell him. Thanks for the extra
time, Commander."

"Of course. And if anything else should happen..."

"I'll be sure to call you at once. I know you'll want to
send word to his family and prepare something to say at his
funeral that has more than one syllable in it. Because if
it doesn't kill him, I will."

Sisko nodded tiredly back to her as she bade him farewell
and shut the comm off. She continued sitting where she was,
staring at the blank screen, until Julian said, very
softly, from a chair in the corner, "Would it help at all
to say I'm sorry again?"

Keiko slowly turned her head to look at him. His bandages
covered the worst of the healing burns, but what was
visible looked like hell, especially since he could bear
the touch of very-little-to-no clothing at the moment and
was dressed only in said bandages and a pair of
undershorts, donned for the occasions of calling the
commander and Molly's return home. He'd managed to keep
about half his hair, and had evidently instinctively tried
to protect his face from the flash; in a couple of days he
could, she'd been told, get the new-grown follicles
stimulated and not look so defoliated. Over most of the
rest of him, the new skin was sleek and tender as melon
flesh. There'd been precious little deep burning, even of
his hands; the flash had been hot, but brief, and he'd been
blown half out of the building and made it the rest of the
way clear within a few seconds.

Deliberately, her face blank, she got up. She approached to
stand directly in front of him. She proceeded to stain the
window hanging he was sitting in front of by flinging the
contents of her ale flagon full in his face.

He shrieked, but the pain was brief, and the bandages
wouldn't absorb liquid from the outside. Dripping, he
stared up at her, speechless.

"No," she said very distinctly. "It would not help. Do you
have any idea how I'd feel right now if you were dead?
Burned to death in a building full of flaming gas? In an
accident at *my* research site?"

"Not very good," he admitted with quiet resignation.

"That's right, Julian. Not very good at all." She turned
and marched to the replicator in the kitchen to procure
another ale.

Calling after her, he expostulated "At least I didn't get
*your arm* broken this time--"

"You think I wouldn't rather have a simple broken--"

"--and it's not as though I'm deliberately ignoring safety
procedures," he protested as she folded back up in front of
the coffee table, setting her tall flagon with a clunk
thereon, "I've been unusually absentminded, I'll admit, but
really, do I look like I'm enjoying this?"

"You look like the main course at a lobster feed."

He sighed, and reached up to relocate a tendril of hair
that was dripping ale into his eye. "I walked directly into
that. Look, Kei--"

"Don't talk to me."

Julian fell silent. After a minute, and a long guzzle of
her beverage, she drummed her fingers on the table and
growled "I know what I said a while back about whatever it
is that you're covering for inside--whatever it is that
makes you so driven and hard on yourself--but dammit,
Julian, is this your prescription for whatever it is that's
ailing you in there? 'Plenty of rest and get yourself
killed a couple of times a year'?"

He could only stare. Was that what she really thought?

It certainly wasn't what *he* thought...no. It wasn't. But
there might still be an ulterior subconscious motive..."I'm
not dead, Kei. And as Miles observed, I'm practically
indestructible."

"Miles probably believes that, but the only way you'll
convince *me* is to stop dying, you diatom-brain!"

"Please. I have no plans in that area for quite some years
yet."

She sighed theatrically. "Oh, for..." she took another few
swigs of ale.

"Lord. How much of that are you going to drink?"

"Enough so that I don't see you lying on the ground on fire
every time I close my eyes! I can't decide if you're
unbelievably lucky or unlucky--your eyes *'should* be
ruined, according to the Doctor who treated you. You should
be in the hospital in a regeneration chamber for at *least*
a week. How do you keep surviving these...these deaths?"

He didn't know what to say to that, and sighed again,
getting up--extremely carefully--and going to gingerly blot
the ale off with the softest towel he could locate.

Dropping the towel in the laundry chute, he could feel her
eyes boring into his back. "I hope you didn't take what the
Commander said seriously. About my being unsupervised, I
mean. He's always popping off with such lines when he's
frustrated."

"Even if he hadn't said it, until Miles is here to take
over, I'm not turning my back on you again."

He rotated carefully in place to meet her eyes. "You
haven't turned your back on me since I've met you, and I am
*not* deliberately negligent of myself unless it's to save
someone else. I've taken an oath to do no harm, you know;
that includes myself."

"Maybe you're just stupid, then."

"Now, *that* is possible." No it's not, he reflected, but
schooled his face to stillness.

"Great. You're a flake. My husband and I are in love with a
flake."

The front door opened, admitting Miles and Molly; judging
by the sound of it, Miles was preparing the child for the
sight of her Uncle Julian. Keiko gestured to Julian to
precede her down the hallway and they went back to the
front room.

As Miles set Molly down, the girl took in Julian's
appearance, and her face immediately crumpled into tears.
Keiko rushed to kneel next to the child while Julian
changed his mind about the advisability of suicide and
Miles glared at him, taking the development personally.

"Molly..." Julian didn't try to get back into her line of
sight, but he laid his hand on her back and added his
efforts to Keiko's. "I'm going to...I'm fine. It doesn't
even hurt. They took care of me at the hospital. In less
than a week every last bur--I mean blotch will be gone,
you'll see. I did a very silly thing; it was my own fault.
For not listening closely enough to your mother. Always
listen to your mother, Molly; she's a very wise woman."

Molly sniffled, quieting, then turned her head on Keiko's
shoulder to look at him again. She appraised him a moment,
then said "It doesn't hurt?"

"Not at all. Look." He slapped a puffy red arm and kept
smiling, through sheer willpower blocking the curse that
leaped up his throat and the tears trying to well into his
eyes. Over his shoulder, he felt Miles wince.

Molly reached out tentatively, and he moved his hand under
hers. She lightly stroked the mottled skin. "Soft."

"Yes. It'll feel like this for a day or so more."

"Come on, honey, let's get you some cobbler and ice cream."
Keiko lifted the girl up, muttering in a low, dangerous
voice to her husband "Don't leave him alone. The
Commander's orders."

"I can just imagine."

As mother and daughter headed for the kitchen, Julian
sighed and sank down at the desk chair. "Your turn, Miles.
I've had it from Commander Sisko, Keiko, and now Molly. The
only one left besides you is maybe Garak, and he'd die
before he'd say a word."

"Oh," Miles said, in a curiously mild tone, "I'm not gonna
say a word, either. If you want another lecture, call your
mother. I haven't the heart for it, the way you look."
Miles sank to the sofa, running a hand through his hair,
and waved the holo on, asking for a recording of the other
night's performance by the a'Maira. He leaned back and
closed his eyes.

"I'm told I owe you my thanks yet again."

"I threw some sheeting on you. Anyone who was there
might've done it."
"I was told it was your spelunking vest, and then yourself."

"Wasn't any sheeting around. What with all the dust, you'd
about gone out by that time, anyway.

"If this keeps up, I'm going to start feeling beholden."

"No problem. You weren't dead yet, and you've saved my life
more than once. Just remember; I told you, die on me once
more and you'll be staying dead if it's left to me to
recover you."

"Oh, I take that quite at face value."

---

I'm going to have to take that blasted sedative, the Doctor
thought, flopping with timorous care on his pallet of soft
flannel-like blankets in the front room, on the large rug
by the coffee table.

Keiko had decreed that they should stop stowing whoever was
extra, if anyone was of a given evening, in Molly's room;
she didn't want the child getting used to it and having to
readjust to sleeping alone after the arrangement was no
longer necessary. 'And if she woke up and saw me,' he
thought, 'it'd scare her to death, poor mite.'

He'd just decided to get up and take a sedative/painkiller
shot when a shadow moved out of the hallway and Miles
entered the room. The remaining moonlight must have picked
up the glint of Julian's eyes, because Miles immediately
said "Aren't you asleep *yet*?"

"I'm a little uncomfortable, I'm afraid."

"I can imagine. I once caught a sunburn back home that kept
me up for a couple of nights. Regenerator at the beach
cabin was powered out."

"So you've come to visit me, then?"

"It's getting to the point that I wake up twice a night to
go check on Julian. Haven't done this since Molly was
bottle feeding. This is really stupid, y'know. You
shouldn't be sleeping alone."

"I told you, I couldn't bear to lie in the same bed with
someone else at the moment, and in any case my condition is
now about as serious as a bad sunburn, as you say. All
right, a *very* bad sunburn."

"You should still be in the bedroom."

"Keiko's still too angry. It'd give me fever dreams. I'm in
straights enough as it is. Going to have to have that pain
shot I turned down earlier."

"I'll get your kit. Where is it, in the bedroom?"

"Unless you've done something with it."

Miles was back in a moment, scanning Julian in the
dimness--the younger man was now clad only in bandages--for
a patch of skin that wasn't swollen, reddened or
scorch-blackened. "Where the hell do I give you this?"

Julian turned his head. "Right carotid's got a free patch
over it, I think."

Miles couldn't find it, and Julian had to point; the hypo
hissed. "There. Your antibiotic shot was in that, too."

"Not time for another of those already. I hope I don't feel
sick on top of everything else."

Miles was quiet, and Julian eyed him and smiled. "No jab
about how I'd deserve it if I did?"

"Not necessary, really, at the moment."

"Then you'd better kiss me, or I'll decide you don't love
me any more."

Miles gazed at him a brief moment, then said "Sure I won't
hurt you?"

"You *can't* hurt me. I thought you'd come to terms with
that."

Miles smiled back at him, then leaned down and kissed
him...and continued kissing him...until Julian started
moaning, whereupon Miles disengaged and pulled back at once.

"That was *not* pain," Julian panted.

"Even worse. You won't be up for any of *that* until we can
take those bandages off without you fainting."

"Oh, what's a few bandages...seriously, my mouth is one of
very few parts of me you *can* touch *without* my fainting."

"Nice try. I'm taking no chances with you, believe it."

"Spoilsport. It was such a nice distraction from the
pain..."

"If I'm right, that painkiller should have kicked in by now
anyway."

"How can you tell?"

"Easy. Your eyes turn black."

"Really?"

"Black as a Betazoid's."

"Hm. That also happens when humans are aroused, though, you
know."

"I know. I've seen your eyes bigger than Night herself more
than a few times. D'you think you can sleep now?"

Julian closed his eyes a moment, and replied "I think so,
yes. And there's no need to check me again tonight; I'll
still be here in the morning."

"If it's not me, it'll be Keiko. Take your pick."

"I'll see you later."

Miles kissed Julian again to forestall any more possible
argument and got up to return to bed. He paused at the hall
doorway and said "You are, verily, enough to make anyone
insane; but I'll give you this. You're never boring." He
vanished into the dark.

Julian stared at the ceiling for a while. 'Maybe I *am*
just a flake', he thought.

---

Almost two days later he was sitting in the dirt, back in
uniform if thoroughly treated with topical anaesthetic,
listening to Miles say "Ten seconds."

Julian sighed anxiously behind their personnel shield,
scratching his head furiously. Miles slapped his hand, and
incidentally the back of his head. "Stop that."

"Ow!"

"You're not supposed to scratch."

"Newly regenerated hair always makes humans itch."

"I'll give you an anaesthetic booster when we get home.
Five seconds."

Julian sighed again. "I hate this."

"I'll be here."

"And I appreciate it, but I still hate this."

"Two seconds. Come here." Miles went down on one knee next
to the seated Julian, wrapping him up protectively and
covering his ears with his hands.

"I'll be *so* glad when this part is--"

A deafening blast shuddered the area, light and dust
shooting by on both sides and overhead of the particular
shield they were behind. Julian, his eyes squinched shut,
his ears blocked and covered, still twitched violently. He
didn't remember anything too graphically horrid about
getting blown up himself, but he'd reacted very badly to
the first explosive test he witnessed afterward, and since
then, Miles had asked Keiko to reassign his watchdog until
this part was through so Miles could give the Doctor a bit
of reassurance.

"--over," he finished sourly, lifting his head as Miles let
go of him. The Chief tapped his badge. "Enlelan? Anything?"

"This explosion was at least twenty percent less powerful
than the last one. We're on to something, all right. Should
I increase the hynochtrinal concentration another fifty
parts per million?"

"Right, but keep the compound level constant for the next
couple of tests. Time enough to increase it if we can get
one complete negative."

"Yes, Chief."

Julian stood up and peered around the shield. "It didn't
*feel* twenty percent less powerful."

"Are you sure you didn't feel that fireball?"

"Well, my memory is very nearly eidetic. I told you; shock,
cold, some pain, and then I was unconscious until I woke up
in the hospital. Remind me to thank the trauma team again."

"Sorry I brought it up. We'll be out of here soon. We've
only time today for two more tests before the light goes--"
Keiko had wanted full, natural sunlight as a trigger at
first, before they got on to various levels of moonlight
and multitudes of types and levels of artificial, "--then
you and Keiko and her people can run the results."

"Right. I'm fine, really. Just tired. Regeneration is
rather draining."

"And you should bloody well know. Come back; we're about to
pop the lid on the next sample."

Julian came back behind the shield, thinking that the blast
grounds were mostly floating in the air by this time every
day and they were about to lose the light for that if no
other reason. 'Barren as the Earth's moon out there,' he
thought as he sat down and covered his head with both arms.

"Five seconds...and..." Julian waited. And waited. Miles
lifted a hand off the Doctor's back to tap his badge.
"Enlelan?"

"Chief, complete negative! We've got our first chemical
disarmer."

"Dead sure on that?"

"We're sure, Chief."

"Great," Miles said, squeezing a wilting Julian, "that's
*great*! Use our last setup for the double check."

Less than a minute later, the success was verified.
"Someone call Keiko. Time to halt for the day, anyway." He
asided to Julian as the comm link ended, "And just think.
If you hadn't flash-fried yourself we wouldn't have that
reconstructed data from the hospital and it could have
taken another couple of weeks to get that result."

"I hope Keiko remembers that." 'And I hope no one ever
discovers how I fudged the data.' He purely detested doing
that--it was against all scientific principles--and he
usually found himself forced to think of it as correcting a
slant. 'But then if I *will* keep getting myself in a
state, putting myself in the position...'

"I thought you said she apologized."

"Not exactly. She let me know that she was over her temper,
but I don't think she's especially sorry."

"She told *me* she is."

"I'm sure she'll get around to it. Thanks." Miles had given
him a hand up and they started back to the main field lab
building while Enlelan and the engineers working on this
problem gathered data and materials to bring back for
analysis.

"Chief. You're staring at me again."

"I don't think anyone will read anything into it at the
moment. I'm glad you've the rest of your hair back. You
looked like a scorched baby ostrich."

Julian chuckled. "You're such a comfort."

"No problem."

---

After supper, over which they discussed the new findings
and Keiko was so conciliatory that Julian, not that he'd
been expecting one, decided he could easily live without an
apology, she decided to call the station and share the good
news. While she was chatting with Kira, Miles went over
Julian--who'd decided he could make it through supper--with
the topical disinfector/anaesthetizer back in Keiko's room.

"God almighty..." Julian muttered.

"What?"

"Just feels wonderful."

"You look a sight better as well. Those grey places under
the first few layers of skin aren't always going to be
there, are they?"

"No, but it will take longest for them to fade. They were
the deepest burns, and healed more thoroughly and quickly
in the hospital than the ones I brought out with me. The
more healing is artificially hastened, the longer it takes
the body to completely return things to normal."

"But they don't hurt?"

"No, they pull a bit, but that'll be done with soon, too."

"Good." Clicking the device off and returning it to the
medkit, Miles added "I'm out of patience." He grasped
Julian's bare shoulder, rolled him over on his back and
descended on him.

"Oh--Miles--blast it. Molly. Close the door," Julian
reminded him and Miles leaned out to wave the door shut,
then resumed where he'd left off.

In a couple of minutes, Julian had Miles's jumpsuit down as
far as his waist and Miles had pulled his arms out of it,
but Julian couldn't get him to break their lip-lock long
enough to pull his turtleneck off, and he wasn't in a
position of advantage. So he grabbed the shirt's hem and
with a sudden jerk pulled it up over the Chief's shoulders,
immobilizing his arms.

"Hey!"

Using this moment of shock to good purpose, Julian yanked
the shirt's collar over Miles's head and then freed his
arms from it. "There. Wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Unscrupulous." Miles started working his way down Julian's
neck.

"And you're still overdressed. Don't make me get rough."

Miles pulled back and stared at him, and they both broke up
laughing.

Their eyes flew wide as Keiko's voice said cheerily, then
desperately, "Sounds like you two are having a *Molly* why
don't we go out front and set up that holo you brought home
from daycare--" Her voice cut off abruptly.

"Oh *God*," Miles groaned, collapsing on Julian. The Doctor
patted him distractedly, trying to see over his shoulder to
the door. "She'll have us both--"

"Not this time, I don't think. She really should have
checked."

"We were laughing! We didn't sound like *this* from out
there."

"Plus she knew what we came back to do and she knows how I
feel about your daughter seeing me naked. Only fair if she
has to do a little fast talking. If it's any comfort, if
she was carrying Molly, Molly wouldn't have been facing
this way, and Keiko would have made sure she didn't until
the door was closed again."

"You've a point there."

"Right. So get your blasted pants off, will you? I'm short
on patience too."

"Think I should lock the door?"

"I hardly see where it matters now. And kick off those
boots, I can't get anything over them. There. Oh. *Much*
better..."

---

Molly, it turned out, had seen everything. At the very
least, Julian thought, he himself had been covered by
Miles, but still...Keiko had not said anything to the girl
about the scene, but reported that Molly had acquired an
instant grin--the tone of voice she described it with made
Julian suspect it was more of a smirk--and hadn't lost it
for over an hour.

Miles was asleep; due to the limited space, Keiko was lying
on top of Julian, her arms folded across his chest with her
chin resting on them. She was replying to his report of the
fright he and Miles underwent concerning the behavior she'd
exhibited that seemed to have only one explanation. They
were both giggling softly.

"You know, it's odd you should mention that, funny as it
is. I'd had a late period, and I was a little confused."

Julian's head came up. "Your menstrual cycle's off? Don't
you get treatments, if you've got that tendency?"

"Yes. I don't like the idea of having them stopped, but I
do get yearly regulatory treatments. One didn't show up on
time, though, for the first time in years. I didn't think
it was possible, but it hardly seemed enough to complain
about. I wasn't having any other symptoms."

"According to Miles, you evinced a positive plethora of
signs, for you, and I was forced to a bit of a panic
myself. Until I scanned you, which put an end to that."

Keiko chuckled. "All my treatments are up to date."

"The delay must have been...psychological," Julian murmured.

"I suppose. I wonder what'll be next. A big belly? Speaking
of which, I'll be right back." She climbed over the
somnolent Miles and headed for the door.

Julian lay completely still a moment, then realized he had
to get out and clear his head. Wrapped up with Miles and
Kei like this, he simply couldn't think straight.

He got up and dressed, and when Keiko returned he kissed
her and said "I'm going for a walk. Won't be long, but go
ahead and join Miles."

"All right--Julian, are you okay?"

"Just need some fresh air. Been having disquieting dreams."

She made a face. "I can imagine. I'll see you in the
morning, if I'm asleep when you get back."

---

The moons were all down, not that that was giving him any
trouble as he wended his way under the stars. He could see
well enough for footing, and the river gleamed in sky-light
from the city. The meadow he presently traversed was
smooth, the grass unclumped.

He stopped, sliding his hands into his pockets, and raised
his eyes to find the Bajoran constellations he'd learned
during a few minutes of his lunch break a day or two ago.
Wheel. Birth Lady. Lawkeeper's Hood. D'jarra Ladder...

'Way too close, Bashir. This is no different than anything
else, and really, why did you think that it was? Were you
thinking at all? What I suspected.'

Julian smirked. He lowered his eyes to the light off the
river and took a few steps that way, found a convenient
patch of gravel and crouched, gathering a handful of tiny
stones. Then he stood and started flinging them into the
water in a precise splash-pattern rendering of the
geometric motif on Keiko's favorite quilt. 'What did I
think that look on her face was about? Why did she clamp on
to me like that not only in front of all the parents and
providers, but specifically to be introduced to a pretty
young woman I'd been chatting with?

'Why did she relax so much when she learned that Luma had
lovers already--was the lover of a married couple?

'And why did Miles get so tense?

'Miles...you big painted Celt. You're the most vulnerable
man I've ever known. You only know your feelings are
there--you don't know what they mean, or why you have them,
and you don't much care. That they're there is enough. Kei
and I never meant to confuse you so badly. You trust us to
take care of you...we just didn't see how something that
felt so perfect to us could be wrong, and if I wasn't who I
am...things might have been different. In any case, there
you were, and we made you cry, and that *wasn't* what we
meant to do. Your feelings were a perfect reason for what
we wanted to do--but only with you, Miles love. Not without
you.'

He watched the final ripples shimmer away in the current.

'Paste gems. I can be so theatrical. I wonder where I got
*that*.' He smirked again, and went to one knee to gather
another handful of rocks.

'*Why* didn't we realize it'd be damn near impossible for
you and I to have it out of ourselves through immersion? We
can't be together like that often enough. And we're never
so sick of one another's simple company that an afternoon
apart won't have us thinking of splendid ideas and
hilarious stories we simply *must* remember to tell each
other...Keiko, it was a good idea. We just didn't count on
the blasted logistical problems. Dax, are you the only one
who noticed all the transporter activity?'

He rapid-fired his rocks into the water, forming for a
brief instant the discernible outline of a tennis racket.
'I suppose it's too late for us to go back that far...

'Damn. Stop it. Go away and let me be...'

He dug his nails into his palm, just for a second, then
released them. When he did, his eyes were clear and dry,
and they would stay that way. After all, this was no
different than it had ever been...a little deeper.
Stronger...

'Neither of them will ever be able to do it,' he thought
absently, a conclusion he'd drawn a bit ago already. 'They
think they love me. Put that another way; they're certain
they love me, and they have no way in the world of knowing
that they're wrong, because I purely cannot explain. Far,
far *far* too dangerous. Besides, I'd rather they continued
to believe as they do. I couldn't bear it if I found that
they felt I didn't deserve to wear my uniform, practice
medicine...be human with other humans. Happy in my
ignorance as they are in theirs. We're not so different. I
wish all of me believed that...

'But if all of me believed that, I'd tell them the truth.
Paste gems and coronas, so pretentious. What would Keiko
say if she knew I'd learned classical Japanese in her
honor? "Really, Julian. A little over the top, don't you
think?" Even if she knew the whole truth.

'I don't want to drive them away from me. I can't do that
to them. And I've got to start paying attention to my
surroundings and stop blowing things up and getting myself
killed. Or there's going to be a scan done on me eventually
that could be hard to explain...shut up, hindbrain, motives
are irrelevant at this point. Although that might explain
why I've been such a bloody blunderbuss ever since the
accident on the Ypphat. I haven't been so clumsy for so
long since...' he dropped the thought like a rock and
returned to his earlier ruminations.

'There has to be a way to...let it all be all right again.
There will be. It will happen.' He sighed. "It has to."

'If there were some way to make them think it was all their
idea...*without* being an alienating bastard to them...' He
thought for a long while. Then he closed his eyes, taking a
deep breath.

He sang the song in Gaelic, as he did for Molly and all the
children he sang it for, but at those times, his mind
usually didn't pay attention to the lyric's meaning.



Father in heaven bless you, love; father in heaven care
well for you.

On my soul, on my deepest heart, and by my glory,

All praise to you, love, and to God.

Long is the daylight until my ease of sleep;

Long be your night without sorrow.

For the bliss that you gave to me, my beloved,

All praise be to you, and to God.

And I shall celebrate you, from sunrise to sunrise;

I shall celebrate you, love, night to night.

Father in heaven bless you; Father in heaven care well for
you.

The moon, the sun, and the wind

I give you to now, and to God.

Julian wondered where Siubhan had found that song, thinking
that his old roommate had spoken better Gaelic than she
ever realized, dated or not.

"All done, Bashir?" he whispered. "Time you got to bed.
Busy day tomorrow."

He stuck his hands back in his pockets and started back
toward the city lights. ---

"Miles, would you come off with me for a bit?"

Miles put his cup down. "Sure. Something on your mind?"

"You know me too well."

"No, it's that brow. Turns into a granite cliff when you've
got anything bothering at you. And your eyes turn yellow."
He stood up as Julian closed his eyes and shook his head,
smiling. They strolled off toward the bank of the river,
leaving Keiko and Molly setting up the picnic comestibles.
Rather, Molly was doing it, and Keiko was trying to keep up
and minimize any possible damage.

"Miles...I thought I should mention a few things to you,
and ask if you considered it wise that I mention them to
Keiko as well."

"What sort of things?"

Julian paused, then essayed "You could say we get on well.
All of us."

"You could say a plasma stream is 'toasty'."

Julian chuckled. "Just my point. You and Kei have never had
any interest in a permanent arrangement with someone else,
correct?"

Miles was silent a moment, and Julian added quickly "You
needn't worry about making me uncomfortable. I've known it
since the beginning."

"Yes, it's true, I'll admit it." Miles looked worried, and
Julian knew why; he was afraid Julian was feeling hurt.

"You've been worried that I won't take it well when our
intimate liaisons are over, haven't you?"

Miles sighed. "Yeah. So's Keiko."

"Something puzzles me, Miles. If, considering you and Keiko
are decided in your plan to keep your family between the
two of you and your issue..." Julian didn't have to work
too hard to feign a look of embarrassment. "It's difficult
to know how to put this. You and I don't seem to be getting
very tired of each other."

"I'm not. If you're not, I guess we're not."

"And Keiko...seems less than impatient with the arrangement
as well."

"Bloody. Say *that* again."

"Perhaps it does bear repeating...in fact, she seems to be
getting more used to the situation all the time."

"Did catch that bit with the young shuttle pilot--Kylir,
Kylir Luma, Taelan's mother. I've never seen Keiko get that
look over anyone but me."

"Did it bother you?"

"Confused the hell out of me, more like."

"And you've been feeling confused enough as it is, haven't
you."

They had stopped; the sun was behind them, and Miles stared
down the length of the river, arms folded. "I don't...I
love Keiko, and I want to be her only husband and have her
as my only wife. And that's clear as glass to me. And I
love you, and I never want to lose your friendship..."

"...and...?"

"Oh, you know the 'and'. And don't give me that look, or
I'll be throwing you onto the grass right here. I may not
be able to say it very well, but that feeling is clear as
glass too. And there they both are, and I don't know what
I'm supposed to do with them. You and Keiko are supposed to
tell me that."

"Miles...Keiko's a bit occupied with her own feelings at
the moment."

"Naturally, but...what exactly do you mean?"

"Kei's a very well-balanced, self-aware woman who seldom
has a feeling she can't explain and quantify. Not that she
isn't emotional; she simply understands her emotions better
than many of us."

"Maybe left over from that fling with Counselor Troi."

Julian smiled and continued. "What I meant is that I don't
think you can look for Keiko to shepherd you to the places
it's best for you to be in this instance. For the first
time in what I suspect of being quite a while, I don't
think Kei is aware of what's going on in this part of her
mind--and I think that when she realizes it, she's going to
be...rather shocked. I'm willing to bet that's why she
hasn't realized it yet at all."

Miles looked over at him. "Same reason as me, you mean? Two
sets of desires that are completely at odds and yet seem
completely natural?"

Julian's eyes widened. "There, you see? You *can* do this,
Miles, when you put your mind to it."

"When I haven't got a choice, you mean. I think you're
right about Keiko, looking back on things."

"Does it make you jealous?"

"You asked me that once already, and I still don't know.
Maybe. If it does, it's not anything overwhelming..." Miles
found a convenient rise of ground and sat, folding his
hands between his knees. Julian had a seat next to him.
They watched the deep currents, emerald green in this
light, flow along the contours of the river bank.

"No, I don't suppose I'm jealous. I'm *stunned*," Miles
continued in a decidedly complaining tone. "I never would
have expected...not only what she's feeling, and doing
about it, but that she wouldn't see it at once as she did
it."

"Keiko's not used to conflicts of this nature; as long as
she was only going along as a way to try to solve what we
were looking at as a problem, she was clear-eyed and
understanding. Now that she's having at least as much fun
as we are..."

"Really, though, Keiko's not a controlling woman."

"Not of others--you, as far as you want her to control you,
I suppose. But otherwise only of herself, and deep down,
she knows she can't add up and summarily deal with what her
feelings are now, and she's turning a blind eye."

They were quiet again a bit, until Miles said "What now,
then? Did you just want to tell me what you'd been
thinking?"

"I think..." 'Here we go, Bashir. Let's step carefully
now.' "...or rather, have *you* thought...of reconsidering
what you and Keiko decided? About your marriage. Just the
two of you." 'Hope that sounded shy and sincere.'

Miles was motionless a moment. Then he said very slowly
"What...Julian...how do you mean? Exactly."

"Perhaps you two were a bit hasty in that proclamation. It
might be what you've been expecting, even wanting, both of
you, since you were old enough to consider such things. But
situations do change. People change." Julian stopped and
waited.

Miles was quiet so long Julian nearly pulled his nerve
together to throw some more bait out, but finally the Chief
said "Are you saying...you want to..."

"I'm *only* saying that maybe you should think about it.
After all, our present method would seem to indicate
that...perhaps it's not so impossible an idea after all."

"The three of us, you mean."

"That's what I mean, yes. Keiko, instead of becoming more
frustrated, has seemed, over time, to be...relaxing quite
nicely, and you...well, Miles, to put it bluntly, you're
ravenous. Just before we left the station we were getting
barely any sleep at all." The merciless tease in Julian
wriggled with glee at the serious, deadpan tone of the last
statement. 'If *that* doesn't get a rise...'

"Also," the Doctor continued, "as I said, I was rather
wondering if you thought I should mention these things to
Kei. I'm just afraid that if she's too shocked at the idea,
she'll be even more resistant to understanding what's
happening at her end of things." 'Actually I'm rather
counting on that,' he thought, and continued "You've known
her years longer and far more intimately than I have. I'll
defer to your judgment."

"Let me get this straight," Miles said, sounding a bit
dazed. "You're asking me..."

"I'm not asking anything except that you think about what
I've said." He thought, 'Bless you, you idiot, I'm
proposing! This is your cue to back off about a hundred
kilometers and reconsider this whole arrangement. And I've
still got Keiko to deal with, if I can't get you to do it.
Come on...catch up with me...'

"If this is going where I think it's going," Miles said,
causing hope to leap in Julian's breast, "I think I'd
better talk about it with Keiko."

"Don't worry now about where it might or might not be
going. But if you want to talk with Keiko about it, make
sure not to extrapolate on what I've said--tell her I said
just what I've said, all right?"

"Of course. I wouldn't put words in your mouth."

"I didn't think you would, love." 'The hell I didn't'.

---

"JULIAN!"

Julian hastily retucked his clothing at the sound of Kei's
bellow and the accompanying crashing through the
underbrush. Miles had certainly spent no time
shillyshallying. He got himself together and started toward
the commotion approaching him from the edge of the meadow,
found Keiko losing a fight with a huge bush, helped extract
her and took her shoulders. "What's wrong? Is someone hurt?"

"Is it true?" Her eyes were like saucers. "Did you ask
Miles if he thought we might marry you?"

Julian feigned irritation, throwing his hands in the air.
"Everyone jumps to such conclusions. All I said was that
you two might want to think about your decision to keep
your marriage monogamous, in light of information you did
not have when you made that determination. That was *all*.
I didn't try to lead his thinking, and I certainly didn't
propose."

"It sure *sounds* like you proposed."

Trust Keiko to have no truck with intermediate steps. "Oh,
Kei, really, look at this. Are either of you pleased at the
prospect of touching me only in greeting?"

"Um...no, not really."

"Am I right in saying that this situation is getting more
intense rather than less?"

Keiko wandered off a few steps and hooked a hand over a
tree branch level with her head, leaning on it. "Now that
you...point it out...I guess you're right."

"Well, then. I'd say it was time we at least
considered--only considered!--that we may have to make a
radical change in our strategy. What I suggested Miles turn
over in his mind a bit, and mention to you, was only one
idea. I'm sure there must be others."

"Seven others. They were all awful, according to you and
Miles."

"They were. But the situation's evolved. There may be
possibilities now that didn't exist then. Or, perhaps...I,
and Miles, and you, may have to consider possibilities that
we wouldn't have at that time." 'That should get quite a
response', Julian thought with satisfaction, keeping a
smirk off his face with some difficulty.

She turned to face him. "I...Julian," she began, with what
looked like great effort to control her own expression, and
her voice, "I want you to know that I didn't...know this
was...I love you too, but I didn't expect...this isn't what
I was planning. I didn't want anyone hurt. I'd never hurt
you. Neither would Miles."

Realizing with a cold stab in the pit of his stomach that
Kei was feeling something akin to what he'd been feeling
himself last night, he quickly approached her and took her
hands, saying "I know that. I came into this knowing it was
going to end, remember? I've assured you repeatedly that
you'll all have my love as long as I'm alive, whether we
show it one way, or another. Don't worry about hurting
me--you aren't going to refuse to see me, cut me completely
loose, are you?"

"Julian! We'd *never* do that, either of us!"

"Then stop worrying about my getting hurt. As I keep
telling Miles, you can't hurt me. Accept it and evaluate
our situation on that basis, all right, my dear?"

Keiko bit her lip, staring into space vaguely in the area
of his chest, then looked up at him. "That doesn't
mean...that you don't care for us like we do for you?"

"My Kei. You know better. It means I feel lucky to have
what I have with you, and I don't feel I have a right to
anything beyond being treated as a beloved friend. I love
you both." He gave her his best significant look, and said
slowly, in the lower register of his voice, "I want
anything you want. Both of you. Whatever you want." At the
look in her deep eyes he hoped to God this worked; if it
didn't, he'd never be able to forgive himself for putting
her and Miles through this.

But if it did, it would save them both a great deal of pain
he'd have had to inflict otherwise--finding some way of
driving them away from him, a ploy he'd used before. 'But
not this time. Never with Miles and Kei.

'Good thing I'm so bloody clever', his thoughts continued
dourly as Keiko sighed and leaned against him. He put an
arm over her and patted her; then they started back toward
the meadow together.

---

"Doctor? Doctor Bashir."

Julian muzzily realized someone was gently shaking his
shoulder. He opened his eyes and lifted his head to focus
on the countenance of his watchdog--assistant, he reminded
himself wryly--Amir Lupiza. She was peering at him in mild
concern. "You ought to get some rest. Most of the
scientific staff has gone, and the Chief has come to take
Professor O'Brien home. You've both been here for two days,
and tired people..."

"...make mistakes," Julian concluded dryly. "Of course
you're right, Amir." He unfolded himself from his lab
station chair and rubbed his face. At least the time had
been well spent; they now knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt,
that with enough research and development the discovery
could be made into a viable regeneration-aiding drug, and
should someday provide Bajor with another precious
commodity for trade. Much remained to be done, but Julian's
specific contribution would not be necessary again for some
time. He and Miles weren't due back at the station for
several days, but there was no real reason they couldn't
leave now if they wished. They didn't wish, of course.

"Pried him away from that console, Amir? Good job. I'll
take him over now," came Miles's voice, and Julian turned
to see him at the door, a yawning Keiko held against him in
one arm. Julian could tell that the other arm had his own
name on it and Miles was restraining the impulse. The Chief
had been sleeping regular hours the past two days, and was
far more coherent than any of the science staff. "We'll be
off for a bit of rest for these two."

"Good night, Chief. We'll see you day after tomorrow."

Miles dumped them in Keiko's car and got into the pilot's
seat. "Pleased with how it's going at your end?" He asked
Julian, who had been transformed into a crash pad for the
semiconscious Keiko.

"More than pleased. My part of the work is through. Oh,
they could certainly still use my help, but they'll get by
fine without it now, and when they do need the help of a
Doctor again they likely won't need a Starfleet surgeon.
Even Keiko is in for a bit of a break--there'll be a
lengthy period of standard tests and experiments that
she'll only have to oversee from a distance, read and sign
the reports, that sort of thing."

"Engineering teams are progressing right along as well.
They're a bit sorry to lose me--same reason they're sorry
to lose you, I imagine, training and experience--but I'd
have to call the whole business a complete success. Albeit
with a few setbacks."

"Would these setbacks have anything to do with
photon-generated explosions?"

"Now, now. Did I say that?"

Julian smiled out the window, then yawned fit to rival
Keiko's face-cracker.

At the apartment, Miles drug them up the stairs and
conducted them to the bedroom, then commenced putting
together the spare bed in the floor next to them. Eyes
closed, Keiko got up and threaded her way accurately
through this activity to reach the bathroom. Julian plopped
over on his back on the bed with a sigh. They listened as
she started the shower, heard a muffled bonk as of a skull
contacting a shower door and a soft curse, and Miles
half-smiled. "Why don't you go on with her, Julian. You
could stand a shower, too, and she could use some help,
sounds like."

"Mm. I'd rather been planning to sleep in my own filth, but
unless I take the floor--"

"You and Keiko're taking the bed. You need sleep a lot
worse than I do. And no, she won't much like sleeping with
a smelly Doctor and a bump on her head both."

Julian bestirred himself, held himself up against the wall
while Miles helped him get his uniform off--'who designed
this blasted footgear, anyway,' he wondered, clinging to
the doorframe as his second boot was wrenched off--and
waved the bathroom door open. Letting it close, he rapped
on the shower door. "Mind a bit of company?"

"More the merrier. But don't be surprised if I slip and
both our tailbones get broken."

"Actually," he informed her as he sidled in next to her and
shut the door, finding her shoulders in the wet dimness to
help get them situated, "Miles requested that I come along
to prevent just such an occurrence, and to save you the
experience of sleeping with my unlaundered person."

"He's so thoughtful. Wash my hair, would you? I don't have
the energy."

"My pleasure."

As he was stroking her hair back from her upturned face,
rinsing the slick mass plastered to her shoulders by the
spray bathing her head, the rinse turned into a light neck
massage, then a heavier one, then he thought what the hell
and just washed the rest of her, slowly and with a great
deal of mutual satisfaction. 'Sometimes I wish she *would*
hire me,' he thought, lost in appreciation.

She laid her hands on his shoulders, and he stood full up
again, and she kissed him, pressing his erection firmly
between their water-slick bodies, and whispered "That was
wonderful. Your turn, now."

As she appropriated the sponge, he couldn't think of a good
reason to object. And probably would have ignored it if one
had occurred to him. Besides, she started with a scalp
massage for the benefit of his newly regenerated follicles
and regrown hair, and what with the infernal itching he'd
been enduring lately he thought he'd died and gone to
wherever people like him went when the gods were pleased
with them.

She worked her way down, with the same dreamy,
half-sleeping slowness and thoroughness he'd demonstrated
with her. Finally he couldn't take it and raised her to her
feet, then bent slightly and lifted her in his arms. She
raised her arms around his neck and her legs around his
waist, and murmured "Are you sure you've got the energy for
this position?"

"*Very* sure," he moaned, and they began kissing; her head
fell back for a moment as she groaned when he slid into
her, but she raised it again, clinging to him with sudden
fierce energy, and their mouths met again as they moved
together.

They tried to be quiet. They really did. That was one
reason they kept kissing, though it posed a minor
encumbrance under the circumstances. But when Keiko came,
she gave an unmistakable cry and sank her nails in Julian's
back, which pushed him over the edge and made him stagger,
inhale a jet of water and collapse to the shower floor with
a good deal of noise, fortunately ending up with Keiko
still in his lap. She pounded his back vigorously until he
stopped coughing water.

They remained wrapped close, panting, as the water swirled
down and around them in the warmth and soft light. Finally
she said "Miles knew *exactly* what he was doing, didn't
he?"

"But he'll still have some smart remark or other to make, I
shouldn't wonder."

"Maybe. But if we fall asleep in here, we'll never know."

They managed to get up and have a final rinse, then stumble
out and, together and severally, get themselves dry. The
cool hallway air actually brought them both to a brief
shocked halt, Julian bumping Keiko's shoulder; she steadied
him and they made it through the bedroom door, which
swished shut behind them.

The lights were down. There was no moonlight, and Keiko
said uncertainly "Miles? If we don't turn the lights up,
will we step on you?"

"Turn them up," came an amused brogue from the darkness.
"I've got to see this."

Keiko waved the lights up slightly to reveal a
quilt-covered Miles wearing only an expression that hinted
he was holding his lips shut over a mouthful of feathers.

"Wait, don't tell me," Julian sighed, sinking to the floor
next to the smirking Chief. "You thought we were drowning."

"Oh, my, no. There were several points I thought you might
be remodeling, though." His hissing chuckle started up, and
Keiko suddenly flipped the quilts off him and shoved him
toward the bed.

"Get up there, Miles Edward O'Brien. We'll just have to be
cozy. I'm taking the middle, though."

"You're both damp."

"Stop complaining and climb in."

When they were reasonably arranged and Julian had waved the
lights back down, he whispered over Keiko's drowsing head
"So. Now you know for certain?"

"I'm certain. I'm not jealous. That isn't why...why I..."
he sighed in confusion and Julian jumped in.

"*Definitely* you're not jealous of Kei and I, by the looks
of it."

Miles swallowed a laugh. "Glad it's so obvious."

---

The sun was well up when Julian woke; he was,
unsurprisingly, alone with Keiko. Outside the bedroom door,
he could hear Miles's and Molly's voices and some sort of
breakfast-related activity taking place. He slid out from
under the covers, careful of Kei, and found some shorts and
a light shirt to put on before leaving the bedroom.

In the kitchen, he stopped short. "Delvan fluff pastries!"

"Hurry up and eat before Keiko wakes up. If she finds out
I'm feeding you two these things I'm for it. Have a
raktajino." Miles thrust a steaming mug into Julian's hand
as the Doctor had a seat. Molly was still in her sleeper,
but seemed to have been awake for some time, judging by the
animated conversation she included him in as soon as he'd
picked up a pastry. The topic of conversation seemed
centered around what Molly was deciding to do today with
everybody home from work.

Julian had a thought. "Molly, sir, I've been wondering; is
there a swimming area in the river near here?"

"Uh-huh! And it has a rock wading pool and sand to make
castles and und'water nets to keep the fish out and if you
lie on your back you can just float along for a kil'meter
almost! It has trees and the water's really clear 'cause
not much grows in it around here but some little tiny
plants and it's fun. You have to take a pill before you go
in case you swallow any water, but Mommy took me once and
it was fun anyway."

"Well, then, how would you like to spend a few hours there
this morning with your uncle Julian? We can let Mommy and
Daddy have a little time alone, what say?"

"Can I Daddy? Can we go? I wanna go swim with Jh'lian!"

"You've shanghaied my child again."

"Oh, be generous. I see her even less than you do."

"I know what you're doing, too."

"That's only part of it. You know how much I enjoy Molly."

"Can I *go*?" Molly insisted.

Miles grinned, shaking his head in defeat. "Yes, you can
go. Let me get your things together. Julian, Bajorans swim
naked a fair amount of the time, but I assume--"

"You assume correctly. I'll have to come up with some
trunks."

"And don't forget waterproof sunscreen. You shouldn't be so
exposed under a sun with--"

"Damn all, stop your nagging, man. If I'm in condition to
guard the life of a child in deep water, I'm in condition
to be there myself."

"You've a point."

"How long should we be out?"

Miles paused a few moments, then said "Give us a few hours,
as you said."

"No problem. She'll keep me busy at least that long."

"You two finish eating," Miles said, "I'll go unearth
Molly's swim gear."

It turned out Molly was right; one could float an amazing
distance with very little effort on the gentle current of
this section of the river. Holding Molly's hand, he drifted
with her, listening to the distant splashing of other
visitors to the swimming beach and the gentle hum of the
current in his ears, eyes closed, the sun making patterns
of red and gold in his vision.

Molly spurbled. Julian was upright and open-eyed in an
instant, but Molly was already lowering her body in the
water herself, paddling in place. "I think I went to
sleep," she said, and snorted water again.

"Perhaps we should take a rest, then. Here, roll on--I'll
take us to the beach."

She rolled up over onto his front cooperatively, and he
commenced kicking them back toward shore, but she said "I
wanna go to the hot rocks."

"Oh. Very well." Near the artificial rock-bordered wading
pool was a slant of broad, flat stones that soaked up the
sun's heat. Molly seemed to like to lie on them until she
got too warm, then go back in the water, then splash
waist-high through the pool looking for interesting rocks,
then back to the sunning stones...eventually she would want
to go to the beach and build unidentifiable lumps of sand
art, then maybe over to the climbing trees, then back to
the rocks...Julian altered their course slightly, taking
them to the sunning stones.
They had clambered out thereon and collapsed, Molly on her
back and Julian on his face, when the sun at the edge of
Julian's vision was obscured and Molly said brightly "Hi! I
fell asleep so we came back here."

Julian went up on one elbow; Miles and Kei were standing
between him and the sun, and he added "She means in the
water. We were backfloating. Before you ask, yes, I was
holding on to her."

"Oh, we know that," Keiko dismissed the assurance with a
wave, sitting next to Molly and saying "Your hair's going
to dry like that, sweetie, let me straighten it up a
little."

"Come to join us?" Julian asked Miles.

"Are we dressed for it? We thought you'd had enough sun for
one day. Do you know how long you've been gone?"

"Um...a couple of hours?"

"Try five."

"I see. No wonder Molly fell asleep."

"We came to pick you up and save you the ride in a shuttle
bus."

"Considerate of you. And no ulterior motives about making
certain I hadn't blown up your child. How perspicacious."

"Hush or I'll dunk you. Keiko and I want to go out this
evening to a place called Terra Two--got a diverse Earth
menu. And we have to get you and Molly home and cleaned up
before."

"Making an early evening of it?"

"For Molly's sake. Also, to coin a phrase, it's later than
you think. Past midafternoon. Come on, y'pile of kindling."
He held his hand out to Julian, who was grateful for the
help; he was a bit tired, and the rock wasn't easy to get
up off of without bruising knees, elbows and whatnot if one
was dressed only in a swimsuit and assorted dark blotches.

---

"That was the best potatoes au gratin I've had in years."

"Tasted a bit off to me, Chief."

"How long's it been since you've eaten real potatoes?"

"I'm not sure I ever have, now that you mention it."

"Then your palate's probably been ruined for them. Real
cheese, too."

Keiko, hanging up her own wrap and divesting Molly of hers,
went slightly wide-eyed. "Real, like, from cows?"

"Tasted like it. Besides, they promise all-natural at that
place; anything replicated is labeled so."

Keiko made a face. "I'd've turned down that bite of them if
I knew that."

"It won't kill you."

"No, I'll just wonder all night how well the milk was
sterilized. Come on, Molly, time for bath--"

"*Had* a bath!"

Miles chuckled. "The river doesn't count, sweetie. Here,
let me--"

"*I* *Want* *Jh'lian!*"

Keiko rolled her eyes. "Of *course* you do. If you wouldn't
mind, Julian..."

"Not at all," Julian sparkled at her. 'Thank you, Molly,
you're helping the cause nicely.' "Bath detail, Miss Molly,
sir. Let's hop to."

Julian paused to discard his clothes, in favor of the swim
trunks he'd been wearing earlier, before starting the bath
and assisting Molly in the diurnal ablutions. He always
wound up sopping when he did this. Especially, he thought
as he frantically defended himself, tonight, owing to the
water fights they'd had every fifteen minutes on the river
that afternoon.

"Sir! Really, this is--" he broke off and spat suds out of
his mouth onto the floor, "--conduct *most* unbecoming an
officer. Bleahg." He wiped his face with both hands.

"So what." She slapped both arms into the water palms down,
soaking the entire area, and Julian started laughing; he
couldn't help it.

"Come along then, you vicious creature," he chuckled into
her shoulder as he carried her to her room. "Let me just
get your sleeper on and the superiors in here for
inspection before a song, right, sir? Good."

As he headed back along the hallway, he heard scraps of
conversation that made him slow his pace.

Keiko: "...but have you been listening to them? He's so
good with her. This almost seems...I don't know..."

Miles: "Aye. How she demands him whenever she sees
him...this is really for the best for Molly, too."

Keiko: "Aren't you afraid he'll...that he'll misunderstand?"

Miles: "A'course I am, but I don't think he will, now.
Maybe while he was still in a tizzy over that revelation he
had in Telnori's office, but I think he's accepted whatever
it is he needed to accept, and...I'm to where *I* think I
can handle things. We do love him. We just have to make
sure he knows that."

Keiko: "Miles...if he hadn't said what he said to you...do
you think we might have, eventually?"

Miles: "Asked him, you mean?" (A pause.) "Yeah. I think we
likely would've. So this is really just as well."

Julian sagged in relief, catching himself on the closet
doorframe and making the slightly-bent door screech open.
He almost didn't care enough to cover, so profound were his
thanks that his gamble had paid off. He snatched a couple
of towels and continued to the front room, saying brightly
"It's inspection time, you two. I'm going to try to divide
the bathroom from the waters. Let me know when she wants
her song."

Both of them had started on hearing his voice, and now both
nodded, Miles saying "Right," and they got up and hurried
down the hall to Molly's room, looking like repentant and
justly furtive felons.

Julian swabbed out the bathroom, trying to prepare himself
for the acting stint he had coming up. It would be
difficult for more reasons than the obvious; he *was* sad
that their "intimate liaisons", as he'd phrased it to
Miles, were coming to a close. He didn't feel he could ever
get enough of either of them, but he also knew that he had
been prepared, most of his life, never to get as close to
anyone as he still would be to them, even now. Also, the
memories would always be there, perfect and undegraded.
He'd never thought there would be such memories--not of
closeness like this. He hadn't ever never dared such a
soul-baring situation before, and didn't know if he ever
could again.

But there was them to think of, after all.

He still had the things that had always been the lifeblood
of his existence, and they'd been enough before; medicine,
primarily, in all the many forms he'd invested himself in
it, and other things. He allowed himself a moment of
melancholia, but he'd been preparing himself for this ever
since he conceived the plan. He was soon industriously
cleaning up the sudsy soak over all the horizontal, and a
couple of vertical, surfaces in the bathroom.

"Julian! Sweetie wants her song."

"Coming." He wrung the towels out in the tub/shower and
tossed them into the laundry chute, then took a second to
pull on some dry shorts and an undershirt before sidling
past Miles and Keiko in Molly's room and taking the spot
next to her bed. "You want the same song, Miss Molly sir?"

"A Hare Nam," Molly nodded, rubbing her face.

He sensed Keiko and Miles fading out of the room slowly as
he sang the song, again twice, which was what she had come
to expect, in the soft Gaelic dentals and muted consonants.
He lightly kissed her cheek, and waved the low gold
nightlights on as he slipped silently into the hall.

Keiko was just coming out of the kitchen, adjusting a loose
shirt, different from the lace shirt and velvet vest she'd
been wearing earlier over the dark velvet leggings she
still had on. Her hair was slightly disarranged. Miles
appeared to be in the bedroom, as the door was shut and
Julian didn't see him anywhere else. "Miles making an early
night of it?" he asked her quietly.

"Just getting out of that new outfit. I told him to be
careful of it and not use it to blot up any exploded liquid
circuits or anything."

"It's lovely on him. Your taste is impeccable, as always."

"He does look good in green, doesn't he?" She smiled and
took his hand, leading him to the larger sofa. "Julian...we
need to talk to you, Miles and I."

"I'm at your convenience, my Kei." 'Perhaps,' he thought,
'I'm being just a touch *too* blissfully unaware. Don't
want to make them feel I'll be crushed at the news.'

Miles came in, wearing some casual things--including his
favorite dark green tunic--and Keiko looked up at him; they
locked eyes, and Miles came and sat down on Julian's other
side.

As each of them took one of his hands, Julian winced
inwardly at the necessity of pretending to be
crestfallen--this was going to hurt them a hell of a lot
more than it did him. Outwardly, he simply glanced
attentively back and forth between them. "Well. This
*would* seem to bode something serious."

"It does," Keiko muttered almost inaudibly. A little
louder, she said "Julian...when I came up with...my idea,
back on the station, and you and Miles decided to try
it...I wasn't anticipating how difficult a time you two
would have getting together enough to--what was it, you to
drive Miles crazy and him to eventually bore you?"

"I'd argue about the last part, but in general, yes, that
was the idea," Julian said easily.

Keiko continued "And there were other things we didn't
expect, things we didn't think about--Molly, and--and me,
I--" she was silent a moment, seeming to be examining the
back of his hand, where she clasped his fingers against her
leg. "I don't...*just* love you. I'm...I think I'm *in*
love with you. No." She paused again, and raised her eyes
to his. "I *am* in love with you, Julian."

Dismissing the ache inside him that longed to tell her how
happy that made him, Julian merely allowed his expression
to slacken and his eyes to widen. "Kei...really?"

"Really," Miles contributed. "Near as much as me."

Keiko continued "And we know that this isn't the way you
were expecting things to go--none of us were--though we
know that you...have begun to realize things can't just
keep on like this forever, and you're starting to--to
wonder if we shouldn't consider other options."

"Yes," Julian agreed, nodding.

Keiko went on "You do know, of course, that Miles and I
have always wanted to be married only to each other, that
we've never even considered any other kind of permanent
arrangement."

Julian nodded again.

Miles said "Well, then. We only don't want you to think we
just up and decided this. We've both put a great deal of
thought into it, separately and together--we don't want you
believing we'd arbitrarily settle something so important."

"No, I know better--especially about Keiko." Julian smiled.

Keiko nodded, gazing into her own lap, then looked back up.
"Julian, we don't...we don't feel sorry for you. We know
how you'd hate that."

"Indeed I would."

Miles put in "Then you realize we couldn't make this
decision based on that."

"Of course not. I'd never think that of you two."

"Good," Keiko said, then sighed. "Miles," she finally
admitted, "I can't. You'll have to tell him."

"Tell me what?"

Miles looked between Keiko and Julian, finally settled his
gaze on Julian, and said hesitantly, "Look, we know this is
a hellova thing to hear, and we want you to know we're--"

Julian said "You'd better come out with it, Miles, I can
see your pulse speeding up from here."

"You don't need to choose all at once," Miles managed to
blurt.

Julian lost his pose, his brow knitting in honest
bafflement. "Choose...about what?"

Keiko took another deep breath, then said in a rush "We
want to marry you, Julian."

Julian froze.

Miles laid his free hand over the one of Julian's he was
already holding. "Love, will y'marry us?"

Julian felt the blood rushing into his ears and the whole
fabric of his carefully laid plan unraveling somewhere
inside his chest. The last thing he heard was Keiko's
voice, crying "Miles, he's going to hit the table--!"

---

Julian blinked groggily. He recognized the comfortable
bearlike presence by which the top half of him was being
supported, but comfort was soon dissipated by memory.

"I'm back," he said, and managed to haul himself up against
the sofa back until he was sitting upright.

"Are you okay?" Standing next to him, Keiko took his face
in her hands and turned his head up, as though searching
for further warning signs of incapacitating astonishment.

"Fine. I'm...it's only that no one's ever asked me that
before."

"Miles, he's shaking. Would you get him a drink?"

"I'm all--"

Miles rose from Julian's side. "Coming up. I could use one
myself."

Keiko sat back down next to Julian. "We're sorry we didn't
handle that any better. We were...we were so nervous."

"We still are," Miles corrected, depositing a shot glass in
Julian's hand and sitting back down on his other side.
Miles took a sip of his own whiskey-rocks.

"We were going to tell you at dinner, but while you were
taking Molly to the restroom we decided we'd better wait
until the three of us were alone. And it looks like it was
a good thing we did."

"Truer words were never..." Julian trailed off and knocked
back the whiskey in one swallow. Miles plucked the glass
from his hand and got up again.

"Miles, I don't--"

"Hush, Julian, you're white as a glacier." Miles was back
in a few heartbeats, firmly placing the refilled glass into
Julian's hand.

Julian stammered "I don't...honestly, I don't know what to
say." 'Yes I do,' he thought. 'Gods of my ancestors, *save*
me from this *most* spectacular outsmarting of myself...'

"That's all right," Keiko hastened to tell him. "Like Miles
said, we wouldn't expect you to make such a decision right
away. Take all the time you need."

"I...don't take this the wrong way, but I think I'd better
sleep out here tonight," Julian managed to whisper. He
downed the second drink.

"Naturally," Miles reassured him, hand on his shoulder.
"You'll be needing some time alone."

"I only want to say--" Julian began, then put the glass
down and reached for both of their hands. "--that
whatever...comes of...everything--I do love you both--" 'I
do,' he thought numbly. 'No question of it, any more. I do
know, now.'

"We know, Julian." Keiko kissed his cheek and squeezed him,
Miles doing the same from his other side as soon as she let
go and stood up.

Miles stood too, and held his hand out to Keiko. "Darlin',
shall we walk out by the river?"

"Good idea." She came around the table, saying "We'll be
quiet when we come in, Julian."

"Perfectly all right," Julian said vacantly, apparently to
the deactivated holoviewer.

As the door closed behind them, Julian remained frozen,
unable even to think.

Inside his head, it was that fateful day in Telnori's
office all over again.

That time, because he realized he honestly wasn't sure what
love was, or if he'd ever felt it--and he wasn't sure if
his own well-practiced act was really an act at all...and
he'd known the only one who might be able to tell him, help
him either find out he did know, or teach him what it was
he didn't know, was Miles. And Julian's protective facade
had come perilously close to cracking.

This time, it was because Miles and Keiko had taught him
all too well, and the facade wasn't enough to shield him
from the way they felt, or the way he felt.

A good twenty minutes after the other two had left, he
whispered "Miles, what is it about you that keeps RUINING
me, blowing all bloody *hell* out of everything I so
PAINStakingly--" he became aware of the rising volume of
his voice and the pain in his hand at the same time.
Conscious of the possibility of waking Molly, he forcibly
silenced himself, then forced his eyes to open and focus.

Apparently he'd picked up his shot glass again and crushed
it in his hand. Thinking back, he realized it had happened
on the word "ruining". He turned the hand palm-up and
opened it; there wasn't a piece of Bajoran obsidian left
that was larger than a grain of sand. After he'd crushed
the glass into fragments, he'd gone on to crush the
fragments. With rapidly welling blood, the glass and iron
were fast forming a bio-mineral soup that overflowed his
cupped palm almost at once.

Moving at top speed, he took his reclenched hand, and
whatever glass hadn't already flowed onto the floor with
the blood, into the kitchen, leaving scintillating crimson
spatters in his wake. He was careful of the rugs.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd forgot himself so
far. As he disposed of the glass and wrapped a towel around
the badly lacerated hand, he wondered if he'd simply been
driving a point home to himself. He went and procured his
medkit and took it into the bathroom.

He began meticulously removing particles of glass from the
torn flesh. He was aware of pain, but it didn't seem enough
to be worth pausing for anaesthetic. He had a high
tolerance for pain. A very high tolerance.

The point, he reflected, had almost certainly been a
demonstration to himself of the single, blindingly
overwhelming reason he could not possibly tell Miles and
Keiko "yes". Miles--Keiko too, really--did make him forget
himself. Made him hate putting his facade back in place
after they'd strolled right around it and into his insides,
so easily he often didn't realize what had happened until
after the fact. At which point he was forced to perform an
emergency withdrawal and cleanup action.

'Like this one,' he thought grimly, having finished
extracting the glass. With the wounds clean, he got rid of
the tiny red-smeared crumbles and pulled a general-purpose
soft-tissue regenerator from the kit, setting it for
shallow muscle penetration and applying it to the affected
hand. It was going to take a few minutes. But he'd better,
he thought, speed the process up as much as he could
without leaving telltale marks. He had to get that glassy
blood out of the floor before Miles and Keiko came back.
The towel had already taken its exit down the laundry chute.

Hand reasonably repaired and glittery gore removed from the
area, Julian paced. How to tell them...

His first inclination was to make it seem in their own best
interests. "Miles, Kei, I know how you feel right now--I
feel the same. But I think we're letting our emotions get
the best of us. You've never had the slightest interest in
marrying anyone else, you both told me so only yesterday,
again tonight...surely you don't think you can have changed
your minds, truly changed them, so very quickly? Surely you
don't believe *I'm* worth being untrue to your beliefs
about marriage, that you can love anyone but each other
that much--particularly *me*?"

He knew what they would say. "Yes, our minds have changed,
and our beliefs have changed, and we love you that much."
They would tell him this, flat out, because *they* had
nothing to hide.

So much for that idea.

"Damn."

He went into the bedroom and pulled on some outer clothes;
went into Molly's room and picked up the sleeping child,
wrapping her in a blanket; came back out to the front room
and activated the desk terminal; left a note shining
thereon to the effect that he'd taken Molly walking with
him and they wouldn't be late; and went out, locking the
door behind him.

He headed for the river, too, but he doubted they'd
encounter Miles and Keiko. The route he'd taken before, and
which he followed now, wasn't easy for either Bajorans or
humans to find in the dark, and the moons were all, still,
either new or down.

'Bloody disaster and not the first one, *Doctor*,' he told
himself sourly. 'How many more? And how badly are they
going to be hurt for your selfishness? For your idiot
schemes? *Glorious* display of concern for the welfare of
others, *Doctor*..."

He began humming softly to Molly--though, curled
comfortably in his arms, head on his shoulder, she showed
no signs of waking. His thoughts continued.

He could see a figure on a stage, windwaft grace backlit,
filmy lace and tulle flowing around her limbs, floating as
though she touched the stage only at her own whim. 'I loved
you, too,' he thought, despair threatening to entrap him.
'And it wasn't a choice between you and Starfleet. There
was never a choice. I led you to believe otherwise, and
there's nothing I can do about it now, except never to do
it again...'

But he already had.

He slowed down as they started across open land, in care
not to jolt Molly.

He remembered walking Molly up and down and around the
infirmary, years ago when Keiko had brought her in with a
high fever, something she'd apparently contracted before
the family had even left the Enterprise. Certainly it was
well before Chief O'Brien had stopped dismissing him out of
hand. Julian would still swear that she had attempted to
sing along with him. Certainly she'd stopped fussing, and
started making directed, purposeful sounds in the same key
with him.

What *had* he been singing to her...oh, yes. Another of the
devoutly Irish Siubhan's ancient favorites. "You say...you
want...diamonds in a ring of gold...our story to remain
untold...our love not to grow cold...all the promises we
make...from the cradle to the grave...when all...I
want...is you..."

He snorted, not aloud, as he remembered Molly just in time.
'Old rotting melodramatic Irish songs. Siubhan should have
stuck to Gaelic.'

He reached the riverbank and found a spot on a rise of land
that led upward toward a copse of some sort of hardwoods;
Keiko would doubtless know what kind. He sat facing out
toward the water, arranging Molly in his lap. She still
seemed to be asleep.

"But all the promises we break...from the cradle to the
grave..." he realized what he was singing and shut up.

'We could have saved ourselves the trouble, Miles,
apparently our days of being joined at the hip are over no
matter how either of us feels about it. We could never go
back to the way things were, now. Not after I tell you the
only thing there is to tell you. You and Keiko.' He kissed
Molly's forehead. "I hope you'll understand someday too,
sweetie," he whispered. "I'd love to have--sometimes I
almost think I do have, especially when you do things like
kick me in the stomach and smile--you as a daughter. But
even if it were safe to tell your mother and father what I
can't tell anyone...how could I burden them with it? Put
them in the position of having to choose what to do,
knowing that I'm serving in Starfleet and practicing
medicine under false pretenses?" And what would they, he
wondered, eventually decide to do about it?

No matter how they'd feel about him if they knew, it was
highly unlikely they'd turn him in. It wasn't the sort of
people they were. And so they'd be stuck living with the
knowledge of what he was...and even if they weren't
outraged at the start, knowing they'd proposed to him while
he kept the secret of his being not natural, not *real*,
eventually the knowledge would wear away at whatever
feeling they might still have for him.

It had been hard before, lonely, painful when relationships
came to their inevitable conclusion, usually aided by his
efforts to make people realize *they* were the ones who
wanted to call a halt. But it had never been so hard as
this. Miles had been the closest friend he'd ever
had...*why* couldn't they have let well enough alone? Why,
more to the point, hadn't Julian done something about it
when he saw which way things were heading?

He wished he could tell them the reason he had to say no.
One way or another, he was going to lose them; but at least
if they knew, it might not be so painfully confusing for
them. And if they were angry, so much the better--they'd be
hurt, but they would recover, and while they might miss the
way things were before, at least they wouldn't miss *him*
so much.

But that was the question. Was it safe?

No. It wasn't. But it wasn't safe simply to be who he was,
for him *or* his parents; and his mother and father had
made the initial choice to live with the danger. And Julian
knew Miles and Keiko well enough to know that they would
never discuss it, not with anyone, for any reason, unless
they were called on to testify about it in court...and if
he was ever in a position where things had gone that far,
it would be too late for a couple of statements to make any
real difference anyway. He'd be cashiered and gone before
they ever got to the stand.

The only way to make up for what he'd done in the past was
never to do it again...but he already had...

He was surprised at the chill that settled over him, so
still and cold it felt as if his heart had frozen.

He couldn't take back what he'd done, but if nothing
else...it would, after the first shock was over, be less
painful for them if they knew why he had to refuse them. He
had begun the entire proceeding in a foolish--if
well-intentioned--effort to spare them from what *he'd*
done to begin with; now he had the results of his own
misjudgment to deal with. And it *should* be him to deal
with the worst of it, not them.

If he could have asked them without compromising the
situation, he knew what both of them would say; that they
would consider knowing the truth to be worth the burden of
the knowledge.

He owed them the truth, even at this late date, if it would
make things any easier for them at all, no matter the
danger to himself. He'd been an idiot, and selfish, and it
was only right he be the one to sacrifice to make what
reparations were still possible.

More than twenty years of silence...for his own part,
fifteen of a secret never breached. But if there was ever
going to be a time, ever a good enough reason, this was it.

He stayed there a while, listening to the river and the
breeze; eventually Molly stirred. "Uncle Jh'lian?"

"Hello, sweetie."

"Why are we here?"

"I needed to take a walk, and I couldn't leave you at the
house alone. Are you warm enough?" He checked the tuck of
the blanket around her feet.

"Uhm-hm." She squirmed a little and peeked out over his arm
at the lights gleaming on the river. "Where's Mommy an'
Daddy?"

"They went for a walk a while ago, too. We'll go home in a
bit, and they'll be right along."

He and Molly watched the light on the water, and listened
to the air in the leaves above them, until Julian realized
Molly was asleep again, and he began to think about getting
up and going back. He was only delaying the inevitable,
after all.

"Taking up abduction?"

Julian was halfway to his feet, ready to defend Molly and a
good portion of the rest of the planet if necessary, before
his voice recognition system kicked in half a second after
he heard the first breath of the first word. "Miles--! I
suppose your ability to creep silently around is another
legacy from the wars?" How did Miles always manage to *do*
that to him?

Silly thought. It was obvious. He wasn't on the alert for
Miles; he knew Miles, as he'd seldom, if ever, known
another human being.

Unapologetically, Miles said "Sorry."

"Were you looking for us?" Keiko asked, her voice only just
over the level of the leaves' susurration and the water's
flowing, as she came up next to Miles through the stand of
big trees behind them.

"No; just needed to clear my head. Molly's asleep."

Miles came up, footsteps rustling now in the thick, short
grass, and put his arm around Julian, peering over the
blanket's edge at Molly. "So she is."

As Keiko sat down where Julian had been, Julian took a few
steps away from her and Miles, the latter's arm dropping
away; then Julian sat again too, holding Molly close.
"There's something I need to tell you two."

They were quiet; then Keiko said, in a small voice, "We
aren't going to like it, are we."

"I'm afraid not."

"Your answer's no, then?" Miles asked in a subdued voice.

"Not exactly. I think it'll be you two who...there's
something you don't know about me. I can't ask you to keep
it in confidence, though I hope you will; you'll have to do
what you feel is right, once you know." That said, his mind
drew a blank.

There was a significant pause. "We're listening," Keiko
whispered, again just loud enough to be heard.

"I...my father...when I was six years old, my...well. I was
small for my age, a bit awkward physically, not very
bright..."

"Julian? You?" Keiko wondered.

Julian nodded, forgetting that she and Miles probably
wouldn't be able to see the slight motion at this distance.
"In the first grade, when the other children were learning
how to read and write and use the computer, I was still
trying to tell a...dog from a cat, a tree from a house...I
didn't really understand what was happening. I knew that I
wasn't doing as well as my classmates--there were so many
concepts that they took for granted that I couldn't begin
to master. And I didn't know why...all I knew--was that I
was a great disappointment to my parents."

Miles didn't interrupt, but he did come up to Julian again
and lower himself to the ground next to him, laying his
hands on the Doctor's shoulders.

Julian forced himself to stay still, and continued. "I
don't remember when they made the decision; but just before
my seventh birthday, we left Earth for Edigion Prime.
First, I remember...being really excited at seeing all the
aliens in the hospital. Then they gave me a room, and began
the treatments...and my entire world began to change."

"What treatments?" Miles asked, his hands squeezing
Julian's shoulders briefly.

Julian took a deep breath. This was it. "The technical term
is accelerated critical neural pathway formation. Over the
course of the next two months, my genetic structure was
manipulated to accelerate the growth of neuronal networks
in my cerebral cortex...and a whole new Julian Bashir was
born."

"Are...you talking about--you mean, you're--" Miles
floundered.

"The word you're looking for is 'unnatural.' Meaning 'not
from nature.'" He tried to steady and lower his voice, and
failed. "'Freak'--or 'monster'--would also be applicable."

"Julian, no," Keiko began, then trailed off. She and Miles
were both quiet a moment; Julian couldn't blame them.
Finally Miles asked hesitantly "In what...way did they
change you?"
"Well, my mental abilities were top priority, of course; my
IQ jumped five points a day for over two weeks, followed by
improvements in my hand-eye coordination, stamina, vision,
reflexes, weight, height--in the end, everything but my
name was altered in some way. When we returned to Earth, we
even moved to a new city; I was enrolled in a new school
using falsified records my parents
obtained...somewhere...and instead of being the slowest
learner--I became the star pupil."

"And no one ever suspected?"

"Oh, there's no stigma attached to success, my Kei--sorry.
Habit. In any case, after the treatments, I never looked
back--but the truth is...I'm a fraud. And now you know."

"You're not a fraud," Miles said quietly. "I don't care how
many treatments your parents had done, DNA resequencing
can't give you ambition, or a personality, or compassion,
or *any* of the things that make a person truly human. It
couldn't have made you who you are."

"That's precisely what it *did* do, Miles. You wouldn't
have recognized me, I guarantee it." He heard the liquid
nitrogen dripping from his own voice and fought to control
it. This wasn't their fault, after all. Besides, he might
wind up waking Molly. Speaking of which...

He turned where he sat, transferred Molly to Miles's arms,
and said "I'll go back now and get my things. If you'll
give me a few minutes, I can be out before you come home."

"Julian--" Keiko jumped up, blocking his path. "What do you
mean? What are you going to do?"

"Call the station and tell Commander Sisko that I'll be
returning on the next transport, and then...we'll see." He
tried to move around Keiko, but she latched onto his arm.
"Kei. Please. You don't have to do this."

"This is precisely what I *do* have to do, Julian," she
quoted him, then continued "We can see how you'd be afraid
that...that people would try to take your life away from
you. But you don't honestly believe those things you said,
do you? That you're a freak, something unnatural?"

"Of course. For the same reason that I believe I'm close to
two meters tall and brown-eyed. I *am*. Leave it, please,
Kei...no. I suppose..." he sighed silently. "I do owe it to
you to hear what you have to say, now that you know. But
try to keep it as quiet as you can. We don't want to wake
Molly."

"If I let go of you, will you stay until I tell you that
you can go?"

Julian hesitated; then, knowing she deserved that much, he
nodded.

Keiko didn't release his arm, though. "Julian, the only
difference this makes is that--we're sorry for how long
you've had to carry this on your own. But if you think it
matters to us--matters except in that it matters to
you--you're wrong."

"Of course it matters to you. How could it not? I've let
you labor under a massive misconception so long that you
actually wound up asking me to marry you. Could anyone
forgive that?"

"You would," Miles said pointedly, absently rocking Molly,
who hadn't stirred.

"Granted, but I have an ulterior reason to forgive that
sort of deception."

"We have our reasons, too," Keiko said tightly. "You want
us to be shocked and outraged? Fine, we're shocked and
outraged. Enough? Can we get on with things now?"

"What things? What's left to get on *with*?"

"For one, you could decide whether you're going to marry us
or not. No rush, but--"

"Keiko. I allow that I've done an abominable thing to your
family, but this still seems unlike you."

"It wasn't abominable and I'm not playing with you."

"Kei...eventually, even if--if you're not angry now, the
knowledge of what I've done, and what I am, will--"

"Shut up, Julian," Miles ordered him. "Sorry if it
disappoints you, but Keiko and I couldn't give less of a
damn what superficial niceties your parents had tacked on
to who you are. It's who you are we love, who you are we
want to marry."

"But Miles, everything I am--everything you thought you
knew about me--is a sham. You can't love me. There's no one
real here *to* love."

"So the real Julian Bashir is home in bed asleep and you're
a hologram?"

"Stop it, Miles," Julian sighed.

"No, you stop it. As far as I can see, there's a great deal
of fuss being made here over very little, and we've got
other things on our minds that need tending to. We don't
care if you were born a phicus plant. I was born
considerably smaller than I am now, and Keiko was born with
a birthmark the size of County Wicklow across her back.
Neither thing is particularly relevant to who we are today,
either of us."

Julian was about to point out that the issue was what had
been done to him, not the way he was born; and that it was
*entirely* relevant to who he was now; but, sensing that
Miles was in his Julian's-being-an-idiot-again mood, which
always rendered argument pointless, he instead looked at
Keiko. "So that's what that scar is."

"My parents never got around to getting the scar removed
once I was old enough."

"I can take care of it for you, if you like."

"Does that mean you're not going back to the station
without me?" Miles asked.

Julian sighed. Dragging things out this way would only make
this more painful for everyone in the long run, but he owed
them. If this was the way they insisted on playing it, he
had no real choice but to go along. "Yes. That's what it
means."

"Good. Come on, then; it's time we were getting Molly back
to bed." Miles got up, and they all started back toward
home. Aside from Julian's occasional warnings to Miles and
Keiko about obstacles in the dark, the trip was quiet.
'Only reasonable. They have a hell of a lot to reconsider,'
Julian thought.

Miles took Molly in to her room; Keiko nudged Julian toward
the sofa, but just before they sat down she slipped in
something, in the dimness lit only by the terminal screen,
and leaned down to reach for the floor before Julian could
grab her. "Kei, don't touch that--"

"Ouch. What is it?" She settled beside him, looking at the
dark, semigelid liquid smearing her fingers.

"Sorry. I must have missed that spot. Your new rugs are
fine, though."

She was sniffing the blood; then she looked up at Julian,
alarmed. "Did you cut yourself?"

"Rather. You're also less one obsidian glass. I'm afraid I
broke it in my agitation, after you and Miles left."

"Broke it? If these crumbs are glass...you *crushed* it."

"In this hand." He displayed the formerly affected palm.
"I've already healed it. I'm at a loss to explain how I
managed to spill blood practically underneath the couch,
though."

"It looks like it ran there. Let me get a towel."

"Hall closet. The one in the kitchen was sacrificed to the
cause. Did you scrape your fingers?"

"I don't know. I won't be able to tell until I've got your
blood off them." She vanished briefly, and came back in at
the same time Miles did; he was peering at her fingers.
"It's fine," she was telling him.

"Let me." Julian took the towel and cleaned up the blood
splotch, dumped the glass and threw the towel into the
laundry chute. When he came back in, Miles was in the
kitchen; Keiko was sitting down and held her hand out to
him--in mute entreaty to join her, not a request for
medical assistance.

She took his hand and looked at the palm in the faint
light. "When you were little..."

"For about a year, I had to learn to control my physical
impulses. By the time I was eight, the habit was ingrained.
It's been years since I've slipped so badly."

"Slipped? You could really have hurt yourself."

"Actually, that hand's taken its share of knocks and come
through. I once impaled it, when a sizable tektite slipped
past the network and hit a port on Schweitzer Station,
while I was interning there. I was in the act of picking up
a blade scalpel. We were studying low-power
procedures--Schweitzer's a LEO emergency station."

"Oh, *Julian*, not your *hand*."

"I was fine, though the rug took a bit of punishment. If
one's going to injure oneself, a hospital is the place for
it. I actually felt quite a fool."

"Have you always done that, then?" Miles wondered.

Julian looked up as Miles came in and took the end of the
couch on the other side of Keiko. The Doctor asked "Always
done what?"

"You're a chronic klutz. That's a bit hard to equate with
performing delicate surgery. And with having such
spectacular...what was it again..."

"You're probably thinking of the enhanced hand-eye
coordination I mentioned."

"That's it. I also know for a fact you aren't absentminded
enough to have opened that gas chamber door while the
in-progress light was on. Conveniently when the building
was empty of anyone but you."

"We knew it was something," Keiko said quietly.

"What do you mean?" Julian said faintly.

"That there was a reason you keep pulling such moronic
stunts," Miles clarified. "If you weren't...I was going to
say lucky, but I think we can suppose another reason, now,
that you keep living through what would kill anyone else..."

"I admit my judgment could stand the occasional--"

"You wanted us to know," Keiko said softly.

Julian was dead quiet for nearly half a minute. Then he
said "I what?"

"You can't tell anyone, but--I think you wanted us--or
someone, anyone you could trust--to know. Not consciously,
of course, but...you know I've believed there was something
inside you that you were protecting. But it
wasn't--something you were fond of, something precious. It
was something you'd as soon not have to--"

A horrid thought struck Julian and he cut in, cold and
clipped. "Keiko. Did you two ask me...what you asked
me...in order to find out what it was that I--"

"No!" Miles and Keiko said, forcefully and at the same
time. "We *were* pretty sure you'd tell us what it was
before you gave us an answer," Keiko continued, "but we'd
have asked you to marry us all the same. We want to spend
the rest of our lives with you, Julian."

Julian felt cold settling over him again. He folded his
arms and leaned back, his head coming to rest on the
cushion his back was against.
"What's wrong?" Miles asked gently.

"I had no idea, as I think I've said before, that I was so
transparent. I certainly wasn't to myself. At least...for
the more part." His eyes were closed.

"You're not," Miles told him. "It took Keiko to see it, and
it took *her* a long time of being damn close to you. Me,
I'd never have realized."

"But you knew, too?"

"There was something, yes, but it was only a feeling I'd
get sometimes. I didn't know what to look for, the way
Keiko does."

"Listen," Keiko said in quiet urgency. "If your answer is,
finally, no, Miles and I will live with it, and we'll still
love you. But don't decide for *us*. Don't say yes or no
for *our* good."

"Perhaps it would be for *my* ultimate good that I wouldn't
burden you with--"

"Just because we know, now, what's been preying on you all
this time...it's important to you, obviously, and so it's
important to us--but not for the reason you think. You have
to believe that." The entreaty in her voice made his throat
ache.

He turned his head toward her on the sofa back and opened
his eyes. "More than anything I've wanted in my life--with
the exception of wanting to become a Doctor--I want to
believe that."

"Well then *believe* it," Miles enjoined him; Keiko turned
back toward him a bit and laid a hand on his knee as
Julian, in the light too dim and too directly behind Miles
for even Julian to see his face clearly, recognized
near-desperation in Miles's voice, which he was attempting
to disguise as exasperation. "It's the truth."

---

"I thought you'd be awake."

"So are you." It was past midnight. Julian, dressed in his
underwear, was leaning in a front-room window embrasure,
the new draping--from which he and Keiko together had
removed the ale stain--lying in folds half across his back
and left shoulder, the rest falling off to the side, loose
from the rod. Two of the moons were up now, one a bare
crescent, the other nearing half. Even that much light was
enough to keep him from being able to make Miles out in the
darkness of the rest of the room. A side effect of the
adjustment that allowed him to see in near total darkness.
But then, Miles could probably barely see Julian, too. "Is
Keiko, at least, sleeping?"

"Finally. Had to sing to her."

Julian smiled, turning from the sill, slipping a hand
around the soft drape to keep it from falling around his
face. "I didn't know you ever sang to Keiko."

"More of a low hum. When Molly was a baby, I used to do it
to put her to sleep. Turned out it puts Keiko to sleep as
well, sometimes."

"And here I thought you only sang drunk or in a holosuite
with Odo."

"Usually that's true."

"Never around me? Unless we're blithering gone."

"Too embarrassed. Next to you I sound like an ore
processing unit short on extraction fluid."

Julian was silent a moment, then said "You told me the only
way you could stand my singing--"

"Julian." Miles came up into the vertical oval of moonlight
admitted by the window and leaned against the other side of
the embrasure. "Use your brain. What was I supposed to say?
Bloody."
"You sounded extraordinarily sincere."

"That's because when *you're* drunk, you sing like a crow
with piles."

Julian grinned briefly and turned to look back out the
window.

"Any thoughts?" Miles wondered, reaching over to run his
hand lightly down Julian's bare arm; Julian's eyes closed
and his breath stilled. As Miles's hand fell again, he
blinked and inhaled. Miles finished "Not to push. I mean
thoughts in general."

"A million. None of them make very pleasant hearing."

"I've heard enough that didn't give me giggling fits. Try
me."

"I suppose I've got a variant of the...what did they call
it, the Cinderella complex."

"What's that, then?"

"An antiquated psychological notion. What I meant...is that
I'm waiting for you and Kei and Molly to turn back into
pumpkins, only in my case, there's no way to know when it
will happen. No one's ever known this about me before. I
can only expect what I've seen that there is to expect. The
law, for one thing, is quite clear. Genetically engineered
humans are strictly prohibited from serving in
Starfleet...or practicing medicine. And you've got to
admit, my sort of people...tend to be quite unpopular in
general."

"Most of the genetically engineered aren't--hell. Julian me
love. They're not you; you're different. When the law's
wrong, it's wrong, and it's not the first--"

"That's just it, Miles my love. I'm not at all different,
only luckier. I wasn't afflicted with any of the mental
side effects that almost all of the engineered--"

"All the ones we see! The people like you--they do what you
did. They keep quiet. And they probably just get married
without telling whoever asked them a *thing* about it all.
And their children are the same as anyone else's. And after
all, it was their parents, not--"

"Usually, perhaps, their children are normal. But what if
whatever it was in me, specifically, that forced my parents
to such a choice, is genetically transmissible?"

Miles was silent for a moment, then reached toward Julian
again; the younger man turned away, but Miles wasn't
politely put off this time. He leaned over and grabbed
Julian's shoulder, pulling him back, trapping them both
behind the drape in the moonlight through the window. "Is
that what's wrong?" he demanded, almost whispering. "Is
that what you're worried about?"

"No, it--it's one thing, yes, but far from the whole
diatribe, blast it."

"Right, then, let's get back to the pumpkins. I take it you
think Keiko and I are going to do something like change our
minds about you due to a festering resentment we're hiding
from you."

"Miles, there's no talking to you in this mood."

"You *are* being damned irrational."

"I meant *your* mood."

"Well. Let's not talk, then." Miles pulled them close, slid
an arm around Julian's back and said one thing more, a
whisper against the other man's mouth. "Just believe us. In
the name of all Danaans believe us, because I don't know
how's left to convince you if you won't." He kissed Julian,
warm and deep and soft, with no hint of the desperation
Julian could sense that he was feeling.

Julian, though...their kisses went from purely loving to
penetrating to downright visceral in something slightly
less than thirty seconds, and without stopping, Julian
thrashed the window hanging out of the way so he could push
Miles toward the middle of the room.

He certainly hadn't expected this from himself at the
moment. 'I suppose,' he thought, 'I'm reacting to the
knowledge that I could lose him at any time, now that he
knows. This is going to be hell on Keiko's new rug--'
"Miles! Your back--!"

"That got your attention, didn't it."

"Put me down! You won't be able to walk for a week!"

"Oh, all right. Spoilsport." Miles set Julian back on his
feet.

"Are you all right? What about your shoulder? Any pain?"

"No. But I did think you might like to get out of the front
room. Bit public, wouldn't you say?"

"Molly, right...though it's late to worry about that."

"All the same." Miles kissed Julian again and guided him
toward the hallway.

The quilts, and a once-again-visibly-smoldering Keiko,
prone thereon, propped on her elbows, were waiting for them.

Julian paused just inside the room and turned to eye Miles,
saying blandly "You filthy liar."

"No. I did sing to Keiko, she did sleep, and everything I
said to you a minute ago is true, true of both of us. Which
makes me a less-than-surgically-clean liar, at worst."

Keiko had stood up, and she pulled Julian, and Miles by
extension, far enough into the room for the door to shut.
Only the faintest aura of moonlight surrounded the
west-facing bedroom windows; most of the illumination came
from two candles on the dresser. She was an almost unreal
vision of gold and ebony, twin candle flames glowing in her
eyes. She raised her arms and settled them around his neck.
"Julian," she murmured, effortlessly fastening his gaze
into her own. "I told you how I feel about you, and we all
know how you and Miles feel about each other...tell me how
you feel about me."

Some remote part of Julian knew he should be feeling
railroaded, manipulated, trapped. But the simple fact was
that he didn't, and even if he had, he couldn't have
changed what he was about to say.

"My Kei. I love you...and I believe you."

"Enough to marry me?"

"You know I do. And you know I will, *you* knew it all
alo--"

With a half-sobbed sound, almost a whimper, she launched
herself at him; he caught her, kissing her something more
than willingly, but they both almost strangled on each
other's tongues when a dry voice from behind Julian drawled
in an amused brogue "Excuse me. Could you two slow up?"

---

Two hours and a bit later, Julian was contemplating growing
roots into the floor beneath the quilts and never moving
again.

"I may never move again," Keiko sighed. "Except to stretch
occasionally."

"My thinking exactly. Is your back holding out, Miles?"

"My back hasn't been this relaxed in a year." He kissed
Julian's forehead, and Julian contentedly rubbed his face
against Miles's shoulder.

Keiko stirred slightly. "We forgot the towels again."

"Use the quilts. We'll have to put them back in the laundry
anyway," Miles suggested.

"I'm going to need warm water, and I know for a fact that
you two do." She stirred slightly again, then sighed and
sat up, laying Julian's arm gently aside. "I'll be right
back."

"Here, you needn't go," Miles started to say, "I'll--"

"You have Julian on top of you. All I have to fight is
gravity." She tottered to her feet and left the bedroom,
walking very carefully.

"How do you think everyone'll take the news on the station?"

Julian chuckled low in his chest. "I likely ought to have a
mass inoculation hypo filled with a restorative to hand,
because everyone--with the possible exception of the
Commander--is going to need it."

"How about your parents?"

"I'll tell them. I suppose we'll see from there. What about
yours and Keiko's? Her mother and your father, that is."

"Both of them have very traditional views of marriage--"

"Oh, that's a shock."

"Hush, you. But I think once we tell them about you, and
they speak with you--handsome general exosurgeon, brilliant
and accomplished, youngest ever nominated for the
Carrington--they'll be willing to give the idea a hearing,
at the least."

"You spoil me."

"Don't get used to it."

Keiko came back in, gently dropping a warm damp towel on
Julian's back. "I don't think you'll be able to look for
any concessions on the racquetball court just because he's
your husband, Julian." She stretched out close to them.
"You know, Miles's stepmother is going to be thrilled."

"She is?" Julian disengaged from Miles and sat up, mopping
him caressingly with the towel.

"She's got an eye for pretty young things," Miles told him
musingly, "and since she can't do anything else about
it--she's as set as my father about that sort of
thing--she's ecstatic when they join the family, since she
can take the opportunity to innocently lavish attention on
them."

"I can hardly wait," Julian sighed, but he was smiling. He
thought it might take a phaser torch to make him stop.

"Are you nervous?" Keiko asked, smiling too as she turned
onto her back, lifting an arm to rub the back of her hand
along Julian's spine.

"I believe I must be in shock. All I feel is...peaceful."
'For the first time in fifteen years,' he added silently.

Miles chortled. "Not surprising, just at the moment. But in
any case, Keiko had such cold feet before *our* wedding she
asked Data to tell me she'd canceled. The uproar lasted for
a while. Commander LaForge told me later he'd kicked our
good second officer right in the positronic posterior about
it."

Keiko grimaced. "You had to bring all that up."

"Somebody had to. You aren't going to put us through that
again, are you?"

"I'm about to put you through something, all right," Keiko
groused, taking the damp towel from Julian and throwing it
over Miles's head. "Soooo, Julian," she continued, as Miles
pulled the towel off and Julian snickered, "what's your
plan now regarding that Dabo girl?"

"Ahm...which one?"

"That pretty redheaded Bajoran. With the legs. And other
things."

"Oh, Leeta. I...hadn't really thought that far ahead."

"Have you two been seeing each other?" Keiko inquired
further.

"Yes, casually. I enjoy her company. She's...refreshing.
How did you put it at Ansar's while you were at the station
last--she operates well on instinct. And my...titles and
credentials don't awe her at all."

"You mean your usual lines don't work on her," Miles put in.

"Yes, well. It's not as though they often do in any case,"
Julian sighed. "We'll tell her with everyone else, of
course."

"And then?"

"And then--I can't imagine being all that interested in
anyone but you and Miles for quite a...well, at the moment
I can't imagine it at all. I didn't anticipate any
gallivanting about when I told you yes, Kei."

"Well...we'll see. Don't rule anything out completely...I
mean, Miles and I have gone this far. Maybe, sometime..."

Miles took abrupt and extreme interest. "What? Sometime
what?"

"Mmmm, I don't know," Keiko sighed, stretching luxuriously
and folding her arms behind her head. "We've got enough to
think about right now, don't we, Miles?"

"Blast all..." Miles squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing his
forehead. "Get used to this sort of thing, Julian. There'll
be a lot of it."

"I can hardly wait," Julian replied, laughing softly, and
kissed them both soundly, Miles, then Keiko.

---

At breakfast the next morning, Keiko brought the topic of
the engagement up to Molly. "Good news, sweetie--uncle
Julian is going to live at home with us on the station."

Molly's small brow knit. "I thought he already did."

Julian's fluff pastry nearly went down the wrong way.

"Well...I suppose he rather does, at that," Miles cackled.
"So it's all right with you, then?"

"Uh-huh! Jh'lian, I want up."

Julian swallowed and lifted Molly out of her chair and into
his lap. "There you go, doll--here, finish your juice."

"So much for trauma," Keiko sighed, smiling a lopsided
smile at the scene.

---

They strolled into Quark's to various greetings from
patrons and employees--and a wave from Morn, who hovered
somewhere between the two. As they were sidling to the bar,
preparing to order, Julian felt his shoulders grabbed from
behind and he was spun in place. Miles and Keiko, on either
side of him, turned to look, and they both grinned.

"Leeta! Hello," Julian said, but the Bajoran was saying
anxiously "You're all right? You're all right! Oh, your
skin..."

"It was a lot worse a week ago," Keiko supplied
reassuringly, "he's almost completely healed."

Leeta looked over at Keiko, and smiled. "Jadzia says things
are going really well. About your find?"

"They are, thanks." Keiko grinned back at Leeta.

Leeta seemed to have finished her examination, and took a
brief moment to hug the stuffings out of Julian, who
comfortably hugged back while Miles smirked in a
told-you-so fashion. "How did you know anything had
happened?" Julian wondered as Leeta released him.

"The Commander told Jadzia."

"I'm really going to have to have a word with Jadzia,"
Julian sighed, lips twitching in annoyance. "Or with the
Commander."

"You really think I wouldn't have found out without
Benjamin to tell me?" Jadzia had taken her winnings and
dealt out of the Tongo game wherein she'd been fleecing
several suckers. She exchanged a one-armed hug with Keiko.
"It's good to see you. And congratulations! I'm really
looking forward to that data. My lab's all shined up and
waiting. Did you get specimens, and researched samples,
back here without Julian blowing them up?"

While Julian rolled his eyes, Keiko snickered and said
"They're in the infirmary at the moment."

Dax frowned and took a swallow of her black hole. "Then he
can still get to them. That might be dangerous. I've got a
great stasis field chamber in my lab, and he'd never be
able to reach--"

Julian interrupted "Jadzia. Please. Do you think I couldn't
get through one of your encryptions?"

"Can't say for sure," she said, her mouth curving up in a
puckish smile, "but I got through yours."

"You *what*? Why break into my locked copy?"

"Because we had an emergency shutdown of all nonessential
systems. Turned out to be a false alarm--Chief, it would
never have happened if you'd been here--but when power came
back up..."

"I encrypted the current-case backup banks," Julian sighed,
"and no one..."

"...could figure out where anything was in the current-case
files. The medical staff were at their wits end, so I took
pity on them and broke in and reordered everything in a
standard system."

Leeta, Julian realized, had asked him a question, and he
refocused his eyes on her, but Miles and Keiko asking for,
respectively, ale and Bajoran spring wine made him realize
what it must have been. "Pale sherry. Thank you, Leeta."

"No problem. There're a lot of customers tonight, but I
think I can make a few stops now and then to hear how
everything went."

"Oh, sure," Miles nodded, and Keiko grinned "Of course,
Leeta."

As the Bajoran woman walked, with her typical energy, away
to procure their drinks, all four of the others admiring
the view as she mounted the steps to the other end of the
bar, the Doctor felt a hand on his shoulder and turned
again, to be confronted this time by the
to-him-at-the-moment severe countenance of Commander Sisko.

"Doctor," Sisko said. "I *am* glad to see you looking
yourself again."

"Thank you. Really, it wasn't that serious. I was in no
real danger, what with Miles being there in time and Keiko
having the sense to--"

"Shut up, Julian."

"Thank you, Chief," Sisko nodded with one of his
ever-so-slight smiles. "And Doctor, I've finally decided
what I'm going to do with you."

Julian froze. So did everyone else, except Dax, who just
slurped her drink, grinned and waited.

"I think you're overdue for some leave," Sisko pronounced
stentorily. "As soon as you've finished helping Professor
O'Brien and your staffs with the new data and presentations
to the Bajoran Commerce and Resources Commission and to
Admiral Piper at headquarters, you'll take some R and R.
Perhaps your recent absentmindedness is due to fatigue."

"Tired people make mistakes," Miles volunteered, and Julian
managed to grind the heel of his boot into Miles's toe
without anyone noticing, though the Chief suddenly
experienced a coughing spell; he waved away looks of
concern as Leeta returned with their drinks.

"Commander!" Leeta smiled. "How nice. Can I get you
anything?"

"Thank you, I'm just stopping by to speak with the Doctor,"
he demurred. Leeta nodded, with a brilliant smile at them
all, and departed, heading for the Dabo tables. Empala
looked up at her approach and ceded the wheel to her,
apparently, judging by the way she took her shoes off as
soon as she rounded the corner past the bar, heading for a
break.

"And by the way, you three," Sisko continued, "I apologize
for not meeting you at the lock, but the Major and I are
negotiating with the Provisional Government concerning
immediate applications of the new commodity you've provided
them."

"It's a little soon for that, Commander," Keiko cautioned,
her brow knitting.

Sisko nodded. "I know. That's what I've been trying to tell
them. Kira has just about convinced the subcommittee
assigned to this project that it's too soon to risk
cultivating the lichen, as dangerous as it may potentially
be--since they assumed, fairly logically, that the most
cost-effective place to do so would be in caves where it
already exists."

"I'll second the potential danger," Julian muttered,
sipping his sherry.

"Many of those caves *are* volcanic," Keiko nodded,
"besides the ones Julian destr--"

"Keiko! How many times must I apologize?"

"Don't be so sensitive, Julian, she was just making an
observation," Jadzia admonished him. "So, Keiko, did you
bring Molly back with you?"

"She's with Jake," Sisko supplied.

"Whose idea was that?" Jadzia wondered, tipping a smile to
Sisko.

"Jake's," Keiko said. "He was there to meet us--the
Commander asked him to convey apologies--and he offered to
watch Molly when we were talking about going

out to relax for a while. Oh, Major, hello."

"Chief O'Brien, Professor." Kira ran a hand through her
short hair, which sprang immediately back into place, and
continued "Congratulations, good job, you and the Doctor.
Glad to see you up and around," she added to Julian, then
turned toward the bar and barked "QUARK!" Everybody
twitched and/or jumped except Dax, who grinned again.

The summoned individual appeared at high speed from the
back of the bar. "Ah, who else could produce such dulcet
tones. Major, what can I get you?"

"Spring wine. Double order."

"Not going well?" Sisko wondered, eyebrows lifting.

Kira growled and climbed onto a barstool. "We've declared a
recess of sorts. I think we all need to reorder and resize
our...well, the word I'd use is 'demands', but..."

"Constable! Good to see you," Miles said.

"And good to see you, Chief. If I have to deal with one
more misdirected complaint involving malfunctioning
systems, I'm going to resign. Congratulations on your find,
Mrs. O'Brien, and your work."

"What brings you by?" Kira asked, managing a smile and
taking a swig of her drink.

"I wished to commend the O'Briens and the Doctor, of
course...and I thought, since Doctor Bashir *is* present,
that it might be wise to ascertain the general state of
this establishment now, prior to any...untoward alterations
that might cause criminal charges to be pressed."

Julian let his head fall on his arm on the bar. "Is anyone
left? The entire infirmary personnel roster popping round
to offer a comment? Doctor Andelghi wouldn't miss it for
the world. Neither would nurse Akula."

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself," Jadzia said, rubbing his
shoulder. "You did a wonderful job, despite...everything.
And I'd bet your attention to detail will be focused to the
angstrom for quite a while."

Julian swallowed sherry, thinking of ordering something
considerably stronger next. Chatter continued amiably
around him while he devoted his attention to his glass. He
had a thought, and, reaching for the Ferengi proprietor's
sleeve, said "Quark. Let me use the replicator--I've a
toddy program that requires my voice clearance. Got a bit
of something extra in."

Quark seemed to consider a moment. "Well...ordinarily, as
you know, I don't permit customers to operate the
replicators, but this *is* something of a triumphal
occasion for you, Doctor," he acceded graciously. Julian
started, then realized Quark was only referring to the
success of the work with Keiko's lichen on Bajor.

He nodded sour thanks and rounded the end of the bar, Quark
finishing "Of course, the surcharge for special orders--any
number!--is twenty percent of the total bill. But we *have*
been having a few minor problems with those particular
replicators, so the charge will only apply if you procure
your desired beverage."

"Gouging, conniving..." Julian muttered, but Quark was
already occupied serving a pair of Vulcans, who seemed to
be wearing some sort of exercise gear. 'Altair water all
around,' Julian thought vaguely, then said "Computer.
Bashir Banellian toddy program one."

The tall ceramic mug shimmered into existence, steam rising
reassuringly out of it. He picked it up and took a sip.
'Mm, not even too hot this time.' He turned to start back
down to the others.

As he reached the main floor of the bar area, something
tickled just at the edge of his hearing range; his brow
furrowed, and he set the mug down, looking around, but
Quark and the Ferengi waiter behind the bar were already
staring at the replicator. So were the two Vulcans.

Quark, with widened eyes, asked quaveringly
"Ah...Doctor...that drink doesn't by any chance contain
vegetable esters from the Banell world...?"

"I suppose it might, it's a Banellian drink, but--"

Quark was already approaching the replicator--which was now
whining more audibly to the Ferengi, the Vulcans and
Julian--mumbling something, and Julian began "Look, if
there were a problem with a specific substance, you should
have--"

Rom suddenly came around the opposite corner behind the bar
and grabbed Quark. "Brother! Get down--EVERYBODY get
DOOOOOWWWWN--"

The O'Briens dove like porpoises. The Major and the
Commander, startled, observed the O'Briens and joined them
below the bar. Odo's eyes narrowed--literally--but he
remained standing, arms folded, watching. Jadzia had
started toward the replicator in question, but Quark and
Rom came stampeding past, each grabbing one of her arms as
she protested "I fixed that programming component once
already--!"

Julian, dumbstruck, could only stand there while Rom
bellowed his warning, and Leeta and the other employees
were rushing everyone back and up to the second tier toward
the gaming tables. So he saw the flash a fraction of a
second before the malfunctioning programming circuit--still
powered, since no one had had time to shut it down--blew,
in a discharge of white with sizzling multicolored sparks.
By the time any bits of electronic debris or power charges
could reach him, he'd just made it under the bar.

Silence. As everyone either relaxed from their position
outside of the explosion's range or emerged from cover
within it, there was a brief quiet--which was broken by
Keiko's warm alto voice, raised to a volume at which few
had ever heard it.

"Ladies and gentlemen! To thank for this evening's
entertainment, I give you Doctor Detonator, Physician of
Fireworks, Surgical Master of Pyrodisaster--Julian
"Boom-boom" Bashir!"

As the chuckles swelled toward an entire bar's worth of
full-throated laughter, Julian turned his scanner-beam gaze
on Keiko, who was just standing up from her sweeping,
Julian-indicating bow. As her eyes focused on him, her grin
faltered, and Miles said "Me darlin', if you start now,
you'll have a couple lengths on him--"

She didn't need any more encouragement. She shot for the
stairs that led to the upper level through a clear corridor
of clientele, the right wall of which served to block
Julian's path for a crucial few seconds. That much lead was
all she got, though. Julian started taking the stairs two
at a time, and Keiko was forced to put on a truly
impressive burst of speed.

Miles chortled. "He'll not catch her. Scared as scat runs
faster than mad as hell."

Examining her wine for fragments of replicator console,
Kira picked a couple of floating objects out of the glass,
tossed them onto the bar, and raised the glass to her mouth
just after saying threateningly "If Quark starts calling
for bets--"

"Right here, ladies and gentlemen! Who will be victorious?
The Speeding sprite or--"

Miles supplied "Daddy longlegs."

"--or Daddy longlegs?" Quark shouted on cue. "The house
offers five to one!"

"That's a little steep, isn't it?" Jadzia wondered from her
position in front of the blown-out replicator, passing
tools and observations back and forth with Rom.

"Not this time," Quark mused. "The Doctor looks serious."

By now, predator and prey were making considerable noise
crashing through one of the upper levels, and Miles
shouted, after another casual swallow of ale, "Julian, you
bruise my wife and I'll hold you responsible for getting me
another! That one's hardly used. If you follow."

There was a disbelieving shriek from Keiko and a muted thud
as Julian collapsed after tripping on a chair leg, but he
was up again in a trice. Quark worried, as one of his
waiters accepted wagers on a PADD, "I hope the house takes
enough on this to cover the damages."

"So do I," Odo graveled, "because any suit *you* press,
whether concerning events leading to this situation or the
situation itself, will be thrown out of my office almost as
hard as you'll be. It's a good thing I came by," the
constable further commented, having a seat on a barstool.
"I do hope Mrs. O'Brien doesn't cause any actionable damage
among the patrons."

"What about Julian then?" Miles wondered, waving at Quark
for another ale.

"I hope the same, but not for the same reason." He touched
his badge and muttered something, then lowered his hand and
continued observing.

At that point, Garak came in and, seeing Miles, came up to
the bar next to him. "Greetings, Major, Commander. Chief, I
was under the impression Doctor Bashir was with you;
Commander Sisko's charming son told me you and your wife
had come here with him."

Miles pointed toward the upper levels with the hand not
occupied with his ale. "He's up there, with Keiko."

There was a clatter from on high and Keiko squeaked;
Julian, or half of him, appeared briefly, long limbs
flailing as he balanced himself on the fulcrum of the guard
rail before getting his feet back under him and
disappearing again.

"Ahm, Chief," Garak said, gaze fixed on the upper level
they'd just seen Julian at, "The good Doctor appears to be
attempting to murder your wife."

"Old Boom-boom? He wouldn't hurt a fly," Miles said, waving
concern away. "They're just having a bit of a--oh. Danu.
Good one, me darlin'." Keiko, at the spiral stairs nearest
the door, had employed the timesaving device of swinging
over the handrail and dropping more than a bodylength to
the floor; from there she lost no time making for the exit.
She was laughing like a maniac, but it didn't slow her down.

"It's a good thing she's wearing trousers," Garak observed.
"Cut's a bit tight for this sort of sport, though."

Julian couldn't jump the stairs without risking the bodily
integrity of innocent bystanders, but he did take them two
at a time down just as he had up. As Keiko vanished into
the crowd on the Promenade, Julian reached the door, where
he ran smack into two brown-suited security officers who
grabbed his arms, braking his forward momentum and
suspending him between them. They looked at Odo for
instructions.

"If you're quite through creating this disturbance, Doctor,
I'm willing to dispense with the legalities and
deskwork...?" Odo offered.

Half the bar seemed to be hanging on Julian's answer, much
as he was now hanging between the two guards. He glared at
Odo, then closed his eyes and sighed. "Uncle. I give."

Those who'd bet on Keiko let out pleased exclamations and
gathered round the designated waiter to collect their
winnings. While this was going on, Keiko reappeared, having
taken in the sight of the guards, and zipped past to the
leeward side of the long-suffering Commander Sisko.

"Professor O'Brien," Garak greeted her while she peeked
past Sisko's arm. The guards were just letting Julian back
on his feet. "Nicely run, I must say."

"Thanks," she panted, desperately trying to stop giggling.

Julian found his Banellian toddy, miraculously unharmed,
being pushed into his hands by Quark. "On the house,
Doctor. We broke much better than even."

"Oh, my pleasure," he sighed. Leeta had come over and was
leaning on his shoulder; he shifted the mug to his off hand
and put a casual arm over her shoulders, saying "I suppose
I should have known you'd have the advantage in a crowd,
Keiko. Hello, Garak."

"Greetings...Boom-boom."

After a frozen moment, Julian started laughing. Then so did
Leeta, followed by everyone else.

"Damn it, Miles!" Julian finally exclaimed, "stop reveling
in my discomfiture and do your stuff! Everyone's here but
our staffs." He calmed his own cackling enough to take a
swig off his toddy.

"Right," Miles said, putting his ale down, then turning to
Quark. "I've got an announcement to make. Consider it an
adjunct to the windfall bet you just profited on."

Quark glanced at Sisko, who glanced at Dax, who shrugged,
appearing honestly nonplused. Sisko looked back at Quark
and said "Do it."

Quark, on the alert, nevertheless nodded and said "Very
well, Commander." He mounted the bar with a hop and clapped
his hands. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have an announcement
to make, from our beloved and hardworking station Chief of
Operations, Miles O'Brien. Thank you, that's it, let's have
your attention..." he held his hand out to Miles, who
acceded to the invitation enough to hop up sitting on the
bar, which put him high enough for visibility.

"Good news, everyone," he called, "I have a wedding to
announce."

Everyone made polite noises and applauded.

"Yes, thank you...this may come as a surprise--my wife
Keiko and I have decided to bring someone into our family,
and he's told us yes."

It evidently was, indeed, a bit of a surprise. Among the
station residents--and, as the residents spoke with the
non-residents, among them too--a substantial stir occurred.

"I know, I know--it's something of a surprise for Keiko and
I as well. But we are very much in love with someone, and
we hope you'll attend our celebration. It'll be inside
three weeks--we'll know exactly when after we get the work
on these presentations done, and speak with the caterer."
He glanced significantly at Quark, who now sported an
obsequiously acquiring smile.

"And I'd like to present our promised spouse. You all know
him, and love him or hate him--or both--quit it, Julian,
*I'm* making the announcement--here he is. We're marrying
station CMO Julian Bashir!"

Pandemonium among both clientele and employees. *This* was
gossip enough to last for months.

The Ops crew were looking something past dazed; and Garak,
possibly for the first time in his life, was at a loss for
words. Julian grinned at him as Kira actually swayed from
her stool and bumped into Odo, who reflexively caught her,
both their gazes fixed on Miles.

"Thanks, everyone," that worthy was finishing, with a
mischievous smile, as he hopped back down from the bar.
"We'll be sending invitations, and if you don't get one,
assume one!"

Sisko cleared his throat and managed to smile through his
befuddlement. "Doctor, Professor, Chief...let me offer my
congratulations."

"Thank you, sir," Julian grinned, turning to accept and
pump Sisko's hand, then relinquishing the hand to Miles,
who eventually relinquished it to Keiko.

"Uh...I...this is great!" Kira managed, clasping the
three's hands and patting their shoulders as proximity
warranted. "Blessings of the Prophets on all of you and
Molly and your future children!" Odo echoed her sentiments
with a nod and a gruff Odo-noise.

Garak contributed "Doctor, you are an unfailing source of
pleasant surprises. Congratulations."

Julian took his arm and drew him up to the bar. "Quark! A
glass of canaar for my best man." He glanced at Garak. "You
*will* stand up for me, won't you, Elim?"

"My dear Julian. I would be nothing less than honored." He
accepted a glass from one of Quark's waiters.

Rom was hugging Miles, who just patted the Ferengi's back
with good humor. "I LOVE weddings!" Rom stated tearily. "It
couldn't have happened to three nicer people! Really!"

"Rom, control yourself and get that replicator fixed,"
Quark muttered at him, dragging his brother back behind the
bar. "We're about to get hit with so many orders for
champagne the stock will be gone in less than an hour."

"Julian, Miles, Keiko--" Jadzia, already having danced back
around the bar to them, pronounced their names with a
gradually-tighter-clenched-hands-up-by-her-chin dance step;
she finished "I'm so HAPPY for you! Kiss me, Julian!"

Julian complied. Leeta threw both arms around his neck
while the kiss was still in progress. Jadzia laughed as her
mouth and Julian's separated, and Leeta sparkled "Oh, give
me one too, Julian, don't I deserve it?"

Julian kissed her, then said "You deserve it from us all.
Doesn't she."

Miles and Keiko at once turned their attention to Leeta,
and Keiko held out her arms. "Leeta!"

Their contact caused Miles and Julian to stumble back a
pace. Garak smirked.

"My turn," Jadzia said next, and engulfed Keiko, lifting
her off her feet. "Terran weddings mean everyone gets to
kiss the bride, right?" She did so. Keiko, hanging in the
statuesque science officer's grasp, manage to stop laughing
long enough to reciprocate.

"Um, actually," Miles began, "it only really means the
people she's marrying get to ki--"

"Shut up, Miles," Julian smiled, taking a swallow of his
toddy. "You haven't kissed Leeta yet."

"Oh. That's true."

Leeta took the hint and blessed the Chief with her
abundance, flinging her arms around him. "Congratulations,"
she took a moment to squeal, then smooched him a good one.

"Miles, you're *so* easy to distract," Julian muttered only
half aloud. By this time, friends, coworkers and
acquaintances were swarming the bar, and the
congratulations and thanks were flowing thick and fast.
Kira and Sisko escaped, pleading the unfinished
negotiations. Odo, of course, stayed to keep an eye on
Quark, who could be counted on to use the confusion, and
the news, to his advantage. Jadzia was excitedly asking
Keiko questions, and making suggestions, concerning the
wedding plans. She also had a couple of thoughts on the
honeymoon, but Keiko assured her that they had that concern
sewn up.

Jadzia ran up against Julian at one point, and, grinning,
said "I guess this means my days of being the center of
your attention are over."

"Never assume," Julian pronounced sepulchrally, only to get
jabbed in the ribs by Miles. He yelped as the Chief
complained exaggeratedly "You see? You're better rid of
him, Lieutenant. We haven't even set the date firm and he's
already stepping out on Keiko and me."

"Julian, you cad," Jadzia admonished him, miming a haughty
slap.

"Here," said Keiko, suddenly appearing from under a Bolian
engineer's elbow, holding a tray with four mugs on it.
"Morn's buying the house a round."

"Good old Morn," Miles said, stooping on the tray like a
seahawk on a fish.

A Ferengi waiter passed by, snagging the empty tray from
Keiko's hand and bearing it away. "I never thought I'd be
getting married again," Keiko was saying to Jadzia. "I
don't want everything just the same as my last
wedding--I've been thinking of--maybe, not for
sure--holding it in the classical Bajoran style."

"That sounds fascinating," Jadzia smiled, and took a swig
from her mug. "Here, take my arm and I'll protect you. We
can make the rounds one more time and then I'll make off
with you and we can start planning."

"Sounds good," Keiko said, and kissed Miles, turned to
Julian and received a heartfelt squeeze and kiss on the
forehead, then hooked her arm tight through Jadzia's and
they moved off through the throng.

As Miles responded to the good wishes of two of his Bajoran
staff, Julian grabbed his elbow to prevent their separation
by a sudden surge in the crowd. When the Bajoran pair had
started off for the bar, he asked Miles "Is there any point
at all in our trying to contribute to the wedding plans?"

"Not much, no," Miles said, taking a drink, examining the
unknown substance in his mug again and trying a more
cautious sip. "When we were married, Keiko wanted it
simple, and since we couldn't be home for it in any case, I
left it in her hands--it didn't matter to me much how we
married so long as we did. This time, I think she'll be
putting together something more elaborate--the station's
got opportunities for it that we didn't have shipboard. But
if you had your heart set on anything, I'm sure Keiko would
be more than happy to accommodate you. This *is* your first
wedding."

"No, I didn't really have any particular ideas; I never
thought I'd get married. But even for Keiko, I'm *not*
participating in a traditional Betazoid wedding or any
such."

Miles laughed. "As I said, she's more likely to listen to
you than to me. And since it *is* your first time...you
know, I bet you'd look scrumptious in a white lace gown.
You could speak to Garak."

"You're not invulnerable just because I love you, you know."

"Never thought I was."

---

Not quite an hour later, Julian was grabbed from behind and
hauled into the corner where their dart board was. "You
ready to get out of here?" Miles muttered.

"I thought you'd never ask. I think this gathering has
enough momentum by now to continue without us."

"Oh, on this station they only need an excuse. Our one
wedding's going to be good for half a dozen parties, most
of which we won't be at."

"Jadzia alone might be responsible for that many. Quark's
going to wind up a rich Ferengi."

"How do you suggest we--"

"Hold on. Where...ah, there she is." Julian emitted a
shrill whistle, eyes fixed on an unknown personage
somewhere across the bar. Miles couldn't pick out whose
attention Julian had attracted; keeping eye contact with
whoever it was, the Doctor laid a hand on Miles's shoulder
and made subtle yet visible gestures toward the main exit.

Miles realized it was Leeta, over by the Dabo tables, that
Julian was communicating with. She was shaking her head
fractionally, and pointed over her shoulder at the upper
level. Julian nodded and beckoned to Miles, and they
started fading toward the stairs.

Leeta yelled something Miles didn't catch, received a
cheer, and thudding music started pounding through the bar.
Leeta darted through the crowd, grabbed Morn and hauled him
out onto the floor, where they began dancing with an energy
neither human would have thought compatible with the
Lurian's bulk. People swarmed down to the lower floor,
where there was more open space; Miles and Julian ducked
the living avalanche down the stairs, then scuttled up,
largely unnoticed, as the main level proceeded to erupt
into a stage-one-alert party zone. They ducked out the
upper door and made their escape.

"Always nice to have a clever Dabo girl on your side,"
Miles admitted.

"Good Lord," Julian breathed, taking a moment to lean
against one of the ports on the upper Promenade level. "Was
it like this for you and Keiko?"

"Not this bad. We were on shipboard, remember; more
civilized. Not so many people, and most of them had duty.
But I can tell you this; you're going to get slapped on the
back so many times you'll eventually turn around and punch
out whatever luckless bastard finally trips your wire."

"Mm."

"And it won't let up for a couple of months after, either.
Get used to being leered at and asked how your strength is
holding out."

"Is it too late to elope?"

"Come on, Keiko and the Lieutenant are probably at our
place. Which reminds me--one of us needs to speak to Major
Kira about larger quarters."

"Not to mention a bigger bed," Julian muttered. "Kei and I
need to be able to roll you over when you start snoring
without shoving you out onto the floor."

At the O'Brien's, Keiko and Jadzia were sitting on the sofa
in deep discussion; they looked up as Miles and Julian came
in.

"Thick as thieves," Miles observed. "Do we even want to
know, Julian?"

"It'd be best to be prepared. What's brewing with you two?"

"We know where the wedding's going to be," Keiko smiled.
"It's perfect."

"Perfect," Miles said. "Well, let's hear it then."

"Quark's. The holosuites," Jadzia said reasonably.

Julian's eyes bugged and he fell to the sofa next to
Jadzia, stifling a gale of laughter.

Miles was briefly struck dumb, but finally managed to
splutter "The--the *holo*--are you two out of your minds?!"

"Gods, Miles, it's perfect," Julian managed to chortle.
Jadzia patted his knee fondly, bestowing a smile of
approval on him.

"Keiko, that's the most disgusting idea I've ever--"

"Think about it, Miles. It's where you and Julian got so
close--"

"By that logic we should be marrying him in the racquetball
court, for Erin's--"

"--and Jadzia thinks she can get a simulation of an ancient
mountainside Shinto shrine like the one my parents were
married in."

"If I can't, I'll get hold of the specs and write one,"
Jadzia vowed.

"Well," Miles sighed. "If you really think so...but I hope
we don't end up the laughingstocks of the station when
people find out."

"Oh, Miles, really. No one would believe we're going to get
married in an Orion slave market."

"Unless we put it about that we are," Julian barely
muttered, eyes dancing.

Jadzia snickered. "How about that 'pleasure goddess of
Rixx' program Quark gets such a great return on?"

Miles swore. "We'll mention the shrine in the invitations.
You two have no shame."

"Um...not much, no," Julian conceded, exchanging a
conspiratorial glance with Jadzia.

Miles gazed at the two blue-uniformed officers for a
moment, then shook his head. "No farther than I could throw
either of you--Keiko, we'd better keep a damn close eye on
these two unless we want to wind up getting damn well
husbanded in a damn Klingon seraglio."

---

"Julian?"

Jadzia's ever-soft voice. Julian turned from his
contemplation of the cascade that ran past, maybe a meter
away, from the window he was at; he was in the upper level
of the shrine, which was built into the mountainside,
disturbing not in the slightest the natural landscape of
the surrounding glen. He leaned against the dark,
natural-grain wood of the low sill as Jadzia mounted the
ladderlike stairs.

She dropped a small, flower- and leaf-wrapped scroll in the
long tray beneath the tubular chime bell that hung before
the other broad, unshuttered window in the small room,
facing up the steep emerald slope; then she picked up the
padded ringer and struck the bell three times, softly. She
sighed as the sounds fell away, leaving the music of the
stream to fill the air again.

"This is beautiful, Jadzia," Julian said. "A lovely gift.
You really have outdone yourself."

She opened her eyes and turned to face him, saying "I'm
glad you like it. Keiko was just..." as she took in the
sight of him, standing in the misty light before the
window, her eyes continued to widen. "Um, Julian...don't
take this the wrong way, but you look at least as beautiful
as the program does."

He smiled. "I'm glad *you* like it," he said quietly--there
must have been a hundred people scattered around the paths
and gardens of the shrine, but the noise level was almost
nil. Something about this place generated a feeling of such
peace that Julian was going to be loathe to leave it for
the reception. "It's Garak's wedding gift to me." He ran
his hand down a sleeve of the pale ivory-colored robe,
gently shining silk accented by an almost invisibly
understated pattern of rushes embroidered in white.

"Well, if anyone could find out what he needed to know to
make a groom's robe for a Japanese Buddhist wedding..."

"He said Keiko gave him all the information he needed. You
look quite ravishing yourself."

She curtsied, dimpling at him. She was wearing a complete
kimono outfit in iridescent peacock-blue silk, hair up
under a classically styled wig. "I'm not sure if the
color's right for a wedding--I think the Japanese wear blue
at funerals--but Keiko said it was fine, and blue's always
been my best shade." Taking small steps, careful not to
catch her hem, she came and sat on the windowsill, next to
where he was standing. She gazed at the view for a moment,
then looked up at him. "Are you nervous?"

"Not in the slightest. I haven't been, since I told them
yes, though I was in quite a tizzy before that point. But
Miles is a wreck. You should have seen him this morning."

She chuckled softly. "Keiko told me that at her and Miles's
wedding, she almost ruined the all the plans the very day,
and Miles was the one who was relaxed and eager."

"Part of him can't believe that he's marrying *me*, of all
people, I think. Also, it may have something to do with the
ceremony. This form of Buddhist wedding has no officiant.
Miles is used to a little more structure than that; his
Captain performed part of his and Kei's wedding."

"It's such a simple ceremony--there's not much that could
go wrong, unless he trips and falls...are any of you upset
that none of your families could be here?"

"I'm not, especially. I had a long talk with my mother on
subspace; my father's off...pursuing one of his interests,
out of comm range. She's very happy for me, but our
relationship is...strained. It would honestly have been
something of a damper for me to have them here."

"That explains why you never talk about them. How about
Miles and Keiko?"

"Keiko hasn't much family living; and her mother's far too
old to travel such a distance, according to her. Miles has
enough extended family to choke a cargo hold, but the ones
who aren't still getting used to the idea of his marrying
again are getting used to the idea of his marrying a man.
Very traditional Irish family. I spoke with some few of
them on comm; they were polite, and seemed honestly
friendly--just a bit confused; I think they only need a
while to get used to me. Except for his stepmother. They
told me she'd love me, and they were right--and to Miles's
and Keiko's and my surprise...she's about to give Miles a
little half-sister."

"Really!" Jadzia grinned back at him.

"Chairiste Sionan O'Brien," Julian confirmed. "Miles's
stepmother is only about his age, herself."

"What's he think?"

"He's a little bit stunned. A sister younger than his own
daughter isn't an unwelcome occurrence, exactly, but he had
enough on his mind right now...and he's never met his
stepmother in person."

"Well, there's certainly enough goodwill floating around
the quadrant. The Captain who married him and Keiko,
Captain Picard, sent champagne, and Deanna Troi, who's a
friend of Keiko's--"

"Old girlfriend, actually."

"Really?" Jadzia grinned at him. "Keiko didn't mention
that. Deanna *is* very arresting, isn't she? Anyway, she
sent hand-embroidered bedlinens. An Arilleiliae--I think
that's how you pronounce it--Betazoid ivy pattern; Keiko
showed them to me yesterday."

"Let me guess. They're broad enough to cover a bed sized
for three people?"

"And the package included a rather specific note to that
effect," Jadzia giggled, and Julian joined her.

Downstairs, the larger chime bells rang three times.

"Well. That's our cue," Julian smiled, holding his hand out
to Jadzia.

"It's been so long," she whispered, rising. "I was Curzon
the last time I participated in a wedding. Benjamin's."

"All you have to do is take my hand, raise me to my feet
and conduct me to the table, then take a step back. We'll
do the rest."

She tilted her head so as not to bonk him with her wig and
kissed him lightly. "I'm so very happy for you, Julian. And
I'll always have a special place in here for you." She
tapped her silk-swathed breastbone.

"Same here. And I can't think of anyone more appropriate to
give me away."
---

The only real changes they'd had to make in the basic
ceremony concerned the fact that the traditional rite had
no real provision for--though no real prohibition
against--more than two participants. Keiko had seen no
reason not to reflect other traditions--those of their
friends, and her, Julian's and Miles's cultures. They'd
worked it out without complicating things much at all.

Julian, for instance, was dressed in Shinto style as a
groom, but had a best man, as in Anglican culture, and
would be conducted to the table and given away, since he
was the one not currently married. Miles wore his dress
uniform, and would approach the table after his best man
had, alone. Keiko was in the bridal ensemble of her first
wedding, but would not, precisely, be given away; as in
Bajoran tradition, Kira, in the role of bride's mother,
would conduct her to the table and remain with her. Sisko
and Leeta, Miles's best man and Keiko's Bajoran
surety-woman (that function, in Bajoran culture, was now
mainly as a witness, though the title came from something
they did still sometimes do--participate before the fact,
making certain of all legal particulars pertaining to the
wedding and of the details of the wedding itself) would
enter first and lay the utensils for the preparation of the
wedding cup.

Kira and Leeta had been a little startled to realize that
Sisko would have no active part in the wedding beyond a
brief function at the beginning, since there were, after
all, Bajoran elements to be included in the ceremony; but
Sisko had stated that he would be there as Miles's best
man, and that was quite honor enough. The Emissary might
put in an appearance at the reception if the threesome in
question wished it, but he would not be attending the
wedding.

As Julian and Jadzia entered the large main room of the
shrine, the level of the green-drenched, mist-diffused
light rose; all the sliding doors and window shutters were
wide open, the lightweight inner partitions taken down and
stored immaculately in their proper places. There were, at
the moment, not so much walls to the shrine as a framework
of timbers outlining the perimeter of a low,
tatami-floored, gazebolike roofed structure.

People, still murmuring quietly to each other, were slowly
vacating the center of the broad enclosure; those who
couldn't fit inside were afforded an excellent view through
the wide-spaced construction timbers. Jadzia settled Julian
on the cushion in the southeast corner of the room; through
the dispersing crowd, he could see Kira and Keiko at the
northeast corner. In the window behind the altar, Jake had
taken a seat with Molly in his lap. She appeared to be
sound asleep, which, in this setting and surrounded by a
bunch of grownups who must have seemed determined to be
boring, was not surprising. Jake smiled and waved.

In a floor-length pale gold shift, Leeta bent beside Julian
and pinned a spray of small white flowers to his robe at
the shoulder; they looked something like alyssum, but
weren't leafy. He winked at her and she grinned. She
straightened up and pinned the other flower she held, a
carnation, to Jadzia's kimono, exchanging silent greetings
with her too, then moved away again, across the room and
through a door into another part of the shrine. They'd
watched her give Kira a carnation already.

The center of the room had cleared, leaving the small table
and cushions up near the main altar in an island of space.
Sisko entered, Leeta on his arm, to the unobtrusive, spare,
and elegant music of Japanese strings. Each of them carried
a small tray, weighted with wooden and stoneware utensils,
in their free hands.

"Benjamin looks so dignified," Jadzia whispered in tolerant
affection. Julian nodded in reply; if Benjamin started
looking any more dignified, he was going to be all set to
preside at a memorial service, not attend a wedding. But
Leeta, her natural exuberance evident even through her
sedate pace and careful posture, had a smile that could
balance Sisko's nervous stiffness if anything could.

Leeta and Sisko set their trays on the low table; Leeta
turned and rang the chime once, and they took up positions
standing a pace back from the table.

As the chime faded, Miles entered through the same door the
first two had, and stood about a half-pace ahead of Sisko.
"I hope he doesn't faint," Julian whispered in sympathy.
"Look at the poor man." Jadzia unobtrusively patted his
shoulder.

There were soft murmurs of appreciation as the radiant
Keiko was lifted to her feet and conducted around the table
to Miles's side by a regal-carriaged Kira Nerys,
resplendent in her dress uniform, who glowed with as much
pride as if Keiko had been her daughter in truth. She
stepped back and stood at Sisko's other side.

Garak advanced at this point, standing alone at the other
side of the table from the first five, at the end nearest
the altar; he found Jadzia with his gaze and raised his
brow expectantly at her.

"And it's showtime," she whispered. She turned to face
Julian and bent fluidly to take his hand; he stood, and she
wrapped his hand around her arm. Fortunately, they were
almost exactly the same height, or this might have been a
bit awkward.

Jadzia led him to the side of the table Garak waited at,
released him, and stepped back next to Garak; there was
another stir, almost as appreciative as the one that
greeted Keiko's appearance.

Julian exchanged subdued smiles with Keiko, and she touched
Miles's arm; the three of them bowed to each other, then
sank to sit on their heels on either side of the table. The
other participants, and the guests, remained standing.

They'd had to make some modifications here, too, but each
of them knew their parts; they completed the little
ceremony, Miles sweating bullets, Keiko and Julian feeling
like the three of them were the only people in the tranquil
room.

Then Miles and Keiko raised the cup in their hands, her
left and his right, and presented it to Julian; he accepted
it and sipped, and held it back out to them in both hands;
they took it back, and Keiko sipped from it, then Miles.

The cup was lowered to the table. Keiko touched Miles's
shoulder again, and the three of them bowed low to each
other where they were seated. As they raised their heads
and then stood again, muted but heartfelt applause broke
from more than a hundred pairs of hands.

Garak got hold of Julian first, clasping his shoulder in
congratulations. "You were remarkably levelheaded, Doctor.
I confess myself to be, again, pleasantly surprised."

"Thanks for the lovely sentiment, Garak," Julian told him
dryly, then grinned and said "You didn't think I was going
to lose my nerve in front of *you*, surely? Why do you
think I wanted you as my best man?"

"As always, I am pleased to be of service," Garak replied,
with his usual slight bow. But before Jadzia could get to
Julian, Miles had muscled himself and Keiko over to them
and everyone backed off while the newlyweds hugged and
kissed. That done, the three were more than happy to
receive everyone's good wishes.

---

Quark's wasn't nearly large enough to contain the throngs
of people, a couple of hundred more at any one time than
had been able to attend the wedding, several dozen of the
individuals present changing every few minutes, but the
number itself remaining pretty much constant. There were
serving tables set up out on the Promenade, both levels,
waiters taking orders everywhere.

Julian thought that things might be getting just a little
out of hand.

Miles had thought so from the moment he walked in, judging
by his comments.

"Good night," he was now muttering as he and Julian got the
hell out of the way of the latest round of the main-floor
entertainment Jadzia had arranged, seven Bajoran
gymnast-dancers who were bouncing dangerously around,
tunefully accompanied by the no-less-than-fifteen
musicians. The two ducked to safety behind one of the
buffet tables and retreated toward the wall, hoping to get
in a bit of private conversation.

"Tell me again," Miles requested, "why it was such a bloody
spectacular idea to let Lieutenant Dax arrange the bloody
reception?"

"She volunteered, and Keiko liked her ideas. Ooh--narrow
miss that time. We should have set up the musicians on the
second level."

"Wasn't *our* idea to have them down here, as you'll
recall. Speaking of Keiko, have you seen her around lately?"

"She's harder to pick out since she took her hat off.
Uh-oh."

"What now, for God's sake?"

"Jadzia's displaced one of the drummers."

Sure enough, they could now both see her blue-clad form,
bereft now of the wig, hoisting a couple of timpani-sized
drumsticks. A thundering Earth-tropical beat started
rolling through the area. It inspired both the musicians
and the dancers to gleefully step up their efforts even
farther.

Carrying a large tray to replace one of the numerous
emptied ones, Quark paused next to them. "Chief, as your
caterer and the owner of this establishment, I think I
should point out that if your blushing bride's mother--much
as I respect and admire Jadzia--doesn't start restraining
herself, she's going to wind up costing you a lot in
damages. If you happen to see Odo anywhere in this
insanity, tell him I want to talk to him. Enjoy yourselves;
congratulations again." He hurried off.

"You know," Julian mused, "I haven't seen Odo about either,
since...since before the ceremony started, actually."

"Yes, you have," Miles informed him. "He's the punch bowl."

"*What*?"

"The biggest one, there, on the bar."

"Why?"

"The reason Quark's so worried, according to what Odo told
me, is that he's taking advantage of our nuptials for some
of his usual shady shenanigans. After all, half the station
knows at least one of the three of us, and almost
everybody--including cargo transfer deck officers, their
scanner operators from the Lieutenant's department and mine
both, security, like that--is trying to duck into this
ungodly brannigan for at least a while, even if they're on
duty."

"Yes...I see. Why didn't you tell me, though?"

"Odo asked me not to. See, he felt he should get somebody's
permission--after all, this is, or was, our wedding--but
the fewer who knew the better, like in any security
operation."

"And that bowl gets trundled back for refilling on a
regular basis," Julian nodded, "usually by Quark himself.
Probably Odo's hoping to hear Quark communicating with his
contacts while he's private. How long's Odo been
undercover?"

"About four hours now. Since just before the ceremony, like
you noticed."

"He's quite lovely. Cut black Bajoran obsidian, very
impressive. You know, I've always been curious as to just
how Odo manages to *hear* when he's a hard object like
that. Must be difficult to be sensitive to vibration."

"*I* wonder why he isn't blind drunk by now. Have you tried
that punch?"

"No, and on that note I think I'll stick to Captain
Picard's champagne."

"Julian," Kira said, suddenly surfacing, punch in hand,
from around the other side of the wall they were against.
"I've done a turn with the Chief and with Keiko, but I
haven't danced with the...um...the whatever it is you are
exactly."

"Gladly," Julian smiled, "but I'm afraid our science
officer has rendered the music a touch too athletic for the
way I'm dressed."

"Oh, it is not. I saw you with Keiko earlier."

"What were the two of you doing, some kind of
gravity-defying tango?" Miles wondered.

"Not quite, but I *did* toss her in the air once."

"In what *she's* wearing? Has she lost her mind?"

"No, but she's been at the punch."

"Gods above. Major, have you seen her?"

"Um." Kira beckoned Julian out of the welcome shadows of
obscurity toward the bar, Miles following; she took a last
swallow of punch and set her empty cup down next to Odo.
She burped, decorously covering her mouth, then pointed.
"She's in Dax's lap."

Miles and Julian both rotated immediately toward the
musicians; the drummer Jadzia had been sitting in for,
apparently refreshed by...something, no telling what, in
all this--had returned and was doing justice to the
established Big Trill Rhythm that was now inspiring almost
everyone in the main bar areas to move their various
anatomies in whatever fashion was suitable, given the
anatomy. Dax, barefoot and hair down, was sitting directly
overhead from said drummer, on the floor of the second
level, long legs swinging under her kimono over the abyss.
Keiko, tousled but still a vision in gauzy, scintillating,
translucent pink draperies, in the stocking feet of her
undersuit and hair down, was indeed in Dax's lap, held back
from the precarious drop only by Jadzia's long, silk-clad
arms. She had her arm around Jadzia's neck. The two of them
appeared to be singing, in between spates of laughter.

Julian froze, eyes huge.

"OhmiGod--KEIKO!" Miles bellowed in terror and broke for
the stairs, running down whatever got in his way. His
reaction went almost unheard in the general din.

"Nerys, is Jadzia sober?" Julian demanded.

"As an arbiter," Kira said, dipping up another cup of
punch. "She said somebody had to keep an eye on things, and
she's the one who arranged this do."

"*That's* a relief," Julian sighed, then noticed Nerys's
activity and said "I'd watch my consumption of that
concoction. I'm told it's lethal."

"It'd have to be a lot more lethal than it tastes to get
the better of me on three cups." She patted the stool
Julian was next to, bumped someone off the one behind her
with her hip, and hopped up. "If you're not up for dancing
to Dax's idea of a good beat, have a seat and tell me what
the *hell* possessed Miles and Keiko to marry you?"

"You'd have to ask them. What's wrong, did you have your
own sights on one of them?" Julian wondered, sitting down.

"It's just the big question all over," Kira explained. "The
two of them in a clan marriage at all...and *you*?" Kira's
hooting laugh started up, making Julian grin. "The Chief
*hated* you! And the way he acts he can only barely stand
you even now...well." She calmed a little, thinking. "What
was it Miles said when I asked him...'Nought's queer as
folk?'"

Julian smiled. "Right."

"What's it mean, though?"

"It means that there's no accounting for taste."

"I guess not." Kira had another swallow of punch. "That
creepy little wing-slug's done himself out on this stuff.
No wonder Dax's spent every spare minute down here for a
week. Must've been overseeing everything."

"I'm quite impressed with both of their preparations. It's
something of a feat to--oh. Ouch."

Miles had reached Jadzia and Keiko a moment ago, and Dax
was now leaning back to let Miles assist the small woman
out of her shining-blue-clad lap. Holding Keiko against him
in one arm, Miles exchanged a word or two with her; then,
holding her hand, he went down on one knee next to Jadzia,
positioned his face about two inches from hers, and
proceeded to speak to her with some urgency and not a
little force, judging by the way Dax was slowly leaning
away from him as he did so, blue eyes slowly getting larger.

"I think the Chief's had about enough," Kira observed idly,
fishing a small breaded meat item out of an hors d'oeuvre
bowl and popping it in her mouth.

"My God. I think he has too. I've never seen Jadzia
scramble so. And in a formal kimono, no less."

Shortly after Jadzia vanished into the crowd, Julian
detected a windup and finish in progress on the current
musical piece, whatever it was, being played. Another piece
started, by no means funereal, but considerably more
refined. Kira and Julian watched as a long flash of bright
blue silk, streaming dark hair, and pale, bare,
fawn-dappled ankles vanished around behind the bar; the
light levels dropped just slightly, and took on warmer
colors.

"Apparently," Julian assumed, "Miles doesn't require that
she shut things down as long as she maintains order."

"Maintains it? She's why we keep losing it."

Julian laughed. "And I wouldn't have her any other way,
would you?"

"She's complex, all right," Kira concurred. "Never raises
her voice, always polite, always professional, practically
self-effacing, quietly brilliant at anything she sets her
hand to...."

"And an inveterate gossip," Julian added, "a snoop, a
subtle but merciless prankster, a gambler, drinks black
holes at breakfast and is willing to befriend anything she
can communicate with even slightly, and much she can't."

Kira laughed. "She's lived a long time. I guess it's all
not so surprising when you're seven or eight different
people."

"Oh, there's only one Jadzia," Julian said softly. Giving
up, he dipped himself a cup of punch, whispering over the
main body of the pinkish-red concoction "Thank you,
Constable. Stiff upper lip; we'll see if we can't get you
emptied again."

A sudden fierce stream of bubbles roiled the surface of the
punch.

"Right. Sorry." Julian quickly sat back down on his
barstool.

Jadzia was giving some kind of instructional talk to a
group of half a dozen or so Ferengi waiters; she sent them
on their ways, and, as they dispersed, she padded through
the crowd to come stand between Kira and Julian and scoop
up a handful of the little things Kira had eaten one of a
minute ago. "Julian, your husband is on a rampage."

"I'd noticed."

Kira observed "There he is, with Keiko. Looks like they're
coming down. Dax," she continued, taking one of the
nibble-food items from Dax's hand, "you and the Professor
looked pretty comfortable. Think maybe Miles would just
rather you kept your hands off his wife at their reception?"

"Nerys, you've had too much punch. Honestly, she's such a
tiny thing. Did he think I couldn't keep hold of her? Does
*Julian* look upset?"

"Julian looks content to the point of coma. You know you're
supposed to be a little flustered, or giddy, or
*some*thing, at your own wedding reception," Kira asided to
Julian.

"If he keeps working on the punch, he'll be something." Dax
shoved her remaining snacks into her mouth, glommed them
down, took Nerys's punch away from her and had a sip to
wash it all in with, then set the cup down next to Odo
again and slid her hands around Kira's waist, assisting her
in hopping off the stool. "Dance with me. And don't step on
my feet." She got an arm around Kira and guided her out to
the floor. Kira waved at Julian as she realized Dax's
request wasn't, precisely, and went along.

Miles was still muttering as he came up to Julian; Keiko
was smiling and nodding in response to called greetings and
well-wishes as they moved through the crowd. It wasn't easy
to tell, in what she was wearing, but, wrapped in Miles's
arm, she wasn't so much walking as guiding herself with her
toes. Miles had most of her weight.

He plopped down on Kira's abandoned stool, still holding on
to Keiko. "I can't believe this fracas."

"Miles my love, marshal yourself and take it as a
compliment. Honestly, who else but you, me and Keiko could
turn out such a cross-section of the people living on the
station?"

"Cross section? The whole station's been through here at
least once," Keiko grinned, and wandered, with only one
slight misstep, over to snuggle up to Julian. "Including
everyone from my shower. Jadzia says I'm adorable."

"She's right," Julian smiled, wrapping her close and
kissing her cheek. "You're also drunk."

"Why not? I just got married. Again." She chittered with
happy cackles, beaming a dreamy smile at him.

"Indeed, there's no reason at all why not, my lovely Kei. I
don't think you're all *that* drunk in any case. I think
you're a bit overcome as well."

"Very astute." She put her hands on his shoulders and he
lifted her into his lap. She arranged herself so that she
could watch the surrounding hubbub comfortably. "Let's
enjoy this while we can. Pretty soon yet *another* group of
people are going to come up and tell us we have the rest of
our lives together and we're hogging each other." Then she
frowned, looking puzzled. "Wait. *Leeta* said I was
adorable. Jadzia said I'm...what was it..."

"When did Leeta tell you that?" Miles wondered.

"When she was feeding me a slice of moba."

"That does sound like something Leeta would say," Julian
mused.

Miles said "Feeding you a slice of...Keiko, have you been
in the lap of every woman here?"

"Not yet," she sighed contemplatively, "but it's early
still. They keep picking me up..."

"Blame the punch," Julian suggested, running his hand
through her hair to restore some order to it. Through all
this, he could only think how the Constable was almost
certainly trying not to vomit bits of black grit up through
the punch. He didn't have much tolerance for this sort of
thing.

"Come on," Julian suggested, taking Keiko in his arm much
as Miles had. "She's right, in a spot this public we'll be
accosted at any moment. And we're blocking the punch bowl,"
he finished to Miles, raising his brows significantly.

"Oh. Um. Right. Let's see, where's a good place..."

"Let's hide by the dart board for a few moments."

"Good idea. Move casually now..."

"I no longer believe there is such a thing where any of us
are concerned, at least not tonight," Julian muttered,
making Keiko giggle softly. But they made it to the
seldom-trafficked corner without incident.

They slid down against the wall with a soft boomp, Miles
joining them on Julian's other side, against the dart board
itself, which was flashing its lights in a quiet, inactive
pattern. Miles leaned against it as though it were a
friendly and supportive arm about his shoulders.

"I wonder what it was Jadzia did call you, Kei?" Julian
mused.

"Precious," Keiko said, and dissolved in quiet laughter.
"She said I was a precious little thing and would I come
sit in her lap. Can you believe it?"

"Of course we can," Miles sighed, letting his head fall
back against the wall and closing his eyes. "She may be
half a maniac but she knows something precious when she
sees it."

"Something precious that she wants to keep out of trouble,"
Julian pointed out. "You shouldn't have been so hard on
her, Miles."

"She shouldn't have been holding Keiko over a ten-meter
drop, no matter her noble intentions, when Keiko's got her
high-wind warning flags out. Hello, Lieutenant."

"Come on, Chief, forgive me."

"Sit down," Miles said, making room at his side next to the
dart board. "You're going to call attention to us standing
there."

Jadzia scooted in while Keiko sighed in long suffering.
"Miiiiles, I *told* her I wanted to sit where I could see,
and she wouldn't let me. She had me in her lap so I
*couldn't* fall."

"All right already, I forgive her. I forgive you,
Lieutenant."

"Then stop calling me Lieutenant. This is a party."

"You can say that again. Keiko says you were whispering her
sweet nothings."

"I did not say that!"

Julian grinned, content to observe.

Jadzia half-smiled. "I sort of was, but in my own defense,
I wasn't the only one."

"Keiko?" Miles leaned around Julian to gaze quizzically at
Keiko. "Was I righter than I knew with that
every-woman-here crack?"

Keiko made a minor show of adjusting her slightly
off-kilter waist wrap.

"Keiko..." Miles rumbled.

"Not here so much," Jadzia finally said. "Although I almost
had to wrestle Leeta--she's been drinking the punch."

"What do you mean by 'not here so much'?" Miles wanted to
know.

"Keiko?" Jadzia said hesitantly.

"Oh, just tell him," Keiko sighed, then snickered.
Jadzia said "At the bridal shower...I mean, you know how
people talk at bridal showers...and it *was* an extremely
pretty man she was marrying, and her second husband...and
things got a little..."

"Ribald?" Julian guessed.

"That too, but the word I was thinking was more like
'friendly'."

"Friendly?" Miles said faintly. "Great Scott, we're not
talking about an...I mean to say, an...uh..."

"Oh, Miles! Really! And I was about to get married," Keiko
admonished him, reaching over to whap him with her billowy
sleeve. There was a brief speechless interval, then she
blurted "Of *course* we kept it above the waist!" She and
Jadzia immediately developed terminal giggles and collapsed
in merriment.

Julian sighed along with Miles. "Do you think we'll *ever*
find out the real truth?" the Doctor wondered.

"Not for years, if ever. Some female thing."

"I think that's exactly what it is," Julian murmured too
quietly for anyone to hear.

"*There* you are," came a cooing voice, and Leeta was
crouching next to them, which brought her gleaming red head
out of immediate sight of passersby. "You darling
thing--are they hiding you back here?" She was rearranging
the loose strands of Keiko's hair. Julian found himself
less than shocked to surprise a coy look creeping over
Keiko's features as she eyed Leeta sidelong, half-smiling.
Whether due to nerves, punch or suddenly being a
stationwide celebrity, Keiko had gone, for Keiko, clean
round the bend. Not that Julian disapproved. She *was*
simply too cute for words like this.

"We're all hiding," he said amiably to Leeta. "Everyone
seems compelled to keep us from spending any time together
at our own reception."

"Well of course you want to spend time together," Leeta
crooned, again directly at Keiko, who was tilting her head
to give Leeta better access in her ministrations. "Who
wouldn't want to spend time with someone so adorable."

"What's that Terran saying? Something about a pot and a
kettle?" Jadzia muttered under her breath, making Julian
stifle another laugh.

"Oh, Jadzia," Leeta said suddenly, "I almost forgot. She's
so distracting, isn't she?" The Bajoran sank down next to
Keiko. "But since you're kind of directing things, I
thought you should know that the punch bowl grew legs and
ran off down the Promenade after two Liseppians and a
Tellarite. The last I saw, it was gaining. What's in that
stuff, anyway?"

Jadzia let her head thunk into the wall behind her and
sighed "Odo. *Why* don't people tell me these things?" She
scrambled up and vanished to deal with the situation.

"That's it," Miles said, folding his arms across his knees
and resting his head on them. "That's IT. Our reception is
a stationwide orgy--"

"You can't deny that everybody's having a good time,"
Julian pointed out.

"--our 'precious little wife' is the favorite lap doll of
every woman we both know and a few neither of us do--save
Major Kira--"

"Her too," Keiko admitted in a small voice, "at the shower."

"At or in?" Julian wondered idly, and exchanged a private
grin with Keiko.

"--the glassware's got a mind of its own and I'm willing to
bet more than half the guests haven't even *noticed*--"

"Well, *that's* all to the good," Julian opined, "their not
noticing, I mean."

"--and *you*," Miles finished at Julian, "are being so
bloody *tolerant* of it all I don't know whether to scream
or throw up!"

"Please don't throw up, love," Julian requested. "Not here,
at least. Garak would be incensed at the ruin of--all
right, enough, Miles, calm down. I think four hours
presence here is enough for appearance's sake. Keiko is
obviously in caring and competent hands, so you and I are
going to slip off and look up an old bottle of scotch of my
acquaintance. Keiko, we handled the public appearance at
the announcement; are you up to handling the rest of the
reception?"

"I'll have help," she sighed, nestling her head in the
curve of Leeta's shoulder.

"I'm very sure you will," Julian muttered, smirking, then
said out loud "Right, then. Miles, we're out by way of the
holosuite exit. Come on and keep quiet."

---

"First thing is to get changed," Miles sighed. "I'm
conspicuous and you fairly shout to the reactor vents."

"Excellent idea. Habitat ring," Julian told the lift. "You
know you have to admit," he offered mildly to Miles,
"Keiko, in that lovely pink bridal outfit, and just tiddly
enough to be laughing and affectionate, *is* nothing short
of adorable. I think that's the motivation most of her
feminine admirers are responding to."

"It may be the one *they're* responding to," Miles muttered
in response. "At first, anyway..."

"Can you blame her for basking in it?" Julian said dryly.

Miles was silent a moment, then started in with his hissing
chuckle, covering his eyes with one hand. "Either of us, on
this occasion or any other, would give a minor organ to
have half a station's population of women fawning on us
like that, and it's our *wife* who gets the attention!"

"Such fickle creatures, aren't they?" Julian was laughing
too.

They made it to the O'Brien's corridor--'to *our*
corridor,' Julian reminded himself again; he'd only
finished moving in a couple of days ago--they'd decided,
owing to the sparseness of Julian's possessions, that they
didn't need bigger quarters--without being espied. Julian
wondered aloud at this, then corrected himself. "I suppose
it's not surprising, everyone's at the...stationwide orgy."

"Not quite. It's spilling over into quite a few private
residences and restaurants and even the bloody replimat,
according to the Commander. The party's around, bet on it.
That's why I called it that to begin with." They hastily
got to their own door and through.

On the couch, Jake Sisko was lying on his stomach, sound
asleep. Molly was lying on her stomach on his back, in her
sleeper, also sound asleep. There was an explosion of
various sorts of toys, padds and books all over the area.

"Oh, y'poor wrung-out lad," Miles said in sympathy, looking
like he was debating whether to move either of them. "She
ran you into the deckplates. We've got to do something damn
nice for that boy, Julian, he's been a lifesaver since we
started in with all this wedding business."

"No argument. Let's go in the bedroom; we don't want to
wake them, at least not yet."

Once there, Miles gratefully got the hell out of his dress
uniform, and Julian very carefully removed and stored
Garak's gift before digging out something more casual and
changing. "You put Molly to bed," Julian said, "and I'll
try to get Jake to the spare room without waking him.
Shouldn't be too hard; I've had to take him back to bed a
couple of times when he's stayed over in the infirmary. But
you and I can't stay here; when we're missed, it's the
first place we'll be looked for, and you can believe we
won't be allowed to duck out of the party so early in the
evening."

"Good point. You were right, Julian. We should have eloped.
Or at least asked the Commander to send Lieutenant Dax off
the station on another mission with Major Kira."

They went back out and Miles lifted Molly gently from her
perch. Julian leaned down over Jake and whispered "Jake.
Come on. Let's get you to bed."

"Humnmfl."

"Well, that's a start. Come now..." he slid his hands under
Jake's bony adolescent shoulders and lifted; Jake made a
complaining noise but sat up, though he was obviously at a
loss as to what to do after that. Julian murmured "Ah,
well, stay asleep then. Just a few steps to the spare room
anyway. Up we go." He lifted--thinking, as Jake gained his
feet, 'My Lord. In another year or two he'll be taller than
I am.'

He caught Miles's eye as the latter emerged from Molly's
room, and Miles gestured back toward Molly's open bedroom
door. Julian nodded his understanding--leave Jake's door
open, too.

Julian and Jake zombie-walked to the spare room without
incident and Julian left him on the bed under a quilt, with
dim gold nightlights on. Not that he thought Jake still
needed them, but it was always disorienting to wake in a
strange place, especially in the dark.

"Now we've just got to get out of here without getting
caught," Julian said.

"Where's this acquaintance you mentioned?"

"In my office."

"Great, that'll be the second place they look for us."

"No, I've got people on duty there. I'll tell them I'm just
popping round to pick it up and heading straight back for
Quark's. If anyone calls, that's all they'll know."

"Make a decent cover story if we get spotted on the way
there, too."

"Unless someone takes it upon his, her or itself to see
that we get back to the party without shillyshallying.
Let's move quick."

"Right."

---

"So...where exactly are we, Miles?" Julian handed the
bottle to Miles to uncork while he finished dragging the
rest of his long person through the last hatch they'd come
through, into the small open chamber at the confluence of
two service ducts.

"Take a look," Miles said as he punched buttons on a
control board on the wall.

Part of the exterior wall rolled aside, in several layers,
one at a time; the resulting view through clear port was of
almost the entire station, seen from "above" with reference
to the station itself.

"An upper pylon? No wonder it felt like we climbed a mile.
Couldn't we just have taken the lift?"

"You want to chance it? You know there'll be plenty of
people tonight coming up to watch the wormhole."

"There is that." Julian walked his lower half around to
where he could sit comfortably, facing the port. "This
looks like a hatch."

"Service hatch for working on the docking mechanisms."

"No such work scheduled here tonight?"

"Wouldn't I know? Here." He passed the bottle, out of which
he'd just taken a swig, to Julian, who accepted it, still
staring out.

He took a swallow, closed his eyes and held his breath
while the pain passed, then handed the bottle back to
Miles. "I never thought I'd say this about sitting in a
service tunnel--or any part of this station, really--but
it's peaceful here."

"I always sort of thought so. What with the view, I
sometimes do a mental rundown of all the exterior features.
And compared to our so-called reception, this is the vacuum
of space. Here." He handed the bottle back to Julian.

"You're not *too* disappointed, are you?" Julian wondered
after he'd drunk and handed the bottle back. "About the
reception?"

"Oh..." Miles had a swig. "Disappointed's a strong word.
I'm more fed up. Here...y'know, I do have to admit that
it's going to make one hell of a story for Molly, and
however many more we end up having."

"*Mph*--" Julian wheezed, relinquished the bottle again and
said "I know you and Kei want at least one more, but I...we
have talked about it, you know I'd be more than happy to
have another child, but..."

"...you're not sure you want to be involved in the
conceiving of it, I know. Keiko thinks you'll change your
mind about that."

Accepting the bottle, Julian smiled. "If she thinks I'll
change my mind, then I probably will, at some point." He
snorked scotch. Miles took the bottle back from his
outstretched hand and sighed, gazing pensively out the port.

"Miles, my love. What are you thinking about?"

"You, actually, and I'm not just saying that. I'm wondering
if...you know that I'm happy about all this, I am--"

"I believe you," Julian smiled. "You pummeled me briskly
about the head and shoulders until I agreed to it, so I
rather doubt you'd be changing your mind already."

"Mm. Well, I was just thinking, with all this wedding stuff
that's been going on interminably...I love my husband,
never doubt it. But I miss my best friend."

"Oh, Miles..." Julian looked up at the echoing bones of the
station, twining his fingers together, while Miles
introduced a few more brain cells to the concept of death
by scotch.

Julian said softly "He's right here. Wait until things die
down. I promise you, we'll be knocking the very photons out
of the holoVikings, and blowing the Gerries out of the sky,
and arguing about shot points on the racquetball court, and
gossiping worse than Dax, and making such pests of
ourselves even Keiko will be kicking us out of the house at
least twice a week so she can get some peace and
quiet--after she moves back here, that is--and I'll be
doing my utmost to drive you buggy, and you'll be calling
me every name in the book."

Miles looked wistful. "You really think so?"

"I know so. The only thing that'll be different is that
now, after all that's done with of a day, we'll go home and
screw ourselves blind."

Miles looked sharply at him, then caught the fiendish
glitter in the Doctor's eyes. "Julian!" He reached over and
smacked Julian's shoulder. "Have done, y'bloody great pile
of--"

"Now, now. I'm sharing my scotch stash with you, purely out
of the goodness of my heart--"

"Oh, give me a--"

"--*just* because you're my best friend. So the least you
can do is be civil. And stop hogging the bottle, man,
there's a thirst on this side of the room--um, tunnel, too."
---

In the darkened living room, unwitnessed, a sudden roll of
bonking and bumbling sounded, was silenced, then sounded
again, louder. A slurred whispery dialog would have become
slowly apparent to anyone standing below a certain portion
of the ceiling.

"Are you sure, Chief? If we fall into Sisko's bedroom I
don't think even newlywed mania is going to excuse us."

"You think I don't know my way around--ouch, blast it,
that's my ankle--this damn tin can by now...och, which
subroute...this way."

"Are you--"

"YES I'm sure! Oops. SShh. We don't want to wake Jake and
Molly."

"We've got to sound like a blasted demolition crew in cabin
already."

"So stop falling down every half meter."

"You keep *stopping* without warning me. Ouch. You just did
it again. And as fond of both ends of you as I am, Miles--"

"We're here. Grab that side, the release is right under the
handle...on three." A major noise bumble. "And one, and--"
there was a clanging thud. "Ow."

"Here, give me your hand...come on, Miles, you made it this
far, get up before someone on the next deck hears us in
here."

"Start again, right. One, and two, and *pull*--"

Part of the ceiling retreated to reveal yawning dimness.

"Julian, you first. Hold my arm and don't try to take it
too--mother Macha. Are you all right?"

The lank form that had begun a descent through the opening,
then lost its grip and taken the gravity express to the
deckplates, groaned "Just don't land on me--oh, my--let me
get off the beamdown coordinates..." Julian crawled
unsteadily away, with much staggering--not easy on all
fours--and swaying into various items of furniture.
"Computer, half lights."

The half-lights up, he turned, sitting with his back
against the sofa, in time to see Miles accomplish a more
controlled descent than his own had been, scrambling with
practiced ease, and, impressively, with one hand wrapped
around the neck of a half-empty scotch bottle. The Chief
dropped half a meter to the deck, deposited the bottle on
an armchair and said "Come here and help me get this plate
closed. I'll lift you up--"

"Miles, your back. Don't be an idiot." Julian slowly shoved
himself up against the back of the sofa, then wobbled over
to, and bumped against, Miles.

Julian steadied himself on semi-stabile shoulders, locked
his arms around the other man's waist and hoisted. Miles
proceeded to get the panel back into position, and the
lowering bump sounded in a puff of air--though Miles
couldn't reclamp it from this side--just before Julian
completely lost his balance and they both staggered against
the sofa back. "Have to go back and lock it in once the
excitement's died down," he observed. Looking over Julian's
shoulder, he swayed and grabbed Julian for support, which
was not the best idea. Julian attempted to steady himself
as Miles wondered almost inaudibly "Lieutenant?"

"Chief, Julian..." Julian looked around. Jadzia was just
emerging only a pace from the bedroom door, wrapping her
kimono--without the underwrap or the wide classical
beltwrap--around her and tying it loosely with a long
scarf. She beckoned.

Miles and Julian looked at each other, then proceeded over,
as carefully as possible in their incapacitation.

"Your wife's home. With the president of her fan club."
Jadzia turned around and moved into the bedroom a step or
two. They followed, looking past her.

Curled into an improbable but comfortable-looking knot on
the bed were Leeta, who was not quite wearing one of
Keiko's maternity nightgowns--it strained across her
shoulders and chest--and Keiko, in a black satin-and-lace
scrap that Julian recognized as Empala's shower gift. On
the floor were Leeta's gold gown and various attendant
garments, and Keiko's undersuit, though apparently someone
had put her outer clothes away.

Julian started laughing and bumped against the wall, both
hands to his face to contain the noise. Miles just tilted,
agog, and Jadzia caught him hard by the shoulders as he
started to go down.

"Come on." Jadzia pulled Julian up with one hand and
appropriated Miles's elbow with the other, and conducted
them from the room, and thence to the sofa. "Where did you
two disappear to? Your comm badges said you were in
Julian's office."

"We were in earshot of the comm system," Miles defended
himself and Julian.

"Well, when I couldn't find you--I wasn't about to start
internal scans--I asked Leeta to take Keiko home and I'd
look out for things at Quark's."

"When--" Miles caught the sofa arm and settled his gyros,
then started again "When was that?"

"About an hour ago. Maybe three hours after you two fell
out an airlock."

"You asked *Leeta*? You couldn't have asked...um..."

"Precisely," Jadzia said with a dry smile. "There wasn't a
woman there who'd have been any better a gamble, except
me--"

"And you'd have been no great improvement," Julian
muttered, still smiling. "Come on, Miles. Who was she going
to ask, Garak? Morn?"

"You've got a point."

Jadzia finished "When I thought Quark could spare me, I
came to check on them...I honestly don't know what went on
before they fell asleep, and they *are* wearing, or almost
wearing, nightgowns..."

Miles flopped against the sofa back, eyes closing, as
Julian, awash in drunken hilarity, fell across his lap,
snickering. "Oh, my. What a wedding night *this* has been."

"And still is," Miles sighed, then grinned. "We appear to
be entertaining for the night. Think Leeta will mind waking
up with us?"

"Oh, no," Julian said seriously. "Leeta's a doll. She'll be
happy to see us."

"That's right, I'd imagine you'd know, wouldn't you."

"You two are pretty well lubricated," Jadzia observed. "I'm
still sober, so should I stay for Molly's sake? I woke Jake
up and sent him home when I got here."

"You're a love," Julian sighed. "Thank you."

"I just hope your couch is comfortable."

"A pox on the couch," Julian muttered. "That new bed's big
enough for six people. Come on and help us break in
Counselor Troi's wedding gift. But you'll have to give us a
moment or two; the Chief and I were alone in a service duct
with a bottle of scotch for nearly three hours."

---

Jadzia accepted the loan of a pair of Julian's dark, baggy
pajamas and, near as Miles or Julian could tell, was asleep
by the time her head hit the pillow. She'd crawled in on
the opposite side from Leeta and Keiko, leaving the rest of
the surface area free for Miles and Julian, who were too
buzzed and bewildered to sleep right away. Pajama-clad in
consideration of their guests' sensibilities, Julian curled
up on Miles, head on his shoulder, so they could whisper to
each other without waking the other three, though Keiko and
Leeta probably wouldn't wake for anything short of
explosive decompression.

Miles was stroking Julian's hair. Julian wondered briefly
if everybody went boneless when someone stroked their hair,
or if it was just him. "How do you feel?" he whispered.

"Tired...and a little strange. I keep thinking I'll wake up
and none of this--the wedding, you with Keiko and me, even
that first drunken kiss--will have happened."

"Having a version of my pre-engagement angst?"

"It sounds like it, doesn't it?"

"That why you've been in such a mood for days?"

"That, and the fact I was about to marry the biggest yap in
the Bajoran sector," Miles said pointedly.

Julian pulled himself and Miles closer together, rubbing
his face against Miles's shoulder. "It's real. And even if
it wasn't...it wouldn't take long for me to fall in love
with you and Keiko again. You *do* remember the first
session we had with Telnori?"

"Gods, how could I forget."

"So. If you wake up and this was all some kind of
illusion--or delusion--then I want you to tell the real me
all about it. You'll see what happens."

"I love you," Miles whispered.

"And I love you. Don't forget it. And feel free to mention
both states of affairs whenever they occur to you. Although
one might wonder if they do, considering how much you enjoy
lording it over me whenever I make a bad--"

"Shut up, Julian."

"Mm." Julian snugged up to Miles, and both of them let
their minds wander, then fall toward sleep.

---

"Oh, Julian--Miles--you two smell like a distillery,"
Julian heard vaguely from somewhere on the other side of
his skull.

"Hm?" He lifted his head and winced slightly. "Mm. I'm not
surprised. We left an acquaintance half-dead last night."
He opened his eyes. The lights were at about half, and
Keiko was sitting on the bed; Jadzia, apparently
unconscious, was lying on her stomach behind her. Leeta was
nowhere to be seen.

Keiko had a glass mug of almost luminous green fluid that
Julian recognized. He took it and swallowed gratefully.
"Thanks, my Kei. How are you feeling?"

"I felt horrible when I woke up, but I'm fine now. How did
people stand to *get* drunk before selashol was invented?"

"I wasn't around at the time. What time *is* it?"

"Oh-nine hundred."

"Are we in a rush to be somewhere?"

"No, Leeta just woke me up and handed me this huge mug and
ran off. I assume she's in the shower, since her clothes
are still here."

"We might as well dose Miles and get it over with. Chief,
wake up--just for a second, we've got something to
*whoops*--"

Miles's eyes had opened, bugged and he'd flung himself out
of bed, spilling Julian half on Keiko and half on Jadzia's
legs. Keiko performed an adroit save with the mug as Miles
shot for the bathroom. The wrong bathroom.

"Are you sure Leeta's in the shower?" Julian said
uncertainly as Jadzia lifted her head and tried to look
around; her hair was in the way.

Julian got himself off Keiko as she answered "Pretty sure.
She didn't really fit that gown I gave her too well, so
unless she replicated something to wear--"

"AAACK!" came Miles's voice from the near bathroom.

"Shouldn't that be Leeta's line?" Julian said.

"Hi," Jadzia said, shoving herself upright. "What time is
it?"

"Oh-nine-hundred or thereabouts," Julian told her. "Thanks
for staying."

Jadzia was pawing her hair out of her face. She saw Keiko
and smiled. "Good morning, you much-married woman."
"I'd still like to know why Leeta woke you," Julian
complained.

Keiko shrugged. "I was on top of her, so I woke up when she
tried to get out of bed. If you all hadn't shown up, she
probably could have managed it--"

"Ahm--hi," Leeta said from the doorway, smiling in mild
abashedess, holding a towel that was unequal to the task
just barely around her. She was wet. "I think someone
should check on Chief O'Brien. When I heard him and looked
over the shower door to see if he was all right, he--um--"

"Thank you, Leeta. I'll go," Julian said, climbing off the
bed as Leeta darted off somewhere. "Give me the mug." Keiko
handed it to him. "I'll get Miles and me in the shower
next, if you don't mind. I don't think either of us will be
fit to live with until we've eradicated the aroma of single
malt."

"True," Keiko said, making a face.

"But I'll want to hear all about your little visit with
Leeta when we're out," he warned her, smiling, one eyebrow
aloft, before turning for the door.

Molly was standing in it. "Mommy, there's a pretty lady
with no clothes on in the spare room."

"I know, sweetie, would you take these to her?" Keiko said,
leaning over the bed's edge to pick Leeta's things up.
"Just in case she needs them."

"Okay." Molly accepted the clothes in the arm not occupied
with her beloved baby blanket and paced off.

Jadzia got up and stretched. "I'd better go see if Leeta
needs help." Running her hands through her hair, she exited
the room just after Julian, who was chuckling softly. Keiko
fell back over on the bed and sighed.

Julian discovered a somewhat gastronomically relieved but
highly embarrassed Chief of Operations hiding, red-faced,
in the bathroom; dosed him with selashol, remembered just
in time to retrieve both their bathrobes, and conducted
Miles into the shower. They'd done this before, so they had
the shower-a-deux routine down, despite the limited space.

When they wafted out of the bathroom on a billow of steam,
Keiko at once pushed past them, carrying Molly and an
armful of red/brown fabric. "Hurry up and get dressed," she
said in a rush, and the door closed on mother and daughter.

"Why--oh. Hello, Major," Julian said, pulling his robe a
bit more tightly closed. Miles eeked again, much more
quietly, and zipped back into the bedroom.

"Doctor," Kira said from her position on the sofa,
grinning, crossing her legs, raising her raktajino to her
lips and throwing her arm casually across the sofa back.
She was in her dress uniform again.

Julian tried "Not that we aren't pleased to see you, but
what are you doing here?"

"I came to make sure Leeta and Keiko remembered the service
this morning."

"What service?"

"Leeta and I arranged for acknowledgment and blessing of
your family at today's morning service--by the Emissary."

"Just a moment. I thought the Commander said he'd only
perform such services if one of us specifically requested
it."

"We told him you did."

"You *what*?

"Leeta asked Keiko afterward and she said it was all right."

"Keiko was at least four sheets to the wind, and Miles and
I not much better off before we got to bed."

"That's why I came to make sure you were ready in time for
the service." She smiled again, her eyes lighting up,
crinkled at the corners.

Julian sighed. "What should I wear? Dress uniform?"

She pointed to the armchair facing her. "That. And you
better take the Chief's in to him before he gets finished
dressing and has to start over. We don't have much time.
Jadzia and Leeta have gone to change, too."

Julian peered over the back of the relevant chair and found
two robes with undertunic of the type worn by lay monks and
postulants, and, apparently, secular believers on special
occasions. "Oh, very well," he sighed, and gathered up the
cloth.

Miles, as it turned out, was willing to go to the service,
but not to wear the undertunic and robe. According to Major
Kira, his dress uniform was acceptable; Julian, Keiko and
Molly wore the traditional costume. Molly kept whirling
around and around to make her mini-sized wrap fly out at a
ninety-degree angle from her body, so Julian finally picked
her up. "It's going to fall off if you keep doing that,
sweetie."

"Huh?" said Molly, weaving back and forth in her perch,
eyes slightly crossed.

He smiled and kissed her cheek. "Nothing. And off we go."

---

To Julian's mild surprise, the shrine wasn't packed to the
walls; it turned out the Commander, Leeta, Keiko and the
Ops staff--and Garak, who knew everything; he took a spot
in the last row, to minimize any hostile reaction to his
presence--had known the new family was going to be
attending. They were seated up front, and participated as
much as they could as under-vedek Chisla Ulan led opening
meditation and antiphonal trance chant, then spoke briefly
on the topic of the solidarity of family and community.
'Wonder where he got the idea,' Julian thought, smiling,
once again shushing Molly and preventing her from sliding
off his lap; she was fascinated by the case behind the
under-vedek that held the Orb.

There was a guided meditation, and then the under-Vedek
smiled benignly at the four up front and gestured them to
rise. "The Emissary," he said as Commander Sisko, in dress
uniform, started up the walk from the back of the shrine,
"has agreed to conduct the blessing of a newly formed
family who are making their home here on the station. If
you will step forward...?" Chisla took a few steps away
from the center of the low platform, and Commander Sisko,
smiling, took his place, while Miles, Keiko, and Julian,
who still held Molly, arrayed themselves to his right.

He faced them and, hands folded behind him, said "Name
yourselves as a family."

Kira had coached them about this on the way to the shrine.
Miles said "Miles Edward O'Brien."

Keiko followed with "Keiko Tomoe Ishikawa O'Brien."

"Julian Subatoi Bashir O'Brien...and our daughter--"

"Molly Itsuko O'Brien!" Molly piped up, grinning.

Sisko held his hands out toward them. "The people of this
community welcome you as a family." He then spoke in
graceful Bajoran phrases, rendered even more euphonious by
his deep, smooth voice, for about half a minute. When he
was done, he lowered his hands, and Miles, Keiko and Julian
thanked him.

He sat back down with them at the front while the
under-vedek concluded the rites; then the three and Molly
went through another round of getting congratulated and
hugged and kissed. Julian was just about ready to tell
everyone thanks but get out of our collective face by the
time Leeta came up and asked if they'd like her to watch
Molly while they mingled, but Julian shook his head; Keiko
kissed Leeta's cheek.

"Thank you, Leeta," Julian said, gathering his husband and
wife with his eyes. "But we've arranged all three of us to
have the next few days off...and we're going to spend them
together. Ready?"

Keiko and Miles nodded. "Then let's go home," Julian said,
exchanging quiet smiles with them both; Miles put an arm
over Julian's shoulders while Keiko slid one around his
waist. They started back toward the door to the Promenade,
and home.

---

The End